what death is doing to us.

“Do not be alarmed.  You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, the one who was crucified.  He has been raised; he is not here.  Look the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he goes ahead of you to Galilee.  There you will see him, just as he told you.” 

Afraid,grief-stricken, and alone you stand before your best friend’s grave.  Gone too soon.  How did it happen?  Your memories take you back to your first date, your wedding day, the birth of your first child, the birth of your second, the broken bones, lost teeth, games and concerts, that trip to…  the day the diagnosis came, the surgeries, those six good months before those seven bad weeks.  And then there was the funeral and the good-intentioned people.  Friends and family.  You are fortunate to have them.  You don’t know if work would make this easier or harder.  You don’t know exactly what to do next.  You are paralyzed, standing in front of the gravestone. There is this place inside you that seems empty, dark, cold.  Like something has been physically removed from your body.  You haven’t been able to listen to music or eat much of anything.  You left the plants to die.  But the house is clean and the grass is mowed.  Others have taken care of that.  You think, when we married we knew this day would come.  No one lives forever.  Someone was going to die first and the other was going to suffer through it.  It could’ve been you and you’ve wished it were you, especially when the pain seemed unbearable.  But now you are glad you are suffering and he is at peace, only because you wouldn’t want this to be how he feels.  You would weep, if there were any tears left. 

In a tent in a village in the sweat and heat of the morning the doctor pronounces that she has died.  You hold her frail body in your arms and you weep uncontrollably.  The medicine came too late.  In  two weeks, the disease stole her from you.  Her weak, undernourished body could not fight the parasitic infection that attacked her heart and lungs.  She would turn six next week.  She was looking forward to starting school, since your family had recently received assistance that would allow her to attend.  Even as you hold her dead body in your arms, you worry about her little brother; he is three and may already have Malaria.  You cannot lose them both.  You have seen what happens to the mothers who have lost all of their children.  How their life seems to drain away from them and they become incapacitated by grief. You pray for his protection, even as you pray for God to take your daughter to heaven.

What is death doing to you?  What toll has it taken?  What threat does it continue to pose?  Death is indiscriminate, universal, and personal.  It hurts us.  We use the threat and power of death as a weapon, as a mechanism of control, as a means to achieve other ends. We kill enemies to avoid being killed.  We try to take shelter from it, but it is senseless and merciless. Death threatens to annihilate the meaning of life.  The brevity of life causes us to ask why.  We flee from death, knowing we cannot escape it. Most of us were not alive 100 years ago.  We will not be alive 100 years from now.  We are part of the story, the human story, the earth story, the story of life.   

memory

Someone I know was recently diagnosed with Alzheimers. This is a disease that robs you of your cognitive abilities, especially of your memory.  Memory is strange isn’t it?  We’d like to think that our memory is like a dvd that stores a kind of video log of our past on it. An intact archive that we can access, if we focus.   But it is really more like a film strip with still pictures on it.  And it is selective.  It is frustrating when our memories fail us and devastating to receive a diagnosis like Alzheimers…in part because our existence is contingent on our connection to the story of our lives; the people and places and things we have known and experienced. I am because I have a story to tell about myself, my unwritten memoir. My memory is not the only or the best reliable source of my identity, though.  I count on the fact that I am part of your story too. Without a community to remember us, how would we exist?   

renovating the church

Jesus cleanses the temple in Jerusalem

It's spring cleaning time.  Time to open up the house, let the stale out and the fresh in. Time to turn some things inside out and wash the windows.  Time to prepare the yard for plantings and blooming.   Time to take out the old, throw away the trash, declutter.  We always have a spring yard sale in our neighborhood, a good way to reduce clutter and clean out unwanted household items  Old toys, outgrown children’s clothes, toddler beds, the things we no longer use we sell or give away.  Spring cleaning usually feels pretty good.  It is refreshing.  

Now we have also experienced renovation in our home.  It is not the same thing.  Renovation is much more severe.  It requires tearing up and removing, getting down to the bare floor or bare wall.  Going down to the bare bones of the house and replacing the old with new.  It meant living in a construction zone for awhile.  It displaced us from our own home.  It was a much more drastic change.  We have two new rooms that we didn’t have before because of our 2011 renovation. We have a new bathroom, a new dining room, and a new family room.  Renovation takes imagination and a little bit of risk.  Renovation is deconstruction and reconstruction and it is not something one does annually.  At least we hope not.   

The cleansing of the temple is a gospel scene found in all four gospels.  John places the scene at the beginning of his gospel, whereas the others place it in holy week.  John frames Jesus’ ministry within the context of this temple story, because for John Jesus has become the temple and the sacrificial lamb.  Jesus is the place and the person within whom God dwells.  Of course, he is writing some thirty or more years after the Jerusalem temple was physically destroyed by the Roman army.  1^st century Jews and Christians had to revise their religious lives, religious rituals which primarily occurred within the confines of the temple. Even Pagans enshrined their gods and their rituals within temples.  John’s Jesus seems to reject that old notion of temple, a home fashioned by human hands for the god to dwell inside.  Jesus’ body becomes the temple.  For the Christian community this has powerful implications because Jesus becomes available to them in the breaking of bread, in the baptismal waters, in the remembering of the story--- and this happens wherever Jesus’ people gather.  The presence of God is completely decentralized and democratized.  This God who raises Jesus from the dead is everywhere, even with non-Jews; anyone with faith to believe and practice this new way of life is a Christian with access to God’s grace and mercy.  This empowers Christians to think globally and expand the mission into new frontiers, new territory. Because they believe that God goes ahead of them and before them and is always with them.  There is no singular building, no holiest place in all of Christendom.  We do not require a pilgrimage to Bethlehem or Jerusalem or Nazareth as part of one’s faithfulness.  God is present in Christ.  Christ is present in me and you. 

It seems to me that what Jesus is accomplishing in this story ought to be named the renovation of the temple.  He’s not tidying up the place, decluttering, doing a little spring cleaning.  He is deconstructing the place. Certainly he demands the physical change of the building’s use.  Driving out the commercial marketplace. When God’s promises are sold as marketable goods, a renovation is in order. God is not for sale.  Why do people turn everything into a consumer good, a product with a price tag? In every age, there have been Christians who have rejected the sale of God's gifts; in the 16th century, Luther opposed the selling of indulgences by the church in Rome--it was exploitative of the peasantry and theologically unbiblical.  Deconstruction of the religion's practices is risky business.    

But Deconstructing is also about reframing the purpose of the space.  It will mean restoring  its intentions.  In this case, Jesus is deconstructing the temple as a marketplace and reconstituting it as a house of prayer. Why?  The prophets, like Isaiah and Amos contend that God is not interested in ritual sacrifices of animals, not interested in burnt offerings to avoid punishment.  They say that God desires mercy, compassion, a broken and contrite heart, and a heart of praise and devotion.   The marketplace made God’s mercy something one could buy for the price of a dove or a sheep.  How does one estimate the value of God’s forgiveness?  If you believe that your life is a mess, unclean, in need of a good scrubbing—then you will understand that you can’t buy God’s love.  It is given through unmerited grace.  No more sacrifices in fancy buildings. No more holy shrines.  There is Jesus.  He is the temple.  So any structure built by human hands can be the holy place, if Christ is present there in the Eucharist (The Lord's supper of bread and wine).  The sacred and the profane are found together; that is what we mean by the incarnation, Jesus is fully God and fully human.  The separation of church and world has been destroyed.  The curtain has been torn in two.  We do not need a building to be a church.  Usually churches that lose their buildings to fire or natural disaster are able to see and believe that.  But I have met people on the west coast who call themselves a church without walls.  I think they have a gathering space which they rent, but they say that most of what they do as a church they do in the world.  Being church, after all, is about loving your neighbor.  It’s about your everyday life and how you see God in it.  It is about how you see the world and the people in it.  Attachment to church buildings can become idolatrous and restrictive because the Holy Spirit is not stagnant and God is not immobile.  God is on the move, acting on behalf of those who cry out, who long for God’s mercy, peace, healing, love. 

There is a real renovation happening in the church today.  It is a movement that some call 'missional' or emerging Christianity. It is about bringing the presence of Christ to untouched places and people.  It is about living the gospel as a way of life in the world here and now.  I am seeking to practice this way with others.  We observe the church year.  We pray a daily office.  Worship is sacramental.  We share the good news with people.  We walk with people who are poor.  We hope to bring light and hope to people who need those things in their lives.      
Lent is the season of cleaning. Any sort of renovation in this church begins with me. Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me. What spiritual renovation is God doing here with us?  For what sort of restoration is God preparing us?  Amen.  

the sound of silence

I'm a good listener.  Sometimes.  I tune people out, too.  Including my wife. I regret those times when I am not paying attention. I think listening is important. Everyone deserves to be heard, to be acknowledged, to be understood.  But there are times when it is hard to pay attention, to listen to someone else.
God, too, has a dodgy track record in the listening department.  In Exodus, God hears the cries and prayers of his people and rescues them from tyranny and suffering.  The Psalmists give God mixed reviews; Psalm 116: "I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my supplications. Because He inclined his ear to me, therefore I will on Him as long as I live." Psalm 34: "When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears, and rescues them from all their troubles."  Psalm 61 "Hear my prayer, O God; listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth I call to you when my heart faints."  The Psalms are such wonderful prayers for us, because they are honest and real.  Does God hear me when I cry out, when I pray?  Is anyone out there listening?  I have wondered that more than once as I have attempted to pray.
The biblical prophets suggest that God will not listen to the prayers of those who pray to God, but ignore the plight of their vulnerable neighbors.  Isaiah 1:  "When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen.  Your hands are full of blood."  Isaiah  also suggests that the dullness and indifference of the religious community is God's doing, so that they might experience the fullness of God's absence.  "make the mind of this people dull, and stop their eyes, and shut their ears, so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn to be healed."  Jesus will borrow this passage to interpret the use of parables to his disciples.  Somehow our inability to see or hear God is part of God's mysterious work, too.  Huh.

the sound of silence

I'm a good listener.  Sometimes.  I tune people out, too.  Including my wife. I regret those times when I am not paying attention. I think listening is important. Everyone deserves to be heard, to be acknowledged, to be understood.  But there are times when it is hard to pay attention, to listen to someone else.  
God, too, has a dodgy track record in the listening department.  In Exodus, God hears the cries and prayers of his people and rescues them from tyranny and suffering.  The Psalmists give God mixed reviews; Psalm 116: "I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my supplications. Because He inclined his ear to me, therefore I will on Him as long as I live." Psalm 34: "When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears, and rescues them from all their troubles."  Psalm 61 "Hear my prayer, O God; listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth I call to you when my heart faints."  The Psalms are such wonderful prayers for us, because they are honest and real.  Does God hear me when I cry out, when I pray?  Is anyone out there listening?  I have wondered that more than once as I have attempted to pray.
The biblical prophets suggest that God will not listen to the prayers of those who pray to God, but ignore the plight of their vulnerable neighbors.  Isaiah 1:  "When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen.  Your hands are full of blood."  Isaiah  also suggests that the dullness and indifference of the religious community is God's doing, so that they might experience the fullness of God's absence.  "make the mind of this people dull, and stop their eyes, and shut their ears, so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn to be healed."  Jesus will borrow this passage to interpret the use of parables to his disciples.  Somehow our inability to see or hear God is part of God's mysterious work, too.  Huh.

necessary death

We're in Lent and we Lutherans know what that is about.  It is about Potlucks and prayers, the ol' rugged cross and beneath the cross of Jesus.  We are following the story of Jesus' road to the cross. And we know what that means.  We will hear the same story again; the passion, the suffering, the betrayal, the blood.  We know how this story goes.  The hymns and the liturgy reflect a more solemn tone.  We sing songs in minor keys.  We actually fast from saying the A word---the one that ends with leluia because it was a word of celebration.  

As early as this second week of Lent, we get this account of Jesus' teaching about his own suffering and death. We could say that he also gives a sneak peek at Easter too, since he does mention that he will rise on the third day--a part of the teaching the disciples seem to ignore altogether in their response to him.  They get hung up on his disturbing plan to go to Jerusalem, be tried, beaten, and crucified.  I can't imagine why they protest.  Can you?  I mean they gave up everything to follow him, to minister beside him.  And they liked it. They liked feeding people and helping the poor and healing the sick.  They liked being part of a revolution, a part of history.They were part of the bigger story and they all believed it.  They were swept up in his campaign for social justice, health care, sexual equality, economic freedom from the threats of poverty and the idols of wealth.  They caught his vision for a new kingdom, in which God's chosen would rule and true peace would finally come, peace and freedom from oppression and fear.  They found themselves on the inside of the greatest story as it was unfolding.  They believed they were part of something bigger, something great.  A movement to change human history. I believe that these guys thought that to be true.  They believed in him.  And they would fight to keep it alive, because they were invested 100%.

So, why does Jesus tell the disciples about his death? What purpose did it serve?  This Unbearable truth.  Some scholars believe that this part of the narrative is a post-resurrection insertion by the author that gives Jesus the divine gift of foreknowledge.  It is quite something to introduce the end of the story in the middle.  Most authors choose to keep the ending to themselves and Mark employs the keeping and telling of secrets as another way to keep the reader involved.  Often Jesus will tell his disciples or someone he heals to tell no one.  And the word about hims spreads.  Maybe he used some reverse psychology.  You know, I have a secret but don't tell anyone.  Come on Pinky swear.  And then after swearing on someone's grave you find yourself telling.

So why does Jesus tell them at all?  He surely doesn't do it out of fear.  He's not asking for protection.  He doesn't tell them in order to sound powerful.  His knowledge of his future does not in any way prevent it from happening.  Its unavoidable, so it seems.  Some people wonder if Jesus had a death wish, if he perpetrated the whole thing himself, practically arranging his own arrest and crucifixion.  He certainly did not avoid mixing it up with the authorities.  He lets them know what he thinks about their blindness.  So why does he tell them?  He tells them not once but three times.

• It's Instructional. We are told that he began to teach them.  This is not an informative speech.  He expects this teaching to form them, to guide them, to give them not mere knowledge but wisdom and understanding.  He teaches them something that they will need to know and apply.  Yes, this is an applicable teaching. I am sad to say this.  Because if he is passing on this bit of wisdom to them, and they learn from it that his death, and their own sacrifices, will actually serve to advance the movement of God's kingdom; then it may be true that Jesus is giving new meaning to death altogether here.  Death is the servant of the cause.  Mortality makes every one vulnerable.  But it seems to give the Christians strength to endure hardships. Because they believe a sacrificial death is good.  Not as a motivation to insight riot or strap a bomb to one's chest in a crowded market.  That is murder/suicide, not sacrifice.  Dr. King, Gandhi they die Christ-like deaths. Christians are willing to face the firing squad, willing to nurse the diseased and dying,and risk becoming sick too.  Some sociologists of religion believe that one of the reasons Christianity grew so rapidly was because a 2nd century plague ravaged Rome and only the Christians remained in the city to minister to the dying.  
• The master dies but the movement lives on in the disciples. Their inspiration motivates them to inspire thru meaningful sacrifice. Things worth devoting your life to, loving relationships, justice, peace, compassion for the suffering, Racial or economic equality.  These are things worth risking your life for. Bearing the cross is not a form of suicide; it is not the glorification of death.  Death is still ugly and sad.  Bearing the cross is taking up a work that subverts, overturns, and deconstructs the world's greatest problem; the fear of a meaningless death.  To take up your cross is to embrace a meaningful work that serves humanity and gives life to the world.  
• What would it look like if the church saw itself more as a movement of risk-takers, willing to sacrifice themselves for others, willing to be vulnerable, willing to die?  What would it look like for the church to give itself away, to become free of the constraints of the weight of its own mortality?  Even as an institution, what would it mean for a congregation to devote itself to giving itself away instead of keeping itself alive?  Faithful stewardship demands that congregations give creatively and generously.  We live in an age when financial constraints make sustainability a challenge for small congregations.  How can we be the church in such circumstances? What cross are we called to bear?     
• The primary motivation in our age is to achieve immortality---to cheat death, to live long and prosper.  And what is wrong with that?  It is a way to live.  Its just not the way of Christ. Being faithful is counter intuitive.  It doesn't make sense; ask Horton. (We read Dr. Seuss' "Horton Hatches the Egg" today).  But just as an egg is hatched, the dead will be raised.  A sacrificial death is vindicated by the emergence of something new.  Has something emerged at Zion that may be a sign of resurrection and life, even as other parts of our life seem to be dying? How do we, like Peter, stand in the way of the inevitable death and resurrection that awaits the church?   This teaching is a hard teaching.  Help us God to accept it and follow the one who has died and risen, showing us that the way of the Kingdom is the way of the cross.  Amen.       

 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. ¹¹And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

¹²And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. ¹³He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.¹⁴Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, ¹⁵and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news."  Gospel of Mark, chapter 1.

40 days and 40 nights.  There are places we do not want to go.  Places we will not go.  Ugly places.  Painful ones.  Dangerous and dirty.  Maybe a hospital or a nursing home.  Or that part of town or a city.  I have never been to a third world country.  I am both drawn to such a place and repulsed. Places where Malaria threatens and drinking water is scarce.  Places where children die in huts and parents weep.   I have been places to which I do not hope to return.  Certain apartments.  I lived in one that wreaked of cigarettes no matter what we did.  There are places we do not want to go.   Hell is real and it is nearby.  We needn’t die to find ourselves in it. Hell is any place where suffering and violence maim and take life.    

There are people we avoid.  Ugly people.  Frightening ones.  Sick and dying people. I have been to their houses and watched them shrink and die.  It is ugly and sad and frightening and imprinted in my mind.  I would protect others from the sight.   And there are others: People of color, non-english speakers.  People whose culture or dress is not like ours.  There are people we avoid.  A Single parent yelling at their child.  Two people arguing in public.  A man walking out of the county prison.  A woman coming to an NA meeting.  A public protester.  A man standing in line at the homeless shelter.  People we see on television, on the news, and know to avoid them.  They are young black and Hispanic men.  I am ashamed to say this out loud and in public because I am no racist.  But we cannot deny the prejudice that produces fear that creates distance and avoidance.  There are people we avoid.  To protect ourselves.       

What if you were forced into a situation, a place with another person in which you were most uncomfortable?  Where would that be and what would the other person be like?  Would it be a dark place, an unfamiliar place, a foreign place?  Would it be a strange man, a person of color, a loud or violent person?  Would it be on a city street at night when a poor and dirty homeless man, smelling of booze wanders over begging for a couple of bucks to buy a beer?  What do you do then?  How do you proceed? But that would never happen to you. You just don’t go there. 

Jesus is forced out into the wilderness, where he is tested by Satan.  Mark writes that the Spirit drives him out.  40 days and nights.   Over a month.  Isolated.  Alone.  Without human contact.  But a place of violence.   Physical austerity, extremes.   Without shelter or food.  This is no extreme sport.  Jesus is no thrill seeker.  This is simply part of his adult life.  A period of suffering he must’ve shared with his disciples.  He was off the grid, as we say.  Was he weakened by this encounter with human vulnerability or strengthened by the test?  Does he believe that God sends him out there or does something darker drive him to this place of foreboding and despair?  Alone with wild beasts.  Cast out.  Forced.  His ability to survive tested. Will he live or die? 

Jesus never leaves that wilderness experience.  It dogs him the rest of his days.  Living on the edge of survival.  Will he live or die?  His own family questions his sanity; others question his morality.  It takes little time, little effort before he alienates himself from people whose hatred intensifies to violence.  He will threaten, even as he heals.  He will stir up anger, even as he teaches peace.  He will welcome outcasts and become one as a result.  He will give life to the dead and lose his life doing so.  He will give sight to the blind and strike blind those who thought they saw the truth.  He will talk of his own death, even as evil men plot to make it so.   

Jesus was a man on a mission.  And he was not beautiful and gentle and soft and lovely.  He was not adorable or entertaining.  He was no showman.  He was calloused and hard. He drank wine and ate heartily.  He hung out with lowlifes and sick people and people with mental illness.  He touched prostitutes and ate with thieves.  He fed the hungry so that they would not steal to eat.  Did you ever think that feeding the multitudes was an act of nonviolence?  Hungry people are potentially dangerous people; as are outcasts and minorities and those who are being unjustly treated.  Their anger kindled becomes a riot.  Or a terrorist attack.  Instead, Jesus will be torn apart by the wild beasts in the wilderness of the human community.  He will provoke attack.  He will let them beat him and hang him on a cross. He will let hell in.  Do not see weakness there.  It is the power of GOD in Him. 

GOD is not afraid.  GOD is in every corner, every place, in every human being.  GOD is in the dirt and the mess and the sin and the disasters and the crises.  God is in the violence, not as perpetrator but as savior.  GOD is in every place that we refuse to go, in every person we refuse to touch, in every child dying from Malaria or starving in an orphanage or waiting for dad to get out of jail again.  In everyone.  God is near.  We need not invite God in.  We need not close our eyes and pray God into existence. We need not imagine God.  If you do not perceive God, that is not God’s problem.  Absence is not non-existence.  Does someone cease to exist because you do not see or hear them?   Many people and things live that I will never see or know. And God is in this body.   Because every part of creation is worth touching and healing and saving.  Every part has value, every person has worth. 

And also, Jesus is my King.  I live in His kingdom.  I am subject to his command.  His command is to love.  To love is to give, to go, to be present for and with the other-wherever they are in the wilderness of this mortal life.  Love goes to hell to claim that which has been lost there.   We are being cast out into the wilderness to dwell with the wild beasts, to minister like angels, to touch and to heal and to give life.  There is no time.  There is only now.  Immediately.   At this moment they are calling to us.  Feed us.  Help us.  Protect us.  Shelter us.  Give us hope.  40 days and 40 nights.  Amen.         

 

rhythm

Gospel of Mark, ch. 1.  As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

 That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’ He answered, ‘Let us go on to the neighbouring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons. 

Standing at the edge of the lake, a man saw a woman flailing about in the deep water.  Unable to swim, the man screamed for help.  A trout fisherman ran up.  The man said, "My wife is drowning and I can't swim.  Please save her.  I'll give you a hundred dollars."  The fisherman dove into the water.  In ten powerful strokes he reached the woman, put his arm around her, and swam back to shore.  Depositing her at the feet of the man, the fisherman said, "Okay, where's my hundred dollars?"  The man said, "Look, when I saw her going down for the third time, I thought it was my wife.  But this is my Mother- in-law."  The fisherman reached into his pocket and said, "Just my luck.  How much do I owe you?"

casting out the demons

"They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee." Gospel of Mark, ch. 1.  

What a crazy story.  Jesus’ first miracle in Mark’s gospel is the exorcism of a demon-possessed man in the synagogue.  After his baptism in the Jordan river, at which he is named God’s beloved son, he is cast out into the wildernesss, presumably with the rest of us, to live as the bearer of a new message:   the powerful reign of God is near, repent and believe the good news.  This is Jesus’ mission statement.  The rest of the gospel is how Jesus enacts this one mission statement.  And in this first scene, Jesus is confronted.  A conflict ensues during synagogue services, at which Jesus is teaching.  A demon-possessed man shouts at him: what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us, we know who you are, the holy one of God.  A heckler in the crowd-- sounds more like a political rally than a religious gathering.  Jesus rebukes the spirit, saying, be silent and come out of him.  So, according to the bible Jesus has power to exorcize demons. Exorcism and demon-possession are outside my realm of experience.  We may wonder why this man was not in his right mind.  Was he a paranoid schizophrenic?  By speaking in the plural, we suspect he is hearing voices in his head.  We might wonder if he suffers from multiple personality disorder. In the 21^st century world, we turn to medication and other forms of medical/psychiatric treatment to address such things.   We realize that in a pre- modern society, in which the same diseases that threaten us, threatened them, people had no recourse, no possibility for healing.  Often diseased people were isolated, quarantined, or imprisoned. These people were abandoned to their disease, left to die or suffer without treatment, without opportunity for healing, without any hope.  I realize that In a world without corrective lenses, I am practically blind.  At the age of four I contracted a rare disease called epiglotitus.  My windpipe swelled shut.  Without a trachiochtomy and powerful antibiotics I would have died.  We have the ability to cure measles and wipe out malaria.  Vaccines and other medicines have changed the way we moderns experience disease.  We expect medicine to fix us, heal us, reduce suffering, manage pain for us. We expect the medical professional to make a plan of treatment that will work.  We expect miracles, because they happen in our world through modern medicine every day.  People who have heart attacks, live.  50 years ago, bypass was new.  Now people survive for years after open heart surgery.  Despite our advances, we know that there are people who suffer around the world for lack of access to medical treatments and clean water.  We wonder how thousands of children can die from diseases that require a simple vaccine or course of antibiotics, things we take for granted here.  In the globalized world, people still die from curable and preventable diseases. We cannot cure or heal everything. 

The stigma of mental illness, however, still plagues our world.  We have a friend who, in his early 20s, had his first manic episode followed by a deep depression.  After a lot of prayer and counsel, it was concluded that he needed psychiatric attention.  I went with him to the hospital to admit him to psychiatric treatment.  He was a new father and his world was coming undone.  7 years later, he is still battling bipolar disorder.  We have seen him occasionally.  They have two boys and a third on the way.  I’d like to say that life has improved and he has been healed.  But, he is in prison and they are getting divorced. I'd like to "exorcize" his "demons".

eat, drink, and enjoy life

"I commend enjoyment, for there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat, and drink, and enjoy themselves, for this will go with them in their toil through the days of life that God gives them under the sun." Ecclesiastes 8:15.
"A desert hunter saw Abba Antony having fun with the brothers. (Desert munks).  he was shocked and expressed his dismay because of their frivolity.  The old man said to the hunter, "Put an arrow in your bow and shoot it."  When he did so, Antony said, "Now shoot another." Again the hunter complied.  Then the old man asked him to shoot a third arrow. The hunter hesitated, "If I bend my bow too many times, I will weaken and break it."  Antony said to him, "It is the same with God's work.  If we stretch the brothers beyond measure, they will weaken and break."

Everyday disciples:  Work fascinates me.  I have been employed for over 20 years, more than half of my life.I was unemployed a few times, though I continued to work.  Being a student was a kind of work.  Living on a farm was a kind of work.  Ministry is a kind of work.  I have been employed a few times outside of those venues; I worked at a YMCA and a Radio Shack.  I have worked hard and I have been employed in a job that required very little work.  I was a campus phone operator in college. People called for information and for phone numbers.  Some shifts were completely silent.  I have been fortunate to have employment that paid me a sustainable wage most of my adult life.

Being a follower of Jesus or a Christian is not about exerting one's self to the point of exhaustion over things one cannot fix.  I think a lot of people, in and outside of church, are over-functioning and over-extended.  We try to justify ourselves by working a lot.  Work is idolized in American culture.  I am not disparaging hard work, especially in an economy with high unemployment.  In ministry I experience the result of unemployment in a consumer economy in which households must have an income of over $22,000 a year to be sustainable.   Work is an important part of life. But in our culture, work is tied to income which is tied to net worth or personal value.  We all know that some of the most valuable people in our culture are often underpaid and overworked. People working minimum wage jobs are slaves to this consumer economy that requires many people to work for low pay.  We enslave people in these jobs by demanding fast food and easy shopping. And now that everything is conveniently open 24/7/365, there are no breaks. It keeps spinning around.  
I also know that some of the best work is done by people who are doing it for free, without pay.  I know that meaningful work drives people to function more effectively than high pay.  I have been fascinated by people who have devoted themselves to certain non-profit causes. They seem happy in their work because they are doing what they love, what they're passionate about.  I like the idea "Do what you love, love what you do." I could devote myself to that kind of work.    
I also know that this culture does not honor Sabbath rest, either as a biblical commandment or as a basic practice of personal health.  We like vacation.  But we live a-rhythmic lives, in which we bounce from one thing to the next.

I suggest an alternative practice:  Sabbath-keeping.  I actually felt like my family had Sabbath time this weekend. And we had to be hermits in order to get it.  Staying home on Sunday to play family games and laugh at a very silly show on "Animal Planet" called "Finding Bigfoot," while eating pizza in the den together. (After worship, we stayed in.)
Work weakens and breaks us.  Everyone needs to experience Sabbath; a time of refreshment, rest, renewal, and enjoyment.  If you haven't had any of that, find a way to acquire it. If you can help someone get a Sabbath day, do so.  
   

abandoning ship

A large cruise ship is capsized in the Mediterranean sea.  Thousands were rescued, but some died.  The captain will be punished for abandoning ship.   Some vacation. I’ve never been on a cruise.  Don’t think I’m going to book one anytime soon. Sorry honey.  We’re landlubbers.    And we are religious people.  We have a routine we follow.  We adopted it from our predecessors.  We revise it a little, but mostly do what has been done.  Sunday morning is church time.  We gather for worship.  We pray and sing, listen and confess, sit and stand, eat and drink, give and receive.  We pass the peace and reconnect :  with each other, with God.  We come here.  What we do here is good.  Were it not good, who would come?  Admittedly, sometimes we come because of an obligation.  Ah man, do I have to go today?  Yes dear , you’re the preacher.  Sometimes being faithful here feels lonely, like being the only tourist in a small foreign village.  But we come because this is the container of our religious lives.  An upside down ship, a nave.  The church keeps us together, shelters us from the storms.  It is safe here.  We are safe with God contained in this room.  This is our boat.    

So, why don’t more people come to church?  Why is it so hard to be faithful today?   Why have so many gone ashore and left us adrift?  How do we get more people to come and see what’s happening here?  I have suggested that we can never be entertaining or attractional enough, because we are not marketing or selling ourselves or anything else here. We are not going to package our message in a hip modern, contemporary relevant cool worship show because that is not who we are.  So what do we do?  Stay put until we die?  The mainline church continues to shrink at an alarming rate in the US.   Leaving a church, not joining a church, seems to be the direction of many Americans.  So how do we reverse the trend at Zion Lutheran on Main St. in Akron?    We know that our demographics, though typical, are not promising.  I am not the answer man, but I have been appointed the pastor, prophet, evangelist, and teacher in this place.  I am at least a couple of those things.  I have learned that what I am is not what some church people expect or need from their pastor.  I am sorry when I am not.

Jesus and religion

I'm not sure anyone is going to give a damn what I have to say about this.  I am, after all, religious.  I am a cleric, a priest, an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  As such, I have a perspective of church and religion that is "biased".  I am not setting out here to defend turf.  I have been disappointed by church as a human institution.  I have criticized the church, publicly rejecting misbehavior.  I'm note even referring to clergy sex abuse scandals.  I refer closer to home, where church people mistreat one another.  I have seen church members fight.  I have heard church people publicly reject outsiders, non-adherents, or unchurched folks.  I have said aloud, "this is church, really?  What does this have to do with Jesus or God's love..." I have heard church people say and do things to intentionally exclude people. I studied the Crusades. The church's sins are well chronicled and continue in every dark corner of her hallowed halls.  Because church is full of people. People have their own problems, hang-ups, prejudices, etc...People are complicated.  With a great capacity to love and be loved, people still find ways to hate, perpetrate violence, and dehumanize others.  People hoard things, rather than share them.  People steal and kill and adulterate everyday.  Church people.  I,too, hate religion that promotes exclusivity and injustice.  I hate religion that speaks against gay people because they are gay, colored people because they are colored, poor people because they are poor, using the bible to defend ugly prejudices.  I, too, believe that Jesus calls us to a greater calling as servants.  I also believe that Jesus opposed empty religious habits that are self-centered and devoid of meaning.  I believe Jesus came to save us from sin and death, something than no religious habit can do.  Jesus did what religion cannot do.  Jesus invited people to experience reconciliation and communion with God through Him.  Jesus is the actor in divine reconciliation and salvation. Reconnecting to God by practicing Jesus' way of life, however, leads to religion.  Like it or not, to live in communion with God requires a container.  Be it a religious community, a house church, a sect, a prayer group, a bible study, or a worshiping congregation. No man is an Island, said Milton.  We are social creatures, set in families.  Communion with God is social, familial, communal, and religious.  Religious because a community of individuals will establish a way of life, a routine, a pattern of behavior that characterizes their sense of wholeness, their sense of unity.  Just me and Jesus is never enough.  God comes to all of us. God comes for all of us.
This viral YouTube video everyone is talking about makes for an interesting and entertaining four minutes.  I can't say that for everything--probably most things-- I've watched on You Tube.  I like this guy in the video.  He's sort of gritty, urban, hip hop. I don't know him, though.  I can't even say I know his "type", whatever that means. He is packaging a message that is worth hearing, though.  He's not the first one to say it out loud, to think it, to act upon it. He's probably not the You Tube Prophet sent to reform the whole mess. But he might be part of a larger phenomenon.  Hell, the emergence of Pentecostalism, fundamentalism, the Protestant Reformation, and most early Monasticism is based on the very same premise.  Something has gotten off the track.  The religious container no longer looks like its original message or intent.  Something stinks in institutional Christianity, like dead bodies or rotten fruit.  No kidding.  In every age there is rebellion against the religious ways of predecessor bodies.  Why?  It is how renewal and longevity happens within the human religious community.  How is it that Christianity (or even better, Judaism), exists for so long transcending time, space, ethnic/cultural, and linguistic limitations?  It has many names.  Renewal, reformation, resurrection.  Something emerges out of the death of something else. Someone within the body rejected the body and established an alternative.  The bible is not anti-religion. It is, however, a chronicle of how religion evolves, changes, emerges, dies, and is reborn. Abram leaves Haran and heads toward Canaan.  Moses leads a people in bondage out of Egypt to the Sinai desert. Jesus rejects the teachings of the Pharisees and scribes.  Martin Luther rejects the Pope.  The pope rejects the reformers.  The reformers reject one another. Its a frickin' mess. From age to age, the ways in which people seek after God, seek to contain God, to control God, to become God undergo deep self-examination, criticism from within and outside, and dramatic change.  No wonder the enlightened youth of later modernity or postmodernism have rejected religion altogether. This process, in every age, has been painful.  There will be casualties as we try to sort out life at the end of the 2nd Millenium.  We would like this to be easier, more balck-and-white.  So we set up a straw man---religion or church.  And we develop a polarity; Jesus vs. religion.  We prefer celebrity gurus.  Jesus could be a celebrity guru, if we can make him cool enough somehow. He could be our life coach, spiritual guide, mentor, and Facebook friend. If we suggest that Christianity has finally and completely lost the central message of Jesus and replaced it with lies for self-preservation and self-promotion, then we may have something to rap about on You Tube.  It  does sound good.  Its the same message as those who try to convince us to put Christ back into Christmas.  What they fail to realize is that no one can take him out.  That was the entire point of Easter.  You can't get rid of Jesus.  He is never going to leave.  Try as we might, he is in it with us to the end of the age.
Look, I get the message.  I am in agreement that religion can become a barrier to faith.  I get that church has hoarded money to build ornate buildings, cathedrals and pipe organs, but has failed to serve the slum dwellers and the homeless.  I get that religion does exclude people by establishing purity rules and hierarchical police that legislate and adjudicate the rules.  (Radical fundamentalist Mormon Warren Jeffs is dictating rules for his 1,500 followers from prison, stricter rules that will reduce the number of faithful adherents).  I get that religious people have been less that passionate about the plight of the poor, the oppressed, the terrorized, and the massacred.  I get that.  I also get that Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave his life to oppose the Nazis.  Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his life to oppose racial injustice and promote a dream for beloved community.  Mother Theresa lived in the Calcutta slums.  And countless others have given their lives for the sake of the world because their religious calling to follow Jesus has compelled them to act boldly and courageously.
I am an insider.  I cannot defend the whole church.  That is not my job.  But I will say this.  I cannot argue whether or not church or religion merits its survival or existence.  I cannot say that church does more good than harm, so ought to be respected and not rejected.  I even get that leaving church for more fulfilling spiritual waters is tempting and, could prove necessary for the preservation of one's faith.  But I must also say this:  Jesus promises to be present with His followers as they minister to people who are sick and homeless, imprisoned or hungry.  He promises to be present for us in bread and wine, in water and in His Words.  When 2 or 3 gather in his name to practice reconciliation, forgiveness, and healing he is with them.  I believe that, in spite of itself, Jesus is still with and in the church.  At least as much as he is with the excluded, the marginalized, the poor and oppressed.  Maybe we all need to practice confession and forgiveness, and a lot more humility.  Maybe we have to practice death and resurrection, trusting that we will be raised to new life. Maybe we have to be willing to see Christ's presence in and outside the boxes we make.  Maybe we have to see what happens when we put new wine in old wineskins.  Maybe we have to make new wineskins. Maybe some of us have to poetically challenge the status quo.  Maybe some of us have to keep on working inside while God's Spirit reforms and reshapes us. Maybe some of us have to practice a religious life that is full of grace and truth, because Jesus is full of grace and truth.  I don't know. I'm not sure anyone is going to give a damn what I have to say about this. After all, I'm a follower of Jesus, the son of God.  I am religious in my devotion to Him.
 
  

come and see

Dear neighbors,
I think a lot of people in our neighborhood have the wrong idea about church, misconceptions or false impressions.  Also, some churches give people the wrong idea about church.  So, if you want to know a little about church from an insider that thinks church is still worth knowing, here is a word about us:  We are not entertaining.  We are not a rock concert, a light show, or a video message board. We are not shouting out the latest celebrity gossip. We are not the coolest place in town.  We are not the center of attention.  We are not hi tech.  We are not "starbucks for Jesus".  We are not the stomping grounds of the wealthy or offering self-affirmation for the guilty.  We are not here to chastize you, straighten you out, or condemn you to hell.  We are not dressed in our Sunday best.  We are not marketing anything or selling anything to you or anyone else.  We are not the newest, hottest trend on the net.  There is no app for what we do.   We sing old hymns with words no one understands like "ebenezer." We eat small pieces of bread and drink wine from small plastic cups.  We read or recite prayers together.  We listen to readings from the bible.  We say, "Peace be with you".  We say, "Thanks be to God."  We say, "Your sins are forgiven." We stand up and sit down, stand up and sit down, stand up and sit down. We are old people, widows and widowers, retired and downsizing.  We want our lives to have meaning and to leave a legacy of good in our wakes.  We are young people, with ambitions and dreams and energy and hope.  We want to change the world, make it better for everyone.  We are families with children trying to live sustainably in a demanding economy where costs-of-living often exceed income. We are single adults looking for friends and community in an isolated and isolating neighborhood of strangers.  We are people who have made serious mistakes.  We are divorced.  We are addicts, trying to recover.  We have been incarcerated.  We are on parole.  We have hit rock bottom more than once and we have gotten back on our feet.
We are people whose hearts and minds have been captured by an ancient 1st century story of a Jewish Rabbi named Jesus of Nazareth, who died and lives and is the son of the living God.  He is a savior, because we have recognized that we need someone to rescue us.  We cannot save ourselves.  We do not save. We spend and consume and expend.  We devour and destroy and die. We throw away, we discard, even people.  We perpetrate injustices unawares every single day. But Jesus came and promised new and better life to people who believe it's possible.  To people willing to sacrifice being the greatest, the richest, and the strongest in order to reveal that God is all love and mercy and peace, there is this story.  In it, Jesus confronted the inherited power of darkness that resides in the human soul and destroyed its power over us, so that we do not have to keep on living in the woundedness of the past.  We do not have to repeat the course of human history, with its wars and diseases and crimes against humanity. Because on a Friday afternoon, it was finished.  A new chapter in the human story began three days later, when the crucified man was raised from the dead and appeared to many people.  The church began as a tragic defeat was turned into a surprising victory. That's the story we believe and tell over and over again.  God promises to turn the world upside down by turning each one of us inside out.  The hungry will have bread, the homeless will have a place of their own, the lonely will have companionship, the sick will have merciful help.  Church are people who believe that God is healing the world right now.  And we are recipients and partners in that healing.  We are givers and lovers, helpers and healers devoted to others before ourselves. We are not entertaining, but who we are is worth seeing.  We are God's people, God's imagination, God's workforce, God's family, God's slaves.  We are not who you think we are.  What you thought you knew about church is not altogether true.  That's more our fault than yours or anyone elses.  We have not lived honestly and openly.  We have not shared.  Because we are ordinary people.  We live messy, complicated, painful lives.  Church people are not perfect. But we are God's chosen ones, holy and beloved.  And so are you. That's the secret we have to share with you.  God is with you.  Everyday.  In your house.  At your place of work or schooling.  In the car.  On the bus.  God is with you.  God wants you to come closer to Him.  Jesus formed a church so that communion with God could be a shared reality throughout the world.  The church is God's way of reaching out to you and reminding you who you are.  You are God's beloved child.  
We can't promise you'll be entertained.  But what we have to show you and tell you is worth hearing and seeing.  Your life will never be the same.  Come and see.

new shoes

I have two pair of black shoes; one pair is casual, everyday work shoes. The other pair are dress shoes.  I wear them on Sundays.  I have two pair of brown shoes. I have a pair of sneakers, a pair of hiking shoes, two pairs of boots, and two pairs of sandals.  

My one pair of black shoes that I wear almost everyday is becoming worn.  I don;t buy shoes often.  I buy shoes that will last for a few years, at least.  I can justify owning all these shoes.  They all serve a different function, depending on the season, the dress, the occasion.  I could probably get by with four pairs.  Boots, sneakers, black dress shoes, and sandals.  I say all of this knowing that there are children in this world that have no shoes.  I am blessed with more than I need.  I am well aware.  I have shoes and clothes, a secure home, more than enough to eat, clean water, health care, sanitation, and gadgets to entertain me.  But I am deeply aware that I am in the wealthy global minority in this regard. I am aware of the presence of poverty and need.  I am so because I see people in circumstances different from mine all the time.  I don't travel to Africa or Haiti to see them.  I notice my neighbors.    

  

There is a family in my church. There are two adults and four children under age 9 in the house.  They worship here every week.  The children were all baptized here by me.  They are being evicted from their apartment.  Seven months of unemployment has meant that income has been too low to sustain the household.    When they found the eviction note they called me.  I went to visit with them, make a plan, suggest some resources, and pray for God's help.  That was Monday.  

Epiphany and the presence of God

"There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it."     ... Brother Lawrence To dwell in the presence of God is a sort of experience that both frightens and excites me. As a person of faith, I can say that I have experienced God's presence; felt the nearness of God, received God's love and peace, encountered God's judgment and mercy.  I have heard and seen some things that cause me to believe what I believe.  I'm not sure that I have been as faithful a practitioner to it though.  Mostly, God has made Himself known.  Practicing the presence of God can also be described as communion with God or union with God.  For centuries, faithful people have sought God's presence through meditation and prayer, dwelling in God's Word, being with other believers, worshiping God in liturgy, sitting in silence, and/or serving others.  I suspect that most of us experience something like the absence or hidden-ness of God. The reality of God is something that is questioned, doubted, and rejected by many people.  I cannot say that they are wrong. They have experienced life and have interpreted what they have experienced.  They have been taught and shaped by people and things outside of themselves.  So have I.  So why do I believe in God and someone else does not?  By choice?  By misinformation?  When it comes to faith in God are the categories "right" or "wrong" sufficient or proper?  If they are then who gets the blame?  The messenger or the recipient?  There are no non-believers.  Everyone believes in something.   The bible itself revels in revelation...God appears to some people and not to others.  Some people see God, others cannot. Some men have visions.  Others do not.  Some women see the Lord.  Others don't.   Even Jesus himself, crying out the words of the 22nd Psalm, declares that God has forsaken him in crucifixion.  The bible tells us that God's presence is revealed, uncovered, encountered. Where, when, and to whom is biblical mystery.   Sometimes we say we believe in God but we have no evidence, by reason or faith, to say it. We say it because to not believe in God is worse than to say we believe it and yet to doubt.  I believe God hides from us. I believe we hide from God.  I believe God is near us and we can come closer to God.  I believe movement toward each other is what life is about. To practice the presence of God is something like looking in the mirror in a dark room and hoping that the light comes on while you're looking in the right direction.

spiritual grandparents

The week between Christmas and New Year is visitation week.  Did you visit, welcome family to your home, travel to see others?  We traveled to New York to visit my parents this week.  Quick trip, Tuesday to Thursday. 48 hours, action packed.  I saw both of my grandmother’s this weekend.  I can’t tell you the last time that happened.  My mom’s mom is 86 and lives near Rochester.  We have not been out there in many years.  She came to visit on my mom’s 60^th birthday, with my mom’s two sisters.  My boys have not seen Grandma Morse in a few years, or maybe its better to say that my grandmother has not seen my boys in a few years, never saw Elijah.  Only in pictures. I feel bad about this, but getting together is not easy.  We go to my parents, two hours east of the rest of my mom’s family.  They would have to come to us.  They don’t.  We’re only in NY once or twice a year for a few days.  A narrow window for family to gather.  My boys all have blankets knitted by my Grandma Morse.  They are their traveling blankets, for snuggling on long car rides. That’s their connection to her. 

I also went to visit my Dad’s mom.  Grandma Lenahan is in a nursing home. It’s a beautiful new Jewish home north of Utica.  I was pleased with the place. She has a large single room.  It was decorated for Christmas with poinsettias.  She has a board filled with family pictures, including my boys.  She is very frail, unable to speak.  Although she was alert enough to acknowledge us when we came in.  After a few minutes of talking, I told her about the boys, the church, our house. My dad reminded her of the time when I ran away from home and landed suitcase in hand at my grandma’s house.  She lived next door, had to walk through a three acre field.   I was 7 and angry because I kept falling off my new two wheel bike. Grandma Lenahan was known as candy grandma, because she had cocoa puffs and lucky charms. 

I’m not so good with one way small talk.  She could, at best, look at me and mouth a word or two I could not understand.  So I decided to get a bible and pray with her.  She is a devout Catholic after all.  I suspect t she has prayed for me in her life.  So I prayed with her, read Psalms and other scriptures, prayed for her health, commended her to God’s eternal care. I may not see her again before she dies.  I’ve never prayed with my grandmother before.  My dad didn’t know if she receives regular spiritual care or visitation from a priest.  She is taken to mass sometimes, he thought.  I couldn’t think of anything else to do with her but to pray. Its what I do when I visit the elderly and infirm. I was glad I saw her…glad I saw both of my grandmothers this year.  My parents were, too.  

Bishop Hanson's Christmas Video

Christmas Video 2011 - Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

bearing

the annunciation

"Let it be to me according to your Word."  This is Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel’s message.  She will bear the news and the physical reality of it.  It reveals her character and the ideal way in which all people are invited to respond to the presence and power of God, as it fills our lives with promise and hope.  But Luke the evangelist knew that Mary's response was different. She was more open than most of us to the possibility that God might approach us and speak to us.  As such, she becomes the bearer of God.  

Most of us, most of the time, doubt that God speaks.  And angels? We speak of them whenever we manage to avoid an accident; as in "my guardian angel was watching out for me".  But angels do not confront us.  Not even in church! We maintain distance between us and God.  Our story is more like Zechariah the priest;  Here's his story, also from the first chapter of Luke's gospel:  

arrival signs

I don’t travel much.  Not a business traveler.  I have gone away for extended continuing education or other ministry trips; New Orleans, Detroit.  I went to Puerto Rico once in college--my only trip off the mainland.  But it looks like I’m going to Ft. Myers Fla in Febuary for an ELCA World Hunger leaders gathering. Anyway, I’m never gone that long.  My parents rarely traveled either, farmers are rooted to their land.  So I haven’t experienced the feeling of being welcomed home or welcoming someone after a long time apart.  I have this image of coming off an airplane and coming down an escalator and someone holding a sign up with my name on it.  Mr. Lenahan.  Someone waiting for my arrival.  Or maybe a party waiting for my arrival.  I wonder if going to heaven is like that? Escalator reversed, robed apostles and angels waiting at the gate, Peter holding the sign, no baggage to claim—not lost luggage, just unnecessary. I guess some of us view heaven as an arrival, a homecoming.   

Yesterday’s Lancaster newspaper had a front page article about a surprise homecoming for a local family at Clay elementary school this week.  Two kids whose mom has been deployed in Iraq for about  a year received a huge surprise at an assembly where they unwrapped a refrigerator box present to find that the prize they had “won” was their mom’s early discharge.  I think about family’s with loved ones on deployment waiting for that person to come home.  For a year they carry a sign around in their hearts and minds with “mom”, or “Dad”, “spouse”,  or “son”, or “daughter” on it. Advent is about waiting for someone to come. So, what does that feel like?  I guess to get at that we need to dig into our own personal stuff a little. So...      

headlines

Who reads the newspaper?  Daily or weekly?  We get the Saturday and Sunday news at my house.  Newspapers are dying.  People get their news electronically today.  They don’t need newspapers.  Readerships are down.  I heard about it on Marketplace report on NPR the other night.  They said that newspapers are losing the loyal older population faster than expected and they don’t know how to attract the younger crowd.  Wow.  Sounds like a lot of Christianity has the same problem. The medium in which we share the news is not retaining and attracting newer, younger people.  Newspaper is a 500 year- old- invention. So are Lutherans.  Advent is about new beginnings, fresh imagination for what life in this world can and should be like.  We want this season to be about nostalgia, but it is not.  It is about change, new beginnings, renewal from the inside-out. 

John the baptist was calling for radical life change.  A baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, according to the gospel of Mark.  He was not only talking about my bad deeds or your wicked thoughts.  He knew that the world had gone to hell in a hand basket.  The whole world, from top to bottom. Things needed to change, whole cloth.  We’re talking more like sweeping revolution than cleaning up spilled milk.    

John knew the headlines, the news stories of his day.  They probably went something like this:

“Herod builds new palace.  300 homes are torn down to begin new construction.  Displaced families seek shelter in city.”

 “Herod seen on the town with his brother’s wife. Scandal rocks the north country.”  

“Emperor raising taxes to build better roads.” 

“More Roman soldiers occupy Jerusalem.”

 “Poverty rate increases in Palestine. Children are worse affected.”

“Temple reconstruction at its height.  New baths rivaling the roman style are installed for out-of-town guests.”

“ Religious leaders seek to cool zealous radicals.”

Some of these headlines may sound familiar. The news doesn't change much.  Power, wealth, suffering, violence.  Wouldn't it be nice to have a different headline?

the best character

Dear Church, just a reminder. In case you have forgotten.  The character that best personifies the holiday season is not Santa Claus.  (St. Nicholas, perhaps...mall Santa and his jolly gift-giving, not so much).  Santa is everywhere anymore. Every event, every location, every holiday party.  He's going to be at two different Burger Kings on Monday, at the same time!  You try to do that!  Amazing.  Santa is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of the Holiday.  From his "first official appearance" at the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade to his invisible presence on Christmas eve, Santa is here.   But Santa is not this season's main man.  Do you hear me?  Santa is NOT the person that embodies this holy season.  Santa is NOT God.
You are thinking: Obviously, it's Jesus. Put Christ back in Christmas--- blah,blah, blah! And, you are right, but not completely right.  Jesus is not the reason for the season.  Jesus is the life of the world yesterday, today, and forever.  Jesus is every season.  We cannot pin Jesus down to our time,to a date on the calendar (Dec. 25).  So, if not Jesus, who?

Prayer of the Day

Lord our God, grant that we may be ready to receive Christ when he comes in glory and to share in the banquet of heaven, where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

"...ready to receive Christ when he comes in glory..." This is church language.  What does it mean? I think, when we pray, we might want to understand what we are saying.  The context of this prayer is that the true KING and ruler of the earth is absent.  He is going to return, as when a King returns victorious from battle.  Coming in glory means that the King will return triumphant as the true and only ruler.  All will then see the King as their ruler. A great banquet to honor the King's return will commence, to which we hope to be the invited guests.     We must hear "Christ" as a royal title.  The bible espouses to a divine monarchy, on which Jesus--the crucified and risen King--is enthroned as ruler forever.
In a free democracy, pledging allegiance to a monarch seems archaic.  But, a divine monarchy, in which one perfect and just King is enthroned forever is the bible's political persuasion.
In Advent, we imagine the return of the King to restore order and peace.

praying

Praying is, well, strange.  For many of us, our prayer life consists of a sort of informal conversation with God.  I say "sort of" because it's not really a conversation.  It's more like a therapy session, whereby God is the listener/therapist and we are the clients.  The conversation is one-sided for a lot of us.  How does one become the listener in that conversation?  Someone once said, "When I tell people that I speak to God, they call me a saint.  When I tell people, God spoke to me they call me a lunatic."  But the motto of the United Church of Christ is "God is still speaking..."  At any rate, the informal conversation with God thing has been touted as the sign that one's prayer is sincere, personal, and meaningful. Rote prayers, ritualized, fixed, written, or liturgical prayer have been maligned as insincere, impersonal, and lacking proper expression. But you know that we talk about prayer more than we actually pray. Because we don't know how to pray.  We want to think it's easy, but it is not.  It is unnatural and takes practice.  Prayer is more like learning a foreign language than chatting with an old buddy.