Competition in the Church

Dear Church,
We are a people obsessed with winning.  I enjoyed the Summer Olympics in London as much as anyone, I suppose.  I rooted for the USA and enjoyed watching some amazing athletic performances.  More than a few times I wondered aloud, "How did they do that?" Competition is fun.  But it is also a way of life for a lot of people. It is how they view the world.  It is the mechanism that drives progress and builds empires.  It weeds out undesirables and favors the strong, the beautiful, the intelligent.  When there are winners, there are losers.  We know which team we prefer to play on or cheer for.  
I get that we live in a competitive, market-driven world. I get the temptation that comes with success in the market place.  I see how churches connect to this view and adopt it as a strategy for successful growth.  For us, our share of the market has to do with the number of people connected to our respective religious assembles. If a congregation is successful numerically, that may also be a sign of divine endorsement, which becomes a useful marketing tool.  Sort of like restaurants posting awards or recognitions like "voted best burger in Washington DC".  Churches boast about attendance, programs, and charismatic leaders in order to increase their marketability.  Churches use language like "relevant", "progressive", "innovative", and "awesome" to attract others.  But is this the language of Jesus and his first followers?

Five More Things Jesus Actually Said

1.  "The Kingdom of heaven is like a man who went out and sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping,an enemy went out and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away." Matthew 13:24.
What Jesus meant:  The problem of evil is a problem precisely because we cannot understand why a benevolent God would permit evil to happen.  We assign blame. We say that evil is a sign of God's judgment on an individual, a community, a nation. We say that God is responsible for the good and the bad.  We say things like "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away."  Jesus' story about the kingdom of heaven says otherwise.  There is an opposition force at work and a rebellion taking place in God's kingdom(the heavens and the earth).  God is loathe to stop it because of the negative implications that would have on what God has "sown".  The enemy is stealthy and does his work "while everyone was sleeping." According to Jesus' story, the ending involves the fiery destruction of the weeds and a gathering of the wheat. God's purifying love allows for a fruitful harvest despite the weeds that grow up in the "garden".   God is good.  Bad things happen.  They do not have the last word, the final say.  There is a good future in store. This is not saying bad people go to hell and good people go to heaven.  Jesus is saying that all wickedness will be destroyed, burned away.What will remain in the end is goodness in the garden.
2."Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life"...  "For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through him." John 3:15, 17.    Everyone knows John 3:16. Not everyone knows John 3:15 or 17.  The context of these verses is a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, a Jewish biblical scholar and religious leader who was perplexed by Jesus' teachings.  John, the gospel writer, is saying that Jesus' death on the cross was analogous with the story of the serpents from the book of Numbers.  A rebellion against God inthe wilderness leads to suffering and death, until God gives the people an antidote.  The rub is this:  People rebel against God's ways. The result is death.  God's intent is life.  God's agency alone saves us from ourselves.  God comes to us, participates in our suffering and death, and therefore infuses death itself with God's own life.  God attaches himself to death so that no barrier exists between us and God; neither our rebellion, nor the consequences result in separation from God.  When we see that God is present to us in suffering and death, we are saved.  Because faith is believing in things that have been hidden.
3. "Go and do likewise." Luke 10.  Mercy means to sacrifice one's own self to come to the aid of another. Mercy is most Godlike when it is offered to a stranger, an enemy, an outcast.  Mercy is expressed in one-to-one relationships between people divided by race, culture, ethnicity, or language.  The Good Samaritan is a story about how a Palestinian Arab from the west bank illegally crosses a border into Israel to help a victim of a crime (a crime I imagine is perpetrated by other Israelites).  The Arab provides medical attention, lodging, and additional care for the man before fleeing back to the safety of the west bank. When he arrives at the border, the guards stop him and ask him what he is doing in Israel.  When he tells them the story, the guards do not believe him. So they arrest him for illegally crossing the border and he is thrown in jail.  This is the Jesus' intent.  His command to go and do likewise shows that mercy is more important than personal safety.
4.  "Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined and a house divided against itself cannot stand." Mark 3, Matthew 12, Luke 11.  Quoted by Lincoln in an address on slavery in 1858 at the republican convention.  In its original context, Jesus was addressing people who sought to damage his reputation by claiming that the source of his power was malevolent, satanic, evil.  If you are combating evil with goodness, hatred with love, discord with peace, sickness and injury with healing and restoration, hunger with food, and death with life then you are not responsible for the cause of suffering.  God does not cause suffering in order to resolve it. Bad things don't happen for a reason.  They do not serve God's purposes. Jesus and God are united in a common mission to restore order, beauty, and peace to God's creation.
5.  "If anyone of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."  John 8:7.  The law demands retributive justice, condemnation, and punishment.  Jesus demands forgiveness and freedom.  A law that condemns a woman for sexual sin and does not condemn the man for the same crime is misogynistic and ungodly.  Grace releases us from punishment under the law.  No one is without sin.  We cannot uphold God's justice, God's demands, God's intentions.  We fail.  Because of Jesus our failures are not counted against us.  Jesus' kind of justice sets us free from condemnation and punishment.  As such, we ought to set others free from punishment and condemnation.  In so doing, we give people a chance to be human again, more than the sum total of their mistakes.
 

5 more things Jesus actually said

1. "Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven." And like it: "Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well." Matthew 9:2 and 9:22.
What Jesus meant.  Healing is intimate and personal. It starts with an acknowledgment of one's identity.  Jesus sees a man, not as a paralytic, but as a son.  He sees a woman, not as someone with a blood disease, but as a daughter.  Disease can become one's identity. Think of cancer or HIV/AIDS.  Jesus restores personhood, childhood, relationship.  And he releases them from the root cause of their suffering; alienation, guilt, abuse.  How can we restore someone's dignity and humanity when they are suffering with illness or injury?  Tell them they are God's children. See them as children.
Also, healing seems to have a lot to do with one's capacity to trust God. When one trusts God, the giver of life, nothing threatens you.
2.   "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile." Mark 6:31.
What Jesus meant.  Life is more than the sum total of one's achievements and accomplishments.  Work and productivity do not alone give life meaning.  Rest that is granted after a day of labor is an essential part of a healthy rhythm.  Sabbath-keeping, according to Jesus, is not about legally forcing people to take a day off and go to church.  Sabbath is a gift to replenish the weary body, mind, and spirit. And we all need it.  We need to rest daily and weekly. And we all need to engage in some meaningful work; work that benefits others and promotes well-being.  Work that affirms and gives dignity to others.  Work that provides for the needs of others.This work may be professional or paid work.  But for many people, meaningful work will be volunteer service.  Jesus invites people to rest with him. How can we develop a rhythm that includes rest for our bodies, minds, and spirits every week?
3.  "You give them something to eat." Mark 6:37.
What Jesus meant.  You look at the world's economy and see scarcity.  You have been trained to believe that there is not enough for everyone and that one must acquire more in order to survive.  You have been taught to consume first and share second.  Jesus looks at God's world and sees abundance.  Jesus sees more than enough for all.  He invites us to share first and consume second, because he knows that there will always be more.  Those of us who have food are obligated to share with those who do not have food.  As a rule, never eat alone.  Always find company and share.  Life is better (and food tastes better) when we do.
4. "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who does not take his cross and follow is not worthy of me." Matthew 10:37.
What Jesus meant.  In Jesus's 1st century world, the family was the source and center of a stable and sustainable life.  Without one's family, you had nothing.  So, this message is a radical departure from common sense and conventional wisdom.  Does Jesus invite people to abandon family life?  I don't think so.  But Jesus is creating a new culture and a new kind of community.  Life with Jesus is demanding and requires one's full attention and allegiance. We allow so many other people and things to place demands upon us, to which we readily submit.  We are surrendered to many systems that demand our allegiance and loyalty.  Those systems, however, are not as forgiving and gracious as Jesus. (Try not paying your mortgage and see what happens to your house.) So, if you serve Jesus do not expect life to be easy, heavenly, or more prosperous.  Jesus does not promise blessings.  He promises the cross.  If you like a challenge, an adventure, and a way to live that promises a few surprises, join Jesus. A new kind of family, community, culture and sense of belonging emerges when one connects to Jesus.
5. "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Matthew 8:26. Jesus calmed storms that threatened his disciples.  While they tremble in fear because of the storm, Jesus slept on a cushion. He seemed fearless. We have been taught to fear so many things.  Invisible threats; from diseases to terrorists.  We fear death.  We fear poverty.  We fear suffering.  Jesus claims that faith diminishes fear.  How does Jesus experience calm in the midst of a storm? Is his reality different from ours?  What does he see and know that we do not?  Eternal peace?  A love stronger than death?                

Chick-fil-a and the Bread of Life

What are you hungry for?   Have you ever stood in your well-stocked kitchen or sat at a restaurant to decide what to get on the menu and asked that question of yourself?  What am I hungry for?  Sometimes when we offer a certain meal or snack to our children they respond, “I’m not hungry for that.”  I think we are confused about the difference between hunger and self-indulgence.  For many of us, access to more than enough food is not a problem we face.  But this church has met the face of food insecurity here. We know people who struggle to put food on their tables.    If Christianity were the Olympics, fasting would not be not our best event.   We are told that it is not healthy to skip meals. So we don’t.  And we don’t think it’s right if anyone is forced to skip meals because of their circumstances here. So we feed people.  This church is a food relief site inspiring other churches to become food relief sites, too.  Jesus fed hungry people and so do we. 

This week food and faith made the news.  Some Christians or Republicans decided to make chick fil-a some more money by eating there on Wednesday as a sign of moral unity with the COO of the restaurant chain, who spoke out in opposition to same sex marriage in an interview last week.  Apparently there were crowds at chick fil-a on Rt. 30. On Friday a counter protest was launched. Apparently one man from Quarryville quietly picketed the same chick fil-a.  He is a gay man and he carried a sign that said choose empathy.  One man against the crowd. I ask you: Where was Jesus in that story?

what Jesus actually said

People say things in the name of Christianity all the time.  Some of those things are not true.  Some of them are slanderous.  Some of the things they say hurt the gospel, because their words are not good news. Today I am posting five things Jesus actually said. Then I am commenting on them by saying what I think Jesus meant. If you read my comments and wonder how I know what Jesus meant, especially if you disagree with me, all I can say is that I have known Jesus for a little while. I don't know exactly what he meant. I also do not fully understand the context and culture in which he said them, being that Jesus original audience was 1st century Palestine/Israel and I am a 21st century American. What I hope you hear, though, is Jesus speaking from a place of compassion and mercy, with a heart for the least, the poor, and the oppressed minority of his day. Not everyone claiming to speak in His name does the same.


1. ‎"In everything do to others as you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets."Matthew 7:12. 
What Jesus meant. As a rule, your behavior toward others ought to be determined by an honest self-assessment of the ways you wish to be treated by others. Do you wish to be assaulted, maligned, rejected, slandered, humiliated, cursed, forgotten, ignored, misinterpreted, falsely accused, scoffed at, demonized, and abused? I doubt that very much. The entire message of the bible comes down to whether or not your treatment of others reflects the way you expect to be treated. 


2. "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and wealth." Matthew 6:24. 
What Jesus meant: you are fully devoted to one thing. What or who is it? To whom do you answer, who do you serve? Yourself? Your bank account? Your household? Your job? Where does your time, energy, and loyalty lie? If you say you are devoted to God, how would anyone know it?  


3.  ‎"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?" Matthew 6:25. 
What Jesus meant: You spend a lot of time shopping for food and clothing, don't you? I suspect you are more consumed by the questions about food and clothing than about any other thing. Thoughts about them pervade your mind all day long. What will I eat? Where will I get it? What will I wear? You know. STOP IT! Do you not have enough already? If you are truly lacking these things, seek God's kingdom and you will find them. And where is God's kingdom found? In generosity, compassion, loving service... 


4.  Jesus said, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." Matthew 4:19.
What Jesus meant: Your skills, your abilities, your preoccupations, your hobbies, your passions, your interests can be put to use in the ongoing work of God's creation. Through your daily work, you can draw others closer to God. When what you love to do enhances the lives of others, you are doing the work of God. When your skills are put to use to bring health, peace, relief from suffering, joy, and/or beauty to people, you are following Jesus.


5.  Jesus said, "I do choose. Be made clean." Matthew 8:3.
Healing and health care is more than a physical act.  Curing disease is good.  But it is not the only way to achieve a healthy life.  Health is also about belonging and acceptance into the larger community and its benefits.  Isolation is the root cause of a lot of suffering.  We live in an isolating culture. We isolate the sick, the elderly, and those whose skin is different from "ours", even if we do not consider ourselves racially biased.  Jesus, on the other hand, chooses to connect with and offer healing to the very people we neglect, abandon, or discard. He chooses to touch people, because in so doing they are reconnected to humanity, both theirs and ours. When Jesus heals, their humanity is acknowledged and restored. Even more than physical healing, people need to be touched by someone else as an act of corporate solidarity. We are more alike than different.  We are more alive together than we are apart.  We need each other in ways we rarely recognize. Jesus chooses to make us clean, whole, complete people.  When we choose to do the same for others, we embody the compassion of Jesus.        

an either/or Christian

I am not an either/or Christian. Luther said Christians are 100% Sinner and 100% Saint all the time. This describes both my moral failures and my moral goodness. At the National ELCA Youth Gathering last week, Lutheran Pastor Nadia Bolz Weber said that it describes her enormous capacity for self-destruction and her enormous capacity to be kind and generous too. I know that within myself; I make huge mistakes and I do really good things for others. I cannot escape this lived reality. There is good and bad in me. Nevertheless, Jesus death and resurrection restores my true self and my relationship with God the Father. Christians with an either/or morality mentality do not get Jesus yet.  They think that one's behavior defines one's relationship with God.  They think "salvation" is a personal state of reality contingent upon my willingness to believe and do the right things. I believe that I cannot believe in Jesus Christ without the help of the Holy Spirit in me.  In other words, I cannot get to God, but God can get to me. There is something so powerful and good knowing that God chooses to love us, even though we are messed up. Unconditional love is the power behind Christianity, not moral rectitude.       

a steady stillness

In order for a 2,000 year-old story to speak to us today, we have to look for consistencies, points of connection.  The first and 21^st century have a few things in common: Chaotic times characterized by political and religious turmoil, a widening gap between the wealthy and the poor, war, negative stigmatization of certain diseases, illnesses, or social behaviors, suffering caused by poverty---all things we see addressed by Jesus in the gospels.  All things that continue to plague the world.   Knowing that there are similarities begs the question, has anything changed?  Sure, there has been a lot of progress.  But that progress has not always reduced suffering, sometimes causing greater suffering in the world.  In 2 millenia, what difference has Christian faith made?  What has Jesus accomplished?  We have to admit that sometimes it seems like God is asleep at the wheel, that God does not care about the circumstances of life that threaten to overwhelm us, to drown us, to destroy us.  Sometimes God’s invisible presence is not enough, God’s silence is inadequate, God’s ambivalence toward evil and suffering is downright disturbing.  There are days when we feel like life is out of control and no one is steering.  When people of faith are engulfed in fear, we turn from God in search of safer waters. We isolate. We shop.  We eat.  We self-medicate.  We seek entertainment to distract.  Rarely, do we pause and reflect on the state of anxiety or fear in which we find ourselves.  We are avoiders.  

At the end of the book of Job, the man whose life was characterized by meaningless suffering endures a verbal assault from God the creator, who has heard Job’s cries, his laments, his quest for meaning.  This book is about a man who cannot avoid His sufferings, but seeks to address the cause of them with His God and a few friends.  In the end, God tells Job that there is an important distinction to be drawn between Job’s mortality and God’s immortal presence.  Job is a creature, subject to all of the qualities of creaturehood—good and bad.  God is not subject to the powers of mortality, the fear and anxiety that accompany vulnerability and the fragility of life.  And yet, God is not unmoved by our suffering.  The bible consistently tells us that God is a deliverer, a healer, a redeemer, and help in time of trouble.   The bible claims that God is personally invested in peace.  And yet we remain vulnerable and afraid. 

the third way. church for the rest of us, part 1

I live in a beautiful part of central Pennsylvania.  Lancaster County is known for the anabaptist community, especially the Amish.  It is known for farm preservation and conservative politics.
In Lancaster County, there are two primary ways of religious expression: Conservative American Evangelicalism or non-practicing, non-religious.  I am neither of these two things.  I am a practicing religious Christian and I am not a conservative evangelical.  Sometimes I feel that I have more in common with non-practicing peers than with my religious friends.  There are a few progressive mainline churches, even within the Mennonite community.  But these are not the most prominent religious identification  in the county.  First, I intend to unpack some things about the religious community.

on spiritual poverty. a public manifesto part 1.

Poverty is unattractive.  It is not a word with which people hope to be identified.  In our culture, being poor is tantamount to having leprosy or gangrene.  Poverty is a political hot button in an election year when the domestic economy is the key issue.  How can one avoid becoming aligned with the poor and appear not to neglect the poor? Government support, the so called safety net programs, is under scrutiny.  Many politicians would like to reduce or eliminate these programs.  Christians should be concerned about federal budgets that increase military or defense spending, but reduce spending to help the poor. But we have been party to that logic for a few decades now.  And Christians are not outraged. The majority of us are not poor and those of us who are poor do not have a voice.  So, with rare exception, Christians do not share one mind or one voice on poverty and the poor.    

I have said before that I have come to see poverty as deeply systemic and broader than financial sufficiency.  There are wealthy people who are impoverished in their relationship toward God and others.  There are financially poor people who are rich toward God and others. There is a spiritual poverty that can accompany financial poverty or wealth.  Spiritual poverty is at work in every aspect of health; mental, physical, and relational/emotional. But Americans have privatized spiritual matters to the extent that we do not see the connection between God and wealth.  We do not correlate spiritual poverty and other presenting issues.  We don't have the diagnostic tools to recognize how our spiritual condition affects the life we are living.  We have marginalized or ignored those people who have those tools.  We prefer to listen to people with a positive message.  We only appreciate the power of positive thinking and our ability to tune out negative voices.  Avoidance,denial, and self-medication to amelioriate pain is the name of the game.  Because pain relief is the key to life.  We thing that acknowledging the poverty in our lives is acknowledging failure, weakness, and insufficiency. BUT, avoidance is costing us our very souls! (Not the 'going to burn in hell for eternity' cost; but the 'quiet acquiescence to the hellish brutality that is life on earth' cost.)

A brief history of the Holy Spirit

Creation.  God’s Spirit hovers over the waters.  The wisdom and imagination of God is set loose to make the worlds.  Prophecy.  God’s Spirit inspires preachers to call God’s people to account for sin and to imagine an age to come when all the people of the earth will worship God in unity and peace.  Jesus.  The breath of the Spirit leaves his body on the cross and enters the disciples hearts, filling them with peace.  Pentecost.  The sending of the Holy Spirit fanned the flames of fledgling faith into a wildfire of witness and service in the name of the risen Lord Jesus.   Jesus’ disciples became public witnesses, announcing that God has indeed inaugurated a new age through the death and resurrection of His son, Jesus of Nazareth.  This new age will be characterized by love, peace, and mercy for the sinner and the outcast.  The promise of eternal life with God gave them confidence to face trials and death with hope and courage.  They boldly and passionately called God’s people to believe in Him and walk in His ways.  They demonstrated the Spirit’s power with stories of Jesus and miracles.  People are healed.  Widows are fed.  And the community of believers grows and expands, reaching from the margins of the Roman empire to its very center—Rome itself!  In one generation, this Jewish messianic movement becomes an unstoppable global phenomenon.  The first three centuries of the Christian movement was the age of belief.  The gospel story was told and demonstrated by faithful Christians, who made a difference in the lives of non-believers.  They too became believers, who began to adhere to this community of the resurrection.  Baptism, Eucharist, prayer, and giving marked the life of the believer.  There was a clear distinction between the Christian community and the non-Christian community.  Believing in Jesus was a mark of distinction that subjected you to persecution, and maybe even death.  Believers met in secret.  Despite the hardship, the movement grew rapidly.  Believing in Jesus and belonging to His church mattered.  Through the Spirit people experienced the presence of God and the flourishing of life. 

soil

We have been gardening for about three years now. We have a tilled plot of about 600 square feet in the back corner of our property.  The trouble is our soil is terrible.  We have no topsoil, only rocky ground.  I suspect that the builder/ developer sold the topsoil when they cleared the land for this development, leaving some homeowners with a problem.   I spent a couple of days last week amending the soil in my garden. The area was overgrown with weeds, leaves, and rocky debris.   Topsoil is so essential in plant growth. We can’t even grow grass in our rocky soil.  When the sun heats the ground, the grass withers and browns.  On the plus side, I don’t have to mow my lawn from late June until late September.  (Thanks to a warm winter, however, I stopped mowing in December and started mowing in early March this year).   So, in order to grow a better garden this spring, I trucked in a load of topsoil to cover the entire area.  I pulled all the weeds, tilled the ground, and raked out the rocks.  Adding a layer of topsoil, along with the compost we made all winter, has restored the garden.  It looks like the rest of the farmland in Lancaster County---dark brown, fertile soil ready for planting.  I know that this good soil will receive seeds and foster wonderful vegetation that will yield good vegetables for our consumption this coming season.  This soil will give us tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, squash, cucumbers, green beans, sweet corn, and a few other vegetables and herbs.  Growing up on the farm taught me the importance of soil and the proper care for it.  I spent a lot of time in fields as a kid.  Dirt is in my blood.  I know that some of you love gardening, grew up on farms, and appreciate good soil too. 

There is a hymn called “Lord let my heart be good soil”. The text is: “Lord let my heart be good soil, open to the seed of your word.  Lord, let my heart be good soil, where love can grow and peace is understood.  When my heart is hard, break the stone away.  When my heart is cold, warm it with the day. When my heart is lost, lead me on your way.  Lord, let my heart, Lord, let me heart, Lord let my heart, be good soil.”  The soil analogy works for people who know the difference between good and bad soil.  Jesus’ knew the difference and so should we.  Christians ought to have a connection with the land, because it teaches us about God, growth, and grace. 

Jesus’ parable of the sower in Mark 4:  “He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: 3 “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.”  Good soil is essential to crop production.  Eroded soil, rocky soil, and thorny ground all prevent plant growth.  In Jesus’ interpretation  of this story, Jesus compares the way people receive God’s Word with the way the four different soil types receive the seed.    How do you receive God’s Word?  Are you open to God’s voice, God’s commandments, God’s promises?  I suspect many of us are like the seed that fell among the thorns.  The worries and changes of life choke out the word, like weeds in the garden.  And so no fruit grows.  God wants His people to be receptive to His Word because God’s Word produces fruit in our lives.  God’s Word produces peace, joy, love, faith, compassion toward others, generosity, gentleness, kindness, and self-discipline.   God’s Word produces Christ-like behavior and an attitude of grace and thanksgiving.  But, our hearts can be hard or full of weeds. When the soil becomes too dry and sun scorched, nothing grows.  Spiritual dehydration occurs when we ignore the promise of Baptism over our lives, failing to identify with Christ and the church.  Many people have ignored the work of spiritual cultivation and find themselves facing stones and weeds where little vegetation grows.   How does one amend the soil of the heart?

Weekly worship, prayer, and serving others cultivate and nourish the soil of the Spirit.  When we are rooted in the Word and Sacrament community, the soil of our hearts becomes a place where God can grow His love, His peace, His joy.   If the soil of your heart needs amended, come to the master gardener’s workshop.  He’s available anytime, but the soil workshop is in session on Sundays at 9:30 am. 

Hope to see you there.  May God’s garden, the church, grow and produce the fruit of life this season.  

    

transcendence

When was the last time you experienced a moment of transcendence?  You know, some awe-inspiring experience that made you affirm your belief in God.  Maybe it was something beautiful—music or the natural world do that for me.  Or maybe it was an experience with someone else.  Love, friendship, joy.  Transcendence cannot be created, it is not man made.  It happens to us.  It captures us.  Excites us or gives us a deep sense of peace.  It sometimes surprises us.  When it happens you may tear up or laugh or become silent.  You may shout aloud as when the Phillies win, which this year may require transcendence.  If you cannot recall a transcendent moment or if you are not sure if you have had on before, I am sorry.  Again, they are not contrived or man made.  They happen. Like a beautiful sunset when you are in the right place at the right time.  Transcendence is hard to describe to someone else because they just had to be there.  The feeling that it creates cannot be easily reproduced in the telling of the thing. And so telling someone else about it is often counterproductive because, as much as you’d like the other to share the experience, they cannot.  And so the telling can become a downer for both you and the hearer.  Nevertheless, transcendence happens.  I read a story just this week...

the ending of the story

Have you ever gotten to the end of a good book or a good movie and said, “Really, that’s it?”  Some endings do not satisfy us.  We need closure.  Living in the middle of our own stories we may wonder how it’s going to turn out. In the first half of life you may wonder, will we win that soccer game?  Will I graduate, get into a good college, get a job, be successful, get married?  In the second half of life you may wonder, will I raise children well?  Will I be healthy, live a long life, enjoy meaningful work, retire, enjoy  time with the people I love?  IN the twilight, you may wonder, how will I die and what really happens then? Will I be remembered?  Will the ones I love be okay?  Along the way, we face many threats, stresses, and things that cause pain. When things are going tragically wrong in our lives, we may become very discouraged.   We hear the nightly news or read the daily paper and wonder if the world’s story unfolding before us is a good story or a bad one.  It’s certainly a messy one, where violence threatens, the vulnerable are exploited, the weak suffer, and the innocent starve.  And in our own lives, we experience losses, disappointments, pain, grief, frustrations, fatigue, and failure.  We feel powerless and defenseless, so we seek escape from reality through entertainment, vacations, and self-indulgences.  Rather than face and address the world’s problems we run and hide, afraid to deal with reality.  Sometimes I think sleep is a daily escape from reality, in which we might dream alternative stories. Like the women at the tomb we accept the world as a tragic story, in which we play a small and insignificant role in its unfolding. We, therefore, attend to our own self-interests.  And we go about our business every day.  We show up, we weep at our losses, we bury our dead, we try to move on.  Along the way, some good things happen to us, for us, because of us.  We may even be grateful for those moments.  But despite the good we are permitted to give and to receive, we are not all that optimistic.  We wait with expectancy for more bad news to come.  And it does. We become desensitized to it, so much so that we don’t even think about  the future very much.  It produces anxiety anyway.  The future is an enigma, a mystery we dare not speak about.  With live with deep uncertainty.  We have no imagination, no energy left to generate what we need the most.  A future colored with HOPE.  

The women fled the tomb and said nothing to no one for they were afraid.  The end.  Really?  That’s the best Mark could do with this story.  No resurrection appearances.  No sharing of the good news.  No rejoicing.  No lilies.  No majestic hymns like the one’s we sing today.  Easter is characterized by an empty tomb, the interpretation of a stranger, and a couple of frightened women running away.  Hardly credible testimony.  Mark leaves us not sure what to believe.  Of course Mark’s entire story from beginning to end is like this:  The people who should believe, don’t get Jesus. And the people who do get Jesus, are not credible witnesses.  A demon-possessed man and a Roman centurion offer the best testimony to Jesus’ identity.  Hardly believable.  His own disciples abandoned him, denied him, betrayed him.  They surely did not believe him when he said that he would suffer, die, and be raised.  They believed that their own failure was the end of their story.  They believed the building of the new Kingdom project failed on Friday afternoon, when the cross finished its work and Jesus’ breathed his last.  And so the gospel ends in failure.  Except…

There is one character in this story who may yet come to believe that God raised Jesus from the dead,  One character who may be bold enough to tell others that they believe it too.  There is one character who may stake their own lives on the validity of this story without evidence or credible testimony to back it up.  One character left, on whom the writer depend to keep this story alive and let it shape their lives and the future of the world.  There is a character who sees hope in this story about an empty tomb and the declaration of a nameless stranger.  Who?

You. What this world needs more than anything is a storyteller that creates the capacity to hope.  The capacity to imagine a world that is not just falling apart, not just drifting in space, not just overrun by evil, greed,  decay, suffering, and death.  What the world needs is people who believe that, if there is a GOD, and if that God is good, and if good will overcome evil, then this GOD must first make good on a promise by raising Jesus of Nazareth from the dead. Because if his life was truly a great life, an abundant life, a life worth imitating; then his violent death must not be the end of his story.  We need a story, a dream really,  that promotes the power of healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation of broken relationships.  We need a story that encourages  non-violent solutions to major human strife, the possibility for real change of hearts and minds, and the strength of love to make a broken world new and whole again. We need to imagine a world after death, a world after suffering, a world after injustice. We need to envision an empty tomb and a promise that the crucified one is on the move, in the world, bringing resurrection life and hope to everyone and every thing he touches.  Because when your life has been touched by his, everything changes. Everything old is being made new, everything lost will be found, everyone who dies will be restored to life again.  The women in Mark's gospel said nothing to no one.  In response, this is our mission; Say Something to Someone today. Do not be afraid. Share the good news.  Alleluia! Christ is risen.  Amen.   

Losers and Winners

IN the news:  “Who are the lucky three? That was a common question on the minds of all the rest of us Mega Millions losers on Saturday after lottery officials announced that three lottery tickets sold in Kansas, Illinois and Maryland hit the world record-breaking $640 million jackpot. The morning after the drawing, most Americans were left with dashed fantasies of what they would have done with more than half a billion dollars.  In New York City, Sean Flaherty hoped to trade in some of his 12-hour days working as a video game tester to spend more time with his wife and daughter.

"I knew that when I bought the ticket, that I wouldn't win," Flaherty said Saturday. "But I did it anyhow. Because, I don't know, it would be like Christmas." Sean is a loser.  His important life’s work testing video games keeps him away from his wife and daughter. And now he has lost the lottery.  Sorry Sean. 

Did any of you play the Megamillions lottery.  $640 Million is a lot of money.  Remember when a million was a lot? If you’re not approaching a billion these days, you’re not winning.  We assume that more is better, that having the most is the best.  I did not play the lottery.  Never do.  Maybe we Lutherans should get in the game, though.  If all of us bought ten lottery tickets with the promise that the winning ticket-buyer keeps 10% and gives away the rest, we could collectively bail out the Lutheran church in America.  Apparently there are three winners.  I Doubt that they are thinking about contributing to the Lutheran church.  How many people spent money to buy tickets, knowing the odds were not in their favor, with the dream that they would win, believing that winning the lottery is a ticket to a better life.  Like the man said: it would be like Christmas.  Because Christmas is all about acquiring more, which is the meaning of life.

There are always winners and always losers.  Whether it’s the final four (Kentucky and Kansas) or the Civil War, we divide the world thus.  Winners have the power, the money, the record of success.  Their stories are told, so that they become example.  Sometimes winners in life are beloved, sometimes they are demonized.  No doubt Adolf Hittler succeeded. He ruled Germany and nearly the western world.  He successfully established a program to eliminate an entire population of people.  Now no one disagrees that Hitler’s atrocities were some of the very worst crimes against humanity.  But Hitler was popular and powerful.

When we think about the meaning of success, a successful person, what or who do you think of? Are you successful?  How we have come to define success and failure, winning and losing, is important.   I like how Presidents are elected here.  For a short time that person seems to garner the support of the people. That changes.  He is demonized, maybe even Hitlerized.  The four-year Presidents are the least memorable, defeated mid-term, as it is.  A new ruler rises and will also fall.  Do any of you believe that the next guy is going to be so much better than the one who came before?  Does history bear that logic out?  Or is it as likely that the next guy will fail us too?   

We see the rise and fall of successful people all the time.  One day they throw you a parade the next day they throw you under a bus.  Tiger Woods rose and fell.  If you’re lucky enough, they will let you make a comeback---because Americans love comeback stories and underdog stories.  We love rags to riches stories. We don’t like stories about losers who stay that way.  We don’t like tragedies. 

Before us is a tragic story in two parts.  Part one:  Jesus the Rabbi, compassionate Galillean healer and forgiver of sins is the King of the Jews.  The crowds shout in his honor:  HOSANNA in the Highest!  He is paraded into Jerusalem at Passover on a donkey.  He spends a week confronting the powers of the temple court and acting with authority and power, acting like a king. He leads a crusade to purify the temple, to restore the Kingdom of God. In so doing, he challenges the political system.  Part II:  He is betrayed for money by a friend, convicted by his peers at a mock trial, arrested, beaten, and presented before the crowds.  The crowds could spare his life.  They could stand behind the man they celebrated last weekend.  Instead they shout CRUCIFY.  They could rise up as an army to defend him.  Instead they abandon him to the real power of Pontius Pilate and the Roman military machine.  Their King is led away to the ultimate Roman punishment.  He is crucified outside the city during the Passover festival.  He dies on a Friday afternoon and is buried in a tomb.  Jesus loses.  He fails.  He dies. 

But Christians dare to believe that Jesus’ loss and death is our gain.  We dare to believe that his death is sacrificial and protects us from a meaningless death. Those who lose their lives for my sake will find it.  In a great reversal, a counterintuitive way, Jesus demonstrates the power of failure, the power of losing.  Could it be that our definitions of winning and losing, success and failure are reversed? 

What if sacrificial giving and a willingness to lay down your life for someone else characterized Christianity?  Too often Christianity has wanted to be on the wrong side of the winning/losing equation.  We have wanted to be MEGA church with money and youth and persuasive cultural powers. Not to mention the best music and coffee in town. 

 Jesus teaches the power of downward mobility.  To take the losers seat.  To be smallest, least, weakest, oldest, dying. For it is in losing that we find God.  Amen.  

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.