prophets and dreams

Based on Isaiah 11 and Matthew 3. 

For those who have decked the halls with boughs of holly and Christmas treed and twinkle lighted and wreathed and santa’ed their homes---you brood of vipers!!! Who told you to flee from the wrath to come?  A voice cries out “Prepare the way of the Lord!” and you hang LED lights on your garage?  You still prepare the wrong things for the one who is coming.  He does not come in a sleigh with toys.  Gift wrap, ornaments,  Bing Crosby, and egg nog do not have anything to do with the coming of the King.  But mark our words, he is coming and you cannot prepare for him or prevent him from showing up when you’re not looking.  When you’re dead asleep or out to lunch or in your car on the way to the dentist.  You have become so disenchanted by the long delay in his return that you fail to pay attention.  You’ve long lost hope or expectation.  You have accommodated your hearts to violence and war and mayhem and chaos and inequality and prejudice.  You are not aware.  He has already come.  He has landed. He has arrived.  He has invaded our space.  He has broken and entered in.  He is near.  Maybe here.   So I have come to announce him to you!  I have come to awaken you to his presence, to prepare you for his powerful entry.  There is inner work, soul work, spirit work, heart and mind work that has to be done.  Changed hearts will announce his reign.  For he will not tolerate apathy or lukewarm faith or cold hearts. So I must come to you as the prophet this week.  And perhaps for several more if you can bear it.   

The prophet spoke his or her “thus saith the Lord” with a rare confidence, not in himself or his audience or his voice, but in the message and from whom it came.   The prophet was, first, a hearer of God, a listener to God, a receiver of God, before he or she was a speaker for God.  And so the prophet speaks from a place of humility and awe.  The prophet sees the world as it is and the world as it could and shall be under God’s promised reign of peace.  The prophet tells the truth about our blindness and deafness to the treachery and villainy and destructive violence we perpetrate, condone, or ignore.  The prophet calls injustice what it is, thus offending all who walk in its ways.  The prophet anticipates, hopes, and points the way forward.  The prophet stands with the people in the wilderness, in the water, in the space between what is and what will be.  The prophet calls a people to turn away from their ways and follow another way.  To turn their backs on the way of destruction and embrace the way of creation.  To be part of the healing, part of the welcome, part of the uplifting of the poor and the meek, the despised and the displaced.  The prophet invites us, beckons us out of our comfortable, safe, sheltered, domestic lives of banks and grocery stores and Turkey Hills and minivans and rec centers and fast food chains and malls and vacations.   The prophet calls us, commands us, invites and challenges us into a new reality, a new vision, a new dream of another world. A world completely like and unlike the one we are in now.  The false prophet condemns others and sets himself above them.  The false prophet claims to know answers to unsolvable mysteries.  The false prophet speaks with too much clarity and impossible foreknowledge---often in a way that benefits himself.  The false prophet tells people, especially people with power and privilege what they want to hear.  Where the true prophet gives warning, the false prophet condemns.  The false prophet sells false hopes and secret wishes to vulnerable suckers dying for someone to promise them a better day will come to them.   The false prophets were the kings of fake news. But the true prophets spoke an honesty too horrible and too good to be true.  Yes, both the horrible and the good.  That is why they were despised.  They told the painful and wonderful truth about us.   

John had a dream. He dreamed that Isaiah’s prophecy was about to be fulfilled.  The peaceable kingdom, where predator and prey live in harmony with one another; where warriors lay down their weapons and take up hoes and spades; where a vulnerable child is immune to poisonous snakes and no harm or danger befalls God’s beautiful creation.  He dreamed this dream in the wilderness of the Jordan valley, a harsh desert land.  He knew predator and prey, both animals and humans.  For he knew the politics of Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great---unrighteous puppets of the gentile Roman overlords.  He knew the wealthy and powerful and how they abused their privilege to oppress and ruin the lives of Abrahams’ children.  He waited with Isaiah and all the prophets of old for a new David, a new King, a new anointed ruler to bring justice and peace to the people.  With eager anticipation, he announced what he saw and hoped it would end and begin. 

So do we.  We must inaugurate a new season of hope, in which we truly wait and anticipate and imagine another world---a better place, a heavenly dwelling in our midst.  We must imagine a time when all animals will be domestic.  Lions as housecats.  Wolves as puppy dogs.  We must imagine a day when a generation will only know war through ancient history books and museums full of guns and swords and cannons and grenades.  We must imagine a time when people will live free from violence, free from hunger, free from disease, free from thirst, free from drug addiction and sexual predators and armed robbers and political schemers, and relentless dictators.  We must imagine harmony.  Companionship.  Generosity.  Gentle stewardship of the earth and all its creatures.  We must imagine a farm, a garden, a fruitful land, a blessed harvest, in which men and women, Jew and Muslim, Christian and agnostic, African American worker and white CEO serve one another, working side by side.  And a child will lead them.  We need to be brave enough now to live into our hopes for a new world. So I took 6 children with me to a lunch with Muslim Americans.  The prophets are preparing the way of the LORD---a way of justice and peace for all the children of every race, tribe, culture, language, and faith.  May it be so, soon.  Come thou long expected Jesus, born to set your people free from our sins and fears-- release us, let us find our rest in thee. Amen.

Holy Encounters

Jacob's wrestling match; Joseph's dreams; Moses and the burning Bush; Elijah on the mountain; Early stories of biblical heroes include these holy encounters with the divine other, with the LORD.  They are usually transformative, life-altering experiences.  Jacob gets injured, get a new name, gets humble, and gets reunited with his brother.  Joseph becomes a victim of attempted fratricide, gets incarcerated, and gets promoted from model prisoner to economic advisor of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh.  Moses is chosen to lead God's people Israel out of Egyptian slavery, to freedom, through the wilderness, and to the promised land.  Elijah initiates the age of the prophets, God's messengers  to the powerful and proud, who call the nation to sorrow for sin/injustice, and remind the nation of God's covenant promise to be with them.
The premise of the New Testament gospels is that God encounters humans in the person of Jesus, the traveling Rabbi from Nazareth, Israel.  An encounter with Jesus is an encounter with God, because Jesus teaches with authority.  Jesus heals, shows mercy, declares the unclean clean, brings dignity and hope to the poor.  Jesus confronts satan, evil, and even death itself.  In his own body, Jesus experiences human suffering, sorrow, and grief.  He experiences pain and death itself.  But death encounters a more powerful force at work in Jesus, the power of God---the source and sustainer of life.
After Jesus, his followers collectively embody his presence through their words and actions.  They seek to imitate his ways, speak his words, continue his works.  As they do, those who encounter the church are transformed.  Baptism is part of this transformation, as people are physically united with Jesus in the water.  The old self is drowned, the new self emerges.  A new person is born. 
Christians encounter God at the table, where Jesus promised to become bread and wine.  So that we might take his life into our bodies, absorbing his powers to heal and forgive.  Like medicine, we are transformed, made well,  by the encounter with Jesus there.
Jesus also taught that God is present to us in the last, the least, the lost, the left out, and the losers.  Lepers, prisoners, the mentally ill, the blind and deaf, the poor, the meek, the peacemaker, the merciful---these embody the Spirit of Jesus, and therefore reveal God's nature to us.  A Samaritan who shows mercy to a wounded Jew becomes a person of peace who embodies Jesus.  Today, this might be represented by an Israeli soldier who puts down his weapon to assist a Palestinian Arab soldier who lie wounded on the streets of Jerusalem. Or a white police officer who attends a Black Lives Matter rally to walk in solidarity with the black community he serves and protects. 
Holy encounters occur daily.  Last week, I was invited to a luncheon for Muslims and Lutheran Christians.  We discovered a common hope for peace and a common desire to learn from each other.  We respect each others' faith practices and hope to find ways we can serve our neighbors.  I met several Muslim Men who want us to see them as friends, brothers, and people of compassion and peace. 
How do we know when we have experienced a holy encounter, a moment with God?  If we know the biblical stories, especially the story of Jesus, we can compare them.  I believe the bible is not a collection of stories about things that happened.  It is not merely historical.  Some of it is ahistorical, perhaps even mythological.  But the bible is also Word of God, alive, current, happening now.  The bible tells stories about our own life experiences.  We may not all have a burning bush, but we may be wrestling with our past selves.  We may be afraid and in need of assurance.  We may encounter the stranger, the other, even the perceived enemy, and find ourselves looking at the face of God.  This is biblical.  And it is an alternative to a prejudicial, exclusionary, protectionist worldview espoused by too many people.  It seems that the bible offers the world an alternative way of seeing ourselves and others.  It proposes brotherhood, harmony, neighbor, kinship, compassion, and welcome. 
This week, notice people and have a holy encounter.  See God approach you in the disguise of someone in need, someone generous, someone remarkably different from you.  See God in the face of the stranger, the newborn, or someone suffering. 
Realize that you may be a way in which someone else has a holy encounter too.  You may embody the goodness of God.  And if you do, the world gets brighter, safer, and more alive.    

coming soon

"Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” Gospel of Matthew, 24:42-44.

Advent has arrived.  Advent means arrival or coming.  So when we talk of Advent we are talking about an arrival.  This is a strange idea for most. The arrival of what or whom?  Advent is, for us, a season of the church’s year in preparation for Christmas.  For most people it does not exist on their calendars.  It has been replaced by decorating and shopping, Christmas music and food.  Chocolate.  That’s my holiday season.  Its characterized by the amount of chocolate I consume.  How awful is that?    The circle comes back around each year and we follow a pattern of tradition.  How many of you were innovative with thanksgiving this year?  Did something totally different than ever before, broke with tradition?  Like a program that keeps running, we simply do what we’ve done.  Lulled into the coma that is the holiday season.  We expect the same things.  That same person that was hard to shop for last year, still a pain in the rear.  Those lights you failed to put away properly last year, you’ll get them out again and fuss with them for four hours to hang them on the house.  There is monotony in these things.  And yet ,we are driven to do them.  Black Friday shopping.  We avoided it.  But millions of others are lured into that trainwreck of consumer frenzy.  Confess, some of you did it.   

For we too have largely joined the fray.  What is the difference between the secular observance of the holidays and the Christian observance?  After Thanksgiving, Christmas is pounding at our doors. Prepare for the birth of Jesus. This is what faithful Christians are doing, right?  We may even feel like our neighbors who are not practicing Christians have gotten on board the train, right?  They have that blow up lighted nativity in the yard already.  Complete with baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes.  It often feels like your trying to catch the Christmas train.  Get on board or you’ll miss it.  Get ready, hang on, its coming.  Only 28 days.   

We rush ahead in preparation for the wrong thing.  How does one prepare for an event that already happened?  This is why the first Sunday in Advent looks ahead, addresses future reality, offers up a vision for what has not yet come.  We are still waiting for something or someone.  And this is of dire importance.  For if all that God can do has already been done, then we are where we will be.  This is it, all we can expect, all we can hope for, the current state of things is just as they must and shall be.  And for some of us who know Christ and his mission, this is unacceptable nonsense.  Surely God is not finished yet with creation, with me, with you, with the great work of setting things right, with the restoration of justice and the doling out of divine mercy.  Surely, murder, mayhem, war and poverty, disease and hunger---surely this is not the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven.  

Think of a thing that you would like to set right but can’t.  Something that saddens you, frightens you, angers you.  For me, this is global hunger.  People, children, should not be hungry.  No one should suffer and die from hunger.  But they do.   It may be sex trafficking or refugees or homelessness or addiction or bank fraud.  What is the thing that haunts you, keeps you up at night?  If you had the magic wand, what would you fix, heal, change?  You and I have heard all of the promises of politicians for our entire lives.  No one, no elected leader has ended hunger, poverty, war, disease.  In fact, most have exacerbated these things.  Perpetual war.  That’s what we are in.  We are weary of their unkept promises.  No wonder there is such distaste for government.  And maybe even for church.  Does God keep promises?  Are there promises God has not kept?  For those of us who wait for the kingdom of God, there are.  Isaiah foretells them.  Matthew and Paul persuade the Christian community to keep awake, to be vigilant, to watch for God to act, to fulfill promise, to bring about that that for which we must hope.  They promise a day of crisis, like a thief in the night, a sudden disruption.  And yet, here we are.  Still waiting.  Might as well participate in the culture’s perpetual motion machine, do what they all do.  Decorate, Shop, eat.  Comfort, comfort my people.  Decorate, shop, eat.  Perhaps, we have lost our distinctive witness, our holy character, our faith in the Lord’s promises.  Perhaps this is why fewer people participate with us in Advent.  We do what they do and have to get up on Sunday mornings?  We have been lulled to sleep by cheap goods, shiny things, and rich foods.  We have been put in the coma of low expectations and acceptance of this world and all its sufferings.  We have been knocked unconscious by accepting reality as it is.  Idealism, hope---lost.  We fail to see that in every crisis, every disruption, every subtle change, Christ comes for us to awaken us to His saving work.   

Advent calls to us with this mystery.  His coming again.  Jesus’ work is incomplete, unfinished.  He has destroyed the power of sin, but has not erased its consequences---injustice, suffering, death.  We live in between what was and what will be.  We are those called to embody God’s promised future by faith.  We are those called to reveal a hope that is so unreal, so charming, so imaginative that we might be called dreamers, prophets, saints of God.  We are light in darkness. We are peace in the midst of violence.  We are sanctuary in times of chaos and despair.  We are love and joy.  Advent means arrival.  What if, instead of us waiting for Jesus to come back, advent is about the world waiting for the church to show up and be the church?  What if the second coming is about the body of Christ arriving on the scene here and now?  What if we wait for Christ to live through us for the sake of the world?  We are called to daring, bold service. Our worship is peace-making, light-shining, sanctuary for the anxious mind, food and drink for the hungry soul.  So dear friends, Advent means arrival.  So, show up.  Be present in worship and in service.  Be present to those who are struggling this season. Be present through inexplicable generosity.   Be present and alert to the inbreaking of God’s kingdom around us and through us.  Be present with hope on your lips to tell others of God’s promised reign.  Be present as Christ is present.  They are waiting for Christ to arrive in us.   Amen.