The Episcopal Church in Frostburg

We're Moving

2006-07-25T11:32:00.000-07:00

Due to a jillion-and-a-half reasons, I'm shutting this blog down.

With it's death, two things will happen:

1) My sermons are all going to be in audio (mp3) format here: www.frostburg.ang-md.org/sermon.htm

2) In the near future there will emerge another blog to replace this one: this time with lectionary reflections, resources, and sermon-ish stuff: this time a week in advance!

God's Peace!

Beyond Birth

2006-06-10T15:02:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you about my relationship with my mother.

On July 29, 1974 she gave birth to me at Wilmington General Hospital, in Wilmington, Delaware.

And, well, that’s my story (and I’m stickin’ to it!).

Now, what did that tell you about my relationship with my mother? Not much, huh? Except that she is indeed my mother, and she gave birth to me almost 32 years ago.

But, that ‘story’ could diverge in a million different directions from there. The story which begins in a Hospital in Delaware could have continued on with, “and she gave me up for adoption, and I’ve never met her.” Or, “She’s been beside me every step of the way, and has been my biggest supporter and best friend.” Or, “when I was 20 we got into a fight and are not estranged from each other.”

The story of my birth doesn’t say anything about how good of a mother she is or how good of a son I am.

Does that make my birth unimportant? Well, no. Without that day in Wilmington General, I wouldn’t be here. And every year since we’ve celebrated that moment with cake, ice cream and presents.

It was a beginning. An important beginning – but it says nothing about how good, bad, deep, meaningful, or not my relationship with my mother is today.

Nicodemas, a probably good intentioned Pharisee, came to Jesus – at night. (Which tells you how dangerous it would have been for Nicodemas if he had been seen with Jesus.) He flatters Jesus and tells him how great he thinks he is.

Jesus doesn’t have the time of day for that kind of talk.

“Very truly I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again.”

In their subsequent conversation, Nicodemas has a hard time understanding what Jesus was talking about (Born again? How does that happen?) – and really can you blame Nicodemas? Born again? How DOES that happen?

First of all, let me let you in on a little biblical secret: “born again” may not be what Jesus meant to say.

The biblical word used here for ‘again’ doesn’t just mean ‘again.’ It also means ‘from above.’ This word (anothen) shows up in the Gospel of John three other times, and each time it so obviously means ‘from above’ and not ‘again.’

Personally, I believe that this argument is settled once and for all at the end of chapter 3, when John the Baptist says of Jesus: “The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all.”

What Jesus is therefore saying to Nicodemas, is that to become a member of the Kingdom of Heaven you must come from above – your earthly birthday is good, but it’s only a start. You must come from above as Christ has come from above. And this can’t happen on our own (we can’t just spring out of Heaven at our own will), it must be an act of the grace of God.

Here’s the kicker: even this (second) birth (this time, from above) is just a beginning. If Nicodemas got it – if he figured it out – if he was born again from above. . . and that was it. . .he’d have totally missed the point.

Being born from God is great, but if all you can tell me is that you’ve been born, you haven’t told me anything of substance of your relationship with God. Great, you’ve been born, but are you still walking with God? Are you still calling home (prayer)? Are you growing in faith, and love, and forgiveness?

You know, Zoë is doing pretty good. She went to the doctor this week for her two year examination, and the doctor said: she’s developmentally at the level of a three year old. (Can’t you just hear the proud parent in me beaming!)

But, as good as she’s doing – as much as she’s grown, if she just stops there, and she doesn’t progress any further, would that be good? If at 40 years old she was still only putting together 4 and 5 word sentences, was still infatuated with Cinderella, and was still regularly (and publicly) picking her nose and pooping her pants – I’d be worrying a little bit.

Why then do we think that our lives with God should be static? I hear it all the time: being pastor of two old and historic churches, I hear at least once a week from some proud soul, “I was baptized in that church.” They say it with pride – like I should be impressed. And that’s great. But, what have you and God been up to lately?

I hear it all the time. From some proud soul, “I walked up to the stage at the Billy Graham crusade in 1955, and gave myself to the Lord.” Fantastic. But, what have you and God been up to lately?

Dedicating our lives to Christ is right on target. Having life-changing moments of the Presence of God and altering the shape of our lives because of it is good. Coming and being baptized is great. But, if forty years after those moments we’re still at the spiritual equivalent of picking our noses and pooping our pants we’re in trouble.

At that point it would be difficult to say that we really have dedicated our lives – our entire lives – to Christ. It would be difficult to say that the baptism has any more significance than a high school graduation.

Now, don’t think that I’m preaching the Gospel of ‘more.’ There are times when I hear other preachers (and, to be honest times when I hear myself say) that what we need is to do more. We need to pray more. We need to read the Bible more. If we just did more ‘Jesus stuff’ we’d be fine.

When I hear talk like that I get exhausted. I get discouraged, and I just want to go and take a nap. What’s the bother? My life is busy as it is, and I don’t have time for ‘more, more, more.’

What I’m saying though is that we need to at least be on the path. We have to at least be intentional. When I think about my relationship with my mother I don’t think in terms of more, more, more. I want to call her every couple of days or so. I want to get her a nice Mother’s Day gift. I want to let her in on our joys and our anxieties.

Being born again, from above, is the beginning of our eternal life. It’s not just about Heaven, it’s about right now. We’re born of Heaven here on earth – eternal life with God starts now. And the life of a person who is born again, from above, is a life that seeks God’s face, asks questions of God and about God, and tries to align itself with the will and desire of God – so that God’s desires could one day be our desires.

And, it’s a life-long/ eternal journey. We never get there. We never get the answers to all the questions. We never fully figure God out. We can get glimpses. We can step into moments where we feel so close to God we could just explode with joy. But we never quite get there.

Take the Trinity for example. (Today is Trinity Sunday after all) How is God three and one at the same time? Is it like water: solid, liquid, gas? No, not quite. Is it like a pretzel: three loops, but one pretzel at the same time? No, not quite.

The mystery of the Trinity is just that – a mystery. It’s True, but we’re unable to comprehend it. But, we can grow into fuller understanding. We can get close. We can get closer to God where we can understand more and more – of course realizing that the more we know, the more we’ll know that we know very little!

But, we grow. Beyond spiritual nose-picking. Beyond date and hospital. We grow as people born of God – born a second time, from above – growing citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. People on the journey. A journey where the destination is given to us, but the journey continues on past the horizon.

The Not-So-Good-News About Judas

2006-05-27T17:12:00.000-07:00

In prayer, Jesus confirms to His Father ‘Not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost’

Unfortunately, it’s a bad translation.

Jesus doesn’t call him ‘the one destined to be lost,’ but rather the Greek literally reads ‘the son of perdition’ – or in more modern English – ‘the son of Hell,’ or the ‘son of eternal damnation.’

Who’s he talking about? Who was the ‘son of Hell?’

Judas.

He’s the one the Gospels tell us sold out Jesus to the religious authorities for payment of silver coins. The Gospels identify Judas over and over again as the ‘betrayer.’ There are some hints in the Gospel of Matthew that Judas’ motivation for his betrayal might have been the payment he would receive – he was doing it for the money. But, beyond that, we really don’t know why he did what he did.

Scholars and preachers over the centuries have spread the gamut on Judas: on one side condemning him as one of the most evil men in human history, and on the other side explaining away his actions as being necessary for salvation history to have played out – in other words if Judas didn’t do what he did, Jesus wouldn’t have died for our sins, and we’d all be in big trouble.

From the time since I was in High School, I have been overtaken with the 70’s Broadway musical, Jesus Christ Superstar. In that show Judas is portrayed as a conflicted man, who betrayed Jesus all the while thinking that he was doing the righteous thing. After the arrest of Jesus, Judas is beside himself with regret, realizing the horrible mistake he’s made: he even tried to give back the money he was ‘paid’ – money which he didn’t want from the beginning.

I remember going to my youth pastor at church with my newfound revelation about Judas: he wasn’t such a bad guy after all – and I remember that my youth pastor wasn’t too impressed. According to my pastor, Judas wasn’t misunderstood; he was a man who committed an awful, ultimate sin.

He may have been right.

After all, Jesus said to Judas in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, long before he actually betrayed him, that it would have been better for Judas if he hadn’t been born.

This is a man who knew Jesus intimately. He would have enjoyed the same close friendship and mentoring relationship that the rest of the disciples had with Jesus. He would have witnessed incredible miracles, huge crowds, and glimpses of the Kingdom of God breaking out on earth. And yet, it was he – an insider – someone who Jesus loved – who turned his back on Jesus, and handed him over to be beaten, tortured, and horrifically executed.

Could this have been the actions of a man who thought he was doing the right thing?

On the other hand, Judas is described clearly in Luke as being possessed by the devil. Satan entered into him, and drove him to his actions against Jesus. – Could Judas really be responsible for the actions of Satan dwelling within him? If he was just a vessel for the powers of Hell, wasn’t he a victim too? Maybe just as much of a victim as Jesus – after all he died a horrible death too.

Of course, we’ve all heard of the ‘Gospel of Judas’ over the past several months. This ‘Gospel’ is a third century manuscript written by a ‘Christian’ sect about Judas. It’s written as if it was written by Judas himself, but there isn’t a scholar on earth who’d say that Judas wrote it. While the copy that was recently discovered was written almost 300 years after the life of Jesus, it is just a copy of an earlier manuscript written no later than 180AD. We don’t have that original copy (we actually don’t have any original copies of any of the books of the Bible though either), but we know that a ‘Gospel of Judas’ was circulating around the year 180, because a bishop in the Church (Irenaeus) condemned it by name.

The real scholarly debate over the ‘Gospel of Judas’ isn’t over whether it’s an ancient Christian writing (because it clearly is). The debate isn’t over whether Judas actually wrote it (because he clearly didn’t – after all how could he if he was dead?). And the debate isn’t over whether or not this book should be included in the Bible (because it clearly shouldn’t be – there were tons of things written in those days about Jesus, and not everything belongs as scripture, says the Church – even bishop Irenaeus).

The debate is over whether or not we can learn anything about the actual Judas in this book, and therefore whether we can learn anything about his relationship with Jesus and the events which transpired around his betrayal and crucifixion.

The ‘Gospel of Judas’ is so explosive because it contains a passage which indicates that Jesus asked Judas to betray him, and told him that he would be hated forever because of his necessary and requested betrayal.

So, does this gospel say anything real about what actually happened between Judas and Jesus? I suppose that’s the question scholars, fanatics, and conspiracy theorists will argue over for a while to come.

I’m pretty certain – in fact I’m thoroughly certain – that it doesn’t say anything about the real Judas, Jesus, and the betrayal.

But, what I do think it says is that ancient Christians were just as confused as to whether Judas was a good guy who was just misunderstood, or whether he was evil incarnate. This ‘Gospel of Judas’ was one author’s attempt at trying to make Judas out to be a good guy – but it doesn’t make him right.

So – who was this ‘Son of Perdition?’ Was he a son of Hell by his own actions, or was he hijacked by the powers of Hell, and therefore not responsible for his actions.

In other words: Did the Devil make him do it? Did his own sinfulness make him do it? Or (as in the Gospel of Judas) did Jesus make him do it?

Honestly, I don’t know. It depends on the day. Sometimes I think he was a bad, bad man who stabbed his best friend in the back in his moment of need, and other times I rock along to Jesus Christ Superstar and think that maybe it was all a mistake – or a setup.

But, here’s the thing: I don’t think the answer to these questions really effects us either way. The fact is that Jesus was betrayed, he was crucified for our sins, and he did rise again on the third day.

But, here’s the other thing: I think all the hoopla about Judas misses the point. Because the sins of Judas just about him – they’re about us too. He way have been the ‘Son of Perdition,’ but there are times that we’re not so hot ourselves.

He is condemned because he betrayed Christ, but doesn’t our sin betray Christ too? When we turn away from the life, decisions, and manner of living that Christ would have us live – even after all he’s done for us – don’t we turn away from Christ too?

We may no sell Christ up the river over 30 pieces of silver – but we may do it for pleasure, revenge, indulgence, or for personal gain.

The Cursillo community uses as its symbol the rooster. Usually, the rooster is flamboyantly colorful. The rooster symbolizes the cock which crowed when Peter denied Christ. The bold colors remind us of the boldness of the sin of denying Christ. And we take it as our symbol realizing full well that we’re pretty bold sinners too, that we repeatedly deny Christ in our manner of living – and isn’t the denial of Christ just a hair’s breadth away from betrayal.

When Jesus speaks of Judas, he speaks of us too. We’re sinners. Sometimes bold sinners. Sometimes we sin, thinking we’re doing the right thing. Sometimes we sin after being setup. Sometimes we just make bad decisions.

That’s what Judas can teach us, and remind us: he’s a mirror to the side of our own darkness, and the reason for our need of God’s goodness, grace, forgiveness, and mercy.

Him, You, and just us

2006-05-06T18:45:00.000-07:00

(The Rev. John Jorgensen is preaching at St. John's this week, but this is Fr. Rick's sermon from St. Peter's, Lonaconing)

What is prayer? Really, what is it?

I suppose that most people would say that it is us talking to God – it’s the words that we say to God – our communication with God.

If that’s what you’d say, then I’d say that you’re half-right! There is another side to it – and it’s certainly the most important side: It’s God’s words to us too. To think that prayer is just our words to God means that we’re leading a one-way conversation with the Almighty, which is not a good idea.

But, certainly ‘our’ prayers – the part that we’re responsible to make time for and to take the initiative on, are the words, thoughts, and images that we offer to God.

To God: that’s the important part. When you talk to someone, think of the language that you use. If I’m talking to Elaine, I don’t say things like, “Elaine is my friend. She is a member of St. Peter’s. I enjoy her when she’s around.” If I did, she’d think I was crazy! If I’m talking to Elaine I’d say something more like: “Elaine, you are my friend, and I’m so glad that you’re a member of St. Peter’s, and that you’re around often.” I’d use ‘you’ language, not ‘she’ language. I’d use ‘she’ language only if I was talking about her to someone else – right?

Classically, we think of hymns as prayers set to song. But, are they? Or, are they all?

There are actually two kinds of hymns: there are hymns and songs which are indeed prayers to God, and there are hymns and songs which are about God, the faith, and the Church.

Think of the difference between “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” and “Joy to the World.” One is directly addressed to God, and the other is about the ‘glory of HIS righteousness, and wonders of his love.’

Most of the really ancient songs and hymns of the church (and I’m not talking about the 1800’s!), were really musical settings of prayers to God. When church services became more ‘evangelical’ in nature – when their chief aim became to convince people of something or to convert them to the faith – the hymns the church began writing changed. A lot of what we know as the ‘great’ ‘old’ hymns of the faith usually fit in this category: “Amazing Grace,” “There is pow’r in the Blood,” “The Old Rugged Cross,” “I love to tell the Story.” There are exceptions of course, like “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” “How Great Thou Art.”

I’m not trying to say that there isn’t a place for the other hymns – the ones about God – but I think it’s important to be aware of it. It’s good to talk about God – it’s good to talk about God to each other, and to people who don’t know God yet. But, it’s far more important to talk to God, to listen to God, and to direct our lives to God and not just about God.

[I get nervous, and leave unfulfilled when I go to other churches where there are really long sermons which dominate over half the service, and 3-5 hymns about God. What you get is something that dangerously get close to being a class about God instead of actually worshipping the Creator and Savior and fostering and deepening that relationship.]

Which brings us to the 23rd Psalm, that familiar and comfortable piece of scripture that has carried countless people through difficult times, death, and moments of fear: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul.

What do you notice about those few opening lines? – Yeah, it’s a psalm about God, not a psalm directed to God!

Which seems a little awkward doesn’t it, when you think of the psalms being the book of Israel’s prayers – the ancient hymnbook used in the Temple and in the synagogue for thousands and thousands of years.

And here’s the really mind-blowing thing about this psalm; listen to the next few verses: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff comfort me. Thou shalt prepare a table before me in the presence of them that trouble me; thou hast anointed my head with oil, and my cup shall be full. Surely thy loving-kindness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

What happens? The psalmist switches – mid psalm – from talking about God, to talking to God!

Here’s what excites me about this psalm – here’s what I think this psalm challenges us about prayer:

1) Note what the psalmist asks for. . . what does he ask for? Nothing! Which really shouldn’t surprise us, since the second line is: “I shall not want.” If you don’t want for anything, if you don’t need anything, then why would you need to ask God for something?! What does he give thanks for? Nothing! What does he offer to do for God? Nothing! In the 23rd Psalm, the psalmist is telling God, reminding God, what God already does for him – and it’s prayer.

2) Note what this psalmist has known in life: he’s gone through the valley of the shadow of death, he’s been put in situations where he’s in close proximity to those who don’t like him and who may want to do him harm, and he’s experienced evil. He’s upfront with the fact that he doesn’t need to fear any of those things, but he’s also clear that his life hasn’t been peachy-keen. He realizes that the promise of God isn’t that God is going to keep us away from trouble, but the promise is that WHEN we go through trouble that God will be right there with us.

3) The psalmist switches back and forth between talking about God, and talking to God. (In fact you could reasonably argue that the psalmist goes full-circle in the last verse: I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever – instead of I will dwell in YOUR hose forever.) I think what we can be reminded of here, is that in the community of the faithful, we can, and should do both. And when we talk about God, we don’t have talk about Him in a detached and scientific way, but we can bring Him in on the conversation to help us talk about Him more faithfully. If we only talked ABOUT God, we’d miss out on our relationship WITH God. To talk only with God, we’d miss out the relationships with others, with our neighbors, with those who are not yet part of the fellowship of God, and the rest of the Creation which God has given us to enjoy Him in too.

Though, through it all, the 23rd Psalm stands as a icon of prayer, an icon of the abiding Presence of God, and our joyful need to reach out to that Presence, and reach out with that Presence.

Bumbling, Terrified, and Sent by God

2006-04-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

The women had seen the empty tomb, and (in Luke) they had run to tell the disciples of their discovery. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus had seen the resurrected Jesus, and they ran back to tell the disciples. Then Jesus himself comes and stands in the midst of them.

Jesus had foretold his death and resurrection several times in his life and ministry. Now, what he had said to them – and what had been written in the scriptures about him – was coming to fruition. And they were getting news about his resurrection from several sources.

So how did the disciples react when Jesus comes to stand in the midst of them?

They’re so excited they can hardly contain themselves? No.

As giants of faith, they rest happily, showing their confidence that they knew this would happen all along? No.

Here are the words that Luke uses to describe the disciples: startled, terrified, doubt[ing], frightened, in joy, disbelieving, and still wondering. Besides the quick mention of “joy” there, the faith of the disciples seems a little bleak, doesn’t it?

The really scary thing, is that these are the people who God was counting on to tell the world about Jesus, salvation, repentance, and the forgiveness of sins.

THE SALVATION OF THE WORLD – THE REDEMPTION OFALL HUMANKIND – rested upon these cowering men, hiding in the upper room, scared out of their wits, and unsure about everything.

What exactly were they scared of? I mean, at first glace, everything seems to be pretty normal: Jesus is among them, opening scripture, eating with them, and proclaiming peace, hope, and God’s power. Sounds like any other day that Jesus was with his disciples, doesn’t it?

But, while nothing has changed, everything has changed: Jesus had died. He was dead and buried. The government had executed him. And here he was standing in the room with them – and just in case they thought it was all a dream or he was a figure of their imagination: he had the wounds to prove that it had indeed happened.

If Jesus was just dead and gone, the disciples and the other followers of Jesus would have mourned deeply for a couple of days – maybe even a couple of weeks. But, gradually they would have come to a place of peace and contentment. They would have gone on with their lives, and would have had great stories to remember him by.

But, now that he’s come back from the dead, the whole world has been changed – and they have major work to do.

Listen to what Jesus has to say about himself and the scriptures foretelling his life, death, and resurrection: Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

The suffering and rising from the dead on the third day – that was Jesus’ job, and it was done.

The proclamation of repentance leading to the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem – whose job was that? It was theirs. They were in Jerusalem, and their job description had just gotten a little more added to it.

I suppose my knees would be knocking too.

The disciples had come to the realization that while some things were the same as they had always been (the sun was still going to rise in the east, winter was still going to follow fall, and gravity was still going to pull apples to the ground when dropped from above) everything was now different, and would never be the same: There was no mistaking, Jesus WAS indeed the Messiah, he was in fact resurrected from the dead, and they were indeed being sent forth into the world on the most foreboding, dangerous, and impossible job ever given to a human being: proclaiming the Gospel to every corner of the world.

Here’s a few things to notice in this text:

First, Luke makes it very clear that the Resurrection actually happened, and that it was a physical resurrection. His ‘spirit’ didn’t just rise. His body didn’t just go missing. He was raised to life again by the Power of God, and he appeared with flesh and bone, with the wounds of a crucifixion, and with an appetite. Luke doesn’t add the fact that he ate the fish in the presence of the disciples for nothing: he was trying to tell us that since ghosts and spirits don’t eat, Jesus wasn’t a ghost or a spirit.

And yet, at the same time, Jesus’ Presence is different: the disciples walking with him on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize him, Mary mistook him for the gardener at the tomb, and at the Upper Room he could appear instantly in the room even though the doors and the windows were locked.

Yet one more way to see that everything was the same as it had been before, and yet everything was completely different.

Second, an interesting note with powerful implications: Jesus interprets the scriptures to say that he had to rise from the dead, and that those who came after him had a mission. What was the mission? To proclaim repentance leading to the forgiveness of sins. Realize what it doesn’t say here: the mission of the followers of Jesus isn’t to tell people to be good, to sin less, or to commit lesser sins if they must sin at all: the mission of the followers of Jesus is to tell sinners that there is redemption and hope, forgiveness and a way out that begins with repentance.

Unfortunately, the mission of the followers of Jesus has been warped throughout the centuries to become the morality police. And that’s all well and fine – but it’s not the job that Jesus gave his followers: Our job is to proclaim the Good News of the forgiveness of sins, not the illusion that somehow if we’re good enough we can overcome sin by our own efforts. The Good News of the Gospel of Jesus is that even though we’re sinners, God still loves us, counts us worthy to be his children, and counts us worthy enough to send his son to die for our sins, and destroy the power of sin and death by his Resurrection.

Which brings us to the third interesting thing to notice. Actually, it’s not all that interesting – in fact it should make us downright startled, terrified, doubt[ful], frightened, disbelieving, and still wondering – even if a little joyful too: when Jesus gave them their mission, it wasn’t just THEIR mission. It’s ours too. WE are to proclaim repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name to all nations. The mission began in Jerusalem, it continues in Lonaconing, Gilmore, Cumberland, Fort Ashby, Frostburg, and everywhere people claim Jesus as Lord.

Most churches today don’t get to the point where this mission scares them. When most Christians hear the mission we’re given following the Resurrection of Jesus, they aren’t terrified or frightened; they’re bored. I see most churches glaze over and begin thinking of what’s for breakfast when confronted with the demands of discipleship and apostleship.

But, when we cease being people of mission, we cease being the church. When we become preoccupied with the busy-ness of our lives, or the busy-ness of churchy stuff, or the busy-ness of being the morality police we stop being the Church of Christ and we start being a country club. Country clubs are fine, but they don’t give you access to the Kingdom of God no matter how high the greens fees.

Here’s what gives me hope though: if Jesus counted on those poor little frightened men cowering in the upper room, surely he can count on me. And you.

If they could move beyond their fear, and begin the mission of spreading God’s promise of the forgiveness of sins, hope, love, and redemption, then so can I.

I think the Gospel writers kept in all those references to fear and trembling in the first followers of Jesus to keep us from thinking they were stained glass giants of faith. They were just as bumbling and troublesome as the rest of us, and God called them – so why wouldn’t God call us.

Here’s the other thing that gives me hope: There is forgiveness in Jesus’ name through repentance, through the cross, and through the empty tomb. Each time I fail to be a disciple, each time I fail to be an apostle, each time I fail to be a nice person, God not only gives me another chance, but He gives me another hundred chances.

There is always hope, there is always God’s love, and because of that there should always be voices to remind the world of that, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Easter Day: Out-Of-Control

2006-04-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

The women went to the tomb on the morning of the third day.

His body had been quickly buried, and on Saturday – the Sabbath – everyone rested and mourned.

And then, with the rising of the sun the women went to make the final burial arrangements: clean the body, anoint the body with fragrances, seal the tomb.

But, when they get there, the tomb is already open – huh?

And when they look into the tomb, they see someone, but it’s not Jesus – hmm?

And this fellow looks eerily like an angel. . .

He tells them not to be afraid (as angels always say), and that Jesus has risen from the dead. He tells them to run and tell the others, and let them know that he will meet up with them in Galilee.

So. . . the women – so excited that their Lord and Master has risen – that everything he had said would happen has come true – that there is no need to mourn, but rather it’s time to celebrate. . . so the women run out and tell everyone they know, everyone they see that Christ has risen! (And everyone lives happily ever after.)

Wait. . . that isn’t what happens, is it?

What happens?

So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Now, is that anyway to run a Resurrection?

Why are they scared and not excited? Why do they say nothing to no one? Why do they run away in fear?

Well, for one, things have obviously gotten out of control – way out of control.

People who have been put to death – people who have been dead and buried for days – aren’t supposed to get up and meet you somewhere else.

Something big is going on – something huge – and something totally out of the ordinary.

In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the 4 Pevensie children are in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. They’ve never heard of Aslan before – the Christ figure in the Chronicles –

Mrs. Beaver said, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. Be he’s good. He’s the King I tell you.

Near the end of the book, long after the Pevensie children have gotten to know Aslan well, and while Aslan was leaving them, Lucy recalls another conversation with the Beavers:

Mr. Beaver had warned them, “He’ll be coming and going,” he had said. “One day you’ll see him and another you won’t. He doesn’t like being tied down – and of course he has other countries to attend to. It’s quite all right. He’ll often drop in. Only you mustn’t press him. He’s wild you know. Not like a tame lion.”

He’s not safe – but he’s good. He’s not tame – but he’s wild.

This was Lucy’s discovery, and this was the discovery at the empty tomb that the women made.

Jesus isn’t predictable, he isn’t ‘safe,’ he’s ‘not tame’ – he’s wild, and good, and uncontainable.

The manger can’t contain him, the authorities couldn’t contain him, and the shroud or tomb couldn’t contain him – he’s an uncontainable force –

And uncontainable forces are scary.

In the news this week, people are worried that Iran is might soon have nuclear weapons. In general this isn’t a big deal – lots of countries have nuclear weapons – the problem is that we can’t contain Iran – they’re unpredictable – their outside of our control. That’s why it’s scary.

At the tomb, on the morning of the third day, God shows once and for all who he is, and how nothing can hold him down, or hold him back.

And the force which God wields – the force which compelled him to send his son – the force which compelled his Son to be crucified on the cross – the force which raised Christ from the dead, and destroyed the powers of death, sin, and evil – that force is the boundless love of God.

That kind of love is scary, and good, and anything but tame.

That’s what made the women run in fear on that first Easter morning. It’s what has changed lives for thousands of year – lives who come to belief and faith in this power, and the God who is behind it. And it’s what brought us here this morning.

Oh, the other thing about the women running in fear, and telling no one about anything: It’s not the end of the story. Mark doesn’t end his Gospel with a nice, neat ending because there is no ending to this story.

This story of the power of God, and his gift of love, goes on – and it’s meant to go on through us and with us.

The characters have changed – the characters are us.

The stone on the tomb is rolled back, tomb is open and it’s empty. Do not be alarmed, for Jesus of Nazareth is not in the tomb, he has been raised. Go, tell others the Good News, and know that the love which sent him, killed him, and brought him to New Life is for you, and for all.

The Cross: Get Over Yourself

2006-04-13T20:03:00.000-07:00

Jesus walked by the docks, and stopped when he saw several fishermen there; cleaning their nets.

He ambled over to them, and gave them a simple, provocative, and yet strange opportunity: follow me.

Follow me? They had never seen this guy before! They had no idea who he was. Really at this point in his life, no one knew who he was – except maybe his family.

But these fishermen – complete with wives, families, lives, and quite obviously, a job – dropped everything and followed him.

And they didn’t stop following him, until his road took a sharp turn – towards Golgotha. Then they abandoned him.

They abandoned him because his journey changed – his destination changed.

Actually, the journey and destination were the same as they had always been – they just weren’t the journey and destination that Peter, James, and John had in mind.

Though this journey was always on the mind of God.

It was a journey that they would pick up again, after the discovery on the morning of the third day.

And it is a journey that we are all asked to take – the journey that is supposed to mark our lives, make our lives, and make our lives different.

The journey to the cross.

Take up your cross and follow me.

When Jesus was lifted on the cross for all the world to see: he was lifted high. He was lifted in agony. He was lifted with purpose. And he knew the enormity of the moment: he was going to die; this was it; never would the world be the same again; never would all creation be the same again.

When we ponder the cross, it is easy to slip into what the cross does for us.

Hundred and hundreds of years of Christian theology has tried to figure out exactly how the event of the cross gives us the gifts of salvation and the forgiveness of our sins.

There’s the ransom theory of the atonement, which says that the every sinner’s life belonged to Satan. So, Jesus – who had not committed sin – willingly gave his life as a ransom for all humanity. (This is the theory of atonement that we see very clearly in “The Chronicles of Narnia.”)

There were some theologians who didn’t like this theory, because they didn’t like the idea of the Devil being owed anything by God. So they came up with the Satisfaction theory of the atonement. It says that God couldn’t just wipe away human sin without sacrifice – without it being paid for. So, Jesus, the Lamb of God, offered his life sacrificially for everyone, paying God back, and giving God what he needed to make things right.

There are other theories – it would be good to note that no theory is laid out in scripture. The Bible tells us that Christ destroyed sin and death on the cross, but it never says ‘how’ it did what it did.

And I think that’s all good and well, myself, because to make the cross about us only shines a light on our own self-absorption.

The cross was God being God: it was the moment when God showed what kind of God he was, and how far he was willing to go. He was lifted high on the cross for all the world to see, so that all the world might see what love, power, grace, and strength really is.

We all too often make Christianity about us: we make it about getting our butts into Heaven – about giving us blessings – about getting us out of the world on the first rapture train. But, for it to be authentic, it has to be about God!

We’re always on God’s mind, we’re always in the path of God’s love – the problem comes in when we are always on our mind, and we’re always in the path of our own love and self-absorption.

It’s like the bad marriage where the wife is looking out for the needs of the husband – and the husband is looking out for the needs of the. . . husband!

We are freed to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and we are freed to love our neighbor as ourselves – because God is loving us! Because our neighbor is loving us!

And so, when God looks at the cross, he is freed to think of us, and when we look at the cross we can then put our own selfish needs and desires aside and think of God.

On Good Friday we always read the passion from the Gospel of John. John’s Passion is remarkably different from the Passion accounts in Matthew, Mark and Luke. No shouts of ‘my God, my God, why have you forsaken me.’ No crying out in a loud voice.

In John, Jesus is completely in control. He coolly reminds Pilate that Pilate has no power to do anything, except the Power of God from on high. He is no sooner nailed to the cross that he’s setting up the care arrangements for his mother. And in his final moments, he gives up his spirit – it’s not taken away from him, he gives it up.

In John, the cross isn’t just the moment of execution, it’s the moment of exaltation – it’s the moment of enthronement. It when the King of Kings, the Son of Man, the Lamb of God is lifted high upon the cross for all the world to see.

The cross – especially in the Gospel of John, is all about God. It’s God being God. It’s God showing all the world what true power, victory, and triumph looks like. It’s God showing the world exactly what he’s make of. It’s God redefining love, and grace, and holiness.

It’s interesting how many times, and in how many ways humanity has tried to be like God. Adam and Eve ate the apple so that they might have the same knowledge that God has. The people of Babel built the tower so that they might be as high as God. Today we try and manipulate life in a Petri dish, create machines as smart or smarter than we were created. We build bigger and bigger bombs, to wield more and more power – we build buildings with their own climate systems that can be controlled with the simple turn of a knob– and we try and decide who has a right to life and who doesn’t.

The ironic thing is, if we really wanted to be like God – if we really wanted that kind of power and glory – if we wanted to taste omnipotence and omnipresence – we couldn’t come near it with bombs or towers. We couldn’t hold a candle to it with Petri dishes or apples.

To wield that kind of power we’d have to give everything up: control, prestige, comfort, might – and life.

That kind of divine power only comes with the love, grace, and triumph of the cross: where the victim is the victor – the executed is the exalted, and where the awesome, thunderous, and majestic Presence of God is lifted high for all the world to see -

And when he breathed his last, and gave up his spirit, the view from the cross never changed – and his love for the world – his love for his executors – his love for his betrayers, and deniers, and his followers who fled for fear of facing the same fate –

That love never faltered, that power never flickered – it was stamped on creation forever, stamped high on the cross, lifted for all to see – and believe – and know – and follow.

The Sign

2006-04-13T06:24:00.000-07:00

Most relationships involve promises and agreements.

Nations make treaties with one another which dictate how they will act towards each other, and how they will act in the world.

People make formal contracts with one another: mortgages, employment agreements, arbitration.

People also make less formal agreements with one another. When Karen and I first started dating, we made an unspoken agreement that we would only see and date each other, until we decided otherwise. Then we made a bit more formal agreement, with a ring and a promise, that we were going to get married. Then we made a formal commitment, complete with white gown, tuxedo, and priest that we would have and hold each other from that day forward, come what may.

Promises, agreements, contracts – they concern who the agreement is being made with – they concern what the agreement will be about – and they concern the responsibilities of each party (who has to do what for the agreement to work and not break off).

Throughout humanity’s relationship with God, we’ve had agreements and contracts too. Sometimes they were less formal: like the pledge to Adam and Eve that they could people the earth (go forth and multiply. . .). And sometimes they were big deal agreements. Big deal agreements between God and humanity are always called ‘covenants.’

Scholars and preachers debate and argue about exactly how many covenants God made with us (some say as many as 10, others as few as 1), but it’s pretty clear that there are at least 4 instances where God set down an agreement through a certain person – agreements which would change the world forever.

And, with each of these agreements, God gives us a sign – like the physical paper of a contract – which help us and Him remember his promises, and our promises, and our relationship.

What was the first real covenant that God made with us? The covenant with Noah. Remember? God promised that he would never again destroy the world in a flood.

Do you remember who that covenant was made with? Just Noah? Just humanity? No. It was made with all living creatures on the face of the earth.

And what was the sign of the covenant? The bow. When God got angry with his people, and the clouds came over, and he saw his bow, he would remember this covenant with all life on earth, and not bring a flood again.

What was the second covenant? (It’s actually only a few chapters after the covenant with Noah in the Book of Genesis) The covenant with Abraham. What was the deal – what was the agreement? God would make Abraham (an old man of 91) and make him the father of a great nation, and he would bless his descendants forever. So this covenant wasn’t with all humanity and all life on earth: it’s with the children of Abraham.

And, what was the sign of the covenant? Circumcision. The children of Israel were to have the reminder of the covenant marked on their bodies: they were supposed to be different. As God sanctified Abraham and his descendants forever, his descendents forever were to be set apart from the rest of the world, that they might show the world that there God is a holy God. The nations of the world were supposed to be able to look at these marked people, and say: wow they are so holy, their God must be a holy God.

What was the third covenant – this is actually the toughest of them to remember for some reason: Moses. God made an agreement with Moses that God would be their God and they would be His People – the only thing they had to do was follow God’s laws (that was their end of the bargain). Again, the idea was that Israel was to live such holy lives that the nations of the world would look on them and know what a holy God they had. Note here, again, that this covenant isn’t with all humanity and earthly life – it’s with the Jews – the children of Abraham and the followers of Moses.

What was the sign? Sabbath. The children of Abraham and the followers of Moses were supposed to rest one day a week. It wasn’t a suggestion – a nice idea – it was law, it was decreed, and it was the sign of the covenant, the agreement that God was making with His people.

And what was the final covenant? The final covenant is the reason we’re here today – it’s the reason this church is here today – it’s what makes this week Holy Week, and it’s what makes us Christians: it’s the covenant that God made through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Who is the covenant with? Just Jews? Just the children of Abraham and the followers of Moses? All creation? All earthly life?

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that all who believe in him may not perish but have everlasting life.

All who believe in him.

What’s the agreement? The deal? Everlasting life, the love of God, the forgiveness of our sins.

And. . . what’s the sign?

After supper, he took the cup of wine, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them and said, ‘take this all of you and drink it, this is my blood of the – New Covenant, which is given for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.

On the night Jesus was betrayed by Judas – on the night he was denied by Peter – on the night before he forged the covenant on the hard wood of the cross – he gathered his disciples around him for a meal, and gave them the sign covenant: his body and his blood.

The only time in all the Bible that Jesus uses the word ‘covenant’ is in the story of the Last Supper, when he took bread, gave thanks for it, broke it and gave it – when he took the cup of wine, gave thanks for it, and gave it.

Remember on the road to Emmaus, when the disciples are walking with the Resurrected Jesus and didn’t know it. They were talking about Jesus, but they didn’t recognize that it was Jesus that they were talking to. Do you remember how they finally recognized him?

In the breaking of the bread. Not just because he had broken bread with them so many times before (and he had) – but because he was showing them the sign of the covenant – and with the sign, they remembered, and saw.

In this covenant, what’s our end of the bargain? Yes, it is to believe in him – but belief isn’t just something that goes on in the head. We’re supposed to believe, and have that belief effect our lives. How? What’s a life of faith supposed to look like?

Well, Jesus showed the disciples – and us.

Because after giving them the sign of the covenant, he got up from table and washed their feet. He told them to love one another, and serve one another. When all the world looked upon them, and us their descendents, the world is supposed to see servants, serving each other and serving God. When the world sees the church, the community of the servants of the servant, they would know what kind of God we have, what kind of Messiah we have, and what kind of faith we have.

And so, how we live matters. How we celebrate and remember Jesus with the celebration of the Lord’s Supper matters. It’s the sign of the covenant.

It’s the sign of God’s love for us. It’s the sign of the agreement that God has made with his people once and for all. And in the breaking of the bread, we can with eyes of faith see Jesus: the crucified, the Risen, and the one who is to come.

Knowing, Seeing, and Surrendering

2006-04-01T16:58:00.000-08:00

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. (Jeremiah 31:33)

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." (John 12:20, 21)

You want to know the Lord? Great. You’ll know God, but not just like you know a movie-star, or a character in a novel: you can know God in your heart, God will be your God, and you will be God’s people.

You want to see Jesus? Don’t you worry about it. He’ll be right there – he’ll be right with you. In fact, he’s already here, next to you; around you; inside you; and enthroned next to His Father in Heaven.

Can you imagine going up to the gates of Buckingham Palace, and telling the attendant at the gate (in his ridiculous red and white ruffled uniform), that you’d like to know the Queen – that you’d like to see her. Can you imagine the look he’d give you?

Can you imagine going up to one of the guard houses outside the White House and asking to see the President, because you want to know him deeply, and let him live in your heart. How long do you think it would it take Homeland Security to ship you off to Guantanimo?

But, God, the creator of the universe – the Lord of all Creation – the one who made the sun and moon and stars, and who makes the daffodils spring forth even as we sit here – That God was us to see Him, and know Him deeply.

With Jesus all remaining barriers had been broken down. The barriers weren’t there to begin with – in fact the barriers weren’t intended to be there at all. Don’t you remember Adam and Eve walking with God through the cool mists of the garden?

But that all changed with a few bites of an apple – an intentionally defiant act – and up when the barriers.

Sacramental priesthood. Complex sacrificial system. (You commit sin ‘A,’ ok, make sacrifice ‘B.’ You commit sin ‘C,’ alright, go get a pigeon. . .or a goat. . . or a bull.) 600 and some odd laws to follow painstakingly set out to govern every aspect of life. God meets his people in the Tabernacle, in the Temple, on the mercy seat on top of the Ark – between the cherubim.

Barriers were put up, nailed down, and boundaries were tightly set up.

God didn’t stop loving us, he just set some behavioral limits.

And, then God thinks about giving it another try, and so he sends his Son. A New Covenant. A New Deal. A God Incarnate – and a new sign of God’s love for us.

We can know God. We can see Jesus. We can walk with the Creator in the cool mists of the garden, or the woods, or the school hallways, or driving down the highway.

And, Jesus tells us how we can know God, and how we can see Jesus, though the answers may be surprising:

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

You will know Jesus not by great pyrotechnic displays, or outrageous shows of power: you will know him by his death. When he is lifted high on the cross for all the world to see – then you will know God.

Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

You will know Jesus by forsaking our own self-importance. We will know God by sacrificing those things which make us comfortable. We will know God when we make God #1 in our lives, and not ourselves.

Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

You will know God when you serve God – when we take the form of a servant (as Christ took the form of a servant), and serve our Master and our fellow servants.

Whoever serves me must follow me

You will see Jesus when you follow Jesus. You will know God when you know yourself as a follower, looking to the Master for direction.

All of this is a surrender: Jesus surrendering his life for us, and us, in turn, surrendering ourselves for God. When we follower Christ in his surrender we will know God, we will see Jesus, we will walk with God in the cool of the garden, and God will be our God and we will be God’s people.

The surrender that we offer though, must be just that: an offering. It must be willing, it must be intentional. It can’t be a last ditch option with our backs against a wall. It must be born out of the same love that God has for us. It must be born out of the same desire to be God’s People, as God’s desire to be our God comes from.

It must be our choice. It must be our choice in life, and it must be our daily choice.

When that surrender is our intentional choice – when it is our frequent choice – and when it is our constant choice we will know the Lord, we will see Jesus face to face in His death, in our lives, and in God’s Kingdom which is breaking out all around us in love, in the cool of the garden, and in the cool of our hearts.

Horror, absurdity, and hope

2006-03-13T13:24:00.000-08:00

A father must sacrifice his son.

The voice of God boomed from the heavens, commanding Abraham to take his son Isaac into the wilderness, and kill him – kill him – kill him in honor of God.

The voice of God commanding Abraham to kill his son?

Abraham, like us, would have been consumed with the perennial human question: why? Why would God ask this of him? Why would God want this to happen to Isaac? Why would God put Abraham in this impossible position? Why would God be pushing a child of His to commit murder – murder another child of his?

And then there was the second perennial human question – maybe even the more haunting question: what am I going to do?

Will he have the strength to do the right thing?

And, what is the right thing? In life, it’s pretty clear: Listening to God is the right thing. Upholding the sanctity of life is the right thing; murder being absolutely wrong.

But, Abraham can’t have it both ways. He can’t listen to God and not commit murder.

The horror of it all, the absurdity of it all, and the questions are left hanging in the air.

A father must sacrifice his son.

The voice of God boomed from the heavens: This is my son; the beloved, with him I am well pleased.

This was God’s Son – He was God in the flesh – and from the moment he was laid in the manger in Bethlehem, he was laid in the shadow of the cross.

God had come to live among us, and he had also come to die for us.

Why? Why would God allow His Son to be murdered? Executed? Humiliated?

Why would God submit Himself to hang on a cross? God lying dead in a tomb?

Can you have it both ways? Can you be God and be beaten by a whip? Can you be God and hang limp and lifeless on a tree?

The horror of it all, the absurdity of it all, and the questions are left hanging in the air.

A father must sacrifice his son.

“Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife.”

Unwittingly, Isaac was carrying the timber which would burn his corpse, after his father killed him with a knife.

He has no idea what the plan is – no idea what the real purpose of their hike is.

The loudest sound from Abraham is his silence. He leaves home, and his wife, with their son without a word. He leaves his hired hands at the bottom of the mountain with no word that he’s planning on come back alone. He doesn’t tell his son what’s going on.

If he told anyone – would they believe him? He heard a voice in his head telling him to kill his son? Would they take him for being crazy? Would anyone else believe that this was really the word of God?

If his son knew what was going on, would he die angrier with God than his own father? Who is better for Isaac to lose faith in – his father, or God?

If Abraham tried to explain what was going on would Abraham believe the words that were coming out of his own mouth?

The horror of it all, the absurdity of it all, and the questions are left hanging in the air.

A father must sacrifice his son.

Jesus, beaten, broken, denied, and betrayed would climb the mountain.

His father, looking on from above, would be silent. There would be no last minute turn of events. He was on the road to his death.

Knowing full well what was coming, Jesus was carrying the timber which would bear his corpse, and the soldiers were carrying the hammer and nails.

The loudest sound would have been from the crowd – jeering, laughing, heckling, taunting.

And God was silent (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?)

Would anyone believe that this was God – the Son of God – being led to his death?

Jesus had tried explaining it to his disciples – even to his best friend Peter – and not only couldn’t they comprehend it, they refused to accept it. Then abandoning him, denying him, betraying him they left him alone with his cross.

The horror of it all, the absurdity of it all, and the questions are left hanging in the air.

A father must sacrifice his son.

The son is bound, set on the timber, the knife is raised.

But, God’s silence is shattered. The voice of God boomed from the heavens: hold that knife.

The only sound more welcome than those words is the rustling of the ram in the thicket.

God provided a ram, and didn’t demand the unthinkable. All the questions are answered – or at least deemed mute.

God provided. God shattered the silence. God acted.

The horror and the absurdity of it all fade away in the wake of joy, the example of the profound and steadfast faith we find in Abraham,, and the absolute hope that God offered in the nick of time.

And yet, A father must sacrifice his son.

The son is bound to the cross by nails ripping through his flesh.

A sign above his head hangs with word of truth, meant to taunt.

The “King of the Jews?” Breathing his last?

For this son, there is no ram – there is no booming voice from heaven offering an alternative – a hope – an option of life and victory.

The only sound to shatter the silence is the words: “It is finished,” and the exhale of his last breath.”

The way out that God offered Abraham, God didn’t give himself. In the end, God was still a Father who had to sacrifice his Son, so that the rest of His children – that’s us – might live.

The horror of the death of a son, and the absurdity of the death of God’s son hang in the air. The questions of why are awkwardly answered: because of our failures, because of our sin.

We are the cause.

The joy and the hope are lost, at least until the third day, when the women come to the tomb to prepare God’s corpse for final burial. In that moment everything changes, but before then, it’s still the sacrifice of the Son by the Father.

For those long, painful days, there is left a sonless father, a childless mother standing at the foot of the cross, a pregnant tomb.

God provided a Lamb – and the Lamb was his Son. God sacrificed his One Son and gave him over to death, so that we His sons and daughters would find victory in death.

And it’s out of that horror and that absurdity that the questions aren’t just answered, but the questions themselves are changed forever.

And so is the world.

And so might we be. If only we let ourselves. . .

Urgent: Moving with Purpose

2006-03-04T11:08:00.000-08:00

If you’ve been in church since the end of November, and you’ve been awake (!), you may have noticed that we’ve been reading the Gospel of Mark almost exclusively as our Gospel lesson. That’s because we’re in ‘year B’ of our lectionary, and this whole year we will mostly be reading from Mark (as last year we read mostly from Matthew, and next year we’ll read mostly from Luke).

There are a couple things that the Gospel of Mark is known for. One is the ‘messianic secret’: just about every time Jesus does something for someone else (healing, exorcism, etc.) he tells the person not to tell anyone what he did or who he is.

There’s the incredible amount of exorcisms in Mark. In relation to the other Gospels there’s a much higher percentage of stories of evil spirits, demonic possessions, and stories of Jesus casting these demons out. More than any of the other Gospels, Mark is very clearly the depiction of the forces of God battling the forces of Evil.

There’s the ending of Mark. If you look in your Bibles, and turn to the end of the Gospel of Mark, you’ll see that there are several ‘versions’ of the ending of his Gospel. If you look at the bottom of that page to the footnotes, you’ll almost certainly find some explanation that there are different ancient copies of Mark that have different lengths of endings. The oldest copy that we have of Mark has no Resurrection appearance of Jesus at all. The women go to the tomb, find it empty, and run away scared, and tell no one what they have seen – certainly an odd way to end a Gospel!

But, maybe the most curious thing about the Gospel of Mark is a single phrase that turns up over and over again in the Gospel: “and immediately.” Everything in Mark happens ‘immediately!’ The phrase “and immediately” thumps through the Gospel like a drum, constantly propelling the reader forward, and giving a quick pace to this, the shortest of the Gospels.

You might be asking yourself, ‘why does everything happen immediately?’ Well, the best answer that we can give, is Mark’s disposition. In all accounts, Mark is the first of the Gospels that was written, probably written only 10 or 20 years after the death and Resurrection of Jesus, and maybe even a full 40 years before the Gospel of John was written.

Mark was writing in a time of the Church – the very, very Early Church – when everyone was certain that Jesus was going to come back any moment. They literally thought that they would not die before Jesus came back to bring them all to Heaven and end the World as we all know it.

If you had told Mark that people would be reading his Gospel almost 2,000 years later in the mountains of western Maryland, he wouldn’t have believed you for a moment, because the thought that 2,000 would pass without Jesus coming back would have been completely foreign to him. So, when he sat down to write this Gospel he wasn’t trying to write a literary masterpiece – this was not the great American novel: he was writing a short testimony of the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus so that the most people possible would quickly read it and come to faith before Jesus came back.

That’s the reason why this is the shortest Gospel in the Bible. It’s the reason why there is no account of the birth of Jesus (no Bethlehem, no star, no shepherds, no Joseph and Mary in waiting). It’s the reason why Mark doesn’t have any long account of the Resurrection of Jesus (No road to Emmaus, no doubting Thomas, no appearances of Jesus to the disciples in the Upper Room).

And, it’s why everything happens ‘immediately.’

Mark was writing with urgency, and when he looked back on the ministry of Jesus, he saw it as an urgent ministry. He saw Jesus battling the cosmic forces of evil with urgency. He saw Jesus teaching His People with urgency. He saw Jesus come up from the waters of Baptism (as in today’s Gospel lesson) and be propelled with urgency to begin what he was sent here to do.

2,000 years later, we can look at the Gospel of Mark, and realize that Jesus wasn’t coming back quite as soon as Mark or Mark’s church thought he was. Looking back over these 2,000 years we can see that God’s Time isn’t as our time, and that God will move, and act, and come when the Time is right.

But, that doesn’t mean that we have to abandon the urgency of Mark, and the urgency of Jesus. It doesn’t mean that we should resign ourselves to laziness and carelessness when it comes to the things of God. Faith and moving with urgency are bound together, inseparably, both in Heaven and on Earth.

Mark’s Gospel is written so as to move us to act and live with a sense of urgency and purpose when it comes to the things of God. The drumbeat of ‘and immediately,’ and immediately,’ ‘and immediately,’ should be a drumbeat that infects us – effects us – to carry the same urgency in our lives. It’s an urgency that should alter how we understand our own baptism, our prayer life, our sense of mission in the world, and our drive to liver closer to God day by day.

When the paralytic, whose friends dug a hole in Jesus’ roof and lowered him down to the feet of Jesus, was healed he ‘immediately’ got up. When the leper was touched by Jesus, the leprosy ‘immediately’ left him. When Jesus came to Simon’s mother-in-law’s home, everyone ‘immediately’ told Jesus of her illness. When Jesus invited the disciples to drop everything in their lives and follow him, they ‘immediately’ left their nets and followed him. And, today, when Jesus was baptized by John in the wilderness, the Holy Spirit ‘immediately’ drove him into the wilderness for prayer, fasting, and tempting by Satan.

Some questions rise to the surface here:

What in our lives drives us with urgency?

What drives us? What consumes us? What makes us jump to our feet? Job? Family? Sports? Politics? . . . God?

Are we moved with a sense of urgency to grow in our faith - this Lent?

Those are questions that I can’t answer. Though we’ll all know the answers we give.

And, so will God.

Ash Wednesday: Time to Stop Kidding Ourselves

2006-03-01T06:33:00.000-08:00

If we had been able to have our Leviticus dinner and study this past Sunday, we would have done more than just eaten chocolate covered grasshoppers. We would have also heard about the Day of Atonement.

The Day of Atonement was established by God to give God’s people one day when they were forced to stop kidding themselves. For one day all – and I mean all – God’s people gathered together to remember that they had sinned against God. They had sinned against God as individuals, they had sinned against God as families, they had sinned against God as towns, tribes, and villages, and they had sinned against God as a nation. And as sinners they all came together to say they were sorry and atone for their wrong-doings.

We don’t celebrate the Day of Atonement as its called for in the Book of Leviticus – and it’s a good thing too, as it was pretty bloody! Blood thrown all over the place.

But we do have a day when we are given a chance to stop kidding ourselves: and that day is today.

Today we are confronted with two realities, and they’re hard realities to face: we are one day going to die; and we are sinful people.

Most of us probably, and hopefully(!), don’t obsess with either of these two realities. To be consumed with our own mortality, or our own brokenness, wouldn’t be healthy, productive, or even holy. But, to block these two realities out completely – to kid ourselves – isn’t healthy or holy either.

It’s easy to triumph in the illusion of immortality. And it’s tempting to think, ‘gee, how sinful and bad can I really be? I’ve never killed anybody or stole anything big. . .’

Those illusions are easy, and tempting; and that’s why it’s called kidding ourselves.

But, tonight, there’s none of that. Tonight young and old alike are sealed with the ashes of last year’s triumphant palm branches from Palm Sunday, with the words: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Tonight we fall to our knees to pray the words of Psalm 51: “Indeed I have been wicked from my birth, a sinner from my mother’s womb. . . create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

No, little chance of kidding ourselves. In fact I’ve heard some people speak of Ash Wednesday as the most uncomfortable day of the church year. It can be uncomfortable because it holds a mirror up to our faces, and shows us the parts of us that we’d rather forget about – the parts we’d rather deal with later. . . much later.

And so, what we get today is a reality check. And reality checks are good. But, there is a larger reality check: reality beyond our impending death and inherent sinfulness. It’s the reality of God.

We are going to die one day, but that needn’t be a bad thing: because with God, death doesn’t need to be an end, but can be a new and wonderful beginning.

We are sinners in God’s sight, but in one respect that can be ok too: because with God there is plentiful redemption, there is forgiveness, and there is the hope of new beginnings.

The real reality check of Ash Wednesday is that we’re human – fully human. We’re flawed, fragile, and frequently unimpressive.

But with all our limitations and shortcomings, God sent his only Son to come and live among us as one of us: he became human too. He didn’t have the problem of sin, but he had the problem of fragility, emotions, pain, and death. And he had love, for us.

With all that we are and all that we are not, tonight we are ashed and reminded of our sinfulness, but we are also invited to God’s table. We are fed with the bread of angels, and the cup which Jesus called ‘of the new covenant.’

Today we are reminded exactly who we are, and where we sit in the grand scheme of things. And, when you look at it, not from the perspective of our own neediness, but from the perspective of God’s overwhelming generosity, it’s not a bad place to be after all.

Faith with Chutzpah

2006-02-18T08:34:00.000-08:00

Mark 2:1-12
(Isaiah 43:18-25)

Years ago, when I was probably still only 12 or 13, I remember vividly people in my church telling me that they saw gifts for ministry in me. Little old ladies would come to me and squeeze my cheeks, and say “Ricky, you’d make a wonderful minister.” People made sure that I, as a teenager got put on the church board so that I would understand better how the church ran. People made sure that I got to sing in the choir – becoming the youngest member of the 40 voice ensemble. And, the clergy made sure that they were there to answer my questions, and support me when I needed support.

A few years after that, after I had left the Methodist Church to become an Episcopalian, I began to really hear the same call that those little old ladies saw. I felt called to be an Episcopal priest, and when the bishop was coming to town for the annual visitation, my priest made sure that I got a few minutes of his time. I sat down across from the bishop, poured out my soul, told him of this call that I was hearing, and shared with him my excitement over it all. His response: ‘You’re too young, too inexperienced, and I wouldn’t have a job for you anyway. Finish college and go get a real job, and if you still want to do this years from now, talk to me then.’

The contrast between the people who were lifting me and my aspirations up, and this bishop who was closing a door was incredible – and frustrating, depressing, and angering.

If it weren’t for the support of my priest, and many, many people in Holy Trinity Church in Ocean City, and then the people of the Diocese of Maryland, I would probably not be here in this capacity today.

Some people lifted me up, and some didn’t, but those who did were persistent – and to them, and to God, I am thankful.

. . .

Jesus had come home – literally to his own house. He had been running around all over the place healing people who were sick and injured, and casting out demons. Despite the fact that he told everyone who he helped to keep it quiet, they did no such thing, and in response to that, he had become a superstar.

He had come home for a little peace and quiet – for the chance to sleep in his own bed for once, and what he got what was a huge crowd gathering around his house. The crowd surrounded the house, and was packed in so tight that you couldn’t get in or out of the house.

It was a mob scene, and everyone wanted to get close to Jesus.

And, isn’t that good news! Wouldn’t it be nice if people were packed into our church this morning to standing room only to get close to Jesus!

People were getting excited about Jesus, so excited that they just wanted to get close to him. They wanted to be around him. And who knows, they may even have wanted to follow him for the rest of their lives.

These people were attracted to Jesus, and I suppose that many of them were there because they believed that Jesus could change their lives. You could say that they were beginning to have faith in him.

And that should be a good thing. Except what happens next betrays their faith.

But we’ll get back to that in a bit.

Another group of people come with a paralyzed man – four of them are carrying him on a stretcher – and they are taking him to Jesus. They believe that he can heal him.

Here’s the problem, the crowd is so large and thick, they can’t get the paralyzed man to Jesus. The crowd just won’t give way.

You know the deal; they were probably yelling, ‘make way! make way! sick man coming through!’

But no one made way. Engrossed by their own need to be close to Jesus, they failed to let someone else get to Jesus.

But, the men with the paralyzed friend weren’t finished yet! Not by a long shot. Somehow they get onto Jesus’ roof. And they start digging.

The Greek text of Mark literally reads, ‘they unroofed the roof.’

When the hole in Jesus’ roof was large enough they lowered the stretcher down into Jesus’ living room.

A few things to notice here: first, people just dug a hole into Jesus’ roof! What?! Can you imagine the chutzpah it would take to do something like that!? Can you imagine if it was your roof?! Some commentators have seen some humor in the fact that the first thing that Jesus says to them, after seeing what they’ve done to his house, is forgive him!

The second thing, is whose faith Jesus responds to. Jesus didn’t forgive the man’s sins and heal him because of his faith, but because of the faith of his friends who brought him. This story puts to rest the bad notion of sole reliance on personal faith. It’s important, but sometimes the faith of a community – dare I say the faith of a church – can have incredible impact.

The last thing to notice here is that a group of people have just carried an unmoving laid-out man, to a certain spot, dug a hole, and lowered him down.

Does that sound familiar? Even in our culture today we, sadly, do that sort of thing all the time: it’s a burial.

Add to it, the fact that in the ‘grave’ the man meets Jesus, his sins are forgiven, and he his given a new lease on life.

This is a story about resurrection. It’s about Jesus giving new life.

But, it’s also a story about faith, and two very different manifestations of faith.

Two groups of people were moved by faith in Jesus, to come to Jesus and get as close as they could.

One group camped outside the house, which in and of itself is fine. But, they were so wrapped up in how close they could get and how they could benefit from Jesus, they were oblivious to the needs of someone else. They blocked the entry of this man in need, to Jesus.

The second group found a man who needed to be brought to Jesus, and they did whatever it took to get him there – even if they had to do the MacGyver thing and unroof the roof.

When the church is at its best, we’re doing what it takes to bring people to God. We’re acting in faith – corporately – as a whole. And we’re acting with chutzpah – being bold and shattering the status quo. We’re tearing down the house, acting in concert with the words from Isaiah this morning: “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old, I am about to do a new thing.” And then, using modern parlance, “raise the roof.”

When the church misses the mark, is when we’re so focused on “me,” “mine,” and even “ours” that we become blind to those in need, and forget that others need to be brought to God as we were brought to God. When we become a holy huddle, instead of holy missionaries, we loose sight on what the real purpose of our Christian faith is: serving others, loving others, and sharing the Good News with others.

When I hear people talk about this church, I hear the word ‘family’ first and foremost. “We’re family.” “This church is like home.”

You know what that tells me? It tells me that many people in this church have felt picked up when they needed it. Many have felt like this church family has cared for them, supported them, and lifted them up.

And that’s wonderful. But, for us, it must be only the beginning: Who else needs lifted up? Who needs us to act boldly and with chutzpah for them? Who needs the roof raised? Who is standing outside who needs to be let in? Who can’t come here on their own, and need to be carried?

This Gospel lesson is about the gift of faith. It’s about the gift of resurrection. And it’s about the gift of new life. It’s not our job to give the gift – that’s God’s part in it all – but it’s the church’s job to get people there.

Who needs the gift, and how far are we willing to go to make sure they get it?

He Touched Me

2006-02-11T18:13:00.000-08:00

2 Kings 5:1-15
Mark 1:40-45

When we lived in Atlanta I heard that the large hospital associated with our University had a medical unit with ‘perks.’ It was a hospital floor dedicated to the fabulously wealthy and notably famous. When dignitaries, actors, rock-stars, or politicians were in town and then fell ill or got injured that is where they went for treatment.

It was absolutely private – no one from the outside world could just walk in. There was extra security, gourmet food, 400 count Egyptian cotton sheets, and nurses and doctors falling all over them.

They didn’t have to wait for hours to see a doctor. When they rang for a nurse, they didn’t have to twiddle their thumbs until one had a spare minute, and their every need was looked after.

They were, after all, famous, wealthy, and willing to pay for every convenience they could get their hands on. They expected a certain level of respect, personal attention, and comfort.

Some 2,700 years ago there was a famous, powerful, military commander who had similar expectations. He had leprosy – which was probably not what we know as technical leprosy today (Hansen’s Disease), but was probably an embarrassing and uncomfortable skin infection, rash, or fungus.

He heard that there was a prophet in Israel – a holy man of God – who could take care of such things. As one of the most powerful men in the world he had certain expectations of the level of care that Elisha the prophet would offer him. As such expectations were blown out of the water.

He went to meet with Elisha, and Elisha didn’t even come himself – he sent someone else. And, instead of calling down impressive powers from above, he simply gave his co-worker the message to tell the military commander to take of his clothes and jump in the river – seven times.

I would have loved to have seen Naaman’s face – because I love his verbal reaction: I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?

For Namaan there would be no 400 count Egyptian cotton sheets, gourmet meal, or even new experimental treatments. He was told to go jump in the creek.

A wise (and brave) underling of Namaan’s confronted him though: Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?

So, he casts off his clothes, jumps in the creek, and voila: he’s healed.

He is thrilled – amazed – and thankful to God for his health. He says: Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.

This is a story about pride and status. And the message is pretty clear: God doesn’t care how ‘important’ or how ‘powerful’ you are. And, God isn’t all that interested in seeing your ego get boosted.

Yeah, God could have called in some heavy duty pyrotechnics to heal Namaan. Lightning, earthquakes, legions of angels singing in unison “ah-AHHH!” But, who would that serve? It would make Namaan look important and powerful, so important and powerful that God would pull out the heavy-duty equipment for him.

But, making Namaan feel and look important and powerful wasn’t in God’s plan. He healed him, simply and totally, which showed Namaan and everyone present that God was great, and there was no God except God.

Now, that was God’s point.

And so, this is also a story about God working in the ordinary. Don’t get me wrong, God does do extraordinary things, and from time to time God lets loose on some incredibly impressive pyrotechnics (check out the books of Daniel, Habakkuk or Revelation to find some examples). But, where God works regularly, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, is in the everyday ordinary experiences of life.

(It’s no mistake that Elisha’s predecessor had a profound experience of God: not in the fire, earthquake, or wind, but in the sound of sheer silence.)

The healing of leprosy in the Gospel lesson today is just as lovely, just as miraculous, and just as ordinary – Jesus touched him and he was healed.

The touching is a big deal though, in its own right. In those days you didn’t touch lepers – and that wasn’t just a social norm, it was a religious law. The Book of Leviticus makes it very clear that lepers were to live outside the boundaries of the town or city so that they weren’t around anyone – and no one was to touch them: that was God’s law. Obviously that law sprang out of a fear of contracting and spreading skin diseases, but it was law nonetheless.

A few years ago when I was in Spain we came across a medieval monastery. The only detail I remember about the monastery was a stone porch with a high arched, vaulted ceiling. It was high and vaulted for a reason: the engineers were such geniuses that they knew if they constructed it in just the right way, a person could stick their face in one corner and whisper, and their voice would acoustically travel to the other side of the room to another person with their face stuck in the opposite corner. It was made that way so that a priest could stand in one corner of the porch and hear the whispered confession of a leper in the other corner – and never come closer than 20 feet to them!

Jesus took considerable risk touching the leper. I suppose he could have contracted the disease himself, though being the Son of God I bet he knew he was pretty safe from this. He could have definitely gotten in huge trouble with the religious leaders of his day – something that never really phased him. But, most of all, he could have repelled people away from him who would otherwise listen to him or follow him – people who wouldn’t want to catch something.

But, none of that mattered. There was someone who needed healing. There was an opportunity to show everyone how great God was. And he touched him.

So, this story and the one of Namaan – two stories about the healing of lepers – are indeed stories about pride and status, God working in the ordinary, and God healing the sick.

But, they are also stories which point to one incredible end: God is a healer, and we need healed. Both stories are told so that it is obvious that we’re supposed to put ourselves in the leper’s shoes. As humans we too often get overcome with pride – we obsess about status – and we desperately need Jesus to touch our lives to make us whole.

Maybe this week, or this month, or this year we’re physically sick, and in need of physical healing. Maybe we’re overcome by the trials of life, and need to see that our God is a God of hope. Maybe we’re sin-sick and need to turn back to God, so that we might see the grace and mercy of God.

Just know that we’re never too sick, too overcome, too bad, or too far-gone – Jesus is there, and he will touch us. We may not get the Egyptian-cotton-sheet- treatment, but we’re in good hands – indeed, holy hands.

We Are Family

2006-01-28T15:53:00.000-08:00

1 Corinthians 7:17-23
1 Corinthians 8:1b-13

Last week’s epistle lesson was from the 7th chapter of 1st Corinthians. Remember it? No? Ok, let me give you the Cliff’s Notes version: It was about circumcision.

And what Paul says about it, is by the way, a pretty big deal.

It’s a big deal because in Genesis chapter 17 we find these words:

“This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. Both the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money must be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant."

Circumcision became a huge issue in the early Christian Church, because while some of the first Christians were circumcised Jews, others were uncircumcised Greeks. Did the Greeks have to be circumcised like the Jews were, and like Genesis chapter 17 said?

Well, there were several answers to that question. Paul’s answer in the 7th chapter of 1st Corinthians was this: no, Greeks don’t have to be circumcised. You can be circumcised, you can be uncircumcised, it really doesn’t matter to God. Paul says that what does matter is listening to God, and having faith in Jesus.

Very interestingly, the Book of Acts tells us that Paul sent his fellow apostle Timothy to minister to a Jewish congregation, and before he sent him, he had him circumcised. . . isn’t that interesting. . . and even more interesting is the fact that Paul absolutely hammers the Galatians for thinking they needed to be circumcised. . . but more Timothy’s little surgery in a minute . . .

This week’s epistle lesson is from the 8th chapter of 1st Corinthians and it deals with another hot-button issue from the ancient world: can you eat meat that’s been sacrificed to idols?

Of all the things that the Bible hammers over and over again, it’s that we cannot, under any circumstances, acknowledge other gods or worship them or idols made to them. After all, the first two commandments of the ten commandments are: 1) I am the Lord your God: you shall have no other gods before me, and 2) you shall make no idols/ graven images.

Pretty clear, huh?

So, here’s the other problem in the early church: in the pagan world people would take animals to their pagan temples and sacrifice them to an idol of some little god. Then, because only the best animals was offered for the pagan sacrifice, the precious meat from that animal was taken to the market and sold.

The problem came in the question: can a Christian go to the market and buy and eat meat that was sacrificed to a pagan god?

Some early Christians were doing just that, and other Christians were jumping up and down screaming that you couldn’t do that.

So, what does Paul say in the epistle lesson today?

He says that it really doesn’t matter. You can eat the meat, you can stay away from the meat. It’s not a big deal because the little god doesn’t exist anyway, so if some poor schlep wants to butcher his meat in front of a little silly statue, that’s not our problem - we don’t believe in the idol.

But, here’s the kicker: what Paul says IS important, is that if the eating of meat sacrificed to an idol causes trouble for someone in the community, then the whole community is supposed to stop it. Because there might be some people in the church who can’t fathom the thought of eating such meat – and for them it might damage their ability to have faith in One God to do such a thing.

For Paul, it’s all about the community: which means that it’s all about the good of the community. Eating meat just isn’t important enough to drive a community of Christian believers apart. Circumcision just isn’t enough to drive a community of Christian believers apart.

Which, by the way, was why he had Timothy circumcised. Paul knew that it didn’t matter in God’s eyes whether or not he was circumcised (what mattered was what was in Tim’s heart), but Timothy’s Jewish-Christian church might have a hard time accepting him if he wasn’t more like them. So, for the good of the community, Paul had Timothy go through that awfully painful surgery.

A few things about these two ancient-world problems:

First, don’t minimize them. These aren’t just petty little problems, insignificant in comparison to our own – for the first several generations of Christians they went right to the heart of biblical authority, salvation, and righteousness before God. Could you be a Christian if you weren’t circumcised? If you WERE circumcised? Would you go to Hell for eating that hamburger? Was eating that hamburger saying that you believed in other gods besides the One God who created us, redeemed us, and sanctifies us? These issues were no smaller, and no larger than the issues the contemporary church is wrestling with. The wisdom we can take from how the early church dealt with it’s problems is wisdom we can certainly use today.

Second, notice that these two issues, aren’t black-and-white right-or-wrong – at least not for Paul. Don’t get me wrong, Paul knew when to lay down the law (pardon the pun) when he needed to. Paul certainly taught that there were things that were right, and there were things that were wrong. These two issues just didn’t fall into those categories. It didn’t matter whether or not you were circumcised, and it didn’t matter if you ate a hunk of meat that was sacrificed to an idol. Also, don’t get me wrong by thinking that people weren’t driven by rage and concern over these issues. But, just because they evoked emotion, didn’t make them right-or-wrong problems.

And finally, see the major value lifted up in how Paul deals with these two problems: it’s all about the Church, the community gathered for prayer, worship, spiritual growth, and evangelism.

I don’t want to toot our horns too much, but I think we should feel a good sense of accomplishment in Paul’s words in 1st Corinthians, because we do community pretty good. We not perfect – in fact far from it – but in general we are a community of people who love God, who love each other, and who put our church high on the priority list.

It’s why when I ask people to describe this church, one of the first things that comes out of their mouth is: we’re family.

We’re experiencing a lot of success right now: we’re growing, our budget is growing, we have lots of good programming going on, we’re getting our physical plant in ship-shape order – and let’s face it, we know how to eat good!

Paul, in good days and in hard days wants us all to remember that we aren’t – and can’t be – Christians alone. We can only do this together, as One Body. For Paul, the first thing is to make sure that our One Body is ‘in Christ.’ After that’s settled, it’s up to us to live in love, live in support of one another, and reflect to the world God’s love and grace.

As family we can try, and as God’s family we can rest knowing that God will help.

Mercy Pours Like Rain

2006-01-21T15:21:00.000-08:00

Psalm 130
1 Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord;
Lord, hear my voice; *
let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.

2 If you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss, *
O Lord, who could stand?

3 For there is forgiveness with you; *
therefore you shall be feared.

4 I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; *
in his word is my hope.

5 My soul waits for the Lord,
more than watchmen for the morning, *
more than watchmen for the morning.

6 O Israel, wait for the Lord, *
for with the Lord there is mercy;

7 With him there is plenteous redemption, *
and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.

The words of Psalm 130 speak of forgiveness, mercy, and ‘plenteous redemption.’

After reading the Psalm, did anything jump out at you?

How about this: WITHOUT looking at the Psalm, try finishing verse 3:

“For there is forgiveness with you [O Lord]
therefore you shall be ________.”

What might you add to finish that verse? ‘Thanked,’ ‘Praised,’ ‘Blessed?”

Those might be nice thoughts, but those weren’t the thought of the Psalmist.

Now you can red verse 3 of Psalm 130:

“For there is forgiveness with you [O Lord]
therefore you shall be feared.”

Feared? Would that be your first choice? Is that your reaction to forgiveness?

Personally I had read Psalm 130 several times through this week until I realized what verse 3 actually said, and as soon as I realized what it said I was stopped in my tracks. It changed the way that I look at the entire Psalm.

Verses 4-6 speaks four times about ‘waiting’ for the Lord: I wonder, what kind of waiting is that? Is it like waiting for Santa Claus to come on Christmas morning, or is it more like waiting for dad to get home when you know you’re in trouble?

The forgiveness that is offered for our sins: the acceptance that God offers us regardless of our sins, shortcomings, things we’ve done, or things we have left undone can be overwhelming – dare I say *should* be overwhelming.

Maybe on the surface, fear in the face of forgiveness seems odd today, but I think if we look a little deeper we will see that it’s probably a little closer to our actual experience.

All of us – ALL of us – have done things we’re not proud of. In our lives we’ve hurt other people, we’ve hurt ourselves, we deliberately turned away from God, we’ve blown it big time, and sometimes we’re even aware that we’ve done such things.

And sometimes these things we’ve done aren’t in the past: we’re still doing them.

Some of us carry these things around as great burdens. We feel shame, and unworthiness, and embarrassment.

Deep down – in the depths of our souls – we know that there is no escape from these things. They define us. They mark us. And they will always be looming in the back of our minds.

But, there is a deeper knowing, so deep that sometimes it is forgotten, or dismissed as nonsense: our sins and shortcomings do not define us, they do not mark us because we are marked by Christ’s wounds on the Cross, we are marked as Christ’s own forever in our baptism: with God there is forgiveness, mercy, and plenteous redemption.

The real fear of course, is dealing with what we’ve done in the first place. God doesn’t just wipe away everything without some work from us first: we have to name our sins and shortcomings, we have to own them, we have to say that we’ve done things we know were hurtful.

Yes, ‘waiting’ for God is like waiting for dad to get home, but the Good News is that every time our heavenly father comes home to hear what we’ve done, forgiveness and mercy pours down – rains down. Maybe that’s scary too: with everything we’ve done, and everything we are, God still loves us: JUST as we are.

One of the first situations I was thrown into not long after my ordination was the impending death of a man. He had a family, and his family was gathering around him as he rapidly got worse and worse, and as death got closer and closer.

What makes this death really stick out for me is that, like all of us, this man had done things that he hadn’t been proud of. He had committed some pretty flat-out identifiable sins. He knew that the things he had done were wrong, but my best guess is that the shame and regret was too deep and painful for him. And so, instead of deal with his brokenness and shame, instead of seeking forgiveness from God and his family, he hid it all. He buried it all as deep as it would go.

The trouble is, that’s never deep enough. In God’s good time all things are exposed, all things are brought to the surface.

Fear of the truth brought him to hide: and probably fear of forgiveness kept him in hiding

For this man, as he slipped into unconsciousness, as his breaths became shallower and shallower, the web of lies he had spun to cover his sins and shortcomings began to unravel. And in a matter of a few hours all was known.

For his children there was anger, feelings of betrayal, rage.

But, here’s the amazing thing: as I watched this family deal with its grief and anger over death and betrayal, I was drawn to watch his wife.

After everything that had come into the light, after all that had become known, she cared for him still. She washed him, she anointed his skin with ointment so that it wouldn’t dry out and hurt. She turned him on his side regularly, so that there would be no pain.

There wasn’t anyone involved in that situation who wouldn’t have understood if she had turned away from him, as he had so obviously turned away from her. No one would have held it against her at all.

She didn’t have to lovingly care for him until his last breath, but she did.

In that death, I, and I hope he, got to see what the mercy of God is like: undeserved, uncalled-for, and totally overwhelming.

Is it so big, so incredible, so overwhelming that it should be met with fear and trembling? Yeah. But, it is there: mercy, forgiveness, and plenteous redemption.

Whatever we’ve done, whatever we’ve said, no matter how bad we’ve hurt someone else, no matter how far we’ve turned from God, grace, forgiveness, and mercy are there to meet us.

There may be fear in us – the fear of facing our own demons – but when God comes with his forgiveness, mercy, and plenteous redemption there is no need for deep-seeded fear, just profound thanks.

Moving Forward

2006-01-07T17:50:00.000-08:00

Where are you on your journey – your spiritual journey – your journey to God.

Everyone who seeks God’s Face, embarks of a journey. The starting point is a commitment to Christ, a commitment to being an intentional disciple of Jesus. The ending point is God. And the journey is the spiritual life.

As in any journey you can move forward, you can stand still, or you can go backwards.

And, just so we’re clear, it doesn’t matter how ‘spiritual’ you are, how old you are, or how learned you are we are always on the journey. Billy Graham still has room to deepen his relationship with God. The Pope, as holy and good a man he is, still has work to do. We all do. I do, and so do you.

The question is, are we doing the work – are we on our way?

Last week you may have seen a picture of your priest on the front page of the region section of the Times-News standing on a labyrinth. And like many others, you may have asked yourself the question: what in the world is a labyrinth?!

A labyrinth is an ancient spiritual tool, which predates Christianity by millennia. In the middle-ages labyrinths were picked up by the Christian Church to take the place of huge pilgrimages. If you didn’t have the time or the means to get up and walk to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, you could maybe go down to your local cathedral and take a mini-pilgrimage into the labyrinth.

Labyrinths might look like a maze, but in reality they aren’t. There are no dead-ends or tricks. You begin the journey at the beginning, and you end the journey in the middle. If you just stay on the path it will lead you to the center everytime. You just have to stay on the path, and keep moving forwards.

As I’ve walked the labyrinth several times in the past few weeks I’ve personally found it to be remarkably similar to the journey of faith I try to be on. It meanders, sometimes it seems like I’ve ended up in a place I’ve already been before, sometimes it seems like I’ve ended up at the beginning, and sometimes it seems like I almost get there but then trail off again. But, I always come home. As long as I keep moving, and stay on the path.

Today, as we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, we remember another journey: the journey of the magi – the wise men – the “three kings” to Bethlehem to see the baby Jesus. They traveled from the East, probably Persia (modern day Iran), and sought to find God wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

These are probably some of the strangest figures in the Bible. Most scholars figure that the magi were Zoroastrians who practiced the weird magic we would call ‘astrology’ today. They looked to the skies to figure out what was going on in the world. And, as they were gazing up, they saw a star. Rising in the East, this star did something no other star does: it moved. Towards Bethlehem. And they picked up, and followed it.

Seems like they knew what they were doing too, because they followed this star with gifts: for a child. And, it seems like they knew who this child was: King and Messiah – for they brought gifts of gold, incense, and myrrh. (Myrrh was used for burial in those days – would you think to bring embalming materials to a baby shower?!)

Also interesting, is that these pagan astrologers figured out who Jesus was and where he was before the people who you might expect to figure it out did. You might think that the Jewish teachers, priests, and leaders might figure out that their King and Messiah had been born. Nope, leave it to the astrologers.

But, the most important thing is that they went. They recognized what was going on, and then they set out. They turned away from their strange ways and turned their faces towards Christ. They chose the path, and they took it until they ended up at the side of Jesus.

So again I ask: where are you in your journey? Are you moving forward? Or have you stopped – or have you turned back – or have you jumped off the track?

It’s not a hard question to answer: if you’re intentionally deepening your relationship with God they you’re probably moving forward. If you can look back over the past month, year, decade and know that you’re deepened your faith then you’re probably moving forward.

If you’re not taking the time to intentionally seek God and a deeper knowledge of God, then you’re probably stopped. If you haven’t made a commitment to walk the path, then you haven’t even started.

Remember, don’t think that you have to feel ‘holy’ or ‘look’ particularly righteous. Those pagan, magician, astrologers figured it all out. They stopped what they were doing, turned to Jesus, and started taking steps towards him.

And we too can take that journey, wherever we are. Moving to the side of the manger/crib, and to the foot of the cross, and the entrance to the empty tomb. And, we can know all along, as we are on our journey seeking God, God our Creator and Hope is always the end, is always seeking us too, and God is always holding our hand every step we take.

The Catastrophe of Christmas

2005-12-25T18:56:00.000-08:00

You may remember a few years back when the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was speaking of the war in Iraq and coined the phrase: catastrophic success. His point was that our Armed Forces overwhelmed Saddam Hussein’s forces quicker than we had even planned for. It was a “catastrophic success.”

I was reminded of these words from Rumsfeld as I was reading some of C. S. Lewis’ writings this week. Of course, C. S. Lewis wrote the Chronicles of Narnia which has been turned into a blockbuster movie in the theaters right now. But, he was more than a man who provided fodder for Hollywood, he was one of the greatest Christian theologians of the last century.

In writing about Jesus’ birth and coming into the world he said this: The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history.

Eucatastrophe.

I’ll save you the trouble of going home tonight and looking it up in your dictionary: it’s a word that he made up. “E-U” of course is a prefix added to words which means “good.” (Like “eu-logy” means a ‘good word’ about someone who died, a “eu-phemism” is a ‘good’ way to say something that isn’t all that good to begin with.)

He’s saying that the Incarnation – God becoming man in the person of Jesus Christ – is a good catastrophe. In other words it was a “catastrophic success.”

What’s so catastrophic about Christmas, even if it’s a ‘good’ catastrophe (whatever that means)?

It doesn’t much look like we’re recalling a catastrophe right now! No black armbands, no flag at half mast, no solemn faces. We have lights, wreaths, trees, Christmas specials on TV, all point to a warm fuzzy time of the year which helps us recall our own childhoods and the sugar plum fairies which still dance in our heads.

I really don’t mean this sermon to turn into a English or Greek lesson(!), but the English word “catastrophe” comes from the Greek word katastrephein which literally means “to ruin” or “to overturn.”

Again, what did the Christmas event ruin or overturn?

Well to put it simply, the birth of Jesus overturned everything. Nothing in all creation was left unturned. It changed everything under the sun. In short it ruined everything that needed ruining.

God – the Creator, the Sanctifier, the Almighty – became human. God had walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden; God had led the Israelites for forty years in the wilderness, and God had dwelt among His people in the Temple in Jerusalem. But, now God wasn’t just around us, or among us. Now, God was one of us.

And not just any one-of-us, but God – the Creator, the Sanctifier, the Almighty – became a baby. Helpless, wordless, vulnerable, weak, and because they were temporarily homeless he was lying in a borrowed barn.

The majesty and power of God had poured itself into an infant. The King of kings had no gold encrusted throne, but a simple manger. Humanity – weak, flawed, fragile – had been given the greatest compliment ever, with God willing to be one of us.

Everything was turned upside-down. Everything was now overturned, and things would never be the same again. In fact you could say that the old way – the old order had been ruined.

Never again would God not know what it was like to cry, laugh, mourn, stub his toe, hit his funny bone, or love another person with an embrace.

No longer would God be removed from us: We would no longer be separated by a curtain in a Temple, or by a million miles to Heaven. God was one of us.

No longer would we need complicated rituals to buy the forgiveness of our sins. Never again would we have to question God’s undying love for us. Never again would it be a secret that God was crazy for us, that God thought the world of us, that God wanted us to love Him more than anything.

In the birth of Jesus, Earth and Heaven mixed together – using biblical language, Earth and Heaven were wed.

The whole shebang was “overturned” upside-down, and everything was ruined for the better.

It wasn’t just a catastrophic success, and I’d even go a step further than C. S. Lewis saying that it was a ‘good’ catastrophe - it was the greatest catastrophe ever. A Holy Catastrophe. A beautiful catastrophe.

To look into the red screaming face of the Christ-child, lying in the manger is to look into the moment the world was forever changed, and humanity was wed with divinity.

The only possible terrible-catastrophe within the Christmas event is for us to be unchanged by it – to look into the crib of Our Lord and turn away uncaring and unmoved. The only catastrophic-failure that can be associated with the birth of Jesus is the failure of us not being overturned, and changed, and forever altered by it. It’s to allow the ‘stuff’ of Christmas (shopping, Rudolph, etc.) to overshadow the gift of God becoming one of us – living among us, and living for us.

This is a Holy Night – it’s a night to fall on our knees and hear the angel voices. It’s a night – a night Divine, when God changed everything – well, just about – he left only our hearts to be changed. And that’s up to us.

Let this night shine – but let it also tremble and thunder with the turning of our hearts towards Bethlehem, to the Holy Infant, and to the catastrophe which brought God to us, and paved the way for us to be brought to God.

Seeing the Big Picture

2005-12-17T15:18:00.000-08:00

Life is busy. Yes? Anyone disagree with me?

It’s December 18th and I’m sweating over how much I have to do in the next week to make Christmas happen in my family, my home, and the two churches that I pastor! How in the world am I going to get it all done.

Of course, when December 26th comes it’s not like my life totally opens up or anything. It’s not like I won’t have anything to do. There will still be tons to do, and tons to worry about, and tons to run around like a chicken with my head cut off for.

And of course, this is all when Zoë is only a year and a half! What happens when I have to add soccer practice, basketball games, and girl scouts to the weekly routine. . . and what if we decide to have another child or two?!

I could hyperventilate just thinking about it!!

Life is busy, and it’s so very, very easy to get caught up in our own little world, that we forget that the rest of the world is out there. It’s easy to forget that other people have other issues, and schedules, and problems to worry about. It’s easy to forget that there are people out there who have issues and problems far greater, and far more life-or-death threatening.

It’s easy to forget the big picture. And it’s easy to forget how big the big picture really is.

In our Old Testament lesson this morning from the second chapter of Samuel David gets a message from God: Great things are going to happen. His throne will have his descendants on them forever and ever and ever. A kingdom will be established, and it will be God’s kingdom for David’s ancestors to reign over for all time.

That was the good news. Unfortunately for David it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

But the promise – the hope – the Plan echoed through the centuries.

In our Psalm this morning, written probably centuries after King David’s reign, we find: For your servant David's sake, do not turn away the face of your Anointed. The LORD has sworn an oath to David; in truth, he will not break it: "A son, the fruit of your body will I set upon your throne. If your children keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their children will sit upon your throne for evermore."

Almost 700 years after King David, the prophet Isaiah spoke of the Plan again. In chapter 7 of the book of Isaiah, he told about a virgin who would give birth to a child, whose name would be Emmanuel, meaning God with us. He would sit on the throne of David.

That was the good news. It’s just wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Then, almost 300 years later, another messenger of God came to a little girl, probably only 12 or 13 years old, and told her that she would bear a son, and this son would – drumroll please – sit on the throne of David!

But, she’d have to wait 9 months.

And then another 30 years until Jesus started his ministry.

And then another 3 until his triumphant death on the cross. And then another 3 days until the Resurrection. And then another 50 days until he ascended into heaven.

And then, the Kingdom would be established for ever and ever as soon as he got back.

2,000 years later here we are. It’s good news, it just isn’t happening anytime soon.

You see, it’s happening on God’s time. God’s Plan is happening just as it should, everything at just the right time, it’s just that for us it seems a little long.

The Plan that was first put into words 3,000 years ago is still very much the Plan. The story lives on – and the story isn’t finished yet!

This is the Big picture. It’s a little bigger than my Christmas to-do list. A little bigger than my honey-do list. Ever bigger than my future soccer-basketball-girl scouts-dance class schedule.

Looking at the world from God’s point of view, my problems, issues, and scheduling woes are of little significance.

And, such things pale in comparison with the fact that God’s Story is going on all around us, in us, through us, and beyond us. The story that began thousands of years ago is still playing out and we’ve been invited to be a part of it. We’ve been invited to join in.

And the way that we’ve been invited to join in, is very similar to how that little girl 2,000 years ago was invited to join in.

Mary is known in the Greek Christian Church as “Theotokos,” which means “God-Bearer.” She was asked by God to bear the Christ-child into the world, and even though it would cost her greatly, she said ‘yes.’

We too are asked to bear God into the world. We’re asked, as part of the great Plan, to allow Christ to live in us (as Christ lived in Mary’s womb), and we’re asked to share Christ with the whole world. We’re to let the whole world know that God established a throne for David, and that Jesus (David ancestor) will rule from that throne and rule over God’s kingdom for ever and ever. We asked to live in the kingdom, and follow the King, love the King even as the King loves us.

That’s the big picture.

Kinda makes the afternoon trip to Walmart seem a little insignificant, huh?

But, this big picture means that we’re very significant in God’s Plan, God’s Story, and God’s Good News.

The Beginning

2005-12-03T12:54:00.000-08:00

The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God

I was about fifteen or sixteen years old when I had several years of classical voice training under my belt. I had been working on several of the solos from Handel’s Messiah in my voice class, and so someone thought it would be a good idea if I sang one
at the family service on Christmas Eve. And so there I was standing in the middle of the chancel in front of hundreds of proud parents, grandparents, and kids everywhere. Because it was the family service, some of the kids came as sheep, or cows, or angels
- you know the deal. And everyone was beaming as it was Christmas Eve!

I looked out into the congregation and there were red sweaters, red and green plaid ties,
women wearing bright jackets and blouses with Santa Clause pins tacked on them. Everyone was wearing a smile. The excitement was electric.

And there I was with everyone waiting for little Ricky Morley to kick the service off.
The organ began playing, I took a few deep breaths to kick off the nerves, and I opened my mouth, and out came: For Behold! Darkness shall cover the earth. And gross darkness the people.

The effect was instant. Smiles fell from faces, and excitement was converted to confusion and perplexity. People started flipping through their orders of service - “What in the world is he singing?”

And there I was standing there thinking to myself: “What in the world am I singing?”

I had sung the piece perhaps a hundred times in practice but it never hit me what it was that the words actually said!

And it didn’t matter that the song continues: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.

No, it didn’t matter because the damage was done. And the tension was tangible - you could feel it – I could feel it.

Juxtaposed with the gigantic Christmas tree by the pulpit, the poinsettias around the altar,
the flocks of sheep and cattle, and the Santa Clause pins was this message of judgment - dark judgment.

The people had come that night hoping for comfort, and joy, and they were greeted with
something very, very different.

How similar to what John the Baptist probably experienced.

People from all over apparently flocked to him so that they could have a nice little ceremony: baptism. At least ‘a nice little ceremony’ was what they thought it was. John thought it was a little more significant than that.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all record the tale of the throngs of people coming to John for Baptism. The people who came to him were Jews who lived in and around Jerusalem. John set up shop at the Jordan river in the countryside just outside of Jerusalem proper.

These Jews would have known a lot about sins and how to gain forgiveness of them – because they had a Temple in the middle of their city, and they could just take a goat, or sheep, or pigeon to the Temple – have it ritually slaughtered by a priest – and ‘poof’ they were forgiven.

These Jews also knew a lot about being on God’s good side, because, well, they were Jews! Their parents were Jews, and their grandparents were Jews, and their great. . . you get the idea. They had Jewish blood flowing through them – and because they were God’s chosen people, they were set.

So these chosen people, who were forgiven at the drop of a pigeon, walked out so see this interesting fella in the countryside, to have him perform a cute little ceremony.

What they got was something completely different.

Also when I was a child – about the time I sang that ‘interesting’ song on Christmas Eve, I was introduced to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It wasn’t far away from my home, and it was just amazing to me (and still is!).

Can you guess which was my favorite part? You got it, the church part! I loved the Medieval European collection which was mostly filled with artifacts from churches from all over Europe. There was stonework and statues, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, and gold gilded depictions of the saints. I loved looking at the saints with their beautiful flowing hair, their colorful wardrobes, their halos, and the symbolic representations of their lives, and usually their deaths, all around them.

And then there was this one saint who looked totally out of place. John the Baptist. No colorful clothing, no dashing looks, and no impressive symbology. He was a guy dressed in hairy rags with a simple wooden staff.

So, I picture these big city folk living in Jerusalem going out to the countryside for their little cute ceremony being absolutely stunned when they saw who this John was: a camel hair wearing, wild-eyed, locust eating crazy wilderness man.

And that was all before he opened his mouth.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record John describing the baptism he was offering as being a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

In the Gospel of Luke, we find an expanded form of what John said to the crowds: You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’ for I tell you God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

I’m sure that effect was instant. Smiles fell from faces, and excitement was converted to confusion and perplexity. People looking around, asking their neighbors if they knew what was going on – were they in the right place? What was this guy saying?

This was the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God

It was good news – but I bet John’s first audiences had a hard time hearing it as that. They were coming for some comfort, they were coming for something nice and cute, and what they got was completely different.

John was telling the Good News: the forgiveness of sins didn’t come from rituals, and a relationship with God didn’t happen because of who your parents were, or what air you were breathing.

The Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is about repentance – which, by the way, doesn’t mean to feel bad and guilty. Repentance means literally ‘to turn,’ and in this context means to turn to God, and to God’s Son.

This Good News that John the Baptist was proclaiming was the same as the song that I sang years ago on Christmas Eve: For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people. BUT the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be upon thee. Kings shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.

There is hope, but the hope sometimes has to come in the midst of hopelessness. There is life, but sometimes death must come before it can be seen. There is light, but it is always shining through the darkness – still shining, always shining, but always darkness too.

There is forgiveness, but first repentance. There is new life with Christ, but only after taking up our cross and following him. There is grace, and mercy, and love; but there is also crucifixion, the rigors of discipleship, and the demands of apostleship.

It’s the “Good News” not the ‘cute news’ or ‘nice news.’ It’s the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

In the weeks coming, we’ll be full into the Christmas swing. There will be trees, and lights, and garland, and parties, and eggnog, and presents, and the red swollen bellies of stuffed Santas, and sugar plum fairies dancing in our dreams. And, while we probably won’t have little John the Baptist figurines and locusts dangling from our Christmas trees, that tension between the Good News of Jesus and the GOOD NEWS of Jesus will always be there.

We can recall it if we take the time. And we can ignore it at our own peril. We can be serious Christmas Christians, or we can be cute Christmas revelers looking for a nice ceremony – and repentance – turning to God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength is what separates the two.

And that’s the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Don't Get Caught Taking a Nap on the Most Important Day of Your Life

2005-11-26T10:42:00.000-08:00

About 18 months ago was an important time in the Morley household. In fact, it was one of the most important times in our lives. Because, 18 months ago Karen was going to give birth to Zoe at any moment.

Nowadays, there are all kinds of things that young couples can do to prepare for their first birth. There are libraries of books to read that contain everything you would ever want to know - and a few things you'd be better off not knowing thank-you-very-much - about the pregnancy and birthing process. There are classes to take. There are exercises, breathing techniques to master, and even practice run-throughs of the delivery room antics.

And then there's the basic stuff that you need to get ready: at the very least - if you don't read a single book or attend a single class - at the very least you need to pack your bags for the hospital adventure.

So, about 18 months ago the Morley household was ready to go - we were ready for the birth - we were ready for Zoe to come.

. . . well, sort of.

You see, Karen had her bag packed. It was packed and zipped up, and sitting by the bed. Karen also had Zoe's bag packed, so that when she was ready to come home from the hospital, she had something cute to wear.

But, Rick - Rick didn't have his bagged packed.

You'd think that 2 out of three bags wasn't bad.

You see, 18 months ago, Karen was still several weeks away from the due date. I had time - I had plenty of time. I mean why rush it?

And so when Memorial Day came, I accepted the invitation to give a speach at the town celebration. After the speach we went over to some friends house for a bar-b-que. After the bar-b-que I suppose I could have packed my bags - but we had plenty of time. So I laid down for a holiday nap.

I had just about fallen asleep when Karen called down from upstairs - "Rick?"

"Yes?" I said, a little annoyed that she had waken me up for something I was sure was trite.

"Rick? Can you come up here?"

Now, very annoyed, I asked (in a very annoyed tone), "What? What do you want?"

"My water broke.""What?!" - I flew up the stairs, not sure that I touched a single one of them -

"What does that mean." (I guess I hadn't committed all those books to memory.)

I (sort of) helped Karen, and then I ran downstairs, and did what any man in my position would do.

I started up the washing machine.

After all, my bad wasn't packed, and some of the clothes I wanted to wear at the hospital were in the dirty clothes hamper.

Karen, of course, calmly (yeah, right) explained that the situation was a little more iminent than that, and to please turn off the washing machine and turn on the car.

In short: I wasn't ready. I had put off getting ready. I got ready pretty quick - but I wasn't ready nonetheless.

. . . For those people who come to the Episcopal Church from other traditions (Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Nazarene, etc.) late November and early to mid December can be pretty disappointing and disorienting.

Santa Clause has been in the mall now for two weeks. Christmas decorations have been up in many, many stores and shops for weeks now too. Christmas music is beginning to be piped in through PA systems and the radio. Some of us may even have our Christmas treets up already.

But, this church is pretty much the same as it has been since last January. No tree, no lights, and NO Christmas music.For some, this provokes a question: why? Shouldn't the church be the FIRST place where Jesus' birth is proclaimed?

Well, the answer lies in the Church's calendar: It's not Christmas yet, it's Advent.

Advent isn't about getting ready for Christmas. Advent is about preparing for Jesus to come.

Yes, it's about Jesus coming as the Christ-child in the manger in Bethlehem. But, it's also - and foremost - about Jesus coming AGAIN.

Each week when we have Eucharist, I stand behind the Altar and I say Let us proclaim the mystery of faith. And we all say: Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again.

It's the "come again" part that we especially remember in Advent.

This has been a pretty rough year - in fact it's been a really rough year. We've had a tsunami in SouthEast Asia. We've had hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the gulf coast. We've had an earthquake in Pakistan. We've had tornadoes in the plain states.

With all of these disasters - with all the loss of life, and with all the destruction of property - there's a question on people's minds that is being voiced in many different arenas: does all this mean that the world is coming to an end? Does this mean that Jesus is coming? Is this the beginning of Armageddon?

There are Christians who get caught up and preoccupied with End Times questions. There are Christians who try and figure out exactly when the end of the world is coming, and exactly what it will look like.

There was one guy - Hal Lindsey - who suprisingly is still around - who predicted that the world was going to end in a certain year. Unfortunately for his career, the year that he predicted was 1988.

Throughout the Gospels, whenever Jesus talk about his Second Coming, he does indeed talk about earthquakes, fires, and floods. He indeed talk about disasters and death and war. But, he also - always says that we will never know when it will be. He EVEN says that HE doesn't know when it will be.

When St. Paul talk about Christ coming again, he uses an interesting metaphor: birth. It's like the birth of a child. You know it's going to happen - there are even contractions and other signs to let you know that things are coming along - but the child doesn't come until the child is good and ready, and unless you schedule a c-section, we are never, ever certain when that time is going to be.

What Jesus does say, is that we're supposed to be ready. We're supposed to be prepared - as he says in this morning's Gospel lesson, we're to keep awake.

If, 18 months ago, I had had my bad packed and laundry done, would it have matter when Zoe actually came? No, I would have been ready.

It's the same with Jesus. We're to have our spiritual bags packed. We're to have our spiritual laundry 'done.' I say 'done' with our laundry because, like real laundry, it's never really done! No sooner do you get all the laundry washed, folded, and put away - and the hamper is full again!

We're to - like the Boy Scouts - be prepared.

To be honest, I get very warry of people who are always talking about the end of the world, and Jesus coming back. I get warry of people always trying to figure that kind of stuff out.

I get warry about it, because it's nothing to worry about. We're just supposed to be ready and awake and be prepared.

What's it worth to ya?

2005-11-12T16:59:00.000-08:00

Hear this description of Christian worship:

On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president. . . But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead.

This is an extraordinary description of what we do in worship. Not so much for what is says, or how it is written - for it's a pretty simple piece of writing.

What makes it extraordinary is that it was written by a fellow named Justim (Justin Martyr) - around the year 150 AD.

Isn't it incredible that what Justin said his church did 1,850 year ago is exactly what we do in church, here, today?! I just think it's astonishing.

There are two little things that stand-out about what he said.

One, he said that worship wasn't just what happened on Sunday morning when everyone was gathered - remember? AFTER the service people took communion to the sick and shut-in. Worship extended outside the church service and into the world.

Two, a key element of worship was described by Justin, that I think many people would not consider a key element of worship today: giving.

I think most people in most churches today probably see giving as a necessary thing to keep church operations going. Most people like to walk into their churches and still have the heat, light, and water turned on - and at least someone who acts like he/ she knows what their doing behind the pulpil and altar!

But, that's not why we should give. Giving monetarily of ourselves is just as much an act of worship as singing, praying, or taking Communion. And, thanks to Justin, we know that it has been for at least 1,850 years.

Last week I had the chance to go to a different church in the D.C. suburbs and sit in a pew. It was really nice to do that for a change, and not be 'in charge' of a single thing!

When I got to the church - beofre I got out of my car - I took out my wallet and put the amount of meny I was going to give in my breast pocket, so that when the ushers brought the plate around I would be ready. The service started, the service went on, and the service ended - and no one came around with a plate!

After the service I took a good look around the room. There were several different 'stations' that worshippers could go to during the service. At the time for communion, before you wnet back to your seat you could go light a candle in one part of the room, you could go and be prayed for by a group of people waiting to pray, you could write out your prayers on a big piece of paper that was attached to a wall, AND you could walk over to a box and place your offering in it.

At their church, you had to make a conscious effort to give to God and His Church. You had to actually get out of your chair, walk across the room - out of your way - and place your envelope, check, or cash in the box.

What this church had done, was they had made their offering system into an intentional act of worship.

I didn't care for everything the church did - I mean it was fine, it just wasn't my 'cup of tea' - but I loved that.

Worship. Do you know where the word comes from? It comes from the Old English word worth-ship, and it literally means to ascribe worth to something.

We do that kind of thing all the time. Every day we make hundreds of decisions as to what is worth what. Is eating out tonight worth it? Is taking the time to search the whole living room for the remote worth it, or should we just change the channel with the button on the TV. Is the price of the object we're thinking of buying worth the price? Is paying someone to mow the lawn worth it, or should we just do it ourselves.

Everyday we show by our actions and our words how much our spouces are worth to us - our children - our property - our country - our jobs - our health - our well-being - etc.

And then comes the really big stuff. Is God worth getting up on a cold rainy Sunday morning, when it would be so much nicer to sleep in? Is God worth all the effort of a Bazzar this year? Is God worth making an ethical decision, when an unethical one might be a lot more tempting? Is God worth the 5 bucks, 10 bucks, 50 bucks, 200 bucks I put in the plate each week,when it would be nicer to have the extra cash especially with gas prices as they are? Is God worth the time we could spend studying the Bible, time we could spend praying, time we could spend playing Bingo at Egle with the elderly residents, or the time laboring for the church?

"Churchy" stuff isn't the only way we worship God though. I fully believe that giving worth to our marriages, to our children, to our schools, to our country and the world, to our planet, to our own health (physical and mental) and to the people who we love and the people we don't even know is 'BIG' stuff too.

Answer those questions 'correctly' at any one time and you're worshipping. You're ascribling worth to God. You're showing God that you think He's worth it - even after he's show us how much we are worth to him all the time - with each sunrise, with each heartbeat, and with each blessing God showers down on us morning by morning.

This morning's Gospel lesson (Matthew 25:14-29) is a tough one. This is one of those bits of the Bible that scholars argue over its meaning. Who is the Master? What do the Talents represent? Who are the people who invest the talents, or not?

He's what I think this passage is about, without taking up too much time: It's God saying that those who are given great things by God are expected to yield great things. Much is expected of those to whom much is given. We're to ascribe worth to the gifts and blessing that are given, and we're to ascribe worth to the One who gives.

I don't know about you, but this one gets me. I don't get all that caught up in the 'thou shalls,' and the 'thou shalt nots.' I get most of them right most of the time.

It's the fact that God is expecting great things from me that gets my knees knockin' together pretty good.

God's expecting me to show that he is worth something to me, even as God shows that I am 'worth it' to Him all the time.

I'm to show that God is worth it here, in church. Worth-shipping God in some of the very same ways that my brother in Christ Justin did 1,850 years ago. With my prayer, with my song, with my taking of Holy Communion, and my giving. I'm to show that God is 'worth it' to me in my home, at the mall, in the deer stand, selling tickets at the bazaar, and in how I love my wife and daughter.

Come, let us prepare our hearts and minds to worth-ship. If for no other reason than God thinks we're worth a whole, whole lot.

Remembering, Realizing, and Living

2005-10-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

In this week's Gospel lesson Jesus wants to make sure that we're in line with a few things.

Number one, he doesn't want us wearing broad phylacteries. Is your phylactery broad? . . . Don't even know what it is, much less have a long one? OK - check.

Number two, he doesn't want us to have long fringes on our robes, or to be called rabbi. Does your robe have extraordinarily long fringes? Any rabbis out there? OK, check - we've taken care of those too.

Number three, he wants us to be truly humble and live as servants. Hmmm. That one's a litte tougher isn't it?!

A phylactery is a box containing verses of scripture which is worn on the forehead and forearm by devout orthodox Jews. The fringes, or tassels, went along with the ancient dress of Jews. And rabbi, of course, is the title given to Jewish leaders of congregations or teachers.

The problem obviously wasn't with the phylacteries, fringes, or titles. The problem was their use. People were using these things to put themselves above others. They wanted people to look over at them and say, "Wow, look at the size of Mike's phylactery! - he must be very religious."

They were trying to put on a show so that others would be impressed. They were trying to put on a show so that they would feel impressive themselves. They wanted to be noticed, and wanted to feel important.

The thing is, God sees right through all that stuff. As the words of the Collect for Purity say, God is the God to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.

Although don't feel too comfortable about that fact that you neither have a phylactery or a fringe - because we all have phylacteries and fringes. We just call them different things. We build big homes. Or wear fancy clothes. We fuss about our hair. We think that by reading lots of books we'll be smarter. We try and kill the deer with the most points.

If you think about it, you probably have a fringe or two. And, no matter how much hair covers your forehead, you have a few phylacteries too.

This is all totally related to humility, which Jesus explicity asks of us in this reading.

Do you know what humility is?

It's not feeling badly about yourself. It's not beating yourself up unnecessarily.

Humility is realizing, remembering, and living into who we are - who we really and truly are.

And part of that is letting go of what we aren't: we are not in control, we are not in charge, we do not know it all, and we have no more power and authority than God entrusts us with.

We are creatures in God's creation. We are servants in God's Kingdom. And we are completely and totally reliant on God for everything: every breath, every heartbeat, every sunrise, and every blessing.

We build ourselves up - we make ourselves look good - we buy lots of stuff to try and set up the illusion that we're important, we're powerful, we're in charge, we're self-sufficient, and we know it all.

And, the fact is, we're none of those things.

Once we realize that - once we get the big picture of who we are - we can begin to grapple with the smaller picture.

We might be President of the United States. Or King of Burundi. Maybe we clean toilets at the mall. Maybe we're a school teacher, sheet metal worker, or priest. Maybe we're father or mother, grandfather or grandmother.

But, if we're President, we have to be humble - realizing that God has put us in this office, and we're no better than the fella cleaning the toilets. And, if we're the toilet scrubber, we have to be humble, realizing that we're no better or no worse than the King of Burundi.

Ever see the Lion King? I love Simba's early years. He's the son of the King of Pride Rock, and he knows that that means one day he'll be king. He's full of spunk, and he;s full of himself. He sings a song called "I Just Can't Wait to Be King." He longs for the day that he'll be in charge, the day that no one will be able to say to him "do this" "be there" "stop that" or "see here."

But, when he grows up, and 'remembers' who he is - and he actually ascends to the throne he does it with humility and grace. He does it to serve others, save others - even if it means his own discomfort.

Do you see that? Humility was seen when he ascended to the throne. Humility isn't feeling bad about ourselves, or beating ourselves up. Humility is remembering who we are (creatures in God's Creation and servants in God's Kingdom), realizing who we are (as individuals, becoming who God has called you and me to be) and living into who we are.

We don't know it all. We aren't in control. We aren't in charge. We aren't the end-all-be-all of the universe - no matter how broad we make our phylacteries or how big we build our homes.

In the grand scheme of things we are frail creatures a single breath away from death. We live in a universe we know only a very, very little bit about. And, we're in control of very, very little.

But, we are somebodies. We are creatures of God who God loves. We are creatures of God who God sent His Son for. We are creatures of God who have been asked by Him to be His servants in the world and in His Kingdom.

So, let us remember that. Let us realize that. And, let us live into it - leaving our forehead coverings at home.

Living WIthout Fear

2005-10-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

As I was wrestling with the Bible in preparation for this week’s Tuesday night Bible study I came to a startling realization: the opposite of faith isn’t faithlessness or doubt. The opposite of faith is fear.

As I pondered this further, I also came to a place where I realized that the opposite of hope is also fear.

I think this is one of the reasons that the most often quoted commandment in the Bible – given by angel, prophet, God and Jesus is Do not be afraid, fear not.

However, the same cannot be said for love. The opposite of love can involve fear: fear of the one not being loved (they don’t look like me, act like me; they scare me. . .). But, the opposite of love is indifference: absolute carelessness. Ennui. Passive rejection.

In our Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus is asked a question by a lawyer: what is the most important commandment? Luke, the author of the third Gospel remembers this story a little differently. He also remembers a lawyer coming to ask Jesus a question to test him, but the question is different: what must I do to inherit eternal life.

Two different questions by a lawyer, but the same answer from Jesus: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and. . . love your neighbor as yourself.

These are two ultimate questions, and Jesus gives an ultimate answer. And the answer has nothing to do with all the ‘thou shalls’ and ‘thou shalt nots’ – but it has to do with an encompassing love of God and fellow humanity.

The thing that scares me, and worries me most about our modern society isn’t the blatant irreligious behaviors and attitudes of the day. It isn’t all the squabbles that churches and denominations can have about biblical interpretation or Christian ethics. What worries me the most is the profound indifference that pervades our world.

There are vast numbers of people who aren’t wrestling with the existence of God, or how a God of love can let bad things happen in the world, or even wrestling with the deeper issues of institutional religion and genuine faith. There are vast numbers of people who just don’t give a hoot about God.

About a year ago someone, I’m supposing coming home from a night of drinking, threw a beer bottle at St. Peter’s, breaking a window. That’s indifference. That’s absolute carelessness about God.

There are throngs of people who just turn off when they hear the word “God” or “Bible” or “church.” They just don’t care.

In our Gospel lesson this morning, and in several other places in the Bible (including Deuteronomy, which Jesus quotes word for word here) God asks us to love Him. Did you ever wonder why?
It is a little odd to think that we’re ‘commanded’ to love. I don’t command Zoë to love me, I just hope she does. I don’t command Karen to love me, I just hope she does.

Why does God ask us to love him? Well, I think the answer is a little painful: because God has to. Somehow we just aren’t wired to love God the same way that God loves us.

And all God asks from us is that we love him. He gives us life, and our families, and health, and this beautiful planet, and all the blessings of this life. He gave us His only Son, and His Son gave up His Life for us.

And we’re not asked to pay God back. We’re not asked to make up for all the things that have been lavished on us – as if we ever could. All we’re asked to do is love in return. To not be indifferent.

If I had to ask Karen to love me, that would be a pretty sad statement on our relationship wouldn’t it? It would make me seem and feel pretty pathetic.

That God has to ask us, reveals so much more about us than God though. It shows our weakness, our sin, and humanity’s predisposition to turn from God and turn to our own desires.

That so many people completely ignore God, act completely indifferent to God, throwing beer bottles at symbols of his Presence and existence must break His heart.

Our job as the church is to reflect the love that God has for us onto the world. Our job is to help the world realize that God loves us – all 6 billion of us. And, our job is to be an example of how to love God and our fellow humanity in return. We are to be known by how we are loved and how we love.

When the Church fails to do this, I would say that we’re not only falling short of our Christian duty, but that we are failing to be the Church at all.

We are to have faith, not fear: resting in the knowledge that God exists and that God loves. We are to have hope, not fear: resting in the knowledge that God loves us no matter what, that God’s in control, and that all shall be well. And we are to love, not be indifferent: loving because we are loved, and loving that others may know the Source of all love.
Amen.

It's Party Time

2005-10-08T13:45:00.000-07:00

Two stories:

A couple months ago there was a story that was reported in the Associated Press about an engaged couple who called off their wedding at the 11th hour. It was only a couple of weeks before they were supposed to walk down the aisle, but something big happened - big enough to cancel (or postpone) the biggest day of their lives.

Which is all fine and good. Probably a good decision. The thing was the bride's family had already rented the out the reception space at the tune of $10,000. The deejay was paid, the cake was ordered, and the chef booked. You don't get out of something like that at the 11th hour. You can get out of the wedding, but you still have to pay everyone in full as the contract they signed said.

10,000 bucks. Oooops.

So now what?

Well, the former-bride-to-be called all her family and said that they were going to have a party anyway. It would just be without the other half of attendants (the former-groom-to-be's family).

But, if only half the party is going to show up - what would they do with the other empty half of the room.

Well, I'll tell you what they did: nearby was a shelter for homeless women and children. There were about 50 of them in residence at the time. And, they all got invitations.

50 homeless women and children, a few of the volunteer workers at the shelter, and the bride's family ate salmon, shrimp, and steak. The chef exchanged the wedding cake for strawberry shortcakes. And they all danced the night away together.

And when it was all over, the people at the shelter took back with them the leftovers.

Wow.

The second story took place a little closer to home.

You all know by now that over 300 evacuees from the Super Dome in New Orleans were taken to Camp Dawson, in Kingwood, West Viriginia, just an hour or so from here.

Many of those people were among the poorest of the poor. They had little to begin with, and they had nothing now.

Nothing but their lives. And each other.

There was one engaged couple who were taken to Camp Dawson. They were so thrilled to be alive, and so thrilled to have each other, that after 3 years of engagement they decided that it was finally time to tie the knot.

Like right then!

So, Red Cross workers turned into wedding coordinators and ushers. People from Kingwood donated a wedding dress, a tuxedo, the wedding cake, flowers, a harpist - everything they needed for a blowout wedding. A nearby resort even gave them a honeymoon night on the house!

They invited the Governor of West Virginia to attend - and he did.

After the wedding on the Army base, the adjacent country club opened its doors for the reception - of course free of charge.

And the residents - the other evacuees - cooked real gen-u-ine cajun food.

And, as if that isn't enough, the couple invited everyone who had ever volunteered at the Camp Dawson shelter to attend.

Gosh I wish I hadn't heard about this all after the fact! I love cajun food!! And, I would have loved to have been part of this celebration of love, life, and redemption with those beautiful people.

Wow.

Do you see the similarity in those two stories?

Of course there are major differences. In the first story a $10,000 reception was opened to people who never could have dreamed of eating that well, or being treated so well. And in the second story it was the victims of this disaster who opened the doors to people who hadn't gone through what they had.

But, in both stories the doors were opened. The tables were made available to all. Money, race, background - none of it mattered. The doors were thrown open in love and hospitality.

According to Jesus in this morning's Gospel lesson, that is a glimmer of what the Kingdom of God will be like. All will be welcome at the feast. All receive an invitation to God's banquet - regardless of who they are, or what kind of station they hold in life. God invites all.

I remember helping friends with their wedding plans. They had X number of dollars to work with and a whole host of friends and relatives to invite. To fit their plans into X dollars they had to cut people from the invite list.

Old Aunt Sally? Haven't seen her for a while - out. Uncle Buck? He gets roudy at receptions - out. Our cousins from Alaska? Well, they won't come anyway so we'll send then an invitation to make them feel included, but we know they're out.

I also know people who have combed through their address books intentionally screening out people - even people from thier family. To be honest, there were people ion my family that I thought long and hard about inviting or not.

But, this is not how God works. He throws out the address book, and tells people to comb the streets - twice - so that everyone - EVERYONE knows that they have a place at the table.

There are just two things left:

1) Just getting the invitation isn't enough. You have to RSVP. You have to respond. You have to show up and take your place.

And, 2) you have to be prepared to act like a guest in God's house. All may be invited, but there is a code of conduct at God's party - there's a dress code. You can be invited, show up, and be kicked out - which may just be worse than rejecting the invite in the first place.

We - all of us - are worthy enough - important enough - and loved enough to have been given an invitation live with God, and have God live in us. All we need to do is show up, and live in a way that honors him.

After that - it's party time!