New Earth New Worth

Sermon preached April 24, 2016

Texts: Psalm 148; Revelation 21:1-6

            Last Sunday, the Scripture text was from the Book of Revelation.  We spent just a few moments in the sermon talking about the book in general and I noted that New Testament scholar Marcus Borg, in his chronological version of The New Testament, The Evolution of the Word, writes about trying to understand Revelation.  The heart of the message of Revelation, according to Borg is: That accommodation to imperial ways is wrong.  That the struggle between the lordship of Christ and the lordship of Caesar is the great conflict.  That it is important to persevere even when it looks like the beast is winning.  That, appearances to the contrary, the beast does not have the final word and is not the final Word. (369)  Borg speaks of the hope represented in Revelation.  Its language expresses the human yearning for a different kind of world, one lived in the presence of God, in which the sufferings of this world are no more. (370)

            The profound hope and deep yearning in Revelation is expressed beautifully in the twenty-first chapter.  Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away….  “See, the home of God is among mortals.  God will dwell with them as their God; they will be God’s peoples, and God will be with them; God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.  Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more….  See I am making all things new.”

            Can’t you just feel the yearning, the hope?  Don’t the words strike a deeply resonant chord? Don’t we want a new heaven and a new earth, a place without all the hurt, pain, sorrow, and inhumanity we know on this earth?  We long for the day when the world is different.

            What this passage represents is also an encouragement to think differently about now, about our daily lives.  If the new heaven and new earth are places of healing, kindness and care, then these are the values we want to emphasize in our lives now.  The vision of a new heaven and a new earth is also about new worth, what we should value now.  One of the fascinating dimensions of the vision is that it reminds us that the earth itself is part of God’s redemptive work.  Inspired by such a vision, we might, on this Earth Day, think about how we should re-value the earth itself.  God’s work in the world is not about rescuing us all for a heavenly realm, it is about creating a new heaven and a new earth.  See I am making all things new.

            So how might we think in some new ways about the Earth as part of God’s redemptive work in the world, God’s work of making all things new?  To be honest, what I have to share this morning may not be all that new to many of us, but I hope it is a good reminder of who we are, of how we are connected to the earth, and of how and why we should include it in our circle of healing and loving and caring.

            As humans, we are a part of the natural world.  We exist in a web of relationships – a relationship with God, relationships to each other, relationships to the earth, its living things, its elements.  We are here this morning to tend to our relationship with God in Jesus in a special, focused and intentional way.  We gather together with others, and our experience here this morning is influenced by others.  Was it a hassle getting the family ready today?  Did I see my best friend here today?  If this is your first time here you may be wondering if someone will be friendly or will someone be overbearing?  The weather affects us.  If we had breakfast, we were nourished by the earth – by plant life or animal life.  We are breathing air.  We drink water.  We exist in a web of relationships, and we are a part of that web.  Psalm 148 encourages all the voices of creation to sing God’s praises, including the human voices.  We are part of that chorus of nature.  Biologist Charles Birch and theologian John Cobb write, “the human species is continuous with the rest of nature” (The Liberation of Life, 139).

            We exist in the web of life and are sustained by the earth, its life, its elements.  As human beings we are unique, though.  We have a capacity for a level of consciousness and reflection and intellection unknown in other parts of the web of life.  It is a source of wonder and beauty.  We write poetry and novels.  We create beautiful art.  We invent.   It is a source of terror and horror. We use our intelligence to build gas chambers and atomic bombs.  We need minerals to build our inventions and electricity to run them, and we extract minerals and fuel sources from the earth often with insufficient attention to how it leaves our water or the animals or the landscapes.  Animals can be violent with each other, but only for food or to protect their young.  Humans destroy each other creatively, inventively over ideas.  Animals kill, only humans wage war.

            As unique forms of consciousness, humans have a special responsibility to create beauty and to care.  I love this part of a poem by Denise Levertov (“Tragic Error”).

Surely we were to have been

earth’s mind, mirror, reflective source.

Surely our task

was to have been

to love the earth,

to dress and keep it like Eden’s garden.

That would have been our dominion:

to be those cells of earth’s body that could

perceive and imagine…

            A Christians seeking to love God and neighbor, we need to understand earth as our neighbor, as part of the goodness of God’s creation, as part of God’s healing and redemptive work.

            Earth is not only valuable for the way it sustains us and is related to us, it is valuable, and invaluable, as a way of knowing God more deeply and intimately.  The theologian Sallie McFague writes, “Christianity also believes nature gives us intimations of the divine” (Super, Natural Christians, 172).  In our relationship to nature, to the Earth, we can enhance our relationship with God.  Let me share two bits of literature which testify to this.

“The Peace of Wild Things”   Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

            In the peace of wild things, we can experience the peace of Christ.  In the grace of the world we can know the grace of God.  I have experienced this on the side of the highway in a snowstorm near Itasca State Park.  I have experienced this seeing a full moon along highway 2.  I feel the grace of the world when I step into our parking lot on a summer night to see the bright orange moon reflecting on Lake Superior.  I hear something of the voice of God listening to waves gently lap against a shoreline.  Where do you know the earth and through that know God more deeply and intimately?

            Annie Dillard, The Abundance, 142-143:  Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain.  But if we describe a world to encompass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery: the inrush of power and light, the canary that sings on the skull.  For unless all ages and races of men have been deluded… there seems to be such a thing as beauty, a grace wholly gratuitous.  About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a straight vertical descent from the roof gutter of a four-story building.  It is an act as careless and spontaneous as the curl of a stem or the kindling of a star.  The mockingbird took a single step into the air and dropped.  His wings were still folded against his sides as though he were singing from a limb and not falling, accelerating thirty-two feet per second per second, through empty air.  Just a breath before he would have been dashed to the ground, he unfurled his wings with exact, deliberate care, revealing the broad bars of white, spread his elegant, white-banded tail, and so floated onto the grass.  I had just rounded a corner when his insouciant step off the gutter caught my eye; there was no one else in sight.  The fact of his free fall was like the old philosophical conundrum about the tree that falls in the forest.  The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them.  The least we can do is try to be there.

            Praise God, sun and moon and all you shining stars.  Praise the Lord from the earth sea monster and all deeps, fire and hail and snow and frost and wind, mountains, hills, trees, wild animals, cattle, creeping things, flying birds.  Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them.  The least we can do is try to be there, and when we are to know that this is also the beauty and grace of God.

            The earth sustains us.  The earth reveals something of God to us.  We are part of this rich web of life, with a unique task to mirror, to reflect, to care, to know the peace of wild things, to see beauty and grace, to wrap the earth in our circle of love and care, and to join the chorus of praise to God.

            And in just a bit we will take one of the most ubiquitous elements of the earth, and one of its most critical, and we will pour it and bless it and let it bless us as we bless Charlotte.  It is such a simple element, but used in this way there is beauty and grace and the peace of wild things, there is a connection to the springs of the water of life, and we are blessed as we remember our connections to each other in a community of love and forgiveness.

            The vision of yearning and hope in Revelation is an invitation to us all to live with grace, to live more consciously of our connections to each other and to the earth, to celebrate with joy the beauty and grace that we know on this earth, while also working and waiting for that new heaven and new earth, working with God to make all things new.  Amen.

Reach Out and Touch

Sermon preached April 17, 2016

Texts: Revelation 7:9-17

            Diana Ross, “Reach Out and Touch” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=629_vLbgv7g

            This is really a nice song, and the Scripture Steve read is a rather strange Scripture.  My task in the next few minutes it to link them together, not for the sake of the song but for our own sake.  I think the song illumines the Scripture and both speak to our lives and our life together as a church.

            Anytime we greet the Book of Revelation I would imagine that we feel a little bit of discomfort.  It is a book filled with strange images. It is a text some have used in quite threatening ways – “The Lord is Coming, and he is angry” – “Jesus is coming, are you ready?”  One writer has called it a “sick text” (Will Self, Revelations, 381)

            We will be reading from Revelation again next week, too, so here are a couple of helpful comments about the book.  Adam Hamilton, in Making Sense of the Bible writes this: The visions John is about to convey were not meant to tell twenty-first century Christians about the end times but to encourage and challenge first-century Christians living in what is now Turkey to stop conforming to the culture around them and to avoid anything that smacked of the worship of Rome, its emperor, and its gods….  To convey his message, John adopts a form of writing well known among Jews and Christians of his time – we call it apocalyptic.  This kind of writing communicates through visions and images that are powerful and evocative. (283)

            Marcus Borg, in his chronological version of The New Testament, The Evolution of the Word, also writes about trying to understand Revelation.  The heart of the message of Revelation, according to Borg is: That accommodation to imperial ways is wrong.  That the struggle between the lordship of Christ and the lordship of Caesar is the great conflict.  That it is important to persevere even when it looks like the beast is winning.  That, appearances to the contrary, the beast does not have the final word and is not the final Word. (369)  Borg goes on speak of the hope represented in Revelation.  Its language expresses the human yearning for a different kind of world, one lived in the presence of God, in which the sufferings of this world are no more. (370)

            We need to see the verses read this morning in this broader context.  The writer is communicating through visions and images.  This particular vision seems one intended to encourage the hearers to hold on, to continue to choose the way and values of Jesus as contrasted with the way and values of the Roman Empire.  To be sure, some of the images are a bit difficult, particularly the image of robes “made white in the blood of the Lamb.”  Two things here.  Jesus death was unexpected and traumatic for the disciples.  How could someone who had done such good and brought God so close be killed in such a shameful way?  After the resurrection, the followers of Jesus had to make sense of that death.  Something good seemed to come from it, and one set of images for understanding that was the sacrificial imagery from the Jewish Temple rituals, the blood of lambs.

            We might also want to consider that the writer of Revelation seems to have been a Palestinian Jewish Christian who likely would have seen tremendous suffering as Rome put down the Jewish rebellion in 68-70 A.D., destroying the Temple in the process.  Faithful people may experience traumatic ordeals.

            Even though there are background images reflecting violence, the primary imagery here is joyous.  It is a vision that speaks about what the Jesus community should be, and what the world will be when the values of the Jesus community prevail.

            We have a vision of a multi-ethnic multitude – a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.  The church, the Jesus community which sings the songs of God, is meant to be an inclusive community.  That the church has in its history justified slavery and segregation, that it has limited the participation of groups of persons runs directly counter to this vision.  The church, the Jesus community reaches out to all people.

            We have in this text a strong sense that the values of the Jesus community are different from the values of the empire.  The language used in the songs – “salvation,” “blessing,” “honor,” “glory,” “wisdom,” “honor,” and “power” were terms used to extol the Emperor and the Roman Empire.  They were common in Roman propaganda.  Here we are reminded that it is God from whom comes salvation and wisdom.  God is the one to whom glory and honor belong.  God’s power, the power of love, is what is most powerful, not the oppressive power of Rome.  The Jesus community is a community oriented toward growing in love of God and neighbor.

            The vision in this text culminates with an expansive vision of a new world where there is shelter for all.  In this new world there will be no hunger or thirst.  God will guide, and bring us to the springs of the water of life.  God will wipe away every tear.  This is God’s dream for the world, and we are invited to work toward such healing even in the midst of difficult circumstances.

            The church, the Jesus community is about a three-step dance of reaching out to all people, of growing in love of God and neighbor, and of healing a broken world.  The denomination of which we are a part, The United Methodist Church, has said that the mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  Contained in that statement is the three-step dance of reaching out to others inviting them to join the way of Jesus, of helping people on the journey of being disciples – growing in love of God and neighbor, and of working with each other and the Spirit toward transforming the world toward healing.

            The Minnesota Conference of The United Methodist Church, the more local affiliation of The United Methodist Church with which we are affiliated has made its core work the nurturing and encouraging of vital congregations that reach out to others, that help people be spiritually vital by helping them grow in love of God and neighbor, and of working together and with the Spirit to heal a broken world.

            Our church’s mission statement is that we are a place that welcomes all people – reaching out; that is guided by the teaching and unconditional love of Jesus – which means helping each other grow in love of God and neighbor and working to heal a broken world; and that inspires us to live as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ – which means helping each other grow in love of God and neighbor and working to heal a broken world.

            The church is about reaching out, welcoming a multitude from every place, from every language.  The church is about growing in love of God and neighbor.  The church is about working to heal a broken world.  Let’s continue to ask ourselves how we invite and welcome people here.  Let’s continue to ask ourselves how we want people to be different because they are part of First UMC.  Let’s continue to ask how we want our community and world to be different because we are here.  When I have thought about such questions over the years, some of the things I dream about for us is that we help people be disciples of Jesus Christ who are thoughtful, passionate, and compassionate.  Together we help each other be people who are joyful, genuine, gentle generous, and concerned for justice.

            Churches as they exist are not perfect, sometimes sadly and tragically falling short of being places of inclusivity, welcome, growth in love and healing.  I have shared with you one of my own experiences of being the object of an insensitive practical joke at a church youth group, having my apple cider spiked at a youth group event.  The church has at times been cruel and exclusive, and too conformed to the values of the surrounding culture which contradict the love of God.

            Yet at its best, or at its better, the church surrounds us with a community of love and forgiveness.  It gives us a sense of place, a sense of home.  My family and I have experienced the church as that kind of place – celebrating with us, and grieving with us.  This church has been with us when we have lost loved ones and when we have celebrated the good gifts of life.  My children know the church to be an extended family of a kind.

            I know that I have grown immeasurably because of the church, grown in love of God and neighbor.  As I see different people on their own growth journey, as I have the opportunity to speak with people whose experience is different from my own, as I listen to different ideas, I grow.

            Because of the church, and the faith we are nurturing here, I continue to find the courage and stamina to work on healing a broken world.  Sometimes the brokenness of the world seems so overwhelming – the beast sometimes seems to be winning.  It would be tempting to withdraw, but because of the church I continue to work to confront the challenges of poverty, racism, environmental degradation, historical and personal trauma.  Because we are together, and because the Spirit is with us in a special way because we are together, we can continue to reach out and touch somebody’s hand and make the world a better place.

            So let’s dance on – reach, grow, heal – reach, grow heal.  Let’s be that wonderfully welcoming place where multitudes can find a home in the love of God in Jesus.  Let’s nurture a thoughtful, passionate and compassionate Christian faith that nourishes in us joy, genuineness, gentleness, generosity and concern for justice.  Dance on.  Reach out and touch, somebody’s hand, and make this a better world in Jesus name.  Amen.

Loving Jesus

Sermon preached April 10, 2016

Texts: John 21:1-19

            Sometimes it is best to talk about tough topics when you are a bit removed from them.  When I was a district superintendent, I much preferred discussing church conflict management when churches were not having a conflict.  Pre-marriage counseling is about discussing potentially challenging subjects before they arise – do you squeeze the tube from the end or the middle?  Do you put the paper over or under – paper towels or toilet paper?

            This is not prime gift giving season, unless there is a birthday in your family, so let’s talk about gift-giving, particularly about bad gift giving.  Doing a little research, I found a list of the worst gifts actually given.  Here are some highlights

·        Styrofoam alligator head with solar-powered light up eyes

·        A stainless steel wok, given to a ten-year old

·        A mom gives her son a 3-D, the son who is blind in one eye

·        A mother-in-law gives her daughter-in-law a rice cooker, for three straight years

·        A six-pack of AA batteries, containing only four batteries

·        A grandmother gives her grandson wood block cars, the grandson is 15

·        A glittery metallic tattoo kit designed for an 8-year old girl, including sayings such as “you go girl’ given by a grandmother to her 15-year old grandson

·        The ever popular toilet bowl cleaner as a Christmas stocking stuffer

·        A lighter shaped like a gun given to a man who had just quit smoking

·        A mother-in-law gives to her daughter-in-law a used purse with a new box of diet pills inside

The advice we are often given these days is that we should express our appreciation to others, that we should show love for others, in ways that are meaningful for the person we are appreciating or loving. Harville Hendrix, in his book on marriage, Getting the Love You Want, makes the case for this revision of the golden rule: “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.” (124)  He calls this “re-romanticizing.” 

In their book How Full Is Your Bucket?  Tom Rath and Donald Clifton tell a story about a manager named Susan who wanted to reward her best customer service representative, Matt.  Susan designed a celebratory evening to honor her customer service reps.  It was a nice event at a fine hotel.  The grand finale would be awards given to the top sales representative, and she was saving Matt’s award for last.  She knew how much she always appreciated that kind of recognition.  It all blew up.  Matt was less than delighted when his name was announced as the top sales representative.  He said a few words about having all the plaques he needed.  Susan knew she needed to do something different, so she tried to find out about Matt.  She discovered that the greatest joy in his life was his two daughters.  When Matt was again the top performing sales representative, instead of presenting him a trophy, Susan had arranged for Matt’s wife to take their daughters to have a portrait made by a fine photographer.  This time, Matt was brought to tears by the thoughtful recognition. (81-84)

In a classic work from the middle of the last century, theologian H. Richard Niebuhr, wrote about The Purpose of the Church and Its Ministry.  Niebuhr wrote that the purpose of the church, the goal of the church is “the increase among [persons] of the love of God and neighbor” (31).  That’s why we are here, to increase the love of God and neighbor.

So how does God want to be loved?  For Christians, we look to Jesus to find our deepest clues about God.  How does Jesus want to be loved?  What does it mean to say we are loving Jesus?

The scene is richly drawn.  Some of the disciples are together and Peter says, “I am going fishing.”  Apparently it is very early in the morning, before dawn, for the fishing ends at daybreak, and they have been skunked.  A voice from the shore asks about their fishing, and then offers advice.  “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.”  They did, and the haul was almost more than they could manage.  Jesus is recognized.  Apparently Jesus is an awesome fishing guide.  Peter puts on some clothes for he had not been wearing any, interesting detail – no wonder they went fishing in the dark.  Then he jumps into the water.  Seems a little backwards to me.  The scene becomes very tender.  There is a fire, and fish are cooking, to which more fish will be added.  There remains a mysterious element.  They know it is Jesus, but they don’t know.

The next moment, however, there is no doubt that it is Jesus who talks to Peter.   Three times, Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?”  Three times Peter says “yes.”  Each time Jesus responds: “feed my lambs,” “tend my sheep,” “feed my sheep.”

How does God, as we know God in Jesus want to be loved?  Apparently by having us love others, care for others.  H. Richard Niebuhr, hundreds of years later writes insightfully: God’s love of self and neighbor, neighbor’s love of God and self, self’s love of God and neighbor are so closely interrelated that none of the relations exits without the other (34).  Ponder that for a few moments.  God’s love of self and neighbor, neighbor’s love of God and self, self’s love of God and neighbor are so closely interrelated that none of the relations exits without the other.

Loving God in Jesus, loving Jesus has something to do with things like worship and prayer. How do you love someone who never gets any of your time or attention, and that’s at the heart of things like worship and prayer, taking some intentional time for God.  But that isn’t what seems most important to loving God in Jesus, or at least it is dramatically incomplete.

In one of his sermons on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount,” John Wesley wrote that religious words were not enough – whatever creeds we may rehears, whatever professions of faith we may make, whatever number of prayers we may repeat, whatever thanksgivings we read or say to God (John Wesley’s Forty-Four Sermons, 371)  Instead, what matters is the person who: loves the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his mind, and soul, and strength…  who in his spirit, doeth good unto all men (374).  God’s love of self and neighbor, neighbor’s love of God and self, self’s love of God and neighbor are so closely interrelated that none of the relations exits without the other.

H. Richard Niebuhr also wrote brilliantly about our neighbor.  He is the near one and the far one; the one beside the road I travel here and now; the one removed from me by distances in time and space, in convictions and loyalties.  He is my friend, the one who has shown compassion toward me; and my enemy, who fights against me.  He is the one in need, in whose hunger, nakedness, imprisonment and illness I see or ought to see the universal suffering servant.  He is the oppressed one who has not risen in rebellion against my oppression nor rewarded me according to my deserts as individual or member of a heedlessly exploiting group.  He is the compassionate one who ministers to my needs: the stranger who takes me in; the father and mother, sister and brother. (38)

After his death, Jesus shows up.  He shows up on the shore just as light is dawning, in that dim light of day.  He asks how the fishing is going, and offers some help.  He prepares a breakfast for his friends, who are no doubt hungry after their early, early morning work.  Jesus shows up with some questions.  “Do you love me?”  Feed, tend, care.  Be there for others on the misty mornings of others hungers.  Be there to offer wisdom when it can be offered.  Be there to connect others more deeply to Jesus.

Last weekend, I taught some Minnesota United Methodist lay speakers more about John Wesley and the Methodist movement.  During the lunch break, just before I left to return to Duluth, a young woman, a mother of two, asked me some questions about licensing as a local pastor, about what it could mean for her life and her passion which is working with youth.  Last Sunday evening I received a Facebook friend request from this woman, and then a message.  She thanked me for teaching, then said that she is committing herself to following a call into becoming a licensed local pastor.  “In am nervous, excited and taking a leap of faith – but wanted you to know that it was you who helped make the decision clear.  Thank you for you being you.”  All I can do is marvel at how when we offer something of ourselves to others in care, wonderful things can happen, and Jesus feels love.

Still in the misty morning light, the voice comes.  Do you love me?  Then love, care.  Invite people to discover who they are in Jesus.  Help them hear the voice.  Do good.  Build the common good.  Worship matters.  Praying matters.  But they matter most because they help us listen, listen to the voice of Jesus, listen to the voice of our neighbors.  Somehow responding in care to our neighbors, we love not only them, but Jesus, too.  Amen.

Marked for Life

Sermon preached April 3, 2016

Texts: John 20:19-31

            When you were a child at meal time, and you did not want to eat something on your plate, did you ever hear “There are children starving in parts of the world”?  If you were witty you may have thought to yourself, “Well, you can send him these canned peas.”  At my house growing up, we had a clean plate policy, but my dad sometimes took it to an extreme.  I remember once having to finish ketchup I had not used with my meat.

            Anyway, somewhere along the way, I learned that it is not helpful to compare pain, at least not when people are expressing it or going through it.  It makes little psychological difference to a person suffering from a cut, to tell them at least they did not break a bone.  Telling someone that things could always be worse is not very helpful.

            One year after we moved to Duluth, our seventeen year-old miniature cocker spaniel, Annie was clearly not doing well.  On a day when all three of our children were home, we took Annie to the vet where she was put down.  I will never forget being in that room, saying goodbye, and holding her as the drugs worked quickly and she slipped away.  Not long after we got our dog Abby, a pom-a-poo, and a year later another pom-a-poo who we named Grace.  When Grace was five she suddenly became very ill, and we planned to take her to the vet on a Wednesday morning.  Very early that morning, she died lying next to me.  I will never forget that moment either.  Both times I cried.

            I know dogs are not people.  Over time, I can gain some perspective on grief and hurt and loss.  It is true in other situations.  Sometimes we realize later that a loss a hurt, a pain, was not as deep as we thought it was at the time, but at the time, we simply need to let it be.

            I want to share a story about someone’s loss.  It is one of the toughest losses anyone can know, the loss of a child.  Nicholas Wolterstorff  is a theologian, whose primary area of writing has been in philosophical theology.  He has authored books such as John Locke and the Ethics of Belief and Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology.  This is not light bedtime reading.  In 1983, on a Sunday afternoon in June, Nicholas Wolterstorff received a telephone call.  His twenty-five year old son, Eric, had died in a mountain-climbing accident.  From pondering that experience as a Christian and as a theologian, Wolterstorff wrote his moving book, Lament for a Son. 

            “Put your hand into my wounds,” said the risen Jesus to Thomas, “and you will know who I am.”  The wounds of Christ are his identity.  They tell us who he is.  He did not lose them.  They went down into the grave with him and they came up with him – visible, tangible, palpable.  Rising did not remove them.  He who broke the bonds of death kept his wounds. (92)

            Wolterstorff goes on to reflect a bit on what it might mean to rise with Christ, and then wraps up his reflection.  So I shall struggle to live the reality of Christ’s rising and death’s dying.  In my living my son’s dying will not be the last word.  But as I rise up, I bear the wounds of his death.  My rising does not remove them.  They mark me.  If you want to know who I am, put your hand in. (92-93)

Just because our losses may not be as tragic does not mean we do not feel them as a wounding, a scar, as being marked.  The risen Jesus is the marked Jesus, his wounds, his scars still are part of his identity, a vital part of his identity.  It is fascinating to see in John that those wounds are mentioned twice in just a few verses.  First Jesus invites disciples gathered in a locked house to see his wounds.  He is mysteriously present, pronounces peace, then invites them to see that it is him because of his wounds.  It is then, and only then, as they recognize this risen and marked Jesus that he sends them out and blows on them with the breath of the Spirit.

Thomas was not there, and he is not willing to take their second-hand experience for his own.  What he does ask for is a vision of the wounds, which are then given to him in a another mysterious appearance of the risen Jesus.

The risen Jesus is the marked Jesus.  The risen life in Jesus is also the marked life in Jesus.  Just as Jesus’ wounds were an important part of his identity, so our wounds are part of who we are.  The resurrection life is not a life where all our wounds disappear, all our scars become invisible, the resurrection life is a life where we acknowledge our wounds, our scars, our marks, but by the grace of God allow them to become places where grace also touches us.  The risen life is one in which we are marked for life, where our wounds become openings for the breath of the Spirit, the breath of the risen Jesus.

Here I want to make an important point.  In saying that the risen life, the resurrection life, is a life where we acknowledge our wounds, our scars, our marks, but by the grace of God we allow them to become places where we are touched by grace is not saying that God wounds us so we can be touched by grace.  It is not saying that God never gives us anything more than we can handle.  I don’t care for that theology.  It is often well-intended but can be psychologically and spiritually tone-deaf as it misses hearing the real pain someone might be experiencing, and how shattering it is.  Instead what I am saying is that no matter the depth of our wounds, they can be places where grace finds an opening.  Our wounds and hurts come with living.  Some of our wounds are self-inflicted – we are insensitive or over-sensitive, we mess up.  Some of our hurts and wounds come in our dearest and closest relationships.  The people we love most are also those who can be hurt most by our insensitivities.  The world wounds us in not being the place of justice and peace it might be.  In Minneapolis this week the Hennepin County prosecutor decided not to press charges against the police officers involved in the fatal Jamar Clark shooting.  Because of the history of wounds in the African-American community, this will not simply be considered a legal decision based on evidence alone, regardless of the merits.  There is repair work to be done in our communities.

Hurts and wounds come with living, but they need not bury us.  A life so marked can still be a risen life, a resurrection life.  Sister Melanie Svoboda, in her book Traits of a Healthy Spirituality writes “One sign of a healthy spirituality in our ability to live with adversity, knowing that it is often through our difficulties and pain that we hear God most clearly” (30).  She later quotes Henri Nouwen: It is a difficult discipline to constantly reclaim my whole past as the concrete way in which God has led me to this moment and is sending me into the future (102).

All we have experienced has contributed to make us who we are, has marked us.  With grace, we can allow our wounds and scars be points of contact with God, with love.  Friday I attended the funeral for Barbara Forrest, Elizabeth Macaulay’s mom.  During the service, a poem was read which contained these lines:

When orchids brighten the earth,

Darkest winter has turned to spring;

May this dark grief flower with hope

In every heart that loves you.

            The mark of grief as a place for the flowing of hope – the risen life as the marked life.

            Nicholas Wolterstorff writes movingly about the risen life as the marked life after the death of his son.  To believe in Christ’s rising and death’s dying is also to live with the power and the challenge to rise up now from all our dark graves of suffering love.  If sympathy for the world’s wounds is not enlarged by our anguish, if love for those around us is not expanded, if gratitude for what is good does not flame up, if insight is not deepened, if commitment to what is important is not strengthened, if aching for a new day is not intensified, if hope is weakened and faith diminished, if from the experience of death comes nothing good, the death has won. (Lament for a Son, 92)

            The risen Jesus is the marked Jesus.  The risen life is the marked life where our wounds and scars are places where we are also marked by grace, marked by love, marked for life, marked by the Spirit of the risen Jesus.  Our wounds are not God-caused, but they can be God-graced, and when they are our wounded hearts become larger, our anguished minds more insightful, our scarred souls more capacious in caring.

            I want to end this morning with a body prayer, and action that reminds us that the risen life is the marked life.  Simply take your hands, look at them, and rub them together as if you were putting on lotion, or soothing them in warm water.   We pray and live as people who are kindly cared for by God, even when we are wounded.  The risen life is the marked life.  We pray to live with kindness in a wounded and hurting world.  Amen.

Rise! Shine! Wake Up!

Sermon preached Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016

Texts: Luke 24:1-12

            “Love Is All Around” Sonny Curtis (Mary Tyler Moore Theme song): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zfti7b31rs

            So this may have caught you a bit off-guard, particularly on Easter Sunday morning, maybe striking you as a little inappropriate.  Take some comfort in knowing that at least I did not use the Husker Du version of the song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFyy3XB_3Y4).

            The Mary Tyler Moore show was set in Minneapolis.  It was about a young woman from a small Minnesota town taking a job as an associate producer for a television news station in the Twin Cities.  Though a sit-com, it was ground-breaking in many ways, particularly in depicting a strong, single career woman.  But life is not always easy for Mary.

            In one episode of the program, Mary is feeling discouraged about her life.  Things seem to have become dull and routine.  Mary is desperate enough to take advice from Ted, the self-involved, less than Einstein, news anchor at her station.  Ted: “You want to change your life, Mary, I’ll tell you how to change your life.  I’ve known you for six years now, and I know exactly what’s wrong with your life.  You wake up.  You eat breakfast.  You drive to work. You say hello to your friends.  You work at your job.  You go to lunch.  You work some more.  You say goodbye to your friends.  You drive home.  You have dinner.  You sit down.  You watch television.  You read a magazine and you go to sleep.  Am I right?”  Mary nods.  “You want to change your life completely this is what you’ve got to do, starting tomorrow.  Wake up!  Eat your breakfast!  Drive to work!  Say hello to your friends!  Work at your job!  Go to lunch!  Work some more!  Say goodbye to your friends!  Drive home!  Have dinner!  Sit down.  Watch some television.  Read a magazine and go to sleep.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KsxMdR2Uf0)

            This morning’s sermon title, “Rise, Shine, Wake Up” may lead you to think that Easter is all about positive thinking, about waking up, eating your breakfast, driving to work….  Is that all there is to Easter?  Is today about nothing more than positive thinking?  Is it just about turning the world on with a smile?  And all because of a past event?

            I don’t think so, and frankly, we need more than that.  Positive thinking matters and has its place.  It may be all that we need if our only problems are feeling that our lives are a little dull and routine, though it is often the case that such feelings are but the tip of an iceberg of a deeper existential depression.  Existential depression, distinct from clinical depression, is a penetrating feeling that we are not quite alive, that our lives have little meaning, little joy.  It is something more than can be resolved in a thirty-minute sit-com.

            Positive thinking may be adequate if we are just feeling a little blue, that our lives are a little dull.  If our despair sinks deeper we need more.  When we look at our world we know we need more than positive thinking.

            Just this week, Brussels joined Paris and San Bernardino in lists of places that remind us of the depth of violence in our world.  Our daughter Beth was flying into Kosovo the same morning we heard about Brussels.  We are so grateful that she is fine, but our hearts ache for those whose children or family members were killed or maimed.  For the past number of years, I have on Good Friday listened to a piece of music composed in remembrance of the events of September 11, 2001 – John Adams, “On the Transmigration of Souls.”  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jCdOjOaJsU)  It reminds me of how complex and difficult and sometimes violent our world is.

            Friday, UNICEF released a report saying that nearly 87 million children age 7 and younger have known nothing in their lives but conflict.  Children living in such situations are often exposed to extreme trauma, putting them at risk of living in a state of toxic stress, a thus inhibiting brain cell connections -- with significant life-long consequences to their cognitive, social and physical development.

            We could say so much more.  There is a persistence of poverty in our nation and in our world.  Racial and tribal divisions still plague humankind.  Addictions imprison too many, with heroin addiction tragically on the rise here in the U.S.

            In such a world, positive thinking is not enough.  We need more.  We need the more of Easter.  In Easter, death, despair, injustice, oppression are not brushed aside with the advice to simply accentuate the positive.  Easter acknowledges a difficult, complicated world, acknowledges death, despair, injustice, oppression, but all are overcome.  Life, joy, hope, healing, reconciliation, repair and love, seemingly buried, burst forth into life, burst forth in ways that can almost seem to be an idle tale.  Why look for the living among the dead?  God is a God of life, and the way of God is the way of life, joy, hope, healing, reconciliation, repair and love overcoming the very real death, despair, injustice and oppression of our world.

            Theologian Jurgen Moltmann writes well about this in his recent book The Living God and the Fullness of Life.  Easter is a festival of freedom (193).  But the festival of freedom has another effect as well….  When freedom is near, the chains begin to chafe.  When the Spirit of the risen Christ lays hold of men and women at the center of what oppresses them, they become aware of their loneliness.  When they become aware of their diminished life, then the celebrated life awakens the hunger for real life, and the celebrated freedom awakens the cry for true liberation.  Then a remembrance of this festival emanates into everyday life….  It acts as a counter-image to the lonely and reduced life, awakens the will for an uprising against the oppressions, and gives courage to the hope for change. (195) 

Underlying this dynamic of the energy of Easter emanating out is another idea Moltmann puts well.  Joy is the meaning of human life.  Human beings were created in order to have joy in God (195).  Life in joy is already an anticipation of eternal life; the goodly life here is already the beginning of the glorious life there; fulfilled life here points beyond itself to the fullness of life there.  In joy over the hoped-for-future, we live here and now, completely and wholly, weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice….  Life in hope… is a whole life awakening in the daybreak colors of eternal life. (190)

Positive thinking tends to wither under the real pressures of a difficult world.  It wilts under the barrage of bad news.  It retreats when the pain and hurt become too intense.  Easter, and the God of the risen Christ, releases an energy into the world that strengthens us, that gives us the hope and courage to live with joy – a whole life awakening in the daybreak colors of eternal life.

The novel, The Shipping News is about a man named Quoyle.  Deeply hurt in a first marriage, Quoyle seeks to escape all of that by moving with his two daughters from New York State to a small town on the Newfoundland coast.  At thirty-six, bereft, brimming with grief and thwarted love, Quoyle steered away to Newfoundland, the rock that had generated his ancestors, a place he had never been nor thought to go. (1)  Quoyle gets a job with a local newspaper, and tries as best he can to be a good worker, a good person and, most of all, a good father.  But he does not want his life opened up much – too much hurt and pain there, better to live narrowly.

The novel tells his story wonderfully, and it ends beautifully.  Eventually, Quoyle’s life opens in fits and starts, a relationship develops, and the ending is an Easter moment.  Quoyle experienced moments in all colors, uttered brilliancies, paid attention to the rich sound of waves counting stones, he laughed and wept, noticed sunsets, heard music in rain, said I do….  It may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery. (337)

This is more than positive thinking.  The God of Easter, the God of the risen Christ, through Easter, releases energy into our lives and into our world.  We can hope and work courageously for love and justice and reconciliation and repair, trusting that none of our work is in vain, for this is the very work of God in the world, and God is with us in the risen Christ.  We can know joy as the meaning of life, even as we see all the pain and hurt in the world.  We will weep, but we will also dance, and God weeps and dances with us.  Because of Easter, we can live a whole life awakening in the daybreak colors of eternal life.  Because of the energy, the Spirit let loose in Easter we can experience moments in all colors, utter brilliancies, pay attention to the rich sound of waves counting stones, laugh and weep, notice sunsets, hear music in rain.

So rise!  So shine!  So wake up!  Christ is risen.  And because Christ is risen, we might just turn the world around with our smiles, smiles radiating the joy of a love that is indeed all around, a love more powerful than any grim, bleak stuff life can throw our way (Anne Lamott), a love which raised Jesus.  Amen.

Strange Fruit

Sermon preached Good Friday, March 25, 2016

Texts: Tenebrae readings from John’s gospel

            Do you ever consider some of the events that took place in your birth year?  In 1959, yes, that is sounding longer ago all the time – in 1959 Hitchcock’s North By Northwest and Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot were released into theaters.  A few seminal jazz albums were released: Miles Davis, Kind of Blue; Dave Brubeck Quartet, Take Five.  Buddy Holly died in 1959, as did three famous jazz musicians: Sidney Bechet, Lester Young, and Billie Holiday.

            If you know the music of Billie Holiday, you will never forget her voice.  She has a way with a song, and one song that she made famous was quite unusual, “Strange Fruit.”  The song is unusual because it is about racism in the United States and includes startling imagery about lynching. 

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,

blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

black body swinging in the Southern breeze,

strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

            The song, penned in 1937 and recorded by Holiday first in 1939 was intended to raise consciousness about race relations in the United States.  It has been put into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

            A song about lynching has a strange relationship with today, for the story we tell is about a death, a death that was also a miscarriage of justice.  Jesus was executed by an empire threatened by his popularity and by his challenges to both political and religious authorities.

            But I want to take the idea of “strange fruit” in a different direction for just a few minutes, before we hear the story again.  I think we tell this story because it has and continues to produce “strange fruit” in the world.  When someone is executed unjustly, we would expect that injustice to produce the fruits of anger, rebellion, vengeance and violence.  Our world tears itself a part because of the fruit of violence enacted, the fruit of revenge taken.  Shiites in Iraq, long repressed by Sadaam Hussein in turn mistreat Sunnis, and some of those Sunnis are now the backbone of ISIS.  It is an old, old story.

            Jesus death produces a strange fruit, though.  Instead of vengeance, compassion is produced.  Instead of the narrowness of anger, this death often leads to a wider perspective.  While this death reveals how awful human persons can be, it also shows how deep love can go, and how strong and courageous it can be.  That’s why we tell this story again and again, because of the power it has to produce seemingly strange fruit.  This story still has the power to send ripples of love, ripples of justice, ripples of joy into the world.

            Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a poet famous in the 1950s, published in 1958 his well-known book A Coney Island of the Mind, and in that book was a poem entitled “Christ Climbed Down.”  The images are from both Good Friday and Christmas.  Let me share just a few lines.

Christ climbed down

from his bare Tree

this year

and softly stole away into

some anonymous Mary’s womb again

where in the darkest night

of everybody’s anonymous soul

He awaits again

an unimaginable

and impossibly

Immaculate Reconception

the very craziest

of Second Comings

            When we hear this story again, we also remember that Jesus does not stay crucified, dead and buried.  He climbs down from his bare tree, rises up from the tomb leaving it empty, and produces strange fruit in those who follow.

            As we hear this story again – wrenching, piercing, puzzling – may it dig deep into the soil of our souls.  May that soil be turned over, ready to receive seeds that will produce fruits of love, justice, joy, reconciliation – strange fruits for a death to produce, the very craziest of Second Comings.  Amen.

All Y'All

Sermon preached Holy Thursday, March 24, 2016

Texts: Luke 22:14-27; John 13:1-17, 34-35

            When the hour came, he took his place at the table, and the apostles with him.  A meal is happening here, a holiday meal.  “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”

            If the internet is any guide, holiday meals can be their own kind of suffering.  I typed “How To Survive a Family Dinner” into an internet search, and found some fascinating results.  Many centered on Thanksgiving, but the advice might apply to Easter meals, too.  I came across a photo, part of a billboard for a liquor store: “If your family is coming over Thursday you’re going to need some booze.”  Probably not really good advice for surviving family holiday dinners.  There was some better:  avoid controversial subjects, accept criticism gracefully, seat people strategically, leave early – that’s a lot easier if you are not hosting the dinner, give challenging relatives an assignment, invite buffers – though I am not sure people would appreciate knowing they were being invited as “buffers” - - - they might begin to act out, defeating the whole purpose of having them present as “buffers.”

            Holiday dinners can be difficult.  This last dinner with the disciples takes place under the shadow of conflict in Jerusalem, and the threat of death (22:2).  Earlier in Luke, chapter 22, we read, “Then Satan entered Judas.”  That’s rather ominous for a dinner companion.  Later in that same chapter, just after Jesus shares bread and wine, the disciples dispute about who might be the greatest.  Sometimes the disciples are not the sharpest tools in the shed.  Right after that, Jesus tells Peter that he will betray him.  This is the table around which Jesus gathers for Passover.  Talk about your potentially dysfunctional holiday gatherings.

            But in the midst of all this, Jesus does something special.  In Luke, as in Matthew and Mark, Jesus, following the meal, takes bread – blesses it, breaks it, shares it as symbolic of his own life.  He takes a cup – blesses it, shares it as symbolic of his own life.  In John, something different happens.  In John, Jesus last meal is not a Passover meal, but occurs in the days of preparation for Passover.  Here he takes a basin and washes the feet of his disciples.  He brings it all together with simple, yet powerful and memorable words.  “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another.  By this will everyone know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

            The people Jesus brings together are ordinary people, people like you and me.  We might have the ability to be difficult meal guests sometimes.  We have our issues and struggles.  Yet we find our unity in sharing simple gifts of bread and water and wine.  In these simple gifts, our souls and spirits are nourished and nurtured, for we find Jesus in the sharing.  In sharing bread together, and in feeding others, Jesus becomes more real to us.  In sharing water together, in caring for basic needs, in offering refreshment, Jesus becomes more real to us.  In celebrating together with the wine of joy when there is healing, new life, redemption, Jesus becomes more real to us.

            Jesus works with us and in us, and brings us together to do some work as well.  The quality of our community life together says something deep and real about the quality of our spirituality.  By this will everyone know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.  In many ways, that is what this night is all about, simple gifts, shared together, and the creation of a more loving community, in the name and spirit of Jesus.  It is about making Jesus more real in our lives and in our world.

            One of the most helpful stories about being the kind of community Jesus invites us to be is a story I first heard in a Scott Peck book.  I’ve told the story before, but it is a story worth hearing again, “The Rabbi’s Gift.” (The Different Drum, adapted)

            The story concerns a monastery that had fallen upon hard times. It was once a great order, but because of persecution or neglect or disinterest, all its branch houses were lost and there were only five monks left in the decaying central house: the abbot and four others, all over seventy in age. Clearly it was a dying order.

In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi occasionally used for a hermitage. The old monks had become a bit psychic, so they could always sense when the rabbi was in his hermitage. "The rabbi is in the woods, the rabbi is in the woods" they would whisper. It occurred to the abbot that a visit the rabbi might result in some advice to save his monastery.

The rabbi welcomed the abbot to his hut. But when the abbot explained his visit, the rabbi could say, "I know how it is".  "The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore." So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept together. Then they read parts of the Torah and spoke of deep things. When the abbot had to leave, they embraced each other. "It has been a wonderful that we should meet after all these years," the abbot said, "but I have failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me that would help me save my dying order?"  "No, I am sorry," the rabbi responded. "I have no advice to give. But, I can tell you that the Messiah is one of you."

When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, "Well what did the rabbi say?" “The rabbi said something very mysterious, it was something cryptic. He said that the Messiah is one of us. I don't know what he meant?"

In the time that followed, the old monks wondered whether there was significance to the rabbi's words. The Messiah is one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us monks? If so, which one?

Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light. Certainly he could not have meant Brother Elred! Elred gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people's sides, when you look back on it, Elred is virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Elred. But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for always being there when you need him. He just magically appears. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah.

Of course the rabbi didn't mean me. He couldn't possibly have meant me. I'm just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me. I couldn't be that much for You, could I?

As they contemplated, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the chance that one among them might be the Messiah. And they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.

People still occasionally came to visit the monastery in its beautiful forest to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of its paths, even to meditate in the dilapidated chapel. As they did so, they sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery to picnic, to play, to pray. They brought their friends to this special place. And their friends brought their friends.

Then some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another, and another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the rabbi's gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality.

            God’s love in Jesus is for each of us.  The offer of Jesus own life and spirit is to each of us.  God’s love in Jesus is also for all of us together.  The quality of our community says something deep and real about the quality, the health and well-being, of our spirituality.  By our love will people know that we are disciples of Jesus, and that love is meant to be open.  There is always room for more in the community of Jesus, at the table of Jesus. This community is an “all y’all” community, and the quality of our life together says something deep and real about the quality, the health and well-being, of our spirituality.

            A few years ago a new worship song was written that expresses this all so well.  I want to end by sharing a few of the words of that song with you.

            For everyone born, a place at the table, for everyone born, clean water and bread, a shelter, a space, a safe space for growing, for everyone born, a star overhead.  For everyone born, a place at the table, live without fear, and simply to be, to work to speak out, to witness and worship, for everyone born, the right to be free.  And the chorus rings out: And God will delight when we are creators of justice and joy, yes, God will delight when we are creators of justice, justice and joy!

            Something happened that night – bread, wine, water, the beginning of a community where everyone might visible and valued and respected, where everyone might have a place at the table, a community of love, of justice and joy.  May something happen tonight – in bread, wine and water, the continuing of a community where everyone is visible and valued and respected, where everyone has a place at the table, a community of love, of justice and joy.  Amen.