January 25: Turn and Live

Sunday, January 25: Epiphany 3 b

Jonah 3:1-5, 10   Psalm 62: 6-14      1 Corinthians 7: 29-31        Mark 1:14-20

Today we only hear a part of Jonah’s story—we hear a part of the happy ending.  Let’s take a moment to remember the whole of it---how God asked Jonah to go to Ninevah and Jonah took off---having no desire to be a vessel of God’s mercy to the Ninevites, Jonah ran away.  And as he refused to do what God asks, Jonah puts a whole ship full of sailors at risk because the seas are made turbulent due to Jonah’s running away from God.  So, Jonah offers to be thrown overboard---recognizing that his fear and disobedience is putting others in harm’s way. 

Remember, for the people hearing the story for the first time, the seas are symbolic of darkness and chaos---all things scary and fearful---and Jonah is thrown right into the middle of that.  So, God sends a big fish to carry Jonah through the seas until he can reach dry land and stand on his own two feet.

I don’t know about you, but I meet people who tell me that the Bible is a bunch of hooey because of stories like this---after all, a person who had been swallowed by a whale (or a big fish) wouldn’t simply come out exactly the same—in good health with no problems—if he had been eaten by said whale and spit out three days later…..come on!

True, as a factual tale, this may be hard to swallow (no pun intended).  But as a story of Truth, this has great news for us.  In the middle of the drowning waters---God will provide a safety net---a vessel if you will---that can carry us to safety until we can stand on dry land again.  Oh, the waters of darkness are not just sucked away; the seas of chaos and turbulence aren’t drained out of our lives---but we can be carried, we can be held, we can be brought to safety.

Beloved, we are the “great fish.”  We are the whale in this story.   We are to be the vessel of safety that carries one another until dry ground is reached.

Now, if we look at this little chunk of St. Paul’s letter to the people of Corinth all by itself---it doesn’t seem very encouraging or helpful.  What?  Murray should act as if he doesn’t have a wife?  We are to immediately stop mourning, stop rejoicing, and pretend we don’t own anything? What?

By itself, this chunk of the letter is confusing.  But in context, when it is understood in the whole, St. Paul is really saying: Start living differently!  God’s Kingdom is coming.  The Kingdom is coming—live differently!

Jesus echoes this today: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”  In other words, Jesus is telling us: The time is NOW.  The Kingdom of God has arrived.  Turn your lives around and live out this Truth!

Roughly about 10 youth and a few adults decided that they weren’t okay with so many people in the world not having clean water.  They realized it was a problem that could be solved.  They learned that Americans spend about 450 Billion dollars on Christmas each year.  (This is just Americans, mind you).  And then they learned that the estimated cost to ensure that everyone on the planet has clean water would cost about 10 billion dollars.  A drop in the bucket.  So they took their coins, their dollar bills, and they put them together—collecting $170 so that some people in Zimbabwe could experience clean, living water right now.

The Time has been fulfilled.  The Time is now.

A small gathering of people meet each Sunday evening.  Most of them did not know each other before they came.  Many of them are regulars, but there are also guests who are welcomed in---strangers one hopes becomes a friend.  Some of these who gather are young people, some middle aged, a few are a bit older.  They gather consistently, and in that constancy, they are beginning to know one another---to learn one another’s stories.  They become more comfortable as these regular gatherings take place, and they begin to share their gifts—enriching the gatherings with their presence, their voices, their music, their prayers, their vulnerability.  The space in which they gather begins to hold the remnants of their prayers, their lives, their offerings, becoming holy ground because they gather there.  In itself, it is just a room, but their presence makes it holy.  Their lives and offerings make it a sacred space each time they return.

The Kingdom of God has drawn near.  The Kingdom has arrived.

Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings.  Thursday mornings and Monday nights.  Adults and children come here.  They come to pray; they come to learn; they come to continue in the fellowship and teaching of the Apostles---to strengthen their relationship to God through study and prayer and play, but also to strengthen their relationship to God by becoming knit to one another.  Knit together into a web of grace, a safety net of Holy Community.  Many come because life has shown them that it is these people who hold them in the drowning waters of life---who carry them to safety during the storms---and they come so that those who do not know this truth yet can learn and know and experience what it means to be bound together by the power of the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  And by coming, they are turned and re-turned toward the One who loves without limits.

Repent and believe in the Good News.  Turn your eyes upon Jesus and live differently.

You know, the book of Jonah is about Jonah’s need to turn, to repent, to realign his nature with that of the nature of God.  In this short tale, Jonah is angry that God is willing to show so much grace and mercy to his, and all of Israel’s, great enemy.  Ninevah is the capital city of Assyria—a nation that seeks to overtake and destroy Israel.  Ninevah, in its own history books, records how this empire brutally treated people—an empire built on violence and torture in order to inspire fear and obedience.  Jonah is not happy that God is going to give them a warning….a second chance.  These people?

Yes, God’s nature is to be merciful and gracious—even to those we deem unworthy---and it is God’s nature, once a people or a person has turned back toward God—it is God’s nature to forgive.  Jonah is angry.  And, if we are honest, we totally understand Jonah.  How many times have we said or thought with great glee: “Oooooh, you’re gonna get it.”  Because for those who are our Ninevites—those we deem unworthy of grace---that’s exactly what our hearts want.  We want them to “get it;” to feel pain, hurt, shame, disgrace, and humiliation.

More than once God asks Jonah, as he pouts about God’s mercy: Is it right for you to be angry? You see, just like us, Jonah is a believer.  He can quote Scripture; he knows God’s gracious nature.  But he still wants God to act according to the ways of the world---the bad guy gets what’s coming to him (violence and destruction, preferably) while the good guy (and that’s us, obviously!) rides off into the sunset while the applause for the hero fills his ears.

But God isn’t interested in that kind of justice---the kind where someone has to lose in order for someone else to win.  In God’s reign, all are meant to win.  We are not in charge of who receives grace from God.  We are pointers to God’s grace.  Speaking to us, and not just Jonah, God asks: Is it right for you to be angry because I am gracious?

The church, when it is being the church, is a sign---a living, breathing instrument---of what God’s reign looks like.  And friends, it doesn’t look like the world we already know.  Following Jesus requires that we live differently.  If the Ninevites are not automatically disqualified from God’s grace, then no one is.  Thanks be to God.

God’s rule requires that we quit taking sides. We are to quit demanding that some are worthy and some are not.  In Christ there is no us and them; there is only us.  Jesus says, Follow me.  To believe in the good news---to believe in Jesus---is to live as Jesus.  If we declare Jesus to be our Lord and Savior, then we must live that belief each day.  Belief isn’t some intangible thing that we hold in our heads; belief is how we live.  To believe in the Good news of Christ is to choose for the common good and not just our personal satisfaction.  It is to recognize that we are to act in welcoming and accepting ways that bind us together---knitting us into a web of grace, the safety net that carries one another to dry land.  To believe in the good news is to act from the truth of God---the truth of radical equality, radical hospitality, radical generosity---the truth that Jesus lived in his life in order that we might see and know how to live ours.

The Benedictine writer Joan Chittister writes: “Rebuilders are those who take what other people only talk about and make it the next generation’s reality.”

Jesus calls us to be rebuilders.  “Come and follow me,” Jesus says, “And I will make you fishers of people.”  Fishers who cast out safety nets and webs of grace in order that all might be carried through to safety and empowered to stand on dry land again.

Let us be a community of fishers, fishers of people.  Casting nets of kindness, concern, hospitality and generosity out into the world.  Rebuilding God’s Creation right in the center of this community.  Let there be nothing less than a revolution of our hearts, minds, bodies and spirits.  Come, let us follow Jesus.  The Kingdom of God draws near.  God is with us.  Turn and re-turn.  The time is now.  The time is now.  Believe.  Believe and live differently.  Live Jesus.

January 11: New life

First Sunday after Epiphany B

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11

In Genesis this morning, we see God shining forth into the darkness---saving, creating, giving life.  God’s spirit is the divine life force that sweeps overs the face of the water.  This verb translated as “sweeps” is the Hebrew verb px;r\ (rahef).  It means to hover, move gently, to cherish, to brood—in fact, it can mean to brood and fertilize.  It is the same verb used in the 32^nd chapter of Deuteronomy to describe a mother eagle who hovers over her young, protecting them and granting them life.

For the Hebrew people, the Waters represent chaos—a dark abyss.  The Universe at the beginning of this Creation story is in a deep darkness, a great chaotic miasma of dark, formless void.  Into this darkness, God calls forth light.  The darkness is not gone; it is still there, but God has dominion and authority over the dark chaos, and from this chaos, God is able to create and speak new life. 

A great darkness, an abyss, chaos: I think we can relate to this concept all too well.  So many dead and wounded in the terrorist attacks in and around Paris; it seems that resorting to gun violence in order to solve our conflicts and tensions has become a way of life.    What we, as disciples and believers in Jesus, are called to believe and trust is: even in our current and personal state of chaos and darkness, whether it be the escalating gun violence in our world, poverty, disease, grief, depression, physical diminishment----God is able to create, breathe and speak new life into each of us, and into all of us.

The Creation stories highlight the rushing forth of God’s spirit into the formless, dark void, creating new life where once there was only chaos. God takes hold of the wet, dirty stuff from the darkness and fashions it, simply and radically, by speaking a new reality: “Let there be light.”

In the Gospel today, the chaos of the waters of Creation is replaced with the salvation found in the waters of Baptism.  For in Baptism, we are buried with Christ and raised to new life.  Christ goes down into the watery abyss and breaks forth into new life through the waters of baptism and the power of the Holy Spirit.  Mark tells us the heavens are torn open---just as the curtain separating God from man in the Holy temple is torn at the death of Jesus---same verb.  We are to clearly understand that the opening of divine and human connection and interaction are proclaimed through Jesus and through our understanding that God’s words to Jesus are God’s words to us: You are my beloved child.  I will not be separated from you.

Due to this glorious opening between God and humanity that is created by Jesus’ life, ministry and death, God’s life-changing, renewing spirit is poured out among all of God’s people.  Jesus enters the transformational waters of Baptism, not because he needs it, but because we need it.  Jesus completes his identity with broken humanity---providing us with the first steps we need to take in order to turn our lives around---the steps of baptism, repentance, and reconciliation.  The step of claiming God’s claim on us and living that claim in order to bring light into the darkness, in order that our actions and choices proclaim to the world: Let there be light.

Just as God takes hold of the wet, dirty stuff and fashions a radically new creation in Genesis, so too at our baptisms---so too when we make ourselves vulnerable and live into God’s claim on our lives.  God takes hold of us---wet, dirty, broken humanity---and with the Holy Spirit hovering over the entire action---we are fashioned into a new being, incorporated as living members of the Body of Christ.  God declares to us: You are my beloved child.  I desire to pull you out of the darkness and into the light.

Today, the Word tells us that it is God’s voice that can transform the chaos and darkness in this world, the chaos and darkness within our selves. 

How will we hear God’s life-changing voice?  How do we hear it?  Are we willing to make ourselves available to hear it?  And in order to recognize and know it is God’s voice, we must first come to know God, God’s character, God’s way of being, God’s mission—so that we not be fooled by the cacophony of competing voices, noises, and sounds that long to pull us away from God’s light and suck us into the miasma of darkness.  We must be willing to make ourselves vulnerable to God, to put ourselves in the presence of God, in order to hear God. 

My friends, we live in the midst of chaos---we have seen the dark voids that suck up all manner of living matter in our world.  Are we willing to release our hold on it and put this wet, dark stuff into the hands of God?  Will we allow our lives, our selves, our world to be reshaped and refashioned by God’s radically transforming spirit?

Just this week I conversed with two men, one not even yet 20 and the other closer to 70, whose stories witness to the power that the dark has to lead us into lonely and devastating places.

At times like these, when we sit with someone in their darkness, we always want to say just the right thing.  We struggle to find just the perfect word that will help pull him from the muck.  I don’t know about you, but I rarely find that I have those words right on the tip of my tongue.  When I talked to the younger man, I said the only thing I think makes a difference.  It went something like this:

I told him that I would be there to listen; that I would walk with him, but more importantly, I told him the best thing I have to offer is Jesus.  Jesus in the form of a community who would like to get to know him and who will walk with him even when he makes poor choices.

Jesus in the form of people I know will help him---if he is interested---in figuring out how to get his life on a track that will lead to fulfillment and wholeness rather than to bleakness and hopelessness.  I told him it wouldn’t be easy work, and it wouldn’t be without pitfalls, but it would be worth it.

I can’t prove this to you, I said.  I can only tell you I know this to be true.  Because this is the truth of my life, my living, my dealing with darkness.  Because this is how I know Jesus.  Through people.  Through prayer.  Through our life of community together.  And because I know Jesus, there is always a light shining for me---even in the midst of the sorrow and tragedy---there is always a hope and a belief that light and joy will return because God, the bearer of light and producer of joy, God yearns to know us and for us to know God.  Because God so loves us.

I am just like you.  I too can get lost in the shadows.  But when I turn to Jesus, this Jesus in our Intercession family, this Jesus I know in Word, in action, in study, in sacrament, in my neighbor, then I am buoyed up above the drowning waters. Jesus cannot simply be my port in the storm.  He is that, but Jesus is my safety because he is also my friend, my confidant, my guide, my disciplinarian.  I have a relationship with Jesus that takes just as much effort as my relationship with my husband---just as much effort, just as much time, just as much trust, and just as much commitment.

Oh, beloved, I know it may sound sappy or cliché to some.  I know it may sound too good to be true or too idealistic to be realistic.  But it is my truth; it is what I believe to be the Truth. I cannot prove it.  I can only live it and invite others to live it with me.  I can only live it and be bold enough to share it so others can arise and shine as the glory of the Lord rests upon them.

So, I invite you.  If this is your truth too, then let us be bold together.  If it is not your truth yet, then I invite you to come and see.  Come and see and know.  For this is how Jesus’ ministry, this is one way God, changes the world.  A Baptism at a time.  Counting on each of us who is Spirit possessed and claimed as God’s beloved to live out the promises made in our Baptism and to boldly proclaim Jesus Christ as our Lord.  Yes, even using those very words aloud—not to be afraid or ashamed to say:  “I believe in God Almighty; I believe God works in many ways and through many means, but for me: Jesus is my Lord. Jesus is how I know God.” We are to tell our truth to the world. And perhaps, beloved, we are to sit and listen to other’s stories as to how God is made known to them—even in ways that are foreign and unknown to us.

This is how we live Christmas---how we proclaim the Epiphany—by claiming our true identity.  By letting our lives, our identity, our trajectory in this world to be changed and reshaped because we accept the jaw-dropping truth that the Creator of all things loves each one of us so very deeply. Beloved, let us be so infused with the light that it shoots forth from our voices, our eyes, our fingers, our actions---so filled and overflowing with God’s Spirit that it cannot be contained.  You are God’s beloved child.  The Holy Spirit rests upon you. Marinate in that. Let this Truth sink into your bones. 

December 17: Believe; Expect; Receive

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Canticle 15; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8,19-28

Waterboarding: simulating drowning by placing a person’s head in a downward position and pouring water into the person’s breathing passages.  Denying a human being sleep for seven days. Handcuffing a person’s arms over their heads for 22 hours straight, days in a row.

Torture.  Something we, as a civilized nation, have sworn we would never do---not in any situation nor for any reason.  President Reagan signed the United Nations Treaty against torture in 1988.  But citizens of this country, members of our governmental agencies, have decided they are above that law and have gone ahead, justifying their actions based on fear and retaliation.  They want to persuade us that it is justifiable to treat human beings made in the image of God as if they have no value, as if they were insensate refuse. 

This is the ages-old myth that we can stop violence and terror through more violence and terror.  That one nation or people has greater rights and more value than another nation or people.  This way of being---it shadows my heart and causes me to question the point of it all.  If I live in a world, in a country, in a community where it can somehow be “justified” to take these actions against another human being---then I begin to wonder the relevance of it all.  The purpose.  The point. 

Senator John McCain, a victim of torture himself during the Vietnam War, responded this way: "But in the end, torture's failure to serve its intended purpose isn't the main reason to oppose its use. I have often said, and will always maintain, that this question isn't about our enemies; it's about us. It's about who we were, who we are and who we aspire to be. It's about how we represent ourselves to the world.

The devastating cruelty of human beings pulls the rug out from under my feet. I cannot understand it or explain it or condone it. 

It makes me wonder and question: God, what do we do with this human darkness?  How do we deal with this despair---this corrupted sense of justice---this inhumane behavior?

These are the same questions I have when I see people I love having to deal with profound loss---loss of a loved one from death; loss of relationship from divorce; loss of groundedness from losing a job; loss of physical strength or mental capacity due to illness and aging.  What, God, do we do with this despair----this brokenness---this pain and suffering that we are guaranteed to have in this life?

As John Green writes in the popular novel, The Fault in our Stars, “The world is not a wish-granting factory.”  We cannot wish away this pain, this suffering.  While miracles do happen, often our reality isn’t that we are carried away from the pain, but that we have to live through the pain, the darkness, the shattered worldview.

Today’s Word gives hope; it gives us direction; it gives us promise, a way forward.

First, we are called to believe.  Believe that we are anointed.  To be anointed is to be set apart to do God’s work---set apart and sealed by the Holy Spirit---and in our anointing, if we make ourselves available and vulnerable to the work of the Spirit, then we can be healed, restored, repaired.  The Holy Spirit restores and repairs us through Sacrament, through prayer, through the hands, the words, the actions of our community. 

When others forgive us; when others offer us grace and mercy; when we are given that second and third chance, healing takes place.  Yes, we are anointed at Baptism, but anointing continues to happen---the Holy Spirit continues to rain down upon us---because we live this way of blessed community found in the Church---the gathering of living members of the Body of Christ---Jesus healing us, inviting us, restoring us---through these our anointed sisters and brothers.  These who believe. 

And as the anointed, we are sent: sent to live in a new way:

to bring good news

       to bind up wounds

       to proclaim liberty and release

       to provide for and comfort those who mourn

We are the repaired and those who repair

We are the restored and those who restore

We are the healed and those who heal

This is how in times of great darkness and despair, we can exult in God.  We believe this to be true.  We believe that restoration can come with any and every wound we receive, every loss we experience.  We believe there is life after death---the many deaths that come throughout our life----deaths of loved ones, deaths of relationships, deaths of capabilities and securities; death of dreams and futures.  We, we Jesus followers, we know and believe there is life after death---light breaking into the darkness.

And because we believe this, we expect to see it---like Mary who knows that God is a God of restoration and life.  Therefore, Mary expects to see and experience this upside-down world to be turned right-side up.  Mary expects to be held and supported---even though God is asking her to cast aside her expected future, her security and shelter and to completely trust in God’s sovereign power, Mary expects God to bring her life and light.  Mary believes and expects to experience God’s favor.

Do our hearts really live this truth---that we are favored?  Oh, this doesn’t simply mean that by our identifying ourselves as Christians, we are blessed more than others.  God loves God’s people equally.  But we who proclaim that we are God-lovers, we are to expect that God turns our despair and desolation back into life-giving light.  That somehow, God will redeem the current darkness and heal our very real woundedness. 

I heard a story recently about a woman who endured the atrocities of the Rwandan genocide.  She saw men, women, and children brutally slaughtered, raped, and beaten.  This is a woman who lost her loved ones, her family, her world.  She was asked how she managed to survive, how she found it possible to go on.  She replied:  I couldn’t understand what was happening, why it was happening, why it was allowed to happen---all I could know was:  whose I am.  I am God’s.  This is all I know.  This is my truth.

Expect.  Expectation.  Expectancy.  For me, to expect means to live in a sense of expectancy.  This is different than expectation.  Expectation has all kinds of boundaries around it.  My expectations have set details and parameters.  Expectation, to me, means: it will be this way.  Here it is what it looks like.  This is how it will play out.

So, when I live in expectation, God’s justice looks like this: the bad guys always lose and never win; the good guys are recognized for their valor; the guy in the white hat will live, no matter what, and ride off into the sunset, and the villain will be thrown into jail and, (if it’s a really good version) he will finally see the error of his ways.

When I live in expectation, I am often disappointed.  Living in expectancy is a different story.  It is Isaiah’s story and Mary’s story.  They cannot tell you specifically what will happen---but they do know that God’s love wins in the end.  They do know that God’s justice---where the lowly are lifted up and the hungry are filled and those who need help will receive mercy and grace---they do know and expect this promise to come true.

And living in expectancy---they see people healed, lives changed, and God working---right in the midst of the tyranny and inhumanity of Roman rule---right in the midst of poverty and devastation---those who witness to Jesus like John the Baptist---they see the Messiah, the anointed One, in the most unexpected of places and recognize God at work in the world.

They believe; they expect; and they receive.  They receive the wholeness that this world cannot give them: a sense of peace in times of fear and upheaval.  So that even when Mary holds her beloved son who has been betrayed and crucified as he comes down from the cross, even then Mary can live on---knowing God will redeem this scandalous loss---that God is still at work in the world---that there is still light after this profound darkness.

What might this world look like if we believe, if we expect, and receive?  How might we see one another differently if we believe and expect God to be able to restore us from our tragedies---from the cruelty and inhumanity in this world?  How might this expectancy of hope cause us to live differently?  To speak differently?  To love differently?

Might we then not be overcome by despair?  Might we then not see any person as a lost cause or as so meaningless that it is justified to torture him for our safety?  Might we then, like God in the book of Genesis, finally recognize that all Creation is very good?  God’s judgment on all people---on this fragile earth, our island home---has already been made. “It is very good.” Who are we to negate God’s judgment?

Isaiah, Mary, John the Baptist—they are all witnesses, prophets, pointing us to Jesus.  They are our forerunners.  We are to be witnesses.  Our lives, our words, our behavior, are to point to Christ.  We are called to testify to the light. 

We testify to the Way by living the Way.

We testify to the life of Jesus by living Jesus.

We testify to the Truth by living the Truth.

We testify to the Light by being the Light.

By believing, expecting, and receiving.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon us. We are anointed---given the gift of restoration and hope in times of darkness---set apart to do God’s work.  This Advent, may Christ’s light break into our hearts and minds---removing the shadowy spaces----restoring us by the healing power of Jesus’ love---for He is coming.  Jesus is coming.  And he wants to dwell in and with and among us.  Make room.  Prepare.  Believe.  Expect.  Receive.