Grace in the Wilderness: Easter

Year A, Easter                                                                       

Jeremiah 31:1-6                                                                                         

How can we shout Alleluia and announce a risen Christ in the midst of such grief, illness and death? Many are lamenting our loss of an Easter celebration because of the recommendations to shelter in place and the order that we not gather in groups of more than 10.  But really, even if there wasn’t a fear of infecting one another and rules about staying home, would we really be able to celebrate with so much death around us?

            This past week the Surgeon General declared this week to be our Pearl Harbor and our 9-11, the week that would test the strength and endurance of Americans.  Even if we were able to gather without fear of getting sick or infecting another unknowingly, it would be hard to celebrate in the midst of such pain and anguish. While I grieve our inability to gather as a community, I have to admit that I am relieved that we don’t have to pretend that all is well when we know all is not well.

One of the things that distinguishes St. John’s in terms of our Easter celebration is the Easter Egg hunt in our cemetery.  It seems an odd tradition and the first few times you see young children weaving between tombstones carrying Easter baskets, you can’t help but recognize the bizarre juxtaposition, seeing such life and vitality in the midst of death.   Yet my friends, that is exactly what Easter is, what Easter has always been.  We can never forget that the very first Easter was in an empty tomb.  It was in the midst of grief, fear and weeping. 

Every Easter, I preach on the Gospel.  Anyone coming to Easter Sunday service wants to hear about the empty tomb and the appearance of the risen Christ.  But this isn’t your average Easter Sunday, so instead, I am going to talk about our Old Testament reading from Jeremiah.  Jeremiah was such a depressing prophet, he carries the unfortunate nickname of “the weeping prophet.”  Like other Old Testament prophets, much of his book was about encouraging people to repent from their sins and turn back to the one true God.

Typically there is a shift somewhere later in the book where the prophet moves away from judgment and warning to hope and comfort.  Our reading for today depicts this very shift.  But it’s more than just comfort.  It’s not the chicken soup for the soul kind of comfort that reminds us to look for the silver lining or search for the bright side.  This is about restoration.  This is about re-creation. It is a reminder that we worship a creator God and if God can create the world, he can re-create it as well.  That is what Jeremiah means when he writes, “Again I will build you, and you shall be built.”

These are words to people who have seen their homes destroyed and seen many loved ones die.  Some have lost faith in their God.  They have questioned why God would allow so much pain, so much unnecessary loss to a people he is supposed to love. They are a people who are weary, terrified and frustrated.  (Sound familiar?) Yet Jeremiah reminds these people that they are the same people who found grace in the wilderness. He is referring to the Exodus, when the Hebrew people escaped slavery in Egypt only to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.  Jeremiah reminds them that they found grace in the wilderness.

I was struck by that phrase.  I feel as though this period we are in right now is very much a wilderness period.  We are isolated, even though we are surrounded by the news and social media.  We have plenty of food as they did in the wilderness (because God provided) but we still feel the need to hoard.  We still feel anxiety for what we might lose.  We are in the wilderness.  Like others before us, we can find grace in this wilderness.  I often hear myself using the word stuck when I am talking about my current situation, which is not a good word for this situation.  We are not stuck.  We are free.  We are free because we have a God who loves us with an everlasting love. That is what Jeremiah calls it. 

One of the reasons I feel Jeremiah is so perfect for where we are now is because he uses past, present and future tense in these verses.  After reminding them of their wilderness period of the past, he writes, “Again I will build you, and you shall be built/ Again you shall take your tambourines, and go forth in the dance of the merrymakers. Again you shall plant vineyard on the mountains of Samaria…”  Today is not the day for tambourines and the dance of merry makers.  It is not the day to plant a vineyard.  Today is not the today for countless lilies, sumptuous food and an overflowing church.  But it is still a day for Alleluia.  It is still a day when we announce the risen Lord. 

One of the things I like to remind people at funerals is that the funeral liturgy is the one time we are allowed to say Alleluia during Lent. We believe that when we die, our lives are changed, not ended.  We are people of the resurrection.  Even in the midst of death, we still embrace the hope of the resurrection.  So yes, we are in a horrible period in our world where far too many people are dying, not just in other parts of the world, but here in Virginia, even in Hampton Roads. Yet as our funeral liturgy says, “even at the grave, we make our song Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”  We sing that song with tears in our eyes and a lump in our throats, but we still sing the song.  Even in the wilderness, we find grace.

            Sometimes in church we act like Easter is the end of this long marathon and we can all relax and go back to our normal lives. But that has never been true.  Easter is not meant to be the end.  It is a new beginning.  That is why in our Gospel story, Jesus tells Mary that she cannot cling to him, because he’s not done yet.  He has more to do.  We know, that even after the peak of this virus is past us, there will be more work to do.  We will need to rebuild.  We will need to comfort those who are mourning.  We will need to take measures to keep our people safe.  Things will never be as they were before.  That’s ok.  That doesn’t mean we cannot mourn the loss of people, jobs, financial security, and experiences.  It just means that we keep going.  We discover a new normal.  And most importantly, we can’t let ourselves grow complacent and comfortable as we were before.  While people were not dying at alarming rates even a month ago, I think we can all agree that things were not ok.  It was only ok because the bad things didn’t affect many of us. 

            Now, we are all in this wilderness together. Perhaps we should stop trying to escape the wilderness and instead, find some grace in it.  Grow into our better selves.  Grow into the people God created us to be.  And then we can truly let our voices soar when we say together, “Alleluia.   Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.”

You Know God: March 18, 2018

Year B, Lent 5                                                
Jeremiah 31:31-36                                                     

            Recently, there have been a lot of studies about whether humans are predisposed to believe in some kind of higher power. Some of these studies use information based on brain scans.  Other studies research the beliefs of children or other controlled groups.  What many of these studies have concluded is that we are hard wired to believe in something bigger than ourselves.  What people have noted is that every culture, no matter how isolated it may be, develops some kind of religion that they adhere to. 

Many people will hear this theory and use it as a critique of religious beliefs.  Their contention is that we believe because we need to believe, not necessarily because it’s true.  Yet when I consider how and why we are hardwired to believe, I think it provides proof of the existence of God.  We are created to believe.  It’s our default setting. God created us this way so we could have a relationship with him, so that not believing would be against our very nature. 

            Jeremiah is known as “the weeping prophet” as so much of this book is kind of depressing.  He spends the majority of the first 30 chapters warning the Hebrew people that they need to repent or be punished. Their punishment will come in the form of a mass deportation.  Babylon will invade and the majority of the Hebrew people will be sent into exile. Since we know that the people were exiled, it would appear that they did not heed the warnings of Jeremiah, which was pretty much the norm at this time and our time as well. 

Beginning with chapter 30, we have a brief reprieve from the weeping and reprimanding.  In these few chapters, Jeremiah tells the people that the days are coming when the Lord will make a new covenant and he will forgive their sins—not only forgive them, he will forget their sins.  That is an important distinction because it means that God is wiping the slate clean.  There will be no memories of wrong doing. I have always wished I could forget the things I have done wrong or wrongs that have been done to me. Alas…as humans, we can’t force ourselves to forget things.  God can’t force us to forget things.  God can choose to forget our sins, which is an incredible gift.  That is what God has given to his people.

He also gave them something else, a new way to experience God’s law. Jeremiah wrote that when this new day arrived the law of the Lord would not be written on stone tablets, it would be written on their hearts.  It would be seared into their very being.  While God can choose to forget the sins of his people, the people will never be able to forget the law of the Lord.

            Now when we think of law, it normally does not give us warm and fuzzy feelings.  We perceive law as something that is imposed upon us. We follow laws because we have to and we will get punished if we do not. At the time Jeremiah was writing, some people perceived God’s law like this.  Many of us still do. But that was never God’s intention (at least not that I know of). 

Thus when Jeremiah says that the Lord will establish a new covenant, it’s not new in regards to the content.  It’s not like God said, “Forget those 10 pesky commandments and that whole love God and your neighbor thing—we are trying something new.”  No.  The laws are essentially the same, but God was asking that people obey the laws not out of fear, but out of love for God.   That is a huge transition to make.  God knew that, which is why he said: “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.”  God was telling them and God is telling us that his love and his laws are now inscribed on our hearts.  It is not some outside force coming and telling us how to act and what to believe, it is part of who we are.  It is a good part of who we are.   

I am not a scientist, so take this for what it is worth.  Here’s my theory: what if that predisposition to believing in God is connected to this idea of God’s laws inscribed on our hearts?  God knows that humans are a little weak at times and fickle a lot of the time.  Thus when we were created, he inscribed his law on our hearts so that even those who know nothing of Christ or any organized religion walk through life with this feeling, this desire for more meaning in their life.

We see it all the time.  I heard someone describe Soulcycle as their religion.  If you do not know what it is, it’s a trendy exercise class where everyone gets in a dark room and rides on a stationary bike. There is loud music and someone screaming at you to try harder, to be better, to not give up.  It’s called Soulcycle, which is not exactly subtle.  It is clear what they are trying to accomplish. I go to a yoga class every week where the instructor gives us lessons on how to find meaning in our lives.  She quotes all kinds of gurus and the people in the class love it….because that might be the only time in the week when they find a deeper connection and meaning. 

We are hardwired to believe.  God created us to want to believe.  If we were to visualize the law written on our heart, it wouldn’t be a long list of rules.  It would say something like, “Love the Lord, your God with all your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourselves.”  God has written that law on our hearts.  We know God.  Deep down in each one of us, we know God.  However, that does not mean we are off the hook.  I know that eating a bunch of chocolate is bad for me. But that knowledge only helps if I actually resist the chocolate.  We know God.  That is the gift that God has given us all.  The gift that we give to God, is to act in a way that proves that we know God. 

One commentator wrote that “We talk about God like God is not in the room.”  As someone who spends a lot of time talking about God, that really got my attention.  It made me wonder if I would speak differently if I sensed God in the room. I feel pretty confident that I would act differently if I sensed his presence in a tangible way.  We talk about what it is to know God.  We talk about God’s presence with us.  But I worry that we have made God too abstract.  God’s intention was never to be part of a belief system. God’s intention has always been to be part of who we are.  He has written his law of love on our hearts.  He’s here, within each one of us.  

Our world is a scary place right now. Perhaps it always has been. But I find hope in the knowledge that God has carved out a spot in every human on this planet.  It is up to us as Christians not only to act in a way that reflects that law inscribed in our hearts, but be witnesses to God’s presence in other people, in every person.  We know God.  That is the gift that God has given us all.  The gift that we give to God, is to act in a way that reflects that knowledge.

Above quote from Karoline Lewis  http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5114