Possessed: January 28, 2018

Year B, Epiphany 4                                                     
Mark 1:21-29                                                 

 

            Recently my husband and I were talking about a yearly event that we attend.  It’s not my favorite event in the world, but it’s also not completely horrible, nor is it particularly memorable.  This year my husband reminded me of one almost 10 years ago.  “Do you remember how mad you were?  I had to take away your car keys.”  I looked at him like he was stark raving mad, because I had no memory of the incident he was referring to. He reminded me of what happened that made me so mad and it started coming back to me.  I remember being very annoyed, but I don’t remember being enraged.  I thought, “Why would that have made me so mad?  How stupid to be mad about something so trivial.”  In my defense, someone did something pretty rude and embarrassed me in a public setting and made me feel small and foolish.  I confess, the more I thought about the incident, the more I remembered the anger.  I could feel it 10 years later.  But to be so enraged my husband did not trust me to drive? That seems excessive.

            Anger is not necessarily a bad thing.  There are times when it is appropriate to be angry.  Jesus got angry, especially in the face on injustice and hypocrisy.  Anger becomes dangerous when it envelops you and clouds your very being…when it almost becomes part of who you are, your very essence.  We can say that about a lot of things. Fear, competition, confidence, success, desire… None of these things are bad…but they can take us over at times. They can possess us and change how we think and act.

            The Gospel of Mark does not start the same way that the other gospels do.  There is no dramatic story of Jesus’ birth like there is in Matthew and Luke.   There is no poetic prologue like there is in the Gospel of John.  The Gospel of Mark begins with John the Baptist and moves quickly to Jesus baptism, the temptation in the desert and the calling of his first disciples.  This is all in the first 20 verses of the first chapter.  Those first 20 verses are full of important events, events and people critical to the life of Jesus and to the Christian faith.  After reading those 20 verses, we would expect that the next event would be equally important.

            That brings us to today’s reading. Our story for today starts in a fairly typical fashion.  Jesus went to the synagogue and began to teach.  Everyone was impressed with his teaching.  Then the unexpected.  A man possessed by demons approached Jesus…no it’s more like he confronted Jesus.  The demon recognized Jesus immediately.  Everyone else saw Jesus as a teacher, perhaps even a prophet.  But the demon identified Jesus as the Holy One of God. 

            Of course Jesus did what we would expect him to do.  He freed the man from the demon. He exorcised him.  This was Jesus’s first miracle in the Gospel of Mark.  Exorcism.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus turned water into wine as his first miracle.  In Matthew,  he cured lots of people who were sick.  In Mark, one of the first things he does in his public ministry is exorcise a demon.  Surely Jesus could have picked something different.  He could have healed a small child or a wounded animal…but why get involved with a demon?

            The Gospel writer must have thought this was important if he put it in the very first chapter.  Now I know we all get a little antsy when we start talking about demons and evil spirits.  I don’t know what to tell you about the existence of demons, but I do believe that there is very real evil in the world.  Mark knew this.  Jesus knew this.  Thus one of his fist acts was to confront that evil and free a person of that evil. It wasn’t some abstract thing…it was there right in front of him, possessing a human, a child of God. 

We don’t hear much about the man who was possessed.  We know he was a man possessed.  That is it.  Part of me wants to know more about this man, how it happened, how he made it into the synagogue, what happened next? But the other part of me knows that none of that really matters. What matters is that this man was a child of God, a child of God who was being suffocated by something evil, something that controlled him.  Thus Jesus’ first act was not merely exorcising a demon. He was giving someone their freedom back.  He was giving this person back his identity as a beloved child of God.  If we look at it that way, then it makes sense that this would be one of his first acts.

            In the Episcopal Church, we don’t talk about demons much, or being possessed.  Yet I believe that most of us know what it is to be shackled by something.  It might bad relationship or job. It might be an addiction or an emotion that has taken over.  It might be guilt or something from the past that continues to plague us.  It might be an illness or a pain that has made us feel less than whole.

It doesn’t have to be something that is bad in and of itself. It could be money and belongings.  They can possess us. We can be possessed by knowledge that makes us arrogant and closed minded.  We can be possessed by fears, fears that keep us from seeing others as beloved children of God. We can be possessed by anger, some of it righteous anger, some of it just plain foolish. 

            Jesus seeks to free us from those things.  Because I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being controlled by something like anger or jealousy. I don’t like it when fear keeps me from doing good things for other people.  Sometimes I wish that we could just stick with the demon language.  When my husband told me about that time I was enraged over something foolish, I could have said, well that was a demon. That would be so much easier. We know demons are bad.  In stories like today, they seem to be eliminated with expediency. It is not the same with these amorphous things and feelings that possess us. They are much harder to get rid of. Sometimes we do not even realize we are possessed. 

            One of the interesting things about the story of the exorcism is that we don’t know what happened to the demon.  What we know is that Jesus continued to exorcise people. It seemed that he never quite conquered evil; he freed people from whatever possessed them.  He healed one person at a time. But he never rid the world of all evil. He was only able to heal the people who came to him, who knew that they needed his saving grace. That is what Jesus continues to ask of all of us….that we come to him, that we admit that we need him.  We might have to keep coming back.  I am fairly certain we will.  Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t keep count—he’s just happy to see us.

God's word is not as rare as our silence: January 14, 2018

Year B, Epiphany 2                                                                

1 Samuel 3:1-20                                                                      

Every priest and deacon has to go through a thorough process of discernment before being ordained.  Before you can even go to seminary, there is a lengthy interview process, sometimes an internship and you have to show that you have the support of your parish priest, the vestry, and a separate committee in the church.  For 6 years I sat on the committee for the diocese that walks along people who are hoping to be ordained.  During those 6 years I heard a lot of stories of people who felt that they were called to the ministry.  Typically people’s stories were more nuanced than you might expect.  For most people, there was rarely one moment when clarity struck.  The call came over years, even decades.  There was no thunder and lightning.  No one ever started their story with, “God spoke to me and said, ‘You need to be a priest’.”  Sometimes the call would come through life events and often the encouraging words of others.

            It is strange because if you look at the stories in the Bible, of people who were called to various ministries (whether it was prophet, disciple, mother of God, etc)---it was usually more direct.  God spoke to people in dreams and visions.  For Moses, his physical appearance changed after he spoke to God.  It was that obvious. Paul was blinded and a voice came from heaven.  For Mary, an angel appeared and spoke to her.  It seems that in those days, God was a lot more direct.  Yet in this day and time, in the modern age, God is a lot more subtle in the way that he communicates.  There have been many times in my life, when I wished God would be less subtle, more like he was in the stories in the Bible. 

            One of the first verses from our Old Testament reading for today is, “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.”  This got my attention, because this is the Bible after all.  It’s God’s word. You don’ expect that the Bible would mention a time when God’s word was rare. Yet even then, in the time of the great prophets and kings, even then there were periods when God seemed less communicative than usual.  The Hebrew word translated to rare typically referred to things like jewelry, anything that was rare and limited in supply.  Other translations use the word precious.  God’s word was precious. 

            The other reason it seems a little odd that the word of God would be so rare in this story is the location.  The boy in this story (Samuel) is living in the temple, as a servant/apprentice of the high priest.  He was living in the temple.  The text says that he was sleeping in the room where the ark of God was housed.  The ark of God was the place where God was supposed to reside.  The ark was the closest thing to the embodiment of God.  It was the closest you could get.  Yet even there, feet away from the ark of God, the word of the Lord was rare.  It must have been a dark time indeed.  But as you know, just because something is rare and precious, does not mean that it is impossible to attain. 

            This story of Samuel and the voice of God is fairly well known. Typically when we talk about it, we think of Samuel’s refrain, “Here I am.”  Even the popular hymn you just heard repeats this refrain, “Here I am.”  As a result, I have always imagined that this is the way we respond to the voice of God, with assurance, confidence, with a loud, “Here I am. It’s me. I’m who you are talking to.”  Yet what is interesting is that was how Samuel responded when he thought it was Eli calling him. 

Remember that the word of God was rare.  Samuel didn’t know what it sounded like.  In our text, there is an exclamation point after his name.  Samuel! Samuel! But we don’t really know what the voice of the Lord sounded like.  It probably didn’t sound like James Earl Jones.  It was probably quiet, more like a murmur than a voice from heaven. Therefore, it was not that odd that he assumed it was the elderly priest Eli.  Samuel responded as any good servant, by jumping to his feet and proclaiming, “Here I am.”  Even after 3 times of hearing this, he still jumped to his feet and ran to Eli.  Who knows, he might have done that all night had Eli not figured things out and given him some advice. 

            Now had I been in Eli’s position, I would gave jumped up as well and tried to get some more details from Samuel before formulating a plan where I would have joined Eli as we chatted and waited for the next call from God.  But Eli was wise and probably a little tired as well. He told Samuel to lie down and wait. The next time God called, Eli instructed him to say, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.” Samuel did exactly that.  He did not bounce out of bed and say, “Here I am!”  Instead he asked God to speak and made sure that God knew that he was listening. 

Because of that, God spoke and shared something that would change Samuel’s life, Eli’s life and shape the fate of Israel. I have always assumed that God was waiting for Samuel to realize that it was God talking before sharing his wisdom.  But I think God was waiting for some evidence, some confirmation that Samuel was ready to listen. He wasn’t just the eager pupil bouncing up and down in his seat desperate to be called on so he could speak…he was the servant ready to listen. 

It is hard to know whether the word of God is rare now, or if it is just listening that is rare.  It’s hard to listen.  If this story of Samuel and Eli happened today, Samuel would have had ear buds in with music blaring.  Or he would have been playing a video game or chatting online with someone. Eli would have been sound asleep with his white noise machine or maybe the TV on.  It’s hard to listen because there is so much noise.  It’s not just that the word of God is rare today.  Silence is rare.  It is so rare that it is precious. 

Because it is precious, it is that much more important that we seek it, that we strive for moments of silence, moments when we can not only step away from the constant noise that surrounds us, but even the chatter inside our heads.  God doesn’t usually speak to us with exclamation points.  He doesn’t even use emoji.  But I promise you that his word isn’t as rare as our ability to listen. 

One of the things that helped Samuel was Eli, someone who was there with him and was able to point Samuel in the right direction.  That is what the faith community is for. Church is the place you come to hear God’s word.  You may not hear it in the readings, or the music, or the sermon. But this is the place where we intentionally make space for God’s word.  That hour of worship might not be enough which is why we have different groups, Bible study, the men’s group, the adult forum, St. Anne’s guild, the young adult group…places where you can go to be with other people who are trying to listen for the voice of God.  You can also come to Mark or me and we will listen to you and with you.  Because whether you know it or not, God is speaking to you.  God is desperate to talk to you.  Not only are God’s words precious, you are precious in God’s eyes…which is why he never gives up.  He never stops trying to reach you…no matter who you are or where you are from. You are precious. 

Flashes, Sparks and Lights :Dec. 31, 2017

1 Christmas Year B                                                    
John 1: 1-18                                                                

            When my grandparents were still alive, they lived in a condo on the beach in Florida. They were high up and they had this gorgeous view of the ocean.  Every evening my grandfather would sit on the porch and watch the sunset.  He was waiting for the green flash. The green flash is a rare optical phenomenon. It generally occurs at sunset or sunrise and is usually seen over the ocean.  The flash is created by a refraction of light in the atmosphere.[1] On these rare occasions, when the sun is just about to disappear, there is a sudden flash of light.  It is so quick, that if you blink, you will miss it.  Most people have never seen it. It requires diligence, patience, and being in the right place at the right time. It also requires a little faith; to patiently wait for something that you have never seen and most people do not even know exists. 

            For the duration of Advent, we talked about waiting, anticipating, and preparing, for the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.  For those of you who were here Christmas Eve, you were rewarded with the lovely story of Jesus’ birth.  You heard about the shepherds and the angels.  Finally the time of waiting was over, and the time of celebration had arrived. Today (one week after Christmas Eve) we hear the familiar, yet mysterious, words of John 1. 

Unlike Matthew and Luke, there is no traditional birth story, in that there is no Mary and no baby Jesus.  But Jesus becomes incarnate in this story.  Jesus becomes human, and that is a birth story in a sense.  Perhaps it would be more aptly described as a story of becoming.

            “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” John uses a great deal of light and darkness imagery in his Gospel.  As you can see from this passage the light represents both life and Jesus Christ.  There are many theories about what darkness is and in this passage it is not clear. For our purposes, we will say that darkness represents death, or life apart from Jesus Christ.  It also represents hopelessness.

            Jesus became human and lived among us so that we could actually see and know God.  Before the birth of Jesus, people had faith.  Many had a great deal of faith. They believed in God.  But for many people God represented laws and rules.  God was inaccessible; the name of God could not even be spoken.  People could not communicate directly with God.   For many, God had become a religion, but not life.  So Jesus Christ came into the world to be God for us.  God was no longer an unpronounceable word, God was a living, breathing, being. 

            The Gospel reading ends with: “No one had ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”  It’s true, before Jesus was born, no one had ever seen God.  God had spoken to people.  God appeared in dreams.  But God was always a little elusive, a little out of reach.  With Jesus, this all changed. In a flash of light, he was here and he lived among us.  In a flash he was gone again. 

In the context of the history of the world, Jesus’ life on earth was so very brief.  If you blinked, you would miss it.   Consequently, some people did not believe.  Many still do not believe. If you look at the research, fewer and fewer people believe every year.  Yet there are those of us, who refuse to let go of the light. The light is oxygen…we cannot live without it.  We cannot imagine what life would look like without the light of Christ.

Despite that belief and that need, the darkness can be overwhelming at times.  Well, if I am honest, it can be overwhelming much of the time.  When that darkness is so prevalent, it makes it harder to seek the light.

It is as if we spend all our time staring into the darkness looking for signs of God’s light and love.  We grow weary.  Our eyes are strained, and sometimes we give up.  My grandfather only saw the green flash a couple of times, even after watching hundreds and hundreds of sunsets. That was enough for him.  Two seconds of brilliance was all he needed. 

            Jesus was with us for such a short time.  What he gave us was more than we needed. He gave us a fire that would never go out, a love that would always burn strong.  We could keep looking for God, keep hoping we will see God.  But God is more than a flash of light. God does not only come to us in miracles or answered prayers. You don’t have to look hard, you just have to change what you are looking for.  Not only do you have to change what you are looking for, when the darkness is all consuming, we must look at ourselves for the light.  We must be the light. Our opening prayer reads: Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives.  We do not have to look outside of ourselves for the light.  It is in us.  Our job is to release the light.

My grandfather only saw that flash a couple of times, but he saw the most amazing sunsets hundreds of times.   I never saw the green flash, but I saw something in my grandfather, that spark of light and love, that faith in a divine spark.  I see that in each of you as well.  That is so much better than a flash.  It is a light that lasts. A light that lasts forever.

---

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_flash

God's Big Risk: Christmas Eve 2017

Christmas Eve, Year B                                                                       
Luke 2:1-20                                                                            

 

Deli meat, fish, soft cheeses, unpasteurized milk, caffeine and alcohol.   These are some of the things that pregnant women are supposed to avoid eating. Of course, there are also the daily pre-natal vitamins. It’s best to avoid stress.   Generally traveling in the last few weeks of your pregnancy is discouraged. 

While Mary probably avoided deli meat and caffeine, she did not avoid stress or travelling.  The journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem was 90 miles, much of it over hills.  Mary and Joseph travelled by foot and donkey.  It probably took them over a week to make that trip.  At that time of year it would have been 30 degrees during the day and colder at night.  They slept on the ground.  They lived on bread and water, because that was all they could easily carry.  It was a perilous journey for anyone, but especially a woman about to give birth.  When they arrived at their destination, the best place they could find was a stable.   This wasn’t a sterile environment, not the cleanest place to give birth.   

It makes me wonder a little about God’s judgment.  There are lots of ways he could have sent his son to earth to bring his message of love and salvation.  He could have sent him fully grown.  He could have sent him to a family with money and power. He could have waited a couple thousand years and sent him to a developed country where the baby Jesus would have been much safer. It’s baffling to me that God would take that kind of risk, that he would take a chance on this young powerless couple.  I personally think that all children should be wrapped in bubble wrap to ensure their safety. There was no bubble wrap! There was hay in a feeding trough. 

God had already tried many ways to reach God’s people.  He sent the prophets who shared his words and wisdom.  Some of them displayed acts of power.  He sent a great flood so the world could start fresh.  He spoke through kings and warriors.  While some of the words of the prophets and kings got people’s attention, it never made the lasting impact that was intended. 

It seems that God then took a break.  There is about a 500 year gap between the end of the Old Testament and the birth of Jesus.  500 years where it seems that God wasn’t communicating much, at least not in the big ways he had before. 

We can’t know what was going on with God in those 500 years.  But I like to think that he was pondering, maybe even convincing himself of what had to come next.  He realized that he had to take a risk, make himself—God—vulnerable like he never had before. 

Because God never does anything half way, he made himself as vulnerable as possible. He came not just as a baby, but as a fetus in the womb of a young woman who had no husband and no way to support herself.   There is no greater vulnerability.  For 9 months and then at least a year after, Jesus (God incarnate) depended on Mary for his sustenance.  God’s life was dependent on this one woman.  The future of humanity in the hands of one young woman.

Surely, God was still watching and protecting Mary and the baby Jesus.  One of the first things that the Angel Gabriel told Mary was, “The Lord is with you.”  The angel promised that through this all, God would be with her….not only in the literal sense as she was carrying the Son of God, but also that God the Father was providing strength and assurance.

As Christians, we talk a lot about trusting God and what that means.  It’s challenging to trust God, perhaps one of the greatest challenges that we as Christians face. What we sometimes forget is that God trusts us as well. He displayed that by allowing his son to come to earth in the form of a baby, a helpless baby.  One of the things that distinguished Jesus from other religious leaders, and certainly from anyone considered a god, was that he never asked people to do anything that he was not willing to do. 

We as Christians, put our lives in his hands.  Technically we do.  Let’s face it, it’s usually more figurative than literal. We put our future life in God’s hands in that we believe that if we follow God in this world, then we will live eternally. It’s a lot harder to put our day to day needs and concerns in the hands of God.  Jesus put his life in our hands.  He was completely dependent on human parents to provide for his needs.  He did not come out of the womb as a fully grown man; he was a tiny baby. 

If you look at Medieval art, the baby Jesus always looks kind of weird.  He usually has the face of a man, or maybe even the body of a man, but miniature. Obviously medieval painters knew what babies looked like.  But they could not imagine God in the flesh in that helpless state.  While we have gotten better at depicting baby Jesus in art, I am not sure we truly appreciate the kind of trust and love that God showed in sending his only son to earth.  How could we?

We have romanticized the story of Jesus’ birth and painted it in gentle and vibrant hues.  We have made it sweet and sentimental.  But if you look at the facts of the story, it was a very strange way to introduce God to this world. The crazy thing is, that it worked.  Because God wasn’t just telling people what to believe, he was showing them how he loved us.  For millennia, God had amazed and terrified people with his awesome power.  But with Jesus, people learned what it was to know God and be known by God. 

You might think, well that is all fine and good, but that was thousands of years ago. What do we do when we don’t have God in the flesh here with us? How can we learn to trust and love a God who we don’t know? That’s a tough one.  The best way to trust God is to enter into a relationship with God.  We can do this by reading the Bible, which is full of stories like the one we heard tonight.  We can embrace the traditions of the church, many of which are 100s, maybe even 1000 years old.  We have the Christian religion and the Episcopal Church, that while imperfect, have done a great deal of good in the world.  We have community worship, an opportunity to come and sit with a community of believers and worship God through music and prayers.  We have prayer and meditation.   Some people think that these are the things we do after we learn to trust God.  That certainly is true.  But these are also the practices we use to get to know God. 

People sometimes worry about coming to church when their faith is on perilous ground, or because they are doubting or perhaps even teetering on the cusp of disbelief.  This is exactly where we belong when we are in those situations.  Someone once said that the church is not a museum for saints, it is a hospital for the broken sinners.  I am convinced, that in a room full of broken people, we can find wholeness. We can create a mosaic of faith and trust.  It will not be perfect, but no relationship ever is.  The story of Jesus’ birth and life, is messy and disjointed. That is what makes it real. 

Jesus’ life on earth began with a 90 mile journey in the womb of a young woman.  This 90 mile journey was just the beginning of a wonderful, but difficult life; a life where Jesus loved and was loved, a life where trust was created and trust was broken.   As a result, God understands our journey.  While we are not carrying the baby Jesus in our womb (if you are, we need to talk), we are carrying a promise, a promise of God’s love, a promise that God will be with us now and until the end.    

(Quote from Abigail Van Buren.  It is assumed that she was quoting St. Augustine.)

Don't quench the Spirit: December 17, 2017

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24                                                
Yea B, Advent 3                                                                      

            One of the things I have enjoyed about being the parent of a toddler is imagining all of the things that he might become.  When he jumped off the couch and landed on his feet I thought, he is going to be a famous gymnast.  When he said his first full sentence, I decided he was most certainly going to be a Rhodes Scholar. When he played something on the piano that kind of sounded like something resembling a song, I reminded myself to look up when Mozart started playing the piano because there was a chance that Joshua could be a savant.  It’s fun thinking of all of these possibilities.  At some point, he might tell me he hates the piano and I will cross “next Mozart” off the list.  But right now, he could be anything. 

I remember a time when I was absolutely convinced I would be a senator.  There was no doubt in my mind that I could accomplish whatever I wanted.  And I hope that most of us have some memory like that, a time when anything was possible.  While I was thinking about all of this, I tried to remember the moment when I realized that not everything was possible…or that some or many of my dreams would not be realized.  I don’t think it was any one moment.  It was just a jumble of realizations, some of them painful, some of them enlightening.  I think part of what forms us, what makes us who we are is how we deal with the failures and rejections in life. 

It’s like we are born with a flame.  At first there is a flicker/a spark.  It grows and provides light and a little heat.  Then a couple of things can happen. 

1.      It continues to burn, but goes through different phases. Sometimes it flickers and seems like it is about to extinguish. Sometimes it grows so big it seems like it will burn the whole place down.  It never dies, but sometimes it may seem like it will.

2.      Or it could be a flame that stays sheltered.  It is steady and unchanging, but can only grow so much. 

3.      Or, it is a flame that rises to a certain height and then appears to be smothered, until all you see is embers.

We are these flames. Either we experience success and failure and keep burning through it all.  Or, we stay safe and controlled, not taking much risk.  Or we burn and then something or someone quenches our fire.  The flame ends in ash. The dream dies.  The Spirit is quenched.

            That line from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians captured me when I was initially reading these texts.  I keep coming back to it, “Do not quench the Spirit.” Paul was talking to new Christians.  This letter to the Thessalonians is the oldest books in the New Testament.  It was written before the Gospels, less than 20 years after Jesus ascended to heaven.  As you came imagine, there was a great deal of fervor in the new community.  There was passion for Jesus and all that he had taught.  They believed in this new movement despite the fear of persecution.   They knew that they could be stoned for worshipping Jesus. This fledgling Christian community was surrounded by people who thought this Jesus thing was just a passing fad, another little cult that would end with that generation. 

In addition to this fervor and passion, these new Christians experienced doubt and fear as well. They had expected that Jesus would return in their lifetime. As people in their community died, they got worried.  What happened if Jesus didn’t come back?  Even Paul had expected Jesus to come back in his lifetime. Thus as the years went by and Jesus did not return, the fervor and the passion that had carried these new Christians wavered.  It was a scary place to be….this in-between place. Despite the fear and the doubt, they held on.  Paul continued to support them and reassure them.  They lived in hopeful expectation. But the longer they waited the less hopeful they were. 

            While we cannot be sure what was happening, it is evident from this letter that Paul was concerned for them.  Otherwise he would not have felt that he had to remind them not to quench the Spirit.  We assume that Paul was talking about the Holy Spirit, but I think it was more than that---at least more than how we perceive as the Holy Spirit.  For most of us, we see the Holy Spirit as something outside of us.  On our good days we see it as something that may inspire and guide us. Other days, we forget about the Holy Spirit entirely. 

But let’s assume for a minute that for the early Christians, the Holy Spirit was part of them.  It was the flame that I spoke of in the beginning of my sermon.  It was the flame that drove them through life. When it was quenched, when it was extinguished, then everything was quenched.  Without it, they were walking in the dark with no light to guide them.  Therefore, it was critical that the Holy Spirit not be quenched.

While we tend to relegate the Holy Spirit to Pentecost and ordinations, the Holy Spirit is part of us.  It is no coincidence that there is a preponderance of candles in churches.  They are not just for aesthetic purposes. The flames serve as reminders of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  They also represent the light of Christ.  The Holy Spirit is what sustains that light within each of us.  We do not have to worry when Jesus will come again, because we have this guiding light at all times.  We have a light that not only shines outwardly, but one that burns within each of us.

Here is the thing about the light of Christ or the flame of the Spirit.  No matter how hard we try to quench it, we can’t.  We can cover it up.  We can try to hide it.  We can ignore it.  But we cannot extinguish it.  Despite that, wouldn’t it be better if we fanned the flames instead of quenching them? Wouldn’t it be better if we tended to the flame in each one of us and one another? 

Much of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians is about how to be a Christian community. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances…” All of our hopes and dreams might not be realized.  Some of us, many of us, will have moments when the flame within us will feel more like ash than flame…which is why we have one another to fan the flames.  We are here to be inspired and to inspire.  After Christmas, we will move the Advent wreaths back into our closets or attics, but that doesn’t mean that the light is gone; it just comes in different forms.  When the darkness seems like it will overcome us, try to imagine the light within you.  If that is too hard, find a candle to remind you that there is always light—the Spirit cannot be quenched. 

Don't make me come down there: Dec. 3

Year B, Advent 1                                                                    
Isaiah 64:1-9                                                                          

            Have any of you seen the billboards on the side of the highway with messages from God?  They have a black background and white letters.  They say things like:

 “That ‘love thy neighbor thing’---I meant it.” 

   Or “My way is the highway.”
  Or, one of my favorites: “I don’t question your existence.”

         While these are fairly light hearted, there are some that seem a little threatening. “You think it’s hot here?”  or “Don’t make me come down there.”  That 2^nd one is a little perplexing to me.  It alludes to the threat of an angry parent warning rowdy children that if they have to come down there, things will get ugly.  That seems like a strange way to envision God’s 2^nd coming.   Should we be afraid of God coming?  I always thought that we should look forward to the coming of God.  Isn’t that what we do during Advent…we anticipate the arrival of Jesus.

            If we look around us in our culture at this time of year we see bright lights, decorated trees and houses.  We smell homemade cookies and cinnamon.  We feel the warmth of a fire or a comfy blanket.  Our world is telling us that this time before Christmas is a time of joy and comfort.  It is a time to celebrate and enjoy the sweeter things in life. It’s a time to indulge. The Bible readings are telling us that this is a time to get serious because judgment is coming.  It’s quite a juxtaposition.

            Our Gospel reading is talking about the darkening sun and stars falling from the sky.  It’s essentially talking about the end of the world.  It ends with a slightly foreboding warning: “Keep awake.” The Old Testament reading (Isaiah) is a lament of desperate people begging God to tear the heavens apart.  It’s not exactly the kind of stuff that puts you in the holiday spirit.  Instead of talking about Mark’s vision of the end of the world, I thought I would focus on Isaiah’s depiction of present suffering.  Isaiah was one of the great prophets.  He is the prophet most quoted in the New Testament. The Book of Isaiah is also one of the longest books in the Bible.

Because it is such a long book and covers several decades, scholars typically break it into three sections.  The first third tells of Isaiah warning the people of imminent destruction if they do not change their ways.  The 2^nd third talks about the Hebrew people living in exile because they were attacked and forced to leave their home (because they did not listen to Isaiah).  The final third is supposed to be the happy ending.  It’s the time when the Hebrew people return to the land that they have been singing, praying, and dreaming about.  They are finally home.  But now it is in ruins and they have to rebuild.  This was not the happy ending they were expecting. 

I bet many of us have had that experience.  We have been in a difficult period in our life. Then we think, we just need to get through this period and all will be well. Then our prayers are answered and we make it through the hard time, but our problems are still there at the other side of the darkness.  Things are better, but there is still work to be done and by now, we are tired.  So it was with the Israelites. They were weary.  They had been through so much.  They did not have the energy or the will to start over. 

            In our reading for today, the first line is: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains will quake at your presence---as when a fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil.” The Hebrew people were facing the ruins of their former life and the land that they loved.  In desperation, they were asking for God to make his presence known.  Typically, when we think of God’s presence, we think of something warm of comforting.  Yet the Hebrew people were under no such illusion.  They knew what it was to be in the presence of God and it was not comforting.  It was quite the opposite.

This picture of the heavens being torn open and quaking mountains is most likely an allusion to the story of Moses and the 10 commandments.  In that story, Moses had led the people out of slavery and after about 3 months of wandering and complaining, Moses brought the people to the edge of a mountain to meet God.  A great cloud shrouded the mountain. There was thunder and lightning.  The people trembled.  They were terrified.  They asked Moses to climb the mountain so that they would not have to. They did not want to be any closer to God than they already were.  Thus, in our reading for today, when they asked God to tear open the heavens, they knew what they were asking. They knew that God’s presence would be holy and sacred, but it would be a challenge as well. But they also knew what it was to be without God.  They had experienced that.  They chose a holy fear, rather than an apathetic and numb existence. 

            In our reading for today, after begging God to come down, the people repented.  They admitted that they had been worthless.  They had sinned. Not only did they confess their sins, but they acknowledged that they were powerless to improve their situation. They said, “There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our inequity.”   That admittance of powerlessness was probably one of the hardest things for them to say.  It’s something that most of us struggle with, our inability to control things, even though we try so hard. 

            Yet…yet.  That is the where the tone changes.  The narrative moves from the past to the present.  The Hebrew people were no longer talking about what was in the past.  With this simple word: “yet” they moved to something entirely different.  “Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”  Yet.  They were saying: Whatever has happened in the past,  whatever way we sinned, You are our father…now.  You created us.  Even in our flawed and incomplete state, we are still yours. So you can’t be angry forever because we are all your people. 

            In the church, we often contrast the season of Advent with what is going on in the world around us.  Advent tells us to slow down.  The world tells us to overcompensate. Yet that slowing down isn’t a spiritual vacation, it’s a time to examine our lives, where we have succeeded, but also where we have fallen short---especially in regards to our faith journey.  It is a time of preparation not just for the sweet baby Jesus, but for a God who can tear the heavens apart and light up the sky…for a God who expects greatness from us because we are created in his image. 

While I would never want people to be afraid of God, I do think that we need to spend more time in awe of God…perhaps even tremble before his majesty.  It is one thing to confess our sins to God---it is an entirely different thing to throw ourselves at the mercy of our creator. In doing so, we are not only admitting our past sins, we are admitting that we will sin again.  We cannot save ourselves.  While God can be quite intimidating at times…in the end, he made us.  We are his children.  God will never forget that.  The question is, are we willing to live into that kind of vulnerability and trust---to be the children of God. Not only to be the children of God, but children who are willing to be molded and changed by God’s loving hands.  It is not enough to be created by God. We also need to be changed by God.

Unexpected Heroes: Nov. 19 2017

Year A, Pentecost 24                                      
Judges 4:1-7                                                           

 

            A couple of years ago I purchased an audio version of the entire Bible.  I thought that it would give me something peaceful and calming to listen to at the end of the day, perhaps before sleep.  When I came to the Book of Judges, I had to skip major chunks.  There was so much war and violence.  It was neither calming nor soothing.  Therefore, it will probably not surprise you that I have never preached on this book.   In my defense, this is the only time we have a reading from Judges in our 3 year lectionary cycle.  It’s also short, has complicated names, and makes no sense if you only read only the part that we heard today.

            Instead of skipping it entirely, I am going to provide a little context. The Book of Judges picks up where the Book of Joshua ends.  Moses had appointed Joshua to be his successor and Joshua had ruled the Hebrew people successfully for decades.  As you can imagine, following leaders like Moses and Joshua would be quite an undertaking.  When Moses died, he appointed Joshua to be his successor.  Joshua did not appoint a successor.  This lack of leadership was difficult for the people of Israel.  The first line of our reading is: “The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord…”  Again. 

The Israelites had a pattern in how they related to God.  Take yourself back to high school or college for a minute. You remember the couple.  They would be in love, then there would be a fight and they would break up. Then one person would decide that they could not live without the other. They would get back together and be happy for a time.  Then things would get difficult and they would break up again.  This is a loose analogy for what happened with the Israelites and God.  However, in this case, there was always one party who was at fault, and it was not God. 

            We do not know why God didn’t appoint a leader after Joshua died.  It would be many years before David would become King.  In the interim, there were leaders called judges.  These judges were primarily military leaders who helped Israel defend itself from various enemies.  There would be peace and a good judge.  Then the judge would die and there would be chaos. The people would turn to other gods.  They would then be attacked by an army and realize that they could not survive without the one true God.  They would beg God to deliver them and God would send another judge.  Then the process would start all over again. 

            When we get to the point in today’s story the Israelites are in trouble again. They have been controlled by the Canaanites for 20 years.  They wanted to overthrow their oppressors, but they could only do so with God on their side.   The Canaanite army was led by a man named Sisera and had 900 chariots of iron.  When we hear chariots, we don’t think of something scary and deadly.  However, at the time, iron chariots were the top of the line military equipment. It would be like trying to fight 900 tanks with people armed with pistols…not a fair fight. 

            The judge who led the Israelites in this epic battle was an unexpected leader. She was a judge named Deborah.  As far as we know, Deborah was the only female judge living in a time when women had no authority.  She did.  What made her a strong leader was that she knew that her authority came from God.  She was also a good delegator.  She went to a man named Barak and told him that he would lead the army to defeat the Canaanites. 

This is where our reading for today ends, but this is also where it gets more interesting.  Barak told Deborah that he would only go if she came with him. This is almost unbelievable—a man of that time telling a woman that he would only go into battle with her at his side.  Her response was: “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.”  In other words, sure, I will come, but you are not getting any glory because God is giving the glory to a woman instead.  When we read this, we assume that it is Deborah who will receive the glory, which does not make her look very humble.  It isn’t.  God had another plan.  The Israelites fought hard and won great battles sending the general, Sisera, into hiding with an ally, the King of Hazor.  Sisera thought he was safe, but he wasn’t.  While he was sleeping the wife of the king killed him with a tent stake and then found Barak and showed him where the body was, which meant the Israeli people were victorious.       

            While this makes for a scintillating narrative, it is challenging to preach.  It is hard to find the good news in a story where there is so much violence.  Therefore, we have to look past the violence and focus on the people.  In Book of Judges and most of the Bible, we have a community of fickle people who continually turn away from God.  We might be able to identify with people who have trouble following God.  I know I can.  What we also have, are unlikely heroes.  We have a woman who should never have had the authority she had, not according to the norms of that time and place.  We have Barak, a man who refused to go to battle without the support of a woman. Then we have the wife of a King who wasn’t even an Israelite who showed great courage and cunning.  She should have had no part in this fight.  What those leaders had in common was humility and faith. They knew that they were instruments of God’s will.   They knew what so many have chosen to forget, that we owe everything we have to God.  There is no battle that we can win without the help of God. 

            One of our Eucharistic prayers  (which is what the priest reads before we all take communion) says: You made us the rulers of creation. But we turned against you, and betrayed your trust; and we turned against one another. As Christians, it is important to acknowledge that we too have had those moments when we have turned away from God. Sometimes we know that we are doing it. Sometimes we don’t because we can’t see past our own self-interest.  But then when we need God, we come back to him and he always takes us back. 

The story of the Jewish and the Christian community is complicated and beautiful.  It is full of twists and turns.  It is full of moments of betrayal and moments of desperation.  But what makes our story compelling, what makes our story one that does not end with the words of the Bible, is the unexpected heroes that permeate our faith stories.  Yes, we need to admit our sins and our moments when we turn away from God and one another.  I hope that we can also see those opportunities when we can be the unexpected heroes, the instruments of God’s love, grace and authority. The Christian story is unfinished. It is up to each one of us to decide what role we have in the story.   We do not have to be great warriors to be the heroes of this story.  We just have to be commit ourselves to following the will of God wherever it may lead us.