Gestating Christians Awaiting Rebirth

John 3: 1-17

What does Rollen Stewart and Tim Tebow have in common?

 

Well, Rollen “Rock’n Rollen” Stewart, or the Rainbow Man, donned a rainbow colored wig and began showing up at sports games in the late 1970’s and 1980’s with a sign that read, 

“John 3:16”.  That was after he became a born again Christian by accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

And of course Tim Tebow was a quarterback who played for the Denver Broncos and the New York Jets in the National Football League.  Quite a football player winning the Heisman Trophy in 2007 and quite the evangelist sporting the words and numerals, “John 3:16” on his eye-black. 

John 3:16 is iconic!  John 3:16 is a pulpit classic!  Even non Christians know John 3:16, let’s say it together the King James way, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  For as beloved as this verse is to Christians it also has the ability to divide us Christians because what precedes John 3:16 is John 3:1-15 with a lot of talk about being ‘born again’.  And you know that those two words, born again, are loaded like a baked potato from the Maine exhibit at the Big E.

Let us now listen to the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus from the Gospel of John from where the phrase born again is taken.

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.  He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”  Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”  Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 

Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.  What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’  The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?”  Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony.  If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?  No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.  And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

This is a rich and provocative piece of scripture for our reflection this morning and has, as I  mentioned earlier, divided us Christians because, let’s face it this passage has been used to condemn others.  Born from above and born again are really synonymous. For some people being born again is a way to determine someone’s salvation.  “Are you born again?” is a question that is asked by some meaning really, “Have you been saved like me?”  It’s, in some minds, a way of separating the goats from the sheep, the real Christians from the fake ones, the Bible thumpers from the quazi religious, the ‘thems’ and ‘uses’.

For other people (let’s face it, us UCCer’s) being born again is a way to determine a religious fanatic and evangelical with a capital E.  Neither way is helpful because they just perpetuate stereotypes within our own community and I don’t think that’s what Jesus intended for his little village of believers.  The fact is this scripture is universal, it’s for all of us conservatives, moderates, and liberals; the truth that lies therein is for all Christians. 

There was a man named Nicodemus, a Pharisee, who comes to Jesus at night.  Curious isn’t it?  He already believes to some extent that Jesus is not your usual Rabbi but one who was from God.  We’re not sure why he came at night but we do know that he was in that metaphorical state of darkness, of misunderstanding, of not being able to recognize what Jesus was really offering.  And yet we also know that he was a learned man born once into human form, into the traditions of Judaism, and into the Pharisaic life. 

So he wonders out loud, what would being born a second time look like?  He asks those rather silly questions for us.  How can you be born again, isn’t once is enough?  How can you really enter your mother’s womb again only to come through that birth canal another time?  I’m much larger now.  He’s trying to understand, to discern what Jesus was all about.  Nicodemus is in the gestational phase of his faith, his formational period where he is given a chance to understand life in a much different way – the Jesus way.  

It’s time for Nicodemus to come through the spiritual birth canal, through the waters of the womb and to be reborn to life once again.  ‘Jesus says that to be born from above is to be born of the Spirit and to be born of the Spirit is to believe in Jesus and in believing in him is to have eternal life.’[i]  John 3:16. Looks like Rollen Stewart and Tim Tebow have something on us here. 

They have been born again and they are telling us so.  They have come through the waters and have been birthed from above.  They are enthusiastic believers in Jesus Christ as the one who saves.  And don’t we all want to be saved?  Don’t we all want to be loved, accepted, forgiven and met with grace abundant, saved from our own aimlessness? 

The fact is we are all in our gestational phase of faith, we are seekers looking to have a better life, a larger understanding of God.  When Jesus tells Nicodemus that he needs to be born again by water and the Spirit he is really asking Nicodemus to let God be in his life, to let the Spirit guide him and work through him.  To be born again from above is to leave the darkness and to come into the light of life in Christ.

It is to break through from unbelief to belief, from a life that is judgmental and closed to new beginnings and a life that is abundant with possibility.  Yes, it’s painful leaving the womb chasing after that new life but the birthing will be well worth it.  Being born yet again from above is to know there are certain truths by which we can live.

That when you are feeling inadequate with insufficient means and ways to accomplish what must get done in your life, Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

That when you are feeling alone and dejected and far, far away from God and home, Romans 8:39 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels or rulers, things present or things to come…will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”

That when you suffer through those absolutely miserable moments in your life, Romans 8: 3-4 “…suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.”  You see I can be a Bible thumper too!  Because it’s all true.

The fact is being born from above, living a life with God at its very core, is what Jesus was trying to tell Nicodemus.  When you have these truths within you then you live and see differently and this sets you free from these worldly worries to a life that is beautiful, both here and in the great beyond.

For God so loved….and loves you to the end.

Amen.

---

[i] George W. Stone in Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2

May the road rise to meet you,

may the wind be ever at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

and the rains fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,

may God hold you in the palm of his hand.

Despair and the Quick Fix

Matthew 4: 1-11

Jesus could have gone for the quick fix.  That’s what the devil was offering him when he tempted Jesus out in the dry and forbidden wilderness.  All of the testing and temptations spewing out of that devilish mouth were merely contrived remedies that offered immediate relief to Jesus.  They were ways that he could have alleviated all of his problems, and those of the entire world for that matter, if not forever, at least for the time being. 

We don’t know to what depth that the human Jesus had been tempted, there were no witnesses in Matthew’s Gospel account.  We do know that he was tested mightily and that he chose God.  He placed complete obedience and dependence on God at a time when he could have taken the path of least resistance and gotten so much more.

You see Jesus had just come up from the Jordan where he was baptized as God’s beloved son and filled with the Spirit.  Then, he was whisked away by the very same Spirit into the wilderness.  A test?  So soon?  But that’s what happens, living a faithful life means that there will be a wilderness or two and tests along the way, maybe not so blatant as in this Gospel but they are there.  Jesus was no exception.

Then, HaSatan, the Satan arrives in the wilderness too, alongside of Jesus.  He comes across as Jesus’ friend, so offering a bite to eat to a famished Jesus was the most natural and first thing that a friend, I mean, the Devil could conjure up.  “Food, glorious food”, as the boys and Oliver liked to sing in the play ‘Oliver Twist’.  All that if only Jesus you turn this stone into bread.  ‘Hot sausage and mustard!’ cries Oliver. 

Why Jesus you could turn all of these stones into plenty of loaves and alleviate hunger throughout the world!  Think about it.  Knowing Jesus’ heart and his penchant toward social and economic justice this would have pleased him.  But as it is written, Jesus says, bread is not the only thing that keeps us strong, God’s word gives us just as much sustenance for our living.

Then, from the wilderness Jesus was whisked to Jerusalem to the pinnacle of the temple.  Hundreds of people would have been milling around the temple, the temple is a large place and it was THE place to be.  Standing on the pinnacle Jesus would have been in sight of thousands of Jerusalemites and the devil says to Jesus, ‘If you really are the Son of God, like you claim to be, go ahead and jump, throw yourself to the wind!  There’s nothing to worry about, angels will come to your rescue and ever so gently catch you so that not even you foot will touch the ground.’ 

But the devil was no publicity agent and Jesus didn’t need a life defying stunt to prove anything.  Jesus said, ‘Don’t test God’. ’  The second quick fix that Satan offered was halted, but he had one more up his devilish little sleeve.

The final test was concerning his power and authority.  ‘Jesus,’ the devil calls out, ‘you can have it all; all the kingdoms of the world will bow down to you all you have to do is to worship me.’  Now honestly, this was a good offer.  I’m sure there were plenty of people, Jesus too, who wished the end and destruction of the Roman occupation of first century Palestine.  To live as an oppressed people only breeds despair and anger; a sense of helplessness that perpetuates itself from one generation to the next.  Jesus had a chance to change all that just by dropping to his knees and worshipping HaSatan.  But NO!  Jesus states, ‘I worship God and serve only God.

Dashed three times the devil, goes away and Jesus was ministered to by angels.

Jesus was offered some pretty hefty and substantial quick fixes to his very real and distressing problems.  He was in the wilderness and needed sustenance, the very thing that the devil was offering.  How easy it would have been to turn even just one little pebble into a morsel of bread.  But Jesus resisted and relied heavily on God for sustenance in this desolate place. 

Jesus could have come back a hero to all of Palestine vanquishing the Romans but he chose to worship only God.  Jesus yells out ‘Stop this testing….it’s God, it’s all about God, God will give me nourishment, God will give me power to overcome adversity, and it’s God who will be my advocate.  Don’t test God.’   

Extraordinary faith Jesus displays in the most despairing of situations.  He was not seduced by the devil’s offer to make it all better quickly.  And clearly, by now, we and the reader’s of Matthew’s Gospel know that Jesus is the son of God.

We know that quick fixes are tempting when we are living in despair and we are at our most vulnerable.  It’s always easier to take the path of least resistance when our defenses are down and anything bright and shiny beckons our eye towards our liberation from our place of desolation.  A plug in a deflated tire until you get to the garage.  A new washer in a very old faucet.  Duck tape holding the hem of your pants ups.  A get rich quick scheme in times of recession and so on and so on.  Tempting. Enticing. Testing.    

Torture.

When we are at our lowest is when our faith in God has the greatest potential to be tested.  Because it’s here we have our doubts, fears and we begin to question our human faith.  We wonder, we worry, why does it hurt, when will I be able to see the light?  That’s when quick fixes look really good.  Quick fixes endeavor to overshadow our faith and block our vision and sight of God, the one who loves us tremendously and who has promised never to leave us. The Lord says in the Book of Hebrews, “Never will I leave, nor will I forsake you”.(Hebrews 13:5).  We are not alone.

Lent is now upon us.  It begins in the wilderness, a somber and a deserted place.  It is a place where the days are long and lonely, the sun beats down upon a parched earth.  The wilderness is a place where the nights get cold and there is no light, no fire to keep you warm, and no food to fill your belly. 

It is here that we are invited to join Jesus, to come out of the wilderness and be on our way to Jerusalem and the cross with him. You might be reluctant but it’s almost as if he is extending his hand to ours and gently pulling us onto the dusty path.  He’s saying, ‘I’ve been there too, still, come, it’ll be alright’.  He knows of our suffering and pain, our temptations and resistance.  But his grip is firmer because he is with us on this journey, he is after all, God’s beloved. 

What are the tests in your journey of faith?  What, in your story of life, is of greatest concern to you?  In which areas are you tempted to find a quick fix rather than relying on God to help you alleviate your distress and despair?  Lent is the time to examine it all. 

Walking the Lenten walk.  Talking the Lenten talk will take you on an expedition into and through the wilderness.  It will separate us from other people because it will jolt us from our comfortableness and world of quick fixes and into the unknown.  It will not be unknown for long though.  Relying on God doesn’t mean doing nothing.  It means putting your full faith in God that what you are doing will bring you up and into the light of joy and hope all the while being held closely and lead by Jesus.

Amen.

After the Dazzle

Matthew 17: 1-9

We are quite a few weeks into the New Year and the liturgical season of Epiphany is finally coming to a close.  It began with a bright star in the sky leading the magi to Jesus and the epiphany of who this tiny little guy was, and then we hear stories of healing and hope during Jesus’ ministry.  Epiphany also ends with the transfiguration, another revelation about Jesus and a time when light plays a large factor in the story. Hear now the transfiguration story from the Gospel of Matthew the 17^th chapter.      

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Jesus takes Peter, James and John up a mountain, apart, by themselves.  We so often see this, when Jesus wants to get a little R & R or some think time or to be in prayer, he’ll separate himself and a few of his disciples from the daily grind.  But this time was clearly different than the other times. No sooner had they reached the top than something really very unusual happened, an epiphany!

Jesus transfigured; his appearance changed right before their very eyes with dazzling white clothes, whiter than any white possible than you can imagine.  And with Jesus were the prophets Elijah and Moses from of old. Some scholars equate Jesus’ transfiguration to the revelation of the commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, the text we heard earlier this morning. 

Then Peter tries to engage Jesus in conversation, saying that he would build three little huts for them.  Silly Peter, he just didn’t know what to do, how to act, what to say, he and the others were very afraid of what was happening in front of their very eyes.  We would be unnerved too, perhaps even rendered speechless, if such a vision happened to us.

And then, a familiar voice broke through this mystical experience, ‘This is my Son the beloved, I am pleased with him so listen to him.”  This happened once before at Jesus’ baptism, and they fell to the ground, dumbstruck and afraid. God spoke also to Peter, James and John.  God breaks into the world of human existence and reveals to them what had been hidden from them, or what they failed to understand about Jesus. 

Jesus is God’s beloved son and that we must listen to him if we are to find a way to live.  But you know the disciples still had questions, we know that because they continue to ask them throughout the Gospel.  Even though they had been to the mountaintop with Jesus, when they returned to the trenches of life, they had questions. 

I think for many of us who have been to the mountain top and have seen or experienced something beyond our wildest imagination, like our friend Peter, we just don’t know what to say.  Reasoned thought takes a vacation and speech goes on hiatus.  We just know that we have been dazzled by the divine light and things are different.  We’ve had a ‘God moment’, a ‘Come to Jesus’ moment. 

And those moments are wonderful, don’t get me wrong.  It’s just that they wind down and eventually come to and end.  And coming down the mountain is rough terrain.  It’s here that we realize that life is not lived in the highlands but is really carefully played out in the wadi, the dry riverbeds of our living.

It is here that the babies cry from colic, the bills pile up far too high, the dishes remain dirty in the sink, the homeless sleep in cardboard boxes under I 95 and the elderly are forgotten.  It is here that we feel we are in dead end jobs, or less than thrilling relationships, or stuck in a game of boredom that takes up way to much of your waking day.  We know these all too well because it is here where our tents are pitched most of the time.  God doesn’t appear to us in spectacular ways to razzle dazzle us; in fact it is sometimes difficult to see at all in these places.

When we are in the valley we are not void of light, we need not suffocate from the lack of spiritual air.  We have access to that light of Christ within us that is the gift of the dazzling white of the transfiguration.  The key is to live into your faith, that is to live mindfully in the knowledge of God’s mercy and love amidst the disappointments and quotidian moments of our days.  To live mindfully is to each moment open the gift of Christ revealed.

Just because we cannot feel that ‘Rocky Mountain High’ does not mean that we must stop from trying.  Trying is essential, it is what our faith is all about and we do that by living each moment intentionally so that we can remember the light that dazzled from before and the peace and assurance that was revealed to us.

To live mindfully is to live with the transfiguration message in your heart with the light guiding you step by step.  It is awareness of all that you are doing and for what and who’s purpose.  It is purposefully engaging each moment the highs and the lows, the lights and the darks, the razzle-dazzle and the dreary.  It is noticing the crocus’ pop their yellow and purple heads out (I promise it will happen); it is hearing a child sound out a word for the first time and the seeing the joy of victory on her face when she understands the words she has just sounded out. 

It is taking note of the quotidian moments of our days and recognizing them for what they can be. There are plenty of mountain top experiences in the trenches if we have the eyes with which to see them.

In her book, “An Altar in the World” Barbara Brown Taylor talks about her parish ministry, she was an Episcopal priest for 15 years in the parish and was named one of the 12 most effective preachers in 1996.  She talks about leaving this very effective ministry and becoming a professor at Piedmont College and how she had to find a different kind of joy in her work. 

She writes, “…I…set a little altar, in the world or in my heart.  I can stop what I am doing long enough to see where I am, who I am there with, and how awesome the place is.  I can flag one more gate to heaven – one more patch of ordinary earth with ladder marks on it – where the divine traffic is heavy when I notice it and even when I do not.  I can see it for once, instead of walking right past it, maybe even setting a stone or saying a blessing before I move on to wherever I am due next.”

Taylor had plenty mountaintop experiences while she was in the church but she chose to dwell somewhere else and look for God in unexpected places.  Be open to those times and places where the ‘divine traffic is heavy’ is what she is trying to say.  Stop the frenetic activity of ‘making God happen’ and just ‘let God happen’.

Changed and transformed by God in human encounters, that’s where we will find our greatest and highest highs, if we look. The summit of the mountain comes to us in small and unexpected ways, if we look.  God really is in the details of our life and not some nebulous entity hovering over us, if we look. 

Look and see the transfiguration and then transformation that each and every moment of your day affords you and then let me know how it was at the top!

Have You Loved Today?

Matthew 5: 38-48

Here we are still up on top of that mountain in the region of the Galilee with Jesus, his disciples and several others. Perhaps they gaze out over the shimmering Sea of Galilee and watch a magnificent sunrise looking east over what is today the Golan Heights, and the borders of Syria and Jordan.  It’s a small area really that is rich with history of love and war, of battle and peace, and of changing borders...then, as it is today.

And it is here that Jesus gives the first of five discourses in the Gospel of Matthew.  This discourse is affectionately known as the Sermon on the Mount.

The last few weeks of the lectionary have been devoted to the Sermon on the Mount and all of its  insights and new ways of interpreting the law that it holds during a time of political occupation and oppression by the Romans in first century Palestine.  Jesus begins with some blessings for right living, the beatitudes, and then talks about salt and light as a calling of folks into mission.  

Jesus tells his disciples that he has come to fulfill the law, which is Torah, not to abolish it.  He then gets into the heart of what we call Christian ethics.  How we should live our lives as ones whose hearts follow Jesus.  It’s about the demands placed upon us and the types of decisions we make for our existence with others as Christ followers.

Jesus knows that, all too well, that the vicissitudes of life can present you with some pretty challenging situations that you will have to negotiate your way around, or out of.  He wants to make sure that we know how to live into our God given identity while stuck in the muckity muck of life.

Here now the good news for today from the Gospel of Matthew, the 5th chapter.   

‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. 

  ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. 

Some good news eh?  Don’t resist someone who does evil.  If you get slapped on one check offer up the other to be slapped.  If someone wants your new LL Bean jacket, just give it to them and while you’re at it hand over your new North Face coat as well.  These sayings, which sound like invectives, are not so much really that as they are ways of retributive justice that seeks to place some balance in rectifying a situation where an injustice has occurred.  And that’s good.  We need that.

These sayings have also been understood by great people such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. as a call to non-violent resistance because they are that too.  Resist someone although do not resort to using violent methods of resistance.  That’s what Rosa Parks did when she refused to give up her seat on December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama.   And that was the beginning of the Montgomery bus boycott and the civil rights movement in the US.  

Stand your ground, stand up for what you believe, don’t cave in and in doing so you will have faced those evildoers with courage and fearlessness not violence.  That, Jesus says, is the ethical way to handle a situation and in this way you are living into your God given identity.  But this passage takes it one step further.

The big one.  Love your enemies.  Pray for those who persecute you.  I know what you’re thinking.  I’ve been down that road.  Love my enemies?  Not only should I resist my enemies but love them too?  You’ve got to be kidding, Jesus.  You want me to love someone or something that is heck-bent set on destroying me?  He wants Rosa Parks to pray for those who may have spat on her and called her denigrating names?  That’s a pretty tall order Jesus!  

But as St. Thomas Aquinas says, "Loving only friends to the exclusion of enemies goes unrewarded by God." And I would add it goes against everything that God wants us to be and how God wants us to live for in the last verse of this reading Jesus says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father [sic] is perfect.” (v. 48) God’s image and ours should be as one.  That’s also a tall order but we should strive to be like God in all ways.  But really that’s almost impossible because God doesn’t discriminate, God loves and God loves all people including our enemies equally.  Does the sun not shine on you and also your neighbor who has loud parties, or who encroaches upon your property line? 

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated Valentine’s Day, Cupid’s arrow is still circling overhead and Valentine’s candy is 1/2 price at CVS.   It’s a good time to examine love while love is still in the air.  Sure as shootin’ love is not some chocolate covered cherry in a red foil, heart shaped box!  So let’s have a look at what it means to love and to love our enemies.  

Love, as most of us probably think of it, is an emotion that warms our innards.  You fall in love with a spouse or partner and nothing else in the world matters, you long for his or hers presence.  You bring a baby home from the hospital and you are awestruck at his tiny little hands, her itty-bitty toes and you are ‘in love’.  You bring a new puppy home and no matter how many times he ‘goes’ on the carpet, you are willing to clean it up because you have fallen in love hook, line, and sinker for that little furry, four legged stinker.

With an emotional love you will do almost anything for a person be it a lover or a friend because waves of fondness, devotion, delight, respect and passion exude within your heart.  Can you say that about someone who has hurt you though?  Someone who has betrayed you or tricked you or who has gone out of their way to make life truly difficult for you?  Probably not.  

Love is so much more than a feeling.  If you think of love as an action and not a feeling then you can begin to understand it better and parse it out according to the covenant that Jesus sets forth; that is God is a God for all people and we are to follow in God’s ways.  And, that we are to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves and yes, to even love our enemies.

In his book, Strength to Love, Martin Luther King once said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”  This is what Jesus is trying to say to us, this is what Jesus means when he says, “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?” (v. 46)

You may remember the movie, “Dead Man Walking”.  It’s the story of Sr. Helen Prejean and Matthew Poncelet who committed a heinous crime of torture and murder.  He is caught and incarcerated which is where Sr. Prejean meets him.  She develops a relationship with him through a prison ministry.  She listens and works with him to understand his grave mistakes and crimes.  She believes in God’s redemptive powers for all people, even those whom everyone views as an enemy.  She worked very hard to have him understand that. 

When the day of Poncelet’s execution came she spoke with him as he was walking to his death.  She said, “I want the last face you see in this world to be the face of love, so you look at me when they do this thing to you. I’ll be the face of love for you.”  From there she put her hand on his shoulder and walked with him to the execution room all the while reading scripture to him.  Scripture that gave hope that God will be with him to the end, and can and will redeem him.  

This, my friends, is loving your enemy in an active way.  Her actions spoke loudly of God’s forgiving love. Rather than choose to hate this man like everyone else did, she chose to love with her time and her actions, and her firm commitment to a redeeming God.

We may never be called upon to love an enemy such as this.  But we will have people and situations that will work very hard to wear us down, to beat us up, and to bring us to the edge of despair.  They will be our enemies and they will be a potent factor in our lives.  Will you choose the love them?  How will you choose to love them?  

I have a bumper sticker (not on my bumper) that reads, “When Jesus says love your enemies, I think he means don’t kill them.”  Our first instinct might be to ‘deck someone’ out but refraining from hateful, harmful behavior can be just as loving a gesture.  And in some cases restraint and refrain from harmful retaliation will be the best that we can offer up.  And that is loving too.

  

Fortunately, thankfully we are not alone in loving.  The grace in all of this is that God is with us helping us to love our enemies.  God has a vested interest in me, in you and in our enemies.  We are all of God’s own.  Forgiven.  Redeemed.  Love your friends.  Love your enemies.  Love God first and all things will be possible through God who made us.  

Amen.

Open Up and Let the Light Shine

Matthew 5: 13-20

My camera, a Canon Rebel T5, and I are now BFF’s – Best Friends Forever.  Many of you know that I have just returned from a ten day trip to Costa Rica with a group of kindred spirits who like to capture natural science images on digital film and paper through watercolor or pencil.  I thank you for the time off to refresh my soul’s deepest desire to travel and see this amazing world and to renew my spirit through my art and photography.  But this is not a sermon about my trip.  It is a sermon about light, God’s light in particular and our role as apertures’ of that light.

Getting back to my camera and how we became BFF’s.  I was warned that shooting photography in the rainforest could be a real challenge because of the specific lighting issues that present themselves.  Well the rainforest did not disappoint on so many levels.  It was difficult because shooting poison dart and red eyed tree frogs, snakes and leaf cutter ants along with the flora of the forest takes camera settings that let lots of light in because the trees, vines and abundant growth darken the floor of the forest. 

But when you hear Howler monkeys coming in the distance, and you look up to get ready to shoot, or you see an amazing bird with teal colored feathers perched high up on a branch you have to quickly change the settings to let much less light in because the strong and bright sun is piercing its way through the leaves of the highest trees. 

For those of you who know cameras, you know that it’s all about the speed of the film, the speed of the shutter and the size of the aperture.   Kind of like the Trinity, each has its own function yet are dependent upon one another to produce a cohesive divine unit.  So when all three camera settings are aligned properly you get a National Geographic quality photo, or at least a good one that will be a nice remembrance of your trip.  Capturing an image is all about how much light you let in or don’t let in.  You are not the light source, merely the vehicle by which the light source is controlled.  That’s exactly what Jesus was talking about that day on the mountainside in Galilee.

Today’s scripture reading is from the Sermon on the Mount and falls directly after the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew.  It may seem a bit disjointed because what does salt and light have to do with the law and the prophets?  We have to remember that Jesus audience was quite different than Matthew’s audience.  Jesus was preaching to Israel and Israel had been called by God to be a light to the nations. (Isaiah 49: 6)

Jesus’ sermon was quite a divergent view in an already heated political and religious debate over the fate of Israel whose land by now had been occupied by the Roman Empire.  The land was no longer in the hands of the Jews but in the hands of the ‘goyim’, the non-Jews.  So there were divisions among the Jews on how to address the questions that would come up as a result of the occupation and their identity.  What does God want us to do?  Who does God want us to be?  What are we supposed to do? 

Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount as encouragement for the people to be Israel, just to be themselves and to be who God had called them to be through their covenantal relationship; to be open to the ways in which God was calling them. 

The Pharisees understood Torah in one-way and Jesus understood it in another.  The Pharisees were working with an outdated political and cultural model and were striving to maintain the status quo. Jesus was saying that God is doing a new thing, and he is the fulfillment of the ‘new thing’.  For us, Gentiles, we have now been included through the covenant made in Jesus, we have been incorporated into God’s covenant of love, hope, and redemption.

And so now we are to be the vessels by which the light of God can shine through.  We are the harbingers of God’s light we are the ‘light on the hill’.  The question for us is, how can we open our apertures large enough so that others can see this abundant light?  This is such an important question for us as a church today. 

We know people are seeking to have a spiritual connection with God and with others.  We know people search for a place where they can be accepted and loved for who they are.  We know there are people in need.  And we know that we can offer all of that and more, so why aren’t people knocking down our doors?

These are questions that need deep, soul searching exploration to realize the answers. It might just mean that we will need to change our ways but not the way of Jesus Christ and our commitment to him and his teachings.    

God IS doing a new thing right now with the church.  How do we even begin to envision what it is that God is doing?  How do we embrace change, which can be scary and unnerving?  How can we open wide our apertures rather than make them small only letting just a small amount of light out?  How can we be the Church and be relevant in the world around us?  Perhaps in this second year of my tenure together we can dig deep and come up with some answers.  We are just not about surviving and maintaining the status quo.  We are about fluidity and change because that is what God is about. 

Let the light of God fully come to you.  Let it warm you and guide you and then allow others to see it because it is essential to telling the story.  Open up and let God’s miraculous, tender and healing love be seen by others.

In the words of Maryanne Williamson, quoted by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 Inaugural speech, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.  It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us.  And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” 

And that’s what we are about.

Amen.

Blessings You Can Live With

Matthew 5: 1-12

Blessings Everywhere

It seems like lately I’ve been inundated with blessings, or at least the word blessing!  I have found myself ending my hospital visits with most folks with, “Blessings to you for healing”, and I’ve even bid adieu by replacing ‘Good bye’, with ‘God bless’.  

More often than not lately it seems, us clergy folk seem to sign most emails with, ‘Blessings’ sort of like ‘Warmest Regards’ or ‘Cordially Yours’.

Now that probably doesn’t sound bad, and it’s not.  Who doesn’t want to be blessed?  I’m not a curmudgeon, I don’t think, it just beginning to seem too casual to me.  It’s sort of like when someone you don’t know gets on the elevator with you and asks, ‘How ya doing?’  Inquiring about my welfare?  A stranger?  I’m torn between telling that person how I really am, not that they want to hear how I’m doing, or just saying, ‘Good, and you?’, not really caring if I get an answer. 

With the frequency that I hear the word blessing or blessings it makes me wonder the efficacy of it and just what it is that we are saying.  That’s the cynical voice screaming inside my head.   Then there is the hopeful and trustful voice inside of my head that knows and believes in the power of God’s amazing grace and how God has the ability to bless us beyond any of our juiciest imaginations and that is a promise.  You see a blessing is a gift that we can’t manufacture. It happens and we recognize it.

 Today’s Context for Blessing

Today we are talking about blessing within the context of the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew.  The Sermon on the Mount is at the beginning of Jesus’ teaching ministry in the Galilee region after he left Nazareth. 

Let’s hear now this account from the Gospel of Matthew:

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

         for they will be filled.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is

         the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Jesus makes his home now in Capernaum.  It’s here he calls his first disciples and he begins to gather followers, lots of them.

He does this by teaching in the local synagogues throughout the region.  He cures diseases and heals people with every sickness making concrete the advent of the kingdom.  His proclamation is effective and his fame spreads throughout Syria to the North, from the Decapolis, which is a collection of ten cities east of Jerusalem, Judea in the south and from way beyond the Jordan.  By now it was a rather large crowd of people who was following him.

When Jesus saw the crowds following him he high-tails it up the mountain!  His disciples follow and that is where he begins the first of five great discourses recorded in Matthew where Jesus reinterprets the law and offers a new way of thinking.  It was one ‘knock your socks off’ sermons because it contains the Beatitudes which are beloved to most Christians, some great stories about salt and light and this is also when he teaches the disciples how to pray saying, ‘Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be they name.’ 

Two poignant points in one sermon, the Beatitudes and the Lord’s Prayer.  Both have been crocheted on canvas, carved into wooden platters, hung upon people’s walls and have been put to tune.  And why?  Because both address our deepest concerns about the life that we live in the here and now, and the life that we will have in the kingdom of God.

The Beatitudes are not rules for a good life, and they are not ethical demands put upon us, they are promises of God’s purpose in the world.  They are challenges for a life worth living.  Beatitude means blessed, or happy, or fortunate, and so they are not calls to action, but promises given in a specific context from a first century perspective.

It was a world of conflict and oppression and Jesus turns things upside down from the prevailing culture; he’s got an opposing point of view on how things should be.  People who normally would not have seen themselves as blessed are promised a place in God’s realm because in fact from God’s perspective, they are blessed.  The fishermen.  The farmers.  The marginalized people of the Roman Empire.  The ‘little’ people.  All blessed!  And so are we.

The Beatitudes are challenges to worthy living because in today’s world the poor, peaceful, merciful and meek get nowhere in a culture that is so firmly grounded in competition and self-indulgence.  The Beatitudes are a vision for us of faithful living today towards God’s realm. 

What would it mean for you to engage in more faithful living in this crazy world? How can you stay God-focused throughout your week?

Our answers are in the Beatitudes:

            Possess a humbleness of spirit – God’s in charge, not us!

            Desire for right living – God’s path is the path that will get you there!

            Thirst for justice – Where there is justice there is peace!

            Recognize a need for forgiveness – God forgives us and then we can forgive others!

These are blessings that I want and indeed have, as you do too.  They are blessings from a God who loves us dearly. They are gifts and all we need to do is recognize them, open our hearts to them, live into them each day and then you’ll be able to really ‘count your blessings.’

Peace Pilgrim's Beatitudes

A woman named Mildred Norman, calling herself Peace Pilgrim, set out from 1953-1981 on a personal pilgrimage for peace.  She walked over 25, 000 miles.  She vowed to ‘remain a walker until humanity has learned the way of peace.’  She walked until her death in fact. She penned a set of beatitudes in her effort for peace, I want to read some of them to you, she expanded ‘blessed are the peacemakers for us to contemplate today:

Blessed are they who give without expecting even thanks in return, for they shall be  

          abundantly rewarded.

Blessed are they who translate every good thing they know into action, for ever

          higher truths shall be revealed unto them.

Blessed are they who do God's will without asking to see results, for great shall be

          their recompense.

Blessed are they who love and trust their fellow beings, for they shall reach the good

          in people and receive a loving response.

Blessed are they who see the change we call death as a liberation from the

          limitations of this earth-life, for they shall rejoice with their loved ones who

          make the glorious transition.

Blessed are they, who after dedicating their lives and thereby receiving a blessing,

           have the courage and faith to surmount the difficulties of the path ahead, for

           they shall receive a second blessing.

These beatitudes are thoughtful and loving blessings. These are Peace Pilgrim’s Beatitudes, what would yours be? All good things come from God.  The challenge for us is to see theses gifts and name them as a blessing.  In doing so your life will be blessed.   

Amen.