Third Verse Now, But Not Forever (Christmas Eve Sermon)

Whenever we have a service with a lot of music, the combination of hymns, special music, and choir, someone always helpfully suggests that we could cut some of the verses of the hymns. “Why don’t we just sing the first and fourth verses?”, they might ask. This is a totally reasonable suggestion to which I, personally, have a completely unreasonable reaction. 

 

When this is suggested, if the Holy Spirit has an arm around my shoulder and a hand over my mouth, I might smile and say, “We could do that.” If my self-control has left the building, I will say, “But all the verses together tell a story and we can’t miss the story!” 

 

If there is a rare moment of calm and I am willing to share some of myself with you, I will tell you, “I want to sing all the verses because I am obsessed with third verses.” 

 

First verses are important. They set the pace and tone of a song and tell you what is to come. Second verses keep that tune going. Final verses wrap up the message, bring the chords to resolution, and permit the satisfying heart response of “Aaaaaaa-men”, whether or not we sing it. 

 

But that third verse, the third verse is where the gems are. The hidden theological caramel or peanut butter or even buttery mashed potatoes that bring the whole thing together and make it worth savoring. 

 

I am fully aware that some of you may be indeed hoping that the Spirit is going to slide her hand over mouth at any minute now, but stick with me for a moment.

 

The third verse of Amazing Grace, “Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come; ‘tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.” This verse isn’t about what happened before, like the first verse, or even what will happen in the distant future, as in later verses. The third verse is about what grace is doing right now- getting us through dangers, toils, and snares. This amazing action means we can count on grace in the next step and the next and the next. 

 

The third verse of A Mighty Fortress sings a song of God overpowering the forces of evil, in the present. The might of the tyrant is doomed to fail for one little word, “Jesus”, subdues him. 

 

Third verse of Great is Thy Faithfulness: “Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide; strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside.” 

 

The third verse often carries the deepest thoughts of the hymn writer, the present reality of what it means to trust in the God who made us, knows us fully, and is the very ground and source of all that is and was and will be, in us and around us. 

 

Lest you think this only applies to hymns, the third verse of The Star-Spangled Banneraffirms that said banner does indeed still wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave. The third verse of Home on the Range tells us the singer would not exchange his home on the range for any other place. The third verse of Johnny Cash’s Walk the Line: “As sure as night is dark and day is light/ I keep you on my mind both day and night/

And happiness I've known proves that it's right/ Because you're mine, I walk the line.” Johnny is summing up that walking the line for (or with) his beloved brings him happiness that couldn’t come from other behavior. 

 

So, what does all this third verse nonsense have to do with Christmas? 

 

My point, and I do have one, is that the third verse of the Christmas carols and songs is the best verse. We might know the first best, but the truth of God’s gift to the world in Christ, the miracle of God’s ongoing love with us, the joy of Christ’s real presence all around us is in the third verse. The first verses give us joy for tonight, but the third verses give us the hope and peace we need to live all the other days of the year, believing in the truth of Emmanuel, which means “God with us”. 

 

Away in a Manger: Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay/close by me forever and love me, I pray./ Bless all the dear children in thy tender care and fit us for heaven, to live with thee there. 

 

The Bells of Christmas: Now let us go with quiet mind, the swaddled babe with shepherds find, to gaze on him, who gladdens them, the loveliest flower of Bethlehem.

 

O Little Town of Bethlehem: How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts, the blessings of his heaven…

 

Angels from the Realms of Glory: Sages, leave your contemplation, brighter visions beam afar, seek the great desire of nations, you have seen his natal star…

 

Joy to the World: He comes to make his blessings known, far as the curse is found… (It doesn’t matter if you think the curse is original sin or human desire for control or total depravity, Christ comes to make his blessings known over and above all those things.) 

 

And, of course, I cannot leave out: 

 

I Am So Glad Each Christmas Eve: He dwells again in heaven’s realm, the Son of God today; and still he loves his little ones and hears them when they pray. 

 

The third verses of our Christmas hymns tell us what God is still doing in this world, the God who became flesh and lived among us and showed what true love and life and forgiveness and healing are. Not only what they are, but that all these things and much more are the Divine desire for us and for all creation. 

 

In God’s own four verse hymn, bringing order out of chaos at the very beginning was the prelude. The first verse was the covenants with Israel and the promises kept to all our ancestors, to Abraham and Sarah, to Hagar and Ishmael, to David and to Bathsheba, to the people in exile, and to the prophets who spoke of a future they might not live to see. 

 

God’s second verse is what we celebrate today: the Incarnation, the timely reality of God with skin on in the person of Jesus. The eternal Word of truth and love and power made flesh and experiencing life as we do, including death, but showing power and triumph over all evil and threats to separate us from God’s forever love. 

 

We live in the third verse, the verse of toils and dangers and snares, but also of an ever-present grace. In this verse sometimes we hear the angels sing. Sometimes we tell it on the mountain. Sometimes we take it to the Lord in prayer. Sometimes we ask the Lord to take us by the hand and lead us home. Sometimes we remember that we have nothing to dread or fear and we lean on the everlasting arms. 

 

We live a third verse life, but we also know and can believe, with God’s help, that a fourth verse is coming. A verse where everything is made new, a verse when peace reigns in clear and tangible ways, a verse where all the chords resolve and we can, together with all the saints and the angels, sigh out that “Aaaaaaa-men.” 

 

But we aren’t there yet. Still, we sing our third verse, but we do it together, with the light of Christ- from the manger, from the font, from the table, from the cross, from the empty tomb, and from our hearts to all around us. We live a third verse life of God with us, no matter who or where we are, what we have done or left undone, or- even- whether or not we can carry a tune. 

 

Because, in the end, it is not our song. It is the song of our God. It is a song of harmony and power- started “in the beginning” and will have no end. 

 

So, on this night, my friends in hope and in Christmas joy, let us sing out all the verses of God’s wonderous work in Jesus. Let us rejoice that unto us a Savior has been born. And let us remember, in our third verse life, that the song of God’s love is for all people, for every day, for every night, forever. 

 

Amen.

 

Not Today, Jackal

Advent 3, Year C (Isaiah 35:10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11)

I’ve spent the week thinking about jackals. Jackals, a member of the canine family, are found in south-eastern Europe, across parts of southern Asia, and throughout Africa.  These small dogs look like a cross between a fox and a coyote. They’re fairly lightweight but are still known as fiercely protective of their territory and opportunistic eaters of anything available. The black-backed jackal of Africa has developed alongside the big cats of that continent, as well as wild dogs and hyenas, so it has fairly earned a tough reputation. 

 

When the Bible mentions jackals, it is not a favorable description. Jackals were particularly associated with lurking around burial caves or at the edges of battlefields. They were one of the first animals to move into abandoned regions, to make use of shelters for hiding, and to hunt for leftover scraps. 

 

Job says, “I go about in sunless gloom; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help. I am a brother of jackals and a companion of ostriches. My skin turns black and falls from me, and my bones burn with heat.” (30:28-30) Here the long-suffering man is noting that he lives among ruins, the scraps of his former life. Jackals and ostriches are associated with desolated places, untended after destruction. 

 

In Jeremiah, we read these words of the Lord, “I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair of jackals, and I will make the towns of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.” (9:11) These are part of the prophet’s warnings to the people of Judah, the southern kingdom, about what will happen in response to their unfaithfulness, a foretelling of the Babylonian captivity. 

 

While Jeremiah understands the jackals to be expected in response to poor behavior, the psalmist cries out, “Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way, yet you have broken us in the haunt of jackals and covered us with deep darkness. If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a strange god, would not God discover this?” (44:18-21a)

 

The references go on- in Ezekiel, in Lamentations, in Malachi, in other parts of Isaiah in addition to today’s verses from chapter 35. A comparison to jackals is never flattering. It is always either in lament (like Job), in condemnation (as in Lamentations), or observation of covenant breaking on the part of God’s people, which results in the desolation of beloved and holy places (Jeremiah, Isaiah, Malachi). 

 

Why am I thinking about jackals in the heart of the Advent season? In the middle of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and “Let there be peace on Earth” and “Fa-la-la-la-la-la”, I cannot stop thinking about lurking scavengers, waiting to move into abandoned territory, to pick through the scraps, and yip and howl at any who come close. 

 

In today’s reading from Isaiah (35:1-10), the jackals are both literal and metaphorical. The literal jackals are imagined as having taken over the ruins of Jerusalem after the people were carried away into Babylon. Even though not every single person was carried away in the exile, there was enough destruction and desolation for those who were to imagine the city being picked over by scavengers, gardens growing untamed, and pairs of jackals choosing territory among the crumbled walls of the first Temple and some of their homes. 

 

The metaphorical jackals were the ones that waited to prey upon their hopes of return. These thoughts and fears crept into minds and hearts and sought to make permanent homes in places of grief and loss. Jackals of doubt about God’s providence and mercy howled in the night, disrupting sleep and seeking the hearts of the faithful against the God who had always delivered them. 

 

These same metaphorical jackals prowl in James (5:7-10). The people of the Way of Christ have been waiting for Jesus to return. They want to continue to wait faithfully and yet, they can hear the howls in the distance of those who say their waiting is in vain. They sense the prowling pressure to yield to cultural demands- to worship the gods of Rome (it would be better for business) and to yield to gossiping and in-fighting with one another (making a desolation of the community). These jackals are fierce and cunning. They may not attack a robust community, but a weakened and dying one could be easy prey. James warns those who hear his words to be vigilant and strong in their trust in Christ’s promises. 

 

The jackal who was Herod Antipas had imprisoned John and the prophet sent messages through his disciples to Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John the Baptizer has been strong in faith and still is. If Jesus isn’t the one, John isn’t telling his disciples to give up trusting in God. John’s message has been one of strength and courage in the face of powers and principalities. Even in prison and knowing he is likely to die, he does not make room for scavengers seeking scraps of power. 

 

Jesus tells John’s disciples to carry this message: Tell John all that is happening. The jackals are not moving in; things have not fallen to ruin. There is new life, there is flourishing. Healing and wholeness are being restored. This is not the night of the jackal; it is the day of the Lord.

 

This is not the night of the jackal; it is the day of the Lord. So said Isaiah to those in exile. 

 

This is not the night of the jackal; it is the day of the Lord. So said James to those waiting in the early church. 

 

This is not the night of the jackal; it is the day of the Lord. So say I to you. 

 

Yes, I know the economy is struggling. Yes, I know that we are divided politically into difficult and damaging ways. Yes, I know that wars seem endless and that leaders across the world seek to oppress, rather than to bring freedom. Yes, I know that cancer is real, that contagious illnesses are rampant, and that there are more people enslaved now across the globe than ever before in history. 

 

I know these things, but I am not resigned to them. I will not make space for the jackals of doubt about the presence of God and the ongoing real work of Divine Love. 

 

Yesterday, I picked up medicines for my daughter, medicines that help her live a perfectly normal life in the aftermath of a brain tumor. Yesterday, I went to an ordination- a blessing and commissioning of a new pastor in God’s own church in this present day and age. Yesterday, I did a hospital visit to someone who was receiving vital medication to save a major organ and I watched nurses and doctors take care to stop bleeding, bring healing, and restore hope. (Yes, I did all those things yesterday.) 

 

This is not the night of the jackal; it is the day of the Lord.

 

Our Advent hope is not a false hope; it is a blessed assurance anchored in the truth that the God who kept promises to Abraham and Sarah, to David, to the people to whom Isaiah spoke, to Mary and Joseph, to our own ancestors… a blessed assurance that the same God will keep promises to us. 

 

Our Advent joy is that we are not a desolation. We are not an abandoned people. We have the faithfulness and real presence of Christ, not only at the altar and the baptismal font, but in our daily lives in ways that are comprehensible in this life and in ways that we will not fully know until the next. 

 

Our Advent peace is the truth that God is still speaking, still working, still healing, still reforming, and still working the truth of resurrection, through the Holy Spirit, in this day and this place, and across all times and spaces. Our trust in God means that we are called and equipped to live each day, leaning on this promise, and refusing to give ground to opportunistic forces that seek to undermine the only Love and Life worthy of our full allegiance. 

 

In a time of shadows, there is light. There is hope. There is peace. There is joy. There is love. 

 

This is not the night of the jackal; it is the day of the Lord.

 

Amen.

This I Believe

On this holy day, when we are encouraged to be in awe of God- the 3-in-one and 1-in-3, I am going to engage in a double prerogative- the prerogative of the preacher to stray from the texts and the prerogative of the birthday celebrant to do what she wants. Explaining the scriptures is very important to me, and I also believe our testimonies are significant as well. 

I cannot explain the how of the Trinity to you. The only answer to how is, “I don’t know.” 

As for why, I can either say- God’s business is God’s business or I can tell you that God is bigger than our understanding, our comprehension, our imagination and can only be glimpsed- ever so fleetingly- through awe. 

Yet, I believe in God and how God chooses to show God’s self. Theology, studying God, is only useful if it actually helps us in our daily lives. I want to share aspects of my testimony, my theology, and what I believe with you today.

Here is my statement of faith for this Holy Trinity Sunday on the occasion of my 41st completed trip around the sun. 

I trust in God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. The source and ground of my being. The Rock of Ages, the Healer of our Every Ill, the Everlasting Arms. 

I believe in the God who loves people who drink beverages brewed from roasted beans, which are gross, and loves people who drink beverages made from dried leaves, herbs, and spices, which are vastly superior. 

I have seen the Lord in summer camps I have worked in and supported: Camp Mundo Vista, Agape/Kure Beach Lutheran Ministries, Camp Koinonia, Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp, and Christikon. 

I rest in the Lord I saw this week when my child played on a playground in Denver with another little girl wearing a hijab, a head scarf, and a different little girl who only spoke Spanish as they all three laughed and laughed, spinning on the equipment. 

I believe in God who has given vocations to neurosurgeons, nurses, administrators, and the people in the cafeteria, especially the person who makes the really good zucchini bread with the cinnamon sugar crumble on top. 

I experience the height and depth and breadth of the love of God when I go on silent retreat, and everything is still, and I hold my breath, so the silence is even bigger. 

I experience the height and depth and breadth of the love of God when I am in the packed house of a Broadway show and we all wait for the first note of the overture and then the curtain rises, and the silence gets bigger as the audience waits in anticipation. 

God is there in the community garden when we try to get things to grow on purpose and there when we need to clean out the refrigerator and get rid of things that we grew on accident. 

I believe in the God who told Moses to take off his sandals, who wrestled with Jacob, who told Jonah, “Should I not care about Nineveh, that great city, with more than 300,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals”. 

I believe in a God who loves those with no doubts and who loves those who are nothing but doubt. 

I believe God helps me to believe and forgives my unbelief. 

I believe in the God who heard Hannah’s prayers, who gave courage to Abigail to stand up to David, who appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden and called her by name. 

I believe in the God who blesses the vocations of morticians, plumbers, mechanics, fishermen, linemen, garbage collectors, road graders, bakers, and waiters and waitresses. 

I believe in the God who was once a refugee in Egypt and has compassion and seeks justice for the homeless, the persecuted, and the disenfranchised. 

I believe God’s holy presence in every sick person, every imprisoned person, every underclothed person, and every hungry person. 

I believe in the God of sheep, yarn, knitting needles, crochet hooks, and who hears what is said when stitches are dropped. 

I trust in the God of completed chords and the God present in jazz. 

The Lord is my shepherd, my shield, my hope, my mechanic, my resting place, and my launching pad. 

I believe in the God who made me fearfully and wonderfully and who also made Lexapro so that my brain chemistry can be what it was intended to be for my own sake and the sake of everyone else. 

I hear the voice of the Divine in the New Revised Standard Version, the Common English Bible, the King James Version, and in The Message. 

I feel holy joy when I sing ‘I’ve Got Friends in Low Places” and “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” and “Do-do-do-do- feelin’ groovy”. 

I believe in the God of the Yellowstone, the Boulder, the Missouri, Clark’s Fork, the Jefferson, and Flathead Lake. 

I believe in a God who is as present in birth as in death and everything in between. 

I believe in God who gifted Michaelangelo the talent to paint the Sistine Chapel and that the same God who helps people find one or two pieces that fit in the community puzzle in the library or on a table in the parish hall. 

I believe God-inspired documents like the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, and the 95 Theses and that God grieves when we make idols of these things, rather than seeking the freedom, justice, peace, and wholeness that they inspire. 

I believe God knows how much I love books and God also knows that I will likely never read all the books I have, and God knows that I will not stop buying new ones. 

I believe “What a Friend we have in Jesus” and “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” and “The Church’s One Foundation is Jesus Christ Her Lord”. 

I believe that the aspects seen in cults and cultish communities- secrecy, inequality, closed doors, hidden information, and hierarchical knowledge are not of God, not in keeping with God’s will, and are very harmful. 

I believe that, in this world, there is enough for everyone if we are all willing to ask for God’s help in releasing our desires for control. And I believe God hears and answers that earnest prayer. 

I believe that we are helped to pray. 

I believe that God revealed God’s self in the person and ministry of Jesus the Christ, the eternal Word with skin on, but also that God has and does reveal God’s self in other ways. I have been given the gift of faith to trust in and follow Jesus in whom I have confidence as the Savior of the world. 

I do believe the words of Paul that the love of Christ has been poured in our hearts by the Holy Spirit and it is through that love that we can withstand suffering and help others to do the same, that we can endure the pain of the world and help others to do the same, that we can share our testimony and help others to do the same, and that we can have hope and help others to do the same. 

I believe that the same God who is present to us in communion today is present in every bunker, closed house, and refugee shelter holding Ukrainians who are praying together for freedom and a future. 

I believe in little c catholicism- the universality of the Holy Spirit and her power to bring creation out of chaos and prayerful communities together in the most adverse circumstances. 

I believe that we are lucky that God’s economy of self only has three expression- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that we are blessed that those three expressions pour forth in love in so many ways. 

I believe each of you could write an essay like this, and should, and we would still not cover the fullness of God’s nature. 

I believe in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who made us, loves us, and guides us, who draws us together here, increases our faith, and goes with us out into the world to help us witness in word and deed to all we believe is true.  

This I believe.

 Holy Trinity 

12 June 2022

Big Timber, Montana

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Pandemic Disgrace

Lent 4, Year B

Joshua 5:9-12**

This week I spent a few hours on the phone with two different companies, trying to use a credit I received from a flight that was cancelled in March 2020. These were frustrating hours, made more complicated by the grief they brought up in me. In early March 2020, I was supposed to go   to Texas to see some friends. We were going to laugh, run a 5K, go to the spa, and visit a pickle festival. Several of the friends are Episcopalian clergy. We began to wonder if we needed to cancel the trip when word of a new coronavirus, COVID-19, began to spread. And then a co-worker of one of the priests was found to have this illness, brought back from a clergy conference in another state. The trip was cancelled.  

 

At the time, the airlines said too bad. Much later, they decided to issue credits for scheduled flights and, thus, I found myself trying to apply that credit this week to a future trip, only to get a run-around and to experience grief all over again. Grief for the trip that didn’t happen. Grief for all that has happened. Grief for the losses and the changes and the time and what cannot be undone. 

 

When looking at the texts for this week, the easy sermon and, perhaps, the better sermon is with the Luke 15 text of the prodigal sons, but I could not stop thinking about the reading from Joshua. Here are God’s people, coming into the land they have been promised. They can now stop wandering. Their stillness, their new location, permits this generation - one removed from enslavement in Egypt - to observe the holy rituals of circumcision and celebrating the Passover. 

 

These short verses are a reminder of how God provided for them and their parents in the wilderness. Today’s passage begins, though, with a curious phrase, “The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.”” 

 

Surely the “disgrace of Egypt” belongs to Egypt. The shame of having enslaved other persons, the embarrassment of having those persons escape, the humiliation to one’s own personal gods and idols- this disgrace should be ascribed to the Pharaoh and his associates. Why would the people of Israel, the enslaved people, the now free people, have disgrace ascribed to them? 

 

We are not only marked by the history of our actions, but also shaped and scarred by how others have acted toward us. Our ancestors experienced stresses and pains that continue to affect us through family stories. Even more deeply, things like enslavement, pandemics, and wars shape our epigenetics, the history and future of our genes, stirring deep responses within us that are beyond our understanding. In our own lives, this includes our past two years and all those years have entailed. 

 

For us, the disgrace of COVID-19 is still with us, by which I mean the pain, the frustrations, the losses, and the changes. We must tell the truth about these things. We must acknowledge that in our congregation, things that took years to build- Sunday school programs, choir, youth group, WELCA- all of these and more have suffered and we cannot simply go back to what was. We have to grieve what has been lost and then, and only then, can we consider the richness of the place where we currently are. 

 

The disgrace of Egypt lingered with the people of Israel in their fear, their questions about their ancestors, and their understanding of the nature of the Lord. After all, if divine intervention could bring them into freedom, why were they permitted to be enslaved at all? They can fully embrace the joy and possibility of the promised land only when the reproach and shame of the past is lifted. 

 

The years of wandering contained stories of the people’s frustration, rebellion, and anger. The story of the golden calf, the complaining about God’s provision, even Moses striking the rock- all these stories are intertwined with the reality of having been led by God into freedom and a way of being. We have our own stories of frustration, rebellion, and anger.  

 

Some of those stories have changed relationships between people in our congregation, in this town, and across the world. Just as in the story of the Israelites, our own stories feature hardened hearts on all sides.  And, frankly, we do not know yet what our promised land will be. We know it is likely that this strain of coronavirus, with its variants, will likely be with us for some time to come. We may enter our promised future with yearly vaccines and advised precautions, as with most flu strains, or there may yet be more serious realities to come. We do not declare when we have arrived. God does. 

 

This kind of burden, the disgrace of Egypt as well as the pain of COVID-19, does not fall away instantly. God’s provision for the people through their wilderness wandering removed the burden slowly. Through each bite of manna, God rebuilt trust with the people of Israel. Through each sip of clean water, the people of Israel perceived the power and mercy of the One in whom their hope was anchored. 

 

The disgrace of Egypt defined them by pain and by the actions of others. The promise of Canaan, the promised land, redefined them as a people who had been led and fed by God. Thus, equipped by grace, they ate the produce of the land and feasted on the promise of tomorrow. 

 

At some point in the future, the generations that follow us will see how we acted to the various realities we are currently experiencing- a pandemic, social shifts, international crises, changing weather patterns. They may well judge us, even though they will not be able to imagine what we have experienced. In our own little corner, we can tell our own version of that story

- how God provided for us through science, mail, social media, and video, 

- how we were patient and faithful even when how we did church looked different, 

- how we were willing to be uncomfortable for the sake and the health of others, 

-  how we took risks on new ways of doing things for the sake of the gospel of Christ in our midst and in the world. 

 

Today is not yet the day when the complete pain of COVID-19 is rolled away from us. It remains, but bigger and greater is the God who remains with us, who is still making all things new, who is loving and merciful, who saves us through Christ. In this wandering, in this journey to a new way and time of being, God is with us. This is truth is our feast, in our present time and always. And it is enough. 

**This sermon in no way deals with the complications of this text, including but not limited to - history  of enslavement, the occupants of the land when the Israelites got there, or the violence of the rest of Joshua against those people. 

Additionally this sermon only addresses COVID-19 and is not clearly speaking to any other situations of the  past two years. 

Turn It Off For Lent

“Be still, and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth!”
The Lord of hosts is with us;the God of Jacob is our fortress. 

-Psalm 46:10-11

 

This year we are entering the season of Lent in a somewhat precarious global situation. While we can never be certain what is to come, the present circumstances capture our imaginations and inflame our anxieties in ways that can be overwhelming and emotionally charged. It is very important for our mental, physical, and spiritual well-being to set aside time to be still and remember God’s power and presence in this world. 

I do not often give specific directives relative to Lenten practice. I typically offer general encouragements and reminders to reflect on the activities or absence of activities in your life that may cause you to feel separated from God. Rarely has anyone told me that chocolate genuinely has a negative effect on their spiritual life. Lenten discipline is not merely about doing without something for 40 days. It is a chance to ask God to help and guide us into a new way of living, drawing closer to who God has made and called us to be. 

To that end, I do have a specific recommendation for this year, related to all that is happening. 

Here it is: turn it off. 

Turn what off? Turn off the television in your house, turn off your smart phone, turn off the radio, turn off the podcast, turn off clicking from story to story on your computer. 

I am not saying that you need to turn away from the news completely, but I am saying that the permanent feed of information into our brains is not good. It affects our ability to be still and recognize God, just as the psalmist encourages. 

I suggest using the timer feature on your phone for the apps you find most distracting, especially if they encourage mindless scrolling. Could you start at 90 minutes a day and then work down to an hour and then maybe 30 minutes? 

Can you set a schedule for when you will watch a news channel and then for a certain amount of time? Think about how long it might have taken your parents or grandparents to read a newspaper and then use that as a guide. 

If you are accustomed to keeping on a radio or the television or streaming information from your computer just to have background noise, try switching to a music-only format if you aren’t ready to fully embrace silence. Consider playing nature sounds. Let your spirit take a break from constantly receiving new information. Let it ruminate on what it already knows about God’s love, mercy, and grace. 

The season of Lent offers us a chance to reset ourselves in our vocation as resurrection people, Good News people. In order to embrace this opportunity, we must heed the Spirit’s urging and work within us to become more attuned to the truth of God’s goodness all around us. I encourage you to accept this Lenten invitation to do exactly that, beginning with starting to limit some of the sounds of this world. 

The Politics of Good News

Transfiguration Sunday: Year C: Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12--4:2; Luke 9:28-36 

 

"Keep the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other." 
- Karl Barth, German theologian (1886-1968)

It has never escaped my attention that people do not like sermons that they perceive to be political. Furthermore, many people come to church, hoping for a break from the endless news cycle and its doom, gloom, and overwhelming encroachment on peace of mind and heart. Desperate for good news, when these people come to church, they implore the pastor to stay away from politics or news, just preach the gospel. 

What is that gospel, exactly? Does this mean a desire to hear the story of Jesus welcoming the children over and over, with no assessment as to why the disciples tried to keep the children away or how children were treated in that society? Does it mean to only proclaim the stories of healing and ignore how the sick were marginalized and shut out from the benefits of the society at the time? Does it mean to embrace historical treatment or explanations about Jews or Romans, but never lift up God's covenants with the former or the pressures of empire on the latter? 

I am never fully sure what to think when I am told to stay away from political topics, particularly when I serve a very mixed congregation politically. I'm especially unclear on how to do it when it seems antithetical to the text in front of me. Most Biblical passages seem to me to be very political, very concerned with how people live their lives and their freedom to do so. 

When I know that people do not want political sermons, I do not know what to do with the words in today's texts that refer to Elijah and Moses speaking to Jesus about his "exodus". Our English versions say "his departure", but the word "exodus" is more than clear in the Greek. For Luke's community, use of the term 'exodus' would have brought up more than just the memory or the story of Moses leading the Israelites to freedom. 

The exodus story features a despotic ruler, a hardened heart, blood and the loss of children, fear and destruction. In order to move toward freedom, Moses and the people of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, must be willing to acknowledge that being free means the opposite of all that surrounds them and shapes their daily lives. When Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem, his focus isn't specifically or merely on his death, he is focused on the truth of his mission- the freedom that comes from understanding and being in relationship with the God of freedom, the God of released captives, the God of truth-telling and redemption. 

To appreciate the fullness of the Incarnation, Christ's presence in the world, we must consider what use of the term 'exodus' means here in Luke. We must recognize that Jesus, as the enfleshed person of the Trinity at this point in time, God with skinon, pursued justice throughout his life, not just in being willing to die. Exodus does not happen just when the Israelites step out of the Red Sea or, for us, once the tomb is empty, God works to bring hope, healing, and freedom before the human story is even on the page. That truth is political, and I cannot ignore it. 

In seeking an apolitical sermon, I must turn away from Paul's circumstances. I must try to consider him writing words in vacuum to people whose sins, whose straying, is simply a matter of their as-yet-unturned hearts. I must pretend that there is no pressure on them to yield to the expectations of the Roman empire, no financial threat to them if they fail to worship the emperor, no existential threat to their lives as the occupying force of the Roman garrison parades in the streets. 

To strip Paul's writing of political implication, I must set aside that his words have been willfully misinterpreted to harm Jewish people, women, racial minorities, and others throughout history, even into the present. I must water down his intense rhetoric to platitudes. "Since it is by God's mercy we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart." That sounds nice. And it's much less challenging that the pressure to act with boldness, to remove veils from our faces, to renounce the shameful things that are in opposition to God's will- both in our own hearts and in the world. Being willing to do that means having prayerful conversations about these shameful things and each of us feeling the Spirit's conviction about things we've said and believed. 

Lastly, if I am to pretend that there are no politics in scripture, I must simply describe Moses's dramatic and terrifying appearance on the mountain with no other commentary. I will not say anything about the reception of the 10 commandments. I will pretend that we all know what it means to turn away from murder- in word and deed, as well as what it means not to adulterate relationships- platonic or romantic. Honoring the sabbath is obviously a clear commandment in a 24-hour world and bearing false witness is only applicable in court as opposed to a reality for our everyday speech in how we speak well (or don't) about others. In case my tone was too subtle, all of that was tongue-in-cheek. 

The commandments, their interpretation, their use, or disuse is all political speech- having to do with our relationship with God and with others, every minute of every day. They cannot be stripped of their intent for God's justice and God's will to be done. 

Here we stand, on Transfiguration Sunday, about to enter Lent. We are on a mountain peak with Jesus and, while we can see the empty cross from here, we are called and compelled by the Holy Spirit to proceed into a season of reflection, contemplation, and repentance. 

The best thought I can give you in this season is a verse from a Christmas carol: 

Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by

Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light

The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

 

It is only by acknowledging political realities, personal griefs, and painful truths that we can fully appreciate what it meant and what it means for the "hopes and fears of all the years" to have been gathered and confronted in Bethlehem on that night. Those hopes and fears do not wait for the cross or the tomb, they are present and being confronted from the moment Gabriel speaks to Mary, from the moment Joseph lays Jesus on Mary's breast, from the moment the shepherds are shocked out of their wits. 

 

The hopes and fears of all the years are confronted when the dove descends at Christ's baptism, at the first exorcism, at the first raising of the dead, at the first healing, when the first bite of bread and fish passes the lips of the first person on that hillside among the thousands of other people. And every single one of these acts was political- concerned with the well-being of people, concerned with the well-being of God's people, the well-being of all people. 

 

Our faith, our trust in God, our daily responsive living to the grace which we have received cannot be untangled from politics, from the political realities of our day, from our prayer that God's "will be done on earth as in heaven." Each time we say those words, we are asking God to give us the will, strength, and courage to be part of the accomplishing of that will. We are acknowledging the hopes and fears of all the years and asking that God, who already knows them, continue to meet them in every street, in every home, in every field, on every mountain. 

 

Let it be our hearts and minds which are transfigured today. Let it be our spirits which shed fear. Let it be our mouths that utter "Thy will be done" and mean it for every corner of our lives. 

 

And let it be our lives, transformed by the grace which has met all our hopes and fears... let it be our lives, which are full of words and deeds that compel others to give glory to God and to seek the Divine will of love - in the mundane and in the political. 

 

Amen. 

 

At What Cost?

Scripture: John 2:1-12

A sermon is best presented as a smooth stone, something the Holy Spirit has worked on in me and then I present to you, with the Spirit’s help. You can then turn that stone over and over, seeing how it reflects brightness and absorbs shadows.  

A good sermon has heft, as well as tiny flaws- keeping you focused on the perfect God and not the imperfect preacher. If the standard for a good sermon is a smooth stone, as I just said, then today- I do not have a good sermon. Today’s words, with no less help from the Holy Spirit, have a ragged edge. This sharpness has snagged at me this week and resists polishing. 

 

It is not lack of preparation that has retained this unpolished roughness; it is the difficulty of the question at hand. The texts of the day bring us to a question that cannot be answered in this life, not without great risk to integrity and faithfulness. This is my content warning. While there are some smooth edges ahead, this sermon is more of a cutting tool than a polished comfort object. 

 

When Jesus’ ministry formally begins in the gospel, according to John, he is at a wedding with his disciples and his mother. In Matthew, Jesus preaches, heals, and casts out demons. In Mark, Jesus preaches, casts out demons, and heals. Same actions, different order. In Luke, Jesus preaches, escapes a death threat (Luke 4:28-30), casts out demons, and heals people. A little extra excitement there, but same story. 

 

Why, then, does John start with this sign of water into wine?

 

A small segue into vocabulary: The author of the fourth gospel does not use the term miracle, or any similar word, in this book. Instead, the writer employs the term “sign”. Water into wine, healing of a blind man, speaking to a Samaritan woman, raising Lazarus from the dead- all of these are signs of God’s presence in Jesus and in the world. They are not miracles- one-off demonstrations of power. They are signs- indicators of the holy in the world and divine power at work. John 1:16 notes “from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace”. The author does not use the word grace again but shows what it looks like through the signs Jesus works in the world. 

 

This sign, the sign of up to 180 gallons of good wine, is more than an indicator that God understands hospitality and reveals that understanding through Jesus. The sign of water into wine illustrates two very specific verses from John. 

 

John 1:18 No one has ever seen God. God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made God known.

 

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

 

The sign of water into wine is a clear revelation through Jesus of the nature of God and the divine desire for us to have abundant life. God’s will is not for any person or other aspect of creation to scrape by a meager existence with little joy and rare celebration. God’s intention, as revealed through 180 gallons of good wine, is for us to live well, in harmony together, and with our needs met, so much so that we shall not want. 

 

None of this is difficult so far, right?  If I stop here, we have a smooth stone to hold. 

 

… but I’m going to go on. (You’re not surprised.) 

 

Here is the jagged edge in this story, the part that will not let go of me, the place where I continue to wrestle for a blessing in the hopes that I might limp away. 

 

When Jesus’ mother asks him to do something about the dwindling wine supply, he tells her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” And his mother tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 

 

His hour has not yet come. 

His hour has not yet come. 

His hour has not yet come. 

 

The gospel according to John is divided into two sections, the book of signs, which goes through the raising of Lazarus, and the book of glory, which goes through the post-resurrection appearances. In John, Christ’s glory is revealed in his faithfulness through death and God’s same faithfulness through the resurrection, thwarting death’s alleged power. When Jesus speaks of his hour coming, he is referring to this time of glory. Jesus knows, as does his mother, that once God’s presence is revealed in him, human resistance to God’s grace and glory will begin. Are 180 gallons of wine worth that risk? The beginning of what will stir up anger, rejection, and plots to kill him until one succeeds? 

 

His own mother says yes. She knows what her yes means. She knows the cost of this sign of God’s presence. She can look at her adult son, seeing the baby he was, the child, the young man… and still she says it is time. And she knows the cost. 

 

Jesus’ death is not inevitable in terms of being required. It is inevitable because people resist grace, stonewall against repentance, and will run toward false gods like a sense of control, political power in this world, and judgment of others before they will yield to divine mercy and abundant grace. 

 

This water into wine came at a high cost. From the moment the steward sips the wine and calls the bridegroom, the clock (sundial?) has begun toward human rejection of Christ and an attempt to kill God’s presence in the world. 

 

This is the jagged edge of this sermon. Do we truly ever consider what grace costs God? 

 

I have received some excellent questions lately about how we can discern if something that happens is from God. The tension in this question comes from the fact that just because God permits something to occur does not mean that God caused the thing to occur. I will say that again: just because God permits something to occur does not mean that God caused the thing to occur. 

 

In John, the word we use for world is actually cosmos. As in, “for God so loved the cosmos”. God is present in the cosmos. God is active in the cosmos. God is still speaking in the cosmos. 

 

But at what cost to God? 

 

When we are trying to discern what God does and how God acts, we must weigh the cost to the divine, even though we cannot fully understand it. 

 

We know that God in Jesus was willing to begin the dangerous journey to the cross with 180 gallons of good wine. Each healing, each sermon, each exorcism from there on out was a step toward human rejection and divine suffering because of brokenness. Yet, God considered it worth the cost. 

 

What does it cost God to heal some people through death, rather than through medicine or miracles? 

 

What does it cost God when people count material possessions as blessings, but reject the teachings of Jesus about caring for others? 

 

What does it cost God to pour out love for creation, but to see human beings only partially embrace their vocation of stewardship of the earth? 

 

What does it cost God to know that Jesus promised to draw all people to himself, and yet we fight over who is in and who is out? 

 

What does it cost God to witness some people being healed because of their access to medical care, while others suffer or live in fear? 

 

What does it cost God to desire, deeply, abundant life for all of us and to watch us hesitate, hedge, and hem and haw about irrelevant things? 

 

What does it cost God to have brought humanity to deeper and deeper understanding about the wonders and mysteries of all that is, only to see us reject science, medicine, and reason for our own misunderstandings? 

 

What does it cost God to bring forth grace upon grace, in creation, in our relationships, in possibility- over and over, year after year, until the end only God knows? 

 

This is the jagged edge of this sermon for me. It is the side of the solid rock which I cannot smooth out for myself or for you. 

 

What does it cost God? 

 

I have no idea. 

 

I cannot imagine. 

And, in this area, I am not willing to risk being wrong. 

 

All I comprehend, in the end, with this rough edge in my hand, is this small balm: 

 

There are costs to God, beyond our knowing. 

 

And yet God charges us nothing. 

And that alone is the only good sermon. 

 

Amen.