Sunday, March 27, 2016

Even so, and forevermore



They fled from the tomb terrified and bewildered and said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.
This is it, folks.
This is how Mark tells the story.
It’s so awkward and jarring that some time around the second century a few other endings were created for the book that smoothed it out - made it more clean and palatable, with the disciples and the women on board with it all, and Jesus appearing so it could be validated that he had indeed risen.
But it is nearly universally agreed that originally, this is just how Mark ended not just the passion narrative, but the whole book of Mark.  They fled from the tomb terrified and bewildered and said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.

Alleluia!

I actually love that Mark does this. And that it makes future Christians so uncomfortable.
We like to read the bible for how we’re supposed to be; we compare ourselves and think it is meant to tell us what we should believe or should do, but Mark doesn’t really let us do that, because in Mark all of Jesus’ followers are such terrible examples of faith as we like to think about it, that there isn’t much to aspire to.

Because this isn’t a story about us. Or about them. Or about a religion, or a belief system, or a way to live and behave.
This is the story of God. God with us. God who keeps on breaking through all our expectations and rules for how God should be.

First God comes in, to share this life with us. What?
And then God dies, by literally allowing those God created and loves, torture, betray and kill him. Who is writing this script? 
And then just when it’s all over, when these dear women are in grief, with all the comforting and familiar rituals that attend to it, and adjusting, as we do when death rearranges the future, when their hopes and aspirations have been reduced to literally what is right in front of them – how will we move the big rock? –suddenly the fabric of all that makes sense is ripped open before them.

And I love how it’s told. When they get there and the rock is already moved for them, they step gingerly into the tomb and see this young man, calmly sitting there, and the text says, “they are alarmed.”  And so he says with a steady, even-keel voice, “Do not be alarmed.” And then he walks them through it gently and carefully as possible:
You (pointing at them) are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.
He has been raised; he is not here.
Look, (pointing across from him) there is the place they laid him.
But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’

And they back out of the tomb slowly, perhaps stumbling over each other and tripping at the entrance, where adrenaline kicks in and they drop their parcels, hike up their skirts and high tail it out of there. And then, they said nothing to anyone because this is the most terrifying thing to ever confront them.

And I don’t think those women fleeing are so different than we are, because we flee too, just in semantics and symbols - we sing of victory and triumph, and turn resurrection into another thing to make us feel secure or safe – like eternal insurance, a policy we start paying on now that will pay off in the end, and make the risen Jesus into an idea that helps us back to the security, safety and success that we really worship.

But Mark’s telling of the story doesn’t let us do that.  He makes us sit in the discomfort of their fear and confusion, and shows us that the gospel is anything but business as usual. And this is uncomfortable.
Because is no human logic in any of it.
Why should God come among us?
Why should God die with us, for us, by our hand?

It is only love. The logic of love.
God is determined that nothing, not ever, can separate us from God.
And when we say that Jesus came to save us from sin, we are not saying that we are bad and dirty people who need to be washed by a blood sacrifice to be saved.  We are saying that given the choice, we will most often choose ourselves over others.  Given the choice, we will most often choose comfort over generosity.  Given the choice - and we are given the choice - we will most often choose to protect and preserve or placate ourselves at the expense of anyone else. Safety. Security. Success. We will claw toward those things even if it eats our souls out, and we will step on others’ faces to keep our own above water.

This is what sin is.  Sin is whatever blocks us off from God and each other, whatever tells us we are not worthy of God’s love, or that we are but someone else is not. Sin is what breeds competition and fear, isolation, self-centeredness and destruction..

God made the whole world to be a reflection of God’s love and creativity – every part fitting together, all the wild and wonderful variety of creation and humanity lifting up and supporting one another so that all are fed, all are clothed, all are known and seen and valued, and every voice gets to speak and every person gets to feel what it means to be seen and known, and to see and know others, and to be lavishly generous and fearlessly open-hearted creatures made in the image of God.
But we are suspicious of such things, and we’re pretty sure that if we let our guard down we’ll get screwed, so we turn on each other, and insulate ourselves, and shut out God, and that is what sin is – it is that thing that says, I don’t need you, to God, and to each other. 

And I don’t know about you – but I need saving from that. 
And when I look at this world – this precious, breathtaking world, and I hear the languages and music and see the faces, so alike and so different, reflections of souls, and let myself begin to witness the astonishing ways love is lived all over this planet,
when I stop and recognize God’s creativity poured out and painted in vast canvas and intricate detail of color and noise and tastes and smells and more beauty and joy than any one of us could take in in a thousand lifetimes,
and appreciate that it’s all given freely, it’s all a giant welcome to us from God, a gift to enjoy together, that it’s all meant to be shared with all these fellow creatures made in God’s image, capable of incredible depths of love and pain and hope and vision –
and instead I see people fleeing across oceans from villages decimated by violence and brutality, and putting up laws and walls and barriers and blockades to protect the strong from the onslaught of the weak, and steeping ourselves in cruelty and corruption and callousness and killing and cutthroat competition, oh my God, save us please! Jesus, come and save us!

God does. Not by rescuing some out of it but by plunging right into it, right alongside us all. There is nothing - no suffering or pain, no sorrow or loss - that God does not take directly into God’s heart. And the biggest threat of all, the one all others are designed to either mimic or combat, is death. And so, Jesus goes there. He goes right to the furthest most terrifying place. 

And by our logic, it makes no sense.
But our logic is flawed.
Because we think it’s about climbing, and advancing, and avoiding death, and pain. But that’s not what it’s about. We’re made to sink in and slow down and open up and be with each other in whatever comes, because that is where love is. That is where hope is.  That is where truth is.  And life.  And Jesus.
Jesus is right there. In those places.

I love that the women fled in terror and bewilderment and didn’t say a word to a single soul because they were afraid. Of course that’s what they did. Who among us would do otherwise?
But reality doesn’t hinge on their reaction in this moment. They don’t hold the reigns, God does. They don’t have the power to change the story or take the truth off course.
Christ has risen!  And it’s nobody’s job to convince anyone of that. Because a risen Christ means a living God and God is out there, out here, meeting us in the flesh, summoning us to love, releasing us from sin and bondage, reorienting us to the real reality, the Kingdom of God that endures forever.

Watch for the risen Jesus! If he looks like fear and condemnation, that’s not him, keep looking. 

But where you see forgiveness and mercy, there he is. 
Where you see compassion and generosity, Jesus is there. 
Where you notice people coming alongside each other and bearing each other’s burdens – there is the body of Christ, God’s kingdom in the flesh.

I’ve started tagging things I see on Facebook with ‘The kingdom of God is like…” 
...Pope Francis washing immigrants’ feet, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, and calling them sisters and brothers, children of God.

The kingdom of God is like… a woman on a subway sitting next to a stranger who is agitated, talking to himself, eyes darting around in fear, his body rocking, and because she’s a mom and recognizes that this man is someone’s son, she gently reaches out and takes his hand in her own, and he calms down and rests beside her. 

The kingdom of God is like… 300 union plumbers volunteering a whole weekend to install water filters in homes in Flint, MI, because they have this skill to give and this community is filled with people who need it. 

The kingdom of God is like… a cook and a janitor staying on when the rest of the staff leaves an assisted care home that has closed, but a few residents remain with nowhere to go, so these two men care for the patients around the clock for several days until the fire department and sheriff take over, and when asked why, one of them replies,  When I was a child I was abandoned, and I know what that is. I was I was not going to do that to them.” 

The kingdom of God is like… locals at the Mexican- US border using the border fence- meant to keep people separated and secure - as a giant volleyball net, connecting them like neighborhood children.

The kingdom of God is like… 40 farmers with tractors showing up one morning on the fields of a neighbor who is laid up with cancer, and while he and his family look on, harvesting all their crops, because we all belong to each other.

The kingdom of God is like… my own neighbor, on a day when life feels fragile and scary, telling me to come over and bring a bowl, then filling it with soup from a giant pot on her stove, and then the two of us standing there hugging, feeling the truth that we are not alone, and that life is for sharing.

Jesus embodies and brings the kingdom of God, and when he dies, and rises from the dead, the kingdom of God persists and spreads and invades the whole earth and it is unfolding right now all around us and between us. 

This thing God is doing is not going to stop. 
God is never going to leave or forsake us, and this life is utterly infused with, and irreversibly headed toward, love, where it began and where it will end.

This is not a hypothetical thing.
God is here. Right here. In this room. Meeting us in the space between us, in the love within us, in the longing that draws us toward hope.  
And God is out there. In the very middle of every sad and scary thing, with each lonely and frightened person, in every corner of this earth: Jesus has risen, and there is nowhere that God is not present.

And if you want to see God, if you want to touch God and hear God and feel God, then join God.  Don’t turn your back on someone else’s pain or questions.  Don’t close your eyes to the beauty around you; don’t get caught up in the lies that seek to own you about your own worth or someone else’s, or what makes for a good life. 

But here’s the truth about our sin and our need for saving: You will turn your back on someone else’ pain and questions, and you will close your eyes to the beauty, and you will get caught up in the lies.  You will deny him three times before the rooster crows.

So hear the good news of the gospel: while we are still sinful, that is, while we are still buying into the lie and closing ourselves off from others and from God, Jesus comes into it all for us, with us, and takes on every single thing that divides, distracts and destroy us.  God takes on death and bears it into the very heart of God. 
And then, when death seems like the biggest and most true thing of all, resurrection interrupts the deceptive narrative and says, nope, you’re wrong - life wins and love prevails.

You and I are going to forget this, and even flee from it from time to time in terror and confusion, but nevertheless, it is true.  And it’s not up to us to make it so.  It keeps on being true, and God keeps on being here, and love keeps on being the most real thing, and no amount of our fleeing or fearing can keep us from being part of the true story. 

Because this isn’t a story about us, or about them. Or about a religion, or a belief system, or a way to live and behave.  This is the story of God. God with us, Jesus, who join us, whom death could not hold back, who is out there in the world waiting for us to join him.

Go now, the calm man sitting in the tomb tells the alarmed women, tell the disciples (and especially Peter!, the one who thought he made himself unworthy by denying Jesus!), tell them all, that Jesus is alive and out ahead of you.  Go home and you will see him there.

The kingdom of God is among us, it is between us and around us and out in the world, and it is not our job to make that so, it is so. 
 So go bravely into your life, go unreservedly into the world, and watch for the risen Lord; go and you will see Jesus there.

Amen.


Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Being seen



The past few weeks, at Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church, we've had a reporter and photographer hanging around. It's a little bit intimidating to be watched, and even more unnerving to trust that someone else will tell your story in a way that feels true to your own experience of it.  So it's been good for me to let go of control a little bit and let their encounter with us speak for itself, and it's been interesting to see ourselves through someone else's eyes.

Here is what came from their investigation:
Duke Journal of Faith and Leadership

They also linked this sermon to their article.

Mostly what I take from this experience is a renewed sense of enormous gratitude for this congregation, these people, who want with all their hearts to follow Christ and live in God's way of love instead of the way of fear. For all our quirks and foibles, our life together really is grounded in love and hope, and I feel so blessed to be in this with them!

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Telling the truth by accident



Yesterday we threw a funeral for Norma Shannon. It was like that too, throwing a funeral. She was 93 when she died, and there was joy in the midst of the sorrow.  Death took Norma, as it will take all of us, and even though it was sad, it felt like life gave death a run for its money yesterday. I think every one of us left there a little more grateful to be alive, a little more aware of what a gift it all is.

Earlier this week I told Andy that I first had a funeral sermon to write for Norma and then I’d be working on one for Palm Sunday, and he answered, “so you’ll write a funeral sermon for Jesus too, then.”

I’ve never thought about Palm Sunday like that before, but this might be why it’s a strange one for me. Because in the midst of this celebration of the crowds who think things are just getting started, we know death is coming for Jesus. And he knows it too. He’s been trying to tell his disciples for some time, but they wont listen.

This is a bit of political theater that will be played out for all to see – and God chose to do this; it’s an important part of the story, so we treat it that way, but it’s not clear to us just what is going on because even though we know where this parade is leading, we’re not so far off from the crowds themselves.

Seemingly since the beginning of time, we’ve thought the world was ending. We’ve wanted to be saved from whatever it was we were in, and we’ve pretty consistently created God in our image much of the time, demanding to be saved the way we think we should from the things we think should be saved from. And so you and I take up our metaphorical palm branches when it suits us as well, and stand alongside the crowd, many of whom were thinking Jesus was there to save them from the Roman Empire, to make Israel great again, wanting him to be all these things that he wasn’t, and crying Save us, which is what hosanna means, Save us holy one! and then by the end of the week yelling Crucify him!

And it is at least in part, I think, due to feeling ripped off that Jesus wasn’t all the things they had projected onto him, he wasn’t strong and invincible and ready to lead a revolution after all, and disappointment turns easily to anger, and maybe even a craving for revenge, for making us hope and then letting us down.  

But Jesus was never what they thought he should be – if they’d been paying attention at any point in his life, that is maybe the most consistent theme in all he did and said – the Kingdom of God is not like the kindgoms of this world, and he was never interested in strength and power; instead of courting the elite he hung out with the overlooked and his kind of salvation looked like freeing people from the things that kept them cut off from their neighbor and restoring people to their humanity as beloved children of God, and calling them to go and do likewise.

Jesus is heading toward the cross, but the week begins in this parade. This parade where people lay down coats and take up branches and shout things that may have all sorts of mixed up motives and false assumptions, but even so, were true.
That’s the ironic beauty of this moment, for those who knew, who could see the real truth: What they are saying is completely true, more true than they will ever realize, part of the fabric of all things most true.

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the lord.
Blessed is the one who saves us; save us please!

In the midst of crazy noise these days where, despite all the other big stories going on in the world, all the human suffering and pain, the places we need saving, our national politics seem to be drowning out everything else.  We are surrounded, it seems, by fear and posturing, shouting and shaming, refusals to admit wrong and the unyielding need to be right, and it feels really big; things feel pressing, ugly, fearful and overwhelming, and I, for one, find myself crying out to God, “Save us please!”

In a world of power and posturing, here is our “king” riding on poverty’s animal straight through the middle of our expectations, nevertheless taking in all the Hosannas, all the save uses that the people raise up, welcoming them to himself.  And when he reaches the temple he glances around and leaves.  Because that is not where this is all leading – it’s not for the center of power or the seat of religion, the place where the movers and the shakers go, where the decisions are made and the plans are unfolded.

It’s leading to the cross.  Where the cries for salvation will be answered for real, and not at all in the ways we all think they should be.
Because beyond everything we think power and might and right salvation should be, this is the way of God. God’s way of love is unrelenting and quiet, foolish and strange. It doesn’t look like how this world looks. It looks like something else entirely.

Whether we think Jesus should sweep in and fix everything, protect our sense of safety and keep bad things from happening, strong-arm our enemies, or make us supernaturally good people, however our version of God’s plan goes or our view of salvation looks, that doesn’t stop God from 1- hearing us, and welcoming into Godself our misguided but very real cries for salvation, and 2- drawing us into the real Kingdom of God, even while breaking down all we thought it was about.

Nothing can stop or change the trajectory of God’s Kingdom. God is bent on loving us no matter what, bent on salvation of the world, bent on bringing humanity close to the heart of God and blessing the whole world with life as God intends it to be in wholeness and harmony. We think enemies should be destroyed or at least silenced, and power should be wielded to make things feel stable so we can build ourselves up and avoid bad things, most especially death, but God instead submitted completely to suffering and death, so that nothing can separate us from God’s love. God has come, God is here, God is holding it all. That is what is really real.

So God chooses this moment of sheer praise and celebration to begin this whole week.  And one invitation in this for you and me is this: praising God reminds us what is really real. When stop whatever it is we are caught up in fearing and believing and doing, and simply lift our heads and acknowledge God in our midst, showing up and suprising us like a peasant on a donkey, when we can stop walking and lay down our coats and pick up our branches, that is, whatever we have at hand at the moment, make it into a tool of worship, even ridiculously so, even with confusion or mixed motives, if we stop and praise God, it reminds us again what is true.

In order for Jesus to proceed into the week ahead, in order for any of them to, something had to be made clear right at the outset. And even if they didn’t know at the time what they were saying, they were going to say it anyway because it is the truest thing –God has come. God is here. Right here Among us. Blessed be the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Stopping to praise God reminds us what is true. Praising God reminds us what is really real.

In a few minutes we will gather around Marty and give thanks to God for God’s calling on Marty’s life. And because death is coming for every one of us at some point, we will say outloud together that Marty is dying, and you guys, I feel really sad about that. I feel so sad.

But we will also say that God is still God, and that God is with us, and God is with Marty. And in these coming weeks we will be saying, Save us! and meaning all sorts of things by it, and God will hear it anyway, and God will save us because this is what God does and who God is. 
And there is more beauty and hope and love and joy that God wants to impart into Marty’s life, and into all of our lives, as we share them with each other, so we will not be afraid.  And even when we are, a little, still, we will walk with Marty.  Because this is where Jesus is. 

Jesus walks this way with us. Jesus went this way before us in this prophetic parade; this confusing, strange spectacle, where truth was spoken right into illusion, right through delusions, and what was happening was bigger and truer than any of them could have realized at the time.  And so we trust that by facing instead of fearing death, we are also part of something that is bigger and truer than we can realize.

Next week is Easter, and we will celebrate that that death does not get the final word.  We will sing and pray and rejoice in resurrection– even while we are all dying, we will proclaim that in Jesus Christ, death is not the end.  The life and love of God, that we are made for and called into, has already begun and will never, ever end.

So as children of God, claimed by this promise, let us lift up our voices in praise. Let’s stop and acknowledge God with us, right in our midst, and find again our true home in the One who holds it all, who has come to share it all with us, and who never leaves or forsakes us, but instead faces death with us and leads us in life everlasting.  
Hosanna! Blessed is the One who comes!

Amen. 

Sunday, March 6, 2016

The Dismantling of Illusion





As a kid growing up in church, I heard this story a lot.  And probably from some Sunday school book I have burned into my memory the image a ridiculous cartoon camel with bulgy eyes trying to stuff its head through the eye of a huge, shiny sewing needle.
I remember one particularly memorable sermon from my high school days where the pastor explained that “the eye of the needle” was the name for one of the city gates of Jerusalem that was so narrow, and low, that the traveler’s camels had to be stripped of all their packs and baggage, and even sometimes kneel down on their knobby knees to scootch through the opening – in a vivid illustration of both the humility God demands, and the principal that you literally can’t take it with you.

So, the rich man was putting too much stock in his stock, and needed to get humble before God would accept him into heaven.  Plausible, and tidy.  But then Jesus shifts the script from this human conception of heavenly reward to God’s reality of the Kingdom of God, and shocks the disciples by saying that not only is it especially hard for the rich to enter into the kingdom of God, but actually under the terms proposed, nobody would ever be good enough. Only for God is success by that kind of method possible.

I always heard “the Kingdom of God” here as meaning the same thing as heaven, after we die. Eternal salvation. Who will be in and who will be out. The everlasting acceptance of God. But this misses the Kingdom of God as Jesus always talks about it – life with God with us. The disciples make this same mistake.  Still not getting it that God’s economy is a place where deserving is not even on the list of qualifications for entrance, like whining children they rise to the ever popular and effective, “it’s not fair” argument, and begin comparing themselves to the dejected rich man, telling Jesus all the things they’ve walked away from in order to follow him. Surely, at least they are deserving of a place in the Kingdom of God…

And Jesus, with compassion and gentleness, answers that there is nobody who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.

We work really hard not to need others and certainly not to need God. The worst thing on earth for some of us would be to appear to need saving!  We’re not unlike the rich young ruler, coming to Jesus and saying, What must I do, oh good one? To be guaranteed security for all eternity? To check off the boxes and know I’ve arrived for good? 

But Jesus, looking at the man, loves him, and then answers just about the worst thing the poor guy could hear, just about the only thing he wasn’t willing to do: Go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, then follow me.
And the grieving man turns and walks away, because what Jesus is asking him to do feels impossible.

But what Jesus is asking for is the dismantling of illusion.
The illusion that your wealth will save you, or your goodness – no one is good but God alone!- or your retirement fund, or how well you follow all God’s commands, or your community service hours or fleetingly great health, or the admirable behavior of your offspring, or any of the other thousand things we grasp at to be saved.

Jesus is asking us to let go of all of that.
To see it all for what it is – part of the experience of living, a source of joy and gratitude, or grief and sadness, and often all of these things mixed up together, valuable, yes, but also unable to make us real or whole or complete or alive.
 
But we don’t really mind being half-dead. We stumble along with all our incredible baggage as though we need it, and we’re missing out on the Kingdom of God right here, right now, being with Jesus as he is and where he is - God with us – alongside neighbor, friend and stranger in the world with us. God is the one who brings salvation. But wow do we have a hard time receiving. We’d so much rather earn!

I wrote an article last week on Sabbath, around the same time someone was writing an article on Sabbath about us. And it’s all kind of ridiculous. Because it’s not like we’ve cracked the code or figured anything out.  As a discipline, we're not so great at it.  Many of us bumble through that day unsure what to do with ourselves or why what we’re not-doing matters.  Most of us can’t quite make it through a day without at least accomplishing some things to feel good about ourselves.

But it was made apparent to me this week all over again what a powerful thing this actually is.  See, God’s whole human project is about connecting us with God and each other, and our whole sinful project is to cut ourselves off from God and each other.
  
And when we go back to the Ten Commandments and look at the ways God said that life works best, right between how we’re to be connected with God and how we’re to be connected with each other we find this big strange Sabbath command, that we’re used to just kind of skipping over, but which is a key to the whole thing, because it basically says: You are going to keep disconnecting from me – the source of your life –and from each other - your sisters and brothers in this life. Instead of wholeness you will keep choosing brokenness, instead of life, you'll keep choosing death.  
You can’t help it.
 You are going to keep thinking this is all about what you can earn or prove or buy or win, so you’ll keep seeing each other as competition and threat and burden and obstruction.  
That is the way of fear. The way of sin. The way of slavery and death. 
But the reality is you are free. The reality is you already belong to me.
The reality is I have all you need; I am all you need. I am a God of abundance and joy and hope and rest, and peace and enough

And so, because you are going to keep on forgetting this– here’s my big suggestion to help you remember.  Ready? Every single week - I want you to stop.
Just stop.
For one whole day every seven or so, step off the ride. 
Stop measuring and comparing and worrying and working.
Stop judging and competing and producing and buying and trying to win. 
Just. stop. All of you.
Rest. 
Shut it down.
Come back to real life.
It’s enough. You are enough.  I am enough for you.
I am your God. You are my people.
This whole world belongs to me and I am not letting go. 
Remember that.
And I know that if you stop, if you rest like I rest, if you celebrate like I celebrate,
if you wake up from your angry and hectic stupor and raise your head and see the world, this beautiful world, and if you look at each other truly, without the screen in between you, and the to-do list in front of you, and the wariness within you, and if, instead of the noise of the pressing world and all its violent, vying agendas pounding in your ears,
you listen to the silence, and the pause,
and the air, and birds, and children, and heartbeat, and tears, and laughter, and dreams and sighing, you will remember.
You wont be able to help but remember. 
You’ll breathe again.
You’ll come back into the Kingdom of God, back to your home in me. 
You’ll see again that I am right here. That life is a gift.
That instead of living chronically fearful and anxious, there is so much to be thankful for and so much to delight in.
You’ll care for each other, and share with each other, and be again my people, and I will be your God, because it’s how I’ve made it all to be in the first place, and how it will all be again in the last.

This is the reason for Sabbath.
It is one of God’s strategies for helping us come back into the Kingdom of God – where we all belong to God, and we all belong to each other, and we are not the ones holding the reigns, God is.  

When the rich man sells all he has and gives the money to the poor-  all that separates him from them will be gone. It will be once again, humanity alongside one another in the economy of God.  And the barrier that keeps him from receiving love unlimited, and grace unconditional, and from sharing it as well, will be dismantled, and he will be free, back into the Kingdom of God where we belong to God and each other. 

And dear disciples, you who have left so much to follow me, what if you have to put down your confidence in the leaving itself, the way you measure your worth or progress or how saved you may be by how much you’ve left behind and how well you're following?  
Because truly, if you were to open your eyes to the Kingdom of God right here among you, you would receive and enter the whole huge picture, that we already belong to God, and you belong to every mother and every father and sister and brother and there is, in fact, no such thing as other people’s children.  

And it’s ironic that they can’t see it in the moment, these followers of Jesus, who were every night guests in someone else’s home, fed at different people’s tables, welcomed in and treated as family in the economy of abundance and gratitude that Jesus moved in perpetually as he lived out the Kingdom of God.  
Jesus was always connected completely to the Father. Always belonging completely to the world. Always at home in God, always living in the settled state of trust. And they could enter that too, at any moment, in fact, they were already there – God with us was right there with them, and they were striving to be deserving of this at some point in the distant future.

The last will be first and the first will be last.
Those who don’t have all these things to prop up around themselves to keep themselves safe, and protected, and promote themselves forward, and buffer themselves from risk or loss are closer to realizing the race is rigged and false to begin with.   That the Kingdom of God can only be entered and never earned. That salvation is a reality we receive instead of a reward we deserve. 

Jesus is heading toward the cross.  And not even death itself can separate him from God or break the real reality that God has set in place.  If anything, it simply clarifies what is real and what is the game, which he resolutely refuses to play and persistently exposes as fraud.

But us? 
We choose illusion and delusion most of the time. 
Most of the time, we live like we have the power to stop bad things from happening if we only, what, work hard enough? Pray hard enough? Have enough life insurance? Do enough good things in the world? Know the right people? Have enough admiring things said about us?

What is it that makes us feel secure? 
In other words, What is it that keeps us from entering the Kingdom of God right here and now? Because whatever that is for each of us, that is the thing Jesus is inviting us to let go of. 

I think of the clarity dying brings, when there is nothing we can hang onto any more as our security, and the illusion of the game is punctured.  
Bruce Kramer, who documented his journey of dying in his book, We Know How this Ends, says on his blog a couple of months before his death last March:

“The elegant hand of ALS holds great surprises. I never knew that so much grace and peace and joy could be found in the inexorable experience of dying slowly. Dis ease plunges me into a pool of beautiful sadness. It focuses me so that each day, I awaken with profound gratitude for my true loves, my one and only, our sons and daughters in love, our energetic, remarkably bright and ever-growing granddaughter. I am overwhelmed by the thankfulness I feel for friends, those who volunteer to care for me, those who engage me in their day to day life challenges, those who share gifts of music and poetry and yoga and life possibility. 
Yet simultaneously, an undeniable fatigue dogs me, washes over me, nips at my heels, impedes the energy I might muster for the very things that so delight me. The daily life challenges I experience – total dependency on others for the simplest of tasks, the continuing breakdown of basic physical functions such as swallowing and breathing and the like – exhaust me into sweet anticipation of the relief that will come with my death. Death has become a good friend, a harbinger of the final joy awaiting me, assisting me to shed the ALS revealed imperfections of my physical body. The spiritual conflict is clear – I am utterly in love with this ever deepening experience of living while at the exact same time I happily anticipate the relief death will bring.”

Woe to the strong and the mighty, the healthy and established and complete. 
You have a camel’s chance in a needle’s eye of letting all that go by choice to step into what’s really real. 
 
But no worries. Soon enough the day will come when the illusion will be punctured for everyone, and real reality will seep in.  And everyone who has left and lost things that were precious and important to them in the search of God’s kingdom, will discover that in letting go they are opened up to receiving all they’re losing and more – that the whole earth and everyone in it is your family, and your home is forever in the love of Jesus who is right here and now, alongside and with us. 

And one day when this struggle is over, and the delusions have shattered for good, and all the noise and posturing has withered away to dust, all that will remain is life. Full and free. Enduring for eternity – as it was meant to be: completely connected in unbroken love forever to God and forever to each other in the Kingdom of God.  
So watch, because those in this life who have been “last” will be the first to welcome it in, and those we esteem as “first,” will be last ones to realize what they’ve been missing all along.

Amen.

How to Repent (It's not how you think)

Psalm 46 ,  Jeremiah 31:31-34 When I was in college, I spent the large part of one summer sleeping on a 3-foot round papason chair cushion o...