What's it all for and how does it happen?

 

Exodus 15:22-16:36, Exodus 19:1-20::21. Deuteronomy 6:1-9, Leviticus 25 David Brooks recently had an article in the Atlantic where he said he’d been obsessed with two questions: Why are Americans so sad? and Why are Americans so mean? He says, there are lots of theories, most of them at least partly true. But, he opens, “The most important story about why Americans have become sad and alienated and rude, I believe, is also the simplest: We inhabit a society in which people are no longer trained in how to treat others with kindness and consideration.” He writes that restraining our selfishness, welcoming our neighbor, disagreeing constructively, and finding purpose in life are not things our culture is currently intentional about learning and passing on. We don’t collectively address the question, what is life for? Humans need practical guidelines for a meaningful existence. We need moral formation -  to be formed into something and for something.   In our ongoing narrative, the Israelites have been led out of slavery into wilderness. These are the descendants of Abraham and Sarah: blessed to be a blessing to the world. But for centuries they’d been formed as slaves, for the benefit of the empire. They were disposable, existing for work by a system that stripped them of personhood and gave them daily patterns of living that reinforced this definition. They were slaves. They knew how to do this. Now they’re free. How do you be free?  They’ll need a new understanding of what life is for, and some practical guidelines for a meaningful existence.   The first time I preached on the Ten Commandments at Lake Nokomis, Owen was four and Maisy was one. The day before, in a fit of frustration with his baby sister, Owen threw a Star Wars action figure at her.  “No throwing things” isn’t a rule we’ve needed in our house for a long time, and time-outs are a faint memory (except for self-imposed ones), but back then, throwing things led to an immediate time-out.  After Owen’s grueling four minutes on the time-out chair, I knelt down in front of him and asked him if he knew why he had to sit there – my line of the often-repeated script. He avoided looking at me and parroted his line of the script,  “Because I threw something at Maisy. Sorry.”  But something stopped me this time, and since I had his attention, I asked him, “Owen, do you know WHY we don’t throw things in this house?”  He looked at me, big eyes and pensive stare, “Why?”  “We have that rule because we want this house to be a safe place for everyone to play, a place where everyone is protected and free to have fun.  You, Maisy, Mommy and Daddy, and even people who visit us.  If people were allowed to throw things here, nobody would be safe or protected or be able to play without being afraid.  That’s why we can’t have any throwing.   Do you think that is a good rule for us to have?” And he paused, then he nodded.  Then he said, with a very concerned face, “Mommy, that’s a good rule. But I forget! I forget what to do when Maisy touches my things! So I just throw things at her!”   And I promised that next time she touched his things, I would help him remember to tell her NO, then ask me to help get her away.  Because just as we don’t throw things, we also don’t take other people’s things without asking.  And he left satisfied.  That first year this blew the Ten Commandments wide open for me. Because the ten commandments are not actually grammatically commands  - they are descriptive – they portray the way life in the household of God works. In this house, we do not throw things at people, we don’t take other people’s things without asking. Here is what life looks like when people are honored and respected, all people, in a safe place where everyone can grow, and play, and not be afraid.   This is not just a list of rules, it’s not even just helpful moral formation, it’s a relationship upheld by God. You are no longer slaves, you are children.  So first, before even the words themselves, God claims them as children by caring for them in the wilderness. The first story today is about how God gave the Israelites manna for breakfast and quail for dinner, and provided water where there was none. Every day God gave them just what they needed for that day, and no more. If they tried to save it up it went rotten. But every seventh day was for rest, so the food from the sixth day could carry over. We’ve called this period in their lives “Trust training school.”  For 40 years they practiced being cared for, received belonging to God – I am trustworthy, I will take care of you. And then, in that place of upheaval and unknown, God gives them a word. Like the word that spoke creation into being, and the word that will become flesh and dwell among us. God’s word always brings life.  The majority of the Ten Commandments address Who is this God and what is God up to? “I’m the God who saved you and called you my own and cared for you and looks after you. I give you your name and identity and freedom. I am trustworthy and I expect you to trust me. I can’t be possessed or controlled, only encountered. I am who I will be, and I say who you are – not anything else that would enslave you or totalize you. So respect me. And then God says, you’ll forget you belong to me, and forget who you are for each other and what life is for, so every single week every single person stops working, to enjoy life and rest, just like I did when I created the world, because life is for joy and connection. You are not slaves defined by endless production, you my are children held in my love and called to bless the world. And then the commandments turn to, What is a good life and how do we live it? The moral formation part, practical guidelines for a meaningful existence. And with simple “We don’t throw things here” language, they talk about how to treat each other: in this house we hold one another as sacred and valuable, we uphold other’s dignity and personhood and treat people with respect, honesty and fairness instead of jealousy, greed or envy. In this home, God says, everyone has what they need, and we practice belonging to each other. But to notch it all up a level and really hit the message home, we’ve got another story from the law where God commands that every 7th year is a big, year-long sabbath for the soil, and every 49 years this sabbath thing becomes a mega sabbath jubilee celebration year. The whole gameboard gets wiped clean and reset. Master and marginalized, insider or outsider, generational wealth or poverty, it all disappears. Momentum crushed, balance sheet zeroed out. Only God can tell us who we, not what we’ve achieved or lost, not how people see us or our role in society, not our smart investments or poor choices. We are children, not slaves. And the earth is God’s beloved creation, also not meant to be endlessly worked. So in case we begin acting like what we do is more powerful and permanent than it is, God writes in a reset button. Come back home. You are my children, here to bless the world.  When God gave the law, God said, Here is what life is for. Here is how you live it. This is not hypothetical and idealistic. This is concrete and practical. The only way to life fully human, fully alive, fully who you are made to be, the only way to be free, is inside the perimeters of God’s love and order. Anything outside that makes us into slaves, steals our joy, binds us in patterns of destruction and division and isolation. For 16 years I’ve loved the ten commandments and insight I received from the experience of Owen’s time out.  But this time through I hear something different in that story. I hear a four year old's honest cry of anguish, how he knows it’s wrong to throw things, but when she takes his stuff, he forgets.  And I feel that part.  We’re sad and we’re mean. And we can wish we weren’t sad and try not to be mean – but most of the time we forget what to do. We agree they are good rules: let’s be kind and forgiving and generous. Let’s restrain selfishness and disagree constructively and welcome our neighbor. Yes, yes to all of it. Let’s do those good rules. Let’s practice them and be formed by the practice. But I still forget. I forget when a stranger is short with me, or something doesn’t work like it should, or people say dumb false things, or when I feel judged, or even when I’m just in a hurry.  I forget when I’m insecure or afraid, and I forget most often with those closest to me. When I’m interrupted or impatient, when I get stressed or anxious about things outside my control, when life feels overwhelming, I forget.  We need moral formation. Thank God for the places we learn to practice kindness and civility. Seriously, thank you, God. How will we ever remember unless we practice? But more than practice, I need a savior. I need someone to bring me back home, because sometimes I can’t find my way. I’ve practiced striving and self-protection so much for so long, that it’s hard to just choose to live what I know to be true. I forget.  But God gives more than good moral formation. God gives God’s very self.  To the Israelites God said, I will care for you, I will lead and guide you, and you will care for others. You are no longer slaves, you are my children. I make that so. You are those whom I am with. We are children of God in the household of God. We are those whom God is with. And Christmas is the concrete promise come to fruition in flesh and blood, God is with us. GOD is with us. The word made flesh to dwell among us. Jesus comes to make us fully at home in love. And when we are fully at home in love, that feels like joy.   Joy is a gift, we can’t make it happen. Jesus said that the point of all his teaching is that we have his joy. His joy – not that we try to act joyful or produce joy out of thin air. Jesus enters our death, our impossibility, our deep, existential forgetting, and takes it into himself. And Jesus give us his life. Jesus is fully at home in love, and the inner life of Christ’s own complete belonging to God and belonging to the world is for us. We can be at home in love. Even in pain and suffering. Even in disappointment and confusion. Even in our failure to live up to the values we believe. We drawn into life that doesn’t come from us and will not end with us, that is beauty, and wonder, and mystery, and awe, and delight and sorrow shared, poignant and powerful. And those moments when life eternal breaks through tangibly grabs us, we taste joy. We forget to forget. And we are remembered into life by God who is with us. So together we will practice. Freedom instead of slavery. Rest instead of relentlessness. We will turn our hearts to our creator and seek to trust in the I AM who holds the world, and we’ll help each other with the  kindness and generosity and peace too. But we will undoubtedly also forget.  So, Jesus, God with us, be with us here and set us free again. Speak a word that brings life. God who comes in, come into our places of stuckness and forgetting, remember us into life and bring us back home into love. Amen.

What do I love?

 Each morning, the first thing I do is reach for my phone. I look at how good of a sleep I got according to my watch data, I read my emails, and check the breaking news.  This habit is not neutral. This is a practice that is forming me.  

Like a sponge, I wake up parched and immediately soak up the world’s tension and division announced to me in breathless headlines. I let the urgency, self-judgment, and need for productivity course through my veins and get my blood pumping. Little do I realize this going to my heart. I am shaping my desire by adrenaline and upheaval, I am being trained to chase competence, proficiency and efficiency, and sooth anxiety with data points and accomplishments.  And, I’m told I’m not fun to be around in the morning.

What is this daily practice telling me about what a good life is and how to live it?  What does it reveal about what I actually love, over against what I think I love?

James Finley shares a story of interning in a VA hospital on the treatment unit for alcoholism in the 1970s. The men on the floor, mostly Vietnam vets, had developed an initiation rite that was passed down. In order to be admitted to the unit, you had to pass through this rite.

Finley describes being in a large room, with chairs all pushed against the four walls and the center empty, except for two chairs facing each other. Nearly 100 men are sitting silently along the walls, heads down, eyes to the floor. 

In comes the person at the end of his rope, with alcohol destroying his life.  He’s nervous, glancing around the room, knowing he will need to pass this initiation to get in.  Those around the walls keep their eyes lowered, and remain completely still and silent. Finley says, “It’s serious as death, which it is.”

The interviewer invites the man to a center chair and sits down across from him. 

The questioner then asks, “What do you love the most?”

“The alcoholic, not know what to say, stammers something out like, “My wife.” at which point everyone in the room yells as loud as they can, “Bull----!” and then goes silent, staring at the floor. 

The rattled man looks back at his questioner, who asks again,

 “What do you love the most?”

“My children,” he tentatively answers.

“Bull---!”, hollers loudly back from all sides.

“What do you love the most?”

Finally, finally, the person says, “Alcohol.”

Immediately all the men rise to their feet and give the man a standing ovation. Then in complete silence they line up and hug him, one at a time, as tears stream down his face.

He is ready to begin his journey.

We can know a lot, believe a lot, have the best intentions and the loftiest goals, but our hearts are shaped by our habits.  Like a compass: our love is directed toward what we put our attention on, what we practice every day.  

Were someone to observe us from afar and describe who we are, they could not see inside us, read our thoughts or intentions, or deduce our motivations, they could only witness and describe what they see us doing with our lives, what direction we are moving. And the conclusions they draw about us would, in some ways, be more accurate than the conclusions we often draw about ourselves.

Generations before Christ, when the Israelites were delivered from bondage in Egypt, they were sent into the wilderness, for 40 years.  All the lifegiving liturgies and practices of their faith that sustained them behind closed doors as the people of God during their 400 years of slavery came with them. But other patterns and habits, the “liturgies” of the empire had been shaping them day after day, telling them their lives were worthless except for what they could produce. The way of fear dominated their waking hours, forming them in daily doses toward self-preservation, guarded competition and on-edge dread. 

But in the barrenness of the wilderness this liturgy was extinguished, and new patterns and practices took their place, shaping them toward a different way of being. Every single day, God, who claimed them as beloved children, miraculously provided them food and water, protection and care.  Little by little, day by day, through habits of trust and dependence on their Creator, they were remade from fear to trust, from degradation to dignity Instead of relentless, competitive striving, they were rooted and grounded in the belonging, generosity and rest of a loving God in whose image they were made for a life of giving and receiving ministry, to bear God’s love to the world. 

Today we read that Jesus’ own ministry begins when he is plunged under the waters of baptism, and hears God’s claim on him, You are my Son, my beloved, in whom I am well-pleased.  And then, immediately, Jesus is driven by the Spirit into the habit-disrupting, trust-teaching wilderness of his ancestors for 40 days of vulnerability to be cared for by God. 

Lent is the 40 days before the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead on Easter. It has always been seen as a kind of spiritual wilderness, a time of stripping away of our idols, isolation and captivity, and reorienting us back to God, who loves us and claims us for ministry. 

Lent turns the compass of our hearts back toward God, by first asking us, what is your compass pointing toward, that you may not realize? and then, like an initiation into recovery, disrupting our patterns of self-sufficiency and sin and recalibrating our loves.

Because when we see ourselves and our lives as they really are, and not just as we wish them to be: this is where God meets us, where transformation happens, where discipleship begins again, and again. In the wilderness of Lent, we too are tested by satan and waited on by angels, which is to say, we recognize how deeply seductive are the messages the world gives us about what a good life is, and how strongly they pull on us, but, there, in our most vulnerable and true selves, we are welcomed with ovation and open arms into the care of the one who calls us Beloved child in whom I delight.

My Lenten “liturgical inventory” began this week when I recognized how my waking up, (and for that matter, going to bed) rituals are mis-directing my heart. So I made the choice that I will not look at my phone for the first two hours of being awake. 

Each morning, I greeted the day in front of my eyes instead of on a screen. I was present to those around me instead of barking orders at them, and I felt myself inside my body, instead of racing through emails and giving my attention to whatever felt loudest or most urgent.  I managed to do this 5 of the 7 days. It is uncomfortable and hard.  But how hard it is shows me how necessary it is– like resting on sabbath Sundays reveals my dependance on doing. 

A week in, I’ve already discovered that when I come later in my day to the pressing news and to-do lists, first having awakened to God’s presence and been present myself with a different heart-orientation, it shapes my perspective, and I am noticeably less anxious the whole rest of my day.  

God is God, always here, always holding my life and this world in love, always moving both through and despite humans to bring redemption. I want to trust this, not just with my head, but with my heart, and so, then, also with my habits.  

May it be so. Amen. 

To be made of dust and water

Daniel Bonnell, The Baptism of Christ

Mark 1:9-15

One Wednesday night in cold February, 2008, I stood in line holding my nearly six month old son on my hip as he sucked his little fist and clung to me with his other arm.   In front of me was a dear 99 year old woman. I watched the pastor smear ashes on her soft, wrinkled forehead and say, “From dust you came and to dust you shall return.” 

I felt my heart rise to my throat and the tears come to my eyes as I witnessed this and thought, not long now.

The pastor’s words felt very true as I watched this woman slowly turn to walk away, leaning heavily on her cane. The truth of our mortality, I thought, right before my eyes.

But I snapped back to attention when the next thing I knew, the pastor was pressing her ash-covered finger to my baby’s own soft, tiny forehead and saying the very same words to him, from dust you came and to dust you shall return. Then the tears did come. I didn’t want what was true for the old woman with a long, full life behind her and one foot in the grave to be true also for my tiny one, not long out of the womb with his whole life in front of him.  But it ‘s true of us all.

And Lent is about telling the truth.

We’ve begun our 40 days of Lent, to mirror Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness. It’s the 40 days that lead up to Easter (minus the Sundays, which for Christians are always days of resurrection).  And we begin Lent with these verses from Mark, that pack into a very small space Jesus’ baptism, his temptation in the wilderness, and beginning of his ministry – all in whirlwind kind of storytelling that leaves no room for details.  Baptism. Wilderness. Ministry. Ready, set, go!

Jesus comes up out of the waters of his baptism, and the Spirit like a gentle dove alights on him, and the voice of God says, “You are my child, Beloved One. I am delighted in you.” And then, suddenly, violently, the same Spirit drives him, still dripping, into the wilderness. 

The wilderness is a big motif in scripture and a big metaphor in our lives. Perhaps we think of wilderness as barren and lonely, and it often it is. Isolated, cut off from what gives you security, community, purpose and direction, wilderness feels somehow both wandering and stranded at the same time, with the very real possibility that you will not make it out alive. 

But in Mark’s breathless and brief telling, the wilderness feels almost crowded and noisy, Jesus was surrounded by wild beasts and inundated by temptations delivered by Satan, and ministered to by angels.

And Mark says almost nothing about the temptations.   The other gospels describe this in some detail, but Mark finds it sufficient to say he was tempted by evil incarnate, and leave the rest to the imagination.

Perhaps for Mark it doesn’t matter specifically what the temptation was; just that it was a real temptation.  He wasn’t teased by the devil, or given a safe opportunity to flex his refusal muscles or assert his boundaries, like practicing a language, or doing a training exercise.  This wasn’t a game; Jesus was genuinely tempted. 

Tempted, like we are.  Tempted to hunker in our corners and shout insults at the other side, rallying against our enemies. Tempted to give in to despair, or let anger swallow us up.  Tempted to make our world really small and really safe and really pleasant and ignore anything that feels too big or overwhelming, especially the plights of others.  Tempted to numb the pain – with alcohol, or medications, or pornography, or non-stop work or being sucked into the social media vortex, whatever dangerous addiction or mindless pastime we can find to help us not to feel bad, even if it means we wont feel much at all. 

Temptation is real and all of us face it. Jesus did too.

And in the wilderness, stripped down to desperation, everything offered to him - each deal or suggestion or idea that evil incarnate held before him - seemed really, really good, and he was tempted to give in, to take the sweet relief offered and be done with the struggle.  It was a fight within himself, a battle to resist, complete with doubt and second guessing and anxiety.  Oh, and also there were wild beasts.  Mark doesn’t elaborate on them either.

And then angels come and minister to Jesus in the wilderness.

And that’s all Mark has to say about them too.

But the story doesn’t begin in the wilderness; it all begins with baptism.

And so even as the sign of the ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday made visible, traced over the blessing spoken on us at our own baptisms, we begin Lent here, too, the place of our identity, belonging and naming, Beloved. 

We begin at baptism. Today we will remember our own baptisms as we baptize little Rowen.

When God with us came into this life he took on death alongside us. Before his ministry begins, Jesus is plunged under the water symbolizing chaos and death, and pulled back into the light of breath and life. He metaphorically dies and is risen –and when we are baptized into his death and resurrection, we do the same.

We don’t do it very dramatically here- you should go home and watch the youtube video of the Orthodox priests in Georgia thrusting babies head first into water and then flipping them over and and dunking their feet, three times back and forth, head feet head feet head feet, in less than 5 seconds total, and then dropping them into an outstretched towel before these waterlogged little ones know what hit them and set up wailing.  

Here we just pour an almost tidy amount of water on the head.

But the intention is that it symbolizes our death and our resurrection, both our actual death and our death to all that keeps us from life –and a rising to life in Jesus’ own life and death, now to be defined by love, the Kingdom of God, the reality we choose to live in.

Rowen can’t choose this yet. He gets to be told later that God’s love was spoken and poured over him before he could do anything to earn or reject it. And that it will be the very last thing true about him as well. It never ends. Nothing he can do can make God stop loving him. This is what gets to define him now. Not any success or failure in his life, not anything anyone else thinks about him, or even what he thinks about himself. Only this: God naming him beloved. 

Brittany and Jonathan, when you hand your son over to the waters, you are handing him over to the real reality. You are saying, Yes, death will come for him. But death is not the final word. The final word is life – love, resurrection, hope.  And the first and last word of his identity is beloved, child of God, delight of God’s heart.

The most terrible temptations he will face, pure evil that is in this world, the wild beasts that will threaten to tear him apart, the lonely and barren places he will walk through in his lifetime, cannot separate him from God’s love, cannot change his identity, or his calling. Beloved, child of God in whom God delights.

This means Rowen can live without fearing death. He can live without dodging his vulnerability or hiding his weakness. He can live without avoiding or numbing pain, or striving to try to earn his belonging.

Rowen will be invited to live into his baptismal identity. From this day forward, he is called to discover what it means to belong to God and belong to all others – to let love be what defines him, to receive and give forgiveness, to join in the ministry of God always underway, and to know in the wilderness that he is not alone and that it doesn’t end there.

I wonder if the reason Jesus’ wilderness experience comes immediately after his baptism, is because to truly be human Jesus must come face to face with evil incarnate. Must experience despair, and fear, and temptation, and being ministered to.  

To take in that God has claimed and chosen you to join in God’s reality and bring others into it too, brings you right up against your own complete inability to fulfill that calling, makes you face the despair at the futility of it all, if it is in your own hands. 

Because if it is all in our own hands we are doomed. 

It’s been a hard week. A school shooting brings to light the existence of absolute evil, and the terrible suffering we can often ignore, along with the culpability and failure of us all to be who we are meant to be and to love as we are meant to love, and the utter impossibility of protecting those who need protection and preventing horrible things from happening.  Life is precarious and sometimes terrifying.  And we rage and wail at it and wring our hands and try to overcome our limitations but we are just as helpless to create good and stop evil as we’ve ever been.  The truth of our mortality is right before our eyes. 

And yet, and yet, Jesus comes out of the wilderness proclaiming to the world that there is another way.  That the time is right now.  That God’s transformation of the world is already happening. And that you, and I, and everyone else, is invited us to trust in it, and join in it too. Because it’s not in our hands at all, this is God’s show.

In this time before Easter when we enter Lent, we endeavor to repent, and to trust in this good news, because normally in life, we are not very good at either one of these things.

And then we go with honesty into a kind of wilderness, where we face our fears and the beasts that threaten to tear us apart, where we name evil incarnate,  and feel the temptations to numb or hide, or hurt, or hate, so enticing with their false promises of relief. We go to that place of wilderness honesty and vulnerability. We join Jesus there.

From dust we came and to dust we shall return, every single one of us, ready or not. Lent helps us tell that truth, but also the truth about death being real but not the end. Lent invites us to live into the absurd truth that in weakness and fragility, love overpowers and outlasts hate and evil. 

Because we have looked at death without looking away, we will be ready to welcome life. We will be ready for the good news of the resurrection that opens wide our hearts when we let them be broken first by the truth of our mortality.

Only then can the angels minister to us, and only then can we come out the other side not only proclaiming but believing it for ourselves – that the kingdom of God has come near.  That God’s love and salvation has come into the world, is coming even now, and will one day be all that endures.  Only then are we ready to truly live out our calling – brave and vulnerable and real. On Easter we come out of the wilderness proclaiming to the world that there is another way.  That the time is right now.  That God’s transformation of the world is already happening. And that you, and I, and everyone else, is invited us to trust in it and join in it too. Because it’s not in our hands at all, this is God’s show.

Beloved, children of God, delight of God’s heart, this is the story that defines you, this is the identity into which you are called, this is the truth spoken over you, and this is the life into which you are sent.  Baptism. Wilderness. Ministry. 

Let us join Jesus there and begin again.

Amen.

That God is here

Mark 1:1-20

Jesus is all grown up.  And he’s about to be introduced to the world for who he really is.  John has been paving the way, but God does the introducing.  And I think about how God wanted all this to start, and while there is a lot that varies in the different gospel accounts, Matthew Mark and Luke, and even John weighs in here a little bit, tell this part of the story the same way:

John is out there doing his prophet thing – just as his parents Zechariah and Elizabeth were told in Luke that he would be.  He’s out there telling the world – he’s coming. God with us is coming!

And then Jesus comes incognito among those gathering outside the city to listen to this wild man; in the midst of those longing for the redemption John passionately describes, to wade into the waters of repentance and renewal and say Yes to God.  Here among them, sandals dusty, palms sweaty and heart pounding hard, walks God with us.  With and alongside you and me.

The time has come, to begin what God came to earth in human form to do, and it begins here, first anonymous in the crowd, submitting to the ritual, then coming out of the waters of life to this striking moment, when God the Father, busting with joy, shouts out from the heavens, in light and dove and voice, Hey! This is my kid! My beloved! I am so delighted in him!

And then immediately the Spirit drives Jesus into the barren and lonely wilderness, with its disorienting desolation and fearsome beasts, and there, in his weakness, angels minister to Jesus.

And with the breathless urgency of Mark’s telling, immediately after that, Jesus’ ministry begins, and his first words are, “The time is now.

God’s reign is here among us! Change your mind, and trust in this good news!”

And then he calls out from the beach to ordinary people like you and me, doing their ordinary thing, “Follow me!” and something deep inside them feels seen and summoned, and without hesitation they walk away from all they’ve ever known to follow him.

And there is a movement to this whole thing, this mixture of vital ingredients, one after the other, God’s recipe for launching Jesus’ earthly ministry, and it can be shown like this, as a parent, here is what I would want my children to know about life as they head into the world:

First, you are just like everyone else, alongside them, no better, no worse. All humanity is in this together, drawn to hope and redemption, longing to say Yes to God.

Second, you are mine, absolutely beloved, and I am so delighted in you.

Third, life is really hard, and you will feel lonely, and overwhelmed.

But even when things within and around you feel chaotic and scary, God will always take care of you.

And lastly, you are not to go about this all alone – you need community, friends, people who have got your back and who will tell you the truth and will be in this with you, come what may.

And, so, this is the beginning of how God came to be with us. Immediately, these four elements are woven into Jesus’ life before he goes on in ministry, solidarity, belovedness, wilderness and community. They set him up for what is coming. The beginning of God with us.

Today we hear how Mark begins the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God, and for the next several weeks we’re going to fly through Mark – we will come back in the summer for some of the teachings and miracles- but Mark is going to take us through the season of Lent and Easter.

And so it’s important for you to know, right at the outset, that Mark has his own particular perspective, his own take on what is most important to know about who God with us and how God is with us, and it might be encapsulated by noticing this: 0% of this gospel is focused on Jesus’ birth or childhood.  And a full 40% of this gospel is focused on Jesus’ death and the passion narrative. 

Commentator C Clifton Black says, “This is of vital importance. No other religion, ancient or postmodern, professes its most patent contradiction as its most fundamental belief…. Only Christianity professes a crucified Messiah as the agent by whom this tortured world is being set to rights. Far from transporting its adherents out of this world’s vapor or viciousness, only Christian faith continuously drives them back to its most despicable mockery -- the shame of the cross -- and dares to proclaim that there, and nowhere else, has the God of the living acted incognito to restore all of creation.”

God goes into the darkest places with and for us. Our need to have a god who is strong and invincible, set apart and untarnished, with followers who are highly respectable, and worthy of admiration? Mark will blow all that away, and the disciples hardly know what is going on most of the time. 

Mark doesn’t spend a whole lot of energy on doctrinal claims or atonement theories – the good news of the gospel is declared in Jesus’ first words of ministry: God is here. God is with us in this life. And God goes all the way to and through death with and for us.

When my son Owen was born, they handed him to Andy while they tended to me, and I was aware of a conversation, a brand new Daddy and his tiny, swaddled, red-faced son, gazing into his face with alert attention, while Andy gently talked to him in an intimate whisper.  Later on, I asked him what he said in those first words, expecting some tender, sweet baby talk, but being the warped theologian that he is, he answered, “I welcomed him to this life and told him that he will one day die- that is what it means to be alive. But even so, he belongs to God, and God’s life never ends. And then I told him that he would be scared, and he would be sad, but he would never be alone. I am his Daddy, and I will be there with him.”

What if we said it that bluntly at baptism? You will die.  But my child, feel the truth poured over you in water, traced over you in oil, and prayed around you by the breath of the brethren gathered here to witness: no matter what, you belong to God, you belong to life eternal, which has conquered death, and you will never ever be alone.

Some people here today were baptized as babies and don’t remember it at all. The community who baptized you held that story for you, reminded you of that moment, as they reminded you of your place in the life of God.  And as you grew and struggled and ran from God and returned to God, what remained over you is this blessing and claiming of God. God’s Yes to you that drew you back to grace, to forgiveness, to new beginnings and lasting hope. God’s forever words over you, This is My beloved. No matter what and always.

Some people here today – myself included-  were baptized when they were older, when they gave their life to Jesus.  It was for us an outward sign of an inward reality-  that I belong to life instead of death, and I long to follow with my whole heart, and so I receive the grace that God bestows in the presence of this community that bears witness to my belonging to God.

Some people here today have not yet been baptized. And you belong to God no less than the rest of us.  But I want to invite you to consider being baptized, “tattooed with the resurrection,” as we’ve sometimes called it.  Because it is a sacrament, a marked moment in time, with water, words and witnesses, where the Holy Spirit seals what is true about you, and gives you something to look back on in the dark times, and the sad times, and the times when death feels big and scary, and say, Yes, I belong to God, no matter what. This is who I am: Beloved.

And one day, the truth this water and witness symbolizes and samples will be complete in all its fullness, when we stand in the very presence of God, whole, and healed, and part of the community of love that never, ever ends. 

We are grounded in the truth that death is real, and it’s scary, and we might be afraid, but we are never, ever alone. And we live that out alongside each other because when you belong to the Beloved, you see others through that same lens, and are able to recognize the claim of God on their life too – this one is my beloved! And this one! Beloved of God! Precious and irreplaceable!

The followers of Jesus in John’s gospel are witnesses, those called to notice and point out and recognize and share about Jesus. 

Matthew’s gospel seeks disciples, those who learn the teachings and absorb the meaning and see the big picture and shape their lives accordingly.

But in Mark, all they need to do is follow.

And they do a mostly lousy job of that.  They are generally selfish and hardheaded, slow to pick up on what Jesus is doing, and they fall asleep on him when he needs them most, but that doesn’t stop Jesus.  Jesus stays committed to them. Because Jesus is the good news: God is here with us, no matter what. 

So that day, on the beach, calling out to the first of them, stirring them from interested spectators into followers, Jesus invites them, as they are, I will make you fish for people – I know you, I know who you are. And it’s you, specifically, that I am calling. Show up.  Stay with me. Let go of what anchors you here and follow where I go.

And dear, eager disciples, you will not be able to, at least not very well, but Jesus will not give up on you, you beloved ones. Answer the call.

And here and now, we are the followers, called to go where he goes, to watch the truth lived out in the flesh: that we, and this whole earth, belong to God, that Belovedness is our source and our calling.

So come, follow Jesus into the waters, alongside everyone else. And hear the blessing spoken over you, BELOVED.  Face your wilderness, your wild beasts, your fear and hunger – you will not be abandoned, you will be cared for, fed, blessed, even within the chaos of this place.  And seek and find the community that follows with you, well and poorly; find those who help you show up.

Here’s where I say: This is that community.  And I am so blessed to be your pastor. There are not words for what a gift it is to be in this with you, and how astounding it feels to watch you be alongside each other in solidarity, belovedness, wilderness and community.  It is true what we say: When we are with and for each other we meet Jesus Christ, who is with and for us.

Oh, friends, this is a sacred and holy thing! It’s messy and we flail around a lot, but in all its awkwardness and joy, in all the ways we get it tragically wrong and beautifully right, it is the most holy thing I know. 

You should know, if you don’t already, that I have no tolerance for pretending when it comes to these things. If this ever were about acting a certain way, thinking or believing certain things, being part of some kind of set apart club, or being comforted by platitudes that insulate us from the pain and suffering of real life, then so help me God, I’d be out of here. I want nothing to do with those things.

For me, this can only be about the good news, which is, God is here, God has come, God is with us in THIS life, and every moment is infused with grace.  And we get to live in that reality together and help each other be real, and present to that mystery in our lives. To that miracle in the world.

Today we have our annual meeting, where we’ll look back at the last year and share together where we’ve seen God, where we’ve missed God, how we’ve joined in what the Spirit was doing, and what we hope and long for as we look forward.  

And we’ll use some business language and spreadsheets, and talk about paying bills and meeting a budget, but that is all stirred together with, and for the purpose of, seeking to be witnesses like John, and disciples like Matthew, and followers like Mark, to, above all, live in trust, ready to go where the Spirit leads us. 

And underneath it all is that holy heartbeat that claims us, beloved, that brings these people together mainly to keep on saying, in word and deed, God is right here, God is with us, the whole world is God’s, and we belong to the one who calls us Beloved.

For this, O Lord, I give you my deepest thanks.

Amen.

Non-negotiable and permanent

(Image from book, and short movie, "40" illustrated by Si Smith,
available through Proost, and totally worth getting)

Matthew 4:1-14

When I was a kid I went through a phase where I would pause at the edge of a hotel pool and pray fervently to be able to walk across it on the water, only to sink like a stone every single time.   And I used to kind of secretly wish that someone would try to kidnap me so I could “rebuke them in the name of Jesus!” and though it was some kind of magical talisman, a foolproof spiritual mace to disable any attacker.  Thankfully, the car with the candy out the window never rolled up on me.

What’s happening in our gospel text tonight feels almost as absurd as that.  It’s like a fever dream or drug trip, or, like the scene in the movie where the music and lighting change because the director is about to reveal something either about the character in front of you or the whole enterprise of life and living, and you’re supposed to lean forward and pay attention to the details and the words, the metaphor and deeper truth. 

Let’s assume there is something really important about this experience Jesus goes through that is essential to who he is and who we are and see where that takes us.

It begins by rushing past 40 days and 40 nights of wilderness in one breath.  Not a retreat escape in a Hawaiian oceanfront condo, but wilderness- as in, what the people wandered in for 40 years when they didn’t know who they were and were still learning whose they were. As in the place of struggle and bad stuff, where you end up when you don’t know where you’re going and you’re not sure it will end. 

40 days and 40 nights, like the Israelites who waited aimlessly and debauched at the bottom of the mountain for Moses while he chatted with God for just that long, coming up with the guidelines for a new life together. 

40 days and 40 nights like Noah and his brood bobbing around in a giant stink hole of noisy animals in a dark, dank wet world, listening to the neverending rain, wondering when it will end and what in the world could be on the other side when it does.

Long enough to despair, and to lose sight of who you really are and what the big picture is.

Wilderness.

A stripping away of everything you’ve known, without a sense of what is coming on the other side, if you even survive it.  So that is what kicks off this little standoff with the devious devil. 

But, wait, because that’s not actually the beginning of this.  Actually, the real beginning of this story comes right before the transition word. “then…”  Then the Spirit drives him out into the wilderness.  When?

Right after dive-bombing Jesus as he stands dripping in the river Jordan having been baptized by John.  The Spirit switches from descending dove in one verse to nagging sheepdog in the next. 

Hey everybody, this one belongs to me!. hey you, You are mine, my beloved. That’s who you are. And I claim you and make you part of what I am doing in the world. 

Now shoo!  off with you to struggle for your life in lonely isolation until you wonder if you can go on, and whether it’s even worth trying!

So, first, you belong to God, that is whose you are. You are God’s beloved, that is who you are.  This truth is a poured over you, dunked into you, stamped in oil and prayer on your forehead, witnessed by those around you and by the Spirit of the living God falling afresh on you, non-negotiable permanent naming and claiming. 

That’s where Jesus begins, that’s where we begin.

Then, wilderness.  Then we go into struggle.  Into loneliness and questions and hunger and fatigue.  Us, and Jesus.  That’s just the trajectory of life.  From blessing into struggle.

I think we need this story desperately, like we need Lent, and here are two of the reasons why. 

First, We need to see Jesus face this because it tells us something about being Jesus:  Jesus is not going to use extraordinary power to save himself from human hunger and weakness, he’s not going resort to parlor tricks and sensationalism to prove God to us, and he’s not going to display the kind of power the world would recognize and give accolades for.  God is bringing a different kind of reality with a different kind of security and identity and interdependence and a hidden kind of power that comes into our struggle and suffering instead of rescues certain ones of us out of it. 

The second reason we need this story is because it tells Jesus something about being us. Jesus needed to face this because we face it every day.   Not in these forms of course, (that would just be silly!) but we are tempted every day, maybe every moment, to accept as truth lies about ourselves, God and life, that lock us into slavery instead of freedom, and make us forget who we really are and whose we really are.

The tempter says to us:

There are things you need to do to be worthy of love and acceptance. If you were different, not you, somehow someone or something other than you, then you would be enough, and God, or other people, or the universe would finally be satisfied with you, and you’d know beyond a doubt that you are valuable.

And if you really want to contribute, if you want your life to have any kind of meaning and your voice to carry in any kind of way you need the right people to see and respect you, and you need to work your tail off and never let up.

Because nobody with grades like that, a face like that, a background like that, a resume like that, a medical condition like that, will make it in the real world. 

If you don’t get into the right school,

if you don’t get and keep the right job,

if you don’t have perfect, well behaved children,

or a doting, stable and committed partner,

or debt-free financial stability,

if you don’t have your mobility or your mental sharpness,

or a life free of whatever it is that most has a hold on you,

then you are less than others, and your contribution doesn’t matter. 

So you’d better either get those things however you can, or hide really well that you don’t have them.

And also, the world is in a lot of trouble, and you’re part of the problem – so let’s add to that guilt and duty and despair – as we strive to control what feels too big to control, and to care about what feels crushing in its sadness, and never to measure up to what we should be doing if any of this is going to make a difference.

We are slaves.  We labor under the weight of other people’s opinions, and worry and fear, and messages of rejection and perpetual bad decisions.

We are slaves to pressure to be deceptive and pressure to be good,

slaves to our own power and control,

and slaves to the relentless pace and impossible expectations we set for ourselves and hold other to. 

We are slaves to the evil and sin in the world and our part in it, and slaves to the message that it’s up to us to fix it all.  

We are slaves and world owns us – every waking minute and many sleeping ones, until it has used us up and we’ve gotten too creaky or forgetful or slow-moving, to be of much use, and then we’re not worth anything anymore.  So better cram it all in while it makes a difference and pretend that third act isn’t coming, and let anxiety and the frantic pace of self-preservation define us and dictate our every action because, we don’t really have a choice.

Except that we do.  Except that We are not slaves. 

We’ve been set free.  And those things are all lies.

Let’s go back to where it begins.

Who are you? You are beloved of God’s, uniquely you.

Whose are you? You belong to God, who has chosen you to join in love in the world.

Your purpose and meaning and identity are sealed permanently in God.  They are non-negotiable.  And even struggle, losing everything, facing down every demon and lie, can’t change that.  And this is God’s world, God is infusing it with love, you get to join in that – not lead it or carry it on your own, but share it with God and each other.

Tonight some of us talked before we came in here about how Sabbath is this gift and command, to stop everything, to step off the carousel on purpose, to put down all the things that we believe make us valuable and effective, or worthless and helpless, and just be. 

So that God can remind us who we really are without and despite it all. And so that God can remind us who is really is in charge of our lives, holding this world.  It brings us back to the beginning.

As it turns out that wilderness, temptation and Sabbath all kind of force us to face the same questions.

The other day my son had a terrible evening.  Someone did something that really hurt his feelings and he did something he felt really ashamed of.  It also happened to be his baptism day, so he linked the two and cried, I wish I was never baptized so this day would never have happened!  And I told him the bad news, which was that this day would’ve happened anyway, and it would happen again, and worse in his life. People would hurt him and let him down and he would hurt others, that was simply true. 

But then I told him that I was glad this happened on his baptism day, because what it helps us remember is this: these things, this terrible day, it doesn’t get to define you. It doesn’t get to say that is who you are – someone who hurts others, someone who is overlooked.  Instead, your baptism says that even though these things happened and will happen again, who you are is not up for grabs, it has already been decided. And who you belong to is none other than the God who holds the world in love.  

You are beloved of God, uniquely you, and you’ve been chosen to join God’s love in the world. And those things are fact. Period.

Sometimes we need the wilderness to remind us of that.  Struggle and isolation thrust those questions front and center.

Sometimes we need to look our temptations in the face to see the ugly truth of them and how close we come to giving in, or perhaps that we already have thrown ourselves off the building and bowed to the powers of this world. 

And sometimes – actually, as regularly as possible – we can face those questions and be reminded of their answers by stopping in defiance of it all, and simply being in the presence of one who knows us best and names us first, and calls us: Beloved of God, uniquely you, and part of my plan to love the world.  It can’t be earned by the wonderful things you do or the terrible things you refrain from doing. And it can’t be lost by the terrible things you do you do or the wonderful things you neglect to do.   It simply is the truth about you, because I said so.  It’s time to remember that.

Immediately after the tempter leaves Jesus, angels surround him like a pit crew.  He is famished, spent, emotionally and physically drained – collapsing into arms that give water, food, a wet cloth to the forehead, a shoulder to rest on.  He is tended to and reminded, and ready, to face the world, embrace his humanity, and join in the ministry of God.

And so in this tale of wilderness and temptation, we see something about being Jesus: that Godwithus comes right into the worst of it and doesn’t cave to the world’s interpretation of power, or worth. 

And Jesus sees something about being us.  This wilderness is practice. This temptation is a warm up. It’s his initiation into being human, vulnerable, and weak.  And it’s going to get worse.  But when it does, this remains true – beloved of God, part of God’s plan to love the world.  Non-negotiable and permanent.

Amen.