What she might ask us

John 4:1-42

Don’t you sometimes wish you could talk to these people? About what it was like? About what happened to them?  What if tonight we could talk to the woman who had a conversation with Jesus all those years ago? 

The Samaritan woman–

Samaritans, by the way, same God and same ancestors as the Jews – better translated Judeans because they were all Jewish - but different practices, different scriptures, different worship.  Each one right, each one knowing the other to be wrong. Tense and distant, they avoided each other whenever possible. Which was often possible, and meant that despite the shortest route from Judea to Galilee being through Samaria, it wasn’t often used by Judeans.  And if Jesus had taken the regular route, this conversation might never happened.  They might never have met.  

But God so loved the world.  And Jesus went through Samaria.  

So the conversation happened.

It’s the hottest time of day, lonely and dusty, and you come alone to the well.  It’s just easier that way –you stopped trying to come in the early morning with the other women and children. Nobody really talks to you anyway, and it’s too painful to see them surrounded by their children, their big, loud families, talking about their sons, and husbands, and you trudging along behind with your water jug on your shoulders, no one to share your load.  So you come alone at the hottest time of day.

Today there is someone there.  He looks like a Judean, not Samaritan anyway.  He looks hot and tired, and he is sitting by the well.  You ignore him and go about your business.  Until he clears his throat and asks you, Excuse me, can I have a drink of that water?

And the conversation begins.  

Encountering God, seeing Jesus, this life of faith and following, is not about answers handed down from heaven, not about good behavior or earned right or accumulated knowledge.  It’s a conversation– it’s a back and forth with doubt and insight and frustration and challenge and breakthroughs and mysteries that remain unsolved. 

It’s sweaty, dusty thirst, a complicated living situation, and a lonely person who is drawing water in the heat of midday without the company of other women.  It’s the glaring differences and walls that separate absolutely, but a moment of connection anyway, dignity, humanity, shared need, shared generosity.

And so they begin the conversation.  Jesus and this woman.

Jesus and you.

And he knows all about your tragedy.  You have no people; five times you’ve been divorced, abandoned, or widowed.  Maybe it’s because you’re infertile, but a man can cast off a woman for nearly any reason. 

Over the centuries, I am sorry to say, you’ve gained the reputation for being of ill-repute, (after all, we deduce, there must be some seedy reason you go through men so fast). But the truth is, your more disposable than easy.

Without husband or sons, you have no protection, security, food or home, so you clings to what you can, even though time and again you are discarded and ditched.  You’ve come to see yourself the way the world sees you - unwanted, unvalued – belonging to nobody and fending for yourself, outcast and lonely. 

But none of that stops him from having the longest recorded conversation he had with anyone, with you.  He sees you.  And he talks to you anyway.  He talks to you like you’re smart.  He listens to you and answers back.  When was the last time someone listened to you and answered back?

Living water, he says. Springing up from within; water of life and living.  What does it mean? You feel alive, in this conversation, this moment; you arrived at the well dead, and right now you feel alive. 

It is said that to be seen and to be known is to feel love.  Love feels like this.  When he sees you, you’re a person, not a tragedy. A person, not a reputation. A person, not a burden.  The life within you wakes up.  You’re someone who participates, someone with a voice.  When he sees you you’re as you were meant to be seen, you feel your life as it was meant to be lived, longing to live within you.

I can see you’re a prophet, you say.  Your people say Jerusalem is where God is found and only if you worship there are you seeking God.  Our people say this mountain in front of you is the place God meets us.

Believe me, woman, he answers you, the time is coming when it wont matter – here, Jerusalem, wherever.  Those who truly seek God will do so in honesty and longing, and God, who is Spirit – not captured in bricks and mortar, doctrines and definitions – will meet those who long for God right where they are.

I know the Messiah is coming…. You answer. 

And a thrill of hope goes through you when he responds in the timeless words of  Yahweh, “I am.”

This is when it all changed for you.  The whole world cracked open.

You left the jar, you know, like James and John left their nets, you walked away from the thing that had brought you there to begin with. You left behind who you were in that moment it all changed.  All that weighed you down, all that held you back from running, kept you silent from speaking, kept your eyes from meeting others, your heart from opening to the world around you, you left it there at the well beside him.  And you ran.  You ran back to your town and you told the people, you told everyone – come and see.   Come and see this man who knows everything about me.  He can’t be the Messiah, can he?

And they came. They listened to you to.  Turns out you are someone that people listen to.  Turns out you have things to say.

They invited him to stay that day, and he did. 

You know why they all listened to you, don’t you? You were completely different when you came back without that water jug. You ran into town confident, joyful. You slunk out of town a shadow, and you returned luminous, as one who overcomes.  You had a passion and purpose, your shoulders were high and your head was raised and your voice was firm and your eyes lit up and people couldn’t help but stop and stare, take in what you were saying, see for themselves that you were different. 

The way you yearned for the water when he said it – the way everything inside you longed to be filled, they felt that too, when they saw you.  It is like a spring, you know, that came right up out of you and spilled onto others, until they went to the source of the water themselves.

It is said that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and dwells among us.  That day the Word made flesh dwelled among you.  Love moved into the neighborhood. And your people beheld his glory.  And they called him the salvation of the world.  Because they had tasted the living water themselves.  They had felt the life they were meant to live bubbling up inside them, the love they were meant to share longing to spill out onto others.  They had seen the light of the world. The light of the world had seen them.  And being seen and known, it is said, is what it feels like to be loved.

Now the disciples didn’t seem too happy about this at first.  They went off to buy the lunch and came back to a different evangelism strategy.  For truly, you are not only the first person Jesus revealed that he is Messiah, but you are the first preacher, really, the first evangelist, and your whole town signs on pretty quickly, and you all weren’t even on the tour schedule, so no wonder the disciples were a little taken aback.

But Jesus tells his disciples that day that they are part of something that started before them and continues after them – their part is important but this isn’t their parade.  The work they do now was begun by others, and that these people they dismiss without a thought are the ones who Jesus will be staying with for the next couple of nights, so just sit back and let it unfold – for God so loves the whole darn world.

And we keep looking at all your stories and at our own stories, your lives and our own lives, and wondering, Who is this God?  And what is God up to?  Nicodemus with your questions and hesitation; woman, with your baggage and your boldness, What happens to you when you meet the light of the world? What happens to the world?

And disciples, how long before you realized it?  That Jesus will always be found in the world, that Jesus came for the world? That nobody gets a corner on God, and as soon as we’ve labeled ourselves the temple people or the mountain people or the true followers, we’re about to be surprised by Jesus who comes to us alongside and for the other.  Indeed, "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him."  And we are invited along for this ride.

So, I would ask the woman tonight if I could, 

What would you say about that day? About your life since that day?  

And in turn she might ask us some things too. 

Where are your encounters with God, your conversations with faith and following? 

Where are your back and forth with doubt and struggle, where are the places you are drawn in and the places mystery still remains?

And, she might add, What’s your water jug?  

What would you like to leave behind? 

What burdens do you carry and beliefs about yourself and the world that hold that hold you back from joining in the life God is calling you to?

She might ask us, Where have you tasted living water?  Felt the parched thirst within and the thrill of coming alive? Where does the life within you join in the life in the world, in the love that was meant to be shared?

But mostly, I wonder if she’d look at us with shining eyes and poised shoulders and gently ask us about the places and times we’ve been seen.  When we’ve been known.  The times we’ve been turned inside out, changed, saved, by love.  When love has called us out of ourselves to give of ourselves for others.  Or simply to lift our head and lean over to a stranger, and ask for a drink of water ,and see what happens after that.

And after we’d tired out from talking, we’d sit a while in silence. 

And then, together, out of our being, with honesty and longing, we would worship God, in Spirit and in truth.

Amen.

5 Questions

The NEXT Church Conference is coming to Minneapolis March 31-April 2.

In addition to wonderful speakers and inspiring workshops, I will be sharing a bit of the story of Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church, and our worship team will be leading a prayer service.

There is still time to register for this event.

In anticipation of the event, they are putting out a series called "5 Questions," interviewing the speakers of the conference.  Today they posted my interview.

As though born all over again

Taser chase of John 3:16

John 3:1-17

There is no bible passage more known, recognized, beloved, despised and exhausted than John 3:16.  It was the first verse I memorized as a young child in Sunday school; it is held up on signs from time to time by zealots in clown wigs at the sidelines of football games and can be found on bumper stickers, license plates, and printed on the bottom of the disposable cups from In-n-out Burger.  “John 3:16” - as though someone would go home or to a library or on the internet after eating their burger and look it up in a bible and discover Christianity for the first time.  

John 3:16 has become a kind of shorthand invitation to give your life to Christ, to have a conversion experience, so it comes with a lot of assumptions and baggage.

 When I was 11 years old, I had my first outing with a friend and no adults to take a bus into the city and go shopping and out for lunch.  We were feeling quite grown up and proud to be on our own, and not a little nervous when we realized a group of teenagers were watching us from across the pizza restaurant.  

We got increasingly uncomfortable as their attention to us became more obvious.  Finally, our hearts started racing when a few of them got up from their table and approached us.  “Excuse me,” they said, “we want to share something with you.”  And they took out a pamphlet with John 3:16 quoted on the front of it, and began telling us about Jesus, and how he had come to save us from our sins if we would only believe in him.  We were relieved to tell them that we were already converted Christians, so they had no need to share their message with us, and they seemed relieved to hear it.

These are the things that come to mind for me when I hear John 3:16.

What does not come to mind for me is Nicodemus.  This teacher of the faith, wise leader, who comes to Jesus - the one this gospel calls “the light of the world that the darkness cannot put out” - in the dead of the night, when nobody else can see him coming.  And he sort of asks a question, or implies one, anyway, when he says something like, “Some of us think that you are from God...” with an unspoken yearning just underneath the evocative statement.

And so Jesus begins talking about the kingdom of God, and how one must be “born from above” in order to see it, as though God’s kingdom is so foreign it cannot be recognized by us as we are, in this world as it is, and also as though God’s kingdom is somehow happening right here and now and we are missing it - not far away and in the future.  

He reminds Nicodemus of a strange time back when the people were wandering in the wilderness: they were dying from snake bites and needed only to look on a snake God had told Moses to create from bronze and lift before them, and they would live.

And then a little way into this conversation, which by this point has become a monologue, Jesus himself says the words of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish...”

I suspect that part of the problem we have with this verse that’s been called “the gospel in a nutshell,” is that we hear within it the implication that we need saving.  That somehow, without something extra, something different, something done to us or by us, we will perish.  It implies we are in some kind need.  We need salvation.

That’s not the only place this is implied, by the way.  We hear it all the time, this suggestion that we need some sort of saving.  If we had a nicer home, a better job, smoother skin, cooler clothes, THEN we would be enough.  Life would be good; it would last. The fear of perishing is prevalent and powerful, and it permeates everything.

 

A while back Owen called me into the living room where he had paused the television.  “Mom, this is important, you’ve got to see this.” And he rewound it past commercials for kids’ toys, which looked enticing, and cheerful vacation destinations and fun-looking restaurants to a boring looking, clearly adult-oriented commercial.  The advertisement had urgent music and scenes of people whose faces were filled with worry and fear, and then showed official and competent-looking people with headsets on, sitting at computers in a clean, white room, nodding comfortingly while typing efficiently.

“Your identity can be stolen on the internet; it is a far greater risk than you may realize! But for just a few dollars a month you can have insurance to protect you against identity theft. Our experts will ensure your life remains your own.”  

“Do we have that, mom?” he asked. “We should get that right away.”

The most terrifying prospect had invaded his cartoon-watching: that someone could steal your very life.  And then what would you have left?  Any amount of money is worth preventing perishing.

But we are perishing, actually.  All the time. Anxiety and hidden sadness plagues us.  Marriages fall apart; friendships break down. Cancer attacks our bodies, and worries attack our minds, and we feel life slipping away: in the words we cannot take back, and the choices we cannot have back, and the clock we cannot turn back.  We know all about perishing.  We understand perishing. It’s living we’re a little fuzzy on.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever does not believe in him will perish and disappear forever.”  THAT reading makes sense to us. THAT message is clear to us. We need to do something, give our life to God, convert, believe, repent, change, to prevent perishing.  That we get. We are quite accustomed to doing things, saying things, buying things, and sacrificing things in the frantic attempt to keep from perishing. This is a message we understand completely.  We live our whole lives, most of us, to avoid dying.

But I wonder about Nicodemus, sneaking out of his house and hoping his neighbors don’t see him slink off into the darkness, searching out this man, Jesus, this slightly suspect, intriguing and dangerous, radical street-preacher, about whom the rumors are swirling but whose words cannot leave Nicodemus alone.

I imagine Nicodemus, moving through the shadows, driven by his questions, doubts, wonderings, that he even cannot quite articulate.  I wonder about the man who comes in the darkness, with that tangled ball of question pressing in on his heart, of loss and death and the inexplicable places where light does not seem to shine and perishing feels imminent and real.

And Jesus’ words to him are not clear, simple steps to safety or salvation.  They do not prey on fears, and they avoid altogether strategizing against death.  They speak a mystery: they speak of life that death cannot extinguish. They speak of being born into new life, life from above, life that is set not towards inevitable perishing, but toward love, wholeness, life. Life with a different trajectory. How can these things be??  Nicodemus asks, incredulous, awake, longing to take these things into himself.

For God so loved Jesus says, for God So deeply and fully loves this perishing world that God gave the only son...

So the words come to Nicodemus’s longing ears and hesitant heart,

 Whoever trusts in this God, whoever relaxes their being into the being of God, whoever finds their life in the life of the creator of all life will live!

In John, remember, believing is not actually about knowing. It isn’t signing on with your mind, accepting a set of facts you can argue.  Believing is trusting.  “Believe in me” means “trust me”, know that I am for you, open yourself to me, lean into me.  Trust in me and you will find life everlasting.

Jesus isn’t selling Nicodemus a way to pretend we can prevent perishing, instead he is inviting him into a life that outlives even death.

Oh, Nicodemus, with your questions and your brilliance and your competence, lurking in the shadows of darkness with the ball of question pressing on your heart– have you ever heard something so fantastic? How can this be? This shocking love of God? This perishing world is so adored and treasured and claimed and held by God, this world is joined by God, shared by God, upheld and redeemed by God?  

Can you even conceive of this the backwards stream of resilient, enduring, ever-lasting life against the relentless march towards death?  How did your heart hear these words, Nicodemus of the night?

God so loves this world... God will not let it go, God came in and joined in this perishing world, and is saving it.  God Is bringing life out of death and hope from despair and joy from sorrow and healing from brokenness and heading everything to a time when perishing itself will perish.  This is resurrection language.

Trust in him – this one standing with you in this perishing world, the very life you are living created by his hands… 

Trust in him and even death in all its forms, isolation and loss, grief and separation, death itself – cannot have the final say over you.  Trust, find yourself, rest your being, in the one who has come to share life with you, and you will not perish, but will truly live.

Perhaps this is not, after all, a verse for the glaring false light of football stadiums, or to be printed on license plates and held up on posters. Perhaps it’s not meant to be handed out by nervous teenagers on written pamphlets and spoken with a salesperson’s confidence and belief and sureness.  Perhaps, after all, it is not just another advertisement feeding our fear, another form of insurance against perishing sold to us to help us pretend we can avoid death.  We can’t, after all.

Perhaps, instead, this verse makes the most sense whispered in the places of darkness by the light of the world himself.  I see you, Nicodemus, in this perishing world, and I know it all makes no sense, so little sense, in fact, that you must be as though born all over again free from the logic of this world to sort it all out!, but no matter, here it is: God so loves the world that I have come; you are now no longer alone. God so loves the world, that this darkness you see will not prevail.

Trust in me, and you will truly live. 

Amen.

A basket full of cell phones

Last weekend a wonderful thing happened. A bunch of people took a 24 hour-long deep breath.  For 24 hours they said no to things in order to remember that they are free, and they said yes to things that would give them joy.  They did this on purpose, and they didn’t do this alone. 

First, they gathered in a room and shared some hopes and hesitations about Sabbath, and learned a little bit about what sabbath even is, and why it’s worth doing and talking about. 

Then they gathered in worship, with others from Lake NokomisPresbyterian Church, sharing prayers, song, silence and blessing. 

In the middle of the worship, a cell phone rang.  

I stopped the sermon.  

We acknowledged our discomfort, since most of our cell phones were sitting in a basket on the communion table and nobody knew which one was ringing.  It could be any one of ours. 

What important, pressing thing was happening that we were not privy to at that exact moment?  Tension.  Distraction.  Pause.

Release the anxiety back to God, and seek to be present right here again.

A meal followed, and people lingered around tables with friends and strangers, enjoying company and conversation in that magical place of nowhere else to be.  And then they left one by one, two by two, into the night, with a candle and a prayer in their pockets, and 24 hours ahead of them, guarded from work and worry, and open to rest and play.

I remembered later that evening that Daylight Savings Time would begin the following morning, and then realized in delight that for our Sabbathers, this would have absolutely no impact on the day.  Since we would be moving through time guided by things like curiosity, hunger, longing and enjoyment, and not by things like clocks, appointments, lists or obligations, we were buffered temporarily from its effects.

On Sunday night, a few people checked in online about their sabbath time.  They shared things like: sleeping until waking, 

coffee and reading, 

puzzles, 

playing in the snow, 

making food for people they love. With joy.

Moments of stopping and feeling aware, awake and grateful.  

Seeing those around them, feeling present. 

Following a Holy Spirit rabbit trail – a magazine picture reminding of a trip with a friend leading to a note of gratitude for a long friendship.  

Struggling with the space, floundering for direction.  

Reclaiming and remembering later, and honoring the difficult moments as much as the ones that flowed easily. 

And these many days later, I still feel kind of stilled in wonder.

What we thought might be a fun way to introduce Sabbath in a structured event or program, instead became a holy encounter. We lived worship, hospitality and Sabbath, (our three formative practices as a congregation), all in one moment, and as a missional gift to the world.  Instead of one group providing a service others, we found ourselves alongside one another, embraced in the warmth of community, sharing food, stories, and communal rhythm, noticing God together, and then gently nudging each other to try something brave and life-giving, whether again or for the first time.  
Indeed, God meets us when we come together.  And holds us in that holy space when we are apart.

This whole experience, and the possibility it opens up, makes my heart sing.

Thank you to those who shared in this encounter. 

This, I suspect, may be the first of many deep breaths to come...

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.

Being in on the miracle

"Reconciliation" by Rebekiss

Matthew 5:1-12 (9-12)

Beatitude Series - Part 5 (of 5)

The Hebrew word for Peace, Shalom, means “fullness” or “completion”.  So when you greet one another or say goodbye, with Shalom, what you are really saying is, “May you be completed.”

Blessed are the shalom-makers, Jesus says, the peace-makers, the fullness-makers.

Peace is not a wispy idea or ethereal concept. It’s an actual thing. 
Conflict and division – they are real, heavy and dark and sharp, a crushing and weighty thing. But peace is not just taking that away, leaving nothing in its place but a vacuum, a hollow restlessness, shallow emptiness where squashed down discord smolders or discontent breeds like mildew.  
Peace is not an empty, wasted space of enforced silence between otherwise foes.  No. Peace has substance and girth. It exists in the world. It is something you can hold and touch and smell; Peace is tangible and real wholeness.

It’s what God’s kind of life tastes like and feels like in your hands.

We know the feel of peace.

It’s that thing that happens between people when forgiveness is slowly labored into, 
and when love is discovered and shared. When, drifting along untethered, someone sees you and values you.

To the drug-addled mind and listless soul, peace is clarity and grounding.

To the fearful and lonely person, peace is belonging and trust.

To the frenzied and chaotic life, peace is order and settled calm.

To the heartbroken and despairing ones, peace is solidarity and hope.

Between warring factions, peace is not just taking away weapons or working out a tenuous agreement not to set each other off.  It’s the building of bridges, the joining together, the solidarity and shared humanity.  Choosing to see each other and reach out.  It’s enemies into friends.  It is together instead of separate, whole instead of shattered. Harmony instead of discord. 

And Jesus calls us not peace-keepers or peace-noticers but peace-makers. 

Peace is something we can make.

We can literally share in the substance of God’s life, here and now. 

To contribute to others’ fullness, fullness in the world around us, and the fullness between us, we can do that.  Peace-making is not just the job of negotiators on the front lines of international treaties, it’s all of us.  Every day. 
Whenever we are part of the wholeness and fullness for others, whenever we say by our words or actions, “May you be completed,” we make peace. We weave it and bake it and write it and say it and hug it and listen it into being and pack it into the empty crevices so it fills up the space where once there was strife and strain.

Each one of us, every day, in as many ways as we notice, can be peacemakers in the world.

But, being peace-makers doesn’t mean we’re suddenly not tension-makers and crazy-makers too.  We still get impatient and frustrated and annoyed and angry and lashing out from things often come easier and opportunities for them come just as often.  And being a peace-maker is also not the same as being a conflict avoider, you might “keep the peace” by not addressing what’s really going on, but you are not making peace. 

Making peace is to face reality and stand in the place of tension, holding out prayer and hope for the fullness and completion of each person in the room despite and in the midst of conflict.  Being a peacemaker starts with “being surrendered to God, for God brings peace."

Glen Stassen says, “We abandon the effort to get our needs met through the destruction of enemies. God comes to us in Christ to make peace with us; and we participate in God's grace as we go to our enemies to make peace.
” (with David P. Gushee, Kingdom Ethics)

In on the miracle are, then, are those who surrender to God and participate in the fullness and completing God brings among us –  they share in the very substance of God.

Our second movement today is the longest beatitude, and the one that suddenly shifts the conversation from blessed are they to blessed are YOU…

Up to this point, Jesus’ big sermon opener was hypothetical, theoretical, even.  It was general and universal– the meek, the poor in spirit, the peacemakers.  You could read yourself into it or not.  You could be sitting back in the grass and letting this sermon float right over you, or jotting down your notebook the wise isms from this guru and close it up, take it home, put it on a shelf and leave it at that. Until he says, You. Blessed are you when people persecute you and slander and revile you for my sake, your reward is in heaven! Subtext: This will happen.

Now, it’s one thing to get the pep talk about how you’ll be glad you did this hard thing because you’ll immediately notice why it was worth it, exercise because it will make you stronger, eat healthier and you’ll feel better, forgive the person who hurt you and you will be free, mourn and you will be comforted.  That’s one thing.

 But being told, this is going to suck, and even if nobody else around you now sees or appreciates how hard this is, one day when this is all over and this life is past you’ll be rewarded. 

Also, just to make it even punchier, it is the first time in five weeks we’ve had a command.  All the rest of the beatitudes are just telling us like it is – the meek are blessed, the poor in spirit, they’re blessed too.  Now, when we get to persecution and slander and people telling terrible lies about you, we find our first command: Rejoice! The Greek here is literally, “Leap exceedingly”!

Kick up those heels, baby, when you’re being torn to shreds! You’re in good company, and not only that, you will have a tremendous prize when this life is all over! Yipee!

Now, there have been, and are now, Christians who experience terrible persecution for their faith, like torture and death, and the first century people hearing Jesus’ words in Matthew are no strangers to the threat.  I was a child of the 80s, and the thought of Russian Protestants hiding in underground meetings and facing imprisonment and punishment for their faith was seared into my consciousness. Persecution for following Jesus is real, and it’s not to be taken lightly.  But in case we’re tempted to pass over this beatitude, thinking it applies only to these extreme circumstances, we get persecution broken down a bit, to include “despise and insult you and make up lies about you on my account.”  Blessed are you when you’re hated for representing me.

Fourteen years ago I was a green and timid chaplain, responding one night to a code blue. A code blue meant someone had stopped breathing, and the chaplain came mainly to sit with whatever family might be around, to provide some comfort, to be a non-anxious presence while all the medical personnel were rushing in and out of the room.  I was jolted awake from my restless sleep by the page, shivering in my tiny on call room, hurrying to pull on my shoes and blazer, smooth down my hair and put my badge around my neck, and dashed out and made my way to the floor as fast as I could waking up as I went. When I rounded the corner into the long white hallway, I could see the scene unfolding on the other end, blaring lights, code siren still beeping, people in white coats and scrubs rushing into the room, a chaotic dance of voices and movement and intensity.  Just outside the door, a woman sat on a chair with her head in her hands, gently rocking.  I began walking toward her, and she lifted her head and saw me – 30 yards away -- I have no idea how she knew from that distance that I was the chaplain, but she did --- and her face twisted into a look of total terror and rage and she rose to her feet and shouted at the top of her lungs at me, “NOT YOU! You Go AWAY! Do NOT Come Any Closer! We DO NOT WANT YOU HERE!!!”

“But I’m just here to sit with you…,” I stammered, “nothing more…”

“NO!  I MEAN IT. GET OUT OF HERE NOW!!!!!” She roared.

Her words hurtled down the hallway and hit me in the chest, I stumbled backwards, struggling to breathe and fighting back tears, and turned and raced back down the stairs to my on call room where I slammed the door and leaned against it crying.  What did she think I was there to do? Did she think the chaplain showing up meant her loved one would die? I wondered. Or had she had such a terrible experience in the past with religion or religious people that I represented something hateful and vile to her? Something that would take away instead of give? I wanted her to know I was not there to hurt her and only wanted to help. 

But after a while I began to see that this was her deep pain and nothing to do with me.  And I could still help.  I could hold her in prayer from a distance.  She could hate me if she wanted to.  It would make no difference in the truth of what I was there for, whether she chose to recognize or believe it or not, I would remain on her side and support her if she needed me, regardless.  And most importantly, I knew God was with her, loving her through this, and if not through me, I’d continue to pray for a way she could know that too, in a way she could receive it.

In a world where people are more often against instead of for each other, where so often we hurt and ignore others, where mercy is not the means of relating, when you’re hated for standing in the way of Christ, and you will be at some point, rejoice, and take heart.

When you step out of the game, turn away from strategies of manipulation and violence, decline competition, and the corrosive need to be right or control what people think of you, and instead you seek to love people – all people, when you want the overlooked to stand side by side with the prestigious, and you think there might be enough to go around if we shared and so you take steps toward that, and when you try to forgive instead of hold onto anger and grudges, and you let gratitude lead you to be generous, and you have some sense that this is all gift, and even the most terrible suffering is not meant to be borne alone, and so you seek to go there with others, the truth is: You are not doing this to get people to like you and admire and respect you, and include you in their list of important people.  And since you’re undermining the system, that’s probably not going to happen. But that doesn’t matter, because that’s not why you’re in this to begin with.

You’re living this way because you are in on the miracle, and you’ve heard the love of God calling you to stand with Jesus in the world on behalf of your neighbor. 

So, the promise of this last beatitude is that what you are doing is noticed.  Maybe not by those around you right now- maybe it will even be deeply misunderstood and you will be labeled and dismissed or hated. But the world would not be the same without you, and there is a whole cloud of witnesses, of those who’ve been in on the miracle longer than you have, cheering you on.  And one day, when all this is over, you will be thanked by the Creator of all for your participation in the miracle.

So blessed, then, are the peace-makers, who share the substance of God, and contribute to the fullness and completion others, and blessed are you when you are persecuted for the sake of the kingdom of God. 

You have some sense that there is more to all this than we can see, and one day, alongside others who’ve given their lives to love, you’ll receive the satisfaction and joy of knowing you got to be part of life as God means for it to be shared.

That concludes our season with the beatitudes, where life as God means for it to be shared begins with blessing.  

So as we close, hear this:

Sisters and brothers, you are in on the miracle. 

Blessed indeed, are we.

Amen.