Walking in Jesus’ Footsteps: The Road and Life Ahead

Have you ever noticed that in a horror movie, the people in it always make the wrong decision about what to do? They decide that they’re going to go into a dark house by themselves, or not wait for back up, or who knows. Don’t you just want to yell at the people in the movie—“No! Don’t go in there!” or “Turn around!” One of my favorite commercials ever is for a car insurance company, maybe you’ve seen it. In it, four young adults [Slide 2] are apparently running from someone really scary, and they face some choices—should they a) [Slide 3 – Spooky house] hide in the attic, b) hide in the basement, c) [Slide 4 – car] escape in the running car, or d) [Slide 5 – Chain saw wall] hide behind a bunch of chainsaws hanging up. They decide to hide behind the hanging chainsaws. The narrator says, “If you’re in a horror movie, you make poor decisions—it’s what you do.” The movie pans to the serial killer, [Slide 6 – Serial killer rolling eyes] who rolls his eyes about how stupid the young adults are being. The thought is, if you want to make a good decision, switch to that insurance company. The last line you hear is the young adults saying, “Let’s head to the cemetery.” If you’re in a horror movie, heading to the cemetery seems like a bad idea, don’t you think? [Slide 7 – Title slide] For Mary, Mary (James’ mom) and Salome, they felt like they were in a horror movie. On Friday, they had watched as the Romans wrongfully convicted and executed the innocent Jesus by crucifying him, watched as Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took Jesus down from the Cross, and paid attention to the tomb where they laid him. Part of the horror was that they all thought Jesus was the Messiah, that He was going to be King, and that they would see the world start to go right—but everything had gone so wrong. How could people do that to this kind, compassionate man of God, who healed the sick with a touch, and taught about God’s love? A horror movie! And now, these women were headed to the cemetery. At least they waited for daylight!

Since Easter is the exact opposite of a horror movie, perhaps we should lay to rest some of the “horror movie” ideas about Jesus’ resurrection. 

1.   Jesus, the Zombie Lord is not a thing.[Slide 8 – Not reanimated] A zombie is a reanimateddead person. The soul is gone, but the dead is moving again. Jesus was resurrected, not reanimated. Hebrews, Jews and Christians believe that our body and soul are inextricably bound—the person can’t exist without both. So resurrection means you rise from the grave, body and soul together. Jesus is not a zombie, but real, flesh-blood-and-soul alive and kicking evil’s backside all over the place.

2.   Jesus wasn’t really dead.[Slide 9 – Jesus really did die.] Sometimes you will hear people float the idea that the Romans messed up and Jesus wasn’t really dead when they took him down from the Cross and put him in the tomb. In this scenario, Jesus just got up and walked away. Those folks probably hadn’t witnessed a Roman crucifixion. The Romans knew exactly how to crucify people. It took five Roman soldiers, and they each had a specific job. They were brutally efficient, professional killers, who set up crucifixion assembly lines, once lining the road from the Galilee to Jerusalem with 2000 people. The Romans never missed. Jesus was dead.

3.   That Jesus the human died, but Jesus the Son of God didn’t die.These folks argued that when Jesus came back to talk with His disciples, he was a ghost. [Slide 10 – Jesus is not a ghost] But thenwe look at the way people experienced Jesus after the resurrection, Jesus could eat, he could hold things, and he could touch people. So, nope, not a ghost. Jesus really died and was really resurrected.

How did the resurrection happen? If Jesus was dead, how did He get to be alive again? How do we know it happened? 

We may never really know how it happened, though CS Lewis, in his book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, takes a crack at it:  that there is a deep law of love woven into the fabric of the universe, there before Satan came along, there before Satan’s fall from heaven. Satan didn’t understand this law. Satan only understood that someone had to pay the price for each of us and the wrong that we have done. So Satan was thrilled to have a chance to take out the Son of God! If Satan had known this deeper law, Lewis writes, [Slide 11 – CS Lewis quote] “[Satan] would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the [Law] would crack, and Death itself would start working backward.” So the way Jesus died—innocent though he was—and the way Jesus experienced the totality of abandonment by God—“My God! My God! Why have You forsaken me?”—has everything to do with why God raised Him from the grave. Instead of death having the last word, because of Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection, God has the last word, [Slide 12 – Last word] and the last word is love. Love is more important than power or profit. Love is more important than comfort or privilege. Politics and violence all fade in significance before the grace and love of God. It’s grace that Jesus died before we were ready and before we were good. It’s love that Jesus even now holds out His hand to each of us, longing for us to know Him better. 

The women going to the tomb felt like they were caught up in a horror movie, and sometimes so do we, don’t we? We look at the horrific images of what the Russians are doing to Ukrainian citizens, hear about the guy who shot up the NY subway, or think about the millions people who have died because of a run-away virus in the last 3 years. Or we could think about the racism, sexism, the climate crisis, or the way the world’s top 10% owns 75% of the world’s wealth, or how our politics are so toxic and divisive. Everything is going to heck in a hand-basket, and to top it all off, we are just one misguided missile, drone, or plane away from World War 3. But something changed [Slide 12 – Women] for those women that day. They left the tomb trembling with astonishment, filled with fear. Wouldn’t you? Death is one of those things no one comes back from. When you’re dead, you’re dead…but now Jesus isn’t? What does thatmean? Something changed for those women that day. The news they carried about Jesus being resurrected did in fact change the lives of Jesus’ friends. On Friday and Saturday, Jesus’ followers were cowering in their locked rooms, certain they were the next to go on trial and be executed. Starting Sunday night, after they hear the reports and see and touch Jesus, they are bold in sharing the Good News they had found—Jesus wasn’t dead and that meant all bets were off! New life was not just possible, but a sure thing. Something changed for those women, and something can change in us too. [Slide 14 – Change in us] The promise of resurrection wasn’t just for Jesus, because Jesus said it could apply to us too. That yes, we will all die, but when Jesus comes again, those who lived with Jesus—for Jesus—would be resurrected. That’s the hope of Easter—not just that Jesus rose from the grave, but that someday, we could too. Something can change in us too, as we realize that the horror movie of the world isn’t the last word, and some day it will end, and a new day begin. Something can change in us too, and our lives can be defined not by the horror movie of the world, but by the Easter story, our lives defined by the sacrifice, grace and love that Easter shows will win. Something can change in us too, by the grace of God, and a Jesus who is not dead… [Slide 15 – He is risen!] He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Walking in Jesus’ Footsteps: He’s Saying Your Name

When I was a kid, I knew a lot about what was going to happen by how people said my name. Mom would kick us out of the house earlier in the day—or we would leave before she could assign us chores—and as the streetlights were coming on, wherever we were in the neighborhood, I could hear her calling from the front steps, “Doug-las!” I knew dinner was ready and it was time to come inside and wash up. If she said, “Douglas!” like that, I had stepped out of line and she was telling me where the boundary line was. If she pulled out my middle name—“Douglas Lorbeer Gray!”—it meant that the apocalypse had arrived and if I wanted to be on the right side of the End Times, I had best pay attention. Usually repentance was a good beginning step. What I love about our Easter scripture is the power of names, and I think we can tell a lot by what names are used.

Of course, there’s Peter. His real name was Simon, which means “sinking sand,” but after he started following Jesus, Jesus started calling him, Peter, which means “the rock.” I think that’s hilarious, part of Jesus sense of humor. But Jesus always called him Peter, except for when he was showing a lack of faith, like at the Last Supper, when Jesus said, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” Or after Jesus had risen from the dead, Jesus asked, “Simon…do you truly love me?”. But here in John, as this older guy is running to catch up to a much younger man, he is Peter, the rock on whom Jesus will build His church.

And then there’s “the other disciple.” Who is that guy? In the Gospel of John, this disciple appears a few times:  here as “the other disciple,” but in other places as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” He’s the guy sitting next to Jesus at the Last Supper, the only guy-friend of Jesus standing at the foot of the Cross with Mary Magdalene and Jesus’ mom, Mary. When Jesus wants to make sure his mom is taken care of, this disciple is the one he asks. Church tradition has it that Jesus’ mom traveled with the disciple, John, from that moment on, so we suspect that John is this other disciple, too humble to name himself, recognizing that what matters is not his name, but how he’s connected to Jesus.

The thing that I love about Jesus in our Easter passage is that when He says, “Mary!” that’swhen she knows who He is. At first, she thinks Jesus is a gardener, but there’s something about how Jesus says her name, and she knows! Does Jesus say it with feeling, or the way he always said it, or does he say it with a laugh, like “I can’t believe you don’t know it’s me!” She’s been crying and maybe she’s worried and scared on top of being desperately sad. Can you imagine the trauma she’s been through that weekend? Seeing Jesus executed in front of her, then spending a day living in fear that she and the others would be next, but Jesus says, “Mary!” and it all fades in importance. It’s Jesus!

And Mary says, “Rabboni!” which means in Aramaic, “dear teacher.” Did you ever have a favorite teacher or mentor? Someone who was not just a teacher, but a friend? Besides my parents, the great mentor of my life was Karl Schimpf, and when he passed away a few years ago, I realized how much more there was for us to say and do together. I always wanted to travel with him to Palestine and hear him tell the stories of Jesus’ life as we walked in Jesus’ footsteps. And I can imagine a day, some day, when I get a chance to see Karl again and I will say, “Dear teacher!” as I give him the hug I have wanted to give him for years now. And in Mary’s voice, I hear that same joy as she recognizes Jesus, and instead of saying His name, she shares her joy by saying what He means to her.

If Jesus were to say your name in a way that would be unmistakable, how would it sound? How does Jesus say your name in love…maybe with a laugh? Take just a moment, and imagine what that would sound like. Let Jesus speak your name into your heart this morning, unmistakable in His love for you. There’s no question as you hear it, that Jesus has known you all your life. Whether you’re Mary, or Simon, or Peter, or just “the disciple whom Jesus loved”—Jesus knows the real you, and you are loved.

The question for us, as we leave this Easter sunrise, is what we say back to Jesus. Do we say Jesus’ name? Do we say, “Dear teacher!” Or maybe “Lord!” What we say in response to Jesus calling our name says a lot about where we are in this moment, but not necessarily where we will end up. Jesus will keep calling our names, and over time, perhaps we will grow to recognize the One Who is Jesus, the Messiah, the Lord, Who is risen today! He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

The Second of Jesus’ Last Words from the Cross: When Rescue Is Unimaginable

Have you ever been in a place when you really and truly felt like you needed God to make a miracle? When, perhaps like the thief in our passage, you can’t imagine there’s a way out? How can we hear and answer God’s call when rescue is unimaginable? 

First, God’s call penetrates any darkness. Two thieves have been crucified with Jesus. I’m not sure I can think of a bleaker future for someone, than being nailed to a cross. No one gets down from a cross…alive. And yet one of these dying thieves hears Jesus’ prayer, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do.” One thief sees Jesus’ response to the sneering of the Pharisees and the mocking of the soldiers, and is touched by it. One thief recognizes both his own failures and Jesus’ goodness. Even in this darkest time, the thief perceives the greatness of Jesus, and understands that Jesus has saving power. God’s call can penetrate even the darkest times.

Second, answering God’s call transforms the heart. Or is it that God transforms the heart, so we can answer His call? During the 1970s, my dad pastored a church in Hollywood, CA. His young adult group had serious issues—a barefoot hippie who had dabbled in magic, a runaway prostitute, and the list went on. What was extraordinary about that group was not what they were when they came, but how they left. The barefoot hippie broke down in tears one night and began a journey with a Lord and Savior crucified and risen for him. And the runaway prostitute finally realized that every time she ran, God had been chasing her. When she stopped and turned to greet the Hound of Heaven, she found that Jesus could take all her fears and fill her with grace instead. And the redeemed hippie and faith-filled prostitute even got married, and are still trying to live godly lives. Why am I telling you this? Because I know that if God can transform the heart of these two, and a convicted thief on a cross, I know he can get ahold of your heart and mine and make them new. The more we answer God’s call, the more clearly we can hear God’s voice. Answering God’s call transforms the heart.

Finally, the way through is God’s way, not necessarily ours. When we face the darkness and we need a miracle, we often want the miracle to come on our terms. We pray, not for God’s will to be done, but for God to do our will. We pray, not according to God’s purpose, but for our own good, our own happiness. Whatever the darkness, God provides a way through, but it may not be our way. The thief did not leave the cross. Jesus died that day. But on that cross, the thief found a savior and had his heart changed. And on that cross, Jesus prayed for forgiveness and offered up His life to God’s way. Sometimes the miracle is that God walks with us in the darkness. Sometimes the miracle is discovering that when we hurt, Jesus shares our pain. God always provides a way for us, and God will walk with us in it.

What about you and me? When rescue seems unimaginable, will we find ourselves scoffing like the self-righteous Pharisees, mocking like the hard-hearted soldiers or cursing like the unrepentant thief? When rescue seems unimaginable do we write God off? When we are feeling lonely, facing the darkness ahead, do we believe the bullies, or do we believe our Lord who made us and died for us? You see, I think we often sell God short. Believing in God is a fine thing, we say to ourselves, but not when things get real. Believing in God is good, but let’s face facts. The fact isthat even when rescue seems unimaginable, God’s call penetrates the darkest, bleakest times, and draws us in and transforms us. When rescue seems unimaginable, God comes in and helps us answer with the same kind of forgiveness and grace our Lord and Master, the crucified King of the Jews, has shown us. The promise is that when we walk according to God’s purposes that God will be at work in and through us. Indeed, when we live and love as Jesus has shown us, the promise is that others will see Christ in us and give God the glory. The promise is that by God’s grace, Christ’s love and the Spirit’s leading, we will become the miracles God has always intended for us to become. Rescue may be unimaginable, but so is the greatness and power of God’s love on the cross.

Walking in Jesus’ Footsteps: The Basin, the Towel, the Table and the Garden

“It’s a dirty job, get someone else to do it.” Was that what the disciples said to themselves as they went into the Upper Room? According to Adam Hamilton, they probably walked past a wash basin and a pitcher.[1]In a wealthy household, a servant would be there to wash the dirt off the feet of guests as they came in, then towel them dry. Evidently, there were no servants there that night, so it was “do-it-yourself,” but none of the disciples wash their feet as they come in. Is that a guy thing? Maybe. Might also be that no one stopped to do it for themselves, because they didn’t want to get stuck doing it for everyone else.[2]After all, if Jesus was coming into His Kingdom, there were positions of power to be had! That night the disciples may have argued about who is going to be greatest in the Kingdom. Was it John and James, the sons of Zebedee, also called the “Sons of Thunder,” or was it their mom who asked if they could sit on Jesus’ right and left when He comes into the Kingdom?[3]No one wanted to be the one to have to wash everyone else’s feet. “It’s a dirty job, get someone else to do it.”

“It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.” That’s what Jesus wanted His disciples to understand, as no one willingly took up the basin and the towel. Humanity has always run on self-interest. Didn’t the great economist, Adam Smith, talk about thrift, hard work and “enlightened self-interest” as the keys to the market economy in his Wealth of Nations? He’s right, of course. Everyone acts in their self-interest, at least some of the time. So people seek profit and power, comfort and experience. In that world, the dirtier the job, the less folks want to do it. When I was a kid, I remember sitting around the enormous table with all my older cousins, and at some point in the meal, my aunt would very slyly put her finger on the side of her nose. One by one, my cousins would slyly put a finger on the side of their nose. The last one to notice the finger on the side of the nose, they had to do the dishes. As someone too young to play, I thought it was hilarious, but there were 12 of us around that table, so maybe it wasn’t as funny to that person. Our world works a little like that, doesn’t it? It’s like we are all sitting around an incredible table, and if we have enough money, or enough privilege, we get to put the finger to the side of our nose—and if we don’t have enough money or privilege, we start to scramble notto be that person who has to do the dirty jobs. So we shouldn’t downplay how world-shaking it is what Jesus does next: He gets up from the table, pours water in the basin, ties a towel around His waist, and kneels before each of His followers to wash their feet. So Jesus, the Son of God, kneels before those He came to save. Jesus, the One Who can still the storm, heal the sick and raise the dead, takes the dirtiest job that night. In Mark, Jesus says of Himself, “The Son of Man came to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.”[4]“It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.” And so Jesus did.

“It’s a dirty job, but we will share it together.” Perhaps that’s the extraordinary story of the Last Supper. Jesus and His followers weren’t gathered in the Upper Room for the Last Supper—they were gathered in the Upper Room to celebrate the Passover. They were remembering how God rescued the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt and protected them from a final, awful plague, by killing a lamb and painting their doorposts and lintels with blood, so that the Angel of Death would “pass over.” For Jews, the meal is more than a symbol—it’s a way of participating in the reality of the first Passover night, more than three thousand years ago. They eat the same kinds of things that the Hebrew people ate that night, and relive the story. Jesus started something new that first Maundy Thursday night that we will remember again tonight. As Jesus broke the bread and poured the cup, He talked about how it was His body broken for them, His blood poured out for them. Jesus talked about how this was the start of a new covenant, a new relationship and promise, that would continue into the future. Perhaps they were confused—but after Jesus’ crucifixion, they realized what Jesus had done had changed their world. From then on, whenever they gathered, they remembered Jesus’ words, remembered what Jesus did, and it wasn’t just a memory or a symbol for them, it was real! In some mysterious way, that first Maundy Thursday was happening and they could participate in that original time around the table. In a life that can be so hard, with difficult choices and even real suffering, Jesus begins a practice with us that reminds us we will never be alone. “It’s a dirty job, but we will share it together.”

“It’s a dirty job, and I’ll do it for you.” That’s not quite what Jesus prayed in the Garden, is it? With all His closest followers—it wasn’t just the Twelve—Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. That night maybe the only time Jesus asked His followers to pray with Him, to pray for Him. He knew the road ahead was tough and He needed to get things sorted out, so He went a little ways apart with Peter, James and John, and then the battle really began. Prayer as battle? Not how we usually think of it, but history had come to a pivot point. How the next few hours went would determine all of human history! Adam and Eve had a similar point in another garden long before.[5]For Eve and Adam, they believed eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would make them like God. Though it opened their eyes to the way the world works, it just shows how little they understand God. In sharp contrast, Jesus who clearly doesn’t want to go through the crucifixion, comes to understand that God is prepared to go to any length to show each person His love for them. Did the last thirty-three years come crashing together in His mind that night? Heaven came down to earth as God took on flesh when Jesus was born, “full of grace and truth.” Asking questions and teaching in the Temple as a teen-ager. Enduring temptations in the desert. Healing and teaching in synagogues, streets and the Temple. And now was Jesus’ final test. By choosing to eat the fruit, Adam and Eve, essentially say to God, “My will not yours be done.” Praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus says, “Not my will but Yours be done.” Adam and Eve’s act is very much in their self-interest. Jesus’ choice is very much a sacrifice in all of our interest, in the interest of the whole world in fact. Where Adam and Eve’s choice brings brokenness into the world, Jesus’ choice begins to bring healing and restoration. It’s like Jesus might have said, “It’s a dirty job, and I’ll do it for you, God!” But tonight of all nights, we are reminded that Jesus resolved to accept death on a cross not only out of love and obedience for God, but out of love and hope for each of us. So Jesus says to each of us tonight, “Being crucified is a dirty job, and I did it all for you.”

[1]Adam Hamilton, The Way: Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus(2012), p. 174.

[2]ibid, p. 175.

[3]Mark’s gospel has the Boanergesor “Sons of Thunder” asking for themselves (Mark 10:35ff). Matthew’s gospel says it was their mom (the Bible doesn’t tell us her name; Matthew 20:20ff). That Luke’s gospel doesn’t focus the blame on any one person, reminds us that all of us have thought like that, at one time or another.

[4]Mark 10:45 and Matthew 20:28.

[5]Thanks, Adam Hamilton, op.cit, p. 176, for connecting the Garden of Gethsemane with the Garden of Eden, and Jesus’ prayer with Eve and Adam’s choice.

Walking in Jesus' Footsteps: The Final Week

Not long ago, in Turkey, a fifty-year old guy named, Beyhan Mutlu, went out drinking with some of his buddies. Time passed, and Beyhan’s wife started getting worried when he didn’t come home. She tried his cellphone—no answer. Now she was really getting worried. She called some of Beyhan’s drinking buddies. They said that when they were on the way home, he peeled off and went into a nearby forest. So this poor woman called the police, and they started gathering volunteers from wherever they could find them to go and search the forest that night. As the crowd of volunteers headed for the forest, it swelled with more volunteers, including random people out for a walk in the forest.[1]Where was Beyhan? They hoped nothing horrible had happened to him. I sometimes feel like the search for Jesus is a little like that in my life: I’m going along and everything seems to be going well, but then I realize I’m missing someone—God, Jesus—and so I start a search. When was the last time God was in my life? What were we doing? If I can, I go back to that place and time in my mind to try to reconnect. The curious thing about our passage for today is that the people of Jerusalem have foundJesus and they hail Him as the Son of David—a King, the Messiah! But what exactly did that mean to them and to Jesus? Our passage for today offers three, tantalizing clues.

First, Jesus rode on a donkey. Have you ever seen a good-sized person ride on a donkey? It’s looks a little silly, a little bit like an adult riding a tricycle. Donkeys have short legs, so they have a quick step that bounces you up and down really fast. In Roman times, Jesus had plenty of options for getting to Jerusalem. He could have identified with the people of the wilderness and trade, and ridden on a camel. He could have picked a horse—the Roman conquerors rode fiery steeds. And of course, Jesus walked everywhere with His disciples for example. So why a donkey…and why now? Turns out, when King David was coming into Jerusalem, he rode a donkey. For one thing, they didn’t have camels in the area in David’s day. For another thing, donkeys have much surer feet in the rocky and mountainous areas of Palestine than a horse might. For a third thing, riding a donkey is humbling, and David understood God was the true King, and thought of himself as just a servant. So David, the great King, the man after God’s own heart, rode a donkey into Jerusalem, and so every king in the line of David rode into Jerusalem on a donkey too. And everyone in the crowd knew this, so you can imagine the energy growing—Is Jesus going to finally make the announcement? Is He finally going to claim the throne?

Second, they put down cloaks and waved branches they also put down in front of Jesus for him to ride over. Now that’s a weird thing, isn’t it? Well maybe. How many of you have ever asked a celebrity for an autograph? Have you ever saved the ticket stub or program from a concert? Why do you think people do that?

[Take responses from the congregation.]

Exactly! The cloaks and palms on the ground in front of Jesus, in addition to looking really cool, were actually a way to remember the day. People wouldn’t wash those cloaks—they would show them to their friends, to their children and grandchildren. We can maybe imagine people in the future saying, “You see that hoofprint right there? That’s the hoofprint from King Jesus’ donkey the day He rode into Jerusalem. I was right there and saw it all.” Same for the palm branches. So we know people thought this was just the beginning of something really amazing. King Jesus was headed for great things!

Third, Jesus weeps. As we read all the stories of Jesus in the Bible, only twice does Jesus cry. The first time is when He sees the grief of His good friends, Martha and Mary when their brother—and maybe Jesus’ best friend—is dead. I love that Jesus is moved by their grief. Surrounded by adoring crowds, riding into Jerusalem in great procession, hailed as king, it seems odd for Jesus to pause to cry over this gleaming city. Jesus’ words are startling: “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” It’s true—the city and its people are looking for a King, but Jesus is not the kind of King they were expecting. The same crowd who shouted, “Hosanna!” on Palm Sunday shouts, “Crucify Him!” on Good Friday. Fast forward to AD 66, Jerusalem and its people would find two more Messiahs who fit the bill. Unlike Jesus, they would meet the crowds expectations, ride into Jerusalem, and start a rebellion against the Romans. With 60,000 men, the Romans would brutally crush that rebellion so impressively that their army’s general would go on to become Emperor Vespasian. By AD 70, the Roman army had indeed encircled Jerusalem, built a ramp to help breach the walls, then burned Jerusalem (the Holy City) and its Temple (God’s Dwelling Place on Earth) to the ground. Jesus said it was “because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you,” but really they didn’t recognize what kind of King they truly needed, who could bring them true peace. Adam Hamilton, in his book, The Way: Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus, writes, “Jesus knew that as the crowds rejected him, they would be rejecting his way. They would reject his call to love their enemies, to pray for those who persecuted [them], and to do good to those who did wrong.”[2]Jesus weeps because the people of Jerusalem would rather have their version of a King and destruction, than God’s version of a King and peace.

Well, the search party continued searching for Beyhan. Where could he be? Was he alright? The night was dark, and someone called out Beyhan Mutlu’s name. One of the new volunteers asked, “Who are we looking for anyway?” They told the new volunteer, and he said, “I am here.” Turns out, Beyhan Mutlu had seen the searchers looking for someone, and had joined the search party to look for himself! In a curious way, looking for Jesus is like that. We try to connect with Jesus, to understand Him better. Like the people of Jerusalem, perhaps we are looking for a king, someone who will tell us what to do, not take any nonsense, and makeus and the world a better place. We are not prepared for a king who rides into our lives so humbly on a donkey, who was given a crown of thorns, and who’s throne is a cross.[3]In a surprising twist, Jesus joins our search for Him. Still, He searches with us, and then there comes a moment in our darkness when we call out His name, wanting Jesus just as He is, and He will say, “I am here.” Jesus has been with us all along, and we have just realized it. Jesus will not knock down the doors of our life to get in, but he will ride in humbly on a donkey. Jesus will receive the praise of fans, walking on their cloaks, leaving mementoes of His presence, but really, Jesus is hoping for followers, people less interested in having peace of their own, than becoming peacemakers. Martin Luther King Jr once said, “You can bomb our homes and threaten our children and hurt us, but we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. And we will love you. We will love you until that day comes when finally we win you over. When we do, we’ll have a double victory, for you will be changed and our world will be changed.”[4]Jesus loved like that, and when Jesus is truly King of our hearts, He shows us how to love like that. That is the way of true peace. Of course, the brilliant irony of Palm Sunday is that people hailed Jesus as King—and He was—if only they could have known, if only they could have seen, if only they had recognized Who was there. In our search for Jesus, perhaps we are like them, if only we could have known He has the peace we long for, if only we might have seen how He was willing to work in our lives, if only we could realize He is right here now.

[1]True story! From www.tip-hero.com, 4-9-22.

[2]Hamilton, The Way: Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus(2012), p. 164.

[3]Ibid,p. 157

[4]From a sermon delivered by Martin Luther King Jr, Christmas 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, AL. Quoted in Hamilton, op.cit, p. 164.

Walking in Jesus’ Footsteps: Sinners, Outcasts, and the Poor

So today’s sermon is going to be a little different. It’s a project sermon. Everybody gets to do this—including me. I learned some interesting things about myself and God through this project, and I hope you will too. So in order for us to do this project together, you will need little slips of paper. If you didn’t get a set, you should head to the table in the Narthex and you’ll find them there. You need at least one of each color, but I want everyone to have 3 orange ones. One of each color, but 3 orange. And you will need a pen. Go ahead and take a minute to get situated. [Pause] I found it was easier if I was writing on something, and you can write on the back of a hymnal if you want. Ready? Here we go!

First, I want you to pick one slip—NOT an orange one—otherwise it doesn’t matter what color. I want you to write the word, Family, on it. Now I want you to write the names of everyone in your family. These are the folks you live with, or spend time with every day. So on mine, I wrote Cynthia and Morgan, Jordan and Caleb. Even though some of them don’t actually live in our house, we are talking or thinking about each other almost every day. 

Second, I want you to pick another slip—NOT an orange one—otherwise it doesn’t matter what color. I want you to write the word, Occupation, on it. If you have a job, you can start writing the names of people you work with. If you are retired, this is about how you occupy yourself, so write the names of the people you volunteer with or the people you do Zumba with, and you may have more than one occupation. Feel free to write on the back if you need to, but you may run out of room!

Third, I want you to pick another slip—NOT an orange one—otherwise it doesn’t matter what color. I want you to write the word, Friends, on it. Write down the names of your friends, starting with the ones you spend the most time with. If you are someone who has a lot of friends, you will definitely run out of room! Of course, if we were taking this project really seriously, we all have different circles of friends, right? So we might have a different slip of paper for each circle of friends.

Fourth, pick another slip—NOT orange—but otherwise it doesn’t matter what color. I want you to write the word, Faith, on it. Next, write the names of the people in our fellowship that you enjoy talking with or doing things with. You can also list the names of other friends where faith is what brought you together and faith is at the core of your time together.

Fifth, take the last slip of paper that’s NOT orange. I want you to write the word, Activities, on it. When our kids were in school, we had folks we talked to who were part of the teams or activities our kids were into, families they went to school with. Maybe you’re part of clubs or organizations you volunteer with—Rotary, Masons, Inter-faith Social Services, Father Bill’s, etc. Give each organization or club you work with a corner or section and write down a name or two of the people you work closely with. Again, if we were to take this project seriously, we might have a separate slip of paper for each Activity or organization.

Alright! So now, take these four slips of paper and think about how much these different groups overlap. This could be interesting. I found most of my groups overlapped with my family, but I had some activity groups that didn’t touch my family at all. For some of you, the family, friends, and activities may overlap a lot. Interesting, isn’t it? If you can, set those on the seat next to you. We will come back to those in a minute.

So, now what about the orange ones? Pick one of the orange slips and write on it the word, Sinners. In Jesus’ time, these were the people who got pushed to the margins because they had done something “morally” wrong. The woman at the well in our story today is one of those—how many times had she been married? Each time she remarried, this woman’s standing in the community went down. Another group of sinners in Jesus’ time were the tax-collectors. Now most of us probably don’t have a greatopinion of tax-collectors, but in Jesus’ day, to be a tax-collector was to work for the Roman occupation, to be a tool of the oppressors, and they were despised by most people. Jesus called a tax-collector, Matthew, to join him and Matthew left his toll booth to follow. That night, Matthew threw a party for Jesus and invited all his immoral friends, including prostitutes, to join them. Jesus seemed to really enjoy hanging out with people who were considered immoral. So on the back—on the back—write, divorced, tax collectors, prostitutes. On the front, let’s write some of the kinds of people who are considered immoral in today’s society. Who are some of the people at least part of our society considers “sinners”? [Take responses from the congregation.] Good list! Ok, let’s set that one aside.

Grab another orange slip. On it, please write,Outcasts. In Jesus’ time, these were the people who got pushed to the margins of society because of who they are or how they behave. These are the second- or third-class citizens. In Jesus’ day, the Samaritans were one of these groups for Jews. Samaritans only used the Torah—the first five books of the Bible—as their Bible—no Prophets, no Psalms, etc. Jews who traveled from the Galilee to Jerusalem always went around. John writes in today’s passage: “Jesus had to go through Samaria.” No, he didn’t have to, but he choseto. In Jesus’ day, if you were not a Jew, you were a Gentile. Gentiles—even the ones who believed in God—were not allowed in the Temple, and some hard-core Jews wouldn’t even eat with them. On more than one occasion, Jesus healed and taught Gentiles, admiring the faith of a Roman centurion. Women were considered second class—they couldn’t speak for themselves in court, were often considered unclean, esp. around their period, and generally couldn’t inherit land. For a man to speak with a woman unchaperoned was scandalous. Yet, in our passage for today, that’s exactly what Jesus does with the woman at the well. So this woman at the well—a triple-threat for being divorced so many times, a Samaritan and a woman—is someone Jesus should certainly have stayed away from, but she is the one Jesus trusts to tell everyone about Him! So on the back—on the back—of your Outcastsslip, write Samaritan, Gentiles, and women, oh and let’s add lepers, who were considered unclean and had to stay outside the city and away from their family. Jesus not only hung out with them, he touched them to heal them. We could add more I think, but let’s start with that. So on the front, let’s think about the folks who are considered outcasts by our society. Can you think of some of the people members of our society look down on or push away or won’t have anything to do with? They may be penalized for who they are or how they have behaved, or blocked from participating in the fullness of society. What do you think? [Take examples from the congregation.] This list can get really long if we sit down and think about it. I want to highlight a few of these:

·     Transgender people. The legislation in some states about bathrooms, charging parents with abuse for helping their trans kids get care, and threats of violence are signs these people are considered outcasts. 

·     Disabled people. Do you know, if you are disabled there are still places you can’t get into? This church building would be one of those! If you can’t climb steps, if you can’t see a traffic light, if you can’t hear on the phone, our society often leaves you out in the cold.

·     Mentally ill or addicted. Our society still has a lot of stigma attached to thinking differently, being wired differently, or acting what people think of as strangely.

·     Dirty or smelly. Who wants to be with someone like that? Jesus would I think.

We could spend a lot more time on this one, but let’s set it aside for now.

Finally, take the last slip of paper, and on it write, The Poor. Jesus spent lots of time with the people who could afford it least. He fed them, told them down-to-earth stories about the Kingdom of Heaven, even made some of them the heroes in his stories. Jesus talked about feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick and those in prison as the least of these, and when we care for them, Jesus said it’s like we are caring for Him.[1]In Jesus’ time, slaves were not people, they were objects, things, a commodity to be bought and sold. When Jesus’ disciples are arguing about who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus says, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. “It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave;just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”[2]So on the back of your last orange slip, would you write slaves, hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick, imprisoned. So by now, you know the drill. Let’s turn this slip over and on the front, write the names of those who are The Poorin our time. What are some of the groups we could include? [Take contributions from the congregation.] 

So now we have three slips of orange paper and let’s look at the backs of these slips one more time. These are the people Jesus spent the most time with. Oh to be sure, He ate with the wealthy and powerful people too, but they’re not the ones with whom He spent the bulk of his time. When you look at all of this, you get a strong sense of who Jesus was, of who Jesus cared about. Take the woman at the well for example. Jesus looks at her and sees a child of God—loved but lost, outcast but curious, a woman and strong—a child of God who is looking for what Jesus can bring—living water, water that turns into a spring inside so that she can water others. This ability to look at someone and see the image of God in that person, to look past society’s views to focus on them as a person with needs and potential—that’s one of Jesus’ great gifts. Jesus had a way of standing with people who were on the outs with society and maybe even themselves, and helping them recognize the love God had for them. By showing them grace, Jesus teaches all of us about grace. Which one of us here has never been lonely, or sad, or hurt, or ashamed, or bullied, or betrayed, or grieving, or lost, or doubting? Jesus comes to us in all those times and it’s amazing…and it’s grace—and it helps us understand the burdens and needs of those who are feeling those things right now. Like the woman at the well, Jesus’ grace can also become a spring in us, bubbling up to refresh others.

So at last, let us flip over our orange slips to see the names of today’s sinners, outcasts and the poor. Remember our other slips and how they overlapped in places? Now let us consider, do these orange slips—Sinners, Outcasts and The Poor—overlap with any of our groups? Maybe they do. Maybe you have family who are poor, outcasts or sinners. How much do you hang out with them? How much do you spend time helping them? Just questions, right? I don’t know about you, but when I looked at my orange slips, they really didn’t overlap much with my other slips. I realize I have insulated myself against having contact with these groups, and set up ways to minimize how much time I spend with them. That’s not what Jesus would do, so God is working on me, to find more ways to overlap my life with the lives of those for whom Jesus had the biggest heart. As a church fellowship, how are we at reaching out to include sinners, outcasts and the poor? Are we doing it systematically and intentionally, making it a major focus? How are we feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger and caring for the sick? Do outcasts and sinners feel welcome among us? What would Jesus do?

[1]Matthew 25: 31ff.

[2]Matthew 20:24–26

"Walking in Jesus's Footsteps: Calming the Storm"

The story is told about a guy named, Bob, who had heard a rumor that his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all walked on water on their 21stbirthdays. So, on his 21stbirthday, Bob and his good friend, Brian, headed out to the lake. “If they did it, I can too!” Bob insisted. When Bob and Brian arrived at the lake, they rented a boat and began rowing. When they got to the middle of the lake, Bob stood up in the boat, balanced himself, then stepped over the side of the boat...and nearly drowned. Furious and embarrassed, Bob told Brian to stop laughing, and they headed for home. When Bob got back to the family farm, he asked his grandmother for an explanation. “Grandma, why can’t walk on water like my father, and his father, and his father before him?” The feeble, old grandmother took Bob by the hands, looked into his eyes, and explained, “That’s because you were born in Florida in July, dear. Your father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all born in Minnesota…in January.”[1]All this Lent, we have spent time with Adam Hamilton’s, The Way: Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus, and I confess that I really like the image of walking where Jesus walked…most of the time. But I get to this story, and I’m suddenly not so sure. As I think about Jesus walking on water, I am a little worried that maybe there was a trick to it happening in the Bible, and I wouldn’t want to end up like Bob, sinking in the water and looking like a bigger idiot than I already am. So I am comforted, when in our passage for today, Jesus speaks three times, and each time offering us lessons in walking on water.

First, Jesus says, “Have courage/Take heart. I AM. Do not be afraid.” Of course, if Jesus said that on a sunny day in spring, we would be like, “Oh yeah! I get it.” But that’s not when Jesus says these words. When our best friend is in the hospital, and our boss says they need more hours, and our family needs our loving attention, and then our car breaks down, that’s when Jesus speaks these words to us. Like the disciples, we find the fierce crosswinds of life whip up the waves, and we may even feel the boat of our life starting to creak with the strain. Jesus says, “Stay bold.” Why bold? Because Jesus says, “I AM.” Now that could mean something as simple as, “It’s me!”, but it could also be God’s Name. Images come to mind of Moses, standing without sandals before the burning bush, and God speaking out of the bush, “I AM Who I AM. Tell my people, ‘I AM’ has sent you to them.”[2]Or imagine Jesus kneeling with his good friend, Mary, crying with her as they grieve together the death of her brother, Lazarus, and Jesus looking her in the eye as He says, “I AM the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though he dies.”[3]For whatever reason, Jesus speaks these words we long to hear in the middle of our storms, with the wind and waves crashing in, and we don’t know how we are going to go on. “Take heart. I AM. Do not be afraid.”

Second, Jesus says, “Come ahead.” Have you ever been with someone who is expecting their first child? Maybe you were the one expecting? When Cynthia was pregnant with Morgan, she was working as a grad student at Johns Hopkins—alternately doing her research, taking care of her lab, and getting ready for baby. I was Youth Ministries Director with two large youth groups plus other responsibilities, and trying to take care of Cynthia, and getting into the nesting projects. Oh my gosh, it was crazy! And when Morgan came, I had some time off, but pretty soon Cynthia and I were both trying to get back to our busy schedules and take care of Morgan, and figure out this whole parenting thing. I just remember how tired we both were. I’m sure Cynthia was more tired than me if I’m honest. But I loved being Dad. In the middle of the wind and the waves of that experience, in the middle of me trying to go to the next level in my life, Jesus came to me. Over the course of a few weeks, I remember looking the storm of my life and thinking, “Is that you out there, Jesus? I don’t know how long I can keep this up. Do You know what it will be like for me to be different?” So I prayed something like Peter did, “If you are, tell me to come to you.” And Jesus said, “Come ahead.” When the storms of life are beating up on us, and we aren’t sure how we are going to make it through, we can look out to where Jesus is standing, quite at peace in the middle of the storm. We could be there, too, at peace on the next level, beyond the roar of the wind and the splash of the wave. Peter poses it as a question, “If you are…” and that can be the way our next level begins: “Jesus, if you are, then tell me to come to you.” Jesus says, “Come ahead.”

Finally, Jesus says, “You have so little faith! Why did you doubt?” To leave our comfort zone, to climb out of the boat we’re in, seems so crazy. But often, we can’t stay where we are any longer—we must cast ourselves into a future that we struggle to imagine, onto the chaos of wind and wave. The problem I often have—maybe you do too—is not whether or not I’m willing to trust Jesus, or that I’m standing in the middle of a storm doing something I never thought I would do. No, the problem I have is that sometimes I focus on what’s beating me. I read this story the other day. The author writes, “As I was driving home from work one day, I stopped to watch a local, Little League baseball game that was being played in a park near my home. As I sat down behind the bench on the first-base line, I asked one of the boys what the score was. ‘We're behind 14 to nothing,’ he answered with a smile. ‘Really,’ I said. ‘I have to say you don't look very discouraged.’ ‘Discouraged?’ the boy asked with a puzzled look on his face. ‘Why should we be discouraged? We haven't even been up to bat yet.’” What I love about this kid, is that he’s looking forward, not thinking about how bad they are losing, but how much of the game lies ahead. Why does Peter—why do I—sink in the waves? So often because I start to focus on the storm of my life and the way everything is swirling around me. I take my eyes off Jesus, the one who called me and empowers me to walk through all the craziness to get to the next level where there is peace and new life. I try to walk in the storm my way, instead of Jesus’ way, so I sink. “Lord, save me!” I cry, like Peter. Scared and ashamed I am, but Jesus reaches out a hand and I’m on solid footing again. Jesus says, “You have so little faith! Why did you doubt?” And I know, I just have to look to Jesus next time.

I say, “Walking in Jesus’ footsteps”…and maybe we think of sand on the seashore, or hiking up a mountain path, perhaps walking through a bustling marketplace or climbing across desert dunes. If we imagine the idea of walking in Jesus’ footsteps when he walked on water, we might think, “That’s impossible! There must be a trick to it”—like Bob forgetting that his ancestors all tried walking on water in the winter in Minnesota. But really, this walking on water thing—it’s how Jesus helps us grow and become what we can’t imagine. When the fierce crosswinds and treacherous currents are stressing everyone around us, Jesus says, “Stay bold! I AM. Don’t be afraid!” When work and family and our insides are swamping us with stress, and we look at Jesus out there ahead of us, at peace in the storm, and in our fear and anxiety, we aren’t sure if we can leave what’s not working to find the peace Jesus offers, Jesus says, “Come ahead.” And so we step out of our comfort zones, perhaps imperfectly, perhaps forgetting to keep our eyes on the grace and peace of Jesus, perhaps needing a reminder that the way of sacrifice is the way to the next level, and as we begin to sink, Jesus catches us, restores our footing, and asks, “Why did you doubt?” When we get to that place where we have peace out in the bashing waves and buffeting winds of life, people are floored. They know—as Jesus’ disciples in the boat did—that only God can still the waves and calm the storm. Only God can bring us a peace beyond the storm. Our world needs to get to the next level—where we have a more just and equitable society, a more humble and grace-fillled community. We are in the storm of the century—battered by waves of divisiveness, whipped up by injustice, and weighed down by self-centeredness—and we can see Jesus standing out in that storm, waiting with the peace we and our world need so much. But we will not find peace in the boat. We will not find the next level of grace no matter how hard we row or take care of the seasick. Our world needs people who are willing to say, “Lord, if you are, tell me to come,” willing to hear Jesus call out above the storm, “Come ahead!” and step out of the way things have always been. Sure, the storm is there, but it has no lasting power over us. We just need to keep our eyes on Jesus…and walk in His footsteps. 

[1]Adapted from illustration on www.sermoncentral.com.

[2]Exodus 3:14.

[3]John 11:25.

"Proclaiming the Kingdom: The Mountains"

.Proclaiming the Kingdom: The Mountains

This year during Lent our focus is guided by Adam Hamilton's book, The VWay: Walking in the

Footsteps of Jesus. When Hamilton asks people where they feel closest to God, can you

imagine some of the answers? Where are some of the places where you feel closest to God?

This week we arrive at Hamilton's chapter on following the footsteps of Jesus into the

mountains.

From where we are situated by the ocean right here in Quincy, and I would like to invite all of

us to take a trip up into the mountains by just using the imagination God gave us. Let's quickly

visit the mountains as I recall them, about 7500 feet up... That's 1.42 miles-just a little under a

mile and a half into the sky from here. Can anyone guess how fast we need to travel to get that

high up in just one minute, if we were able to drive a big bus full of all of us straight up into the

sky? (Pause...) I did some math and the answer to that is close to 85 mph. Can you recall how

quickly the sights fly by when you drive along a highway going 65 mph? We will go faster than

that on this journey... For reference, the fastest any Boston-area commuter rail train travels is

79 mph. We are about to go faster than that... This next minute is bringing us into God's

creation way up high in the mountains...

(A timed minute offun about how quickly we are approaching the clouds, how much smaller

things look down below, and how we are even beginning to make our way right past some of

the clouds...)

My first trip into these mountains to arrive at my new boarding school left off where the bus

could no longer travel the one singular road which brought us through hours of hairpin turnse

with steep drops over the edge before letting us out. When I walked the final miles to the

school, we passed through cloudy mists, from the town area of close little shops and homes,

along a road which was traveled by local livestock: mountain goats, sheep, chickens, various

cows and the infamous Mullingar bull. The Mullingar bull was an enormous beast, the King of

the Road, and we all had to develop a certain amount of bravery to get past him any time we

walked back or forth from the town. Sounds of insects buzzed so load it was like a constant

chorus drone in the background, with birdsong punctuating the atmosphere. The entire way

was riddled with the appearances of rhesus monkeys of all ages, with the little ones riding atop

of the older ones, or clinging to the belly-side and peeking out. Ifound out I would not need an

alarm clock, thanks to the monkeys. The shy langoor monkeys did not show themselves, but

clattered across the metal rooftops some time before we needed to arise. It was like a snooze

alarm, how we had time to rest awhile before the rhesus monkeys bounced and clattered

overhead. Those little monkeys would play with our laundry when we hung it to dry, and

sometimes break into our rooms to look for snacks. Ionce found teeth marks on a bar of T:

wrapped soap, and I think the monkey was hoping it was a bar of chocolate!

As people, we surely make our mark on the world, but up in the mountains it is easy to feel how

nature makes its mark on us... Everywhere, we were surrounded by foliage of ancient trees and

seasonal flowers, with the scent of freshness always in the air. We looked out over the plains,

and from our lofty view the entire world seemed like a different place. Some mountains are in

drier climate, and the landmark bears different characteristics. Nonetheless, the mountains

beckon many of us when we seek to feel closer to God. Jesus himself spent a lot of time time in

the mountains. In fact, Hamilton recalls an experienced pastor who took people on tours of the

Holy Land, Rev. James Ridgeway Sr., who pointed out that most of the story of Jesus could be

told by telling about the times he spent in the mountains.

Our message from the Gospel of Matthew 13:44-53 gives us a key theme, with Matthew

describing the "kingdom of heaven" through several parables. When you think of the word

"kingdom," what occurs to you? And when you think of the qualities of a king, what is that

like? How is it different when we speak of God as our King? And where is God's kingdom

located?

The Greek word which is translated as kingdom is basileia. The word basileia is not so much a

reference to a place as it is to the idea of dominion, the quality of sovereignty, and the action of

reigning. Thus, the kingdom of heaven has to do with the way God is able to work in our lives,

when we seek guidance and follow the teachings of Jesus.

The first parable tells of a person who finds treasure on a piece of land where they have no

rights to that property or anything on it. In order to have access, they must raise the money to

gain access to it by selling all of what they possessed up until this point, in order to begin anew

with this treasure they caught sight of in the new place. The feeling is absolute joy, because

what they found now is worth giving up everything they ever had before. This is the feeling of

how the kingdom of heaven works in our lives, allowing us to feel life is rich even though we

could hang onto nothing of our former life.

Similarly, the merchant who spends their days in a quest for the most beautiful of pearls

recognizes their dream come true when they finally find a pearl beyond compare. It seems

they do not think twice or regret a thing when they realize it will cost them everything to buy

this miraculous pearl which is like no other. Again, the kingdom of heaven gives us something

better than the best of what we gathered into our life in the past.

When the nets draw in the fish, only the good will be set aside. This seems like a caution, to

live our lives so that we will be among the righteous, and not those who are cast into the fires

with weeping and the gnashing of teeth!

Jesus speaks of the scribe, the one who is trained in words and the way of the holy laws, who is

at home in all that he knows. This is the quality of one who possesses treasure in that "home"

of sacred learning, bringing forth the old treasure and also able to access new treasure, with

new understanding, because of their training as a scribe of the holy Word. Let us be like the

scribe with our ability to access God's treasures as we learn to follow the Word the way Jesus

taught us.

Whenever we need to spend time in contemplation to remind ourselves that the kingdom of

heaven is available to flow in our lives, let us seek the places in the mountains and by the sea,

wherever nature allows us to hear God's voice. Our signals from God may be like birds singing

over high meadows of flowers, or like monkeys clattering across the rooftop. God may speak to

us by giving us courage to get past the Mullingar bull who blocks the only path forward. But we

can trust God will speak and lead us to help to one another as we face the week ahead, and we

must proclaim the good news to others, that God is at work. Most especially during these

times when war afflicts the world and so many are in need, we turn to God to lead us on. Let

the people say, "Amen."

i.u

.

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Walking in Jesus' Footsteps: Healing Ministry

When I was four going on five, more than anything else in the world, I wanted a new bike. I drew pictures of it—I could see it in my head!—and in all my pictures it was blue and it was fast. I wasn’t really sure how to draw the fast part, but it was there! I used to pray for that bicycle with the fervor of the most devout Christian who has ever lived. “God, You know how much I want that bike. God, You know good that bike would be for me.” Every day, I would look for that bike, convinced that it would just appear because my parents always said that God answers prayers. Finally, I decided that I must not have made the deal good enough for God—I knew He loved me, and wanted what was best for me—but maybe I had to sweeten the deal. So I offered God what I thought was a great deal, “God, I will give you anything you want, just please give me this bike. I won’t bother you to ask for anything ever again.” As I grew up, I realized that bargaining with God was kind of crazy—what could I ever offer God who has everything, right? Yet, the times that I have prayed the hardest as an adult have all been when I have prayed for healing and protection—for myself and for other people. My kids are sick, or my friend is suffering, or my mom as she was dying, and I come to God, knowing how beyond my control everything was. In today’s passages from the New Testament, we see Jesus touching the lives of people when things were beyond their control, and bringing healing and hope. As we try to walk in Jesus’ footsteps, let’s try to get close to Jesus, to understand what was going on, to get a sense of how Jesus’ approached people and healing, and then perhaps we will understand how Jesus can heal us and the people we love today.

First, Jesus’ compassion drives His healing. In the Mark passage for today, Jesus heals people and casts out demons well into the night. Many times in the gospels, Jesus is “moved with compassion” by the needs of the people in front of Him. The man in the synagogue who, even troubled by a “demon,” goes to synagogue demonstrates his desire to be free. Peter’s mother-in-law, who is so sick and it’s killing her she can’t show Jesus some hospitality, to do her part for the family. The dad whose son has a destructive spirit—maybe something like epilepsy—who is so desperate for his son to be healed that he battles through the disciples’ issues and his own issues to help his son. In John’s gospel, we even read that when Lazarus died, and Jesus goes to comfort his good friend’s sisters, Jesus is so moved by their grief that Jesus Himself cries. Jesus has deep, heart-felt compassion for those who are suffering.

Second, Jesus can heal the whole person. I love the tender picture of Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever. I imagine him going in and sitting next to her bed, placing his hand on her forehead, like he’s taking her temperature—and then the temperature is gone and her feverish eyes clear and a smile comes to her face. I imagine her being healed by Jesus—and it’s clearly a physical healing. One minute she’s sick and the next she’s not. At first, that seems very different from the demon possession thing we read about in our two passages. We don’t take much about demon possession in our time because we have names for all sorts of things people used to blame on demons. Adam Hamilton, in his book, The Way: Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus,writes, “No one in ancient times understood viruses or bacteria or the hypothalamus (the part of the brain where epilepsy seems to be centered). No one knew anything about schizophrenia or other conditions now routinely diagnosed as mental illness. How, otherwise, would we expect people in the ancient world to explain these conditions, except as the presence of demons?”[1]Jesus doesn’t seem inclined to draw distinctions between physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health problems—to the sick he gives wholeness, to the paralyzed He brings forgiveness, to the unhinged He restores sanity, and to the despairing He brings hope. Jesus can bring healing to all kinds of suffering.

Finally, people’s faith seems to make a difference. Before coming to Capernaum for today’s first passage in Mark, Jesus is in his hometown of Nazareth, and he doesn’t do much healing there, maybe because it’s hard for them to see past the Jesus who grew up there. In Capernaum, though, people are amazed by Jesus—what He says, what He does—and do all sorts of crazy, faithful things. For example, one time, Jesus was hanging out in Peter’s house and the place is packed with people. All of a sudden, there’s the sound of digging on the roof made of mud and sticks. Before long, there’s a hole big enough for a stretcher, and four friends lower their sick buddy down so Jesus can heal him. Mark says, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the [the paralyzed guy on the stretcher], ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.” I love this story because we see that Jesus sees the real need for the guy on the stretcher is forgiveness, and I love this story because Jesus heals him not because the guy on the stretcher has faith, but because his friends do. Faith makes all the difference in the world.

But prayer is not magic, and faith doesn’t make God help us. My bike did not appear just because I wanted it. God is a wild, untamed God—loving to be sure—and God knows how everything is connected, so we can’t make God do anything, and we might not like what happens if we could. And Jesus’ healing is not magic—it may not come when we call, and God may not answer our prayers in the way we ask for or expect. That’s a whole other sermon. But still, as the great Baptist preacher, EV Hill, puts it, “Sometimes—not every time—but sometimes, God steps in and moves things.”

Months after my fifth birthday, at Christmas, my parents gave me a bicycle of my dreams. Well…it was orange, had handlebars like a chopper motorcycle and a black banana seat…and it wasn’t very fast at first, ‘cause I didn’t know how to ride it. I had a couple of ugly falls, one into a thorn bush that was particularly memorable. Ouch! I think about prayer differently now, think about how Jesus comes into our lives—and other people’s lives—when we feel our lives, our health, our addictions, our sanity are most out of control. In some way we can’t explain, that Jesus died for us and then rose from the dead, allows Jesus to be present with us in this very moment in our lives. Just as it happened 2000 years ago, Jesus knows the needs of people’s hearts and Jesus is moved with compassion. And Jesus is able to BE with us—not overwhelmed by our needs, but loving, strong and peaceful—and listen to us pour out our hearts. Just as it happened 2000 years ago, Jesus has a power over the things that make us broken—over a body that is sick, over a heart that is scarred, over a mind that is ill, over emotions that are surging, over grief and despair and addiction and woundedness—and Jesus can speak a word into our lives that brings healing, wholeness, soundness, and hope. When we are ready, Jesus can speak into our pain and neediness words of life and love and laughter. 

But the story of our four friends, who carried their friend who was so paralyzed with guilt that he couldn’t walk, these four faithful friends remind us that sometimes we are called to do our part—to help our sick, wounded, grieving, oppressed and broken friends, neighbors and co-workers into Jesus’ Presence. These are the people we may know the best, see their pain, and know we may not be able to do something for them, but Jesus could. We may not know how to heal them, but Jesus does. We may not know how to break them free from the traumas and shackles that weigh them down, but Jesus does. All we are called to be is a good friend, to be a stretcher bearer, willing to help them into Jesus’ Presence, and to overcome whatever gets in the way. Jesus’ healing is for us—oh yes! Jesus sees our need—and Jesus is moved with compassion by those who need it most. We are the wounded stretcher-bearers, in need of healing, still we help others find theirs too. Jesus sees our need and theirs, and Jesus is ready!

[1]P. 60.

"Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus: Temptation"

When I was four and five, my family lived in Grand Rapids. The winters were pretty impressive with all the lake-effect snow, and one day, I remember going for a walk with my Dad in deep snow on a bright sunny day. I was dressed up in a snowsuit, the kind that made me look like a tiny, blue, sumo wrestler. Because the snow was so deep and I was so small, Dad went first, and then I followed in his footsteps. Or I tried to. His legs were so much longer, sometimes I had to hop a little to go from footprint to footprint. Once I fell, and the snow was too deep for me to get myself out. At first, I was worried, but then my dad laughed not too far away and came back. At first, I rolled back and forth on my tummy like a sumo wrestler trying to flip over, and snow went everywhere as I flailed around, and then my Dad was there, helping me up. My face was cold from the snow, but his eyes were kind and twinkled as if to say this was part of the great adventure. You know, following in someone’s footsteps can be tricky! The thing I’ve found over the years of trying to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, is that sometimes they are clear as day, like footprints on the snow or in soft sand. At other times, it seems that Jesus walks on hardened ground—I can see footsteps up to the edge—but then I’m not really sure. Fortunately, Jesus had times in His life, when he was tested, when He couldn’t see His heavenly Father’s footsteps clearly, and today’s passage is one of those times. How do we follow in Jesus’ footsteps, when we can’t see the path clearly? How do we walk steadily through the midst of temptation? With each temptation, Jesus shows us a truth to help us follow.

Temptation #1:  I am filled by what I consume.On the face of it, we have sayings like, “You are what you eat.” We know that’s not literally true—if I eat enough brownies, I do not turn into a brownie—but have you ever wanted to eat, and you weren’t even hungry A certain amount of hunger is about our physical needs, but past that, it’s about our heart-hunger.? And consuming is about so much more than eating. How many of you have ever “binge-watched” TV-shows or movies? When you finish the series, are you satisfied? We consume and consume, but are not filled. Augustine said of God, “You made us for yourself and our hearts find no rest until they rest in Thee.”[1]Satan says to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Essentially, prove you are worthy by satisfying your hunger! Jesus responds, “One does not live by bread alone.” Jesus’ truth: What we consume does not fill us. Only God can truly satisfy.

Temptation #2:  I am worth what I own.How many of you have watched TV this week? How many minutes of every hour you watch on TV do you think are ads? 15 minutes and 38 seconds, up from 14 minutes and 27 seconds in 2009. But have you ever wondered what they are aiming for? One of my good friends a few years ago was an award-winning car salesman for Chrysler. So I’ll ask you the question he asked me, “Why do you think the car companies advertise?” What do you think?

[Take responses from the congregation.]

“Actually,” he said, “they advertise because they want you to come in and test-drive the car. As soon as they get you into the car, driving it, you begin to imagine yourself in that car.” He added, “If I can get you in a car that matches how you want to see yourself in a car, I’ve made a sale.” But it’s not just about cars. We are encouraged to imagine ourselves in an ideal job, partner, home, stuff—and the image of ourselves with whatever that thing is, that’s what we want. Satan is trying to close that kind of deal with Jesus, trying to help Jesus see himself with all the glory and authority. Jesus says, “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.” Jesus’ truth: What we own and our image of who we are with it are not worthy of our worship. Only God is worthy, and God says, “You are my child, whom I love! With you I am well pleased!”

Temptation #3:  I am made right by what others think.Henri Nouwen, one of the great Christian teachers and thinkers of the 20thcentury, wrote, “One of the greatest ironies of the history of Christianity is that its leaders constantly gave in to the temptation of power—political power, military power, economic power, or moral and spiritual power—even though they continued to speak in the name of Jesus, who did not cling to his divine power but emptied himself and became as we are. The temptation to consider power an apt instrument for the proclamation of the Gospel is the greatest of all. We keep hearing from others, as well as saying to ourselves, that having power—provided it is used in the service of God and your fellow human beings—is a good thing. With this rationalization, crusades took place; inquisitions were organized; [indigenous peoples] were enslaved; positions of great influence were desired; episcopal palaces, splendid cathedrals, and opulent seminaries were built; and much moral manipulation of conscience was engaged in. Every time we see a major crisis in the history of the Church…we always see that a major cause of rupture is the power exercised by those who claim to be followers of the poor and powerless Jesus. What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.”[2]When we choose power over love, we are, in effect, asking God to make the same choice—to choose power over love, trying to manipulate God into catching us to prove His love for us. Jesus said, “‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Jesus’ truth: I am made right by what God thinks of me, and God says, “You are my beloved child. With you, I am well pleased.” 

All this Lent, many of us are going to try walking in Jesus’ footsteps. Sometimes the steps maybe clear, and sometimes difficult or awkward, especially at the beginning. At times, we may feel like Jesus is way bigger and better at this spiritual journey than we are—maybe we have to hop a little, stretch a little, to follow from footstep to footstep. If the steps are at times unclear, then, like Jesus, we have the chance to stay focused on what matters

·      knowing what we consume does not fill us—only God can fill us

·      knowing that we are worth more than what we own—only God’s love defines our worth

·      knowing our power and competency are not what make us and the world right—only love, God’s love shown in grace.

Over the next few weeks, let us watch Jesus closely, see how Jesus was tempted, how Jesus treated people, how Jesus answered the deepest needs of people’s lives. As we are tempted, we don’t have just our strength, wisdom and love, we have Jesus’ too! We may come sailing through the temptations—no problem!—or we may fall over and flounder. With a laugh, Jesus will come bounding to us, to help us up and get back on track. In Hebrews, we learn that “Because Jesus himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” Adam Hamilton, in The Way,writes, “Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness were meant to test his resolve, not with the aim of weakening him, but in order to strengthen him. When we fast and pray and stare down our own temptations, we find it does the same for us.”[3]So let us follow the footsteps of Jesus, to see how He won through His temptations, gave up power for love, and accepted a cross to win us a new way to love and live.

[1]Augustine, Confessions. First page.

[2]Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership(NY: Crossroad Publishing, 1994), pp. 58–59.

[3]Adam Hamilton, The Way: Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2016), p. 42.

Especially Loving Our Enemies

I am generally a pretty easy-going guy. I tend to assume the best of people, and I generally find that people treat me well. I always figured I could pretty much get along with everyone until I met Gregory. Beginning in 9thgrade, Gregory was a pain in my back side. He walked around school with a self-satisfied smirk on his face, but when he saw me, he would grin and something malicious would sparkle in his eyes. He delighted in saying nasty things, and if he could rip on me, so much the better. His favorite thing was to get me into trouble with teachers who, inexplicably, trusted him. Those of you who have read the Harry Potter books will understand when I say that Gregory was my Draco Malfoy. All this would have been fine, except that while I was in high school I read today’s passage. I thought Jesus was crazy:  Love Gregory? Is he kidding? Who are some of the kinds of people you find it hardest to love? [Take responses from the congregation.] Is Jesus kidding? Are we really to love even our enemies? Martin Luther King Jr. wrote,

“Now let me hasten to say that Jesus was very serious when he gave this command; he wasn’t playing. He realized that it’s hard to love your enemies. He realized that it’s difficult to love those persons who seek to defeat you, those persons who say evil things about you. He realized that it was painfully hard, pressingly hard. But he wasn’t playing…This is a basic philosophy of all that we hear coming from the lips of our Master…We have the Christian and moral responsibility to seek to discover the meaning of these words, and to discover how we can live out this command, and why we should live by this command.”*

How can we learn to love everyone, particularly our enemies?

First, we learn to love our everyone—including our enemies—by looking at ourselves.We like to think of ourselves as lovable. We’re pretty lovable, right? But have never hurt someone—physically, verbally, emotionally? Have we never once fallen short of the way we believe God wants us to be? Jesus said, “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? Whenever we examine ourselves, if we are honest, we will recognize that they are not perfect…and neither are we. Examining ourselves with a clear eye, knowing the good and the bad in ourselves, will keep us humble.

Second, we learn to love everyone—including our enemies—by looking for the good in them.In each of us there is a battle that rages. The great German poet, Johann Goethe wrote, “There is enough stuff in me to make both a gentleman and a rogue.” He echoes Paul who wrote in Romans 7:19, “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” Isn’t it true that we all struggle at least from time to time to do what is good and right? Martin Luther King wrote,

“within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals. The person who hates you most has some good in him; even the nation that hates you most has some good in it; even the race that hates you most has some good in it. And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls “the image of God,” you begin to love him in spite of. No matter what he does, you see God’s image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never slough off. Discover the element of good in your enemy.”

If we can find that good, then we can begin to love them for that—not for the evil they do, but for the good that is there too. If we pray for them, we can pray for the good that is at work in them, for the image of God trying to shine from them.

Third, we learn to love everyone—including our enemies—by looking for opportunities for kindness.Our opportunity for kindness may come ,as King puts it, by “refusing to humiliate someone who opposes us. At some point, even our enemy will find themselves in our power, and we will have a chance to hurt or humiliate, even crush our enemy. But if we are followers of the way of love, we must not do it.” A person who is made in the image of God—and we all are—is never our enemy so much as the forces, institutions and systems they represent are our enemy. We can and sometimes must fight the forces, institutions and systems that are evil, but we are called to love our enemy. Our opportunity for kindness may come with an opportunity to show grace for someone who has no right or reason to expect it of us. We learn to love everyone by looking for opportunities for kindness. 

You’ll notice that Jesus did not call us to likeour enemy. We are not called to like everyone. Liking someone is a feeling. Martin Luther King writes, “There are a lot of people that I find it difficult to like. I don’t like what they do to me. I don’t like what they say about me and other people. I don’t like their attitudes. I don’t like some of the things they’re doing. I don’t like them. But Jesus says love them. And love is greater than like.” We are not called to be fond of everyone. We are called to love. Love is not a feeling. Love is a choice we make to seek someone’s good. That is why when the opportunity comes to bless someone, especially our enemy, we must take it if we are to love.

All of this leads us to ask, “Why?” Why should we love everyone, especially our enemies? Why should I love that lousy Gregory? Why should we pray for those who are gunning for us? Because in Gandhi’s words, “An eye for an eye only makes the whole blind.” When we hate, we only make the forces of hate stronger in this world. Anyone can hate. King would add, “The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate…and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love.” Why should we love everyone—including our enemies? Because when we hate, it twists and warps us into something less than human. When we hate, we vandalize the image of God in us. Martin Luther King writes:  “We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates…So Jesus says love, because hate destroys the hater as well as the hated.” Why should we love everyone? Because only in love is there a power from God to bring people to a new place. Only love can lead us to wholeness, to real joy and hope. Just as hate can scar and ruin our souls, so love can heal and restore relationships. Force breeds force, and hate breeds hate…and love yields love. Again, MLK:  “We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make [people] better. Love is the only way. Jesus discovered that.One day as Napoleon came toward the end of his career and looked back across the years—the great Napoleon that at a very early age had all but conquered the world. He was not stopped until…he moved out to the battle of Leipzig and then to Waterloo. But that same Napoleon one day stood back and looked across the years, and said: ‘Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have built great empires. But upon what did they depend? They depended upon force.’ But long ago, Jesus started an empire that depended on love, and even to this day millions will die for him.”And what about you…what about me? Are we willing to be like Jesus, to love those who don’t love us? Will we be like Jesus and pray for our enemies, for those who oppose us, for those we think the least forgiveable, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?”

*The quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr are taken from his sermon, “Loving Your Enemies” delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, on 17 November 1957. This sermon is part of a collection entitled, A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.The book (and audio!) is available through The King Center and can be found online at http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/sermons/571117.002_Loving_Your_Enemies.html

Best Valentine's Gift Ever

As I finished my junior year in high school, in some ways I was on top of the world:I was on the varsity debate team and we had managed a first place at State. I was in the acapella choir in school and we had just cut a Christmas album that even today gives me the shivers. I was blessed to be in a family that took care of all of my needs and more. Things were good! But in some other ways, things were really lousy in my life, really empty. I was really struggling with my faith, really wrestling with the incredible self-focus teen-agers often experience, and I was in that place where you know something is not right in your life, but you think if you say, “Things are good!” enough times, that maybe you’ll forget how off things are. But hey! I had the whole summer ahead of me …and then my dad told me there’s a week he wants me to go with him to the Colorado Rockies to a Christian youth conference with 2000 teens…and I say to myself, “Really? a conference where I don’t know anybody (except my Dad…)? I’m going to spend the whole week wandering around not knowing anybody.” It’s the curse of being a pastor’s child…they get these great ideas and you get dragged along. Dad says, “I have to check out the facility and see it in action…maybe it could be the site for our national youth conference in a couple years.” So fine. We get there and I’m kind of grumbling to myself about having to be there, and I look out through the crystal clean air across the valley to the snowy peaks of the Continental Divide. That view is shockingly beautiful, but I mumble a grudging, “It’s beautiful” that means I don’t want to start enjoying it…because then my Dad would be right.

We get to Wednesday night and I see in the program that the main speaker is Tony Campolo. “Tony who?” I ask myself. So we find a seat in the auditorium and it is packed to the rafters with youth groups from around the country. And Campolo starts telling about how he was a young pastor in a West Philadelphia church. He says, “We used to have ‘preach offs,’ preaching contests with one preacher after another. They don’t talk about it like that—it’s all for the glory of God!—but that’s what it is. So I stood up to preach, and in the African-American culture, they give you encouragement as you preach. The Deacons say, ‘Amen!’ and the men say, ‘Well!’ and someone says, ‘Preach it!’ and another says, ‘Keep it going!’ and I started to get into the rhythm of it and I got better and better. After thirty minutes I sat down. The older pastor next to me patted me on the knee. He said, ‘You did alright. You did alright.’ I said, ‘Do you think you can top that?’ ‘Son, just sit back.’ And over the next 30 minutes, he schooled me, and he did it with just a few words, ‘It’s Friday…but Sunday’s coming!’ 

As Paul is thinking about the Christians in Corinth, he realizes the root of all their problems is that for them Easter is not real, that they don’t live in light of the resurrection. For them it’s Friday and Sunday never comes. They have Jesus dying on the Cross on Good Friday and that’s it. That happens all the time in our day. We have people who are perfectly willing to suffer for God—they will work themselves to the bone for God, but if there’s no resurrection, then why bother? If there’s just Friday, then Paul’s sacrifices and all of ours, and all the sacrifices of those who have gone before us are pointless. Because if all we have is Friday then we may as well party like there’s no tomorrow, because if all we have is Friday, then for us there is no day after we die. 

And if there’s just Friday, then death really does have the last word. The powers of darkness, the powers of this present age that seem so bound and determined to crush people’s freedom and stamp out the light of truth—these are the powers that win on Friday as Jesus is tried before the Council, whipped and beaten, mocked and tormented, led to the Roman Governor and nailed to a cross. If there’s only Friday, then Jesus is just another good teacher, just another guy who tried and failed to change the world, and he is worth a footnote in history. That’s Friday. But Sunday’s coming!

In that crowded auditorium in the Rockies, Tony Campolo then told how the preacher started out kind of quiet and slow, “’The disciples were afraid and didn’t know what to do as Jesus hung on the cross, because it’s Friday, even though they know Sunday’s coming.’ And then he started to ramp it up a bit. ‘Friday people are saying, “There’s nothing you can do. No one can change the world,” but I’m here to tell you the Good News…Sunday’s coming.’ And before long the pastor is building up steam, ‘Friday morning they said that a bunch of people sitting in a room will never have the energy to change their community, that good guys always finish last and evil will win the day… it’s only Friday…but Sunday’s coming!’” 

I realized as I sat there in that auditorium with all those strangers, that I knew Sunday was coming, but I was living like there was only Friday—measuring my life by my achievements and how much fun I had. I had received the grace of God, experienced the love of Christ, but I was holding on to wanting things my way, refusing to enjoy the beauty of the moment. And I realized that if Sunday was really coming, if Jesus had really risen, then what I did and how I lived mattered, and that when I got to the end of what I knew, the resurrection power of Christ would come right on in and pick up where I left off. In fact, things would be better because God was doing the heavy lifting. It had been Friday in my life, but Sunday was coming!

So how is it in your life as we had towards Valentine’s Day tomorrow? Are you loving and living like it’s Friday, grinding away but unsatisfied? Or are you loving and living like Sunday’s coming, full of joy from God’s promises kept? Jesus sings a love song to each of us and it comes to us in our Fridays—it whispers, “Sunday’s coming!” You see the word we all need to hear, is that we are all going to have Fridays when it seems the world is against us, when our plans are failing and our hopes are dust in the wind. Indeed, we are all going to die, so how we live really matters. Will we hear the Good News and let it change us? For every Friday that happens in our life, God can sing out in our hearts, “But Sunday’s coming!” And when we see the problems of our world, we who seek Jesus do not despair or plug our ears, because that’s Friday-talk. No, we roll up our sleeves and open our hearts, because we know Sunday’s coming. The world will tell us we are fools, that coming together on a Sunday morning is a waste of time, and that we need to get real…because it’s just Friday for them…but Sunday’s coming! Are we willing to live beyond our Fridays? To listen less to the world and more to God, to not be conformed to the world’s ideas of what matters, but be transformed by the Holy Spirit and renewed from the inside out. Because as real as Friday is…Sunday’s coming! My friends, it’s Friday…but Sunday’s coming!

Love Will Find a Way

Rev. Doug Gray

A few years ago, I told this story, but it’s just perfect to re-tell it today. A a precocious four-year old was at the pediatrician for a check up. As the doctor looked into her ears with an otoscope, he asked, “Do you think I’ll find Big Bird in here?” The little girl stayed silent. Next, the doctor took a tongue depressor and looked down her throat. He asked, “Do you think I’ll find the Cookie Monster down there?” Again, the little girl was silent. Then the doctor put a stethoscope to her chest. As he listened to her heart beat, he asked, “Do you think I’ll hear Barney in there?” “Oh, no!” the little girl replied. “Jesus is in my heart. Barney’s on my underpants.” Well, if Jesus is in my heart and your hearts, what does life look like? Paul has written one of the most amazing passages about love that has ever been written. Let’s look at it together.

Want to know what love is? Ever want to know whether you were just in love or had the real thing? Do you want to become a better lover? Then today’s passage is for you! So let’s look at it together.

Love is or does...

Patient

Kind

Rejoices with the truth

Protects

Trusts

Hopes

Perseveres

Believes

Love isn’t & doesn’t...

Envy

Boast

Proud

Rude

Self-seeking

Easily angered

Keep record of wrongs

Delight in evil

1.      Love is something you do, not something you feel. One of the first things we might notice is that the left column has more verbs. Love is not something you have; it’s something you do. Stephen Covey, in his book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, tells this story.

At one seminar where I was speaking...a man came up and said, “Stephen, I like what you’re saying. But every situation is so different. Look at my marriage. I’m really worried. My wife and I just don’t have the same feelings for each other we used to have. I guess I just don’t love her anymore and she doesn’t love me. What can I do?”

“The feeling isn’t there anymore?” I asked.

“That’s right,” he reaffirmed. “And we have three children we’re really concerned about. What do you suggest?”

“Love her,” I replied.

“I told you, the feeling just isn’t there anymore.”

“Love her.”

“You don’t understand. The feeling of love just isn’t here.”

“Then love her. If the feeling isn’t there, that’s a good reason to love her.”

“But how do you love when you don’t love?”

“My friend, love is a verb. Love—the feeling is a fruit of love the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?

 Feelings come and go, and they can run hot and cold. But love is a decision backed up by action. Even in good marriages, the feeling of love is not always there, but if you continue to love each other—you keep doing things that are loving—then the feeling can always come back. Lesson #1 for better loving: love is something you do, not something you feel.

2.      Love is the way. Look at the right column for a moment. What do all these things have in common? They are all selfish. One of my favorite quotes of all time is from M. Scott Peck in his book, The Road Less Traveled, “Love is the will to nurture one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” Love is always aimed at what helps people and communities grow, even about what helps ourselves grow. Self-love is important for us—Jesus reminded his disciples that we are to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” No matter how good or praiseworthy the action, if it is done without love then it falls short. Love is not only what we do, love is how we do it. If you’re a good teacher, I will guarantee you will be a great one if you do it with love. If you’re a good father or husband, I guarantee you will be a great one if you do it in a loving way. So lover lesson #2: If you want to be a great lover, you must do loving things in a loving way.

So hold on, where does faith come in? How are faith, hope and love connected? Faith is good. Faith helps us open up so that we can receive the love God desires to give us. Faith helps us trust when we cannot see what the next step will be. But we have faith in God because of God’s love for us. In the end, by God’s grace we will stand before God and we will not need to walk by faith any more, for then we will as Paul says, “see face-to-face.” Hope is good. Hope helps give us courage. Hope can keep us in the game when we can’t see how we can possibly win. But we have hope because of the power and triumph of God’s love. The cross could not stop Jesus’ love, and even when we fail and fall, God’s love is greater than our darkness. As good and worthwhile as faith and hope are, they are both rooted in God’s spectacular, radical, relentless love for us.

Love always finds a way. If we truly want to love, we will find (and God will show us!) a way to act on that love in a loving way. Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia, who wrote, Habits of the Heart, once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four-year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentlemen who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said,” Nothing, I just helped him cry.” My friends, God has placed you in this world to love. Without love, all we do, all our achievements are worthless. Without love, all our smarts and good sense are wasted. And how will we love today? How will we use our words and actions to reflect the love God has already shown to us? How will what we do reflect what Jesus Christ did for us? Love will find a way. 

Getting Closer to God

by Rev. Doug Gray

Ten years ago, I had the chance to go back to preach at the church where I was in youth group. You know, it was very weird. Have you ever been away from your hometown for a while, and you come back? I do have some good memories of being there. But there people who wouldn’t talk with me back then, who suddenly thought I was great! And there were some people who weren’t that impressed, as if to say, “Yeah, well, he will always be a snot-nosed kid to me.” Have you ever been away from your hometown for a while, and you come back? In our passage for today, it’s really interesting to see how Jesus and the people in his hometown deal with the weirdness of His coming home. Jesus has done some amazing things in other towns in the area, but what’s going to happen when He goes home? In the course of the story, we learn from Jesus about getting closer to God.

First, getting closer to God means freedom. Can you look with me at verses 18 and 19? 

18          “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

              because he has anointed me

                       to bring good news to the poor.

     He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

              and recovery of sight to the blind,

                       to let the oppressed go free, 

19          to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 

Instead of bad news about one more thing they couldn’t afford, Jesus says, “I’ve got some good news.” Where people are held captive by a job, or a habit, or a rut in a relationship, Jesus says, “I’ve broken your chains.” For those who can’t see hope, or who are blinded by selfishness, Jesus says, “I can help you see and feel again.” Instead of the world weighing us down—our bosses, our politics, our teachers—and injustice putting up a stop sign, Jesus says, “I am more than all them. Together we can find a way through.” Instead of the incredible weight of our guilt, Jesus says, “I love you! You are forgiven.” And to know that we are forgiven—that’s pure freedom! To be close to God means freedom.

Second, getting closer to God means grace gets bigger. My junior year of college, I had the chance to study the conflict in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. I was staying in the Old City in Jerusalem, but I really wanted to have the chance to experience Jewish life. One week, Julie and I dressed up nicely, went down to the Western Wall and put our names on a list for Shabbat. A very kindly man collected us. He had a full beard—black with streaks of gray—and dark eyes with laugh lines at the corners. Family and extended family were in his apartment—with us, maybe 10 around the table—and everyone was eager to see if we had any friends in common from the States. We were eager for them to tell us about their lives and what they were thinking about. Julie and I enjoyed ourselves tremendously, and I tried to steer the conversation around to try and understand how they felt about Palestinians and did they know any Palestinians. Within a couple of heartbeats, this kind and learned man went into a spitting rage. His response shocked me to the core and I quickly asked his forgiveness and we went on to speak of other things. I realize now that I didn’t have the right to ask that set of questions, and for another, had I thought about it, I would have realized he might have a reason for hating the other side—perhaps a terrible loss or traumatic experience. Nevertheless, the rage of this man of God as he dehumanized Palestinians, and how his compassion seemed reserved only for people on his side, still shocks me. In our passage, Jesus calls his neighbors out by reminding them of the times God’s grace was big enough to include a poor widow from Lebanon, and a foreigner from Syria, and Jesus’ neighbors respond with rage as if to say, “How dare they be included!” Grace is way bigger than we usually think, and the closer we get to God, the more grace will fill our vision.

Third, getting closer to God means grace melts fear. I recognize that perhaps it’s easy for me—privileged white, straight guy—to talk. But I have suffered when other Christians told me I wasn’t good enough to be a Christian, and I have recoiled in horror when I saw Christians use God’s Name to justify hatred and bigotry. The roots of hatred and bigotry lie in fear, fear that the other side won’t treat us well, fear of loss, fear that we are wrong, fear there won’t be enough jobs or wealth or power or love to go around. As the famous philosopher, Yoda, said in The Phantom Menace, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” John writes in his first letter, “God is love…Perfect love casts out fear.” The closer we get to God, the more we can relax and let God’s grace take over.

The closer I get to Jesus, the more I realize how boundless God’s grace is. It’s a scandal how big God’s grace gets as we get closer to God. None of the things we think can keep us away from God are barriers: 

·      We don’t have to have money—Jesus brings Good News to the poor.

·      We don’t have to be born into the right family—Jesus makes us part of His.

·      We don’t have to have our life together—Jesus frees people who are still in bondage.

·      We can be completely clueless—Jesus brings sight to the blind.

·      We can be oppressed and overwhelmed, weighed down and broken up—Jesus forgives us and says this year is the year we can start over and be right with God.

Getting closer to God means we are freed to start over. Getting closer to God means grace can be bigger. Getting closer to God doesn’t mean getting things our way. Getting closer to God means learning to trust in God’s way. The real question about getting closer to God is whether we will stick with our preconceptions about Jesus like the folks in His hometown, or let Jesus speak grace into our lives and find, in fact, that Jesus has been close to us all along.

Switcheroo Sunday - Pastor Doug's Sermon in Pembroke

If I were to ask you to pick out the most successful people of our time, who would you pick? How do you know?

[Take responses from the congregation.]

We live in a society where success, status and power are really important. We applaud the people who “make it” and we hear the message that we too should “make it.” In one sense, there’s nothing wrong with that. All these things are good in some sense. But talk to the people who have “made it,” and you find many of them are not satisfied or fulfilled or often even happy. Why is that? Is there a way to be successful and happy? Our passage for today asks one question that can guide us into a better future:  Are we keeping the way of Jesus simple?

A few years ago, I had the great blessing of going to the Massachusetts Association Annual Meeting. The main speaker was Chris Sears, a 27-year-old drug addict who had, by the grace of God, been sober for 17 months. He talked about how for years the drugs tried to own him. During that time, like a lot of addicts, he didn’t go to church. But when he got out of jail, he decided to go to church with his parents. The first time he walked into their Fellowship Hall, he saw the banner signed by everyone that said simply, “Welcome Home, Chris.” Instead of hearing about all the rules, or hearing about all the ways he had failed, what he heard was “We love you!” And he cried as his parents beamed with pride and his six-year old niece ran to him. People hugged him and patted him on the back, and really cared what was going on for him. In the dark and grim days of relapses and homelessness that would follow, that scene would play over and over in his mind. Paul writes, “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles…” Does it seem too simple? The life of Jesus draining out on an undeserved cross, for people like you and me and Chris, who don’t deserve it. And forgiveness and a new, abundant life to be had for the asking. It’s all about grace.

Maybe it seems too simple for us, like it was for the Jews of Jesus’ day. They wanted Christians to do miracles to prove what they said about Jesus, and so do we. Show me you’re real, God! we pray. If you’ll just do this for me, then I’ll believe. Until we are in the next jam, and we start looking for another miracle. Instead of learning to trust God, to have a relationship with the Risen Jesus, we ask, “What have you done for me lately.” It’s scandalous that people should try to live like Jesus, sacrificing themselves for someone who doesn’t deserve it. Why would we risk anything for someone else?

In another sense it’s way too simple for us, like it was for the Greeks of Jesus’ day. They wanted Christians to make a great argument to prove what they knew about Jesus, and so do we. You’re are perfectly logical, God, we explain, and so God’s wisdom starts looking a lot like the conventional wisdom in the world. Instead of letting God direct our paths, we try to put God in a box, to let God have a little time here or there. It’s just foolishness to believe in God, to surrender our whole lives and live like Jesus, to make choices that are not in our rational self-interest but for the good of people we may never even see. Why would we give up our rights or privileges for someone else?

Maybe that’s why we need to live in community with others who are also trying to live the paradoxically simple life of a Christian. Part of why we want to be part of a church family is to remind ourselves that we are part of God’s team, to cheer for God with a bunch of other people who love to cheer for God’s team. Another part of why we come to church is to remind ourselves that we are on the winning team. As the great Baptist preacher, E.V. Hill puts it, “If God is in it, God will win it.” Whatever happens, whatever tough times we experience—and Lord knows we are going through some tough times now—we know God wins in the end. We need each other to encourage and be encouraged, to huddle up with, so we know what the next play should be, to listen to Coach Jesus as He directs the game and shapes us and molds us for greatness. Jesus’ idea of winning and power is different from the world’s, and we need each other to stay in the game.

Sometimes we get an idea that we are not the greatest, not terribly successful, not very wise, not very powerful. Or perhaps, like Chris Sears, we may even feel broken, or vulnerable. That maybe true…but if so, then we are right where God wants us. Paul writes, “Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are… so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.” If we add God’s strength to our strength, God’s wisdom to our wisdom, God’s power to our power, we are totally unbeatable. The best things in this life come from God, and the best of who we are comes from the nail-scarred hand of a Lord who was willing to die on a cross. Following Jesus really is simple: offering our lives to know Him, and to show grace to the person in front of us in that moment. Relationships and grace. “Welcome Home” parties for addicts. Taking care of those who need it. Seeking justice for those with no voice. Doing the right thing even if it costs us. Ironically, it’s when we keep it simple that we do see the miracles, that we do find everything makes logical sense. It’s so simple, it blows our minds. So let us dream the dreams of our crucified Lord and make real the resurrection hope God wants to bring to life in us and our world…by His grace.

Every Moment for God! Losing the Keys

Have you ever lost your keys? Several years ago, while we still had all our kids at home, I lost my keys. Of course, the thing about losing your keys is that you don’t know it until you’re about to be late. In her book, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices for Everyday Life, Tish Warren talks about the Stages of Searching for Lost Objects[1] that I went through that day:

“Stage 1. Logic. I retrace my steps. I look in the places that make sense…This is not that big a deal. They’ll turn up.” So I started where the keys are supposed to go, in the kitchen by the phone with the other keys. Nope! I’m not happy, but there’s still time.

“Stage 2. Self-condemnation.” Now I’m starting to get worried about the time. As I start moving through each room in the house, checking out every horizontal surface, I start in on myself, like Tish: “I am such an idiot. Where did I put those keys? Why am I such an idiot?”

“Stage 3. Vexation.” I start getting really irritated, sometimes with myself and sometimes with others. I’m trying to figure out how this could have happened. Was it the dog? My wife? The kids? And God, what are you going to do about this?

“Stage 4. Desperation.” I’ve looked in all the places the keys were likely to be, and now I start looking in random places where they aren’t likely to be—between the couch cushions, under the bed, in the freezer—don’t laugh it could be there—and the places I’ve already checked three times.

“Stage 5. Last-ditch.” I stop and try praying, but I’m starting to get really upset and I’m having trouble calming down enough to really pray. “Please God!” I pray. “You know I need these keys. You know I need to get to work and to this funeral. You want these people taken care of, right? So could I get a little help here?”

“Stage 6. Despair.” Finally, I sit down on the couch and put my head in my hands. Nothing is working. I’m never going to find my keys. I am a complete failure and I’ll lose my job and then what? And God, how could you let me down like this? Tish writes, “Outside the window, by my locked car, are naked trees and hopping sparrows, but I will not notice. Everything is worthless. … Stupid keys. Stupid me. … Stupid universe….Then, a bit ashamed and guilty about my overreaction, I pull myself together and, beginning at [stage] one, repeat the cycle.” At last, I find my keys in a place I swear I looked before, and I shout with joy! Then I’m out the door like a wild man and remind myself to stay safe while I am driving so my morning doesn’t get even worse. In the scheme of my whole day, this turned out to be just a blip on the radar, something almost forgettable, but as Warren says, “it was also the apocalypse. Apocalypse literally means an unveiling or uncovering.” In all my emotionally dramatic responses, “I glimpsed…how tightly I cling to control and how little control I actually have. And in the absence of control…”[2] I realize how much that episode revealed the dark sides of me as a person. It’s only later that I have the time to reflect on where God was in all of this.

The first thing I realize is that God was with me all along. When my life is coming unglued, I sometimes ask, “Where are you, God?” I sometimes wonder if it’s easier to trust God when it’s about the big things—like the time years ago, when Cynthia was away and our basement flooded with sewage, and I just had to do what I could and lean into God’s strength while I was doing it. ‘Cause where else am I going to go? Or when my mom died and all I felt was great sadness and exhaustion—still I knew that God was at work, ‘cause all I could do was trust God to work. In some strange way, finding a faithful path is easier with the big things than losing my keys, or being hangry because I didn’t eat when I was hungry, or a numbskull driver cuts me off. Is it harder to find faith in the small irritations and failures? But whether my problems are big or small, I realize Jesus comes to me in the messiness of my life—when I’m frustrated or despairing is when Jesus is right there! Whether we are aware of it or not, God is always with us.

The second thing I realize is that if God is there, and God loves me, and God is in charge—then really, what was all the fuss about? How often am I like Martha in our passage from Luke for today, thinking Jesus should make my life different, tell so and so to help me, cater to my whims. I love Jesus’ response: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; only one thing is needful.” What is that one thing? In that story, Mary is doing it:  she is sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to what he has to say. So when my keys were lost, was I sitting there listening to what Jesus had to say? Nope! I had people to blame and emotions to dramatize when only one thing was needful. At the end of the day, what I knew was if I had spent more time listening to the voice of God in my life, and given less time to the increasingly panicked voices of my worry and fear, I might have found my keys sooner. But for sure, I wouldn’t have been so grouchy or anxious the rest of the day. When we live in light of God’s love, then we can more easily set aside stress and worry, and gain more of God’s perspective.

Knowing that Jesus was there all along—but I didn’t trust Him—knowing that I didn’t have to get so bent out of shape—but I didn’t listen—I realize the third thing, that my carefully crafted self—that I know what I’m doing, that I’m good at what I do, that I’m a man of God—has a whole lot of cracks in it. Yep, actually I think it’s more cracks than anything else. So many ways I fail to be the person I want to be. So many ways I turn out to be a very broken and needy person. I stand in need, and so I lay all my brokenness, all these cracks in my life before God. And miraculously, it’s through these cracks that God wants grace to come into my life and yours. I don’t get why that is, but God comes into that messy moment of vulnerability. In Christian circles, we call this confession. So I not only tell the truth and express my brokenness, but I also ask for help. I don’t want to be like this! “Lord, I want more of You to shine through. When I’m pulling my hair out, I want more of your peace and perspective.” So I wait in that messy moment, the vulnerable moment between my confession and what will come next—and that’s when Jesus comes and brings His grace and peace. Grace for me to hear I’m forgiven and loved. Peace that I don’t have to be in control and that God is at work. Acknowledging our failings and our needs before God brings grace and peace.

So I don’t know if you lost your keys this week, or something just as bad, or maybe you are facing much bigger things. What I know is, as Warren writes, that

“this practice of confession and [forgiveness] must find its way into the small moments of sinfulness in my day. When it does, the gospel—grace itself—seeps into my day, and these moments are transformed. They’re no longer meaningless interruptions, sheer failure and lostness and brokenness. Instead, they’re moments of redemption and remembering, moments to grow bit by bit in trusting Jesus’ work on my behalf. Over time, through the daily practices of confession and [forgiveness], I learn to look for God in the cracks of my day, to notice what these moments of failure reveal about who I am—my false hopes and false gods. I learn to invite the true God into the reality of my lostness and brokenness, to agree with him about my sin and to hear again his words of blessing, acceptance, and love.”[3]

I learn, like Paul, that I can be content in all things, because as Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

[1]Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices for Everyday Life (Downer’s Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 2016), pp. 51–52. Tish tells the story of losing her keys, with these stages. I really like her Stages of Searching for Lost Objects, but the story of lost keys that I tell is my own.

[2]Ibid., p. 52.

[3]Ibid., pp. 59–60.

Every Moment for God! Eating Leftovers

This morning I woke up, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and stumbled to the kitchen to look for breakfast. I poured a glass of milk and threw some leftover pizza on a plate, and called it breakfast. Years of living in a dorm helped me develop a taste for cold pizza, but to be honest, I wasn’t paying much attention to my food. I just know that I need something or I won’t wake up and I will be grumpy and brain dead an hour before lunch. I wondered to myself, how many times have I had cold pizza in my life? I can’t tell you. Do I remember any of those pizza breakfasts? Not really. For that matter, I don’t remember many meals in my life. Do you? As Tish Warren says, “Like most of what I’ll eat in this life, it’s necessary and forgettable.”[1] We all need to eat to energize our efforts, and simply stay alive, but it’s never-ending! In a few short hours, we will need to eat again.

So I think it’s curious and unexpected that when Jesus had a last night with His disciples, he chose eating together for them to remember Him. Tish Warren writes, “He could have asked his followers to do something impressive or mystical—climb a mountain, fast for forty days, or have a…sweat lodge ceremony—but instead he picks the most ordinary of acts, eating, through which to be present to his people. He says that the bread is his body and the wine is his blood. He chooses the unremarkable and plain, average and abundant, bread and wine…Christ is our bread and gives us bread. He is the gift and the giver. God gives us every meal we eat, and every meal we eat is ultimately partial and inadequate, pointing to him who is our true food, our eternal nourishment.”[2]

Before I took a bite of my pizza, I stopped, closed my eyes and thanked God for my pizza and milk. I’m still mostly in a fog, and my stomach is growling, and I don’t really know if the pizza will taste good or not, but I take a moment to be grateful for the gift of the day and the food that I have. Normally, I say grace before I take a bite, because I want gratitude to be more important in my life than consuming, to recognize what God has done to put me right here with what I need right now. You know, I think grace is one of the most profoundly counter-cultural things we can do as individuals or as a group. The world tries to convince us that what matters is what we consume—the movies and shows we watch, the books and memes we read, the food and experiences we take in. It’s one of the failings of our materialistic and consumer-driven society that we value others by what they consume, vilify those who have not the means to consume whatever they want, and determine our value by what we produce for others to consume. When we pause before a meal, we remind ourselves that what we have is a gift from God, and that our value rests with the Giver of our lives and the food.

Like the people listening to Jesus in our passage today, I find the idea of actually eating Jesus’ body and drinking His blood has such a strong “ewwwww” factor, that almost it drives me away. Two things change that reality for me. First, that Jesus’ body actually was broken on the cross for me, that Jesus’ blood really was poured out in an act of tremendous sacrifice. So the metaphor, the symbol, the mystery of sharing a meal with this same Jesus, draws me in. Second, in a way no one has ever been able to explain, when Jesus’ friends gather around a table, Jesus is there. Jesus blessed the bread and broke it. Jesus blessed the cup and poured it long ago, and He is with us as we do those things today.

As I’m eating my cold pizza, I’m not really thinking, not trying to make this moment stick in my head. I’m just giving my body what it needs to keep going, trusting that God is going to use it to energize me. But as my mind comes online, I am reminded that this meal, like Communion, points to the One who made me, and who set these reminders in my life—oh, every three to four hours or so—that I am more than a consumer, and that I depend on people and resources beyond my own in order to have my daily bread. Ultimately, all these meals leave me empty and wanting more, but with Jesus, I find actual fulfilment, purpose for the daily grind of meeting my needs and others, and I find hope that one day, I will sit around a heavenly table with Jesus, and an eternal meal I will never forget.

[1]Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices for Everyday Life (Downer’s Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 2016), p. 62.

[2]Ibid., p. 63, 64.

Every Moment for God! Brushing Teeth

I’m betting most of us are pretty good at brushing our teeth. If you were giving a kid some advice or pro-tips for brushing their teeth, what’s one thing you would tell them.

[Take responses from the congregation.]

That’s good! Those are all helpful. Tish Warren writes, “This morning, I brushed my teeth—a mindless habit ingrained in me since before I can remember. I do so morning and night almost every day. I say ‘almost’ because, at times, the sheer necessity of daily teeth brushing leaves me feeling restful and like a defiant teenager, I rebel against the system. I do not like having to do anything every day. There are days, every six months or so, where I go to bed without brushing my teeth. Just to prove I can. Just to prove that I am not a slave to my molars. It’s ridiculous, and possibly a little unhinged. But the needs of my body are so relentless that they feel burdensome and demanding. Teeth. So needy.”[1] We all have bodies. Big or small, rich or poor, weak or strong, we all have bodies, and we all have to figure out our bodies and what they are for. Did you ever ask yourself why? And why would Jesus be interested in how we brush our teeth? Some of the keys lie in our passages today.

The first thing we learn is that our bodies matter. I mean that literally, because our bodies are physical and take up space. They have different shapes, colors, and abilities, and figuring out our bodies, living with our bodies, using our bodies—they are all things we have to do. It’s something God wanted to figure out too, and that’s why Jesus came. From Hebrews, we heard, “Since the children are made of flesh and blood, it’s logical that the Savior took on flesh and blood…” Because Jesus had a body, and figured out how to live with it, and love God all the way, it means that our bodies are good things, even holy things. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, “Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit?” I think that’s cool, but doesn’t God understand how gross our bodies can be? We all have to go to the bathroom several times a day, all have to eat and drink, all have to brush our teeth, and our bodies make rude noises and smell bad, and still God gives them to us, and God experienced a human body through Jesus. That means that our bodies—with all their grossness, messiness and problems—are not just things to be used, but something sacred to be treasured and cared for. That Jesus had a body means all bodies—even yours, even mine—are sacred.

The second thing we learn is that our bodies were made for a mission. Jesus’ body was. From Hebrews we hear, “Since the children are made of flesh and blood, it’s logical that the Savior took on flesh and blood in order to rescue them by his death.” Tom Long suggests that we might think of Jesus and his story in a startling way:

Of the several views of the atonement found in the New Testament, here we see an image of Christ as the liberator, the one who breaks into the slave quarters and sets the slaves free. The [writer] pictures all humanity as slaves and the devil as the heartless slave master. Every slave master has a whip, a means of power and fear and control, and the devil’s whip is death. All human beings are “held in slavery by the fear of death”(2:15).

The slave camp must be liberated from within, thus Jesus had to become a slave, had to come under the whip, had to submit himself to the power that makes of human life a toilsome servitude. He shared, then, what all the slaves share—flesh and blood and death (2:14)—so that as a slave he could lead the uprising against the slave master.

As a slave, Jesus refused to obey the slave master. Instead, he obeyed the One who sent him, and trusted God to keep the promise. He knew, of course, that his defiance would force the demonic slave driver to apply the whip of death, and he did.[2]

That’s Jesus mission! The Message puts it this way: “By embracing death, taking it into himself, he destroyed the Devil’s hold on death and freed all who cower through life, scared to death of death.” Now that we are broken free, our bodies are made for that same mission:  to use our bodies to live for God, to fearlessly do what God wants us to do, just as Jesus did. Paul continues in 1 Corinthians: “Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.”[3]

Which, in a curious way, brings us back to brushing our teeth. Brushing our teeth seems so monotonous, that I wish I didn’t have to do it—and I would take a pass on eating, drinking, using the restroom and clipping my nails too. Did you know, if you brush your teeth twice a day for at least two minutes, you spend more than a whole day brushing your teeth every year? I have better things to do with my time, don’t you? And Jesus, I would rather not have to give my body and mind sleep, or have to rest. But Tish Warren writes, “…when we denigrate our bodies—whether through neglect or starting at our faces and counting up our flaws—we are belittling a sacred site, a worship space more wondrous than the most glorious, ancient cathedral. We are standing before the Grand Canyon or the Sistine Chapel and rolling our eyes. But when we use our bodies for their intended purpose—in gathered worship, raising our hands or singing or kneeling, or, in our average day, sleeping or savoring a meal or jumping or hiking or running or having sex with our spouse or kneeling in prayer or nursing a baby or digging a garden—it is glorious, as glorious as a great cathedral being used just as its architect had dreamt it would be.”[4]

Yep, our bodies are messy and gross, and still they are what God has given us. In fact, that we are loved in the midst of our messiness, is a sign of God’s grace, God’s love that comes to where we are, not where we wish were. Jesus didn’t die on the cross when we were just showered and teeth brushed, and Jesus didn’t give His life because we were already perfect. Jesus came into our messy lives and died before we were ready because of our need. So as we love and care for our bodies, and care for others in the messiness of their lives, we are showing ourselves and others the same kind of grace we have received. Paul writes, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.”[5] All we are, every moment, so the life of Jesus may be evident in our lives, even in brushing our teeth 

[1]Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices for Everyday Life (Downer’s Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 2016), pp. 37–38.

[2]Thomas G. Long, Hebrews, Interpretation Series (Louisville:  John Knox Press, 1997), pp. 44–45,

[3]1 Corinthians 6:19, The Message translation.

[4]Tish Warren, op.cit., p. 45.

[5]2 Corinthians 4:7–10

Every Moment for God! Making the Bed

Someone funny once said, “There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who divide people into two groups and those who don’t.” But the fact is that making the bed is definitely one of those kinds of things that splits groups of people down the middle, and it makes me laugh that Tish Warren, in her book, Liturgy of the Ordinary, has a chapter about making the bed. I’m not going to ask who makes their bed, but I just have to read what Tish says about it. She writes, “What was the point [of making the bed]? You’d mess it up again that evening…Make the bed, unmake it, make it again, over and over. And for what? The dishes must be washed so you can reuse them; the laundry must be done so you have clean clothes….But the bed functions just as well with the sheets messy as it does with them pulled tight and tucked in, neatly…” So Tish took an informal survey, and discovered “Some made it daily, first thing, zealously. Some never made it. Some thought it was preposterous to even consider making it, while others thought not making the bed was akin to not brushing your teeth or not paying your taxes—something meriting disgust, if not jail time. Many made their bed erratically, maybe three out of seven days. A shocking number made their bed at night. Some promised me that bed-making would change my life—that I’d be more successful, happy, and productive with a made bed.” Making the bed—really how and when we make the bed—are matters of habit, aren’t they? And most of us are creatures of habit, right?

For example, let’s think about what are the first things we do in our day. What are the first two or three things that you touch or do?

[Take responses from the congregation.]

For me, I reach for my glasses first—I have to be able to see. Then I reach for my smartphone, and sometimes my iPad if I brought that upstairs. Then I begin my hunt for breakfast, and a place to sit down while I eat it. As I spent time with God’s Word this week, I was curious how habits and worship are connected.

First, habits are a way that we say what matters to us. If I have a habit of spending time with my smartphone—reading the news or playing a game or checking my email or whatever—that smartphone slowly becomes something I must have, that defines my life. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act[ion] and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”[1] God gets this, that’s why through Moses, God tells us, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Then Moses gives people some ideas for habits to bring God into their day—talking about them with our kids, with our friends, while we are walking and doing things, even writing them on the doorframes of your houses and gates. Many Jews have a little box on the right side of their door frame, called a mezuzah, and in it they place a tiny scroll with the words from the first part of our Deuteronomy passage. Once I watched a Jewish man, apparently heading home after a long day. His steps were slow and dragging as he stepped up to the door of his house, and before he went into his own home at the end of the day, he reached out and laid a hand on that little box and under his breath I heard him pray briefly in Hebrew. It was a habit for him, a way to make God present in his life, before he went in and saw his family, before he shared what happened in his day, before he heard from them about theirs, he took a moment to hear from God. In a small way, this man had made a habit that said God mattered. Do we have any habits that remind us that God matters?

Second, how we do our habits shapes us. Growing up, my family, even my extended family, always waited until the food was there and everyone was present, and then we took a moment and thanked God. Often it was simple. My mom’s family prayer went like this:  “In Jesus’ Name to the table we go to give God thanks for the food we have.” When I was a kid, I used to come to the table starving, and so I wanted to race through the prayer, “Mumble mumble Amen!” Accent on the AMEN! The first time I did this I must have been 4 or 5, and my parents laughed. The next time I did it, my parents stopped me and we started over, and they explained that this wasn’t just a prayer to get through, but that the words and the spirit mattered. What a curious idea! I had treated the prayer as if it didn’t matter, only me eating mattered—and so I had unintentionally communicated my need to eat was more important than thanking God. When it comes to our habits connected with God—listening to God’s Word, going to church, saying grace—are we really doing them, with our hearts engaged? Or are we just going through the motions, just trying to get through them to what really matters to us? Does God really matter to us?

So what are some habits that might help God define our lives? One of the things I love about our passage from the Gospel of Luke is that we get some insight into how Jesus made God matter in His life.

1.    Jesus took time to be alone with God. I know we are all crazy busy, and many of us have kids, pets or other family members who are always trying to get our attention. But we each need time with just us and God. Can you find a quiet corner during your coffee break to read a little from the Bible or a book that helps you think about God? When you are in the car, can you listen to the Bible or Christian music, or spend time listening for how God might want you to understand what just happened, or what is going to happen next? Can you go for a walk, laying before God the things that are the most joyful or the most anxiety-creating? Jesus found time to be alone with God, and it could really help us too.

2.    Find a way to show God, “You are most important in my life.” Like Jesus going on to teach and heal, do something for no other reason than it’s something you know would make God smile. I have a confession to make—I’m one of those people who rarely makes his own bed. “What is the point?” I argue…BUT I know that Cynthia loves it! It makes her heart glad when she comes into the room later in the day, and it’s done. So I am usually the one who makes the bed in the morning. In the same way, perhaps we could each find something regular to do that would make God smile—something to be a blessing to people, and something else to be a blessing to God’s efforts through this fellowship. Mowing the lawn or shoveling the snow for your neighbor. Picking up trash while you’re walking. Teaching or helping with Sunday School for a month. Running the technology for worship. Checking in on someone you haven’t seen for a while. Find ways to show that God matters in your life.

When I was first a Christian, I wanted to change the world, and God couldn’t change it fast enough for me. Make my bed? Be serious! My passion was good, but I sometimes ignored or left undone the simple things that would have really touched other people’s lives in transforming ways. Tish Warren points out that there’s “a sign on the wall in a New Monastic Christian community house:  ‘Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to do the dishes.’” She continues, “I was, and remain a Christian who longs for revolution, for things to be made new and whole in beautiful and big ways. But what I am slowly seeing is that you can’t get to the revolution without doing the dishes. The kind of spiritual life and disciplines needed to sustain the Christian life are quiet, repetitive and ordinary. I often want to skip the boring, daily stuff to get to the thrill of an edgy faith. But it’s in the dailiness of the Christian faith —the making the bed, the doing the dishes, the praying for our enemies, the reading the Bible, the quiet, the small—that God’s transformation takes root and grows.”[2] How do we live every moment for God? Let us begin…small…finding a way this week to know in our hearts that God matters more than anything else, finding a way to show with our lives that God is the Lord of all and us too.

[1]https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/416934-sow-a-thought-and-you-reap-an-action-sow-an

[2]Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices for Everyday Life (Downer’s Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 2016), pp. 35–36.

Every Moment for God! Waking Up

Sometimes it feels like my life is a movie. Do you ever feel like that? Alfred Hitchcock, the maker of so many incredible suspense movies, once said, movies are “life with the dull bits cut out.”[1] I like that, because I don’t know about you, but sometimes I wish I could push the fast forward button to go past all the boring bits to the next exciting thing. In her book, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices for Everyday Life, Tish Warren explains that one of the reasons we have the “boring” bits, is that God works through them too, and maybe—if we are paying attention—God wants to use every moment to help us, speak to us, and lift us up. Today, we start, like we do every morning, with the very ordinary act of waking up.

Do you wake up fast or slow? I know some people who open their eyes and they are totally awake, and I know others who wake up suuuuper slow. How about you?

[Take responses from congregation.] I have to confess that I am a serious zombie when I first wake up.

Tish Warren writes, “Whether we’re children or heads of state, we sit in our pajamas for a moment, yawning, with messy hair and bad breath, unproductive, groping toward the day. Soon we’ll get buttoned up into our identities: mothers, businesspeople, students, friends, citizens. We’ll spend our day conservative or liberal, rich or poor, earnest or cynical, fun-loving or serious. But as we first emerge from sleep, we are nothing but human, unimpressive, vulnerable, newly born into the day, blinking as our pupils adjust to light and our brains emerge into consciousness.”[2] I really, really like that! And it occurred to me as I was reading, I wonder did Jesus wake up like that? When He would wake up in the morning and roll out of bed, did He have wild hair and a nasty taste in His mouth?

For Jesus, there was another kind of beginning in His life. We read about it this morning. Before Jesus started His ministry, He was baptized. Jesus was Jewish, and so was John the Baptist. John’s big thing was getting people to turn their lives around—the church word for that is “repent”—to change their minds from being self-focused to being God-focused. John would baptize people in the Jordan River as a way to make public, the new reality in their hearts. After John baptized Jesus, Matthew tells us that “the skies opened up and he saw God’s Spirit—it looked like a dove—descending and landing on him. And along with the Spirit, a voice: ‘This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.’” So I like the special effects of skies opening up and a Spirit like a dove coming down—it must have been pretty cool!—but the thing that’s really amazing is what God says to Jesus—"marked by my love, delight of my life.” What’s amazing is not that God loves His Son, it’s that God is saying this now—before Jesus has done any miracles, before He teaches or heals, preaches or helps, or even dies on a Cross. And that idea can change everything for us!

First, before we do anything, God loves us! I remember when Cynthia and I were getting ready to have our first kiddo, we got the nursery ready, talked about names, and arranged for a mid-wife. Then at 1 a.m., it was time! And we rushed to the hospital and Cynthia endured hours of excruciating labor, and then Morgan was there! And she was wonderful—how do I know? She hadn’t done anything, but everything she did was exciting! Oh look at that! She made bubbles. She smiled. Isn’t that great? You know, God feels like that for each of us. “You are chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.”

Second, we don’t have to earn God’s love. Did you ever know someone who was really incredible? With lots of achievements to their name? My dad’s dad was Henry David Gray, and he was one of those people. He pastored churches for 50 years, on the cutting edge of youth ministry and including the arts in worship. He took different groups of teen-agers around the world four or five times—and they would meet people like King Hussein of Jordan and the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church in Istanbul. He built one church from the ground up and another from the inside out, and helped plan the urban center of Hartford, Connecticut, before moving out to California and planning another city out there. Oh and did I mention that he set a 100-yard dash record in high school that stood for 30 years, that he founded our denomination, wrote 25 books and edited an academic journal for 20 years…after he retired? He was a serious try-hard. I grew up in his long shadow, but in his last days, at the age of 86, Grandpa kept having one more thing that had to get done. First, it was giving his library away. Then, he had boxes of his books, and each book had to be mailed out to someone on his 650-person mailing list. Nothing was ever enough. I realized that he didn’t know grace, that he was still trying to impress his heavenly Father. In the end, he finally relaxed into God’s arms and received the grace that had been there all along. Many of us can be try-hards too—trying to earn our way into heaven, to impress our heavenly Father with how good we are, or how hard we are working? Are you white-knuckling your way through your life, worried that someone will find out you’re not as good as you wish you were? I want you to hear what God says to you today, “You are chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.”

Finally, we are perfectly situated to make a difference with the love we are given. When you were in high school, did you ever wish you could be like someone else? Did you ever think to yourself, “Oh I wish I were popular like so and so” or “I wish I could play sports like this person” or “I wish I could sing like that person”? Anybody else? Yeah me too! I thought I could really be amazing if I could just be that person, but what I was missing was that God had made me who I was and put me where I was for a reason. Tish Warren writes, “Christ didn’t redeem my life theoretically or abstractly—the life I dreamed of living or the life I ideally should be living. He knew I’d be in today as it is, in my home where it stands, in my relationships with their specific beauty and brokenness, in my particular sins and struggles. In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard reminds us that where ‘transformation is actually carried out is in our real life, where we dwell with God and our neighbors….God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are.’”[3] God says to you (and me), in this moment, as you are, “You are chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.”

At the beginning of our day, we lie there, our senses open for just a moment—perhaps to listen for the pitter patter of little feet, perhaps to sniff for the smell of coffee brewing. And in that moment, with our days still ahead of us, we can take a moment to remind ourselves that we are loved. Whatever headaches are ahead, whatever smiles and challenges, knowing that we are loved means everything! Because whatever anyone else thinks of us, whatever complaints we hear, whatever accolades we receive or don’t, God made us, God loves us, and God is with us. The question then is not whether we are loved, or have we done enough, but how the love of God will flow through us to those who woke up just like us, but not know they are loved.

Moment for Reflection

Please pray with me.

Oh Lord, how humbled we are that You love us that much before we are accomplished or competent, whether we do anything at all, we can rest in Your love. May Your grace be evident in how we treat everyone. May Your peace flow through us, as we live into the rest of our day, and the rest of our days. Thank You, Lord, for loving us for who we are, and walking with us in all things! Amen!

[1]Alfred Hitchcock, quoted in Donald Spoto, Alfred Hitchock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures (NY: Anchor Books, 1992), p. 41. Tish Harrison Warren quotes this in Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices for Everyday Life (Downer’s Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 2016), p. 21.

[2]Ibid, pp. 15–16.

[3]Ibid, p. 21.