It's the Blood!

Romans 3:19-28

Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For “no human being will be justified in his sight” by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.

Reformation Sunday happens at this time of year because it was on All Hallow’s Eve… Halloween… that Martin Luther nailed his 95 Thesis to the door of the Wittenberg church and kicked off the Protestant Reformation. It also seems appropriate that we have this lesson from Romans every year too, because it talks about THE BLOOD! “A sacrifice of atonement by his BLOOD!” You almost can’t help but read it in a Béla Lugosi accent… THE BLOOD!

When we hear about… THE BLOOD… what comes first to mind, for a lot of people, is that sort of gruesome, blood-going-everywhere, Passion of the Christ, sort of image. I don’t think that’s an accident either. It’s an image that’s been pushed for centuries by the people who really love the theory that God was so mad at humanity and God just couldn’t get over it without some blood being spilled! It’s called the Substitutionary Theory of Atonement. It’s basically the idea that in order for you and me to achieve atonement, or “AT-ONE-MENT” with God... in order to be re-connected with God, God (the One who created the entire universe out of nothing, by the way ) was simply UNABLE to reconnect with us without payment IN BLOOD.  But lucky for us, Jesus substituted his blood for ours. It’s a super popular theory. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists of all sorts seem to love it. Mel Gibson’s movie, Passion of the Christ, pushed it with tankers full of cinematic Hollywood blood and the only problem with it, is that I think it’s horribly, gruesomely, terribly WRONG!

With Jesus God gets OUT of the retribution business, not more gruesomely into it! God isn’t unable to forgive without first receiving payment… God can do whatever God wants! God doesn’t need showers of blood to quench the fires of some sort of uncontrollable Divine rage. It’s people who have PUT that vengeful rage ONTO God because they themselves can’t imagine forgiving without payment first. They themselves want (a what John-Arthur?  Quid-pro-Quo.  Right!) retribution and punishment in order to quiet their OWN rage. They’ve plastered their own human nature onto God, because making God work like they do is MUCH easier for than accepting that God, in Christ Jesus, has just HANDED atonement to us as a FREE GIFT! Because, you see, if it’s true that God has given it to us as a GIFT… well, then we might be expected to forgive others as a gift as well… and honestly… most of us really want some BLOOD to be spilled!

I know that BLOOD spilling stuff has been pounded into us for centuries, but for just a minute, try to put the Dracula, Halloween, gruesome, horror-movie-style-bloodbath stuff away and try to SEE this passage, NOT through all you’ve heard before, but just as it is on the page. Because when we focus so intently on the blood flowing-out-in-a-horrible-death part, we miss something really important. So let’s hear it again… “The redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by Jesus’ blood, effective through faith.” What does this mean? (That’s a little Martin Luther humor there!)

Redemption is what happens when a brokenness is repaired or healed. But that can happen in many ways. If it’s a monetary debt, it can be healed by the debt being paid off OR simply forgiven. If it’s an injustice it might be healed with recognition and a commitment to walk a new way with something like reparations and then forgiveness and healing. If the brokenness is a bondage like sickness or addiction or incarceration or slavery, it would be healed by being set free. The take home on redemption is that blood-spilling as payment is NOT the only way that redemption can happen nor the only way brokenness can be repaired.  St. Paul uses LOTS of different images to try to get people to understand this in his letters depending on his audience. 

BUT, Pastor Erik, it does say, “God put Jesus forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his BLOOD” and indeed it DOES. BUT what it DOESN’T say is that it was put forth by the SPILLING of Jesus’ blood. Blood does a whole lot of other stuff… hopefully for years and years, decades and decades, on our insides before it does any fatal spilling! So, might it be, that God gave us his Son to give us the gift of atonement… A way to be AT-ONE with God… through MORE than just the SPILLING of Jesus’ blood? Could it be that God gave us, not just the Jesus of the Passion, but the rest of Jesus as well?  Including the part where Jesus’ LIVING blood allowed him to walk around and teach us about God’s infinite love? The part where Jesus’ LIVING blood brought healing to the sick, food to the hungry and life to the dead? The part where Jesus’ LIVING blood flowed through him as he walked on water, calmed the storms, stood up to oppressors, and insisted on lifting up the least and the lost and the last of the people of creation?

I think we have unfortunately been tricked over the centuries to not pay close attention to Jesus’ LIFE BLOOD and focus only on Jesus’ DEATH BLOOD. I think we not only MIGHT want to work on fixing that, but rather that we MUST! And we MUST because it is Jesus’ LIFE, and yes, his death as well as HIS RESURRECTION… ALL OF IT… that makes up the FULL gift of God, given to all of us and all of creation without any strings attached. 

Then, when we imperfectly step into each day of our lives, putting one of our imperfect feet after the other, clumsily into the footsteps of the Jesus who LIVED, the Jesus who DIED and the Jesus who ROSE AGAIN... THEN we are living our FAITH, and in that imperfect walking we will begin to really understand that we are already, AT ONE with God. Amen. 

A Divine Kick in the "Hip Socket"

Genesis 32:22-31

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had.

Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

ALL change, transformation, new life, recovery, growth, healing… all of it… and not just the religious bits… ALL OF IT... happens by way of death and resurrection. It happens all around us every day in ways we often hardly even notice and then it also happens in ways we can’t possibly ignore, even if we wanted to. It happens in the simple things like going to sleep and rising in the morning to a new day. It happens out in nature every year as the trees change into vibrant shades of reds and yellows, mottled browns and tangerine orange and then, in a fiery, swirling, show… they let go of life for the winter, always to rise again in the spring. It happens when we end a career and begin a new life in retirement. It happens when we surrender ourselves in an operating room and then wake in recovery. It happens when we are finally able to move through an old trauma, forgive the ones who hurt us, and rise to a new life no longer needing to carry that old grudge. It happens in our Christian Sacraments when we die to sin in the waters of baptism and rise to new life in Christ and when in the Eucharist we say together, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” And of course it happens in that one monument-raising-moment that comes for every single one of us when we physically die.  For that one, we try very hard to believe from this side of that death, to trust that we will indeed rise in glory to the fullness of eternal life.

But there’s the rub, isn’t it? On this side we can only TRUST that to be true. We can’t ever be fully certain, can we? We only see now through the glass dimly, as Paul says. THEN we’ll see face to face… but NOW isn’t THEN, is it?! And because NOW is not THEN and I can’t clearly see the… “THEN”... I, at least, tend to NOT approach change, transformation, new life, recovery or growth with the fiery, flamboyant, confident show with which the trees make it all look so easy. I don’t let go of the old as easily as the trees let go of their leaves. I’ve been in situations that were far less than wonderful… some were even horrible… but they were KNOWN! To give up the KNOWN, even a horrible known, for only the HOPE of something better… what if it’s worse!? I can see that death and resurrection is the way God designed creation to work but, dear Lord, was the “death” part of all that really necessary? Can’t we do it another, less painful, less scary, less unknown, less... deadly way?

That’s what wrestling with God looks like. God told Jacob to go back home and face the brother he had cheated out of everything. God told Jacob to die to his former scheming ways and rise to the new life of a healed relationship. God told Jacob to go through the waters of the Jabbok river and let the person he had been up to that moment, FULL-ON-DROWN, and then rise up on the other shore into a new life. Jacob wasn’t so sure. His brother was big. Really big! Jacob had been a big jerk.  A really big jerk!  So he approached the river without any confidence it would work out.  Then there in the middle of the river, Jacob met God and Jacob told God for an entire night, just how God should REALLY have the world work! Death and resurrection was a TERRIBLE idea, Jacob told God. The death part is scary and unknown and sometimes VERY painful. God had CLEARLY made a mistake, Jacob told God, and when God saw that Jacob would not let go of what was… would not stop fighting no matter what, God kicked him right in the “hip-socket” and yes, Virginia, it was not the “hip-socket”… It was indeed the “HIP-SOCKET” and low-blow and behold, after that… Jacob stopped fighting God.

One of the great bits of wisdom from this story is the truth that God created creation to work by way of Death and Resurrection and is sticking with it! The irony is that even though Jacob fought that truth and did NOT win his argument, MANY of us still insist on continuing Jacob’s argument with God about it even to this day! I do it.  I have wrestled with God over God’s “death and resurrection” plan… more than once! In each of those fights, I too have left the fight with a Divine kick to the hip-socket, limping into the new life God was determined I have... And determined God is! DETERMINED to get you and me and all of creation all the way THROUGH… EVERY SINGLE ONE of those changes, transformations, deaths, growths and recoveries we face and bring us into a new and abundant life AND GOD WILL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES to get us there!

We do have some say in God’s death and resurrection plan though. We can take the beautiful reminder that the trees give us every autumn, and approach each of life’s changes, transformations, deaths and opportunities for growth and recovery with a flurry of color and a beautiful release of what was, confident that the promise of new life and spring will come... AND spring does ALWAYS come... OR we can choose to fight and wrestle and struggle against each of those changes, transformations, deaths and opportunities for growth and recovery with the God who decided Death and Resurrection IS how the world is going to work and end up… still on the other side, mind you… but with our “hip-sockets” out of joint and a very painful, lingering, limp.

Either way God IS GETTING us to the other side, either as a beautiful dance partner full of color and light or by whatever means it might take, up to and including a Divine kick to the ol’ Hip Socket! EITHER WAY we get there God will bless us. EITHER WAY it happens we will be transformed into a new creation. Because you see, God is perfectly WILLING to do anything it takes to get us there, but God is totally UNWILLING to just leave us to settle for anything less than a new, abundant, and eternal life. Amen. 

Meandering Mobile Mulberry

Luke 17:5-13

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"  The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.

 "Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here at once and take your place at the table'?  Would you not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'?  Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?  So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!' "

There’s a scene in the movie Jaws where they’re out in the boat looking for the shark. They haven’t seen it yet… they’ve only seen what it’s done! Then suddenly…. there it is… at the stern of the boat! It’s huge! Beyond their worst nightmares! The Chief of Police, slowly backs up, staring at the roiling water... back, into the cabin, still staring dead astern, and tells the grizzled Captain Quint, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

That’s the disciples. They had seen what Jesus had done. Then suddenly they understood!   Jesus wants THEM to do the same! It’s huge! Beyond their worst nightmares! They slowly back away, still staring wide eyed and tell Jesus, “We’re gonna need some bigger faith.” And who could blame them! They were desperate for the tools to do this impossible job they were being asked to do! That’s how it works! Right? When you don’t have enough of what you need, you go out and get more! So if you need more faith, you go out and get Jesus to give you bigger faith! Right?

But as it turns out, even though that might be the way it works at Big-Y with groceries, it’s actually NOT the way faith works. BECAUSE faith works SO differently, Jesus pulls out this over-the-top, Mobile Mulberry story, to make that difference REALLY clear. With that part of the lesson and the parable about the slaves settling into their roles, and doing their work with consistent practice and discipline, Jesus, I think, was trying to help the disciples understand that as they began to DO the things he was calling them to do with consistent practice and discipline, they would FIND that they actually weren’t short of faith at all, but instead, ALREADY had ALL that they needed to do everything God was calling them to do.

Other very smart and very spiritual folks have tried to teach this same truth over the years. Mother Theresa said, “Our calling is not to do great things, but to do small things with great love.” She too didn’t think we needed MORE faith. What we needed was already there and by doing the small things with great love, we would come to realize over time that we have all we need to also do the bigger things as well.

The Spanish Poet Antonio Machado says, “Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; Wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road and upon glancing behind one sees the path that will never be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road - only wakes upon the sea.”

Thomas Merton said, “We are indoctrinated into ‘means and ends’...But that is not the way to build a life of prayer. In prayer we discover what we already have. You start where you are, and you deepen what you already have, and you realize that you are already there.” He is saying the faith we need is already present in our lives and with discipline, prayer, and practice, we will be able to dig deeper into that already-present faith and access all that we need. Richard Rohr says something similar. He says, “We cannot attain the presence of God because we are already totally in the presence of God. What is absent, is awareness.”

This confusing bit of Gospel, with dutiful slaves and meandering, mobile, mulberries is trying to tell us how radically different faith really works from the rest of the world. Faith is a complete and total gift… a fulsome, generous and overflowing gift that we have ALREADY BEEN GIVEN in the waters of Baptism. We have been given this gift, not because we said the magic words or did enough nice things. We have been given this gift… each of us… simply because we are loved so completely that God gives us all that we need through the Spirit, to love God and love neighbor and live abundant lives, fully immersed in that Divine love.

Like the disciples, we can’t get any more faith. We’re already full-up to overflowing... where would we put it!? What we CAN do is to use the faith we have been given a bit more deeply every day. Even with just the smallest piece of faith we feel able to hold in any one moment, we can do small things with greater and greater love each day. With the tiniest sliver of faith, we can take one small step and with each step slowly realize that there is always solid ground beneath each and every step and open up more of the faith we’ve been given with each step. What we can do is to encourage each other to slowly open our eyes and our hearts and our minds and our souls to the realization that everything we do in this life, we do within an infinite ocean of the presence of God, in whom we live and move and have our being… an ocean filled with an infinite amount of faith, and love, and hope for all.

This is why we gather here in this wonderful community of faith, not to ask Jesus to give us more faith, but to remind one another (in a WORLD that makes it very hard to remember) that each of us already possess all the faith there is to have. We gather here in this community of faith to remind each other (in a TIME that makes it very had to remember) to reach out for the hand of another and then together, each day, take just one more step… to do one small thing, with just a pinch more love... to be thankful for the littlest of things and in doing so open ourselves to ever greater things. We gather here in this beautiful community of faith to remind one another (in a world that makes remembering the GOOD things such a challenge) to keep an eye out for God doing something just as impossible as having a tree walk down the street to the ocean and plant itself in the sea. Because even though the world makes it VERY hard for us to remember, God is at work doing more for us in each and every moment than we could ever ask or imagine… and thanks be to God, for that! Amen.