Gallo Pinto is literally translated as
"spotted rooster" but it’s also the nick name for Costa Rican beans
and rice. Here is my attempt (with apologies to my Tico friends out
there!) after finding a key ingredient... Salsa Lizano on Amazon.This is often a breakfast dish.I like it with a fried egg on top, both for
the irony of an egg on top of “spotted rooster” but also because the yolk soaks
in as you eat.You can also add a little
sour cream to your serving if you’d like.Pura Vida!
The Holy Gospel According to St. John, the 2nd Chapter
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it.
When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus doesn’t do miracles. Jesus does SIGNS. Turning water into wine was, the story tells us, the first of Jesus’ SIGNS and this one, like all of Jesus’ SIGNS, point us first to a better understanding of WHO and WHOSE Jesus was and is, BUT, they also point you and me, the followers of Jesus, in a particular direction for us to walk along The Way. However, before we do all of that, I’m sorry to say we have to go to math class first, and today we have word problems.
Jesus had six stone jars each holding between 20 and 30 gallons of water. How much wine did Jesus make? Correct class, Jesus made 120 to 180 gallons of wine. That is between 600 and 900 bottles and THAT equals a lot of wine!
Each of Jesus’ stone jars held 20 to 30 gallons of water. At 8.34 pounds per gallon, how many pounds of water did Jesus have to work with? Correct again! Jesus had between 167 pounds and 250 pounds of water or wine inside. For a fun, bonus, enology fact today I’ll let you know that wine weighs just a tiny bit more per gallon than water, but for us today, we’ll call it pretty much even.
You can relax now because that’s the end of math class for today, but math class may have been the easier part of this story. This part may be harder because remember, this SIGN isn’t just something meant to tell us something interesting and informative about Jesus. This SIGN also calls you and me, Jesus’ followers, to be at work in the world in a pretty particular way.
The first thing this SIGN is calling US to do, is to be open to having our plans changed. Jesus didn’t PLAN for this to be his first miracle. When Jesus’s mom, Mary pointed out that the party had run out of wine, Jesus told her, “What concern is that to us? Fixing this wedding problem isn’t part of the PLAN!” To which Mary replies, “Plans change. Deal with it.” Hail Mary, full of grace, nothin’! Hail Mary, full of “Do what your mother says young man!”
But in the end, Jesus changed his plans. AND if the King of Kings and Lord of Lords can have HIS plans changed…. you better believe that any and ALL of us can and will experience some plot twists in our stories as well! We learn here that Jesus listens, pays attention and is willing (with a little coaxing from mom) to have his plans changed… that things change EVEN for Jesus and God works amazing things in those plot twists! So, we too are called by this sign to live likewise… listening, paying attention and changing our plans as life’s plot twists play themselves out for us as individuals and for us as a church, always remembering that God is in those too.
The second thing this SIGN points out is HOW Jesus responds to this change in plans. He could have made just enough wine to get by. He could have done the bare minimum to make mom happy. But he didn’t. He responded with ABUNDANCE! Remember the math lesson? He made 160 to 180 GALLONS of wine! Think of your fuel oil tank… THAT MUCH WINE! He made 600 to 900 bottles of wine! He didn’t make just enough to get by, he made ALL the wine and THAT reminds us that Jesus is big into ABUNDANCE! ABUNDANCE of grace, love, forgiveness, compassion, generosity and hope! So, we too are called, as followers of Jesus, to be people of ABUNDANCE as well. As individuals and as a church community, we are being called by this sign to be ABUNDANTLY generous with our gifts, our talents, our time and our treasure. This sign calls us to ABUNDANT living with compassion, forgiveness, hospitality and hope!
The third thing this SIGN points out is the nature of how Jesus responds to that change in plans. Jesus could have easily done a miracle that conjured up 180 gallons of the cheap stuff. That would have been miracle enough and no one would have known the difference at that point in the party. But EVEN when NO ONE would notice, Jesus makes the very, VERY BEST! And with this SIGN, you and I, as followers of Jesus, are called to give our very, VERY best to God and our neighbors too, even when no one else is looking and even when no one will ever know!
That may seem like a lot. Called to put aside OUR plans, OUR passions, OUR needs, OUR desires and instead follow the plot twists in our lives. To live for “The Other” NOT with “just what we have to spare” and not with “what we can get away with” but with our very, VERY best, lavished with ABUNDANCE. THAT may seem like quite the overwhelming request… And it is. It IS too much to ask us. We can’t do that like Jesus did. We can’t turn water into wine. We can’t manage that level of abundance and we can’t always give our very, VERY best! We just CAN’T. We’re just flesh and bone. We’re just human!
It’s true. We are just human. Just organs and bones, muscles and skin, mud and clay. It's true, we are basically just containers, filled with about, oh, 150-ish pounds of water, which is, oh, about 20-ish gallons, which is perhaps just coincidentally the exact amount of water in each one of those six water jars which Jesus touched when he did the first of his SIGNS in Cana of Galilee.
Alone, without God, without Christ, we ARE just flesh and bone... earthen vessels filled with water. BUT when we are touched by Christ, there in the waters of Baptism and there at the Table, Jesus does a sign IN US! In Christ we have been transformed from something common into something extraordinary. In Christ we are the miracle! In Christ we become the SIGN!
You are the miracle! You are the SIGN! You have been transformed! So go! There is a party in desperate need of what God has to give it through you! Go and bring the generosity, love, grace, forgiveness, compassion and joy God has created in you out to the world! And remember, just like 180 gallons of wine can transform a party disaster into the best party ever, you have been transformed in Christ to do nothing less than to change the world! Amen.
The Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew the 2nd Chapter
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’” Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.”
When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
What makes someone wise? Wise, I think, is different than smart. Wise people aren’t always smart and smart people aren’t always wise. You can be smart and know that where I grew up in Northern Florida there a fifty different species of snakes and six of them are venomous. You can be smart and know all the facts about those 50 species… their scientific names, their colorings, patterns, habitats and favorite foods, but you don't have to know all those facts to be WISE enough to watch where you walk, taking care when you step over a fallen log. Smart people know that Water Moccasins swim, WISE people put someone on watch while the rest take a dip in the pond. The smart person will know the difference between a Coral snake and a King snake… Red on black, a friend of Jack. Red on yellow, kill a fellow! A wise person gives both plenty of space just in case you’re rhyming and timing are off that day. Smart is good, don’t get me wrong. I love smart, I love the facts, raw knowledge feels great, but… to be WISE you need to not be so swallowed up by finding out the facts that you don’t take some time to look up from the books, phones, screens, facts and information and actually SEE what’s going on around you.
I think it is being aware… noticing things… and allowing the things you notice to be simply and only what they really are... that makes a person WISE. It’s paying attention… close attention… detailed attention… vigilant attention that makes a person wise. The Wise Men in this story were probably smart too, but they are remembered for being wise! They were wise because they paid attention and didn’t allow their preconceived notions, hopes or desires to cloud or dismiss what they actually saw and encountered along the way.
First they noticed a star… a star that signaled the birth of the King of the Jews.That is what they saw and they traveled far from their homes to honor this new king.They followed the star to the point where it stopped.Now, a smart person may have looked at the hovel of a home over which the star came to rest and said, “This just can't be true!No king would live here!This star needs to keep moving.We need to give it more time.We need to squint or tilt our heads so it points to a house that makes sense for housing a king."
After all, the smart thing would probably be to look at that little house with a teenaged mother and a baby born in a barn and conclude that logically, “this can’t be the house of a king” but those astrologers from the East weren’t just smart, they were WISE, and being wise means trusting what you see, even if it isn’t the thing or the place or the child they expected to see, or maybe even WANTED to see when they set off from a far off country, across the desert following a star.
That was them being wise at the beginning of the story, but at the end of this little story there is one little throw away line that almost always gets forgotten, that shows them being WISE again. “Having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by a different road.” Again, the SMART thing would be not to snub the king, to show up for the command performance that had been given by the king. The smart thing would have been NOT to make life plans based on what a late night burrito does to your dreams. But being WISE meant they listened. They didn't let that dream fade in those moments between first waking up and your feet hitting the floor. Being wise meant paying close attention and then having the courage to do the hard thing the dream advised and let go of the smart plans they had carefully crafted for their return trip.
Being wise opened these astrologers up to seeing God do a new thing in an unexpected place. Being wise, allowed them to see that God was indeed bringing the King of Kings and Lord of Lords into the world in a broken down home, to a teen aged, unwed mother.
What this lesson has asked me all week is, “What new and unexpected thing is God doing right now? What wonder is God trying to point me to, with a sign so bright and clear, that if it was a snake, it would have bitten me? What am I not seeing that God is trying to show me because I’m too busy trying to be smart that I've forgotten to be WISE and look up and really see?
My problem, and perhaps you struggle with this too, is not that God hasn’t given me something bright and obvious to see and follow.The light shines in the darkness, after all, and the darkness could not overcome it.There’s that light there, shining in the Christ candle pointing us to the Font where we are bathed in God’s love, claimed and named children of God.There’s Christ shining brightly at the Table in the bread and the wine.My problem isn’t that there is nothing bright to follow, my problem is that I too often forget that those Sacraments are somehow BOTH complete AND just the tip of the iceberg!God’s love, grace, compassion and generosity is most clearly and fully found in them, but I too often forget that God’s love goes deep, deep beneath as well.God’s love doesn't stop there! It continues deep in, with and under every molecule of all of creation.My problem is not that I need to be smart and seek out a place to be in God’s presence.My problem is that I’m often not WISE enough to look up in my everyday life and really and honestly SEE that I’ve been swimming in God’s loving presence, like a fish swims in water, every single moment of my life!
It's a new calendar year for us all and we too are following a star to who knows where. Not much can be guaranteed, but I’d bet that the way things look today will be different than how they look one year from now. Therefore, may we all be smart enough, as we continue this journey, to follow the light that shines in the darkness. May we be smart enough to run, not walk, but run over and over again to God’s Table to sustain us with God’s love and grace for the journey ahead.
BUT may we ALSO be WISE enough this year to remember that regardless of the paths this journey takes us on, regardless of the comings and goings, ups and down, hopes and fears we will inevitably find along the way… may we be WISE enough to look up and honestly and genuinely see what is happening around us and trust that God’s love and grace surrounds us and holds us whether things go the way we hoped and planned OR if somewhere along the way we are given a dream to travel by a different road. Amen.
The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke, the 2nd Chapter
In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
There was no place for them in the inn. I’d always assumed that there was no place for them in the inn because of this census registration thing and all the rooms at the Bethlehem Motel 6 and every other hotel in town were taken. I’d always assumed that there was LITERALLY no room for them in the inn because every room was taken. But the story doesn’t actually tell us why, really. It COULD have been that every room was taken, but maybe it wasn’t that there was no room in the inn, but that there was no room for THEM in the inn. For their KIND, there was no room. They were different in lots of ways, after all.
They were from AWAY. They were poor. They were unmarried and she was pregnant. She was ready to give birth and that would mean a mess and extra laundry. She was also a revolutionary. She was. In just the last chapter, she gave a passionate protest speech about overthrowing the powerful, lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry with good things and sending the wealthy away empty.
So, was there no room in the inn? Or was there no room for THEM in the inn? Did they hear, “I’m sorry we’re fully booked for the night” or did they hear, “Go back to where you came from!?” I think there’s probably no way we’ll ever know for sure, but regardless of whether there was PHYSICALLY no room in the inn or if there was no room for THEM in the inn, what happened that night had the same result.
That night, God, the Creator of all that ever was, is now and of all that ever will be, decided to be born as a human in the same way that each and every one of us has been born. God was born that night in the regular, messy, beautiful, painful, glorious, human way. The Savior of World… God with us… was born as one of us regular folks… but God, the Creator of heaven and earth, was born without a place, without a home… like the carol says, “The Little Lord Jesus, no crib for his bed.” He was born into the straw and the dirt and into everything else that’s found in a barn. God came to the world and the world, basically, just didn’t notice.
When Martin Luther preached a Christmas sermon on this text five hundred years ago he said to his congregation, “Many of you in this congregation think to yourselves: “If only I had been there! How quick I would have been to help the baby! I would have even washed his dirty diapers!” You say that NOW, because you know now who that baby was and how great Christ is, but if you had been there THEN, you would have done no better than the people of Bethlehem. Childish and silly thoughts are these! Why don’t you do it now? You have Christ in your neighbor. You ought to serve your neighbor, for what you do to your neighbor in need, you do to the Lord Christ himself.”
The message of Christmas is that God has come into the world bringing light into our darkness, life into our death, healing into our brokenness… but the message of Christmas isn’t just that. The message of Christmas is that God has brought that light, life and healing to the world in a very particular way. God has brought, and is bringing, that light, life and healing from the bottom up. God brings all that FIRST to those who, like he was, are unwelcome and unnoticed in the world. THAT is where God shows up first… among those people from “away”… among THOSE folks who don’t fit what’s “proper” in society… among THOSE people who are relegated to the dung heap in the barn, demonized and marginalized and told to go back to where they came from.
God in Christ did something amazing that first Christmas… God came among us, as one of us, and in coming as one of us has scooped us up into God’s infinite, unconditional love… and God in Christ has done that, and IS DOING THAT even now, starting at the bottom, with the lost, lonely, forgotten, frightened and hated first and then moves from there to embrace all of creation. But a big part of the message of Christmas is that God in Christ starts with the ones for whom there is no place in the inn, and as followers of Jesus, that's where we're called to start as well. May we remember that. May we remember that God enters our world among the most gritty, forgotten, pushed aside and alienated people. May we remember, when we encounter THOSE people, that those are God’s people… Christ’s people… and when we take time to notice them... when we offer up a space for them... when we make a place for them in our neighborhoods and our hearts, we do nothing less than make a place there for God. Amen.
The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke the 1st Chapter
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
At this time of year, I’m known by my holiday nickname… Scroogy McGrinchypants. In my mind, since Christmas the THIRD most holy day of the Christian year (after Easter and Pentecost) we should decorate and celebrate with just slightly less intensity than we decorate and celebrate for Pentecost. You may be surprised to learn that I’ve never been able to sell that at home or church!
But as every Grinch learns, you just can't keep Christmas from coming and at some point it can’t be held back any longer. Something happens… a sign, even for those of us most Grinchy, that signals the turn into Christmas. For stores and children it seems that Halloween is that sign. Halloween costumes put away and Candy Corn on the clearance table… THAT is the sign that Christmas is coming! For my wife, it’s hearing Vince Guaraldi’s Christmas music from Charlie Brown. For her, THAT’s the sign. For me, it’s hanging the greens at church. From that point on, completely in spite of my usual Scroogy McGrinchypants self, the excitement and anticipation builds and builds until kids and adults and yes, even Pastor McGrinchypants can’t sit still any longer. From the moment we see that sign, we begin to live our lives jumping around, ready for Christmas to happen.
John the Baptist, while still in his mother’s womb, had that kind of excitement! Way before he was even BORN, John was to that jumping-for-joy state of excitement! Even the most aggressive retailers can only seem to pull off that excitement starting after Halloween, but here, John the Baptist had that excited level of anticipation for the coming of the birth of Jesus, months and months and months before that first Christmas would even arrive!
The even more extraordinary thing is that John isn’t excited for the toys, the food, the parties, eggnog, trees or lights. John is excited, and excited to the point where he is jumping for joy, because GOD came into the room. John isn’t jumping for joy months before Christmas for the presents with wrappings and bows… but for the PRESENCE... God with us. It’s sad really, that the world’s focus on presents with bows leaves me less excited to celebrate God’s presence… God with us. Because if there’s anything in this world worth exerting the energy and endangering the knees to actually jump for joy, it's God coming to enter the world to be with the likes of me and you!
And God has come for the likes of me and you. Will Willamon says that if God is willing to get a poor, teenaged, unmarried girl pregnant and then have the audacity to call her blessed, THAT should tell us that this God will go to whatever lengths might be necessary to be with us. If our God is willing to be born in this regular and very earthly way; is willing to be born to the poorest of the poor, into a scandalous family, then you and I can never make the mistake and say, “Jesus was not meant for the likes of me.”
God has bent so low and so deep on purpose, so that every single bit of creation could be scooped up into God’s presence, explicitly including the likes of you and me! Can you imagine being scooped up by God and held in God’s loving presence? We adults don’t often allow ourselves to show that kind of joy, do we? When’s the last time you literally jumped for joy? My last time was at a Maine hockey game. Sports may be the only time we jump for joy as adults and worse is that aversion to jumping for joy seems to have leaked into the church! I’m not sure where it started, this idea that church should be a place where people are quiet, stoic and reserved. Where did it come from, that being in the presence of God should be solely somber and proper? That certainly wasn’t John’s reaction! Here in this lesson, John literally does cartwheels in Elizabeth’s womb because he finds himself in the presence of Jesus! “Well” you might say, “That was John as a child.” But that’s not the only time Christ’s presence led to great joy!
You can’t tell me that the mood of the crowd remained somber, with proper Victorian British reserve and Scandinavian stoicism when Jesus turned 180 gallons of water into REALLY good wine?! You can’t tell me that the people remained calm and subdued when Jesus healed their blindness, cured their leprosy, cast out their demons or raised the dead! You can’t tell me that after 5000 plus people were filled with delicious fish sandwiches with leftovers to spare, the crowd’s only reaction was to calmly dab the corners of their mouths with a perfectly pressed linen napkin! NO! The presence of Jesus… the presence of the ONE who scatters the proud, brings down the powerful, lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich away empty… THAT isn’t a QUIET affair! It demands a LEAP from the oppression of the earth into the extravagant freedom of the heavens! It demands we jump for joy!
John's jumping for JOY was the first earthly reaction to the presence of Christ. Elizabeth's shouts of joy and thanksgiving were the next, and BOTH pointed the world to Christ’s presence… God with us! But THAT was only the beginning. John’s whole ministry was spent pointing to Jesus… telling the world THERE is the Lamb of God… THERE is your source of LIFE… THERE is the ONE who brings light into our darkness, JOY into our pain!
But John and Elizabeth don’t JUST point us to Christ, they also serve as models for OUR ministry too, and not just the ministry of those of us in funny shirts either! ALL of us are called to BE like John and Elizabeth, continually pointing to Jesus. We too are called to use words and actions to tell and show our family, friends and neighbors, “THERE is the source of LIFE. THERE is the light that shines into your darkness no matter how deep your darkness might be.”
We all, like Elizabeth and John, have been filled with the Holy Spirit in Baptism. We all, live in the presence of Christ. There at the Table each week we taste and see Christ’s presence most clearly and most reliably in the bread and the wine, but the truth of this story tells us that Christ comes to us… walks into our lives wherever we are, in whatever we’re doing, no matter who we are… God in Christ comes to us and with Christ present in our lives, we are transformed from death to life, from sadness to joy... how can we NOT just jump for joy! So take your neighbor by the hand. Even the Scroogy McGrinchyest neighbor you know, and point them to Christ! Tell them, “THERE is Jesus, the light of the world!” Show them with your love and compassion and your working for justice, that Jesus has come for them and for us all! Then invite them to join you and jump for JOY! Amen.
The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke, the 21st Chapter
“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
"Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap."
I have personal experience with “worries of this life” and my guess is that you do too. I’m also pretty clear with what “drunkenness” is all about having experienced both college and the effects of White Russians in the high altitudes of the Rockies. But I have to admit, I needed to go look up what “dissipation” was. I figured it was bad, stuck in a list with other bad stuff, but bad in what way? It turns out that dissipation can be even more drunkenness, OR it can be a squandering of money or resources OR if you take the science/physics meaning, dissipation is the “loss of energy, especially by heat.” So, dissipation can be thought of as slamming on the brakes. You push the pedal and your brakes come together and change the forward energy of your car into heat and you slow down and stop.
These are the things, Jesus tells us, we are NOT supposed to do as we live and wait and watch in our time. We all live in this strange time, in-between Jesus conquering death at the Resurrection and the Kingdom of God fully being present. The temptation, as we get up each day and are almost instantly drown by a flood of horrible news, is to deal with the latest terrorist horror, the latest brutal shooting death, the latest racist rant or call to trade freedoms for promised security… the temptation as we are nearly overwhelmed by that tsunami of life-draining news is to deal with it by escaping it, with things like drinking, shopping or eating to excess. The temptation as we feel like we're drowning, weighed down by worry and fear in a flood of truly horrible things, is to lash out like a drowning victim. The temptation is to slam on the brakes to anything or anyone different or new or unknown and “dissipate” the forward moving energy of love, into the raw heat that comes with fighting, friction, anger, violence and hate.
On Wednesday I was over at the capital with a bunch of area clergy and about a hundred other folks, letting the world know we were residents of Maine who would welcome Syrian refugees. As I stood there with Father Frank, my Catholic colleague, a man pulled up to the light and said, “If you had a bag of M&M’s and you knew ten of them could be deadly poison, would you eat that bag of M&M’s?” I think Father Frank, knowing that a deep, philosophical discussion with a guy hanging out of a pickup truck at a stoplight was unlikely, just said, “Yeah, I’d eat them. M&M’s are delicious.” The guy shook his head and as he drove off told us that Governor LePage was the best Governor Maine had ever had.
I’ve been thinking about that ever since… not the part about the governor, but the part about the M&Ms. I’ve been thinking about that because right there, hanging out of a pickup truck window was a man, weighed down with horrible fear and a terror so strong he would choose to never eat another M&M in his life… he would slam on the brakes of his love of candy coated milk chocolate goodness and dissipate that energy of love into the heat of fear, anger and hatred. Locked in that fear, he wouldn't even TRY to figure out a way to determine which M&M’s were poison and which were delicious, but instead just cut himself off from all of them forever. THAT, is precisely NOT how Jesus advises us to wait between the time when he conquered death and when he comes again.Instead of trying to escape from the hard things that come in this life, instead of handling difficult things with "all or nothing" reactions, instead of fearing and hating and lashing out… Jesus advises us, when these things begin to take place, to STAND UP and RAISE YOUR HEADS, because your redemption is drawing near.
Pulling back, staying away, picking fights, closing boarders… THAT isn’t the way. Trying to escape the difficult things in our lives by consuming more and more drink or food or buying more things… THAT’S not the way. Slamming on the breaks and exchanging the energy of love for the heat of fear, anger and hate… THAT’s NOT the way either!
In the movie, the Shawshank Redemption, there’s a scene where Red, is talking to Andy. They are both in prison, and Red talks about his fear of living on the outside, not having lived there for decades and decades, but Andy isn’t ready to give in, he’s determined to hold on to hope, even in the face of what seems impossible and at the end of the scene, Andy turns to Red and says, “I guess it comes down to a simple choice really… get busy living, or get busy dying.”
You see, the WAY Jesus tells us to deal with the flood of horrible news, the tsunami of terror and the tidal wave of inequality and injustice is not to hide in fear, but to STAND UP and RAISE YOUR HEAD! The WAY to deal with all that the world throws at us is to LOOK UP, LEAN IN and GET BUSY LIVING! To LOOK UP and SEE that Christ, the One who overcame death and the grave, is fully present with us right here… right now!
I think we forget that too easily. I think I forget that too easily. We look at the horrors of the world and the pain and grief of the changes and challenges in our lives… we read these passages about some far off coming apocalypse, the end of the world and Jesus coming in the clouds some time in some far off distant future we’ll probably never live to see... and we forget.
We forget that right there, every week, the Son of Man comes to us… and if we would just LOOK UP… just STAND UP and RAISE OUR HEADS, we would SEE that somehow, each week, wrapped in a cloud of mystery, Christ is fully present in our midst, right there in the bread and the wine. And there in that cloud of mystery, Christ isn't asking us to wait for some far off mysterious future sign that the world will SOMEDAY be made right. Instead, Christ is RIGHT THERE, RIGHT NOW and then as we open our hands, Christ is right here… in each of us.
We forget... I forget... that Christ is with us, empowering us not to wait in fear FOR a sign, but that we have been empowered to go into the world with courage and love and BE a sign... BE a sign that life is stronger than death, that love is more powerful than hate, that there is room in our hearts, and our state and our neighborhoods for people who at first feel different but who end up being children of God just like us.
At the end of the Shawshank Redemption, Red finds a note that Andy hid after he escaped from prison and Red had been paroled. The note says, “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things and no good thing ever dies.” So, stand up, lift your heads, come to the Table and receive the power of the risen Christ, who comes to us in a cloud of mystery every week and empowers us with unlimited love and grace so that we would BE the sign of hope our world so desperately needs. Amen.
The Holy Gospel According to St. Mark, the 13th Chapter
As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.
Sometimes it feels like only an apocalypse, only God breaking into our world, could have the power to put things right. Mark’s gospel was written to people who felt just that way, and today feels much the same.
Children die from hunger. Only a miracle will do. Women stay with an abusive partner because they can’t see another way to care for their children. Only a miracle will do. The poor and hungry are demonized and people of different races and religions are made to be scapegoats. Only a miracle will do. Acts of terror rip apart Beirut and Paris while hate and war drive families into flimsy rubber rafts as their neighborhoods turn to rubble. Only a miracle will do. Even in our church at 209, with everything changing around us. Sometimes it feels like only a miracle will do.
Mark, at the end of his gospel paints a picture of the world getting darker. The sun sets, darkness falls, midnight comes and the darkness grows. The moon sets, the darkness becomes overwhelming and before the dawn it is the darkest and the coldest time of the night. Frustratingly, Mark’s gospel doesn’t “fix” it as we would like. Instead it sits with us IN it. It acknowledges that darkness in our lives is real, that life gets colder and darker the longer we wait for relief. Waiting is hard enough, but waiting for relief that will come at some unknown time is nearly impossible. We want a sign! We NEED a sign! Sometimes we need a sign so badly we create them, hoping to somehow force God to give us the miracle we need.
So, how long O Lord must we wait!? THAT’s the question we desperately want answered. But that answer isn’t what we get in Mark's gospel or anywhere else in the Bible. What we get isn’t a time table telling us about the future where “one day” we might begin live. No, what we get instead is an invitation to begin to live RIGHT NOW… right where we are… even feeling trapped in that dark, cold, fear filled place… we hear an invitation to LIVE!
A quote attributed to Martin Luther says, “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” And one attributed to Winston Churchill says, “If you are going through hell, keep going!” Those invitations to LIVE even in the midst of darkness… even in the depths of that fear, is an invitation to move, live, serve and love as if that miracle we are desperately waiting for has already come. And here’s the not-so-secret, secret… that miracle HAS INDEED already come!
It’s part of the way God created us, that the first thing we do when we are threatened, is that we unconsciously pull back to somewhere familiar, respond the way we’ve responded before. That’s why our hearts race as we approach the edge of a cliff. God gave us that reaction so we don't just walk off the edge in blissful ignorance! The edge of the chasm IS a threat… it’s different… it’s deep and your body tells you, by relocating your stomach up into your throat, to BACK UP! TURN AROUND! STOP MOVING FORWARD! It’s a beautiful gift! Without that gift our ancestor’s bones would be piled up at the bottom of some chasm and humanity would be extinct! It’s a really good gift!
But lashing out or backing away are not the ONLY gifts we’ve been given. That is not ALL God created us to be. God made us more than that! God also created us with the ability to stop and imagine life beyond just instinctual reaction... to imagine life on the other side of the chasm, to see another possibility beyond just attack or retreat, and see the possibility of a life that is more than just an endless cycle of fighting and running. The truth is that God created us for MORE than that kind of shallow life! We have been created for ABUNDANT life!
But HOW? HOW can we get from here to there? WHAT can get us to the other side… what can move us beyond just fighting or running... Only a Miracle will do! Yes, only a miracle will do, but the miracle we need is not a “WHAT.” The miracle is a “WHO” and the miracle we need... the miracle we HAVE, has lived among us, died in the pain of reactionary fear and been raised from the dead! The miracle we need to get to the other side of this turmoil, darkness, fear and pain, both far and near, is even now inviting us, poking us, prodding us, provoking us to follow to abundant life! The miracle we need... the miracle we HAVE is Jesus, and in his death and resurrection has already brought us from fear to abundant life!
I know it doesn’t feel like it. But just because it's hard to see, doesn't mean it isn't here. I see glimpses of the Miracle we need... the Miracle we HAVE, shining through the cracks of our very real pain and very real darkness. Have you seen the veggies and produce piling up for the Thanksgiving baskets? When we are generous like that we are walking the Jesus way and the light shines through that generosity into the darkness! Did you see that beautiful family connection between the daughter of a D-Day aviator and the son of a D-Day paratrooper last week? When we commit to being together, in that investment of time and being present, we discover that we have always been connected and the light shines in the darkness! Have you heard our choir? Have you heard our singing? When we choose not to get drawn into fights and gossip and reactions and when we choose to not run away when it is hard and instead choose to sing… we are walking the Jesus way and the light shines in the darkness!
God has created us to live our lives beyond the fear, pain and automatic reactions that draw us away from life and into never-ending life-draining battles. God has created us for so much more than that... for the abundant life we will discover we already possess by following the Jesus Way… taking one step at a time, as the lesson from Hebrews tells us, PROVOKING one another to love, being together and encouraging one another more and more as we see the Day approaching. Amen.
