Jesus, Re-Member Me

The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke the 23rd Chapter

When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

The thief on the cross (who wasn't a thief) said to Jesus “remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”  The other man didn’t ask Jesus to remember him.  He asked Jesus to get him down… return him to a time when he wasn’t dying on a cross… back to a time when things hadn’t gone wrong.  Back to a time when he thought life had been better.  But going back to some nostalgic past, no matter how beautiful and wonderful it might have been isn’t the way to Paradise.

The thief on the cross (who wasn’t a thief) he, on the other hand, wanted Jesus to “Remember” him.  But he didn’t need Jesus to just think of him fondly in the sweet by and by.  He needed Jesus to RE-Member him… to put his life back together.  Now, I know he hadn’t been physically dismembered, but he was being cut off in almost every other way.  He was being cut off from his family, from his community, from his faith, from his dignity, from his self-worth, from his identity, from his hopes, from his dreams, from his future and of course from his life.  

So, that thief on the cross (who wasn’t a thief) he needed the pieces of his horribly Dis-membered life to be PUT BACK TOGETHER, to be made whole again and he believed Jesus had the power to do that and when Jesus told him, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” Jesus didn’t just mean he’d have fond memories of this guy while he sat on his throne in glory.  Jesus meant that THROUGH death was the Paradise of being RE-membered.  The Paradise of being made whole again in every way he could imagine and in ways he could never imagine as well.

The other man couldn’t believe Paradise lay ahead.  He bargained to recapture the past, to go back and string together a few more days.  The thief on the cross (who wasn’t a thief), by the gift of the Holy Spirit, believed that the only place he would find wholeness and life lay ahead, THROUGH the uncertainty of the future, THROUGH the uncertainty of death and into Paradise. 

You and I will never be broken on a cross like those two men, but life breaks us into pieces just the same… life dis-members us in one way or another all the time.  We are cut off from life with a spouse, cut off from a career, cut off from children or relatives or friends or health or hopes or dreams or you name it and because we too have been DIS-membered in our lives, we too need more than just Jesus’s kind thoughts... All of us, in one way or another, need RE-membering!  

All of us who have been broken in one way or another… and that’s all of us… NEED to be made whole again.  The Good News of today is that we have been promised exactly that!  The hard part is believing that it is THROUGH that pain… THROUGH that death… THROUGH that dismemberment… that the infinite and unconditional love of God in Christ will RE-member us.  It WILL be different… it will never be like it was, but we will be RE-membered and that, we are promised, is Paradise!

The promise of being put back together after life has torn us apart… that’s grace.  But there’s more to this than a powerful promise given to us as individuals.  Together WE are the Body of Christ, not only a gathering of broken individuals but also, TOGETHER, we are the Body of Christ called to be RE-member-ers of the broken as well.  Together we are called to bring healing to the dis-membered gathered here today… together we are called to RE-member a world that seems increasingly torn apart… We are not only recipients of the promise that we will be RE-Membered but we are also called to be RE-member-ers too.  

As disciples of Jesus, who is the original “RE-Member-er,” we are called to do more for those around us who are hurting than to simply think fondly of them from time to time.  Our call is to open our eyes and see those around us who have been dis-membered… to care for those who are hurting.  We are certainly called to remember them in the prayers of our hearts and minds but it can’t stop there.  We are being called to live out those prayers with our faithful presence, never doubting the power of being here.  To live out those prayers with generous giving, to help provide this place for the broken to gather.  To live out those prayers, sharing the skills we have been given and RE-Membering the broken; helping one another gather up the pieces of fractured lives when they have been torn apart and helping to put those lives back together... to help to make them whole.

The thief on the cross (who wasn’t a thief) asked Jesus to RE-member him.  The people around you here in this sanctuary, when they experience the hurts, losses and pains that are a part of life… they need YOU… each of you to RE-member them.  Our community too, when it’s broken and hurt, it looks to us as The Body of Christ and needs us as a congregation to work to RE-member them as well.  With our prayers we remember.  With our hearts and hands we remember.  With our generous giving that provides this place to gather and worship and care for each other and our community… we remember.  

Jesus, RE-Member me when you come into your Kingdom… Jesus, RE-Member us when you come into your Kingdom… Jesus, RE-Member our city, our country and our world when you come into your Kingdom and Jesus, feed us now at your Table and through your broken body, made whole in the resurrection, give us your light and strength and wisdom to be RE-Member-ers in your name and guide us to show the world a glimpse of Paradise.  Amen.  

Waiting the Jesus Way

The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke, the 21st Chapter

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them. “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. “But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.

(2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 is also referenced below as well)

What’s going to happen now?  What do we do now?  No matter how you voted, what’s next is unknown.  So, what do we do now?  Today’s lessons have the key.  Today, following the election, just like every other day following every other situation and event that has ever happened or ever will happen… we are called to wait.  

When we hear people shout “The end is near!” we are called to wait.  When folks talk about and threaten and sow fear about wars and insurrections, we’re called to wait.  When earthquakes happen and people go hungry and when all the signs, whether they are real and accurate signs or false and fear filled signs… when those signs point to destruction and terrible times ahead.  We are called to wait.  

Now, the danger in hearing that we are called every day to wait, even while the world around might be falling apart or being torn apart, is that we will make a mistake in HOW we are called to wait.  Making that mistake is what some of the people in the second lesson were doing, but Paul put them straight. 

The Apostle Paul believed that Jesus would return… which we still believe… but Paul believed it would happen, before dinner-ish.  Every day he woke up, he HONESTLY expected Jesus to be standing there with a cup of coffee and a smile for him!  Paul passed that, “gonna happen literally any minute”, expectation on to the people in Thesolonika and some of the people took that so much to heart that they stopped EVERYTHING they were doing… they stopped working, stopped caring for their families, stopped caring for their neighbors… they stopped LIVING… and all they did was lay on the church lawn, look up to the sky and wait for Jesus.  They thought that was faithful waiting.  After all, they would see Jesus first and not be caught off guard.  

That lesson isn’t a justification for not feeding the hungry.  It’s an instruction on how we are to wait.  You see, you don’t get called before governors or kings, heck, you don’t even get called before mayors and city councils for just lying on the front lawn of the church, looking up at the sky and dreaming about Jesus returning.  You get called before governors and kings, mayors and city councils because of what you’ve been actively doing in Jesus’ name… because you’ve been waiting for Jesus by ACTIVELY and insistently living the Jesus Way out in the world!  It’s the ACTIVE loving of God, by insisting on the dignity of the least, lost and last in our community that gets you in trouble.  It’s ACTIVELY loving of our neighbors, feeding the hungry and giving the cold a warm place to stay that gives the world fits.  

Waiting as Jesus and Paul have called us to wait means living as Jesus lived, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, housing the homeless, caring for the widow and orphan and it is doing that work with endurance… doing what we can… not more than we can… but what we can, and doing it today and tomorrow and the next day and the next… making what often feels like only a tiny, and often almost imperceivable difference, but making that difference with endurance over a lifetime.  It means working on poverty, homelessness, hunger and all the rest like the Colorado River works at creating the Grand Canyon.  Jesus reminds us that living the Jesus way requires endurance.  The Jesus way is not a sprint.  It’s a series of marathons, run by a multitude of runners each handing the baton on to the next.  

None of us know what’s going to happen next.  Not really.  Not in our country, our world or our church.  No one can know that for sure.  But I DO KNOW how we are called to wait for God to complete the work begun in Christ’s life, death and resurrection.  I DO KNOW how we are called to wait for God to finish making all things new.  We are called to wait the Jesus Way… actively doing what we can to share God’s love with the people around us.  We are called to wait the Jesus Way… seeing Christ in our neighbors when others see “foreigners” or “enemies” or “thugs” and “terrorists”.  We are called to wait the Jesus way, remembering that sprinting a marathon or trying to dig the Grand Canyon in a day or single handedly attempting to save the planet, or even just Augusta, or even just our church, is not a recipe for faithfulness.  

We are called to wait the Jesus way, taking on a few things that make a difference, doing them well, and setting a manageable pace so that we can run those races with endurance for as long as it takes.  It means handing off the baton to the next runner before we fall on the track in exhaustion.  Because the race we are running… may take as long as it took for the Colorado River to make the Grand Canyon… and remember, the Colorado river isn’t done making that canyon yet either!  

Regardless of who occupies the positions of power in Washington, in Augusta or even here in this church, each of us is called, and each of us has all that we need to wait the Jesus Way.  We have God and we have each other.  So, find the tiny ways you can make a difference.  Try not to become paralyzed by the enormity of what needs to be done.  Look for little glimpses of joy each day, not for the day that the whole world suddenly becomes joyful.  Give a smile as you give with generosity what you have to give and then, when you've given all you have to give, remember you still have your smile.  

So what are we going to do now?  The same thing God has asked us to do every day throughout all of history.  We’re going to wait.  Wait by putting one foot in front of the other, one day at a time, making whatever difference we can make by loving God and loving our neighbor every step of the way.  What are we going to do now?  We’re going to wait, but let’s remember that we have been called to wait the Jesus Way.  Amen.  

Blessed are the Losers

The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke, the 6th Chapter

Then Jesus looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Everything we hear these days is about winners and losers.  From the world series, to the pipeline battle to this never-ending election, it’s all about winners and losers and EVERYONE wants to be a winner, often at any cost.  But this winner/loser obsession isn’t just something we hear on TV.  Even in Chipotle the other day, there was a sign on the Sprite valve on the fountain machine telling everyone that today Sprite was not a winner!  

The thing is, for most of the world not being a winner is a terrible thing.  The only thing worse than not being a winner is being a loser!  But here in Luke’s Gospel the “normal” world is turned upside down in a terribly inescapable way as Jesus declares… Blessed are you who are poor.  Not, blessed are you who are poor in SPIRIT, like in Matthew’s Gospel.  This is just straight up POOR, which is clearly not a winning position.  But Jesus isn’t done.  He goes on to tell the world… Blessed are you who are hungry.  Not, blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness like in Matthew’s Gospel.  Clearly here in Luke’s Gospel, this isn’t some sort of spiritual poverty Jesus is talking about.  This is not-enough-money-to-pay-the-rent, poverty.  This isn’t a spiritual hunger Jesus is calling blessed.  This is a growling-stomach-that-doesn’t-know-where-to-find-a-meal kind of hunger that Jesus is calling blessed. 

But how can this be!?  Twenty nine hours a day for every single day for over a year now, on TV and online and on the radio and on signs we have heard relentlessly until our ears are ready to bleed, how important, essential, critical for the survival of the whole universe it is to be a winner and avoid by any and every means necessary, being a loser!  And then today, into ALL of that hoopla, drama and shouting about winning, Jesus calmly and quietly this morning proclaims, “Blessed are the losers” and as if THAT wasn’t already too much to process he adds, as a footnote, “Woe to the winners.”  

We like Matthew’s version of these beatitudes because we can spiritualize the losing and THAT lets us more easily fool ourselves into believing WE can make ourselves winners.  In Matthew, we’re not poor, we’re just poor in spirit and so, if we do just a little more prayer we’ll be back to spiritual winning before we know it!  In Matthew we’re not physically hungry, we’re not lined up at the food bank, we’re just hungry for righteousness and so with just a bit more effort, we’ll make ourselves righteous in no time at all!  

Luke’s version doesn’t allow for us to fool ourselves like that.  Luke’s version INSISTS that it is precisely those who KNOW… who KNOW at their core, through pain, shame, hard knocks and devastating loss that they CAN’T do EVEN the most basic things on their own, who are blessed in God’s Kingdom!  Luke’s version demands that we listen to Jesus and really, really hear that it is the broken, the hungry, the poor, the weeping, the losers who have come to understand… who are blessed to understand… that there is NOTHING we can accomplish on our own, apart from God.  They KNOW, “I can not by my own reason or strength believe” or for that matter even eat or find shelter or do ANYTHING on their own.  They KNOW that it’s ONLY through a gift from God that they have life, find a bed and have a meal to eat.  They KNOW we are ALL losers without God’s infinite and unconditional love and grace.  

Being poor, being hungry, being broken, being a loser are all held up by our world as the most horrible things you could ever be these days, but Jesus knew that being broken, even though it was painful and terrible was ALSO the window through which we might better see God at work in our lives.  Neither Jesus, nor anyone else would WISH poverty, hunger, grief or brokenness on another person, but Jesus knew that WHEN those things came into our lives… and because we're human, they do in one way or another… we would be blessed with an opportunity to see God’s love at work in our lives in ways that the rich, the full and the winners never would.  

In Japan, there is an art form called Kintsugi.  In this art form, ceramic bowls that have become broken are repaired in a unique way.  The artist doesn’t attempt to hide the cracks, but instead draws the eye to them by repairing them with gold.  The repaired bowls are then even more valuable than when they were unbroken.  Both the expense of the gold, but also the new beauty of the bowl, contribute to the bowl’s greater value.  

Jesus says, “Blessed are the cracked bowls in our community.”  “Blessed are those who are broken.”  “Blessed are the losers.”  For through their poverty, hunger, cracks and brokenness they have been blessed with the opportunity to glimpse God’s grace in ways that the rich, the full, and those who insist they are flawless will never know.  And blessed are we, when we stop trying to look away or worse yet, throw away those who are cracked and broken in our community.  Because it is THROUGH their cracks and brokenness AND our own cracks and brokenness, that we will see that God's precious love and compassion has made us more valuable than we could have ever been if we had just been left to ourselves to suffer through this life as flawless, perfect, well fed and wealthy winners.  Amen.  

The Devil's in the Hole!

Psalm 46

God is a safe place to hide,

    ready to help when we need him.

We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom,

    courageous in seastorm and earthquake,

Before the rush and roar of oceans,

    the tremors that shift mountains.

Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,

    God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.

River fountains splash joy, cooling God’s city,

    this sacred haunt of the Most High.

God lives here, the streets are safe,

    God at your service from crack of dawn.

Godless nations rant and rave, kings and kingdoms threaten,

    but Earth does anything he says.

Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,

    God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.

Attention, all! See the marvels of God!

    He plants flowers and trees all over the earth,

Bans war from pole to pole,

    breaks all the weapons across his knee.

“Step out of the traffic! Take a long,

    loving look at me, your High God,

    above politics, above everything.”

Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,

    God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.

We all have different gifts.  Some people have the gift of having their stuff together.  That’s not my gift.  My spiritual gift is knowing earlier than many, when things are going wonky with people.  But these days, you don’t need any special gift to know that people all over the place feel like the world is unraveling and being strewn all over the place.  

We’re living in such an anxious, upsetting, stormy and violent time.  I can’t remember a time where I’ve seen more people so tossed and battered by the world.   The storms these days seem deadly and unending.  The earth changes, the mountains in the seas shake, the chaos of the sea rages and the solid earth that you thought you could always count on is shaking.  

Wars and terror, our national elections filled with the hate, fear, rage and violence and then here in church… the place that is SUPPOSED to be the solid, never changing earth… two congregations see their solid pasts falling, uncontrollably away.  But there is a promise from God in the midst of all this… it doesn’t change how bad the storm is or how horrible it feels… but it is a rock, solid promise:  The God of Jacob (that’s the God that wrestled with Jacob in the river and gave Jacob the new name of Israel) THAT God, is with us.  

I wrote last week on Facebook about Julian of Norwich.  She was a nun back in the 1300’s.  She was tormented by the question of why there was sin, brokenness, tumult, storms and all the rest of the stuff that unravels us, present in this world.  In a vision, Jesus spoke to her saying:  "It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well".  This was Jesus reminding Julian of the truth of today’s Psalm, that there is no storm, brokenness or even death that doesn't end us up right where God wants us to end up, which is in joy and peace, light and life.  

The hard part is remembering to keep your eye, not on the chaos of the waves of the storms of life, but on Christ.  Even the disciples had trouble with that.  Do you remember the story of Peter walking on water?  He wanted to walk on water to Jesus, so Jesus told him to come on, step out of the boat and do it.  The chaos of the sea was kept firmly under Peter’s feet when he kept his eye on Jesus.  But when he got distracted by the chaos of the ocean… by all that wet stuff between him and Jesus, he was sunk.  

We’re living in a time where it’s SO easy to get distracted like Peter by the chaos of the ocean of STUFF all around us.  We easily get sucked into the worry, hate, vitriol and pain swirling all around us and so we inevitably, like Peter, end up all wet.  But remember, shaking mountains, raging seas and getting all wet is NOT the end of the story!  Even after Peter got distracted, was all wet and sunk in the chaos of that ocean of stuff, he still got pulled out in the end.  The Lord of Hosts was with him.  The truth is that Jesus ALWAYS pulls us out, no matter how deep into the world’s STUFF we might have sunk.  So, as Julian was reminded by Jesus, all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

All WILL be well… But… there’s always a but, isn't there?  Even though all WILL be well… and it will… it doesn’t mean the raging seas and the shaking mountains will magically disappear.  Jesus didn’t dry up the ocean to rescue Peter.  He reached INTO it, and pulled him out THROUGH it!  The chaos of this election will end but it won’t magically make the emotions, fears and anger that it brought so clearly to the surface go away.  All WILL be well.  That is true.  The God of Jacob IS with us.  That is true.  But it is also true that the noise of the chaos of our world and the uncertainty of our church will still be with us on November 9th just as surely as the mountains are still with us after an earthquake and the seas are still with us after a storm.  

Julian of Norwich, after her vision of Jesus reminding her that all will be well, had another vision.  It was a vision where the devil attacked her, trying to take away the hope she saw in Christ.  Too often a personified devil… a red guy with horns and a pitchfork, has been used to scare people and that’s not helpful.  BUT, taking nebulous ideas that have the ungrabable consistency of smoke… things like, chaos, fear, doubt and insecurity and giving them a name and a solid form is a way to remind ourselves that everything that brings darkness, chaos and storms into our lives is finite… it all has a limit… it all has an end…  and that no matter how the chaos and darkness rage, the God of Jacob IS our refuge and all will be well, and all will be well and all manner of things will be well. 

One of my favorite icons is the icon of the Resurrection that shows the devil chained up in hell and the doors of hell blown off their hinges by the resurrected Christ.  I think in the past, I foolishly dismissed the power of actually showing the devil chained up and defeated… still alive, still raging and flailing… still loud and obnoxious, for sure, but powerless and forever stuck in that hole under Jesus’ feet.  That, to me, seems to be a good image for us to hold onto in our world today.

Because the raging and the flailing and the obnoxious noise of the devil will continue to rise into our world out of that hole in the form of hate, fear, sexism, racism, anger, violence and the other horrors of our world.  And all of that obnoxious and horrible noise SOUNDS terrible, BUT… no matter how bad it SOUNDS, the truth is already known!  The devil has no real power anymore.  By the Grace of God, we’ve all been pulled out of the chaos through the waters of Baptism, fed at God’s Table and the Devil, even though still loud and obnoxious, is chained securely under the feet of the Resurrected Christ.  The truth is that no matter how much the world rages, God’s got me.  God's got you.  God's got us and all will be well, and all will be well and all manner of things will be well!  The Lord of hosts is with us.  The God of Jacob IS our refuge.  Amen.

Julian, RuPaul, Rowling and the Stones

Julian of Norwich, RuPaul, J.K. Rowling and The Rolling Stones.  This perhaps unlikely combination of theologians came together this morning in such a fantastic way I needed to write about it.  These days, even the folks who typically have their stuff together are finding their stuff unraveling.  We're living in an anxious, stormy and violent world and I don't know about you, but I most certainly am not one of those people who typically have their stuff together!  So, to me, the storms these days seem deadly and unending.  But this morning, sitting in my tossed-about little boat of a life amongst my unraveledness, these four theologians have converged upon me with some old wisdom shown to me in a way that I could see anew.  

It started with someone posting a quote from Jesus speaking to Julian of Norwich in a vision.  Jesus said to her, "It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well".  I read 'sin' as a word that covers every kind of storm, brokenness, pain and even death itself.  It is Jesus reminding Julian (and me by way of Julian) that there is no storm, brokenness or even death that doesn't end up right where God wants it to end up, which is in joy and light and life.  The trick, of course that I can never seem to remember, is to keep your eye, not on the chaos of the waves in the storm, but on Christ.  When you do that, even the biggest storms can't dampen the joy of what you KNOW is coming in the end.  

But I at least, seem to do that task like Peter walking on water.  The chaos of the sea was kept firmly under his feet when he kept his eye on Jesus and the promise of what was to come.  But when he got distracted by the chaos of the ocean of stuff between him and Jesus he ended up all wet.  I too always seem to get distracted by the chaos and end up all wet.  But that's not the end of that story!  Even after Peter got distracted and wet, sunk in all the chaos of the ocean of stuff, he still got pulled out in the end.  You see, Jesus always pulls us out in the end, no matter how deep the stuff is we sink into.  So, in the end all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. 

That was good, but then Kelly came downstairs and told me about the ending of RuPaul's All Stars.  RuPaul is a drag queen.  Actually RuPaul is the queen of all drag queens and she has a television program where other drag queens compete in an elimination type show.  Anyway, Katia, one of the contestants, was having her end of show talk with RuPaul when they started talking about the voices in our heads that tell us we aren't good enough or we shouldn't try because we'll fail or we're not really lovable, talented or worthy and Katia piped up immediately and said, "yes her name is Debra!"  

That's brilliant, I thought!  She named her demon!  Just as J.K. Rowling reminded us by way of Professor Dumbledore, "The fear of a name simply increases the fear of the thing itself."  Now, with a name, Katia could go toe to toe with Debra because Debra wasn't just some nebulous psychological construct but something real that could be argued with and overcome.  

That revelation then reminded me of something I had read earlier in the morning about Julian of Norwich when I looked back into the context of her visions.  She had another vision you see, after the one that gave that famous quote.  It was a vision where the devil attacked her, trying to undo the hope-filled visions of Christ she had before.  Now, in the past I've not been a big fan of seeing the devil as a personified entity, but this morning it occurred to me that maybe the personification of the devil isn't necessarily something that makes the darkness stronger.  Maybe it's a way to give a name to that darkness so we can get some firmer footing for the fight!  

Could it be that those ancients who talked about the devil and even drew pictures of a demon with red flesh, wings and horns didn't always do it to scare us?  Could it be that some did it to give us a solid, named, target to aim at?  What if those voices in our heads that tell us to live in fear, our country is doomed, that we aren't good enough and we shouldn't even try... what if those voices that Katia called Debra on that show and J.K. Rowling called Voldemort in her books... what if those same forces were called the Devil by similar people of wisdom from the past like Julian?  What if they gave the Devil his name, not to scare us, but to help us remember that nothing with a name, whether it's Debra or Voldemort or even the Devil has any power over us in the end?   

And that led, of course, to the Rolling Stones.  In their song Sympathy for the Devil, Mick sings:

Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails 
Just call me Lucifer
'Cause I'm in need of some restraint

Knowing that the name of the Devil is Lucifer isn't supposed to scare us.  It's supposed to be a gift that allows us to fight back those thoughts of fear, chaos and worthlessness and give some needed restraint to that raging ocean of stuff out there these days that seems to be so powerfully dark, chaotic and hopeless in our lives.   

One of my favorite icons is the icon of the Resurrection that has the devil chained up in hell and the doors of hell blown off their hinges by the resurrected Christ.  I think in the past, I foolishly dismissed the power of actually showing the devil chained up and defeated and stuck in that hole.  But the truth is that while the hate, fear, sexism, racism, anger, violence and horror of our world feels terrible right now, the way things will turn out in the end for us all is already known!  God's got this.  God's got me.  God's got you.  God's got us and all will be well, and all will be well and all manner of things will be well and neither Debra nor Voldemort nor the Devil himself has any power to change that because that bugger is tied up in that hole under Jesus' feet!  The visual image of that fact and knowing the name of that sucker chained up down there, makes it just a little easier for me to remember the promise that all will indeed be well.  The name and the image make it easier in the midst of all the terrible storms of this fall to smile with hopefulness in the midst of a world that all too often these days has felt like it's been unraveling around me.  I hope that makes it a bit easier for you to smile as well, because the truth is that all manner of things WILL indeed be well!  

God Ain't Studyin' That!

The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke, the 18th Chapter

Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Jesus told this parable “to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.”  It’s just too bad these parables don’t speak to us in our day and age!  Right?

That, of course, was sarcasm.  You can’t escape people proclaiming their righteousness and holding others in contempt these days even if you never watch TV and put your fingers in your ears and shout LALALALALA 24/7!  Folks are positive they have never and will never make a mistake.  If they are forced to apologize they do so only conditionally, saying, “if anyone was offended” and in doing that they both fail to apologize AND blame the one they hurt for having thin skin.  Folks are sure they are right.  Anyone with a different idea is wrong, a criminal or even a traitor.  Politicians may be the easiest to see doing this at this time of year but us regular folk are often just as convinced that we are better than the rest or at the very least, we’re definitely better than “them”, whoever “them” may be.  

Who hasn’t thought they were better than someone else because of something they did or didn’t do.  I’ve never burglarized a house, but years ago my house was burglarized!  That makes me better than them! Right?  God must like me more than them!  But that’s just not the way God works.  As much as a part of me WANTS to think I’m better than whoever broke into my house, the truth is that sin is sin.  His breaking and entering is no worse and no better in God’s eyes than my holding a grudge against him for burglarizing my house!  

No matter who you are and no matter how well you live, we have all fallen short of the glory of God.  We are all sunk without God’s grace.  You could live your life as saintly as a perfectly as the Pharisee in the story; you could pledge a full 10% tithe to the church (you could, you know), you could volunteer for every charity, you could be at church every time the door was open, you could feed the poor and clothe the hungry; you could do it all, and the fact is that your “perfect” life STILL isn’t good enough.  You could be Saint Teresa of Calcutta, and without God’s grace, given to you as a complete and total gift in Christ, you're sunk.  

The same is true on the other end of the spectrum; the same is true of the worst of the worst.  No matter what you have done in your life, no matter who you have hurt, what lies you have told, how many people you have trampled on and no matter how many Pastor’s houses you’ve broken into, without God’s grace you don’t have a chance.  You could be the worst human being that has ever lived and without God’s grace, given as a gift in Christ you are sunk.

Now, it’s a bit easier to see and realize that you are sunk without God’s grace if your falling short is more spectacular.  That was true in Jesus’ day and it’s still true today.  Why do you think it was the lepers, Roman centurions, the unclean, the tax collectors, harlots and the demon possessed that Jesus got through to most often?  They were so obviously apart from God they simply couldn’t fool themselves into believing that they could get to God on their own.  The gap was so obvious they threw themselves at Jesus’ feet and begged for mercy because they KNEW mercy was their only hope.  

For us good and loyal churchgoing folks… it’s harder to see the gap between us and God; we’re good after all!  But if you don’t see the gap… if you see yourself with God already, then their isn’t much of a need to throw yourself at Jesus’ feet and beg for mercy.  And that’s the trap.

We think of sin as something that works on a scale… like a knob that turns from 0-100.  100 is for the genocidal maniacs, an 80 is for murderers, a 50 is for bank robbers, a 25 is for software pirates, 15 is for people who walk off with someone else’s pen, 5 is for Ethyl who said a bad word…once…back in ’48 and 0 is for Mother Theresa and the like.  Burglars who break into pastor’s houses are about a 47 by the way.  

But this isn’t God’s scale!  It’s US who have manufactured this scale of sin and it’s US who look around and measure other people and measure ourselves and we try to figure out where we fall on this cosmic scale of sin.  But God simply doesn’t care!!  We insist on this scale of sin, but God could care less.  

For God, we will never be so good that we don’t need God’s gift of grace.  And for God, we can never be too bad to be out of the reach of God’s gift of grace.  It simply doesn’t matter where you fall on that sin scale because God doesn’t use that scale!  We’ve already been made right in God’s eyes!  We can never do enough right to make God like us and we can never do enough wrong to make God abandon us.  

So, take that gift you have been given… God’s unconditional love and grace… and do your best, as the fully loved mixture of saint and sinner that you are, and pass God’s love on to the people you will encounter this week with the same reckless abandon that God first gave it to you.  The world right now desperately needs that love because, that love, you see, has the power to change the world.  Amen.

How God Works

The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke, the 17th Chapter

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

This story is a parable so it tells us something about the way God works.  It’s not a spoken parable like the Rich man and Lazarus, but a real life situation used as a parable.  Jesus uses both to tell us something about the way God works.  So, there were ten lepers.  They are unclean outcasts with no where to go.  By law they can’t even come up to Jesus to ask for healing.  Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priests, because priests decide if you’re clean, and as they go away they ARE made clean.  

Here we need a full and total stop because Jesus has just shown us how God works.  God works in unconditional, indiscriminate grace.  Jesus sees ten lepers across the road.  Regardless of where they’re from, who they were or what wonderful or awful things they may have done in their lives… regardless of what they believe or don’t believe, their political leanings, regardless of their gender, their social standing, their wealth, their poverty, their sexual orientation, or whether they had dogs, cats or guinea pigs for pets… regardless of anything… A N Y T H I N G, Jesus simply and indiscriminately heals them all.  ALL!  But wait!  There’s more!  We ALSO see exactly HOW God distributes grace… and the way God distributes this abundant, indiscriminate grace is through Jesus and THAT still happens every Sunday, right there at that table.  

So, every single leper was made whole and it wasn't because they got themselves right with Jesus.  Not because they put themselves in a place where God might be able to work in their lives (I heard that one on the radio this week!).  Not because they confessed Jesus as their lord and savior.  Not because they were good enough or not too bad.  They were ALL made WHOLE because MAKING CREATION WHOLE is what God is all about!  Period.

Back to the parable.  As the lepers were headed off to who knows where, maybe to the priests, maybe to get Chipoltle, who knows WHERE they went because now they could go ANYWHERE because they are ALL healed.  But one, when they all noticed that they were healed, turns around and comes back to Jesus praising God and thanking Jesus.  And he was (gasp), from AWAY… you know, a Samaritan!  

Since this is a parable and it tells us something about how God works, we need another brief stop to once again hammer home the total, radical, unconditional, indiscriminate grace that had just been done to this human being and the others who were with him.   Samaritans were outcasts from birth and no amount of healing or cleansing would ever fix that.  YET, God’s grace is given to this one too!  

With that in mind we can take the line:  “And he was (gasp) a Samaritan”!  And we can literally put any other label that one person might put on another person into that “Samaritan” slot and begin to understand that God’s grace is for THEM too and even for YOU.  Think of a label that someone has stuck to you.  God’s grace is for people with that label!  Think of a label that you have labeled someone else with.  God’s grace is for people with that label too.  God’s grace is for ALL… All means ALL.  

Back to the parable.  Jesus looks around and, I think sarcastically, wonders out loud, “Were not ten made clean?”  “I healed 10, right folks?  Jesus knew very well that there were ten, AND he knew the other nine weren’t coming back.  Only the Samaritan returned to say “thank you”.  But remember, this is a parable so this tells us something about the way God works.  God’s grace is a done deal.  There are no Divine take-backsies.  God gives whether we recognize it or not, whether we believe it or not, whether we accept it or not, whether we are thankful for it or not.  None of the ten got un-healed. 

  

Back to the parable.  Jesus turns back to the Samaritan and tells him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”  But what did Jesus mean by that?  Faith didn’t cure his leprosy; God’s love and grace did that.  So if it wasn’t the leprosy Jesus was talking about, what was it?  Remember this is a parable so it tells us something about the way God works.  

God’s grace, it turns out, is not something that will ONLY cure you on the outside, but God’s grace is something that can bring healing and wellness to every part of our lives through all of eternity.  All ten were cured but only one began to be transformed into the person God created him to be right there.  Only one began to understand that God’s total, radical, unconditional, indiscriminate grace went farther than just skin deep. 

God’s love and grace is not conditional.  Everyone has it.  It was and is a gift.  All of creation got it in Christ’s death and resurrection.  Period.  FAITH, on the other hand, is different.  Faith is getting a tiny glimpse of even the smallest little clue about how AMAZING God’s love and grace really is and turning around and returning to Jesus.  Then trying, one step at a time, to live your life as a “thank you” to God for that gift of love and grace.  The best “thank you” you can give is to follow Jesus’s lead and give others exactly what God first gave to you… total, indiscriminate, unconditional love and grace.  And the truth is, the better and better and more FAITH-fully we follow Jesus’s example of unconditional and indiscriminate love and grace… the more we will find that we have not just been made clean, but we've been made WELL too.  Amen.