The Greek Brothers, The Vatican, and RuPaul

 John 12:20-33

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

The Greek brothers, Nick, Gus and Nick pulled into town along with everybody and their mother!  The traffic was terrible.  They, like everyone else, had come to Jerusalem for Passover, which was out of the ordinary, because they weren’t Jews.  They were Greeks!  But they weren’t the usual sort of Greeks either.  They were what were called “God-fearers.”  They faithfully practiced the Jewish faith and yet, would never be welcomed in as REAL Jews, because they were BORN and Greeks and not Jews, and you can't change how you were born!

But recently, scrolling through social media, they had stumbled upon a the video of a man who was teaching with authority, doing great signs, who might… just might… be the promised Messiah.  Nick, Gus and Nick really wanted to see him.  Not just to set their eyeballs on him, but REALLY SEE him… get to know him... follow him in his footsteps… because, you see, if this man really WAS the Messiah, well… HE would have the power to change everything.... even the power to include Greeks as Children of God!

Nick, Gus and Nick arrived right at the moment of “judgement.”  But it wasn’t a “guilty/not-guilty” sort of judgement.  The Greek work translated as “judgement” is “Kresis” and in spite of sounding like the English word “crisis” it’s not exactly that either, with that word’s almost exclusively bad connotations.  It was a dangerous moment to be sure, but it also contained all the elements of infinite possibility as well.  THIS was THE moment that God had taken to do the DANGEROUS work of transforming the way all of creation worked, which would create the beautiful OPPORTUNITY for ALL to be included.  

God at work in the world to include ALL, sounds great, but not everyone gets excited about change.  In fact some people are willing to do anything… even kill… to stop things from changing.  But Nick, Gus and Nick thought it was worth the danger.  THIS was the moment to which everything in John’s Gospel had been pointing.  Remember the wedding in Cana when Jesus told his mother that his hour had not yet come?  Well, THIS was now the HOUR!  This was THE moment!  But even the moment itself was unique.  This wasn’t a moment that just came and then went.  THIS was the sort of moment that comes and then ripples out in never-ending waves through all of time and all of creation.  The Greek grammar make that clear… God was turning the world upside down and THEN, the implications of God’s work would continue to ripple out, changing everything, through all of time, for everyone… everywhere… forever.     

But the world isn't always a fan or change. Even when that change comes from God!  Because change means that “the way we’ve always done it before” needs to die and “the way we’ve always done it before” rarely ever goes quietly into that good night.  So even here in John’s Gospel where Jesus seems most in control, this isn’t a cake walk.  Even Jesus himself says his soul is troubled.  Even for Jesus... even for the good… change is hard.  But like it or not, God's change rolls on right into today, where we too now have the very same dangerous opportunity to really SEE Jesus! 

Now, before you get all excited about that, I have to warn you... SEEING Jesus isn’t the same as HEARING about Jesus.  It isn’t the same as intellectually agreeing to a list of doctrines ABOUT Jesus.  SEEING Jesus means allowing all that we’ve grown comfortable with to be lifted up and crucified with him to make room for what God has in mind to bring to new life in us next!  It means letting go of the way it is now and fully embracing the Kingdom of God.

That’s what the Greek Brothers wanted… that’s what they NEEDED!  Because they knew that nothing short of death and resurrection would have the power to change the world enough to fully include them as Children of God!  This was the hour… their hour… and in ways I can’t wrap my head around, it is our hour today as well.  The moment of God’s radical inclusion of all people came 2000 years ago and is, at the same time, this particular moment as well.    

The sad truth of that is that now, like then, the powers of the world, both religious and secular will fight God's change for full inclusion.  They will continue to decide who is “out” and who is “in”, who’s a saint and who's a sinner.  Greek brothers and sisters then... gay brothers and sisters now.

But the take home message of this Gospel story is that in spite of all that persistent ugliness then, they couldn’t stop Jesus from drawing the Greek brothers into God’s loving embrace then and they can’t stop Jesus from drawing all people into that same loving embrace today!  

The Dangerous Opportunity that God brought into this world as a child in a manger has NOW become the judgment of this world!  And that Judgement IS, that each and every one of you, no matter where you were born, no matter the color of your skin, no matter who you love… the judgement of Jesus is that YOU ARE A FULL and COMPLETE and ABSOLUTELY PERFECT CHILD OF GOD just as you are!  

The rulers of this world who continue to sell division, hate, exclusion, and anxiety are annoying as hell... but they ARE being driven out!  And as that Dangerous Opportunity named Jesus is lifted up from this earth, he will draw all people… all people… ALL PEOPLE to himself, and include each and every one as a beloved Children of God.  There will sadly always be people who don’t like it, but as St. Ru of Paul says, “If they ain’t payin’ your bills don’t pay them no mind” because for God, ALL… MEANS… ALL!  Amen.  

Snakes on a Stick

Numbers 21:4-9

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

John 3:14-21

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

I have a snake bias and serpents are just Bible snakes in my book.  My bias is I don’t like ‘em!  I also have a God bias.  My God bias is that God SO LOVES the world, and God sent Jesus NOT to condemn the world, but to save it.  For those reasons, while I’m sure Moses and the people genuinely BELIEVED that God sent the Bible-snakes as punishment in that first lesson, when I look back through Jesus’ time on earth, I’m more inclined to think the Bible-snakes were more likely just a natural consequence of the people’s impatience.  

To me that makes more sense… not just for back then, but for last week!  This past week several governors stood up and basically said…  “Why have you brought us up out of the land of fully opened bars and restaurants to die in this locked down wilderness? For there is no taco Tuesday and no happy hour, and we detest these miserable masks.”  Then the people burned their masks and opened their bars. Inevitably the Lord now, just like back then, will allow the natural consequences of those choices to happen.  Infections will surge, new variants will take hold, more people get sick, and more people will die. 

Still though, an all powerful God allowing natural consequences to happen… how is that loving?  The answer, I think, is because real love isn't manipulative.  Love doesn’t make choices for the other, even when the other is making a TERRIBLE choice!  LOVE certainly does all it can to convince the other to choose the better path, but in the end, love allows free choice or it isn’t really love, is it? The end of this Bible-snake story shows that truth just as much as the first part does.  In the end, God doesn’t do what the people ask.  God isn’t the people’s puppet any more than the people are God’s puppets.  This is a mutual relationship founded in love.  So God does not magically whisk away the poisonous Bible snakes… God does not take away the consequences of the people’s previous choices.  But God, still deeply in love with God’s people, does provide a pathway through… God loves them THROUGH their impatience.  God loves them THROUGH their privileged complaining.  God loves them THROUGH the slithering, poisonous, creepy consequences of their impatient whining.  God loves them THROUGH all that by telling Moses to put a non-lethal version of those lethal Bible-snakes on a stick.

 

This story from Numbers might as well have been downloaded from the New York Times just yesterday!  These vaccines we’re lining up for are literally a non-lethal version of the lethal thing itself and the syringe is the stick it comes in!  We too, after being whiney and impatient, are still deeply loved by God, and have been offered a pathway through this time.  A path provided by God through the hands and hearts and minds of gifted scientists who worked night and day to offer us, God’s whiney but still beloved people, a path out of death and into life.

Today marks one full year of online only worship for our congregation.  None of this last year was God’s punishment.  Sadly much too much of this past year was, however, the natural consequences of our impatience as a people.  We chose as a nation to turn wearing masks from an act of love for one another into a battlefield.  We’ve shown never ending impatience wanting to get back to normal, and as a result we’ve ignored the scientists who told us how to get through.  We have failed for a year to find a way as a nation, to be generous enough to allow one another to stay home AND at the same time not starve, loose our homes, or loose our businesses.  In that failure we chose as a nation NOT to work together to knock the virus out in one, single, unified, patriotic blow. 

In spite of all of our national impatience, selfishness, and constant complaining that we “Hate these miserable masks!” I  am still convinced, because I live on THIS side of Jesus’ time on this earth, that God still really DOES…  SO LOVE THIS WORLD.  All through this past year, in spite of all the selfish whining and pig headed stubbornness of our nation, God, out of God’s infinite love, has been constantly inviting us to come into the light… to follow Jesus in the way of selflessness, to give of ourselves for the good of our neighbor, and humble ourselves to be led by the science.  

As a nation we didn’t do so well, but here and there, people shone the light in the darkness, doing what could be done in the places they lived.  Now, after a year that light has really grown and we’re closer to the end than we’ve ever been.  I’m even getting hopeful and Kelly will tell you that hardly EVER happens!  We’re not yet in the Promised Land and there is still more virus out there than there every were Bible snakes in the wilderness, BUT… God continues to love us.  God continues to call us to the light.  God continues to coax us out of death and into life.  God calls us to follow the light and follow Jesus, caring first for our neighbor, doing things like wearing our masks and feeding the hungry.  

We’ve been at this for one whole year and God is pleading with us now, just like God was pleading with us a year ago… for us to make choices in these next few months that will lead to life and not to death.  God still… SO LOVES THIS WORLD… that God is asking us all now, when the end really is in sight, to remain faithful and patient, until all of world that God SO loves, makes it safely across the finish line.  Amen.  

Thick as a Brick

 Exodus 20:1-17

Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

“Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”  That may at first seem like a throw away line before you get to the meat of the commandments but in Walter Brueggemann’s book “Sabbath as Resistance” (book study on Tuesdays at 7 pm) he insists it’s actually the hinge on which all the rest of these commandments swing.  

It's the answer to the question, "Are you one of the gods of Pharaoh?  A god that is never satisfied?  The god for whom enough is never enough?  The god who always wants more and more bricks to build more and more bins, to store more and more grain, to provide more and more wealth to those at the top of the pyramid?  No?  You’re not that god?  So, which God are you?  Oh, YOU are the God who brought us out of that land of insatiable, and unrelenting demand!  You’re THAT God, the One who threw the Divine “Let My People Go” monkey wrench into the brickworks of Pharaoh and his gods.  You AREN’T the god of endless producing.  You AREN’T the god of relentless box checking, resume building, ladder climbing, award collecting, and money hoarding.  You AREN’T the god who sells the lie that “if you buy this one more thing you’ll finally be happy” over and over and over again.  You… YOU… you are the God who pulled us OUT of that endless repetitive mire!  You are the God who stopped that not-so-merry go-round and brought us OUT of the land of Egypt.  You… YOU… you… you’re different.  You, God… are VERY different."  

VERY different indeed, because Pharaoh’s gods sacrifice humanity for the good of production.  This God… Israel’s God… OUR God… sacrifices production for the good of humanity.  This God… Israel’s God… OUR God… insists that RELATIONSHIPS, not more bricks, should be at the top of the pyramid.  This God created us for relationship, not for slavery and it wasn’t just Egypt’s particular brand of slavery that God had a problem with either.  It turns out that God had… and still has… a giant problem with ANYTHING that grinds humanity down to the bone in any sort of endless loop of production and consumption.  

The gift of the commandments (and they really are meant to be a gift) is that they are a set of tools that all of us can use to help keep ourselves and our neighbors out of ANY sort of slavery, and IN relationship.  In relationship with God yes, but just as importantly, with our neighbors as well.  God created us for relationship, not to be ground to bits by the machinery of any ancient or modern brickyard run by some two bit gold plated god.  The first three commandments are the tools that guide us into a healthy relationship with God.  The last six guide us into good relationships with our neighbors.  Then, right in the middle of those nine, is the commandment on Sabbath that links the two together.  

In that same book, “Sabbath as Resistance” (Book study on Tuesdays at 7 pm Eastern) we are shown that it is in Sabbath… right there, at the corner of God and Neighbor… where you and me, our neighbors, AND God the Divine self… ALL OF US TOGETHER, stop our creating, our doing, our making, our running, and our going.  It is there, in that Sabbath temple, that we, God and everybody... all together, just stop… and in that stopping we all join together in a mini rebellion against the culture (and the gods) of “always more” and the lie that there is never enough, and we can’t afford to stop working, achieving, reaching and striving even for a second.  

Author Michael Fishburn writes that Sabbath is, “a time of mindfulness in a society of increasing mindlessness.”  It is a time to push back and tell the rat, that for today, we simply refuse to race.  Today, my dear rat, we’re only going to BE… with our God and with our neighbor.  Today we’re going to build one other back up, after a week of the world’s gods trying to grind us down into dust.  Today we are going to be neighborly, right smack dab in the middle of a world that tells us there is no time to be neighborly because being neighborly takes away from making more and more and more bricks.

“Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”  So, for God’s sake!  Don’t be in such a God awful hurry to rush back into slavery so dang fast!  You weren’t created for slavery!  Not the slavery of brick making.  Not the slavery of endless shopping.  Not the slavery of the market and making more and more money.  You were NOT created for slavery.  You were created for relationship.  YOU were created to BE… with God and with one another.  SO STOP... BE WITH THEM and be FREE!

The pharaoh’s and taskmasters of this world are constantly calling us, enticing us, wooing us all back into a slavery of one sort or another every moment of every day.  It is very hard to resist that call with all those around us racing at full speed determined to always get back to making more bricks!  So take these commandments as the gift they are meant to be… Divine tools to arm yourself for the resistance.  Use them so that you are not so easily lured back into being less than you were created to be.  Use these commandment to deepen the relationships with God and neighbor that give you life!  THAT, is what God want for you... life.    Amen.  

I'm All For Following Jesus, But...

Mark 8:31-38

Then Jesus began to teach the disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Before we really start, I want you to know that this lesson has three bad potholes in it.  Neither Jesus nor Mark put them there, but, if you aren’t aware of them they can really mess up the alignment on your faith.  The first pothole is Mark’s use of the phrase, "elders, chief priests and scribes.”  In Mark’s day this was shorthand for Roman collaborators, not an attack on Judaism.  Jesus didn’t have a problem with Judaism.  He was Jewish after all!  But he had a HUGE issue when people mixed their faith with the violence and corruption of the occupying empire to make a themselves rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and vulnerable.

The second pothole is the bit about “suffering.”  God did not “require” Jesus to suffer.  That’s just completely twisted and not what Jesus meant.  When Jesus said “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering” he was simply stating what he knew was inevitable.  His plan was to go up against the empire and when you go up against any empire, it’s gonna hurt!  Now we’ll work on patching up the last pothole with the rest of the sermon.    

This week in the Berkshire Eagle there was a letter to the editor that began, “I’m all for following the science…BUT.”  As I read that, my Biochemistry diploma gave an audible shudder from the shelf inside the cabinet where it lives in my office.  It seems this person was all for following the science when the science reinforced their opinions.  But now that the science was challenging them to think differently… weeeeeellllll… this person thought we should really use our “street smarts” instead of the science.  

In this week’s Gospel lesson Peter chimes in and says, “I’m all for following you Jesus…but.”  At which point my seminary diploma gave a similar audible shudder from the same shelf inside the same cabinet in my office.  Peter was all for following Jesus when Jesus was doing it the way Peter thought it should be done…  but when Jesus proposed a different way forward than the way Peter’s guts felt was right… he was “by no means” into following Jesus THAT way!  In that moment, Peter was not the capital “S” personified Satan.  He wasn’t the red, horned guy… that guy didn’t show up until the Middle Ages.  No, in that moment Peter was a lower case “s” satan.  Which means he was a “tester”.   

A lower case “s” satan in Jesus’ day was just another human being, who knowingly or unknowingly, administered a test of morals and character to someone who found themselves at a crossroads.  Now, like then, when you come to a place in life where you need to make a hard decision… someone inevitably shows up to offer you the choice.  Will you choose to do this hard thing you’ve got to do God’s way, or will you do it a different way?  This week, Peter gave the test… Peter played the satan... the tester… and the test was HOW would Jesus be the Son of God.  Would Jesus confront the powers of the Roman Empire and their collaborators in God’s way... directly… but non-violently, calling out their injustice and corruption like the prophets before him even if that way involved great suffering?  OR would Jesus choose to do it another way… the way Peter expected?

 

You see, Peter and almost the entire population of Israel at the time, thought the Messiah would come… should come… MUST come… wrapped in a flag and wielding a sword.  He would raise an army.  He’d march on the capital and hashtag “stop the Romans!”  THAT made sense to Peter in his guts.  THAT was using street smarts.  Going to Jerusalem alone?  That was just dumb!  That would just get you killed!

Peter’s test for Jesus back then, is exactly the same test for us in our world today.  Will we confront the empires of our day who wield the swords of violence, out of control capitalism, white supremacy, fascism, sexism and all the rest, the way Jesus confronted them?  Directly but non-violently.  OR will we, like Peter, try to shape the world to OUR will by wrapping Jesus in a flag and forcing modern day weapons into Jesus’ hands?

We see people making that decision in both directions every day.  Just turn on the breaking news and you'll see it isn’t hard to find people, just like back then, who are all too willing to twist their religion to justify cozying up to those in power.  Happy to twist and bend their principles and the words of Jesus himself like a sideshow contortionist to justify using the sort of violence, corruption, and immorality, that the law, the prophets, and Jesus himself railed against all those years ago.

Our time too is a time of testing.  The test, as it always does, has two parts.  A part that asks us what sort of world we want to work toward, and the part that asks us HOW we will work to create that world?  Will we choose to work toward a world that Jesus calls the Kingdom of God… a world where everyone has enough… enough food, shelter, health care, safety, dignity and purpose… or will we work for a world where only the strongest and most powerful survive?  

And will we do that work the “Jesus Way”… by the way of  compassion, sacrifice, direct, but non-violent confrontation… no matter what the cost, caring for the least, the last and the lost along the way?  Or will we choose to use might to make the world into our version of "right"!  That path always leads to using bigger lies, stronger armies, greater force, and spiraling violence, all the while saying, “the ends justify any means.” We are facing the exact same test today that Peter gave Jesus back then.  The question for us is how will we answer? Our test begins… now.  Amen.

Where is the Wilderness?

Mark 1:9-15

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is “Immediately” driven into the wilderness.  Luke and Matthew’s version gives details.  Mark's does not.  While we might be tempted to fill in Mark’s version with details borrowed from Luke and Matthew, I’m going to suggest that maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to do that.  Because, I think, Mark is actually trying to give us a gift by leaving out the details.  

When Jesus is “Immediately” transported into the wilderness we immediately picture a physical, geographical, place.  Rocks and sand and sun.  But Mark’s not the one who gives us those details, is he?  WE read the rocks, sand, and sun INTO what he wrote.  So, could it be that the wilderness to which Jesus was “Immediately” transported, at least in Mark’s understanding, was not necessarily a PHYSICAL place of rocks and sand and blistering sun, but perhaps a spiritual, emotional, or existential kind of wilderness instead?  

That wouldn’t make Jesus’ experience less REAL, but what it does for me, at least, is to allow this story to hit closer to home.  You see, I’ve never stood in a physical desert being tempted by Satan with red horns and pitchfork in hand.  But I’ve absolutely spent time in an emotional and spiritual wilderness.  When Mark chose to NOT have the specific temptations laid out for us, OR stage the scene for us with solid rocks, intrusive sand, and blistering sun, Mark is giving us a gift.  He's allowing us to imagine Jesus himself perhaps experiencing a type of wilderness that we ourselves inevitably experience in our own lives. 

So here in Mark’s version, Jesus is tempted for forty days by Satan… “forty days” is Bible shorthand for a very long time.  AND at the same time he was being tempted, he was also with the Wild Beasts…  AND at that same time, angels waited on him.  ALL of it seems to have been happening together, according to Mark, in a giant jumbled mess!  That experience of life as a jumbled mess feels more like what I’ve experienced in my life as well. 

My experiences with wilderness have been more with emotional and spiritual, than physical.  All in my head, yes, but still VERY painfully real!  Wilderness time filled with Wild Beasts.  Some helpful.  Some not. Beasts who held me, not trying to “fix” it with words but simply being present.  But also Beasts who fed on my pain.  And with both sorts of Beasts there have also been angels, not just after the fact, but all the way through.  Nearly always, I saw those angels only with hindsight, but they were there, bringing unexpected kindnesses and generosity, seemingly out of nowhere. 

And then, in Mark’s story, Jesus appears to simply leave the wilderness behind.  Off to Galilee.  Or do we read that part into the story too?  Because here in Mark’s Gospel, if Jesus’ wilderness is not a physical wilderness built only with rocks and sand and sun… then perhaps it was a wilderness that he brought with him, even as he moved on into Galilee.  THAT rings true for me as well.  A wilderness that comes with you.  Because none of us, not even Jesus, can un-experience the experiences of our past.  Our brains are wired so that we MUST take all of our experiences with us through the rest of our lives.  We carry it all.  Times of wilderness and times of wonder.  Times of pain and times of pleasure. Times we never want to forget and times we’d do almost ANYTHING to forget.  Regardless of the experience… regardless of whether we see them as “good” or “bad” we carry every single one of them through our entire lives.  

All our baggage.  Always with us.  The good, the bad, and the ugly.  We don’t have a choice about that… and BELIEVE me, I would LOVE to have a choice about that!  But what Jesus shows us here, is that even though we carry it all, we can still also choose to move on.  If we wait for our baggage to disappear, we’ll stay stuck forever.  So we have to move on... yes, all of that baggage still in tow.  But... WE can decide HOW to carry it.  

Will we carry it like a cartoon bell boy, stacked so high we can’t see… no idea where we’re going… constantly dropping our baggage on the heads of the people around us?  Or will we carry it like Jesus carried his?  Gather it all up… the good the bad and the ugly… and bring the lot of it to the cross.  Not because the cross is just one last horrible experience to pile on our load, but because the cross is the ONE PLACE where all of our entire lifetime of experiences are transformed from darkness into light… from despair into hope… and from death into life.

  

Lent… this season of just forty days… is meant to be a time for us to practice, every year, dealing with our wilderness bags so that we might carry them more like Jesus carried his.  A time to practice techniques passed on through the ages that help us do that instead of lying crushed beneath it.  To practice what the Disciplines of Lent... Repentance, fasting, prayer and works of love.

It is those ancient practices that are meant to help choose to move on and show us how to move on.  To help us remember, that while all our experiences… the good, the bad, the ugly… the rocks, the sand, the sun… the joys, the triumphs and the pains… ALL come with us... 

As God's Beloved... WE, like Jesus, get to decide whether we will stay stuck, crushed under it's weight, or choose instead to take each bag, each wilderness experience, each encounter with devil, beast, and angel and let God transform each one into stepping stones to guide us in our following of Jesus toward a life transformed.  Amen. 

Soap Wednesday

 Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near— a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.

Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God? 

Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep. Let them say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

Last year for Ash Wednesday I proposed the idea that instead of focusing primarily on ourselves and our sinfulness for the whole 40 days of Lent, that perhaps we might instead do what Joel suggests.  That we might instead “Call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast.”  I suggested a year ago, that once gathered together, Lent could then be a time where each of us could really support one another in finding a balance during this season between self reflection and service to the world… a balance that God hopes for us all.  It was a really good idea, if I do say so myself!  Then, of course, four days later we had our last in person worship and we’ve been neither assembling nor gathering in-person ever since! 

 

To gather, as Joel had suggested, became a challenge.  It was a bumpy ride through that challenge, with glitches and gremlins along the way. But in spite of that, we really HAVE found ways to “gather our solemn assembly” and worship together, cry together, laugh together, serve together, and then bring kindness born in those assemblies, in new and creative ways, out into the larger world. 

With livestream and Zoom and text groups and videos and meals and boxes of cookies we’ve been doing just what the prophet Joel suggested.  Pulling our congregation together… the whole directory, young and old, lifelong members and newcomers, the solemn and the silly of our assembly.  Joel KNEW that gathering was key to binding the wounds of the people in his congregation AND also key to creating a group of people ready to begin to repair the wounds of the world around them.  Joel could never have imagined the ways we’ve found to do that this past year, but it’s made a real difference in our lives, in the lives of those who have joined us online from far away, and in the lives of our neighbors.   

 

So assembling we’ve figured out.  Glitches and gremlins are mostly… mostly… kept at bay these days.  But NOW our challenge is how do we do ASH Wednesday… without the ASH?  Isn’t ASH the point?  That mark of ash mixed with olive oil, given with the words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”  Isn’t that the whole thing?  It reminds us of our mortality and calls us to “Return to the Lord our God, for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”  Ash seems key to “Ash Wednesday” doesn’t it?  It’s even half of the name, for crying out loud!  

But there’s more to oil and ash than just a reminder of our mortality.  For over 5000 years, people in the Middle East have been mixing Olive Oil and wood ash for another purpose… to create soap.  The same two ingredients found in Ash Wednesday ashes!  So in the same spirit that helped us learn to “gather” without gathering to care for one another, THIS year I propose we still have Ash Wednesday… Including the ASH and the Olive Oil! But this year we have it in the form of soap.  We will wash our hands, both to continue to keep the pandemic at bay, and then turning at least one of our daily hand washings with soap into a new Lenten discipline.  A prayerful act of care for ourselves and our neighbors and a physical practice to connect us more deeply with God.

Joel had gathered his people because they were experiencing a “day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!” They were living in a time the like of which he says, “has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.”  In this past year, we too have learned how to gather our solemn assemblies in our own time of “thick darkness” using the technology that makes it both possible and safe to connect.  Perhaps the soap we use to wash our hands purposely… consciously… prayerfully... each day in Lent… soap that in Jesus’ day was made, from ashes and olive oil, can serve as this year’s reminder of another sometimes forgotten aspect of the season of Lent… to connect more deeply with God, praying… “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” 

May your Lent’s gatherings in solemn assembly feed your heart, minds, and souls.  May those assemblies strengthen you to bring compassion and kindness out into the world around us.  May the soap you use each day this Lent, begin by cleansing your hands, but then in these forty days become a practice that moves you toward a clean heart as well.  And through the rest of this pandemic and through the season of Lent, may you hold tight to the truth that our God is, “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.  Amen. 

Any soap will work just fine should you choose to take on this new Lenten Discipline.  If you are curious about the ancient soap, still made in the Middle East the same way, here's a link to the soap I bought.  

Pandemonium

Mark 1:29-39

As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

John Milton created the word Pandemonium in his epic poem "Paradise Lost" from the Greek words “Pan” meaning “All” and “Daimon” meaning... well... “Demon”.  Pandemonium was the place where ALL the demons lived… the Capital of Hell.  The question for us though, is what do WE do with the pandemonium going on in this Gospel lesson?  This story starts with an understandable fever but quickly becomes a veritable Demon-o-rama!  So what are we… a modern-rational-ish people who, at least among those listening here, lean more toward science than toward woo-woo… what are WE to do… how are we to make sense of all this talk of demons? 

Some folks dismiss the talk of demons as simply, ancient people trying to make sense of things they didn’t understand.  A case of a now known disease like epilepsy, polio, or Parkinson’s.  A mental illness that we would now call we borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, or malignant narcissism.

I think that’s probably mostly the case, but one thing I learned studying science was that the more you learn about one specific thing, the more you really began to understand how much you really DON'T know.  I think that’s also something to keep in mind as we talk about demons.  There remains A LOT out there we still don’t understand.  I suspect much of what is still unknown will eventually become clear, but being honest about what we don't know... in things Divine or Demonic, keeps us from being blindsided out of arrogance.   

 

So, what ARE we supposed to do with fevers that don't spike a physical temperature, or the chatty demons and non-medical diseases of our society?  In spite of the risk of sounding like a broken record… I honestly think the answer for us is to follow Jesus.  I know I say that a lot… one step at a time… walk in Jesus’ footsteps… see the world and the world’s people as Jesus saw them… do the things Jesus did back THEN, for our neighbors NOW.  Blah, blah, blah… I know I say that stuff a lot… but that really, really is all there is to say!  It’s all just that easy.

And of course… it’s all just that hard as well.  Jesus and that  fully Divine thing of his, makes living like Jesus look easy.  Being entirely human… I seem to have a perpetually harder time “simply following Jesus.”  Maybe you do too.  The Good News is that these stories show us over and over how Jesus did what he did and if we can look beyond the fantastical   Jesus really does model for us HOW we might at least head in that Jesus direction.  

In this story, Jesus first removed the barrier that kept Simon’s mother from her calling as a deacon.  It wasn't just a calling to making snacks for the boys.  Her calling was a calling to Word and Service.  As we try to follow Jesus, we too can look for the people who have been kept down by the “fevers” of our time… the things that still to this day keep people from doing what they are called to do… things that would be of service to all of creation.  Fevers that don't show up on a thermometer, but are fevers all the same.  Racism, misogyny, privilege... those are just some of the fevers that still keep people from using the gifts God gave them to care for the world.  Jesus shows us that our job is to do like he did... to reach out to them… take them by the hand... lift them up!

Jesus also gives us in this story the place we are to start.  Not in some far off land, but right at our own front door.  Start with those who are ready and right there at our own front door.  Not everyone is ready for healing or too far away for the moment.  Jesus also shows us in the story the power of silencing the voices of the demonic.  He heard the voices... he heard the hate.  He read the Tweet.  He saw the post.  He saw the outrageous statement on the news.  But he chose not to give that voice any more reach.  The spread of the demonic voices, ended with him.  

Jesus also shows us the power of sabbath.  Not running from the problems, but a time to recharge and reorient for his real mission.  Then, even when the disciples, using their best fishing techniques, tried to hook Jesus and pull him back to town, Jesus didn’t take the bait.  He didn't let the demonic set his agenda.  The healing was important, but he told them, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message... for that is what I came out to do."  

So what can we learn from Jesus and his pandemonium that might help us through our own pandemic plagued pandemonium filled with the fevers and diseases of white supremacy and Christian Nationalism and the demons that make people believe in cannibalistic conspiracies and Jewish space lasers?  Without direction we just stay home and raid our pantries eating panini, pancetta, panittoni and panfried pancakes until our pantaloons pop!  So WHAT do we DO here in the midst of OUR pandemonium filled with a pantheon of social fevers and modern day demons?  

We follow Jesus, the tried and true.  One step at a time.  We move toward the people we love.  We move toward our neighbors in love... with our words and our actions and our hearts, minds and hands.  I know I may sound like a broken sermon record sometimes, but the truth really is, that following Jesus REALLY IS the panacea for our current day panoply of pandemonium.  Amen.