Fertility god or Moses' God?

Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18

Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel; and they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Long ago your ancestors—Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor—lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods. “Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.

Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed; and the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”

Joshua asks the people of Israel “What G/god are you going to follow?”  The people wanted this to be a religion only question but what Joshua was REALLY asking, as the people stood ready to enter this new land with more readily available resources than they had ever even IMAGINED before, was “Which way of living with each other will you choose as you move into this new, incredible land?”

Each deity choice, you see, comes with particular requirements for how the people were to live in the world.  So this wasn’t just a decision about how they would spend just one hour, once a week.  This was a decision about how they would live together 24/7 and it affected literally EVERY aspect of their lives… social, political, economic and religious!  

The God behind curtain number one was the God of Moses.  This God had provided them food and protection for decades as they wondered the wilderness.  Out there, manna, quail, and water had been OBVIOUSLY worth the price of living the way THIS God had required.  It was a way of living that required an “All In” commitment to justice… making sure everyone had enough… food, shelter, dignity, purpose AND it also required an economy that FAVORS the weak and vulnerable… not just throws them a bone every now and then, but FAVORS them!  But now they weren't in the wilderness any more.  Now they were looking into the land of milk and honey so Joshua knew that in THIS place, they had another choice. 

That other choice was behind curtain number two.  These were the local fertility gods.  The gods of self-made wealth and power and they actually blessed people who got rich and powerful and didn't worry about their neighbor and here, unlike out in the desert, these fertility gods made sense.  Here it was easy to believe, “I don’t need that wilderness God with His boring manna and His sissy, “take care of others” ways.  HERE I can scoop up MORE than I could ever need all by myself and these local gods actually BLESS that way of living!"      

Joshua's people were actually hoping they could pick a little from curtain one and the rest from curtain two.  They hadn't fully forgotten the God that took care of them out in the desert so they were hoping they could make that one their "official" God.  Do a little something for that One for maybe an hour each week, but then follow the ways of the local gods for the rest and get RICH!  Because, hey, these local gods didn’t just let greed slide, these local gods proclaimed greed was a blessing!  Bigger wealth, bigger power, bigger fertility symbols… ALL of it was a blessing!  When I get rich taking advantage of you, that just means the local gods are using me to punish you for who knows what and, honestly, that’s between the gods and them and not my problem.  

Joshua knew his people wanted it both ways and let them know THAT was NOT an option.  Following the God of Moses meant following that God’s way of living full time, NO MATTER what the surrounding landscape happened to look like from one day to the next.  Joshua also knew God required this way of living not to make life hard, but because THIS way, was THE way that led to lasting LIFE for individuals and the community as a whole!  Joshua knew that following the local gods' ways of living would inevitably lead to the exploitation of the poor and the weak and the accumulation of wealth at the expense of their neighbors.  That sort of “religion”… that way of living in the world… living without a commitment to social justice… living without self-giving care for your neighbors… living without an intentional preference for the poor and weak... living that way always, always, ALWAYS leads to the eventual downfall of the community.

This is clearly not JUST an old story about a long ago decision made by an ancient people.  This is our choice too, and one we are asked to make every day.  We too, as Walter Bruggemann points out, are confronted with this decision every day in every aspect of our lives.  It's even right in the middle of our Pledge of Allegiance as it promises “justice for all” and “liberty for all”  both at the same time.  If Joshua heard this pledge I think he would press us now as he pressed his people then, reminding us we can not pick both.  He would remind us that justice for all is in conflict with the idea of a personal sort of liberty and we must choose either one or the other as the way we will live in this world and with that choice for living, the G/god we will follow as well.  

Like the people of Israel, none of us will really make that decision with the confessions we say or the words we pledge.  We will make that decision, every single day in how we choose to live together.  Will the ways we live this day be the ways of the God of Moses… the God of social, economic, and political justice with a bias toward the poor and weak?  Or will the ways we choose to live this day be the ways of the fertility gods who insist there is no amount of wealth and power that is too much for me, myself, and I alone? Every day, it is the way we live that particular day and the way we plan that day for the next proclaims which G/god we will follow.  Each day we must choose.  May we all choose well.  Amen.  

Lady Wisdom and Four Horsemen

Proverbs 9:1-6

Wisdom has built her house,
she has hewn her seven pillars.

She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table.

She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls from the highest places in the town,

“You that are simple, turn in here!”

To those without sense she says,
“Come, eat of my bread
and drink of the wine I have mixed.

Lay aside immaturity, and live,
and walk in the way of insight.”

In Proverbs, God, personified as Lady Wisdom, pulls out all the stops in a desperate effort to get the“willfully ignorant” to turn in to the feast of wisdom and live.  This past week I was in a high transmission part of the country, but one where almost everyone… even families with little kids… wandered the grocery store without masks.  I wanted to tell Lady Wisdom to yell louder!  It actually felt even more ominous to me than that, like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were pushing their carts down the aisles beside them and they were completely oblivious!  Times like these tend to stir up those cryptic and sometimes creepy sorts of biblical imagery.

 

I looked and saw a giant white horse blazing into the sky. Its rider carried immeasurable wealth and was given a victory garland. He rode off victorious, conquering right and left. Then another horse, this one red. The rider bringing violence to the earth, a 13 year old shooting another on their first day back to school.  The rider carried more guns than there are people to carry them.  Then I looked and saw a black horse this time.  Its rider carried a globe of the earth, engulfed in wild fire, heat, and cyclones.  And finally a colorless horse, sickly pale. Its rider was Covid, and the Anti-vaxers were close on its heels. Together the four were given power to destroy a fourth of the earth by way of gun violence, climate change, pandemic, and the wealthy devouring the poor.

The fact that both Proverbs and Revelation don’t seem too far off from our current news cycle doesn’t mean THE END IS NEAR.  What it means that we humans continue to make the same mistakes that humans made back in the time of Proverbs and in the time of Revelation.  We remain stuck as a species in a terrible, reoccurring cycle of self inflicted abuse.  The imagery, the language, and the costumes change over time but the plot to this same old story just seem to go on forever in reruns.  

All of which likely leaves you thinking:  Thanks for the uplifting, return-from-vacation-happy and refreshed sermon, pastor!  And you’d be right… if I stopped there.  But that’s not where the author of Proverbs left it, nor where John of Patmos left Revelation, and it can’t be where Erik of Sheffield leaves it either.  You see, people then and now write this way desperately longing for humanity to finally SEE what they are doing to themselves so that they can break out of it once and for all.  Freed from this horrible merry go round, people who write this way know that the world can be what we pray for it to be each week, “God’s Kingdom come, God’s will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” … a world where everyone has enough.  Not some having too much and others having too little, but everyone, without exception, having enough.  Enough food, shelter, clothing, health, love, dignity, respect, and purpose.  

Which is why John of Patmos didn’t end his Revelation with the creepy horsemen and Lady Wisdom didn’t stop calling for the people to turn in and live!  Instead, both offered a path forward into a new way of living.  Lady Wisdom called that path following the Law… the Law which Jesus later summed up as Loving God and Loving Neighbor. “Walking in the way of insight” as Proverbs says, is just another way of saying DO what Jesus did!  John of Patmos called that path the Way of the Lamb.  A path of relentlessly living our lives as Jesus lived his.  In both cases, it is a life of self giving love for our neighbor… with compassion and an active hands-on, all-in sort of kindness and compassion for the least, the lost and the last of our world.  

  

So it is true.  There are indeed people“without sense” as Proverbs put it.  It is true.  The news does often look as menacing as four scary horsemen… AND there is HOPE.   Now, will OUR time be THE time humanity finally stops punching itself in the face?  No idea.  But there is something we can do while we watch and see.  We can walk the path that Proverbs and John remind us is our hope.  Live each day as if God’s Kingdom is already fully here.  Live each day walking in Wisdom.  Loving God.  Loving neighbor, putting the needs of others before our own.  That way of living does not deny the reality of our present, but it does defiantly proclaim that this present reality is not where the story ends!  Because whether “those without sense” choose to “Lay aside immaturity, and live” and finally choose to “walk in the way of insight” this time or not, God WILL get God’s way in the end.  God’s Kingdom WILL come.  God’s will, WILL be done, on earth as it is in heaven. God WILL get God’s way with this creation.  Our job is just to keep walking in that direction until God gets us there!

I don’t know about you, but I will need some help with that from time to time.  Sometimes I’ll need to be taken by the hand and coaxed into taking just one next step.  Sometimes I’ll have enough to fake it until I become it, and sometimes, in a glorious and inexplicable gift of the Holy Spirit I will be mystically certain that everything’s gonna be alright.  

You're probably better at walking that way than I am but then maybe you have those less than mystically certain days as well from time to time.  Either way, let’s pray for more days for all of us filled with the Spirit’s mystical clarity.  Let us celebrate together when we’re able to at least do a decent job faking it, and let us gently take each other by the hand when that next step is anything but clear.  And remember the REAL end of the story… God’s gonna get God’s way!  Amen. 

The Second Bread Sunday

John 6:24-35

So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”

Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

There’s white, wheat, rye and corn.  There’s pumpernickel, sour dough, French and Italian.  There’s raisin, banana, cranberry, and zucchini… and then there’s Jesus, the bread of life.  Bread’s a thing that ranges all the way from Big Y brand white, all the way to the Son of the Living God.  From a solely practical vehicle for moving peanut butter and jelly into a kid’s mouth hole, to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ come to save the world as a whole.  

Bread is a thing that feeds us.  Sometimes that’s just as a part of a quick sandwich grabbed with a busy hand in the middle of the day.  But sometimes it’s a thing that draws out deep memories from long ago with that special recipe written in cursive on a card, mixed together in a passed-down bowl and kneaded by hand to create an essential element for a holiday meal.  Both feed us: the factory made product mixed in 100 pound batches and the thing of deep love kneaded with hands guided by generations… hands that show every year with each practiced turn of the dough.  

The same can be said of Jesus, the bread of life.  He feeds us.  Feeds us with the model of his life showing us how to live in this world.  Feeds us with a love so powerful that we now can love the other as we have first been loved.  An unlimited love, given without condition, given whether the one receiving it recognized it or not us, given whether the one receiving it wants it or not!  Jesus feeds us.

 

Sometimes life is such that Jesus, the bread of life, is Big Y white.  Sometimes Jesus is that kind of bread because that is simply the bread we need in that moment to get us through to the next moment or maybe even all the way to the next day!  We all go through times when that's all we can manage and that goes both for bread-bread and for the Bread of life.  Sometimes we can do an artisan rye  and sometimes all we can do is peanut butter and jelly on white… straight up… no frills.  

But the hope of gathering here is that together we can help each other remember there is more to Jesus, the bread of life, than just getting us through one damn life and into the next.  The hope is we can help each other remember that Jesus, the bread of life, is ALSO, at the very same time, that special, hand made food of infinite love as well.  The hope of coming together is that this might be a chance for us to help one another stop, and fill our lungs with air that is thick with the perfume of baking bread.  Stop and receive a piece from the loaf that is Jesus, the bread of life, and savor the gift of divinity that abundantly, far more than we could ever ask or imagine, makes this thing called “life” a gift worth living!  

The Good News is that in infinite love, God has given us Jesus, the Bread of Life, who is able to be both for us:  The Big Y brand white bread of life to keep us slogging our way out of whatever darkness we find ourselves AND ALSO that specialty artisan bread of life given with a love that spans all of time… a gift to savor like the smell of rising and baking bread… a gift to take in with our eyes, admiring the perfect shade of brown… a gift that we love with our ears as the crust crackles… a gift to melt our hearts as bread melts in our mouths… ALL of it given as a gift to remind us that we were created to do more than just slog through this life.  We were created to live!  That is the bread of life we have in Jesus and that is the bread of life we are called to share with everyone we meet.  

Some will need the bread of life that just feeds them and gets them to another day.  We’ve all been there.  Some of us are there right now.  There is no shame in being there, it is part of being human.  So when you look around and that’s the bread your neighbor needs, then that’s the bread of life to give them!  Then one day, perhaps, they will be in a place where you can invite them to gather here and share with them that artisan version of the bread of life that will fill their lungs with the yeasty toasty notes of the Bread of Life which helps us all remember that God meant for each of us to live beyond just getting by and instead live deeply into a life filled with an abundance of love, dignity, purpose, meaning, and self worth… filled with enough to go all around the world and back again.  

So come to the Table today and receive the Bread of Life.  Come and receive the kind you need, whichever kind that is.  Let it live and work in you this week and then share it with the people you encounter in whatever form they need it to be so they too are fed… so that they too may have life and have it abundantly.  Amen. 

Tom Mix Pocket Knife

John 6:1-21

After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

“Houston, we’ve had a problem.”  Two of the three onboard fuel cells were inoperable.  The crew of Apollo 13 moved to the lunar module to save electricity but the big problem was the buildup on carbon dioxide.  Without a way to filter it out the crew would die. 

Feeling useless at the 4077th, Father Mulcahy took Igor’s place in the litter jeep with Radar and headed to the front to transport a badly wounded soldier back to the MASH unit.  On the way back the soldier couldn’t breath and they stopped to help.  Panicked, Radar calls back to the 4077 but when they get out the first aid kit there is nothing inside that will help save this soldier’s life.  

The crowd continued to grow as Jesus made his way through he countryside.  As he did signs and healed the sick the crowds grew even bigger.  Turning around Jesus saw 5000 people and asked Phillip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”

In each of these desperate situations the available resources seemed to be somewhere between underwhelming and non existent.  Orbiting the earth, under enemy fire and on a hillside in ancient Palestine… these are not the situations where what was needed was anywhere within easy reach!  But in each of these situations a miracle happened, but NOT the miracle most folks point to as THE miracle.  Most people, if asked to describe the miracle, would point to the crew of Apollo 13 splashing down safely back on earth… the soldier surviving… and 5000 people being fed.  But in each of these situations, I think the REAL miracle happened BEFORE those things occurred.  

In Apollo 13, the REAL miracle happened when the crew noticed that they had several spare containers of lithium hydroxide onboard.  These containers could filter out the excess carbon dioxide!  But they were square, and the vents they needed to be connected to were round.  But noticing the lithium hydroxide led to more noticing, both in orbit and back on earth.  Soon the noticing grew and with plastic from a garment bag, the cardboard cover of an instruction manual, a tube sock and some duct tape, a make-shift carbon dioxide scrubber had been created which kept the crew alive until they returned to earth a few days later.  

In the battlefield, surrounded by snipers and a panicked Radar O’Reily, the REAL miracle happened when Father Mulcahy stopped focusing on the dull scissors in the first aid kit, “like you got in kinde-garden” that would NEVER work and was able to notice the Tom Mix pocket knife he DID have.  That noticing lead to more noticing and soon the barrel of a fountain pen became a tube and in spite of Radar’s drama,  Father Mulcahy soon had performed a tracheostomy under fire in the back of a jeep and saved the soldier’s life.  

On the hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee, Philip only saw what he did not have… enough to feed 5000.  Andrew noticed only slightly more… it was just some kid with five fish and three loaves.  But in that tiny bit of noticing a miracle had its start.  It was infinitely less that enough to feed everyone, but it was more than enough for Jesus to start passing out food.  In the end the disciples gathered up 12 baskets of leftovers after everyone had eaten their fill. 

In each of these stories the REAL miracle happened when they stopped focusing on what they DID NOT have and instead began to look around, notice, and put to use what they DID have.  When THAT happened, the situations began to immediately turn from scarcity to abundance, from despair to hope, from darkness to light, and from death to life.  

The story in today’s Gospel reading is an absolutely amazing and wonderful miracle story!  But it is not JUST a miracle that could only be performed 2000 years ago on a hill by the sea by the Son of God.  The miracle in today’s Gospel story is a miracle WELL within the grasp of each and every one of us… you and me… us mere mortals, right here in little ol’ Sheffield!  It is a miracle that begins the moment we stop obsessing about what we DON’T have and instead look around us and see what we DO have and begin to put that, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant it might seem, to work in the world.  And here’s the REAL kicker… NOT ONLY is this sort of miracle we CAN DO… This is the EXACT SORT OF MIRACLE we’ve already DONE!  Bishop Doug noticed hikers on the Appalachian Trail.  That helped us notice a ministry development grant, that helped others notice other churches wanting to help and now how many hamburgers and hotdogs have been served?  I don’t know… maybe 500 or so?  But not 5000 you say… well… 

When the pandemic hit and the schools closed, school families who relied on school meals were going without but all the NORMAL ways we help hungry people couldn’t be done!  No teams could gather to cook, no cafeterias packed with people for spaghetti suppers!  People wanted to help but there was NO way to help!  But then we noticed the school was sending food home.  That led to noticing The Marketplace still doing takeout dinners.  Then that led to community members sponsoring meals and then before we even knew what was happening over 8350 people had been fed… a number greater than 5000, I might add!  The fact is…  We do miracles here my friends!  We really, really DO and they all begin when together we help each other to look past scarcity and notice the abundance God has given us lying all around us.  Then we look up from despair and see hope staring us right in the face.  Then we walk step by step toward that tiny pinprick of light even while we are surrounded by darkness.  Then miracles happen and the world is moved from death toward life.  Amen.  

Tzitzit

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

In the book of Numbers, God tells Moses to speak to the Israelites and tell them to make fringes on the corners of their garments throughout their generations and to put a blue cord on the fringe at each corner.  This was so they would remember and do God’s commandments and doing God’s commandments would make them holy.  These are the fringes that the people begged to touch on Jesus’ robe in today’s Gospel.  The fringes were reminders of the Commandments… a physical, visible reminder that the path to healing, holiness and wholeness was paved with love of God and love of neighbor. 

What must it have been like to be one of the crowd reaching with all of their being for the fringe of Jesus’ robe in this story?  Over the last year and a half it has felt like we’ve been reaching with all of our being to make it through the pandemic.  Does our experience give us a clue how those people felt?  All of us have been clawing our way toward that one moment of hope, just like that crowd clawed towards theirs… toward the moment when the tips of our fingers met the fringe which meant healing, holiness and wholeness.  And as I wondered this week if their experience had any relation to ours, here’s what else I wondered… I wondered if when those people in the crowd finally got to touch the fringe of Jesus’ robe, did they get the healing they were expecting?  The text says they were healed and I believe it.  But did they get the healing they expected, or maybe did some of them get healed in ways they they did not expect, couldn’t immediately see, or even recognize, or embrace?  Did they get to that moment they had been reaching for and end up finding that things were not the way they expected them to be?

I wonder about that because over the past year and a half I have reached out with all my being… with every ounce of physical, emotional, and spiritual energy just KNOWING the whole time that the day the pandemic ended… the day I finally got to my version of touching the very fringe of Jesus’ robe, I… we… would experience the healing, holiness and wholeness we all so desperately needed.  And for a year and a half I’ve been certain of exactly what that healing moment would look like!  It would be a glorious festival celebration on our first Sunday back!  The pews would be filled to overflowing.  The passing of the peace would go on for an hour and coffee hour would stretch long into the afternoon!   As I fought and clawed and wrestled through the pandemic, in perhaps a similar way the crowd fought and clawed and wrestled to get to Jesus… I just KNEW that when I finally got there… when, like the people in that crowd, I finally managed to touch, even just the fringes of Jesus’ robe… and we made it to the end of the pandemic… THAT would be what it looked like.  Except… it didn’t.   

Instead, as it turns out, it looks and feels nothing like I expected.  I still trust the promise that I have been healed, but to be honest I haven’t yet been able to discover where that healing, holiness and wholeness is happening.  Coming out of this pandemic being so very different than I had imagined it would be has been really hard this last month and I know I’m not alone.  We’re all in one way or another still trying to figure out what this side looks like.  What should just stay on Zoom?  What works on live stream just as well as in person?  What can we do without having to get on an airplane to do it?  AND what are the things that just DEMAND a physical reaching out and touch... like the people did reaching for Jesus' blue cords… what simply can’t be replaced by anything other than seeing each other face to face and not through a screen.  What still absolutely demands a fully connected skin to skin handshake?  What can we get by with on line and what just can't be done by anything other than a loving embrace?  

That’s where I am these days.  We have made it to the other side.  We’ve stretched with every once we had, reached and finally... we've touched the fringe of Jesus’ robe.  We’ve been healed, made holy and made whole… AND it feels nothing like what I thought it would.  It's all much harder than I expected.  It’s made me sad, fearful about my future, and more depressed than I’ve been in a very long time.  Maybe some in that crowd felt that way after touching the fringe of Jesus’ robe when the healing they received was not as they had imagined it would be.   

There is no way to know how that crowd felt of course but I think it’s good for us to share with each other how we are feeling these days.  Broken?  Healed?  Somewhere in between?  Regardless of where you find yourself today after reaching for a year and a half through this pandemic toward healing, holiness, and wholeness, I think this lesson leaves us all with the same advise...  We are never done reaching for that thin blue cord on the fringe of Jesus’ robe.  We must keep reaching and walking and stretching toward the Promise of God’s Covenant… that it is in the actions we do in loving God and loving neighbor that we find the healing, holiness, and wholeness we've been given.  It is in the DOING of love that the healing we’ve already been Divinely given slowly becomes clear.  May we continue to care for one another, be gentle with one another, and hold each other up as each of us walks each day more deeply into the healing, holiness, and wholeness God has given us.  Amen. 

You're a Vehicle, Baby

Psalm 85:8-13

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.

Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.

Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.

The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.

Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps.

In my car the speedometer is on the right.  On the left there’s a gauge I’ve never had in a car before.  It shows how much power is either going out of the battery or going back into the battery.  The people who created my all-electric car wanted to let drivers know what sort of driving used the most power and what sort of driving recovered the most power.  With that information the driver could learn the best ways to drive to get the most out of their car.  

Without that feedback from that gauge, given to me by the people who know it best (because they designed and built it), I would really have no idea how to use this car to the fullness of what the designer’s intended.  With that gauge I do.  Do I always drive it for maximum efficiency?  No.  Do I sometimes go 0-60 faster than a mid 80’s Corvette just because I can?  Perhaps.  But do I have to GUESS how to drive to get the most out of my car.  Not at all!    

And that, believe it or not, leads us back into today’s Psalm.  In this Psalm, God, the designer and builder of the vehicle we call a human life, shares with us how to get the most out of this thing called life.  God is going to “speak peace” to God’s people.  God is telling us how to get real WHOLENESS out of this life we’ve been given.  How to maximize LIFE in the body styles and model years that we’re each currently driving.  

In this Psalm, God’s “salvation” is the very best advise on how to maximize the life you have been given straight from the designer and manufacturer.  That advice is RIGHT there at our fingertips for those who “fear” God.  This is not meant to be understood as the“fear” of a God who's just waiting to jump out and GETCHA.  Here, fear is meant to describe the feeling of AWE at suddenly encountering the One who has designed each one of us from the atoms up!  THIS “fear” is not being afraid, but instead how it feels to find ourselves in gobsmacking wonder as we hear first hand from the One who put each one of us together piece by piece!  It is meant to describe the wide eyed, speechless, cavernous jaw drop we experience as we hear God tell us to our faces that each one of us has been wonderfully made!

Which is all the dramatic the way this Psalm chooses to give us a heads up and say, “Pay attention!  THIS next bit is directly from the ONE who really knows!”  And the ONE who really knows… KNOWS that it is in STEADFAST LOVE that we meet with FAITHFULNESS.  It is in RIGHTEOUSNESS that we will find ourselves filled with the WHOLENESS of life.  God knows… KNOWS better than ANY OTHER… that when we pass on God’s loving kindness to our neighbors and the world around us... THAT is the most faithful way to drive this life we’ve been given.  Living this life as a vehicle to spread God’s loving kindness to the world is what following our manufacturer’s design for living looks like!  And when you drive your life in THAT way, you'll see abundant life, for yourself, for others, and for the world just seeming to spring up from the ground, meet you in the street, and pour down on you from the skies!  

God has given us these directions for living, not like some sort of sadistic sociopath who delights in tripping us up and sending us to hell.  If that’s your god, then I’ve got to tell you, you’ve got a terrible god and that isn’t the God of Scripture, it isn’t the God of the Psalms, it isn’t the God of Jesus and it’s not the God of the Gospel.  The real God...OUR God is the ONE who loved us into being and the ONE who wants us, more than anything else, to follow our manufacturer’s design recommendations… NOT to “GET US” when we don’t, but because the more we LIVE as we were designed to live, the MORE we get out of this thing called life we’ve been given!  THAT’S the God we have!  We have a God who freely shares with us how we were designed and made because our God WANTS us to live every second of our lives from starting line to finish with our gauge for abundant life completely maxed out the whole time!  

THAT is what God wants for us and that is why God shows us, here in the Psalm and in countless other places, that the way to live our lives maxed out on abundance is to drive our lives on this road called "loving kindness", doing what is in the other’s best interest, having what the world would call “too much grace” for others, showing compassion, kindness, generosity and love to people along the way.  Even to those who don't deserve it... Especially to those who don't deserve it!  THAT is the road God wants us to drive.  Not to “get us if we don’t” but so that we will know at the end of the road that we’ve really lived the life, God created us to live.  Amen.   

Lighting Wet Wood

Mark 6:1-13

Jesus left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Then he went about among the villages teaching. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

Jesus had thought he would do his teaching, healing, casting out demons thing for his own home town.  But for whatever reason, the Holy Spirit, had not yet lit a fire in Jesus’ own home town.  So, in a move that is meant to be a lesson for you and me, Jesus didn’t keep trying to set fire to the soaking wet wood pile called Nazareth he THOUGHT should be on fire, but instead moved on and found where the Spirit HAD already lit a fire and went to work fueling THAT fire, in THAT place instead. 

When I was in Maine I hooked up with some Episcopalians and soon it was clear those five churches were in the same boat as my one Lutheran church… all struggling… all needing some "deeds of power.”  The fire I THOUGHT the Spirit should light was in these churches!  Together they would have the people and resources to do the deeds of power our town needed!  And Augusta needed some serious deeds of power to be sure!  Manufacturing jobs shipped off shore, one of only a couple of places in the state where people with mental and developmental difficulties could find services AND on top of all that, it was quickly and unexpectedly becoming a place for refugees from Syria and Iraq to settle as well.  MY plan for Augusta made complete and total sense, just like Jesus’ plan for Nazareth… and just like for Jesus… it was NOT AT ALL where the Holy Spirit had chosen to light a fire!  Instead the Spirit had lit lots of little, very different looking fires, among unexpected people… all in places we couldn’t immediately see.

   

One of the Episcopal churches had a little fire going.  The rest were soaking wet for that moment.  Instead we found little fires in the local synagogue, with the neighborhood Catholic priest and in the leadership of the growing Muslim community.  Not at all what was expected… but then, what Jesus and the disciples found in Nazareth wasn’t what they expected either! 

For Jesus and the disciples they did what little they could and then just moved on.  In Maine, we did the same thing, although it took us a lot longer than the couple of paragraphs it took Jesus!  In Maine those strange little fires were eventually found and then slowly grown into something called The Capital Area New Mainers Project.  It all started with tiny, little fires set by the Spirit in unexpected places coming together, growing bigger and bigger, and eventually it was a fire burning wider and brighter than anything any of us could have imagined at the start.  

Fast forward now a half dozen years or so to about a month ago.  One of those other Episcopal churches never did dry out and catch fire.  They held their final services and closed.  Sad, but not unexpected.  Much less expected was the announcement that The Capital Area New Mainers Project had been given their property by the the diocese.  This week they were already at work renovating the fellowship hall to create an apartment for a newly arriving Syrian family of nine.

Do you see?  God’s deeds of power get done!  Healing from the horrors and scars of war were being done AND they got done right in the middle of the soaking wet pile of wood in which we couldn’t even strike a spark!  The demons of religious and ethnic bigotry and xenophobia were being cast out as Christians, Jews, and Muslims came together to love one another and grow a new Augusta!  Seeing God’s powerful deeds being done… not in my time or in the way I had envisioned them…  but in God’s time and with God’s much more expansive vision… seeing all that come together six or so years later has finally, I think, worked this particular lesson through the very big cracks in my very thick skull… at least for today.  

My prayer is that we all canlearn this lesson… to look up from the fires we try to start in wet piles of wood, and instead see the unexpected fires that the Spirit has already started all around us.  Learn to trust God’s timetable for doing deeds of power, more like Jesus learned it… in just a couple of paragraphs… rather than the way I learned it… over a half dozen years, and that we would remember this lesson as we walk into our future here.  So remember:  the Holy Spirit is always lighting fires.  Those fires are almost never in the places or in the people or on the time table WE think they should be.  And remember it’s better to fuel the fires that the Spirit’s started, than trying to set fire to a pile of soaking wet wood that just isn’t yet ready to burn. Amen.