Fourth Sunday in Lent

March 10, 2013

Fourth Sunday in Lent

Joshua 5:9-12 (NRSV)

(9) The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.
(10) While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho.
(11) On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain.
(12) The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 (NRSV)

(16) From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.
(17) So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
(18) All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;
(19) that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.
(20) So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
(21) For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (NRSV)

(1) Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.
(2) And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
(3) So he told them this parable:
(11b) “There was a man who had two sons.
(12) the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them.
(13) A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.
(14) When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.
(15) So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed his pigs.
(16) He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.
(17) But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!
(18) I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;
(19) I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’”.
(20) So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.
(21) Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
(22) But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe - the best one - and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
(23) And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate;
(24) for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.
(25) “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.
(26) He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.
(27) He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’
(28) Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him.
(29) But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that i might celebrate with my friends.
(30) But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’
(31) Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
(32) But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

So, earlier this week, Eimy got an email from a friend at work. She told me about it when she got home. The email said simply, You are wonder woman! You wonder where your keys are, you wonder where your shoes are. You wonder if the bills were paid, you wonder if you turned off the coffee maker.
Eimy thought I should include that email in my remarks this morning, but I hesitated, because truth be told, she is a wonder woman. And for that gift, I am, and will be, forever grateful.
But, I did want to start this morning with family. Because it is the bonds of family that our Scripture speaks of this morning. Anytime I get a scripture that is well known, it is both a blessing and a curse to come up with a message. Today, with our reading of the prodigal son, we have what is one of the most well known stories of the Bible. Even more so, it has come to have meaning in our larger society, even outside of church. Most people, even if they have never been to church, know the story of the prodigal son. It is likely that more sermons have been written on this parable than just about any other one. It is truly difficult to find words to speak that haven’t been spoken before. Yet, with all that in mind, here we go.
“Blood is thicker than water.” That is something I remember my father saying quite often. He would use that phrase in different contexts yet, I always knew what he meant. No matter what else you may do in life, your family will always be your family. And no matter what other priorities may come about, no matter what happens to you in life, you always do for family. There are no exceptions to this rule, at least not any my father could think of.
Yet, growing up, it was always just something my father said. Yet, looking back, I can see that it is something he lived. When my sister was born and had serious medical problems, whatever sacrifices it called for, they were sacrifices that had to be made. My mother leaving her career to stay home and take care of her, a sacrifice that had to be made. My father taking upon himself working endless hours so we could pay for food and medicine, even though he was a truck driver and would be gone most weeks and we could see him only on the weekends, a sacrifice that had to be made. When my sister had to have surgery and was in the hospital for weeks, even over my birthday, my father would come home to my grandmother’s house where I was staying to give me a small remote control race car even though his presence was needed at the hospital. A sacrifice that had to be made. All of these sacrifices had to be made, and they were, without thought or second guessing, because, when you get to the heart of it, you do for family, not because they deserve it, not because they want it, not because they even need it, but because they are family and family is the bond that, in life, is what ties us to each other and forms the backbone of our society.
“Blood is thicker than water.” Of course, it is a bit easier to live out this ideal when the issues you are dealing with are life and death of a family member. When the issues are more day to day, sometimes it can get harder to live out the responsibilities and obligations of life when we find ourselves disagreeing with each other, maybe on the opposite side of the argument from our mother or father, sister or brother, neighbor or friend.
While I have painted a picture of my father here that is true to form, it does glance over some of his more human characteristics. Like, for example, when I went away to college and came back with some different social and political ideals that he wasn’t too thrilled about. To make a long story short, the word brainwashed was thrown out a couple of times. At one point, in the midst of a heated argument, I remember him walking down the stairs in a huff and as he walked out the basement door, he screamed back at me, “You are nothing but a democrat.” For my father, and much of my family, that was the ultimate insult. Nothing was worse.
Yet, even though we would disagree, at the end of the day, blood is thicker than water. At the end of the day, you do for family.
On tuesday, I have a project due for a class I am taking called “Pastoral Care and Counseling in Contexts.” This particular class begins to introduce us into the world of counseling in the context of pastoral relationships. The professor, an extremely smart individual who came to ministry through psychological counseling, is a firm believer that your interaction with people in your life is a reflection of where you came from. So, as the first big assignment in this class, we have to do a genogram. I had never heard of a genogram before this semester, but it is kind of like a family tree, but a bit more involved. You draw a family tree, but you include a lot of other information. Age of death, cause of death, disabilities, illnesses, migrations, separations, divorces, etc etc. After that, you include information about the types of relationships. Estrangements, hostile or violent relationships, abuses, family “secrets”. Just about anything that happens among families that affects people in one way or another.
I have spent the past couple of weeks working on this project and it is quite a sight to see four generations of both my family and Eimy’s family. To see it in that form, it gives you a frame of reference that you don’t normally have. Looking back over our two families gives quite a picture into our lives. Just as the professor wants us to realize that where we come from affects where we are going, seeing our families’ histories really drives that point home. As I look back over my side of the family, I can see some patterns that I never really thought about before. For example, while I know which members of my family have been divorced, it didn’t dawn on me until I put it on paper how stable my family has been. Of all my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, there are only two divorces in my family. In fact, my father and his brothers were each married once. My mother and her sisters as well, were each married only once. While the lack of divorces is a good thing, it also speaks to the idea that life can be difficult and sometimes we just have to plough through and make the life that we have and not let petty differences break us apart. As we look over Eimy’s family, the one major pattern is migration. Not only has Eimy migrated here, her parents, her paternal grandparents and all of her aunts, uncles and cousins on her fathers side moved from Colombia to Ecuador. On her mothers side, there are a few who still live in Bogota, Colombia, many others have migrated to other parts of Colombia. Still others have moved out of the country entirely. One lives in Caracas, Venezuela. Eimy’s mom of course is in Quito. Another uncle lives in Fort Myers, Florida.

So the understanding of how migration affects families is strong in Eimy’s family, and the idea of sticking it out and not letting our differences break us apart is strong in my family. Eimy and I each bring these qualities to our family. While we have ventured out in our own, individual lives, those values that we learned venture with us, they become part of who we are and how we live.

Our story this morning, the prodigal son, is a story, a parable that has been dissected in every imaginable way. We can look at it through the eyes of the father, the son who stays home, the one who goes away. We can look at it through the slaves of the father, or the people in the far away land who the son came to know. Yet, this morning, we look at it through the lens of the family. The prodigal son was, just that, a son. He was a son who thought he knew better, and who realized later how wrong he was. He went back to his father, the father was his father. And as his father, he loved him anyway and was overjoyed to see his lost son return. The brother, was the brother who questions decisions, who believed that he had been wronged, who suspected that life wasn’t fair. In other words, this family, the father, the son and the brother are us. We are that family and we each can relate to one of these characters in some way or another. And when we do that, we remember that blood is thicker than water.

Not only are we that family, but God is the head of that family, of our family. He is that father that lets us take what is his and use it for our purposes. He is the one that waits patiently for us to see the error of our ways, and he is the one that rejoices when he sees us coming, even though we are still far off. Because, no matter what we have done, we still belong and there is still joy when we return.

In life, we many times try to do it our own way. We try to strike our own path. We try to control all the uncontrollables. But, in the end, we can’t control them, not on our own.

In my senior year of high school, I had a difficult time. I had been gone the year before, so all of my friends had changed and so had I. I had to take the required classes that juniors have to take, but I had to take them as a senior, so I wasn’t even around a lot of the friends I had had before. It was a difficult time, and I found it hard to find a place again. Then I went on to college and had to start all over again. My girlfriend at the time was in high school with me and she came to Bucknell with me too. Her and I would talk a lot and I would tell her how much I learned from my year as an exchange student. Her father had died of cancer a few days before I left for south america, and now, a few years later, my father as well had just been diagnosed with cancer, so we would talk about that and she helped me get through it. We would talk about future plans. I was excited about returning to Argentina during my junior year, and I loved my classes and we would talk and I would say how much I wanted a life that was different than the one I knew. It was at this point that she said something that has stuck with me ever since. She said, “It is great that you have all these dreams and ambitions and hopes. But, whatever you do, don’t ever forget who you are and where you came from.”

That advice has served me well. Because for all of the changes that have happened in my life, my family has always been there, in good times and in bad, when I deserved their love and when I failed miserably at deserving it.

The prodigal son, he comes home. There is celebration, not because the sons actions in life deserved the celebration, but because in the end, he remembered where he came from. He remembered that blood is thicker than water. He remembered that what he deserves is irrelevant in the eyes of the father. The son had come home.

On this Sunday as we draw closer to that day when Christ will sacrifice himself, let us remember that at the end of the day, we are to remember where we came from, even if the place we come from is a total wreck. Even if the place we come from is filled with filth, and sin, and anger and hatred and violence, even if the place we come from is so horrible that there are no words that could truly describe it, if we remember where we came from, and return back to that home, the father will be there waiting. That will be a celebration we definitely won’t want to miss.

Third Sunday in Lent

March 3, 2013

Third Sunday in Lent

Isaiah 55:1-9 (NAB)

(1) All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; Come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk!
(2) Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy? Heed me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare.
(3) Come to me heedfully, listen, that you may have life. I will renew with you the everlasting covenant, the benefits assured to David.
(4) As I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander of nations,
(5) So shall you summon a nation you knew not, and nations that knew you shall run to you, because of the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, who has glorified you.
(6) Seek the Lord while he may be found, call him while he is near.
(7) Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked man his thoughts; Let him turn to the Lord for mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving.
(8) For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
(9) As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.

1 Corinthians 10:1-13 (NAB)

(1) I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea,
(2) and all of them were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
(3) All ate the same spiritual food,
(4) and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was the Christ.
(5) Yet, God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the desert.
(6) These things happened as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil things, as they did.
(7) And do not become idolaters, as some of them did, as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.”
(8) Let us not indulge in immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell within a single day.
(9) Let us not test Christ as some of them did, and suffered death by serpents.
(10) Do not grumble as some of them did, and suffered death by the destroyer.
(11) These things happened to them as an example, and they have been written down as a warning to us, upon whom the end of the ages has come.
(12) Therefore, whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall.
(13) No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it.

Luke 13:1-9 (NAB)

(1) At that time some people who were present there told him about the Galileans whose book Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices.
(2) He said to them in reply, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans?
(3) By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!
(4) Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower  at Siloam fell on them - do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem?
(5) By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”
(6) And he told them this parable: “There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none,
(7) he said to the gardener, “For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. [So] cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?”
(8) He said to him in reply, “Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it;
(9) it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.””

The scripture lesson this morning is a little different. We have two, seemingly separate pericopes. It begins with Jesus giving some words that can seem very different than we usually hear Him. These are not the words of the Jesus we like to think about, anyway. This is the fire and brimstone Jesus, the one who doesn’t tell us what we want to hear, he tells us what we need to hear. Then, he lapses into a short parable. Parables, of course, are nothing new for Jesus, he uses them consistently, this we know. This one, though, is slightly different because it ends and we are left to think about what it means. There is no explanation, there is no attempt to explain it to his apostles. The only meaning we can pull out of it is on our own, making some implications based on the few lines above.
I guess maybe that is par for the course, here we are in the middle of lent and the lectionary gives us a passage that causes us to dig a little bit, to search around for the meaning. We are not given a passage that makes everything clear, not a passage that tells us in no uncertain terms that we are loved and children of God. Not a passage that tells us how grace covers our lives when we see it and when we don’t. Not a passage that brings us up to feel God’s presence in us, but a passage that causes us to stir, to dig, to shuffle our emotions until we can’t see which way is up.
After all, isn’t that what lent is truly about? A time to reflect on the sufferings that Christ undertook on behalf of all of us who millenia after the fact continue in the same circles of sin and selfishness that we have since time began. Here we are, two thousand years after the fact, still living in our sin, still suffering for our sin, still asking Christ to come to us, to suffer again for us, to help us find the way to redemption.
That is where we are today, in search for redemption. It is through the lens of the search for that redemption that we read these words this morning from the Gospel of Luke. Now, I have been here officially since last july. I was here, unofficially for two years prior to that. I have preached on a lot of subjects during that time, some better than others. Yet, it is no surprise that I tend to favor preaching on what it means to live in the community of faith, and I do that because I think it is an aspect of religion, of our faith that we tend to overlook in our society. The politics and economics of our life put a huge emphasis on the individual at the expense of the community.Through my eyes that means that we have come to see our collective responsibility to each other and to our world as either irrelevant or indifferent.
Yet, preparing these words for today, made me realize that sometimes I put so much attention on our collective responsibility to each other, that I have unintentionally minimized the importance of individual faith and our individual relationships to God. This is an aspect of my ministry that is still developing and I thank you for helping me realize that our emphasis has to be on both the collective and the individual rather that one at expense of the other.
Lent, then, is a time when we can inwardly focus our faith journeys. It is true that we journey together, but we each do that in unique and complex ways. It is to this individual journey that we turn this morning. Our society has many ills, it often lacks direction, strength, and responsibility. And when we suffer from those ills, so many times we point at the problem. When we lose our jobs, we blame the employers who seem completely aloof to our daily concerns. It is just greedy business owners that cost us our jobs. It is easier to do that than to say, I never got to work on time, or I didn’t work as hard as I could have. When our families fall apart, we say it was my husband or my wife who lied to me, who cheated on me, who fell out of love with me. It is easier to say that than to look at ourselves and see the times and places when we weren’t the partner they needed. When wars break out, we say it is all because of those others, it is their fault, for they hate our freedom, or they despise our faith. Because it is easier to say this than to look at ourselves and see that maybe we haven’t always played our decks above the table, that we have failed to be of assistance in disasters or we have been too uncaring when we demand that the poor countries in the world pay debt they can’t afford even when doing so means their citizens can’t eat. We are a society, we are a people who too often look at blame as being that of someone else. We define our world in terms of black and white, of good and bad, of them and us.
Yet, Christ himself tells us what happens when we act in that way. When we look at this scripture there is one benefit in reading it two thousand years later. When Jesus talks of the Galileans, when he talks about the eighteen who perished when the tower of Siloam fell, we can look over them because we don’t necessarily have any context for who these people are. It is easy for us to say, Jesus is talking about people who don’t exist anymore. When we do this, it undermines the message for us. Because while there may be no more Galileans, at least not in the biblical sense, the idea still remains today if we put it in context. The underlying message is don’t assume that you are ok just because you can point to others who are worse. The underlying message is that it isn’t a competition. So, let’s replace the words Galileans and the group who died at the tower of Siloam with some of our “others” today. Maybe this will give us some sense of what this message could sound like today.
Let’s rephrase this with some things we hear today, even in church.

“Do you think that these Republicans were worse sinners than you? I tell you, no!”
“Do you think that these Democrats were worse sinners than you? I tell you, no!”
“Do you think that these Drug Lords were worse sinners than you? I tell you, no!”
“Do you think that these urban gangs were worse sinners than you? I tell you, no!”
“Do you think that these homosexuals were worse sinners than you? I tell you, no!”

The list goes on, we could replace the word Galileans for any one of a million different people and groups we point to when we try to deflect blame away from us. They can be that neighbor that doesn’t respect your property. They can be that girl down the street who had an abortion. They can be that kid who hangs out on the corner opposite of your house who just looks like trouble.

Yet, today we are to realize that ultimately we cannot deflect blame to someone or something else. Today we are to realize that ultimately we each and every one of us falls short of God’s Glory because we all sin. It is true that the sin of stealing bread is vastly different from the sin of robbing someone of their life. Yet, at the end of the day, they are all sins, and we all commit more of them than we care to admit. That is, until today. Today, we are called to admit how short we have fallen. Today, we are called to recognize that, one day, each of us will be called to account. I don’t know exactly what that experience will be like, but I am pretty sure what it won’t be like. It won’t be a time when you will be compared to other’s sins. On that day, I would be willing to bet that you won’t be asked how sinful your neighbor or your friend or your enemy were. Because, on that day, there is only one competition to be worried about. That competition will be with yourself. And I guarantee you, that as you look into your life you will find much to be worried about. Indeed, it is likely that no matter how good you tried to be, it will not be enough to get you into God’s eternal home. Yet, I don’t say that to scare you, because you and I and everyone couldn’t even hope to measure up. That is the good news, because Christ has already filled up the gap for us.

This lenten season, we reflect upon ourselves, we think and pray and strive to get closer to who God created us to be. It is in this lenten season, that our minds and our wills remind us that at the end, we are all to go back to God. That is both a gift and a responsibility. As Saint Augustine sat down to compile his confessions he spends the last third of that book, more or less, to philosophical musings. At the very end, he speaks of that Sabbath day we all look to share in. In then end, that is where we are going. Augustine writes:

“But the seventh day is without evening. The sun does not set on it, because you sanctified it to last forever. For after all your works which were very good, you rested on the seventh day, although you made all these works in an unbroken rest. So, may the voice of your book tell us in advance that we too, after our works (which are very good only for the reason that you have given them to us), may rest in you in the sabbath of eternal life.

First Sunday of Lent

February 17, 2013

Deuteronomy 26:1-11 (CEB)

(1) Once you have entered the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you take possession of it and are settled there,
(2) take some of the early produce of the fertile ground that you have harvested from the land the Lord your God is giving you, and put it in a basket. Then go to the location the Lord your God selects for his name to reside.
(3) Go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him: “I am declaring right now before the Lord my God that I have indeed arrived in the land swore to our ancestors to give us.”
(4) The priest will then take the basket from you and place it before the Lord your God’s altar.
(5) Then you should solemnly state before the Lord your God: “My father was a starving Aramean. He went down to Egypt, living as an immigrant there with few family members, but that is where he became a great nation, mighty and numerous.
(6) The Egyptians treated us terribly; oppressing us and forcing hard labor on us.
(7) So we cried out for help to the Lord, our ancestor’s God. The Lord heard our call. God saw our misery, our trouble, and our oppression.
(8) The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, with awesome power, and with signs and wonders.
(9) He brought us to this place and gave us this land - a land full of milk and honey.
(10) So now I am bringing the early produce of the fertile ground that you, Lord, have given me.” Set the produce before the Lord your God, bowing down before the Lord your God.
(11) Then celebrate all the good things the Lord your God has done for you and your family - each one of you along with the Levites and the immigrants who are among you.

Romans 10:8b-13 (CEB)

(8b) The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.
(9) Because if you confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord” and in your heart you have faith that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
(10) Trusting with the heart leads to righteousness, and confessing with the mouth leads to salvation.
(11) The scripture says, All who have faith in him won’t be put to shame.
(12) There is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord is Lord of all, who gives richly to all who call on him.
(13) All who call on the Lord’s name will be saved.

Luke 4:1-13 (CEB)

(1) Jesus returned from the Jordan River full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
(2) There he was tempted for forty days by the devil. He ate nothing during those forty days and afterward Jesus was starving.
(3) The devil said to him, “Since you are God’s Son, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”
(4) Jesus replied, “It’s written, People won’t live only by bread.”
(5) Next the devil led him to a high place and showed him in a single instant all the kingdoms of the world.
(6) The devil said, “I will give you this whole domain and the glory of all these kingdoms. It’s been entrusted to me and I can give it to anyone I want.
(7) Therefore, if you will worship me, it will all be yours.
(8) Jesus answered, “It’s written, You will worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”
(9) The devil brought him into Jerusalem and stood him at the highest point of the temple. He said to him, “Since you are God’s Son, throw yourself down from here;
(10) for it’s written: He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you
(11) and they will take you up in their hands so that you won’t hit your foot on a stone.”
(12) Jesus answered, “It’s been said, Don’t test the Lord your God.”
(13) After finishing every temptation, the devil departed from him until the next opportunity.

So, today is the first Sunday of lent. I have to admit, it doesn’t seem quite normal to me as this is the first year in quite some time that I was unable to attend an Ash Wednesday service. Yet, here we find ourselves gathered as we collectively take that first step into that yearly reminder of how our sin, the sin that we are unable to overcome, was finally overcome for us by our messiah, Christ Jesus.
Traditionally, lent is a time when we do some major soul searching. Many traditionally sacrifice a part of their routine in order to remember the ultimate sacrifice Christ made for us. Sometimes we go without chocolate, coffee, soda or some other favorite snack.
The sacrifices are one of the focal point of the lenten season, as they help us to remember the ultimate sacrifice Christ makes on Good Friday. Yet, today, on this first Sunday in Lent, we focus not on the sacrifices, per se, but rather on temptation. Not just any ordinary, run of the mill, temptation; but, rather, the temptation Jesus himself faces in the wilderness with no less than the devil, himself.
Now, it is important to set the scene. Jesus has just been baptized. It is at this point, after this baptism, that Jesus goes off into the wilderness. It is at this point that Jesus is confronted by the devil and is tempted in the three ways the scriptures tell us. Jesus is tempted first with food, with sustenance after his body was weakened by fasting for so long. Then comes the temptation of power, power over all people and things. Finally, comes the temptation of testing God. This may be the most interesting. It is also the one I think I want to focus on a bit. It is easy to see ourselves in the first two temptations. We all have our baser instincts that can have an immense amount of control over us. Think of hunger. How many people in the world are hungry or thirsty? How many times have we heard of parents who steal to feed their family. How many are tempted by physical needs in one way or another. This temptation might be the one that is easiest for us to relate to, as it involves those biological functions which are common to us all and we each know to some extent what it is to be hungry, thirsty, tired, sick, or hurt.
Next comes the temptation of power. We can all relate to this as well. It is symbolic, at least in my mind, to our psychological needs. It is our need to be with people, our need to be successful, our need to be wealthy. It is our need to be worthy to our friends and family. It is our need to know that we can affect people’s lives.
Finally, the temptation of testing God. This one can be either easily related to, or very difficult to relate to, depending on how we think of it. If we think of this temptation as testing God’s word, it can be easy to relate to. We know that God has said that he loves us, so when we act in a way that puts that promise to a test, we are testing God to keep that promise. Yet, if we think of this temptation in another way, it becomes difficult to get our minds around. When the devil tempts Jesus to jump from the pinnacle of the temple, he is in essence, testing Jesus belief and understanding that he was the Son of God. While we are all children of God, what the devil was asking was a bit different. It is easy in retrospect to say that Jesus was the Son of God. That is something that we, as Christians, hold as fundamental to our faith. Yet, this is also one of those times when it becomes helpful to remember the very human side of Christ. Jesus Christ was a human being, in every way that we are human. Which we can take to mean that he dealt with things like doubt. It is this doubt that could make it very difficult to entertain the idea that he was the Son of God. Jesus is just about to begin his public ministry. Shortly, he will be going out into the world and sharing the good news of the gospel. He will bring this news as the Son of God, he needs to be sure he is. He needs to believe with every fiber of his being that he has understood his call correctly. Anything less would be insufficient and would weaken his message. When the devil asks him to jump off the pinnacle of the temple, he is playing to that belief. He is putting the entire ministry of Christ, that which is about to begin, on the table. He is saying, if you are so sure, then jump. Jesus had to be sure he was who he said he was, but the devil is saying, if you honestly believe that, then prove it. In essence, the devil is playing mind games.
These temptations both remind us that at the very outset of his ministry, Jesus knew the road would be rough. They also remind us that, very much like us, Jesus dealt with all of this as a human. He existed in a world that was full of temptation and he had to struggle with that temptation in many of the same ways that we continue to struggle with temptation. It is worth noting that even in Luke’s account this morning that in verse 6 that, “And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their (kingdoms) glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.” The devil was given the authority of the world. This is not to suggest that God has no authority in the world, but rather that temptation is the way that the devil works in the world. It is in that temptation, that we are each put into situations wherein we are called to make a choice that either brings us closer to God or further away from the source of all-encompassing love.
Temptation is that thing that we, as humans, have dealt with since the very beginning. In so many of the early writing of Christianity we see how our forefathers in the faith dealt with temptation. It is one of those stories I want to bring up this morning.
The year is around 386. The man who would come to be known as Saint Augustine is around 32 years old. The past few years of his life has been a constant inner struggle. He sees himself as a philosopher and has struggled with coming to terms with the faith he has learned from his mother, Monica. Over the past few years, he has joined a group that was seen as heretical by the church. He spent time talking with friends about astrology and other pagan-associated ideologies. He wants to come to faith yet struggles with the idea of how evil exists and where it comes from. If you read the Confessions of St. Augustine, you get a front row seat into this internal struggle. Yet, he finally comes to a faith that is so strong it led many others to a life in the service of Christ as well. I want to just mention how Augustine comes to understand evil, because it ties into the temptation we all deal with daily.
Augustine couldn’t understand how evil could exist in a world that was created by God. He understood God to be totally good and that everything that exists was created by God. So the problem was how evil could exist if God didn’t create that evil. It made no sense. But then, he has a realization. He comes to define evil in a very particular way. For Augustine, evil becomes something that has no substance but it does have a formal existence. In other words, it does exist, but is is not a thing. It is a state of mind, or a frame of thought. What causes this evil to come into being is the disorder of priorities. The priorities that we have in how we choose to love. Augustine understands man to have two wills. One will is of God and one will is of Man. These two wills are in constant struggle for control over behavior. Augustine explains it in this way.
“The enemy had control of my will, and from that had made a chain to bind me fast. From a perverted act of will, desire had grown, and when desire is given satisfaction, habit is forged; and when habit passes unresisted, a compulsive urge sets in: by these close-knit links I was held”...”To set out and arrive at my goal was only a matter of having a will to go: but it meant a wholehearted and undivided act of will, not this stumbling to and fro with a maimed will, wrestling with it as one part rose while the other slipped to the ground.”
Augustine has what we would call a conversion moment in a garden and all of these ideas are swimming around in his head. He had understood his actions to be his will, but when he began to look upon the problem as this struggle between two wills, things start to make more sense. In this struggle, he could see that part of the issue he was having was with control and that depending on God meant losing that control or at least accepting that he didn’t have all the control. He eventually comes to emphasize the experience of the force of habit because he now thought that the experience  proved conclusively that change could only happen through processes entirely outside of his control. He writes, “That was all, just not to wish what I wanted, and to want what You (God) wished. but where was my free-will in the gruelling time: from what deep recess was it called-up, at that turning point, in which I bent my neck to Your light yoke.
Augustine sees this struggle of wills to be the heart of his faith because it is in this struggle that the free-willl which God gives man plays out its role. It is in this struggle that the temptation attacks. When we choose the wrong thing, we are in essence, putting our priorities in an order that is different than what God would want. Therefore, the temptation wins and we take a step further away from God. The story of the temptation of Jesus reminds us of this struggle between these two wills that struggle within each of us.
It is here that our faith brings us today. And it is here that we yearn to hear God and to draw closer to him, firm in our belief in his promise that Easter is coming. Frederich Beuchner wrote an arcticle called Whistling in the Dark. I would like to close this morning with a passage from that article.
Buechner writes: In many cultures there is an ancient custom of giving a tenth of each year’s income to some holy use. For Christians, to observe the forty days of Lent is to do the same thing with roughly a tenth of each year’s days. After being baptized by John in the river Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking himself the question what it meant to be Jesus. During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves. Se we ask, If you had to bet everything you have on whether there is a God or whether there isn’t, which side would get your money and why? When you look at your face in the mirror, what do you see in it that you most like and what do you see in it that you most deplore? If you had only one last message to leave to the handful of people who are most important to you, what would it be? Of all the things you have done in your life, which is the one you would most like to undo? Which is the one that makes you happiest to remember? Is there any person in the world, or any cause, that, if circumstances called for it, you would be willing to die for? If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it?

To hear yourself try to answer questions like these is to begin to hear something not only of who you are but of both what you are becoming and what you are failing to become. It can be a pretty depressing business all in all, but if sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end.

First Sunday after Christmas

First Sunday of Christmastide

December 30, 2012


1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26 (NIV)

(18) But Samuel was ministering before the Lord - a boy wearing a linen ephod.
(19) Each year his mother made him a little robe and took it to him when she went up with her husband to offer the annual sacrifice.
(20) Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, saying, “May the Lord give you children by this woman to take the place of the one she prayed for and gave to the Lord.” Then they would go home.
(26) And the boy Samuel continued to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and with men.

Colossians 3:12-17 (NIV)

(12) Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
(13) Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
(14) And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
(15) Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.
(16) Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.
(17) And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Luke 2:41-52 (NIV)

(41) Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover.
(42) When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom.
(43) After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it.
(44) Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends.
(45) When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him.
(46) After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.
(47) Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.
(48) When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
(49) “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”
(50) But they did not understand what he was saying to them.
(51) Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.
(52) And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

One of the great things about the holidays is spending time with family. As the holidays pass, we realize another wonderful tradition about the holidays, our families go home. So, in that respect, A bible group was discussing the unforeseen possibility of sudden death. “We will all die some day, the leader of the discussion said, “and none of us really knows when, but if we did, we would all do a better job of preparing ourselves for that day.” Everybody nodded their heads in agreement with this comment.

“What would you do if you knew you only had four weeks of life left before your great judgment day?” the leader asked the group.
“For those four weeks, I would go out into my community and witness to those that have not yet accepted Jesus into their lives,” one person said.
“A very wise thing to do,” said the group leader. And all the group members agreed that would be a very good thing to do.
“For those four weeks, I would dedicate all of my remaining time to being of more service to others, “ said another woman.
“That’s wonderful!” the group leader commented, and all the group members agreed.
One gentleman in the back finally spoke up loudly. “For those four weeks, I would travel throughout the United States with my mother-in-law in an economy car, and stay in a cheap motel every night.”
Everyone was puzzled by his answer. “Why would you do that?” the group leader asked curiously.
“Because,” the man smiled sarcastically, “it would be the longest four weeks of my life.”

I have to admit, that as a kid growing up, this particular piece of scripture made total sense. By that, I mean, it fit into the view of the world I had. Think about it, what self-respecting teenager honestly thinks his parents know what is best? How many of you, at that age, sat in church and thought, why can’t my parents be at least half as cool as Joseph and Mary? Jesus pulls a stunt like this and the pie ends up in the face of Mary and Joseph.

However, looking at this scripture through the eyes of a parent gives me a whole new understanding. This is one of those pieces of scripture that, in all reality, is totally unbelievable. Am I wrong? Put yourself in the story, how different would it turn out?
Here is an example, putting myself and my parents into the story. My parents have realized that I have wandered off. The idea that they left me behind is not even brought up, I was the one who had to have wandered off. They turn around and walk back to Jerusalem, finding me at the temple. The first reaction of my mother, may very well have been close to what Mary said. But that is where the similarities end. At this point, my father would get involved. I think it is curious that Joseph is silent throughout this story. My father would come over, grab me by the ear, with no intention of being gentle. God’s son or not, this just isn’t acceptable behavior. My father would pull me over to the side and slap me right upside the head, again with no intention of being gentle. Then he would say something close to, “Are you out of your mind?” Although his words would be slightly different, just not repeatable in this particular location. Do you know what you put your mother and I through? What could have possibly led you to believe this was ok to do?
Then, let’s assume I respond in the same way Jesus did. “But you should have known I would be here.” “Why would you think any different?” This, in turn, would ensure another slap upside the head as he would say, “This, my boy, is not your mother’s and my fault! You better give up the attitude and answer my questions with a little more respect, or your are gonna have one heck of a headache by the time we get back home. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Dad. I am sorry.” I would have to say, as that is the only acceptable response. And he would reply, now get your butt moving, we are already gonna get home late and you will still get your chores done before you even think about going to bed, understand?”
Now, raise your hand if this story is more in line with what you would have experienced? Don’t lie!
Yet, the story in scripture is so totally different. Why is it, that the story is so unbelieveable? Why do Mary and Joseph react so differently to how most parents react? Is it due to a different time? I don’t think so, if anything parents have gotten less strict rather than more. I believe that a father in ancient Israel would at the least respond as my own father would, likely more strict. Is it because they were at fault? I doubt that too. Jesus knew the rules of the household. He knew that he should let his parents know where he is. So why do we get a story that in so many ways is unbelieveable?
The truth is that there may simply not be an answer to this question. Maybe part of being a Christian is believing in the unbelievable? We have just celebrated Christmas, which when you get down to the cold hard facts, is pretty unbelievable. Christmas is about believing that God himself came to earth as a flesh and blood human. God came to us as one of us. This is unbelievable too. Prior to Christianity, most religions had a God or Gods that were elsewhere. They may interact with humanity through the weather, through disasters or through blessings. They may have helped win battles, punish enemies, or hear prayers, but they were not human in any way, shape, or form. Even in Judaism, Christianities forbear, God was separate from the human experience. He was present in prayer, in battle, in blessing, but he was not human. Not only this, but according to Jewish tradition, the Messiah that was to come was not God incarnate. The Jews believed that the messiah that was foretold by the prophets, would be a soldier, a leader, someone who would help overthrow the shackles of Rome or any other foreign power that held the Jews captive. The messiah was not understood to be God in the flesh.
Yet, it turns out, that is exactly what the messiah was. Christmas is the celebration of the Incarnation, the moment when God decided that he was to intervene in humanity by becoming fully human. The Word became flesh, as John reminds us. But what does it mean to become fully human? And what purpose would God have for intervening in humanity in this way?
These are questions I ask, knowing very well that I don’t have the answers to them. In fact, I don’t believe anyone has the answers to these questions; except God, of course. Yet, here we are, the last sunday of the calendar year, asking these questions and wondering what it all means. We are hoping that we can gain a better understanding. We are hoping that as we make the progression from one year to another, that God is still present, that God is still guiding us, protecting us, and most importantly loving us, because if this last year taught us nothing else, it taught us that we simply can’t do it alone.

During this year we have tried to deal with changes, we have tried to be open and honest in our discussions with each other. We have tried to be helpful to those in need. We have tried to be of service to those we encounter. We have tried to be open-minded when our day to day realities get shattered or when the change comes slowly, tapping at our stained-glass windows, reminding us that what has been is no more and that whether or not we like it, the change has come and is ready to engulf us in its uncertainty, its strangeness, its darkness.

This week has been one of discomfort for me. I have been battling this cold or whatever it

is. I have been coughing, I have lost my voice on a number of occassions. I have felt feverish, yet with no fever. On top of that, my kids are with their grandmother, so the house is eerily quiet. So quiet, that I can actually hear myself think. I had forgotten what that was even like. Yet, it has served to give me a space. A space to help me sort out all that I have been experiencing this year. Sometimes it is important to just take a time and reflect, collect, and invigorate. This past week has served very well for this. This idea of incarnation was one thing I spent some time reflecting about this week. And it is here, in this idea of incarnation, that my thoughts found some structure.
The other night, Eimy and I went to the movies to see Les Miserables. Now, it has long been one of my favorite stories. I learned the music when I was in high school, I saw the play twice on broadway, I have seen a number of the film adaptations, and when I lived abroad the first time, I took with me, and read, the entire novel, which, if you have never seen it, is quite bulky. My copy had over a thousand pages, but it was a book that I couldn’t but down.
So, Eimy and I went to see the movie and I have to admit it is one of the best movie adaptations I have seen in a long time. I am going to assume that you all have some idea of what the story is about, and it is far too complicated to get into it here. However, if you have never read it or seen it, I encourage you to do so.
As I watched this movie, I noticed something that I had never noticed before. The story, like many others, involves a number of different characters, and each one is essential to the story. Yet, most stories present us with characters that are either good or evil, either positive or negative, either saint or sinner. Yet, Hugo’s characters don’t fall under any of these categories. They are each very human and they each suffer from different character flaws and tendencies. No one in the story is truly good and no one is truly bad. Even the character who most people associate as the “evil” character, Inspector Javert, is not evil at his core. As you get to know him, you understand that his understanding of the world is based on laws. For him, good means following the laws and bad means breaking them. In his mindset, he is Good, regardless of how he portrayed.
The main character also, is no saint. He has done a lot of good in his life, but he has erred in the past. It goes on like this. No character is without some flaws, some imperfections. They are, for lack of a better term, truly human in every way. Because we all are this way too. Each and every one of us is not truly good or truly bad. If we look at ourselves, we see our flaws. When we look at others, we see their flaws as well. Regardless of how we try to define our world and its inhabitants, at the end of the day, we are all just human and our understanding of the world comes from that collective identity as member of humanity.
So, if God were to intercede in our lives, doesn’t it make sense that he would have to do it as a human, because doing it in any other way would make it impossible for us to grasp the message he gives us.
As the characters in the movie change over time and circumstance, they too slowly begin to see their common humanity. Without trying to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen the movie, the last scene is one in which the lead character finally sees the connections that have woven together his reality throughout his life.
Much the same way, the incarnation is essentially, God’s attempt to help us see the connections that weave all of us together, a tapestry that begins and ends with God himself. Jesus being born a flesh and bone human being allows us to view the connections that unite us with each other and the connections that unite us with God.
This Christmas, we celebrate connection. We celebrate that God wants us to connect to each other and to him. We are invited to participate in the weaving together of all of our uniqueness with the glory and brightness that is God incarnate.
Towards the end of the movie, there is a song, and one of the lines says, “to love another person is to see the face of God.” We know that God is love, but this re-words that truth in a way that makes us stop to think. To love is to see. To love another is to see God. God has entered into our reality to show us just how world-changing love can be.
As you go today, as you prepare for the beginning of a new year, a new life, a new time, a new motivation, may you also prepare for a new love. May this year and may this day give you the opportunity to see God’s face in the love you have for your spouse, for your children, for your family and for your friends. And may others see God’s face in the love they have for you. That is the incarnation, seeing God in all his glory in the flesh and bone of those you encounter.

Sunday of the Epiphany

January 6, 2013

Sunday of the Epiphany


Isaiah 60:1-6 (NIV)
(1) Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
(2) See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you.
(3) Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
(4) Lift up your eyes and look about you; all assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the arm.
(5) Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come.
(6) Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord.

Ephesians 3:1-12 (NIV)
(1) For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles -
(2) Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you,
(3) that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly.
(4) In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ,
(5) which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.
(6) This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.
(7) I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power.
(8) Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.
(9) and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.
(10) His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.
(11) according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(12) In him and through faith in him may we approach God with freedom and confidence.

Matthew 2:1-12 (NIV)
(1) After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem
(2) and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
(3) When king Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
(4) When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born.
(5) In Bethlehem in Judea, they replied, for this is what the prophet has written:
(6) But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.”
(7) Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.
(8) He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
(9) After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.
(10) When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.
(11) On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.
(12) And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

Now, Now the best comes. Did you ever read a book, or watch a movie and you get emotionally involved in the story. Then, at the very end, you hear that line. What now? someone will ask. Now the best comes.

You have been emotionally invested in the story, living the experience along with the characters, and finally at the end, that line comes along and you know it is the end of the story, but there is more and it is even better than what you just experienced.

It is a nice thought, it is a good way to end a story, but it can also be extremely aggravating.

That happened to me this week. I was still struggling with this cold that keeps toying with me, like I’m one of those block puzzles that kids sometimes get for christmas. With a little bit of time and forethought, the puzzle almost gets completed. Maybe its one of those 3d eiffel towers or empire state buildings. You finally get to the last piece and then the dog gets loose and knocks it all down. That kind of cold. just feeling better and along it comes again and knocks you down again. So, I was working a lot at home, planning out services over the next couple of months and doing a little pleasure reading. I picked up a book called Cross Roads by Wm. Paul Young that I had heard good things about and got into it and couldn’t put it down.

The story, like many others, dealt with a young man who was rich and powerful, but in his quest to be rich and powerful had burnt a lot of bridges and had ostracized himself from friends and family to the point that he was alone. He was alone and paranoid and unwilling to trust or love because in this quest, he had realized that those who got close to him, were there not out of an honest sense of friendship but rather because they hoped to gain, or at least he feared that they hoped to gain advantage by being near him.
The character had lost a lot in his life. He lost his parents at a very young age. He lost his brother shortly thereafter. He lost his son to an illness no one could have predicted. He lost his wife because the loss of his son had hit him so hard and he lost his daughter in that process. He lost everything and everyone that had mattered to him. And, most importantly, he lost his ability to trust. And with this, he lost his ability to see the hurt he caused, and the destruction he left in his path.
The character, at least for me, was easy to connect with. Now, the actions that made up his life may be extreme, but yet, to some extent we all can understand his anger and frustration. We all hurt people we love. We all destroy things, whether by intention or not. The destruction that we cause is real, especially for those who try to pick up the pieces.
Yet, when we get to the point when we begin to realize what we have done, the struggle becomes even harder. Destruction is one thing. It is entirely another to come to terms with it and begin to rebuild what you have destroyed. Apology and forgiveness fall into a category that many of us find unbearable at best and impossible at worst. It is so much easier, we tell ourselves, to cut our losses, to live with the shame and the regret than to try to make amends for what we have done.
I realized that myself this week. One afternoon, Eimy and I were talking and I began to realize some things that I had done that had seriously hurt her. Yet, acknowledging the wrong I had done, but I had never really apologized for it. Until that afternoon, as I stood there and tried to find the words that I needed to say and she needed to hear. Eventually, I muddled through what I was trying to say. I hoped that I had fixed it. Yet, even when we apologize, forgiveness is not a given. Even when we get the forgiveness we seek, it doesn’t come as soon as we hope it would.
It is a difficult thing to admit our faults, seek forgiveness for them, and pray that the forgiveness, the true forgiveness we seek, will come. Many times it does, and I am thankful that for me it did, at least it did this week. But there are other people I have hurt in my life whose forgiveness I still wait for. I imagine that many of you can relate to this. We all struggle with these issues and we struggle with them throughout our lifetimes.
When you think about it, it does make sense, kind of. You see, it is all interconnected. Our lives, our loves, our sins, and our fears. The tapestry that is life can not be separated from the strands of fabric that compose it. And in each of these strands, we find our realities. We find our lives, our loves, our sins, and our fears. Trying to rid our everyday from these fabrics, weakens the fabric as a whole.
The book that I read talks about this. The greatest fear of all is, of course, death itself. In the story, the character is in a conversation with Jesus. In this conversation, Jesus is trying to help the character understand what death really is. Jesus explanation goes like this:
“It’s a conversation with many layers, much of it not for today. For now, understand that a significant reason why you fear death is because of your atrophied and miniscule perception of life. The immensity and grandeur of life continually absorb and eradicate death’s power and presence. You believe death is the end, an event causing a cessation of things that truly matter; and therefore it becomes the great wall, the inevitable inhibitor of joy, love, and relationship. You see death as the last word, the final separation. The truth is death has only been a shadow of those things. What you call death is indeed a separation of sorts, but not anything like you imagine it. You have focused yourself and defined your existence with reference to the fear of that singular last-breath event rather than recognizing death’s ubiquitous presence all around you - in your words, your touch, your choices, your sorrows, your unbelief, your lies, your judgment, your unforgiveness, your prejudices, your power-seeking, your betrayals, your hiding. The ‘event’ of death is only one small expression of that presence, but you have made that expression everything, not realizing that you swim in death’s ocean every single day.” (Young, p. 67)
And then, it get’s really interesting. Jesus continues, “You were not designed for death, but neither was death intended for this universe. Inherent in the event of death is a promise, a baptism in this ocean that rescues, not drowns. Human beings uncreated life and brought that un-life into your experience, so out of respect for you, we wove it from the beginning into the larger tapestry. You now experience this underlying tension between life and death every day until you are released through the event of death, but you were designed to deal with its encroachment in community, inside relationship, not in self-centered isolation like your little place here.” (Young, p. 67)
You see, our fear is only powerful if we confront it alone, and we may very well know that. However, the other fabrics that come together in our tapestry of life work the same way. Our sin is only powerful if we confront it alone. In the case of our lives and our love, the work the same way, but in the opposite direction. Our lives only have power if we live with others. Our loves only have power when that love is shared.
Everything about us is overflowing with the underlying necessity for community. But this is the sunday of the Epiphany. So, you may be wondering where exactly I am going with this. Well, what is an epiphany? Well, in the sense that we are celebrating today, Epiphany refers to commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the magi. Yet, the meaning of the word goes deeper than that. Epiphany refers to a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.
An epiphany is an “aha” moment. It is important to note that the only thing that changes in an epiphany is our own understanding of it. The event, the realization is about something that has already been, but we are just realizing it.
The fabric of our lives, the one that is woven together in community, has always been woven together in the same way. The importance of the community in the formation of the tapestry has always been there, yet we don’t see it that way. We tend to think of community coming next. Man and woman were created and then the community was formed. Yet, I ask this morning, if maybe, just maybe, the community was there from the beginning and the existence of the community was necessary for the weaving together of the fabric of our lives.
If so, then we need to start living in that realization, in that recognition, in that epiphany. God created the world and everything in it. The recognition among the gentiles that Jesus has come for all mankind is an epiphany because God always intended creation to be for everyone. The love of God existed before history itself, and certainly before the physical birth of Jesus Christ. Our epiphany is that Christ is the fulfillment of the promise God made to all of creation. Our epiphany is that we not only all share in the gift but that we were all made from the fabric of that relationship. The relationship with God and the relationship with each other.
I want to mention here, that next week we will be celebrating a service that many of you may have never done and I am certain that I never have. This service will focus on the idea of covenant, and more specifically on the covenant we share with God and with one another. Part of the idea of covenant is that we are, by nature of being human and created by God, in covenant with God. Over this next week, I ask you to reflect on what it means to be in covenant with God and what it means to be in covenant with each other as a body of Christ, as a community of faith. Next week, when we join together for worship, bring those reflections with you so that as we pray together, we pray as a community, we pray in the hopes of weaving together a tapestry that will give new life to our church, to ourselves and to the mission of Christ on earth.
As we think and reflect this week, let us also realize how important we each are for the entire covenant. While we each make our own, each individual who enters makes the whole stronger. Coming to terms with this takes a lot of trust. It is not really in our nature to trust in that way, but for that we are here, for that we are created, for that we live in this time and in this place.
A covenant isn’t a magical promise that will ensure easy going. It will not guarantee that there are no more arguments among us nor will it guarantee that forgiveness will be easy. It is a promise we make to each other and to God. A promise that is made as we have each had our epiphanies. We promise to journey on, wherever God may lead us. It is about looking back, recognizing hurt, but also recognizing the healing that comes. It comes from the only place it truly can, from Christ.
Towards the end of the book I read there is a poem. I want to close this morning with that poem, and as a starting off point in our reflections throughout this week.

I met you at the crossing

Where one road finds another

I did not even ask your name

I would not even bother

I looked at only what I saw

And did not see you fall

And even though I said I loved

I hardly loved at all.

I didn’t mean to leave you there

It wasn’t my intent

I simply looked the other way

And said nothing I meant.

I didn’t choose to cross this road

Although it’s what I wanted

Instead pretended you weren’t there

Believed you never counted

Oh, see I have this golden chain

Tied round my throat and heart

A bond more real to me than you

Is keeping us apart

I need a Voice to answer me

I need Someone who’s true

I need new eyes that let me see

That in my me is You

O, Someone please now guide me cross

This road betwixt between

And join my broken bits of soul

To real that is unseen. (Young, p.268-269)

We have each been someone’s voice, and we have each failed to be someone’s voice. Our covenant brings us together to be the Voice to answer those who seek. Let this epiphany be our epiphany, the epiphany where we realize the truth God has set before us, the truth that until today, we could not see. And let this epiphany be the epiphany where our broken bits of soul are joined together to make real what we now can see together. Amen.




Young, Wm. Paul. Cross Roads. 1st ed. New York: Faith Words, 2012. Print.