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| "Sun rise on a beautiful day" by Holly Victoria Norval, on Flickr |
How Many Nights
by Galway Kinnell
How many nights
have I lain in terror,
O Creator Spirit, maker of night and day,
only to walk out
the next morning over the frozen world
hearing under the creaking of snow
faint, peaceful breaths...
snake,
bear, earthworm, ant...
and above me
a wild crow crying 'yaw yaw yaw'
from a branch nothing cried from ever in my life.
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| "Christus Vineit" by Phil Roussin, on Flickr |
Isaiah 6:1–8
Romans 8:12–17
John 3:1–17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
--
Friday night, I was jolted awake by the sound of a loud, unidentified crash from somewhere in the house. I shot out of bed and down the dark staircase to figure out what the cats had knocked over. I looked in living room: nothing. Study: nothing. Downstairs bathroom: nothing. Kitchen: nothing. Dining room: nothing. Back up the stairs I went. Upstairs bathroom? Ah, there it was. A basket full of nail polish bottles and assorted extra toiletries, that usually lived on a shelf above the sink, dumped over and scattered across the floor. I scooped everything back into the basket - nothing was broken, thank goodness! - and staggered back to bed. My heart was still pounding. I looked at the clock: 4:27 a.m.
I laid back down, pulled the covers up to my chin....and, nothing. No heavy eyes, no drowsy face, no sleepy limbs. I was wide awake. And inexplicably anxious.
You've all been there, right? Awake in the middle of the night, feeling every anxiety, every worry, thinking about everything that you wish you could forget and everything that you can't afford to forget, all at once. It is in the middle of the night that we feel most certain that our prayers have been lost, and when we also feel most certain that we have no other option but to keep praying.
It is in the dark middle of the night that I often find myself thinking about my dad, replaying over and over again his last days and moments in the hospital, as if there were anything I could do now to have changed the outcome.
It is in the dark middle of the night that I try to reason with the universe in order that I might make any sense of tragedies that shake our community. Tragedies like freak accidents that claim the lives of loved ones, or the dark and fear and inner demons that could drive a terribly young person to take his own life.
It is in the dark middle of the night that I worry about everything that is beyond my power to fix or to understand.
It is in the dark middle of the night that I have no patience for mystery. Insomnia makes me a chaser of reason, rationality, and control.
The same might be said of poor Nicodemus. He is a chaser of reason, of understanding, and I wonder if Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night because he too was already lying in bed awake, struggling with all of the mysteries of the universe, struggling with his own doubts, struggling with impossible questions that need answers.
Nicodemus gets out of bed, and comes to Jesus. They have this conversation that goes in circles, all about the work of the Spirit to rebirth and recreate hearts, and about the work of God in Christ to save the world and not to condemn it.
But dear Nicodemus, bless his heart, can’t wrap his head around all of it. He can’t for the life of him figure out the mechanics of rebirth, or what on earth Jesus means when he talks about being born of the Spirit, and even this business of a God who loves and a God who dies and a God who brings eternal life is a puzzler for him. Nicodemus tries to figure out the inner workings of God and gets stuck in mystery instead. He leaves with more questions than he started with.
Which is pretty much what happens to us every time we try to find answers for this mysterious thing called the Trinity. A word, of course, that Jesus doesn’t use, and a word that never shows up in the Bible, but a word that describes the very Biblical phenomenon of a God who exists and acts as Father and Son and Spirit.
Questions abound. How is God simultaneously three and one? How can God exist in three persons, but we still say that we are monotheists, worshiping only one God? How is God different than merely a shape-shifter? What is the heavenly “division of labor” and which person of God - Father, Son, Spirit - is responsible for which divine tasks?
Let's be honest, there is no "figuring out" the Trinity. Many have tried, many have failed. Heresies abound! In fact, over dinner earlier this week, Pastor Chad jokingly asked me if I was a risk to preach heresy this weekend, to which I responded that preaching heresy is a risk I take every single week, not just on Holy Trinity Sunday!
But very seriously, you'll never hear me claim to understand the Trinity. Because I don’t. Even Martin Luther himself, preaching on Holy Trinity Sunday in 1522, conceded that the best thing you can say about the mystery of the Trinity is that you don't understand it: "We cling to the Scriptures, those passages which testify of the Trinity of God, and we say: I know very well that in God there are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; but how they can be one I do not know, neither should I know it."
I might not understand the Trinity, but I understand dark sleepless nights. And I understand grief. And I understand that our souls constantly need to keep making the choice for hope and against despair. And I think the Trinity might have something to say about this.
Because having a God who exists as three means that we have a God who has experienced everything that there is to experience. God as Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer has the divine ability to hold together all creativity, need, hope, suffering, and salvation. There is no dark night, no creative moment, no mystery or question or joy or confusion, on earth or in heaven, that God-in-three-persons has not already experienced, loved, and redeemed.
But more than that, at the heart of our faith is the cross. And at that pivotal moment when Christ died to destroy death, the whole Trinity was at work. While God in Christ faced death head-on, God the Creator took on the work of grief, God the Spirit made space to do the work of hope and resurrection. Because the Godhead is three-in-one, God didn't die alone on the cross, God didn't grieve alone in heaven, and God didn't lose hope.
And when you put all three of these truths together, you find the whole work of salvation; a mystery as expansive as Isaiah's smoky, terrifying vision of God filling the temple, and yet it is a comfort as dear to us as a father's tender touch.
Paul writes, "When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ — if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him."
Yes, even as we cry "Holy, holy, holy" to a God bigger than we can fathom, we also cry "Abba! Father!" to the one who loves us and claims us, and carries us through our sufferings to the glorious promise of our salvation.
And so in our sleepless nights, in our dark nights of the soul, no matter what mysteries we face, no matter what anxieties plague us, no matter what feeble prayers we raise, no matter how out of control or fearful we feel, the Trinity reminds us that God is bigger than all of it. And God has been through all of it. And God will redeem all of it.
The God who fills the temple is the God who fills the earth, who is Creator and Redeemer and Life-Giving Spirit, who is so huge that there is no place on earth or in heaven, in our heads or in our heart, where God is not present.
Madeleine L'Engle says, “I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly.”
Brothers and sisters, I do not know what your darkness is right now, whether you feel a few casual doubts or whether you wrestle with the very meaning of your life itself. But I do know when we, with Nicodemus, stumble along blindly under cover of night, we do not stumble to our doom; rather, we stumble blindly into the waiting arms of Christ. I know that in the waking hours of the night, when we reach out into the darkness, we do not reach out in vain; rather, we brush fingertips against the hem of God’s kingly robe, which stretches like a blanket over all creation. I know that when we face deepest darkness and long for sheltering wings, we do not go unembraced; rather, God pours upon us water and Spirit, flooding us with assurance of our baptisms, drenching us in the promise of God’s presence, cradling us in the reassuring and persistent flow of all love and rebirth and hope.
The Trinity is an eternal mystery. But it is proof for us that God is able - and willing - to reconcile all things to himself, no matter how painful or contradictory those things may be. The Trinity is assurance for us that we are yet children of light, even when we sit in darkness. For God loves the world. Christ saves the world. The Spirit breathes rebirth into the world. Even in the middle of the night, there is hope.
Let us pray.
God of the Heavens,
keeper of the stars,
Lord of the darkest, most remote places
of the universe,
the one who hovered and breathed life,
and the Creator of every living thing:
Be our salvation, our comfort,
our hope, for you are holy and righteous,
your words are true
and your light dispels all darkness.
Glory to the Almighty God,
Sun of Righteousness
and Breath of Life.
Amen.
(prayer by Thomas Turner; posted on everdayLiturgy)
|
| "Christus Vineit" by Phil Roussin, on Flickr |
Isaiah 6:1–8
Romans 8:12–17
John 3:1–17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
--
Friday night, I was jolted awake by the sound of a loud, unidentified crash from somewhere in the house. I shot out of bed and down the dark staircase to figure out what the cats had knocked over. I looked in living room: nothing. Study: nothing. Downstairs bathroom: nothing. Kitchen: nothing. Dining room: nothing. Back up the stairs I went. Upstairs bathroom? Ah, there it was. A basket full of nail polish bottles and assorted extra toiletries, that usually lived on a shelf above the sink, dumped over and scattered across the floor. I scooped everything back into the basket - nothing was broken, thank goodness! - and staggered back to bed. My heart was still pounding. I looked at the clock: 4:27 a.m.
I laid back down, pulled the covers up to my chin....and, nothing. No heavy eyes, no drowsy face, no sleepy limbs. I was wide awake. And inexplicably anxious.
You've all been there, right? Awake in the middle of the night, feeling every anxiety, every worry, thinking about everything that you wish you could forget and everything that you can't afford to forget, all at once. It is in the middle of the night that we feel most certain that our prayers have been lost, and when we also feel most certain that we have no other option but to keep praying.
It is in the dark middle of the night that I often find myself thinking about my dad, replaying over and over again his last days and moments in the hospital, as if there were anything I could do now to have changed the outcome.
It is in the dark middle of the night that I try to reason with the universe in order that I might make any sense of tragedies that shake our community. Tragedies like freak accidents that claim the lives of loved ones, or the dark and fear and inner demons that could drive a terribly young person to take his own life.
It is in the dark middle of the night that I worry about everything that is beyond my power to fix or to understand.
It is in the dark middle of the night that I have no patience for mystery. Insomnia makes me a chaser of reason, rationality, and control.
The same might be said of poor Nicodemus. He is a chaser of reason, of understanding, and I wonder if Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night because he too was already lying in bed awake, struggling with all of the mysteries of the universe, struggling with his own doubts, struggling with impossible questions that need answers.
Nicodemus gets out of bed, and comes to Jesus. They have this conversation that goes in circles, all about the work of the Spirit to rebirth and recreate hearts, and about the work of God in Christ to save the world and not to condemn it.
But dear Nicodemus, bless his heart, can’t wrap his head around all of it. He can’t for the life of him figure out the mechanics of rebirth, or what on earth Jesus means when he talks about being born of the Spirit, and even this business of a God who loves and a God who dies and a God who brings eternal life is a puzzler for him. Nicodemus tries to figure out the inner workings of God and gets stuck in mystery instead. He leaves with more questions than he started with.
Which is pretty much what happens to us every time we try to find answers for this mysterious thing called the Trinity. A word, of course, that Jesus doesn’t use, and a word that never shows up in the Bible, but a word that describes the very Biblical phenomenon of a God who exists and acts as Father and Son and Spirit.
Questions abound. How is God simultaneously three and one? How can God exist in three persons, but we still say that we are monotheists, worshiping only one God? How is God different than merely a shape-shifter? What is the heavenly “division of labor” and which person of God - Father, Son, Spirit - is responsible for which divine tasks?
Let's be honest, there is no "figuring out" the Trinity. Many have tried, many have failed. Heresies abound! In fact, over dinner earlier this week, Pastor Chad jokingly asked me if I was a risk to preach heresy this weekend, to which I responded that preaching heresy is a risk I take every single week, not just on Holy Trinity Sunday!
But very seriously, you'll never hear me claim to understand the Trinity. Because I don’t. Even Martin Luther himself, preaching on Holy Trinity Sunday in 1522, conceded that the best thing you can say about the mystery of the Trinity is that you don't understand it: "We cling to the Scriptures, those passages which testify of the Trinity of God, and we say: I know very well that in God there are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; but how they can be one I do not know, neither should I know it."
I might not understand the Trinity, but I understand dark sleepless nights. And I understand grief. And I understand that our souls constantly need to keep making the choice for hope and against despair. And I think the Trinity might have something to say about this.
Because having a God who exists as three means that we have a God who has experienced everything that there is to experience. God as Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer has the divine ability to hold together all creativity, need, hope, suffering, and salvation. There is no dark night, no creative moment, no mystery or question or joy or confusion, on earth or in heaven, that God-in-three-persons has not already experienced, loved, and redeemed.
But more than that, at the heart of our faith is the cross. And at that pivotal moment when Christ died to destroy death, the whole Trinity was at work. While God in Christ faced death head-on, God the Creator took on the work of grief, God the Spirit made space to do the work of hope and resurrection. Because the Godhead is three-in-one, God didn't die alone on the cross, God didn't grieve alone in heaven, and God didn't lose hope.
And when you put all three of these truths together, you find the whole work of salvation; a mystery as expansive as Isaiah's smoky, terrifying vision of God filling the temple, and yet it is a comfort as dear to us as a father's tender touch.
Paul writes, "When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ — if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him."
Yes, even as we cry "Holy, holy, holy" to a God bigger than we can fathom, we also cry "Abba! Father!" to the one who loves us and claims us, and carries us through our sufferings to the glorious promise of our salvation.
And so in our sleepless nights, in our dark nights of the soul, no matter what mysteries we face, no matter what anxieties plague us, no matter what feeble prayers we raise, no matter how out of control or fearful we feel, the Trinity reminds us that God is bigger than all of it. And God has been through all of it. And God will redeem all of it.
The God who fills the temple is the God who fills the earth, who is Creator and Redeemer and Life-Giving Spirit, who is so huge that there is no place on earth or in heaven, in our heads or in our heart, where God is not present.
Madeleine L'Engle says, “I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly.”
Brothers and sisters, I do not know what your darkness is right now, whether you feel a few casual doubts or whether you wrestle with the very meaning of your life itself. But I do know when we, with Nicodemus, stumble along blindly under cover of night, we do not stumble to our doom; rather, we stumble blindly into the waiting arms of Christ. I know that in the waking hours of the night, when we reach out into the darkness, we do not reach out in vain; rather, we brush fingertips against the hem of God’s kingly robe, which stretches like a blanket over all creation. I know that when we face deepest darkness and long for sheltering wings, we do not go unembraced; rather, God pours upon us water and Spirit, flooding us with assurance of our baptisms, drenching us in the promise of God’s presence, cradling us in the reassuring and persistent flow of all love and rebirth and hope.
The Trinity is an eternal mystery. But it is proof for us that God is able - and willing - to reconcile all things to himself, no matter how painful or contradictory those things may be. The Trinity is assurance for us that we are yet children of light, even when we sit in darkness. For God loves the world. Christ saves the world. The Spirit breathes rebirth into the world. Even in the middle of the night, there is hope.
Let us pray.
God of the Heavens,
keeper of the stars,
Lord of the darkest, most remote places
of the universe,
the one who hovered and breathed life,
and the Creator of every living thing:
Be our salvation, our comfort,
our hope, for you are holy and righteous,
your words are true
and your light dispels all darkness.
Glory to the Almighty God,
Sun of Righteousness
and Breath of Life.
Amen.
(prayer by Thomas Turner; posted on everdayLiturgy)
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| "Des pieds et des mains" by Benoit Courti, on Flickr |
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
-Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)
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| "Caravaggio - The Incredulity of Saint Thomas" |
John 20:19-21
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth
and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock.
He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away.
-- Matthew 27:59-60
and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock.
He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away.
-- Matthew 27:59-60
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| "Holy Saturday" by elizabethgrayking, on Flickr |
Limbo
by Sister Mary Ada
The ancient greyness shifted suddenly and thinned like mist upon the moors before a wind.
An old, old prophet lifted a shining face and said:
“He will be coming soon. The Son of God is dead; He died this afternoon.”
A murmurous excitement stirred all souls. They wondered if they dreamed
save one old man who seemed not even to have heard.
And Moses, standing, hushed them all to ask if any had a welcome song prepared.
If not, would David take the task?
And if they cared could not the three young children sing the Benedicite,
the canticle of praise they made when God kept them from perishing in the fiery blaze?
A breath of spring surprised them, stilling Moses’ words.
No one could speak, remembering the first fresh flowers, the little singing birds.
Still others thought of fields new ploughed or apple trees all blossom-boughed.
Or some, the way a dried bed fills with water laughing down green hills.
The fisherfolk dreamed of the foam on bright blue seas.
The one old man who had not stirred remembered home.
And there He was, splendid as the morning sun and fair as only God is fair.
And they, confused with joy, knelt to adore
Seeing that He wore five crimson stars He never had before.
No canticle at all was sung. None toned a psalm, or raised a greeting song,
A silent man alone of all that throng found tongue — not any other.
Close to His heart when the embrace was done, old Joseph said,
“How is Your Mother, How is Your Mother, Son?”
by Sister Mary Ada
The ancient greyness shifted suddenly and thinned like mist upon the moors before a wind.
An old, old prophet lifted a shining face and said:
“He will be coming soon. The Son of God is dead; He died this afternoon.”
A murmurous excitement stirred all souls. They wondered if they dreamed
save one old man who seemed not even to have heard.
And Moses, standing, hushed them all to ask if any had a welcome song prepared.
If not, would David take the task?
And if they cared could not the three young children sing the Benedicite,
the canticle of praise they made when God kept them from perishing in the fiery blaze?
A breath of spring surprised them, stilling Moses’ words.
No one could speak, remembering the first fresh flowers, the little singing birds.
Still others thought of fields new ploughed or apple trees all blossom-boughed.
Or some, the way a dried bed fills with water laughing down green hills.
The fisherfolk dreamed of the foam on bright blue seas.
The one old man who had not stirred remembered home.
And there He was, splendid as the morning sun and fair as only God is fair.
And they, confused with joy, knelt to adore
Seeing that He wore five crimson stars He never had before.
No canticle at all was sung. None toned a psalm, or raised a greeting song,
A silent man alone of all that throng found tongue — not any other.
Close to His heart when the embrace was done, old Joseph said,
“How is Your Mother, How is Your Mother, Son?”
The Three Kings
by Muriel Spark
Where do we go from here?
We left our country,
Bore gifts,
Followed a star.
We were questioned.
We answered.
We reached our objective.
We enjoyed the trip.
Then we came back by a different way.
And now the people are demonstrating in the streets.
They say they don't need the Kings any more.
They did very well in our absence.
Everything was all right without us.
They are out on the streets with placards:
Wise Men? What's wise about them?
There are plenty of Wise Men,
And who needs them? -and so on.
Perhaps they will be better off without us,
But where do we go from here?
photo credit: "Three Wise Men" by James, on Flickr
First Coming
by Madeleine L’Engle
He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.
He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait
till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.
He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.
We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!
by Madeleine L’Engle
He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.
He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait
till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.
He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.
We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!
 |
| "Crumbs" by Jonathan Green1, on Flickr |
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.
Matthew 15:21-28
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.
--
The world is heavy these days, my friends. You know it as well as I do.
Conflict continues at the Russia/Ukraine border, as both tensions and weapons mount, and as the world still struggles to piece together an investigation of Malaysian flight 17 that was shot down by rebels.
Conflict continues to shake the Middle East, as Israel and Palestine struggle over the Gaza Strip; rockets are flying, violence continues to put civilians and refugees in increasing danger.
Political turmoil and violence churn in Iraq, as terrorist groups continue to sweep through villages and into the mountains, killing women and children in their wake.
The Ebola virus has claimed more than a thousand victims in west Africa, and the Center for Disease Control has issued its highest alert, confirming the outbreak as a world health emergency.
There has been a surge in the number of unaccompanied immigrant children at our border, children who are making a dangerous and uncertain journey for the hope of a better life as they flee violent or abusive or situations in their home countries.
It has been a week of grief in Ferguson, Missouri, after the police shooting death of Michael Brown, which has given way to protests, violence, curfews, and questions about justice and the reach of law enforcement.
A cloud of suspicion and shock surrounds the death of NASCAR driver Kevin Ward after being hit on the track by rival driver Tony Stewart.
Hollywood and society are shocked and saddened by the untimely death of actor Robin Williams, which has sparked an important national conversation about depression and suicide.
And then, of course, we each have our own personal list of troubles and fears to add to this list. Broken relationships. Illness. Addiction. Food uncertainty. Job uncertainty.
I consider myself an intensely hopeful person; a die-hard optimist. It’s in my nature and in the nature of my faith to see hope beyond despair, to trust the promise of the resurrection. But friends, I’ll be honest. The world outside is dark and heavy right now, and holding on to hope feels a bit like scrambling for crumbs beneath the table.
“Lord, help me,” the Canaanite woman begged.
The woman’s world was dark and heavy. Her beloved daughter was tormented by a demon, and surrounded by the power of darkness. This child was in need of more than healing; she needed salvation.
“Lord, help me,” the woman pleaded to the disciples and to Jesus.
And in what is perhaps the most disturbingly out-of-character moment of Jesus’ whole life, he turns to the woman and dismisses her. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” he says. “I am only for the chosen.”
And just like that, things have gone from bad to worse. The Canaanite woman’s fear for her daughter suddenly becomes fear of being rejected by God himself.
This fear of rejection is also the fear of the Jewish community in Rome to whom Paul is writing in our first reading. They fear that if God, through Christ, has opened salvation to the Gentiles, that it might mean he has rejected - turned his back - on the Israelites, his chosen people.
We can sympathize with these fears that God has turned his back on us. When we see the horrors on the news, and look at a world that seems to be getting worse and not better, it can feel like God has rejected us, because we just don’t know how else to make sense of the darkness and pain that we see.
A friend and colleague of mine has recently been dealing with ongoing relapses with a chronic illness. Earlier this month, she wrote a piece about the difficulty of reconciling faith and hope with the struggles of facing one bad turn after another.
She says,
I don't know where I am on the "how much control does God actually have?" spectrum anymore. I used to attribute every blessing in my life to God. Every good news. Every happy moment. Every joy. Every meaningful coincidence. Every learning opportunity. It was all: thanks be to God. But lately I'm wrestling with how reasonable it is to give God the credit for every good thing but never for the bad things. That's how I've been operating. "Thanks be to God" for the good stuff. But "it's not God's fault...God can't control it" for the bad stuff. [But] It doesn't seem logical [anymore] to try and make a matching pair with those two cards.This is the struggle of the Canaanite woman, the struggle of the early church in Rome, our struggle: how to deal with the problem of a God who gets credit for the good stuff, and a God who might seem at best, absent, or at worst, at fault for the dark and heavy things in our world.
I don’t think our gospel reading today gives us an answer as to why bad things happen, why it sometimes feels like God has turned his back on us. Our gospel reading is difficult and problematic and forces us to look at a cranky side of Jesus that we don’t quite believe actually should exist.
I could debate with you, as theologians do, about whether Jesus was just testing this woman, or whether he was just grumpy and tired, or whether he really meant it when he said that she wasn’t included in his plan for salvation. I could try to say something clever that would bring a satisfactory resolution to the encounter, tie the story up with a nice, neat bow.
But I can’t do any of that. I don’t pretend to see the obvious moral truth in this story, I don’t know what Jesus was thinking or intending, and all attempts to turn this messy story into something neat and today seem like gloss in the face of a world that appears to be falling apart.
So let me tell you what I do know.
I know that the Canaanite woman had faith. I know that she had heard about Jesus - about his healing power, about his care for the broken and the outcast. I know that she, out of blind faith, chose to believe that there was yet hope for her and for her daughter, even when it looked like the Son of God was going to turn his back on her.
She knew that even a crumb of hope, a speck of healing, a tiny taste of salvation would be enough. Maybe not enough to make everything all better forever and forever, but enough to get her through another day.
When the choice laid before her was hope or despair, she chose hope, and grasped at crumbs, and looked God in the eye, saying “You know that you aren’t in the rejection business. You know that you are in the business of salvation.”
And her reward for having even a few crumbs of hope was receiving wholeness and more hope. Her few crumbs of hope gave way to a giant loaf of hope bread. Because even a little bit of hope, even a little scrap of faith was enough to see through her fear, to see straight into the heart of God’s love, a love that dealt with all of the crap in our world by showing up on earth, in the flesh, and making a beeline for the cross, that we might know that there is no suffering that is unredeemed and no chaos that is beyond reordering and no fears that fall on deaf ears.
I can’t promise you that if you just go toe-to-toe with Jesus you’ll always get what you want. I can’t promise you that if you just pray hard enough, the world will right itself. I don’t want you thinking or worrying that salvation for our broken world somehow depends on how much strength you can muster, because friends, I know how hard it is to keep faith sometimes, and I know that there are days when it takes every bit of energy that you have just to pull yourself out of bed for the day.
But I can promise you that the mystery of God’s love and salvation is brighter than any darkness this world tries to throw at it. And I can promise you that even the tiniest bits of hope and faith will get you through to the other side of this present darkness. I can promise you that God’s gifts and God’s callings in your life are eternal, without strings attached. I can promise you that God hasn’t turned his back on you or the world, even when it really really feels that way.
Because the crumbs of bread that we will share today around this table bind us together in the one hope of Christ, who himself called out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you rejected me?” but who three days later walked out of that empty tomb, stomping down darkness and death beneath his feet. Christ, our bread of life, knows both rejection and resurrection, and when we eat and drink the bread and wine, we share in that hope that our own fears of rejection will also give way to the promise of resurrection, for ourselves and for our world.
So catch a few crumbs from under God’s table today. Taste the bread and the wine that are sweet with salvation. Let these crumbs sustain you through all fear or despair. Hold onto whatever bits of faith you have. Praise God for the light, even if you do not understand the darkness. Even a crumb of grace and a sliver of faith will be enough to sustain you, for God promises that his hold on you is for all eternity. There will be light. There will be hope. There will be salvation. Thanks be to God for that.
Amen.
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| "Crumbs" by Lewis Taylor, on Flickr |
Matthew 15:21-28
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.
Faith Like a Child
by Jars of Clay
Dear God, surround me as I speak,
the bridges that I walk across are weak
Frustrations fill the void that I can't solely bear
Dear God, don't let me fall apart,
you've held me close to you
I have turned away and searched for answers I can't understand
They say that I can move the mountains
And send them crashing into the sea
They say that I can walk on water
If I would follow and believe
with faith like a child
Sometimes, when I feel miles away
and my eyes can't see your face
I wonder if I've grown to lose the recklessness I walked in light of you
They say that I can move the mountains
And send them crashing into the sea
They say that I can walk on water
If I would follow and believe
with faith like a child
"I've got joy like a fountain!"
"Be kind one to others"
"In Jesus Christ Your son"
They say that love can heal the broken
They say that hope can make you see
They say that faith can find a Savior
If you would follow and believe
with faith like a child
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| "_NG_1188" by Matt Gaudio, on Flickr |
Matthew 14:22-33
Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid."
Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."
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| "The Dark Side of Matter and Energy..." by Tremain Calm, on Flickr |
Matthew 10:24-39
Jesus said, "A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!
So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one's foes will be members of one's own household.
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
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In college, taped to the hallway wall outside my husband’s dorm room, was a large piece of brown butcher paper, with a thumbtack in the corner from which hung a pen on a string.
This was the quote board.
Throughout the year, as Matt, his roommate, and their friends said memorable things - whether funny or absurd or eyebrow-raising - they would document those statements on the quote board.
The things written on that piece of paper made the most sense to you if you were there when they happened. It became a fun and funny way to reminisce with one another. But if you read through the quotes on the board without knowing their history or their context, the quote board became something of a puzzle, and an unsatisfying one, at that. It’s hard to read isolated statements, without context, and feel like you can really know what they mean.
I mention this because today's gospel reading reads very much like that piece of butcher paper. When we read this strange list of difficult sayings of Jesus, we have to remember that this section of Matthew’s gospel was likely pieced together from a variety of things that Jesus said in a variety of contexts. Jesus probably didn’t say all of these things right in a row at one moment in time on one particular day to one particular group of people. As Matthew’s gospel was handed down and eventually written down, these independent teachings of Jesus were grouped together, even if they don’t quite fit together, because they all have one thing in common:
All of the statements in today’s gospel point to the truth that being a follower of Jesus is difficult. It will separate you from the world, from those you love, and even from a former version of yourself.
Even though we are joined to Christ in baptism, even though we been gifted the whole of God's grace and mercy, the faith that saves us is also the faith that puts us at odds with the wider world. This is the dark side of our faith.
Even though we walk with Christ to eternal and abundant life, the reality is that there is a cost to putting the demands of discipleship ahead of all the other things that we hold dear. This is the shadow-side of being a Christ-follower.
Jesus says, "What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light."
Most of Jesus' statements in today's gospel are statements about how following him will put us into dark places.
Jesus warns us of the dark of being shunned or even persecuted because we seek justice for the poor instead of rewards for the rich.
Jesus warns us of the dark of isolation when we choose to put the needs of outsiders ahead of the needs of the insiders.
Jesus warns us of the lonely dark of relationships broken over putting God's values ahead of our own.
Jesus warns us of the darkness of conflict that will come when we seek true, lasting peace instead of mere platitudes and preservation of the status quo.
Jesus warns us of the dark night of the soul that comes as we wrestle with the meaning of life and death, of dying to our old selves and rising to Christ; for the breaking open of our hearts, even for Christ's sake, can be a painful process.
What Jesus says to us is that being a disciple is dangerous. That God is dangerous. That discipleship will lead us into the dark, where everything we thought was certain becomes fuzzy around the edges. Where the well-worn paths of our lives become obscured by shadows. Where our worldviews, our perceptions, everything we can take for granted in the light suddenly become veiled as we step into the thick cloud of God's presence. That there is a curious and disorienting fog that comes with leaving ourselves behind to become disciples of the divine.
The writer Barbara Brown Taylor recently released a new book focused entirely on meeting God in the darkness, entitled Learning to Walk in the Dark.
She writes,
[The darkness in which we meet God] is an entirely unnatural darkness - both dangerous and divine - that contains the presence of God before whom there are no others....This thick darkness reveals the divine presence even while obscuring it, the same way the brightness of God’s glory does....While this darkness is dangerous, it is as sure a sign of God’s presence as brightness is, which makes the fear of it different from the fear of snakes and robbers. When biblical writers speak of “the fear of the Lord,” this is what they mean: fear of God’s pure being, so far beyond human imagining that trying to look into it would be like trying to look into the sun....[The church father] Gregory [of Nyssa says that], those of us who wish to draw near to God should not be surprised when our vision goes cloudy, for this is a sign that we are approaching the opaque splendor of God. If we decide to keep going beyond the point where our eyes or minds are any help to us, we may finally arrive at the pinnacle of the spiritual journey toward God, which exists in complete and dazzling darkness. (47-48).I wonder if Jesus, in all of his difficult statements about the cost of discipleship, is really trying to tell us that there exists a spiritual practice in losing yourself to dark places with the trust that in this dark, you will meet the God who promises you light.
Because at the end of the day, doesn't discipleship ask us to follow Jesus all the way to the darkness of his cross and his death, that in that most final darkness of death, God might surprise us with the light of the resurrection dawn? Isn't discipleship, at its very heart, the practice of walking into and meeting God in the dark places in our world, that we might bring to the world the promise of light?
“What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light,” Jesus says.
What dark places has God called you to in your life? Where are the dark corners to which Jesus has led you? What are the shadowy places in your heart where you feel pain or fear or disquiet? Where are the thick clouds that press in on your soul?
And what might God be saying to you in those dark places? What whispers of hope do you hear? What are you learning about God, about redemption, about yourself and your faith from these dark spaces?
In the last few weeks, God has pushed me into a few dark corners. The clouded work of holding vigil during someone’s last fleeting hours of life. The nightfall of cancer diagnoses. The shadowlands of working with neighbors who need money and food and support systems that they do not have.
And let me tell you. The darkness is not a place that I enjoy being. Jesus certainly isn’t asking us to like the darkness, and isn’t asking us to pursue darkness just so that we can say we are disciples. But Jesus is always helping to redeem our darkness. He gives us the assurance that for as long as find ourselves in dark spaces, God remains with us, and that we will emerge on the other side of the veil changed by the encounter.
So my friends - my fellow disciples - blessings be with you on this journey of faith. Blessings to you in the darkness and in the light. Blessings to you as God gives you the grace to take risks for your faith. May your discipleship be bold. May your faith be strong. May you hear God’s voice even in the darkest night, and may you be bold to proclaim his grace in the morning!
All praise to thee, my God, this night for all the blessings of the light.
Keep me, oh keep me, King of kings, beneath thine own almighty wings.
Now and forever.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Reading for the Day: John 20:1–18
Early on the first day of the week,
while it was still dark,
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb
and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.
Early on the first day of the week,
while it was still dark,
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb
and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.
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| "Pebble balancing..." by Giulia Torra, on Flickr |
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Mary Magdalene, Remembering:
by Madeleine L'Engle
All time is holy.
We move through the dark
following his footprints by touch.
He walked the lonesome valley.
His time is holy.
We will break bread together.
We will move through the dark.
He has gone away from us.
The wine is poured out.
We will eat broken bread.
That Friday was good.
We will move through the dark.
Death died on Friday.
The blood-stained cross bore hope.
His Friday is good.
We will hold hands
as we move through the dark.
Saturday he walked through hell,
making all things new.
We will hold hands.
This is the meaning
of our walk through the dark.
Love’s light will lead us
through the stone at the tomb.
He is the meaning.
He called me by name
as I stood in the dark.
Suddenly I knew him.
He came. Then he left us,
he will come again.
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. (Matthew 11:2-5)
Come unto me. Come unto me, you say. All right then, dear my Lord. I will try in my own absurd way. In my own absurd way I will try to come unto you, a project which is in itself by no means unabsurd. Because I do not know the time or place where you are. And if by some glad accident my feet should stumble on it, I do not know that I would know that I had stumbled on it. And even if I did know, I do not know for sure that I would find you there. … And if you are there, I do not know that I would recognize you. And if I recognized you, I do not know what that would mean or even what I would like it to mean. I do not even well know who it is you summon, myself.
For who am I? I know only that heel and toe, memory and metatarsal, I am everything that turns, all of a piece, unthinking, at the sound of my name. … Come unto me, you say. I, … all of me, unknowing and finally unknowable even to myself, turn. O Lord and lover, I come if I can to you down through the litter of any day, through sleeping and waking and eating and saying goodbye and going away and coming back again. Laboring and laden with endless histories heavy on my back.
― Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace
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| "Winter Blues" by Todd Klassy, on Flickr |
From a sermon for Advent 1 by Catherine A. Caimano entitled, "Why Advent is the hardest of times for faithful Christians:"
Our faith is about how Jesus Christ, born into this world as a small spot of light in the darkness, helps us to believe, and to live like we believe, that love and forgiveness and redemption and hope have a part in every choice that we make, in every regular day on our calendar.
And this sense of preparation, of not knowing when it is that we will most need to be ready, is not meant to scare us; it is meant to remind us that the kingdom of heaven is everywhere, even when we least expect it. And we need this reminder, because we all know that our regular life, despite our beliefs, often feels like it forces us to put on all kinds of other things: deadlines and debts and distractions and all sorts of dire circumstances that can lead us to live like the darkness is catching up to us.
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Advent preparation, then, although it is a solemn time, is really about going right through the darkness, rather than trying to circumvent it altogether. In order to cast it away, we need to get a really good grip on it; we need to strip off what would normally hide it, as counterproductive as this seems.
Because the true light, the true joy that we are getting ready for, is not something that we create or that we find; it is what comes to us when we are ready and waiting for it. To put on the armor of light is to rejoice that we have marched right into this darkness and found that we are not alone. We will not be left in our suffering; we will be met with hope and peace and love in the moments that we dare to take off the kinds of armor that the rest of the world seems to demand that we wear -- cynicism and defensiveness and isolation and fear.
Tom has been having a difficult patch, and we meet at the church of IKEA as often as possible, because it is equidistant from our houses and always cheers us up.
Yesterday I asked, 'In your depression, and with so many people having such a hard time, where is Advent?'
He tried to wiggle out of it by saying, 'You Protestants and your little questions!'
Then, when pushed, he said: 'Faith is a decision. Do we believe we are ultimately doomed and...there's no way out? Or that God and goodness make a difference? There is heaven, community, and hope - and hope that there is life beyond the grave.'
'But Tom, at the same time, the grave is very real, dark and cold and lonely.'
'Advent is not for the naive. Because in spite of the dark and cold, we see light - you look up, or you make light, with candles, or with strands of lightbulbs on trees. And you give light. Beauty helps, in art and nature and faces. Friends help. Solidarity helps. If you ask me, when people return phone calls, it's about as good as it gets. And who knows beyond that.
― from Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son by Anne Lamott
Yesterday I asked, 'In your depression, and with so many people having such a hard time, where is Advent?'
He tried to wiggle out of it by saying, 'You Protestants and your little questions!'
Then, when pushed, he said: 'Faith is a decision. Do we believe we are ultimately doomed and...there's no way out? Or that God and goodness make a difference? There is heaven, community, and hope - and hope that there is life beyond the grave.'
'But Tom, at the same time, the grave is very real, dark and cold and lonely.'
'Advent is not for the naive. Because in spite of the dark and cold, we see light - you look up, or you make light, with candles, or with strands of lightbulbs on trees. And you give light. Beauty helps, in art and nature and faces. Friends help. Solidarity helps. If you ask me, when people return phone calls, it's about as good as it gets. And who knows beyond that.
― from Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son by Anne Lamott
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| "Mustard Seeds" by BGDL, on Flickr |
Jesus said to his disciples, "Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, 'I repent,' you must forgive."
The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.
Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here at once and take your place at the table'? Would you not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'"
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Every time I read this gospel, a hymn-verse leaps into my head. The disciples say "increase our faith," and my mind goes to the communion hymn, "Thee We Adore." Maybe you know it. The third verse goes like this:
Fountain of goodness, Jesus, Lord and God,
cleanse us, O Christ, with thy most cleansing blood:
increase our faith and love, that we may know
the hope and peace which from thy presence flow.
(Thee We Adore, O Hidden Savior, ELW 476)
Increase our faith and love, that we may know the hope and peace which from thy presence flow.
It's a prayer that many of us have likely prayed, in so many words, just like the disciples who cried out to Jesus, "increase our faith!"
It was October of last year. I was lying in bed at night, processing the news that our third attempt at IVF had failed. And for the first time in our many years of trying to have a baby, I finally got fed up. I laid awake in bed, praying...if you could call it praying. Mostly, I just said angry things to God. I said words inside my head that I’d never say out loud, in polite company or otherwise. I was hurt, I was angry, I was tired. And I wondered whether I had faith enough to keep going, to keep trying and hoping.
"Increase my faith and love," I prayed, in far angrier language, "that I might know hope and peace in this struggle."
Have you ever had nights like those? When you lie awake wondering if you really have faith and strength enough to press forward? When your doubts and fears seem to outweigh your faith? When the calling set before you by God seems to be just too difficult to carry out?
Throughout this season of Pentecost, the green season of growing in faith and discipleship, Jesus has been telling his disciples, over and over again, about the struggles of faith and discipleship: To be a disciple, you give up the comforts of home, and you put the concerns of the kingdom of God ahead of your other priorities. Being a disciple means carrying the cross, giving up possessions, and recognizing that the cost of discipleship is your very life itself.
Today, Jesus again instructs the disciples to do some hard things. “Follow me,” Jesus said, “and don’t give in to temptations to stray from working for the kingdom. Follow me in protecting the vulnerable. Follow me in confronting sin and injustice. Follow me in forgiving one another, and forgiving one another over and over again.”
Like the disciples, we are no stranger to the reality that faith and discipleship sometimes ask us to do very difficult things. Public things, like feeding the hungry, forgiving as we’ve been forgiving, putting the needs of others ahead of our own needs. And personal things, like moving forward through grief or confusion or tough personal circumstances.
Any one of these things has the power to keep us up at night, whether we are heartsick over the needs of our world or paralyzed by the needs of our own souls. And in those awake-at-night moments when we feel overwhelmed by the paths life has set before us, we, with the disciples, cry out, “Increase our faith!”
Because maybe, we believe, maybe if we had more faith, all the hard stuff would be easier. Maybe, if we had more faith, we could be better people. Maybe, if we had more faith, we could actually do good in the world. Maybe, if we had more faith, we’d have more answers and more certainty. Maybe, we think to ourselves, there is this certain level of faith, a certain volume of faith that needs to fill us up before we have the courage and strength to go forward in whatever God calls us to do or endure.
Everything else in life seems to function this way. You need a full gas tank before you can head out on a road trip, and you need a certain level money in your savings account before you can buy a house, and you need a certain number of years in your current position before you can earn a promotion, and you need a certain level of education or training before you can do certain tasks. We're used to this idea that you need a particular amount of something before you can benefit from it.
And so we look at faith the same way. Either as a practical concern or a matter of desperation. "Increase our faith!" we cry out to God, because it's hard for us to ever believe that we have enough of it.
The problem with this line of thinking is that it turns faith into a commodity rather than a gift. It turns faith into a bargaining tool, where we think we can trade a certain amount of faith for some outcome that we desire from God. It turns faith into a weird mystical protein shake that we drink to bulk ourselves up before we do the heavy lifting of sharing the gospel with the world.
This "increase in faith" mentality makes faith all about us instead of all about God; all about our needs instead of all about God's faithfulness.
This is where Jesus steps in with the reminder that even a speck of faith the size of a tiny mustard seed is plenty. More than enough.
Because the thing about faith is that it really isn't about us. It's about God. In our dark nights of the soul, it’s not actually the quantity of our faith that gets us through, it is the whole and complete faithfulness of God to us that sustains us. And when we are called to do hard things like forgiving and reconciling and feeding and healing, it’s not the strength of our faith that helps us carry out those tasks, it is the whole and complete faithfulness of God to us that empowers us.
Jesus tells the disciples that the tiniest speck of faith is enough to answer God's calling. That even the teensiest scrap of faith is plenty to act faithfully in the world. Hence his little discourse on slaves doing only what they ought. He’s telling the disciples that they don’t need superhuman faith to answer God’s call to act faithfully in the world.
Because there is no rule that says you have to have all of your own baggage figured out before you can offer a listening ear to a friend in need. And there's no prerequisite that you have to have forgiven yourself before you can forgive others around you. And you can feed the hungry even if you are still feeling spiritually hungry. And you can tell somebody that God loves them even if you aren't quite sure that you yourself are so loveable.
Jesus calls the disciples and us to follow in his way of mercy and love, but he doesn't tell us that we need to be spiritual giants before we can do that.
Instead, he assures us that a speck of faith the size of a mustard seed is plenty of faith to live as disciples. He reminds us, deep in our hearts, that a taste of bread and a sip of wine and a droplet of water are more than enough to carry us through each week.
Because even a tiny, feeble faith can cling to the promise that God is faithful, and loves his whole creation; that there is nothing, not height or depth or anything in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus; that by God's grace alone we live and move and have our being.
Friends, God is bigger than all of your fears, all of your doubts, all of your hesitations. God is faithful, even when we aren't. Even your smallest seed of faith in our faithful God means that you have the strength to face tomorrow, and the power to live faithfully for the sake of the world. For it is indeed by grace that you have been saved and will be sustained, through faith, whether big or small, and this is not your own doing, it is the doing of God, who promises always to see you through each new morning, for each day is a new reminder of resurrection, and a new sign of hope for you, for me, and for all creation.
Pastor Chad preached an incredible Easter sermon this past Sunday, talking about how while all the other disciples scoffed at the women's description of the empty tomb, Peter doubted his doubts enough to head to the tomb and check things out for himself, and he was amazed.
This made me think of an equally incredible blog post that circulated the internet last week by Rachel Held Evans, titled, "Holy Week for Doubters." In it, she says,
I wonder if the whole of Easter might really be summed up in Chad's phrase "doubting our doubts." Because Easter is all about trying to believe the unbelievable, and trying to make sense of the impossible. And maybe if all we can muster up is the energy to just show up at the empty tomb, well, maybe that in itself is the biggest leap of faith of them all, the moment of doubting our doubts just long enough to see for ourselves whether the tomb is empty. Because while it takes faith to believe the resurrection whole-heartedly, maybe it takes even more faith to show up at the tomb when our hearts are full of more questions than answers.
This made me think of an equally incredible blog post that circulated the internet last week by Rachel Held Evans, titled, "Holy Week for Doubters." In it, she says,
[When regular churchgoers assume you are just one of "those lazy people" who only show up to church at Christmas and Easter], you won’t know how to explain that there is nothing nominal or lukewarm or indifferent about standing in this hurricane of questions every day and staring each one down until you’ve mustered all the bravery and fortitude and trust it takes to whisper just one of them out loud on the car ride home:I'm going to guess that most of us find ourselves in places of doubt now and again...and maybe more often then not. Next Sunday, we'll hear again the story of "doubting" Thomas, who isn't so much a doubter as he is an experiential learner, I think. It's not good enough for him to hear the stories of other people. He can't bring himself to embrace the good news of Jesus' resurrection until he has experienced it for himself, firsthand.
“What if we made this up because we’re afraid of death?”
And you won’t know how to explain why, in that moment when the whisper rose out of your mouth like Jesus from the grave, you felt more alive and awake and resurrected than you have in ages because at least it was out, at least it was said, at least it wasn’t buried in your chest anymore, clawing for freedom...
Please know you are not alone.
There are other people signing words to hymns they’re not sure they believe today, other people digging out dresses from the backs of their closets today, other people ruining Easter brunch today, other people just showing up today.
And sometimes, just showing up - burial spices in hand - is all it takes to witness a miracle.
I wonder if the whole of Easter might really be summed up in Chad's phrase "doubting our doubts." Because Easter is all about trying to believe the unbelievable, and trying to make sense of the impossible. And maybe if all we can muster up is the energy to just show up at the empty tomb, well, maybe that in itself is the biggest leap of faith of them all, the moment of doubting our doubts just long enough to see for ourselves whether the tomb is empty. Because while it takes faith to believe the resurrection whole-heartedly, maybe it takes even more faith to show up at the tomb when our hearts are full of more questions than answers.