Keeping the Season

"Our Lady of Spring 2015" by Stephen B Whatley, on Flickr

Too Much to Ask
by Luci Shaw

It seemed too much to ask
of one small virgin
that she should stake shame
against the will of God.
All she had to hold to
were those soft, inward
flutterings
and the remembered sting
of a brief junction--spirit
with flesh.
Who would think it
more than a dream wish?
an implausible, laughable
defense.

And it seems much
too much to ask me
to be part of the
different thing--
God's shocking, unorthodox,
unheard of Thing
to further heaven's hopes
and summon God's glory.

--in Wintersong

"Fall Sun" by maxine1313, on Flickr

Hebrews 1:1-4
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

John 1:1-14
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

--
As the first birds start to sing their song over Bethlehem, Mary opens her eyes. Joseph is not yet stirring, and the newborn Jesus is still sleeping, tired from all the work of entering the world. The first ribbons of daylight creep through the cracks in the ceiling, and in the rising light of dawn, Mary feels all of the anxieties of the night lift away.

The darkness had been full of hard things: a hard journey over the hard ground; the sharp pains of labor; the rough disappointment of hearing that there was no room; the sting of fear that comes with being vulnerable, homesick, and in pain in the deep middle of the night, when the shadows are darkest and when the world seems most uncertain.

But it is morning now. The morning is still and clear. The rising of the herald star is now eclipsed by the rising of the sun; light upon light. There is a softness here, a hush, a waking moment to ponder all the wonders of the night. For the first time, Mary can see every detail of her baby boy's face; each soft curve of his cheek, each eyelash as it flutters, every wisp of downy hair.

What has come into being with him was life, and the life is the light of all people. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

Light was the first miracle of all creation - in the beginning, when the world was a formless void and the Spirit of the Lord hovered over the face of the waters, God spoke into the darkness and said, "Let there be light." And there was light. And it was good.

We repeat this miracle every morning - from darkness, light rises with each new dawn. Today, once again, the sun has risen, in hazy streaks of light that tumble over the bluffs and reawaken the sleeping earth from its nighttime dreaming.

But this morning, the light seems different, doesn't it? Somehow it is clearer, holier, filled with the shimmer of deep miracles; in the light, we get our first real look at the tiny, red, wrinkled face of the newborn Jesus. I'm not sure whether it is the gravity of this baby's divinity that makes our hearts soften, or whether it is merely the effect of being in the presence of an impossibly tiny, fragile, untried, adorable baby. But either way, don't you feel your heart soften just a little when you, like Mary, take your first deep look at the baby Jesus, our newborn savior, God in a wee bit of flesh?

We live in a world that keeps its edges sharp. We tend toward cynicism instead of good will, sarcasm instead of genuineness. We take pride in having hard noses and being hard-headed and drawing hard lines. Politicians and news media drive us toward establishing clear, fear-filled boundaries between races, religions, political ideologies, and worldviews. We are told that we will succeed if we are tough, unrelenting, and defensive instead of vulnerable, soft, and considerate.

But against all of these hard edges, the light of Christ spills over into our world with shifting edges, moving into all the dark corners, spreading over hills and valleys, uncontained, unrestricted, making fuzzy the edges of our shadows, making permeable the boundaries of our hearts and minds. That’s what light does! It flows and fills; it cannot be captured or hoarded. Light has power to banish darkness; brightness to bring clarity; gentleness to rouse us from dark nights of the soul.

The soft light of Christ’s dawn does not just rise over Decorah this morning.

The light of Christ’s dawn rises over children awakening in refugee camps and over homeless families in makeshift shelters.

It rises over Democrats and Republicans and Independents; democracies and monarchies and parliaments.

The light of Christ rises over Israel. And over Palestine.

It rises over peaceful, sleepy small towns and war zones and crime-ridden corners of giant cities.

The light of Christ rises over farmers and police officers and bankers and electricians; piano teachers and custodians and stay-at-home-parents and CEOs.

It rises over Lutherans and Catholics and Methodists and Presbyterians; over Jews and Muslims; atheists and agnostics.

The light of Christ rises over shrinking ice caps and barren forests; over flourishing farms and rolling seas.

It rises over those who have spent this dark night in fear, in grief, in anxiety, or in sleeplessness. It rises over those who slept deeply and in peace. It rises over those who have worked the night shift and over children who awoke in the wee hours of the morning, wide awake with excitement.

John tells us that Christ, the true light coming into the world, is the light that enlightens everyone. Christ is the light that opens our eyes to see a world that God loves, deeply. And Christ is the light that calls us to serve and love all people and all places that the light touches.

Just as Scrooge’s heart was enlightened by his visions, softening him to become a person of compassion and generosity; just as the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes after hearing the Whos down in Whoville singing in the morning light, so also does the birth of Christ call us toward enlightened eyes that see one another and the world with new softness, new compassion, new love and generosity and graciousness of spirit.

My prayer today, for you and for me, is that this Christmas morning might re-enliven us in our God-given calling to love one another. That we might take the risk of being vulnerable and crossing boundaries, just as God himself crossed the boundary between heaven and earth to become a fragile human baby in our world. My prayer is that we might not draw up walls and fences around the light, but instead be bearers of the light, vessels for Christ, vehicles for the ongoing illumination of the world.

I bless you and commission you for this task, in the words of poet Jan Richardson:

Blessed Are You Who Bear the Light

Blessed are you
who bear the light
in unbearable times,
who testify
to its endurance
amid the unendurable,
who bear witness
to its persistence
when everything seems
in shadow
and grief.

Blessed are you
in whom
the light lives,
in whom
the brightness blazes—
your heart
a chapel,
an altar where
in the deepest night
can be seen
the fire that
shines forth in you
in unaccountable faith
in stubborn hope
in love that illumines
every broken thing
it finds.

Amen.

"Annunciation Mosaic" by Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P., on Flickr

It came to me, recently, that faith is "a certain widening of the imagination." When Mary asked the Angel, "How shall these things be?" she as asking God to widen her imagination.

All my life I have been requesting the same thing - a baptized imagination that has a widen enough faith to see the numinous in the ordinary. Without discarding reason, or analysis, I seek from my Muse, the Holy Spirit, images that will open up reality and pull me into its center.

This is the benison of the sacramental view of life.

-"A Widening of the Imagination" by Luci Shaw, in Wintersong

"Perseids 2014" by Carlos Bueno, on Flickr

As much as well-meaning Christians have tried to convince me that I cannot love creation with anything close to the love with which I love God, I remain unconvinced. If I am allowed to love the water of baptism, the bread and wine of Communion, the oil of healing, and the wood of the cross, why am I not also allowed to love the heavenly moon?

If Christians look to creation for wisdom about the spiritual life, seeing resurrection in springtime, divine promise in a rainbow, or the flight of the Spirit in a dove, why don't we look to the moon for wisdom about our relationship with God? Sometimes the light is coming, and sometimes it is going. Sometimes the moon is full, and sometimes it is nowhere to be found. There is nothing capricious about this variety since it happens on a regular basis. Is it dark outside tonight? Fear not; it will not be dark forever. Is it bright out tonight? Enjoy it; it will not be bright forever.


-Barbara Brown Taylor in Learning to Walk in the Dark (p. 166, 171-172)

"Sidewalk Chalk Art," by Andy Purviance, on Flickr

The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.
...
Clearly, human transformative activity depends upon a transformed imagination. Numbness does not hurt like torture, but in a quite parallel way, numbness robs us of our capability for humanity.
...
The prophet engages in futuring fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. The imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing. The same royal consciousness that make it possible to implement anything and everything is the one that shrinks imagination because imagination is a danger. Thus every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist. It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.

-excerpts from The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann

"Holy Saturday" by elizabethgrayking, on Flickr

"transfiguration" by 0x17.me, on Flickr

Mark 9:2-9
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved listen to him!" Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

"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.

"Pearl Farming" by Fahad Hasan, on Flickr

Matthew 13:31–33, 44–52
[Jesus] put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."

He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Have you understood all this? They answered, "Yes." And he said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

"Julian of Norwich" by Robert Lentz, posted by Kittredge Cherry, on Flickr

John 10:1-10
Jesus said, "Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."

---
Growing up, my dad directed the church choir and my mom sang in it. This meant that every Sunday, my sisters and I would sit by my dad in the front row of the sanctuary, in clear sight of the choir loft and my mom’s watchful eye.

Most of the time, I think, we were pretty well behaved. We’d draw pictures on the yellow children’s bulletins, follow along with the hymns, try discreetly to open up our loud velcro wallets to fish out some change for the offering plate. But there were times that we squirmed. That we squabbled. That we poked each other or got the giggles. And in those moments, from behind the organ in the second row of the choir came the mom cough.

Ahem-AHEM.

I could pick that sound out of a lineup.

The whole congregation could cough and clear their voices for the entire service and we’d never notice, but one stifled cough from mom’s throat, and our eyes would dart up to meet her gaze, and we’d sit up a little straighter in our seats, and we’d quit whatever mischief we were dabbling in.

It’s a peculiar thing, isn’t it, that we know so well the sound of our mother’s voice?

Sam is just getting old enough that he recognizes my voice and responds to it differently than other people’s voices. He can be perfectly content in someone else’s arms, but when he hears my voice, he turns to find me, and lurches toward me, and when I take him, he buries his face in my neck, happy to be reunited with the voice that he knows best.

Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. My sheep follow me because they know my voice.”

Like a child recognizing the voice of his mother, like a sheep recognizing the voice of its shepherd, we follow Jesus by the sound of his voice. Christ, the shepherd and guardian of our souls calls to us in a voice so recognizable that we can pick it out of the crowd.

And what a crowd it is.

We are pummeled with voices, aren't we? Every day, voices of all sorts call out to us and demand things of us.

We hear voices on the radio and on television and through the internet. Some of these voices speak truth, and some speak untruth, and some speak fear, and some speak hyperbole. We hear voices in politics, and some speak fact, and some speak dissent, and some speak out of both sides of their mouths, and some speak persuasion rather than common good. We hear our own voices, and some speak confidence, and some speak self-reliance, and some speak self-doubt, and some speak self-criticism.

We hear good advice and bad advice, voices that challenge us and voices that enable us. I think about Job, and how his friends all had something to say to him in the midst of his suffering, and the way that their advice always seemed good on the surface, but ended up lacking.

So in the middle of such a cacophony of voices, how do we pick out the voice of Jesus?

Well, for starters, we can remember that the voice of Jesus has particular power to heal and to restore life.

During Lent and Easter, we have read three different stories that reveal the power of Jesus' voice. He speaks words of healing to the man born blind, and his sight is restored. He calls to Lazarus, dead in the tomb, who responds to the sound of Jesus' voice by emerging from the tomb, alive. And he speaks Mary's name in the garden, and it is only at the sound of his voice that she sees him not as the gardner, but as her risen savior.

Jesus' voice is one that always speaks with healing and life-giving power.

Jesus is the one who says, “I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the vine and you are the branches. I am the resurrection and the life. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

There's an early American hymn that says:

His voice as the sound of the dulcimer sweet, is heard through the shadows of death.
The cedars of Lebanon bow at His feet, the air is perfumed with His breath.
His lips as the fountain of righteousness flow, that water the garden of grace,
From which their salvation the people shall know, and bask in the smile of His face.

Love sits in His eyelids and scatters delight thro’ all the bright regions on high.
Their faces the Cherubim veil in His sight and tremble with fullness of joy.
He looks and ten thousands of angels rejoice, And myriads wait for His word.
He speaks and eternity, filled with His voice, re-echoes the praise of her Lord.

Yes, we can know Jesus' voice by the things he says, by his enduring words of life piercing the shadows of death, by his sweet song of righteousness and salvation, by the sound of eternal and abundant life. Whenever we hear voices that speak forgiveness and mercy, voices that speak peace and life abundant, these are the voice of Jesus.

And the heart of the matter is that the reason we can listen for and recognize Jesus' powerful voice of healing and new life is because we are in relationship with him and he with us.

I know the sound of my mother's mom-cough, and Sam knows the sound of my voice, and we all know the sound of those dear to us, be they parents or spouses or kindred spirits, living or dead, because of the relationship that we have with each other. Knowing one another deeply, and being deeply known.

Jesus says “I know my own and my own know me.”

What a beautiful statement. It's a two-way relationship. One of the failings of popular Christianity is that it overemphasizes our responsibility to come to know Jesus, and underemphasizes Jesus' desire to know us.

But think about the woman at the well, who had no inclination whatsoever that she was speaking to Jesus, and didn't particularly care about knowing the stranger sitting next to her. Jesus was the one seeking relationship. She is amazed that this man, "knew everything I've ever done." Jesus is the first to initiate relationship, and only later does she respond in faith.

Jesus seeks to know us even as he seeks for us to know him. And out of this relationship, we are able, more and more, to hear his voice ringing through this earth, in every song of hope and healing.

The medieval mystic Julian of Norwich describes God in Christ as the one as intimately connected to us as the very mothers who gave us birth:

[Christ] is our Mother in human nature in our essential creation. In Him we are grounded and rooted, and he is our mother in mercy by taking on our fleshliness....In Mother Christ, we benefit and grow, and in mercy He redeems and restores us....This fair lovely word 'mother' is so sweet and so kind in itself, that it can not truly be said of anyone nor to anyone except of Him and to Him who is true Mother of life and of all. To the quality of motherhood belongs natural love, wisdom, and knowledge - and this is God. (from Revelations of Divine Love)

As a mother protects and nurtures her children, so Christ protects and nurtures us whom he loves.

Jesus has put himself into relationship with us, into close kindred with humankind, having himself put on human flesh. He joins us to himself in baptism, in our dying and rising through those waters. He joins us to himself in the bread and wine, as we do something as scandalous and intimate as taking his very body into our hands and hearts and bodies.

He is the good shepherd, leading us beside still waters, along paths of righteousness, through the darkest valleys, to eternal and abundant life. He knows us and we know him, and we hear his voice calling to us, saying to each of us,

"Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. I am your resurrection, and I am your abundant life."

"Pebble balancing..." by Giulia Torra, on Flickr

---

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.

"'Rebirth' by Anne-Mari Burger" by Cue Online, on Flickr

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.
---

Nicodemus’s encounter with Jesus, under the cover of dark, brings before us this question of what it means to be born again. As Lutherans, we might not talk too often in terms of being “born again,” and yet there is something important enough to the idea that we include our assurance of rebirth in our liturgy for morning prayer. If you turn to page 302 in our hymnal (Evangelical Lutheran Worship), there it is: "You have been born anew through the living and abiding word of God." Let’s practice singing that dialogue:

You have been born anew. Through the living and abiding word of God.

This is our refrain for the rest of our sermon time. I invite you to sing that response as it comes up throughout the sermon. And now, let us begin.

You have been born anew. Through the living and abiding word of God.

It was sixth grade. Our middle school youth group was attending Super Second Saturday, a nondenominational Christian youth rally, a one-night event with speakers and music, held in a big arena. The seats were blue, and we were sitting in the first rows off the floor, right behind a railing. The band Petra played, which if you aren't familiar, was maybe the most famous Christian hair band of the eighties. Late in the evening, the emcee, over quiet piano music in the background, explained to the gathered crowd about how God loved us so much that he sent Jesus to die for us, and that even though we were all sinners, Jesus died to save us. And then he offered up the invitation: If you were ready to be born again, to accept Jesus into your heart, then you were supposed to come to the floor of the arena, where there would be somebody waiting to pray with you. Or if you were already a believer but you wanted to recommit your life to Christ, you could also come down.

Sarah and I were perhaps a bit naive. But we were also working very hard to take our faith seriously, so we decided that there was no harm to be done in affirming our faith by recommitting our lives to Christ. And so we went, together, and a very nice college student met us at the bottom of the aisle, and we walked off, behind the set, to an empty section of seats. He took down our names and addresses, and checked the box on the form that said "recommitting." And then we said a short prayer. He prayed first, and then Sarah and I each were supposed to say something, and I remember it being very unceremonious and a little bit awkward. After we said "amen," he said some encouraging and celebratory things, and then we found our way back to the group.

If I was working to take my faith seriously at 11 years old, I was also very shy about such things. In the next weeks, I received a series of mailings from the organizers of the rally. A letter of congratulations for choosing to be born again in Christ, and various resources intended for new Christians including a pamphlet explaining to me the basics of Christianity, complete with a line drawing of a great cavern labeled “sin,” with me on one side and God on the other, and then a second line drawing of that same cavern, except this time with a cross labeled “Jesus” bridging the gap. I was mortified to receive these mailings, and terrified that my parents might ask me about them. I had grown up in the church, and couldn't remember a time before I believed in God, and it made me feel like I had done something wrong at the rally or somehow miscommunicated with the guy taking down my information, because I wasn’t a new Christian. I didn’t need these mailings. I hid them away on the shelf above my bed, where I kept my secret stuff, and resolved not to get caught up in something like this again.

You have been born anew. Through the living and abiding word of God.

Fast forward to my first semester of seminary. It was finals week, and I grabbed a bunch of books and notecards and walked downtown to Starbucks to study over some coffee. I was studying for my Old Testament final, and my textbook was sitting on the table next to my cup. A man walked by the table, dropped a tract onto my notes, and pointed to my book, saying "If you like that, then you might be interested in what that booklet has to say."

My first reaction: frustration and offense. I wasn’t sure what vibe I was giving off to make him assume that I wasn’t a person of faith.

My second (and better) reaction: to kindly explain to him the irony of the situation. And so I spoke up and said, "Oh. Well, I'm actually in seminary studying to be a pastor right now..." and trailed off, hoping that he would realize that he probably didn't need to be worrying about my faith or salvation, and leave me alone, because my notes really weren't going to study themselves.

Instead, he took the opportunity to pull up a chair and talk to me about how I must, then, understand and appreciate how important it was to evangelize people, and that it was important to ensure that people were born again so that they would know their destiny when they died. I didn't say much in the conversation, and was very glad when it was over.

You have been born anew. Through the living and abiding word of God.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night, curious about the kingdom of God, and Jesus tells him, "you must be born anew." The word, in Greek, can be translated "anew" or "again" or "from above." All of them pointing to the idea that believing in God and following Christ is somehow so transformative that it is as if we are given an entirely new life, that we are reborn.

Christians struggle among themselves to make sense of this idea of being born again. Is it a decision that humans make for Christ? Is it not a decision, but an awareness of the moment when we consciously come to faith? Or is it something else?

Jesus says that rebirth is a matter of the Spirit, a Spirit who blows where it may, rushing through the dry bones of this fleshy existence and re-enlivening our souls, apart from our own power, apart from our own choosing. He implies born anew is something elemental, like the rush of both wind and water. It is an awakening, like the way that the earth rises from sleep when springtime begins to unfold.

There was that day last week when it first felt like spring. The sun was shining and the temperature crept into the 50's. A breeze blew over the face of the earth, and you could feel, deep in your bones, that spring was on its way.

It wasn't just that the breeze was warm. It was that the wind carried with the scent of earth, of green and growing things. The giant mounds of snow collapsed in on themselves, giving off running canals of melted water, flowing into the streets, washing away the ice and the sand of winter. Everything was muddy, damp. Water rested in giant pools and puddles on the sidewalk, and it flowed under and around the soles of your feet as it rolled downhill, seeking lower ground. In the water, in the wind, you could feel in your very bones that spring was not far off. The promise of buds and shoots and the resurrection of the earth could not be ignored.

And it filled the senses. The sight of mud and melting, the smell of green earth, the taste of the breeze, the sound of birds, the feel of the sun on your hair, the feeling of spring deep in your soul and body.

Isn't this what rebirth is supposed to feel like? Isn't rebirth bigger than a blue stadium seat and more life-transforming than a drive-by evangelism at a coffee shop?

You have been born anew. Through the living and abiding word of God.

At the beginning of all things, we read that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters, and from water and spirit came the birth of all creation. At the end of all things, we read about the rebirth of all creation, where the river of the water of life flows from the throne of God, bright as crystal, watering a towering tree of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.

Baptism is our own opportunity to enter into these moving waters, flowing from creation to new creation, making of each of us a new creation by water and the Spirit. Baptism is one moment of rebirth in a series of rebirths that take place in our lives, for as Martin Luther says, we daily drown to sin and rise as a reborn person in God-in-Christ.

And rebirth always takes place in the passive voice. We are reborn. We have been born anew. We are daily born again. Rebirth is not something we do, it is something that happens to us. Jesus teaches Nicodemus that rebirth is more than a moment and more than a decision. Rebirth is the work of God's Spirit, overpowering us and transforming us. God is the active agent in rebirth, and not ourselves.

For this is the God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son, not to condemn the world, but to save it, and not to leave us to death, but to raise us to eternal life. This is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the covenant, the God who keeps his promises. And God’s promise for you and for me, in this time and in this place, is that we have been born anew, not by any feat of our own strength, but because our God is merciful, and loves his whole creation.

So to all those parts of you that feel frozen, creaky, weak, or dying;
to the dry and dusty corners of your soul,
to the despair of this first life,
to the frailty and even futility of this flesh,
Hear this good news:
You must be born anew, by water and the spirit.
You are born anew, by water and the spirit.
The Spirit blows where it chooses, and you see not where it comes from nor where it goes,
But when it rushes through you, you feel new breath in your lungs,
new hope in your soul,
A lingering sense that today, this very day, you have been given new life.
You have been reborn.

You have been born anew. Through the living and abiding word of God.

"Born again" by Pablo Boto, on Flickr

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.

“We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

"desert acacias" by BATEMAN art, on Flickr

"Jesus the Homeless by Kevin.Hong on Flickr"

Matthew 17:1-9
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."
---

Last week, I saw my first preview for the new movie, Son of God, which hit theaters this weekend. As best I can tell from a thirty-second ad, it seems to be a pretty conventional Jesus movie: a handsome, well-coiffed Jesus with sparkling eyes and a dreamy, authoritative voice doing a representative mish-mash of teachings and miracles as smushed together from all four gospels, leading up to a pretty gruesome flogging and crucifixion scene. They didn't give away the ending in the preview (wink, wink!), but I imagine that the resurrection scene will be a pretty tried-and-true scene of light flooding out of an empty tomb, conveying temporary blindness to the movie-going audience until the figure of Jesus emerges, with even better hair and downy white robes, his hands outstretched and his eyes gleaming.

You have to pardon me if I sound a bit dubious about this latest effort to put the life of Jesus on the big screen. It's not that the life of Jesus isn't a pretty fantastic story to tell, and it's not that I think broad cultural exposure to the life and ministry of Jesus is intrinsically bad. But this movie, like other movies and mini-series before it, is culture's latest attempt to reveal Jesus to the masses, a stylized effort to show Jesus for who he is, at least in the opinion of a set of screenwriters and producers.

By accident or on purpose, the movie was released this weekend, Transfiguration weekend. So while one attempt to see Jesus for who he is has just hit theaters, another attempt to see Jesus for who he is is taking place here, in our churches, because Transfiguration is all about seeing Jesus in a different light.

So let's dig in to our gospel. Let's see who Jesus is, for real.

Jesus, Peter, and James are up on a high mountain. Just before this, Jesus has been positively identified by Peter as "the Messiah, the Son of the living God," and he has taught the disciples that his identity as Messiah is bound up in a particular fate: death at the hands of the authorities, and resurrection on the third day. He has also told the disciples that following him means following him all the way to the cross, following him even into suffering and death for his sake.

So now, these three have hiked up to the top of this mountain, and while they are standing there talking, light descends upon them. Jesus face shines, his clothes become whiter than white, Moses and Elijah appear, and Jesus is transfigured. A curious word, "transfigured." It means a metamorphosis, a change...and yet not a change. You know how you might think you know someone, and then something happens, for good for for bad, and even though they look the same in a physical sense, you "see them differently" or "see them in a different light?" That's the idea of transfiguration. The disciples saw Jesus in a new light as he was standing there with Moses and Elijah in this dazzling display.

And then they hear a voice from heaven: "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" You might recognize these words from back at Jesus' baptism, which we celebrated at the beginning of this season of Epiphany. At his baptism, Jesus' identity was revealed. Here at his transfiguration, his identity is affirmed. God confirms him as the the Son of God, the fulfillment of all the law and prophets that came before him - symbolized by the presence of Moses and Elijah - and the one who will defeat death by rising from it.

Amazed, terrified, unsteady in the overwhelming presence of the divine, the disciples fall to the ground in fear and trembling. Jesus pulls them back up, comforting them, saying “do not be afraid, do not fear.”


And as they stand up, just like that, the moment has passed. The birds start chirping again, and the sky looks like itself again. Jesus isn't sparkling anymore, Elijah and Moses have vanished, the ominous voice-of-God cloud has disappeared, and life has returned to normal. There is no reason to stay up on the mountain any longer, and so Jesus and the disciples head down. This journey down the mountain is the journey back to the wilderness of the world, and the start of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem, the place of his ultimate demise.

Jesus' transfiguration only takes up two paragraphs in the whole of Matthew's gospel, but these two paragraphs tell us the entire story of who Jesus is. The disciples on the mountain and all of us, in this blaze of light, see Jesus for who he really is.

And who is he?

Jesus is the Beloved, the Son of God.
Jesus is the one who both dazzles us and picks us up from the ground.
Jesus is the one who says to us, "do not fear."
Jesus is the one who leads us up the mountain into the presence of God, and the one who leads us down the mountain to live as faithful disciples in the wilderness of this world.

Because while movies and TV mini-series would have us believe that we see Jesus most clearly in all of his dazzling, victorious, glorious, up-on-the-mountain moments, the truth is that seeing Jesus for who he really is means following him beyond his mountaintop blaze of glory, down into the world, all the way to the depths of our human suffering and sorrow, all the way to the cross.

See, from the top of this Transfiguration mountain, we get a clear view another hill, Golgotha, where Jesus will take his place not flanked by Moses and Eljiah, but by thieves, one on the right, and one on the left, as he hangs on the cross to die. The brightness of Christ here on the mountaintop illuminates the landscape down below, where we see human frailty and a world in need. If we really want to see Jesus for who he is, then we need to look beyond his shining face into the faces of the frail and the broken, the poor and the outcast, the sick and the oppressed, the lost and the forgotten. Because these are the ones that Jesus came to love and to save, and we in our own brokenness can find ourselves numbered among these humble saints.

A new piece of artwork is being installed in front of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Davidson, North Carolina. It is a bench, with a life-sized bronze sculpture of a human figure laying on it, covered in a blanket, with only his feet sticking out the end. At first glance, it appears a sculpture of a homeless man, sleeping on a park bench. Only upon closer examination of his wounded feet does it become apparent to the viewer that this homeless figure is actually Jesus.

This sculpture has been at the center of controversy, rejected by two different churches before finding its home in front of St. Alban’s. For some, the idea of Jesus depicted as a homeless man is vulgar, upsetting, and inappropriate.

But for others, the figure speaks to the heart of Jesus’ own heart. For Jesus is the one who says elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel, “as you do to one of the least of these, so you do unto me.”

For in this statue, we see the truth about who Jesus is: he is the one who came to save the last, the lost, and the least. He was born in the mud of a stable, himself without a permanent home to rest his head. He was the one willing to get mud on his hands to heal a blind man, and to get mud on his reputation to preach good news to a Samaritan woman with a sketchy past.

Friends, the Jesus we see, the Jesus we follow, the Jesus who loves us, the Jesus who died for us: he is more than just an interesting character to portray on the big screen. He is more than a pretty face and soothing voice.

Jesus is found among us, every day, in the faces of those whom he came to save. Jesus is God-with-us - really with us! - and he is the one who will save us from our sin, break the bonds of death. He is the living, breathing, walking, talking fullness of God for us and for our salvation.

This week, we will join Jesus in heading down the mountain as we begin the season of Lent. We will pass through the dusty terrain, remembering that we ourselves are dust, and we will follow Jesus all the way to the valley of the shadow of death. Together, we will listen to Jesus as he declares himself living water, sight for the blind, and the resurrection and the life.

And from the mountaintop of the transfiguration to the hilltop of Jesus’ death, we see Jesus for who he really is: the Beloved Son of God in human flesh, who emptied himself of all glory that he might take on the weight of the world, so that through him, all things might be redeemed.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.

Increase our faith and love.

What if, instead of wishing that God would give us more faith, we instead prayed that God would make us more faithful?

Increase our faithfulness and love, dear God, that we might know your hope and peace and live accordingly.



Thee we adore
arr. Phillip Moody

Thee we adore, O hidden Savior, thee,
Who in thy Sacrament art pleased to be;
Both flesh and spirit in thy presence fail,
Yet here thy presence we devoutly hail.

O blest memorial of our dying Lord,
Who living bread to us shall here afford:
Oh, may our souls forever feed on thee,
And thou, O Christ, forever precious be.

Fountain of goodness, Jesus, Lord and God:
Cleanse us, unclean, with thy most cleansing blood;
Increase our faith and love, that we may know
The hope and peace which from they presence flow.

O Christ, whom now beneath a veil we see:
May what we thirst for soon our portion be,
To gaze on thee unveiled, and see thy face,
The vision of thy glory and thy grace.

"Rustic" by HD41117, on Flickr

Then the word of the LORD came to [Elijah], saying, Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you. So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, "Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink." As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." But she said, "As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." Elijah said to her, "Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the LORD the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the LORD sends rain on the earth." She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah.

After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. She then said to Elijah, "What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!" But he said to her, "Give me your son." He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. He cried out to the LORD, "O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?" Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the LORD, "O LORD my God, let this child's life come into him again." The LORD listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, "See, your son is alive." So the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth." (1 Kings 17:8-24)

Holy God, we praise your name;
Lord of all, we bow before you.
All on earth your scepter claim,
All in heaven above adore you.
Infinite your vast domain,
Everlasting is your reign.

Hark! The glad celestial hymn
Angel choirs above are raising;
Cherubim and seraphim,
In unceasing chorus praising,
Fill the heavens with sweet accord:
"Holy, holy, holy Lord!"

Lo, the apostolic train
Join your sacred name to hallow;
Prophets swell the glad refrain,
And the white robed martyrs follow;
And from morn to set of sun
Through the Church the song goes on.

Holy Father, holy Son,
Holy Spirit, three we name you,
Though in essence only one;
Undivided God we claim you
And, adoring, bend the knee
While we own the mystery.