Keeping the Season

"Down the mountain" by Raoul Pop, on Flickr

Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" They answered, "John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered, "The Messiah of God."

He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, saying, "The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised." Then he said to them all, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah" — not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen listen to him!" When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen. (Luke 9:18-24; 28-36)
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It is the second semester of the school year, and our Confirmation students are taking this whole winter and spring to learn about important characters and stories in the New Testament. A week ago, we learned about the twelve disciples. We learned that they were a bunch of relative nobodies who were yet chosen by Jesus to be his followers. We also learned that they were well-meaning and eager, but prone to confusion and misunderstanding. If you read through the gospels, you will find plenty of places where the disciples simply miss the point of what Jesus tries to teach them. Far from unredeemable characters, the disciples often are stand-ins for us, as we try to follow Jesus faithfully while still hanging on to the burden of being human.

Today’s gospel is another one of those stories, where Jesus and the disciples keep speaking past each other. The disciples fixate on the glory of God while Jesus tries to teach them about sacrifice and discipleship.

Everything starts right after Jesus has done a significant miracle – feeding thousands with just a few loaves of bread. Peter, having seen the glory of this and other miracles, confesses Jesus as Messiah.

Immediately, Jesus turns the conversation away from glory and instead talks about the cross, which is the opposite of glory, and he tells the disciples that the point of his life, and the point of their discipleship, is sacrifice.

Then, they go up the mountain. Jesus prays, and while he is praying, the glory of God shines through him and he is transfigured – his face sparkles, his clothes are dazzling white, it is a picture of light and glory.

Elijah and Moses show up to talk to Jesus about his departure – he is on his way to Jerusalem, where he will be arrested and crucified and will die in an ultimate act of sacrifice. He’s on his way forward to the least glorious days of his life.

Peter and James and John are a little way away, and they can’t hear what Jesus and his companions are talking about, but they see the shininess of the moment, and Jesus’ dazzling white clothes, and the faces of Elijah and Moses, two incredibly important and revered ancestors in faith.

So Peter tries to be helpful. There is glory on that mountaintop – transcendence and safety and mystery and beauty. And he wants to believe that that this is what following Jesus is all about, even though Jesus has just told him that discipleship is about sacrifice and not about glory. So Peter says “it is good for us to be here; I’ll grab my hammer to build us some dwellings, and we can just stay up here indefinitely.”

He is interrupted by a cloud that overshadows the shininess of the moment, and the voice of God from the cloud that reminds Peter, “This is my Son, my Chosen – LISTEN TO HIM!” It’s God, saying to the disciples, “didn’t you listen to what Jesus just told you about suffering and sacrifice?” It’s God, saying to the disciples, “Instead of taking charge of the moment and figuring out how to construct the First Lutheran Church of the Transfiguration on this mountaintop, maybe you should first let Jesus talk and see what he wants you to do.” It’s God, saying to the disciples and to us, “This is Jesus, and I have given him a mission and purpose on this earth, and the way to be a part of this mission is to let Jesus take the lead, no matter how much you want to control things, no matter how much you think you might know best.” It is God, telling us, “Take a step back from the shiny, mysterious, glorious stuff for a minute, and remember that the heart of my love is found among the rough lumber and crude nails of the cross.”

Jesus keeps pulling the disciples away from glory and pushing them toward discipleship. Jesus keeps reminding them that faith isn’t just about chasing the shiny stuff and God’s grace isn’t an excuse to settle down on top of the mountain, basking in glory. Following Jesus is all about love for neighbor and service and humility and witness, about keeping on the move to find new places to share God’s hope.

Like Peter and James and John, we are so often tempted by all of the shiny stuff, even as Adam and Eve themselves were tempted by a shiny apple way back in the garden. We are tempted by the shiny stuff of this world – money, fame, power, glory. And we are tempted by the shiny, mountaintop moments in our lives of faith – worship experiences that move us to places of transcendence, intense moments of feeling God’s presence, the enlivening sensation of receiving free grace and forgiveness.

Certainly not all bad things, of course. I mean, there’s a reason that we talk about Jesus as light in the darkness; we are blessed to see God shining in all sorts of ways in our world, and the light of Christ brings hope and joy to dark corners of the world.

There’s no question that God is shining among this St. Timothy family. Have you ever stopped to consider how many projects and programs we sustain for the size of our congregation? It’s amazing. We study together at Bible studies and book groups. Our kids go to Sunday School and sing in worship, we have a huge group of Confirmation students and a super-active and leadership-oriented high school group. We care for one another, pray for each other and often reach out to one another with meals or a listening ear. We give lots of money and stuff and time to a whole host of ministry partnerships, helping those who are hungry or homeless or voiceless or sick. We worship together faithfully, creatively, and beautifully. There is music all over the place, and art. There are leaders here, and worker bees, creative types and those blessed with the gifts of understanding church budgets or driving the Bobcat or supplying us with their green thumbs.

On a day like today, when I stand at the top of this mountain with you, I am ready to raise up my hammer. And I’ll bet you are too.

But God is here in this place today, overshadowing us and removing the tools from our hands. He reminds us that faith isn’t an excuse to camp out on top of a mountain. God says to us “trust in Jesus, my chosen one, and listen to his voice; and follow him down the mountain because he is leading you forward in my name.”

And so together, we begin to take our first steps down this mountain, with Jesus as our guide.

For me, climbing down the mountain means following Jesus to a new place and a new expression of my call to ministry.

For you, climbing down the mountain means exploring again the mission and ministry of St. Timothy Lutheran Church and looking at the new doors that God is opening up; new ways of reaching out to the community, new ways of sharing Christ’s love in this neighborhood in this community in this country in this world, taking stock of your gifts and passions, and learning anew where this congregation’s passions and this world’s needs intersect.

And for each of us, climbing down the mountain means digging in deep and taking a risk on our faith. We are redeemed and beloved children of God, chosen by love and saved by grace. Jesus’ voice challenges each of us to take new steps forward in our own lives of discipleship, crossing boundaries, taking risks, doing the hard and vulnerable work of really living as disciples. Jesus’ voice asks us to wear our faith on our sleeve, to take a risk on compassion and generosity, to see everyone as beloved, to put other people’s needs ahead of our own, to shine like stars, to bear the good fruit of faith, to seek lives of service instead of lives of glory.

It’s hard work. It’s emotional work. It isn’t easy to step beyond what we know. It isn’t easy to stretch our faith beyond its comfortable boundaries. But we trust Jesus to lead us and to be with us every step of the way. In every step down the mountain, through every mile along the road, to every new challenge of faith, Jesus is with us. His voice calls to us, and we can trust it, and when we listen to it we hear Jesus say “I am the good shepherd.” We hear him say “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” We hear him say “You are the light of the world” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We hear him say “Blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness” and “Come to me, all you who are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” We hear him say “Go, therefore, into all the world, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” We hear him say, “This is my body, given for you, and my blood, shed for you.”

And so, fed and nourished for the journey, we follow Jesus down the mountain, our faces shining as his beloved, ready to give ourselves as bread for the world and hope for the hopeless. May your journeys be blessed, my friends, and your steps sure. May you shine like stars in the heavens, and may God bless and protect you until we all meet again atop his holy mountain once again.

"Word: John (Water to Wine)" by Jim LePage, on Flickr

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. (1 Corinthians 12:4-11)

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. (John 2:1-11)
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Matt and I are in the process of buying our very first house. We spent Friday morning looking at four houses, weighing the merits of beautiful, old wood floors versus the size of the backyard, the size of the kitchen versus the size of the garage, the number of bedrooms versus the number of bathrooms. At the end of the day, we had two contenders – the biggest and most expensive house we looked at, and the smallest house that we looked at. An exercise in weighing scarcity and abundance.

Going forward, when we pack up all of our stuff to move, I can guarantee you that I will, at various points, exclaim, “we have too much stuff!” and decide that I need to ditch half my clothes, half my shoes, half of our extra towels, and all of the half-used bottles of shampoo and lotion that live under the sink. And I’ll cringe at how many boxes we fill up with books alone! And then, we’ll move into our new place, and we’ll put all of our stuff where it goes, and we’ll realize that we don’t have nearly enough furniture or artwork, and I’ll feel in a rush, once again, to go out and find things to fill the empty space. An exercise, once again, in scarcity and abundance.

It’s a hard balance, trying to find the sweet spot of “just enough” in life. And truth be told, most of us, when given the option, would rather find ourselves with “too much” than with “not enough.” Unlike the host at today’s wedding feast in Cana, we would rather have too much wine than ever let the wine run out.

Wedding feasts in Jesus time were a very big deal. They were all about abundance. You wanted a lot of people to come to the feast – remember the parable of the wedding feast that Jesus tells where the host invites a lot of friends and family who all give him excuses why they can’t come, and so he ends up going out and collecting whomever he can find from the street to fill his table with guests? Wedding feasts were days-long affairs, full of people and food and drink and celebration. As the host, you were responsible for keeping your guests entertained, and filled with food and drink.

So at this feast, when the wine runs out, it is a problem. A serious one.

Word spreads through the crowd, and I suspect that people took the news as a sign that the festivities were drawing to a close, and they started to pack themselves up and say their goodbyes. Word reaches Mary, and she does what any good, proud, overreaching mother would do: she say, “Hold on! My son can fix this!” And she finds Jesus, and even though he isn’t terribly enthused at granting the request, he nevertheless instructs the servants to fill jars with water, which he then transforms into wine, in what must be the best party trick ever recorded.

But this miracle is far more than a party trick. It is the first of many signs that Jesus performs in John’s gospel, leading all the way up to him raising Lazarus from the dead. It is a sign to the crowds, the disciples, and to us that Jesus is the son of God, the word-made-flesh, the one who brings life and light.

The true miracle is not that Jesus turned water into wine, but rather that he turned a lot of water into a lot of very good wine.

The stone jars of water that Jesus changed to wine were huge barrels of water used for the Jewish rite of purification. Jesus didn’t just come up with a few bottles of wine or even just a barrel’s worth. Jesus turned one hundred fifty gallons of water into one hundred fifty gallons of wine. It is an absurd quantity. An obscene quantity. Probably way more than Mary had bargained for.

And as to the quality of this wine? When the steward tastes the wine, he rushes to the groom and wonders out loud why he saved the best wine for last, when the custom was to start with the good wine and pull out the cheap stuff after people were too drunk to notice.

The miracle in today’s gospel is not that Jesus was able to provide when the wine ran out, but that Jesus chose to respond to scarcity with extraordinary abundance, beyond anything that we could provide for ourselves, beyond anything we could expect. The Jesus who meets us when our wine has run out is the Jesus who (later in John) says “I came that [you] may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Now I think that when we hear Jesus say this we automatically assume that his offer of abundant life looks like our own ideas of abundance: more stuff, more education, more money, more opportunity, more independence.

After a very full day of house-shopping, I sat in our motel room Friday afternoon, decompressing and mindlessly flipping channels. As I flipped, I found two different channels that were airing afternoon marathons of shows about hoarders.

On one of those episodes, a woman nestled into the center of a bedroom filled floor-to-ceiling with papers, food containers, clothes, pictures, and shopping bags, saying into the camera that she found all of the extreme clutter to be comforting, because she was surrounded by things that were important to her, padded in by stuff, protected from the world outside by mountains of clutter.

Is this the abundance that Jesus is talking about? Is this a picture of abundant life? We know that it isn’t. And we know that, on a lesser scale, we do the very same thing. We mistake abundance of stuff or wealth or opportunity for abundant life, because we find comfort in all of these things that pad us in and protect us from the world. We say that we are just trying to be prepared, with our extra bedrooms and extra calories and extra clothes and shoes and even that money we have set aside “for a rainy day.”

But in truth, I think that we collect all of this stuff because we are scared. We are scared about what we’ll find if all of this other stuff gets stripped away. We are scared about what will happen if the wine, someday, runs out.

We are scared to take down the front that we put up when we smile and say “everything’s fine,” even if we know that everything is NOT fine, because we are scared to let our emotions out.

We are scared to cut things out of our crazy busy schedules because we are scared that these are the only things that bind us together as couples or families, or we are scared that saying “no” to a good opportunity will hurt us or our children down the road.

We are scared to live with less stuff, because advertising keeps telling us that we are woefully unprepared for the twists and turns of life, unless we buy more stuff, and there is a little part of us that actually believes that manipulative message, and so we are scared of being unprepared or left out.

We are scared to let the wine run out, because when we clear away all the clutter that comforts us, we have to then look at ourselves for who we are, and let others see us for who we are, and we don’t always like who we are, so it’s much much easier to face a superabundance of stuff and opportunity instead of facing the truth about ourselves.

But we do not have to be scared. God has given us a new name and delights in us, and this is the only truth about ourselves that actually matters. God gives us the promise of life and life abundant. God promises us gallons and gallons of his best wine, precisely when our own decanters have run dry. The life-abundant that Christ gives is a life showered with gifts of the spirit – gifts of knowledge and faith and comfort and healing, gifts given to us for our own good and for the common good. The abundance of Christ is hope even in hardship, joy even in trouble, love even in brokenness, live even in death.

We do not need to be scared. We do not need to be stingy with our wine in fear that it might run out. We can go forward to share our gifts and to pull down the walls of our cluttered lives. God loves us for who we are, even in times of scarcity, even when we are vulnerable. For God’s greatest picture of love for us is that God himself became human, vulnerable, weak even to the point of death, so that we might have life.

So I don’t know about you, but my heart clings to the God of today’s gospel: the God of water and wine, the God of overflowing abundance, the God who is everlasting and generous and who promises not to abandon us when we run out of the wine of hope or joy or strength or patience or faith.

And when we come up to this table, and celebrate our own feast with bread and wine, I can cling to the promise that even just a taste of this heavenly food will sustain me in a way that no other food can. Christ’s table is an everlasting banquet, one where the wine will never run out, where the wedding feast will never end, where there is no limit to the guest list and no expectation that we bring along any expensive gifts.

We simply come to this table with our empty hands. We come empty and leave filled with the grace of God. This is what the wedding feast at Cana is all about – God’s abundance of grace for our lives.

Trusting in that grace is a leap of faith, certainly. But hear God’s word of promise for you and for me: He says, “ I am enough. I am more. Be free from your fear. Trust me, and celebrate. For I give you life and life abundant. I am the good wine, and I have saved for you the best for last.”

"Day 156/September 19 - Two roads diverged in a wood..." by John Piekos, on Flickr

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.'"

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. (Matthew 2:1-12)
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The old gray station wagon was mostly packed. Suitcases were lined up in the back of the car, and the cooler of sandwiches was wedged between my parents’ seats in the front. Each of us three sisters had our own bag of markers, notebooks, and games. My mom had the important items: the little notebook where we’d keep track of gas mileage, the Super 8 and Holiday Inn books so that we could make motel reservations along the road, the atlas, and two different colored markers.

Whether our final destination was Yellowstone National Park or the far reaches of the Maine coastline, our two-week driving vacations all had something in common. We would take one scenic route to the far point of our trip, and my mom would trace it in the atlas using one color marker, and we would always take a different route home, which she would trace in the atlas in a different color.

We always took a different road home. Because there was always more to see. Taking a different road gave us more destinations, more crazy roadside sights, more towns to pass through, a fuller journey, a way to make the trip home feel like a new part of the vacation rather than just a return home.

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the wise men left for their own country by another road.

Today’s gospel is a story of travel.

A star rises in the sky. A bright star, perfectly aligned with all of the right planets, a clear sign to a group of astrologists in the east that a king has been born. A divine king. A king worth seeking out.

So the magi pack up and head out on the road. They travel with the star as their guide, and their road first takes them to Jerusalem, to Herod, the sitting king, who seems as good a person as any to inquire about the newborn king who has been revealed to them.

Herod, of course, knows nothing about the newborn Messiah, and is terrified. His power is threatened, his authority shaken. So he plots with his advisors, he calls the wise men in secret, he has a plan. He tells the wise men to continue along their journey until they find this baby king. Then, he says, travel home by this same road that you came in on. Swing by Jerusalem again on your way back. Tell me what you learn about this baby, and where he is, so that I too might “worship” him. And by “worship,” we know that Herod means “destroy.” Fear drives people to do despicable things.

The wise men continue on the road, following the star, traveling because stars and kings are exciting business, alluring, irresistible. They travel until the star stops over the place where the child is.

They enter the house, see Jesus, and Mary his mother, and they rejoice. Before them is the child who is called Messiah, God-in-the-flesh, prince of peace. The child who will threaten all political order by preaching a message of love instead of power, a policy of forgiveness instead of retribution, an agenda of servanthood instead of exploitation. And they rejoice. They come face-to-face with Jesus, and they are filled with joy, not fear. They meet Jesus, and they see there eternal light and life, and they know in their hearts that there is no good to be done by returning to Herod. This child needs to live. And so they set out for home once again, returning not by that same road through Jerusalem, but by a different route.

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the wise men left for their own country by another road.

I don’t know why you are sitting here today. Maybe it’s habit, to get up on a Sunday morning and head to church; maybe it is what you did as a child and what you mean to do for your children as well. Maybe you met Jesus years and years ago, and your heart has long trusted God’s promises of grace and mercy, and you come here to repeat your joy, week after week. Maybe you believe but are doubting, and come here for answers or assurance. Maybe you are intrigued by this Jesus-guy, but still unsure, and you are here because you are following a light toward a child who you have not yet seen, and you wonder if one day, you will meet him here.

Like those traveling magi, each of us is here because some star in the sky has captured our imagination, and we want to find the place where Jesus is, and meet him face-to-face.

We want to draw near to love and to forgiveness. We want to know that we are not past hope. We want to know that there is a power beyond our own selves, our own governments, our own international struggles and dictators and disputes. We follow the star to Jesus because we want peace and we want to be restored and we want the old, rough parts of us to be made new. And we want to know that there is life beyond life, abundant life beyond just going through the motions, life that wins out even over death.

And so we travel together, following a star in hopes that we will meet Jesus. Maybe we’ll meet him here, in the waters of baptism or in the bread at the table, or in the witness of the scriptures, or in acts of mercy and hospitality and love. And maybe we’ll meet him outside these doors, in friends who shine with divine love, or in places of hope, or even in places of fear and despair that leave us clinging to faith instead of to our own ambitions.

But you have to know something. I have to warn you. Something happens when we meet Jesus face-to-face. Something happens when the star stops over the place where Jesus is. Our hearts leap for joy, yes, but then something else happens. We are changed. We are made different. We travel home by a different road. Meeting Jesus makes all of our old roads obsolete.

When we have been forgiven so deeply and completely, we cannot walk our old roads of spite. Christ calls us to new roads of grace and mercy.

When we have been fed with holy food and drink, and bathed in cleansing, forgiving waters, we cannot walk our old roads of luxury. Christ calls us to new roads of feeding others, and giving them water when they are thirsty, and caring for their basic needs.

When we have received peace and hope that pass all understanding, we cannot walk our old roads of division and distrust and war. Christ calls us to new roads of reconciliation and unity and love.

When we have been given abundant life, we cannot walk our old roads of ignorance or greed. Christ calls us to new roads where we are dissatisfied with oppression, poverty, and death, new roads where we seek life and abundant life for all.

When we have received such great joy, we cannot walk our old roads of bashfulness or keeping quiet. Christ calls us to new roads of witness, of letting our light shine in word and deed, of making an account for the hope that is in us.

You have two markers in your possession, my friends. One has traced your steps this and every time your travels have brought you to Jesus. The other is just waiting to trace out your new path home.

Yes, this new road might be bumpier. It might be dirtier, and filled with strangers. It might take you a long way off course. But there’s a lot to see on this new road – beauty and wonder and newness - and it’s well lit.

In the words of artist and poet Jan Richardson:

We cannot show you
the route that will
take you home;
that way is yours
and will be found
in the walking.

But we tell you
you will wonder
at how the light you thought
you had left behind
goes with you,
spilling from
your empty hands,
shimmering beneath
your homeward feet,
illuminating the road
with every step
you take.

Blessings on your journey, my friends. Blessings on your new roads. May the light of Christ that meets you in the star and in the manger accompany all of your steps. And may you shine with the light of Christ who walks with you. Amen.

Incarnation window at Boe Chapel, St. Olaf College

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. (John 1:1-14)

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It started here last night.

It started with the one white Christ candle standing tall in the center of the Advent wreath, flickering brightly in the dim sanctuary.

It started. One candle flame, alive and dancing. And I tipped my candle toward it, and then there were two. And Pastor Miller tipped his candle toward mine, and then there were three.

We started at the inner corners of the sanctuary, holding our light so that others could receive it. And the light began to spread. A few candles grew into many, a few flames grew into a wave of fire. The dark night of the sanctuary became like dawn, full of brightness and heat, and we sang:

“Silent night, holy night, all is calm all is bright….Glories stream from heaven afar…Radiant beams from thy holy face, with the dawn of redeeming grace.”

The light from our candles lit the way through the night, and that light has now spread into the dawning of this Christmas Day. The moon has passed away into the morning sun, and the stars and angels have faded away into the brightness of God-in-the-flesh in his first day on earth all over again.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.


That night when Mary and Joseph wandered the streets of Bethlehem, looking for shelter, it must have felt very dark. They had no place to rest and no place to keep warm. They were strangers in a city that should have felt like home. Homeless, hungry, cold, and in need, the dark night pressed in upon them…

...until a stable-lamp was lit. They came in out of the cold and dark. They nestled into a corner of a safe place, where cows and sheep held vigil. In the dim light of the stable, Christ was born, the light of the world.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Out in the fields, the shepherds sat, nodding off in the black of nighttime. They kept one eye open amidst their dozing to fend off the shadows of wolves or thieves that would dare harm their flocks. Tired, overworked, exhausted, and poor, the night pressed in upon them…

…until the sky blazed with choirs of angels, praising God and singing “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth!” The shepherds, rich in joy and wonder, danced and leaped and rushed through the brightness to gaze upon the light of the Christ child in the manger.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

After nightfall and the doings of each day, we sit on our couches, and in the dark we watch the evening news. We endure reports of violence, whether in schools or in the Middle East or on the streets of Chicago. We see the darkness of hunger and poverty. We watch news anchors on location after storms and earthquakes and rebellions and protests. And like each generation before us, we say to ourselves, “we live in a dark time…”

…until we wake on Christmas morning, and the birds herald God’s new dawn over a world that has been changed, turned upside-down, because a baby has been born. Not just any baby, but Christ our Savior. He is our long-expected Jesus, born to set his people free, the son of righteousness who is risen with healing in his wings.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.


Christmas Day has awoken upon this sanctuary. And in the dawning of this day, you notice that we have kept lighting candles around us, even in the daylight, adding to the splendor of this morning, light upon light. We light candles to remind us that Christ is born and that Christ is here.

We light the candles in front of the pulpit, telling us that Christ is present in the reading of scripture and the proclamation of God’s word.

We light the altar candles, which remind us that the light of Christ is present at the table, in the bread we eat and wine we drink, which nourishes us with God’s grace and forgiveness.

We light the four blue candles of the Advent wreath, remembering that even as we celebrate Christ’s birth today, we continue to wait for the day when Christ will come again.

We light Christ candle in the center of the Advent wreath, telling us that the light of Christ is once again born in the manger and in our hearts.

And today, a rare and special Christmas Day, we also light two other candles.

We light the tall Paschal candle – that strikes the fear of God into the hearts of the shorter acolytes who have to light it – because today we will celebrate a baptism. We will tell Harper Noelle that Christ is present in those waters, in which she will die to sin and rise again as an everlasting child of God.

And soon, we will light a baptismal candle and hold it in front of her curious eyes, and tell her that Jesus is the light of the world and pray that she, too, will let the light of Christ shine in her and through her that all might see God’s image in her.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Every candle we light today says the same thing: Christ is here. But not only here. If I were to keep lighting candles in every place where Christ is present…

I would light a candle in the tents of homeless families and refugees and immigrants, for Christ, too, was a stranger in his own land.

I would light a candle at the feet of martyrs and prisoners and slaves and oppressed women, for Christ, too, suffered under the hands of unjust rulers.

I would light a candle inside every empty refrigerator and in every shelter and in every line winding out the door of a food pantry or soup kitchen, for Christ, the bread of life, is born today in Bethlehem, the aptly-named “city of bread.”

I would light a candle in office cubicles and on assembly lines, in fire houses and in police stations, in schools and in hospitals, for Christ lives in the gifts and vocations that each of us has been given.

I would light a candle by every cradle of every newborn, and by every gravestone of every saint who has gone before us, for Christ was born among us, and died, and rose again in blinding brightness.

If I were to keep lighting candles everywhere that Christ is present, the universe would look an awful lot like last night’s sanctuary.

One candle would become two, and then four, and four hundred, and then a thousand and beyond.

Because in Christ is life. And his holy life and love is the light of all people

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The light of Christ shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.
For Christ was born in deepest night, and by his birth God dawned the deepest light.

This is why we celebrate Christmas. Why we need it, again and again each year, a thousand years back and a thousand years forward. Because we need this beautiful, fragile reminder that there is no place so dark that Christ’s light cannot shine, there is no corner so hidden that Christ’s light cannot illumine it.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, has come into the world.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will never overcome it.

And we have seen the Word-made-flesh who lived among us, and we have seen his brilliant shining glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth and light.

"THE VISITATION" by Fergal of Claddagh, on Flickr

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." And Mary said,

"My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever."
(Luke 1:39-55)

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Today, we begin at the end. The end of Advent, the end of winter days getting shorter, the end of our Christmas preparations, and the end of the intertwined stories of Mary and Elizabeth. In today’s gospel as they finally meet together, two cousins, two servants of the Lord, two miraculous pregnancies. Mary, the young cousin, is carrying in her womb the son of God, and Elizabeth, the old cousin, is carrying in her once-barren womb the prophet John, who would later be called the Baptizer.

We know Mary’s story – about Gabriel’s visit and Mary’s willingness to say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” Mary is our vision of expectant waiting, a pregnant woman awaiting the birth of her child with anxious excitement, because this is the child who will change the world.

In today’s gospel, Mary sings about a world turned head-over-foot at Christ’s birth. She sings about how God’s mercy will prevail over an unjust world. Power will be shifted. The poor and lowly will be raised up. The hungry will be filled. The weak will be made strong. The forgotten will be remembered. God’s promise to his people will be fulfilled, that they shall live secure, and Christ the Messiah will be great to the ends of earth, and shall be the bringer of peace.

Now maybe I’m a little cynical, or at least a little despairing, but this new world, filled with justice and mercy and peace, seems pretty impossible to me sometimes. I long for it, desperately. I grieve for it. And I wait for it, even though my heart often wavers and has difficulty believing that I will ever see this restored world for which I wait.

As we close out this Advent, as we grieve our slain children, as we stare cancer straight in the eye, as we lament wars and rumors of wars, and as we bear the weight of unanswered prayers, for us, I am more and more convinced that it is not Mary’s story that we need to hear. No, in the darkest days of our Advent waiting, we need Elizabeth’s story. Elizabeth, who holds company with Sarah, Rebekah, and Hannah, and all of us who have ever felt barren and unfulfilled, who have waited on a God who seems far off.

Elizabeth’s story is very different than Mary’s. Elizabeth is not young. She is long married. She is barren, without children and without a future. Elizabeth is righteous before God and blameless, faithful and of priestly lineage. And still, for the better part of her life, her faithfulness had proven fruitless to accomplish the deepest desire of her heart. It takes a whole lifetime of waiting and disappointment for God, at the chosen time, to do the impossible and to bring her a child.

Elizabeth gives us permission to admit that waiting is hard. Elizabeth knows that it is hard to wait when there are no guarantees. She knows that waiting is not always expectant, and that waiting sometimes feels like being trapped between impatience and impossibility.

Elizabeth is a character for any of us who have learned that we cannot always draw a straight line between prayers offered and prayers fulfilled. Hers is a story for any of us who feel stuck and stale and tired as we wait for impossible things:

• Impossible things like the questions we have about our ordinary lives for which we have no answers: why we fall ill or why loved ones suffer, or why unthinkable tragedies unfold before our eyes;
• Impossible things like the big things in our future that seem insurmountable: discerning where we will work or live, big expenses like houses or cars or healthcare, facing chronic or terminal illness;
• Impossible things like the dreams and hopes that seem to frivolous to consider or too difficult to attain: getting your fifteen minutes of fame, earning a promotion or landing your dream job, going back to school to finish your degree – or to earn another one, miracle cures, defying the odds.

And yet Gabriel says of Elizabeth, "Nothing is impossible with God."

Elizabeth challenges each of us to believe that this one simple statement might actually be true. And not true in a trite sort of way - you know, trivializing our own hopes or the hopes of others with a quick "Nothing's impossible for God" and a shoulder shrug. I'm talking about really really believing it.

Believing that the God who did crazy and miraculous things back in Bible days still does crazy and miraculous things in our world. Having the audacity to believe that things can change, that our world can be different, that God really acts in our lives, even when things seem improbable, crazy, or downright hopeless. Having the guts to trust God even when things don’t go our way. Having the peace of spirit to ask in prayer, “What impossibility is God seeking to make possible in me and in my life?” and “What is God seeking to birth through me?”

The good news that Elizabeth gives us is the assurance of God’s possibility in our current state of impossibility. She points to a God who is unhindered by human limitation, a God who draws blessings out of barren places. We need Elizabeth’s story because it reminds us that closed doors aren’t always locked doors. Elizabeth’s story gives us strength to keep believing that God can work miracles for us, even if he hasn’t yet, or even if they aren’t the miracles we’d have chosen for ourselves.

See, the miracle in Elizabeth’s story is not that she got what she wanted. It’s not that God answered her prayer just like she had hoped for. The miracle in Elizabeth’s story is that God chose to birth his possibility through her own human impossibility. God brought his life out of human barrenness. God gave Elizabeth a new story in place of her old one, and God in Christ offers each of us a new story as well, in place of our old stories. Our old stories of brokenness are replaced with God’s story of wholeness. Our old stories of discontent are replaced with God’s story of peace. Our old stories of death are replaced with God’s story of life.

And so we find ourselves right back at Mary’s Magnificat, singing about new worlds and new stories and a new vision of God’s justice and mercy being born in a stable and God’s grace and peace sleeping quietly in a manger.

With Mary, we sing, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for the Mighty One has done great things, and holy is his name.” And with Elizabeth, we feel joy leap within us as Christ comes to visit us. We have hope for ourselves and for our world, because two unlikely women conceived two unlikely children. Two unlikely women said “yes” to God’s possibilities. Two beautiful, unlikely, blessed women meet us here and embrace each of us, and whisper into our ear, “Nothing is impossible for God.”

And so, to the impossible, to the unlikely, to the miraculous, to God himself, we say “yes.”

Yes, Lord. Be born again to our hearts. Bring your possibility to birth in us. You are the Mighty One. You have done great things. And holy is your name.

"Cleaning Day?" by Dean Terry, on Flickr

Jesus said, "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

Then he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." (Luke 21:25-36)
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In Wendell Berry’s novel, Jayber Crow, his title character reflects, “History overflows time. Love overflows the allowance of the world. All the vessels overflow, and no end or limit stays put. Every shakable thing has got to be shaken.”

Every shakable thing has got to be shaken. Love overflows the allowance of the world.

If ever there were a poetic way to make sense of today’s readings, these two statements might just be it.

It is the first day of the new church year, and the beginning of the Advent season, where we focus on God's promises and our hope. But we begin this season with a gospel reading that paints us a difficult picture of a trembling creation and a world turned upside-down.

Every shakable thing has to be shaken. Love overflows the allowance of the world.

Advent reminds us that Jesus’ coming shakes things up. Even as we spend the season waiting to hear again the story of Christ’s first entry in the world, we recognize that our entire lives of faith are spent waiting for Christ’s re-entry into the world. And just as Jesus’ birth was heralded by a crazy traveling star and a sky full of angels, at the end of the ages, Christ tells that his return will be marked by “signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.” Jesus says that even “the powers of the heavens will be shaken” when the kingdom of God draws near.

Every shakable thing has to be shaken. Love overflows the allowance of the world.

The message in our gospel reading is clear: when love overflows the allowance of the world, when Christ breaks in – and I mean really breaks in – to our existence, every shakable thing will be shaken. Nothing will be as it once was.

Growing up, I shared a room with my two younger sisters. We slept on bunk beds that were opposite a wall filled with shelving, which held books and records and toys and games. One afternoon when I was about nine years old, we were charged with the simple task of cleaning up our room. The expectation was that we’d put the Legos back in the box and return our stuffed animals to our beds, and really just tidy up the clutter.

But since I was nine years old, in charge of the situation, and, apparently, a Type A personality, I took one look around the room and decided that the only way to truly get things cleaned up was to take everything off of the shelves and completely reorganize the room. A quick-fix tidy-up-the-clutter mentality seemed insufficient to me. So I started pulling books off the shelves. Berenstain Bears and Angelina Ballerina and Amelia Bedelia flew from shelf to floor. CandyLand and Chutes and Ladders sat at the bottom of a pile underneath “Wee Sing Silly Songs” and “Wee Sing Bible Songs” cassette tapes.

You should have seen the look on my mother’s face when she walked into the room, expecting to see things neater, and instead seeing absolute chaos. I calmly and rationally explained to her, “the room will be cleaner if we just take everything down and start over.”

Yes, out of childlike and overflowing love for my appointed task, I turned everything upside down with the hope of making my little world better than it had started.

This is what Jesus is trying to teach us in today’s gospel: that out of God’s overflowing love, he promises us hope and life and reconciliation and redemption, even if it means turning the world upside-down to bring us all of those things.

I suppose that if God loved the world just a little bit, then God would be content to send us quick fixes and temporary patches for the worn and broken parts of our existence. And honestly, I think that most of us, when we pray “thy kingdom come,” only pray it half-earnestly, because we really just want God to send down bits and pieces of a kingdom to fill in the gaps in our human existence.

But is it not true that there are yearnings and fears that need something bigger than merely a taste of the kingdom? Are there not longings and hopes that can only be soothed by a full reversal of life as we know it?

I think of a day earlier this fall when Pastor Miller (my senior pastor) and I spent a Sunday afternoon in two different and very sacred spaces that left us longing for more than just a taste of God’s kingdom.

He spent the afternoon at the bedside of a dying woman from our congregation, having been summoned by her hospice care-givers. He anointed her and prayed with her, as he had done so many times before over the preceding months. He held her hands and held the hands of her grown children, offering them words of God’s peace and hope. And in that moment, the prayer on his heavy heart was an earnest, “thy kingdom come, Lord.”

Meanwhile, I spent the afternoon here at church, at “Ella’s Dance Party,” Zumba-ing with congregation and community members alike to raise funds for two-year-old Ella’s care as she lives with SMA. As I tried to keep step with the dance moves, I kept glancing over at Ella, who was observing the action from her bright pink power wheelchair, her wispy blonde hair held back by a purple clip that matched everyone’s matching purple shirts. I realized in that moment that my heart wanted more than just a cure for Ella. I wanted God to burst in with true healing, full restoration, of body and of spirit, for wholeness. And the prayer on my own heart that afternoon was an earnest, “thy kingdom come.”

Yes, sometimes each one of us faces the truth that we need more than just a taste of the kingdom. We need God to rush into our world, riding on the clouds, spilling out love and peace and redemption into our world…even if it means turning the world upside-down in its wake.

Every shakable thing has to be shaken. Love overflows the allowance of the world.

As you look at your own life, what are your wounds of body, mind, or spirit that require something more profound than a spiritual Band-Aid for healing? What are the aches and pains in your soul that need deep comfort? What are the temptations and longings that weigh you down? What are the anxieties that paralyze you? What are the dark places in your life that need the dawning of God’s new day to brighten them with new life?

Jesus promises us that he will return, and that our lifetimes of advent waiting will not be in vain. Jesus promises us that when all creation trembles about us, and when we feel certain that chaos is about to rule the day, we will yet be able to hold our heads high, for God has promised us his kingdom, and we are not without hope. Jesus assures us that when the world finally breaks open under the weight of God’s love, it is our redemption – and not our destruction – which is drawing near.

Because Jesus has already broken into our human existence once before. He shook a star loose from the sky, he calmed the raging seas, he walked on water, and he reversed people’s fortunes: sick people were healed, outsiders became insiders, justice became mercy. And, on the cross, death became abundant life.

God’s kingdom is already stirring among us. The promise of restoration has already been given to us. And in this waiting gap, we raise our heads in hope, looking to the day when the love of God so overflows the world that it comes crashing through all of our limits and shakes the final foundations of the world. For in this sweep of change, we can see through to a glistening picture of God’s restoration for us and for our world.

Every shakable thing has got to be shaken.

For God’s love overflows the allowance of the world.

And so we pray, “Thy kingdom come, O Lord. Amen.”

My sister is a Starbucks manager. This means that whenever there is a new drink on the way, or a new product about to debut, or a new treat about to show up in the pastry case, she knows about it first. And she shares her knowledge with all of us in the family. We have become Starbucks early-adopters.

And so I remember what a big deal it was when she brought with her first two sample boxes of VIA packets on a siblings trip to Door County a few summers ago – Starbucks instant coffee! How nifty!

And how indicative of our life and times. We live in a fast world. It’s not just instant coffee. It’s the Jimmy John’s commercials advertising “freaky fast delivery” and our impatience with standing in line, and even the itch to begin Black Friday earlier and earlier – even on Thanksgiving Day! – so that we can get to our shopping sooner.

This, my friends, is why we need Advent. Advent is a season of waiting, of slowing down, of delaying gratification, of living in this moment instead of rushing ahead to the next.

One of my favorite Advent reflections is entitled “Eating Batter,” written by Mike Baughman, a United Methodist Pastor. He contrasts the culture Advent with our culture of instant gratification. He says,

We live in a society dominated by instant gratification. Some attempts at the instant are trivial: instant soup, coffee, oatmeal–even Mac’n'Cheese. There’s instant messaging, text messages, twitter and cell phones to help us instantly get in touch. There are unfortunate expressions of our desire for instant gratification: abundant pornography, excessive debt and various addictions to name a few.

In a society of instant gratification, advent is a time that we embrace the awkward (anyone ever notice how awkwardly awkward is spelled?), choose the silence and worry–worry that things won’t come out right, that we’ve screwed something up. Advent is a time to worry. It is a time to wait. It is a time that is meant to make people worry–especially the powers that be! It is also a time to hope–a time to look forward to what might be. It is a time to build up expectations and make room for something new. Advent isn’t about instant. It’s about waiting.

He compares the season of Advent to baking a cake. No matter how good the ingredients, what makes the cake delicious – and edible, even! – is time. Time spent in the oven, cooking, rising, getting ready.

Part of the discipline - and frankly, part of the wonder - of Advent is the patience to which it calls us. This is a season of taking time and space to reflect upon all of our longings and to grow in faith through the practice of waiting. We count down days until Christmas, yes, but the whole Christian life is a life of Advent. We spend our lifetimes awaiting the day when Christ will come again, and with him, the new heavens and new earth that have been promised to us by God.

So I wonder what our lives would look like if we shifted our values from "instant" to "eternal." If we fill our days eating the cake batter of this world, then we are apt to spend lives filled but not fulfilled, satiated but not nourished. This is the challenge to us, my friends, both in Advent and in the wider advent of our lives: to willingly live in a state of longing for the food that does not perish, the food that is for eternal life.

"Ready Rubble" by juleswrules, on Flickr

At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. (Daniel 12:1-3)

As [Jesus] came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!" Then Jesus asked him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down." When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished? Then Jesus began to say to them, "Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. (Mark 13:1-8)
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It feels like the end of the world.

Advent is just two weeks away, and our readings in these last Sundays of the church year tell us stories of the end of all things. Outside, the seasons are changing, and darkness falls earlier and earlier over the bleak, barren trees. We just finished an election season that preached doom and gloom messages of our world falling apart if you voted for the wrong guy. The news media is currently preaching the doom and gloom message of a so-called fiscal cliff our government and nation are facing. The east coast and islands in the Atlantic are working hard to clean up after the apocalyptically-named Superstorm Sandy. December 21 is just a few weeks away, and the more superstitious of us wonder whether the end of Mayan calendar means the end of all things.

It feels like the end of the world.

Over the last few days, too many friends have lost grandparents and loved ones, and there have been sick children and hurting people, and then there is the ongoing violence in Israel and ongoing news of wars and rumors of wars all around the world. You probably have your own similar stories of encounters with bad news and change and fear and uncertainty that makes you feel like things are turning upside-down. Like everything could fall apart. Like it’s the end of the world.

In today’s readings, both Daniel and Jesus address similar fears that the world might be falling apart. And today’s readings both fall into the category of “proclamations of good news that don’t really sound like good news.” These are both apocalyptic readings, which means that they are readings that speak in sweeping terms about a divine struggle between good and evil, locating the listeners’ current struggles within a cosmic framework. The point of apocalyptic readings like this is to say that whatever the present sufferings, no matter how bad things get, in the end, God always wins.

It’s a double-edged message that Jesus gives us in today’s gospel. He first has to remind his disciples – and us - that everything in this world will someday come to an end. But he then stands in front of us as a living reminder that even there, at the end, God reigns triumphant, giving us life even after all things pass away.

“See what large stones and buildings!” the disciples exclaim in today’s gospel. “See what big and unshakable things have been built by human hands! Surely these things will never pass away!” The disciples are us. We want to put our faith in the things of this world, believing that these things are ultimate, lasting, invincible, unshakable.

Theologian Paul Tillich says that “faith is the state of being ultimately concerned.” What he means by this is that whatever consumes us, whatever priorities demand our whole selves and promise us ultimate fulfillment in return, whatever ultimate concern we put at the top of our list, that is the object of our faith. And the difference between true faith and idolatrous faith is simple: “In true faith,” Tillich says, “the ultimate concern is a concern about the truly ultimate; while in idolatrous faith, preliminary, finite realities are elevated to the rank of ultimacy.”

See what large stones and buildings…see what human things we elevate to the rank of ultimacy…

The large stones that we fixate on might be the economy, our jobs, our desire to guarantee our children a good college education, or the preservation of a particular standard of living for ourselves and our families. The grand buildings we cling to might be our team’s win-loss record, our devotion to particular diets, foods, or exercises, our political views or hot-button social issues, or our jam-packed schedules.

“See what large stones and buildings!” we exclaim, elevating the concerns of this world to cosmic significance, hoping that we might build up for ourselves unshakable fortresses that will resist change or pain.

But Jesus steps in to remind the disciples – and us – that life is bigger than the buildings we create. The hard truth is that everything will one day pass away, that everything has an ending, that nothing in life is set in stone other than the promise and foundation we have in God. Trust me, this is a hard message. It is impossibly hard to hear that everything we care about, everything we love, everything that is part of our human existence, is ultimately shakable and will one day fall to the ground.

But this hard message helps us get our hearts into focus. It helps us seek the greater promises of God instead of fixating on the things of this world; to focus on things ultimate instead of things temporal.

When things fall around us, when our stones and buildings are thrown down, when everything we thought was permanent tumbles to the ground, out of the rubble, God’s new world emerges triumphant. It is the promise in today’s gospel and in all apocalyptic literature, from Daniel to Revelation: at the end of all things, God still stands, life still prevails, hope still reigns, salvation is at hand. Good triumphs over evil, God brings life from death, the end is not the end after all, because God has promised us life after the end.

This double-edged apocalyptic message – everything will end, but God still stands – is a message of freedom or us. Because Christ has won for us the ultimate victory over sin and death, we are free from the pressure to let the cares of this world become our ultimate concern. We are free to focus our hearts on God and to focus our lives on serving God and serving one another.

We have the peace of Christ in our hearts, which means that we need not fear. We need not get swept up in anxiety that the world is falling apart, and we need not indulge messages of doom and despair. This isn’t to say that we are immune from bad stuff happening in life. And this isn’t to say that we shouldn’t feel grief or pain or uncertainty.

But it means that we can trust God to walk with us through every storm, and be comforted by a savior who knows the sum of all grief and all pain, even unto death, and we can know deep in our hearts that we can choose hope over despair, and that we are bound up in God’s perfect love, which casts out all fear.

So the next time you come face-to-face with an end-of-the-world prediction, or the next time you hear a pundit predicting the demise of our country and our world, or the next time that your inner voices of fear wake you up in the middle of the night, Christ invites you to stop, and breathe, and be at peace.

Because whenever it feels like you are staring at the end of the world, you will see there is an empty tomb, and a risen savior, and a resurrected world bursting with new creation. God has not abandoned you, and God will not neglect his creation. As Jesus says, even our fears and struggles and pains are redeemed by God as the birth pangs to a brighter world that has been promised and won for us. And in this brighter world, God promises that we will “shine like the brightness of the sky, like the stars forever and ever.” For all things might come to an end, but God has promised us an after. So keep strong. Stay alert. And cling to the hope you have in Christ, our savior, our light, and our everlasting Lord.

"Rebel Rebel" by Thomas Hawk, on Flickr

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to [Jesus] and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." And he said to them, "What is it you want me to do for you?" And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" They replied, "We are able." Then Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared."

When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Mark 10:35-45)
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I read an absolutely atrocious op-ed piece last week written by a man trying to explain for the world what women voters are looking for in a presidential candidate. He held up archaic fictional men from movies and television as examples of rugged strength, on the one hand, and sensitive strength, on the other hand. He tried to draw conclusions about what sort of powerful man a woman would vote for. It was pretty awful.

But it also reflected something of the culture that has surrounded both presidential debates thus far, and the media culture of this election: our focus on perceived power and strength in each of the candidates. Following the debates, the critera for “winning” each debate turned out not to be the strength of ideas and policies. The criteria became who portrayed themselves with more strength and more power; who was more aggressive; whose persona embodied the weighty power of the presidential office. And so our election rhetoric has devolved into polarities: power versus weakness, strength versus softness.

Today’s gospel begins with this same concern for power. James and John approach Jesus, cool and confident that he will give them whatever they ask, and request that they be given seats of honor and power when Jesus comes into his kingdom, one sitting at his right hand and one at his left. They want Jesus to assure them that following him will bring them glory and reward and power.

And Jesus’ response? “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

Or in other words, the point of the gospel is not power and glory as the world would have us understand it, but rather the power of God in acts of kindness, compassion, and service to one another.

What James and John could not see, and what the squabbling disciples could not yet understand, is that we do not follow Jesus for power or prestige, and that following Jesus requires that we follow him all the way to the cross.

Martin Luther’s theology of the cross asks the question, “Where is God to be found?” And the answer is that God is not to be found in places of glory, but rather in Jesus on the cross, at the heart of human suffering. As implied in the famous sheep-and-goats parable in Matthew 25, Jesus is to be found in the faces of the sick, the hungry, the naked, and the poor…and not in our images of power.

And so today’s gospel has a little bite to it as it simultaneously convicts and comforts us.

It convicts us because we are so human, just like James and John, and just like the rest of the disciples. We buy in to the promises of power and glory that tempt us every day, to the lure of success and of material gain, to lofty and self-aggrandizing campaign promises, to dreams of fame and fortune, to self-help messages encouraging us to look out for number one.

And unfortunately, even among Christians, within the church, we face temptation to lord our faith over the faith or unbelief of others. Some use their faith greedily, to secure their own need for wealth and fame. Some preach the false message that faith brings material prosperity and power. Some use their faith to speak with arrogant certainty about who God has judged with mercy and who God has condemned for all eternity. Some use their understanding of faith to claim superiority over others.

One of the most hurtful things that has ever been said to me took place one summer in college, when I was working for an ecumenical youth missions organization. An older colleague, in the midst of a conversation about Christian denominations, told me that my Lutheran-ness was a sign of spiritual immaturity, and that he, being older and more spiritually mature, had picked the right form of Christianity in his evangelicalism. I’m not quite sure what he was trying to insult – my faith, my church, my trust in the wideness of God’s mercy, my view of scripture, my age, my gender – who knows. But I walked away from that conversation dumbfounded how any Christian person might matter-of-factly say something as demeaning as “I am more spiritually mature than you.”

Yes, even with the best of intentions, all of us humans fall prey to the lure of holding power and superiority over others, even those of us who are trying our best to follow Jesus. And so this gospel today convicts us to pray daily for humility and forgiveness, and for God to give us servant hearts.

But the gospel is not only there to convict us. Today’s gospel also comforts us in a big way. It reminds us that God loves us and calls us, even in our weaknesses, to live as his servants in the world, free to live for compassion and humility rather than worldly power or glory. As people of faith, we are free to do feeble, small, humble things in response to God’s love, things which the grandeur of the world can’t quite comprehend.

We gather together in this place, where we do simple things like splash water around, and eat a poor man’s feast of bread and wine, and do low-tech things like praying together and singing together. We sit together around coffee and share our lives, we get together to read a common book of faith, we bring our children here to eat together and sing together and study together. We also do simple things like cooking food for hungry people and collecting money for to helpless people and collecting everyday objects like towels and bars of soap to give to needy people.

How strange and powerless these things must look to the eyes of a world which are so often fixed on images of power and aggression!

But it is these and other small acts of faithfulness that serve as antidote to the corrupting nature of power. It is these small acts of faithfulness which serve as tiny but necessary rebellions against power-hungry and self-seeking structures in our world.

Did you know that you are a rebel?

When you follow Jesus’ instruction to love your enemies, you are rebelling against war and violence. When you show compassion to your neighbors, you are rebelling against political systems that promise us personal gain at the expense of others. When we choose to stand with the poor and oppressed, we rebel against the myth that we can all be rich and successful if we just work hard enough. When we offer one another grace and forgiveness, we are rebelling our culture’s overwrought sense of justice and retribution. Following Jesus lets us be patient, generous, and compassionate in the very places where the world would expect us to be impatient, selfish, and unkind.

There is nothing glamorous about all of this. Of course, there’s also nothing terribly glamorous about following a dusty carpenter who touches all sorts of sick people and washes people’s feet and embarrasses religious and political leaders and who, at the end, is executed like any other common criminal.

But it’s not about the glamor, and we know it.

It’s about the promise: The son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. We live as servants of God and one another because we have been redeemed by God’s own suffering servant. We follow Jesus even to the weakness of death because we have been promised life.

So how can you live as a rebel this week? How can you set aside the lure of wealth and power and instead pursue compassion and justice? How is God calling you not to be served, but to serve?

For it is in our serving that we come face to face with Jesus, the redeemer of the world. And it is in our weakness that find God’s strength. And it is in dying to ourselves that we receive back the full measure of God’s glory revealed to us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our savior, our servant, and our life-giving Lord.

Amen.

"Broken heart" by bored-now, on Flickr

Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner." So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken." Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. (Genesis 2:18–24)

Some Pharisees came, and to test [Jesus] they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her." But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."  People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them. (Mark 10:2–16)
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One week ago, I was standing in a gazebo next to Adam, a grinning groom who stood tall and didn’t fidget at all as we watched bridesmaids in deep burgundy dresses process in with their groomsmen, lining up along the steps, preparing the way for Emily, the beautiful bride, to emerge out of the doors on her father’s arm, ready to walk the aisle to meet her new husband and to exchange with him promises of love, laughter, and fidelity.

It is a harsh reality, then, to follow up last week’s perfect autumnal picture of love with today’s readings, in which the realities of human love and human brokenness clash in an uncomfortable and distressing way.

So let’s begin with the elephant in the room, and get a few things out of the way as we begin. Yes, Jesus talks about divorce today, and yes, he says things that are difficult, uncomfortable, and perhaps even impossible to reconcile with our modern world and personal experience. No, I am not going to preach you a sermon about divorce. No, I don’t think that Jesus’ words here are supposed to be a definitive teaching on either marriage or on divorce. And no, I don’t think it is at all helpful to read today’s gospel as a judgment, threat, or condemnation.

Instead, when you take both readings today together, we get a picture of God’s hope, a picture of Jesus’ lament, and then a picture of God’s mercy and our hope.

Our first reading from Genesis sets the scene, and gives us a picture of how God intended us, as humans, to relate to one another. Seeing the loneliness of the first human, God creates a second human for companionship and for love, saying “it is not good for man to be alone.” We ourselves know the very human longing to share our lives with one another and to build relationships, whether those be family relationships or friendships, romantic relationships or collegial partnerships. We want to surround ourselves with people who care for us, and people who share our interests, and people with whom we can share ourselves.

At last week’s wedding, I preached about marriage as a daily choice to love and commit to this particular person, and to orient your life around love and care for the other, no matter what. This is the same for all of our relationships: we choose to love and we choose to let ourselves be loved. We choose to surround ourselves with companions along our journey through life.

But we know the rest of Adam and Eve’s story – how it took little more than a snake and an apple to change everything, how in this time and in this place, we live far away from God’s ideal for our relationships, either human or divine.

This is where the first half of today’s gospel comes into play. The Pharisees and even the disciples, to an extent, want Jesus to explain the rules for when and how and whether you can break a relationship. But for Jesus, who knows both the divine ideal for human relationships – love your neighbor as yourself – he is not quick to indulge a conversation about legal matters. He instead grieves and laments that there exists such brokenness in our world and brokenness in our relationships with one another.

Look around our world, and you’ll find that it doesn’t take much effort to find examples of ways that that humans and our relationships with one another need a lot of healing.

If you turn on the news tonight, you may hear stories of war or violence, or campaign news of and political parties cutting one another down, or even celebrity gossip about who is in a new relationship and whose new relationship appears to be falling apart.

If you talk to a middle or high school student, I’ll promise you that they can tell you about cliques and outsiders, and about bullies who create a climate of fear through violent words or threats or actions.

Or if you look at your own life, you can remember the pain of breaking up with a girlfriend or being broken up with, or the end of a friendship, or estrangement from parents or siblings, or a time when you found yourself alone precisely when you needed someone to be there.

It is not difficult to find example after example around us of the way that humans do not always choose to love one another, or do not always succeed at loving one another.

This is where we find Jesus in today’s gospel. He knows what perfect human relationships should be. But he also knows that brokenness and fallenness and longing exist in our world as well, and he knows that we all carry pains and memories that long for healing and redemption. And Jesus knows that when he gets to Jerusalem, he too will suffer betrayal and denial, that he will be forgotten and deserted and left alone in his own deep time of need. So Jesus grieves for us and for himself. He grieves over a world that is not yet quite what it should be; a world hungry for reconciliation, a world hungry for love…love that can only be made perfect through his death.

So this brings us to the back half of today’s gospel, when we make an abrupt change in subject, from talking about broken relationships to a picture of Jesus welcoming and blessing the children. This beautiful vision of Jesus scooping up children, holding them, and loving them is a vision of hope and mercy for us, no matter what the pain we carry and no matter what the hurt we have caused others.

Children have a peculiar ability to love and to crave love with wild abandon. So also does God. And when Jesus says, “Let the children come to me,” he is not only talking to the physical children who clamor at his feet, he is also talking to you. Because each one of us is a child of God.

Now, like all children, sometimes we are wide-eyed, curious, and freely giving of our stuff and our selves. And sometimes, we are childish as well – stubborn, selfish, hard to wrangle. And sometimes, like children who have skinned their knees or suffered a moment of intense fright or frustration, we get to points in our life when we have absolutely no recourse but to weep and weep until our eyes are puffy and red.

In all of our moments of childlike joy, and in all of our moments of childlike tears, God promises to scoop us up, and to hold us close, and to smooth our hair to remind us of our blessedness. When human relationships fail or human love disappoints, God, who is love, remains by your side. Even when all other human relationships fall away, God’s relationship with you will always stand firm. Because you are his child and he loves you. Through Christ, you have a free and perfect relationship with the God who created you in his image, who loves you and shows you mercy.

Do you need to be reminded again that you, yourself, are a child of God? And that even if you are hurting or lonely or broken, God’s kingdom belongs to you? Let me remind you, then: you are a beautiful, blessed, beloved child of God. Come, touch the water in the font and touch your own forehead to remember that you are anointed and adopted and loved. And when we pass the peace later in worship, bless one another by saying “peace be with you” and “peace be in you” and “peace be between us.” And then come to the table, alongside those whom you love, those you don’t know, those you don’t understand, and even those you don’t like. Be reconciled at this table by the overflowing of God’s grace and forgiveness.

No matter what your brokenness, no matter what your fear or remorse or pain, Jesus chooses to love you again every day. And this is a love that will never fail. Jesus promises each one of us, “I will always take you into my arms. I will lay my hands on you when you need reassurance. And I will bless you. For I love you, and you are mine, now and always.”

"Timing" by alanwordguy on flickr

Jesus called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." (Mark 8:34-38)

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I started using a new workout DVD a couple weeks ago as part of my summer-long quest to get a little healthier and to try to build up, for the first time in my life, any small amount of upper body strength, because I have the wimpiest arms ever. Just ask any of the high school youth who watched me try to do a pull-up on the playground of a rest stop along our drive down to New Orleans…and right after Pastor Miller did about twenty of them in a row without even blinking…

So anyway, in the warm-up portion of the workout, the instructor says, very kindly, that you don’t have to be perfect. “Just give it everything you’ve got,” she says. And then, with an evil glint in her eye, she repeats herself, “That’s all I want – everything you’ve got.”

We hear that encouragement a lot these days: give it everything you’ve got, give it your all. It makes me wonder about the economics of giving over everything we’ve got. It makes me wonder about the economics of giving up our lives.

In the first five minutes of my first economics class in high school, my teacher defined the study of economics using another popular phrase: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Economically speaking, this means that everything always has a cost. What is free to you comes at a cost to someone else. There are fixed resources. Life is a closed system. There are so many hours in a day and so many days in a week; the cost of choosing to do one thing is not choosing to use that time to do something else. There are only so many dollars in your bank account; the cost of choosing to purchase one thing is the choice not to purchase that other thing.

Everything has a cost, and the true cost of something is what else you give up to get it. And I dare say that there are plenty of things in our lives – from coaches and teachers to bosses and television commercials, from our families to our own ambitions – that continually promise us the world, if only we give up our lives to get it.

Jesus, too, knows the demands that are placed on our lives. This is why he asks the pointed question in today’s gospel, “for what will it profit [you] to gain the whole world and forfeit [your] life?

This question exposes the temptation we all face: to forfeit our lives in order to gain the whole world; to give give give all of our time and money and energy for some promised future reward, which we hope will be, at best, equal in value to what we gave up to get it.

And so Jesus’ question for each of us is this: what are you losing your life for, either by choice or circumstance?

As a person with a career, are you losing your life to the demands of your company and your clients so that you will be considered successful?

As someone who suffers or watches someone suffer from chronic illness, are you losing your life to the intricacies of medical care, or to a sense of fear and despair?

As a spouse or significant other, do you feel pressure to lose yourself to your relationship?

As a student, are you losing your life to your grades or to your fear of failure or to the pressure to achieve a lot now so that you can get into a good college and go forward to live a successful adult life?

As a parent, are you losing your life to all the activities that your children do in the name of personal growth and well-roundedness?

As a soul dealing with anxiety or depression, are you losing your life to the masks you put up to convince the world that everything is fine?

As a broken and flawed human being – as we all are – are you losing your life to shame, fear, or regret?

And when you lose your life to any of these things, do you find yourself feeling renewed or fulfilled? I suspect not. I suspect that giving up your life for these things leaves you feeling tired at the end of the week, fragile, anxious, wistful. Because what of these sorts of things are worth what you give up to get them?

But what does Jesus say we should lose our lives for? Jesus says, “whoever loses their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

These words, my brothers and sisters, are words of freedom. Listen to what he is saying. There is only reason that Jesus calls you to lose your life: for his sake. Jesus asks us, as his disciples, to give up ourselves for the sake of the good news that he brings. This means giviving ourselves over to being peacemakers and healers, kind and gentle souls, beacons of hope, voices of praise, signs of compassion, reconcilers and restorers, even as God has reconciled and restored us.

And I know that sounds like a lot. And maybe you’re wondering how much of your current life you’ll have to give up to make space for all of that. Maybe you’re terrified to give up the life and lifestyle you have for the sake of those things, because you know that once you do, there’s no going back.

But hear again the words of promise that Jesus gives you: “Whoever loses their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it.” Jesus has already given up his whole life for you and for the sake of the world. He has turned the world upside down to reveal a kingdom of God where we are saved by grace and not by works. He has defeated death and won for us abundant life. And so he is the only one that truly gets to demand your life. And to what end? In order that you might receive a new life in return, a new heart and a new spirit, the fullness of God’s grace and mercy flowing through you.

The good news is that Jesus defies economic theory. Faith and discipleship are not a zero-sum game. God’s grace and mercy do not exist in finite quantities. At the Lord’s table, there is such a thing as a free lunch of grace and forgiveness. The cost of giving up your life for the sake of the gospel is outweighed by the irrational truth that you will get back more than you gave. Giving over your life for the sake of Jesus will get you back more life than you started with. More hope, more grace, more peace, more joy, more freedom.

Friends, you are free to say “no” to all other things in your world that demand your whole life. You are free to talk back to the voices that try to tell you that if you don’t try to do it all, you won’t be successful. You are free to find your worth not in what you do, but in who you are: a beloved child of God.

And so Jesus asks you, and asks me, and asks all of us: “What will it profit you to gain the whole world and forfeit your life?”

“But,” he says, “if you give your life to me, and lose your life to God’s good news, then I promise that you will have life and have it abundantly.”

May God give us the strength and wisdom to seek this life always.