Keeping the Season

Pilgrims' Hymn
music by Stephen Paulus
text by Michael Dennis Browne

Even before we call on Your name
To ask You, O God,
When we seek for the words to glorify You,
You hear our prayer;
Unceasing love, O unceasing love,
Surpassing all we know.

Glory to the father,
and to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit.

Even with darkness sealing us in,
We breathe Your name,
And through all the days that follow so fast,
We trust in You;
Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace,
Beyond all mortal dream.

Both now and forever,
And unto ages and ages,
Amen.

"Sun rise on a beautiful day" by Holly Victoria Norval, on Flickr

How Many Nights
by Galway Kinnell

How many nights
have I lain in terror,
O Creator Spirit, maker of night and day,

only to walk out
the next morning over the frozen world
hearing under the creaking of snow
faint, peaceful breaths...
snake,
bear, earthworm, ant...

and above me
a wild crow crying 'yaw yaw yaw'
from a branch nothing cried from ever in my life.

"Christus Vineit" by Phil Roussin, on Flickr

Isaiah 6:1–8
Romans 8:12–17
John 3:1–17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

--
Friday night, I was jolted awake by the sound of a loud, unidentified crash from somewhere in the house. I shot out of bed and down the dark staircase to figure out what the cats had knocked over. I looked in living room: nothing. Study: nothing. Downstairs bathroom: nothing. Kitchen: nothing. Dining room: nothing. Back up the stairs I went. Upstairs bathroom? Ah, there it was. A basket full of nail polish bottles and assorted extra toiletries, that usually lived on a shelf above the sink, dumped over and scattered across the floor. I scooped everything back into the basket - nothing was broken, thank goodness! - and staggered back to bed. My heart was still pounding. I looked at the clock: 4:27 a.m.

I laid back down, pulled the covers up to my chin....and, nothing. No heavy eyes, no drowsy face, no sleepy limbs. I was wide awake. And inexplicably anxious.

You've all been there, right? Awake in the middle of the night, feeling every anxiety, every worry, thinking about everything that you wish you could forget and everything that you can't afford to forget, all at once. It is in the middle of the night that we feel most certain that our prayers have been lost, and when we also feel most certain that we have no other option but to keep praying.

It is in the dark middle of the night that I often find myself thinking about my dad, replaying over and over again his last days and moments in the hospital, as if there were anything I could do now to have changed the outcome.

It is in the dark middle of the night that I try to reason with the universe in order that I might make any sense of tragedies that shake our community. Tragedies like freak accidents that claim the lives of loved ones, or the dark and fear and inner demons that could drive a terribly young person to take his own life.

It is in the dark middle of the night that I worry about everything that is beyond my power to fix or to understand.

It is in the dark middle of the night that I have no patience for mystery. Insomnia makes me a chaser of reason, rationality, and control.

The same might be said of poor Nicodemus. He is a chaser of reason, of understanding, and I wonder if Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night because he too was already lying in bed awake, struggling with all of the mysteries of the universe, struggling with his own doubts, struggling with impossible questions that need answers.

Nicodemus gets out of bed, and comes to Jesus. They have this conversation that goes in circles, all about the work of the Spirit to rebirth and recreate hearts, and about the work of God in Christ to save the world and not to condemn it.

But dear Nicodemus, bless his heart, can’t wrap his head around all of it. He can’t for the life of him figure out the mechanics of rebirth, or what on earth Jesus means when he talks about being born of the Spirit, and even this business of a God who loves and a God who dies and a God who brings eternal life is a puzzler for him. Nicodemus tries to figure out the inner workings of God and gets stuck in mystery instead. He leaves with more questions than he started with.

Which is pretty much what happens to us every time we try to find answers for this mysterious thing called the Trinity. A word, of course, that Jesus doesn’t use, and a word that never shows up in the Bible, but a word that describes the very Biblical phenomenon of a God who exists and acts as Father and Son and Spirit.

Questions abound. How is God simultaneously three and one? How can God exist in three persons, but we still say that we are monotheists, worshiping only one God? How is God different than merely a shape-shifter? What is the heavenly “division of labor” and which person of God - Father, Son, Spirit - is responsible for which divine tasks?

Let's be honest, there is no "figuring out" the Trinity. Many have tried, many have failed. Heresies abound! In fact, over dinner earlier this week, Pastor Chad jokingly asked me if I was a risk to preach heresy this weekend, to which I responded that preaching heresy is a risk I take every single week, not just on Holy Trinity Sunday!

But very seriously, you'll never hear me claim to understand the Trinity. Because I don’t. Even Martin Luther himself, preaching on Holy Trinity Sunday in 1522, conceded that the best thing you can say about the mystery of the Trinity is that you don't understand it: "We cling to the Scriptures, those passages which testify of the Trinity of God, and we say: I know very well that in God there are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; but how they can be one I do not know, neither should I know it."

I might not understand the Trinity, but I understand dark sleepless nights. And I understand grief. And I understand that our souls constantly need to keep making the choice for hope and against despair. And I think the Trinity might have something to say about this.

Because having a God who exists as three means that we have a God who has experienced everything that there is to experience. God as Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer has the divine ability to hold together all creativity, need, hope, suffering, and salvation. There is no dark night, no creative moment, no mystery or question or joy or confusion, on earth or in heaven, that God-in-three-persons has not already experienced, loved, and redeemed.

But more than that, at the heart of our faith is the cross. And at that pivotal moment when Christ died to destroy death, the whole Trinity was at work. While God in Christ faced death head-on, God the Creator took on the work of grief, God the Spirit made space to do the work of hope and resurrection. Because the Godhead is three-in-one, God didn't die alone on the cross, God didn't grieve alone in heaven, and God didn't lose hope.

And when you put all three of these truths together, you find the whole work of salvation; a mystery as expansive as Isaiah's smoky, terrifying vision of God filling the temple, and yet it is a comfort as dear to us as a father's tender touch.

Paul writes, "When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ — if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him."

Yes, even as we cry "Holy, holy, holy" to a God bigger than we can fathom, we also cry "Abba! Father!" to the one who loves us and claims us, and carries us through our sufferings to the glorious promise of our salvation.

And so in our sleepless nights, in our dark nights of the soul, no matter what mysteries we face, no matter what anxieties plague us, no matter what feeble prayers we raise, no matter how out of control or fearful we feel, the Trinity reminds us that God is bigger than all of it. And God has been through all of it. And God will redeem all of it.

The God who fills the temple is the God who fills the earth, who is Creator and Redeemer and Life-Giving Spirit, who is so huge that there is no place on earth or in heaven, in our heads or in our heart, where God is not present.

Madeleine L'Engle says, “I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly.”

Brothers and sisters, I do not know what your darkness is right now, whether you feel a few casual doubts or whether you wrestle with the very meaning of your life itself. But I do know when we, with Nicodemus, stumble along blindly under cover of night, we do not stumble to our doom; rather, we stumble blindly into the waiting arms of Christ. I know that in the waking hours of the night, when we reach out into the darkness, we do not reach out in vain; rather, we brush fingertips against the hem of God’s kingly robe, which stretches like a blanket over all creation. I know that when we face deepest darkness and long for sheltering wings, we do not go unembraced; rather, God pours upon us water and Spirit, flooding us with assurance of our baptisms, drenching us in the promise of God’s presence, cradling us in the reassuring and persistent flow of all love and rebirth and hope.

The Trinity is an eternal mystery. But it is proof for us that God is able - and willing - to reconcile all things to himself, no matter how painful or contradictory those things may be. The Trinity is assurance for us that we are yet children of light, even when we sit in darkness. For God loves the world. Christ saves the world. The Spirit breathes rebirth into the world. Even in the middle of the night, there is hope.

Let us pray.

God of the Heavens,
keeper of the stars,
Lord of the darkest, most remote places
of the universe,
the one who hovered and breathed life,
and the Creator of every living thing:
Be our salvation, our comfort,
our hope, for you are holy and righteous,
your words are true
and your light dispels all darkness.

Glory to the Almighty God,
Sun of Righteousness
and Breath of Life.
Amen.
(prayer by Thomas Turner; posted on everdayLiturgy)

"Christus Vineit" by Phil Roussin, on Flickr

Isaiah 6:1–8
Romans 8:12–17
John 3:1–17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

--
Friday night, I was jolted awake by the sound of a loud, unidentified crash from somewhere in the house. I shot out of bed and down the dark staircase to figure out what the cats had knocked over. I looked in living room: nothing. Study: nothing. Downstairs bathroom: nothing. Kitchen: nothing. Dining room: nothing. Back up the stairs I went. Upstairs bathroom? Ah, there it was. A basket full of nail polish bottles and assorted extra toiletries, that usually lived on a shelf above the sink, dumped over and scattered across the floor. I scooped everything back into the basket - nothing was broken, thank goodness! - and staggered back to bed. My heart was still pounding. I looked at the clock: 4:27 a.m.

I laid back down, pulled the covers up to my chin....and, nothing. No heavy eyes, no drowsy face, no sleepy limbs. I was wide awake. And inexplicably anxious.

You've all been there, right? Awake in the middle of the night, feeling every anxiety, every worry, thinking about everything that you wish you could forget and everything that you can't afford to forget, all at once. It is in the middle of the night that we feel most certain that our prayers have been lost, and when we also feel most certain that we have no other option but to keep praying.

It is in the dark middle of the night that I often find myself thinking about my dad, replaying over and over again his last days and moments in the hospital, as if there were anything I could do now to have changed the outcome.

It is in the dark middle of the night that I try to reason with the universe in order that I might make any sense of tragedies that shake our community. Tragedies like freak accidents that claim the lives of loved ones, or the dark and fear and inner demons that could drive a terribly young person to take his own life.

It is in the dark middle of the night that I worry about everything that is beyond my power to fix or to understand.

It is in the dark middle of the night that I have no patience for mystery. Insomnia makes me a chaser of reason, rationality, and control.

The same might be said of poor Nicodemus. He is a chaser of reason, of understanding, and I wonder if Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night because he too was already lying in bed awake, struggling with all of the mysteries of the universe, struggling with his own doubts, struggling with impossible questions that need answers.

Nicodemus gets out of bed, and comes to Jesus. They have this conversation that goes in circles, all about the work of the Spirit to rebirth and recreate hearts, and about the work of God in Christ to save the world and not to condemn it.

But dear Nicodemus, bless his heart, can’t wrap his head around all of it. He can’t for the life of him figure out the mechanics of rebirth, or what on earth Jesus means when he talks about being born of the Spirit, and even this business of a God who loves and a God who dies and a God who brings eternal life is a puzzler for him. Nicodemus tries to figure out the inner workings of God and gets stuck in mystery instead. He leaves with more questions than he started with.

Which is pretty much what happens to us every time we try to find answers for this mysterious thing called the Trinity. A word, of course, that Jesus doesn’t use, and a word that never shows up in the Bible, but a word that describes the very Biblical phenomenon of a God who exists and acts as Father and Son and Spirit.

Questions abound. How is God simultaneously three and one? How can God exist in three persons, but we still say that we are monotheists, worshiping only one God? How is God different than merely a shape-shifter? What is the heavenly “division of labor” and which person of God - Father, Son, Spirit - is responsible for which divine tasks?

Let's be honest, there is no "figuring out" the Trinity. Many have tried, many have failed. Heresies abound! In fact, over dinner earlier this week, Pastor Chad jokingly asked me if I was a risk to preach heresy this weekend, to which I responded that preaching heresy is a risk I take every single week, not just on Holy Trinity Sunday!

But very seriously, you'll never hear me claim to understand the Trinity. Because I don’t. Even Martin Luther himself, preaching on Holy Trinity Sunday in 1522, conceded that the best thing you can say about the mystery of the Trinity is that you don't understand it: "We cling to the Scriptures, those passages which testify of the Trinity of God, and we say: I know very well that in God there are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; but how they can be one I do not know, neither should I know it."

I might not understand the Trinity, but I understand dark sleepless nights. And I understand grief. And I understand that our souls constantly need to keep making the choice for hope and against despair. And I think the Trinity might have something to say about this.

Because having a God who exists as three means that we have a God who has experienced everything that there is to experience. God as Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer has the divine ability to hold together all creativity, need, hope, suffering, and salvation. There is no dark night, no creative moment, no mystery or question or joy or confusion, on earth or in heaven, that God-in-three-persons has not already experienced, loved, and redeemed.

But more than that, at the heart of our faith is the cross. And at that pivotal moment when Christ died to destroy death, the whole Trinity was at work. While God in Christ faced death head-on, God the Creator took on the work of grief, God the Spirit made space to do the work of hope and resurrection. Because the Godhead is three-in-one, God didn't die alone on the cross, God didn't grieve alone in heaven, and God didn't lose hope.

And when you put all three of these truths together, you find the whole work of salvation; a mystery as expansive as Isaiah's smoky, terrifying vision of God filling the temple, and yet it is a comfort as dear to us as a father's tender touch.

Paul writes, "When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ — if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him."

Yes, even as we cry "Holy, holy, holy" to a God bigger than we can fathom, we also cry "Abba! Father!" to the one who loves us and claims us, and carries us through our sufferings to the glorious promise of our salvation.

And so in our sleepless nights, in our dark nights of the soul, no matter what mysteries we face, no matter what anxieties plague us, no matter what feeble prayers we raise, no matter how out of control or fearful we feel, the Trinity reminds us that God is bigger than all of it. And God has been through all of it. And God will redeem all of it.

The God who fills the temple is the God who fills the earth, who is Creator and Redeemer and Life-Giving Spirit, who is so huge that there is no place on earth or in heaven, in our heads or in our heart, where God is not present.

Madeleine L'Engle says, “I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly.”

Brothers and sisters, I do not know what your darkness is right now, whether you feel a few casual doubts or whether you wrestle with the very meaning of your life itself. But I do know when we, with Nicodemus, stumble along blindly under cover of night, we do not stumble to our doom; rather, we stumble blindly into the waiting arms of Christ. I know that in the waking hours of the night, when we reach out into the darkness, we do not reach out in vain; rather, we brush fingertips against the hem of God’s kingly robe, which stretches like a blanket over all creation. I know that when we face deepest darkness and long for sheltering wings, we do not go unembraced; rather, God pours upon us water and Spirit, flooding us with assurance of our baptisms, drenching us in the promise of God’s presence, cradling us in the reassuring and persistent flow of all love and rebirth and hope.

The Trinity is an eternal mystery. But it is proof for us that God is able - and willing - to reconcile all things to himself, no matter how painful or contradictory those things may be. The Trinity is assurance for us that we are yet children of light, even when we sit in darkness. For God loves the world. Christ saves the world. The Spirit breathes rebirth into the world. Even in the middle of the night, there is hope.

Let us pray.

God of the Heavens,
keeper of the stars,
Lord of the darkest, most remote places
of the universe,
the one who hovered and breathed life,
and the Creator of every living thing:
Be our salvation, our comfort,
our hope, for you are holy and righteous,
your words are true
and your light dispels all darkness.

Glory to the Almighty God,
Sun of Righteousness
and Breath of Life.
Amen.

(prayer by Thomas Turner; posted on everdayLiturgy)

Isaiah 40:21–31
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to live in;
who brings princes to naught,
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows upon them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

To whom then will you compare me,
or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high and see:
Who created these?

He who brings out their host and numbers them,
calling them all by name;
because he is great in strength,
mighty in power,
not one is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the LORD,
and my right is disregarded by my God"?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.

"more clouds." by kaija, on Flickr

Genesis 1:1–5
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Mark 1:4–11
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
---

More than ever, it feels like our world is tearing apart at the seams.

In France, a nation rends its garments in grief over this week's shootings. In Nigeria, the border town of Baga has been ripped apart by a devastating attack by Boko Haram which has left as many as 2000 people dead, many of them women, children, and the elderly. In Pakistan, an ordinary day has been torn apart by a suicide bomber killing innocent victims outside a mosque.

Often our Christian theology centers on beautiful things like the kindness and compassion of God. We talk about God in terms of forgiveness, grace, and mercy.

But when the powers of death and destruction in our world seem so prevalent and insurmountable, we are lucky that our story of faith also includes images of God's strength and power, especially over darkness and despair. In heart-rending times like these, we need to have the confidence that God has the power to overcome all these heart-breaking things. We need be able to say to the forces that tear apart our world that our God has power to tear apart the very powers of sin and death and destruction.

In the Old Testament, we see example after example of the power of God which accompanies the Israelites through slavery, in the wilderness, and even in battle. In her Magnificat, Mary sings about a God who scatters the proud with the power of his arm. And at his baptism, Jesus reveals the power of God to break open the very heavens themselves.

Jesus comes to the river to be baptized from John. He plunges into the water, breaking its surface both at his descent and at his emerging. In response, the heavens themselves break apart. God in his power splits open the sky, from which the Spirit pours down upon Jesus and into him, affirming him as beloved Son of God, empowering him to begin a life of public ministry, and setting him at the start of a journey that will eventually take him to the cross. It will be by this cross that the world itself will crack open.

Mark, at the end of his gospel, will talk about the temple curtain being torn in two at the moment of Jesus' death, symbolizing the destruction of the boundary separating God and humans. He uses the same verb to talk about the heavens rending open at Jesus' baptism and the curtain rending in two at Jesus' death to make the point that the power of God does not stand idly by, is not subtle. The power of God as creator and redeemer crashes through barriers and smashes into the world with urgency.

From the very beginning of all things, we hear in Genesis of a God who rips apart chaos itself into little pieces and reorganizes them into the poetry of creation. This same God rips apart the waters of the Red Sea to create a clear path for the Israelites to escape their Egyptian slavery. When God's chosen people are suffering in exile, the prophet Isaiah does not pray for the meek compassion of God to sneak in and calm their grieving hearts. No, Isaiah says, "Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down so that the mountains would quake at your presence, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!" And then, in Revelation, when we imagine a cosmic battle between good and evil where God in Christ ultimately triumphs over all the powers of sin and death, we hear again of the heavens opening up and God breaking in: "Then I saw the new heaven and the new earth, and I saw the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God."

In our current age, as in all ages before us, we need God to tear apart the heaven and come down. We need to pray this again and again and again. Because unlike the senseless, destructive powers that try to tear apart our world, our God breaks things open in order to fill up the world with his presence, to flood all things with mercy, to pour into our world and our hearts the full measure of his goodness, life, and salvation.

This is what we learn from Jesus’ baptism. God is strong enough to tear open the heavens, and God is gracious enough to break open our hardened hearts, and God destroys evil and death by drowning them in love and grace and hope.

We use lots of images to talk about baptism. We talk about it as a washing or cleansing. We talk about it as dying and rising with Christ. We talk about being clothed in baptism - an image that we recall at funerals as we clothe the casket in the pall at the beginning of the service. We talk about how baptism gives us gifts of the Holy Spirit.

But when do we ever talk about baptism as a rending apart?

When we reject sin, death, and the devil in baptism, we are professing faith in a God who tears us away from the darkest forces in all creation. When we pour that water over our heads, we are trusting God to crack open our hearts and come rushing into us. When we anoint with oil and speak the words, “Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever,” we are breaking apart old identities to make room for God’s claim on us as his beloved.

The author Joanna Macy writes, “The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe.” This, brothers and sisters, is what baptism is all about.

By these crushing waters of baptism, we are broken in order that we might be filled with the power of God's salvation. And by this power we get pushed out into the world to resist darkness and create salvation for all our broken world.

In these baptismal waters we ride along on a current, where God acts and God acts in us, and we act in God, and we tumble all over one another and spill out over the edges, and it all sounds very messy, but it turns out that it is actually very beautiful.

For we have a God who tears into the world not for sport but for salvation.

And there is no better, warmer, brighter news for our broken world and our broken hearts than to hear God say to us, "You are my children. You are beloved. In you I am well-pleased." Yes, the fullness of God-in-Christ is pleased - pleased - to dwell in you and to make a home among us.

Oh, that you would continue to tear open the heavens, Lord God.
Oh, that you would continue to rend our hearts, Lord God.
Fill this longing world with your power and mercy.
Pour out your Spirit upon us and move over the face of the earth.
Burst through the skies and come to us, again and again, that we might know ever more deeply what it is to be yours. To be your broken and beloved. To be your children.

Amen.

Comfort, Comfort Now My People
Music by Latifah Phillips and David Wilton
Lyrics by Johann Olearius, arr. Latifah Phillips and David Wilton

Comfort, comfort now my people Tell of his peace with no end
Comfort, comfort those in darkness Tell them that God's pardon waits for them

The Glory of the Lord now on earth is shed In deserts far and near he will raise what's dead
His peace has been spoken His word is never broken The Kingdom of God is now here

Straight shall, straight shall be what's crooked Making all the rougher places plain
Let your, let your hearts be humble befitting our god's glory and his reign

Let the valleys rise to meet him the hills all will bow down in praise
Let the valleys rise to greet him the hills bow down in praise
Let the valleys rise to greet him the hills bow down in praise

The Glory of the Lord now on earth is shed In deserts far and near he will raise what's dead
The Glory of the Lord now on earth is shed In deserts far and near he will raise what's dead
His peace has been spoken His word is never broken The Kingdom of God is now here

Comfort, comfort now my people Comfort, comfort now my people

"Oriental moment {Explored!}" by Angie Nan, on Flickr

Mark 13:24-37
"But in those days, after that suffering,
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake — for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake."

"All saints' Day - Kära farmor" by Capelson, on Flickr

"They live on, those giants of our childhood. They manage to even take death in their stride. Death may take them, but it can never take our relationship with them. However else they still live on, they still live on in us. Memory is more than looking back to a time gone by; it is looking into another kind of time altogether. A time where everything that was continues to be – and grows and changes with the life that is in us.

The people we loved and who loved us; for good or for ill, taught us things. Dead though they may be, as we come to understand them in new ways, it is though they come to understand us – and we come to understand ourselves – in new ways too.

Who knows what 'the communion of saints' means, but surely it means that these people we once knew are not just voices that have ceased to speak. They are saints because though them the power and richness of life not only touched us once, but continues to touch us still.

They have their business to get on with – moving 'from strength to strength' – whatever that means. We might imagine ourselves on a fading shore as they move on to whatever shore may await them. But they carry with them something of us, as we do of them. And so, to think of them is not only to remember how they used to be. It is, in some way, to see and hear them as they now are.

If they had things to say to us then, they have things to say to us now – as we have to them. And the things now spoken may not be what they once were."

-Frederick Buechner

Matthew 5:1-12
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

"We have art in order not to die from the truth" by Matheus Lopes, on Flickr

"Heavenly comfort is not comforting at all. Heavenly comfort, rather, is truth, which blows away human fantasies that we can live forever, control everything, or fake our lives before God."

-Sara Miles, City of God: Faith in the Streets

"Crumbs" by Jonathan Green1, on Flickr

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

Matthew 15:21-28
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.

--
The world is heavy these days, my friends. You know it as well as I do.

Conflict continues at the Russia/Ukraine border, as both tensions and weapons mount, and as the world still struggles to piece together an investigation of Malaysian flight 17 that was shot down by rebels.

Conflict continues to shake the Middle East, as Israel and Palestine struggle over the Gaza Strip; rockets are flying, violence continues to put civilians and refugees in increasing danger.

Political turmoil and violence churn in Iraq, as terrorist groups continue to sweep through villages and into the mountains, killing women and children in their wake.

The Ebola virus has claimed more than a thousand victims in west Africa, and the Center for Disease Control has issued its highest alert, confirming the outbreak as a world health emergency.

There has been a surge in the number of unaccompanied immigrant children at our border, children who are making a dangerous and uncertain journey for the hope of a better life as they flee violent or abusive or situations in their home countries.

It has been a week of grief in Ferguson, Missouri, after the police shooting death of Michael Brown, which has given way to protests, violence, curfews, and questions about justice and the reach of law enforcement.

A cloud of suspicion and shock surrounds the death of NASCAR driver Kevin Ward after being hit on the track by rival driver Tony Stewart.

Hollywood and society are shocked and saddened by the untimely death of actor Robin Williams, which has sparked an important national conversation about depression and suicide.

And then, of course, we each have our own personal list of troubles and fears to add to this list. Broken relationships. Illness. Addiction. Food uncertainty. Job uncertainty.

I consider myself an intensely hopeful person; a die-hard optimist. It’s in my nature and in the nature of my faith to see hope beyond despair, to trust the promise of the resurrection. But friends, I’ll be honest. The world outside is dark and heavy right now, and holding on to hope feels a bit like scrambling for crumbs beneath the table.

“Lord, help me,” the Canaanite woman begged.

The woman’s world was dark and heavy. Her beloved daughter was tormented by a demon, and surrounded by the power of darkness. This child was in need of more than healing; she needed salvation.

“Lord, help me,” the woman pleaded to the disciples and to Jesus.

And in what is perhaps the most disturbingly out-of-character moment of Jesus’ whole life, he turns to the woman and dismisses her. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” he says. “I am only for the chosen.”

And just like that, things have gone from bad to worse. The Canaanite woman’s fear for her daughter suddenly becomes fear of being rejected by God himself.

This fear of rejection is also the fear of the Jewish community in Rome to whom Paul is writing in our first reading. They fear that if God, through Christ, has opened salvation to the Gentiles, that it might mean he has rejected - turned his back - on the Israelites, his chosen people.

We can sympathize with these fears that God has turned his back on us. When we see the horrors on the news, and look at a world that seems to be getting worse and not better, it can feel like God has rejected us, because we just don’t know how else to make sense of the darkness and pain that we see.

A friend and colleague of mine has recently been dealing with ongoing relapses with a chronic illness. Earlier this month, she wrote a piece about the difficulty of reconciling faith and hope with the struggles of facing one bad turn after another.

She says,

I don't know where I am on the "how much control does God actually have?" spectrum anymore. I used to attribute every blessing in my life to God. Every good news. Every happy moment. Every joy. Every meaningful coincidence. Every learning opportunity. It was all: thanks be to God. But lately I'm wrestling with how reasonable it is to give God the credit for every good thing but never for the bad things. That's how I've been operating. "Thanks be to God" for the good stuff. But "it's not God's fault...God can't control it" for the bad stuff. [But] It doesn't seem logical [anymore] to try and make a matching pair with those two cards.

This is the struggle of the Canaanite woman, the struggle of the early church in Rome, our struggle: how to deal with the problem of a God who gets credit for the good stuff, and a God who might seem at best, absent, or at worst, at fault for the dark and heavy things in our world.

I don’t think our gospel reading today gives us an answer as to why bad things happen, why it sometimes feels like God has turned his back on us. Our gospel reading is difficult and problematic and forces us to look at a cranky side of Jesus that we don’t quite believe actually should exist.

I could debate with you, as theologians do, about whether Jesus was just testing this woman, or whether he was just grumpy and tired, or whether he really meant it when he said that she wasn’t included in his plan for salvation. I could try to say something clever that would bring a satisfactory resolution to the encounter, tie the story up with a nice, neat bow.

But I can’t do any of that. I don’t pretend to see the obvious moral truth in this story, I don’t know what Jesus was thinking or intending, and all attempts to turn this messy story into something neat and today seem like gloss in the face of a world that appears to be falling apart.

So let me tell you what I do know.

I know that the Canaanite woman had faith. I know that she had heard about Jesus - about his healing power, about his care for the broken and the outcast. I know that she, out of blind faith, chose to believe that there was yet hope for her and for her daughter, even when it looked like the Son of God was going to turn his back on her.

She knew that even a crumb of hope, a speck of healing, a tiny taste of salvation would be enough. Maybe not enough to make everything all better forever and forever, but enough to get her through another day.

When the choice laid before her was hope or despair, she chose hope, and grasped at crumbs, and looked God in the eye, saying “You know that you aren’t in the rejection business. You know that you are in the business of salvation.”

And her reward for having even a few crumbs of hope was receiving wholeness and more hope. Her few crumbs of hope gave way to a giant loaf of hope bread. Because even a little bit of hope, even a little scrap of faith was enough to see through her fear, to see straight into the heart of God’s love, a love that dealt with all of the crap in our world by showing up on earth, in the flesh, and making a beeline for the cross, that we might know that there is no suffering that is unredeemed and no chaos that is beyond reordering and no fears that fall on deaf ears.

I can’t promise you that if you just go toe-to-toe with Jesus you’ll always get what you want. I can’t promise you that if you just pray hard enough, the world will right itself. I don’t want you thinking or worrying that salvation for our broken world somehow depends on how much strength you can muster, because friends, I know how hard it is to keep faith sometimes, and I know that there are days when it takes every bit of energy that you have just to pull yourself out of bed for the day.

But I can promise you that the mystery of God’s love and salvation is brighter than any darkness this world tries to throw at it. And I can promise you that even the tiniest bits of hope and faith will get you through to the other side of this present darkness. I can promise you that God’s gifts and God’s callings in your life are eternal, without strings attached. I can promise you that God hasn’t turned his back on you or the world, even when it really really feels that way.

Because the crumbs of bread that we will share today around this table bind us together in the one hope of Christ, who himself called out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you rejected me?” but who three days later walked out of that empty tomb, stomping down darkness and death beneath his feet. Christ, our bread of life, knows both rejection and resurrection, and when we eat and drink the bread and wine, we share in that hope that our own fears of rejection will also give way to the promise of resurrection, for ourselves and for our world.

So catch a few crumbs from under God’s table today. Taste the bread and the wine that are sweet with salvation. Let these crumbs sustain you through all fear or despair. Hold onto whatever bits of faith you have. Praise God for the light, even if you do not understand the darkness. Even a crumb of grace and a sliver of faith will be enough to sustain you, for God promises that his hold on you is for all eternity. There will be light. There will be hope. There will be salvation. Thanks be to God for that.

Amen.

Ok. Ignoring the extreme close-ups, the interesting park-bench-esque staging, and the dated clothes...this duet is amazingly beautiful. Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman singing "There is a Balm in Gilead."


"If you cannot sing like angels, if you cannot preach like Paul, you can tell the love of Jesus, and say 'he died for all...'"

"The Dark Side of Matter and Energy..." by Tremain Calm, on Flickr

Matthew 10:24-39
Jesus said, "A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one's foes will be members of one's own household.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
---

In college, taped to the hallway wall outside my husband’s dorm room, was a large piece of brown butcher paper, with a thumbtack in the corner from which hung a pen on a string.

This was the quote board.

Throughout the year, as Matt, his roommate, and their friends said memorable things - whether funny or absurd or eyebrow-raising - they would document those statements on the quote board.

The things written on that piece of paper made the most sense to you if you were there when they happened. It became a fun and funny way to reminisce with one another. But if you read through the quotes on the board without knowing their history or their context, the quote board became something of a puzzle, and an unsatisfying one, at that. It’s hard to read isolated statements, without context, and feel like you can really know what they mean.

I mention this because today's gospel reading reads very much like that piece of butcher paper. When we read this strange list of difficult sayings of Jesus, we have to remember that this section of Matthew’s gospel was likely pieced together from a variety of things that Jesus said in a variety of contexts. Jesus probably didn’t say all of these things right in a row at one moment in time on one particular day to one particular group of people. As Matthew’s gospel was handed down and eventually written down, these independent teachings of Jesus were grouped together, even if they don’t quite fit together, because they all have one thing in common:

All of the statements in today’s gospel point to the truth that being a follower of Jesus is difficult. It will separate you from the world, from those you love, and even from a former version of yourself.

Even though we are joined to Christ in baptism, even though we been gifted the whole of God's grace and mercy, the faith that saves us is also the faith that puts us at odds with the wider world. This is the dark side of our faith.

Even though we walk with Christ to eternal and abundant life, the reality is that there is a cost to putting the demands of discipleship ahead of all the other things that we hold dear. This is the shadow-side of being a Christ-follower.

Jesus says, "What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light."

Most of Jesus' statements in today's gospel are statements about how following him will put us into dark places.

Jesus warns us of the dark of being shunned or even persecuted because we seek justice for the poor instead of rewards for the rich.

Jesus warns us of the dark of isolation when we choose to put the needs of outsiders ahead of the needs of the insiders.

Jesus warns us of the lonely dark of relationships broken over putting God's values ahead of our own.

Jesus warns us of the darkness of conflict that will come when we seek true, lasting peace instead of mere platitudes and preservation of the status quo.

Jesus warns us of the dark night of the soul that comes as we wrestle with the meaning of life and death, of dying to our old selves and rising to Christ; for the breaking open of our hearts, even for Christ's sake, can be a painful process.

What Jesus says to us is that being a disciple is dangerous. That God is dangerous. That discipleship will lead us into the dark, where everything we thought was certain becomes fuzzy around the edges. Where the well-worn paths of our lives become obscured by shadows. Where our worldviews, our perceptions, everything we can take for granted in the light suddenly become veiled as we step into the thick cloud of God's presence. That there is a curious and disorienting fog that comes with leaving ourselves behind to become disciples of the divine.

The writer Barbara Brown Taylor recently released a new book focused entirely on meeting God in the darkness, entitled Learning to Walk in the Dark.

She writes,

[The darkness in which we meet God] is an entirely unnatural darkness - both dangerous and divine - that contains the presence of God before whom there are no others....This thick darkness reveals the divine presence even while obscuring it, the same way the brightness of God’s glory does....While this darkness is dangerous, it is as sure a sign of God’s presence as brightness is, which makes the fear of it different from the fear of snakes and robbers. When biblical writers speak of “the fear of the Lord,” this is what they mean: fear of God’s pure being, so far beyond human imagining that trying to look into it would be like trying to look into the sun....[The church father] Gregory [of Nyssa says that], those of us who wish to draw near to God should not be surprised when our vision goes cloudy, for this is a sign that we are approaching the opaque splendor of God. If we decide to keep going beyond the point where our eyes or minds are any help to us, we may finally arrive at the pinnacle of the spiritual journey toward God, which exists in complete and dazzling darkness. (47-48).

I wonder if Jesus, in all of his difficult statements about the cost of discipleship, is really trying to tell us that there exists a spiritual practice in losing yourself to dark places with the trust that in this dark, you will meet the God who promises you light.

Because at the end of the day, doesn't discipleship ask us to follow Jesus all the way to the darkness of his cross and his death, that in that most final darkness of death, God might surprise us with the light of the resurrection dawn? Isn't discipleship, at its very heart, the practice of walking into and meeting God in the dark places in our world, that we might bring to the world the promise of light?

“What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light,” Jesus says.

What dark places has God called you to in your life? Where are the dark corners to which Jesus has led you? What are the shadowy places in your heart where you feel pain or fear or disquiet? Where are the thick clouds that press in on your soul?

And what might God be saying to you in those dark places? What whispers of hope do you hear? What are you learning about God, about redemption, about yourself and your faith from these dark spaces?

In the last few weeks, God has pushed me into a few dark corners. The clouded work of holding vigil during someone’s last fleeting hours of life. The nightfall of cancer diagnoses. The shadowlands of working with neighbors who need money and food and support systems that they do not have.

And let me tell you. The darkness is not a place that I enjoy being. Jesus certainly isn’t asking us to like the darkness, and isn’t asking us to pursue darkness just so that we can say we are disciples. But Jesus is always helping to redeem our darkness. He gives us the assurance that for as long as find ourselves in dark spaces, God remains with us, and that we will emerge on the other side of the veil changed by the encounter.

So my friends - my fellow disciples - blessings be with you on this journey of faith. Blessings to you in the darkness and in the light. Blessings to you as God gives you the grace to take risks for your faith. May your discipleship be bold. May your faith be strong. May you hear God’s voice even in the darkest night, and may you be bold to proclaim his grace in the morning!

All praise to thee, my God, this night for all the blessings of the light.
Keep me, oh keep me, King of kings, beneath thine own almighty wings.

Now and forever.
Thanks be to God.

Amen.