Sunday, January 30, 2011

epiphany 4

(nb: with help from workingpreacher.org)

The Beatitudes – the collection of pithy saying in today’s Gospel lesson – are probably among the best-know words of Jesus. They’re read at funerals, they’re quoted by notable people all over the world.; in fact, they’re widely regarded as some of the most moral teachings in Christianity.

But if they’re the best that Christianity has to offer the world, both the world and our faith may be in deep trouble.

Most people – both inside the faith and outside of it - have pre-conceived ideas of what they are about, or have a pronounced scepticism about their ability to convey any meaning beyond what they apparently say.

The beatitudes are pervasive in popular culture, from politics to pop psychology. The spirit and religion message board on "Oprah.com" – and please, just don’t ask how I know this - suggests that it might be enlightening "if we could each of us look within ourselves" and "pick one [beatitude] that showed us who we believed ourselves to be." If we look carefully at Jesus' words, however, we find that they are much more than moral platitudes or mottos to live by.

They turn our lives, our world, and our way of understanding both upside down.

Jesus takes what is ‘known’ about our world – that some people are more blessed than others, that others naturally have more than others (of any quality), and gives us a peek at the kingdom of God.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” But who are the poor in spirit? It can be pretty easy to point out the poor in spirit – usually, we have an image of these people as little shabby huddled masses, But let me ask you this: have you ever asked God, why? Have you ever been so offended at some ignorant platitude that someone’s offered you?

Your life is in shambles, you say? “It’s all part of God’s plan” is the answer that completely misses the point. It’s an empty answer, it doesn’t mean anything, but the person who says it can feel wise, and spiritually richer than you.

Have you ever just sat back, looked up at the sky, and howled at God? Wanted to call God to account for the all general messiness of life, because the joke just isn’t funny anymore? Welcome to “the poor in spirit.” Because the point of the matter is that we can never, by our own will, or desire, or work, create enough faith in God to keep ourselves believing. Faith itself is a gift of God, and because of that gift, yours is the kingdom of heaven.

The beatitudes – and the Sermon on the Mount, which they begin, are at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. The apostles have just been called; they’ve become the ‘fishers of people’ that Jesus promised they would be.

They’re called to a very particular kind of life – a life lived for the kingdom of God. A kingdom life, Jesus says, is a ‘blessed’ life: not in the sense of ‘holy’, and although the Greek word also means ‘happy’, not in the sense of a good mood. A kingdom life is a fortunate life, a life that is lived beyond the wants and desires of a worldly life.

So Jesus has called the apostles, and he’s shown them what this new kind of fishing is, by preaching the good news of the kingdom of heaven to people and manifesting its power by healing every kind of disease and affliction in the last part of chapter 4. Jesus shows the disciples that the presence of this kingdom of heaven liberates. Then, Jesus climbs a mountain with the crowd he has so excited and sits down in the posture of a teacher encircled by his newly-called disciples. They are the primary targets of his instruction in the principles of life in the kingdom of heaven.

And as Jesus begins to speak, a new picture of life comes out. The kingdom life isn’t about good feelings and right answers. It’s a speech given to the unfortunate, about unfortunate things. But more than anything, it’s a speech about life.

The beatitudes open with an affirmative statement – “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” But after that, for the next few lines Jesus uses the future tense.

“’Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” People in Jesus’ day were just as quick to listen to someone who promised to take all pain away. But mourning is a part of life – if we didn’t love, losing someone wouldn’t hurt so much. But the promise of the kingdom life is that we will find comfort through Jesus, in this life, and also in the life to come. Jesus doesn’t promise to become an insulating woolly blanket from this life – he promises to be our salvation at the end.

After listing the beatitudes, Jesus says, "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account". The kingdom of heaven belongs to those who suffer because of their faithfulness to Jesus. Jesus’ words stand in opposition to the dominant cultural ethic of both his time and ours – that the rich and powerful are better than anyone. Jesus says that no-one is better than anyone, but that some people are closer to understanding.

But Jesus is also calling those people he was teaching – then and now - to follow his own way, since he himself will suffer for his faithfulness to God, trusting that God will vindicate him.

The promise of future vindication does not mean, however, that the focus is entirely future. Jesus insists that God has the final word, bringing assurance into the present. This is why he can say, "Blessed are those who mourn...blessed are the meek...blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...blessed are the merciful...blessed are the pure in heart...blessed are the peacemakers." Jesus gives his followers eyes to see that the future is certain and this transforms the present.

That’s the problem with the beatitudes, why I said that if they are the best moral statements Christianity has to offer we’re in trouble. Because as moral statements they don’t do anything. The beatitudes become so clichéd because we don’t live like they’re true.

Paul wrote to the Corinthian community that the power of the cross is the foolishness of God, and that God chose what is foolish in this world to shame the wise. What does he mean?

The message of the beatitudes make no sense unless they are seen through the lens of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ – because only the one who has understood all suffering can promise that it will come to an end – and not just at the end of life.

The wisdom of this world that Paul speaks of – we’re steeped in that. It’s the wisdom that tells us that we should look out for ourselves first, and then share what resources we can with those around us. Wisdom tells us that there’s a cause for everything, and an effect that stems from that. But the gospel of Christ isn’t ‘cause and effect’ – it’s action and response.

Those who are peacemakers are blessed; because they will be called children of God. Jesus doesn’t say, “because of their good work, the peacemakers will be renowned as my God’s children.” That’s cause and effect. The gospel of Christ is love in action and love in response.

And that’s a very foolish way to live, beloved. Because it leaves you vulnerable to all kinds of general nastiness and disdain – and wisdom hates the weak. In 2005 when members of a Christian Peacemaker Team were kidnapped in Iraq, Christians all over the world tripped over themselves trying to tell the world that they were crazy. The world’s wisdom is pretty obvious, isn’t it?

The world’s wisdom is – to quote Randy Bachman – to keep looking out for number one. To venerate the unholy trinity of me, myself, and I. That’s not the wisdom of God – the wisdom of God is found in a community that dies to itself and lives for the gospel.

Jesus calls us to join a radical kingdom. He gives us a radical vision to match, that the kingdom of heaven infiltrates our present. We can continue fishing for people, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom at great cost to ourselves, opposing oppressive powers in the name of Christ. We can suffer for the sake of Jesus and the gospel, with the assurance that God has the last word. When we see people receiving the word of God, and finding healing and freedom in Jesus' name we can announce, "the kingdom of heaven has drawn near."

Let the people of God say, amen.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Epiphany 3

“And when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew.”

Jesus withdrew? That doesn’t sound like the Jesus we know, does it? Don’t we have an image of the Jesus who never avoided trouble, who never needed to reassess his aims, or his motivations, or his mission? That tends to be the idea we have, I think.

Every culture creates a conception of Jesus that reflects the dominant values of that culture. And, just so you know, they can justify it in Scripture. To the impoverished people of South America, Jesus is seen as one of the poor, a figure standing in opposition to those who control the means of wealth and oppress the people. To the slaves of 19th century America, Jesus was coming to set them free.

But there are a few interesting views of Jesus and of faith that became prevalent in 20th and 21st century North America. The first is that Jesus acts alone – at a church conference once I heard a guest speaker say that Jesus could play (and did play) all the positions on the football field at once – he’s the quarterback calling the plays, the offensive (never defensive) line, and the running back scoring the touchdowns, all at the same time. He was trying to illustrate God’s grace, and was using the metaphor to illustrate that salvation is won by Christ alone.

Coming close on the heels of that idea is the belief that we act alone – that we by ourselves work out what we believe. That we should pick and choose what we believe in order to live a “moral life” – which usually means “as long as what I do doesn’t harm anyone, why not do it?”

And those two ideas – that Jesus acts alone, and that we act alone – usually bring to reality the conception that churches need to find their ‘entertainment appeal;’ the so-called ‘magic bullet’ that will fill pews and plates and give them success. Church-shopping has become a favourite pastime of many people.

A few years ago I was greeting people after a Sunday service when I shook hands with a nice young couple with a young child. I asked them how they were, and if they were new to the area. They said that, no, they weren’t, but that they were church shopping, looking for a church that met their needs.

I didn’t see them again. Apparently, their needs – whatever they were – weren’t met. But I did debate calling after them – please! Choose us! We have low monthly interest, no fees, no hassles, and we’ll work for you! (If Capital One can do it, why can’t I?)

In reality, I think that that emphasis on the ‘me first’ is a symptom of a desperation that many people feel. That feeling of desperation is the result of seeing that we cannot save ourselves, but still insisting that we have to try.

One day as Jesus is out walking, he sees two sets of brothers working in their boats. And he calls to them, tells them both to come with him. It’s interesting that he doesn’t choose them one at a time – you’d think a little more one-on-one instruction would benefit them. But Jesus calls Andrew and Simon, James and John, to follow him.

And they did.

It makes you wonder: why? What did Jesus offer to them that they didn’t already have? They were fishermen. In their society they wouldn’t have been rich, but perhaps as close to a comfortable lower-middle class as you could be. It’s a hard life, a lot of work.

Maybe they were attracted to a life of quiet study. I grew up in the country, doing chores, raising horses, helping with calving and harvest and all the hard work in between. When I went to University, it was a like a window opened. “Hello, the sweet life!”

Yet as Andrew, Simon, James, and John found: being called as a disciple is not an invitation to the sweet life. Have you ever noticed that of all the miracles Jesus did, not one was for the disciples? They benefited from them, as Jesus calmed the sea and fed the 5000. One or two were object lessons – full nets of fish. And of the thousands of people who deserted Jesus and called for his death, only the disciples – who had been sent out in poverty to preach with nothing but the clothes on their backs – continued to meet. Jesus’ call to discipleship doesn’t make for large crowds; in fact, it thins them out. Anyone with a full belly finds it easy to believe – the disciple, in turn, believes when all has been taken away.

A story is told of Guiseppe Garibaldi, who freed Italy from tyranny in the 19th century. One day, as he set out to liberate Italy, Garibaldi saw a group of smartly-dressed young men hanging out on a street corner. He asked them to follow him.

“Follow you?” they asked. “What do you offer?”

“Offer? I offer you hardship, hunger, rags, thirst, sleepless nights, foot sores and long marches, privations innumerable, and victory in the noblest cause that ever asked you.”

When you are called be the disciple of Jesus, be aware that it costs. In the society that lists self-esteem and self-fulfillment as paramount values, the gospel will falter, because being called to the life of Christian discipleship is not being called to be a lone ranger, but rather it is a call to become part of a community. A community defined by the cross of Jesus Christ.

The apostle Paul both founded the church in Corinth, and worked to keep it moderately honest with itself. At one point, he threatened them with a stick if they didn’t stop fighting with each other (1 Cor 4:21). Now, it’s easy to get a chuckle at that, but Paul knew that one of the hardest tasks that we are called to as Christians is living with one another in peace.

That is a tall order in any group of people – and maybe even a taller order when faith is involved. That’s because – if you think back to what I talked about earlier, about the ‘me-first’ tendency – we all like to think we know what Jesus wanted for the church.

And you know what? It’s been that way from the very beginning. In the Corinthian church, people were quarrelling over which preacher was correct. Paul, Apollos, Cephas….there’s a long list. We like to listen, and to follow, those people with whom we agree. And certainly, as preachers, we all have those aspects of the gospel that speak most eloquently to us.

Yet Paul reminded the church in Corinth that the point of being a disciple is not about who baptised you, or who you listen to the most. The call to discipleship is a call to bear the cross.

As Paul writes, the power of the gospel is the cross of Jesus Christ – foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God. What does that mean?

Imagine that you’re drowning. You’ve somehow landed in the middle of a bottomless lake. But you’re a strong swimmer, so you can tread water, which you keep doing for hours and hours. After a while, you see someone standing on the shore, which seems an impossible distance away. So far, in fact, that until you saw that person you didn’t even know that was the shore.

So you strike out for shore, swimming for all you’re worth. And your muscles are burning, your lungs are exploding with all the air you’re trying to gulp. After a while, you pause and tread water again. The shore doesn’t seem any closer. The figure on the bank throws you a rope, and amazingly it lands right next to your hand. The rope is there. Your safety – your salvation – is right there.

But you don’t need that rope right now. You reject the offer of life. “Don’t worry!” you yell, “I can swim closer! You don’t need to throw it that far!” And you begin to swim again, getting more and more exhausted. Again you stop, to find that you’re no closer to the shore, and that the rope is still right at your hand. But you refuse to grab it.

Does that sound silly to you? I bet it probably does. But that’s the same metaphor that Paul uses.

You are dying, drowning in sin. You are captive to sin, and you cannot free yourself. But you are saved solely by the power of cross of Jesus Christ. You don’t meet Jesus halfway, don’t do a little bit better each day until you accept his help.

But as you’re dying, it seems ridiculous that you don’t have to do anything, that this ‘salvation’ is a free gift. You’re treading water, keeping your head up, refusing the rope that is a few inches from your hand.

But when you grasp that, when you are being saved, you hold on to that rope so tight you know that by the time you get to shore its fibers are going to be a part of who you are.

You are called to be disciples – to take hold of the rope, to trust in the cross of Jesus Christ, even to share with Jesus that death on the cross. To be a disciple is to be crucified with Christ, to die to those self-centred longings that characterize our lives.

A.W Tozer tells a story of a young man who came to an old saint to understand the life of discipleship. The young man said to the old, “Father, what does it mean to be crucified?”

The old man thought for a moment and said “well, to be crucified means three things. First, the man who is crucified is facing only one direction.”

And the old man scratched his head and continued. “One thing more, son, about a man on the cross – he is not going back. When you die on the cross, you have said goodbye.”

And he went on: “another thing about the man on the cross, son – he has made no further plans of his own.”

Today after worship we will gather for our budgetary annual general meeting. We’re a lucky enough congregation that we get two of them, one now and another in May. But as we gather for it today, I want you to bear three things in mind:

The first is that you are called to be in this place, called to be a part of this community. It cannot function to the full extent of its potential without you. You look in a common direction.

The second is that this community is called to be a part of who you are. You cannot be a solitary disciple of Christ. The gospel calls you into relationship. There is no going back.

And the third is this: Your end is assured. You are saved from sin, death, and the devil by the power of Jesus Christ. Cling to that cross, take hold of that rope, never let go, until that rope leaves it mark on you and you are safely on the other shore.

Let the people of God say amen.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

January 9 - The Baptism of Our Lord

Martin was adopted. He had lived a life of foster homes from the time he was born until the time he was ten; his numerous behavioural challenges had resulted, time, and time again, in his being shifted from foster care to group care, to back again. He had seen therapists and counsellors, specialists and doctors, but still, Martin would act out, and his ‘family’ would send him down the road. “If you keep this up,” his social worker warned him one day, “it’ll make it harder to find you a family.”

But Martin knew what the problem was. He was unlovable. He had learned from a young age that as he knew it, love hurt. It was conditional on his being a ‘good boy’ – and everybody has a different idea of what good is – and his doing the chores his foster family wanted him to. To be loved, he had to do good in school, not act up, and be invisible.

Where do you fit in? I read once that the endless pursuit of ‘stuff’ that characterizes our culture has at its root a feeling of displacement, of ‘not belonging’ to any one group. Because we feel we don’t belong to anything, we try to acquire things that will fill the void in our lives. Those things can be expensive toys, relationships, anything that we feel can give us a frame of reference for who we are.

And it applies to our religion, too – it can sometimes be hard to find a frame of reference to give meaning to the word of God. Consider the gospel text for today, the baptism of Jesus. John’s out baptizing in the wilderness, and Jesus is there, too. But there’s a couple of other players in the game. There’s a great voice from heaven, and a Spirit that moves through the air (just note: though we like the notion that the Spirit appears as a dove; the text just says it descends like a dove. That’s a simile – a comparison. The almighty doesn’t likely have feathers.)

Every time, Martin felt a little safe, a little loved, he would do something that would destroy his life again. With one family, just when he was beginning to relax, he noticed the bathroom tap dripping. Wanted to be helpful, he took a wrench from his foster father’s toolbox and tried to fix the sink. One call to the plumber, another to the flood restoration specialist, and yet one more to his social worker, and Martin was done.

Another time, he took the clippers to the cat that was very hairy during a hot summer. After a while, his behaviours came to be related to his own sense of alienation from his own life – when he started feeling safe, he would act out in an effort to keep his family at a distance. It worked with depressing frequency.

In the gospel text today, John assumes about his relationship to Jesus is a power dynamic. John is out baptizing in the wilderness, and Jesus comes to him to be baptized. The first thing John tries to do is stop him. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Not so fast, Jesus. You know how this works – you have the power. You take over, baptize me, and we’ll get this party started.

And Jesus balks at that. To fulfill all righteousness, he says, he needs to be baptized by John. But what about that? What ‘righteousness’ does Jesus need to fulfill? Only one thing – Jesus will not upset the relationship of John to the Word of God.

The Word of God needs to be proclaimed; it is not about force or power. It remains the master of all; yet it is also the servant of all. It is right that Jesus is baptized by John; that is all that is needed. And Jesus goes down into the water.

The summer after he turned ten, Martin was told that he was being adopted. Ma and Pa Jacobsen had four other children, and of them Martin was the only one adopted. They were ‘weird’ by Martin’s standards – Ma Jacobsen stayed at home all day, while Pa…well, Martin wasn’t certain what Pa did, but he seemed to enjoy his job more than anyone Martin had ever seen.

The three Jacobsen boys all shared a room, while Martin and the Jacobsen’s daughter each had their own room. It was the smallest room that Martin had ever had – not like the family he lived with when he had a gigantic room with his own closet, and TV, and game console. This was more like a closet.

But the Jacobsens did everything as a family. When they watched TV, they did it together. When they played on the Wii, they did it together. They ate meals together, after preparing them together. And it puzzled Martin that this was done with a minimum of fuss. They seemed to genuinely enjoy each other’s company.

As Jesus is baptized, a voice from heaven exclaims “this is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased,” and the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus. This anointing – the word “Messiah” means ‘anointed one’ – proclaims Jesus’ own unique relationship as a member of the Godhead; the Holy Trinity.

So we don’t get voices from heaven. How do we know how God acts? If God is, as we say in the Nicene Creed, three persons in one being, then how can all three be present at once?

That’s called a mystery of faith. But I can tell you this: this little glimpse into how God is shows us that God is present in relationship, and in community. Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is One. That Holy Spirit of God calls us into this community, makes us holy, and brings us to God through Jesus Christ.

One night Martin came upstairs to get a drink of water, and partly because he heard voices. He was worried that, like one family had, they would argue and fight until someone left and Martin went back to group care. But Ma and Pa were sitting together on the sofa, a pot of tea between them, just talking. They had a book open on their laps and would read from it, then talk about it.

After a while on his best behaviour, Martin began to act out. But as much as he acted out, Ma and Pa didn’t seem to mind. He took markers from his pencil case and coloured and wrote on the walls of his room. Ma came in to get his laundry while he was lying on his bed one afternoon, and he tensed, certain that he was going to get in trouble.

But Ma just looked, and asked where his markers were. Knowing he was in trouble, Martin gave them to her, never expecting to get them back. But Ma took one out of the case, and corrected his spelling and grammar on the wall. “very colourful,” she said, and left the room.

Another time, Martin sat on the kitchen floor with a screwdriver and made scratches in the old linoleum floor. When Pa came in and caught him at it, he took the screwdriver away and left Martin sitting there as he walked away. He came back with a scraper and gave it to Martin. “Needs replacing anyways,” he said, “just always use the right tool for the right job.”

Sometimes, we like to make distinctions about who is ‘in’, and who is ‘out’ in our churches – usually based on some grand assumptions about behaviours or a loose interpretation of what Scripture actually says. Certainly, the most press that Christianity receives deals more with the fascination about who’s ‘in’ and who’s ‘out’ than anything good that churches actually do.

But nestled right in the middle of the story that we tell so often at Christmas is a neat little look at how God works in the world – and beloved, God doesn’t work the way we want God to

Have you ever wondered where the wise men fit into the Christmas story? Actually, they’re not part of the Christmas story at all – they come along after, perhaps even as late as two years after the birth of Jesus.

The wise men appear in Matthew’s gospel. They’re not Jewish, either; they’re gentiles, probably coming from Persia (present-day Iran) and, they’re pagans. They’re astrologers, who saw the signs in the heavens and came to find the Messiah. So the first people who sought out and worshipped Jesus weren’t good Jewish people at all – and probably never were. Now of course, popular mythology has turned the three of them into converts, but there’s no evidence of that.

One Saturday, after a particularly bad week, Ma and Pa called Martin and the other kids upstairs after supper. Martin had been in trouble at school, and had yelled at the Jacobsen boys when they were playing together and Martin wanted to play a different game. That day, there at the kitchen table and surrounded by paperwork, was Martin’s social worker.

Martin couldn’t speak, but he knew what was about to happen. Wordlessly, he went downstairs and packed a small bag. It had happened before; again, he was leaving. He was too much for this family. It was probably for the best.

But when he came back upstairs and began to gather his coat, Ma stopped him. “Where are you going?” she asked. “I don’t know”, he replied, “but I guess I’m done here.”

The day that the wise men found the child is celebrated as the feast of Epiphany, 12 days after Christmas. If you come from Eastern Europe, your family probably celebrated “little Christmas” on Friday – going back to the days of the old Gregorian calendar when Christmas was later.

We don’t often consider that the first people to worship Jesus were the least-likely suspects - Much like we don’t expect to find Jesus being baptized in the wilderness. Yet God still works in these strange and unexpected ways, often when we least expect it, or feel like we deserve it.

I’ve met a lot of people who can tell me that they feel closer to God outside, doing something they love doing. And I’m happy for them, and I agree with them – certainly, I feel closer to God when the world is going my way and I’m enjoying myself.

But there are the times when the world isn’t going my way, and I feel pretty far away from God. Like Martin, I try to push God away, so that God can’t see my failings and frailty.

At times like that, and in places like this, I need to know that despite how I feel about the situation, God is closer to me.

“What do you mean?” Ma asked.

“Well, with the social worker here I know you’re sending me back. I’m sorry I’m not a better kid.”

Pa came and stood beside Ma, and the other four children came and stood around them. Martin noticed that they were all crying, and he began to feel a little panicky, as his heart leapt into his throat and tears began to sting his eyes.

“Martin,” Pa said as he wrapped him in a hug, “we’re not sending you away. Your social worker is here so she can sign your permanent papers. You are our son, a part of our family, and we love you. We want you to be part of our family forever.”

You can find God anywhere, that’s true. But here, in this place, God is present; God in relationship with us. God in community; God with us. The Spirit of God is what has called this community into being; that means that God is here.

And everything changed that night. Martin and the other kids painted his room (though now Martin had to share it with his younger brother), and Martin helped Pa with the new flooring in the kitchen. As he learned what it meant to be loved, Martin settled down, and began to grow. And he knew, he knew that he was part of a forever family.

It’s when you think that you are outcast, outside, down and out that the Spirit of God comes to you, and shares with you one simple vision, your own Epiphany:

You are my beloved. With you, I am pleased. And together, as God’s beloved, find that this, this group of people chosen by God as witnesses of a great redeemer and Savior of all humankind, is our forever family, because we are all children of God. And God’s vision – of a people created, nurtured, bound together by the same relationships that bind God’s own self – becomes our own.

Let the people of God say amen.