Enfleshing Hope

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Ezekiel 37:1-14

One of my favourite pastimes is watching a show called Startalk on YouTube.  The host of the show is the one, the only Neil deGrasse Tyson.  He’s a very popular astrophysicist and author and has a real gift for making very complicated topics in science accessible and exciting.  I was watching an episode of Startalk on death.  It was entitled: Why do We Die?  The guest was the world’s foremost expert on the science of dying/aging, Venki Ramakrishnan.  There was nothing spiritual about the episode.  It was mostly about the science of aging and anti-aging.  When they did talk about Death, they presented it in such a way as to say if you take death out of the equation life goes stagnant.  You put off until tomorrow what you could do today and so you sit and do nothing.  But once you get it that you know you are going to die, life becomes more special.  You want to live every moment realizing time is short.  

deGrasse Tyson summed it up at the end of the show with his Cosmic Perspective.  He said: “I, at this stage in my life, value the knowledge that I will die because that gives meaning to every day that I’m alive; knowing that there’s one fewer days left in my future to love, to have new ideas, to make discoveries, to embrace all that it is to be alive in this world.  …If the knowledge of death is what brings meaning to being alive, then to live forever is to live a life with no meaning at all if you can just put off to tomorrow what you could’ve done today…for now, knowing that I’m going to die is what’s keeping me going.”  

When I first heard that, at first blush, it sounded quite wise.  Live every moment to its fullest for you never know what a day may bring.  I’ve done some hospital chaplaincy work inclusive of EMERG and I know without a doubt that there is a place called left field and things do come flying out of it.  So, yeah, don’t put off until tomorrow or the next day or the next to do what needs to be done or would be good to do.  But I have a problem with saying “the knowledge of death is what brings meaning to life.”  That’s something that people with means and privilege say.  

Here's something along that line from the more churchy side of things.  Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s it became fashionable to tell young university age people that God’s calling could be found is where their greatest passion and the world’s greatest need meet up.  That sounds really wise but...who’s going to clean the filters at the sewage treatment or pick the apples?  It takes a certain amount of means and privilege for me to be able to do what I believe will make my life meaningful.  At least 90% of the world’s population does not have the means or privilege to pursue their dreams.

As far as I see it, death is not what drives our pursuit for meaning.  I rather think that death is the capstone on the monument of futility that this disease we call Sin has made of human existence.  Sin robs life of its beauty and meaning and purpose and the fact that we die just makes it all the more futile.  If death does anything, it ends the futility.  That philosophy of “live fully because you’re going to die”, it’s good advice but it totally ignores human nature and how we are affected by Sin.  

For most people, knowing you’re going to die doesn’t change much.  A study was done a couple of decades ago on humans and our seeming inability to change.  I wish I had the time this past week to dig through my books on why churches don’t change even when faced by imminent death to make sure I got it right, but… in the study people were told by their doctor that if they continue on living the way they are living – the lack of exercise and poor diet – they will be dead in less than five years.  Did they change?  80% of the study participants did nothing to change their habits.  Some tried and gave up.  A handful succeeded.  Such are we.  So, knowing we are going to die doesn’t change much about how we live.

deGrasse Tyson would place himself in the category of being an atheist.  Unlike some of the more popular atheists today, he is not belligerent towards people of faith unless those people of faith are using their religion to violate the rights and dignity of others as often is the case.  As a scientist, he is quick to point out that faith can be a bias that keeps one from seeing what’s really there.  The same can be said in reverse, that a lack of faith can be a bias that keeps one from seeing how this unimaginably immense Creation everywhere glorifies its Maker.  God created this universe and called it very good.  What God created and called very good, God will not resign to the futility of Sin and Death.  Death is not the last word in God’s very good Creation.  Jesus Christ and him raised from death is God’s final word that heals everything.  As it went with him, so will it go with us.

Well, I don’t want to give you an Easter sermon just yet, so I’m going to hold off on the topic of Resurrection and go back to the topic of meaning. Knowing that I’m going to die doesn’t compel me to do the things I find meaningful.  The fact that they are meaningful compels me.  In the struggle to find meaningful life in the face of the futility caused by sin and death, I think it is important to consider purpose.  Life will be meaningful if it serves a purpose so what is my purpose.  

As Christians, when we talk about purpose and meaning our thoughts will likely be undergirded or at least informed by and maybe even formed around three theological thoughts: one, God created us; two, God created us to live full and meaningful lives, three, on God’s terms.  The one who made us knows what will make life meaningful for us and give us joy so seek out what God wants.  In searching for what this is I find the first question in the Westminster Larger Catechism of the Christian Faith helpful.  It asks: “What is the chief and highest end of man?”  It answers: “Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.”  Let me give this a paragraph or two.

When we talk about glorifying God, we are not talking about a Great Leader Cabinet meeting in front of the press where you go around the table and everyone shamelessly grovels and lies about the great things the Great Leader has supposedly done.  The biblical concept of glory is like a solar eclipse, when the moon passes in front of the sun.  There comes a moment when the moon perfectly overlaps the sun and all you see is a black circle encircled by a crown of pure light – the glory.  To glorify God is for us to live our lives such that the glory of God shines around us.  It is to live lives of compassion, kindness, humility, and patience.  It is to bear with one another, forgiving one another.  It is to dress ourselves in love and thankfulness.  Love is patient and kind.  It doesn’t envy nor is it boastful and arrogant, rude, and self-seeking, or irritable keeping a record of wrongs.  Love rejoices in the truth!  Be filled with the Holy Spirit.  People will know the Spirit of God lives in us when they see the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

I’ve left out one word thus far – hope.  Our God is the God who raises the dead.  This world is rapidly filling with darkness, yet again.  Wars, lies, cover-ups, sinking economy, climate disaster.  I could go on.  God has not absconded.  God is being eclipsed by the vainglorious misdeeds of men who think they are gods.  But just like in the midst of a solar eclipse the crown of glory of the sun encircles the moon and the darkness then starts to fade so are we who live in by the Spirit in the image of Christ.  Friends, breathe the Spirit of God and be enfleshed with hope.  The glory of God shines through us into this dark world.  Glorify God and you will know what it is to enjoy him and this world will glimpse its one hope – Jesus Christ.  Amen.

 

A Heart of Humility

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1 Samuel 16:1-13

Earlier in the week I searched my files to see if I had ever preached on this passage before and oddly, I couldn’t find anything.  Verse seven of this passage is so popular when it comes to the topic of choosing leadership, it surprises me I haven’t brought it out when elder elections were upon us or during civic elections.  “For the LORD does not see as mortals see; for they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”  The world would be a different place this morning if we elected leaders on the quality of their character rather than on how well our ears get tickled by their spiel or by their party affiliation.  Good people will do their best to do what is peaceable and right.  Bad people…well that one’s obvious.  There’s that maxim Jesus said: Good trees bear good fruit.  Bad trees bear bad fruit.  You’ll know them by their fruit. 

Unfortunately, a person’s true character is difficult to discern because it involves seeing what so often can’t be seen outwardly.  The heart we wear on our sleeves is too often not our true heart.  Yet, true character shows up in what a person does when no one is looking.  We need to see how they treat animals, how they treat children, how generously they tip even when the service is bad.  Do they have moments of worship?  Do they know humility?  This may sound crude but it is a character tell, will they clean a toilet.  Maybe it’s more important to know if they even know how to clean a toilet.  I can think of at least one world leader out there starting wars who has never had to clean a toilet and wouldn’t know where to start.  I think it was Jesus who said: “The greatest among them will be servant of all.”  If only that were the way of the world instead of this delusion that the greatest must be served by all.

I may never have given a sermon on this passage but I’ve used it quite often for a youth group study.  I would assign roles to each of the youth and we would act it old.  I would have the biggest and oldest in the group be the first brother and so on down the line to the youngest and scrawniest and hopefully nerdiest kid being David.  After we acted it out, we would talk about things like how it felt to be picked over and it’s especially poignant if whoever played the eldest brother was someone who always got picked.  We would talk about judging people by appearances and how just because someone looks the part doesn’t mean they have what it takes.  

The lesson ended with talking about the true qualities of David that would make him fit to be a king.  He definitely did not fit the bill for what one would expect a king to be like.  He was the youngest of the brothers, kind of scrawny, and for all shapes and purposes rosy-cheeked and “pretty” like an 80's big-hair heavy metal star.  He may have even been red-headed.  He shepherded the family flocks.  Back then, shepherds were on the bottom rung of society as far as public esteem went.  They were always dirty and smelled like sheep, usually had no education, and had reputations for being crude and rude.  His brothers didn’t think too highly of him. If you look at the story of David and Goliath there’s a conversation between David and his brothers that reveals that they thought he was arrogant and irresponsible, nothing more than their father’s errand boy.  He was too puny to fight the Philistines and they accused him of only coming to the battle to watch the Israelites lose like those people who go to NASCAR races just to see a crash.  

But there was more to David’s character than what we would deduce from appearances.  The Bible’s overall picture of David was that he was a man after God’s own heart.  Even after the affair with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah, he remained a man after God’s own heart.  He wanted to please God above anything else.  He was a poet.  He wrote worship songs.  The 23^rd Psalm is probably the most often recited poem in history.  David the shepherd wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.”  There is something more to this shepherd thing than the stigmas attached to it.  In the writings of the Old Testament prophets, God calls himself the shepherd of Israel and referred to the leaders of Israel as shepherds.  What his brothers called arrogance was actually courage.  In his work of shepherding, he had had to kill lions and bears often having to go hand to paw with them.  Goliath the giant was nothing to be afraid of.  David wasn’t coming to the battles to watch.  He was there bringing supplies in obedience to his father.  David knew what it was to serve.  He knew humility.  So, David was worshipful, creative, courageous, and humble and did what he was asked to do.  He didn’t abandon the sheep when there was danger.  All of these qualities could have easily been looked over if he were judged by the outward appearances of being the youngest and a shepherd.

If I could pontificate for just a moment on what I think was David’s greatest quality.  I would say it was his humility.  He didn’t act like the kings around him.  The one time that he did, the affair with Bathsheba which led to him having her husband murdered, in the end served to reveal his humility.  He was deeply remorseful knowing he had trampled on God’s little lambs.  He did not grasp at power nor did he wield it for his own sake.  He was simply a shepherd who cared for his sheep.  Everything he needed to know about being king he learned from tending the flock.  Humility. 

I am reminded of a man from my childhood named Charlie.  He was the janitor at my elementary school.  He was a quiet man who always had a smile and a “Hello” and he would have a brief chat with us kids when paths crossed.  If he saw you crying in the hall he wouldn’t walk on by.  He kept the classrooms, the hallways clean, and especially the bathrooms.  Sometimes those bathrooms could be a bit trying especially when you get little boys seeing who could stand the furthest from the urinal and still hit it.  Or, when the mischievous boys in the higher grades made wads of water-soaked toilet paper stick to the ceiling, he was the one to get the ladder and scrape it off.  When we threw up, he was the one who came to clean it up and he would be sure to speak kindly to the little one who got sick.  Charlie was an African American man looking after an all-white student body at a time when many of those white children would have been silently taught by parents and grandparents to be wary of black men. Regardless, we all loved Charlie and he loved us.  When Charlie died the local paper prominently displayed his obituary.  As you would expect, Charlie never went to high school.  He was deeply loved by his family and his community.  Charlie went to church every Sunday.  Charlie was one of those in whom we caught a glimpse of Jesus.  He had a heart of humility.

Applying this passage to real life situations where we are choosing leaders whether it be for the church or for the nation, I think one question to consider is whether a particular candidate measures up to the standard Charlie set.  Heck, do each of us measure up to the standard Charlie set.  Let us remember what Jesus said in Luke’s Gospel when his disciples were arguing over which of them was the greatest.  He said: “The kings of the gentiles lord it over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather, the greatest among you must become like the youngest and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves” (Lk 22:25-27).  If the royal scepter a leader wields is a toilet brush or a broom or a basin and towel, we’ve likely got the right person in charge.  Amen.

  

Water for the Thirsty

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Exodus 17:1-7

A long time ago back when I was in seminary, my first wife and I decided we would like to graduate from campground camping and take a stab at backcountry camping.  This was something I had done plenty of times when I was young and in scouting, so it wasn’t a completely foreign experience to me.  But for my wife...well, she would have to trust me.  So, we acquired what extra gear we would need to backpack into a place and camp.  

For our first and only attempt, we chose a side-trail just off the Appalachian Trail in the George Washington National Forest in Virginia not far from where we were from.  The trail descended rather gently to level ground good for camping, but it was about a 1,600ft climb to come out with a waterfall along the way.  The trail book said that backcountry camping was permitted and most importantly there was water available but filtering was highly recommended.  What it didn’t say was that water may not be available year-round.  The topographical map pictured in the book had a clue that we weren’t privy to.  The line that indicated where the stream lay was not a continuous blue line but occasionally had dashes and dots meaning not a year-round source of water.  A bit of an oversight, you might have guessed.

We planned our trip – hike in on Saturday, stay overnight, and out on Sunday.  We packed up and headed for the hills.  When we got to the ranger station at the entrance to the Skyline Drive we learned that there was a complete fire ban which meant we couldn’t even use our cookstoves which meant no food so we decided to just go make a day hike out of it.  Thinking there would be water along the way we thought we would be ok with just a small water bottle between the two of us and the filter.  Off we went. It turned into a very hot day.  Our water ran out quickly as we descended into the bottom but we didn’t worry as there would be water in the bottom. We got to where the stream was supposed to be, but there was no stream to be found, just a dry bed.  There we were.  We had no water and a couple more hours of hiking in heat with a 1,600ft climb at the end.  

I was a runner accustomed to long runs on Saturday morning so my body was familiar with thirst.  But my wife…I was worried.  She wasn’t in any kind shape for what lay ahead.  As we got into the steep ascent alongside the non-existent waterfall, she was getting redder and redder.  We had to stop often with no choice but to soldier on.  I’m sure she was wondering if I had brought her out there to die.  It was well into late afternoon before we came off the trail and still had a bit of forestry service road to walk to get back to the car.  We met another hiker who after remarking that we weren’t looking too good, offered us some water.  We made it back to the car where we had water.  We never made another attempt at backcountry camping.  The marriage lasted five more years.

Thirst is dangerous business out in the wild.  It does not take long for dehydration and heat exhaustion to get life threatening.  I don’t think we were far from that point.  We should have picked a place we were familiar with for our first attempt at backcountry camping as a solo couple.  Some trust was destroyed that day.  

Looking here at Exodus, we could say it was a bit of an oversight on the part of Moses to lead the people out into the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula apparently without a plan for food and more importantly water.  One of the biggest gambits we can make is to assume that God will provide.  We like certainty, self-sufficiency, security and we admire people who can forge their way through life never owing anybody anything.  We want Frank Sinatra to come sing his anthem at our funerals.  If we’re thirsty, hungry or without a roof over our heads, then we presume that we have miscalculated, made some huge errors in judgement and can only blame ourselves or those whom we thought we could rely on.  

Such was the case with Moses and the Israelites.  The sparseness of the wilderness made it difficult for the Israelites to trust Moses, much less the God who had delivered them from slavery in Egypt.  For 400 years they had lived in Egypt.  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had seemingly abandoned them to slavery there.  There’s no way to know for sure but it is highly likely they had forgotten the God of their fathers and given themselves over to Egyptian religion which was largely utilitarian in nature.  If you wanted crops to grow, children, safety, power there were sacrifices to be made to the particular gods who oversaw such things and nothing was guaranteed.  The gods were capricious and certainly did not love those annoying humans who were always wanting something from them.  

For Moses to claim that Yahweh, the God of their fathers, had heard their cries and for love for his people was delivering them from Pharaoh with a mighty hand, well, that was a bit much to chew and swallow.  And here they find themselves in the middle of nowhere with no water.  Four days is about the max a human can go without water.  They are about a couple hundred thousand in number.  I would think that Yahweh, the God of their fathers was appearing quite capricious to the Israelites and Moses looked like a short-sighted zealot.  They play the blame game.  “Have you brought us out of Egypt to kill us?”

Then came the clincher question, “Is the LORD among us or not?”  Had they not noticed that their God had plagued the Egyptians and delivered them from Pharaoh's army by parting the Red Sea.  They crossed on dry ground and Pharaoh's army got drowned.  They had been following a whirlwind cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  And yet, they couldn’t see past the life and death nature of their thirst.  Though God was obviously among them, they couldn’t see the obvious and so they complained against God and blamed the leadership.  The true question was not whether God was with them, he obviously was.  It was whether they were with God.  

So well, it’s the third Sunday in Lent.  Thirst, thirsting for God, is the traditional theme.  The Israelites were literally thirsty to the point of it being life threatening.  God provided the water and nobody died.  Yet, there are other times after this when some Israelites do die for complaining against God in times of crisis, specifically for longing to return to slavery in Egypt and to the gods of Egypt…which was apparently an easier life because it didn’t require so much actual faith from them.  It’s easier to believe God doesn’t care.  It’s easier to believe that God is capricious, unfeeling, and uninvolved.  It’s easier to believe that God has left us here to fend for ourselves…than to believe that God actually is with us, among us, in our midst; that God actually is involved in what is going on in our lives; that God actually does love us…especially when a crisis is involved.

We live in a culture that is having a crisis of faith.  The people who do polling on matters of faith and religious affiliation as well as the national census are telling us that the institution of Christianity in our culture, the Church we all grew up in and cherish, has been abandoned to the point of extinction.  Less than 10% of the Canadian population actively participates in the life of a congregation.  There are two statistical categories that are kind of catchy but so relevant, “Nones” and “Dones”.  The percentage of people with no religious affiliation, the "nones" is nearing 40% and many of them do not like the privilege that particularly Christianity has enjoyed in our culture particularly in the area of tax breaks, moral policing, and political influencing.  They really don’t like it when money they donate to things like hospice care gets used to pay a chaplain.  Then there are people who are “done” with the Church.  They may still have beliefs in or about Jesus but they got sick of church politics and the lack of social compassion and left.  They are done and are not coming back.  

All the while, there is a growing thirst that is at an epidemic level.  I’m not sure I can call it a thirst for God but it certainly has arisen in conjunction with the demise of Christianity in Canadian culture.  This thirst goes by the name of loneliness.  If we are to believe the results of mental health pollsters, almost 60% of our population is suffering loneliness or had a bout of it in the last year.  In the five years prior to Covid, the world of medicine announced that sitting all day was the new smoking.  To sit all day at a desk at a computer is as lethal as smoking nearly a pack a day.  Now in the wake of Covid, studies are showing that loneliness is the new smoking.  Lack of meaningful human contact takes its toll on us emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  Two social events have accompanied this rise in loneliness: the introduction of smartphones and social media and the demise of social institutions such as the church and civic organizations.  

For the senior citizens who make up the bulk of our congregations, who for the longest time made up the bulk of those who suffered loneliness in our culture, the church family is living water.  But for the younger crowd, most of them addicted to a device, with no religious affiliation and an inexplicable antipathy for anything Christian…well, we have to stand firm in trusting that the God who is with us is somehow with them as well and at the right time God will call up a Moses who smites the rock from which the living water will flow.  

Until then, it is gravely important that we who are imbibing of this water, that we love our literal neighbours.  More than half of the people we encounter in a day are dealing with the effects of loneliness.  They are thirsty.  Be that person on the trail who notices and give them a drink.  Amen.

 

The Faith of Abraham

Genesis 12:1-4; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

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As you may have guessed from the reading today this sermon is going to be about Abraham and his faithful response to God’s call.  I question the appropriateness of this kind of sermon for the congregations to which I preach.  The topic is more fitting for groups of younger people who are looking forward in life with career choices and starting a family etc. and encouraging them to seek out what God is calling them to.  I think for the congregations to which I minister it would be more context appropriate to preach on the story of Abraham and Sarah childless for decades then suddenly getting pregnant when he was 99 and she was in her late 80’s in fulfillment of God’s promise to make their descendants into a great nation.  With that passage I could preach that regardless of age, energy, health even, God still is involved in our lives taking us somewhere.  There’s always room for growth.

We encounter this story of God’s call to Abraham differently in our later years than when we are young.  The older we get the more we tend to look back on our lives. Looking back, we are more apt to be asking “Did I do what God called me to do?  Did I go where God was sending me?”  To avoid being presumptive, I’ll speak for myself.  I’m 60 and I’m a minister.  I’ve got four major life events coming up.  When to and where to retire, what to do in retirement, preparing for when I won’t be able to care for myself, and death and all within the realization that at any point death could make any or all of those events into moot points.  And in the midst of all that, continuing to be the best father I can be.

Reflecting on Abraham’s story I can’t help but look back over the last 40-odd years from when I first sensed the call.  Being a minister, I’m reasonably sure I’ve thus far gone where the Lord has sent me and done what he sent me to do as best as I could do it.  I have avoided to the best of my ability the Frank Sinatra “I did it my way” approach to life.  I learned at age 19 that life lived my way wasn’t something I could pull off nor was it worth the pain, and so I said “Jesus, I’m yours.”  Ever since, God has been faithful.  He’s made a home for me everywhere I went among good, solid, caring, kind people who’ve been a blessing to me and me, a blessing to them.  Life has still been life.  There have been hurts along the way, but Jesus himself has been with me and I’ve done my best to handle the hurts and setbacks as faithful to Jesus and the others involved as I could discern what is the faithful thing to do.  

Looking back over the last 40 years I have learned God is faithful.  I just need to listen, go, and live, and not worry.  As the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8:28 God truly does work all things for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.  I would add to Paul, even when the feathers have hit the fan and even when it’s “my own damn fault”, to add a little Jimmy Buffet.  I’ve learned it is better to be loyal and to serve than to simply look out for myself, trying to make a name for myself, getting for myself, increasing myself.  It is better to be a blessing than, quite literally, a curse.

  Well, I guess I should deal with this passage a bit.  God called Abraham by telling him “Go!” I like the way this command is written and sounds in the Hebrew language.  It’s a command, the imperative form for the verb “to go” in Hebrew is “Lek” and there’s a prepositional phrase tacked on to it: leKah – le meaning “for” and Kah meaning “you yourself” in the sense of being to one’s advantage.  All together it’s “Lek-leKah” meaning “Go! For what’s best for you.”  It’s like if you’re laying in bed awake at night and hear a voice say “Lek-leKah”, you better get up and get on with it because it’s going to be good.”

And notice this isn’t a conditional statement where God is saying “If you go, I will bless you.”  I’m very inclined here to say that Abraham did not have a choice here.  What God wanted Abraham to do was going to happen.  I learned from years of marriage that if your spouse says “I need you to (I don’t know) LISTEN!”, you listen because if you fail to, the fabric of spacetime begins to disintegrate.  So it is when God speaks.  Like on the first day of creation in Genesis God spoke to the primordial chaos of darkness and water saying “Let there be light.”  Then, there was light.  God would have made it so that Abraham and his descendants made it to that land to become that great nation and be a blessing.

Something else to note here, Abraham was in essence just going with the flow.  He was the oldest of three sons of a man named Terah.  They lived in a place called Ur which was where the Euphrates River ran into the Persian Gulf in what is Kuwait today.  As a family they packed up and became part of a huge migration of people traveling up the Euphrates River to Syria and then heading down through Israel to Egypt.  Terah had them stop in northern Syria to settle.  God’s call to Abraham was that he needed to go further.  Against the social convention that the oldest son stayed close to the father to take over the family when the father died, Abraham went against his family and moved a little further down the line to what God had in mind for him.  He went through Israel down to Egypt then turned around and came back to Israel to settle.  All along the way God blessed him and his family and he was a blessing to the nations around him.  Abraham was not out to make a name for himself.  God did that for him and he was well respected.  Abraham just wanted what God wanted for him.  

The faith of Abraham, or rather the faithfulness for there’s no such thing as faith without faithfulness – the faithfulness of Abraham was to listen, go, and live and God would work things to the good.  God is faithful.  God blessed him and made him to be a blessing.  Being a blessing is found in being loyal and serving God and others.  Loyalty and serving is what love is.  There is no such thing as love if it is not expressed daily in fidelity and putting oneself aside to serve.  It’s when people, ourselves included, get selfish that things go bad.  Wars are not caused by religions or ideologies.  They’re caused by selfish idiots deluding people with religion and ideology so that the selfish can get power and wealth for themselves.  Marriages don’t fall apart because a couple was expressing their love for one another through loyalty and serving one another, i.e., being a blessing to each other.  They fall apart because somebody got selfish.

To end up where I started with speaking about how the story of Abraham’s call is heard differently by us depending on our age, whether we are young and starting out, in midlife re-evaluating, or elderly and looking back the question of blessing applies to us all.  If you’re young and looking forward, strive to be a blessing and make choices about work and marriage and family that will help you be that.  In the middle of life and re-evaluating, same thing except you may have some amends to make for when you chose poorly.  Elderly and looking back, same thing but don’t let looking back consume the responsibility you still have to be a blessing.  Age robs us of darn near everything.  Don’t let pain and grief narrow your vision down to seeing only your own suffering.  God has not abandoned you.  Continue to be a blessing.  Amen.

Hiding from the Seeker

Genesis 2:16-17, 3:1-9

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I am the youngest of four.  I was also the youngest in the neighbourhood we lived in until I was 7.  Back then if you can imagine it, all the kids in the neighbourhood would go outside and play together all day.  That proved problematic for me.  I don’t know why it is but when you are the youngest among the kids, it seems you have a sign on your back that says “Pick on me.”  That, of course, did happen to me both from my siblings and the other kids in the neighbourhood.  It has its effect.  

I remember the first time I prayed something that wasn’t like bedtime prayers.  I was five.  I had been up the street playing a game of Red Rover with my siblings and the rest of the neighbourhood kids.  They started making fun of me which resulted in me running home in tears.  They just kept on playing as if nothing ever happened.  At home there wasn’t anybody around to comfort me.  I don’t know where the parents were.  So, I stood in the living room looking out the window and for some reason I prayed, “God, what’s wrong with me that other kids don’t want to play with me?”  There was no still small voice or wave of peaceful assurance or sense of God being present.  God was predictably silent.  But, a month or two later a boy my age moved in across the street and we became best friends until well after high school.  You could say God delivered me from having to go play with older kids if I was going to play with somebody.  I also find it remarkable that at five years old I was turning to God for answers.

Looking back on that day, the answer to that question is obvious, “There’s nothing wrong with you per say, Randy.  You’re likable and lovable.  Kids can be mean.  There’s a reason for that.  It’s a sickness everyone has called Sin.  Even adults suffer from it.  Try your best not to be mean too.”  But, I was too young and the bullying happened too often for me to hear anything from God so I kept believing there was something wrong with me that people don’t want to play with me and that false belief persisted most of my life.  It was part of the “Stinkin’ Thinkin’” that fed alcoholism in me years ago.

Well, a couple months after that little boy moved in across the street, I decided I was going to exact some revenge on my siblings and it was devious.  While they and my parents were all elsewhere around the house doing their thing, I went and got the stapler and took the stables out of it and then I stealthily worked them into the cushions of the living room couch.  My plan was that at least one of my siblings would sit on the couch and get a healthy dose of staples in the bum.  They wouldn’t know I did it because I was going to hide in plain sight over at my new best friend’s house.  One of them would get staple-bum and I would just lie and say, “It wasn’t me. I was at Ronnie’s.”  They would believe me because I was the good kid. 

Well, my buddy and I were playing in his room when the knock came at his door.  It was my sister Jan and she said, “Mom says to please send Randy home.” There was no reason given, but I knew what it was.  My devious plan which I hadn’t even divulged to Ronnie was figured out.  Fortunately, it didn’t result in me getting a sore bum.  I just had to remove all the staples which had done a lot of damage to the upholstery on a very nice all but brand-new couch that we had gotten from the Grand Piano Furniture Store.  Then, I had to go to my room for a couple of hours, and I couldn’t go to Ronnie’s for a few days.  

I can’t say that my mother was over the top angry.  It was “Why Randy, would you do such a thing.  You’re usually such a good kid.”  It disappointed her.  I’d have fathered that she just be angry.  But in this moment of uncharacteristic behaviour on my part, she was bewildered, disappointed, and scared.  She didn’t know where I was at.  If you’ve been a parent, then you’ve had those kinds of disappointing and scary moments with respect to your children and not knowing where they are at.

Well, looking here at Genesis and Adam and Eve I could go on for hours on this story.  It helps that we don’t get bogged down in whether this historically happened or not.  The real power in it is how brutally accurate it is in describing how we humans are.  In our inner world we have these things called core values, what we know is right and what is wrong.  We will betray these core values and there are characteristic patterns of behaviour that we go through when we set about betraying those values mostly it's rationalizing, self-justifying, and we finish up with blaming.  We deceive ourselves in order to betray ourselves.  When we betray those values we break trust with and hurt ourselves and others and God.  

When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they didn’t suddenly gain the ability of knowing right from wrong.  That had been spelled out already when God told Adam what tree not to partake of.  What they gained is the knowledge of good and evil.  That’s when it seems good to do evil and evil to do good.  They’re mixed in together.  Have you ever had it happen that when all things are considered the best thing to do is the evil thing so that good can result?  Assassination and war can appear good when you’ve got to get rid of a cruel tyrant.  Have you ever done the right thing and all it did was hurt people?  

This story says that there is something wrong with us.  What’s wrong with us is that we twist the truth, concoct false narratives, and accept misinformation as fact so that we can rationalize our way into doing what we know in our cores to be wrong.  We deceive ourselves into believing that what we know to be wrong is actually good for us and we wind up betraying ourselves and others.  We then hide behind our rationalizations and self-justifications to keep from having to accept responsibility for our actions.  Like back at my childhood, the kids who bullied me were just having fun, right?  I thought the staples were a fair means to justice.  And, that’s just kids being kids.  We don’t outgrow it when we become adults.  We just get better at it…especially the hiding ourselves because we feel that there’s something wrong with us…and you know what?  There is!...and we die from it.

Well, this story isn’t just about us.  Notice how God is.  God doesn’t appear as an omnipotent Judge here.  He doesn’t show up knowing exactly where Adam and Eve are at and what they had done so that he could exact a verdict of “Die and go to Hell!”  Oddly, God doesn’t seem to know what’s happened.  God’s just strolling in the Garden in the cool of the day looking to catch up with his Beloved ones to hear what they had discovered that day in the Garden amongst the trees.  But God can’t find Adam and Eve.  They’ve hidden themselves from him because they are ashamed of their nakedness.  The trees of the Garden which were supposed to be discovery places are suddenly hiding places.  The Seeker can’t find his Beloved Ones, the apple of his eye, the crown of his creation.  Like my mother, God doesn’t know where they are at.  So, God asks, history’s most powerful rhetorical question, “Where are you?”

And so it is with each of us, “Where are you?”  What rationalizations, self-justifications are we deceiving ourselves with so that we can betray ourselves and God and one another.  What tree are you hiding behind?  Come out from behind it.  Your Beloved is seeking you.  Amen.

 

Entering the Cloud of Jesus Praying

Luke 9:28-36

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Atop the Blue Ridge Mountains not far from where I grew up in Waynesboro, Virginia there is a tourist attraction known as Humpback Rocks.  It is a rather large outcropping of rocks that delivers a spectacular view of the Shenandoah Valley.  The climb up is one of the steepest and most strenuous one-mile hikes you will come across, but it’s worth it.  If you get out on the edge of the rocks, you can have that Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie Titanic “King of the World” sensation.  Unfortunately, since my 20’s I have found being out on the edge of anything just a little too terrifying.  If you fall off, it’s about a fifty or more-foot drop just to get into the tree tops below.  It’s a place you need to be careful, but the view is worth it.  It’s “good”.

I’ve been up on Humpback a couple of times on rainy-ish days when the clouds are blowing by.  It’s awesome to watch a cloud coming at you, billowing its way along the ridges, engulfing everything along the way and then…it engulfs you.  I have been up there when you couldn’t see but a few feet in front of you.  If you’re not familiar with the rocks, you’re best to just sit right down and wait it out.  In those fogged-out moments it is not “good” on Humpback.  It’s terrifying.  

I think of those experiences on Humpback when I read this story of the Transfiguration.  Peter, James, and John go up on a mountain with Jesus to pray and it’s good.  But then comes the cloud and they find themselves engulfed by it.  It’s terrifying.  Yet in their case, it’s not the fog that terrifies them.  It’s that they have found themselves in the presence of God.  What shall we say about that?

Well to start, what we have here in this story of the Transfiguration is one of those rare moments in the Gospels when God fully reveals himself and to the consternation of many, God reveals himself as Trinity.  There’s Jesus the Son, the voice of God the Father, and the Holy Spirit showing up as the terrifying cloud.  Something similar happened at Jesus’ baptism when he began his ministry.  Jesus, the Son was in the water.  God the Father spoke from heaven.  The Holy Spirit came on him like a dove.  That was the beginning of his ministry and now it happens again this time as Jesus begins his journey to the cross.

Well, I’m going to apologize to you for what I’m about to do next.  I’m going to get a little theologically heavy on you and talk about the Trinity and what prayer is.  To do that it’s best we don’t start by trying to do the math: you know, 3-in-1, 1-in-3.  It’s better to think of Trinity as the relationship in love of the persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  They are three persons who are in a relationship of mutually giving, unconditional love and this relationship of love is what they each are in themselves.  It’s like me saying “What makes me “Me” is all the significant relationships I’ve had in life.”  Sure, I’m uniquely me, but I am not “me” without those significant and formative relationships.  As persons, we aren’t islands to ourselves.  We are persons in relationships.  The Father isn’t the Father without the Son and the Spirit, nor the Son without the Father and the Spirit, nor the Spirit without the Father and the Son.

 Since Trinity is this eternal relationship of love, we must note that communication is always happening between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  In essence, this is prayer.  We ask what does a Triune God in all eternity do in his very self?  Well, God talks among himself…God prays.  God in God’s self as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is always praying.  The book of Hebrews says that Jesus is ever-standing before the Father in the Spirit praying interceding on our behalf which also implies that the Father in the Spirit is always listening and answering.  Jesus is always praying for us and the Father is always listening and answering for us and the Spirit carries it out.  

Now here’s one more to wrap your head around.  The Holy Spirit due to his abiding in us and bonding us to Jesus the Son, he brings us as God’s beloved children into that eternal praying of the Son to the Father and the Father’s hearing and answering his beloved Son.  The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 8 that the Holy Spirit is always in us praying and when we don’t know what to pray, especially when we are deeply hurting and cannot put words to it, the Holy Spirit is in us praying with sighs too deep for words.  Our praying is participating in the praying that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit does within Godself.

I bet you never thought of prayer that way.  We are inclined to think of prayer as our talking at God from a vast distance and God from a distance hearing and maybe from a distance answering at us.  But the truth is, prayer is our participating in the communication that goes on within the Trinity in such a way that by the work of the Holy Spirit our prayers become Jesus’ prayers and his ours.  When we pray Jesus is in us and us in Jesus.

Well, your theological moment is done, but let me make use of that basic thought about prayer – that prayer is our participation in Jesus’ own praying in the midst of the life of God the Trinity – let me use that to set the stage for what is going on here in Luke.  You see, what we have here in Luke’s account of the Transfiguration is a moment when certain of the disciples entered into the “cloud” of Jesus’ praying.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell this story of the Transfiguration, but Luke tells it from a different perspective.  He is the only one to put the Transfiguration into the context of prayer.  It happens while Jesus is praying and his disciples are attempting to pray with him.  

So, we have Jesus heading up the mountain to pray.  Peter, James, and John are with him and as he begins to pray, of course they begin to fall asleep.  Prayer would not be prayer if we didn’t have a good nap.  Do I hear an amen?  Oddly, they manage to stay awake and suddenly they find themselves engulfed in the “goodness” of pure light.  Jesus’ face has changed and his clothes have become dazzling white.  Jesus, glorified, unveiled before them in his relationship with the Father in the Spirit.  

Then, they see two more people with Jesus, Moses and Elijah who are themselves no strangers to talking with God on the mountaintop.  On Mt. Sinai, Moses heard the voice of the LORD and received the Commandments.  Moses was also a great mediator.  Up on the mountain he talked the LORD out of destroying the Israelites for their idolatry in the Golden Calf incident and convinced God not to abandon his people but to continue on with them; and not just from afar, but present with them dwelling in their midst in the tabernacle, and leading them as a whirlwind by day and a pillar of fire by night.  Moses intercedes for God’s people, so does Jesus for us his beloved sisters and brothers.

Elijah also had a Mt. Sinai experience. On Mt. Sinai he, the greatest of the prophets excepting John the Baptist, heard the “still small voice of the Lord” while hiding there in a cave.  Elijah was on the run, afraid for his life for he had slaughtered the prophets of Baal and offended the very wicked King Ahab.  Elijah thought he was the only faithful person left in Israel, but by that still small voice God assured him he was not the only one and told him to go back to Israel for there were 7,000 still faithful waiting for him.  Likewise, Jesus was the only truly faithful one and yet he would die a death akin to the one that Ahab threatened Elijah with and yet be raised and ascend into heaven from where we await his return.  In a way, Elijah’s presence here is the still small voice of assurance from the Father to Jesus that though the cross lay ahead, he will live.

Peter, James, and John find this experience of praying with Jesus to be “good".  Peter’s remarks about its goodness reminds me of the Creation story and God saying at the end of each day of Creation “good”.  There is something “Creation-y” in the order of New Creation going on here in this experience of being with Jesus in his praying.  

Well, the moment is good and they want it to go on forever but reality sets in, if I might say it that way.  We could say that Peter, James, and John were suddenly awakened from a dream-like state and confronted with God in God’s very self.  The cloud of the Holy Spirit overshadows them. Things become darkened as they enter into the cloud.  Their feelings of “good” turn to outright terror.  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”  Then, God the Father speaks to them just as he spoke to Moses and to Elijah.  “This is my Son, my Chosen One.  Listen to him.”  And…and there’s silence.  It’s time to go to Jerusalem.  They kept this one to themselves.

This moment leaves us with having to balance the goodness of being with Jesus in his praying with the daunting task of actually listening to him and doing what he says.  In the cloud of Jesus praying, we discover that God is with us and experience the “good-ness” of his living and life-giving presence, the Holy Spirit, with us.  In the cloud of Jesus praying, we discover that Jesus is praying for us, that he is praying for things to work together for the good for us.  It is in the cloud of Jesus praying that we meet Moses, so to speak, where we are awakened to our idolatry and discover “forgiveness”.  It is in the cloud of Jesus praying that we, like Elijah, hear the still small voice of assurance, that God knows our faithfulness and has a plan for us.  This is especially “good” when we feel alone and even abandoned in our faithfulness.  In the cloud of Jesus praying, we find the strength and direction to go on with Jesus’ ministry, his mission for us.

Being with Jesus in his praying is very good but…we still have to listen to him and do what he says.  Jesus tells us we have to deny ourselves and pick up our crosses and follow him.  He tells us we have to love and pray for our enemies.  He tells us we have to forgive rather than hold grudges.  He tells us we have to love one another as he has loved us…unselfishly, without condition…to name a few.  These are difficult things to do and not only to do but to have them become who we are at the very root of who we are.  Impossible tasks if we were simply left to them, but here’s your word of grace for the day.  As prayer is our participation in the Trinity’s life of prayer, the more time we spend in prayer the more God’s nature just naturally rubs off on us and we become more able to listen to Jesus and do what he says.  Entering the cloud of Jesus praying is where and how we become more like him, where his “Me” shapes the “me” we each were made to be. Amen.

 

Spiritual People

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1 Corinthians 2:12-3:11

My best friend throughout seminary was a graduate of West Point Military Academy who came to seminary straight from his first enlistment as a captain with the United States Army.  He was very black and white in his view of the world due to his military background.  In his world, it was “These are your orders.  Carry them out.”  “This is what your commanding officer says.  Do not question.”  He had a difficult time with the liberal atmosphere of seminary which gave room for questioning particularly when the questioning seemed to be just about “me”, “my” rights, and “my” agendas and particularly matters of political correctness.  Often in our private conversations after classes, he would offer a commentary on the “me” focused agendas of some of our fellow students, a commentary which almost always included “Oh waa.  What a bunch of babies.”  It was always my job (and his wife’s) to bring him down off the pedestal and remind him he needed to be more understanding.

But anyway, that thing he always said, “O waa. What a bunch of babies.”  It’s the sort of thing you can say to your platoon when they are whining and complaining about things in the field.  But, it’s not the sort of thing you can say like when you’re a minister and addressing a church conflict.  (Incidentally, he had two shortish pastorates and then reenlisted to become a career Army chaplain and did two tours in Iraq.)  You don’t say that, but it seems in our reading today that Paul did just that to the Corinthian churches.  “You bunch of babies.  Drink your milk.  You’re not ready for solid food.”

The reason Paul calls them a bunch of babies has to do with their spirituality.  “You’re not spiritual people.  You’re a bunch of babies.”  If I ever said such a thing to a group of people in one of my congregations, I have no doubt that I would soon be looking for another church.  You just don’t do that, but Paul did and he had his reasons.  And of course, I need to take a few minutes to explain what those reasons were.  So…sit back and settle in.

According to the Book of Acts, Paul was in Corinth for about a year and a half and he planted several small churches that gathered in people’s homes which were most likely the homes of people wealthy enough to have a space large enough for a gathering of twenty or more people.  Judging from Paul’s two letters to the congregations, congregational life in those churches was very much on the Charismatic side and likely what we would call Pentecostal today.  People were speaking in tongues and prophesying and singing praise songs.  The early church was also very empowering for women and so there were women speaking in tongues and prophesying, teaching, and leading worship.  So, small, lively fellowships meeting in people’s homes.

Interestingly, there is nothing in Paul’s letters or the Book of Acts to indicate that when Paul left he had appointed leaders in any of the congregations.  It may have been that as active as the Holy Spirit was there, Paul either expected that the Spirit would make leaders obvious or things were so egalitarian and spontaneous that Paul didn’t think they needed them.  The lack of appointed leadership proved problematic.  Groups of people need leaders. 

Feeling the leadership vacuum after Paul left, individual people and cadres in the churches began to compete over who would be in charge.  There were the wealthy patrons who owned the houses.  There were wise philosophical types who thought that the intelligentsia should run the show.  There were “spiritual” women who thought that since they spoke in tongues and prophesied so much they should be in charge.  There were also the name-droppers – “I follow Paul.” “I follow Apollos.”  “I follow Peter.”  “I follow Jesus.”  They thought that being students of a particular teacher should hold sway.  The jealousies and quarrellings that ensued damaged the fellowships.

In Paul’s opinion, the arguing that ensued over who should run the show made them look like babies.  And not only the arguing, but more so when they celebrated communion, which they did as part of a meal, it was nothing more than a party at which the rich were feasting and getting drunk while poorer people had to stand back and watch.  There was a man who was playing husband to his own stepmother and nobody called him on it.  They were taking each other to court and suing each other.  Worship was developing into a spectacle of incoherent tongue speaking.  The resultant disunity and immorality that arose from certain members seeking to run the show is why Paul called them babies and blatantly noted that they were not spiritual people.

But…what does Paul mean by “spiritual people”.  What is it to be “spiritual”?  Well, due to the breadth of the topic, it’s kind of hard to nail Paul down on this one but then again, it’s not.  In the two chapters leading up to our reading Paul has talked about personal weakness, the cross, ministering according to giftedness that the Holy Spirit gives, and having the mind or mindedness of Christ.  Later in the letter he talks about love, unconditional and sacrificial love.  Love…you can speak in tongues and prophecy, and understand mystical stuff and be knowledgeable in the faith, but if you don’t have love, you’re a banging gong or clanging cymbal. 

At almost every church wedding these verses get read from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”  This love is what being spiritual looks like.  Marriage is a huge spiritual exercise when this love is practiced. 

In 2 Corinthians 5 Paul talks about our being entrusted with a ministry of reconciliation.  This ministry of reconciliation involves working on our healed relationship with God and striving to heal our broken relationships with each other.  And, being that counter-cultural presence in the lives of people that encourages them to do the hard work of forgiveness and working things out.

In Philippians 2 Paul tells us to have among us the mind or mindedness of Christ which he describes with the words of a popular hymn in the early church.  The hymn was about how Jesus emptied himself of his divinity and became human, like us in every way, not to rule over us but to serve us.  This emptying of self even led to Jesus dying on the cross but God raised him and exalted him above all others.  So also, in love we are to empty ourselves of our desires to rule over others and to self-serve and rather serve one another making sure those around us get their needs met.  Self-emptying and serving in love is being a spiritual person.  That’s spirituality in Paul’s book if you can actually tag a definition on that very vague word.

Paul also talks about prayer, praying without ceasing really.  As we are to have the mind or mindedness of Christ, what we do with our own minds and mindedness is important.  If you are anything like me, then your mind is your worst enemy.  By mind I mean that part of us that worries and quite frankly just won’t shut up.  It tries to mindread other people and figure out motives and explanations for things that are usually just self-destructive babble and not the way things are in reality.  Getting control of the mind is hard.  Some spirituality people talk about emptying the mind, turning it off, and becoming nothing.  Paul goes a different direction and tells us to dwell on the good, pray, meditate on Scriptures, sing hymns and psalms to ourselves.  Also, take time to bring what’s on your mind, what’s troubling you before God.  Focusing our minds on God-things will change the things we’re minded on.  To be minded on something is to be focused if not fixated on it, driven by it.  To have the mindedness of Christ is to be focused on his Presence and seeking to be driven by his love.

The continual praying of the Lord’s Prayer is a fruitful spiritual practice.  And not just praying it according to rote memory, but rather learn to desire what you’re praying for in it.  How does it apply to me and my life, our lives?  When we say “hallowed be your name” that’s an invitation to think about what we truly think and feel about God.  What does “Thy will be done” look like for our lives?  Who do we need to forgive and who needs to forgive us.  From what trials do we need saving?  From what evil do we need to be delivered?  Another way of thinking about that evil thing is to ask "what lies am I believing that are causing hurt to myself and to others?"    

Being spiritual, a spiritual person, is to let God be the one who unconditionally and sacrificially loves us and then be that way to the people around you.  Being this spiritual person brings healing, reconciliation, and hope into the world.  Spiritual people are mindful of the Presence of God, prayerful, and minded on unconditionally loving and serving others.  One last thing to mention, spiritual people will suffer.  This is the way of the cross after all.  Sacrificially loving others that they might find Christ and find healing and life in him does not come without ambivalence being directed towards us.  But he is with us.  God’s Presence is our comfort, our assurance, our peace, and sometimes joy even arises; joy in the midst of some pretty painful circumstances.  Amen. 

 

A Different King of Happiness

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Matthew 5:1-12

“Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  According to Matthew, this is the very first thing Jesus said to his disciples in the way of teaching.  And guess what?  Though this Beatitude may seem straight forward, it is wrought with ambiguity.  Seriously, just try sorting out what being “poor in Spirit” means.  In the Gospel of Luke, Luke has Jesus just saying, “Blessed are the poor.”  Though we might not readily understand or accept that there’s a blessing in being poor, Luke is pretty straightforward in that it is the poor, poor people, who are blessed.  But Matthew has Jesus qualify “the poor” as being those who are poor “in spirit”.  And of course, there are several ways “poor in spirit” can be understood.  For example, if we capitalize the “S” in Spirit, it changes everything.  We’re no longer talking about the human spirit but rather the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Presence of God with us.   

This ambiguity in meaning makes working with the Beatitudes a bit of a challenge, a challenge that needs more than its fair share of attention.  We have to spend some time sorting out this first Beatitude in particular because it is the first thing Jesus taught his disciples and just like the “last words” of a teacher are important to summing up the heart of their teaching so also are a teacher’s “first words”.  I believe Jesus has made his first teaching to be multifaceted in order to make us ponder what life in him is all about from different angles rather than in just one particular way.  If I am poor in spirit (little s), I lack the umph, the capacity, to act in a way to change my life.  I need God’s help.  If I am poor in Spirit (capital S), then I have a poverty of God’s Presence in my life.  I need God to be with me as much as if not more than just God’s help.  The blessing in both those cases is God comes to us in our poverty of S(s)pirit to be present to us for our help.  I tend towards capitalizing the “S” because we all experience a perceived poverty of the Presence of God in our lives without which we would never desire or want God in our lives.

This verse is the foundation upon which Jesus builds the rest of the Beatitudes.  There’s a logical sequence to follow.  Those who realize they are poor in Spirit will begin to mourn and our poverty in Spirit is also something we discover when we mourn.  As the poor in Spirit wrestle with their poverty in Spirit, they become meek and begin to hunger and thirst for righteousness.  They start to become merciful leading to a purity in heart.  They start to become peacemakers and find they suffer persecution simply for righteousness sake.  God has changed their character and the world around them does not like that.  So, being poor in Spirit and wrestling with that lays the foundation for the development of the character and conduct Jesus claims to be characteristic of the happy or blessed life.  The blessing isn’t being wealthy, healthy, and happy all the time. It is life filled with the Presence of God and marked by God’s working in us.  John in his Gospel would call the blessing “Eternal life”.

Moving on, in Hebrew thought sometimes the last thing said in a particular set of teachings is often just another way or repeating the first thing said.  In the last Beatitude Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  That’s basically the same thing he said about being poor in Spirit.  So, this should lead us to think that defining righteousness is the key to unlocking the meaning of what it is to be poor in Spirit.  

  Well, looking at the bigger picture of the Sermon on the Mount for which the Beatitudes are the preface, Jesus comments on righteousness later in it saying, “I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven (5:20).”  If we look at the verses that immediately follow that verse, we find Jesus’ teaches that righteousness cannot be obtained simply by outward obedience.  It is a matter of one’s inner will and attitude as they are made visible in our character and actions.  You know, with a degree of self-control and usually a lot of downright being afraid of God it is possible to live a life of outward obedience.  But, Jesus teaches that controlling our conduct does not make us righteous but rather it is in dealing with our inner person which needs of a fundamental transformation that righteousness begins to form.  The part of us we hide; the part of us that gives birth to our motives, our inner person is where we need God’s Presence and help the most.  Righteousness is an inward matter for which we need God’s Presence and God’s working in us cleansing and healing our sin-corrupted hearts is where we look for what it is to be poor in Spirit.  It is our hearts that need to be changed.  

To be poor in Spirit is the remorseful realization not just that we have messed up and hurt others and ourselves, but it comes with the added realization that “I need a do-over deep within me that only God can do”.  I am powerless to be that better person that I know I ought to be.  I need the help and presence of the one who made me.  This remorsefulness is the result of the Holy Spirit giving us a taste of God’s Presence that opens our eyes to see that the best we can possibly be is naked and ashamed before the God who has proved his faithfulness and steadfast love to us time and again.  The Holy Spirit points us towards Jesus not the self-help spirituality section of Chapters/Indigo.  In Jesus we see who God is and who we are supposed to be.  Jesus’ teachings here in the Sermon on Mount, indeed, the whole of the Bible, cuts us open like we are lab frogs in Tenth Grade Science Class and shows us our innards, our spiritual innards.  The Holy Spirit makes us able to say Jesus is the Truth and looking at him I see the Truth with respect to me and I don’t measure up. 

To be poor in Spirit is to be made poor by the Holy Spirit in that we realize we cannot be the righteous people we know we ought to be.  We are powerless to do so.  Just as those who are poor materially speaking, have no power but to obey the powers that dictate the terms of their lives, so also, we are powerless before our own sinful selves.  We do not have the means within ourselves to cleanse our own hearts.  

We realize our poverty, our powerlessness, and our hopelessness when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to realize that God considers us his beloved children and acts accordingly towards us even though we do not deserve it. To be poor in Spirit is to be aware of one’s own sinfulness and need for God’s Presence and help.  When the Holy Spirit opens us up to know just how much God loves us and the undeserved nature of that love, we see ourselves as nothing before God and yet also the apple of his eye.  Mysteriously God takes us who are nothing and makes us into beautiful creatures who are meek, merciful, pure in heart and who strive to make peace in our relationships and are willing to and do suffer persecution for righteousness’s sake in this world.  

To be poor in Spirit truly is to possess the kingdom of God.  We should ask how a person who is so unhappy with their self since having been made aware of their own sinfulness by the Holy Spirit opening their eyes to Jesus Christ, how could this person possibly be happy or called blessed.  Well, it takes time but eventually we learn to rest in the certainty that in Christ we are beloved children of God.  We grow into our happiness, our blessedness.  Remember the feeding of the 5,000, how Jesus took the five loaves the disciples had, gave thanks, broke them, and gave them back to his disciples to distribute.  It happens the same way for us.  We offer our lives to Jesus and he breaks us of the prideful delusions we have of ourselves and then he entrusts us with his ministry of healing reconciliation in our relationships.  He makes this possible because he has come to live in us by the indwelling of his Spirit.  Happiness, the blessed life, comes in knowing that we are being and we are doing what God wants us to be and do.  We are his beloved children striving to make peace in our relationships as an actual foretaste of the coming Kingdom of Heaven.

We must be poor in Spirit to have the Kingdom of heaven.  This way of being does not mean we are to run around constantly down on ourselves because we fall short, which we do.  Being poor in Spirit is a constant prayer for the Holy Spirit to fill our lives with the awareness of God’s presence with us and knowing God and his love for us, that we are God’s beloved.  It is to know that even though we fall short of living lives that bring praise and glory to God, we each are still immeasurably and unconditionally loved by God as his beloved child, the apple of his eye, and in some great mysterious way God is making us to be the persons God would have us to be.  Amen.

The Foolish Wisdom of the Cross

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1 Corinthians 1:10-31

High School yearbooks, I don’t know if it’s still the case but for mine, they really did it up for the Seniors.  They dressed you in a robe.  The pictures for Seniors were bigger than for the other classes.  Under your name they listed everything you participated in during high school and any awards received.  And finally, the kicker; they let you come up with a quote that would forever haunt you.  Some of those quotes were really quite good.  Some were just famous quotes by famous people that were, of course, not properly cited.  Some, well, somebody should have pulled us and said, “Is the hill of foolishness really the one you want to die on?”  You know, “Stupidity lingers like stench when printed in a yearbook.”  The last thing you want is to go to your 50^th Year High School Reunion and your classmates are looking at the yearbooks matching young faces to the wrinkle club standing before them.  They read your quote and whisper under their breath, “What a moron!”

Mine was sort of a mixture of the last two categories.  It was partly a quote from someone famous and partly just stupid.  It was, “I pity the fool who says ‘I can’t.’”  I mean, like, gag a maggot, for real, du-uh!  I should explain it, I guess.  At the time there was a TV show called the A-Team in which one of the characters was the very famous and memorable Mr. T.  At some point during every show Mr. T would remark about the villain they were chasing saying, “I pity the fool.”  The other part of my quote was biographical, reflecting something I was proud of accomplishing but you wouldn’t know that from the quote.  At my mother’s insistence, I doubled up my Junior and Senior years and graduated a year early.  It was a difficult academic accomplishment, but it really wasn’t a smart thing to do for so many reasons.  I could have used my Senior year to develop some more relational maturity and confidence.  But instead, I wound up out in the real world and not ready for it and made some foolish mistakes particularly academically.  To quote John Prine, “That’s the way the world goes round”.

The High School yearbook: a spruced-up picture, a list of achievements, and a pretence of wisdom but, you know, it says nothing about the hurts, the angers, the failures, the rejections, the rivalries, betrayals, petty jealousies, malicious rumours, the picked-overs, the not-good-enough’s, the bullying, the broken homes, and…that kind of stuff.  All those things that made the high school years something so many would rather not revisit and certainly not repeat.  The foolishness of high school.  It’s a rare critter who made it through high school without being touched or touching someone with cruelty.  High school is a microcosm of humanity.  If you came through it without being hurt or hurting someone else in a way that will profoundly affect the way you live the rest of your life, well then, “And there’s a hand, my trusty friend, and gie’s a hand o’ thine, and we’ll tak’ a right gude-willie waught for auld lang syne.”  Nostalgia like bacon makes everything better.  The high school yearbook seems to be the way the world goes round: We want to look good, boast about our accomplishments, and have some wisdom to pass on all the while denying the world of hurt that was behind it all.  Some might call that foolishness.

It's interesting here in our reading that Paul says the word of the cross is foolishness.  In fact, the word group for foolish comes up quite a bit in this passage. The Greek word group used sounds like moria, mora, moros, moraino.  We get our words moron and moronic from it.  It’s one thing to call someone a fool and another to call them moronic.  If we had such a word as moronity or moronicness that would bring what he is saying over into English with the appropriate effect.  It’s a bit more of an insult than just saying something or someone is foolish.  Paul also quantifies for whom the word if the cross is moronity; the perishing.  A more accurate translation of that would be “those who are destroying themselves.”  They aren’t simply wasting away, they're destroying themselves.  The word of the cross is moronity to those who are destroying themselves all the while thinking themselves strong and wise, significant somebodies born noble.

The word of the cross – In love God the Son became a human being as the Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, born to be their Messiah who would deliver them from Roman rule and the corruption of their own leadership and institutionalized religion and establish the Kingdom of God.  Instead of organizing a revolt, Jesus healed people, cast out demons, ate with sinners and tax collectors, and called Galilean tradespeople (of all people) to be his disciples.  To the Jewish political and religious leadership, he was scandalous.  The Gentiles just laughed at how moronic the whole story sounds.  Gods don’t love and befriend humans.  Gods only appear to be human when they foolishly fall in love with a human woman.  Gods don’t heal humans.  They play with us like dolls.  Then the most foolish thing of all, to put an end to the shame of this Jesus matter, the Jewish authorities had the Romans crucify him.  He died for simply doing things that only God or a god could do.  But gods don’t die.  They glory up like a well-blinged Mr. T and go Apollyon, the angel of death, on all their enemies. 

What they failed to see was that as this Jesus, God was healing humanity of this mortal disease we have come to call Sin.  God came as one of us so that we can see God as God really is.  Our failure to recognize God and instead killing God in the cruellest way imaginable was God’s way of exposing our sin.  God raised Jesus from the dead in an act of new creation creating a new humanity which we share in by the gift of new life by the Holy Spirit. We become newer as we strive to live according to the way of the cross – humbly laying aside our pride and self-importance which only lead to perishing and in the struggle of denying our selfish self’s we strive to serve one another in unconditional love until Jesus returns with the ultimate healing of resurrection to make all of Creation fully new.

This story may sound like foolishness or moronity.  It may not make sense to us and our vainglorious reason.  But it is the power of God to save, to heal us.  Following Jesus, taking up the cross is where we find healing, peace, love.  This is the foolish wisdom of the cross.  In this world where people, many Christians included, think that being strong like Mr. T and muscling in morality is the way to a better more prosperous world particularly for those who already have wealth, the foolishness of the cross, the way of dying to oneself, the way of humility, the way of generosity and hospitality, the way of welcoming the stranger, the way of striving for what is best for us rather than simply what is best for me, the way of unconditional love; the foolish way of the cross is the way God is saving his world.  And so I leave you with an invitation: Would you put the High School yearbook back on the shelf and join me in being a moron for Jesus?  Amen.