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You know what irritates the heck out of me? It’s what has happened to the phrase, “born again.” It’s been taken over by fundamentalists and evangelicals and turned into a code word for membership in a club. If someone wears the “born again Christian” label, they are automatically identified with a whole laundry list of conservative religious and political views. It means they’re “pro-life” when it comes to abortion, “pro-death” when it comes to the death penalty, “anti-science” when it comes to teaching evolution or sponsoring stem-cell research, and just plain “anti-” when it comes to homosexuality.
Somehow, I don’t think that’s what Jesus meant when he said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again.” I really don’t think he had any political or social issues in mind at the time. In fact, it’s pretty clear that he was offering Nicodemus a pun – a play on words. The Greek phrase gennethenai anothen can be translated “born again” or “born from above.” Nicodemus hears it as “you must be born again”, but it’s clear as the conversation proceeds that Jesus is talking about being “born from above.” He says, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.” The contrast he’s making is between that which is born below (i.e. “of the flesh”) and that which is born from above (“of the spirit”). But the fact that it can be taken either way is quite intentional. It’s one of those wonderful gems of Biblical literature that draw you into multiple layers of understanding and challenge you to think more deeply into life.
Have you been “born again” (or “born from above”)? I have. It happened when I was about twelve years old. I went through what we Baptists called a “membership class” for young people (we congregationalists call it “confirmation”). At the end of the class, I knew it was time for me to be baptized, and I knew it was expected of me particularly since I was the preacher’s kid. So, I was baptized. But I also felt very strongly about making a personal decision to follow Christ. I wasn’t entirely sure what all that would mean, but it did feel important to me, and the water of that baptistry seemed powerful and renewing. Of course, my brush with holiness was short lived. The next day, after school, I was back to my evil ways: sneaking off to the pool hall with my friends, and listening to Dion sing “I’m a Wanderer.”
I was “born . . . again” about five years later when a Sunday School teacher seemed really interested in what I had to say. In fact, he seemed really interested in what all the kids in the class had to say. I thought he was a pretty neat guy, and I thought for the first time in years that maybe going to Sunday School could be a cool thing. We talked about stuff we cared about. Something touched me in that class, and I started to think for the first time that maybe I could have a faith that was my own, not just going along with what my parents believed, or thought I should believe. But that didn’t last long either. I ended up spending my days thinking about a girl named Judy, and decided I might convert to Judaism after all – Judy was Jewish.
I was “born again” again when I was in my early twenties. I had been on the police force for a year or two, and joined a church in town because I thought it might look good in my personnel file when I went for promotions. I accepted a position on the board of deacons, then I never showed up for a single deacons’ meeting. They asked me to teach Sunday School, and I thought that would make me look like a real solid, community-oriented guy, too, so I did it. But I had no idea what I was doing, and became so intimidated trying to teach a bunch of Jr. High kids about something I didn’t understand that I gave it up in a matter of weeks. Through all of my irresponsible dabbling in being a “church guy” I never heard a single word of criticism from that lovely bunch of people. I found only acceptance, genuine friendship, and support there. It was the seed bed of that loving bunch of people that gave a context to my experience of calling into the ministry. O yes, I was “born again” then, too – when I heard the voice of eternity whispering in my ear and sending me a whole new direction in life.
I was “born again” another time when a seminary professor encouraged me to look deep inside and come up with my own statement of theology. My studies basically took me through a process of tearing down every construct of belief that I had erected to that point and starting over from scratch. I found myself asking, “OK, Mike, forget what you think the Bible, or the teachers, or the church, or anyone else says you should believe, what, exactly, do you believe, and what don’t you believe?” That’s when I really started to own my faith. Someone was actually giving me the freedom to throw out anything I didn’t want to swallow, and making me look into my own heart and head for answers. That was amazingly liberating. And it’s when I actually started to “get it.”
Within a few years, my marriage fell apart, and my fledgling career in the ministry was on the rocks. I was depressed, and in an emotional and spiritual crisis of immense proportions.
But, as you can probably guess, I was “born again” when an angel came down from heaven and turned my life around. Her name was Dadgie. In fact, I’ve been “born again” so many times now, I’ve lost track. I was “born again” just the other day when Dadgie and I had a meaningful and moving conversation with an old friend. I’m “born again” just about every time I come here and have my heart touched by each of you.
By tomorrow I’ll probably be out on the road somewhere in my truck, frustrated at trying to get somewhere faster than I really need to, and yelling at some idiot for cutting me off in traffic, and feeling a corner of my soul turn dark and cold. But it doesn’t concern me much, because by now I know that the Divine plan for me is to be “born again.”
I love the story that Dadgie told me of a couple who were in a church group with her years ago in a church in upstate New York. Bob and Ann were sharing a story about something that happened to them on the previous Sunday afternoon. Bob was out working in the yard, when the pastor of a local fundamentalist Baptist church approached. Without any words of introduction, the preacher started in, “Brother, have you been born again?” Bob put down his rake and looked at the man. He paused for a long while, thinking and mulling the question over in his mind. Finally, he answered, “Well, sometimes I’d say yes, and sometimes, no.” That’s all the preacher needed. He launched into his rehearsed Bible verses to explain why Bob just didn’t understand what being “born again” was all about, and why he desperately needed spiritual regeneration once and for all. He wasn’t getting very far with Bob and his frustration was mounting. But in the middle of it, Ann came outside to see what was going on. As she stepped out of the house, the clergyman looked up and addressed her straight off. “Sister, have you been born again?” he asked. Ann stopped on the stairs and stood looking at him, considering her response. Finally, she said, “Well, sometimes, I’d say yes, and sometimes, no.” At this, the preacher was so dismayed that he simply shook his head and walked off.
Being “born again” is being “born from above”. It is the bewildering and besetting Spirit that blows in and out of our lives like the wind and summons us to a deepening relationship with eternal Grace – the Ground of our Being. According to Jesus, the Spirit is unpredictable, “blowing where it chooses.” And those who are born of this Spirit find it to be mysterious. We may sense it, like hearing a sound, but we don’t’ know where it’s going to come from next, or when it will blow by us. But Jesus made it clear that, although the path we take when we are “born from above” is a perplexing thing, like walking through a windstorm, the end result is redemption and wholeness. He said that the purpose of the one he called his “Father” was “not to condemn the world,” but that “the world might be saved.”
That means that whatever it is to be “born again” – or “born from above,” it’s something that leads to “salvation.” And what’s that? Salvation is synonymous with redemption, recovery, retrieval. It’s like what happens when you return empty Coke bottles and they clean them up and fill them with new soda. It’s like what happens when you pick an old basket out of a pile of trash and take it home and fill it with flowers. That’s the sort of thing that happens to us every day – at least, it does to me. Just when I feel like I’ve messed up about as badly as I can, someone comes along and forgives me. Just when I think the world is going to hell in a handbasket, a little child’s smile saves my soul. Just when I figure there’s nothing left to learn, I get slapped upside the head by the Spirit and the lights go on again.
Yes, I’ve been “born again” – and again, and again, and again. In the final analysis, I think this is what it means to be “born again” or “born from above”: It is to struggle against the principalities and powers, and to sometimes fail, but sometimes win a small victory for justice. It is to fall flat on your face and learn something by it. It is to sometimes take two steps back for every step forward, but end up growing and becoming more than you were. It is to feel, in rare and privileged moments, the wind of eternity in your face, and be reminded that you are one with the universe, and the Source of Existence. It is to wake up every morning and put your slippers on, shake the sleep out of your eyes and plug in the coffee pot, stand in front of the bathroom mirror and say, “OK, Lord, here I am . . . again.”
I remember well a trip some years ago that Dadgie and I took back to Rochester, New York to visit with her family. While there we had an amazing day of journeying back in time. It was like diving into a deep pool of memory. We began by going back to the seminary from which we both graduated, Colgate Rochester Divinity School. The school, like most liberal, Protestant institutions is failing. In fact, they were selling the entire campus with its awe-inspiring central building whose gothic spires rise high over the hill on which it sits. It has all been unloaded because they have insufficient enrollment to make it viable. This is heartbreaking for us, so we took quite a bit of time to walk through the halls, talk with people, and remember. We then drove to the house Dadgie grew up in and saw the streets she walked, the grade school and high school she attended. Then we drove out to the towns on the outskirts of Rochester where we were each pastoring churches when we were married (the towns were about thirty miles or so apart, and we both stayed in our pastorates after our marriage; so for three years lived in one town half the week and the other town the other half of the week). While there, we saw the houses we lived in and the church buildings where we served. Needless to say it was a day of rich and even overwhelming memories. But one of the things that struck me most was the sense of how our individual paths through life and our merged path through life followed a course that neither of us would ever have imagined early on. Wonderful and fulfilling as it has been, it has also all seemed amazingly unlikely.
How many here this morning would have predicted thirty, forty, fifty years ago what our lives would be like today? It seems for many of us, at least, altered paths have been the norm rather than the exception. But how many of us would revise those courses through life if we had the opportunity? Not many, I imagine.
Maybe the prime example of an altered path through life is the remarkable story of Onesemus. He was mentioned in the reading you heard this morning from Paul’s letter to Philemon. From the text of this letter to Paul’s friend, it’s clear that Onesimus had at one time been Philemon’s slave, but somehow, he ended up living and working with Paul while Paul was in prison. We really don’t know how Onesimus came to leave the service of Philemon or how he ended up with Paul. But it’s quite likely that he ran away and found Paul, having known of him through his master, Philemon. Paul writes that “Formerly he was useless to you . . .” and “If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account.” These words imply that the slave, Onesimus, had in some way “wronged” Philemon and become “useless” to him. It certainly sounds like he had run away.
And it also sounds like Paul is trying to get Philemon to release Onesimus to him. He writes, “I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel; but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced.” Paul wants Onesimus to keep working with him as a free man. He writes, “Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother – especially to me but how much more to you.” And in this letter Paul refers to Onesimus as “my own heart,” and says that he, Paul, has become a “father” to him, and then refers to Onesimus as a “beloved brother . . . both in the flesh and in the Lord.” “A brother . . . in the Lord” is code for one who has converted to Christianity. Onesimus, the slave, has been working with Paul as a sort of a Christian protégé.
And now, as Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story.” For that we look at a letter not found in the Bible. It was written by Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch in Syria. Ignatius had been arrested as a Christian, and was being sent to Rome for trial. The guards halted the journey for a time at the city of Smyrna. While they were there, Christians of the region knew of their presence, and of their prominent prisoner, the Bishop of Antioch. So they sent a delegation to visit the prisoner. And what we learn from Bishop Ignatius’ letter to the church of Ephesus, is that the head of this delegation was none other than the Bishop of Ephesus himself. And his name? His name was Onesimus. Here is evidence of a path in life altered by the power of the Spirit: the slave who became Bishop.
How many such remarkable stories are there of people whose lives were transformed in ways they never could have dreamed of? There are probably many such tales that could be related among those of you gathered here this morning. It seems that life keeps presenting new paths, and those paths frequently lead to greater things – particularly the less traveled ones. This is one good definition of grace.
But, as always, there is a caution. It comes from our other reading for this morning. The Prophet Jeremiah is commanded to go down to the potter’s house where he watches a potter refashioning a work of clay at the wheel. And the inspiration comes to him that the Lord Almighty can refashion his plans and remake his people. Those nations who have been presumed to have no hope can be lifted to new heights, and those who have assumed their privilege or righteousness can be brought to ruin. It’s all a matter of how faithful each nation of people is to the ways of justice and mercy. Another way of putting this is: what goes around comes around. This is a cautionary tale for individuals as well as nations. Those who traffic in injustice will ultimately receive a sentence greater than their crime; those who live by mercy and loving-kindness will, in the end, find an overabundance of good friends. This should give us pause when you and I ignore the needs of others because our agendas are too full or our personal concerns are too weighty. It should also give any nation pause when it goes to bed with ruthless dictators out of a sense of expediency or narrow national interests. In truth, many of us Western nations have seen the sad consequences of such past decisions.
In short, as was the case for the slave, Onesimus, Divine grace can change our lives in dramatic ways, but only if we are prepared to live as people of grace. That grace, offered to us in a thousand ways, becomes imbedded in our hearts if we let it, so that we ourselves become instruments of transformation and hope.
I’m sure most of you know the story of the song, Amazing Grace, but it bears repeating. John Newton was a slave ship captain who, through a gradual process of conversion became an ardent abolitionist. His life was turned around by his commitment to follow Christ. Thirty-four years after giving up the slave trade, he wrote, “It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.”1 He wrote the hymn we often sing and hold dear to our hearts today. Before our communion hymn, I’d like us to all sing the first verse of his hymn together (the words are in your bulletin), but with a twist (you may notice the change to the words in your buletin). With apologies to John Newton, who understandably was revulsed by his having trafficked in the slave trade, I’d like us to not refer to ourselves as wretches. I like to think that it is grace that sets us free – free, in fact to go home. Another line in the hymn says “grace will lead me home.” It is grace that affords us the opportunity to be “at home” with ourselves no matter where we are, or in what circumstances we find ourselves. And then, when we encounter another person we can have the grace to metaphorically welcome them into our “home” and share all that we have with them – ultimately, that means we can have the grace to be free to share ourselves, truly and honestly. So, reflecting on the power of the Spirit at work in our lives, and the way in which, if our hearts are open to it, our paths are altered by that “Amazing Grace,”
let’s sing it together:
[Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved and set me free!
I once was lost, but now am found; was blind but now I see.]
I would suggest that this be our keynote as we begin another church year. May we continue to be people of grace, agents of mercy, and therefore have our own paths altered and lives transformed and surprised by the Spirit of Holiness.
When I was a boy, dinner time often resembled an extended lecture. “Mike, go wash your hands before you sit down. Mind your manners. Sit up straight and get your elbows off the table. Foot off the chair, please. Don’t chew with your mouth open, and don’t talk while you’re chewing your food. Pick that up with your fork, please; not your fingers. That’s enough, boys; no fighting at the table. Don’t waste food. You will sit here at the table until you finish eating what’s on your plate. There are starving children in China who would give anything to have what you have there.” My parents, it seems, were determined to take all the fun out of dinnertime.
So, I had a rather Pavlovian recoil response when I came across this lectionary passage from Luke and heard Jesus giving a lecture on table manners. I did find it intriguing, though. I wondered two things: why in the world would he offer this little speech, and why would Luke bother to include it in his gospel?
Well, it didn’t take long to figure out that he was basically expanding on a passage of scripture from Proverbs – our other lectionary reading for today. The basic idea is that a dinner guest should not sit down at an honored place, but in the lowliest seat at the table. That way he won’t be embarrassed by being told to move to a lower place, but will be honored by being summoned to a higher place. And then, Jesus adds a comment to his host about how to make up a guest list. He tells him not to invite all his friends who will then feel the social obligation to repay him with a reciprocal invitation, but instead “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind,” who cannot repay him.
The point, it seems, is not simply about dinner etiquette, it’s about humility – the humility of a guest not assuming a place of honor, and the humility of a host recognizing the equal place and value of all people, regardless of station or means. So, it turns out that was Jesus’ point, and that’s why it’s in the gospel of Luke; it’s not just about table manners after all, it’s an object lesson in humility.
A sermon about humility may seem like slim pickin’s. After all, what’s to be said? “Be humble, don’t be proud. Amen.” But it seems to me that what Jesus is getting at here reflects an entire way of life, a way of being and a way of looking at the world that applies no matter who you are, or where you are – a simple dinner guest, a wealthy host, or a poor soul off the street. And as such, maybe pervades more of our experience, and touches us more deeply than we might guess.
I spent a little time ruminating about what it might mean to have such complete and pervasive humility take over one’s life, and it surprised me – not slim pickin’s at all; there’s a full meal to be had here, so long as we approach it with proper manners.
For one thing, I don’t know about you, but I suspect that all too often when I’m invited into conversation with someone about public policy, sports, literature, politics, or religion, I figuratively plop myself down in the seat of honor with a toothpick in my mouth, lean my chair back, and stick my feet up on the table. You see, I have so many opinions about things. I know what I believe about almost any topic that can come up, and I’m more than eager to share my wisdom with others at the drop of a hat. One of the problems with this habit is that it’s rather embarrassing when someone happens to know more about a topic than I do, and summarily moves me out of my catbird’s seat to a lower place at the table.
Our tendency to shoot from the hip with presumptions, opinions, and supposed facts is, I think, very human. I guess it’s part of our natural inclination to compete – like our ancestors competed for the last scrap of meat from the saber-toothed tiger they speared. But going to battle over ideas doesn’t do much for our souls, or our minds for that matter. Hegel’s dialectic notwithstanding, when two people start throwing spit-balls to see who comes out on top, more often they both end up on the bottom.
What might happen if any of us instead chose to approach every person, every conversation, every encounter with a primary desire to listen and learn? What if we always took the lowest seat at the “debate table,” and waited to see if others had something more honorable or more commanding to offer? How might it change us, and how might it change our world? It could be far more significant even than learning to keep our elbows off the table.
Another very human and very unhelpful tendency is to look no further than our friends, our clan, our people, our party, our “kind” when making up a list of those worthy to dine with us at the feast of ideas and experiences. I remember once hearing on the radio a member of the “Tea Party” speaking about Glen Beck’s rally at the Lincoln Memorial. She said that those who attend these sorts of events, are (and I quote) “the cream of the crop of the world’s population.” Now, that’s one incredible statement.
We may laugh at that kind of blatant self-aggrandizement, but you and I do a similar thing, albeit more subtly, when we look out at the world around us. If you examine our reactions and views closely you have to admit that we often operate out of an unspoken assumption that Americans are brighter, more enlightened, less backward, all-around generally more developed human beings than Africans or Afghans or Iranians. We tend to think of those in another political party or another branch of Christianity, or from another part of the country or a different background as unfortunate souls who just didn’t have the opportunity to learn the things we’ve learned, or are blinded by their upbringing or their environment and can’t see things the way they really are.
How often do we take the time to examine the weaknesses of our own heritage, the holes in our own systems, the inadequacies of our own group? Might we actually grow and be enlightened by inviting to our table of experience the very ones we generally dismiss? Might we become more whole by rubbing elbows with those whose lives and ways are totally other than our own? Expanding our guest list might actually serve to expand our world view.
But if we truly allow the kind of humility Jesus was getting at to take root in our lives and remake us, it might not only affect how we relate to others, it might change how we relate to ourselves! We might find ourselves approaching everything differently. The other day, Dadgie’s daughter was visiting and we spoke about reading Andy Borowitz’s daily email report. Borowitz, in case you haven’t heard of him writes “the news that’s not the news.” It’s his hilarious take on current events, coming up with fictional accounts where he twists things around and reports it as if it were a news story. I told Barb that starting off the day with a good belly laugh always feels good for the soul. You know a sense of humor can do you a lot of good. It’s wonderful to laugh — but more wonderful to laugh especially at yourself! That’s an even better way of starting off the day. I think that’s similar to what I was hearing from Jesus. Developing the ability to laugh at one’s self is like going for the lowliest seat at your host’s table. It’s all about not taking yourself so darned seriously.
I don’t think laughing at yourself, listening to others and trying to learn from them instead of pounding them with your own views, or recognizing the gifts and strengths of different cultures and backgrounds and ideas means you stop caring about the things you believe in. I don’t think it means you give up on your own values or on trying to make a difference. It just means you approach it all very differently, perhaps with a lighter, more gentle heart; perhaps with the calm of one who has finally discovered their place in the grand scheme of things, and finds it mildly amusing.
I’ll never forget the time, many years ago (back in the days of the nuclear disarmament movement), I had the privilege of hearing the great preacher Gardner Taylor speak at a gathering of peace activists. He talked about the importance of trusting in Divine Love and recognizing that we’re not in charge of the future, the Lord is. After his address, a woman in the crowd raised her hand and spoke about her work in the peace movement. She wondered if he was telling us to just stop working for change because it’s all up to the Lord anyway. Dr. Taylor said, “Oh no. Work for change. Do everything you can to bring about the change you want to see. Pour your efforts into it. But do so with quiet confidence, knowing that the Lord is the Lord of history and the Lord who transcends history, and that the future is safe in that Lord’s hands.”
That’s one very good way of not taking yourself too seriously. Keep yourself out of the highest seat at the table – that chair is reserved for the One who truly is in charge of the future.
Oh, and while you’re at it, don’t forget to laugh at yourself along the way. Just don’t do it with your mouth full.
From time to time I screw my courage to the sticking place and preach a sermon on one of those things I wish Jesus had never said. He said a lot of those kind of things.
It reminds me of the story about Bob Zuppke who was the football coach at Illinois back when Knute Rockne was at Notre Dame. Like Rockne, Bob Zuppke was a master of the half-time pep talk; some thought he was even better. In one particular game, the fighting Illini was woefully behind at the half. Zuppke knew that he had to give one of his most dramatic speeches to enliven his team. And he did. As he neared the conclusion of his half-time talk, his voice became louder, his pleas more dramatic, and finally he pointed to the door at the other end of the locker room saying, “And now let’s go through that door and on to victory!” The team rose as one man, tears welling in their eyes, their throats choked with emotion, and they ran through that door . . . right into the university swimming pool.
Sometimes I think some of the things Jesus said were like that – well intentioned, but basically bad advice.
I know better. But some of his words I find pretty hard to swallow. I realize it’s not him – it’s got to be me – but I read them, then I read them again, and I find myself saying, “I wish he hadn’t said that.”
Like when he said, as Matthew records, “Till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”
“Not an Iota.”
Now, I wish he hadn’t said that. Because, as far as I can see, he’s talking here about the books of the law in the Old Testament. In other words, out of all those dusty old manuscripts full of endless legal mumbo-jumbo from at least Genesis through Deuteronomy – where, for instance, descriptions were provided for the right kind of heifer to be sacrificed in just the right way, and how anyone who had a blemish or disability was not allowed to come near the sacred offering, and how one who blasphemed the name of the Lord should be put to death by stoning – that, out of all that, Jesus was not relaxing, and not allowing anyone else to relax, any of the provisions of those laws, or even to change one single tiny letter of one word of it. Not an Iota!
Now, I’ve heard all sorts of explanations for what Jesus is really saying here (you know, under the surface), what preachers will tell you Jesus would have said if he’d really said exactly what he’d intended to say. For instance: Jesus is just speaking to a Jewish audience and he doesn’t want them to think he’s down on Jewish traditions like the law, so he says this to kind of keep them on his side. Or, the explanation that’s most tempting to me: Jesus is here just pointing out that the law code of Old Testament Judaism is to be kept intact simply to bring people to a realization that they can’t ultimately fulfill all its demands and they are therefore dependent on Divine grace for salvation. And another one I’ve heard goes like this: Jesus is operating out of a kind of “crisis ethic.” In other words, he thought the kingdom, and judgement, and damnation, and the whole nine yards were just around the corner, so everyone should wise up quick and be as virtuous and righteous as possible in order to get to heaven. Of course the never stated, but clearly implied corollary of that is that now, since we know he was all wrong about the timing, we can relax.
All of the sermons I’ve heard on this text (and, I must confess, a few that I’ve preached) add up to basically the same thing: that Jesus really meant just about the opposite of what he actually said.
That would be convenient to believe; really much more comfortable. But I can’t help it; when he says, “Not an iota!” I get the chilling feeling that he means just that.
So what are we to do with these words of Isaiah, from the very same sacred writings to which Jesus referred?
“Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD? Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”
I confess to being a little confused. It sounds like the Day of Atonement commanded by the Lord in the book of Leviticus is not, in fact, what that same Lord wants of the people. By Jesus’ standard, it sounds like God Almighty will be called “least in the kingdom of heaven.”
And what about all the stuff from the Apostle Paul about grace? Paul wipes out a ton of iotas. He says, “You have died to the law,” and “By grace you have been saved through faith,” and “The law was our custodian until Christ came, . . . but now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian.”
Those are the kind of things I like to hear. I mean, another word for custodian is jailer; and those old testament laws can be pretty imprisoning! I’d like to throw out not only the iotas and dots of the law, but a lot of the ABC’s and XYZ’s! I like my religion comfortable. Which is why I squirm in my seat and complain when I hear Jesus say “not an iota will pass from the law.”
So what’s this all about? What’s Jesus up to here? Frankly, I’m not sure. But, being clueless hasn’t stopped me from preaching a sermon yet.
Seriously, maybe that’s the place to begin. I think clueless is not such a bad thing to be. If I could stand before you Sunday after Sunday and offer thorough explications and explanations of every passage of scripture and every point of theology, neatly wrapped up with a tidy bow on top, something tells me I’d be dishing out more hooey than authenticity. And I think that’s one of the biggest things for each of us to take from this; developing the capacity to live with unanswered questions and disturbing dilemmas is, I believe, essential to a strong and sustaining faith. So, I urge upon all of us to simply take in these words of Jesus and let their discontinuity bounce around in our heads for a while.
Go ahead. I’ll wait.
But, there does have to be more to it, doesn’t there? If we get stuck with nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders, we run the risk of becoming theological couch potatoes. So, it’s also important, I submit, for us to wrestle with these questions, even if we’re not likely to come up with any answers. It’s in the wrestling that unexpected insights often spring to life. So, let me wrestle for a moment in front of you.
One of the first things that came to my mind as I grappled with this “not an iota” business is how it relates to our feelings about guilt and grace, and what they might have to do with our human quest for authenticity. You and I get easily hung up between our guilt about regularly dropping the iotas from the law week to week, and yet knowing that we live by Divine grace and forgiveness. Here’s what I think: the more authentic we become, the more honestly real and capable of intimacy with ourselves, with life, and with each other we become, the less personally defended we become, and the more free we are to recognize our faults without turning away in humiliation. But, the more authentic we become, also the more free we are to experience grace and forgiveness.
It occurs to me that, in this way, judgement and grace are really one and the same thing! Divine judgement is like a light that shines into our lives and our world. It’s a light that exposes everything in its truest and most honest form. It’s a light that says, “This is what is,” and leaves us to deal with the consequences of that truth. The very same light is the light of grace. It’s a light that shines into our lives and into our world, and says, “This is what is,” and leaves us with the realization that the deepest and most honest truth about ourselves and our lives — that we are children of grace, is also illuminated in that light of knowing.
All of this begins to make some sense when we realize that “the law” Jesus was talking about is the heart of Israel’s covenant with the Lord of Hosts. And a covenant is a far-reaching, holistic relationship based on love, the kind of love that means devotion and trust. You can’t do away with any part of such a relationship or it’s immediately violated. As soon as you begin asking which parts of the contract you can set aside, you have already violated the relationship. As soon as you ask which ones of the marriage vows you no longer need to consider, you’ve already violated love, and violated the marriage.
So what does all this have to do with us? Near as I can figure, it means we completely miss the boat if we’re still stuck trying to figure out what we have to do and not do to be a good Christian.
It’s like the story I heard somewhere told by a Rabbi who watched a guest at a major Chicago hotel rushing to pay his bill and check out. Suddenly the guest realized that he had left something in his room. Seeing an employee of the hotel, he asked, “Would you please hurry to room 1203, I think I left my briefcase there. Run up as fast as you can and see if it’s there; the airport limo leaves in six minutes.” Several minutes later the bellboy came back running across the lobby saying, “Yes sir, your briefcase is still there.”
See, if you have to explain that you’re only doing what you’re told, it’s obvious your heart’s not in it. And if your heart’s not in it, nothing else matters. I think that was Isaiah’s point. Going through the motions of worship and making an offering because it’s what we’ve been told to do can just be another way of putting blinders on to injustice, oppression, hunger, homelessness, and poverty.
Although we rarely admit it (even to ourselves), so many of us live in a way that seems to ask the question, “What can I get away with?” And the thing I keep choking on is, “Not an iota!”
I may never entirely sort all this out for myself, but I hope my reflections on this annoying little saying of Jesus have been at least mildly illuminating, and have not simply muddied the waters. At any rate, two things do seem to come into focus:
To live in covenant relationship with the Lord and in the community of faith, is to feel the joy and gratitude of the freedom that comes from dwelling in the gracious light of Holy Love, being loved as we are, and accepted even though we don’t deserve it.
And maybe we need to choke on a line like this a bit. Because maybe if we become comfortable throwing out the iotas, it won’t be long before we start expelling the ABC’s. Maybe it’s somehow good for us to wrestle with the body of scripture as we have it, inconsistencies, anachronisms, and all – every single iota.
I remember once a parishioner gave me a sermon. We were standing in the church office and he said to me, “I just had an epiphany! I figured out what the miracle of Jesus feeding the five thousand was. The miracle was the sharing. They only had a few loaves and fishes, and they all shared what little they had with each other. That’s the miracle!” I paused for a moment and then said, “That’ll preach.” I’ve thought about that comment several times since then. And it finally led me to think deeply into the true nature of miracles. I’d like to share some of my thoughts with you this morning.
What is a miracle anyway? I take issue with Webster’s New World Dictionary. It defines a miracle as “an event or action . . . thought to be due to supernatural causes.” Now I realize that such a definition jibes with most people’s idea of a miracle; what I have trouble getting behind is the word “supernatural.” I don’t think the word has any meaning. For something to be “supernatural” it would have to be outside the realm of “nature,” in other words, something that happens in a way that’s not the way things happen in this natural world. So you see my problem? I think miracles are part of the way things happen in this natural world. The fact that we often can’t get our minds around some things that happen doesn’t make them somehow “beyond nature,” it just makes them a little mind-blowing.
And if you want your mind to be blown, just consider the power of this moment recorded in the gospel of Matthew: five thousand people gathered in a large grassy area on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. They had traveled from all around, been there a long time, and it was late in the day. The disciples passed out a little food, and people did not stomp on each other trying to get to it. It is not recorded in the gospel that anyone was trampled, or beaten up, or accused of taking too much for himself. There’s as great a miracle as you can find. People sat together in this huge crowd and shared what they had and what they were given with each other. I imagine many people leaning to pass a basket of food to someone – leaning into a miracle.
That’s the posture for miracles, I’ve decided – leaning. There are a lot of reasons for leaning. And this morning I’d like to take some time to consider the many ways and times and occasions we might have to lean. One of them is like the experience of those who gathered in the lake shore with Jesus, leaning to reach across the gulf that separates one person from another to share a precious piece of bread. That kind of leaning goes against our nature. We’re hard wired by our DNA to get what we can for ourselves. It’s a question of survival. And with the future so unknowable, with tariffs, national debt, and the weak job market creating so much uncertainty, with the ever-present possibility of a devastating illness or catastrophic natural disaster, we all know the wisdom of the old adage: “you can never have too much.” And leaning toward another person to share what you have is miracle enough in my book.
People also lean toward one another to consult, to confer, to share ideas and to learn from others. You see it all the time at conferences, lectures, and meetings – people leaning together to share a thought. That may not sound very exceptional, but I would submit that on capitol hill today it might indeed constitute a miracle. America is built on the possibility that just such a miracle can happen day in and day out, that three separate branches of government, two separate houses of Congress, representatives of different political parties and different constituencies can, in fact, put aside narrow interests in service of the larger interests of the nation, and lean towards each other to govern. There has perhaps never been a time when such an assumption seemed more like banking on a miracle.
And sometimes our leaning is a very personal matter. It can have to do with simple decisions or with life issues. You’ve all heard someone say something like, “Well, right now I’m leaning toward not going.” And what decision we make in any moment can have a significant impact on our lives, or on those around us. Aristotle offered some good counsel as we consider which way to lean. He said, as I recall, “Temperance and courage are destroyed both by excess and deficiency and are kept alive by observance of the mean.” The term “mean” to Aristotle did not refer to some lukewarm, non-committal middle ground; it meant taking the right action at the right time. It is, indeed, left up to each one of us to know when it’s wise to press on despite the obstacles and when it’s better to stop beating your head against an impervious wall. Making such decisions cannot be boiled down to some formula, simple enough to write up in a self-help book. It requires of us that we draw upon every bit of knowledge, instinct, and intuition that we have at our disposal, along with some reliance on that invisible hand of grace, that indefinable virtue of maturity, and, admittedly, a little luck. And when we lean in the right direction, I consider it nothing short of a miracle.
People can lean also either away from or towards that which is unknown, unfamiliar, or frightening. Our world is filled today with people who are frightened by one another because they are different. It all grows out of the seed-bed of fear that is the instinctive human reaction to the “other.” But the prophet Isaiah spoke the Lord’s word to the ancient Israelites and advised them not to lean away from those strange people from distant lands, but lean toward them, and discover them leaning toward you as well. He put it this way, “See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you . . .” When humanity grows up sufficiently I truly believe we will put all of this fear, distrust, and hatred of one another behind us. We’ll learn to lean toward rather than away from our distant brothers and sisters. And to my way of thinking that will be quite the miracle.
Jacob found himself leaning as he walked away from a wrestling match with the Almighty. It’s a bizarre story recorded in this thirty-second chapter of the book of Genesis. Jacob lies down to sleep by the river Jabbok, and in the middle of the night starts wrestling with a divine being who gives him a new name, “Israel,” and who, in the process, strikes him on the hip and puts it out of joint. Jacob regards this encounter as a miracle and says, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” But as he leaves his camp, he is leaning to one side, limping because of his injury. It’s only then that the greatest miracle happens. Jacob, perhaps because of the blessing he wrested from the Lord at the cost of a dislocated hip, summons the courage to come face to face with his brother, Essau – the same brother whom he cheated, and whose birthright he stole. Jacob fully expects that Essau will want to kill him, and he humbles himself, leans forward and bows. But upon seeing him, Essau runs to him, leans toward him, embraces and kisses him. And Jacob, who had come face to face with the Almighty the night before looks into his brother’s eyes and says with the conviction of one who knows, “To see your face is like seeing the face of God.”
Sometimes profound and life changing lessons are learned the hard way. Those painful lessons can leave us scarred or wounded. But they can also leave us blessed by courage and self-awareness. And that’s when the real miracles happen, when we find ourselves free to lean toward an estranged brother or to look deeply into the face of an opponent and see the face of God. In my book that’s miracle enough.
So, what’s a miracle? I think it’s when a human being discovers that he or she is more than a collection of needs and wants and survival instincts, but is, in fact, a child of hope, a child of promise. It’s when someone is so blessed and perhaps so injured by that discovery that they are freed to be more than they are; they are freed to share what they have, freed to listen and learn and to yield where necessary, and to persevere and struggle where necessary, freed to learn about and accept those who are very different and alien, freed to enter into reconciliation, to humble one’s self and to see the divine countenance where you might least expect it.
And freedom is indeed the byword for such miracles. Isaiah got it right. Leaning into miracles is not a rare exercise, it’s not exceptional or expensive. It’s simply what happens when we’re encountered by holiness in the midst of the routines of life and, by grace, respond. Such miracles are readily at hand, and freely available.
Isaiah entreated us to “incline our ears” and hear – to lean toward him so we would not miss his word. Here’s the clarion cry that rings down through the centuries to rattle us out of our well-ordered, self-absorbed lives, our familiar fears, and our dependable prejudices: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” Those are words you can lean on. And by my way of thinking, that’s a miracle.
I thought it might be a good time in the life of our church to ask a simple question: Why are we here?
What is this building here for? What are these people doing here? If we are excited about making it possible for us to continue to be the church into the rest of the twenty-first century, what does it mean to be the church in this twenty-first century?
I have some rather straight-forward answers to those questions this morning. First, I believe we here because we are a community of transcendent faith. We have come here and stay here together because we are people of faith, and we work to further the depth and reach of that faith.
Now, if you listen to a lot of the preachers, read a lot of the tracts, and analyze a good share of the theology from the Christian Church in the last century or more, you might be left to draw the mistaken conclusion that faith means believing in things that don’t make sense because you’re supposed to. That’s just the sort of thing that has turned a lot of people off from Christianity. It almost did for me.
I reached a point (somewhere in my late teens or early twenties) of thinking that all the stories I’d heard about things that happened in “Bible times” were a lot of hooey. Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, the parting of the Red Sea, the immaculate conception, walking on water, the whole nine yards. None of these were events that connected with my every-day experience of life. I read the stories in the Bible, and I said to myself, “Self, if all those things were going on for all those thousands of years way back then, how come they’re not going on today?” I was forced to conclude that it was probably all made up, didn’t really happen, just some fancy embellishments on what might have happened if it had happened they way some folks wanted it to – kind of like Santa Claus.
I figured out Santa Claus by the time I was seven. It would be nice to believe in Santa, but the Miracle on 34th Street is, after all, just a movie. And the stories about people being miraculously raised from the dead, and seeing burning bushes and hearing God talk to them were, after all, out of a book. Consequently, I figured, faith is a crock!
I was confused by thinking that faith meant believing things that don’t make sense because you’re supposed to. And I wonder, how many people have been cheated out of a certain power in their lives by rejecting faith because they equated it with such silly and juvenile notions.
If faith were just a matter of believing things are real that you can’t see, or that don’t add up, it would be like the observation of the man who was told by his doctor that his ailment was purely psychosomatic. It was “all in his head,” the doctor said. He replied, “Now, let me get this straight, doc. If I believe I’m well, then I’ll be well, right?” “That’s right,” said the doctor. “Fine, then,” he said, “if you believe you’re paid, then you’ll be paid!”
The faithful life is so much more.
Every time I remember, or again encounter, the story of Ann Frank, of all the fear and suffering she endured as a young Jewish girl hiding out with her family from the Nazis – a story told in a tattered diary that ends with tragic silence – I’m reminded of the graffiti written by a young Jew on the wall of a Warsaw ghetto:
“I believe in the sun,
even if it does not shine.
I believe in love,
even when I do not feel it.
I believe in God,
even when I don’t see him.”
Faith does not mean believing in things that don’t make sense because you’re supposed to. Faith means believing in the only things that finally do make sense in a senseless world! Faith means living into the truth of Christ, and drawing deeply from the well of life, regardless of the cost. It means trusting love in scorn of the consequences. It means clinging to joy in the very face of despair. I believe that’s what Jesus meant when he said, “I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
And that child, that young girl, Ann Frank, lived out her days in a hiding place of terror, abundantly! Sometimes I truly believe that if the lion and the lamb ever develop the courage and good sense to lie down together, it will indeed be a little child that leads them.
That’s another reason we’re here: to lift up the value of children; in fact, to be like them. Children somehow seem to have an innate confidence in life. They’re born in 5th gear, with the windows down, and a grin on their face. But the cold slaps of reality on the behind quickly teach children to let go of their instinctive faith in life.
In his book on faith development, John Westerhoff talks about an “owned faith” – a faith that is truly yours, not your parents, or your preachers. He tells us that the principle task of developing such a faith is the gradual process of unlearning all of the things that taught you to give up the faith of your infancy. Maybe that’s part of what Jesus meant when he said, “unless you become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Children are born open, accepting, and trusting. They have to be taught to be racists.
Children are born curious and searching. They have to learn how to close their minds.
Children are born with faith as their primary existential attitude. They have to acquire anxiety, fear, and defensiveness.
To become like a child, and therefore a candidate for the kingdom of heaven, is simply to unlearn one’s prejudice, closed-mindedness, and defensiveness. It is not to do away with doubt, it is not to subscribe to a catalogue of beliefs, it is not even to use all the right religious-sounding words.
To become like a child is to run up the window-shade on existence, and approach life with expectant confidence. And to create a place where people can learn and grow and experiment in order to finally do just that, is a wondrous thing, and that is what we are here for!
We are also here to, as Jesus said, “love one another.” But love is really simply another form of faith. Young people frequently confuse love with lust and therefore become jaded when they learn that it doesn’t last. Folks who have been married long enough to ride out some of the major relational storms didn’t bat an eye, I’m sure, when I said that love is simply another form of faith. True love between marriage partners is an attitude about life in relationship, the way faith is an attitude about life in the world. It’s a constant returning, a dependable trusting, and a dauntless caring. Love in any form is like that.
And we learn about it also from children. We should all be moved to tears by the faithful love of the child who relentlessly interrupts, pleads, demands over and over, “Mommy,” “Daddy” because they have a word to share. And even when ignored. Even when given the “I don’t see you. You’re invisible because you’re interrupting” treatment, they keep it up. They will not be turned away. They will not be denied a relationship with you. They will not give up on you! We can learn a lot from them.
And the kind of love that exists between friends can be like a healing balm to calm a troubled spirit. But that also is a form of faith, because every friend you can ever have will someday disappoint you. Every person you trust will in some way’s let you down. Every relationship you cherish will in some ways never be quite enough. Love is that friendship that does not fail when the friend does. People learn about such love in this place.
There is also a love that stretches beyond the close circle of family and friendship – love translated into institutions, programs, structures. Another name for this kind of love is justice. We are not here, as Isaiah pointed out, to “trample the courts” of the Lord with “offerings . . . solemn assemblies . . . appointed festivals [and] . . . prayers.” We are here to “seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”
Those who love this church, and who have loved it over many years and through many pastorates, have demonstrated love by their tenacious confidence in one another, their dependable commitment to ministry and mission in the name of Christ, their unyielding gentleness in the face of adversity, and their dependable presence through storms and struggles, trials and traumas. Such love is, in some ways, its own reward. It nurtures the flowering of something within the heart that is very durable and very beautiful.
To create an environment in which such profoundly meaningful ways of loving can blossom and grow is very worth doing, and that is why we’re here!
In short, we are hear to learn. We are here to learn about faith and love. And it is that joyous learning that gives us hope. These are the things that abide.
Is faith “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” as the author of this letter to the Hebrews claims? In a manner of speaking, yes. But not as we often think. Faith is not about disgruntled belief, begrudging acquiescence, or closed-minded compliance. It is indeed about that for which we hope, about believing in something worth believing in, about nurturing the confidence to boldly pursue that which is “not seen.”
“By faith,” the writer of Hebrews continues, “Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go. By faith, he sojourned in the land of promise.” By faith, you and I are called to go out into the world to proclaim the inheritance of Divine Love. By faith, we sojourn in the glorious land of promise.
And that is why we are here!
The Gospel reading for today is Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, and it seems to me that it’s probably about time I had something to say about prayer. It is not an easy topic because it’s not easily understood. None of us really knows how prayer works, or even what it means for prayer to “work”. We often pray for certain things to happen: for healing from disease, surgery, or injury, for justice to be done, for relief of the many ills of society and those around us. Does prayer “work” if these things come about, and does it not “work” if they don’t? If that were the case, we would have given up on prayer long ago. Certainly good outcomes do result, but our overall batting average wouldn’t get us into the major leagues. So why do we bother? I think it’s because we have a profound, inexplicable need to send our thoughts, our hopes, our imaginations into the depth of Being and to wait in stillness for a reply. That reply comes to each of us in different ways but over the millennia we have come to find it trustworthy.
There are a few things that strike me about the prayer that Jesus taught to his disciples. When they came to him and asked him to teach them about prayer, he didn’t suggest that they empty their minds and meditate as many of us have learned to do from Eastern religions (a practice, by the way, I find very helpful). He didn’t advise them to come out with whatever pops into their heads. He didn’t say, as any well trained Rogerian counselor might, “It sounds like you have something to pray for.” No, surprisingly, he said, “When you pray, say . . .” and he gave them the specific words to pray. What that tells me is that these words he gave them are important and we should stop and pay attention to them. So, let’s do that.
He begins with a word of praise to the One he referred to as “Our Father”: “Hallowed be your name”. We don’t often in our private lives consider hallowing the name of the Almighty, partly because the whole business of that name is so confusing. The Hebrews considered the Lord’s name to be so sacred that it should never be spoken, or even entirely written down. When they came to the name of Yahweh in their writing they wrote only the consonants and left out the vowels. Then when they were reciting the text aloud and came to those four consonants, they substituted the word adonai which means Lord. Each religion seems to have a different name for the Lord of Hosts. We often use the word God as if it were a proper name, but it really is more of a symbol to stand for that unknowable, undefinable “Ground of All Being”. So, with all the possibilities for naming “Our Father” (as Jesus put it), what does it mean for that name, or for all those names, to be hallowed? Maybe Jesus’ petition here is more like: May the time come when the Lord, by whatever name we use, be universally regarded as holy.
Which leads us directly into a related plea: that the “kingdom” might “come on earth.” How unlike our prayers that is. You and I generally begin with immediate and specific concerns. How many of us put at the top of the list in our praying a petition for the advancement of the Lord’s will in the world? I know I generally don’t. And that brings me to one of the things about this prayer that makes me a bit jittery. It reads like a prayer lifted up on behalf of the whole world. Not only are we praying for the Kingdom to come on the entire earth, but it is all in the first person plural. The “our” and “us” and “we” sounds like it means all of us. Whenever we recite this prayer together I feel quite presumptuous. Who am I to offer a prayer on behalf of all humanity? Consequently, I often find myself praying more quietly, and sometimes even almost muttering the words. I guess that’s the nice thing about Malotte’s choral version; when you sing it like that you have to belt it out, and presumption be damned. A woman in one of my previous churches came to me once and mentioned that in the Episcopal Church they pray every Sunday for the nation and she missed that. I think she was lifting up a significant idea. Especially in times like these, prayers for our nation and prayers for our world are not only terribly important, they are part and parcel of what Jesus told us to be doing. Perhaps we should be offering the prayer that is attributed to Mother Teresa: “May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.”
After praying for the kingdom to come, Jesus then asks that we will all receive at least minimum sustenance: our “daily bread”. It’s the only tangible thing he prays for. He does not ask for a Mercedes Benz, or a low interest loan on a new house, or that the carpets that were damaged when the water pipes broke won’t be mildewed. He asks that everyone get just the minimum they need to survive. And, truth is, if that were the case all the way around, this would be a far better world. I think so much these days about the children and babies starving to death in Gaza. You might notice as well, that Jesus does not pray for health or healing, topics that constitute a major share of the prayers you and I most frequently lift up. I find that fact interesting. It’s as if Jesus, the great healer, doesn’t regard prayer as a primary means of bringing that healing. I’m not sure what to make of this, but it does help me to think about the priorities of prayer. Most of the things Jesus says to pray for (beyond basic sustenance) are related to broader themes like forgiveness, trial, and the reign and will of the One he called “Our Father.”
Which brings us to a real doozy. He asks that our sins might be forgiven. But most of us don’t pay attention to how this is put. He says (in the version we usually repeat), “Forgive us our trespasses (or “debts” or “sins”), as we forgive those who trespass against us.” I think you and I generally say these words as if they mean: Please forgive us, and we’ll try to forgive others, too.” But I like Luke’s rendering because it brings the point into sharper focus. He puts it: “And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” In other words, we’re good enough to forgive absolutely everyone, so surely you, O Lord, must feel compelled to forgive us! The point here is the assumption that, of course, you and I forgive everyone who is in any way indebted to us; there’s no question about that. Really? I think this is a part of the prayer that should really give us the willies. Should we make sure we have forgiven everyone in our lives, before we presume to throw this prayer in the face of the Almighty?
Finally, he asks simply that we not be brought to the time of trial. Good luck with that. It sounds like Jesus. He prayed fervently not to be brought to the time of trial in the Garden of Gethsemane just before he was arrested, whipped and executed on a cross. Humanity is always brought to the time of trial. So what might this petition be about? My sense is that it means something like: Let us not be tested beyond our abilities. And that, conversely, might be like saying: May our strength be sufficient for the trials that come. Truth is, it’s in those times of trial that we find out who we really are. . . or, perhaps better put, we remember who we are (like Jesus, in the midst of his agony at Gethsemane, remembered who he was).
Ultimately, prayer is about remembering. In spite of my discomfort, the prayer of Jesus forces me to remember that I am a member of the human family, and as such have as much right, and perhaps as much responsibility, as every other human being to speak on behalf of the entire race. Prayer causes us to remember our relationship to the Creator, and therefore to the created order. It reminds us that we are part of all that is, and bear a great responsibility for a covenantal relationship with all of creation. Prayer helps us remember the needs of the world, to remember forgiveness, to remember the profound worth of the trials of life.
I want to share with you an excerpt from Elie Wiesel’s Nobel Peace Prize lecture delivered in 1986 titled, “Hope, despair and memory”. He writes, “A Hasidic legend tells us that the great Rabbi Baal-Shem-Tov, Master of the Good Name, also known as the Besht, undertook an urgent and perilous mission: to hasten the coming of the Messiah. The Jewish people, all humanity were suffering too much, beset by too many evils. They had to be saved, and swiftly. For having tried to meddle with history, the Besht was punished; banished along with his faithful servant to a distant island. In despair, the servant implored his master to exercise his mysterious powers in order to bring them both home. ‘Impossible’, the Besht replied. ‘My powers have been taken from me’. ‘Then, please, say a prayer, recite a litany, work a miracle’. ‘Impossible’, the Master replied, ‘I have forgotten everything’. They both fell to weeping.
“Suddenly the Master turned to his servant and asked: ‘Remind me of a prayer – any prayer .’ ‘If only I could’, said the servant. ‘I too have forgotten everything’. ‘Everything – absolutely everything?’ ‘Yes, except – ‘Except what?’ ‘Except the alphabet’. At that the Besht cried out joyfully: ‘Then what are you waiting for? Begin reciting the alphabet and I shall repeat after you . . .’. And together the two exiled men began to recite, at first in whispers, then more loudly: ‘Aleph, beth, gimel, daleth . . .’. And over again, each time more vigorously, more fervently; until, ultimately, the Besht regained his powers, having regained his memory.
Wiesel continues, “I love this story, for it illustrates the messianic expectation – which remains my own. And the importance of friendship to [one’s] ability to transcend his condition. I love it most of all because it emphasizes the mystical power of memory. Without memory, our existence would be barren and opaque, like a prison cell into which no light penetrates; like a tomb which rejects the living. Memory saved the Besht, and if anything can, it is memory that will save humanity. For me, hope without memory is like memory without hope.”1
Elie Wiesel gave us much to remember and much to hope for. But we are like the Besht; we cannot pray if we cannot remember. I know many of you, like me, are finding that our rememberer just doesn’t work the way it used to, but, thankfully, there is a guide for us. When we come together we help each other remember what truly matters in life. And when we repeat together the prayer of Jesus, it causes us to remember the great needs of our world, to remember the world’s need for the kingdom of holy love, to remember that forgiveness is stamped in our DNA and must be rendered to all, to remember that even the greatest trials in life can be the refining fire for our souls, to remember at last who we are and whose we are.
Let’s sing together the prayer that Jesus taught disciples to pray.
1 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1986/wiesel-lecture.html.
Dadgie has always been the gardener at our house. Every year, she creates a beautiful garden array of flowers in our raised garden bed planter boxes on the deck. She used to start everything from seed in the late winter or early spring indoors under lights, but now she starts very few things from seed. But she has hunted around for the very best plants, and when she found dependable growers, she stuck with them. Me – I’m lucky if I can tell the difference between a petunia and a pepper plant.
But this year, just a matter of days ago, we bought a tomato plant and put it in one of our deck planters with the flowers. It’s an Early Girl tomato plant and we have it where we can readily see it from the dining table. We’re a little impatient, but we can’t help watching and waiting for tomatoes. At this time of year, I guess a lot of us are waiting for tomatoes. There’s nothing like a tomato fresh from the garden.
This all came to mind as I was reading from today’s old testament lesson in the book of Amos. I picked up my Bible and encountered this odd exchange between the Lord and Amos – that’s what got me thinking about tomatoes. The Almighty showed Amos a basket of summer fruit (I think, of course, of tomatoes – which are actually a fruit, by the way, not a vegetable). And the Lord says, “Amos, what do you see?” And Amos says, “A basket of summer fruit.” And then, out of the blue, the Lord Almighty takes off on this harangue about “the end” coming upon the people of Israel.” And then says, “I will never again pass them by. The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day . . . the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place.” And I’m sitting there scratching my head, wondering, “whatever became of the basket of tomatoes?”
Well, a little research solved the riddle. It’s actually a pun. The text was originally written in Hebrew, of course, and the Hebrew word for summer fruit is ץ ‚ַק (qayits), and the word for end (as in, “The end has come upon my people Israel”) is ץַק (qats). So, when Amos says, “I see a basket of summer fruit (qayits), the Lord says, “The end (qats) has come.” Amos, or the God of the Old Testament, or someone, is just having a little fun with us.
But I couldn’t get my mind off the tomatoes. I put down my Bible and glanced out the window at the garden. Visions danced in my head of ripe, juicy, red tomato slices on a little plate with a dash of salt or some fresh basil. I knew it was the waiting time. I sighed, picked the Bible up again and read on.
It’s a pretty bleak picture, this basket of tomatoes/end that the Lord has in mind, with the land trembling, and everyone mourning, and the sun going down at noon, and feasts being turned into mourning, and songs into lamentation, and sackcloth on all the loins, and baldness on every head (I kind of resent that last one).
So, what’s all the fuss about? Why all the trembling and wailing, and mourning and lamentation? Well, when you get to the climax of the story, you find out what all the crying’s about. It reads: “The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.”
So, what is it that brings on this predicament? Why won’t they be able to find the word of the Lord? The Lord says it’s because of those who “trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor.” Losing track of the word of the Lord is the punishment for failing to live by the Lord’s laws of justice and mercy.
I set my Bible down again and scratched my head – still thinking about tomatoes, by the way.
The punishment for not following Divine law – that is, the “word of the Lord” – is that you will no longer be able to find the “word of the Lord.” And it occurred to me, why should someone care? If they don’t care about justice and righteousness and mercy anyway, why should they care about not finding justice and righteousness and mercy? Well, that’s what got my mind off tomatoes for a minute. Instead, I began to think about The cryptocurrency trading platform FTX that is the latest high-profile financial fraud case laid bare by American regulators. The company was led by Sam Bankman-Fried, who now resides in a U.S. prison after being found guilty of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy, including wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering. And I thought of a company named Theranos, the founders of which were found guilty a couple of years ago and sentenced to 11 and 12 years in prison. They were ordered to pay restitution of 452 million dollars to fraud victims. And I thought, the punishment for being cheap is losing a lot of money, and the punishment for not doing your job is losing your job, the punishment for a lack of care is precisely the fruits of carelessness.
Could it be that the Lord is saying here something as simple as: what goes around comes around, that thunderbolts from heaven and fire and brimstone are not the punishment for doing evil, but that we create our own hell by how we live? Could it be that being ugly towards people just makes a person ugly, or that being miserable consigns one to a life of misery, or that failure to live by the law of love leaves one loveless?
If so, then I suspect the inverse is also true. After all, Amos wouldn’t have bothered to tell people about his little talk with the Lord and the curse upon the people of Israel if, indeed, there were no hope of redemption – no good news. Could it be that compassion breeds a gentler and less victimized life, that honesty makes for a life lived closer to truth, and that striving to follow the path of goodness puts one on a very good road?
The Apostle Paul spoke of that kind of good news when he declared that the Gospel of Christ was not only for the Jews but for those who had been considered outside the circle of redemption: the gentiles. He wrote: “To them God chose to make known how great among the gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Paul knew it; excluding people from the hope of redemption only leads to more exclusion, and less hope and less redemption.
I love the story about our grandson, a tall, gifted young man named Alexander. It happened about twenty years ago, when he was in the first grade. Back then, Pokemon cards were the big thing, and Alexander had a big and cherished collection of them. He took some of his prized cards with him to school one day to show to his schoolmates. On the bus to school, he took them out and displayed them for the kid sitting next to him – not a close friend, just a kid who happened to be there. They went through the cards one at a time, sharing each treasure with the kind of joy that only a six-year-old can muster. When the bus came to the next stop, an older kid sitting behind them got up, grabbed the cards from their hands, and tore them all into little pieces with the kind of pleasure in someone else’s misery that often times only an eight-year-old can muster. A number of other children around the older boy laughed and took great delight in his coup. Alexander was devastated. His little heart was broken as he looked through his tears at all the torn pieces of beloved Pokemon cards on the floor of the school bus.
The little boy sitting next to Alexander waited until everyone else got off the bus. He picked up all the torn pieces of Pokemon cards and stuffed them in his pocket. The rest of what he did we only learned later from his mother. She said that, on arriving home that day, he said not a word but ran upstairs to his bedroom where he spent most of the rest of that evening doing something. We found out later that he was sorting through the puzzle of torn card pieces, meticulously taping them together. The next day on the same school bus, he presented the taped up cards to Alexander. This time, several of the children around leaned in to see the cards themselves and admired his handiwork. The older boy who had torn up the cards was now the odd one out – left to stew in his ugly mood and isolation.
Not the sort of incident that changes the world, perhaps. But one that changes lives – somewhere down the road. Ugly behavior just makes a person ugly, and caring just leads to caring relationships.
Well, I closed up the Bible and looked out the window again. When Dadgie plants Early Girl tomatoes, I thought, she doesn’t get petunias. In the end, you plant tomatoes, you get tomatoes – and that’s not a bad end.
One of the classic old jokes is about the guy who went to his doctor and said, “Hey, Doc, it hurts when I do this (bending his elbow a few times).” The doctor answers, “So, don’t do that.” Something like that happened to me once. I spoke to my doctor about a spot on my leg that frequently itched so badly that it drove me up a wall. This had been going on for several years in the same spot. The itching would come and go, but it was always in the same place. After relating this tale to the doctor, he said, “Yeah, I’ve had something like that too. It happens. It’s a real annoyance, isn’t it?” I just looked at him and didn’t say another word. I thought, “That’s it? For cryin’ out loud, isn’t he even going to examine me, or recommend some ointment, or take a biopsy, or give me a CAT scan? ‘These things happen.’ That’s all he’s got?”
I guess I know how Naaman felt when he went to see Elisha to be cured of his leprosy. The prophet didn’t even do him the courtesy of meeting with him face to face. He sent a messenger telling him to go wash in the river. Frankly, I don’t blame Naaman for being more than a little ticked. The guy travels all this way to see the famous miracle worker of Israel, and all he gets is a messenger telling him to take bath. He figured the guy ought to at least dance around a little and shake a magic stick at him, utter some long, mysterious incantation, smear sacred potions over his body, or have him walk through a blazing inferno to scare away the evil spirits – something, anything, that sounds like a cure.
His skepticism and frustration are very familiar. The brokenness and afflictions of our lives have often taken many years to develop. They come from multiple and complex sources, and we assume that they will require sophisticated, powerful, and, as yet incomprehensible, interventions to cope with. At times, the sheer weight of pain from our maladies and incapacities seems so enormous that it appears unlikely we will ever be free of it.
Such is often the case with alcoholism. The alcoholic frequently sees life as overwhelming, and the sources of his frustration so intransigent and beyond himself, that it seems virtually impossible to find any solutions. If someone suggests to him that his central problem is drinking, he scoffs in much the same way that Naaman must have when he was told to go take a bath in the river. “Alcohol is not my problem,” he’s likely to say, “It’s far more complex than that. I could stop drinking any time I wanted to. My problem is with my boss . . . my wife . . . my job . . . my friends (or any of a dozen other identifiable sources).” To think that going to AA and giving up drinking is going to make any huge improvement in his life is laughable.
It’s the same with many of our “inner demons.” We often become so used to our habits, hurts, and limitations that they become like old friends. In time, it’s easy to convince ourselves that we couldn’t live without them. Surely, we conclude, there’s no simple way to resolve such life-long patterns, so what’s the use in trying? We scoff at the idea of therapy, or of self-discipline, or any of a host of other possible solutions because we figure our problems aren’t likely to be resolved by anything so straightforward.
And the same is true of spiritual impairments. Those who feel unknowledgeable about the Bible or religious faith see themselves as hopelessly ignorant when it comes to theological or spiritual matters. The simple suggestion of actually studying the Bible is readily dismissed, because when one’s lack of knowledge seems so vast, certainly it would take a herculean effort to overcome it. The suggestion that a person is already an expert in the area of their own beliefs and perceptions about Divinity and humanity is scoffed at as though it were advice to take a bath in the river – “Of what value are my simple ideas when it comes to something so incomprehensible as Christian theology?”
And if a person feels hopelessly cut off from Divine grace because of an enormous weight of guilt – a feeling that they can never be good enough, or never forgiven – it’s virtually impossible to convince them that they are, indeed, loved and forgiven: “The answer to this overwhelming and unforgivable guilt is ‘you are forgiven?’ You’ve got to be kidding. I can’t accept that. It’s too simple.”
We want to be healed. We want to be whole. But when the path to wholeness is shown to us, we frequently turn away from it. I think that’s partly because we are so convinced that our problems are too big. They are simply too large to be dealt with by anything but a miracle. Well, here’s a news flash: miracles happen every day. They are virtually bursting out of the ground we walk on, and wafting through the air we breathe. The extraordinary thing about life is that it is basically inclined toward things “working out” in the end – and generally through very ordinary means. Miracles are not Divine intervention to overthrow the laws of nature, they are the power of the bias of grace that’s built into those very laws. Extraordinary, ordinary miracles are the standard fare of our lives.
Do we seek healing from the human disease of war? Peace will not prevail in our world through the impending peril of a stray asteroid threatening to blow us all to bits unless we cooperate to find a way to defend ourselves against it. Peace will not come as the result of an invasion from outer space, or any number of other grand science fiction scenarios. Peace will finally rule on our planet because overwhelming numbers of ordinary men and women around the globe will write letters, hold vigils and marches, keep their governments’ feet to the fire of justice, and demand that the architects of hatred and engineers of violence step aside. Peace will dawn upon us as an ordinary miracle of hard work and dedication.
There are broken bodies and broken spirits all over our world. There are countless African men and women dying of AIDS, way too many children going to bed with empty bellies, famines, droughts, and diseases regularly ravaging populations. We look at these realities and turn away because the problems are too large. Surely, we imagine, there’s nothing we can do. Surely the only hope lies in some miraculous new vaccine yet to be discovered, or in some amazing technological achievement that will give answers to questions we can’t begin to tackle now.
But bodies are healed, children are fed, and resources flow, when ordinary people like you and me and ordinary churches like ours give money to relief efforts like One Great Hour of Sharing or through Our Church’s Wider Mission, and other empowering ministries like Habitat for Humanity or Doctors Without Borders, when ordinary folks put pressure on governments and corporations to build the infrastructures of mercy, when ordinary citizens go to the polls and vote into office those who stand for something grander than protecting profits and narrowly defined national self-interest. Those things happen and will happen because the hearts of human beings, though often dark and greedy, are, in the aggregate, inclined toward love and justice and wholeness. And that’s a miracle!
It occurs to me that there is one great miracle at the base of everything: the universe is put together in such a way that, even though “bad things happen to good people” (as Rabbi Kushner was famous for saying), in the main, things are tilted in the direction of good things happening. Every morning that we get out of bed and take a breath of air, we’re beating the odds – because creation is designed for us to beat the odds more often than not. And even when the odds catch up with us, we human beings so frequently find a way to bring something of value and nobility out of disaster – that’s miraculous!
I was searching my mind for some way to illustrate this point. I thought of my marriage and how miraculous that kind of everyday love is. I thought of people I have known who have lived extraordinary lives even in the face of great adversity. While I was ruminating on all this, I almost absent-mindedly entered into the Yahoo web site the word “miracles.” In the screen that opened up, I saw some little advertising boxes off to the side. One of them said, “Miracles online. Shop Target.com.” That really fascinated me, so I clicked on it. What came up was a list of products, most of which were various versions of something called a “Boppy Bare Naked with Miracle Middle.” Out of curiosity, I clicked on one to find out what a “Boppy Bare Naked with Miracle Middle” was. I learned that it’s a special kind of horseshoe-shaped pillow that is used to put around a baby to help it sit up for feeding, playing, and so forth. I let out a sigh, and started to continue racking my brain for illustrations. Then it occurred to me: probably a lot of young mothers and their little ones have benefitted from that ingenious little pillow, a product of someone’s creative mind – someone who put to use the amazing powers that reside in these wondrous, infinitely complex brains of ours. And, as a result, some number of children sat up rather than toppling over onto their heads. Think about it. Isn’t that one of the most miraculous things you ever imagined?
Folks, if you’re coming to church on Sunday mornings looking for Divine inspiration, and not taking the time to recognize the work of providence in the mailing of a letter, or the divine hand of guidance in the boy on the street corner, you just might be passing over miracles while you’re looking for something more grand.
We live in a miraculous world. It has been made in such a way that answers to staggering questions are often right at our fingertips, opportunities for healing and growth frequently present themselves in the most unexpected ways, the prospect of justice, peace, and global community is not simply a distant dream, it’s a living possibility. And it’s all part of the here and now – the you and me.
In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy finds herself transported by a wondrous event to a mystical land where she and her companions find themselves on a quest against all odds for those things that might make them whole: compassion, intelligence, courage, home. Their brokenness appears to be irreparable, though, when the forces against which they battle seem overwhelming, and finally the great wizard who could work wonders to give them what they lack turns out to be a charlatan. In the end, Dorothy finds herself back in Kansas, and discovers that everything they had been looking for was right there all along. All that was required was to open her eyes and see the world in a new light.
Do you need a miracle? I’ve got extraordinary news for you. They’re ordinary occurrences. Do you need healing? I’ve got a hopeful word to share. You might find it in something as common as taking a bath. Do you want to see the world made new? I’ve got “tidings of great joy.” The world is being remade, and you are helping to do it.
For quite a while the poker game, Texas hold ‘em, was all the rage. I think it’s still popular on poker TV shows. I’ve never played it (I’m more of a seven card stud and five card draw man), but as I understand it the idea is to run your opponents out of the game by betting everything on one big hand. The play proceeds one hand at a time, with moderate stakes, and you win some hands and lose some. But when the person across the table puts all their chips in the pot, you’ve got to decide whether to put yours in or get out. Everything is on the line. When it comes to that point in the game, there’s no middle choice; you’re either all in or you fold your hand.
I think the Almighty plays a version of “Texas hold ‘em” with us. Each day of our lives involves a series of choices. We bet on relationships, and job interviews, and traffic allowing us to get to a meeting on time, and a thousand other things. Sometimes we win; sometimes we lose. We play the markets, spend dollars and save them; our stash goes up and it goes down. One day we’re dealt a hand full of missed opportunities, miserable circumstances, and misunderstandings. The next day our cards are all aces and kings. And so it goes, from week to week, year to year.
But sooner or later, early in life or late in life, it’s bound to happen. You’re sitting across the table from truth itself, the vast unknown staring you in the face, all of life’s blessings and all of life’s curses are slid in one pile toward you, and the voice of eternity asks, “Are you in?”
That’s what I think Jesus was trying to tell the disciples in this passage from the Gospel of Luke. Jesus had been at the table, and the divine hand of truth had pushed all the chips toward him: go to Jerusalem to fulfill your ministry, be killed, and make your message heard for all time, or turn back and save your hide. Are you in or out? Jesus had made his choice; he was all in. He had, as scripture says, “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Meanwhile, the disciples were caught up in a dispute about a group of people who wouldn’t let him stay in their town. Jesus would have none of it – no distractions now, the decision was made, the whole game was on the line.
He tried to make them understand: a man came up to him and wanted to join the disciples but he said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” In other words, this is no penny ante game here; my way is a hard choice; people who follow me are giving up home, comfort, everything. Another potential disciple wanted to go bury his father before joining them, and yet another wanted to go say goodbye to his family. Again, Jesus put all his chips on the table: follow me, or stay behind. This is one of those moments in life; there are no half choices, there are no compromises. I’m on my way to Jerusalem to die. Are you in, or are you out?
Jesus’ words echo the voice of Elijah who had in ancient times presented his protege, Elisha, with the same kind of ultimate choice: to take up the prophet’s mantle and lead the people. Elisha wanted to go home and say farewell to his parents before following the prophet, but Elijah offered a bit of scorn to impress on the young man the weight of his decision.
There are such moments. There are times when the usual loyalties and normal routines are dwarfed by an issue so profound, a decision so momentous that all of your spirit, all of your character, all of your strength of will are called upon, and the rest of your life holds its breath while you decide to act or not.
I have a hard story to share with you. It’s a story about that kind of decision – the painful, difficult decision to follow the way of Jesus, even when it hurts. The story comes from Rev. Susan Thomas who was, at the time, on the staff of the City Mission Society in Boston that was a ministry of our United Church of Christ, and who once served as interim sabbatical pastor at our church. Some of you may remember her. She tells of the murder of a young man, Jaewon Martin, who was in the City Mission Society Afterschool Program. You may remember reading about his death in the newspaper. He was killed just about fifteen years ago on the Saturday before Mother’s Day. An honor roll student in the eighth grade, Jaewon was playing basketball with his friends when some gang members mistook him for a rival and gunned him down.
Rev. Thomas said, “Jaewon was a wonderful young man, outgoing, engaging, really popular with everyone at our afterschool; he loved math, he loved basketball and football. You could always find him in the kitchen with us wanting to help out with cooking supper or baking. He talked about how he wanted to go to college and, as a lot of young people do, he wanted to be his own boss someday. He also loved his family and was often called on to babysit his younger cousins.”
The day after Jaewon was killed, his mother and grandmother, with their hearts freshly broken, nonetheless walked with some local pastors in the Mother’s Day Walk for Peace. They walked in a march to end the violence.
Rev. Thomas writes, “The staff of City Mission Society was counted among the hundreds and hundreds of people who jammed the overflowing church on the day of Jaewon’s funeral. His mother was not able to speak during the church service but she did write these very telling words that were printed in the bulletin for the funeral service:
I know I do not want revenge. I know my son is not the first teenager to be killed in a public place and I know my son was ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ We have to come together as a community because in the end we are all losing at both ends of the gun. We have to value and invest in all children and families equally.
We are in no way wishing this upon anyone else. Anyone who does anything different from what we are asking, let it be known this is not our wish. Please, stop this senseless killing.
I hope whoever did this will have the courage to come forward and seek forgiveness. Even though the pain will always be there I have a heart that can forgive. I hope that we do not lose more children. Have faith. Have trust in our Lord and Savior.
To my son’s friends – the best way to honor my son is to fulfill your dreams, get good grades, work hard, get along with each other, love each other. Unite in love together, and that’s what I want you to do until it’s over.”1
This message from the heart of a grieving mother was crystal clear. It could not be mistaken by a neighborhood full of angry young men bent on revenge. Jaewon’s mother was confronted by a greater moment of trial than any of us would care to face. And the choice she made, the choice to live for love, and for forgiveness, and for hope, a choice that shined forth from her words in that funeral bulletin like a beacon light, was most certainly a critical juncture in her life and in the lives of many in her community. But I suspect if you asked her, she might tell you that this decision was simply the culmination of choices that had come much earlier in life. You don’t get to such a point of grace in the face of unspeakable trauma without having already come to terms with the power of love and truth and beauty and goodness. You can bank on it: Jaewon’s mother had been living for these things for many years. But a bullet changed things; now it was clear that pleasant smiles and Sunday school platitudes were no longer at stake; the greatest loss, the deepest hurt, the most profound issue at the heart of life were all on the table, and the challenge to live for love and forgiveness in league with the brutal realities of cruel fate had stared her in the face and put it to her directly: “Are you in, or are you out?”
I pray that none of you will be faced with such a public and traumatic crisis. But sooner or later, the world being what it is, the exigencies and fortunes of life will conspire to present you with a powerful and possibly painful decision. The eddies and tides of emotional stress will pull you one way and then another, fears and desires will clash, and a momentous choice for good or for ill will stare you in the face.
When that moment comes, what kind of hand will you be holding? What will you have accumulated in your storehouse of resources? What will you have been nurturing in your heart? What will you have been studying, or sharing and hearing about with your fellow travelers? Let me assure you, in that instant of truth, half-hearted commitments and hedged bets are insufficient. When the chips are down, half a heart is not enough; the bet is all or nothing.
It’s easy to lose sight of the big picture when so many things are going on in your life. It’s easy to fall into routines, and see church as just another such routine. It’s not. This is part of a high stakes game we’re playing here. On Sunday mornings we read scripture verses, we sing hymns and say prayers, we hear a few hopefully coherent words from the pulpit; in this fellowship there are opportunities for group sharing, there are times of conversation and times of working together to accomplish tasks. These are not casual exercises in social niceties. All of this contributes to your own personal growth, to your spiritual development, to “strengthening your hand,” if you will. You participate in this community of faith, this laboratory of the Spirit, for this: so that when the moment arrives, good and evil, hope and despair, grace and greed are in the balance, and time and all eternity are pushing a huge pile of chips your way, staring you eyeball to eyeball, and asking the fateful question, asking if you will take the gospel seriously when the stakes are sky high, you will have the spiritual maturity, the nerve, and strength of character to calmly reply, “I’m in.”
1 From a sermon by Rev. Susan Thomas, June 13, 2010.
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