Love Stops at Nothing (Luke 23:34; John 19:28; John 19:30)

(Reflections for Second Baptist Church's Worship on April 14, 2017, Good Friday)

-----

Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” 

(Luke 23:34) 

The cross holds aloft the helpless humanity of Jesus. On the cross, Jesus knows pain. Jesus knows thirst. Jesus knows death.

On the cross, Jesus is as human as can be.

This is why, I think, the people around Jesus mock him. If he is from God, then why is he here, suffering such a human fate? Why not put on a divine demonstration for them all? The leaders, the soldiers, even one of the criminals beside him—they all mock Jesus. If he is God’s chosen one, the king of the Jews, the messiah himself, then why not show his divine power and save himself?

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” we often say of great persons who finally hit their limit and show their fragile humanity.

Hanging helpless on a cross, as human as can be, Jesus has nothing left but a decreasing supply of breath. All he can do now, is to utter his last words—the first of which is about as far from human as you can get.

The leaders, the soldiers, the criminal beside him—they all fantasize about Jesus putting on a display of might and muscle and magic, as though that would demonstrate his divine character. But their fantasy suggests the very opposite: to call down a host of angels, to save himself and perhaps exact a bit of self-indulgent retribution on his offenders, would in fact be an all-too-human response. It is the sort of thing that humanity dreams of.

The scandal of the cross isn’t that Jesus failed after all, that he is helplessly human. The real scandal is that the cross reveals Jesus at his most divine. The cross reveals God as savior—not through might and muscle and magic and getting his own way, but through something much more powerful, something we hear in his labored last breaths:

“Father, forgive them.”

-----

After this, when Jesus knew that all was finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I thirst.” 

(John 19:28) 

I wonder if there were any backspin on these words of Jesus, if they brought back memories of the other times he had spoken about thirst.

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me” (7: 37). “Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (6:35). “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14).

How can this be, that the thirst-quencher is thirsty? Has the eternal spring of living water run dry?

From where we stand today, the answer is simple: “Yes.” The spring is now but a trickle. It is at its last drop.

And yet…Jesus’ very thirst proclaims otherwise.

To thirst is to say, “Yes,” while present circumstance says, “No.” We say, “Yes,” to water precisely when we do not have water. Thirst is an inverted blessing. It is a blessing in absentia. A “Yes” that dwells defiantly in the land of “No.”

“I thirst.”

With life spilling out from his body by the second, Jesus does not proclaim the end of life. He cries out, “Yes!” to life. God saw that life was good, very good, in the beginning, and even now in the very face of death, at the very end of things, Jesus declares so too, “Yes, life is good. Yes, I want more of it.”

Is it any surprise? Jesus could never conceal his love for life. When he taught, when he told stories, all he could talk about was this life: the serenity of the birds, the grace of wild flowers, the sun that rises on us all, and the rain that falls on us; children who dance and play flutes, brothers and bridesmaids, weddings and feasts. If the few whispers we’ve heard are true—that Jesus is the messiah, the son of God—then we might have expected someone more inclined toward heaven, someone ready to get back to heaven. But Jesus is firmly rooted in the soil of this life, insistent that heaven come to earth.

“I thirst.” “Yes, life is good. Yes, I want more of it.”

-----

When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. 

(John 19:30) 

“It is finished.” So says the painter after she puts the finishing touch on her masterpiece. So says the teenager after his mother asks him about his homework. So say the business executives after they conclude negotiations over a new deal.

“It is finished.” In our world, these words mark an achievement, an accomplishment. They declare what we have done.

Jesus did a lot in the months and years before his crucifixion. He taught, told stories, answered questions, healed the sick, challenged hypocrites, consoled the sorrowful, wept, called the dead back to life.[1]

Jesus has done a lot. But the last few days bring about a bitter twist, a turn from action to passion, from being active to being passive—being acted upon. Jesus is arrested, imprisoned, led before leaders, whipped, crowned with thorns, made to carry a cross, stripped of his clothes, nailed to the wood, and mocked.

Jesus had done a lot. But he doesn’t say “It is finished” after what he has done.

“The great mystery of Jesus’ life is that he fulfilled his mission not in action but in passion, not by what he did but by what was done to him.”[2] He says “it is finished”—it is fulfilled—not after achievement or accomplishment but after having been passed from hand to hand, after ending up on a cross.

In a world that seeks fulfillment in results and returns, profits and the bottom line, the cross that we see before us today proclaims something radically different: love. Love does not seek accomplishment or achievement; it does not find fulfillment in a return or a profit. Love is fulfilled simply by having given itself for others, come what may.

What happens after love gives itself, is out of love’s hands. What happens next might be the end of things. This might be the very end of things. No matter. Love stops at nothing.

-----

[1] Henri Nouwen, Adam: God’s Beloved (2nd printing; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997), 83.

[2] Nouwen, Adam, 84.

Longing Remembrance (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)

(Reflection for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on April 13, 2017, Maundy Thursday)

-----

Things That Are More Than Just Things

Our world is enchanted. We knew this once as children. Deep down, we still know it.

There are things in this enchanted world that are more than just things.[1] For me, tomato soup will never be just tomato soup. It will be my mother’s love for me on a sick day. A soccer ball will never be just a soccer ball. It will be my father kicking about with me in the backyard. A basement will never be just a basement. It will be the gleeful space of conspiracy between my brother and me, our shared secret joy.

Surely you know such enchanted things yourself. Maybe they are places. Smells. Tastes. Photographs. Sounds.

Memory puts a sacred spell on our world, filling the present with what is absent, filling our hearts with longing.

Water, Bread, and Cup

On that last night, Jesus wove a sacred spell on water, bread, and cup, making a memory that would ever haunt us and fill us with desire.

The water would never be just water again. It would be Christ getting on his knees and washing our feet. The bread and the wine would never be just food and drink. They would be Christ loving us with all that he had, body and blood.

Water, bread, cup. They are now only memories, absences that linger over the elements.

And yet the aching absence that we feel is sometimes more real to us than the visible world. The absence in water, bread, and cup, pulls us like an invisible force, like the longing that draws two lovers together.

The power of this absence is stronger than the powers of this world. It is the one power that cannot be extinguished. Love. Stronger even than death, they say (cf. Song 8:6).

A Body Long Ago That Fills Us with Longing

Water, bread, cup. Enchanted things. The church calls them sacraments. They remind us of a night long ago, a body long ago, a body whose loving touch still haunts us with longing today.

-----

[1] Much of this homily finds inspiration in the theopoetic dynamite of Rubem Alves, particularly in I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body (Eugene, OR: Wipf, 2003; orig., Fortress, 1986).

With a Word (Isaiah 50:4-9a)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on April 9, 2017, Palm Sunday)

-----

Words Have Great Power

I may have mentioned before that my family loves Mexican food. As a kid, I always looked forward to Friday evenings, because that’s when we’d go out to eat at one of our many favorite Mexican restaurants. El Chapala, Casa Grande, El Paso, Don Pedro III. When my parents moved last year to Powhatan, the first restaurant we dined at together was their fine local Mexican joint, El Cerro Azul.

No one in my family knows a lick of Spanish. But that doesn’t stop us from trying. We’re pretty good now with the conversational Spanish that you’d expect to hear at a restaurant: gracias, de nada, salsa verde, mas agua por favor. We learn these words by experience. For example, when our waiter or waitress would bring out our meal, he or she would always say, “Caliente, caliente—careful, it’s hot!”

My mom, who not long ago taught first grade at Carver Elementary, would occasionally try out her newfound language skills with the students in her class for whom Spanish was their first language. When she said something like gracias or por favor, their ears would perk up and they would smile. Well, one day they were all out on the blacktop for recess. It was late in the school year, the sun was out, and the heat was nearly unbearable. Standing next to one of the Hispanic girls in her class, my mom fanned herself and said, “Soy caliente.”

The look my mom received told her immediately that caliente had connotations that she did not know. Needless to say, she was quick to clarify that the weather was hot.

Words have great power—whether you get them right or wrong. As a teacher, my mom already knew that well. This experience taught her nothing new; it simply confirmed a deep truth.

A Suffering Savior—Who Talks

We see the same truth on display in today’s scripture. Today’s passage comes from a special collection of prophecies in the book of Isaiah. Scholars today often call these prophecies the Suffering Servant songs. They all describe a mysterious character who is simultaneously a sufferer and a savior. According to Isaiah, this suffering servant will save the world: he will be “a light to the nations, so that…salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (49:6).

But just how he will save the world remains a mystery. In the Suffering Servant songs, including today’s passage, this peculiar character only ever suffers. He’s not an underdog character like those wrestlers who get beaten to a pulp only to somehow summon the strength to emerge triumphant. His suffering is not a trick. There’s no card up his sleeve. He suffers to the very end (cf. Isa 53, the final song).

But all the while, he talks. And as we already know, words have great power. In the passage that precedes today’s scripture, the suffering servant proclaims, “[God] made my mouth like a sharp sword” (49:2). And in today’s scripture, he declares, “God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word” (50:4). A mouth like a sharp sword, and tongue that sustains the weary with a word. Words have great power: in the case of this mysterious figure, words are sometimes a “sword” that stings and sometimes a support that “sustains.” One might say that his words afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

How Does a Savior That Suffers Save?

Perhaps by now you have your suspicions about who this mysterious suffering servant is. If so, you’re in good company. Christ-followers have long observed a certain resemblance between this servant and Jesus. Isaiah himself may not have known whom he was prophesying about. But at the very least, he had a holy hunch that salvation would come about in a rather upside-down or backwards manner: not by the power of the hand but by the power of a loving, long-suffering heart. While most of the Israelites saw the world as a playground for foreign empires, with little Israel caught up unhappily in a game of power, Isaiah saw something startlingly different. A world needful not of an all-action hero, but rather quite the opposite.

But even if we identify Isaiah’s mysterious servant with Jesus, the question lingers: how does a servant who only ever suffers save the world? For some folks, it’s all too simple. We are sinful and God demands a payment to counterbalance our sin. Jesus saves us by suffering in our place, by giving this God the only appropriate recompense.

But as we approach the cross this week, I would invite us to reconsider such a belief. Did Jesus come to save us from God? Or did Jesus come to reveal God as a loving, long-suffering savior?

If we affirm that Jesus comes to reveal God as a loving, long-suffering savior, the question still remains: how does a savior that suffers save?

Suffering Because Jesus Said To

I heard about an exchange that took place once between a chaplain and a woman who was concerned for her friend. The woman’s friend was a victim of abuse. Rather than tell you all the details, I’ll let you listen in on their conversation.

“Chaplain, I just don’t know what to tell her. When I ask her to get help, or even to leave her boyfriend, she says she can’t.”

“Why can’t she?” the chaplain asks.

“She says it’s because of Jesus. She forgives him every time because that’s what Jesus says to do. She says she turns the other cheek because that what Jesus says to do. She says that she’s denying herself because that’s what Jesus says to do.”

The chaplain listens with a pained look in his face. Finally he says, “Your friend has a good heart. But to deny yourself, you have to have a self.”

Is the Way of the Cross, the Way of the Doormat?

For a faith that proclaims the greatness of the cross, it is easy to identify the way of Jesus with suffering. It is easy for the way of the cross to become the way of the doormat. Isn’t that what Jesus is saying, when he blesses the downtrodden and preaches unconditional forgiveness and loving your enemies?

Let’s take a closer look at our suffering servant. As we’ve already observed, there is one thing he’s not afraid to use: his mouth. He doesn’t just spout off whatever he wants; he listens closely to God—“morning by morning,” he says, “[I] listen as those who are taught” (50:4)—and he shares what he hears. Whatever he says must be pretty upsetting to some people, because suffering follows. But notice who initiates the suffering: “I gave my back to those who struck me,” the servant says, “and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard” (50:6).

This is no doormat. Doormats don’t speak out, don’t talk back. Our servant may be downtrodden, but only because he has spoken out, only because he’s actively welcomed the consequences of his word. Our servant has an unbreakable sense of mission; he is always an active agent; even when he suffers, it’s not because others oppress him but because he “sets [his] face like flint” and gives himself to their oppression (cf. 50:7).

The Word of God

For the suffering servant, it all begins when he opens his mouth. It all begins, as he himself says, “with a word” (50:4). We might say the same for Jesus. The gospel of John even goes so far as to call Jesus “the word,” as if to say that his entire life—his body and blood, all that he did and all that was done to him—centers on a word.

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus comes to the people “with a word” that is as sharp as a sword, double-edged, lifting up the lowly and threatening the self-secure: “The Spirit of the Lord…has anointed me,” he says, “to bring good news to the poor,…release to the imprisoned and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free” (Luke 4:18). Already we can see dark shadows in the distance. “With a word,” Jesus threatens the programs of power in Jerusalem and Rome both, which would prefer to keep its imprisoned in prison, and which relegates to the sidelines all who do not or cannot buy into its game, including the poor and the blind. “With a word,” Jesus welcomes all sorts of outsiders: women, Samaritans, Roman soldiers, tax collectors, prostitutes, little children. “With a word,” Jesus turns his world upside down.

Let it not be said that God or Jesus glorifies suffering. Jesus does not come to suffer. Jesus comes to us with a word. For that word, he will endure the wrath of the powers-that-be, Roman and Jewish alike. Suffering comes as a consequence of the love that he proclaims, a love that challenges the power and privilege that keep some up and others down. Power and privilege will do anything to cross out their enemies, to keep their place.

But rather than fighting back, which would be to abandon the word that he proclaims, the word of love, Jesus welcomes the suffering even at its most bitter. And he welcomes it “with a word”:

“Father, forgive them.”

Where Life Begins

Today, on Palm Sunday, we celebrate Jesus entering Jerusalem as a savior. What will follow this week will show us just how our savior saves. It may surprise us a little bit, even today, even knowing the story already as we do.

Jesus saves us with a word. A word of love. A word of forgiveness. Just simple words. But isn’t that where life begins? A body hears a word, and it trembles. (Or in the case of my mom’s student, a body hears a word, and it quivers with laughter and embarrassment.) That’s the thing about words. They take root in flesh. You might even say that words become flesh.

Jesus saves us with a word. A word that he will say, come what may. A word that he will stop at nothing—not even a cross—to say.

Prayer

Courageous Christ,
Who enters Jerusalem
As you enter
The stronghold of our lives,
With nothing but a word:
Morning by morning,
Waken us
To the beauty
Of your message.
Teach us to live,
To speak,
Like you.
Amen.

Resurrection Now (John 11:1-45)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on April 2, 2017, Lent V)

-----

Life Now or Later?

As Svetlana finished packing the last box, she looked across her room. It looked how she felt: empty. Where once had stood the desk that she and her friend Julie had turned into a castle, was nothing but bare wooden floor. In the place of her bed, where she and her friend Sarah had staged countless gymnastics tournaments, were nothing but dust bunnies. Where her mirror had hung and where she had once innovated hairstyles that had left her mother and father in tears of laughter, was nothing but the chipped paint of her wall. The window where Whiskers would sit and watch the squirrels, was vacant. Even worse, Whiskers would not be making the move.

A tear quivered on the edge of her eye. How could life go on?

The next day she slouched sullenly in the back of the van as her family pulled out of the driveway for the last time.

Hours passed before finally her mother ventured a word into the back of the van. “Svetlana, I know it’s not easy.”

“Not easy?” the twelve-year old responded. “It’s impossible. I don’t know when I’ll see Julie or Sarah again. And I know when I’ll see Whiskers again—never.”

Her mother gave a deep sigh. “Yes, it will be very difficult. I know. But I promise that you’ll make new friends, and once we’re settled we’ll get a new cat. Why, I imagine that in a few years’ time, your life in our new home will be just as wonderful as the one you’ve had here.”

“Yes,” Svetlana responded, “but that’s just the point. I don’t want a wonderful life in a few years. I want a wonderful life now.”

Hours later, the van approached its new home. Svetlana woke with bleary eyes. A girl outside the house next door stared at the van and gave a timid wave. Svetlana blinked with a flutter of curiosity. Her mother reached back and rested a hand gently on her knee. Svetlana felt something—a little lift, a small ripple or rising.

“Here we are, Svetlana. Our new life.”

From a Story of Power to a Story of Life

Our text today proclaims the good news of resurrection. But to get there we have to make a few detours, because whoever wrote today’s text had, I think, a slightly different agenda: namely, to demonstrate God’s power and to compel belief. This agenda comes to light early in the story, when our storyteller shows Jesus contemplating the imminent death of his beloved friend Lazarus. Jesus weighs his options: heal his friend, or wait and demonstrate his power.

I’ll confess, this picture of Jesus disturbs me. This is not the Jesus I know. This is not the Jesus who is moved to compassion by the sick and the hungry. Nor is it the Jesus who refuses Satan’s temptation to prove his power. This is a calculating Jesus who sanctions a suffering friend’s death, and the grief of many other friends besides, all so that he might demonstrate God’s power and strong-arm folks into belief (cf. 11:4, 42, 45). Such a Jesus cries little more than crocodile tears. His compassion is little more than a magician’s ruse.

Let me put my cards on the table. I am trying to read today’s story not according to the interests of the writer, who sits outside the story and has his own designs on it, but according to the experience of the characters, who actually lived the story. What concerns the writer of this story is the strong power of God—a power that looks less like love and more like a magician who demands applause. What concerns the characters in the story, however, is an entirely different matter, I think. What concerns Martha and Mary, Lazarus and Jesus, is the same thing that concerned Svetlana: life.[1]

What Martha Wants…

Just to be clear, I believe this scripture is as God-breathed as any other scripture. I believe the heart of God is pulsing somewhere underneath it, just as it pulses underneath all the words in the Bible. This is why reading the Bible requires interpretation. The words are human. But what they are trying to say, what they mean to say, comes somehow from God. To read the Bible, we must bring our stethoscope and hold it up to the text; we must listen closely for the heart of God.

When I slide my stethoscope over today’s text, I first hear a muffled thump-thump when Martha confronts Jesus with her disappointment that he did not come sooner.

You may remember the stories about Martha and her sister Mary. Mary is the spiritual one. She is the one who can put her earthly troubles out of sight and mind and contemplate higher things. Martha, on the other hand, is the more earthy sister.[2] The gospels portray Martha as a woman very attuned to the present needs: when we see her elsewhere, she’s immersed in the middle of life, cooking and serving, tidying up and preparing (cf. Luke 10:38-42; John 12:1-2). Whereas you might be able to console Mary with spiritual platitudes—such as, “Your brother, Lazarus, is in heaven now. God wanted him there”—I doubt these would fly with Martha. Martha, remember, is rooted in this world. She is immersed in life. When her brother, Lazarus, lost his life four days ago, she must have loss much of her life, too.

Martha, I think, shares a kindred heart with Svetlana and many of us today. We love life, even with its many imperfections. When we lose it, as Svetlana lost her home, as Martha lost her brother, we do not simply settle for some heavenly deferral or exchange when we will get our lives back. Life is more sacred than we know. Something inside us cries out for more life now—somehow.

That’s what we see with Martha, who addresses Jesus with her honest hurt: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (11:21). Jesus’ response—“Your brother will rise again”—is little consolation to her in the here and now. “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day,” she concedes, as if to say, “But that’s not what I’m talking about.” What Martha is talking about is not the afterlife, the life hereafter. She is not concerned for Lazarus’ eternal salvation. What Martha is talking about is life here, for Lazarus and her both. She doesn’t want the final resurrection later. She wants a little resurrection now[3]—I say “little,” because of course this resurrection won’t last forever; Lazarus will have to die again.

…Is What Jesus Wants

As I let my stethoscope drift across the text, the next place I hear a hushed thump-thump is when Jesus cries. Tears tell us what really matters to a person. And this is one of the precious few scenes where we actually see tears on Jesus’ face.

Why does Jesus cry? According to our story, it is not for Lazarus. Like Martha, Jesus knows that Lazarus will rise again on the last day. According to the story, Jesus cries because he sees the tears of Mary and all the people with her (cf. 11:33-35). What grieves Jesus is the loss of life—not just in Lazarus but in all the people around him.

In other words, what concerns Jesus is the same thing that concerns Martha: not the life hereafter but the life right here.

Little Resurrections

What happens next in the story is a mystery. It is the mystery of an empty tomb. It is the mystery of life from death. It is the mystery of our faith.

I don’t know a thing about the mechanics of resurrection. If you want, you can google that. I’m sure you’ll find scientists who have proven it and scientists have disproven it, believers who proclaim it and unbelievers who disclaim it. All I know from today’s story and from my own faith journey, is that the good news doesn’t just mean resurrection later; it means resurrection now! The good news is not insider information on some heavenly exchange rate that we’re hoping to cash in on—ch-ching! The good news is that Christ is the resurrection and the life, unbinding us and letting us go now from losses that entomb us.

What that resurrection looks like, how it feels—that is the stuff of experience. Maybe you’ve felt it before. Maybe you’ve felt it when someone has shared your tears. Maybe you’ve felt it in someone else’s touch. Maybe you’ve felt it when someone else has persuaded you, or even dragged you, outside the cave of your loss.

These are all little resurrections, yes. Does that diminish the truth of the more dramatic resurrections? I don’t think so. If anything, the Jesus in today’s story shows us that what matters just as much as any final resurrection are the little resurrections—the kind that helped Martha and Mary live beyond the death of their brother, the kind that helped Svetlana live beyond the loss of her home, the kind that help you and I live beyond what seems like the end.

Prayer

God of empty tombs,
Who calls to us today
As Christ called to Lazarus,
“Come out!”—
May we, like Martha,
Trust defiantly in the good news
Of resurrection and life,
Not later but now;
Plant our faith firmly
In the goodness of this earth and this life,
To which your kingdom comes.
Amen.

---

[1] This angle of interpretation is inspired largely by John D. Caputo, The Insistence of God: A Theology of the Perhaps (Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 231-232.

[2] Case in point: she’s the sister who complains about her dead brother’s stench (11:39).

[3] “Even now,” she says, “I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him” (11:22).

"I Shall Not Want"? (Ex 17:1-7)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on March 26, 2017, Lent IV)

-----

“Sometimes We Have to Do Things We Don’t Want to Do”

Being able to play the piano is a wonderful thing. But when you’re nine or ten years old and it’s the middle of July and the sun is shining outside and your friend next door is going to the pool—having a piano lesson is about the furthest thing from wonderful.

I still have a vivid memory of that day. I’m sitting glumly in the back of the Aerostar, and my mom is driving me to piano practice at Derbyshire Baptist Church. Naturally we pass the pool on the way there, which just adds insult to injury. I give an audible moan, one last desperate attempt to turn my mom’s mind. She’s sympathetic, I can tell. Even though I can’t see her face, I can sense her commiseration. But the car does not turn around.

There follow a couple of silent minutes. Then my mom says something simple. It’s probably something she and my dad have said many times before, and probably something they will say many times again. But out of all those times, I remember only this once, because this is the day that I actually hear her. This is the day that her words grab hold of my world and shake it, leaving me stunned, leaving everything that I thought I knew looking a bit askew.

She says, “Jonathan, sometimes in life we have to do things we don’t want to do.”

A Lenten Lesson

I’m a little embarrassed to say this, but I think the reason these words hit me so hard is that, until then, I had lived thinking that life was about doing what you wanted to do. Of course there were certain exceptions—going to school, making your bed, doing your chores—but these were simply immovable features of the landscape. For the most part, I was able to do what I wanted to do.

I talk about this as though it’s something that I’ve outgrown, as though it’s something we all naturally outgrow as we grow up. But I have my doubts. What is the “American Dream”? Does it not suggest that, however difficult the landscape, we can overcome it and get what we want? And is that dream only American? I’d venture to say it knows no spatial or temporal boundary. We read in the Bible that again and again the ancient Israelites did whatever pleased them.[1]

“Sometimes in life we have to do things we don’t want to do.” We have all learned the lesson that I learned on that hot, sunny summer’s day. But I wonder if we ever outgrow that lesson. I’m doubtful. If the advertisements that flood our media are any indication, we remain firmly planted in the fantasy that life is all about what we want, that this is a “have it your way” kind of world. And so I think an important part of the Lenten journey is relearning the difficult but holy truth that life is about more than having it our way, than doing whatever we want.

Why the Israelites “Murmur”

Moses and the Israelites had to learn and relearn this lesson, day after day, year after year, as they wandered about the wilderness. You’re probably familiar with their story. The Israelites had been living as slaves in Egypt. They cried out, and the Lord heard their cries and was moved. Slavery is no way to live. The Lord wanted them to have life. So the Lord appoints Moses to lead them out of Egypt into freedom. Plenty of drama follows: ten plagues, the first Passover, the parting and crossing of the Red Sea, and then finally…freedom.

It’s not long, however, before the people start complaining against Moses. The word in the Hebrew is “murmur.” They start murmuring. Today’s story isn’t the first time they murmur, and it won’t be the last.[2]

What exactly is a murmur? I can’t help but remember myself giving an audible moan in the backseat of the Aerostar. A murmur, I think, means we aren’t getting what we want. I murmured because I wasn’t going to the pool. The Israelites murmured because they weren’t exactly living the life of milk and honey that their dubious travel agent, Moses, had promised (cf. Ex 13:5). They were wandering in the wilderness, hungry and thirsty.

Two Competing Stories

If you asked someone of the Jewish faith, “What is the most important story in your scripture?” or “What scripture most defines your faith?”, chances are he or she would answer, the exodus. The exodus is the great epic of the Jewish faith: it’s got the first Passover, the parting and crossing of the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments, the great covenant between God and Israel. The exodus is like The Lord of the Rings for the ancient world. And just like The Lord of the Rings, the exodus doesn’t take place against the backdrop of the pursuit of self and satisfaction. It is not a story about getting what you want. It takes place against a much greater backdrop, a backdrop of wilderness and wasteland, risk and uncertainty, but also of God and salvation.

I wonder if the murmuring Israelites had any idea that they were living in what would become their people’s greatest story.

It seems to me that there are two competing narratives in our lives. On the one hand, we want satisfaction; we want to have it our way, to get what we want. And yet, on the other hand, we keep telling stories like The Lord of the Rings and the exodus because the greatness of these stories captures our imagination and resonates somewhere deep in our hearts. These stories quiet our murmuring souls and whisper to us that there is more to life than getting what we want, that life is about more than simply seeking our own satisfaction. They whisper to us that life is about something much greater.

Something Much Greater

What is this “something much greater”? What is this “more” to life? I don’t exactly know. I do know that Abraham sensed this greatness. One day he woke up and heard the call to be a blessing to others. For him, the greatness of life was all the families of the earth being blessed. I know that Jesus talks about this “something much greater” too. He calls it the kingdom of God, where the outsider is welcomed, the hungry are filled, the oppressed are liberated, the blind see, the lame walk, and those who mourn find great joy.

If the examples of Abraham and Jesus are anything to go by, this “something much greater” may take us through the wilderness. Not because the wilderness is some spiritual obstacle course that God has designed for us, where we must prove our faith. But simply because this “something much greater” is something much greater than our own pleasure or satisfaction. Living according to the kingdom of God—which means forgiving wrongdoers and loving enemies and welcoming strangers and speaking truth to power—will mean that sometimes we don’t get what we want. Sometimes it will feel like a wilderness, and we will get hungry, and we will get thirsty. At the very end of his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus himself will say, “I thirst” (19:28).

Hearing the Twenty-Third Psalm in the Wilderness

As I read today’s scripture and consider the wilderness through which Abraham and Jesus and you and I walk, I cannot help but wonder about our lectionary psalm today, the twenty-third psalm, which famously proclaims, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want [or lack, or need]” (Ps 23:1). I wonder how our world, which preaches instant gratification and eternal happiness, hears this declaration. I worry that it is misheard as a simple promise that we will always have it our way.

Only in the wilderness, I think, can we hear the full truth of the statement, “I shall not want.” For the wilderness shatters any illusions we have that life is about getting what we want, or even what we think we need. In the wilderness, Abraham hungered in the face of famine. In the wilderness, the Israelites got thirsty, to the point that they questioned God: “Is the Lord among us or not?” In his own wilderness, Jesus got thirsty too, and he also questioned God: “My God, my God, why have you left me?” And the psalmist who wrote these words—he himself admits that sometimes he walks through the darkest valley and faces enemies and challenges.

According to the wilderness, “I shall not want” does not mean that we will get what we want. “I shall not want” is a defiant declaration of faith, a renunciation of our little wants in the hope of something much greater. It is someone saying, “I shall not lack anything because I’m not claiming anything. My only claim is the love of God that has already claimed me and all the world.”

It is such a faith that sustained Abraham and Sarah as they crossed the wilderness and carried God’s blessing to the families of the earth. It is such a faith that sustained Jesus, as he gave himself to others. And it is such a faith that sustains us, whenever we leave the land of “have it your way” and follow God into something much greater.

A Prayer for the Wilderness Journey

The Lord is our shepherd.
And sometimes we don’t get what we want.

The Lord leads us through the wilderness,
And the Lord stretches our souls.
For the Lord desires more than we do—
For goodness’ sake!

Even though we get thirsty
And quarrel and question,
God is always there—
Sometimes as stony and tough
And incomprehensible
As a rock.

You give us love
In a world built on power and control,
And blessing to share
In a world that keeps to itself.
You anoint our head with sweat,
And make us thirsty for you.

Surely goodness and mercy will follow
No matter how far we are in the wilderness,
And we shall live in God’s love
All our lives. Amen.

-----

[1] Deut 12:8; Judg 17:6; 21:25.

[2] Ex 15:24; 16:2; 17:3; Num 14:22.

"One Sows and Another Reaps" (John 4:35-38)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on March 19, 2017, Lent III, 30th Anniversary Celebration)

-----

Where Babies Come from

Before I was born, perhaps even before I was a twinkle in my parents’ eyes, I was a prayer in my brother’s heart. Or so I was told this past week. While catching up over breakfast, my brother shared with me a story I had never heard.

My brother is a real extrovert: he loves to be around people. For four years of his life, he was an only child. It was only natural that he wanted a little brother. Having learned from my parents at home, and from Sunday School at church, that prayer changes things, he started praying. For me!

And lo and behold, my mother became pregnant. Well…that was simple enough, my brother thought! Months later, I was born, and my brother was ecstatic. All that prayer really had paid off!

Of course, I have no doubt that my brother’s prayers did play their own part in my birth. It’s just that there was a little bit more involved than my brother knew.

Seeds Already Sown:

A Church Already in Full Blossom

In today’s scripture, Jesus quotes a proverb that was common in the ancient world: “One sows and another reaps.” So it was for my brother, who reaped the rewards of a baby brother. For all he knew, it was completely his own work. But in fact, my birth had involved a bit more.

In Jesus’ day, “One sows and another reaps” was another way of saying that life is not always fair. Sometimes you do all the hard work, but someone else ends up with the reward. But Jesus reframes things. Rather than lamenting the prospect of unrewarded work, he points to the good news that there are always already seeds sown that are bearing fruit.

When I joined you as pastor a year and a half ago, I myself entered a field already sown with many seeds, a field already full of fruit. I had done little more than set my foot within the door, and I encountered a church already in full swing—in full blossom, you might say. There were greeters in the narthex, making visitors feel welcome, handing out little bags of popcorn that asked them to “pop back in” again sometime. There were volunteers from the congregation delivering a thoughtful message each week in the company of our children. There were elders already supporting and praying for individuals in the church.

I hadn’t done an ounce of church work. All of this came from seeds sown long before me—seeds sown, perhaps, back when the field looked much emptier, when the church was meeting in storefronts and living from week to week.

Reaping What Others Have Sown

“One sows and another reaps.” How true those words echo in our own experience.

In the last year and a half, I’ve heard the words of former pastors quoted time and time again, another reminder that today we reap what others have sown. On more than one occasion, when it has been suggested that I as the pastor simply make this or that change, before I can even say a word, someone else has responded with a saying that Revy Debbie preached: “This isn’t the pastor’s church. You are the church.” She sowed a seed deep in your hearts, reminding you that this church is the responsibility and joy of us all, not one individual. On other occasions, when all sorts of ideas are flying about, I’ll hear someone quote Pastor Skip, “Better for a small church to focus on doing two or three things really well, than to spread itself too thin and burn itself out.” Skip sowed a seed deep in this church’s consciousness that bears fruit now every time we share in conversation about the future.

And today we are celebrating the rich harvest of seeds such as these. Many of us are reaping what others have sown. You’ve probably heard stories about our church history: about how our first members wandered about a bit like Abraham and Sarah—meeting in various storefronts and then a trailer; about how they knocked on doors to spread the word about Gayton Road; about how they would always be re-arranging the trailer and then this sanctuary for different gatherings and especially for meals together. If you didn’t know know Carl France or Dave Cheverton personally, you probably know all about them through the stories that are told. And kids—do you know who painted your room in the Fellowship Hall? The kids who came before you. I remember the day we painted: I was worried there’d be more paint on the youth than on the walls!

I wonder what memories you have today. What fruit can you see today in our church, that comes from what others have sown? Take a moment to reflect, and then if you’d like to share, please stand up and say a word or two.

“One sows, and another reaps.” Today the abundant life that we feel in this church—Jesus calls it “eternal life,” or “the life of the age to come”—this life is not something we have achieved on our own. It is fruit reaped from what others have sown.

Celebrating the God Who Gives Growth

You know that feeling you get sometimes when you look at a dark sky full of stars, that dizzying feeling that there is so much more out there, that maybe you are not the center of the universe? I get that feeling when I start to think about the seeds that have been sown here at Gayton Road Christian Church. I lose my sense of balance, and suddenly I find myself falling backward in time and space. Everything that we do at this church—from welcoming folks and sharing in holy conversation with our children, to supporting and praying for each other—all of this is fruit reaped from what other Christ-followers at other churches have sown. If we traced each good and godly thing that happens here at Gayton Road, asking, “Where did that come from?”, and if we kept asking that question, we would find ourselves traveling back through the centuries, across the globe, from one church to another. And eventually, I believe, we’d find ourselves at the hands and feet of Jesus, whose love is the seed from which God’s kingdom—God’s garden—grows.

All of which makes me think: today’s anniversary and celebration is a little bit like when my brother celebrated my birth, thinking that all his prayer had paid off! Because the truth is, we have done much. But much like my brother’s prayers, what we have done is only a tiny part of all the seeds sown and work done that have borne fruit here at Gayton Road.

It is perhaps a little bit tempting on a day like this, to twist our praise of God into self-praise. But that would make this day much smaller than it really is. Because what today really is, is a celebration of countless seeds that we did not sow: unseen deeds and forgotten words, memories that inspire us and dreams that pull us forward. Even what we have done, we have not done: it is God’s love that has inspired all the sowing and watering and tending and growing; it is God’s love that has cultivated our ordinary lives and transformed them into an extraordinary garden. Today we celebrate not ourselves but God and this little plot of God’s garden. Paul said it well: “Neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives growth” (1 Cor 3:6-7).

“One sows and another reaps.” Today we find ourselves on one side of that equation. Tomorrow may we find ourselves on the other side. And all the while, may we entrust this little garden plot to God, whose love is our life—whose love is what gives growth in the first place.

Prayer

God,
Whose love has taken root
Among us
Through simple words and deeds:
We celebrate
The abundant life
You have given us;
May our reaping
Become sowing,
And your garden
Be ever growing
Among us and others. Amen.

God Bless What's Missing (Genesis 12:1-4a)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on March 12, 2017, Lent II)

-----

Of Sundays and Sundaes 

Did you know that if it weren’t for the church, we wouldn’t have sundaes? I don’t mean the day “Sunday.” I mean the ice cream sundae.

The origin of the ice cream sundae is, in fact, a great debate. Two towns claim it. But whichever story you believe, the fact remains the same: the ice cream sundae would never have come about without the church.

Two Rivers, Wisconsin, holds the earliest claim to 1891. Back in that day, ice cream sodas were a hit at the local drug store. So much of a hit, in fact, that the church felt threatened. And so it exercised its holy influence to make a law against ice cream sodas on Sunday. One customer, however, simply would not be deprived of his Sunday treat. And so he made a crafty compromise: don’t put any soda in with the ice cream, he told the druggist, since that would be illegal; just put in a little chocolate syrup. The druggist protested, “You don’t want to ruin the flavor of the ice cream,” but the customer replied, “I’ll try anything once.” And the sundae was born.

Ithaca, New York, holds a competing claim to the sundae that dates back to 1892. Its story is simpler, and one that I can relate to. One of the pastors had a habit of visiting the local pharmacy after church for a bit of rest and refreshment. On one particular Sunday, the shop proprietor, who was a friend of the pastor, wanted to treat the reverend to something special, so he tried something new: he drizzled cherry syrup on the ice cream and topped it all with a candied cherry. And the sundae was born.[1]

I don’t know how the sundae really came about. But I’m glad it did. Growing up, I remember how excited my brother and I would get when the family went out to Ryan’s Steakhouse or one of those places that had an ice cream bar. I guess today, you can do the same sort of thing at Sweet Frog. My brother and I each had our favorite toppings: I liked the chocolate sauce; his creation wouldn’t be complete without a cherry on top. Chances are, you have your own favorite topping. When we look at a bowl of plain vanilla ice cream, we all probably think to ourselves, “Something’s missing.” Maybe nuts or granola. Maybe chocolate or caramel. Maybe the proverbial cherry on top.

“Something’s Missing”

You’ve heard it said that life is like a box of chocolates. But I say unto you that life is like an ice cream sundae. We live life like it’s a bowl of ice cream and something’s missing. We’re always looking for the cherry on top, the topping that will make everything complete. We live life like an ice cream bar, and even after we’ve added a sprinkle of this and a few dashes of that, we keep thinking, “Something’s missing.”

But today’s scripture, which tells us about the family where faith is born, the family whose faith inspires the world’s major religions, invites us to look at life a bit differently. Today’s story suggests that faith is about much more than looking for the cherry on top, than finding the topping that will make everything complete.

What Is This Blessing That God Promised? 

If we had never heard any of the famous stories about the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we would probably read today’s scripture with the anticipation of a much different conclusion to their story. I remember in first grade, how my teacher would often pause at the end of a page and ask the class what we thought would happen on the next page. If I were reading the story of Abraham for the first time, and I had just read about God promising Abraham blessing and greatness, I would probably think the next page would show Abraham dressed as a king, settled in a great palace, surrounded by a full family with many children, princes and princesses, owning many possessions, and governing this new land that God had given him. In fact, the next page would show something completely different: Abraham and his wife Sarah wandering the wilderness of Canaan, worrying about famine, camped out under an oak tree, childless and aging, living at the mercy of the natives. Over the course of their journey, they will travel to Egypt and back, they will haggle for their lives with foreign kings, they will just barely escape death from an inhospitable city, they will worry for years about having a child, and then once they have one, they will worry about keeping him alive.

What is this blessing that God had promised them? It’s certainly not the cherry on top, nor is it the final piece to the puzzle. If anything, the puzzle of life became even more complicated after Abraham left his home. I wonder sometimes if Abraham ever paused and reconsidered his decision. He had been living in a thriving metropolis, Haran. He had his father and his brothers alongside him. He presumably had made friends and had picked up a trade. He would have had a secured and settled life. All that was missing was the cherry on top. Happily ever after was nearly within his reach.

The Blessing Is What’s Missing 

So what is this blessing that God promised? If Abraham’s life is any indication, it’s not security and satisfaction. That is what Abraham leaves behind when he leaves his land, his family, and his home. If Abraham’s life gives us any clue, the blessing of God is wrapped up in risk and uncertainty, in problems and possibilities. The blessing of God dwells in the wilderness. It lingers in the barren womb.

Most of the world thinks of blessing as a cherry on a top, as something that will complete what’s missing. But the story of Abraham suggests the opposite. It shows us a life that is always missing something: missing a home, missing children, missing security. It suggests that blessing is not the completion of what’s missing, but simply what’s missing.

I recently heard someone share the saddest thing he’d ever seen. It was a greyhound dog, a race dog, who his whole life had run races, chasing after a bit of cloth shaped like a rabbit. One day in the park, the dog broke free from its leash, and seeing a squirrel nearby, he raced after it. What followed was an unfortunate scene, but the saddest thing of all was the look in the greyhound’s eyes when it was all done. “He just sat there, confused. [He] had spent his whole life trying to catch that thing. Now [he] had no idea what to do.”[2]

Not the End, but the Beginning 

The common thought is that God is the end of the journey, that God completes what’s missing. But I wonder if somewhere along the way we’ve gotten it turned around. I wonder if Abraham’s story is a hint that things are the opposite. Maybe God isn’t the end of the journey, but the beginning. Maybe God doesn’t complete what’s missing, but stirs us to life through what’s missing.

If that’s the case, then I think we can all begin to recognize how we are already on a journey like Abraham. I’m betting that deep down, we have all felt whatever Abraham felt, or heard whatever he heard, that led him to leave behind what he knew and go into the unknown. Think for a moment: have you ever felt drawn to do something that would lead you out of your comfort zone? What was that feeling? Why did you do that?

I can recall several decisive moments in my life when I left what I knew. I didn’t literally leave hearth and home like Abraham—you don’t have to leave your front door, sometimes, to leave behind all that you thought you knew. What I left behind was the routine and the familiar comforts behind which I had been nursing my wounds. And I reached out to strangers to whom I normally would not have reached out. Not because I thought they were the cherry on top. I didn’t want completeness. I simply felt that there was more, and I desired more—and part of me wonders if that desire was not in fact part of God’s desire. I didn’t want the end of things, a happily ever after. I wanted a beginning, a beginning that would lead to more beginnings. And as I walked into the unknown and came to share my joys and my sorrows with these strangers, I think that somehow the blessing of God took shape. I think I became both blessed and a blessing. Because I needed these strangers. And they, perhaps, needed me.

God bless what’s missing, what will always be missing. For that is the blessing of more life. What’s missing is not a cherry on top or a final puzzle piece. What’s missing is the next stranger and the next encounter; the next decision and the next possibility; the next problem and the next miracle. What’s missing is the next page, where, yes, there might be wilderness and worry, but also a God who uses even that—especially that—to bless us and all the families of the earth together.

Prayer 

Insistent and caring God,
Whose blessing
Is also a call
Into the unknown:
Bless us
With a holy sense
Of what's missing,
Of all the ways
Your love may yet bring new life,
Even and especially in our woundedness and our weakness.
In the name of Jesus: Amen.

-----

[1] These two stories draw from the histories compiled on Jeff Wells, “The Great Debate over the Origin of the Ice Cream Sundae,” http://mentalfloss.com/article/83345/great-debate-over-origin-ice-cream-sundae, accessed March 8, 2017, and “History of Ice Cream Sundae,” https://whatscookingamerica.net/History/IceCream/Sundae.htm, accessed March 8, 2017.

[2] From Westworld, “Contrapasso”; directed by Johnny Campbell; written by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy; HBO, October 30, 2016.