A shelter of grace (2.23.25)

Luke 6:27-38

Deep in Central Mexico in a mountainous state called Tlaxcala, there is a small Roman Catholic Parish called the Sagrada Familia. Sacred Heart.  The church is white stucco and situated right in the middle of an average neighborhood surrounded by white stucco homes with their walled in yards.  Behind the church is a giant paved courtyard. Part of the yard is covered by a corrugated tin roof as a shelter from the sun. (At that high altitude, with those bright blue skies, the sun can be fierce.)  There’s a chicken coop in the corner with rabbits and hens and a small office nearby with mostly things like acetaminophen, aloe vera, and Band-Aids.  There’s humble bunk room next to the kitchen with a few dozen bunks.  Though some nights there are far more people in the shelter than beds. On the bright orange wall of the courtyard, near the small soccer court, there is a painted phrase that reads,

“nada te turbe, 
nada te pase. 
Todo le pasa-- 
Dios no se muda. 
la paciencia todo lo alcanza, 
quiene a dios tiene, 
nada le falta. 
Solo dios basta.”

St. Theresa of Avila wrote these words in the 16th century, and later, the Taize community in Eastern France later made them into a song: 

Nothing can trouble, 
nothing can frighten, 
those who seek God shall never go wanting. 
Nothing can trouble, 
nothing can frighten. 
God alone fills us.

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This short little verse gives some context for how Jesus is speaking in our gospel reading today.  Last week we heard the words that came right before this where Jesus says “blessed are you who are hungry for you will be filled.” “Blessed are you who weep for you will laugh.”  Jesus offered all the folks there listening to him blessings. He wanted them to live lives of contentment, wholeness and even joy.  And in the case of his bedraggled followers, there with him, he taught them how they can hold onto peace and even joy, while the world around them is swirling with judgement, animosity, contempt and violence. 

When someone is cruel to you, oh, how it can feel good to be cruel back. When someone is judgmental, it can feel so good to put them in their place. When someone is hateful, compassion and mercy can be the farthest things from our minds. But Jesus is teaching those listening of a different path. 

This is not the first time Jesus has taught a way of living that goes against the grain.  A few weeks ago, we heard the story where he rooted back into the books of Isaiah and Leviticus to remind us that just when the world is quick to rank some people as worth more than others, we remember that is not true. All people are beloved to God, no one is more important than the other. Full stop.

This week, Jesus lays out another challenge to his followers: “if you love those who love you,” he says “what grace is that?”  It’s almost like he said, “Come on now, it’s easy to love people who love you back! It’s easy to lend money to someone you know will pay you back!”  You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours!  Quid pro quo.

That kind of love and lending is a transaction. It means that what you’re going to do is going dictate how I’m going to act.  Your behavior is going to have an outsized influence on mine: If you’re hateful, I’ll be hateful. If you’re judgmental, I’ll be judgmental. Now, if you’re grateful and humble, lovely! I’ll be kind to you. But if you are my enemy? …I’ll be yours.

The challenge is to love people who we don’t like. To love, even, our enemies.

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The cement courtyard in that church shelter butts right up against the train tracks where a freight train barrels through the Mexican countryside, it’s dozens of cars long. As it approaches at full speed, 
the ground trembles. It slows a little in this small town of Apizaco where the tracks turn and people hop off to spend a night in this shelter. The people who cling to the top of this train hitching a ride call it la bestia.  They ride that train up from Chiapas and come from many places: Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, Caracas, Managua.  Once, I met a man and his son there who were from Iran.  But one thing holds true: 
they all need shelter and a safe place to spend the night.  

I’ve never been in need of that kind of physical shelter. My life has been uniquely easy, even profoundly easy in many ways. Yes, I’ve needed shelter from a rainstorm, but I’ve not experienced that kind of desperation where I’ve not been sure where I’ll sleep. 

That said, I have had moments in life where I’ve needed other types of shelter. I think we’ve all have.  Think of the shelter of a parent that nurtures his child, like a hen gathering you under her wings. Or, the the shelter of a friendship that protects you and listens to you when you feel misunderstood or lost or the shelter and relief of companionship when you’re alone. Think of the shelter of someone who helped you when things went off the rails in your lives or the shelter of forgiveness when we’ve made a mistake. 

Sometimes we need spiritual shelter.  Maybe you’ve read headlines that shout that pieces of your identity and who you love are unlovable. Maybe you’ve heard that how you were made was a mistake. Maybe you’ve heard a few too many messages that that the amount of melanin in your skin determines the amount of love and honor you deserve.  Maybe the barrage of hatred makes you feel like you’re not wanted in this country—or your own country--or anywhere; and you find a spiritual shelter in knowing that all of who you is fearfully and wonderfully made, wanted, honored and loved by God. 

We all need a shelter of grace.

But what about a shelter for someone you don’t like? Or that you despise?

When I zoom out, I can see that, our best shelter is the radical, steadfast, healing love, that Jesus speaks of here.  It is a forgiving love. It is a love that acknowledges one another’s humanity. It is a shelter of grace.
This kind of shelter is easiest to offer to someone we love or even like.  Offering this kind of gracious shelter to our enemies is very hard.

Shockingly, Jesus says, "God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked." That's a tall order if we’re supposed to emulate that. This kind of love is a little maddening. It might even seem dumb or foolish because the world doesn’t exactly run on grace.  Returning hatred with vengeance or contempt is a lot more common and mainstream.   But as Theresa of Avila wrote, don’t let this hate trouble you, don’t let it frighten you, (don’t respond to it, let it shape your behavior), find your fullness in God.  

A shelter of grace. 

But a shelter of grace for our enemy?  Is that wise? 

There’s a lot of talk of ideological enemies these days or foes.  I’m not suggesting that we simply shrug and roll with an opinion that challenges your convictions.  I am not saying that you shouldn’t feel upset or angry about other’s differences or offer this forgiving shelter to someone who has shown exceptional personal evil to you, (in that case, someone else needs to take that baton instead of you).

Instead, I am saying, that we aren’t to participate in this conventional pattern of contempt and tit-for-tat. We’re to step out of the ring. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, once wrote that we are to be “to be God’s question mark against the conventional wisdom of the age.”  The large scale problems that we face as humanity will not be solved in isolation. We have to find a shelter of forgiveness where we find our fullness in God that pulls us out of this pattern where we slug each other.

Michael Curry, former national bishop of the Episcopal church once said that “trying to make meaningful progress when contempt controls the discussion…is like trying to grow a plant in radioactive soil.” 
In this shelter, we grow in our relationships and understanding. With hope, we will even grow towards solutions. So, the very act of refusing to return violence with violence or judgement with judgement is a method of resisting a world bent on vengeance, judgement and self-righteousness. 

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Today, we will celebrate the baptism of little M. Baptism is many things: it is freedom and forgiveness in God. It is this physical expression of God’s grace, it is this sacrament where we learn and know that we are so beloved to God and sheltered in God’s keeping.  Baptism is also an on-ramp to a certain kind of lifestyle that is characterized by love, compassion, nonviolence, generosity and forgiveness.  As Christians, we do not anchor ourselves to vengeance, contempt or judgement, but to love. 

(Honestly, anyone who thinks that following Christ is an easy, tame project needs to read these words of Jesus again.)  Jesus commands us to love our enemies, this is not a friendly suggestion of his. This is our obligation as disciples. 

We do this, not so that God blesses us.  God doesn’t work that way. Of course God blesses us, but God blesses us because that’s who God is, not because we did the right thing and got a prize. 

To that end, when Jesus says, at the end of our reading that, “A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”  This is the promise: that just when we’ve run dry, that just when the life will be drained out of us, just when we’ve been consumed by contempt God will find us, fill us, shelter us, heal us.

When Jesus had died on the cross, God could have destroyed everyone with vengeance. But God doesn’t respond that way. God responds with love. God responds and resists, and raises Jesus from the dead. 
And this is the pattern: grace upon grace a pattern, a movement, a way of God that draws us to shelter, that mends that which has ruptured that fills those who are emptied, that bring life from places we were convinced were dead. And we’re called to participate.

Little M., we are here to live this call with you, what a time to be baptized, what a gift to all of us to participate today.  God bless you on this occasion of your baptism and may God hold you close today and always.

Dial up the Light, Jesus' inaugural message (1.26.25)

Luke 4:14-20

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

 This season of Epiphany is the time of our church year that takes us from the birth of Jesus all the up to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.  Epiphany starts with the Magi who follow the star and then into the very early days of Jesus ministry where he changes water to wine, calls his disciples on the shores of the beach, and shares his very first words with his followers. 

Something about this season always seems to be in step  with lengthening of the winter days: Every day is just a little longer and there’s just a little more light.   Each gospel passage we hear dials up the light just a little brighter.  

Today, we hear these very first recorded words of Jesus in his ministry. This is his inaugural speech.  With these words, he sets a vision, clarifies his priorities, and explains the scope of what he has set out to do. 

We had a presidential inauguration last week.  Inaugural addresses are important.  Words matter because they have the power to shape the world around us. In the case of a presidential inauguration, the words that are shared set a vision for our country clarify our priorities. they influence action.

 160 years ago President Abraham Lincoln spoke in his second inauguration speech about the need to resolve both the civil war and it’s evil cause of slavery.  He spoke about how both sides of the North and South were to blame for that sin of slavery. He spoke to two sides that had been enmeshed in brutal violence and called for peace, self-reflection and forgiveness.  His speech was short--not more than seven minutes--but it set the tone for the direction the country would take. Inaugural speeches always set the tone and inspire action. But regardless of who the leader is, we as people of faith stay close to God’s word, God’s story and lock into the values born out of God’s goodness. 

In the case of Jesus’ inaugural words, he roots down into scripture and into his tradition to explain his extraordinary mission.  He reads from Isaiah which harkened back to the law from Leviticus 25 where God will look to bring about the well-being of the community, specifically economic well-being. These words that Jesus read from Isaiah click right into one of the overarching themes of the bible: That folks who aren’t highly esteemed that those folks who don’t have access to the levers of the economy, that the people who face social obstacles that prevent them from getting a leg up, that all of these folks (the poor, the oppressed, the brokenhearted) are given special status in the heart of God.  (1)

Often, very often, scripture refers to these folks as a trinity: Look after the widows, the orphans, and the foreigners the bible reminds us.(2) In the ancient world, these were the folks—widows, orphans and foreigners (or immigrants) who happened to face tremendous challenges to survive and much less get ahead. These were the folks on the very bottom rung. And, for some reason, these are the people that God holds especially close to the divine heart.  

In his inaugural address, Jesus starts here.  But this is not an easy place to start. 

300 years before Christ, Plato taught in Athens that people were inherently unequal.  Some people were just more valuable than others, he explained.  Some are good at leading, thinking, math, philosophizing, and, some are not. If you’re good at it, you should get your just due. If, Plato would have said, you’re taking care of children, or laboring in the field, or doing something else, then you should also get your just due.  

His philosophy went deeper: Some people, he explained, are more important than others: Some people, are men, some are…not.  Some are free, some are enslaved.  What was important, he taught, was to make sure that everyone got their just due. In fact, that was justice.

This view held for millennia. Google it. It undergirded feudalism (peasants were, of course, less important than lords and ladies.) It justified the slave trade and expansion into the Americas. This way of categorizing and ranking people held for generations. It worked its’ way into our psyche as humanity. Around 1700, when western thinkers began to question this, they appealed to an unexpected source: the bible.  (3) Turns out, some of the earliest critiques of Plato’s philosophy come from scripture.   In our reading from 1 Corinthians, St. Paul writes of the care and honor all the parts of the body merit. In Galatians, he writes that writes that there is neither "Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, all are one in Christ Jesus." 

Jesus challenges this view many places in scripture  saying that all those that are broken, heavy laden, burdened and oppressed are particularly held close in the heart of God. These barriers that categorized people and assigned different rank and value to folks, are vanquished in Christ. But that doesn’t mean the categories are gone. Some ways of thinking are hard to root out.  For some reason, we still hang onto this idea that some people are more valuable than others. It is our faith that pulls us back like a magnet to the truth that all people, and even and particularly the vulnerable and forgotten, are beloved to God.

This is our charge from Jesus inaugural words: We are to pour love into siblings in need.  We are to build what Jesus called the Kingdom of God or as MLK put it, “the beloved community.” We are to witness to the light of Jesus.   Sadly though, this call to radical love doesn’t always find room in our hearts. It can be crowded other things:

1. By selfishness—an unwillingness to share, or a hyper focus on ourselves and my success, my problems, my worries.  This blocks us from loving. Jesus read verses about economic justice which cut deep enough for some folks, that in the next bible scene, we read that some of the listeners were deeply offended and even furious. Sometimes, we convince ourselves that sharing will set us back.

2. Sometimes the barrier to following this call to radical love is cynicism:  we think that nothing we do is ever going to make a difference, so why bother?

3. Another thing  that can keep us from radical love is if we don’t like the people we’re supposed to love.  What if the people who suffer and are close to God’s heart voted for someone different that I did?  What if it’s a family member who is vulnerable, down on their luck, impoverished,  but is also just plain old mean and so hard to love?  Loving people even when they infuriate us and disappoint us and offend us—that is so hard. And there is no other answer than to disciple ourselves just do it. Thankfully, Jesus also announces in this reading that he is the fulfillment of this scripture. And we are not.

As I close I want to tell you a story from civil rights leader, Vincent Harding.  At some point Harding told a story about a conversation he had in a hard neighborhood in Boston with a young man named Darryl.  Darryl told Vincent that he felt like he was operating in a situation that, as he put it, was just “very, very dark.” He mentioned to Vincent that what he and his friends needed were, as he put it, some “sign posts to show them the way.” Some “lights shining out from other people’s lives” that would help them. Vincent was struck by the conversation and called these “live human signposts.” 

He said that these human signposts would actually, stand there in the darkness and not run away from those who were hurting. In these shadowy times, he said, “we have to open up lights in the darkness.   We have to be candles and signposts in the shadows” for each other, for those around us. 

Earlier this week, I was talking with some church leaders  about this moment in our society.  I have to admit that there have been moments in the last week when I have felt heartsick about the news.  

These church leaders and I talked about how it feels like things are breaking and that there are real human beings sitting there on the sharp edges of things as they splinter.  And those folks  are the vulnerable people that Jesus called us to: there are migrants. There are queer youth. 

God cares about the folks on the sharp edges. 

As I was talking with these LMC leaders, one ventured: “Maybe we could make a statement as a church about where we stand.” Maybe.  Maybe we will make a statement. But, in the meantime, the truth is that you all are the church’s greatest statement.  You are this statement through the way you interact with people, through the grace you show in your daily lives, through your insistence in getting out of yourselves to serve. The spirit of God moves among us and by God’s mysterious grace and prodding. You are the living signposts that go out into the world. You are the ones, with humility and integrity, to dial up the light. You are the ones to take Jesus  inaugural words to heart, to match his tone, to follow his lead, to act on his words that call us to bind up the brokenhearted, to free the captives, to bring Good news to the poor, to comfort the mourning. By the grace of God,  as it has been for ages with the church: you are the ones who are called to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God.

Jesus ministry was that of radical, inclusive, restorative love for all people and that kind of love doesn’t mess around. it is hard. This same holy love is alive around us today calling us to be the body of Christ and extend our hands into the world.  I know that these are unusual times that we are living in but take heart and heed the call to reflect God’s light into the world and dial up the light. For love—love will show us the way.

(1) "Isaiah Westminster Bible Companion 44-66" Walter Bruggeman

(2) (A couple examples: Duet 10:14-19: Zech 17:10; Ex 22:21:24: Deut 26:12; Deut 27:19)

(3)  leaned on analysis by Scott Black

A message about quirky angles and being God's favorite

Luke 1:26-38

"Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you" (v. 28)

Isaiah 43:1-7

"When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and throught he rivers, they shall not overwhelm you...because you are precious in my sight and honored and I love you." (v. 2, 4)

At the beginning of creation, according to the Genesis story, the cosmos was a dark, empty void until God began to put things to order.   First, there’s light, then seas, then earth, and plants and creatures, and at the end of each day, God took stock and nodded affirmatively: “this was good.”  Finally, a human was created and God stretched in delight and said, “Oh yes. This time, it’s not just good.  It’s really good.”

But then, God says, “wait!! Something is not good here.”

The ancient story explains that after unsuccessful attempts to befriend the animals, the first human had grown terribly lonely. Upon realizing this, God reflected and said, “ahh, this is not good. It’s not good for them to be alone.” 

And out of this first human, God disentangled a help-mate, carved out a partner, sussed out a friend and made two people.  The Hebrew language explains that this person is a counterpart to another and the one to stand opposite. They are the one who won’t turn away when others do. They are someone to challenge you, listen to you, and be with you.  

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There’s an old midrash that imagines that at the end of these humans’ first day in Eden, as the dusk crept in and then darkness began to fall, Adam (human #1) starts to grow alarmed. As the sunlight fades and shadows descend, he starts to panic and then cry in desperation. Eve (human #2) hears him and comes to him. They sit there together weeping through the night convinced it must be the end of the world.  As the endless hours creep by, they are astonished, finally, to see the horizon come into focus and then the dawn brighten as the light returns.  The ancient story says that they learn two things that night:

1. The natural rhythm of the world is that of darkness to light and to darkness to light, and around and around, and so on.

2. They learn to ask: “Who will sit with you and weep with you and worry with you in the night?  Who will challenge you and help you imagine? Who will be with you? (1)

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I want you to hold this story and these questions as we turn to our gospel story today which takes place in ancient Nazareth, with a young woman named Mary, and a visit from the angel, Gabriel.  

Any time an angel steps into a story you know that things are about to go a little outré and Gabriel does not disappoint. He skips straight into left field with his report that Mary shall bear a child and his name shall be Jesus.  (Honestly, this had to have been terrible news.  She’s an young, unwed, woman and this is about to get very complicated for both her and her fiancée, Joseph.)  As she takes it in, I imagine the sun beginning to set. As night descends around her, does she wonder:

Who will sit with her? 
who will weep with her? 
who will worry with her?  
Who will be with her?

Maybe Gabe stayed for hours with Mary trying to help her understand the details, the story doesn’t say. To his credit, Gabriel does entertain a couple of Mary’s questions which is more than I can say for his last earthly visit to the mortal, Zachariah, who he struck dumb for trying to clarify a few things. 

As Gabriel starts wrapping it up and preparing to leave, I imagine Mary standing there with her eyes wide. She wrings her hands as she watches him pack up his scrolls. He test-flaps his wings a few times, and glances over at her desperate face. 

“All right, look” he says adjusting his halo. “I know this news is tough. Crazy even.  I don’t write the storyline, I just deliver the messages.”

“But,” and he hops on the windowsill preparing to take off, “let me remind you of this:” He pulls a shining nugget out of his robe pocket and places it in Mary’s palm. 

“Remember, you are highly favored. (verse 28a). 

Remember God is with you (verse 28b). 
Remember, you’re highly favored (verse 31).”  

And with that he takes off.  As he swoops out into the night, he looks back, cups his hands around his mouth and shouts:  “Did I tell you you’re highly favored?! Blessed! Loved! Precious in God’s sight?! Don’t forget it!” His voice echos in the night as he swoops off like a Marvel character.

*********

If I were to write a job description for angels, or perhaps just Gabriel, it would be something like this:

1. Shock mortals with sensational news. Use whatever means necessary, burning bushes, choirs of heavenly hosts singing gloria in excelsis deo, rolling stones away, etc. Whatever it takes.
   
   
2.  Remind mortals not to be afraid. Expect them to constantly freak out and think the world is ending. Tell them: don’t be afraid, rinse and repeat, don’t be afraid…
   
   
3. Push mortals to get creative. Have fun with it!  (ie. how do you baptize an Ethiopian man in the desert with no water?) 
   
   
4. Throw mortals into the boxing ring when their ethics are questionable (ie, wrestle with Jacob until he cries uncle, admits to his sneaky ways, and agrees to meet with his twin brother Esau).
   
   
5. Force mortals to hang out with people who are not like minded because it’s good for them (ie. make the fancy-pants Cornelius, invite the blue collar Apostle Peter over for dinner).
   
   
6. Show mortals obvious things that help them out of binds (ie. when Hagar, is parched and withering out there in the desert, point out the well that she’s leaning against that is full of water
   
   
7. Finally, remind mortals they are favored, beloved, precious in God’s sight, etc. etc. Loop that as many times as necessary (like, a bazillion times).

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Angels remind people they are a blessing and that they matter. Their presence clears the air. Their words inspire strength. Their challenges force growth. Their message calls folks to imagine new things.

And here’s the thing: It’s not only are the angels who are imbued with these sacred purposes and callings. All of us are.  

I can stand up here and remind you that you’re a blessing.  You can hear how the angels did this in scripture.  And also, you can do this for each other.  For it is not good for us to be alone.

Gabriel effectively passed the baton to Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, in this story.  After this news descends on Mary and the shadows lengthen, she seeks out an earthly angel to support her: her cousin Elizabeth who showers her with encouragement and support. Elizabeth takes one look at Mary after she comes running to visit and exclaims, “Blessed are you!” (Well done, Elizabeth.) Mary stays for three months and I’m pretty sure Elizabeth reminded her of this Good News every morning and especially every evening as the sun began to set. 

We are meant to be good to each other.   When shadows lengthen in the garden and darkness falls, we need each other. We are meant to sit with one another, weep together and worry with each other in the night. We are meant to channel our inner angels: To remind each other of our blessedness and to lift one another’s spirits. 

If you happen to be feeling pretty certain of your blessedness today, for heaven’s sake, go and find someone else who needs to hear of their own beloveness and tell them, because I promise you, someone needs to hear it. (This world is ruthless.) Let that person who needs to hear your words of blessing pull you out of the trap of thinking only of yourself and your problems and your issues. Go and sit with them in the garden as night falls. Tell them with words. Show them with listening. Tell them by bringing a casserole. Show them by hanging out with them, or checking up on them, or encouraging them, or donating blood for them in the basement after church today. Show them by supporting their housing costs to live here at church.  Remind them: you are a blessing.

And then, receive that Good News from someone.  For you, too, are a blessing. 

And then, remind the next person, 
and receive it from the next, 
and bless the one after, 
and receive from the next, 
and give it 
and receive it, 
and round and round, 
on and on, 
as the sun rises and sets, 
grace upon grace, 
Word made flesh.

(I) I first heard of this Mirash from Rabbi Sharon Braus

Holding on to Hope: A message for dear P. on this occasion of your baptism

Mark 13:1-8 

Our story today begins in the midst of desolation.  

In the year 70, the Romans torched the temple in Jerusalem. Really, it’s staggering how they pulled off such a level of destruction. Herod the great (father of Herod Antipas—the one who features in the Passion story) had started extensive renovations on the temple before Jesus was born. Herod envisioned that the temple would be both a house of prayer for folks from all over and also a tourist attraction. Mission accomplished as the temple was spectacular. The outside of it was covered in gold plates and it was said that at sunrise, the gleaming reflection was like the very sun itself.  

The temple was built of massive stone blocks that weighed many tons each.  The prophet Haggi recorded that stone upon stone the temple had once been rebuilt after the exiled Jews returned from Babylonia.  Generations later, Jesus prophesied that not a stone upon a stone would remain. By the time St. Mark would record Jesus’ words a lifetime later, the beautiful city, and temple with it, would be destroyed.  

The gospel of Mark was written after this destruction—or maybe even during it.  It may have been that Mark himself lived in Rome. Several decades after the death of Jesus, the emperor Nero had assumed the throne of the Roman empire. History remembers the Nero as a maniac and as a selfish and tyrannical ruler. Roman senators described him as greedy and debaucherous. Under his rule, chaos was rampant with massacrers, violence and destruction.

When the city of Jerusalem was overtaken by the Roman armies around the year 70, the temple was looted, ignited, and destroyed.  On the other side of the sea, Rome itself was on fire. The stench of death was in the air; and, in the middle of all of this, Christians recorded the story of Jesus in the gospel of Mark. 

When Mark wrote this gospel, it must have been as if the old, steady and trusted world was vanishing before everyone’s very eyes and as they squinted into the future, they couldn’t quite see the shape of what was coming at them. Whatever it was, seemed like a threat. (1)

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Have you ever felt like you can’t wrap your head around what is unfolding? It’s as though reality doesn’t match your expectations.  “Things,” you say to yourself, “were not supposed to be this way.“

Maybe it’s meta—like we see in the gospel of Mark—and as you watch the story of a people, a culture, and a nation unfolding, it makes you gasp for air.

Or, maybe it’s personal: How could your family struggle like this? Or, you weren’t supposed to feel so alone or blindsided. Or, how could you have been rejected like that or have failed before you even got your foot in the door? 

Things weren’t supposed to turn out this way. As you try to wrap your head around it all, it’s like you’re grasping at sand.

Six hundred years before Christ, the prophet Jeremiah wrote:

I looked on the earth, and it was complete chaos,
    and to the heavens, and they had no light.
I looked on the mountains, and they were quaking,
    and all the hills moved to and fro.
I looked, and there was no one at all,
    and all the birds of the air had fled.
I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert,
    and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord

The gospel of Mark feels these words of Jeremiah deep in its’ bones and takes us right into the unsteady middle of it. In Mark, we’re plopped right into the rubble and the pain where we find ourselves sitting with our head in our hands. The community that wrote this gospel story down tells it from the bleakest of places and we have to transport ourselves there and listen from a place of our own bleakness. Or, if we’re not desperate ourselves, we must listen to the story right alongside the one who is barely hanging on.

Listening carefully, we recognize that old story of Jesus. It is a spark that glows deep down in the fractures of our hearts, the watery shadows of our souls, and in the ripped social fabric around us.  

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I wish I knew more about those early Christian communities that recorded this gospel. What were those people like? You know, the ones that kindled that spark in the shadowiest of times? We have the letters that Paul wrote to some of them which offer some clues about the type lives they tried to lead. In one of those letters, Paul counseled them: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you look to the interests of the others.

The letters and gospel stories of these very, very early Christians survive them. We know that these folks were tenacious people and imperfect. We know that they weren’t so powerful by worldly standards, but we know that they tried to walk in the way of love.

How did that spark burn, in such times of desolation?

**************

In June of 2020, a colleague of mine, Ingrid, who pastors a church in North Minneapolis told a story of a man named Brian Dragonfly.  Brian approached her in the days of unrest in North Minneapolis after the murder of George Floyd.  He was an employee of the indigenous organization MIGIZI that had a building across the alley from the church and the day he came to her, he carried a lantern that was lit with fire.  MIGIZI, had recently finished constructing their new building. Luckily, it survived the first night of unrest in North Minneapolis. But, the second night, in spite of so much goodwill and effort, no one could stop the fire from spreading to MIGIZI’s building and it burned. The structure--and much of what was inside--was destroyed.  

When Brian had arrived that morning at the site he found the fire still smoldering. Standing there, he told Pastor Ingrid, “I decided to capture the fire,” and he held up his flickering lantern.  He asked her if the congregation might help them tend the fire and keep it until they could rebuild.  He thought that the fire might bring some comfort to his community.  Ingrid dipped a candle into the lantern and later wrote of the conversation and hope they shared: that out of this ashy moment there might someday be an opportunity for new life. 

It was as if the old world, the one they trusted was vanishing before their very eyes. And they couldn’t quite see the shape of what was coming at them, It seemed like a threat. How could they hold out hope for new life?

“We will tend the fire with you,” Pastor Ingrid said.

The prophet Isaiah wrote:

“do not remember the former things 
nor consider the things of old. 
I am about to do a new thing; 
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” 

Then Jesus said,  
nation will rise against nation, 
and kingdom against kingdom; 
there will be earthquakes in various places; 
there will be famines. 
This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

Where there is loss, there is a promise of restoration. Where there is death, there are birth pangs, and the promise of new life. And as we walk towards life and salvation, we tend the flame that sparks in even the shadowiest corners; and somehow in that shadow, God is mysteriously with us. Tending the flame and holding on to hope, albeit with our laments and griefs and struggles on our lips, is part of who we are as people of faith.

***************

Ancient baptism, and baptism today, was the initiation into a community that proclaims the way (John 14:6), and the path to a better world. Something about this way seems unexpected and reversed. While it might seem like force or domination should win, in this way of Jesus, love has the final say.  It is a way that is characterized not by power over, but power alongside.

Hannah sang of reversal in her song we heard today when she proclaimed that the bows of the mighty might be broken to pieces, that those who have stumbled might be now strong. 

Mary riffed on Hannah’s song generations later and sang of this God who cast the mighty down from their thrones, who filled the bellies of the hungry with good things. 

Baptism brought folks and brings folks formally into a community that proclaims this Way characterized by mercy, generosity, companionship and love. The way can be tough and when the night seems endless, we keep our eyes set on the long view of God’s shalom.  We witness with hope to love that struggles to be born in our midst and, you better believe we hold the flame close.

To P., and all our youth that are gathered here around you on this very special day:  I wish I could promise you that everything in your life is going to be okay.  I wish I could tell you that the good and honorable people will always win, and that hatred and division will cease to be. I wish I could soften hardened hearts and eliminate all the bombs and machines of war and greed and selfishness with the snap of my fingers. I wish I could tell you that life with your family will always be easy and that our society will always work together to seek out the collective good.  I wish I could tell you that all of your friends, especially the nerd kids, the queer kids, the awkward kids, and the worried kids, that they’re all going to be okay. I wish I could snuff out anything that might cause you despair or hopelessness or anguish. I wish I could make sure your hearts will never break on this mysterious journey of life that we are on.  

But I can’t.  

The truth is that in this life, P., and all of you, there will be moments that unfold that make you feel unsteady. There will be times of profound disappointment. At times, you’ll feel afraid.  There will be durations where it feels like the world as you know it is vanishing  and the future before you is unclear. 

But just like the prophets before us, just like Jesus and the ancestors of our faith who wrestled for that blessing, we will hold onto that promise that God will make all things new and that God will wipe every tear from our eyes (Rev.21:4). That God will be with us, just as sure as the morning sun rises and just as true as God is here with us right now.

The path and the pattern of Jesus is never promised to be easy, but it is true. And as we walk—whether in the wilderness or the promised land--we will practice the way of generosity, forgiveness, compassion and love and we will reach for a world where all people are cherished—in fact, we will create it.

Our story begins in the midst of desolation.
Our story begins when we turn towards each other.
Our story begins as we step out together in God’s love.

(1) I have heard Walter Bruggeman speak about this idea. He also explores it in his book "The Prophetic Imagination."

Unsettling Tenderness

Acts 10

In my last pastor job before I came to Luther Memorial, I coordinated a young adult international service program through the Lutheran church that was based in Mexico City.  In this position, we lived in Mexico City and we placed young adults in social service agencies for a year of service. We were always on the lookout for new placement sites and over time, we formed relationships with a couple of great shelters for migrants where our volunteers served.  

Given the nature of things around 10-12 years ago, immigration was becoming an increasingly contentious and politicized issue.  The more our young adult volunteers learned about it, the more fired up they became; and their newsletters home to their sponsoring communities began to show it.  Not all the sponsoring congregations shared the same passion for immigration that these young people did.  In some cases, both sides dug their heels in.  

Each winter, Omar and I traveled with the young adults up from Mexico City to the US/Mexico border for a week long retreat.  We stayed in Tucson and spent time on both sides of the border learning about things.  We met with non-profits, churches, and public defenders.  We also met with the DEA and the Border Patrol.  Before meeting with a group we might be quite ideologically different from, and particularly when we went into the actual the border patrol station and detention facility, I would gather my group around me and say, “Look, you may walk into this place with strong opinions, but we are here to learn and we must be open-hearted and respectful.” And they were. (if you know me, you’ll know I was saying this as much to myself as to them).

On one hand, the border patrol agents were what our group expected: they supported the policies and procedures that our young people thought were oppressive.  But what always caught our group off guard was realizing that many of these folks were often profoundly compassionate and had saved more lives of people dying of dehydration than any of the rest of us and that they had all recovered countless bodies in the desert.  

What also caught our group off guard was that these agents were folks with families, making an honest living, coaching sports, going to PTA meetings. One year, I remember, we met with an agent who was single mom who told me, as we walked through the parking lot, that she had a teenage child who was struggling in high school.

Sure, we learned about border policies (and believe me, it was always eye-opining), but it was also a structured encounter with someone with a very different perspective and we would often leave with this unsettling tenderness for the person we had been with. 

Last week, I shared with you the story of the ancient pilgrimage ritual that people would participate in where they would climb the steps to the temple complex in Jerusalem and, after entering the doors, turn to the right and begin to process around the entire temple complex counterclockwise. 

After processing around, folks would then exit close to where they had entered.    Last week, I told you about the twist in the ancient writings: that if you happened to be a person who was suffering: a person who had experienced something awful, someone who was brokenhearted or in pain, you would walk through those same porticos, but instead of turning right with the masses, you would turn to the left and then process. As you walked against the current, people would meet you; and each person who passed would ask, “what happened?” And you would tell them of your worry or your pain and then receive their comfort and specifically, their blessing. 

There is another group mentioned in that text. Another group that must turn to the left with the broken and bereaved, the lost and the lonely, and walk against the current. That was the socially ostracized.  

Our world is so different to the world 2,000 ago.  At the time this Mishna was written, the “ostracized person” was considered to have endangered the community in word or action. They had to physically distance themselves from the rest of the community by 6 feet. Sharon Braus suggests that a contemporary analogy might be a person who is incarcerated here in our society today.

If you can let your imaginations zoom out a little to consider this gap between yourself and some other person who might be on the other side of The Breach: Some of us here in this room have experienced the cracking of our times. Maybe all of us have. we know folks who have different perspectives on science. People who have fractured with family members or friends.  In our congregation here, we have some level of ideological diversity and some occasional irritation with each other around a few things that are political, but we find our forward.  Sometimes, we even talk about it.  

But zooming out to folks who aren’t quite as homogenous we typically are, more and more, as we dig our heels in we see folks with different positions as not only impossible to understand but morally repugnant.

We do not want to bump into each other in the sacred circle.  Let alone bestow any unnecessary blessings…

First, we mark a boundary around how we’re different. Next, folks become ideological foes. Then, folks become existential threats. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov said, centuries ago, that “It's not hard work to distance yourself from another person. The real work is to draw him close and lift him up.”

In our bible reading from Acts today, you had two people, Peter and Cornelius, who were very different people. Peter was a Jew, from the working class, and observed certain customs and rituals that defined him.  He was a Jesus follower and had been in that room on the day of Pentecost when the Spirit had rushed in like a mighty wind and ignited tongues of fire on the heads of those gathered.

Cornelius was a gentile. He was a man of financial means, a military captain, and a man of great power and wealth. The two men were—by many measures—profoundly different.  

Peter has long standing boundaries that have been internalized since childhood. Yes, there are the dietary laws, customs, purity rituals, But there are also ideological differences.  Peter has experienced the ruling class to be oppressive.  Cornelius, however, has benefited from his status in society.  Though these two men are geographically close, in many ways, Peter and Cornelius are worlds apart and probably each comfortable in their group. On one hand, this isn’t a bad thing. We find meaning together and purpose, and a sense of belonging in our groups. But, the stronger those internal bonds are, the weaker the bonds can be to folks outside of our group.  

In the case of Peter and Cornelius, God steps in and orchestrates this meeting between them.  The bible story doesn’t detail their conversation but something in them certainly shifts and Peter famously realizes and then says that, “God shows no partiality.”  

As the story concludes, the Holy Spirit rushes in again and falls upon Cornelius and all the and the church begins to burst out into the world.  

******

In that temple processional ritual, The ancients had a ritualized way of encountering one another that illustrated that we are bound up together.  All the folks entered into that holy temple. Everyone entered at the same gate.  Everyone circled.  And when people encountered each other, even those who ostracized or deemed to be a social hazard, people asked them, “what happened?” And all of them were blessed.

When I stood with my young adults in the parking lot out side of the border patrol station in the blazing Arizona sun, I said to them, “You can have your opinions. You can have your feelings. I’m not asking you to surrender them or even compromise. But we are here to learn. We are safe here and we are here to be curious.”

Many folks have said that curiosity is the birthplace of compassion. Research has shown that our stereotypes about people actually reinforce neural patterns in our brains.  We have these engrained neural paths in our thinking. When you are genuinely curious about a person you may hold a deep stereotype about that is like neurological off-roading in our brain because you are pushing off of those established pathways. Sharon Braus says that we “Need a spiritual rewiring that helps us see one another in our pain, fear, joy, yearning, humanity.”  

Thinking of that ancient pilgrimage circle, one rabbi reflected that “the hearts of the ostracized are blessed so that that he hearts of the community might open to them. So that the community might understand their anguish.”  So that everyone might understand.

This kind of vulnerable, open-hearted engagement is counter instinctual.  We are actually not wired this way. I’m not saying that each adversary is righteous.  But I am saying that we long for healed hearts and a healed world and that means there must be space for all of us. As St. Peter said there, face to face with his foe, Cornelius, “God shows no partiality.” God loves us all.

**********

Omar and I took groups back to that border station several times over the years we lived in Mexico.  By the time our last year rolled around and I reached out for a meeting for my group, I was told that they were no longer making appointments with community groups. And no, we were no longer welcome to visit the border patrol station.

It is not easy to find this kind of encounter. Maybe it’s easier for you than it is for me. Ideological bubbles are real, though we can challenge our stereotypes. We can also subtly train heart muscles, we can quietly fine-tune our ability to love, through small habits and practices that we repeat. We can train ourselves to see holiness in the random people we encounter in a day. In the grocery store, at the stoplight. We can open ourselves to curiosity and seek to learn about folks who are different from us. 

The rebuilding of our broken world—in fact, the redemption of creation--begins between you and me. Between you and the person bumping into you in the circle. It happens one relationship at a time. And, there is room for all of us.

A sermon on ancient rituals, evolution, and bumping into each other

A few weeks ago, I ran across an ancient legal text that was referenced in a book I was reading. It was captivating (I know, legal texts are often captivating. There’s nothing quite like settling down in the evening with a nice cup of tea to read a cell phone contract or HIPPA disclosure…)

This particular ancient rabbinic legal teaching from 2,000 years ago spelled out the details of a particular Jewish pilgrimage ritual.  

As the story goes, thousands of years ago, folks would travel to the temple in Jerusalem.  If they were to travel for one of the big religious festivals, they would be in the company of hundreds of thousands of people and the city would be uniquely alive with celebration.  Imagine, in this case, a pilgrim arrives in the city and eventually heads to the temple mount.  They would climb this grand staircase, pass through an arched entrance with elaborate, decorated porticos and stunning ceilings.   We may not think of it this way, but the temple complex was very big--probably over 35 acres in size.

Upon entering, the crowd would flow into something like the courtyard, and the people were to turn to the right and begin a processional around the entire temple complex counterclockwise.   (This would keep everyone moving in sync: ancient crowd control at it’s finest!) After processing around, folks would then exit close to where they had entered.    

But there was a twist, the text goes on. If you happened to be a person who was suffering, a person who had experienced something awful, someone who was brokenhearted, or in pain, then you would walk through those same porticos, but instead of turning right with the masses, you would turn to the left and then process. As you walked against the current, people would meet you; and each person who passed would ask, “what happened?” 

You can imagine the counter-current folks answering things like: “I lost my sibling, I miss her so much.” Or, “my wife left me.” Or, “the doctor called with bad news.” Or “my kid isn’t doing well and I’m worried.” Or “I just feel so lost—I can’t seem to find my way.”  

Folks would look into the eyes of the broken and bereaved, the lost and the lonely and, according to this legal mandate, they would say, “may God comfort you.” Perhaps, they would add more to their conversation and say things like, “may you know the love of this community that surrounds you.”

*********

There is something profoundly insightful in this ancient wisdom.  Rabbi Sharon Braus explores it as she explains this ancient ritual. How many times have you experienced some sort of grief or pain or suffering and really, what you want to be able to do is hole up or retreat and not tell anyone about it?

After all, what is there to say when the one you love is in hospice hovering between life and death? What is there to say, when you feel lost and trapped and it takes all the energy you have just to get up each morning? 

According to the ancients, you entered this sacred circle knowing that you would be cared for and seen and loved.   In this pattern, one person’s humility and brokenness bumps into another person’s love. One person’s vulnerability bumps into another’s person’s sacred responsibility to care for them. Both sides show up in the sacred circle.

*********

Now, let’s fast forward a couple of millennia: Charles Darwin was beginning to explore the mystery of science.  While Darwin was at odds with traditional, literal views of creation, something about him was impressively in sync with these ancient rabbis.  He wrote that sympathy (what we would today be called altruism, empathy or compassion) is our strongest instinct. He wrote that sometimes this instinct is even stronger than self- interest.  

Think about this: our human babies are very dependent on us. They are born very early compared to other animals.  Chimpanzees can sit up when they’re born. Horses can stand.  Our babies are so physically vulnerable and if we don’t take care of them, they won’t survive. Over time, our need to care for them has rewired us toward compassion.  Our need to nurture our babies and children has actually formed our brains and rearranged our nervous systems towards caretaking. 

Neuroscientists show that if I see you stub your toe, the pain center of my brain will light up. I actually feel your pain—ouch!--and I wince. There’s also a deeper, older part of our nervous system that lights up way down in the center of our brain that is associated with nurturing. I want the pain in your foot to go away—is there something I could do to help this? 

It turns out that we are hardwired to care for each other.  

A few years ago, I read a book called “Awe” written by neuroscientist, Dacher Keltner.  (Keltner is the neuroscientist who consulted on the Pixar “Inside out” Films.)

Keltner has collected and studied the data over the course of decades and he says that, “we are born to be good to each other.”   I imagine God, that life animating force, looking down at us right now and winking: Yes, dear children, you are wired to be good to each other. God, our Great Electrician!

So, why aren’t we good to each other? Why don’t we run toward that sacred circle? 

There are so many reasons.  Here’s a few: 

First off, I’d say that sin breaks us and disconnects us. In our confirmation class a few days ago, we talked about all the things that captivate us like money, body image, grades, popularity—even resentment can magnetize us. All of these things pull us away from God’s goodness and from each other. 

It’s not only material things that pull us apart. A love of power also breaks us and makes us not care for each other. Researchers have shown that the brains of people who are under the influence of power are actually remade  to be less compassionate. When folks are intoxicated with power, They act like they’ve had some kind of traumatic brain injury. Something in their heads is actually remapped away from compassion and empathy and they became less able to see things from other people’s point of view.  

Why else don’t we care for each other?

I’d also say we have a cultural tendency to self-isolate.  You know that idea of rugged individualism?  This is in the air we breathe. I get this. I relate with this!  My go-to is not reaching out and sharing or letting people take care of me.  We curve inward on ourselves and the “blessed ties that bind us” weaken under the weight focusing on ourselves.
  
Our religious traditions push against those tendencies. In fact, there is a spiritual mandate—or call it a moral command--that is built into so many of our faith traditions including, most certainly the Christian tradition, to take care of each other.  

Look at our bible stories today: 

Job had lost everything, his wife, his children, his livelihood, even his home. When his friends heard about this, they showed up, tore their clothes and sat with him in the ash heap.

Look at Paul, reaching out from prison to his friend, Timothy, he writes: I need you. don’t forget to bring me my coat I left at Carpus’ house, my books, and some more paper for writing. Also, bring my friend Mark. I need that friend. 

Look at the bleeding woman last week who reached out her hand to touch Jesus’ cloak, she needed him and the people were stunned when Jesus turned around and saw her.

It’s built into our tradition. And it guides us to care when so much around us says not to. And we live it out—or do our best to live it out in real life today:

Look at the community meal here at church where folks show up and share in some laughter or explain what has been going on with them.

Look at the groups of musicians or youth who showed up for each other week after week to be together and hear about life and talk about God.

Look at those of us who show up to work as teachers or health care workers or in all sorts of professions and care about the folks we interact with.

Look at this congregation who, while walking counter clockwise with the masses around the courtyard last year, bumped into three migrant families in the police station walking the other direction who spoke and said: “We’re exhausted, we need help.” And we brought them home to church here where they could get their feet on the ground, register for school, apply for work permits and asylum and drivers licenses—little did we know how these folks would change us.

There is a timeless wisdom of entering the sacred circle.  

************

You might default to walking counterclockwise with the majority. You might be most comfortable holding your grief close or trivializing the hard things in your life.  

Or, on the other hand, you might default to that position of walking against the grain lost in pain, and you find a hard time turning your direction around to care for someone else.

What happens if you turn against the direction you are most comfortable with?  

We all need in turn to say, “I am broken.” And then, we all need a turn to say, “I see you. May God comfort you.” This is what it means to be human. 

St. Francis of Assisi said that our highest mission is to be of service to one another. 

But Why? 

Why do we do this as people of faith? Why do we do this as a congregation? Why do I teach this to my kids? Why do I feel this Godly pull to teach them to look at others? Why was this so important that Jesus came to illustrate this for us in full, vivid color?

It’s not a novel comment, but it’s true to say that our world is broken. Our world is a little disoriented. And knowing that, I say that the healing of our broken world, and of our broken society begins here.  

You may have chosen to join this church, but you don’t necessarily chose every member in here, (that’s how chosen family works, right?) but we reach out to one another.  

Here, we train our hearts to step towards pain, not away from it.   The healing we need so very much begins right here between you and me, between you and the person down the pew from you. The redemption of creation begins one relationship at a time. And then it spreads out of here, And works its way into the overculture: a balm in Gilead. 

To be religious doesn’t mean to pray all the right prayers or sing a lot of praises.  It means to emulate the heart of God, or try to! To step into the circle. To comfort the grieving, to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to visit the imprisoned, yes, of course to celebrate with one another. it means to abide with God together to turn towards one another. to open our hearts to each other.

Life is so fragile and so precious and we were created to be good to one another. We were created to walk this road together.

May you find a light to guide you home

John 1:35-51

I had this unexpected moment on Wednesday.  And it had to do with being summoned to jury duty.  I had already postponed a couple of times and when I got the summons three weeks ago, I figured I’d better respond. 

I walked into the juror room down at 2600 S. California Avenue on Wednesday.  The room looks a little like an enormous waiting hall at O’hare, and sitting there at a table in front of me, I did a double take and recognized a friend, E.  E is one of those friends that I cross paths with at parties or synod events now and then.  We share a close friend. We sang in this pub choir thing together once.  

He took one look at me, shut what he was reading, and we proceeded to talk for four and a half hours. There wasn’t anything else to do.  Lucky for me, I didn’t realize I could bring a computer, so I didn’t. 

I can’t remember the last time I talked to anyone for 4 straight hours except to my spouse while we were on a road trip.  We talked about our work, about the presidential debate, about what we had for dinner the night before, about our families, and I drove home that evening with this unexpected lightness. 

In our gospel reading today, a couple of guys spend the day tagging along after Jesus and later that day, they say to Simon Peter, “we’ve found him. We have found the messiah.”  The next day, we read about Jesus who finds Philip. Then Phillip finds his buddy Nathaniel. The gospel storyteller could have said that they “crossed paths” with each other or they “saw” each other or “encountered each other” or “discovered” each other but, instead, they use the word “found.”

In fact, in the gospel of John, there’s a whole lot of finding that happens. Jesus finds the woman at the well. (She also seems to find him.) He finds the formerly blind man who was cast out of the synagogue and makes him a disciple. 

The only time I use the word found is if something (or someone) has been lost: I’m at the park and can’t find my kid. I walk into a restaurant and I can’t find the person I’m looking for. I was at a football game and on the phone with the person I was meeting trying like crazy to find them.  

Outside of the gospel of John, another place where this word is used is when Jesus tells the story of the woman who lost her coin and searches the house top to bottom until she finds it. It's also in story of the shepherd who loses a sheep and searches until he finds it. 

To be found goes hand in hand with being lost.

Lost. I’ve felt lost plenty of times.  Sure, I feel lost when I can’t find someone at the ball park. But, more often than that, I am lost when I walk into a space, and I feel like I don’t belong there and want to turn around and run right back out. We get lost when we lose our capacity to trust someone and we can’t see our way forward with them. We get lost when all the familiar landmarks are gone, and the expected order of thing is all mixed up. Sometimes we get lost when the fog of illness descends on our lives and all of the sudden, God, who is supposedly all goodness, starts to seem...not so good anymore. 

We get lost with unexpected news or when someone close to us dies too soon or too unexpectedly.  We spin into lostness when we are trapped in the grip of anxiety or addiction or in the bitterness that will not let us forgive. We get lost when our children break our hearts, or the dearest person betrayed us, our marriages dies, or we retire from or lose the job that defined us. We get lost in wanting our lives to mean something and fearing that maybe they don't.

Then there are those of us who get lost very close to this church space… We take one look around this big room or this community of faces and we can’t figure out how to read the roadmap.  We get lost when the prayers to fall empty, when the liturgy clangs in our ears, when the bread crumbles like dust, when we feel abandoned or bored or irritated or just out of sync. We get lost when it seems like someone is steadily drawing the threads out of the very rug of belief that we stand upon and we look down at the threadbare patches trying to figure out where on earth we are.

In the gospel of Luke, we have those stories of the sheep that has wandered off or the coin that has gone missing. We could read into these stories that it is God who goes and does the searching. It’s God that returns with the sheep over Her neck or that sweeps His house top to bottom until he finds that coin.

In the gospel of John, however, sometimes it's Jesus who finds people in the stories. But, sometimes, it's the people who find each other. 

I have had an unusually busy and stressful last week.  For a bunch of reasons, it was the kind of week where I was losing sleep and waking up at 4:30am with my mind racing. 

When I encountered my friend at jury duty, it was as if God had turned on a magnet at home base and drew me back home. It was like God sat me down on the chiropractor table and clicked all my bones back into the right place.  As I shared with E some of what was keeping me up, the dust in my head began to settle.  

I had been lost. 
But then, I was seen.
I was heard. 
I was listened to and known. 
I was found.

In the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, to be a disciple is to follow Jesus. In the gospel of John, to be a disciple has to do with being found. Or, finding the one who formed us out of the dust and has called us by name: The woman at the well is found. The man born blind is found. Nathaniel is found. Phillip is found. 

To be a disciple is to be found, and then, it’s to abide in God’s love. It’s to go out and find the one who is lost and steady them with that age-old story (or presence) of God’s sacred love. It’s to trust that you will be found, that your name will be spoken, and that you’ll be offered an arm to steady yourself when the light grows dim. It’s to know that God’s very essence is right there abiding with you.

This series that we’re starting today is called “I’ve been meaning to ask.”  It was born out of an interaction that one of the artists, Lisle, had when she was poking around in her back yard a few years ago. She was relatively new to the neighborhood and her, neighbor, who she didn’t know that well came up to the fence.  At face value, they were from different generations and they had pretty different flags and yard signs in front to their house.  The neighbor came up to the fence and called over to her, “I’ve been meaning to ask…where are you from?” They talked for all of 10-15 minutes and then went back to their yards, but it created a subtle shift for the better in their relationship.

Sometimes, we become disconnected and lost from each other. Sometimes, it can really be a lot to keep up community and social ties--life can be so hectic and full.  More and more, I think that the act of community building, which we see illustrated all over our scriptures, is a sacred practice of finding one another.

Our call is to step into a space or into the pause and to find one another. It’s to be the hands and heart and face and feet of Love to one another. To abide in God together. To be found.  

May you find a light to guide you home. 

The art of training (a message on gardening, steamships and love)

John 15:1-8

1 John 4:7-21

In the year 1914 not long after the Titanic sank, Congress convened a hearing to discuss another tragic ship accident.  Earlier that year in January, there was thick fog off the coast of Virginia.  A merchant vessel named the Nantucket rammed into the steamship Monroe. The Monroe tragically sank and 41 sailors lost their lives in the freezing Atlantic waters that night.  

The captain of the Nantucket, Osmyn Berry, was brought to trial.  But during the trial, Captain Edward Johnson of the Monroe was also grilled for over 5 hours.  In the cross-examination, they learned that Captain Johnson (of the ship that sank) used a compass that had not been adjusted in more than a year. The NYT reported that the compass,  “deviated as much as two degrees from the standard magnetic compass. Captain Johnson said the instrument was sufficiently true to run the ship, and that it was the custom of masters in the coastwide trade to use such compasses.” 

While the compass had seemed to be sufficient to navigate his ship, it was eventually (and tragically) proved otherwise.  

The Times reported that “Later the two Captains met, clasped hands, and sobbed on each other’s shoulders. The sobs of these two burley seamen,” the times wrote, “remind us of the tragic consequences of misorientation.”

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In today’s gospel reading, Jesus describes himself similar to a north star  the homing device, the magnet that pulls us onto the course of life.  At the same time, he’s the one that nudges, when we’re off kilter, to fix that course.

He’s the dance instructor that gets us to move in time with the music. He’s the coach that gets the team to play together. He’s the gardener that prunes the vines and gets them to grow in a certain fashion.  Jesus emphasizes the need to orient our hearts towards him. But it’s not a one and done process. It’s a watchful process where the branches of our hearts are trained and pruned. In this, the unhealthy suckers or excess branches are trimmed off so that we direct our energy to cultivating the good stuff.

“I am the vine.” Jesus says. “You are the branches,” You have been pruned by my teachings. You have been shaped by my words.

*****

In the gospel of John, Jesus is famously talkative.  On the night he was betrayed, Jesus grabbed the mic, and he didn’t give it back for a very long time.  He had a lot to say, especially in this final night with his disciples.  His teachings are many and those teachings are a north star. We orient our lives by them.  

I mean, theoretically…

…right?

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It was the philosopher, Renee Descartes who said “I think, therefore I am.”  Ever since he said this about 500 years ago, we have been really good at thinking. And we love thinking about the good ideas of Jesus. 

Have you ever experienced a gap between the things you know and the things you do?  Maybe the doctor tells you that you need to watch your cholesterol.  But… you’re one of those people that agrees with me that butter is truly one of the finest foods on earth. (That’s to say nothing of bacon.) 

And there you have it.  You get it. You know you need to adjust. But you don’t. 

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A couple of years ago, I ripped the facia in my foot. To this day, I’m not entirely sure how it happened. It was kind of an unusual injury and it took almost a year of PT to fix it.   Eventually, the doctor traced the tear back (in part) to an old skiing injury from when I was 19 years old.  It turns out that for many, many years, I had been almost imperceptibly favoring one of my legs so much so that I walked, ever so slightly, off kilter. 

It was very subtle, but I had trained my body to walk, jog, jump, etc in such a way that I was unconsciously protecting one leg and stressing the other one out until something in my foot ripped.  

When I realized I needed to change how I walk, I didn’t have the slightest idea how to do that. In fact, before the excruciating rip in my foot, I didn’t even know there was a problem. Fixing this problem was easier said than done. It wasn’t as easy as taking my ship’s compass to be recalibrated. In my case, it involved a wise physical therapist who guided me in lots of  maddening little movements with exercise bands to intentionally retrain my leg and slowly rebuild that muscle. Turns out I had to train, rinse, repeat, train, rinse, repeat… until it was second nature and I walked, jogged and jumped the way I was designed to.

I had to do it until it became a habit. 

*****

Maybe you really long to be like Jesus  (here’s hoping that’s a little of the case given that if you’re sitting here in church this morning). Maybe you even drink up biblical ideas, and love learning reflecting about God.  Great!

Captain Berry of the Nantucket knew he needed that compass adjusted.  He knew he was sailing slightly off kilter.  But, knowing wasn’t enough. After all, he couldn’t think his ship back on to the right course. He needed to adjust his compass.

We might have the best of intentions.  

We might love all the right things on paper.  

We might think Jesus’ ideas are great, smart and inspiring. 

But we can’t think our way into holiness. 

Just as you can train a plant to grow in a certain direction by pruning certain branches, we can train our hearts to grow in a certain way. We do this by practicing subtle exercises that will train and strengthen the love muscles of our souls. 

If you want to learn to play the piano, you can read about music and even about music theory until you are blue in the face, but only by practicing and actually playing will you get there.

*****

I cannot say what exactly the daily patterns of your life are.  But I do know that there are patterns—or let’s even call them rituals—to how we live our lives that subtly form us.

There’s an old secular parable that says “there are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ The two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?;”  

So often, we don’t see the habits of our daily lives (good or bad!). We don’t see the skiing accident from when we were 19. We don’t see the magnets that pull us off course and teach us to worship other gods.  We have to intentionally identify the patterns (the rituals) we’re immersed in and then work towards cultivating different ones that teach us to love.

Maybe you practice love through the way you approach people in your daily life, at the grocery store, at school, on your work team or on the corner where all the neighbors hang out with their dogs talking.  Maybe you have a habit of eating dinner with people you love at least a couple times a week.

Those are likely good habits that cultivate love in your soul. I hate to break it to you, but you most certainly have some habits that are less charitable than these.

Maybe, you’re habitually cranky with your family in private but no one knows it because you’re a gem in public.  Maybe, you are skilled at complaining about people behind their backs.  Perhaps you have a pattern of, every time you leave a social event, picking everyone apart with your spouse or friend.  Or, every time you read news about politics that differ from yours, you rage against people on the other side. 

Whatever it is, that habit of loving (or not loving) is going to work on your heart.

I’m hoping you all can see that participation in a religious community like this one, or a regular practice of worship, or even serving in this sanctuary on a Sunday morning, is also a habit that forms us. 

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In the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy, God tells the Israelites, through Moses, to trim, shape and fashion their hearts so that they might be fruitful in the land.  Today, most of us read the Old Testament in English but the apostle John read it in Greek.  When he wrote about Jesus’ vine and branches recap in his gospel, John lifted out this quirky Greek word from that 30th chapter of Deuteronomy and he used it to say that our hearts are "pruned" by God. 

God works on us, shapes our hearts, forms and fashions us so that, just like the ancient Israelites, and generations passed, we too might bear fruit in the land.

As people of faith, as disciples of Jesus, we have to work on loving and fine tune it until it becomes habitual or as the letter of 1 John says until it is “perfected” in us. We do this until it becomes a part of our subconscious and bubbles up without even thinking about. 

The way we weave love as a lifestyle into our subconscious is through practicing. Through training, retraining and recalibrating our hearts.

What are the habits you have that do something to you?  What kind of person do those habits want you to become (for better or worse)? What practice is God calling you to cultivate in your heart?

Go find your gardening tools. Take your compass into the shop. For God desires abundant life for us. In fact, God desires abundant life for all of creation.