2 Lent Yr B March 1 2015

Audio 3.1.2015

Eugene Peterson, who we know best from his bible translation called The Message, wrote a book called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. What a curious title. And yet the title describes what I have come to think Lent is about, a long obedience in the same direction. You see, Lent is this opportunity we are given to practice what it is we really do for our whole lives. It is a long obedience in the same direction, and that direction is God.

We focus particularly during Lent on the discipline of prayer, fasting, and alsmgiving. The discipline of prayer; putting ourselves in the posture of listening. The discipline of fasting; giving up that which keeps our attention away from love, giving up that which keeps us hostage to fear, giving up that which seduces us into a sense of superiority. And the discipline of almsgiving. The discipline of Almsgiving is sharing our wealth, all of it, not just the money. Sharing our wealth of compassion, sharing our wealth of joy, and sharing our wealth of food and shelter.

So in his book Eugene Peterson writes something I find rather odd, he says, "people submerged in a culture swarming with lies and malice feel as if they are drowning in it: they can trust nothing they hear, depend on no one they meet. Such dissatisfaction with the world as it is is preparation for traveling in the way of Christian discipleship. The dissatisfaction, coupled with a longing for peace and truth, can set us on a pilgrim path of wholeness in God. "

I have a sense of the culture we live in today as not only deeply dissatisfying, but also fearful. And as long as we are afraid of what might be, or around the next corner, we are held hostage to immediate fixes and short sighted solutions. 

We are afraid of not being the best, so we come up with short term solutions to long term issues. We are so sure of our status, and of course we are better than the other, and we are so afraid of our differences, we come up with ways to exclude people from benefits the rest of us take for granted, or we make laws that disregard the dignity of every human being. But fear is not the way God would have us live our lives. God would have us live our lives in Love and Hope, that is what is in our gospel today. Lay it down, Mark says, lay down all of that fear and anxiety, and take up the cross of God's love. Lay down all of that fear and anxiety and inner angst, so that there is room for mercy and compassion.

We have a cross in our pocket to help remind us of the long obedience. And that takes a long view, not an immediate or instant conversion. Lent gives us some practice in that long view. We can't just beam up to Easter and resurrection. We need to be on this journey, we need to carve out some time and space where we can let love in, let truth in, where we can set our minds on divine things. The truth we hear today is a very hard truth. Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for God's sake and the sake of the Good News, will save it. 

We get so convinced that our way is the right way, we tend to walk in front of Jesus, we think we can show Jesus the way. Jesus even is reported to say to Peter, "get behind me Satan." It's as if we say to Jesus, "our way, the way of the world, the way of greed, of power, the way of status and honor, these are the way Jesus. You'll never get ahead in the world if you don't take advantage of every situation, if you don't step on and over the ones who are too slow or too weak. You'll never get ahead if don't exert yourself as the best, the fastest, the most important. Following is for losers, being out in front where winners find themselves."

But that's not the way this story goes. We are to follow Jesus on a journey that just takes time, a whole lifetime, and even more than that. That's what Abraham and Sarah's story is about. God is calling Abraham to God's future, not Abraham's wealth or our wealth, success, or even failure. Abraham and Sarah's story surely is a story that has a long view of things. No baby according to their plans and their timeline, but according to God, they are the parents of a nation. 

So what is this journey about? Why do these stories that seem so odd, that seem so counter cultural, that seem so topsy turvy, hold any meaning for us at all? This journey is to freedom, that is what God offers. Over and over the old testament stories show God's people that they are free, and for a while they live in freedom. But they always seem to fall back, miss the mark, making bricks for Pharaoh is a sure thing. Wandering in the wilderness, looking for food and a place to make camp, pitch their tents, is so much more uncertain. God's freedom is a lot more uncertain than the certainty of riches. 

So you see, creating the quiet space, making camp, pitching your tent, is to listen to God's call to love and freedom. Those who lose their life for God's sake will save it. As we make this pilgrimage, and practice this long view of things, as we become followers of Jesus, rather than try to tell Jesus what to do, we begin to be transformed and formed in God's image. We become the people who include rather than exclude. We become the people who love no matter what. We become the people who fall on our knees in repentance when we miss the mark, and rise up in praise to give God glory. We become the people who carry the light for someone walking in great darkness and we will walk beside someone who can carry the light for us. We will stand shoulder to shoulder at the table with a whole bunch of imperfect, but perfectly loved, people of all ages—and we will leave renewed, strengthened and forgiven.

We are these people. We are these people who risk uncertainty, who risk imperfection, who risk being open-hearted, for Jesus' sake. We are the people who encounter Jesus in the mess and the muck, we are the people who encounter Jesus in children among us, we are the people who sing mostly together and mostly on the right notes, whether we know the song or not. Because the kingdom is not about perfection or certainty or judgment, the kingdom is about love and freedom, the kingdom is about encountering Jesus in the here and now, the kingdom is not about us and our institutions and our judgments and our morality, the kingdom is about God. 

Following Jesus on this journey is to follow the way of love, and freedom, it is to accompany one another on the way, no one is excluded. It is to fall down, and to take the hand of the one who reaches out to us in love, it is to reach out in love to the one who has fallen down. And then we can take out the real cross, made not of pretty stones but of our own arms spread out to welcome and to embrace. Now that's a cross we can carry.

1 Lent Yr B Feb 22 2015

Audio 2.22.2015

Lent begins with this story of Jesus' baptism. And Lent ends with our own recommitment to our own baptismal promises at the Easter Vigil. And in between, we have quite a journey with Jesus. Actually, we heard part of this story not long ago, just after Christmas as we observed the baptism of Jesus. With this story the gospel writer shows us the true identity of Jesus. Jesus is the beloved son of God. During this journey of Lent, we also see our own true identity. We too are beloved children of God. What we see is that Jesus is who God says he is, so also we are who God says we are, in Christ we are beloved sons and daughters of God. All the rest of the gospel of Mark shows what that means and what that looks like. 

You all that I love to get you all wet when we reaffirm our baptismal promises. I think that means so much to me because encountering water has always been a very powerful experience. I have lived my life in and around water. When I was a little girl I would spend my summer days at the neighborhood pool, we swam and sunned and played. I learned to swim there, and eventually I taught others to swim there. I lifeguarded there and I coached swimming there. And I swam on the synchronized swimming team in high school. Eventually I moved on to lifeguard at a Minneapolis lake, and I was waterfront director at a YMCA camp, where Rick and I met.

During our early married years, my dad had built a place on a beautiful lake in north central Minnesota. We would spend weekends there. By then my favorite water activity was to go out into the deep water and float, the quiet and calm of the water did much to renew my spirit. Tom and Willie learned to swim before they could walk. They would be by my side when I coached the swim team at the Y.

Water is powerful, it is intoxicating, and it can kill as well as thrill. Did you know that the human body is 60% water, and that too much water can kill you? The power of water can take away life as easily as it can give life. When we live here on this piece of land and we give thanks for every drop of water that falls from the sky, even if it is as snow. Did you know that water is a closed system. The rain drops that do fall on us are the very same rain drops that fell on Noah and his wife and children. The Power of Water is amazing. We spend the first nine months of our lives afloat, and the rest of of lives trying not to drown.

Water is this powerful symbol of baptism, the powerful symbol of life in Christ. This powerful symbol is capable of containing the meaning associated with life, death, and resurrection. That is why stories are told about water and it’s intoxicating influence.

In the story of Noah, water took away life, and in the story of Jesus’ baptism water gives life. It is quite appropriate that we begin our journey through Lent with Jesus in the water. The water washes us clean, and in the water we teeter on the brink of death, and in the water we hear with Jesus “with you I am well pleased.” At the beginning of our Lenten journey, we have an opportunity to look squarely at the power that is life and death, and choose to walk this road, equipped by our identity as baptized people, as people who have died with Christ and risen with Christ.

In the gospel of Mark, there is no time between Jesus' baptism and the time in the wilderness being tempted by Satan. No time to reflect on who he was or what he was doing. He didn't have time to figure out what a good person, a good teacher, a good friend, a good leader would say or do then try to say or do that. I believe that Jesus sought the living God, claimed his identity as the son of God, and let his life, his words, his relationships and his love, even to giving of himself on the cross, flow from that identity as God’s beloved. Perhaps that’s what God is calling us to do this Lent; to follow Jesus out of the water and into the desert to listen deeply for what God has to say to us through Baptism. 

As we begin this Lent together, in the waters that are of Jesus’ baptism, and as we complete this Lent renewing our own baptismal promises, we remember who we are. We are is God’s beloved. We are people who are beautifully and wonderfully created by God. We are people who are blessed by God. We are people who have a tendency to turn away from God to worship idols, we tend to hurt ourselves and each other, we tend to build up our own wealth instead of working for peace and justice for all. We tend to build up our walls so that we don't have to be honest with one another. But we are people who God calls back into relationship, God loves us so much that God is willing to be one of us to show us the way.

On Ash Wednesday I asked you to consider what it is that holds you hostage? What is the thing that keeps you afraid? What is the thing that keeps your attention away from important things? What is the thing that keeps you from being whole? And today I ask you, what gets in the way of living fully the creation that God has made you to be. What causes you to forget who you are? What must you put aside, so that you may be fully and completely who you are created to be? What must you die to, so that you can be free to live?

I found this a couple years ago, and I find it continues to illustrate so well what it means to lay aside what keeps us hostage, so that we may walk this journey with Jesus. 

Holy Spirit, Holy One, Creator Spirit, God of all....I lay aside my key ring, a sign of my car and house, of my main possession. I lay aside my cell phone, my means of communication. I lay aside my credit card, my source of finance and money. I lay aside my pen, my way of writing down my thoughts and intentions. I lay aside my glasses, my perspectives, my frames for seeing the world. I lay aside my watch, my timetables and timeframes. I lay aside my comb, my way of looking at myself. I take off my shoes, my method of transporting myself, the way I walk in the world. Then, stripped in this way of most of my securities and techniques for coping and functioning in the world, I try to simply acknowledge the presence of the One who made all things, in whom we live and move and have our being. I am seeking to be alone with the only true God, the one true reality behind and within everything, and making that quiet space. Then I pick up my key ring, praying, “Use my car and house, my main possessions, for your purposes”. I pick up my cell phone, praying, “Use my means of communication, to share messages of your goodness and grace”. I pick up my credit card, praying, “May I spend and be spent in the ways of righteousness and justice”. I pick up my pen, praying, “Guide me to write your thoughts". I pick up my glasses, praying, “Help me see the world through your eyes”. I strap on my watch, praying, “May I live in your time.” I pocket my comb, praying, “May I see your beauty around me”. I put on my shoes, praying, “May I walk in your ways ”.

I think claiming our identity as God’s beloved is what Lent is all about. If you haven't already taken a rock with a cross on it, from the basket, make sure you take one today, and keep it with you all during Lent, so that you may be reminded, “you are my beloved, with you I am well pleased.” 

Ash Wednesday Feb 18 2015

Audio Ash Wednesday

We so quickly, so easily forget who we are. In this fast paced world where all information is instantaneous and where photographs travel across the world in minutes, sometimes we believe that we must look like and talk like everyone else in order to be seen or heard. And when violence and hatred are the stuff of our headlines, and images of people being executed are in our news and on our screens, we suffer compassion fatigue and we quickly forget. We put aside the truth that we are indeed created in God's image, for God's love and delight. 

The cross that we were marked with at our baptism is the very same cross that we trace this day. The cross that we trace over with these ashes of Ash Wednesday remind us especially that we are God's delight, we are God's beloved, we are claimed and marked as God's own forever. And in this holy season of Lent, we have a chance, we have an opportunity to remember that. We have an opportunity to turn around, to face God, to face others, to face ourselves and to lay down that which keeps us away from God’s love. We have an opportunity to remember who we are in our baptismal covenant and to live that out in the world in every time and in every place. 

The invitation of Ash Wednesday is to go deeper into the heart of God. The whole point is not that we are just dust, but that we are precious, beloved children of God. The whole point is that we are precious enough to God that God would send God’s only Son to be with us, to repair and reconcile us to God, to bring us back to God, our source, our heart. The point is not that God wants us to be buried in dirt and dust but that God wants us to be buried with Christ. Being buried with Christ is the baptismal action, but it is not all that happens, we are also risen with Christ. 

God does not desire separation, and Lent is not about our wretchedness, God desires relationship, Lent is about that relationship. 

So the cross that we trace today not only reminds us who and whose we are, but it also reminds us that by it we are free of the bondage of death. We are freed from the bondage of sin. We are freed from that which holds us hostage. What is that for you? What holds you hostage? What is the thing that keeps you afraid? What is the thing that keeps your attention away from important things? What is the thing that keeps you from being whole? Whatever that is, that is the thing that keeps you from being free. 

This journey that we take with Jesus, this journey to the cross, in the dust and the dirt, and through the cross to new life, this is what Lent is all about. It is about paying special attention to God’s relationship with us, God’s precious love for us. It is about this amazing thing that God has done, and continues to do, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. 

And the effect of the love that wins, is that we are freed to be loved, to love and to serve, and to be all that God intends for us to be. We are freed of all that keeps us captive, so that we do not need to be afraid to live our lives as God’s new creations. God's love, and Jesus' journey to the cross and on the cross inspires us with the courage to strive for justice and peace, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to offer compassion and mercy to all.

There are three things I am asking of you today. First, if you wish, pick up a piece of paper, and write on it that thing that keeps you from fully loving yourself or others. What is it that holds you hostage. What is it that you are afraid of. And at the appointed time, drop that piece of paper in the brazier, and it will be joined with the rest and burned for our ashes. 

Secondly, think seriously about what it is you might do this Lent so that you put yourself intentionally in God's presence. There is a book of daily devotions you can take home, there are many opportunities for you to have daily devotions online, you could participate in Lent Madness and learn all about saints, people just like you. You could read our One Book St. Andrew's and come on Sunday morning to discuss it, or participate in an online conversation in our facebook group. And there is always Morning Prayer. The possibilities are many. Your job is to chose one and do it.

And thirdly, as you leave today take with you a cross that you can carry throughout all of lent, a cross reminding you that dieing and rising with Jesus is not a burden, but it is freedom to love and to serve, and to remind you that you are indeed, God’s beloved.

Last Sunday after the Epiphany Yr B Feb 15 2015

Audio 2.15.15

This is my son, with whom I am well pleased. These are the words we heard at Jesus' baptism, these are the words we hear today at this experience on the mountaintop. God shows up in each of these stories and claims Jesus as the beloved, God has marked Jesus with love, and God instructs all those who are there, to listen to Jesus. Time has come back around on itself. Soon, Jesus and the disciples will be off to Jerusalem, on the road of suffering, death, and resurrection.  

What if we understood these stories as God's inbreaking kingdom? What if we understood these stories as glimpses of incarnation, as glimpses of glory? What if we understood these stories as a disruption in life as we know it? And what if we understood Peter, James and John as witnesses to that inbreaking, that incarnation, that disruption?

These are stories that show us that God has everything to do with us. God's glory, and God's kingdom, and God's love breaks into our lives, in surprising times and places, we get glimpses, and sometimes we recognize those times as God's presence, like Peter did. And like Peter, when that happens we want to make it permanent, we want to build a building to contain it, and we want to keep God in that place. But it doesn't seem like that is the way God would have it.

Peter, James and John have heard their entire lives the stories of Moses and of Elijah. We just heard part of the story of Elijah from the book of Kings. Moses and Elijah are the prophets, the heroes, of their ancestors. Their stories live in the realm of legend, it’d be like coming face to face with Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi, or Madeleine L’engle. Who wouldn’t wish for them to stay, to bask in the glory of their greatness, their wisdom?

This is truly a glimpse of glory. A mountaintop experience. Peter, James and John are witnesses and participants in this amazing time out of time. You may have had an experience that you may describe similarly, a particularly meaningful experience of worship, with music and people who helped you to transcend time. In fact, much of what we may see in a more evangelical church is fashioned with this experience in mind. The point is to bring people to a place where they may intensely experience God’s presence, that they may intensely experience the Holy Spirit. And that is well and good, but what I wonder about is how do you to come down off the mountaintop and deal with life in your world of ordinariness. You may say as Peter says, let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. You may want as Peter wants to hold on to that experience, to be able to revisit it whenever you want, to come back to it whenever you need a shot in the arm, or even to escape to it when the world just seems too hard to handle. But the experience won’t be put into a box. And yet that doesn’t stop you from striving to replicate it, and measuring every subsequent religious experience by it. But that can’t be done, not only can’t it be done, it prevents us from experiencing God in the moment, God in the mundane, God in the ordinary, which is where each of us live most of the time.

The glory that is shone forth in this story of transfiguration is ultimate glory. It is wonderful, it is exquisite, and it is not where we live or where we are to stay. In the transfiguration we see that what we think about time and how God acts in time are different. Peter, James and John, and you and I as we look in, see time all at once, like God sees it. If we were to construct a time line, the story of Moses takes place somewhere around 1500 years before Christ, Elijah about 850 years before Christ. And yet, at this event they are all there together. God shows forth God’s glory, God shows that life with God is without limits. It is like the Eucharistic moment, it may be comfortable and calm, it may be nourishing and refreshing, it may be inspiring and illuminating. It is filled with the people we love and who love us. We really want to stay, but we can’t stay in it, and we can’t repeat the exact moment. But it will give us the ability to persevere, from it we are sent out into the world to do the work we are given to do. We are sent out into the world to live our lives and to bring peace and reconciliation and healing to a broken and fragmented world.

The glory that is shone forth in this story of transfiguration is a touchstone. We may return to it, but we can’t control it, and that can be rather disquieting, actually terrifying as reported in this story. We come to worship and sing God’s praises; we come to find stability in an unstable world. We come to hear the story of our faith that has not changed over time. And yet God’s word and our worship are not comfortable, they are not static. God’s word and our worship are growing and changing, becoming the creation that God has intended for it. The glory that is shone forth should cause us to be terrified, to go down the mountain and confront the comfortable and disrupt the status quo. The glory that is shone forth results in the casting out of demons, the reordering of social status and kinship, the arrest and torture of the one who bears the Good News, the inauguration of God’s kingdom on earth with Jesus Christ God’s son.

The glory that is shone forth in this story of transfiguration promises to accompany us into our mundane lives. We carry that glory into our work and our school and our play. It becomes the spirit that inspires and creates us; it becomes the life that gives us life. It is that which is in the eyes and souls of those whose paths we cross, it is in the respect and dignity with which we treat everyone we meet. It is why we stand with those who have been discriminated against.

The glory that is shone forth in this story of transfiguration pushes us out into the world so that we may get going with God’s mission in this world. God’s mission is not about preserving the status quo; God’s mission is not about sitting in these pews. God’s mission is not defending the tradition; God’s mission is not doing things the way they’ve always been done. God’s mission is not putting Moses, Elijah, and Jesus in a box. God’s mission is of healing and reconciliation. God’s mission is about putting fractured souls back together in this broken and fragmented world. God’s mission is about loving and serving your neighbor, especially when we don’t feel like it, especially when it is uncomfortable, even when it seems impossible and down right scary.

God's mission is about showing forth the truth that Love wins. What is it, and where is it, that God calls you to show forth God's glory? 

5th Sunday after the Epiphany Yr B Feb 8 2015

Audio 2.8.2015

Remember, the beginning of the gospel of Mark states that this is the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And then we are off and running. The gospel writer Mark packs so much into so little time. The story moves quickly from John baptizing Jesus in the Jordan, Satan seducing him in the wilderness, and Jesus calling people to follow him. I think it's important for us to realize that what we have before us is a picture of what the Good News of Jesus Christ looks like, and to the gospel writer, this is of utmost importance.

I’m going to tell a mother-in-law story. I did ask permission to tell this. My mother-in-law, Rick’s mom is an amazing woman. She has enough love in her heart for the whole world. She’s worked hard her entire adult life, often working overnights in restaurants as a waitress or a manager. She has been a caterer, and lately she bakes Christmas cookies and cakes for the people in her building. Food has not only been her bread and butter, but food is also the means by which she shows her love and finds her worth. And we love her dearly. We never expect her to prepare a meal for us, but, well you know, she does anyway. She makes garlic toast and roast beef hash, and a dish only a son could like, Cedric’s casserole. Butterfinger bars, pink squirrels, Russian teacakes…. You try to say, no, you know you really don’t have to, and it rings hollow, because really, she has to, it’s who she is. She is whole and complete; she is whom she truly was created to be when she is in her kitchen. 

Jesus heals Simon’s mother in law. And the first thing she does is to get up and serve them. This is a story that has always made me mad. No rest, no recovery, no getting back at things slowly, the fever left her, and she began to serve them. And then I was reminded of my mother in law, and I remembered that what they share is that their wholeness, their health, their being fully who they are, is tied directly to their love of serving. When my mother in law is sick and cannot putz around her kitchen baking this and that, she is not herself. What Jesus did here was more than just healing her, if that isn’t enough, he put things right, he restored the order of things, he made whole what was broken, he brought her to herself, he gave her a new life. The radical nature of this story is not necessarily that Simon’s mother in law was healed, and not necessarily that she served, the radical nature of this story is Jesus’ capacity to restore her wholeness, to restore her value and worth, to give her new life. 

That’s what casting out demons and healing is about with Jesus. It is not just removing disease, as if that isn’t enough, but these are stories about Jesus’ power to bring people into a new relationship, to bring people into right relationship with himself and with others. These are stories about making whole what is broken, these are stories about bringing healing into a fragmented world, these are stories about this absolutely new thing that God is up to. 

The Good News is that in a broken and fragmented world, you can live a life that is whole. That is not to say that the life you live will be perfect, whole and perfect are nothing alike. Perfect is what we see set before us as a standard by those who can sell us something to make us perfect. Perfect is what we will be if we buy the right skin lotion, perfect is what we will be if we buy the right house, perfect is what we will be if we marry the right person, or play the right game or have the right bank account or life insurance or whatever. The harder we work for perfect, the more frustrated, depressed, angry, and resentful we become.

The Good News is that in a broken and fragmented world, you can live a life that is whole. When Rick and I were married, we were given the chalice that was used for Holy Communion that day. On our 10th anniversary, we brought the chalice to church with us to use at communion in celebration of our anniversary. As I was getting out of the car that day, I dropped the chalice. We picked up the pieces, and I set about putting the cup back together. It is whole, but surely not perfect. It is now filled with 30 years of growth, of pain, of happiness, of heartache, of joy and of sorrow. We have lived together through pain and suffering, death and resurrection. We are not perfect, but in Jesus’ love we are whole. 

It is this Good News that we must proclaim to the world. Perfect people have no time for church, broken and hurting people, you and I, come to be made whole, come to be restored to fullness of life, come to be made new in the waters of baptism, come to be nourished by the bread and wine of communion, come to see Jesus in one another, come to be made wholly who we are created to be. 

Jesus is a good Jew, he goes to synagogue on the Sabbath, but then he goes and breaks the law by healing on the Sabbath. What Mark is trying to show us is that the proclamation of the Word of God is active and growing. Jesus knows that there is a danger in people knowing that he is the proclamation of the Word of God. Jesus knows that it is also dangerous for him to neglect his own relationship with the one who gives him life, so he goes to pray. Wholeness involves prayer, into our brokenness comes the Word, alive and active, quiet and contemplative. 

Jesus was fully who he was created to be as he went about healing, casting out demons, turning over tables in the temple, eating with sinners, welcoming the children. It was all in a days work for him, albeit hard work. And he too needed to regain his balance, find his center, kneel before his creator, and pray. 

I don’t think the 1st century world in which Jesus lived is much different than the world in which we live. People are broken, disheartened, there is greed and there is idolatry. Through Jesus God offers us healing and wholeness, through Jesus God offers us the opportunity to be ourselves. Putting ourselves, like Jesus did, in the posture of prayer brings us to a place where we can hear the call to be ourselves, to be whole. Prayer is a place we find our relationship with God, prayer is a place we find ourselves. 

Come and be healed, come and be who you are called to be, come, and find yourself.

3rd Sunday after the Epiphany Yr B Jan 25 2015

Audio 1.25.2015

We have been hearing stories for the last couple of weeks, stories that remind us that God loves us, that we are the delight of God's life. Stories of baptism, God claims us, and we are marked as God's own forever. God calls us, God shows up with us and for us. God calls us wonderfully and fearfully made. 

In the gospel of Mark, there is no pussy-footing around. There is no nativity story as there is in Luke, there are no begats like in Matthew, and no metaphorical language like in John. No, Mark gets right to the point. In the first sentences the writer says, this is about the Good News, who is Jesus the Messiah. John announced Jesus, Jesus is baptized, and the next thing you know Jesus is calling disciples. Not even enough time to get strapped in before we hit the first 200 foot climb followed by a one second drop. Mark gets down to business.

It's not much different for these fisher people. Just imagine this. Just imagine being in that fishing boat with Simon and Andrew, with James and John, having fished all night. You're exhausted, and you must fix the holes in your nets before you can call it a day. You just want to get the work finished, take your haul home, and go to bed. And Jesus passes by. He yells from the shore, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." Who is this guy? How can you make a living fishing for people? How's that going to pay the bills? How's that going to put food on the table? How's that going to bring any honor to the family? This is just crazy. And yet you go. And yet you step out of the boat and follow. What is so compelling about this man that causes you to leave your father, to leave your livelihood, to leave your honor, and follow. 

Mark doesn't give us a whole lot of clues about what is so compelling about this man Jesus, except to tell us that this is the Good News of Jesus, the Messiah. Jesus is the truth, Jesus speaks the truth, Jesus knows your truth. And that is compelling. And when you say yes to the call, you don't really know what to expect, except that your life will be changed. You will be transformed. When you say yes to the call, Love wins, mercy prevails, compassion lives. 

Because that is the way it is with Jesus, it isn't easy, comfortable, or clear. So what does saying yes to the call look like? It looks like a guy who walks to the other side of the road to help someone who had been attacked by strangers. It looks like a woman who gives a man a cool drink of water at the well. It looks like the soil that is rocky, that is thorny, and that is fertile. It looks like the tiniest of seeds. 

Being perfect, or even having our act together, is not a prerequisite to saying yes to Jesus' call. Remember the Old Testament story that is before us today from Jonah. What we heard is the conclusion of God calling Jonah. The beginning of that story goes like this. The word of the Lord came to Jonah, "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord. Jonah's response to God's call was to turn tail and run. Not unlike most of us when we hear God's call. Jonah ran from God until he could run no further, Jonah said no to God for as long as he could. The result of Jonah's eventual yes, was that everyone turned away from their evil ways, maybe in other words, they turned toward mercy and compassion. 

Saying yes to Jesus' call is what frees us to be who we are, and to live the truth of who we are, beloved and forgiven. I think the reason people say no to God, and say no to church, is because of the mistaken believe that you have to be perfect to stand before God and others. I think the reason that has happened is because some who call themselves Christian have set up some sort of perfection checklist, some sort of standard of behavior that no one can live up to, and everyone begins to live a lie. 

Saying yes to Jesus, is to say yes to the truth. The truth of who we are, We are people who are broken, we are people who make mistakes, some huge mistakes, some not so much. We are people who betray. We are people who love and who fall short of love. We are people who get ourselves into trouble with wanting too much and expecting too little. We are people who believe we can make it on our own and forget we are not the center of the universe. We are people who erect and worship idols. We are people who build walls around us so thick to guard our brokeness and to look perfect. 

Saying yes to Jesus, saying yes to the truth, looks like the guy who spent some time in jail, and who can listen to others trying to find their way. It looks like the mom who struggled to live through addiction, and who can listen to other moms who are so afraid to face up to their own lies. It looks like couples who work through the depths of sadness, recommit to each other, and listen to those who can't see the possibility. It is each and every one of us knowing we are just inches away from losing our job, or losing our home, or losing our spouse, and living in the midst of hope and joy anyway, because Jesus lived it all too.

Saying yes to Jesus is to say yes to the truth. And the truth will set you free. Saying yes to Jesus is to let love win, it is to let the mercy and the compassion seep into our scars and heal us. It is to let love win and let the the mercy and the compassion transform us. When you say yes, your life begins to change, you are in the presence of God, and your truth begins to invite others into healing. Jesus' truth, your truth, your life in God's presence invites others to live a live fully alive, a live filled with truth, with love, with mercy and compassion. Your life begins to show forth the moral decision making that is apparent in the baptismal covenant. You begin to do what is right, instead of what is selfish or greedy. You bear Jesus' light in the world, and those you encounter, those who encounter you, witness the truth of your life and are invited to be healed by Jesus. Come and see. 

Studies are showing that people today and especially those under 50 don't so much want to GO to church as they want to BE the church.  I'm wondering how we can empower one another, as we go to church, to be able to live out our calling as we seek to be the church. How do you live out your calling, out there in the world? At work, at school, at play. That is being the church. As you do that, more and more, as you make the invitation into Love, others will come, you will see.

"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Frederick Buechner.

2nd Sunday after Epiphany Yr B Jan 18 2015

Audio 1.18.2015

Last week we read about the Baptism of Our Lord, and we remembered our own baptisms. We remembered that we are the delight of God's life and marked as Christ's own forever. We remember who we are and whose we are. This week in these readings about Eli and Samuel, John's story of calling the disciples, and in the psalm, we are reminded that God already knows us, God already knows you, God claims us, God loves us first. A wise one said to me, You may be able to knit a Norwegian sweater, but only God can knit a Norwegian. 

I believe we are mistaken when we think we need to find Jesus. Like Jesus is playing a game of hide and seek with us, and he's been behind the couch all along. "Lord, you have searched me out and known me, you know my sitting down and my rising up, you discern my thoughts from afar," psalm 139 reminds us. We don't need to find Jesus, Jesus calls us, indeed we need to be of a heart and a mind and a posture to listen. We spend so much time and energy building our own walls that we cannot hear, we are blinded to God who shows up, to Jesus. We build walls that alienate and isolate ourselves from the love that claims our hearts. The litany is endless.

You've heard it, you've said it, you've experienced it. There's the I'm not going to church list. I've got better things to do, I don't have time, It's the only time we have together as a family, I'd rather drink coffee, read the paper, look at facebook, I don't like the music they sing there, I don't like the prayers they say there, I don't like the people there, they're hypocrites, I don't like the style of worship there, I don't like the priest there. There's nobody like me there, everybody is like me there. There's no kids there, there's too many kids there, the kids there make noise.

There's the I'm spiritual but not religious list. I don't need organized religion, I can worship God on my own, at home, in nature, on the golf course. There's the I don't believe in God list. That God is violent, punishing. I can't believe in a God who takes innocent lives, I can't believe in a God who causes suffering. I can't believe in a God who doesn't take all of this pain and suffering away. 

And then there's the I'm not good enough list. I've done something so horrible God would not want me, I'm guilty of something, I'm not worthy, I'm no good. And the I'm too good for them list. They don't believe what I believe, that doesn't fulfill my needs, I don't like that music. 

And, there is the fear. If I really listen, I might have to do something about it. And that, my friends is where it really is, isn't it? Listening and responding to God's call, God's claim on our hearts, is scary. It means that we go outside of what is comfortable, it means that we take risks with our hearts, and maybe even our lives. But, in a world torn apart by anger, hatred and conflict, we have the privilege of being living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds. In a families torn apart by the drive for more, and bigger, and better, we have the privilege of being living signs of a love that can lift up the lowly and bring down the mighty.  

The truth is that it is God's hearts desire for us to be in relationship with God, and any relationship takes work, it takes listening, it takes learning, it takes responding. Around here we believe that God loves, we believe that love shows up in Jesus, and in you and in all of us. But, love is just a word until someone gives it meaning, Jesus is the meaning, you are the meaning. 

So we listen to God's call, and we discern God's call to us. We put aside all the excuses, all the reasons why not, and our fear, and we respond. We do as the disciples did, we do as Eli and Samuel did, we listen together, in community, with each other, not alone. We listen together, but we don't necessarily all respond in the same way, because part of our job is to be who we are, fully and completely. Part of our response to God is the way we live our lives, the love and compassion and mercy that we offer to others. 

How do you live your response to God's claim on your life? How do you live your response to God's call to you? How do we, here at St. Andrew's live our common life together, in response to God's call? How do you, how do we, show up and show forth the light, and the love, the suffering and the death, the hope, that is the truth of this life? 

This week we remember Martin Luther King Jr. a man who responded with courage to God's claim on his life. Martin Luther Kings Jr showed us that dreams are made of treating every bit of God's creation with mercy, compassion, and justice. 

Sometimes the violence and the tragedy in our world, in our community seems overwhelming, sometimes we even just stop paying attention. In these turbulent days, respecting the dignity of every human being seems to be in question, seeking and serving Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself seem foolish. But we've also seen how love can change a situation, we've seen how a kind word, a compassion act, can be the change the reality in which we live. 

I heard a story, about a boy who responded to some teasing that was inflicted on him, not by being mean. Instead, he got to school early, and stood at the front door, holding it open as the students entered, greeting each one with a good morning. Soon, the students were greeting each other with smiles and hellos. Soon, the students were opening doors for each other all over the building. Soon the culture of the student body was changing. 

Respond to God's claim on your heart and your life by opening doors for those around you, and you too, will change the world. Have courage, do not be afraid, listen, show up and show forth God's love. Amen.