Second Sunday of Advent Yr A Dec 8 2019

Audio    Second Sunday of Advent Yr A Dec 8 2019

Isaiah 11:1-10, Romans 15:4-13, Matthew 3:1-12, Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

I don’t know about you, but John, this John who is the baptizer, always seems a bit crazy to me. I might even compare him to a street corner preacher, shouting and looking stark raving mad in his odd robes eating his bugs and honey. This John on the street corner might even be holding a sign saying not “the end is near,” but instead, “the beginning is near.” The beginning is near, the beginning of your new life, the life that is yours through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The new life that is yours because the kingdom of heaven draws near. Turn around, turn around and face the love that cannot be denied, turn away from the seduction of hate, and of darkness, and of chaos.

John the baptizer calls us to repentance, to turn around. And John doesn’t suggest a transaction, he doesn’t say if you repent then God will love you. John says, repent, turn around. Because John already knows that God is doing something amazing here, John already knows that the God of Abraham and Sarah, who were too old to have children and gave them a child anyway, is the God whose love is already turning us around. God, incarnate, God in the flesh, Emmanuel, Jesus, the one who is born in a born, born into all times and all places, the one who promises to bring all things to completion, this one is coming. Stay awake, get ready,

And John continues the theme of prophecy. Remember, we talked about prophecy as the call to repentance, the call to change, to turn around. John remembers to us, not just reminds us, because that is passive, but John remembers to us, makes real again, the story of those who came before, Abraham and Sarah. And John remembers to us his current reality, Jesus is the one who shows us the way to God. And John remembers to us the new reality, prepare the way of the Lord.

What is the sin in the world, in our lives, from which you must turn, and in the turning will ignite the kingdom life within you, will ignite a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. That’s the way Eugene Peterson translates Matthew in The Message, God’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of our lives. God will place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false, God will put out with the trash to be burned.

I’m pretty sure that’s the way repentance, turning to God, works. And I’m also pretty sure that it is the love that is lavished upon us that is the cause of our turning, the cause of refining. I mean, really, which one of us chooses the refining fire? It is my experience that repentance and refinement are God’s handiwork. Most of the time we are oblivious to the journey we are on, and how lost we’ve become, and the damage we are doing to ourselves and others, until we hit the bottom, or get thrown out, or can’t see our way out of the jam we’ve created for ourselves, and it becomes clear that we must change direction or die. God places everything true in its proper place, God puts order in our chaos, and what is not true, gets thrown out with the trash.

If repentance is turning to God, if repentance is changing course, if repentance is being found after wandering in the wilderness, and I believe it is, then sin and evil is that which brings us to the place of needing to change course. Sin is missing the mark. Evil is all of the intention and seduction and slipperiness that connives to create chaos and disintegration. But the kingdom of heaven draws near. God’s call is away from fragmentation, God’s call to us is the call to turn around and be healed.

But it’s not simple, is it, it’s never really simple. It is the murkiness, the messiness, the muddiness of life. It’s hard to hit the mark when our boots are caught in the mud. And healing doesn’t happen all at once or even once, it is a lifetime activity. But remember, the arc of God’s love bends toward mercy, and compassion, and healing.

As we continue our conversation with stories, stories that speak truth in our lives, I turn to a zombie story. Now, I love science fiction and fantasy, but zombies? No, not usually. Zombies are really not my cup of tea. But this one is …. different. Warm Bodies, and it’s really brilliant. One of the universal themes in zombie stories is answering the question, how did they become zombies? The answers range from disease to disaster. But Warm Bodies engages the conversation with sin, evil, and repentance because it is really a story about love.

The zombie hero is designated R, and R meets up with Julia, who is not a zombie. But rather than doing what zombies do, which I’d rather not talk about here, R befriends Julia. And what we have is a brilliant, poignant, truthful story about disintegration – sin and evil, and connection and life – healing and wholeness. You see, a zombie is a human being caught in decay and disintegration, a zombie is a placeholder for isolation and alienation. A zombie is someone who walks through life without really living, wandering in the wilderness, in exile. And the antidote is repentance, the antidote is turning toward the source of love, the antidote is connection. The antidote is to be changed, refined, from the inside out.

And when connection happens, in this wonderful zombie story, and in our own lives, when love soaks into our sinews and our muscles and our skin, God’s love as shown forth in incarnation, God’s love as shown forth in the body that is Jesus, we are saved from the wandering, we are saved from the disintegration of our bodies and souls, we are saved from the death of living in fear. You see death is not something that happens at the end of life, or the end of this story, death is what happens when no one cares about life, and one another, and the planet. Many are walking around zombielike, disconnected from the reality that is love.

Advent prepares us for that new reality. Advent prepares us to be alive, with God’s image stamped on us. Advent prepares us to lift our hands to God and to one another and turn away from all that would disconnect and disintegrate us. Advent prepares us to face the murkiness and messiness of this life and know that in the midst of the mud, we are full of God in the flesh. Advent prepares us to be cleansed in the refiner’s fire and come out scarred, but strong. Advent prepares us for the end of the story, while living in the middle.

Thanks be to God, for this life, for staying awake, for connection and for love.

First Sunday of Advent Yr A Dec 1 2019

Audio  First Sunday of Advent Yr A Dec 1 2019

Isaiah 2:1-5, Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:36-44, Psalm 122

Prophecy

We enter into the season of Advent, the season of waiting and preparing. Advent, the season that demands that we be in three whens at once, the when that has been, the when that is now, and the when that is not yet. It is not an easy place to rest.

A hard part of Advent is that we don’t really know what to do with it. Our culture has been at Christmas since Halloween. Completely skipping over the now and not yet hard stuff of Advent, the beginning the middle and the end of this sacred story. Before we arrive at incarnation, God in the flesh, the birth of the baby in a barn, we’ve got some work to do.

Matthew’s gospel gets us started this Advent, this story that traces the days of Noah before the flood, eating and drinking, and knowing nothing of the flood. And then continues with two in the field and one taken, two in the kitchen and one taken. Stay awake, Matthew warns us, stay awake. Not because you are so afraid you cannot sleep, but because God is doing something amazing.

Today we are working on prophecy. Prophecy is a word that has multiple meanings. We have heard it used to talk about telling the future, predicting events. We have heard it used to describe a particular type of preaching, prophetic preaching. Prophecy is a big part of the belief we have of what will be, we may call that end times, we may call that revelation or apocalypse. But for us, here and now, prophecy is a call to change. It is a call to change course, do something differently. To take seriously following Jesus in the here and now, not at some later time. This prophecy calls us to stay awake!

The events that are described in scripture, and specifically in Matthew’s gospel, are signs of God’s awesome power, and they are a terror only to the faithless. Remember, the arc of God’s love bends toward mercy and compassion, there is no reason to be afraid. Sometimes this passage from Matthew has been used to make us afraid. It is one that has been wielded as a weapon to keep us in line as we hope that we are the one to be taken, or raptured, and not left behind.

Prophecy is not to terrify us; prophecy is to call us to change. Sometimes, that change needs be drastic, prophecy may call us from death to life. But not out of fear, but out of love, the love that God shows us in the incarnation, in appearing in the flesh, then, now, and yet to come.

Prophecy, the call to change is all around us. We see it in our climate, we see how important it is that we care for this creation that God gives us, or we will continue to experience the extremes of weather. We see it in our culture, we see how important it is that we treat each other with mercy, compassion, justice, or we will continue to walk down the road of fake news and name calling, disintegration. We see it in our neighborhoods and our families, we see how important it is that we love our neighbor, the ones that don’t look or think or love like us.

Our scripture calls us into this relationship with God through Jesus, that turns us around, that rights us, that heals us. And our scripture shows us that wholeness and healing may not happen in this physical life, but indeed will happen when our hearts and souls are joined with God and the communion of saints in the eternal now.

Prophecy is not only in our scripture. Prophecy, the call to change, is part of our storytelling. The prophetic story shows us a world that may be if humanity doesn’t pay attention or stay awake to what is happening around us. Stories, the world building of novels, can help us see what profound change may be needed in our world today.

Madeleine L’engle’s story, A Wrinkle in Time, begins with a family in sorrow, at the disappearance of the father. The oldest daughter, Meg, her youngest brother, Charles Wallace, and her friend, Calvin, encounter three beings, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which. These beings call the children into a journey that will save their father and bring new light and hope to the world as well. This is a story that acts as prophecy, a story that shows us what the world might look like if we humans don’t do something different right now. This is a story that calls us to change.

I want to pick the story up at a very dark place, the children have traveled to a very dark world, a world shrouded by a dark cloud. On this dark world they discover an IT, that holds all of the inhabitants in power and fear and has captured not only the father the children are looking for, but the child, Charles Wallace as well. Our hero, Meg, encounters IT, and must free both her father and her brother. Meg discovers the means by which she can free her father and her brother. She must love herself, and she must love others. She must live into her own uniqueness. Meg is indeed the square peg in a world with only round holes. On this dark planet is the lie that they are all happy because they are all alike. On this dark planet is the lie that there is only one way to think and to be, and as long as everyone falls in line, everyone will be happy. It is clear in this prophetic story a world away, that power rules, not love. And power over people results in darkness and death, whereas empowering people through love, and active love, not a romantic feeling, results in freedom.

Darkness and death are dire. Love, the love that is born into our time as a small baby, the love that was put to death on a cross, the love that was raised from the dead, the love that changes us, transforms us, frees us, is what the prophets point us to. This is the love that calls us into life, this is the love that frees us to love fiercely.

Sometimes, I think this prophetic little story is happening today. It seems like there is a darkness covering us. A darkness capable of fragmenting us into pieces of hate. But the light shines in the darkness, the light of love, the light of hope, the light of peace, the light of joy.

The prophets show us the way. You are loved, God’s love in this world matters. Carry that love, that light, into all of the places you find yourself. In this Advent, this coming of God, this incarnation, stay awake, be ready, you are God’s beloved, you belong to God already.

Christ the King Nov 24 2019

Audio  Christ the King Nov 24 2019

Jeremiah 23:1-6, Psalm 46, Colossians 1:11-20, Luke 23:33-43

Christ the King Sunday, the ultimate paradox. Christ the King, whose throne is the cross. What we see is not what we get. This particular paradox is difficult for me. Kingship as we have learned throughout history has been much more about tyranny than about justice and mercy and charity.

You may have gathered that my favorite reading material is science fiction and fantasy, with some historical fiction thrown in. There are two books in which I have learned most about the kingship of the cross. In The Horse and His Boy, book 5 in the Chronicles of Narnia series, by C.S. Lewis, King Lune says to his son Prince Cor, “For this is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there's hunger in the land to laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land.”

And the other book is a trilogy of stories called collectively The Song of Albion, by Stephen R Lawhead. This is an epic story about a young man who enters into an alternate world, a world of kings and queens, of quests and wars, an alternate world that is quite related to our own world, what happens in one affects the other. Our main character enters this alternate world through one of the thin places of Celtic mythology. Upon entering, he begins to live a new life with new hopes and dreams. Eventually it becomes clear that he is to be the king of this land. He becomes a king who understands his kingship as constituted by the people, he is only king as much as they are his people. He leads his army into the battles, he gives up his coat, his food, for those of his land that need it. Eventually he comes to the time when he must ultimately sacrifice his life for his people, it brings him great sadness, but he does so out of mercy and compassion.

Is there a king that is recorded in the history books like these kings? Most often, history books are about the winners, not the kings who gave their lives for their people. Those kings would be regarded as weak, noneffective, and are quickly forgotten.

Christ the King, whose throne is the cross. Jesus, the shepherd through whom we know God. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in Jesus all things in heaven and on earth were created. In Jesus all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Jesus God was pleased to reconcile all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the cross.

One of the criminals who was hanged there with Jesus said to him “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” And it is as if Jesus thought to himself, “I am King of the Jews, but I can’t save myself because I am saving you.” Here is the paradox. This is kingship as presented by God through Jesus. It runs absolutely counter to Messiah as it had been conceived in those times, Messiah as those who waited were prepared for.

Jesus, born in a barn, proclaimed as a King, as Mary’s song proclaims, he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, he has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly, he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.

We use Kingly language, like sovereign Lord; we use Kingly images, like Christ who sits on a throne, and yet we also tell the story of the baby born in a stable, to parents who had nothing, who grew to be a man who was thrown out of the temple and whose throne is a cross.

Jesus announced the kingdom of God was drawing near. But Jesus upended and undermined the whole concept of kingship. The world’s kingdoms are about power and prestige; Jesus is about mercy and compassion. The rulers of this world may be about coercion and violence; Jesus’ life was characterized by peace and reconciliation.

I think this paradox of Jesus as King, and Jesus as the one who eats with tax collectors and women, whose closest friends were of bunch of smelly fishermen, is the most difficult image for me to reconcile. I am much more comfortable with the Jesus who wears Birkenstocks and jeans and a tee shirt, than Jesus who wears a crown and a robe. Kings spent all of their time building up riches of gold, silver, and jewels, but Jesus owned nothing at all. Kings surround themselves with servants; Jesus chose to be a servant. But, today, we are asked to hold both images in tension, Christ the king, whose throne is a cross, and in so doing we see a fuller picture.

Worldly kingship implies power; power over others, authority over people. But Jesus did not exercise this sort of power and authority. Jesus’ power and authority are shared, not possessed. Jesus’ power is not over people, but with and through people. Kingdom is the inbreaking of a new order, an order that doesn’t just drive out the old order, but that reorders all relationships. The criminal hanging on the cross next to Jesus recognized this power and authority, the power and authority to love absolutely, the power and authority to forgive. Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Jesus, the one who comes to show us the way to God, Jesus, the one who is King of all creation, is at the very same time the one who lived life just like you and me, who loved his friends and family, who suffered and died, just like you and me. For what good is a God who sits back and watches, what good is a God who rules from afar, what good is a God that holds power over people. Jesus is the one who loves, the criminal who hangs next to him, the mother who cries below him, the friends who betray him.

Kingship for Jesus is giving himself totally and absolutely for the love of his people. It is this love that you and I must respond to. It is this love that is transforming love. It is this love that reconciles and redeems. It is this love that causes us to love ourselves, it is this love that causes us to love one another, it is this love that gives us hope. Jesus’ love changes us.

We are changed through the realization that each one of us is loved completely and absolutely, just like that person on the cross next to Jesus, not for what we’ve done or not done, but for who we are. What kind of change happens in us for us to declare, Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom? It is the kind of change that causes each one of us to know that none of us is in this life alone, and none of us gets out of this life alive. It’s the kind of change that causes us to know that perfection is not the way, but love and forgiveness are. It is the kind of change that causes us to serve, like Jesus serves, the person next to us. Whether that person is next to us in our pew here in church, or that person is next to us in line at the grocery store, or that person is the one with whom you disagree most vehemently.

We are changed through the realization that when we fall short of the kind of love Jesus demonstrates for us, and we will fall short, that is part of being human, we are forgiven. Forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing. Forgiveness not just once, but time and time again. Not even just until we get it right, because it’s not about getting it right. It’s about responding to Jesus love with love, and when we don’t, we ask for forgiveness. It’s about responding with love to the encounters along our paths, and when we don’t, we ask for forgiveness.

We begin our Advent journey next week. We begin our preparations for the coming of Christ into our hearts, and into our lives, for all time and all places. We begin our waiting in hope at this place of the cross, and this place of paradox, at this place where kingdom comes, and where love and forgiveness prevail. We begin at the place of remembering, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. We begin at the place of forgiveness, today you will be with me in Paradise. We begin at the place of grace, for you are absolutely and abundantly loved. Thanks be to God.