When there was nothing but God

Wilderness is a potent symbol in the telling of God's story.

In the beginning, when God began creating, there was nothing; thus the primal wilderness.  In this space, God was - moving with power, calling into being, distinguishing and separating - a pure experience of divine power, imagination, and creativity.  It set the stage for what wilderness could be, a time and place where the Divine Creator was at work, shaping new paths, bringing light to new visions.

When the people of Israel landed in the Sinai wilderness, it would have been helpful if they had remembered this.  But it is hard.  It is hard to lean into the future when the world you have known disappears.  It is hard to trust that something life-giving will be revealed when your heart is weighted down with grief over what has been lost.  It is hard to put one foot in front of the other when there is no destination in sight and worry fills the wee hours of the morning. Faithfulness to God's calling and trusting in God's powerful presence frequently looks like foolishness and folly.

In those spaces, at those times, we need the God who brings life out of nothing more than some star dust and love.  Thank God that is exactly the God who has come to us and claimed us as 'beloved children' both in the garden and in the wilderness, in life and in death.

Please, not the wilderness!

Whatever counts as wilderness in your life, I'd bet you would prefer to avoid it.  It might be that time between test and diagnosis or those months after a romantic break-up.  It might be those long, painful days into weeks (please God not too many months) between jobs.  It can even be that horrid time when a loved one is lost, a lifetime of work is destroyed, or a dream is shattered.

The wilderness is that place where the wild things are - beyond civilization, beyond the familiar, outside the norms. Animals with names like uncertainty, fear, anxiety, insomnia....and the worst of emotions, insecurity roam free and flourish.  It is the place where whatever you considered absolutely essential (the very word means 'necessary for life') which might have been as mundane as a short line at the coffee shop, has now morphed into the most basic of human needs:  a kind word, a place to sit, a little comfort food.

And that's just the first stage of wilderness living.

In the wilderness, we are naked.  All of our status is stripped away.  Perhaps that is the first pain.  We no longer have a title, like 'teacher' or 'barista' or 'husband' or 'healthy.'  We no longer have an answer to that friendly question, "What do you do?"   or maybe "How's it going?" Routine is gone; expectations shift.

But, of course, it goes deeper.  We are unnerved by whatever has thrown us into this barren place without road markers, without GPS.  Who am I?  How did I get here?  Where am I going?  How will I make it?  Looking back on it, our teen years were probably the first time we were conscious of this unsettling wilderness space.  In a space without boundary lines to mark our edges, we fear flying off the face of the earth.  We think we will disintegrate; we will lose ourselves.

Oh Lord, how we hate the wilderness.  Please don't send us there.

It's a cry that our Lord might not truly understand, for if we spend some time in the God story we call the Bible, the wilderness is where God does some of her best work.  Sinai?  Elijah escaping Jezebel?  Jesus in the Judean desert?  Jonah? 

See you tomorrow.

Wrestling with the cross.....again

"Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."  Luke 14.27

Mention a cross and Christians think Good Friday with its unbearable image of a suffering, dying Jesus nailed to a cross, arms outstretched, chest bared to the world, stripped of everything.  But it is not his naked form which causes us to avert our eyes, but his powerless vulnerability and the wrenching violence of the scene.  For people of faith, the Good Friday cross is deep mystery, other worldly power, and - somehow - a promise.  When Jesus speaks of us carrying the cross, it is also frightening.

Our fear is not grounded in our death; our fear is grounded in the possibility that this cross is calling us to a particular manner of living.  We fear that we are called to live with arms outstretched, vulnerable, and powerless: stripped of the masks behind which we hide, the defenses we have built to protect ourselves,  and all of our resources including bank accounts and storage units.  Our fear is that faith in the Jesus who was crucified in some manner demands that we, like him, are emptied of power and solely dependent on the Creator God.  I think it does.

"Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."

Yet, it will not be soldiers who nail us to our modern cross of faith but love: that deep love of God which we have come to know through Jesus.  It will be the love that has transformed us by crushing our hearts of stone and giving us hearts of flesh.  It will be the love of Jesus which has opened our eyes to our neighbors - no longer categories and labels and judgments - but wounded and gifted children of the Creator God.  It will be the love that builds relationships based not on family connections but on forgiveness and reconciliation which will bind us to this path.

It is this love which draws us to follow Jesus and calls us to carry our imperfect version of this life giving love with us - wherever we go, whomever we meet, and whatever the consequences.  As it flowed from Jesus to us, it now flows from us into the world.  We cannot put it down because we have discovered that the life we live inside this love is our most valuable possession. 

If we look closely, this cross of life-giving love for every corner of creation is the same cross Jesus carried, loving the haughty and the low, healing the broken, inviting the outcast.  His cross is our cross.

So now I must confess that my fear is real; I am afraid to do it; I am afraid that I cannot.  I struggle to release old patterns of behavior, old prejudices, and all the privileges I enjoy.  Luther was right when he wrote, "I cannot by my own strength or understanding come to faith in our Lord Jesus".  I fear what I will lose, most especially I fear that in the end, I will lose my grasp of this precious gift of grace which is Jesus.

So Jesus sits down at the table and holds up a loaf of bread and says to us, 'Whenever you gather together with bread, remember!  Remember!'  Breaking it he reminds us 'This is my body, broken for you.  Every time you raise a cup together, remember!  This is my blood poured out - in love - for you.  Wherever you go, I am there.  Remember!' 

Fed and nourished, we walk the way of cross together, you and me and Jesus, out of love, and for the sake of the world. 

Of course we trust! Have no fear.......

Have no fear little flock.  It is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

We in America tend to hear the scriptures as lessons for us as individuals.  We find it difficult to assume a group perspective (it's a cultural thing, not a criticism).  We have to work at considering what Jesus might be saying to us 'as a group' and in this case, as a faith community.

Jesus' message "Have no fear little flock" is a message which speaks to us as members of the body of Christ. It acknowledges that, even as we turn towards Jesus as individuals, we are also now members of Jesus' 'flock' joined together through the Holy Spirit around the presence of the risen Jesus.

As Jesus makes his way towards Jerusalem in the gospel of Luke, he gathers the crowds close for teaching, to prepare them for those days when they will be the carriers of his message of hope.  These words are for the church that was yet to be formed.  Have no fear.  There is nothing easy about that commandment.  First century believers were to face persecution and death with a courage we can only imagine.

Letting go of our fear.  Trusting only in God.  Allowing the power of God's love for us in Jesus to cast out our fear - this is hard work.  It is no easier for our communities of faith in the 21st. century than it was for that faithful band of believers in the 1st century.  They faced the power of Rome as an oppressed people.  We face a shifting society where American culture has pronounced organized religion and whatever spiritual life it offers as 'irrelevant'.  We watch our communities of faith shrink and find it hard to talk about our faith with new generations. We worry about the future of our congregations; we fear their death.

What did the earliest believers do when faced with not just the death of their communities, but their own death as well?  They prayed.  They shared a meal of thanksgiving.  They told one another the stories of Jesus.  All this so they might find the courage to trust when the future seemed impossible.

Let us pray for one another in our fear.  Let us pray for insight and courage to step forward.  Let us share the living bread at the communion table.  Let us tell one another the stories of God's love for us in Jesus - so we might find the courage to be faithful and to trust, that the future of our congregation is in God's hands - the very one who in Jesus said,

Have no fear little flock.  It's the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 

What exactly makes the world go 'round?

The old song tells us it is 'love' but I think it is fear. The root of most of our decisions is fear.

We buy a home in the suburbs out of fear of the violence in the city.
We get education so we can get a good job out of fear of living hand to mouth.
We put money in our retirement accounts out of fear of running out of money before we die.
We eat kale out of fear.......well, I have no idea why we eat kale.

And yet!  For some, a simple trip to the local WalMart to buy school supplies turns deadly.  For a 13 year old boy the decision to not remove his cap during the national anthem ended with a complete stranger slamming him to the ground and fracturing his skull.  Add to that the reality that
......some of us will run out of money.
......some will be overwhelmed with medical debt.
......some good jobs will disappear overnight.

On that day when our lives are measured not in years but in the number of breaths we have remaining we will not want to hear how the Dow Jones Industrial Average did that day, nor what the latest medical tests reveal.  We will want to have our loved ones close by and to hear these words

Have no fear little flock.  It's the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

It is an unqualified promise made to us by the one who from the very beginning of the story has coaxed the beloved creation to give up its fear and to trust the Divine Creator.  This is a promise made by the God who manifest faithfulness to Israelites through manna, quail and water in the wilderness.  This is the promise made by our Lord Jesus as he took on flesh, healed dangerous diseases, repaired the breech in communities and emptied the tomb.  

Have no fear little flock.

And yet!  We pile up our bricks of gold and build bigger barns knowing that when our breath fails we will jettison all the stuff of this world and seek the face of the one who has implored us to trust.

Henri Nouwen wrote, "You have a short time - 20,40, 60, 80 years - to discover and believe that you are a beloved child of God. It is a short opportunity to say to God 'I love you too.'"

Jesus speaks to his 'little flock' of disciples - both the 12 and the larger crowd that has gathered around him.  At least one of the 12 was overcome with his own fear.  Many of the larger flock fled from any association with his name.  Jesus preached love in the face of fear then, just as he reaches out in love today.

Have no fear little flock.

The Good Shepherd calls.

Fear and Power

Fear and Power.

The story told in the 6th chapter of Mark begins with the dilemma of who Jesus really and truly was. People just didn't know what to do with all the stories they had heard, and possibly even the healings and miraculous feedings they had observed. Who is this man of Nazareth called Jesus?    'Some say Elijah or one of the prophets of old,' we are told.  

But Herod was sure it was John the Baptist, raised from the dead.  And Herod was afraid.  The big guy was afraid.  So much power, so much fear.

You see, for a man with so much power, Herod spent a great deal of energy being afraid.  He was afraid that one of his sons would gain too much power and overthrow him (so he had them killed).  He was afraid that Rome would throw him out of office.  He was afraid that John the Baptist was preaching the truth about his marriage/morality and folks would listen to him, a rebellion would break out and undermine his power. He was afraid that John the Baptist was, in fact, a prophet (for Herod recognized him as a holy and righteous man) and there might be cosmic consequences for his actions. I believe in some corner of Herod's heart (a corner he apparently assiduously ignored) Herod was afraid of God.

It all started at a lavish banquet complete with a dancing girl where Herod was afraid of looking weak in front of his rich acquaintances at his birthday feast. I imagine a large quantity of alcohol in an atmosphere of seduction led to his foolish promise, but now, Herod is haunted by that night.  'I will give you whatever you ask even to half of my kingdom" he promised.  She wanted John's head.  On a platter.

This is a young girl who will soon be married off to whomever pleases her parents.  In most situations, she is counted among the powerless.  But not that night.  That night she had Herod right where she (or probably more accurately, her mother) wanted him.  She was powerful because Herod was afraid.

Fear and Power.  Power and fear.  Did I mention they go together like hand in glove?

Mark 6.14-29

Power and fear

Seems they go together like hand in glove.  Power generates fear; fear gives space for power.

I mention this because the story of Jesus of Nazareth should never be read in a vacuum.  Jesus, like his cousin John before him, lived, worked, taught, preached in an atmosphere of fear thanks to the power of the ruling Roman Empire.  Remember always to read those sweet Sunday School Bible stories with a fully armed and underpaid Roman Soldier standing at your shoulder.

(As an aside, consider the long list of potential sources of power:  political, economic, gender, race, military, public reputation, sexual, even, my friends, religious.  There are many empires with power over our comings and goings.)

I mention this because this week John the Baptist loses his head.  Actually it had happened in a previous episode and we are getting a flashback from Herod, but this is the point in the gospel story according to Mark that we actually learn about it.

Some will say that John lost his head even before that terrible moment in the castle dungeon.  He insisted on calling Herod out on his ill-advised marriage to his brother's (I assume she is now his ex) wife.  Herod prided himself on his Jewish connections and the Torah is clear about this particular situation; you can not marry your brother's wife.  Simple as that.

John kept pointing this out.  Publicly. Embarrassing?  Annoying for sure.  Particularly since Herod recognized John as a holy and righteous man, and thought a conversation with John might do him some good.  So he arrested him which accomplished two things:  no more public pronouncements about Herod's morality and Herod could always find John for a quiet conversation any time of day or night

When you think about it, it's a pretty strange situation.  On the face of it, John had no power over Herod at all and yet Herod hesitated to silence John because he feared ......what?  Public backlash? His own conscience?  God?

This powerful and brutal man hesitated because of a still, small voice?

Hmmm.  Power and fear lead us to do curious things.


Mark 6.14-29

Locked doors work both ways

The Gospel of John, 20th chapter tells us that on the evening of Easter Sunday, the disciples locked themselves in an upper room because they feared for their life.  Now the writer says that the disciples were afraid that the authorities would find them.  You have to think they were a little worried that a risen Jesus would find them too.  A 'he who we thought was dead' Jesus on the loose in the world might have been too frightening to consider.


Whatever they were thinking inside that room, they certainly needed time to process (great 21st century term).  Perhaps the more level headed amongst them were still trying to make sense out of the women's tales about a missing, risen, alive Jesus.  You and I both know that we have no category in our thinking for such a phenomena; they were wrestling with something that up to that very day was impossible.  Ridiculous.  Out of this world.

A dozen or so people crammed into an airless room, suspicious of each other, and afraid of everyone else.........it wasn't a good atmosphere for rational thinking.  But of this I am certain, no matter what they were thinking or believing, they weren't about to take it to the streets and blab it all over the place.  That kind of thing was dangerous! They locked the door.  To keep the authorities out.  To keep strangers out.  To keep themselves inside.

Bet you recognize that attitude, that reluctance to take the news about Jesus to the streets.  You know, I believe in God deeply but I don't talk about it with other people.  I don't want to offend.  I don't want to look like a fanatic.  I don't want to lose friends, business, or dinner invitations.  I keep my faith to myself.

We have all kinds of locked doors to protect ourselves. We lock out those of questionable background.  We lock out those who talk about God differently from us.  We lock out those who don't know our special way of doing things.  We lock out those whose children are unruly.  We lock out those who can no longer make the stairs or hear the preacher or drive their cars.  We lock out those who speak a different language.

We lock out anyone who qualifies as 'other.' which of course is the most ironic, if not sad.  In the name of Jesus, we lock out the very people Jesus went out of his way to invite in.  Jesus who spent his entire ministry changing the locks, throwing open the doors, welcoming everyone and anyone, is now the reason we keep to ourselves.  Jesus found a way to speak with every stripe of human being; we huddle behind all kinds of barriers and avoid speaking to the stranger.

But when we lock others out, we also lock ourselves in.  We huddle in our worship spaces, repeating the prayers of the centuries, singing the most familiar music, as our numbers slowly diminish.  We lock the future out - and the fear inside only escalates. The very peace which we know in Jesus suffocates in our locked spaces, our locked minds and hearts.

....and we lose Jesus and the peace that he brings to us, the peace that he is to us, and the power of life that comes with that peace.

Yet, hear the good news.  No lock is going to keep Jesus from coming to you.  This crucified and risen Jesus will not be stopped by a cross, a tomb, a locked door...or a barricaded heart.  In him is peace, and that peace is a whole new life.  There is no end or limit to it.

Jesus appears to the grieving and frightened disciples not to scold or to judge, but to bring them peace.  That is the gift he continues to offer to every single person, a gift so powerful that once it is yours, you cannot lock it in either.

Doors.  Locks. Fear.
Jesus. Peace. Life.

Behind locked doors

For those of us allowed the privilege of proclaiming the gracious love of God in Jesus on a weekly basis, the story of "Doubting Thomas" is familiar.  It is always the lesson assigned to the first Sunday after Easter.  If you been preaching for 20 years, you have wrestled with a message about Thomas 20 times.

Many times the message is about faith v. doubt.  Since I believe most folks have moments - months - years of doubt, I think this kind of reflection can be helpful.  I'm pretty sure I've preached a couple of these myself.

But this year, I want to talk about doors.  The story tells us that the disciples had locked themselves in an upper room because they were afraid.  Now the writer of the gospel of John says they were afraid of the Jews, but if you know a little bit about the community for which John wrote, you begin to realize that 'the Jews' was shorthand for anyone who strongly opposed this new way of believing.  So we might substitute 'the Jewish leadership' for John's constant harping on 'the Jews'.  I expect the disciples were afraid of the Romans who had the authority to arrest and execute whomever they wished,   But to compromise, let's use the phrase 'the authorities.'

The disciples were afraid of the authorities; they didn't want anyone to know where they were - huddled together, with the rank fragrance of sweat pooling in the small, airless room.  Ten men plus some women crammed in this room, scared to death - not just of the authorities, but of one another!  Who knew if there was yet another Judas in their midst?  I expect they kept a close eye on one another.....

....which brings me to doors. They locked themselves in.  They closed themselves off from the rest of the world.  They were suspicious of strangers and not really sure of one another I would guess.

None of which stopped the risen Jesus.  Not the door.  Not their fear.  Not their total failure to stand by him in his most agonizing hour.  Jesus simply appeared.

If a cross, a stone and a tomb can't lock you in, do you really think a locked door is going to keep you out?  Jesus simply appears - to bring a word of peace, which is a word of forgiveness and love.  "Do not be afraid"  he says.  A tall order on any day of the week.

Jesus steps into the center of their grief and paralyzing fear, not to scold or judge, but to bring peace.

.....which is what Jesus is doing today as well....stepping into all those locked places of our lives, places which hold grief, anger, wounds, fear, doubt, hunger....and offers us peace.  Not judgement.  Not guilt.  Peace.

Walk any street and consider what truths are hiding behind all those locked doors. Consider all the hurting people hiding themselves away.  Know that this Jesus won't let a locked door stop him from bringing a word of peace.  You can count on it.  You can count on him.  He's right there waiting to be peace in your life.

Do not be afraid of this one from God.  He comes in peace.

Deep in my secret heart: fear

Fears.  That's the second thing we bury deep within our secret heart.  Not the easily negated kinds of fears.  Oh no.  The big fears - the often irrational fears - the "I can't say them outloud or they will come true" fears.

I can name a few of mine but of course this is only helpful if you are naming a few of yours on your end of the computer.  When my children were small I had an irrational fear that my husband would die and leave me to raise the children all alone.  That fear had a lot to do with my own estimation of my incompetence and who wants to admit to their middle class neighbors that they are fairly sure they are incompetent as a parent.

Abandonment is also tied into that pretty little package.  I expect it has a lot to do with the early death of both my sister and father.  But there it was.  I was going to be Left Alone.  The irony, of course, is that, having been widowed now for 17 years, that is exactly what has happened, and it isn't nearly as fearful as I imagined, even though it was fear filled in different ways.

We are afraid that we will die a bad death....or have to watch as someone we love dies in pain.  Is that one of yours?

We press these fears back into the corner of our secret heart, guarding them, nursing them, watching to see if our worst fears will come true.

What is God's wisdom for us?  "I know."  I know about your fears, even that silly one about going down into the basement at night.  I know.  I want to cast out all fear and I can do that when you trust in the perfect love I have for you.  But until then, I will stand right here beside you.  I will walk with you through the valley of the shadow of death.  I will hold your hand if it helps.

There is no place you will have to go that I am unwilling to travel with you.  I have already reached down to the lost ones and called them back into relationship again.  You are mine and you are beloved.

Ahhhhh, if we could only believe with as much energy as we fear.

"teach me wisdom in my secret heart."

I hate being wrong

I'm not talking about getting Babe Ruth's lifetime batting average wrong. Who can remember all that detail?

I mean when I am caught being a jerk.  When I am devoid of compassion.  When I say stupid things.  When I have failed to show the love that lies within me.  When I am tight fisted; even more so when my heart is made of stone.

I hate it when it takes me only seconds to realize that I have done it again.  I have brought sadness and hurt into someone's life.  I have wounded another or bought into my own jealousy or envy. I have gleefully accepted the benefits of a system which unfairly cheats another - and claimed no responsibility. You want to know what I really hate it? I really hate it when someone else calls me on it.  I really hate being a public sinner.

I want to run from that awful feeling so I often compound the whole mess by trying to justify my actions, mitigate the impact of my words, pretend that I had the best intentions.  I have a closet full of excuses:  I was tired, I wasn't feeling well, the other person was nasty, they behaved badly, I owed them nothing.  They are, however, only excuses.

The reason I fall into this pit is singular.  I am afraid and fear makes us stupid (and blind and deaf too I think). It paralyzes us.  We can no longer think straight, and we certainly can't hear the voice of Jesus nor feel the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

Then it isolates us.  When fear is in control, we cannot form real community.  Community requires an enormous share of giving:  giving of ourselves but also giving others the space to live equally blessed lives.

Perhaps you have experienced this as well and recognize that dark, lonely place where you are afraid that this horrible moment of sin is all that you have to give in this world.  You will always be defined by it.  It will always control you.  You are no better than this ....this....person!

I think that son who ran off with half his father's money and then had to come home groveling for forgiveness and mercy felt much the same way.  Yet, much to his surprise, his father was there, waiting for him, rejoicing at his return, celebrating with all.  (Luke 15)

Jesus stands in the road watching and waiting for us to turn around, to leave our stupidity behind and trust in his mercy and love.  On those days when I am dead wrong, it is only the love of God that can call me to life.  Welcome home, brother, we've missed you.