....and he began to wash the disciples' feet....

When I prepare for a funeral, I sit quietly and await the Holy Spirit.  Holding what I know about the now deceased, I wait for the Holy Spirit to guide me to a scripture passage that will open the gates of heaven for those who grieve.

Once it was Genesis 1  "In the beginning when God began creating....and God said, Let there be light and there was light and God saw that it was good."

Once it was Moses arguing with God.  Once it was Mary anointing the feet of Jesus.  Today it was Jesus washing the feet of the disciples.

It came to me as I drove to the cemetery for a graveside service (sometimes the Holy Spirit waits until the last moment).  I could picture the joy and relief and comfort it would have brought this woman to have someone who loved her so deeply wash her feet and welcome her into his house. She was not always welcome; she rarely felt welcomed.  This public witness of Jesus' deep love for her; this sign of release from a challenging and difficult life and beginning of a new and glorious life; this moment of being ministered to......these were the pictures of heaven that came to mind.

I wanted to say so much more than 'she is with the Lord' (although God knows that is a powerful blessing and promise).  I wanted everyone to be able to picture her with the Lord, tickled pink that someone was fussing over her, settling in to her new life with God.  

This is how the stories of faith are used: they give us a narrative that points to God and the hope we find in the promise of Jesus. The narrative is the receiving blanket for a unique experience of hope - transcendent hope - hope that is a taste of the eternal.  The narrative holds God's promises and attempts to pass onto us the power and experience of this God.  We enter the story, identify with one of the characters, resonate with the hope found there.

God is always bigger than the story.  The parts of God which remain hidden are much greater than the parts which the stories reveal, but the glory......the life....the healing....the wholeness....the hope....of our Lord Jesus is there.  There is God's story and there is our story and then.......there is the story that will be written one day down the road.

....when Jesus began washing the disciples' feet....

....but without the traffic jams

It is hard to hold onto a belief in a kingdom to come.....a world that is divinely formed by, in and with the Spirit.....a community of grace.  It is just hard to believe that it just might be so some day.

Most of the time we think of the kingdom of God as this world minus the traffic jams, and cancer, and probably wars and child abuse.  But the kingdom that Jesus keeps talking about where the meek will be blessed and the hungry full is too good to be true.  It is beyond....beyond here, beyond our imagination, and beyond our ability to bring it into being.

Which, I guess, is a good place to start.  We cannot bring this kingdom into being.  Jesus did.  In his body, among us, and for our sake.  Jesus was the opening.  God hides in, with and under Jesus and together they break into the world we know and begin to bring into being the kingdom where God's way is the only way.

So we 'watch' as Jesus feeds 5000 with a meager lunch and heals a man born blind and walks on water (why not?  If you can heal a man born blind, what is walking on water?).  We certainly know we can't do these things and so we are faced with at least two possibilities:  the stories are exaggerations because nothing like that can occur in the world as we know it.....OR.....Jesus has access to a world beyond this one.  It is a world where God's rule is absolute: not in a power hungry sense but rather in an 'absolutely best case scenario' sense.  Or as the Bible is wont to say, a place and time where we will live in God's glory.

My guess is that you have (at one time in your life) experienced this time and place where the demands and brokenness and rejections and hurts of this world fall away and you are infused with the power of life and light.  For a moment you glimpse the better you and a purity of oneness with the world or your family or possibly even your God.  For a moment you don't even need to breathe.  For a moment you experienced God and the kingdom God invites you into.

Then we move back into this time and this place and seek to see the Lord's face again, to taste the power of God's presence, to be the better you that you glimpsed.  It is here that believing in a kingdom to come is so difficult.

Don't let go of the vision, the hope, the promise that Christ brings to us.  Seek after the face of God like you'd seek after a great deal on a new car...because in the end the car will rust and the kingdom will be yours forever.

Splashing in the water

We'll be splashing in the water this week as we approach Luke's account of the baptism of Jesus. 
Starting at Luke3.15, the people were "filled with expectation" - not about their baptism, nor even about Jesus, but about John - the Baptizer.  They are trying to figure out exactly who John is.

"Filled with expectation" would describe most parents who bring their children to the font for baptism.  Many are 'filled with expectation' about the child's life, future, possible accomplishments, even how positively all that would reflect on them.  Most have a vague understanding of the importance or benefit of baptism for their child or themselves; they have few expectations around baptism.

I get it.  We are looking for a moment of decision; a transformation in the person; a radically different tomorrow.  We are looking for action, and baptism looks amazingly passive to us.  Since Lutherans baptize infants, we don't get any of those things.  Instead, we get God at work through the water and the Word to anoint us with the Spirit and enfold us into the community.

In fact, most of us believe that infants are simply too innocent to be in need of 're-creation'.  For it is re-creation which is taking place - a new birth into a life found in Jesus Christ.  Away with the old - the life warped by our own sin and the nastiness of others.  In with a life defined by Christ: where each of us is seen with eyes of unconditional love and shaped by that love to live life for the sake of the other. 

So if that is what we believe is happening, we can easily figure out that our baptism is lived out over the course of our lifetime.  Baptism is the starting point of a journey of faith which grows and curves and morphs throughout our years.  Whatever this life throws at us, we can claim that moment when we and Christ were joined.  Whatever may happen, we, like Luther, can claim solace and strength in the words  "I am a baptized child of God."

BTW, the big decision at the font is the decision made by the parents - that this is where life for their child can be found - and they are committed to supporting that journey by teaching and example throughout their child's life.  Those promises made at the font join us all together in the adventure of growing more like Christ, teaching others about Jesus, praying for one another regularly, and sharing our blessings with others.  Anytime we get lost in our faith, look again at the baptismal promises, and then go and do exactly what you promised.  God will find you once again.

A promise and a laugh

Abraham and Sarah.  They are a team.  They are God's team.  It it to them that God's promise of an heir will be fulfilled.  You can understand why they were a little unsure of this promise.  They were two very old people.  Sarah had never borne a child.  They wanted to believe, but the years were still slipping away and no baby.

So they tried to 'help' God along; Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham as a wife and a son Ishmael was born.  But the promise was for Abraham and Sarah, not Abraham and just anybody. 

So the covenant, the promise, is reiterated and marked with a divine name change.  Abram would now be Abraham (father of many nations) and Sarai would now be Sarah and they would have a son. 

For people of faith, life is a series of discernments.  Do I hold onto the promise I understood God to make?  Did I get the details wrong?  Have I substituted my own voice for God's voice?  Do I 'help' the process along or just sit back and wait?

There is neither one answer nor an easy answer.  There are only questions, and prayers ascending in the night.  Abraham and Sarah believed, but it wasn't an easy road to walk, and I expect there were many days when they thought they were crazy.  Yet, in due time, Isaac (laughter) was born and Abraham became the father of many nations.

What concerns do our prayers carry to God?  Are we able to wait upon the Lord, to trust in the darkness, and to accept that God continues to act even when we see no movement, no change?  Who said it was easy to be a person of faith in the first place?  Certainly not I.