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.

40 years or 40 days, same old battle

"Trusting in God is hard work.  It requires that you lay down your point of view which is grounded in the past and assume God's point of view which is grounded in the future.  An unknown future.  No matter what is promised, there is no certainty about how the whole thing is going to play out.  So the only thing left is to trust in this God, God's love for you, God's good intentions, and God's ability to give what God has promised.  It's either that or whining.  Stuck in the wilderness, Israel whined their way to the promised land for all 40 of the years."

That was yesterday's meandering thoughts around the 40 years that Israel spent in the wilderness trying to find their way to the promised land.  Well, actually, they were trying to find their way to the place where they could trust God.  That place is the promised land for all of us.

But today we consider Jesus' 40 days in  the wilderness, sandwiched between his baptism and the temptations of the devil.  What kind of transition is at play here?  Are 'the temptations' not so much a destination but a playing out of the challenge of wilderness survival and trusting in God?

When you look at the whole scope of the story of Jesus, you can see that the baptism is the signal that Jesus is moving from whatever he was doing before (in Luke this includes the infancy narratives) and what he is being called to do as the Son of God.  He is anointed by the Holy Spirit - an ancient indicator of God's pleasure and calling, and simultaneously, an empowerment for the tasks ahead.  That same Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness; apparently it is time for Jesus to prepare for what lies ahead.

What lies ahead is temptation by the devil.  Now the devil generally represents that which challenges our devotion to God.  Certainly this is often 'evil' but it often simply starts out as just a convenient choice or a self-serving decision not some gigantic evil done to another.  That is exactly  how it starts out in the Lucan account of this encounter.  'Heh, Jesus, you're hungry.  No one is going to fault you for turning these stones into bread.  Really, it's no big deal.'  That was the devil's first ploy.

It is often said that the devil is in the details and so it is here.  For Jesus there is no such thing as 'no big deal' when it comes to choosing satisfying his comfort versus listening/following God's call.  Everything is important because God is all in all.  There stands Jesus with one foot in the local Subway shop and the other in the temple.  So the first temptation is to count some things 'no big deal.'

The devil ups the ante.  Now the temptation is about showing off how smart/ powerful/ beautiful/ blessed you are.  Just a little demonstration for the folks.  It will make it so much easier for the masses to believe you are the Son of God, Jesus, if you give them a little show.  So possibly the second temptation is to prove to others just how 'good' you are, how faithful you are, how compassionate you are.  It will make it so much easier for them to see you as the good Christian you are (or at least call you a good person at your funeral).

So the devil lays it out before Jesus.  You don't know what God has in store for you; grab the power now and enjoy yourself while you can.  We know what God has in store for Jesus and grabbing power while it is offered certainly looks like a good idea.  Except it is not God's idea; it is not God's plan; it is not the way to which Jesus is called.

The temptation for Jesus is the same as the temptation for us: to choose our wisdom over God's which is, in the end, to turn away from God.  Jesus pulled an A on this exam.  We never will.  Perfection will never be ours.

Except through Jesus....which is why we are eternally grateful for God's mercy and Jesus' faithfulness.

When were you last the Samaritan woman?

When were you last the Samaritan woman?

When was the last time the truth about your brokenness, sinfulness or just plain bad behavior didn't stop you from proclaiming God's goodness and mercy?

You and I are much like the Samaritan woman at the well.  Here is a quote from Jeff Christian, preacher at Bering Drive Church of Christ

             "We are members of the tradition of unlikely preachers who could do little better than to
              stand before God with open hearts.  A few of us even try to resist God at times.  We are
              God's little misfit children that keep coming back with stubborn gratitude.  But because of
               an undeniable salvation that God keeps offering to cracked pots like me and Nadia and
               probably you, we say, even with a little trepidation, 'Behold, I am the servant of the Lord.'"

Rev. Christian wrote this in an open apology to Nadia Bolz-Weber for the hurt that the Church of Christ and inflicted on her when she was a member.  Bolz-Weber is now a Lutheran pastor. When Rev. Christian heard her speak, he knew it was time to speak the truth about her experience.

He heard Nadia speak; he heard the gospel proclaimed.  He was touched both by God's message brought by Nadia and by the sin that had been committed against her.  So he spoke the truth and wrote an apology.  The truth, however inconvenient, was not to stand in the way of the proclamation of the good news.

Sort of like the Samaritan woman.  Sort of like you and me.

Keep telling God's story and your story and listen closely for the thirst in the other.  When you are focused on that, all the other stuff just fades away.

Ashes

Confession  - long, comprehensive, even arduous confession - is the gift of Ash Wednesday.

On this day, you can stand before the Lord.  No that's not quite right.  On this day you are invited to stand before the Lord and take some time to confess.  Take time to give it some thought, stop all the motion and consider the broken places in yourself, consider how your brokenness had led to harm for another, admit all the places where you have been bruised and battered by someone else's broken nature.  We are to bring to mind all that we have done which increased the darkness instead of the light.  We are to be honest about all the things which we didn't do, the things that were more than good, they were necessary.  It is a time to think about our own backyard, our neighborhood, our nation and even the world.

We bring all of this to the foot of the cross and are met there by the Lord whose love casts out all darkness.  In this place we are safe - for our Lord expects nothing from us but the truth, and offers to us nothing less than his perfect, life giving love.

Ash Wednesday is one of the Church's treasures.  Confession, God's
Word, Bread and Wine....as simple as that.  If you missed it yesterday, today is never too late.
Return to the Lord your God for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Joel 2

stop making me feel guilty....

I am called to be a pastor of this Church, the Christian one, a Lutheran persuasion.  So to be clear up front, I am well aware of the failures of the Church  - times when our humanness overshadowed any connection we might have had with the divine.  The Church has been guilty of supporting slavery, the Spanish Inquisition, burning Joan of Ark and John Hus at the stake....and a thousand other sins, large and small.

Local congregations have been guilty of moral judgmentalism, hypocrisy, petty conflict and both greed and parsimony in equal measures.  All these things are true.  If anyone should be aware of our own imperfection, it is the Church.

That however, doesn't change the perfect gift that is the grace of God in Jesus.  God called Jesus beloved and Jesus calls us the same.  The connection between the Divine and the Human was broken open through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  It's an open connection.  You are invited.  You are welcome.  You are loved.

I cannot fathom why this is not good news to folks.  I can understand that some folks think that it is irrelevant news of no interest to them.  But I cannot fathom how some can conceive of it as bad news.....but here is a possible clue.....

Stop making me feel guilty.  Stop saying I am doing stuff wrong and doing wrong stuff.  If you cannot say something that is uplifting and affirming than don't say anything at all.

OK but even if I remain silent, you will still feel guilty.  Because you already know that what you have done and what you have failed to do has caused this world to be a less friendly place.  Sometimes your actions arise from ignorance or inattentiveness.  Sometimes it's intentional, sometimes it's not.

I know this is true about you because it is true about me, and every other person I've ever met, and this kind of thing often becomes a burden we haul around everywhere.  We already know this stuff.  No one has to tell us.  But each of us does have to decide what to do with this truth about ourselves.

Jesus says, "Come, tell me the truth.  I already know it, but say it aloud so we can move past this road block.  Aren't you tired of the race to perfection?  Rest here, and let's put this behind us."  In Church language, we call that forgiveness.  You are welcome to call it whatever you like, but be assured it is a powerful release from the dance of perfection and pretending.  Say it like it is.  It will set you free.

The other option is to pretend you are not the kind of person who has ever done something that harms another.  You can use your energy to run and hide (from yourself and others) and put on a different face for the world.  You can even scold the church for making you feel guilty.  It won't work, but you can try.

We don't even know.....

"We don't even know what our sin is."

I had brought ashes to this wise woman whose spiritual presence calms and strengthens me.  We talked about the ritual of ashes on Ash Wednesday and how Lent begins with a good, comprehensive confession.  Then she said,

"When I think about it, I think we don't even know what our sin is."

We don't, of course, because we cannot see all the harm we have done to others: the snarky comment, the impatient sigh, the offhanded criticism. Add to that the good that we failed to do.

I know that all of this is covered in the official, traditional confession, but it was such a powerful statement from a gentle, loving, diligent person of faith that it caught me up short.

"We don't even know what our sin is." 

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.

Sex and the Sinner

I have chosen the alternate Old Testament text for Sunday:  2 Samuel 11.1-15, the story of David and Bathsheba.

For those who aren't familiar with this lurid tale (one of several equally lurid tales in the Old Testament), King David catches a glimpse of his neighbor's wife bathing in the courtyard of her house, sends for her, lays with her, causes her to get pregnant, and eventually has her husband killed in order to hide his infamy.

See?  You don't have to buy the National Enquirer to get this stuff.  It's right here, and it's a story about the most honored of Israel's kings.  In fact, YHWH promises that an offspring of David will always sit on the throne.  [You can see where the title Son of David is important when applied to Jesus.]  Throughout the Bible, we watch God using flawed, sinful individuals to bring about God's will.

In this story, we have the perfect storm of lust and power; not unusal then nor is it unusual now.  Wrong then; wrong now.  It is ironic, however, that this lesson coincides with the announcement of the NCAA penalties against Penn State and the removal of the Joe Paterno statue from the front of the college stadium. 

There are many ways to talk about this story.  Here is the first.  Sin lies deep within the heart of every single one of us (and some of us, it is not so deeply seated).  Power / prestige often functions as the accelerator to sinful behavior.  I am speculating when I say that King David was so full of himself he had little space to consider the other.  He chose to respond to the announcement of an imminent birth of a child with the order for the imminent death of the husband. 

Never found yourself in that position?  Really?  Never thought you were in the right and you had the power to make the other person agree with you?  Your child?  Your spouse?  At work?  At the check-out?  Desire and power, a volatile combination.

One more time.....

It's Jeremiah this Sunday.  Jeremiah in a good mood.  Jeremiah bringing a word of hope and grace to the people of Israel, who he threatened and denounced all the way into exile (which they deserved, according to Jeremiah).

This is a word about the 'days that are coming'; days filled with new plantings, with building up.  In 'those days' a new relationship will sprout between God and Israel, or as it is translated, 'a new covenant.'

Now God's word will be written on each person's heart.  Each person will be responsible for him/herself.  Each person will answer to God. (This replaces an understanding that the action of the parents would bless/condemn the children.  Now each person is responsible for her own sins.)

This may not sound like good news to you, but to Israel, who had spent long years in exile, who were certain that God had abandoned/forgotten them, it was amazing news.  They were going back to Jerusalem (a symbol of the entire land) and God had not cut them off forever.

Even more importantly, "I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more."  That is the promise.  All is wiped clean.  Come home, God calls to his people.  Come home where you belong.  I want you here and not there. 

This is our God, the one who continually calls us home.  Let's not turn a deaf ear.

Temptation your name is ......

Switching from Noah in the Old Testament to the gospel rendering of Jesus' baptism and temptation in the wilderness, moves us from water to desert.  Since we are in the year of Mark, we have already heard the baptism story at least once if not twice and this is the sparsest rendition of the temptation scene among the gospel writers.  (John has no early temptation/wilderness scene at all).

Temptation is such a good topic to start Lent with.  We all know it, intimately.  We all can name it (I would name it 'chocolate').  We all wonder about its pull on us.  Why can't we just walk away?

Mark's wilderness story has no dialogue between Jesus and the tempter (devil??).  But note that it is the Spirit, which Jesus received at his baptism, that drives....yes, drives.....him out into the wilderness for 40 days among the wild beasts.  Angels are mentioned as well.  Apparently there is some important work that Jesus needs to accomplish.

Without all the details that Matthew and Luke give, we are left with this simple fact:  after baptism comes temptation.  Coming to terms with temptation is an important - maybe even essential - part of Jesus' preparation for ministry. 

Perhaps that is all we need to know.  Following baptism, we will come face to face with temptation.  What we do, how we respond, where we take our failure to be 'strong' when we succomb to temptation....perhaps those are the more important questions.  For as Luther teaches us, we are all both saint and sinner.  The water of baptism makes us saints, beloved children of God.  But we will have one foot in this world until we lay down for the last time, and so we continue to experience and practice sin each day.   Temptation is our constant companion.

And we don't get to face these temptations out in the wilderness when perhaps we are able to give it our full attention.  Oh no.  The temptations comes when the laundry needs to be done, groceries bought, year end reports completed, taxes filed, a baby's diaper changed  (you get the idea). 

So maybe it isn't the wilderness that makes the temptation, but the temptations that make the wilderness.  Perhaps if we give in to every whim and desire that comes alone, without thought, without calling on the name of the Lord, then we will surely end up in our own wilderness - where we will thirst after God's presence and the Spirit's power. 

Now that would be a wilderness I would want to avoid.    Peace.

Don't worry....God will forgive

The Epistle lesson for this coming Sunday comes from Paul's first letter to the believers at Corinth, the 8th chapter.

The believers in Corinth were primarily Greek.  They were raised in Greek culture, with Greek gods, Greek values and a Greek social system.  They had little or no understanding of the Hebrew God YHWH and the relationship YHWH had developed with the people of Israel through the millennia.

Greek gods were beings to be avoided.  You paid your sacrifice; hoped the sacrifice was sufficient and kept your head down the rest of the time so that the gods did not take notice of you.  The type of relationship that is revealed in the Psalms (where one calls on the name of the Lord in thanksgiving and lament, in fear and in joy) was unknown to Greeks. 

So hearing about a God who reached out to bring new life into the lives of humans was a new idea indeed.  To think that God would take on the form of a human (not all that unusual in Greek mythology) and then sacrifice himself for the sake of less valuable humans was a foreign idea.  Forgiveness was unheard of as was the concept of 'unconditional love' especially for the last, the lost and the lonely.

Once you start believing that this God - YHWH - truly loves humankind, especially the underclasses who were rejected as less valuable by Greek society; once you start believing that this God not only could love you (a servant/slave of foreign birth) but will continue to love you through Jesus.....well, what more could anyone say?

Unfortunately, the forgiveness of God through Jesus that was first a gift became a license for many within the Corinthian community.  It became the 1st century version of Bob Marley's 'Don't Worry. Be Happy.'  Forgiveness became a tool or technique to get ahead, do whatever one wanted without worry. [The issue in the 8th chapter is around food sacrificed to idols.  Believers knew that the idols weren't real gods and the food sacrificed was simply food, but to others who were watching their actions, they appeared wanton, sacrilegious and brought a bad name to Christians].

Is there something here for us to think about?  Do we Rely on God's forgiveness or Live in God's forgiveness?  That is, do we live our lives as we please, or to please ourselves, relying on God to forgive us whenever we throw an 'I"m sorry' in God's direction?   Or, do we boldly take up the task of being a Christian, living for others, granting grace, feeding the poor, forgiving our enemies, knowing we will in fact fail too many times to mention, and yet are covered by God's forgiveness in Jesus?  Or as Martin Luther said, "Sin boldly.....but act even more boldly still"  Forgiveness is not license but life force.  It is to be the blood that flows through our bodies, giving us life, and empowering us to give life to others.  In God's name, for the sake of the world.

Pax