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.

Jesus, Lazarus and two sides of the stone

This is a reflection on the story of Lazarus found in John 11.  It is the gospel reading for All Saints Sunday.

A day will come when three women will go to the tomb and ask one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?"  But not today.

Today we stand before another tomb, immersed in the grief of two sisters who have lost their brother; we stand before a stone which holds at bay the stench of death.
And we want to believe.

We want to trust, that this tomb is not just another dead end, and the promises we have learned and then taught others are real and to be trusted.  We want to know that our loved one: a spouse, a friend, a child a parent, rests in the arms of a merciful Creator.

Yet it is is even deeper than that.  We want to know about the deep dark places of our world - our places of fear and loss, our places of worry and powerlessness - we want to know if these too can be redeemed, if these too can be healed.

We are all too familiar with this side of the tomb.  Some days the brokenness of this world overwhelms us; deaths pile up around us in our personal lives, our community, our nation: opioid addiction, gun violence, evil and terror, relentless diseases, and toll of poverty.

As we stand before the tomb today we know that this is no place for slapping smiley face stickers.  We want to know where is Jesus in all this misery and suffering.  We want to know if this is as good as it gets.  We want to trust.

But it is hard.  Very hard.  Because we only know what we know: this man Lazarus who once was is now no more.  The life has drained out of him and now he lies behind that great stone, beyond our reach.  We only know that there seems to be no end to the wounds we are willing to inflict on one another, the wounds we both give and receive.

So it is easy to laugh at Jesus' words, just like the neighbors did in the ancient story.  He promises life when the evidence is right before our face.  It is so easy to stand with Mary and Martha's neighbors and mock this so called Savior.......when in fact we are longing for a truth which makes fools of us and all we think we know.

It is so easy to doubt when one is standing before that giant stone which is a monument to the place where it all ended; a monument to our forever powerlessness.  It is so easy to let go of hope.

"If only you had been here our brother would not have died."  Jesus was Mary and Martha's hope, right?  Jesus who claimed to be one with the Creator, who claimed to be the way, the truth and the life.  Standing before that stone it is easy to feel foolish for having invested in this Jesus, believing that the great feast that God was preparing for God's people would include them and us.

We are led to ask ourselves, "Are we the greater fools for believing in a reality beyond the one we see here?  Are we the greater fools for using whatever power we have to build up others, to care for our neighbor and to forgive the offenders.....instead of grabbing all the fun and wealth we can now? Have we not hoped that this one called Jesus could hold us fast in the face of all the forces who daily deal death?

Is it not our hope that this one called Jesus would call our name and pull us out of the deepest darkness where there is no life at all?  That Jesus would hold our lives as precious?

Jesus cried out, "Lazarus, come out" and we watch as Lazarus stumbles from the tomb with the shroud of death still covering him.  So Jesus commands again, "Unbind him, and set him free."

Free.  From death.  Free to live.  Free because of Jesus.

On this side of the tomb and on the other.  Unbound and set free in Christ's name.

On that first Easter morning, three women go to another tomb and ask one another. "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?"

For all the saints: those who draw breath today; those who are yet to be born, and those who now live beyond our sight, there is is only one answer and his name is Jesus.

40 days in the wilderness

If you pay attention to the stories of the Bible, you figure out fairly quickly that 40 is a significant number.  Most of us remember that the people of Israel were in the wilderness for 40 years.  Jesus goes out into the wilderness after his baptism for 40 days.  I'm fairly sure we are supposed to draw connections between those two events.  Let's start with Israel.

After their escape through the Red Sea, Israel wandered around in the wilderness for 40 years seeking the land that God had promised them.  It was a long time.  They tried worshipping other gods.  They complained about being thirsty.  They complained about starving.  Then they complained about the manna that God sent to feed them.  The children of Israel whined, complained,  murmured and told golden stories about how wonderful life was back in Egypt.  One scholar said that the 40 years (the approximate length of one generation of people) was not needed to get the people of Egypt; God needed the 40 years to get Egypt out of the people.

40 years.  It is an indicator of how difficult a transition it was for the people of Israel.  Life was terrible in Egypt but at least they knew what to expect.  Life in the so-called 'promised land' was unknown, and therefore scary.  'Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't know' seemed to be Israel's motto.

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.

Trusting God is no easier today.  It simply isn't.  We are smart people and we know that things don't always turn out the way you want them too.  We know that bad things happen to everybody at some time.  We know that there are a lot of untrustworthy people out there.  People we know; people we can google.  God is way bigger than all of that.  Trusting God is not easy.

Most days we can muddle along without giving all of this a great deal of thought....until one day we find ourselves in a wilderness - stuck between what was and what will be - and our anxiety skyrockets and our trusting plummets.  We stand knee deep in sand and feel the weight of the moment and the uncertainty of the future.  For people of faith, these are the moments which insistently raise the question How much do you trust this God?

These are wonderfully horrible moments. Trust God or Abandon God?  One is beyond difficult, and can easily leave you looking gullible.  The other will leave you in the wild places until you find your way back to the God who is calling out to you, with life draining out all along the way and hope a long forgotten wish.

How was Alexander to know that the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day was a gift, it was the day he and God could find each other yet again.    [one of my favorite children's books  Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Godd, Very Bad Day.  Worth a read.]

Thirst and fear.....a bad combination

Do you remember when Hurricane Katrina hit and thousands of people were housed in the local football stadium....and they ran out of water?  Folks were desperate.   Those of us looking on from afar couldn't imagine how the government didn't plan for this eventuality.

Thirst can kill you......and a whole lot quicker than starvation.  So it is no wonder that the Israelites are an anxious group when they arrive at Rephidim and can't see any water anywhere.  This is not the kind of problem you can allow to simmer for a couple of days.  A couple of days without water is torturous.  Exodus 17.

So they turn to Moses.....in fear.  Fear for their own lives; fear for the lives of their children.  I can imagine them looking at one another and, like we did with the federal government, wonder what Moses was thinking when he took this route.  It is easy for us to suppose they should have trusted in God to provide, for God had provided before.  But a lack of water is something you need to be on top of.

They were afraid, and fear will erode faith faster than doubt any day....and at its core is death.  It is death we fear more than anything else.  Little deaths, big deaths.  Financial setbacks make us fearful; a dying relationship makes us fearful; a trip to the doctor makes us fearful.  Add to the list.  Each fear points to the death of some part of our self-image, our self-sufficiency, our hope for tomorrow.  Each fear has the potential to pull us away from God.  You don't have to stop breathing to experience death.

What do we do with our fear? (because we will continue to fear; it's human)  Two things:  talk to God and talk with a trusted person of faith.

Talk to God:  we are a resurrection people.  Not just the BIG RESURRECTION on Easter with lilies and trumpets, but a thousand small resurrections every day.  Every time fear creeps into our lives and we can see the shadow of death in the wings, we are ripe for a little resurrection.  We turn to God, confess our fear and watch for God's abiding presence as we walk through this place of darkness.

Then we talk with a trusted person of faith.  Someone who can remind us of the stories of faith, of Israel's fear in the desert, of Peter's fear during Holy Week, of their cousin George's fear when cancer was diagnosed and then witness to God's constancy.  We ask someone to surround us with the stories of faith so our fear does not drag us down into a tomb but rather, we are strengthened for the journey.

What fear handicaps your trust in God?  Take a moment and name it to yourself and then talk to God about it....the same God who raised Jesus from the dead.  There is a resurrection waiting for you.

Faith: origins

If faith is a relationship, then faith is about trust.  That in which you put your trust is the God in which you have faith, so says Martin Luther.  This applies to lower case 'gods' as well.  Some of the stuff we trust is nothing more than the ephemeral trappings of life, status and money.

So where does this trust come from?

If we talk in human terms, we learn about trust from our first relationships, generally with our parents.  We cry; we are comforted.  We are hungry; we are fed.  They are bigger than we are; we look to them for safety and protection.

That is the most basic of trusting relationships and it is forged right out of the womb.  But it grows.  Don't worry, this won't hurt.....and it doesn't.  Come on, jump!  I'll catch you....and they do.  I wouldn't tell you something if it wasn't true....and well, most of the time that one works out as well.

As we grow, and our relationship with parents and friends and strangers grows, we learn about the depth and limits of trust.  Humans are not all powerful; they are not perfect.  Not all humans are to be trusted.  Into every life comes some disappointment, hurt, loss, anger.

Our relationship with God begins in a different way.  God is reflected to us - we watch our parents' interaction with this unknown 'God'.  We listen to the stories about how God has acted throughout history (Bible) and how God is active in the lives of folks around us (testimony or witness, generally over coffee). We participate in faith rituals (worship, sacraments, service projects, funerals) where the rituals help shape us and our understandings.

We begin to ask questions. The questions grow as we do.   Is God bigger than the tallest tree?  How does God know when I am praying?  Where is God when I am hurt - physically or emotionally?  Lord, why do you feel so far away?

We begin to listen for answers.  Not just the answers that others around us offer, but we begin to listen for God's voice in our life - leading, correcting, assuring...even weeping with us.  We begin to understand that the answers are not always easy.

The witness of others is critical to our growing relationship with God, a relationship that has all the usual ups and downs.  Without the witness of the saints, we wander and wonder looking for a framework for our decisions and our lives. Some find that framework in the NFL, some in fashion, some in industry, etc.  For Christians, Christ crucified is the frame by which we lead our lives.

Luther teaches that it is the Holy Spirit who calls us to faith.....through the witness of faithful saints all around us.  We become the reflection of God to others, their guide to this God we have found....or should I say, who has found us.

I'd love to hear the story of how God found you.  Stop by for a chat....and some coffee.

For Luther references, check out the Small Catechism, Apostle's Creed, article 3 and the Large Catechism, Ten Commandments, Commandment #1.

Caveat emptor and learning trust

"Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me."

We tend to have a caveat emptor approach to most of our economic interactions: buyer beware.  Perhaps the toughest thing to learn as we grow up is who to trust and how much to trust.  We all know you should not trust everyone, especially when money is changing hands.

For some people, wealth is a temptation beyond temptation.  Generosity always comes in the small size and at the last minute.  For some people, counting the cost is an automatic operation and it takes very little for them to deem anything 'too costly.'

I know this.  You know this. Perhaps you even wrestle with yourself in this very place in your spiritual life - this inability to freely give, to share without weighing against self interests.  On really good days you can open your hand and press a gift into the hand of another - sometimes you surprise yourself and it is a $20 instead of a $1.  But on bad days, you cannot see past your own self-interests to compassion for another.  You rarely experience joy in giving.

Keep at it.  It will come.  The great generosity of God's heart which gave to us the gift of Jesus and in him the gift of forgiveness will transform your heart.  Pray that you will see opportunities to share yourself all around you.  Pray that Jesus will intervene when your heart starts cramping up.  Deliberately choose to give more than you have originally planned - more time, more gifts, more money....more anything.

God calls that opening of your heart: love.  In time, it will be the very thing you give the greatest thanks for.

Believing in the deep end

It is easy to believe you can swim when you are paddling around in the shallow end of the pool.  In a moment of panic you can put your feet down and touch the solid bottom again.

Deep water requires a very different level of confidence.  You cannot see the bottom in the deep end; you cannot keep your head above water and touch bottom at the same time.  It's one or the other. 

We live our lives in deep water - where much is unclear, outcomes are uncertain and we can either cling to the solid floor of what we know or we can keep our heads above the splashing water.  Neither approach will work for long. 

Eventually we will have to move our arms, paddle our feet and push out into the deep in order to get to the other side.  Water will splash in our face, we'll catch a mouthful or two of water but we will both move forward and be (here's the prize) held up by the water.

A life of faith is much like swimming in deep water: we push against the forces around us which try to pull us down (even though the most perfect swimming stroke does not prevent some water from mouth or eyes). Real effort is required to keep moving toward a safer shore. Pretending the water isn't deep will not make it so nor take the danger away.

We swim in deep waters.  We need a deep water God.  Shallow theology will prove to be ineffective while deep water will challenge us to trust (another way of saying 'believe'). 

The cross is the way Jesus said, "I'm there with you in the deep water" because there is nothing deeper than that moment when you must release this life and lean into the promises of God for the next.   Jesus stepped into the water of the River Jordan to show us he was willing to swim every step of the way with us.  Cling to that Jesus.