John 15:1-8 - Where Do you Live? (A sermon Written for a Wesley Covenant Service)

My mother and father are from in Baltimore. My mother likes to say that she grew up on the right side of the wrong side of town and my father grew up on the wrong side of the wrong side of town. This is another way to say they both grew up poor my mother just grew up a little less poor than my father. My mother never talks about there not being enough food, just life was hard and money was tight. On the other hand my father used to tell a story about his mother going to the store, counting out the money and coming to the conclusion that she did not have enough money for both milk and flour. She always bought flour because flour can be made into bread if mixed with yeast and water and baked or made into gravy if you put it in a pan with just water. (when I was growing up we made paste with water and flour – so I can only imagine how paste like this gravy must have tasted).

As I am sure you can imagine, were not many options for a young man from a poor family growing up in on the wrong side of the city, several of my older uncles became construction workers, they helped build several of the noticeable buildings and one of them helped build the tunnel that takes you under the harbor if you are traveling through the city on I-95.  My father joined the military, not like there was much choice for a young man his age at that time with the draft and all, but he decided at some point to make a career of it.  They would give him steady pay, an education and they would get him out of the slums of Baltimore.

While my father had grown up in Baltimore, my grandfather was from Kentucky. When the coal dried up he left Kentucky to make a better life for himself and his family. When I was 16 my family traveled to Gooserock, Kentucky.  We saw the little post office, and the bar that make up that town.  We traveled down a small road and turned up the gravel path that now runs alongside of Rockybranch creek.  I met some of the children and grandchildren of my grandfather’s siblings.  Their lives are VERY different than mine.  Just as my father had gotten out of Baltimore, my grandfather before him had gotten out of Kentucky.

Because of these two migrations from one place to another, the lives of myself and my sisters were unimaginably altered. This is because, where we live matters.

 In this passage Jesus calls for us to live in him.  Well he uses the word, “abide.”   But abide means to dwell, to live.  This is about setting down roots, about building a house, taking up residence, allowing the place to shape and change your life.  My grandfather’s life was shaped and changed by his choice to leave Kentucky and move to Baltimore.  My father’s (and subsequently my) life was shaped and changed by the fact that my father decided to leave Baltimore and allow the military to decide where he would live.  Our lives are shaped and changed by where we live.  Jesus wants our lives to be shaped and changed by him.  We are to find our dwelling place in him, to dwell, to live in him. 

It is easy to think that we live in Cambridge, or in the Boston Metropolitan Area. And we do.  It is easy to think that we live in Massachusetts or the United States.  And of course we do.  And our lives are shaped and changed because we live in these places.  Anyone who has lived or spent any time in a place different than where they grew up, has a glimpse into how where they lived shaped them. 

There are the obvious things, like accent.  I remember when I first moved to Kansas, as soon as I opened my mouth, people would ask me where I was from, and since I was most recently from ENC, I would tell them I was from Boston and they would say, “Yeah, I can tell by the way you talk.” 

But there are other things as well.  I when I was in Romania, I became profoundly aware of how time conscious we Americans are.  When we say we are going to meet you at 3:00 we try to be there between 2:55 and 3:10.  But we would never think of showing up at 3:30 without apologizing or calling to let the person know we are running late, but in Romania it is almost as if you are arriving at 3:00 as long as 3 is the first number so you are “on time,” if you arrive at 3:00 or if you arrive at 3:59.  The way I view “on time.” Is shaped by where I live. 

When I lived in KS, I was always kind of annoyed at how my friends and my husband acted as if they were taking their life into their hands, when they let me behind the wheel.  It really kind of annoyed me.  After we lived here for several months, Mike turned to me one day and said, “Living here, suddenly the way you drive makes sense.”  I did not even know it but living in Boston shaped the way I drive.

But where we live physically is not what Jesus is talking about in this passage.  Jesus is talking about in whom we live.  As Christ’s disciples we live in Christ.  We allow Christ to shape and change us in much the same way the environment of where we live shapes and changes us.

We want Christ to shape us more than our country does, we want Christ to have more bearing on our lives than living in the US affects how we view the meaning of “on time.”  We want Christ to transform our whole view of time and how we use it.  We want Christ to change us more than our state does; we want Christ to affect us more than just than just our accent or the way we talk.  We want Christ to shape how we use our words, what we say and to whom we say those things.  We want Christ to affect us more than our city does; we want Christ to affect more than just the way we drive.  We want Christ to form the way we move in all aspects of our lives, where we allow our feet to takes us, what we do with our hands and how we reach out to those around us, touching them with the love of Jesus Christ physically and spiritually.  All aspects of our lives in some way are shaped or formed and are affected by where we live.  We want Christ to have that kind of all encompassing affect on every aspect of our lives.  Our actions, our thoughts, our words, with whom we interact and why, as well as how we interact with each and every person we encounter during the course of our day.

Today we are making a covenant, a covenant in which we are vowing, committing to abide in Christ, to allow all of who we are, everything we do and everything we say to be shaped, molded, formed, changed by Jesus Christ.  Together we are covenanting to abide in Christ; to allow Christ to be the vine, and for us to be the branches of that vine, taking our nourishment, our growth, our very existence, our life and death from Jesus Christ.  We are to live in Christ, to abide in Christ.  Let us come together this morning and covenant together to abide in Christ, to allow Christ to shape and form us more than our country does, more than our state or city does, let us let Christ be the most formative and shaping force in our lives. 

John 1:29-42 - Witnessing Jesus

I don’t know where Jesus was heading that day.  I don’t know what he had on his agenda.  I don’t know where his day planner told him he should be or by what time he was suppose to be there but on this day, Jesus was going about whatever it was he had set out to do as he was going merrily about his day, he was interrupted by John the Baptist, who decides that at this particular moment as Jesus walks by would be a great time to declare to all those within hearing distance who it was John believed Jesus to be.

I don’t know if you have ever spent much time comparing the 4 gospels and how they relate the story of Jesus to their readers and now to us, but each one tells us about Jesus in a different way.  Many of them will tell us the same the same event in Jesus’ life but they will tell us about the event in Jesus’ life in a different way.  Now the first three gospel writers, Matthew, Mark and Luke tend to be fairly similar to one another but John, John’s telling of the life of Jesus is quite different than the other three.  The other three pretty much begin their retelling of Jesus’ life with narrative, while John begins with a theological exposition about Jesus being the Word of God.  All the other writers let us figure out who Jesus is as the story of Jesus’ life unfolds but John, there is no mystery, there is no surprise, John gets straight to the punch line and then tells us the conclusion we are to come to  before he even introduces the story’s main character.  He begins by telling us who Jesus is and then gives us the events of his life which show us how it is he came to this conclusion.

John’s narrative begins with John the Baptist explaining that he is not the messiah but that the messiah would come after him.  Then John the Baptist tells us, who is actually the messiah.  John looks up and sees Jesus passing by and declares that although he himself is not the messiah but merely the one who come before preparing the way, this man right here passing by just now is the Messiah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  He then gives an explanation as to why it is he has come to this conclusion.  He knew Jesus was the messiah because God told him that the one on whom he saw the Spirit of God alight like a dove would be the messiah and John saw the Spirit alight on Jesus, therefore Jesus must be the messiah, God’s anointed.

Once John knows to whom he has come to make the wa, he cannot keep the information to himself.  It is almost as if he has to make sure everyone he knows, knows that Jesus is the messiah.  Because the very next day, he hijacks Jesus’ day again.  He is standing around, (it seems that in John’s gospel, John the Baptist has a lot of time on his hands) with two of his disciples and Jesus is walking by once again, having nothing better to say than what he said last time, he tells his two disciples to look, here is the lamb of God.  At this point John’s disciples must have understood what this cryptic phrase meant perhaps figuring if they went and checked him out John would stop bothering this poor man as he walked by every day.  So they left John and began following Jesus.

Now this is kind of strange.  Here Jesus is just going about his business and two days in a row his cousin calls out to those around him telling all who will here that Jesus is the lamb of God and now two of his followers are now following him, so Jesus turns to them and asks them a simple question, “What are you looking for?”

And these two disciples being ever so good at understanding and quite good at following simple instructions and having the ability answer basic questions, completely fail to answer Jesus’ question by avoiding it all together and asking him another question, “Where are you staying/abiding?”  Since they were already in the game of not answering each other’s questions clearly and precisely, Jesus answers by telling them to, “Come and see.”  So they followed Jesus to his home to go and see.  They must have liked what they saw because not only did that stay with him and become his disciples but one of them, Andrew went to get his brother Simon, to tell him he needed to come and see this guy, he is the Messiah.  Simon then in turn, comes to see this Messiah his brother had found.  Immediately Jesus sees him and tells him that his name is no longer Simon, but will from hence forth be Cephas which when translated is Peter.   So as we conclude the narrative we are looking at this morning Jesus now has his first three disciples, the last of which will be a pivotal figure, not only in his life and ministry but in the founding and building of the church.

When I began my sermon, I was going to look at what it meant for Jesus to be the Lamb of God, but as I worked my way through the passage this week. I kept coming back to the latter part of the passage when these two disciples decide to leave John, baptizing by the river and follow Jesus.  Jesus asks them as very good question, “What are you looking for?” And it seems all they want to know is where it is that Jesus is living at this point in his life.  

Although it does not come across well in English, when they ask him where it is that he is staying or abiding, depending on the translation you are reading, what they are actually asking Jesus is a much more complex question.   Thing is translating something from one language to another is always a tricky process.  Words in one language often times have meaning and connotations which are nearly impossible to carry over into another language.  Sometimes in order to get the full picture of what one seemly simple word means in one language you need a whole sentence to explain when you translate that one word into another language.  The word used here in Greek is not so easy to bring into English.  The word which is translated, “staying” or “abiding” actually means two things at the same time when John uses it here in this passage. 

The first meaning is fairly simple; Andrew and his friend are asking Jesus where is the location of the place where he is living.   But on another level they are also asking Jesus, “What is at the center of Jesus’ being?”  “What defines who he is?”  “What is at the core of who he is?” Which then makes Jesus’ answer to them all the more interesting; Jesus does not tell them what it means for him to be the Messiah.  Jesus does not explain to them about being the Son of God or even give them a brief description about what his purpose was here on earth.  Instead, Jesus turns to them and simply answers “Come and see.”

So they went with him to see. Jesus took him to where he lived and by spending the day with Jesus they saw who he was.  They were convince by what they saw in Jesus, they saw in whom he abided, they saw what was at the center of his being, they caught a glimpse of who Jesus was and what he was up to and decided they wanted to be a part of that. 

But it did not stop there.  Andrew was so impressed by what he saw in Jesus that he sought out his brother and decided it was pertinent for Simon to also come and see where Jesus abided.  Jesus was not just another rabbi, he was not just another teacher or a prophet he was the real deal, he was the one they had been seeking for and it was evident in who he was, it was evident in how he went about his life, it was evident in all he did and all he said.  It was evident and he wanted his brother to come and see what he saw.

I don’t know why you are here this morning.  I could fool myself into thinking that you have come here this morning because you have figured out what profound speaker I am and that that you came here this morning just to hear what amazingly profound wisdom I would bring before you this morning, and if that is the reason you came this morning, I am a little more than flattered that you think so highly of my speaking abilities.  But let us be realistic, we all come to church on any given Sunday for our own reasons.  Some of them are good and noble reasons, of us are here for some more self serving and sometimes we get up, get ourselves ready and find ourselves within these walls out of habit and little more.  We have, for whatever reason, found ourselves within these walls, listening to this sermon this morning, standing with John on the street and hearing him say, “Look, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”  

There are several places we can be this morning, when it comes to this passage.  We might be among those who are simply here this morning.  We came because it is a good place to be.  Our friends are here.  We have always gone to church.  We like church, but there is not much more to it than that.  We are bystanders in a way, just there on the street, or by the river or where ever it was when John looked up and pointed Jesus out that day.

We are here.  We have heard John’s testimony.  John is telling us that right here, is Jesus is the messiah, God’s anointed, the one who was God and is God, and the Word of God and with the Creator when the earth’s foundations were laid, here is the one who came to take away the sins of the world. 

Here we are, just minding our own business, going about our lives and suddenly we see Jesus, someone points him out to us.  Someone tries to explain who he is.  Perhaps, what they have to say to us makes sense, perhaps it does not.  What does it mean that Jesus is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world?  What is this person talking about?  Perhaps, they speak words about Jesus and suddenly the whole thing makes sense. 

Either way, we find ourselves looking up and seeing this Jesus for the first time.  He is right there passing by, what do we do? Are we like these two disciples who have heard the witness of John and know that this Jesus is someone worth checking out.  Do we see this man, this teacher, this messiah and want to tag along to see what he is all about?  Perhaps we don’t even know why we are going to check him about, but something about him, something about what is said about him, something attracts us and we find that we are interested, that we want to see what this man is all about.  We want to know what it means for him to be the messiah.  We don’t completely understand but the idea of him taking away the sins of the world sounds pretty interesting.

So some of us are choosing to go check this Jesus fellow out for the first time this morning, but there are others of us who have already been checking him out. We have already decided he is worth checking out.  And as we have checked him out.  We have listened to what people have to say about him, followed him around for a while.  Spent some time getting to know him, trying to understand what he is all about, coming to an understanding of who he is, and what is at the center, the core of all that he is. As we have come and seen, we find that we like what we see.  We want to be more than mere observers, we want to be a part of what he is all about.  We want to follow him, learn from him, and learn to be more like him.  We have seen who he is, we have seen what he is all about, and we want more, we want be disciples. 

But being a disciple is not like being an observer.  It more than simply coming and seeing.  Choosing to be a disciple is the choice which moves us from watching and observing, to doing.  Choosing to be a disciple is the choice which moves us from coming and seeing, to going and doing.  It is the choice to embrace the one we have been observing, to follow his example and to seek to live as he lived, to speak as he spoke, to love as he loved, to learn from his teachings, from his life and from who he is and seek to be a person who is like himn, to be moved by the one who moves him, to have at the center of our beings the same God of love, mercy, justice and forgiveness who is at the center of who Jesus is.

You see there is more to following Jesus than just showing up and listening.  There is more to following Jesus than coming and seeing.  Once we have seen once we know who Jesus is we must them choose to stay, and not only to stay but to do as Andrew did and be moved to action by what we have seen, moved to action by who we have seen and do our best to share with those around us who it is we have come to believe in.  To invite those who we love and those who we encounter in our day to day lives to come and see what we have seen, to come meet the one we have chosen to follow to come to know what we have come to know. 

This passage is a circle.  It begins with John saying, “Look!”   Which causes these two to go and see who it was John was calling for them to behold.  They went and saw and who they saw and it changed them.  Who they saw caused them to choose to follow, to choose to be disciples and in turned caused Andrew to then go and invite his brother to come and see and Simon heeds his brother’s invitation and chooses to come and see for himself who this Jesus, messiah is, bringing us full circle so to speak.

As people who here this morning we are somewhere on this circle; we may be at the top of the circle, with someone calling to us to come and see, we may be somewhere along the circle observing, “seeing” what there is to see, judging for ourselves what we think of this Jesus, messiah person, we may be among those who have chosen to follow Jesus, to be his disciples and as such there is nowhere else to go but be changed by what we have seen, infuse our lives with who Jesus is, and what Jesus is all about and then like John and Andrew invite those around us to come and see, to come and learn, to come so that they may know what we know, so that they may know who we know and also be changed by who he is.

Thoughts on the Baptism of our Lord and The Gift and Command of Sabbath Rest

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Matthew 3:1-17 - The Baptism of our Lord

What was John doing?

What was he preaching?

Baptism was a symbolic “passing through the waters”, when are other times when the people of God “passed through water”?

So what does passing through the water symbolize?

Why is John baptizing people?

What does it mean when we are baptized?

Why does Jesus come to be baptized?

What happened after Jesus as baptized?

Who saw these things?  John?  Jesus?  The crowd? 

What does the dove mean?   

What does the voice say?

What does that mean?

What can we learn from what Jesus does here?  What does this teach us about God?  What does this teach us about how we should act and what we should do?  

Exodus 16:13-27 & 20:8-11 - Sabbath Rest: A Gift and a Command

I pair these passages together because Sabbath is a blessing and a command.

What was the Israelite’s’ first inclination when given the gift of a day without work?

In what ways do we “go out to gather” when God calls us to Sabbath? When God calls us to rest?

In the chapter 16 passage – what is the context of this blessing?

How is Sabbath a blessing for the Israelites? How would a day of rest be different from the lives they lived in Eygpt?

In what ways is it significant that God gives Sabbath as a blessing for the Israelites first (before the 10 commandments)?

In what ways is Sabbath a blessing or a gift?

Sabbath is first a Blessing and then it is a command. Why do you think God needed to command a day of rest?

Are you more likely to do something that this is offered to you as a gift (a blessing) or because it is a command (because your “have to”)?

Is is easier for you to think of resting as a gift God has given you or as a command that must be followed?

What does it mean for it to be “a Sabbath to the Lord?” How do we give our “rest” to the Lord?

 What can we do to better observe a “Sabbath to the Lord?”

Thoughts on Epiphany and the God who Rests

During the month of January, our congregation participates in something we call Sabbath Month. Following the busyness of the Advent and Christmas Seasons and the rush and the hurry in which our culture participates in the time period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we choose to slow down, reconnect and remember we worship a God who calls us to rest.
We have much more informal services in which we talk and interact a lot more than we would. Each week we look at a passage about Sabbath Rest along with our sermon passage.
The "sermons" during Sabbath month are "interactive". For me this involves just as much study and prep but a lot less prepared words for me to say. I ask a lot of questions and see where we go with our discussions and follow where the Spirit leads.
If you are reading this please look at my notes, and contemplate the questions. Ask them of yourself, ask them of your friends.
I hope you will also find time to reconnect with your faith community, as well as with God.
Take time to

Matthew 2:1-12 - Epiphany a Light in the Darkness

Today is Epiphany Sunday, it begins the season of Epiphany.  What do you know about Epiphany as a Holy day of the Church?  What does it celebrate?  What is important about this celebration?  What are we celebrating or commemorating?  What is the Epiphany?

Questions I have as I read this:

Verse 1 – Who are these wise men?

Verse 3 – Why does this trouble Herod?  What do these words of the wisemen mean to Herod

Verse 3 – Why is all Jerusalem troubled as well?

Verses 7-8 – What does Herod’s actions say to the wisemen about his intentions?

Verse 10 – Why do they rejoice simply upon finding the place, before they even go in?

Verse 12 – What is with the gifts?

Gifts – These are actually typical gifts given to dignitaries.  The later two also had restorative and healing properties which would be useful. 

Theologians typically assign spiritual meaning: Gold – kingship, Frankincense – priestly, Myrrh – to point to his death

This is the time of the year when we experience the most darkness. Even as our days get longer, most of that light is added at the beginning of the day, when we are first waking, meanwhile most of us come home in the darkness of early night. 5 or 6pm can feel like 8 or 9. When my Dr. first told me to start taking Vit D in the Winter months, she told me, we live in New England, we are all Vit D (Sun) deprived in the winter. There simply is not enough sunlight to make our bodies happy. This cold dark time of the year, is the perfect time of the year to think about the Magi and their star. These are men who work in the darkness. Astrologers, need to do their work at night in order to “read” the stars and understand their movements. The magi were men who were accustomed to darkness?

What role does darkness play in the story?

What do you think about when you think about darkness?

Have you ever felt like you were in the dark?

What do you think it means to be people who are accustomed to darkness?

How were the magi accustomed to darkness?

In what ways are we accustomed to darkness?

Is it easy to find what you are looking for in the dark?

What do the magi see in the dark? What do they find? How do they find it?

Epiphany means to reveal something.  An epiphany is what you have when a new fact is revealed to you.   This passage is the primary Gospel Epiphany passage. 

What is revealed to them in the dark?

Who or what is revealed here?

What can we learn about darkness?

What can we do when we are in the dark?

How do we allow Christ to be revealed to us, when we are in the dark?

            What is the Epiphany we have revealed to us today?

Genesis 2:1-4 - The God Who Rests

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude.  And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

What does it mean for God to rest?

Why do you think God rests here in Genesis? Is God tired?

What is the purpose of rest? for God? For us?

What can we do to rest? How can we include practices of rest into our "everyday lives"?

Isaiah 35:1-10 - The Holy Road of God

“I’ll be home for Christmas. You can count on me. . .” The idea of coming home, going home or finding out/remembering where home truly is, is a favorite Christmas theme of Christmas songs and Hallmark movies alike. When most of us think of “going home,” we think of all the best things from our childhood. We think of our parents, our siblings; friends and family all gathered around the tree, or a table heavy laden with all our favorite foods. This idea of “home” is warm and cozy, full of tradition, love and joy.

This passage is all about going home. By this time in Isaiah, God’s people have been living in exile. Living in a land far away from home, for generations they have been telling their children and their children’s children about home. They have been a people living in longing. Longing for a place they have never been; longing for a place where they belong; longing for home. The entire time Israel is in exile they are looking to return home; to live in the houses and the cities in which their ancestors lived; to be near the friends and family they left behind; to be reunited with loved ones from whom they had been separated for generations. The idea of going home and being reunited with loved ones, finding safety, security, love and belonging in a beloved place. THIS is what passages like this one are about.

This passage is a shout of joy, a sigh of happiness, it is that moment when you can see all you have ever dreamed of, everything you for which you have dared hope, is just about to come to be. You can see it right there before you. It is so close you can almost reach out and touch it.

One Christmas when I was 9 years old, I wanted a new bike. What child at some point has not wanted a bike for Christmas or as least their birthday, but this was the year I wanted a bike. I had a bike, but it was too small, I could no longer ride it. When we four sisters came down stairs on Christmas morning there were three bikes in the living room. There was a tricycle which was obviously for Katrina, a child’s two wheeler, to which I ran over and was disappointed to see was for Charla and then there was a ten speed, which I assumed was for Mona, who was a teenager at the time. There seemed to be no bike for me. I sat down on the floor utterly dejected and began to cry. I was the only one who had even asked for a bike. Everyone got a bike but me. It was not fair and I was devastated. It took a minute in all the excitement for my parents to realize I was crying and they asked me what was wrong and I told them that I had really wanted a bike and had not gotten one. I can remember my Dad chuckling and pointing at the ten speed. I told him that was for Mona. Then he told me to go look at it. So I did and there was a tag on the bike with my name on it. I had not realized that I was old enough and big enough for a “grown up” bike. When I realized that not only had I gotten a bike, but I had gotten a bike that was even better, I began to cry even harder. But his time they were tears of joy, at not only was I receiving what I had wanted, but something that so exceeded my expectations of what I could possibly receive, that I did not even realize it could be for me. It was more than I what I had asked for, more than I had dared hope for, the more than I could have even imagined. And I was overwhelmed with joy.

This is how the people of God must have felt when they heard this message from God. They had been dreaming of going home. And God was taking them home but what God was promising them was more, so much than they could have ever dared to dream. God was leading them home, through a blooming dessert, along a road that was straight and smooth, down a path on which no enemies or predators would tread.  

God promises the wilderness, which lay between and home, would bloom with flowers. It would be so rich so fertile, so full of life that it would be as if it had broken out in song. The colors of the flowers which would surround them would the very ground rejoicing, the joy of the land made manifest in vegetation. All that was once barren and dry would be full of water, overflowing springs and covered in grass, and reeds and rushes. The dessert would bloom like garden, like a rich fertile land.

Not only would God bring new life to the dead places of the wilderness, but God would renew all those who are enfeebled with age. The elderly would be going home full of strength and vitality, they would walk along this road with strong legs and would pick the abundant vegetation with hands no longer crippled with age. God would give strength to the enfeebled and wholeness and healing to those who need it. The blind would see the wonders of the fertile, water filled, blooming dessert. The deaf would hear, the water running, the bird songs, and the people all around them as they sing with joy. The lame would not only be able walk along this road, but will jump and leap like a deer. And those who have been unable to speak will be able to sing with joy and exultation.

The road home would be one paved with justice, a holy road on which all those who have been harmed, will be restored and all those who have harmed will pay the price for their wicked deeds. God will bring restoration and salvation to all who are captured and enslaved. The road home is restoration. The road home is salvation. 

And this holy road of salvation, will be straight and smooth, no one, not even a fool would be able to lose their way as they walk along it. And upon this road no enemy will tread and no wild animal will come hunting.  It would be a road of safety and security, which will lead them all the way home; lead them back to where they belong. They wanted to go home and God was promising them not only the way home but the easy way home, with a road that would lead them straight there, with no detours, danger or pitfalls along the way.

This is about the road home, finding the way back to where you belong, to the place that is home. God is promising these un willing expats, who have lived their whole lives lost in a faraway land, a free way and safe way home. But, it is more than that. In all the movies finding the place, the people, and the relationship that are “home” is always a struggle. The main characters have to go through a series of hardships, they have to work through several problems, or find their way to the other side of some kind of struggle to find “home.” The movies elevate the struggle, the hardships along the way, because where you end up is what matters. Finally finding your way home makes anything endured on the way there worth the hurt, the pain, and the struggle experienced along the way. But, this passage is not about the journey taken, the struggle to overcome, the hardships endured, the pain experienced, and the problems solved that finally bring you back to where you belong. This passage is about an easy, turmoil free, direct way there, without the struggle or hardship found in all the movies.

This passage is about going home. But it is not about the huge hot dessert one must cross to get there. It is not about the perilous wilderness one must go through. It not about the mountain one must scale, or the dangers, which come at you from all sides. It is not about getting lost along the way, learning an important lesson and then finally finding your way home. This is about going home, finding home, being in the place you were meant to be. Not because you struggled to get there, but simply because you belong there and God promises to get you there, hassle free.

And how did you get there? Surely, the road one must traverse goes over the highest mountain, through the darkest valley, and the driest dessert, with steep cliff on one side with sharp pointy rocks at the bottom and another on the other that periodically throws immense boulder down at you. You must go through the forbidden forest, which houses the most notorious bandits and all the lions and tigers and bears. What kind of journey would it be without the dangerous road along which we all must travel to find our way home again? But, that is not the kind of story portrayed in this passage, there is no danger there is no puzzle, there is no unending peril. You just go home. You travel there along a wide smooth road, which passes through a dessert, which is a garden full of food; through a wilderness, which is filled with refreshing pools of water; down a road surrounded by fragrant blossoms, along a highway that does not twist or turn, through a land completely void of danger. There are no bandits to defeat, no wild animals to avoid. There is no danger of going hungry or thirsty or being killed by anything that would wish you harm. In fact, the path is so clear, the road so smooth and so straight that even a fool could not manage to seek out a way to get lost along it. This is a highway, wide, and straight; smooth and safe, which takes you all the way home; straight there with no detours, no danger, and no dashing deeds of heroism needed to earn your way there.

Not only is it a place of safety and security, but it is a place of healing and restoration. The blind, see; the deaf, hear; the lame walk, feeble hands of all the grandmothers are made strong, the wobbly knees of all the grandfathers are made steady. All those whose bodies are broken are restored to wholeness and health. This is a place of justice and vengeance, where wrongs are set right. Anyone who have caused others pain, who have done harm, who have crushed the weak and taken advantage of others, will pay. And those to whom injustice has been dealt, will receive what they have lost, what was taken will be restored; they will receive all that have been denied to them.

There is a story where the road home sounds like singing and smells like flowers, where there is rejoicing all along the way. This passage is full of freedom, full of safety, full of longing fulfilled, and full of joy. Joy because home has been found; joy because the lame leap and the mute sing; joy because restoration, reconciliation, redemption have been found, joy because brokenness has been mended and wholeness has been restored.

This is a healing road, one that heals bodies, minds and relationship. It brings restoration to our whole beings and puts us right with our creator. All on this road are righteous, are made clean, only those who are redeemed, who are living in right relationship with God can be found there. This is the road that restores all things, that ultimately sets everything right.

Israel was looking for a way home, way back to the land they loved, a way back to Israel, to Jerusalem. They wanted to go home and so God promises them a road home. God promises them a road like no other road; a holy highway, which encompasses a journey of Joy and leads them right to where they have always longed to be. But the road God promises is bigger than they could imagine, the way there is more amazing than they could dream and the place to which it will take them is nearly incomprehensible. The home to which this road leads, is bigger than Israel, bigger than Jerusalem, bigger than the temple, bigger than the land, this road leads to the holy of holies. It leads to place where we all live in right relationship with God. This is the Holy Highway, the road that leads to the heart of God.

The road to the heart of God is the Word of God, who brings restoration, redemption and restoration to all who walk upon it. All those found upon it are redeemed. The road is the way home. And as we look back and see this promise through the lens of the life, death, resurrection and promised return of Christ, when we understand who Christ is and what life lived as Christ calls us to live means, we cannot help but see that this road is not a thing, it not a path, it no mere highway, it IS Jesus Christ. He is the way. The holy road of God IS Jesus Christ.  And the land to which the road takes us, the home to which we are going, is relationship with the one and only God of the universe.

Advent is about finding home, it is about finding relationships are what really matter, but not the relationships which are found around a fire, under a Christmas tree, by sharing a cup of comforting cider, no matter how important these relationships might be but the relationship decovered and rediscovered in Advent is the relationship we find in Jesus Christ; the relationship when restored, we find when we are right with God. When this one relationship is made right, when we find ourselves walking along the highway which is belief in Jesus Christ and a life lived in the love of God, then we find we are able to work out restoration, reconciliation, in the other relationships in our lives.

Home is found in God, in Jesus Christ and when we find home in the creator of the universe, we are finally able to begin to find home in all the other areas of our life. When we walk along the road that is Jesus Christ, that is where reconciliation, restoration, redemption is found. When we travel along the highway that leads to the heart of God, we find wholeness and healing. It is in relationship with God where wrongs are set right. In living our lives heading toward home we are able to be the people of God rejoicing together, we find that the journey we take is one filled with Joy that can only be found when we finally find where home is, who home is.

Prepare the Way for the Lord: A branch Shall Grow - Isaiah 11:1-10

Desperate times. The people of God to whom Isaiah spoke, looked around them and it seemed nothing good in the world was left. Even if it had not all been lost, it soon would be. The nation of Israel had been conquered and destroyed. Huge swaths of their population had been chained up and taken away into exile, to live out their lives as foreigners in a foreign land. Not exactly held captive but definitely not allowed to return to their homes or their homeland. The nation had been left in pieces. Their cities were destroyed, their fields laid to waste, even if they could return home, were there even homes for them to which to return?

 The people of the neighboring country of Judah, was left. They were witnesses to the destruction of their sister county. I am sure they were relieved to be left out of the current carnage. But Assyria was an insatiable beast who had consumed Israel for a mid-day snack and would return soon, appetite whet and ready to devour them as well. It did not an act of divination to let them know that soon their fate would be the same as Israel’s, it was only a matter of time. They were a people holding their breath waiting for destruction, hoping for salvation.

It was into this world of fear and despair which God gave Isaiah a vision for the people. A vision of a stump, a great and mighty tree, cut down. A people brought to their knee, whose end is in sight. God shows them who they are. They are but a stump. A tree cut off, destroyed, dead. The end is inevitable.

But then something amazing begins to happen. A small green shoot begins to grow, a soft pliable bit of growth. It is frail, it is fragile, but it is a alive. The tree is not dead, it lives, it will grow again, it will one day flourish again. All is not lost. It may seems as if this is the end but it is not. Their nation may die, but they will live again. This is not the end of the story for the people of God. Death, destruction, war, chaos may surround but from the darkness a light will break forth, faint at first but it will grow strong and one day, death will give way to life and peace will reign.

The spirit of the Lord will be within the people. They will know God, this understanding will guide their steps and they will proceed with wisdom, down the paths which the Lord will lead them. They will judge each other with wise council, the widow will be fed, orphans cared for, none will go without and all will be looked after with kindness and caring. Justice will be given; recompense to all who need it and punishment for all seek the harm of others. The nation will be strong and mighty like a tall oak tree, not easily felled. And upon them will be the mark of ones who know the knowledge and the fear of the Lord God. They will worship the Lord with gladness and will follow God’s commands with joy.

The knowledge of God will be like a vast ocean covering all the earth and all creation are sea creatures living and breathing the goodness of God, living by God’s statues and surrounded by God’s justice. The righteous would treat the poor with equity and the wicked would no longer prevail. The law of God would once again be the law of the land. Peace would reign and justice would be known throughout the land.

But the peace they will know will not end with them, it will extend to encompass all creation. The predators of the natural world will rest beside their prey. The one will not move to strike and the other will not shrink back in fear. Not one will pursue, and not one will run away. All creation will live at peace, not even the youngest of human children will be afraid of death at the hand of even the deadliest of animals.

The once dead tree will grow and all will see that the Lord God bring life out of death and will settle the land which once only knew war and chaos with an everlasting peace, which will blanket the ground like leaves in the fall, or snow after a blizzard. But it will be the signal of growth and life, in a place which one only knew death and destruction. The peace of the Lord will thick and enduring, covering all the world. It would be like never ending rich food from which all would eat until full and satisfied.

When I was in college, my friends and I would go out in the evenings on the weekends and explore the city. We would take the train and get off somewhere in the city, usually at park street and head in a direction and just walk, enjoy the freedom of college life and the fun of the city after dark. Sometimes we would wander over to the Esplanade, where one anonymous weekend evening we found a tree. Like many trees in this city it was old, most likely having been here when before the first Europeans founded this city. From the first time we discovered it, I declared it to be my favorite tree in the city. I would return to it over and over again throughout my college years, it really was my favorite tree. When I returned to the city in 2009, on one of the first Sundays we were here, I took my family across the river on a Sunday afternoon in search of the tree, so I could share it majesty with my family. And over the last decade there have been many pictures taken of the girls playing in that tree, walk along its giant branches, resting among it limbs. There are also several pictures of Mike and I in the tree both individually and together. It is still my favorite tree in all of Boston.  

It is an old tree. At some point it had fallen and cut off, because most of that old tree is growing out of an even older stump. But that is not the only time it has been knocked down. Most of the tree grows sideways in several arching leaps, which makes me believe it has fallen over several times. Each time finding new life and continuing to grow. It has survived and survived again. Storm after storm, rain, and winds, long cold winters, hot dry summers, through it all, it has just kept on growing. In circumstances where other trees might have died, this tree, continues to grow and to flourish. Right now when all we can see is how is today, its near destruction is hard to see, but there were times when a passerby would have thought it was dying, there was no hope for the poor old thing. But it did not die; it managed to continue to find life in the midst of death.

Most people when they listen to Isaiah’s prophesy here, think of something like this:

 or this: 

but when I hear it I think of my favorite tree on the Esplanade. 

Isn’t it amazing! At one point it was probably more like the first picture, but now it is a vibrant strong tree, which has weathered the storms and has come back from the brink of death more than once.

This tree is the people of God to whom Isaiah was speaking. It is the people of God anywhere and everywhere there is death and destruction. It is the people of God when it seems all hope is lost; when war and chaos reign and there seems to be no way forward. It is the people of God strong after the storm, continuing to grow, finding strength in God in the face of death. This is a tree which knows and understands that we worship a God who brings life out of the ashes of destruction.

When I look at the world around me today; when I look at the events which are happening not only all around the world, but in our nation, here in the US, I can understand the perspective of the nation of Judah to whom Isaiah spoke when God gave him this vision. The world around us seems to be on fire. We stand in the middle of it all and can see it all as burnt hollowed out stump of a tree. All around us are the seeds of death, the portents of destruction, the remnants of chaos and floods of despair. It is not even that we see nation rising against nation, but we live in a land where a people is rising up against itself. Too many times we cannot even speak civilly to one another.

We remember the words of Jesus from the Gospel text just a few weeks ago, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven,” We live in a time when we know and understand these kinds of signs. Our world is at war with itself. It seems as if we are standing in the middle of the destruction, in the middle of the chaos. And it would be easy to lose all hope, to look around and say, nothing good can come now.

There are times when the darkness in our lives seems to great. Our lives are in chaos. There are more bills than money. Our health is continually failing, one illness piles on top of another. Our car broke down. We hate our job, or find that we no longer have one. There are so many death events in our lives. We stand in the smoldering ashes of own lives. There is no hope, there is no peace and we are at a loss to find any life or growth around us. It is into these places, into these situations in our lives God speaks this morning. A shoot will grow up in the place where there is only death.

Life can be found. We may not see it now, but here in this world where only death can be found, God will bring life. We may not know it now, it may not yet be seen, but soon, a shoot of growth will spring up. There is hope, there is peace. God is here in the midst of the storm, in the middle of the chaos, and God will bring new life. Death will not have its victory; we worship a God of resurrection and new life!  

But the message of the stump speaks to more than just our individual lives, it speaks to US. I don’t know about you but I look around and I feel like we are the people of God to whom Isaiah give his message this morning; so many have gone from us; so many have died, so many have moved away, so more and from our number are not able to join us on Sunday mornings. We feel like the stump of a once great tree, which grew and flourished but now, not so much. We are all that’s left of something that once was great. Once we were a tree, flourishing, full of life and growth. But now we are a stump.

God promises life. God says a shoot will grow out of the stump; small and fragile at first; frail in it new life, but with the hope and the promise of one day being a new tree, a strong tree. God’s tree, God’s people spreading out our branches and fill the world around us with the grace and truth and love of God.

But now, just as he did then, Jesus says this is not the end. In Isaiah this was true and it is just as true now. THIS is not the end. God promises growth in the midst of destruction, peace in a world at war, and life in the midst of death. 

As we prepare ourselves for the Lord, this Advent Season, let find Hope in the Peace which God alone provides. 

Christ the King of Forgiveness - Luke 23:33-43

This Sunday marks the end of the year.  For Churches who pattern the life of their worship around the cycle of the Christian Calendar, this Sunday is the last Sunday of our year. Next Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, marks the beginning not only of the Advent season but the beginning of the Church year. 

Every year we begin our year anticipating the birth of Christ and every year we end remembering Jesus came to usher in the Kingdom of God, and reigns as King. Throughout his life, Jesus continually proclaimed the kingdom of God as near; as come, and yet reminded us to pray for God’s kingdom to come.  We stand in the time when God’s kingdom has come, is coming and is yet to come in full completeness.  We live in a time in which Christ has come, Christ has died and Christ’s resurrection has begun its work to sanctify and make the world holy in us, through and because of us.

This is the world of the already and the not yet.  And so as a Church we cycle round and round each year, remembering and re-remembering the work of Christ on this earth; reminding ourselves all things have begun to be made complete; we are participating in its ongoing completion and anticipate the time when all things will be made complete; when the holiness of God will know by all; when God’s love will be found in the hearts and lives of all who inhabit the earth; when the new Heaven and the new Earth will be found in their fullness and we all will truly know what it means for Christ to reign.

But what does this passage have to do with the reign of Christ? What does this tell us about how Christ reigns and what it means for God’s kingdom to come to this earth?  This is a passage which begins and ends with Christ on the cross.  It does not seem to offer much hope.  It does not seem much of a kingly representation of Christ.  Here we have Christ the dying Savior, the dying king, in all his kingly glory.  Christ the king on the cross, showing us what it really means to reign; showing us what it truly means to be a king; showing the nature and the truth of this kingdom of God, which we so often don’t understand.

Of course Christ is doing more, so much more, than dying here in this passage.  He is being God, he is being holy, he is not only showing us the nature of who he is and the nature of the kingdom he is ushering in, but he is also showing us what it means to be participants in this kingdom. He is showing us what it means to be patrons of his Lordship, people who live under his reign. 

Christ is dying, not just dying, this is not some poetic death scene of a movie, where the hero is cradled by the one she loves as she fades slowly into darkness, giving away his final words of wisdom, encouraging others to avenger his death.  This is a scene watch with a silent tear streaking sorrowfully down our cheeks. This is a cruel, heartless, gruesome death.  This is a languishing; death proceeded by hours of torture and seemingly endless pain.  This is the kind of death that is nigh unbearable to experience and to watch.  It is not a Hollywood kind of death, there is a reason why crucifixion is not a preferred means to kill the protagonist of our modern tales. But what Christ does and says is non-the-less movie-ending-worthy.

Jesus begins by forgiving “them.”  He is hung on a cross, spread out there between Heaven and Earth, between two thieves – alongside, equated with, seen as equal to. And what does he say?  He says, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”  As he is dying his first words are words of forgiveness. 

He forgives “them.”  The word is wonderfully ambiguous in the Greek as well as the English. It is difficult to track down through the grammar the “them” to which the passage is referring. The chief priests, leaders or the people from the passage before?  The “they” to which Jesus was handed over?  The unnamed “they” who are presumably presiding over his death?  The crowd?  It is a wonderfully ambiguous, “they”.  But even as their actions are bringing about the death of the God of the universe; the savior of the world; the king of God’s glorious kingdom, they don’t know what they are doing. 

All the “theys” out there who are doing harm, who are perpetuating the occurrences of sin and evil in this world, all of them are forgiven.  All of those who sin, all of us who fail Christ in a large and our, oh so common, small ways, all of us who hurt others, all of us who let down our friends and family, all of us who are all too aware of how we do not always love God with our whole hearts, all of us who do not always love our neighbor as ourselves, all of us who so often choose the things we want over the things of God, we are a part of this ambiguous they, the they who participate with the chief priests, leaders, crowds of people, and soldiers who brought Christ to the place of the scull that day.  The wonderfully, gloriously ambiguous “they,” which reminds us, through imprecise grammar, we also participate in the death of Christ. Our failings and our sins bring Jesus to the cross, just as surely as if we were actually there with hammer in hand, raising up the Christ laden cross.  And Christ is right, all too often as we make our poor choices, as we fail, time and time again, we do not know what we are doing, we do not always realize the gravity of our own actions, and we surely do not often stop and contemplate our sins and remember that it is THIS action which brought Christ to the cross. WE do not know what we are doing!

And do you know what?  Christ asks the Father to forgive “them.”  There on the cross, in pain, in agony, experiencing that which we hope we will never know, Christ pauses and asks “they” be forgiven.  Christ asks for all the “thems” to be forgiven.  And from what I know about God, from what I know about Christ’s relationship with the Father, I can say with confidence that they-we are, indeed, forgiven.  We, do not know what we are doing, we fail, we sin, we participate in Christ’s death and we do not know what we are doing. Christ asks the Father for them; for us. And they-WE are forgiven!  What a glorious thought. Our sins forgiven! Our failings, forgiven!  When we do not love God fully, we are forgiven!  When we do not love our neighbor, we are forgiven!  When we do that which we know we should not, we are forgiven! When we do not do that which we should, we are forgiven!  Whenever our actions in large, or even some very small way participate in the evil in this world, and thereby participate in the death of Christ, we are forgiven. 

There as Christ ushers in the kingdom of God, Christ calls for our forgiveness.  Christ shows us what it means for him to reign by declaring us forgiven.  For Christ to reign means sins are forgiven, sinners are pardoned. Christ’s reign means WE are forgiven!  Even when we do not know what our actions are doing, the full implications, the full extent to which we fail at being who God calls us to be, to be the love of God in this world, we are forgiven.  Forgiven; always, in all ways forgiven! 

And I could end there.  That would be a glorious ending to my sermon.   We could end our Church year, we could all go downstairs and eat our communal Thanksgiving dinner and we could all go home resting assured in our forgiveness.  But the passage does not end there.  Even if we think it could not get better, even as it seems there could be nothing more to say, there is more!

We have an example how this forgiveness works.  We see the reigning Christ pardoning the sinners of one who is there with him, one we know who has failed, and who has not lived up to the kind of life God has called him to live.  There on a cross next to him, likewise dying as Christ is dying, one of the two thieves between whom Jesus is hanging, turns to him and essentially asks for this forgiveness for which Jesus is asking the Father, to be extended, to him.

The thief asks for pardon, asks for Christ to remember him as Jesus comes into his Kingdom. Jesus essentially tells the thief his request has been granted, he has been forgiven, he will join Christ in his kingdom this very day.  This man will know paradise in the forgiveness of the Father and acceptance into the eternal kingdom of God.

Forgiveness is requested and it is granted.  He admits his sin, his guilt, and essentially requests forgiveness and he is forgiven.  Christ asks for God’s forgiveness to be extended and immediately we have an example of how that forgiveness works, as they thief is forgiven. He repents, he admits his failing, he acknowledges how he fails to be the person he knows God requires him to be and asks for forgiveness and is forgiven.

This is how we can also experience God’s forgiveness in our own lives. We admit our failings, the ways in which we are lacking in being the people God has called to be. We repent and ask God to forgive us and we are forgiven. Christ has asked and declared our forgiveness. To participate in the forgiveness which Christ gives to all of us who unknowingly participate in the death of Christ through in our own sins, in our not loving God wholly or loving our neighbor fully; to accept Jesus’ forgiveness, allow for it to come to us when we like this thief come to Christ, we must admit how we fail, own up to our actions and ask to be forgiven, just as this man does here in this passage.  Then we will be immersed in the great stream of father’s forgiveness, which Christ calls down up on the world while he was on the cross.

The truth this morning is, Christ reigns; God’s kingdom has come, is coming and will soon come in all its fullness.  And God’s kingdom is a kingdom in which the one who calls for us all to be forgiven, for all humanity to be forgiven reigns.  The king of forgiveness is king of God’s kingdom, forgiveness himself reigns. Just as through failure to love God and the people around us, our in mis-actions, our not acting in ways we know we should, our blatant disregard for others, and in the unintentional ways we hurt others, we participate in the death of Christ. We can also participate in the forgiveness he offers as he died, by simply asking for it, by turning to him, owning up to how we fail and asking that we too may know the forgiveness he gives, that we too may know him in paradise, that we too can help bring his kingdom to fullness by participating in his new life, his love, his truth in this world instead.  We can immerse ourselves in the vast sea, the never ending stream of his forgiveness, simply by like this this asking. 

Let us declare together this morning Christ forgives and Christ reigns.  And join together living in that forgiveness and participating in Christ’s kingdom by living lives that glorify God, lives of love and kindness, lives that bring God’s love and forgiveness to all those we encounter each and every day.