Category: Homilies

Luke 24:36-48

Easter lasts for 50 days for Christians.

• Most of the culture thinks it is over when we have vacuumed up the long thin ribbons of green plastic Easter basket grass from the floor.
• But long after the kids return to school following their “Easter Break” the church is still celebrating Easter.

 

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Our Gospel reading for today finds the disciples gathered together three days after Jesus died.

• All they knew was that their friend and teacher and Lord were dead.
• And in the face of loss…they were scared…and they were doubting.
• And this is understandable.
• And it was here that Jesus suddenly stood among them.
• And in their fear and disbelief he does not judge them.
• He does not rebuke them.
• He does not try and convince them of the truth.
• He just offers himself.
• See my hands…touch my feet.
• I am here. Do not be afraid.
• Let’s eat some broiled fish.

 

Today Jesus makes it clear to the disciples that you cannot know him at a distance.

• You cannot know Jesus through idealizing him as being otherworldly.
• Because the Jesus we read about today turns to his disciples and asks them:
• “So…do you have anything to eat?”

 

This reading is teaching us that if we get all transcendent and otherworldly…

• We may just miss Jesus all together because that’s him over there at the snack table.
• Jesus just stands there eating broiled fish with his bare hands…wounds and all.

Reading this story this week takes me back to when I was a student chaplain at the University of Minnesota Hospital.

• And how terrifying it was to think that I would be expected to come up with a satisfying answer to why a families loved one was on life support.
• A motionless woman in her 60s was on an operating table.
• A nurse was hooking up things while a doctor was putting on gloves.
• And I was thinking:
• Everyone seems to know what their job is but what am I doing here?
• The nurse looked at my badge and said:
• Your job is to enable us to be aware of God’s presence in the room while we do our jobs.

 

Well…it just didn’t seem like enough.

• Then later in the little family conference room with just enough space for four love seats.
• And as many boxes of tissue.
• I sat with the family in their loss.
• I stood by and witnessed the heart-wrenching emotional process we call grief.
• And I had no answers.

 

I brought them water…make some calls for them…kept asking the surgeons to give us more information.

• But words of wisdom I had none.
• But I soon learned that all I had to offer was my presence.
• A glass of cold water and a granola bar.
• Only later did I realize…that is just what Christianity is.

 

While talking to the family I found I just did not have much to say.

• And I had to fight the urge to say something.
• Even if it was trite.
• Just so I could feel like I had said something.
• OK…you hear a lot of things in hospitals and funeral homes.
• You know what I mean…like: God had a plan…we just don’t know what it is. Maybe God took your daughter because he needs another angel in heaven. When God closes a door…he opens a window.

 

These things are said because we simply cannot allow ourselves to entertain the finality and pain of death.

• So instead…what we say turns it into a Precious Moments greeting card.
• In moments of grief and loss we are afraid and doubting and we want answers just like the disciples did three days after Jesus died.
• But all anyone can really do is make some casseroles.
• And come over and sit with us.

 

And when that is all we have to offer it can feel like not enough.

• But the truth is…this is Christianity.
• Presence and stories and meals and defiantly believing that death is simply not the last word.

 

Reading today’s gospel we may look at it this way.

• Christianity is not spiritual…it is material.
• You cannot even get started without a loaf of bread some wine and a river…or a lake…or a pool…or a font of water.

 

Jesus comes to his followers…then and now…in our grief and loss and does not give answers.

• In our fear and disbelief…he does not judge…he does not rebuke…he does not try and convince us of the truth.
• He just offers himself.
• See my hands…touch my feet. I am here. Don’t be afraid. Let’s eat.

 

As the Body of Christ this is what we do for each other and for the world God loves so much.

• It is a witness to a God who promises to be with us.
• And in those prayers…we do not offer any answers.
• We just claim the promise as our own.

 

Jesus is made known when we gather and tell the story and share food at his table.

• And share food in the fellowship hall.
• It is common.  It’s simple. And it really…really…is

John 20:19-31

It is kind of odd how we have named Thomas “Doubting” Thomas.

• We don’t give the other characters in the New Testament little nicknames.
• Like needy Nicodemus or Co-dependent Martha.
• But poor Thomas is stuck with Doubting Thomas.

 

Yet the fact of the matter is this:

• When Jesus encountered Thomas…hedid not judge him.
• Jesus did not label him “Doubting Thomas.”
• He came to Thomas just as he was…doubts and all…and offered him…not judgement…not name calling…but peace.

 

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

 

I think our gospel text for today is about God taking us just as we are.

• I mean…just a week before was the night of the first Easter.
• And I suspect that having denied…betrayed…and abandoned Jesus…
• The disciples were really wallowing in their shortcomings.
• Wondering…what had they done.
• It would not be a stretch to think they were passing around blame and justification for the death of Jesus.

It really was the fault of the Priests who condemned him.

• Or…there just was not enough room for them at the foot of the cross with all those women there.
• Or maybe if that shady Judas had not sold him out this would not have happened to begin with.
• And on and on and on.

 

It’s kind of what we do when we know we have really blown it.

• Because the truth of our own shortcomings is often too much for us.
• So…we either tend to make our faults about someone else.
• Or we try to make everything about our faults.
• Both of which are just two different forms of vanity.

 

But anyhow…there they are a few nights after Jesus died in their cozy little locked room.

• Blaming themselves…blaming others…and trying to figure out what in the world that oddball Mary Magdalene meant by:
• “I have seen the Lord”.

 

And it is here…in the middle of doubt and fear and locked doors…

• In the middle of blame and justifications…that the disciples encounter the risen Christ.
• It is here that Jesus chooses to appear to his beloved Christ deniers…
• Those he loves…who abandoned him.

 

Because notice that the text does not say:

• “And when they had repented of what complete idiots they had been.
• And when they had perfected their faith and the purity of their doctrine.
• And when they had achieved the right condition of personal morality.
• THEN they were worthy of receiving Jesus.”

No. There they sat. Fear…doubt…betrayal and I suspect more than a little shame.

• But it takes more than shame and locked doors to keep Jesus out…you see.
• In fact…when we are at the point in life when our failings and shortcomings are so raw.
• When we are at the point in life when we have blown it completely.
• It is then that God comes to us just as we are.
• Bringing us peace and even forgiveness.

 

It is just like God to barge in uninvited through our fear and locked doors to remind us…like it or not…

• That we are more than the sum total of our bad choices.
• And that we are even more than the sum total of our good choices.
• You see…God is always saying an insistent “I love you” to all our polite insistence of pushing him away.

 

One week later their friend Thomas…who missed it all the first time…was with them in that same room again.

• He had said a polite “no thank you” to the news that Jesus has risen from the dead.
• It is something we have all done and yet we call him the doubter…
• As though it makes him somehow marked.
• As though Thomas doubts…and we do not.
• The only way this would be at all fair is if we all shared his name like:
• Oh…there is Doubting Pastor Chip.
• And Doubting Bill and Doubting Marilyn.
• Well…we are all doubters.

 

And it is not something to freak out about.

• Because doubting is not theopposite of having faith.
• It is a componentof having faith.
• Doubting means that we have not forgotten the story.
• Doubting means that we do not have it all figured out.
• But the best thing about doubting is that…at least it is honest.

 

So…if you are a doubter like me…then it’s ok.

• But you should be prepared for something.
• I experience it all the time.
• It is this thing I call tests of doubt.
• Not tests of faith…but tests of doubt.
• And we should all watch out for them.

 

You see…when I was sure that this whole Jesus thing had nothing to offer me.

• When I had gone through a severe period of skepticism.
• When I had been so clear about my dislike for organized religion.
• When I thought I had unwavering rock-solid doubt.
• I wandered into a church that challenged all my certainties I had about the Christian faith.

 

This was my great crisis of doubt.

• When I was welcomed into a campus ministry Lutheran parish in Decorah Iowa.
• And was so freely given absolution and grace and a literal chunk of bread.
• Which I was told was Jesus and it was for me.
• I slowly began to lose my doubt.
• So…watch out for this…watch out.

 

Because whether doubt is something that we fear or something that we foster.

• Be prepared for it to be tested again and again by the Christ of God who rudely barges through locked doors.
• A God who takes us just as we are.
• A God who is always saying “I love you” to all our polite insistence of pushing him away.

Mark 16:1-8

A chocolate bunny went to his therapist.

• The therapist asked: “How have you been doing lately?”
• The bunny said: “I don’t know…doc.
• I’ve just been feeling so hollow inside.”

 

For 364 days each year…we tell children not to eat anything they find in the dirt.

• Then…on Easter…we say: “Go ahead…kids: Search on the ground for candy!”

And…of course…you know the Easter Bunny’s favorite music…don’t you?

• Hip hop.

 

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

 

Easter jokes are part of an ancient tradition.

• For hundreds of years in Germany…Lutheran pastors would begin their sermons on Easter Day with a joke.
• The custom even had a formal title:
• It was called “the paschal joke.”
• The empty tomb and resurrection were seen as God’s great joke on the world.
• And you know that since every good joke requires a surprising punchline…
• The end of the paschal joke included the biggest shock of all: Jesus … has been … raised!

 

The problem with today’s resurrection story is that it lacks the punchline of an appearance by Jesus.

• Mark tells us that on Easter morning…Mary Magdalene and two other women encounter a cold and empty place when they show up at the tomb.
• They have suffered the crucifixion of their friend and teacher Jesus…
• And they are mourning his death deeply.
• Now they go to his tomb to pay their respects…and what do they find?
• A deserted place.
• After seeing a young man and hearing about the resurrection…they go out and flee from the tomb.
• Terror and amazement have seized them.
• They say nothing to anyone because they are afraid.

 

The poet Robert Frost captures their emotions well when he points out that the most frightening of empty places are always close to home.

• He writes: They cannot scare me with their empty spaces / Between stars — on stars where no human race is. / I have it in me so much nearer home / To scare myself with my own desert places.

 

Mary Magdalene and her friends certainly know what he is talking about.

• And each of us…at some time in life…must struggle with an empty space…a desert place.
• We feel it when we get the message that we are being laid off from work.
• Or when we open our mutual fund statement and discover that our investments have tanked.
• When we realize that we owe more on our mortgage than our house is worth.
• Or when we open the email from the college admissions office and learn that we have been rejected.
• When we receive the call from the doctor…saying the biopsy has come back with a cancer diagnosis.
• When a spouse says she is leaving.
• A boyfriend says he wants to break up.
• A partner says there is no future in the relationship.
• These are desert places.

 

When Mary and her companions enter their desert place…they retreat into silence.

• They feel like they have traveled to a space between stars…where no human race is.
• Yes…it is true that the mysterious young man in the tomb says:
• “Do not be alarmed…you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth…who was crucified. He has been raised.”

 

This is good news…the Easter morning good news of resurrection life.

• But the women cannot grasp it.
• They hear what the man is saying…but it falls flat.
• He says: “Look…there is the place they laid him” …the empty space.
• But it doesn’t work as a punchline.

 

OK then…we are ready for an Easter laugh…an upbeat report…a story that lifts our spirits and gives us hope.

• But day after day…we keep hearing news about empty spaces and desert places.
• Like the chocolate bunny…we feel hollow inside.
• More emptiness than fullness.
• More decline than increase.
• More fear than joy.
• More failure than success.
• More separation than reunion.
• Mary Magdalene felt it when she went with her friends to the tomb of Jesus.

 

But when we least expect it…there comes an unexpected Easter punchline:

• Jesus “is going ahead of you to Galilee…there you will see him, just as he told you.”
• The young man in the tomb says that Jesus is alive and is moving ahead of us…always ahead of us.
• He appears when we least expect it…and surprises us with his resurrection life.
• There is nothing predictable about the way that the Risen Jesus will behave.
• He is going to sneak up on us.
• You never see the big laugh coming.

 

Jesus revealed himself first on Easter morning.

• But then he continued to appear…again and again and again.
• Paul’s message to the Corinthians…this morning…is that the resurrection is not a one-off.
• Resurrection reversals continue to have an impact…as Jesus reveals himself over and over to people who know him.

 

What does Jesus look like when he appears in our lives today?

• Jesus shows himself most clearly in places where his life and teachings are followed.
• He appears in places where disciples are exemplifying Jesus with their hands and feet.
• He appears in the world through those who extend hospitality and grace to others.
• He appears when we serve a world in need and work for reconciliation among all people everywhere.

 

Today…many are living in empty spaces and desert places.

• Loneliness is on the rise.
• Community organizations are breaking down.
• People have a void inside them that needs to be filled with Christ’s resurrection love and grace.

We try in vain to fill our hearts with everything around us:

• But more stuff does not help…since this infinite abyss can be filled only with the Holy.
• Life apart from God is empty.

 

Our emptiness will not be eliminated by a new career…a new spouse…a new house…a new car…a better salary.

• Instead…the hole in our lives will be filled by following the resurrected Jesus into the future.

 

The good news of Easter is that Jesus is alive!

• And we can laugh because God is full of surprises.
• Full of reversals.
• Hitting us with the news that Jesus is raised from the dead.
• He is moving ahead of us…always ahead of us.
• Filling our emptiness and leading us into the future.
• That’s God’s joke on the world…with the greatest of punchlines.

Mark 15: 1-39

Well…it’s Palm Sunday…and Holy Week begins.

• When I was a kid Palm Sunday was just Palm Sunday.
• But now it’s Palm slash Passion Sunday.
• This is because people were not showing on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.
• (It was easier back then when businesses and schools all shut down on Good Friday afternoon).
• Anyway…we were going from the triumphant “Hosanna” (adoration…praise…joy) of Palm Sunday to the glorious “He is Risen” of Easter Sunday.
• Without going through the horrifying “Crucify him!” of Good Friday.

 

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

 

So…the church started making today into Palm slash Passion Sunday so that people would hear the scripture readings of the Passion of our Lord.

• Otherwise known as the betrayal… denial…insulting…spitting…beating, suffering death of Jesus of Nazareth.
• Think about it…who does not want to go from glory to glory.
• And just skip the messy condemning stuff in the middle.

 

It seems reasonable that people want to go from the big processional to the Empty Tomb.

• And skip the other processional of Jesus’s slow…agonizing walk to Golgotha.
• We desire to skip the uncomfortable stuff:
• How Jesus ate his last meal with the people he loved most.
• All of whom would betray…abandon and deny him.
• That these friends could not even stay awake while he prayed in the garden.
• That the crowd would strike and taunt him for not living up to their expectations.
• That the people would shout crucify him!
• And twist into him a crown of thorns.
• That passersby would shout “for God’s sake…save yourself”.
• So…if we could just go from the Palms of the parade to the lilies of Easter.

 

When we go from glory to glory and skip the cross…

• We get ourselves into a big mess.
• Because…we then…begin to think the cross is about us and not about God.

 

The big mess starts when we think we can know who God is by just looking at who we are.

• And then projecting that up hugely large.
• We are vengeful so God is vengeful.
• We are power-hungry so God is power hungry.
• We want to smite our enemies…so God wants to smite our enemies.
• That is why it is hard to get our arms around this.
• That God would willingly choose to be poured out for us on the cross because…
• Well…we would…never…do a thing like that.

 

Albert Einstein said:

• “The same thinking that created a problem cannot solve the problem.”
• We cannot be saved by a God who is just like us.
• A bigger…badder…version of the worst of us.
• Or…a bigger…better version of the best of us cannot save us.

 

Here is the good news!

• There is a way to honestly know about the nature of God.
• And it is never to look at ourselves.
• It is always to look at Jesus.
• God says: “Look at Jesus…this is how I want to be known.”

 

The way to know the Father is through the son.

• Anything else ends up being about us and not about God.
• We can see who God is in a humble cradle and a human cross.

 

From his roughhewn cross Jesus looks at the world and no one escapes his judgment:

• Those who betray him…those who execute him…those who love him…those who ignore him.
• From the cross the pronouncement is made…and the judgment is:
• “Forgive them Father for they know not what they are doing.”

 

From his cross Christ loves the betrayer…the violent…the God killer in all of us.

• And he will not even lift a finger to condemn those who put him up there.
• Because it is only a God unlike us who can save us from ourselves.

 

The suffering and death of Jesus Christ on the cross is not about us.

• It is for us.
• God is so for us that there is no place God will not go to be with us.
• Nothing separates us from the love of God in Jesus.

 

So…two parades or processions are in focus today:

• In the first…we welcome Jesus into our city and…for a moment…
• Dare to dream of the completion of God’s Kingdom of justice and peace here and now.
• The second is Jesus’s slow…agonizing trek to Golgotha.
• The Via Dolorosa…the street through which Jesus walked to Calvary.

 

The processions of today are re-enacted every day in our own lives:

• The first invites us to hope and possibility.
• The second makes us cringe with embarrassment.
• We are players in every passion story.

John 12:20-33

Our daughter…our oldest child…had moved into a new home with her husband and newborn baby.

• Our son had recently finished graduate school in California.
• He and his wife settled down out there and birthed their first child.
• And now our third child was gone…headed for the university.
• Then our fourth child was just now graduating from high school and living on her own and working at a bank.

 

 

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

 

So…what I want to report to you is this:

• Miss Susan and I were now empty nesters.
• And we were looking forward to this next chapter.

 

But the big house was more than we needed.

• And we found a lovely three-bedroom two bath house when we moved to Florida from up north.
• It was close to the church I was serving at the time.

 

So…the downsizing began.

• We are not overly sentimental.
• But going through the things we accumulated in three plus decades of marriage was a surprisingly emotional experience.

 

Packing up the kids’ sports equipment brought back memories of those days spent at the Girls and Boys Club near our previous home.

• All those weeknights and Saturdays watching and rooting for our kids as they played baseball and softball and soccer.

 

We discovered a box of large mugs we used to drink hot chocolate out of…

• When returning home from our chilly annual outing to cut down our Christmas tree.

 

We never realized how chipped and scratched our everyday dishes were until we packed them for moving.

• But every crack evoked a warm memory of Christmas or Thanksgiving.
• Every chip recalls the face or voice of a cherished loved one.

 

And we finally moved the old kitchen table out to the garage.

• A table I had built when our family was young.
• Looking…you could see the slight indentations in the pine wood where math formulas had been worked out.
• Looking…you could see the fine depressions of an essay written late into a school night evening.
• That table had been the center of our home.
• The place where we broke bread together.
• The place we regularly had family meetings.
• The place where we talked about the joys and concerns of life.
• The place where we dined with family and friends.
• The place where our family came together for games and fun.
• For homework and bill-paying.
• A temporary landing place for laundry and mail.

 

We moved steadily through it all.

• Like an archeological dig.
• Layer after layer.
• And then we came to our children’s baby books.

 

We began thumbing through the pages.

• And we found ourselves sitting together on the floor.
• Our backs against the wall.
• Amidst the U-Haul packing boxes.
• Reliving our fears of being first-time parents.
• Reliving the mistakes we made that somehow our kids managed to survive.
• The long nights and lasting joys our son and daughters brought us.
• And now the joy of grandchildren.

 

The story of our life together told in the rooms of that home:

• Each room with a story of heartbreak and healing.
• Each room with a story of planting in fear and reaping in hope.
• Each room with a story of experiencing little deaths on the way to a new chapter of life.

 

Downsizing…we came to realize the many small deaths and resurrections we have experienced.

• Every life is filled with moments of change and discovery.
• Some difficult and painful.
• Some challenging and joy filled.

 

Jesus’ depiction of the grain of wheat reminds us that life demands change.

• As we move through our lives…we discover that we die many times as we grow and mature…
• As we end one phase of life and enter the next.

 

There is the death of childhood…when we put aside our innocence to deal with real life.

• When we come to understand that our needs and wants are not the center of the universe.
• But we have a responsibility to nurture and support the families and communities that have nurtured and supported us.
• But from the death of one’s childhood comes the birth of a responsible adulthood.

 

There is the death of dreams…when we accept the reality that we will never play shortstop for the New York Yankees or sing and dance on Broadway.

• But in putting aside those dreams and accepting who we are and the talents we possess and the vision we have for our life…
• We give birth to new possibilities to live lives of meaning and purpose.

 

There is the death of idealism…when we no longer believe that life is a fairy tale.

• But that hard work…sacrifice…compromise and…perhaps most critical of all…forgiveness…are important in every meaningful relationship.

 

And there is the slow dying of control.

• As our aging bodies and intellect require us over time to yield the power and self-reliance we cling to.
• And accept the help and support from those we love.

The last act of our lives requires humility…gratitude and graciousness that is difficult to embrace.

• But can be a lasting gift to those who care for us.
• There are so many endings before the final ending.
• So many farewells before the last farewell.

 

Every life is a series of experiences of death and birth.

• Of change and discovery.
• Some difficult and painful.

 

In the image of the grain of wheat Jesus teaches us that life demands dying to our fears…despair and sense of self.

• But if we are willing to risk loving and allowing ourselves to be loved…
• Jesus promises us the “harvest” of the Gospel wheat.
• Only by loving is love returned.
• Only by reaching out beyond ourselves…do we learn and grow.
• Only by giving to others do we receive.
• Only by dying do we rise to new life.

John 3:14-21

This morning…I want to tell you about a guy I went to high school with.

• Billy Frichal.
• We were members of the same church.
• We graduated together.
• I went on to Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.
• Later seminary…becoming a Lutheran Pastor.
• Billy went on to the University of Wisconsin – Madison, WI.
• Later becoming a Medical Doctor.

 

Bill…years later…shared this with me…in a letter:

• “I grew up in the church.
• Then I grew away from the church.
• College…medical school and then to Vietnam as a battalion surgeon.
• A MASH surgeon: (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital).
• A place where I grew in cynicism.
• A place where I found myself amid rice paddies.
• Under the most inhuman conditions.
• The sounds and smells of war and injured and dead bodies.
• I grew away from God.”

 

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

 

Bill’s relationship with God (or absence of a relationship with God) helps me understand what Jesus is talking about in today’s reading when he holds together love and judgment.

• “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” he says.
• Insisting that “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world.
• But in order that the world might be saved.”

 

Humanity…says Jesus…is like my running buddy Bill:

• Jesus’ love letter shows up…and suddenly we must make a choice.
• This is the judgment:
• That the light has come into the world…and we prefer darkness.

 

The word our Bible translates as “judgment” is actually the root of our English word “crisis.”

• And that gives us an important clue to understanding what Jesus is getting at.
• Because what is a crisis?
• What is a judgment?
• It is a moment of truth.
• A turning point.
• A decision for one way and against another?

 

Robert Frost wrote:

• Two roads diverged in a wood, and
  I took the one less traveled by,
  And that has made all the difference.
• It’s where the rubber meets the road…and you must sort among all the maybes and the half-formed movements in your life and choose one.
• You cannot go on the way you have been any more.
• You must choose.
• And Bill chose darkness.

 

It’s like Cheryl Strayed says in her book…Wild: (Also a movie).

• Her book is a first-person memoir of her 1,100-mile hike along thePacific Crest Trail.
• From the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to the border with Washington State.
• The story contains flashbacks to prior life occurrences that led her to begin her mountain-walking journey.

 

Cheryl was devastated by her mother’s death when she was 22 years old.

• Her stepfather disengaged from her family.
• And her brother and sister remained distant.
• Cheryl became involved inheroin
• And she and her husband divorced.

 

Seeking self-discovery and resolution of her enduring grief and personal challenges.

• At age 26…Cheryl set out alone.
• On a 1,100-mile journey.
• Having no prior backpacking experience.
• Wildintertwines the stories of Strayed’s life before and during the journey.
• Describing her physical challenges and spiritual realizations while on the trail.

 

And so…whatever our crises is…

• Something shines a big fat spotlight on where you are:
• “You Are Here” on the maze-like map of your life.
• And the map shows that you have come as far down this hallway as you can.
• And now you must choose which way to go.
• Cheryl chose life.

 

“This is the judgment!” says Jesus.

• That the light comes into the world.
• And people choose.”

 

Of course…it often does not feel like a choice.

• Often it feels like we are stuck where we are.
• No matter how much we recognize a need to change.
• As the old prayer of confession has it:
• “We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.”

 

And that is precisely what Jesus is talking about in this passage.

• When we read that “people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil” we do not identify.
• Because we think of “evil” as deliberately villainous and despicable.
• And we know that’s not us.

 

But that’s not what Jesus is saying.

• The word he uses for “evil” was originally used to talk about the work of slaves.
• People without choices.
• Forced to toil continually with no results.
• Knowing that no matter how hard they worked their only reward would be another day of toil.
• That is evil.
• And that is something we can identify with.

 

The sense of being trapped in futility.

• Knowing this is no way to live.
• Yet seeing no way out of our maze.
• This is the human condition.
• And this is what Jesus is talking about.
• The crisis…what Jesus came to shine a light onto…
• Is that we are stuck in futility.
• And human sin…even when Jesus shows us another way…
• Causes us to prefer to stick with the devil we know.
• This is the judgment:
• That the light came into the world…
• And we prefer darkness.

 

My boyhood friend…Bill…grew up in a good and loving church.

• And came from a good and loving family.
• But he grew in cynicism.
• War and worry and hate and fear and anger got the best of him.
• And he chose death instead of life.
• And he could not imagine finding his way back.

 

That is what Jesus is talking about.

• But it doesn’t have to be that way.
• God did not go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger.
• He came to help.
• To put the world right again.

 

And this is why:

• So that no one need be destroyed.
• “Come to me” Jesus said.
• “All you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens…and I will give you rest.”
• Bring your futility to me and set it down.

 

Some 3,300 years ago Moses led a nation of slaves to freedom.

• They spent decades in a desert as toilsome as slavery.
• Finally…the day came when they stood on the threshold of the Promised Land.
• Behind them lay bleak desert.
• Ahead of them a banquet of green pastureland.

 

As they stood poised to cross into this land…Moses spoke to them about making a choice.

• You Are Here…he said…pointing to this pivotal moment in history.
• Now decide which way you are going to go.
• “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death…blessings and curses.
• Choose life so that you and your descendants may live…
• Loving the Lord your God…
• Obeying him…
• And holding fast to him.
• For that means life to you and length of days.”
• Choose life.

 

A postscript:

• What Bill wanted to report to me in his letter is that literally amid the rice paddies.
• Under the most inhuman circumstances.
• The sounds and smells of war.
• He heard on his small transistor radio what he called the one sane voice.
• The words of a radio preacher.

 

This one voice was not enough to stand against the blood.

• But what he had heard in the rice paddies…
• He heard again at the baptism of his daughter.
• And he was drawn into the hearing of the Word and the life of the congregation’s faith community.

 

He will never be the same.

• Never without the scars of war.
• Nevertheless…he wrote:
• “It is as if I have been swept up by…
• And become captive to…
• The wonderful message of God’s grace.”
• Bill chose life!

John 2:13-22

Jesus’ “cleansing of the temple” is a turning point in the Gospel:

• He seeks to restore the temple as a house of prayer by casting out the moneylenders and vendors.
• We accumulate many “things” that distract us from the important and meaningfulness of life.
• We amas possessions but also store up feelings of fear…intimidation…disappointment…exhaustion.
• This is a season for a “spring cleaning” of our spirits and souls.
• To “drive out” whatever distracts us from the things of God and restore us to a new sense of being.

 

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

 

With the crack of a whip…Jesus chased merchants from the temple.

• He drove out the oxen…scattered the sheep.
• He turned the tables on the moneychangers…with coins jangling to the floor and rolling.
• Single-handedly…Jesus broomed the temple clean.
• The leaders glared at him and said: “What sign can you show us for doing this?”

 

Well…Jesus was disrupting a workable and established system.

• The leaders at the temple were concerned that everybody was properly equipped for worship.
• Does anybody want to offer a sacrifice to God? An appropriate animal was available at the temple.
• Does anybody need to change Roman money into Jewish temple currency? Money changers will be available at the temple.
• How convenient! You could travel those long…dusty miles to the holy city…never worry about dragging along your own sacrificial ox or sheep.
• Never fear about bringing exact change.
• If you wanted to travel to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage…the system provided everything.
• Well…it was a good system until Jesus came and disrupted it.

 

The Temple Leaders saw Jesus as an upstart.

• According to the Gospel of John…this was the first time Jesus confronted organized religion.
• Up to this point…he had been collecting disciples and attending wedding receptions.
• Now for the first time…he met organized religion head on…and he exposed its seedy underside.
• No wonder they responded:
• “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Who did Jesus think he was? What were his credentials?
• Did he think he could march into the temple and smash the system to bits?

 

The other Gospels tell this story as if it happened much later in Jesus’ life.

• When Jesus undertakes this action in Matthew…Mark and Luke…the authorities say it is the last straw.
• They decide to eliminate the troublemaker. They practically sign his death warrant.

 

Yet in this Gospel…John tells the story as early as chapter two…as if to say that…from the beginning of his ministry…Jesus took on organized religion.

• No wonder the Jewish leaders demanded some proof of his authority.

 

OK then…shortly before all this chaos at the Temple there was a wedding party in Cana.

• So well attended that the caterer ran out of wine.
• So…here’s the deal…Jesus sees six stone jars…each able to hold 20 to 30 gallons.
• “Fill them with water” he said “and then ladle some out.”
• Out came some of the best wine the caterer had tasted in years.

 

The problem had to do with those six stone jars.

• Normally they were filled with water for purification ceremonies.
• But instead…Jesus fills them with Manischewitz.
• That is disrespectful!
• But that is what Jesus did.

 

So…here’s the thing…imagine a memorial service reception in the church’s fellowship hall.

• As the punch bowl is carried in…it accidentally slips and smashes on the floor.
• In the moment of panic…someone says:
• “Don’t worry! I know something we can use.”
• Slipping into the sanctuary…this young Turk lifts the baptismal bowl from the wooden font and carries it into fellowship hall.
• The stainless-steel baptismal bowl is then filled with Canada Dry and cranberry juice.
• The baptismal font becomes a punch bowl.
• Now…this is pretty much what Jesus did.

 

At Jesus’ command…Jewish purification jars became carafes of new wine.

• The writer says the wedding at Cana was the first sign Jesus performed.
• That sign stood against established customs.
• When Jesus cleansed the temple…the leaders demanded a sign.
• Did they know what they were asking for?

 

Jesus answered: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”

• But wait! No one said anything about destroying the temple.
• All the people want to know is why he came in with a whip and chased the merchants away.
• But destroy the temple?
• “Jesus…it’s taken 46 years to build this Temple…and you challenge us to destroy it?”
• “Destroy this temple” …Jesus said… “and in three days I’ll raise it up.”

 

Well…there is something going on here.

• When Jesus cleansed the temple…his opponents wanted a sign.
• To meet their request…he spoke:
• “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”
• Jesus was not talking about the temple and its traditions. He was talking about himself.

 

What we see throughout the Gospel of John is that Jesus does not need the temple.

• When Jesus encounters the traditions…routines…religious procedures…he often ignores them.
• Jesus does not need the temple, because…
• According to John…Jesus is the temple.

 

BUT…as our scripture passage shows us…Jesus deeply values what the temple represents.

• If the temple is where God meets people…that’s important.
• But the text also shows us that our temple is Jesus Christ.
• He is the One in whom God meets us.

 

As proof…Jesus gave the one sign that abolishes the over-organization of religion.

• He offered his own death and resurrection.
• Jesus said: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”
• His opponents asked…Jesus…what gives you the right to reform our religion?
• What sign do you offer?
• The sign he offered was himself.

Mark 8: 31-38

I do not remember how it was with me…I was too little to remember.

• But I have watched my own four children and eleven grandchildren.
• As toddlers they all strung out three words together.
• It was something like: “I to it!”
• Independence and self-reliance come quite naturally to us.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson had beautiful things to say about life and nature and contemplation.
• But his most famous essay was on “Self-Reliance” …
• An ode to individualism and the sanctity of self-sufficiency.

Much of the American ethos is based on this notion.

• Rugged individualism:
• Paul Bunyan…the unsinkable Molly Brown and the Marlboro man.
• Yes…I can “do it by myself!”

 

Even Christianity has colluded with this individualism.

• As in the new title we have given to Jesus in the last 100 years:
• “Personal Lord and Savior.”
• As though in our contact list between our Personal Assistant and our Personal Trainer can be found:
• “Jesus…our Personal Savior.”

But this is not the Jesus we meet in our text today.

• This Jesus says: “Deny yourself…take up your cross and follow me.
• And if you try to save your life…you will lose it and if you lose it for the sake of the Gospel…you will gain it.”

 

This saying of Jesus that we are to deny the self and lose our life to gain it has been abused.

• Twisted into things like: Denying your dignity and picking up your cross of continued domestic abuse.
• Or things like: Denying your self-worth and picking up your cross of being bullied at school.

 

When Jesus says…”deny yourself” …he means denying the self that wants to see itself as separate from God and others.

• Denying the self that believes that following Jesus is a suffering avoidance program.
• Denying the self that does not feel worthy of God’s love.
• Denying the self that thinks we are more worthy of God’s love than our enemy is.
• Denying the self that thinks we can “do it by ourselves.” That we don’t need anybody.

 

What I really want us to know today is this:

• That dying to ourselves no matter how painful…will bring us abundant life.
• But even Jesus himself was not able to convince his disciples of this.

 

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

 

In our text for today Jesus tried to tell Peter that the Messiah must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders and priests and be killed and after three days rise again.

• He tried to tell Peter of this great mystery of God…and Peter was not convinced.
• Peter thought Jesus had lost his mind.
• You gatta love how Peter took Jesus aside to rebuke him.
• You know…so Jesus would not lose face in front of the guys.

 

Jesus tried to teach Peter the great mystery of Jesus suffering death and resurrection.

• But Peter could not get his arms around this idea of dying to self.
• Some things just must be experienced.
• Peter…honestly…is always a stand-in for us.
• You see…Peter had not yet experienced Good Friday and Easter.

 

Peter had not experienced how at the cross God can gather up all of humanity’s violence and abusive power.

• Peter had not experienced how even his own denial of Jesus could be gathered up into God’s own self.
• And then God responding with nothing but love and forgiveness.

 

Without experiencing the resurrection…after what Peter saw as the complete loss of hope.

• Without having experienced all of this…
• Peter could not know it just by being told it would happen.
• And we are in the same boat…we cannot know it just by being told either.

 

So…there is no way I can preach a homily that will convince you that “I can do it myself” is not the way of Jesus or the cross.

• But it is in dying to self and living for God where life is to be found.
• There is simply no way I can convince you of something that must be experienced to be known.
• I cannot lay-out a sound enough argument to convince you of the mystery of how God does this death and resurrection thing.
• But I so desperately want to because I have experienced it to be true.

 

I have experienced it in the way in which God takes the messes of my own making and makes something new in me and in my life.

• Something I never would have chosen out of a catalog or created for myself.
• It may be a small piece of wisdom or an unexpected friendship or an angel in the form of a person or yet another opportunity for me to be forgiven by you.

 

I have experienced the death and resurrection of this baptismal life so deeply and so often that it is no longer a belief.

• It is a knowing.

 

So…if you know someone who is faced with extreme pain and trauma in their life right now.

• That is…they cannot manage to stop addictive behavior on their own.
• They cannot stop using alcohol or drugs.
• Or stop shopping compulsively.
• Or stop hating themselves.
• Or stop liking someone who is hurting them.
• If they are filled with false pride.
• Or filled with fear and unable to find motivation to do what they know should be done.
• Tell them there is no shame in that. 
• Because…as St. Paul said…God’s strength is perfected in their weakness.

 

Denying ourselves looks like letting ourselves off the hook for having to be God.

• As I like to remind myself.
• A big difference between me and God is that God never thinks he’s Pastor Chip.
• So…letting God be God for us means denying the cult of the self.
• Both self-aggrandizement and self-abasement.

 

So good people of God…I cannot convince you of this.

• I can only describe what it looks like.
• As your preacher all I can say is:
• This is abundant life found in the paradox of losing ourselves in Christ.
• May it be so.

Mark 1:9-15

The wilderness is a dangerous place.  You only go there if you must.

• Fierce heat…jagged rocks…wild animals…blistered feet.
• Today we read about a long and treacherous stint in the wilderness.
• Unlike his counterparts…Matthew and Luke…Mark offers us no colorful details about Jesus’s experience in the wilderness.
• We do not learn what the specific temptations were…or how Jesus responded to them.
• Mark does not even assure us that Jesus passed his desert test.
• All he gives us are two hurried sentences:
• “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.
• He was in the wilderness forty days…tempted by Satan…and he was with the wild beasts…and the angels waited on him.”

 

This abrupt version of events leaves me buzzing with questions…I wonder about details:

• How exactly did Jesus spend his time?
• Was he tempted 24/7?
• Did he walk for miles each day…or camp out in one spot?
• Where did he sleep?
• What was the silence like…hour after hour after hour?
• Did he break it up by humming…laughing…shouting?
• Did he star gaze?
• Play with birds?  Chase lizards?
• As the days stretched on and on…did he fear for his life?
• Question his sanity?  Wish to die?

Mark…given…as ever…to brevity…leaves all these questions unanswered.

• But he does give us substance to cling to as we face deserts in our own lives. Here are three:
• Jesus did not choose the wilderness.
• The struggle is long.
• There are angels in the desert.

 

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

 

First…Jesus did not meander into the wilderness.  He did not schedule a walk in the woods…like Bill Bryson …or plan a wilderness marathon to rack up Fitbit steps.

• The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness.
• You only go there if you must.
• OK then…this detail is comforting.  Why?
• Because it rings true.
• We do not choose to enter the wilderness.
• We do not volunteer…generally…for pain…loss…danger…or terror.

 

The wilderness just happens.

• Whether it comes to us as a hospital waiting room…a thorny relationship…a troubled child…a sudden death…or a family crisis.
• The wilderness appears…unbidden and unwelcome.
• And sometimes…can we bear to ponder this?
• It is God’s own Spirit who drives us into the parched landscape amidst the wild beasts.
• Does this mean that God wants us to suffer?  That God is a sadistic? I do not think so.
• Does it mean that God can redeem even the most barren periods of our lives?
• That our deserts can become holy even as they remain dangerous?  Yes.  I believe so.

 

Sometimes our journeys with God include dark and desolate places.

• Not because God takes pleasure in our pain…
• But because we live in a fragile…broken world that includes deserts.
• And because God’s way is to take the things of death…and wring from them resurrection.

 

Second…our wilderness journeys sometimes last a long…long time.

• I have never spent forty days in solitude and silence and physical deprivation and danger.
• But I do not think Jesus’ time in the wilderness passed by quickly.
• The sense I get is that Jesus wrestled and exerted great effort against great difficulty.
• That he experienced each day as a battle of mind…spirit and body.
• The landscape itself mocked his weary senses…its fixed bleakness breaking his heart.

 

Because we live in quick-fix culture…this aspect of the wilderness is especially heavy.

• That is…we tire and despair easily.
• Why…we ask…is this pain not ending?
• Why are our prayers going unanswered?  Where is God?

Well…we need to ask a harder question:

• Why did Jesus need the wilderness?  Why do we?
• According to Mark…the heavens were torn open…and God announced Jesus’s identity loud and clear:
• “You are my Son…the Beloved…with you I am well pleased.”
• But what happened to that certain sense of identity and belonging?

I wonder…as Jesus’s wilderness wanderings stretched into week two…week three…week four?

• Did he begin to waver?
• Did the Son of God need to keep reminding himself of who he was?
• Did his Father need to nudge him each time he forgot?
• “Can you hear me now?  Can you hear that you are precious and beloved now?
• Can your identity as my own hold in this oppressive silence…here…now?”

 

Today we think about Jesus’ humanity.

• That the Son of God wrestled with his identity?  His vocation?  His relationship to his Father?
• The greatest danger Jesus faced in the wilderness was not starvation.
• Oh no…the greatest danger Jesus faced in the wilderness was amnesia.
• That he forgot who and whose he was!
• That was just too much for him to carry.

 

At his baptism…Jesus heard the absolute truth about who he was.

• “You are my Son.”
• That was easy to hear.
• The much harder part came in the wilderness.
• When he had to face down every vicious assault on that truth.
• When the memory of his Father’s voice from heaven faded.
• And he had to learn how to be God’s beloved in a lonely wasteland.

 

We too…need long stints in the wilderness to learn what it really means to be God’s beloved.

• Because the truth is: we can be beloved and broken and at the same time.
• We can be cherished and unsafe at the same time.
• In the wilderness…the love that survives is flinty…not soft.
• Redeeming…not sentimental.

Third…there were angels in the wilderness.  This is startling and comforting truth.

• A truth we recognize if we open our eyes and look around.
• Somehow…somewhere…help comes.
• And the huge stone is rolled away from the entrance of our tomb.
• Rest comes.  Solace comes.
• OK…OK…our angels do not always appear in the forms we might prefer…but they come.

 

I wonder what Jesus’s angels looked like.

• Did they manifest as winged creatures from heaven?
• As comforting breezes across the sun-scorched hills?
• As a trickle of water for his parched throat?
• As a wild animal that surprised him with a tame and tender gaze?
• As moss and ferns to lay his head upon?
• As the swirl of constellations on a clear…cloudless night?

 

What do our angels look like?

• What have they looked like in the past?
• When they ministered to us…held us…embraced us…did we hear God’s voice anew…calling us his beloved?
• What would it be like to enter someone else’s barren desert now…and become an angel for their journey?
• The wilderness is a dangerous place.  You only go there if you must.

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

And so…Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day this year.

• A strange juxtaposition…
• Valentine’s and Ashes.

Valentine’s Day…in 2018…also fell on Ash Wednesday.

• It was the day when a shooting took place at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
• Seventeen students and staff were fatally shot and seventeen others were wounded in that shooting…
• It was a day of enormous heartbreak.

Father Michael K. Marsh…an Episcopal priest…tells about the first picture that he saw from that horrendous scene.

• It was a woman with her arms around another woman…
• Two moms crying and waiting for news about their children.
• We’ve seen those kinds of pictures before…noted Father Marsh…too many times.
• This one…though…was different.
• The thing that caught Father Marsh’s attention was a cross.
• One of the women in the photo had ashes on her forehead in the shape of a cross.
• Evidently…she had attended an Ash Wednesday service earlier in the day.

 

“She had been marked with a sign of mortality and the fragility of life…wrote Fr. Marsh…

• “The same sign with which you and I will be marked in a few moments…
• And she now stood among the ashes of uncertainty…fear…death…sorrow… loss.

My guess is that when those ashes were being put on her forehead earlier in the day…

• She never thought she would be standing where she was.
• None of us would have either.
• We don’t want to consider that possibility…
• Let alone face that reality.
• And yet…that’s the truth Ash Wednesday holds before us.
• “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”
• It was a sobering day.

 

Christ says: “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them…”

• This was Jesus’ main point of contention with many of the Pharisees.
• It was their sheer hypocrisy.
• They were righteous people…and they wanted everyone to know it!
• They delighted in making a show of their piety.

 

Jesus had no sympathy with such foolishness…

• Whether it was with ostentatious dress…
• Or loud and lengthy prayers…
• Or flashy shows of charity.

 

There was a British sitcom a few years back.

• It was called: “Keeping Up Appearances.”
• It is still being shown in reruns on Netflix and Britbox and PBS.

 

The central character is an eccentric and snobbish middle class social climber named Hyacinth Bucket.

• Though her last name is spelled “b-u-c-k-e-t” bucket…
• She insists that it is pronounced “Bouquet.”
• She answers her phone:
• “The Bouquet residence…
• The lady of the house speaking!”

 

Hyacinth’s whole purpose in life seems to be to try to impress everyone else how upper class she is.

• She lives her life constantly “keeping up appearances.”
• From the china on her table to her elegant and much-dreaded dinner parties.
• She is usually hampered in her attempts to put on the ritz by her sisters and brother-in-law…
• Who are definitely uncultured.
• Much of the humor comes from the conflict between Hyacinth’s vision of herself…
• And the reality of her lower-class background.
• In each episode…she lands in a farcical situation as she battles to project an image of herself that does not mesh with reality.

 

In her situation…it really is funny.

• But it wasn’t funny when it came to the Pharisees.
• They were in places of religious authority.
• People looked to them to give an accurate picture of God.
• A God of love…grace…gratitude…forgiveness…non-judgement.
• Instead…all the people saw was that they had to buy their salvation.
• When…in fact…it was priceless

 

Way back in my ministry there was a senior member in a church that I served named Charlie…who mostly kept to himself.

• I noticed Charlie’s car at the church fairly frequently and we became good friends.

 

In my third year there as pastor Charlie became ill with cancer…

• And after a brief time…developed pneumonia and passed.
• Everyone at his funeral expressed kind words.
• They said things like:
• “He never complained about anything.”
• “He was always there whenever the church doors were open.”

 

A couple of months later a member of the congregation approached me about the light on the outside church sign not shining at night.

• I called the property chairperson about the need to check the light.
• The chairman told me that in all his years at the church he had never known the bulb to burn out…
• And did not even know where the key was to unlock the lid to change it.

 

A few weeks later the clock on the wall in the conference room stopped working.

• I took the clock down and it turned out that the batteries needed to be changed.
• One member said that in all her years of coming to church she never knew the clock to stop working or the batteries needing to be changed.

 

Sometime later I noticed a hinge on one of the cabinet doors in the fellowship hall was loose.

• I heard many people complain about the hinge being loose…but no one took time to fix it.
• And after several more similar incidents occurred…
• It became more and more apparent that Charlie was the one who fixed things…
• And kept things working smoothly at the church.

 

No one was aware of just how much Charlie had done.

• The quiet elderly man was the one who kept the light bulbs changed…
• The batteries in the clocks changed…
• The broken hinges repaired…
• And the list went on and on.

 

Christ appreciates that kind of service.

• It’s the kind of service where a woman quietly consoles a friend who has lost a child in a school shooting.
• It’s the kind of service in which a neighbor inconspicuously helps out someone in the community in need.
• It’s the kind of service in which an adult places a hand on a young person’s shoulder and gives much-needed encouragement.

 

It is a good thing to wear a cross around your neck or have one marked on your forehead.

• It is also a good thing to bear a cross in our daily lives.
• Bearing a cross is an act of humility and service.
• Bearing a cross is an act of commitment.
• It is an act of devotion and love.
• It is not noisy in announcing itself to the world.
• It is silent…but sincere.