With Steadfast Love

Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

John 14:1-14

Lyndon Johnson had a long and prolific career in elected politics before he became president. He represented Texas in the House of Representatives for 12 years, then the Senate for another 12 years. 

Johnson was well-loved in Texas for serving his constituents well, especially in and around Johnson City. Back when I lived in Texas, driving through this area of the Texas Hill Country, I noticed a surprising number of little rest stops along the road. They weren’t fancy like the rest areas we are used to now, with all kinds of amenities for weary and bored travelers. These rest areas consisted of a couple of picnic tables and benches, a trash can. They were well-tended and attractive. And they popped up about every mile or so. 

One could argue that this was excessive, a profligate number of rest stops. But no one could ever accuse LBJ of neglecting the needs of his constituents. If they needed work – well, there would always be jobs building rest stops. And this ensured there would always be a place to stop and rest for the weary traveler.

I thought about this unusual feature of the Hill Country landscape as I was thinking about the words Jesus speaks in our passage from John’s gospel: In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. Because a dwelling place may be temporary as well as permanent. A dwelling place is a place to rest.

And Jesus offers this as comfort: In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. 

I have often been drawn to this passage for funerals. The image of God’s many dwelling places, or rooms, gives us some comfort when we are trying to imagine where our dearly departed ones are now. 

I sometimes let my imagination run with this and try to envision just what this person’s dwelling place might be like. I think about the special gifts they had in their life here on earth and how might God continue to allow room for those gifts to flourish in heaven.

It’s an image, a promise, that many of us are hungry for. Many times I have been asked by someone to help them understand where we go after we die. We wonder for our loved ones who are no longer here with us. We wonder also for ourselves when the time comes. 

I remember several conversations with a woman thinking about her own death, which she knew would come soon. Her overwhelming fear was that she would not know where to go, how to find her loved ones, how to find her way in a strange place. For times when we are anxious or confused about life after death, something we simply cannot know in this life, these words of Jesus give comfort. There is room for you. I will be there with you. You know the way there. And so I have found this passage from John 14 to be a wonderful source of comfort and hope at the time of death.

But as useful as it is for imagining eternal life, this is not the only way for us to understand these words of Jesus. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. I go to prepare a place for you. You know the way to this place because you know me.

And I wonder: Do these words offer any guidance, hope, or comfort for our earthly sojourns? Because even if in the great scheme of things our individual lives here are brief, it doesn’t really feel that way while we are living. Every day of our lives provides new opportunities to wonder how to go forward. To be searching for the way. To desperately wish we had an operator’s instructional manual. Perhaps you, too, have cried out in prayer, “Lord, how can I know the way?”

We may feel that ache of longing for home, knowing deep in our hearts that home is just beyond our reach in these mortal bodies. We deeply desire a resting place, a safe and peace-filled room where our worries and fears dissipate, our needs are filled, where there is joy. Contentment for our souls. And we worry, often, that we don’t know how to get there. 

Thomas and Philip were worried. They stood in the same room with Jesus as he spoke these confident, assuring words: this is where I am going. It will be good, for all of us. You know the way there. Yet they were not convinced. Just show us the Father. Which sounds a little like, “I want to see the manager because I don’t believe you have the final word here.”

They were uneasy, because they didn’t feel like people who know the way. Actually, they felt so very far away from home.

This is a feeling that resides within people of faith, more or less – like this earth is not really our home, that we are aliens here who long more than anything to return home. It isn’t that we want to leave all that we love in this life. We would just sort of like to be re-situated, with all that we love, in a better place.

I think the feeling comes through in the verses of Psalm 35. In you, Lord, I seek refuge. From all that is threatening and harmful in this world, I seek my refuge – my safety and peace – in you, O Lord. God as a living and moving fortress.

Yet, there is something even more that Jesus wants to say to his followers. You know the way, he insists, because you know me. Has he not shown them, throughout the time he has spent with them, the way to live? And is this not living in Christ Jesus himself? The way, the truth, and the life?

We do not just follow him, we find our life in him. And when we live in him we live with the Father. When we live in him, in this dwelling place created for us, we are a part of the work he came for.

It seems to me that it is our mission then, as the church, to be such a dwelling place for those who seek it. Even in this place that is not our heart’s home, together we create something like home – a dwelling place for all who seek God in this world. And, in one way or another, we are all seeking to fill that God-shaped hole within us.

What does that mean for us, the church? To seek out the least ones, the lost ones? Those who are most in need of a dwelling place are the ones who suffer most on their journeys through life. 

There is a little story by Gloria Naylor about a woman whose longings were simple, very modest, much like our own: she longed for a place to call home. She dreamed of a little bungalow with a picket fence, green in her imagination. She envisioned geraniums all around the house, because they are so bright and strong. She liked the idea of flowers that weren’t too delicate. Geraniums were durable, able to withstand all kinds of adversity.

It was a dream she held for her whole life. It was amazing that she managed to hold on to the dream even while everything worked against her. No matter how hard she tried to be good, to work hard, to overcome – still, the world was hard on her and in the end, she could only find that dream of home in a bottle of cheap wine. Night after night she would go looking for that home.

This is someone who needed a dwelling place – a safe place, a caring community, a place to rest. Home.

In the Father’s house there are many dwelling places, a place for every one of us, built and sustained with God’s steadfast love. Let us be shaped into such a place.

In the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

With Glad and Generous Hearts

Acts 2:42-47

John 10:1-10

The book of Acts is really special to me because it is the only book in the Bible that tries to give us a glimpse of just how it all began. It says to the reader, come along with me and I’ll show you what it was like, how this great thing we call the church got started. As I read it, I feel like I can hear the narrator saying, “Man, wasn’t that a time!” Day by day, wonderful things were happening in their midst.

This reading from the second chapter is in the very beginning of the beginning. The resurrected Jesus has ascended, the Holy Spirit has descended, and the church is alive. Peter preaches a sermon that everyone understood in their own language – and I take that to mean simply that the Spirit was breaking through all the barriers. People were hearing and, as the narrative says, they were “cut to the heart” by this message of salvation. “What should we do?” they asked. What should we do?

The answer is unfolded in the rest of the book. This is the story about how the church became the church.

First, they were baptized. Baptism was the way in for them, and it is still understood as the entry into the church. A rite of initiation, if you will. But, of course, there is more.

There is a sense we have that we will be changed somehow by baptism. That we might feel the power of the Spirit flow through us, or that we might feel cut to the heart as did the Jews who were in Jerusalem on Pentecost. But actually, most of us don’t feel that special something at the moment we are baptized. And most of us were very young when we were baptized, anyway.

I guess if you were looking for a wow factor, your baptism might have been disappointing. It’s not there for most of us. You might not feel a bit different.

But that doesn’t mean that you are the same old person you were before. The real change that comes to you when you are baptized is a change by choice.

If you think of baptism as a doorway – a threshold – then we can imagine that in baptism we cross a threshold into a new home. This is where we live now – in the church.

There isn’t anything magical about the ways we may change when we enter a new place. But we learn new ways of being with others. New ways of being in relationship with others. Because this is who we are now – the church.

And this is exactly what we see in the pages of the book of Acts. All these people have, all at once, stepped into the same metaphorical house together. And they are all figuring out together these new ways of being.

But how can they do that? I found myself wondering, who is there to teach them? They are all new at this thing. You have probably had the benefit of mentors, as have I – elders in the church who taught us how to be a Christian, how to worship, how to give, how to serve. But who was there to teach them at the very beginning?

There was the Spirit, who had descended on them that day in Jerusalem. The Spirit guided them that day and continued to guide them every day after. In the same way, we have the Spirit guiding us every day. And, Lord, do we need her. Because being a Christian is not something you get figured out, but something you are always figuring out. Every single day.

In these few verses from Acts 2 we see a few of the things the Spirit was helping them to figure out: they shared what they had, giving to others what was needed. They broke bread together, prayed together, learned together, and fellowshipped together – they did it all with glad and generous hearts. And day by day the Lord added to their number.

In this Easter season we are discovering the things that lie at the heart of being the church. It begins with recognizing our very foundation of love. Everything that follows is built upon that foundation. We are a community that lives to love God and our neighbors. We take care of one another and we reach out beyond our walls to the greater world.

Here in the stories of the church’s beginnings we see it all unfolding, laying us a pattern to follow. These are the things that matter. These are the things that are at the heart of the church.

When I was growing into adulthood I began to learn about the value of family. Because there were many ways I needed help, even though I didn’t particularly want help. I wanted to do it on my own. But I couldn’t. And there were plenty of times I was blessed to be given help I didn’t even know I needed. There were people who did this for me because I was family. And if everything is working reasonably well, family takes care of one another.

People of all faiths do this – taking care of family is in our human DNA. But when you become a part of the church, stepping over that threshold, through the baptismal waters, you begin to learn a radically new way of being: there are no boundaries around family. Every person you meet can be a member of this family. And we care for them all.

Thankfully, no one has to do it by themselves. Because if the church is everywhere then everywhere you go there are people working together under the Spirit’s power and grace to share what they have, to care for one another.

At least that’s the way it should be.

There are some churches that don’t actually preach the same gospel we know. There are churches that seem to want to make it their mission to persecute people they deem lesser beings. There are church leaders who are more like thieves and bandits than shepherds, to use Jesus’ words.

There is a growing concern now about the dangers of the Christian Nationalist movement and church leaders influenced by that who are doing great harm to the gospel of Jesus Christ. One of them, in fact, will be the keynote speaker at the Salisbury National Day of Prayer Breakfast.

All this makes it that much more important for us to be the church as we know it and lead with love. For each one of us to do our part in supporting and strengthening the church we love. To do it with glad and generous hearts, just as the first church did.

May we follow the voice of our Good Shepherd, who leads us into life abundant.

May we open our hearts to the Spirit who guides us into faithful community.

And day by day, with the Spirit’s help, may we have the goodwill of all people. 

Straight from the Heart

 

Luke24:13-35

The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a beautiful line: Christ plays in ten thousand places. And it seems to be so in the Easter season. In these days following the resurrection, it seems like he is everywhere at once. Better than when he was bound by human flesh! He is in the garden, in the upper room, at the lakeshore, on the road to Emmaus. Apparently, all at once.

Here we are still in the same day we were in two weeks ago. For you and me, the Easter lilies are starting to die back, and the jellybeans are all eaten. But the gospel still has us on the day of Christ’s resurrection.

One of the things that happened on this day was a couple of the disciples walking to a place called Emmaus. I wish I could tell you something about this place called Emmaus.

I have done some searching to learn something about this place, but I came up with nothing of use. Some have proposed that it is a place about seven miles northwest of the city of Jerusalem, known as el-Khubeibeh. Others have suggested it is a place about eight miles southwest of Jerusalem, known as Khurbet Khamasa. And there are other places that have been suggested. So one thing I know for sure is that we have no idea about Emmaus.

But it doesn’t really matter where Emmaus was. It doesn’t matter why they were walking there because it is more important that they are walking away from Jerusalem than that they are walking toward a place called Emmaus.

Cleopas and the other disciple are walking away from the scene of the crime. In the past three days they have been witness to fearsome things. Their teacher, Jesus, was taken from them, arrested by the Roman soldiers. Once in the hands of the soldiers, they surely knew that things were unlikely to get better. He was beaten, interrogated, beaten some more, then crucified.

He died, and a few of his followers asked permission to take his body down. They wanted to give him a decent burial. It is, perhaps, surprising that the authorities permitted his body to be taken. The Romans liked to keep bodies up in the crosses lining the road for a good long time, to make sure everyone saw what they could do.

He was buried on Friday afternoon. But they were hurried since the sabbath was upon them. They knew they would have to come back to finish the work later.

And they did. Before sunrise on the day after the sabbath, some of the women returned to the tomb. But incredibly, something else terrible had happened. His body was gone.

Imagine this for a moment. Consider your own experience with the burial of loved ones and try to imagine just how that felt.

It had to feel truly awful. However, even this, it seems, would not be enough. The women reported to the others that they had seen an angel who told them Jesus was alive. He was not in the tomb because he was alive.

Still, there were others who were saying the body had been stolen, or hidden. By whom? It depended on who you asked. It could have been grave robbers. Or it could have been some of his followers.

The disciples of Jesus had been on some wild roller coaster ride of emotion during these few days. For a brief moment it seemed as though everything ended on Friday afternoon when Jesus breathed his last. But their mourning was interrupted by these other events and reports.

One thing I am certain of, among all the things they were feeling there was fear. They were afraid of what had already happened, and they were afraid of what might happen next. They were afraid for their future.

And so, in fear, these two disciples are walking away from Jerusalem. But they are also just walking.

Walking is something we do when we have a lot to think about. When you have some big feelings to process. The action of walking, left foot, right foot, over and over actually helps your brain do the work of processing something hard. The rhythm, the symmetry, encourages healthy brain activity. It helps relieve stress and fear.

And we can be sure these two disciples had some stress, some fear, and a lot of stuff to think through. So they did what many of us would do – they walked. And they talked.

While they walked and talked someone came alongside them. A stranger, and whether he was welcome, I do not know. But when the stranger asked them, “What are you guys talking about?” they stopped dead in their tracks. Sad. And they proceeded to lay it all out for this stranger, the whole sordid story of all that had gone on in the past few days. It was painful to talk about, but they needed to talk about it.

The stranger’s response was surprising to them. “How slow of heart you are to believe,” he said.

When they arrived at Emmaus it was near evening. Somehow, they just didn’t want to take leave of this stranger, so they urged him to stay with them. Stay, eat with us, stay the night, for the day is almost ended.

And it was when they sat at table together, these three; and when the stranger took the bread and gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them – it was then that these two disciples recognized him. Jesus. And in that same instant, he was gone.

The disciples turned to each other in amazement. Now they were putting it together. Were not our hearts burning within us as we were walking and talking with him? Things are clicking into place. Now it didn’t matter that the hour was late, they ran back to Jerusalem to tell the others what had happened – that the Lord had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

And this, of course, is part of our story and part of our ritual. It is part of our identity. We often call ourselves people of the book, of the word. But as great as words are, they only take us so far. And then it becomes about what we do. What we do will carry us the rest of the way.

It is not just words but also actions that strengthen and deepen our faith. It is not just words but also actions that deepen and express our love. There is a point at which the power of faith and the power of love have to go beyond words. 

And so when we have big overwhelming feelings we might take a walk. When we have great joy we might run or dance. When we are in need of Christ’s presence, we have holy communion, the bread and the cup.

When the words were spoken, and the bread was broken, then their eyes were opened. Actions can break through where words are not quite enough. When we partake of the holy meal we are in his presence. Meet you at the table – I promise, is what he said. But I feel that this is something we don’t avail ourselves of enough. The bread of heaven, the cup of salvation, these are always nourishing to our souls, and I will take them any time they are offered.

This sort of reminds me of the story in the book of Acts where the apostle Philip encounters an Ethiopian on the road who needs someone to open the meaning of the scriptures to him. So Philip does just that. Then the Ethiopian wants to be baptized. He points to a body of water nearby and says to Philip, “Look – here is water. What is to prevent me from being baptized?”

What, indeed.

Well, we have rules about the administration of the sacraments, which are meant to prevent their misuse. But the rules are not meant to limit our access to these life-giving and life-sustaining elements.

When we gather together to share the Lord’s Supper, we know that Jesus is right there with us. Christ plays in ten thousand places, and the table is definitely one of them. This is one place he has promised to always meet us. Just as he was there with the two disciples on the road, he is there with us whenever we gather at the table. Watch, next time. Watch and perhaps you will see. As we share the bread and the cup, you may see him as a spark that lights between us. As you look in someone’s eyes, you may feel Christ’s presence between you. Heart to heart.

Words are necessary, I know this is true. But just as necessary are the actions of faith. There comes a point where our actions are just what is needed to give life to our faith. Things will click into place and we will know. The actions of faith are sacred, because they come straight from the heart.

 

Full of Gladness

Acts 2:14a, 22-32

John 20:19-31

There is a cute scene in the middle of The Sound of Music, when Maria and Georg first express their love for each other. They are sharing their memories of the moment when they each knew they loved the other one. When I was little, I thought it was embarrassing, but as an adult I think it is my favorite scene.

Don’t we just love to remember exactly when something good first began? The moment I knew I loved you. The moment I knew I wanted to be a mother, or a father. The moment our friendship began. These are moments that stick in our memory and we visit them now and then, for the pleasure of them. The moment when we experienced the beginning of a new thing – a life-changing thing.

Occasionally, the new thing is really big, bigger than a personal relationship but a movement that we are a part of. Like the moment when the church first began.

You and I weren’t there. But, still, we can wonder about it. When did it all begin? Was it the moment when the women at the tomb first heard, “He is not here” and ran to tell the other disciples? 

Was it the moment Jesus appeared to the men who had followed him through his ministry, breaking through the locked door, busting into that upper room?

How do we pin it down? Because the gospels give us several of these moments to choose from. In addition to this one about the upper room, there is the story of Mary alone in the garden with Jesus. And there is the story of the two disciples who encounter Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and the one where Jesus cooks them breakfast on the lakeshore. And there are more such stories, apparently, John tells us. So is it possible to pin it down to a moment?

When was the church first born? The answer I have given many times is that it happened when we received the Holy Spirit. This is actually part of this story from John, when Jesus says to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and he breathes on them. But, of course, there is another version of how they received the Spirit. It was on the day of Pentecost, which happens to be the day when Peter is giving this sermon we heard today from the book of Acts.

We have, you might say, an abundance of origin stories. So the question I have is, what can we make of all this?

There is one thing that I know from this; although it may not be the most obvious thing, I think it is essential. It is about community. People come to faith in community; people grow in faith in community; people nurture their faith in community; people live out their faith in community. The church was born in community.

I say this, in part, because the value of community is disappearing in this world today, the understanding of how much community is a part of being human. But I also say this precisely because there are so many of these origin stories. What was the exact moment? There were multiple moments. It happened for Mary at the tomb; it happened for Thomas in the upper room; it happened for the two disciples walking to Emmaus while they sat at that table watching Jesus break the bread. It happened for thousands more when Peter, surrounded by the first disciples, spoke the good news to the Jews gathered in Jerusalem for Pentecost. 

And, yes, the church is born when the Spirit of life is given and received – the Holy Spirit of God.

The church is born when people get moving. The women at the tomb ran back to tell the men what they have seen and heard. The men in Emmaus ran back to Jerusalem to tell the others what they have seen and heard. The 12 men gathered in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost stepped out into the gathering to tell anyone who is listening what they have seen and heard.

The Church is born when people of faith start walking and talking.

Like Peter. He stood up and said to the crowd, listen to what I have to tell you about Jesus, the man God raised up; the one whom death could not hold down. Peter reached back to the words of David, their shared history, saying, The Lord is at my right hand, so I shall not be shaken. I will live in hope, for he has made known to me the ways of life. And I am full of gladness.

“My heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced,” Peter repeats these words from David’s psalm. Because, the moment you know, the moment faith is born in your heart, is a moment of gladness, of joy.

Like the words from the beloved hymn, Amazing Grace: “How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.” 

I know what you are thinking now – many of you, anyway. You’re thinking, I don’t remember the moment, the hour, I first believed. I came to faith by osmosis – I was born and raised swimming in the waters of the church. I can’t remember a time when I did not believe.

This is the story for many of us. And perhaps there are moments you wish you did have such a memory, a moment when you felt the spark of something new and wonderful. But this doesn’t suggest a deficit in your faith life. It is only something to be deeply thankful for, to know that you were cradled in the arms of the church all your life long.

There isn’t just one moment you can point to when your faith was born. And there isn’t just one moment we can point to when the church first began. Because it was the collective words and actions of a community of people. We do this thing together.

And just like those first followers of Jesus, in our gladness and rejoicing we don’t erase the pain and suffering. The women ran from the tomb experiencing both fear and joy. The men rejoiced as they bore witness to Christ’s wounds, which were still there. The suffering and death of Christ become the center of the Apostle Paul’s gospel that he carries throughout the land. It is as we read in Isaiah, “By his wounds we are healed.”

This is probably the paradox that is hardest for us to live with, but it is an essential truth of the gospel: Because of the sin and suffering of the world, Christ died. Because he suffered, we may find healing. Through his death and resurrection we may have new life.

For us, this is indeed good news, filling our hearts with gladness. But this good news will lead us to open our eyes to all the suffering that exists in the world, to open our hearts to it – just as Jesus did. Just as his early followers did. Just as the church has always done. 

This is at the heart of the matter: We follow in Christ’s footsteps, knowing ourselves to be wounded healers. We carry out his mission: to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed. 

And we do it together, as the community of Christ. That, too, is at the heart of the matter. The church is born and lives in community.

I am glad you are here, a part of this community. And if you are joining us by livestream, I hope you will consider joining us in-person, to be a part of this community, getting to know us and letting us know you.

Remember that rhyme we used to say as children? Here is the church, here is the steeple; open the doors and see all the people. Only, sometimes children fold their hands together the wrong way and open the doors to find there are no people inside. If there are no people in the church, there is no church – at least not in the building. The church is the people. The church is the community we find in Christ.

We are the church – wherever we go. Drawing strength from one another, breathing in and out the Spirit of God, meeting fear with love and joy.

Photo by Chang Duong on Unsplash

Love Is Our Religion

Matthew 28:1-10

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed. Powerful words we say to one another on Easter morning. But only powerful because we know the story behind it  – a story that gives meaning to everything. 

The particular story of this day is the one about the women who came to the tomb early. They came to tend the body of their beloved, but it was gone. The tomb was empty. Angels appeared and said to the women, “He is risen; you will see him again in Galilee, the place where it all began.” 

It goes back to Galilee, where his ministry began. But there is much more to it than that, isn’t there? It goes back to Bethlehem, where he was born – this child called Immanuel, God with us. Because God so loved the world. It goes back to Bethlehem.

But it goes back much further, doesn’t it? It’s a story that actually goes back thousands of years and encompasses everything we know. It’s a story about God who created this amazing world and just loves it – and all of us in it. It’s a story that was written thousands of years ago and that is still being written today in so many ways. 

And so I can think of no better way to talk about Easter, what it means to us, than to tell you a story. In the middle of an epically long book, The Deluge, by Stephen Markley, there is a story about Tony.

Tony is a scientist. Who, unfortunately, really has no friends. He is not good with people, too gruff and too blunt. He is a prickly man – with reason. Tony’s wife died years ago after a very brief battle with cancer. She left him alone with two young daughters to raise. Even decades later, he wears his bitterness like a shield.

Tony is also bitter about his life’s work. He has devoted himself completely to convincing people that they need to respond to the climate catastrophe he sees coming. But he is unable to convince anyone, and his urgency pushes people away.

As a result, Tony’s relationships are few. Aside from his two daughters, there is his brother-in-law, whom he just tolerates. Corey and Tony have absolutely nothing in common. Their lives, their values, their politics, are polar opposites. Tony is all about saving the world and Corey is all about making money – lots of it. 

One day Tony gets a call from his older daughter Holly, who is worried about her sister, Catherine. Catherine lives all the way across the country, in Los Angeles. There are wildfires raging. These fires have, of course, become a normal feature of the weather in California, and now they are encroaching on the city. Several fires from different directions coming together – they are uncontrollable. Holly is worried because she can’t get in touch with Catherine.

Tony can’t reach her either. As they watch the news coming out of California, frightened and helpless. They know Catherine is in her apartment, or at least her phone is, because the sisters have location sharing with each other. Holly and Tony, along with the rest of the nation, are watching this disaster grow bigger by the hour. 

People are calling this one El Demonio, because when they looked up at the smoke clouds they thought they could see a demonic face in it. The city of Los Angeles is about to go up in flames. The call goes out for the whole city to be evacuated. And Catherine is still not answering her phone.

Tony calls a professional acquaintance, whom he thinks might have some inside information that would be helpful. It’s hard to imagine what he might be able to tell Tony that would help, but Tony is desperate. He gets Ash on the phone to ask him what he knows about the fires. Ash sends him some technical reports. 

Ash is an interesting character. He is a brilliant man with little to no ability to engage with others on an emotional level. He is pretty far on the autism spectrum, and his human-to-human interactions are usually very awkward. So try to imagine it: you have these two guys on the phone together, neither one of which has great interpersonal skills. Ash is talking about technical matters related to the fires, which are endlessly interesting to him. Tony tries to listen while his heart is practically bursting out of his chest because he is so afraid for Catherine. Tony finally interrupts Ash. “My daughter is there,” he tells him, “and I can’t reach her.”

The tone of the conversation shifts then. Ash understands now that this not a purely intellectual interest for Tony. Ash may not experience things the same ways most people do, but he is an astute observer of life, studying humans as if they were an alien species. On an intellectual level, he understands – sort of. But he hardly knows what to say. Tony hangs up on Ash and goes back to pacing in front of the TV news. 

Pretty soon his phone rings again. It’s Ash. He has reached out to some official connections he has through his work and managed to get Tony on a FEMA plane to California. He will arrange for a car to meet him, so he can drive to Holly’s apartment. Ash will get him information about the emergency routes into the city, because all the highways are being used for outbound traffic as millions of people evacuate. 

In that moment, Tony breathes in a sense of hope, of possibility, for the first time since this all started. He says to Ash, “I’ll never forget this.” Ash says to him, “I was thinking of how my sister and her husband would behave if it were their child.”

Tony flew out of his house to the airport. Six hours later he was in L.A. He jumped in the car that Ash managed to get for him. He grabbed the satellite navigation device while listening to someone call him a crazy son of a gun who wants to drive into LA in the middle of the book of Revelation. And he drove off toward the fire.

It was like driving through Armageddon. The flames, the smoke, the heat, helicopters flying low, ashes falling like snow. As he was getting close to Catherine’s neighborhood, a backyard propane tank exploded, with pieces hitting his car causing him to crash into a tree. The car was wrecked, Tony definitely had a concussion. He got out and started walking, choking on the smoke, moving as fast as he could.

He reached her apartment, pounded on the door – no answer. Shouted her name, “Catherine, Catherine!” He tried to break down the door with his body. He managed to get ahold of a crowbar and wrench it open. He found Catherine passed out in her room, still breathing.

He lifted her up and out of the apartment. But when he got outside and looked around he realized there was no way they could outrun the fire. Without a car, it was hopeless. So Tony found a school, a large brick building. This is where they would try to ride it out, it was their only hope. He hit the SOS button on his satellite navigator; he sent a text to Holly, in case by some miracle it might get through to her, and they went down to the basement, shutting the door behind them.

After a while Tony could see, and taste, the smoke that was seeping under the door. There was nothing more that he could do. Tony sat on the basement floor with his daughter’s head on his lap. She opened her eyes and said to him, “I’m sorry.” He said, “For what? There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

Then they were choking and gasping for air.

Suddenly Tony heard a siren. Was it a hallucination? It grew louder, flashing lights appeared out the window. It was a fire truck. Firefighters leaped out with oxygen tanks and axes. The basement door burst open and three women in orange jumpsuits rushed down the steps. 

As they left the building together and headed toward the truck, Tony saw a man standing there. It was his brother-in-law, Corey.

Corey had been trying to call Tony, worried about Catherine. Eventually, he reached Holly, who filled him in on the whole crisis unfolding. Corey chartered a jet from Florida to California. He bribed his way onto a rescue helicopter. He stayed in touch with Holly, who got the text Tony sent about being at the school, so Corey knew where he needed to go. 

He started moving from one group of firefighters to another trying to get someone to go out and find his family. There was a whole army of first responders – professional and volunteers – people from all over the country who had answered the call for help. But everyone he approached told Corey to forget about it. That neighborhood was gone. 

Corey didn’t give up, though. He found the women in the orange jumpsuits. They were inmates at a women’s correctional facility who fought wildfires for $7 a day. They didn’t want to do it either, but Corey was an able and motivated negotiator. He vowed to spend the next decade of his life doing whatever he could to get their sentences commuted, get them free, find them jobs. Whatever they needed, he said, because, “this is my family.”

This, my friends, all of this, is love. 

My title today is “Love Is Our Religion,” taken from a song by Ziggy Marley called, “Love Is My Religion,” and its essential message is that books, belief, doctrine, and dogma are unnecessary because all you need is love, as the Beatles would say.

And while we are not abandoning the book, the belief, the doctrine, we want to make sure that we let none of it obscure the essential thing, and that is love. Love is the power that drives it all.

Love is the power that birthed Jesus, God in the flesh, God with us. Love is the power that carried him through his ministry, his teaching and healing. Love is the power that took him to the cross. Love is the power that ultimately conquered death. Love is all you need. 

Love is the power that drew the women back to the tomb on Sunday morning, at risk to themselves. Love is the power that compelled his followers to carry the story of Jesus far and wide, confronting mortal danger, taking on great risk because love is stronger than fear; love is stronger than rage; love is stronger than death.

There is another song I have been thinking about this week: The Things We Do for Love. Tony was willing to die for his daughter. Love empowered him to do things he never before imagined. He would do whatever it took, even if that was dying. And, to his enormous surprise, Corey was willing to give everything, do anything, for love of his niece and his brother-in-law. Even Ash, ever the astute observer of humans, understood the power of love.

Love is the greatest power, stronger than guns, bombs, or missiles. Love is strong enough to carry us through any hardship. Love is the way Jesus showed us, and the way he still continues to lead us. 

Love is our religion. The power of love can be used to do great things in the world, if we only let it. 

You know the story, a story that is still being written – by our lives – here and everywhere in the world.  Let this be our story. May our hearts be open to love and let it do amazing things through us.

Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash

The Other Way

Matthew 21:1-11 

We wrapped up our Bible study for the season last Wednesday. We made it all the way through the Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi. It really felt like an accomplishment. I kind of wished I had special t-shirts to hand out, saying something like “I Survived the Old Testament Bible Study.” 

In our last session we spent some time in the later prophets, those with a very far ranging vision – those prophets who speak of God’s ultimate intention for the world. One of these is Zechariah, who gets an honorable mention today.

These visionary prophets were living and writing during a time when it seemed like something big was afoot, cosmic shifts were imminent. These were the centuries just before Jesus was born. I think it must have felt like the world was about to change. It was. Most people, though, had no idea why – or what would likely happen.

The first disciples who traveled with Jesus probably didn’t have a clear vision of what was happening. They didn’t know much about where they were going as they followed his lead. But they did have some faith, enough to follow him. So, as they entered the city of Jerusalem on this Sunday, they stayed close to their teacher, attentive to his instruction. He guided them with his words and with his actions. What would they learn from him?

The day they entered Jerusalem was a busy day. It was near the Passover celebration, so there were many Jews from all over the region making their way to the city where they would celebrate, go to the temple and offer their sacrifices to God. Jerusalem was the place to be for the Passover. 

It was a celebration like no other. Passover is the yearly remembrance of how God freed Israel from their bondage in Egypt. For hundreds of years they were enslaved by the Pharaohs. But God used Moses to lead them out of Egypt and on their journey to freedom, to the Promised Land. It was a deeply meaningful celebration. And also highly charged. Because, as they remembered the way God freed them in the past, how could they not feel that it was, once again, a time to be set free from the heavy boot of the Empire?

As the Jews from out of town came pouring in to the city, so were the religious leaders in evidence – the Pharisees and Sadducees, the High Priests and the Scribes, all there to see and be seen. These were the power players in Israel.

And as the power players, they had an important role to play with the Roman authorities – the real power. Rome controlled Israel and they didn’t let anyone forget that. If this was to be a big week in Jerusalem, where anyone who was anyone would be, then you may be assured that the Roman authorities would be there too, to collaborate with the religious leaders in keeping a watchful eye on the people. The Sadducees and the High Priests, in particular, seemed to work well with the Roman authorities.

Pontius Pilate was the governor Rome installed over Jerusalem. He was there in Jerusalem, too, that week. In fact, as Jesus’ parade approaches the eastern city gate, Pilate was entering the western gate, in imperial majesty, coming from Caesarea Maritima. On the Mediterranean coast. A gorgeous place. His palatial beach city. A sort of a working resort, an ancient imperial power center – on the beach. Naturally, Pilate liked being at Caesarea. Of course, he would have preferred to stay there. But politics and power concerns dictated that he be in Jerusalem on this hot and crowded and intense week of the Passover.

It was a week that would be fraught with tensions. There were agitators. There were protestors. There was talk of getting rid of the oppressors – the empire and their collaborators, the ones who made the peoples’ lives poorer. Jerusalem was a hotbed of dissidence – I think it was something that had been brewing for quite a while. Israel was longing for something to change. 

But the empire, of course, had no interest in entertaining such change. Rome, like any sensible empire, had strict policies for dealing with dissent: stomp it out. This was the way Rome defined peace – by stomping out dissent. Jewish agitators were a potential danger, so they would keep a close eye on them and, if necessary, put them on a cross to make an example of them. Cross building was a thriving industry in the empire. There would not be a shortage, no matter how many dissidents must be dealt with.

Jesus often sounded like these ones – the agitators, the dissidents. The things he said, the values he set forth. He got angry at the authorities. He advocated for the poor and the powerless. To the empire and all who worked on the empire’s behalf, Jesus sounded dangerous.

For that reason, he knew that he should stay away from Jerusalem. He has mentioned it more than once. There was nothing but risk for him if he showed up in Jerusalem – especially now, at the time of the Passover. He could have stayed away. But instead, Jesus went.

But he took care to set up a particular kind of entrance. He made arrangements ahead of time to get a donkey. Seated on the donkey, he would ride into the city in a procession of palm branches and cloaks spread before him, with a chorus of Hosannas ringing around him. Hosanna, which means, Save us.

For those who understood, and the religious authorities surely understood, he was acting out the words of the Hebrew prophet Zechariah, one of those later prophets we read last week, who said:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

The triumphant king arrives on a donkey – a colt, the foal of a donkey – from Chapter 9, verse 9. The prophet Zechariah continues:

He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim

    and the war horse from Jerusalem;

and the battle bow shall be cut off,

    and he shall command peace to the nations;

his dominion shall be from sea to sea

    and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Do you see? The Lord, the Divine Warrior, will demilitarize the nations of the world. This is the prophetic vision; this is the ultimate good. And Jesus is in the midst of it. 

But on the other side of the city there is that other entrance – with Pilate and his military entourage. Pilate, atop a war horse, dressed for battle; a battalion of soldiers surrounding him – with armor, with weapons, and with all the glory of the empire attached to them – ready to crush any opposition.

***

On Palm Sunday as we draw near to the end of our Lenten journey, we ought to consider the way we have gone, and the way we will choose to go. Where have we traveled, and what have we learned? The way of Jesus has taken us through darkness looking for light; through blindness looking for new vision; he has taken us away from well-worn customary routes and onto new paths; he has shaken our assumptions about death and turned us toward the expectation of life.

Through it all, one thing has been clear: We have to choose the way we will go. We can go the normal way: the way of the world. Or we can go the other way: the way of Christ. The story of Palm Sunday shows us both: Pilate’s way and Jesus’ way.

The preacher and teacher, Tom Long, says this is a story to read on two levels. On the one level, we see the chaos, the brutality of the empire, the forces that oppose Jesus, the dangers that await him. And on the other level we see the divine plan: the steady, undeterred cadence of the will of God.

Even while, at the first level, Herod is king, Caesar is lord, and Pilate is governor; at the other level, Jesus is Lord, King, and Messiah. At one level all the rulers of this present time will come together to take his life from him on the cross, that ugly instrument of torture. But at the other level no one takes Lord Jesus’ life; he gives it freely, for the sake of the world.

The first level is clear to see. The second level can be seen only through the eyes of faith.

You have to choose the way you will go. I pray you will go the way of faith.

Photo: Adobe Stock Images

A Way of Life

Ezekiel 37:1-14

John 11:1-45

I remember the time one of my kids decided to run a marathon. He didn’t just lace up his shoes one morning and go out to the starting line. He prepared. He followed a rigorous training plan – a very impressive one. So, he thought he was ready for it, and I did too. But it was harder than he expected it to be.  He told me later that at a certain point, he was in so much pain with every step he could barely go on.  

In distance running they call that “hitting the wall,” when the pain and fatigue are overpowering.  I have heard it said that it’s like your body and your mind are having a conversation.  Your body says, “Look, you’ve had me out here for hours, running hard.  I am really, really hurting right now so I think we should just go over there to the side of the road and lie down.”  And the body has a pretty convincing argument at that point.  What’s worse, the mind will find it pretty hard to argue back because it is energy-deprived – all the fuel is going toward keeping the legs moving. As a result, the will is weak and confused.  It seems like a tough place to be.  I would imagine it feels like a dead end.

How do you go on when you have run into a dead end?  When all hope is gone?  This is what Israel wondered during their time of exile, more than 500 years before Christ was born.  The army of Babylon tore down the city walls, burned down the temple. Jerusalem was destroyed. They dragged many of the people to Babylon where they remained in exile for decades.

The prophet Ezekiel was with them in their exile, in their hopelessness. They believed God had abandoned them.  They were the walking dead. In some of the psalms they wrote back then you can hear the despair they felt. 

Then one day God gave Ezekiel a vision. God led him out to a valley filled with dry bones – heaps of the bones of those long dead.  Not a speck of life left in them in this valley of death.  Life had long ago left this place. Then Ezekiel hears a most peculiar question from God: Mortal, can these bones live?

And imagine Ezekiel’s answer in this way: “Augh – Lord God!  You know,” He doesn’t even finish his thought.  Why bother?  If the Lord wants to entertain impossible questions, who am I to argue?  

And when the Lord says to Ezekiel, “Prophesy to these bones, Ezekiel, prophesy!” Sure, why not? After all, he doesn’t have anything better to do than engage in exercises of futility. Sure, prophesy to the dry bones.  

It was the same when Jesus in Bethany called out, “Take away the stone;” open the tomb of Lazarus, now four days dead. Really and truly dead. Not just maybe-somewhat-possibly dead, but really-honestly-truly dead.  Well, there will be a stench – don’t say we didn’t warn you.  But, sure, why not – let’s open the tomb.

Why does God insist on looking death in the face as though it was not there?

When the evidence is clear, tangible, and irrefutable that it is over for Israel, God says, “Hey Ezekiel, why don’t you go prophesy to those bones. Let’s breathe some life back into them; it’s time for them to go back home.”  

When the evidence is clear, tangible, and irrefutable that it is over for Lazarus, Jesus says, “Open the tomb, guys. It’s time to fetch Lazarus and bring him home.”

Foolishness. Folly. I dare say that Ezekiel didn’t see things God’s way as he stood in the valley of dry bones. Nor did the people of Bethany see things Jesus’ way as they stood around the tomb. But here’s the kicker: they did it anyway.

They did it anyway.

In the face of clear evidence that this was the end, that there was no longer any hope of life, they acted in a way that was contrary to the evidence, because God urged them to. They looked death in the face as though it was not there.

When my son hit the wall during that marathon, he had a hard choice to make. He chose to keep going.  He kept putting one foot in front of the other. Even though the finish line seemed like it was an infinite number of steps away, even though the joy was long gone, he put one foot in front of the other, again and again and again, one step at a time.   

I understand that’s what runners do. Is that what people of faith do?

When we have stopped feeling like praying, do we pray? Even when, as we sometimes say, our heart is not in it, do we press on, putting one foot before the other?

Sometimes we feel discouraged, like we’re in a dark place with no hope. Certain situations in life can leave me feeling like that. Even just the season of Lent can do it. One day I realize that I have lost my hope, and I just have to go searching for it, like I search for my keys or my glasses. Now where did I leave it…when did I last have my hope?

Have you ever felt that way? You might even hear a little voice inside of you whispering while you’re searching under the couch cushions, “You know it’s gone. You’re not going to find your hope.”

There are days that I think we may actually have more faith in death than hope, as we said in our prayer of confession. Death is sure and certain, we have seen the evidence. 

Death was certainly what Ezekiel was looking at in that valley of dry bones. Death was the most certain state of Lazarus, four days in the dark, dark tomb.

Someone said to me once, I wonder if Lazarus wanted to come out. I said, I doubt it.

I doubt it because we have more faith in death than hope in God’s promises – promises we have yet to see fulfilled. 

I doubt it because, as we say in our funeral liturgy, “death is past, and pain is ended” for Lazarus, thanks be to God.

I doubt it because the darkness of the tomb is like a womb, enveloping him like a cozy blanket, caressing him gently, consoling him.

Does Lazarus really want to come out of that darkness, out into the light? Would we?

No matter what your answer is, though, God will keep calling you out. God will invite you to hear that this is not the way God wants it to be; that death is not what God intends for you. 

Yet, we will stay tucked away in our dark tombs, steadfastly refusing to hope for what we cannot imagine, putting our faith in death, shrugging, saying, “Augh, Lord God – you know…” 

We are persistent in our denial of God’s unfathomable love for the world God made, because if we believed it, we would have to act differently.

Beloved, come out. Come out and let the Spirit breathe life into those dry bones. Come out and live.

Photo: Author