The Season of Second Chances

Isaiah 55:1-9      

Luke 13:1-9       

I think that our problem, sometimes, is our wanting to find easy answers to our hard questions. We don’t care much for ambiguity, and neither did Jesus’ early followers. So when the news came to them about a disaster that befell some Galileans, they looked for answers in the wrong places.

In September 2001, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell sat in front of a TV camera, musing together about why they thought the towers fell and nearly 3,000 people died. They seemed to like the theory that it was the feminists, pagans, and civil libertarians – in other words, people not like them – who were at fault, because they made God mad at America.

The temptation of being able to say those people had it coming is a strong one. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell didn’t invent this; it’s an old, old way of thinking. Because it is so much easier to believe that those people met a bad fate because of their particular sins, which are not my particular sins. And if I look out at the world this way, I just might be able to avoid even thinking about my own particular sins.

But Jesus isn’t having any of that. “Do you think that this shows they were worse than you? Do you think those who were killed in that tower of Siloam disaster were somehow worse than you? Do you think that you can escape judgment as easily as you have managed to avoid examining your own sins?

This is a special kind of sin, in itself: this practice of always looking at someone else’s faults to be able to escape looking at your own faults. But it is a sin that we all share to some degree. Because it is just so much easier to see someone else’s flaws than it is to see our own.

If Jesus had done nothing more than say to them, “Oh, you think you’re better than them, do you?” then he may as well have said nothing at all. What good does it do? But, he is wise enough to offer them a parable.

There was a man who had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He would go out and look at this tree as it grew, year after year, expecting to find fruit. After all, that’s what he had planted it for. He was very anxious to get fruit from this tree. But after three years, he lost patience. And he said to his gardener, “just cut it down and plant something else. This fig tree is no good to me, for it has borne no fruit.”

The problem, though – and it’s a problem his listeners would have understood – is that it’s still too soon. While three years seems like a long time to us, it isn’t enough time for the tree to bear fruit. Perhaps this man doesn’t know this. But perhaps he does know it; it’s just that he doesn’t like it. The gardener doesn’t try to figure that out; he just makes his appeal.

It would be wasteful, after all, to cut down this fig tree now. For three years he has tended it, nurtured it. There is still every reason to hope there will be fruit – in due time. Have patience, the gardener urges. Wait.

It is a little bit distressing to think that the man would destroy a perfectly healthy tree because he doesn’t agree that it should take more than three years for it to bear fruit. It is distressing to think of how such a man might treat other living creatures in his orbit – his wife and children, his servants. Would he toss them out, as well, if he loses patience with them? Anyone who plants a tree knows very well that it takes time to grow and produce. I don’t think he forgot that. Yet he seems to want to condemn the tree for failing to do what is impossible for it to do. A harsh man.

It is his tree, so he is within his rights to destroy it. But still – why?

Maybe this suspense of not knowing is just making him too uncomfortable; the suspense hangs in the air: Will this tree bear fruit? If so, when? He can’t handle this stress. He’s a decisive man and he just wants to know so he can decide if this is a good tree or a bad tree.

Just the same way, we want to know why certain things happen, because we can’t bear the ambiguity of it all. Did these Galileans die a horrible death because they were bad Galileans? Were those Judeans crushed by the tower of Siloam because they were bad Judeans? Did those Americans who were killed on 9/11 die because they were bad Americans?

And the answer is: No worse than you. No worse than you. No worse than you.

You might say those Galileans, those Judeans, they didn’t deserve to die. But you could just as easily say we all, every one of us, deserves to die. As we say on Ash Wednesday, “remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We are reminded that we are here for a finite period of time, and what we do with that time matters.

Jesus, who is at that very moment on his way to Jerusalem, feels the urgency of this! We don’t actually have all the time in the world to get on with those things that really matter. Perhaps for us, during the season of Lent, we might become more mindful of this. There is, indeed, some urgency.

Yet, God’s patience is great; God’s forgiveness is great, and it is this tender patience and forgiveness that encourage us to open our hearts and turn our faces toward God. Just as the gardener’s wise and compassionate hands might coax the fig tree into producing fruit, if only given another year to do it.

When is the right time for repentance, for turning away from sin and turning toward God? Now is the right time, but if not now then the next day or the next. In God’s time. In the Presbyterian Church we sometimes are asked about when is the right time for baptism. And the answer we like to give is that it should be done at the appropriate time, with neither undue haste nor undue delay. Of course, the harder part sometimes is figuring out if you are acting in haste or making excuses in order to delay.

The thing for us to remember is that God is always ready for us. With God, it is always the season of second chances. The history of Israel we read in the Bible tells us again and again that no matter how many times the people have turned away, God is still there, abundantly generous. Giving water to those who thirst, bread to those who hunger. You don’t need to buy it, you don’t have to earn it. Come, everyone, to the waters. Now is the time.

Now is the time to turn and come to the Lord. Always. Now is the time.

Chicks Like Us

Luke 13:31-35

Considering these last few verses of Luke’s 13^th chapter, I think it’s worthwhile looking back at the chapter as a whole. Not because these verses are connected. But because the whole chapter feels weirdly disconnected.

It reminds me of that picture book, If You Give a Mouse A Cookie. You know how it goes? If you give a mouse a cookie, he will probably ask for some milk to go with it. And when he finishes, he will look at himself in the mirror to see if he has a milk mustache, and when he looks in the mirror he will notice that he needs a haircut, so he will ask you for a nail scissors, and on it goes. Jesus is acting kind of like that mouse in this chapter. He’s just jumping from one thing to another thing to another thing – and there’s no apparent connection between them all.

At the beginning of the chapter, out of the blue, we hear about some Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. I am guessing that Luke knew who they were, these Galileans, but you and I don’t. At any rate, that was a bad fate for them. One they probably didn’t deserve, Jesus says. And this seems to remind him of a story he once heard about a fig tree. It goes like this:

A man walks through his vineyard and sees this fig tree. It’s been there at least three years and it’s not giving any fruit. It’s just taking up space. So he orders his gardener to get rid of it. Something more useful can be planted there. But the gardener suggests he give it one more year – see if anything happens then. If not, he’ll cut it down.

Jesus never finished the story, though, and we don’t know what ever happened to the fig tree.

It might be because he got distracted by the woman who walked into the synagogue at that moment. In verse 10. She was quite bent over, and the very sight of her seemed to move Jesus. So maybe he stopped talking in the middle of his story, walked over to her, laid his hands on her and said a few words. She stood upright, just like that.

And that was good.

But then the Synagogue leader got bent out of shape about this disruption – in verse 14. It wasn’t necessarily that he disliked this woman being healed, more the case that he was upset about things being disorderly. This was the sabbath day, which is not the day for works of healing. Jesus should have waited, the synagogue leader tells him. But the crowd there witnessing all this, most of them were on Jesus’ side. And the woman’s side. We know this from verse 17, which says they were all rejoicing at the things he was doing.

And that seemed to put him in mind of the kingdom of God, which is something he always liked to talk about. The kingdom of God; to what can it be compared?  Here he says it’s like a mustard seed, a tiny little thing that grows into a big bush. And it’s like yeast, the stuff that a woman mixes in with the flour for bread, and it mysteriously causes the bread to rise.

And so it goes; Jesus continued moving, going out of the synagogue and all through the towns and villages, one after another, making his way toward Jerusalem.

And all the while, he’s saying some crazy stuff! Who would say the kingdom of God is like a mustard bush? No one, that’s who. Now maybe a cedar of Lebanon, that’s a tree worth talking about. Fine wood, pleasant fragrance, suitable for a king’s palace. Why are you talking about a shrub, Jesus?

And yeast! That invasive, nasty stuff. It gets into places you don’t want it to be. It makes trouble and it’s hard to get rid of. Yeast is something to beware of! The kingdom of God is like yeast? Said no one ever. Come on, don’t be crazy, Jesus.

I think maybe people are getting worried now. In verse 23, someone approaches him and asks, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” This guy wants to know: is there enough room in the kingdom for all of us? Because all the stuff he’s saying is turning their world upside down. Jesus doesn’t quite answer his question, but he kind of suggests that when this guy gets to the gates of the kingdom, ready to step through, it’s quite possible the Lord will stand in his way and say to him, “Hmm. Your name’s not on the list. Sorry.”

But then Jesus goes on – essentially saying, Hey, you just don’t know! All kinds of people will come, from north and south, from east and west, and sit at table in the kingdom of God. The ones who were last will be first, the first will be last. You just never know.

And somehow, I don’t think any of this is making the people more comfortable.

Just then, where we started today, a group of Pharisees approached him and told him, “We just want to warn you, Jesus. Herod is after you; he wants you dead. You’d best be on your way.”

Well, I don’t think Herod was actually talking to the Pharisees. I think they’re bluffing. I think when they say, “Herod doesn’t like you,” what they really mean is, “We don’t like you.”

The Pharisees don’t like what Jesus is doing and saying. It’s disruptive. It’s disturbing. It’s confusing. You see, they feel they have already figured it all out. They know what the kingdom is like (not mustard or yeast, for goodness sake) and they don’t appreciate Jesus’ analogies. They figure they already know what the rules of admission to the kingdom are, and they don’t appreciate Jesus’ suggestion that they might not really know.

Jesus is upsetting things, raising questions, disturbing the status quo and they feel it would really be for the best if he went way.

Actually, to be honest, they don’t want any part of this kingdom he’s talking about. So they say, “Jesus, you need to get away from here because Herod wants to kill you.” And Jesus doesn’t miss a beat when he says –

Listen, you tell that fox, Herod, I’m coming and there’s not a thing he can do about it. I’m casting out demons and performing cures, and I’m coming to Jerusalem. I’ll see you there.

You fox.

Then he changes his tone, suddenly. Again. As his thoughts turn to the vulnerable ones, the chicks that are such easy prey for the fox.

It’s not totally surprising that his thoughts and his words are jumping all over the place. He has a lot weighing on his mind right now. After all, he has turned his face toward Jerusalem and everything that awaits him there.

And he looks to Jerusalem with a range of feelings. He knows he must be on his way there, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside Jerusalem, as he says. It is clear what he means: He is the prophet and his death is inevitable. And that being the case, he has a few things he wants to say while he has the time.

All the disjointed topics and remarks in this chapter seem to say to us that we don’t really have it all figured out. That, as much as we want to impose order and reason on the world, it’s actually a much bigger subject than we can gain command over. It’s like he wants to say to you and me:

Who is worthy of the kingdom of heaven? All of you; none of you. Both are true. Don’t try to do the sorting, please. That’s God’s work.

I know this is hard for you. You have a weakness for easy answers and you like to think you’re the boss of things. You’ve always been that way. And I will tell you – you really test my patience sometimes. I wait and wait for you to bear good fruit. It would be easier to just clean the slate and start over again. But no. I wait.

I want so much to free you from all the ways you get yourselves tied up in knots! You can’t seem to remember how simple it really is – love one another. Period. You don’t have to make up some special criteria, make hurdles for people to jump over, boundary lines that are meant to separate the loved from the unloved, rules that mean to keep some away from me.

Don’t you know the kingdom of God is everywhere, in every living thing? In the mustard bushes, in the yeast, in you, in me.

The kingdom for God is for everyone. If only you could see that.

But I am afraid you get sidetracked by those who do not really have your best interests at heart. They don’t love you like I love you. I wish you would let me love you.

Yes, even you Pharisees. I wish you would let me love you. Why would you want to take the side of King Herod, or any other kings and would-be kings? they don’t love you.

Perhaps you just want to be on the side of power, the powerful ones. But when do they ever have your interests at heart? Why would you ever want to be like them?

Jerusalem is a hard city; the world is a hard place for prophets and for baby chicks. Like you. Like us.

Foxes like Herod, and sometimes even Pharisees, will see your weakness and prey on you. That’s how evil works. But I want to protect you like a mother hen protects her chicks. The chicks may not know enough to stay away from the foxes, but I will shelter them – if they will let me.

Just imagine Jesus saying all that to us.

“How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” More than anything, Jesus longs to gather us to himself. Maybe we could let him.

Maybe we could admit that we, too, have a strong desire for God, a desire that we have been looking to fill in all the wrong places. Maybe we could gather together, all us chicks, and just be in the joy of his presence.

Maybe we could do that.

May you let yourself be gathered and be transformed under his wing. And may you worship more mindfully, pray more fervently, serve more readily, live more lovingly, in his name.

PhotoCredit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bantam_hens_and_chicks.jpg#/media/File:Bantam_hens_and_chicks.jpg

When You’re in the Wilderness

Deuteronomy 26:1-11    

Luke 4:1-13

In the early 1990’s a young man named Chris McCandless left his home and family and friends to travel the United States. He shed himself of all his money and most of his material possessions. He lost his car. He eventually found his way to the wilderness of Alaska. He lived there for a few months alone in an abandoned bus. He died there after apparently eating toxic plants. Chris McCandless set off with dreams of discovery in the wild. But he discovered the wilderness is harsh.

A few years later, a woman named Cheryl Strayed set off on a journey of self-discovery along the Pacific Crest Trail. She traveled alone, carrying only what she could fit in her backpack. She fared better than Chris did. She actually made out pretty well – aside from one or two encounters with unsavory characters, and a brush with the possibility of dying of thirst, Cheryl made out alright. But Cheryl, too, discovered the wilderness is harsh.

Now, you may already know that. You may feel no compelling need to set out and test the challenges of the wilderness for yourself. I don’t.

The people of Israel surely knew about the harshness of the wilderness. But they didn’t have a lot of choice in the decision. When it was time to leave Egypt, they had to go. Quickly. No time to let the bread rise, just throw everything in a wagon or on your back and go. I think they thought, as much as they had time to think, that it would be a quick jaunt through the wilderness to get to their final destination – the promised land.

Forty years later, still out in the wilderness, they’ve had plenty of time to think about it. One thing there is plenty of in the wilderness – time to think.

But in this passage of Deuteronomy they are finally reaching the end of their wilderness sojourn. And Moses, wanting to prepare them for the next stage of their journey, calls all the people together and he begins to speak. It is a very long speech, as he walks them back through the years. He reminds them of everything they have been through, of everything that God has done for them, of every gift that has been bestowed, every disaster that has been averted.

He gives them their salvation story. Moses is telling the people that when they come into the land that is their inheritance, they need to have their story down cold.

A wandering Aramean was my ancestor. This is how the story begins. They were a people without a home. This wandering soul went down to Egypt to make a home there, and he prospered. His people were fruitful and multiplied in this land – but this land was not theirs. It belonged to the Egyptians, who oppressed them, enslaved them, used them.

And, eventually, the people cried out to God, who heard their cry. The God of their ancestors reached down and, with a terrifying display of power, with signs and wonders, God brought them out of their oppression and into the land of promise – a land flowing with milk and honey.

That’s the story of their salvation. It’s important to know your salvation story, isn’t it? To remember how you were saved.

When you think of your salvation story, perhaps you think of the gospel.

It is a story that is full of God’s saving love in Jesus Christ with lots of little stories, lots of details, things that draw us into it. Because, for us, that’s what needs to happen. We need to feel ourselves a part of this story.

So we get parables, the stories Jesus told his audiences to get them engaged in his message. Stories within the story, each one like a seed that’s dropped on the soil of our lives – there’s a parable, right there – each one a hook we might catch, a tidbit we might nibble at. We get Jesus’ stories.

And we get to be a fly on the wall when Jesus is having conversations with disciples and would-be followers; we get to be students in his virtual classroom.

We get the signs and wonders, terrifying displays of power, Jesus transfigured to flash the presence of the almighty God through him.

And we get the climax of the story – the arrest, crucifixion, and third day. Resurrection. Because he died, we live. That’s the end of the story, isn’t it? It’s enough, isn’t it?

It’s not the end. And it’s not enough. We hear the stories, we tell the stories, we claim the stories. But we need to live the stories. And that means we need to have our own journey in the wilderness.

It was in the wilderness that Israel became prepared to take possession of the land and live there as free people. They had to spend some time there. It was in the wilderness that Jesus became prepared to take on the fullness of his identity and begin his ministry. He had to spend some time there. The wilderness is the place where we become who we are.

You may choose to seek out your own wilderness experience, like hiking the Pacific Crest Trail or hitchhiking to Alaska or biking across the continent. But, in fact, you probably don’t have to. Our lives have plenty of wilderness experience in them already.

What matters is that we make them a part of our story.

This season of Lent, I want to encourage you to practice telling your own story – your salvation story. Tell of the times you have been in the wilderness and the ways God has come to your salvation.

The times you though your marriage was finished and you didn’t know how you would go on.

The times you had to move to a strange new place and felt utterly alone.

The times you sat with a loved one in the hospital and knew you were saying goodbye. Tell of the critical points, your cries – whether silent or aloud – and how God heard you and answered you. And how God led you into a land of promise.

The truth is that, no matter how charmed, our lives all spend some time in the wilderness. No matter how capable you are, there are times when you are lost. No matter how confident you are, there are times when you are frightened. No matter how faithful you are, there are times when you just don’t know if God is there. There are moments, stretches of wilderness in every life. They are terrible.

But these terrible wilderness stretches are some of the most important chapters of our salvation stories.

Because if we don’t know how we have been lost, we don’t know how we have been found.

If we don’t know all the ways we have failed, we don’t really know just how much we have been forgiven.

If we don’t feel ourselves dying in some way, we don’t know how much life Jesus is offering us.

When you are in the wilderness, you might know. The wilderness has surprising gifts.

May you find the wilderness this season of Lent. May you be present in it. And may God find you there.

One Thing

Exodus 34:29-35

2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

We sometimes talk about “church business.” Which you might think is an oxymoron. I once heard a Presbyterian pastor describe the way we handle our business in church.  

This pastor said, “This is how we do church meetings.  We sit down at the meeting table and we say, ‘Good Evening, God. Welcome to our business meeting. We are so glad to have you here. Would you be so kind as to bless this gathering?’  There is an opening prayer…perhaps a brief devotion on a passage of scripture…then everyone says, ‘Amen.’  Then we say, ‘God, thank you so much for your assistance.  I am afraid we have to ask you to leave now because we have some important business to attend to, business that, frankly, we don’t think you would be interested in and most likely you don’t have anything to offer in this regard. So thanks again, and let me show you the door.  Oh, and God – if you would be so kind as to stay close by, in case we need you later to bless our work.’”

I think there is a lot of truth to that.  We act as though God only has certain interests and as if God doesn’t have something to say to every part of our lives.  We sort of compartmentalize – separating spiritual from practical.

Maybe we do it because it is easier to sort our lives out this way.  I am sure it is easier to manage certain things if we keep God separate from them – if we put up the veil, so to speak.

Sometimes we put a veil between ourselves and God, thinking God doesn’t really care about certain aspects of our lives, as though God has limited interests or, worse yet, a limited skill set.  When we put up the veil, we might think we are doing it to spare God the trouble. But let’s be honest; we are really only doing it to spare ourselves.

The story about Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness is a fantastic story full of strange and extraordinary things.  This episode about Moses’ glowing face behind the veil is not the strangest one, but it is close.

Moses would travel up to the top of the mountain to converse with God – far away from everyone else.  Moses was the only one given the privilege of seeing God. In another part of the story, we are told that God knows that Moses, although an exceptional human being, would not be able to stand looking at the face of God, because he is still a human being. No one could see the face of God and live, we are told. Arrangements were made to shield Moses from God’s face and only look upon the Lord indirectly – through a fog or in the periphery.  Chapter 33 tells us that Moses was only allowed to look on the backside of God – for his own safety, of course.

But even that indirect exposure was enough to change Moses’ appearance.  When he came down from the mountain he was shining.  Some have suggested that it might be a bad sunburn from all that time spent up in the high altitude.  Indeed, he might have been sunburnt; that’s entirely possible – but it’s not all there is going on. We are to understand that, somehow, there is something unearthly going on.  In some inexplicable way, when Moses came down from the mountain he was different. Radiant.  Whatever it was, it made the Israelites extremely uncomfortable. They were unable to hear his words because they were afraid.  

So Moses figured out that the best thing to do was to veil his face from the people. The story tells us that he would go back and forth, between God and the people, taking the veil off before God and putting it back on before the people. 

This story about the veil Moses wore is a way of telling us about the power of God’s presence.  It is a way of telling us that Moses was somehow different after he has spent time with God.  The Exodus saga has many ways of letting us know that the experience of the presence of God is absolutely unlike anything else in the world.  

There is the pillar of fire that leads the people out of Egypt by night, and the pillar of cloud that leads them by day.  Once they reached Mount Sinai, the fire and cloud had other functions.  Fire and smoke covered the mountain and the mountain shook.  The cloud would descend from the mountaintop when the Lord was summoning Moses.  

Strange stuff.  Modern minds search for ways to explain it all with science. This is certainly true that much of it can be and has been explained by science.  But it is not the point.  Pre-modern minds used whatever language and images they could find to describe something that defies words.  What was true then and is still true today is that the presence of God is awesome and strange, wonderful and frightening. 

And here’s the news I want to share with you: this awesome, strange, wonderful, and frighteningly present God wants to be a part of every aspect of our lives. Now, if that isn’t scary, I don’t know what is.

The apostle Paul picks up this image of the veil in his letter to the Corinthian church and uses it to try to explain the way God expects to have an intimate relationship with us, to know us fully and be known by us.  We are invited to allow God into our lives, every aspect of our lives, and thus be transformed by the encounter just as Moses was transformed. We are not to be spared this experience.

Why is that? Are we somehow different from the people of Israel, that we don’t need the veil to protect us? Not at all. Paul says through Christ the veil is lifted and we are able to see God more fully than ever before.  Like Moses in the company of the Lord, we may stand in the presence of Christ with unveiled faces, being transformed by this encounter.  This is the work of the Spirit.

The Spirit that Jesus promised to his followers – to us; the Spirit that would guide us and allow us to continue to feel his presence; the Spirit that would gift us in ways that would enable us to do the work of his kingdom. This is the Spirit that is essential in our lives. To grow in the Spirit, to grow spiritually, this is our calling.

And so these are the words your session chose to begin our statement of purpose: We are a Christian community striving to grow spiritually. 

There are many ways to do this. It involves the work of our bodies, our minds, and our hearts. The purpose statement goes on to say a bit about how we express this spirituality outwardly – by caring and sharing with one another, with all of God’s children; and by opening our arms and our hearts to any and all who walk through our doors. But this growth also requires some inward work. 

I think the season of Lent, which begins this week, is the ideal time to focus on this inward work. It begins on Ash Wednesday, when we have a full encounter with our sin and mortality. We are then invited into a six-week period of contemplation and spiritual discipline as we prepare ourselves to remove the veil.

To remove the veil and look upon the glory of the Lord – and this is still indirectly; as Paul says, it is like looking at a reflection in a mirror – and be transformed by this glory.

Every one of us needs to do some of this inward work if we are to grow in the Spirit. Some find it easier than others do; some people seem to naturally gravitate toward the inward work. Others don’t. But everyone needs to do some of it. 

In this approaching season of Lent, I encourage you to take some steps in this direction. Take up a discipline of daily devotions – we have some Lenten Devotional books you may use for this purpose. Consider taking on a Lenten fast of some kind – giving up something that you will miss. This kind of practice is not just for the sake of suffering, which many people consider useless. But in giving something up, it somehow creates an opening whereby you may draw closer to God.

There are other possibilities as well. Just try taking up some kind of practice that makes you feel closer to God – it could be writing a note of gratitude to someone every day or doing some charitable act that challenges you to be more compassionate. The possibilities are endless; you find the one thing that is right for you.

The inward work that we do will help us grow spiritually. And as we grow spiritually, we will see the outward benefits. We will grow further in our ability to care for one another, share with one another. And this love and generosity of spirit that blossoms will show itself when we open our hearts and minds to any and all who approach us – needing to see God.

In this season of Lent, may you take the inward journey. May you find and commit to one thing that will help you grow in the Spirit. And may the Spirit shine through us with God’s unending love.

Photo: Labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral