An Outstretched Hand

Genesis 22:1-14

Matthew 10:40-42      

There are a few stories in the Bible that are sometimes referred to as “texts of terror.” This story from Genesis is one of them.

It is the climax of the long story of Abraham and Sarah. In a way, it resembles the climax of a big disaster movie, where a disaster comes – a tsunami, a fire, a nuclear attack, or zombies from outer space – tearing through our civilization and leaving a huge swath of wreckage in its wake.

Usually, in the disaster movie, we just focus on the survivors. When it’s over, the audience is washed in relief, so thankful that we made it! On the screen there are embraces and maybe a little wry humor, so we can leave the theatre feeling good.

We might try to do that with the Genesis story too. Look at the survivors – Abraham and Isaac come back down from the mountain alive. They go home to Sarah. Isaac lives to a ripe old age – he marries and has children. So all is well.

Yet, I just can’t do it. And it’s all because of one sentence. God calls, Abraham answers, then God says:

“Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering.”

I mean, what do you do with a text like this? You can rationalize it, usually our first instinct with something this hard. You can historically analyze the heck out of it – I have done that too. You can spiritualize it – try to remove it from the bodily realm and just think about the spiritual meaning.

And while all of these things – the historical context, the spiritual meaning – are worthy conversations, they don’t erase the plain sense of the words on the page, the flesh and blood impact of the story.

This is your worst fear; this is the darkest corner of humanity; the darkest shadow of every human heart.

I resist it the same way I resist the reality of evil in the world, in all its forms. and yet it is here.

Why is this story necessary, I often wonder? Something so difficult, so hurtful and frightening, so prone to misunderstanding? Was it really prudent to include it in the Bible?

I am reminded of a conversation recounted by the writer Sara Maitland, with an elderly woman she ran into on her way to the post office one day. A local church had been struck by lightning and it was on the older woman’s mind. She asked Sara, “Do you suppose it’s really true that God deliberately made this happen?” Sara replied, “No, I don’t think really think so. Do you?” The older woman said, “No I don’t think so either.” But then she added, “He should have been more careful, though. He should have known there would be talk.”

And that’s what I think about this story of Abraham and Isaac. God should have known there would be all kinds of talk. God should have known that people would be scandalized by a story like this one. They would distort it and misuse it and misinterpret it … and just have a really hard time understanding the how and the why of it. Really, God should have been more careful, so such a story as this wouldn’t even be necessary.

And that is fine to think, even to say, but God will do what God will do, not being subject to our conventions. God is too big for that. And so stories of God, like this story of Isaac and Abraham, take us right up to the edge without letting us fall.

But, man, that edge? I don’t really want to look over that edge.

I want to echo the feelings of the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, who said it was one tough calling being Abraham, God’s chosen one. It would have been so much easier to have been cast out, rejected by the Lord. Kierkegaard imagined that there were times when Abraham actually wished that God would turn away from him, releasing him from this impossible burden.

The calling is, indeed, a tough one, as Jesus told his disciples in a variety of ways. In this 10^th chapter of Matthew Jesus offered some hard teachings – words we listened to last week. That because of his presence, families would be divided and lives would be lost. That to be worthy of him, they each must take up their cross and follow him.

He took his disciples right up to the edge. But then he didn’t let them fall. Jesus pulls them back with the assurance that their relationship is for keeps.

Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and welcomes the one who sent me, he says. We are so intertwined, you and I, that they can’t do anything to you without also doing it to me. I am always with you in a way that backs you up entirely and strengthens you completely. I am so much with you that our identities are inseparable. And even more, we are both intertwined with the Father, the one who sent me.

The Father – the one we identify as the God who said to Abraham, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering.”

It is still a tough calling, because this is what it is. Our God asks us to go right up to the edge and look over; to acknowledge the evil, to never close our eyes to the suffering in the world. Yes, our God is a scandalous God who won’t tidy things up or shove the skeletons in the closet for the sake of our sensibilities. But in it all, through it all, God will reach out a hand to come between us and the evil.

God stopped Abraham from the terrible act he was so near committing, and God provided a suitable sacrifice. In gratitude, Abraham named the mount, “The Lord Will Provide.”

The Lord will provide what we need. An outstretched hand holding –

a ram caught in the thicket – saving Isaac, rescuing Abraham from becoming a hollowed-out man for the rest of his life. An outstretched hand holding –

a cup of cold water for a thirsty traveler, the sustenance we need in a dry and weary land.

Remember this. No matter how ugly things get in this world, God will provide.

Photo: Team building at Camp Krislund

Promise Born of Pain

Genesis 21:8-21

Matthew10:24-39      

I am often surprised by how clearly the scriptures speak to our contemporary troubles. The texts we read each Sunday are thousands of years old, and yet sometimes the relevance of the words leap off the page. I think the author of the book of Ecclesiastes captures it for all time when he says there is nothing new under the sun, and there is a season for everything.

Our hopes are the hopes of people always and everywhere. and the troubles we face are the same kinds of troubles people have always faced.

The trouble in the text from Matthew’s gospel is this: Jesus knows that his followers will have plenty of conflict ahead. They will be persecuted and oppressed and misunderstood.

The disciple is not above the teacher, he says. Could he be any clearer? Why should the disciples expect to have an easy stroll through life when their teacher is executed?  It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, he adds. In other words, seek to emulate him in all ways – even the hard ways.

If they malign me, how much more will they malign you, my disciples. You can count on this – it won’t be easy.

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to this earth, but a sword. A sword that will cut right through communities, beloved institutions, even families. There will be division, and it will be painful.

Christians hate these passages where Jesus talks about creating divisions in families. These words hurt our feelings, because we are all about family.

But Jesus didn’t make this up. It was an old trouble even then. He was quoting the prophet Micah, who spoke of a deep disorder in Israel, where the bonds of trust were broken. Jesus found relevance in these words that were several hundred years old then. Division was, and is, nothing new.

It’s something that happens when societies are under the stress of change – such as the kind of change that Micah was witnessing in ancient Judah – a time when the kingdom was experiencing radical economic changes that were resulting in greater suffering for the poor, while the rich grew richer.

Or like the kind of change that Jesus was talking about, when he talks about bringing good news to the poor and release to the captives and that the oppressed shall be freed. Here, too, he was quoting the ancient prophets of Israel.

The trouble in our world is the same. Even though Jesus told us in 99 different ways that following him would not be the easy way, Christians still want to believe that it is – or should be, anyway. We want to believe that Jesus did all the hard work of fixing the world so we can coast. Even though he told us different.

The disciple is not above the teacher, he said, and we follow a teacher who walked straight into troubles and called them out. He walked straight into hard situations and told stories of dissent, a different way of being in the world. He walked straight into ugliness and showed it he was not afraid of hate.

And he said, It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher. He wanted his disciples to do the same. Knowing that if they did, there would be trouble.

So, 2000 years later there are still plenty of troubles, and we have seen our share of them in the nation recently. Born out of some of these troubles, we find ourselves in a national conversation about racism once again. But it doesn’t feel the same as it did before. It feels like God’s people have decided they are ready to wade into the trouble.

That old line from Mission Impossible comes to mind. Your mission, should you choose to accept it – and there has to be that option, because the mission is never easy or risk-free. Disciples, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to wade into the trouble. To be, as some would say, God’s Troublemakers.

Last Friday our city held a ceremony to unveil a new street sign on Broad Street: Black Lives Matter Blvd. It is a ceremonial renaming, so you won’t have to change the address when you mail things to the church – although you certainly can. But, like all ceremonial events, it is significant for what it proclaims. Black lives do matter.

And it is important to say. Because in all too many situations it is clear that we have operated as though Black lives did not matter. As though Black bodies could be treated differently from White bodies. As though, somehow, the many injustices that have been piled on these Black lives for centuries in our nation are justified. Or insignificant.

When we first began hearing that phrase, almost seven years ago, after Trayvon Martin was killed and his killer was acquitted, it had a highly charged and polarizing effect. At that time, even though I spoke from the pulpit about the unjust killings of Black men and women at the hands of law enforcement, I still did not feel I could use that phrase – Black Lives Matter. It seemed to me that it would be like throwing a grenade into the sanctuary. Back then, it seemed like the church wasn’t really ready to have a conversation about it. But I hope we are ready now.

Because to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord is to proclaim that every life matters. Every one. And this means that there is a season in which we have to say that, specifically, Black lives matter, in order to counter the longstanding, inherent, and obvious belief that they don’t.

Our nation has a long sinful history that we are trying to come to terms with, in which black lives have been undervalued. In which black bodies have been objects to be used, misused, or destroyed. Racism is, as the Reverend Jim Wallis put it, America’s original sin. It is an offense against God’s extraordinary creativity and the profound love in which God created the world.

We can see this truth in the Genesis story about Hagar and Ishmael. Sarah got so jealous of Hagar and fearful of the boy Ishmael, she told Abraham they should be banished from the household. Even though Sarah had been the one who forced Hagar to have Abraham’s child because Sarah herself couldn’t get pregnant. Even though they were family, they had to go.

So Abraham sent them out. He gave them a little water and some bread to start them on their journey, although this was hardly the measure of hospitality he had shown to the three strangers who entered their camp a few years earlier. He pointed Hagar in the direction of “away” and then turned his back on her and his son, and that was that.

But even though Sarah and Abraham no longer had any use for Hagar and Ishmael, the story shows how much God valued them. Hagar and her son would not die of thirst in the wilderness, for God treasured them. They would not be assaulted and killed by bandits out there, because God had a vision for them.

The point of this story is that even when we misuse and cast off other human beings, treating them as less than human, God doesn’t regard them that way. God loves Hagar and Ishmael as much as God loves Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac. And don’t you imagine it is true, then, that God wants us to love them too?

Things have to change if we really and truly love them. This is the message of the gospel and it is a message that is just as meaningful for us today. Things do have to change – and change is not painless. This, also, has always been true. But Jesus says to his disciples, Do not fear.

Do not fear those who will surely criticize you when you make a stand. But what I say to you in the dark, tell it in the light; proclaim it from the housetops. Speak the truth even if it makes people angry. Because things have to change. And things will change.

It will create some discomfort, but it must change. It may even be painful, but it must change. Because the hope that Jesus came to proclaim, is a hope that is born of pain.

The Necessary No

Matthew 28:16-20       Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

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In 1934, a group of German Evangelical Church leaders met in the town of Barmen to write a confessional document for the church in their particular time and place. Amongst them were Lutherans, German Reformed, and representatives of the United Churches. Their purpose was simply to reiterate their common faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Some of the names associated with this effort might be familiar to us: Martin Niemoller. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Karl Barth. These men and others had been working together for some time to articulate a faithful interpretation of the gospel in Nazi Germany. Their work reached its apex in this meeting.

The document was drafted primarily by Karl Barth, a theologian of the Reformed Church. He worked, in his own words, “fortified by strong coffee and one or two Brazilian cigars,” while the Lutherans in the room took a nap.[1] (I don’t repeat that to disrespect the Lutherans. But the truth is I never met a Lutheran who didn’t like a Sunday afternoon nap.) The result of Barth’s efforts, with some help from the Lutherans, was The Theological Declaration of Barmen.

This Declaration is one of the confessions of faith in our Presbyterian Book of Confessions. It is premised on the belief that the church is united in obedience to the Word of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. It declares certain affirmations about the nature of God and Christ’s church. And it asserts that every “‘yes’ of the gospel…always entails a necessary ‘no.’”[2]

It is the task of the church always to ascertain what is, for our particular time and place, the necessary no.

And, so, included in the Declaration are these words:

The Christian Church is the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in Word and Sacrament through the Holy Spirit. As the Church of pardoned sinners, it has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely his property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance.

And it goes on to say:

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions. (The Theological Declaration of Barmen, 8.16-8.18)

That’s more than a mouthful. Ah, if only he had more help from the Lutherans, Barth might have found a clearer way to say it. In short, it means that the gospel will not be co-opted for the purposes of the state, or anyone else.

It is true that political figures have used the church for their own political ends far too often in our society – as they did in Nazi Germany. And often they have been abetted by church members. I once wrote a letter to the editor of my local newspaper arguing that one presidential candidate had a stronger grasp of the scriptures and a more authentic obedience to Christ than did the other candidate. It was a good letter, but even at the time I wrote it I felt a little uneasy about it. Now I look back at it with some shame about what I was attempting to do: to use Jesus Christ as a political tool.

To be faithful, to be obedient to everything he has commanded us, is to recognize Christ as our head, not as a tool we can use at our convenience and for our purposes. As the letter to the Ephesians says, and the Barmen Declaration quotes, “speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body is joined and knit together” (Ephesians 4:15-16).

Thus, the community of the church is charged with bearing testimony to a sinful world, with calling the whole world to obedience to the reign of God. It is no small thing, no easy task, to speak the truth of the gospel to the powers of the world; nonetheless, this is our calling.

The apostle Paul urged in his letter to the Romans, that Christians must not be conformed to this world, but be transformed, renewed, so we might discern what is the will of God. What is good and acceptable and perfect. Or, as it says in The Message, the popular translation by Eugene Peterson:

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Nothing will be gained by taking up sides and sniping at each other. Nobody will grow in maturity by tossing but-what-about-isms back and forth at each other. Only in keeping our eyes fixed on Christ, acknowledging that we belong to him in our entirety – body and soul, heart and mind – will God be glorified.

We can say, “it is wrong to burn up somebody’s property, wrong to loot businesses, wrong to smash windows” and “it is wrong to beat protesters or kill innocent people” – at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive. But our faith demands that we also say there is no equivalence between property and life. Even that beloved Old Testament verse, “an eye for an eye” does not pretend there is equivalence between property and life. And Jesus Christ, the one who gave up his life so that we might have life, the one who said “love your enemies,” condemns any such notions.

As the Declaration of Barmen affirms, every “yes” of the gospel entails a necessary “no.”

And it is in this spirit that I say to you, God is not glorified when our government assaults peaceful protestors to move them out of the way so a man may take a walk to stand in front of a church and hold up a Bible for a photo.

God is not glorified when our leaders order the removal of peaceful protestors by smoke, tear gas, rubber bullets – which are sometimes lethal – or brute force, and top it off with the word of God and the cross of Christ as symbols for domination. That’s a hard no. a necessary no.

The five verses of scripture we heard today are the closing words of Matthew’s gospel. They include Jesus’ departing words to his disciples: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

As the church, we are called to “go therefore,” on a mission to teach the law of love that Christ taught us. To be obedient to all his commandments, which are, to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbors as ourselves. To bear testimony to a sinful world. To affirm the gospel’s “yes” as well as the necessary “no.”

And the good news assures us that we do not go alone. No talent of ours will bring about world peace. Nothing we bring to the table will usher in the reign of God. All the grace, all the love, all the power that is needed to do this is not dependent on us. What we bring to the game is simply this: because God loves us, we are empowered to love others – all the “others.”

So turn to God. Invite Jesus into your heart. Call upon the Holy Spirit to guide you and empower you to bear witness in a sinful world.

And remember, Jesus Christ is with you always, to the end of the age.

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[1] https://postbarthian.com/2018/05/21/karl-barth-and-the-barmen-declaration-1934/

[2] Book of Confessions: Study Edition, p. 304-305.

We Need A Miracle

Acts 2:1-21       

On the day of Pentecost the small band of disciples were hunkered down in their upper room. They were all together in one place. In one room.

Everybody in that room had – not long before – been a part of the crowds who were gathered in the streets below. Not very long ago they had been a part of that community, the people who made pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Jewish festivals. That’s just what they had done, in fact, for the Passover festival. About seven weeks earlier. But a lot had changed since then.

Now their community was much diminished. Now their community was comprised of a group small enough to fit into this upper room. And, sadly, the people in that room viewed many of those outside their room as enemies.

It was kind of a low moment for the People of the Way. They were still waiting on something, something … they didn’t know what.

The community of the People of the Way – it was not strong. Yet.

But something was about to happen that would change all that. That something was the Holy Spirit. It came in with a violence that was shocking. The rush of a violent wind filling the entire house, tongues of fire resting over every head. Sharp, shocking violence – but not for the sake of violence. The Spirit brought gifts that shocked this little group into becoming a force for something much greater – for all the grace of God through Jesus Christ.

The Spirit gave them power to speak languages they didn’t know, for the sake of creating community they couldn’t yet imagine.

And outside their window, down in the street below there were crowds of people from all over the diaspora. Suddenly, all these diverse people could hear the words of love spoken in their own native languages.

Something miraculous had happened. The little tribe in that upper room had suddenly forged connections with people of every nation, all who were gathered in the holy city for the festival of Pentecost. Now we know, for sure, that because of this Pentecost miracle, the good news would go with them to all the nations they called home.

Community happened. And it was big. And it was love. It was gospel.

And here’s what it was not. Political. Partisan. Divisive. Community in Christ is not tribal. Community in Christ is all about erasing the boundary lines.

I struggled to write a Pentecost sermon this week, because things kept happening, and made me continually ask: what is the real message of community for us today? How does the Spirit of Pentecost speak to us today?

Throughout our country, as we continue to battle the pandemic, does the Spirit speak into the divide that wants to turn public health into a political minefield? Where the decision to wear a protective mask can derisively be called “political correctness?” How does the Spirit speak into this mess?

In the Pennsylvania State House, does the Spirit speak in the midst of extreme partisanship? So extreme that members of one political party decided to share news of a potential COVID-19 outbreak only with members of their own party, hiding it from the opposing party. How does the Spirit speak into that mess?

In Minneapolis, does the Spirit speak in literal flames of fire? People protesting a long history of police brutality toward black men and women reaching a boiling point. Yes, the protests turned violent. Property was destroyed. But their message is: do our lives, our bodies, not matter more than property? Are we not more than property? A man was killed on the street by police officers for a counterfeit 20 dollar bill. Are we not members of the same community?

How does the Spirit speak into such an unholy mess?

The scriptures speak to us of beloved community, boundary-less community. I have spoken frequently over these past ten weeks or so about the beauty of community that connects us to one another no matter where we are. The certainty that the Spirit of God can hold us together even when we are physically apart. We are not bound by the former things – the old ways of thinking about what it means to be together. What it means to be community. We know that the Spirit of God moves where she will and how she will. She is untamed, free.

But it grieves me to acknowledge that the ways of the Spirit do not come naturally to us. We look at others whose languages are different. Perhaps the actual language they speak, but perhaps it is the lens through which they see the world. We don’t all see the world the same way – there are difference by race, by culture, by education or income level, by political affiliation. We don’t always see the world the same way, because the world has not treated us all the same way.  Sometimes we don’t understand the others when they try to speak to us, and we condemn them.

Beloved community does not come naturally to us. Grace does not come naturally to us.

We need a miracle for all that. And sometimes we get one.

In our Bible study last week we read about a special bond that has been forged between two unlikely groups: the people of Ireland and the Native Americans. A bond forged more than 150 years ago, when the Choctaw nation took up a collection for the Irish during their great famine. One people who were suffering saw a kinship with another suffering people.

And so it happened that thousands of Irish citizens have made donations to a fund to support the Navajo and Hopi elders during the pandemic. An effort to ensure that they have enough food to eat, enough water to survive. One people who have a collective memory of suffering, nurture the bonds of kinship with another.

They were guided by an old Irish saying that can be translated as, “We live in each other’s shadows.” The meaning of the saying is that we are all dependent on one another to shelter us from life’s difficulties. We are all in this together, even though we may not see it, and we all need one another to live and to flourish.

The Navajo people have a similar guiding principle: called K’e, which can be translated simply as kinship. The kinship of all living things.

Thousands of miles apart, speaking different languages, living in almost completely different worlds, community was forged by the power of compassion – a miracle.

Today, on this day of Pentecost, we are community – even while we are physically apart. Today we are church – even while we are not together in the building. But that’s not all we are.

Brothers and sisters, we are commissioned by Christ to be his church, wherever we are, in whatever ways the Spirit empowers us to be. We have been given the power of the Spirit to participate in and witness to miracles. Let us put this power to work in a world that badly needs to see the miracle of community.

Where Are You Looking?

Acts 1:6-14

Kim and I think our little dog Chuy is really sweet, but we know he’s not that smart. We don’t kid ourselves. He definitely has a certain amount of street smarts, because he’s been out on the streets a lot – a born wanderer. We’ve had to Chuy-proof our backyard fence to keep him from escaping. But in terms of intellectual capacity? Higher level cognitive function? We never had high expectations.

Although at one point we thought maybe we had underestimated him. Our house in Ohio sat on a corner lot and Chuy would sit out in the backyard with us, watching the world pass by. When he saw somebody walking a dog coming up the sidewalk toward the house, he’d go bananas. He’d run as fast as his little legs would take him over to the side fence to give his greetings. Then, when the walkers would turn the corner that’s when Chuy surprised us. He went tearing across the yard to get to the other side of the house because he knew that was where they were going to reappear.

I thought, “Wow, he has object permanence!” Which is the psychological term for knowing that something still exists even after it disappears. I started to think Chuy was smarter than he looks. But, still, not that smart.

He would race over to the other side of the house – so much faster than the dog and human walkers had any chance of getting there. But then Chuy would get confused. Because they weren’t there yet, so he would begin to second guess himself, thinking maybe he hadn’t analyzed this situation right. He would tear across the yard again, back to where he had last seen them. But now they weren’t there anymore. Even more confused he would run back to the other side of the house, and… they weren’t there yet. So back he goes to the first place.

Kim and I would sit on the deck, cheering him on, thoroughly enjoying the show – this tiny dog leaping across the yard expending every bit of energy he had in his body in the hopes of seeing those walkers again. Chuy never got any smarter, but he got lots of exercise.

And I still give him credit for this: he knew where to look.

Then I think of these disciples of Jesus standing, glued to the spot. Faces turned upward, gazing at the clouds where they last saw him. Unable to see where to go from there. And I know these guys had object permanence because they’re full-grown human adults. But they just didn’t know where to look next.

On this last Sunday of the Easter season, we are needing to face the same reality that the first disciples did, that Jesus is not with us in the same way that we want our loved ones to be with us. And like the first disciples, we don’t know when he will be coming back. This is the truth that the church has been dealing with for about two millennia. So we’ve kind of gotten used to it.

And, at the same time, we are also facing our own reality that many of our loved ones are not with us in the way we want them to be with us. And the same reality that we don’t know when we will be coming back together. Or how we will be coming back together. It turns out none of us know as much as maybe we thought we did, even just a couple of months ago.

The disciples looked pretty foolish, really, standing in that spot gaping up at the sky. To be fair, they were dealing with divine mystery – not just garden-variety object permanence. But they still had to get a grip on what they would do next.

It would take some angelic interference for that to happen. As they stand rooted to the spot, faces to the sun, the two men in white, in other words, angels, appear beside them to point out to them the utter pointlessness of what they are doing.

They tell them Jesus has been taken away, stating the obvious. And so you have no business being here any longer.

So they went back to where they were before, that upstairs room in Jerusalem. To wait it out. They probably thought Jesus was coming right back, so they would just wait.

After his death and resurrection, he had been with them 40 days, the first verses of Acts tell us. After his suffering, by which is meant his death, it says, “he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over the course of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.” Then, shortly before he disappeared, he told them to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Of course, they didn’t know what that was, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But they could understand “stay in Jerusalem,” and so they did.

It’s impossible for us to know what was going on in the minds of those disciples during this time. We just know that they were in territory they had never been in before. They didn’t know the lay of the land; they didn’t know which way to look.

They were still looking to Jesus, in a very literal sense. Because even after he told them that he was leaving and that they would have the Spirit, they turn to him and ask, So, is this when you’re going to restore the kingdom of Israel? Like, now?

Eternally patient, Jesus says to them that it really isn’t for them to know the timing of such things. Then he turns the conversation away from himself and what he might do, to these disciples and all that they will do. “You will receive the power of the Spirit, and you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth.”

And so they did. And so they were.

And so we also are.

First, though, they had to figure out where to look, and so do we.

They made their way back to their upstairs room in Jerusalem. That much they knew how to do. And then they did the next thing they knew how to do, and that was pray. Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, Judas son of James. All these men and others, along with some women, including Mary, the mother of Jesus; all these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer.

Too often, we overlook such verses in the scriptures. I have sat in Bible studies where we read verses of scripture like this, and when I ask the question, “What did they do?” everyone scours the verses looking for clear action and completely overlooking the act of prayer.

And yet for people of faith isn’t prayer one of the first actions we should take? When everything that is familiar has been ripped away, when we are suddenly living in uncharted territory, shouldn’t our first resort be prayer?

When you just can’t do the things you’ve done before. These disciples couldn’t pepper Jesus with questions that drove him to the brink of his sanity, not any more. They couldn’t follow him into boats out on the lake, or down roads through the villages of Galilee – not any more. No longer would they run errand for him, making themselves feel useful, fetching donkeys or food to eat. All that was apparently over, and they didn’t yet know what would be next. But in the meantime, they devoted themselves to prayer. And that is actually a very important and potent thing to do when you don’t know what’s next. Prayer draws us close to the source of power, wisdom, love.

I guess those silly disciples weren’t so silly after all. Once they got over the shock of Jesus being taken from them – again – they really did know where to look. They looked to prayer. Something that seems to us so insignificant, the act of prayer.

Sometimes it’s the little things that matter.

Photo: Chuy, resting but always alert.

We Are All Right Here

John 14:15-21      “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

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The writer Louise Erdrich is drawn to bird’s nests. In one of her books she described some of the nests in her collection. There are different sizes and shapes for different birds – she is curious about the ways various birds construct their nests. She notes the types of materials they use, how loosely or densely they pack these materials. But the one thing that most captured my imagination is that bird’s nests aren’t just made out of natural materials, like mud and grass. Birds gather up all kinds of detritus that humans leave behind. Bits of plastic Christmas tinsel, strands of brightly colored knitting yarn, shreds of discarded Kleenex. All these things woven in with the twigs and moss and flower stems.

One winter she saved up the loose strands from when she brushed her daughters’ hair. She scattered them outside for the birds to find. The next fall she found the nest, woven with middle daughter’s blond hairs, eldest daughters rich brown, and the fine pale strands of the baby’s hair.

She took the nest, the home no longer needed, and brought it inside. Thinking about how this nest woven with her babies’ hair had cradled the baby birds, just as her arms had cradled her babies. The way life holds life, over and over again.

We have borrowed the term “nesting” from birds and other animals, to talk about some of the things women do to prepare for new life. A woman in the last weeks of her pregnancy might get a burst of energy for preparing a home for her new baby. Cleaning, organizing, making all things ready. When a new baby comes into the world there is a need to make a place for the newness of him. Nesting – this beautiful construction that wraps around life, holding it and protecting it and nurturing it.

It’s a good image for the way we move through the world – everything is continuous. Endings lead right into new beginnings. Life is not linear – it is circular. It can almost make you dizzy.

That’s the way I feel sometimes when I read Jesus’ words here in John, where he says to his disciples, “I am in my Father, and you are in me – and I am in you.” You know, linearly, I don’t think that is possible. But life is not really linear.

There is another, he says, who will be with you when I am no longer with you – the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth. This Spirit will abide with you, will be in you. And I will be in you, as you are in me.

You begin to get the sense that there is no real separation between Jesus and this Spirit. Or the Father either, for that matter. They are one.

But not only are they one all together, we are one with them somehow, too. Yes, we are a part of this mysterious circle with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

As Jesus speaks these words, we might remember where and when this is happening. This is the evening before he will be arrested. It is an evening when his disciples began to feel the ground shifting from under their feet. Soon he will be leaving them.

It is a time when they need some words of comfort, which he gives them. I am not leaving you orphaned, he says. Another Advocate will be with you. And, in a way, we will all be together – right here. And perhaps he would have said, it is not for you to understand, but simply for you to know.

Well, we are creeping up on Trinity Sunday and you can hear it in our texts from last week and this week. Two weeks from now will be Pentecost Sunday, the day we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church. The week after that is Trinity Sunday, when we pause to reflect on all the persons of the trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Spirit – and the complex, mysterious nature of our triune God.

Western, logical minds always want to take a linear approach to it. We want to line these personalities up – Father, Son, Holy Spirit. We want to assign duties, a sort of job description, to each one, and then assume we fully comprehend it. The trinity we have created as a Limited Liability Company.

But Eastern minds see it differently. The Eastern Orthodox Church has long had a different model for the trinity, called the Perichoresis. It comes from two Greek words, meaning around, and making room; imagine the three persons of the trinity in a dance together circling round and round. This is who they are, and it is not possible to separate them from one another.

That actually sounds like what Jesus is describing to his disciples at their last dinner together. But, even more, Jesus includes the disciples in this circle.

He draws a picture of a circular relationship – Father, Son, Holy Spirit, You, Me. We are all right here. It seems important for him to say these things to his disciples on that night of all nights. Because he will be leaving them soon.

When he leaves them they will all scatter – for various reasons. Guilt. Fear. Grief. Confusion. Loss of purpose. But they won’t go far from each other. They will come back together to recreate what they had before. Or, create something new with the Advocate – the Spirit.

It’s a concept that continues to be meaningful for the church – although in ordinary times we might forget why. When things are just cruising along on autopilot, we don’t need mystery. We don’t need complex imagery about a complex God and where we fit into all of it. We’ve got our notches cut out.

But when things fall apart, it’s different. When pandemic sends us all scattered, separated from one another, it’s different. When all the normal systems break down, we have to start figuring out again what it means to be the church. Who we are in relation to one another and God.

And we have to find out if we will come back together to recreate what we had –

Or to create something new.

I think that Jesus’ disciples wanted, more than anything else in the world, for Jesus to come back to them in that upper room and just resume normal activity. For them to continue being his disciples in the same way they always had. But that couldn’t happen, because it was time now to move on to the next step. You don’t go back to where you were before. But you take what’s needed from before and go forward.

In the best possible outcome, that is what we will do. We will come back together again. But it will not be just like it was before. We will be changed. And the church will be changed.

If we go back to the image of a nest – a sort of container – we can think that this room, our sanctuary, was the container that held us together as a community, the body of Christ. But then we scattered, and we have developed new containers – electronic, telephonic, technological nests, to hold us as the body of Christ. Weird, yes. But true.

In the course of doing weird new things we are learning things about ourselves and about our relationship to the world. I know how painful it is to feel like we are in limbo. It is frightening to wonder what will become of us. But let us trust that God is, indeed, at work in this COVID chaos, and let us watch closely for signs of the Spirit’s work, creating new nests, with pieces of the old as well as pieces of the new things.

Robert Cording, a poet, writes:

More than we imagined,
visible now that we can see
through the leafless branches -
nests, in the lilacs, near
the trunk of a weeping cherry,
on a maple branch horizon.
In them, the past
summer: dead grasses,
milkweed and dandelion
down, our lost cat’s
white fur, line I cut
from a fishing reel, bits
of scattered fingernail-
sized eggshells – a robin’s
pale blue …

Even as the bird gathers up and uses what others discarded, she leaves bits of herself behind in the nest she makes, for others to find and, perhaps, use. In so many ways, life is circular.

Let us watch closely for the work of the Spirit, gathering us up in a nest of familiar things and weird things and creating something new. This circling, gathering, triune God will never let us go. God is here and we are all right here, too.

Photo: By Jerry Kiesewetter jerryinocmd - https://unsplash.com/photos/hgyjSUlEe40archive copy, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62181987

In Times of Trouble

John 14:1-14      

We have known for some time, you and I, that hardship can bring deep meaning to our lives. This is not to say that we enjoy hardship – not by any means. But we realize that some good can come out of it.

We like to recall our experience after 9/11, when so many Americans reconnected with their faith, and church sanctuaries were filled on Sunday mornings. In times of trouble we seek meaning.

Yet, we should also remember, that resurgence in church attendance after 9/11 was actually very brief. It was a blip on the timeline. Nothing worth bragging about or celebrating, really. In fact, it showed us just how fickle our tastes are, how shallow our passions can be.

Because not too long after 9/11 we were beginning to form a new passion. We fixed our attention on a clear enemy and went to war.

Finding meaning in our lives is essential to being human. But when it is colored by fear or anger, it can lead us down some dark and ugly paths. And now we are seeing it again.

It didn’t take very long for all kinds of conspiracy theories to emerge to explain the COVID-19 crisis. Very early on we heard suggestions that it was a biological weapon created in a lab in China and unleashed on the world. And no matter how many times this theory is debunked, it keeps bouncing back. Because it sounds like something that could be true.

There were other attempts – both subtle and not so subtle – to blame China for it. But if we’re looking for somewhere to place blame, we have other options, too. There’s the Bill Gates conspiracy theory, because anyone who cares as much as he does about getting people immunized must have ulterior motives.

The good Dr. Fauci is another candidate. The story here is that he knew about the supposed Chinese scheme and kept it secret. And then there’s the theory that hospitals are faking the numbers on COVID-19 diagnoses because the reimbursements are higher. And, tragically, there are more.

All of these stories have some aspect of believability, and so they spread. All of them sound like they could be true. And so they spread. More accurately, we spread them. Because they sound to us like they might be true.

Years ago, the comedian Stephen Colbert made up a new word – truthiness. The definition of truthiness is that something seems true, therefore it is believable even in the absence of any evidence.

We latch on to these stories that have the quality of truthiness because we have a need to find meaning – preferably, a simple explanation of why things happen. And if the reason involves propping up some enemy that can be blamed for our trouble, all the better. You see, if all the trouble can be blamed on some “other,” some enemy, than nothing much is required of us, other than to get angry. And that’s easy.

In times of trouble we look for an enemy to blame. But that’s not the way Jesus showed us.

When he set out on his ministry, and began to call his first disciples, there was no map they were following. Jesus was leading them into uncharted territory. He knew where he was going, but all the disciples knew was that they were following him. And that seemed to be enough.

For the time being.

The problem, they gradually began to see, was what would happen if there ever came a time when he wasn’t with them.

In this story from John, Jesus is gathered with the disciples on the night before he was arrested. And he begins to speak in parables, telling them about the place he is going – a place where there will be room for them, a place to which they know the way.

But they don’t know what he is talking about. They don’t know where he is going, so how could they possibly know the way there? Up until now, he has been their way. Up until now, everything has worked simply because they followed him. But if he is no longer with them, how will they possibly know the way?

He says to them, let not your hearts be troubled. But clearly, their hearts are troubled. If their teacher leaves them, they will be lost and their lives will be utterly without meaning. They’ve left everything else behind.

They say to him, show us the Father. If Jesus is going to leave them, then he at least needs to give them a replacement to follow. Show us the Father so we have someone to follow. But then he says the strangest thing – something they surely don’t know how to interpret. That in essence, Jesus and the Father are the same. I am in him and he is in me. If you have seen me you have seen him. We are one and the same.

He is showing them a new way of seeing. Learning a new way of seeing is never easy.

His disciples will need to see Jesus even when he is no longer walking with them, leading their steps, setting an example, teaching them what to do. They will need to find their way, without actually seeing the way. Somehow, they will need to see Jesus – and the Father – without actually seeing them, but trusting that they are with them, empowering them and guiding them.

As the church, we proclaim the oneness of the Father and the Son, along with the Holy Spirit, which he will speak of further on in the chapter. And we profess our faith that this triune God is in our midst, working within us, between us, all around us. It is these beliefs that make us who we are, make us a community of faith. And it is these beliefs that guide us through life’s troubles.

So now I must ask: how do these beliefs guide us as we seek to make meaning in this particular time of trouble we are now in?

What will be the way forward? How will we navigate it? If Jesus is our way, then there are a few things we can, and should, know.

We can know that it is not easy. As much as his followers would have liked it, Jesus did not clear away all the obstacles before them. He made a way through hardship – but he did not eliminate hardship. The way, he said, is not easy. But take my yoke upon you, he said, and learn from me.

We can know that it is a way of accountability and forgiveness. On that night when he sat surrounded by his disciples, Jesus looked at them and held each one accountable for what they would do. For the ways they would fall short, the ways they would fail him. He didn’t pretend it was nothing. But he forgave them. As he forgives each one of us, too.

We can know that this way is essentially about where we are now and where we are going. It is not a backward way. The disciples did, fairly quickly, find their way forward. With the help of the Spirit, they began to figure out that knowing the way doesn’t mean having a map with the route all laid out, highlighted in yellow. They discovered that following the way meant trusting in God to show them the next step forward. And forward they went.

The church moved ever outward into the world. It spread like a virus, each person touching several others, and each of them touching even more.

The church moved in and through every kind of trouble. Always demonstrating that the way of Jesus Christ is the way of love and grace. The way of Jesus Christ pours beauty on everything.

What we know from the way of Christ is that love shows its strength in times of trouble. We know that faith grows stronger in times of trouble. We know that by following the way, we will follow a path of being woven together into an ever-widening fabric of community, founded on love and truth –

Not truthiness.

Perhaps God always works through trouble because times of trouble seem to give us tremendous motivation to find meaning and purpose. And Christ gives us a way.

If we follow the way that Jesus gave us, we will look for the ways to be church in these new times. If we trust in him to lead us, to be our way, we will look for the ways he gives us to serve and connect with and love one another.

His way is not a way of fear, nor anger, nor vengeance. So let us turn away from the ways of truthiness, blaming, conspiracy-theorizing. There is no real meaning in such things.

The meaning is to be found in the way of Christ – the way of love and grace, of gratitude and generosity. Let us get ourselves on this way, brothers and sisters. Because there is much need, there is much possibility, there is much for us to do. So –

What can we do?

In a time of new beginnings, we might look to the early church as a model. As the book of Acts tells us, they devoted themselves to prayer and scripture. That is just what we are trying to do. Every evening at 5:30 pm.

You can find me on Facebook Live with daily scripture readings and prayers. We stay close to the Word, and we lift up all the needs of the world that are on our hearts and minds. It is good to be together in prayer; it is like drops of water on a parched land.

But those who are not on Facebook can still pray, knowing they are adding their voice to a community at prayer.

God is at work showing us a way through this current trouble – about this there is no doubt. Let us use this moment faithfully. Let us devote ourselves to prayer and scripture, as the church did at the beginning. Let us look for the movement of the Spirit, showing us our next steps, connecting the Word of God with the Way of Jesus for the sake of the world.

Photo: daily choice of masks in Corona times.  By Islander61 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90093129