How Do We Know?

Maundy Thursday, April 2, 2015 (Exodus 12:1-14; I Corinthians 11:23-26 & John 13:1-17, 31-35)

 

On this night of nights Jesus asks the earliest disciples, "Do you know what I have done to you?"

 

On this night of nights, the night before we, in our feeble but so often genuine attempts to commemorate Jesus' suffering and death, he may still be asking us, "Do we know what he has done to us?"

 

Do we know – really know? ... Can we?

 

Last week I was privileged to visit my parents. They are now 91 and 90 years old. They live in an incredible facility aptly named Good Shepherd Villas. My mother remains feisty. But at 90 she is incapable of toileting herself. So every day at least twice a day while in her bathroom she presses the bell button attached to her wrist. And within a few minutes a staff member appears. They always knock on her bathroom door, call out her name and then respectfully but quite competently care for her.

 

I observe this with considerable humility. I am wondering if I could do that for my mother, if she so needed me? This woman, who has done so much for me, carried me in her womb, wiped my bottom countless times. This woman, who waited up for me through my teen years, who was always there, and who even now in her forgetful state prays daily for me. Even now she has to put up with my less than perfect characteristics. She tells my adult daughter as they are walking arm in arm down the hallway that "Your dad is quite bossy". It's true! Do I know what she has done for me, to me, my mother?

 

Tonight, the night of his betrayal, Jesus asks his disciples just after he had washed their feet, if they know what he has done to them?

           

I am convinced THAT THEY DO NOT KNOW. In many ways they will never know what Jesus has done to them.

 

 I am also convinced that we don't know – in many ways we never can know exactly what Jesus has done to them, TO US and FOR US.

 

What Jesus does is JUST TOO BIG, TOO AWESOME, TOO AMAZING. In suffering and dying, he doesn't just wash our bottoms or even our feet. In suffering and dying Jesus takes on all our crud. In his suffering and dying he takes on all our betrayals of him – our refusal to tell others, to show others, to live with the love he has showered upon us from before our conception, indeed from time immemorial. In His dying Jesus takes on our pride that has us think that we are pretty smart, that we know what's going on, that at the very least we are better than so many others. In His suffering and dying Jesus takes upon Himself our conviction that we have to get more or be more to survive and matter. In his suffering and dying Jesus not only takes on all of that but then He lets go of all of that. He even promises us that we can too – let go of all of that. In His suffering and dying we can see his love for us, his power to move us to love as he loves, not for our sake only, but for the sake of all.

 

Do we see any of what Jesus does for us? It isn't just about then and there – as incredible, as amazing, as seemingly unlikely and impossible as all of that was. It is also about here and now. Jesus' life and death are about His love for us, about enabling and empowering us to love as He loves us, in ways that on our own are impossible. This is to love in ways that let go of our need to control, that let go of our fear and security that drive us to seek more and more and more. Jesus' life and death have the power to open our eyes and ears to the pain and suffering of others. Such love moves us to give sacrificially to help, to care with and for others. After all, it is in Christ's life, suffering, death and resurrection that we begin to see that all are God's children.

 

Do we know what he has done to us in his suffering and death? Do we KNOW?

 

Even if we don't – even if we can't – Jesus keeps obeying God, giving His life to serve people. He does suffer. He dies. In dying he gives himself over to the powers that seek to destroy, debase, humiliate and eliminate. He does this for us. He does this for the world. We are washed and washed and washed again – by and through him. We are offered his body and blood – which somehow brings new life for us and for the world.

 

Even if we don't or can't fully know what Jesus has done and is doing to us, by God's grace may we respond with new life and love. Amen.

 

To The End

Good Friday B, April 3, 2015 (Preaching John 19:1-42)

            I remember a few years ago – a number of our youth had a sleep over at the church from Maundy Thursday through Good Friday. They were present for the Maundy Thursday service. They quietly and carefully observed as at the climax of the service the altar was stripped. They were still and listened as the lector read  Psalm 22 – "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Then immediately following the service, our youth worker summoned me. "Tim, you have to come and talk to the youth!"

 

Innocently I asked, "Why, what's wrong?" Her response, "Just come and see."

 

I walked into a group of youth who were somberly and quite uncharacteristically, silent. They had never attended a Maundy Thursday service. Prior to worship that evening I doubted if any of them had attempted to seriously reflect upon the reality of Jesus' suffering and death. And now, they were appalled. Somehow they sensed that JESUS' SUFFERING AND DEATH was both for them and because of them.

 

Sometimes even as we gather in this beautiful and meditative place – sometimes even when we come as if to escape the trials and vicissitudes of our lives, the muck and guck of living with others and ourselves, we lose touch with the reality of what we are hearing. The Scriptures call us, beg us, cajole us to know and experience the mystery of God and ourselves.

 

Today we attempt to gather around the cross of Jesus. It is not easy for us to watch, to hear, to see. But it is so important! Earlier John's Gospel Jesus promises this, "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." (John 12:32) This statement is made in the context of the Passover Feast even as some Greeks desired to see him. Their question begs these questions: How do we see Jesus? How (on earth) can we ever see Jesus as He is?

 

Jesus' response, indeed God's response through all of John's Gospel, is that we are only allowed to see Jesus for whom He is on the cross.

 

Jesus is the truth – not in the sense of he is right and others are wrong. Such thinking leads to relative truths, to people then yelling, screaming and hating others. Instead, Jesus is the truth in that as Jesus hangs on the cross we are encountered by two profound realities.

 

Firstly and most importantly, Jesus has come to love his own until the end. "End" in the English sense of that word, can mean the termination of something. But "end" can also mean the goal of someone or something. As Jesus tells us that he has come to love his own to the "end" I am convinced that he means both. Jesus is the beginning and the end. He is also our goal

 

It is Jesus' love for others (and remember his own is his love for the "world") that he is unwilling to compromise. It is His uncompromising love for others that gets him, lifted up on the cross. This is the life- bringing truth not only for us, but for the world. God in the flesh loves us so much – that nothing, not even the hate-filled cross that claims God's own Son's life will make God give up on us. God's steadfast love is BEAUTIFUL, amazing, beyond full comprehension.

 

But there's also an ugly part, a dark truth revealed in the crucifixion of Jesus. As John writes in his prologue, "He came into the world and the world knew him not." We hang him on the cross. Along with Pilate, who didn't find Jesus guilty frequently side with that weak, delusory kind of power. We stand by as Jesus is executed. We are anything but innocent. This is part of our ugly reality.  

 

The religious leaders of the day know that for anyone to declare themselves to be God is blasphemous. There is only one God. Examining Jesus, coming from his "low" (by their standards) estate, questioning their authority and the place of their hearts, certainly could not be God. In their judgment Jesus is guilty - guilty of blasphemy, punishable by death. In attempting to follow this principle, they then declare to Pilate, that they have no King but Caesar. Yet Caesar in the utter depths of blasphemy has declared himself to be God. 

 

But before we quickly pass judgment, haven't we ever, on principle, lost our integrity? Haven't we ever elevated someone or something – even if just for awhile, above God? At times our truth is also ugly.

 

We are sometimes afraid like Peter. In our fear we act as if we do not even know Jesus. We think of ourselves before and at times instead of Him. We often think of ourselves before others whom he also loves so much – the sick, the lonely, the poor, any who are victimized by systems that we are part of. Even as that happens, somewhere a rooster crows, once, twice, three times. Sooner or later we will hear it....

 

Yet, as Jesus is lifted up he draws us to himself. Do we see him there? Can we help but know that somehow we had a hand in putting him there – our selfishness, our greed, our refusal to admit and live hungering and thirsting for God? Like those youth of a few years ago – can we  see him there – because of us, for us and others? Indeed, beneath the cross of Jesus.  

 

When Jesus is lifted up he draws us to himself – to see ourselves, truly – without our masks or pretense.

 

On that cross he also draws us to himself to see Him. He kept working for Pilate to see him, the truth. He kept working with the Jewish authorities of that time and place so that they might see Him. And He kept working with Peter who denied him three times so that Peter may see and know him.   Later, following the resurrection in John's Gospel, Jesus appears to Peter and asks three times that Peter feed Jesus' sheep.

 

On this day of all days, might we gather at the foot of the cross? See the ugly truth of our rebellion, our rejection of God's own Son, preferring darkness over the Light of the world, deception over the truth. See that Jesus suffers because of us and with us. Make no mistake. We share responsibility. Even now, as the earth groans, as people starve, as many are certain that there is no God - we share the responsibility.

 

But also see this - the beautiful, amazing wondrous truth of Jesus' unfailing determination to love us and this world to the end. Cling to that for dear life people – the whole truth. In that beautiful and horrific truth, our Lord hanging on the tree, is our hope and the hope for the world. He loves us to the end. Amen.

Do You Know Love?

Lent 4b15,   March 15, 2015 (Numbers 21:4-9; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21)

Do you know love?

 

I am not asking, "Do you know about love?"Instead I am asking, "Do you know love?"

 

This isn't an easy question because love is darn difficult. Love demands the giving of our lives, taking risks in and through which we have no guarantees. Such love is not primarily a thought or even feelings. If love were merely feelings, it would be too easy. Feelings come and go, like the Maple Leafs playoff chances, like so many promises from so many people, like houses in Richmond being torn down. Here today, gone tomorrow.

 

I am talking about LOVE. A commitment of ourselves, all that we have and are and will be, to another person or people, to a cause we believe in, regardless of the cost. I have seen such love. I suspect that you have too.

 

Love is a couple journeying together on the path called life. The road isn't smooth. Each of them  make mistakes that hurt their beloved and their self. Some of the mistakes are made intentionally.  Many of their mistakes are accidental. Either way the mistakes hurt. And yet they keep on caring. In their living they try, so very hard, to work for each other's well being.

 

They actually know each other, as they really are – the wonderful stuff and the less than wonderful stuff. Still, they keep on caring, day after day, week after week, month after month. They bind each other's wounds, often figuratively, sometimes literally. They listen to each other even when they are tired. After all is said and done one of them may end up standing or even lying beside the other as that other person is dying.  Then they will listening some more, care deeply, remembering so much. Then they may celebrate all that has been. And they may again for forgiveness of their beloved for the times they hurt that one. They may even deeply long for more – more time or have come to terms that this is the end of their time. This is love – far from perfect; anything but easy; living with profound vulnerability, because you have let, maybe even welcomed the other one in to whom you are – your strengths, weaknesses, even the things that you can't stand about yourself. The loved ones are allowed to see the wondrous things about each other – things you might not have even known about yourself – but together on your lifer journey are birthed,  perhaps even a patience and kindness that we didn't know was within ourselves.

 

Such love is exhausting. Some days we may just want to throw our hands up in the air. But such love is also good. Such love flows from the very heart of God.

 

Love is aching with the other or others over losses, failures, disappointments. Love is sitting together when the other or others are sick. Love is dancing with the loved one or ones when they dance, even if it's just in your mind, because you can't dance the way you'd like to or they are half the world away. Love is praying for the other's safety, wisdom, faith – even when they may not know that they need any of that. And love is having a tiny or large hole in your heart – when the one whom you love or those you have grown to love leave, die, or spread their own wings.

           

Sometimes love means going to the hospital when one of your beloved has made a foolish decision. At other times love means flying across a continent or ocean because you recognized a hopeless tone in the voice of the one you love.

 

Sometimes such love is not returned. Even though that deeply hurts you keep on caring because this love is more than a feeling –it's part of, essential to who who you are.

 

Do you know love?

 

Today Jesus encounters us as he meets with this interesting character Nicodemus, "a leader of the Jews". Nick comes at night claiming to know something about Jesus. But I don't think that Nick knows Jesus at all. But Jesus wills to lead Nick (and us!) into knowing God in God's mystery – into experiencing the love of God, into then living from that reality. Yet at this point, Nick is lost - literally and figuratively. He doesn't "get" Jesus at all.

 

We are so much like Nick, often in darkness of our own making.  Still Jesus loves him! Through Jesus deep and abiding love Nick is eventually moved beyond himself to the much grander dream of God– the deep, the difficult, the wondrous reality of life and love.

 

Jesus shows Nick the truth about himself. It's more than an inconvenient truth. The light of Jesus' love begins to shine upon and quicken Nick's life – even late that very first night. The light of Jesus' love shines upon our lives, individually and collectively, now. In Him we begin to see what and whom we are called to truly love, what and whom we really don't care that much about right now, regardless of what we say or think. In the love of Jesus we begin to see where we are caught – the various truths of our minds and hearts. The light and love of Jesus show us our Visa and Mastercard statements, our priorities – revealing an honest inventory of the expenditure of the time entrusted to us. As the light begins to shine on Nick, he is frightened. Are we any different as the light of Jesus' love completely illumines us?

 

But Jesus doesn't give up on Nicodemus because of Nicodemus' comprehension or flight. Nor does Jesus give upon us. "Hallelujah" even in Lent, particularly on some Sundays in Lent. 

 

So, let me ask again, "Do you know love?"

 

Let me assert again - In Jesus, we are known by God's love!

 

Can you imagine – having a husband or wife, close friend or child – who continually wanders off, pushing you away? Can you imagine having a husband or wife, close friend or child who will not talk to you for days or months, or years on end? Can you imagine having a husband or wife, close friend, son or daughter who sometimes purposely, does exactly the opposite of what you had had hoped for, instructed, even prayed for.

 

Such a person is bent on doing their own thing – eating too much, drinking too much, spending what they don't have, even poisoning the very air that they and others need to breathe. Such a person forgets or disregards their own brothers and sisters, sometimes even steals from their siblings. All that seems to matter to such a person is their own limited understanding of "today", or in some weird turn of terms, their "rights". Who will rescue them from this body of death, this reality of their own making? Can you/ would you keep loving them? Would you give your all for them in the hopes that they would know your love – and be transformed? Would you love them that foolishly, without any guarantee?

           

Yet this is the way that God miraculously loves us and all people, all creation. This is at the root of it why Jesus is lifted up on that tree.

 

Dear people – do we know love? God, almighty God, Creator of the universe loves us – not with fleeting feelings or merely in his or her "head". God loves us and the entire world so much, that God becomes One of us. In this emptying love of literally giving Himself/Herself over to death, God shines the light both on whom we are – and upon whom God is. Will we be loved and loving? Or, will we run away pretending that things are OK by trying to hide in the shadows of our delusions and rationalizations?

 

Dear people, be opened to the love of God in Jesus Christ, the One who is lifted up on the tree. Even now, He reaches out to love us. Shine, Jesus shine. Transform us, freeing us from ourselves, our delusions in the midst of all reality – to know and live from your love. Amen

No "Jack" In A Box

No God In A Box (John 2:13-22 with Exodus 20:1-17), Lent 3b, March 8, 2015

MT – In Jesus we are encountered by God (question –where do we see, hear, meet Jesus?)

Malady – we have a strong tendency to construct God and Jesus in our own image.

            Where are you aware of, where do you encounter, see and hear God? Think about that for a moment. Anyone brave enough to share with the rest of us?

            In the first lesson we see the people of Israel on a journey that God has sent them on – a journey from slavery to freedom. It is not an easy journey for them – or for us! Journeys from slavery to freedom are never easy – for they necessarily involve dying, letting go of old familiar ways and being opened to new ways – ways that aren't familiar, that involve risks and incredible change.

            Think about his. Our second journey down the birth canal – or even our birth through a caesarean section. Don't think that any of that is easy. Or -  our journey from childhood to teenagehood. Was that easy? Or, our journey from teenagehood to adolescence into being an adult. Wanting so desperately to be an adult and yet discovering that sometimes we still so much need mom and dad. Then there is the ongoing journey through adulthood. There are many joys including the joy of being "on our own". But there is also the pain of loss – the loss of friends, and later the loss of various capacities, to be able to run and jump, to move without pain. Eventually there may the loss of memory. There may the gut wrenching loss of loved ones at many different parts of all our journeys.

Journeys are not easy. In particular the journey from slavery or obsession to freedom and full awareness of others and God, from the way things were to the way things can be, is extremely difficult.

Yet, who is with the people of Israel on their journey. Who is there delivering them, listening to them, seeking to guide them by giving them the law, not for death or even control but for life? That's right. God is with them and for them!

GOD IS ALSO WITH US ON OUR JOURNEYS, EACH AND EVERONE OF THEM. God wills to bring us through whatever slaveries we may experiencing – guilt, fear, anxiety, addiction, anger, hatred, apathy – to new life. God is God. The one who shoved us through our first birth canal. We can trust God.

Now I want you to see this box. (Hold it up). How would you like to live in this box? It's a ridiculous question really – although some people far and near use boxes a bit larger than this to shelter them from the elements.

So, let me ask you this. What could we fit into this box? (Pause)

Do we ever attempt to fit God into some kind of box – even within the box of our minds?

In today's Gospel we are encountered by Jesus. Here he is anything but meek and mild. All four Gospels record an event of Jesus being upset by what is going on in the Temple. Matthew, Mark and Luke record this event at the very end of Jesus' ministry – only a short time before his death. John records this event at the very beginning of Jesus' ministry. Matthew, Mark and Luke see Jesus' losing at the temple as a contributing cause to his death. But John pictures Jesus' losing it in the Temple in such a way that he fashions a whip of cords and drives the money changers out of the temple because He doesn't want His Father's house to be a market place.

What are we to make of this? Jesus is angry, overturning tables, brandishing a whip of cords in what had been a very holy place, calling it all into question. Where is God now?

John tells us that the "Jews" that is the people often including the religious leaders who couldn't see that in Jesus God is doing a new thing, then said to him, "what signs can you show us for doing this?" Jesus responds, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."

The religious leaders thought that they had God figured out. According to God's prior revelations to so many of their people, they had placed God in their box. They knew that God promised to work in and through the temple. That was their box for God – as if God could be limited to that place and only that time. In some ways, the Temple was good. God commanded the people to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. The temple was part of that. Sin was taken seriously there – as sin should be. But over time, the letter of the law had gotten in the way of the Spirit of the law. People took advantage of the spirit of the law and created systems that were unjust, inequitable.

Jesus is not being literalistic in his response to the Jewish leaders. To be sure he speaks of destroying the temple. The temple Jesus speaks of is his body. Destroy his body and on the third day he will be raised from death to life.

Through his suffering, death and resurrection Jesus draws us to God. There is no longer a need to purchase and sacrifice any animal to bridge the gap between we who fall short of God`s intention and God. God himself, in the flesh of Jesus gives Himself up for all of us. How we begin to understand this – how we sense our call to follow and obey him is an ongoing, life-long revelation and journey – which defies any and all boxes that we or any other human beings may construct.

GOD ALONE IS GOD. And we, are among God`s creation, special, wonderful, rebellious with grave consequences, often blind and deaf to the wonder and mystery of God, to our ongoing need for God`s presence, guidance and forgiveness.

There is not box big enough to hold or confine God – not our minds, our churches, our doctrine, even our Scripture. Luther say employing a wonderful metaphor, that the Bible is the cradle of Christ, the very Word of God. (Pause)

Where is GodÉ

Open our eyes, our minds, our ears, our hearts O God to see your suffering, dying, rising Son around us and within us. May we follow Him realizing that He is often ahead of us, always with us, seeking to open our hearts and minds, willing to move us from comfort and fear to risk and hope as we are called to love God with all we have and our neighbors as our selves. May all our futile attempts to box in God be blown to smitherines, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, the Lord and sAviour of the world. Amen.

Wanna See?

Lent 5b15 – John 12:20-33 with Jeremiah 31:31-34

Would you like to see Jesus? Really, if you could, would you like to behold Jesus with your own eyes, reach out and touch him, encounter him as he truly is?

            I ask for three reasons. Firstly, in today's Gospel lesson, "Greeks" come to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast. They are coming, because they have heard about some of the things Jesus is doing. "We would see Jesus", they say.

            Secondly, one of our Bible schools, a fine institution in many ways has a slogan based on this passage, "We would see Jesus". Yet in that particular culture of Norwegian piety you will not find a crucifix where the suffering Jesus is so clearly portrayed. No, there the cross of Jesus is always "empty" underlining, emphasizing Jesus' resurrection, rather than his suffering.

            Thirdly, we live in a time and culture that looks down its nose upon anything called "faith". If there somehow isn't scientifically verifiable evidence, a logical explanation, coupled with some kind of limited risk on our part regarding our assent, well then we are told not to be interested. Such "claims" are viewed as far less than credible.

            So, do we actually want to "see" Jesus? ...

            Over the years I have been deeply privileged to receive a number of letters or notes from people whose lives have touched my life both in good and trying times. Our experiences of God in the midst of the joy and suffering that comes with life and death have run into and over each other.

            Today I share a poem written by a mother whose young adult son has recently died. Her son's death has torn her heart. She notices that her son's death has caused others to distance themselves from her. They are unwilling and or unable to accompany her in the midst of her deep and abiding pain and the unanswerable questions that irrupt within her.

            She prefaces her poem by saying that she is wailing at the feet of her son. She says, "I understand Mary and Mary understands me, more than I thought possible. I have a small mission to help people understand the grieving". She titles her poem, "A Mother's Lament"

You see me coming and turn away.

I am not a monster.

No weeping sores or fetid breath.

You cast down your gaze as I approach.

You turn away.

My tears well up.

My breath is stole.

For one brief moment I thought I heard a word, a kindness spoken.

You saw me coming and turn away.

I am a mother torn in two, my heart wrenched from my chest as I kiss my child, his cool and waxen cheek unmoving.

My life once joyous with expectation of time together, gone.

You cannot see my pain.

I am not a monster with weeping sores or fetid breath. I AM A MOTHER. DO NOT TURN AWAY! ...

            Life is not easy.   We are born to be loved, cared for and about, to love and to care unconditionally. Such living is rich. At times such living is also deeply PAINFUL. Through all of this runs the power of God and while we occupy this earthen space, also the power of evil. We  hear different voices – including the voice of God. But in addition to God's voice are other voices. Some of these yearn to exercise power over us, seeking to delude us into believing that they are God, that they are the "way".

            Through the middle of our living and dying runs our drive for self-preservation. Many of the voices in our lives tell us to be careful, that we must preserve our lives at all cost. Such voices tell us not to fully trust anyone or anything – except them. Don't show anyone all "your cards".

            Contrasting these voices is the voice God. God invites us to let go of our delusion of control. In letting go we are being called to trust God. Follow Jesus. In showing us God's love for us and all in Jesus, God encourages us to love as God loves us, to forgive as we are being forgiven by God in Jesus. This voice of God tells us to fight against the paralyzing fear of worry about how we may die or be hurt as we love. In such "letting go" is life. We are not created by God to be "calculators". Instead we are created by God to live joyfully, risking often, trusting Jesus to lead us. In this dynamic we are enabled to care for others experiencing the depths of love and joy, loss and pain, fear and trust – whatever may come. In such care our minds may even be opened to imagine and dream not only about ourselves and our feelings but where and how God may be calling us to follow Jesus.

            We make frequent choices about which voices we are listening to. The result of our choices are seen in the ways we spend our time, our money and the investments of our hopes and dreams. Will we, are we actually making the effort to hear each other, pay attention to the other, become willing to journey with them in joy and pain – or will we turn away? ...

            Would we see Jesus? This isn't a question, among so many others on a survey to be ticked off. This is the question that has the power to inform and shape our lives, individually and collectively. The question coming from God has the capacity to take our lives as grains of wheat and plunge them into the ground of human life and death – where we most certainly will undergo a number of deaths. Yet in such dying, through God's grace our lives can bear amazing fruit. This fruit nourishes, nurtures and fills the world with the possibility of new life.

            On the other hand, refusing to see Jesus may leave our lives as a "grain" simply unfulfilled. Then like an empty husk, we are rendered powerless to be and do what we are meant to be and do, paralyzed by fear, running after mirages.

            Would we see Jesus? We desperately need God's help and daily deliverance to see BEYOND OURSELVES. To see Jesus we need God's Spirit working in and among us to trust the One we can never fully understand, to dare to be convinced again and again that this one loves us and this world through thick and thin. To see Jesus we must be enabled to refuse to turn away from the suffering of others including ourselves. Seeing the crucifix we are encountered by our own hearts and minds that are too often violent and hatred. There, too we are encountered by the refusal of God to turn away from us. Truly, Jesus loves us.

            Would you see Jesus? Do we hear him right now. "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies..." And then later, either a lifetime or merely a few seconds later he continues, "And I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself."

            Draw us, O Christ, to you. Help us to see, not to turn away. Amen.