Salt and Light

Scripture: 

Matthew 5:13-16

Preached 02/09/2014

 
Guy was surprised.  Flabbergasted, even.  He’s an art auctioneer, and was just searching around in a very dusty old attic.  He wasn’t expecting to find too much.  But he found a Van Gogh.  Now, Vincent Van Gogh may derive much of his fame from his reputation as a deeply troubled eccentric, but he could definitely paint, too.  His work is known for its rough beauty, emotional honesty, and vibrant use of color. His art was never popular in his own lifetime, and most likely died thinking he had failed. However, time changes a lot of things,  we know today that he’s heralded as a genius who has forever changed art as we know it.  And his paintings are now worth millions of dollars.  Which is why Guy was so surprised that one of his works was just discarded in a corner. 

The person who owned this painting, the person who owned the attic which Guy was searching wasn’t just anyone.  They were an art collector.  They knew their stuff.  How had they missed the fact that they had a Van Gogh?  Why was this painting not on central display?  Why was it left, just discarded and unnoticed by anyone, except for Guy? 

You know, it’s not just that art collector with a Van Gogh in a corner who may not recognize greatness in their midst.  I think we are all guilty of this sometimes.  It’s unfortunately easy to miss greatness, especially when it’s staring right at us, like our own face in the mirror.  When Guy found the Van Gogh, he immediately pointed out the greatness of the painting to the collector.  

And in our scripture reading this morning, we have Jesus, with a crowd of followers around him.  And what does Jesus do?  Point out the greatness he sees in front of him. 

You are the salt of the earth, he says.  It may not always seem like it, but salt is precious.  It’s necessary to life.  It’s part of every cell in our bodies, and part of every living thing on the planet. And in ancient times, like in Jesus’ time, it was even more precious.  You couldn’t just go to the grocery store and buy a container for a few cents.  No, salt was prized, and salt was pricey.  Empires became rich from mining salt. People died mining salt.  Let me just restate that: people died for salt.  And the salt they died for wasn’t even good salt, by our standards.  It wasn’t the pure sodium chloride we can sprinkle on our food.  It was often in large rock like chunks that were full of impurities that would eventually cause the saltiness to leach out of the rock with continued use. 

But salt was still precious.  Like today, salt was used to preserve other foods, to cleanse, to make stone walking surfaces less slippery, even as an offering to gods.  This is the kind of preciousness and priciness Jesus is talking about when he calls his listeners the salt of the earth.  

And he doesn’t stop there.  You are the light of the world, he says.  Not just the light of Jesus’ life, a phrase some of us might use to describe those very precious to us, but the light of the whole world.  It may not always seem like it, but light, too, is very precious, and like salt, was even more precious in the ancient world.  In Jesus time, you obviously couldn’t just flick a switch and have light flood your house.  People relied on fires and lamps to light their homes.   

The fires could only be lit in certain places, and you had to start them by that whole stick and stone spark method.  I’ve tried that—not easy.  So lamps were the best choice, small boat looking dishes of oil with a floating flame.  They were notoriously difficult to light, but they could be maintained easier than a whole fire, and they were portable inside and outside they could give you light, as they old slogan used to go I think, everywhere you want to be.   

And light, of course, was precious, and is precious, because it is the only way we can see.  It was this kind of great value that Jesus points out when he calls his listeners the light of the world. 
So who were these followers of Jesus?  These precious, incredibly valuable people whose greatness Jesus points out?  The best we can tell, they were just ordinary people.  They were most likely not rich or powerful.  They were fishers, carpenters, women, children, tax collectors, sick people. . .Ordinary people.  And yet, Jesus looked at them, and like that art collector looking at the dusty Van Gogh in the corner, saw greatness.  And he pointed it out. 

But Jesus message isn’t just for those ancient listeners, of course.  We wouldn’t bother reading Jesus’ words, studying them, and talking about them, modeling our lives after them, if we believed what he did and said and meant were just interesting pieces of historical trivia.  We believe this Book still talks.  And when Jesus calls his followers salt of the earth and light of the world, he’s calling all of us, all of you that too.  Jesus sees that you are all ordinary people.  And though you may not be wealthy or powerful, you are precious, and you are valuable, and you are full of greatness. 

Can you see it?  Can you see yourself, the Van Gogh in the corner?  Maybe I can help you out a little here, since I’ve had a week to study and ponder this text.  And I can see, in this congregation in front of me, greatness.  Remember, Jesus says this to you: You are the salt of the earth.  You are the light of the world.  You are great.  Jesus saw it.  I see it.  And want you to see it too.   

You are the salt of the earth. Like salt, I’ve seen you preserve.  You’re preserving salt when you put your paper recycling in the bin to help preserve our planet and to make a little money for the church.  You preserve people’s lives when this donate soup to the hungry.   

You are the salt of the earth, and I’ve seen you cleanse.  You cleanse very literally help clean up the church, perhaps putting our Advent and Christmas decorations away or move pews. You cleanse when you work in the garden, pulling out the weeds and helping the beauty shine through.   

You are the salt of the earth, and I’ve seen you give traction.  Very literally, some of you salt and shovel and help us make it into the building safely.  You give traction, hope of getting one’s feet on solid ground when you pray for those in need.  You give traction when you volunteer to teach, and to help others find grounding in the Biblical text. You give traction by taking care of our little ones, and helping them find their place in this church. 

You are the salt of the earth, and I’ve definitely seen you add flavor.  You share stories with one another, and with me, at fellowship time.  You add flavor to worship by singing, ringing, or playing an instrument, or by leading it with me up here.  You come up with new ideas to try, like bonfires with flaming boomerangs, or a haystack game for the kids at Trunk or Treat.  And you make and share really flavorful food, too. 

You are the light of the world, and I’ve seen you shine.  You shine forth God’s love to the world when you cut the lawn and care for the property, making sure this little part of the Body of Christ can shine to the community around us.  You shine when you volunteer for support groups, and on boards of agencies that help those in need.  You shine when you represent this church at Presbytery meetings, when you tell, invite and bring your family and friends and neighbors and strangers to this place.  You shine in so many ways.   

And what I’m sharing is just part of what I see.  And what I see mostly limited to this church.  But Jesus didn’t say you are the salt and the light of Calvary Presbyterian.  He didn’t say you are the salt and the light of the whole Church, either.  Jesus said you are the salt of the earth—the whole earth.  You are the light of the world.  The whole world. 

I know—it’s likely a little hard to own these two blessings.  We’ve probably all been taught that it’s best to be modest, and we downplay who we are and what we do.  And while bragging isn’t what Jesus is going for, Jesus does ask us all to recognize that we are something, we are someones, who are great. We are precious and oh so valuable.  Let me restate that so you hear it again.  You are precious.  You are so valuable.  You are the salt and the light of the world.  You are that discovered Van Gogh, a masterpiece, and you don’t deserve to sit dusty in the corner or covered with a bushel basket.  Your greatness deserves to be seen.  And this isn’t about everyone else seeing your greatness.  It’s about you seeing it too, and accepting this blessing that Jesus gives. 

So, in this basket are candles for all of you.  Take one, and over the course of this week, pay attention.  Look for the times when you are acting as the salt of the earth, or the light of the world.  Trust me, you will all be salt and light this week, as you all are every week.  When you recognize that, make a note of it.  And then when you are able, take that candle and light it.  Say a prayer to God, thanking God the greatness God has put in you.  You are the salt of the earth, and you are the light of the world.  Don’t sit dusty in a corner, don’t hide under a bushel basket.  Bask in God’s salt and light in you.  Amen.   

           

The wrong recipe

Scripture:

Matthew 5:1-12

Preached 02/02/2014

1 cup butter, softened. 1/3 cup powdered sugar.  ¾ cup corn starch. 1 cup sifted flour.  Cream together the butter and sugar, then stir in the corn starch and flour.  Drop by spoonfuls onto a pan and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.  Melting moments.  They were the cookies my Grandma Schroder used to make for us at Christmas.  They were delicious.  And as the name implies, they had this really special, melt in your mouth kind of texture.  Since my grandma always made them, I never had to, until after she died.  And Christmas came and I just needed those cookies to be set out on the buffet.

So I set out to make them.  I pulled out an old recipe card, with her tiny, almost illegible handwriting, spotted with years worth of bits of butter and sugar that had flown from the mixing bowl as my grandmother lovingly made these treats for us.  I followed the recipe exactly.  And my dough was a mess.  It was soft, almost like a thick cake batter, and definitely not something I could shape into any semblance of a ball to bake.  Clearly, the dough needed to be harder.  The fact that there was no egg in this cookie had to be a mistake.  And only 1/3 cup of sugar for all this dough?  That had to be wrong too.  I stared at the dough in the mixing bowl.  This recipe, these directions I had, just couldn’t be right.

I imagine the disciples may have felt the same way as they listened to Jesus give this beginning section of what we refer to in Matthew as the Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus’ ministry had just gotten started.  He had gathered his disciples and apparently quite a crowd of followers.  And now that he has them all gathered, he gives them a recipe. 

Did you catch the recipe the first time?  Here it is again: Be poor in spirit. Mourn.  Be meek, or perhaps better stated, remember your part in God’s larger vision.  Hunger and thirst for righteousness.  Show mercy.  Be pure in heart, perhaps better stated, be sincere.  Make peace.  Be persecuted and reviled.  That can’t be right.  Jesus says blessed.  Blessings to the point that God’s way of life is established on earth. God’s way of life is the cookie we’re going for here, and this blessing stuff would be the intermediate step, the dough that happens before the cookie and after the ingredients. And this blessing “dough” is looking very strange.

Clearly, to transform into God’s desired way of life on earth, the dough needs to be harder.  It can’t be this soft, mercy, peace, meekness stuff, right?  Those ancient followers were looking for a military king type leader who was literally going to tear apart the oppressive structures of power with force.  And where’s the egg? You know, that thing that’s going to bind all these followers together and then raise them and us up, victorious above everyone else?  Instead we have mourning, and being poor in spirit, pulling them down. And the dough definitely needs to be sweeter- we definitely need to be happy right?  But this dough has us being persecuted and reviled?  No thank you.

Sorry, Jesus, but your recipe and this dough it makes just can’t be right.  And we haven’t even really gotten to the strangest part yet.  Jesus doesn’t get to it, in this sermon.  But Paul does, in his letter to the Corinthians.  This Jesus guy, who is supposed to be the powerful, victorious and triumphant savior, gets killed.  And it’s not just any death.  Jesus dies an excruciatingly painful death and humiliating death, reserved for the lowest of the low.

So now Jesus isn’t even around anymore.  Like me, trying to make my grandmother’s cookies, we as followers of Jesus can’t even ask him about this recipe to his face any more.  So we have a choice, the same choice I had with those cookies.  We can go with what we think needs to happen.  We can try to make the dough harder, or add an egg or some sugar because we just know that the recipe and the dough we have in front of us just can’t be right.  Or we can go with the recipe, the directions, that we have.

I’ll be honest.  The very first time I attempted to bake my grandmother’s cookies, I went with the first option.  I went with what I thought needed to happen.  The dough was too soft, so I put it in the refrigerator overnight.  And when I came back, the dough was definitely harder.  It had actually morphed into something super crumbly, but I could roll some of it into little ball-like lumps.  And I baked those lumps.  And you know what happened?  I had ruined that dough.  I only managed to get a few cookies out of that entire recipe of dough, and the ones I got just weren’t right.  Even though the dough was crumbly, the cookies were not.  They definitely didn’t melt in my mouth, and they didn’t take my back to memories of Christmas cookies past.  And when we, as well meaning as we are, insist that this dough Jesus directs us to make is wrong and we have to fix it, we do the same thing.  Again, as well intentioned as we are, we ruin the dough of God’s way of life coming alive on this earth. 

When we insist that violence and force are the only options, and that we always have to resort to them, or that we have to be the biggest, strongest, and most powerful, we crumble apart God’s kingdom before it’s even baked.  It needs to be shaped with the power of mercy, peace, and meekness.  When we insist that we have to be puffed up and victorious, we miss that holy room for God that we can only make when we are humble, when we are poor in spirit, and when we mourn.  It is in those times of emptiness that God fills us up.  And when we insist on sweetness—instead of accepting the bitterness of persecution, exclusion, even revulsion of others—we ruin the dough again.  Because when we insist on sweetness, for example insisting that we must be happy, or healthy, or wealthy, we miss God’s presence in reality, where we all feel sad and get sick and not all of us are going to be rich.

I made those cookies a second time.  I followed the directions exactly.  And my dough was a mess.  It was way too soft and I couldn’t make it form into a ball so I just put soft little blobs onto the cookie sheets and put them into the oven and prayed.  And they came out perfectly, melting in my mouth and tasting just like I remembered.  My wisdom, my wise plan of putting the dough in the fridge, had just been foolishness.  My wisdom, insisting that I knew what dough was supposed to look like and forcing it to look that way, was just foolishness.  Wisdom and cookies as they were intended by the author to be only came and trusted, hoped, and prayed, when I let of my preconceived notions and let myself be guided by something I didn’t fully understand.

God’s way of life on earth—that cookie we’re attempting to make—works the same way.  We can’t force it to look like we want it to look.  We can’t make it tougher, or puffed up, or sweeter without ultimately ruining it as we distort it into our own well-intentioned but misguided creation. Be poor in spirit. Mourn.  Remember your part in God’s larger vision.  Hunger and thirst for righteousness.  Show mercy.  Be sincere.  Make peace.  Be persecuted and reviled. This is the strange dough that makes up God’s intended way of life on earth.  Hope.  Trust.  Go with God’s wisdom and pray, and these cookies God promises us will come out beautifully in the end.

           

 

Jesus' Infomercial

Scripture: Matthew 4:12-23

Preached 01/26/2014

 

In my defense, it was 5:30 in the morning, and I was tired.  Ellery was only a few months old at this point, and sleeping like new babies do, just little bits at a time.  Rob and I were awake after her last feeding.  Rob was getting ready for work.  I was just stuck awake, doing nothing productive. It was too late for me to fall back asleep, but too early for me to start my morning routine.  So I sat there on the couch and watched some infomercials.  Small confession here—I love infomercials.  But only because they’re fantastic.  And this morning, the infomercials were, in my opinion, especially fantastic.  There was this miracle spray that could seal any crack that has ever existed, and the host used it to turn a screen door into a working boat.  There was a miracle headlight cleaner that would give you better visibility and save you money and also worked to clean about 50 other things that you definitely needed to clean. 

As a fan of these kinds of commercials, I’ve developed pretty good self-control.  After all, infomercials always claim to be the best thing ever invented, and that can’t possibly be true all the time.  So maybe it was because I was tired, or maybe it was because I didn’t have a screen door I couldn’t turn into a boat, but the next infomercial trapped me.  It was for a non-stick pan.  Not just any non-stick pan, though.  The single most amazing non-stick pan EVER.  You could cook eggs and make caramel in it, and nothing would stick.  You could attempt to scratch it with rocks, and nothing would happen.  You could run over it with your car, and it wouldn’t warp.  AND, here was the kicker—it was all organic.  I’m a sucker for that stuff.

I wanted that pan.  I really, really wanted that pan.  There was a special offer and a free gift and I was running to find my phone to buy that sucker.  I honestly didn’t care what it cost—I was going to drop my money and get that pan.  Congratulations infomercial host man, you have done your job well.

In our scripture reading this morning we have Jesus cast as the infomercial host.  He’s asking four men to drop everything for the thing that he’s offering.  Jesus doesn’t even get to give much of a sales pitch here.  There’s no screen door boat on the sea of Galilee, no donkey cleaner, no non-stick pan for those fish Simon-Peter, Andrew, James, and John were catching.  Jesus didn’t promise the disciples they’re catch more fish than ever before, get rich, get powerful, be happier—nothing fantastic or flashy.  He just gives a simple request, or a command if you want to take it that way.  Follow me and I will make you fishers of people.

Really, not the catchiest pitch he could have made there.  And to complicate matters, Jesus is asking for a lot more than those four mens’ money.  He’s asking them to literally drop everything to follow him.  He’s asking them to leave their families.  In Jesus’ time, this may have been even more significant than it was today.  Families were your source of identity, and your source of honor.  They were your inheritance, which you needed to live in ancient times.  There were also cultural customs, as well as religious ones, that demanded you take care of your parents, lest you lose your honor, and your inheritance.  To just up and abandon your family was a kind of social and cultural suicide.  And Jesus asks them to do just that.

Jesus also asks these men to leave their livelihoods.  Fishing was not just how they ate, it was how they made their money, for food other than fish, for clothes, for everything that they needed.  Along with their family identity, their livelihoods as fishermen provided them with a place in the social structure, and a measure of security in a tumultuous, conflict torn region. And Jesus asks them to literally drop their livelihood, the nets in their hands and the boats beneath them, to follow him.

That fantastic non-stick pan.  What if it had cost more than just money?  What if to get that miracle pan, the infomercial host had asked me to drop everything, much like Jesus.  To leave behind my husband, my daughter, my home, my schooling, and all my possessions?  Even in my sleep deprived state, there is nothing that infomercial could have done to convince me to drop my whole life to get that pan.

And yet, these four men, hearing Jesus simple words of promise drop everything, to follow him.  Why?  That’s the question that kept plaguing me this week.  And I exegeted, I translated, I read commentaries, I pondered the text and prayed.  Why would these men just drop everything to follow a man they didn’t know?  I did read some commentaries that explained it away, saying perhaps the men knew Jesus already, maybe they had bad relationships with their families, maybe this wasn’t as sudden as it seems at first, but here’s the thing.  All those explanations were bad.  Besides being just plain guessing or making up ideas, none of them were faithful to the text. 

Here’s what we have from Matthew “¹⁸As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. ¹⁹And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” ²⁰Immediately they left their nets and followed him. ²¹As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. ²²Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.”  Matthew makes sure we know how sudden this all is.  Jesus is just walking by the sea, and calls these men.  No advance planning, no warning, no hint of a previous relationship.  He walks, he calls, and they follow.

Why?  Well, it’s likely not because the disciples were sleep deprived and we know it’s not because Jesus gave them a really good sales pitch.  And it’s not because these four disciples were especially faithful.  In fact, as we go on to read their story in Matthew, we find that definitely isn’t the case.  They very often don’t understand what Jesus is talking about.  They say and do wrong things.  They eventually even betray and abandon him.  In other words, they were just normal people.

Why did they drop everything and follow Jesus?  The most honest answer is that we don’t know.  We have no idea why they followed Jesus, other than they heard him calling to them and decided to listen.  Right in the middle of their ordinary lives, they heard Jesus.  He offered them something different, something more.  And he gave them the simple invitation.  Follow me, to this something else.  And right in the middle of their everyday lives, they made the decision that they were, in fact, going to follow Jesus.

Here’s the problem with infomercials.  They make fantastic claims.  They always claim that the product they’re selling will completely change your life, and make fantastic too.  And they never actually live up to those claims.  I bought that non-stick pan, and you know what?  It wasn’t that great.  It was definitely not fantastic.  It was a cheap non-stick pan, and it was sadly ordinary.

And those disciples who decided to buy what Jesus was selling.  After that dramatic decision we read about, there were decidedly ordinary times.  They walked up and down dusty streets with Jesus, and things went slowly, and there were days when it seemed like nothing happened.  And I’m willing to be this is what a lot of our faith lives are like as well.  There are people, every day, who risk their lives to follow Jesus.  I am not one of those people.  My guess is none of us is one of those people.  We get up, every day, maybe say some prayers and read some scripture and take care of those normal everyday things that we need to do.

And we hear of peak, fantastic experiences of faith—like these disciples leaving behind everything to follow Jesus—and we can wonder about the quality our own faith lives.  Is our faith that cheap non-stick pan, and the faith of the disciples that fantastic kind the infomercial was actually selling?  Are we, as Christians, failing to live up to the hype?  Is there something wrong with what Jesus was selling?

Remember how Jesus didn’t actually hype anything?  Remember how Jesus’ pitch was simple?  Just follow him, and he will you fishers of people.  He doesn’t claim that following him will be fantastic all the time because he knows that as truly fantastic as it is, sometimes, following Jesus will feel very ordinary.  And yet we sometime get so fixated on those peak experiences, those leaving everything to follow Jesus, or water into wine, or raising the dead moments that we forget about the importance of the ordinary act of following.  Those ordinary things that we as followers of Jesus do, like praying, reading scripture, welcoming the stranger, practicing kindness—these are the kind of ordinary things that make up the life of faithful following of Jesus.

These first disciples weren’t all that different from us.  Sure, on that first day they left everything to follow Jesus.  But they had bad days when they just had no idea what to do and were impulsive and stubborn and even ticked Jesus off.  They also probably smelled like fish.  They were normal people, following the best they could.

And that’s what Jesus asks us to do too.  To hear this non-fantastic sounding request, and to respond by following him, doing a lot of things that don’t seem all that exciting.  By following, the best we can, day by day.  Following in those unforgettably fantastic moments, and in the ordinary forgettable moments in which we decide to pray before we slip off to sleep, or pick up the phone and call someone we haven’t seen at church for a while, or visit someone who is lonely or help someone in need. Following, and growing in faith and learning from our successes and our failures and trusting that God will fish for people out of the best we can offer, even if that best doesn’t always look fantastic.

God is working in these non-fantastic seeming acts. God is hard at work every time we share grace, or proclaim hope.  This is how healing comes and love spreads and that whole fantastic part about the kingdom of heaven being at hand happens.  Jesus calls us every moment, asking us to take another step, and follow him.  To follow him, and to live with purpose, and hope, and love.  To follow him and maybe transform ourselves and the world around us, even if it’s just a little, and it doesn’t seem all that fantastic.  To follow him, on good days and boring days and days where we have no idea where we’re going.  Just to follow.  May we always leave our nets and follow him. 

 

Who are we and what are we doing here?

Scripture:

Isaiah 42:1-4

Matthew 3:13-17

Preached 01/19/2014

 

Matthew spent 20 years trying to figure it out.  Not the scriptural Matthew from whose Gospel we read, but a Matthew of our own time.  Matthew had been adopted as an infant, and he had always been on a quest to find his biological parents.  And when he was 29 years old, he finally did.  He contacted his biological mother, and asked about his biological father.  And the news about his biological father was just about the worst news you could ever receive.

Matthew’s biological mother told him that his biological father was the notorious murderous mad man, Charles Manson.  Even though he’s not been able to get a DNA test done, Matthew has accepted what his biological mother told him.  In fact, Matthew thinks that Charles Manson being his father is, more than just possible, it’s probable.  Matthew bears a striking physical resemblance to Manson.  He shares other characteristics, including being an aspiring musician.  And, on the darker side, he says he also suffers from mental disturbances which he relates to the man he believes is his biological father.

Despite Manson’s history, and the mental disturbances he may have passed on to Matthew, Matthew says that if Manson really is his father, he’d like to meet him before it’s too late.  “If he is my father,” Matthew says “then it would be nice to have laid eyes on him and been person to person with him once in my lifetime.”

On one hand, Matthew’s desire to meet the man he believes is his father is very hard to understand.  Why would he want to know and identify with a murderer, when he could choose to have nothing to do with that possible part of his genetics?  On the other hand though, it’s natural that he longs to know who he is and why he’s alive.  The answer to these questions—who he is and why he’s alive—could help him understand why he is the way that he is.

And honestly, aren’t these questions we all ponder?  They’re very deep questions, ones that get at the very core of our being  Who are we?  Why are we here? I imagine that even Jesus pondered these questions.  And I imagine also that it took him quite a while to come up with the answers to them. 

In our gospel reading this morning, we have Matthew’s account of Jesus baptism.  Jesus is an adult at his baptism.  He’s likely around 30 years old, and the last time we heard from him in the gospel is when he was 12.  He took some serious time off there, and I like to think that at least some of it was pondering those big questions of identity and purpose.  After all, though he was fully divine, he was also fully human.  I think it would take a human brain at the very least those 18 or so years to wrap itself around the idea that it was part of God incarnate.

And so Jesus, who as of yet hasn’t done anything the Gospel writers think worthy of mentioning for 18 years, appears to John to be baptized.  And after some discussion, John agrees to baptize him.  And after that baptism, the really exciting stuff happens.  It’s called a theophany, if you want the fancy term for it.  The theophany, or God breaking through, happens, and we hear God’s voice and we see God’s Spirit, and God proclaims the answer to one of those big questions.  Who is Jesus?  God’s voice proclaims that he is God’s son, God’s beloved.  We don’t really know how much Jesus understood his identity before this moment, but we can pretty safely be assured that he got it fairly well after this.

What about us, though?  I can say with certainty that God has never sent a Spirit formed dove to me and proclaimed anything of this sort.  And I’m just guessing here, but I’m guessing none of us has had a moment quite like this.  Maybe it’s why we spend so much time wondering about it, pondering it, exploring it.  Who are we?  Well, even without that theophanic moment, we do have something else.  We do have our own baptisms.  And in our baptisms, we re-enact that moment in Christ’s life. We are reminded that we too are a child of God. 

When Matthew found out that he was very likely the child of Charles Manson, what he got was some answers, and a whole lot of problems.  What we get, when we realize that we are God’s children, is some answers, and a whole lot of blessings.  Because as God’s children, we are also God’s beloved, and Jesus was.  And that, no matter who are parents are, no matter what we have done in our lives, we share those identities with Jesus.  At our very core, we are God’s beloved children.

It’s hard to accept, sometimes, with the different identities the world wants to put on us.  The world will tell us, that instead of beloved, we’re not good enough, maybe not smart or strong or hard-working enough.  Or we’re too controlling or to free-spirited, or we’re too old or too young, and just plain old not good enough.  And none of that is true.  Yes, we all make mistakes, and do wrong things or don’t do the right things that need to be doing.  But that is not what ultimately defines us. Our truest and deepest identity, and really the only thing that ultimately defines us and matters is that we are all children of God.  We are God’s beloved, and with us, God is well pleased.  That’s who we are. 

So why are we here?  The question is actually deeply tied to the first question of who we are.  As our scripture sets forth from us, the reason we’re here comes directly from our identity as God’s children as well.  Remember, before his baptism and his naming as God’s beloved Son, Jesus hadn’t really done much.  He’d been born, and he’d gone to the temple.  That’s about all we have.  It seems like he didn’t really have a sense of his purpose, the true reason he was alive on earth, until God’s voice and Spirit broke through telling him of his ultimate identity.  But after this moment, we have Jesus doing a whole lot.  He teaches, he calls, he challenges, he heals, he even raises from the dead.  He found a purpose, and a life in his identity, and we can too.

Since we obviously don’t have time to read all the Gospel accounts of the rest of Jesus life here this morning, Isaiah can give us some help.  What Jim read for us this morning was the first of the servant songs, poetic pieces of Isaiah describing what it means to follow God on earth.  And as children of God, these are kind of like instructions on how to follow our heavenly parent’s will for our lives.  And, very simply put, our purpose as God’s children, the reason that we’re here, is to make things right.  Jesus did this in a very big way, and obviously we can’t do what he did.  But we can still attempt to make things right.  We can speak in that gentle voice Isaiah describes to those who are hurting, and need words of loving comfort.  We can show mercy to those who are in need, those bruised reeds and dimly burning wicks among us.  We can faithfully work for justice, righting what we see as wrong in front of us.

The world is hungry for this kind of purpose driven life of the children of God.  The world needs love, comfort, mercy, and work for what is right.  And this is our purpose.  This is who we are, and who we were born to be.  We don’t have to do anything for God to be pleased with us.  That’s our reformed theology, that there is nothing we can do to earn God’s pleasure in us.  It’s just a gift, given freely out of love.  God delights in who we are.  God loves who we are.  And we can choose to respond to this, as Jesus did, in a life a gratitude, and God’s love lived out in service to others.  Or we can choose not to.

And of course, as we welcome new members into this small part of the family of God, and as we look ahead at a future that will need to include change and growth if this congregation is to stay alive, I think it’s clear that my hope and prayer is that we all find energy and strength to serve in our shared identity as God’s beloved children.  But for right now, for this week, let’s just take it a little slower.  Let’s just stick with what our lectionary gives us.  You are God’s beloved child.  With you, God is well pleased.  Thanks be to God for each and every one of you.  Amen.

Winding Road

Scripture:

Psalm 72: 1-7, 11-14

John 1:1-18 

Preached 01/12/2014

I don’t know about you, but I think we all deserve a vacation.  We just made it through all the busyness of Christmas, New Year’s, and that huge snow after all.  So this morning, let’s take a little time to get away from it all.  Now, you all know my salary since you approved it and all, so you know that I can’t actually afford to take us all very far.  So what I’d like us to do is to close our eyes, because we’re going to have to imagine this vacation.

We’re flying, in our imagination.  And if you’re afraid of flying, don’t worry, this flight makes it in safely.  Because we’re still on a budget in this vacation we’re imagining, we didn’t take the early flight.  We’re landing at night.  So imagine a nice, smooth airplane landing, and open your eyes.  We didn't actually get away from the snow though.  We’re in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  Jackson Hole is aptly named.  It’s a hole, a valley in the middle of a big circle of mountains.  While it used to be somewhat of a sleepy town, it’s becoming more and more popular, with skiers, celebrities, hipsters, and now Presbyterians from St. Louis.  And, as it’s becoming more popular, it’s also becoming much, much more expensive.

So, keeping in mind that we’re on a budget, we’re going to save some money by staying a little ways outside of town.  Now, remember that Jackson Hole is surrounded by mountains.  This means that to get “a little” out of town, we have to take quite a journey on winding mountain roads.  And, in the dark of night, that’s the journey we’re going to take together.

For those of you who haven’t been on Jackson roads at night before, they look about like nothing, pitch black, once you get outside of the glow of the town.  How are we going to figure out where we’re going?  Maybe you’d like a little more light?  How about a lot more light?  Okay, there we go.  Our path is now before us, and we set out on the journey.  It’s a pretty winding road, huh?  We’re going to be going all over the place, and it’s not going to be a quick or easy journey.  If only we had some kind of guide, huh?

 

Image by Jetson Nguyen

Oh, wow, good thing we have those scripture readings from just a few minutes ago, right?  I know, I know—one of the hokier tie ins, but stay with me.  Because in our Psalm reading, we really do have a long, winding journey set before us.  The Psalmist is writing about what it takes to be a king.  Not having much direct experience with kings, this may be strange language to us.  Let me decode it a little bit, and bring us all up to speed, or really, back to the time of the psalmist so we can have some clue what they’re talking about.  In the time the psalmist was writing, kings were more than just rulers.  In the Hebrew community in which the psalmist lived, the king was understood to be God’s earthly regent.  In other words—the king’s job was to do God’s work on earth. 

What is God’s work on earth?  As the psalmist puts it: judging with righteousness, defending the cause of the poor, giving deliverance to the needy, crushing oppression. . . and that’s just three verses of it.  This list of God’s work is a long, winding, difficult path.  However, the destination is very clear.  God’s justice and righteousness established on earth.  And what does it actually look like when God’s justice and righteousness are established?  It looks like Shalom. 

Shalom is a Hebrew word a lot of people are at least somewhat familiar with, and it’s repeated over and over in this psalm.  Shalom is translated here as peace, though it means more than that.  It’s one of those words that doesn’t really have an English equivalent, but it’s something like total well-being and peace put together, a holistic kind of well-being that includes spiritual and emotional well-being too.  And as the psalmist describes it, Shalom isn’t just an individual thing.  It’s not enough if I’ve got it.  All people need to have it.  Because only when all people have shalom can all of God’s work on earth really be done.

The psalmist knew this, and appealed to the king to be the guide of the people to this Shalom for all.  But there’s a problem.  I bet you know it already.  There never was such a king.  Still, today, we’ve never had such a political leader, one who was able to establish holistic well-being for all people.  The king wasn’t a good enough guide down the winding path.

So God sends us a better one.  God sends us Jesus, God on earth, to light our way down that winding mountain road toward shalom.  We heard the very first section of John read to us today, probably the single best known part of the whole book.  And John describes Jesus as a light, as the Light, who has existed with God from all eternity, who will brings light to the whole of creation.  Jesus was part of creating the path to shalom, and Jesus is of God’s shalom.  We are people who have never seen where we want to go.  We definitely need a guide. And we couldn’t ask for a better guide than Jesus.  He gives us light to see, he created the path,  and he’s part of the destination.

He is the best guide possible.  But that isn’t to say he makes the path easy.  In his life, he modeled the path.  He boldly confronted those people who oppressed others.  He fed hungry people.  He healed sick people.  He included all who wanted to be included.  He cared about everyone, even those who society told him didn’t matter.  And this is the path he shows us.  

 

So now it’s our turn to let him guide us to actively following him.  We need to seek out the hungry, the sick, the oppressed, and the needy around us.  And we need to feed, to offer healing, liberation, care, and compassion.  We didn’t set out on an easy path.  We very well might get lost or led astray.  But Jesus’ light will keep guiding us back, if we keep seeking him and his guidance.  I don’t know about you, but I’m excited about this journey we’re taking together.  It may not be a vacation in the mountains, but it will be beautiful, and wonderful, humbling, difficult, faith-filled and awe inspiring.  And the destination—God’s shalom for all creation-- will definitely be worth every bit of it.  Let’s head down this winding road together.   

Isaiah 63:7-9 and Matthew 2:13-23

Preached 12/29/2013

 

What does it take to make a masterpiece?  Or, more specifically, what does it take to make a masterpiece of a violin?  Antonio Stradivarius knew something about this.  He was an Italian violin maker who lived in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.  His violins are now the most prized ever made because of the rich, resonating sound that they produce.  Try as they might, no one has been able to duplicate that sound throughout the years.

So what’s behind that incredible sound?  Obviously it’s a question that’s been asked many times, by many people.  Some explanations that have tried and failed to answer the question are that the climate had a unique effect on the woods in the forest around Stradivarius, that Stradivarius had any number of different secret techniques to mold his violins, even that the varnish he used was somehow special. 

However, another theory seems to be gaining ground in the scientific-musical community.  It all starts with the fact that Stradivarius was very poor.  He couldn’t afford to use the fine materials and treasured pieces of wood many of his contemporaries in the violin making business did.  So, Stradivarius did what he had to do to make his violins.  He used discarded lumber.  Specifically, he often retrieved much of his wood from the water of the dirty harbor near which he lived. He would take those waterlogged scraps of wood to his shop.  He’d let them dry out, then clean them up as much as he could.  And then he would take those scraps of lumber—those pieces that others had discarded, and he would create his instruments.

It has since been discovered that while the wood floated in the dirty harbor water, microbes got into the wood and ate the center out of the cells.  This left just the outer cell structure.  The wood was basically hollow fibers. The fibrous skeleton of wood that was left created resonating chambers for the sounds of the violin.  This was Stradivarius’ secret.   From that wood that no one wanted, from that wood eaten from the inside by microbes in dirty harbor water, Stradivarius made his masterpieces, his violins that everyone now wants.

It seems like our Matthew reading has us floating around in that dirty harbor water this morning. Right after that lovely nativity story is over, Matthew gives us what we read today.  Herod massacres all the babies of Bethlehem, in what is usually referred to as the slaughter of innocents.  It has to be one of the most awful things that happens in the Bible, and certainly one of two in Jesus’ life.  And Matthew feels the need to include it just lines after baby Jesus is born.

Why in the world would Matthew do this to his readers?  This is right after Christmas, when we read about angels coming in dreams and the birth of God-with-us, God-saving-us.  And instead of reveling in wonder, or stories of a cute little infant, we have Joseph and Mary and Jesus fleeing to Egypt for their very lives. Matthew gives us innocent babies and toddlers slaughtered.  In stark contrast to the joy of the Christmas birth, this story is full of death and grief.  It’s ugly.  It’s harsh. It seems very much like Matthew just took us and chucked us into that dirty harbor, and we’re now floating around surrounded by violence, and death, and destruction.

Except, to be fair to Matthew, he didn’t really throw us into anything.  Matthew just kept going with the story.  And we, his readers, kept going with him.  As much as we might want to, we can’t stay by that manger, any more than the Holy family could stay there.  So Matthew takes us out of that miraculous, heavenly, angel song-filled birth, and back into real life. 

And as we all know, real life isn’t always pretty.  In fact, it’s often pretty ugly.  Some of you have shared parts of your stories with me, and I know you know this, so I don’t need to go too far into it.  But it wasn’t just Jesus or Matthew whose worlds knew violence, and poverty, and fear, and hatred, and all the awful things that go along with them.  We know those realities still.

Neither in Matthew’s Gospel account of Jesus, nor our real lives, do we get the luxury of a world where pain, death, and just plain bad things don’t happen. Those are like the microbes in the harbor water—they ate at the people and the society of Jesus’ time, and they eat at us too.  We can’t get rid of them, and we can’t escape or stop them.  We can however, decide how we’re going to respond to them, and the destruction that they do.  In the face of sin, death, pain, grief, and all the other ugly realities of life, we do get to pick how we react.  There are really only two choices, at the most basic level. Our first option is to turn away.  To close our eyes and our ears and our hearts to the pain around us, because it’s just too much, and it’s too hard to bear. 

While there certainly is value in self-preservation, our scripture readings are pointing us away from this option.  After all, Matthew doesn’t turn away from pain, death, and sorrow.  Instead of turning away from the pain, he looks at it, head on.  And in that death and pain, Matthew sees something more than the microbes.  Matthew sees God, still acting somehow, in the middle of it.  No, God didn’t save the lives of the babies of Bethlehem.  But God did save Jesus.  And Jesus ultimately saved us all. 

It may not be how we would want to write the story.  I’ll admit that my choice would definitely be in favor of the babies.  But what Matthew sees in the actual story is that God is still there, even in a horrible act of violence.  God is still acting, still saving, even in the face of death.  Matthew was able to see God’s continuing presence and action because he was not afraid to face the pain of the real world head on. He knew that all the problems we experience in our life are not a block for God’s presence, or God’s loving, saving power.  Instead of turning away, he turned to the pain because he knew that there, he would see find the presence of God.

Sounds a lot like that Isaiah reading, huh?  In the part of Isaiah Pat read for us this morning, Isaiah is with the exiles who are finally starting to return home.  And, as much as they may have wanted to do this, it was hard.  They were coming back to destruction and desolation.  Their possessions were gone, their homes were ruined, their crops were long dead, and real life was really hard.  They, too, had to leave the splendor of the manger—their idea of what returning home would be like—and face the real difficulties of the real world.  

And because of those real difficulties, they were tempted to turn away.  Many of them had started worshipping other gods, because they thought that in trouble, their only option was to turn away from the trouble, and away from God.  And here’s what Isaiah reminds them—God is there in their trouble.  God doesn’t live in their perfect, imagined, idealized life.  God lives in their real lives.  Listen to what Isaiah says “God became their savior ⁹in all their distress. It was no messenger or angel but God’s presence that saved them; in God’s love and pity God redeemed them; lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.”

It is in all our distress that God saves us.  And God is no messenger, who comes to give us some good news and then leaves, without ever really knowing the situation.  God is no angel, who floats above and sees, but isn’t really affected.  God is Jesus, and Jesus is God, living in our real lives.  And saving us, in our real lives in this very real world.  To quote Suzanne Guthrie, “Jesus enters a real world, like ours, where children are poor, malnourished, enslaved, and poisoned by greed’s numbing exploitations.”

Because this is the world we already live in, because we’re already floating in that dirty harbor water, we need a savior who jumps into that dirty harbor water of real life with us.  If we attempt to ignore this grim part of Jesus’ story, this massacre of the innocents, because we only want the pretty parts, we defeat the purpose of the incarnation.  Jesus was God incarnate to show us that there is no situation, no time or place, no event that is outside the reach of God’s loving and saving power.  Remember, Jesus’ name means God saves.  And in Jesus, God saves, even in the middle of the worst parts of life we can imagine.

I want to be very clear that I’m not saying that God intends for these hard and painful parts of life to happen.  I honestly don’t believe that at all.  What I do believe, and what I believe our scripture readings point out to us this morning, is that even in these most difficult and painful situations, God still acts. 

The dirty harbor is a hard place to live.  But that doesn’t mean no good can come from.  Just like the return from exile of Isaiah’s people, just like the massacre of innocent children, God can still act in and through dirtiness, difficulty, pain, sorrow, and even death.

Think back to that wood that Stradivarius used.  It has been basically hollowed out, eaten from the inside by microbes.  If you didn’t know it could and has been used to make some of the best instruments in the world, you would probably think that the wood itself wasn’t very useful at all, and maybe should be gotten rid of.  But, now you know the story.  And you know that in the right hands, that wood became masterpieces.  If Stradivarius can make masterful violins we’re still talking about hundreds of years later from discarded pieces of wood—from trash that he lovingly restored, how much more can God do with us?  How much more can God take what we think are our most damaged places, in ourselves and in the world around us, and make something miraculous still. 

In our distress, God saves us.  Though we and our world may be eaten at by those microbes of sin and pain and death, God can still make masterpieces out of us.  God can still sound through us in beautiful, resonant tones, turning even our scars and our pain and our fear into a way that beauty and faith and love show through.

So in this Christmas season, let us not be afraid of facing the real world, and real life, head on.  Because it is in and through this real life that our very real savior will make us masterpieces, resonating with the sound of God’s saving love for all to hear. May it be so.  Amen.