The Good Shepherd

This Fourth Sunday of Easter is unofficially known as Good Shepherd Sunday because the Collect of the Day and the appointed readings always hone in on this theme.  “I am the good shepherd.”  This certainly is one of the most beloved, comforting images of Jesus and God’s presence in our lives.  Most of us have never met a shepherd, yet still we have an intuitive understanding the idea conveys care, healing, guidance, and protection.  We can say the 23^rd Psalm by heart and when as a child we went to Sunday School we learned the parable of the shepherd who leaves the 99 in order to find the one lost sheep. Today ought to be one of the most comforting Sundays in the church year.

The readings offer anything but.  Right after Jesus says “I am the good shepherd” he says “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”  Then he talks about hired hands who run away at the first sign of trouble and a wolf who scatters the flock and picks off the stray.  His words cast a deep shadow on what we might have thought would be a joyful and reassuring day.

The context of John’s gospel helps us to understand what is going on.  In chapter 9 Jesus encounters a man blind from birth.  His followers want to know if the man is blind because he sinned or because his parents sinned.  Jesus tells them he is blind so that all might see the work of God.  Jesus then rubs some mud in his eyes and sends him to a pool to wash.  Once he does the blind man is able to see.  Jesus heals him and in so doing creates a firestorm.  The Pharisees demand to know what has happened and interrogate the man.  They question his parents.  They insist Jesus cannot heal because he is a sinner.  The man tells them, “I don’t know if he is a sinner or not, but one thing I do know is I was blind and now I can see.”  For his testimony, the Pharisees put him out of the synagogue, banishing him from the religious community.

Just like a musical such as Hamilton has a historic setting but speaks to contemporary issues, John’s gospel takes incidents from Jesus’ ministry and shapes them to say something important to the original readers.  For several decades these first readers have been followers of Jesus while remaining in the Jewish faith and adhering to its customs.  Friction develops over time and eventually believers are cast out of local synagogues and ostracized in the community.  They struggle to understand who they are if they are not a part of the religious tradition.  As John tells the story, Jesus says they are the ones who can see, while the spiritual leaders who have cast them out are the ones who are blind.

And then in chapter 10, Jesus tells them, “I am the good shepherd and I lay down my life for you.  These other leaders are just hired hands or worse, they are wolves.  I am your good shepherd.”  Who are those believers who have been barred from the Synagogue?  They are the ones for whom Jesus laid down his life.  They are his sheep.  His flock.  They are God’s children.

Jesus then tells his followers he has other sheep not yet in the fold he must gather so there will be one flock under the care of one shepherd.  Perhaps one of the sheep not yet in the flock is Matt, a self-professed unbeliever.  In his book lies we believe about God, Paul Young (the author of The Shack) recounts a conversation he once had with Matt.  He asks Matt what he believes.

“You want to know what I believe in?  Most people want to talk to me about what I don’t believe in.  Let me think.”  [Matt] paused before answering.  “I believe in the way I love my children.  Paul, I didn’t know I had the capacity to love like this until I had my own children.   Without question I would step in front of a bullet for them, or take their hurts to myself if I could.”

“So, Matt, you obviously aren’t talking about romantic love.  Would it be accurate to describe this love you believe in as other-centered, self-giving?”

“That is exactly what it is.”

We talked for the better part of an hour.  Turns out Matt not only believes in Love, but in Life and in Truth.  Not bad for an unbeliever.

We Christians sometimes get caught up in who is “in” and who is not, as if Jesus’ shepherd-like care is available only to those who have the right creedal faith and doctrine.  But when we read the gospels we find Jesus’ love is much, much, much more expansive and inclusive than we imagine.  In fact, the people with whom Jesus consistently tangles are those who hold God’s love is limited and offered only to the people who “deserve” it, either by heritage or adherence to specific religious customs. 

Peter certainly comes to understand this.  When he witnesses the Holy Spirit fall on Cornelius and his household (an event referred to as the Gentile Pentecost) he says, “in every nation anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God.”  (Acts 10:35)  This certainly sounds radically inclusive to me.  It suggests to me there are plenty of people like Matt who consider themselves to be unbelievers, but in reality they are a part of Jesus’ flock.  They just don’t know it.  And there are scores of people who follow another religious tradition, but by all accounts fear God and do what is right.  Jesus the good shepherd is the one whose life embodies other-centered, self-giving love.  Every person in any nation who manifests this love is a welcomed and valued member of Jesus’ flock.

This morning, as we baptize James and Finley, we recognize God’s other-centered and self-giving love abides in us.  As we listen to the vows made by the parents and sponsors we remember the shepherd-like care we received from our parents and we extended to our children.  We acknowledge all of it is possible only because God loves us first, because God cares for us as a shepherd cares for the sheep.  As we bask in this care we extend it to our family and loved ones and friends.  We learn to offer it to the people of our community, to strangers, and to the world.  We look forward to the day when there will be one flock under the care of one shepherd.

What does the Future Hold?

A woman visits a fortuneteller to inquire what her future holds.  The fortuneteller goes into a trance-like state for about a minute, during which time she groans and shacks and gasps with fear.  When she emerges from this condition, the fortuneteller says to woman, “You need to prepare yourself to be a widow because your husband will die a horrible, violent death within a year.”  The woman, visibly shaken, takes a few deep breaths, steadies her voice, and says, “I have one more question… will I be acquitted?”

As near as we can tell, humans are the only creatures on the planet who wonder about the future.  Every parent and grandparent who has held a newborn baby has looked into the infant’s eyes and wondered what the future holds.  Who and what will this child become?  As children, teenagers, and young adults we ask this same question about ourselves.  Who will I be in life?  What will I do? 

We wonder about the future of the world in which we live.  No era in history has experienced the kind of rapid change we have today and the pace of innovation is only going to accelerate.  Businesses specializing in futurism – thinking about what is next and helping corporations figure out how to profit from it – are booming.  Many report their revenues are doubling on a yearly basis.  Why are we so interested in the future?  Well, as George Burns once said, “I look to the future because that’s where I’m going to spend the rest of my life.”

Harvard theoretical physicist Michio Kaku has written several books about the future.  I started to read one, but put it down when he began to describe the inevitability within 100 years humans will live forever by having our personalities downloaded to a hard drive.  This, I thought, is not a world in which I want to live, if you can actually call it ‘living’. 

For those of us who won’t be around long enough for technological ‘advances’ to enable us to spend eternity as an Apple computer, we wonder what the next life holds.  We turn to religion for answers.  There seems to be three main possibilities.  One holds there is nothing after this life.  Once you die you are done.  Another possibility is the soul is eternal and gets reincarnated in some new form, either as a person or a plant or an animal.  This is a popular notion in many eastern religions.  A final option is the soul lives on, perhaps in a place like what we call heaven.  Within this position there are many nuanced possibilities, such as a bodily resurrection.    

As I read the bible I do not find one single, specific, vision of the future, but rather several different ideas and possibilities.  It is a mansion prepared by Jesus with a specific room for each one of us.  It is a place we to which we will go immediately after we die – “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”  Or, it is a place we go only after Jesus returns and wakes the dead from their sleep.  It is a city called New Jerusalem, which in the Book of Revelation descends from the sky and is established on this earth.  Other images abound, which you might try to reconcile into one coherent vision, but I choose not to.  Embedded in these diverse images is a deeper hope of heaven being a place where dying is no more, neither sorrow nor crying.  It is a place of joy and peace and light. 

This morning we hear the author of I John (whom scholars refer to as “the Elder”) speak very honestly about what we know and don’t know about the future.  Here is what we know.  “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.”  The Greek word for what used here in “what love” literally means “of what country?”  What an amazing kind of love it is, something totally foreign to us, that we should be called children of God.  God’s love is as astonishing as it is bewildering.  Why should a sinner like you or like me be considered by God to be God’s very own child?  There is nothing we can do to make this happen.  It is a designation and opportunity either we graciously accept or defiantly reject.

“Beloved,” writes the Elder, “we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.  What we do know is this: when Jesus is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.”  This, I think, is the single best statement in all of Scripture about the future.  Right now we are God’s children.  We don’t know exactly what the future holds, but we hope and believe one day we will see Jesus and when we do, we will be become like him.  I am comfortable with this sort of minimalist statement.  To argue for anything more is to push the envelope of what is believable or provable.  It adjusts our vision from the future – what will become of us – to who we are now – beloved children of God.  And as beloved children, how should we act and what should we do?

When I was in my twenties, Nike aimed an advertising campaign at young men like me.  Featuring Michael Jordon – the most extraordinary basketball player of the time – it featured commercials of this incredible athlete doing amazing things on the court and it ended with the slogan “Be like Mike.”  It was grounded in the premise we all want to imitate greatness.  The Elder encourages us to be like Jesus.  Purify yourself, just as he is pure.  Do what is righteous, just as he is righteous.  Every time in this life we get a glimpse of Jesus, we are compelled to become a little more like him.  In the end, when we see him in all his glory and majesty, we will become like him.  This is the faith and the hope I will carry with me to the grave and to what is beyond the grave.     

What does the future hold?  It is a question we ponder, some more than others.  It is a question that controls and consumes some people.  The Elder encourages us to hold it lightly with regard to the specifics and the details.  More important is now, today.  Today, now, you are a beloved child.  The question is, will you live and act the part?

Easter Confession

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

These words from today’s second lesson feel like we have entered a time machine and turned back the clock to Lent.  Then in our gospel reading we hear the first words of the Risen Christ to his disciples.  Among them are these:

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

Each year our community Lenten services remind me other Christian traditions talk about sin a lot more than we Episcopalians do.  Interestingly, while we don’t talk about it, we are one of the few traditions that has a confession as a regular feature of our worship.  When it comes to sin, we let our liturgy do the talking: “the remembrance of our [sins] is grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable.”  Everyone who has ever said these words from the Rite 1 confession knows their truth deep in the heart.

The Didache is a first century Apostolic writing lost for centuries before being discovered in 1873, much too late to be considered for the canon of Scripture.  Still, it gives us a window into the life of the early church.  In Chapter 14, it directs the faithful to gather on Sundays to celebrate the Eucharist “after having confessed your transgressions.”

The practice of Penance emerges by the third century as a means for fallen baptized people to be restored to the body of the faithful.  Initially it is a public act undertaken during the season of Lent, culminating on Maundy Thursday by kneeling before a bishop and receiving the laying on of hands.  The practice of making a private confession to a priest begins in Ireland.  Manuals called Pentitentials are developed, which list a variety of sins with accompanying acts required for forgiveness.  In time this practice spreads throughout the church. 

For much of the history of the church confession is understood to be an act of mercy for the penitent, not a penalty.  Priests were expected to suffer martyrdom if necessary before revealing what has been told to them in the confessional.  Not all clergy are quite this scrupulous, however.  Some use the information given to them to blackmail confessors.  Others are not able to control their behavior during confessions so a 16^th century Cardinal develops a booth with a physical barrier separating the priest from the penitent.  

While the Book of Common Prayer has a rite for the Reconciliation of a Penitent, it is seldom used.  I have used it only once in my life.  I did so not because I had committed a horrific sin, but because I was not able to forgive myself for something I had done.  Confessing it to a priest and receiving absolution was a part of the process of what I needed to receive God’s forgiveness in order to move forward.  In my 31 years of ordained ministry I have never had a parishioner request this rite.  Generally speaking, we find what we need in the weekly use of the General Confession. 

And what is it we find when we confess?  We find the truth about ourselves and the truth about God.  Here is what is true about us.  Our actions and our attitudes have consequences.  Much of what we think and do is a blessing to ourselves, to others, to world we live in, and to God.  Some of what we do creates brokenness.  Sometimes the brokenness is not something we intend.  Other times it is a deliberate choice.  The truth is we are sinners, but our sins do not have to define us.  We are more than the sum of our worst mistakes.  We affirm this every time we confess our sins.  We acknowledge sin as a part of who we are, but confirm it is not who we want to be.

And what is the truth about God.  God knows who we are.  God knows our strengths and our weaknesses.  God knows our passions and the desires of our heart.  God knows us in ways we do not even know ourselves and God loves us for who we are, as we are.  There is nothing we can do, writes Paul, to separate us from the love of God made known to us in Jesus Christ.  Nothing. 

Frederick Buechner says “To confess your sins to God is not to tell God anything God doesn’t already know.  Until you confess them, however, they are the abyss between you.  When you confess them, they become the bridge.”  

I have told you before about the beautiful rectory I lived in when I was in Iowa.  One day I noticed every doorknob, every hinge, and most every light fixture and switchplate was made of brass, but over the years had tarnished to the point they had turned black.  I set out on a project to clean them.  With each piece I restored, a little bit of polish and a lot of elbow grease wiped away all the tarnish revealing a golden brass glow.  Now, that gorgeous color had never gone away.  It was just covered, hidden.  It dawned on me no matter how tarnished our lives become God still sees the golden glow that is who we are and how we are created to be.  Repentance and confession is what takes away the tarnish of sin.

I suspect our readings on this Second Sunday in Easter focus on sin because Jesus’ death on the cross is the means by which God rubs off the sinful tarnish covering us.  It gives us the opportunity to repent and begin anew.  The purpose goes much beyond having our slate of wrongs wiped clean.  Jesus died for us hoping we would live life in a new way, following the example he set for us.  He sends his Spirit upon us to heal us and to empower us to be a blessing in this life, not a perpetrator of brokenness.  Confess your sins, repent and follow, and let God’s loving light shine in and through all you do.  Consider it an Easter invitation to a new life.

Preposterous Ideas

John Cleves Symmes, Jr. is 38 years old in 1818.  He lives in St. Louis where he serves as a trading agent with the Fox Indians.  He is self-educated and, like many of his day, fancies himself to be an amateur scientist.  He is vexed by a particular question: how is it arctic species like reindeer and foxes migrate north in the winter and return in the spring healthy and well fed?  This is not at all what one expects would happen to creatures who winter in such a harsh environment.  In 1818 the earth’s poles are unexplored and uncharted lands.  No one really knows what these regions are like and they are an enduring source of curiosity and speculation. 

After spending years thinking about the question of the arctic animals, Symmes comes to a conclusion, which he announces to the world in a single-page circular.  “I declare,” it states, “the earth is hollow.”  His ‘theory’, if you can call it that, is beyond the ice covered seas at both poles lay mild and navigable waters flowing into portal entrances to an interior paradise.  And because these portals line up with the earth’s axis, Symmes contends the sun is always shining in this place, either from the north or from the south.  Animals migrate to this lush place to avoid the harsh winter and return in the spring better for it. 

His proclamation gets dubbed “Holes in the Poles” and Symmes pledges his life in support of its truth.  He travels near and far to drum up support for an expedition and, believe it or not, wins converts along the way.  A globe is actually created to depict Symmes’ earth and is displayed in museum of natural history.  Newspapers and magazines publish renderings of the planet with a gaping hole where the North Pole should be and a whole other world on the inside can be seen.  Some people come to refer to him as the “Newton of the West.”

Regrettably, John Symmes dies before he can put together the resources to explore the poles and – spoiler alert – successful expeditions find no portal to an inner world, just lots and lots of ice.  It is easy to snicker at Symmes’ crazy idea, but keep in mind many cultures down through the centuries held to some type of underworld or planet inner world.  And Symmes is not the only person in his day to believe the earth is hollow.  Many other similar and competing views hold sway in the court of public opinion at the time.

It is now 200 years since John Symmes published his circular and dedicated his life to its truth.  It is quite possible that at the time there were people right here at St. Paul’s who found his idea compelling.  But if Mr. Symmes could address us this morning we would have to work hard to listen politely without laughing in his face. 

I tell you his story (1) because I enjoy quirky history like this, and (2) because we gather this morning to celebrate something equally preposterous.  If there are two things we should know with great certainty, they are these: the earth is not hollow and dead people remain dead, period!  And yet here we are.  We should never lose perspective on the outlandish nature of our claim of the resurrection.  It is completely beyond the realm of possibility or proof.

I have read dozens of books and articles by religious scholars who do not believe the dead come back to life and thus try to make sense of the New Testament’s witness.  One possibility: Jesus never died.  Resting in the tomb allowed him to recover from his injuries.  This is a particularly popular notion with those who hold he and Mary Magdalene get married, escape to France, and raise a family.  But given the descriptions of Jesus’ wounds it seems extremely unlikely any person could have survived what he endured, certainly not without massive medical attention.

So Jesus dies and is buried.  Well, why then is the tomb empty on Sunday morning?  One possibility is the women go to the wrong tomb.  If this is what happened, why don’t the authorities point out the actual tomb once the disciples start to talk about resurrection?  Another possibility, the tomb is empty because someone moves the body to another location, but who?  The authorities?  Again, why don’t they produce the body to disprove the disciples’ story?  The disciples?  They hardly seem like a group organized enough to pull off something like this.  And if it is all a hoax, how is it not one disciple confesses to avoid persecution and martyrdom?  Somebody else?  Well, who would move the body, why would they do it, and how did they get past the trained guards securing the area?

Here is another possibility suggested by some.  Jesus died and remained buried, yet when his followers gather and remember him it was almost as if he is present with them, especially when they break bread together.  His spiritual presence is palpable even though he is dead and buried.  While this notion has some merit, it is difficult to imagine how his followers turned this experience into a world-changing mission.  Yes, Jesus had a powerful message.  And had I been one of his original followers I might have rallied around the idea of living my own life in accordance with it.  But I cannot image dedicating my life and suffering martyrdom in an effort to spread it to the world if Jesus is dead. 

In my mind, the only thing that makes sense makes no sense at all: Jesus died, rose from the dead, and appears to his followers on different occasions. Some suggest these are just hallucinations.  You can explain away Mary’s encounter this way, but groups of people do not experience the same hallucination.  And every time they encounter the risen Christ he is real, has a physical body one can touch, and on at least one occasion shares in eating a meal. 

John Symmes dedicated his life to an idea he himself created.  Jesus’ followers dedicate their lives to a person who touched them with God’s healing love, to a person who taught them how to live into God’s will for all people, to a person who died on the cross and was buried, to a person who rose from the dead and appeared to them several different times before ascending into heaven.  This is not a story they created.  It is a story that captivated them and compelled them to change the world.

What do you make of it?  What sway does it hold over your life?  What will you do with it?  

A Holy Week of Simple Regard

A church organist in Petersburg, Virginia in 1953 is first person to come up with the idea of turning Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting of the Last Supper into a dramatic production.  Ernest Emurian, a Methodist pastor, takes the idea and runs with it, developing soliloquies for the twelve Apostles.  Each is a response to Jesus’ statement, “One of you will betray me.”  Apostle after Apostle ‘unfreezes’ from the depiction of the painting, tells his story, and asks “Is it I, Lord?  Is it I?”  Emurian calls his drama “A Living Picture of the Last Supper,” and it premieres on Palm Sunday night in 1954 at Elm Avenue Methodist Church in Portsmouth, Virginia.  Over the course of the next few years the drama is published and presented all over Virginia and North Carolina before becoming a national phenomenon.

Every year, the church I grew up in put on a production of “A Living Picture of the Last Supper.”  The men of the church memorized their speeches, grew beards, put on makeup, and donned costumes for what was always an impressive presentation.  It is a production replicated in tens of thousands of churches over the years, including the parish I served in Richmond.  The haunting question, “Is it I, Lord?  Is it I?” is remembered by every person who has participated in it or attended it. 

“Is it I, Lord?  Is it I?”  For eleven of the disciples, the answer (of course) is ‘no’, but it might as well be ‘yes’ because each character is deeply flawed and riddled with sin.  It is hard to calculate the influence Emurian’s drama has had on shaping the spirituality of Holy Week, but surely its impact has been significant.  It directs us to ask, “When have I, like Judas, betrayed my Lord?”  “When have I, like Peter, denied him?”  From this perspective, the goal and purpose of Holy Week (and especially Good Friday) is to make us feel really, really, really bad about our sins and the purpose of our gathering here at this hour is to muster in us the deepest possible remorse. 

Growing up and well into my adult life, this is how I approached Holy Week and Good Friday.  No one taught me to do this.  The message just somehow seeped in.  But more and more I come to Holy Week, and especially to this service, identifying with the people who stand at the foot of the cross.  Some of them are there doing their job.  Of these, some are callous and indifferent while others have maintained their humanity while tasked with doing something completely inhumane.  Simon of Cyrene did not expect to be here at all.  He is in Jerusalem to observe the Passover but is forced to help Jesus.  And now, standing at the foot of the cross, he surely is smeared with Jesus’ blood and traumatized by what has happened.  And then there is the disciple Jesus loves, Jesus’ own mother, and several other women who are followers of Jesus.  Their pain, their shock, their horror, is unimaginable.

The English writer Margaret Hebblethwaite makes this observation:  

The extraordinary fact about the people gathered around the cross, who abandon all their duties for the day simply to be with Jesus, looking at him, is that they are changed by the experience.  Just seeing, doing nothing, turns out to be for them a revolutionary experience, so that afterwards they see things differently and, no doubt, will act differently.  They have not wasted their time doing nothing, but they have allowed themselves to be changed.  Before the death of Jesus we are told how everyone was mooching and taunting him.  Now, his agony over, a change has come over the scene.  The centurion does not cry, “Now you can never be king, now you are dead!” but rather praises God saying, “Certainly this man was innocent.”  And the multitudes beat their breasts in repentance.  Judgments are altered, people see things in a different light, and they feel both sorrow for their sinfulness and praise for God’s goodness.

Hebblethwaite likens what they are doing at the cross to a contemplative practice known as prayers of simple regard, or the prayer of just watching.  This kind of prayer does not require words, merely attention to what is happening around you.  “Wait here.”  “Watch.”  “Stay awake.”  “Pray.”  These words of Jesus to his disciples in the garden before he is arrested now take on new meaning and new spiritual significance for me.  Now they are my goal and focus for Holy Week and Good Friday.  Be here.  Show up.  Pay attention.  Allow the liturgy and the Scriptures and the experience to have their way with me.  Perhaps it will lead me to deeper remorse, but more and more I find this does not seem to be lone destination.

At Wednesday night’s service of Tenebrae we listened to a reading from St. Augustine’s Treatise on the Psalms.  In it, he encourages his readers to “place ourselves beside [the psalmist], that, by sharing his tribulation, we may also join in his prayer.”  This now is my aim during Holy Week.  I just want to walk and wait with Jesus.  Typically, I don’t come away from this beating my chest – miserable sinner that I am – but touched in some way, changed somehow, and deeply grateful for what I have experienced.

I am always struck by how the Good Friday liturgy takes us from standing at the cross to offering up the Solemn Collects.  The meaning is obvious.  Once Jesus’ work in this world comes to an end our work begins.  We respond to his death by offering prayers for the church, for the world, for those who suffer, and for those who have not received the Gospel.  The collects conclude with one of my favorite prayers:

Let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made.

It is a hopeful prayer which anticipates the Resurrection.  It is worth noting it is offered at this service as well as at ordinations.  Jesus’ death and the ordination of every deacon, priest, and bishop is a sign our Lord’s work continues on through us.  Perhaps the best way to approach Good Friday then is to watch, to wait, to weep, and then to act.

Go Forward!

“Abba, Father… Daddy…, with you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”

A person came to the church this week to speak with a priest; a woman about fifty years old, I will call her Joan.  She was distraught.  Her husband works with a crew of rough men who travel up and down the east coast doing specialized work in factories.  They put in long hours and her husband is addicted to methamphetamins.  Although he treats her well, it appears he is having an affair with a woman at the factory.  For her part, Joan has been clean and sober for over 20 years.  She loves her husband dearly, but the substance abuse and the affair have deeply hurt her.  Through her sobs she told me she does not know what to do. 

I suspect each of us has had a time or two in life when we felt paralyzed; when we faced something so hard, so traumatic, so difficult we simply did not know what to do.  In my experience, at times like these it is easy for other people to give us advice, but they are not the person paralyzed.  They are not the one carrying the emotional load.  When you are the one with the load to bear, the easy answers others offer with such clarity are neither easy nor clear to you.

I think of the time when God’s people are standing before the vast waters of the Red Sea as Pharaoh’s mighty army closes in from behind.  The situation seems utterly hopeless.  They cry to Moses, “Why did you bring us all the way out here to die?  Where there not enough graves in Egypt?  We would be better off as slaves in Egypt than to be slaughtered in the desert.”  Moses tells the people to “stand firm” and they will see the deliverance of God.  The Lord then says to Moses, “Why do you cry to me?  Tell the people of Israel to go forward!  Lift up your staff, raise out your hand over the sea, and divide it.”  Tell the people to go forward? 

When you think about people you know who have great faith, who comes to mind?  Perhaps you think of a person with deeply held religious convictions.  Maybe think of a person who is rock sure certain about God’s will and God’s activities in the world.  But faith has nothing to do with certainty or conviction.  Faith is about moving forward in the face of uncertainty.

As Jesus prays in the garden he is terrified by what he is about to face.  He will be isolated, abandoned, and betrayed.  He will be tortured beyond imagining.  He will be humiliated.  He will be executed in the most excruciatingly painful way possible.  No wonder Jesus prays for any other possibility.  But in the face of uncertainty, he tells his Father he is ready to move forward.  It is the only way for him to go.

In her book, The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold weaves theology throughout her work to drive the plot.  At one point her main character, Lupe dy Cazaril, says this:

“This wasn’t prayer anyway, it was just argument with the gods.  Prayer, he suspected as he hoisted himself up and turned for the door, was putting one foot in front of the other.  Moving all the same.”

Prayer is putting one foot in front of the other.  Faith is moving forward in the midst of uncertainty.

Elizabeth Lesser writes this in her book Broken Open: how difficult times can help us grow:

You can either break down and stay broken down and eventually shut down, or you can break open.  It’s a decision you make.  It’s a commitment.  I am going through a very hard time.  I am not going to waste this precious experience, this opportunity to become the best me.

Through the experience of getting divorced and becoming a single mother, I lost everything – my financial security, my self-image, my support, my home.  Everything changed for me.  In the depths of that loss, I found out who I really was.  I began to trust who I was.  I began to find a genuine me that could withstand anything.  And if we fight those times and fight the bud opening, we live half a life.  But when we open into our brokenness, that’s when we blossom.

Right now, perhaps no one broken open is blossoming more beautify than the students of Parkland, Florida.  Their faith and ability to go forward is truly remarkable.  Who could have imagined over the span of this holy season of Lent a group of students could go from the horrors of having their school under attack to inspiring global marches calling for change?  Go forward into an unknown future!  Their faith is breathtaking. 

The prophet Isaiah spoke these words to God’s people in exile:

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.  For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior… Fear not, for I am with you.”

God promises to be with us as we move forward in the face of uncertainty. 

There are times in our life when, like Joan, we feel paralyzed by the moment.  There are times when, like Jesus, we kneel in the garden and, praying things could be different, resolve to accept things as they are.  There are times when, like Elizabeth Lesser, our brokenness leads to blossoming.  But there is never a time – never – God is not with us in the uncertainty, walking with us as we move forward. 

Dear people of God, today I have a word from the Lord for you: Go Forward!  Go forward in faith.

Seventeen Seeds

Jim is the only Baptist living in a Catholic neighborhood.  On the first Friday of Lent he lights some charcoal and grills a huge steak, which every other person on the block can smell as they sit down at table to eat bland, tasteless, cold fish.  This repeats itself every Friday in Lent, tempting the Catholics and making them miserable.  They determine the best way to address the situation is to invite Jim to convert to Catholicism so he too will not eat meat on Fridays.  Jim agrees and after going to classes he is baptized.  “Jim”, the priest says as he sprinkles water on his head, “You were born a Baptist and raised a Baptist, but now you are a Catholic.”  When Lent comes around next year, the neighborhood is overwhelmed with the smell of steak on a grill.  Folks march over to Jim’s house to complain and arrive just in time to witness him standing over the meat, sprinkling it with water, and saying, “You were born a cow and raised a cow, but now you are a fish.”

As we come to the end of Lent and approach the threshold of Palm Sunday and Holy Week, today’s gospel reading records Jesus telling his disciples the hour has come for him to be “glorified”, and by glorified, he means crucified.  Jesus says, “Unless a single grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  It is a statement of resignation, reality, and hope.  Resignation, in that Jesus understands there is no other way forward for him.  Reality, in that some movements simply do not get started without great sacrifice.  Hope, in that things can change; new possibilities and growth can happen. 

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies… nothing will change. 

We always begin the season of Lent on Ash Wednesday being reminded of our own mortality: “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  This year, as we said these words in the reverent calm and safety of our sanctuary, the people associated with Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School experienced it as a horrific reality.  The picture of a mother with panic on her face and a cross of ashes on her forehead hugging her child is indelibly imprinted on our minds. 

The fourteen students, three teachers, and surviving members of the school family have been our companions on our 2018 Lenten journey.  The stories of those who are lost and the voices of those who live on have been with us in a very powerful way over the last five weeks.  Seventeen grains of wheat have fallen into the earth.  The question is, what kind of fruit will come from their deaths.

Jesus is a master storyteller and many of his parables involve seeds.  Perhaps the best known is the story of the Sower and the Soil.  You remember how the sower scatters seed over a field.  Some fall on packed soil and are eaten by birds.  Some fall on stony ground, sprout up quickly, but wither due to lack of depth.  Some fall among thistles, which choke them out shortly after they begin to grow.  And some fall on good soil and these seeds produce an abundant harvest.  The parable invites us to ponder what type of soil we are – as a person, as a community, as a society, and as a people.

Our national conversation about school violence is a well-worn path.  The ground everywhere is packed hard with entrenched positions.  When the seeds of lost lives fall, immediately the special interests start to pick away at them.  “You must do this.”  “You can’t do that.”  It is the same old conversation and the same old fight between the same old tired voices.  Rather than coming together with a sense of urgency to make our schools safe for our children, and rather than thinking creatively and cooperatively, we retreat to our long-held positions, stomp our feet, and make the ground even harder. 

There are some who are like the rocky soil and just don’t have the personal depth to care about a problem not affecting them personally.  They are apathetic, indifferent, and in no way, shape, or form will ever lift a finger to get involved.  Their voices will never be heard because, frankly, they have no voice.  Others are like the soil with weeds.  Yes, this shooting has their attention, but something will come along soon enough to divert it away.  The news cycle will change eventually, and many who care now will lose interest.

If the shooting in Parkland has shown us one encouraging thing it is this: there is a lot of good, fertile soil in our country.  We see and sense it in our children and who are demanding #neveragain.  Last Wednesday, young people across our country and in our own community walked out of class for seventeen minutes to remember the seeds fallen in the soil of our violent society.  They are determined to ensure these tragic deaths bear fruit in them and through them.  Many young people, including members of our own church, have become part of the prophetic Walk Up movement.  They have committed to reach out to fourteen fellow students they do not know and three teachers, in order to offer words of kindness and encouragement.

Some have tried to discredit their voices, holding they are being manipulated by one special interest group or another.  I cannot image a more cynical or defensive response.  As one of my nieces commented, if you get defensive when a school student says these shootings must end, you might want to stop talking and ponder your own response.  What in this makes you feel so threatened? 

Some will say this sermon is political.  What is political about stating life is sacred and every child should be safe in school and every parent should have confidence their children will come home at the end of the day unharmed? 

As a country we hold as sacred the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Of the three, life is paramount.  We do not have the liberty to drive at any speed we choose, nor are we free to run a traffic light.  Our liberties are inhibited in numerous ways in order to safeguard life.  The same goes for happiness.  Our pursuit of happiness has its limitations too.  If it gives you the giggles to scream “fire” in a crowded theatre, you will soon be incarcerated.  We give up what we hold dear in order that all might live.  It is God’s first gift to us and we need to protect it above all else.

I do not pretend to have the answer to solving the problem of school shootings – or any of the other acts of mass violence committed in our country.  I do not believe there is a single, simple solution.  But nothing ever changes because, as I said earlier, as soon as a tragedy happens everyone retreats to his or her entrenched position and yells as loud as possible at everyone who disagrees with what they say.  I think about 9/11 and how, almost over night, we made air travel safe again.  It has been 20 years since Columbine and many of our children and schools still are not safe.  It is shameful.  It is sinful.  And I can’t begin to explain or understand it.  We as a country need to repent. 

Sadly, we need to receive seventeen more seeds into our soil and pray we might be tilled and ready for a bountiful harvest to spring forth from their sacrifice.  Jesus, the divine seed, has died for us that we might be willing to undertake difficult journeys.  Jesus, the Resurrected One, has demonstrated new life is possible.  If Jesus can rise from the grave of death, and if Jesus promises always to be with us, surely we can come together as a country and figure this out.

May this be the last Lent we have to mourn the loss of innocent students and teachers.  Can there possibly be anyone who objects to this?  O God, please, give us the courage and the wisdom to act so that not one more precious, young seed will fall to the ground needlessly.