Monday, January 28, 2013

"Fulfilled in Our Hearing"

Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah

Gospel Reading: Luke 4:14-30
14Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

16When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

20And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ 23He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.” ’ 24And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ 28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.


Sermon: “Fulfilled In Our Hearing”

Being a preacher in your hometown is a tricky business.  I once preached in my hometown what I thought was a deep and thought-provoking sermon.  One sweet woman, who might have been my Grandmother, said as she hugged me afterwards, “You looked like an angel up there! (I was wearing a white robe.)  I didn’t really listen to what you said, I just was remembering you as a little girl.”  You have to love her honesty.

Jesus had it much worse when preaching in his hometown.  They tried to run him off a cliff, after all!  The poem by Ann Weems best captures the criticism he received that Sabbath day in Galilee.

We were pleased, Jesus.
You read Isaiah’s poem quite well.
We were impressed;
in fact, we marveled.
We so enjoy hearing familiar passages
concerning our salvation.
We were pleased, Jesus until you told your stories…
as though God would ignore the true believers
and pay attention to those who don’t deserve it.
It was then we understood
that the poor and captive
and oppressed
of whom you spoke
were those who had no money, no freedom, no
power.
We are not pleased, Jesus,
for we have worked long and hard at righteousness
and expect to have exclusive rights
when it comes to salvation.
The Expected One is not the one we expected.

No one expects the son of Mary and Joe the carpenter to be the Messiah.  You see that’s the thing about this incarnation: Jesus looks, and is, every bit as ordinary as he is divine.  God’s son, sure.  But everyone in town knows Mary and Joe – that parentage is much easier to swallow. 

Jesus doesn’t let the fear of being underestimated stop him, though.  He walks into that synagogue like usual, but this time he doesn’t sit in the family pew with Mom and Dad.  This time he stands up to speak.  He is handed a scroll. 

We could just let that seemingly insignificant detail pass us by, but in that tiny sentence we see that I think is the key to this whole story.  You see, later in this text we’re told that Jesus, after reading, hands the scroll back to the attendant.  In the Greek, that word means servant, or the more demeaning, “underling.”  We see nothing to indicate that Jesus selected the scroll of Isaiah to read; the servant did that.  Maybe, though it looked like he was just doing what he always did, giving words to those important enough to utter them, this servant was curious. 
Perhaps he wondered if Jesus was the one to bring that good news to the poor Isaiah promised so long ago.  Perhaps he wondered if those were just words for the regular church-goers and the powerful, or whether Jesus meant them for him, too.

Out of all the passages Jesus could have chosen in the tome of Isaiah, he chose the one that would speak most to the invisible one who handed him the scroll.  It begins, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.”  Jesus wasted no time in declaring his mission that was meant for the overlooked servants, the underlings of this world: the poor, prisoner, oppressed and captive. 

While the religious regulars heard familiar words and were amused, the servant heard mighty words of hope from this hometown prophet.  Then Jesus gave him back the scroll that contained those powerful words and said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  “Your” includes everyone: the curious servant, the families sitting together in worship, the person sitting alone wondering if anyone will make them feel welcome, the worker sweeping in the back of the temple.  The scripture is fulfilled when they all hear it.

But that’s not how we usually remember this story, is it?  I know I’ve typically thought that Jesus saying the prophetic words of Isaiah and identifying himself as the promised Messiah fulfilled those words.  Once he made clear his identity as God’s son, come to redeem the world, all was complete.  But he doesn’t say that those ancient words of scripture are fulfilled in his speaking.  He says they are fulfilled in your hearing. 

Unless those words fall on ears eager to embrace a mission that overturns the structures of powerful and powerless, of overlords and underlings, they are just words.  They are only made real when they are truly heard.  And they are only truly heard when they are put into transformative, sacrificial action. 
Maybe this is why Jesus’ hometown ultimately rejected his words of change and challenge in the next pages of our story.  I do not think they were rejecting the possibility that he could really be the Messiah; I think they were rejecting the idea that they had anything to do with it.  That they had a role in fulfilling those nice, familiar words of Isaiah with demanding action that was risky and entirely unfamiliar.  And so, they easily dismissed him as Mary and Joe’s son, and thus missed the life-changing opportunity to be a part of the Word-Made-Flesh. 

Jesus speaks those same words to us today, calling us to that same mission.  The same Spirit who was on Jesus, giving him the courage to preach to servant and powerful alike the good news that would turn the world upside down, is on us.  And in us.  That Spirit stirs us to take this Word and give it flesh: to become the hands and feet, the eyes and ears, the body of Christ in a world that is desperate for good news. 

It is a task both risky and unfamiliar: it will lead us to see our greed in the faces of those who never have enough, to build bridges where society is so intent on dividing us by economic status, political party, race, age, gender or other labels.  It will lead our church family beyond the comfort of this space into the challenging places where Christ is waiting for us to meet with him.

For some of us, this might look like joining the Mission and Outreach Committee and helping us better care for the those whom this world so often overlooks.  For others, this will look like helping with Member Care and helping us release those who are captive to loneliness or illness, who need not the perfect words, but an imperfect person sitting beside them.  Perhaps the Spirit is leading you to add energy and joy to the Fellowship that binds us together, or depth and curiosity to our Christian Education program, or creativity and freshness to our Worship life.

The Spirit is upon each of us, leading each of us to serve in different ways.  We have two options: we can, like the weekly worshipers in Nazareth, reject Jesus’ demand and place ourselves at the center of our faith, staying exactly the same as ever.  Or, like the unnamed servant grasping for good news in words ancient and new, we can follow Jesus together wherever he leads,
leaving our expectations and agendas behind, fulfilling his words of hope in our hearing and our acting, until all know that this good news is meant for them.  Amen.

Monday, January 21, 2013

"Miraculously Ordinary"

Image Source

Sunday, January 20, 2013
Gospel Reading: John 2:1-11
1On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." 4And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come" 5His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." 6Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. 8He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it. 9When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." 11Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Sermon:

My delightfully sarcastic cousin Lee got married this past October.  It was a true Texan country wedding: in the rustic backyard of my Aunt and Uncle’s house.  My Aunt had worked tirelessly transforming an arid central Texas landscape into the Garden of Eden.  A new stone pathway had been meticulously created one heavy stone at a time, until it reached the pristine white wooden gazebo where Lee and Luis would exchange vows. 

When I arrived a mere few days before the ceremony, their house was a flurry of activity: prepping reception favors, rushing back and forth to the reception hall to make it perfect.  I got myself all tangled up in chair covers and satin ribbon, filled vases with wildflowers for the many tables and mostly, repeatedly told my Aunt, “It looks beautiful.  It’s going to be wonderful.”

The evening of the rehearsal dinner, we sat at tables in the backyard while candles flickered like fireflies from mason jars strung up in the trees.  The air was perfect: not too warm, not too cool.  The wine was good, the laughter was easy, the big day was almost here!

Saturday morning we awoke and went outside to breathe some fresh air.  That fresh air was a chilly 40 degrees!  The temperature never wavered much above 45 or so the whole day, and I watched my cousin’s arms turn purple in her strapless dress as she said her vows.  But, though we thin-skinned Texans all shivered, it was beautiful.  The wedding happened.  And my Aunt nearly collapsed with relief.

When I read of Jesus’ first miracle, turning water into wine at the wedding of Cana, I picture Mary his mother to be very much like my Aunt Madelynn.  Sure, it wasn’t her family’s wedding, but she wanted it to go well just the same.  You can tell this because of her fabulous statement to her son.  Now, we all know, y’all, that Mother’s never just SAY something.  There’s the thing they say, and then there’s the thing they want us to be bright enough to get from what they’re saying. 

What Jesus’ mom Mary says is “Huh.  There’s not any wine left.”  The proper response from Jesus is not, “Oh really, guess they’ll have to get to an ABC store.”  Nor is it, “Well, yeah, they’re pretty rowdy already.  Might as well get the coffee going.”  Jesus knows what his mom really means (“Do something about it, son!”) and responds a bit petulantly, “Woman, what has that to do with you and me?”

Ooh, those be groundin’ words.  But Jesus is thirty, so she lets it slide.  Being a wise mom, she knows he’ll ultimately act on her unspoken request.  Which is why she tells the servants to “do whatever he tells them to.”  She knows that, though he talks back a little, he’ll follow through.  Jesus was raised to listen to his Mama.

And though he perhaps rolls his eyes a little, or worries about his first big show of glory, he tells those servants to go fill 6 purification jars with water to the brim.  That’s about 20-30 gallons of water each.  We know the rest of the story: evian becomes merlot, dasani becomes pinot grigio, water becomes wine.  And not just an old jug of Franzia or some cheap boxed wine.  This wine is prime vintage, full of a lovely bouquet of dewberry and cherry with subtle anise and tobacco flavors. 

Now, I could preach to you about the overflowing abundance of God, about how Jesus’ first act shows us the joy we’re meant to embody as his followers, rejoicing in his glory like newlyweds rejoice in their new life together.  But, I think we’ve all heard that before.  I want us to think about this text differently: not about the miracle itself, but about all of the things and people necessary for that miracle to take place.

First, of course, comes that slightly pushy Jewish mother.  I’m not sure what Jesus had in mind for his first miracle, but perhaps it was something a bit grander than being a glorified bartender.  Mothers know their children, though, and she knew (even if he didn’t) that Jesus was ready to show his true colors.  We all need a shove to become greater than we’re comfortable being or to live fully in our skin instead of cowering and waiting for “the right moment” to act. 
Once Mary planted the seed, it took root and Jesus decided there was no time like the present to reveal his glory.  He told some servants to fill 6 purification jars.

Here enter the other two factors in making this miracle happen: a handful of servants and some old dry jars.

But I can’t help but wonder…if this was Jesus grand debut, his big moment, why was he sharing the glory with servants?  Why have them be a part of the miracle at all?  Why not just make those jars magically float down to the river and fill themselves and then return to him?  Why even use jars at all, for that matter?  Why not just make the wedding guests’ wine glasses automatically, magically refill all on their own accord? 

Why the persistent mother and the divine hesitation, why the burdened servants, why the dry, old jars?

As you might expect, I have a theory.  I think Jesus used those jars and people to reveal something about his glory: that it is best experienced in community.  That miracles are their most potent when witnessed together.

I believe that the glory of God experienced in miraculous moments of overflowing, abundant joy, is not meant to be some isolated incident, like finally praying the exact right prayer to get the answer we really want. 

Even if we personally experience the miracle of a heart changed from bitterness to forgiveness, or a night of worry changed to a morning of fragile hope, or a dry, stale faith changed to a wellspring of new life within us, those miracles are never meant to stay “personal.” 

Like Jesus using the wisdom of a loving mother, the strength of ordinary servants and the symbols of an ancient faith to reveal the glory of God and pour out that glory to hundreds with each new sip, we are not to hoard our miracles.  Miracles are meant to be shared.

Each deserted hull of faith has the potential to run over with glory.  Each person just struggling from task to task has the potential to bear precious drops of love. 

It is tempting when reading of miracles like this one, especially when 1 in 6 people in our world do not have access to clean water and 15 million people in our country suffer from alcoholism, as a idealist, sweet story about a time when Jesus was on earth and God actually performed miracles, without waiting for the “right moment” to do them. 

If we expect miracles to fall out of the heavens like random rain on lucky souls, we will be waiting all of our lives.  For miracles never really happened that way, not even back in Jesus’ time when someone was always ready to write them down. 

But if we expect miracles to happen through ordinary people, through parents and children, through the poor and the powerful, through the willing and unwilling, through new cathedrals of faith and old remnants of tired religion, through a black Alabama preacher and the person who waves good morning to you each day, we will never cease experiencing them.   And, even more importantly, we will never cease participating in them. 

Thanks be to the God who chooses to make the ordinary holy, to the Son who listened to his Mama until all were filled with glory and to the Spirit who makes each moment, each day, miraculous.  Amen.

"Not Still, Nor Small"


Sunday, January 13, 2013
Psalm 29
1Ascribe to the LORD, O heavenly beings,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
2Ascribe to the LORD the glory of his name;
worship the LORD in holy splendor.

3The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the LORD, over mighty waters.
4The voice of the LORD is powerful;
the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.

5The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars;
the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
6He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,
and Sirion like a young wild ox.

7The voice of the LORD flashes forth flames of fire.
8The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness;
the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

9The voice of the LORD causes the oaks to whirl,
and strips the forest bare; and in his temple all say, "Glory!"

10The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;
the LORD sits enthroned as king for ever.
11May the LORD give strength to his people!
May the LORD bless his people with peace!

Sermon:

I like a God who speaks through the quiet movements of nature: through the uniform, bare trees of winter, through a bright pink, foggy sunrise.  I like a God who speaks through pinprick stars and goofy goats playing in a field.  I like the god I see in a 2 year old who simply can’t contain their excitement at this world and everything in it. 

That is the sort of God I suppose I’ve worshipped all my life, carrying around that god in my pocket as I walk around Sue Phillips’ park or the painted barns and fields of Cameron and say, “Well done, little god.  This is some beautiful stuff.”  That god is admittedly warm and fuzzy, the Presbyterian grace-drenched god who makes me feel good.

When I read Psalm 29, I suspect that my little god has nothing to do with the God described there.  This God speaks, and from those words, floods rage, the indestructible cedars of Babylon are turned to sawdust, great mountains are made to skip and dance like a young wild ox.  Or as the King James Version so whimsically puts it, like a young unicorn!  This God speaks and fires blaze.  This God speaks and the wilderness is shaken until all is laid bare.  Do I even know this God at all?  Do any of us?

There are some who, just as I love my god who speaks with a still, small voice, relish in the idea of this other god.  The god who brings floods to judge those who differ from us.  The god who has a hand in violence to punish our nation’s infidelity (but who never seems to mind my own sin).  The god who spews hellfire and brimstone all day long, and thinks “grace” a very weak word indeed. 

This is the god of the Westboro Baptist Church.  It might be the god some of us were raised on.  It is the god we invoke when we wish vengeance on our enemies and then ourselves take a hand in helping God dish it out.  This god is not carried around in one’s pocket; this god is carried around in one’s deepest prejudice and hatred. 

When we carry around the first god, our placid pocket-god, the Psalmist urges us, “Be careful.  The words alone of that God might change you forever.  And you’ll never be able to contain those words in your pocket.”  When we carry around our prejudice-baptizing god, the Psalmist concludes all those terrifying, powerful words with “The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;
the LORD sits enthroned as king for ever. May the LORD give strength to his people!’

Perhaps God does not perfectly fit in either category.  God is absolute concerning justice, unequivocal concerning faithfulness, and lets the natural consequences of injustice and idolatry fall like a heavy, frightening thunderstorm.  But over that raging storm, God is King still, giving strength to his people, all of his people.  And saying something we might mistakenly confuse as warm and fuzzy, the Psalmist says that God blesses his people with peace

If you have seen the peace of people who were raised to habitually exile each other come together, witnessed the tension of black students’ first day in school with white students, you know that peace is not a soft notion.  If you have lived through a persistent illness, or held the hand of a loved one who endured it on to the life to come, you know that peace at last is costly.  If you have served our country or agonized as family members have placed themselves in the precarious life that service demands, or if you have advocated for a diplomatic solution, you know that peace is deeply sacrificial. 

God blesses God’s people with peace.  Gosh, I hope so.  I hope that when we demonize those who are different from us, God somehow softens our hearts to see that this peace is not just for us to keep in our pocket, but that this word is to be proclaimed in every part of our lives.  I hope that when we think God has abandoned us as the waters of life get rough, and when those things that are never meant to break, do, we still hear that word lovingly spoken to us by the God who sits above, and within, it all. 

God’s voice is mighty enough to lay bare the forests of self-importance we’ve hidden ourselves in, so that we may see who we truly are.  And God’s voice is gentle enough to speak hope into the frigid, artificial light of a hospital room.  Strong or soft, subtle or shocking, the voice is the same.  It is God’s.  It is speaking still, that we might in those words find the strength and vulnerability to also speak words of peace, not just for us, but for all of God’s people. 

I don’t know which God you like to carry with you day after day: a gentle, comforting pocket god like I so often carried with me, or a righteous, demanding god.  But I do know that each of us brings an incomplete picture of God, one that will always be looking in a glass dimly on this side of heaven. 

Yet that picture becomes more clear, God’s voice becomes more recognizable, when we share in one another’s experiences of that voice.  When we listen, without agenda or fixed interpretation, to what God says through this word.  And when we then take that word into the streets, into the daily grind of work or the relaxation of the golf course, into the joy of comfortable, quiet nights or the agony of tension with loved ones or injustice in this world.  Then, we will find that voice of God to be not still, nor small, but constantly on the move, constantly speaking “peace” when peace seems impossible.

One of my favorite series, The Chronicles of Narnia, captures this tension between God’s gracious gentleness and righteous anger best, when speaking of Aslan, the great lion that C.S. Lewis placed as the God figure in his stories.  

The child Lucy hears about Aslan and asks a very logical question, whether Aslan is tame or not.  Mr. Beaver replies:
'If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than me or else just silly.'
'Then he isn't safe?' asked Lucy.
'Safe?' said Mr. Beaver. ‘ Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.'

God is not safe.  God’s voice might just turn our assumptions and worldview upside down, ushering in a peace more demanding and transforming than any we have ever known.  Our sin, our pride, our fixed ways of thinking and doing: these are not safe around this sort of God.  But God is relentlessly good: good enough to desire peace for all, good enough to patiently speak to us, no matter how often we fail to listen, good enough to become one of us that forgiveness might be given a human face.  Thanks be to this wild, good God!  Amen.