3rd Week of Lent: What We Really Want

"Jeremiah, say to the people, 'This is what the LORD says: "'When people fall down, don't they get up again? When they discover they're on the wrong road, don't they turn back? 5 Then why do these people stay on their self-destructive path? Why do the people of Jerusalem refuse to turn back? They cling tightly to their lies and will not turn around.’” (Jeremiah 8:4-6, New Living Translation)

In our Morning Prayer, we’ve been focusing on the prophet Jeremiah this Lent. He was God’s prophet, delivering bad news to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. Their kingdom, their Temple, were about to be destroyed by their enemies. And worst of all, they had it coming, for their worship of other gods, and their leaders who put their personal happiness above the needs of the poor.

In the C.S. Lewis Bible I recently bought is this insight of Lewis’s, applied by the editors to the 8th chapter of Jeremiah: “Those Divine demands which sound to our natural ears most like those of a despot and least like those of a lover, in fact marshal us where we should want to go if we knew what we wanted.” Doesn’t that sound like what our parents told us when we were children? Do we instinctively flinch from this now that we’re all grown up?

And how many preachers, politicians, motivational speakers, self-help gurus, try to tell us what we really want, when all they’re doing is imposing their personal experience on ours. But personal experience, by its nature, is unrepeatable. The rock group, R.E.M., may have summarized our resistance to being told what we really want when they sang, “Life is bigger than you, and you are not me.”

Yes, life is bigger than those who would tell you how to live yours. But the flip side to that truth, perhaps harder to acknowledge (and why R.E.M. didn’t mention it) is this: life is bigger than you, but life is also bigger than me. One of the purposes of Lent is to help us not to resist that truth as it sinks into our soul, that life is bigger than me.

So, when we fail to get what we want, we can learn what we really want. When we fail to get what we want, or we get it and find it doesn’t really satisfy, we have the opportunity to learn what we really wanted all along. Thus, we can find relief from the constant tension in our heads and hearts between what we think we want and what we really want.

When we accept that what we really wanted, the tension leaves and is replaced by peace, the peace of knowing that we are no governed by a despot, but a lover. May we all find the lover in what we really want this Lent.

3rd Sunday of Lent: Water Jars and Gushers

“The woman left her water jar and went back to the city saying, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done. Could he be the Christ?’” (John 4:28-29)

It's very interesting to note the details which the eyewitness to this encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan women thinks are worth mentioning. That she left her water jar at the well to run back to the town was a detail worth handing on to future readers. How she came to have five husbands, and why she wasn't married to number six, was apparently not worth mentioning.

Samaritans considered themsleves the children of Jacob, whom God renamed Israel. And they considered themselves bound by the first five books of the Old Testament. And under the Law of Israel, if the oldest son in a family died with no children, the widow was married off to the next eldest son. For all we know, this poor woman might have been married off to the next four brothers, all of whom died. Maybe brother number six didn't want to marry her, and she was left to fend for herself.

That she wasn't married to the man she was living with explains why she carried her water jar to the well at noon -- the hottest part of the day -- rather than early in the morning and endure the stares, the whispers, and occasional barbs of the other women of Sychar.

And so she came to the well at high noon, needing the water at the well to quench her physical thirst. But as Jesus could see, she had a thirst, which that water at the well could never quench. And neither would rubbing her nose in her mistakes quench that thirst. Salvation is so much more than being told, “don’t do it again,” and obeying that command.

The only way that Jesus can quench her thirst, and ours, is to engage us in a conversation of equals, which He begins by asking her for a drink. It is only in that conversation that we can complain about our thirst. It is only in conversation that we can figure out what we’re really thirsty for. It is only in conversation that we can finally understand the thirst in our hearts that only the gushing water, which Jesus offers us, will quench. We all need a gushing fountain that will make us leave our water jars at the well.

No doubt, the Samaritan Woman was tired of having to drag her water jar to the well in the heat of midday, day after day after day. But she was also dying of the thirst of loneliness. She yearned to be accepted by her fellow Samaritans. Isn’t it rather ironic that she is so defensive about her Samaritan heritage to a Jew when it is her fellow Samaritans that she has to avoid by coming to the well at noon?

She thirsts for the approval of her fellow Samaritans in Sychar. But Jesus offers her a gushing fountain, a community of Jews and Samaritans worshiping together the God they have in common in spirit and truth. Instead of fighting over which place God is to be found, Mount Gerzim in Samaria or Mount Zion in Jerusalem, Jesus offers her the presence of God everywhere. Instead of fighting over who has control of God’s sacred spaces, Jesus offers her freedom to meet God in any building so long as she seeks the truth in an open spirit. She thirsts for tolerance. Jesus offers her a gushing fountain of love.

What are you thirsty for? What am I thirsty for? What are we thirsty for? What gushing water does Jesus offer to you, to me, to us? Those answers can only be found in conversation. Those answers can only be found in a spirit of openness to each other. Those answers can only be found in a spirit which recognizes that our first answer to the question, what am I thirsty for, is the water jar that we need to leave at the well.

Where is the gushing water that Jesus promises. “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14). The gushing water, the Sprit of eternal life is already in each of us. If we open up our hearts to ourselves, we will find that Jesus has been there the whole time waiting for us. If we face our thirst, we will find Jesus, who does not judge us, but meets us where we are. If we have that conversation with Jesus, then we can have that conversation with each other, because that conversation will be filled with the Spirit of truth and love.

Jesus is waiting for us at the well. Let us leave our water jars behind.

The Annunciation, March 25th

With our only midweek worship opportunity coming on Wednesday, I transferred our celebration of the Annunciation (March 25th) to our Wednesday Noon Eucharist. The day we celebrated the angel Gabriel’s announcement that Mary would bear the Son of God also turned out to be the day that Elizabeth Taylor died.

There are other ironic pairs of women in recent history: Mother Teresa died the day before Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997. For all of her charitable work, and the good use she made of her royal prerogatives, one observer called Princess Diana, “Mother Teresa in Gucci.” In fact, Princess Diana was buried with a rosary given her by Mother Teresa.

So now we have another unlikely pair: the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the 8-times-married Elizabeth Taylor (twice to Richard Burton). How much more different could they be? Mary was rooted in her Jewish tradition, aware that she was marrying into the ancient royal dynasty, the House of Israel’s greatest king, David. She was rooted in the Israelite dream of a Messiah who would save he people and rule the world with peace and justice.

Elizabeth Taylor went from tradition to tradition: raised a Christian Scientist, converted to Judaism, married once by New Age guru Marianne Williamson. “I’m not like anyone. I’m me,” she once said.

And yet, Mary’s spiritual journey was also untraditional in its own way: the scandal of unwed pregnancy, ameliorated but not forgotten by Joseph’s acceptance of her son. And the kingdom promised by Gabriel to her son didn’t look like any normal kingdom built through overwhelming shock and awe. There were the occasional rebukes from Jesus: “Who is my mother…those who do the will of my Father are my mothers.” And finally, there was the seeming destruction of her dream at the foot of the cross.

The Feast of the Annunciation on March 25th was “New Year’s Day” in medieval Europe. It was the start of a story, a journey that didn’t develop as its characters thought it would. But Mary treasured the promise of how the story would end: a never-ending kingdom of mercy and justice for those who need it most. And in the Resurrection of Jesus, that promise began to be fulfilled.

Through her work for others, and her passionate effort to find love, Elizabeth Taylor embraced that story in her own way. And because of her celebrity, her mistakes were displayed for the whole world to see. But I trust that her end will be as blessed as Mary’s. Let us all embrace Mary’s story as our own, in our own ways, and trust that our end will be as blessed as hers.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

2nd Sunday of Lent

Well, I spent my Friday without Facebook, Twitter and email, reading. A few weeks ago, I mentioned Rob Bell, who was being accused of no longer being a Christian because he was about to publish a book. No one had read it, but many assumed Bell denied the existence of hell, based on some of his comments about the book. I now have the book, and spent my Friday online fast reading it. No, Bell does not deny the existence of hell. But he does say something that I have long believed, but not fully understood until I read his book: hell is not in a place; hell is in the heart.

And most assuredly, God does not want for there to be a hell in anyone’s heart. Summarizing all the Old Testament prophets who inspired by God to preach about eternal life, Bell points out that consistently, “they spoke about ‘all the nations.’ That’s everybody. That’s all those different skin colors, languages, dialects, and accents; all those customs, habits, patterns, clothing, traditions and ways of celebrating—multiethnic, multisensory, multieverything.” Does that ring a bell, “all the nations”? We just heard the LORD promise Abram, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Last Sunday, I preached on the Genesis story of how human beings came to be the sinful creatures that we are. It is a truly “pre-historic” story, because it speaks of events which were not documented. But whoever wrote down this story was inspired by God to communicate the truth of how we fail to trust our Maker, then and now. Between that story and today’s reading from Genesis, is the story of how human depravity became so bad that a heart-broken God decided to make a fresh start by wiping out all humanity, save for one family. But then God discovers that even Noah and his family are not without sin and evil lurking in their hearts.

So, God resolved that never again would God destroy all the people of the world. Instead God resolved to do everything possible to bless and save all the people of the world. And God started with this one man, Abram, and this one woman, Sarai, who would later be known as Abraham and Sarah. Through them came the nation of Israel, the people of the Old Covenant. And through them came the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who died so that our sins would be forgotten by God, and we would be free to enjoy eternal life, or not to do so.

That’s the problem. We say that Jesus has won the war against Satan our accuser, and yet the battle goes on. Men and women still refuse to believe that they are worthy to be loved by God or anybody else, and so fall into self-destructive behavior. Men and women still believe that there is a fixed supply of love which will run out if spent too much, and so hoard the blessings of life for themselves or for themselves and their tribe. Men and women are so anxious to succeed that they judge themselves by their failures. Men and women still refuse to accept that love even exists, and so grab for power at the cost of anyone who happens to be in their way: all of which brings us back to Rob Bell.

Does Bell believe that hell doesn’t exist? He writes very clearly that hell does exist, and that he has seen it. He has seen it here on this earth in the broken bodies and souls from the ongoing battles I just mentioned. As I read him, the question for Bell is not whether hell exists, but where hell is. And to summarize Bell’s belief; hell is not in a place, hell is in the heart. It is in the heart of every person unwilling to accept the love that God offers. And so it shall be, in this life, and the next, for as long as that person resists the love of God. But Bell also believes that God will wait for that person for as long as it takes for that person to accept that love that God offers.

In fact, Bell finds in the banquet to welcome back the prodigal son an image of heaven. And in the older brother refusing to join the party, he finds an image of hell. So, heaven and hell may be in the same exact place. The difference is in the hearts of those who come together in God’s eternal party, and in the hearts of those who can do nothing to stop the party, but who sit in the same room and refuse to join.

Lent is the time when we empty ourselves, of chocolate, of Facebook. But hopefully, those small empty places are a way for us to empty ourselves, to reflect on our fears, our wounds, our resentments. In other words, Lent is an opportunity to empty ourselves of the hell that would swallow us up in our pain and our sin. May this Lent be a time of emptiness, followed by love, followed by a party in which we join all the families of the earth in being blessed.

Litany for Japan

O God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth, Have mercy upon us.

O God the Son, Redeemer of the world, Have mercy upon us.

O God the Holy Spirit, Sanctifier of the faithful, Have mercy upon us.

O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, one God, Have mercy upon us.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us and for the people of Japan.

Hear our prayers, O Christ our God. Arise, O Christ, and help us.

For all who have died in the earthquake and tsunami striking Japan that they may be given entrance into the land of light and joy, in the fellowship of all your saints, Arise, O Christ, and help us.

For all who grieve the death of family, friends, and fellow citizens that they may not be overwhelmed by their loss, but have confidence in your goodness, and strength to meet the days to come, Arise, O Christ, and help us.

For all who suffer in body, mind, or spirit that they may be comforted, healed, and given courage and hope, Arise, O Christ, and help us.

For all aid workers, that they may be filled with strength, generosity, and compassion, Arise, O Christ, and help us.

For the wisdom, resources, and technological skill that a nuclear disaster might be averted, Arise, O Christ, and help us.

For eyes to see that you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth and linked our lives one to another that we may never forget our common life depends on each other’s toil and that we will always work for the common good, Arise, O Christ, and help us.

Gracious God, the comfort of all who sorrow, the strength of all who suffer: Let the cry of those in misery and need come to you, that they may find your mercy present with them in all their afflictions; and give us, we pray, the strength to serve them for the sake of him who suffered for us, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

1st Sunday of Lent

To focus on whether the creation of human beings and their fall into sin “happened” just as the story is told in Genesis is an adventure in missing the point. The truth of this story is written in the heart of every man and woman, as it was written on the hearts of the first man and woman who were made in the image of God. The truth is that the fall from innocence to sin happens every day to every one of us. Whenever we refuse to accept the gracious limits that our Maker and Commander has placed on us, we fall into sin as surely as the first man and first woman. But in accepting the same insecurities, and the same earthly limits, Jesus Christ proved for all time that we can trust our loving and most gracious Commander.

Even as the LORD God gives to the first human being the earth to till and work, a limit is placed on human power. For the Hebrew word used here literally means "to serve." Human beings are commanded to serve the earth that God has given them. And amid the abundance that God gives us, God gives just one command. Accept the limit of your knowledge, and do not try to gain the same knowledge as God by eating from the tree of knowledge. There’s another limit, more implied in this warning. If you eat of this tree, God warns the human being, you will certainly die. But note that God doesn’t say that if they don’t eat of the tree of knowledge, they will live forever. In fact there is a tree of life in the Garden of Eden. And after their fall into sin, God chases Adam and Eve out of Eden because he is afraid that if they eat of that tree, they will become immortal and be sentenced to an eternity of toil and pain.

And of course, the man and the woman are naked, to each other, to the world around them, and to God. Their knowledge is limited. Their life is limited, and their bodies are very limited. They are helpless before God. And yet what a responsibility is laid on them. Care for the earth, and trust God. Helpless, yet responsible, the man and the woman live in a state of holy insecurity. And into this drama comes a very clever snake. You will not certainly die, the snake says to the woman; it’s not certain that you will die: a vague enough promise to divert the woman’s attention away from God’s warning. And then the snake promises that you will be like God. But “like” isn’t good enough when it comes to God. Knowledge they will have, but not the wisdom to use it.

For this man and this woman, as for every man and woman since, it is a question of limitation and trust. Can we accept the limits of our knowledge and power? Can we trust that in life and in death, we are always held in God’s hand? This man and this woman gave the wrong answer, and so have we. Our recent history is full of human beings refusing to accept their limits. Many who grew up in the 1960s and early 70s remember the personal happiness that was promised if we threw off all social restraints. What were they smoking to think that everybody could pursue their own personal happiness without anybody getting hurt in the process? More recently, how many people have been devastated by the promises of unlimited wealth through unlimited debt, so long as the music kept playing and the debt kept getting passed along with no one left holding it?

Of course, living with the knowledge of our limitations is frightening. To know the limits of our knowledge and power is to know that we live up in the air. If we think our homes, our wealth and our lives stand on a firm foundation of our making, then we have no idea we are falling until we hit the ground. So, what’s the alternative to a life of illusion, a landscape we paint for ourselves and call reality? Look around you. Look up and see the empty sky above you, Look around you and see that you have nothing to hold onto but clouds. Look down and see the ground. And then remember what the Son of God himself said when tempted by Stan to jump off the pinnacle of the Temple: “Don’t test the Lord your God.” When you are afraid of not having enough to live on, remember what the Son of God himself said when tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread: “People won’t live only by bread, but by every word spoken by God.” When you feel the need to control others, remember what the Son of God himself said when tempted by Satan to gain worldly power by worshiping him: “You will worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”

And finally, when you are afraid of the ultimate limitation, remember what the Son of God said on the cross: “Father, into your hands I entrust my life.” Every human limitation, every human insecurity, Jesus knows first-hand, so that we might know his Resurrection first-hand.

Ash Wednesday

After September 11th, 2001, a widow one of those who lost his life in the World Trade Center asked her daughter, on Ash Wednesday, what she would give up for Lent. I’ve given up a father, she answered. Isn’t that enough for God? Some of us have lost loved ones. We all have lost the little gray church that we loved so much. Might we be excused from giving up something for Lent? Why spend 40 days focusing on Jesus’ death? Haven’t we had enough?

Is that a question you ask of the air, or of God, as though God sends us misfortunes? Do you see the misfortunes of your life as coming from God as a punishment for your sins? Was it Jesus’ job to take the bullet from God that was intended for us? Is that what it means when we hear from Paul that, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin”? Was Jesus the substitute for us, so that the anger of God was poured out on him instead of us?

God wants so much more for us than to be let out of jail, to be given a reprieve from execution. “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God,” Paul begs the Corinthians. To be reconciled to God is so much more simply being paroled by God. God wants us to be able to call him our Father, just as Jesus called him Father. Of course, standing between us and this God who would be our Father is our sin, our unrighteousness, our injustice to others. God, who is supremely just, cannot allow sin to have the last word.

In our limited justice, wrongdoing must be answered by punishment. To be blunt, it must be answered by a bullet of some kind. But Jesus did not take the bullet from God for us. Are there bullets that seem to come at us from all directions? Of course, but they do not come from God. The bullet that Jesus did take did not come from God. It came from the religious leaders of his day who conspired against him and the soldiers who crucified him.

We are all created in the image of God, but have mutilated that image by our fear, our distrust and our sin. So yes, it hurts the heart of our heavenly Father to see his beautiful creatures so marred. And in our guilt and fear, we dare not approach God on our own to beg forgiveness. But Jesus of Nazareth offered himself as our representative. Instead of paralyzing fear, Jesus stepped forward to meet the soldiers who came to arrest him in the garden. Instead of distrust, Jesus trusted that if he submitted to death, His father would be waiting for him on the other side. And by doing all this on our behalf, Jesus of Nazareth, who was fully human, overcame our sin. That sin has no power over him and it has no power over us.

Of course, the bullets still come, whether deserved or underserved. And just as Jesus took the bullet then, so he takes the bullet with each and every one of us. As they fly, know in your heart and soul that you are not alone. And just as the Resurrection came for Him, so it shall come for each of us in God’s good time. The purpose of Lent is not to remind ourselves of how we have crucified Christ in our own way. The word, Lent, means “spring.” The purpose of Lent is to prepare us for Resurrection.

Yes, train your soul this Lent by emptying your body of one small thing that it may know the fullness of God’s love in Jesus Christ. Or train your soul by meditating on the emptiness that has been created by one of those bullets. But remember that you are training your soul, so that on Easter Sunday, the love of the risen Jesus will fill your heart. Meanwhile, as you prepare to accept the reconciliation that Jesus makes between you and God, make that reconciliation in your family, your church, your community, your world. And in the words of my favorite Lenten hymn:

Then shall your light
Break forth as doth the morning;
Your health shall spring,
The friends you make shall bring
God’s glory bright,
Your way through life adorning;
And love shall be the prize.
Arise, arise,
Arise! and make a paradise!

Last Sunday of Epiphany

What has recently consumed the online community of evangelical Christians? Whether Rob Bell has left Christianity because he questions whether Mohandas Gandhi, the Indian prophet on nonviolence, is in Hell because, while he honored Jesus, he never became a “Christian.” His new book, Love Wins, hasn't even been published. But his promotional video questioning how many or how few will get into heaven or hell led to many evangelicals concluding that he has left the Christian faith. What a choice we seem to be left with here: truth or love. How easily we tear apart teaching and love in the church. Both are to be maintained.

We hear today of a great truth: that the glory of God was shining in Jesus Christ on the mountain where He was transfigured. That truth was handed on by Peter, an eyewitness, to those who listened to him and accepted his testimony. That handing on is what we call tradition. We need tradition to confirm the truth of God in Jesus Christ. But there is no greater truth than that God is love. And what God wants more than anything, is that each of us might be so intimate with God that we might “participate” in the very nature of God. Even more than our frightened obedience, God wants our hearts.

2nd Peter is a last testament from a man who probably didn’t have the opportunity to write a last testament before he was crucified upside-down. And “last testaments” like this one were understood in the Jewish community not to have been written by the person himself, but by a student of his who was faithfully handing on what he had heard from his master.

And so, it is likely that a Christian who had learned from Peter handed on Peter’s eyewitness testimony of what he and James and John had seen. And in this “handing on,” or tradition, we now have that eyewitness testimony that Jesus Christ came from God, and will come again.

But what was the divine purpose behind the Transfiguration? Was it for God to terrify us with his power? What is Jesus’ purpose in coming back? To settle the score with every sinner? Earlier in his letter, the author of 2nd Peter explained why Jesus came into this world. It wasn't to vindicate himself. He came for us. The Word of God, who was with God at the beginning, and is God, came for us.

He became a human being so that we might escape the corruption of this material world and share in the very nature of God (v.4). The author of 2nd Peter was responding to nay-sayers arguing that with the first generation of Christians now gone, it was clear that all those stories of Jesus were just "cleverly devised myths." But there were eyewitnesses to these events: Jesus' transfiguration, his crucifixion and his bodily resurrection.

From that testimony handed down to us, we know that our destiny is to share in the divine life and nature of God. And we can sense this sharing of God’s nature right now. What 2nd Peter calls the rising star of Christ in our hearts is there every day when we choose relationship over isolation; when we choose service over self seeking, when we choose faith and hope over fear and despair.

The tradition we hand on is not ultimately judgment but love. Any defense of truth that seeks first to “out” its enemies is not truth, for there is no love in that. We are about to begin the Lenten journey that culminates in the greatest act of unselfish love ever. The eyewitness to that love has been handed on to us. That is our Tradition: the power of love to pass through and conquer death and loneliness. Hand it on.