Boxing God

(originally preached on March 11, 2012)

Boxing God

Exodus 20:1-17

John 2:13-22

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and Peace.

We have a problem.  This is not a new problem.  This is an ancient problem.  Our problem is that life is risky.  Everywhere we go, life is risky.  It is at risk.

Farming is risky.  Weather, yields, speculation, prices, costs.  Farmers are at risk.

Business is risky.  Overhead, ventures, consumer confidence, the market.  Businesses are at risk.

Family is risky.  Health, money, employment, house, car, sex, kids, parents.  Families are at risk.

Wherever we are on life’s journey, life is risky.  It is at risk.

So it would be nice if religion were nice and stable and settled and solid and unmoving, a rock in the sand, a shelter in the storm, an anchor in the turbulent sea.  Since before the golden calf, we have wanted to craft a god that we can touch and hold and control and domesticate and turn to as something that will not yield in the midst of the risk and riskiness of life.

We want to box God in.  Something manageable would be nice, seeing how much of life is out of our control.  We want God settled, once and for all.

The recent forays into the prosperity gospel try and settle God.  They cast God in the role of the magic genie of the bank account.  If you have true faith, your blessings will multiply, and by blessings, they mean money.

Some forms of fundamentalism tries to settle God into a nice, snug, personal theology.  Once you get the formula down, you really don’t need to keep listening to God.  You are saved, and the rest is just unimportant.  Never mind justice, or care for those in need, or compassion for the enemy, the stranger, the foreigner.  Don’t worry about the prophets’ cries, or the harsher words of the Gospel.  Surely those are for the unsaved.

The problem with each of these attempts to make God less than risky is that they make God less than God.  

In the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke, Jesus goes in and overturns the tables of the moneychangers and drives out the sacrificial animals at the end of his ministry.  It is a narrative point that is being made.  It is part of the reason for his arrest his trial.  It underscores the tensions between the various religious movements and reformers of the day.  It is part of his triumphal entrance to Jerusalem, staged to draw attention, meant to get him in trouble.

John tells the story differently.  In John, the cleansing of the Temple comes at the beginning, right after calling his disciples, right after his first miracle at the wedding in Cana.  John is telling us that what is God is doing in Jesus stands in direct conflict, opposition and tension with religion as usual, and especially the attempts by Temple (or church) religion to settle God into a box.

John is going to remind us time and time again that Jesus is about a living relationship with God, even if that living relationship upsets the way we have always done it.

Life is risky.  So we turn to God, and we find out that God is risky!  Now what?

God has always been risky.  We just heard the Ten Commandments recited from Exodus.  These are not the final word of thou shalts and thou shalt nots.  These are the beginning of a new life with God.  These were not given to a people who were settled in as slaves in Egypt, or

who settled themselves in as masters in Jerusalem.  These are given to a people in the wilderness, who are on the risky pilgrimage from slavery to freedom.  These are words of a new covenant.  

Interestingly enough, if you back up a few verses, you find the people agreeing to the covenant before they have even heard what it is.  Some say that a people who have just come out of the brickyards of Pharaoh know that whatever the God who can bring them out of slavery offers

has got to be better.

    And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the LORD your God,

    who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

The relationship begins with the reminder that God saved them, brought them out, and is going before them.

The list goes on to say: Don’t settle for any lesser god than the one who saves, who brings out, who gives life and new life.  No lesser god than God, no idols, no ascribing God’s name to anything less than God, no signing God up for any agenda less than God’s own agenda (this is

what it means to use God’s name vainly).

From there we get the instructions for a pilgrim people.  You had no rest in the brickyards of Pharaoh.  Keep the sabbath, so that you may enjoy your relationship with God.

Honor your mother and your father.  They have been through much to get you here.  Without them, there is no you.

Other people are not a commodity, something to be used, someone from whom you can steal, someone whose relationships don’t matter.  To treat them this way is to declare that they are less than created in the image and likeness of God.  It demeans them, and it hurts yourself, and it denies God’s image.

Don’t forget that God provides all that you need, so quit eyeballing what your neighbor has.

These are the ways of walking with God.  Not a settled God, not a lesser god.  But the God who is able to save; the God who is able to carry us; the God who wants not sacrifice, but mercy; the God who is still speaking (as we say in the United Church of Christ).

Life is risky.  It is at risk.

But the God who will not settle for the way we have always done it, the God who makes all things new, promises God’s presence in the midst of whatever we face.

Sometimes Jesus calms the storm.  Sometimes he lets the storms rage, and he calms his brothers and sisters.

Life is at risk.  God is not settled.

God is faithful.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

God Remembers

(Originally preached February 26, 2012)

God Remembers
Genesis 9:8-17
Mark 1:9-15

Grace and Peace to you this morning. Grace and Peace.

     And the Spirit immediately
     drove him out into the wilderness.

Verse Twelve here is important for several reasons, not least of which
it tells us that we are reading the Gospel of Mark. When did it do
it? Immediately!

It serves as the transition between Jesus’ baptism and his temptation.
One moment, the heavens open up and the spirit descends like a dove
and Jesus hears the voice of God, “You are my beloved Son, in whom I
am well pleased.” (I don’t know about you, but I kinda like hearing
that in James Earl Jones’s voice.)

And immediately it is out into the wilderness, an unlivable place, for
temptations by the adversary.

From the height of spiritual connection to the depths of aloneness.

From the blessing of God to the temptations of Satan. Immediately.

There is something in Mark’s way of telling the story that reminds us
of our own lives. One minute things are great; the next minute we
find ourselves wrestling with old demons, or facing old temptations,
or hearing bad news. We know stories like this, don’t we?

But even as we focus on the immediately and the wilderness, I want us
to notice another word in there.

                   And the Spirit immediately
                   drove him out into the wilderness.

The wilderness is not without God. When Mark tells us that the Spirit
drove him out into the wilderness, we know that the wilderness will
not be devoid of meaning or purpose or the presence of God.

We get that when we read the Gospel. But when we are in the
wilderness ourselves, it can be easy to forget, can’t it? It can be
easy to be overwhelmed by the wilderness and not remember the Spirit
at work within us and around us.

Which brings us back to Noah.

Noah and his family have witnessed devastation we can barely imagine.
All that they have known, every person that they have known, destroyed
by the flood. We can understand a little better why after offering
sacrifices Noah planted a vineyard, made some wine and got hammered.
I am not encouraging drinking, especially not as a solution to
problems. But perhaps we can understand.

A friend of mine in college thought this was a terrible story. She
was right. I know we give kids Noah’s Arks to play with because they
have all the fun animals, but this story is pretty horrendous.

My friend finally wrapped her head around the story when she studied
art. She understood the frustration of an artist who creates a great
canvas of a painting, and realizes that it is no good. That there is
just one small corner of the painting worth saving. The story is no
less horrific, but it is a little more understandable.

Some have said that in the story of Noah we see God maturing. There
is regret after the destruction of the world by the flood. However
bad humanity had been, God says “never again will I flood the world.”

And God places God’s bow in the sky, the rainbow, as a sign of this
covenant, never again to destroy the world. But then we get this
strange verse that for many years I got wrong. I learned in Sunday
School that the rainbow was there to remind us of God’s love. But
that’s not what it says:

     When I bring clouds over the earth
     and the bow is seen in the clouds,
     I will remember my covenant which is
     between me and you and every
     living creature of all flesh;
     and the waters shall never again become a
     flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is
     in the clouds, I will look upon it and remember
     the everlasting covenant between God
     and every living creature of all flesh
     that is upon the earth.

The rainbow is not there to remind us. It is there to remind God!
This seems almost heretical to good Calvinists. God is the unmoved
mover! Why does God need a Post-It Note?!?!

If it were there simply to remind us, we might look on it and perhaps
pray or confess our sins or just say “ooh, pretty.”

But when we see it, and we remember that it is there to remind God,
then we have the opportunity to pray, but we also have the opportunity
to know, whatever wilderness we are in, that God remembers. Knowing
that this is a sign for God does not lessen its importance as a sign
for us. It brings us back to the awareness that God remembers.

And when we are in the wilderness, whether it is the wilderness of
grief, or of unemployment, or of illness, or of shame, we know that
God remembers.

God remembers our loved ones,
     even if they are gone from us.
God remembers that we are all children of God,
     even if we forget, or try to hide it.
God remembers that we are beloved,
     even if we feel unloved or unlovely.
God remembers that we belong to God,
     even if we are too much focused on the world or the wilderness.

Whatever your wilderness, whatever your temptations, whatever you
face, God knows you, and God loves you. And God remembers.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.

Seen and Known

(Originally preached Sunday morning, January 15, 2012)

Seen and Known

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

John 1:43-51

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and Peace.

In the Gospel of John, it is John the baptizer’s disciples who seek out Jesus, after John has testified to who he is.  Here Andrew is originally one of John’s follower.  When he finds Jesus, he goes and gets his brother, Simon, and they follow Jesus.  This morning we read the story just after that, where Jesus goes to Galilee, and there he finds Philip, and Philip goes and calls Nathanael.

It is interesting that in each of these two first stories, one person sees and hears Jesus, and goes and calls a brother or a friend to come and see and hear him for themselves.  Andrew goes and recruits Peter.  Philip recruits Nathanael.  Never doubt the importance of personal invitation.

Reading this story raises an important question:  What’s up with the fig tree?!!?

Jesus sees Nathanael, and calls him one without guile.  Surely it is only one without guile who would say out loud, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”  Not a very PC statement.  Not the sort of question good, polite types ask out loud.  Oh, those with guile still ask such questions.  They just don’t say them out loud!

Nathanael, who has never met Jesus before, says, “Do you know me?”

“Before Philip told you to come see me, I saw you under the fig tree.”

And with this Nathanael calls Jesus Rabbi and son of God and King of Israel. 

And so I ask again, what’s up with the fig tree?  Why does Jesus seeing Nathanael there warrant such effusive praise and merit such immediate devotion?

By now, most of you know how I operate.  If there is something we don't understand, go look it up.  Where else does the fig tree appear in the Gospel?  In the New Testament?  In the whole Bible?

Is the fig tree a messianic symbol?  Some dramatic reminder of covenant?  Some element of the exodus that will immediately draw the readers’ and hearers’ thoughts back to prior acts of salvation?

Fig trees were prevalent enough that it gets mentioned about as often as olive trees in the Bible.  But there is no great symbolic meaning to the fig tree.  It is not an allusion to some great sweeping story of faith.

Apparently the fig tree under which Nathanael was sitting was just a fig tree.  The point of the story, it turns out, is not that we know what the fig tree means.   I believe that the importance of this story comes in the fact that Nathanael knows which fig tree Jesus means.

We can imagine that sitting under the fig tree was the lowest point in Nathanael’s life.  Maybe that was where he prayed those deep prayers that only come with tears and wracking sobs.  Maybe under the fig tree is where Nathanael would go to bury his grief.

And he was seen.  Someone saw him in that moment when he was most vulnerable, least guarded, most human in all of its messiness.

We know why we guard ourselves from vulnerability: some would look on us in scorn; some would look on us with judgment; some might use our vulnerability against us.  And yet, when Nathanael was seen, it was different.  Because when Jesus saw Nathanael, he did not judge, he did not scorn, he did not use his vulnerability against him.  He called him.

In this calling is meaning and purpose, but there is also blessing and acceptance.

We distrust such grace, don’t we?  Anyone who has survived junior high school has learned how to guard their heart and not be vulnerable.

And yet, here is one who sees us as we are, warts and all.

Here is one who is well acquainted with our sorrow and our failings, our frustrations and our anger, and who looks at us still with the eyes of compassion.

I often wonder why the committee on the Lectionary chose to match certain texts together, and why to skip certain verses, like in this morning’s psalm.

I think in these skipped verses we find some of what Nathanael was feeling regarding being seen in the fig tree moments of his life.

Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?

Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend to heaven, thou art there!

If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there!
If I take the wings of the morning

and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there thy hand shall lead me,

and thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, "Let only darkness cover me,

and the light about me be night,"
even the darkness is not dark to thee,

the night is bright as the day;

for darkness is as light with thee.

It used to be that I read these lines as a teenager might: "I can't get away with anything!"  My perspective has changed.  I can remember these words in my prayers at guest housing at Children’s Hospital when Mira was recovering from her surgery.  The lowest places I have ever been, God has been there, whether I could see the grace or feel the presence or not.

            

That is why Nathanael is willing to praise and willing to follow.  Because he has been seen and he has been known, more fully than he knows himself, and in this he realizes that he is fully, completely, warts and all, loved.

And so are you.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Shhhhhhhh...

(Originally preached on Christmas Eve 2011)

Shhhhhhhhh…

Luke 2:1-20

Grace and Peace to you this evening.  Grace and Peace.

Shhhhhhhhh…  How many ways have we heard this?  And how many ways have we used it ourselves? 

We shush people in the theater who are talking, or have a cell phone, or who otherwise disturb our enjoyment.

          We shush people who say things we don't like to hear.

          We shush children who interrupt our adult seriousness.

          This night we celebrate another kind of shushing - we celebrate Mary shushing her baby.  Shhhhhhhh.  There is something in the shushing of a baby by a loving parent that says,

It will be okay. 

You can go to sleep.

I will be here when you wake.

          So Mary is shushing Jesus.  This impossible baby.  This baby born not of the normal means, intentionally or by accident.  This baby born out of the impossible promises of God.  This baby who will have something to say about the way the world tries to shush imagination and shush faithful obedience to anything but the ways of fear and death. 

          This impossible baby will have something to say about how the world shushes the prophets, and the poor, and women, and foreigners, and the faithful, and outcasts, and any who do not fit in, and any who are seen as a commodity and not human.

          This impossible baby will grow in the spirit and speak against such shushing.  He will speak a word of love for all, compassion for all, justice for all, mercy for all, food for all, homes for all, forgiveness for all, hope for all, a place for all.

          He will speak a word of peace to us in those moments when we are too fearful to speak. 

He will speak a word of grace to us in those moments when we are too guilty or ashamed to live. 

He will speak word of rebuke to all of those things that get in the way of living fully, loving deeply, serving joyfully.

          He will shush the wind and waves of the stormy sea.

          He will shush the unclean spirit that would wreck a person’s life.

          He will shush those who try and use religion as a weapon, as a way of denying human dignity or social justice or humane economics.

And the world will take offense.  The world will shush him.

          Religious people with too much at stake in the ways of the world will shush him, because they do not have enough trust in the power of God to bring new life.

          Military leaders will shush him, afraid of losing the tenuous control that fear and force provide.

          Politicos will shush him, fearing the empowerment of all people and the uncontrollable nature of a neighborhood where true compassion is practiced.

          His own family will shush him, fearing for his sanity.

          His right hand man will shush him, fearing for his safety.

Even his followers, then and now, will shush him, because we all have something vested in the world as we know it.  We all fear what we cannot control.  We all fear change.  We don’t want to admit that the world, as we always thought it was going to be, isn’t; and we don’t want to trust the world that is coming to be to anything beyond our own power and our need for control.

          And when the powers of fear and death gather to shush him finally; when his followers run away, shushing their own preaching of the kingdom, locking themselves in silence and fear; when the world tries to speak the final word, and that word is death, even death on a cross; In that silence, God will again speak an impossible word, do an impossible thing, unleash an impossible grace. 

And we will once again know what we receive tonight.

Tonight we receive this impossible child.

And if we listen carefully….

And if we still all those anxious thoughts for a moment….

Shhhhh…

Perhaps we too can hear the songs of angels.  Perhaps we too can hear a mother, shushing her child.  Perhaps we too can know the One who speaks an impossible word, and gives us life, and new life.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.