Sermon: "Story, Gospel, Art, Mission: Introducing St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians" (Part 1/6 - St. Paul and the Very Foolish Galatians)

"Story, Gospel, Art, Mission: Introducing St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians"

Preached at South Wedge Mission
Rochester, New York
2 June 2013
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Text: Galatians 1.1-24

Note: For the next six weeks, SWM will be using the lectionary's second lesson focus on Galatians as an opportunity to engage in a study of the epistle.  Because we are a new community, and a weekly Bible study is not possible at this time, I have modified the readings to include more of Galatians, and will be posting on this blog and in our SWM facebook group.  

The first in this series is longer, being an overall introduction to a basic hermeneutic of the epistle, basic historical background, and Luther's discerned theme of Gospel contra idolatry.  I've added artificial section headers to help guide intrepid readers.  Thanks to Saby Davis for transcribing this manuscript from the live audio (I had my hand smashed in a window and was unable to do further editing).  

~

-Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God our father, and from our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.

-That opening invocation that we use every week is actually the same wording that St. Paul uses either to open his letters or close his letters. Ah, St. Paul.  To some, an ass kicker.  To others, a major asshole.   

I. Why Paul? Letters as Story

-Now, since we’ve begun as a community, we’ve been focusing almost exclusively on Jesus -- his life, his death, and resurrection -- and now, post-Easter, he’s gone. And we’re kind of left, as the Church, trying to figure out what the heck to do. 

-And see, one of the main records we have of what the Church did -- and, unfortunately, what the church did wasn’t always great -- is through these letters, these epistles, of Paul.  I and the letters of Paul are really great, I think, but only when we read them, not as rulebooks, as they’re often cited, or as absolute statements of eternal doctrine, where, because he wrote this to one community, every community in every place and every time has to follow exactly what he’s saying. I don’t find that a very helpful approach. 

-Because, while Paul’s message is always constant about the gospel of Jesus Christ, he faces all these different situations between the Corinthians and the Romans and the Galatians and the Thessalonians and the Ephesians and the Colossians and all sorts of other people. And he has to tailor his message and responses to their particular issues, their particular gifts, and their particular questions.

-And so it’s helpful to see the Letters of Paul not so much as individual statements of theology, but as snapshots. As a whole, almost like a book written in letter form. If you’ve ever read Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther or Gilead by Marilyn Robinson, the Letters of Paul are written in a similar diary/letter form of storytelling. So you can think of them as stories within The Story. 

-Of course, it’s kind of frustrating because we only get the one side of the story. We get to see what Paul’s telling them -- well, basically, what they should do. But we don’t get to see what they wrote to him initially, and we don’t necessarily get to see what they wrote back to him.

-My favorite interpretation of this comes from a comedian named Eddie Izzard who does a schtick where the Corinthians write back to Paul and tell him to piss off. Because they’re so tired of him telling them what to do and giving them all these rules. It’s so arrogant, they say, that he thinks he should write to the entire town, and ‘who decided to be his penpal anyway?’ I would show you the video, but unfortunately the language prevents me from doing so. But you should definitely YouTube it. It’s really good -- and, I think, pretty accurate. 

-So the point is, Paul is not necessarily always a nice guy. Sometimes he gets really mad. In the Letter to the Galatians, especially, it’s kind of like you can envision Paul’s ‘angry dance’ like in the movie Footloose. This is his angry letter. He’s really mad. He calls them “foolish Galatians.” At one point, he says, “I wish that the people preaching you a different gospel would just castrate themselves. The ones trying to tell you to circumcise should just circumcise themselves.” Ouch all around.

-And it would very easy to see Paul as a big a-hole as a result. He says that “I wish you would become like me, and therefore follow the Gospel.” It sounds like he’s trying to promote himself and his way of seeing things. Certainly, lots of interpreters -- modern ones especially -- want to spin Paul as the creator of Christianity, where it’s really Paul imposing all this doctrine on top of Jesus. And maybe that’s kind of true. 

II. The Centrality of the Gospel

-But I think a charitable reading of Paul -- actually reading what Paul said and what Paul’s all about, especially when taking the letter as a whole -- yields a very different picture. Sure, Paul’s claiming divine revelation, as we heard today. He’s claiming that he didn’t learn this gospel from tradition. He’s like a hipster saying “I knew the gospel way back in the day, before I talked to Peter.” And then he goes to talk to Peter, James and John just to make sure they have the same story. He presents himself as if he’s got this original knowledge, this deep, fiery conviction that this is the truth. 

-But notice what the truth is that he proclaims, almost from the start of the letter: the good news of Jesus Christ, who was given as a sacrifice for our sins, and has redeemed us into a new creation.  All of reality is different -- it’s a new state of being. That’s what “gospel” meant in the ancient world: the gospel was this proclamation of good news. Like when the emperor conquered someplace, the herald would ride into town and say “Announcing the Gospel of Caesar: you are now under Roman control. Yaaaaay!” And everyone was (unenthused), like “Oh... yay.”
  
-So what Paul is essentially doing is being the herald for Jesus.  He walks right into Galatia, which is a big region in Northern Turkey, shouting “God has claimed you. The Kingdom of God is here. You are now under control of the Spirit. You are no longer slaves to the elemental powers of the world, to the Pagan deities, to yourselves, or to any other human authority. But you are slaves of Christ -- and therefore free before the world. You’ve been liberated. You’ve been liberated for a new life because of God’s action, because of what God has done for you.”

-So everything that Paul does, in fact, points back to Christ, and to this new creation, the destruction of the old Matrix of sin and death.  Of course, sometimes Paul gets in the way of his own revolution, because Paul can be a big personality. He’s charismatic, he’s obviously very fiery and sure of himself in that way that converts and zealous people often are. But he’s trying to use that, even in spite of himself, to point back to the reality of Jesus -- not to point back to himself. He even says, “if we preach a different gospel to you that’s different than that original message of salvation through Christ by the Cross, then you should not listen to us -- you shouldn’t even listen to an angel who says something different to you.” It’s pretty strong language. But Paul’s central concern is not the Gospel of Paul but the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

III. The Art of Law and Gospel

-One of the reasons that Martin Luther was so big on the Book of Galatians back in the day was that he thought it was one of the most useful books for learning to discern between what he called “law” and “gospel.” He said, “The whole art of reading scripture is really about discerning the law from the gospel -- finding the good news in every passage and distinguishing it from the law.” 

-We’ll get into a little bit more in the coming weeks, about what law and gospel actually are as we go through this.  But I want to say from the beginning that “law” is not necessarily rules. It can be, but it’s more a referral to the way we use things for ourselves - for our own selfish gain.  Or -- as a good Jew might say -- it’s another term for the dynamics of idolatry.  Saint Paul, as Luther observed, is more concerned about discovering the ways that we deceive each other in ourselves. By putting things -- whether it’s actions, beliefs, systems or objects -- and putting them in the place of God and making them all about ourselves: self-serving, self-promoting, self-justifying. 

-So Paul is very concerned that we see our human efforts to try to reach God, or to try to talk for God, or to try to somehow understand God on our own terms and understand that that will always end up as idolatry. Or -- as another Reformational guy that Lutherans don’t like very much, John Calvin, once said: “The heart is an idol factory.” It’s always finding things to use for its own aims, to stack the deck in its own favor, and then to use those same things to control other people in an effort to make safe its own delusions.   

-Calvin saw the Gospel as a set of spectacles that you put on to see creation rightly.  But see, Paul is trying to teach these Galatians the art of seeing rightly, sinking it deep into their flesh and bones, once and for all.  As if to say, "here is the Gospel. Learn how to recognize the truth -- the truth that will set you free, the truth that has liberated you, the truth of how things really are -- and distinguish the truth from these false teachings of these people who really just want to use you or try to get you to use yourself, to make yourself the center instead of Christ.  Oh, and its an art - not an equation."  

IV. Idol Jealousy

-Now, that’s kind of a tall order from some guy who for the most part spends the first chapter of his letter talking about himself, right? I mean, most of this chapter is a story, and it’s about Paul and how he got this original revelation. And -- again, like I said -- he has this tone of “even Peter and James, the original Apostles, agree with me!” And so it would be very easy to say, again, that Paul is a self-centered, arrogant jerk. But Paul is very intent on putting his story in the message because, for him, this is not just a theory. It’s not just some knowledge he picked up out of a book. It’s not something he bought at Barnes & Noble.  

-But it’s deeper than that.  Paul is in love with God.  He has zeal for God.  And see, “Zeal” in the Bible actually means jealousy. When God says “I am jealous for my people,” it means He’s passionately in love with them and doesn’t want anybody else to have a go at them.  Likewise, Paul wants to make sure that the name of God is glorified. And, as any good Jew knows, the most problematic thing in terms of trying to know God -- throughout the history of Judaism and the whole world -- is the temptation of idolatry. The temptation to set up other gods other than the one who the Israelites called YHWH - a name so holy you shouldn’t even dare to pronounce it.  

-But that’s the point: the creator, the one who claimed Israel and said “You are my people. Now tell everybody how I created the world. And how I intended good for the world, and how I am a god for all nations.” Versus, say, the Pagan gods, who often were not the creators and were very fickle and were arguing with each other and required all these sacrifices -- sometimes child sacrifices -- and required you to do all sorts of embarrassing things in order to maybe win their favor. Paul, in his letter later, calls them “the elemental powers of the world.” 

-In Galatia in particular, idolatry was a huge problem, because Galatia was a conquered province. The Galatians really wanted to show the Romans that they were cool, that they weren’t rebelling, that they were all-in. And so they worshipped the emperor hardcore there. Emperor worship was huge. Every time you went into the marketplace, you sprinkled a little incense by the statue of the emperor in order to gain entrance; all the coinage had the emperor’s picture on it; and you were pretty much required to give a pledge of allegiance to the Gospel of the Emperor. 

-So, to become a Christian in this environment, to oppose this kind of nationalistic idolatry, meant that you put yourself at risk. It meant that you identified as someone who not only couldn’t participate in the regular economy and commerce of the life and culture around you, but you were also seen as a threat. Because, as much as the emperor wants to seem like he loves everyone, he actually wants to kill anybody who doesn’t listen to him. So, when you say “Jesus is God and Caesar is not” it’s kind of like saying “I’m not gonna pay my taxes to the IRS. I’m not gonna listen to the mayor. I’m not going to pay into the power grid, like the Amish.” It was really setting yourself apart and setting yourself up -- not for happiness and prosperity, but for a lot of pain. And a lot of conflict. 

-And so, when this new faction comes along - these Judaizers, these Jewish Christians who want to teach people to get circumcised -- it was a pretty convenient thing for the people of Galatia. Because it meant that if they got circumcised, they got in on the Jewish exemption.  Because Jews were allowed to not worship the emperor - because the emperor kind of liked them. They were this kind of quirky, quaint little people on the margins. 

-So what’s really going on here is not this idea that ‘circumcision is really good’; instead, it’s actually more just a case of using doctrine in the service of another kind of idolatry and compromise. And Paul is saying to them: “Look, it might seem really easy.  But I birthed you” -- throughout the letter, Paul uses this very feminine language of childbirth and cultivating -- “I brought you up; I formed you; I created you.” You’d think Paul would want to protect them and say “Yeah, go ahead and get circumcized. I’m a good Jew. Be like me, and at the same time spare yourself from getting killed.” 

-But Paul is more concerned about defending and promoting and preaching the true Gospel -- even it costs him and his followers so much culturally. He’s concerned that they know this, because if you start worshipping the emperor, if you start believing that it’s your own action that somehow wins you favor with God, then it not only puts you in a tough bind -- because as soon as the emperor doesn’t like you anymore, then you’re dead; or, if you stop being obedient, then you’re in trouble. But also, if you follow one of these idols and you follow their ‘idol promises,’ you’re going to get let down. Because a piece of wood can’t keep its promise. And neither does an emperor. Paul wants you to follow the one true God, the one who created the world, who has the power to save you, and who has acted on your behalf through Jesus Christ -- very different gospels. One is completely capricious and dependent on human endeavor and human promises that can be broken. The other comes from God.

V. Broken Lives Trump Pretty Lies

-Paul uses his story to drive this home.  His story of having gone from being very zealous and very religious and very convicted -- he had everything right, in his eyes --  and using that power and that conviction to kill and destroy the Church.  As a good Jew, he sees somebody and says “He thinks he’s God; that’s no good; I’m gonna kill him.” But Paul tells the story of how he was wrong, how he got it wrong because he was more concerned with protecting traditions than discovering the revelation of the living God entering into his midst and liberating him. 

-And it’s striking to me that when Paul tells the story of trying to counteract idolatry, he tells the story of his biggest character flaw: “I murdered people; I systematically tried to destroy the Church; I was a bad dude. And that -- that transformation that God worked in me, that liberation from being a murderous person, that liberation from being a jerk -- that’s how God is using me to spread the Gospel.” 

-See, God destroys idolatry not by giving us a better theory or a new practice, but by transforming our lives by entering into our midst and destroying the idols that keep us from God. And by opening us up to this whole new way of being. And he does it, not by teaching us things that we can hold over other people, but by leveling us, so that we may no longer think that we are God or have any claim to set up idols in God’s place. 

-It’s kind of a raw deal, right? I mean, let’s say that becoming Christian means you don’t get to shop at the mall anymore, you get persecuted and potentially killed, and you have to have all of your self-delusions and self-importance and idols and everything else you care about destroyed too boot. That’s not exactly a promise of prosperity, power and hope! And yet, that’s the Gospel -- that’s why Paul is so convicted about it. That’s why he gets so angry. Because as our Message translation says, “They’re selling you a non-Gospel, an empty lie about God” -- the lie that God doesn’t demand everything of us, that God doesn’t want our whole being, our whole heart, mind, and soul; and that God’s okay when we kind of take time for ourselves and start acting more selfishly towards one another. Or when we start giving all of our time and attention to the Facebook gods or to the TV gods or to our own ideas of justice or of what being progressive or being conservative means to us. 

-Or even being a good Lutheran. God does not care about that as much as God cares about the heart. And God will continue to demolish idols and calls us to be people who are willing to demolish idols -- not with violence, not with force, not even with argument and convincing, but by looking within our own hearts, our own story. By talking about our own struggles and proclaiming and testifying to the ways that God has made us a new creation too. 

VI. So What?

-Now maybe some of us -- myself included -- have not yet fully lived into what it means to be a new creation. Maybe you’re here thinking “What’s all this Jesus-Gospel-exclusive stuff? I thought we were going to talk about God.” Or “I’m spiritual but not religious.” And that’s totally cool.  I’m responsible for what you hear, not what you believe.  

-But one of the things that I think Paul is concerned with, and one of the things that I want to be exploring during this time of studying Galatians, is how we can see where God might be trying to be break into our lives in our own stories -- sometimes in beautiful ways. Maybe there’s this moment of epiphany, where the world is gorgeous and you’re just so convicted of the presence of a God. And it leads you to ask the question, “Who is this God who has created me and is doing amazing things?” 

-Or, maybe you’ve been a Christian for a long time like me, and God has kind of become something you take for granted, a kind of rote tradition. And you’re wondering, “How can I go deeper into this story and make it my own and start living out of it? Maybe I can start taking some risks by withdrawing from some of the idols and cultural practices and things that ensnare me or lead me astray.” 

-Or maybe you just don’t know what to think. And you’re just going to fall on your knees and say, “God, show me my next step. I need a higher power because I can’t do this on my own.” But regardless, what gives me comfort in this scripture about Paul’s letters is not just that Paul is a badass and kind of an asshole who became a badass, but also that the very letter itself is included in the Bible -- the fact that the Bible includes these letters where Paul is wrestling and arguing with people... It’s not perfect. He doesn’t just say, “Let me tell you how perfect you are, and here’s all the good things you did,” which would put us sinners in quite a bind. 

-But the Bible itself is the testimony of people wrestling together, asking questions, making mistakes, seeking God -- sometimes compromising, sometimes doing a great job -- but always wrestling with this central gospel: this central claim that there is one God, that this God is the creator, and that -- to us -- God has acted in the person of Christ in order to liberate us, to liberate all people, and to bring us into a new creation where we can live fully and -- most importantly -- live as free children of God who are liberated to love one another. 

VII. Story, Art, Gospel, Mission

-So, over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to unpack that. We’re going to slow it down and go through some of the aspects of this story that I’ve spun out today. Again, we always take a little longer at the beginning to kind of set the table. 

-But, again and again, I think the point of studying and wrestling with scripture and with one another is less to come to some sort of rational knowledge of facts and doctrines. It’s more like listening to music.  Learning to know the sound and the style of the truth.  So much that we can recognize it being played, not just in Scripture, but in the world around us, in others’ stories, and in our own.  

-This art, this way of listening to the music of the Gospel, is to continually ask of the scripture and let the scripture teach us: what is really the Gospel? What are ways I’m using the world, using people -- maybe even using the Bible -- as an idol to justify myself? How do we discern God’s work in the world? How do we see where the Gospel is breaking through? How do we discover where God is happening? How can we tell the story of reality correctly - and our own stories too?  And how do we recognize where we and other people are ensnared in systems that say “Somehow, you need to do something to be valuable to God,” when in actuality God has already made you infinitely valuable, and has called you, claimed you, and is leading you into this mission that we share. 

-I was thinking that it would be good to do a study on mission or something, but what I realize with the South Wedge Mission is that, to be a mission, we need to understand who we are in God, who God is for us, and what God is calling us to do around the Gospel. The mission will follow. But for now, it’s enough to continue to ask ourselves, “Where is God happening? Where do we see idolatry? Where do we see signs of God exploding all of our preconceptions?”  

-Because mission, in the end, may just be this kind of learning - learning the art of seeing and hearing the Gospel in the world around us, and witnessing to what it's up to in the stories and lives and vocations and arts all around us.  

-And, if we follow humbly and with much trust and faith, we will find mystery and magic and adventure and mission -- and the unbreakable, undying eternal promise of God in Christ Jesus.  St. Paul would have been pleased with nothing less.   

-Amen.  

Sermon: "(NOT AN) Accidental Christian"

"(NOT AN) Accidental Christian"

Preached at: South Wedge Mission
Rochester, New York
Third Sunday in Easter
14 April 2013

Day Texts: Acts 9.1-20
Psalm 30
Revelation 5.11-14
Luke 21.1-19

-This is one of those week’s I’m really thankful that the Bible is not just a rule book, or a formula for being “a good person.”  Because just think of the absurdities that would come of it!  “If you want a really good fish fry with Jesus, then do the following: 

1. Stay up all night fishing and utterly fail to catch anything.  
2. Perform A) while naked with your friends.  
3. Get dressed before swimming to shore when Jesus shows up.”

-Yikes.  Incidentally, I’m totally intrigued by the fact that Peter starts off naked, but then, strangely, puts his clothes back on in order to swim to shore.  And then he totally goes into Beast Mode.  Swimming all the way to shore - in his clothes! - and then, when the boat arrives, he somehow hauls ashore a net filled with large fish.  By himself.  A net that the others couldn’t budge together.  

-This is the same Peter who, as you may recall, who earlier in his career as disciple-least-likely-to-succeed, tries walking on water.  And sinks.  The same Peter who is told “get behind me Satan!”  The same Peter who, only days earlier, had betrayed his Lord and friend, not once or twice, but three times.  

-Maybe the truly offensive thing about taking this passage as a formula for redemption would run more like this:

1. Utterly fail.
2. Be completely unworthy.
3. Be called again by Jesus to feed His sheep.

-That’s far more offensive than a little nudity on the sea.  As offensive as our other star today, St. Paul, being called as the apostle to the Gentiles.  In spite of being a mass murdering jihadist for the Jewish authorities.  In spite of being, well, kind of an asshole, even after he is blinded and restored to sight.  

-But see, that’s the God we have.  And that’s the Church God’s called.  Murderers like Paul.  Cowards like Peter.  Doubters like Thomas.  Power-mongers like the Sons of Zebedee.  This little boat of fishers is a veritable rogues gallery of rejects.  This little boat is the first in God’s fishing fleet, the church.

-That’s offensive.  And so often, we are right to take offense at this completely insane experiment called “church.”  Because even a cursory glimpse at even the most favorable volume of church history reveals a deeply troubling prospect.  We don’t need to - nor could we - recount the vast litany of utter depravity and horrible attrocities committed by the sheep of Jesus and Peter.  The sex abuse scandals.  Murder of heretics.  Interdenominational warfare, whether physical or theological.  Exclusion, enslavement, exploitation, subjugation and violence.  Makes people’s claims today that the church is “hypocritical” kind of look like little foibles comparatively. 

-There is no denying that the church is messed up.  And let me be clear: none of this is right.  The church needs to be held accountable.  WE need to be held accountable.  And the church needs to repent and be saved.  The gates of hell may never prevail against it.  But they sure as hell seem to have scaled the walls and set fire the peasant villages.

-And yet, I’m kind of tired of apologizing for the church.  I’m tired of hearing sermons that start out with promises like, “we all know that THOSE OTHER Christians (usually conservative and evangelical) are hateful, but WE are not like them,” or, “unlike some OTHER liberals, WE are biblical and orthodox;” or “if only THEY knew how to be open and accepting and progressive.  Just like US.”

-See, I’m tired of Christians acting like, somehow, we’re any better than Peter and Paul.  Sick of somehow trying to distance ourselves from people who do really awful things.  Because, if we’re honest with ourselves, we aren’t that different.  We may not have the power or influence to cause damage on such massive scales.  But last time I checked, we were all sinners.  Last time I checked, that’s what makes it the church.

-Last time I checked, Jesus calls complete assholes, like Peter, and Paul, because Christ came to save sinners.  And too often, we set ourselves up as somehow distinct and separate from our brothers and sisters in Christ, almost always, based on some standard we have invented.  We read a few issues of Sojourners or Brian McLaren, and suddenly, we are experts on who is not socially active enough, or who is more judgmental than we are.  We go to a few Bible studies, and suddenly, we know that our conservative or liberal opponents somehow are way off, and that only WE have the right answer.

-In our rush to somehow maintain an image of the church or of ourselves that makes us look “not like those people,” I think we miss out on so much more. We miss out on the Gospel.  And on our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Even if their names are Fred Phelps, or Julius II, or Ted Haggard.  Or Matthew Nickoloff.  Or you.

-See, it makes me think of that recent country song by Brad Paisley that’s caused such a stir lately.  It’s called “Accidental Racist,” and in it, Paisley sings a duet with rap artist LL Cool J, trying to convince his black conversation partner that, no matter what his confederate flag t-shirt meant a century ago, today, it’s just a sign of southern pride.  Absurdly, Cool J responds, “if you forgive my gold chains, I’ll forgive the iron chains.”  Pretty good deal for Paisley.

-But the song is about distancing.  Paisley can distance himself, not only from facing his own racism, but also from the failures of his family and people in the past, claiming, “I’m not THAT kind of Southerner.  If my t-shirt makes you feel oppressed, it’s your problem. I’m only accidentally racist.”

-And see, whether we admit or not, I think the church is like that too.  “We’re only ‘accidentally‘ church, but forgive us for having crappy ancestors, and we’ll let you off the hook of the Gospel.”  Or, "we're not that kind of Christian.  We love Jesus, but we're only accidentally associated with his followers."    

-But brothers and sisters, we are not accidentally Christian, anymore than we are not accidentally racist, hypocritical, bloodthirsty, or, in a word, sinners.  This is the Church.  Love him or hate him, Fred Phelps and his bigoted Kansas posse are our brothers and sisters.  We cannot say “we’re not THAT kind of church.”  We are.  There is only one church.  And it is the communion of saints.  Who also happen to be lousy sinners.

-We would not be here tonight if you were not a lousy sinner too.  If we weren’t aware, at some level, of our deep need for a word of grace and forgiveness, for a force bigger than ourselves to save us from ourselves.  Trust me, I wouldn’t be here, and neither would you, on this little ship of fools, taking us to the island of misfit toys, unless I was eff’d up.  Unless I was like Peter.  Or Paul.  Or Freddie.

-But Peter, and Paul, and Fred Phelps too, are the reason Christ has come.  Christ lived among them, making them his friends.  Christ died, at their hands and by their failures, and Christ died, descended into hell, and rose again, in order to call them to receive the promise and the truth. The truth that, as Paul would later write in Romans, that “Christ died to save sinners.”  And to make us into something new.

-I’m not ashamed of the church, though often, I am ashamed of her actions.  But the only way the Gospel of Jesus Christ truly is good news is if the church is in fact made up, not of those who have by their own efforts and virtue achieved some form of enlightenment.  It only works if its the church of Peter and Paul.  If its a church of sinners.  But sinners in the hands of a gracious God.

-And just look at what this God can do.  He can take the murderer, Paul, and take someone bent on ethnic cleansing and purification, and use him to be the chief apostle to the Gentiles, the outsiders, and as passionate an advocate for radical inclusion as has ever been seen.  

-And God can take Peter.  Let’s hear Peter’s story again.  Peter is naked on the boat.  And he hear’s Jesus voice.  And he realizes he is naked.  Sound familiar?  Like that first man, that first sinner, Adam, God’s call makes him aware of his vulnerability and imperfection.  Yet, this time, Peter is not ashamed or afraid.  Yes, he still gets dressed to swim ashore, but this time, when God calls, Peter responds.  Urgently, eagerly.  The barrier of shame between God and humanity is slipping away.

-And remember, the last time Peter jumped in the water after Jesus, he sank.  Now he is an olympic caliber swimmer.  The failures that terrified and embarassed Peter are gone.  This is a new man, no longer in need of miracles or looking to impress Jesus and the others.  He just swims.  Enters the waters.  All the way to Jesus.

-And then, of course, the end of the story.  When Jesus asks Peter three times to profess his love.  Mirroring three times of denial.  Restoring Peter to relationship.  Not ignoring the failures and the faults of the past.  But, it almost seems, stripping him naked spiritually, so that, facing his failures and faults so un-judged and named and then transformed, Peter is recognized as fit to feed the sheep.  Because, as my mentor Nadia preached at my ordination, “only a forgiven sinner can preach the Gospel.”  And care for broken too.

-That’s who we are.  Peter’s story is our story.  Sinners, lost on the waters, called in spite of our utter unworthiness, to face the Love of Jesus, and so be made fit to feed the lambs of the world.  The church may never live up to its billing if we are waiting for it to become perfect.  But if we are looking for it to be a place where broken things are being made new, well, then its good news.  Then grace is true.  Then, we can have hope.

-So go.  Be sinners.  Let us face our nakedness and shame and failures.  And yes, let us claim even the most horrific bastards in God’s family and the greatest brokenness we’ve perpetrated.  Let us not accept them as the final word.  But let us see them as the promise that, indeed, none of us, no human being, is accidentally beloved of God.  

-That’s the church we have.  You are that kind of Christian.  That’s the naked, offensive truth.  And that’s hard.  But it’s also really, very, truly, Good News.   

-Amen.  

Sermon: "The End of the Binge, or, Jesus is My Time-Lord and Savior"

"The End of the Binge, or, Jesus is My Time-Lord and Savior"

Preached at South Wedge Mission
Rochester, New York
Fifth Sunday of Easter
28 April 2013

Day Texts: Psalm 148
Revelation 21.1-6
John 13.31-35

"The end of the binge is the beginning of the story." -Jonathan Franzen

~

Caveat: I understand the irony in a sermon about time being the longest I've written in awhile.  During service it clocked in at 15:30.  That being said, the following is a transcription of that proclamation, which seemed to be the most well-received in awhile.  So there it is.  Enjoy it.  You've got time:)  

-SO. Here’s a phrase I bet you’ve never, ever, EVER heard, here in Rochester, or anywhere else.  Here goes: “Well, you know, I’d love to get together, but you know, I’m just so busy right now.”  Ever heard it?  It’s like the communal chorus of our collective life here, the theme that carries us all along day in and day out.  

-”It’s so busy right now.”  Even when we’re not actually doing anything, it feels like we’re still compelled to say “I’m just so busy,” if only because we so often feel busy.  All the time.  Even sitting still.  Even with so much going on in our heads.  So much information entering our lives.  So much happening.  And so we feel a sense of urgency, even anxiety.  Even when we’re just chillin’ - we’re busy.  

-But how fitting, at least, in light of today’s text from the Apocalypse of John.  When we hear that Jesus is the “Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End.”  Jesus is related inextricably with time.  He is the master of time.  Perhaps there’s a sense in which we could even call him a...TIME LORD?  

-For those of you who aren’t Doctor Who geeks, that’s what the time-traveling do-gooder bow-tie sporting hero of the show is.  And so is Christ.  Jesus is our Time Lord and Savior.  The Crucified Lamb is also the ruler and the God of Time.

-Now don’t worry, we’re saving a “Doctor Who-charist” for November, when the 50th Anniversary special comes out.  But Jesus-as-Time-Lord - its really not a category I think about very much.  Jesus is the beginning and the end.  He holds all of space and all of time in his scarred hands.

-Now, in troubled times like ours - times of bombings and explosions and rumors of wars and of church closings, like our predecessors Peace Lutheran did this morning - I do hear quite a lot of talk about Jesus as the hope of new beginnings.  Before he unveils his Time Lord nature, Jesus says, “Behold I am making all things new!”  And in an age of unprecedented technological progress and unspeakable horrors, it’s natural to long for the newness resurrection promises.  To move on from past atrocities.  

-Novelty’s like this way of life for us now; new experiences, moving every couple years, fresh starts, new jobs, the latest Apple products, the most recent episode.  A new church perhaps.  Or a new cause, to help make the world, and ourselves, better.  Jesus as Alpha is welcome news indeed.  And not just to those of us in Rochester hoping that this the week the Spring sticks around.

-But what of Jesus as Omega?  Jesus is the End.  Not just the beginning.  But the final note.  See, God in Christ Jesus through the Spirit did not only shape the world and create human beings in God’s image and breathe into them the breath of life.  God in Christ Jesus also brings the story to its conclusion.  Before we get “a new heaven and a new earth and a new Jerusalem,” we face the hard truth that “everything old has passed away.”  That Jesus is also an Ending.

-And that’s hard to face, right?  I mean, even Doctor Who struggles with ending.  Often when he’s about to regenerate and get a brand new life, the version of the Doctor who’s about to die really laments having to pass away.  He has to go through a painful transformation to become someone new, as well as to continue on as somehow the same.  There is a sense of loss and grief.

-And if we’re honest with ourselves, I wonder if we too share this deeply paradoxical relationship to endings.  Yes, we want newness.  But we also struggle with how to stop.  How to end.  We don’t just watch an episode.  We binge and mainline them, five or six at a time, only stopping when our retinas spontaneously combust.  We drink craft beer after craft beer, as if the fact that we are drinking good beer from our basement or brewery instead of Labatt’s somehow makes it less of a precursor to alcoholism.  So we just have one more, and it’s ok.  Or, we keep signing and signing up for cause after cause, because Metro Justice, and St. Joe’s, and South Wedge Mission, and Grow Green, etc etc are all so worthy, and in spite of how many times we save the world...we have this urge to save it again, lest we stop feeling useful or needed.  

-And at least for me, and maybe you too, its so hard to draw a boundary.  A limit.  To accept an ending.  And suddenly, we are so busy with compulsions, addictions, and schedules so full of doing things we ultimately don’t want to do, that we find we are without the time we so deeply crave to pursue the things that we do want.  Connection.  Intimacy.  And relationship.  A sense of place and settledness.

-See, I wonder if, in our basic human fear of endings, and of missing out, I wonder if we’ve forgotten how to embrace endings.  Perhaps our constant questing after novelty has led us to fear losing something new, while also avoiding ending that old thing that’s keeping us from the new thing.  Which, if we’re honest, is actually, usually, something quite old.  Something lasting.  And important.  And real.

-In this networked reality of compulsions and addictive thought processes and nihilisms and proxies, eroding our minds and stunting our spirits - well, that’s where, for me, Jesus as Omega - Jesus as Ending - that sounds like really good news to me.

-This past weekend, I had the privilege to worship at one of our sister mission starts, another Lutheran church in Brooklyn started by my friend Ben.  It’s called Parables, (they’re the ones we stole the idea to do the art night with Bogs during Lent).  The purpose of the event on Friday was to communally create folk hymns for use during worship.  Pretty awesome. 

-As we talked about music and reflected on this text from Revelation, one of the musicians in the group noted how important it was to have beginnings and endings.  Music is as much knowing when to stop as it is to start; as much about intentional silence as it is improvised notes.  Its the ending of a song that makes it a song.  Makes it something we can then remember, and hold on to, and cherish, and sing, and share, and pass on.  Endings give form.  Endings make singing possible.

-We’ve all heard a speech, or a story, or even a sermon where we’re thinking “if only that had ended five minutes ago, I might have remembered the good stuff he said?”  Right?  Never here, of course!  It’s the limits, the boundaries, that enable us to recognize, to consider, to enjoy.  To realize that pauses, and silence, and ending, are as much an art as saying, playing, and starting.  That’s what gives shape to songs, and poems, and even relationships.  Knowing where I end and you begin.  Suddenly we have something to share, rather than it all blending together.  

-And see, Jesus the Omega, Jesus the Time Lord, Jesus teaches us how to end.  He points us, in fact, to our truest and best end.  And that end is not us, or our compulsions or our desires.  It is Himself.  And through Him, to God.  And to one another.  

-And the means to achieving these ends is not a mediating technology.  It’s relationship.  It’s that great commandment at the end of our Gospel today.  “Love one another.”  And love God.

-Jesus is the ending, the Omega, first of all, because in the cross of Christ, Jesus has shown us the ending of all human endeavors to avoid endings.  The holes driven into his hands and feet by the nails are like periods, declaring, “it is finished.”  It’s not an option people.  When you avoid ending - when you try to prolong yourself or your desires or pleasure or power beyond their endings, it ends like this.  With death.  And, when you face human sinfulness, human fear, human scarcity, human idolatry, human complusion - all of these are here forth done.  This where they end.  With me.  And the cross.  

-But Jesus also shows us THE Ending.  Of the story.  Of the world.  The true end towards which we’re all traveling.  Towards a new heaven.  And a new earth.  The Ending which is also a true Beginning.  The Omega which is truly and forever Alpha. 

-See, in this ending, everything passes away.  The Old Jerusalem and its temple, the divine center of the universe, is gone.  These structures which mediate our relationships and our experiences that we thought were eternal and inevitable?  Gone. The old earth, with all of its beauties and wonders and all of its warfare and damage, is gone.  Even the old heaven, with all of our old hopes and dreams, is gone.  It is ended.  And Jesus, not any effort of human progress, no loaded schedule, no networking, brings it about.

-But notice what does remain.  What remains are the people of God.  And the trees that are for the healing and reconciliation of all the peoples together.  And the Time Lord, standing among his countless companions of every age.  What remains, in the end, to begin the new creation, are relationships. The people.  Our being-with God.  Our being-with each other.  Our being-with our enemies.

-And if what remains in the end are our relationships. and not how many hours we’ve logged on facebook, or volunteering, or playing Halo, or even watching Doctor Who - if our Omega is the Alpha, a new beginning freed of the old compulsions, centered on Jesus, a time when every tear will be wiped away and reconciliation, not distraction, is the name of the game, then I wonder: how does this challenge us today?  

-If God is truly shaping a reality in which “God will dwell with God’s people,” and people and relationships are the everlasting center, then what, in this time between Alpha and Omega, needs to die in our every day lives?  What might Jesus be declaring an Ending over, what is he begging and inviting us to stop, so that we might receive the gift of time to live for what is truly beloved in God’s heart?

-See, one thing I think Jesus has promised is that there will always be time for faithfulness.  And in particular, Jesus, the Lord of Time, will always give us enough space between the Alpha and the Omega to fulfill His commandment: “love one another.”  

-Because when we are loving only ourselves, time seems to disappear, seems to become scarce.  There is never enough.  But when we endeavor, trusting the promises and commandments of God, to place people at the center of our lives, to say NO to that which enslaves us and YES to that which is eternal, then we will discover, again and again, that life suddenly becomes very long, very fecund, very abundant, very real.  Because we are drawn into loving those things that Jesus loves. 

-And maybe you’ve had a taste of that.  That time when you unplug and step back.  Or you take time to have breakfast for a friend.  Or to pray and sit in silence in the midst of an urgent time - take time to be present to how God is busy in the world, and not just ourselves.  And suddenly it feels like those five short minutes of stillness stretch into an almost unbearable eternity.  Or that short conversation you tried to sneak in finds its ending two hours later.  And so much life has happened - life can be so long and full, when we follow faithfully.  

-God promises: there will always be enough time for the things that God loves.  And who God ultimate loves...is you.  And me.  And people.  And the creation.  God loves people so much that God is willing to end even the heavens and the temple, so that relationship may last forever.  

-And it will feel like an Omega.  An Ending.  A loss.  The old heaven and earth, the promise of infinite information, endless stimulation, and excessive intimacy, will have to go.  We will have to say no to certain things in order to say yes to others.  And we’re gonna need each other to make ourselves actually do it.  To be courageous enough to accept God’s gift.

-But as author Jonathan Franzen once wrote, “the end of the binge is the beginning of the story.”  The Omega of the old creation is also the Alpha of the new.  We will discover new depths of space and new dimensions of time, within ourselves, our world, and our God.  God has given us all the time in the world for one another.  God is making God’s home here, among us, among mortals.  Among people.  It’s there we’ll find the time, the intimacy and the love for which we long.

-See, that’s the song worth singing.  The ending worth accepting.  The beginning worth pursuing.  We will live fully in this presence, where the world, our place in it, and our time, will be truly occupied.  In a way that is worth cherishing.  In a way worth committing to.  In a way that can only be a gift.  And the best is yet to come.   

-Amen.   

Sermon: "The Isaiah Sutra," or, Jesus' Dharma of Delight

"The Isaiah Sutra, or, Jesus' Dharma of Delight"

Preached at South Wedge Mission
Rochester, New York
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Webster, New York
Third Sunday in Lent
3 March 2013

Day Texts: Isaiah 55.1-9
Psalm 63.1-8
1 Corinthians 10.1-13
Luke 13.1-9

~

-“Why do you spend your money for that whcih is not bread, and your labor for that whcih does not satisfy?”

-These exact words jack-hammered into my brain as the dentists’ drill descended into my teeth to seal the first of thirteen cavities.  Why, exactly, have I been pouring my spare change and my appetite into Coca-Cola, and Dr Pepper, and French Fries, and Starbucks Iced Chai - with soy mind you! - when all they will bring me is further craving, increasingly uncontrollable and distorted desire, and an empty wallet?

-Strange as it might seem, much of my spiritual nourishment this Lent as come from journeying with the Buddha.  I’m still a firm believer in the salfivific power of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Incarnation of the Trinity, etc etc.  But I like to imagine that, every time I attain an insight via the dharma into the fullness of the shalom of salvation, somewhere in the infinitude of the cosmos, the Buddha and Jesus are giving each other the ol’ high-five.

-See, Buddha, along with many Christian contemplative monastic masters like St. Anthony of the desert, St Gregory of Palamas, St John of the Cross, and so forth, taught that the first step towards living fully in God - and also, btw, cavity-free! - was to enter into a struggle for right appetite and desire.  Namely, towards sensual things.  Towards food items of various sorts.  Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn, who I had the honor of meditating with when I lived in Denver, has this to say:

Much of our suffering comes from not eating mindfully.  We have to learn ways to eat that preserve the health and well-being of our body and our spirit.  When we smoke, drink, or consume toxins, we are eating our own lungs, livers and heart.  If we have children and do these things, we are eating our chilldrens’ flesh.  Our children need us to be healthy and strong.


-Now look.  I’m no about to go imposing unneccesary or unreasonable dietary standards on anyone.  We are loved and claimed by God because of the cross of Christ, regardless of who we are, or what we eat.  Period.  End of story.

-And yet, I cannot help but be compelled by the logic of our Buddhist brothers and sisters.  The more I study their works and pray their prayers, the more I am convicted.  That spiritual practices - like Lent, for example - are given to us.  As gifts of our baptism. Not to make us miserable, or to lead us into times of mortification.  But are in fact presents.  Gifts.  Guideposts.  That lead us into a more healthy, a fresher, a more full and “shalom”-orietned way of being in the world.  A pathway to walking in the light, as He is in the light.  Not just to say “don’t be bad.”  But also, as an offering.  “Try this.  Be alive.”

-See, the prophet Isaiah doesn’t just exhort us today to avoid messing up or dying.  So much of our culture is fear-based like that.  Just drive down Ridge Road or 490 and see all the billboards promising us a better future, or, at least, a more protected one.  No, Isaiah says, quite clearly: “incline your ear and come to me; listen, so that you might live.”  It seems to me that Isaiah is proclaiming a different way to God than just “not messing up.”  Than just “ be pure and holy and a good moral example.”  Isaiah, like the Buddhists, is calling us to a different way of being.  A pro-active way of being.  A way that is not just putting off or avoiding death.  A way that is actively cultivating, seeking, and living, an abundantly life.  God’s promised new creation.  Here and now.

-I don’t know about you, but I desperately want such a new creation.  I don’t have a baker’s dozen cavities for no reason.  If you’re like me, you’ve probably experienced living life controlled - dare I say, enslaved - by some compulsion or other.  Deceived by the false promise that, somehow, fulflling this desire or want instantaneously will, miraculously, fulfill your longing, your craving, your deep-yet-deranged desire, completely.

-And maybe it doesn’t take the form of food or appetite.  Maybe its that needling in your mind that says to take on just one more 60 hour week.  Maybe it says to suspend your deepest ethical values just one more time so that the company may flourish - and with it, your vested stock options.  Maybe it begs you to give up just a little of whatever you hold dear.  Because safety, and success, and security, are worth the price of your integrity.

-And yet, as Isaiah the prophet of two millennia ago proclaims, this will not satisfy.  Because, in the end, we live this basic lie.  That somehow, we need to pay for and climb towards and even compete for a prize which has always already been given to us, free of charge.  Listen to these insane words of the prophet:

-“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”

-See, God is calling all people to come, and simply receive.  Not to manipulate.  Not even to consume, in order to “support the economy” or increase GDP or prevent a fiscal-cliff or whatever.  God does not sequester God’s abundant gifts from God’s people.  God subverts the dynamics of sensible human economy, saying “my gifts are free and for all, and especially for those who are most needy.  For those who recognize, rich or poor, that they are nothing and cannot survive without me.”

-For someone enslaved to their compulsions and their fears - someone like me - this is very good news.  Because, see, it means that God is not primarily concerned with what we give up.  The God of Lent, the God of Jesus Christ in the wilderness, is less concerned with making us miserable through fasting.  Instead, the God who is Incarnate in Jesus Christ and who speaks by the Spirit through the prophets, also cares deeply about our health.  Our wholeness.  Our freshness.  Our being-alive.

-The God of the universe is not in this thing to make us miserable.  This God goes to the cross in Jesus Christ, shedding Godself of health, wholeness and community, taking only bitter vinegar wine as God hangs from the cross, so that we as humans might be given a new heart capable of living into the fullness, the SHALOM, the new creation, of a world where God is king.  Where we no longer have to believe the lies of compulsions that lead us to spend our time, our money, our best selves on that which does not satisfy.  A world where there truly is enough for all.  And where the promise of abundance surpasses our wildest dreams and deepest understandings.

-When I served my internship in Denver, I had the privilege of being in community with a number of alcoholics.  I was always amazed to hear their testimony converge upon a single moment of clarity.  A moment in which they recognized: “I can have a better life, starting today.”  A life where we are not merely controlled by compulsion, but drawn by desire.  A desire for the very marrow of life, transfigured by the Spirit of the Living God, to drink deeply of the goodness of creation.  See, we fast in Lent and in all times, not to deny the evils of the flesh, but to remind ourselves of just how powerful the pleasures of the present life can be.

-And its all free.  Not a result of the money we make, or the justice we do, or the good person we strive to be.  Its a free gift.  Given when we realize that we are unhealthy slaves to compulsion, and we know we need help to be something different.  Given when the dentists’ drill bores down on the first of many fillings.  Given freely, to those who trust the Word of God that indeed, we are beloved children of the Creator of the Universe, given every good and perfect gift of a loving parent, who longs that we be, not just holy, but also whole, and healthy.  Fully alive.  And so, fully capable of experiencing the joy of gratitude, thanksiging, and peace.

-Come, all who are without the money of achievement.  Whose dreams have failed.  Whose good intentions have left them bankrupt.  Come those with addictions and compulsions.  Come, all those in the universe - ALL those in the universe - who have been claimed by the cross of Christ to receive the gifts of God for the children of God.  Come, and discover the freshness, the healthiness, the wholeness, which is the free, the unshakable, the unquenchable savor of the love of God, in Christ Jesus, through the Holy Spirit.

-Amen.

Sermon: "Under the Sigil of House Jesus, or, Beyond Throne Games"

"Under the Sigil of House Jesus, or, Beyond Throne Games"

~

Preached at South Wedge Mission
Rochester, New York
Fourth Sunday of Easter
21 April 2013

Day Texts: Acts 9.36-43
Psalm 23
Revelation 7.9-17
John 10.22-30

~

-Some of you know that I kind of have this thing for Doctor Who.  But last week, I took a break from the Tardis and started reading another popular series: George R.R. Martin’s massive saga, Game of Thrones.  It’s not exactly PG, so I can’t formally recommend it to you.  You know, as a clergy person.  But as a medieval studies minor in college and someone who’s always loved castles and knights and so forth, it definitely hits the spot.

-So the grossly summarized story of GOT is that there are these seven houses, all vying for the throne recently vacated by the now dead king.  Alliances, treachery, intrigue, warfare and such ensue across the island of Westeros.)  And each of these houses has a symbol on their coat of arms, called a sigil, and a set of “family words” that both guides them and also helps describe them.  

-So, for example, the protagonists, House Stark, fight under a Direwolf and have the words “winter is coming,” since they are the tight-knit pack of rugged northerners. House Targarayen who once ruled the kingdom under the power of their dragons now go under a dragon sigil with the words “fire and blood.”  And so forth.

-Now, tonight after service, we’re meeting up at Little Venice to continue our conversations together about who we are as a community.  One thing we’ve discussed recently is potentially changing our name.  And as a visual person, I keep thinking that along with a name, there should be some kind of a sigil (nowadays they might be called icons or logos).  

-Left completely up to me, I’d choose a lion.  Brave, noble, fierce, a leader.  Jesus was called Lion of Judah. And one of our community heroes, Frederick Douglass, was known as the black lion.  

-But the lion would not suffice on its own.  First off, its the symbol of House Lannister, the wealthy, proud, conniving incestuous villains of GOT.  But even more importantly, in the book of Revelation where our reading is from tonight, the one described as a lion is not Jesus.  In fact, dragons, wolves, and lions are all used in connotation with Satan, the antichrist, and the Roman Empire.    

-We do get an animal, presented sigil-like in the reading.  It stands at the head of a vast army.  But not of conquering warriors bearing swords.  It stands, slaughtered, before a host of martyrs - innocents slaughtered by the Empire, washed white in the blood of their leader.  And their leader is a crucified lamb.

-A lamb.  Not even a full sheep.  Hardly something that strikes fear into our enemies, right?  In fact, when I think of sheep, I think immediately of growing up in Fairport.  Yes, it is a suburb.  But right smack in the middle of several developing areas is this massive old farm, filled with sheep.  And its affectionately known to all as “the stinky farm.”  Because it stinks.  Because it is full of sheep. 

-Along with reading epics filled with sex and violence, I’ve also been enamored of my daughter’s kids‘ Bible, the Jesus Storybook Bible.  Perfect compliment, right?  Well, the author, Sally Lloyd-Jones, also wrote a kids‘ devotional, called Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing.  And here’s what she writes about sheep:

-What animal does the Bible say - four hundred times! - that people are most like?

Oh dear. It’s sheep.

Sheep aren’t clever at all.  They’re foolish.  For instance, sometimes they just topple over and can’t get themselves back up again. They just lie there!  And they’re constantly falling off cliffs.  Or going to unsafe places and getting stuck.  Or eating poisonous things.  Or getting hurt.  Or running off and getting lost.  Or not finding their way home again - even if their fold is in plain sight!

-Oh dear indeed.  The sigil for House Jesus is a sheep.  A stinking, stupid, let’s you steal the clothes off their back, sheep.  Not a strong adult ram with horns.  Not even the one that won the county faire.  It’s a lamb.  A crucified lamb.  A dead lamb.

-Not exactly what most of us often hope for in times like this, no?  Times when we read in every other post and tweet about people disbelief about “how vulnerable America is,” “how messed up humanity is,” where bombs terrorize finish lines and fertilizer plants explode during routine operations.  If you’re human, I’m guessing that in the midst of such a shit storm, like me, you’re looking for some comfort.  For something that promises safety.  That promises security.  Something powerful.  

-We want the direwolf, or the dragon, or the lion.  Or the sigil of stars and the stripes.  And the family words, “let freedom ring.”  And a shepherd who will “hunt these terrorists down.”  In the confusion of emotions, we follow after a media that somehow magically develops psychic powers to narrate not only every second of events, but even, psychically, what the fugitives must be thinking before they even know it themselves.  Because knowledge is power too.  It’s security.  Gives us a sense that we are most definitely not that crazy Muslim dude.  Somehow, the insane immediacy of information allows us to put a safe distance between us and the terror.

-See, we want our kings, and our kingdoms, and our sigils, and our words, to give us security.  To keep us from suffering.  Or to make someone else pay so we don’t have to.   We want them to lead us to green pastures, and feed us with grass that sustains.  

-And what makes us foolish as sheep is not so much that we are loyal to our country, or that we want to work for justice, or even that we are afraid of being vulnerable.  What makes us foolish as sheep is that we follow shepherds who promise what they cannot deliver.  They promise peace, and prosperity, and progress, and protection. But millennia of human history says otherwise.  They cannot give us the crown, or the kingdom, or salvation.  They may feed us and lead us.  But not through the valley of the shadow.  Not to a feast in the presence of our enemies.  It is, after all, their games of thrones that have helped make those valleys and enemies.  

-But thank God, this is not the sigil or the king revealed in scripture today.    

-Our house words are different.  As members of Christ’s body the church our house words are “salvation belongs to our God and to the lamb.”  Our house anthem is not “bombs bursting in air,” but “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.”  Though I walk through the valley of the shadow.  In the presence of mine enemies.  Not IF I face suffering, and vulnerability, and death.  But when. 

-It is the sigil of a shepherd who willingly becomes a sheep.  Becomes like us, in our weakness and stupidity and lostness, and is sheered of dignity and power and would rather be slain than lift a finger of violence or vengeance.   And descends into the valley of the shadows of death and hell.  And then this lamb rises from the dead.  And washes the fallen victims of violence in his own blood.  And promises to wipe away every tear.

-And see, that’s ultimately the meaning of our sigil.  It is a promise.  Of true provision.  And of true hope.  Because this lamb, this Jesus, is not an ideal or a program that must be defended with violence, or explained by social media, or even be believed to be true.  This lamb, the one slain by the Romans, was also the man, Jesus Christ.  God Incarnate.  The only one who can keep his promises.  Who can feed us, his enemies, with a feast of his own body and blood.  The one, the only one, who makes broken things come undone.  Who alone has power to deliver on His promises.

-This lamb, this king, this God, is not toppled by the blasts of bombs.  He stands at their epicenter.  He does not run from the valley of the shadow.  He leads his followers into it.  He does not avoid death.  He faces it, experiences it, becomes vulnerable to it.  And then crushes and defeats it by love and peace alone.  

-Which means that we are never NOT vulnerable.  We are never NOT unsafe.  Because following this lamb will mean following him into the war of the lamb, the war of peace and love and reconciliation (and besides, an armed sheep is kind of an absurdity, right?)  

-See, the sigil of our King is not one that promises security at all.  There are many who lament that our nation feel more vulnerable than ever. The followers of the Lamb know that we have always already been called to be vulnerable because of who our Shepherd is,  Christ leads us through the valley of the shadow, not because suffering is good but to bring the good of companionship and love to all who suffer. Our vocation is to follow
and do likewise.

-We are called to follow him into the valleys of the shadow.  Places in the world where, for women and children denied education and rights, every single trip top school or the well is a Boston Marathon of terror.  Into the dark secrets and difficult struggles of others where there is no answer, but where we are called to walk together anyway, receiving and protecting one another’s vulnerability.  Not if we walk through the shadowlands.  But when.  

-And this God will provision us.  Feed us.  Care for us.  Promises to give us what we will need.  He gives us liberation from effectiveness, so we might be free for faithfulness. Challenges us to let go of everything else.  And he arms us.  Not with swords, guns, bombs or information.  But with God’s promises already coming true in the resurrection light of the new creation.  The Spirit of hope.  The ways of peace.  And lives of love.  

-We are called to lay down all other weapons and forsake all other shepherds.  And to march boldly into the shadowlands.  To the tables of enemies.  And to the place where the hope that all tears be wiped away will come true.  Under the sigil and the words and the promises of the Lamb.  Who promises, not that we will be safe.  But that he is for us.  And that he will never leave or forsake us.

-Oh dear.  Amen.