Awaiting in Darkness

B Advent1 2014

November 30, 2014

Isaiah 64:1–9 Psalm 80:1–7, 17–19 1 Corinthians 1:3–9

Mark 13:24–37

24But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. 26Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory. 27Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. 28From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. 29So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 30Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. 31Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 32But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.34It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35Therefore, keep awake — for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 36or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 37And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake."

Awaiting in Darkness

Please Pray with me: Christ, our light, open our eyes and our hearts to your word in the darkness of this world.  We give to you this time as sacred space in our lives for your work on us.  Amen.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ok, it’s confession time (again).  J Who here has already put up Christmas decorations, found yourself singing along to Christmas songs or decided to bake a favorite holiday recipe?

There is a particular burden in the church to be careful not to celebrate Christmas too early.  It’s ok if you don’t know about it, it’s probably mostly a pastor thing.  We try to be careful to choose Advent, not Christmas hymns, we are conscious of displaying the Advent blue instead of white and gold, or red and green, as the culture has chosen for Christmas. 

See, the thing is, we pastors, and me specifically, as your pastor, do not want you to miss out on the opportunity, the faith-life-is-real-life in Advent, where the anticipation of the coming of our Lord is so intense, it will make your heart break over its beauty. 

Today, the first week of Advent, is the first Sunday of the church year.  Every year we mark the beginning of our lives with waiting.  Waiting for the star to point us to a tiny human in a manger.  Waiting for the angelic announcement that God has shown up in the same skin we wear.  Waiting for God’s promises to shine in a baby.  Waiting for that flicker of light amidst the darkness of our world.

The Lord knows the world has been pretty dark this week. 

Jesus is speaking into this darkness.  And as we listen in to today’s gospel story it may feel a bit like standing in a wrinkle, or warp in the space-time continuum.  Because in Mark’s gospel, in this 13th chapter of end-times speeches, we go back and forth between the urgent and imminent “get ready, the end is coming!” and the bracing message, “this could take a while, so stay strong, disciple, keep the faith.”

It’s like my daughter daydreaming of Christmas excitement one minute, and realizing that “25 sleeps” is an unimaginably long time to wait. 

It’s like living through hospice with someone; knowing death is getting nearer, but never knowing how long that trip will take; knowing how death will come too soon, no matter when but how blessed the relief from suffering will be for all of you.

It’s like waiting for the college acceptance letters or job offers that seem to hold the key to every possible good future.

It’s like knowing that God isn’t happy with the racism in this world.  And wondering how to get our hands and heads into dismantling it, when talk of skin color and all things related, seem so scary and big and violent right now.

These are the moments.  The moments where we know that ultimately a light must come into this darkness, and trust that it will, but boy is the waiting hard. 

That’s Advent.

And so I am offering you an invitation to participate. 

Advent is your chance to own the darkness of the world, the darkness we never want to think about, but denying its realness only hurts more.  To allow the darkness to be… and because we who know Jesus - we know something about the darkness, “What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:3b-5).

The darkness did not overcome it.

The light is coming. 

Isaiah and Mark testify to the light’s ability to overcome the darkness. This light that we are waiting for is so incredibly powerful that that it tears open the heavens, the mountains quake, the fire kindles and causes water to boil, the nations tremble!  The sun and moon themselves darken in the bright overwhelm of this light, the stars begin to fall and every power on earth and in heaven will be shaken. 

For when we have been delivered into our own iniquity, as Isaiah reads today.  That is, when our own sin and brokenness has overcome us.  When we have lost our ability to resist the tempting belief that evil and death will win.  This is the deepest darkness.  The darkness of violence of words and action.  The darkness of violation of property and community.  The darkness of racism and white privilege.  The darkness of succumbing to silence and deafness.  

This is the painful darkness that Christ comes for. 

That Christ comes into.

The darkness of very real evil that makes Christ’s coming “so very necessary, so very loving, and so very heroic.”[i]

To shine into. To overwhelm with rightness and love.  The light of reorientation and reconciliation. 

Which is why we live as people of this promise.  Our God has named and claimed us, has spoken promises into us – that God is coming.  Coming to shine the darkness right out of the world.  Christ is coming, has come and will come again - under, in and through the darkness, until the darkness has vanished like it does at dawn. 

So for now, as we live in the time warp between what is, and what is promised, we live as people of the light.  People who witness to the light with their whole lives.  So let your Christmas caroling and gift wrapping and home decorating and party-throwing be just one more opportunity to live as a witness to the light.  Maybe you choose to wash dishes instead of throw away disposables as your witness.  Maybe you choose to say a prayer with your guests before dinner, inviting the light in to your time and space.  Maybe you choose to sing carols about Jesus from your office.  Maybe you remind yourself the light came with a little joyful expression- coloring as an advent devotional!  Maybe you buy a fair-trade advent calendar this year and then talk with your family about what fair trade is and why we need it.  Maybe you skip the extra toys and instead give a piglet from God’s global barnyard.  Whatever you want it to be.  You are children of the light, it won’t be hard to be creative with the Holy Spirit working through you!

As we let those little burst of Christ’s light shine through this Advent season, let us remember, that Advent is a time to wait.  To wait in the midst of the darkness, “for against the dark is when the light shows most brightly.”[ii]  To delve, to be quiet, and to await that loving light of Christ that shines right into it.

Amen.

[i] Christine Cleveland

[ii]Ibid

The Canaanite in all of us.

August 17, 2014

Matthew 15:1-28, The Voice (edited)

M Narrator: Some Pharisees and scribes came from Jerusalem to ask Jesus a question.

Scribes and Pharisees: 2 The law of Moses has always held that one must ritually wash his hands before eating. Why don’t your disciples observe this tradition?

M Narrator: 3 Jesus turned the Pharisees’ question back on them.

Jesus (exasperated): Why do you violate God’s commandment because of your tradition? 4 God said, “Honor your father and mother.[a] Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.”[b] 5-6 But you say that one need no longer honor his parents so long as he says to them, “What you might have gained from me, I now give to the glory of God.” Haven’t you let your tradition trump the word of God? 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah must have had you in mind when he prophesied,

8     People honor me with their lips,         but their hearts are nowhere near me. 9     Because they elevate mere human ritual to the status of law,         their worship of me is a meaningless sham.[c]

M Narrator: 10 To the multitude gathered he said,

Jesus (confidently): Hear and understand this: 11 What you put into your mouth cannot make you clean or unclean; it is what comes out of your mouth that can make you unclean.

M Narrator:12 Later the disciples came to Him.

Disciples: Do you realize the Pharisees were shocked by what you said?

Jesus: 13 Every plant planted by someone other than My heavenly Father will be plucked up by the roots. 14 So let them be. They are blind guides. What happens when one blind person leads another? Both of them fall into a ditch.

Peter: 15 Explain that riddle to us.

Jesus: 16 Do you still not see? 17 Don’t you understand that whatever you take in through your mouth makes its way to your stomach and eventually out through the bowels of your body? 18 But the things that come out of your mouth—your curses, your fears, your denunciations—these come from your heart, and it is the stirrings of your heart that can make you unclean. 19 For your heart harbors evil thoughts—fantasies of murder, adultery, and whoring; fantasies of stealing, lying, and slandering. 20 These make you unclean—not eating with a hand you’ve not ritually purified with a splash of water and a prayer.

M Narrator: 21 Jesus left that place and withdrew to Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman—a non-Jew—came to Him.

Canaanite Woman (wailing): Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is possessed by a demon. Have mercy, Lord!

M Narrator: 23 Jesus said nothing. And the woman continued to wail. His disciples came to Him.

Disciples: Do something—she keeps crying after us!

M Narrator: Jesus said to the disciples.

Jesus (contemplating): 24 I was sent here only to gather up the lost sheep of Israel.

M Narrator: 25 The woman came up to Jesus and knelt before Him.

Canaanite Woman: Lord, help me!

Jesus (confused): 26 It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.

Canaanite Woman: 27 But, Lord, even dogs eat the crumbs that fall by the table as their master is eating.

M Narrator: 28 Jesus—whose ancestors included Ruth and Rahab—spoke.

Jesus: Woman, you have great faith. And your request is done.

M Narrator: And her daughter was healed, right then and from then on.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

Like is often true, today’s gospel makes a lot more sense if you know what comes before.  [so we read starting with verse one]. The Pharisees came to Jesus to ask him why his disciples didn’t follow the handwashing ritual required of pious Pharisees. 

In his conversation with the Pharisees about handwashing, Jesus turns the question back on them.  He points to an example where they are not following the law, and have, in fact, come up with a way to avoid following the “Honor your Father and Mother” commandment by giving such resources to the temple instead.  A perfect example of how NOT to run a stewardship campaign.  [wink] 

All of this matters because here is Jesus, having just argued with the Pharisees, wrapping up that teaching by saying:

18But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19For out of the heart come evil intentions, […etc., etc. ]20These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile." Jesus has just set himself up for what happens next.  After teaching, clearly, that what matters is what comes out of the heart.  A Canaanite woman puts him to the test.  Jesus is faced with the question: What is clean or unclean? Does it matter who you are and what purity laws you follow? Or is the real issue the stuff you put out into the world.  Because this woman, a non-Jew – we call those “gentiles” – and even an old enemy of Israel, comes to Jesus begging for crumbs, asking for a healing of her daughter.  And Jesus’ first reaction is a big fat no.  Horribly un-Jesus like, don’t you think?  Jesus is trying to stay focused on his vocation, his call to the “lost children of Israel,” which up until now in the gospel have surely provided him plenty of work in themselves – as shown by the whole clean/unclean argument.  Israel isn’t “getting it” – and even the disciples at this very moment want Jesus to send the Canaanite woman away.  Which he won’t do.  He engages, once again, in conversation with someone who is culturally off-limits.    A woman, non-Jew, from the “wrong” side of the lake. 

Yet, the woman persists.  And we have to wonder what’s going on in Jesus head.  He’s just been arguing with the Pharisees narrow vision of who is clean, who gets included in the promises.  The gears are turning as he recalls more of Isaiah’s prophecy

“the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant —  7these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

With extreme humility she calls him her Lord, she calls him the Son of David – she knows who he is! –she points out to him what HE JUST SAID.  If it is what comes out of a person that really matters, and this woman insists on humbly claiming trust in Jesus as God’s son, capable of transforming her and her daughter’s life…. Well, what would Jesus [you] do?

And here we get a glimpse into the 100% human Jesus is, alongside his 100% divine.  It looks like Jesus changes his mind.  It looks like Jesus’ understanding of who all gets included, of who all can display the clean heart of faith, shifts.  She has opened his eyes to the reality that great faith can come from even someone on the outside.

And thank God he did!  Because, I mean… did any of you grow up Jewish?  

That woman is us!  We are the non-Jews who get crumbs from the table, get included on the Holy Mountain.  The promises that were made to Israel wrap us up too.  That’s what God does, draw the circle wider and wider, include us in the joyful house of prayer, that’s what God is up to in Jesus, gracing each and every one of us with the promise of new and eternal life. 

Something clicks in Jesus, maybe it’s the 12 baskets of crumbs, maybe it’s Isaiah, maybe it’s his own divinity revealing itself in this moment.  We praise God today, and every Sunday, for the blessing of being loved into God’s family.

This week I had a woman come to the door asking for crumbs.  It doesn’t happen every week, but it happens often enough that I am working together with other pastors and faithful Christians in the area to figure out how to faithfully steward the crumbs we have been given.  I wonder if we too are able to recognize how we sit at Jesus table as guests.  We did not inherit the promise of Abraham until Jesus came in flesh and grafted us in.  If we, gentiles, non-Jews, have been given crumbs that have resulted in abundance, and resulted in a secure place at the table… who is the Canaanite woman now?  

Is it the single mom who’s food stamps doesn’t stretch to the end of the month?

Is it the one who has had his electricity turned off for weeks in Detroit?

Is it the men and women on the street of Ferguson, MO with their hands up chanting “hands up, don’t shoot”?

Is it the people of color in our society that must learn from a young age how to lower the anxiety of the police?

Is it the hungry people who eat rice and beans, not macaroni and cheese?

The central American children showing up on our doorstep… asking for our crumbs?

It is time, people of God, to take up the gospel challenge, to see the other as Jesus saw the Canaanite woman.  Worthy of being included fully in the promises, and therefore fully included in our life together. 

Amen.  

Thirsty.

The Gospel according to John. [Glory to you O Lord]

5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 11The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" 13Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." 15The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

16Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." 17The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" 19The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." 21Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 25The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." 26Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."

27Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?"28Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he? 30They left the city and were on their way to him.

31Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." 32But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." 33So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" 34Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35Do you not say, 'Four months more, then comes the harvest'? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' 38I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."

39Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41And many more believed because of his word. 42They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."

The Gospel of the Lord. [Praise to you O Christ].

Thirsty.

Grace, Peace and Freedom are yours from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Thirsty.

When was the last time you were thirsty?

Can you tell the difference between thirst and hunger? I googled this on Thursday and I was shocked to see how many blogs had an entry on this very subject. I wish I had bottles of water to hand out to all of you right now because I bet you’d finish them before the end of this sermon.

The Spiritual discipline I chose this Lent was to fast from sweets.  I have a huge sweet tooth, some of you know this well.  Though usually I find sweets a nice treat to bring a little sweetness to life, recently I felt as if sugar was taking away life.  I mean that every 90 minutes I was searching around for something else sweet to eat. 

So I figured that Lent was my invitation to put in place a fast.  If I have become obsessed, maybe even addicted, to something, even something seemingly innoculous and innocent as butterscotch disks, if I am getting distracted by where my next soda is going to come from… Then, as ridiculous as it sounds, that’s coming first in my life.  Commandment number one: “You will have no other god’s before me” – broken by the pastor. 

And this fasting experience has been fascinating.  First – it has been hard.  And I should say, this is not my first time doing this.  I used to fast from sugar every Lent for maybe 10 years?  But I haven’t done so recently.  So it’s hard.  The first few days were no problem, but around day 10 I was ready to give it up.  Scrounging the cupboards for a good fake-sugar substitutes and eating every bit of dried fruit in the house.

And it took until day 15 for me learn something from all this.  To get closer to what God wants for my life… I learned that, maybe, when I’m craving sweets… I’m really just thirsty.  I’m thirsty for water to moisturize my sandpaper hands and relieve the tightness in my temples.  I’m learning what thirsty feels like. Sweet water that can actually quench my cravings and calm my belly. 

And I think it goes further.  I don’t just substitute bubbly sugary boosts for the drink that feeds my cells. But I also drink up messages about how I should look or parent or landscape, or keep house, or whatever just like it’s a caffine-sugar fix to any unease in my life. 

It all comes back to water. 

"If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."

Jesus starts out this story thirsty. And though we never hear whether he got a drink from the well, he clearly got some kind of satisfaction from the exchange he had with this woman, for he ends up in a different place.

He has been out in the open by a well in the midday sun, and when the disciples ask him if he’s had anything to eat, he says to them, No need… “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.”  Has Jesus just been fed by doing his Father’s will?  Has Jesus’ thirst been quenched, as ours can be, by not just drinking of this living water but by being the very wellspring gushing up to eternal life?  Being a well of living water for those who need to hear, to know what God has in store for them?

This unnamed woman needed to hear that eternal life was a promise made by God that included her.  And Nicodemus came seeking it last week.

Last week we were urged and pushed along with Nicodeums to go again through the birth canal, to be born of water and spirit.  To live a real, new, life, a life in God.  A life that doesn’t come from knowing how to be good religious folk, but comes only through this water right here.  Comes only by knowing more deeply who Jesus is, what Jesus says

and by becoming his followers. 

This was a new birth that Nicodemus wasn’t sure he could go through.  But our nameless woman today dives right in.  He comes at night, lurking in the darkness. He is a man with status, used to being “in the know.”  She comes to a well for her daily water, her identity obscured by markers of her exclusion. As a Samaritan she is counted outside of the Jews, though they share much heritage, including this very well.  As a woman, she is an untouchable, another man’s property.  Men who have not treated her kindly, likely divorcing her for barenness.  “She may live in the shadows of her marginality, but she speaks to Jesus under the sweltering heat of a midday sun.” (working preacher.org)

She is thirsty for that living water.  And she jumps on the chance for a drink.

I have been talking with a few of you about an opportunity for a small group Bible study.  High-commitment.  A chance to really dive deeply into the living water that God gives us through Scripture and prayer.  If you’d like to join me on this kind of adventure, let me know.  I know that when we did the cottage meetings a year and a half ago now, there was some interest in Bible study.  Yet, nothing has really come to the forefront on this yet.  We can only cram so much into a two hour block on Sunday mornings, it’s our time to worship, to really grow in relationship with other another and to deepen our fellowship as the Body of Christ.  So I’m talking about an invitation on some other night or day of the week to go through the whole of scriptures, to really get a sense of what God is up to in these books of the Bible… to drink deeply from this living water, the word made flesh that comes to us in scripture.

The Confirmation students and Tom and I just finished the “Echo the Story” curriculum.  Our students got an overview of the Bible in 12 sessions, key stories in the scriptures that help us to start to “get” the big picture of what God is up to.  How amazing it was to see those youth ask the hard questions about the Bible, to start to challenge themselves and God, to engage seriously with their faith – to begin to carry inside of them a living water for those desert moments.

And yesterday I was with 5 even younger people with their parents, learning about communion.  We read the stories of the Passover and The Last Supper, and these kids drank from the same well, along with their parents.  We sipped at the story of God’s people, who were enslaved, to be released by God’s great act of power at the Passover and through the parted waters of the sea, as we sipped the wine at the last supper with Jesus, a bittersweet cup for us.  We remembered that we are people who walk wet.  Who receive forgiveness and grace through the living water of baptism and remember the same each time we feast at this table with Jesus.

How about you? Do you know if you are thirsty?

If you are like me, and most Americans, you are far more thirsty than you realize.  Drinking far too little water. 

Today, and every day, Jesus offers us living water.  Drink up! Here in this community, Here at this table, Here at this fount of living water.  Satisfy your thirst with me.  I need it so much I’m here every week.  (smile/wink).  And I’m still thirsty.

I invite you to consider what a commitment to Bible study and prayer would look like for you.  How might you drink from this wellspring that is Jesus?  Are you ready to dive right in – like this high commitement study - or is there a way to setup a drip irrigation system to keep you watered?  Like the daily devos books we have out in the narthex?  Or a daily bible verse app on your phone?

And remember that Jesus says today… as we are watered we become the well for others. 

Today, when you come up for communion I invite you again to remember how wet you really are.  To take Jesus up on the invitation to live into this water.  Water the roots you are growing this Lent.  Take water from the font, mark yourself on your forehead, or cross your body.  Use words, or don’t, the action suffices to remember.  Remember that you have the water of life, and you are the water of life for others.

Amen.