"You've Got A Friend In Me"

Sermon Preached at St. Aidan's Alexandria (April 10, 2011) Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A: Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 130, Romans 8:6-11, John 11:1-45

"O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem."

This week I finally broke down and watched the movie Toy Story 3. By now I'm guessing those of you out there who are either children or the parents of young children have seen this movie dozens of times. But I had heard from several friends that Toy Story 3 would leave me in tears at the end, and I just don't need that in a cartoon, so I avoided it. But there it was sitting in my Netflix instant queue, taunting me, and eventually curiosity won out. Maybe because I had been prepared for a more somber animation experience, I didn't completely lose it. In fact, as the final credits rolled I was smiling through those tears, because the movie is a powerful tale of new life.

The delightful cast of toys faces a new frontier in their third movie. They have been gathering dust in the toy box for quite a few years now as their kid, Andy, has gotten older. They reminisce about their golden age as toys, when their days were full of play and they were Andy's first choice of entertainment. But now their kid is grown up and getting ready to leave for college, and the looming question is what will happen to his old playmates.

If the toys could have their way, everything would go back to the way it was when Andy was 8 years old, and it would go on that way forever without changing. Even in the world of Disney, though, that isn't possible, so the toys prepare to go into "attic mode." To them it is more appealing to live out their days in a musty, dark corner somewhere than to imagine life any other way. They're trying to stay as close as they can to those good old days, even though it really means they are giving up life altogether.

Last time I preached, I spoke about considering the lilies and not making life more complicated for ourselves by trying to be more than we are. And while we are often tempted to foster anxiety, we can be equally tempted to avoid those situations that would call us to new life, because they might shake up the way things have always been for us. Crawling into a cardboard box in the attic just to stay near what is familiar starts to sound pretty appealing.

Today's gospel reading is all about new life. It may seem at first that Jesus simply restores life to Lazarus, and he goes forward like nothing ever happened. We don't necessarily know anything to the contrary, because we don't hear much about Lazarus after this story. In the next chapter he attends a dinner party with Jesus, and soon afterward the Jewish authorities plot to kill Lazarus, because his return to life has caused many Jews to believe in Jesus. But what Lazarus received from Jesus was new life – it was something much more than what he had known before.

We have been reading from the Gospel of John on Sundays throughout Lent, so it is important to touch briefly on the differences between this gospel and the others. Some of you already know this, so you can just sit there looking smug for a minute. The other three gospels – Mark, Matthew, and Luke – are closely related to each other. Matthew and Luke incorporate large sections of Mark, and they seem to have shared some other sources as well, though we no longer have any manuscripts or records of what those were. But John is not part of all that. Though the author of John was aware of the same Christian traditions as the other gospel writers, and he may have even seen some of their writings, he is in a league of his own.

I tell you this for two reasons. First of all, you have to understand that everything in John's gospel – every single word – has a theological focus, and the primary message is that Jesus came from God and will return to God, that he is a channel of the divine. John was not really trying at all to write an accurate historic account of Jesus' life. He was writing a theological document. All of the details he shares about Jesus' life point toward Jesus' divinity – there is no nativity story in John, but instead the beautiful prologue that speaks of Jesus' origin with God – "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

You also need to know that the story we read this morning, of the raising of Lazarus, only appears in the Gospel of John, which means it was something that was important to John in particular and his theological message. This story has a crucial place in the plotline of this gospel. In the other gospels, the event that pushes the Jewish authorities over the edge and makes them start plotting to arrest Jesus is his "cleansing of the Temple," when he pitches a fit and turns over the tables of the moneychangers and merchants. But in John, that story appears in the really early chapters, and instead it is Jesus' raising of Lazarus that serves as the final straw for the Jewish authorities. So what happens in this story changes the whole trajectory of the gospel. What happens in this story is remarkably powerful.

Some of the details of the event reinforce its miraculous nature, like the specification that Lazarus had been dead for four days by the time Jesus arrived. There was a Jewish belief at the time that someone's spirit hovered around their body for a couple of days after they died, so if Lazarus had been in the tomb for a shorter amount of time, folks could have assumed that his spirit just slipped back into his physical body. The story also tells us about the odor around the tomb – all these details make it clear that Lazarus was dead as a doornail, and his return to life can't be attributed to anything other than the power of God working through Jesus Christ. These details show that Jesus didn't just revive Lazarus' old life by sticking in a new pair of batteries. He gave him a new life and a new beginning.

Last week we read the story of Jesus healing a man who had been blind from birth. That event also generated skepticism rather than joy. Afterward, the Pharisees interrogated the blind man and his parents, and they drove the man away. It is hard for anyone, then or now, to argue that instantly being able to see after a lifetime of living in darkness could be called anything short of new life. But again, the idea of something so powerful was frightening to those witnessing it, because if Jesus could bring such power and such change to the blind man, he might try to shake things up in their lives as well, and they liked things they way they were.

Last week we told a version of Jesus' healing the blind man in Godly Play as well. The story the children heard ended this way: "When Jesus came close to people, they changed. They could see things they could never see before. They could do things they could never do before." After that, each of the children was invited to choose another object from the room that would help to show more of the story of the blind man. One child went straight for Noah's Ark, and with both arms full of that big heavy boat he explained why he chose it: "Because it's full of life," he said, "and Jesus loves things that are full of life."

You probably don't need more sermon than that. I've been upstaged. Jesus loves things that are full of life. The question is whether we do too. Because the life that Jesus gives requires change. The life that Jesus gives asks us to do things we never thought we could do before. And to be full of life, we sometimes have to give up part of what is old and familiar, even what is beloved.

Noah and his family sailed away on a boat full of new life, but first they had to watch everything they knew disappear underwater. Andy's cherished toys found new life in the arms of another child, but first he had to unselfishly give them away so they could all begin the next chapters of their lives. Jesus gave new life to his dear friend Lazarus, but first he had to say goodbye to him and weep beside his tomb. In a few weeks I will embark on a new life in ordained ministry, but first I will have to leave this place. And you – you all have your own stories of the loss that new life requires, as you have started new schools, changed jobs, welcomed children into your families.

"I AM the resurrection and the life," Jesus says. "Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live." Jesus not only gives away new life; Jesus is that life. The Gospel of John asks us to embrace this as the reality of our lives, to give up the old ways that limit us to make room for the mystery and power of what God can work in us. As we walk through this last leg of Lent together, I invite you to prayerfully examine what in your life needs resurrection and life. Do you want to go into "attic mode"? Or are you ready to be raised into new life with Christ?

Consider the Lilies

Sermon Preached at St. Aidan’s Alexandria (February 27, 2011)
Eighth Sunday after Epiphany, Year A: Isaiah 49:8-16a, Psalm 131, 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, Matthew 6:24-34

"I do not occupy myself with great matters,
or with things that are too hard for me.
But I still my soul and make it quiet."

Today's Gospel lesson is a classic, a perennial favorite for Christians. It is straightforward and poetic, the kind of thing that should be printed up on motivational posters as a reminder to slow down and simplify when life gets frantic. "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?"

Maybe this passage speaks to us because it doesn't take much imagination to bring to mind the things in our life that are worrying us. You may have been spending some quality time with your worries at 3 a.m. last night: that big project coming up at work, a falling out with a friend, knowing someone who is battling serious illness, perhaps you are graduating from seminary in three months and have no idea where you will live or work after that (just hypothetically). Jesus' recommendation to not worry about our lives sounds pretty impossible most of the time. Can this advice possibly hold up when the rubber meets the road?

Besides which, is worrying all bad? Doesn't worrying show that we care, that we want to do our best? If we stopped worrying altogether and said we were putting every ounce of our faith in God, couldn't that quickly lead to laziness, to not doing our part? And as Christians, we celebrate God's incarnation in human form through Jesus Christ, but now we hear that our physical life is not important? What exactly are the terms and conditions of Jesus' advice?

This discourse about considering the lilies comes up in two gospels: Matthew and Luke. In Matthew's gospel, which we read today, it is part of the Sermon on the Mount, a marathon teaching session where Jesus lists the Beatitudes ("Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," etc.), imparts the Lord's Prayer, and interprets Jewish law in new ways. This passage comes at the end of a series of idealistic teachings about how we generally orient our lives to God.

Both Matthew and Luke place the "consider the lilies" passage somewhere near the advice about storing up treasures in heaven instead of treasures on earth, setting this lesson within a framework of the dichotomy between how we calculate worth and how God calculates worth. Matthew goes further, adding the verse that begins our reading today: "No one can serve two masters; you cannot serve God and wealth." So Matthew's advice about not worrying about our earthly needs is prefaced and framed by this warning about choosing which God we glorify.

This evening I imagine many of us in this room will tune our TVs to the 83rd Annual Academy Awards. We all know that the Oscars are sort of about movies and mostly about celebrities and their latest designer gowns, and it is difficult to conceive of an event that is a greater antithesis of our Gospel reading. "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these." The idea of King Solomon in all his glory making an appearance on tonight's red carpet or seeing a wild lily on the cover of People magazine's "Best Dressed" issue is just comical. The Oscars are a parade of a very different ideal, the lifestyle that is possible with money and fame. Our culture is pretty clear about which god it glorifies, which master it serves.

But how is the red carpet related to the worries that keep us awake in the middle of the night? Most of us are not tossing and turning at 3 a.m. because another celebrity couple is splitting up. It's related because of those ideals Jesus sets out in the Sermon on the Mount, about the big overall orientation of our lives. If a People magazine lifestyle is what we strive for, if it is our measuring rod of success, we will always be unfulfilled, always striving for something we will never be, always anxious. I don't think most of us are actively striving to be a celebrity, but I think most of us spend more time than we realize striving to be something other than what God created us to be.

When I was in high school, someone gave my family a kit for growing an amaryllis bulb. It came with everything you needed: a pot, a little plastic sack of soil, instructions about light and watering, and of course the bulb itself. The kit promised that within two weeks you would have a vibrant pink and white blossom right there on your kitchen table in the dead of winter. For some reason the whole process absolutely fascinated me. I had seen plants grow before, but this somehow seemed more dramatic, more magical. Every day after school I rushed to check on the amaryllis and its progress. An amaryllis, by the way, is a kind of lily, and its name comes from the Greek word 'amarusso,' to sparkle. Sure enough, two weeks later we had a full-grown, sparkling beauty, and I had considered that lily half to death.

Looking back, I think what fascinated me about that amaryllis was the singularity and simplicity of its mission. While I had spent my day doing math problems and practice essays for the SAT, that lily was devoting all of her energy to just growing, to becoming a lily. Lilies are never trying to be more, or less, than what they are. They are just doing what lilies do – drinking water, reaching for the sun, growing roots – and, in the process, they seem to sparkle.

When Jesus tells us not to worry about our lives, the word Matthew uses for "worry" is the Greek "merimnao." On several occasions in the New Testament, this word describes worry that the Greek dictionary defined as "that which is existentially important, that which monopolizes the heart's concerns." Of course we will and should worry about our basic needs at times – that is only natural – but the problem arises when those worries monopolize our hearts' concerns, when they shift our overall orientation from the God who made us and who made the lilies.

Certainly it is much easier for a lily to devote itself singularly to God and God's creative vision for its life, to believe that God will take care of everything extra: lilies don't have to hold down a job or take care of baby lilies or file tax returns. We humans will always have things in our lives that cause us worry, but the question is whether we carry those burdens all by ourselves or recognize that God is the author of our story, worries and all.

Earlier we prayed these words together: "Most loving Father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who care for us: Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord."

So often our worries are faithless fears – they are void of everything we have learned to be true in our lives. I recently ran across a quote from Flannery O'Connor that has been a life raft for me during this time of uncertainty. She said: "Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not." I'll say it again, because it's so good: "Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not."

Faith is not mindless absence of worry. Faith is not allowing that worry to monopolize everything else we have known to be true. It is actively stepping into what we were created to be. It is inviting God back into the story with us. It is orienting our lives toward the singular and central vision of God's promise of new life.

When I'm able to step back from today's worries and articulate the overall orientation of my life, I know that my attempts to radically control my own future and anticipate everything that will happen have always been futile, and I do actually believe that God will point me in the right direction if I am able to let go of my own expectations. But then I forget again, and I lie awake at 3 a.m. wondering how I am going to steer this big ship all by my lonesome. It's a lesson I learn the hard way, every time. In other words, sometimes I'm not very good at believing, and living into, what I know to be true.

A lily doesn't ever try to steer the whole ship. A lily doesn't try to be anything more or less than a lily – she just follows the things she already knows will help her in the work of growing, one day at a time. And so a lily lives a life that is faithful because it simply follows what is true, and in this way a lily serves and glorifies God.

It really is a life worthy of consideration.

The Advent Conspiracy

Sermon Preached at St. Aidan’s Alexandria (December 12)
Third Sunday in Advent, Year A: Isaiah 35:1-10, Canticle 15, James 5:7-10, Matthew 11:2-11

"The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name." Amen.

A couple weeks ago I was introduced to a phenomenon called the Advent Conspiracy. It's a movement, mostly promoted online, that was founded a few years ago by an ecumenical group of ministers whose goal is to re-claim this season from consumerist frenzy. Their web site proclaims: "What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists. And when it's all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want Christmas to look like?"

The Advent Conspirators' main question is this: What if Christmas became a world-changing event again? They offer a challenge to buy less stuff and give more of yourself, to live more simply (which is a noble goal, especially at this time of year). But they also present a bigger challenge: to redirect some of what we usually spend at this time of year toward creating a better world. They provide some pretty startling statistics. The U.N. reports that 5,000 children die every day from diseases caused by unclean water and poor sanitation. The estimated cost of ending this injustice and creating clean water sources around the world is about $11 billion a year. I invite you to guess how much Americans are expected to spend this year on Christmas presents? [Congregation guesses.] Answer: $450 billion.

For those of you who are feeling an overwhelming desire to "google" right now, I have already done so – because I didn't want to believe these numbers myself. Unfortunately, a number of sources, including reports from the World Water Fund and the Wall Street Journal, confirm these stats – it's not just crazy church propaganda. This message from the Advent Conspiracy is true, and it is uncomfortable.

Speaking of uncomfortable messages, let's turn now to today's Gospel reading. This selection from Matthew doesn't sound much like the Advent we know and love – Isaiah's promises of peace and comfort, or Mary and Elizabeth rejoicing over the children they are expecting. This sounds very different, with John the Baptist sending messengers to ask whether Jesus is really the coming one, to which he receives a reply that seems to raise more questions than it answers. Why would we read about these doubts during this season when we're supposed to be awaiting a world-changing event: Christ's coming? John's questions are puzzling, because early in Matthew's Gospel, in the portion we heard last week, John very confidently proclaims the coming of the Messiah: "One who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals! He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire!" So what has happened since then to shake John's confidence?

For one thing, John now finds himself in prison, and in his day prison was not a final destination – it was a way station where you went to await your fate, which usually wasn't good. So John is having a very close encounter with his own impending death. He is in a place of darkness, and it is understandably difficult for him to see light and hope, and to trust that he has given his life for a worthy cause. But the other thing that's been happening in Matthew's narrative, between John's predictions and these questions, is that Jesus has been healing the blind and the sick, casting out demons, and even restoring to life a little girl who was believed to be dead.

So, in answer to John about whether he is the coming one, Jesus does not offer a simple 'yes' or 'no.' He offers instead a recap of remarkable events: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor hear good news. To Jesus' listeners, this list was a resounding echo of the words we heard today from the prophet Isaiah. But it probably also confused them, because in general their picture of the messiah, the coming one, would have been a king or military hero, who would come among us in great might, who would restore Israel and reign over it with authority and power. Their vision of the messiah didn't include the gentle healer standing before them. Jesus recognizes that he doesn't fit their expectations.

Then Jesus further challenges his followers. He asks them three times: What did you go out into the wilderness to see? Was it a reed shaken by the wind, or someone dressed in soft robes? It helps decode this language to know that King Herod reportedly built at least one palace beside the Dead Sea in the wilderness, and some of his royal coins depicted a reed from the Jordan Valley, so Jesus is probably saying, "Did you go out to see the rich and powerful living decadent lives? Did you go into the wilderness to see the Real Housewives of the Dead Sea?" No, he says, you came to the wilderness to see a prophet who is not glamorous at all, John the Baptist dressed in his camel's hair, eating locusts and honey, with his message that the coming of God's kingdom is about repentance, it's about re-orienting our lives, it's about sacrifice, not splendor.

Something I read about this passage said: "John and Jesus share one crucial characteristic: they are both willing to risk entering the public arena against well-prepared opponents, even when it means speaking truth to those in power, a very dangerous occupation that can land the prophet in prison or on a cross. All of this speaks about how the old age continues to operate. Those in power stay in power. The powerful exploit the powerless. It is a vicious cycle that only an advent can change. Both John and Jesus are part of that advent as it struggles to come to life."

Yes, today's gospel reading would be a lot more palatable if Jesus could answer with simplicity and assurance, "Yes, I am the coming one. Don't worry, John, everything will turn out fine." But Jesus knows that to truly usher in the new kingdom and the lasting peace of God, all of our expectations about how the world works have to be turned upside down first. And that is going to require a great deal of sacrifice. He's reminding his cousin John what exactly he put his life on the line for, and he is reminding the disciples that what they came to the wilderness to see is probably not what they were expecting. Before they can truly see the savior, they have to go through the wilderness.

Almost exactly one month ago, the Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was released (again) from house arrest. In the 1980s, Suu Kyi started the National League for Democracy, which led to widespread civilian protests and a surge of hope in a country that has been ruled by a military junta for almost 50 years now. She was actually elected to be the country's leader in 1990 but was prevented from taking office, and she has lived under house arrest almost constantly since then. She has been released twice before, then imprisoned again when she attracted too many followers. She has had almost no contact with her family, not even to be with her husband when he was dying. When Suu Kyi was released before, she could have fled the country to live a normal life near her family, but she chose to stay in Myanmar, because a third of her country's people live on less than a dollar a day, disease is rampant, health care is nearly non-existent. Myanmar is a place that needs an advent in a bad way.

When I was there two years ago, I became swept up in the Burmese people's love for their gentle hero. When Suu Kyi started making headlines again, I picked up a book of her beautiful letters, Voices from Burma. In an introduction to that volume, Fergal Keane describes trying to find out why so many Burmese people risk their own lives to rally around Suu Kyi. He stood with the crowds gathered outside her house and asked them, "What did you come here to see?" He writes: "Perhaps the most eloquent answer to my question came from an old man, standing drenched to the skin outside Aung San Suu Kyi's house on the day after her release. 'We come here because we know that we are the most important thing in the world to her. She cares about us.' To a people who suffer continually the brutality of one of the world's most odious regimes, the notion that a leader might actually care about them, and risk her own freedom to fight for theirs, is indeed unusual."

The common message that the Advent Conspiracy and Aung San Suu Kyi and John the Baptist and Jesus proclaim to us is that unless all of us are free, none of us is free; unless all of us are healthy and safe and warm, none of us is healthy and safe and warm. It's the message that saints down through the centuries have put their lives on the line for, because they truly believe that this world can be turned upside down, that the lowly can be lifted up and the hungry filled with good things, that the vicious cycles of our world can be redeemed.

Before I go back to my seat, I want to be clear about something: I'm not saying that if you buy Christmas presents you're a bad Christian. After all, you're here this morning, which leads me to believe that you have come here to see something more, something more to this season than consumerist frenzy.

But I also want to be clear that the Advent message isn't entirely tidings of comfort and joy – it's also a message of challenge:
a challenge to be re-born with Christ, a challenge to help our world be reborn, a challenge to upset the age-old cycle of the powerless and the powerful, a challenge to give up some of our own comfort so others can come to the table.

To the one who is coming, each of us is the most important thing in the world, and we are called to love one another in the same generous way.

On some great and glorious day, Jesus will usher in a new kingdom where this love will prevail. And every year – every day – we are invited to prepare his way, to help bring about the advent of a new world.

So I invite you to become part of this great conspiracy of Advent, to ponder in your heart that basic question: What if Christmas became a world-changing event again? What if?

[Watch the Advent conspiracy video!]

Jacob's Wrestling

Sermon Preached at St. Aidan's, Alexandria VA
October 17, 2010
Proper 24: Genesis 32:22-31, Psalm 121, 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, Luke 18:1-8


"I lift up my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come?
My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth"

If you were to glance around my apartment, you would see small bowls of rocks and shells scattered around on nearly every table, dresser, and shelf. It all started with a pocketful of rocks I gathered several years ago when my husband and I helped lead a pilgrimage to South Dakota. At first I picked them up because they were unusual colors that I'd never find in my backyard in Tennessee – orange and dark black and shiny white. But after I returned home they came to represent much more, serving as a reminder of that intensely spiritual journey, one that challenged me in many ways. So in the years since then I've continued to bring back rocks, shells, and the occasional pine cone from places where I have encountered God.

This rock is not one of mine - it was graciously loaned to me today by Barbara Katz. It is from the River Jabbok in Jordan, the setting of the story we read today from Genesis, in which Jacob encountered God. Barbara's friend Bob visited Jabbok during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land many years ago and brought this rock back for Barbara as a reminder of that story. So you see, I'm not the only one who gathers up little pieces of earth as mementos of spiritual encounters…

But if our story tells us anything this morning, it is that encountering God can come in the form of struggle. For Jacob it was a wrestling match that lasted for an entire night. Jacob has been wrestling his whole life. You may remember that he wrestled with his twin brother Esau in the womb. As an adult he wrestled away Esau's birthright as the older son and their tricked their father Isaac into blessing him instead, and everyone was so mad that Jacob had to flee for his life. While he was away he struggled with his future father-in-law Laban for 14 years so he could finally marry Rachel (and, by accident, her sister Leah). When Jacob finally had so many wives and children that he needed to find his own land to live on, he swindled Laban out of his best livestock on his way out of town. So as our story for today opens, Jacob is again a fugitive, and he has been away for home for about two decade. And the next day he will encounter Esau for the first time since that day so many years ago when he cheated his brother out of his inheritance. His best guess is that Esau will kill him on the spot. Jacob still has much to wrestle with.

Over the course of this story, all of this baggage Jacob is holding onto is torn away from him. When you look at this portion of Genesis in its original Hebrew, you learn straightaway that this is a story of deconstruction. Many of the words in this story are echoes of the second chapter of Genesis, which contains one of the Hebrew Bible's accounts of creation. Here are some highlights of that account:

"The Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a mist would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being…Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’…So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them…For the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man."

Back in the story of Jacob, many of these images reappear. The word for "wrestle" in the original text of this story is derived from one of the Hebrew words for "dust." And here is Jacob standing by a river. Water, dust: flashbacks to creation. But this story is UN-doing what God did in the creation story. In creation, God brought the man animals and a wife as partners and helpers. Now Jacob sends his wives and his livestock away, ahead of him across the river. And so Jacob is left alone, the exact same word as in the creation story, except that just like in the other story there is actually someone else there.

We come to understand by the end of the story that the stranger Jacob has wrestled with all night is actually God. In his encounter with God, Jacob himself is undone. He is struck on his hip– or a better translation might be in the hollow of his thigh joint – deep in the core of his body, deep in the core of himself.

The Hebrew tells us, then, that this is a story of un-doing, of a return to a primal struggle. It also reinforces that this is a story of identity. The name of the river, in Hebrew Yabbok, looks and sounds like the world for wrestle, yabak, and none of this is far from the name of our protagonist, Jacob. It's supposed to be a little bit unclear where Jacob leaves off and the wrestling begins. Because, after all, Jacob has always been wrestling.

Finally, though, his wrestling is blessed. When Jacob clings to the stranger, still not quite sure who the stranger is, and asks for a blessing, he is given a new name. And that name, Israel, means loosely "one who strives with God." The naming and the blessing seem to be one and the same. His new name acknowledges and honors Jacob's struggle with God as part of his blessing.

Jacob leaves this place a changed man. He will limp for the rest of his life, and that is Jacob's bowl of rocks, his constant reminder of his encounter with God. And while what happened in that place altered him and blessed him forever – in his body, his identity, and his heart – Jacob doesn't start a brand new life. He limps back to being a husband and a father and a brother.

Speaking of that, I think it's important to note the next chapter of this story. The next thing Jacob encounters is his dreaded meeting with Esau. He sees Esau coming toward him with what seems like a whole army of people. But instead of killing him, instead of even fighting him, Esau grabs his brother right away in an enormous embrace, and they kiss, and they cry. Jacob says to Esau, "Truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God." Since we know what Jacob went through to see the face of God the night before, we know the full weight of these words he speaks to his brother.

Jacob knows that seeing the face of God involves being alone and vulnerable to God. He knows that seeing the face of God involves being undone. He knows that seeing the face of God involves wrestling with everything he has ever done wrong. He knows that seeing the face of God involves crawling back to the person he has hurt most in the world. But now Jacob also knows that seeing the face of God involves freedom and forgiveness, and he sees this shining back at him from his brother's face.

Barbara's dear friend and colleague Bob brought her this rock because he said he saw in her someone who was always wrestling with God, as she continually explored her faith and discerned what God would have her do. And he knew she was also one to hold on for her blessing, even as things in her life were undone. In the years since then, she has kept this rock with her as a reminder that our deepest wrestling and our greatest blessings are often one and the same.

I know that Barbara is not the only person at St. Aidan's/in this room with a history of wrestling with God. I wonder what moments and experiences are in your bowl of rocks? I wonder when you have been vulnerable, when you have been undone, when you have admitted that you were wrong. And I wonder when you have been able to say with Jacob, "I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."

(Drawing by Debbi Friedman: http://dlfriedman.com/myblog/category/rock-still-life/)

Senior Sermon

Senior Sermon at Virginia Theological Seminary
September 8, 2010
Jeremiah 18:1-11; Psalm 139:1-5, 13-17; Luke 14:25-33

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"Indeed, there is not a word on my lips,
but you, O LORD, know it altogether." Amen.

When I was in my first year of college, a friend in my dorm taught me to knit. She gave me some beautiful purple wool, helped me pick out the right needles, and got me started on my first scarf. Stitch by stitch, I started to get the hang of it, and I plugged away for weeks on that thing. Every now and then I would drop a stitch or the scarf would start to look a little too much like swiss cheese, so I would drag it upstairs and Kate would straighten it out. One of those times, though, the damage was too great for a quick fix. Kate declared that we were going to have to pull out several rows of my masterpiece in order to get those stitches back on track, and I watched in horror as she did just that. There are times when starting over is the only way forward. Jeremiah and Jesus offer us variations on that theme in today's lessons.

Jeremiah was writing on the eve of Jerusalem's destruction and the Babylonian Captivity, calling out to the people of Judah to prevent this impending disaster by changing their behavior. Jeremiah probably came from the same community that brought us the final version of the book of Deuteronomy, so he was almost certainly recalling the beautiful words we heard yesterday. But his people had not loved the Lord with all their heart and soul and might; they had not kept God's words in their hearts; they had not bound them into their lives. So Jeremiah warned them again and again to repent, literally in Hebrew to turn, shuv. The prophet knew that if the people of God continued in their broken ways, God would have to unravel their history and start again, and repentance, turning, was the only way to avoid what Jeremiah saw coming. But his message was not heeded; the people did not turn; and within just a few years of his warning Jerusalem lay in ruins and its people were slaves in a foreign land once again. As Jeremiah predicted, God was re-forming his people.

Our gospel lesson is also about starting over, but Jesus is not talking about starting over as something we should try to avoid. Rather, it is a condition of discipleship. Jesus asks us to unravel ourselves and the very fabric of our lives in order to become his followers. "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions." The Greek verb for "hate," miseo, has a more nuanced meaning than this English translation implies. It's not referring to an emotion as much as a dramatic shift in priorities – "hating" something means subjugating it to a higher ideal. Being a disciple of Christ has to come first, and everything else – even your closest relationships and life itself – has to come second. So this message is a little bit less harsh than it sounds initially, but it's still a very tall order.

I remember the opening day of VTS orientation, when my class was gathered together for the very first time, shivering in the back of the auditorium. Dean Markham asked us all to introduce ourselves and name the one thing that had been the most difficult about moving to seminary. There were stories about cats vomiting all the way from Kentucky to Virginia, adventures in IKEA, and getting lost driving around Alexandria, and we all had a good chuckle. I realized later that not one of us had given the real answer to that question – not one of us had talked about quitting jobs, selling houses, leaving behind co-workers and church communities, hugging our family and friends goodbye. But those things didn't really need mentioning, because everyone in this room knows what those painful sacrifices were like. I'm really preaching to the choir here today, because you are all well acquainted with the cost of discipleship and the pain that accompanies starting over in service of Christ.

But I hope you are also here because you have had a glimpse of where that decision is leading you, because you have felt the hand of God beginning to mold and transform your life into a new vessel that is stronger than the old one. Jeremiah introduced us to a God who breaks down and destroys but who also builds and plants, and when the prophet tried to understand the impending obliteration of Jerusalem in theological terms, destruction wasn't the end of the story. Destruction came in service of God's ongoing creation. Likewise, when Jesus set his face to Jerusalem and invited us to leave everything behind and come along, he invited us to witness not just his crucifixion but also his resurrection.

When my friend Kate pulled those rows of yarn out of my scarf, I thought the whole thing would fall apart. But, in fact, the thing that was weakening it most was my own stubbornness in clinging to every stitch as a precious artifact and plowing ahead even when I knew I wasn't doing my best. She could see ahead to a stronger, better scarf, one that I still wear to this day, and she knew that starting again was the only way to attain a final work that was good and whole.

Coming to seminary is not the first or the last time you will re-orient your life for God's service. But amidst the pain of turning and amending our lives, of shifting our priorities, of starting over, we rest in the hands of a Creator God – a knitting God, no less – a God of resurrection. No one says this more eloquently than our psalmist, so I leave you with these words: "You press upon me behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well." Amen.

The Gospel of 'Glee'

Sermon for the Preaching Excellence Conference, June 2010, Villanova University

Acts 2:1-21
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’ But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 

“In the last days it will be, God declares,

that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,

and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

and your young men shall see visions,

and your old men shall dream dreams. 

Even upon my slaves, both men and women,

in those days I will pour out my Spirit;

and they shall prophesy. 

And I will show portents in the heaven above

and signs on the earth below,

blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 

The sun shall be turned to darkness

and the moon to blood,

before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. 

Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Preaching Jesus. That's our assignment for this week, and it sounds simple enough, right? Pick a gospel lesson and go. Actually, as I thought about this topic over the past couple weeks, I found it more challenging than I originally expected. So last Sunday when we read this lesson from Acts for Pentecost, I was glad to be reminded that I'm not alone. The book of Acts is all about those early disciples wrestling with this same question: how to preach Jesus. When Jesus was alive, he did most of the preaching; he told his own story, and the disciples were mostly apprentices. But suddenly Jesus is gone, and the entire burden of spreading the gospel rests upon them. It's really no small assignment, then or now.

So instead of tackling this topic with full force when school let out, I pretty much ignored it. Instead, I parked myself on my couch to watch the entire first season of the hit TV series "Glee." Now I see what everyone was talking about – and enjoying, while I was buried under theology, homiletics, & field ed this year. Before I even got through the first DVD, I was a full-fledged Gleek.

For those of you who have also been living in a cave this year, a synopsis: "Glee" is the story of a passionate, hard-working, very good-looking high school teacher who takes over the school's dying Glee Club and attempts to transform it into an award-winning show choir, with costumes, choreography, and even a little Lady Gaga. Lucky for him, William McKinley High School has a few supremely talented teenagers running around – and lucky for me, it's a really good metaphor for the early church. So I will venture to present five things "Glee" teaches us about preaching Jesus.

1. Strength in numbers
In Glee, the official "Show Choir Rule Book" specifies that in order to be eligible for competition, a group must have at least 12 members. During the first half of the season, nearly every episode deals with the ever-elusive quest to reach and maintain this magical number. At least one person is always walking out or threatening to quit, thereby endangering the entire existence of the Glee Club. But they always come back, restoring the original number, and the show goes on.

With two years of seminary under our belts, we all know how important the number 12 is, Biblically speaking. After Jesus ascends in Acts, the first thing the disciples do is hold auditions for a twelfth member. Before they can even begin to preach the gospel, they have to make sure they're within regulation. In this case, the rule book is that of divine necessity, of fulfilling the scriptures, a major theme for the writer of Luke and Acts. Without a full 12 members, the group will remain divided and thus Israel will remain divided, and God's plan to restore Israel will be ruined. So yes, in reality 11 disciples could have picked up the slack in getting the early church going and spreading the good news, but their insistence on having a total of 12 represents their knowledge of how important scripture and tradition are in providing stability for the message they will proclaim.

Second point: Preaching Jesus requires a common language
Like the original 12 disciples, the Glee Club at William McKinley High School is a rag-tag bunch. They have been called from all corners of high school society – some are football players and cheerleaders at the top of the heap, while the others are regularly thrown in the dumpster or have slushies thrown in their faces by those same popular kids. But they can all sing. And while some of the members originally join the group under duress or with ulterior motives, they soon discover this common language. They discover connections they never would have known if they hadn't joined Glee Club. In one of my favorite episodes, Mr. Schuester, the director, makes everyone spend a week navigating life in a wheelchair, so they can relate to Artie, their fellow singer who has spent most of his life in a wheelchair. To sing and perform effectively as a group, they have to be aware of their differences, but also of the things that connect them.

The author of Acts tells us basically the same thing. Suddenly Parthians, Medes, and Elamites understand each other. It's important to note that they don't all begin to speak the same language, but that they begin to hear one another, each in his or her own native language. The Holy Spirit makes this unity possible, and suddenly the crowd understands that they've all been saying the same thing all along. They have all been "speaking about God's deeds of power." Once they understand each other's languages, and what they have in common, they can finally hear and preach the good news.

This leads me to point #3, which is that preaching Jesus is often misunderstood
On the ladder of popularity, being a music nerd barely gets a foothold on the bottom rung. I can speak from experience on that one. In Glee, the football players and cheerleaders who take up singing have the hardest time explaining themselves to their peers. Their fellow jocks aren’t able to hear their common language of music and the connections it reveals between us, because that would upset their carefully crafted social order. So the "popular" Glee kids begin to experience the same threats and derision their nerdy counterparts are long familiar with.

Doesn't this remind you of the response of the crowd to the descent of the Holy Spirit. It's not: "Wow! This is amazing! How do I get to be part of this?" but "Ah, they're just drunk." Sometimes, even when we're doing our best, even when the Holy Spirit is speaking through us, the message can fall completely flat, by no fault of our own. The gospel doesn't always sound like good news the first time around (or the second, or the third), and no one knew that better than Jesus himself. But if it makes everyone feel comfortable and satisfies the status quo, it's probably not the true gospel. Preaching Jesus in a genuine way rarely leads to popularity.

4. We have to preach Jesus out of our own experience
Of course there are a lot of show stoppers in Glee, but it's not all song and dance. The music is set against the backdrop of each kid's individual life, and there's a lot of drama: Kurt has recently come out of the closet to his dad; Quinn was disowned by her parents and kicked off the cheerleading squad when she got pregnant; Fin's mom has just started dating for the first time since his dad died; and even Mr. Schuester has his own fair share of drama. All of this affects their performance in various ways, good and bad. At one point, Kurt (the one who just came out of the closet) tries to regain his dad's affection by ditching his usual designer wardrobe and dressing in flannel and truckers' hats. When he breaks out into a John Mellencamp tune, his friends politely point out that, while it is technically a fine performance, it's just not him.

The original disciples each had an individual relationship with Jesus. They had all witnessed the same person and the same events, but each one interpreted them through the lens of his own life and his own connection with Christ. While we don’t have the same physical connection 2,000 years later, we do all have our own relationship with Jesus. Our parishioners don't want to hear us preach someone else's gospel. They want to hear us preach about what the stories of salvation have meant in our own lives, so they can figure out the same thing for themselves. As preachers, we are not islands. We are real people living in time and space and relationships. To be authentic, we have to meet Jesus in our own lives and preach about what we find.

Finally, and perhaps most important, preaching Jesus requires passion and joy. Or, shall I say, glee. I've now used this word about a hundred times in this sermon, but it's one that's fallen out of common English usage for the most part – least of all in reference to religion. I think one of the reasons Glee has been such a popular show is that everyone wants to relate to that feeling of spontaneous song and dance, the unmatched excitement of choreography and jazz hands. We all want to think we could let go and have that much fun.

Even in our Pentecost lesson, Peter turns to Hebrew poetry from the prophet Joel to best express what is happening among the disciples – he pretty much breaks into song. “In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams." It's beautiful, and moving. I think we're all here because we hope our preaching can move people in the same way, and we know that it can be much more than brushing up on a few commentaries and listening to the sound of our own voice for 12 minutes. I'm not saying that preaching on sitcoms is the answer, but tapping into whatever it is that brings passion and joy into your life, because that is where Jesus dwells. So as we walk through this week together and then go our separate ways again, I hope you will find yourself surrounded by prophesy, visions, and dreams, preaching Jesus with a song in your heart.

Potty Talk

Do you know how, when you go on a trip, there's usually one image that sticks in your memory as the first one that comes to mind when you think back to that adventure? For me, when I recall my month-long immersion in Myanmar last January, the first thing I remember is the day we spent in the small village of Hmawbi.

We ten seminarians worshipped on Sunday morning at the village church, St. Michael's, and afterward we were divided into small groups to visit parishioners' homes. I had three or four students from Holy Cross Theological College guiding me around, translating, and making sure I didn't embarrass ourselves too much with cultural faux pas. My group visited three or four homes, and at each one I was seated in a central place of honor and asked to tell my story - where I was from, what my family is like, what I'm studying, what my ministry involves. Then I was asked to pray for the family gathered around me. (At one home I was asked to sing a song.) And then I was fed - and fed, and fed, until I thought I would pop. In these small grass huts in the Burmese countryside, we were showered with fruit and cake and tea in china teacups. It was not unlike the feeding of the 5,000.

We learned a great deal that day about radical hospitality and generosity to the point of giving beyond your means. We knew that in almost all of those homes we were being given gifts that those families really weren't able to give, but they did because that was what it meant to them to live in a Christian community of welcome. So when we received a request from the people of St. Michael's to help them build two modern toilets with plumbing, it seemed like a small gesture of generosity on our part. We appealed to the seminary community for 100 people to give $10. For us, $10 is well within our means. It is the cost of a movie ticket or, in Alexandria at least, going out for a pretty cheap dinner - two things that the people of Hmawbi will probably never in their lives do.

The World Toilet Organization estimates that every dollar donated to improving sanitation in developing countries ends up brings $9 in value to a community. So a $10 donation will benefit the people of Hmawbi with a value of $90 or more. We ended up with the equivalent of 160 people giving $10 to help their Christian neighbors around the world. This money will travel home with our dear classmate Lwin Thida when she returns in May. She will bring the gift of this money and a strong message of communion from the VTS community to the people of Hmawbi.