"What Should We Do?" (Third Sunday of Advent)

Luke 3:7-18

7 John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." 10 And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?" 11 In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" 13 He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." 14 Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages." 15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." 18 So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

Whenever I read about John the Baptist I cannot help but ask myself, “What was it about John that brought folks out to see and hear him?” I mean, think about it, there’s no way John makes it today as a preacher: he doesn’t dress very well (camel’s hair and leather belts went out in the B.C.’s), he’s got shaggy hair and an unkempt beard with bits of his strange breakfast stuck in it (which is crazy since he’s standing out in the middle of a river—you think he’d take the time to splash his face and slick back his hair with some of that water he’s dunking folks in!). Then there’s his message and presentation style: John isn’t exactly encouraging, doesn’t have what you might call a “bubbly personality.” He doesn’t tell jokes, he doesn’t rattle of memory verses, he doesn’t tell compelling stories, and he shouts—even calls people snakes! I mean, come on! Why are there crowds of people hanging around listening to him, crowds of people being baptized by him when he would be asked to leave, tone it down, or hush up altogether if he was preaching today? I have to tell you, I don’t get it, so I have to ask, “Why?”

Were people just curious about what was going on out in the wilderness? After all, John was a bit odd even for his day. Maybe people just wanted to see this site they had heard about: “Yeah, there this guy out in the Jordan River called John, and man, he’s got folks stirred up. They say he’s something else, whooping and hollering, dunking folks in the river telling them their sins are forgiven. You want to go check it out?” I’m sure there were some folks who just had to see the site of John for themselves; hearsay wasn’t enough. They wanted to experience this thing firsthand. So, maybe folks were gathering at the Jordan out of curiosity, to see this strange fellow they had heard about from folks talking in town.

Then again, there really wasn’t a whole lot going on in those days to capture one’s attention. There were no daytime soaps, no gameshows, or “news” channels (after all, there was no electricity, never mind televisions). There wasn’t much in the way of distraction for the common folks of Judea, nothing really in the realm of “affordable entertainment,” so I can imagine folks standing around: “Hey Earl. What’re you up to this afternoon?” “Well, I thought I’d watch the sand dry. What about you?” “Well, I thought I’d see how long I could hold my breath again. You want to do something different, go see what this John the Baptist business is all about down at the Jordan?” “Sure, why not?” Maybe it was pure boredom that drew people to the Jordan. After all, there was a day when there wasn’t anything going on on Sundays, so folks showed up at the meeting house because they had nothing better to do (no games on TV, no practices to take the kids to, no brunch deals at the café in town). Perhaps folks just needed something to pass the time, and John was better than staring at the sun.

But curiosity and boredom won’t keep the attention of many people. Curiosity can be quenched by the site of whatever it is that causes the interest, and boredom is seeking entertainment or distraction, but John wasn’t an entertainer and he was more than a distraction. So what was it then that brought so many out to the wilderness, out to hear John? Maybe they were seeking something; maybe they were seeking an answer. Perhaps they were folks looking for something they couldn’t find on the display tables in the market. Maybe they were folks looking for more than just another fad, another “get-right-quick” scheme. Is it possible that the folks who came out to be baptized by John in the wilderness had questions that couldn’t be so easily answered by the same institutions that had always promised to have the answer to every question? Could it be that we can come to a place in our lives where we have questions that cannot be answered by the same, old, once-reliable methods that brought us this far?

Whatever questions, whatever inquiries brought these crowds out into the wilderness, John doesn’t exactly greet them with words of good tidings: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." I can’t help but imagine there were more than a few folks who turned around and went home, but those who stayed, those who listened to John’s words, heard him call them out. John called them out of their previously comfortable way of thinking about religion as an inherited system of rules and laws, of “dos and don’ts,” of family heritage. See, John calls them out of their way of thinking that everything was fine so long as they could open the family Bible and trace their heritage back to Abraham—the one God had made a covenant with way back in the Old Testament. John calls them out to a life that “bears fruit worthy of repentance,” especially after so many of them likely came down to the Jordan believing John’s baptism was a “quick fix” for their religious woes. It’s only after this fiery welcome from John, only after this calling out, that the folks in the crowds start to reveal why they are there in the first place. They have a question: "What then should we do?"

It’s a fitting question to ask the Baptizer, to ask any preacher who simply shouts at the congregation to “get right with the Lord!” It’s the question one asks when they’re most helpless, because it’s a question we all ask when we simply don’t know what to do—and we hate not knowing what to do. Of course, you and I live in an era when, if we don’t know what to do, we can simply Google it. We can pull out our phones, ask Siri how to tie a full Windsor knot, search Google for the way to properly plunge a clogged commode, we can even get step-by-step instructions on how to build a moonshine still (not that any of you would be interested in that). It seems we’ve all but eradicated the need to ask “What should we do?” Yet, there are still those instances in life, those deep, spiritual corners of existence, when Google can’t seem to give us the right answer, when Siri lets us down, when there doesn’t seem to be a video tutorial or a .pdf of easy-to-use instructions. When we face those times in our lives, those times when we (like those in the crowd at the Jordan) ask, “What should we do?” I think we secretly hope that we already know the answer.

We hope for a “religious” answer. You know, when the world seems dark, when life seems to be hitting a rough spot, when we can’t sleep at night, when the stress seems almost too much, or when we simply want to know how to be a so-called “better Christian,” we hope the answer to “What should we do?” will be a religious one. “Just pray more…read your Bible more…go to church more…” I think we secretly hope for answers like that. I think we hope for answers like that because they at least make some kind of sense to us. It makes sense to us that if we want to get on God’s good side we should do more of those things that sound “churchy” and maybe do less of those things that don’t sound so “churchy.” But what about when we do all of those sorts of things and it doesn’t help? What about when we do all of those things already or when they don’t seem to be enough (because, truthfully, they aren’t enough)? What then?

When we ask “What should I do?” and the usual, churchy answers aren’t enough, it seems most folks fall back to looking for easy, “quick-fix” answers. Too often, people approach faith the same way they approach losing weight or making money: they’re after an easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide that is hopefully not too intense and won’t ask too much of them. We ask, “What should we do?” and we expect answers like: “If you can do this one thing for ten minutes every day…with these ten easy steps you’ll have a happier, more fulfilling life…if you can change just one thing about your daily routine, it should be this…”  We want “click-bait” answers, solutions that draw us in because they sound catchy, because they’re clearly outlined and presented to us. Truth be told, I think one of the reasons we like these sorts of answers too is because if they don’t work, we can always blame the one who came up with them (of course, they can in turn blame us foe not doing them the way they prescribed). We like systematized, neat, organized answers to life’s hard questions, but then again, sometimes I think we like it if there’s no answer at all!

Think about it: how many times have you told yourself or someone else, or had someone else tell you, “Just be patient, it’ll all blow over?” Or how many times have you thought to yourself, “This isn’t really my problem; it’s up to someone else to fix it?” I know some of you have said or thought, “Well, there’s really nothing to do because this is all a part of God’s plan anyhow.” When we ask, “What should we do?” sometimes we hope the answer is “nothing,” that the best thing to do is leave everything alone and hope for the best, to “let sleeping dogs lie,” because, after all, we might wind up making things worse!

“What should we do?” we ask when faced with the great mysteries of faith, and so often we want answers that fit our preconceptions, answers that fit neatly into religious categories, answers that are easy to follow, or answers that require us to do nothing. The truth, however, is that the answer to that very question is one that is not so easy, and that means it’s an answer we seldom (if ever) want to hear.

Three times, we hear that very question from those in the crowds by the Jordan, and three times John gives them very real answers in verses 10-14: “And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’ In reply he said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’”  This isn’t even Sunday School stuff—this is regular, old, pre-school sharing! “Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’”  John tells these tax collectors to simply do their jobs of collecting the taxes without extorting more from folks, which was the way many tax collectors made their livings, the way many of them made a comfortable living and were despised by so many. “Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’” Soldiers used their positions of power, their intimidating place in society in order to threaten others and blackmail them into giving them money. John calls them out on their abuses of power and calls them to a life in stark contrast to what they had been so used to, what they had considered to be proper and normal.

You see, when these from the crowd ask John, “What should we do?” he doesn’t respond with a churchy answer, nor does he give them some prescriptive answer for securing their personal comfort, nor does he let them off the hook by proclaiming the inevitability of what is to come. No, John in essence tells them they have to reshape their lives! They must reorient their lives to think less of themselves, to want less, to think more of others and how they may show compassion to others. When John speaks of the ax already lying at the roots of the trees, we like to think that’s a metaphor for those people who aren’t “saved,” those people who aren’t like us, those people who haven’t been dunked in the water. But what if John is speaking of the ways that God is purging our lives of those selfish desires that keep us from loving God and each other? What if the winnowing fork in the coming Christ’s hand isn’t a tool meant to cast souls into hell, but an instrument of refinement, meant to toss our selfishness, our egos, and our personal comfort into wind, into God’s cleansing fire of compassion?

What should we do? It’s easy to boil it all down to a few steps isn’t it? To say we have to pray this prayer, walk this aisle, be baptized a certain way, go to this many services, read this translation of the Bible, don’t do this handful of things or associate with these kinds of folks, make some kind of stand on certain issues, and then, when that day arrives, when Jesus shows up, you can tell him you followed all the rules and you told others they had better follow those rules too, and Jesus will pat you on the back, say you kept out of trouble, kept your nose clean and now you’ll get that plot of paradise you’ve been waiting on. But here’s the thing, if following Jesus doesn’t change something deep within you, if it doesn’t compel you to let go of yourself, to share with others, to seek justice, to change the world, to love God and your neighbors more, then are you really following Jesus, or are you still trying to find those easier answers to the question, “What should we do?”

This Advent, as we look forward to the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, and his return in the coming future, let us strive to show love to one another, to answer the question, “What should we do?” by the way with live our lives, and may our answer be one of unconditional, Christ-filled love. Amen. 

"Giving Light" (Second Sunday of Advent)

Luke 1:68-79

68 "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. 69 He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, 70 as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, 71 that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. 72 Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, 73 the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us 74 that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, 75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. 76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, 77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. 78 By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, 79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."

            On this second Sunday of Advent, we reflect on the theme of peace—and boy, do we need it now! With more news of more mass shootings, with more news of more suicide bombers, with more news of politicians slinging mud at each other, and with more news of vitriolic disagreement between those of differing opinions on what to do about all of it, we need to hear a word about peace. Actually, we need more than just a word; we need peace itself.

Unfortunately, peace, it seems, has been the exception rather than the rule throughout human existence. Sure it seems that we live in an especially chaotic and troublesome time, but the truth is that in the 3,400 years of recorded history there have only been 268 scattered years of what we might call peace. What that means is that throughout the history of humankind only 268 years were without war or major conflict, and it probably goes without saying that most of those years were spread out over history. Only 8% of human history has been spent in relative peace.[1] Even in a time when one would think that we as a species would have come to understand the futility of war and the ways in which it robs us of our humanity, wars still rage on. Some wars are fought in more technologically advanced and precise ways, while others are fought in more primitive and random ways. It seems war and violence are an inevitable part of the human experience…at least for now, because now we need peace.

            Peace seems so difficult to us, I suppose, because we believe that while we want it, others do not. There are those in this world who are indeed enemies of peace, those who wish to see the world wrapped in war. They wish to see the world with people of differing nations, races, and creeds killing each other over those very differences, bringing harm and terror to those who would otherwise seek to live in peace with one another. While I won’t point fingers or name names (it seems most folks prefer to do that on social media these days anyhow), I do think that those of us who follow the babe born in Bethlehem ought to heed the words of a familiar song we sing every year about this time: “Let there be peace on earth/And let it begin with me./Let there be peace on earth/The peace that was meant to be./With God as our Father/Brothers all are we./Let me walk with my brother/In perfect harmony.” Of course, letting peace begin with me means I need to take an active part in peace, to understand that peace is not merely the absence of conflict and noise but the presence of the Spirit of God.

            I suppose for many of us, peace may be defined that way, as the absence of something (war, violence, noise), and for those of us submerged in a world full of distractions and noise, it’s appealing to think of peace as the absence of all of that, to think of peace as a pause in the chaos, an oasis in the midst of life’s stress, a silent retreat from the cacophony of the world. I suppose one could define peace that way—as silence—unless one has something to say, unless you have something that needs to be said. Then, silence can be the very antithesis of peace.

            I can’t help but think that was how Zechariah felt. Luke tells us that Zechariah (a priest in the temple) and his wife, Elizabeth (a descendant herself of the priestly line of Aaron), were both “living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years [which is Luke’s nice, biblical way of saying they were old!]” (Luke 1:6-7). Luke goes on to tell us that one day, while Zechariah was serving as a priest before the Lord, he entered the sanctuary of the temple to offer incense (as was the custom). While Zechariah was in the sanctuary, an angel (a messenger) from God named Gabriel appeared to tell him that his wife Elizabeth (remember, the one who was barren and way too old to get pregnant?) was with child, and Zechariah was to name him John.

This is a page right out of the Old Testament, right? An old couple, blameless before God, who wanted to have children (as everyone did then) but couldn’t have them, are now told in their old age—by a messenger from God, no less—that they’re expecting. Zechariah was a priest, not a dumb man by any stretch of the imagination, and though he no doubt knew the story of Abraham and Sarah and others like it, he knew himself, and he knew his wife, and he knew that things just didn’t add up, so he asked Gabriel, “How am I going to know that what you say is really so?” (Luke 1:18, my paraphrase). But because he doubted the angel’s words, Zechariah was struck mute until the day his son John was to be born (perhaps his wife Elizabeth thought to herself, “Finally I have some peace around the house without Zach always blabbing about what happened today at the temple!”). There may have been silence from Zechariah, but it wasn’t peace, because Zechariah had something to say.

See, too often we assume peace means quiet, that peace means not rocking the boat, not saying what ought to be said for the sake of keeping calm, not doing what ought to be done because it may prove to be too difficult to navigate while trying to keep things held together. So we bite our tongues, sit on our hands, try to smooth things over or wait things out, all the while there’s something that needs to be said, something that needs to be proclaimed, something that needs to be done. While Zechariah may have been silenced by an angel because of his doubt, at times we can simply silence ourselves because of our own doubts, our own uncertainties and insecurities. Deep within our hearts, we know the right thing to do, the right thing to say, yet pride, comfort, or fear too often chokes our words and paralyzes our limbs. We may be afraid that others will disagree with us, that others will think we’re stupid, or perhaps worst of all, that we might fail. However, when we let go of that fear, when we put our trust in the One who calls us to difficult tasks and a prophetic life, when we say what we know is right and do what we believe to be God’s will peace can begin with us.

The words we’ve read from Holy Scripture this morning are the first recorded words Zechariah speaks after John is born. They are words of prophecy—a prophetic song sung by the one who had just so recently been unable to speak. The Benedictus (as it is called from the first word of the song in Latin) is a song that praises God for the ways in which he has delivered his people, the ways God has saved us all in order that we might freely serve God without fear. They are words that sing of God’s tender mercy, of God’s forgiveness of sins. They are words that sing of John’s role in this plan of God’s. Yet the words that speak the most to me on this second Sunday of Advent are Zechariah’s words in verses 78 and 79: “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break [has broken] upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." Zechariah sings of God’s tender mercy breaking into the world, and this mercy will bring hope as it brings light to the darkness, a light which will guide us in the way of peace.

When Zechariah breaks his silence, disrupts the quiet with his song, it’s a prophetic proclamation of God’s forgiveness of sins and the in-breaking of God’s kingdom into the world. It’s an announcement declaring that darkness can begin counting the days, for it will be driven out by the light of God’s love. It is a song that sings of the beginning of peace on earth…and we want to join in Zechariah’s chorus to sing “…and let it begin with me.” But how does peace begin with me? With the dawn of God’s tender mercy breaking from on high to guide our feet into the way of peace, how do we walk in that way of peace which is set before us? Because we need peace now, the world needs peace now, and we are called to be bearers of that peace.

The Catholic priest and theologian Hans Küng said in 2005 at the opening of the Exhibit on the World’s Religions at Santa Clara University: “There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions.”[2] Now, while I believe Küng is absolutely right, I also believe there will be no peace among the nations until there is peace among neighbors—and that’s how peace on earth begins with me, with you, with us.

Peace begins with us when we seek to be reconciled with those who’ve hurt us and those whom we have hurt. Peace begins with us when we proclaim the good news of God’s forgiveness as we forgive others. Peace begins with us as we bring the light of Christ’s love into those dark places in the world, the shadows where the hurting, outcast, rejected, refused, and lonely can be found. Peace begins with us when we realize that we may be part of the problem, when we resolve to listen more than we talk, to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes before casting judgement (something we shouldn’t be in the business of doing anyway!). Peace begins with me when I see you as the child of God you are, peace begins with you when you see me as the child of God I am, and when we all realize that we each and every one of us is fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God and worthy of love, to love and be loved by each other and by God. There can’t be peace on earth until there’s peace among neighbors, so this Advent, as we draw closer to the cradle of our Lord, as we draw closer to the full arrival of his kingdom, let us seek to share the forgiveness and love of God in Christ with each other. Let us strive to bring light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Let us follow the light of Christ that leads us into the pathway of peace. Let there be peace on earth this Advent, and let it begin with me, with you, with all of us. Amen.

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/books/chapters/0713-1st-hedges.html?pagewanted=all (accessed 12/5/15)

[2] The full text of Küng’s speech can be found here: http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/focusareas/global_ethics/laughlin-lectures/kung-world-religions.html (accessed 12/6/15)

"King Jesus" (Reign of Christ)

John 18:33-37

33 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" 34 Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" 35 Pilate replied, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?" 36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." 37 Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

            It’s a mask made of solid gold, inlaid with carnelian (a reddish semi-precious stone), lapis lazuli (a deep blue precious stone), turquoise-colored glass, and quartz. There are two golden serpents, poised to strike, perched on the forehead of a face that bears the expression of regality and youthful pride. The long, stylized beard that protrudes from his chin tells those who may see such a mask that the one beneath it was indeed one of importance, one whose power was so great it was believed to have extended even into the afterlife. Two scepters are crossed over his chest, further signs of power and royalty. It is the mask of the young king, Tutankhamun, better known as King Tut. His burial mask is so well-known that it is often the first image that comes to mind alongside the pyramids and the sphinx when one thinks of Egypt. The golden burial mask that bears the image of the boy king’s face, an image of power, pride, and a hint of arrogance—that’s the image of a king.

            Then there’s the engraving of the emperor Charlemagne the Great from around the year 800 A.D. The emperor is decked out in his royal armor, complete with golden inlays of fleur-de-lis and what looks like some sort of wild warbird. Across his shoulders is a cape of gold and red, clasped at his breast with a large ruby surrounded by other jewels. Atop his noble head is a grand, bejeweled crown; in his left hand he holds a golden scepter, and in his right hand he holds the Palatine Chapel, one of the architectural marvels that made up Charlemagne’s grand palace in what is now Germany. With his long hair and beard, his steady eyes, and confident expression, the armored, gold-plated, crown-wearing, scepter wielding emperor looks every bit the image of a king.

            Then there’s the lost painting of Hans Holbein the Younger of Henry VIII. While the actual painting itself was lost to a fire in 1698, there are copies that have helped to preserve this image of one of the most famous British monarchs. While there’s no sign of a crown, no throne, scepter, robes, or armor, it is plain to see that this is the image of a king. Henry stands with his feet apart, his ringed hands by his sides, and a dagger hanging from his belt. His clothes are clearly the clothes of the wealthy elite, the velvet hat atop his head a sign that he belongs to such a high class of people that he can cover his head with such luxury. Even the sleeves of his shirt seem to be covered with rubies and gold, the kind of uncomfortable and impractical garb that only a monarch would wear. The expression on his face is one of stern confidence, as if he was posing for the only portrait ever worthy of being hung on a castle wall or the altar of a cathedral. That’s the image of a king!

Then there’s the picture painted by the scene before us in Holy Scripture: the Roman-appointed governor in his authoritarian get-up, the comfortable robe, over which he may have been wearing a chest plate, a pleated kilt, and a scarlet robe. In his hands he held the power of the empire in this backwater province of Judea. Sure, the people could rule themselves, hold their own courts, continue worshipping their gods, just as long as they didn’t cross the Empire, and in that region of the world, the Empire was personified in the governor, the propraetor, the proconsul, in Pilate. To many in that time and place, Pilate was what a king looked like, clothed in the garb of the Romans, wielding the appointed power of the Caesar. Pilate, however, is not the one being asked if he’s a king. No, Pilate poses the question to the ragged Jew chained before him in the chambers of his headquarters.

"Are you the King of the Jews?" Pilate asks Jesus. “Was he a king?” There was no sign that his head and neck had ever been weighed down by the heft of a crown. There were no callouses caused by the ceaseless waving of a scepter. His skin was not fair, unburned by the sun, protected by the soft silk of a royal robe or the gilded plates of an emperor’s armor. His hair and beard were not well-trimmed, scented with palace perfumes; the soles of his feet were not protected from the harsh, Judean roads by the soft leather of a Roman’s sandals, nor did it appear he had ever been carried on a litter by his own servants. He was rough, likely smelled of dirt and sweat, his hair and beard were unkempt, his lip busted or his eye swollen from the blow he had taken from another the night before. He was more than likely exhausted from a sleepless night of prayer, arrest, and trial. He stood before the Roman governor—his political superior—and heard him ask, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

The conversation that follows is the most detailed version in the four gospels. Jesus answers Pilate’s question with another question in verse 34: "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" Pilate’s reply (frustratingly enough) is yet another question followed by yet another question still: "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?" Then Jesus carries on with the conversation, but almost as if he’s having a completely different one: "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." “My kingdom”? So Jesus is admitting to being a king here, right? That’s what Pilate asks him in verse 37:"So you are a king?" to which Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

Why won’t Jesus come right out and say “Yes, Pilate, I am a king. I am THE king. I am the king of kings and the Lord of lords. I am the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Sho-nuff, the Always has, Always been, and Always will be”? Why doesn’t Jesus come right out with it and demand to be set free, call for a crown, a robe, and a ride to his palace? Why does he say all of this stuff about having a kingdom that’s not of this world, a kingdom that doesn’t elicit violence from his followers, a kingdom that doesn’t demand defense?

On the one hand, I suppose it wouldn’t have done him any good. After all, Pilate may have just laughed in his face: him, a king? Shackled and road-worn? Pilate may have cut the conversation even shorter and had him released with a verdict of “not guilty by reason of insanity!” Then again, it could have sent Pilate into a panic: he was there in Judea at that time to keep the peace, to make sure things didn’t get out of hand during the Passover festival. For there to be some rabble rouser claiming to be the king who (at least at one time) had thousands of followers, that would have certainly meant trouble—the kind of trouble Pilate didn’t want. So if Jesus had just said he was a king, Pilate may have done whatever the Sanhedrin had asked just to keep the peace during the Passover. Then again, there may be another reason Jesus didn’t just come right out and say he was a king…at least not before he was sure Pilate understood one thing.

Pilate asked Jesus if he was a king. That is to say, Pilate asked Jesus if he was a ruler, one with the power over a kingdom of subjects, an army, a treasury, borders, flags, traditions, the power to threaten others with power. Was Jesus a king? Did he sport a crown, armor and a war horse? Was he the type of political power that gave easy answers to hard questions, who was willing to uphold the nobility at the expense of the commoner? Was he a monarch with the power to oppress those who stood in his way, to march legions into other nations and lands he wished to rule? Was he the kind of ruler who demanded loyalty and admiration from those in his kingdom? Was he really a king?

You know, that’s the kind of leader it seems so many like, isn’t it? The one in the tailored suit, with the lapel pin, the one with the tailored answers to propped-up questions, the one who “plays to the base,” the one who is emboldened by the prospect of power and control, the one whose eyes are set on a throne. It no longer matters if they’re called king, emperor, chancellor, or president, when we think of those people who rule, those who govern, they too often fit the description of one in power. So maybe—maybe—when Jesus doesn’t give Pilate an answer right away, when he first explains that his kingdom is not of this world, there’s a reason, and maybe that reason has everything to do with the reality that Jesus doesn’t fit our expectations of a king, of an emperor, of a president. Perhaps Jesus’ kingdom doesn’t fit our expectations of a kingdom—one of this world, one in which the rich always seem to get richer while the poor get poorer, one in which lines are drawn and fought over, one in which parties are picked and differences are declared irreconcilable.

Maybe Jesus isn’t so quick to confess his kingship to Pilate because he’s afraid we’ll over hear him and want to jump to conclusions, conclusions about thrones, castles, crowns, and power. That those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus, a part of his kingdom, will want to begin drawing lines, setting the boundaries for our own corner of the kingdom, a corner we believe we somehow deserve because we’ve earned it. Perhaps Jesus isn’t so quick to confess his own kingship because he knows what we’ll do with it, how we’ll mess it up, how we’ll misunderstand it. Because when we think of kings, we think of those who wield the power of an army to inflict pain and cause damage, not those who say “turn the other cheek…and when someone takes your cot give them your shirt too.” Because when we think of kings, we think of those who feast sumptuously at long tables in grand halls, not those who dine with prostitutes, lepers, and the poor sinners of this world. Because when we think about kings, we think of those who seek more for themselves, to have more money, more land, more power, not those who seek to give it all away. Because when we think of kings, we think of those who wear crowns of gold and sit upon polished thrones, not those whose heads are crowned with thorns and whose bodies hang upon a rugged cross.

Then again, that really is the thing about Jesus, isn’t it? We think things are one way, and he shows us that it’s really the other way around. When we think life is about getting what’s ours, about making ourselves comfortable, Jesus tells us to deny ourselves. When we think life is about safety, about surviving, Jesus tells us to take up our cross. When we think being an heir to the kingdom means long banquet tables with reserved seating, Jesus puts a table before us all and invites all who would to come and dine. When we think kingdoms are about thrones, crowns, and robes, Jesus shows us a cradle, a cup, bread, and a cross!

As we take from the King’s table set before us this morning, may we be reminded that we worship a king whose power isn’t found in the might of his army, the wealth of his treasury, or the vast borders of his dominion. We serve a king whose power is found in the inside-out, upside-down, unexpected, always-more, eternal, unending, unfailing, love for us all. We serve a king whose kingdom is so beautifully described in the words of James Russel Lowell:

I followed where they led,

and in a hovel rude,

with naught to fence the weather from His head

the King I sought for meekly stood;

a naked hungry child

clung round His gracious knee,

and a poor hunted slave looked up and smiled

to bless the smile that set him free;

new miracles I saw His presence do,

no more I knew the hovel bare and poor,

the gathered chips into a woodpile grew

the broken morsel swelled to goodly store.

I knelt and wept: my Christ no more I seek,

His throne is with the outcast and the weak.

“His throne is with the outcast and the weak.” Praise be to King Jesus! Amen.

"Signs of the Times?" (Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost)

Mark 13:1-8

1 As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!" 2 Then Jesus asked him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down." 3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, 4 "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?" 5 Then Jesus began to say to them, "Beware that no one leads you astray. 6 Many will come in my name and say, "I am he!' and they will lead many astray. 7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

            Friday night, in a series of coordinated attacks, terrorists (reportedly a part of the group referred to as ISIS) killed 129 people and injured many others across the city of Paris, France. That same evening, back-to-back earthquakes shook the earth off the coast of Japan: the first was a magnitude 7 quake, followed quickly by a 6.5 magnitude quake. There were tsunami warnings issued for the coastal cities of Japan. The night before, in Beirut, Lebanon, 43 people were killed and 239 were wounded by a suicide bomber. In the Middle East, the Syrian Civil War rages on, a conflict that began with the Arab Spring of 2011 and has given birth to terrorist groups like ISIS (or ISIL); this war is also one of the leading causes of the European Migrant Crisis, forcing thousands of people to seek asylum in countries across Europe.

            There have been countless other wars, battles, and conflicts that have ravaged people groups across the globe in recent years, like the civil war that took place in Sudan for twenty-two years (1983-2005) that left two million people dead as a result of battle, famine, or disease, while at least four million people were displaced during the war at least once. In Gaza, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict continues, a struggle that has been ongoing since 1948. Are these signs of the end times?

There have also been enormous natural disasters in recent years, like the tsunami of 2004 that struck in the Indian Ocean killing hundreds of thousands of people, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the earthquake that rocked Haiti in 2010, the tornadoes that ripped through this part of the country in 2011, Superstorm Sandy in 2012, and the many other hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, mudslides, eruptions, and storms that have caused enormous damage and taken so many lives all over the world. This year has seen a record drought out west, in California, causing local governments to limit water usage, and local citizens (especially farmers) to pray for a solution and an end to such a threatening lack of rain. Are these signs of the end?

            Then there are those other, naturally-occurring phenomena that have taken place in recent years, events with names like “super moons,” or “blood moons,” or “super blood moons,” comets that make an appearance once a generation or so, constellations or planets that happen to line up with other constellations or planets in the night sky. Are these signs that the end is near?

            Then there are all of those things that have happened that cause unrest and discomfort for so many, those socio-political happenings that cause some folks to pray that the end would come, things like the issuing of social security numbers, barcodes on candy bars, rock-and-roll music, rap music, boy-band music, Justin Bieber, the Great Recession, the legalization of same-sex marriage, marijuana, gambling, and liquor sales on Sundays. Are all of these things signs of the end of the age too?

            What is it about us that makes us so fixated on all things eschatological? Why is it that so many of us seem to devote all of our religious energy on those things that have yet to take place, those final things, those things that are supposed to point us towards the end times? It seems to me that so many people are so infatuated with talking about and looking for the end times that they honestly think they’re the first ones to ever try to predict the end of the world! Yes, every generation there have been those so-called preachers who stand in their pulpits and claim, “The Lord will return in my lifetime!” and so far, every single one of them has wound up dead! Really though, why are we so enamored by the end? It isn’t something new, something that’s just come along in the last century or so. In fact, it seems from this passage before us this morning, that right from the beginning, when Jesus himself even hints at things concerning the end, the disciples’ ears perk up and they begin to ask questions.

            As the disciples left the temple, they were caught up in its grandeur, in the polished marble, the glittering gold, the overwhelming size and importance of the place, and so they commented to Jesus, “what large stones and what large buildings!" They sound like children on their first trip to the hospital, having just ridden the elevator to the fifteenth floor. The temple at that time truly was a site to behold, and for the Jews who worshipped there, it was a wonderful testimony to the God they served and the religion to which they belonged. The disciples (good Jews that they were) marveled at the magnificent structure, a building that looked as if it would stand in the center of that holy city forever, but Jesus says to them (as he too is leaving the temple complex), "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down."

            That’s a pretty big statement to make! This is before the days of easily used explosives, before cranes equipped with wrecking balls, so to say such an enormous structure would be razed to the ground, without a single stone stacked on top of another, is, crazy talk, especially when one considers that this is the house of God! But the disciples aren’t really surprised by Jesus’ predictions, after all, the temple had been destroyed once before, some five or six centuries before by the Babylonians, so the practicality of the temple’s destruction was not beyond their imagination. However, what does interest them, is when all of this is going to take place: "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?" When is this going to happen, Jesus? We want to know, so we can be prepared, so we can mark it on our calendars on the refrigerator, set reminders on our smartphones, cancel our Netflix subscriptions, and have our bags packed, our guns loaded, and our swords sharpened. When is it going to happen?! What should we look for? How will we know?

That’s what the disciples ask…that’s what we ask. But then Jesus answers: "Beware that no one leads you astray.  Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!' and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.” Right off the bat, Jesus gives them a warning: “Don’t let anyone fool you. Many will come saying “I am (he)” and they will fool a lot of folks.” I think another way of hearing what Jesus said may be: “Don’t be fooled, because there will be a lot of people coming around saying they have it all figured out, and they’ll fool others.” I suppose that’s why I’m more than just a little hesitant when I hear some preachers say they know what the end will look like, or when they say they can predict the day it will happen, or what events will take place leading up to the end. I often wonder how much time and energy they spent trying to pinpoint a day in the future when there are things to be done today in the present?

Now, after his warning, Jesus gives them a list of signs, right? “wars and rumors of wars…nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom… earthquakes…famines” All of these things sound awful and terrible: wars and the terrible conflict that they bring, the violence, bloodshed, death, and destruction, even if the result of war is compromise, liberation, or justice, the price that is paid is always a high one; when nations and kingdoms rise up against each other, it is rarely for the sake of justice, but too often for the sake of financial gain or the pursuit of imperial conquest; and anyone who has watched the news in recent years ought to know the kind of devastation that can be caused by earthquakes and the heartbreaking images of famine. But these are all given as signs, signs of what to expect, signs of what will lead up to the end, right? So when we see these things, does that mean the end is at hand? Does it mean we should brace ourselves for what’s coming? When we witness these signs, should we stop what we’re doing and prepare ourselves for some terrible, destructive ending? Or is there more to all of it?

It’s that last sentence of our text this morning that ought to give us some guidance: “This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” These signs, these things you will witness, these are only the beginning, the beginning of that which will give birth to the kingdom of God in its fullness, the kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.” But you see, that’s the problem with only looking for the signs—we fail to be about the work we’ve actually been called to do, the work of bringing God’s kingdom to reality.

Sadly, too many Christians are like those first disciples in this text: they only get excited about the end. They’re only interested in how things will go down once the signs they’ve been looking for take place. Too many Christians seem to have a vested interest in watching the world get worse rather than striving to make it better—as Christ has called us to do! It seems that there are a number of believers who are betting all their chips on the end happening in their lifetimes, so they disregard the health of our planet; they cast off the importance of providing long-term solutions to present problems; they ignore those who are most vulnerable in our world, those who are victims of injustice, violence, and hatred and I’ve even heard them say “Well, the end is coming soon, so they won’t have to suffer too long!”

Jesus has not called us to be sign-seekers! Christ has not died so we may only look forward to an end! The Lord calls us to be people who live everyday knowing that it just might be the end for someone else if we don’t act! Christ calls us to be people who look for signs of destruction, signs of oppression, signs of evil, signs of sin now—not so we can predict what’s coming, but so we may act to rid the world of those things today, so that we may be agents of God’s coming kingdom, so that we may act as midwives, helping to ease the birth pangs until the kingdom is born whole and complete into this world. Amen.

"Stretching the Groceries" (Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost)

1 Kings 17:8-16

8 Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 9 "Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you." 10 So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, "Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink." 11 As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." 12 But she said, "As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." 13 Elijah said to her, "Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. 14 For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth." 15 She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. 16 The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

            When her husband died, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. She was the mother to a young son, a woman without a job, without any savings, without an education, without training. At the funeral, a friend would come over, put his arm around her shoulder and say, “I’m praying for you,” while another friend would give her a light hug and whisper in her ear, “If you need anything, call me.” Back home there were casseroles, meat trays, rolls, pies, and cakes, but she knew her and the boy couldn’t possibly eat all of it before it spoiled, and even though she faced an uncertain future, she wasn’t afraid. She would make it through this. Then, it didn’t rain.

            When the rain lagged behind in its arrival, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal…at first. For her, it meant she could still play outside with her son, enjoy the long hours of sunshine, and get out of the house where the memories of her late husband could consume her and drag her down into that shadow of depression. At first, the grass was still green, the flowers still bloomed, and everything seemed pretty normal. There were periods like this before, when the rain was more patient than the people, but when the rain didn’t come for weeks, then months, when the grass turned brown and the shriveled blossoms fell from their stalks, when the sun became more oppressive and less pleasant, when the weatherman said “drought,” she wasn’t afraid. She could make it through this. After all, the rain has to come sometime…right?

            When the drought stuck around and the farmers only dulled their plows in the dust, and when the grocery store shelves carried fewer goods for higher prices, she sat down at the kitchen table with a pen, scratching numbers on the back of an old envelope, trying to figure out how she’d get by this week. She was already buying the store brands, so she had to cut corners other ways: she could buy whole milk and stretch it with water (but the price of water had gone up in the drought too); she could buy more things in cans and boxes instead of fresh fruits and vegetables; she could leave the meat and opt for the more processed options; she could put a little less on her own plate so that her son would have more in the days ahead. It was going to be hard, but they were going to get through this. Then the bills started piling up.

            When the bills came, she paid the ones she could afford, the ones that would let her pay some, a little at a time. She paid the bills that were important: electricity, water, rent, but those were (of course) the most expensive bills, especially in the midst of the drought. Eventually, she couldn’t pay them all, so she staggered them, paying one this month, another next month, and another the month after. Before too long, though, the red and pink envelopes came in the mailbox, and before the phone was cut off, every call was screened (because for a widowed woman her age, in these tough economic times, she wasn’t getting any social calls, just bill collectors). She sat at the table, the stack of envelopes mocking her and the math that didn’t add up, but she was determined. They were going to get through this. The drought had to end, the rain had to come, the food had to grow, and the prices had to come down. But they didn’t.

            The one grocery bag she brought home from the store got lighter. Soon, she’d have to walk to the store because she didn’t have money for gas or insurance, and the bank was likely going to take the car any day now. The phone was shut off, the cable gone, the gas line locked at the meter, and the power company sent a letter saying they’d be there next week to disconnect her from the grid. As she put the few groceries away, she nearly cried at how lonely they looked in the cabinet, but this wouldn’t last forever. It couldn’t last forever. Could it? She wasn’t afraid—not just yet. There was still something in the cabinet, still some food to put on the table, still some hope left. But the drought marched on in its relentless theo-political lesson, and before too long, she was down to her last sac of flour and her last jug of oil, just enough to eat simple cakes of bread once or twice a day.

            She tried not to eat, to stretch what was left for her son, to quiet the rumbling of his stomach and ignore the growing, growling violence in hers. The drought wiped out the farmers, the grocery stores, even the food banks. Not even her neighbors—the ones who covered her kitchen counters in casseroles—could help, for they too were suffering. She had seen it and helped those she saw as worse off as best she could. She stretched those last groceries as far as they could go, often going a day or two without eating anything herself, until that one day…that one day when she went to the flour jar and found only a small, handful of flour and just enough oil in the jug to say there was some in it. That day, reality set in and it all came crashing down.

            She had buried her husband, and now the thought occurred to her that she was probably going to have to bury her son too. She knew if the drought continued, her son would go first. She already noticed the way his clothes just sort of hanged on his boney shoulders, how his joints were sharp and pronounced, no longer lost in the soft, healthy tissue of a growing boy. She had rocked him to sleep every night for weeks as he cried from the pain in his empty stomach. With the drought not letting up, with so many around her cursing the gods they once worshipped, the gods that once were thought to bring the rain when the people needed it, with so many she knew already losing the fight against the seemingly endless dearth…she gave up. She knew she wouldn’t make it even though she had fought so hard to survive. So she went out to gather a few sticks to burn (because you don’t gather limbs or logs if you’re not planning on staying around). Her plan was forced upon her: she’d make what food she had left; she and her son would eat it; then they’d wait for death’s slow, hungry hand to take hold. She was afraid. She was out of hope. Then Elijah walks into town.

            Now, at this point in the story, we may be tempted to think of Elijah the prophet as some sort of hero, riding into town, into this woman’s life to save the day. After all, if we skip to the end, Elijah has promised her enough meal and oil to last through the drought and she and her entire household have enough to eat. If we just get to the end, we see this woman no longer struggling, no longer having to stretch to make ends meet. She and her son have plenty; God has provided and that’s the lesson we’re supposed to take with us. But why do we so quickly assume Elijah is the protagonist in this short story? Is it because he’s a man? Is it because he’s an Israelite? Is it because he’s a prophet? I mean, from the very beginning of this text Elijah doesn’t sound like a hero: “the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.’" Elijah doesn’t stroll into Zarephath to help this woman. No, he goes there because she is supposed to help him!

            So right away, something not’s quite right. I mean, think about this for a minute: before arriving in Zarephath, Elijah was being taken care of by birds that brought him food where he waited by a wadi of fresh drinking water. God had provided for the prophet in supernatural ways, but the wadi dries up and God tell Elijah to go to this widow in Zeraphath. Now, why couldn’t God just tell him to go to another wadi and have the birds meet him there? Why couldn’t God have provided manna from heaven or water from a rock for Elijah—God had done it for an entire nation of people, so what’s one, single man? Why place more a burden on a woman whose spirit is already crushed, whose resources have already been exhausted? Why tell the prophet to go to her? I mean, I get that od is trying to teach Elijah something by forcing him into the heart of a region known for the worship of Baal; I get that God is setting Elijah up to confront the idolatrous queen Jezebel in the heart of her own homeland (for Jezebel was from Sidon), but why—why send him to this widow who already has nothing, especially when God says nothing to Elijah about helping this poor widow? Maybe there’s something Elijah is meant to learn from this widow, something we’re all meant to learn, and perhaps it’s more than what we assume.

            Look again at the way these two are introduced in verses 10 and 11: “When [Elijah] came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, ‘Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.’ As she was going to bring it…” Elijah walks through the gate of the town and when he sees this widow picking up a few dried sticks, he asks for a cup of water. Has he forgotten about the drought he prophesied a few verses earlier? Can’t he tell by the cracked ground, the withered trees, and the dusty air that water is a rare commodity in this part of the world? And this woman, can’t he see in her tired, hungry eyes that she is carrying a burden far greater than his own thirst? “Can you bring me a glass of water, shug?” “Don’t you know we’re in the middle of a drought? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something? Look around you. Do you think water is so readily available I can fetch a perfect stranger a glass just because he smiled at me? Who do you think you are?!”

            That’s what I’d have told him. After all, if I was faced to face with the man who called this drought on the land because of some theological and political hissy fit with the king over his wife, I believe I’d have given him more than one of two of those sticks upside his head! Because you know when your child is at home crying, when his stomach is empty, when you know you’re going to have to face his death soon, the issues argued about by politicians and clergy become meaningless if they don’t help your son to live. They can argue over the right way to do worship, the wrong way to pray, who can and can’t be allowed to do this or that, but if your children are hungry…none of those things matter. Yeah, if Elijah had strolled up on me asking for a cup of water in the midst of drought he called for, I’d tell him to turn right back around and go back to wherever it was he came from. But this nameless Sidonian widow is a better person that I am.

            Did you notice what it said in verse 11? “As she was going to bring it…” No words of protest are spoken. No excuses given. She doesn’t even ask who he is. Elijah—this foreign stranger who just walks into town—asks for a cup of water, and she’s off to get it for him. It doesn’t take much to figure out she probably doesn’t have much (if any) to spare, but she’s willing to share it with him anyhow. I think it sort of catches Elijah off guard; maybe he thinks she’s better off than he realized, because before she can even get started in fetching his water he asks for more: "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." How is she still talking to him?! Now he wants bread?! She swears to him (a sign of sincerity) that she just has enough for a last meal for her and her son. You can almost hear the pleading in her voice, can’t you? As if she wishes she could help this man, but she can’t even help her own son.

            Elijah could have said to her, “It doesn’t matter. God called me here, and God told me you’d give me something to eat, so come off the bread lady.” But that’s not befitting a prophet of the Most High. He could have lambasted her about the necessity to prepare for difficult times, the need to be frugal, the importance of hard work and the way she needed to “pull herself up by her bootstraps.” Elijah could have pointed his finger at her and criticized her lowly position, claiming she was just a drag on the system, that she shouldn’t have had a child if she couldn’t afford one, that she should have remarried, or that she should have done something to take care of her son and herself (“after all,” he could have though, “if I was in her place, you better believe I’d be doing everything I could to put food on the table for my family!”). Elijah could have said those things, but he didn’t. Instead, he promises this woman that if she would make him a small roll along with her and her son, God would be sure to provide for her until the rains came again—and God does.

            It’s easy to walk away from this story with the fable-like lesson of a woman who trusted the words of a prophet, the promise of God to provide, but I think there’s a deeper lesson here, one closer to the bone for us. You see, I know the Sidonian widow, and I bet you do too. I bet you’ve seen her countless times, probably even know her name, and I bet (like me) you’ve missed what God is trying to tell us.

            I’ve seen the Sidonian widow as she pushed her buggy down the aisle at Wal-Mart, kids hanging out of the buggy, running wild trying to grab every bag of candy, box of cookies, or can of whatever they can get their hands on. There’s four bottles of sodas in her cart, along with frozen fish sticks, ramen noodles, and different cans with one form or another of “something-oni” in them. There’s not a single fresh fruit or vegetable in that buggy, nothing even remotely healthy, no wonder her kids are running all over like they’re jacked up on adrenaline!  Then again, soda’s cheaper than milk, fish sticks are easier and cheaper than fresh fish, chicken, or beef, and she’s got a lot of mouths to feed and bills to pay. I’ve seen the Sidonian widow.

            I’ve seen her when the rest of us celebrate holidays like Veterans’ Day, when we have parades and services that celebrate those who’ve gone to war, those who’ve served their country, only to forget about them the other 364 days of the year, when so many of them struggle with mental illness, with physical disabilities, with the haunting physical and mental pains that come with witnessing the hell that is war. I’ve seen her in the faces of those vets, like the ones outside the VA hospital in Waco, Texas, who are turned out on the streets to scour for food, to stand in the midst of traffic, waving their arms wildly because they’ve lost their minds. I’ve seen that widow in those people as others who would want to say they honor such soldiers shoo them away, call the police on them, or make fun of them in the midst of their struggles. I’ve seen the Sidonian widow.

            I’ve seen her as she comes back to school after being gone for several weeks, when she gets sideways glances from her classmates, when parents and teachers talk about her as “that girl that got pregnant.” I’ve seen her as she’s tried to put right the mistakes she made only to be held back by the judgement of those who find themselves more righteous.

            I’ve seen her in the unwashed faces of little children in trailer parks, in the shirtless youth who hang out on the steps of an apartment in the projects, in the downcast eyes of the mother buying groceries with her EBT card, in the forgotten, dark, cold room where an elderly man longs for a phone call, a visit, any attention to let him know someone cares. I’ve seen her in far too many faces of those who’ve been told they’ve got to fix what’s wrong with them before they can be a part of the church, a part of God’s kingdom, a part of a community of equally messed up people. I’ve seen the Sidonian widow, and there have been times I’ve been tempted to tell her to fix her own problems, to get her life figured out, to get a job, to make better choices, to be better prepared for when things don’t turn out the way you hope. I’ve guilty of thinking, “Well, it’s their fault they’re in such a mess in the first place.” I pray God will forgive me, because if the Sidonian widow teaches me anything it’s this: God chose a poor, foreign, widowed, woman to care for God’s prophet, and even in the midst of her own lack, she did! So who am I to tell anyone who may be different from me in any way that God can’t use them for God’s glory and the kingdom? Amen.

"Cards on the Table" (Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost)

Hebrews 4:12-16

12 Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. 14 Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

            One of my favorite movie series of the past few years is the Bourne trilogy. In case you haven’t seen any of the movies, they are based on three books written by the late Robert Ludlum about a top-secret, American spy named Jason Bourne who is found adrift in the ocean, and when he comes to, he can’t remember who he is or how he wound up floating in the water. Matt Damon plays Jason Bourne, and these movies are the definition of non-stop action. There are car chases, explosions, people running on rooftops, and all of it takes place in countries all over the world.

The fight scenes, well they’re something else.  They are unbelievably well-choreographed, with Jason Bourne not only taking and throwing punches and kicks, but also using all sorts of objects as improvised weapons. In the second movie in the series, The Bourne Supremacy, Bourne is caught in the home of another spy, and after a long fist fight Bourne rolls up a magazine and proceeds to use it as a weapon. Then, after rendering his opponent unconscious, he sticks the magazine in a toaster in order to ignite a gas leak to blow up the house.

I remember when I first saw that scene; I thought to myself, “Did he just use a magazine? A magazine!?!?” See, like many of you, I’ve sat in doctors’ offices where outdated issues of Golf Digest are indiscriminately shuffled with Highlights, and Field & Stream. I’ve sat on twenty different airplanes this year, and all of them had at least two inflight magazines in the pocket in front of me, and at least once a week I get some catalog, some brochure, some magazine in the mail, and not once—not once—has it ever occurred to me that any of those periodicals could be used a deadly weapon! That’s not their intended use, though, is it? A magazine is supposed to provide information, entertainment, coupons, or puzzles to pass the time. A magazine isn’t supposed to be wielded as a weapon, used to harm another person, but in the hands of a fictional character like Jason Bourne, it can quickly become a weapon that can inflict immense pain.

I suppose I feel the same way when I see those billboards you pass sometimes on the highway. You know the ones I’m talking about—not the countless Alexander Shunnarah billboards—those with Bible verses scrolled in a menacing font, attempting to create converts at 70 miles per hour. I suppose it’s also how I feel about those religious folks who quote cherry-picked Bible verses in order to defend themselves in an otherwise indefensible situation. It’s how I feel about those politicians and other public figures who defend their opinions by quoting a few words from the Bible (completely out of context), or those Christians who proof text an obscure verse to bully unbelievers and those with whom they disagree, those bumper stickers, flyers, t-shirts, and church signs that all use the words of scripture like a rolled up magazine in the hands of Jason Bourne. Because for so many Christians, the words of Holy Scripture are wielded like improvised weapons against their adversaries, against their neighbors, and so often it’s the words of Hebrews 4 that are used to justify such an abuse of scripture.

“Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword…” Why, that makes it sound as if the word of God in scripture ought to be used as a weapon, doesn’t it? These words make it sound as if scripture has been filed to a fine point, polished and sharpened for battle, ready to be wielded by the faithful against any and all challengers—especially those with different ideas, viewpoints, and convictions than us. I suppose if those words stood alone, one could justifiably cite them as a call to arms, a rallying cry for the faithful to take their bibles in their hands and begin to thrash them to and fro at whatever and whoever stands in the way of their religious traditions and spiritual comfort. But how arrogant is it to believe that the words of scripture are words aimed at everyone else but us, that they are words meant to be wielded by us against others? How arrogant to think the words of scripture are for everyone else and not us?

The writer of Hebrews goes on in our text this morning to say, “the word of God…divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.” Did you catch those important phrases in there: “no creature is hidden…all are naked…we must render an account…”? When the writer of this epistle speaks of the word of God being living, active, and sharp as a two-edged sword, what he’s referring to is the way in which the words of God (especially as we have them in the person of Jesus Christ) penetrate our arrogance, our ignorance, our sin, our pain, our grief, our doubt, our despair, our loneliness, our everything so that we are utterly and completely exposed before Almighty God. And if we’re truly honest with ourselves, that’s why we are so quick to point the Bible at others, to swing the sharpened edge of scripture at those different from us, because we know if we let the Holy Spirit speak to us through the words of scripture, we will be laid bare before God, and all our cards will be on the table.

It’s not easy showing our hand. It’s not easy being vulnerable, uncovered, naked, “laid bare,” before anyone, but there’s something all the more uneasy about the thought of being exposed to God. It reminds me of the little boy who was asking his mom questions after church one Sunday. “Momma,” the little boys asked, “is it true that God is everywhere?” “Yes, sweetie,” she answered him. “Even at school?” “Yes, sweetheart. Even at school?” “What about at home?” “Yes, child. Even at home?” “Everywhere at home?” “Yes,” she said, a bit worried about where this line of questioning was going. “Even in the bathroom?!” For many of us, we seem to have outgrown the idea that God is omniscient or omnipresent; we no longer think of him the way young children think of Santa Claus (“He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake…”). We’ve left such ideas behind. mostly because they make us uncomfortable, so the thought of scripture speaking truth into our lives as if God knows everything going on with us seems like an invasion of our privacy, as if God walked in the bathroom without knocking!

But here’s the thing: rather than the thought of God as some strange stalker, watching our every move, these words from Hebrews actually give me a deep sense of hope and encouragement, because I don’t see God as a divine being who sits invisibly in the corner noting my every action, feeling, and thought, counting every bad thought against every good one. No, these words tell me that I worship a God who knows all my junk and still seeks me out, still loves me! God is not a deity who sits in heaven with binoculars in one hand and a bolt of lightning in the other, waiting to strike you down at the first sign of failure; God is a God who is alive in Christ Jesus, a God who has been where we have been, felt what we have felt, been through the temptations, joys, heartaches, and pains we have been through. Or to put it the way the author of Hebrews puts it: “Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

You see, the word of God is not some sharpened stick given to us so we can jab each other in the eye when we fail to live up to each other’s standards of faith. The word of God exposes us all for who we truly are; it strips away all pretenses, all of our constructed reputations, all of our “holier-than-thou” attitudes. It leaves us naked before an all-knowing God, and that honestly terrifies us. But rather than leaving us exposed, rather than shaming us in our frailty, in our brokenness, in our weakness, in our sin, Christ says to us, “I know where you are, because I’ve felt that hurt, I’ve been tempted with those temptations, I’ve struggled with those same feelings of doubt, loneliness, and despair. I’ve been there for you, because I love you. I know where you’ve been and I know where you are, and I still love you.”

Perhaps that’s what really scares us, to think that we can be so truly messed up and God still loves us. Maybe that’s what we really struggle to believe, not that God is everywhere and knows everything—after all, that seems to be what being God is all about—but that even though God sees everything and knows everything about us, God still loves us—Jesus still loves us enough to pursue us, to call us into relationship with him, to trust us with the mission of God’s kingdom, the work of reconciliation, and the joy of love. Maybe that’s what we really struggle to believe.

Rather than being frightened to defensiveness, rather than taking up the word of God and the gospel of Christ as a weapon to wield against our enemies, let us approach the thrown of grace with boldness, knowing that God knows all of our baggage, all of our agendas, all of our faults from the very beginning. Let us approach God as a friend who knows us better than we know ourselves, and still chooses to love us. May we know that even though all of our cards are on the table, even though we are naked, even though we are exposed, weak, and vulnerable in our own fragile, sinful state, Jesus still calls us. Jesus still calls us to the mission of God in the world, a mission of faith, hope, and love, a mission of reconciliation and peace, a mission for a kingdom that doesn’t point fingers and sharpened swords at one another, a mission for a kingdom full of equally fallen, fragile, broken, hurting, arrogant, needy, lonely, heartbroken, wounded people. Jesus still calls each of us into a deeper relationship with God and with one another, so let us answer that call boldly, knowing God already knows you better than you know yourself, and God still loves you. Amen.