"We Do not Know what We are Doing" (First Sunday in Lent)

Luke 23:32-39

32 Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. 33 When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. 34 [Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."] And they cast lots to divide his clothing. 35 And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!" 36 The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine 37 and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" 38 There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews. 39 One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!"

            I have a confession to make. I don’t know what I’m doing. Some of you might think that’s a pretty obvious statement, but it’s true. There are times, situations, when all I know to do is pray to God that something will come to my mind, something will make sense, something will show me the way to do what needs to be done. But so often, nothing happens, so I take a deep breath, mumble a quick prayer, and hope I do the right thing. I fail—a lot. I forget things; I overlook other people; I let time slip by and opportunities go unanswered. My failures sometimes hurt others, even though I don’t mean for them to or want them to. I stumble as I try to do the right thing, to find my way when there are no clear directions and the rules and expectations are constantly changing. If I’m completely honest, I feel like I get it wrong way more than I get it right. I’m learning how to navigate this journey called life, this path called faith, this vocation, but so often it seems I’m lagging just a step behind, too slow to keep up, and in the wake of my failures I see the faces of those whom I’ve let down, the faces of those who once looked to me for guidance, for a word of comfort or hope, the faces of those whom I failed to help because I didn’t know what I was doing.

            You see, most of my life I’ve been able to figure things out. That’s sort of how I got into automotive work. With a car, the worst you can do is break something, something that can be replaced with a new part. When I first started, I had no idea what I was doing, but I could figure it out, sometimes—most times—by trial-and-error. That’s how I learned a lot of things in my life, whether it was math, auto-mechanics, plumbing, navigating college life: I just sort of figured it out along the way, and if I failed I could learn from my mistakes. Life itself, however, isn’t always so forgiving when I don’t know what I’m doing. If I fail to speak, if I say the wrong thing, or if I speak too soon or too late, that opportunity may be gone forever. If I fail to act when an opportunity is there, if I can’t stop what I’m doing when it seems a more urgent need arises, or if I’m simply unaware of something important that may need my attention, relationships can be damaged and bridges unknowingly burned. As much as I want to be better, as hard as I may strive to do better, I still don’t know what I’m doing.

            Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not saying I’m incompetent, untrained, stupid, or lazy. I’m not offering excuses or looking for some way out of it all. I’m simply being honest. I have a feeling if we’d all be honest, we might all confess the same thing—we don’t know what we’re doing. We’re all just taking life a day at a time, trying to figure it all out, trying to stay out of the way, trying to make the world a better place, or simply trying to survive. We can put on airs and act as if we’ve got life by the tail, as if we’ve got it all figured out, as if the world is a simply put together puzzle and we’ve got the missing piece, but in the end, we really don’t know what we’re doing.

            As people of faith, we sometimes think we’ve got it all figured out, that we have all of life’s answers to all the hard questions at our disposal. Those things that seem most difficult, most uncomfortable we often dismiss with an answer of watered-down mystery, a bumper-sticker slogan that at least lets us grind away until the next tragedy, the next hardship. Often it seems we’re possessed by a misplaced sense of entitlement, the notion that since we have the answer, since we’ve got it all figured out, the rules no longer apply to us, the common condition of humankind is no longer one with which we are afflicted. Then there are those times, when I read the news reports, when I hear the stories, when I see the images of people of faith acting in ways so counter to that of the Christ whose name the bear that I cannot help but think to myself, “We do not know what we are doing.”  

            We can quote Scripture, citing the psalms, the prophets, the apostles, and even Christ himself, yet there will always be one who knows it better than we do, one with another interpretation, one with another verse to counter our position. We can split over polity, haircuts, worship style, or missions. We can argue with anyone who would disagree with us, and we’ve become experts at the art of arguing amongst ourselves. When we think we’ve got it all figured out, that we have all the answers, and the final interpretation, the truth is we don’t know what we’re doing.

            Now, that might sound hopeless to you, to think that I don’t know what I’m doing, that you don’t know what you’re doing, that together as people and a family of faith, we don’t know what we’re doing. But in a strange, upside-down way, I find hope in that reality. After all, I’m finding more and more in my life that God in Christ through the Holy Spirit often works in upside-down ways. But the locus of my hope isn’t found in some realization that we’re all helplessly crazy—no, my hope comes from this scene we’ve heard from Luke’s gospel this first Sunday morning in Lent. These are the first of Christ’s words from the cross, words spoken from the One whose love for us transcends our ignorance and inabilities. "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."

            It would be easy, I suppose, to think that Jesus’ words were for the criminals crucified with him, that Christ’s plea was for the forgiveness of those who so obviously needed it, those who had committed crimes and were at that moment paying the penalty for their maleficence. After all, the criminals didn’t know what they were doing by being crucified along with the Son of God. Of course, it would be just as easy to look at Jesus’ words as being meant for those who cracked the whip, drove the nails, and raised the cross. After all, they had no way of knowing that in the repetition actions of their job as crucifiers they were executing the very God who put breath in their lungs. We could say that Jesus was asking for divine forgiveness for the scoffers who berated him, for those who gambled over his clothes, for those who looked on as if they were seated in a theatre to be entertained. We could say that Christ’s words were meant for all of those captured by Luke in this brief, undescriptive narrative, but we would only be partly right, for while Christ’s words were indeed meant for those who had ears to hear them then, they are also meant for us here and now.

            While some may look upon the crucified Christ and see the wrath of an angry God, while others may see in the beaten, bloodied body of Jesus a vengeful deity desiring to levy every ounce of punishment deserved for humankind on his Son, I see something entirely different. I see the God whose love is so far beyond our comprehension that even in the midst of such agonizing, tortuous death, he grants forgiveness. I see a Christ whose power is shown in the frailty of flesh and bone, as with his dying breaths he still shows his love for us. In Christ death upon the cross I see the hope that can only come from such eternal, divine, real love. I see forgiveness, even though I don’t know what I’m doing.

            I still don’t know what I’m doing, but thanks be to God Christ forgives me anyway. We still don’t know what we’re doing, but thanks be to God that Jesus loves us anyway. We will try to know more, try to do better, try to be more of the people God calls us to be, and there will be times when we fail, times when we’ll pick the wrong side, times when we’ll wage the wrong war, times when we’ll miss opportunities, times when we may hurt others and they may not forgive us. Yet from that place where God’s love was magnified, that hill where the grace of God was proven true, that cross where Christ showed just how powerful the love of God is to overcome all our failures, we hear those words that make this table before us mean something, those words that make life worth the living (failures and all), those words that bring us hope in the eternal love of God despite our ignorance: "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." Thanks be to God! Amen.  

All for the Sake of the Gospel (Fifth Sunday after Epiphany)

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

16 If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! 17 For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. 18 What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel. 19 For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law) so that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.

            What does it mean to proclaim the gospel? Is it an act of public pronouncement, standing before a crowd of others and speaking about the great depths of divine mystery, hoping others will hear and be convinced that something has to change? How does that work if all the people in the room are exactly the same (or at least pretty close to it)? Is it an audacious act of confrontation, wherein one greets a stranger with a list of perfectly rehearsed reasons for seeing things his or her way, a list of bible verses tailored for any so-called sinner to prove their need for repentance and reformation? What does it mean to proclaim the gospel?

Is it standing on street corner with posters and picket signs, blaring through a bullhorn the coming judgment of an angry God? Is it taking a stand for what you believe, of drawing a line in the sand and saying, “this is as far as I’ll go, and you can come no farther?” Is it sticking your chest out, wagging your finger and declaring to the world that it’s going to hell in a hand-basket if it doesn’t get in line with your way of thinking? Is it choosing sides and thus declaring that it’s “us” against “them”? What does it mean to proclaim the gospel?

            Is it “loving the sinner and hating the sin,” all the while ignoring the present sin in your own life and chalking it up to “the way I was raised?” Is it turning a microscope onto the private lives of others and pointing out their moral failings as in need of reform since such shortcomings are far greater (or at least less acceptable) than your own? Is it looking through the telescope of the television and commenting on the horrendous acts of those of other faiths, then claiming that our faith is superior because we would never do anything like that (never mind the crusades, the inquisitions, the colonization of the Americas, or the slave trade)? Is it sharing stories and pictures on social media with captions like “Click ‘like’ if you believe ____?” What does it mean to proclaim the gospel?

I suppose that question may be a bit more difficult to answer in time when the forms of communication available to us are nearly as numerous as the ones doing the communicating. Perhaps we should be asking what it means to “share” the gospel (in terms of social media life Facebook), to “tweet” the gospel, to “snapchat” the gospel, to text the gospel, to “vine” the gospel, to “hashtag” the gospel. However, I doubt the answer is going to be found in contemporary, substitute forms of communication.

In the text before us this morning the Apostle Paul makes it pretty clear that proclaiming the gospel is of the utmost importance. He says in verse 16: “If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!” He calls proclaiming the gospel “an obligation,” and says “woe to me if I don’t do it!” Pretty stout words, but what does Paul mean when he says “proclaim the gospel?”

I suppose we could look back over the storied accounts of Paul’s ministry through the writing of Luke in the book of Acts or the letters written by Paul and those using his name. We could point to the times when Paul stood before large crowds of people and made grand pronouncements about the mysteries of God in Christ, and we could say “that’s how you proclaim the gospel.” But to simply look at the apostle’s preaching means we’d have to also see his failures (like those in Athens and the various synagogues from which he was less-than-politely asked to leave), the times when—regardless of his eloquent and well-crafted arguments—there were few (if any) real converts. Besides all of that, to simply point to Paul’s public pronouncements and declare them as exemplary in proclaiming the gospel is to relegate gospel proclamation to gatherings like this one, where a single individual stands before a gathered group and “proclaims the gospel.” Such an understanding crams gospel proclamation into a single sliver of time, all the responsibility onto a single somebody, and then, if there’s no one standing at the “altar”, no one making “professions of faith,” no one confessing, repenting, or seeking baptism, then we can chalk the fault up to the preacher and hope that next week’s sermon will really “get folks saved.” If public, ceremonious acts of declaration aren’t the only ways to proclaim the gospel, then what does it mean to proclaim the gospel?

Well, let’s look at the rest of what Paul has to say to us from the text we’ve read this morning. In verses 17 and 18 Paul is essentially making a case for why he does ministry the way he does, with no sort of contractual obligation hanging over his head from any hierarchy or congregational mandate (Paul would have been a good Baptist!). Paul proclaims the gospel freely, without allegiances, without drawing lines between “us” and “them.” In fact, in verses 20 through 22, Paul says, “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.” Now, Paul isn’t making an argument for being some kind of holy “people pleaser:” he isn’t concerned with making everyone happy, making sure people’s feelings aren’t hurt (a particular issue I’m afraid infects more churches than we care to confess). Nor is Paul promoting some kind of “bait-and-switch” evangelism, whereby he casually pretends to relate to others in hopes to gain their trust before really turning on the gospel swagger in order to bring people over to his way of doing things.

I’m afraid both of these misinterpretations of Paul’s words have crept into the Church over the years. We have tried “to be all things to all people” by coddling those who are afraid of change, by giving lip-service to those who hold the power (which itself seems so often to be found in a checkbook), by trying to offer countless programs and events aimed at every imaginable demographic, and perhaps most of all, we’ve tried every way imaginable to avoid being honest with those within our congregations who create toxic division by selfish actions all so we won’t “hurt anyone’s feelings.” We’ve tried for so long to be peacekeeper that we’ve forgotten that Christ has actually called us to be peacemakers.

On the other hand, we’ve decided that the way to reach people is to pretend to be something we’re not. There are congregations who have removed words like “Baptist” and “Church” from the signs in front of their sanctuaries in order to seem less like a religious institution. They’ve tried every trick from every book to appear “relevant,” yet newcomers eventually find that beneath all the flash and a veneer of meaning is the same old institution that values conformity over acceptance and love. There are congregations whose sings, mission statements, and website headers say “All are welcome,” yet if someone of a certain persuasion, skin color, socio-economic or immigration status should darken the door or (heaven help us!) decide to join the congregation, well…we quickly find out that “all are NOT welcome.” We tell ourselves we want to bring others to be more like  Christ, but too often it looks more like we’re trying to bring others to a place where they are more like us—whether we are more like Christ or not.

So if proclaiming the gospel doesn’t always look like preaching, and it’s not about people-pleasing or “bait-and-switch” evangelism, then what does it look like? What does it mean to proclaim the gospel? I think the key to unlocking that answer is found in Paul’s words in verse 19: “For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them.” This isn’t lip-service. This isn’t people-pleasing. This isn’t “bait-and-switch” evangelism. Paul has made himself a slave to all. Paul hasn’t merely lowered himself for a moment in hopes to make a few converts that will eventually look like him. He hasn’t changed who he is so that he could talk in the dialect of those he’s hoping to change. He hasn’t watered-down or fired-up the gospel in the hopes of coaxing or scaring others into believing. He has quite simply, quite powerfully, quite beautifully, become a slave to them—he has put himself in the place of their servant so that he might know them, love them, share life and the gospel with them, and he’s done “it all for the sake of the gospel, so that [he] may share in its blessings.”

So, what does it mean to proclaim the gospel? It means that we live out those wonderful words of St. Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel always; use words only when necessary.” It means we make ourselves servants to all, to those we like, those who are like us, those in our communities, those who are hurting, those who need our help. But perhaps even more, it means we make ourselves servants to those we dislike most, those we believe (if we’re honest with ourselves) aren’t worthy of Christ’s love (as if we are!). Proclaiming the gospel means doing more than just saying we love everyone and actually proving it! It means getting over our hang-ups and hold-ups, letting go of what is truthfully, deep-down, ignorance and hate. It means loving someone without judging them—ever!  Proclaiming the gospel means we have to leave the cozy, familiar confines of this building, this community, our self-constructed bubbles of security, and our own ideologies to meet people—God’s people—where they are, and not so we can bring them to our level, but so we can serve them with the love of Jesus Christ, whose out-stretched, nail-pierced hands have shown us just how much he loves us ALL!

It’s easy to ignore our calling to proclaim the gospel this way. It’s easy to say it’s all up to the preacher’s sermon, the ministry of the church, the persuasiveness of the information we possess. It’s easy to hide behind proof-texts and claim that the Bible says you don’t have to congregate with or serve “those people.” Can I tell you something? If we spent half the energy loving other as we do looking for Bible verses to judge them, friends, I believe we’d be a whole lot closer to the kingdom of heaven!

So let us proclaim the gospel. Let us proclaim the gospel always, and use words when it’s necessary. Let us proclaim the gospel as we seek to serve all people. Let us proclaim the gospel as we seek to live our lives together with those we might otherwise wish to keep at a distance. Let us proclaim the gospel as we work to put an end to ignorance, hatred and oppression. Let us proclaim the gospel as we strive to end injustice, poverty, human trafficking, and hunger. Let us proclaim the gospel as we work together to bring God’s kingdom to its full reality. Let us proclaim the gospel as Paul proclaimed it, as Christ proclaimed it—by taking on the form of a slave. Let us proclaim the gospel, and “Woe to [us] if [we] don’t!” Amen. 

Authority and Fame (Fourth Sunday after Epiphany)

Mark 1:21-28

21 They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. 22 They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23 Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24 and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." 25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." 28 At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

             Once upon a time, in a church not too unlike ours: it was Sunday, and the new preacher was really “shucking the corn” as they say. The people in the pews were shouting “Amen!” and grinning ear-to-ear with every turn of phrase the new preacher flung from the pulpit. They liked what he had to say—really, they liked better how he said it. He was different, better than the other preachers they had heard. Those other preachers would climb up in the pulpit with their stacks of notes, their reading glasses perched precariously on their noses, and begin to unravel the linguistic challenges of the scriptures while expounding on dry, historical traditions. To be fair, they were smart, really smart, but they lacked something…something this new guy had. You see, he had charisma: he had a gift. He was able to speak as if God Almighty was beaming it down, directly through the fillings in his teeth. His teaching seemed simultaneously new and yet grounded in something bigger, something more. You could say he had the folks eating right out of his hands. But then somebody had to show up and spoil everything.  

            Before the congregation could get through the first verse of “Softly and Tenderly,” before the preacher could ask for every head to bow and every eye to close, he seemed to just appear in the aisle in the middle of the sanctuary. This man seemed to almost be running to get to the preacher. It was obvious he was disturbed, ill, and as the musicians continued to play through the invitation, the congregation began to mumble the words as they started whispering among themselves: “Who in the world is that? What do you think is wrong with him? Would you look at his hair; I bet he hasn’t bathed in weeks (bless his heart)….” He came directly to the preacher, and in a hurried voice, slurred by his mind and the absence of a few teeth, muttered something indecipherable.

            The preacher, assuming the man was “wanting to get saved,” told him he’d have to clean himself up, get his mind right, and maybe see a dentist before he came back down the aisle like that. After all, if he was going to be a functioning part of that congregation, he was going to have to get in line with the ways and means of the whole bunch—after all, these were God’s people, and God’s people have rules to follow and appearances to keep. So when the song ended, the preacher presented the man to the congregation and said, “This fella’ is going to get himself cleaned up and put right, then he’s going to march himself back down here so we can all welcome him as a full member of this congregation.” And all of God’s people said, “Amen!”

The man never set foot back in the church. He came looking for help, for liberation from the illness that clouded his mind, for love from those who claimed to love everybody, for acceptance from those who were really just as broken and messed up as he was. He just wanted someone to say that he wasn’t alone in his struggle, that there was something more powerful than the oppression of fear and rejection, yet all he got was more of the same—it just happened to come dressed in its Sunday best. He was looking for freedom from the chains of illness and loneliness, freedom from the so-called authorities of this world that tell us how to think and how to act, but instead he got a new dose, a new authority with cleverly disguised “God language.” And he wasn’t the first, and he won’t be the last (even if he exists in a world of my own creation).

Of course, it could have gone differently. It could have gone more like that meeting at Capernaum some two thousand years ago, where Jesus (fresh from his bout with Satan and the calling of his first disciples) was teaching in the synagogue there. The congregation, we’re told, was “astounded at his teaching,” when “Just then [in the middle of their service] there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit.” Now, nothing can really throw a wrench in the gears of a good service like some giant, obnoxious distraction, and I’m sure to many that were there in the synagogue at Capernaum, that’s exactly what this man was—a distraction. Not only that, but he had no right to be there! This man had an unclean spirit, whether that refers to a demonic possession (though the word “demon” does not appear in this text), a mental illness, or something else entirely is really irrelevant. This man is unclean, which means he is not supposed to be gathered with the others in the synagogue. Perhaps he had successfully kept this unclean spirit hidden from the others and Jesus’ authoritative teaching had forced his hand. Maybe he had snuck into the meeting that day just to test the new rabbi from Nazareth. Mark doesn’t give us a lot of details; we just know he appears and threatens to throw things off track.

The unclean spirit cries out through the man at Jesus: "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." But Jesus doesn’t roll up his sleeves and ball up his fists in preparation for a physical altercation. Jesus doesn’t begin a systematic utterance of incantations to expel the spirit. No, Jesus (in a matter-of-fact sort of way) rebukes the spirit and says, “’Be silent, and come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.” Jesus showed his authority over the unclean spirit—over those things which are beyond our control and comprehension—and in doing so gave this unnamed man a new life. No longer was this man ruled by the authority of this unclean spirit, but now he has come face-to-face with the ultimate authority that rests in the Son of God.

That’s all we get about this man; there’s no follow-up. We never even get his name, but we are told in verses 27 and 28: “They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.” Jesus kicks off his public ministry with a bang! His fame begins to spread as those at Capernaum witnessed what Jesus had done to the man with the unclean spirit. It’s really a great testimony, isn’t it? A man who was once tormented by an unclean spirt, a man who was once under the influence of a false authority, a man who was once enslaved to a power outside of himself, a man who was once lost is now found. That’s the kind of story we can get behind. It’s the kind of story we like to share with others. It’s the kind of story we like to tell…but it’s not really the kind of story we want to live.

See, like those first witnesses at the synagogue in Capernaum, many of us are anxious to hear exciting teachings; we’re excited about telling these grand stories of how Jesus saved someone from an unclean spirit, a life of crime, fornication, drugs, evil, and sin. But when it gets down to it, and we have to be a part of that story…well…we kind of lose that excitement. There are those of us who find ourselves standing on the other side of a decision, the other side of baptism, and believe (whether we admit it or not) that we no longer need Jesus to save us, to exorcise those unclean spirits that pollute our lives and cloud our conscience. We would much rather witness that in the lives of others, of those we call unbelievers, sinners, reprobates, different. We’d rather watch it unfold in the lives of others, to watch as the love and forgiveness of Christ becomes real in their lives, all the while we withhold our own love and forgiveness from those who need it. We love to tell to the stories, but we’re not so anxious to live them.

We’re quick to point out the need for Jesus’ authority in the lives of others, but not so quick to confess that our lives aren’t always steered by the presence of Christ within ourselves. In other words, it seems to me that we are always ready and willing to call out the unclean spirits in others, to tell the stories of how someone else has been liberated from a sinful life we were fortunate not to lead, but when it comes to acknowledging that there are blind spots in our own lives, places where we have yet to allow Christ to take control...we’re not so ready to confess that. It’s as if we have some kind of diet, low-cal, fat-free faith: “all the salvation with none of the surrender.” Do we really believe that Jesus has the authority to be Lord of our lives—our entire lives? Do we really believe that Jesus still has the authority to forgive even our darkest, most secret sins? Do we really believe that Jesus has power over those things that are beyond our control and outside of our understanding? Do we really believe that Christ has that sort of authority, that sort of power? Sometimes I wonder…  

I like the way Annie Dillard puts it in her book Teaching a Stone to Talk:

Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up batches of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to the pew. For the sleeping god (sic) may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.[1]

            I wonder sometimes if we still believe that Jesus has the power and authority to change this very world, our very lives in an instant, if we’re ready to confess that we still have places in our own hearts we have yet to fully give over to Christ’s authority and power. I wonder if we’re just a bunch of folks who want to tell others’ stories, to make Jesus famous by sharing stories of how he has changed those we believe needed to be changed. Or are we ready to confess that we are still in need of Christ’s love each and every day, that we need to let go of more of ourselves that it may be changed by more of Christ and his love?

May we be people who readily confess that we are not perfect—at least not yet. May we be people who are excited and encouraged by the stories of those who surrender to God’s love in Christ, yet let us also be people who know that there are still parts of our lives we need to surrender to God. May we be people who long to make Jesus famous, but even more than that, may we be people who seek to surrender our whole lives to him, trusting in his authority of love, so that Christ may continue to call us and continue to change us into the people he longs for us to be. Amen.

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[1]Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk. Harper Perennial: New York (1982), pp.52-3.