"By This We Know" (Fourth Sunday of Easter)

1 John 3:16-24

16 We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17 How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? 18 Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 19 And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him 20 whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; 22 and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

            It’s not a very common occurrence in our house, but occasionally the responsibility for cooking dinner falls on me. Sallie will email me a recipe she found on Pinterest. I’ll pull it up on my phone or tablet and commence to gathering up the ingredients, pots, pans, and utensils I’ll need to prepare the meal. To be honest, I’ve never found cooking to be that hard; it’s just a matter of following directions, being careful in some cases to follow them exactly. It’s helpful if the recipe is specific about amounts and the type of ingredients: one teaspoon of kosher salt…one cup of low sodium chicken broth…one, whole medium onion, diced…one tablespoon of chili powder, etc. It also helps if we have those ingredients and their clearly labeled. After all, paprika looks a lot like chili powder, and baking soda, and baking powder are two totally different things, and you can really mess up a recipe if you use two cups of all-purpose flour when you were supposed to use two cups of self-rising flour. It’s helpful when things are clearly labeled, when all the guess work is taken out and you can plainly read what it is you’re stirring in the bowl. Labels are helpful because they keep us from making mistakes, from wrongfully identifying something.

            Can I tell you somewhere labels would be helpful? Covered dish lunches and wedding receptions. I can’t tell you how many times (not here obviously) I’ve been in line at a covered dish lunch and had to ask those in line around me, “What in the world is that in that casserole dish? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that before.” Or the time, at my own wedding, hungry because I had been, you know, getting married (taking pictures, talking to people who claim their your relatives but you don’t recall ever seeing them, but your mom insists you know who they are because they once changed your diapers when you were a baby…), when we finally got to eat  a little something without having our picture taken, I bit into what I thought was just a regular cream puff, but it turned out to have chicken salad in it—I wish it had been clearly labeled! If food at these sort of things was labeled I’m sure I could have avoided several gastrointestinal mistakes in my life.

            Can I tell you somewhere else where labels would be helpful? In our everyday interactions with each other, especially with strangers. When I worked in a garage, we all wore dark blue uniforms with our names stitched over one pocket and the shop name over the other; it made remembering each other’s name pretty easy. Why can’t life be like? Surely we have the technology now. Imagine, walking down the street, someone approaches you, with just a quick glance you could tell who he was: “Jeff—works at such-and-such;” “Clara—stay-at-home mom.” Or what if those labels said things like, “Rachel—Christian;” “Larry—Agnostic?” That’d make things easy, wouldn’t it? No more guessing who’s a Christian, who you can talk to about your faith, who really loves Jesus. If we’d all just wear name tags, labels that would tell all of those around us, those who might cross our paths, “I’m a Christian,” that’d make things easier.

            Of course, some of us try to wear those labels—even if we have to manufacture them ourselves. My friend Jason (who used to work at a small, local Christian bookstore) and I called it “Jesus Junk.” I can’t be too judgmental about it though, I used to have a lot of that “Jesus Junk:” I had a key fob with the words “Got Jesus?” on it, a blue tag on the front of my truck with a big icthus (that’s the fish symbol) on it. Some folks have car tags that say “God is my co-pilot,” or neck ties patterned with pictures of Jesus or the books of the bible. Some folks seem to just drip with gold crosses, while others can hardly see out the back window of their cars for all of the bumper stickers printed with bible references and cool, Christian-ese catch-phrases. While I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with wearing Christian-inspired jewelry or decorating your car, home, or office with bible verses, I do think that sometimes we can get the notion that that’s all it takes. We can be coerced into believing that’s all it takes to let the world, others, know that we’re Christians. It’s easy—slap a bumper sticker on our car, park it at the church on Sunday, wear Christian t-shirts, share memes on Facebook and like pictures of Jesus on our newsfeeds, back those who publicly claim to be Christians and we’re done. Now everyone will know, everyone who sees us ought to know we’re Christians because we’ve got the labels stuck on. But is that how they’ll know? Is that how we know?

            We’re listening again today to 1 John, a letter written to a group of believers dealing with divisive groups who are making heretical claims about the nature of Christ. These groups claim to be Christians: they use all the right language, know all the right words, might even know more bible verses too. Their presence has caused confusion and division among these early believers. It was hard to know if they were really believers, struggling with their faith—a faith in its infancy in the first century—or if they were individuals after an easy alternative, a religious system of beliefs that already coincided with their comfort. How could they tell them apart from the real believers? How can we tell those who are genuinely seeking faith in Christ from those who just know the language, the right things to say? Is it even up to us?

            I suppose there might be a time and place for us to need to know, so how do we know? Do we grill people on their knowledge of the Scriptures? How many of you would like to stand up and give an account of everything you know about the Bible? I bet there’s someone who knows more than you. Should we give them some kind of spiritual standardized test, and upon scoring it, decide if they “cut the mustard,” if they stack up to our ideal of what it means to be a “good Christian”? Should we ask them to make clear, definitive, doctrinal statements about the nature of God, the beginning of time, the meaning of the sacraments, and the definition of life? What if they don’t agree with us? What if the answers aren’t so clear to them? What if they see a lot more grey and a lot less black-and-white? What if they’re still struggling with what they believe? What if we’re still trying to figure it out ourselves? How do we know then? How do we know if there aren’t any clear labels, and everyone looks the same and knows all the right words to say? How do we know?

            Fortunately, the text before us tells us how in verses 19 and 20: “And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.” “By this we will know…” What is “this”? The short answer is love. Love is how we know; love is how we can tell those who are genuinely searching, seeking, chasing after God. Love is how we know who is really trying to follow Christ; it’s how we know someone hasn’t simply learned to “talk the talk.” So then, how do we recognize love? How do we know it’s real love and not just acts of obligation? That can be tricky, you know?

            I think about growing up with my sister and all of our step-siblings, and how we’d fuss and fight. How, when one of our parents would get fed up they’d tell us to hug each other and say “I love you.” Of course we’d do it, but not because we meant it, because we knew if we didn’t we’d likely get a whooping. That’s not love. Or I think about that husband who, after several too many, comes home to find a cold dinner on the stove and takes out his anger from the day on his wife, and as she dabs her eye with the cold, wet rag, he stands in the doorway of the bathroom and says, “I love you, baby.” That’s not love. I think of the radical fanatics who stand on street corners with signs in one hand and a megaphone in the other, shouting doom and damnation to those who pass by, those who just as soon slap someone in the face with a bible than tolerate their presence—and they say they’re full of the love of God. That’s not love. So what is? How do we know? If love is how we know the truth, if love is how we can tell the followers from the phonies, if love is what it really means to pursue God, then how do we know? How do we know what love is?

            Well, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Love is the ultimate expression of selflessness. It’s the willingness to die for someone else, to completely let go of yourself and what makes you comfortable, what makes you who you are, all for the sake of someone else. Love is being willing to sacrifice what you have for someone else—even if they don’t deserve it, even if they’ve done nothing to earn it. That’s the gospel, isn’t it? That “God so loved the world that he gave his Son,” that God gave God’s self; isn’t that the gospel? And here’s the other part, “we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Well, what does that look like?

            I suppose we could look to the great martyrs of our faith, those men and women who have courageously died, been murdered, lynched, and assassinated all because they identified themselves as Christians. I suppose we could point to the examples of those first apostles and the ways they were crucified, beheaded, and imprisoned because of their desire to follow Jesus. We could, but you and I don’t live in a culture where having faith in Christ means we risk our lives. On the contrary, we live in a culture that claims to be Christian, a culture where those who do not claim to be Christians are more likely to be ostracized and outlawed. So, what does it look like for us to “lay down our lives for one another?” The answer is found again in the text before us, in verses 17 and 18: “How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”

            Can we truly say we’re willing to lay down our lives for each other if we’re not willing to give up what we have to help each other? Can we truly say we love each other if we’re not willing to give what we have away so another can have what they need? Can we really claim to love each other while living lives that ignore the least of these in our world? Can we truly say we’re willing to die for each other when we’re hardly willing to live for each other? Can we really call ourselves Christians while there are those all around us who need us, those who need the basic things we take for granted, and we are more preoccupied with debating the finer points of biblical interpretation and politics?

“How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” Those words ought to knock us out of our seats! Those words ought to echo in our hearts and minds every time we say, “Well, they can help themselves…it’s their fault they’re in the position they’re in…I got mine and they can get their own…all they’ll do is use my help to buy drugs, not put food on the table…” Can I tell you something? People are tired of hearing the Church, Christians, say they love everybody while they shut the doors to keep everybody out! The world has grown weary of hearing Christians preach the good news of God’s love in Jesus, while they horde wealth and dole out dollars as if everybody else has to earn the grace God has given us for free. People have grown callous towards a Church that talks about love, sings about love, claims to know about love, all the while treating them with judgment, contempt, and just downright hatred. Is it any wonder they’re not coming? Is it any wonder so many are walking away? How do we stop it? How do we reverse the tide and get back to a day when the Church, when Christianity, was the “it” thing, when everybody came to church and everybody seemed to be a Christian? To tell the truth, I don’t think we can, and maybe we’re not supposed to.

What I do know is this: “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” If we’re going to talk about love, sing about love, if I’m going to stand up here and preach about love, then we ought to—no, we are commanded by God to—love! It’s about more than labels, more than having it all figured out, more than looking the part and talking the talk. It’s about getting are hands dirty with the work of love. It’s about laying down our lives for one another, about laying down any sort of litmus tests we have to determine if someone is a “good Christian.” It’s about realizing we’re all struggling; we’re all wrestling with our faith and trying to understand more of who God in Christ is. It’s about letting go of whatever excuses have kept us away from accepting the responsibility we have for each other and realizing that we are indeed each other’s keeper.

“And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.” This is how we know. This is how we know who God is, who we are, and who God is calling us to be. So let us believe in the Christ who so loved us that he laid down his life. Let us obey his command to love each other, and let us love each other in truth and action, refusing to ignore our calling as children of God. Amen.

"What We are and What We will Be" (Third Sunday of Easter)

1 John 3:1-7

1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 3 And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. 4 Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

It may not be a date you have memorized, and I doubt you celebrate its anniversary each year, but July 5, 1687 was a day that changed the future of humankind in ways we are still unraveling.  It was on that date that a book titled Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (translated Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, or Principia for short) was published. It is a book written by perhaps the smartest man to have ever lived, Sir Isaac Newton. In his Principia, Newton lays out (among other things) what we now refer to as “Newton’s Three Laws” or “Newton’s Laws of Motion.” They are: 1) an object in motion remains in motion at a constant velocity unless acted upon by an external force (e.g. gravity, friction, etc.), 2) the force exerted by an object is equal to its mass multiplied by the acceleration of said object (or F=ma), and 3) for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.[1]

These three laws of motion have helped us explain the orbit of the planets around the sun, launch rockets into space, build cars, trains, and jumbo jets. They are laws that explain the natural world and the way objects interact with each another, but I think (whether Newton intended them to or not) that these laws also explain human relationships as we interact with one another: a person at rest remains at rest unless motivated to get off the couch; our force or influence is measured by how big we think we are multiplied by what we actually do; and for every action we do, there is a reaction (our actions don’t only affect us, but those around us as well).

One of the ways Newton’s laws (especially the third law) plays out in the natural, mechanical world is by the existence of tension. Tension is the force exerted by both ends of a rope when it’s pulled, or the twisting force of sprung metal when under a load. Tension is what keeps your car in the middle of the right lane and firmly on the ground; it’s what keeps the ink in your ballpoint pen from leaking all over your shirt; it’s the force that keeps your muscles and bones in the right place in your body. Tension is a force that exists as one or more objects seek to remain in one state, yet are forced to exist in another (e.g. how a spring wants to uncoil, but is compressed between two other objects). You could say that tension is when an object’s natural state is distorted because of an external force, yet that object is applying a reactionary force in an attempt to return to its natural state. Make sense? Maybe it would help to think of tension in terms of human existence and relationships.

You’re sitting at the dinner table at Thanksgiving, and your cousin (who you haven’t spoken to) shows up. You can’t believe she’d have the gall to show up at Thanksgiving dinner after what she did last year, but there she is. You don’t want to make a scene, interrupt dinner, and ruin the holiday, so you sit with your teeth clinched, biting your tongue, and you make it through dinner without causing a fuss. You just sort of allow the tension to exist: the tension between what you had hoped Thanksgiving would be like and what you have to put up with because of your cousin’s presence there.

Or you just started a new job. You hope this could be the start of a life-long career, but you’ll have to start close to the bottom rung and work your way up. It turns out, however, that your new boss is a jerk. He’s demanding, demeaning, and overly-critical, but he’ll retire soon and you just might get his job. So you keep your head down, work hard, and carry on in the tension of what you have to do in the job you have and the hope of a better job to come.

When it comes to the human experience, we live with an awful lot of tension—the tension between the present reality and the hope of the future. All the more, a life of faith is a life lived in the tension between the present reality of this side of eternity and the hope of what lies ahead of us. It’s the tension of living in a fallen, imperfect world while looking forward with hope to that day when Christ shall return, the dead will be raised, and the kingdom of God will be fully revealed on earth as it is in heaven. It’s the tension of being called the children of God, while we yet struggle with our own selfishness, our own faults, our own failures and sins. It’s the tension of being in one state, while longing to be in another, the kind of tension the author of our text calls to our attention this morning: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are…Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” We are called children of God now—even though we still journey on, struggling with our own sins and shortcomings. And what we will be—perfected, righteous, imperishable, resurrected children of God—has not yet been revealed, but it will be.

We live in that tension here and now. We strive to live into the reality of what we will be—at least we ought to. We strive to be the kind of faithful people the author describes in the following verses of our text, people who have hope, and in that hope seek to make themselves better, to be more like the Christ we worship and seek to follow. We seek to faithfully be children of God, to do what is right, just as Jesus did and taught us to do. But you know what? It’s hard.  

It’s hard to do what’s right when we’d rather do what’s easy. It’s hard to serve others when others are so hard to serve. It’s hard to stand up for justice when the current systems of injustice have worked to our benefit for so long. It’s hard to love the unlovable, to suffer the insufferable, to find worth in those we’ve deemed worthless, to do the will of God when our will seems so much easier, much more comfortable. It’s hard because we live in the tension that exists between what we want and what God wills, between what we are now and what we will one day be. It’s like the Apostle Paul says in his letter to the Romans: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do..”[2] It’s hard to what is right; it’s hard to do what is right on our own, without God’s help. Without Christ’s intervening presence in our lives—without that “outside force”—it’s much easier to remain on a course of uncaring, selfish, sin.

Of course, what makes it harder still is seeing the world we have now, the world we are called to change with the power of Christ, as it is, as we have it, without being able to see how it will be one day. Hope in a coming, perfect, kingdom of God is hard to come by when we see the news of a terrorist attack on a school in Kenya. A coming day of resurrection and joy is hard to imagine when so many live in the dark shadows of depression, when they can’t take it anymore and choose to end it. The freedom of fellowship with Christ sounds like some tall-tale to the 20 to 36 million people living in slavery in our world today.[3] A future of heavenly fellowship, of all of God’s children joining hands and singing praises to the Almighty seems like such a far-fetched fantasy when there is so much intolerance, bigotry, racism, and hatred making its way in our world, when even those who claim the name of Christ refuse to share life with other Christians because of who they are. A heavenly banquet seems like just a dream to the 805 million people who go hungry every day.[4] It’s hard to hope, to have faith in something unseen, unknown, something that is yet to be fully revealed.

As Christians we live in that tension, of being in this world but not belonging to it. We live with the longing for the kingdom of God to come in its fullness so that the pains, trials, hatreds, and sins of this world will pass away. We live with that longing for heaven while it seems so much of the world is going to hell. But then…a baby is born, a prisoner is set free, a war ends, loved ones are reunited, a thirsty village has clean water to drink, a child graduates from school in Haiti, a father is baptized, a home is rebuilt, bread is broken, hymns are sung, stories are told, hugs are shared, sins are confessed and forgiven, and the light breaks into the darkness. For a moment—even if for only a moment—the tension is released, and we glimpse what’s coming. The curtain is pulled back, and we get a peek at the fullness of what God has for us, of what Christ’s kingdom will look like on earth as it is in heaven. In those moments, when we catch a foretaste of that glory divine, when we can almost catch hold of hope, the tension is released, and we see what we can be—what this world can be—when the unfiltered love of God is poured out.

That’s what the world will be; that’s what we will be, for “[w]hat we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” We will be like Jesus, and this world will be the fulfilled kingdom he has promised and for which we have longed. But for now, today, we still live in the tension—the tension of Christ’s love and the world’s rejection, the tension of hope for the future and pain in the present, the tension of faith’s joys and despair’s sorrows, the tension of what we are and what we will be. So let us live in that tension as faithful followers of the One who has promised us that there is a coming day of resurrection, when the perishable will be made imperishable, when sin will meet its end, when all the prejudices and hatred of this world will be burned away, when we will be reunited with the saints who’ve gone before us, when we will see Jesus as he is. Let us work to relieve that tension in this world; where there is despair, let us bring hope; where there is hatred, let us bring love; where there is hunger, let us bring food; where there is loneliness, let us be present with a listening ear and a warm hug; wherever sin, darkness, and hell try to break into the lives of sister and brothers—no matter who or where they are—let us be the bearers of the light of Christ, the heralds of Good News, let us be those who seek to bring heaven with us. Let us be children of God and make our Father known by what we are now, looking forward to what we will be. Amen.

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[1] You can find a simple explanation of Newton’s Laws here: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/newton.html

[2] Romans 7:15, 18b-19.

[3] You can find these statistics and others on modern slavery at these two sources: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26513804 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/17/this-map-shows-where-the-worlds-30-million-slaves-live-there-are-60000-in-the-u-s/

[4] This number comes from the organization Bread for the World: http://www.bread.org/hunger/global/

"Not Alone" (Second Sunday of Easter)

1 John 1:1-2:2

1 We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— 3 we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. 5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; 7 but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2 and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

             “I don’t need any help: I can do it all by myself.” When we’re kids such a sentiment can be rather cute: you hear the toilet flush, then your child comes into the kitchen to announce, “I don’t need any help; I went to the bathroom all by myself!” Or when they come walking into the living room on Sunday morning in their Halloween costume, rainbow-striped socks, one rubber boot, and one baseball cleat saying, “I don’t need any help getting ready for church; I got dressed all by myself!” As we get older, it becomes a sort of expectation: our parents don’t wake us up to get ready for school anymore; they don’t (or can’t) help us with our homework; we can drive ourselves to sports practices, club meetings, and friends’ houses—we don’t need any help to do those things when we’re teenagers. Then, as adults, we’re expected to depend less and less on others. We don’t need help from our parents, from our friends, from our neighbors, and we had better not need any help from the government! We’re taught that “pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps” is an admirable trait, that being successful, self-sufficient adults is the ultimate goal in life. We perpetuate the myth of the “self-made man,” because our culture has taught us that to need help, to rely on someone—anyone—else is a sure sign of weakness. “I don’t need any help: I can do it all by myself,” becomes the mantra of our existence.

You know how I know this is true? Think about it: how many of you, right now, have an aging parent or grandparent who refuses to admit they are getting old? How many of us have a relative who refuses to give up driving, to depend on someone else to take them to the store, the doctor, or to church?  How many of us would rather try to tackle a job ourselves without ever asking for help, even if it means we wind up with a bigger mess than when we started? Our culture has hard-wired us into thinking that total independence is the true mark of a well-rounded, successful person, and this way of thinking has even leaked into our understanding of God and what it means to have faith.

One of the most quoted verses of Scripture in our culture is “God helps those who helps themselves.” It’s the perfect Bible verse for bumper stickers, Facebook statuses, tweets, and discounted wall art from Hobby Lobby, but here’s the thing—it’s not a Bible verse at all! It’s nowhere in scripture! And I would be so bold as to say the very sentiment runs contrary to the bulk of the Bible’s message. Somehow, somewhere along the way we began believing that faith was something we ought to do alone. We started talking about a “personal Lord and Savior” (another expression that isn’t found in Scripture), individual faith, and the “private practice of religion.” We became convinced that being a Christian was something we can do on our own, without the need for the trappings of corporate worship and communal living. Is it any wonder we now live in an age where “spiritual but not religious” is a common identifier for so many people—even Christians?

As we formed this individualistic faith, we ignored the full reality of who Jesus is; we turned him into a spiritual superman, a mystical deity that only exists as a way for us to go to heaven after we die. We celebrated Easter as if it were little more than another holiday for which to buy new clothes and decorations. We ignored the realities of our own faults and sins, choosing instead to point out the sins of others so we could retreat further into our singular, individualized religions, and in the process of creating this isolated faith, we may have compromised the full truth of the Good News by watering it down to some customized contract of comfort, a personal promise of paradise.

In many ways, that was the conflict corroding the community to whom John writes this first epistle. It’s early in the history of the Church, and as doctrines and confessions of faith are yet to be formed, all manner of sects and groups were emerging. Some of the most notable were the Gnostics and the Docetics. The Gnostics believed that existence was divided between the material realm and the spiritual realm, and the goal of existence was to be freed from the material realm. They believed the body (along with all of creation) was evil. Therefore, for Gnostic Christians, Jesus showed the way to be freed from the body and the physical realm through some “secret knowledge.” The Docetics believed that Jesus was never really human, that he only appeared to be human, and therefore, he only appeared to actually die. (Both Gnosticism and Docetism have been renounced as heresies, even though Gnosticism still sneaks back into the popular beliefs of many Christians even today).

It’s likely that these two movements (possibly along with others) were gaining traction in the community, and their teachings were causing disunity and leading believers astray. That’s why this epistle is lacking the customary greeting and just gets right down to business with the declaration of verses 1-4. Theses verses are a declaration of the nature of Christ—a declaration of an eye witness. Jesus wasn’t an illusion; he wasn’t a corrupted shell encasing a knowledge-wielding spirit. He was real! He was flesh and blood and bone; he had a voice, a real presence among his friends. Christ’s real presence brings joy among those who have fellowship with him and each other. If he an illusion, a hollow body, then we couldn’t have real fellowship with him; we couldn’t trust that he knows how we feel. That’s why the author says in verse 4, “We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” He wants the community to know and understand that faith in the real Christ is a faith of fellowship and joy, not individualism and a longing for escape.

This notion that we don’t need any help, that we can do things on our own, that the point of all of this is to one day be freed from it, can lead us to a place where we believe we may not even need God! It can bring us to a place where we’re so convinced of our own power to free ourselves (with the right words, prayers, or knowledge) that we may even begin to think that we can free ourselves from sin’s corruption. But surely we know better…don’t we? Sometimes I’m not so sure. Sometimes it seems that we’ve become so positive of our own power, of our own ability to “do what’s right” (especially in light of the wrong we point out in others) that we treat Christ as nothing more than a ticket, a proof-of-purchase that we can show to the one manning the door to get in to wherever it is we hope we’re going. We treat sin as if it’s something those people do, like something we did once, but now we’ve outgrown it and we can do the right thing all by ourselves—we don’t need any help.

That’s why I think we need to listen again to these words before in, the words of verse 5-10: These are not words that testify to the customized faith of one who says, “I can worship God on my own.” These are not words that testify to the individualized idolatry of one who worships at the altar of their own achievements and proclaims that they are worthy of the rewards of heaven. These are not words that testify to the stubborn pride and self-righteousness of those who declare their worth in the light of others’ shortcomings, sins, and failures. When we walk alone, we walk in the dark, because we walk without God, because God is light. To say we don’t need help, to say we can do it on our own, to say “it’s all about me!” is the very definition of sin! It is to rebel against the very nature of God!

If we say we don’t sin, that we don’t have sin, what we’re really saying is that we don’t need God anyhow, that we don’t need a God in Christ whose love has overcome such sin. We declare that we don’t need love itself! “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” This confession, however, isn’t an act we do to ensure that when the day arrives we’ll be free from the judgement of damnation. No, it is something we do in order to live in relationship with God—and each other! “[I]f we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

This life of faith isn’t something we do on our own. It isn’t something we do on our own, because we can’t do it on our own. We need Christ. We need each other. Are any of us perfect? No, of course not. We’ll make mistakes. We’ll hurt each other. We’ll sin, even against each other. “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” We need each other; we can’t do this all by ourselves. Maybe you’ve been trying to do it alone. Maybe you’ve been coaxed by the belief that self-sufficiency is the ultimate sign of perfection. Maybe you’ve been walking in the dark alone for so long you’ve forgotten what the light of God looks like in the midst of even a flawed fellowship. I invite you today to step out of the lonely darkness and into the light of God’s love and the fellowship of the Church. May we all confess our sins, our sins of selfishness, of self-righteousness, our sins of believing we can do this all by ourselves. May we confess our sins together and walk in the light of God’s love and fellowship here and now as Christ is here among us even today, because we need help—God’s help; we need each other, because we can’t do this—life, faith—alone. Amen.

"I Have Seen the Lord" (Resurrection of the Lord, Easter Sunday)

John 20:1-8

1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes. 11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." 16 Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' " 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

            You’ve been invited to a get-together at a place you’ve never been before. You don’t know the way, but one of your friends (who also happens to be going) does. So they say, “You can follow me if you want.”  The entire drive there your eyes are fixed on your friend’s car, hoping that you don’t catch a red light they squeezed the yellow out of, or hoping someone doesn’t cut you off and block your view of your friend’s rear bumper. The entire trip, your safe, timely arrival is dependent on your ability to remain within eyesight of your friend’s car. Everything works out: your friend did know the way; you stayed right behind them; and you had a great time. Then it came time to leave, and the friend you followed has already hit the road. But you assure yourself you can find your way back, so you get in your car and head down the road, except now it is dark—it was the middle of the afternoon when you arrived.

            After driving in straight line for a while, you convince yourself you should turn soon, but nothing looks familiar. You have yet to spot the little pink house with the green shudders you saw on the way. You didn’t notice that Jack’s when you were following your friend, and where are all the streetlights in this town!? What if I’m lost? What if I wind up in Georgia? What if I get a flat and my cell phone doesn’t have any signal and a crazy person in a van stops and kidnaps me (maybe you should stop watching those crime drama shows!)? Your mind starts to race as you realize you might be a little lost, and the night, the dark, just adds to your anxiety. You can miss things in the dark.

            Or you wake up at 2:00 A.M.; you can’t go back to sleep. You decide to get a glass of water, but you don’t want to wake up your spouse or your kids, so you begin the long, dark journey to the kitchen. You tiptoe down the hall, hoping you don’t step on a dog toy in the hall, with your bare feet. You start leaning forward, flinging your fingers out in front of you, feeling in the dark for the edge of the coffee table before your shin finds it. You run your hands along the wall, the counter, the cabinets, counting the knobs until you come to the one where you keep the glasses. Then, you cross your fingers hoping you’ll grab one without sending the rest of them to the ground in a loud, shattering, crash. Finally, you reach out, grasping, trying to catch the lever on the kitchen sink to quietly fill your glass for that drink of water before starting your blind, groping trip back to your bedroom. If it were daylight, you’d stroll through the house without a second thought—but in the dark, everything seems different. In the dark, you might miss something.

            Things are different in the dark. Things seem more dangerous in the dark. Life seems to require a more cautious pace in the dark. We take the light of day for granted, for even when the clouds hang thick above us, the sun’s light still finds a way through to illuminate our lives. Yet in the dark of night, even the brightest full moon is little more than a pale reflection of the sun’s glory. The dark is scary: we tell our kids to come inside before it gets dark; we flip switches and burn fires to keep the dark out; we tell each other “don’t go there at night, when it’s dark.” That’s why it seems rather strange to me, that John’s gospel tells us the story of that first Easter morning “while it was still dark.”

            Matthew tells us of Jesus’ resurrection taking place, “as the first day of the week was dawning.”[1] One gets the sense that the sun was rising in unison with the Son of God. Mark tells it in a more matter-of-fact sort of way. Mark’s gospel is known for its straight-to-the-point, no-frills way of telling the stories of Jesus; it says that the events of Jesus’ resurrection took place “very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen.”[2] The sun is up, bathing the scene with the orange glow of the early morning. Then, Luke tells us everything took place “at early dawn,”[3] that time of morning when the air is still cool, the light is soft, and the ground is still damp with dew. But John’s gospel…John’s gospel leaves no doubt: “it was still dark.” If it were in those final moments of night before the initial flickers of dawn’s rays wrapped themselves around the horizon, then it was surely the darkest time of the night. “[I]t was still dark, [when] Mary Magdalene came to the tomb.”

            Mary Magdalene is so overcome with anxiety that she simply cannot wait for the first light of day to run to the grave of her beloved friend to grieve, but when she arrives—when she’s close enough to see the tomb in the dark—she sees that the stone has been removed. Now, for those of us who know the story, those of us who sing songs of joy about stones being rolled away, who shout praises at such news, we forget that Mary doesn’t know what has happened. She’s afraid someone has come and taken Jesus’ body; perhaps grave robbers have come in the cover of darkness and taken his body. In a panic, she runs to Peter. She runs to the disciple whom Jesus loved. She tells them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." She thinks the worst, because all she could see in the dark was that the stone had been removed. After hearing her report, Peter and the other disciple run to the tomb.

            Now, I love the way the fourth gospel tells this story. John’s gospel is often attributed to the so-called “Beloved Disciple,” who is traditionally understood as John, one of the twelve. So, of course, when Peter and this disciple run to the tomb, we’re told three times that the other disciple beat Peter to the tomb (he outran Peter in verse 4, Peter followed him in verse 6, and in verse 8 we’re told he reached the tomb first).

            Regardless of who got there first, what the two disciples found when they got there was disheartening: “the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.” The body of Jesus was gone. They came looking for a corpse, but instead found just the grave clothes. We’re told the other disciple “saw and believed,” but it’s telling to me that both of “the disciples returned to their homes.” You get the feeling they ran to the tomb expecting to find something, expecting to find his body, expecting to find signs of robbers or foul play, but when they didn’t find it, they went back home, assuming the wild ride they had been on with Jesus all these years was now really over. His body had been stolen as a sort of last slap in the face of the movement Jesus had started.

            But Mary didn’t go home. She had come to the tomb at night expecting to see it intact, and now, with Jesus’ body gone (apparently stolen) she “stood weeping outside the tomb.” She had yet to look inside the tomb herself, but when she did, she saw something the other disciples didn’t: “she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.” Now, did these angels just appear only for her, or had the other disciples simply overlooked them? Had they been so focused on what they were expecting to see that in the still dark hours of early morning, they had missed these two angels sitting right where the body of Jesus had been? I don’t suppose it’s that crazy to think. After all, how many of us have looked right passed something, looked right over someone, because we were so caught up in what we were doing, caught up in looking for something else that we missed what was right there in front of us? Of course, it’s the gospel that tells us they’re angels, for Mary doesn’t seem to recognize them as such. When they ask why she’d crying she tells them. “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” For Mary, it’s still about the corpse. It’s still about figuring out who took Jesus’ body and what they did with it. In this early, dark hour of the morning, she is so consumed by her mission to find Jesus’ body and its thieves that she hardly takes notice of these angels…then again, she doesn’t seem to notice the other person standing there with her.

            “When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.” She didn’t know. She didn’t know? How could she not know? She had been with him for a while; she was one of the only ones had been there at the crucifixion to see his face, his body, as he hung on the cross. How could she not know? Was the light still to dim to see him? Did he hide his face? Did he look different? All we know is that when Jesus asked her the same question the angels asked, when he asked for whom she was looking, Mary thinks Jesus may have been the robber who carried away his body. “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” She’s still looking for the body of Jesus—the dead body of her Lord. One gets the feeling she’s manic, her hands shaking, her eyes darting back and forth, her feet unable to stand still as she’s so overcome by her need to find Jesus’ body, the assumption and expectation that someone has stolen it, that she can’t recognize the presence of angels or the identity of the one standing in front of her. That is…until he speaks her name: “Mary!” (Selah)

            A couple of years before my grandma died, her mind started to fade. She’d see things like cats smoking cigarettes on the kitchen table. She’d forget where she was, and she couldn’t remember things. She called people by the wrong names: she’d call my dad (whose name is Paul) Hubert (that was my granddad’s name); she’d call Brad, David and my cousin David, Jason. She’d get my sister and my step-sister mixed up, and just flat out forget some of our kin folks’ names altogether. But she never forgot my name. My entire adult life I’ve been called “Chris,” but to most of my family I’m still “Christopher.” Grandma, though, always sort of left out the middle syllable; to her, I was “Chris-fer,” and if I was in trouble, I was “Chris-fer Paul” (when she used our middle name, we knew we were in trouble). Right up to the end, Grandma remembered my name, and that’s always stuck with me. I can only imagine what might go through my head and my heart if I heard her voice say it again. I imagine it would be something like what Mary felt when she heard the voice of Jesus say, “Mary!”

            Immediately, Mary stops her panicked search for Jesus’ corpse and those who may have taken it. She’s jarred back to reality by Jesus’ voice. She calls him “Rabbouni!” “Teacher!” and tries to touch him, but Jesus says to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'” I’ve always thought it was a bit odd that Jesus says to her, “Do not hold on to me.” Was Mary trying to grab him, trying to hug him tight in the hopes that she could somehow keep him so he couldn’t leave her again? To hold on to something means you can control it, manipulate it, on it; maybe Jesus wanted to make it clear to Mary that the work wasn’t over and there was still more to be done? Either way, he tells her to go to the other disciples and tell them about his ascension, so she runs back and announces to the disciples, “’I have seen the Lord;’ and she told them that he had said these things to her.”

            She had seen the Lord. After Peter and the other disciples saw nothing but the grave clothes, after Mary herself overlooked the angels’ presence in the tomb, after Mary mistook Jesus for the gardener, and after— only after— Jesus called her name, did Mary see the Lord. She sees the Lord only after her assumptions and expectations are shattered by the mere mention of her name. She sees the Lord after she is reminded that he knows her name, that she is known by him. That’s when we truly see the Lord, when we let go of our expectations and assumptions of what the Lord should look like and when we realize that the Lord knows us by name.

            That’s when I’ve seen the Lord, and like Mary, I’ve come to testify. I’ve seen the Lord—not in the false piety of legalism—but in the presence of those gathered in the living room of a friend to share communion. I’ve seen the Lord—not in the self-righteous pronouncements of fundamentalism—but in liberal acts of love by those who take the command of Christ seriously. I’ve seen the Lord—not in the ritual acts of over-stressed religion—but in our youth as they joyfully serve others in the nursing home and while away at Passport in the summer. I’ve seen the Lord—not in the divisive practices of those who expect him to look, talk, and act like them—but in the eyes of Haitian children as the walk holding hands with American adults on the dusty roads of rural Haiti. I’ve seen the Lord—not in the ways I’ve ever expected or assumed—but in the way that friends gather in the kitchen of one who has just lost a loved one to share a prayer, hugs, and to say “I’m here if you need me”—and to know they mean it! Friends, I’ve seen the Lord! I look out from this pulpit this morning and still see him, and I know that many of you have too. I’ve seen the Lord, and it’s almost always in the most unexpected ways, and it’s always once I realize that the Lord knows me already. This Easter morning, I’ve seen the Lord. What have you seen?

Amen.

---

[1] Matthew 28:1

[2] Mark 16:2

[3] Luke 24:1

"Father, into Your Hands I Commend My Spirit" (Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday)

Luke 23:44-49

44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45 while the sun's light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Having said this, he breathed his last. 47 When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, "Certainly this man was innocent." 48 And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. 49 But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
           
           When I was in college I ate lunch almost every day in the cafeteria on campus. Some days I met Sallie and some of our friends in the library before walking over to the caf; some days I walked straight from class to lunch, maybe eating with a friend I ran into on the way or by myself in order to catch up on some reading for my next class. It didn’t matter when I went to lunch or with whom I went to lunch, the path I took to the caf was almost always the same, and along that path was the fountain in the center of Ben Brown Plaza.

            That fountain isn’t really anything special—just a shallow, circular pool with a pump and a few fountain jets at its center. In the winter it is an empty, blue hole, but in the spring through early fall, the pool is filled with water, and the fountain pumps that water through the jets into the air, creating a sort of living centerpiece for the plaza. I can remember walking by that fountain so many times on my way to lunch, thinking to myself, “Today, I’m going to walk across that water.” Of course, I never did, maybe because I never tried. I never tried to walk on that water, because I knew I couldn’t (it was physically impossible), but I always liked to believe I could, because a part of me thought that’s what it meant to have faith. That’s what I thought it meant to believe, to so fully trust God that if I simply had the faith, I could walk across the surface of that pool—just as Jesus had done on the stormy water of the Sea of Galilee. I thought that was faith, but that’s not what faith looks like.

Just down the road a bit from us, in a little town called Atlanta, there’s a pastor who has recently come into a bit of a situation. His ministry has hit a rather small, financial snag, so he took to the internet to ask for help from his parishioners and others who support his ministry. He’s not asking for much from them really: he simply asked if some people would consider a $300 donation to his ministry. Let me clarify: by “some people” I meant 200,000 people, if 200,000 people would donate $300. In case you can’t figure that in your head, or if you don’t have a calculator handy that’s $60 million. “Pastor” Creflo Dollar (and yes, that’s his real name) is asking his supporters to give him $60 million dollars so he can buy a Gulfstream G650 jet to travel around the world after his old jet (bless his heart!) began having issues. Dollar went so far as to say that after having issues with his old jet that he “knew that it was time to begin to believe God for a new airplane.”[1]

Creflo Dollar is a leader in the so-called “prosperity gospel” movement, a movement that claims God’s desire for you and your life is health and wealth (mostly wealth…a lot of wealth). His idea of faith is trusting God to take your tithe, your offering, and give it back to you in such abundance that you’ll be rich. But let’s be honest, that’s not what real faith looks like.

            In small, wood-framed buildings in the rural towns tucked away in the Appalachian Mountains, some people will gather for church on Sundays. They’ll sing hymns, pray, read from the Bible, and hear a sermon, but things get a lot more interesting at the end of the service. While they might sing an invitational hymn or given an altar call, the real call to faith comes coiled with rattles on one end and sharp fangs on the other. Though there aren’t really that many, snake-handling churches are still meeting and testing their faith throughout Appalachia. It’s a sect of Christianity that is so intriguing that it’s the subject of a reality show called Snake Salvation on the National Geographic Channel.[2]

The motivation for handling poisonous snakes (along with drinking poisons like strychnine) comes from what’s called “the longer ending” of Mark’s gospel, an ending believed by most scholars to be an addition and not a part of the original gospel. This ending is footnoted or bracketed in most modern translation, but these snake-handling Christians hone in on two of its verses as biblical backing for their poisonous practices: “And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”[3] Picking up poisonous snakes, drinking strychnine, and leaving church alive, that’s what these folks call faith. Is that what faith really looks like?

Trying to walk on water, cashing million dollar checks, picking up deadly snakes, drinking poison, is that what faith looks like? Some of you might say, “Yes.” I mean, after all, the Bible could be used in each of those situations to make a pretty good case. We could use the Bible to say that faith is proven by telling a mountain to pick itself up and go jump in the ocean, or a tree to pull itself up by the roots and be planted somewhere else. We could use the Bible to say that faith is found when one only has enough food for one day but he’s able to make it last a whole week. We could use the Bible to say that faith takes the shape of a handful of men standing against the strong army of a nation and proving victorious. The truth is we could probably use Holy Scripture to justify anything we want, especially when it comes to tests of faith. But the ultimate focus of Scripture, the ultimate image of faith is found in the text before us this morning, in the figure of Christ on the cross, crying in a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."

These are Jesus’ last words before his death in Luke’s gospel. Matthew and Mark tell us Jesus cried out from the depths of his loneliness and his abandonment with the words of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” John (as we saw last week) tells us of a Christ in control, declaring, “It is finished!” But Luke…Luke’s telling shows us an image of Christ upon the cross as one with absolute faith.

Really, when one looks at the whole of Luke’s gospel, it shouldn’t surprise us too much that the last utterance from Jesus on the cross is one of exemplary faith. Luke is full of stories of faith, stories of forgiveness, of people being saved—made whole—by their faith. It starts early, in chapter five, when some men were trying to get their paralyzed friend to Jesus. We’re told that when they couldn’t get through the crowd and into the room where Jesus was, they went on the roof and lowered their friend down to Jesus. Luke says in verse 20, “When he saw their faith, he said, ‘Friends, your sins are forgiven.’”

Then, in chapter seven of Luke, we’re told of a centurion (i.e. a Roman/Gentile) who comes to Jesus because he has a slave who is sick and nearly dead. Jesus is amazed by this man, and he turns to the crowd that was following him and said, “not even in Israel have I found such faith.” Not even among the elect people of God had Jesus found the kind of faith he saw in this Gentile soldier. In that same chapter, we’re told of a woman “who was a sinner” and how she came off the streets to wash and kiss Jesus’ feet and anoint them with ointment, and even though the Pharisee Simon—whose house Jesus was in—judged this woman in his mind, Jesus said to her in verse 50, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Then, in chapter eight, we hear about a woman who had been hemorrhaging blood for twelve years until she touched the fringe of Jesus’ clothes. When she came out from the crowd, trembling and declaring what had happened, Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

There are two other stories Luke tells us of Jesus declaring forgiveness or salvation in light of faith. In chapter seventeen, Jesus heals ten lepers, but when only one returns to thank him, Jesus says to him, “your faith has made you well.” And in chapter eighteen, when Jesus gives sight to a blind beggar on the way to Jericho, Jesus tells the man, “Receive your sight; your faith has saved you.”

It should be noted that in all of these stories, the ones whom Jesus proclaims as having faith are “outsiders”—the ones judged by society as “unclean,” sinful, unfit, even enemies. So of course if Jesus says these folks have faith surely the disciples are spilling over with faith, tripping over it as they follow Jesus, right? Well…in at least three places in Luke’s gospel, Jesus talks to his disciples about their faith, and it’s not exactly what we might call a glowing review. In chapter eight, the disciples are out on the lake in Galilee, when a storm comes up. Jesus was asleep in the boat. The disciples become so afraid that they wake Jesus up, and Jesus rebukes the wind and calms the storm. The first thing Jesus says to his disciples after calming the storm: “Where is your faith?” Then in chapter twelve, Jesus is teaching about the uselessness of worry, how God cares for the birds of the air and the flowers in the field, so surely God will care for us, when he gives a little jab to his disciples in verse 28, calling them “you of little faith!”

One gets the feeling the disciples have kind of had it with Jesus’ bragging on others’ faith while running down his closest followers for their apparent lack of faith when, in chapter 17, they say to Jesus in verse 5, “Increase our faith!” It’s really a demand: “Increase our faith!” One gets the sense they’re saying, “If we’ve got such little faith or none at all, then help us have more! Increase our faith!” Jesus’ response in the following verses, though, likely didn’t help their feelings a whole lot: “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” If faith was an award that came with a trophy in Luke’s gospel, the disciples couldn’t even win for losing.

Faith isn’t identified among the Pharisees, the Scribes, or even Jesus’ disciples for Luke. It isn’t exemplified in the religious elites, the biblical scholars, the wealthy, the privileged—not even among the chosen people of God. For Jesus (in Luke’s gospel) faith is found in the most unlikely places: in the strenuous efforts of friends caring for one another, in the kindness of a master for his servant, in the selfless, vulnerable acts of humility (like washing someone’s feet), in the quiet, hidden acts of trust, in returning thanks (even to a stranger, even when others won’t). It’s found in the longing to see with our eyes wide open, free from our own self-caused blindness. It’s found in the dying Son of God, who even in the final moments of a tortuous death finds the strength to express his trust in God.

That’s what faith looks like. It’s not the ability to do wonderful acts of miraculous power (like walk on water). It’s not the expectation of wealth in exchange for a small, financial sacrifice. It’s not the courage to handle venomous snakes and consume poison, hoping you’ll survive. Faith is giving yourself—your whole self—to the God who has given all of himself to us. It’s giving food to those who are hungry, water to those who are thirty, shelter to those who are cold. It’s stepping out of your comfort zone, trying new, challenging things that will broaden your horizons and help you see the world as Christ sees it. It’s giving of yourself—your time, your money, your resources, your talents—and not because you expect something more in return, but because you know that what you have was already given to you for a purpose bigger than yourself. Faith is trusting that when all else fails, when the storm rages, when the world is dark, and you’re left all alone, there is one who will never fail you or leave you to suffer alone. Faith is being able to live a life of joy, heartbreak, love, rejection, hope, and sorrow, to face death and say, “God, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

That’s what faith looks like, like Christ upon the cross, willfully surrendering his life for the sake of us all, showing us that faith, the way of God’s kingdom, is found in self-emptying love. May we all find that faith, the faith to love God so completely, to trust God so total, that even in the face of death, we trust God. May we have the faith of Christ as we have faith in Christ. Amen.

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[1] http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/13/living/creflo-dollar-jet-feat/

[2] You can find info about this show here: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/snake-salvation/

[3] From the “longer ending” Mark 16:17-18 (NRSV)