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Sermon – John 3.14-21, L4, YB, March 15, 2015

19 Thursday Mar 2015

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Today we get one of the most beloved passages of Scripture.  Most everyone knows the line, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  But even for those of us who do not know the words by heart, we have seen the marker “John 3.16” all over – at sporting events, on road overpasses, on tattoos, and on Tim Tebow’s face.  Even Episcopalians, who can rarely quote scripture citations, know this one.

What is funny about the popularity of this scripture verse is that this particular verse is one of the more complicated verses in scripture.  On the surface, the verse sounds full of promise:  God so loved; God so loved the world; God gave; So that believers should not perish; Everlasting life.  All those words sound wonderful.  They make God sound loving and generous.  They make life seem full of promise.  Why would you not want to parade John 3.16 around in celebration?

John 3.16 sounds wonderful until you really start to dissect the verse.  John 3.16 makes God sound loving, generous, and caring.  Until you read that one pesky clause, “everyone who believes.”  So God will love, be generous to, and give everlasting life to anyone in the world – as long as they believe.  But what about those who do not believe?  We all know lots of people who do not believe in Jesus Christ.  They are our neighbors, friends, family members, and classmates [colleagues].  Do we really believe God does not love them too?  All we have to do is read John 3.18 to learn that “those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

Now I do not know about you, but although this scripture lesson is known worldwide, and is beloved by many, I have never really felt comfortable with the implications of this passage.  I think two things either happen when we really start to look at this passage.  One, by recognizing that we are the “believers” of this passage, we both feel a sense of pride and acceptance and a sense of pity for the non-believers.  We feel bad for the non-believers, but we do not really know how to console them.  So we secretly just feel grateful and blessed, and wipe our hands clean of the non-believers.  They will have to fend for themselves.

The other way that many of us approach this text is that we sweep the verse under the rug.  We know a lot of other verses about God, and those verses tell us of a God whose love is much bigger.  We might imagine that there is hope for all the faiths of the world, and even for those without faith.  We prefer to focus on the part that says, “God so loved the world,” knowing the vast diversity of that world, preferring to imagine that our God is not a judgmental one, but a loving one.  And even if we concede that there might need to be some form of judgment, we will leave that judgment up to God.  We will let the business of who is in and who is out be God’s business, and we will just go on loving everyone anyway.

Either of those ways of thinking – the one where we pity the non-believers or the one where we brush aside the text – ignores the fact that those approaches come from the assumption that we are the insiders in this situation.  As Christians, we know that we believe in Jesus Christ.  So we must be the ones that John is talking about – the ones that God loves and saves, and to whom God gives eternal life.  But the problem with that underlying assumption is that the assumption puts us in a place of comfort, when, in fact, I think John 3.16 is supposed to put us in a place of discomfort.

In John 3.19-20, Jesus says, “…This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.  For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.”  Instead of sitting on our comfortable “believer” cushion, I think what this passage is really inviting us to do is to recognize how we are in fact the people in the darkness.  We have been talking a lot in this Lent about our sinfulness – our separation from God and neighbor.  Our Lenten disciplines are meant to be ways for us to contemplate our sinfulness, to repent, and return to the Lord.  None of us is spared from being sinful.  We have all fallen victim to pride, envy, and hatred.  We have all had malicious thoughts and done hurtful things.  We have all forgotten about God, making our lives about our own wants and desires.  And I am sure many of us have had something in our lives that we have wanted to hide in darkness.  None of us feel entirely comfortable exposed, being bathed in light.  Like that makeup mirror that is just a little too bright, not many of us are ready to be seen under the bright light.

There is a book and movie series out called “Divergent.”  It is a dystopian, futuristic series that captures what happens when the world destroys itself and the society that is rebuilt to prevent such destruction from happening again.  Though the premise is a bit complicated, one of the pieces about the series I find fascinating is the presentation of one group who believes that the truth is the answer to solving the world’s problems.  So all the members of that particular group must take what is called a “truth serum.”  When they take the serum, they must then be asked a slew of questions before all the members of the group, including extremely personal and private questions.  The idea is that if all your secrets are exposed, there is nothing left to hide behind.  Everyone is on equal footing and no one can hide their true selves.

I imagine the world in that group from the Divergent series as being like the one that Jesus is talking about today.  We are people who would avoid a truth serum – who would avoid the light – because we do not want all of ourselves exposed.  There are some things – those really dark, embarrassing, or shameful things about our lives – that we do not want the world to know.  We like the dark, if for no other reason than we can hide those ugly parts of ourselves there.  In fact, we like keeping a little bit of darkness in our lives.  And I imagine most of us would quite quickly decline a truth serum.

If we can admit that truth – that part of us that prefers there be just a little bit of darkness for us to hide in occasionally – then we might be able to see why John 3.16 is so brilliant.  If we can be humble about our own darkness and our own sinfulness, and approach God in that way, then Jesus’ words are much more meaningful.  For those of us who have a bit of darkness in us, God so loved us that God gave up God’s only Son so that we might have eternal life.  In this way, John 3.16 is refreshing.  When we realize that we are the ones in darkness, John 3.16 does not make us feel self-righteous, pitying others.[i]  Instead, John 3.16 is a harbinger of light.  In fact, John 3.16 calls us into the light with the promise of love, forgiveness, and grace.  Once we get ourselves out of the “insider’s circle” this passage becomes much more redemptive and much more full of hope.  And perhaps that is the point.  Not to make us relieved because we are on the inside looking out, but to make us relieved because we are on the outside looking in – and being beckoned in by our Lord and Savior.  If we can come to see this passage in this light, then I say go ahead and get that tattoo, embroider that wall hanging, and even make that poster for the big game.  Perhaps your artwork will remind you to keep turning from the darkness and turning into the light.  Amen.

[i] This idea shaped by the conclusions made by Paul C. Shupe, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 120.

Lenten hope…

11 Wednesday Mar 2015

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Today is a day I have been longing for for at least a month.  The church bells are playing, the sun is shining, the temperature is rising, and I can see bits of grass under mounds of snow.  In some ways, the dreariness of winter has been most appropriate.  We are in Lent after all, so the feeling of weariness seems appropriate.  Any hint of spring would only tease us into a sense of relaxation – something we do not associate with Lent.  And yet, today feels like a little taste of Easter – a promise of what is to come in just a few short weeks.  For some reason, I really needed that taste today.

Of course, we always live our lives in a state of “already and not yet.”  As Christians we understand that the kingdom of God is already present and not yet fulfilled.  We live in a strange state of in between – of knowing that the Savior has come, and yet a time of waiting for the return of the Messiah.  It is an odd reality, and yet how we also understand this odd time.

Lent can be that way too.  We already know what happens after the crucifixion of Jesus.  Therefore staying in the moment, staying in the state of repentance and thoughtfulness about our sin feels contrived or forced – like pretending those birds aren’t chirping when we clearly hear them.  But that is also the beauty of Lent.  In fact, I think that is why we can experience Lent at all.  How else could we agree to delve into the depths of our sinfulness, our separation from God and others, without the promise of the Resurrection.  The Resurrection does not excuse us – it simply anchors us so that we can do the hard work that we need to do during Lent.

So today, I will breathe in the little promise of Easter.  I thank God for the gift of sun on my face and the trickle of melting snow.  And then I will get back to Lent with a little more energy and hopefulness.

Sermon – Joel 2.1-2, 12-17, AW, YB, February 18, 2015

25 Wednesday Feb 2015

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For those of us who have been around the church for any amount of time, we have become quite accustomed to the season of Lent.  We dutifully find a Lenten discipline:  buying that book we are going to read, ridding the house of chocolate, or purchasing new athletic gear for the exercise we plan to take up.  Or if we are feeling particularly uninspired, we may ask our friends and family what they are giving up for Lent this year, in the hopes that something will inspire us too.  We do all these things because we feel obligated.  We take up a discipline because that is what we are supposed to do, not because we particularly want to take up the discipline.  Lenten disciplines have sort of become the second-chance for New Year’s Resolutions.  Whatever failed then might have more luck if we do the discipline in the name of Jesus.  Then we can feel doubly good because not only did we give up red meat for Jesus, but we also lost four pounds.  In that way, Lent is great!

The challenge with that kind of engagement with Lent is that our practices become more about giving up something for the sake of giving up something instead of giving up something because that sacrifice will drive us into the arms of God.  When we choose a Lenten discipline, we choose that discipline not out of habit, or out of peer pressure, or even in the hopes of the secondary benefits (like losing weight or finally getting through our pile of books).  To get to the true heart of Lent, we choose our Lenten disciplines out of a sense of urgency – out of a sense that something needs to change and something needs to change now.

That is what the prophet Joel was trying to say to the people of Israel in our Old Testament lesson today.  You see, “Tradition held that on the Day of the Lord, God would come to vindicate Israel, to judge the nations that had opposed and oppressed her, and to reverse the status quo in favor of the people of Jerusalem”[i] The Israelites had come to believe that the Day of the Lord would be a day of celebration and vindication.  Any sacrifices they made or disciplines they assumed were because they were anticipating a reward.  But Joel tells them that their very identity as the chosen people of God is what brings them up short.  Instead of favor, they will receive a harsher judgment than anyone.

As a parent, I tend to read a lot of parenting blogs and articles.  One of the on-going conversations is about whether children should receive compensation for their chores.  People make arguments that children should never be given money for chores, because paying children for chores teaches them that they should only participate in the life of the family if they will receive something in return.  Instead, many critics argue that chores should be presented as work that is simply expected of all capable members of the family.  In doing chores out of membership instead of reward, the critics argue that children learn a sense of pride and belonging.  Their argument is similar to Joel’s:  favor and belonging in God’s eyes comes with expectations, not prizes.

But Joel’s critique of Israel goes even deeper.  Joel reminds the people of God that not only do they need to repent, they also need to repent with their whole heart.  Joel says they are to rend their hearts, not their garments.  The rending of garments was a ritual practice of repentance.  But Joel insists that God does not simply want ritual repentance.  God wants the kind of repentance that is felt deep in one’s heart.  They are to “approach God in sincerity, rather than by ritual; to beseech God’s mercy through genuine mourning for sin, rather than by cultic rite.  Joel calls for true repentance, the complete turning away from destructive patterns, selfish, inclinations, and self-righteous expectations.  God wants the whole person, not some outward sign…”[ii]  To rend one’s heart was not simply an emotional response.  As one scholar suggests, “Since the heart was considered the seat of thinking and willing, [a commitment of the heart] implied total dedication.”[iii]

That is the kind of discipline we are invited to take up this Lent.  Disciplines that reflect on the ways that we have separated ourselves from God, the ways that we have become so wrapped up in ourselves that we have pushed God away, and the ways that we have simply neglected our relationship with God – those are the disciplines that will create meaning and substance.  When we think about rending our hearts, our disciplines will make space in our lives for us to stop in our tracks, to turn around on our current paths, and to journey back to God’s open arms.

The good news is that we do not do this work alone.  In fact, Joel insists that God not only wants the whole person, God wants “the whole people, the whole city of Jerusalem, indeed, the entire nation.  This is not a call to the pious, or to the willing, or to those who are expected to make offering to the Lord, but to all.”[iv]  When Joel says to gather the aged, the children, the infants, and the newlyweds, he means that even those who normally would not need to repent need to come into the fold.  God is interested not simply in a personal relationship with the people, but with a communal one.

This year, I invited the parish to join me in the solemn practice of playing Lent Madness.  Most of you have wondered why I invited us to play together, especially in something that seemed so silly.  Some of you complained that the process seemed too confusing, or just were not sure why we needed to do something as weird as a sports and saints hybrid.  Part of my motivation in getting us to do a discipline together is that I know how hard isolating Lenten disciplines can be.  When we set a goal of praying or reading scripture for an hour a day during Lent, no one should be surprised when we fail ten days into the practice.  Perhaps we fail because we are doing the practice out of a sense of obligation to be holy.  Perhaps we fail because we have not really done the hard work of rending our hearts – searching for the ways that we are deeply separated from God and need to return to God.  Or perhaps we fail because we were too prideful to repent in the context of community.

Now I am not insisting that you play Lent Madness.  I am simply suggesting that sometimes our piety is so about ourselves that we forget the community of saints sitting right beside us who long to rend their hearts too, but cannot seem to do the work alone.  Together we can do the hard work of rending our hearts.  We can do the hard work of repenting, of truly turning back to the God who longs to be in communion with us.  We can do the hard work of being a vulnerable, loving, supporting community.  Our encouragement in all this work comes from Joel too.  Joel affirms for us that for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.  Joel even conjectures, “Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind.”  The expectations are high.  The work is hard.  The community works together.  Because our God is gracious and merciful.  And who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind?  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 3.

[ii] Lose, 5.

[iii] Dianne Bergant, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 5.

[iv] Lose, 5.

Sermon – Luke 13.1-9, L3, YC, March 3, 2013

04 Monday Mar 2013

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We are half way through Lent, and this is the time that we begin to take stock.  But we do not always take stock of ourselves, humbly repenting of the ways we are stumbling with our disciplines.  No, we look at everyone else.  When we ask our fellow parishioners how their Lenten disciplines are going, we are not asking out of Christian love.  We are asking because we hope they are failing more miserably than we are.  We need to hear that someone has lapsed in their practice or given up altogether so that our weak attempts to hold on do not seem so weak after all.  We are a judgmental people, and we rarely offer the forgiveness that we so long to receive.

Jesus knows this as he listens to those gathered around him in our Gospel lesson today.  They are lamenting with Jesus about two groups of people who have recently suffered – the Galileans at the hand of Pilate and those near the tower of Siloam.  “Isn’t it horrible, Jesus,” they seem to be saying.  The insinuation is that those in Galilee and in Siloam must have sinned gravely to receive such suffering.  The assumption was a common one among the people of Israel.[i]  We remember the friends of Job who immediately assumed Job must have done something wrong to deserve his severe suffering.  Those gathered around Jesus are hoping that Jesus will confirm their suspicions – that Jesus will turn the spotlight on the sinfulness of those people, so that they can all shake their heads in judgment.

But Jesus will not take the bait.  Instead, Jesus tells this story:  Once upon a time, there was a fig tree that was not bearing fruit, and had not bore fruit for three years.  Fed up, the vineyard owner decided to cut down the unproductive tree.  But before the vineyard owner could touch the tree, the gardener made one last plea.  The gardener asked for one more year.  In that year, the gardener would dig around the tree, spreading manure at the roots of the tree.  If after a year of such care the tree still did not produce fruit, then the owner could chop down the tree.

The message seems to be clear in Jesus’ parable:  repent, change your ways, and start producing fruit, or you will be slaughtered.  But this interpretation of the parable gets all the parts confused.  The people gathered are not the gardeners begging God, the vineyard owner, for one more year to tend our garden.  That version of the parable would be too simple.  Instead, God is the gardener – the one negotiating grace – and they are the unproductive trees.

I have been thinking about life as the unproductive fig tree all week.  An unproductive tree is still very much alive – the tree goes about the business of breathing in and drinking up nutrients.  The tree is surviving, but not thriving.  But the tree is doing about all the tree can do.  The tree cannot fertilize itself.  The tree cannot aerate the tree’s own soil.  In order for the tree to thrive, the tree is dependent upon the gardener for the kind of care that produces fruit.

This is where I got stuck in the parable.  First, Jesus tells the people to repent; but then, Jesus tells the people that they are immobile trees, incapable of changing anything without the help of a gardener.  As someone who likes who likes to do, to be active, to achieve something, this parable is especially difficult.  If Jesus had just said to repent, I would have had a task to do – a job to accomplish.  Repenting, amending my ways, returning to God are all things I can work on and do.  But being a tree that just stands there, waiting for someone to help her, depending on God’s grace feels a lot less comfortable.

This Lent I really struggled with choosing a spiritual discipline.  I have tried all sorts of practices in Lent in the past:  reading a daily devotional, taking up a prayer practice, creating an exercise routine, or even giving up a foul mouth.  I tend to like the practices that add something to your life, rather than take something away.  But this year, nothing seemed to fit.  I talked to my spiritual director about my quandary, and she suggested something radical.  Instead of taking on something or giving up something, she suggested I just commit to just being more aware.  My busybody nature was totally confused and apprehensive.  But my spiritual director encouraged me to just try – to try spending this Lent, not busying myself with a discipline, but daily taking stock of my life patterns and observing.  This non-practice practice has been the most awkward experience for me.  As a person who needs tangibility, I have been left with this intangible practice.  No checklist to consult, no achievements to track:  just a practice of being, of letting God work on me.

I think what my spiritual director has been trying to get me to live into is the tree identity of our parable today.  In naming ourselves as the tree in Jesus’ parable, we are claiming a couple of things.  First, we are claiming that we are utterly incapable of determining our future.  The tree in the parable is not bearing fruit, and nothing the tree does will help the tree change this status.  The tree cannot try harder or behave differently.  The tree is simply a tree planted where the tree is.  Second, in identifying with the tree, we are claiming that we are dependent upon the gardener.  We are dependent upon the gardener’s mercy – the gardener who lobbies for one more year of trying.  We are dependent upon the gardener for determining the kind of nourishment we will receive.  We do not get to consult the gardener about the type of care we think we need.  We must trust the gardener to do what the gardener does best.

What I like about this parable today is that the parable takes us out of our comfort zones and puts us squarely in God’s hands.  First, by telling the people to repent, Jesus takes the people out of a mode of comparing and judging others and puts the people in the mode of tending to themselves.  His instruction to repent is almost Jesus’ way of saying, “Why don’t you stop worrying about what Pilate did and what the people of Siloam did, and why don’t you take stock of your own stuff.”  And then Jesus takes the wind out the sails of the people even further.  His parable tells them that not only do they need to not worry about what everyone else is doing, they need to realize that even the things that they are doing do not matter – because ultimately they are trees dependent upon God’s grace and mercy to thrive.

Now this may not sound like good news to us, but this is a tremendous word of grace for us today.  In the midst of the season of Lent, that season that we are typically kneading the dough of our lives, trying to get ourselves just right for God, Jesus leaves us with a word of grace.  Jesus’ parable today shifts our energy this week.  Instead of desperately grasping to change and amend our lives, Jesus invites us to let go:  to let go of trying so hard, and to remember the God who lovingly offers to do the work of digging in our soil and spreading smelly manure so that we might bear delicious fruit.

As we have been thinking about gardening this Lent, I have been hearing many stories of your own gardens.  For those of you who garden, you have lived this invitation that Jesus offers.  You have lived through a season where the tomatoes did not make it, where the new crop was not planted in the right place, and where critters have come in and destroyed.  And for those of you who are seasoned at this work, the common phrase I hear from you is, “Ah well, we’ll try again next year.”  This is the kind of letting go that Jesus is inviting us into this week.  This is the kind of trust in God that Jesus encourages.  As we come forward for healing prayers today, an old gospel hymn keeps running through head when I think of Jesus’ parable today.  The chorus says, “Your grace and mercy brought me through.  I’m living this moment because of You.  I want to thank you and praise you too.  Your grace and mercy brought me through.”  In the midst of our Lenten journey, we pause today to recognize the ways in which we are simply trees in God’s garden, dependent upon God’s grace and mercy to get us through.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

[i] Daniel G. Deffenbaugh, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 92.