July 26 -- Baseball and the Realm of Heaven (Pentecost8A)

This year of Major League Baseball has been tough.  Even with the games that are being played now, there’s clearly this cloud over the whole experience, with the empty stands, the canned recordings of crowds cheering, elbow bumps and air high-5s.  I don’t know about you, but I’m concerned for the players’ health.  Beforetimes: the only ones wearing a mask — in the whole stadium — were the catcher and the umpire!

If you’re anything like me, baseball is one of those things that’s down in the bones.  And to not have it, is like a part of me is missing.  Football fans you’ll be feeling my pain soon enough, I’m afraid.  I know it’s a privileged thing to talk about this pain, with so many other things going on.  (And I’m definitely not advocating opening baseball to go back to how it was, pretending like the world hasn’t changed.) I’m just bein’ honest with my grief here: I really miss the game, down in my soul.

So we try to make the best of it.  Some, I know, are trying to look at this year as some kind of building year or sabbath, studying up on the young players with high hopes for next year.  Making the best of this beat-up, half season.

I’ve wondered about a different coping strategy.  I’ve kind of “gone inside my baseball self”, and I’ve slowly been watching my way again through, the great Ken Burns documentary entitled “Baseball”.  Anyone seen it?  It’s 11 episodes, over 2 hours each episode, about the history of the American pastime.  And I love it!  I’ve gotten teared up watching the sections on Jackie Robinson becoming the first African American player to enter the league, Lou Gehrig’s last speech, or interviews of fans and historians recalling their feelings when the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.

It’s actually an incredibly rejuvenating and uplifting experience for me.  And in the course of watching these episodes, I continue to come across metaphors, words and images, that are helpful in articulating why baseball means so much to me.  Baseball is like community [yeah!]; it’s about sacrificing one for the good of the whole [yeah!]; it’s like refuge from the world; one commentator in the film said that baseball’s “action is in the absence of action”; it’s about losing – even the greatest hitters are successful only a small percentage of the time; it’s about staying the same, through the turmoil of change; it’s about the past, and it is pastoral.”

I don’t always have the words for why baseball is so special, so ethereal, to me...and I’m reminded how we depend on the help of metaphors and images, words.

In our Gospel text this week, Jesus uses words and images, metaphors to articulate to the people of Matthew’s day—not what baseball is like, but what the realm of heaven is like.  Jesus uses things of this earth to give us an idea of the very things of heaven.

In Matthew’s time, the image of a pearl found in a field was big deal, a net overflowing with fish made a lot of sense – these were things that never happened, but things that people could easily see in their mind’s eye, and so these images had Christ’s listeners sitting up and celebrating, their imaginations coming alive...like a Sunday afternoon at the park for me.

Perhaps those metaphors don’t have quite the same effect for us today?

How would Jesus compare the realm of heaven now?

It’s like a perfectly executed double play, like a Roberto Clemente clutch home run, or a Sandy Koufax strike-out.

Or perhaps the baseball images aren’t effective for you...

What metaphors might Jesus use to reach your ears?  The realm of heaven is like a nap in a hammock after a long and trying meeting.  TROHI like getting a raise.  TROHI like getting the perfect compliment.  TROHI like a cool sip of ice tea in the shade, on a humid, Virginia, summer day.  TROHI like a reconnection with a beloved friend, where you realize that time and distance hasn’t separated you at all.  The realm of heaven is like joining hands with all those you love and singing grace before a great meal.  How we miss that, these days!

Today we stop, wherever we are, and reflect on the Word of God, the word of life (as we say each week about these scriptures).  And we are blessed by a Gospel text that fires images at us, words, almost too quickly to catch them all, “like scenes glimpsed through the windows of a fast-moving train” (BBTaylor).  Mustard seed, yeast, treasure, pearl, net full of fish.

I think Jesus does this on purpose…for the realm of heaven hard to pin down to one image, it’s hard to articulate, like my feelings about baseball.  And so we look to words and images of things that are before us – sunsets and smiles and cool drinks and small victories – to point to things that are beyond us.  No image nails it perfectly: God’s holy and loving reign, come down on earth to us.

But even if our language may come up short and incomplete, we realize that God has put so much right before us.  And it’s so good, in fact, that we can even say that the stuff of earth is like stuff of heaven!
The kingdom of heaven is like…a baseball game…a getting together with friends…a warm quilt…a slice of fresh bread...

Indeed the Realm of God is not to be found in metaphors of lofty places, like golden castles in the south of France, or Crater Lake National Park (!), but what’s striking about what Jesus is doing here is he’s using images that are right in front of us, things that we can all imagine quite clearly: fields and fish, everyday women and men, bread.  Parts of our daily routines, eating, working, getting by, being in nature.  Things here and now.  Those simple things are what the realm of heaven is like!

That strikes me on this journey I’m on with my family, this cross-country, work-from-the-road trip.  You know, lots of friends and family, some of you, have been writing and proclaiming to me on this trip, “You’re in God’s country now” — depending on your roots and preferences and experiences, Colorado is God’s country, Wyoming is God’s country, the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, those glorious red rocks and formations of Utah, Crater Lake, some even said no, Nebraska is God’s country :)

But we don’t have to go to those glorious places to get a taste of heaven.  God shows us what heaven is like in simple things, what’s right in front in front of you.
In this holy space and time of worship, from wherever you are sitting, and not just there, where we worship: but all through this holy world!

God’s kingdom is right here for us!  It’s not something that we must build or create, or search for, or drive across the nation to see, it’s already here for you, in your midst.  The kingdom of heaven is in your midst, Jesus keeps saying in the Gospels.  The simple joys: the breath of fresh air, the cool breeze through the trees, the song of the bird, an honest day’s work, the sweat of the brow.  The warmth of this family of faith.  The gift of this day:
Thanks be to God, thy kingdom has come.

May God continue to give us the wisdom to see this realm come, here and now.   May God continue to give us the creativity of language and metaphor to help one another name this kingdom come, and may God give you the peace and the openness of heart to enjoy this realm of heaven starting today, right where you are, and into eternity.  Play ball!  AMEN.

July 19 -- From Star Wars to Barn Dances (Pentecost 7A)

Will you pray with me: God of the harvest—give us your patience, give us your peace, give us your word.  Amen.

I love the Star Wars movies.  I love the special effects, the story, the humor, the characters.  I grew up watching them.  I had the action figures.  You could say I was a big fan.  And I still love Star Wars today.

But like many movies, Star Wars makes the good guys and the bad guys very easily distinguishable.  In case you’re not sure, you can tell who’s good and who’s bad by the color of their uniforms and also by what kind of music is playing when they’re on screen.  [sing the famous Darth Vader tune] It’s pretty easy.  And despite an intergalactic stage, the division between good and evil is pretty simple.  The good guys are here, the bad guys are there.  We are not they, and they are not we.  We are of God, they are of the devil.

But the world, in which we live, is not quite that clear cut, is it?  [pause] Reality is not quite as simple as the Star Wars movies.  God’s world is wonderfully messy…but that means it’s messy.

Many theologians and thinkers through the years have offered alternative, more complicated models to this simplified, Star Wars-like worldview.

Is it possible, theologians have wondered, that every person is both good and bad at the very same time?  Is it possible that good resides in the hearts of evil people.  And that evil resides in the hearts of good people?  And so good people and evil people are suddenly much more difficult to distinguish.

Martin Luther of course talked about this, when he spoke of the Christians’ “sinner-saint” status, that is, those who believe and follow Jesus are both sinners and saints.

Isn’t that confusing?  To think that we are each horribly evil, and at the very same time, very good…for indeed we are all exalted creatures of God’s good creating! (In fact, Imago Dei is the name of the Zoom series our Synod is doing right now!)

And to make it more complicated, sometimes it’s even difficult to differentiate which is the sinful part and which is the saint-ful part in our thoughts and actions.  Evil certainly has a way of disguising itself, getting between and around our good deeds, just like weeds around the wheat. I read a book a some years back called The Seven Deadly Virtues, which was all about just how sneaky evil can be.


Biblical scholars tell us that, interestingly, the kinds of weeds that grew in the wheat fields of the ancient Mediterranean require a very skilled eye to tell which is which as they grow.  So that’s what Jesus was talking about.

In this Gospel text, we are left with an elusive question:

Who is the evil one, the devil, or the children of the evil one?  Can we pin point them, the weeds?  Can we at least point to a group of people or a series of events, and say, “Now there, there is evil,” and be done with it?  Or is it more messy?

With issues as weighty as good and evil, we can find ourselves, like the disciples of old wanting simple answers, crying out, “Explain this to us Jesus, so that we can make sure to be on the good side, on your side, and join your quest to rid the world of the evil ones!”

But Christ surprises us again and again.  And in the search to figure out who the weeds and the wheat are for us today, we might just find ourselves led down new paths…

For we hear this morning that it’s not our job to uproot the weeds, it’s not even our job to help, just like it’s not the servants’ job in the parable.
“Do you want us to go and gather the weeds?” the servants ask.  “No,” says the master, “that’s my responsibility.”

It’s ultimately the job of the Great and Mighty…[wait for it] *surprise* Gardener-Farmer to do the weeding.
Christ, the Gardner-Farmer.

One might even imagine a peaceful tone in his voice as he responds to the servants’ urgency and anxiety to destroy the weeds:

“No [calmly],” the Gardener-Farmer says, “do not gather the weeds; for in gathering them you would uproot the wheat as well.  Let both of them grow together until the harvest.”  After all, this is same teacher, earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, who uttered these challenging but grace-filled words: “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”  “Blessed are the peacemakers.”  And — probably the most challenging three words in the entire Bible: “Love your enemies.”

Indeed Matthew is not portraying a teacher who commissions his students to violence and destruction, hunting down and killing weeds, Star Wars-style...or worse.  “No, you leave the weeding to me,” the Gardener-Farmer gently says.

Could it be, siblings in Christ—given our sinner-saint status—that within our very communities and within our very selves we possess the soil where both weeds and wheat might grow?

And with all our worries and fears, with all our temptations and distractions, it’s so easy to get overcome by the weeds.  It’s so easy for the wheat in our hearts, without attention, to be choked out by the weeds of sin that flourish.

The weeds of sin:  self-centeredness, arrogance, apathy, hatred, bitterness, neglect—neglect not only of our neighbors and of the earth, but neglect of our selves, our own bodies. [pause]

The truth is that we can’t do our own weeding.  We need the divine Gardener-Farmer to come and cut back the weeds that grow in our communities and in our hearts.  Good thing Jesus came along.  Good thing Jesus promises to deliver us from evil.  Good thing we continue to follow in the radiance of that promise.  For in trusting, Jesus frees us from the weeds of sin that grow in our hearts.  But that’s not the end of the story!

So often we hear that Jesus liberates us from death, sin and the evil one.  But the Good News is not just about side-stepping sin & death!...
The Good News is that because of this freedom, freedom from death and sin through Christ, we are enabled then to live.  It’s about having LIFE…and we all know that having life is far more glorious than simply not-dying.
It’s about the wheat growing, transforming, and bearing fruit.  In the same way, it’s not just about winning—beating out the bad guys—and then kicking back to gloat.  (Sometimes I think we’re drawn to the graphic imagery of the burning and gnashing of teeth, the fire, destruction, apocalyptic stuff, wipe our brows and say, “Whew, glad that’s not me”…it does sound like a good action movie…it appeals a cultural, insatiable appetite for violence and revenge...even just plain ol’ cut-throat competition: We win, you loose.)  But, no!  There’s more to the parable...

It’s about being alive in Christ!  Such gruesome pictures can distract from what comes next in the text:
*Are you ready?  It’s really exciting. [somewhat sarcastically but seriously]*  Matthew 13:30—The harvester takes the wheat into the barn.  That’s where the parable ends.

But let’s continue the story together.  Can you imagine…
[I’ve always thought that the church suffers — not because of money or not enough pastors or old buildings, but — from a crisis of imagination.]
So let’s imagine what happens next in the parable Jesus tells, let’s add a chapter to the parable (afterall, that would be very biblical):

The harvester of the wheat carries it into the barn, where it undergoes a change, a transformation…and is finally turned into bread to nourish the hungry.  Catch that? — The wheat (with the addition of the right ingredients) becomes bread—it takes on a new form, i.e. new life emerges.  The life we have in Christ, is made new, it takes on a new meaning.  We, as followers of Christ, are taken inside the barn and given special knowledge/ingredients.

There is a separation from the rest of the world, from the field, certainly from the weeds, but what is it that sets us apart, siblings in Christ?  [pause] We are given a glimpse of God’s realm, we get to see what we and the rest of the world have to look forward to!  We get a glimpse of God, a glimpse of grace, a glimpse of divine love, joy, peace.  A glimpse of hope, right smack in the midst of all the ugliness and pain of this world.

And it is in this experience that our lives are transformed.  After all, wheat — which escapes fire — will eventually die out in the field as well.  But the harvester takes the wheat into the barn, where it is transformed, given a new life, a new form, a new purpose.

But that’s not the end of the story either!

Wheat turns to bread, and look what happens when people gather at the table around to eat this new thing, this transformed wheat!  Strangers are welcomed because there’s plenty of good bread to go around, ideas are shared, care is given for those who are going through tough times.  New life emerges again this time in the form of community.   And once the people have eaten the bread, they are strengthened to get up from the table, to go out from the barn where they were sitting together, and to plunge into this messy world with new energy, new hope, planting new wheat fields, inviting more to the table to be fed.  Life, and new life, and new life…this is what “life abundant” means (to borrow from the Gospel of John).

What an powerful and empowering development:  What went into the barn as nothing more than a bundle of wheat, became the center of a party: a barn dance.  What went into the barn as just a bundle of wheat enlivened and strengthened a people for the journey of outreach and service in the world.  Sometimes we need sit together and dance and celebrate inside, right?  And then out we go.  That’s what worship is!

The task of living God’s love is a great one, seeming insurmountable and hopeless at times.  So we continue returning to the barn for sustenance, through communal Word and Sacraments.  And then we leave the barn once again.

We are caught up in a dynamic tension of excitement and patience.  This movement to and from this sacred barn becomes our new life, our new life in Christ.  Fear, hatred, lust after destroying some “enemy” has no place in this new life; the Star Wars-like worldview doesn’t work, for it is the good and gracious Gardener Farmer who does the weeding, not us.

Because of Christ, we are freed from having to pick out the good weeds and the bad weeds in our hearts and in our world...

No, “we just get to do church,” as one of my great mentors Fred Danker (of blessed memory) used to say — dance in the barn, work in the field, back to the barn.
Or as Senator John Lewis (of blessed memory) would say:  We need to “get into trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble”...

We just get to live into our baptismal covenants, live among, serve all people, strive for justice and peace and worship together.   I guarantee that gets us into some “good trouble.”
And so in this vision of the barn dance, moving into and away from the barn, the realm of God is being realized “on earth as it is in heaven,” just as we had prayed for it to be…as we do each week inside the barn.  The realm of heaven is coming into view here on earth...for God’s children are shining like the sun, warming and nurturing the world—the field—with life and hope.  That’s you.

Followers of Jesus: The weeds have been removed, the vision has been offered, and those divine arms are open in  gracious invitation:  “Come,” Jesus says, “join the living.  Dance in the barn, plant in the field, shine like the sun.”  AMEN.

July 12 -- Seeds and Soil and Soaking In (Pentecost 6A)

“But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields.”

I’m thinking this morning about all the different types of soils, of earth we drove past on this trip.

As most of you know, we are on this unprecedented cross-country work-from-the-road adventure.  Over a week now, since we journeyed out from the beautiful East Cost.  And we’ve watched as the landscapes keep changing; we’ve watched the soils change.

From the lush hills of Virginia and Maryland, over the Blue Ridge mountains and down into rich fertile soil of the Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska.  Some of that soil has been flooded — in a sense, choked out.  Much of that soil is ideal for this text today, imaged on bulletin covers across the church this morning...

Then we start getting into the prairies, farming gives way to grazing.  As our altitude started increasing, ears popping in the car as we got into Colorado and the Rocky Mountains, we, pine trees growing everywhere: we noticed the soil getting rocky too.  We’ve been here Wyoming for much of this week: with the Crums/Meyers in the southern part of the state, and now up here in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone for the last two days!

Lots of trails.  Where feet tromp down anything trying to grow.  But it’s been dry too: we haven’t seen rain all week.  Dust on our shoes all the time.  It’s all still very rocky mountainous soil.   And as our trip continues, I know we’ll also see some even drier desert soil as we drop down into Utah today, where the rocks are red and the sun burns hot.

Here in the mountains, pine trees and meadow grasses abound.  But in the desert, almost nothing, can take root and grow.

Wow, we’re seeing so many different types of soil!

So I’m thinking this morning as we read our Gospel about seed sown in fertile soil, about all the land we’ve covered, and perhaps you have too at one time or another.  How these many and various lands across the nation, like in Jesus’ parables, can be metaphors for our lives of faith and our reception to the Word of God.

How in your life has God’s Word taken root and grown, like seeds in the fertile soil of America?  And when are times that it’s just not taken root or lasted long?  Too much distraction, too much flooding, too many rocks or bumps, or too much traffic in the busyness of our weeks?

How sometimes God’s word does start to grow, start to change us for the better, start to take root and hold on to us, but then how we can be swept away, almost instantly, by the world’s affairs and concerns.  How often there’s just not enough room or time or patience for God’s redemptive word of grace and peace to take root and grow in our hearts.

—

I’ll be honest: I am sometimes a little wary about the over-zealous in our churches.  More times than not, they get scorched by their own fire for Jesus, and they don’t last long in a church community.  They can get impatient with others who are not as “on fire,” too soon throw their hands up in the air, and be done with the whole thing.  I once knew someone like that in a former congregation.  This person found our church, joined it, got ridiculously involved in every aspect of every ministry it seemed, got frustrated with others, angry and left the church — all in the course of one year.  Farmers understand that healthy plants and crops don’t grow like that; so how can we expect disciples to?

Compare that person — a good person, but fell on rocky soil — with the one who enters a Christian community slowly, carefully, perhaps dubiously, lovingly, seeking understanding and relationship.  Not over-zealous or anxious.  Just showing up again and again.  I’ve known many like this too — many of you from Bethlehem actually.  Sharing life together.  Sharing joys and gathering in sorrowful times too.  I’ve watched, just in my 15 years of ministry, I’ve watched some become stronger more rooted, faithful Christians: better and better students of Scripture, more grounded in the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion.  The storms can damage but do not destroy because the roots are deep.  Again, people who are faithful in their presence among God’s people.  Showing up, year after year.  Now that’s where the seed of God’s Word — that is, the Gospel message of God’s forgiveness, grace and love — has “taken” and continues to grow and expand and bear fruit and become stronger for it.  How often we emerge stronger, when faced with adversity!

Jesus’ message this heart-of-summer day, is a call not to be fickle.  Not to blow in the wind, and get reactive and storm out, but to slow down, and let this Good Word work on us, change us, from the inside.  How often do we really stop and let a passage from scripture “soak in” or “take root”?  I’m guilty of this — so often Bible readings can just brush our ears and our intellects, and then we move on, or go back to whatever we were doing before.  It’s hard to let God’s word soak down into our hearts.  (But try taking some real time with Scripture — and see what happens...)

“You are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.  If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you...then God will give life to your mortal bodies.”  What if this word was to soak in?

We can certainly blow this word off, or brush it aside, but this word has the power to take deep root...and save our lives.

Why is it that we let other words that people say to us, damage or even destroy our lives, but we can let a Good Word from God just brush past us?

I bet everyone watching here, wouldn’t have to think very long about the meanest thing anyone’s ever said to/about you.  I bet we could re-call those cruel words pretty quickly.  But the Word of God, which promises us life, which grants us peace and joy and forgiveness of all our wrongdoings, grace, the Word of God — that word, we can almost forget by the time we log out and tune in to something else...

These deep summer days, a new word takes root in us and grows:  God loves you.  Even you!  God forgives you.  Even you!  And God calls you to forgive others — not because you’re an awesome saint necessarily and perfectly capable of forgiving others.  No God calls us to love and forgive others, not in our own names but, in Jesus’ name.  That’s a seed and good word that we have to let sit under the ground and grow over time.  And Christ waters us, the light of God shines on us, and the Spirit blows through our lands (and lives) and connects us so that we don’t stand and grow alone.

Friends, God makes our hearts good soil.  God takes a risk and extravagantly throws out seeds of love, even in your direction this day, on every kind of soil that we’ve seen crossing this beautiful country.  And God makes our hearts good soil.  So that through the work of the Holy Spirit, that seed “takes” and grows in our hearts.  And in time, deeds and words of love and grace then flow from our hands and our mouths, bringing comfort, peace and joy to this hurting and broken world — the very comfort, peace and joy of Christ Jesus!

From God, the Gracious Farmer, to us, once rocky, dry and un-cultivatable soil...because of Christ, who lives and dwells with us this day and forever: now we go out too, and spread widely this Good News.  AMEN.

July 5 -- Religious Experience (Pentecost 5A)

I had a religious experience in Paris.  Religious (re-ligio, like ligament) means to re-connect...to the source.  Yeah, it was a religious experience in Paris, when I tasted the food each night at dinner time.

Heather and I were traveling in Europe on a budget, so we couldn’t afford to any restaurants, but what we learned we should do is to go into any one of the many over the counter deli’s.  Just order something — it doesn’t matter, we were advised.  Take it back to your room, and enjoy.

I was so glad we weren’t in a restaurant each night, actuallly, because I ended up literally falling out of chair onto the floor, the food was so good!  It didn’t matter what it was, I couldn’t even pronounce it, I was blown away.  EVERY TIME!!!!!    SOOO GOOOD!!!!  With all due respect to all my favorite cooks, and restaurants that I’ve enjoyed throughout my good life, I’ve never had better tasting food than that food in Paris!  I wanted to do backflips; it was like tasting heaven; it made my eyes roll back into my head with each bite, my tastebuds doing a happy dance, my mouth was at a 5-star resort for 3 magical days!...you get the idea.

I tell you all this because I couldn’t believe, then, as our days in Paris passed, as we’d walk past all those fancy French restaurants and patio cafes, filled with people eating food that was as good (and probably even better) than what we had been enjoying each night, how calm they all were inside!  I mean I wanted to throw the table across the room, scream and rip out my hair off with each bite, it was so good, and here they were Parisian-ly sipping their wine and nibbling their delicacies.  I couldn’t believe it.

It reminds me of our lesson today:

Jesus is talking about and doing a radical gospel, giving a life-altering call, offering the bread of heaven, the cup of salvation — Jesus is a RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE!!!!  And yet...nothing.

It’s like our kids, I’m afraid, when we’ll see the glorious Grand Tetons at sunrise, Zion National Park (named after God), the Pacific Ocean at sunset, mountain lakes, desert springs, breathtaking Native American sacred burial sites!...  [unimpressed] “Huh.”  Our children are Parisians.

I know I’m being judgmental right now, and having fun with it (I know for a fact that M&K and Parisians enjoy things immensely, they’re taking it in), it’s little caricatures I’m drawing for you...but I hope my silliness is helping to tap into this scene here in Matthew:

“To what will I compare this generation?”  In other words, “people these days”?  They’re like kids who don’t get it, Jesus says:

We played the flute? wedding music: didn’t dance.
We played the blues? funeral dirge: didn’t cry.

John the baptist? Wild man from the desert, ate bugs, wore super-scratchy, crazy-hippie cloths, long beard, lived like an introverted-wiseman-prophet: you dismissed him as a weirdo.

And now Jesus? The very Son of God, partied with everyone, larger than life, talked and taught, and stayed up too late and told long stories: you dismissed him too as a drunk.  “Huh.”

And then Jesus’ response here throws us for a loop again:
“I thank you God.”

I’d ridicule those people for not getting it, I’d be angry at God for not making them get it.  How can they just sit there?  Parisian-ly sipping.  Silently judging.  Unmoved, dis-impassioned, dismissive!?  God, why are you silent?!

But Jesus thanks God for hiding these things from the world’s arrogant, hot shots, and showing them to the lowly.

How many parents love to rightly point out to their kids, “You don’t know how good you’ve got it.”

Are you catching the spirit of this text here?

It’s as if people today, “this generation,” as the text says — not necessarily “kids these days” — it not about age — it’s about people these days, and, friends, we fall into this category too.  Jesus is just look at us, going, “C’mon!!!  Are you getting this?!”

It’s as if the people these days, just don’t get the kind of grace, mercy, love, joy, peace, hope and truth this savior Jesus has to offer us!  “Huh.”
It’s as if we were carrying some kind of heavy yoke.
Confirmation cartoon in FaithInk:  Duck Church — “You’re all ducks!”

It’s as if we were carrying some kind of heavy yoke.

Some kind of burden on our shoulders.  A load that is so great, we simply can’t smile, can’t fly, can’t celebrate, can’t enjoy, and definitely can’t do a backflip.  It leaves us just sitting there, Parisian-ly tasting, cynical, down, dismissive, even cruel.  “Eh.”  (quickest way to suck joy away)

With the life and joy sucked out of us, we who are yoked down with our yokes turn and suck the life and joy out of others.  Ever notice that?  Sad, down, disconnected people create more sad, down, disconnected people.  Sad, down, disconnected parents create sad, down, disconnected children.  Sad, down, disconnected bosses create sad, down, disconnected employees.  Sad, down, disconnected older sisters, create sad, down, disconnected younger brothers.  And vice versa and on and on.

And this isn’t just a call to be super happy.  Please don’t misunderstand.  Jesus talks about wailing and you didn’t mourn also.

No, this is a text about tapping in.  “Re-connecting.”  Re-ligio.  Coming back to the center — the heart, the mind, the body.   Know the joy of Christ and the tears of Christ.  “People these days”: we are like the “falcon, lost from the falconer” as William Butler Yeats puts it.  We’ve become disconnected from the center.  Our yoke has pulled us away.

And so this rich text ends with Jesus offering us his yoke instead:  a different kind of yoke.  Theologian Marie Bakke of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, pointed this out to me in our staff meeting (and scholars agree with her all over the place):  This text “Come to me…” has often been read as, “Hey, just drop all your problems off with Jesus, and relax.”  Beach blanket; umbrella drink.

But the Jesus’ call is actually to trade our yoke for Jesus’ yoke.  The oxen’s yoke is a tool/symbol for work: so it’s trading our earthly busy-ness for Jesus’ vocation work on this earth.  A new vision!  It’s not about physically kicking up your feet and relaxing — beach blanket, umbrella drink, away from all the suffering, solitary bliss, “don’t worry, be happy”...  No, following Jesus is tough physically — dirty sandals, and tired hands and sore shoulders.

But Christ’s yoke is an umbrella drink for the soul.

In Christ, our falconer, we come back to the center.  We re-ligio, re-connect.  We dance and we cry.  We celebrate and we mourn together.

The children in the marketplace image is also kind of like children in the sandbox: if you don’t do it my way, I’m taking my toys, my money, my friends, my power, my whatever...and leaving you.  That’s what OUR worldly yokes can do.  But re-connected to Jesus, taking Jesus’ yoke instead, it’s not my-way-or-the-highway, it’s Christ’s way, God’s vision for a better world, a better nation, a better home, a better interior life.  Rest for your souls, the heavenly umbrella drink right here on earth...is offered today to you, friends in Christ.  Peace that’s deep, like a water table under the earth, connected and life-giving.  Deep and wide.

This is our God.  Offering us that peace again today, this Fourth of July weekend, this chaotic moment, Jesus calling us back, giving us vision and hope, a center to circle back to despite all the clouds and distractions.

“Take my yoke upon you,” Jesus says, “and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

We rest well, siblings in Christ, for we rest in God — this day and always.  Grace to you and peace.  AMEN.

June 28 -- ELCAirB&B Hospitality (After Pentecost 4A)

Whoever welcomes you, welcomes Jesus.

I’ve had this dream since the pre- and for a post-COVID world...of setting up a system of Lutherans around the country, who would be on a list of open homes for fellow traveling ELCA Lutherans.  The connection would be through the churches.  Part of a congregations’ annual report to the national church offices would be reporting the number of open B&B households in that congregation.  We could call it Lutheran-Couch-Surfers-of-America, or something.  The Friendly Lutheran Hostel Network or ELCAirB&B?

Wouldn’t that be wonderful if anywhere you traveled, you had a great place to stay?  Not great because of the free wi-fi or continental breakfast, but great because you would always be housed by friends, even if they were strangers at first.

I actually believe this already exists (just unofficially), because I’ve tried it a number of times, and it’s amazing!  I’ve called up a number of churches over the years in the towns and cities I’m traveling through, and I just ask.  I usually start small and ask if I can stay in the church building.  I’ll explain my connection to the larger church, talk about my travel plans, and that I’m just looking for a place to stay, wondering if I could just put a sleeping bag in their youth room, or even crash on a pew.  I’ve done this solo, and we done this as a little family-of-4.

And in the course of that request and new connection, I’d get to meet the pastor, about 2 or 3 other members, see another Lutheran church, their bulletin boards and offices and landscapes and sanctuary — I’ve done this in Louisville, Kentucky, Atlanta, GA, Amarillo, TX.  One time we called a church in El Paso, TX, and that time, the pastor just invited us over to her house for the night.  Single woman in her 50’s, just opened the door for us and even gave us dinner (and breakfast)…and even put out some toys on the living room floor that she brought home from the church nursery.  Yet another time, the pastor simply put us in touch with an amazing family, (who is still on our Christmas card list) in Durango, Colorado.  Micah and Katie were little at the time, and this family had 2 sweet high school-aged daughters who were so excited to host little kids, they made up little Mickey and Minnie mouse beds in the basement and even had a box of legos and crayons on each of their pillows!  The Holiday Inn had nothing on our Lutheran Hospitality Network!  And of course our hosts always just laugh in our faces if (or when) we ask if we could give them a little money for their trouble...they laugh because it sounds as silly as relatives asking if they can pay you to stay at your house overnight.

Jesus says today in the Gospel: “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.”  So put yourself in a position to be welcomed, right!  That way people can meet Jesus.
Do you think our hosts met Jesus through our showing up, road weary, cranky kids, flustered passers through?

We have a text before us that is about hospitality.

It turns out that my idea of a safe-homes-network is not new at all:  It’s a very tame version actually of the type of hospitality that is always offered throughout the Middle East, both in ancient Jesus days and even today!  It’s deeply imbedded in Middle Eastern culture to open your door and offer food, drink, and lodging to total strangers.  I’m talking about offering hospitality just among Lutherans, like a little club.  But has anyone ever been exposed to Middle Eastern hospitality?  It extends way beyond religious, ethnic, national and cultural boundaries!

I had a colleague once, who’s passionate about Palestine and taking people to the Holy Land.  He’s traveled by himself all over the Middle East, and on one of his first trips there, I remember he told us this story about how his lodging plans fell through at the very last minute...I mean the day before his flight over.

So a friend of a friend gave him an email, and he contacted a total stranger a day before he was set to arrive from the United States, and asked if could stay just for a night or two while he figured out what he was going to do.  Can you imagine?

And this family, lets him — a total stranger — ~25 years old, big, white guy with a bushy blond beard and a thick upper-Midwestern build to go with his accent, into their home and demanded that he be their guest for his entire stay in the Holy Land, about 2 months!  The town where they lived was a little town called Bethlehem.  No joke.  And he later but very quickly learned that this wasn’t just some crazy, nice family:  this kind of welcome toward strangers is cultural.  He felt all special and lucky at first—“I really struck gold here”—until he realized that anyone would be treated this way.  He was sure that if we were traveling unarmed and vulnerable, we would all be afforded the same kind of treatment, regardless of our religion or anything else, if we just asked.

There’s a certain vulnerability in just asking though.

There’s a blog online that I like to look at around Epiphany in January, when we reflect on the Journey of the magi — the three wise men, as they’re popularly conceived.   And this blog is about these three modern-day-Americans who literally traveled the ancient Fertile Crescent by camelback about 10 years ago — from Bagdad to Bethlehem.  They started in September and got there at Christmas time.  Their pictures are astounding, but it’s the really same story about hospitality as my friend who studied in Bethlehem.

Here’s a quote from one of the travelers:  “It is almost absurd, sitting in these peoples' homes and sharing lunch with them, being offered a bed for the night, and their brotherhood. This is Iraq, and if they are the enemy, who needs friends?”

“Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.  Whoever offers just a cup of cold water…”

Sisters and brothers, friends in Christ, we have such wonderful opportunities before us all the time — even now — to both give and receive hospitality, even as simple as giving/receiving a cup of cold water.  That might look a little different in a COVID-world, so we now have to think about what the COVID-world’s equivalent is, but the opportunity to “offer a cup of cold water, a bed for the night, some shade” is there as much as it ever was.  Jesus invites us again today to be on both sides, to expose ourselves to both sides, of hospitality.  Discipleship is not one-sided — have you noticed that?  We’re always saying Jesus sends the disciples out to be welcomers...here again he sends them/us to be  welcomed.  When was the last time you were welcomed by a stranger?

I counted this morning: if you come into Bethlehem Lutheran here in Fairfax, right now, and are looking around you will see the word “WELCOME” at least six times (in six different places) before you even step into this sanctuary.  That’s wonderful!  And hopefully on a Sunday morning, a visitor will hear that word many more times from us.  (printed 6+ times in worship folder too)

But we also need to allow ourselves to be welcomed.

Ministry is really all about welcome, isn’t it?  Both sides of welcome, though.  Being a follower of Jesus is really about hospitality—both sides of hospitality.  We are called both to welcome and to be welcomed.  (It’s always a blessed exercise in humility to pick up the phone and ask for a bed for the night, for a cup of cold water; it’s tough to expose ourselves to hospitality.)

But when hospitality happens, Christ is there.  That’s what’s at the heart:  Christ is moving in and with and around and between both welcomer and welcomed; Christ was working in and with and around and between both that wonderful church family in Durango and me and my family, as we crashed for the night; Christ is alive in and with and around and between both the Palestinians of Bethlehem and my friend; Christ was breathing, in and with and around and between both the modern-day-3-American-wise men and every one of their hosts across the Middle East desert.

And Christ is there every time you show up — on either side — of even the smallest act of hospitality: a cup of cold water, a welcoming post, kind note in the comments column, an offer (or an acceptance) of a gift or a bite to eat or a spare bed, or a coat, or a respectful nod.

And I am thinking at the moment, Bethlehem family, that we need to work on being welcomed way more than we do on welcoming others.  I think it’s tougher for lots of us to be received, than to be in the “driver’s seat” receiving others — you know what I mean?  It’s way harder, on one hand, to ask “Would you host/welcome me?” than it is to say, “Of course I will.”  But on the other hand, this is good news, because accepting the kindness of strangers, simply opening your hands and receiving hospitality, is actually way less work on our part.  All you have to do is show up, ask.  We need to work on doing less work.  Can I maybe get an Amen?

“What can we do?” is the question we keep wrestling with in our White Fragility conversations.  I know I wrote it myself, “White people, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”  What can we do?  Maybe some of what we can do is “expose ourselves to being welcomed”?  There’s a real vulnerability in that.  Receive hospitality, when it comes our way, even ask for it: “Would you welcome me?”  What would that look like?  “Would you host me?”

It’s a deeply biblical and theological question too, friends:  
“Would you welcome me?  Would you host me?” — to open ourselves to welcome, to accept the love and grace of another.  This is deeply Christian.

Work on doing less work, hard workers.  And instead — just receive the very grace and hospitality, the very welcome of God.

Faith itself is a work-less gift, it cannot be earned or acquired, it can only be received, symbolized in the splashing of the baptismal water.  All you can do is accept the welcome that God has for you.  Nothing you can do to earn it.

Friends, when there is welcome, when there is grace, there is God.  AMEN.

May 24 -- Angels Sidling Up & Ascension from Below (Easter 7A)

He is risen!  … Alleluias abound.  We are Easter people with signs of the resurrection all around us and around this world.  Christ is deeply present in our pain and in our joy.  In our hope and in our sorrow.  Christ breathes through us, Christ breathes us, he’s so close…

So what’s Jesus doing ascending into heaven, as we read today?  Why’s he leaving us?  Why’s that closeness shrinking and shrinking as he lifts up into the clouds?  I thought he’s always promised to stay with us.
Oh well, let’s just wait.
I’m sure he’ll be back.  [looking up]
Will you wait with me?
It’s very Christian to wait, together…
And we’re getting pretty used to waiting these days…

This may have been how those disciples long ago felt to:  Can you imagine the joy that they had just experienced on reuniting with their friend?  Forget for a moment all the theological implications of Jesus’ resurrection—these men and women had their friend, their son, their brother, their favorite teacher back!

But just as soon as he’s back in the flesh—walking with them down their roads, fishing in their waters, sitting around their tables—he’s gone again…this time up into heaven.
So they’ll wait.

The text says, “While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.”

Jesus hadn’t even been gone for but a few moments—and they could probably still see him way up there, like when a little one accidentally lets go of a helium balloon and we all watch it drifting up and up, sometimes there’s some crying when that happens—and angelic strangers are sidling up next to them!

Jesus was never even gone completely and angels are already sidling up!

How we too may be caught staring at the heavens.  How nice it is to “gaze up,” to enjoy the serenity, the dreaminess—even the fun of tracking a drifting hot air balloon Jesus, somewhere up there.

OK maybe not literally, do we gaze up at the sky.  We’re busy, productive types here.  But what is your drifting Jesus balloon that you’re gaze up at wistfully?

Paying off the house?  Retiring in fine style?  Keeping the kids perfectly safe and sound?  Finishing the backyard?  Just getting to heaven?  Getting out of this shut-down, getting back to church, getting back to “normal,” getting back something or someone we’ve lost...

All nice things, to be sure; pretty normal really, all those desires.

But Jesus doesn’t operate in the realm of “pretty normal really”!  Jesus doesn’t just leave us gazing up.  And he doesn’t drop us a ladder from on high either, affirming our longings and blissful dreams, so that we can leave all this behind.
Instead Jesus sends angels, sidling up, to snap us out of our gazes [“suddenly”], and to position us for ministry in this world, in this world.  These angels locate us.
   
When we stare at the sky, we see no one else.  I wouldn’t even know if you were here or if you left, if just kept staring at the sky.  I probably wouldn’t care.

But when I’m snapped out of my gazing up, I see you, I see us, I see this world out the windows and doors.
And this is just Luke’s version.   (The author of Acts is the author of Luke.)  In Matthew’s version there is no ascension story, Jesus in fact never does leave.  Jesus says, “Lo, I am with you always.”

Meme on FB this week:  “Today we celebrate Ascension.  To those who wonder what it’s about: It’s the day when Jesus started to work from home.”
Whether its angels or Jesus himself, we have our focal point re-adjusted again today.  From gazing at the sky to seeing our siblings, seeing the world, and seeing all those angels right before us, right with us.  Angels sidling up.

And then starts an interesting progression: One of the great things I love about this text in Acts is this progression that Jesus offers:  “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria [cross that border], and to the ends of the earth.”

Heather and I had a friend who once said — she was a bit of a guru when it came to house projects, and I was complaining to her about being overwhelmed with stuff (thinking of her advice these days) — she said, just take one thing, one room, one part of the yard at a time.  “Don’t try to stay on top of it all, or you’ll drive yourself crazy.”  Her advice reminds me of “Jerusalem, Samaria and the ends of the earth.”  The progression is daunting, but when we take each step intentionally, lovingly, faithfully, when we are located by the angels myself, then we do everything we can in this time and place.  Not gazing out or up, taking a breath, one day at a time.  The angels are already sidling up next to you.

We are called to be witnesses, friends in Christ, witnesses...
1) to Jerusalem – those who are hurting right here at Bethlehem, in Fairfax, in Northern Virginia...but Jesus doesn’t let us off the hook at that...
2) we are called to be witnesses to Judea and Samaria too – that is, both in our country and across our borders – those who are hurting in the District, in Maryland and West Virginia, in Florida and Michigan and Puerto Rico, and then cross our national borders: in Mexico and Canada and Cuba.
3) And then, we are called to be witnesses to the ends of the earth.

WE are called to be witnesses, given the Spirit of Truth, the Word of God, word of life!
And we’re not alone in this work.  You’re not alone.

My theology professor (of sainted memory, on this Memorial Day Weekend).  Vitor was soldier of the Gospel.  He would get so passionate about this text, and point out the literal words of vs. 11: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?  This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go…”  In other words, his theological read of this, is that Jesus will come from beneath:  if he’s coming in the same way we saw him go, then if you want to see Jesus from now on, you will see him in solidarity with the below, with the downtrodden people, the marginalized people, the hopeless and cynical and lost and addicted and oppressed people, the victims of violence and grieving who are remembering this Memorial weekend…

You will see him come the same way the same vector you witnessed him go.  And not just rising from people: You will see Jesus ascend back to us from the bosom of the devastated earth.  Jesus ascends from the polluted streams, and chopped down rainforests, and the elephant graveyards, all the species who have been lost on account of greed and selfishness.  Jesus ascends to us.

And goes with us as we witness, for Christ gives us that same ascension Spirit which both enlivens us, gives us the courage and strength we need to go forth, and it binds us together.  We are never offering our hands to Christ’s work alone.  Even if the whole Christian church around the world dwindles, dwindles, dwindles there will always be two or three gathering, reading Scripture, sharing the meal, and being sent out in Christ’s name!  You are not alone.  We are bound together, bound together, nourished and then sent out.

I love that at the end of this text, after this amazing experience of ascension and angels, from gazing to seeing, from dreaming to scheming—after it all, the disciples returned to Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s walk from where they experienced all this.  They don’t go out from the hillside of the Ascension:  first they gather. And they start this whole mission into the world in prayer.  “They devoted themselves in prayer.”

How often we charge into our tasks before devoting ourselves in prayer.  (prayer before voting at assembly, prayer before council meetings...vs. not)

“They devoted themselves in prayer.”

Friends in Christ, that’s a picture of a Sunday morning!  A Sabbath day’s walk.  Devoting ourselves in prayer.

Luther: “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”

Pausing for a moment to give thanks that God is both up there and right here, at the very same time.  Lifting our hands in a gesture of thanksgiving, that this world is not ours to rescue, but only ours to serve.  Un-gripping our hands in a gesture of openness of heart and mind, for God to take us once again this day, and make us one, mold us into a people with eyes set not on the cluster of clouds and a one-track dream, but on the cluster of sisters and brothers across the street, and across the “interwebs,” and across the borders — and a one-track Gospel message of GRACIOUS LOVE.

We are gathered, we are baptized, we are fed at this manger, and now we are sent.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

May 17 -- Paul & Our Many Altars (Easter 6A)

Friends in Christ, if Paul was to wander through your life — your daily routines, where you spent your time and your money, where you made sacrifices: the things that bring you great joy, the things that get you really upset, and the ways you speak — if Paul was to wander down “your street”, stand at the center of your personal “town square” (the Areopagus) — WHAT WOULD HE NOTICE?

The question is not: “Are you/is anyone religious?”  The question is: “In what ways are you extremely religious?”  Everyone worships something.  The word worship, broken down, “worth-ship”.  What’s worthy of your sacrifices?  That’s what we worship.  Lots of people go to church but don’t worship God.  Because God’s not worthy of their sacrifices, the church is not worthy of their sacrifices: traveling the world is what’s truly worthy of their sacrifices.  Clothing or hobbies or housing improvements or sports or fancy alcohol or knives or guns or shoes or concerts or cars or crafts are what’s truly worthy of their sacrifices.  We all have our thing, I think.  What’s your thing?

The best way for Paul to wander down any one of our “streets” is for him to take a look at our credit card statements, right?  Our Amazon (non-essential) recent purchases.  Or however you can track how and where you spend your money.  (I was shocked at how much our family spent on food in this past year’s credit card report — not restaurants but food: organic, locally sourced, healthy food.  It’s more expensive.  We’ve admitted that’s a place we’re willing to make sacrifices.  I guess you could say it’s one of our idols.)  And I won’t even divulge all my non-essential Amazon purchases.  That’s the real “giving record,” right?

That’s where we can see where we really make sacrifices.  I know the whole, “but it’s not just about money when it comes to church” idea.

And that’s true, but so often, I think, we can hide behind that.   So much is about money...  x2 That’s why Jesus talked about money all the time!

“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Mt. 6.21; Lk. 12.34).  What is it that you treasure?  What is it that you protect?  What is it that you make sacrifices for?  Where is your heart?
—
Well, all this was true in the ancient world as well, as Paul walked through the streets of Athens, “Athenians,” he says, “I see how extremely religious you are in every way.”

But there’s something else:
Paul notices that there is an altar to an unknown God.
You see, the people of Athens — like us today — worshipped all kinds of gods.  I think it was more overt then: maybe less shame or denial about it.  They made sacrifices openly to the gods of sports, food, parties, travel, transportation, music, crafts and weather.  (BTW, living in Southern California all those years, I think we really worshipped the weather there.  I mean, people really make sacrifices for that beautiful weather, higher cost of living, etc.  And our observation, leaving that region was all these comments on how much we were going to miss the weather.  How different is that from worshiping an ancient sun god?)  That’s just one of many altars...

But there was this one altar that was unmarked.  It was like the fill-in-the-gap altar — one for everything else.

...and Paul seizes on that image to introduce them to a different kind of God.

See, it actually was in fact a fill-in-the-gap altar:  Like today, the people lived in great fear.  If you didn’t sacrifice to every god out there, if you worship at every altar — the altar of security, the altar of beauty & youth, the altar of war, the altar of food and drink and sport and weather, the altar of work...If you don’t appease every god, then trouble would inevitably befall you.
So just in case you miss one, there was this little “fill-in-the-gap” altar.
 Just in case you forgot about a god or two.  You could sacrifice at the altar of the unknown god.

       Paul seizes on that to draw them into a new understanding...
--
See, it’s like, there was “something else.”  The people even knew it.  This way of living and worshiping and making sacrifices at all these altars, this way of being extremely religious was coming up short.

Don’t we see that too?  Do you ever feel that?  All these things we worship, and yet, somehow, it’s never enough?  (We’re having some real time to reflect on these during this shutdown.  During this “great pause” that this global pandemic has forced upon us...)

We’re always pouring more and more out at all these different altars?  And every god, will endlessly take our sacrifices: our money, our time, our devotion, our energy, our whole lives.  But it’s like they’re never appeased.  The gods are never appeased, and they’ll just keep taking…  (Just talking with dear friends about the tolls that stress is taking on our bodies, especially these days — I realize that not everyone is feeling stress right now amid this shut-down, some are even downright bored.  But, for so many, parents of school kids, or toddlers, balancing jobs and work from home, school, family, economic pressures, etc. the frantic pace at which we’re running around our own homes, from altar to altar to altar (it’s like all those altars got crammed into our house)…

Yeah, Paul could say it to us too:  “I see how extremely religious you are in every way!”

And, let me say, if life has had the brakes slammed on, and you’re more in the camp of twiddling your thumbs, staring at the wall, that’s certainly an opportunity for devotion to the many gods to tick up — surfing the shopping websites, buying crazy things in large amounts, consuming food, alcohol, social media, technology, instruments to fill the time.  So many altars!

Paul says it to us too:  “I see how extremely religious you are in every way!”
--
But then there’s this one other little altar.  This little tiny chapel, this insignificant table in the corner.  This silly, old cross.  Laughable really, in the shadow of all the other towering altars.  

Paul seizes on that little altar, and takes that fearful theology (“talk of God”) around that altar — how that has infected Christianity now too:  fearful theology — and fills it with incarnational theology.  God is with us.  This little, tiny, insignificant altar you see here, Paul says, “I proclaim to you that the God who made the world and everything in it, [the God] who is [composer and conductor] of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands…[this God] allotted the times of [our] existence and the boundaries of the places where [we] live, so that [we may] search for God and perhaps grope for [God]...though indeed [God] is not far from each one of us.  For ‘In [God] we live and move and have our being….’”

We don’t grope for God, as if God is some object of our attaining, yet another thing to acquire [“gotta go to church to get some God in my life…”].  No, Paul proclaims here: We are IN God already.  My whole life changed with I started to accept that.  [say it again]

This little, un-named altar is an entry point into experiencing a God that is truly above all other gods!  A God who’s got the whole world — the whole universe — in a loving embrace.  A God in whom we “live and move and have our being.”  A God whose name is love, in Christ Jesus.

This is where Paul takes us...along with his ancient hearers.  Paul preaches of a God who is beyond time and space, who is above all our petty obsessions and weaknesses, who holds us even as we try to appease other gods!

This little Altar, this Book, this Water doesn’t contain God (God doesn’t live, cooped up in here)!  But they do, we confess, carry God.  This little altar, this old book, these drops of water, point us to a God who is loosed in, with, above, below, all around and throughout, under this entire universe!

We cannot encapsulate or domesticate this God of whom Paul speaks!  All we can do is give ourselves up to this holy movement — sacrifice ourselves to what we are already in God’s hands.

...Think of when children are angry and restless in their mother’s arms: there’s no use in trying to overpower her, “Just rest. Just breath. It’s OK.”  Can’t we be like restless children running from altar to altar to altar?  (Paul was once a restless Saul!)

Friends in Christ, we are truly IN Christ.  Not every day do we get to reflect on the all-inclusive, all-loving, all-surrounding embrace of a God in whom “we live and move and have our being.”  Being in Christ is where we find ourselves.  So now all we we can do is enjoy it, take a breath...and go make disciples.  Go invite others into this understanding, into this joyful awareness.  Tell them that we don’t have to make all these other sacrifices at all these other altars!  Go, make disciples by pointing them to the water and the word of life, and this community of love, this communion.  For simply in this following, there is peace.

Peace that is fuller and deeper than any other peace that any idols can offer.  Love divine, all loves excelling!   Jesus calls us away from those other loves, to come and follow, make your sacrifices here, and make disciples.  You are Christ’s witnesses to these things: you have a job to do!  It’s a blessed burden, a labor of love.

Thanks be to God, who holds us and this whole cosmos now...and forever more.  Go spread that Good News.  Breathe.  It’s gonna be ok.  Because at this altar, we celebrate...that... God’s got us.  AMEN.