Lent 2 B Mark 8:31-38

When I was a kid, a confirmation student actually, a pastor said something to me that forever colored the way I think of taking up one's cross to follow.  He explained that these words have a double meaning. To take up one's cross must refer to the crucifixion to taking on the small bit of Christian sacrifice. But to take up one's cross also meant to grab a stick or staff with a cross on the end to tie up your belongings, like the hobos and train jumpers used to in the 30's and 40's. Like travelers during the dust bowl and the depression and so from that time on I pictured a good follower of Jesus with only a little red checkered bag worth of possessions always on the road. Always on the way.

This might not be quite right, it isn't quite wrong either. Jesus throughout his whole ministry was on the road. On the way, the gospel of Mark says over and over again; he was en tei hodoi in greek, on the road. He traveled from place to place, begged meals or ate with unsavory types, had dusty, dirty feet and often was not welcomed into towns, especially by the authorities because what he had to say and the way he appeared didn't appeal to the good and proper people in town. And so he was always on the way.

Despite the less than desirable appearance of Jesus though it was an honor to be en tei hodoi with him. There was once a blind man that Jesus came across, he was standing on the side of the road, on the side of the hodoi, litereally in the gospel. Because he was blind he had to wait on the sidelines, never able to join in. His whole life was given up because he had this one deformity. So when Jesus came along and healed him and he was able to follow, he did, he jumped right into the road and followed. I'm not even sure he had time to grab his little cross and bag of belongings and I'm not sure he missed it because he was given the great gift of sight, the gift of being able to follow on the way.

Jesus tells a crowd in our gospel lesson today that if they want to follow him, to be on the way, they must deny themselves and take up their crosses. For those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for Jesus' sake, for the sake of the gospel will save it. This sounds like horrible news to people who have everything but it must have seemed like such a blessing to people who knew that they had nothing, or to people whose things were slipping away, who were having a harder and harder time making ends meet, paying taxes, keeping their homes, staying in good relationships with their family memebers, beating depression, getting over grief, losing their health. To those people these words meant life.

Because imagine turning this on it's head. Imagine that you have lost everything, your whole life so that you are stuck on the side of the way, unable to work or unable to follow or unable to fix things, unable to live.

Or imagine you are an early Christian living under Roman rule being
told to bow down to Ceasar and deny your God or lose your life.

Or imagine that you are a person living in Alabama in 2009 and you have lost your home and job and are living paycheck to paycheck, deep in debt and in a place too small with too little food for your family of four.

Or imagine that you are a grandmother who had just met her newest grandbaby and has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Or imagine that you have been married for twenty years and that marriage is falling apart.

Or imagine that you are a president or prime minister or governor or mayor in a country at war and in deep economic trouble and you hear these words.

Those who lives are lost will find new life in me.
Those who are losing everything will find new life with me.

Then this becomes great news...but it is still a trick to let go of control even when we know things are beyond our power to fix.

That is certainly Peter's problem in our gospel lesson today. He has all that he needs, he is second in command to a great and powerful rabbi, he is learning how to heal he sick and do deeds of great power. He has the right answer when Jesus says who do you say that I am, he answers the Messiah and he is exactly right, everything is turning up Peter and then, In a flash it is all gone.

Jesus says I will have to undergo great suffering and be rejected by the chief priests and leaders and I will die in the process. And Peter says no Lord, please, no, anything but that, everything was going so well, anything but that. And Jesus doesn't say you're wrong to feel hurt and sad about this. He doesn't say no, this outcome will by fun. What he does say is simply get back in line Peter, you were right that I am the Messiah, you are wrong that that doesn't mean sacrifice, so get in line, take up the few things that you really need to live and follow me and I will bring you to new life.

Peter got caught up with all the things that he thought he needed, fame, wealth, power and control so that he lost sight of the main thing that he needed. Life.

Peter needed the hobo example with the little red bag. Because those people, were able to sort out what really mattered to them in the midst of economic, professional, medical and family hardship. They choose life, and that meant letting go of the things that they were no longer able to control. They let go and they took up a cross and the set out on the road, en tei hodoi and they found life, they lived.

Jesus calls us so clearly to do that. To let go of the things that weigh us down and to trust that life comes to those who are willing to be on the road and in the way of Christ, following him.

I don't know exactly what this looks like for each of you, for each of us, but
I do know that when I think of those depression era people with their
little bags I realize that they were able to put the things that they
needed in a small enough package that it could be carried on their
walking stick, that it was light and no longer a burden to them, so that they could save their own lives.

I wonder what it
would look like if we took everything that is holding us back in life,
in love and in faith and wittled it down until we just had the core of what we needed, just those things that mean life and God to us. If we put our mind of divine things like love and trust and following Jesus not on human things like fear, money, power and control. What would it look
like to be en tei hodoi with Jesus? What do you let go of in order to be in the way of Christ, not just on the side of the way? What does new life in Christ mean for you?

Pentecost 2 B

Ezekiel 17:22-24; Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10 [11-13] 14-17; Mark 4:26-34

Good Morning. We have moved into a time in the church the Methodists actually call kingdomtide. It is a time in the church year when we get to hear all about God's vision for the kingdom, about what it means to be living as children of God in the kingdom of God, right now. So today we start out with some stories about different kinds of plants and how they relate to the kingdom. And I want to talk about that more but first we're going to start out voting on something, don't worry it will be quick and painless.

We are going to vote on how you might describe the kingdom of God. Remember this is God's reign in the world now and in times to come. Our texts provide two choices today, the kingdom can either be described as a mighty cedar tree majestic, towering over the land, giving shelter to the birds and homes to other creatures or it can be described as a mustard plant, which is really a bit of a weed in the middle east, grows all over the place, isn't very big or very pretty...Those are your two choices, mighty tree or weedlike bush, how would you describe the kingdom of God?

Who votes that it be described as a mighty tree?

Ok, now how many of you would vote that it be described as the bush?

Hmm, okay we'll talk more.

Let's talk about the mighty tree first because it won the vote and because it is a classic example of the kingdom of God. In order to talk about that I want to tell you about a tree, In the bible they talked about cedars because they were the mightiest trees in the land but the mightiest trees here are sequioas so let's talk about one of them for a minute.

There is a a certain tree in California, a beautiful tree, not unlike all of its neighboring trees. This tree has been growing since Jesus walked, when Jesus gave his sermon about seeds and tiny plants growing this tree was itself a tiny plant. But now it is so big that you could build a small home in the base of it. A few of its neighbors, you might have seen this or even been to visit have actaully had the center of the trunk at the bottom cut out or they have split naturally at the bottom, so that cars can drive through them and the trees are so darn big they live even without that part of the trunk. But that is how big they are, cars can easily through their bases and they get almost 40 stories high, nearly 400 feet tall, as tall as skyscrapers.

Now this tree is amazing too because it is so big and so tall and so old, there it has an entire ecosystem in its canopy. They have been sending teams of people up into these trees to study the life that they harbour. The people actaully have to get into the trees like mountain climbers and when they do they find organisms that have never been seen anywhere else. There are things that happen within the kingdom of this tree, new life that sprouts that could never be found anywhere else. Whole systems of life are supported by one tree.

This tree that I started telling you about has been threatened with fire more than once but here is the thing these trees are almost magical, almost perfect creatures, parts of creation, they are fire resisitant, have you ever heard of that? A type of wood that is fire resistant? Well they are, they have almost no resisn so they don't burn. Once when there was as great fire in the city of San Francisco, you know how there used to be great fires in cities and the fire was fianlly stopped when it got to a line of buildings framed with lumber from these redwood trees, they just wouldn't burn.

The kingdom of God is like this, indestructible, filled with life, brimming with life so much so that things happen in it that could never happen without it, peace is made, people are healed, families are mended, the lonely are loved, the broken are cared for. The kingdom of God is like a mighty, mighty tree, you were all right!

Except...If you go back and you look at your text Jesus voted for the bush...for the mustard plant. He said that the kingdom of God is like this, it is as if someone sowed tiny, insignificant little mustard seeds and without their knowing how, up sprung a bush, or a tree...It depends a little on how you translate, this, it can either say bush or tree.

But we know what a mustard plant is and they really know what a mustard plant is where Jesus lived! It is farmed sometimes, but it is also a weed. They strugle in places to keep it under control because it grows up anywhere, anytime. Wheter someone has planted it or not. That is kind of the way with weeds, they grow like crazy. It is a bit of a shame that we can't turn the way we think about weeds and worthy plants around because it sure is easier to grow the ones that we don't want.

You know, just decide that dandelions are prettier than roses, that kind of thing because weeds will grow anywhere! Anywhere. I was walking along Green avenue this week looking at the work that has been done and I noticed in the places that they had to tear up lawns where the town easement is they planted grass seeds and those are starting to grow, slowing popping up in the bare earth but oh, the weeds! They're already partly grown! Weeds are amazing, nothing can keep them down, you can plant them just by walking around because their little seeds cling to your shoes and plant themselves in the places that you step.

I've seen weeds growing sideways out of boulders on hillsides where you can't even figure out where the soil that they must need is. I've seen weeds crop up in tiny cracks in heavy pavement where nothing else will grow. I've seen weeds in the desert and in the frozen places far north in the middle of winter. I've even seen weeds that have been underwater for a whole season live to tell about it when waters have receded. I've seen weeds grow where destruction has happened, filling broken places that no one wants to go with their little gold and purple and white flowers.

And I've seen weeds planted just because a person has walked along a path in their daily life.

Jesus says the kingdom of God is like the mustard seed, easily planted by the careless hand of a child, or the daily walk of elderly woman, or the rough but friendly play of teenage kids or the mindless tossing of seeds plucked from a stem as you walk along. By the offhanded remark that you are praying for a friend, or that you have a church that feeds the hungry or that you are going to quilt with the church folk on Wednesday or teach Sunday School on Sunday, or have dinner with a great friend you first met in worship. Little seeds planted by daily walking with Christ. They grow like weeds, by the power of God in places that we never knew they could and never would have tried to plant a mighty tree.

Now here is the peculiar thing, like I said before in the text from mark and in other
places the distinction between the mustard plant and a tree is not very
clear. It sounds like Jesus is claiming that a huge tree will grow from
a dandlaion puff so to speak. That that mighty redwood will grow like a mustard seed grows, not over 2000 years, not from a carefully cultivated trimming that is planted in just the right spot and grows only by the most careful tending but like a seed cast to the wind that falls on soil and takes root.

I don't think Jesus was mistaken about horticulture when he called what grows like a mustard seed a tree, I think Jesus was telling us that it is our job to plant tiny seeds and trust that they will grow into the kingdom of God, mighty like a redwood, tall, filled with new life all of the time, indestructible and as persistant and unstoppable as a mustard plant.  Amen

Baccalaureate June 2009

Readings:
Psalm 103: 1-5
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8
I Corinthians 13
Beatitudes Matthew 5: 3-10

For everything there is a season, a season to fight and be frustrated and season to be still and peaceful. A season to hug tight all of those people around you, a season to let go and have some space, a season to plant fruits and vegetables and flowers in the ground and a season to pull them all up an enjoy what they bring into life. A season to learn and study and a season to graduate. A season to mourn about endings and a season to rejoice in new beginnings.

Everything has it's season. That is what we hear from the wonderful lesson that some members of the senior class choose for tonight.

And I think that is a lovely sentiment. I really do. I like the idea of this I do but I also have an observation about seasons. They overlap, and they intersperse and as I stared out the window of my gym the other day (the first day of summer I think) knowing it was barely 50 degrees out and pouring down rain mixed with hail to the point that it looked like sleet I thought to myself hmm...seasons are a little bit more malable than we give them credit for.

Sometimes you know it is meant to be winter but the sun is shining and it is 60 out, sometimes you know it should be spring but the ground is frozen solid. Sometimes you know that you should be thrilled to be moving to a new chapter in your life but you are scared stiff about leaving home or sad because you aren't leaving to go to the college that you had hoped for. Or you know that you should be sad to leave home and friends and familiar space but all you can do is focus on the accoomplishment that you made in graduating and dream about the things to come and the new things that you are starting. That season about mourning and rejoicing, dancing even, is one of the trickiest ones. For most of us, graduating seniors, parents, grandparents and siblings alike this season, right now, is a little bit of both.

So what do you do with that?

I have an idea about that I got from a tree once (different tree than the one a few weeks ago Trinity folks).

There was a tree that I knew once, I say I knew it because it was a huge tree outside of the second story apartment that I lived in as a graduate student. It was so close to a not very big apartment and it was so big that sometimes it seemed like an extension of the apartment. I could see it out of the living room, the dining room and the kitchen windows. In fact if I sat across the dining room table from the window, it was kind of as if the tree was sitting with me at the table. I knew that tree. I watched that tree, closely. I moved into the apartment in the late summer and it had huge white flower petals here and there, some of the blossoms had dropped to the ground, others were hanging on so I thought, if I thought anything about the tree, we didn't know each other so well at the time, that soon the petals would all fall off and it would only have its pretty big waxy green leaves.

Then I noticed about a month into living in the apartment, one day sitting across the dining room table from the tree, that there were still a few white petals on it. As it started getting colder and colder and still there were leaves and petals on the tree. It was like it was never going to get done blooming. I remember seeing snow on at least a few petals and feeling a little warm even though (and many of you will learn this, the apartments that you take as a young person not too far out of high school are never well heated or well cooled). But it filled me with warmth to look at dead, coldness of late fall and to see something blooming. It was hopeful.

But that was a hard winter for me. I was far from home, far from friends, excited about what I was doing but really just not sure that I knew where I was going in life or how I was going to get there. I stared pretty absentmindly out my windows, a lot, pretending that I wasn't tearing up from time to time. And one day while doing this I noticed my tree, sitting there with me. I noticed first that it had stopped blooming, completely. The few rag tag petals that had held on all year had finally fallen off and being in not a great mood I said out loud to myself and the tree, I'm glad that you finally figured out what season it is. It is winter, it isn't the season to bloom, it is the season to be miserable like the rest of us. Now, tree, you look like I feel!

Just as I said this though I realized that there was something that might have actually pushed those last petals off. There were buds on this tree. Huge buds, in the dead of winter in the middle of January in the cold, cold, city of Philadelphia. Way before anything else was thinking about putting buds on, my tree was getting ready to bloom. There was never a day in this tree's life, never a season that wasn't filled with hope. I'm not going to lie and say from that day on I was perfectly content because of the example of the tree but I did have a fleeting thought that started to grow in me about seasons.

There is a season for everything, a season when you know just where you are going and a season when you aren't sure, a season when you are filled with joy but scared, a season when you are excited and proud of yourself beyond belief but you have doubts. A season to graduate and do new things and a season to stay put and work on what is at hand but never, never, never is there a season without hope, never a season without life, without abundant life in God.

Our new testament lesson talks about being blessed by God. About all of the different people who are blessed and all of the different ways in which they are blessed and all of the different times that they are blessed. It is a good mirror to the Ecclesiastes text about seasons. It says that you will be blessed. In great times, when you are on top of the world, able to spread peace you will be blessed. And in positions of power when you are able to be merciful to the people that you meet, you will be blessed and when you have no doubts so that you can walk confidently you will be blessed.

And you will be blessed in the not so good times, when you are hungry and need to be fed, you will be blessed, when you mourn and need to be comforted, you will be blessed, and when you have doubts and need to feel the hope and love of God, you will be blessed. Never will there be a season when you are not loved and therefore blessed.

This time in your lives is a huge landmark for you and many things are changing, everything is exciting and I (and we) are so excited for you but we are also here to tell you that there is one thing that isn't changing today and won't ever change and that is God's love and hope for you. Through all the seasons and all the landmarks, all the joys and excitements, you will always be blessed and beloved children of God, whatever you do, wherever you go, whatever great accomplishments you make, whatever new people you meet, whatever you discover, whoever you become, whatever the seasons of your lives bring, you can always find hope in the fact that you will always be blessed and beloved children of God. This is Good News, thanks be to God. Amen

Easter 7 B John 17:6-19

Easter 7 B John 17:6-19

We have a kind of charming story in Acts today as our first lesson. The eleven apostles are standing around after the Ascension, once Jesus is gone and they are on their own for the first time and the first thing that they do is decide that there needs to be twelve of them as they start out on the work of building the church. Before, when Jesus was with them there had been twelve but after the betrayal of Christ, Judas was no longer around and there was a void to be filled. So they looked for a twelfth.

They looked among the followers who were with them when Christ was around, who knew Christ and had spoken to him and understood the mission and they chose two potential candidates: Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias.

So after they had narrowed it down to these two, they all gathered around and prayed that God show them which to choose and then they cast lots to see what they would be shown. They essentially rolled the dice or flipped a coin, assuming that the result that it gave them came from God and Matthais won the toss.

Hurray for Matthias! Imagine being Joseph? the one who wasn't chosen.  Watching waiting knowing that you were about to hear whether God wanted you for his incredibly important work or not?! And then hearing that you weren't the one or anyway that you would have to serve in a different way? That must have been difficult news. It is hard to take rejection at all, but that type of rejection must have really thrown poor Joseph for a loop.

Then again can you imagine being Matthias? All of the sudden at the flip of a coin being at once responsible for taking Judas' place, not a super happy task in itself, and for the work the building and maintaining of God's church? That was really the job that they were giving him. Before Jesus bodily left the earth he gave the disciples instructions to take the good news of the kingdom of God to all people proclaiming God's love, baptism, repentance and above all salvation and new life. Matthias suddenly got the terrifying news that we all share. That we are the new body of Christ on earth whose job it is to take care of the kingdom, to spread the word, to heal and bring peace, to make disciples and to talk to God because that is the task that Jesus left the disciples with and that the disciples commissioned us all with.

In fact that is exactly what is happening in our gospel lesson today. In it, Jesus is talking to God, praying to God on behalf of the disciples, this is just before he is arrested and goes to the cross and he is very focused on sending the disciples out into the world to continue the work that he has done and taught them to do when he is gone. And so he prays these words: as you sent me into the world, Lord so I send them.

As you sent me into the world so I send them, all of these mortals, all of these everyday people with their hangups and their limitations, with their trials and their lack of faith, with their fear and indifference with their good intentions and their tendency to fall short, with their broken relationships and their need for healing. Here you are Lord I'm sending them!

How terrifying! How Matthais must have been shaking in his sandals! Think about the way that Jesus was sent into the world. To be the voice of God, to forgive the sins of all, to heal people to speak the words of God and when he was sent there was a decent chance that he wasn't coming back! Kind of a scary send off for Jesus to then ask upon his own apostles.

But then again think about what Jesus is doing here. He is praying lovingly, tenderly to his Father in heaven asking that we, as we are sent out into the world, go in the same way that he did. It isn't a threat, it is a promise. Think about how parents send children out into the world.

I travelled this week through a few different airports on my way down to South Carolina and back and this is a perfect time of year to see parents sending children off into the world especially in places like airports. There were parents whose children were heading to early sessions for their first year of college, parents whose children were going off on vacations with friends and no parents for the first time, parents whose children had just graduated from college and were being sent off into the adult world for the first time. Even once in a while parents whose children were going off to Iraq or Afghanistan or some other terrifying place to serve their country. So there were many tearful goodbyes and proud mamas and papas at the airports this week.

In fact some of you might know this and some might not be aware yet that we have a student coming here to study in our congregations this summer. Her name is Courtney and she is going to be learning about being a pastor from you all this summer. She is actually the reason that I was traveling. She and I were headed to South Carolina for an orientation to this summer program but she left straight from the south to go to Cyprus, all the way over on the southeastern side of Europe for several weeks of work with a school program and so her parents came with her to the airport in Albany to send her off for this and I got to witness this sendoff first hand.

Now I want you to know that Courtney isn't that young, she is entering her senior year in college, she has lived overseas before, but when you are a parent sending a child to a far off place that has has a rocky history when it comes to war and peace, that really doesn't matter and so her parents came to the airport and they waited with her and they walked her as close to the gate as they could and they checked this and that, do you have your passport, do you have money, do you have a phone card? And they requested certain things, call us when you get there, email us from time to time, take lots of pictures! And the cautioned, don't go to the beach at night or alone, wear lots of sunscreen when you do and so on. And I watched as they lovingly hugged her goodbye, as they helped her gather up her things, as dad helped her get her backpack on, as they hugged her one more time, mom got two this time :)  And as they waved and sent her off into the world to do good work.

They even walked up to the balcony so that they could wave one last time before we disappeared into the terminal after security. It was quite a send off into the world and filled with many things, many emotions, there was pride, there was hope, there might have been a little caution bleeding into mild fear, there was sadness at leaving and letting go but never even as they stood there on the balcony behind glass, separated by security watching their child set off without them was there ever any doubt.

Any sense that they weren't sending her with every, single thing that she needed to succeed. She was prepared for everything and they knew it, they had made sure and they weren't gone from her life, she could still call on them if needed and believe me those parents would find a way to get to her if she did! They sent her off knowing that she could make it and brimming with excitement at what she would learn on the way.

This is how Jesus was sent into the world and this is how he is praying to God in the gospel lesson that we all be sent. And this is how Matthais was sent and how Matthais and the other apostles send us. Not without some fear and apprehension, lots of checks that we know how to call home and how to ask for help but completely sure that we can do the good work that we are sent out into the world to do, that we have the tools, that we have the good news that we are armed with our baptisms and fed at the table, that we are blessed with just with right gifts and filled with just the right spirit and with complete clarity that we are never ever alone in the work that we do. This is how Jesus was sent into the world and this is how Jesus sends us on His behalf. And this is good news! Thanks be to God.     Amen

Easter 4 B

Jesus says in our gospel today that he is the good shepherd. Who came to bring all of his sheep together to make sure that they were part of one flock where they are cared for and protected and watched over.

So in honor of Good Shepherd Sunday, the name we give this day in the church year, I'm going to tell you a story about a week in the life of the good shepherd.

Once there was a shepherd. He was always a pretty good shepherd but it was clear the more that people watched him and the more that his sheep followed him that he was more than just an ordinary shepherd. He was a good shepherd. A very good shepherd. Maybe even the best shepherd. He had thousands of sheep and everyone was always amazed that he seemed to know each one by name.

He would follow along behind his sheep, like a shepherd does, calling out to one here, another there, sending out the helpers and the herding dogs to make sure that all the sheep stayed safe and with the flock. And that is where he spent most of his time, back behind the flock, leading them, nudging them, encouraging them with his voice. Whistling a little tune when things were goings well. Generally just loving his flock and his life out on the hillsides with them. Or at least that was his idea of where and how he ought to spend most of his time but he walked behind the flock for another reason too. From back there, always up a little higher than the flock on the hills, he could see them all very well. And he knew the moment one slipped away.

Which happened pretty often, but remember we are just talking about one week here today.

On the first day of our week he was back there singing a little song that calmed the sheep and kept them happy as they trotted along. And as he sang along "Have No Fear Little Flock"...he frowned, the words turned to a hum...and he looked like he was counting, scanning the flock faster and faster, over and over again.

JoAnna Sheep had wandered off. She wasn't with the others anymore. And so he called to the helpers and he called to the herding dogs and let them know it was time to lead the sheep to rest. There were green pastures nearby, a good place to wait while the lost sheep was found and so off he went.

Now JoAnna sheep wasn't a bad sheep, but she was rather reckless sometimes and she never did anything halfway. He easily found the path that she left behind, all trampled down as she had followed some wild boars off into the trees. He followed and he noticed as the path got less and less clear, some turned up dirt here, a sharp turn there. He worried for JoAnna and what she had gotten herself into and he walked faster.

He saw some torn wool in the path, perhaps she had gotten caught for a while in some snares or worse she had been hurt. He saw the marks of some kind of scuffle and now the good shepherd was running to find His lost sheep, Joanna, and then he saw her, crumpled on the path. All alone, so exhausted that she couldn't get up, broken and sore, confused and ashamed. And she looked up at him with pleading eyes, eyes filled with regret owing him an explanation, an apology, but he shushed her, shhh, quiet, rest now. And he gathered her up and together they made their way back to the flock, as he sang (singing)"Have no Fear, Little Flock...".

And they all started walking again, Joanna got stronger and stronger and before anyone knew it she was lost in the flock, frolicking with all the other sheep. And everyday when the shepherd counted his beloved he gladly counted reckless Joanna among them.

So they continued on for a time without incident. Picking up stray, wandering sheep here and there along the way, singing and humming together when all of a sudden the good shepherd stopped. He didn't even have to count this time, he knew who was gone. It was George Sheep.

George was getting on in years and had been lagging behind for a while but he was never just gone. The shepherd called to the helpers and the herding dogs and let them know that they should make the sheep to lie down for a while, there were nice still waters nearby and it was a good place to wait as he went back for their lost companion.

This time he didn't have to search, he knew just where to find George, right in the path that they had all walked on. In his mind's eye he could see George, stumbling, losing his balance, gasping for air but falling to the ground anyway, not able to muster the strength to get back up. George was very sick, who knew what was wrong, it didn't matter really, he knew the end was near and he might have just given up. George thought he wanted to give up but then night started to fall and the wind was cold and the wolves were howling and he longed for the warmth of the flock and the sound of the shepherd's voice singing. He was laying there alone, shivering in the cold when the good shepherd came rushing back to him. His eyes filled with relief that he wouldn't have to spend his last hours by himself, he tried to stand to show his gratitude and joy, but he couldn't quite manage. No matter, the shepherd scooped him up and held him gently over his shoulders as they walked back to the flock. The sun was high over the hills when they got there and the lambs were playing in the still waters and the young sheep were ready to go, but the shepherd stopped beside a tree and set George Sheep down and sat beside him and sang gently as George closed his eyes.

Then, with a tears streaming down his face the shepherd got up to lead the flock on. He called to everyone and they started off again. Missing George but celebrating that they had been able to share the warmth of their wool with him during his last hours. And so they were clipping along at a good pace now, all together, all safe. The Good Shepherd singing behind them as they went when all of a sudden the flock stopped. On its own. In great fear. Everyone knew at once who was gone and it wasn't just one or two sheep it was many of them, mostly the young, eager ones. They had gone off all together and the shepherd was pretty sure he knew where they had gone.

Earlier they had passed another flock and the two flocks, though really just the same, had looked at each other with suspicion, lack of trust, outright hostility. The Shepherd and the hired hands had done their best to push the flocks along to prevent any trouble, even to point out how similar they were but to no avail as it seemed a band of sheep from each flock had slipped away to meet on some hillside. It was with great unease that the good shepherd called to the hired hands and the herding dogs and and bid them follow the path that they were on, even though the valley was getting dark, they would find safety and he would meet them there. 

And with terror at what he would find the Good Shepherd went, found a high peak to stand on and looked down at the valleys below. He quickly spotted his sheep and some poor other misled sheep as well, they might have started out baaing at each other and kicking up dirt but they were having an out and out battle now. Wool being torn, hooves being broken, lives being shattered. Who knows what started the battle, they were all stuck in it now and so the shepherd walked down toward the sheep he walked right into the middle of the fighting.

He took the blows that his own herd would have delivered to the others and he took blows that would have hit his own and he stood peacefully in the middle until all were calm and and the fighting stopped and then one by one he went up to the sheep those from his own flock and those from elsewhere and he healed them where he could. He tended their wounds, he changed their hearts, he showed the stronger ones how to care for those who were too weak or injured and together they all walked back to the flock. New sheep from the other flock and original ones and they gathered around, followed by goodness and filled with mercy.

They joined the other sheep and started out on the journey again. The good shepherd walking behind singing..."Have Good Cheer little flock"...and as they were just about to the top of a great, tall hill the shepherd stopped and he scanned the flock, his singing died off as he counted his sheep over and over again. Someone was missing...But this is where we have to stop for today because we've only made it to Tuesday night and I think you get the point. The Good Shepherd never slumbers nor sleeps but is always in search of his lost and misled sheep, always seeking to bring them back, to make them whole, to calm their fears and fill their hearts with peace. And we each take turns being the hired hands who are entrusted with the care of the flock and being sheep who wander but are always found by the Good Shepherd and this is Good News, Thanks be to God. Amen. 

John 20:19-31; Easter 2 B (Doubting Thomas)

In our gospel lesson today Thomas, one of the disciples, was away when Jesus first appeared to the others after the resurrection. And when they tell Thomas all about it he says something rather odd. Unless I see the marks of the nails, unless I get to touch the wounds I won't believe it.

This is odd and out of character for Thomas. In other stories Thomas is a real go-getter, anything that Jesus says, asks for or directs Thomas is ready to do and first in line. So this famous moment of doubt of his is always a bit of a surprise.

But maybe not, the more we think about it, because there is never necessarily any indication that Thomas doesn't believe that the others saw Jesus. It is more of a question about what Jesus coming back really meant. Thomas might have believed that Jesus was God but what he needed to be shown was that God had really been the man that they had all walked around with for years and that he had really suffered and died and overcome that. He needed Jesus to sit down next to him and show him exactly what he had been through.

It is one thing to just come back again, if you're God I guess you can do that, but Thomas needed to know that Jesus had been wounded, had died alone, had gone into the tomb had really experienced what real people do when they suffer and die and had overcome that. And so after listening for a while, we assume, about a week later Jesus appeared in a crowded room with the disciples behind a locked door again and went right up to Thomas and gently said, the peace of the Lord be with you Thomas, here, touch my wounds, see what has happened to me, see what I've been through. And Thomas believed and went right back to being a go-getter disciple, spreading the word throughout the world: that God gives new life.

I don't tell stories from tv shows very often but I want to tell you
one from Grey's Anatomy. In a recent episode there was a little boy who
was very sick and absolutely refusing to be treated by the doctors. In
fact he kept running out of rooms and dodging the very doctors who were
trying to help him. Everyone thought that he was just kind of not a
nice kid. And they were all so frustrated with him, especially his
parents. But one of the doctors kept watching him and listening to what
he would say or do before he ran out of the room or threw some kind of
fit. When they wanted to X-ray him he would squeal, when they wanted to
look down his throat he would cry, when they wanted to put an IV in his
arm he hid under a table.

After watching this for a while the
doctor who was listening and watching all of a sudden started doing
things, kind of pushed his way into the crowded room, up to the little boy and started doing things. First, before they gave the kid an x-ray the doctor had them x-ray him
with the little boy watching in the booth. Before they examined the
little boy, the doctor let another doctor examine him, tongue
depressor, stethoscope and all. They even took him to see a surgery in
progress so that he would have a
better idea of what they were going to do to him and why they were
going to need to make him sleep through it.

To the dismay of everyone
else this doctor took this little boy on a field trip around the
hospital, explaining here, demonstrating there. And the effect was like
magic. The little boy calmed right down. In fact he even got excited
about some of the things that they were doing, but then it came time
for the real test. Time to put in the IV and get ready for surgery and
the little boy went right back to his old ways screaming and refusing
to let anyone touch him. So his doctor sat right down on the edge of
the hospital bed, put out his arm and had the other doctor put an IV into
his arm instead and he talked the little boy through each and every
pain and feeling. Not claiming it was painless but showing that it was
livable.

At the end the little boy
could even touch it to see just what it had done to the doctor and what
it would do to him. The little boy sat right down and said I'm ready
and tears of relief and disbelief streamed down the faces of his
parents. The doctor just explained that the little boy was scared, he
needed to see what it was like before he was ready to believe that all
of the medical stuff could heal him instead of just hurt him. He had to
go through all of that or at least see that another person had, in
order to believe that what the doctors were doing for him was giving
him the gift of life.

I get Thomas, I think Thomas is like the little boy in the hospital. I think I am sometimes too. I often think how terrible it is that God had to die in order for us to know without a doubt that we are never alone in our suffering. Sometimes I can't even really explain why it had to happen, but other times, other times I wish that God had been a kid with liver failure, or a mother with AIDS, or a man with cancer or a soldier in the dessert or a young person in a car accident. Or even just someone living in a broken family or someone who had lost his job or is struggling to support his family or someone with depression or addiction or whatever kind of illness someone that I am talking to is struggling with so that I can say: It will be okay, I know God is with you through the whole thing. Just look at his wounds.

That is why we get the cross and why we get Thomas. It is God's way of watching us be terrified, watching us try to run out of the room or slam the door or hide and cry and showing us, piece by piece that we are given new life through Christ. Showing us how Christ was alone, Showing us how Christ suffered physical and emotional pain, showing us how he died a shameful, lonely, painful death, showing us how he doubted and was angry at God, showing us how no one was even there for his burial and showing us that God loved him so completely all through that, even despite that, that he gave him new life. It isn't an exact mirror for everything that we will ever go through but it is an exact mirror of how we will come through it. So loved by God that we are given new and abundant life to share with those around us. Christ is Risen, Alleluia. Amen.

Transfiguration B; Mark 9:2-9

Today we are ending the church season of Epiphany. A season that celebrates Christ as the son of God. A Season that starts with the wisemen traveling to a far off land to see a newborn baby king in unsuspecting circumstances. It is a season of light, one that starts with a star and is defined the words of Isaiah, "the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, those who walked in deepest darkness, upon them a light has shined."

Vern Victorson, pastor of First Lutheran in Albany surprised me a couple of months ago by using a phrase that I used to always associate with this verse and this season that I hadn't heard in a long time. He went out to visit some family near Seattle where I lived for many years and he came back and said it was dark and gloomy all of the days that we were there but on the last day, on the way to the airport, the mountain was out! It was amazing, he said. That phrase, the mountain is out, is unique to the Seattle area but everyone there knows what it means. To give you a sense of what it means, you need to understand the setting.

Seattle is a rainy place. When I first moved there, a particularly rainy year was
drawing to a close. Now, Seattle is a rainy place in general. It has a
reputation for being a place where people sit inside, in dim coffee
shops and read books, for a long time both the bookstore and library
patronage was higher there than anywhere else in the country. When it
rains all of the time what is there to do but stay inside and read
books and play games and stare out the rainy window. People have to
stay inside a lot! Which leads to the next part of Seattle's identity,
it is a place where at least in pictures and descriptions, everyone
walks around with umbrellas and galoshes. There is even a festival
there at the end of each summer, a huge festival named for umbrellas!
You get the picture right, it is rainy and people spend a great
deal of time with things covering their heads, ceilings, hats, hoods,
umbrellas, newspapers if they get stuck out in it and don't have
anything else, rain clouds it they get stuck out in it and don't even
have a newspaper. So all this said when I say that I moved to this
place at the close of a rainy year, I mean rainy. I mean rain week
after week. I mean rain, everyday, I mean rain or at least threatening
clouds for nearly all of 200 days (almost a whole year). 200 days with something hanging over the heads of all of Seattle. 200 days of walking in darkness.



This makes people a little grouchy and depressed but it does something
else to people too. It heightens their awareness of good
weather. One day, the first truly clear, sunny day that we'd had since I got there, I noticed a strange thing. People were stopping in the streets to stare south. And they had these amazingly serene, happy, peaceful looks on their faces. So I stopped to look too. And there, so close it seemed like you could reach out and touch it was an enormous mountain. Huge, beautiful and snow covered, magnificent, Mount Rainier and it really, really seemed like it was just at the end of the nearest street. As Vern said, the Mountain was out! Where had it been before? I walked by that place everyday and I had been there at least a few weeks. Never had I seen this glowing mountain before. It turns out that you can only see it on nice days. Very nice days, completely clear
and sunny days. Only on those days does the mountain come out and when it does you know. You know before you see it, you know from the moods of the people around you, you know from the crisp clean feel of the air and the energy around you. You know because people share the news, they come into stores, classrooms, libraries, doctor offices, hospitals everywhere and the say, "The mountain is out. Did you see?". I've heard people tell others things like, "you have to go and see. I'll hold your place in line, go before it's gone."

And rightly so because it fades just as quickly as it comes out. It is about 100 miles from the city and so haze anywhere in between obstructs the view of it. For a confirmation lesson recently I tried to find a picture that would capture this phenomenon for the students. I must have looked at 50 pictures but none of them captured the closeness of the mountain, the hugeness, the majesty of it. The best that I could do was describe it to them like I am to you now, which is only giving you a vague since of the experience.

That, I think, is why people in Seattle transform into these friendly bearers of good news whenever the mountain is out. You can't capture it. You can't share it in any way half as good as saying, "come and see. I know the days have been dark, I know you haven't seen the sun, I know winter is coming and it will rain, you'll have something covering your head for weeks and weeks you'll be in darkness but right now the sun is shining, right now you can experience true light, right now you can have an experience of the mountain, come and see."

In the gospel lesson today Jesus and three of his disciples take a trip up the side of a mountain and while they are up there the sky lightens, the clouds part, there is a dazzling bright light, Jesus is made to shine, his garments glow with a white whiter than snow and God is so close it is as if they can touch him. And so the very first thing that Peter wants to do is hold onto the feeling. To keep it.

He sees something good, something amazing after walking around in darkness, after hearing terrifying news from Jesus and he wants to prolong the good. It is as if the dark cloud that has been hanging over his head is gone and he can finally see light again. So he says, this is great, let's put down roots, lets stay here! And roots are good, roots make sense but not in this case. He says let's build a foundation so that this amazing connection with God can be permanent. And a foundation is good, you need a foundation! But not in this case. He says let's keep this just like it is so nothing will ever change and it can belong to us, just to us! And Jesus says hold it! You can almost hear the sound, there has been great triumphant music playing, coming to a crescendo, sounds of birds and good things and all of the sudden, the record screeches to a stop and everyone is startled back to reality.

No! You can't keep it for yourself! Didn't you just hear the voice of God say, Jesus is my son, listen to him? And hasn't Jesus been saying all along that he came to spread the good news? No Peter, you can't keep the mountain to yourself.

So they walk back down.

And as they walk down I wonder if they are talking about how to convey the majesty and awe of this experience to the other disciples and to all people. Trying, like I did, to find a picture accurate enough that it makes the others understand. But Jesus, the only one who ever sees the situation very clearly in the gospel says there is no way that telling people will do the trick. His meaning might not have been to keep a secret so much as convey a truth, you'll need to show those people if you want them to truly understand. Show those people at the very least how being on the mountain changed you, so that they will be willing to come out and look for God too. You need to go into banks, stores, classrooms and libraries and say God is out, come and see. Come and see what God is doing. Come and see the place where I saw God, come and hear the things that I learned from the voice of God.

It takes until the next mountain top and a little bit after that, even, before they really get it, after Jesus is crucified on a mountain top and overcomes death before they know that what they are meant to show people has way less to do with the mountain itself and everything to do with what happened there. It is then that they start telling people and showing people that God is all around, you don't have to go up the mountainside, you don't have to sacrifice in the temple, God sent his only son here to this place, right here so that the people who walk in deep darkness can have everlasting light.

Come and see what he has done, come and see how he has healed the sick. Come and see how he has mended the broken, come and see how he has given hope to the hopeless. God is here right now, God is out in the world right now. Come and see. We'll hold your place in line, we'll watch your shopping cart or better yet, we'll take your hand and show you just where to look, God is present in our lives here at Trinity, God is present in our work as a church, God is present in the anchor and in the Sunday School, God is present in the fellowship that we have with one another, God is present in the wine and bread we share and most of all God is present in the love we show to one another and to the strangers in our midst. Come and see. Amen

Epiphany 5 B; Mark 1:29-39

"Those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."

A couple of our texts include a phrase about waiting on the Lord.

First we have these beautiful words from Isaiah. Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not be faint.--If only they wait for the Lord.

I have known several faithful people who have adopted these words, "I'm waiting on the Lord," almost as a kind of mantra.

First there was a dear sweet woman at the parish that I served in Philadelphia. I would visit her in her home because she didn't get out much anymore. There was really nothing wrong with her except her advanced age. She could get around fine, when she had too she even took the bus to the store to do some shopping. She had decent energy but oh how she complained. She meant well and she loved our visits, she loved her family too, though it seemed they could never visit often enough or for a long enough duration. Her life had become rather empty and she seemed like she was just waiting around. In fact when I would go over to visit I would ask how she was doing and the answer was always, "not so good vicar, I'm just waiting on the Lord". Just waiting on the Lord and oh she sounded tired and weak when she said it. Just waiting on the Lord for life to be over!

And then there was another woman, Betty, not quite as physically well but just as elderly. She walked, ever so slowly, to church on Sundays and other times and was amazing at serving people. She would serve food to bereaved families at funerals. She would serve snacks to the Vacation Bible School kids. She would serve on the alter guild and at the alter. And she would certainly serve the Lord with a prayer for anyone at anytime, often whether they asked for it or not. I would sometimes visit her at home too but though I would often run into her doing one thing or another for someone else. Watching her great grandchildren or tending her sick neighbors garden, even when her health was bad, she would call the neighbors that she worried about and she would write cards to the children that she cared for. I actually often worried that she was doing too much and would try to lighten her load, and slow her down.

But when I would visit, I would ask her the same thing. How are you doing today Betty, and she would give me the same answer, almost. I'm doing great vicar, she would say, I'm just waiting on the Lord. Just waiting for the Lord.

Now her words were the same as the woman from the first story. They both knew that they were waiting to return to the Lord, so to speak, but their emphasis and their meaning were entirely different.

One was waiting for it all to be over. The other was waiting on the Lord hand and foot, heart and soul, with all that she had and all that she was and she loved it and she was not weary and she was not faint but her strength was renewed.

And it wasn't just because she understood waiting to be service you see, it was because she knew that she had been waited upon. I would watch her at communion and at the confession and
forgiveness, at remembrance of baptism and she always looked like she knew God was
saying the words just for her. She knew that she was made whole,
healed, forgiven and completed so that she was free and she knew that that
freedom allowed her to wait on the Lord.

Betty served because Jesus served her first.

We have a story today from early in the gospel of Mark about Jesus going to the house of Simon and Andrew. Simon's mother-in-law, the woman of the house, was sick in bed and as soon as Jesus heard about that he went to her bedside and he healed he. And the very next thing that she did was stand up and serve the Lord and the disciples!

Now to our ears today this doesn't sound particularly nice. As soon as her fever cleared she hopped up and started serving the men in her house. But there are a couple of things about that. First, serving would have been an honor and a cultural privilege to her as the elder and most honored woman of the house. Being unable to serve would have felt about as bad as the fever itself did. But there is more to this story than honor. She knew that a great man, a prophet, at the least, and healer, maybe even a real agent of God, maybe even the son of God had knelt down beside her, in her own home, taken her hand and waited on her in her illness so what response could she possibly have but to serve, to wait on people in his name.

She served because Jesus served her first.

Now going back to my story about Betty. Jesus had never knelt down by Betty's bed and cured her of all her illness. In fact she was living with several major health problems and she knew that she wasn't very long for this world but, she would tell you that she had seen the Lord. She had seen him bring a husband back to her from the war. She had seen him bless her with children. She had seen him comfort her when she lost that same husband and when she went through terrible times in the raising of one or two of those children. God had worked in her life through her church and her family and the very world around her. And she had paid attention!

She knew the times when Jesus had waited on her, almost as if she had seen him kneel down by her bedside and so she was ready and willing to wait on Him. Just like Simon's mother-in-law had paid attention in the midst of her fever to the busy and important man, Jesus, with crowds following him, with well educated men asking questions with people bringing out those who were more sick than her. She had paid attention to him leaving all of that behind to kneel down by her bed and pray with her and make her whole.

Because of this, because of Jesus and his self-giving love for them these women served without thought, they got up and waited on him, in Betty's case by waiting on his children in this world.

Again we hear the words of the prophet Isaiah: "those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength."

This text can have two meanings. We use it sometimes at funerals. As a sort of final affirmation of the lives of those to whom the Lord was faithful. But I think the most faithful reading of this verse is one that refers to how we live. We live as people who have been served by God. God works in our lives. Forgives our sins, completes us where we are broken, mends our relationships and lives among us to take on our lives, good and bad. Jesus said he came to serve, not to be served. He came to wait upon us.

And so we live as people who serve the Lord, who wait on the Lord because the Lord waits on us. Amen

Epiphany 6 B; Mark 1:40-45

I knew a school teacher once, Mrs. Daugherty, a stout but tiny old Irish woman who was formidable. She had a reputation for being not mean necessarily but especially strict. She was one of the ones about whom there were rumors, that even though paddling kids hadn't been allowed in the school for 20 years or so, she still had a paddle hanging in her office. And it didn't really matter if this was true because any kid with sense knew enough to know that they didn't want to find out.

Well one year she was met with a kid, Lee, who was going to be her match, at least people thought this might be the case. This was a kid who had been in and out of detention centers already, who was mean and cruel to the other kids, who never did his work, who really spent the first day, maybe two of each class session in the classroom with a teacher, and then the rest sitting on a chair outside the principal's office or in a makeshift detention that had been created just for him, down in the gym with the big, burly gym teacher who could handle him. The police had even been called to the school before about Lee and everyone knew after he was old enough to not be required by law to be there he would be done with school. So when he entered Mrs. Daugherty's classroom, paddle or not, no one was holding their breath about how long he would make it there but folks were braced for the storm or these two strong personalities meeting.

On the first day of school Lee came to dressed rather inappropriately, with dirty hair and no materials. He sat at a desk not assigned to him and when roll was called, looked at Mrs. Daugherty as if to say I dare you to call my name. And looked back with something like an acceptance of the dare. When she did call it, he didn't say anything and she just smiled at him, nodded and passed right by. Which set up a pattern that lasted for weeks. She would call on each kid for something, Lee would refuse to participate and she would smile kindly at him and move on. When all the other kids were working quietly and Lee was tearing up paper or doing something distracting she would walk up to him and talk to him like she didn't even notice. He wouldn't really talk back but she would sit there talking about owls or trees or algebra, whatever the class was learning about. Lee would tear paper, Mrs. Daugherty would talk. Lee would get in trouble at recess, she would come back to the classroom from her break and sit there, with him at his desk, and she would talk about basketball or soccer. Lee would sit, Mrs. Daugherty would talk. Finally after months of this without a word about it from anyone, Lee stopped ripping paper and started doing his work. He stopped hitting kids on the playground and started bouncing a ball. But Mrs. Daugherty would still sit by him and talk to him in class sometimes and once in a while he would even talk back.

We're not going to pretend that Lee's problems were solved for the rest of his life because of this one year. But Lee was different after that. He still couldn't really follow the rules but he was kinder and less aggressive. He spoke sometimes instead of throwing, hitting or pushing, which was a huge changed. He graduated from high school six years later, walked across the stage and everything! It was as if he had been healed or whatever he was sick with as an elementary school kid.

I had the chance to talk to Mrs. Daugherty about him years later and I asked her where she got the patience to never raise her voice, never send him away, never lose her temper with Lee. She told me that she didn't really treat Lee any differently than she did any of her other children. That they each had walls that they had put up or someone had put up for them, barriers to learning, to behaving, to succeeding and mostly to being loved. All she ever did with any student was try to find ways to love them through, around or in spite of those walls and barriers. With some kids that meant being strict, with Lee it didn't, all he had ever known were rules and punishment. So with Lee it was almost easier because all she had to do was love all of him exactly like he was, embrace the wall, so to speak, and eventually she was allowed in. Sure it took patience but that was her job, God gave her a room full of little puzzles each year and her job was to figure out as much as she could about who they were and what they needed before they had to move on.

I tell you this story because I want to ask if any of you have ever meet someone who was just plain angry at the whole world? Someone like Lee who just can't be civil or pleasant no matter what? Most of us have in one form or another and Jesus seems to have met someone like that in our gospel lesson today. He was a leper which means that he had some kind of skin disorder. We really don't know what. We really don't even know if he was very sick. What we do know is that all of society, even the church, especially the church had let this man down, blamed him for his own illness and left him behind, on the outside. Maybe he started out being patient when he was told to stay out of the temple while he was sick. He understood. But then maybe patience had turned into sadness when his friends stopped coming by. And then sadness to fear when he was told that he had to live outside of town and tear his clothes and declare himself unclean to all passerby and then, finally fear to anger when he finally looked around and his whole life was gone, those that he loved were moving on, those he respected didn't respect him and those he cared for were languishing without his support.

So he lived out of town, like the priests said he had to, out in the wilderness without companionship and he taunted the passerby, at least that is what he seems to be doing when Jesus happens by. It isn't as if he is calling out because his faith is so intense, at least the complicated greek words don't indicate it. What they show is that he did something much more like yell "I dare you, to make me clean". Yeah, I dare you and your God to care about me. To think about me. To look at me in my dirty clothes and open sores and tear stained face. I dare you Jesus. I dare you to care about me.

And Jesus does. He reaches out to him. He says quite literally I accept your dare. I'll do it. I'll take you up on that. And he reaches out to him and he heals him. Jesus saw right through the wall that this man had put up to protect himself.

This is the third in a series of stories about Jesus healing the sick, broken and outcast in Mark, we've gone over the two other stories during the past couple weeks and they are all quite different but the theme that carries through all of them is that of Jesus' reactions to people and their reactions to him. The ailments that people have are different, the ways that they encounter Jesus are different but the healing is just the same.

They express very little faith, very little desire for healing or the love of God but Jesus looks at them and sees who they are and what they need. We have so many stories of healing in the New testament and sometimes I wonder why. Why devote so much time to these accounts when we could have been given answers to the mysteries of life or simple instructions for how to run a successful church, raise a happy family, solve the religious debates that have divided the church for centuries and so on and so on.

The only answer that I can come up with is that healing is what it is all about. It is as if we are all students in Mrs. Daugherty's classroom. Each one of us a little puzzle with secret wounds and secret walls and defenses that we put up, maybe not as big and obvious as the leper's but maybe just as painful to us. And Jesus is the one, who is willing, when no one else is, to hear a real plea in our dare to heal us to cure us and to help us let the walls down and he does.

He does it through words of healing and absolution, telling us each and every day as we sit there and act defiant, that we are loved and forgiven. Talking to us about whatever the church is learning about that day, sitting with us when we are forced to be all by ourselves. And then finally going out with us and speaking through us when it is our turn to be the loving voice for the Lees in our lives and the healing hands to the lepers in our world. Amen.

Epiphany 4 B Mark 1:21-28

I was at the main branch of the Albany public library recently. It was as rather busy day there, people studying at tables, using computers and browsing the stacks. But still, super quiet, super peaceful just like a library should be. A man came in with a group of young adults, folks in their twenties and thirties who had some developmental disabilities and he was teaching them. He was explaining to them in a hushed, whispering voice how you have to be quiet in the library. He showed them where the check-out counter was and where various items of interest for them were kept and they all started browsing too.

So we were all obeying the rules and silently choosing our reading materials with a nice peaceful feeling when one of the young women from the group made a loud crashing noise. At least that was what it seemed like a first. She sort of crashed into a shelf loudly. People looked alarmed at the noise and went back to what they were doing. But she hadn't just crashed into the shelf, she was falling to the ground, kind of slowly like she was trying to stop herself.

Next thing we all knew she was lying on the floor convulsing, having a seizure. As I looked around some folks looked frustrated. Sometimes people are frustrated by this kind of thing. Other people looked sad or panicked, but mostly people looked concerned and very uncomfortable. This was the library you need to be quiet here, this was in public and obvious disease makes people uncomfortable and worst of all no one knew what to do. They were afraid.

The man who was leading the group was just around the corner and somehow he figured out that something was amiss. So he walked swiftly up to her with great concern, as if he didn't even know that all eyes in the place were on them.

It was more silent than before as he knelt beside her and gently moved her afflicted body out, away from the shelf and out of harm's way and put his jacket down to protect her head, gently arranged her hands and feet in a safer, more comfortable way and started whispering and murmuring softly to her.

"It will be okay. Shh, Shh, it will be over in a minute, you'll be alright, you'll be alright. Shh, shh. Don't worry, I'm right here with you, you're safe, you're perfectly safe, everything will be okay".

Without my noticing how it had happened the rest of their group had gathered around them, out of the way but near and were looking on calmly and with a certain peace. They knew she was safe and in good hands and they were calmed by the love and authority of their teacher. For them, because he was there, even terrifying illness had no power.

In our gospel lesson today Jesus is teaching at the synagogue. Everyone is there scrubbed up and dressed well for worship in the Lord's house. Everyone is duly silent and respectful because if there is anything we've been taught through the ages it is to be silent in libraries and churches. Everything is normal and safe, people are listening to this enthralling teacher with a nice peaceful feeling, when all of sudden someone made a crashing sound.

Someone who was sick. Started to thrash around and yell, in the middle of the assembly. Some folks looked frustrated. Sometimes people are frustrated by this kind of thing. Other people looked sad or panicked, but mostly people looked concerned and very uncomfortable. This was the synagogue you need to be quiet here, this was in public and obvious disease makes people
uncomfortable, there were rules about sick people not being in the synagogue because they might make others unclean, sick too, and worst of all no one knew what to do. They were afraid.

The man who was leading the group, teaching up front, Jesus, was just a few feet away so he walked swiftly up to the man with great concern, as if he didn't even know that all eyes in the place were on them.

It was more silent than before as he spoke to the man and gently healed his afflicted body. The text says he rebuked the demon, the sickness, that the man had and the sick man was calmed and made silent but his body convulsed. I imagine Jesus moving him then, out of harm's way and gently arranging his hands and feet in a safer, more comfortable manner and whispering and
murmuring softly to him.

"It will be okay. Shh, Shh, it will be over in a minute, you'll be alright, you'll be alright. Shh, shh. Don't worry, I'm right here with you, you're safe, everything will be okay".

And slowly, while this was happening, the group gathered around and they felt safe and oddly at peace because they knew that the sick man was in the hands of their great teacher. His love and his authority took away even the terrifying power of illness.

The sickness in this story is an interruption. It is an interruption. No one planned it. No one was prepared for it. Everyone was troubled by it and put off by it. It was a major problem, to the ministry happening, to the lives around it, to the man who was afflicted, and even to Jesus who was teaching and who loved the ones he taught.

Everyone was affected and infected by this illness because under Jewish law, an
unclean person in the synagogue made the others unclean if they touched him, but even more than that, this wasn't a big town folks, this wasn't a mega-synagogue. Everyone knew everyone. One of their own was sick. One that they knew and loved had a terrible illness.

So they were afraid and sad and worried and all eyes were on Jesus. What would he do? How would he respond? They didn't really know him yet, he was a new rabbi, a new teacher and they didn't know what to expect. He could have thrown the sick man out. He could have encouraged everyone to leave because doubt had been cast on them now too. Instead he threw the sickness out and kept the congregation, each and every one one of them, worthy or not.

One man was healed and so everyone was made clean by Jesus, there was no reason for them to be afraid of illness anymore.

But what is funny is that he healed the man and after he did they said he taught with authority. Not that he healed with authority but that he taught that way.

Yes, someone was healed but that wasn't the point. And we know that it isn't the point because we are not Jesus and we do not live at the appointed time when all the world is made peaceful and whole, that Paul is longing for in our Epistle lesson, and so we know that people are sick. We know that they are sick and not everyone always gets well. And even when they do we know that more sickness comes afterward to others. That it never stops completely, that someone, somewhere that we love is always afflicted in some way. And that was a given for the people that Jesus was teaching even more than it is for us. So the teaching was the point.

Jesus taught, by healing, that our God, the God of love, has authority. Not just authority but THE authority. Even in the midst of sickness and death, that our God pauses even in His most important teaching for the sake of someone who isn't okay. In order to be with them, in order to be God to them, in order to be a human with them. In order to bring them peace.

Do we have illness among us? Do we have illness in us brothers and sisters? Yes. We do, we always do. In one form or another, in one way or another we are always touched by brokenness. So what does Jesus' teaching do for us in that illness? Why do we care that he taught with authority more than we care about being healed?

Because the ultimate thing that he taught is that we are not alone, never alone, least alone when we live in brokenness and least alone when we minister to the broken.

Did Jesus heal everyone who was sick? No, he didn't get to everyone, but what he did do was teach that even illness doesn't have the final word, it barely even has a word at all. Rather the word that we hear in all types of trouble and fear is be calm, be still, because we are not alone.

And we are even empowered then, instead of walking away or turning our eyes from the uncomfortable scene of illness, illness of all types: mental, physical, emotional, relational, environmental, economic, marital, familial, career, spiritual, personal, cooperate, incurable and curable, all illness, our own and that of strangers, in the midst of all of it, we are empowered to gather around like that group of young people in the library and like that group in the synagogue and share our comfort with one another that we have a new teacher, who teaches with new authority and who brings us new life. Everyday! Amen

Epiphany 3 B; Mark 1:14-20

We get to hear as our old testament lesson today part of the story of Jonah. I love the story of Jonah. I love how ornery he is. How he refuses to do what God asks him to do and how God gets him to do it anyway. The story itself takes a little suspension of doubt but if you can get there then it is wonderful to picture. God asks Jonah to go and take a message to the people of Nineveh and Jonah doesn't want to. He says no. So...God appoints a fish to scoop Jonah up, to sweep him away and to spit him out on the shore of the land that he refused to go to in the first place. The best part of that little story is that God makes a fish, a fisher of men, a phrase from our New Testament lesson today. Really a fisher of one man. And leads Jonah to Niveveh where he gets to try his hand at fishing for people too.

And really for both Jonah and the big fish, it is easy fishing. Native Americans in the Northwest where I come from have stories of water so full of salmon during their runs up the rivers that you could practically just reach in and grab one. Easy as anything, not really even fishing so much as just kind of...being there. That is what it is like for Jonah.

He hates the people of Nineveh. He is mad at God for making him go there but he knows enough, after the fish incident, to just cast his net. Like God told him to. So he goes into the city and halfheartedly he says "repent folks or bad things will happen here" and like salmon jumping right up into the picnic basket the people of Nineveh say ok, you're sent from God, you must know best and they go above and beyond what is expected. They repent, they change their ways, they honor God and Jonah must have just looked around and thought this is like shooting fish in a barrel. It was so easy to get those folks on board, to get them swept up in the message of God. But the text doesn't say that the people of Nineveh believed Jonah and were caught up by Jonah, it says that they believed God. They were swept up by God, it just took Jonah to make it happen.

There are other stories in the bible like this too. A great one is where the disciples were fishing, at least they had been fishing all night, which was common practice, fishing worked better at night or in the very early hours of the morning. But they had been fishing all night and well into the morning and they had caught nothing. Fishing for the day was over, all the boats were in, everyone knew it wasn't the time of day to cast your net but Jesus hollered at the boat and told Simon Peter to cast his net off the other side of the boat. So halfheartedly because he was tired, done working for the day, hungry and didn't want to, Simon Peter cast his net back into the water. And quickly it was so full of fish that they couldn't pull it abroad the boat because it was too heavy. Again the fishing was easy, the fish were swept up by God and all it took was Simon Peter casting a net.

In our gospel lesson today Jesus tells Simon Peter and Andrew to go with him, to follow him and if they do, he will make them fishers of people.

I have never loved the image evoked by fishing for people. Maybe I am a little more squeamish than the average pastor but something about it bothers me. I think of hooks and poles, cleaning tables, coolers. It is unpleasant.

But that isn't how everyone fishes now or how they did back in Jesus' time and it wasn't how the people that Jesus was talking to fished. Really fishing practice since Jesus' time hasn't changed wildly. Like in the story about the disciples above, they used big nets to catch fish then just like many fisherpeople do now. There were huge nets that would be lowered by fishermen and after fish had had opportunity to swim into the range of the net the ends would be gathered up and the fish swept through the water with the boats and eventually swept up into the boats.

In this context then, fish are swept up like that huge school that Simon Peter caught on Jesus' instruction and fish are swept up like Jonah was swept up and taken to Nineveh and fish are even swept up like the people of Nineveh by hearing an inspiring word and following. Fishing for people then isn't so bad, it is more like getting them swept up in who you are and what you are doing than reeling them in, hook line and sinker. They get caught up by God it just takes us to make it happen.

There are so many sermons on this text that go from where we are right now to bait. We have established that our job is to be fishers of people because we carry with us the great message of salvation that Jonah carried and we have to offer the great abundance of love and blessings that Jesus offered Peter, so now...how do we trick people into following us so that we can foist these gifts upon them? How do we hook them? What bait do we use?!

The great news really of today's gospel lesson is that there is no bait. We aren't meant to lure people in, there is no tricking folks into God's fishing nets. Jonah never schemed to get the people of Nineveh on board, he just showed up and spoke the truth. There was only Jonah. And now there is only us. Only our lives. Only our willingness and excitement to be here. To listen to the word of God to walk with the people of the church. To bring people to the font to be baptized and to the table to be fed. There is only us.

I have a cousin...this is kind of a gross story, please brace yourselves. I have a cousin who lives on the San Gabriel river in Texas and he is a big fisherman. Sure, he has a fishing boat and spends some time on lakes but what he loves most is being in a little rowboat, or better yet just in waders in the muddy San Gabriel, fishing for catfish. I remember being a little girl and being faced with one of the mighty catfish that he had caught. Seeing the gaping mouth of one of these huge fish and wondering how a hook would ever work to catch one. How a tiny hook could wrangle such a big fish. So I asked...and the answer is both the gross part of this story and something that still seems a little bit magical to me today. He told me that that wasn't the kind of fishing he did to catch those fish. He said all he needed for catfishing was himself. No pole, no hook, no net and certainly no bait. Just himself.

Catfish, I learned, if you put yourself in their midst and make yourself available to them, will come along and grab right on to your arm, then you just pull them up into the boat. All you need is you! Now the metaphor has to stop there, for a few reasons, but it is a good one up to that point and very true to what Jesus was telling Simon, Andrew, James and John. They didn't bring anything with them. The text says he spoke to them and immediately they dropped their nets and left
their boat and they followed him. Or immediately they left their
father in the boat with the hired men and they followed him.
Immediately. Without delay. Swiftly, quickly, without hesitation, without packing, without lengthy goodbyes, immediately. They saw Jesus, they heard Jesus, they were introduced to what Jesus was doing and they were so
swept up that immediately they followed.

All Jesus needed to sweep them up was him. And he tells them that all they need to become fishers of people is themselves. Their hearts and minds, their gifts and talents, their hopes and fears and honesty and faith. That walking through town with just these things they will gather followers in their midst. And they did, and in so doing a church was born, people were fed and healed, children were loved, widows were helped and communities were strengthened. People were swept up by the disciples being people, just like them, who had a story to share, who had good news, who knew something wonderful. They were swept up by God but it took the everyday disciples to make it happen.

That is what it means and that is what it takes be fishers of people. To walk down the streets with our everyday lives good and bad; with ours fears, hopes, dreams, pains and joys and a story about who God is or what God has done so that others can experience the great gift of being swept up by God. Amen

Baptism of our Lord B Mark 1:4-11

In our gospel lesson today Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

I'm going to give you just a little refresher about the bible and the four gospels now before we talk more about this. We get the bulk of our information about the story of Jesus' life on earth, his death and resurrection from the four gospel books, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All four of these writers tell the same basic story but we are blessed to have all of them and not just one because they were different people from different backgrounds and slightly different times and they experienced and understood things differently and that comes across in their writing. So we can look to different ones for different details, different emphasis and that kind of thing.

The gospel lesson for today comes from the writing of St. Mark and there are two really important things about how St. Mark experiences the baptism of Jesus. First this is like Christmas for Mark. Mark doesn't have any grand story about the birth of Jesus. There are no wise men, there is no stable, there is no Mary mild. That doesn't mean that those things didn't happen but what it might mean for Mark, is that the event equivalent to the birth of a Messiah, the coming of a newborn king, is Jesus' baptism in the river Jordan. For all of the gospel writers baptism is where Jesus begins his ministry but for Mark it is more, it is the event of new life, it is like Christmas.

In addition to being the only gospel writer who first introduces us to Jesus in this way, Mark is the only one who tells the story with God speaking directly and only to Jesus. It is as if everyone else fades into the background for the moment of Jesus' baptism and it is just him and God, looking down lovingly, only at Jesus saying you are my son the beloved with whom I am well pleased. This is the place in the bible where we get baptism from, this account of Jesus' baptism and I think it means something that St. Mark writes that Jesus had an encounter like this with God at his baptism.

Not everyone, not just anyone, but at the baptism of Jesus, Jesus encountered God. You might even be able to take this to a level where for Mark the birth of Christ that mattered was the new birth through water, the Holy Spirit and the very breath of God.

A friend of mine just had a baby and through the magic of the internet I was able to see pictures of her and this child almost immediately and, of course, because there were grandparents there, there were a lot of pictures! But the most striking ones, the most striking ones always it seems, are the ones right after the baby was born and it, the new baby is handed to it's new parents and it is as if everyone else, even the face behind the camera fades into the background and for a few moments it is just mother and father and baby and you can almost hear a voice, whispering, you are my child.

A similar thing just happened with some friends of mine who recently adopted some children. There are lots of pictures, pictures of the kids beforehand, pictures of the kids meeting their new parents for the first time before the adoption, pictures of them all playing and getting to know one another over some time but, if you ask me, the only picture that is needed of the whole process is the first one after they officially became a family and are all in their new home together looking dazed and in love and like a family. It is hard to even see anything else in the picture because the new life, the new family in the middle is so prominent, so decided and strong but tender and reassuring. Everything else just fades away and again you can almost hear a voice whispering, softly, you are are our children.

It was like that, that day in the Jordan. So many people around but they faded away and Jesus looked up and he heard, you are my son. It was like that too when each of us was baptized. For just a second everything else faded into the background and we heard, whether we remember it or not, softly, you are my daughter, or you are my son.

There is of course more the the story, there always is. In the case of this gospel writing, Jesus went into the desert and was tried and tempted after this. He wandered alone in the wilderness without food, without companionship and almost without hope. It was one of his most difficult times and it came right after this, one of his most affirming. Being a beloved child of God did not keep him from hard times, from trials and temptations, from pain, loneliness, hunger and suffering of all kinds but it did sustain him throughout. The text says that angels waited upon him and helped him to get through the trials but I wonder if more of what happened was that he waited on the Lord as he spoke those simple, familiar words to himself: "you are my son with whom I am well pleased. Over and over. If he remembered that moment, like in an old family photo of when you or your child or niece or nephew or grandchild was first brought home, and he knew, because of that moment that he was ever loved, and never alone especially once the abundance of water was gone and he found himself in a dry place with no glowing voice to speak to him and no crowd to gather to him.

This is why we are baptized not into Trinity Lutheran Church, not into American Christianity, not into Lutheranism, not even into our biological families but into God. Because we need to have that memory to look back on and that assurance to rest on, that even when things are at their most dry, their most scorching, we have been called beloved children of God in a moment that is just between us and our Father in heaven. This is the good news of the gospel lesson today and it is the good news into which we were baptized.

And because of that good news I would like for us all to stand now and take a moment
to remember our baptisms. This is a version of the prayer of thanksgiving that is
part of our baptismal rite:

Blessed
are you, O God, maker and ruler of all things. Your voice thundered
over the waters at creation. You water the mountains and send springs
into the valleys to refresh and satisfy all living things.

Through the waters of the flood you carried those in the ark to safety.
Through the sea you led your people Israel from slavery to freedom.
In the wilderness you nourished them with water from the rock, and
you brought them across the river Jordan to the promised land.

By the baptism of his death and resurrection, your Son Jesus has carried
us to safety and freedom. The floods shall not overwhelm us, and the
deep shall not swallow us up, for Christ has brought us over to the
land of promise. He sends us to make disciples, baptizing in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Pour out your Holy Spirit; wash away sin in this cleansing water; clothe
the baptized with Christ; and claim your daughters and sons, no
longer slave and free, no longer male and female, but one with all
the baptized in Christ Jesus, who lives and reigns with you in the
unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.