23 March 2014 “God Knows these People” John 4:5-42

  It seems personal with Jesus. Last Sunday it was Nicodemus. This Sunday it is the unnamed Samaritan woman.  Usually, Jesus has hung out with his disciples or with the masses on a hillside. Lately, he has been with just one person at a time. It is clear from the exchanges, Jesus knows these folks.  He knows them, but these recent two could not have been more different.  

 One, Nicodemus, was a leader of the Jews. The other, the woman, had no status in the Jewish world.  Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. Jesus comes to the woman during the day. Nicodemus wants something from Jesus.  Jesus, for his part, wants something from the woman. Nicodemus tries to use reason with Jesus and is confused in the process. The woman engages Jesus in what turns out to be a theological discussion and understands immediately who he is and what he offers her.

 She cannot contain her joy. She tells her friends about Jesus and they invite him to stay with them. As a result, many more believed because of his word. For they heard for themselves, and they learned Jesus is truly the Savior of the world.

 I wonder how our own life stories match those of Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman.  Jesus knows us intimately and remembers even those pieces of our lives we have forgotten or tried to push out of our memories. On some occasions we have gone seeking Jesus, and on others, he has come seeking us. Both happen and each will continue.

 Much like Nicodemus we go to Jesus when we need something, speaking to him our prayers of petition. Just as likely, Jesus will listen first to our hearts. That is the place where Jesus truly wants to engage us. It is with our hearts that Jesus fills us with his profoundest wisdom, his greatest strength, his unlimited love, and his saving grace.

 Other times It seems Jesus is not listening to anything in our lives. But the scripture is clear, Jesus does seek us.  I wonder then who gets in the way and for how long before our frail and desperate attempts give way to the one who has been with us all along. How long have those dry times lasted before we still our own chatter and clatter to realize the low hum there in the background has been Jesus all along trying to tell us about ourselves in ways no one else knows. Then, in our reluctant silence, we hear him teach us things about himself we certainly do not know.

 Overcoming the din of our life we learn Jesus wants something from us. Something we perhaps did not know we have to offer. Something only God can want. We are God’s children and God wants every possible ounce of us and every moment of our lives.  So God sends Jesus after us.

 We are not always bashful with God. We call up our courage and try to reason out our situation, our thoughts about our place in life with God, and how they might have meaning together.

 Yet, we also find ourselves filled with doubt in the middle of the night and we struggle not knowing to whom we might turn for help. All too often we do not really understand how Jesus’ teaching applies. It lacks good reason. It does not fit easily in the pie charts predicting a successful and prosperous life.  All too often we see our lives in contrast to his teachings and we are confused like Nicodemus.

 So we dig safe trenches into which we crawl for protection while we gather our wits for the next assault. In such illusions we drift off and away from Jesus until the night becomes so dark we seek him only in despair.

 Then he breaks through, and we learn Jesus has never left us. We learn from people like the Samaritan woman who follows Jesus’ lead and not her own. In this way she not only begins to understand who Jesus is, she begins to understand about her life and its sole purpose.

 For the first time in her life she believes there is a nourishing possibility for her like nothing before. She asks Jesus, “Sir, give me this water” you speak of. She opens her heart and soul to Jesus. In her new found faith she holds nothing back and reveals herself, her intellect, and her heart, confirming what Jesus already knows about her.

 She then offers her life to him. Poor Nicodemus never made it as far. He never understood  Jesus to be the Messiah. He never rose to her level of understanding, belief, faith, or salvation.

 But we can. We have come this way before. We sought earthly nourishment of body and soul and found that life’s offering may separate us from God. In our sinful nature we come to the well for water at a time of the day when others are not around so we will not have to be confronted by our sin. And we find Jesus has found us.

 Jesus is waiting for us and when we show up he wants us to give him a drink of this life we think is so important. He will take it from us and give us in its place a new life. One that will become in us a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.

 The Reverend Arturo Malicara is a friend from back in my days in Uvalde. He is the chaplain at the hospital there. Often when I saw him in the halls he reminded me, so many people were dying and they do not know Jesus. Each one of us, Arturo said, who profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior can help save them.  We can, but sometimes they help save us.

 You may remember Ali Selem’s, “Sweet Land.”  It tells the story of the importance of love and the power that can help save someone from even the deepest hungers and thirst for life. The film tells the story of a young German mail-order bride, Inge, promised to a struggling farmer, Olaf.

 Inge comes to Minnesota in the wake of World War I. The local minister and town judge both refuse  to perform the marriage ceremony because of the prejudice of their times. Inge’s socialist affiliation, her inability to speak English, and the common notion of loose morals and dissipated lifestyle of all foreign women.

 Without rights or citizenship, with no family, and no community, Inge stood alone, facing a hostile, unfriendly new world.  Though the marriage is forbidden, Olaf and Inge fall in love. Neighbors go to great lengths to make sure Inga knows she is not welcome, does not belong, and that she is despised.

 Ignoring the disapproval of the townsfolk, Inge struggles to make a home and a life through hard work, and devotion to Olaf. Conditions worsen, and they risk losing their farm.

 There is a deeply moving scene toward the end of the film where it appears the farm will be lost and Inge and Olaf are once again denied marriage. They stand outside the farmhouse with the local preacher. Olaf tells him that the farm is Inge’s home now, but the pastor shakes his head and says, “It cannot  be. She does not have the proper papers.”

 Inge tells the pastor she has a home and citizenship and a marriage in her heart. The preacher responds, “That is not enough. It has to be real.” Inge than asks, “Do you have God in your heart?”

 The preacher stands mute for an unbearable time, then nods, smiles and admits, “You are right. God is in my heart and God is real.”

 It is by the faith and witness of a woman, an outsider, who lives with God in her heart that a community is changed. The townspeople repent, accept Inge, and stand with the young couple to save their farm.

We see in Inge the Samaritan women by the well. An outsider who is found by Jesus and in the process, finds Jesus and a new life. Through her encounter with Jesus, and through our own, we find something of true and lasting worth – hope in God’s spring of water overflowing with everlasting life.

  Having this hope in God’s true love means we are known to the depths of our being and honored and revered and accepted in spite of all our failings, shortcomings, and sin. The everlasting love of God is then a “sweet land” that becomes our home.

 That is, if we have God in our heart.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen         

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16 March 2014 “God’s Love” John 3:1-17

16 March 2014                     “God’s Love”                         John 3:1-17

  Earlier in John we hear this about Jesus.  “But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone for he himself knew what was in everyone.”  This point becomes clearer as we learn this morning of Christ’s adept insight into the secrets of the human soul.

 Nicodemus has not asked a question. Yet, Jesus answers him for he heard the question which was buried deeply in his heart. His was a question familiar to many. “What good do I have to do in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, to have everlasting life?” The unimaginable answer seems to be “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”  Or born anew or born again. Really, born again?

 There may be no phrase so misused, so misunderstood, in the world of Christian tweets as “Born again.” For some, being “Born again” is what  folks think happens to anyone who says they are going to follow Jesus. The way they say it, it is not meant as a compliment.

 Born again is what some churches demand of their members, in order to qualify as a true believer. They assume the phrase is self-explanatory, as if every Christian experienced it in the same rite-of-passage way.

 Born again is what Jesus told Nicodemus he had to be, in order to see the coming realm of God. Nicodemus thought Jesus was joking. Jesus was not.

 When faced with difficult or perhaps loaded metaphor, we may find it helpful to take a breath, and listen again to the words themselves without getting tangled up in the literal and biological possibilities.

  “Born” is the past tense of the verb “to bear.” And surely that is an apt description of our birth. Someone bears us from that world before, into this one now. She bears the pain, the labor, the weight, the responsibility. She bears with us – alien creatures, growing within her sacred body – and she bears all that comes with us. We are literally born into being, and it is hard work.

 So what would it look like to be born again? Nicodemus presses Jesus on this, and even chides him, a little. “How can anyone be born after having grown old?” he asks. “Can one enter a second time in the mother’s womb and be born?”

 One may wonder if there is a hint of longing in his words. Who has not wished, at some point, to go back, erase, and rework some chapter in their life? Who has not yearned for a magical rewind button, so that the events of a particularly fateful day might have played out differently? Who has not held a baby and thought wistfully of one’s own youth, one’s own innocence, before age and years did their burdensome work?

 Ah, Jesus. It sounds so beautiful; almost too beautiful. To be born again, with everything fresh and new, with all our lives before us. But how can anyone be born after having grown old?

 Perhaps we too narrowly define birth. Perhaps this new possibility is not about our mother, but the one who bore us ultimately. Nicodemus is right, we cannot ever go back and enter our mothers’ wombs a second time. Our mothers cannot be prevailed upon to bear us twice – although some have certainly tried. We know what those uncut cords between parents and children look like.

 At the core of what Jesus is saying is this new truth, we must be born anew of the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that will bear us when we are born again. That being so, we can make the case it is the Holy Spirit that bears us from this world into the realm of God, into God’s kingdom.

  We can therefore assume that there is pain involved; labor, weight; responsibility. We can be sure the Spirit bears with us for we are alien creatures, growing to fullness in the body of Christ, and the Spirit bears all that comes with us. It is messy and complicated and embarrassingly embodied. Of course there are repercussions. There are consequences. There are stitches and secretions, not all of which are fit for polite conversation.

 Yet, Jesus insists, we must be born this new way. So we realize, in our journey from born to born again, we do not escort ourselves down the aisle on our own. No, there is another force at work, another force entirely, and one to which we may be ill acquainted and ill prepared to follow.

 We understand this. We know we cannot go back and erase or replay the years that have turned out as they have, much as we might wish to. You might even say we cannot bear ourselves. We never could, and never will. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. Only the Spirit can usher us from this world of fixed realities to God’s realm of new possibilities.

 There is in Jesus’ words a distance between flesh and spirit, as if the latter trumped the former. We should not be so sure. What we hear about is the coming redemption of our bodies and the sure incarnation of the Holy Spirit. But each form is reaching for the other. Each, flesh and spirit, is giving and receiving. Each is bearing the grace of the One whose power is at work in us. All for the glory of God.

 Listen to those promises again. Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. Did you hear it this time? Before we can enter God’s kingdom, we must see God’s kingdom.

  When we baptized Paul’s great-grandson, William, you should have seen his sweet little face. His eyes were wide with anticipation. It is as if he wondered, what would happen next.  

 What he did not realize, and what we may have forgotten, is to be born of the Spirit is not about being splashed by the water once and never thinking about it again. It is about submitting to something that will take over our whole being, something that will permeate all the cells of our bodies, something that is so much a part of us that its presence makes us someone quite different, someone quite new. Not new once, not even new once again, but new over and over and over, again and again and again, with every breath we take.

 Jesus tells us that our eternal life depends on whether, with that breath, we breathe in the pure breath of the Holy Spirit or live surrounded by an unhealthy and tainted spiritual or emotional atmosphere. It matters whether we “in-spire” the stale, used up air of dusty ideas, or the fresh, invigoration air that whipped open the doors and windows of that upper room where the first disciples were gathered. It matters because we are not in control of God’s breath or what God’s breath might empower us to do and to be.

 Jesus asks Nicodemus: “Why are you surprised? You cannot see the wind, but you have no doubt when the wind is at work. You see the grasses and leaves move, you hear the sound it makes. You cannot see the Spirit, it is true, but you can see the work of the Spirit. You do not see the Spirit or wind in either form, but you see the results.”

 We see the results of that breath in the love of others and we show forth the results of God’s breath in us, to others. We look at a Desmond Tutu, a Mother Teresa, an Albert Sweitzer, and we see the Holy Spirit at work. In the same way, when we fill ourselves with God’s holy breath, others can see that same Spirit in us.

 The Holy Spirit takes perfectly ordinary women, children, and men and gives them new lives filled with the power of God. None of those mentioned was born a Nobel Peace Laureate; they were born anew  into that special life through choosing to allow God’s breath to slowly, steadily permeate their whole being until they were changed forever.

 This is the exact shape of the transformation God offers us today. Like Nicodemus, we are asked to “breathe out” our stale, old, self-defined selves and allow the Spirit of God to inspire us anew. Jesus calls it “being born anew of water and the Spirit.”

 We do not need to understand how it will happen or what the end product will be. But we can be sure, we are the raw material from which God can create hands to work, hearts to love, and blessings for all creation. Is anything in our lives more important or more exciting?

 “The wind blows where it will,” Jesus may be saying, “and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going; so it is with everyone that is born of the Spirit.”

 If we pause with Nicodemus to listen and see we agree, we are not really in control of our own physical birth, nor, of our spiritual rebirth. But we can, with the assurance of God’s love for us, open our hearts this Lenten season and be receptive to the wind that blows where God wills.

  So breathe deeply, dear ones. Breathe deeply!

 And pray, “Come, Holy Spirit, come.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

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09 March 2014 “No Turning Around” Matthew 4:1-11

09 March 2014             “No Turning Around”             Matthew 4:1-11

  Matthew’s gospel does not spend a lot of time drawing out the story of the birth of Jesus, nor does it spend any time telling us about Jesus’ life as a child, a teenager, or even a young adult. The movement in the gospel is from his birth directly to John the Baptist baptizing and proclaiming Jesus as the one who will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire. God tells us, “This is my Son, the beloved with whom I am well pleased.” Then Jesus exits stage left for the wilderness.

 He exits but we go with him. There, in the wilderness, Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. Famished  for something to eat we would expect.

 But the story takes an interesting turn. The tempter came and began testing Jesus. Was this Jesus’ hunger? Did he hunger for a test, for a fight, for a challenge? Had he spent his time in the wilderness for this? He was, after all, led up by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil. But I wonder, were these tests really necessary?

 An article in the Boston Globe tells of the situation Stephanie Yeh faced in the spring of 2006. Ms. Yeh was brilliant, Massachusetts Institute of Technology kind of brilliant. She had aced the course work in electrical engineering and computer science and was ready to work as a Wall Street analyst. But there was one test left, and it had absolutely nothing to do with electrical engineering, or computer science, or Wall Street. Stephanie Yeh had to swim 100 yards to graduate.

 MIT was one of a handful of top schools in the country that required students to pass a swim test before they graduate. Ms. Yeh, who never learned how to swim, apparently wondered about the rational for a swim test.  Her response to the requirement was “I mean, who cares if you can swim?” In other words, is this test really necessary.”

 Many have probably asked this question about Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Was this test really necessary? After all, Matthew had already revealed some things about Jesus that make a wilderness trek seem unnecessary.  There was the miraculous conception, the remarkable visit from the magi, and the voice from heaven that made it clear: “This is my son.” What more could one ask for in a resume? Yet the text says that the Spirit led Jesus to a test in a place of desolation.

 There is a diversity of opinion in scripture about the nature of divine temptation and testing. From Genesis, God seems to be testing Adam. In other passages, however, there is a question as to whether God tests us or whether temptation is even necessary. Jesus teaches us to pray in a way that asks us not to be tempted. James 1:13-14 stresses that God is not the source of temptation; instead, we are tempted by our own desires.

 Nearly all people of faith would agree that we should ask for God’s guidance in our daily lives, and that we do receive guidance. Do we also believe that God leads us only into situations that are filled with warm affirmations given by, as the rock group R.E.M.’s song goes, “shiny, happy people”?

 Surely not. But as with any biblical interpretation, there is a tricky balance. Regardless of whether one thinks tests come from God or another source, it is helpful to think about how Jesus responds to tests.

 Consider again the swimming requirement. In the Boston Globe article, Belkin summarizes various ways that the students respond to this requirement. About half of the first-year undergraduates jump in and pass the test during their first two weeks on campus. Others procrastinate. Still others, those who cannot swim or are afraid of water, take a Swimming 101 class.

 But for many even the class is a daunting proposition. These are MIT students, after all. They overthink the process. “They want to learn what angle to hold their arms,” said an MIT lifeguard. “I just tell them to go ahead and try it; don’t worry about the physics or the geometry.”

 The students’ reactions to the swimming requirement parallel the ways we respond to our own daily tests, the ones that we face here and now. Some of us meet our challenges head on. Some avoid conflicts and put them off. Some think too much without doing anything. Maybe we have employed all three tactics. Thankfully, Jesus shows us a better way.

 Jesus does not race around calling out the devil so they can go at it mono e mono; he waits and prepares by fasting and praying. Jesus does not procrastinate; he confronts the tempter. Jesus does not overanalyze the situation by thinking it to death; he uses the right amount of reason and faith to refute the devil. Intentional preparation and courageous confrontation are powerful tools. In the Christian faith, these are the Lenten disciplines that we can utilize when life’s test are before us.

  But taking these tests often leave us exhausted. Though, like many of you, I can swim, I am not an active swimmer. When I do decide to get in the pool for some exercise, I find I run out of breath before I run out of pool.

  Jesus’ test also takes its toll on him. Angels finally arrive to nurture him. As soon as the test and Jesus’ recuperation are complete, though, he leaves for Galilee to proclaim a message of repentance and to call others to join him on this mission. At this point, Jesus has been transformed from the one being tested to the one who will now test others.

 I was hoping that Ms. Yeh had said something that would put an exclamation point on her experience. I was hoping for a quote like “I know this will change my life.” But in response to the question, “Was it worth it?” she said, “Not really.” She has no plans to ever swim again.

 But we cannot escape life and we Christians relate all too easily to the three temptations of Jesus.

 In the temptation to be relevant, turning stones to bread, how often have we discovered ourselves irrelevant in the face of unpretentious folk who force us to let go of our relevant self. Can we not then be “open to receive and give love regardless of any accomplishment.” Can it be that Henri Nouwen, the late Dutch Roman Catholic spiritual writer is right in his conviction “that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self.” What matters is that “God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love is the true source of all human life.” 

 In the temptation to be spectacular, throwing oneself down from the tower, the authentic task is heard from the lips of Jesus to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” Nouwen affirms that we church people are “sinful, broken, vulnerable people who need as much care as anyone we care for.”

 In the temptation to be powerful, to be given the kingdoms of this world, we find one of the greatest ironies of the history of Christianity is that its people constantly gave in to the temptation for power. Nouwen found it is easier to control people than to love them. But our task is to empty ourselves and follow Jesus. The way of power is chosen when intimacy is a threat.  

  Forty days and forty nights of fasting left Jesus utterly depleted. He is beyond hunger, he is famished. All he has left is scripture, the Word of God. All he has is what he knows by heart – that, and a promise given him in his baptism that he is somebody; he is God’s beloved, no matter what. All Jesus has is who he is.

 When we are famished , this is the thing we forget most quickly: we forget who we are. And the tempter knows how vulnerable that makes us, because the tempter’s timing is perfect.

 Perhaps the biggest temptation is to forget the Jordan, and our baptism, when we are in the wilderness. The biggest temptation is to let go of what we know by heart when we are famished. And with the tempter’s help, that unconditional promise “You are my beloved” gets replaced with temptation. We hear the worlds’ voice, “If you are the one God loves, prove it. Earn it. Show you deserve it.”

 This is the sin that haunts us: to let the tempter convince us that God’s love is conditional and not absolute and without condition. To let the tempter convince us being God’s beloved is something we must prove, not something we are.

 It all comes back to this morning’s story: the great temptation, when we are famished and empty, and so afraid, that we must prove to others and to ourselves what we already know. It is God’s promise to us, “You are my child, my beloved. I am so pleased with you.”

 It is not an accident Matthew places this story of temptation immediately after Jesus’ story of baptism.

 What a different world it might be, if we saw the wilderness that lies between being filled and being famished.

 What a different Lent it might be, if we made no other promises to one another than to remember our baptisms, and be thankful.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

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02 March 2014 “Fearing Jesus?” Matthew 17:1-9

02 March 2014                      “Fearing Jesus?”                            Matthew 17:1-9

  What is it about having a police car following too close? Why do we automatically feel the sweat when we get the letter saying we owe more money to the IRS than we thought? Who knows what drives our nerves when late at night there is that knock on the door?

 We are adults, we know the presence or absence of a car, a letter, a knock should not evoke full on panic no matter how close, how much, or how loud. But we are human after all and easily confused, so when life gets too close, or too much, or loud our eyes and our attention are fully fixed on the situation at hand.

When we are afraid there is something about how our attention becomes so, well, attentive! It is as if we have a built in survival response system that becomes fully alert and our senses fix in rapt attention. Survival, and anxiety, and fear all play into this system.

  We can only imagine how Peter, James, and his brother John must have felt. The day began innocently enough. They had gone with Jesus, whom they trusted completely, up one of those high mountains he was always dragging them to. They were alone there with him when suddenly and unexpectedly Jesus was radically changed in physical appearance. They could not believe their eyes. They were fixed in rapt attention.

  “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” Just as suddenly, Moses and Elijah appeared to them and began talking with Jesus.  I can imagine the panic and screams, “Where did these guys come from? What is going on? Should we run or what?”

 Peter, wanting to make sense of what was happening, offers to build something. How about a place out of the sun, and the wind, and the extreme conditions for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah?  A classic boy trying to fix what was obviously broken response.

 Then, Bam, while he was speaking, God shows up! God showed up in the form of a bright cloud. From that cloud God spoke, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased, listen to him!”

 Peter, James, and John were laid out on the ground after this. The red lights were flashing and the siren was loud. They were overcome with a fear they never thought possible. Admittedly, anyone with any sensibility would experience fear like never before.

 How could these relatively new apostles, who were still trying to understand who Jesus was, hear what God was saying in the midst of such chaos and terror? They must have thought their world had come to an end. Actually, that is exactly what was happening.

 Being Jesus disciple ends our world as we know it! How could anyone possibly be safe following Jesus up any mountain or anywhere else for that matter after this? Lord, we want desperately to follow you, but we do not want to die in the process. At least not until we understand who you really are.

 Isn’t that the key? Our ultimate safety depends on our understanding who Jesus truly is, and who we will become in return, when we live our life listening to him and accepting his call to come and follow.

 So, we try. We try and process it all. We are Presbyterians after all. We can figure this out. Jesus underwent a metamorphosis. His human nature began to be affected by his divine attributes. Moses and Elijah show themselves so we will know Jesus’ life is aligned with God’s law and God’s prophets. These were the folks Jesus was being compared to. Then God shows up. Ok, we can still do this!

 It was God, speaking from a bright cloud, who in the greatest love for his Son, clothed him with glory and encouraged him with a bracing re-affirmation of his continued love. “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased.”

 Good, this is good!  God says this so Jesus will be comforted and will get up and not be afraid of his fast approaching agony, there, on the cross. God says this so Jesus and the apostles will not be afraid for God is a God of love. Jesus and the apostles need not remain overcome to the point of falling down in their life because when God shows up we can have courage, our God is a God of hope.

 Then God tells us, listen to my Son, my beloved, listen to his teaching about who I am so you will know who you are to be.

So, we try. This story is a foretaste, a glimpse into our future. The one where we will be receiving God’s love, receiving God’s grace, receiving God’s peace and then, the most changing thing of all, we will be giving it all away. The gifts and our very lives.

 Truly, we must be prepared for the shock to our system and our life when we finally begin to sense the power of who our God is. Our shock will be immediate and sudden when we truly know God. Yet, just as suddenly, Jesus will respond to calm us because he cares for us. This is the blessed news that is at the heart of the Christian life. Our discipleship will be daunting, but Jesus calms us because he loves us.

  But we are human after all and we need calming reminders.  Our lives take us often to the abyss and over it in small ways and large. We know fear and angst and like the apostles our brains revert to a fight or flight or hide mentality. This may be normal, but it is in no way a comfort.

 Jesus, our Jesus, lives with us in human normalcy and brings Godly comfort to his demands on our lives, the narrow way to which he calls us, the cross we take up to follow him. He walks with us when we are afraid and lost for we do not really know the way. But Jesus does. He assures us, I am the way, and the truth, and the light.

  So we come to worship. We come knowing if we have but a glimpse of Jesus, if we do feel the warmth of his presence, we will have to give up any notions that our life will be normal.  We have had glimpses enough to know that when the Holy Spirit really gets ahold of us, well, we cannot get enough of that same spirit. When we begin to live in holy union with Jesus, we want more, until we are consumed with his being in our lives and ours in his and no other way to live will do.

 As Methodist pastor William Willimon says, “Church is about the possibility of a threatening, though life-changing encounter with the Risen Christ. Church is about seeing God’s way and will in our world – a way so very different from our ways – and then having to say yes or no to walking that way.”

  So we walk with him. We walk with him because this story this morning about the total change of Jesus’ countenance before his disciples there on yet another mountaintop opens us to God speaking God’s truth and it is for each of us.

  So, we try. We try, remembering the wise counsel we have received. We cannot escape the light God sheds on our path. We cannot escape God, Immanuel among us. God will find us in our homes and in our work places. God will find us when our hearts are broken and when we discover joy. God will find us when we run away from God and when we are sitting in the middle of what seems like hell. So get up and be not afraid.

 Get up and be not afraid and share this radiant hope with the world and follow Christ. Get up and be not afraid for Jesus is the Son of God. He is the beloved and with him God is well pleased.

 What then is this way we are to live? We are to love the Lord our God. We are to love our neighbor. We are to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.

  Live this way and God will say of us, “These too are my beloved; with them I am well pleased.”

 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen                                                    030214.gpc