26 January 14 “Follow me” Matthew 4:12-23

26 January 14                       “Follow me”                  Matthew 4:12-23

 As Jesus wanders into the Galilee region we notice the people who lived their seemed like pretty good folk. They were going about their business of going about their business. Galilee was not the hot bed of civil disobedience in the Ancient Near Eastern world. The Galileans were not heading out to the lyceum to hear Jesus teach, they were not heading out to the temple to hear him preach, they were not struggling with a call in their lives to be faithful disciples of anyone. They were simply going about their lives. Sure, there were lots of rumors of prophet’s around.  But that was not unusual.

 What they mainly wanted to do was fish and grow their crops, tend their orchards, raise their sheep and goats, and enjoy the wife and kids looking forward to the weekend, just like us. Well, perhaps I try and read more into their lives than I should. But you get the picture. They were everyday folk. How could they have known Jesus, the Son of God, the one whose life was about unusual things, was about to change all that.

 Jesus is called by God to their villages to fulfill what Isaiah had prophesied, “By the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles – the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and in the shadow of death, light has dawned.”

 What is striking about this location for the light which will dawn upon the world of darkness and death is that God sent his son Jesus not to the Jerusalem aristocracy, but to the simple folk, the masses of everyday people of Galilee, a mixed Gentile-Jewish population.

 This was the region where Jesus lived and these were the folk he intended to save. Here in Galilee, Jesus showed mercy, he comforted, he healed, and he sought to save the lost. It was here he began gathering his disciples as he proclaimed, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” It is here Jesus finds his disciples and says to them, “follow me.”

 One of the particularly appealing things about the way Jesus chooses his disciples is he does not hold tryouts. He takes them from everyday life. If they are fishermen, when Jesus calls, they will fish for men. If they are in business, when Jesus calls, they will be in business to show folk the way to Christ. If they are teachers, and Jesus calls, they will teach the good news of Jesus Christ. If they are home makers, and Jesus calls, they will make a home for those who would follow Jesus.

 Because of this, we cannot make excuses that we do not have the skill set to attract other people to Jesus. Jesus calls us to use exactly the life we are living this very moment as our way to show people what it is like to be a disciple of Christ. That is why God made us the way we are. We are good and when we live the right way, we honor God with our life.

  Jesus said, “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea,    the light has come and now it is time to share that light with the world.” Jesus’ light has come and the truth we must face this morning is we might have been devising cleaver ways to extinguish it ever since.

  Last Sunday we heard Jesus ask us, “What are you looking for?” If we dare say we are looking for Jesus we know what a dangerous proposition we put ourselves in. If Jesus shows up in our lives and we follow him we lose ourselves as the center of our universe. We lose our intentions for career and fame and fortune and risk living like no other. We find we are expected to bring peace, and justice, and love to the world and we resist.

 While we all want those things, we do not want to be the one who gives up our life for them. Bearing the light of Jesus Christ to the world, bringing the kingdom of heaven near, well, for our Sunday afternoon we have something easier in mind.

 Could it be that the gospel is right this morning, we know we are called to a life of discipleship, and, as we look around at our world, we know we are the ones who keep ourselves from fulfilling our true calling? Are we truly the ones who devise all sorts of ways to extinguish the light of God in our lives?

 Are we like the Corinthians Paul spoke to? Have we aligned ourselves with whomever has come to baptize us rather than with Christ? Do we feel our worth has been given to us by our parents, our schools, our work, our community of friends, our accomplishments? Where then is the true and real self God created us to be?

 We find our answer here. We have come to the right place to be set on the right road, the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.  Actually, this is the only place we could be.

 Here we come to know the truth. Oh, sure, our families and society  will be truthful and forthright and quick to set us on a better road. But it is here, where Jesus has come, that we will hear the truth about how we can shine in the darkened world we inhabit.

 The gospel challenges us asking, “What are you looking for?” Jesus boldly challenged us to come and see. Come and see where Jesus is and who Jesus is and who we are to become and how the world is to know the kingdom of heaven. It is only when we make this move to Jesus that God’s kingdom has a chance.

  For Jesus expects us to follow him as did Simon Peter and Andrew, James and his brother John. Like us, they could only guess where they were going. They were radically changed, and we know their story.

 Stories of lives forever changed also abound in this sanctuary. Knowing who you were and who you have become could you have ever scripted your life to turn out this way? Only Jesus of course could. He alone knew about us and our potential.

 With those fishermen Jesus intruded upon their lives no less than the Holy Spirit intruded upon his at his baptism. Once so targeted, so intruded upon, Jesus returned the favor with those disciples. We can only guess where we are going now.

 Being a follower, a believer, a faithful disciple has indeed brought us to a new life, a new openness, a new understanding. Our life is certainly more than our own. So, we come each day to the one whom we love, the one who has given us hope and richness and blessings. Even as life struggles remain. We come with assurance for the good news of our eternal light. We come knowing God has something to say to us.

 We are not called to be something we think we should be. We are not called to be wealthy, successful, good looking, smart, to lead an exciting life. We are called to believe and be faithful, to love God, and love people, and follow Jesus, even being a Jesus Christ Christian.

  It is Jesus who is going places and we have been called to go with him.

 But, we continue to resist, we close God out from our lives. We want to be left alone, to our own devices. So we revert to our base self. We begin to compromise values, abandon life long good habits, showing no concern for others in what we do and say.

 We return to vices long forgotten. Gluttony, selfishness, mean spirited relationships, unchecked sin. Oh, if we were living in Old Testament times we might well predict the wrath of God.

 But we are not living in those times, we are living in ours, and we have been called by God to follow Jesus. So we try again. We give up our selfish lives to be faithful to our calling as friend, as neighbor, as spouse, as parent, as child in a family, as home maker, as bread winner. We do not worry about the ‘what might have been’ in our lives.

 In a story by Tom Wright in “Matthew for Everyone” he asks, “Why do Christians in millions of other walks of life regularly give up lifestyles and practices that look attractive and lucrative in order to maintain honesty, integrity, faith, hope and love?

 The answer, he says, can only be in Jesus himself, and in the astonishing magnetism of his presence and personality. Sometimes his call comes slowly, starting like a faint murmur and growing until we can no longer ignore it. Sometime he calls people as suddenly and dramatically as he called Peter and Andrew.

 When that happen to us, by whatever means and at whatever pace, we will know; Jesus has a way of getting through, and whatever we are engaged with, somehow we will be sufficiently aware of his presence and call to know what it is we’re being asked to do.

 At least we will know we are being asked to follow him. We will not necessarily know where it is all going to lead, and we would not perhaps be quite so eager if we did.”

 Christ always starts with us where we are in our lives. Our job is to let Jesus be Jesus, and be faithful immediate followers. If we will hang out with Jesus, he will do the rest.

 Hanging out with Jesus will make all the difference in our lives. Light will dawn and that light from us will help God bring peace, make justice, and show love to the world.

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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19 January 14 “God Gets Personal” John 1:29-42

19 January 14              “God Gets Personal”                     John 1:29-42

   “Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

  My world is filled with rich stories this week. The stories began Monday at seminary. There are nine pastors in the class I am taking. I have heard the stories of congregations in Austin, El Paso and Athens, Texas. York, Nebraska and Ann Arbor, Michigan and Mountain Home, Arkansas and Grambier, Ohio and Erie, Pennsylvania. They are rich stories of churches small and large, young and old, struggling and thriving.  One great constant is the passion in the voices of the pastors telling their story.

 Perhaps John had a similar passion as he spoke of Jesus being the Lamb of God. Perhaps that is why he spoke in the present tense saying he is taking away the sin of the world now!  Perhaps that is why he tells his disciples twice, this man, Jesus, he is the Lamb of God. They finally understand. They get it. Jesus really is the Lamb of God. Their only possible response is to follow him.

  Jesus notices. He then asks these disciples of John what seems to be the wrong question. He does not say, “Why are you following me?” He asks instead “What are you looking for?” Not “why” but “what.” For their part they answer with a “where.” “Rabbi, where are you staying?”

 Where are you staying? In the Greek, the world for “stay” (meno) is used in this gospel to emphasize the unbreakable relationship between Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, and God’s people. The question, “Where are you staying?” means “what are we supposed to make of you?” or perhaps “Where do you belong?”  Jesus response is, “Come and see.”

 John knows something others do not. John sees something others do not. With that knowledge he testifies to who Jesus is. He is not preaching sermons or dire warnings. He is a simple man who is “not the light.” His purpose is to bear testimony to the light. He is no prophet. His is a “voice crying in the wilderness.” This first simple verse in Jesus’ story is from this weak, fragile, insubstantial voice pointing to this Holy Other saying, “Here is the Lamb of God.”

 Where Jesus belongs in our lives is a key to understanding what faith in Jesus entails. It is not so much a matter of thinking as doing – and not doing so much as being and witnessing.

  If we will come and see what new story Jesus has for our lives, we will find he has come to make us be more holy, more fully human, more like him.  Of course, to be more like Jesus is inherently fraught with danger.

 It is one thing to be a conservative Christian, or to be a Presbyterian Christian. It is another thing to be a Jesus Christ Christian.  To be a Jesus Christ Christian puts pressure on us to live a life worthy of the name.  We might make it as a conservative or a Presbyterian. But to be more holy, and more fully human like the human Jesus?  Perhaps this story requires more faith than we can witness to this morning. Yet, here it is.

  The novelist Kathleen Norris tells the story of a young woman who attended an interfaith conference at St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota.  The speakers were monastics from the Christian and Zen Buddhist traditions, as well as an Islamic scholar who seemed impressed with the hospitality of her Benedictine hosts. Instead of the hostile questioning she often receives in America she was simply asked to share her story. What had she seen in Islam that attracted her?

  She had been raised as a Christian, as had the Buddhists, but had begun to explore Islam as a graduate student in Paris.  Her endeavor began not so much as an intellectual pursuit as it was a response to what she witnessed in the lives of the Africans who were her fellow students.

  Appalled at the daily insults and discrimination they received as blacks and Muslims, she was astonished at their ability to endure such persecution with dignity and without bitterness. They attributed their perseverance under pressure to their Muslim faith, and that caused her to take a closer look, to go and see.

  Another speaker was a French Benedictine who reported on the long standing exchange program that French monastics have with Japanese Zen Buddhists. He said that after one Buddhist had been in the monastery for about a month he had only one question. It seemed to him the monks did not live very well. They worked hard, their food was neither good, nor plentiful, and they did not get much sleep. “Yet they are joyful,” he said, “and I want to know, from where does this joy come?” Come and see.

  There is also the story of a fascinating place in France were people go seeking a spirit filled experience with God. People make pilgrimages to this place because the worship experience is said to be different and there is something about the place and the music and the experience that seems refreshing and filled with the presence of God.

 It is called the Taize’ community. To get there you take a plane and a bus and then another bus, traveling for several days because Taize is way out in the country and not exactly easy to find. You have to really want to go there. Once you arrive the brothers welcome you with gracious, yet simple hospitality, show you to your bunk, and invite you to join them in the daily rhythms of their life together, all of which revolve around worship. The community gathers three times a day in the Abbey for morning, midday, and evening prayer, and in between, there are bible studies, chores, and time for quiet meditation. But worship is the thing.

 The meals are Spartan, the showers are cold, the bunkhouses unheated, but your hardly notice; the air is luminous and filled with chanting. The community is filled with people, each of them seeking something, just as we are this morning, seeking something. The brothers at Taize are prepared just for this, people on pilgrimage, seeking something worthwhile for their lives.

 A familiar bible study is from our John passage with its question from verse 38: “What are you looking for?” The brother leading the group asks the folk gathered how Jesus might be addressing each of them with these same words. “Perhaps you have come here looking for something,” he observes quietly. What might it be?

  The next day John was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said again, “Look, here is the Lamb of God?” These two heard him, they heard him proclaim the Word of God is here with us, and they in turn followed Jesus.

  Isn’t that why we come to worship each Sunday, to have a glimpse of the Lamb of God? To see if the story is true. To hear again Jesus turned and saw them following him. To remember, before Jesus can turn to us, he wants to be sure we are turned to him.

  The brothers at Taize know to ask this same question for it is the question the world asks. In the gentle brothers question we should ask ourselves, how might Jesus be addressing us with these words this morning?

  Our answer may be simple, yet essential. Perhaps we have come looking for a moment’s peace, a time to clear away the cobwebs in our minds and let a little light in, to find comfort in a singular truth that brings order out of chaos, to gather ourselves to find the energy for the rest of our lives.

 Yes, Jesus noticed the disciples of John following him, and his answer to his own question was for those who follow him to “come and see” where he stands in the world. To “come and see” what it means that this Jesus, our Christ, is the Lamb of God and that we are his followers, Jesus Christ Christians.

  It really takes a great deal of courage on our parts to enter into this sanctuary each Sunday, to come to worship in expectation of actually looking for and finding God. Once found we become a new creation. We become the church, full of flawed folk who bear the name Christian.

Isaiah has told us: listen, pay attention. The psalmist asks: did you ever find the strength to sing a new song when you were in the pit? Or perhaps we are standing neck deep in the muddy stream of life and have discovered there the river of life.  

  Brothers and sisters in Christ, isn’t that why we come? To become a new creation. To become a Jesus Christ Christian. To become one with God, one another, and the world. But aren’t we a little afraid of who we might become in this new creation and what we might do?  

One of my classmates told the story of being with a friend and mentor one evening after a meeting. Walking out to their car a man came up to them asking for change for a bus ticket. Before the man finished his story my classmate’s friend was reaching into this wallet to give the man a twenty dollar bill. The man was surprised. He had not finished telling his story. His testimony was incomplete.

 As they walked on my classmate asked his friend, what just happened there? He said, “If I want to be more generous, I have to be generous.”

 If we are going to bring peace, do justice, love kindness, feed the hungry, heal the sick, love one another, walk humbly with our God, we need to be peaceful, do justice, love kindness, feed the hungry, heal the sick, love one another, and walk humbly with our God.

This is good news for us every day of our lives, no matter how we feel our life is going, no matter how long it has been that we have been trying to know what we want in life. In the end, it does not matter how we answer our question, whatever it may be.

 Because the only way to answer life is to come and see our Lamb of God. The only way to be a Jesus Christ Christian is to then contribute a verse to this human story. What will your verse be?

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen                                              011914.gpc

12 January 14 “Miraculous Baptism” Matthew 3:13-17

12 January 14              “Miraculous Baptism”                     Matthew 3:13-17

   There is a push and pull in the beginning of Matthew’s gospel this morning.  Jesus has come from Galilee to be baptized by John. But, John says to Jesus, “No way I am going to baptize you, you need to be baptizing me.” Then Jesus pushes back. “Come on John, give in, you have to baptize me. It is the only way for all righteousness to be fulfilled.”

 We may find ourselves taking John’s side in this argument. After all, this is Jesus, and John knew him to be the promised messiah, the savior of the world. How could John be the one baptizing the savior of the world? Jesus is the one anointed by God to bring about the kingdom of God. Jesus will solve all the problems in our lives and of this world and, with John, we are more than ready for that to happen.

Christmas has passed, the New Year has come, and we are still in a state of shock and recovery. From our pocketbooks, to our waist line, to our need to just get our house and our lives back in order, and into some semblance of normalcy and peace. Please let Jesus come and take over.

 Jesus has come and Jesus is Lord and John wants to hand his life over to Jesus as do we. But Jesus has another idea. He wants to hand his life to John and to us. Can’t Jesus tell we are exhausted?

 Perhaps that is the point.  Charles Allen sees Jesus saying to John, “I have come, not in wrath, not with magical solutions to your problems, or the worlds problems, but to put my very life in your hands, to plunge my very self into your hopes, and into your fears, and into your life celebrations.” And into your exhaustion.

 The good news for us this Sunday of the Baptism of the Lord is that Jesus gets his way. We are joined in a common life with the living Lord, Jesus, our Christ. That common life with Jesus took on new meaning when God  baptized us into Jesus’ life and brought into ours the Holy Spirit. In the ebb and flow of life, the highs and the lows, the good and the bad, the joy filled and the sad, we are occupied.

 As Augustine wrote, in Jesus, Lady Wisdom came to a place where she already was, to become not only our home, but our way home.

 Our way home. God is present in us and it is time we immerse our lives into God’s. All of it. Hopes, fears, celebrations, and exhaustions. That immersion wraps us in Jesus’ love, a love we can then give away. Given away so that others may know joy, hope, God’s grace and peace. We need not get bogged down worrying about the past or fretting about the future or being in recovery. God is interested in us as we are, not as we would prefer to be.

 Thomas Kelly has written, “Between the relinquished past and the un-trodden future stands this holy Now, whose bulk has swelled to cosmic size, for within the Now is the dwelling place of God.”

  Richard Hooker adds, “It pleased Christ in mercy to account himself incomplete and maimed without us.”

  John did not hesitate when he saw Jesus standing ready to be baptized. “I need to be baptized by you,” he said. Jesus did not hesitate either. He knew what we needed more than anything was John’s help, “Let it be so now, that you baptize me, for it is necessary that we do it this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

 It is Jesus intention that we understand that only through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension can we be faithful to Gods right will or way for us to live in the Kingdom of God. Otherwise, we live solely in this place and time without a savior.

 We know the implications of living on our own. To whom will we turn when we feel lost, forgotten, needing healing and love? To whom will we turn for the confession of our sins? To whom will we turn for forgiveness and for salvation? Truthfully, we need to be saved from our human condition.

 True to his calling, John was obedient. When Jesus had been baptized, just as he came out of the water, the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove to rest in him. Then that voice from heaven, “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

 Seminary professors caution to never try and interpret scripture in isolation of facts. Many of you know, or have heard me say before, doves do not descend and flutter down. Doves swoop, and they are fast. They do not just hover and lightly descend. They can dive like a hawk.  With this image in mind one professor speculates that Jesus just might have been the Holy Spirits prey!

 This certainly changes the way we look at Jesus’ baptism! He was not descended upon gently. He was targeted for baptism by the Holy Spirit, and so are we.

 If we get a bit sluggish about being with God, well, God puts us in the path of this swooping Holy Spirit. You see God has chosen us for great things. True, we are not called to be the savior of the world. But, equally true, God has something great in store for each of us. We are here to love one another, to care for those needing our care. To show the world who Christ is. To glorify God and be pleasing to God.

  The model for surprise is before us. Jesus needed John, and Jesus needs you and me. We are made in the image of God, and whether we want it or not, God created us and God loves us and God’s greatest desire is that we be the example of God’s grace to the world, that we live our entire lives with God. Not on our terms, but on God’s terms.

  A powerful story about God’s terms bears repeating. You may remember the story. It is from Steven Vryhof.  He says, “One Sunday morning, years ago, I entered a Lutheran church in a small village on the coast of Sweden. Perhaps because of the early hour, or the lure of a beautiful summer morning, or the effects of state-run Lutheranism, there were only fourteen congregants gathered. The minister was a slender, blonde lad who had to be fresh out of seminary. I struggled with the Swedish hymns and the Lutheran tendency to stand to pray and sit to sing, the opposite of what I was used to. I joined the others at the front railing for communion, taking the bread and the wine, then returned to my seat.

 While the minister, his back to us, was putting away the elements, a parishioner, a middle-aged woman, returned to the front, this time pushing an old woman, presumably her mother, in a wheelchair. She was here for communion.

 There was an awkward minute as we all waited for the minister to notice the two waiting at the railing. He finally did turn, realized the situation, and proceeded to retrieve the elements. He carefully administered the bite of bread and the sip of wine to the old woman. Then he paused, and I held my breath, because I knew what was going to happen next. The young minister looked at the old woman, physically a wreck of a human being, and he said to her the most important words that one human being can say to another human being. The minister locked his eyes to hers and said, “Our Lord Jesus Christ, whose body and blood you have received, preserve your soul unto everlasting life.”

  At that precise moment, the bells of the church started pealing, ringing and resonating and resounding and reverberating through the church and through me, making the hair on the back of my head stand up. Heaven touched earth and it seemed that Our Lord Jesus Christ himself was saying, “Yes, I will do that!” I will preserve your soul unto everlasting life!

 Then the Father and the Spirit joined the Son, and using words given to Julian of Norwich, the Triune God proclaimed loudly over the ringing of the bells, “I may make all things well and I can make all things well, and I shall make all things well, and I will make all things well, and you will see yourself that every kind of thing in your life will be well!”.

Our souls have been preserved by God unto everlasting life. Our lives have been targeted, we are the Holy Spirit’s prey. We can, with the assurance of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, submit to the inevitable, we are indeed in a state of recovery this morning, but not from Christmas past.

 We are in a state of recovery from ourselves. Yet, we have the assurance that in his baptism Jesus, who was himself sinless, did have sin, ours. He was baptized, washing away our sin. He was crucified, washing away our sin. He was raised from the dead and ascended unto heaven taking us with him. Because we are forever loved, forgiven and saved.

 This New Year, this Sunday of the baptism of the Lord, Jesus pulls us from our lonely recovery efforts to assure us he will always be here with us, to care for us, and to help us, and to love us.

 Heaven now touches earth and Jesus whispers to us, “Yes, I will do that!”

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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