Turn: Pause, Listen, and Follow Jesus

Sermon for Sunday, April 7, 2024
"Walking the Way of Love" preaching series

As we begin this sermon series about Walking the Way of Love, I want to share a story from a long time ago now, when Ann and the kids and I were in seminary in Austin. 

It was my senior year, and Ann had been hospitalized for several weeks.  I was doing field education at a parish there – the time when you get a little foretaste of what life is like as a priest.  Another student, who had just begun her time at the seminary, was doing the first-year students’ version of field ed at the same congregation.  This other student was blind, and I got to know her by being her ride to our field-ed parish.  She’d had a strong vocation even before coming to seminary, having made her way through law school and practiced as an attorney for several years.  I can’t imagine the dedication and talent it took for her to overcome all that she’d overcome to be a lawyer … and now she was starting professional training all over again to follow her calling as a priest.  On one of our rides back to the seminary, I said all that to her – how much I admired her strength, and resolve, and commitment as she headed down this new vocational path.  She said, “Well, you know, this isn’t just about professional dedication.  I’ve come to see that following Jesus Christ pretty much means everything to me.  So, this isn’t a career transition.  I stake my life on this.”

So much for the wise senior encouraging the new seminarian. 

I didn’t realize it at the time, with Ann lying in the hospital and our path rather foggy, but this was a turning point for me – not in the sense of changing my direction but in the sense of understanding it.  As I said last week – for me, going to seminary had felt like more like a change in career than a change in identity.  But in that semester when I had no idea what was coming next for Ann and the kids and me, and as I was relying so deeply on our families and the seminary community to get us through, I heard this other student’s witness and thought, “What do you know?  That call to follow Christ in the darkness – that’s my call, too.  It turns out, I am staking my life on this.”  And though I haven’t spoken to this other student since I graduated and now can’t even remember her name, I’m very grateful for how clearly she could see where God was leading her and for how deeply she trusted in that.

In this sermon series about Walking the Way of Love, our first step is “turn.”  Now, in our Baptismal Covenant, those promises we renew at every baptism and confirmation, we frame this step in terms of repentance, turning from sin and evil; and that’s certainly part of our journey.  But turning can be much less dramatic yet even more life-changing.  And, as a spiritual practice, turning happens more often than we might think.  In fact, as we walk Jesus’ Way of Love across our lives, I think we come to one turning point after another.

In the Gospel reading today, we got to hear about a famous turning point involving the much-maligned disciple Thomas.  Now, when you hear that name, what descriptive word always comes before it?  Right – “doubting Thomas.”  Well, that’s just unfair; he wasn’t the only one struggling to believe in resurrection.  All the other disciples were hiding out on Easter night, scared to death about what the religious authorities might do to them, having crucified their leader.  They had the doors locked and the lamps burning low … despite the fact that Mary Magdalene had told them what she’d seen that morning – that Jesus had risen, and was walking around, and was telling her to go share the news.  The disciples had an eyewitness, and two of them – Peter and John – had gone to see the empty tomb for themselves.  But there they all were, with the doors locked, paralyzed in fear.  So, who was doing the doubting?

Anyway, they were then blessed to witness the risen Christ for themselves, as his transformed and transfigured physical body passed through the locked door.  He gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Pentecost moment in the Gospel of John; and he empowered them to bear his peace and his power of forgiveness to the world. 

Unfortunately, Thomas missed it.  And when the rest of the disciples told him what happened, he reacted just like they’d reacted to Mary Magdalene:  “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe,” Thomas said (John 20:25).  Bookmark that last word, “believe,” because we’ll come back to it. 

But for now, the story then jumps ahead seven days to the next Sunday, when Thomas is back; and the risen Jesus again walks through the locked door and stands with them.  It’s not just a courtesy call.  Jesus has come to give Thomas precisely what he needs.  “Put your finger here and see my hands,” Jesus says, letting Thomas “see” the way little kids need to see things, by touching them.  “Reach out your hand and put it in my side.  Do not doubt but believe.” (20:27)

Press “pause” there for a minute, and let’s think about that word, “believe.”  We postmodern folks don’t use it like ancient people would’ve used it.  If you ask me, “Do you believe in the resurrection?” you’re probably asking, “Do you think that Jesus really was dead, and that God really raised him from death, and that Jesus really experienced bodily life again?”  In other words, do you think it’s factually true?  For the record, the answer is “yes,” but that’s not the point.  The point is that when the writer of John’s Gospel used the Greek word pistos, which we translate as “believe,” it meant much more than just thinking something’s true.  And when the bishops of the early Church got together in Nicaea and consolidated the faith of the Jesus movement into a creed and began its three sections with a Greek word we translate as “We believe,” it meant much more than just thinking something’s true.  For the ancients, believing something wasn’t just acknowledging its veracity.  Believing something meant trusting in it, setting your heart on it, guiding your life by it.

So, back to Jesus and Thomas.  “See my hands and my feet,” Jesus says.  “Do not doubt but … trust in this.  Set your heart on this.  Guide your life by this.  Because resurrection happens.”

And Thomas turns.  As he walks the Way of Love, Thomas comes to a crucial moment, a cross in the road, where he sees where he’s heading and sets his face toward it.  “My Lord and my God!” he exclaims (20:28).  Now, the verb there matters.  Thomas “exclaims,” not “explains.”  There is nothing logical about Thomas’ turning point.  His logic was sound right up until Jesus walked through a locked door.  It made all the sense in the world – all the worldly sense – for Thomas to say, “Dead people don’t walk into the room and start talking.  I’d have to see that to believe it.”  Wouldn’t we? 

Jesus knows this – which is why I don’t hear him chiding Thomas at all for not setting his heart on something he hasn’t experienced.  Jesus is simply inviting Thomas to look and see precisely what Thomas said he needed to see … and then set his heart on it.  And Thomas responds with the single clearest ascription of divine authority any character in John’s Gospel ever speaks about Jesus.  He isn’t just the rabbi anymore.  He isn’t just the king of Israel anymore.  He’s “my Lord” – in Greek, kyrios, the same word used for the Roman Emperor – and he’s “my God.”  God has been crucified, and has risen, and is walking through locked doors to find Thomas. 

And the call to us?  As today’s step in Walking the Way of Love puts it:  “Turn – pause, listen, and choose to follow Jesus.”  In other words, notice what God’s up to in your life.  Notice how it might be precisely what you need in order to set your heart on this illogical and transforming reality.  It’s the risen Christ who called a blind attorney to turn in a new direction and trust in a new path.  It’s the risen Christ who called a lost seminarian to trust in friends and family and a parish yet to come, all of whom would show that the Spirit could carry him far better than he could carry himself.  It’s the risen Christ who comes to find us when we pause, and listen, and choose to follow – when we say, “You know, actually, I stake my life on this.”

Walk the Way of Love

Sermon for Easter, March 31, 2024
John 20:1-18

If you were scrolling through Netflix looking for something to stream, and you came upon this chapter of the Easter story, the show’s summary might go something like this: Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb and meets Jesus, risen from the dead. 

Short and sweet – and pretty spectacular, actually, with Jesus vanquishing the power of death and walking out of his own tomb.  But there’s a lot more to the story than that.  In fact, I’d say, this is a complicated story, one with people straining to see in the dark, running away in fear, running forward in faith, and being sent somewhere they don’t really understand.  Sounds like my spiritual journey … maybe yours, too.

Mary Magdalene’s Easter journey starts in ancient darkness.  In our mind’s eye, we see paintings or movie scenes of Jesus stepping out of the tomb with sunlight streaming everywhere; but John’s Gospel sets the scene this way:  “While it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb” (20:1).  So, Mary begins where most of us begin, unless we’re lucky enough to have some burning-bush moment of spiritual awakening.  She’s just trying to move forward, trying to find light in her deepest darkness.

So, what’s she doing there at the tomb in that darkest hour before the dawn?  Unlike Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John’s version of the story doesn’t say she was there with other women to attend to the body.  She’s not bringing burial spices or ointments; she’s bringing something far more valuable – herself, in her grief, simply aching for the love in which she’d invested everything.

As Mary offers herself this way, immediately she finds something deeply upsetting, the last thing she’d expect:  She sees that the stone sealing the tomb had been removed.  Life does that, doesn’t it? – springing surprises on us, usually ones we don’t want.  But God also does that, surprising us with blessings we’d have never imagined.  At this point, Mary doesn’t know which kind of surprise this is.

“So, she ran and went to … Peter and the other disciple … and said, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve laid him’” (1:2).  For Mary, this surprise feels like salt in Good Friday’s wound.  Not only have the authorities killed her friend, spiritual leader, and messiah; but someone – the Romans or the religious authorities – someone has stolen the body.  God knows what they’ll do with it – drag it through the streets or dangle it from the city wall as a sign of what happens to people who stand up to entrenched power. 

So, Peter and John come running to the tomb.  They react like we might:  Whether the news is horrific or miraculous, they’ve got to see it for themselves.  John just looks into the tomb, poking in a torch to see if the desecrated body’s crumpled in the corner.  But Peter charges in, setting aside the creepiness (and ritual defilement) of exploring an occupied tomb.  Peter’s got extra skin in this game, given that he holds himself responsible after denying Jesus three times.  His grief tells him to experience this reality for himself. 

Peter and John don’t find answers, but they do find evidence – bloody linens tossed aside.  So, what to make of it?  Peter’s guilt keeps him from seeing anything but the physical evidence.  But John “went in, and he saw and believed” (20:8).  I’ve always envied people like John, folks who can let go of suspicion or trauma or guilt, and just open their hearts to hope.  

But then, the guys “returned to their homes” (John 20:10) – and we hear nothing more about them until later that night, where we’ll pick up the story next Sunday.  Even John, who’s blessed to believe, doesn’t yet know what to do with it.

Meanwhile, as the guys investigated, Mary was “weeping outside the tomb”; and now she looks in, too (20:11).  And she’s blessed with a vision the guys didn’t receive: two angels, sitting on the slab where the body had been.  Well, thank God, she’s thinking; now come the answers, right?  But instead, even the miraculous vision just offers more questions:  “Woman, why are you weeping?” the angels ask (20:13).  “Really?  Why do you think I’m weeping?”  Who knew heavenly messengers could be so obtuse?  Mary’s too upset to ponder deep questions; she just wants to know what happened to the one on whom she’d set her heart.  

Then she turns around and sees someone – not realizing, in the ancient darkness, that it’s Jesus.  She thinks it’s the maintenance man; and when he asks her what’s wrong, she does everything she can to keep from screaming at him.  But then – you know, like God does – the least likely person in the scene turns out to have been Jesus all the time.  And he gives Mary far more than she could’ve hoped – not just assurance that the body hasn’t been stolen; not just proof that God has raised Jesus from the dead; but conviction that the living God, as the risen Christ, knows her by name – and wants her to be his instrument.   

Talk about a spiritual journey.  And all because Mary answered the longing she felt and bravely headed into the darkness, seeking light she knew was out there somewhere.

What about us this morning?  We’ve come to the empty tomb for one reason or another.  Maybe we follow in the footsteps of Mary Magdalene.  Maybe we’re struggling through the dark, not knowing what we’ll find, because something’s calling us, and we can’t stay where we are.  Or, maybe we follow in the footsteps of Peter.  Maybe we’re carrying our own baggage but we want to check out what we’ve heard about this empty tomb.  So we step in, and we see signs of life, and we think, “Well, maybe rising from the dead can happen after all.”  Or, maybe we follow in the footsteps of John.  Maybe we want to check out this empty tomb but we hang back a bit before we take a step inside.  Then we see the signs of life, and something clicks inside; and we say to ourselves, “I can’t explain this, but I know death is not the end of my story.  So, now what?”

There’s no one way to make a journey of faith.  We each come to it with our own blessings and our own baggage.  For some of us here this morning, our path has been pretty straightforward, maybe even boring.  That’s my story.  I was baptized in an Episcopal congregation in Springfield at 1 month old, and I went to that same church all through my childhood.  There was no question what we were doing on Sunday mornings.  So, I went to church – over and over again.  But there was no urgency in my relationship with God; it was more like knowing your grandmother is out there somewhere, loving you from a distance. 

Now, I stepped closer to God discerning a call to be a priest, but honestly it felt more like a potential career change than an existential moment.  But then, in seminary, as many of you know, my wife, Ann, got very sick, and nearly died, and spent two months in the hospital.  And I can see myself standing in the hospital parking lot with our daughter, Kathryn, stumbling to explain why all this was happening.  You haven’t lived until you try to tell your second grader why bad things happen to good people, like her mom.  I wasn’t so happy with God at that moment.  And that was just one dark night; I guarantee you there’ve been others over the past 22 years.  But God and I have kept at it, and the partnership is pretty good now.

For others of us here this morning, the spiritual journey has taken more twists.  Maybe your path has looked more like Mary’s:  You’d found some light that chased away the darkness, but then the darkness closed back in, maybe even took the upper hand.  So, you took the risk to confront it, but that just added insult to injury.  You looked for answers, but the people you turned to just left you with more questions.  Then, when you felt like you just might scream in frustration, somehow you heard God calling your name – maybe in whispers, maybe with a bullhorn.  But you looked a second time, and you saw life made new.

Or maybe your path has been more like Peter’s or John’s.  You’ve heard someone or felt something telling you that you need to give God a look.  Maybe it’s a second look, or maybe it’s for the first time; but somehow, the reality you’ve been living has shifted, and the old answers aren’t working anymore.  So, you go and investigate; you explore; and you see evidence that points toward hope.  So, you give it a shot.  You step into the empty tomb and try on resurrection like a new suit of clothes. 

And after that?  Well, maybe you’re Peter, and you need to go home, and think about it, and gather more evidence.  Or maybe you’re John, and you go home knowing God’s real – but not knowing what to do next.

Well, let me offer a thought about what to do next – whether you’re John or Peter or Mary Magdalene, or whether your path to the empty tomb has been entirely different.  Whether you’re trying on resurrection to see how it fits, or whether you’re wondering what to do with your faith, or whether you’re walking a path with Jesus right beside you, here’s something to try.

Make your life a pilgrimage.  Walk the way of love to find resurrection – nothing less than heaven on earth.

Now, that may sound stupidly obvious.  I mean, what else is the priest going to say, right?  But if “resurrection” feels like religious code language, think of it like this:  Love is God’s weapon and God’s way, and Jesus has used it to conquer everything that is not Love.  This is the deep truth of Easter:  Blessing defeats cursing.  Compassion defeats anger.  Listening defeats shouting.  Service defeats self-interest.  Honesty defeats mendacity.  Integrity defeats corruption.  Respect defeats hate.  In the Easter story, the religious authorities and the imperial rulers had every worldly power working for them.  And yet, the power of Love rises victorious over their curses and anger and shouting and self-interest and mendacity and corruption and hate.  And that power of Love rises victorious still.

For Love to keep winning, what it takes is our choice to walk that path – millions of hearts turning, and millions of feet following Jesus’ way.  How do you do it?  Just like any other journey or any other movement:  It happens one step at a time.

So, over the next seven weeks here, we’re inviting you to walk the way of Love.¹  Your starting point doesn’t matter, and your path will be unique.  But like a dance, this way of Love includes steps we share, even as we make them our own.  You’ll find them on the front of the bulletin, and on the website, and as our preaching series over the next couple of months.  Here’s how to live in resurrection – seven steps you can take to walk in Love: 

1.      Turn.  In other words, pause, listen, and choose to follow Jesus. 

2.      Rest.  In other words, receive the gift of God’s grace, peace, and restoration.

3.      Bless.  In other words, share love by unselfishly giving and serving. 

4.      Learn.  In other words, reflect on Scripture each day, especially on Jesus’ life and teachings. 

5.      Worship.  In other words, gather in community to thank, praise, and dwell with God. 

6.      Pray.  In other words, dwell intentionally with God daily. 

7.      Go.  In other words, cross boundaries, listen deeply, and live like Jesus. 

As a guide, there’s an online assessment you can take, called “My Way of Love.”²  You can access it through the website or the Messenger.  It will help you gauge where you are in your spiritual journey, and you can sign up for weekly emails offering tips related to each step.

Whoever you are – Mary, Peter, John, or someone entirely different – just know this:  Resurrection means Love wins.  The battle’s already been fought, and Jesus came out on top.  And now, he’d be honored to have you walking alongside him.

1.      https://www.episcopalchurch.org/way-of-love/

2.      https://www.episcopalchurch.org/way-of-love/my-way-of-love/

Love All the One Anothers

Sermon for Maundy Thursday, March 28, 2024
John 13:1-17,31b-35

If you’ve come to our Maundy Thursday worship before, you might be surprised to see me up here.  This is a preaching moment that calls for a deacon, not a priest, because of the uniquely servant-oriented ministry of the diaconate.  And we had planned to do that, as you’ll see with Deacon Adam’s name there in the bulletin.  But I wanted to reflect on a change we’re making in our Maundy Thursday worship this year, something that might make the liturgical purists grumble.

As you probably know, our service tonight focuses on two commands Jesus gave us – and it’s that sense of “command” that gives the day its name.  In Latin, it’s mandatum, from which we get our word “mandate.”  So, we might well call Maundy Thursday “command Thursday.”

One command we remember tonight is about the Eucharist: that, on the night he was betrayed, Jesus took the bread and wine from the Passover seder meal and imbued it with a new sense of God’s deliverance.  Just as it had symbolized God saving the Israelites from slavery and death under Pharoah, so Jesus made the bread and wine a sign of our eternal deliverance from the forces of sin and death.  The Old Covenant with Israel, that they would be God’s missionary presence to the nations, had grown into God’s New Covenant with all people – eternal life opened to everyone through Jesus giving himself up to conquer death.  “Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus said (Luke 22:19).  He tells us to do it because we need it.  It’s how we remember that life is so much more than what we make of it, day by day.

So, Holy Communion is one of Jesus’ commands we remember tonight.  The other is what we just heard about from John’s Gospel, the command to wash each other’s feet.  Jesus ties a towel around himself, and gets down on his knees, and does the last thing his friends would have expected:  He takes their worn and tired feet, hardened by countless steps in a culture that traveled on footpaths in sandals, and he washes them like a household servant would.  The meaning is even deeper than we’d imagine because, in that culture, the power differential between servant and master was ever-present.  Yes, Jesus was the disciples’ spiritual master, but all around them were actual masters with actual slaves, reinforcing the hierarchy and patriarchy of the Greco-Roman world.  So, Jesus puts himself in the slave’s place, something scandalous to everyone in the room.  Peter says it out loud: “You will never wash my feet!” (John 13:8).  But the scandal is the point.  Jesus explains, “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14).  And so, on this “command Thursday,” we do.

Or, rather, we did.  As most of you know, we’re changing our practice this year from footwashing to handwashing.  So, are we countermanding Jesus’ order?  That seems an odd choice on a night when we remember our calling as his servants. 

On top of that risk, handwashing carries its own baggage in the Holy Week story.  As a parishioner pointed out to me, we remember Jesus for washing feet, but who do we remember for washing hands?  Pontius Pilate, the brutal Roman governor of Judea.  Once Pilate realized he had no power to stop the drama leading Jesus to the cross, Pilate commanded his servants to bring out a bowl of water.  And there, at the pinnacle of state power, Pilate washed his hands of responsibility, saying to the religious leaders and the crowd, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to [his death] yourselves!” (Matthew 27:24).  That’s probably not our best Holy Week role model. 

So, why are we washing hands?

Well, if we go on a bit further in chapter 13 of John’s Gospel, to the end of our reading tonight, we hear Jesus’ give “the why” for his footwashing command.  At the end of the day, it’s not about the feet; it’s about the washing, the servant ministry of love.  Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (13:34-35)

I’ve been failing in that for a couple of decades’ worth of Maundy Thursdays now.  As we’ve offered this service over and over, I’ve often thought, “I wish more people would come up to have their feet washed.  It’s so powerful, such a sacramental sign of God’s love freely given to people who absolutely haven’t deserved it.  Why don’t more people come up for it?”  Now, certainly, our reticence to receive God’s grace does get in the way of taking part.  But so does something much more mundane: our knees and our backs.  It never occurred to me that the physicality of this wonderful sign of divine love could be a barrier excluding people from experiencing it.  If you can’t get down to reach someone’s feet, it’s pretty tough to wash them.

So, here’s a peek behind the curtain of liturgical planning.  Fr. Jerry Kolb wrote me just a few days ago, asking if I’d ever considered shifting to handwashing as a way to let everyone take part.  Honestly, I’d heard about other churches doing handwashing – and I later learned it used to happen here, in the 1980s and ’90s – but, no, I’d never considered it.  And I should have.

Ideally, we’d offer the opportunity to wash both hands and feet – and most likely, that’s what we’ll do next year.  But, two days before Maundy Thursday didn’t seem like the optimal time to tell the Altar Guild they needed to make a pivot like that. 

So, for this year at least, we’ll just be washing hands.  For those of you who fast-forward to Pilate washing his hands of responsibility for Jesus’ death, here’s a thought:  Even our most powerful signs and symbols can be used in ugly, sinful ways.  Just a generation after Jesus’ instituted the Eucharist, the apostle Paul had to write to the church in Corinth, telling them to stop making Communion a drunken revel (1 Cor 11:17-34).  And how many times have we seen the cross used to promote politicians or sell plumbing services?  Yet the Eucharist and the cross will not be emptied of their power.

And so it is with washing hands.  By this, too, “everyone will know that you are [Jesus’] disciples.”  Because by this, everyone will know that you have love for all the “one anothers” in the room.

Walking Toward the Good I Seek

Sermon for March 17, 2024
Series: Igniting Your Spirit to Find Heaven on Earth, part 5
John 12:20-33

This isn’t the last Sunday of Lent – that will be next week, Palm Sunday – but this is the last installment in our Lenten preaching series. (There's no sermon next Sunday.) Along with the devotional guide we mailed you a few weeks ago, these sermons have been asking how we can ignite our spirits to find heaven on earth.  We’ve explored working with our spiritual wiring for relationships, scheduling to prioritize God’s purposes, living as our best selves, choosing our companions for the journey – and now, we’re asking, “How can I walk toward the good I seek?”  I hope all this has been helpful.  And, so you know what’s coming, we’ll begin a new preaching series the Sunday after Easter called “Walking the Way of Love.”  It’ll highlight seven actions you can take to experience the joy of resurrection.  More on that in next week’s Messenger. 

So, for today – how do we walk toward the good we seek?  I guess there’s an assumption there – that, deep down, we’re all seeking “the good.”  That seems right.  I mean, is anyone here working to make life worse for the people around you?  Good; no hands up in the air.  Otherwise, we’d probably need an intervention.

But if we’re all on the same page, why even bother with a sermon about this?  Well, because we all may want to find “the good,” but my hunch is that we aren’t all seeking it actively.  In fact, we may not even be able to say what it is.  Is “seeking the good” synonymous with altruism?  Does “seeking the good” necessarily mean working against my own interest?  I don’t think so.  I mean, ask yourself:  When does my life feel most filled with purpose?  When do I feel most fully alive?  I think it’s when our well-being and the world’s well-being intersect, right?  In the famous words of the writer Frederick Buechner, it’s “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”¹

OK, good enough – just go find that.  Bye; see you next week.

Well, not so fast.  If it were easy, we’d all be living joyful, purpose-filled lives.  If you’re not quite there, it’s probably worth asking, “Why not?”  What’s standing in the way of investing myself and my life in pursuing the good?  And how could I get there?

Maybe we can get some insight from this morning’s Gospel reading, specifically from some nameless characters in the story: “some Greeks.”  The reading begins, “Now, among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks” (John 12:20).  Let’s unpack that a bit.  First, it’s always good to know where we are in the bigger Gospel story, and here it’s at a crucial moment – Palm Sunday.  A huge crowd is gathered in Jerusalem for the Passover festival and to see Jesus, who just a few days earlier brought Lazarus back to life.  The crowd hears that Jesus is coming into the city, and they go outside the walls to meet him as he rides into Jerusalem in triumph, looking for all the world like their conquering king. 

So, we pick up the story today just after Jesus has ridden into town in royal splendor, at the pinnacle of success.  And among the adoring crowd are these “Greeks” – so, who are they?  Well, they’re non-Jews, people from the secular, Greek-speaking culture rather than from the people of Israel.  But, most likely, they’re also part of a distinctive subset of Greeks, a group of outsiders who were at the edge of being insiders in relation to the Jews.  In Jesus’ time, there were people known as “God-fearers,” which meant non-Jews who respected and worshiped Israel’s God, even though they hadn’t gone all in.  They didn’t necessarily follow Jewish law fully; the men among them hadn’t gone so far as being circumcised.  But these folks honored Yahweh, and went to synagogue, and tried to walk the path of loving God and neighbor. 

Maybe that sounds familiar.  Honestly, I think there are a lot of “Greeks” like this in and around our churches today.  On any given day, I might be one of them.  If faith were a football game, the Greeks would be the ones on the sidelines in street clothes – not ready to play but still cheering the team on.  Like I said, that might be familiar territory for some of us.

So, these Greeks come to one of the players who is dressed out – to Philip, one of the disciples – and they say to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” (12:21).  Philip maybe isn’t quite sure about this – these Greeks aren’t fully committed, after all – so Philip checks with Andrew, who gives the OK.  And these Greeks find themselves standing before Jesus himself – the king-to-be, in all his anticipated glory.

So, what’d they say?  Don’t you wonder?  If you’re a would-be disciple, and you get the chance to talk to Jesus directly, what would you say?  Well, John’s Gospel doesn’t tell us what they said, so maybe we’re invited to fill in that blank ourselves.  Maybe they’re looking for what we’re all looking for: purpose.  Maybe they want to make a difference; maybe they want to leave the world better than they found it; maybe they want to feel fully alive.  In the presence of this king who raises people from the dead, being fully alive suddenly feels gloriously possible. 

But the response they get from Jesus must have shocked them.  It seems like just the opposite of being fully alive.  In fact, he implies, he’ll be dead.  The time has come for this king to be glorified, he says.  But that will happen not by the crowds making him king but by Jesus choosing to give himself up for them.  And when he does that, when he dies, that act will bear much fruit, Jesus says.  It’s like burying a seed:  “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).  What kind of fruit is that?  The kind that transforms your life.  Jesus’ death will bring salvation itself, not just to the Jews but to anyone who seeks it – the healing of our lives and the chance to walk in heaven’s love, now and always.

Then, I imagine Jesus looking these slack-jawed Greeks in the eye and raising the stakes for them considerably.  You want meaning and purpose?  You want to feel truly alive?  Here you go, he says.  I’ll change your heart so you can change the world, but it comes with an expectation:  The folks on the sidelines need to suit up and get in the game.  I’m not just going to die and take you to heaven, Jesus says.  I’m setting a pattern: that “whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there my servant will be also” (John 12:26).  Walk in my steps of love, Jesus says.  Wash somebody’s feet.  Slake somebody’s thirst.  Show somebody a transformed future.  New life comes when we give ourselves away for the well-being of one another.

And what’s more, Jesus tells the Greeks, the crucial time is nearly here – the time that will reveal who’s aligned with God and who’s aligned with the world.  In fact, he calls what’s coming the time of “judgment,” the time when “the ruler of this world will be driven out” (12:31).  And how will that happen?  Well, if you follow me, you’ll have the eyes to see it, Jesus says.  He’ll vanquish the ruler of this world – not just Caesar, not just the chief priests, but evil itself – the power of sin and death, the power that truly afflicts us.  And he’ll do that not with heavenly armies but with heavenly love, being “lifted up from the earth” on a cross to draw all people away from sin and death and to himself instead (12:32).

That’s the last we see of those Greeks.  What do you suppose became of them?  Maybe we’ll find out if we look in the mirror.

Here’s the call I hear from Jesus to all us Greeks on the sidelines: Create your own adventure.  This life we long for, this life of meaning and purpose, this life where our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet – it’s there, waiting for us.  It’s a life that will cost us something; Jesus is clear about that.  As a seminary professor of mine liked to say, the symbol of our faith is a cross, not an easy chair.  We find meaning and purpose when we find what we need to lose – the baubles of worldly happiness, the success of playing small.  When we lose those idols that bring us empty comfort, we make space for the love that changes lives.

So, how do we begin the adventure into which Jesus invites us?  Here’s a way to take one step, or maybe a few steps, with Jesus right by our side.  Next Sunday, we’ll begin Holy Week.  It’s a pilgrimage, a journey we take knowing the destination but not knowing what we’ll experience on the way.  It starts with Palm Sunday, greeting Jesus in triumphant joy and leaving baffled as he hangs on the cross.  It continues on Maundy Thursday, as he pours himself out in love for the friends about to abandon him.  It continues on Good Friday, as we linger at the cross, marveling that it’s him up there suffering, not us.  And it continues on to the Easter Vigil, as Jesus’ light vanquishes the darkness. 

I invite you to join him in that Holy Week pilgrimage, one step at a time, and let the journey speak to you.  Experience the power, the depth, the meaning that comes to us when we die to the rule of this world so we can bear the fruit of eternal life.

1.       Buechner, Frederick. Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC (Revised and Expanded). New York: HarperCollins, 1993 (originally published 1973). 119.

Living as My Best Self

Sermon for March 3, 2024
Series: Igniting Your Spirit to Find Heaven on Earth, part 3
Exodus 20:1-17

This morning, we’re continuing our Lenten sermon series about igniting your spirit to find heaven on earth, and we’re focusing today on this question: How do I live as my best self? 

If you Google “my best self,” you get a lot of hits about positive psychology, mindfulness, and self-compassion.  In fact, the top search result is a website called “My Best Self 101,” which offers a 20-item survey on “human flourishing,” as well as an 85-item survey to help you select the right tool to improve your well-being.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  “Human flourishing” sounds pretty appealing, and I’d be grateful to find just the right tool to improve my well-being.  (My hunch is that tool might be an exercise bike, but that’s a different sermon.) 

Nowhere on that list of search results will you find the 10 Commandments, our Old Testament reading this morning.  But, oddly enough, I’d say those 10 Commandments are all about human flourishing.  The question is where and how you see it happening.  “My Best Self 101,” like most of the rest of our culture, sees us flourishing from within.  That’s because our culture sees us as individuals, autonomous beings who bump up against each other sometimes but fundamentally find our purpose and meaning internally. 

But I think our spiritual tradition would say just the opposite.  That tradition begins with people living together, with God, in paradise, only to lose the best deal ever by thinking we could improve on it.  It’s the brokenness we all share – that right alongside the image and likeness of God lies our original sin, the idolatry of self-worship.

Healing that brokenness is the story of salvation.  Time and time again, God reaches out to beloved humans and invites us to look past ourselves to find our well-being.  And one of the most memorable times God did that is the moment we heard about this morning – the giving of the 10 Commandments.

Now, this isn’t exactly a warm and fuzzy moment.  The divine presence descends on Mount Sinai in cloud and smoke and fire, as trumpets and thunder herald a God who might well be coming to make war on wayward humans.  Moses brings the people to the foot of the mountain to “meet God” (Exodus 19:17); and the people are scared out of their minds.  Then they hear the laws, with Moses translating for the frightened crowd – a list of 10 restrictions, eight of them explicitly framed in negativity: “Thou shalt not….”

And yet … if you’re looking for a guide to help you live as your best self, I’d say these 10 Commandments are a great place to start, and here’s why:  This covenant with God invites us to turn away from seeing ourselves as the center of the universe.  Instead, counterintuitively, God shows us we can find our best selves not by looking deep within but by looking outward, not by maximizing our potential but by limiting ourselves for the sake of relationship.

How does that work?  Well, it might help to see what this original top-10 list actually has to say. 

To start out, notice that the 10 Commandments come in two blocks.  The first four are about our relationship with God, and the last six are about our relationship with our neighbors.  So, here are the first four, about relating to God.

Number 1:  “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me” (20:2).  Apparently, our starting place is to recognize which god is God.  We’re not worshiping golden calves anymore; our idols now do a better job of blending in – idols of power, wealth, beauty, success, freedom, progress….  None of these is inherently bad; in fact, all of them are gifts from God.  But they aren’t God, and we’ll be happier if we don’t substitute them for the One who is.

Continuing that thought, here’s Number 2:  “You shall not make for yourself an idol….  You shall not bow down to them or worship them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God….” (20:4-5)  I hear two things here: that God is so much more, so far beyond our experience, that any attempt to capture God physically will put transcendent divinity in a box of limited human imagination.  So, metaphors are great, but idols will make us think we’re wise enough to comprehend the incomprehensible.  And with that, worshiping that which isn’t God is an insult to the One who is, a slap in the face to the Creator who’s trying to bring us back into paradise.

Number 3:  “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God” (20:7).  Why not?  Again, it’s an insult.  For the Hebrews, the divine Name was so holy they couldn’t speak it.  They would only represent it with letters you couldn’t pronounce, what we transliterate as YHWH, and the “name” they used was instead a title, which we translate as “the Lord.”  It’s a recognition that God can’t be managed, can’t be reduced to human language.  And even more insulting is using that divine Name as spoken bold-face, demeaning what’s ultimately holy into crude interjections to give our fleeting feelings a little more pop.

And here’s the last of the commandments about our relationship with God, number 4:  “Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy” (20:8).  This one should make us stop short.  First, it’s one of only two that isn’t a “thou shalt not.”  Second, it’s the longest of the 10, going on for four verses in how to apply it.  Third, it applies to all people in the community, the people of Israel and everyone in their midst, even the animals.  Why does it get so much attention?  Because it’s the ultimate example of our Creator trying to help us while we childishly wriggle and squirm for the freedom to hurt ourselves.  It’s a huge act of love for God to say, “You don’t have to prove yourself all the time.  Instead, spend 14 percent of your life resting.”  Just looking at that selfishly, we’d be smart to take God up on the offer.  Plus, if a day of rest was good enough for the Creator, it’s probably right for the creations, too.  But even deeper than that, the sabbath is a commandment to live like God and to observe time like God, sanctifying it by reminding ourselves that time was God’s before God gave it to us.

So, those four commandments are the framework for a relationship with our heavenly Parent.  The other six are about relating to those heavenly siblings all around us.

Here’s commandment number 5:  “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land the Lord your God is giving you” (20:12).  Like the one about sabbath, this one’s telling us what to do rather than what not to do.  And the payoff is interesting.  There seems to be a link between honoring our elders and our own longevity.  This doesn’t compute in a world where the autonomous individual is king, but it makes great sense in a culture where being in community is the equivalent of being alive.  That might be a healthy perspective for us – that we live our best life when we build connections with, and learn from, those who’ve walked the path before.

Number 6:  “You shall not murder” (20:13) – which means, as Exodus later defines it, “willfully attack[ing] and kill[ing] another by treachery” (21:14).  Well, at least there’s one commandment I’m not breaking.  But it doesn’t take much theological reflection to apply it more broadly.  You shall not willfully attack and kill … another’s reputation, or livelihood, or way of life.  Even if someone has hurt us, even if we despise that person, that doesn’t give us the freedom to hurt that person without the community’s sanction.

Number 7:  “You shall not commit adultery” (20:14).  Again, this one’s pretty straightforward … until we start asking, “How far do you have to go before you go too far?”  What about building an intimate emotional bond with someone when your heart is already bound to someone else?  I think emotional adultery is a thing, too, because its damage to a relationship can be just as great.

Number 8:  “You shall not steal” (20:15) – another straightforward rule … or so it seems.  We probably haven’t knocked over any liquor stores recently.  But I knew a clergy person who stood in the pulpit and preached sermons off the internet without a single attribution.  That seems pretty clearly wrong – and not just because the act is dishonest, but because, once someone finds out – and someone always finds out – then your relationship with your people withers.  Well, then, so what about taking material from Wikipedia?  What about using A.I. to write a report?  If you’re deceiving people by making them think the work is yours, however you do it, that sounds like stealing to me.

And speaking of deceiving people, here’s number 9:  “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (20:16).  Originally, this was about legal testimony, but even in later biblical material, the rule is applied to slander more generally.¹  At the end of the day, in our relationships with people around us, all we have is our word.  Without the trust that represents, there is no community to share.

And finally, here’s number 10:  “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house … wife … slave … ox … donkey … or anything else” (20:17).  To me, this one always seemed a little unfair.  How can I keep myself from wanting something?  It may not be my most wholesome thought, but as long as I don’t act on it, don’t I get a pass?  Apparently, not.  First, covetousness hurts our own hearts by setting us up never to be satisfied with the blessings God gives us.  But it also damages our relationships with our neighbors.  Maybe I didn’t actually steal someone’s stuff; but if I want his stuff and can’t have it, I’m probably not working for his well-being.  And when we’re not invested in each other’s well-being, our community spirals downward.

Now, I’m sure there’s great advice on that best-self website.  But, as it seems to be with so much of our faith, I think what God has in mind is this paradoxical truth: that we live as our best selves when we limit ourselves for the sake of relationship – relationship with the God who loves us more than anything, and relationship with those wonderful, frustrating other humans with whom we share the world.  We need the 10 Commandments not as a list of rules but as the paradigm of interconnected well-being. 

So, how might we live God’s upside-down logic to be our best selves?  Maybe try this – two acts of Lenten self-limitation, one oriented to God and one oriented to the people around you.  Look at those first four commandments, and ask yourself, “What would help me remember that God is God, and I am not?”  Which commandment jumps out at you – maybe honoring God more regularly, or speaking God’s name only in reverence, or remembering to rest as a divine offering?  Then, look at those six commandments about our relationship with others, and ask yourself:  “How do I need to tie my well-being to their well-being?”  Which of those commandments jumps out at you – maybe calling your mom more often, or tempering your tongue about someone you don’t like, or asking whether you’re investing your heart with the person you covenanted to love forever?

Remembering the 10 Commandments is a good way to rediscover the upside-down truth of Gospel success:  We come out on top when God and neighbor rank ahead of us because our best self is a self in relationship.  Welcome to the crazy Good News of coming in third.

1.       See Leviticus 19:16. New International Study Bible, 116 (note).

Working With My Spiritual Wiring

Sermon from Feb. 18, 2024 
First installment of a Lenten series, "Igniting Your Spirit to Find Heaven on Earth"
Mark 1:9-15

So, first, a quick heads-up:  This sermon will be a little longer than usual.  Consider it a moment of Lenten discipline.

We find ourselves now four days out from the shooting at the Super Bowl parade, struggling to make sense of the senseless.  It’s a time for lamentation, as we offered here Thursday evening.  But our laments aren’t limited to prayers in church.  Interviewed after the shooting, Chief of Police Stacy Graves lamented, “This is not Kansas City.”  Indeed, mass shootings don’t fit with our sense of community.  But the reality is that, in fact, this is Kansas City.  And not just Kansas City.  This is also Las Vegas, and Orlando, and Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook, and El Paso, and Lewiston, and Uvalde.  The difference now is that we’ve joined the list of places where good folks thought mass shootings wouldn’t happen. 

Of course, Wednesday’s shooting comes on the heels of a record-setting year for gun violence in Kansas City.  Every week, as we offer the Prayers of the People and name our neighbors who’ve been killed, I shake my head and wonder, “How long, Lord?”  That’s not a lament about God’s inaction, by the way.  It’s shorthand for, “How long, Lord, will we say ‘yes’ to the evil of violence that slithers at the edges of our hearts?”

This is the first Sunday of Lent and the beginning of our Lenten preaching series, “Igniting Your Spirit to Find Heaven on Earth.”  I have to say, the igniting that our spirits received this week wasn’t exactly what we had in mind for this series or for the booklet of reflections that will soon be in your mailbox.  I don’t know about you, but I came away from Wednesday furious, which is not an emotion I know how to have.  But with a few days’ time, fury can morph into reflection. 

So: What’s next for my spirit, and for yours, and for the spirit of our community?  Is this a moment when we have any business seeking heaven on earth?

Absolutely it is.

As we start our pilgrimage, it’s good to recognize where we begin.  And one way to name where we are today is where we found Jesus in today’s Gospel reading: in the wilderness.  In that fast-cut story from Mark’s Gospel, we see Jesus flipping from what must have been joy to lamentation.  In one moment, he’s being baptized and comes out of the water to a voice from heaven proclaiming, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well-pleased” (1:11).  And then “immediately” the Spirit of the Father who loves him so much drives him out into the wilderness. 

That’s odd parenting, to say the least.  Why would God do it?  Well, that’s a different sermon, maybe the sermon I would have preached before this Wednesday afternoon.  But we’re left with Jesus out there “in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan” (Mark 1:13). Now, in the fast cuts we get in Mark’s Gospel, we don’t hear the dialogue that Matthew gives us – the details of temptation, as Satan offers Jesus food, and the chance to flaunt his divine status, and an easy road to power.  No, here in Mark, we just know Jesus is out there in a desolate desert landscape, what must have felt like hell itself.

It seems to me we’re in the wilderness, too.  And that brings us to this week’s stop in our sermon series.  If we’re seeking to ignite our spirits to find heaven on earth, we have to start by recognizing our own spiritual wiring and considering how we might work with it to go deeper in relationship with God.  In fact, we might start a few questions before that:  Am I really wired for relationship with God?  What if I can’t feel it?  What stands in the way of connecting with God for me?

The wilderness is a good place to ask those questions, for Jesus and for us.  Now, Jesus knows he’s God’s beloved – he’s heard it straight from the deity’s mouth.  And we know it, too – intellectually, at least.  After all, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).  Or, as the bumper sticker on my refrigerator puts it, “God loves you whether you like it or not.”  If God’s opening the door to heaven for you, you must be worthy of God’s love.  Now, we may believe that in our heads.  But knowing it in our hearts can be a different matter, especially here in the wilderness – the wilderness of grief, the wilderness of isolation, the wilderness of futility.

So, in a community that’s lost its innocence, just four days past the parade shooting, what do we do here in the wilderness?  When we’re tempted to listen to the power of evil selling us hopelessness and empty promises, how do we “beat down Satan under our feet” (BCP 152)?  How do we remember that we are each God’s beloved, and how do we live that way?

Mark’s story gives us at least two clues – a blessing and a call.  First, the blessing: Jesus is indeed out in the wilderness, but he’s not alone.  The story says, “The angels waited on him” (1:13).  Now, my hunch is that doesn’t mean they were bringing him pina coladas on the beach by the Dead Sea.  Instead, remember who angels are in scripture.  Angels are God’s messengers.  They come bearing God’s word – a saving word – to frightened, beloved people.  There’s a reason why angels are always telling folks, “Do not be afraid.”  The message they’re bringing, from God’s lips to our ears, is that God’s got this.  No matter how lonely or frightened or angry the world has made you, God’s got your back.

So, that’s the blessing.  And along with that, there’s a call – a call that came to Jesus the Beloved and that comes to us.  You’ll notice that the last scene in this morning’s story puts the camera on Jesus as he walks out of the wilderness.  He’s endured his isolation.  He’s lamented what must have sometimes felt like abandonment.  He’s been sustained by angels, and he’s stared down Satan.  And so, when the evil of the world coils and strikes, he shifts to action.  Jesus’ cousin and friend John the Baptist is arrested by the authorities who want to silence him, so Jesus sets out on what will be a long, hard road – immediately and for the next three years.  He leaves the wilderness near the Dead Sea and heads back home, a 90-mile hike to Galilee.  But he’s not retreating in defeat and despair.  Instead, he’s on the advance, proclaiming good news to counter the voices selling despair.  “The time is fulfilled,” he says, “and the kingdom of God has come near.  Repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:15)  Recognize that God’s reign and rule supersedes what the world tells you.  Change your mind, which is what “repent” means, and set your heart and your feet on the path of love.

So, back to this week’s focus in our Lenten sermon series.  How do we work with our own spiritual wiring to deepen our relationship with God when we find ourselves in a wilderness time like this?  First, remember the story.  Jesus wasn’t alone there in the wilderness, and the same is true for us.  Alongside the anger and frustration is the assurance that we lament together, and that we lament to the God who hears us and comes to our aid.  God will pick us back up, and walk alongside us, and keep pointing us toward our hearts’ true home – the kingdom of heaven, even in the brokenness.  Then, once you’re back on your feet, keep your eyes and ears open.  Look for the angels in your midst, reminding you of love’s power.  Listen for the voice of God in scripture and the words of people you trust.  Make time to be still enough to hear God speaking to you in the daily-ness of life.  Look for patterns of direction and fingerprints of blessing that affirm your belovedness.  Come to worship; and drink in the sustenance of Word and song and sacrament; and let the Spirit recharge you for whatever lies ahead.

So, our first step is remembering the story and listening for the voices of angels.  The second step is acting on what you hear.  Steer clear of despair by using the spiritual gifts you bring to the journey.  Some of us are listeners, gifted at being present with people in their suffering.  Some of us are pray-ers, gifted at offering God our common laments and our hopes for healing in the assurance that prayer changes things.  Some of us are encouragers, gifted at inspiring people to live their faith and honor God’s reign and rule in the world.  Some of us are analysts, gifted at naming different options and discerning among them.  Some of us are relationship-builders, working with people across similarities and differences to find unexpected solutions.  And some of us are mobilizers, gifted at organizing people to translate their faith into change.  We have a variety of gifts, as the apostle Paul wrote, but they’re empowered by the same Spirit.  And using those gifts is our best antidote to despair.  For, in our own ways, each of us is wired to join Jesus on that road to Galilee, proclaiming the kingdom so that God’s will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

As we live our individual gifts, remember we also walk this road together.  Let me close with an invitation to something that’s suddenly taken on immediate relevance given the events of last week.  You may remember, two summers ago, when the abortion amendment was on the Kansas ballot, about 25 of us gathered for a listening session – not to debate the topic but to hear each other’s passions about it.  It was a healing moment, a time when people could gather in love as well as disagreement, and listen to each other, and honor the dignity of everyone in the room.  Recently, our parish Discernment Commission has been putting together a series of listening opportunities for the next few months, addressing issues like divisiveness in politics, the war between Israel and Hamas, the effects of social media, the well-being of our education system, and the ethics of end-of-life decisions.  We’re calling it the St. Andrew’s Listening in Love Forum, and it will be led by one of our resident experts in helping people listen, counselor Ann Rainey. 

The series will happen on the fourth Tuesday of the month through June, and it’ll start next week as we create a safe space to share our hearts related to the issue of the moment – gun violence.  As it happens, we have a presenting moment legislatively, too. The Missouri House is considering a bill that would allow concealed carry in churches and on public transportation.¹  Now, some of us will hear that and think, “Why in God’s name would we put guns into more public gatherings, given the shooting on Wednesday?”  And others of us will hear that and think, “How else can you stop someone like the shooters on Wednesday?”  Again, this session on Feb. 27 will not be a time to debate but a time to model the most basic skill we must learn if we hope to find heaven on earth, and that’s listening – in this case, listening to each other without vilifying each other, and listening for ways the Spirit might move us forward together.  The bulletin and Messenger this weekend have more information on the Listening in Love Forum, so I hope you’ll consider coming.

Here's the hope I take away from today’s Gospel reading and from this awful week:  We can make our way out of the wilderness.  We can join Jesus as he hits the road proclaiming that the kingdom of God has come near and calling people to change their minds.  It’s a matter of tapping into the spiritual wiring God has given each of us and letting Jesus set the course.

1.      HB 1708, “Changes the law regarding firearm concealed carry permits.” https://house.mo.gov/Bill.aspx?bill=HB1708&year=2024&code=R