"Take These Things Out of Here!" -- What Would Jesus Say About the Church?

Sermon for Sunday, March 4
Series: "Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don't Belong To," part 3
John 2:13-22

As you may know, I was out of town last weekend presenting at a conference.  And as I was traveling, I made what many clergy would consider the most boneheaded of mistakes: I wore my collar on the plane. 

You have to know that airports and airplanes are like confessionals or the 5-cent psychiatrist stand from the Peanuts cartoons.  If you’re wearing a clerical collar, you can expect somebody to come looking for information, or advice, or – more likely – just the chance to get something off his chest.  It’s one of the lessons of clergy life they teach you even from seminary: Don’t travel with your collar on.

Well, I’d gone to the airport directly from church last Sunday, so I was still dressed out.  I was sitting in the gate area, waiting for my flight, when the woman seated to my right turned to me with a dubious look, a look of restrained judgment.  She was trying not to offend, so she started out in safe territory:

“Are you a minister?” she asked. 

“Yes,” I said. 

“What kind?” she asked. 

“Episcopalian,” I said. 

Now, in conversations like this, the person’s next question or statement is the branching-off point.  One possible response is, “You’re Episcopalian … is that like Catholic?”  In that case, you know you have a little common ground, though you have no idea whether they go to Mass every day or they can’t stand the last priest they knew 30 years ago.  But this time, when I said “Episcopalian,” the response went the other way.  The woman’s eyes narrowed a bit, and she asked, “Is that Christian?” 

OK, I thought, here’s a different opportunity.  So, I said, “Yes, you bet.”  But before I could go any farther, she came back with a series of more specific questions. 

“Do you think the Old Testament is the Word of God, speaking of Jesus all the way through it?”

“Yes,” I said, “we believe the Old Testament is Part I of the story of the Good News.”

“And the New Testament – that’s also the Word of God?”

“Yes, the New Testament, too,” I said, beginning to wonder what she was thinking.

 “Even Revelation?  Do you believe in Revelation?”

“Yes,” I said, “Revelation, too.  That’s where the whole story comes together, where heaven and earth become one again.”

“So,” she asked, “are you like the Mormons?”

OK.  Clearly, she wanted to ensure that she and I were on the same page, that I wasn’t spouting heresy from whatever pulpit I inhabited on Sundays (or whatever day my strange religion might honor).  “No,” I said, “we’re not like the Mormons.  Mormons believe in some different things than Christians do, and Episcopalians are Christians.”

“So,” she asked, “do you believe Jesus died for your sins?”

This didn’t seem like the right moment to explore different models of the doctrine of the atonement, so I just said, “Yes, ma’am, for the sins of the whole world.” 

“Well,” she said, “what’s your religion’s statement of faith?  What’s your doctrine?”

I said, “We root our faith in the creeds of the ancient Church, the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed.  That’s what we believe about the nature of God.”

“So,” she drilled down, “the Father?  And Jesus?  And the Holy Spirit?  All three?”

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“How about speaking in tongues.  Do you all speak in tongues?”

“Well, no, not so much of that.”

Finally, I think I’d convinced her that Episcopalians are Christians, even if we don’t speak in tongues.  From there, we went on a bit more easily, hearing some of each other’s story.  Professionally, she worked in hospital medical technology, but her passion was the Good News.  She said she’d written several books, and she said God was calling her to become a traveling preacher.  I could see her doing that.  She had the absolute (and slightly chilling) certainty that sort of life would require.

Then she started wondering about the people around us waiting for the flight.  “How many of these folks do you think are off God’s path?” she asked.  “How many of them have given their lives to Christ, and how many don’t even know what they’re missing?”  I said I didn’t know, but probably most of them are wandering … like me, lots of the time.  And she said, “Well, God has anointed me and sent me out to share the Word with others so that they can have what I have – so they, too, can live 100-percent Jesus.” 

You know, I’ve been sharing God’s Word for 15 years now, and I’m not sure I know what it means to “live 100-percent Jesus.”  Well, maybe I do, but I don’t think I’d use just that language.  It’s not that it’s bad language.  It’s just insider language for a particular way of being Christian – one that, sadly, may shut people down when what the speaker wants most is to open them up.

This is the third week of our sermon series reflecting on Lillian Daniel’s book Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don’t Belong To.  And I share this long story with you because I think it gives us a glimpse into at least one way of being church that might close as many doors as it opens.  You know, all things considered, I feel fairly comfortable talking about my faith – which is helpful, given my role.  But I felt attacked and defensive when this well-meaning woman next to me began her interrogation.  She had a crystal-clear sense of the way to do church, and clearly I wasn’t measuring up.

Of course, by the same token, a stalwart Episcopalian might reflect similar judgment about her – the other side of the same tarnished coin.  We pride ourselves on being welcoming and open and accepting … right up until we judge others for their judgmentalism and close ourselves off because of their closed-mindedness.  We may be quieter and more polite about it, but we can be just as full of assumptions as the woman at the airport.  “What, you don’t say the Nicene Creed?  What, you don’t have Communion every week?  What, you speak in tongues?  What, you don’t agree with my politics?  Oh, you’re one of those Christians….”

It’s good to remember whose church the Church is.  And here’s a hint: It’s not ours.  Or theirs.  It’s the Church of Jesus Christ, which means it’s his. 

And in this morning’s Gospel reading, we see and hear Jesus staking his claim to the church of his day, in the story of the cleansing of the Temple.  Now, in the Gospel of John, this story comes at the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.  He’s called his first disciples and performed his first miracle.  He’s literally just getting started, and he comes to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.  He makes his pilgrimage to the Temple, and there he finds people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, along with the Temple moneychangers.  And he’s not too happy.

Now, this is not as black and white as it may sound to our modern ears.  Temple worship involved animal sacrifice; and only certain animals were fit for that use, according to the Law – so the Temple had to provide them.  And a faithful Jew couldn’t use ritually unclean Roman money in God’s Temple; so the moneychangers converted it into holy currency that met the Law’s requirements.  But….  Were the official livestock dealers gouging the poor because the dealers had a monopoly on sacred animals?  Were the official moneychangers gouging the poor with exorbitant exchange rates?  You bet.  So, Jesus drives them out because they’re acting in opposition to the ways of the God they’re supposedly there to honor, and because they’re missing the point of the worship they’re helping to make possible.

So, what would be the point of worship?  Why are we here this morning?  I don’t mean that as a rhetorical question.  I mean, why are you here this morning?  You may have a role to perform or an obligation to meet – and on some Sundays, that’s why you’re here; I get it.  But beyond that: You’re someone who actually attends worship, or shows up for it online.  That’s an increasingly exclusive circle these days.  What brings you here?

I like the way Lillian Daniel puts in her book.  Now, this may or may not ring true for you, and that’s OK; but it does for me.  She writes, “Worship … is not about hiding from the world but transforming it.  Through worship, we hope to be better than we would have been otherwise, and for that to work, we need to show up.” (123, emphasis mine) 

I don’t say “we need to show up” in terms of finger-wagging; I say it in terms of practice.  To build our skill and grow our capacity at anything, we have to practice it.  And I’ll tell you, day-to-day life in our world doesn’t give us much practice in recognizing God’s loving sovereignty and our dependence on it.  So much about our culture tells us we can have what we want, when we want it, because it’s all about me.  Worship tells us just the opposite:  Life is bigger than me.  The deepest truths are life’s mysteries.  Meaning comes from pouring ourselves out and giving ourselves away, just as Jesus did for us.  Sacrifice gains us more than acquisition.  God is God, and we are not. 

Deep in our hearts, we know these things – and we know we find our healing and our rest in them.  The hard part is living them out, which is why we need to practice.  As Lillian Daniel says about worship, “There is no other area of our lives where we pretend something important takes no work” (124).

And that’s all the more true when you remember the scope of the life we’re talking about.  If we believe nothing else as followers of Jesus, we believe this life is not all there is.  So, worship isn’t just tuning us up for the sprint of next week’s earthly existence.  It’s conditioning – deep conditioning – for the marathon of life that never ends.

So, don’t be afraid to claim it.  When you find yourself in a conversation with someone who doesn’t get why on earth you’d spend your Sunday morning here, doing this – don’t apologize for your faithfulness, or write it off to habit, or blame your mother.  Have something to say.  Maybe the reason you’re here is about the prayer book, language that expresses your heart’s deepest joys and longings when you don’t have the words yourself.  Maybe it’s about the music, especially this being the one chance we get in our modern lives to sing our hearts out in public without anyone thinking we’re crazy for doing it.  Maybe it’s about the hope we receive from words of truth that have nurtured saints and sinners for centuries.  Maybe it’s about the Body and Blood of Jesus, broken for you, poured out for you, because he loves you enough to die proving it.  Maybe it’s about the power of the Spirit, binding us together as that Body of Christ and sending us into the world to love it into submission.

The Church can feel like something we have to apologize for because so often we do miss the mark.  Some of us miss by trying too hard, like the woman in the airport; some of us miss by not trying hard enough.  But look, you’re here.  God’s pumping life into your broken or empty heart, one way or another.  Name it for someone else – because that person needs to be made whole, too.

Trust at the Blind Curve Up the Hill

Sermon for Feb. 25, 2018
St. John's Episcopal Church, Columbus, OH, part of its Reimagining Church conference
Genesis 17:1-7,15-16; Mark 8:31-38

Good morning! I bring you greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus from the good people of St. Andrew’s in Kansas City, a congregation a little larger than St. John’s but no less concerned about the future.  I think that’s true everywhere across the Episcopal Church, everywhere across mainline Christianity, for that matter.  It seems we’re all anxious about attendance, and membership, and pledging – and how, in most of our congregations, when you look out across the nave from the back of the church, what you see is 50 shades of gray.  In my congregation, we call it the “demographic cliff.” 

For decades, since the Second World War and the Baby Boom, Episcopalians have gotten used to the notion that people will come to us, if we just don’t mess things up too badly.  The neighbors eventually will come to a place in their lives where they’ll want to take advantage of what the church has to offer.  Our kids eventually will come to a place in their lives where their negative memories of a boring church will somehow switch to fond remembrance, and they’ll bring their own kids to endure it just like they did.  As crazy as that sounds, it worked for us for a while, in the days when social and business contacts happened at coffee hour rather than the coffee shop down the street.  It worked for us to expect the kids would go through their rebellious period and eventually find a church because many did come back.  Not anymore.  Nationally, the Episcopal Church has been shedding worshippers for decades, and the trend just keeps going. 

So, aren’t you glad you brought in some inspiring out-of-town preacher to bring you the Good News this morning?

Actually, I think Good News is exactly what this situation reflects.  And that’s not because I have a death wish for the Church.  It’s because the two vital pieces of the puzzle are coming together for us.  First, we’re being honest about our situation, as individuals, as congregations, and as the larger Episcopal family – honest about where we are, the part we’ve played in it, and our call to turn in a new direction.  That’s the first piece, the one about us.  And second, just in case we needed reminding, we worship a God who brings light out of darkness, joy out of sorrow, life out of death – and nearly always when it’s the last thing anyone would have expected.  Put those pieces together, and you can solve the puzzle.  Leave either one out, and we actually are sunk.

So first, about us:  Let’s remember what time of year it is.  It’s Lent, which isn’t about wallowing in our wretchedness but about being honest.  It’s about self-examination and repentance, as we heard on Ash Wednesday – like an annual physical.  It’s about acknowledging where we are and deciding where we’re going from here – changing our minds about some things and acting differently, which is what “repent” means in Scripture.  So the time is right for us as individuals and congregations to look at where we are, acknowledge where we’ve been missing the mark, and turn in a new direction. 

That’s what you’re doing here at St. John’s, what Lee Anne has been leading you toward – turning toward the neighbors coming among you.  Now, for some Episcopal congregations, making that turn might start with just realizing that there are people among you.  You’re a long way beyond that.  You’ve given your hands and your hearts in serving people who are hungry, people sleeping in the cold.  You’ve built those relationships into a worshiping community, which I can’t wait to experience this afternoon. You do amazing things here.

And still, those words we heard in today’s Gospel reading hang like Jesus’ thought bubble over all our best work.  “If any want to become my followers,” he said, “let them deny themselves, and take up their cross, and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the good news, will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35)  It’s tempting to hear those words and think, “Absolutely, Jesus – that’s what our feeding ministry is all about. That’s what our street church is all about.  We’re bearing that cross right alongside you.”

And so you are.  So is my congregation, in the way it helps feed and educate kids in Haiti, feed and clothe people in Kansas City, and foster social enterpreneurship.  And Jesus sees all that: “Absolutely,” he says back to us – “and bless you all for walking alongside me.  And now, the path is turning.  Will you stay with me as we carry this cross up a new hill?  Will you let go of just a little more, so you can become ever so much more?”

I’ve been blessed to talk with people in the Episcopal Church, and our cousins in England, who are saying “yes” to this call to give up some of what we’ve known in order to love differently and love more.  I’ve talked with folks who’ve invested themselves deeply in the places and the people God has given them.  There are a hundred different ways to go about it – dinner churches, or community partnerships, or pastoral presence, or kids’ play groups, or community organizing, or sharing physical space, or preaching with kids each week.  And there is no Holy-Grail sort of solution that will bring young adults and families through our doors for Sunday-morning worship.  But there is a common thread, and that thread is individual connection.  It’s taking the person in front of you completely seriously, and linking her up with the next person in front of you to build networks of relationship, networks of blessing for the real, live human beings nearby – whether we would choose them, or not.  Whether we feel comfortable with them, or not.  As one of the priests I interviewed told me, the key to building ministry with young families – or with anyone else, for that matter – is wanting to.  The key is wanting to invest ourselves in easing the burdens or spurring the passions of real, live people you come to know and love.

That’s possible.

But it’s not enough simply to want to.  It’s not even enough simply to try hard.  The second part of the equation is trust – trust that God will be God.  God does not offer us easy solutions – not even to God’s good friend Abraham, the ancestor of many nations, chosen by God to model what it means to walk side by side, in loving covenant with the sovereign of the universe.  For Abraham, that path began with leaving everything he knew to come to a land God was promising but that he’d never seen.  It continued with a dangerous sojourn in Egypt and conflict with those who’d become his neighbors.  And it included big promises that must have seemed pretty empty in the moment.  A couple of chapters before the reading this morning, God had said to Abraham, “Here, I will give you land and descendants, innumerable like the stars of the clear night sky.”  Then decades pass, and Abraham doesn’t have much of anything to show for those promises.  His wife, Sarai, hasn’t had any kids, and it’s hard to have descendants without any kids; so they figure a child with Hagar, whom they hold as a slave, is better than nothing.  But God comes to Abraham again and says, “Wait, the story gets better than that.  Your descendants shall come from your 90-year-old wife, Sarah.”  That’s a laugh line, by the way.  Scripture does have laugh lines, and this is one of them.  Abraham falls down laughing, but God is serious.  “I know you can’t see it now,” God says, getting serious, “but this is the way I work.  Trust me.  The best outcomes are the ones you’d never expect to see.”

The Episcopal Church is not a bunch of slackers.  Many congregations, like yours and mine, have worked faithfully for a long time to deny ourselves, and take up our crosses, and follow Jesus.  We’ve tried hard.  We’ve offered feeding programs, or school partnerships, or new worship experiences, some of us nearly killing ourselves trying to come up with the right things that will bless our world and draw in new folks.  What maybe we haven’t done so well is to be open to learning how we might serve different people in different ways.  Maybe we haven’t done so well at setting aside what we understand and how we’ve always done things, and learning from people in our midst whom we don’t really even know.  That’s one of my congregation’s growing edges, and I think that’s true for most of the Episcopal Church.  There are people around us yearning for spiritual meaning in ways a standard worship service may not sufficiently address.  There are people around us hungry for connection with God and each other in ways we’d never think about ourselves.  There are people around us already tapping into the power of the Holy Spirit to solve problems in the neighborhood and bless people’s lives. 

We can trust that God will bring us wisdom and insight and new life, for ourselves and our congregations, if we will set aside some things we’ve always done and hear the wisdom that real, live people will teach us over a hundred cups of coffee.  We can trust that God will bless us to be a blessing in this time when church is shifting under our feet and the road ahead has hit a blind curve.  Even in the dark of Good Friday, even along the way of the cross, we can trust that Easter is on its way because that’s how God works:  The best outcomes are the ones you’d never expect to see.

"Repent and Believe in the Good News" ... Episcopalian Style

Sermon for March 18, 2018
Series:  Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don't Belong To, part 1
Mark 1:9-15

If you’re someone who’s here most Sundays, you’ve probably noticed things look and sound a little different today.  The rough wooden cross has appeared behind the altar; we’ve offered up our sins with the centuries-old Great Litany; and we’ve changed the liturgical color to a penitential purple.  Welcome to Lent, our 40-day journey of repentance as we follow Jesus to the cross.

But if you’re someone who’s not here most Sundays, I wonder what your reaction to all this might be.  The things I’ve just said might push some buttons for you.  Maybe you’re thinking, “Great.  The church I’m staying away from was all about how God expects perfection.  I’m tired of church people making me feel beat up.”

Or, if you’re someone who’s not here most Sundays, maybe your reaction is more like this: “What are you all doing?  I only came in to recharge my spiritual batteries in this beautiful space.  What’s up with all the parading around and that long, dreary prayer at the start?”

So, if you’re a “regular” here, think for a minute: What would you say to those real people’s real concerns?  Would you apologize for our ancient pomp and circumstance, and say all this talk about sin doesn’t really matter that much anyway?  Or maybe you’d just talk about the weather instead?

Today, we’re starting a five-part preaching series reflecting on Lillian Daniels’ book Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don’t Belong To.  We’re going to spend some time through this season of Lent hearing Jesus say some things that might push our buttons or simply sound crazy.  And as we do, we’re going to take the book’s point seriously: That Christians in traditions like ours need to have something of value to offer people who’ve been hurt by church or who don’t have much experience of it.  In a day when the popular definition of Christianity is a religious institution that’s judgmental, highly political, insisting on interpreting Scripture literally, and constantly after your money – in a day like that, we need to claim our different story, a story of good news.

So, let’s start with that reading we just heard.  Each year, as we begin this season of Lent, we hear about Jesus going to the wilderness.  What was he doing out there?  The only set-up for this story in Mark’s Gospel is something we heard before Christmas: John the Baptist warning people to repent because someone more powerful than John was on his way to bring God’s authority to bear on the world around them.  Then we get today’s story.  Jesus comes to be baptized by John but with no explanation why.  Then the clouds are “torn apart” (1:10), and the Holy Spirit descends like a dove upon him.  And the voice of God breaks into the scene, proclaiming Jesus to be The One, God’s own Son, the Beloved. 

It sounds like the next step is for Jesus to mobilize the crowd, the new king ready to take on the Romans.  But what happens instead?  “The Spirit immediately drove [Jesus] out into the wilderness,” where he was “tempted by Satan” for 40 days (1:12,13).  So much for cheering crowds.  Now Jesus is alone in the desert, taking on the power of evil.

So, what’s up with that?  Why has the Spirit of God driven the Beloved Son out into the wilderness?  Well, the story never says why, so it invites us to wrestle with it.  Is Jesus struggling with this call, unsure he wants to be The One?  Is he uncertain what he’s supposed to do, now that he’s anointed by the Holy Spirit?  Maybe.  Whatever is going on in Jesus’ mind, the God who loves him as a Son wants him out there in the wilderness, wants him to have a chance to sort through what God’s asking of him.  Jesus needed to get lost for a while.  You know, sometimes you have to let yourself get lost, or admit that you’re already lost, before you can find your new direction.  More on that in a minute.

Well, while he was wrestling with the powers of darkness, so was John the Baptist, in a different way – getting arrested and eventually losing his head.  So, with John gone and the wilderness time over, Jesus steps up and begins naming the new reality he’s been sent to proclaim: that it’s time to think differently.  It’s time to see God’s power at work in the world, in contrast to the powers that suck our life away. “The time is fulfilled,” he says, “and the Kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (1:15). 

Repent and believe in the good news.

Hmmm.  I don’t know about you, but when I hear “repent and believe in the good news,” something in me kind of shuts down.  Maybe it has to do with the baggage those words carry these days.  When I hear “repent,” my lizard brain says, “Nope.  Don’t go there.  You do a perfectly good job of feeling bad about yourself without any help from overly-convicted preachers.”  I grew up in Springfield, Missouri, and we got lots of finger-shaking calls to repentance, implicitly and explicitly, from lots of religious people.  Even today, you see billboards try to scare you into loving God:  You know, “Repent or burn,” that kind of thing.  For my lizard brain, “repent” means slick preachers manipulating people into tearful altar calls.  No thanks. 

But in Scripture, “repent” doesn’t mean, “Be afraid of going to hell.”  It also doesn’t mean, “Feel bad about yourself.”  In Scripture, “repent” means, “Change your mind” – to think differently about something based on some experience.  Now, it does imply you’re turning away from something with regret for having been on the wrong path.  It’s not just realizing intellectually that it’s safer to drive 70 than 90 on the highway; it’s regretting that you’ve put yourself and others at risk when you speed.  Repenting is changing your mind and acting on it.  It doesn’t mean seeing yourself as worthless or stupid or unworthy of love because you made bad choices – just the opposite.  Repenting means recognizing that, because you’re human, you are God’s beloved.  And God needs for you to be out there spreading love, not barreling down the highway like your life doesn’t matter.

And how about believing?  That’s the other thing Jesus calls us to do in this story – “believe in the good news.”  Now, if we’re supposed to believe in the good news, does that mean we’re on our way to hell if we don’t think the universe was created in six days, or if we don’t think Noah saved the earth’s biosphere on a boat, or if we don’t think the Nicene Creed is a technical spec sheet for the nature of God?  Does believing necessarily mean we have to see theological truths as facts? 

You know, if you look at the Greek word for “believe” in this story, it’s not about facts vs. falsehoods.  It’s not about whether ancient stories jibe with scientific explanations.  The word “believe” is about trust.  It’s about where you direct your mind and commit your heart.  It’s about claiming God’s narrative as your own and staking your life on it.

And you know, that doesn’t happen with the flip of a switch.  I don’t know anyone with life-building, difference-making faith who hasn’t come to it over a long and sometimes painful process.  We’ve got to go deep in order to be deeply in relationship, whether it’s with our spouse or our kids or our friends or our God.  In her book Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don’t Belong To, Lillian Daniels talks about how a journey looks and feels very different depending on whether you see yourself as a tourist or an adventurer.  Now, I love a good tour, but you can’t live there.  Real living – living that means something, living that makes a difference in the world – real living isn’t tourism, it’s adventure.  Daniels puts it like this: 

Tourism is a journey with clear boundaries and limitations. …  When you’re a tourist, you approach the trip with a certain set of expectations.  I want to see the Taj Mahal and get my picture taken in front of it. …  When you’re on an adventure, you have to relinquish your expectations. ...  If faith is an adventure journey, you need to accept that you may not know how this trip is going to turn out. (175-176)

I think that’s what Jesus was doing out there in the wilderness for those 40 days.  I don’t think he went there as a tourist.  I think he was wrestling … maybe with his own demons, maybe with his own uncertainty, but definitely with ours.  I think Jesus was out there in the wilderness to see what it’s like to be just as lost as the rest of us.

So, where are you lost?  And what if we could be honest about that question – with ourselves, and with each other, and with God?  We spend a lot of time and energy not wrestling with the demons at our doors.  Maybe you know your family’s life isn’t perfect, but you’re doing everything you can to make sure no one else finds out.  Maybe you look at your credit-card statement and feel like you’ve fallen down a well, and no one knows you’re down there.  Maybe you look at the news and worry that someone might buy an assault rifle and shoot up the place where your kids or grandkids go to school.  Maybe you know just how easy it is for teens to buy drugs, and it kills you that you can’t protect them from it.  Maybe you feel like you’re held captive to an outside force yourself – drugs, or alcohol, or food, or gambling, or sex, or any of a hundred other addictions.  If any of those situations ring true for you – and if you know, deep down, that you need a source of power greater than yourself – welcome home. 

Yes, God wants us to repent – to change our minds and live differently.  And God wants us to believe – to trust in a story bigger than our own.  And we do that by traveling the long road together, a community of pilgrims walking the path of adventure.  That doesn’t mean ignoring the demons in the wilderness – just the opposite.  It means spending some time in the wilderness, but not by ourselves.  It means being real with each other about how hard it is to struggle with our faults and failings.  It means leaning on each other when the world trips us up or beats us down.  And though that’s not easy, I think it is healing. 

This is the offer Jesus holds out to us:  Sure, you’re part of a broken family, the human family, God’s family – but don’t stay stuck in your brokenness.  Look at it with your eyes wide open.  Take the risk to share it with someone who’s just as broken as you are.  Think differently, and see your belovedness, and choose to turn in a new direction. 

That’s Lent.  And strangely enough, it’s Good News.

Flying With the Buzzards

Sermon for Feb. 11, 2018 (Scout Sunday)
Mark 9:2-9

First, I want to welcome the Scouts, leaders, and parents of Pack and Troop 16 as we celebrate Scout Sunday today.  I know you’re here at the church every week for meetings, but it’s great to have all of you here today for worship, too.  And thanks especially to the Scouts serving as lectors, acolytes, and ushers this morning!

So, the Gospel reading on this Scout Sunday is one that probably seems like it has nothing to do with Scouting and, frankly, nothing to do with your life.  I want to try to convince you otherwise, so hang with me for a few minutes.  It’s the story of the the Transfiguration.  It’s a story of mystery, a story that I think is supposed to make us stop short and say, “Wait, what?”  So, if it leaves you a little confused, you’re in good company.

This is a mountaintop story, and we get lots of those moments in the Bible – Moses climbing Mt. Sinai to receive God’s law; Elijah seeing and talking with God on the mountain and living to tell the tale; Jesus wrestling with his demons on the Mount of Olives – even the crucifixion, which happens on a hill outside Jerusalem.  It seems like God’s chosen people are always climbing, always making their way up the mountain. 

That includes us, by the way.  But at least for me, those mountaintop experiences aren’t always clear, even when they stick with you a long time.  I had one of those moments on what passes for a mountain in Missouri.  I’d been out of college just a couple of years; I’d gone camping by myself in the St. Francois Mountains in south-central Missouri; and I found myself near the second-highest peak in the state.  Now, this is Missouri, so being the second-highest peak in the state doesn’t mean all that much, at 1,300 feet.  But still – there I was, at Mudlick Mountain; and I decided to hike up.  It was beautiful – the oaks and hickories towering above; squirrels and deer down below.  I could have driven up, but I wanted to see what I’d see going on foot. 

And the effort paid off.  At the summit, such as it was, I came out of the woods into a clearing with a fire tower rising above it.  And all over the fire tower, and all over that clearing, were large birds.  I remember them as eagles, but probably they were buzzards.  Whatever they were, when I came out of the woods, all these huge birds took off together; and it looked and sounded like the top of the mountain lifted off and flew away.  It was stunning, and I even took a few feathers home with me, to help me remember.  But I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the experience.  I mean, I’d taken the trouble to hike up that little mountain for some reason, right?  What was I looking for?  Well, something of significance, something of value, something that that would make a difference.  I was looking for an experience of glory.

That’s why we go on campouts or climb mountains, right?  I mean, you could just stay at a hotel instead.  You could just drive your car up the mountain, pull over, and look off the scenic view.  These days, you could just get a drone and fly it up there, shooting video of “your” experience.  So why do we go camping and climb mountains instead?

I think we do it to see what God will do with the experience.  I think we put ourselves out there to see what we’ll see and hear what we’ll hear.  We put ourselves out there to see how God might show up.

That’s what Peter, James, and John are doing in this morning’s Gospel story.  The difference here is that they have Jesus as a guide.  He takes them “up a high mountain apart, by themselves” (Mark 9:2).  The story doesn’t say why they’re taking this hike, but I think they’re looking to see how God might show up.  And God doesn’t disappoint them, though it’s a little more intense than the disciples would have wanted.  Jesus is “transfigured” before his friends, his clothes turning dazzling white and his face shining with the same light that pierced the darkness at the beginning of creation, the light of the Big Bang, the light of God’s own presence.  Then, Moses and Elijah appear out of nowhere, putting Jesus literally in conversation with the Law and the Prophets of the people of Israel.  In the middle of this fantasy scene, Peter thinks he needs to say something to make sense of it, so he offers to build little shrines to worship Jesus and Moses and Elijah.  But then comes the One they’ve all been waiting for, the One they hiked up the mountain to find.  A dark cloud descends over the mountaintop, and the divine voice thunders, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” (Mark 9:7). 

And just as quickly as it began, the moment is over.  Moses and Elijah vanish, the cloud lifts, and the hikers are left with Jesus the trail guide looking normal again, ready to take them back down the mountain.

“Wait,” the disciples are thinking; “what was it God said?  ‘This is my Son; listen to him’?  But Jesus didn’t say anything.”  Well, that’s not very helpful.  Don’t you just wish sometimes that Jesus would show up and say exactly what he wants us to hear?  Wouldn’t it be great if Jesus just walked down the aisle and finished this sermon for me?

Not this time?  Well, OK.  Instead, let’s look at the story just before this one, where Jesus had something pretty significant to say.  It starts with Peter saying Jesus is the Messiah – God’s anointed king, the one who’s come to kick out the Romans and establish God’s rule instead.  But Jesus tells him, “Well, that’s not exactly how it works.”  In fact, it’s just the opposite.  He is the anointed king, but this king doesn’t rule the way we expect.  This king is hiking to Jerusalem, where he’ll climb a mountain with a cross on his back and come into his glory in the last way we’d imagine – bleeding and dying. 

And even worse, Jesus calls us to follow that path he’s about to take.  He says to the disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, and take up their cross, and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake … will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35)  The way this king will defeat the powers that oppress us is by sacrificing himself.  And that sacrifice saves us.  The pains you bear, the losses you endure, the failures that stick with you, the damage you cause that you’d give anything to fix … this king takes his cross to the top of the mountain and lets himself be broken on it to give you the chance to be healed. 

How does that work?  That hike with the cross leads the way to resurrection.  Jesus takes us to a place where endings aren’t endings, where death doesn’t stop us.  He takes us to a place where love makes us new and lets us live forever.  And, as if all that isn’t enough, Jesus asks us to join him on that path, and give ourselves away, and help him heal the world.  Follow me, he says, and let God’s light shine through you so you can light the way of resurrection for others. 

Here’s the thing:  When I hiked up Mudlick Mountain, I was a young man with a great future, by the world’s standards.  I was going somewhere.  I was the speechwriter and deputy press secretary for the governor of Missouri, and the governor liked what I was doing.  I could have been working for him when he became a senator, even when he became the nation’s attorney general, as it turned out.  But the work didn’t mean anything to me.  I didn’t feel like I was making a difference.  So, I went to Mudlick Mountain to look for a sign. 

I didn’t really hear or see anything specific from God in that flight of eagles (or buzzards).  But what I heard and saw was that God was there in the majesty of those birds, in the beauty of that peak.  I heard and saw God’s possibility.  Like those buzzards, even I could take flight … by leaving behind what I had and by turning away from where I was going.  I thought that meant being a teacher, so I left the governor’s office and went back to college.  I didn’t end up being a teacher, but I met the woman who would be my wife.  And we had kids.  And I got this call to be a priest.  And here I am, loving and serving you all.  It’s not the path I’d ever imagined, and every step along the way has cost me something – a lot, some of them.  But at the end of the day, I’ve found life I never knew was out there.

Others in the room this morning could tell a similar story.  And you Scouts, you’re learning this story, too – this story about giving yourself up in service, about putting the well-being of the den or patrol first, about putting yourself third behind God and other people.  And you’re learning the mystery Jesus was trying to show his friends up on that mountain: that success isn’t about achieving power.  Success isn’t about scoring highest.  Success isn’t about getting the most.  Success comes from loving and serving others.  Success comes from being God’s light for the people who join you along your path.  Success comes from the last thing you’d imagine: from giving yourself away.

State of the Parish Address: Pull Someone Out of the Boat

Sermon for Jan. 21, 2018
Mark 1:14-20

I want to start this State of the Parish address with a story from our mission trip to Haiti last year.  You may remember hearing about a ride on what came to be called “the Adventure Boat.”  We were going to an island off the Haitian coast to visit a school and hospital for disabled children, and to spend the afternoon at the beach.  But as it turned out, getting there was the real adventure. 

We thought we were taking a tour boat, like something you’d see at Lake of the Ozarks.  Instead, we ended up with two aging wooden longboats, and we were in them a couple of hours. Finally, the pilots guided the boats carefully toward the dock, deftly moving us into place.  Some of us were seasick; some of us were aching; all of us were drenched.  Then, onto the dock stepped a young man who pulled the boats in, tied off the line, and reached out his long, strong arm to help us up.  We each stumbled out of the boat and up onto the dock, deeply grateful for solid footing and a helping hand.

All that may seem unrelated to the state of St. Andrew’s parish as we begin another year together.  But remember the Gospel reading we just heard, one of two versions of Jesus calling our patron saint; and his brother, Peter; and their colleagues James and John.  Jesus calls Andrew and Peter as they’re out in their boat, “for they were fishermen” (Mark 1:16).  He says to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people” – certainly the appropriate way to phrase it, even if it does destroy the poetry of the King James, which made these fishermen “become fishers of men.” 

So now, you’re expecting a sermon about fishing.  I imagine you’ve heard that sermon before, and I know I’ve preached that sermon before.  But you know, the metaphor of Jesus calling us to evangelistic fishing has always felt a little creepy to me.  I mean, what does a fisherman do with the fish he catches?  He sells them, or eats them, or hangs them on a wall.  None of those actions seems quite right for a church as it fishes for new members.  I don’t think we’re supposed to be about profiting from people, or eating them up, or patting ourselves on the back for having caught them.  Too often, of course, we err that way, seeing people as resources to build up the church.  It’s actually just the opposite:  A church is a resource to build up people. 

And that’s what Jesus is doing in this reading, I think.  He isn’t building an institution.  He’s noticing Andrew and Peter and James and John, and he’s inviting them into deeper relationship with God and each other than they’ve ever known before.  He’s reaching out to take their hands and pull them out of the boat and onto dry land.

So, as we consider the state of our parish, I hope you’ll hold onto this image of how Jesus calls us to fish for people.  It turns fishing upside down – not for the benefit of the fisherman but for the benefit of the fish.

What’s the state of our parish?  Let me share a few observations that really are thank-yous – thank-yous for your immense generosity.  In the past decade or so, you have renewed the physical infrastructure of our church building with not one, not even two, but three capital campaigns – though the last two weren’t exactly planned.  First, you gave $1.6 million toward the Rebuild, Restore, Renew effort that replaced the slate roof on the nave, replaced part of our HVAC system, and updated spaces around the church.  Then, in the past two years – when we had to replace the rest of the HVAC system and respond to a series of rains that turned the church into a rainforest – you gave another $506,000 in total, far surpassing the amounts we needed to obtain two matching gifts.  In addition, parishioners Charlie and Mary Kay Horner gifted us with beautiful new restrooms right next to the nave.  Our Junior Warden and King of the Rainforest Morgan Olander will give you more detail during the annual meeting, but I want to say this: Thank you for your overwhelming generosity.  All told, you’ve given $2.2 million in the past decade for work on this side of the street to make our capacity for ministry simply excellent.

And then, on top of that, there’s Gather & Grow, our capital ministry campaign begun in 2015.  Since this summer, we’ve seen the icon of this effort, the new HJ’s youth and community center, rising from a giant hole across the street.  In addition to housing our growing youth and Scout ministry, HJ’s will host group meetings, classes, concerts and exhibits, community events, and private parties – as well as being a place of welcome for people on the Trolley Trail.  In fact, even before the building is open, we’re offering classes on personal finance and the spirituality of money, as well as the first of what I hope will be several offerings on communication skills for couples.  We’re also having a book drive in Lent to link with the mayor’s early-childhood-literacy initiative and hosting community forums with the superintendent of schools.  The new HJ’s, and improvements to the Wornall Road entrance to the church, are budgeted to cost $3.6 million, and that work is on budget.  Because of your tremendous generosity, and the support of the William T. Kemper Foundation, pledges and gifts toward Gather & Grow now stand at $4 million – leaving about $400,000 to support ministry and operations in the new facility. 

All that generosity is making St. Andrew’s truly an inviting place for this family to do its work: gathering, worshiping God, loving one another, and blessing the world.  We’re seeing progress there, too.  At a time when half of Episcopal congregations are declining in membership and attendance,¹ we can report increases in both over the past year, in part because of gifts that enable us to livestream worship on our website every week.  We’re also seeing more participation in youth activities and adult learning opportunities.  You may not know there are more than a dozen different ongoing classes and groups here to help adults grow in their faith.  We’re also making a difference in the world, giving more than $160,000 to outreach ministries last year and serving people in need in downtown, in midtown, at local schools, and at a school in Haiti that’s doubled in size in the past couple of years.  Through time, talent, and treasure, you are living into our family’s mission: to proclaim the grace of Jesus Christ, empower people for ministry, and serve people within and beyond our church.

All that is wonderful.  And now – ironically, maybe counter-intuitively – now is the time to think smaller.  By that, I don’t mean scaling back anything.  In fact, God is calling us to reach many more people than we’ve been blessed to reach this year.  God wants to see St. Andrew’s live into its potential as a force for revealing the Kingdom, transforming lives, and changing the world.  But the key to doing that is to think smaller.  The end of the book I wrote a couple of years ago puts it like this:  People are the new program.  People are the new program.  That doesn’t mean churches don’t need programs.  It means we need to focus our energy on people first.  And that’s true both in our work to reach folks who aren’t yet part of a church family and in our life together here. 

You know, the experts talk about the best practice for newcomer ministry being a model of “invite, welcome, and connect.”  It’s not enough to see ourselves as a church where everyone’s welcome.  That’s certainly true, but it’s the rough equivalent to unlocking the doors – a good start, but hardly enough.  Instead, congregations have to keep improving how they invite people, welcome them once they come, and connect them with the life of the congregation.  All that’s true.  And I’d like to make two points about it.

First, that pattern of inviting, welcoming, and connecting applies not just to the people out there but to the people in here, too.  The Vestry and other ministry leaders have been working hard to sharpen our focus on engaging and involving members of this church family more deeply.  We’ve expanded “stewardship” beyond a pledge campaign, rejuvenated the SweeneyCare calling ministry, grown lay pastoral care, asked you to sign in on Sunday mornings, and heard your voice through the parish survey.  We have 1,688 members on the rolls, as of Friday; and our average Sunday attendance is 325.  That’s a pretty common proportion across the Episcopal Church – attendance from about 20 percent of the membership.  It’s the 80/20 rule, at church as in the rest of life.  But you know, we can do better.  We are St. Andrew’s, and we can do better.  We need to keep being more intentional about inviting, welcoming, and connecting with members of the family we don’t see as often as we’d like.

Second, this work of inviting, welcoming, and connecting applies not just to ordained people and staff.  It’s the call of every spiritual descendent of St. Andrew in this place.  “Come,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fish for people.”  It’s your strong arm and your welcoming hand that reaches out to pull people up from their boats and join us here on the dock, where the waters aren’t quite so troubled.  A few hands are not enough to reach out and connect with the people Jesus wants us to bring along.  When Jesus called disciples to follow him, he didn’t say, “I will make clergy fish for people,” or “I will make Vestry members fish for people,” or “I will make staff members fish for people.”  He said, “I will make you fish for people” – each one of us, in whatever way we’re involved. 

If you come on Sunday mornings, invite someone else to come next Sunday morning.  If you’re part of a book study, invite someone else to share in the blessing of your book study.  If you’re part of an outreach ministry, invite someone else to serve Christ in the least of his brothers and sisters.  If you’re part of a group that helps lead worship, or bakes bread, or cleans up the garden, or oversees building repairs, or whatever – whatever you’re part of, I want to ask you to see your role in it growing just a bit this year.  I would like us all to expand the expectations for every role of ministry to include inviting, or welcoming, or connecting someone else into it – not just doing our own work but bringing new hands on board.  I believe that would be the single most important thing this church family could do this year, the single most valuable commitment we could make – to understand that we are each called to bring someone to the table.

You know, Jesus isn’t looking for us just to get the work done at church, and contribute our unique talents, and pay the bills – as important as all of that is.  Jesus is looking for us to reach out from this safe and secure dock at the edge of troubled waters, and extend our hands to the people trying to navigate life in their own small boats, and pull those people in.  After all, Jesus’ first call to his first followers wasn’t to serve on the synagogue’s building committee.  His first call to his first followers was to fish for other people – not because Jesus needs them to build an institution but because they need him to shape their hearts and souls.  People first – those outside and those inside.  People first – those clearly in need and those who hold their own needs close.  People first – because everyone needs a hand to get out of the small, rickety boat we’re trying to pilot on our own and stand on solid ground instead.

1.       Episcopal Church Domestic Fast Facts: 2016.  Available at: https://extranet.generalconvention.org/staff/files/download/19543.  Accessed Jan. 19, 2018.

My Neighbors Across the Sea – A Reflection on President Trump’s Comments on Haiti and Africa

I’m not in the habit of reacting to things that come out of our political leaders’ mouths. If I were, there would be plenty of content, from both sides of the aisle, to fill a weekly column. But our president’s comments about Haiti, as well as other nations, go beyond the boundaries of Shakespeare’s observation, “Lord, what fools these mortals be.” We all say things we’d like to un-say. But the president’s consigning of African nations to the category of “s---hole countries” and questioning why the U.S. would want immigrants from Haiti – it begs for the light of the Good News to shine upon it.

Of course, the language is appalling, but that’s not what I think Jesus mourns about these comments. It’s the disconnect, thousands of miles wide, between the president’s observations and Christian theology and practice. It’s hard, perhaps impossible, to reconcile the president’s words with Jesus’ core teachings: “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). “Just as you did it to [or said it about] one of the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).

The president’s comments give us the opportunity to live as the contrast presence we are, as followers of Jesus Christ. As you know, St. Andrew’s has a partnership of more than 25 years with St. Augustin’s Episcopal Church and School in Maniche, Haiti. Right now, in fact, parishioner Kathy Shaffer is overcoming a broken wrist to travel there to develop our relationship with our new partner priest, Pere Abiade Lozama. Earlier this year, we said farewell (a tearful farewell, for some of us) to Pere Colbert Estil, our partner priest for 12 years. The point is this: For us at St. Andrew’s, Haiti is not an abstraction of poverty, difference, and secondary status. For us, Haiti is people – children of God who embody precisely the same gifts and failings as we do. On my several trips to Haiti in the past 12 years, I have met people with an astonishing work ethic, far stronger than mine. I have met people with an entrepreneurial drive to rival that of Ewing Kauffman or Steve Jobs. I have met people, lay and ordained, who pour out their hearts and souls to teach the hundreds of children God gives them to serve. I would love the opportunity to take the president there and introduce him to the reality that is Haiti. Because the nation of Haiti includes my partners and friends.

The timing of the president’s comments only highlights the tragedy of the gap between his words and the Good News (not to mention our nation’s ideals). On Monday, our country will honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., our national prophet. Dr. King once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” That is a human truth, but it’s particularly a Christian truth. We are bound together, like it or not. As Jesus prayed to his Father, “The glory that you have given me, I have given [my followers], so that they may be one as we are one – I in them and you in me, that they may be completely one…” (John 17:22-23). We are bound to our neighbors, across town and across the sea.

I hope you’ll come this Sunday as we baptize two new children of God and reaffirm our Baptismal Covenant, which ends with these words: “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” Sometimes showing up and affirming Jesus’ Good News is not simply an act of faith but an act of resistance – resistance to the darkness that God’s Light overcomes.

Offer the Gift You Need to Lose

Sermon for Jan. 7, Celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany
Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7,10-14; Matthew 2:1-12

Who were those giant puppets who just brought their gifts to the baby King and now are making their way back home again?  In the Gospel reading this morning, they’re called “wise men” or magi in Greek – court officials who studied astrology and practiced magic.  To our ears, that probably puts them right up there with palm readers in terms of their credibility, but that’s not fair.  Astrology and what we would call “magic” were the science of their day, so these magi were intellectuals and members of the court.  Now, over the centuries, Christian tradition conflated their royal role with Biblical writings anticipating foreign kings coming to honor Israel’s monarch and Israel’s God, so these royal visitors came to be described as kings themselves.  It’s a powerful image – a would-be king recognizing the true King, worldly power humbling itself before the humble throne of God.  Whether our visitors this morning were kings or court officials, the same message comes through loud and clear: “All kings shall bow down before him, and all the nations do him service,” as we prayed in this morning’s psalm (72:11 BCP).

And what about those gifts they brought?  Now we come to a detail the Gospel writer names quite specifically and whose meaning matters, I think.  It certainly mattered to the writer of the carol “We Three Kings”; three of the verses of that song explain what the gifts mean.  First, there’s gold, maybe the ultimate symbol of kingship and the wealth that goes with it.  Even today, when people go to England and visit the Tower of London, what do they stand in line to see?  The crown jewels, regal wealth on display.  Second, there’s frankincense, like the incense we’re offering in our worship this morning.  The ancient smoke wafts to heaven with the prayers of God’s people, honoring the deity who alone has the power to “form light and create darkness, [to] make weal and create woe,” as the prophet Isaiah said (45:7).  And third, there’s myrrh, the gift furthest from our experience.  The carol tells us that myrrh is about being “sealed in the stone-cold tomb,” and indeed it was among the preparations used with royal mummies, an extremely expensive resin for anointing and embalming bodies for burial.  So those very specific gifts carry great weight:  Gold symbolizing royal wealth, frankincense symbolizing divine power, and myrrh symbolizing our best human attempts to stave off the power of death.

 Here’s another detail in today’s Gospel story that matters, at least to me: the last line.  It’s the very best kind of last line, one that gives the story a satisfying ending while it turns the page to the next chapter.  So, the magi have made their way from a foreign land, and they’ve gone to see the earthly king, Herod.  They assume he’ll be rejoicing over the birth of a male successor and that he’ll help them find the baby.  Herod, of course, is more like Tony Soprano than King David, and he’s looking out solely for his own interests.  So Herod enlists the magi as his unknown agents, asking them to report back once they find this baby who might show Herod to be the fraud he is.  And the magi head off, following the star to Bethlehem and entering the most unlikely royal palace ever: a peasant’s shack, the kind of house we might visit on a mission trip to Haiti.  But the magi know they’ve found the real deal.  Their hearts know the truth that appearance denies.  These kings or court officials kneel down before this peasant baby and pay him homage.  And they open up their treasure chests to give him gifts fit for a King: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  Then comes the great ending: The God who’s led them all this way spoils Herod’s ugly plans and warns the magi to head home “by another road” (Matthew 2:12).  They get on their camels and ride off into the sunset, the stage set for their next chapter.

Unfortunately, Scripture doesn’t give us that next chapter.  It’s left for us to write in our imaginations and in our own lives.  First, some imagination.  What do you suppose happened to these three kings or court officials?  Well, maybe nothing; maybe they just played their parts in Jesus’ story and went back to their regular lives.  But what if they couldn’t get their experience out of their heads?  What if the ugliness they found in Herod and the humility they found in the baby King changed their hearts?  Maybe, as they went about their work in the royal court, they came to see their own world with a different perspective.  Maybe, when a poor suppliant would come to the court, the last resort for an oppressed person seeking justice, maybe the king would listen a little more deeply and put the poor person’s interest first.  Maybe, when they found themselves tempted to build up their own power and wealth, maybe they heard a small voice reminding them of the King who put the well-being of his people ahead of his own life.  Maybe, when they began taking themselves too seriously and letting the burden of their responsibility weigh upon them so heavily it would begin to crush their hearts, maybe they heard a small voice assuring them they actually weren’t the one in charge after all.  Maybe, when they began to grow older and saw that the road ahead was so much shorter then the road they’d traveled, maybe they heard a small voice comforting them with the possibility that this life might not be all there is.

Here’s what I’m thinking.  These kings or court officials or whomever they were – they might be a model for us.  I doubt any of us will be driving camels across the desert anytime soon or holding audiences with a sociopathic puppet ruler who’s willing to kill babies to advance his career.  But think about what the magi do in this story.  They track the movement of the stars, and travel all that distance, and put themselves at risk – all for what?  To bring gifts and pay homage to “the child who has been born king” (Matthew 2:2). 

That’s still our call, too, of course.  But we often get tripped up by thinking that what we have to bring doesn’t count.  What have I got to offer Jesus, God’s anointed King?  Well, strangely enough, maybe you have the same gifts that those magi brought 2,000 years ago. 

Gold is the symbol of wealth, something with which we’re all blessed, to different degrees.  Wealth can build capacity and drive innovation and serve people and change lives.  But wealth can also be a heavy idol hanging around our necks, dragging us down and keeping us from focusing on much of anything else.  Then there’s frankincense, the symbol of divine power.  We are blessed by God to share in this power, made in God’s image and likeness to be co-creators of our lives and our world.  But that power can also delude us into imagining that it’s ours instead of God’s and that, like Herod, we can wield it for our own advantage.  And then there’s myrrh, the embalming resin, the symbol of our mortality.  From ancient times onward, we’ve done all we could to preserve youth and stave off the natural changes of growing older.  But our fear of death can also keep us from being fully present in the place in life where God has put us, spurring us into mid-life crises or deceiving us into extending life at all costs.

I’d like to encourage you to bring these gifts to the baby King – your gold and frankincense and myrrh, your wealth and your power and your fear of mortality.  The holy irony is that these same gifts that honor the truth of Jesus’ lordship over us are also some of the greatest burdens we carry.  Jesus does want us to bring them as a reminder that God is God, and we are not; but Jesus also wants us to bring those gifts to him because he wants nothing more than to shoulder our weightiest burdens for us.  “Come to me,” he says, “all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls,” he says.  “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

What do you have to offer the baby King?  The blessings and curses of wealth, and power, and mortality.  Jesus would like nothing more than for you to come to him, and lay down those burdens you carry, and let God take you home by another way.