"This is Me" Saith the Lord

When the sharpest words wanna cut me down / I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out / I am brave, I am bruised / I am who I'm meant to be, this is me / Look out 'cause here I come / And I'm marching on to the beat I drum / I'm not scared to be seen / I make no apologies, this is me

We’re week three into our Showstoppers series here at Southport.  And turning to one of my all time favorite new show stopping tunes.  Elsewhere I wrote that “This is Me”is an anthem of identity and worth and determination.  It is about the outcast becoming the center of attention.  It is a recognition that the place the world gives to us is not always the place Jesus gives to us.  And He shows that in His very first encounter with the opposition, with those who don’t want Him to be who He came to be, but they want Him to be who they want him to be.  Jesus always issues an invitation – follow me.  Join me, be a part of what I’m doing, what I’m bringing.  But He is going to do it His way, that’s what the wrestling in the desert was all about.  He chose His path.  We’re invited to come along, but we’re to walk His way.  

OK, full disclosure, I’m not at the top of my game this afternoon.  I just spent the day teaching for Course of Study.  Plus I woke up (actually went to bed) with the beginnings of the cold that has been running around our office.  So, I’m taking the easy way out and rerunning a commentary on this passage that I have done before.  It may sound familiar to some of you who have been reading for a while.  But that’s OK, it is still relevant.  

All I ask is that as you read you hear the great singer and actress Keala Settle sing This is Me from the Greatest Showman while you read.  And see if some of these words (like those printed above) sound faintly like what Jesus might have been singing as He passed through a murderous crowd and went on His way.

Luke 4:21-30  21 Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" 23 He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" 24 And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

Everything was going so well.  Jesus makes his proclamation, preaches his nine word sermon and the applause rains down.  I know, that isn’t the way you remember the story.  Wasn’t he rejected, didn’t they say he was just a hometown boy getting too big for his britches?  Well, not exactly.  Not at first.  Look again.  “All spoke well of him.”  They thought, wow!  A hometown boy made good.  He’s one of us!  He’s ours.  Aren’t we special?  Aren’t we cool?  That little phrase at the end of verse 22 wasn’t disparaging, it was pride.  He’s like us.

If Jesus has stopped there, it would have been a glorious homecoming.  They would have slapped him on the back and invited him to dinner and talked about the good old days when he was a boy and things were so much better back in the Nazareth that used to be once upon a time.  Jesus would have been a minor celebrity and they’d all wave to him in the Walgreen’s parking lot, and want to sit by him in the bleachers at the high school basketball games.  He could have done well back there in the little town.  

But he didn’t stop talking.  He had a bigger vision than one small town in the hill country of Galilee.  So he says, I know you want me to settle down here, because here is where all the people that matter are.  I know you don’t understand why anyone would want to leave Nazareth and go on to other towns and other countries.  But you don’t need me here.  You won’t hear me here.

Wait, he said that?  “No prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown.”  Different translations have us remember those words in different ways.  But what does it mean?  Why did he say it?  Because he knew what was underneath their approval.  And he knew they didn’t want to hear what he came to say.  He came to say they were important - that much they heard.  God is going to get the kingdom going right here, in Nazareth.  That’ll show the folks down the road, in the next county, in the next country.  God’s kicking things off right here!  Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.  Yee haw.  He came to say that they were important.  But that they weren’t the only important ones in the world.  He came to say that God thinks even the stranger, even the foreigner, even the enemy is important.  Important enough to save.  Important enough to love.

This has been God’s plan from the beginning, Jesus says.  You remember Elijah?  You remember that story of the widow?  God thought she was important, saved her, blessed her, loved her.  She wasn’t one of us.  You remember Elisha?  You remember that guy, that foreign general guy, with the skin problem?  That guy was an enemy, a conqueror of people like you.  God healed him.  God blessed him.  God loved him.  Get this, he was Syrian.

Syrian?  Wait a minute here Jesus.  A refugee from Syria?  He might be wanting to hurt us.  He might be hating us.  He might tell us he’s running for his life, but maybe it is just a plot.  To catch us with our guard down.  Maybe he isn’t really sick.  Maybe they aren’t really refugees.  Maybe they haven’t lived their whole lives in fear of their lives, surrounded by war and killing and living in an unjust system that doesn’t value them as human beings but rather sees them as pawns in a terrible game of power.  Maybe we should protect ourselves first, think of ourselves first.

How dare you, Jesus, tell us to love even those who are different from us.  Heck, we struggle to love the others in our pew, don’t go asking us to love across the boundaries that are there to keep us safe.  No wonder they got angry.  No wonder they turned into a mob.  You can’t blame them really.  Jesus was inconveniencing them something awful.  Asking them to make accommodations, to change ingrained habits, to think differently about who and what a neighbor really is.  That’s crazy talk.  So, they barked and barked and barked, drove him out of town, wanted to toss him off a cliff.  But he just left.  He had places to go, a Word to proclaim, a world to save.  He went on His way.

Perhaps the saddest verse in the whole Bible.  Evidence that God doesn’t force us to change, to grow, to love like He loves.  Doesn’t demand that we become something more, something riskier, something with the potential to change the world for the better.  To be more like it was supposed to be in the beginning.  When God created the heavens and the earth and said it was good!  It was good.  We don’t have to be a part of the making good.  But Jesus isn’t hanging around.  He says follow me.  And goes on His way.

Shalom, 

Derek

Come Alive

It’s another January day out there.  Cold, but not as frigid as yesterday, though the cold is returning we’re told.  Sun peeks out now and then, but not enough to chase the blues away.  

You stumble through your days / Got your head hung low / Your skies' a shade of grey / Like a zombie in a maze / You're asleep inside / But you can shake awake / 'Cause you're just a dead man walking / Thinking that's your only option / But you can flip the switch and brighten up your darkest day / Sun is up and the color's blinding / Take the world and redefine it / Leave behind your narrow mind / You'll never be the same

Some argue that a Christian should never be blue.  A true follower of Jesus should never be down, depressed, we hear.  That’s why we often hide it when we are struggling.  There is a switch we can flip.  Knowledge we can claim that can turn everything around.  The problem is there is.  Maybe not a switch to throw, maybe not anything quite so easy.  But there is new life to be had.  There is a fresh start, a new way of living in the world, a way of being.  Of loving and being loved.  Jesus came that we might have life and have it abundantly, and yet it still slips through our fingers with surprising speed.  What will it take for us to be able to throw that switch, to be able to come alive?

Luke.4:14-21  Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.  16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." 20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.  21 Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

There is an invitation here.  It seems so obvious.  I know that this is really about Jesus.  The season of Epiphany is all about Jesus, not about us.  At best we get to stand in the glow of the light that comes.  But it is about Him.  Look at His own words as he stands to read the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me.”  Did you hear it?  “He has anointed Me ...”  “He has sent Me ...”  This isn’t about us, this is about Him.  

And yet, everything about Him is also about us.  Or rather, everything about Him is an invitation to us.  We bear His name, we call ourselves “Christian” which literally means “little Christs.”  We are trying to be like Him.  And though we fail more often than we succeed, we continue to try.  We continue to step out.  We continue to pore over His words to find the hidden meanings and insights into how to live the life He lived.  Continue to seek to come alive.

Come alive, come alive / Go and light your light / Let it burn so bright / Reaching up / To the sky / And it's open wide / You're electrified / When the world becomes a fantasy / And you're more than you could ever be / 'Cause you're dreaming with your eyes wide open / And you know you can't go back again / To the world that you were living in / 'Cause you're dreaming with your eyes wide open / So, come alive!

There are those who claim that Jesus was just wrong when He preached this first and shortest sermon.  “Today” He said.  “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  Fulfilled?  How He even assume that?  How could He believe that freedom has been achieved, that vision has returned, that the poor are lifted up?  It hadn’t happened then, and it hasn’t happened yet to this very day.  He must have been wrong.  Right?

But was He?  What did He announce?  He announced that the Spirit had anointed Him to preach.  To proclaim.  And preach He did.  Proclaim He did.  He preached a world that we couldn’t see yet.  And then called us to see it too.   'Cause you're dreaming with your eyes wide open / And you know you can't go back again / To the world that you were living in / 'Cause you're dreaming with your eyes wide open / So, come alive!  He asked us to come alive, to live in a new world.  A world beyond our vision. A world based on our devotion to Him, our obedience to Him.  The Kingdom.  We are called to dream the Kingdom of God into being each and every day.  To move forward as if we saw something no one else sees.  At least those who aren’t yet alive, who haven’t yet given themselves to a declaration of jubilee.  Of freedom and redemption.  Of love and transformation.  Of value, immense and deep value.

We struggle to see our value.  We feel worthless more often than not.  Empty, a zombie in a maze, a dead one walking.  Yet we are called to know, to hear and proclaim our value, our worth.  Not just ours, but any and all who claim this Christ.  Any who shake awake enough to hear His words, His proclamation.  

Any and all.  That’s what got Him in trouble.  But that’s next week’s part of the story.  We’ll come back to that.  For now we’ll simply acknowledge that those who are alive will always look like freaks to those who are dead.  Who are not yet alive.  

But that’s the invitation.  The call to come alive in Christ.  The invitation is to dream with our eyes wide open.  To believe in something we don’t always see, love and justice, forgiveness and mercy.  Because He saw it, He proclaimed it, He lived it every day, with every breath.  And we want to stand with Him.  He asked us to stand with Him. He said “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  In your hearing.  Meaning us.  In our hearing.  It was an invitation, a call to join Him in the mission to proclaim, to make disciples, to be the church.  In your hearing, He said.  Not just the vibration of your eardrums, but in the secret corners of your heart where you live and define yourself.  Hear it there.  Hear it in the fabric of your soul, in the strings of your heart.  In your dreaming with eyes wide open.  Come alive, He says to us.  And join Me in the proclamation.

Yet it seems impossible.  Beyond us.  Our eyes don’t see as clearly as His do.  Our hearts can’t stand the rejection, the despair like His did.  We give up, we blink away the dream we can’t hold on to on our own.  We have trouble standing against the tide of those who think differently.  Who want to build walls and not bridges, who want to call names and point fingers and not see a common humanity in the ones called least of these, who say security is our highest goal and not community.  It’s beyond us to hold on to this dream, this proclamation, this kingdom.  

The truth is it is hard, too hard for us.  Beyond our power.  Out of our reach.  Which is why we need help.  Like He did.  Wait, what?  He had help?  Luke says He did.  Did you notice?  At the beginning of the text.  Right there it says He had help.  He relied on a power that came from above.  “Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.”  Filled with the power of the Spirit.

On our own power we can’t hope to come alive.  We can’t hope to dream the kingdom dream.  We need the power of the Spirit to stand.  And once we open ourselves to that power, then we can’t go back.  Come alive.  

Shalom, 

Derek 

Showstopper

Ladies and gents, this is the moment you've waited for (woah) / Been searching in the dark, your sweat soaking through the floor (woah) / And buried in your bones there's an ache that you can't ignore / Taking your breath, stealing your mind / And all that was real is left behind

Don't fight it, it's coming for you, running at ya / It's only this moment, don't care what comes after / Your fever dream, can't you see it getting closer /Just surrender 'cause you feel the feeling taking over / It's fire, it's freedom, it's flooding open / It's a preacher in the pulpit and you'll find devotion / There's something breaking at the brick of every wall, it's holding / All that you know / So tell me do you wanna go?

Well, do ya?  Of course we do. With an intro like that, who could say no?  Who could turn away?  Not me.  Buried in your bones there’s an ache you can’t ignore.   For what?  What are we longing for these days?  What draws us, what excites us?  What drives us to reach for, hope for more?  Not more stuff, surely.  But more out of life.  More life!  

We live in an excitement seeking world.  And we have to engage in increasingly dangerous and strenuous activities to keep the adrenaline flowing.  Extreme sports, extreme anything really.  That’s what we want, the thrill a minute, edge of the seat kind of excitement that keeps us feeling alive.  And why not?  Why not grab hold of life with both hands?  Why not drink deep of the waters of life?  Why not run with the wind of joy and celebration?  Why not rejoice at the good things that surround us daily?  Why not love with abandon?  Why not?

I’ll tell you why not.  Because it isn’t real.  Right?  There is so much broken in the world.  There is so much that drags us down, so much that weighs on us. Because life is hard, because no one is on your side.  Because the enemy is at the border, ready to swoop in and steal our livelihood, if not our very lives.  Right?  Because there is too much to fear.  That’s why not.  That’s why we ignore the ache in our bones for something more, something real. Because we don’t know what’s real.  Which news is fake, which fear-mongering is more reflective of the reality in which we live.  We believe who we choose to believe, even when they are proved to be wrong.  It’s a harsh world full of disappointment and betrayal, better to protect yourself, guard your heart so you don’t get hurt.  So that when something goes wrong you can say, I didn’t expect anything less.  It just proves my point that the world is a terrible place.

Except.  It's everything you ever want / It's everything you ever need / And it's here right in front of you / This is where you wanna be (this is where you wanna be) Except, there is more.  There must be more.  There must be something of life left to embrace.  Something that we were created for.  Something that fills us like nothing else.  That gives us joy and a reason to celebrate.  Something like a party.  Or a wedding.

John 2:1-11  On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.  2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.  3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine."  4 And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come."  5 His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."  6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.  7 Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim.  8 He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it.  9 When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom  10 and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now."  11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. 

Wow!  He revealed His glory. Jesus is a showstopper.  That’s my thesis this worship series.  I called it “Showstoppers” and am using some of my favorite musical numbers to help us understand Jesus the showstopper.  A showstopper is a song that is so powerful it steps outside of the narrative of the show and lets us just dwell in the glory of the lyrics and the music.  I watched the movie “The Greatest Showman” not too long ago and I was struck by the power of many of the songs.  And then when I laid them alongside these stories of Jesus, I was struck by the overlapping themes. 

Jesus launches His whole ministry at a wedding.  A blow out party of the year.  That’s what weddings were in those days.  We thought we invented the lavish wedding to end all weddings.  But no, in Jesus’s day weddings lasted a week.  The whole community was invited, the spread was endless, the celebration lasted around the clock (which, I know, hadn’t even been invented yet). In chapter one of John’s Gospel we have a poetic/theological intro, a quick dispensing of John the Baptist, and then the calling of the first of Jesus disciples.  Now, we’re underway.  At a wedding.  At a week long celebration of life and love, of hope and possibility, of a new beginning, but also the riskiness of living.  Things go wrong at weddings.  We all know that.  It’s often what we talk about afterwards.  There are plenty of YouTube videos of wedding disasters, go look them up. 

So, disaster struck at this one too.  Mary noticed it.  It’s a mom thing.  They pay attention.  They band together to resolve the problem.  Mary knew how to fix this one.  She went to Jesus.  “They’ve run out of wine.”  She has a solution to this wedding disaster, this breach in the firm communal rules of hospitality.  She turns to Jesus.

Now Jesus’s response seems a bit ... harsh. Woman, He says.  Not “aw mom, I’m in disguise, lying low.  It’s not time yet.”  Woman.  What is that to do with me or with you?  It’s not my hour.  Harsh.  In the midst of the party, Jesus is prickly, snapping at His mom, shirking His responsibilities - or at least opportunities.  I can’t explain it away.  Can’t find a loophole to make Him not look so rude.  It’s just there.  Another sign that we can love Him, even when we don’t or can’t understand Him.  

In John’s Gospel, everything has layers of meaning.  It’s not my hour is something that Jesus says frequently.  Again and again He reminds those around Him that it wasn’t His hour.  “His hour” has a specific reference for John.  His hour is the cross.  It is death and it is glory.  In a way we’ll never understand, but live in awe of.  

What it doesn’t mean is that He is opting out of the party.  And His mom knew that.  She passes the word to the servants and they leap to fix the unfixable at His word.  He has them fill six stone jars with water.  And makes 180 gallons of the best wine anyone has ever tasted.  And little bit of glory slips out.  Everyone is amazed, even those who don’t know why, but they grab a glass and toast the groom who had been trying to hide from embarrassment.  And the party goes on.

And His disciples believed in Him.  Wait, what?  His disciples believed in Him?  What, they’d just been along for the ride up to now?  They were kinda “well, I’ll go, but I’m not so sure about this guy!”  What did they believe, John, why don’t you get specific?  They believed Jesus had a future in catering?   They believed that they’d never go thirsty again?  What did they believe?  Who knows?  But they believed.

We’re in John’s Gospel remember.  Everything has layers.  Everything has deeper meanings.  Believe in John’s Gospel means something other than what we usually think.  It’s not an intellectual assent.  It’s not a logical theorem argued convincingly.  When John says they believed in Him what he means is that they were ready to put their lives in His hands.  They were ready to place all their bets on Him.  To affix their futures to His.  To go all out for Him.  Because He was everything they ever want, He was everything they ever need, and He was right there in front of them, this - that’s what they knew with every fibre in their being - this is where they wanna be.  With Him. 

Shalom,

Derek 

Snow Day

It’s a messy day today.  The snow is falling fast and hard and seemingly endlessly.  Sure it’s pretty, but also treacherous, and who knows whether it will stop in time for folks to decide to come to worship on Sunday.  Sometimes I think Saturday snows are testing the faith of the church.  

And it is snowing in Kansas City, where our Colts are planning to continue their improbable season by beating what many consider the best team in the NFL.  Can they do it again?  Arrowhead Stadium is an open air field, so they’ll be fighting the elements as well as the opponents.  A messy day.  Go Colts anyway.  Go through the messy to victory.

Which is sometimes the best we can do.  Go through the messy.  To victory, which sometimes is merely survival.  Sometimes victory is being able to continue on another day.  To not run screaming into the darkness.  Just holding on and hoping.  

The other messiness of today is that I’m not preaching tomorrow.  There was a time that I hated that, I lived to preach and it was something of an agony to have to stand aside to let someone else proclaim the Word.  Now I know better.  I know that sometimes I need to be quiet too.  Need to listen and not just always speak.  Some times there aren’t any words to say, and I need to acknowledge that.  Need to allow the messy world in which we live speak.  Or at least to listen for other voices from time to time. 

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22  As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah,  16 John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." ... Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened,  22 and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." 

This is the First Sunday after Epiphany, which means that the story is about the baptism of Jesus.  It is the second of the three Epiphanies that border this liturgical season.  We begin on Epiphany with the Wise men who saw the star, they were given an epiphany, a revelation about who this child really was.  Not the son of a poor girl and her husband who couldn’t find a room in the inn, but the savior of the world.  

The first Sunday of the season and the last Sunday after Epiphany contain two revelations that also identify Jesus as God’s Son.  We begin with the baptism and then we end with the transfiguration, that misty mountain top experience.

What is interesting about Luke’s depiction of the event is that the baptism hardly figures in at all.  The verses we skip serve to usher John the Baptist off the stage in favor of Jesus who now begins his ministry.  But after John’s bluster, the next thing we know is that the baptism had already taken place.  We missed it.  Ain’t that always the way?  We come for the show and by the time we got our seats, it had already happened.  “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus had also been baptized...”  Darn it!  

You’d think that if Luke had a clue about the centuries of struggle the church has had about the detail of baptism, he might have spent a little more time with it.  We don’t know if Jesus was immersed or sprinkled.  We don’t know which liturgy John prefers, or if the vows that Jesus made were the same as the ones we make or not.  We don’t know if John was properly credentialed or if Jesus followed the rules.  We don’t know who signed the certificate.  We need to know these things, don’t we?  

Luke doesn’t seem to think so.  “Jesus had also been baptized...”  That’s the sum total of the description here.  If Luke is saying that the methodology isn’t what is important, then what is?  Why is Jesus even there in the first place?  That’s the question that has puzzled biblical scholars since the beginnings of the church.  John was preaching a baptism of repentance.  But we know that Jesus was without sin.  So, why would He need to be there?  What’s going on here?

The other interesting thing is that the next verses in Luke’s third chapter are the genealogy of Jesus.   Since the Gospel writers never do anything for the heck of it, we have to ask why is the list of Jesus’ earthly family tree following the story of His being claimed by his heavenly father?  

Here is the leap I’m asking you to make with me this weekend: Jesus went to John to be baptized because He was entering into this messy world that we live in.  All of us are born into a world not of our making.  A world we can barely understand at the best of times, a world we cannot explain at the worst of times.  A world that needs repentance, which is a corporate need as much as an individual one.  Jesus strode into the river to be buried up to the neck in the sin of the world, and then to rise to the Spirit.  He didn’t approve of the brokenness of this world, but He embraced it, He made it his, and He carried it with Him, like a chip on the shoulder, like a pack on His back, He carried it all the way to the cross.

And what did He say, when He embraced all that is wrong in this life, all that is less than divine, less than holy?  What words did He use to give meaning and understanding and explanation?  He didn’t say a thing.  Like us He was silent.  Did He want to speak?  Or was the weight of the burden He accepted so heavy that even He was struck dumb.  Like us, He was silent.  So that He would know what we experience when we have no words to say in the face of the messiness of our own lives.

There were words spoken in that moment, though.  Words that echo in the silence of our moments even to this day.  They weren’t His words or ours or any human.  They were God’s Words and they said simply: “I love you.”  Words of affirmation, not for deeds done or not done, but for being.  Just for being.  I love you.  Words to hear in the midst of darkness, words to cling to in the midst of doubt.  In the maelstrom of living and of dying we hear and then - by grace - speak these words, they are all we have: I love you.

Shalom,

Derek

Polaris

Happy Epiphany!  I know!  You must be thinking: “Can it get any better?  What a run on major celebrations!  Christmas, then New Years and now,” drumroll and fanfare, “Epiphany!”  Wow.  Take a breath.  Slow it down.  Wouldn’t do to get too excited.  Please, pace yourself.  

OK, enough silliness.  But, there was a time when the big celebration in the life of the people of God was Epiphany.  Christmas was at best a minor celebration, a story read at night accompanied with hymns and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.  Epiphany, on the other hand, was the big feast day, worship and singing, feasting and gift-giving.  This was the day that the community of faith looked forward to with joy and with hope.  It was a day of orienteering.

Wait.  What?  Orienteering.  Ask a scout, if you know one.  I first discovered this activity when we lived in England many years ago.  It was an outdoor kind of activity.  A getting lost and then found again kind of thing.  Orienteering is about using the tools of navigation to find your way around the wilderness.  Maybe with just a map and a compass, maybe with more sophisticated global positioning devices now days, perhaps it is easier than it used to be.  But there are still choices to be made, a commitment to follow whatever star you choose to follow.  

I believe that is why the symbol for Epiphany is the star that guided the wise men to the child in Bethlehem.  Not to spend more time on the cute baby stories, but to symbolize the need for a guiding star that will take us where we need to go.  Or to help us become who we need to become.

Matthew 2:1-12 In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." 3 When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: 6 'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'" 7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." 9 When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

The Christian life is often depicted as a journey.  John Bunyan’s classic work Pilgrim’s Progress is but one example of this.  Hidden in all these metaphors is the concept of the map, the guide, the star that leads us along the way.  We like to think we can find our own way.  But the truth is we need help.  We need study, first of all, and we need the willingness to go, to leave where we are to go and seek.  But we also need mentors and guides, we need helpers and leaders as we journey through this life.  And of course we, being good church folk, would say that Christ is our guide, Jesus is our leader.  

Of course that is true.  But also kind of vague.  Jesus is our guide when he turns water into wine?  Christ is our leader when he walks on water?  Step right up, you first.  I’m not just poking fun, well, not just.  I’m asking a serious question.  If Epiphany is about the light that shines forth, about seeing and knowing that presence and that invitation, that call from God through Christ, then what is it that we follow?  What is our star?

Mark 12:28-31  And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?"  29 Jesus answered, "The first is, `Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one;  30 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'  31 The second is this, `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." 

Polaris, or Alpha Ursuae Minoris, is the official name of the star we usually call the North Star.  It is the one that sits above the north pole and has been a guide to navigation for almost all of human history.  When you see those time lapse photographs of the stars, Polaris is the one around which all the others spin.  

The scribe who approaches Jesus is asking for Polaris.  What is the law by which all the others are measured?  What is our guiding light, the mentor that will take us in hand and lead us toward the Kingdom?

In 2004, Dr. Scot McKnight wrote a book titled “The Jesus Creed.”  In it he argues that this passage is that guiding star for all of us as Christians.  If we could let these “commandments” be our guide, shaping our behavior, directing our decisions, transforming us as individuals and as the community, then we too would be “not far” from the kingdom which is what Jesus says to the scribe who asked the question in the first place.

The question was “which commandment is first of all?”  At least in our translation. Others say “foremost” or “most important.”  Jesus had just come through the Palm Sunday experience, had been sparring with other leaders of the Jews over issues like politics and authority and power, and now was approached by this scribe who seems a little different.  Not trying to trap Jesus into saying something intemperate or inflammatory, he was genuinely curious, or earnestly seeking.  Sum up the law, he asked, tell me what path to take, what priority to follow.  Tell me who I am supposed to be.  The law defined them, they were people of the law, but now this one at least was asking what does that look like.  

Sometimes Jesus was frustratingly complex in his responses and stories.  Other times he was clear as crystal, and the struggle is not in the what - as in what did he mean - but in the how - as in how do we possibly do this.  This is one of those crystal clear yet overwhelmingly troubling times.  The axis around which all we are and all we are called to be and do is worship and service, or devotion and ethics. 

Love God with all heart and soul and mind and strength.  Mark misquotes the OT (Deut 6:5) and adds in “mind” as part of the formula.  His intention was that we hear Jesus as being all inclusive - emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical power directed toward God.  God is the center, the source, the reason for our continued existence, source of our joy and contentment.  God is all in all.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there.  That would answer the question - the greatest commandment.  But Jesus continues on.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  “The second is this.”  Deutera autois. Could be second, probably is, that is the most common translation of that phrase.  But it could be “and also” or “next is.”  Meaning not second of a series, but a continuation of the first.  It is more, one commandment love God and love neighbor.  Two sides of the same coin.  Or the practice of one is found in the other.  How do we love God? By loving neighbor.  How do we find it possible to love neighbors?  By loving God.  We circle around these guiding thoughts, guiding commandments like stars orbiting Polaris.  

Practicing Jews still today, like they did centuries ago, write this commandment on a little piece of paper and attach it to the doorframes of their houses.  You remember, we talked about it not too long ago.  It is called the mezuzah, and it is the little reminder that they are guided by the law, summed up in these words.  It has become their Polaris. 

By the way, in looking up information about Polaris, I learned something interesting.  The north star, is not just a star.  In fact it is a collection of stars, a multiple star it is called.  First of all it is a collection of three stars - a trinity if you will - and then there are two others that are a little more distant but come together to make up the light that we see.  Interesting, don’t you think.  A trinity with a dual emphasis.  God the three in one, approached by worship (love God) and service (love neighbor).  

Shalom,

Derek 

Longing for Ephrathah

Micah 5:2-5a But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. 3 Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has brought forth; then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel. 4 And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth; 5 and he shall be the one of peace. 

Micah doesn’t like being a minor prophet.  He hates the designation, has a size complex, wishes he was earlier in the Old Testament, rubbing shoulders with the big boys, Isaiah and Jeremiah, the ones who wrote so much that people are convinced they were three or four guys, Isaiah and sons incorporated or something.  But instead Micah  has to hang out with Obadiah and Nahum and Habakkuk and that goofball Jonah, no wonder no one takes him seriously.  Just seven short chapters, verse counts in the teens instead of the twenties or thirties like those other guys.  It’s not that he didn’t have anything to say, it’s just that he got to the point.  He didn’t like beating around the bush, hinting at his subject.  He just told it like it is.  “The Lord’s coming and the mountains will melt” he said, “the valleys will burst open and run like wax near the fire, like waters poured down a steep place.”  A steep place?  Best you can do Micah?  Yeah, well, the mountains melted, remember?!  That’s just chapter one.  Goes downhill from there, pardon the pun.

And it’s not that he’s just an old curmudgeon either.  He’s got one of those beautiful images, Beating swords into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.  Beautiful, but wait, wasn’t that from Isaiah?  Micah swears under his breath, stole it from me, he mumbles.  And Isaiah left out the part about sitting under the vines and the fig trees and no one will make them afraid.  But no, everyone thinks it was that fancy schmanzy Isaiah who’s the real poet, the real songwriter, instead of him.  Micah wishes someone had invented plagiarism during his time. 

Then maybe he’d get credit for remembering that Bethlehem had two names.  He blamed that preacher, Philips Brooks, who couldn’t get the full name to fit in the song so just dropped off the Ephrathah part.  But at least he got the little town part right.  O little town of Bethlehem Ephrathah.  It could have worked.  Then everyone wouldn’t snicker at Micah, who they think got it wrong.  But no, it was real.  Oh, some think Ephrathah referred to the region, that’s why the translators wrote “Bethlehem of Ephrathah.”  But it was definitely, Micah mutters, the name of the town.  The little town.  The minor town.  The good for nothing much kind of town, like a prophet stuck away in the back of the Old Testament.  And yet, God can use you.  Even you.  Bethlehem - which everyone knows is translated as house of bread.  But did you know it was sometimes translated as house of war?  It’s like there’s a choice to be made.  Feed or kill.  Tend or destroy.  And Ephrathah translates as fruitful. Except that sometimes it meant barren or worthless.  The little town of worthless war or the little town of fruitful bread.  Think about that will ya!  Isaiah won’t tell you that, will he?  No indeed.  Isaiah won’t tell you that the One who comes, will stand strong like one who is going to war, but instead will feed His flock like a shepherd.  He’ll be more concerned with fruitfulness than with the emptiness of death and killing. And through Him we’ll know peace, and will sit secure.  

And because of that security, because of trusting in that peace, even in warlike times, even in unsettled time, being fed the bread of fruitfulness, we can do amazing things.  Incredible things, unimaginable things.  Like saying yes to a fruitfulness almost incomprehensible in our world.  Like when an angel appears in your living room and asks if you’d be willing to give birth to God.

Now that, smiles Micah to himself, is something for us little ones, us minor ones to celebrate.  God chooses a no place like Bethlehem Ephrathah to be a significant some place.   God chooses a nobody to be a significant somebody who the whole world knows.  A young woman, a little girl really from a backwater town like B-E.  Mary is her name.  Even her name is common.  How many Marys do you know?  Thousands.  Not a fancy name like Cleopatra or Jezebel, just plain old Mary.  Ordinary young Mary.  Except she isn’t.  Ordinary or plain.  She is as beautiful as all of creation.  She is as exceptional as each of those who are made in God’s image. And made even more exceptional, even more beautiful by her obedience to the invitation from God.  Her acceptance of the gift and the calling and the joy that is planted deep within her.  And so she runs through the hill country, the region of Ephrathah, the place of fruitfulness because she is a part of the fruitfulness of God.  She runs to share the joy.  She runs to be in relationship.  She runs.

Luke 1:39-45 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."

“Blessed is the fruit,” says Elizabeth, from her own fecundity.  She who was called barren, worthless, that’s what the angelic visitor told Mary.  That’s how s/he described Elizabeth.  Ephrathah.  Fruitful and barren, opposites contained in one place, one being.  Elizabeth is one of the beautiful ones, one of the exceptional ones who said yes, who said thank God, who said let this joy be to me.  Just like Mary.  No wonder she ran to be with Elizabeth.  Luke says she stayed there three months.  Three months.  Long enough to see the impossible birth come to be possible.  Long enough to hear the naming.  Long enough to feel the blessing.  Long enough to breathe the fruitfulness of God.  

Do we sometimes give up too soon?  Despair too soon?  Feel inadequate, insignificant too long.  Unable to wait for blessing, for fruitfulness?  And you O Bethlehem Ephrathah one of the little clans, one of the nothing places, where the bypass passes by and the vibrancy wanes and the lights dim to shine on other towns far away.  And you O little person of your place who feels like life has passed you by and like no one knows or cares if you even are.  From you shall come ... what?  Something.  Something beautiful, something exceptional.  Maybe it already has taken root within you, maybe it is bursting forth from you even now.  Maybe it is a love that shines like a star that draws someone from a far place.  Maybe it is a grace that blesses those around you in ways that just might surprise you if you stopped long enough to see.  Maybe it is a wisdom that someone longs for, someone needs to work around an obstacle in their lives.  Maybe it is a friendship that saves, literally saves a life.  What’s within you that makes the children of God leap for joy upon hearing your voice?  What are you giving birth to even now as you make your way in the world of today?

The all too human tragedy is feeling that we are worthless, we are barren, when God has placed within us a fruitfulness that would stagger our own imagination, let alone the imagination of those around us.  Especially those who thought us small, insignificant.  The call of the prophets prefigures the call of the One who comes to love us with a fierce and frightening passion, a transforming Presence and healing grace.  The prophets rage because they carry the wounds of a hurting world.  Almost as profoundly as the One who felt the sharp tips of the straw in a manger as harshly as the nails on a cross.  

Micah stirs from under his fig tree and wipes away a non-existent tear from his eye, one he’ll gruffly deny ever shedding, even as he straightens his mantle and shuffles off to see what Obadiah and Nahum are up to.  He’ll let Habakkuk deal the next hand and pray that Jonah doesn’t serve sushi again.  Maybe it’s not so bad being a minor prophet.  When you’re not wrapped up in so much editing, there’s time to hope.  And maybe this time, he can get the gang to sing his rewrite of “O Little Town.”  Merry Christmas, he smiles to himself and to the world he still loves. 

Shalom, 

Derek

Drawing the Waters of Joy

It’s raining here.  Cold, damp, constant drizzle that turns into rain and then back again.  Not conducive to much production, though La Donna is puttering around putting the finishing touches to Christmas.  Ten days to go and we just might be kind of almost nearly ready.  No, wait, there is still the guest room, that will need to become Maddie’s room next weekend.  It still looks like a work in progress, not far enough along to tell what it is going to be yet, but clearly something major is happening in there.  

The gray skies and weeping clouds put a damper on the holiday busyness.  The lights seem swallowed up by the pale glare of the day, as if they can’t quite pierce the gloom.  The greenery festooned with red ribbon hanging on the fence is dull and dampened by the persistent rain.  And yet.  That’s the power of Christmas.  Of Incarnation.  Of God with us.  There is always an “and yet.”  

Dreary it may be, and yet there is joy.  Underneath and back behind, there is joy.  Persistent, transforming, sustaining joy.  Christmas isn’t really about seasonal joy.  It isn’t about extravagant commercial excesses either.  At it’s best it is a reminder of the joy that is ours always, a shot in the arm to our flagging spirits, or a kick in the pants to our bored complacency.  At least it would be a kick in the pants if John had his way.

John was a pants kicker from the start.  He did a high kick in Elizabeth’s womb when he heard Mary’s voice through the waters in which he swam.  And he came out kicking, I’m sure.  Kicked himself out of the house as soon at it was possible.  Kicked it out in the desert, kicked over bee’s hives to get the wild honey, kicked a tree full of locusts for snacks to munch while he wandered around shouting at rocks and stones.  Kicked a camel’s carcass for a coat to wear.  Then decided it was time to kick some sense into the people of God down by the riverside.

Luke 3:7-18 John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." 10 And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?" 11 In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" 13 He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." 14 Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages." 15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." 18 So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

I don’t know about you, but I always smile a little bit at verse 18.  “With many other exhortation, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”  Really?  There were more?  More exhortations?  What else did he say, what else did he kick?  And, good news?  This doesn’t sound like good news.  This sounds oppressive, finger pointing, name-calling, White House tweet level pain.  How in the world can we say he proclaimed the good news?  Except that he did.  

That’s the problem with good news.  For the good news to be good news it first has to be bad news.  John understood that.  John majored in that.  Was a PhD level intellect in that needing the bad news to hear the good news thing.  So, he let them have it.  Poured it over them, like the water he splashed into their faces, shouting at them to wake up.  Asked them to question their own motives.  “What brings you here? You snakelets, still sucking on your egg tooth used to crack your way out of your shell.  Still wet behind the ears, if snakes had ears.  You don’t know what you’re doing.  Mostly because you ain’t doing nuthing!  Except looking out for yourselves.  You think you’re special, you’re nothing, you’re rocks in my shoe, stones I stub my toe on!  You’re mulch, grass cuttings we leave to be picked up with the garbage!”

Chill out John.  Please?  Actually, they didn’t ask him to chill out.  They asked him, in a panic, “what then should we do?”  And the panic was because they were afraid he was going to say, “run like hell!”  Or he would say, “you’re out of luck, bucko, bend down and kiss the grass goodbye!”  So, they asked with fear and trembling.  But he didn’t.  He didn’t snarl or sneer.  He didn’t tell them it was too late.  So, when he answered in a way that made sense, then groups of them came forward.  What should we do, they asked in tag team fashion.  What about us?  Yeah, they echoed all along the river bank, what can we do?  Tax collectors and soldiers, asked him.  Athletes and film stars, politicians and truck drivers, biker gangs and refugees, they all came in ones or dozens and asked him: What then should we do?”  And he had an answer. 

Bear fruit.  No, not those kinds of bears.  Bear as in carry, as in show, as in live.  That was his answer live!  What should we do?  Live.  But live rightly.  Live, he told the soldiers, for justice.  Don’t abuse your power, don’t threaten to get your way, to scare or coerce.  And learn contentment, for heaven’s sake.  Don’t keep wanting more and more and more.  To the tax collectors, called by some the enemy of the people, he said live for mercy.  Don’t take more than the people can stand, more than you are supposed to take.  Don’t rob, don’t steal, don’t wound with the stroke of your red pen.  Care about the people over whom you have authority.  To the crowd thronging the banks of the water he said “Live!  Live in generosity, live in community, live as though you belonged to each other, because you do.  Live as though you are responsible for one another, because you are!”

Bear fruit worthy of repentance.  Worthy?  As in earning it?  If I do right I’ll get what I deserve?  No.  No, no, a thousand times no.  Bear fruit because you have repented.  Because you have turned around and are now walking a new direction.  Because you now know life and want to share it because this life you have claimed, this joy from which you have drunk, is not meant to be kept inside, to be kept quiet.  You’ve got to share it.  You’ve got to shout it.  You’ve got to sing it.  Isaiah says so.

Isaiah 12:2-6 Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the LORD GOD is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation. 3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. 4 And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted. 5 Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth. 6 Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

With joy you will draw water.  A daily task, mundane, necessary, one of many.  Yet, there is a joy in it.  Drawing water is about life.  About living.  And sustaining.  About cleansing, and making new, dying and being reborn.  I baptize you with water John says.  So you can start over.  So you can repent.  So you can not be afraid and give thanks to the Lord.  For life.  For water.  For even a gray rainy and dreary day that vibrates with Christmas presence.  

But only if you pay attention.  That’s the key.  Only if you listen deeply.  Then you can hear the raindrops singing praise as they patter across the leaves in the yard.  Only if you look closely.  Then you can see the light that proclaims presence even on the palest of days.  Only if you live fully.  Then you can taste salvation in the sweetness of the water that flows so freely.  We are called, by John and Isaiah both, to be present in our worship and our living – even as we realize that worship is living and that to live is to worship.

Come, let us adore Him.  Fully present as we do.  Fully alive, as we drink with joy the waters of salvation.

Shalom, 

Derek