All the Treasures

There’s a bit of a lull here in the culminating hours of Choir School.  So I thought I’d try to dash this off in preparation for the weekend.  This Sunday morning is the conclusion of our Ordinary Time series, where we’ve been focusing on the need to make faith an every day experience, not just a high point, once a week, save it for the special times way of living.

The irony here is that this week has been a high point, special time.  I have been chaplain for Choir School here on the campus of Anderson University, which is a choral music camp focused on singing sacred music in large choirs and living in community and engaging in worship from Sunday evening until Saturday morning.  I preached 10 times this week (well, nine so far, I’ve got one more to go as of this writing).  And I’ve known some of these people for twenty years or more.  It has indeed been a highlight, as always.

But this year there was an added dimension.  I created a Preaching Academy to go alongside Choir School.  Seven Indiana preachers took me up on it.  And we spent time reflecting on this thing called preaching, I would teach for three hours each morning and then we would either read and write or engage in conversation around the preaching process, both how sermons are crafted and what do we mean by a preaching ministry and even how do we give our hearers avenues for response to the Word they hear.  It was an invigorating time.  Deeply personal, as preaching comes from within; but also community based as the preachers mingled with the musicians and we shared some activities together, most notably worship.  We grew together as a small group of colleagues and learned from one another all week.

So, what is ordinary about all of that?  Nothing, or everything, depending on your point of view, I suppose.  There is nothing ordinary about the Choir School community.  Get this many musicians, even church musicians, together and there are bound to be sparks.  There is inspired goofiness, bruised egos, passionate worship and honest attempts to care and connect.  Extraordinary.

There is nothing ordinary about a gathering of preachers (a pulpit of preachers?  A narthex of preachers?  Hmmm). Inspired goofiness, check; bruised egos, check; passionate worship, check; and honest attempts to care and connect, check and check.  Extraordinary.

Yet, none of us feel anything but ordinary.  We are just who we are.  We are who God made us, loved and redeemed, but nothing special.  So, maybe the ordinary is overcome only in the gathering together.  The goofiness increases as the crowd increases.  The worship is more passionate when we worship together with enthusiasm and power.  You get the drift.  Maybe what seems ordinary to one, becomes transformative in community.  Maybe it is time to set ordinary aside to embrace something beyond ordinary.

Colossians 2:1-10  For I want you to know how much I am struggling for you, and for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face.  2 I want their hearts to be encouraged and united in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ himself,  3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.  4 I am saying this so that no one may deceive you with plausible arguments.  5 For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, and I rejoice to see your morale and the firmness of your faith in Christ.  6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him,  7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.  8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ.  9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,  10 and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.

Paul writes (I know that some folks don’t think Paul wrote it, that some other scribe wrote this epistle.  That may be, who knows, does it matter?) that the whole fullness of deity lives in Jesus.  Which is not very ordinary.  And Jesus wants us to receive that fullness too.  Paul wants us to be like Jesus.

So, how does one go out and get such a thing?  The whole fullness?  It seems a pipe dream, it seems a vain hope.  Yet Paul seems to think that not only is it possible, but it is the ordinary expectation of every Christian.  It is how life is supposed to be lived, filled with the whole presence of God.  It seems out of reach.  So how do we reach it?  Paul tells us that too.

To begin with we need hearts that are encouraged.  That seems an ordinary thing.  Everyone likes a little encouragement now and then.  Everyone needs to be lifted now and then.  There is so much that knocks us down, so much that makes us feel less than able, less than important, less than included.  Maybe, come to think of it, hearts that are discouraged seem much more normal these days.  Those who are lifted up seem few and far between.  And the times in our lives when we are up seem fewer than the days that we are down.  So, which is ordinary?  What does ordinary even mean in this context?

I don’t know.  I know that Paul says in order for us to have the fullness of Christ we need encouraged hearts.  And united hearts.  Now, surely that’s ordinary.  United hearts.  Isn’t that we are all seeking, hearts with which we can connect.  We all want to be in relationship, we all want to love and be loved.  But there seems to be more hinted at here than just somebody to love (nod to Freddie Mercury).

Hearts that are encouraged and united in love describes the church, the community of faith. Or at least the church as it could be, should be, might be and is at its best.  Encouraging and united.  Isn’t that the church you want to be a part of?  Isn’t that what you’d like to see in your church?  Encouragement and unity? A sense of belonging to something bigger than just yourself, just your own limited vision and understanding.  But something larger, deeper, wider.  Sure there is a one on one dimension to our work in the church, but there is also the wider community.  Both for encouragement and for uniting.

As the week draws to a close on these two extraordinary events, Choir School and the Preaching Academy, I wonder how I will return to the ordinary life of the congregation in which I serve.  How will I return to the daily life and rhythms without feeling like I’m missing something.  That’s the problem with mountaintop experiences.  As soon as you leave the mountain you miss it.  Nothing here in the flatlands of Indiana comes close to being a mountain.  Right?

Except that with hearts encouraged and united in love we receive Christ in all His fullness, the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge.  Which would seem to me to the very definition of extraordinary.  Except that Paul goes on to say, having received Christ in this way, we “continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”

Continue.  Again.  And again.  And yet again.  Day after day, hour after hour, choice after choice.  We live this life, this every day, over repetitious life, this ordinary life, we live this life abounding in thanksgiving.  We life this ordinary life with an extraordinary presence.  We live this mundane same old same old kind of life forgetting that we have all the treasures, the ones in Him, in Christ, we have all the treasures.  The treasures of wisdom and knowledge that come from Christ.  All the treasures.  There is no such thing as ordinary.  Or rather, everything is ordinary, since God is present everywhere.  Even in my ordinary life

If claiming all the treasures of Christ means being ordinary, then where do I sign up?  Or where do I get my marching orders for living the ordinary life?  Cause you can’t do much better than that!

Shalom,
Derek

Ordinary Magic

Gina Barreca wrote my Bible study this morning.  Actually, she didn’t write a Bible study, but an editorial in this morning’s Journal Gazette.  There is no Bible quote in it, no reference to much of what I intended to say, but still, it is as if she was writing what I had wanted to write.  The title of her editorial is “Ordinary days’ bliss not to be missed.”  Go read it if you haven’t.  Pick up a paper if you can.  Or I’ll bring a copy to church tomorrow and you can see it there (those who worship with us at Aldersgate in Fort Wayne).  If you aren’t in town, go online, maybe you can get it there.  I don’t know.  I haven’t checked.  But I’m trying to save myself some writing!

OK, not really.  Because as good as the article is, there are some things missing.  Two things in particular.  One is the Bible passage I wanted to use to launch this whole conversation.  The other is a little bit of magic.  I know, I know, as soon as you start talking about magic then you’ve moved away from ordinary.  Either into fantasy or illusion or something darker.  But trust me, this is ordinary magic.  But that’s later.  

First, Bible.  This is a Bible study after all.  That is my supposed purpose is writing this.  Preparing for a sermon tomorrow that will help us grab hold some deeper truth that is right in front of us all the time, but until we use the lens of the living Word, we never even see it.  

Ms Barreca says that she realizes that she often doesn’t pay attention to her own life.  “The idea of being in the middle of happiness and not knowing it unnerves me because it happened a lot when I was younger.  It wasn’t so much that I didn’t know how good I had it, but that I wasn’t able to offer myself permission to enjoy what I couldn’t prove was somehow worthwhile.”

What I couldn’t prove was somehow worthwhile.  That is profound.  How do you celebrate the ordinary when it is so ... ordinary?  It doesn’t mean anything, it just is, we think.  It doesn’t make a difference, it just is our life.  Or a small insignificant part of it.  Nothing special.  Nothing profound.  Nothing transformative.  After all, we are “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world!”  Get to work, slacker!  We’ve got to be doing big stuff, changing the world stuff.  Not just living.  Right?  

Well, yes but.  How does the world change?  Incrementally.  Most of the time.  We grow into it.  The world as we have it now didn’t happen over night.  Rome wasn’t built in a day.  Or Constantinople.  Or Versailles.  Or Washington.  Or Beijing. Or ... well you get the idea.  Sure, dramatic things sometimes happened, wars and revolutions, discoveries and inventions, stuff that seemingly changed the world instantly.  But even those had to be lived into.  Day by day.  Step by step.  “More than the days of magnificent accomplishment or great passion, I suspect that most of us would hug the everyday most tightly if someone tried to pry it away from us,” Barreca writes.

The every day.  Ordinary.  Why is the ordinary not so ordinary?  Paul had an idea.

Colossians 1:15-20  He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;  16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers-- all things have been created through him and for him.  17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.  19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,  20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. 

While not giving Charles Wesley a run for his title, Paul was something of a hymn writer.  Or a hymn quoter, as some scholars think these doxologies were already being used and Paul just wove them into his writing, like I might quote a popular song or newspaper article.  But whether he wrote these words or chose them to make his point, Paul is giving us a hymn of praise to Christ here in the early part of the letter to the Colossians.  Jesus is the “He” referred to in verse fifteen, if that was not already obvious.  Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  Perhaps these words inspired John to open his Gospel with a similar tune, a similar chorus.  In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through Him.   That’s John’s version of this song of praise, this doxology.  It sounds similar.

It goes on from this declaration at the beginning to describe the place, the status, the power of Christ.  And the beginnings of Trinitarian theology.  “For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell.”  All the fulness.  True God of true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father....”  It makes your head spin to try to comprehend it.   And maybe that is part of the purpose, to make our heads spin.  A little head spinning is good for us.  Not for confusion’s sake.  But to open us up to the wonder of Christ.  To the power of God.  What an incredible, certainly not ordinary, thing God chose to do.  To put on flesh and walk among us.  To enter into our reality, our brokenness so that we would know God understands.  We would know God feels our pain, knows our weakness.  We would know that God is not just some distant force out there, but is also some intimate presence right here.  Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age.  Head spinning, indeed.

But, wait.  I mean, good for him and all.  But this was about the ordinary.  The everyday.  The moments that pass by almost unnoticed until we with a great act of will force ourselves to wake up, to pay attention to each breath, each  encounter.  How do we open our eyes to those passing moments, so that they don’t pass unheeded?  How do we stop and acknowledge those we love in front of us, the ones who make our hearts pound even if we forget to pay attention to the pounding from time to time?  How do we grab hold of the ones who are slipping out of our grasp before we even see it?  How do we hang on this moment long enough to let those around us know that we are who we are because they are in our lives, they came to bless us, they came to shape us, they came to love us even in our most unlovable?  We’ve missed too many moments, they disappear way too quickly and by the time we pay attention to them, they are gone and the chance was missed.  How do we wake up to the ordinary?

With magic.  Ordinary magic.  When I was a kid there was a presence that still resides in my memory who told us to remember the magic.  Every morning Captain Kangaroo would gently open our eyes to the world around us and would conclude every program with the admonition to remember the magic words, please and thank you.  The ordinary magic is gratitude.  Gratitude reminds us of our connection, our reliance on those around us to make our lives meaningful.  Thank you, for loving me.  Thank you for feeding me, for clothing me, for making me laugh and holding me while I cry.  Thank you for being there for me.  And, wonder of wonders, thank you for wanting to.

I’m amazed at Paul’s hymn here in Colossians.  Amazed at the wonder of who Christ is, yes.  But really amazed at the end.  After all this about God in Christ, it ends with the words that this whole thing, this whole wonderful, amazing, head-spinning thing, was so that you, and so that I could find our way home to the arms of God.  “Through him, God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things.”  All things, you and me.  To Himself, to God, himself.  Brought back into relationship.  And, and!  This is the best part.  He was pleased to do it.  He was pleased to bring me home. God was pleased to bend down and lift me up.  God was pleased to hold the door, to stand watch at the end of the lane so that He could run to greet you when you came to yourself and stumbled home.  This wasn’t just a duty born out of the nature of God.  This wasn’t just in the job description.  No, we are made right, brought home, welcomed into the loving arms of our Father, nurtured by our Mother in heaven because God was pleased to do so.  Pleased by us.  By you.  By me.  God was pleased.

Magic.  Thank you.  Thank you God.  Thank you who stand in for God from time to time.  Who carry the ordinary moments of our lives and make them rich and deep and full.  “Our ordinary days need cultivation and attention: They are what we harvest in our lifetimes,” Barreca concludes.  Amen I say, amen.  And that cultivation and attention is the ordinary magic of gratitude.  First to God and from there into everywhere.  Thank for who you are.

Shalom, 

Derek

Rockets Red Glare

Oh, my goodness.  I’m late with this mostly because I couldn’t get out of bed this morning.  I got back yesterday morning from a week at Epworth Forest with eleven of our Senior High youth and other adult leaders.  It was a wonderful and educational week.  The main learning is that I am not as young as I used to be.  My goodness, the constant breakneck pace of camp and the late nights and early mornings like to nearly killed me.  I thought I was doing fine, actually.  Getting by, hanging in, enjoying the time.  But after getting home (and spending the rest of Friday wrestling with Comcast - which no doubt contributed) and dropping off multiple times I went to bed only to be unable to function this morning.  Wow.  Did anyone get the number of that truck?  Yeah, it was called youth camp!

But you didn’t log on here to listen to me whine about my adrenalin crash today.  You came for something else.  For an opportunity to reflect on a few verses from the bible.  Something less intense than 24/7 young people wrestling with a faith that both excites and energizes.  Something more quiet and internal.  No flashing lights and smoke machines here in the Late Night Bible Study, just quiet contemplation.  Right?

There is an irony here that the weekend back from the high energy of “That Thing” - which is what they are calling camp these days - is also the week we launch a new sermon series titled “Ordinary Time.”  From extreme to ordinary, from sublime to mundane.  Hmm, why would we want to make such a leap?  Aren’t we all about sensation?  All about the big picture, the wide screen?  Seems un-American, on this Independence Day, to scale it back.  American exceptionalism is the order of the day.  The frequent explosions surrounding me indicate that my neighbors would agree.  

Rockets red glare.  We sing about it. We celebrate it.  The big explosions, the power and light.  How can the day to day life of an average ordinary follower of Jesus ever measure up to our heroic imagination, ever compete with an extreme world in which we live?  It can’t!  Short answer, it can’t.  Which is why we spend our lives thinking we are missing something.  Thinking we are falling short as followers.  Thinking we are wash-outs as witnesses.  

But what if Jesus wasn’t calling us to climb mountains and swim oceans?  What if we weren’t really to fight demons or battle God’s enemies?  What if we were just supposed to follow Him?  Day by day, step by step.  The little victories of faithfulness and incremental growth of discipleship.  Just live every day, every day filled with the presence of Christ.  What might that look like?

That’s what we’re about this month.  Ordinary Christians living ordinary lives and yet alive in Christ.  Is such a thing possible?  And if so what does it look like?  Or feel like?  And is it something we settle for or strive for?  The answer might surprise you.

To help us we have a few verses from the letter to the Colossians.  In fact this little letter with be our guide for the whole series.  No considered one of the highlights of the New Testament, it is nonetheless useful for our purposes.  There is some debate as to whether this was actually written by Paul.  And frankly I don’t know either.  But I’ll take the easy way and talk about Paul anyhow.  Just seems simpler that way.  

We are in the first chapter of the letter.  The usual greetings begin the letter, and then the promise of prayers takes the stage.  And in those prayers is the call to live.  To live a life of fruitfulness.  To live a life of presence and hope in Christ.  Then there is a reference and commendation to a leader, a pastor who taught and cared and helped the community in Colossae.   

Our text begins right after that.  “For this reason” is not really a beginning place.  Not the launch of a journey.  Not the start of an adventure.  Rather it is more like a continuing on.  Another day, another step, just keep going.

Colossians 1:9-14  For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,  10 so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.  11 May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully  12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.  13 He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,  14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 

For this reason means what Paul heard about them.  He heard that they loved one another, and that they loved him in the Spirit.  He heard that they bore fruit, that they served and helped and healed and taught.  He heard that they lived lives worthy of the gospel.  And because of that, because of the love that lived in them and came forth from them, Paul praised God for them, and asked that God continue to pour out into them all that they need to live.  Paul prayed that they might have wisdom and understanding, have the knowledge of God’s will, and that they keep growing, keep moving forward.

But it was the middle verse and a bit that caught my attention for this ordinary series.  “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully  12 giving thanks to the Father...”  There are some words in there that describe the life of the ordinary Christian, at least as I understand it. 

First Paul wishes them to be strong.  May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power.  Wow, all the strength that God’s power can bestow!  All the strength.  Hardly ordinary.  God’s glorious power is for changing the world, isn’t it.  It is for mighty deeds and feats of faithfulness that take the breath away of any onlooker.  Be strong with all the strength.  Superman level here.  

So what is to be done with this strength?  Endure with patience.  Wait, what?  Endure?  If you’ve got all the glorious power of God, all the strength that comes from Him, you’re going to do more than endure, aren’t you?  Endure sounds like surrender.  Endure sounds like put up with, outlast, tolerate, wade through, stomach - as in I’ve got to stomach this medicine that’s horrible but good for me.  Endure.  But then Paul makes it worse, endure with patience.  Yikes, we can’t even grumble about it.  About our lives that are messy to say the least, unfair, heavy, burdensome.  We’ve got to endure.  With patience.

But he doesn’t even stop there.  Endure with patience, while joyfully giving thanks.  Oh my heavens.  Endure and be joyful?  Is such a thing even possible?  I mean, I know how to endure and let everyone know I’m enduring, looking for brownie points, or sympathy.  But now I’m supposed to endure and be joyful?  Supposed to endure without dwelling on the burden, but giving thanks for the life, giving thanks with joy?  How is that supposed to happen?

By remembering whose we are.  By remembering who is with us.  Joyfully giving thanks to God means being aware of that Presence.  It means knowing that we are not alone.  Not forgotten, not abandoned.  Joyfully giving thanks to God means that we know that our help comes from the hills, as the Psalm says, the hills where God dwells.  I lift up my eyes.  Enduring with patience and joy means being able to lift up your eyes.

We are also reminded that this Presence is most often felt through the community of faith around us.  That’s the inheritance of the saints of light.  But not just those who have gone before, but those who are around us every day, every week when we gather to sing God’s praise and bask in God’s glory.  The glory that shines from the faces of the faithful who walk with us every single ordinary day. 

Another rocket exploded outside just now.  A big one, loud one.  Extraordinary.  There will be no rockets in church tomorrow.  Just an ordinary act of worship of the extraordinary God.  Joyful, but ordinary.  Like us.

Shalom, 

Derek

Rebuking the Winds

Got enough water yet?  It’s a particularly wet June here in Indiana, for those few readers who aren’t from these parts. Wet, humid, damp, soggy, water-logged, flooded basements, dogs who won’t go out even when they have to; it’s just messy.  And it drains you.  Ha.  Ironic, don’t you think?  All that water and we’re drained.  Swirling around the plumbing, spilling out into the water table, swept away in the flood, adrift on the tides of time and daily living and all the million choices that come to us each day.  And we are afraid.  Afraid we’ve chosen wrong.  Afraid we’re on the wrong path.  Afraid we’re misunderstood or worse, not even known, not even seen, just invisible, overlooked, not even real any more, just a figment of our own imagination.

See?  The rain carries us away.  The storms sweep us out to the sea of our fearful imagination.  Oh, I know we don’t live there.  Most of us anyway.  Most of the time when someone asks “how are you?” and we say “fine” we really mean it.  It isn’t a lie, or a way of hiding.  We really are fine.  We’ve got stuff to do, our desks are piled up, the bills keep coming, our kids are making decisions we don’t quite understand, but we’re fine.  Really.  We’ve got that coworker who seems to have it in for us, that teacher that seems unreasonably harsh, the boss that can’t quite see our potential, and Donald Trump is seriously running for president, but we’re fine.  Really.  Aren’t we?  Yes, certainly.  We’re fine.

Until the storms come.  The ominous signs as the car you hoped to keep another few thousand miles before trading in suddenly sounds thunder on the horizon.  The lightning flash of a bill you weren’t expecting from that last little trip to the doctor that you kept insisting was nothing serious crackles across a bank account already stressed by college and mortgage and too many other things to consider.  A cloudburst in South Carolina that somehow drenches us all no matter how much we try to say that it is them and not us.  And we’re afraid.  In the midst of the storms we are afraid.  And it has been an exceptionally stormy June, or 2015, or life.  Exceptionally.  And like the disciples, our deepest fear is that no one cares.

Mark 4:35-41  On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side."  36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.  37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.  38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"  39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.  40 He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?"  41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" 

Leaving the crowd behind.  Not every problem solved, not every need met.  But Jesus needed a break, needed a change.  He decided to head off in a different direction.  So, they got on a boat.  “They took him, just as he was.”  As he was?  Unpacked?  Unprepared for a sea voyage?  Or exhausted, spent, used up?  They took him just as he was.  And who was that exactly?

See, that’s the secret to the Gospel of Mark.  It’s all about identity.  Who is this Jesus?  I mean really, who is He?  They thought they knew.  They took the Jesus the knew and found the Son of God they hadn’t met yet.  They took the healer and teacher, and found the Lord of the wind and waves.  They took what they knew and didn’t know what they had.

A storm came up.  Because they do.  They will.  Nowhere in the whole of the bible is there a promise that there will be no storms.  Well, until the kingdom comes that is.  Then the storms will cease and calm will prevail.  But for now?  A storm came up.  Not just a storm.  A “great windstorm” Mark says.  Waves beating on the side of the boat, like the shark from Jaws.  And the boat was taking on water.  They were experienced fishermen, some of them anyway, they knew storms, they weathered a lot of them.  But this one, well, this one was big, a perfect storm.  More than they could handle.  They tried, give them credit, they tried.  For who knows how long, in the night, in the wind and the spray, they were soaked to the skin, they were sore and bleeding from holding the ropes that the storm tried to turn into lashes, into the tentacles of some leviathan from the deep.  They tried, but it was beyond them.  With wide eyes they looked around, finally their eyes landed on the figure in the back of the boat, asleep on a cushion.  And their fear whispered in their ears, what kind of savior is that?  How dare he sleep when you are about to die?  You saw him do those miracles, didn’t you?  And now, what?  Nothing.  Snoring louder than the roaring winds.  He won’t even know when the boat takes on so much water that it won’t even float anymore.  He won’t be there to help you bail in a fruitless attempt to save yourselves.  In a moment or two, the next wave or the one after that and he’ll be sleeping with the fishes.  With you.

They were angry, scared and angry, terrified and hopeless and angry.  They rushed to the stern and shook him.  Notice what their fear has done.  They don’t ask for help.  They don’t ask for hope.  Don’t you care?  They accuse him of abandoning them in their hour of need.  Don’t you care that we are about to die! 

Isn’t that the way?  He isn’t doing what we want, he must not care.  She doesn’t help the way I want to be helped she doesn’t care.  We didn’t get what we wanted when we wanted it, no one cares about us.  We accuse, we divide, we pull back, turn away.  Because they didn’t care.  Jesus didn’t care.  If he did he wouldn’t be sleeping like, well like he didn’t care.  Didn’t have a care.  Like there was nothing to worry about.

“If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.  9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.” (Romans 14:8-9)   Paul wrote that.  But then he was crazy.  Didn’t he care?  He seems to say there isn’t anything to fear.  That there is One who cares for us no matter what.  No matter what we face, no matter the pain we bear or the grief we suffer, he cares.  Don’t you care?  What kind of question was that?  

A question from those who didn’t know him.  Didn’t really know him.  Him, the Lord of creation, the Son of God.  Jesus doesn’t respond to their complaint, their whining, he turns and deals with the storm.  “Peace!  Be still!”  A little kind and gentle translation.  He shouts at the storm “Shut up!”  Stop your blowing and raging and threatening!  Just stop it.  Go back to where you came from.  Where you came from?  Where do storms come from?  Well, a meteorologist could answer that better than I could.  For normal storms anyway.  This one wasn’t normal.  

Jesus’ words are the same words he said in the first chapter when telling the demon to shut up and get out.  We usually translate them differently - be still and be silent, but it’s the same word.  This was a demon storm.  The kind that need rebuking.  The kind that need rejected, need to be told to get out and never come back again.  The storm of racism broke over us all again this week.  And those winds need to be rebuked, to be cast out, named and denounced.  We can’t simply say it was one man, maybe with mental issues who killed nine people far away.  This storm raises our fears and we wonder if we will go under the waves.  Don’t you care, we shout to the one who should have fixed us by now.  Don’t you care that there are threads of hatred that bind all of our hearts?  Set us free!  Keep us safe!  Make us good all the time.  Don’t you care that we have to work so hard, that we have to fight through the storm?  

Have you still no faith?  Still?  How long, O Lord?  We’re waiting to be made strong enough to stand and rebuke the winds with Him.  He’s wondering why we don’t just claim the freedom and the gift we’ve already been given.  We’re waiting for something big to happen, He says there isn’t anything bigger than life eternal, life abundant.  What are you afraid of?  A storm?  That’s nothing.  The winds? All it can do is take away stuff, all it can do is shake our confidence in our own power, all it can do is remove the feeble assumptions we try to live by - like we are in control of our destiny, like we are better or stronger than those who aren’t like us, like our strength is found in armies or governments, like our value is found in what we can do with our own hands.  Have you still no faith?  

Some wind needs rebuking, some storms need facing, not with fear but with hope.  Hope that we, with Him, can stand for something greater than hatred and fear.  Hope in the faith that says there is something more than safety and ease.  Something like reconciliation, like community, like church.  The church, that boat swept along in the waters of a changing world, seemingly too fragile to survive the storms around and within.  But we’ll be OK.  See, I looked in the back, at the one sleeping on a cushion.  The Lord of creation is on board.  It is well with our souls.

Shalom, 

Derek 

Out at Home

Jesus went home.  He named his inner circle of disciples and went home.  Called it a day.  Well, he healed a man, on the Sabbath it turns out and got into a mess of trouble and then called the inner circle and went home.  The last time he was home, someone tore a hole in his roof and lowered a paralyzed man into the living room.  Then he called a friend, had a party - got called out for that one too, went on a hike with his new friends and they plucked some grain from a field they were wandering through and got in trouble for that (reaping on the Sabbath - not stealing grain, oddly enough), then healed a man and called his inner circle and went home.  Before that he got baptized and spent some time alone in the wilderness, cast out some demons, some of whom seemed to recognize him but he told them to keep quiet about it and he healed and walked and found need everywhere he went.  Tried to go home and lost his roof, attended a few parties and did the grain thing, the Sabbath thing, called his inner circle and went home.

That’s where we start this week.  He went home.  Except it wasn’t home.  Other translations don’t say home.  One says he entered a house.  Or the place he was staying.  In other gospels he says he doesn’t have a home.  But maybe that’s after he tried to go.  Maybe that is the result of finding that homes isn’t the haven you hoped it would be.

For those of us who move frequently, home is an elusive concept.  People often ask for a home town.  There are lots of markers I can name, place of birth, where I graduated from high school, where we got married, where the kids came, but home?  That’s harder.  Home is a now thing, though.  I’m home now writing this.  In our temporary apartment in between places to live, feeling a little crowded, trying to figure out boundaries and rules, which has as much to do with the people as the place; kids who aren’t kids anymore and parents who live most of the year without them and now love them but find them annoying at times. Everyone has to change, to accommodate, to make room when there isn’t room to be made.  Jesus went home.  And his family tried to restrain him and his neighbors tried to call him out.  Welcome home Jesus.

Mark 3:19 - 35  Then he went home;  20 and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat.  21 When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, "He has gone out of his mind."  22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, "He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons."  23 And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, "How can Satan cast out Satan?  24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.  25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.  26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come.  27 But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.  28 "Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter;  29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin"--  30 for they had said, "He has an unclean spirit."  31 Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him.  32 A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you."  33 And he replied, "Who are my mother and my brothers?"  34 And looking at those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers!  35 Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."

He went home and found a family who thought he was crazy.  He was used to dealing with those who thought he was crazy.  Par for the course these days.  Mark follows one of his standard literary habits and makes a sandwich story.  He starts one story and then interrupts it for another story and then comes back to the story he started.  The family comes in with a straight jacket and prescription drugs to see if they can save him from himself.  But before they get there, a battalion of scribes come marching down the hill from Jerusalem, and they set up siege against the house where Jesus is, pointing fingers and calling names.  They brought out the heavy artillery for this one.  He’s not just crazy, they shout at passers by, he’s possessed.  And not just some low level demonic presence, he’s got the top dog, the prince of demons - Beelzebul!  Whoever that is.  A prince, they say.  There are a lot of demonic names that have power.  They get all mixed up in history, One of those names is “Baalzebub” which actually translates as Baal (or Lord) of the Flies.  Creepy.  Literary, but creepy.

Anyway, the fighting scribes of Jerusalem are pretty convinced they got him this time.  All these things he can do... See, that’s the crux of the problem here.  Jesus’ reputation is growing, the healing, the teaching - people keep commenting on his authority - the crowds are flocking to his side, to hear his words, to reach for his touch, to let his shadow pass over them.  The scribes are seeing their q-rating dwindle and they don’t like it.  So, they come and set up a press conference outside the house where Jesus is and say “sure he can do all this stuff, fancy stuff, unexplainable stuff, but it is because he is using black magic!  He is consorting with demons!!”  

Notice they don’t approach Jesus.  That doesn’t work so well for them.  So, they are trying to attack his reputation instead.  If they can just get enough of the goggle eyed crowd to stop and think for a moment, they can chip away at his status.   

But Mark says that he confronted them.  He wouldn’t let them shout from the sidelines, he called them in and then parabled them.  Is that a word?  No, it isn’t, but it fits.  He spoke to them in parables.  Now, we think that means he told them stories.  A parable is a story, right?  Well, that’s how we usually think of them, but not really.  The word parable literally means throw alongside.  Sometimes a story is thrown alongside a question and we puzzle out an answer.  Like “who is my neighbor?”  “A man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers.”  But sometimes it isn’t a story, it’s an idea, or an image.  In this case it is an argument, a logical discussion that gets thrown alongside the accusations.  

“He is working with Satan!”  Think about it, Jesus says, does that make sense?  I’m dismantling Satan’s kingdom, threatening Satan’s power.  You think I’m working for his team?  I’ve tied him up and am plundering what used to be thought of as his house!  I’m claiming the treasure he has stolen back, the treasure which is you.  All of you.  Who really belong to God.  You are a part of God’s family.

Family.  Then someone remembers that he was supposed to tell Jesus about the family that has come for Him.  “Hey Jesus, your mom is here.  Your brothers and sisters are here.  They want you.  You’ve broken curfew.  You’ve soiled the family name.  You need to get home and have some sense knocked back into you.  They say.”  

Jesus smiled and said, “family.  My family is here already.”  It sounds mean to our ears.  Like he was divorcing the group he grew up with, the mother who gave him birth.  You don’t count, we hear, you aren’t important.  And I don’t want to blunt the words too much, there is a hard edge to what he is saying here.  But it is not so much a dismissal of his family as it is a statement of inclusion.  The family, those to whom we owe allegiance and honor and welcome and love, above all love, is not a small circle but an almost unimaginably large one.  Any who love  God with all their heart and soul and mind and strength.  That’s the family.  

That’s home.  We don’t leave home to come to church, we leave home in one sense to go home in another sense.  And wherever we gather with those who love God we are at home.  So we should greet one another not with I’m glad you came, but with welcome home.

They called him out at home, his family, those afraid for him, perhaps even afraid of him.  They called him out.  But he knew, because he understands home and family better than we do, he knew he was safe.  Safe at home.

Welcome home.  

Shalom, 

Derek 

How Can These Things Be?

Just back from Annual Conference.  OK, not just, a little while ago this afternoon.  We skipped out a hair early, but just a hair.  I attended almost all of the required and recommended sessions.  As I always do.  Though my ears were bleeding and my eyes were going closed more often than I like to admit.  I was there.  Sort of.  In body.  My recurring thought during most of the presentations was “These people make a living talking?”  I mean surely there is a better, more interesting way to make some of these presentations.  The preaching professor in me recoiled more often than is healthy.  

Oh, there were a few bright spots, a few good words.  Some worship and music, some fellowship and reconnecting.  It was not a total waste of time. But don’t let it out that I said that, it would threaten my curmudgeon status that I’ve worked so hard to cultivate.  Yes, Virginia, there are good reasons for getting old. 

But good speakers or bad, the ones that normally set your teeth on edge were not the ones on the platform, but the ones from the floor.  The ones who jumped up to ask a question.  Oh, Lord, a question.  Can we drag this out even more?  Can we add to the tedium of a three day business meeting?  Please keep your questions to yourself.  Or ask them discretely, behind closed doors, on your time and not on mine.  Can we just move this along?  Please?

I wonder if the others who gathered around Jesus on that dark night wondered the very same thing when a Pharisee came up with questions that made Jesus roll his eyes.  You know the story.  I contains the most familiar verse in the whole New Testament, if not the whole Bible.  For God so loved.  Well, read it yourself.  

John 3:1-17  Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.  2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God."  3 Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above."  4 Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?"  5 Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.  6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.  7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.'  8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."  9 Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?"  10 Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?  11 "Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony.  12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?  13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.  14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,  15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.  16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.  17 "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 

Did Nicodemus come with a question?  Or did he come to score points?  “We know that you are a teacher who has come from God,” he bombasts right in Jesus’ face.  We know who you are.  We’ve got you pegged.  We’ve caught, tagged and are releasing you back into the wild so that we can track your movements through our community.  And then we’ll make a determination as to whether you are an invasive species come to wreak havoc on our ecosphere!

Am I being hard on Nicodemus?  Maybe.  Maybe it was more open than that, more innocent than that?  Maybe.  But maybe not.  I mean Jesus lights into him right away.  John writes after that carefully worded political salutation that “Jesus answered him.”  Answered him?  Where was the question?  Maybe John should have said “Jesus responded to him.”  Or Jesus debated with him.  Or Jesus stripped to his wrestling singlet and leapt onto the mat for three falls out of four with yet another Pharisaical opponent.  Yeah, that might have set the tone nicely.

It seems like Jesus is trying to pick a fight.  And Nicodemus is outclassed.  And doesn’t even seem to know he’s in a stranglehold.  Which only escalates when he does finally squeak out his questions: “How can  anyone be born after having grown old?”  And “Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?”  And worst of all was “How can these things be?”  That really sets Jesus off, he gets personal in his response.

Why is he so upset?  I mean, he throws Nicodemus a wicked curve and is upset when Nick whiffs on the first pitch.  Maybe he’s upset at having his evening disturbed, Nicodemus was the first century equivalent of a telemarketer who interrupts dinner to sell siding for the house you don’t own.  Or maybe Nicodemus caught him on a bad day.  In the last chapter Jesus attended a wedding and was called out by his mom, then went into the temple and ruined everyone else’s day in one angry gesture, which left folks muttering about him as he strode through the wreckage back home.  And finds Nicodemus huddling on the doorstep, like a homeless man at his gate.  Or maybe Nicodemus forgot he was in the Gospel of John and missed the whole dark verses light symbolism.  Dark, for John, is the absence of the knowledge of and presence of God.  And then he proceeds to miss everything else that Jesus tries to tell him, because his mind is as dark as the night.

Probably because he starts with this “we know” stuff.  That’s what sets Jesus off.  He comes not to learn but to show his knowledge.  Nicodemus probably was expecting gratitude or something like that from Jesus.  “Wow, gosh thanks guys.  Gee, you really think so much of little old me?”  But no, instead he gets some head-spinning theology about the Holy Spirit, of all things.  And to make it worse, how did they know that Jesus was a teacher come from God?  Nicodemus says we know this because you do cool stuff.  You do magic tricks.  You do signs and wonders.  There is nothing that ticks Jesus off as fast as getting all excited about the special effects and losing the narrative of the film. He didn’t want heads turned by miracles, he wanted them to come to him.  He wanted them to hear his words and know his love.  He wanted them to have a relationship with him and not just come for the show. 

That’s how he gets to The Verse.  3:16.  There are people who wear T-Shirts with those numbers on it who may not even know what it means.  Which might also make Jesus mad.  As mad as at a pharisee who thinks he knows all there is to know about Jesus because he’s seen an unexplainable event or two.  As mad as at a temple full of buyers and sellers, making a buck off of the need to worship that is deep down in every soul.  Mad, or sad.  A little of both, I suspect.  God so loved, he says, so loved the world, that whoever believes ... Believe in the Gospel of John is more than a head thing.  Nicodemus had a head thing.  But he didn’t have a heart thing.  Or a soul thing.  He wasn’t leaning into the Jesus the way Jesus wants us to lean into Him.  He wasn’t hungry for Jesus the way Jesus wants us to be hungry.  I am the bread, I am the gate, I am the way, the truth and the life.  He wants to be all for all.  Our light in the darkness, our hope in the midst of the world’s despair.  He doesn’t want to be a side show, or a sometime friend, he wants to be the center of our lives and hopes and dreams.

How can these things be?  That would be Nicodemus’s reply, I’m sure.  Because it is mine.  Ours.  How can these things be?  How can we hold on to Jesus when the path gets slippery and light grows dim?  We must be born again.  Great.  Cliches.  Religious nonsense cliches.  Has there been a phrase more divisive in the body of Christ than that one?  Maybe.  I dunno.  But this one has been misused and misunderstood since Nicodemus stumbled over it one night.  Born again?  Anothen is the Greek word.  Anothen.  Means again, and anew and from above.  All wrapped up there together.  But not again as in repetition - same thing over again, that’s what Nicodemus missed.  But neither is it a badge of honor or entrance certificate. That’s what many modern day users miss.  Rather it is an invitation to join in the dance with Jesus.  Whoever believes, who ever takes Him by the hand and says lead me.  Whoever says I find myself in you.  Whoever leans for repose as the old hymn says (How Firm a Foundation for those who wonder), shall have life, abundant, eternal life.  

How can these things be?  They just are.  Start leaning.  And learning.  Lest, on this graduation Sunday, I leave you with the impression that questions are somehow bad, forgive me.  But no.  Questions, dumb ones and smart ones, irritating ones and time wasting ones earnest and honest ones, are good.  We need to ask in order to learn.  But then lean as we learn.  Trust as we seek.  Believe as we wonder.  How can these things be?  Believe.  And ask.  And live.

Shalom, 

Derek 

This Present Day

Acts 2:1-4  When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.  2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 

That’s how it began, at least according to Luke, who is the only one who captured the second act of the Jesus story.  The other Gospel writers run out of steam when Jesus leaves.  But Luke keeps plugging away.  He is just as fascinated by the fumblings and stumblings and the falling and rising of the motley band of disciples as he was by the God-enfleshed, baby in a manger who becomes the friend of sinners and outcasts and then gives himself away for the least of these - meaning you and me.  He is like the parent or friend who gives a gift and then is not content with seeing the joy in the unwrapping and admiring.  “Try it on,” he shouts.  “Let’s play,” he cries clearing a space in the rubble so the pieces can be spilled out and the board unfolded.

It’s not just receiving Christ for Luke, he wants to know what we are going to do with Him.  He wants to know how we are going to live today, in this present time.  That’s a hard leap for many of us.  We read the stories of the Bible, especially the stories of Jesus and we enter in, like watching a movie that’s so good the world disappears.  “Tell me the stories of Jesus I love to hear; things I would ask him to tell me if he were here.”  If he were here.  We look around our lives and wonder if he is here.  We stumble out of the darkened theatre and are surprised to find the world different than the one we watched while we munched our popcorn.  

If he were here.  The Spirit seemed so evident that first Pentecost day.  Wind like a freight train, roaring through the room.  We imagine the faces of the disciples distorted like those pictures of the effects of wind blown acceleration.  Tongues of fire light lightning, crackling down on each of them, making their hair stand on end and sparks fly from their fingertips, their eyes light up, their bones glow under their skin.  Then the babbling, languages fast and furious, spilling out of them in a Niagara effect, and the passers-by awash in the torrent of words.  It is surreal, mind-blowing, head shaking.  Ah, some muttered, they must be drunk.  This must be chemically induced.  They are on something.  People don’t act like they have the answers to all their prayers, unless they are so plastered they forgot those prayers.  They must be drunk, muttered the cynics passing by the party room full of spirit intoxicated disciples.  What an odd sort of day, with an odd sort of presence.  

The Spirit doesn’t show up like that anymore.  Today is full of unanswered prayers.  No, not so much unanswered as unspoken.  Unprayed prayers, because, why?  I mean really, why?  The cynics of today are as likely to be inside the room as they are passing by on the street.  Inside the room until they wander out, never to return because ... well because the Spirit doesn’t blow through our worship so much any more.  “Something’s missing.”  That’s the latest explanation for a departure from our congregation.  Something’s missing.  Is it?  Is the Spirit a memory, a story we read once a year, an object of a wistful sigh about what once was, if it ever was?  Something’s missing.

Romans 8:18-27  I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.  19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God;  20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope  21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now;  23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.  24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?  25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.  26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.  27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 

This present time.  It is Memorial Day Weekend here in the US.  An event which began as Decoration day for the civil war dead in 1868.  A chance to honor, to remember, to decorate the graves of those who had died in that terrible war.  When it began there were competing dates for Union remembrance and for Confederate remembrance.  But somewhere in the early 20th Century the war ended and the dates merged together.  Memorial Day has been an official national holiday for more than 40 years.  We remember, we honor, we weep for those who have died serving their country.  Our country.  Our home.  And we pray for an end to war.  But still they die.  So, that we hardly know how to pray any more.  Or how to pray without despair.  Without anger, without a desire for vengeance.  We don’t know how to pray with hope.  That one day no new names will be added to the lists of those for whom we pray.

I consider the sufferings of this present day... Paul acknowledges that living in these days isn’t easy.  The sufferings of this present day.  He acknowledges that there is something missing, something not yet, something on the way.  At least he still believes it is on the way.  If you read Paul closely, when he starts writing his letters to the churches, he is full of the immediacy of the kingdom.  Jesus is on his way, get ready.  It’s almost here, maybe in the morning, maybe later today.  Just get ready, wash your hands and be ready.  But as time goes on he starts talking about how we need to learn to live together in community.  He tells us we need to shore one another up, we’ve got to figure out this church thing, this worship and service thing.  We’ve got work to do.  Not because he’s given up hope.  By no means, to use one his favorite phrases.  But the hope now becomes what sustains us in the living through the sufferings of this present day.  

And he knows we get tired of holding on to hope.  Our grip loosens and we fall into the darkness of the day instead of remembering the light that we bear.  The light that we are.  The glory about to be revealed to us is such a powerful idea.  The kingdom, heaven, the reign of God, Your will be done on earth, on earth for heaven’s sake.  But keep reading and he says that that glory is us.  The world is waiting for us.  Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.  That’s us, that’s them.  That’s us showing them that it’s them.  The world is waiting for us to reveal their inheritance.  For us to turn on the light, so that they can live not only in the sufferings of this present day, but in the hope of the end to suffering, the end to rejection, the end to hate, the end to war, the end to dying and to killing because we don’t know any other way to live in this present day.  Those are the words that the passers by are longing to hear come pouring down over them this Pentecost, in languages they can understand, in words that resonate with their own souls, not just in the words we know.  We need to learn new languages so people can hear the word we know, can see the light we see, the light we are.  And to hear it with such joy and love and acceptance that they will wonder if we are a little bit tipsy.

Except where is the wind?  Where are the tongues of fire?  Why can’t we be empowered like they were empowered on that first Pentecost.  It’s also Aldersgate Day, this Sunday.  Memorial Day, Pentecost, Aldersgate Day.  Aldersgate Day, the day we remember our founder, John Wesley, stumbling to a bible study he didn’t want to go to.  And hearing someone read from a commentary written by Martin Luther of all people.  And that in the midst of the reading and that hearing, something happened.  Something broke through.  Wesley reclaimed these words, this hope.  He was included in God’s loving act of salvation, in the hope for eternity and an abundant life.  It wasn’t wind and flame.  He described it as a warming of the heart.  An unexplained, strange warming of the heart. 

Maybe that’s what we should lean into.  Not wait to be knocked off our feet, to be blasted into speaking of glory and hope, but a warming.  The Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.  Maybe we should keep sighing, for the sufferings of this present day, even as we hope for the glory about to be revealed to us.  To us.  Not just me, not just you, but us.  We’re in this together.  Linked, gathered, committed to hoping together.  Like a marriage.  Yeah, I got there.  It is also my anniversary.  Our anniversary, La Donna and me.  Thirty five years.  This present day.  And there is and has been suffering, but also glory.  And we live in hope, together.   

Happy Anniversary, La Donna.  Happy Birthday, church.  Hopeful Memorial Day, nation.  There is more to come.

Shalom, 

Derek