The Question

The Question
Mark 10:46-52
21st Sunday after Pentecost
25 October 2009

Stories about healings inevitably raise difficult questions for modern Christians. What really happened? Are these stories true, or are they just told to make us believe in Jesus’ divinity? Why don’t the types of miraculous healings from the Bible happen anymore? Or do they? And if they do, then what is the relationship between faith and healing? If someone doesn’t get healed, does it mean they didn’t have enough faith? The questions are daunting.

Mark doesn’t try to answer them. He just tells us these stories, and leaves it to us to figure out what to do with them. In many cases in Mark’s Gospel, after Jesus has healed he tells the people not to tell anyone. Is it because these miracles will draw too much attention to Jesus, or will raise too many questions? Who knows? All we know is that Jesus repeatedly heals, and then says, “Don’t tell.” But not this time. Today’s story is the last healing story in this Gospel, and Jesus doesn’t try to keep it quiet this time. He is on his way to Jerusalem now, on his way to the cross, and in a way, this final healing is the inauguration of that journey. There will be no more secrets about who this man is and what he has come for. Eyes will be opened, and the truth will be seen.

Mark shows us with this story. Jericho was a lush city of palm trees and springs, near the Jordan River, and it was surrounded by a wall. Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, sat by the road just outside the gate, so he could beg the pity of those on their way into or out of the city. The people inside those walls knew him, saw him every day. They were used to his sad story and his tragic condition. It no longer horrified them. And isn’t this the way it always is? We grow so tired of the need around us. We get so accustomed to seeing people begging that we are no longer horrified at their poverty or their need. We grow numb, or worse, we get annoyed. So Bartimaeus set himself up by the road outside the city walls, where he could appeal to travelers who might still be moved to compassion for an impoverished blind person begging for change.

There he sits, when a large group of people begin to leave the city, walking by him as they go. Bartimaeus hears that one of them is the great healer, Jesus of Nazareth, and he begins to shout. He starts making a racket. No more rattling a little tin cup or hoping someone might hear him calling out, “Please help.” No, this is his big chance, and he lays it all on the line. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” People try to shush him. Even beggars have a protocol. Stay on your knees, look pitiful, say please. Not this guy. Not this time. He will not be shushed. He screams even louder. “Son of David, have mercy on me!!”

And Jesus stops. He stands still. Silence. And then: “Call him here.”

No more shushing for the blind beggar. An invitation now. The people who had been trying to silence him now call to him, saying, “Take heart! Get up! He is calling you!” Watch him now, as he throws off his cloak, rises up from his place of pity, crosses ground he has never seen, among people he has never seen, outside a city he has never seen,[i] to meet the healer he cannot see.

And it is like this for many of us, is it not? We fumble forward in life without a clear picture of who Jesus really is. Many times – maybe even most of the time? – we cannot even see how he is present in our circumstances. Every Sunday we come to church and hear the stories and say the words and sing the songs and go through the motions. But do we see him? Do we sense that he is a real presence in our lives?

The blind man could not see him, but moved towards him anyway. He threw off his old life like a left-behind cloak, and leapt forward into the unknown. And now a question for him: “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks.

Does it seem an odd question? Do you think that Jesus does not know what this man wants? “Have mercy on me!” the man has shouted as Jesus passed by. The man has begged only coins from all the other travelers through the years. Now he has a choice. He can ask this Jesus for spare change, or he can ask for what he really needs. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks him. The question is not for Jesus’ sake – he surely knows what the man needs. The question is for the blind man, and for us.

It is not the first time he has asked this question. Just a few verses earlier, James and John announce, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And Jesus responds, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And what they ask for is a ludicrous pretension towards greatness. “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” They ask him this right after he has told them – for the third time – that he is going to be condemned and killed. And here they are, still hoping that following him will mean greatness for them. They ask their selfish and delusional question, and he responds, “You do not know what you are asking.”

They are as blind as Bartimaeus. They clearly do not understand their calling or their destiny. Jesus is headed towards the most brutal kind of suffering and death. There will be two people on his right and on his left - criminals, executed in shame. James and John have no idea what it means to be on Jesus’ right and left hands. Jesus is resolute about his own calling, and destiny, and purpose. James and John fantasize about power, and privilege, and glory. They do not know what they are asking. Like the blind man, they cannot really see Jesus. The difference between them and the blind man is that they do not realize they are blind.

Jesus’ question confronts our most basic desires. “What is it that you want from me?” Do we know what we would answer? His question is not that of a genie, who is going to magically grant wishes. His question is that of a healer, a teacher, a man on his way to the cross. His question calls into question our own sense of purpose and of need. The blind man knew what he needed – “My teacher, let me see again.” Do you know what you need? Is there a healing that you seek? Are you aware of your own blindnesses? Do you want to see clearly? Are you willing to admit your need, and to beg for him to fill it? What is it that you want from Jesus? What are you looking for?

Forgiveness? Healing? New sight? New life? He stands there ready to give any of it, all of it. What is it that you want with him?

As soon as the blind man says, “let me see,” Jesus gives it. “Go; your faith has made you well.” And what is his faith? It is not some certain knowledge, born of seeing. It is not a set of beliefs; it has nothing to do with doctrine. His faith is a seeking. His faith is an asking. His faith is based on knowing that he cannot see and knowing that he cannot give himself that sight. His faith is the yearning that pushes him forward and makes him desperate enough to beg mercy from the One he has heard will heal. Put simply, his faith is hope. [Blind hope. Hope that freely seeks and begs for what he knows he cannot give himself.]

If we knew how poor, and how ill, and how powerless, and how blind we really are – if we knew it, maybe we would come begging and unashamed to Jesus. Maybe we would cry out with everything in us. Maybe we would seek him, even when we cannot see him. [Maybe we would ask something from him even when we cannot quite believe he will answer.]

He stands so ready to give what we need. The blind man only had to ask it, and it was done. His eyes were opened, and the first thing he saw was the face of love. And even though Jesus had told him, “Go, your faith has made you well,” what he did was to follow. Once he could see that face, what else could he do, but to go wherever that man went?

In the end, his story is a miracle story, modified. It is not just a healing, it is a calling. This is what true vision is ultimately for – to see our true purpose and the One who heals and calls us, and to follow him. His way is not the road to glory or success. It will be the road towards sacrifice and sometimes suffering. But it is also the road of truth, grace, giving, and real freedom. We never walk the road alone; he leads the way.

He knows we struggle. He knows we have a hard time following, and a hard time trusting or even hoping. He knows how broken we are, and how blind we can be – to our real selves, to each other, and especially to him and his great giving grace. He is so ready to give so much. He knows we have our questions about him and his way. He stands before us with just one: “What do you want from me?”

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[i] John R. Fry. “Blindness.” A Chorus of Witnesses. 142.

The Possible Impossible

The Possible Impossible
Mark 10:17-27
19th Sunday after Pentecost
11 October 2009

I was seven years old the first time I encountered the rich young man from this story in the Gospel of Mark. My uncle had dared me to read the whole Bible through, and I had taken the bait. I started with the gospels, and had gotten this far without reading anything that sounded particularly foreign to me. Most of the stories about Jesus were somewhat familiar from Sunday School lessons and Vacation Bible School.

But then one night I got to Matthew 19:24, which is repeated here in Mark 10:25: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” I had never heard this preached, taught, or quoted before. It was alarmed. I slammed the Bible shut, jumped out of bed, and ran down the hall to my parents’ room. I shook my mother awake. “Mom,” I whispered. “Jesus says that rich people don’t go to heaven!”

“We’re not rich. Go back to bed,” she replied.

I knew better. I knew that I had everything I needed, and a lot of the stuff I wanted. I had seen children on TV who had flies in their eyes and bellies swollen from hunger. I was pretty sure we were rich. In retrospect, I understand that we were a pretty standard middle class American family. But I think my seven year-old instincts were also right. I knew those words of Jesus were clear and hard and scary. And I knew they were meant for me.

Lots of people have tried to soften the meaning of his words. Many people have taught that there is actually a narrow gate in Jerusalem called “the eye of the needle,” through which a camel could not pass unless all of its baggage was first removed. After dark, when the main gates were shut, if a traveler wanted to enter the city, he would have to use this smaller gate, which he could only do if he removed all his belongings from the camel’s sides and then had the camel enter the gate crawling on its knees.

[Having ridden a camel myself, I find the idea of riding one that is crawling on its knees to be a bit laughable.] But it makes a sweet little story, the point of which, presumably, is that if we can just get rid of the belongings which weigh us down, we can approach God. In other words, there is something we can do, ourselves, to be saved. Just get rid of your stuff.

But Jesus’s claim is more outrageous than that. And his story about the camel through the eye of the needle is meant to be ludicrous hyperbole. He is not telling us about something that is merely hard. He is talking about something which is impossible.

The question at the heart of this story is not about wealth or poverty, about possessions or lack thereof. The question is about eternal life. The rich man wants to know how to get it. The disciples want to know who can have it. And the good news that Jesus offers is this: “For mortals, it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

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This story is essentially one of the healing stories. The rich man runs us to Jesus and kneels, just as countless other in need of healing have done through the Gospel of Mark. His running and kneeling show that his request is both urgent and sincere. But he is the one person in the entire book who rejects the healing offered him.

Within the context of the disciples’ wrangling over greatness, we have a glimpse of someone who does have greatness according to the world’s definitions. He is not a disciple, but not an opponent either. He does not resemble the scribes, Pharisees, or Sadducees, who test Jesus, or the soldiers, who mock him, or the passersby at the crucifixion, who taunt him. He looks like all the other earnest seekers who have come looking for a healing. He looks something like you and me.

Those around him believed that wealth and prosperity were signs of God’s blessing. But even with his wealth and status, the man realizes he lacks something important in his life. He has come to the One who has offered sight to the blind and freedom for the demon-possessed. Yet he cannot take the risk of the impossible life to which Jesus calls him. He cannot accept Jesus’s healing, because he does not yet fully see himself as needing to be healed.

And because he seems to reject Jesus, this has often been seen as a story of condemnation, a condemnation of all of us who may love our things too much – which is almost everyone. Ye Mark says this: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” Matthew and Luke leave this out. But Mark, always spare with words, takes the space to note that Jesus loves this man.

In Mark, whenever Jesus tells someone to “go,” it almost always has to do with healing, and it’s always tailored exactly to what that person needs. To the hemorrhaging woman, he said, “Your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed.” To the Gerasene demoniac, he said, “Go home to your friends and tell them what I’ve done.” To the rich man, he also tells how to be healed, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

What is the healing this man needs? What he lacks is that he does not lack. This man is possessed – by his possessions. Jesus is offering to free him of his possession, to cure him of his excess. But the rich man turns his back, grieved.

What about you? Do you love your stuff? Do you have more than you will ever need? Do you sometimes feel burdened by all of it, and yet still find yourself striving for more? If we get rid of it all, will we be closer to God?

What can we do to inherit eternal life?

Jesus’s answer is this: Nothing. For mortals, it’s impossible. But not for God. To say we must give up all our possessions in order to be saved puts the burden on us to save ourselves, and we’re not capable of that. There is nothing we can do. Ever. Neither possessions nor lack of possessions saves us. God does.

Even Jesus realized he could not save himself. He reminded us that those who think they can save themselves will surely lose their lives. But those who recognize the utter futility of self-reliance, who realize that by their own doings salvation really is not possible – those who recognize their need will be saved by the God who makes all things possible.

The problem with having so much stuff is that it keeps us from realizing our need for God. We use our stuff as a buffer against vulnerability. We use to fill the emptiness in our souls. We use it to feel less susceptible to the vagaries of life. It makes us feel safe and happy, and it keeps us from seeing how needy we really are.

The rich man’s secure status kept him asking the wrong question: what can I do to inherit eternal life? This was a man accustomed to being able to make things happen. Whatever he wanted, money could buy. Jesus’ response was the opposite of what he wanted to hear. Jesus told him that there was nothing he – or anyone – could do. Jesus advised him to release his wealth and give it to the poor – to get closer to the fragility of life, to take his own place among those who know they are needy.

There is a parade of people in Mark’s Gospel whom Jesus treats with special care: the poor, the sick, the demon-possessed, the women, the children. What they had in common was that they all knew they were needy; they all knew they did not have the power to take control of their own lives. They all lived close to the fragility of life. Maybe that made them more likely and more able to respond to Christ; it certainly made them more open to his healing power.

In many ways we may need to be more like them – like vulnerable children or like who know they are really sick or like those who know they are in bondage to something beyond their own power. Maybe we need to be like them. We need to recognize our vulnerability and our deep need in order to seek and respond to the One who wants to heal us.

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None of this is to say that we have justification to accumulate however much we please and use it however we wish. The witness of Scripture is clear regarding our responsibility to take care of the least among us, to be good stewards of what we have, and to be honest and fair in our business dealings. The rampant consumerism in our culture is at odds with the life to which Jesus calls us. We have to ask ourselves tough questions about how much we need and how much we have, and we have to find a way to live according to the witness of Jesus, allowing his way to govern how much we spend, how much we keep, and how much we give away.

Our wealth and how we use it absolutely matters. But our salvation doesn’t hinge on it. Our salvation hinges on God alone.

Nothing else is the essential thing – not our doctrine, not our denomination, not our determination to live the right kind of life, not our wealth, not our lack of wealth. None of that saves us, none of it fixes us, none of it heals us, none of it puts us right with God. Only God can do that.

A Jewish midrash records: “The Holy One said, open for me a door as big as a needle’s eye and I will open for you a door through which may enter tents and [camels?]” In other words, God only need us to open the door of our hearts just the tiniest crack – the size of the eye of a needle is enough – and God will come pouring in to set up room for an oasis.[i]

What must we do to inherit eternal life? Nothing. Not one thing. There is nothing you can do, nothing I can do, to save ourselves or fix our lives or heal our heats. The only thing we need is to realize our need.

The hardest news Jesus has is the best news we could get – our salvation is impossible. “But not for God; for God all things are possible.”

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[i] http://www.biblicalhebrew.com/nt/camelneedle.htm - Biblical Hebrew and its New Testament Application: Hebrew idioms buried in overly literal Greek. “The camel and the eye of the needle.”

The Most Practical Word

The Most Practical Word

James 5:13-20

17^th Sunday After Pentecost

27 September 2009

We have spent the last four weeks preaching from the Letter of James, an epistle that speaks in the strongest and most basic terms about how to live the Christian life, about how faith must express itself through how we live. You are familiar with some of the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament – the Book of Job, the book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the book of Psalms, the Song of Songs. Wisdom Literature concerns itself with morality, ethics, the practical wisdom of right behavior. These writings attempt to offer insight into human nature, and into the nature of reality, so that hearers and readers might live more responsibly, more ethically, and more faithfully. The book of James is a kind of Wisdom Literature.

I have always loved the letter of James; it is so practical and so radical, laying out in undeniable and concrete terms what it means to live a faithful Christian life. Out of 108 verses in the whole book, 59 of them are moral imperatives. Martin Luther famously disliked this book, believing that it contradicted the Apostle Paul’s central teaching that a person is justified not through works but by grace through faith. But James does not contradict Paul; he is simply aiming to hold up what it means for the grace that saves us to find actual expression in our daily lives. James writes in very direct, very bare terms. There is no wriggling out of what he means. And what he means is for us to live what we say we believe.

James writes exclusively towards an intentional community gathered by a shared faith in Jesus Christ. His is not a book to be read alone, in the privacy of one’s home, as if he meant to teach us about a private faith and a personal morality. Like the rest of the New Testament writers, he does not believe that the Christian life is to be lived in isolation. James is meant to be read here, together, as a church, as a community that intends to work out our faith together and to live in radical contrast to the values of competition, acquisition, and envy.

We started a month ago, with his injunction to listen first and then to act. From there we moved into his teaching about how we treat each other, including how we do not judge or show favoritism, but instead show love consistently. After listening, and action, and love, we then considered speech, how our words are also actions and the importance of using them wisely and well. And then last week, we looked at the destructive nature of envy, and the power of recognizing we have enough.

And so we come today to the end of his short letter. He has written so far against so many behaviors. Don’t be like this. Don’t speak like that. Don’t treat people like this. Now his words turn in a more positive direction. How might we become a community that lives in the reality of friendship with God and with each other? How will that friendship shape how we speak and how we act toward one another? Fundamentally, how will we learn to trust each other, and be trustworthy? It is this sense of purposeful trust that has the power to transform us from just a loose collection of individuals trying to make our own way, into a solid community of believers working out our faith in action together.

Again, James focuses on speech, and the relationship between speech and action. Let your “yes” be “yes,” and let your “no,” be “no,” he writes. Truthful, simple speech lays the foundation for truthful right action. Both truthful speech and truthful action lay the foundation for trust within the community. Say what you mean. Do what you say.

This does not seem like particularly radical instruction, or even particularly Christian instruction. Who wouldn’t agree with the wisdom of consistency and truth in speech and action? But what he writes next, in the passage I read a few moments ago, is what distinguishes him from other moral philosophers.

“Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them…. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.” (5:13-16)

We often think of prayer as the opposite of action. You can sit around praying and fretting about something, or you can get out and do something about it. At most, we tend to see prayer as a precursor to action, not as action itself. It certainly doesn’t strike us as the most practical response to any given situation.

But here is James, the most pragmatic of Christian thinkers, offering prayer as the first response. Are any of you suffering? Pray! Are any cheerful? Pray! Are any sick? Pray! I believe he would answer the same to any given situation. Are any depressed? Pray! Are any angry? Pray! Are any out of work? Pray! Are any confused? Trying to make a decision? Dealing with disappointment? Celebrating good news? Pray! Pray! Pray!

In a way, this is his most practical word. He writes consistently of the importance of true and trustworthy speech. He writes of the need to be slow to speak, and when you do speak, to be careful with how you use your words, and to mean what you say. He writes of the need for your actions to match your words. Here, he strips language back to its most fundamental – the words we speak not to one another, but to God. And with one another, to God. And on behalf of one another, to God. Prayer is primal speech. It is primal action.

Prayer is an expression of the truth. Speaking the truth first to God helps keep us honest. If we are suffering, we say that. We do not pretend otherwise. If we are cheerful, we take note, we pay attention, we celebrate by singing our praise to God. Whatever you are dealing with, James says, be honest. Pray.

There is nothing we go through that we cannot speak directly with God about. There is nothing we deal with that God does not care about. There is nothing we face that God will not face with us. No human emotion is foreign to God. We can be brutally honest. We can whisper our most desperate hopes. We can cry our pain. We can sing our joy. We can beg for what we want. We can shout our anger, ugly as it feels. We can bring it. And we can bring it all.

In the movie The Apostle, Robert DuVall plays a Pentecostal preacher named Sonny, who has just discovered his wife is having an affair. Sonny is a temperamental man who flies into a terrifying and violent rage that has life-changing consequences. But in the midst of that, he does not hide anything from God. In one of the movie’s greatest scenes, he paces the floor in his mother’s attic, muttering his prayers. He gets louder and louder until he throws his hands up in the air and he is shouting at the top of his voice, “If you won’t give me back my wife, give me peace. Give me peace! I’ve always called you Jesus and you’ve always called me Sonny.”

This is a man, who, even in the midst of anguish, knows he can trust his truth to the God who knows him so well, and calls him by name. A neighbor calls to complain and Sonny’s mother answers. She explains, “Sometimes he talks to the Lord. Sometimes he yells at the Lord.”

Do we believe in such a relationship? Do we know that we have, or can have, that kind of real relationship with God? Do we know how to tell our truth?

“Is any among you suffering? They should pray. Is any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them.”

And of course none of this is meant solely for the individual, but for the community. Ultimately, we don’t only pray alone in our attics – whether it’s shouting, crying, or celebrating. We pray together. We pray for each other. We pray with each other. We pray in solidarity with one another.

And that is part of what makes this teaching from James so practical and so radical. This is fundamentally what makes us something other than a social club or an activist organization or a charity. We are people who pray. We are people who pray together. Those prayers put us in solidarity with one another, and remind us that we are one people, belonging to one God, a God who has a relationship with us. Those prayers also keep us honest. And they should keep us attentive. They should keep us faithful to God and to each other.

Week after week, we come together on Sunday mornings and we pray for Elizabeth Lee, and Bill Kerr, and Bonnie Jensen, and Marge Shannon, and a host of others who suffer. And we pray for our Vespers ministry. And we pray for our sister church in Nicaragua. And these prayers are not just words, they are actions – they act to pull us together in solidarity with those in our midst who suffer, and in solidarity with those beyond our walls who need our care. Our prayers act to bind our hearts with each other’s, and with God’s. And these prayers should bleed out into our daily lives, acting to prompt even more attention and action. Prayer is not just saying words, it is uniting our intentions with God’s intention. That’s what shapes a life. That’s what shapes our life together.

Are you a person of prayer? Are we people of prayer? Maybe you don’t feel like you’re very “good” at prayer. Maybe you struggle to find the time. Maybe you don’t feel it’s worth the time. Maybe you struggle to believe that it means anything, or does anything, or changes anything. Say that to God. It’s as good a starting place as any. If you want to be more faithful, if you want this church to be more faithful, more vital, more vibrant, then the most practical thing to do is to say our prayers, and to say them together, and to keep on saying them.

In about ninety seconds, I’m going to sit down, and we’re going to have a moment of silent reflection, as we do every Sunday. This isn’t just a pause in the action. It isn’t a moment for finding our offering money or checking the time. This is a moment of quiet solidarity as we sit together before a God who listens. This is time for prayer, together. Just because it’s done in silence, doesn’t mean it isn’t real, or that it isn’t done as a part of community. Silent prayer can still be shared prayer. You don’t have to know any fancy words. You don’t have to say the right things. Just say what is true. Like: “Thank you.” Or, “I hope.” Or, “I need.” Or, “Hallelujah.”

We just keep doing this, apart and together, speaking our truth, holding up our hearts, holding up each other, uniting our voices, uniting our intentions to God’s, and allowing our prayers to take hold of our lives and our church and every action that flows out of them.

Now. Let us pray.

The Littlest Power

The Littlest Power
James 3:1-12
15th Sunday After Pentecost
Christian Education Sunday
13 September 2009

I dropped our boys off at kindergarten this week. It was about as hard as I had imagined. They did fine. Me, not so much. It’s a mixed bag, watching your kids grow up. It is a constant process of letting go, and of giving your child away to other people, more and more, and then more still. This first giving-away feels momentous. It is hard on the heart.

But mostly, I am excited for them. I think it is safe to say that there is no year in the educational process that is quite as joyful and tender as kindergarten. You high school students don’t get story time any more, do you? You college students, do your professors give you a hug at the beginning of each class? You graduate students are not getting to play Red Rover after lunch, are you? Most of us have tender memories of kindergarten as a safe and happy time, and nothing that comes after can quite match it.

But it is not without its own series of rude awakenings about life in this world. It was on the kindergarten playground that many of us learned to defend ourselves with these words: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. And why did we learn to say that? Because at some point, someone we thought of us as a friend, or at least a trusted classmate, used words against us. And it did hurt. In fact, as we become older, we realize that the real truth is mostly the opposite of that playground retort – most physical wounds are temporary; they heal. The hurts that get done with words – those can sometimes last a lifetime. The words we live under shape who we become. Loser. Princess. Klutz. Nerd. Know-it-all. Just words?

Compared to sticks, stones, bombs, and bullets, words can give the illusion that they are of no consequence. But James knows that words have a power disproportionate to their size. He makes much of the littleness of the greatest weapon we have – our tongue. He compares it to a bit in a horse’s mouth – if the tongue is bridled, the whole self can be kept under control. He compares it to a ship’s rudder – a person can steer the ship of her life if she just controls the very small rudder, which is her tongue. And he compares it to a small fire. It starts small – just a spark. But what comes out of the mouth can make a life go down in blazes.

But what is at issue for James is more than a simple matter of self-control. At issue is our double-mindedness – or our double-heartedness - our split in allegiance. On Sunday mornings we sing our praises to God, and then we turn around and use these same tongues to tear down, to distort, to destroy.

An ancient story tells of Rabbi Gamaliel, who said to his servant: “Go and buy me good food in the market.” His servant went and bought him tongue. Gamaliel said to his servant: “Go and buy me bad food in the market.” His servant went and bought him tongue. Gamaliel said to his servant: “What is this?” His servant replied: “Good comes from it and bad comes from it. When the tongue is good there is nothing better, and when it is bad there is nothing worse.”[i]

It is this duality that James finds most reprehensible. “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing,” he writes. “My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.” (v.10). If we praise God and then shred someone with our words, we betray our allegiance. God created the world with a word. God saved the world with the Word made flesh. We claim to live under that life-giving Word, the Word of God. That is our allegiance. That is our home.

When we use our words to curse, tear down, distort, shame, criticize, manipulate, bicker, judge, gossip, or deceive, we betray that allegiance. We are placing our own words above God’s. We are taking ourselves out of the shelter of God’s Word and placing ourselves instead in a different framework, that of envy and competition and violence and greed. Language has the capacity to create reality. When we use our words against each other, we are building a reality that is contrary to the one God has called forth. We are responding to God’s creation by making our own.

This is not what we set out to do. We do not mean to tear down what God creates. We just can’t seem to help ourselves. We speak carelessly. We speak without thinking – and without listening. We are indiscreet. We think negative thoughts – and then we verbalize them. We are anxious for approval – so we try to connect with people through gossip and judgment and complaint. We are anxious that things won’t go the way we want – and so we use our words to control and maneuver and manage situations and people to our advantage. We don’t mean to be tearing down God’s creation and erecting our own unlovely reality in its place, but that is what we are doing.

How do we stop?

In the end, the problem with our tongues is really a problem with our hearts. Who do they belong to? If they belong to us, then we can just keep speaking however we want. But if they belong to God, then what comes out of our mouths will reflect that. In place of negativity, there would be wonder. In place of judgment, there would be compassion. In place of blame, there would be humility. In place of manipulation, there would be respect and mutuality. In place of gossip, maybe there would be silence.

In every worship service, the most important moment for me personally comes when I pray the words from this morning’s Psalm: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to You, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” In those moments of prayer, I am most aware of the power of my own words, and my responsibility to God, who is also listening. I am most aware of the connection between the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart. And I am aware of my own inability to make my words or my heart right. I become dependent on God's sufficiency.

What if we prayed that prayer ourselves, each morning? What if we bathed our lives in it? A prayer of yielding our words and our hearts to God. A prayer seeking to submit ourselves again to life under the Word of God, a Word meant only for life, truth, goodness, loveliness, kindness, and grace.

We cannot take back the faithless and damning words we’ve spoken. We cannot hope to keep our tongues as fully bridled as they ought to be. What we can do is place our hearts in God’s hands. We can confess our sins. We can seek to pay attention to God, and to the importance of our words. We can ask God’s help. Most of all, we can keep giving our hearts back to God.

“Let the words of our mouths and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to You, O Lord, our rock and my redeemer.”

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[i] Dibelius, James, pp. 201-202. Found in “The Power of Words and the Tests of Two Wisdoms: James 3,” by Alan Culpepper, in Review and Expositor, p.413, Summer 1986.

The Laid Down Life

The Laid Down Life
John 10:11-18
Fourth Sunday of Easter
3 May 2009

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, which means that in churches across the country and around the world, congregants are reciting Psalm 23, just as we did, and hearing Jesus say again, as we did, “I am the Good Shepherd.” In some of the places where these passages are being read, on the hills of Palestine, or Scotland, or Australia, or in the rural pockets of our own country, listeners will not have to be told very much about what sheep are like, and what it means for sheep to have a good shepherd. They will know, because the pastoral life is their life.

But in pulpits across America, many pastors are having to explain a little more, because most of us don’t have regular contact with sheep. And I can bet that many pastors this morning are saying something like this. Sheep are dumb. Sheep are smelly. Sheep are stubborn. Sheep are helpless and weak. And of course the analogy is that this is who we are: dumb, stubborn, helpless, weak. “All we like sheep have gone astray.”

But I’ll be honest. It’s hard for me to say anything bad about sheep. I’m a knitter. I love sheep. They provide for me the most basic thing I need for my craft. I work with wool every day. I go to fiber fairs and sheep festivals. Sheep are like some sort of icon for knitters. I have very romantic notions about sheep.

The people of Jesus’ day, with more livestock experience than I have, probably did not share my romanticism about sheep, but they were wistful for a certain kind of shepherd. They remembered good King David, who had tended sheep as a boy and then became God’s shepherd of the people as king. They remembered Ezekiel’s prophecy, a promise that came during the long stretch of devastation following the collapse of the Temple. According to Ezekiel, a Shepherd would come to care for them, and it would be no mere human, capable of corruption and susceptible to self-interest. This time the Shepherd would be God: “I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out…. I will rescue them… I will feed them… I will make them lie down… I will seek them, and bring then back, and strengthen them.” (34:11-16) This was undeniably good news for people in distress and despair. The people who clung to this promise knew Psalm 23 as intimately as we do, and loved it as deeply: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. They knew their weakness and their need, and they sought One who would tend them.

And then Jesus comes along and says to them, “I am the good shepherd.” And what he offers is what they’ve been looking for, what we are looking for, too. With great tenderness, he speaks of how intimately he cares for his sheep. Just as Ezekiel promised, this shepherd will care for a scattered people, nurturing them, soothing them, and strengthening them.

But Jesus takes the image further than Ezekiel’s prophecy, declaring, “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” I know people who tend sheep. They love them, they care for them, but die for them? We move now beyond metaphor, and into new reality. One has come who will lay down his life for us. And not just for us – “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold,” he says. “I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” The shepherd who comes for us, comes for all, and will tend any who listen for his voice.

And then Jesus sets aside talk of sheep and shepherds and speaks directly of what he has come to do. “I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” Jesus is no victim. Not a victim of an angry God, nor a victim of an angry mob. What he did on the cross did not look like power. It looked like defeat. But in John, Jesus is so clear about who has the power. “No one takes my life from me, I lay it down.”

In the early 1300s, a Florentine artist by the name of Pacino di Bonaguida painted an image of the crucifixion that is unlike any other I have seen. It is intended as theological interpretation, not as historical depiction. In it, Jesus climbs a ladder to the cross. The mood of the scene is calm, in contrast to more typical paintings of the Passion. Mary, John, the soldiers, all stand back, passive, watching, letting Jesus do what he has come to do. One onlooker holds a hammer up to Jesus, while another holds a basket of nails. As Jesus makes his vigorous ascent, it is clear that he is making a willing and active sacrifice. He comes to the cross as One with all power, willingly laid down, to be picked up again later in a new way. He is the agent, not the soldiers, or the politicians, or the religious leaders, or us. He gives himself, pours himself out, lays himself down, for our sakes. He throws his life over us like a canopy.

This is not what a shepherd does for sheep. When a pack of wolves threatens a flock of sheep, real shepherds do not throw themselves to the wolves. But the Good Shepherd, facing the wolves of our sin, and our despair, our death, and the darkness of powers and principalities, the Good Shepherd in all power lays down his own life for us and then picks it up again, and picks us up with it.

By his power, and not our own, we belong to him now. We are his sheep, his flock. To be his sheep is to be led to life. To be safe, sheltered. It is to be known by him, and to follow. It is to trust the sound of his voice, and to trust the voice of God that speaks through him. To belong to him does not mean we have all the right answers, or feel all the right ways, or do all the right things. To belong to him means we listen for him, we trust him, we are in relationship with him.

So many voices clamor for our attention. So many voices beckon, and shock, and tempt, and question, and assault. We live in a world that has gone nearly hysterical with anxiety over the economy and swine flu and whatever the disaster of the day is. Some people react with violence, others react with fear, others do whatever they can to close themselves off, to cocoon away from the chaos. We come together to seek another way, and to seek it together, not as a collection of individuals, but as a flock – his flock. We come together to help each other listen, and trust, and follow.

What are you here for, if not that? What are you here for, if not to listen for that voice – the voice of love? [What are you here for, if not to seek that face?] What are you here for, if not to follow him? to have a relationship with him? What are you here for? What are you listening for? What are you looking for?

He is looking for us. Like a shepherd searching for scattered sheep, he seeks us, and calls us. He set this table for us, a reminder that we still need the sustenance and care he offers, the fellowship he makes possible. Most of all we need him, even when we don’t realize it. He laid down his life for us. He prepares a table for us. He makes a way for us. He pours himself out for us, and for all.

On Following

On Following
Mark 1:14-20
3rd Sunday After Pentecost
25 January 2008

From a very young age, most of us are taught that being a leader is a most desirable thing. It starts in preschool, with the game “Follow the Leader.” It is mildly enjoyable to follow the leader, but the real fun comes when it’s your turn to lead. You walk around with a string of children behind you, ready to do anything you say. You flap your arms – they flap their arms. You hop on one foot – they hop on one foot. You quack like a duck – they quack like ducks. You realize right away that you can make them do anything. Anything! The possibilities are endless. The power can be intoxicating!

The very young are content to be told when it’s their turn to lead. But if you watch a group of, say, 4 year-olds, you will notice that some of them no longer want to wait patiently for their turn. They will demand to be the leader. It goes from a collaborative game to a competitive sport. In my house, I have even heard the words, “I won at Follow the Leader.” I have asked, “How do you win at Follow the Leader?” I have so far not gotten a satisfactory answer, though I have imagined that if I were to play, winning might look like all the children in my home doing exactly what I said the first time I said it.

Power struggles begin at tender age. And many of us spend the rest of our lives jockeying for position. We are taught that leadership is valued and having power is good. Parents and teachers try to groom children to become good leaders. Teenagers and young adults may even participate in leadership training. College admissions officers look for evidence that applicants have leadership skills and experience.

To my knowledge, there are no equivalent workshops on “followship” training. And while teachers and parents do hope that children learn to at least follow directions, not many speak to their young about being a good follower. In fact, being a follower has a negative connotation in our culture. We fear that in following we may be lemmings, going along unquestioningly with the crowd to our detriment. While not everyone aspires to be a leader, I know of now one who sets out to be a good follower.

I once knew a woman who was a member of a very progressive new church full of people with passion and vision and commitment. She told the story of the first Christmas this congregation celebrated together. They were decorating a large tree in the sanctuary, and they each had been given one Christmon ornament to hang. They all set about putting their ornament on, and when they stepped back from the tree they noticed something startling: every single ornament was near the top of the tree – the bottom of the tree was completely bare. The woman declared that was the perfect metaphor for the congregation – they were all chiefs, no followers.

Choosing to do what someone else tells us to is just not as much fun as doing exactly what we want. More fun still is having other people do what we want, too. And into this tangle of desire and self-will, come these two words from Jesus: Follow me.

The fishermen were casting a net into the sea. They were minding their own business, doing their job, making their living. And Jesus walks by and says, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they leave their nets and follow. He goes a little further, and there are James and John, mending their nets in a boat. And Jesus says, “Follow me,” and they do, leaving their father and their employees in the boat, as they go.

Can you imagine? A stranger walks up, no introduction, no spiel, no business plan to show them how following him will get them what they want. None of that. Just those words: Follow me. And they do.

A reasonable response would be, “Where are you going?” Or “Who are you?” Or, “Go away.” Reasonable people do not just lay aside their old lives and take up with a street preacher just because he says, “Come on.” But this is not a reasonable story. And his is no reasonable request. He is asking them to drop everything, to leave their families, their work, and everything they know, and to join him on a road that will ultimately lead to suffering and death - and later, to resurrection. This is a mind-bending, life-altering invitation, and they don’t even stop to ask a single question. They just go.

Did they have any idea what they were signing up for? Difficulty. Disappointment. Persecutions. Executions. Later in life they would all four be led where they would rather not have gone. And still, they followed. As if all they knew was that wherever this man was, they wanted to be. So they dropped their nets, their lives, and their plans, and followed.

This story stands at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, immediately after the baptism of Jesus. It is as if to say, no matter what comes next, this is where it begins, keep coming back to this – Follow me. This is everything distilled into two words. Follow me.

And every day, they got up, and followed all over again. None of them stepped forward and said, “Wait a minute. The life I left was better than this one. I liked things better when I was in charge.” Sure, they struggled with selfishness and pettiness. They made mistakes, and sometimes they failed in spectacularly awful ways. But they still just kept on following. One step at a time.

And this is how it works. This is the only way to follow. Just one step at a time. Just each day choosing to drop our own plans and follow the leader we’ve said we’ll follow. Things will happen that we never anticipated or prepared for. We will make mistakes. We will get discouraged and disappointed. We will have long stretches where it feels like we are running down a dark alley or stumbling through a mysterious landscape. We will wish we had a map, or a plan, or anything to tell us how things would work out.

We don’t get any of that. We get what they got, this man with fire in his eyes and thunder in his throat, saying, “Follow me.” And if we can let go of wondering where we’re headed and worrying about how we’ll make it, and instead focus on the One who is calling us, we will be all right. What is true for the disciples is true for us – we don’t have to see all the way down that narrow road in order to make the choice each day to take one more step towards the One who leads. As E.L. Doctorow once said, “The headlights only reach so far – but it’s enough to lead us all the way home.” When Jesus says, “Follow!” there is enough light in him for us to see by.

There’s not denying that it’s hard. It’s hard to be a follower. It’s hard to lay aside self-will. It’s hard to trust. We do not have the power on our own to make it work. What we have the power to do is decide each day, “Yes, today I will follow Jesus.” And then to say, “Jesus, help me with that. Help me let go of my nets. Help me let go of my plans. Help me to die to myself. You’re the one I want to follow, but I can’t do it without your help.”

God knows it’s a big enough calling. It asks for all our strength and all our faith and all our love. It requests radical openness, because we don’t know a fraction yet of who he really is and where he wants to take us. It requires discipline to keep thinking of Christ, to keep looking to Christ, to keep praying, and to keep choosing. And it means the willingness to change and to keep changing.

And we do not follow alone. We follow in a long line of people who have already followed him to another shore. And we follow with each other. His call is not just for you and me, as individuals, but us together, as the church. There is a lot of angst and confusion these days about what it takes to be the church in the new millennium. There are experts who can draw up marketing models and growth plans. But what was true 2000 years ago is still true today. All we really need to know is what we’ve already known: Follow Jesus. Belong to Jesus. Keep our eyes on Jesus. Keep letting go of anything that keeps us from following Jesus. Keep putting one foot in front of the other, and choosing him one step at a time.

“Follow me,” he said. And they did.

What about us?

Not Yet Revealed

Not Yet Revealed
1 John 1:1-3
All Saints’ Sunday
2 November 2008

As most of you know, I have been taking a break from the pulpit and other pastoral duties to spend more time at home this last year before the boys start kindergarten. It has been a real gift to them, and to me, and to our family, to get to do this, and I so appreciate your support and your encouragement in this decision, as well as the work Paul is doing to make it possible.

I have had pretty vivid ideas of what this time was going to look like. Our days would be filled with crafts and Candy Land, with books and baking, with parks and puppet shows. The time that had been moving so swiftly would suddenly expand, and slow down. I would find myself able to give my time and my attention completely to my sons. It was going to be perfect. Perhaps it is more accurate to say my ideas were less about what this time was going to be than about the kind of mother I was suddenly going to become. I would be so loving, so patient and so kind. I wouldn’t feel anxious or pressed for time. I would never treat my children as interruptions. I would never hear myself saying things like, “Hurry up,” or “Leave me alone.” The boys would never ask why I was using my grumpy voice. Oh, and my home? It would be a tidy and inviting place of peace and order. In other words, I was not only going to become a better mother. I was going to become a completely different person.

I’m sure it won’t surprise you – and it shouldn’t have surprised me - that things have not been as blissful as I’d imagined. I am impatient. I can be quite irritable. I do sound grumpy. I don’t like playing Candy Land. And my house? Well, let’s not talk about what kind of house I keep. And what I am reminded of, yet again, is that I never ever end up being as good as I set out to be. I never do end up becoming the person I had hoped. I never get things just right, let alone perfect. This is our story. We are not what we meant to be. We are not what we were intended to be.

Sometimes we miss the mark in spectacular and horrific ways. But most of the time, we miss it in smaller, painfully persistent ways. We try, try, try to become better people. We have the sense that we are supposed to be getting better. We have the sense that life is supposed to be about forward motion, about progress. But we never seem to get there. We never really measure up.

Kakfa said, “The meaning of life is that it ends.” In other words, our living is shaped by our anxiety, angst, and dread over our finitude. The limitation on life gives it meaning. Today is All Saints’ Sunday, a day for stopping to listen to the clock ticking on all our lives, and what it means. What meaning do our days have, given that they will end?

Our preoccupation with our end starts early. “Mommy, you are sure getting old. When are you going to die?” one of my sons asked the other day. I don’t know. None of us knows, I said. “I don’t want to die. Ever!” Charlie insisted. “Well, sorry Charlie,” Rob responded. “Sometimes it happens.”

Yes it does. Not just sometimes. It’s coming for us all. And we know so little in the face of it. “What we will be has not yet been revealed,” John says in his letter this morning. His words confirm our ignorance. We don’t know. We don’t know when it will come, or how. We don’t know, not really, what the life after this one looks like. We don’t know, not really, what we will become. Not in this lifetime, and certainly not in the next. We don’t know.

But there is such power and such promise in those two words – Not Yet. Those words point forward. They suggest that what we do not know now, what we cannot know now, we one day will. They suggest that what we cannot be now, we one day will. They suggest that the essence of who we are and will become lies in the future – the Not Yet – rather than in the past, where all our failures have stacked up behind us, or in the present, where we still struggle to be who we’re meant to be.

John writes, “What we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when [Christ] is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” John acknowledges that there is so much we don’t know, so much we can’t know. But he insists that we do know that in the end, we will see Christ, and, seeing him, we shall be like him. Becoming like him will come not from all our trying, not from all our determination, but simply from seeing him, as he is. Just by laying eyes on him, we will be transformed.

These words are meant for our hope. All the ways life has left us unsettled and unsatisfied, all the ways we have let ourselves and others down, all the ways we have missed the mark – they are not the final word. The word now is “Not yet.” The final word is we will see Christ, and we will be like him. We will be fully, finally, beautifully what we were meant to be. All else will be stripped away.

Is this word enough to keep us going amidst our failures and frustrations and flaws? Is it enough for us to know that someday – not yet, but someday – our lives will shine with the light of his love, and completely? Is it enough to know that all our wounds and all our griefs will be healed and all our failures will be erased and all our lives will be only love?

It might be enough, but it’s not all. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called the children of God; and so we are…. Beloved, we are God’s children now.” We look forward towards the Not Yet, towards a future that has not yet been revealed. But we have everything we need for now. “Beloved, we are God’s children now,” John says. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called the children of God, and so we are. Now.”

What this means is not that we take hold of our longings to have a better life or to be a better person, and then somehow make those desires come true. What it means is that we know who we are – God’s own children, now, and we know what we will become – like Christ, whom we shall see fully. And in the meantime, we give ourselves to the seeking of him. We set our gaze on him now. We seek to see him, to know him, little by little, and so to be made like him, little by little, by God’s grace, and not our own doing. We seek him with our praying, and our serving, our thinking and our giving, our loving and our living.

So much has not yet been revealed. So much of what we long for, what we lean towards, has not yet been revealed. So much of who we will become has not yet been revealed. But in the meantime, don’t we have enough to keep us going on the way of Christ?

Not long ago, I visited a church that had a baptismal pool at the entrance. In order to come into the sanctuary, you had to pass by those waters. And at this church, the water was constantly flowing into that pool, from a source above it. Anyone sitting in that sanctuary would hear the rush of water into that pool. I sat in that sanctuary alone, and the water seemed so loud as I prayed. I was seeking direction, and guidance, and I kept hearing that water. And suddenly I had the strongest sense of something else in that room besides that water. I saw my cloud of witnesses, there, above me. There was my cousin Blake, made whole. There was my grandmother, Edith, and my grandmother, Thelma. There was my brother-in-law David. My father-in-law Nelson, my Uncle Don. There stood my grandfathers, whom I never knew. There was a whole circle of people around that sanctuary and another circle behind them and another behind them. Zella Willis and Laura Barbour and Dorothy Lamerson and Helen Brewer and people whom they had loved and lost, all stand in that circle. And behind them, the circle goes on, and it goes on. The Bible calls it our cloud of witnesses.

Above the sound of those baptismal waters, I perceived that cloud, and those beautiful, beautiful people, who have been made well and whole. And I had the strongest feeling myself that I am headed for that wholeness, too, that all shall be well. I had the strongest, clearest remembrance that they, too, had been laid down in those baptismal waters, and they now stand by the river that flows by the throne of God. We were raised up from those baptismal waters to walk in newness of life. They do so perfectly now. I still struggle. But some day I won’t. And you won’t either. Those faithful ones who have gone on – they struggled too. They made their mistakes. Sometimes they failed us, and themselves. They were not everything they wanted to be. But they are now.

And what are we now? We are God’s own children. We are beloved. We have a cloud of witnesses that has surrounded us with their love and encouragement and example. And we have this table, where Christ meets us and gives us again what we need to keep moving forward in our seeking and our following. We do not come to this table alone, but with each other. And not only with each other, but with all God’s children throughout this world. And not only with all God’s children throughout this world, but with all those beyond this world. They sit now at the great table, at the heavenly feast, completely filled by his goodness and love, and transformed into that goodness and love themselves. Now we take our taste, too. And it will be enough, for now. Until we finally join them, and gaze on the beautiful face of love, and become, with them, like him ourselves.