Are rules meant to be broken?

Mark 2:23-3:6

I have been thinking a lot about rules lately.  Everywhere we go there are rules. 

I am going to proctor End Of Grade tests at the local middle school and there are rules.  I can’t speak during testing, read a book, have my phone out or help with the questions. 

When I explored being a missionary in Venezuela, there were rules.  I would have to live with another single woman, I would have to hire a woman to be my companion and go nowhere alone.  I would have to dress conservatively, be vigilant about who I spoke to and I would have to leave every 90 days, so I wouldn’t violate visa and immigration policies. 

Life has rules.  Some written, some unwritten.  We want 2.2 feet of personal space, acceptable amounts of eye contact, words you can use in some situations but not others, clothes appropriate to different situations and events. 

Most people would look at me funny if I preached in shorts and an old t-shirt. 

The Bible has rules.  We have the 10 commandments, but we also have rules about forgiveness, loving our neighbor and our enemy and care for the less fortunate.  We also have rules that help us keep the other rules.  

Our lives are consumed with rules. 

In our scripture, Jesus addresses the issue of rules, specifically what it means to Honor the Sabbath and keep it Holy. 

This is one of a series of challenges in Mark.  Jesus has been challenging the cultural rules of who can forgive sins, when people should fast, whom it is acceptable to share a meal with and who can be seen in public together.

These confrontations build up to this climax.  Mark has the religious and political powers in such a tizzy that they are conspiring to kill him only three chapters in. 

Jesus is challenging the rules, challenging the status quo, and the authority of those in power, not because he wants to be a trouble maker or know it all.  Jesus challenges the rules because people have forgotten or misused the rule and its importance. 

When Jesus says; “Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the sabbath,” Jesus is challenging the core of their reasoning. 

Why do we follow rules?  Why are there rules? 

In a just society, rules are there for the benefit of those who follow them.  Observing traffic laws keeps us safer on the roads.  Not eating raw meat helps prevent us from getting sick.  Taking all our antibiotics help prevent antibiotic resistant germs.  The rules we follow when dating or talking with people on-line will help keep you safe too. 

All the rules about living in Venezuela were to protect me and my reputation as a woman, as a Christian and to keep me safe in a dangerous country where I hadn’t perfected the language and didn’t know the unspoken cultural norms. 

Rules are typically created with good intentions, not to be a burden but to provide an avenue to health and happiness. 

So why is Jesus challenging these rules?  The same reason God calls us to challenge some of our rules today.  Jesus recognizes that what has become most important was the rule itself, not the people it was designed to help. 

The people in power had gotten and kept power by enforcing the rules.  The people in our scripture were more concerned about keeping the rules than whether people were hungry or suffering. 

We in this country are no different than our forefathers in the faith in this regard.  We have rules today that we keep more for power and control than safety or care for those without power. 

The commandment the Pharisees in the story wanted Jesus to keep was the command by God to Honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.  They had created many rules around this one rule.

They had defined what it meant to rest, and work.  They had rules about when an exception could be made and the consequences for breaking the sabbath, but they had forgotten why we were given the command and what it means to keep it holy.

Sabbath is a gift from God.  An opportunity to rest, to spend time in worship, to remember to trust God to provide for our needs. 

A reminder that the world doesn’t revolve around us and we aren’t in control.  It is a time to meditate, reflect and give thanks for the gifts of God. 

Humanity turned it into rules.  When I was a kid it was an unwritten rule that you didn’t mow grass on Sunday.  But what if that is the only time during a week you can be alone with your thoughts and with God?  What if the mower is where you feel relaxed and able to contemplate God’s creation? 

It has been within my lifetime that businesses were expected to be open on Sundays and I don’t know about you but the only time I crave Chic-fil-a is on Sunday when they’re closed. 

Does this mean we aren’t keeping Sabbath?  Does it mean Sunday is the only day to take Sabbath?  Does sitting at home watching a race instead of mowing make it holy?  What about the drivers and others working the NASCAR race?   

Jesus says, we have forgotten the point.  Sabbath rest is important for us, not because of us. 

God wants us to ask the same questions about our rules.  What’s the point?  Is the rule misused?  Is it there to keep some in power at the expense of others?  Do our rules lift people up and encourage them to live healthy lives?  Or are they there so that others can be condemned for breaking them, made to feel shame and guilt? 

Jesus looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart.

Not because they were breaking the rule but because Jesus sees us for who we are; broken and sinful people. 

Jesus is grieved because he wants better for us.  He wants us to thrive in a loving relationship with God and others, not the rules our egos have put in place.   

What is it we do that grieves Jesus?  Are there times in our lives when we want power, and the ability to judge others for breaking the rules that we forget the humanity of the person in front of us.  Do we overlook their needs, their pains, their desires so we can maintain control? 

What’s more important being right or being compassionate?  Jesus says being kind and compassionate is more important and thank God, because those kind and compassionate eyes are the ones Jesus uses to see us. 

Jesus knows when we break the rules.  Jesus knows when we do things that break his heart and he still loves us anyway. He sees our humanity and our need for grace behind every misstep and failure.  That is truly good news because there is no way to ever keep all the rules and we break them every day. 

If this is the grace, we hope to receive then shouldn’t we extend that same grace to others?  

Testify

1 John 5:9-13

In 1850, Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis, grieving from the loss of eight of her twelve children, all before the age of seven, began organizing something called Mother’s Day Work Clubs near her home in West Virginia.  She wanted to combat the poor health and sanitation issues that contributed to such a high child mortality rate.  She organized these groups to provide care for the sick and medicine for the poor.    

As the Civil War began, these women grew to understand the harsh reality, that many of the children they worked so hard to help simply survive, were now going off to war.  Ann Marie took these groups of women and organized them to provide medical care to injured soldiers on both sides of the fighting.  These soldiers were someone’s son whether they fought for the North or the South. 

After the war was over, she began working for peace.  She knew the devastation and death caused by war and the residual fear, hurt and anger which remained after the war was technically over.  She began working to bridge the divide war had caused and worked to help families and neighbors, those who had fought on opposite sides of the war, heal relationships and restore family and community ties.

After her death in 1905, Ann Marie’s daughter Anna wanted to recognize her mother for the testimony of her life.  On the second anniversary of Ann Marie’s death, a celebration of her, and all mothers was held at her church, a Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia.

Anna envisioned a day to celebrate mothers and to encourage and support those women who fought for justice, care for the poor and the rights of all children, not just those in their own homes, but throughout the nation and the world. 

About the same time, in the 1870’s Julie Ward Howe, a suffragette, abolitionist and author of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” urged women to join forces to promote peace and commemorate that with a Mother’s Peace Day in June. 

With the efforts of Julie Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis, Mother’s Day was officially added to the national calendar in 1914.  (legacyproject.org/ History.com)

These women testified to the love of God through their love, actions and activism.  And today we commemorate their testimony and the testimony of our mothers, grandmothers and those who love us like mothers.  We give thanks to God, this day that these women have given us an example of the love of God in Jesus Christ; a self-less, unending and never-failing love.    

If the love of a caring and compassionate mother can mean this much, then how much more so is the ultimate love of Jesus Christ.  Whose life, death and resurrection testify to the true and ultimate love of God the Father, and which allows us the opportunity to experience eternal life through him. 

We see in Jesus, God incarnate.  God who walks among us, lives with us, hungers with us, grieves with us, celebrates with us, challenges us to seek peace and care for the oppressed and provides us a way to live an abundant life that we cannot experience without faith in him. 

It is this faith and this desire to live like Jesus that makes our lives a testimony to the one who created us, loves us and saves us.  It isn’t just our family legacy we strive to honor but more so, the legacy of our faith.

The problem is this, there are many who claim to testify to God.  There are many whom we look up to, whose lives do not testify to Jesus.  Unfortunately, there are those among us who’s mothers did not testify to the ultimate love of God in Jesus Christ.  There are those who were led astray, and who’s legacy is not one of peace, compassion and self-lessness.  God tells us to honor our parents.  How do we do this when not everything we, or our parents do is honorable? 

How do we know?  How do we look at a person’s life, listen to a person’s words and know if they are worthy of imitation and honor?  How do we know if they testify to the One true God, or to some other false god who leads us not to life, but to death?

When I first tread the story of Ann Marie Jarvis and Julie Ward Howe, I knew immediately of their faith. None of the articles I read said they were Christian.  The only hint to their faith was mentioned was the authorship of a hymn and a brief blurb about the location of the first Mother’s Day celebration. 

What testifies to their faith, was how they lived their lives.  They fought for peace and justice.  They lived out the Gospel of Jesus Christ in how they cared for the poor, healed the sick, provided healing to broken relationships, saw those created in God’s image as children of God, as their own children.  They showed the love of God, not only to their own families, but they allowed God to bless the grief and loss of their own children and turn it into action. 

They understood that no matter a person’s color, age, wealth, or even their political affiliation, prevented them from being loved by God, worthy of the sacrifice and eternal life God promised.  They fought, they sacrificed, they struggled, so that others could experience the abundant life Jesus desires all of us to have. 

We are surrounded by people who profess to testify to the will of God.  They profess to know the desires of God’s heart.  They proclaim God’s blessing on whatever cause they want to justify, and some will claim the name of Jesus, professing with their lips a belief in God and the eternal life offered by the blood of Christ. 

So I want to propose a way, to clear out the static and noise which threatens to drown out the true voice of God. 

All around us are voices of division and fear.  Voices that desire to be the best, the greatest, the richest.  Those who tell you that you deserve what you have and to be afraid of those who want to take it from you.

There are voices that tell us war is a negotiation tactic, and violence is the solution to hold power over others and solve disagreements.  There are voices that tell us the poor deserve to be poor, people of color deserve to be feared and treated as less than, and those who speak other languages are manipulating your good intentions. 

These are not the words of Jesus.  This is opposite to what the life of Jesus and word of God proclaim and teach. 

Instead, look and listen for those voices that testify to love, peace, equality, and abundant life for everyone.  Listen to the voice of those who advocate for the same things the life of Jesus testified about.

Listen for the voice that cries out and seeks to lift the oppressed out of the margins.  Listen for those who seek the health and well-being of all, regardless of their color, religion, language or nationality.  Listen to those who sacrifice comfort, security, wealth and power in favor of those who have less.

It is these lives that testify to the love of God and life of Christ.  It is God in Jesus Christ who sacrificed his life for those in the margins, who slept on the ground, walked dusty roads, and ate with sinners and embraced those considered unclean and unworthy. 

It is Jesus who healed those with a broken body, broken heart and broken spirit.  It is Jesus who relinquished his life and power on the cross so that ultimate power could be seen in the resurrection and so that you and I, sinful, unworthy, dirty and undeserving could experience true love and life. 

The life of Jesus testified to the heart of God.  Resurrection and eternal life testify to the power of God and gives us the life Jesus testifies to. 

And the life of those who truly love God and believe in Jesus, will testify to God as well.  This is the life we have in Christ.  The eternal life that begins now, for those who profess the saving grace and love of Jesus Christ.  It is our lives, how we chose to live in the shadow of the cross that witness to our faith, that show to whom we pledge allegiance, and provide an example for others to follow. 

Our testimony isn’t just the words we say, but how we live our life.  This is a call and a challenge for all of us, not just mothers.

Our children, God’s children, are watching.  Do our lives testify to the values of God and to those women who were honored at the inception of Mother’s Day? 

Do we work for justice, peace, and reconciliation or do we work for division, hate and fear?  To whom will our lives testify?  

Afraid to Love

1 John 4:7-21

What are you afraid of?  Intellectually I’m not afraid of much. I don’t like scary movies, but, sitting in this room with people I know and love, I can say:  I am not afraid.  All my life I have enjoyed doing stuff this side of dangerous.  I love roller coasters and motorcycle rides.  I love to travel and most places in this world do not scare me.  I’ve even traveled to Venezuela by myself.  I’m not afraid of spiders or bugs.  I am not afraid of heights or tight spaces.  I am the one who is typically willing to try anything. 

Except that I’m not.  I thought I was a reasonable person.  I thought I was fearless… until Jay and I took the girls ziplining.  Here I am, the girl who always wanted to hang-glide, wanted to soar like the birds…. And standing on that platform, I was terrified.  I finished the course, screaming, miserable, holding on for dear life.  Not that holding on would have done any good…. If I was on a platform I was fine but the minute it was my turn to trust this wire to hold me, my knees went weak, my hands grew clammy, and my heart raced. 

Maybe hang-gliding sounds better if I watch someone else do it. 

Our scripture says that perfect love casts out fear.  Well, clearly, I don’t have perfect love. 

Fear is one of those things that God gave us to protect us.  We fear the dark, scared of a person with a gun, scared of eating certain foods, scared of going places we perceive to be dangerous, scared of heights, scared of snakes.  All these things protect us from potential danger.  If we didn’t fear we would have all walked off the edge of cliff or tried to pick up poisonous snakes a long time ago and our species would be extinct. 

So then, what is 1^st John telling us?  Is John telling us if we love God enough we won’t be afraid?  No, what he’s saying is that a relationship with God changes how we perceive fear.  He is telling us because God is love.  Because God loves you, you don’t have to be afraid.  You don’t have to worry about the decisions you made as a youth.  You don’t have to worry that you don’t pray enough or read the Bible enough or work hard enough.  That type of fear is a perversion of God’s love used to manipulate others into specific behaviors.  

Many of you may have heard of “scared straight”.  It was a program designed to take teenagers who were in the court system and give them tours of adult prisons and have adult inmates talk about their crimes and how horrible prison is.  The idea is that if kids saw what the consequences would be, they would be less likely to commit a crime. The interesting thing about this theory is that they were wrong.  Kids who went through “scared straight” were significantly more likely to end up in the prison system.  You see, fear is only a temporary protective factor.  https://www.crimesolutions.gov/PracticeDetails.aspx?ID=4

Fear may prevent me from Bunge jumping but after I watch enough people do it, after I have done it once, and survived, the fear response gets diminished.  God created us this way too because some fears are irrational. Some fears need to be overcome.  1^st John tells us over and over, God is love. Scripture tells us over and over, God loves you.  For God so loved the world.  This perfect love is a perfect gift from God and is given to those who trust God and accept that love so that we can follow God without fear.  Lasting positive behaviors and choices stem from love, not fear.  God does not want us to be afraid of him. 

The thing about fear is that most of the time when we do what God is calling us to do, even if we are afraid, it doesn’t turn out nearly as bad as we thought it would.  Now, I haven't counted them myself, but someone once said at a Lay Witness weekend that the there are 365 places in the Bible when scripture tells us “do not be afraid”.  If we live our lives out of love for God, if we love people with the same love that we have been given, we don’t need to be afraid.  God has promised to go with us into whatever situation we are being called.  God has given us an abundance of love so that we can love others.  And when we think of the love God has for us, we realize the love we are called to give is the same undeserved, unconditional, forgiving, merciful, compassionate, love God gives to us. 

This isn’t an easy love to offer.  We have been conditioned by society that there are some who deserve our fear, our hostility, and our contempt.  The illegal immigrant we have been told is here to steal, rape and kill or at least take our jobs.  The Muslim whom we have been told are all terrorists.  The gang member, the homeless person, the used car dealer, the door-to-door salesman or the shady construction worker who comes by after a storm.  We are told to put up our guard, they want to take advantage of your generosity and your vulnerability. 

Fear has gotten so prevalent that we fear anyone we don’t already know and trust.  And our fear prevents us from getting to know some really great people. Our fear prevents us from seeing the God we profess to love because we never get to know the wide variety of people whom God loves.  Our fear we actually prevent us from knowing God.  Verse 8 tells us the person who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, because God is love.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 5: if you love only those who love you, what reward do you have?  And if you greet only those whom you already know what more are you doing?  Don’t even non-believers do these things? Therefore love with the Love of God, showing love to everyone. 

Our scripture from today expands on this by telling us that it is in our love for others that people see God in us and it is in the love that we receive from others that we experience God’s love for us.   

When we look around this room, when we show love to one another, we see the face of God.  But God desires for us to know love even more than this.  Our ability to experience the love of God is limited if we limit those we love.  And it is only in our willingness to put aside our fears, to trust in the love of God, that we can enter new, loving and rewarding relationships.  When we enter relationships and conversations with an attitude of love, even when we fear them or vehemently disagree with a person, we can still love them.  This isn’t easy.  

When we disagree with someone on deep moral and emotional levels, when we fear them, it is hard to remember that they are a beloved and valued child of God.  But when we remember that we are loved and valued by God, even when we do things that God dislikes, when we do and say things that break God’s heart, when we fail to love others, God still loves us.  Then we can continue to grow in that love.  The more we accept God’s love for us when we are unlovable the more we can extend that love to others when they are unlovable to us. This is not something that is instant, without consequence or something we will do perfectly.  Just like we often reject God’s love for us, just as we resist the sacrificial, unconditional love of Jesus in the cross, just as we betray God’s love for us, others will reject, resist and betray our love for them.  But it is still worth striving for. 

Because the reward of patient persistence is one that is worth the work.  It is a love beyond our imagination, a love that comes with rewards in this life as well as a growing reminder of God’s unlimited and eternal love.  This is an infinite cycle of love.  The more we experience God’s love, the more we seek to love others, the more we experience God’s love.  This cycle of Love, when multiplied into more and more relationships is a force that cannot be stopped. It is a force that can change our families, a force that can change our community and a force that can even change the world. It is a force that overcomes all fear and initiates changes that will outlast any fear mongering motive. 

It is in this love, not fear, that we will see the face of God.  What better reward could we want?  

True Love

1 John 3:16-24

The musical “Fiddler on the Roof” is about a Jewish family in turn of the century Russia, coming to terms with how their life is changing.  Their culture is changing, the world is changing, and they are struggling to hold on to traditions that seem central to their life.  As the three daughters reach the age of marriage the tradition of matchmaking and arranged marriages seem to be disappearing before their eyes. As Tevya and Golde the Patriarch and Matriarch of this family are watching their children fall in love and seek marriage, they begin to get sentimental about their own marriage.  In one of the songs.  Tevya asks Golde “Do you love me?”  Golde has never given it much thought. They were told when they met on their wedding day that one day they would, but did they?  As Tevya continues to ask, Golde’s response is a list of actions.  For 25 years I’ve washed your clothes, cooked your meals, milked your cows, raised your children, lived with him, fought with him, starved with him.  If that’s not love, what is? They lived their love for one another but had never said the words.  In the closing line of the song they sing together:  “After 25 years, it’s nice to know.”  (https://youtu.be/6A2MBneb7lc)

It seems over the past several decades we’ve forgotten what love is.  We equate love to a feeling, the warm and fuzzy, butterflies in your stomach, heart racing sexual tension of a new relationship.  A feeling that often goes away, almost as quickly as it arrives. Or it is a word devoid of much meaning at all.  A phrase of endearment that simply means- I think fondly of you at this moment.  As soon as you do something I disapprove of then I won’t love you anymore.  And at its worst, itis transactional.  I’ll love you if you do ___ for me.  None of these images of love which the world offers captures what God intended love to be.  It isn’t just actions, nor is it just words, nor it is a feeling that passes. 

Our reading from 1^st John tells us if we want to know what love is.  If we want to know how to love:  Look at Jesus. How do we know God loves us?  Every story, every word from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 is a love story.  Telling us and showing us evidence of God’s love for us and for creation.  Even the times of punishment are all signs of God’s love.  God loves us too much to leave us the way we are, nor does God ever leave us in the depths. 

God loves us so much that God became human in Jesus Christ.  God became like us, lived through every emotion, struggle, pain, and loss we experience.  God loves us so much that Jesus willingly sacrificed his own life, laid down his life for us.  The love we see in God through Jesus is a love of action; sacrificial love.  Jesus’ words and actions tell us just how much we are loved; flaws and all.  When Jesus eats with sinners, spares the life of an adulterous woman, gives the good news of living water to the woman at the well who had 5 husbands, when he touches lepers and heals those possessed by demons and forgives the criminal on the cross beside him, we see God’s love for even the worst of the worst. 

God’s love is shown through the abundant mercy, compassion, forgiveness, second chances and covenant promises.  God’s love is seen in rainbows and sunsets, the whisper of the wind, the warmth of the sun, and the kiss of raindrops.  God’s love is experienced in our hearts as we fail time and time again and yet even when our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and makes us worthy to be in the presence of the Holy.  God’s love is experienced in our greatest joys and deepest sadness. 

How do we repay a love like this?  1^st John tells us.  Obey God’s command to believe in the name of Jesus and love one another.  We are to be imitators of Christ.  It isn’t just enough to say we believe in Jesus.  Nor is it enough to do good deeds.  The life we are called to live is one of word and deed, thought and action.  Belief in the name of Jesus means not just an intellectual assent it means we have faith and trust in the character and nature of a person and everything that name represents.

If we truly believe in Jesus and love Jesus, if we have truly welcomed the Holy Spirit into our lives.  If we fully accept the unconditional, never-ending, overflowing love of Jesus Christ in our lives then we cannot help but be transformed into lovers ourselves. This love changes us, and we embody the one in whom we put our hope and trust.  The love of Christ should ooze from our pours, into every action we take.   It cannot be contained.  We don’t simply obey God because we are told to.  We don’t obey to avoid the consequences.  We don’t love so that we will be loved in return.  It isn’t transactional at all.  Love is a one-way valve from God, through Christ, to all those who believe and into the world.  It’s like one of those fancy champagne fountains at weddings. 

Psalm 23 says my cup overflows, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. Our obedience and the obedience of Jesus takes the form of sacrificial love.  We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.  This sacrificial love doesn’t necessarily mean laying down your physical life.  Although for some it does.  For the person of faith living in a foreign land or protesting to advocate for those whom the world has forgotten, for the fireman or police officer who put themselves in harm's way to protect an innocent life, maybe this is what God calls them to do.  

For the rest of us, John puts it this way “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”  “It is the willingness to surrender that which has value for our own life to enrich the life of another.” (CH Dodd FOW). 

What goods of the world do we possess?  What do I have that can make someone else’s life better?  For some of us, it is a physical skill or knowledge we can teach others.  For some it is financial resources, for others it is time, just being present with someone in need.  In what ways does your cup overflow?  God has a way of refilling our cups, even as we give away what we have and what we value.  The blessings of God don’t decrease the more we give.  Instead of giving multiplies our blessings. 

And even when it feels like obeying God’s command to love is a chore or inconvenient, when we don’t “feel the Love” in return for our generosity.  It is important to remember it’s not about us.  It is about loving God by the way we show love to others.

It isn’t about being appreciated because what we offer isn’t really ours anyway- it is God’s.  And any thanks or appreciation should go to God- by the one who has it to give and the one fortunate enough to receive.

It is about giving glory and honor to the one who loves us simply because it is God’ nature to love, to give good gifts to those created in God’s image; even when we don’t deserve it.  Because Jesus loves us even when we don’t love him back.  God is generous to us whether we repay that generosity or not. 

In these moments, our hearts condemn us.  It is not possible for us to love perfectly, despite the fact that we are loved perfectly.  Sometimes it will seem like glasses on the other side of the champagne fountain are getting more than their fair share or our cup isn’t overflowing as quickly as we’d like.  Sometimes, we will just not feel like being charitable.  There will be times when we feel our tanks are running low.  In these moments of failure, guilt and shame, we can rejoice in God even more.  Because God sees our hearts.  God sees our shortcomings. God sees our love. God sees our desire to do what is right and to love more fully.  This is when we can humbly enter into the presence of God as people who are loved and valued because of who God created us to be, and because of the unconditional, sacrificial love of Jesus; not for anything we have done to try to earn God’s affection. 

True love isn’t a feeling.  God’s love is consistent and never changing.  God’s love isn’t transactional.  God’s love is unconditionally and freely given and never-ending. 

True love means saying you're sorry when you mess up.  True love means saying I love you.  True love is believing with our hearts, minds, and soul in the unfathomable love of God in Jesus Christ.  And it means putting our faith, hope and love into action in real and tangible ways towards others- those whom we know and the stranger alike, following the sacrificial example of Christ- whether you are loved in return or not.  This is love that Jesus willingly laid down his life for us; in the way, he lived his life with mercy and compassion and the way he surrendered his physical life as the ultimate sacrifice of love. 

Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 

Amen

Baptism and Blame

It seems odd, at the beginning of Lent to talk about the baptism of Jesus.  We usually spend Lent talking about repentance, reorienting our lives and faith, reflecting on the ways we’ve allowed the world to come between us and God.  Lent is a time to put in perspective those things which prevent us from doing God’s, being in ministry with and for Jesus Christ.

Lent is traditionally seen as a time of preparation for Baptism.  Many see Baptism as coming after we’ve repented of our sins after we make a commitment to follow Christ after we’ve made it through the wilderness and surrendered our lives to God. 

But, Mark in his succinct way puts baptism, wilderness, and ministry together in these 7 quick verses.  And while many people would order the process: wilderness, baptism, ministry Mark is clear this is not the proper order. 

Some seem to believe that once a person is baptized, the result is no more sin and temptation.  But Mark describes it differently.  This scripture is our introduction to Jesus.  Mark has nothing about him prior to this moment.  No manger scene, no wise men bringing gifts.  To Mark, it’s as if nothing mattered before this moment. 

The most important thing to know about Jesus are the words spoken to him by God as he came out of the waters of baptism:  “You are my son, the Beloved, with you, I am well pleased.”  It is such an important phrase Mark repeats it nearly verbatim at the transfiguration and again at the cross.

These are the words we all long to hear.  We want to hear them from God, parents, friends, and spouses.  We want to know we belong, we are special, beloved.  This is the message God has for Jesus but also the message intended for us to hear.  To God, we are beloved, we are loved before we do anything to earn it. It is just part of who we are. 

In Baptism, we are adopted into the family of God.  We become heirs, brothers and sisters in Christ.  This isn’t the moment that God offers this position to us- it is the moment we accept our place in the family.  God writes our adoption papers the day we’re born.  At baptism, we agree to participate in the family of God- we sign our own adoption papers. 

It isn’t that life before baptism doesn’t matter, or that God somehow loves us more when we are baptized.  Instead, it is a turning point, a life-changing moment when we accept in our hearts that God loves us as a parent loves a child.  It is when we acknowledge the presence of the Holy Spirit goes with us and shines through us. 

Baptism doesn’t mean life will be easy, without sin, or without temptation. 

Of course not.  If anything, our laying claim to God’s presence gives us strength, through the power of the Holy Spirit to face the world unafraid. 

The Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness and goes with him.  Jesus is tempted by Satan, surrounded by wild beasts and he survives because his baptism solidified who he is as the Son of God.  He survived because the Holy Spirit and the angels went with him. 

At my parent’s home, there is an old barn about 50 yards from the house.  I remember as a child being terrified to go to the barn after dark.  We had no street lights, no porch light to Illuminate that dark space.  But for some reason, I wasn’t afraid if Dad was with me.  Whatever wild animals, boogie man or unknown dangers were still there, but Dad’s presence gave me courage and eased my fears. 

Having a relationship with Jesus, having our Heavenly Father in our lives, doesn’t make the evil in our world disappear nor does it make us immune.  But when we take God into the dark and unknown places, when we clothe ourselves in the presence of the Holy Spirit, we know we can face whatever we fear with courage and strength. 

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In the aftermath of another school shooting, there are debates on every side of who to blame, what to blame, who should fix it.  And while it is easy to blame government or NRA or school systems or parenting.  I wonder if in this time of Lent, especially since it occurred on Ash Wednesday, it isn’t time for the church to reflect on how we have fallen short. 

As people of faith, we often talk about how our relationship with God, our faith, the presence of the Holy Spirit got us through difficult times.  How we would have never survived depression, divorce, death, the loss of a job or home, whatever wildernesses we have experienced, without God and the church. 

We complain that Spiritual but not religious and None’s are quickly becoming more prevalent than people claiming the Christian faith. 

The church has spent so much time and energy focused on complaining about empty pews and the evils of the world that we forgot to share the Good news of Jesus Christ.  We forgot when we made it out of our wilderness that Like Jesus we were supposed to help others find their way out of theirs. 

Jesus leaves the wilderness and immediately begins to proclaim the Good News of the coming of God’s Kingdom. 

Church, we have failed.  This church and every church has failed.  The problem isn’t that people aren’t in church.  The problem is that the church has failed to introduce people to the Good News of Jesus Christ.  The church for too long has focused on whether people can follow the rules, who is included and who is excluded that we forgot that the words God spoke to us at our baptisms are the words every person longs to hear. 

Every person is a beloved child of God.  EVERY PERSON- whether you are from a broken home or a nuclear family, whether you are a straight-A student, or barely getting by, whether you are homeless or have multiple homes, whether you are in prison or free, whether you suffer from Mental Illness or not. Whether you’re married or single, straight, gay, bisexual, transgender, short, tall, brown, white, skinny, fat, legal or illegal.  EVERY Person is a beloved child of God. 

But we have withheld these words from people who we deemed unfit and so we see a world of people entering the wilderness, living among the wild beasts, facing the temptations of evil on their own. 

They don’t take God with them because they have never been told that God loves them and that they belong to a love bigger than they could ever imagine.  They have never been told that the Holy Spirit intercedes on their behalf, goes with them and will fight with them. 

Instead, they turn to drugs, guns, violence, and gangs, harming themselves and anyone who gets in their way in their search to belong to something, to be loved, admired, remembered. 

Friends, I don’t know what your wilderness is like.  I don’t know the inner struggles of your heart.  But know this.  You are loved.  You belong.  You matter.  You are a beloved child of God and God will give you the strength to face your demons.  Don’t shut God out.  Invite the Holy Spirit to fight with you.  God will bring you through to the other side. 

And, like Jesus time in the wilderness, we too will leave that place emboldened and strengthened for the journey ahead.  You may walk away bruised and scarred but God uses these so that we can help others through their wilderness.  It is our proof of God’s love and presence in our lives.  It is how we can proclaim with authenticity the Good News of God’s love to a world who desperately needs to hear them.

Thursday at the Lent Worship, Kevin McDaniel the Associate Pastor at First Baptist reminded us that we cannot just sit on our hands and wait for someone else to do what we have been gifted and called to do.  We cannot continue to point the finger of blame, wait it out, hope it gets better. 

There is ample opportunity to share that love with others and more opportunities to come.  And it isn’t hard.  Donate an hour of your week to read with kids, volunteer a few hours a month to mentor a child, tell the parent of the unruly kid in the store how hard it was raising your own kids and that they matter and are loved. 

Volunteer at the library, coach little league, help a scout group.  The opportunities are endless and I am more than happy to help you find your avenue to give back. 

We have been named and claimed by God.  We have been gifted through times of wilderness, trial and temptation and now it is our time.  God is calling us now to proclaim the Good news of God’s love to all people.  Don’t hope and pray that someone else will do what God has called us to do.

The Cross

When I think of the cross and those last hours of Jesus life; it is impossible to think of anything other than pain.  Physical pain from the flogging, the intense pain of skin and muscle being penetrated by large metal nails, the agony of a slow painful death.  But the cross also tells us of emotional and spiritual pain.  The pain of friends who’d rather save their own skin than stand up for what is right.  The pain of humiliation to be stripped naked, insulted and spit on.  The spiritual pain of feeling abandoned by God.   

I have tried to imagine these last moments of Jesus life, and I simply can’t relate.  I take Advil at the first sign of a headache.   Our TV’s are bombarded with commercials that tell us if we use this drug we will never need to feel uncomfortable much less pain.  We avoid seeing and experiencing emotional pain often at any cost.  We don’t like to see people grieve- after a week sympathy often dries up; we think people should be “over it” already.

We live in a happily ever after society which tells us we should never have to sacrifice our own happiness and pleasure for someone else; especially those who have hurt us in some way.  Yet, this is exactly what Jesus did.  The world threw every possible evil pain at Jesus and he took it. And, not only did he accept it- he mercifully forgave those who embodied this evil.

Why?  So that we, all humanity, could have life and hope. 

Hope that life is more than accumulating money and things.  Hope that life is more than just being a good person.  Hope that life is more than retiring comfortably in a house that’s paid off.  Even hope that true life is more than simply living without pain. 

As a Christian I am, we are, challenged to commit this life we are given to the difficult task of following Jesus.  That means we live into his call to take up our cross and follow him.  This means not avoiding pain, but finding purpose in the pain and sometimes even purposefully entering the pain of another. 

It is seeing a world full of the real pain of despair and hopelessness and willingly listening for how Jesus is calling us to offer the hope of Christ into their life and situation. 

This ultimately requires sacrifice:  time, money, comfort, judgement, resentment, blame and most of all our desire to live without pain. 

It means no longer avoiding the TV news, so we don’t have to see the pain of others.  It means no longer looking at children dying needlessly of hunger or serine gas and turning a blind eye.  It means no longer giving lip service to the plight of refugees but not being willing to open our own homes. 

It means no longer ignoring the pain and longing in the heart of a foster child.  It means acknowledging the pain of hunger, homelessness, Mental Illness and addiction in our own community and being willing to make real changes to breathe hope into their lives. 

It means being able to enter the pain of someone else with compassion and being willing to get personally and intimately involved in the life of others- not looking on with pity from a distance. 

It also means offering forgiveness to those who have caused us pain. 

This is what Jesus did on the cross.  He willingly, unapologetically, sacrificed everything to enter our world, our pain, our brokenness and our imperfections.  Not because we deserved to be helped or we could someday pay him back, or would eventually not need him anymore.  These are the limitations we put on helping others not the limitations Jesus put on us.  No, he entered our pain so that we would know we always have someone who understands, advocates for us and loves us even when we fail and forgives us at our worst.   

This is the beauty, hope and challenge of the cross.  Jesus knows that we will fail.  Jesus knows we are just as broken as the people we are called to love.  Jesus knows we are the ones in need- in need of mercy, grace and forgiveness.  In need of perspective.

So, Jesus offers that to us in the cross.  A challenge to love more fully, the beauty of being loved, even in our sinfulness and shame, and the hope that where we fail- Jesus will be, forgiveness will be and mercy will be. 

Great Expectations

Matthew 21: 1-11

Hosanna in the Highest!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the Highest!

I can almost hear the crowd now!  It was a festival, a party, a celebration!  Jerusalem, a town of maybe 40,000, was brimming with people.  Some estimate the population rose to over ½ million during Passover week.  Ancient Jerusalem, knew how to throw a party and Passover was the best of them all.  Passover is a time to celebrate how God saved the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt.  It is a reminder to them of who and whose they are. 

They retell stories of how God showed power and might over pharaoh and his slaveholders.  They tell stories of provision of how God provided guidance in the wilderness, food and fresh water when they thought they would die.  They celebrate God’s promise for the future; to send a messiah, a savior!  Someone who would make all things right. They dream of a day when they will no longer be subject to any power other than God!  They had a lot to celebrate and hope for! 

I imagine the Passover described in Scripture to be like Mardi Gras in New Orleans… people everywhere, singing, dancing, cooking lavish meals for friends, family and strangers alike. 

And this year was special.  They had heard about Jesus.  They had heard the rumors that this man might be the One!  Some of them knew someone he had healed with a touch or a word, giving sight to the blind, casting out demons and making the lame to walk.  Maybe some of them had been in the crowd when Jesus multiplied bread and fish to make a meager meal into a feast!  The rumors were swirling that Jesus was special. 

As Jesus arrives in Jerusalem people cannot wait to see him.  It was bigger than crazed Beatles’ fans trying to get a glimpse of John or Ringo.  This is a once in a life time experience!

As they catch a glimpse of him coming down the road, it all starts to click in their minds.  Isn’t this how Zachariah and Isaiah said it would happen?  He’s coming from the East from the Mount of Olives, that’s where the messiah is to come from.  And, he’s on a donkey too!  All the pieces are coming together.  They tell their friends and everyone comes out to see Jesus! 

So they throw him a parade with whatever they can find!  They pull branches off trees, take off their coats and wave them in the air!  It is a spontaneous celebration fit for a victorious king!!!!   But do they know exactly what they are celebrating?  What do they expect from Jesus?

Their chanting tells us what they expect!  Hosanna to the Son of David!  Hosanna literally means “Save us”!  Come Jesus!  Save us!  You, the Son of David, save us! 

But save us from what? 

Son of David, tells us much more than just the ancestry of Jesus.  This is huge!  Son of David is a political title.  David is the King, the one whom God promised would always have a descendent on the throne.  The rightful heir of the king is his son. This is Jesus.  This title, Son of David tells us they expected Jesus to be king!  They expected a king of old who led them in battle, who would defeat their enemies, kill Goliath, the giant who threated to enslave them. 

They expected a king who would be powerful and in control.   They also  expected a messiah who would led them as a priest, who would teach them about God! 

They expected the temple and religion to be the center of their nation.  Not one nation under God but God’s nation for God, God’s people united together to worship and live for God. 

Maybe they expected Jesus to lead a revolution.  Many people had claimed to be the messiah, led revolts and while some had succeeded more than others, in the end they had all failed.  So maybe the crowd that day put their hope and expectations into Jesus that he would be the one to succeed in overthrowing Rome. 

The question for us this Palm Sunday is then; what do we expect from Jesus?  Someone who will comfort us, tell us we were right all along?  Someone who will challenge us, correct us?  Or someone who will answer our prayers and smite our enemies?

We still pray that Jesus will come again.  In the apostles creed, the bedrock statement of our faith, we say that we believe that Jesus will come to judge the living and the dead.  So what do we expect Jesus to be like when he comes back?  Do we expect a king or a servant? A warrior on a white horse or a calm peace-loving pacifist?  The final battle between good and evil or for all things to magically be free from evil?  Jesus descending from the clouds like an angel or walking down the street like an ordinary person?  Will everyone recognize God’s glory or just a few? 

We have anticipated the return of the Messiah so many times now.  Early Christians expected he would come within days, weeks or a few years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.  When that didn’t happen, people decided it would be a thousand years, then two thousand years.  None of them seem to have been correct. 

If we look ahead to Matthew 25 we get another glimpse as to what Jesus return will be like.  This is the story of Jesus returning as judge to separate the sheep, those who do the will of God, from the goats, those who don’t do the will of God.    

What happens when Jesus returns and some of those who think they are sheep are actually goats?  In Matthew 25 Jesus says he was the one who is hungry, thirsty, the stranger, the one who is in prison; not a king on a white stallion.  What if Jesus comes back in a way we don’t expect?

The people who celebrated Jesus’ triumphal entry into the city had plenty of expectations.  Expectations that were founded in solid Jewish theology and common understandings of scripture.  But what Jesus taught and what Jesus preached and the way Jesus acted was not what they expected of a Messiah.  He didn’t pat the religious people on the back and tell them what a good job they had done. 

He challenged them, corrected their thinking about God and power and judgement.  He told them that all people were valuable not just the ones who fit a specific description.  He challenged the way they did business in the temple.  He challenged the rules they followed of who was right and who was wrong.  He challenged their power and their authority.

When he rode into town on the donkey and people started calling him king he challenged everything they knew to be true.  They already had a king, Caesar.  Anyone challenging that authority, would be disastrous for everyone!  Rome would not blink at using military force to put down an insurrection, they had done it before and would do it again!  That could mean disaster for everyone. 

Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, Religious leaders would lose their power, their influence, their wealth and what little freedom they had and those who chose to fight may lose their lives along with many innocent people who get in the way.  They prayed for a messiah, but didn’t really want one that would change the world.

We like to think we would be different.  We tend to paint “the Jews” as a group of people in scripture that we don’t’ want to be.  Especially as this week comes to an end and the cry of Hosanna is replaced with Crucify him!
We like to think we would welcome the Messiah, sing Loud Hosanna’s and wave palm branches in the air and never think twice.  But would we?   Would we recognize Jesus if he came as a mighty king in flowing white robes?  Do we recognize him in the face of a stranger, a homeless man, a convicted criminal in a jail cell? 

Jesus may have not fit the expectations of the Jewish majority.  And Jesus may or may not show up the way we expect him to show up today.  But ironically, the chant of Hosanna that the people cried that day and the chant of Hosanna that people cry out every Palm Sunday was more accurate than they realized. 

Jesus, did come to save us- just not in the way they or we expect.  Praise God that the Messiah exceeds all our expectations!  Jesus doesn’t come to save us from “them”, from someone or something else.  Jesus doesn’t come guns blazing, condemning everyone or everything we don’t like. 

No, Jesus comes to save us from ourselves.  To save us from narrow mindedness, from thinking the world revolves around us, from greed, materialism, commercialism, from doubt, fear, shame, and sin.  Jesus comes to save us from whatever separates us from a loving, honest and perfect relationship with God and our neighbor. 

Jesus comes to save us from death.  Death in whatever form it takes in your life, not just physical death by giving us eternal life but the death that keeps us from living into who God created us to be; gifts, talents and shortcomings alike. 

Jesus comes to save us from the smallness of our imaginations.  We cannot imagine what true life is like when we try to imagine it without Jesus. 

Jesus came so that we might have life.  Jesus saves us from death so that we can live life on earth and in heaven.  Sometimes Jesus shows up just as we expect and sometimes he doesn’t and that’s exactly how God wants it.  God wants us to wait expectantly to see Jesus in both the shepherd and the king.  Because as we learn to love both in this life we begin to love with the eyes of Christ and live a life of fullness and compassion for all of God’s creation.

Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!  Save us Jesus, today and every day!  Amen.