Sermon for Epiphany 5B, February 4, 2024

I remember being in school and having to do all my math by hand, showing all my work. Of course, the reasoning always given for solving these problems long hand was “ You won’t always have a calculator!” Well, I guess we showed them, huh?! I have a calculator, a compass, a phone, a notebook, a camera, a calendar, a measuring tape, a level, the whole Bible, Luther’s Small Catechism, a parking meter, a newspaper, all my favorite music, a tv, and the entire internet in my pocket. All day. Every day. And it has completely changed our lives. Often for the better. This thing can summon an Uber if you’re stranded. It can order takeout if you burn dinner. It can remind you it’s time for your pet’s flea and tick medication. It can help you run a small business out of your home. It can help you stay in touch with friends and family who live far away. It can guide you, turn-by-turn, from one destination to the next. It can help you find and connect to a community. It can help you pray. But, as they say, the greater the light, the greater the shadow. For all the good these devices can do, they are also capable of inflicting great pain. There is a show on MTV called Catfish. The premise of the show is that people write into the host for help in tracking down a person they met online. Usually, the person who writes in has met someone on social media or a dating site, and they have formed a relationship. The person writing in is usually deeply in love and, because their significant other has failed or refused to video chat or meet in person, the subject of the show has become suspicious that the other person has not been truthful about their identity or some aspect of their lives, and they want the host of the show to help them get to the bottom of the situation. With very rare exceptions, the show almost always ends with one person devastated at the loss of this relationship and embarrassed at having been duped, while the other person is exposed and ashamed. Further, the internet has made it easier for hate groups to organize, created a platform for fringe conspiracy theorists to gather a following, and allowed our politicians to circumvent the normal means of mass communication, replacing press conferences and nuanced policy discussions with tweets and hashtags, memes and TikTok videos. Despite the fact that the internet and smart phones have democratized access to information we have only built higher walls between us and allowed pundits and politicians to divide us and pit us against one another. Ultimately, we all wind up echoing the question of Pontius Pilate from the Gospel of John: “What is truth?” It has become very difficult to know the truth and to trust it. We are all fearful that we are living in some cosmic version of an episode of Catfish, being gaslit by our virtual relationship to reality and hoping that someone will be able to help us find what is real. And then we come here this Easter morning with all our grief, suspicion, and anxiety to hear a story about a man rising from the dead and it feels like a bridge too far. Like some sort of fable or children’s story, the stuff of legend or naivete, and we are too grown up, too educated, too streetwise or too wounded to fall for it. To be quite honest, just reading these lessons for this Feast day, it sure seems like even the people in the texts themselves struggled to believe what they were hearing. If we zoom out to the whole of the 10 th chapter of Acts, Peter has received a vision of “unclean” animals— or non-kosher animals— and a voice says that he should “Rise, kill, and eat.” Peter is a good Jewish boy, and he is suspicious, like this is a test of some sort, and he says to the voice, “Yeah, no thanks.” The vision repeats itself twice more and he repeats his answer both times. Then a group of visitors arrives and asks Peter to come to the home of Cornelius, a Roman centurion of the Italian Cohort, because Gentile Cornelius and his non-kosher household what to be baptized into the church. Then Peter gets it, and our first reading is his response. Paul gives a lovely defense of belief in the resurrection in our second reading, but you’ll remember that had he not been knocked off his horse on the road to Damascus or he would have still been persecuting Christians instead of being one. And by his own account, even after that miraculous experience, he still spent 14 years learning what it all meant before he became the Apostle to the Gentiles. And then the Gospel reading. These women are standing in the empty tomb, and had it not been for these shiny-clothed messengers they wouldn’t understood what was happening. And when they tell the story to the apostles, they don’t believe either. Peter has to get up and go to the tomb to see for himself. If these women can stand in the empty tomb and not get it; if Paul had to be struck down and re-educated; if Peter had to be told multiple times and has to go stand in the empty tomb himself— what hope is there for us who struggle to know the truth, who are suspicious of being duped, who are leery of being catfished by reality? Well, our hope is precisely in their disbelief, incredulity, and hesitation. Peter wasn’t convinced by the threefold vision. Or by the women’s story. Paul wasn’t convinced by the blinding light or the voice of Jesus. The women weren’t convinced by standing in the empty tomb. In each instance, they needed reminding, repetition, contextualization. They needed some time to become acquainted with this new version of reality. Their experience needed a story, and the story needed their experience. The Resurrection of Jesus is not an idle tale to be believed in spite of our better judgement, but a reintroduction to reality— a reality that includes the brutality of the cross, the suffering of grief, the ubiquity of death, the tyranny of empire, the injustice and oppression of state violence, the skepticism of disbelief, and transcends all of it with awe and wonder, with healing and hope, with life, freedom, and justice, with a resilience we might call faith. The story of the Resurrection is not a fairy tale ending to the narrative of the life and death of Jesus. The story of the Resurrection is not some creedal litmus test, is not a Pollyanna hope in the afterlife that abandons us to the whims and wiles of this one. The Resurrection of Jesus is a story looking for your experience. The Resurrection of Jesus is an invitation to trust that suffering, grief, death, tyranny, injustice, and oppression are not final. The Resurrection is less about belief and far more about experience, about discovering that life and death and resurrection are always happening. The Resurrection is about showing up to grieve what we have lost and finding that God was working while we weren’t looking, in ways we could not have guessed, in ways we cannot quite understand. The Resurrection is about standing in the empty grave of all our hopes and dreams and needing to be reminded that God promised to bring life out of death. The Resurrection is about holding space for our disbelief until our experience makes sense of the story. The Resurrection is about trusting our experience when the story is hard to believe and trusting the story when our experience is hard to bear. This practiced trust builds in us a resilience we might just call faith. And seeing it for ourselves, we will go on our way, amazed at what has happened. Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen. 

Hosanna to the Son of David!! Welcome to Holy Week!! We have made the journey with Jesus here to the hill overlooking Jerusalem and we have begun our ascent to the ho ly city. As we orient ourselves in this story we need to consider two simultaneous contexts: the context within the text of the Gospel according to St. Luke and the context within which St. Luke wrote this Gospel. Within the text, Jesus has come down the mount of Transfiguration and he has set his face toward Jerusalem. Jesus’ ministry has taken a tone quite critical of the city of Jerusalem, making reference not to the Jewish people of the city but to the seat of power and influence, corruption and collusion, that the city represents. Jesus refers to Jerusalem the way cable news pundits refer to Washington. We have heard Jesus speak of Jerusalem as the brood he wished to gather under his wings but they would not have it. Jesus tells parables in which the rulers and their clerks, the Pharisees and scribes, are the villains and scoundrels instead of the noble heroes. And we have now reached the week of the Passover, when people of Jewish faith from all over the Roman world would travel to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast in the shadow of the Temple. We have heard Jesus critique the ruling class of the Jewish people, a group which should have sided with and cared for the Jewish people, but has sided with the Roman Empire instead and has colluded with this occupying force in order to enrich and preserve themselves at the expense of the Jewish people. We have seen Jesus call disciples named “Simon the Zealot,” “Judas, son of James,” and “Judas Iscariot.” The Zealots were an armed resistance group. Roughly 400 years before the time of Jesus, the Maccabees had led a violent revolt against the Greek occupying force and succeeded in retaking the temple. During their siege, the temple lamp only had enough oil to last one day, but the oil lasted 8 days, a miracle commemorated during the feast of Hannukah. This revolt was led by a man named Judas Maccabeus. For two of Jesus’ disciples to be named Judas while Judea and Jerusalem are again an occupied territory, either means families are hoping for a repeat and naming their babies in protest, or these men are taking to themselves the moniker of a revolutionary. Further, Iscariot is not a surname, but a nickname, derived from a kind of concealed dagger. So, this person’s name is something more like a mob enforcer would have; less of a first name, last name situation and more like ‘Guido the Knife,’ as one of my professors put it. Passover is such a big deal and so many people fill the city that Pontus Pilate, the Roman Governor, is in town to make sure things don’t get out of hand. He would have ridden into the city on a horse, under Roman insignia, paying homage to Caesar, who styled himself as “savior” and the son of the gods. The Jewish ruling class is nervous about this guy flouting their authority and showing no respect for Rome. They worry that Pilate will think they can’t control the people, and maybe that they actually can’t control the people, and so they are plotting to kill Jesus as an insurrectionist, as a usurper, as an example; a threat to the Pax Romana, the so-called “peace” Rome imposed through intimidation and brute force. Then here comes Jesus, a grown man riding on a baby horse, surrounded by Zealots and at least two guys named Judas, one of which is probably armed— they’re all waving palm branches— a symbol of Jewish resistance— to shouts of Hosanna, which means “save us” and calling Jesus “Son of David,” meaning the rightful ruler of Jerusalem and the Jewish people. We have to assume that the folks who watched Jesus lampoon Roman symbols, chide the Jewish rulers who had colluded with Rome, and now shouted “Save us, Son of the Real King!” were assuming that Jesus was going to start a revolution, was going to ‘drain the swamp,’ was going to storm the governor’s palace, was going to be the savior who sat on the throne of David and ushered in a new golden age of Judean prosperity and universal respect. Or maybe they thought that this is how God was going to finally bring justice and real peace. That Jesus was going to remove the tyrant and his oligarchs, establish a new, egalitarian kingdom, a commonwealth of and for the people. But Jesus’ very first stop upon entering the city is the Temple, and he doesn’t just drive out the leadership; he drives out everyone, even the livestock, and seems angry that the temple had become a place of commerce instead of a house of Prayer. Everyone was surprised and deeply disappointed. Whatever they had hoped Jesus would do, he had not done. Have you ever been disappointed with God? Have you prayed and hoped and dreamed and fretted and plotted and worried and wondered why God would take so long to act? Or why God would not act at all, and allow such terrible things to happen? Reality is often disappointing, a cascade of dashed hopes and realized fears. Coping with this disappointment— or avoiding coping with this disappointment— becomes a way of life. When this reality disappoints us it is easier to be mad at reality, to embrace an exonerating and indemnifying cynicism as a protective shield. It is easier to avoid reality, to embrace fantasy and fiction, conspiracy and the illusion of control; to numb out, to dissociate, to distract ourselves from our disappointment or from being disappointed again. But Palm Sunday is an invitation to sit in our disappointment— with reality, with God. Jesus is, as Richard Rohr says, “Reality with a personality,” Jesus came to show us that God is reality itself, that our anger and disappointment is with God. We had hoped for a God of prevention and protection but we have a God of redemption and solidarity. Jesus has a relationship with reality, with God, that is able to face reality as it is and to grieve for it, until a new relationship arises from the grave of the old. Jesus came to show us in the Garden of Gethsemane that he shares our anger and disappointment, and that forgiveness is the product of grief. Jesus has come to show us that reality includes the cross. Palm Sunday is not the end of the story. Palm Sunday is the starting point— from which, we will see the whole cycle of life, and death, and resurrection. Palm Sunday is the invitation to begin again, to enter into this grief, this disappointment, this anger at reality, this anger at God; because we cannot grieve until we are honest about our disappointment, cannot forgive and be forgiven until there is confession and reparation. Palm Sunday is the invitation to begin to trust that life and death and resurrection is the pattern of all things. Palm Sunday is the invitation to lean in, to follow the whole story, to find ourselves within it, and it within our everyday lives, until it builds with in us the resilience that we have called faith, until it leads us to trust in reality, to trust in God. So, join us this week. Come and make the whole journey with us. Especially if you are disappointed in reality, especially if you are angry, especially if you are grieving or struggling to grieve, especially if you need forgiveness or you’re struggling to forgive, especially if you are struggling to reconcile with reality as it is. There is a place for you in this story, because this story is yours. I promise you will not stay disappointed. 

The Celtic people of Ireland have a term used to describe the moments or physical spaces in which a person experiences an overwhelming sense of transcendence, of con nection to the divine, to the great beyond. They call these encounters “thin places” because the veil between this world and the next has grown so thin as to be, in that place and at that moment, imperceivable. Particularly in Ireland there are mountains, coasts, and old sanctuaries now in ruins where people have reported feeling God’s presence in such real and powerful ways that they forget where they are altogether. Others describe thin places that are more local and intimate; in a time of prayer or great distress, in a moment of discernment or confusion, the veil thins and brings an overwhelming sense of peace and tranquility, of clarity or purpose. Perhaps you have experienced such a thin place— a location, a state of mind, a taste or smell, that ushers you into an intimate encounter with the Divine, an encounter that leaves you different than when you arrived, and your understanding of the Holy or the Holy One will never be the same. Today we come to the last Sunday of Lent. This season of contemplation, curiosity, and confession has brought us to a thin place in Jesus’ ministry. After raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus and his disciples are gathered in the home of Mary and Martha and the now living Lazarus is at the table with them. It’s hard to even imagine the overwhelming sense of joy and gratitude, of awe and astonishment that must have filled the air in that place. A beloved friend, brother, and follower of Jesus has just been resurrected from the dead, and not warm-bodied resuscitation dead, but stiff and stinking four-days-dead. This resurrection is not only miraculous, not only a sign of God’s work in Jesus’ ministry, but for Jesus, it’s personal. These are his friends, a sort of chosen family for Jesus here in Bethany. Clearly a place where Jesus felt at home. And among the cross-conversations, passing food, laughter, and celebration, Mary seems to slip away unnoticed. On her return, the casual atmosphere quiets as the sweet smell of perfume overtakes the scent of fresh bread, good wine, and unwashed bodies. Mary has knelt at the feet of Jesus who was reclined at the table. She has opened a jar of pure nard and she has anointed Jesus’ feet, wiping up the excess with her hair. Mary has found her thin place and she has poured out holy oil to mark this sacred moment. Mary makes Jesus the Anointed One— she marks Jesus as the Christ. What she bought for his burial she couldn’t hold. It was not precious by comparison to the surpassing worth of the feet it soothed and salved. The Greek has a word for this—Kairos. This word is often translated as “time,” but that is because we don’t really have a word for this kind of time. It is a point in time when the past, present, and future meet in a divine and miraculous moment. This was the moment, and she had learned her lesson; and she would rather honor the living than grieve the dead. If death meant anything now. Yet there is one who cannot enter this thin place with those at the table this night. Judas cannot move past the tangible things, the things he controls, things like money, things like their public image. He cannot fathom “wasting” such a costly commodity nor can he believe that Jesus would let something so intimate happen so openly. Judas is not worried about where God is and what God is doing in this moment, because he doesn’t count moments. He counts minutes because time is money and he’s afraid they’re running out of both. There is another Greek word for time—chronos. Judas is a slave to chronos time, the kind of time that keeps an eye on the watch, that calculates what is valuable or invaluable, what is spent and what is saved, based on what it has to offer his position, his pocket, his power. Judas knows Jesus can’t have much time left. Judas knows it would take the average Judean almost 10 months to earn what that perfume would cost. Judas knows what they could get for it and how much he could pocket if they did. A touch lightheaded and feeling ever poorer as the scent began to fade, Judas protests, “We could have sold that for a small fortune and given the money to the poor.” Jesus defends Mary: “She bought this for my burial. It is always time to help the poor. But you won’t always have this moment.” I wonder if we too aren’t slaves to chronos time, constantly trying to squeeze a few extra seconds out of our relentless schedules, evaluating what gets our attention based on what it has to offer us in return, taking for granted this table we share with the Anointed One, appalled at the wasteful and undignified piety of others at the table. Yet as people of faith, God is inviting us into kairos time, God’s time, counted in moments and not minutes. Time that doesn’t ask, “how can I spend and save my time,” but instead asks “how is God at work in this moment, and how am I called to meet God there?” This is exactly what Mary is doing in our passage today. Her relationship with Jesus is so intimate that she meets him in this moment this thin place, this place between death and life, this place between what has been and what will be, this place between what God has done and what God is doing. And Mary chooses to be present in this moment with Jesus, forgetting what lies behind and straining toward what lies ahead. Beloved, we stand on a threshold this day, Between living our lives to the minute And living our lives in the moment. Jesus is inviting us to the thin places That are our very lives, To recognize that Jesus is still with us In the monotony of our ordinary days, In the sinks full of dishes Baskets full of laundry Looming deadlines, Failing health, And dwindling bank accounts. In these moments, We can live like Judas, With an eye on the bottom line, And a hand in the cookie jar, Looking out for ourselves, Minding the minutes Until things are better, Until things settle down, Until the congregation is bigger, Until the market bounces back, Until the midterms, Until… Until we have taken the time for granted And missed Jesus in the moment. Or We can live like Mary, With our eyes on Jesus. We can forget the anxiety of the minute We can embrace God’s abundance now, We can eulogize the living, Telling them what they mean to us while we have them Instead of waiting for their funeral. We can find Jesus with us In our homes, At our tables, At our desks, computers, workbenches, dashboards. We can live in the thin places Between Kairos and Chronos time Where Jesus comes to meet us. Places like this table, this thin place Where the church on earth And the host of Heaven Join in an unending hymn To praise the Son of the Living God And meet Christ in the moment. We can come here And share in this table Where the line between bread and body And wine and blood Has become so thin That they have become one. And having met Jesus here We can pour out our lives Like precious oil, A fragrant offering to Jesus, To bless the meeting place of heaven and earth And blur the line between the minute and the moment. Amen. 

“There was a man who had two sons.” This is how Jesus begins this parable we have come to call the Prodigal Son. There was a man who had two sons and one day the young er son came to the father and asked for his share of the inheritance. The father gave his son his share of the property and the son left to make a new life in a new place. The younger son used his fortune to buy friends and throw parties. Then tragedy struck. There was a famine. And the younger son ran out money and ran out of friends and wound up feeding pigs and wishing he could eat so well. So, the younger son decided to go home. “I can’t just walk up to dear ol’ dad and expect him to feed and clothe me,” the younger son thought to himself. “I’ve burned that bridge. I can’t be his son. But I can be his slave.” So, the son goes home and as he nears the house his father, who’s kept his eye on the horizon ever since the younger son disappeared behind it, runs to meet him on the road. The younger son can’t even get out the little speech he’s been rehearsing the whole way home. The father won’t have it. “Quick!” the father shouts to a slave, “Get a robe! Get some shoes! Get a ring! My son is home!! I thought you were dead, But you’re alive! We’ll have a party! I’ve been fattening up a calf for just this reason!! We have to celebrate!!” This is where the older brother comes in. Maybe it’s the end of the day and he’s come from the field for dinner. Maybe the sound of music or the smell of the roasting meat drew him home in curiosity. Whatever the reason, When a slave says the party is for his younger brother he’s indignant. He cannot, WILL not share this meal. “Look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you,” protests the older son. “never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!” Now, If we’re being honest, I’m sure most of us can concede that the guy has a point. I mean, this older son has stayed and done his job, honored his father, as the law commands. He’s been there the whole time and now he’s expected to celebrate the return of his whoremongering little brother? I mean, for heaven’s sake, no one even told him about the party!! He had to ask a slave what was going on. I’m not sure I would have gone in either. Maybe you’ve had this same feeling. Maybe you’ve lost a brother or a sister to years of addiction and your Mom or Dad seem to be enabling them. Maybe you’re working harder and longer, struggling to make ends meet, and folks who don’t seem to work at all are eating up your tax dollars in social services. Maybe you’ve been in line at the grocery store behind someone speaking Spanish and using an EBT card and thought to yourself “I can’t believe I’m paying for that.” Maybe you’ve been angry that so much time and resources have been spent on wars in other countries when there are so many problems in this country. The rising tide of nationalism and classism in our nation has been exploited to drive a wedge between neighbors, even between family members. Those of us who were born citizens, or had access to the resources to become citizens, we, like the older brother, may see the plight of our Latinx siblings, the quagmire of foreign entanglement, the rising food prices and falling stock prices and say, “Not it! Not my problem. You need to stay where you are, fix your own country make your own money.” This is what the older brother means when he says “this son of yours.” He means, “this is your problem, and not mine.” This thinking largely comes from the fact that we have been fed a steady diet of individualism and hyper-capitalism that teaches us that life is everyone for themselves, the rich have worked harder than the poor, and that with enough work we too will be rich. We have no responsibility for anyone but ourselves. What I have I earned, I deserve. If you don’t have, you did not earn, and do not deserve. But Jesus’ parable leads us in a different direction. ‘Son, you don’t understand,” the father says to the older brother. “You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours— but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and he’s found!” A clean conscience needs no mercy, and the older son wants the younger son to pay, to work for it, to deal with his problems on his own, just like he had. But the father reminds the older son that everything he has he has by the same benevolence that killed the fatted calf to celebrate with the younger son. Where the older son wants to distance himself from the younger son, the father calls him a brother. “this brother of yours.” This meal is not just a party, it is an act of reconciliation. You see, this feast not only reconciles father to child but child to child, brother to brother, and this feast, by which the father receives back his son, is the same feast by which the older son receives back his brother. The feast of our reconciliation is the Eucharist, where we are not only reconciled to our Parent, but to each other, brother to brother, sister to sister, sibling to sibling. God is reconciling the world to Godself and to each other. No matter how far away the younger son went, how much he squandered, how shameful his living, how little he thought he deserved it, he was always a son, always a brother. And no matter how much time and energy is spent working for the father, doing what is right, avoiding what is wrong, the older son is no more a son that the younger. Nothing could undo or augment their relationship to their father and brother. But by this celebration feast, each could begin to renew his relationship with his father and brother. Beloved, there is nothing in all of creation that could ever separate us from the love of God. But none of us are only children. This meal that gives us back our relationship with God our Parent also gives us back our neighbors as brothers, as sisters, as siblings. We can no longer say “This son of yours is here illegally.” “This daughter of yours is not my responsibility.” Because we are God’s children too, and every child of God is our sibling, our responsibility. This feast of our reconciliation is not a private meal for two, but an open invitation to celebrate that we are all God’s family by the same grace. We were dead and are now alive!! We were lost and are now found!! And this is something to celebrate!! AMEN. 

“Have you heard the news?” I hear this question a lot. We like to be in the know, to have the scoop, the latest information; to be informed, on the inside. As the new s cycle has gone from the morning paper and the evening news to real time, live-tweeting, video streaming, 24/365, keeping up with the news has become quite the chore. In the early twentieth century, German theologian Karl Barth advised preachers to write their sermons with the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. As a smartphone has replaced a newspaper this sort of preaching has become ever more elusive, and I sometimes change the direction of my sermons to address midweek changes, sometimes even early Sunday morning changes. Our screens have become extensions of our psyches, even of our bodies. TVs, computers, tablets, smartphones have become part of how we communicate, how we show up in the world and how the world shows up to us. As these technologies become more and more immersive they become more and more subversive of our ability to rightly perceive reality. These devises, their apps, and their creators are dividing us into market segments in virtual spaces, and into us and them, we and they, the rational and the duped, the sane and the insane, the good and the evil in actual spaces. Algorithms sort and silo us, monitoring and predicting our behavior, radicalizing us with confirmation biases, and then when they can predict exactly how we will behave, they hit us with ads, a private form of propaganda, and sell us whatever they are shilling. These apps are free to us because of what marketers will pay for access to us. Corporate pimps are trafficking us and we are grateful for the opportunity. And it is in exactly this contrived environment, this virtual reality, that most of us consume the news. That news is rarely good. The occasional feel-good, human interest story might sneak past the editors, but crime, mayhem, tragedy, and terror all sell far more clicks and downloads, streams and views, than 80-year-olds graduating college, lemonade stands to fight cancer, or dogs saving their owners from housefires. Folks generally take one of two approaches to the constant barrage of bad news. First, escape. Folks will turn to forms of religion that promise the great by-and-by, the ‘far off sweet forever,’ where suffering will be no more, and my absolution here and now not only frees me from guilt, but also responsibility. Others escape into a liquor bottle, or a pill bottle, or through a syringe, pipe, or straw, through sexual encounters, junk food, social media, video games, or whatever habit or substance they can use to ignore the terror and despair of reality. Some even choose sheer ignorance, a genuine unknowing of the state of things, a sort of ‘plausible deniability’ for any responsibility for the way things are. Escapists are easily manipulated because they’re already looking for alternate realities, and the creators of these screens we all love so much are the very folks selling you their brand of alternate reality. The second way folks respond to the cavalcade of terrible news is confrontation. Some folks are fighting mad, ready to mount an army to take on the forces of darkness in this world. But this is often its own form of drunkenness, an intoxication from too much consumption, and while the fervor for justice is laudable, they usually burn out quickly, like gasoline. And the purveyors of these screens we love are counting on the combustion of this energy to drive more and more time with these very screens. Ok. What does any of this have to do with the lessons for today? Isaiah is written to the people of Israel after they have been conquered and exiled by a foreign power and the prophet is calling the people not to be persuaded by the glamour and glory of the tyrant, but to remember and return to the Lord. The Apostle Paul writes to the city of Corinth, a Greek city conquered by the Roman Empire and living under Roman rule, and the Apostle tells them to remember that God rescued the Israelites from slavery to Pharaoh. Jesus’ entire ministry happens in Judea, which is also a Roman occupied territory. Empires rise and fall. Regimes come and go. Principalities and powers spring up and wither. And in the meantime, tyrants commit atrocities, tragedies happen, customs and cultures die out, plates shift, storms destroy, pandemics disrupt and kill, etc., etc.. Suffering is part of this life. No one escapes it entirely. And direct opposition usually makes the suffering worse. But Jesus proposes a third way. Repentance. And before you accuse me of victim-blaming, stay with me. We tend to think of repentance in terms of guilt and reform, of feeling bad and trying hard to do better in the future. But, given the context, maybe there is a better way to think of repentance. Jesus is not blaming the victims of Pilate’s atrocity for their own desecration. Nor is Jesus blaming the victims of a falling tower for their own demise. Instead, Jesus calls his hearers to repentance— that is, to change their minds, to set their minds on reality as it is, and each time they find themselves drawn to escape or confrontation to return to reality as it is. In our modern parlance, we might call this mindfulness or meditation. The mystics and monastics might have called it contemplation. Others might just call it prayer. And science is starting to discover that this mindfulness, meditation, contemplation, prayer literally changes our brains, creating new neural pathways, thickening the prefrontal cortex, changes our brainwave pattern and makes us less likely to feel anxious or depressed. And even for those who suffer from clinical depression and anxiety disorders, mindfulness, meditation, contemplation, prayer are often part of the clinical approach to treatment. This mindful repentance anchors us in reality as it is and disentangles us from the lies and terrorism of tyrants and tycoons, of algorithms and advertisers, and roots us in reality— that is, it roots us in Christ, who is “reality with a personality,” as Richard Rohr says. When Christ becomes our lens for reality, we can see the cross as the form reality takes, the intersection between matter and spirit. Reality includes suffering and reality transcends suffering with meaning and purpose. This is precisely what we mean by redemption, the making something from nothing God has always been doing in Christ. This mindful repentance is the path through the wilderness in which our Lenten journey began, the path through this wild, uncharted place filled with bad news and anxiety, and the temptations toward easy answers, quick fixes, and addiction. The call to repentance is not a call to feel guilty and try harder. The call to repentance is the call to change our minds, to reclaim our minds from those trying to co-opt them, to reject all the false realities of tyrants and tycoons, and to root ourselves firmly in ‘reality with a personality,’ in Christ Jesus. And when we find ourselves anxious and avoidant or anxious and confrontational, the call is to return to reality as it is in Christ, and to return and return again and again as often as we stray. This takes practice. This is practice itself. But paths through the wilderness are made by walking. And there are many of us walking this path with together. So, when you hear bad news, be mindful, return to the Lord, remember that reality includes suffering and transcends it. We have to change our relationship to the news in order to change our relationship to reality. Mindfulness, meditation, contemplation, prayer is the practice of repentance, returning the heart and mind to Christ, who is reality itself. In changing our minds, we make ourselves less manipulable. We have to do some research— which is not the same thing as googling— and be much more discerning about the media we consume. We must seek our experts and we must listen to them. And when we have cut ourselves off from the tools the tyrants and tycoons are using to manipulate us, we become little outposts within the empire where “alternate ‘realities’” have no sway. We become digital hermits, leaving behind social media and entering society. We become pilgrims and sojourners in an adopted land, seekers of truth in the realm of false gods. Have you heard the news? The good news that Jesus is calling us to repent, to change our relationship to reality, returning with all our heart and mind to Christ, who is the Truth, reality itself. Amen. 

Earlier this week, I received a call from my brother. He had a couple of questions about our father’s estate and the beginning of the probate process. In the course o f our other small talk, he asked me, “So, what did you give up for Lent?” I was shocked. I hadn’t even given the idea a passing thought. In all I had had going on in the lead up to Ash Wednesday and Lent, I had not so much as considered what discipline I might undertake in this season of reflection and renewal. After a flabbergasted silence, I said, “Absolutely nothing.” He chuckled and said, “That makes sense.” But the question stuck with me. What did I give up? I’ve been closer to just giving up. I thought to myself. And I am not alone. I have had a number of conversations, in hushed tones, before or after Bible Study or Christian Conversations, even during the Fish Fry on Friday, where people have shared with me their anxiety, fear, despair, hopelessness, restlessness; their palpable anger and staggering helplessness regarding the current political climate, about how their neighbors are terrified to leave their homes, about how the ministries they support are being defunded and their clients targeted, about how churches are declining and animosity among neighbors is on the rise. There is a pervasive and nearly tangible sense of dread all around us, and it is difficult to maintain a sense of hope, to remain grounded in the kingdom of God, to display the resilience of a people of faith. As the gap widens between the world God has promised and the world we are living in, we would be fools not to ask, What is taking so long? Abram asks God much the same question. “What will you give me?” he asks in response to God’s promise to defend and reward him. “Prove it,” says Abram. “At the moment, I have no children. How can this promise possibly be true?” God responds to Abram’s question with a second promise to make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and God counts Abram’s trust as righteousness. So God asks for a sacrifice, a sign and seal, a sacrament; an action that does what it says and says what it does. Abram sacrificed livestock and waited on the Lord. And in this waiting, he is exhausted and overcome by a terrifying darkness. Paul advises the Philippians that despite many living as enemies of the cross of Christ, all appetite and revelry, with their minds set on only what they can see right in front of them— despite this, these imitators of Paul and followers of Jesus are citizens of another nation, members of a commonwealth, an independent state within the empire. The state of the world is what it is, and the duty of the followers of Jesus is to stand firm, to wait for the Savior who will transform their humiliation into vindication. But our question remains; What is taking so long? It has been some 2000 years since Paul wrote these words to the church a Phillipi, and only God knows how long it has been since God spoke these words to Abram. The psalmist believed that he would see these promises in the land of the living— that is, in his lifetime. I am not sure I share his confidence. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus seems to be doing some waiting of his own. Warned by some Pharisees that Herod wants to kill him, Jesus speaks in parable about his death and resurrection, dismissing their concern and Herod’s authority. “Tell that old fox that I will doing what I came to do,” Jesus tells the anxious Pharisees, “and I’ll be doing it in his backyard. I came to die and it could only happen in Jerusalem. “O Jerusalem, How I have longed to gather you up like a mother hen. But you were too busy watching the fox. “You weren’t content with the wings of a hen, and you preferred the wings of Caesar’s eagle.” Like the good people of Jerusalem, we tend to get ourselves in trouble while we are waiting on the Lord. We think this waiting is passive, inactive, boring. In our boredom, we begin to doubt God is going to keep these promises, and we begin to listen to the fox, and we begin to prefer the eagle. In our boredom and disbelief, we destroy ourselves and each other, we begin to worship our appetites, we begin to wallow in our shame, and we begin to focus on only what we can see right in front of us. We begin to live, as Paul says, as enemies of the cross. But God is not waiting to keep these promises, nor is waiting on the Lord a passive, boring endeavor. God counted Abram’s faith as righteousness and called him to sacrifice. Paul tells the Philippians that while we await a savior, we already have our salvation— liberation from wanton consumption and self-abasement, and we have a new citizenship in the Commonwealth of God. And Jesus is about his work despite the distraction and desertion of Jerusalem. God shows us what it means to wait on the Lord by waiting on us. God showed up for Abram in his deep and terrifying darkness. The savior we await does not prevent our humiliation, but transforms it into God’s own glory. God has heard our cries from this deep and terrifying darkness, and God is wondering what is taking so long? God is wondering when we will begin the sacrifice. Will we give up listening to the Fox? Will we give up our preference for the wings of a tyrant’s eagle over those of a mother hen? Or will we just give up, simultaneously bored and overwhelmed, faithless and hopeless? This deep and terrifying darkness is the very place God has longed to meets us. These bodies of humiliation are the very bodies God has longed to transform into the glorious Body of Christ. If you are tired of waiting on the Lord; if you are despairing of the depths of the darkness all around you; stand firm, beloved. God is waiting on you. Be strong, take heart, and wait for the Lord— give up your appetites for destruction, stop wallowing in your despair, and set your minds on the whole truth. You are citizens of the commonwealth of God, so act like it. God is counting your faithfulness as righteousness. Amen. 

When I was in seminary, there were these bumper stickers all over campus, big yellow rectangles with blue writing that said, “WIGIAT,” W-I-G-I-A-T, in all caps. At fi rst, I thought it was some kind of slogan, or inside joke, a sort of portmanteau for some local cultural reference I just didn’t understand. Jennifer had a class that first semester that would soon provide an answer to what became a burning question. WIGIAT was an acronym for a central, missional question we should be asking of ourselves and our congregations in times of grief, or uncertainty or chaos. That question is Where is God in all this? I have asked that question a lot lately. Where is God in all this uncertainty? Where is God in all this anxiety? Where is God in all this rage and animosity? Where is God? This missing God shows up in Joel. Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming, it is near- a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains, a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come. Then the prophet advises that the people repent, beg God for mercy, so that their enemies don’t ask, “Where is their God?” The enemies of the people of God as this question to deride the God of Israel and harass the people. Where is this God of yours, huh? Why doesn’t this almighty God of Angel armies come and rescue you? Is your God busy? Is your God sleeping? Is your God mad at you? Maybe your God just abandoned you. Maybe your God likes us more than you. Where is this God of yours, anyway? The Apostle Paul makes no better case. But as servants of God, writes Paul, we have commended ourselves in every way: in great endurance, afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger”. I’m sure they left this language out of the brochure when recruiting folks to sign on to travel with Paul on these journeys. If this is what the apostles endured, then what is even the point of this faith in the first place? Why didn’t God rescue even the Apostle Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, from such tremendous suffering? Where is this God, anyway? And then Jesus wants us to practice our piety in secret. Wants us to fast and pray and give alms, in secret, because God is in secret. So, the world is falling apart, God is in hiding, and you want me to repent? The people of Gaza are starving while aid trucks are blocked and aid workers are bombed, and you want me to fast and pray? The people of Ukraine have been under siege for 3 entire years, civilians murdered and buried in mass graves while their children are stolen, entire cities burned to the ground, and you want me to put ashes on my face and spend 40 days in mourning over my sin? Billionaires the world over use their money and influence to wreck the government programs that help the poorest people while making themselves even richer, and you want me to give alms to the poor? Institutions are under attack, refugees and immigrants are being demonized and terrorized, our entire denomination was accused of money laundering because we used federal grants to help find homes for orphans, and then you want me to comb my hair, wash my face, and act like I am not peptic with rage, pretend like I don’t cry in frustration when no one is looking, masquerade like the climate is not changing before our very eyes, shake hands and demonstrate “good sportsmanship,” as though politics is some sort of ball game and not the process by which we distribute pain? So, yeah, Where is God in all this? It might help to know that this question does not assume that God is absent, asking us to ponder why; instead, this question presumes that God is always present and reminds us to look for God in the very places God has told us God will always be. We do not serve a God of prevention, who swings in like Tarzan at the last second to sweep us up to safety. We serve a God of redemption who stands in perfect solidarity with all our suffering and transforms our pain into purpose, our sorrow into joy, our mourning into dancing, our death into resurrection. The Lenten call to repentance is the call to a change of perspective and a change of behavior. God is not asking us to take the blame and the punishment for the suffering of the world; but God is calling us to share in the responsibility for the suffering of the world. We do not mark our foreheads with ashes to show the world how pious we are, but to smear our faces with a stark reminder that we will not be rescued from death, that we share in the human condition with everybody else on the earth, and so does God in Christ. The invitation to repentance is the invitation to a change in perspective and a change in behavior. If you cannot see what I am talking about, turn off the TV, log out of all your social media, and get close to the suffering of your neighbors. You will find the hidden God in these relationships. If you are already all too close to this suffering, turn off the TV, log out of all your social media, and look around for the God hidden with you in your suffering. When you look at all the suffering of the world and wonder where God is in all this, remember these ashes, remember that you share this human condition with everybody else and with Christ. Change your perspective. Change your behavior. Change the world. Amen. 

This week, I overheard a phone conversation between Pastor Jennifer and our nephew. He’s a very bright kid, needs to keep his hands busy, as well as his brain. “Aunti e,” he said, “did you know the Statue of Liberty used to be bronze?” “Do you mean copper?” she asked. “Yeah, copper.” he replied, “And now because of a chemical reaction with the weather, it’s all dull and green.” “That’s right,” Jennifer replied, “it’s not new and shiny anymore is it?” “No, it’s not. It looked better the other way.” Since he’s 9 years old and the Statue of Liberty was gifted to the US by the government of France in 1886, I’m not sure how he knew it looked better before. We are receiving two new members today by Affirmation of Baptism. In the 3½ years I’ve been the pastor here, we have received 3 members by letter of transfer, one by baptism, and one by transfer from inactive to active. And now, these two here today. We have had quite a number of visitors over the years. I often get to see new visitors in the narthex before worship as they interact with our regular crowd. I often don’t get to share a table with them during the fellowship meal, because new visitors are usually at a full table by the time I make it to the Fellowship Hall after worship. In these interactions with our members, I often hear a lot of pleasantries, the normal, cordial sort of stuff: “Where are y’all from?” “Did you just move here?” “What do you do for work?” But I have also heard some stuff that makes me want to hide under a pew, the sort of stuff that, the equivalent of which, would end a first date with no hope of a second one. More than once, from more than one person, I have heard our members say to first-time visitors, “We Lutherans like to sit in the back, so you can probably find a seat up front.” “Don’t worry about sitting in someone else’s seat; most of the pews are empty most of the time anyway.” “Yeah, we used to be 400 members, but this is us now.” Quite the first impression. I am not naming any names, and as I said, I have heard these and similar statements multiple times, from multiple people, over the years. Glory fades. It would be so nice to string along from glory to glory, from victory to victory, from mountaintop to mountaintop. But that isn’t where the majority of our lives are lived. Glory is like a burst of lightening; flash and thunder, a mix of awe and terror, and then it’s gone. Only traces remain. Racing hearts, hair standing on end— or a wake of destruction. When Moses ascended the mountain to meet with the Lord, the radiance he had first seen set a bush ablaze without consuming it shone from his face. The Israelites were afraid to look at him and he had to wear a veil over his face. But like the Statue of Liberty, as time passed, so did the shine. When Jesus took Peter, James, and John up the mountain he was transfigured before them, holding court with the prophets of old. Sleepy, big-mouthed Peter says, “It is good for us to be here. Let’s build a camp and stay.” It is not Jesus, Moses, Elijah, or the other disciples that respond to Peter’s suggestion, but a voice from a cloud— the cloud that led the Israelites by day, the cloud that swallowed the summit when Moses met with God, the cloud that brought a chariot of fire to sweep Elijah into the presence of God without tasting death. This voice says to the disciples, “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him.” And then it was all over. Moses, Elijah, the cloud, the voice, and the radiance, all gone, Only the traces remained. It’s the traces that haunt us now. The traces of a youth ministry that was once filled with our own kids. An empty nursery, Sunday School space occupied by renters. We have kneelers in the pews and a rail at the altar because our knees used to let us use them. We have projectors and screens, hand-held mics, and a keyboard because we used to have the volunteers to have regular band and more contemporary music. We have a sanctuary this size because, yes, we used to seat 400 worshipers on a given Sunday. And none of those things changed because we wanted them to. None of those things changed because we were ready to move on. None of those things changed because we were unfaithful, ungrateful, or unwilling to carry on. All of those things changed because change is the very nature of reality. Who among us cannot relate to Peter? Who doesn’t share his sentiment? It is good to be here. I wish we could come here, meet with Jesus, share the experience with each other, and nothing would ever change. But that’s not how this works. Moses didn’t stay on the mountain. Moses came down the mountain because the people needed to hear from God. Jesus didn’t stay on the mountain. Jesus came down the mountain because the people who needed his ministry weren’t on that mountain. Jesus came down that mountain because a desperate father and a suffering son needed deliverance. Jesus came down that mountain because a desperate people and as suffering world needed death to be defeated and resurrection to be realized. God cares about those in the valley. We have tried to stay on this mountain for far too long. The glory has faded and the cloud dispersed. The shine has dulled. We keep trying to get folks to show up and marvel with us at the traces, at the remnant, at the historic marker where the glory used to be. We keep trying to recruit folks to our historical re-enactment troupe, hoping they’ll keep fighting old battles with us. But Jesus has left the mountain. Jesus has gone on ahead to find the hurting, the grieving, the desperate. Jesus expects us to follow him, and he won’t wait for us. We can keep trying to interest folks in our faded glory, or we can follow Jesus down the mountain. We can meet our neighbors where they are, we can know their needs— and their names— and we can become the kind of fellowship that frees our neighbors from all that holds them captive. The truth about the Statue of Liberty is that the patina on the copper is the natural state of copper. The shiny, polished state is unnatural. The shiny, polished state is somehow less real. The call to follow Jesus is the call to live in reality as it is— not as we wish it was, not as it used to be, not in its shiny, polished state, but in all its demonic, frothing, desperate reality. To follow Jesus is to speak truth to power, and especially when that power lies. To follow Jesus is to take the side of the oppressed, the side of the invaded, the side of the demonized, the side of the refugee, the side of the immigrant— and to call out the faithlessness and perversion of the oppressor, of the invader, of the demonizers, of the colonizers, of the nationalists. Glory fades because change is the natural state of reality, and reality as it is is the enemy those who would use your longing to make reality glorious again to seize you and keep you down. Jesus has come down the mountain to show us reality as it is, to show us that the God of the mountain is still God in the valley. Will we linger here, seized and held down by the spirit of our former glory? Or will we follow Jesus? 

Anybody else feel yesterday’s weather right in the joints? I always know when the weather is about to change, because at some point, my left hip became a sort of weath er station, sensing the slightest change in pressure, humidity, and temperature and alerting me by hampering my ability to walk. It is a literal pain in the rear. Maybe it’s not your hip, but I would bet you can relate to some degree. Living in these bodies can be a challenge. This is much more true for some than others, but even the most able bodied among us know the limits of living in a body. Our Bodies can be a source of immense pleasure and a source of debilitating pain. Our bodies divide us, isolate us, scare us when they need food and drink, shelter and healthcare. Our bodies break and get sick. Our bodies are embarrassing, inconvenient, uncomfortable, sweaty, smelly, gross. And then they die. We worry that there isn’t enough for me to have what I need and for others to have it too, so we try to take care of ourselves, of our families. We think, I’d better get what I can, while I can, and before someone else does. So, generally, we take one of two different paths. Some folks commodify bodies, exploiting our fears and aspirations, promising safety and plenty, so long as we prioritize this group of bodies over that group of bodies. And in this eutopia of safety and plenty, we forget we live in a body, never hungry or thirsty, never uncomfortable or sweaty, because some other group of bodies has borne that burden for us. The second path seeks to transcend the body in an entirely different way. This path leads to the sweet by-and-by, a blessed tomorrow when the world will be made right, where our suffering bodies will be exchanged for a cloud and harp, a disembodied existence where pain and need will be no more. Similarly, some seek to transcend the body by becoming a digital avatar, projecting their egos into a virtual reality where they can be a preferred version of themselves and not have to think about the limitations of having a body and all its messy, inconvenient needs. It seems to me that our readings for today are mostly about bodies. Jeremiah seems to be saying, “Don’t live disembodied, cut off like a shrub in the desert from the source of life and vitality. We shouldn’t be fooled by every impulse toward self-preservation or nihilism, but we should be grounded in reality, rooted by our baptism, and we will be able to weather the storms and droughts, blessings and woes, of this life.” Jesus’ answer to a disembodied existence is incarnation. We are more than an animated corpse, more than a soul in a flesh prison. We are an extension of the incarnation. Paul argues that our hope in the resurrection comes from sharing in the incarnation; if Christ is raised bodily from the dead, then we can hope to be raised bodily too, because we share in the incarnation. Jesus comes down to this level place, and he meets all sorts of people bound up in the condition of their bodies. Jesus does not exploit their pain to gain a following. Jesus does not tell them to ignore all their pain and suffering because there is hope in the great beyond. Jesus heals their bodies. They reached out and touched his body. Power to heal was coming out of his body. Then Jesus speaks to the poor, and the rich. He speaks to the hungry and the well-fed. He speaks to the grieving and the maligned, as well as the jubilant and celebrities. God cares about bodies. God cares enough about bodies to come down, to inhabit a body in all its messy inconvenience, to stand on level footing with other messy, inconvenient bodies; and to redeem embodied-ness from birth to death and beyond. Sharing in this incarnation calls us to a very specific way of being in the world. We are baptized in our bodies that we might be like a tree planted by the water, that we might be planted in a community of other bodies, that we might be planted in the body of Christ. We are nourished by the body of Christ, by wheat and wine and word that has become body and blood for us. These sacraments are not given to us as concessions. These sacraments are not given to us as poor substitutes of things to come. These sacraments are not given to us because we cannot yet transcend our bodily existence. These sacraments are given to us because we share in the incarnation, because there is only one reality, because God cares about our bodies. God came down to us in Jesus to show us that we share in the incarnation, to teach us that our bodies should bring us together and not tear us apart. We are like a tree, planted in the solid ground of reality, with our roots stretching out toward the waters of baptism, toward a community of other bodies. We are not trapped in our bodies. We are incarnate, a meeting of matter and spirit on level ground. This old hip may ache, my beard continue to gray, my eyes and ears weaken, my heart fail, and my corpse decay. But I share this incarnation with One who has come down to redeem this union of matter and spirit and promises to raise me up on the last day, not with harp and cloud, but in a body. And in the meantime, this incarnation is shared not only with Christ Jesus, but with the whole of humankind, with every other body. If your body is sick, hungry, thirsty, cold, naked, sweaty, inconvenient, uncomfortable, scary; then my body is not safe until yours is. There is only one reality, one incarnation, and we share it— good and bad, storm and drought, dying and rising, blessing and woe. The incarnation calls us to equal footing in a level place, shared with Jesus and each other. Amen.