“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?