To Love or Not to Love

Hosea 11:1-11

If you’re going to the beach soon or just need something light and fluffy to read, an Old Testament prophet is a good way to go. There is much adventure and juicy drama. The oracles are written in beautiful poetry that just drips with rich metaphors. God is like a steadfast husband, Israel is like a faithless wife, God is like a loving mother, Israel is like a rebellious son. God chases and pursues relentlessly. Israel turns and runs away. We are in suspense as we wonder if Israel will safely return, or if she will continue to lead a life of recklessness. We wonder if God will just give up on the wayward child and abandon him. And God wonders these things right along side of us, caught up in the suspense with us, wondering if God will finally abandon the people (us) who really do deserve it after all.

In this robust passage of Hosea, the prophet takes us on a walk down memory lane, sharing early memories of childhood: teaching us to walk, kissing our cheeks, bending down and lifting us up. The focus is not on us, not how cute we were, but how loving God was, patiently guiding us, teaching us, loving us. Moments we cannot remember because we were too young and naïve (self centered?), but God has not forgotten our babyhood. But this sweetness doesn’t last, we children grow up and are no longer as cuddly, as dependent, as loving. We think we no longer need God, and go in search of other ways to nourish our souls and beings. We no longer depend on the face and hands of God. And God laments at the difficulty of maintaining this deep love and devotion in the eye of such unfaithfulness.

In Hosea’s time, the kingdom of Israel had divided between North and South. God refers to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, as Ephraim. God compares Ephraim to a child he has taught to walk and taken in her arms. God led these people with “cords of human kindness, with bands of love.” She was like a caregiver who lifts an infant to her cheek, who bends down to them and feeds them. God, as a mother, as a father, as an aunt or uncle, as one who cares for small children, remembers how God cared and tended. This is a God who is accommodating, who sacrifices and humbles Godself to be known to us—an almighty, all powerful God, who is humble enough to brush crumbs off of our chins when we are not able to do this for ourselves. When we don’t even know what is happening to us. As Hosea says: “They did not know that I healed them.” God cares for us and provides even when we are unaware. The founder of Methodism Anglican priest John Wesley, referred to this as “Prevenient grace”: of God’s mercy that precedes us, that goes before us, that is at work long before we are aware of it, or even aware of our need for it. God takes care of us even when we don’t know it, preparing a way for us without our awareness or permission.

And all of that love and tender care turns out to be a waste of time, when we repay God by turning away. Hosea outlines the particular punishment that Israel faces: returning to Egypt, the place of slavery, the place that God previously liberated them from. Turning away from God, we all face a return to our previous conditions of sin, of separation from God. Israel faces loosing their nation and being ruled by the neighboring nation of Assyria. God had secured them land and freedom and will take it away and give it away. But God is not comfortable with this decision, God remembers how God took such great pains with Israel, how God loves and tends to us and asks: “but how can I really give them up and hand them over” says God, dangling the child over the pit of destruction, coming just this close to walking away, then realizing that God can’t do that, won’t do that.

The best parents will tell you that no matter what you will always love your kids. If they disobey, talk back, get arrested, marry someone you hate, etc, you still help them, defend them, love them. And this love is completely natural, automatic. Conventional wisdom backs this up, that this parental love comes with the territory, and we’re biologically rigged to always love our offspring.

But reality tells us that parents do not always love their kids, well or sometimes at all. Children are abandoned, physically or emotionally, are abused, are endangered, are not shown love, all the time. The news tells us this is true. Some of our own stories of our upbringing or experiences with our children tell us that this is true too.

God knows this, so in the midst of a parent-child relationship description, God turns and expresses a desire to abandon the child Israel, but makes the point that God will not do this simply because God is God, not a human, not mortal, and therefore not tempted to not love. After considering all the various ways of destroying us, God’s compassion kicks in and grows and God vows to bring us home.

The extent of God’s mercy does not end with Prevenient grace. We cannot rely on God to always take care of us with no effort on our own. As we mature, as we become alert to God’s actions in our lives, to the need that we have for God, as we realize that God has been helping us walk all along, then we realize our own shame and we return home, we “shall go after the Lord, who roars like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west . . . and I will return them to their homes, says the Lord.”

Summer Fruit

Amos 8:1-12

This is not one of those fun, encouraging scriptures. Not a depiction of God who gathers us close in her arms, and holds us his palm. Amos encounters a different face of God. A God who tosses our clothes out onto the pavement and leaves us standing cold and naked with shame.

This passage is about why we are all doomed, and it’s not why you might think: it’s not about personal immorality, adultery, or war: it is about the poor. Specifically, a lack of concern for the poor. God cares about our individual morality as well, but as far as this passage is concerned, that’s not why we’re all doomed. It’s the sneaky, less obvious ways, the injustices we’re trained not to see. The rich rulers are cheating the poor and ruining the land. God’s mercy concerns not the rich, but the poor. God stakes a claim to say that the divine One cares deeply about how humans are treating each other. And to demonstrate this care and concern, God shows Amos a basket of summer fruit.

When I was little, my grandparents had a basket of plastic fruit sitting on their kitchen table. It was pretty and shiny, and I knew it was fake, but once I chewed on it either just to be sure or because it looked so good. The plastic had a nasty, harsh taste, and bounced between my teeth and my tongue. This was fruit that could not be consumed and digested. This is like the basket of fruit that I imagine God showed to Amos. The image is only visual, Amos does not touch or taste the fruit to experience how this fruit also shows the difference between good and evil.

Imagine with me, for a moment, that our nation is like Ancient Israel. Imagine that we have a shrinking middle class, while the rich seem to get richer and fewer and the poor poorer and more numerous. In which we don’t have a living wage, and yet blame folks for being poor, while we can shop discount and bulk because the workers aren’t paid enough, while a $40 sweater cost $2 to make, but the profit goes to the company and not to the knitter, when the hands in the middle make all the profit, cheating the maker and the buyer, when a grande nonfat latte costs $4.50, but for every pound of coffee sold in the United States farmers get less than 35 cents and coffee pickers less than 14 cents. And all along we exchange the ephah for the shekel and buy the needy for a pair of sandals. We don’t even have to wait for the sabbath to be over, we can do this all on Sunday if we want to. But the God of love and mercy and justice says: I see you over there and I will not forget. The God of Jacob is the same God of Jesus, the same God who holds the poor close to the divine heart. Just Imagine. Our resources not being used in ways that can sustain all people. Our rain forests trampled, oil seeping into our coasts, sweatshop laborers working for pennies so that we can have more wardrobe options, many layers of hands in the middle, from producer to buyer, marking up the prices all the way from shrub to cup.

We’re all linked in this system together. Just as the whole nation of Israel is indicted. God says “No, you are not taking care of all of my people; you are cheats and scamps and things we can’t say in church and I don’t know you. You are not my people and I am not your God.” God will cause the land to revolt and nature will have a final say. Not locusts or a shower of fire, but silence. To the people who will not listen, God has nothing to say.

God threatens that the sun will go down at noon and the earth will collapse into itself and there will be massive amounts of death and mourning. Natural disasters are just that, natural. And we have eclipses frequently and understand what’s really going on. But the literary merit of drastic measures is appropriate for God. We need a drastic reorientation before we recognize that the poor are exalted and that the fortune of God has nothing to do with economics.

The basket of fruit, is a pun and a metaphorical turn: in Hebrew “summer fruit” and “the end” are linked as terms that look and sound similar, so the original audience had a better clue about where this was going. The NIV plays on this stating that the “ripe” fruit indicates that the time is “ripe” for Israel, and while this shows an explicit link it doesn’t do justice to the richness of the original pun. Amos has no easy defense for the fruit that signifies the end. In the earlier vision reports, God showed Amos locusts and a storm of fire and Amos was able to say, no Lord, please not that. But the fruit looks pretty benign. Amos can’t say to God, oh no not the fruit, because how is God going to bring about the end with a pile of produce? But God has a trick here, linguistically at least. What looks healthy and rich, the fruit that is ripe, and the people who are wealthy, are poor in spirit and are withering and dying though they look well.

We are not just like Ancient Israel, the US is not chosen by God, but we do find ourselves in a position of global power. And we also suffer the same problems of labor and land. We can wait for Jesus to make everything right. Israel waits, but by the time of Christ, Israel has long fallen and the Romans are in charge. We thought we were safe and indestructible once, but we are starting to know better. We fear the threat of other nations, of our own economic structures, of our ability to contain and control oil in the gulf.

If we trample and exchange dollars for cents and get rich at another’s expense and do nothing and say nothing. If we turn out shopping carts away and do not look at the roots of our social evil and see the magnitude of our smallest actions, if we do not recognize that this is not God’s way. In the New Testament, James picks up this theme that our existence in God makes us rich, that earthly possessions do not ultimately satisfy and that we are not allowed to oppress others for our gain and comfort. He says: “Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts on a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.”[1]


At the end of the book of Amos, God does leave us hope of restoration, but only after all has fallen, and the earth has sunk: until we recognize this, we’re on a dangerous path of shortchanging our neighbors and ourselves from God’s fulfillment….

“The time is surely coming, says the Lord,
when the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps,
and the treader of grapes the one who sows the seed,
the mountains shall drip sweet wine
and all the hills shall flow in it
I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel...
I will plant them upon their land, and they shall never again be plucked up out of the land that I have given them”[2]

God says to Amos, what you think is a basket of healthy summer fruit, was grown in overworked soil, and picked by underpaid hands, and sprayed with chemicals to appear ripe. The fruit that looks like health and harvest is bitter and poisonous...

You see fruit, says the Lord God, but I am showing you the end.
God will not destroy us, we can do that on our own.
God will not take the word from us, but we will silence our own lips.

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[1] James 5: 1-6

[2] Amos 9: 13-15

Live Like Christians

Galatians 6:1-16

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians we find a bitter struggle in the early church to define mission and identity. Paul argues that Christians are free from much of Jewish law, including ritual observances and circumcision. He emphasizes that we are righteous not through works of the law but by faith in Christ.

It’s a bit strange to us today since we don’t spend a lot of time differentiating ourselves from Judaism. But for Paul and the church of Galatia, the Christian church was still settling into itself. Paul was a Jew who became a Christian after meeting the risen Christ. The people of Galatia were gentiles, pagans, not Jews, who had learned of Jesus from Paul. One of the issues concerned the nature of being a Christian and whether or not one had to be Jewish first—like Jesus and Paul—or just jump straight to Christianity. We don’t worry about this now. We can go right to the Christian part, while acknowledging the importance of Judaism as our religious ancestor, studying the Old Testament and learning about the religion of Jesus and Paul, without having to actually practice or observe it for ourselves. This frees us too. We are able to respect Judaism and Jews, without having to compare ourselves, without having to find one superior and one inferior, without having to take on a successionist idea: that the New Testament is infinitely superior to the previous one, but to recognize that the Old Testament can stands on it’s own with it’s own inherent value as the Hebrew Bible, and isn’t always answered or fixed with Jesus. We don’t think of ourselves as “freed” from Judaism, from the law, and ritual the Hebrew religion, because most of us were never Jews in the first place. Instead, we think of being free from whatever we were before, from our previous condition of sin or darkness that Jesus saved us from: maybe we were lost, maybe we were overly self-reliant, whatever it was that held is in bondage—or that holds us in bondage—Jesus frees us from: whether it’s addiction, abuse, self-loathing, whatever it is, whatever sinful condition we are all in, Jesus offers us freedom.

And that’s Paul’s point in this letter: the Galatians don’t need to worry about other religious rituals, he compares following the rites of Judaism to the rites of their former pagan religions, basically, living as though nothing has changed. For us today, this would mean living as though Jesus doesn’t make a difference, keeping our same habits, attitudes, fears, going through the motions, going to church, making the outward effort, but not changing anything on the inside, not experiencing a change of the spirit. The Galatians are concerned about circumcision as an outward and visible sign which was important when it symbolized the covenant between God and the people of Israel, but unnecessary for the new Christian communities. Paul is concerned that the only reason the Galatians would do this is to mark themselves differently, to differentiate themselves from other people, but in a way that is only physical, instead of being different in spirit and in action—like wearing the cross or the Christian t-shirt without the spirit of belief and service to back it up.

Paul says that through baptism in Christ, we become united—marked all the same, neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. Circumcision was only for a portion of the population, but baptism is for everyone (3:28).

In turn, we are enslaved, not to ways that divide, not to status symbols, but to each other, in loving service. Being a Christian isn’t about playing nice in any kind of false sense.

This is still a widespread problem for us today. Whenever we hear someone say, the problem with church is that it’s full of hypocrites, that’s what they are talking about: a group of people who go to church, claim to be different, claim to be following Jesus, but then go out the door and are just as mean and nasty and back-stabbing as the next person.

Of course, we’re all human, we’re all sinners, and none of us is perfect—but does it make a difference that we are Christians? Are we living into that freedom? The freedom that is in Christ, the freedom that is not self-indulgent, but that looks out and cares for others?

Living like a Christian is seriously different, not like living like others. It’s about authenticity, not just a good showing.

This week we mourned the passing of long-time member Ruth Harvey—in every remembrance of her, friends spoke of her kindness, how she reached out to new people at church and made them feel welcome, how she reached out to new teachers at her school and helped them along the way, how she was kind and nice, living out her faith with hospitality and kindness, not closed off, not ignoring new people, but warm and welcoming. At church and at work, she lived out her commitment to serve others.

Being a Christian means living with hope, living with love, living in service and love to others. The outward signs of our faith matter: but those signs should be the love we have for other people. Paul urges the church to not grow weary doing what is right.

Our Director of Christian Education, Rachel Miller is not doing something normal, or totally understandable, by living in a country where she doesn’t know the language or the customs, where the food is strange and upsets her stomach, but she’s there because of Christ. She’s doing what is right. She is testing her own work. Carrying her own load. Living out the fact that freedom in Christ isn’t a personal freedom, but means a freedom to help others, including children who don’t have the same opportunities—for medical treatment, for education—children with the same hopes and dreams, but not the resources to achieve them. And when asked why she’s doing this, she can only say that God has compelled her to do so, she could have spent the summer as usual, going to work, swimming, spending time with family and friends, but instead she’s in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, serving others out of the freedom she has in Jesus. She may grow weary, she may get homesick, she may be stressed and frightened, but she’s pushing on, learning as she goes, sharing the love she has with all those little girls out of the freedom God gives her.

As we celebrate our freedom and independence as a nation today, may we be mindful of how much greater our freedom is in God. Not just freedom from tyranny and oppression, but freedom from sin and death. Thanks be to God.

Royal Possession

1 Kings 21:1-21a

Last week we talked a bit about Ahab and Jezebel. Ahab was king of Israel, the most evil king ever, who had married a Sidonian woman and worshipped her tribal god instead of the God of Israel. Because of his worship of Baal, God caused a three year drought and God’s prophet Elijah got to deliver the bad news. Today, we find Ahab, Jezebel, and Elijah again, but we get a clearer picture of the evil of this royal duo.

Ahab’s queen is not just a normal trophy wife who helped him forge valuable alliances with other kingdoms. Jezebel’s name is synonymous with a troublesome, seductive woman, a hussy, a harlot. And while she certainly welds her power for greed and destruction, she’s not the sole downfall of her husband. Ahab is no saint on his own. He has some major character flaws and is generally unfit to be a king, especially a king of Israel. He is greedy, he has poor coping mechanisms, he seems to have missed the whole point of leading the people of Israel.

When Naboth, the vineyard owner, wouldn’t agree to sell or trade, Ahab took to his bed, refused to eat dinner and just rolled over. As if he had no other responsibilities for the kingdom but to sulk over not getting the perfect garden for his vegetables (which, given his childish nature, he probably would not have eaten anyway). This immature behavior let’s us know to just what extreme Ahab was unfit for the monarchy. He wasn’t just evil, he was foolish and petty too, and unable to think for himself. Jezebel had probably figured out this personality trait of her husband’s and takes it upon herself to do what the king will not: take possession. No less greedy, Jezebel at least has the ambition and cunning to get the job done. Of course, she is merciless and cruel and no doubt deserves at least part of the reputation she’s gotten over the centuries. She’s misguided, but decisive. She makes a plan and goes for it. She sets up an elaborate plot to sentence Naboth wrongly to death row. And while Ahab doesn’t come up with this plan, he is not surprised, nor does he question his wife when she promises the desired vineyard and then delivers good on her promise.

King Ahab is certainly not the first king of Israel to look out his window and covet the property of his neighbor. As David looked out and desired Bathsheba, Ahab looks next door and sees the vineyard of Naboth and dreams of his own, royal vegetable garden in its place. He starts off with the honorable thing and offers Naboth a trade of either cash or a similar property, but this vineyard is Naboth’s ancestral inheritance—something God is very clear about in the Hebrew Bible—land and families are important, not to be handed over or sold, but past down to the generations.

Ahab and Naboth were both Israelites, but Naboth worshipped the God of Israel, while Ahab had strayed with a foreign god. Their desire for the same land is a government issue, but also a religious one since Naboth firmly believes that God has given his family this land and that it would be a sin to hand it over. Ahab realizes he’s been out done, he’s been trumped by the God-card and resigns to do nothing but pout. But his wife, Jezebel, has no respect for this foreign God of Israel—she has, after all, already put to death hundred’s of God’s prophets, so that only a few remain—she has conducted her own genocide of sorts. So for her, taking the land, is not a big deal, it’s what a king should do, if he wants something he should just go and get it, because what else is the use of being king?

This was one of the arguments God used against having a monarchy for Israel in the first place because Kings would take up the best resources and the best people for themselves, and the society would be less egalitarian and fair, but the people insisted, they wanted to be like other nations and have a king, so that they could be respected too, since simply having God Almighty wasn’t good enough clout.

The nation of Israel today is back in the headlines, where it never strays far, with the recent flotilla incident. And Obama and Netanyahu will meet again soon to try to find some common ground and work toward peace—but even then peace is so illusive and difficult for that region. Too many groups of people—with different nationalities and religions have a serious stake in the land, and tend to want all or nothing, making compromise basically impossible.

Compromise, had it even been attempted, would not have been possible for Naboth and the King and Queen. When Elijah reenters the scene, God’s judgment is swift. And because Ahab is not on good terms with God, he does not view Elijah’s arrival at the vineyard during his moment of taking it into possession as a good thing.

Ahab and Elijah in a cultural and religious war, not like King David and the prophet Nathan who convicted David of his sin with Bathsheba. Ahab does not see Elijah as a helpful advisor, but refers to him as his “enemy” and ironically as the “troubler of Israel.”

It’s not until after Elijah tells Ahab the consequences for his actions, the terrible fate for all of his family, that Ahab humbles himself and mourns his actions. He doesn’t feel bad for Naboth’s wrongful death, for the loss of such an upstanding man to his family and community, but is only upset when he learns that his own family and household will be eaten by dogs and birds.

His repentance is cheap and while Ahab is spared, Jezebel and Ahab’s sons are not. Punishment still comes to their household and to the generations following Ahab.

This is a grizzly, cautionary tale of not keeping some of the basic Commandments: of worshipping other gods, of coveting your neighbors’ property, of committing murder.

It’s a tale of greed and desire getting in the way of true relationship with God. It’s about loosing sight of God and relying on our plans a schemes.

Unlike Ahab and Jezebel, may we not be cause of oppression, of theft, of murder. May we look for ways to do justice and act kindly and walk humbly with God. Amen.

Wild Miracles

1 Kings 17:8-24

Don’t you just love how our scripture tends to start right in the middle of things? As though we all remember exactly who Elijah is and what he was up to?

By way of a little background on this story, Elijah was a great prophet, in the time of the kings of Israel, when Israel was an establish monarchy—no longer a roaming, nomadic tribe. Elijah had the uncomfortable job of telling the kings the truth. They would seek out his advice and he would have to tell them what God had to say, and when it wasn’t favorable, he might find himself hiding for his life.

The historian who compiled the book of 1^st Kings tells us that King Ahab “did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him. And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he took as his wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal” worshiped and built a sacred altar and did more to provoke the anger of the Lord than had all the kings of Israel before him.[1]

God is particularly displeased to see a king of Israel worshipping another god. Baal, it turns out is the god of storms and rain, and, by extension, life, death, and fertility. As punishment, Elijah informs King Ahab that there will be a severe drought for three years, to show exactly which god is in charge of the storms and rain, life and death.

And so Elijah, heads on out of town, to get out of Ahab’s jurisdiction, and goes to the Wadi Cherith, a marsh where he will still have some water to drink. God sends ravens to feed him bread and meat, twice a day. But soon, because there is no rain, the Wadi dries up and Elijah must move on.

Which catches us up to today’s scripture lesson, God sends Elijah to the land of Sidon, which also happens to be the birthplace of the Queen Jezebel and the heartland for Baal worship. No ravens this time, God tells Elijah that a widow there will provide for him.

In the Bible, widows are always of God’s special concern. Without husbands to provide for them or give them security and status in Israelite society, these women are vulnerable, with few resources and no power, not exactly the ideal caretakers for Israel’s great prophet. But Elijah has just relied on ravens, so the widow may seem like an upgrade. He finds her, by the city gate, gathering sticks for kindling, which cannot be a good sign that she’ll be able to provide a feast all on her own. Fortunately, God is with her, and after obediently fetching a drink of water for Elijah, she continues to listen to the word of God. She protests, but she does go and make bread and feed Elijah first, even though she only has enough oil and grain for one last meal for herself and her son. She tells Elijah that they are preparing to eat this last meal and then starve to death. It is a drought after all, so there will be no more grain until after it rains again. But she does it: maybe out of an act of faith, or out of a desperate hope that this man is right. In anticipation of the story of Jesus and the loaves and fishes, Elijah assures her that her jars of oil and meal will not go empty. And sure enough, God provides for the three of them, and the supplies hold and they are all able to eat for many, many days.

During the drought, God cares for those who are faithful. Elijah, the widow, and her child, are fed, even while the rest of the land starves. God does not give Elijah good news for the King and Queen, but does give good news to this widow and child who were on the verge of death, showing even more that God truly is in charge of the harvest, life and death.

In his book, Testimony to Otherwise, theologian Walter Brueggemann notes that the story of Elijah makes a break in the historical account of the kings of Israel. Among these stories of war, infidelity, punishment, and disgrace, we find the stories of the prophets that "open to the listeners in daring imagination the claim that the world does not need to be perceived or engaged according to dominant shapings of power, to privileged notions of authority, to conventional distributions of goods, or to standard definitions of what is possible."

These days, we find more and more stories that are told from unlikely points of view. Just think of Wicked, the story of the Wizard of Oz, told from the wicked witch’s point of view or of Wide Sargasso Sea, the story of Jane Eyre told through the eyes of the crazy wife in the attic. In our Postmodern awareness, we are more sensitive to other sides of the story: not just the winners of history, of the rich and elite, but the stories of the ordinary, of the underdog, of the slave, of the victim.

And so, in the middle of this litany of the kings of Israel, of their comings and goings, we find the story of a great prophet and a poor widow and her son.

Brueggemann says that Elijah "enacts otherwise, showing that the world could be and would be different, concretely, decisively different."

This whole business of good news for the impoverished and marginalized and bad news for the rich and royal will continue with Jesus, which is why so many people will call on stories of Elijah to help them process the reality of Jesus. It’d be nice sometimes, or easier at least, if so many stories of the Bible were not so uncomfortable, if they didn’t call on us to help feed the hungry and heal the hurts of the world—but the message of Elijah, of Jesus, is not self-fulfillment and satisfaction, it’s not prosperity and simple happiness,

Elijah spends a lot of time on the run, finding unlikely sources for meals and shelter. He interprets God for the people, he obeys God’s commands, and he challenges God. He and God have a full and rich relationship, sometimes harmonious, sometimes tense. When the widow’s son dies anyway, even with the abundance of food, Elijah cries out to God, asking what God has against him now that the son of his hostess would die anyway. And God hears these cries as Elijah stretches his own body across the child’s, and God answers Elijah by giving the child life again. This is not the sort of miracle we expect anymore. Who among us would expect to be able to stretch out over the lifeless body of a loved one and bring them back? Elijah raises people from the dead, Jesus will later raise people from the dead.

These are the sorts of wild miracles that God is capable of doing. God gives sustenance to those who have nothing, hope and healing to those who have none.

Thanks be to God.

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[1] 1 Kings 16:30-33

Language of the Holy Spirit

Acts 2:1-21 (Genesis 11:1-9)

It can be tempting to celebrate Pentecost as a singular fixed moment in time, as the birthday for the church and just leave it at that, as the day to commemorate the moment when the flaming tongues of the Holy Spirit descend on the apostles as a sign of the outpouring of this divine gift, of the presence of God among them. We could celebrate this event as a final, complete moment in itself, in which no other can compare.

We could box up the Spirit in our tidy, commercialized language of success. I frequently overhear other ministers talk about the work of the spirit in their churches, and more often than not it has something to do with a shiny new building or an influx of new members—God can do amazing things! Like help us build this new gymnasium. As if to say the presence of the Holy Spirit in our congregations is measured by our numbers or by the amount of money we receive. As though God created a finalized product in the church, that we must simply maintain now, keeping up our numbers and appearances. At which point we have domesticated God, tamed the divine down to tiny little expectations.

There are other stories, though rarer, of churches who send people out into the world, who fully embrace mission locally and globally and choose to believe that the transforming power of the Holy Spirit—the flaming tongues of Pentecost have more to do with working to change the world—in very real and tangible ways, that move beyond supporting an established institution and an expensive infrastructure, more than “playing church”, but actually being “church” for a world that is broken and hurting.

The event of Pentecost is truly an amazing, miraculous story, which informs us that amazing, miraculous stories are still possible for the church today. (more than nostalgia for a past when God was active)

Pentecost was already a Jewish holiday occurring 50 days after Passover. The eleven remaining disciples were gathered to observe this Holy Day. Of course, they had already been through a lot at this point—Jesus had left them once again, this time ascending into heaven. And these men from Galilee are gathered to worship and to remember the event of Moses coming down from Mt. Sinai with the gift of law for the people. And in the midst of this—this moment that so defines the birth of their religion, the law and ordering of their lives, their ritual is disrupted by a loud, rushing, mighty wind, that draws attention to them and a crowd forms around the house. They are inundated with the Spirit of God the same that moved across the chaotic waters of Creation, assaulted with tongues as of fire, and babbling in languages they can’t even understand, to be ridiculed by those who do not understand and find comic relief in accusing them of being drunk!

But they are not drunk with wine, they are intoxicated with the incredible power of the Holy Spirit and that is how they are each able to speak the message of God in a language that is foreign to them, but recognizable to the diversity of the crowd. The message of God, instantly translated into a dozen different languages, allowing for clear communication and unity.

In the book of Genesis, we find the story of the tower of Babel. Human beings had become numerous on earth and decided they wanted to build a tower to the sky, to reach God in heaven. But God didn’t like this plan and realized that if the people could not communicate well to each other, they could not successfully pull off a big project like a tower to heaven. So God, who created the world with a single spoken Word, scattered the people to far reaches of the earth and jumbled their languages, thus creating a diverse world.

The event of Pentecost reverses the tower of Babel—at least temporarily. It doesn’t eradicate all languages and unify them into one, rather the people are able to hear the message of God in their own native languages, and to understand. The diversity continues to exist, but there is new understanding, new community within the Holy Spirit.

Language can create and unify and it can destroy and scatter. We are increasingly separated through language. Not just different linguistic families, but also through rhetoric and jargon. It is difficult for Republicans and Democrats, Christians and Muslims, to speak with one another, rather than at and against. It’s difficult to find even an objective news story because everyone has an opinion and hardly anyone can look at an issue from several angles. It’s either all good or all bad, the solution to the problem or the death toll for us all.

For the thousands of Jews gathered in Jerusalem, language kept them divided, but through the Holy Spirit they were able to truly hear one another for the first time.

Hear the words that Peter quotes from Joel: telling the critics that in the last days, God will pour out the Holy Spirit on everyone and sons and daughters will prophesy, young men will see visions and old men will dream dreams, slaves will also prophesy, and there will be signs in heaven and on earth, the sun will turn to darkness and the moon to blood.

There will be much, much more than simply speaking in other languages, there will be visions and dreams, probably some of hope and some of terror, and there will be a reversal of creation as the bright shining sun goes dark and the luminous yellow moon turns blood red to show the “great and glorious,” wonderful and fearful return of the Lord.

The Spirit of God is serious business, powerful and transformative—she is not just sweet and comforting.

In our prayers, we invoke the Holy Spirit, asking God to descend upon us, to unify us. When we say these familiar words, we better know for sure what we’re asking!

Annie Dillard, in Teaching a Stone to Talk writes “On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does any-one have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return."[1]

It is madness to ask God to help us achieve our church or personal goals unless we are willing to ask God what our goals should be in the first place. We may invite God into our lives hoping for protection from life’s trauma and our own foolishness, we may be mostly hoping for good health and personal satisfaction, but we often forget about the terrifying God on the other end of the deal—the one who’s will we ask be done, without the foggiest idea what that will might be, without really comprehending just what God might ask of us, what God might truly demand of us, how God might really shape and form us. The terrifying Poet, T. S. Eliot, has this to say to us:

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.[2]

Pentecost is not some remembrance of a past event, of the one-time only birth of the church, sprung fully formed from the mind of God, instead it is the ongoing, often painful, growing and shaping of the community of faith in the world. Thanks be to God.

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[1] Dillard, Annie. Teaching a Stone to Talk, Harper & Row, 1982

[2] Eliot, T.S. “The Dove Descending.”

Hospitality of Lydia

Acts 16:9-15

In the book of Acts, we travel with Jesus’ followers to new lands as they spread the good news. Paul has a vision of a man asking for help in Macedonia, with his companions, Paul travels to this Roman district in Europe. On the Sabbath, they go to the river. Perhaps there is a temple or synagogue there or just a known place for gathering and prayer and there they find a group of women worshipping God. Among these women is Lydia, a dealer of purple cloth. We know very little about Lydia, but what we do know is fascinating. The rest we could imagine from the text.

Lydia was a rarity in those days, not defined by husband or children, but by her textile business. She was her own woman, successful and free. The leaders and elites of Macedonia looked to her to supply the luscious purple fabric for their robes. And in return, they paid her well with money and respect. They listened to her, this woman who possessed a strange authority, as she measured out bolts of the fabric, she told them stories of a foreign God, not the gods of Rome, not stories of Jupiter, Apollo, or Venus, but stories of a tribal God of Israel—a single God who was greater than the many, a God who created, a God who protected and liberated, a God of love and mercy. Lydia was strange indeed, but the people accepted her.

She observed the Hebrew Sabbath and would gather with other women by the river side. There they would worship this God with songs and prayers. They would tell each other stories of their encounters with God.

One day, several men, foreign travelers joined them. And the one named Paul began to tell them new stories about this same God: about how this God had also become human, had lived and breathed among them, had appeared to Paul, and showed him the error of his ways as a zealous Jew who persecuted Christians, and had convinced him that he, Jesus, was truly the Messiah, the Son of God, for whom they had waited for so long. Lydia was immediately convinced that this man spoke the truth—that the Messiah, whom she had heard about, had really and truly come—had died, and then risen again, and continued to live through his believers. She vowed to do whatever she could to help spread this new message. Since she was already telling the story of God, she would happy tell this story of Jesus too. She asked to be baptized and to have her whole household baptized as well, so that they might all begin this new journey. And finding out that these foreigners were traveling missionaries, with no place to call home, Lydia insisted that they stay at her house and use her good fortune to help spread the good news.

God opened her heart and she, in turn, opened her home. After her baptism, she turns her house into a base for the spread of Christianity in Europe. Her baptism leads immediately to hospitality and a sharing in all the risks of mission.

Luke, the writer of Acts, doesn’t expand on just how important Lydia’s hospitality is, but we can see that she gives them a home-base. A place to sleep and eat, a place to return to from preaching and later from prison. Paul and his companions are in a foreign country, they have no place to call home, and the gift of Lydia’s home provides much needed creature comfort so that they can have the physical strength and sound mindset to continue the work of God. Maybe she went out and preached too, or maybe she continued with her business, providing fine clothes for the rich, telling them her story, of this Jesus she had met and of these travelers staying in her home.

Hospitality: no matter who it is from is a great gift: having a place to go, to stay, to sleep, to eat, to rest weary bones and fill empty stomachs, a place of safety cannot be overestimated. Neither can kindness to strangers.

Lydia is a model, an early church mother, for us now and for the church. Jesus might have asked Lydia to give up her wealth, to sell her house and follow him—but she gives these things to god in different ways: she doesn’t sell her house, but she gives it to Paul for God’s purposes.

What if we extended our resources: our time, our money, our space to help feed those who are hungry? It would be our basic task as Christians, and a clear example of Lydia-like hospitality. It would not change the whole world, but it could help, in small ways, to transform part of the world. What if we served breakfast, once a week, to the homeless and hungry in Alexandria, right here in our social hall?

This might include coming in on a weekday morning before you head to work or go about the rest of your day. It might include scrambling eggs or having a cup of coffee with someone who is struggling and in need. It might include washing table clothes, setting up tables, or buying food. This is not the kind of thing that is easy. It won’t be for the feint of heart, but it will be for the kingdom of God. After all, it is so important to eat a healthy meal in the morning. Most of us know how much some caffeine and protein can make a huge difference. On a cold morning, we could provide a warm place to sit for an hour or two. Our neighbors could find church doors that are open, and people who care—not because of our own agenda or because we have to, but because God cares. For people living on the margins, seeing a volunteer, someone who gives their time and effort just for the sake of giving it away, can give these folks so much hope—just to know there are people in the world who would care for them and expect nothing for themselves in return is life-changing.

Paul responded to a vision from God.

Lydia responded to Paul’s message of God.

How will we respond?

Doubting

John 20: 19-31

Easter Sunday is rarely an appropriate time to engage in a discussion of the factuality of the resurrection. Congregations on an Easter Sunday want to hear a word of hope, they want to sing their alleluias, they want to know that Jesus still lives. Especially if this is the one Sunday a year they come to church, they want to hear a story of impossible odds, a story of grace and above all love.

But this Sunday we join the disciples, particularly Thomas, in wondering if it’s all true. Though the gospel accounts differ, in all of them Jesus appears first to some of his female followers, then to the rest of his disciples in various locations. In Matthew it’s in Galilee, in Mark on a country road, in Luke on the road to Emmaus, and in John, in a locked room. The main point for all of these encounters is that the resurrected Jesus appears to his disciples and tasks them with carrying on his work because he’s back, but only for a little while. In the book of John, Jesus first appears to Mary Magdalene who then goes and tells the rest of the disciples about the empty tomb and the gardener who turned out to be Jesus. We don’t know if the disciples believe her, but the first thing Jesus does when he appears to them, after he calms them down with a word of peace, is to show them his wounds, to show them that he’s really the same guy. At the very least, their disbelief is a possibility that Jesus has already considered and he’s prepared to offer evidence. Proof that the writer of John then, extends to us with his gospel as his testimony.

The “proof” offered in the gospel of John does not meet our standards. John’s testimony would not hold in a court of law or even a news article. An account of Jesus apparating through a locked door doesn’t prove anything to us 2000 years later—did you see it? I sure didn’t. We’d need video footage and scientific experiments to show the plausibility of a divine person traveling through solid material. We might need Jesus to stand before us and demonstrate what he can do. We’d need much more than just seeing his hands or placing our own in his side. We would need even more proof than poor old doubting Thomas.

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel tells the story of a young man named Pi, who ends up on a life boat with various wild animals when a ship with his family and their zoo animals sinks. It’s a tale of remarkable survival as he keeps himself alive for 277 days with a hungry, adult Bengal tiger on board. It’s a beautiful story of faith and strength and careful managing of the tiger. In the end, when Pi has found safety and a maritime official, Mr. Okamoto is questioning him in an investigation of the ship’s sinking, a slightly different story is revealed than the one he has told through the entire book. The animals turn out to bear a striking resemblance to other people who had been on the ship and the possibility of a much darker story of human desperation while at sea emerges. With the two accounts, Mr. Okamoto doesn’t know what to do, but Pi points out that he can’t prove either story, but will just have to take Pi’s word for it. So he then asks Mr. Okamoto: “So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with the animals or the story without animals?” Mr. Okamoto agrees that it is “The story with the animals.” Pi’s response is: “Thank you. And so it goes with God.”

We cannot prove the resurrection one way or the other. We cannot say for sure that it did not happen, that it was merely a resuscitation, or some sort of trick of hide-the-body the disciples played. We cannot say for sure that it happened. But we do know that Jesus really does continue to live and breathe in and among us. We know this because Jesus is God and God is everlasting. This is the important part. Not the mechanics of Jesus’ dead body being restored to life—because how or if God did that, isn’t something we can discover. Is it possible for God? Surely. Does that mean it happened, in any sort of factual historical sense? Not necessarily. Is it the better story, full of the truth of God’s redeeming love? Absolutely.

A few years ago, there was much talk of the “Jesus tomb,” a tomb found in Jerusalem where people named Jesus, Mary, and James had all been buried together, possibly around the time that Jesus Christ had lived and died. There was great speculation about how to prove if this was Jesus the Christ and what implications there would be and the possibility of the death of Christianity and the shattered faith of millions. There’d never be anyway to analyze the bones to determine if this was Jesus of Nazareth, not resurrected, but buried after all. But what if they could prove, beyond a doubt that it was? Christian doctrine would have to change, but would it die? Would we have nothing left to believe in? Could Jesus still be the Messiah? Could Jesus still be God? These are not easy questions, but the truths of Christianity are much more valuable than the provable facts. If it’s a beautiful story of love and redemption, does it have to have happened that way?

The reason this debate is not appropriate for Easter Sunday, is because whether or not the physical resurrection happened, isn’t the point. Believing or not is a matter of faith, not history or science, or fact. Some Christians find it impossible to believe without the resurrection. Some don’t find it necessary at all.

We certainly have doubts now and they range all the way from doubting the existence of God to doubting the goodness of God to doubting our world to doubting ourselves. After his death, the disciples continued to have a very powerful, physical experience of Jesus. And even with all of this physical presence, they still have doubts.

Jesus shows them his hands and his side so that they can see it’s him with their own eyes. He breathes on them, giving them the Holy Spirit, in a way they can feel. When Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit into them, it’s very much like when God the Creator first breathed life into Adam. That account of human creation was also very physical, very tactile, very personal. God formed a human being with God’s own hands out of the dirt of the earth and breathed divine breathe into him so that he might have life. So too, Jesus instructs his disciples with touch and breathe. Jesus breathes on the disciples. Asking them to carrying on—authority to forgive sins, etc—to carry out his ministry, with the guidance and strength of the Holy Spirit.

If we haven’t gotten the message, Jesus continues to be God incarnate—God in a flesh and blood body. Not a ghost, not a zombie, but the real thing. Just how this is possible is one of the mysteries of faith. Because God continues to care about human beings—all of us, our souls and our bodies, because God took great care in forming us in the first place, and continues to take great care with us.

Peace be with you.