The Second Sunday in Lent - February 21

Lifestyle Choices
Luke 13:31-35

Two different ways of life are outlined in today’s Gospel. Two different ways of living.

One might be called the Jesus movement. I had a harder time coming up with a name for the Jerusalem one. The Jerusalem heap/rat race/lifestyle…

The Jesus movement. And the Jerusalem lifestyle.

In the Gospel passage Jesus is warned to flee because evidently Herod is out to kill him. I love Jesus’ reply. He says: Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow. I can’t flee; I’m busy. Today and tomorrow.

His calendar is full. He’s busy bringing hope and healing. He won’t be deterred from God’s work, even at the threat of death. The Jesus movement.

Then there is Jerusalem, or the people of Jerusalem. Who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to them. People who are so unwilling to be deterred from their personal agendas by anything related to God that they silence God’s voice in their midst. They would rather, in the extreme, kill God than have to hear God’s voice or do God’s work.

The phrase “Jesus movement” comes from our relatively new Presiding bishop, installed back in November. I’m sure others have used the phrase before him, but it is a hallmark of his preaching and leadership. We are the Jesus movement, he says. We are the Jesus movement!

I like the phrase because it connotes activity or action. To “be a Christian” is a very good thing, but it does have sort of a static sound to it. A movement, on the other hand, goes somewhere, does something. The Jesus movement is active.

And that activity, Bishop Curry says, works to fulfill God’s dream for the world. Participants in the Jesus movement go out of their way to make things right. To work for reconciliation, between human beings and between human beings and God.

Living the Jesus movement means being busy in the world, with a calendar full of God’s work of hope, healing and reconciliation.

That’s one way of life, being a participant in the Jesus movement.

Or there’s being an inhabitant of Jerusalem, a participant in the Jerusalem lifestyle. Being someone for whom anything and everything other than God’s work is more important. Everything else is more important than God’s work.

Remember: there are other ways to silence God’s prophets besides crucifying them. There are other ways to eliminate God’s presence other than crucifixion. Indifference to God’s word in our lives. Choosing (and it is always a choice!) to fill our calendars with godless activities. Ignoring God’s call to serve others in his name. Tolerating or turning away from injustice in our world.

In today’s Gospel Jesus also expresses tender yearning to care for those very people of Jerusalem, and he grieves or laments that they are unwilling even to be cared for. I pause to wonder sometimes at the depth of grief God must feel looking upon our world. It’s unimaginable.

So what does this mean for us? What about you or me? Are we participants in the Jesus movement or in the Jerusalem lifestyle? There isn’t really any middle ground. Anytime you are not doing God’s work, you’re living the Jerusalem lifestyle. Anytime something other than God’s work is more important to you, you’re in Jerusalem. There is no middle ground. So all of us move back and forth from one to the other. Only Jesus, I think, can live the Jesus movement 100% of the time. And none of us is Jesus. We spend some percentage of our time in the Jesus movement and some percentage in the Jerusalem lifestyle.

What percentage of your time are you living the Jesus movement?

Something to think about during Lent.

The First Sunday in Lent - February 14

God Acted
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Luke 4:1-13

The Old Testament reading appointed for today is from a portion of Deuteronomy that provides instructions for worship. They are written as a speech by Moses to the people, but they are very specific guidelines for worship. In a sense, they are an excerpt from an ancient Hebrew Book of Common Prayer.

The people are instructed to take the first fruits of the harvest; place them in a basket; gather together at the place of worship; then say: “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.”

Next, the priest takes the baskets of produce and sets them before the altar.

Then the people are instructed to say: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…” We had to memorize that passage in seminary, the passage that begins “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…” Then it was translated “A wandering Aramean was my father.” The Hebrew word probably is “father.” It refers to Jacob, father of the twelve tribes of Israel.

This is a VERY important passage in the Hebrew Scriptures. Remember, it is recited by the people within worship. It has been described as the creed of the ancient Israelites.

We recite creeds, of course, in worship. In just a bit we’ll say together the Nicene Creed.

At their most fundamental level, think about what creeds are. They are statements of who we are, what identifies or defines us as a group. They describe how we understand our relationship with God. As we say them in worship, they have the power to form us as God’s people.

This creed sounds quite different from ours. Our Christian creeds are statements of belief. Sentences in our creeds start out “I believe” or “we believe”.

Listen to how sentences start in this creed:
[Jacob] went down to Egypt and there he became a great nation. (The Egyptians treated us harshly.)
We cried to the Lord.
The Lord heard our voice.
The Lord saw our affliction.
The Lord brought us out of Egypt.
The Lord brought us into this place, a land flowing with milk and honey.
So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.

These are action statements. And God is the subject of most of them. God’s action is the focus, rather than the peoples’ belief. This Hebrew creed, of course, has implications for the peoples’ beliefs about God, just as our creeds refer to ways that God has acted in our lives. But the primary focus is very different.

Could you imagine writing your faith story using active God statements?  Some of you know or have been taught the value of using “I” statements in some settings, particularly relationships. And they are valuable. But I wonder if we don’t use too many “I” statements in our relationship with God. Think about using sentences where God acts to describe your life. Or start with something smaller like the journey of this Lent. Or that just a day, today or tomorrow, and describe God’s action in your life. And not just in general terms like God is with me, or God loves me today, but in specific events of your life. God acted…

The exercise is a little tricky, at least for me. Because I don’t believe that God micromanages or predetermines every detail of our individual lives. But I do fervently believe that God is active in our individual lives in specific situations… and we often don’t notice.

Examples of action God statements we might be able to make:
God turned my heart from anger… this morning when so-and-so made me angry.
God heard my prayer for guidance…
God showed me the right way in the specific choice that lay before me…
God opened my eyes to see some need or wonder that I would not have seen on my own…
God saved me from temptation…

Lent, particularly today, draws our attention toward temptation. At the end of the journey of Lent will you be able to say anything about God’s actions in your life? We need God’s help to resist temptation. Only Jesus resists temptation on his own. On this first Sunday of Lent we always have one of the accounts of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness and Jesus’ power to resist temptation. Also on this first Sunday of Lent, always coupled with one of those readings, we have the collect where we acknowledge our weakness and cry out for God to help us, to save us, to strengthen us just where we need it. So, as we journey through Lent we might describe that journey with God statements.

Today I failed in my Lenten discipline, but in humility and penitence I turned to God and God forgave me.

Or, today God helped me to withstand temptation. It takes God’s help. It takes God’s action.

So try it. Try describing your faith, or your day, or your Lenten journey with sentences that describe God’s action in your life.

 For a model, we have the creed of our ancestors:
We cried to the Lord.
The Lord heard our voice.
The Lord saw our affliction.
The Lord brought us out of Egypt.
The Lord brought us into this place, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Ash Wednesday - February 10

A Clean Slate
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

A smudge of ash on the forehead. This day is about a dirty smudge on the forehead.

On Ash Wednesday we are reminded that we are ashes, dust. Without form or substance. Left over. No use. Lifeless. This is what you are. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. It is the power (and, I think, paradoxically also the appeal) of this service to get us to that place of ashes and dust.

Once a year we starkly face our mortality. Our nothingness. You are dust!

It’s a powerful experience, but thank God it’s just for this one day.

Except. You’ve heard me talk about the church calendar. I love the calendar, it’s cycle of seasons and holy days, and the richness it brings to our worship life. And, as I’ve said before, all of the seasons of the calendar are actually true all of the time. The seasonal cycle helps us focus in turn and experience particular aspects of our identities and mission as Christians. But, in fact, all of the seasons are part of who we are all of the time. Just as surely as we are Easter people every day, all of us saints every day… Just as we are people of Advent anticipation and Christmas joy every day… so we are also Ash Wednesday people every day!

We are not ashes just on Ash Wednesday. Remember that you are dust. Every day.

But remember also that being Ash Wednesday people is about more than just being ashes. We forget that. We think that this day, Ash Wednesday, and thank God it is just this one day, is all about that smudge and nothing more.

But Ash Wednesday definitely is not just about ashes. It does remind us, as we surely need to be reminded (every day), that without God we are no more than dust. Without God’s forgiveness and renewal, we are just spent ashes. Without God’s grace we are lifeless. Everyday. Not just today.

Which is why it’s so important to remember that this service and this day are not just about us being dust and ashes.

Ultimately, Ash Wednesday is about a fresh start, a clean slate. Being Ash Wednesday people is about being given a clean slate. Not a smudge of ashes, a clean slate.

The imposition of ashes is just one of the features of today’s liturgy that is unique to Ash Wednesday. Shortly after the imposition of ashes we will recite the Litany of Penitence. Another thing that is unique to the Ash Wednesday service. It serves as a Confession of Sin. But it is not just a confession. It’s a Litany of penitence, a confession litany. Litanies are lists. Often long lists. Meant to be thorough, comprehensive. Maybe we should say it more often. We confess a lot in this service. It is meant to be a full confession for everything…

In the Litany we confess all the ways we have failed in our faith, the shallowness of our faith, the ways we ignore and turn away from God, our sins that estrange us from God, our negligence in worship, our indifference to sharing the Good News of God’s love with others.

We confess all of the ways we mar our relationships with one another. The pride, envy and selfishness that distort our relationships with those who are close to us and those in our broader communities.

We confess our waste and abuse of God’s creation, the blessings and beauty that God pours into our lives.

We confess everything!

And then there is absolution. We are absolved. Of everything. By God’s mercy given a fresh start, a clean slate.

Ash Wednesday shows us what is true every day. (1) Our profound need for God’s forgiveness. And (2) God’s even more profound love and mercy towards us. Don’t forget the second part. We do a good job, today, with the first—and we surely need that dose of humble mortality. I don’t think we always do as good a job focusing on the second part. And it’s really even more important. On this day, Ash Wednesday, God picks us up, dusts us off, renews a right spirit within us and gives us a new start.

Take that fresh start, that clean slate and use the disciplines of Lent to renew and restore your relationship with God.

Speaking of that smudge of ash, you may know there is some puzzlement among Christians about whether they should leave it on or wipe it off after the service. The Gospel reading appointed for Ash Wednesday highlights the issue. Jesus is very critical of people who publicly display their piety in order to be seen by others! When people ask me whether or not they should leave the ashes on I typically reply: Do whichever is harder for you. Are you boasting to others just a bit that you’ve been to church today? Then take them off. If you feel uncomfortable or self-conscious wearing your ashes, maybe you should leave them on.

But within the context of today’s sermon I have what I think is a much better idea for all of us. I wish that our liturgy for this day had within it a rite where all of us would wipe clean our ashes at the time of absolution. At that moment when the cross of absolution is made over the congregation, the cross of ashes on our foreheads would be wiped clean.

We receive ashes today, but ultimately being Ash Wednesday people is not about being left with a smudge of ash, but being given a clean slate, a renewed spirit.  Every day.

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany - February 7

Transfiguration Happens
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Luke 9:28-43a

In the church calendar today is the Last Sunday after the Epiphany. Easter is early this year. Not absolutely as early as it can be, but pretty early. And that pushes Lent and Ash Wednesday early. The Epiphany season always begins on The Epiphany, January 6, and ends before Ash Wednesday. So its length accordians, depending on the date of Ash Wednesday. But no matter how many Sundays fall between The Epiphany and Ash Wednesday, we always celebrate the Last Sunday after the Epiphany on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. And on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, the Gospel lesson is always one of the accounts of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain top.

It is certainly an Epiphany story. Epiphany is all about the revelation of God’s glory in the person of Jesus. It’s about people seeing and recognizing God in Jesus. The revealing to others of God’s glory present in the man Jesus. The transfiguration is the ultimate Epiphany story.

And it’s a story, an event, that has a lot to teach us. But I wonder if we don’t often miss the most basic and most important lesson of this event.

 Transfiguration happens.

Transfiguration happens. It happens in the physical, temporal world in which we live.

Transfiguration happens.

You probably have a general sense of what the word “transfiguration” means… It’s in the Gospel story. But here’s the literal meaning of the word: To change into something more beautiful, more glorious.

Transfiguration is change. Change from one thing into something more beautiful or more glorious. And this story tells us that it happens in this world. Real change. God infused change. Not just long ago in a galaxy far away. Not just then, in a remote time or place. But real, God infused change into greater beauty and glory, right here in this world, this time.

 Transfiguration is how God works in the world in which we live.

There is some debate amongst scholars about which mountain in the Holy Land actually was the location for Jesus’ transfiguration. I like that uncertainty. Because it suggests that it could be any mountain, any time.

In the Gospel stories it is Jesus, the Son of God, who is transfigured. But Peter, James and John witness the transfiguration. Normal, flawed human beings are there. They witness the transfiguration.

Today’s epistle from Paul’s Second Letter to the Christians in Corinth states Paul’s conviction that regular human beings not only witness the transfiguration, but are transfigured themselves. We experience transfiguration. We are transfigured.

This passage is Paul’s reflection on the readings we heard today about Moses and about Jesus’ transfiguration: “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”

All of us “are being transformed from one degree of glory to another.” Some translations say “from glory to glory.” The Christians in Corinth and all of us are being transformed, transfigured, into greater glory.

We pray for that in today’s collect, where we pray that we will “be changed into his [Christ’s] likeness from glory to glory.”

You’ll remember that today’s Gospel included two stories. The story of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain top and the story of the healing of the young boy not on the mountain top. They seem unconnected stories, and some commentators have puzzled over the inclusion of both of them But they are both transfiguration stories. They are both stories about God acting in this world to transfigure, to transform.

Transfiguration is real change into something more glorious. Do you believe that can happen? In our world? That people, things, can be changed into greater beauty and glory?

Transfiguration happens.

The story of Jesus’ transfiguration is a wonderful culmination to the Epiphany season. But it is also good that we have this story right before we begin Lent. For the last few days I’ve been Googling images of the transfiguration. It has been a popular subject for artists. The Transfiguration has long been more important in the eastern, Orthodox churches. There are some wonderful icons of the transfiguration. Before Ash Wednesday I’m going to pick my favorite and print it out. To use in my Lenten prayers. Because transfiguration is the promise of Lent.

Find an image that is meaningful for you and hang onto it this Lent. Remember, remind yourself, that transfiguration is the promise of Lent.

Lent isn’t just about self-discipline or denial, it’s about seeking our own mountain top. It’s about finding a place or making space for God to transform us. Lent isn’t just a somber or grim season; it’s a time to open ourselves to God’s transforming power.

So think about finding an image that works for you to remind you of Jesus’ transfiguration. Transfiguration is the promise of Lent. Lent is about remembering that transfiguration is promised to us.

Transfiguration happens. And it’s promised to us. In this world. In this time.

The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany - January 31

Living in Christian Community
1 Corinthians 13:1-13

The love chapter in First Corinthians.

This chapter contains some of probably the most often quoted words in Scripture. It’s very important to remember, though, that this chapter does not stand alone. We often hear it isolated from its context. But it does not stand in isolation from the rest of Paul’s letter to the Christians in Corinth.

In the 13th chapter of First Corinthians, Paul is not preaching a wedding sermon. He is still writing to the fractious Corinthians. This chapter follows immediately after the readings we’ve had for the last few weeks. Paul is still addressing the congregation of Christians in Corinth who are divided by competitiveness and envy.

Interpretation of this chapter is also complicated by the fact, as many of you may know, that there are several different words in Greek that are all often translated into English as “love.” The Greek word that Paul uses in this chapter does not mean romantic love. Sometimes it is translated into English as “charity,” although that also has connotations in English that don’t quite fit.

Maybe charitableness is a bit better. Or a Godly generosity of spirit. A way of relating to one another that is self-giving and shows a Godly generosity of spirit.

At the end of last week’s reading, Paul summarizes important spiritual gifts but then adds a phrase that is really an introduction to today’s reading: “And I will show you a still more excellent way.” Spiritual gifts are important for the common good, but now I will show you an even more excellent way. A way of living in community that is beyond measure. “Love is the shape of life that has been set free from the competition that is disrupting the Corinthian church” (Brian Peterson; HERE). 

This passage is not a description of love. Not a poetic ode to love. It is instruction on how to live in community. It is a description of the relationships that characterize Christian community.

In verses 4-8a, “love” is the subject of 16 verbs in a row; it happens in every phrase. That may not come through clearly in English translations, where love is described by some rather static adjectives (“love is patient, love is kind”). Instead, Paul’s claims are that love “shows patience” and “acts with kindness.” Here, love is a busy, active thing that never ceases to work. It is always finding ways to express itself for the good of others. The point is not a flowery description of what love “is” in some abstract and theoretical sense, but of what love does, and especially what love does to one’s brother or sister in the church (Peterson). 

It costs something to practice this sort of love. A person acting with Godly generosity of spirit does not seek to win or excel at the expense of others. There shall be no envy, boasting, arrogance or rudeness, Paul says. Those are all aspects of relationships that include competition or belittling of others. Give that up, Paul says. Give all that up.

Writing about this passage, John Wesley says: "The love of God, and of our neighbour for God's sake, is patient toward, all men. It, suffers all the weakness, ignorance, errors, and infirmities of the children of God; all the malice and wickedness of the children of the world: and all this, not only for a time, but to the end.”

The presence of this sort of love, is measured not by “how it feels.” In the context of 1 Corinthians, it would be better to say that the measure of love is its capacity for tension and disagreement without division (Peterson, quoting Krister Stendahl).

Thinking about this sort of love, this Godly generosity of spirit, as the quality of relationships within the Christian community, got me to thinking…

Could we think of the opportunity to practice this sort of love as a motivation to participate in Christian community? Is the opportunity to be active in this sort of relationship a reason to be a part of a church? The Christian community provides a place to practice Godly generosity of spirit. To show kindness and act with patience. To put aside envy and boasting. Even when it’s not easy.

Might we choose to come to church just so we can practice being kind and patient and charitable? God knows we all do need the practice.

It’s sort of like going to the gym or eating your vegetables or whatever example works for you. You do it. Maybe not always eagerly. Maybe not as frequently as you should. But you do it because it gets you to a place you want to be. It is the path towards a worthwhile goal.

And God knows the world needs a lot more Godly generosity of spirit. The larger communities in which we live and interact need more people acting with more Godly generosity of spirit towards one another. The church can be both a model and a place to practice. To work on our skill at maintaining relationships characterized by Godly generosity of spirit.

 The opportunity to practice Christian relationships is not the only reason to come to church, of course. We come to worship, to join our voices in praise of God. We come to be supported and sustained by the kindness and care of others. And we come to be renewed by the immeasurably generous love that God has for each of us.

Remember, as we seek to embody this Godly generosity of spirit, we are able to do so, however imperfectly, because we have been given the immeasurably generous love and care of God. Despite our frailties, despite our sin, despite our lack of faith, God’s infinitely generous love for each of us never fails.