2019-05-19 Prayer

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.
Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.” – John 13:34-35 (NRSV)

Loving God,
Jesus commanded the disciples to love one another.
But loving is so very hard!
Sometimes I am wounded by the words of others.
Sometimes I am abused by others.

And, it is so very hard to love when I’m hurting.
Jesus commands us to love as we have been loved,
sacrificially,
unconditionally,
radically.
Help me,
help us altogether,
help us each,
to proclaim,
to embody,
to incarnate,
your love for the world,
your love for our neighbors,
your love for ourselves.

Prayer List

Lover of Peace, turn our hearts from anger, strife, discord, and hatred, and let us pray at this time for those countries suffering at the hands of war and violence; to Burkina Faso where gunmen killed six people during Mass at a Catholic church; to Sudan where another six were killed in political protests and Sri Lanka where revenge attacks on Muslims are taking place in the aftermath of the Easter bombings. Let your love reign amongst and between us and be a shining example for us to emulate.
Seeker of the Lost, open our eyes to see those around us, and around the world, who are all-too-often overlooked.
Healer of the world, prod us to reach out to the unclean, vulnerable, and abandoned.
Resurrected Lord, remind us again of your transformative presence with each, and all, of us.
Let us thank you Lord, for the relief to the families of the 54 women and children in Nigeria who have been freed from Boko Haram this week and for the many charities dedicated to supporting and working for the many countries in dire need of emergency aid, especially in North Korea where up to ten million are in urgent need of food assistance in their worst drought in 37 years.

May the world know us,
May the world know you,
Because of the love you have for us,
Because of the love we have for you, for one another, and for ourselves.
—Amen

Blessing
May God the Father who gives life to the world grant you grace to be faithful in the service of his Kingdom. Amen.
May God the Son who walked the way of obedience, suffering and death grant you grace to live his life and proclaim his glory. Amen.
May God the Holy Spirit who strengthens the people of God grant you grace to hold lightly and give generously of all that has been entrusted to you in this world. Amen

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
In the name of Christ. Amen.

2019-05-12 “Table Grace"

Table Grace

Psalm 23
A Psalm of David.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
   He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
   he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
   for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
   I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
   your rod and your staff—
   they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
   in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
   my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
   all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
   my whole life long.



Though some of you may stay home and eat a homecooked meal today, most of you may not.  Today is notoriously the busiest day for restaurants of the entire year logging more meals served then Valentine’s Day.  Regardless, if you are eating “in” or eating “out,” you most probably shall be eating around a table.  It’s not just a cultural coincidence that throughout the ages, all over the world, people gather together at a table in order to get to know one another.  It’s how we connect with other people.  That’s why first dates almost always involve a meal.  Ask match.com.  Or eharmony.com.  Or Zoosk.com.  Or ChristianMingle.com. Or dateafarmer.com.  You can’t build a relationship without spending time together.  You can’t get to know someone without talking with them.  The best place to spend time together, talking to each other and getting to know one another, is at the table.  Relationships are not like mirrors, or social media or listening to the news, where everything you see is really about you.  Relationships are like meals, where you feed yourself while feeding each other.


One of my favorite lines from Psalm 23 is the line that begins the third stanza of the poem:  “You prepare a table before me…”  Whenever I read this line or hear his line read, I image a loving mother serving wonderfully wholesome food on a beautifully set table.  Not necessarily fancy, just crisp and clean and with love.  I think of my grandmother Helen almost sprinting around the table in her sundress and apron being sure each person at the table was served with everything they needed.  My grandfather Wallace sat at the head of the table and told the stories that defined our family, the stories that gave us an identity.  All of his stories started with leaving the horrors of Germany and immigrating to the United States.  Quickly they would go to his enlistment in the army during World War I.  Followed by his return to the states to farm with his brother and become the post-master of Osceola.  His stories usually ended with his latest fishing trip on Lake Jackson in Sebring, Florida.  We grandkids would not have listened nearly as well as we did had our bellies not been full from grandma’s cooking and serving.
Jesus gave his disciples a “stored identity” – meaning that he framed their identity in the stories he told as he walked about, healed, and taught in ancient Palestine.  The stories that Jesus reframed hearkened back to God’s very creation at the beginning of time, so to be a follower of Jesus means, in some ways, you have to be in a right relationship with Judaism.  Our true identity as Christians begins in the Old Testament with the Jewish collective memory, with the people of Israel whose identity was rooted in God’s miraculous salvation from slavery in Egypt.  Our identity deepens with the New Testament, where Jesus increases the use of stories to plumb the depths of our human nature.
Somehow, we have lost our ability to tell stories to our children.  I say this not to shame anyone.  I say this to acknowledge a truth about who we are as people.  The families that gather about our tables have lost their identities as disciples of Jesus.  Almost all protestant denominations have plummeting retention rates, keeping only 30-50 percent of their kids into adulthood.   There are some studies that say the church is losing upwards of 90% of its kids.  Not everyone, though, has lost their ability to pass on the stories.


The Old Order Amish, for example, despite a refusal to evangelize and being a particularly stringent form of the Christian faith, keep 95 percent of their kids.  Elders teach succeeding generations the songs and stories of the faith around the table.  Family devotions take place at the table.  The table is where the Amish traditions of Nachfolge, of “following after” Jesus, is introduced and instilled in the children.  Even when an Amish teenager goes on Rumspringa (“running around,” a period in which some adolescents leave the group to experience life outside the community), their place at the table is still set, three times a day.  Some Amish families even put food on their plate in anticipation of their “running around” kids returning to the table.  Amish life, in short, revolves around the table, and it’s rare for a young person to leave it behind.
Mormon theology is similarly effective in retaining its youth into adulthood.  In many ways a theology of the family, Mormonism makes families a first-order priority, emphasizing three things:  a formal declaration of the faith, after which kids understand themselves as “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17); an intentional process of discipleship and identity formation; and perhaps most importantly, a family mealtime in which parents intentionally see to “train up a child in the way he should go”  (Proverbs 22:6, NIV 1984).  Pastor Jon Nielson sees these three practices as essential for retaining children in the faith as they enter adulthood.



Also, the Jews-who represent a statistically insignificant .00185 percent of the world’s population – have had an impact on science, medicine, literature, and the arts well beyond that of any other people group.  The steeple of the Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, Israel, is called “the Pillar of Remembrance,” because there one finds testimony to the way the Jewish people have overcome the worst suffering to achieve epic triumphs.  The Jews have seven official feasts, but the center of religious life in Judaism was not the massive slaughter of animals to accommodate its feast calendar, but the telling of stories around the table.  In fact, the most sacred ritual today in the Jewish religion is the Passover, in which a family gathers at the table and the father serves up a meal that tells the Jewish story.
In the Seder, the story of the Jews’ deliverance from slavery in Egypt is told not through words but by the food.  Children are encourage to question the story, to probe it, even to doubt it.  The story is strong enough, it is assumed, to take on anything you can bring to it.  There is a sense that to be a child of the story is not to proclaim final answers but to profess a life story and devote oneself to a lifelong pilgrimage.  The story becomes “my story” by my participation in the story and my interrogation of the story.  All around the table.  It is thus a requirement of Judaism that you don’t just learn the story, but you see yourself in the story.  The tagline for the Museum of the Jewish People suggests as much:  “You are part of the story.”
The Jewish table is a place of fireworks.  Ideas that emerge there diffuse, spread, and intermingle, producing energy and sometimes propagation into new ideas.  The Jewish table is not hospitable to ego-driven debates; rather, the table encourages logic and inquiry, uncertainty, and the exercise of one’s intelligence.  It is the rigors of the Jewish table that contributes to the endurance of the Jewish people.  The quest for identity demands the questioning identity.
Of course, the broader culture is eager to story our kids:  “Build your identity on my sneakers!”  “See yourself through this singer!”  “Discover your best self in these Jeans!”  Too often we leave our kids to fashion an identity for themselves in the wilderness of these mass-mediated images.  But Jesus didn’t go to the wilderness to find himself.  Jesus went into the wilderness to encounter God.  Paul didn’t say, “I know who I am.”  Paul said, “I know whom I have believed” (2 Timothy 1:12).  Identities are indigenous, homegrown, not mass-disseminated.  They are revealed in a context, not mediated without context.  They are reflective of an underlying truth, not born of trends.  It is at the table that identity is formed.
At the table you learn tribal boundaries, the manners and customs of the table.  Table boundaries create stable identities.  When we find our identity in Christ, we are introduced to those uniquely Christian table boundaries.  We are to be not imitators but incarnators of Christ.  Food connects us to one another while setting us apart, giving us a unique tribal identity.  In Jesus’ day, Jewish authorities protected their identity by not eating with “sinners” and people of bad repute.  But Jesus didn’t care about a “holy table” as the religious establishment defined “holy.”  For Jesus, the table was a table of grace.   A gracious table was one that was open to anyone, a table where all God’s children were present.
That table grace could be anywhere: in a homeless shelter, in a café, in an online chat room, at a casino – anywhere grace is needed.  Jesus didn’t keep a moral table, he kept a healing table.  People who sat at table with Jesus didn’t see him primarily as a moral teacher but as a healer and friend.  For Jesus, the very thing that set his followers apart is what united them as a group:  “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”  (Matthew 25:40).


It is the next line in the third stanza of the Shepherd’s Psalm that raise my eyebrows.  The stanza begins, “You prepare a table before me” and then continues with, “in the presence of my enemies.”  This line has always given me pause and created a angst within my stomach.  Who wants to eat with people who are enemies?  I have learn the difference between someone who may be in opposition to me and someone who may want to do me harm.  Either way, God is sitting this person next me at the dinner table.  God is sitting this person next to me, perhaps, even at Mother’s Day brunch at Maria’s House of Pancakes.
I would like to give you an example of what it means for God to prepare a table in presence of enemies.  This story came to me from Arthur Brooks.
Both Robert “Robby” George and Cornel West are professors at Princeton University, globally renowned for their contributions to the field of political philosophy.  That’s where the similarities end.

George is one of the nation’s most prominent conservative Christian intellectuals. A devout Catholic, he has written numerous books and articles opposing same-sex marriage and the ‘dogmas of liberal secularism.’ He drafted the Manhattan declaration, a manifesto signed by dozens of Christian leaders who promise resistance against any effort to “compel our institutions to participate in abortions, in embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia … [or] to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality in marriage and family.”  Perhaps unsurprisingly, he is also Republican.

Cornell West is Robby George’s ideological opposite – one of the nation’s most prominent progressive thinkers.  A professor of religion and African American studies, he is the honorary chairman of Democratic Socialists of America, a self-described anti-imperialist, and sworn enemy of “the brutality of profit driven capitalism.”  He was one of Barack Obamas harshest critics because, Obama was “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.”

What could be more combustible then I debate between George and West, who disagreed vehemently on most issues, including human sexuality, race, identity, economics, and abortion?  It has all the ingredients of pure vitriol.

What would you expect to hear from either of these two about the other especially in this current political climate?  Here is what they told Arthur Brooks.
“I have a deep love for this brother.  I have a deep respect for this brother.” That’s Cornell West referring to Robby George.

“We’re united to each other in love, in true fraternal affection,”  says George about West.  “When I call Brother Cornell ‘Brother Cornell’ I mean he’s my brother.”

“We revel in each other’s humanity,” says West.  “we share a fundamental commitment to the life of the mind and of the world of ideas.  We’ve had a chance to teach and lecture around the country, and so when I see him, I don’t see him first and foremost as a conservative thinker, a Catholic philosopher, one of the major political theorists of our day.  I see him as my brother.”

This is a wonderful example what it means for God to prepare a table in presence of my enemies.  Though fierce rivals in ideas and philosophies and how to fix the problems of this society, they share a deep human connection.  The human connection, the brotherly love they share, comes first.  Why, because they are able to share the grace of a table.


Today, you just may have the opportunity to share a table of grace with your family.  Some of those you sit beside may even feel like an enemy.  Remember, Jesus invites everyone to the table, it’s his table.  Jesus’ table of grace is primarily a table of healing and friendship.  At this table we share our stories.  We find our identities.  At this table we listen to the stories of others.  At this table of grace, we may just learn to love our enemies.  By loving, we all become family.

God of comfort and compassion,
through Jesus, your Son, you lead us
to the water of life and table of your bounty.
May we who have received
the tender love of our Good Shepherd
be strengthened by your grace
to care for your flock. Amen.

Easter 2019 “Hide-n-Seek”

“Hide-n-Seek”

We think we seek Jesus who hides from us.  We hide, Jesus seeks us.

Luke 24:1-12

          But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.  They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body.  While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.  The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again."  Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.
          Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.  But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.  But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.


      During his day Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin was as powerful a man as there was on earth. A Russian Communist leader he took part in the Bolshevik Revolution 1917, was editor of the Soviet newspaper Pravda (which by the way means truth), and was a full member of the Politburo. His works on economics and political science are still read today. There is a story told about a journey he took from Moscow to Kiev in 1930 to address a huge assembly on the subject of atheism. Addressing the crowd he aimed his heavy artillery at Christianity hurling insult, argument, and proof against it.
An hour later he was finished. He looked out at what seemed to be the smoldering ashes of men's faith. "Are there any questions?" Bukharin demanded. Deafening silence filled the auditorium but then one man approached the platform and mounted the lectern standing near the communist leader. He surveyed the crowd first to the left then to the right. Finally he shouted the ancient greeting known well in the Russian Orthodox Church: "CHRIST IS RISEN!" En masse the crowd arose as one man and the response came crashing like the sound of thunder: "HE IS RISEN INDEED!"



I say to you this morning: CHRIST IS RISEN!
HE IS RISEN INDEED!


On this great and glorious day, we think of times with children.  While giving the Ark Pre-School devotions this week, I learned that the children knew a great deal about bunnies, rabbits and chocolate associated with Easter, not so much about resurrection and Jesus.  That is ok.  Resurrection and Jesus are hard concepts.  However it does get me thinking  about my past experiences of Easters with a baby.
Playing with a baby wonderfully lifts your emotions, in itself it is like “resurrection.”  We smile when we look down into the eyes of a tiny one resting on our legs as we hold their hands and smile, cooing and coaxing a smile and giggle.  Soon we launch into peekaboo, hiding the baby’s face with her blanket for an instant and pulling the blanket away with a “I see you”.   Leave the blanket on her face too long may result in a frown and whimper, rather than a hoped for squeal of joy.  As the baby grows and becomes mobile peekaboo morphs into a little more active game of hide-n-seek.  Usually we begin the game by hiding in places a toddler can easily find us.  We may even call out their name so that they may crawl around the corner of the couch to find us crawling on our own all fours.  As the toddler gets the game figured out, our hiding places become a little less obvious.  We may sit with a blanket covering us completely or go into an adjoining room.  Then the day arrives when hiding and seeking can be exchanged.  What fun!  To be the seeker able now to look for the one hidden.  The hope is of course that she does not hide so well that she falls asleep before you can find her!
You may think these are just child’s games, nothing more.  Oh, contrary.  These child’s games are important for the emotional maturity and health of a child.  Peekaboo is a simple way of demonstrating and developing what developmental psychologists call object permanence.  A lack of object permanence may mean children reach for a thing at a place where it should not be.  When a child fully understands object permanence, they develop a mental image and hold it in mind, and manipulate it to solve problems that are not based solely on perception.  The child can reason about where the object may be that they cannot see.   Let me get this right, we have to be taught how to know something or someone may still be real even when the person or object is not in our presence, not in our line of sight or in our reach of touch or in the hearing of a sound or in the smell of an odor for that matter.  Now, you may have just made the mental leap to the end of the sermon.  But, slow down and walk with me through this for a moment or so.


Let’s walk through this telling of the Resurrection by Luke.  Just to clarify, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John our four Gospel writers have remarkably different versions of the Resurrection.  Some think that this detracts from the validity of the witnesses.  What I understand from my retired Chicago Police Detective buddy is that synchronized stories raise eyebrows.  If there are four people being questioned about a crime, (in the case of Jesus’ missing body, this was a crime by Roman law), the only time the stories synchronize are when the suspects get together before interrogation and get their stories “straight.”   They falsely believe that if each tell identical stories they will be believed and released.  A good detective knows each witness will have greatly divergent stories because of the witnesses’ history with the people or person in the situation, their emotional and mental state when they witnessed the situation, even the witness’s ability to physically appreciate what they experienced based on eyesight, hearing ability and proximity.  So,  when all witnesses give the same accounting of the facts, a good detective smells rotten fish.
Here is what would make Jack Webb smile.   All accounts agree upon:  the tomb was empty, the women found the tomb empty, someone told the women that Jesus was not in the tomb,  the women told the disciples, and Peter went to the tomb to see.  Luke gives us the simplest account of the Resurrection.  Luke does not add a lot to these simple facts.  With a Sherlock’s magnifying glass, lets look at what Luke adds to the story.
On the first day of the week, “they” bring spices so Jesus wouldn’t smell bad as people come to pay respects.  We assume that the “they” are women, because men would not do this dirty work.  They could not come earlier due to Sabbath on the last day of the week.  They go expecting a dead Jesus, not an empty tomb.  The stone at the entrance of the tomb had been rolled away from the opening.  They went into the tomb thinking someone was there already working on the body, but became perplexed when no one, not even the body of Jesus was in the tomb.  The witness of an empty tomb taken alone, is hardly persuasive of anything other than an empty tomb.
Suddenly, as if walking in directly behind them, two men in dazzling clothes were with them.  Luke hopes you catch the repetition of “two men”  as they appear in the Transfiguration Luke 9:30 and the Ascension  in Acts 1:10.  They say, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  I’ll come back to this.  “He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee…”  This forever altered the status of the women in the tomb.  The dazzling men name them as ones who were taught by Jesus, meaning disciples.  The women are officially and forever Jesus’ Disciples, capital “D”.   “That the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again."  They remember Jesus’ teaching.  The presumption is that in the remembering they believe, not what dazzling men have said, but what Jesus taught them.  Now, Luke gives three of the names of the women who are newly minted Disciples.  These are the women who support Jesus’ ministry Luke 8:1-3, who watch Jesus’ trial and crucifixion Luke 23:49, witness Jesus burial Luke 23:55, and now go to the tomb and discover the resurrection.


Luke, in his telling of the Resurrection, sets up a game of hide-n-seek.  The dazzling men say, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  As if to announce the beginning of a game.  I can almost hear them starting to count.  Treated as disciples in and of themselves and not told to go tell the disciples.  The game of hide-n-seek begins when Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women tell the Apostles what they have experienced and what they believe about what they experienced.  The reaction of the men, polite society will not let us translate how they reacted, is paraphrased as, “they did not believe them.”  The essence is that the womens’ testimony is “the babbling of a fevered and insane mind”.  I am sure your creativity can generate a much more accurate translation.
The Apostle did not want to believe what they were hearing.  After all, “if the dead don’t stay dead, what can you count on?” Anna Carter Florence.  We want to cling to what we know (death) instead of entering into what we do not know (resurrection).  We tend to follow the status quo rather than to risk the unknown (the devil we know…).   “Matters of faith are never finally proven, nor faith generated by an incontrovertible argument. Faith is communicated by witness,”  Fred Craddock, Interpretation: Luke.  The women did something that the Apostles did not do, they remembered Jesus’ words.   For the women, the resurrection is made real in both the remembering of and the proclamation of Jesus life.  One unlikely Apostle rose to the challenge of hide-n-seek.  Peter, the “denier”, jumps up to see for himself if Jesus is hiding.


Let’s look at what comes next.  For Luke, it’s not so much about the empty tomb but about the appearances coming after.  The final verses of the Gospel have people finding Jesus only to have him hide again.  There is the story of the Road to Emmaus with the retelling of the witness of the women.  Jesus shows up.  Reveals himself in relationship with Cleopas and his wife by breaking bread and sharing wine.  He hides again.  He reveals himself to Simon.  He hides again.  He reveals himself to the gathered disciples.  He hides himself in heaven at the Ascension.  Luke seems to be showing that Jesus is hiding to be sought and to be found in the relationships.  As disciples gather together, Jesus reveals himself.  Jesus is found.
I am wondering if this is similar to children learning object permanence.  Is Jesus playing peekaboo so that we can trust his presence when we do not see him?  Resurrection seems some kind of cosmic hide-n-seek game.  Jesus hides from us, and like the 1970’s evangelism slogan, I can shout, “I found It!” when he chooses to reveal himself?  Certainly it sounds like the dazzling ones are setting us up for a cosmic hide-n-seek game:  “Jesus was here.  Now, he’s not.  Ready, set, go seek Jesus.”
Maybe it’s the other way.  “Stop hiding among the dead, go among the living, Jesus is looking for you.”  Jesus seeks you.  Stop hiding in the tombs.  Stop hiding in dead things.  Get out in the sunshine.  Mingle with people.  Jesus is one to meet and be lived with every day. We think we seek Jesus who hides from us.  We hide, Jesus seeks us.


I am convinced! I have faith that Christ was dead and he was buried. That I believe. But, this too I accept as true: He rose from the dead and will come again in glory.  This is Easter. And to stand here on this day in this place and proclaim this word. . . I cannot begin to tell you how this defines all that I am.  I believe in resurrection because somebody told me about it.  Like the women told the Apostles, someone told me.  First, my mom and dad told me about Jesus.  They told me in the books they read to me before bed time.  They told me in the prayers of grace we prayed before every meal.  They told me in the devotions we shared in the evenings before bed.  They told me in the way they loved and served hundreds of people.  I believe in the resurrection, because I have experienced it.  I believe in the resurrection because I have seen the God of resurrection at work.   I have seen the risen Christ raise people from the death of despair to the joy of new life.
Julia Esquivel is a Guatemalan poet who lived in exile in Mexico during the horrendous genocides carried out among indigenous peoples in her homeland. Esquivel’s most noted poem is entitled “Threatened by Resurrection.” {Threatened By Resurrection; Prayers and Poems from an Exiled Guatemalan,” Ann Woehrle, trans. (Elgin, Illinois: Brethren Press, 1994).

In part Esquivel’s message declares:  From Guatemalan poet Julia Esquivel:

It is something within us that doesn’t let us sleep,
that doesn’t let us rest,
that won’t stop pounding
deep inside…
…because in this marathon of Hope,
there are always others to relieve us
who carry the strength
to reach the finish line
which lies beyond death.
Join us in this vigil
and you will know what it is to dream!
Then you will know how marvelous it is
to live threatened with Resurrection!
To dream awake
to keep watch asleep,
to live while dying,
and to know ourselves already resurrected.


CHRIST IS RISEN!
HE IS RISEN INDEED!


Prayer:
God of power and majesty, with the rising of the sun you have raised Jesus Christ and delivered him and us from death’s destruction. We praise you on this day for all your gifts of new life. Especially we thank you
for all victories over sin and evil in our lives...
for loyalty and love of friends and family...
for newborns and new Christians,
for those now at rest in your eternal home.
for the renewal of nature...
for the continuing witness of the church.
God of eternity, you are present with us because of Christ’s rising from the dead, and you persist in lifting us to new life in him. We bring to you our prayers for this world in need of resurrection. Especially we pray
for nations and peoples in strife...
for the poor and impoverished, at home and abroad...
for those we know in particular circumstances of distress...
for the diseased and the dying...
for all who follow the risen Christ...

“Hide-n-Seek"

“Hide-n-Seek”

We think we seek Jesus who hides from us.  We hide, Jesus seeks us. 

Luke 24:1-12

          But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.  They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body.  While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.  The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again."  Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.

          Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.  But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.  But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

During his day Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin was as powerful a man as there was on earth. A Russian Communist leader he took part in the Bolshevik Revolution 1917, was editor of the Soviet newspaper Pravda (which by the way means truth), and was a full member of the Politburo. His works on economics and political science are still read today. There is a story told about a journey he took from Moscow to Kiev in 1930 to address a huge assembly on the subject of atheism. Addressing the crowd he aimed his heavy artillery at Christianity hurling insult, argument, and proof against it.

An hour later he was finished. He looked out at what seemed to be the smoldering ashes of men's faith. "Are there any questions?" Bukharin demanded. Deafening silence filled the auditorium but then one man approached the platform and mounted the lectern standing near the communist leader. He surveyed the crowd first to the left then to the right. Finally he shouted the ancient greeting known well in the Russian Orthodox Church: "CHRIST IS RISEN!" 

En masse the crowd arose as one man and the response came crashing like the sound of thunder: "HE IS RISEN INDEED!”

I say to you this morning: CHRIST IS RISEN! 

HE IS RISEN INDEED!

            On this great and glorious day, we think of times with children.  While giving the Ark Pre-School devotions this week, I learned that the children knew a great deal about bunnies, rabbits and chocolate associated with Easter, not so much about resurrection and Jesus.  That is ok.  Resurrection and Jesus are hard concepts.  However it does get me thinking  about my past experiences of Easters with a baby.  

Playing with a baby wonderfully lifts your emotions, in itself it is like “resurrection.”  We smile when we look down into the eyes of a tiny one resting on our legs as we hold their hands and smile, cooing and coaxing a smile and giggle.  Soon we launch into peekaboo, hiding the baby’s face with her blanket for an instant and pulling the blanket away with a “I see you”.   Leave the blanket on her face too long may result in a frown and whimper, rather than a hoped for squeal of joy.  As the baby grows and becomes mobile peekaboo morphs into a little more active game of hide-n-seek.  Usually we begin the game by hiding in places a toddler can easily find us.  We may even call out their name so that they may crawl around the corner of the couch to find us crawling on our own all fours. As the toddler gets the game figured out, our hiding places become a little less obvious.  We may sit with a blanket covering us completely or go into an adjoining room.  Then the day arrives when hiding and seeking can be exchanged.  What fun!  To be the seeker able now to look for the one hidden.  The hope is of course that she does not hide so well that she falls asleep before you can find her!  

            You may think these are just child’s games, nothing more.  Oh, contrary. These child’s games are important for the emotional maturity and health of a child.  Peekaboo is a simple way of demonstrating and developing what developmental psychologists call object permanence.  A lack of object permanence may mean children reach for a thing at a place where it should not be.  When a child fully understands object permanence, they develop a mental image and hold it in mind, and manipulate it to solve problems that are not based solely on perception.  The child can reason about where the object may be that they cannot see.   Let me get this right, we have to be taught how to know something or someone may still be real even when the person or object is not in our presence, not in our line of sight or in our reach of touch or in the hearing of a sound or in the smell of an odor for that matter.  Now, you may have just made the mental leap to the end of the sermon.  But, slow down and walk with me through this for a moment or so.

            Let’s walk through this telling of the Resurrection by Luke.  Just to clarify, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John our four Gospel writers have remarkably different versions of the Resurrection.  Some think that this detracts from the validity of the witnesses. What I understand from my retired Chicago Police Detective buddy is that synchronized stories raise eyebrows.  If there are four people being questioned about a crime, (in the case of Jesus’ missing body, this was a crime by Roman law), the only time the stories synchronize are when the suspects get together before interrogation and get their stories “straight.”   They falsely believe that if each tell identical stories they will be believed and released.  A good detective knows each witness will have greatly divergent stories because of the witnesses’ history with the people or person in the situation, their emotional and mental state when they witnessed the situation, even the witness’s ability to physically appreciate what they experienced based on eyesight, hearing ability and proximity.  So,  when all witnesses give the same accounting of the facts, a good detective smells rotten fish.  

            Here is what would make Jack Webb smile.   All accounts agree upon:  the tomb was empty, the women found the tomb empty, someone told the women that Jesus was not in the tomb,  the women told the disciples, and Peter went to the tomb to see.  Luke gives us the simplest account of the Resurrection.  Luke does not add a lot to these simple facts.  With a Sherlock’s magnifying glass, lets look at what Luke adds to the story. 

On the first day of the week, “they” bring spices so Jesus wouldn’t smell bad as people come to pay respects.  We assume that the “they” are women, because men would not do this dirty work.  They could not come earlier due to Sabbath on the last day of the week.  They go expecting a dead Jesus, not an empty tomb. The stone at the entrance of the tomb had been rolled away from the opening.  They went into the tomb thinking someone was there already working on the body, but became perplexed when no one, not even the body of Jesus was in the tomb.  The witness of an empty tomb taken alone, is hardly persuasive of anything other than an empty tomb. 

Suddenly, as if walking in directly behind them, two men in dazzling clothes were with them.  Luke hopes you catch the repetition of “two men”  as they appear in the Transfiguration Luke 9:30 and the Ascension  in Acts 1:10. They say, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  I’ll come back to this.  “He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee…”  This forever altered the status of the women in the tomb.  The dazzling men name them as ones who were taught by Jesus, meaning disciples.  The women are officially and forever Jesus’ Disciples, capital “D”.   “That the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again."  They remember Jesus’ teaching.  The presumption is that in the remembering they believe, not what dazzling men have said, but what Jesus taught them.  Now, Luke gives three of the names of the women who are newly minted Disciples. These are the women who support Jesus’ ministry Luke 8:1-3, who watch Jesus’ trial and crucifixion Luke 23:49, witness Jesus burial Luke 23:55, and now go to the tomb and discover the resurrection.  

Luke, in his telling of the Resurrection, sets up a game of hide-n-seek.  The dazzling men say, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  As if to announce the beginning of a game.  I can almost hear them starting to count.  Treated as disciples in and of themselves and not told to go tell the disciples.  The game of hide-n-seek begins when Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women tell the Apostles what they have experienced and what they believe about what they experienced.  The reaction of the men, polite society will not let us translate how they reacted, is paraphrased as, “they did not believe them.”  The essence is that the womens’ testimony is “the babbling of a fevered and insane mind”.  I am sure your creativity can generate a much more accurate translation. 

The Apostle did not want to believe what they were hearing. After all, “if the dead don’t stay dead, what can you count on?” Anna Carter Florence.  We want to cling to what we know (death) instead of entering into what we do not know (resurrection).  We tend to follow the status quo rather than to risk the unknown (the devil we know…).   “Matters of faith are never finally proven, nor faith generated by an incontrovertible argument. Faith is communicated by witness,”  Fred Craddock, Interpretation: Luke.  The women did something that the Apostles did not do, they remembered Jesus’ words.   For the women, the resurrection is made real in both the remembering of and the proclamation of Jesus life.  One unlikely Apostle rose to the challenge of hide-n-seek.  Peter, the “denier”, jumps up to see for himself if Jesus is hiding.  

Let’s look at what comes next.  For Luke, it’s not so much about the empty tomb but about the appearances coming after.  The final verses of the Gospel have people finding Jesus only to have him hide again. There is the story of the Road to Emmaus with the retelling of the witness of the women.  Jesus shows up.  Reveals himself in relationship with Cleopas and his wife by breaking bread and sharing wine.  He hides again.  He reveals himself to Simon.  He hides again.  He reveals himself to the gathered disciples.  He hides himself in heaven at the Ascension.  Luke seems to be showing that Jesus is hiding to be sought and to be found in the relationships.  As disciples gather together, Jesus reveals himself.  Jesus is found.  

I am wondering if this is similar to children learning object permanence.  Is Jesus playing peekaboo so that we can trust his presence when we do not see him? Resurrection seems some kind of cosmic hide-n-seek game.  Jesus hides from us, and like the 1970’s evangelism slogan, I can shout, “I found It!” when he chooses to reveal himself?  Certainly it sounds like the dazzling ones are setting us up for a cosmic hide-n-seek game:  “Jesus was here.  Now, he’s not.  Ready, set, go seek Jesus.”  

Maybe it’s the other way.  “Stop hiding among the dead, go among the living, Jesus is looking for you.” Jesus seeks you.  Stop hiding in the tombs.  Stop hiding in dead things.  Get out in the sunshine.  Mingle with people.  Jesus is one to meet and be lived with every day. We think we seek Jesus who hides from us. We hide, Jesus seeks us.

I am convinced! I have faith that Christ was dead and he was buried. That I believe. But, this too I accept as true: He rose from the dead and will come again in glory.  This is Easter. And to stand here on this day in this place and proclaim this word. . . I cannot begin to tell you how this defines all that I am.  I believe in resurrection because somebody told me about it. Like the women told the Apostles, someone told me.  First, my mom and dad told me about Jesus.  They told me in the books they read to me before bed time.  They told me in the prayers of grace we prayed before every meal.  They told me in the devotions we shared in the evenings before bed.  They told me in the way they loved and served hundreds of people.  I believe in the resurrection, because I have experienced it.  I believe in the resurrection because I have seen the God of resurrection at work.   I have seen the risen Christ raise people from the death of despair to the joy of new life.

Julia Esquivel is a Guatemalan poet who lived in exile in Mexico during the horrendous genocides carried out among indigenous peoples in her homeland. Esquivel’s most noted poem is entitled “Threatened by Resurrection.” {Threatened By Resurrection; Prayers and Poems from an Exiled Guatemalan,” Ann Woehrle, trans. (Elgin, Illinois: Brethren Press, 1994). 

In part Esquivel’s message declares:  From Guatemalan poet Julia Esquivel:

It is something within us that doesn’t let us sleep,

that doesn’t let us rest,

that won’t stop pounding

deep inside…

…because in this marathon of Hope,

there are always others to relieve us

who carry the strength

to reach the finish line

which lies beyond death.

Join us in this vigil

and you will know what it is to dream!

Then you will know how marvelous it is

to live threatened with Resurrection!

To dream awake

to keep watch asleep,

to live while dying,

and to know ourselves already resurrected.

CHRIST IS RISEN! 

HE IS RISEN INDEED!

Cultivating Honor & Letting Go of Fear of Betray

Cultivating Honor & Letting Go of Fear of Betrayal

Luke 19:28-40

            Today, I am talking about cultivating honor and letting go of the fear of betrayal.  This is Palm/Passion Sunday.  Christians tend to think of this day just as Palm Sunday and jump right into the splendor of Easter the next week.  Yet, we cannot get to the resurrection without pressing into the betrayal resulting in Jesus being crucified.  Today, we see Jesus being honored by his disciples.  This week we will see Jesus betrayed by his disciples.  So, today we call it Palm/Passion Sunday.  In our lives, we want to cultivate honor. We want to let go of the betrayals that we commit and the betrayals in which we are the victim.  Here is a truth you will experience written by Samuel Chand, “you’ll grow only to the threshold of your pain.” (Chand, Samuel. Leadership Pain(p. 241). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.)

            I cannot imagine the enormity of pain Jesus carried as he approached Jerusalem.  Jesus carries the great burdens of the people he loves.  He carries the resistance and hate from the people that despise him.  These detractors, in Luke, are not so much the religious leaders they are more those who bring the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome.  Roman peace is built upon their ability to subjugate populations through violence, force and coercion.   It is the peace that comes in quiet of battle field after all of the enemies have been slaughtered.  It is a peace that comes because enemies cower under the strong hand of leader.  

            Jerusalem has been conquered by the peace of Rome. Jerusalem has submitted to the peace bought through violence.  Before Jesus entered Jerusalem, another king had come to town.  This was King Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great. King Herod road into town with a Roman military guard clearing the way.  With all of the flash of metal and might one could muster, Herod came into town on a war horse.  He may have even hoped for resistance to his arrival for the Passover so that he could crush the resistance and demonstrate the might of Rome.  I cannot imagine Jesus’ pain as he watches.  

            The way of Rome shamed anyone who did not agree with their ways of leadership.  They shamed people so that they kept their heads down in submission.   This is why Rome devised crucifixion.   Only slaves and rebels were subject to execution by crucifixion.  They made it so awful and shameful that no one would risk resisting Rome and ending up on the cross.   “Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” (Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, p. 39.)  Shame is all about fear.  If we are convinced that we cannot communicate our hopes, our dreams, where we are from, where we want to go, what we believe, how much we are struggling, then shame shackles our lives.  We feel like Wayne and Garth, yelling, “We’re not worthy!  We’re not worthy!”  This only works in the movie, Wayne’s World, because shame is seeded deep into our humanity.  

            Brené Brown says that the most assured way of gaining resilience against shame is to expose it.  Jesus does just that.  Jesus exposes shame by embracing shame.  Think with me about Judo.  If Judo means “gentle way”, using an opponent’s force to combat against himself, Jesus does a kind of Judo on Rome.  Jesus counters the entrance of Herod and the Pax Romona with an entrance of a spiritual king and the peace of heaven.  Jesus embraces a humble, maybe even a shameful, entrance, his feet perhaps dragging on the ground as his colt carries him up the hill into the city.  Think with me a little deeper about the Jesus entrance. 

            Curiously, the story told from the Gospel of Luke is the story of Palm Sunday without the palms.  You will notice that in Luke there is not even a cut branch laid on the road before Jesus.  There are not stalks of greenery waving in the air.  Instead, they lay their cloaks on the ground.  Laying your cloak on the ground before a person, is a sign of gratitude and gives deep respect and honor.  In Luke, the disciples don’t use the word, “Hosanna.”  Palms and Hosanna are national symbols for Israel.  They symbolize the monarch coming victoriously into a city following a great battle.  Luke leaves these national symbols of triumphalism out intentionally. The “King” to which Luke draws our attention is a call for peace, not a call for rebellion.  According to Fred Craddock, “In Luke especially, the King is associated with peace. Think back to Jesus’ birth. Jesus is worshiped as King, but deeply connected with the heavenly host promise “Peace on earth.””

            “Palm Sunday” happens because the disciples are faithful. The disciples are heavily involved in the events of the day.  They carry out Jesus’ orders, but they also help him - literally - carry out the plan.   They secure the colt on Jesus’ behalf.  No one has ridden the colt. It’s a wild horse - uncastrated, never ridden.  They place Jesus on the colt.  They cheer him when he enters. They praise him “for all the great things they have seen.” They cheer “Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens.”  Not a political rally cry by far.  

As opposed to John, where crowds were there because of Lazarus, and Matthew’s crowd is there because it is Passover, in Luke, the crowd is specifically named disciples.  “His disciples did not fully understand his messiahship, to be sure, but neither are they persons who sing praise and scream death in the same week. The portrait of such a fickle crowd must come from some account other than Luke’s.” (Fred Craddock, Interpretation: Luke,  p. 227).  They might not completely get it, but they know they have seen something special. They cheer for this King - not because he is going to come and conquer - but because he will usher in peace. Some wish they would just be quiet, but in the end, they cannot be silenced.  

            The Pharisees object.  They want the crowd to be silent.  Their motivation is not known, but it fits with their previous action (in Luke 13:31) that they wish Jesus to preserve his own life.  They may fear reprisal.  Not from Jewish leadership, but Roman officers.   They fear wrath will come down, possibly even unsettling their position.   “That stones would shout is, of course, a figure of speech, but the expression does remind us that in biblical understanding, the creation is involved in events that we tend to think affect humans alone” (Craddock, p. 228)

            As the story continues beyond what was read, Jesus enters Jerusalem with peace as his purpose.  “As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it…”.  Jesus laments for the lack of peace, “‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes…”  Jesus declares a bold counter call to Pax Romana.  

Jesus then goes to the Temple and the infamous clearing of the Temple takes place.  “…he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, ‘It is written,

“My house shall be a house of prayer”;

   but you have made it a den of robbers.’

In Luke,  entering Jerusalem, weeping for Jerusalem and clearing the Temple all happens in one day.  It all points to a spiritual revelation rather than a political revolution.  

“If you lead long enough, you’ll inevitably endure the deep wounds of betrayal,” observes Samuel Chand.  “It’s a paradox of leadership: our efforts to help people experience the love and power of Christ create envy in the hearts of some who are watching (and receiving our love). Most people are grateful, but a few—and it only takes a few—undermine us with open opposition, lies, and gossip.”  For Jesus, the events of this day, set-up the betrayals that are coming.  

In Leading with a Limp, Dan Allender defined this wound and described how it further isolates the victim:

Betrayal is a deep psychic wound that hardens the heart against grief and deadens its hunger for intimacy. Grief is meant to open our hearts and eventually move us to care for others. But what if we feel profound shame with our grief? Shame distances us from people and the comfort they could offer us in our grief; shame also causes a person to hate the innate desire to be connected to others.

“Allender observes that betrayal occurs primarily in two forms: abandonment or abuse. When those we trust turn their backs on us, refuse to support us in a time of need, and withhold love when we need it most, the impact is like a knife in the heart. Undoubtedly, that’s how Jesus felt when all his closest followers (except John and the women) left him as he suffered torture and death on the cross. The other form of betrayal, abuse, is an active, brutal, direct wound.”  Like Jesus torture at the hands of the soldiers.  In our everyday life, “the hurt isn’t caused by the absence of a kind smile when we need one; it’s the presence of a scowling, bitter face when we need support.”  (Chand, Samuel. Leadership Pain (pp. 39-40). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.)

            So what do we have here, we have Jesus standing Jerusalem on its head by giving it spirit driven leadership, bringing the peace of God in juxtaposition to Herod who brings the Peace of Rome by shaming the people who serve him.  All of which, trigger the betrayals that come in four short days.  I believe that you cannot cultivate honor without recognizing and responding to shame.  Jesus recognized and responded to shame.  If Samuel Chand is right, “you’ll grow only to the threshold of your pain,” (Chand, Samuel. Leadership Pain (p. 241), Jesus increased his threshold of pain, by taking on the shame of a city.  

Stacey Edwards a former praise team member who moved to Maryland last fall, sent Candy and I a book to read, Hope Healsby Jay and Katherine Wolfe.  It is a book of hope exposing the spiritual struggles of two people who worked against shame and worked against the feeling of being betrayed by God.  In the book, “With her six-month-old sleeping in the next room, Katherine Wolfe screamed for her husband, Jay, and crumpled to the ground. Her modeling career was just taking off in Malibu, California, and Jay was ready to take his final law school exams in the a few hours.  But those plans changed in an instant.  On April 21, 2008, Katherine suffered a massive brain stem stroke.  She was rushed into micro-brain surgery, where the neurosurgeon told Jay, “I need you to know there’s a good chance she will not survive.”  As the sun rose the next morning, Katherine had survived the removal of part of her brain. And that’s when the hard part began.”

Katherine and Jay know something about Samuel Chand’s comment that,  “you’ll grow only to the threshold of your pain.” (Chand, Samuel. Leadership Pain, p. 241). Seven years deep into her recovery, Katherine writes, “May be it takes life being undeniably terrible before we can truly recognize its undeniable splendor.  Suffering powerfully informs who I am now.  While awful and painful, afflictions have led to a heartbreaking but beautiful deepening in me.  I have learned to embrace the suffering.  I have learned to not push back, but to lean in hard when it hurts the most and press on. Pain has been an instructor, teaching me deeper truths about myself and God and bringing me closer to Christ in a way I never was before this happened.” (Wolfe, Hope Heals, p. 241)

Folks go on this day of Palms and Passion leaning in hard when it hurts the most.  Press on to the deeper truths when things are undeniably terrible that you my participate in undeniable splendor.  For this is the Palm and Passion of Jesus Christ. 

Cultivating Lavish Love & Letting Go of Objectifying the Poor

Cultivating Lavish Love & Letting Go of Objectifying the Poor

John 12:1-8

          Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.  There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.  Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.  But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?"  (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)  Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.  You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."

“It was on the Wednesday that they called him a waster. The place smelled like the perfume department of a mall. It was as if somebody had bumped their elbow against a bottle and sent it crashing to the floor, setting off the most expensive stink bomb on earth. But it happened in a house, not a shop.

“And the woman who broke the bottle was no casual afternoon shopper. She was the penniless poorest of the poor, giving away the only precious thing she had. And he sat still while she poured the liquid all over his head… as unnecessary as aftershave on a full crop of hair and a bearded chin. And those who smelled it, and those who saw it, and those who remembered that he was against extravagance, called him a waster.

“They forgot that he was also the poorest of the poor. And they who had much and who had given him nothing, objected to a pauper giving him everything. Jealousy was in the air when a poor woman’s generosity became an embarrassment to their tight-fistedness… That was on the Wednesday, when they called him a waster.”

-Iona Community, Scotland

“Six Days before the Passover,” Jesus came to Bethany. “Six Days before the Passover,” Jesus came to the house of his best friends, Lazarus, Mary and Martha.  “Six Days before the Passover,” Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the dead.  “Six Days before the Passover,” was the eve of the day Jesus would ride into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey.  “Six Days before the Passover,” when Pilot would declare Jesus “King of the Jews” and hand him over to be crucified.  Just “Six Days before the Passover…”  

There was Martha.  Martha served.  Martha is often overlooked.  Someone had to bring the food to the table.  Someone had to bring the bread to the table.  Someone had to bring the wine to the table.  Martha severed.  Jesus did not overlook Martha. Jesus said of her, 12:26 - “Whoever serves me must follow me. Wherever I am, there my servant will also be. My Father will honor whoever serves me.”  

There was Lazarus.  There he was sitting at the table with Jesus.  Just days before dead as stone in a tomb.  There he was the miracle of miracles.  He was sitting.  He was eating.  He was drinking.  He was alive because of Jesus.  And now, he could spend time with his friend with his sisters, Mary and Martha, serving. 

There was Mary.  Like her sister she served.  She served Jesus.  She serves Jesus with a very expensive perfume.  Maybe Martha and Lazarus knew what Mary planned.  Maybe Martha and Lazarus were as in the dark as the rest of the guest. Either way, to those outside the family opening the bottle seemed wasteful and extravagant.  

Regardless of any anticipation or of any advanced planning, this foot-washing, this anointing, scandalized the guests.  Jewish women were not allowed to “let their hair down” in public.  This sensual act of touching and washing feet would be reserved only for a wife’s husband. It is no more appropriate today for a woman to wash a guest’s feet at the dinner table then it was in this moment in a home in Bethany.  Yet, Mary foreshadows Jesus washing of the disciples’ feet in five days.  Mary demonstrates servitude and love for Jesus just as Jesus demonstrated servitude and love for his disciples.  Mary seems to be the only one in the room that had listened to Jesus predictions about his death.  Mary seems to be the only one to understand when Jesus goes into Jerusalem on the next day, he will only come out of Jerusalem carrying the cross for his execution.  Mary knows Jesus will die.  When Jesus hangs on the cross, when Jesus breaths his last breath, he will smell the nard from this anointing.  Jesus will have the perfume of Mary’s love fill his lungs.  Jesus will know he is not alone in his pain.  And as his body is removed from the cross to prepare to be laid in the tomb, the first anointing of oil shall already have been done. What did it mean for Mary to love and worship a King that was to be crucified?  What does it mean for you and me to love and worship a crucified King?

There was Judas.  Judas put words to the thoughts that we in everyone’s mind. Understandably, Judas was concerned and even outraged at the waste of resources.  The need is so great.  The poor are so hungry.  Why waste the money?  The Gospel clarifies that Judas had little regard for the poor.  The poor were a thing to fix like a broken roof or window or a broken door on a house.  “Fix’em and be done with them, on to the next thing.”  To have the poor among you in such abundance is shameful. Judas will always have the poor among him because he does not share what he has, but seeks only for himself (see verse 6).  Judas is the “anti-Mary”.  He is consumed with self-interest, his own motivations and doubt.  Mary, on the other hand, gives radical service, love and devotion.  

There was Jesus.  Jesus responds like we have learned to anticipate Jesus responding. Jesus quotes scripture.  Deuteronomy 15:10-11, “No, give generously to needy persons. Don't resent giving to them because it is this very thing that will lead to the LORD your God's blessing you in all you do and work at.11Poor persons will never disappear from the earth. That's why I'm giving you this command: you must open your hand generously to your fellow Israelites, to the needy among you, and to the poor who live with you in your land.”

There is us.  Martha, Lazarus, Mary, and Judas teach us about who we are.  They teach us about the how and the why we serve.  They teach us about the quality of our faith. They teach us about the degree of extravagance of our love.  How do you serve? Why do you serve? Do you cultivate lavish love like Martha and like Mary?  Do you serve motivated by devotion to Jesus?  Are our actions of outreach and service rooted in faith?  Is our faith exemplified in extravagant sacrifice and service?  We may not be able to “fix poverty” but that should never prevent us from service to others.

This past year we had an interesting opportunity in extravagant love.  A couple came to our attention that was living in a storage rental space with a two year old daughter and nine months pregnant with a second daughter.   Now, the end of the story of our time with them did not turn out like we wanted.  Yes, the baby was born healthy.  Yes, the mom found a job.  However, the dad left.  The kids and mom returned to Alabama.  If the test of the help is determined by the actions of the recipient, then we have taken our eye off of the ball.  We have missed the mission.  Our mission is our worship and devotion of Jesus.  Did we love Jesus?  Did we worship Jesus?  If our actions on behalf Jesus were the last thing that Jesus experienced before he went to the cross, would what we did help to sustain him through his agony?  

This past week, eleven of us from the congregation represented this church in Frakas, Kentucky, at Henderson Settlement.  Henderson Settlement’s mission is to “Provid opportunities for improving lives through Christ-Centered Service.”  The lives that get improved are both residents of the valley and out of towners who travel into the settlement.  I hesitate to say that the out of towners who travel to Frakas are the mission volunteers and the residence are the one’s acted upon by the volunteers.    It’s each meeting the needs of the other for the glory of God.  As a volunteer from outside the valley, we were given tasks to perform.  Each day we spent time doing our chore between moments of ministry.   The men in our group were given the task of building two shelving unites for the Opportunity Store on site.   The women of our group were given the assignment of providing a beauty parlor for residence of the valley.  They gave both women and men haircuts, hand treatments and manicures.  You may think what a waste.  Why spend so much money and time to travel for such things.  Better to give the money to the poor and let them buy their own shelves and haircuts.  We go because just handing out greenbacks does not build relationships between people.  It’s the talking with shoppers in the Opportunity Store.  It’s sitting with a person getting a hand treatment.  Let me give you just a glimpse of the Jesus we saw. 

I would like you to meet June Cobb.  Her sister died of cancer.  Through tear filled eyes she gave God glory for a room renovation in her home so that her sister had a pretty place to die.  An unnamed man gave God glory for help given to his neighbors.  There are those that came for treatments in the parlor and just stayed.  It was the place they wanted to be.  A gal came into the parlor, her husband had cancer and they moved back home.  They started to build a new home and the cancer once in remission has resurge. She came to be seen and to see friends from mission trips in years before.  Jesus showing up could be something as simple as an old scripture verse written on a piece of paper found in a window sill while cleaning.  Jerry hated the valley and could not wait to leave for college to break the cycle of life.  Yet, he returned to serve God’s people in the very place from which he ran away.  

Novella Lawson and her husband came into the parlor. They are a quiet unassuming grandma and grandpa.   The husband hung around a little and the left to sit on the outside steps to soak up the spring sunshine.  With her husband out of the room, Novella came to Candy with a picture of her granddaughter, Bethany, in hand.  The couple had been married over 50 years.  They had one son who was married with a 16 year old daughter and 19 year old son.  The grandparents lived just up the hill from the family.  Candy started Novella’s hand treatment.  And Novella laid her burden down.  Novella told the story of the last day of Bethany’s life.  Novella had been worried about Bethany who  had stopped eating and was so very depressed because her boyfriend had broken up with her and continued to bully and insult her.  This young woman had suddenly quit her modeling career in Knoxville..  She had been a singer at church and played the piano.  When Bethany came to the house, Novella had made her favorite cake. But she would not eat.   As she left her home, grandma called out “I love you baby.”  Bethany threw a kiss good-by and said, “Papaw is my best friend.” Bethany went home on that August day, using her mother’s gun, ended her life.  Novella, had nowhere to lay the burden of her granddaughter’s suicide down. Novella had to be the strong one for her husband, son and grandson.  Today, she could lay the burden down and let someone care for her.    

How do you serve? Do you cultivate lavish love like Martha and like Mary?  Do you serve motivated by devotion to Jesus?  Are our actions of outreach and service rooted in faith?  Is our faith exemplified in extravagant sacrifice and service?