The Star Covenant

2^nd Sunday in Lent

February 25, 2018

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-17; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38

            This Lenten season we are examining some of the covenants that God made in the Old Testament. Last week we talked about God’s covenant with Noah, after the flood. God promised all creation that he would never again flood the earth to the point of utter destruction and he hung his rainbow in the sky to remind him. Today we read about God’s covenant with Abram. This is actually the third time God makes a covenant with Abram. God had already promised Abram and Sarai that they would have lots of children in Genesis 12. The most notable thing from that covenant is that that’s where God tells them they will be blessed in order to be a blessing to others. You are blessed to be a blessing. Abram is 75 years old at this point in time and he left his home to follow God to a land that God would show him later. Talk about faith! He didn’t know where he was going when he started.

After some adventures, by Genesis 15, Abram is starting to get worried about this promise. He’s now about 85 years old and there are still no children, no heirs. A servant in Abram’s household is going to have to inherit his estate. God says, “No. Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then God tells Abram, “So shall your offspring be.[1] You will have descendants as numerous as the stars.” And Abram believes God and it is credited to him as righteousness.[2] 

However, things get a little hinky in Genesis 16. Abram and Sarai are tired of waiting, not having fun anymore trying to get pregnant, and they decide to take matters into their own hands. Since IVF isn’t an option, they decide Abram should sleep with Hagar, Sarai’s maid. Abram does, Hagar gets pregnant, Sarai gets jealous and sends Hagar away. God finds her in the desert and sends her back. Hagar has a son named, Ishmael. Abram is now 86 years old.

Fast-forward thirteen more years and Abram is now 99 years old in today’s passage, this final time that God makes the same covenant with him: “I will make you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful. Kings will come from you. And your name will no longer be Abram but Abraham, which means “father of many.” Sarai’s name will change, too, she will be called Sarah, and I will bless her and give you a son by her.” Now, our lectionary stops there, but in the very next verse, Abraham laughs. “Really, God. A 100 year old man is going to have a son. A 90 year old woman is going to have a baby. Are you sure you don’t want to just use Ishmael instead?” God says, “I will bless Ishmael, too. But your wife, Sarah, will bear you a son whom you will name Isaac.” Isaac means “he laughs.” Remember, Sarah laughs, too, when she’s told she’s going to have a baby at her age. Yet God is serious and Abraham fulfills his part of the covenant. Unlike the covenant with Noah, which required nothing of Noah or any other living creature, the covenant with Abraham required at least three things of Abraham. It required Abraham to have faith, to have patience, and to be committed.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”[3] It “is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”[4] That’s the definition from the bible, what the bible says faith is. “To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see.”[5] If you can see it, then it’s not faith. If there is physical, tangible proof, then it’s not faith. Abraham and Sarah have been childless their entire lives and they have lived long lives. Even the first time God makes the covenant, when they’re 75 and 65 years old, respectively, there’s no proof that Sarah can get pregnant. Yet God promises and Abraham believes him, when he’s 75 years old, when he’s 86 years old, when he’s 99 years old. There’s no proof, there’s no reason to believe, other than that it is God who says it. In Romans, we read:

“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”[6]

Do you believe that God has the power to do what God has promised? Regardless of whether you’ve seen proof of it? I know seeing the proof and seeing God follow through on his promises helps strengthen our faith. But what about when there’s been no proof? Do you still believe? Do you still stand on the promises? It can be even trickier when it’s a specific promise, like that Abraham would have a son by Sarah. Not just a child, and not just by any woman, but a son with Sarah. I didn’t have a boyfriend in high school, didn’t even date much in high school, but I really wanted to go to my senior prom with a date. About March, two months before prom, I felt God promise me that someone would ask me to prom and I believed him and I quit worrying about it. No evidence, no trend of guys lining up at my door, but wouldn’t you know, about a month later, Lee called me. We were friends, in lots of classes together, but he had never called me before. He asked me to prom. He had no clue he was an answer to prayer, and I never even told him that until ten years later when we re-met. Faith is unwavering confidence in God. It is hope in God, and not in yourself. It’s not something you can make happen. If it’s something you can make happen, then you don’t need God.

Going back to Paul’s description of Abraham’s faithfulness, “being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our salvation.”[7] We cannot save ourselves, as much as we might try. We cannot overcome death by ourselves, no matter what new medicine, technology, or life-support is developed. Only Jesus saves. Only because of Jesus can we face death unafraid, with the faith that it is not the end, but that eternal life is waiting for us. That’s all on faith. Not because of any evidence. Abraham and Sarah didn’t have proof; they had faith.

However, in spite of their faith, they still tried to make the baby happen on their own. It’s easy to lose patience with God’s timing. His timing is not ours. Through the prophet Isaiah, God says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”[8] God does not do things on our schedule. I feel like I should say that again. God does not do things on our schedule. There are things we’d like done by a certain time, if not done yesterday! We are impatient people. One of the biggest things you notice when you drive north is how much faster people drive in the north. And I’ve noticed here how the school buses wait for cars to pass them before putting out their stop sign and flashing red lights for a bus stop. They don’t do that elsewhere. The cars have to wait. But here, school buses pull over to the shoulder of the road for all the cars to pass and then the bus pulls out onto the road. Have y’all noticed that? Did you know that’s not normal compared to the rest of the country? Yet patience is one of the fruits of the Spirit, just like faithfulness. Abraham and Sarah believe God’s promise, but they try to help it along. And what happens? A big mess. The best analogy I’ve ever heard for God’s timing is that you can’t rush a sunset. It takes time for the sun to go down from the sky. And there is nothing you can do to make that sun go down quicker. Yet isn’t it gorgeous to watch the sunset? When it’s over, you feel sad and wish it would have lasted longer. You can’t rush a sunset. You can’t rush God. As Miracle Max says in The Princess Bride, “You rush a miracle worker, you get rotten miracles.” God will not be rushed, and his timing is not ours. I’m sure Abraham and Sarah would have preferred to have a baby when they were much younger, or at least in their 60’s, the first time God gave the promise. But no. Sarah was 90 years old. Abraham was 100. It was not on their timing. It was God’s. You have to wait for God to fulfill his promises.

Finally, the third thing required of Abraham for this covenant was commitment. You may have noticed that we skipped over seven verses in the middle of the Genesis reading. I guess the lectionary creators thought talking about circumcision would offend our delicate sensibilities. However, part of what Abraham had to do for his part of this covenant was to undergo circumcision, both him and every male in his household. This is a serious commitment. Yet this is the covenant God asks of Abraham and Abraham does it. Abraham was required to change for this covenant. His name changed and his body changed. Sarah’s name changed, too. They were committed to this covenant to the point that they were willing to change. Jesus asks the same thing of us: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.”[9] Abraham and Sarah’s lives changed drastically because of their faith. They left their family and their ancestral home. God said, “Leave your home and go to a land that I will show you.” They went on a long journey. They were probably shamed for not having any children. But they decided that following God was worth the risks, worth the changes, worth giving up comforts. There were things that were more important than life staying the same as always, and that was following God.

This is one of Jesus’ hard teachings. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. Lose your life for my sake. Give up your life for my sake. What does this look like? It means holding all your things loosely, remembering that it was God who gave them to you in the first place. It means being willing to change, whether to move, or serve God in a new way, or worship in a new way. Our God is one of eternal faithfulness and changelessness, and yet it is also our God who says he’s about to do a new thing. Do you know what God says before he says he’s about to do a new thing? This is from Isaiah 43. In the first part of the chapter, God says, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior… I love you… Do not be afraid, for I am with you.” Then, in the second half of Isaiah 43, God says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

This is why I came back from Nicaragua, where I served before seminary. It wasn’t because I developed rheumatoid arthritis. It was because in the midst of listening to God during the early onset, God said, “I am about to do a new thing.” And that new thing was sending me to seminary, to become a pastor. Jesus says, “Those who lose their life for me will save it.” Well, I gave up my entire life to go serve God in Nicaragua. It was very clear God called me there. Sold my car, left my job and my students in North Carolina, gave up my financial independence to live off raised support, I lost my life only to find it again in Nicaragua, where my mom said I was the happiest she’d ever seen me in my life. And then, God calling again, “I’m about to do a new thing,” in the midst of disease. Lost my life in Nicaragua only to find it again in the States. Lee and I re-met within two months of my returning to North Carolina. Unlike in high school, we started dating right away this time around. Lost my life as a schoolteacher to find it again as a pastor, who is also a kind of teacher. I found you all. God led us here and I’m so grateful. Being fully committed to God means you’re willing to change if and when God calls you to that. You face your fear of the unknown, because God’s about to do a new thing, and you don’t want to miss that.

Abraham didn’t want to miss it, even if he had some doubts about how a 90 year old lady was going to get pregnant, even if God’s timing was not his timing, even if it meant change. Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Thank God he will credit righteousness to us, too, who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, Jesus who was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our salvation. Have faith. Be patient, with God, with yourself, and with others. Stay committed to the mission, which is making disciples of Jesus Christ. There are lots of ways to do it, we’ve got to pay attention to how God is calling us to do it, in this time, in this place. That’s the covenant, for we also are heirs and children of Abraham. Thanks be to God.

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[1] Genesis 15:5

[2] Genesis 15:6

[3] Hebrews 11:1, NKJV

[4] Ibid., NIV

[5] Ibid., GNT

[6] Romans 4:18-21

[7] Romans 4:21-25

[8] Isaiah 55:8-9

[9] Mark 8:34-35

The Rainbow Covenant

1^st Sunday in Lent

February 18, 2018

Genesis 9:8-17; Mark 1:9-15

            This Lenten season the Old Testament lesson for each Sunday is about a covenant between God and his people. Today we read about the covenant with Noah. Next week will be with Abraham, then we’ll spend two weeks with Moses, and end with a promise from Jeremiah of a new covenant, foreshadowing the coming of Jesus. This week is probably the most familiar story as it’s one that we tell our kids and we use the ark and rainbow to decorate nurseries and Sunday school rooms. The rainbow on the altar is from a kit I found leftover downstairs among our Sunday school supplies. 

And yet, if you think about it, it’s surprising that we’ve turned it into a children’s story because the flood was about death and destruction. Everyone died, except the eight people and the pairs of animals on the ark. And they died because they were evil and corrupt and violent. It says that “the Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.”[1] The first two chapters of Genesis are about creation, then chapter 3 records the fall when Adam and Eve ate the fruit God told them not to eat. Things got worse from there and, while we’re not told details about their sins, by chapter 6, it says, “Every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” It probably would have made for a really good reality TV show. Creation had fallen into such disharmony that God basically decided to start over and use a flood to call us back into the harmony that God intended for us.[2]

            However, it didn’t completely work. After God tells Noah it’s safe for them to come off the ark, the very next thing God says is, “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.”[3] In Psalm 51, the psalm for Ash Wednesday, it says, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” This is what is known as total depravity and it’s described elsewhere in Scripture, too. The apostle Paul writes, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”[4] And so, since humanity isn’t going to change, God decided to change. God made a covenant and set the rainbow as a sign of that covenant. Yet he didn’t just set a rainbow like we might put on a sticker; he hung it, like a banner. Symbolically, “to hang up one's bow is to retire from battle. That bow in the clouds is the sign of God's promise that whatever else God does to seek our restoration, destruction is off the table.”[5] God’s not going to try that again, and to remind himself, he hangs up his bow in the clouds.

            This rainbow covenant is the first covenant of many in the bible. Yet there are two unique things about this particular covenant. First, even though God tells it to Noah, God makes it with every living creature. Noah is simply a representative of all of the creatures, both human and animal. And it’s not only a covenant with all the living creatures that came off the ark, it’s “a covenant for all generations to come,” too.[6] This is a covenant that’s not going to end. Just because the terms of the covenant are met today doesn’t mean the covenant is over. This covenant has no end date. Second, God requires things of himself, but not of us. The terms of this covenant are about what God’s going to do. There are no stipulations for us living creatures about what we have to do. God sets limits on himself and sacrifices some of his divine freedom in order to save us. Sounds a bit like a precursor to Jesus on the cross, doesn’t it? Since humanity so obviously isn’t going to end the violence, God covenants to do so.[7]

            Even the news again this past week shows how bent we seem on returning to the chaos and nothingness out of which we came. Did you know the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida was the seventh school shooting since January 1^st? Seven, in seven weeks. Eighteen total incidents involving guns on school grounds. Since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School five years ago, there have been 239 school shootings, totaling 438 people shot and 138 killed. A friend of mine commented that “If people are waiting for gun violence to hit close to home with someone they know or even their own child before speaking out or voting against politicians on the NRA payroll, the odds are in their favor.”[8] As in, it’s increasingly likely. Beloved, this is a problem. And God’s not going to send a flood to wipe away all the evil. He’s been there, done that, and it didn’t work. Instead, God made a covenant with all living creatures for all generations. Instead of expecting humanity to change, God decided to change.

            The shooting at Sandy Hook happened on a Friday and on Saturday I completely rewrote my sermon for Sunday. I preached from the minor prophet Zephaniah, who wrote from exile to a people who are also in exile.[9] My first point drew from Zephaniah reminding the people that “the Lord your God is in your midst.” Even in exile, even in grief, even in pain and mourning and chaos, even in Lent, God is with us. This church knows about Lent. We’ve been in Lent and we are slowly coming out of it, emerging like a butterfly out of a cocoon. Bishop Ough, the President of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, sent out a Lenten letter last week with the observation that our entire denomination is in a season of Lent as we wait and pray and discern how our denomination is going to move forward.[10] Even in the wilderness, God is with us. God knows about the wilderness. Jesus spent forty days and forty nights there. My second point was that God is in an active relationship with us. That’s why God keeps doing all these covenants! God wants to be in relationship with us, and not the kind where your only communication is exchanging Christmas cards. God wants a healthy, active relationship with open communication and time spent together and mutual love and respect and a commitment to the relationship even when you get mad at each other. It’s a covenant relationship. You’re in it for the long haul. Finally, through Zephaniah God promises those in exile that he will gather you and bring you home. You are not abandoned. You are not forgotten. You will not be forgotten. No matter where you go. Psalm 139 says that even if I go down to Sheol, the depths of the earth, or the far side of the sea, or anywhere else I go, God is always with me. Remember, it’s a covenant relationship, and God is not going to break his word. God is faithful even when we are not.

            And you may be wondering, wait, am I in a covenant with God? And the answer is yes. When you were baptized, a covenant was made. Unlike the flood waters of destruction, the waters of baptism are ones that save. They mark you as belonging to God. This covenant says we belong to God. God claims us as part of his family, just as God claimed Jesus at his baptism. We renew this covenant whenever someone is baptized, confirmed, or joins the church, and we renew it every January as well. That was the Sunday when I had the stones in a bowl of water up front. Just as God put the rainbow as a reminder for him of the covenant, we often need reminding as well. When my kids asked on Ash Wednesday why we all had crosses on our foreheads, I told them it was to remind us that we belong to Jesus. And being 3 and 5, they again asked why. And I said it’s because sometimes we forget. Sometimes we forget that we belong to Jesus. Sometimes we forget that God is always with us. Sometimes we forget that we are not God and that we need God.

Lent is a good time to remember this because this season “gives us a means to seek restoration by embracing our sin and mortality. Will we repent, accept our finitude, and stop grasping for control, or will we continue the violence?”[11] Or turn a blind eye to the violence? Lent is a time to repent of our sin, even of our favorite sins. It’s a time to accept that we are not God, we are not sovereign over our lives. Lent is a reminder that none of us are perfect, none of us have it all together. We don’t deserve anything; all that we have, all our gifts and blessings, are undeserved grace. We are completely dependent on God’s love and mercy and grace. We are dependent on God seeking us out; we can’t find God on our own. We are dependent on God to not utterly destroy us, but to have mercy on us instead. The next verse that Paul wrote after “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” says, “and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Thank God for Jesus. Thank God for the cross. Thank God for Good Friday, that even on the darkest day, God is working to make all things right. And he does it not through the violence of destruction but through the “violence of love.” That phrase comes from Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador who was martyred for speaking out against his government. He said, “The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword,[the violence of the gun], the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood, the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work.”[12] Let us be a part of that movement. Let us be part of that work of God, the work of making things right, bringing things back into harmony, the work of restoration. Thanks be to God.

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[1] Genesis 6:6

[2] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1222

[3] Genesis 8:21, emphasis mine

[4] Romans 3:23

[5] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1222

[6] Genesis 9:12

[7] Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2, p. 30

[8] Donna Banks, Facebook comment, February 16, 2018

[9] https://pastoraheather.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-end-of-world-as-we-know-it-exile.html

[10] http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/2018-lenten-message-from-the-council-of-bishops

[11] Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2, p. 30

[12] Oscar Romero, November 27, 1977

Bread and Roses

Ash Wednesday

February 14, 2018

After the Industrial Revolution of the 19^th century, many industries became more mechanized and required more unskilled workers. Working conditions in mills and factories were horrible, as this was before we had the 40 hour workweek and minimum wage. These conditions led to the beginning of workers’ unions, who often organized strikes in order to force the mill owners to change and improve the conditions. One of the more famous strikes was called the Bread and Roses’ strike at a textile mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912. Bread and roses: food is one of the basic necessities of life, and yet so is beauty. After all, we know that Jesus says, “You cannot live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”[1] Jesus tells that to the devil after he’s been fasting in the wilderness for forty days and he’s starving. Yet Jesus is actually quoting the Old Testament, the book of Deuteronomy, where God’s people are told, “Remember how God led you in the wilderness for forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, … God fed you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”[2] Bread and roses. Love and ashes. It took a weird timing of the calendar to combine Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday, and yet the two holy days go together really well.

Consider all the times hearts and love occur in the Ash Wednesdays readings. In Joel, we read, “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart… rend your heart and not your clothing. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” We’re going to be talking about covenants this Lent and even when we break our end of the covenant, God does not break his end. God’s love never ends. It’s not conditional. Instead, when we get to our prayer of confession from Psalm 51, we’ll pray, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me… The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Lent is about examining your own heart and reorienting yourself back to God. That’s what ‘repent’ means, to turn back.

            While Valentine’s Day has become about candy and cards, the saint it’s named for was not. St. Valentine was a priest in third century Rome. The Roman Emperor, Claudius II, decided he needed a bigger army and so he banned people from getting married. He thought single men made better soldiers and, therefore, no one could get married. Well, Valentine, as a priest, continued to secretly marry couples. He was eventually found out and taken before the Emperor. At first Claudius liked him, and tried to convert him to Emperor worship. Then Valentine tried to convert Claudius to Christianity… and was condemned to death.  Valentine was executed February 14, 269 and about two hundred years later is when the day was made into a saint’s day. Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down your life for your friends.”[3] Valentine laid down his life as a martyr, and Jesus did, too, as we are now orienting toward the cross, toward Good Friday, and ultimately toward Easter. But before resurrection comes death. Before new life comes a reminder of our mortality. And yet through it all is God’s everlasting, steadfast, faithful love. Love is why God sent Jesus: “For God so loved the whole world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his son to condemn the world but to save the world thru him.”[4] It was all done out of love. God formed us out of love, and dust. God saves us out of love, and dust. 

            Love and dust, bread and roses. The workers on strike were seeking something higher than subsistence living. We Christians know that something more as the abundant life that Jesus offers. And yet abundant life, a full life, is only found through the cross. We love the mountaintop and shiny things, but Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me.” Our Bishop is encouraging us to fast one day a week this Lent, whether from food or from something like television or spending money. She also reminds us that all spiritual disciplines are always accompanied by prayer. The point of it is to draw us closer to God. Use the time you usually watch TV and spend it in prayer instead. Take the money you would spend on a meal out and give it to a soup kitchen. If you need accountability, which we usually all do, let me or another friend know what you’re doing for Lent so that we can ask you about it. The Christian journey is not one we do by ourselves. Even Jesus had someone help carry his cross at the very end of the road, Joseph of Arimathea. I’ll share with you what I’m doing: I’ve decided to fast from infections. I’ve tried to keep it low-key, but I’ve been on antibiotics for six out of the past ten weeks, going back to when I had pneumonia in December. I had an ear infection last month that morphed into chronic sinusitis. For Lent I want to give up being sick. However, I recognize I don’t have a lot of control over it because life in a bubble is not abundant life. I can only do it with God’s help. It’s good to remember that “We are not earning God’s love with disciplines done in fear of failure.” Don’t choose your fast based on what you think you can do. Self-discipline will only get you so far. Instead, think of it as “responding to God’s love by being the very best disciples we can.” We love, because God first loved us, just as we are. And so just as we are, we come to Jesus.

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[1] Matthew 4:4

[2] Deuteronomy 8:2-3

[3] John 15:13

[4] John 3:16-17

Blinded By the Light

Transfiguration Sunday

February 11, 2018

2 Kings 2:1-12; 2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9

            The last Sunday before Lent begins is Transfiguration Sunday. The Gospel story for today is always the story about Jesus up on the mountaintop with Peter, James, and John. While they watch, Jesus is transfigured, transformed into a heavenly being, and they see Moses and Elijah there, too, affirming Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah of Israel. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the transfiguration occurs as a “as a bridge between Jesus' public ministry and his passion. From the time of the Transfiguration, Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem and the cross.”[1] Likewise, the next time we come together for worship, we will have our faces set toward Holy Week as well. So, the transfiguration of Jesus is a major turning point. Now, this isn’t a word we use every day, so to make sure we’re clear on what we’re talking about, transfigure means to change in outward form or appearance; to transform; or to change so as to glorify or exalt. In Jesus’ case, his face shone like the sun, his clothes became dazzling white, even whiter than you can bleach them. It became quite clear that Jesus was the Son of God, even clearer when God’s voice spoke through the clouds, “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”

            Now, we usually think of blindness as being in the dark. You know, Isaiah’s promise that “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” and the testimony that “I was blind, but now I see.” We usually think we’re blinder when we’re down in the valley of the shadow of death, because down in the valley means that the tall mountains forming the valley block out the sun. We don’t usually think of mountaintop experiences as blinding us, and yet the truth is that we can be blinded by too much light as much as we can be blinded by darkness. If you look directly at the sun, it can cause permanent damage to your eyes. As we learned from the total solar eclipse last year, even looking at a blocked out sun can damage your eyes. One of the news stories I saw last August was about a man who blinded by the previous total solar eclipse back in 1979.[2]

            The problem of too much light is what gets to Peter. He sees Jesus transformed, with bursts of light coming out of him, perhaps like when the Beast changes back into a prince in “Beauty and the Beast,” or Elsa does her burst of magic in “Frozen,” or a few other Disney examples, except it doesn’t just last for a second and then it’s gone. The moment lasts long enough for a conversation. Peter is so overtaken by it, so overcome, that he gets really excited about it and wants to mark the moment, that he overreacts and offers to build three shelters, tabernacles, like shrines, one each for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. When we get really excited about things and cool events happen, we tend to want to mark the moment. These days a lot of that marking happens on social media. It used to be photographs, phone calls to spread the news, impromptu parties. If you go way, way back, Jacob in the Old Testament would place a rock or give the place a special name to remember what had happened there. We tend to want to mark the moment of transformation. However, like we do sometimes, Peter goes overboard. He goes too far. He offers to make a shrine each for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. You see the problem with this, right? It flattens Jesus to the same level as Moses and Elijah: a great leader, a great prophet, one who listens to God and leads God’s people. But Jesus is more than that. Jesus is the Son of God. He IS God. Moses and Elijah aren’t his equals. In his excitement, Peter forgets that. He forgets that just in the previous chapter he has proclaimed that Jesus is the Messiah. Peter was blinded by the light.

            Now, the song by that title was written by Bruce Springsteen and released in 1973. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band changed a few words and released their own cover of it in 1977, which has been more popular than Springsteen’s original. In either version, near the end of the song comes the line, “Mama always told me not to look into the sights of the sun, but mama that's where the fun is.” Sometimes too much light is just plain too much light and we forget we have to come back down to the valley, following the suffering servant of Jesus to the cross. Mountaintop experiences can’t go on forever. Yet, as we read in 2 Corinthians, “The god (little g) of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” In today’s age, we are blinded by wanting more of the mountaintop, by wanting more of the good things, by wanting all the pleasures and luxuries that we can get in this life. When life is good and going smoothly, most people pat themselves on their backs and take all the credit. They don’t turn to God. “Some people ‘veil their own eyes,’ that is, they do not see God standing before them because they are paying so much attention to other things.”[3] They make themselves blind by choosing to focus instead on their possessions, on the TV or internet, on what others think of them instead of focusing on God. We have so many modern conveniences, we have made this life so luxurious and pain-free that even a tiny scrape hurts. We have this skewed idea that life is supposed to flow smoothly and be free of hurt and pain, quite unlike what the Dread Pirate Roberts tells Buttercup in “The Princess Bride.” There’s a lot of truth to his line, “Life is pain, highness, anyone who says differently is selling something.” The fun is in looking into the sun, because then we are blinded to so much else.

Another way we blind ourselves is when we “insist that God can appear only in certain ways, and [we] refuse to see God in other ways.”[4] In the last book in the Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle, one of the last chapters is called “How the Dwarfs Refused to Be Taken In.” In an allegory for entering heaven, you enter through a stable door (perhaps not so allegorical after all, if you consider Jesus was born in a stable). Well, for those with eyes to see, the stable is transformed, or transfigured if you will, into this beautiful banquet feast. All the creatures can see it, except the dwarfs. They insist that the stable is still a stable, just a smelly, old room and the food is just scraps. They are so afraid of being deceived that they can’t see what’s right in front of them. Reality doesn’t meet their expectations. There are times our expectations blind us, too. I’ve been asked several times before, in a number of places, if I’m the pastor’s wife or the church secretary. If you expect a male pastor, then you’re not going to see me as a pastor. If you think church has to look or sound a certain way to be church, then you’ll have trouble with other forms of worship, which are just as valid.

So, the good news in all this blindness caused by too much light is that we do have a story today about someone who wasn’t blinded, and that was Elisha. Elisha is the helper God sends to Elijah when Elijah is so overwhelmed and weary that he just can’t even. This is when Elijah ran away after the duel with Baal’s prophets and Jezebel threatened to kill him and Elijah heard God’s voice in the small, still silence. God asks him, “What are you doing here?” and Elijah replies, “I’ve been very zealous for you, God, and I’m weary. I’ve got nothing left.” God says, “Go back. You’re not done yet.” Not what Elijah wants to hear, but as he obediently returns, he is given Elisha to help him. Today’s story in 2 Kings is when Elijah is finally granted rest from all his work, and he and Elisha both know it. But Elisha isn’t blinded by it. He knows Elijah will go up to heaven today. Other people try to talk him out of being there when it happens, but Elisha won’t be dissuaded. Elijah even tries to leave him behind, but like Ruth and Naomi, Elisha won’t leave him. He’s committed to the end and won’t be sidetracked. Finally, Elijah asks him, “What do you want from me before I am taken from you?” and Elisha has his answer ready. He’s not overcome by emotion or blinded by the question, he knows what he wants. Elisha asks Elijah to inherit a double portion of his spirit. Elisha doesn’t want to be blinded, not by light or darkness, not by expectations or reality, not by weariness or overexcitement. He wants a close relationship with God, with eyes to see and ears to hear. He wants a transformed life that in turn goes out and transforms other lives. Isn’t that all that any of us want?

This past week was the Bishop’s Pre-Lent Day Apart for clergy. This year’s speaker was Dr. Marcia McFee, whose passion is to explore with clergy “how to create worship that involves ‘deeply evocative and artful rituals that transform lives to transform the world.’”[5] How’s that for a mission statement for worship? The purpose of worship is to worship God, to focus on him, to reorient ourselves back to him. And the result that we who plan worship should expect is transformed lives that go out to transform the world. The Day Apart was fantastic, and I look forward to working more with our worship team to design and create worship so that it not just touches but transforms we who worship so that we can go out to transform the world. Not bad for transfiguration. Just don’t get blinded by the light. Keep your eye on the main thing.

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[1] https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/transfiguration-sunday-why-do-we-celebrate-it-before-lent

[2] Six months later, I can’t find the story again. I had no idea at the time I need to bookmark it for a future sermon illustration!

[3] http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/2348/worship-for-kids-february-11-2018

[4] Ibid.

[5] Email, from Joyce King, to all participants, February 6, 2018; I couldn’t find this phrase on Dr. McFee’s website

Weariness

4^th Sunday after Epiphany

February 4, 2018

Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147; Mark 1:29-39

            I often read Compline, a form of Evening Prayer, from the Book of Common Prayer at bedtime. The Book of Common Prayer is full of beautiful prayers for all seasons of life. It’s kind of like the saying, “there’s an app for that”; the Book of Common Prayer has a prayer for that, whatever that is. One of my favorites is the one I often prayed when doing midnight and 3 a.m. feedings with my children:

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.[1]

I used that as part of Evening Prayer with the youth group last fall and they really liked it. One of them said she loved that phrase ‘give rest to the weary’ because she felt weary. There’s another one in the Order of Compline that talks about weariness, too:

Be present, O merciful God, and protect us through the hours of this night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life may rest in your eternal changelessness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.[2]

“We who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life.” What a way to word it. Are you weary from the changes and chances of this life? Life is always changing, it has to, to be life. Our bodies are always changing. Crops grow. The seasons change. The weather changes, sometimes by the season and sometimes by the day. And most of that we adjust to. Those are changes we expect. But the surprises can get us. When our bodies betray us and don’t work how they’re “supposed to.” When there’s extreme weather, like a hurricane or a blizzard. Facebook reminded me of the anniversary of the blizzard we had two years ago. I was snowed in with a one year old and a dog for two and a half days. I didn’t really appreciate being reminded of it. The one year old didn’t really appreciate the snow being as tall as he was. 

The one year old when we first went outside and five minutes later.

We were weary, and so grateful when the snow plow finally came and then two days later when the rest of our family came home.

            The truth is that weariness is part of the human condition. There’s a reason the word pops up so much when you say Evening Prayer. In the psalms of lament, the psalmist is constantly weary with moaning and crying out to God to hear him.[3] How long, O Lord? When are you going to hear my prayer? When are things going to change for the better? In the book of Lamentations, the author cries out, “Those who pursue us are at our heels; we are weary and find no rest.”[4] Anyone feel worn out? Wearied by the changes and chances of this life? What are you wearied by this week? [Allow space for answers]

Thank you for sharing. So, here’s the thing. Growing weary is normal. The problem comes in what do you do in weariness? Do you curse God? Do you lose hope? Are you inclined to give up? When we don’t feel well, when we are weary, we are not our best selves. We often don’t act how we would if we were feeling refreshed, we don’t respond to problems the same way, molehills become mountains, and our memory fails us. We can’t recall words as well and sometimes we forget what God has already done for us and that God is still acting now. We are not our best selves when we are overwhelmed and sometimes we have some amnesia.

In Isaiah 40, Isaiah is addressing God’s people in exile in Babylon. Talk about being overwhelmed and weary: being conquered, being forced from your home and taken to another country. It’s no wonder they need reminding. “Do you not know? Have you not heard?” Because obviously God’s people do know God’s power and God’s might and sovereignty and providence. But they’re acting as if they don’t. “Why do you say, Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God’?” Because you know it’s not. Because you know God is with you. We just celebrated Christmas, the coming of Emmanuel, God with us.

And that’s why God has to remind us again and again, whether through Isaiah, “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak,”[5] or through our psalm this morning, “The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the exiles of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”[6] Or Jesus, who says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”[7] In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus heals lots of people. Mark says, “That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons.”[8] If our whole town were to gather and bring all the sick together, can you imagine how many people would be there? Frederick Hospital is turning away visitors because of the flu. I told you how long we had to wait at urgent care the other Sunday and we got there when they opened! There are lots of people who are sick; there are lots of people who are weary. We need reminding that God doesn’t grow weary.[9] We need reminding that Jesus offers rest and healing and renewal, for both body and soul.

We need reminding that weariness in and of itself is not bad. You see, when we’re not our best selves, we are more vulnerable. Vulnerable to cursing and losing hope, yes, but also “vulnerable enough to experience the power and grace of God.”[10] In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul talks about the paradox of “when I am weak, then I am strong.” He wrote that “[the Lord] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”[11] This is not to glorify suffering and weariness or saying that we should seek it out. This is acknowledging the reality that sometimes life is hard. Sometimes we are weary and worn out from the changes and chances of this life. Yet they are opportunities for us to turn to the Lord. They are opportunities for us to grow in our faith. They are opportunities for us to say, “Lord, I can’t [even]. You can.” And God does. “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak… Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” They will have enough energy to do what needs to be done. Some “times are so difficult and the challenges so severe that even the young will faint and grow weary. Hope may be hard to sustain, but if [we] depend on God and trust in [his] story, [we] will receive the ability to meet the challenges, and, indeed, to rise above them.”[12]

But it doesn’t end there. Why does Jesus offer rest and renewal and healing? So that we can faithfully continue to “run with perseverance the race marked out before us.”[13] So that we are encouraged and can encourage others. Remember, we’re not here just for ourselves. We’re here for the next generation. We’re here for the sake of the world. The gifts God gives us aren’t for us to keep to ourselves, they’re to share. So, as Paul writes to the Galatians, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”[14] Be renewed and strengthened by Jesus, and then go out and serve.

I remember the very first sermon I wrote on today’s Gospel passage. I didn’t want to focus on it, because I was ticked off that the first thing Simon Peter’s mother-in-law does after Jesus heals her is to serve the men. It struck me as very patriarchal and sexist. But because it rubbed me the wrong way at first glance, I knew the Holy Spirit was nudging me to wrestle deeper with the story. Serving Jesus and the others is how Peter’s mother-in-law responds to her healing. It’s how she says thank you to Jesus for healing her. Yes, she’s a woman serving men, but she’s also a healed child of God serving the Son of God out of thanksgiving for her healing, out of thanksgiving for her renewed strength. Now, you may not be there. You may be on the other end of the spectrum, too weary to think about what you’re going to do when you’re no longer weary, in which case, turn to Jesus. Rest in his eternal changelessness. Or you may be starting to get your strength back. Give thanks. Don’t overdo it. Work your way back up to full steam, or whatever your new normal is. Lean on the everlasting arms. Or maybe you’re at a great place right now, in which case you can encourage the rest of us and thank God for renewed strength, not just through words but through actions, too.

One final prayer to leave you with, another favorite from the Book of Common Prayer, this one is labeled, “For use by a sick person, in the morning”:

This is another day, O Lord.  I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be.  If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely.  If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly.  If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently.  And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus.  Amen.

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[1] BCP 134

[2] BCP 133

[3] Psalm 6:6, 69:3

[4] Lamentations 5:5

[5] Isaiah 40:29

[6] Psalm 147:2-3

[7] Matthew 11:28

[8] Mark 1:32-34

[9] Isaiah 40:28

[10] Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 1, 315

[11] 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

[12] Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 1, 319

[13] Hebrews 12:1b

[14] Galatians 6:9-10