Mountaintops, the Force, and Faith: More Reflections on My Ordination

In United Methodist tradition, ordination happens at Annual Conference (you can read a summary of our annual conference here or here) through the laying on of hands by bishops. My experience was a blessing, especially because in addition to my wonderful bishop, the bishop who ordained my mother and another bishop were present. The bishop who preached the ordination service preached the exact sermon I needed to hear. But I also like how in other traditions the local church has more of a role in the ordination service, and how it is more personal. So the Sunday following my ordination, I designed the service with a nod to our ordination service to include my local church, Presbury United Methodist Church, who has had a pretty big part in shaping me as a pastor after all, and share my call story.

Scripture: Matthew 28:16-20 (NRSV)
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Sermon:

Let us pray:

Patient teacher, we give you thanks. We should always start with thanks because no matter how low in the valley we may feel, and no matter how steep the climb up the mountain can be, there is always something to give thanks for. So we do. We thank you. And we ask through the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts this morning that you may help us always to give thanks for your presence all around us. Amen.

In our scripture today, Jesus directs his disciples to go up a mountain. Mountains have great symbolic importance in scripture. One of the names for God that you will find in the Hebrew Bible and you may have heard in praise songs is El Shaddai. There are a few different translations for this name, especially some interpreted as a feminine name for God, but one of the usual ways we translate it is God of the Mountains. It is a name that symbolizes power and majesty, as mountains also illustrate power and majesty. Mountains are also the site where pretty important things happen in the lives of people of faith. Remember that guy Moses we sometimes talk about? Well, he was called to lead the Hebrew people to freedom when he was on a mountain. Later, he received the Ten Commandments when he went up a mountain, Mount Sinai or Horeb. In the New Testament, Jesus takes Peter and James and John up a mountain to pray and he is transfigured before them. His face and clothes glow and Moses and Elijah appear beside him. God speaks, revealing to these disciples that Jesus is God’s beloved son and they are to listen to him.

Throughout the history of our faith, even modern day history, mountains are synonymous with God’s presence and power. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last speech given before he was murdered. He said: 

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live - a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Powerful words. Mountaintops are a place of vision, where Rev. Dr. King saw the kindom of God or the Promised Land, saw God’s intentions for us and was moved to continue God’s work no matter what he may face.

So mountains are important physical and symbolic sites for us as people of faith. And one mountain in particular in our scripture today served as both physical and symbolic in the disciples own journey. At this point in the story the disciples are in a valley. Valleys we have also heard of before--- does the verse, I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, sound familiar to you? Jesus has resurrected by the time we get to our story today, he has appeared to women, and they've shared what he told him with the disciples, but some doubted. The pain and horror of Jesus’ death is too fresh. But no matter their hurt and confusion, they go up the mountain anyway, and there they meet the risen Christ. Some still doubt. But they meet him all the same. Jesus does what he always does. He teaches, gives them direction, loves them. Some of them are finally getting it. Some still aren't. But then he says: And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

I've preached on this verse before, and within the last two years, so it's probably bad form to preach it again. But I'm going to anyway. Because that's the key to everything. I am with you always. God is with us in the valleys and on the mountains. God is with us in our worship and in our doubt. God is with us when we are joyful and when we are despairing.

I have experienced this in my own life. My call to ministry, which I have also used in a sermon fairly recently--- it's terrible to be ordained for a day and already reusing sermons! Ah well. Anyway, my call to ministry happened after a sojourn in the valley. God had called me to be a missionary. When I was fifteen, I had such a transformational experience on a mission trip to Bosnia that I understood God to be calling me to similar work in my adult life. I planned to go to Cameroon to study abroad and my parents would not let me go, which felt like a betrayal by God since my mother was also my pastor. I studied abroad in France instead, and while that was an amazing experience, it was also lonely. I was confused. I didn’t understand why God would call me and then wouldn’t open doors for me to live out the call (now of course, as I go on our AppalachiaService Project trips I see God is, but that’s another story). All this to say: I was nineteen and in a very dark place spiritually. When I came back to the states, I lived in DC and would not have gone to church except someone told me just to try a church called Dumbarton. Dumbarton is a radical place, a church that explicitly welcome all people regardless of sexual identity or gender expression. This was a place where anyone could lift up personal prayer concerns and joys in the same moment one could plead for prayers for far away war-torn countries. It was a church where people could open up their hearts and use their hands and feet to do the work of Christ in the world. I joined their young adult group that met in the Methodist building on Capitol Hill to do bible study together and talk about science fiction. And even though I was still mad at God, even though I still didn’t hear God’s call on my life anymore, I felt myself moving out of the valley and slowly back up the mountain. 

An ordained elder attending the church who was working at a faith-based, non-profit invited me to Student Forum's MOSAIC service, which in that year was held in DC. MOSAIC is the young adult ministry working for a fully inclusive United Methodist Church. This is not just about sexual identity but about welcoming people of all backgrounds and races and ages, about helping us as a church to truly reflect the diversity of the body of Christ. It was there that I could no longer deny God's call on my life.

The lights were dim, the chapel small but filled with warm bodies swaying slightly to the music from the guitars. And my friend walked up to the altar where communion lay and she took the bread and broke it. It was rainbow challah bread. And at that moment I felt like I belonged, I felt that this was home. It was a feeling of completeness that I wish for everyone. And I knew in that moment that God was calling me to be like my friend, breaking bread and building community in such a way that all people feel welcomed and loved. 

Now, as I always say when telling my call story, there were plenty of times before May of 2008 when God called me. People in my home church will tell you that they knew I was called when I was in elementary school. My mother knew when I was in middle school. The agnostic and atheist I lived with in DC at the time knew it. Heck, I remember looking a little at seminaries when I was in France--- I knew it but just wouldn't admit it. This is how the call on our lives works--- and we all have a call, whether or not it is to ordained ministry. God is always calling us because God is always with us.

And there have been valleys and mountaintops since. My experience of the exam for becoming a provisional elder was emotionally awful and followed by the ugliness of General Conference 2012, I wasn't sure I was going to stay Methodist. And then I went to Deer Creek and Mt.Tabor, and they reminded me that God has given me gifts for ministry. They have a gift for teaching pastors, and they took a tired, nervous young woman who was frustrated with the church and even a little frustrated with God, and you turned her into a confident pastor.
And I have been in a valley since my miscarriage. Maybe even before, frankly, because of our battle with infertility before we even got pregnant. And I certainly am not far away from that valley yet. But the overwhelming love I received yesterday--- the cards and texts and messages and posts about the live stream on top of having almost my whole immediate family, people from my home church, people from Mt. Tabor, people from Presbury, friends from high school, friends from seminary, congratulations from colleagues--- that was a mountaintop when I heard again the call to go therefore and make disciples. People all around the world need to feel that kind of love, so if I'm feeling it I can't keep it bottled up! I need to go, therefore, and share that love.

Bishop King, who preached the ordination service, told us we have to keep moving. So that is my invitation to all of you. When you are in those valleys, keep on walking. Try looking for higher ground, if you can, but keep on walking. Because the Force is with you always. I mean, God. God is with us always, to the end of the age. 

 

Unafraid to Act on the Unfailing Abundance of God

This is the last sermon I preached as a pastor of Deer Creek and Mt. Tabor United Methodist Churches. I have been so blessed to be their pastor, as you will see from the sermon. 

Scripture: 1 Kings 17:8-16 (NRSV)

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

Sermon: Unafraid to Act on the Unfailing Abundance of God

In February of last year I was really feeling worn down. I had just finished working as a hospital chaplain and was already waist-deep into my last semester of seminary. Though I only needed one class to graduate, I took a full-load of classes because I'm crazy like that. One of the classes I took was the General Conference class which required me to leave school for ten days at the end of the semester to go to Florida, so I was spending a lot of time in and out of my other professor's classes trying to convince them that I wouldn't let leaving for ten days affect my finals work. I was also working two part-time jobs and trying to come home as much as I could to see Aaron. And on top of all this, I underwent the examination by our Board of Ordained Ministry in Ellicott City, a three day interview exam that covered paper work I had written over two years before.

And so, naturally, during this exam that was basically to determine whether or not I could be a pastor in the United Methodist Church, I kind of broke under all this stress. I was inarticulate, I cried, I got frustrated with those pastors asking the questions. And, though I passed the exam, I left feeling complete demoralized and just empty. Now, much of my struggle with the exam didn't come from the Board of Ordained Ministry itself but from this world of stress I lived in--- you know how that is? Like when you are stressed and someone says to you, “Are you wearing that?” and your mind immediately goes to them thinking you are fat rather than just they haven't seen you wear it for a while or it has a stain or something. I interpreted comments as disparaging that probably weren't meant to be that. But the result was that I had never doubted myself as a pastor more than after I took that exam. Frankly, despite having three years of school plus this denomination examination under my belt, I wanted to give up on becoming a pastor.

I went to Bosnia for spring break that March (I know kind of random, but I did), and, though I didn't talk to our District Superintendent about it first, I began talking to my friends over there and looking into summer programs to learn Bosnian. I began to pray that I would not be given an appointment after all. I prayed God would let me do something else with my life. I was tired.

And then I got a call from Rev. Dr. Karin Walker about coming to Deer Creek and Mt. Tabor. As soon as she said the names of these churches, this knot in the pit of my stomach, the frustration with my call, it all just dissipated. I was still nervous and a little uncertain, but that desire to run away was replaces with trust and a faint hope.

I hope that when I came all this turmoil within me was not terribly obvious. In reflecting on where I was when I accepted the appointment here last year, I felt a lot like I imagine the widow of Zarephath must have felt.

Now, I know that may seem ridiculous to some of you. I know nothing of the intense physical hunger this widow felt. I know nothing of her poverty. Though I do feel that some of my perceived issues with the exam had to do with the fact that I am young woman in a profession many still assume is just for older men, I know nothing of the oppression this widow faced. So, in spite of all this, I hope you don't feel I'm too presumptuous in seeing myself in this story. I recognize, and hope you do as well, that it is a story about how God lifts up the oppressed, sides with them: a story about how our own nourishment and survival really are caught up in our own hospitality to the least of these.¹

But this is also a story about finding abundance in scarcity, and about living a call to trust in God that we don't always remember we have. Carol Cook Moore, a professor at Wesley, says that it is a story that asks us, “What keeps us going during 'lean' times? And how can we provide for others during their times of want?”²

Well, I felt like I was in lean times last spring. I felt stretched, hollow, and a little abandoned. I wasn't collecting sticks so I could go home and eat my last bit of bread before awaiting death, spiritual or otherwise. But I was ready to throw in the towel on this pastor thing. That is: until I came here, and from the first day, you surrounded me in love, and affirmed me at every turn--- even on weeks when my sermons were bad and the service went long and I made you sing all those new songs I falsely promised you were easy to learn. You affirmed me when I stumbled over prayers and you just squeezed my hand. And when I let bible studies get way topic, we still ended up learning a bit about God. If I was nervous about a hospital visit, you were just so grateful I was there that you reminded me that sometimes words don't matter as much.

I heard Elijah's voice in you, that voice that told me not to be afraid. The voice that told me that though I may feel scarcity and emptiness in my soul sometimes, God promises abundance.

You see, you showed me that God has given me gifts for ministry. Or perhaps more than that, you have made me become a pastor. You have heard before that your gift is teaching pastors, and it is true. You took a tired, nervous young woman who was frustrated with the church and even a little frustrated with God, and you turned her into a confident pastor who was just told recently, “Well, I don't think much of women pastors, but, you know, you're ok.” (In some circles that's a pretty big deal.)

It wasn't me who did this work of pastor-creating. That was God, God shaping me through your love, affirmation, and gentle corrections or suggestions. You showed me that if I stay in love with God and the church, then amazing things happen.

And so when I read this story in 1 Kings, it is my story of famine and abundance that I see alongside the widow and Elijah's story. So what about you? Can you see yourselves in this story? Have you had to face life after the loved one? Have you had to face life unemployed? Maybe your famine looked different. Maybe your famine was when you were a church of nine people, meeting faithfully through gritted teeth Sunday after Sunday. Maybe it was when as a church who lost a matriarch, the woman who made all things happen here? Have you felt the despair the widow felt?

I think we all have in one way or another. So I turn your words to me back to you this morning. “Do not be afraid.” You are good at change, unlike most people, and most of you have been through change many times before. As a church, you have had good experience with change--- yes, many of you hated to lose Pastor Bonnie, but then I turned out ok, so it wasn't a terribly devastating experience. But that doesn't make this next change any less scary.

Elijah knew your fear too, though. Before Elijah came to the widow, at the beginning of the seventeenth chapter of 1 Kings, he had been in hiding by a riverbed, where God sent ravens to provide him with food. When the riverbed dried up, God sent him to the widow. Elijah should have known that if God could feed him using birds, surely God could provide for him through this woman. But these is an interesting detail here: God says to Elijah, “for I have commanded a widow there to feed you,” but when Elijah asks the widow for food, she does not act as though God has commanded her to do anything whatsoever. If I were Elijah, I sure would be wondering around then about God's provision. One of the commentators I read for today, writes, “We cannot blame Elijah if he mutters to himself, 'I would rather trust the ravens than depend on the widow. Does God know what God is doing?'”³ But if Elijah felt that way, he didn't reveal it in his words to the widow. He just said to her: “Do not be afraid. God will provide.”

Now, Elijah didn't mean that God will provide in the prosperity gospel sense that if you just pray hard enough God will give you whatever you want. And that's not what I mean either. I don't think I'm done with second guessing God's call on my life--- I don't think many of us are safe from spiritual droughts. There may be droughts and lean times in the future, for all of us--- who knows? But God is with us. Elijah says to the widow of Zarephath, “For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” God will fill you with the nourishment you need--- and God? God will not fail.

So, since we know God will not fail, how will we reach out as the hands of God, to be Elijah's voice proclaiming God's abundance in spite of the uncertainty of it all, or to be the widow feeding a stranger in spite of her fear? This is our call today. So let us emerge from this place today, unafraid to act upon the unfailing abundance of God.

Let us pray:

Patient teacher, we give you thanks for this story of miracles

and ask that you help us perceive the miracles you work in our lives every day.

Deer Creek United Methodist Church June 23, 2013

And God--- give us the strength and courage to enact your miracles of abundance

everywhere we go, even in times of famine.

We pray this in the name of the abundant life

you have given us through your son Jesus. Amen.

Mt. Tabor United Methodist Church June 23, 2013

 

1Juliana Claassens, Commentary on 1 Kings 17:8-16, Working Preacher, 8 November 2009, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=424.

2Carol Cook Moore as quoted on Crossroads Worship Experience's Facebook Page, 17 June 2013.

3H. James Hopkins, Homiletical Perspective on 1 Kings 17:8-16 (17-24), Proper 5, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, vol. 3 Petecost and the Season after Petecost 1, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010) 101.

"Look at Us"

Another sermon for the Deer Creek Charge United Methodist Churches.

Scripture: Acts 3:1-16 (NRSV)

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s Portico, utterly astonished.

When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.”

Sermon: “Look at us”

Let us pray together:

Patient teacher,

we give you thanks for the leadership of the early church,

for its messages that still speak to us.

We ask that your Spirit move among us today, help us to look at you differently,

so that we too may stand up and leap for joy in praise to you. Amen.

Peter and John are going to the temple. The brief glimpses we have had of the Book of Acts in the last two weeks as we spoke of the Ascension and Pentecost, showed us a people of prayer and worship. So we aren't surprised to see Peter and John going to the temple, but I have to admit that I can't help but be a little surprised when I read what happens next. For as I read this miracle of healing, the words of the story kept echoing with other stories I've read about Peter and John in the Gospels.

Maybe you, too, remember what happened with the disciples after the Transfiguration, when this very same Peter and John, along with James, followed Jesus up a mountain and saw him with Moses and Elijah and heard a voice come down from heaven naming Jesus as Chosen. Such a powerful mystical experience that surely filled them with certitude of who Jesus was, but it was followed up by this experience from the ninth chapter of Luke:

On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. Just then a man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. And all were astounded at the greatness of God.²

Faithless and perverse. These are the harsh words that Jesus uses in his frustration with his disciples, men he has spent day after day with, talking, teaching, sharing in visions. And yet, their imaginations remained too small, their faith too shaky, and they cannot save the little boy. “I begged your disciples to cast it out,” the father says, “but they could not.” Faithless and perverse. These are the words that echo through my head as Peter and John look intently at the man asking them for alms at the temple that day.

When I meet John and Peter again on the road to the temple after Pentecost, I still see those men, who when reflecting the light they saw in Jesus up on that mountaintop could not heal a boy in need. The author of Acts does not make that connection for us, instead pointing to a chapter earlier, to Peter's sermon on that Pentecost Sunday. But my brain makes that connection for me. And those words, faithless and perverse, echo in my head. How did we get from those disciples to these great healers?

Many of you may have noticed this before, but each of the Gospel writers characterize the disciples in different ways. We sometimes conflate the four gospels together, but there are distinct differences in the ways they are written. And even though the Gospel of Luke, written by the same author as the Acts of the Apostles, paints the disciples in a more positive light, my perception of the disciples is always colored by Mark's depiction of the disciples as this clueless bunch of guys who hang around Jesus and give him headaches. I read Luke's story of the disciples' inability to heal even though they have seen the Glory of God, and I shake my head at the disciples, saying it is too bad they just don't get it.

Except I'm the one who just doesn't get it, and I suspect maybe that most of us just don't get it. I like the story in the Gospel of Luke because it lets me stay a bit smug and self-righteous. It lets me say: well the disciples saw the glory of God and still couldn't heal somebody, and here I am two thousand years from sitting at the feet of Jesus and soaking him up--- how can I be expected to perform those kind of miracles? It lets me off the hook, or so I tell myself.

That's why I am frustrated, frankly, by these confident men strolling up to the temple who look intently at this man at the gate of the temple asking them for alms. I search for the transformation, how these two men can go from bumbling disciples to calm, confident healers with bold words. I do not have to search far, as I'm sure some of you could see easily from the beginning. The difference here is the power of the Holy Spirit. The difference is that Jesus has equipped them in spite of their inadequacies and calls them to spread the gospel.

Now that being said, the Holy Spirit is very difficult for most of us to understand, the kind of black sheep of the Trinity. Father and Son we may not understand, but we know those relationships. Very few of us can say that we've felt a rush like the wind and felt flames like fire inspiring us to do God's will. So sometimes when we talk of the Spirit it is another cop-out for us. Another way we let ourselves off the hook, to say that we cannot expect miraculous transformation because the Spirit doesn't work like that anymore, not in our reasonable day and age. We can go back to living comfortably, just telling ourselves that the early church's mission and calling was so different than ours. We can go back to being the disciples before the arrival of the Spirit, praying and worshiping, maybe even standing around being clueless, in our isolated little worlds without having to look intently to what is going on around us and do something to change it.

I know that may sound a little harsh, for surely nothing is wrong with praying and worshiping, but I spoke to a friend this week who is going to a church who told her they didn't want her to preach on Acts because the focus on sharing and reaching out to one another through the power of the Spirit was more communist than the Gospel.³ They told her that her job was just taking care of the people in the church. But while the community and context of the Book of Acts are much different from the ones we live in today, the message of love and life is the same, and so that Acts community has a lot to say to us still today. The Spirit continues to work in our church, maybe not in the same way as in the early church, but the Spirit is always empowering us to look into the eyes of our neighbors and offer them this message of life that Peter and John offered to the man at the gate of the temple.

This man, we read, has not been able to walk since he was born. Every day he comes to the temple to beg. In the ancient Roman world, people believed that your outer characteristics were tied to your moral character; their moms never told them not to judge a book by its cover. Still today there is a lot of stigma around disability, but at the time of the early church, this man would have been seen not as unfortunate, but as “morally weak, corrupt, or even evil.” Yet Peter and John look intently into this man and welcome him into the church. They did not seek to build a church of their friends or family, a church of rich folks, a church of folks who dress nice and aren't too loud--- the Holy Spirit moved them beyond their worship and prayers to reach out to this man asking for alms at the gate of the temple.⁴

When Peter and John heal this man, they are again leading us on a transformative journey. They show how the Holy Spirit empowers us to transform one another, both by welcoming those the rest of the world turns their noses up at, and by offering love and life to those they welcome. The Holy Spirit had transformed them from clueless disciples to bold healers. The Holy Spirit would transform this man physically and spiritually, causing him to leap for joy praising God.

Peter and John looked intently at the man asking them for alms and said, “Look at us.” And now Peter and John look intently at me, look intently at you, and they say, “Look at us.” Look at the ways we have let the Spirit transform us to preach the gospel of our Risen Lord. Look at how far we have come, from those disciples who said that they could not heal a boy in so much need to apostles overflowing with confidence in the life-giving power of God. Look at this man who came to us for a few bucks and yet remains with us to dance in praise of God.

So look at us, Peter and John say, and let the Spirit transform you too.

2Luke 9:37-43, NRSV.

3Julia Singleton.

4See Mikeal C. Parsons, “The Character of the Lame Man in Acts 3-4,” The Journal of Biblical Literature 124.2 (2005): 312. “...Luke invokes the categories of physiognomy and cultural biases against the disabled only to overturn them. The lame man (along with the bent woman, Zacchaeus, and the Ethiopian eunuch) would have been viewed by Luke s auditors as morally weak, corrupt, or even evil, yet Luke claims that the eschatological community is comprised of such as these, a community in which "God shows no partiality" (Acts 10:34). If the lame mans body language in standing with the bold apostles fulfills physiognomic conventions, his actions of leaping and praising defy them. In other words, the literary character(ization) of the lame man is unfolded in the story of the transformation of the lame mans (moral) character. And this without uttering an audible word in the story. In a curious (and perhaps unintended) way, Ambrose was right, 'the movement of the body is a sort of voice of the soul.'”

God Is Our Light

This is the sermon I preached on the Sunday I baptized two children at Deer Creek United Methodist Church. It was difficult because Revelation is not my favorite book of the bible. And, of course, right after I preached, I heard an awesome talk by Barbara Brown Taylor about how we ought to embrace darkness. Oh well. I still liked exploring sacramentality using Revelation. Heck, writing this sermon made me even more open to infant baptism! It also made me feel a bit more positive towards the book, especially because I came out of my class on Revelation feeling much differently (see here).

Scripture: Revelation 21:10,22-22:5
And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God...

I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign for ever and ever.

Sermon: God is Our Light
Let us pray:

Patient Teacher, we give thanks for this beautiful morning.
We give you thanks for the poetry of your Word,
but you know how difficult it can be to understand.
We ask for your wisdom this morning,
that it may illuminate your teaching so our eyes may be open
to your guiding presence all around us. Amen.

I am very intrigued by metaphors linking God and light. I have written a few sermons talking about caving and Christ, fascinated by the hope that is a pinprick of light in the overwhelming darkness of closed off caves. When I read John of Patmos, the author of Revelation, describing his vision of a heavenly city as full of light, I read that as full of hope. And I am also intrigued by metaphors linking God and water, particularly when Aaron and I are flying over the Bay, watching the light glitter off the water. When I read Revelation chapter 22 verse 1, I can see that river of the water of life, bright as crystal because I've seen the Bay lit up at sunset.

Such interest in these metaphors, though, is less an interest in the poetry and beauty of these images and more a function of my own hopes and fears. Since I was a child, I have been afraid of the the dark, and to a lesser extent, afraid of water. Both are very primal fears tied to my fear of being alone (I am not afraid of the dark if I am with another person), fear of the unknown (what could be lurking in the water just below the surface?), and a fear of a lack of control. Basic fears, really, but fears that paralyze so many of us. And yet, in the New Jerusalem, in John's vision of the heavenly city, those basic fears are gone. John tells us twice that God is the light of the city. We need no lamp, not even the sun or moon: God is our light. And the water that flows through the city is the water of life, flowing directly from God. We have nothing to fear.

Fear is a very powerful motivator in our world. Wars, terror, and just meanness come out of fear. We don't know much about the exact date when Revelation was written, but we do know that John of Patmos and other early Christians had much to fear, as many were martyred, their deaths made into entertainment, and many more ostracized from their families and communities for finding truth in the story of Jesus. But we don't need to study history to understand fear. We see it in our own time. We fear potential attacks, so we attack first, only to find out later that our intelligence wasn't so good. Too many Congressmembers fear losing lobbying money or losing the next election that they will not stand up for what is right. People stop homeless shelters and soup kitchens from being built because they fear they will be built in their backyards. Some of us fear plan crashes, so we refuse to get on airplanes and won't visit loved ones living far away. Some of us fear losing our jobs so much that we work until we make ourselves sick. So many things to fear, to keep us from living fully, rightly.

John knew fear. He knew the way it paralyzes us from living in freedom and love. Looking toward John's vision of the Heavenly City, we see that God does not want us to live this way. God wants us to live fully in the light of love, God wants love to flow over us, bright as crystal.

Now, sometimes when we read Revelation, we talk about how God can make us new here and now. I am talking about how God shows us that we need to let love reign in our lives here and now. But John was not talking about here and now. He was talking about end times, about an entirely new creation. In our individualistic ways of worship we sometimes miss that. John is not talking about “on Earth as it is in Heaven” that Jesus talked about. Jesus tried to help us bring a bit of heaven to earth, teaching us to love and care for one another. John's vision does not counter Jesus' teachings, but it is focused on a future event. It is to give us hope for the future, not to be an instruction on how to create heaven here on earth.

Yet I think that we can still read Revelation's images alongside Jesus' teachings and piece together how we can live today, to read Revelation and catch the vision of the New Jerusalem. Often, we read pieces of Revelation as a congregation during the Easter season as a continuation of our story of hope and victory. So though John is not writing about the water of life I will use today to baptize Zachary and Caleb, the river flowing bright as crystal in the New Jerusalem is connected to the water shimmering in our baptismal font. The candles Jeffrey lights before the service to symbolize Christ's presence in this place are connected to the light in the heavenly city that streams from the Lamb of God.

For today in baptism, in communion, in the simple act of lighting a candle, we are pointing to a fullness of life that we might not always be able to see in the midst of our fear, in the midst of our grief. We are pointing to a fullness of life, a life free from fear and sin, a life free to love. 
 
I read this story this week from a book by Bernard Martin.¹ He writes that one day a pastor was called from a children's party at the Sunday school to visit a young woman. This woman had collapsed into an acute depression following the death of her husband in an auto accident. She had withdrawn from everyone and shut herself in her bedroom with the blinds pulled. She wouldn't speak to her children because she said they reminded her of her dead husband. As the pastor put on his coat to leave the party, the children, unaware of the sadness he was about to enter into, showered him with confetti. He smiled at them but shook off the confetti as he walked out the door.

When he arrived at the woman's house, he entered her darkened room and told her who he was, but there was no response. He could faintly see her pitiful form lying motionless on the bed. He tried to carry on a conversation with her, but she was unresponsive. He reached out to touch her hand, but it lay lifeless in his. So he just sat with her in the dark silence for a time.

Sometimes we just need someone to sit and hold our hand in the darkness of fear and grief. But sometimes, we need to break out of it, to be reminded that God is our light. The pastor, before leaving, decided he would read scripture and pray with the woman briefly. He knew she needed prayer. So he fumbled for the bedside lamp. The woman blinked and stared at him blankly in the yellow glow of the lamp and did not respond. So the pastor took out his bible from his jacket pocket and opened it, only to have confetti fall from it all over the bed.

Here was a woman in grief, a woman who shut herself in darkness because she could not imagine joy or peace or light without her husband. The pastor knew this and was mortified that now confetti was sprinkled on the side of her bed, but he couldn't help himself. He began to laugh. The absurdity of the situation, the contrast, his nervousness gave way to laughter.

And that did it. First a smile appeared on the woman's face, and then she broke into quiet laughter. They prayed together and she left the darkness of fear and grief to return to the light.

Scholar Frederick Buechner reminds us:

We can't see light itself. We can see only what light lights up, like the little circle of night where the candle flickers--a sheen of mahogany, a wineglass, a face leaning toward us out of the shadows, [the shimmer of confetti sprinkled over a bed in a dark room].

When Jesus says that he is the Light of the World (John 8:12), maybe something like that is part of what he is saying. He himself is beyond our seeing, but in the darkness where we stand, we see, thanks to him...²

So when we read John's vision of a New Jerusalem, we are reminded that as Jesus will be our light in this eternal city, so he is our light today as well. He is beside us, should we choose to open our eyes and turn from the darkness in our lives to focus on the light. 
 
1See Bernard Martin, If God Does Not Die, http://www.sermoncentral.com/illustrations/stories-about-light.asp.
2http://www.frederickbuechner.com/content/weekly-sermon-illustrations-light