The Stars of the Christmas Pageant

Christmas Eve and Day: Luke 2:1-20

Merry Christmas!
I want you to think back, now, to Christmases past. And especially to Christmas pageants past….Do any of you have a favorite role in the Christmas pageant? A role you loved or longed to play?
Who wanted to be Mary? What about wise men? (they generally had good costumes) Shepherds? Angels? Joseph?

My favorite role was the Angel Gabriel. The costume wasn’t that exciting - a plain white bedsheet, although I did rather like the idea of wings - but I wanted to be the Angel Of The Lord because in the pageants of my childhood, it was the only speaking part.
As far as I was concerned, that made it the starring role.
Let the other girls be Mary, beautiful and mild. I wanted the lines.

And so, the year I got to play the Angel, I walked around the house for weeks, imagining myself in the candlelit church, muttering to the cat and proclaiming to the walls:
Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy!
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord!
I just loved it.

It’s still a pretty good set of lines: Good news. Joy. For all people.

The angels’ words still ring with glory tonight, as they should, in fact, every year, every time we read or hear or remember this story. Because it’s the same news for you and me, in 2011, that those shepherds heard on an ordinary day, two thousand or so years ago.
“Christ the Savior is born!”

But what if that’s where the story stopped?

What if the shepherds heard the news, passed around the basket of bread, and rolled up in their robes to sleep, figuring that the good news was meant for someone more important, or more holy, to receive and tell?
What if the shepherds had thought it was just a bad batch of mushrooms in the evening stew?

If the story had peaked where I sort of thought it did as a Christmas pageant angel, you and I wouldn’t be here tonight. We wouldn’t remember the story of the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. We might know later parts of the story, but not this one. Not this glorious, ordinary infant that warms our hearts and prepares us for the miracles yet to come.

The angel has some good lines.
But it’s the shepherds that matter.

They hear the news, and they believe it’s for them – for the ordinary folks, in the middle of a hard day’s work: the very definition of nobody special.
And they go out of their way to receive the news, to go to Bethlehem and see. Then they tell everyone – starting with Mary and Joseph, who you might think already know this stuff about the savior born in this stable. They go around glorifying and praising God, and amazing everyone who hears.

The angels announce the news to the shepherds because the news is that God’s glory is NOT for the rich and famous. (Or well it is, but only because God’s glory, salvation and love are for everybody.)

The real meaning of Christmas is that no matter who we are, no matter what others think of us, God has come to us – not just everybody, but to us specifically.
That Christmas is not about a special occasion, but about how God breaks in to the most ordinary of days. Christmas is the holy truth that God comes to us when we are driving, plowing through an endless stream of emails, or taking out the garbage.
That baby in the stable is the love of God showing up when we’re doing the dirty jobs – cleaning up after someone who is sick, washing the dishes, mucking out a flooded basement.

Christmas is God with us when we are bored or exhausted, when we’re putting up our feet after a long work day, when we’re enjoying ourselves, when our hearts are breaking, when we’re not even thinking at all.
God sharing our lives, so that we are surrounded by glory when we’re not doing anything special, even when we feel worthless, even when we just don’t notice.
God’s love is living and breathing and present in every uncounted hour of our lives – that’s the Christmas miracle.

The angels come to the shepherds precisely because they are already busy, and as ordinary as they come – just like many of us.
And you and I hear this good news again tonight because two thousand years ago the most ordinary of people believed the good news was for them, and for them to share.

Christmas spreads through the ordinary.
God comes into the world, and it’s only through the most ordinary of people, events, and stories that we can really know what it means that Jesus is Emmanuel: God With Us.

If the shepherds don’t respond – if we don’t respond – it’s a one-day story. A birth announcement that warms our hearts but doesn’t change the world.
But when we respond, when we make the story our own, it’s a story for all time and for all people, and that does change the world.

The angels still get some good lines, but in the Christmas pageant that is our lives, in the whole Christmas story, the shepherds are the stars.
They trust that the good news the angels bring is for them, and for them to share. They own the story, and tell the story, and over two thousand years they have brought us back to the miracle tonight.

Here we are.
Tonight, the angels come.
Glory shines and sings around us.
Around each and all of us, ordinary as we are.

And it’s our turn to trust that the good news is for us, and for us to share. To look around the world and see with our own eyes the promise God has given, and to tell what we know:
That God is not just here for the party, and the worship, but to live with us,
twenty four hours, seven days, every week and month and year.

And when we shepherds tell that story,
on any ordinary day,
you can hear the angels sing.

Amen.

Practicing Joy

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24, John 1:6-8, 19-28

John’s story today is about vocation.

About knowing who you are, and what you’re here to do. 

About calling to God – the call we heard in the poem today – and hearing God calling you.

The religious authorities send a delegation to ask John what on earth he is up to, baptizing in the wilderness. And first we hear all about what John is not. Not the Messiah.  Not Elijah come back from heaven, not the prophet you have been waiting for. 

There’s some stark clarity to these statements in the Greek that demonstrate that John knows exactly who he is, and what God wants him to do, and then he says:

I am the witness to the Messiah, to the one whose coming you don’t expect.

John’s vocation is to point to the Christ.  To stand as witness that Jesus is the Anointed One of God.  To clearly testify that God is here.

Your mother probably told you it’s rude to point at someone else.  But pointing to Jesus is precisely what John is created and called to do.  “Look!”  he says, “Behold!”  Look!

And it’s what we do, too, these many years later.  As the church, as Christians, it’s up to us to point to Jesus in the world. It’s our vocation, too.

It was probably about twenty years ago when I first heard someone quote the spiritual writer Frederick Buechner’s definition of vocation:

Vocation – where God calls you – is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

I’ve never been able to forget that.  The idea took a powerful hold of my mind and heart, probably because for the first time in my life I really understood that joy matters, and that joy meets the deep need of the world.

Do you know how much joy matters?

Do you know your own deep joy?

You should.  God wants you to.

You may have heard, from one source or another, that this Third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete Sunday.  The Sunday of Joy.  The pink candle in the Advent wreath and the pink roses at the altar today are clues – clues that our Advent waiting is not monochromatic, but a waiting spiked with gladness, with joy already and now.

It may not seem like we need more reminders to rejoice in a season that’s full of parties, presents, shopping, treats and jingling music, but Advent joy is not really about being happy or even merry.

Advent joy is about vocation.  About who we are called to be, as the people of Christ, every single day.

That’s what Paul is talking about. The Thessalonian community is beset on every side by ridicule and oppression, and Paul’s advice to them – actually his charge to them, their assignment and job description – goes like this:

Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing.  Give thanks in all circumstances.  This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

It’s vocation.  It’s who we are to be in this world:

People for whom joy, and prayer, and thanks giving are as constant and natural as breathing. 

Think about what John knew, and what the Thessalonians knew,

that God has come into the world so that nothing can separate us from God.

And what John and the Thessalonians were expecting at every minute:

that Christ is coming in such a way that the world is transformed, that all of the pain and irritation and temptation and struggle are swept into a new relationship with God where we can never even feel separated from God again.

Joy is knowing in your bones and gut that you are entirely loved.

Joy is that carbonated sense of the presence of God that bubbles up so abundantly that you can’t contain it.

Joy is a deep, rich peace that fills your heart, a lovely calm amid the rush and hurry.

I think the world might be hungry for that, don’t you?

Deeply hungry, even.

And that’s why Advent is about profound joy.  About a gladness that is rooted so very deeply in our souls and hearts that nothing can dim it or break it.

God plants it there.  God plants joy in each and every one of us.

And on the pink Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Joy, you and I are reminded to water that joy, and feed it, to lean into it for strength, and to grow with that joy.

Joy comes naturally sometimes.  But it also takes practice.

You can practice joy in the merry bustle of December;

and you can also practice joy when you’re exhausted, angry, or sad,

because joy doesn’t deny grief or fear or guilt, but stands beside them to remind us that pain is not the last word.

So we practice: like giving thanks, and praying – those things that remind us that we are, always, in the presence of God.

Practice like lighting a candle for the fear or sorrow in your heart, and paying attention to the living light that shines through that pain.

Practice like by receiving a hug from a delighted three year old.

Practice like singing Christmas carols – even if you can’t sing, even the ones that drive you crazy the 40^th time you hear them in the store – and praying the words of comfort, peace, and especially joy for the world.

We find joy in many different ways, in many different places.  But we can also practice joy, always and anywhere.

And we must.

Because it is our joy that points to Christ – to the presence of God among us right now, and to God coming now and forever, to transform the world.

Do you know how much joy matters?

Do you know your own deep joy?

You should.  It’s your vocation.  Our vocation.

Open your heart, today, and reach deep for that holy, life-giving joy that God has planted within you.

And now, and always, rejoice.

Road Construction

Isaiah 40:1-11, Mark 1:1-8

Have you ever been driving along in your car and seen a whole bunch of big orange cones?  Or bright orange signs? 

What’s happening when you see that? Road construction.  

 

Did you see any of those orange cones and those signs in church today? That’s funny, because I noticed that there’s some road construction in our scripture readings today.       

We heard from the prophet Isaiah about building a highway in the wilderness: Make it straight! Every valley will be filled up, all the mountains and hills made low; the bumpy ground will be leveled out and everything rough made smooth. And in the Gospel, Mark tells us that John the Baptist was out in the wilderness preparing the road for God.    

Isaiah and John are both talking about building God’s Highway, the way to the Kingdom of God.   Where do you think God's Highway goes?   God’s Highway is the way for God to come into our world, and a way for us to get to God.  (Because a good highway goes both directions)            

The season of Advent is like the construction zone for God’s highway.  There are signs to help us pay attention.   Can you think of what some of the signs of Advent are?

[Advent wreath, label on the hymn board, purple vestments]

Our Advent signs aren’t usually big and orange, they help us remember that this is a special time and place for building a way to God, and a way for God to come to us.    

Do you know what you need to do in a road construction zone?   Be careful, pay attention, slow down.

 

That’s true in Advent, too.  When we’re in God’s construction zone, we need to slow down and pay attention.  We have to help ourselves be quiet inside so we can hear God talking to us, and giving us directions. Plan a time in your day, maybe right before you go to sleep, or after dinner, when you are very quiet. No games, no homework, no talking.  Take nice deep breaths to help your body be quiet, close your eyes, and tell God you’re listening.  Pay attention to the quiet for a few minutes.  Sometimes God may come into your heart to tell you something.  Sometimes, you’ll just hear the quiet, and that’s okay. 

God made quiet, just like everything else.    

We don’t use bulldozers in our Advent construction zone, but there are other things we can do to help build the road for God to come into our world.    

 

Helping other people fills in the holes and levels out the road, and it helps us get closer to God. Sit down with your family and talk about a way you can help someone.  Think about whether you can donate chickens or goats to help a family get food, or help people at PADS get gloves and warm hats.  Or maybe your grandmother or your neighbor just needs some help around the house.       

And making peace smooths out the bumps in the road God uses to come to us.  Next time your brother does something to make you mad, instead of telling Mom, stop and tell your brother you love him, and do something nice for him.  (It will surprise your brother and your mom) And next time you’re about to do something that will make someone mad, stop and think if there is a way to make that person happy (you might even get more of what you want that way)

 

I have some Advent signs here for you to take home.  [orange "God's Highway: Under Construction" signs]

You can put them on your fridge, or on the wall in your room, or on your notebook for school. These signs will remind us that it’s Advent, and God’s highway is under construction right now.  They’ll remind us to slow down, pay attention, and help make a highway for God!

 

Waiting, Watching

Isaiah 64: 1-9, Mark 13: 24-37

Waiting is not what it used to be. 
Last Tuesday, I was waiting for my Dad to come for Thanksgiving.
And by “waiting,” I mean checking the United flight status info on the internet every 20 minutes.  
Then came the texting phase: On the taxiway at OHare  --  On my way -- In the terminal.  
And finally the phone phase: 
Where are you? Meet me at doorway 8.  Okay, I’m pulling up now -- Oh, wait, I see you!

That’s not the way I remember the Thanksgivings of my childhood, when the arrival of a car full of cousins was always a glad surprise.

And when Jesus taught and when the prophets wrote, waiting was a way of life.
Waiting for the rain, and then for the harvest.  Waiting for news to travel miles by foot. 
Waiting for birth without ultrasound images and induction dates.  Waiting for the master to get home from a months long journey, without any likelihood of messages to suggest the hour, the day, or even the week.
That’s not like waiting for a plane to land, today, or even like waiting for the family to gather, 25 years ago.
But it’s the way we wait for God.

It’s waiting for something that will change the present and the future – and maybe even the past – and waiting without an end in sight.

Did you notice that as soon as Jesus finishes reassuring his disciples that they’ll recognize the signs of God’s coming, he points out that it still won’t do them much good?
You’ll see the signs, he says.  But you won’t know when.  I don’t know when. 
It’s waiting without limits, without an end of the line.

Of course, it’s been almost two thousand years since Jesus said all that, and his disciples have seen most of those signs come and go over and over and over again.
We’re still waiting, more or less. But it’s gotten hard to wait expectantly for the coming of God.

In fact, I don’t think we really wait very much these days.
It may feel like we do.
In a highly wired, automated, instant messaging society, half a day for a return email or two minutes in line can feel like eternity. And let’s not even talk about traffic.
But waiting has become a hassle, not a faithful practice.

It’s too bad, in some ways, that you and I enter the Advent season knowing that we will celebrate Christmas on December 25.  It’s knowledge you can’t avoid, even if you never turn on the TV and stay miles away from the malls.  In fact, in culture and even in church these days it’s less and less like we’re waiting for Christmas, and more and more like we’re racing to Christmas.

That’s one of the reasons we’re reading poetry in worship this season.  Because poetry has a different relationship to time than prose, and it may wake us up to new ways of experiencing Advent.

In RowanWilliams’s poem today I hear the sharp-edged beauty of Advent – of a “coming” that is miraculous but not comfortable, both gradual and sudden, predictable but impossible to wait for. Williams’s poetry reminds me that Advent waiting is not about time, but about watching, being alert to what is,
so that we see the one who comes.

That’s the whole reason for the season of Advent.  It’s a season when – despite the rushing, don’t-wait, pressure of the holiday season around us – we practice watching, being alert to the things that are, to sharpen our hope and expectation of what’s to come.  Of God to come.

It’s a season for waking up from the habits of expecting God someday, to the longing for God to come now.

Waiting may be about patience.  About letting go of the belief that we can control events, or even just about the need to know when. That’s good for us, any time.
But Advent watching is about holy impatience.  About not being satisfied with a world where God isn’t back yet, and letting ourselves long for reconciliation and restoration here and now.

An Advent practice of holy impatience is not about getting done faster,
but of doing things we’ve given up hoping for. 
Like returning to the pain of a broken relationship, giving up blame and seeking healing.

There are other, simpler ways we can use the fragments of waiting in our ordinary lives to practice Advent watching.

Put down the remote control during commercials this month, and instead of waiting, watch:
Watch the images of problems and desire, and pray for the transformation of our wants and needs into longing for God’s will on earth, as in heaven.
Watch for glimpses of peace and generosity and love, and give thanks to God for a heart to see and hands to share.

Or, when you’re standing in a holiday-long checkout line, claim the time for faithful vision.  Imagine yourself walking out of the store into a world transformed by Christ’s return.  Who would you see?  What would you do? 
Pray for those people and actions, and let that inspire the rest of your day.
Perhaps you’ll see new signs of God’s presence even in the parking lot, practicing a few minutes a day.

We don’t live in a world that’s very good at waiting, and it’s harder than ever in the countdown to Christmas.  But this is Advent, and you and I are called to practice a holy impatience, to set free our longing for God here and now.

Not to wait, but to watch:
to stay alert for miracles,
because God is coming,
now and forever.

Images

Matthew 25:14-30, 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Last week I found myself talking with some clergy colleagues about our images of God and what they mean.  It was a thoughtful conversation, but about an hour later I realized we hadn’t really talked about our images of God at all.  We hadn’t spent any time talking about whether I see God as generous, short-tempered, or having a sense of humor.  No one had described God as loving, or beautiful, or scary. 

We all have an image of God.  But we may not spend much time talking about those images, or even thinking about them.

So think about your image of God for a minute: 

What is God like?

If you had to describe God to someone new, how would you do it?

There is a blank sheet of paper in your bulletin.   It’s waiting for your image of God.  There are little pencils in the pew holders, and extra pens right here.

You can draw what God is like. You can write adjectives, or lists, or poetry.  But spend a few minutes thinking about what God is like, and get that down on paper.

 * * *

My image of God is about things like

light, laughter, and joy

concern for doing the right thing, and a readiness to break rules

a sense of immensity, and a sense of intimacy

and a face that absolutely refuses to have features in my mind, but leaves a vivid sense of presence.

Your list is probably different.  Maybe your picture has a face, or maybe your image of God looks more like lightning or Jesus or a dove.  But whatever’s on that page, and in your mind and heart, is important.

Very important.

I asked you to do this exercise this morning, because our image of God is exactly what our gospel story is about.

Many of you know this one:

Three servants are asked to take care of some money for their master.  Two go out and double their money in the market; they are congratulated and rewarded with more authority and responsibility.  One buries the money to keep it safe, and is scolded and punished. So far, this story would work on Wall Street.

But Jesus’ parables are never really about life as we know it.  And the clue to this one is in the dialogue.  That man with the buried talent says: “I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid….”

He’s so afraid of doing wrong he decides to do nothing at all. He acts on his image of the master as a dangerous, greedy man.  And that image shapes the master’s response, too. 

We don’t much about the image of the master from other two servants, but they must have had a different image – an image about generosity, or the master’s trust in them, perhaps (since 5 talents is somewhere between $500,000 and $1.2 million in today’s dollars), or about very high expectations –

some image that encouraged them to take risks and expect rewards. 

Deliberately or unconsciously, you and I also respond to our image of God in our everyday actions – at work, at home, at church and in the quiet of our hearts.  Our decisions about time, and money – and talents! – reflect our images of God.

Think about that for a minute.  Think about your image of God, and about the decisions you make, the way you act in the world.

What does your image of God inspire you to do?

Does the way you see God inspire you to take care or to take risks?  To build a team? To take a stand?

Does your image of God inspire you to call your mother, or to start a business? To love, to grow, to laugh, to forgive?

Find someone in a pew near you, now, and tell them one thing your image of God inspires you to do.  Then listen to their inspiration.

 * * *

Your conversations just now are exactly what the gospel is about today – in fact, they’re what the gospel is about every day:

Our lives reflect our image of God.

Paul tells us that when our image of God is about salvation, we live clothed in faith, hope and love.

That’s a promise, and it’s a challenge, because the way we live shapes other people’s image of God. 

When we respond to an image of love and generosity, other people learn that gospel from us, and that image of God is reflected in their lives, and then in the lives of others,

who teach others,

until the reflection of light or love or grace shapes the whole human race.

Because, after all, we were made in God’s image.

And that image has power.

Getting in Trouble

Matthew 23:1-12

This sermon is pretty much guaranteed to get the preacher in trouble.

Every word out of Jesus’ mouth is uncomfortable, radical and political. Just listen to him this morning, sitting in the Temple in Jerusalem and talking trash about the Pharisees, complaining about their flag pins and claims to know what God wants for America, their phylacteries and their fringes.
Listen to him talk about hypocrisy, creating burdens for Main Street that no one on K Street or Wall Street carries, and about failing to practice what they preach.

Jesus says the same things about the Pharisees that the folks Occupying Wall Street and the Tea Partiers say about corporate and political leaders.
Half of this sermon could go right on Facebook and Twitter, and you’d never know it’s about two thousand years old.

Even when Jesus gets to his instructions to the disciples, and the community that becomes Christian, he’s still saying radical things about rejecting the norms of tradition, and reorganizing the religious community.

He’s right of course. It’s a terrible thing to create burdens for everyone else that you don’t have any real intention of carrying yourself. And concern for respect and your “image” can get in the way of your real relationships.
And it definitely gets him in trouble.

But it’s also pretty normal.
I do that stuff.
Many of you might, too.

Most of the time, we don’t do it on purpose. We probably don’t go to the store looking for an opportunity to push industrial waste and below-subsistence wages on other people. More likely, we go to the store looking to do the best we can for our families.
Many of us like to make a good impression, just on general principle. We like to be treated with respect by waiters, co-workers, family, and especially the customer service people on the other end of the phone line.
And, well, many of us get pretty attached to “our” seat in the church. Which is perfectly normal and mostly harmless – until it freezes out someone else, even just by accident.

Which is another place this sermon has a good chance of getting the preacher in trouble. After all, here I am with the fanciest seat in the house, blatantly religious clothes, and a title. And, since I’m preaching the gospel to the best of my ability, and the gospel is a tremendous, life-altering, world-changing and demanding experience, I’m pretty much guaranteed to fail regularly at practicing what I preach.
It’s tempting to take this sermon a little personally.

And yes, it’s about me. But it’s also not about me, or about you,
because fundamentally, it’s about us.
About our community, not about individuals.

It’s about how the outward forms of organization and holiness make us comfortable. It’s about how recognition and self-esteem are things we need emotionally the same way we physically need food. These things provide security, strength, and continuity.

And Jesus wants us to let go of all that.

Because security, strength, comfort, and continuity are totally irrelevant at the foot of the cross and the doorway of the empty tomb.  Comfort, security, and recognition conspire to keep us away from the frightening, embarrassing, or vulnerable places that God might lead us. Organization, continuity, strength might tempt us to avoid a place that calls all our most basic truths into question.

Jesus actually wants us to be vulnerable. To experience our relationship with God and one another not as assurance and comfort, not as work to be done, not even as “normal,”
but as an immense trust fall,
an experience of giving over all our illusions of control,
and being embraced and held up when we absolutely cannot save ourselves.

When we let go of security and reputation, and risk embarrassment and pain, we find ourselves at the foot of the cross, face to face with how much we love and are loved. 
When we let go of the things that promise strength and continuity, we show up at the tomb because there is nowhere left to go, and are brought face to face with hope beyond our imagining.

That’s what Jesus means about humility. It’s not a question of convincing ourselves that we’re worthless, but rather of willingness to live our faith unprotected by the structures of authority, the traditions of respect and reputation, risking strangeness and surprise at every turn.

So think with me for a minute about what that might mean.
When Jesus tells his disciples not to have rabbis, or teachers, or leaders called “Father,” he’s telling them to let go of all the ways religious communities get respect, and security, comfort and self-esteem at the time.
He might talk to us about our building, or prayer book, or even Sunday morning worship – or about other things I’m too involved myself to see.
It’s not an instruction to quit church, but instead a challenge to be church in ways that aren’t secure, or comfortable, or respected by the community.

It might mean taking church out of this building, like we do on Ash Wednesday at the train station.
If so, where else is God calling us to take the church?
Or it might mean inviting into our building those we don’t think of as church.
If so, is that people of other races and nations – or is it Wall Street executives and politicians?

It might mean changing the way we worship.
If so, do we change the music and the prayers?
Or does every one of you take a turn to write the prayers and preach the sermon?

It could be other things, too. Things that could really get the preacher in trouble.
Which is good news, still, because this whole troubling sermon of Jesus’ is about letting go of the things that make us comfortable, giving up predictability and security in favor of trust, and falling – metaphorically and literally – into the hands of God.

Because trust is what humility and vulnerability are really about,
and trust is what lets God surprise us: with love at the foot of the cross, and hope at the empty tomb.

Instead of The Calf

Exodus 32:1-14

Imagine yourself out in the wilderness, with the people of Israel.
They’ve been rescued out of slavery in Egypt and invited on a journey to the land of promise. They’ve been fed miraculous bread and quails in the desert, drunk water that sprang from a dry rock, and seen the power of God vividly outlining the Commandments of their new way of life.
And then Moses goes off up a mountain to talk to God about the rest of their lives, while the people wait.
And wait,
…
…
and wait.

Not just for hours, but for so many days and weeks that they can’t count them anymore.

Have you ever felt abandoned by God? Or even just stood up for a meeting?
It can happen. A time when somehow God just seems to vanish from your life, even though you keep showing up for church, trying to be faithful to the journey God’s called you on. But now it seems like God isn’t picking up the phone, or even checking voicemail.
It’s that way for the Israelites in the wilderness. Moses was the only way they had to talk to God – and he’s vanished.

So they ask Aaron to come up with a way for them to be in touch with God. To make God available more conveniently, more obviously, less mysteriously. And Aaron comes up with the golden calf.

This golden calf was produced by our middle school students, a year or so ago when they were talking about the challenges of trying to live as God commands us to.
But I think I make idols – and maybe you do too – less on purpose than unconsciously, turning to projects or stories or other people that might fill up the hole anxiety or loneliness creates.
I think we make idols anytime we try to arrange our relationship to God so that it’s more comfortable, or more convenient.

This golden calf is made of fairly common materials, but did you notice what the golden calf in the Exodus story is made of? Jewelery. The decorative treasure and the portable bank account of a wandering people. Aaron passed around the collection plate, and picked up all the wealth in the camp to make that calf.
It costs a lot to fill the hole that’s left when you seem to have lost your connection with God.
And it’s bad stewardship.

Now, that’s not the way the story is normally read. It’s more traditional to talk about the breaking of the second commandment, about the idol-making itself. And there’s no doubt that that’s a problem, and that it’s enough to get God pretty steamed up.
But I think that idol-making tends to come from misunderstanding and bad stewardship, rather than the other way around.

The Israelites didn’t earn that jewelry that the calf is made from. They left Egypt with it stuffed into their pockets and packs because God arranged for it. With the whole country terrorized with plague after plague, at God’s suggestion the Israelites were more or less paid off to go away and take their dangerous God with them.

In the wilderness, fresh out of oppression, it’s easy to remember it’s not our money. It’s the money God arranged for us to have. Just like it’s easy to remember that freedom is God’s gift, when we’re just now freed from whatever held us down. And that relationship is a gift when it’s new and fresh.

But then we can get used to it – freedom, relationship, financial security – and it’s easier to forget the gift, and believe it’s all ours, and that it’s up to us to set the terms of the life we live, and the way we’re going to relate to God.

And when we use those gifts to fill up our own anxiety and loneliness; when we turn to things or people we can predict and manage, to relationships and places that are comfortable and convenient, to fill up our longing for God, and our fear that God might not be paying attention,
it’s bad stewardship.

But I don’t think God gives us freedom and wealth just so we can sit still and wait, either. Avoiding all risk never gets a lot of applause in the stories of the Bible. Instead we learn that when our hands are full but God isn’t issuing commandments, it’s an invitation to good stewardship – of our freedom, our relationships, and our jewelry (or however we may carry our wealth).

So:
Imagine that you’re Israel.
Your hands are full of the gifts of freedom, wealth, and the promise that God wants to be in a relationship with you. And then you come to a point where God stops giving directions for a while.
How do you respond? What would be good stewardship of those gifts?

What might God have invited them to do with those resources if they hadn’t made a calf? What story might we be telling, now, about how God rejoiced at what Israel did with their freedom and treasure?

Go ahead and think about it.
And write it down on the post-it note in your leaflet.
Don’t worry if it might be silly. And you don’t have limit yourself to the possibilities of a desert camp (Israel didn’t stay in that camp forever). Just set your imagination free.

When you’ve written it, bring it up here and stick it to our golden calf.



****
Here's what you said, unedited:
Share our gifts with others
Save for buying food and other necessities when they find people who have them to sell
Take these gifts and share their wealth with people they encounter on their journey. Share this wealth with one another in thanksgiving to God.
Use the gifts they are given to help others to know God better. Feed, clothe, tell stories, keep company, share wealth.
Have a party that allows everyone to rejoice in the knowledge of the Lord.
Use them to feed the hungry.
Feed the poor.
Make water pitchers.
Use those resources for other people when they enter into Caanan  SHARE
Friendship
Proclaim the grace of God. Help the poor. Enjoy them. Be grateful to God for everything.
Walk on to those gifts – the promised land and trust God.
Fellowship with everybody there.
They could have gone on to other towns and told their story. In those towns bought food or clothing for others to help teach about God and his people.
Comfort others in prayer.
Wealth: Use the gold to buy a guide to get through the desert more quickly. Freedom: develop a culture of worship that moved with them rather than through the Law. Relationship: developed patience.
Spread it to those less wealthy. Help the poor- feeding, clothing, caring for the sick and infirm and aged.
Feed the hungry. Take care of the sick. Teach the unlearned. Bring God into the lives of those who do not believe.
Fed the less fortunate. Built shelter. Clothed those in need.
Built housing for themselves.
They could have built a permanent town to live in with a really nice temple.
Be proactive in giving my wealth to those with less and sharing my freedom and belief with those who are struggling.
Used wealth to help those in need.
Dig wells. Plant food. Give to poor.
Purchased flocks to feed themselves and those less fortunate.
Created new waiting rituals, ways to help one another feel supported and unified as a people while waiting.
Become a nation of kindness (with relationship) and generosity to others (with wealth)
They could have given their gold as an offering for a new temple in which to worship.
Use it to feed more people – find ways to grow products or animals/food etc
Buy oxen, horses, etc to get to the land they are promised. Dig wells when needed. Plant vineyards, etc.
Pray.
Build a new community in the wilderness, bringing in those who don’t have relationships.
Share their wealth amongst each other, and teach their gifts to each other, so that all could benefit.
Use them as decoration in a temple to God.
Feed the hungry with food and God’s word.

****
I asked you to do this because God gives you and me those same gifts God gave Israel: freedom from what oppresses us, the resources we need, and the extraordinary relationship that starts when God chooses us, and invites us on a journey to the land of promise.
We’re stewards of the very same gifts, and this story is our story.
And our story should be good news.
Amen.

Daily Bread

Exodus 16:2-15, Matthew 20:1-16

Years ago, I used to drive home from work along Sheridan Road in Evanston.  And when it was dark, at a certain point I’d look up and see a vision:

A warmly lit window, an armchair, and a floor to ceiling bookcase.

It’s not a very sexy fantasy, I know, but at the end of a long day of hauling gear, juggling staff and guides, managing clients, and - of course, a ringing phone, incessant email, and most days, something wrong that I couldn’t fix – a life full of books sounded like heaven.

Your vision might be different. But I used to look into that window as I drove past and think, “God, I want that.”

Five years later, one seminary evening when I was up to my ears in deadlines, theology to read and papers to write, meetings to attend, services to plan, I reached up to switch on a lamp and recognized my vision.

I was sitting in a chair in a warmly lit window, right next to a floor to ceiling bookcase.

Oh.

What do you do when God answers your prayer?

Or when God answers what you didn’t even think was a prayer?

It happens all the time.

Thousands of years ago, out in the dry and lifeless wilderness, the Israelites weren’t actually talking to God. They yelled at Moses and Aaron,“What kind of dumb idea was this, hauling us out of Egypt to die out here?  At least in Egypt there was food.  This place has nothing but rocks.  Couldn’t you have left us in Egypt to die?”

It’s actually a clear and honest assessment of the mess they’re in, an entire nation out in the middle of nowhere with no chance of dinner in sight, much less breakfast or supplies for a long and dangerous journey.

And in that moment, God speaks to Moses: I’ll feed them.  I will give them what they want, and everything they need. And that will be a test.

Huh?  It’s a test when you get everything you wanted?

Well, it might be.  Extravagant good fortune is as good at pointing out true character as horrible bad luck and distress.  But I think the question God is raising here is exactly the question the Israelites raised themselves: Are they ready to be out of Egypt?

It’s not an exam, it’s an experiment. 

So far the people of Israel have only known God in crisis.  God appears in the midst of genocide and oppression, swoops them out through plagues and wonders and whisks them dry through a sea that crashes in to drown the pursuing army.  They see God’s dramatic power, and they believe.

But now here they are in the wilderness.  Rescued.  Free.  But hungry and facing the everyday problem of something to eat.

They don’t turn to God. They turn to what’s behind them – the predictability of working for Pharaoh – and blame their leaders for losing it. For a story with so much complaining in it, it’s remarkable to note that no one is ever scolded for whining.  Instead, over and over we hear that God hears. 

And God responds.

They need bread.  God gives them bread.

They want meat.  God brings quails.

It’s not dramatic.  It’s mundane.  And the “bread” that appears isn’t readily recognizable.  The name manna actually comes from the Hebrew for “What’s that???”  

So it’s quite possible, despite all Moses and Aaron can say, that the Israelites don’t quite understand that their prayer has been answered.  They didn’t think they were praying, after all, when they complained about their leaders and their practical, daily needs.

And that’s why this bread is a test. An experiment, to see if we’re ready to live in the promised land, in the kingdom of God.

Are we ready for God to be this involved in our daily lives?  To know God not as the one we turn to in crisis, but as the one we breathe with, the one we eat with, the one we trust for basic, practical, and intimate daily needs – and wants?

Are we ready for our daily lives to be this engaged with God – so that what we murmur is answered and the very bread of life is so clearly not our possession or our pay, but a gift?

In God’s country, it’s not our own resources and efforts that keep us fed and safe and even comfortable.

In Egypt, food and safety come from following the rules and working hard.

But in God’s country, daily bread is a gift.

And it’s completely different to receive a gift than to earn a living.

That’s what Jesus says about the kingdom of heaven: It’s like a crowd of day laborers – people who quite literally have to find work today to eat tonight. Some of them are hired for a day’s work that assures they’ll feed their family. Some of them are still standing there, waiting to be hired, all day long, so dependent on being hired to eat that they do an hour’s work for the hope of “whatever’s right.”

And every one of them goes home with daily bread.

No less.  But no more.

Because in God’s country, you don’t need more to have enough.

In God’s country, life is a daily gift.

And receiving is different from earning.

Earning is about expectations, limited resources, and “productivity.” Receiving is about open hands and delight, and our relationship with the giver. 

To earn, you have to do things right. To receive, you have to trust.

The laborers in Jesus’ parable get in trouble when they focus on what they earned, instead of noticing what everyone received:

Daily bread. 

The thing you and I pray for all the time, whether or not we’re paying attention.

Give us today our daily bread.

And you know, most of the time we get it. 

But as we eat, we’re often too distracted to recognize each meal as an answered prayer. 

Our wilderness has grocery stores instead of quails, and a different set of dangers and fears.  But our daily bread is still the same: the answer to a prayer, and a test. An experiment to see if we’re ready to live from trust.  Ready for the knowledge that God is listening powerfully, not just in crisis, but in the murmuring of our wants and daily needs. 

We’re ready to live in God’s country when we can look around at the answers to the prayers we never knew we prayed and say,

Oh.

This is where I belong. Because this is where God is.

This is what I need.

Because God is here.

The pain and the grace

Matthew 18:21-35

I couldn’t turn on the radio or the internet all week without hearing something about Nine Eleven. Conversation, reporting, commentary.  Stories about what’s changed and what we remember. 

In self defense, I kept the TV tuned to House Hunters.

Because all week, it’s felt like bleeding from an open wound.  And I was looking for a bandaid.

It’s different if you were there that day, or if you were here.  Different for each of us.  But wherever you were, on Tuesday ten years ago, you probably remember.

And then life goes on.

Not just after Nine Eleven, but after a death in the family, after a terrifying diagnosis, the loss of meaningful work or the breakdown of an important relationship.

It’s not always welcome news that life goes on.  But it does, so we look for a thing called “closure.”

We heard about closure in May when Osama bin Laden died.

We heard about it in September and October and November 2001 in the long search for missing persons and something to bury.

And, in fact, we heard about it – ever so briefly – in the gospel today.

“How many times do I have to forgive?” Peter asks Jesus. “Say, seven times??”

Peter’s being generous.  He knows he’s already been forgiven much himself, he knows that miracles and grace are more abundant than he’d expected.  So he wants to forgive as much as possible.

But still he wants closure.  He wants to be able to be done with forgiving.

He may want to know when he doesn’t have to try anymore, but I rather imagine he wants to know when it will stick.  When forgiveness will be complete, and he’ll have “closure” for the pain of being hurt.

But Jesus says, Seventy times seven.

(The gospel math is ambiguous.  It could be 77, it could be 490.  Either way, Jesus’ actual answer is No.)

No, you can’t count the times you have to forgive.

No, you can’t forgive in order to be finished.

“Forgive and forget” is probably one of the most misleading sayings out there.

If you forgot, you wouldn’t need to forgive.  And forgiving – really forgiving – won’t really help you to forget.

Because forgiveness is not a bandaid.

It’s open heart surgery.

It’s about opening up all that’s blocking the flow to our heart, in and out, in all our relationships. About not letting pain cut off the vibrant, complex strength of those relationships.

When we love someone - parents, children, siblings, spouses, friends - we will get hurt.  And we’ll hurt those we love.   Same for living in community – a community like Calvary, or like our nation. So we have to keep turning back to those relationships with open hearts after angry words, and careless mistakes, and major trauma. 

And then do it again. 

And we need forgiveness that washes over and over and over our souls, over the raw anxiety, sorrow and fear of having done wrong or hurt someone else.

Forgiveness is the other extreme from closure.  And it’s even more healing, because its continuous nature makes us resilient, able to dream and hope and act to make our visions real.

When I’ve been hurt, what I usually want most is for the pain to stop.

There are times when hurting someone else runs a very close second.   But mostly I want to block off the pain, to walk away or “forget” with an act of will.  To turn on House Hunters and ignore the grief and anger and fear of memory.  To ”move on.”

That helps with the pain, which is not a bad thing. And sometimes it is the very best thing we can do.

But it’s not forgiveness.  Not the forgiveness Jesus is talking about.

Because forgiveness doesn’t set limits, it opens doors.

It’s not something we do by ourselves or by an act of will.

It’s what we do when we let God flow through us, when we open our hearts wide to God, through God’s people.

When I close my eyes and think about September 11, I don’t see the towers any more. 

I see first responders: firefighters and police and paramedics.  I see frightened, confused people reaching out to take hands with strangers, and making safe space for others in even greater pain and fear.  I see people carrying those who cannot walk.

I see people who literally reached into that burning wound and pulled it further open trying to save and to heal.  People who breathed the physical form of loss and heartache and horror.   People who did that because they wanted desperately to help and people who did it just because it was their job, or because they happened to be there.

I see the glory and the grief and the steadfast love.

And I go ahead and cry.

Because I can’t separate the pain from the grace.  And that's probably a good thing. 

It might be the way God looks at us, day in and day out.

To stay in relationship with us, God doesn’t fence off the angry words and careless mistakes of our everyday sins from our everyday acts of grace.  Nor does God separate the intentional murder of thousands from the wild outpouring of compassion and unity and self-sacrifice that happen in the same place at the same time.

But over and over and over and over again, God turns an open heart to us, refusing to let grief or anger block the flow of love and grace.

We need this, and we pray for it in confession and in the Lord’s Prayer.

And we are invited to do the same. To turn our open hearts toward God and to one another and to strangers, and let the grace flow with the pain, so that nothing can block or limit the hope and love and caring and strength that God offers us and we give to one another.

I haven’t forgiven the hijackers, or the sheer impersonal pain and fear, or the nation of liberty and justice for all for not living up to our dream.  And I haven’t forgiven – or been forgiven – all the errors and omissions of family life, and life with you, and the rest of my communities.

But I am forgiving them, and I will be, with God’s help, the rest of my life.

After this weekend the TV, radio, and internet will fill up with other news: football scores, Washington politics, traffic, and the everyday working of Murphy’s law.  We’ll talk less and less about the particular tragedy of September 2001, and more about our other tragedies and joys and daily routine.

The wound won’t be as open.

But closure isn’t the good news.

The good news is that it isn’t over.  That we are still, always, forgiving and forgiven, for that day and for every day. 

Because as our hearts stay open to living with memory and grief and fear, great or small, we stay open to unlimited, lively compassion and love. We stay in stronger relationship with one another, with our community, with our dreams, and with God.   

And that’s what living is for.

 September 11, 2011