One Light

Luke 2:1-20

Did you ever notice it’s actually pretty dark in the Christmas story?

There probably wasn’t much light in that stable in Bethlehem. Whether it was a cave or a building, an animal shelter wouldn’t have a lot of windows, and might not have much in the way of oil lamps or candles, either.

And the shepherds in the fields that night were working in a darkness that’s hard to imagine for those of us used to electricity.  They probably couldn’t see where they were putting their feet, and had to keep the sheep pretty close to be sure they could keep watch over them all.

Until the angel.

A glory shining so intensely that it was terrifying, almost disabling for people used to the dark.

It’s the only light we get to see in this story: the glory of the Lord shining around the shepherds, while they hear unimaginable news from God’s messenger, and are lost in the whirlwind of an angelic praise chorus.

Just one light, one fiercely bright illumination,

but it’s enough.

When the darkness returns, the shepherds go to Bethlehem.

They hurry, they run, to do something none of them would ever have expected to do: find a newborn infant, see God’s unasked promises come true right in front of them, and start telling their crazy, unbelievable story to anyone who will listen.

All of that in the dark, from one light.

But one light is enough.

Human beings are created to respond to light, you know. We sleep and wake - or fail to do so - by the signals we get from the sun. Light affects vitamins, hormones, and body chemicals that affect our bones, fertility, mood and physical health. Just ask your doctor.

I’m more aware of that right now than usual.  There’s a lot of dark in our days in December, and it’s been rainy and cloudy this month, and my body is literally starving for daylight.

So every morning, I sit in front of a doctor-prescribed light box, getting the phototherapy that manages everything from sleep to pain to appetite and energy - the light that keeps my body working.

It’s a brief, intense exposure, but it doesn’t work if I skip days, or short the time, or push the box too far off to the side.  I’ve had to make it a habit, a practice, an exercise, to absorb that light,

to be open to that light,

and let it change my body for the better.

You may not need a winter light box, but every one of us depends on light, because we’re human, and we need it for energy and health and strength and life.

We can’t do without it, so we need to be open to the light, to be intentional about absorbing it.

Because there’s plenty of darkness to go around.

War,

and the many shades of bomb and gun and economic violence that mark undeclared wars from Chicago to Nigeria to Homs and Mosul and Jerusalem.

Disfunctional government, endangered resources, disease and grinding poverty and painful loss;

grief.

Anger and fear in our political rhetoric, and that pervasive culture of microcomplaints so easily fostered and enhanced by social media and cable news.

A friend of mine commented last week that it’s remarkable that Mary’s response to all the chaos and interruptions and discomfort around the birth of her son was to treasure all this in her heart. Imagine how much easier it would have been to be distressed and dismayed at the inconveniences of a stable birth.

Mary’s Twitter account could have been full of complaints about rude innkeepers; noisy, smelly animals, Joseph’s nervous over-attention or his ignorance about childbirth, the wrong coffee cups, and the eruption of crude and dirty shepherds when she’d FINALLY gotten Jesus to sleep…

Instead it’s one Instagram of the miracle wrapped in blankets and lying in a manger, and a quiet symphony of words and moments that she treasures in her heart.

There’s not much light in this story, but Mary opens herself to it; makes an exercise, a practice, a discipline of absorbing the light. 

Like the shepherds.

Shepherds who weren’t waiting for babies, or news, and probably had more interest in the local politics of land and taxes than in the prophecies of faith or the miracles of a messiah. Shepherds who were briefly washed in exorbitant brightness, and opened themselves to it. Shepherds who absorbed that unasked glory, and shared it.

I was reminded of that last week, when I happened to mention to my cousin Julia that I had to “use my light” to get through the dark days of December. She was impressed by my spiritual depth - for a few seconds, anyway - until I explained about the phototherapy box. You see, Julia is an actor, and to many actors and artists,  light describes a powerful spiritual truth.

The light that artists use is their call to create, the light inside them that demands to be acted on, to be shared.  

“Even when what you’re making is dark,” Julia told me, “even if it’s a very deep purple,” — even, I think, if it’s tragic — it is light.

And when artists and actors use that light, it grows.

“When I’m in a show,” Julia said, “I feel myself getting brighter. When I’m in an ensemble, we pass that light back and forth, and it grows as we share it.”

In just that way, the shepherds passed around the Christmas light, encouraging one another to respond: to go to Bethlehem, to be open to the miracle, to accept the unasked promises so suddenly fulfilled.

Light that grew brighter in them as they shared their story with Mary and Joseph in the stable,

that grew and spread as they let the light spill out of them, telling everyone they met, and amazing them with the miracle, with light, growing brighter, even in the dark;

even when the light itself was dark.

Because, after all, God didn’t become incarnate among us just for the hours of celebration and light. God delights in the joy we share as we remember that birth together, but God also became incarnate because even the darkness of human life — pain, fear, anger, sorrow, death — even the darkness is light when God creates it, lives it, shares it with us.

That’s the miracle of Christmas:

light shining in the darkness,

and darkness that, itself, is light.

All wrapped snugly in cloth,

nestled in a manger,

unexpected and unplanned and utterly glorious.

And all we have to do to be part of the miracle is to open ourselves to that light.

To make a habit, a practice, an exercise, of choosing to soak in the light.

We need that light, and the world needs us to absorb it, and share it; to grow brighter in the sharing, and in the dark.

I have a little Christmas gift for you. A small star that absorbs the light, light which then becomes visible in darkness.

Use it to remind you to keep your eyes and spirit turned to the brief, powerful brightnesses of Christmas: to the gifts, food, music, joy, sparkling trees and houses, rich warm tradition, and the angels’ praise.

Make it a habit, a discipline, to soak in the brief, bright light of Christmas, of God, wherever and whenever that light comes to you in the world.

Treasure it, and ponder it in your hearts.

Absorb that light because then the light of Christmas, the light of God, will be visible in us when we are in darkness

like the shepherds, like Mary, like that tiny, perfect infant.

One light,

which is enough for the whole story, 

now and always.

Every Year

Luke 21:25-36

Remember the super blood moon eclipse in September? Did you watch it? Take pictures? And when you did, did you remember the lunar eclipse in April, and the two last year, and the total eclipse of the sun in March? 

We’ve had a glut of eclipses lately, so I can only draw one conclusion: the End is Near.

It’s what Jesus told us, after all.

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress….” I’m not sure about the stars, but we’ve got the sun, the moon, and the distress on earth, haven’t we?

Paris, Syria, ISIS, Congress, economic woes and worries, the state budget, Laquan McDonald,  protests that sometimes feel like the glorification of criminal activity, protests that sometimes feel like the last hopeless stand for justice, protests where peaceful people get shot, people shot at the doctor’s office, climate change, pre-Thanksgiving snow, and of course there’s more.

There’s always more.

“People will faint from fear,” says Jesus, “panicking from the threats of doom, and then 

they will see the Son of Man coming with power and great glory,”

A shocking thing, that - not the high-production happy ending of the movie.

“But, you - when you see these things begin - stand up, raise your head, your redemption is near.”

These signs are like the budding of leaves, a promise that summer is coming, that abundance and growth and peace are nearly here, right?

So where’s Jesus?
Where’s the redemption, where’s the peace?
Because this year’s eclipses and wars and terrors and upheavals aren’t even the worst we’ve seen in our lifetimes. If blood moons and natural disaster and war are the signs that God’s kingdom is drawing near, it should have been here a long, long time ago.

Every year — every single year — the disasters and the wars and the panic and the signs that God’s kingdom is near. And every year, no end. No glorious, awe-inspiring descent from the clouds, no end of the world, and no happily ever after.

I’d like a refund.

Wouldn’t you?

I’d like to complain about the lack of truth in advertising, demand a different metaphor, a different parable, a more predictive, accurate model than this fig tree, except…

Look at the trees: when they bud, when that bright, temporary green haze spreads over the bare branches, we know that summer is coming, and - even if it snows in April - summer comes. 

It happens every year.  Every single year, and every year, no end.

And maybe - just maybe - that’s exactly what Jesus meant with his advertising - his parable, his metaphor. Maybe the fact that every year there’s war and terror and disaster and distress, that every year the signs keep coming, means that every year, every time, the Kingdom of God is already near.

That God keeps coming near to us, keeps bringing glory, keeps redeeming us, over and over and over and over again, and that that’s why Jesus cares so much that we stay alert.

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down, with either partying and denial or anxiety and worry” Don’t get dragged down by the anesthetics the world insists on: by the Black Friday hype that promises we can buy our way into happiness, or by the lure of multitasking, 

or the daily headlines of new worries, new foods to avoid, precautions to take, risks to avoid.

Stand up, raise your heads, welcome redemption, because it’s near.

Every time; 

every single time.

It’s quite a challenge to stand fast, to lay claim to greater confidence and expectation and dignity, when everyone and everything around you is going to insist on ducking, on letting fear and caution take the lead, instead of hopeful, expectant welcome and trust. Honestly, it often seems wiser, saner, to protect ourselves, to worry and prevent, instead of rashly raising our heads, thrusting ourselves into the storm.

To raise your head against a swamping tide of fear is incredibly difficult. We tell hero stories of people who did it: Harriet Tubman, Mahatma Ghandi, Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Malala Yousafzai, Doctors Without Borders… People who raised their heads and looked toward redemption, in spite of the tidal push to get along, to duck and shelter from the terror of disaster, or the numbness of oppression, or sharp-edged, violent opinion and politics; people who found the reign of justice and grace amidst the signs of disaster and danger and met it with watchful welcome.

Strength isn’t always comfortable, bravery is terrifying, hope requires endless commitment. Jesus knows it’s hard. That’s why he doesn’t want us to try it without praying, without opening our hearts and hands to the strength God wants to pour into us.

The church knows it’s hard. That’s why we celebrate Advent every year, in the midst of the Christmas rush, in the face of the repetitive round of disasters and wars and signs of the end.

We light candles, and teach ourselves to see them as hope, love, joy and peace, to keep our hearts alight within us. We develop patterns of waiting, practicing strength and trust as we eat only one of the Advent calendar chocolates each day. We change our prayers in church to remind us of the God who is always coming, and the people who need our welcome and hospitality now. We read the prophets again to remind us what to look for: for the exiles and outcast being welcomed home, for the growth of living things, for moments of completeness, for renewal, for justice, for joy.

Watching for those things, expecting those things, is what gives us reason to stand fast, to lift our heads, to be filled with trust and openness and welcome when fear and defense and anxiety are so much more common and acceptable and ordinary, even smart.

We need those practices, those sources of strength, of warmth and light for our souls and hearts,

because God keeps coming.  Every year, like the leaves on the trees, every day, like the headlines, God keeps coming to us, drawing near, ready to be welcomed, and accepted, and known.

This Advent, light candles.

Buy the chocolate Advent calendar, read the prophets, say the prayers.

Do that every day — every day that brings new headlines (the same headlines!), new little worries, the same big worries, new tempting indulgences, the same persistent temptations.

Practice Advent intentionally, because your redemption is coming near — this year, every year — and Jesus wants us ready.

And when we are ready - this year, every year - we will, he promises, recognize the savior coming in power and great glory — awe inspiring, not easy, but transformative — and God’s kingdom will bring justice and grace and unimaginable redemption, here in the midst of our familiar mess, as inevitably as summer follows spring.

Praying the Vision

2 Samuel 23:1-7; Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37

In high school, a friend lent me Douglas Adams’ classic novel, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and I discovered the science fiction and fantasy genre. Until that time, I hadn’t realized that there was a whole section of the library and bookstore dedicated to stories about the far distant future - to spaceflight and sentient computers - and to magic. 

I found a whole new world of wonder, and I fell in love.

It was only recently, though, that I realized just why I keep reading science fiction - and other speculative or alternate reality novels. It’s because to writing or reading about an interplanetary future, or a world of magic, demands that the author and the reader have an optimistic view of humanity. 

To write about spaceflight - even space battles - in the 23rd century, you have to believe that humanity is going to get that far. To write and read about magic and benevolent dragons, you have to invest in a sense of wonder and possibility. You have to invest in the adaptability and potential of the human race.

Sure, there are some dsytopian sci-fi and fantasy novels, where the alternate or future world is miserable. But I find that they, too, contain the seeds of this human optimism and hope: the subtle, fierce belief that compassion and connection can make a difference even when the worst is happening.

Science fiction and fantasy stories - whether in novels or on the screen - help us to think about the world as it might be, about humanity as we could be, 

to stir us up from being resigned to things as they are.

And today, the church does that, too. Today the church imagines an alternate reality, a future, how the world will be, someday, when Christ is King, and we and all creation are truly governed by God.

We read David’s vision of a world where ungodliness self destructs at a touch, so different from our world - and David’s world - of messy moral conflicts, imperfect choices and shades of gray.

The conversation between Jesus and Pilate that we overhear reminds us of how hard it is to imagine our real familiar world governed by truth instead of self interest.

And the church focuses our prayer and attention today on the vision of Christ returning: stunningly, gloriously, unmistakably, to judge and rule the world, personally and directly

without the familiar intermediaries of religion and nations and systems of law and compromise.

It’s a vision that insists on the redeemability of our common, messy, guilty humanity.

Today, the church practices the same imagination as my favorite fiction genre, investing ourselves in a future that won’t look like what we already know.

We do this because what we believe about the future profoundly affects how we live and act here and now.

When we celebrate the unpredictable future coming of Christ as King, we practice dreaming of a world as it should be, and teach ourselves to live so that we’ll fit in to that different world, and prepare for it to transform our own familiar homes and lives.

The church puts this vision on the calendar once a year, but we pray the vision of God’s kingdom and God’s power and glory every single week. Many of us pray it every single day, or more often. In fact, you probably know this vision by heart:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, 

thy will be done, 

on earth as it is in heaven.

That’s us praying for the reign of God, for Christ as king, on earth, in our world, here and now.

Give us this day our daily bread,

we pray that God, that Christ the ruler, will distribute the resources of the world according to needs, not self-interest, or wants, or riches.

and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us,

we pray for our hearts to be open and generous and freed, to know the incredible release of being forgiven, now, already, the way we want to be when Christ as King judges our actions and intentions and life.

Lead us not into temptation - save us from the time of trial - deliver us from evil,

we pray for protection, for God the ruler, for Christ the King, to do what we ask any government to do:  protect us from the moral murk of temptation and the vivid danger of enemies and evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,  forever and ever,

we pray ourselves into proclaiming our commitment to God’s real, present authority and power 

in the future and here and now.

When we truly believe;

when we enter into the story, when we trust the holy imagination of the church and the scriptures and get swept up in the potential and promise,

when we truly believe,

we make that future real by our own actions.

The flip phone — the must-have communications device before the iPhone — became real because Star Trek’s designers created entirely fictional flip-open instant communicators for a short-run TV show 30 years earlier.

We still don’t have flying cars, but do we have the Jetsons’ video chat and self-propelled cleaning robots as everyday conveniences.

Because when we read ourselves in to the story, when we trust the vision

we risk change, venture into new territory,

and see ourselves differently where we already are.

Imagine how that might work with the story we pray.

What if radical forgiveness were as common as mobile phones,

and what if it were as natural as touch screens?

What if living the simplicity of need defined by “daily bread” was as automatic as running a Roomba?

What if our confidence in God’s governance, and power, and glory were so great that we could easily believe that ALL God’s people - of any faith and nation - were our fellow citizens in the kingdom of God?

What if we trusted our prayer for protection enough to spend the $3 to 5 billion dollars projected for the 2016 presidential campaign on creating havens of deep human connection in the midst of our hectic, divided world?

When we trust the vision of Christ the King and allow it to guide our imagination, it will shape what we choose to use and invent and do and share, and that will make a world in which God’s kingdom comes closer and closer.

And so, today, this week,  I invite you to pray that vision and let it guide your imagination, your life.

With each news story you hear or read or watch, pray the familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer.

With every facebook post of joys or complaints, with every email filled with new tasks, pray the vision of the kingdom of God.

When you do the mundane tasks of daily life, when you buy groceries, pay the bills, make the dinner, pray yourself into the story of God’s glory and power.

When you relax: when you read, when you watch TV or movies, when you play, 

pray those words that shape the future, 

because each time, you give yourself another chance, and another, 

to believe, to make it real.

Today, this week, I invite you to enter into the kingdom of God the way you enter a beloved story, to come home to that vision, and believe in its joyful, grace-filled ever-after.

Red Cups, Falling Stones

Mark 13:1-8

You know that Christianity is under attack, right?

If you didn’t know it before this week, you found out about it when Starbucks released their “holiday season” cups - you know, the red ones without pictures of reindeer and snowflakes
and trees and other, um, holy symbols?

I spent three days this week at a conference on vitality in the Episcopal Church, at a retreat center in New Mexico without radio or TV or a lot of time to check the internet, so I had no idea what was going on with the Illinois budget or the never-ending presidential campaign,

but I did hear about The Cups.

So I figure that you, too, must have seen something about this latest evidence that public religion is falling apart, and that the proud symbols of celebration no longer stand in public view.

Perhaps you laughed, like I did.

Perhaps you recognized the anxiety, even if you didn’t share it:

“Do you see these great buildings?” Jesus says to the disciple admiring the strength and beauty of the Temple, admiring the visible symbol of Jerusalem’s status as the home of God on earth.

“See these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be demolished.”

And by the time Mark’s story of Jesus got into wide circulation, everyone who happened to visit Jerusalem could see just how true that destruction was. The Temple the disciple so admired in the early 30s was destroyed by fire in the 70s when Roman forces destroyed Jerusalem to put down a Zealot rebellion. 

It’s a fearful thing when your spiritual base is attacked or destroyed.

It’s painful and chaotic, it induces panic, and it’s easy - very, very easy - to be led astray as you wonder who you can trust anymore, even God.

It’s like that in Paris, this weekend,

though those attacks - like the one on the Temple thousands of years ago - are more political and cultural than spiritual.

It’s happening in Beirut, too, and across the world right now.

But hearing and seeing it in our news, fearing for friends and places we love, makes the horror and chaos real and visceral to us, as we pray for those in the midst of it, and look to our leaders for answers, and planning - for prevention and ways to just make it stop.

That’s not far from how Jesus’ disciples must have felt when he told them that the Temple — the house of God, the necessary, active, constant spiritual center of their faith, their history as God’s people — was about to be destroyed. 

They press him for more information, for a clearer prediction of timeline and warning signs, for a way to prepare for the loss of their spiritual home. And Jesus won’t give them a date, or a warning system.

All Jesus gives them is more chaos:
wars and rumors of wars, international conflict, natural disaster, famine, 

false prophets in abundance,

and that’s only the beginning.

Christianity has been under attack, it turns out, since before Christianity even existed.

I laugh about the Starbucks cups, and the “war on Christmas,” and the other ways that some pastors and politicians and folks on the internet get offended or threatened by the world we live in. But there are a lot of real forms of chaos and disruption around us, and there’s also a new report out from the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study that shows - yet again - that the structures of religion in the US are coming apart, a little at a time, but steadily.

A majority of Americans believe in God, but fewer of us identify with a particular religion, fewer still are going to church regularly. 

The stones are slipping a bit, the structure of the church as a spiritual home, as a public symbol and necessary base for our faith, is coming apart, and people are predicting the end of organized religion.

And if you ask Jesus - or most contemporary religious experts - to tell you when will this be, how to prepare, you’re just going to get more chaos.

There is no time, there is no certainty, there is no actual way to prepare.

And the process of losing our spiritual home, the visible assurance of God’s presence and approval, is going to be full of conflict and chaos and false prophets.

That stinks.

This news also made it to the surface of that conference I was at.  The Pew study was quoted, and we talked about the challenges of knowing whether our church and our religious practice matter, if we’re making a difference, when Sunday attendance is lower (not just in a survey, but in our own actual congregations) and no one outside the church seems to care what the church thinks or does.

Can we still matter, can our faith be vital, and strong, and transformative,

if the structures are falling apart?

Well, yes, of course.

At the conference, we told stories about transformation and spirit-filled lives:

stories from Calvary, from congregations around the country,

stories where the light and power of God shine through, and clearly matter.

There are stories like that coming out of Paris, 

and even out of Starbucks, too.

But the stories don't keep the Temple standing, or the budget balanced, or change the real and clear trends in the culture around us.

So we still have to wrestle with the challenge that upset the disciples: the prediction that someday, the structures of our faith will crumble, and we’ll lose that home base that makes it normal and respectable to practice our religion.

And it’s painful, even if we already know that the fall of the Temple can't destroy our faith.

Jesus doesn’t pull any punches about that when he tells his disciples about the chaos that they're headed toward.

He tells them that global conflict and disaster are “only the beginning of the birth pangs.”

It’s the end of the world as we know it, sure enough, but this end is only the beginning — the beginning of the painful, irresistible convulsion that brings new life.

Resurrection needs death - something the anxious disciples have yet to learn, and something that takes learning over and over again for them, and for us.

When the disciples ask him for the when and the how, the things you’d need to know to either prevent the calamity or prepare for it, the first and primary thing Jesus tells them is “Do not be led astray.”

Don’t let what happens to the Temple, to the church, to the spiritual base that we want to trust, — or even to the world around us — don’t let any of that fool us into believing that this is the end.

Because in fact, it’s the beginning of the messy, painful, life-giving process of birth; the process which ejects us from the trustworthy, safe, and familiar place that has nurtured our becoming and growth, into a life of both potential and risk beyond imagination.

I suspect the church as you and I know it, the cultural prevalence of Christian holidays, Sunday worship, church buildings and congregations, will still be around for my lifetime, and most of yours.

But I think that we will also see it crumbling, and have to turn to Jesus with our questions about when and how and what will we do.

And we’ll get the same answer the disciples got about the Temple: that chaos and change and shock are just the beginning, the beginning of the painful, messy, transformative and life-giving process of birth, and we’d better not let any of that fool us into thinking that this is the end

of the world, or of faith, or of God’s presence with us.

I suspect that the church as you and I know it will come apart,

some day or some how,

and that new life beyond our imagination will be born from the mess and the change.

Next year, Starbucks cups will be different again.

Throughout the year Calvary and other churches will have new numbers to worry about and new stories to inspire us,

wars and attacks and rumors of wars will fill our newscasts,

and Jesus will warn us about all of this again, and again.

And we’ll need the reminder.

We will always need Jesus’ call to stay faithful, and expectant, and full of good news,

because this is just the beginning.

The Widow's Challenge

Mark 12:38-44

It’s like they knew, somehow, that you’ve just gotten your Calvary pledge mailing last week.

Because Mark and the lectionary committee have given us a front row seat today to the pledge drive at the Temple in Jerusalem.

So you and I sit with Jesus, watching an offertory procession - one where you can tell how much money each individual is donating. And plenty of rich folks show up and give impressive amounts. It’s a show of generosity and honor and faithfulness, and it’s holy, since these offerings are meant to care for the neediest and loneliest of God’s people as well as to support the religious work of the Temple and the priests.

And in the middle of that procession of big donors comes a widow.

She doesn’t fit - you can tell just by looking that she is poor - and her contribution is visibly meager. 

Two cents.

We don’t know if she was embarrassed, or proud, well-known in the community or an anonymous stranger.  But she makes her tiny contribution visibly, 

and Jesus sees a little more.

He points out to his disciples - to you and me - that those two cents were her entire living. That “out of her poverty” she gave all she had to the Temple.

Now, if this inspires you to give dramatically to Calvary when we send you a pledge card, fantastic. 

Thank you.

Seriously. Because I do want you to give to Calvary, out of your abundance or out of your poverty or out of your checkbook or your wallet or whatever.

I want you to give to Calvary because I give to Calvary and I find it a valuable practice.

I give because giving money helps me to invest my heart, and because I believe that we do good work in caring for others, creating accepting, inclusive space to pray and grow together, and I believe that that work makes this world a better place, closer to the kingdom of God.

But I don’t think our pledge drive was what Jesus had in mind when he drew our attention to the widow’s giving. Yes, it’s a model of sacrificial giving that foreshadows Jesus’ giving his entire living for us, one it’s very worth while to appreciate and emulate in our lives, but I don’t really think Jesus was saying that this is how you are supposed to plan your financial giving to the church.

He’s got bigger things in mind for our lives,

and he’s got bigger things in mind for the church.

Anyone who was listening just a bit earlier, when Jesus condemned the Temple scribes for “devouring widow’s houses,” would probably hear the news that the widow gave her very last coins as condemnation of a system so screwed up that it robs the people it’s supposed to support of all they have to live on.

This woman is giving her all to a flawed system, run by people who fool themselves into thinking it’s okay to disregard and exploit the vulnerable - because the widows ‘ought to be taking care of themselves,’or aren’t smart enough to handle their own money - or whatever it is that everyone around them casually believes.

That happens around us, too. Listening to Jesus, watching the widow, I was reminded that my friend Jim Naughton tweeted recently that 

“Stewardship season [means] #Episcopal churches telling people whose real wages haven’t risen for decades to embrace ‘theology of abundance.’”

He was challenging the rhetoric and habits that a lot of churches have around annual giving. And when I asked Jim about it, he said that preaching “abundance” seems wrong in churches and communities that aren’t working to make that abundance real in the economic world we live in, not just the spiritual world; aren’t working to change the wealth inequality that ties up the abundance of God’s gifts in the hands of a few, and creates sharp divides in generosity and trust.

I think he’s on to something that Jesus is pointing out when the widow gives her mite. You can’t focus on abundance inside the Temple without caring about abundance outside.

Jesus wants us to notice the context, to understand that the widow’s generosity challenges the greed of the scribes, and their honor in the marketplace, and wonder what that looks like in the world around us.

Jesus wants us to pay attention to whether the systems we set up to care for those in need really work, wants us to watch out for hypocrisy when we - or our leaders - are tempted to disregard or disrespect the vulnerable, or praise and protect those who are already wealthy and secure.

Jesus wants us to hold ourselves and our faith accountable,

and make that awareness a part of our own generosity.

Perhaps that’s what the widow was doing, with her noticeably tiny gift. Or perhaps she wasn’t thinking about any of that, but I am sure that the gift must have mattered greatly to her because - as Jesus points out - she gave 100 percent. All she had.

And I suspect that there is something that matters that much to you, too.

What inspires you to give 100 percent?

What demands your whole heart, your whole self?

Where do you willingly give your all; not holding anything in reserve,

risking everything?

For some, it may be in your family, with your children, in your marriage.

It might also be a sports field, an art form, or a part of your work that completely engages you and feels worth doing whether you’re paid or not.

I hope there is something in your life that does receive your everything, your 100 percent, your all. Because giving of your God-given self to an ideal or cause or art or person is a more essential practice of stewardship than planning your financial contributions.

Of course, Calvary needs you to do both.

We run a better church when we trust in each other’s financial commitments, but we are a better church, a better Body of Christ, when we take care with the stewardship of our hearts and souls, when we seek God in the ways that we give our whole selves  to work or to play or to relationships in the here and now of daily life.

And the practice of generosity in the giving of ourselves will help us receive the widow’s gifts:

receive a drop in the bucket,

receive a challenge to our assumptions and expectations or indifference,

receive a whole life, given without reservation.

So while we watch the widow give her two cents, and give her all, while we write our financial commitments for the year to come, maybe we should also pledge to God and God’s church that we will give 100%, give your whole self, risking it all,

to your family,

to healing,

to feeding people - at a food bank or in the art of cooking -

to your art, to beauty in the world,

to keeping love fresh and vivid — 

whatever or wherever your whole self is needed.

Pledge that to the church, along with your money, because that, even more, is what you give to the church’s ministry and to God’s mission on earth, and because that pledge will help us receive the widow’s gifts, when she challenges us to make abundance real outside our walls, to receive her gift, and pass it on.

Greatness

Mark 10:35-45 (1 Corinthians 9:23-27)
For Calvary's inaugural "Sport Spirit Sunday"

I am still high from Tuesday night - still high from the first post-season series victory at Wrigley Field.

Last night’s game didn’t dim it - it only added to the fire, because after years of slogging through almost and no-chance and next-year as a lifelong Cubs fan, this year I get a taste of glory. And oh, it’s good.

I wasn’t a player on the field Tuesday night or any time this season. I wasn’t in the stands that day with the cheering crowds and the chance to touch victory as players reached out with high fives. I wasn’t on the streets outside of Wrigley, adding to the festivity and holding on to the occasion by sheer gridlock, but I sure was claiming the glory as my own:

“Flying the W” on Facebook and Twitter, jumping up and down in front of the TV, screaming We Won!

We did it!

We.

I couldn’t hit a major-league fastball if my life depended on it, and probably couldn't hit a slow-pitch softball gimme, either. I don’t manage, or coach, or tend injuries or pay the salaries, but I was all we on Tuesday night, and I’m not giving up on my share in that glory.

I get you, James and John.

I really do.

I believe it is the heart of a fan, the excitement of the committed, that brought you to Jesus asking for the promise that you’ll sit right next to him in his glory. It’s the natural expression of that we feeling, the seriousness with which you take your commitment to the Jesus team. You don’t hesitate for a minute when Jesus asks you if you’re in it through thick and thin, if you’ll be there saying “we” for the losses and the misery and the grind.

Sure, there’s some greed in it, in your angling for the best seats; and sure, your buddies resent it because they don’t want to be left out of the glory either, and it looks like you’re trying to keep it to yourselves. But I can see your bid for glory as the truth of your commitment - heart and soul and attention and time - even if you never turn a game-changing double play or get anywhere near that dangerous and life-changing cross.

There is a glory to simple commitment - to your team, to your country, to your God- that Jesus recognizes. 

And then, of course, he invites you to go deeper.

Jesus’ baptism, which he invites James and John to share, is a daily commitment, just like our baptism: the ongoing, constant work of living good news in a world that’s mostly bad news.

There’s certainly some kind of reference in the “cup” and the “baptism” to Jesus’ passion, to his self-giving death and to his resurrection, but I think he’s trying to focus not only James and John, but all the disciples, on the ongoing work.

That’s why he tells them all that greatness requires service. Greatness requires self-sacrifice and self-discipline, and attention to the other much more than to yourself.

It’s a holy truth, and it’s one you’d hear from coaches and champions as well as from Jesus.

Greatness requires selflessness, requires caring about the team more than your own interests: 

passing so someone else can score the goal, 

throwing to the cut-off man instead of going for the glory of a solo throw to the plate,

blocking when you’d rather catch the touchdown pass.

Greatness requires self-discipline, too.

There are early morning workouts, putting every ounce into practice that you didn’t really want to go to, drilling teamwork until it’s second nature to give and receive, focusing on the little things, over and over.

Those things produce greatness on the field - or the track, court, pool, ice.

But these things also become greatness, in and of themselves, when we do each of them for the sake of the game, for the rhythm of the workout that grounds you in your body, for the beauty of the pass or stroke or leap itself.

And that discipline - the training runs, the practice drills - shapes our faith and our relationship with God just as much as the power and skill in our bodies. Teamwork drills and strength training and the joy of the game all teach our hearts about service, hope, and faith, whether we intend it or not.

You don’t have to win the World Series, Stanley Cup, Chicago Marathon or an Olympic medal to be a great athlete.  There are great athletes - strong and skilled, excellent teammates, shining examples - who never make it out of the minor leagues or even the high school leagues. There are persistent, gifted, gracious stars who inspire as much in defeat as in success.

Greatness isn’t the same as fame or victory.

It’s true in our faith, too.  That’s what Jesus tells the disciples today.

Great Christians, great disciples, are found just as much in the middle pews of little churches as in the Vatican, the mega-church, and the calendar of the Saints.

Faithful people, great in their self-discipline in early morning prayer workouts, showing up for practice at pantries and shelters and hospitals and schools that you didn’t really want to go to today, drilling “stewardship” and evangelism and pastoral care until it’s second nature to give and receive.

And there are great disciples who give their hearts to God through victory and collapse, who hold the love, and make space in the holy, to help the seasonal fan be inspired and transformed.

The metaphors come easy, but God’s glory can sometimes seems a long way off, for James and John and for you and me.

We are not all the way there yet —  and God forbid I jinx it, for the Cubs or for God’s kingdom! — but we can already accept Jesus’ invitation to go deeper.

We can go deeper into training as athletes for the gospel, training our hearts in strength and trust and discipline through the ways we train our bodies.

We can go deeper as fans - as wholly, deeply committed believers, practicing faith and expectation through both misery and triumph.

Be an athlete for God this season, like Paul, like the disciples who learn to serve, disciplined in the practices that build up faith, build up the kingdom of God, here and now and among us.

Be a fan for God this season, like James and John, giving your whole heart to the pain and the triumph.

Practice the skills of faith on the field, in the stands, and in front of the TV, and let your faith shape your body, and your commitments on this earth,

because the kingdom and the glory are near, always
and, yes, This Year.

Something More

Mark 10:17-31

The hardest thing to believe in the gospels may not actually be the story of the resurrection. 

It might be this.

It seems like nobody really believes Jesus when he tells us it’s basically impossible to enter the kingdom of God. That starts right in the original text of Mark’s gospel. As soon as Jesus says it’s tough for rich people to enter the kingdom, the disciples push right back. Jesus must be wrong about this somehow, because if the people obviously generously blessed and loved by God are out, then can anybody really be saved??

And nobody - including the dedicated disciples who believe they’ve already done this - really wants it to be true that we have to give everything away to get into God’s kingdom.  Even the most generous among us find it hard to get rid of all we have.  And the more we have, the easier it is to believe that being rich can’t really keep us from following Jesus.

So it’s no surprise that the tradition of preachers and scholars for centuries has been to adapt and manage this story, to blunt the sharp edges and make it easier.

An early biblical copyist slipped in the idea of trust in riches as the barrier to the kingdom - letting wealth itself off the hook. You’ll find that scribe’s work preserved in the King James translation of the Bible, though today’s translation goes back to the original statement that it’s simply hard for the rich to enter the kingdom.

Interpreters in the Middle Ages came up with the idea of a “Needle’s Eye” gate into Jerusalem narrow enough to force a camel to unload to get through. (The actual gate in Jerusalem now called the Needle’s Eye was built much later.) That makes the metaphor easier to handle - it’s about a temporary and practical unloading of possessions.

And more than a few preachers have read this as a challenge to the man’s heart, not his riches — so that you and I, in imitation, are challenged to find and clear away whatever is most in our way when it comes to entering the kingdom, not to literally give away all we own.

(That’s actually a good enough idea that if you’ll commit to the necessary soul-searching to truly clear your own way this week, I’ll give you a pass on the rest of this sermon.)

But the text itself is stubborn.

A blessed, faithful, committed man asks Jesus how to participate in eternal life,

is told to give everything he owns to people in need,

and leaves because this is too hard.

And he’s right - it is too hard.
After all, Jesus goes on to tell his shocked and perplexed disciples that it’s hard - very hard - for anyone to enter God’s kingdom, and effectively impossible for the rich.

This is bad news for us, because compared to Jesus’ first disciples, every one of us here is rich in possessions, no matter how poor we are by contemporary American standards.

It puzzles me, too, since through the rest of the gospel, Jesus seems to go out of his way to make God’s kingdom accessible - always challenging, but definitely accessible to you and me.

I can’t get comfortable with this story,

and in that way it reminds me of another story about giving all you have.

I first encountered Shel Silverstein’s story of The Giving Tree as a child, and enjoyed its abundant generosity and a sense of unconditional love.

But it bothered me a little even then, and I can’t get at all comfortable with it now.

Because as that tree gives everything she has,

it’s heartbreaking.

When the playful, joyful, companionable boy she loves becomes 

first a youth longing for money and its power,

then a man wishing for security,

and then for escape,

the tree gives her apples to be sold for cash,

her branches to build him a house,

and her trunk to make a boat to sail away.

And each time the tree is left lonely and without thanks.

Until the end, when the boy returns to her as a tired old man wanting only a place to sit and rest,

and the tree offers her barren stump, and is happy when he sits and stays.

It’s easy to see how the Boy’s desire for money, security, things, and their power pulls him away from the tree and makes him wish for whatever he doesn’t have; easy to see how he loses his joy in the relationship when possessions and riches gain his attention.

It’s a sharp metaphor for how money and things can draw us away from relationship with God.

But like any parable, it has sharp edges all around.

God is not a tree, depleted by giving us the things we desire —though God no doubt longs for that joyful relationship with us that the tree longs for with her boy.

If we’re heeding Jesus’ call to give away all we have, it’s the tree we might take for our model.

But it’s a heartbreaking one.

The tree becomes lonely by her giving, and less than she was.

And when her boy comes back for the last time, she’s heartbroken herself that she has nothing left to give. She offers the boy a litany of her regret that she has no apples, branches, or trunk - or anything - to give him any more.

But it turns out that after she’s given all that she can, she’s still not done.

When she truly has nothing left,

she still has something to give.

Her boy wants a resting place, and she gives her stump.

Silverstein’s story ends, but the giving doesn’t.

And I wonder if this is a part of what Jesus means when he says that it’s effectively impossible for those who have to enter God’s kingdom.

That even when you and I, like the tree, have given all we can, we still have something left.

That even when we truly have nothing left, there’s still something more to give.

We cannot earn our way into love, relationship, or eternal life by giving all we have,

because we will always have something left.

We cannot give our way into love, relationship, or God’s kingdom any more than a full-sized camel can get through a literal sewing needle’s eye, because when we are all done giving, there will still be something left to give.

That’s why Jesus has to tell us that while for us this is truly impossible, nothing is impossible with God.

We need to feel the pain of this story, need to feel its sharp edges, and let the truth of its impossibility break our hearts. Because the kingdom of God is just as accessible, and just as difficult as Jesus says. It’s nearby and open to every one of us, but only on the other side of impossibility, only — and gloriously — given to us when it’s patently impossible.

Because the impossible is God’s possible,

God’s delight.

Just Such A Time as This

Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22

If the book of Esther were created today, it would probably be a made-for-TV-movie - a low budget historical drama of an obscure incident.

As a book of the Bible, we don’t spend much time with it in church. It appears only once in the three year cycle of assigned readings, and there’s not really enough here to understand what the story is about. 

It’s like we’re flipping channels, stumble into the middle of a climatic scene in the TV movie — and then it cuts to commercial before we’ve quite had a chance to figure out who any of the players are.

That can be annoying in church as well as on TV, so let me give you a little backstory.

Our drama is set in Persia, and it starts with a six month long party meant to show off the king’s wealth and power.  And when the queen refuses to dress up and show off at the climax of this party, it ends with a sudden divorce.  

That clears the way for the first recorded episode of “The Bachelor,” a nation-wide beauty pageant to find that one right woman to marry the king.  And here we meet our heroine, Esther, a beautiful orphan girl being raised by her Uncle Mordecai.  

When the king meets Esther, he falls deeply in love with her beauty and she’s crowned queen, with a national holiday in her honor. About the same time, Uncle Mordecai overhears two palace officials plotting to assassinate the king, and passes the word through Esther, saving the king’s life. 

It’s a fairy tale plot, but we’re far from happily ever after. A new prime minister is appointed, called Haman, and Uncle Mordecai draws unwelcome attention since - as a Jew among Gentiles - he doesn’t bow down to the new big shot. So Haman, bruised in the ego, promptly plans to get rid of all the uppity Jews who won’t bow to him. He spins the king a scare story about ethnic minorities and religious laws, donates heavily to the king’s treasury, and gets authorization for ethnic cleansing.

Uncle Mordecai hears the decree, and comes to Esther, asking her to get the king to change his mind. Esther objects - she quite literally risks her life to approach the king uninvited. 

She feels powerless to help, caught in the horror of having to watch genocide unfold and can’t imagine she could stop it. 

Then the story turns on Mordecai’s response:
"Do not think that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father's family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this." 

Who knows? Perhaps this is what you were always meant to do.

And with those words Esther becomes a heroine indeed.  She asks for support from her people, a three-day fast; she gathers her courage and approaches the king, inviting him and Haman to a private party. 

(There’s a lovely little diversion of mistaken assumptions in which Haman’s plot to destroy Mordecai actually gets Mordecai rewarded, but eventually we get to the party)

and that’s where we tuned in this morning.

Esther outs herself as an ethnic minority under threat, the king springs to the defense of his beautiful wife, and it all winds up with Haman hanged on the gallows he’d meant to use to kill Mordecai.

There’s a messy epilogue in which the king’s justice creates a national revenge day to kill everyone who has threatened the Jews, but ultimately Esther and Mordecai are celebrated as heroes for taking advantage of chance and opportunity, gathering their courage and risking themselves to stop the unstoppable.

It’s an odd story to find in the Bible. It never mentions God, slips sideways around prayer, and seems to have little to do with faith at all, but it’s a story that may be more like our stories than anything else in the Bible.

Esther and Mordecai live a normal life, assimilated into the culture around them, where their religious identity is generally no big deal. 

They don't talk about God because they don’t need to, the way you and I don’t need to unless we’re running for president. They keep some religious practices, but they don’t let them get in the way of getting on with life.  They’d be mainline protestants or Roman Catholics - turning up for mass when they can, trusting God’s moral compass, or maybe more spiritual than religious - but not fanatic about it, not trying to convert anyone, better known for what else they are and do.

And yet God uses them to keep God’s promises, whether they recognize it or not.

God uses who and where they are - assimilated and ordinary - to save God’s people, to preserve the exiled people of Israel: a genuine miracle of salvation.

They are Itzhak Stern and Oskar Schindler, made famous by the Spielberg movie, but originally just a Jew and a German who can’t stop the war, can’t stop the Holocaust, but because of who and where they are they have a chance, at the risk of their own lives, to save some,

and they do.

God uses them to keep God’s promises, whether they meant it that way or not.

It turns out that you don’t have to hear God’s voice to be a prophet,

don’t have to be very religious to be a saint,

don’t have to want to to be a hero.

You just have to accept that maybe you can make a difference, 

gather your courage, and give it a try.

Schindler and Esther faced impossible odds: looming, overwhelming problems that no one person could prevent or control, and there’s no shortage of those problems in our world, is there?

Climate change, cancer, war and terror and a refugee crisis, whatever the heck has happened to the American political system to kill compromise and actual government… you could probably name more.

And there are less public, maybe more intractable, things: broken family relationships that don’t seem fixable, miserable workplace culture, anything it might cost you more to confront than to endure.

But who knows?
Perhaps you are what and who you are for just such a time as this.

Whether you know it or not, you might be the person in the right place at the right time - if you reach out to your community for support, and gather your courage in your hand - you might just be one that God is using to keep God’s promises.

Promises of care for creation, of abundant life, of healing and wholeness - those overwhelming tides do turn on you and me and our simple actions so much more often than we know or imagine.

This weekend we celebrated the silver anniversary of our church building. A new building isn’t war or cancer, but this, too, takes the right people in the right place gathering courage and taking action.

At the party last night, the Vestry and I asked you to dream for the future of Calvary. Today, in honor of Esther, I invite you to offer to God one big overwhelming thing that frightens you, one you know that you alone can’t fix or control, and commit in your heart to one small action, or one way you can invite others to change.

Write to your representatives to encourage the US to suspend our heart-cramping fear of strangers from the Middle East, and speedily welcome, accept, and include more refugees from Syria.

Struggle visibly with racism, classism, and other -isms.

If it’s the environment that overwhelms you, start a locavore food group or a community garden.

Confront the emotional powers in your family, even if it risks a fight.

Advocate for unpopular but life-giving industrial change in healthcare, energy, finance.

Confront what frightens you, what overwhelms you - 

because it might be for this that you are where and what you are.

Reach out to your community for support;

Gather your courage in both hands.

Because God may indeed be using you to keep God’s promises to God’s people and to the world,whether you ever know it or not.