Building

2 Samuel 7:1-14a; Ephesians 2:11-22

Many of you already know the story about how we came to be worshipping in this intricate, beautiful, gothic stone space: how in the late 1920’s, tech millionaire Eldridge Johnson, founder of The Victor Talking Machine Company, now RCA, sent his architect to surprise the rector of Trinity with plans for a brand new church building.

How the Vestry debated a bit, having just completed some repairs and renovations to our old building, but quickly accepted, and over the next year or two, stone and slate and wood and the work of many craftsmen grew into a temple; a space dedicated to the worship of God, which we enjoy today (fortunately now with air conditioning).

But what would have happened if a prophet had come to Mr. Johnson, sent by a dream from God, to say: Don’t build that church building!

I know you want to honor God and give your community a space to be with God. But don’t build that building! I have other plans for this town, that congregation, and for you.

What do you suppose would have happened at Trinity then?

The building we had in the mid 1920s had some problems – all buildings age, just as the one we have now has done. It also had some glorious beauty – you can glimpse it in our chapel. It’s hard to keep buildings up, but probably we would have done it.

Or we wouldn’t have. That 1840s building might, in time have crumbled. We might have moved. A new congregation might have sprung up in Mt Laurel. We might have a midcentury steel and glass beauty, instead of gothic stone. We might not be here.  We might have been inspired to be stronger and more flexible. We don’t know – can’t know – what else could have happened.

But we can know this: God doesn’t wait around for us to build things for God with our success. God is already busy building something with us, for us, in failure, success, and everything in between.

That’s what God told Nathan to tell David, in the story we heard this morning. All along, from your days with the sheep to your days at court, in battle and in victory and in exile and in kingship, I’ve been building something with you. I’ve been building you into a blessing for all my people, building roots and peace for my people, and I’m not done building with you, either. I’ll be building with you far into the future beyond your life.

God doesn’t need a house of cedar, a temple of stone, to ensure God’s presence among God’s people – or even to give us a place to seek God – because God naturally, constantly, is present with God’s people wherever we go, in triumph or exile, distress or stability.

And while God is with us, God is building with us: building us, God’s people, into God’s own dwelling place.

It’s not just David that God says this to. It’s the Gentile congregation in Ephesus, as we heard this morning, reminding them – us – that now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near.… So then you are no longer strangers and immigrants, but you are citizens with the saints; members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

God doesn’t build with stone, with bricks, with cedar or slate or beautifully carved wood.

God builds with people. With us. With living, growing material.

And not “the best people” either.

God builds with people who have failed God’s covenant, and people who never knew God existed. God builds with spiritual immigrants – newcomers who have no idea how things are done, who speak other spiritual languages and have strange customs – and with the old-timers who are so familiar in their hopes and habits and flaws that we hardly notice what God is doing with them.

We may resist this, sometimes, because we doubt our own capacity for God’s work. Maybe you don’t see in yourself the strength of stone and slate, the resilience and beauty of cedar or silver. Maybe you see your own flaws, or the flaws of your fellow Christians too clearly to trust us as building material that will endure.

But God reminds the Ephesian community that Christ’s strength and unity are what makes us into suitable building material, not our own merits.  And that Christ heals the greatest flaw in us – as building material or as people – our divisions.

For Christ is our peace… he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.

That might feel almost laughable when we look at the divisions in front of us daily in the news and social media and our daily lives – differences in income and wealth, apparent divisions by race, language, or nation. Differences of political inclination, social opinion, or hopes for our nation and community.

But God doesn’t wait until we get it right, until we fix things, and reconcile and win.  God wants us right now, years ago, flawed and divided and failed as we are, and already healed in Christ even when that healing isn’t apparent and divisions appear fresh and strong in and to the world around us.

And because God doesn’t wait, we get to act in the revolutionary truth that we are one in Christ, in spite of those divisions, united, healed, even when the world thinks we aren’t. We get to live, every day, in the confidence that God is building us together with our apparent enemies, with strangers, with everyone on “the other side”, into something greater than we imagine. We must live that truth, instead of building our own walls, for our own purposes.

We like to build churches because these buildings help us shape and define a relationship with God – we build to create a sense of beauty, or a sense of security, permanence or comfort.

We build with stone and wood, but also calendars and clocks and cash. We build habits to shape our relationship with God: specific times or forms of prayer, particular political or social positions. We like to build these things in the hope that they honor God, and give us beauty or security to enjoy.

But that’s not all that God wants from us, or wants to give us. God doesn’t wait around for us to build something for God; God doesn’t wait for us to be successful, stable, and strong so that we can “give back”. God is already building something with us, for us, in our failure, our success, and everything in between.

God wants us – like David, like the Gentile Christians of Ephesus – to remember that God picked us up from far away, wherever we were. God has gone with us, with you, wherever you went: exile or triumph, battle, struggle, long and winding roads or exciting successes and adventures. God has been building with us, all this time, and will continue to build with you, joining us together in Christ, erasing all our divisions, to grow into God’s own dwelling place, God’s home.

Can't Stop The Word

2 Samuel 6:1-5 [6-12a] 12b-19;  Mark 6:14-29

Well, that’s a lousy story for a Sunday morning, isn’t it? Packed with guilty fear, questions of incest, plottings of vengeance, manipulation of children, murder… it’s hard to read. It should be hard to read.

And in a gospel where most of the stories have a relatively happy ending – a healing, a miracle, freedom from the demonic – it’s jarring to come across one that ends with human evil killing a man of God.

It’s also a gospel story in which Jesus is almost peripheral. It comes as a flashback, triggered by the news that Jesus’ disciples are out two by two, sharing stories and healings. As Jesus’ fame spreads, everyone speculates on where this miraculous new rabbi has sprung from, and Herod feels haunted by his guilty conscience:

Uh-oh, the prophet I murdered has come back to life, even stronger.

The moral of this terrible story isn’t at the end. It’s right at the top, revealed by Herod’s haunting: God’s power and purpose in the world can’t be murdered. God’s work in the world can’t be halted by our human errors, our fear, our sinful inattention. God’s will can’t be suppressed even by death.

If you think there’s some foreshadowing there, you’re right. But it’s not just that the resurrection of Jesus will be good news at the end of this story. It’s good news at the beginning of this dark flashback that the Word of God can’t be killed by the government, by intentional suppression or by the wrongs we do while we’re trying to avoid embarrassment.

Because that’s apparently why Herod killed John the Baptist. He orders the murder of a man who intrigues and interests and challenges him – a man who he listens to for the word of God – in order to avoid being embarrassed, shamed in front of his guests for breaking a foolishly extravagant promise.

It’s tragic that that’s what kills the prophet John. But it happens all the time.

This is, perhaps, the gospel story that sounds the most like our nightly news: tragedy caused by a messy mix of resentments, anxieties, fears and divisions. And just like our daily headlines rarely feature healing forgiveness, there’s no gentle healing, no clean forgiveness of the sins in the story of Herod and John. But the good news that the Word of God persists, in spite of sin and murder, introduces the story without cleaning it up.

Herod’s reaction to that good news is worth paying attention to. His sense of haunting discomfort might even be familiar to many of us.

Think about it – have you ever done something you wish you hadn’t?

Raise your hand if you have never felt bad about a decision or an action.

Or if you’ve never hurt someone else without deliberately intending to.

So most of us know then, what regret feels like. How it can haunt you, like it haunts Herod, when something – even a good thing – reminds you of the damage you wish you hadn’t done.

But did you notice, today, that regret is not the end of the story? It’s where the story begins as we heard it today. Because the flip side of Herod’s haunting regret is the news we need to hear: that the stupid, mean, damaging, inattentive hurt we’ve done – our sins – cannot stop the Word of God, the healing and grace and power of God, from filling the world and growing stronger.

Jesus comes, bearing forgiveness and healing and inspiration and resurrection, not to erase our regrets, but to bring us into God’s story in the midst of them; into the working out of God’s purpose in the world, even while we’re still tangled in our messy human weakness.

Mark sets this messy story right in the middle of the mission of the disciples. It’s triggered by their going out in the world, full of power to heal and teach and invite joy. Then we recall the murder of John, followed immediately with the disciples coming to Jesus to report on their success in healing and spreading good news. I wonder if Mark wants us to see Herod – sinful, messy, broken Herod – in the midst of that good news, and to rejoice for him that he hasn’t killed the word of God.

Just as we should rejoice that none of the hurtful things you and I have done, or left undone – as we’ll confess together in a few minutes – can suppress or stop or even slow down the power and purpose of God in the world.

We confess our sins so that we can see that truth, and let go of the fear of guilt that holds us back from rejoicing in and sharing God’s redeeming purpose.

We confess our sins, and remember this messy gospel story, so that we can dance in the presence of God.

Just like David.

In the fragmented excerpt of his story that we read this morning, we hear about David dancing in the streets, and about the feasting, music and dance that celebrate bringing the Ark, the physical symbol of God’s presence, into Jerusalem. But when all the parts of that story are told, you notice that David’s dancing happens right in the midst of messy, petty, human sin.

There’s the embarrassment, the shame, that Michal feels at the sight of David’s naked exuberance, and that she tries to share with him, burdening the celebration with greasy human fears about status and pride.

And there’s the missing bit of today’s story: where the power of the Ark kills one of its bearers, and David abandons the symbol of God’s presence in someone else’s house out of fear, and doubt, and maybe guilt. The biblical historians aren’t as specific about David’s motivation as Mark is about Herod’s, but one notices that David is quick to head back to claim the ark for his own when it turns out that it’s reported to be showering its keeper with blessings.

But whether David’s triumphal claiming of the ark is motivated by relief of doubt and fear, or by normal human greed for free good things, for blessings, this story, like Herod’s story, is clear that neither human failings and sin, nor the fears and doubts that cause our wrongs, can stop the power and purpose of God from getting to where God wants them to go. And that dancing in the street – pure, exuberant celebration of the presence of God – is entirely appropriate, even in the presence of shame and doubt and sin.

None of us – or very very few of us – are free of regret, error, sin or fear. But none of that can stop or suppress or kill the power and purpose of God.

So it’s right, a good and joyful thing, to dance anyway, in the presence of God. It’s right to dance – or to sing, or laugh, or play or shout, however you express exuberant joy in God’s presence – in the midst of all that’s wrong. Because that exuberant celebration lets us turn our whole heart and being over to God, whose purpose and power cannot be stopped, by us, by evil, or by anything.

Shake It Off

Mark 6:1-13

This is unbelievable! they said. Just listen to that incredible wisdom - I’ve never heard anything like it. And how ‘bout those powerful miracles? Just stunning.

I can’t believe this is this kid I used to know! Unbelievable!

So they didn’t believe.

I feel sad when I read that.

Not so much sad for Jesus, though I expect he’s frustrated and disappointed that he can’t do much for his hometown.

But sad for his neighbors, the family friends; the ones who know all his brothers’ names and hang out with his sisters, and who were so stunned by the spiritual wisdom and powerful signs of God’s presence around Jesus that they just couldn’t take it in and gave it up.

I’m sad for them, because it happens to me, too.

I lose track of wonder by focusing on the ordinary.

I resist miracles in my familiar territory, preferring to keep things close to me as rational and ordinary as possible.

I love to believe in the healing power of God for illness in general, and to believe in the skill of my doctor for my own healing.

I like a book I can put my hands on, or the advice of trusted friends, when I’m personally looking for what’s true; and though in the abstract I love the idea of God miraculously revealing truth and wisdom, I’m skeptical when someone tells me they’ve got a Word straight from God for me.

I need to be reminded regularly that just because I’m used to something, that doesn’t mean it’s not a miracle; just because I understand something, that doesn’t mean it’s not from God. Just because a leaping cat, a wise friend, the relief of the common cold, the sunlight on the leaves outside my window, the remission of cancer through modern medicine, and the internet are perfectly ordinary parts of everyday life, that doesn’t mean they aren’t each a divine miracle, worthy of wonder, joy, and open-hearted awe.

So I’m sad when Jesus’ neighbors miss that joyful wonder when he comes home, and they expect him to become an ordinary guy among them. Sad because I know that wonder mostly comes to us when we are open to it, and that’s the faith that Jesus was looking for at home. Because healing comes when I’m willing to trust my brokenness to someone else; and that’s the faith that Jesus was looking for at home. Because we only fall into the hands of God when we stop holding on to what we can know and do for ourselves, and that’s the faith that Jesus was looking for.

Still is looking for, in fact.

When he’s amazed at the lack of that kind of faith in his hometown – when the deeds of power, revelations of wisdom, and miraculous healings he brings with him vanish into his neighbors’ insistence on the ordinary – Jesus keeps looking for the faith that will let God’s people accept the gifts in Jesus’ hands. He sends the apostles out to find it.

From his stuck-in-the-ordinary hometown he sends them off, two by two, clearly and purposefully instructing them to leave behind everything that ties them to the ordinary: money, luggage, shelter, food.

All the resources they have on their journey will be gifts of God: the hospitality that feeds and shelters them, the ears they find willing to listen, and Jesus’ own power to heal and reveal placed in their own hands – all of these are miracles.

And we can see that they are miracles mostly – maybe only – when we leave all of the ordinary behind.

When Jesus finds too much ordinary in his hometown – all that ordinary blocking out our vulnerability to miracles – he sends his disciples out to keep looking for the faith. They aren’t sent to look for intellectual belief in the rightness of his teaching, but for the ability to receive God’s gifts as the miracles they are: for openness to wonder, and openness to letting God do what we’d feel more comfortable if we did for ourselves.

It works, too: They went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick, and cured them.

In other words, the apostles find the faith that Jesus is looking for, they find the openness to God’s unbelievable gifts that’s shown by the trail of miracles and healing and changed hearts in their wake.

It works in part because Jesus equips the apostles with the vulnerability that keeps them open to miracles, sending them out completely dependent on the kindness of strangers, but also because he reminds them what to do when people’s natural skepticism and a preference for the safety of the ordinary start to cling to them and weigh them down: Shake it off.

If any place will not receive you, won’t receive what God is offering; if anyone refuses to hear you and share the wonder, shake that dust off your feet.

Shake it off, when those around you want you to stay firmly in the ordinary.

Shake it off, when no one wants to be amazed with you.

Shake it off, when everyone else wants to accept miseries and injustices we can’t control as a part of daily life, instead of as an opportunity for God to act.

Shake it off, when no one around you is willing to see daily bread and shelter as the miracle they are, or a listening ear as a marvelous gift of God.

Shake it off, and keep looking for the faith that’s ready to receive the news and the gifts of God as miracles. Because it is out there.

It’s in here, too. In you and me, even though many of us have been familiar with Jesus since childhood, just like his hometown neighbors. Many of us have gotten comfortable with Jesus as ordinary in our lives, and gotten conditioned to miss the miracles because we’ve seen this all before, and the good news doesn’t seem all that new.

Even so, the faith that Jesus is looking for is here at home just as much as it’s on the road, we just have to shake off our own disbelief to set it free.

It’s not intellectual doubt that holds us back, but the comfort of not noticing, and not needing, miracles that keeps us from receiving the miracles God wants to give. So Jesus encourages us to shake off the pride or the shame or the social awkwardness or whatever it is that keeps us from longing for divine healing and revelation;  shake it off so that we’re free to be filled with wonder and miracle and grace. Shake off the expectation that we’re here in life to do what we can with what we have, and become free to receive what God can do, in our own hometown neighborhoods, and in the world.

It’s unbelievable, sure.

But that’s what makes it God’s.

That’s what makes us God’s.