Radical Astonishment

The 28th verse of the Ninth chapter of Luke’s gospel begins, “About eight days after these sayings, Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up to the mountain to pray.”

“These sayings” includes telling them he would die, he would be raised again, that to be a disciple of his we need to pick up our cross daily, and that it is necessary to lose our lives to save them. Knowing that is what had been said makes it more readily apparent why he went up on the mountain to pray. In many ways, this story we call The Transfiguration, is the whole story wrapped up in one mysterious episode. [Luke 9:28-43a]

Jesus’ face and clothes become dazzling white as the three sleepy disciples look on. The change in Jesus’ appearance would certainly be reminiscent of those many times Moses had ascended the mountain, entered the tent and met with God face to face. His face would so shine that the people could not look upon him when he would come back down. [Exodus 34:29-35] This all makes it seem quite natural that under such similar circumstances Moses would appear, with Elijah, he of the blazing chariot, to pay Jesus a visit before his “departure” in Jerusalem.

The Greek word for departure means Exodus. They were talking about his Exodus which would occur in Jerusalem: Jesus would die, as he had told them, and in three days depart the bonds of death. This is his Exodus and why we call Jesus our Passover. His deliverance from the bonds of this world was soon to take place. So, we can think of Moses and Elijah paying a pastoral visit, assuring Jesus that they have been here before, and that sure enough, just as it had been in the wilderness, just as it had been in those days of famine, just has it has been throughout the history of our people, God does provide a way out.

God would provide Jesus an Exodus, an escape route, a way out of bondage, a way out of the hard times, a way beyond and passing over death to a life lived with God all the time. Eternal life with God. This way would come to be called Resurrection.

Peter does not miss the importance of what is going on in the least, and suggests building three booths. A highly technical term for a shelter resembling the temporary shelters in which the people Israel lived during their wilderness sojourn. A shelter that can be picked-up and moved down the road. The kind of shelter in which all of Israel is commanded to live one week each year during the Festival of Succoth, of the Feast of Tabernacles, which we know Jesus and his disciples faithfully observed each year.

A festival which celebrates the very fact that in the wilderness God provides, and that we must in turn be grateful. So, to remember that and to show thanks, to this day the Jewish people build a Succoth booth for an eight-day remembrance. It must be built so that one can see the stars through the roof, and rain must be able to get in. During this eight-day celebration, one gathers together what are called the Four Species: branches of citron, willow, myrtle and Palm.

Palms, like those we gather from our last Palm Sunday which will be burned for ashes to be used on Ash Wednesday. All except the citron are bound to the Palm, making what is called a lulav. With the citron in one hand, the lulav in the other, they are waved in all four directions, north, south, east and west, then upwards and downwards to indicate that God is everywhere! In the synagogue the lulav, or Palm, is waved in the air as everyone dances around the bimah, the platform from where the Torah is read.

The Eighth Day of the Succoth festival is known as Shemini Atzeret, the day of assembly, or the “day of holding back,” stopping and waiting; or as Simchat Torah, the day the weekly Torah readings are completed, the scroll is turned back, and there is a huge celebration and procession with everyone getting to carry the scroll, waving the branches, singing and praising God.

The significance of Atzeret, or holding back, is quite interesting. The sages say that the reason for this eighth day celebration is related to this parable: God is like a king who invites all his children to a feast to last for just so many days; when the time has come for them to depart, he says to them: “My children, I have a request to make of you. Stay yet another day; your departure is difficult for me.” Which brings us back to that which Jesus, Moses and Elijah were talking about: his departure or exodus.

It is often overlooked that they obviously spent the night on the mountain and did not come down until the next day. And the fact that none of the versions of this story says Peter did not build the booths. Raising the obvious question, what did they do all night? Celebrated Succoth and Simchat Torah/Smini Atzeret with God! God knew that he had to send his son to Jerusalem, but wants to keep him back for one more night because “Your departure is difficult for me.”

So difficult was this Exodus for Jesus that it did not end on Good Friday, any more than the great escape from Egypt was not the end of that first Exodus. Exodus is just the beginning, which is what the eight days of Succoth would remind Jesus and his disciples every year that they celebrated the festival. Waving the Palms North, South, East and West would remind them every year that wherever we are, God is.

And that our God is the one God who always wants just one more day with us. And one more after that. Eventually, of course, we all need to come down off the mountain, the exuberant celebrations need to end, and we all need to get back to the work God calls us to do – to heal a broken world; what is called Tikkun Olam.

Whatever might be said about Jesus of Nazareth, he shows us all how to live a life of Tikkun Olam, repairing a broken world. We sense his impatience with his disciples when they fail to heal a young boy. “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?” he blurts out. [Luke 9:41] Then he quietly and patiently takes care of the young man, and we are told, “All were astounded at the greatness of God!”

As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was fond of reminding us, we could all do with a little more astonishment in this world. Perhaps it begins by leaving the seemingly endless stream of chaotic events that distract us day and night, withdraw from it all as Jesus does, and pray.

In such moments of prayer perhaps we will be re-energized to open our eyes and see the work of God’s hand all about us. And perhaps if we spend one more day with the God who does not want us to leave, we too will be astounded at the greatness of God. And we too will find our exodus out of chaos back into the world of resurrection, and celebration and endless astonishment like those three disciples did on mountain top with Jesus one night long ago.

Imagine

Imagine

As I look out the window of the DC-3 as we were landing in North Aleuthra, I see the rusted-out carcasses of those planes which evidently did not make it. A one room little shack is the “terminal” and customs entry. Once out the front door, looking for a cab, across the street is another small building. On the side of that building are the words of Jesus in the sixth chapter of Luke: Love Your Enemies – It will drive them Crazy – And Cold Beer!

Perhaps that’s what he imagined among the soon to be ruins of Jerusalem, that cosmopolitan city under intense military occupation by Caesar who believes he is god: Zealots from the north, Priests and Political Leaders in the South, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, foreigners from all over the ancient world, Governor Pilate and Centurions all sitting down together to enjoy a cold-one and enjoying being with one another.

Love your enemies he says. Which in the Biblical traditions he embraced with his whole heart, mind and soul, meant something more like, “When you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, you shall bring it back. When you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden and you would hold back from setting it free, you must help to set it free.” [Exodus 23:4-5] Or, perhaps this from Proverbs, 25: 21-22: If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat; and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink…”

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you… Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back." [Luke 6:27-38]

After reading all of that over and over again, even sitting down with a cold-one to ponder these words Jesus utters after his Blessings and Woes, the immediate impulse usually is to say, “Really, do I have to? Do we have to?”

Martin King, Mahatma Gandhi, Tich Nhat Hanh, and countless others who have tried living out of these words of Jesus would no doubt say, “Yes, it is the only way out of all of our current situations in which we refuse to allow ourselves to imagine this is sort of love is possible and productive.” The great Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart reminds us, “All paths lead to God, for God is in them all equally for the person who knows it.”

Reflecting Luke chapter 6, Tich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist Monk who has devoted his life to Peace, asserts that when we look deeply into that which separates us, we see that “the person you call your enemy is also suffering. As soon as you see that, the capacity of accepting and having compassion for him is there. Jesus called this ‘loving your enemy’. When you are able to love your enemy, he or she is no longer your enemy. The idea of enemy vanishes and is replaced by the notion of someone who is suffering and needs your compassion. Doing this is sometimes easier than you might have imagined, but you need to practice. If you read the Bible but don’t practice, it will not help much. In Buddhism, practicing the teaching of the Buddha is the highest form of prayer. The Buddha said, ‘If someone is standing on one shore and wants to go to the other shore, he has to either use a boat or swim across. He cannot just pray, “Oh, other shore, please come over here for me to step across.”’ To a Buddhist, praying without practicing is not real prayer.” Living Buddha, Living Christ (Riverhead Books, NY: 1995) p.78-79

I believe Jesus, much like the Hebrew Prophets, Socrates, Lao T’zu, Confucius, and the Buddha before him, says these seemingly impossible things to spark our imaginations in such a way as to see that it is possible to move beyond that which seems to be hopeless. That to bridge our differences is not only possible but necessary. That to let go of the old ways and walk in the ways of the world’s great Wisdom Traditions is the only way. All this loving, doing good and praying for others, especially others we do not like at all, and do not like us, is the only way forward.

And it all begins with me – with each of us, one at a time allowing our imaginations to free us from the prison of our own hate, distrust, and self-loathing. We have got to either take a boat with others to cross the rivers of hate and distrust, or jump in and swim across on our own, not waiting for others to join us.

If we are going to love our neighbor as we love ourselves; if we are to do to others as we would have them do to us, we need to begin loving ourselves. Then, and only then, how much judging and condemnation do we have to give up and let go? If we want forgiveness, how much are we willing to forgive? Can we begin with loving ourselves just a little bit more so that we might begin to love others, even our enemies and those who hate us?

Jesus also says, “Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” God’s mercy knowns no bounds, no boundaries, no conditions. The sun shines on the just and the unjust. The rain pours down on the good and the bad. God is an equal opportunity provider of mercy. We are to be merciful as God is merciful – as we want God to be merciful to us.

Jesus says these things, I believe, so that we might Imagine all this not judging, not condemning, all this loving and doing good is possible. When I Google the word “Imagine,” the first entry that pops up is this video of John Lennon singing the song inspired by a poem, Cloud Piece, of Yoko Ono’s:

Imagine the clouds dripping,

dig a hole in your garden

to put them in.

Spring 1963 [from Grapefruit, Simon & Schuster Ltd (2000)]

John Lennon and Yoko Ono could imagine what Jesus was talking about. The question remains, can we? And if we can, are we ready to take the boat or swim our way to the other shore? If so, perhaps it will be time to share a cold-one with those we think are enemies but in the end are only strangers like us.

Imagine.

Absalom Jones - Here Am I, O Lord, Send Me

Absalom Jones - Here Am I, O Lord, Send Me

Isaiah. Simon Peter. Paul. All three are depicted as struck with immediate humility before the awesome power and presence of the Lord. In Isaiah 6:1-8 the soon-to-be prophet who finds himself in the Temple of the Lord, declares, "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" Simon Peter, who after fishing all night and catching nothing still submits to Jesus’ directive to put out again and let the nets down one more time, resulting in a catch that fills the nets of two boats to the point of sinking them, falls to his knees before Jesus and declares, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" [Luke 5: 1-11] And Paul, writing to a conflicted community of Christ in Corinth, describes himself: “For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.” [1 Corinthians 15:1-11]

Humility. A quality derived from an awareness that we come from humus, that organic component of soil that contributes life sustaining properties to the soil from which we and the food that sustains us are derived. Humility describes those inner qualities that centers oneself on low self-preoccupation, not putting oneself before others, as contrasted with narcissism, hubris and other forms of pride – pride, one of the seven deadly sins.

Throughout the Biblical narrative, individuals like Isaiah, Peter, Paul and Jesus are called to serve the purposes of the love, charity and justice which consistently appear to be the primary characteristics of God’s concern for all people and all of creation. God periodically calls upon people who otherwise seem to have no qualifications other than their humility before the power and majesty of God to do the work God needs us to do. We may as well admit that the Church often is guilty of forgetting this primary characteristic of humility; the primary characteristic of those who are called to represent the love, charity and justice of God in this world. Fortunately for us, and the Church, others continue to be sent to exemplify what humble Godly service looks like. We might call them apostles of God’s infinite love, charity and justice – for apostle means “one who is sent.”

Absalom Jones was one such apostle, and this week, February 13^th, we remember him in our Calendar of Saints. Absalom Jones was born a household slave in Sussex County, Delaware November 6, 1746, and died a free man and Episcopal Priest February 13, 1818. He taught himself to read out of the New Testament among other books. When sixteen, he was sold to a store owner in Philadelphia. There he attended a night school for Blacks, operated by Quakers. At twenty, he married another slave, Mary King, and purchased her freedom with his earnings. Only after securing his wife’s freedom first did Jones purchase his own freedom in 1784.

To him, God was the Father, who always acted on “behalf of the oppressed and distressed.” At St. George’s Church in Philadelphia he became a lay minister for their African-American membership. As he grew that membership, the leadership of St. George’s became alarmed and one Sunday segregated them to the gallery unannounced. During that Sunday service when the ushers attempted to remove them to the gallery, Jones and those he served walked out.

In 1787, Black Christians organized the Free African Society, the first organized African-American society, and Absalom Jones and Richard Allen were elected overseers. Members of the Society paid monthly dues for the benefit of those in need. The Society established communication with similar Black groups in other cities. In 1792, the Society began to build a church, which was dedicated on July 17, 1794.

The African Church applied for membership in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania on the following conditions: 1, that they be received as an organized body; 2, that they have control over their local affairs; 3, that Absalom Jones be licensed as lay reader, and, if qualified, be ordained as minister. In October 1794 it was admitted as St. Thomas African Episcopal Church. Bishop White ordained Jones as deacon in 1795 and as priest on September 21, 1802.

Jones was an earnest preacher. He denounced slavery, and warned the oppressors to “clean their hands of slaves.”

Jones’ constant visiting and mild manner made him beloved by his own flock and by the community. St. Thomas’ Church grew to over 500 members during its first year. Known as “the Black Bishop of the Episcopal Church,” Jones was an example of persistent faith in God, responding to God’s call with humility as an instrument of God’s love, charity and justice in the Church and in the world. Like Isaiah before him, Absalom Jones responded to the call every day, saying, “Here am I, O Lord, send me.”

The following is a prayer from A Thanksgiving Sermon Jones preached January 1, 1808, in St. Thomas's African Episcopal, Church, Philadelphia: On Account of the Abolition of the African slave trade, on that day, by the Congress of the United States:

     “Give peace in our day, we beseech thee, O thou God of peace! And grant, that this highly favoured country may continue to afford a safe and peaceful retreat from the calamities of war and slavery, for ages yet to come. We implore all these blessings and mercies, only in the name of thy beloved Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

     “And now, O Lord, we desire, with angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven, ever more to praise thee, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty: the whole earth is full of thy glory. Amen.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!"  [Isaiah 6:8]

Who will go for us today?

Mississippi John Hurt, Here Am I, O Lord, Send Me

We Are His

“When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” [Luke 4:14-30]

This is how it ends, the story that began last Sunday: it is ‘Jesus’ first sermon’ in his hometown synagogue. Word had spread of all the amazing things he had been doing all over the place. We can imagine the headlines, “Hometown Boy Makes Good!” But how quickly things can turn, and turn bad. Ugly and very bad. They want to hurl him over a cliff and be done with him. And why? All because they wanted a piece of him and his power. Which seems fair enough. They wanted to see water turned into wine, the lame healed, recovery of sight to the blind; the whole nine yards. They wanted to see it and experience it right here in Nazareth and right now thank you very much.

And so do we. That is all they wanted. That is all we want. We are members of his community. We are his people. We are faithful. We want a piece of the action right here, right now just like the good people of Nazareth.

They felt they deserved at least that much. Didn’t they contribute to his up-bringing? Didn’t they put up with his unusual parentage? Didn’t they go to synagogue faithfully every week? Didn’t they study God’s word every day? And pray morning, noon and night? Didn’t they feel proud when hearing accounts of his marvelous deeds that he had come from Nazareth? He’s one of us, they say! He is ours, they say! Isn’t that why we keep coming back Sunday after Sunday ourselves to eat his body and drink his blood? To claim him as our own? Isn’t he ours?

But listen to his unsympathetic response. He knows what they are thinking before they even say it. He goes to great pains to remind them that our God works in mysterious ways. That God’s power is often focused on strangers far outside the friendly confines of our cozy little communities of faith. He reminds them that Elijah was sent to a foreign widow in Zarephath; that Elisha cleansed a dreaded Syrian of all things. A Syrian! There were people in need right here in our own community. Yet, he reminds them, God has always looked out for those in need beyond the community of faith, beyond the boundaries of our towns, our countries. God’s power is not ours. He is not ours. Rather, we are his.

They don’t want to be reminded of the Biblical story, the story of the community of faith. They want to run him out of town on the proverbial rail, tarred and feathered, and leave him for dead at the bottom of the cliff. Just as the people had done when they heard Jeremiah, the young prophet, and hurled him to the bottom of a well to be done with his constantly proclaiming the Word of the Lord! And you should see the bottom of those town cliffs in Israel. Often, they are garbage dumps. They want to hurl him into the garbage dump. Amongst the fires and the ashes that are always burning down there. Yet, somehow, he manages to get away. He escapes like his people had escaped from Egypt so long long ago in that first Exodus, that first Passover.

All this because they really did not hear him in the first place. Our Lectionary suspects we have missed it as well. This must be why we get this story two weeks in a row. He says, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” “This scripture” is the 61st Chapter of the prophet Isaiah proclaiming God’s care and reversals of fortune for all those in need. The operant word, as always, is “all.” They did not want to share God or God’s care with “all.” God’s care is ours. This Jesus is ours. They do not want to hear about a God who cares about Syrians and Zarephathians and all those foreigners. We want God’s power and care right here in Nazareth and in Nazareth only. He is one of us. He is ours. Make Nazareth great again!

They miss what he says. “This scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Our hearing ought to result in our participating in welcoming strangers, even Syrians and Zarephatians and gentiles of all kinds from all over the world. Our hearing this Word ought to result in our doing the work Jesus does, and, he will tell them later at his Last Supper, those who hear God’s Word will do even greater things than these – greater things than Jesus did. [John 14:12]

Jesus reminds them that as covenant partners with God going all the way back to the wilderness, the Exodus, and the Ten Commandments, they were the people appointed and anointed by God to live their lives in such a way so as to be God’s demonstration community of faith, hope and charity for all people; or, as Paul would have it, God’s community of Love. [1 Corinthians 13]

What he is saying with all these stories and proverbs is, in effect, “Get with it. Turn water into wine yourselves. Bind up the brokenhearted. Give hope to those without vision. Liberate the oppressed. Release people from their debts. God has given you the vision of the Year of the Lord’s Favor. Live that kind of life. You don’t need me around here. You are already God’s people called to do God’s work, just like me.”

He is also saying, “Do not think that just because you are faithful and in covenant with God that you have some kind of lock on God’s power. You do only in the sense that you give that power to others. Real others. Really other others. Like Syrians and Zaraphathians and all manner of strange other people outside of Nazareth; outside of our little demonstration community.”

That is, our God is not a God who lives only in Israel, our country, the Christian tradition, the Church, our denomination, our parish, or whatever boundaries we wish to set. God is not ours. Jesus is not ours. We are his. And we are to go beyond the boundaries we set just as Elijah, Elisha, and Jeremiah did. Jesus, Paul and all those who have truly heard the Word of God in their hearing, in their hearts and in their lives, know this and live this.

God calls us to work where and when God pleases. If the scripture is to be fulfilled, it must be in our hearing it, our embodying it, our acting upon it – literally, our ‘being’ it. And to become the fulfillment of the Word of God we need to let-go of all notions that Jesus, the hometown kid, is ours and begin to figure out what it means that “we are his.” He has a special claim on us, not we on him.

What he said that day in Nazareth is just a true today: Live the life Isaiah proclaimed and God will see to it that all your water is wine. And not just wine, but good wine. Wonderfully good wine that will warm your hearts and make you glad that the Spirit of the Lord has anointed you to do these things and more. All these things and more. And our cups will be filled to overflowing, and all the world will see that the Good News of Christ shines through all that we say and all that we do. This is how we will become a community of Love, a people of faith, hope and charity – a people who know that we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Amen.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

The eighth chapter of Nehemiah recalls a pivotal moment in the history of God’s Word. After several generations of captivity in Babylon, Ezra has led some of the captive back home to a Jerusalem that lies in ruins. Nehemiah leads the rebuilding of the city walls and the Temple. They gather the community before the Water Gate as Ezra opens a scroll of The Law of Moses. For six hours he reads and others interpret the text “so that the people understood the reading.” [Nehemiah 8:8]

It is perhaps the first recorded instance of the birth of the Sermon. The text tells us the people who stood there and listened for six hours wept. Perhaps just the sound of the words in the air evoked such deep emotion. Perhaps it was for the first time in generations that they were standing back in their home, newly rebuilt after years of devastation, years of captivity, years of yearning, years of hoping for release. Perhaps they weep as they hear a renewed rendering of what it means to be God’s people – that just as Cyrus of Persia, a gentile, a righteous gentile, had secured their freedom to return, so they too were to dedicate their lives to serving and securing release for all others who have suffered as they had.

Ezra and the priests urge them to stop their weeping and to, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

“Send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared.” This is the essence of the Law of Moses they heard that day. That, and that “the joy of the Lord is your strength.” And what makes the Lord joyful is when we reach out beyond our little community and take care of those for whom “nothing is prepared.”

There can be little doubt that Jesus in Luke chapter 4 has similar things in mind as he visits his hometown synagogue in Nazareth. Synagogues had been born six hundred years before while his ancestors were in captivity in Babylon, having been separated from the central location of their worship, the Jerusalem temple. Since there was no place to present the appointed sacrifices, they would gather in synagogue communities to reflect on other aspects of the Law of Moses – such as the commandment to love God and love your neighbor – neighbor understood to include widows, orphans, the poor, those aliens traveling in and through the land; i.e those for whom nothing is prepared.

Jesus stands to read from a scroll handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." 

This text he reads comes from portions of Isaiah 58 and 61, and seems also to refer to The Jubilee Year (the year of the Lord’s favor) as outlined in Leviticus 25. To people who have been held captive in their own homeland first by the Greeks and now by Rome, this no doubt not only sounded like good news, but astoundingly amazing good news. And to those first reading or listening to Luke being read, there may be some sense of irony given the fact that just before this episode, the word is out that John the Baptist has been imprisoned – for announcing similar “good news.”

The year of the Lord’s Favor, or Jubilee Year, was prescribed to occur every fifty years. All debts were to be forgiven. So it is that Jesus would teach them to pray, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” [Matthew 6:12] It is all to be part of God’s shrewd economic plan for God’s people, a kind of hard reset for the nation’s economy. It was to be one way to take care of those for whom nothing has been prepared.

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Really? Rome will decamp and leave the land today? Taking their tax collectors with them? John will be released along with thousands of others Herod and Pilate and others have imprisoned across the land? Today?

Like the moment in front of the Water Gate in Nehemiah, hearing all of this ought to have made them weep. Hearing it just now ought to make us weep – at first, weep with joy that our hopes and prayers may actually come to pass. Or, weep as we realize just what is being asked of us to forgive debts and release captives, and help those whose vision is poor to non-existent to see, to really truly see what God’s Word means for us to be doing.

As a dear friend used to teach, the Good News often sounds like Bad News because of the very real demands God’s Good News makes upon us all. But that Bad News becomes Good News to those who try it; those who live into it; those who forgive others, those who prepare portions for those who have no one to provide for them. Good News/Bad News/Good News.

“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” In your hearing. In our hearing. Do we hear it at all? Or, do we piously mouth, “The Word of the Lord…Thanks be to God,” and move on to the next thing? Do we hear it at all?

Where is Ezra and all the priests and Jesus to interpret this for us today, here and now, so that in our hearing this Good News for all people begins to be fulfilled? “Send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared.” It’s not that complicated. As Bob Dylan once sang, “And remember when you're out there / Tryin' to heal the sick / That you must always first forgive them.” Not much need for interpretation there.

This whole religion thing is not about belief. A core dimension of all religion, as Huston Smith outlined it years ago, is to discern what, if anything, we ought to be doing. It is about hearing and doing. Forgive, heal, and send help to those in need. It shouldn’t take six hours to get that across, let alone some 2,600 hundred years. “Do you hear what I hear? / A song, a song/High above the trees / With a voice as big as the sea – With a voice as big as the sea.”

So shall your God rejoice over you!

John relates the story of Jesus and his mother at a wedding in Cana of Galilee [John 2: 1-11]. Cana is in the mountains just north of their hometown of Nazareth, and west of the Sea of Galilee. It’s an odd story which demands a lot from our imagination. Imagine, like Jesus and his mother, you are invited to a wedding feast – a wedding reception – that lasts for several days. Despite being a story about a wedding, it is really about God – and God’s future for all people – a God who Isaiah declares, “as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” [Isaiah 62:5]

Imagine you are Jesus’s mother. Curiously she is never named in John’s Gospel, perhaps to focus on the relationship between Jesus, the Word, and his Father, capital “F.” If you’re invited it most likely involves your clan. You notice that they are running out of wine. This will reflect poorly on the entire family if this happens. Nothing in the Gospel of John so far suggests that Jesus can do anything about this. Yet, his mother says to Jesus, “They have no wine.”

Or, imagine you are Jesus. He seems annoyed by his mother’s insistence and addresses her in a tone that I would have never imagined using with my own mother! "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." Why is he so curt with his mother? Why does he seem so annoyed? His mother, however, still seems to think he can remedy the situation. She turns to the servants and says: “Do whatever he tells you.”

In the end, however, Jesus obeys his mother, despite always saying he is to be about “his father’s business.” After all, his next action, his second sign, occurs only a few days later in the Jerusalem Temple. He moves rather quickly from Cana to Capernaum, which is North of the Sea of Galilee, and then suddenly way down south to Jerusalem where he is tossing over tables and driving animals out of the Temple precinct, so concerned is he about the house where “his father’s business” takes place – which is all about sacrificing said animals. Back in Cana, Jesus suddenly reverses himself and seems to think it is time after all. His hour has come.

Suddenly, he instructs the servants to haul 180 gallons of water to fill six 30-gallon jars. These jars are for “purification,” which means washing their hands before the wedding feast. There must be a lot of guests to need 180 gallons of water to wash their hands! Then he instructs them to take a cup of water to the Chief Steward, who declares to the bridegroom, “Wow! This is really, really good wine! Usually after everyone is drunk you serve cheap wine, but this stuff is great!” Not to mention there is lots of it! Something like 888 bottles of good wine!

Now imagine you are the bridegroom and hear the Chief Steward praising your really, really good wine and you wonder, “Just what he is talking about!” You have no idea. Where did this come from? And why does he think I have anything to do with its sudden appearance? The narrator concludes, “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”

It’s the first thing Jesus does, the first sign, and no one even sees it happen. No one knows how it happened! But happen it did! Leaving at least a few questions. Among them: What is the take-away from this extraordinary “sign”? And in a storyline which includes signs like healing people, raising the dead Lazarus, welcoming strangers, feeding thousands of people on a few loaves of bread and a few fish, appearing to people after he is dead, why is this the first sign?

Maybe, suggests my friend, colleague and now missionary, The Reverend Amy Richter, Jesus recalls a vision the prophet Isaiah had some seven hundred years earlier in a similar situation. Then, Israel was in Exile in Babylon. Now, they are in Exile at home under Roman occupation – home was no longer home. Isaiah who says that one day God will intervene, and “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.  And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” [Isaiah 25:6-9]

“So, when Jesus makes gallons and gallons of wine at a wedding reception [in the mountains],” writes Amy, “it is a sign, pointing to the scriptural promises that God will bring all people to God’s own self, that God will pour down God’s love and the abundance of God’s joy on all people, that the perfection that lies in God’s great future is real. But more – that the future abundance and grace and joy has begun in Jesus Christ. The future is now, the glory and grace of God are available now.” For all people.  [The First Sign, The Reverend Dr. Amy Richter]

Amy goes on to suggest that Jesus’s sign announces that God’s future is breaking in now. God’s future is available in the present. In this life. We don’t have to wait to experience it. And we can participate in this future that is here in Christ Jesus right now. How? By following his mother’s instructions to the servants: “Do whatever he tells you.” What does he tell us to do? Love God. Love neighbors, even strangers and enemies. Share what you have with others. Share your money, your time, your compassion, your care. Heal people. Raise the dead. Help those who are blind to see. Give thanks to my Father for all good things. And at his Last Supper he says to us, “You will do the things that I do, and greater things than these… Rise up, let us be on our way!” [John 14:12]

Oh yes, and he says, “Do this in remembrance of me.” The very last sign Jesus leaves his disciples, and that would be us, is a loaf of bread and a cup of - wine. At his Last Supper he passes around a cup of wine – “for all peoples.” It’s the first sign he gives us. It is the last sign he leaves us. The community which gathers around him calls this Eucharist, which means thanksgiving. As we look into the cup of wine week in and week out, we are to remember that first sign, and all his signs, and give thanks – thanks for the signs that say the future is now for those of us, who like his mother, reply, “Let it be to me according to your word.”

His first word to those he calls to be his disciples is always, “Follow me… Rise up, let us be on our way.” We are those people who, like Jesus and Isaiah before him, know what God’s future looks like! We have heard the vision of how God plans to wrap this all up; we have seen the sign of 180 gallons of wine that announces: Yes, God’s future is now for those who look into that cup that shimmers with his life blood; who do remember and say, Yes, yes, I will rise up and follow!

Whenever any one of us looks into that cup and says, “Yes!” the words of Isaiah are fulfilled in our hearing: “…as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”

I Am Loved, Therefore I Am

Ego amari, ergo sum

Jesus’ Baptism. This occurs within the context of the occupation of Israel by Rome (Luke 3: 15-22). Israel is unique among its ancient neighbors in often concluding that the bad things that happen to them, like the Babylonian Exile and this occupation, must be their fault. This is why John is down by the river inviting one-and-all to repent of whatever they have done to have lost their way and to be washed clean by baptism. Some there think John is the promised Messiah who will one way or another drive the Romans off. He insists he is not. There is one coming after him who will take an axe to the root of all their problems, their own sins and the Romans. The one who is to come will not baptize them with water like John does, but with Fire and the Holy Spirit. “His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” That some people will end up burning in unquenchable fire just does not sound like such good news. Luke also reports that John has been shut up in prison for rebuking and chastising Herod, the King of the Jews.

This seems to suggest, in Luke’s telling of the tale, that John is probably not there to baptize Jesus. Some of John’s disciples no doubt continue his prophetic ministry of cleansing the people to restore them to the way of God. The effect of this narration is for John to recede from the story as three remarkable things take place. First, while Jesus prays after he is baptized the heavens are torn open. Next, from this opening into the great beyond appears the Holy Spirit “in bodily form like a dove” to land upon Jesus. Followed, finally, by “a voice.” This voice declares, “You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

God the Father, God the Holy Spirit and God the Beloved Son are all on stage in one place, at one time. God announces his love for his Son. Later others will recall that at the beginning of the story, the very beginning all the way back in the wilderness, this same God declares that he has rescued the people from Egypt not because of anything they had done, not because there were so many of them, rather “it was because the Lord loved you.” [Deuteronomy 7:8] And long after Jesus ascended back to where he came from, and from where we all come from, people declared that God is love. Love is God. Jesus is the embodiment of God’s Love for all people, all creatures, and all creation. The Spirit, the Breath, of the Lord is upon him and within him.

From that moment on, Jesus embodies God’s love, not with a winnowing fork nor with fire, but  through feeding, healing, and accepting into his presence all persons of all kinds and all possible afflictions and sinfulness. Being God’s Beloved is to have compassion on all persons, all creatures and all of creation. It means being good stewards of all people, all creatures and all of creation. This is how God’s Spirit of Love is given away to one and all. Given away. Absolutely free! And what Jesus gives away is the good news that we, all of us, are God’s Beloved, and that God is well pleased with us.

A Baptism in Samaria. In Acts chapter 8 this last point is driven home. Philip is visiting the Samaritans and proclaiming the good news. Samaria is where the first temple had been. The Samaritans were traditionalists and did not go to the new-fangled temple in Jerusalem, but rather continued to worship the God of the Exodus in Samaria. Philip is casting out spirits and healing Samaritans left and right. One Simon, called The Great, a magus, a magician, is impressed. This Simon the Great says to the people, “ ‘This man, Philip, is the power of the God that is called Great.’ And they listened eagerly to him because for a long time Simon had amazed them with his magic. But when they saw Philip showing compassion on all who were afflicted, who was proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God, they were baptized, both men and women. Even Simon himself was baptized, and he stayed constantly with Philip and was amazed when he saw the signs and great miracles that took place.” [Acts 8:11-13]

The disciples in Jerusalem hear of what’s happening in Samaria and send Peter and John to baptize the Samaritans with the Holy Spirit. The text is rather funny about this saying: “for as yet the Spirit had not come upon them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus!” Only! When Simon the magician sees what happens when Peter and John lay hands on the Samaritans, “he offered them money, saying, “Give me also this power so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” Peter and John have been through this before. Indignant, Peter says, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God’s gift with money! You have no part or share in this, for your heart is not right before God.” Poor Simon. Simon’s magic attracted attention to himself and earned him money. With therese powers he could earn even more! Whereas the power of the Spirit demonstrated by Philip, Peter and John points only to God and God’s reign over all. The message of the text: God’s Spirit of Love is not for sale. You cannot buy this Belovedness. God’s Spirit and God’s Love are not commodities that can be bought and sold. It is to be given away. Absolutely free.

Our Baptism. It’s easy for us to laugh at Simon the Great Magician. Yet, we live in a time in which the commodification of everything is possible. Just the other day I was just speaking with a woman who works in a Natural Foods Market about our willingness to participate in this commodification of everything, including ourselves, as we allow ourselves to become walking-talking billboards wearing logoed clothing wherever we go! Old Navy, Givenchy, Columbia, Nike, Coach, Prada, you name it, we wear it emblazoned on every part of our bodies! Like Simon the Great, it is near impossible for us to believe that there is anything that cannot be bought and sold; that cannot become a commodity. We belong to those who manufacture our identity through all that we buy. Someone has coined, “Walmart, ergo sum” – “I shop, therefore I am!”

Whereas, our Baptism tells us, and all who know us, that we belong not to those who would like to manufacture our identities, but to the One Who Is To Come – Jesus Christ, God’s Beloved Son. Through water AND the Holy Spirit, we believe we are incorporated into the Body of Christ, his Church. We are Christ’s Body in this world. As such, we too are God’s Beloved. In and through Christ, we become those who proclaim this good news in all that we say and all that we do. Our identity has been forged through the life, death and resurrection of the One Who Is To Come. This identity is sealed upon our foreheads with a cross, traced with oil – not a corporate logo, but the very cross that says we have been forgiven; we are God’s Beloved; our God is well pleased with us. This is meant to make all the difference in the world. We are to be the embodiment of God’s love for all people, all creatures and all of creation itself.

As I ponder this each year as the Feast of our Lord’s Baptism rolls around, along comes, from stage left, an article from The New Yorker magazine, dated January 20, 1975:  Remembering W.H. Auden by Hannah Arendt. In this remembrance, Arendt recalls Auden’s close friend, Stephen Spender, remarking that the main theme of Auden’s poetry is love. Indeed, the most remarkable expression of this theme of love is stated in the opening verses of Auden’s poem, Winds

Deep below our violences,

Quite still, like our First Dad,   [God the Father]

  his watch and many little maids,

But the boneless winds that blow

Round law-court and temple

Recall to Metropolis

That Pliocene Friday when,     [the era in which homo sapiens arrives on the scene]

At His holy insufflation           [ God breathes into the first man on a Friday]

(Had He picked a teleost          [ray-finned fishes]

Or an arthropod to inspire,       [insects, spiders, crustaceans]

Would our death also have come?),

Our bubble-brained creature said—

“I am loved, therefore I am”—  [a refutation of Descartes’ “cogito ergo sum”]

And well by now might the lion

Be lying down with the kid,

Had he stuck to that logic.       [Isaiah 11:6]

Brilliant! “I am loved, therefore I am.” Descartes had missed it altogether. Descartes who believed the one statement that cannot be doubted would be, “Cogito, ergo sum – I think, therefore I am.” Thinking is not our essence. The essence of who we are created to be is not a thought, an idea, a doctrine or a belief. It is our being loved by the One who creates us, in whom we live and move and have our being. If only we would see this. If only we would accept this gift of our belovedness, suggests Auden, then Isaiah’s vision of a world in which the lion lies down with the lamb, The Peaceable Kingdom of God, would be here by now. Oh, says Auden, if God had only given this gift of love to a fish, or an insect, or a spider, or a crab, perhaps then we would be closer to Isaiah’s vision!

But no, God picked us, we the “bubble-brained” ones. We who are to know deep within ourselves that before we ever can conceive of what it means to Love God and Love our Neighbor we need to know that first and foremost that God loves us.

“I am loved, therefore I am.”

This love cannot be bought and sold. It is given. Absolutely free. If only we would accept the gift in the deepest recesses of our souls, in the darkest moments of our imperfect existence, we will once and for all fulfill the deepest desire of humankind, expressed, perhaps best, by one Socarates: Know thyself. Even Socrates, like Descartes, misses it. Love thyself? No. Know thyself to be loved – loved by a love like no other. For it is in this love that we are. You are. I am. Baptism means to be this, means to say this, means to express this in all that we say and all that we do – to know thyself to be God’s Beloved makes all the difference in the world. In the world. The world God loves filled with creatures God loves – even teleosts and arthropods! Great God, it is good! This news is good news for all the people. Sisters and brothers, repeat the refrain: I am loved, therefore I am! I am loved, therefore I am! I am loved, therefore I am! If only we would stick with this logic! If only…