Ruah: Breath, Wind, Spirit Lent 2A

 Ruah: Breath, Wind, Spirit

As one listens to the final moments of Gustav Mahler’s 9^th Symphony, there is only the sound of a few string instruments. And it is easy to overlook which strings play the essence of what is left of melody. A few violins are playing a sort of long, drawn-out ostinato. But they almost distract from the viola – yet it is a lone viola that is given the final say, almost the final breath as all sound is extinguished into an utter silence. Like the blowing out of a candle’s flame, with a mere wreathe of vapor extending upwards.

 

Something similar seems to be going on at the beginning of evangelist John’s third chapter and the all too familiar story of Nicodemus’s visit with Jesus in the dark of night. Familiar, since it is the only passage of all Holy Writ that has given us so many end-zones in football stadia, and in the seats behind the catchers and plate umpires at so many baseball games: a poster simply emblazoned with “John 3:16.” More on that later. For such familiarity with John 3:16 and the philosophical-theological conversation between Nick and Jesus, and the misunderstandings of a word with more than one meaning, we almost overlook the main character on the stage: one of the first characters in the whole Bible; one that plays a central role in creation itself: Ruah.

 

Ruah. Ruah can mean breath, wind, and spirit. And not just any breath, wind, and spirit, but the Ruah is the power, purpose, and agent of God, YWHW’s, will. If one has ruah, one has life. If one has no more ruah, one is dead. “29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. 30 When you send forth your breath, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.” [Psalm 104]

 

Nicodemus comes in the dark of night (which for John is the darkness the world) to visit what evangelist John has identified as the Light and Life of the World: Jesus. He has witnessed, or at least heard about, things Jesus has done: turning water into wine, and overturning the money-changer’s tables at the Temple. “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” This is where we and Nick get hung up. The text, which is in a sort of patois of Greek, uses a word, anothen, which like ruah, can mean several things: ‘above,’ but also ‘anew,’ or ‘again.’ Jesus, no doubt, speaks in Aramaic, and neither we nor the translators have any idea what word he really spoke to Nick. What we do know is that John has intentionally chosen a word that carries a certain amount of ambiguity – because Jesus speaks, and John writes, in metaphor; really a kind of poetry, often leaving interpretation to the one who hears what is being said.

 

Nick thinking Jesus says he must be “born again,” a phrase, unfortunately, heavily freighted with specific meaning among some Christian communities in our own day. “How can this be,” says Nick. “I cannot crawl back into my mother’s womb!” Thus, introducing the challenges and problems of biblical “literalism.” Despite all the poetry of his tradition, the poetry of the Psalms and the Prophets, Nick is mired in a literalism that misses the very meaning of what Jesus had come to proclaim. Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit (ruah). What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind (ruah)  blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

 

Enter, the central character, not only of this conversation, but the essence of Biblical Religion itself: the Spirit, capital “S,” the agent of the very purpose and will of God, is like “the wind!” The late Water Brueggemann offers the following: “Categorizing the various uses of ruah is a mistake, for in Hebrew it connotes any and all of them in a more wholistic sense that refers to an invasive power at work in the world, deeply linked to YHWH’s will and purpose, capable of disrupting and transforming earthly reality. Thus, the Godness of ruah is attested to assert that God finally orders and wills lived reality, for good or for ill, beyond the ken and control of human capacity. In short, God’s Holy Spirit-Breath-Wind cannot be placed in a flow chart, let alone easily “understood” that due to something beyond our every-day existence new possibilities open to us!  [Brueggemann, Reverberations of Faith, p.200]

 

Nicodemus asks, “How can these things be?” And who can blame him? Jesus continues, “Our tradition suggests that as Moses lifted up the Serpent to heal the people in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, i.e. crucified … that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Enter, the essence of the Message that has been turned into a slogan, a poster, without context and without nuance. For Jesus, and John the evangelist, “eternal life” is not some sort of magical immortality, nor is it a future life in “heaven,” but is itself a metaphor for living here and now in the unending (eternal) presence and love of God. Eternal life is John’s way of speaking of the “kingdom of God,” which Jesus inaugurates, and commissions his followers to continue down to this very day. One can only begin to understand what “new life” is, says John, when the crucifixion is in full view.

 

These verses at the heart of this story help us to see how Jesus’s death and God’s love are related. God gives Jesus in love to all the world, and whoever accepts this gift will receive, and enter into, eternal life here and now. Jesus gives his love to all the world. Not to the Church, nor to any particular expression of his gathered community of Love, but to and for the Life and Light of the world. As John repeats “eternal life” twice in two verses, Jesus gives God’s Love to all the world.

 

We may as well admit, as a slogan, all notions of ruah, Spirit, have been cheapened. We have exported it to School Spirit, American Spirit, Christmas Spirit, the Spirit of ’76 – leaving the wholeness of the breath, wind, and spirit of YHWH’s will, purpose, and Love pointing to something you know is supposed to get you to your feet cheering but which you somehow cannot rise to. God’ ruah is far more elemental to life in the Spirit.

 

Like the viola in the Mahler 9^th, the central and last word in this meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus, is God’s ruah, God’s Spirit, which is the gift of Life. Which is Light. Which is Love. Life, Light, and Love which the darkness cannot and has not overcome. Embrace God’s gift of Spirit Love and enter into eternal life here and now. Choose not to embrace the gift of God’s  Love, and one might never know the grace that such love brings and offers to the whole world and everything therein. May God’s Holy Breath, God’s Holy Wind, God’s Holy Spirit move us to embrace God’s gift of Love, in Christ Jesus, who is present and with us now until the end of the age. Amen.

To Become the Love that is All Around! Lent 1A

 

To Become the Love that is All Around!

We come from Love; we return to Love; and Love is all around. God is Love.

 

The Reverend Pierre Wolf would visit our congregation at Saint Peter’s on the Green, Monroe, Connecticut. And each time he was with us he would remind us of the fundamental truth of who we are and whose we are: We come from Love; we return to Love; and Love is all around. Because God is Love. We are created in the image of God, male and female created in the image of God, meaning we are to reflect the true nature of God’s love for each of us, for all of us, for all of our neighbors, and for all creation itself.

 

God’s love is not the love of “I want to hold your hand;” not teenage love; not the love of Halmark movies. It is not the love of Valentine’s Day. Rather, it is a love that the Bible repeatedly describes as the fundamental character of God who is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment,” as the reluctant prophet Jonah found out when the people of Ninevah repented and returned to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It seems as if Jonah might have been happier if just this once God would zap Ninevah, that great city “in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also many much cattle.”

 

Perhaps no episode in all the Bible has been as misunderstood as the story of the man and the woman in the garden who are given permission to eat the fruit from every tree in the orchard but the one in the very middle of the Garden. Seems easy enough. But we know ourselves well enough to know that our curiosity is greater than that of all the cats in all of creation! We know they were already looking at the tree with great covetousness in their hearts and minds when along comes a serpent, something like the Iguanas and Nile Monitors currently plaguing Florida like Egypt and all those frogs, gnats, and flies! “Go ahead,” says the serpent. “Eat from the fruit of that one tree. You won’t die. God doesn’t want you to become like God. Go ahead, eat! Enjoy! Become like God!” This was the First Great Lie – from which many others have echoed down throughout human history right down to our own day. The Lie? That they would become like God. We all know that near the end of the previous chapter in Genesis God had already created them in God’s own image. They forgot they were already like God, which is love. And it was out of God’s love for the two of them, the first of his own children, that God wanted to protect them from the consequences of the full knowledge of good and evil. God was acting like our parents warning us to look both ways before crossing a street when saying to stay away from the tree.

 

And look at the result. Look at the consequences. They immediately try to hide their own true nature from one another. Then, as the story goes on, they try to hide from God, for heavens sake! And finally, the rupture begins: the man says, “She made me do it.” Then she says, “The serpent made me do it!” Thus, was born Flip Wilson: “The Devil Made me do it!” Despite the fact that  we have free will, and no one makes us do anything. We choose to do these things on our own. We allow others to misguide us. To mislead us into making bad decisions.

 

Which brings us to the story of Jesus as “The Breath,” the Spirit of God, leads him into the wilderness immediately after he learns that he is God’s Beloved Son. The story intentionally echoes the wilderness sojourn of the people of God who escaped Pharaoh’s Egypt where they experienced 40 years of testing after receiving Ten Commandments, which some rabbis refer to as the Ten Suggestions – Ten Suggestions on how we can best get along with one another, and with God. It does not take a biblical scholar to notice that Jesus undergoes precisely the same tests, and in the same sequence, as those refugees did in the wilderness: the first regards hunger, the second means to put God to the test, and the third regards false worship, or what the Bible often calls idolatry. One might also notice that the child Jesus follows the journey of Israel into Egypt to escape Herod’s murderous slaughter, and now the adult Jesus retraces his ancestor’s experiences in the wilderness. Matthew’s first audiences would notice this.

 

For Jesus the tester is no serpent. He is a character from earlier in Hebrew Scriptures known as sah-tanh – not to be confused with the medieval Chrisitan personification of evil, Satan, or the Devil. This sahtanh works for God, not against him. For reference re-read the story of Job. From time-to-time God sends sah-tan to text the faithfulness of certain individuals. This time it is God’s Beloved Son to see if he is up to the tasks that lie ahead in healing the many ruptures that have accumulated between God and God’s people. The world is broken and has been turned upside down. Will God’s Beloved Son be up to the task of Tikkun Olam – repair of the world?

 

Hunger We read he is famished. Of course he is. Jesus has fasted for forty days! “If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread, says Sah-tanh. Jesus knows his scripture and answers from Deuteronomy, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus is called to a ministry to the whole world, not just to perform carnival tricks and assuage his own hunger. That would be to narrow the scope of what lies ahead.

 

Sah-tanh then says, “OK, so you know scripture. So do I! Let’s go to the tippity-top of the Temple. If you are the Son of God, why don’t you jump off, since it is written that His angels will bear you up and not let you dash even your foot upon a stone!” The Son of God replies, “It is also written you shall not test the Lord your God.” To test the promises of God is not a sign of faith but of fundamental doubt. It is to make ourselves God as if we know not only what God will do, but how, when and where God will act. Putting God to the test dramatically reverses our relationship with God, putting us in charge and God serving us! Nope.  Jesus again answers from Deuteronomy. Jesus is a shrewdie and wins round two.

 

Round three: If you just worship me, says Sah-tanh, you can have all the kingdoms of the world all to your very own self. “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” Once again, from Deuteronomy. Jesus will become Lord of all the kingdoms of the world, not by worshipping Sah-tanh, but by being nailed to a cross. By speaking truth to power. By healing the woundedness of all the world. By welcoming all people, no matter what. By extending God’s bountiful love to everyone, everywhere, all the time. Because we come from Love; we return to Love; and Love is all around. Join me, says Jesus, and become the Love that is all around. Jesus passes all three tests. Immediately, Sah-tan leaves, his job done, and angels come to wait upon Jesus!

 

To engage Lent and to be engaged by it is to render oneself vulnerable to the reality of who we are as human beings. It is also to open ourselves to the nature of God as Redeemer, the One who will not abide the space that sin has created, and who insists on spanning that abyss with Love.

The moral of the story: for us to pass the test as Jesus does, and to understand what it means to become the Love that is all around, as he did, we might do well to use these days of Lent to carefully read Deuteronomy! Deuteronomy! Deuteronomy!

We The People of God Ash Wednesday 2026

 

Ash Wednesday 2026

Nearly everything in our lessons and in the Ash Wednesday liturgy addresses the fact that a rupture has occurred in the relationship between God and the people. A relationship grounded in a covenant – a series of promises on just how we are to relate to one another in this world God has created to sustain creatures like us. This rupture is corporate in nature – that is, God is not at all like Santa Clause keeping track of every single one of us as to whether or not we are naughty or nice. God sees a bigger picture, a more serious situation. Thus, we hear the prophet Joel and the psalmist who wrote Psalm 103 declaring that it is time, once again, to sound a trumpet, to call the entire Community of God’s Love together to once again acknowledge that we are not doing such a terrific job loving one another as Christ loves us. Everyone is to assemble, from the wisest of elders to children still at their mother’s breast. It is time to review the nature of covenant and our responsibilities to one another, to total strangers, and to those passing through or seeking refuge in our land to escape life elsewhere, having heard what an extraordinary Community of Love the God of Jacob, aka Israel, has established. And the larger Community of Love his Son Jesus extended.

 

We don’t know much about Joel – there is no consensus as to when and where this Prophet-Poet lived. But we do know when Paul was traveling throughout the Middle East founding Communities of God’s Love. Paul, who had grown up and lived in the Community of the God of Jacob spent a lifetime extending that community to others – to Gentiles. People who were not descended from the tribes of Jacob, but people who yearned to live in a Community of God’s Love in a world that was otherwise dog-eat-dog, one more authoritarian despot after another stripping the resources of a conquered land, leaving the people helpless, desperate, and generally land-poor and over-taxed.

 

Writing to an early Christian Community of God’s Love in Corinth which had already become a rat’s-nest of factions who fought and scrapped at one another, and who treated strangers, aliens, and newcomers with disdain, if even that. To them Paul makes his plea: “We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” That is, it is time to remember who we are and whose we are – a Community of God’s Love in Christ. We need to become more God-like once again. We need to become more Christ-like once again. We are only as strong and righteous as the least of those among us. For how we treat those who live at the very margins is how we show our love and respect for the God who is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,” as Psalm 103 sings about our God, and by association God’s Beloved Son, and by further association, We the people of God. There is a rupture in this series of relationships, writes Paul, and it is time for reconciliation – it is time to put these relationships back together.

 

Which is what Jesus is really talking about in this day’s portion from the Sermon on the Mount: performative acts of piety like prayer, alms giving, and fasting, are not meant for public displays which only seek to cover up where we fail love our neighbors who are poor, naked, in debtor’s prison, hungry and thirsting for relief. Save all the performative piety for yourself, He says, and get back to being the Community of God’s Love that seeks to reach out beyond itself and its own needs and get involved in the life of those both in and beyond our community who are aching day-by-day for someone to reach out to relieve them and gather them into the Community of God’s Love.

 

The operant word for Ash Wednesday is “We.” The ashes are meant to remind us that “no man is an island,” we are all a part of a larger reality, a larger community that represents God’s intentions for this world. There are those who intentionally want to destroy such a Community of God’s Love. Ash Wednesday asks us: Do we accept our responsibilities as people of the Covenant? Or, do we side with those who wish to divide and destroy God’s Community of Love? Ash Wednesday issues a clarion call like that which was heard in the 1960s: Either you are on the bus or off the bus. Jesus issues that call every day. The Risen Christ each and every day means to sound the trumpet and call us to return. Not as individuals. That is Santa’s business. He calls us as constituent members of His Community of Love.

 

Earlier this week I ran across a prayer my father wrote for Layman’s Sunday in the church where I grew up, and in which he served as a Deacon and an Usher on Sundays. This was sixty-five years ago, 1961, and yet it sounds as if he is addressing the realities of life we face it today:

 

“We gather today, O Lord, to seek your help…Your wisdom and Your Love. We come to you as lay persons of our church, believing in it, working in it, and seeking to live a Christian life. And so, we pray for Guidance.

 

“As we stumble, help us to find Your path, that we may walk in it. Teach us Your ways that we will be better able to live with our family and fellow man. Teach us to pray, though cynics may mock us or deride us. Help us to understand and meet adversities that without warning may suddenly change our life. Keep us from panic in moments like these.

 

“Give us wisdom that we may reject foolish offers from men of perverted speech. Let us find lasting faith in the House of the God of Jacob.

 

“Remind us that faith is not just attending Church. Or, building a chapel of stone and mortar. That it is not just a group of committees and meetings, or singing or prayers. But that faith is a way of life to be lived each day in our houses, with our children, and with our friends.

 

“Since we are all frail, and easily turned by many distractions and temptations, remind us that Your teachings can be woven into our day-to-day business and commerce. Give us courage to say we are wrong when we are wrong. Give us firmness to do the right thing, although it may not be popular.

 

“Help us to show our children the wonders You have created around us, the beauties of the trees now changing their colors, the flowers bringing joy and comfort to ill ones for whom we offer special prayers today. Help us also to show our children the deep mysteries of the oceans and the challenge of the skies.

 

“And finally, O Lord, help us strengthen our faith, that we can preserve these beauties and protect them and our way of life from those seeking to destroy everything. This we ask in thy name. Amen.”

Everything Changes - Nothing Stays the Same Epiphany 3A

 

Everything Changes – Nothing Stays the Same

Matthew 4: 12-23 comes directly after the Three Episodes of Testing in the wilderness. John has been arrested. Jesus retreats from the region of Judea to Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee. As noted by the reference to Isaiah 9:1-4, the region of Galilee is majority gentile territory with some Israelite towns scattered throughout the region. For Matthew, this is another moment of Epiphany – the light of Christ, the light of the world, has arrived in a land “of deep darkness.” For Jesus, after forty days of testing his new vocation as God’s Beloved Son, sets off on a new mission: ‘From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”’ No longer a carpenter’s son, he now represents the presence of God’s kingdom. (Matthew alone refers to “kingdom of heaven” to avoid using a name for God which by tradition is not pronounced out loud, because Matthew’s gospel believed to have been addressed primarily to Jewish communities of emerging followers of Christ. One might say he is no longer Jesus; he is now the Christ [the anointed one] of God.)

 

As the Buddha said centuries before Christ, “Everything changes – Nothing stays the same.” The Christ emerges from his forty-day retreat changed, and as an agent of change. It is a change of direction in the life of Jesus, and he invites others to be similarly changed to become citizens of his Father’s kingdom of heaven – his Father’s vision or dream for this world: “of a friendly world of friendly folk beneath a friendly sky,” as Howard Thurman, a Black mystic, preacher, and theologian, once described God’s good creation.

 

As he walks along the banks of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus runs into two sets of brothers: Simon and Andrew, and James and John the sons of Zebedee. They are fisherman. Fishing was a primary vocation in the gentile region of Galilee. Simon and Andrew were actively fishing, while the Zebedee brothers were repairing their nets. Jesus issues an invitation: Follow me and I will make you fish for people. Immediately, we are told, they leave their nets, their families, and everything else that was their life in Capernaum, and followed him. Evidently, this is what it means to repent: to follow Jesus the Christ to live the life of God’s kingdom, God’s vision, God’s dream for this world of God’s own creation.

 

That is, repentance is not confession. Repentance is not about seeking forgiveness. Repentance is to change direction; to be transformed. To repent is to accept the invitation to follow Jesus. To accept a disruption, a change of the way things are and have been; to accept a disruption of work and life. Simon and Andrew are still brothers, but brothers who do the will of God. James and John do not cease being sons of Zebedee, but are now also children of God. All four leave their fishing nets, but they do not stop fishing. They are now in the presence of the kingdom of heaven, and as they now accept this change of their lives’ direction, they are now to fish for people. Their past has not been obliterated; it has been transformed by meeting Jesus and accepting his invitation to follow him. Which is what it means to repent. To follow Jesus and allow our lives to be changed and transformed.

 

And to follow him means to make the world a friendlier place of friendlier folk beneath a friendly sky. Lord knows, we find ourselves living in a world that looks more like the regions of Naphtali and Zebulan – a land of deep darkness. A land of friction and unfriendliness between different tribes of peoples. One can hardly turn on or read the “breaking news” without hearing another story of fear, or violence; stories of families ripped apart; individuals being shot, often randomly; to break down doors without warrant; the search, and seizures of people’s homes without due process. Problems of drug addiction, alcohol addiction, gambling addiction, ripping families apart. Countries seizing territories of neighboring countries with no provocation. Clear cutting of forests which are the lungs of the planet; polluting waterways and the oceans with microplastics and forever chemicals. Children and adults being trafficked around the world as sex-workers. And this just in: penguins in Antarctica having to adjust their mating seasons due to global warming caused in part by there being too many cars on the roadways, and too many planes in the air. The list of deep darknesses is mighty long and mighty dark.

 

When does it become obvious to us all that there are entire systems of societies and of the Earth’s ecology in deep need of Repentance – to find other ways that might lead us to being a friendly world of friendly folk beneath a friendly sky? When do we notice that Repentance has nothing to do with confessing I/we have done something wrong and asking for forgiveness, but rather means to stop doing whatever it is that causes deep darkness in this world and allow ourselves to change, to be transformed, into a people who will live into Christ’s understanding of the kingdom of heaven? Of living lives that are in accord with God’s will, not our own, not that of our tribe, but to become sons and daughters of God’s Dream for a world of kindness and love and mercy and care for others? All others? That repentance is not about believing, but following?

 

This is what Matthew hears in Jesus’s invitation to “repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” One day along the banks of the Sea of Galilee outside the city of Capernaum four common fishermen felt the nearness of God’s presence in a young man named Jesus. They left everything that was their life and livelihood, and followed him. And what they saw was a new world unfolding before their very eyes. People learned how to love God and love neighbor. People were healed of all manner of dis-ease. More and more people left their homes, families and livelihoods and followed him into the very presence of God’s world as God dreams, wishes, and hopes it will be. Matthew recounts that day that four fishermen were changed, and set out to change others so that all people might one day know and feel the presence of God in Christ Jesus.

 

Our prayer this day is “to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works.” Do we hear our prayer and accept the invitation to repent, to change, to be changed, so that all the world that walks in darkness might see the great Light of Christ? For when we let ourselves repent and be changed, everything can change such that the darkness shall not and cannot remain the same. This is the very essence of Christian Hope. And Christian Love, and Mercy, and Justice for all. All means all. For if even one of us is chained, none of us are free. Amen.

Witness John Epiphany 2A

 

The Witness

This is not the same John we see in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. The figure in chapter 1 of the Fourth Gospel is not presented as an Elijah figure. He is not a forerunner preparing the way for Jesus. For heaven’s sake, twice he says, “I myself did not know him!” The narrator tells us that this John who baptizes and purifies with water is primatily a witness. That is, he testifies to what he has seen. And what he has seen of the Word who becomes flesh and blood and moves into the neighborhood paints a distinctive understanding of who Jesus is, why he comes to live among us, and what this means for us. [John 1:29-42]

 

There are three parts to the testimony of John. 1) ““Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” 2) “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’” 3) “I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.” Lamb+Spirit= Son of God. Who comes, says John, to take away “the sin of the world.” Singular, “sin,” not plural, “sins”

 

This begs the question: What is the “sin of the world”? The late Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple in his Readings in St. John’s Gospel spells it out thusly: “For there is only one sin and it is characteristic of the whole world. It is the self-will which prefers “my way” to Gods – which puts “me” in the centre where only God is in place. It pervades the universe. It accounts for the cruelty of the jungle, where each animal follows its own appetite, unheeding and unable to heed any general good. It becomes conscious, thereby tenfold more virulent, in man – a veritable Fall indeed. And no individual is responsible for it. It is an “infection of nature…it sets us at enmity against God; it is the ‘sin of the world.’” [p.24] This sin is corporate, not individual.

 

What more does John’s testimony tell us about Jesus the Word made flesh? It is kind of surprising. One needs to know that lambs were not sacrificed in the Temple for the forgiveness of  sins, plural, one may have committed. A bull, a goat, or a sheep may be offered, but not a lamb. A lamb is set aside to be prepared for the Passover meal on the Day of Preparation, that is, the day before Passover. And this Passover, or Paschal, Lamb is not a sacrifice for sins, but rather a symbol. Perhaps, THE symbol of the Jewish faith: the lamb is prepared for the family meal to commemorate Israel’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt. It is not a sacrifice for sins at all. As the Passover Lamb, therefore, Jesus has been sent to liberate the world from slavery to “sin,” singular. To liberate us from our self-will, or self-centeredness, which makes us unable to serve the general or common good of all human kind. As the Lamb of God, Jesus has been sent to bring the world into new and fresh contact with the presence of God so that human alienation from God and one another, can end. So that we might serve God’s will, and serve the common good of all persons, all creatures, and creation itself.

 

John further testifies that he knows Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world because John witnessed the pneuma, the breath, wind, or Spirit of God, descend from heaven like a dove and remain on Jesus. The verb tense is perfect, signaling that this is not a one- time event or moment in time, but rather a continuous state – the Spirit-Breath remains with the Lamb of God, and animates his every intervention to repair the world of its sin; to repair the world of its alienation from God and from one another. To return the world right-side up again so that we all might serve the common good rather than just looking out for ourselves.

 

This breath, like the Word, was with God in the beginning. The breath blew across the face of chaotic and troubled waters, calming and ordering creation as a place of Light and Life. God breathed life into Adam, the first man. It is God’s pneuma, ruach, or breath that gives us life; which animates us; inspires us; makes us whole. This breath, this pneuma, is central to the Fourth Gospel’s telling of the tale. It is on the cross, when Jesus breathes his last breath that we are told, “He handed over his Spirit.” He handed over God’s Spirit-Breath so that we might be animated by the same will of God for the common good of all humankind.

 

It is important that we understand this handing over of the Sprit-Breath of Christ. It is believed that the longtime unspoken name of the God of the Bible is Yahweh. Richard Rohr in his book, The Naked Now, reports that formally, God’s name was not spoken, but breathed. Many believe today that its correct pronunciation “is an attempt to imitate the very sound of inhalation and exhalation.” This is the one thing we all do, every moment of every day. Therefore, we are speaking the Holy Name of God with every breath we take as long as we live. What if we were mindful of this? Rohr also suggests that God’s name is the first word we speak when we enter this world, and the last word we speak when we leave this world.

 

The more one is mindful of this, we begin to realize that there is no Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Daoist, or any other way of breathing. There is no American, African, European, or Asian way of breathing. There is no rich or poor way of breathing. Understanding the nature of the Spirit-Breath of God utterly levels the playing field. The air of the world is one and the same air, and this divine “wind” blows where it will [John 3:8]. Which appears to be everywhere. Eventually, we come to understand that no one religion, no one people, can control this Spirit.

 

As the dove of the Spirit lands upon and remains with Jesus, and from the cross is then handed over to us, God is suddenly as available and accessible as the very thing we do all day long – breathe. The first thing Jesus does when he rises and returns from the dead is to breathe the Spirit-Breath upon the disciples gathered in the upper room. Many of those who teach prayer urge us to “stay with the breath.” The same breath that God breathed into Adam’s nostrils; that Jesus hands over to us; that Jesus breathers on us as His Shalom, his forgiveness, mercy, and love for the common good of all humankind. Isn’t it wonderful and mysterious that this breath, wind, spirit, and air, are precisely nothing – and yet, everything!

 

Keep breathing in this way. Breathe mindfully, and we will come to know that we are connected to all humanity from the earliest cavemen and women, to astronauts, to the entire animal world, and even to the trees, plants, and flowers. And we now are told that the atoms we breathe are physically the same as the stardust from the original Big Bang! Our Oneness with all creation and the entire universe, therefore, is no longer a vague mystical notion, but a scientific fact.

 

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the Sin of the World! Behold the Holy Spirit-Breath that rests upon him and remains with him. See how he hands over his Spirit-Breath to us all, inviting us to serve the common good of all people, all creatures, and all creation itself. May we breathe intentionally to allow the Spirit-Breath move us past all of our self-interest and self-centeredness to understand our ultimate connection and Oneness with all creation. To serve God and serve Others is the only way in which we can truly serve our own best interests. Amen.

The Baptism of Jesus and Us 2026 A

 

The Baptism of Jesus and Us

To fully understand the scene on the banks of the River Jordan, we need to look at what has been left out of our Sunday lessons between the birth of Jesus, and his baptism, which one needs to recognize, is not Christian baptism. The story in Acts 10:34-43 about Cornelius, is the second description of Christian baptism, and quite possibly the first Gentile (i.e. non-Jewish) Christian baptism. In Acts chapter eight, the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch who worked for the Candace, the powerful queen of The Kush, ancient Ethiopia, is the first recorded Christian baptism. There is no record of Christian baptism in any one of the four Gospels. Luke’s descriptions in Acts, therefore, are the first recorded episodes of baptism as we think of it in the Church. 

The missing narratives: shortly after the visit of the Gentile Magi, Joseph has a dream warning him to take the child and the child’s mother to Egypt because Herod, the Empire’s appointed King of the Jews, is much vexed at the news the Magi announced of the birth of a child who is to become King of the Jews. One ought to note the irony: Egypt, once upon a time the land that held the Hebrew people as slaves, from which Jesus’s ancestors escaped to freedom to a new homeland, is now considered the safest place to protect the child in the manger. 

And protection is absolutely necessary, as Herod ordered the murder of all the children under the age of two in Bethlehem and the surrounding region – that is, all of Jesus’s cousins, a generation of relatives in the City of David, are slaughtered out of Herod’s paranoia of losing his plum position in the Empire of Rome. And it is not just Herod. We read in chapter two of Matthew that “all of Jerusalem,” the priests and the Sadducees included, were fearful of the news of this child born in Bethlehem, since most of them were complicit with the brutality of the Empire. They were charged with announcing and initiating Government policy, collecting new taxes, and adjudicating those who broke Roman law and were consigned to be crucified. 

Against this background of violence and brutality against the population of Israel, we find John, arrayed in animal skins like the ancient prophet Elijah, baptizing the people of Jerusalem and the surrounding area of Judea; a baptism of repentance – to repent of complicity with the Roman government. To repent of straying from faithfulness to being God’s Servant people as announced centuries earlier by the prophet Isaiah [42:1-9]. The prophetic poetry is ambiguous as to the identity of the Servant. Is it an individual? Or, is it the nation of God’s people Israel? Might it be both? What we do know is that God’s Servant is to enact God’s will of justice, peace, and dignity for all people. God’s justice is to be wrought gently, carefully, caringly. The Servant is so gentle: “a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.” In other words, God’s justice is to be wrought in ways utterly at odds with the strength, force, and power of the Empire. John is calling for a reset. Calling for a resistance movement based in the mercy, forgiveness and love of God. Calling for the people to embrace their appointed role as God’s Servant people as Isaiah had announced centuries before. 

Some Pharisees and Sadducees had come down to the river. John immediately called out their motives as suspect. Especially those of the Sadducees who were complicit with the regime of violence against their own people. John issues a warning: if they are not sincere in changing their ways, there is One who is to come with his winnowing fork and will separate the wheat from the chaff, and the chaff shall be burned in “unquenchable fire.” It is onto this stage, into this ritual bathing in the river, that Jesus, now an adult, chooses to align himself with John’s movement. 

No one, least of all Jesus, knew what would happen. John initially defers to Jesus. “You should baptize me.” I am not worthy. But Jesus is resolute. Jesus is there to validate John’s call to repentance and resistance to the deep violence of the occupation. Jesus goes down beneath the waters of the river. Then, as he comes up renewed and aligned with the call for justice, it happens. The Spirit, the Breath of God which in the beginning blew across the chaotic waters of creation, returns and settles upon Jesus like a dove. A voice from heaven speaks, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” The Servant Isaiah had imagined long ago, the Servant is now both a people and a man. A man declared at birth to be Emmanuel – God with us. 

I am not certain that there are words to describe what Jesus must have felt at that moment. Or, what John must have felt? Not to mention the crowd who had come voluntarily to participate in the renewal of what it means to be God’s people of justice, mercy, and forgiveness; to stand against the strength, force, and power of the Empire of brutality and violence. What did they see and hear in that moment that the Spirit had returned, and the voice that had declared this young man from Galilee as God’s Beloved Son? One thing can be certain. The Pharisees and Sadducees could suddenly see the winnowing fork in Jesus’s hand. They could see that the jig was up. They could see that there was to be a change in the wind, wrought by the breath and Spirit of the God who was there to initiate a new thing, a renewal of ancient vows and promises. And that it was to be a time of grave decision: Do we answer to Yahweh of the exodus, exile and return home? Or, with Caesar, Herod, and the rule of strength, force, absolute power, and brutality? Witness the number of crosses of those already crucified lining the roads and the hillside outside Jerusalem. 

Like all those people down by the River Jordan that day, look at where we find ourselves today as we are about to renew our Baptismal Vows and Promises. In many ways, circumstances are not so different as they were that day Jesus chose to take a stand against violence; against a regime of strength, force, power, and brutality. We live among citizens in our nation who openly declare, “We live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power… These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time... rather than international law or ‘niceties.’” All too often, we hear of those who shoot first and ask questions later. Who harass U.S. citizens without warrant. 

In a few moments, we will renew our Baptismal Covenant and Vows. When we do, we will align ourselves with John, Jesus, and all those people down by the river, as well as with Christians like The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and Representative John Lewis, who practiced a “gentle” and peaceful resistance to support a nation of laws and peaceful protest; to seek justice and peace for all people, and respect for the dignity of every human being. We will promise that with God’s help we will seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves. We will promise that everything we do and everything we say will proclaim the Good News of God in Jesus Christ. These are not easy promises to keep. And promises that somehow have become counter-cultural in today’s upside-down world. Jesus calls us to be the Beloved Community of Love. God’s Spirit, God’s breath, God’s holy wind promises to be with us as we decide whether or not to renew these promises. Promises which have felt no more important than they do today. We pray for God’s Spirit-Breath to give us the strength to affirm and fulfill these promises that represent God’s will for all people, everywhere all the time. We say, Emmanuel, God is with us. Now is the time to decide if we really believe this. Amen.  

Epiphany: The Camel's Story Matthew 2:1-12

 Epiphany: The Camel’s Story [Matthew 2:1-12]

Ships of the desert, my eye! Being a beast of burden is not all it is cracked up to be when old nothing but dust for brains Adam named us camels, and when Isaiah proclaimed that a multitude of us would cover the land of promise bearing peoples and gifts from all corners of the earth to come and see the brightness of the light of God's people shining through the thick darkness covering all the earth. But still, without the bunch of us lugging all the supplies and tents, and yes, those precious if not somewhat odd gifts for a baby shower, the Magi, or the Wise Ones as I like to call them, would never have made it by the twelfth day. Besides, I consider myself one of the lucky ones who only had to carry one of the Wise One's himself, Melchior. 

As it was, by the time we got there, Bethlehem, after being a town bustling and bursting with people and commerce for those few days of the census, had returned to its sleepy, tired City of David after everyone had been counted and had gone home. Which is to say, when we got there, the place was empty. Just a man, a woman, and between them the baby who was to be King. But there I go getting ahead of myself. 

Thank goodness for Omar and Zepho and the other camel boys who actually saw to it that we were fed and watered and rubbed down now and then, while the Wise Ones could hardly if ever keep their heads out of the stars. If they were not gazing at the stars they were talking about them, charting them, interpreting them, and searching for just the one that would relieve them of their endlessly restless, inquiring and yearning spirits. While they searched the heavens and earth for something they kept calling "the truth," the rest of us in their not so little caravan saw to it that life was lived and everyone was taken care of. They often missed the most interesting and exciting parts of the journey, so absorbed and preoccupied were they with their own concerns and interests. Like the mouse who smuggled herself into the saddlebag of Gaspar's camel, Bella. She was a teenage mouse who had had a terrible fight with her parents and run away. But there I go again. I'm getting off the point. 

So, where were we? Certainly not at that dreadful King Herod's palace. That’s Herod, King of the Jews. Oh, there was plenty of company for all of us camels amidst his livestock and barns, and plenty of water and grain and other good things to eat, but even we could sense the terrible cloak of darkness and death that surrounded his entire little piece of the great Roman Empire. And who was this Caesar he kept talking about? He seemed troubled to hear all the Wise Ones talking about the stars and a new King of the Jews and could he give directions to the place where the child lay. Well, no, blustered Herod, but surely you will return to tell me where the little one is so I can go there myself to worship him. It wasn't what he said but how he said it that made even the fleas on my humps crawl with uneasiness. There was a rattling in his throat, and his hands trembled, and the air was as still as death. It doesn’t take a Wise One to know that no king has ever yet bowed down to another king. We all thought, surely there must be another way out of here. And as it turned out, we never did return to Herod as we headed off in a new direction afterwards, which was too bad since there was something compelling about that child. 

On the outskirts of Bethlehem, we decided to make our camp where we ran across the happiest and wildest bunch of Bedouin shepherds you ever did see. All of them talking at once about angels and a baby and Good News for everyone. The Wise Ones smiled. The first time any of us had ever seen them smile! Just then we took the Wise One’s and all the gifts and headed into town to see if it was just as the shepherds had told us. 

When we found the young family, it was night. It was very cold. The odor of the hay was very sweet, and the cattle's breath, like ours, came out in little puffs of mist hanging in the air. Of course, I wasn't supposed to come into the place where they were. In fact, it was such a tiny little manger on the ground floor of the house. There wasn't much room. But we had come so far, traveling for so many years to find something, someone, somewhere, that it seemed possible that we really might have to search no further. I figured it couldn't hurt if I just stuck my head in for a peek. 

So, while Omar and Zepho and the others were unloading the gifts off the back of my cousin, and the Wise Ones were still consulting their charts and graphs to make certain that this truly was the one they were searching for, I stuck my head in. Well, it was a bit surprising to find the scene so ordinary. I don't know what I had expected, but after years of schlepping these Wise Ones and all their gear and supplies all over every-possible-place, I guess I thought there would be crowds, and family, and all kinds of hoopla. I mean, even when a new camel is born amongst the herd, there is more attention and excitement: camel boys doing the midwifery, the rest of us clomping around to get a peek, shouts, cheers, everyone watching the new one try to stand up for the first time.

 

There was none of that in this little tiny place in Bethlehem. The man, the woman, between them the child. But no, just from the glance I caught, even I would have to say "between them, the King." Even I could see that this little child was true-light itself, but it is really curious how little babies like this one cannot even get up on their legs the way we do. They just lie there, so, well, still and vulnerable. Even I could see that even the stars might bow down before this one. Even I could see that he could teach creepy old Herod a thing or two about being a king. Even I could see that the heavens and earth and all creation were somehow about to be made new by the presence of this one baby asleep in the hay. 

It's just too bad the Wise Ones did not seem to see all that. I mean they put their gifts in there, and bowed down on bended knee and all. But then it was back out the door, and up looking into the heavens again, and soon we were being loaded up and herded down the road and out of town. All of us except Bella, that is. Our little mouse companion stayed behind. She just could not bring herself to leave those people alone. She was not going back. Or going anywhere. She was staying right there with him, the one born to be King. She wanted to live the rest of his story! 

Of course, we missed her. Gaspar's camel had come to like the little one. It was some years later that another mouse joined our caravan and started telling some fantastic and wonderful stories she had heard from her great-great-grandmother Bella! Seems that throughout the years many people came to see the child born to be King. Some went running through the streets and all over the world telling others the good things they had seen and heard about this child. Others came to offer whatever gifts they had so that he might bring abundant life to all the world. All came seeking to receive something from him. But once you see him, really see him, you long to give whatever you have, all that you have, to further his life in the world. 

Sometime or another, everyone comes to take a look in that manger. Whenever your time comes to be with him, stop and spend more time than we did. The Wise Ones kept us wandering all over the place, looking for whatever they called "the truth." Somehow, they just could not see that the “truth” is not an idea or a belief, but rather truth and salvation are a person – that child we once saw in Bethlehem. They kept vowing that one day they would return to Bethlehem, but every year they spent more and more time doing everything else but spending time with him before whom even the stars are said to bow down. I don't know what they saw, but I know what I saw. Just that glance, a peek in the door was enough to know that this Jesus reveals to you how much God watches over you and loves you. Even I could see that this Jesus calls us to follow him so we might do something beautiful with our lives and bear much fruit. Even us camels! 

That’s the one thing I saw that night: that the World needs you. God needs you. Jesus needs you. They need your gifts, your light, and your love. Isn't that the funny part of it all? The Wise Ones are off all the time looking at the light in the stars, when the light that is the light of the world is right here in the midst of us. He shows us that. Any camel with eyes could see that! Know, my sister, my brother, that there is a hidden place in your heart where Jesus lives and his light shines! This is a deep secret that even the Wisest Ones overlook most of the time. Let Jesus live in you. Go forward with him into all the world. Let your little light shine, for the light that is the life of the world is still coming into the world through that child we saw that night long ago. 

By the way, did I fail to mention the seemingly little-known fact that Melchior's name was really "Salome," and that it was changed not merely because of the patriarchy, but because of the seemingly strange gift of Myrrh that she brought to the Christ child? Myrrh. A burial spice. Of course, the Wood of the Crib is the Hard Wood of the Cross. I will ask you a terrible question. Is the Truth beyond all truths, beyond the stars, just this – that to live without him is real death, that to die with him is the only life? But, that’s an altogether different story. Or, is it?   

Keep looking at the babe in the manger. Offer him your gifts, and you will see all that there is to know and see! And then some. And then some. And who knows, maybe if we all offer of ourselves as much as we receive from him, we just might one day make it through the eye of a needle! Amen. 

[Thanks, and apologies, to Ted Loder, Frederick Buechner, John Shea, and Jean Vanier whose writings and reflections inspired this telling of The Camel’s Story.]