a NYC clergy couple reflects on doing ministry, living life and trying not to lose their faith while living in a place where there is not much space to spare
2 Samuel 5:1-14; Psalm 66:1-9; Galatians 5:1-16; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20; The Kingdom of God has come near. That's the radical good news proclaimed in the gospel text--the shocking, unexpected truth of God meeting the truth of who we are. Ordinary people with a mission? The Kingdom of God has come near. Sharing peace with strangers? The Kingdom of God has come near. Eating and drinking together? The Kingdom of God has come near. How little it takes for God's reign and reality to break into our lives and be near us! And yet, I think that most of the time we miss it; God's kingdom is so near to us, in the smallest and most simple of ways, and we miss it. We overlook it or ignore it or are busy with something else. These texts call us to reflect on what causes us to miss God's kingdom. What gets in the way of obedience? What are the trappings and practices and structures that hinder us (as a church, but also as individuals) from living into God's reality and reign? Jesus called the 72 to travel light (uncomfortably light!), but travel in pairs. Do we do the same? or do we convince ourselves of all the things we "need" to serve God, or preach well or do what's right or grow our faith/church? Do we convince ourselves that we need the powerful and miraculous and glorious to truly experience the wholeness of God? (like Naaman who simply had to wash and be clean, but preferred something much more dramatic). The Kingdom of God has come near, but we can't just sit back and do nothing. Jesus calls us, just as we are, to participate in that so-close kingdom, to participate in our own healing and wholeness. And when we do this, we sometimes see powerful outcomes like demons (in all their forms) defeated or Satan falling like lightning or diseases healed. But that's not why we follow. Sometimes the call itself is the reward: the reign and the reality of God has come near, and we did not miss it. We did not miss it, and we got to participate in it. That's powerful.
Lectionary Reflections Palm Sunday
Psalm 118:24-29; Isaiah 50:4-9; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 19:28-40Here's an old Palm Sunday sermon from two years ago, called "If These Palms Could Speak."
Why do we tell the same stories over and over again? What is it that makes us repeat a story to someone who’s already heard it? Haven’t you ever had someone do this to you? They tell you about something that’s happened to them or give you information, and they’ve already told you it before; except that they don’t remember they’ve told you, and so then you have a choice about how to respond. You can just listen and pretend that you have not heard the story before or you can say “yeah, I know. I’ve heard it before.” This happens to me all the time. I mean, it happens to me in the sense that I’m the one who tends ro repeat the same stories. And sometimes when I tell the same story to someone, especially if I know them well, they’ll just cut me off before I even get a chance to tell it. When this happens to me, my emotional reaction is kind of interesting. At first, I feel kind of lame because I didn’t remember that I’d already told the story. And then I feel a kind of los because there was something in me that really wanted to tell the story, and I didn’t get to.
Why do we tell the same stories over and over again? Sometimes it’s because we haven’t felt heard the first time—that whatever the story was trying to communicate about ourselves, whatever deepest part of ourselves that we were revealing wasn’t understood. And so we tell it again, hoping that this time, they’ll get it, they’ll listen; the message and the meaning will get through.
Sometimes we tell the same story over and over again simply because we want to remember it. We’re afraid that if we don’t repeat it, we’ll forget it. And so we tell it again and again so that it’s implanted in our memory, and each time we tell it, it settles deeper and deeper and more permanently into our minds and hearts until it becomes part of the tradition of who we are or part of our people—sometimes for good or for ill—this happens with both unhealthy and healthy stories.
And sometimes we tell the same story over and over again because we ourselves have changed in-between the tellings; we have learned something new, or grown and matured, or gained a new perspective, or had our present lives turned upside down, and so while the story itself has not changed, we the tellers have changed in the weeks or the months or in the years between the telling, and so the story has to be told again so that this new learning or this new self or this new perspective can be incorporated into the story.
This is what we do during Lent and especially Holy Week: we tell the same story over and over again. How many times have you heard the story of Palm Sunday with Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, and how many times have you heard the story of that Holy Thursday Evening with the Last Supper in the upper room and the betrayal of Judas and the words of institution of our Sacrament of Communion? Or how many times have you heard the story of what we call Good Friday, which on the face of it, seemed like anything but good with Jesus’ suffering and death on a cross. Or that Holy Saturday of waiting and despair, and how many times have you heard that story of Resurrection, of surprise, of unlikely hope in unlikely places, of Easter?
Why do we tell the same story over and over again, year after year when we’ve already heard it before and it’s not even our own story, it’s God’s story? Why? For all the reasons I mentioned above: because we’ve changed, we’ve grown in between the tellings, we’ve learned new things. Because we want to remember it; we want to lodge it deeply and permanently into our memories and minds and hearts. Because we want to make sure it’s been heard, that it’s been listened to in a way that its meaning is understood so that what was once God’s story becomes our story in the same way that all of our stories—both good and bad—become part of God’s story because God is our creator and redeemer and sustainer.
But how do we tell this Palm Sunday story today, tell it anew? Sometimes when I am reading a passage of scripture that is very familiar to me, and especially if it’s a story, I like to look at it from all the different perspectives of all the different characters in the story. This is what’s called a “close reading of the text,” which really means that you are looking and reading very carefully over a passage of scripture by considering all angles and all words and all turns of phrases, and what usually happens is that you learn something new about the story, or at least see something you hadn’t seen before.
Now on the face of it, the Palm Sunday story seems quite straightforward. Jesus comes into Jerusalem, there’s donkey and her colt waiting for them, and the people go wild over his entrance by laying palms and their coats and crying out "Hosanna," which literally means “save us!” but also has the connotation of “hail” or “glory." The whole city get into a snit, is in turmoil wondering, “who is this?” or better yet, “who does he think he is?” Straightforward, right?...
But what if we looked at this story from the disciples’ perspective? It was probably a mixture of confusion and also anticipation for them. First, this strange errand of randomly finding a donkey with her colt and just untying them as though they were stealing, except whoever caught them wouldn’t mind. And then, why a donkey? It was confusing because although a donkey was an appropriate animal for a King, it was only when a King came in peace that he would ride a donkey; if he were coming to establish a kingdom, then he would come on a horse, like a soldier or a warrior. They must have wondered why Jesus wanted to enter Jerusalem on a animal that symbolized peace. But then as they entered and the crowds began to form with their palm branches and their cheering, the disciples began to get their hopes up, they began to think that this might be all their wildest dreams being realized, that success was just over the horizon, and they would have the places on his right and on his left in the Kingdom because didn’t they deserve it, hadn’t they been with Jesus since the beginning? Wasn’t being a follower of the Lord about triumph and glory and constant blessing?...
We could tell the story from the perspective of Jesus, who knew too much, knew what was coming—had always known what was coming. And although his entry into Jerusalem looked like a grand entry with the cheering crowds eating out of his hand and their victory palms and the fulfillment of prophecy, he knew better. He knew that there could be no triumph without pain, no strength without suffering, no glory without humility, that there is no light without shadow, and that you can’t get from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday except by way of the cross. He knew that there is no resurrection unless there is death first, and so it is no wonder that he speaks so little in this story, for what other way could one face the irony of the crowd’s celebration and the disciples' expectations of a coming kingdom except with silence?...
But what about the people? What about their perspective in this Palm Sunday story? They see Jesus ride into Jerusalem and they’ve heard about his teaching, and maybe they’ve seen his miracles and they recognize that here is someone who has a special relationship with their God, like a prophet or a king or a messiah, and there is something so profound and primitive and human about their cry: Hosanna—save us! I visited my new niece Bailey for the first time last week, and when I first met her she was only 7 days old. But what was amazing is that even at a week old, she recognized the sound of her name. Can you believe that? She couldn’t even lift her own head, but when you said her name aloud, she would move her eyes in your direction, listening for it. And if you put your finger near her hand, she would grab onto it with a surprring strength for someone so small and young, and she would hold on for as long as she could, her tiny fingers wrapped around mine. And it seems to me that these might be some of the most basic human instincts that we have besides physical survival: when someone knows who we are, we listen for the sound of our name. And when we find something solid, we hold onto it.
The people, when they saw Jesus, somehow knew that he could tell them something about what it means to be deeply human. They saw something in him that told them that he knew who they were and that he was something they could hold onto. And so they cried “save us” “ Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” They cried like infants cry for their mother, and they tried to hold onto him by laying down palms and coats and dreams and expectations, except they didn’t know that the only way he could save them was through what would feel to them like abandonment and like failure and like death. But they didn’t know that. They just knew that this Jesus was cause for celebration...
And then there’s the point-of-view of the donkey, which used to be called a jackass until the word took on other connotations. What about the shock of strangers calling you into service, and the crunch of palms underneath your feet, and the weight and burden of Christ on your back? What is so unique about this donkey is that the Lord needed her, needed this beast of burden--maybe just to fulfill prophecy from Zechariah, but maybe because the burden of what he was to face in the coming week, the burden of suffering and true freedom and real peace, was too much to bear on his own. And yes, this donkey symbolized to the ancient world a King coming in peace, but to us, this donkey just symbolizes a jackass, a reject, an embarrassment. But then again, Jesus was the stone that the builders rejected and yet became the chief cornerstone, and so in him all the rejects of this world, all the outcasts and the have-nots and the despised find their place, find a story to call their own because of Jesus Because where we see a reject, a jackass—God sees a cornerstone, a savior. And this Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father...
And the finally, we have the point of view of the palms. Except that I don’t mean the branches laid on the ground, but my palms and your palms: our hands. If these palms could speak, what story would they tell? Would they tell a story of servant hood and humility and love and suffering alongside those that most people consider outcasts and embarrassments? Would they tell the story of being needed by the Lord for his work in this world? Would they tell a story of deep pain or anxiety or struggle or rejection? Would they talk about their expectations of success and accomplishment and blessing as followers of Jesus, and then perhaps their disappointment and failures along the way? If these palms could speak, would they tell of holding onto to Jesus with a strength that was surprising and profound because he was something solid and tangible and because he spoke their name and knew who they were, deep down to their very core? If your palms could speak, what would they say about you? What story would they tell over and over about who you are, as both a human and a Christian?
I encourage you to make time this week to go to a Maundy Thursday or Good Friday service. And if you can’t attend a worship, then read in the Bible the stories of Jesus’ last supper and crucifixion—read them and tell them so that you’ll remember them, so that you will really listen, and so that you will discover how you have changed and grown since the last time you heard or told the story. Find time this week to tell this Holy Week story, so that you’ll know that you can’t go from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday—you can’t go from victory to victory—except by means of death on a cross, which on the face of it looked like abandonment and failure, but was an act of love by our God. It's all in your point-of-view. Amen.
Lectionary Reflections Lent 3C
Psalm 63:1-7; Isaiah 55:1-9; Luke 13:1-9
The Gospel text was one I had to sit with for a damn long time, and I found reading it to be at once painful, confusing, and surprisingly hopeful. But it took time to get to the hope part. And the text brings up questions as old as Time itself: Why do bad things happen to good people? Why did those Galileans get murdered by Pilate in the midst of worship (offering sacrifices)? Why did the tower fall on those 18 people? Why does it seem sometimes that you work so hard and for so long for something to bear fruit, coming back to it again and again, and you never see it? Is it so wrong that you would start to wonder if it’s worth the effort? I read the Gospel text, and I can’t help but think of Salvadoran Bishop Oscar Romero—murdered as he lifted high the Bread, the broken body of Christ because of a passion for the poor. I can’t help but think of the world trade towers falling on more than 2,000 people: what did they do to deserve such a death? I can’t help but think of all the millions of people whose lives seem so unfair, so full of undeserved suffering, disease, imprisonment, and death. Is it so wrong to lose hope in such circumstances? To consider it wasted effort, and just cut it out of your life? Jesus’ words, “do you think that they were worse offenders…? I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did,” are not exactly comforting, but they do remind us that our suffering is not a punishment for our sins; there’s cold comfort in that, at least. In some ways, his words put us all on equal ground: regardless of our life circumstances (good or bad) we are all turned in the direction of death, unless we turn in the direction of the one whose life makes death only the second-to-last word on who we are. Simple translation? Life sucks, even for faithful people. Everybody dies, even good people. Nobody’s safe, nobody gets a free pass, everybody hurts… sometimes. “So what’s the benefit in repenting?” you might ask. The benefit is that life’s suckiness (this is obviously not a word, or so my spell-check tells me) doesn’t define us. That tower that fell is not the last word about who we are. Or the gunshot. Or a loved one’s suicide. Or the disease we carry in our blood. Or a neighborhood we can’t get out of, or out of our system. Instead, it’s our life in God that gets that last word. Even when our life looks deader than dead—no fruit, no new growth, worthless, wasted, just taking up space, even then God sees something worth cultivating, worth waiting for, and God speaks up for it. And that’s what really leads me to hope: the parable of Jesus—and particularly the compassion and commitment of the gardener character. He’s willing to do anything, take any amount of time and effort, to give the fig tree one more chance to bear fruit: wait one more year… dig around in it… spread some manure. Simple translation? Jesus is willing to put his hands in some serious shit—most of it ours—so that we can flourish, even when it looks hopeless. And life does look hopeless sometimes. It looks awfully shitty. But it can't destroy us. We won't perish, not if we turn in God's direction and let God's Word define us. God thinks we're worth returning to again and again. All of us live in the shadow of life's tragedies and death, but -- as the Psalmist reminds us -- we also live in the shadow of God's wings. Maybe that's a place we can stay for awhile.
Lectionary Reflections Lent1C
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Deuteronomy 26:1-11; 1 Corinthians 10:11-13; Luke 4:1-13
I can’t think of the temptation narrative anymore without also thinking of other narratives that weave tales through and because of it: Dostoevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor” chapter or Nikos Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation of Christ. Maybe this is why the temptation of Jesus feels almost iconic to me—the story of Jesus who is “driven” or “led” into the desert by the Spirit for 40 days (depending on whether you read Mark or Luke), and then tempted three times by this devil fellow: Satan, or the Accuser or the Tempter, or whatever you want to call the dude. Whoever he (or she) is, it’s obvious that they’re working at cross-purposes with God’s, and not to be trusted. But it feels iconic precisely because it doesn’t seem at first glance to be particularly realistic; certainly, it has the look of temptation, and one can recognize it as such. Upon closer inspection, however, some details strike us as unnatural or unusual; perhaps the proportions are slightly off, the colors are abnormally rendered, or the backgrounds seems forced. This is how it should be. Icons are not supposed to be realistic or natural, they are meant to lead (or “drive”) us into the deeper reality they represent, especially as we continue to closely examine and meditate on them. And this is what the temptation narrative of Jesus does. It drives us into the deeper reality of temptation and testing we face as disciples trying to walk in the way of Jesus. As it turns out, testing and temptation narratives are all over the Bible: God tested Abraham, Joseph tested his brothers, the manna from heaven was a test, the Israelites tested God, Satan tested Job, the Pharisees tested Jesus, Ananais and Sapphira tested the apostles, Paul told his churches to “test everything” including ourselves, him, and various spirits, and Jesus prayed that God should not “lead us into temptation.” The words “test” and “tempt” seem to be used interchangeably throughout scripture, and it is God, Satan, and we humans who both cause and experience the effects of testing. Doesn’t it make you wonder why? Doesn't it make you think that "testing" might not be such a negative thing? In the “real world,” the purpose of testing is to prove quality and integrity (or lack of it). Maybe we’re checking to see if God has integrity—to see if God is going to continue to be faithful. Maybe God’s checking to see if our faith has the quality it needs in order to endure. Maybe Satan’s checking to see if he can find those weaknesses and lack of integrity so he (or she) can exploit them to those cross-purposes. A test is a close examination or an action that reveals reality; a temptation is test that makes a compelling argument for a different path and course of action—one that leads away from the reality of God. The season of Lent is a time when we intentionally make space to test ourselves, and hopefully the close examination of our faith and our practices leads us into the deeper reality of God. Hopefully, this also brings an awareness of those thoughts, actions, and choices that truly tempt us away from God. May this be a test that we do not fail.
Lectionary Reflections Epiphany 4C
Jeremiah 1:4-10, Psalm 71:1-6, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Luke 4:21-30
Ahhh, 1 Corinthians 13 (sigh), no Chrstian wedding is complete without it and no married couple that I know lives by it. This description of love is absolutely impossible to uphold because when your significant other's hair has just clogged the shower drain (again!) it is hard to remember that "Love is patient, love is kind." Or when you have to tell them for the 14th time to do something, each time your voice sounding more like a resounding gong and clanging cymbal, you are already way past a love that does not insist on its own way. Or when you fight over the Nicean Creed and its importance for ecumenism (because I know everyone has had this fight) one must always remember that love rejoices in the truth (and not heresy). When it comes to this chapter of the Bible, it is definitely true what Mirsolav Volf says in the beginning of Exclusion and Embrace "The truth of the argument meets the objection of reality." We are so used to hearing 1 Cor 13 in the romantic setting of a wedding that we often forget its larger context. Luckily, our lectionary helps us out here. Few people are feeling in the wedding mood on the last Sunday of January!
I doubt Paul had marriage in mind when he penned this part of the epistle. More likely he writes this chapter to encourage the Corinthian church in the development of their Christian community. He has just finished employing the Body of Christ metaphor and how we are each one part of the body, and writing of spiritual gifts used in cooperation for the building up of the church, but now he offers chapter 13 as the reason we should be concerned with all these things in the first place. For none of these great things we do with the Spirit's power means anything if we do not have love. It doesn't matter if you can throw around a mountain like it is a baseball, turn back time, or create the universe with a word from your mouth, if you do not have love, it is all meaningless.
But then comes the tricky part of interpretation. Easily the logic could flow like this: If 1. Paul says we gain nothing if we do things without love. And if 2. Paul's description of love is nice, but impossible for me to live out. Then, 3. I won't do anything because it is meaningless anyway. Or, I have heard a sermon or two about replacing the word "love" with "God" and acknowledging that the only one who could love like this is God. Yet again we end up distancing ourselves from the kind of life and faith Paul is asking for because we reason that this kind of love is only for God and not for us. But these are childish and straw arguments set up so that we can get out of trying to live into this kind of love.
When one takes wedding vows, one recognizes that there are moments in the marriage relationship when those vows are not fully in effect. And yet, I have heard too many times that even when life is not "vow-like" it is the fact that a couple has taken vows to each other that keeps the relationship going. Likewise, when one reads of the kind of love that Paul describes one realizes this is what we hope and strive to live into and ask for other people to offer us when we are not living into it. Paul doesn't mean don't try or don't use your gifts for the upbuilding of the church, what he describes is the fullness, thickness, and richness of actions done with love rather than without. For certainly Paul would agree that even if we do actions in the church or elsewhere with selfish motives, God can take what we mean for our own benefit and turn it into a benefit for the Kingdom. And that is God's love for us. The love that never ends, even when our love for God ends or falls away. It is God's vow to us to remain loving and to be the truth that objects to our dimly lit reality leading us to a place where we know fully and are fully known.
Lectionary Reflections Epiphany 3C
Psalm 19; Nehemiah 8:1-10; I Corinthians 12:12-31; Luke 4:14-21
The original lectionary parameters for the Nehemiah text left out verses 4 and 7, probably for the sole reason of wanting to save Sunday’s scripture reader from pronouncing about twenty-five difficult and unfamiliar names; verse 4 list the names of the people who stood on the platform with Ezra, as he read from the law from early morning until noon, and verse 7 lists the people who wandered throughout the crowds, helping the people interpret and understand what they heard the Scriptures say. It’s a powerful image that the book of Nehemiah describes: the people of God en masse alternating between hearing the word of God and responding in worship, with various leaders and gifted folk weaving in and out of the crowds offering interpretation and answering questions. This public reading/interpretation of scripture was part of the ceremony to celebrate and consecrate the rebuilding of the Temple after many difficult years in exile. I can’t help but think, however, that verses 4 and 7 are important, and maybe shouldn’t be left out. Those names are important. They remind us that Ezra wasn’t by himself in leading the people. He wasn’t a “lone ranger” or a celebrity priest. He was surrounded by other leaders and members of the body. He couldn’t do it all by himself, and he needed help to effectively communicate God’s word in a way that made a mark on the people—that caused them to respond by standing and lifting their hands and bowing their heads and shouting “amen” and putting their faces to the ground and worshipping and weeping (it must have been an exhausting day!) These two verses of names remind us that we can’t interpret the word of God without each other; or worship “the Lord, the great God” without each other, or rebuild without each other, for that matter.
That same lesson is offered by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:12-31, only he uses the metaphor of the body to describe how necessary we are to each other. What’s amazing is how much we need each other in our differences—that those differences and diversity are the source of our strength when we are bound inextricably together through the spirit who gifts each one of us. We can’t live out our individual callings without each other; we can’t do the work of God in this world by ourselves. In fact, we are so closely bound together that we share in each other’s joys and sufferings. There’s a word for that: solidarity. The spirit of God inspires us to solidarity. It’s the good news that Jesus proclaims in his first sermon and it is what the people of God in Nehemiah do when they finished worshipping: they share their food and drink with “those for whom nothing was prepared.” In other words, we can’t rebuild temples, or churches, or lives without each other.
So my apologies go out to Roy, my scripture reader for this week; the names are staying.
Lectionary Reflections Epiphany 2C
Psalm 36:5-10, Isaiah 62:1-5, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, John 2:1-11
Recently I have found that at gatherings the sincere atheist somehow gravitates toward me and begins a conversation. Such conversations are almost always fruitful if one can remain non-defensive and find ways to genuinely engage the wide-ranging views that will arise. The last was at an Evangelical pastor's home, and with many other clergy and lay people in attendance it was a "dry" party. When the party was winding down, the gentleman I was conversing with made some off-hand remark about us Christians and our lack of hospitality because a little wine actually would make a guest feel more comfortable. To which I responded (with a little glee), you are right, in fact Jesus' first miracle was turning some 150 gallons of water into wine at the end of a party, so what is our hang-up? Perhaps we too should practice some "First miracle hospitality?" To which he laughed, making each of us feel more at home in our new found friendship.
John 2, Jesus' first miracle at the wedding in Cana, is dripping with ironic humor designed to get us the readers off our idealistic and philosophic high horses that we ride in on in John 1 and see what God's word made flesh really does when it is with the people. If the opening chapter of John's opus is poetic and profound, the second begins with the ordinary. A standard wedding, no one special is named, and this Son of God, the Word made flesh, is being told what to do by his anxious mother. And when Jesus rebukes her for her bad timing, she simply, like any good mother who knows better than her petulant son, ignores him and orders the servants to "Do whatever he tells you." But then John heightens the humor! Now perhaps scholars could tell us good reasons why there are six, count them six, twenty to thirty gallon jars around, but this means that Jesus is about to make 150 gallons of wine. That is some party! Even more funny is that this wine, which according to verse 10 is supposed to be served after everyone is already drunk, is made out of the jars used for rites of purification. So here we have the light of the world being ordered by his mother to turn gallons and gallons of purifying water into intoxifying wine. And it was good. Just like God proclaims about creating the world, so is Jesus' wine deemed "good." Finally, irony of all ironies, it is in this act that John tells us Jesus "revealed his glory" and by this his disciples believed in him. Not on the cross, not at the birth, not in healing miracles, but rather in a drunken stupor God is revealed and faith is begotten.
We met a pastor once who worked in Compton, who would tell the people he met on the street, "I'll take you drunk to heaven." This is exactly God's first miracle hospitality. And it is full of the holy humor of God's grace and celebration of divine love for humanity.
Lectionary Reflections Baptism of Our Lord
Psalm 29; Isaiah 43:1-7; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
The season of Epiphany is about showing and revealing Christ--making him known; I am reminded in reading these texts of all the different ways that Christ is made known to us: through creation, the Holy Spirit, the sacrament of Baptism, the community of faith gathered in prayer. What, exactly, is shown to us through these means? What is revealed about God in Jesus Christ? What is the nature of God's "voice?" Many things, it turns out: God has created us, redeemed us, calls us, but ultimately and perhaps most importantly, is "with us," as the Isaiah text emphasizes. God in Jesus Christ is with us in times of fear, in overwhelming times, in times so hard they seem to destroy and consume us. John the Baptist seems to say that God is with us in our expectation and questions, in the repentence and purification of Baptism, in the sifting of judgment. And the fact that Jesus, of all people, is baptized--goes down into the smelly and polluted waters of the Jordan River--when he was without sin, without blemish, without a need for either repentence, purification, or judgment... well, it seems that God is also with us in our muck too. God is with us in the brokeness of our lives and the brokeness of this world.
Isn't that something that deserves to be made known? revealed? Shouldn't we be showing it with our lives? Shouldn't our voices be lifted up in praise and proclamation, reflecting God's voice? I love the emphasis (especially in the Psalm and the Gospel) on the voice of God, which can be both powerful and comforting, confirms who we are and also expresses pleasure in us and love for us. God's voice is both seen and heard in these texts (the dove and the voice from heaven, for example), there is no way we can miss it, and that is the point: God is being made known to us; God is communicating to us. As the UCC motto goes: God is still speaking (comma). What does that comma/pause mean? That we don't know what God is saying yet? that we're waiting with baited breath to hear it? that the fact of God speaking requires some response of us? God is speaking, and there are implications for us. What is God saying to me? to you? to us? to our world?
Maybe the only way to hear (and see) that Voice is through Holy Spirit and fire, as John promises. Not the fire that destroys or consumes, but the fire that purifies or gives light--in essence, the fire that reveals. The long, hard look at ourselves through God's eyes that sifts, clears, reveals, judges, even burns. The Holy Spirit and fire are our means of discernment--how we know what God's voice is saying specifically to us personally, or to our church corprately. Jesus Christ is being revealed in all kinds of ways and in all manner of places... are we paying attention? are we discerning? are we ready for its implications?
Each week one of us will post on the lectionary texts, while the other will post on... whatever. And we're not going to tell who is doing what. Maybe you'll figure it out eventually.
