What I've learned just a few days ago

The other night I had two insights: here is one. I was thinking about the pericope where Jesus' disciples ask to have their faith increased and Jesus' response is that if they had faith like a mustard seed they'd be able to toss a mountain into the sea through some kind of ttelekinesis. The telekinesis part is what gets emphasized in most uses of this text. Usually there is an exhortation to take risks, or some method of building faith is put forth - the focus being on the image of tossing the mountain into the sea, as if Jesus here is saying, "I want you all to toss mountains into the sea, or Faith is therefore the belief in impossible things - ergo Throw away your crutches, don't take your insulin; or else Ask for anything, no matter how outlandish, and if you have faith you'll get that rocket-powered cadilac bass boat sauna.
What I think happens here si that Jesus doesn't tell them how to increase their faith. A mustard seed could care less about tossing mountains into the sea. In fact the image Jesus crafts is of an insignificant seed growing and becoming what it is meant to be. Nothing could be less dramatic. Nothing could require less telekinesis - which is a good thing because telekinesis doesn't work.
Jesus describes a seed, and it doesn't matter if it's a mustard seed, it could have been a cotton seed - a seed is unlike what it will be and at the same time can become nothing else. A seed is more likely to be eaten by the bird than to provide a nest for it. Yet even in this event the seed emerges fertilized and able to grow.
It's almost as if Christ is telling them: Have faith to be who you are.
Eventually the mustatrd seed does grow and becomes a place of refuge for the birds that threatened to consume it.
Perhaps the disciples request springs from that story of Elijah and Elisha where Elisha wants to get Elijah's power. The disciples realizing that they're incapable of doing what Jesus does have begun to reckon that they may eventually be on their own with their own traveling messiah show and they got nothing. So they say We got nothing. Increase our faith. And Jesus is like So you'd like to throw a mountain into the sea? Who do you think you are? I'll telll you who you are: you're a mustard seed. You're not Vesuvius. You're a seed, a germ of what you could be. If you could only have the faith to be who you are you would really be something. A bush for instance doesn't seem like much. See I'm tying a donkey to one right now. I could uproot this with some effort - but why? Would I then plant it in the sea? What would be the point?
Have faith to be who you are. You are disciples. Have faith that that is good enough. Have faith that you don't need the largest house. Have faith that you lead by serving. Have faith that your life is in loving one another and sharing out of your abundance. Have faith that what you have is abundance and that you don't need to hoard. Have the faith of the birds and the grass.Have the faith to Be in the moment. To live in the present. And if you do this you will form a connumity that offers refuge to a world that now threatens to swallow you. That is who you are. That is the faith that is in you.

I noticed that last Sunday's lectionary text was that bit where Jacob wrestles a stranger

Jacob wrestles a stranger and it turns out to be God. We might say, that it'd better turn out to be God. "What did you do last night?'" "I wrestled God." "Wow, no wonder you didn't call for help."
As opposed to:
"What did you do last night?" "I wrestled some stranger." "Good grief, why didn't you yell? We were right across the stream."
The text doesn't say that it was God, just that Jacob wrestled a man, who wouldn't tell him his name in that enigmatic 'can't you tell I must be God' kind of way. When Jacob asks, "So what's your name." The guy's response is, "do you really have to ask?" And in the next section, when we're told that Jacob is no longer Jacob but is now Israel, the saga-singer says that God had renamed Jacob Israel. I suppose that the text repeats this assertion, just in case we, the reader, the hearer, is as dense as Jacob was that night.
This story always reminds me of Joseph Conrad's story The Secret Sharer. A sea captain takes in a stranger during the night and keeps him in his cabin, unknown to the crew, finally letting the stranger go, helping him reach land, by sailing too close to the shore and its reefs, endangering his ship for the sake of a stranger.
The story's sense is that until that moment, the captain was not himself - that the stranger prompted an existential crisis where the captain was taken out of himself and could see himself in light of ignoring mortality for a human purpose.
And here Jacob is alone. The text reads in hebrew: "left Jacob alone" - there he is, between left and alone. His family is close, but on the other side of a stream. Jacob is separated in the night, by the night. He has put himself in this position on purpose.
Did he hope for another vision, like the one he had on leaving home, where a ladder reached up to heaven and God spoke to him. Perhaps he'd begun to settle down, to prepare himself, to center himself. He waited for the heavenly vision.
He is accosted. It's not a dream. It's not a vision; it's real. Real hands grasp Jacob about the waist and lift him off the ground. His hands claw back around the shoulders of an unknown nocturnal assailant. It's world championship wrestling until dawn. He breathes heavy with exertion and desperation. Who is this indefatigable guy? Why won't he quit? Jacob knows that he can't quit. He can't relax. He can't call it off. He'd die. He doesn't know who this is.
Finally his assailant says, "enough of this," and puts Jacob's hip out of joint. "Damn, why didn't I think of that," Jacob thought, and then, "I'm screwed." But he held on for dear life. Perhaps he threw the rules of fair play aside and dug his teeth in.
"Let me go!" wrested his assailant.
"Bless me, M****F*****r," Jacob held.
And then Jacob is told that he's successfully striven with men (that would be his brother in law Laban, as well as his father, Isaac [Oedipus anyone], as well as his brother, Esau [until tomorrow that is]) and successfully striven with God. Now he'll be called Israel, or God Strives. Jacob, the supplanter, is now the God striver. It's like a defense attorney becoming a judge: the first name connotes playing the angles with a view toward winning and the second name connotes actively seeking out justice with a view toward equality.
What a conversion story.
We don't often think that we're converted to strive with God. We easily get the turning away from being the supplanter.
But to strive with God - in American Protestant circles it seems blasphemous, indelicate at best. I remember Dr. Brueggemann describing how the Church doesn't get this quality of the Old Testament: believing that we're called to behave, keep quiet, and endure calamity as "God's will." That to complain or argue back would be a sin.
What a relief though to read the Old Testament (and if you will, the Newer one) with the gloves off. Jesus won't break, and neither will Yahweh. Witness Psalm 88 for the epitome of pissed off Israel: no "sorry Lord, didn't mean to be angry or complain." Instead "where the hell are you? My friends are in darkness, I'm surrounded by waters, I suffer your terrors," and earlier, "Why are you absent from me? Is your love declared in the grave?" This lament doesn't conclude with the "I will yet praise you for you are faithful," section most laments have.
This is hard stuff, grim, echoing Jacob's response to Pharaoh that his life had been short and bitter - not like his ancestor's lives.
So it is that Jacob has contended with humans and with God and prevailed. Jacob has gotten what he wanted, but at a cost. He's always looking over his shoulder, wondering who's catching up with him, and now he's pulled up lame. He's injured, but he's invited to a new kind of relationship. God says, "contend with me."
Contend with God, but realize that this requires being contended back at. God takes the theodicy problem and says, "in the beginning you wanted to be like me - well, then be like me." And then God asks, "where's justice? Where's feeding the hungry? Where's hospitality for the stranger? Love for the neighbor?" He says, "What kind of God would create a world like this? [in a sarcastic sneer, a Truman Capote whine] What kind of human being lets another lie cold on the streets, hungry? What kind of human being steals from another? What kind of human being amasses a pile of money for himself?"
Contend with me- God says. Show me what you've got. If you've got anything. God doesn't leave us room for passivity. We have to defend ourselves. Love our neighbor as ourselves, even if we must limp to do so - or die trying.

I stoutly spudder [along]

Last year when I was visiting the Chicago Art Institute, I had lunch at the cafeteria there, and I went straight to the counter where a big hunk of corned beef, which was being served with potatoes and carrots and onions, was displayed. The man behind the counter said to me, as he sliced the meat, "you look like a fellow that likes to eat." And as he delivered to my plate a generous portion I responded with Yes. Yes I am a man who loves to eat.
When I was younger I ate copious amounts of fried chicken, gnawing on the cartilage around the leg bone and on the sternum, crunching into the bone and sucking out the marrow. Chicken, ribs, steaks, pork chops - I gave them all thorough attention. And I loved nothing better than eating outdoors in the summer time with my family. I would have a plate piled high with chicken thighs, deviled eggs, field peas, collards and cracklin' corn bread, with a sliver of Vidalia onion, all in one hand on a precariously weighted paper plate, and in the other hand a big glass of sweet tea, poured out of a gallon jar warm onto crushed ice.
I have a series of black and white photos taken a few years before I was born of such a meal spread out in the back yard of my great-grandfather's farm. A white cat sits under a simple white wooden table loaded with chicken and bowls of vegetables. In other photographs my grandfather and his brothers sit around a semicircle on metal chairs talking. In back of them behind a row of trees are acres of cotton. In another photo my grandmother and other women are circled closely together laughing. In another photograph my uncle Wesley stands in a bowling shirt and pleated trousers sucking on the very end of a chicken leg. In all these photos I'm as good as there. I can pet the cat, chase the chickens, hear the laughter, feel the comfort, and taste the marrow of what it must have been like.
All this no longer exists. The children in the photos are retired now and the elders are long since passed. The farm is under a subdivision and the farmhouse was burned down to make place for a day care center. I once went back and discovered that some of the old oaks were still standing where an old shed once stood near the road. I walked around one of them, placing my feet on the roots, touching the rough bark, closing my eyes and trying to breathe in an air of memory, hoping that somehow I might touch again a time, hear a voice and feel the touch of love that wrapped me like a blanket when I was young.
Is this something of what happens where some fragment of ruined hope remains, where like a wailing wall we approach, hoping that by touching the fragment we can grasp the whole and take into our memory and feel in our being an embrace of something lost. And we hope that that embrace would never leave us.
The text in Isaiah 25 demonstrates this, the image of a banquet, of a restoration of a hope that might have been, of being able to taste again and laugh again, after all their loss and exile. How starved they must have been, how homesick, how grief stricken. God though doesn't give them an image of the past, a promise of restoring a golden age. They are not allowed to turn the past into a shrine; instead they are invited to imagine a future better than any past. Not just a future for them but for everyone. Imagine a future where the shame of being exiled is removed; where the grief of loss is replaced with the happiness of discovery; where the fact of death looming over our lives is taken away.
The fact of death looming over our lives is taken away. That must be the crux of the message that joined the first Christians together. As wonderful as the story of Jesus is, his parables, his compassion on women, beggars, lepers, the nearly dead, the shut-in, and the blind, the incredible nature of his defeat of death is what captivates the imagination. He defeated death, never to die again, but to live a new kind of life. And this is the crux of the gospel that the heart of all our fears and the heart of sin that exists in us and in the world is the fact of death. Death tells us that we're doing all we do for nothing. The struggles we face today, whether we get a promotion or find a job, whether we marry this person or have a child, and many other things that seem so important, so important that we endanger ourselves and others in our cars or break in front of old people waiting in line, are rendered laughably moot by the fact that we're going to die. We might say that to live successfully is to successfully deceive yourself about death. This is why the basic message of Ecclesiastes is "live for the day - don't be obsessed with the past or anxious for the future." All Jesus's words in the sermon on the mount fall into this category as well: "Don't worry about the future, consider the birds, consider the flowers - they don't stress their problems and know that God will clothe and feed them."
Not that for Jesus Death is a light thing. He contemplates his death as something that might be avoided, and though he suffered it in obedience, he felt real agony and was shaken to the base of his soul. As it is written, "for the glory set before him." Paul might have said for the feast set before him - and Jesus used the event of a feast to describe the kingdom of God so prominently that, based on this Isaiah passage, we might suppose that for "this gluttonous man and wine bibber" that would be the best kind of outcome.
But this is our hope, that Jesus defeated death, swallowed it up, and his life is the renewal of creation. In his life, by the power of the Holy Spirit we experience this renewal, we are reborn.
As people who have been removed from the threat of death, what manner of life should we expect. Certainly we can still expect to die, but what death means has been changed for us. Death no longer means the end. Death no longer hovers above us, threatening us if we get out of line. This is where our freedom occurs. We are freed in Christ for getting out of line. We are freed in Christ to be indifferent to our death, and we are freed in Christ to become engaged with life. We can now live life as life. Where before we lived a life as an escape from death or thinking about death - becoming immersed in consumerism, in workaholism, slaves to fear, to anxiety, to sin.
This is the meaning of Christ being sacrificed for us - that we can attend the feast. That no longer fearing what Death can do to us, we can feast, we can celebrate with one another (and it is with one another, because no one feasts alone). We are freed from ourselves and for each other. We feast together in the freedom of Christ. We feast freed from the need to sin - we no longer survive by sin, by envy, pride, lust, greed, avarice. We now survive, we thrive, by Grace. What wondrous freedom this is; and it is ours in Christ.
So just as the resurrection is not merely the resuscitation of a dead body, so this feast is not merely a meal, a satiation of hunger. In the Church we are about something more than gathering people together. In the Church we prefigure this eschatological reality. In the midst of our bureaucracy, our meetings, our differences and difficulties - the hilarious audacity of our some of our political strivings and social activities - the Holy Spirit causes our spirits to thrive together and grow together: we participate in God's generosity with our offerings; we participate in God's creativity with our acts of praise and art; we participate in the life of the heavens in our worship. And we taste something of this when we share communion together.
This is not just the eating of a piece of bread or the consumption of some grape. In this supper, around this table, we're lifted up by the Holy Spirit into the presence of the Trinity where we feed on the benefits of Christ by faith. In this feast we remember that Death has been swallowed up and we've been freed for serving each other and the world. So let us practice this feast, accepting our shortcomings and bearing with one another, as God bears with us and accepts us, knowing that Christ's love is working in us in a new creation.

night, vision: goggles

Isaiah 25:6-10 6 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. 7 And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; 8 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. 9 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. 10 For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain

1 Corinthians 5:6-8 Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.


The feast in Isaiah 25 is presented as a future event. It is an event of generosity and abundance. The Hebrew text is about fat and dregs, really good marrow-filled fat and decanted-dregs. The centerpiece of this feast is the removal of the shroud of death, the shroud that shrouds all the nations and peoples; the swallower is swallowed up. The flow of tears will cease and the disgrace will be removed from all the people of the nations. The hand of God rests on the mountain, the mountain of the feast. That this takes place on a mountain is a sign that this feast is a heavenly feast. This is the salvation that the people of the nations have waited for. It is a salvation that they have not found in the valley of death's shadow. And it is only when they are brought to the place where God's hand rests that they find salvation.
In 1st Corinthians 5 we are invited to another feast, but it is a feast right now. We are told to clean out the leaven that disqualifies us, that we should be a new loaf. Isn't it interesting that the Church is asked to imagine itself as a loaf, clean, unleavened. Christ our paschal lamb has been sacrificed, and we are asked to celebrate, having cleansed ourselves, the Church having cleansed its body of malice and evil, and presenting itself authentic and truthful.
We live our lives in the now and not yet. The feast at hand and the feast to come. This feast at hand is practically the Eucharist, the Lord's supper that we eat. Indeed it is a common liturgical phrase: Christ our paschal lamb is slain; therefore let us keep the feast. But this feast at hand is not necessarily the Eucharist in this passage. Paul, talking about the lives of the believers in Corinth, has chided them throughout this letter for their factionalism and for their lack of concern with sanctification. The Corinthians don't seem to differentiate between their life before knowing Jesus and their life after knowing Jesus. Their lives continue to be leavened with their old ways; they do as they please: they defraud each other; they compete against each other; they tolerate behavior not tolerated in the pagan world. What makes their church different from any other social association?
Paul says that the difference is to be found in Christ, who sacrificed for them, for all humanity, has brought them out of the fear of death, and brought them into the presence of God. Paul uses festal imagery here, as if echoing this Isaiah passage, as well as Jesus's parables about the kingdom being like a great feast, where all the poor, the outsiders, the lame, the blind, the leperous are sought out with great effort and compelled to attend and to feast like royalty. I am unaware that Paul uses this feasting image anywhere else in his letters. Its use here is brought about by the singular issue that the Corinthians pose for him. The issue is this: What binds us together as believers in a world where competing claims and narratives vie for our loyalty outside the fellowship of the Church?
Paul encounters them as people who bring the world's methods into the fellowship of the Church. Not only that, they bring the world's narrative in as well. The world's narrative is this: that matter is all their is; that we must fight to have access to scarce resources; that people must watch out for themselves; and those who falter have only themselves to blame. In the world robbery, permissiveness, greed, gluttony, and pride, especially when conducted under cover of legality, may be winked at; in the world of the Church, a communal world in those early days, such actions harm the body - as if the body were attacking itself. As believers we have to trust each other - we have to trust each other with even the most intimate concerns of our lives. This became especially true in the years after Paul wrote this letter, when during persecution Christians had to trust each other for their very lives. The Christians who live in Iraq and the West Bank and Gaza are living out this intimacy of support right now. They live under threat of losing their lives- and they cannot afford leaven in their midst. Perhaps if we allow our imaginations to think of their struggle, we can taste something of what action and what fellowship Paul is extolling the Corinthians to in his phrase "let us keep the feast."
Let us feast in the eating of the bread and the drinking of the cup: realizing that this feasting is a sharing. What we share together is Christ, and we share Christ with Christians all over the world. This sharing does not come cheap. Throughout the years and to this day men and women suffer for the gospel. They suffer because they follow Jesus who said something about taking up a cross and following him to the place where crosses end up: exposing us, rendering us weak, taxing our endurance.
When we feast we share a cross. We don't fear being executed on our way back from church, or having our land confiscated or being denied the ability to travel to work. Our cross is located in our comfort and our affluence. We fear being uncomfortable and being poor. We hold onto what we have with a fierce grip. You can guess what Christ would put on your cross can't you?
"Let us keep the feast" in our being together, in our sharing, in our discovery of what God's abundance means for us and for our world. The world needs to see this story of God's abundance translated into a living paradigm. The story of scarcity is very strong in the world we live in. How can we increase our imaginations in acts of "faith working through love" that would demonstrate the truth of God's generosity versus the lie of scarcity that leavens the world's discourse?
First we must remember that without the Holy Spirit we can do nothing. When we embark on making this feast a reality, we do so in faith, that what seems impossible, can become actual.
Second we must remember that a feast is not for a single person but for many. And so our churches are not made up of single people but of groups. This very thing is the topic Paul begins with - that we must do away with factions and recognize that in the faith we have common cause. This common cause springs from our relationship with Jesus.
Third we must use our imaginations and not be afraid to act on them, to join together in creative endeavors.
And we must be patient and forgiving of each other. Certainly toes will be stepped on, and it is in this process that we must be open to laughter and graciousness.
There is a feast to come, to be sure, but our task here, as an expression of gratitude for all that Jesus has done for us in bringing us from the mire and blindness of our sin and the sin of the world, is to practice the principles of this feast here in the world.

Here's my draft of the ordination sermon

Hebrews 11:29 - 12:2 . ²⁹ By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, but when the Egyptians attempted to do so they were drowned. ³⁰ By faith the walls of Jericho fell after they had been encircled for seven days. ³¹ By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace. ³² And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets-- ³³who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions,³⁴ quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. ³⁵ Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. ³⁶ Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. ³⁷ They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented-- ³⁸ of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. ³⁹ Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, ⁴⁰ since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect. ^NRS Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,² looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

I went to the ocean, the Atlantic, in North Carolina, and I saw the waves crashing into the thin ribbon of sandy beach with loud surges , withdrawing tons of water along with shell and sand. The sight was so fierce, the wind and waves deafening, the coastline so fragile. I thought to myself, I asked, “how long has this been going on?” Millions of years. I could see why some people only want the earth to be 6000 years old: they want a manageable figure. When I think that this has been the way it's always been at the land/ocean boundary for uncountable years, I feel very small and insignificant. I have no control. I have no chance of making a mark. I can not stand against the immense power of the sea.

I walked into the surf and the waves beat me back. One after another they proclaimed their intent to knock me down and then, sinisterly drag me out beyond my depth. If I were to carry something out there and not hold tight, the waves would wring it from me and I'd never recover it. The sea has swallowed people and ships and even cities – where the coast is eroded or large tsunamis come. This has been going on for a long time.

In scripture the ocean symbolizes chaos. The writers of scripture reflected a fear of the sea. In the sea Leviathan prowls swallowing all who venture out. Only God can tame Leviathan. The humor of the book of Jonah is that an Israelite seeks refuge in going out to sea. The covenant with Abraham is after all, to inherit the land, not the sea. Solomon builds a navy, but when it disappears no one misses it. There's no lament psalm lamenting the loss of a single ship. The ocean is chaos and it's best to stay away.

We can think of our text today as a description of how the Israelites faced chaos: By faith. Not that faith was an instrument they used, an ingredient of their success, like some kind of incantation. The force of the Greek word here signifies more that it was “because of faith.” That is: faith impelled them into the chaos. Their natural instinct is to stay on land, but faith impels them into the waves. They step into the waves and, incredibly, the waves give way. Faith makes a path through the chaos.

The Egyptians face this chaos as well. They have the best technology. They are masters of war and strategy. They are experts in wisdom and organization. They are well fed and proud. They are confident; they don't know defeat or fear. The Egyptians march straight into the sea. The waves encircle them. The sand sinks under them and bogs them down. They flail and lash at the waves. Soon the waves they were attacking lay siege on them instead. And they are no more. They were impelled into the sea by their own sense of mastery and confidence, and the chaos has vanquished them. Leviathan swallowed them whole.

What is this faith the writer to the Hebrews talks about, this faith that walks into chaos – not blindly into chaos, unaware, but walking into chaos and amazingly finding land to stand on? This is not a faith we manufacture, but is the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is the faith of Jesus, Faith's beginning and perfection. Jesus' life is the living example of God's approach to chaos. In Jesus faith was crafted from the beginning of the world, and it is his faith that orders and sustains all creation. This is the faith that the Holy Spirit worked in humanity from the beginning: from Abel to Abraham to Moses to us; it leads through the reality of the people of Israel ascendant and Israel in exile; it leads through the reality of the Cross and Death and Resurrection. Faith sees these realities for what they are: temporary, created, exercising power through fear of death, and manipulating people through the fear of scarcity. Faith triumphs over these things, and grows and thrives in Jesus, from first to last.

On our own, acting as if we were our own cause, we drown in the chaos of the world. Even if our intentions are impeccable, filled with high motive, without the faith of Jesus as our motivating force, our efforts come to nothing. We look to him, unafraid despite the threat of chaos, knowing that in him we stand on dry land. This is our calling: to walk with Jesus on the sea. We can't believe that we could do such a thing, and we struggle. We live in a world that is confident that it subdues chaos by its own power. We are surrounded by a world that wants to tell a story about human capacity. We master the planet and ourselves. We are extolled with tales of self-reliance, the "can do" spirit. To ask for help is to be weak. The world lauds unilateral action. And so we are easily distracted by the glamor of it: how strong and heroic it seems. It is the way of the Egyptian army. It is an attractive narrative that has found a home with world powers throughout history: Persia, Greece, Rome, the Crusades, Spain, Britain, and so on – all were in love with their own expertise. All claimed that they could defeat chaos, only to sink in their own pretensions. As individuals we face that same temptation – to claim autonomy as our freedom, to believe we've earned it through our own expertise. We face it in our church and our jobs and our relationships – unaware that our autonomous freedom is no more effective than the Egyptian army in fighting chaos.

Hebrews tells us that we're partners with each other and partners with Christ. We are partners with believers in all time, connected in faith that follows Christ, that rests in Christ from the beginning and is nourished and brought to completion in him. We are surrounded by a cloud of believers who witness, throughout all time, the triumph of the faith of Jesus and the defeat of chaos. We are in the Church that Christ has called together. We are called from pursuing our own ends, our own safety, and we are called to run this race set by Christ. This race runs right though chaos. We are called from the beach into the crashing waves. We are called to run, not to stand and do nothing. As Barth says, “do something. Don't practice doing nothing under the guise of a so called prudence. Do something, even if correction and forgiveness are needed in the doing.” The prudence of doing nothing gives the illusion of competence: that our autonomy is working. But this is not running the race.

We do not run this race alone. Just as Hebrews was addressed to the Church and spoken aloud to those assembled, so it can not be heard and acted out alone, as if all that were required of faith was just ourselves sitting alone in our studies. We are called, like the Hebrews, to endure. To not cease in hospitality; to not cease aiding those in prison; to not cease upholding and helping each other in love. This is the faith that Jesus has pioneered and perfected for us. The Holy Spirit has planted it in our hearts, and grows it and nurtures it. It is the faith that impels us in Christ to walk into the sea. It is in this faith that we discover that the sea that we run on is like dry land. Leviathan does not swallow us, and we inherit life in God, undiminished in generosity, triumphant over the fear of death, given to us in God's grace.

And What I actually preached on Sunday past

Galatians 6:1-18 ^NRS Galatians 6:1 My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. ² Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. ³ For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. ⁴ All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor's work, will become a cause for pride. ⁵ For all must carry their own loads. ⁶ Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher. ⁷ Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. ⁸ If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. ⁹ So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. ¹⁰ So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith. ¹¹ See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand! ¹² It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that try to compel you to be circumcised-- only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. ¹³ Even the circumcised do not themselves obey the law, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh. ¹⁴ May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. ¹⁵ For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! ¹⁶ As for those who will follow this rule-- peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. ¹⁷ From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body. ¹⁸ May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen.

Galatians contains the world of the early Church. It is not just Paul writing to a church like Thessalonians and telling them what a good job they're doing and to keep it up. It is not a letter like Romans where he touches base on some common theological issues. It is not like Corinthians where he answers some questions and straightens out some ethical problems. Galatians is a letter charged with conflict from the beginning. Galatians begins with Paul accusing the Galatians of leaving the true gospel to follow a false gospel. Paul is distressed that they will be a church in name only. Paul is distressed that they'll talk about Jesus but he won't make a difference in the way they live.

If this whole letter is so pivotal for the history of the Church, then this final chapter is the central point of the whole letter. If not for what Paul says here, then the Galatians could go and do their own thing. If not for what Paul says here, the Galatians could take Jesus as a starting off point in a mishmash of Jewish and Gentile beliefs and leave him behind But what Paul says here changes everything. What he says here is the reason he stopped persecuting believers and became one himself; what he ways here is the reason he confronted Peter earlier in the letter; what he says here is the reason he is writing to the Galatians with such urgency.

What Paul says here is that because in Christ's cross he is crucified to the world and the world to him – even as he had earlier said that he was crucified with Christ and lived now by the spirit – all that matters to him now is a new creation. The whole dispute of practicing circumcision or not is beside the point. The new creation, where we're crucified to the world and the world to us in Christ's crucifixion, is not about what you do to yourself. The new creation is not about who you are or who your aren't – as Paul had said earlier: the new creation is not about whether you're a man or a woman; a free person or a slave; a Jew or a gentile – all these distinctions have been done away with in Christ.

In fact, says Paul, to dabble in these distinctions now, to attempt adding them onto your salvation in Christ, is actually to cut yourself off from Christ. Why? Because all these distinctions are done away with in the new creation where Christ is; these distinctions are part of the old creation where Christ isn't. And this is a radical thing for Paul to say, because it flies in the face of how life worked in ancient middle eastern as well as Roman society. To be part of the new creation is to take yourself out of society.

Just like the ancient Hebrews after crossing the Red Sea, so these Galatians, after embarking on a journey of faith, want to go back to Egypt, back to what is safe. They want Jesus, but they want the comfort of the familiar. They want to live in their familiar distinctions.

This ancient culture (and today's middle eastern culture continues to be like this) was a culture held together with boundaries. Every person had his and her place. And every body was a part of the group – there was nothing like we think of as individualism. You were not on your own, but you were part of a group. Your group defined you and you defined yourself by acquiring honor and avoiding shame. Men were better than women; free persons were better than slaves; and depending on where your were, Jews were better than Gentiles. Each person fit in their place and received honor for how they lived out their roles. To step out of place was to bring shame on yourself. There were other boundaries too: rich and poor, benefactor and client, upper and lower classes, old and young. For men, Jews, Free persons, rich, benefactors, and upper class things were swell; for women, slaves, gentiles, clients , poor people things were not so swell. For all these people, locked in struggle to gain honor – and honor was primarily gained at the expense of others, while avoiding shame, life was like a prison. It was the strong versus the weak.

What this new creation does is demolish this whole system. Believers had only known this system of honor and shame – and now suddenly not to have it. They must have been very grateful when some people showed up and told them that “yes this is wonderful news about Jesus, a great person, but you need to add something to your faith. Try this new way of defining yourself over against others: you'll have honor among yourselves and honor with God.” How could they know that they put themselves back in the old creation when they did this? How could they know that they'd cut themselves off from Christ? Paul's telling them this right here.

Christ's crucifixion shatters the honor and shame system. Crucifixion is the most shameful death a person could die – Romans reserved it only for the worst offenders and Jews saw it as a curse. But Jesus takes that shame and raises it up to the highest honor. His crucifixion turns honor on its head: shame becomes honor and honor becomes shame. All the very strong who thought they had all the honor, suddenly had all the shame; and the weak, who could only lose honor and gain shame, found themselves the recipients of the highest honor. Paul makes such a fuss about it because he recognizes what's happened here. He was on his way to the top. He was getting all the honor and he was on the strong side of all the boundaries: a man, a Roman citizen, a Jew, a Pharisee. He was looking at a lifetime of respectful greetings, sitting at the head of the table, being the benefactor. He meets the risen Christ and suddenly counts it all loss. He saw it just as surely as a great chess master sees defeat or victory 12 moves ahead.

Hence Paul's urgency in this letter. He knows that once you've seen the crucified and risen Christ you can not go back to the same world. That creation with its human invention and coinage is passing away. It's power is sapped. It lingers with just enough life to appear strong and it depends on people's fear, and it depends on people's need to define themselves against a threatening other, to prop it up. Paul writes with raw emotion to get them back on course walking toward the truth of the gospel. They have wandered, but not too far.

Paul tells them, “forget these boundaries: male/female; free/slave; Jew/gentile. Forget this lame attempt at looking Jewish – as if suddenly, having begun with Christ, the Law might somehow make you right with God. Instead live by the Spirit. You know the Spirit; you've had it since the beginning. You know that it cries from your hearts to the Father. You know that it was faith in Christ that occasioned the spirit's birth in you. Don't you know that Faith making itself felt in acts of love is everything? Like me, you too are crucified to the world and the world is crucified to you. Live in this new creation.”

The world Paul describes in Galatians s a world of relationships. Paul talks about his relationship with Christ. He talks about his relationship with Peter and Peter's relationship with others. He talks about his relationship with the Galatians. He tells them that he broods over them, like a mother broods over her child, till Christ is formed in them. This relationship with Christ frees them. Men, slave owners, Jews, rich, benefactors, upper class: all are freed from needing to maintain their honor. They can suffer to be weak and to be humbled because Christ has made weakness and humility the new coin of the realm. Christ's weakness is not the weakness of a weak man; Christ's weakness is the tenderness of an adult with an infant – it is overwhelming strength that lays aside brute power in order to nurture and save the very least of creation. Women, slaves, gentiles, clients, poor, peasants: all are freed from the threat of shame, of being shamed by the group. Christ has put on their weakness and their shame and wears it as his royal robe.

In Paul's discussion of the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit we see how the relationships of the new creation play out versus the old creation. The works of the flesh are a fine way to survive the old creation: they amount to: get even, worship idols, join a party, keep up with the Joneses, buy more stuff, drown your sorrows, play the odds. Paul says that if you sow here, you'll reap corruption. But the fruit of the Spirit is enjoyed and flows from being in relationship: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, generosity and self control. The old creation with its boundaries, its honor and shame, is incapable of growing these things. And so Paul encourages them to bear each other's burdens while they bear their own, and to look for the good of their fellow believers.

Paul's remark about the Spirit entering our hearts with a cry to the Father tells us that this new creation relationship between people and God and between strong and weak is possible through our faith in Christ, our love and especially in prayer. In prayer we encounter a relationship with God that is not dependent on our doing something to get God's attention or approval. In prayer we become engaged in a dialog with God. We ask out of our weakness. We ask in the faith the Spirit grows in our hearts. When we don't have words, we know that we are understood. And we learn to listen. God speaks in our hearts. God hears our anger, our suffering, our grief, our fear –These things do not put God off. We are not so vile, despairing, bored or idiotic that God isn't involved with us, bringing us along, on course to the truth of the gospel.

And so for us: we've entered into this world of the Galatians. We face the temptation to have Jesus plus something else: Jesus plus our prestige, our memberships, our bank accounts. We don't live in an honor and shame society, but we're still fond of boundaries that define us against some weaker other, weak but at the same time, a threatening other. We define ourselves against race, against gender, against religion, as well as against citizenship and class. Politicians make great hay ramping up the fear. Be afraid of immigrants; be afraid of terrorists, be afraid of people who are different, who worship different, - they're going to take away our way of life. They're going to blow us up. Fear is the easy way of filling the coffers. Fear gets out the vote.

TV news and other programs love fear as well. We're invited to idolize distraction and spectacle. We're invited to enjoy the cathartic release of violence in movies where when the hero uses violence it's always justified and always works. We're invited to get drunk on fantasies of revenge. Fear of the other which makes itself felt in threats and violence - ;that's how the old creation works. That's what the flesh knows and understands.

Everyday this old creation keeps on. Over the course of history and in different places on the planet, it's taken on different forms – but it's always been consistent about people defining themselves against others and fearing the other; might makes right; never be weak.

Every day the Spirit works in us, guiding us to the new creation and the truth of the gospel. Every day we speak to God and God speaks to us. Every day we have opportunities to bear each other's burdens, to love the other, to advocate for the other, to make our faith felt in our acts of love.

In Christ, through whom the world is crucified to us and we to the world.

last sunday's sermon

This is last Sunday's sermon. I read the text from Kings about Elijah and the widow, from Luke about Jesus and the widow of Nain, Galatians about Paul's conversion, and preached from Psalm 146. Psalm 146 is a great Psalm and it contains the existential kernel of Kierkegaard's and Niebhur's dictum that absolute worship belongs to absolute things: that you don't give absolute worship to temporary things - this is where sin begins: in the anxiety such a miscalculation provokes. At least that's my understanding of Niebhur. Cheryl told me that this message would just go flying over everyone's head.
So I wrote, focusing on this verse in Ps 146: that prince's can't help us deal with the fundamental human condition of death, in that they themselves are subject to that condition. But when we listen to the psalm, we discover how God leads us into understanding and action in that condition. That we're authentic when we follow God into the places where loss occurs, and less authentic the more we evade those places. God dwells where the pain is in our human lives.
The italicized passage is a passage that Jami felt was unnecessary, but then she said maybe it was.

Psalm 146:1 Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul! ² I will praise the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God all my life long. ³ Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. ⁴ When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish. ⁵ Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God, ⁶ who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever; ⁷ who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free; ⁸ the LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous. ⁹ The LORD watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. ¹⁰ The LORD will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the LORD!

How do we live in this world? What is it to be really who we are? The writers of the Westminster Confession answered this in the first question: What is the chief goal of humanity. And the answer is: God has created us to Glorify God and enjoy God forever. This is perhaps the most quoted phrase in the English Reformed tradition – of which our presbyterian church is a part. Wherever I've been, among conservatives and liberals, I know that most people will be familiar with this response. In another , may be less familiar, Reformed creed, we're told that our only hope in life and death is that we belong body and soul to our Lord Jesus Christ. These are important things to keep in mind as we approach ever day. Am I glorifying God and enjoying God. What does that enjoying God mean? I think that today's psalm, as well as the other passages in the lectionary help us answer these questions.

Early in the psalm, the singer tells us what not to do. The psalmist commands us not to put our trust in princes, in mortals, in whom is no help. Well I hadn't been putting any trust in princes – after all they're mostly in Europe. .But the key word in this sentence is “mortals”. And this is an apt translation because no matter how well off, or how privileged in life a human being is, that person is subject to death. The psalmist begins with an exhortation to Praise the Lord and then gets right down to the problem of life. The problem of life is that we can die so easily: that no life is a sure thing, that we're haunted by separation and loss and change. This is the problem of how we live in this world, the problem the confessions and creeds also address: How do we live in a world dominated by death?

But why does the psalmist focus on princes to answer this question? . Princes have money and privilege. They are not encumbered by long work hours and they command respect. They seem to be the most free of all the human community. Today the psalmist might say don't trust in the powerful, the celebrity in the news, the great leader. If you see them or happen to be in their presence, have only this thought – this person is going to die just like me. Don't think: how can this person help me? Don't think: this is a perfect networking opportunity Don't think: I'm so honored. Instead remember: this person is going to die. This person lives under the possibility that that they will become ill, that they will lose a family member, that they will lose the ability to control their bodies or control their minds. Death is not just the cessation of life, it is the loss of lots of little things and big things that all add up to zero. They could lose the power of being a prince – and that would be nothing. If you lose money – you can get that back, or at least some of it back. But your life? But a friend? A parent? When dementia took my grandmother's mind, every visit to her was witnessing a new death – something new was forgotten every day. Sometimes I would be surprised at something she would remember, but then, days later, that too would be forgotten. Death is inescapable; but it is evadable – at least for a time. We can insulate ourselves. We distract ourselves with entertainments, politics, arguments, hatreds, chemicals, thrills. We go into debt to avoid thinking about it. People look for a hero to save them from death. People join mass movements because a leader seems invincible. But the psalmist says it isn't so. Don't put your hopes in princes, politicians, heroes, celebrities, or anyone who is only a mortal.

Instead, the psalmist says put your hope, your trust, in God. The God of Jacob, of Israel, who created heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them. God cares for the poor, feeds the hungry, lifts up the bent over, frees the prisoner, and delivers from oppression. God creates justice in the world. God's faithfulness never ends. The plottings of the wicked, God bends back on them. God does not fear death. God has died in the person of God's son, Jesus, and death could not hold him down. Jesus conquered death. If there is any hero, it is Jesus. If there is any prince we should look to, it is Jesus. And what kind of prince and what kind of hero is he? Like the description of God here in the psalm, Jesus feeds the hungry, he frees the prisoner, he gives life to the dead. Hence the Reformed confession that “our only comfort in life and death is that we belong body and soul to – not to ourselves but to our faithful savior, Jesus Christ. Indeed that we're redeemed from the power of Death by his blood and sacrificial work, his conquering of Death and the world systems that manipulate the fear of death. And that because of this all that we owe God is gratitude.

And this is the Christian struggle:to live in a world dominated by death, and then, like Jesus, to go right to those places that remind us how fragile our life is. We don't have to act heroically or attach ourselves to some human movement or powerful leader. We belong to Jesus and not ourselves. And our gratitude towards Jesus is not some minor obligation. Our gratitude towards Jesus is the substance of the Christian life. How do we live this out? Look at the psalm. We see there that God is active among people who can't help themselves. God is active in the very places that death attacks us. God is active in breaking up the plans of the wicked. God is involved with helping those who are shoved up against loss. We live out our gratitude when we go where God goes. And God goes to some difficult places. God is with the bent over, the burdened. God is with people who are losing. And this scares us. How can we be with God in these places? These are places we don't want to be because they remind us how fragile our life is.

Look at the story of Elijah: he is called out to be with a widow during a drought, to see that she has food and sustenance. He is called to bring life back to her son. Elijah walks into the place of death, not without some reluctance, to be sure. He cries out to God ,”why are you bringing this calamity even upon her?” and he says “even her”- implying that he's not feeling so well himself. But he isn't trusting in princes. He isn't trusting in some human agency. He's trusting in God, and so he is able to meet people in their grief. He is able to be with her an let her have her grief. Elijah doesn't tell her to cheer up or get over it. He is able to be with people in their reduced circumstances. It isn't easy but he knows God is with him, because he knows that God is especially present in these kinds of difficult situations.

Jesus is the living Word. This is not just an empty title. In this story of the widow of Nain, we see that a living word is how he is: that what he says and how he acts are identical. He does not say one thing and do another. In this story he walks out to the widow who's lost her son. His heart is drawn to her. And he doesn't consider whether she is worthy. As with the Elijah story there is nothing about this widow to commend her. God didn't chose her based on what she did or because she was powerful. Jesus comes out to this widow and restores her son to life. Jesus is where the pain is. Where the discomfort is. To the place where life is most fragile. Whatever else this widow might be, to Jesus she is a carrier of the image of God and that is enough.

And Paul, what a story his is. He was once filled with hate for Jesus and for Christians. His hate drove him to damage people's lives. Even though he was well versed in the scriptures and could read how God was invested with helping people, with saving and not destroying, Paul knew this psalm quite well. But Paul still aligned himself with the powerful and set out to destroy. And in destroying he destroyed himself. And then Jesus confronted him and saved him from hating. Paul was a new man. He gave up hating and joined with those who loved. He went to the widows, the orphans, and those who were bent over. He became a healer of souls and preached Jesus, not just with his words but with his life. When imprisoned in Phillippi he freed not only the prisoners, but the jailer as well.

The jailer himself is imprisoned in what the jail symbolizes. Just as Paul was imprisoned in his hatred. Just as the psalmist cautions against trusting in mortal solutions as an escape from death. The psalmist recognized that what imprisons us all is death. And just as the jailer seems free compared to the prisoners but is really imprisoned; and just as Paul seemed free from death by bringing death upon early Christians, but was really bringing death upon ;himself. So the psalmist warns us that mortal solutions to the problem of death simply imprison us in death and loss behind bars of fear.

And so our life is lived with God. It may seem daunting to us. We're not Elijah or Paul. At times Jesus seems far off. But the Holy Spirit helps us do what we can to participate with God . Over time we get better as our experience opens our hearts. We enter every day into God's story, a story that tells of conquering death and loss. We leave behind a mortal story, a story about evading death and loss, about pretending that I'm different or special, this group will save me, this strong leader will keep me from harm. We don't have to be in denial that we will die and that we are fragile. We don't have to be phony, pretending that we're not hurting inside, pretending that we're not afraid. Why does God dwell in such painful places? God dwells in the truth, and the truth of our situation is that we are encumbered by death and are powerless to save ourselves. Our gratitude stems from this: where we encounter defeat, Jesus brings victory; where we stumble in blindness, Jesus lights our lives with his love. This is the perfect love that casts out all fear. And so we can look at death and not despair. Our Lord Jesus has conquered death. He is the prince of peace in whom we can trust. And he saves us because having died he lives and dies no more. Because of him we need not fear painful things. In our pain we re not alone. In death we are not alone. Ever how long the grief, how deep the sadness, he is there. Praise the Lord. Praise God who reigns from generation to generation. Praise God's name, always.

My Easter sermon

Isaiah 65:17-25 ¹⁷ "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. ¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. ¹⁹ I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. ²⁰ No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. ²¹ They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. ²² They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. ²³ They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD, and their descendants with them. ²⁴ Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear. ²⁵ The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain," says the LORD.

Luke 24:1-12 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. ² And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³ but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴ While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. ⁵ And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? ⁶ He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, ⁷ that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise." ⁸ And they remembered his words, ⁹ and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. ¹⁰ Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, ¹¹ but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. ¹² But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.

“These words seemed an idle tale.” That is what the disciples thought. And our old testament passage, with its new heavens and new earth, rampant vegetarianism in the animal kingdom, seems fantastic as well. How do we get from an idle tale to this new creation? How do we get from an idle tale to Christ resurrected from the dead – never to die again? To many living in the world today the thought that there is more to life than what we have now seems an idle tale. Isaiah word that they shall neither hurt nor destroy on my holy mountain runs counter to current notions of how to secure nations. Isaiah paints a world where people live in their own houses without fear of being homeless; where people work without fear of being jobless. God does this – we are not told how.

In our passage from Luke's gospel we are not told how Jesus has risen from the dead, but we are shown something. We are shown that something about the world is changing. The women at the tomb see a vision of angles and are told not to seek the living among the dead. Well to them it was only reasonable to seek Jesus there, among the tombs. He was after all dead. They are told though to consider that this dead man now lives. This is a new world indeed. And Jesus is not just any dead man who now lives: he is the embodiment of Isaiah's new heaven and new earth. He is the embodiment of a promise that had been killed. When the women visit the tomb that morning they have in their minds ,”this is where the new heaven and new earth we'd hoped for is buried. We thought for a moment that it was ready to be fulfilled on earth, but now it is gone. Now things are as they have always been and they will never change.” Then something unpredictable happens: the tomb is empty.

The empty tomb is unpredictable. It is a sign that the assumptions we make about God and the world and other human beings are conditioned by predictability. It is a sign that God is not predictable. To the people of Israel that Isaiah writes to, a people in exile, it is incredible that they will ever inhabit Zion once again, much less that they will dwell in non-violent security, safeguarded by God. This text to them told a story that seemed unpredictable, an idle tale. Even so, the resurrection of Jesus is even more unpredictable. But to us today, having heard this story so often over the years, have we lost an appreciation for this unpredictability? Has the resurrection taken on an appearance of predictability for us. Study of the old testament shows us a God who is unpredictable. God is passionate, angry and loving, changing his mind, describing himself as a father and a mother, a warrior and a shepherd. This God, who Jesus calls Father, avoids being pinned down. He is always loving and faithful. But. He will not be predictable.

But if today God seems predictable to us, and therefore amenable to the way of the world, supporting whatever the national agenda is, whatever the apocalyptic expectation is, and the God of the old testament is different, and the God of Jesus is different; then we have to wonder how we arrived at the point. Because at this point, if we are worshiping a God who is agreeable to whatever the world wants to do, endorsing consumerism, building a large military state, then we are not worshiping the God who said ,”you shall have no other gods before me.”How have we strayed so far from a God who is unpredictable, not quiet, not willing to sit in the back of the room while we adults do the important work? Such a God is surely safe and comfortable, but such a god is surely a hollow idol, a projection of our own desires. How do we get back to the God who loves us and is faithful, but in unpredictable ways? This God of Jesus who will not be quiet and go along with how things are. This God of Isaiah who wants to remake all of creation into a vegetarian, anarcho-collectivist theme park? Talk about unpredictable.

The way to find God is through the resurrection. In some churches today they repeat the phrase that the resurrection is the renewal of creation. This should fill us with wonder, not just at the natural coming of spring, but wonder at the power of God, loving and unpredictable, at work in this world and in our hearts and lives. This is the wonder of Easter.

The wonder of Easter is that Jesus rose from the dead.” Think about that, “from the dead”: what does that mean? We know the full story now, but that first Easter, the disciples knew only that Jesus was dead. Really dead.

I thought: how quickly we skip from the cross to the resurrection. In our imaginations do we leave time for Jesus to be really dead? What does it mean for the Son of God to be really dead? Is God faking it? Is Jesus only pretending to be a corpse and then when the stone is rolled over the tomb's door, he springs up and amuses himself with whatever you'd amuse yourself with in a cold,dark tomb? He would bide his time, and then, on the third day, as the stone was rolled away, walking out of the tomb with a yawn and he would say, “hey, look at me. I'm risen from the dead.”Or did his cold body lay there and his spirit go off on a holiday, visiting his Father in heaven, catching up on what happened while he was away? Or did his spirit prowl the caverns of hell, bursting open locks to infernal dungeons, liberating souls pressed beyond hope in a death that seemed unending?

Such thoughts spring from an ancient heresy called docetism.: the belief that Jesus only appeared to suffer, only appeared to be dead. Like all heresies it is a weed that never is eradicated from the garden. It springs from the desire to protect God from things that seem undignified, as if God were a child that needed protection from bad things. Such a God is the god of the Greek philosophers, an unmoved mover. They imagined a god who never feels or desires – such human responses were the result of the corruption of matter. To the Greeks matter is evil and must be overcome. One way to overcome matter is to practice being unaffected, to face death and loss showing as little concern as possible – and also to treat success and triumph the same way. In this way, matter is overcome and the person begins to resemble God, an unmoved mover.

Such a god is not the God we meet in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament God creates matter and revels in it. God is passionate. God loves and regrets, is angry and weeps. God's relationship with Israel and Israel's relationship with God is like one of those relationships where a couple is throwing plates at each other one minute and planning a second honeymoon the next. If you think I'm exaggerating, read Ezekiel 16 for God's side and Psalm 88 for Israel's. These texts are extreme in their bitterness, but they show how deeply held the passion each has for the other is. As Judaism and later Christianity encountered the Greek world, the tendency was to say, “our God is like your God.:” to soften the hard edges of Israel's God. And so well meaning theologians have created ways in which the language of scripture, where God regrets, hates and loves, is read metaphorically, necessitated by our limited human understanding. God only seems to regret, love and hate. The Greeks are superior to the Hebrews and so this unmoved mover, that's got to be right. It sounds so right. So respectable. And best of all predictable. As omnipotent, omniscient, immutable and eternal as such a God is, such an unmoved mover is predictable – and if some thing's predictable, then it can be manipulated. And if human beings can manipulate god, then we can control God – pretty clever.

But the Old Testament God, Yahweh, Abraham-Isaac-and Jacob's God, the Father Jesus prays to in the garden, is unpredictable. While an unmoved mover might pretend to like matter and might pretend to die, this God of Israel actually loves matter and actually would pull a stunt like dying. The unmoved mover blinks but God doesn't. God drives straight for the edge of the cliff and slams down on the gas. And so, when the women go to the tomb on Easter morning, followed by Peter and John, Jesus is, for all they know, really dead. Their teacher , their brother, their friend has died. How deep must their grief have been when they arrived at the tomb that morning? How exhausted by sorrow they must have been over the past two days. Jesus had gone to the cross and there had been no last minute reprieve, no legions of angles, no angelic host wiping out the Roman army and restoring the Davidic blessings and monarchy to Israel. Jesus kept driving straight for the cliff and the results had been predictable.

Or not. Not predictable: the resurrection is unpredictable. It seems an idle tale. Jesus is risen from the dead; he is risen indeed. And just as he was really dead, he now really lives. He was dead, like we're really afraid of dying. What will it be like for each of us when our hearts stop and our brains turn to dust: the sound goes off, the screen goes blank? Jesus knows. As scripture says, “he tasted death for all humanity.” And Jesus lives in the way we're really afraid of living. Jesus lived with unpredictability. He did not seek comfort. He did not seek a home. He talked about God clothing flowers and feeding birds, and acted as if that was as much concern as he needed to devote to such things. He claimed it was more important to pray for enemies and help difficult people. That fear about what people might do or think and worry about tomorrow: these were a waste of time. He claimed that the way to handle the Roman occupation was to ask if they needed any more help. He forgave sinners their sins left and right too: all kinds of sinners, all kinds of “not our kind of people” - he went and told them that they were OK with God and OK with him. And then he warned the authorities, the very people you want on your side, that they probably were not OK with God or with him – at least just as they were. When you think about it, it's obvious that he's pedal-to-the-metal towards the canyon rim – and he's having just a normal conversation: “some weather we're having. Have you considered the lilies of the field? What if we offered to carry a burden an extra mile, no charge, for these Roman soldiers – that'd freak them out wouldn't it?”

And it's obvious that he's courting death. You don't live a life that displays the powers as weak and ineffectual without making them mad. Jesus is setting a bad example and they must stop him. Jesus is giving people the idea that they don't have to be imprisoned in the system; they can just step out. They don't have to live in fear; they don't have to crave security; they don't have to get a little more; they don't have to get ahead. . If people ceased to voluntarily put themselves under control of the powers, then the powers, the systems, would starve. So the leaders: pharisees, saducees, and civil authorities push back, hoping that Jesus will resort to their weapons. If Jesus will just adopt the tactics of violence, the tactic of giving a little to get a little – well the systems of the world understand that. The systems – the banks, the armies, the bureaucracies – hope Jesus will meet them on their terms, because then he'd be just one problem among others instead of The problem.

So Jesus has to be treated as an enemy of religion and an enemy of the state. He has to be crucified and certainly he'll blink there. Certainly facing crucifixion he'll succumb to fear and fall under the sway of the powers and world systems. Of course they'd kill him anyway, but how delicious his ruin would be. Except that Jesus doesn't blink.

But at least he's dead and things can go back to where they've always, predictably, been. Except something unpredictable happens. That Jesus is risen from the dead means that victory belongs to us and not to the systems, the powers, the “way the world works.” That Jesus lives means that all that talk about not fearing, not being anxious, not craving security but being generous, loving, and non-violent is bed-rock truth, while the world's promise of better living through greed, fear, and violence is a house built on sand. It's an impressive house made with $100 screw-drivers and the best things money can buy. Every day great carloads of people and materials are pumped into it. This house almost seems to block out the sky, but it is built on sand and one day it will tumble down into the desert. A rusting hulk, an oddity to travelers. How do I know this? Because Jesus is risen from the dead.

Jesus is risen from the dead and Jesus is the same after the resurrection as before the resurrection. And this Jesus will come again. Jesus's life is the defeat of the powers and systems -those things that say, “come to us for food, come to us for security, come to us for what you need. Play by our rules and we'll feed you; fight our wars and we'll secure you; repeat our slogans and we'll put a roof over your head.” But all these promises the world makes are hollow. For all the fear, for all the willingness to spend on the next big thing, for all the sacrifice of our lives and for all we promise to do for scraps of bread – the promises of security, prosperity, predictability have no real capital backing them up.

Jesus is risen from the dead, and he comes again in judgment. But not judgment as popular imagination might have it: shoveling sinners by the thousands into a lake of fire. Jesus judges the powers and systems that have captured the people of the world and that scar God's good creation. Jesus has judged and he will conquer the false promise of the world's systems and powers. Jesus does not conquer by violence. Good reformed theology, and theology as ancient as the early Church, says that Jesus conquers not because he is mighty, but because he is worthy. This is what Revelation says, “the lamb is worthy.”

The last hope of this world's systems and powers is that we may be mislead about who Jesus is and what his rising from the dead might mean. The world hopes that we'll think God was just pretending. But we do not think this is an idle tale do we?

My Award Winning Sermon

Acts 26:1-24 NRS Acts 26:1 Agrippa said to Paul, "You have permission to speak for yourself." Then Paul stretched out his hand and began to defend himself: 2 "I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews, 3 because you are especially familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews; therefore I beg of you to listen to me patiently. 4 "All the Jews know my way of life from my youth, a life spent from the beginning among my own people and in Jerusalem. 5 They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that I have belonged to the strictest sect of our religion and lived as a Pharisee. 6 And now I stand here on trial on account of my hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors, 7 a promise that our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship day and night. It is for this hope, your Excellency, that I am accused by Jews! 8 Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? 9 "Indeed, I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 And that is what I did in Jerusalem; with authority received from the chief priests, I not only locked up many of the saints in prison, but I also cast my vote against them when they were being condemned to death. 11 By punishing them often in all the synagogues I tried to force them to blaspheme; and since I was so furiously enraged at them, I pursued them even to foreign cities. 12 "With this in mind, I was traveling to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests, 13 when at midday along the road, your Excellency, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions. 14 When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.' 15 I asked, 'Who are you, Lord?' The Lord answered, 'I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. 16 But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you. 17 I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles-- to whom I am sending you 18 to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.' 19 "After that, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, 20 but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout the countryside of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do deeds consistent with repentance. 21 For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me. 22 To this day I have had help from God, and so I stand here, testifying to both small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would take place: 23 that the Messiah must suffer, and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles." 24 While he was making this defense, Festus exclaimed, "You are out of your mind, Paul! Too much learning is driving you insane!"

Much learning has driven you mad. All the little letters have accumulated in your head until your brain is clogged and now you’re disoriented. I know that I’m a little shaken myself. I don’t think I can stand right now. I haven’t even started drinking but I could use one now. You know a little lubrication of the gyroscope and I’ll be right as rain. But you Paul, seriously, the mid-day sun has effected you. I know a cool place you could go. We could all go there now and get a fine porter or ale. I’ll buy. They know me at this place and know that I’m good for it. It’d be a fine respite from our troubles and now I’m thinking you’re the most troubled of us all. I didn’t know. But come and we’ll talk in a more convivial circumstance and get you back out on the street in no time. This is what I do. I do this for people. That’s how you get to be procurator. Not by knowing too much and – really – not by doing too much. Yet here I am and there you are. Chained and knowing too much. All the words and all the letters zooming in at once.
And what do I wish to say, “that little learning has kept me sane?” Well if you must know, I don’t do more than I need. I read and know what I need to know. Although in truth, it’s not that I don’t know nothing. I did pass the procurator’s exam: laugh at the right times and voice assent without hesitation. I have been educated. I know some passage is from Livy and another from Horace. I know my Aneid too.
Where was I? Yes, Much learning has driven you mad. The letters and words approaching an interchange in your head are jammed together and unable to exit. Like some great circular highway, filled with vehicles, there is no stopping off place. That is, I’ve not followed you. You’ve left me dizzy with your talk of messiahs and resurrections. It’s not incredible that God should raise the dead, to me, but that God should care. Why should I care that God should care? Should it matter to me that the world was created good and that the creator still creates goodness – though frankly what I see is pretty crappy It doesn’t take much learning to see that we’re living in a desert and that enough people here are more concerned about killing those they disagree with than improving the living conditions of a desert. I know for instance that a cool place to talk and have a drink would help us all here.
Did you say that we must turn from darkness to light? From the power of Satan to the power of God? That we should have faith in this dead man, Jesus? See this is where I fall off. I can’t see how faith in this man, (Jesus?) will make a difference for me. But I can see that it’s put you in chains. That’s how I know that you’re mad. It’s the desert and this word heavy culture, all these people with their books and history, fighting to do what? To continue living on a rock in the desert by a still stream. No one here is disobedient to a heavenly vision – would that they were.
Much learning is driving mad. Madly driving you and all these people. And what can I say, that if you try to keep the learning down, you might do something more practical than having heavenly visions. I have no doubt that heavenly visions are occurring right now and that if I knew too much I might feel compelled to obey one. But let me tell you that ignorance, when properly applied, is a good and powerful thing. A bush is still burning in the desert but I don’t want to know it. Let me stupidly gaze at this bright light and then continue on my journeyings.
What I want to say is that much learning is getting you killed. Doesn’t that drive you mad? Heavenly visions; history; salvation: Wouldn’t it be nice to build a home, tend a garden, father a family? You don’t have to know much to be like the rest of us. Disobey the heavenly vision a bit. It gets easier each day – I imagine. Soon you’ll be walking down the street having conversations about the weather and wishing people a nice day. You won’t be here, chained, mad.
Great, learning is driving you mad and me a little tipsy. Did you see the apple orchards on the hillside north of here? They’re blooming and full. Is there nothing more beautiful than hills covered in olive groves? I turn a corner and see the chalky white blocks of houses and villages, sheep herded along the road, and I think: What’s to know? We’re in a quiet corner of the empire, far enough away that government doesn’t bother us, but not so far away that we’re not protected. Imagine there’s no Satan and no God. A little ignorance and we’re cozy. Snug.
Ignorance, quiet, pacific, assuring, holds me safe. I see no vision. I work for no historical outcome. I neither obey nor disobey and the faith I have is in my position and that in a few minutes I’ll have a drink and you can walk out with me and Agrippa here and we’ll be right as rain, unchained. We can know what we know, but why more. And we’ll not talk of dead men walking among us or of Satan and God possessing us and we’ll just worship the night and day that surround us. See no madness, no troubling of the waters.
Paul, why are you mad for this Jesus? Haven’t you learned from your experience and what I’ve told you that things could be better for you? You won’t see Caesar and you won’t lose your head. You’ll see the sunrise and the nightfall. You’ll see the olives grow, pressed and flowing, bread dipped and eaten in the shade.
Let’s say I heard you. I’d be mad for sure. Would I suddenly feed the hungry and help the poor? The empire wouldn’t tolerate a population of well-fed poor people. We have to keep our insurrectionists few and ill fed, not add to their numbers. When the hope of a people is no hope, peace reigns. This is the peace we enjoy: We eat and enjoy our selves without being bothered or fearing for our lives. So you see: The very hope of people without food or clothing, who sleep in fear of the rain and the open road, is to not have hope. Would this dead man, Jesus, save me when they rose up in arms demanding a place to live and sleep safely, when suddenly well-fed and clothed they began demanding rights?
I’m sorry I can’t hear you. I’m mad for safety. I see you’ll go on and I’ll stay here. Your great learning drives you madly. You won’t take a break from Jesus. You’ll obey a bright light and voice that met you in the desert. This dead man’s way will be your death. And his life? If I could have faith in such a life. But then I wouldn’t be a procurator. I wouldn’t be sitting with kings and having some lamb and greens afterwards. The dates here are marvelous.You won’t find them where you’re going.