Taking The Blessed Attendence

A father once wrote a note for his child. The child had missed a day of school, but in his haste, the father omitted a critical word:
“Please excuse Fred for being… it’s his mother’s fault and it won’t happen again.”

To be absent, you understand, is a strange concept. We know what it means in terms of school, family reunions, wedding rehearsals and brainstorming sessions at work. During the course of everyday experience, being absent implies that we can’t be in two places at once. It means that we’re never going to make every appointment, that occasionally somebody will be disappointed or let down or stood up or left hanging. But I suppose the biggest reason for us to ponder the weirdness of being absent is the way that Jesus begins his teaching in Matthew, chapter five. Jesus starts by taking what I’m going to call The Blessed Attendance, and this is a role call that his immediate disciples must learn to take themselves. And, you see, taking the blessed attendance doesn’t have anything to do with determining who’s in and who’s out. The blessed attendance actually marks presence of God with those who polite society often regards as not here. For example, according to Jesus, God is primarily present among the poor in spirit and those who mourn and the meek. These folks are not what we’d call the movers and shakers of society. They’re not the life of the party. They’re not competing to see how many friends they can get on Facebook. And yet, according to Jesus, they are blessed. They are favored by God precisely because of their vulnerability, their humility and therefore their teachability.

In Shadowlands, the story about the relationship of CS Lewis and Joy Greshem, Lewis is fond of giving speeches about why God allows pain and suffering in the world. He says at every occasion pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Suffering is what pushes us out of the nursery and into the hallway; God doesn’t necessarily want us to be happy, but to grow up. Well, he offers this over and over again until one night, his wife dies of cancer.
During the succeeding months of winter, which Lewis refers to as the time of shadows he confides in his brother, “Experience is a brutal teacher… But by God you learn. You do learn.”

Now, if you were to ask C.S. Lewis what it was that he learned, my best guess is that he would say how blessed he is. His wife had died. He’d been given a great gift, and from his life she’d been taken. And Lewis had therefore been blessed. In other words, he’d been blessed with an absence—the absence of someone incredibly dear—who in turn reminded him of God’s active presence. God marks himself as present with those who are poor in spirit. God marks himself as present with those who mourn. God marks himself as present with the meek.

In The Go-Between God, John V. Taylor describes how the African villagers would interact with the missionaries. He would be working and a friend would come in. There would be a brief greeting of some kind. And then, the African would squat down in the room. About thirty minutes would go by without conversation. The missionary simply went on with his work while the friendly visitor just occupied space. Then he would rise and say, “I have see you,” and walk out the door. Could this be what Jesus is teaching?

I once sat quietly in the waiting room of the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. Next to me, sprawled out on the vinyl seats were an elderly mother and father, a young wife, an older brother and a friend of the family. We huddled there in the glass-enclosed room, adjacent to the corridor, after we had seen somebody’s son, somebody’s wife, somebody’s brother and somebody’s friend wheeled on a gurney into surgery. There he had been, lying prone beneath the sterile sheets. He glanced at us and we glanced back, wondering if this might be the last time we would ever share that kind of interaction. Anyway, I prayed with those who remained in the waiting room and then just stayed.
I felt like I didn’t belong when the man’s parents asked me a series of polite questions. We drifted into a discussion of the news and world events. And then even the world faded and we leaned into the quiet. And all of a sudden a deacon from another local church burst through the door. She laughed and joked and asserted herself all over the place. Whenever a tear dripped on a cheek she immediately launched into a loud prayer. So, after one of those boisterous pep-rallies, I excused myself. Hours had gone by, and the presence of the deacon made me wonder about my own usefulness. Was I just a bump on some non-assertive log? Would it be better for me to go?

Well, upon my return to the waiting room, I received my answer. In the room the absence of the garrulous deacon could not have been more palpable. Sitting down next to the wife, I asked about leaving. She said, “No, please stay. That lady was so distracting I’ve lost my focus on God…”
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God…

Over and over again what Jesus makes abundantly clear is the conduit of God’s purpose and power. Those who are blessed are not necessarily the wealthy and the healthy. Those who are blessed by the God of Israel, says Jesus, will be people who have been hollowed out enough—so that we become like a channel through which God’s Spirit gushes forth blessing. We are—or we become—in the words of Genesis 12, “blessed to be a blessing.”

Kevin Ford writes about consulting with a church in California. He asked them, what specifically makes this place so appealing?
“The music rocks!” “The dramas make me laugh and cry.” “The pastor’s sermons are so relevant to my needs.” “My teenager plays the bass in the youth band.” “My children meet in rooms with jungle creatures painted on the walls.” Everything here is always high quality.”

So, what would happen, wondered Ford aloud, if the pastor left or the worship leader resigned or the children’s ministry declined in quality?
“I would leave,” came one reply.
“I saw this really cool Web site for Hope Community,” said someone else.
“I’ll take my kids wherever I can find the best program…”

You see, not one person in this outwardly affluent and very successful church, not one mentioned anything about personal transformation, about being blessed in order to be a blessing. Not one mentioned how he or she had been sent by God into their homes, into their marriages, into their workplaces and neighborhoods. And of course, that snippet from the book, Transforming Church, turns my attention back to the opportunity that we have here at Latah Valley. Here at Latah Valley we have the chance to see those whom Jesus considers Blessed and to mark God’s presence with them.

Amen.

The Fulfilled Literacy Rate

A blogging mother explains the advantages of her young children not knowing how to read…
As we sat in the mini-van in the parking lot, the kids wanted me to open their fortune cookies and read their fortunes to them. I seized the moment….I totally owned it.

Cole yelled to me, “Mommy, read mine….read mine first”. I said, “Okay, Cole, yours says ‘He who cleans his room as a child grows up to be a wise man who will someday be a famous race car driver’”.

Bella’s fortune read: “A child who eats all her vegetables at every meal will grow long beautiful hair, like Hannah Montana, and marry Troy Bolton from High School Musical”.

Garrett’s fortune read: “The child who sleeps through the night in his own bed is said to become a dragon warrior like Kung Fu Panda when he grows up”.

Landon’s fortune read: “He who no longer gets put on time-outs or talks back to his mother will become a train engineer someday, traveling to wonderful far-away places”.

They all stared at me in awe….”Wow, Mommy….do our fortunes really say all that?”. I said, “Yes…aren’t they awesome?”. Cole said, “Yeah, it’s like they were written just for us”. I smiled and said, “Yes, son…they were….amazing, huh?”

Now, whether we agree with this parenting technique or not, something about the episode sounds awfully familiar. And it gives us a reason to pause and to wonder. In fact, I have to wonder if something like that fortune cookie reading isn’t happening every day of our lives. Could it be? I wouldn’t go so far as to call it propaganda. But somehow and in various and eccentric ways we are persuaded, aren’t we? A parent wants us to behave, and so life is read to us in a morally persuasive way. An advertising executive wants us to need a glitzy new product, and so life is read to us as if we really have to have it. A politician wants to win an election, and so life is read to us as if the history of the free world depended upon our vote. Life is read to us. Life is fed to us in a jumble of fortune cookie interpretations. And so, the best that we can do, the best that Cole, Bella, Garrett and Landon can do, is to realize that this kind of persuasive interpretation happens—and happens all the time—and then to make a decision about the one who is reading: Is there a person out there who can read to us without trying to push us and prod us? And do we trust him? And finally are we willing to see where his reading of our lives will take us?
“When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, (Jesus) went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, as was his custom. He stood up to read…”

A friend of mine said that he learned to read by reading the Bible. His parents made him practice every day and when he finished reading the Bible, from cover to cover, he said that he knew how to read, but he didn’t believe a word of what he had read. “Not a single word,” I replied.
“Well, I believe that certain things may have happened. But I wouldn’t interpret them they way they’ve been interpreted. For example, the Red Sea. I don’t believe that Moses or God parted the Red Sea. It was probably more like a tsunami or some other natural explanation…”

“But is it possible that God could have been involved in causing the tsunami?”
“It’s possible,” said my friend.
“But I don’t see it that way… Besides, what’s God doing causing natural catastrophes? I thought he was supposed to be good.”

You see, conversations like these are now commonplace, and they’re capable of going in an infinite number of wild directions. At this very moment, the Internet is abuzz with every imaginable theory on the Bible, on science, on health, on wealth, on happiness and on the end of the world as we know it. Unlike any other time in human history we can read almost anything from any point of view. But, let’s focus on the way that Jesus has learned to read.

Jesus, of course, doesn’t traffic in fortune cookies. He doesn’t chat on-line. He doesn’t twit about what he’s doing right now. His readings involve the Torah, the Psalms and the Prophets—all of which were available to be read by only three percent of the Jewish population of Judea. The remaining ninety-seven percent had to listen. They had to listen and consequently to rely upon the interpretations of those educated enough to read in public—ie., the scribes. According to Luke 2:46, however, a twelve-year-old Jesus apparently had learned enough Hebrew to offer interpretations of his own. And that’s how he learned how to read his life—in community. In a community of people who were willing and able to go back and forth about the tangible, nitty-gritty meaning of words. And so, returning to Nazareth, he stood up to read.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…”
You see, that’s an interpretation already, isn’t it? Already the writer of this passage has crafted his words as if the Spirit of the Lord might come to rest upon somebody, as if it might dig its talons into a person like a bird grabs onto its prey. And that’s an interpretation of the world and of human history that’s very different from Cole becoming a famous race car driver, if he cleans his room. It’s very different from Bella growing her hair like Hannah Montana, if she eats her vegetables. In fact, that “Spirit of the Lord” reading of things might be considered dangerous. Think about it. Garrett might be trying to sleep through the night in his own bed when suddenly the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him. Landon might be ready to enter the best train engineering school in the whole country, but one day the Spirit of the Lord sends him to Haiti instead. And who is this “me” that Jesus reads about?
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon ME because he has anointed ME to bring good news to the poor. He has sent ME to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

For years, even centuries, I can imagine this passage being read by rabbis and scribes. And yet, none of them would even dare dream of being “me.” To be the “me” in Isaiah 61 would instantaneously load you up with cosmic responsibility. You wouldn’t have anywhere to hide or any time to call your own. And consequently I don’t imagine very many readers of this passage rendering that interpretation. For them, “me” might be better understood and could possibly be interpreted as “all of us” or “all of Israel.”

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon all of Israel…” Yeah, that’s it. And now, you see, there are all kinds of places to hide. Now I could hear that sentence being read and say to myself:
Wow! That’s cool. The Spirit is upon all of us in general, but as far as what the Spirit has sent us to do—well, I sure hope somebody’s doing it!

Saint Augustine, before he became known as Saint Augustine, used to carouse around the brothels and the bookstores of North Africa. He had made his way through all the published works of Aristotle and sampled most types of ale, when one of his drinking buddies died. At the age of thirty-two, he wandered into a garden to be alone, where he overheard some children playing a game; and during the game one of the children distinctly said, “Take up and read.” Perched next to Augustine someone had left a parchment copy of the Paul’s Letter to Romans. He picked up the words and carried them with him for the rest of his life. He used them to interpret the world in the name of Jesus Christ:
“Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?”

“I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.”

The point is—everything requires interpretation. And every interpretation requires a community that believes that interpretation and expresses a desire to live it out. Even those things that the Declaration of Independence declares as self-evident—even life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—aren’t exactly evident to every individual that’s even lived and died. Someone else has to explain them to us. And then to give us a chance to respond.

“Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

This, you see, is the response of Jesus to what’s been read and re-read and interpreted and re-interpreted for a long time. Jesus responds by owning the words that are read. He is the “me” that the Spirit has sent to bring good news, and he’s willing and perhaps able to bear that cosmic load. But now the question is this: Will there be a community of men, women and children who agree with him? And will they for once stop hiding and live as if it were true? And will they die as if it were true?

Before he died last April, Chuck Gulick showed me an article in Time magazine about Jesus. I glanced at it, and said, “What about it?” He adjusted the bandanna on his head and said, “We’re ahead of the curve, aren’t we?” I nodded. We are ahead of the curve, but not because we read about Jesus in Time. It’s because, once upon a time, Jesus read about us. Amen.

Do Whatever He Tells You

Whatever. Biblically speaking, it’s a perfectly good word. In Genesis 2:19, “whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.” Deuteronomy 23:23 declares that “whatever your lips utter you must diligently perform.” Regarding the words of the true prophet, 1 Samuel 9:6 clarifies things like this: “whatever he says always comes true.” But, you see, in spite of this rich history, I’m afraid that the popular use of the English word, whatever, has fallen on hard times. On the Internet, Wikipedia identifies whatever as a slang expression of (reluctant) agreement, indifference, or begrudging compliance. Whatever also has currency as a catch-all retort for people who cannot come up with good retorts. It’s often found in scripted lines, used by Caucasian females, emphasizing the final two syllables, as in ‘like what-ever!’ This is an actual exchange of dialogue from a recent movie.
I’m not going to let those vampires eat me.
They’re zombies, Frank.
Whatever.

You see, with the simple insertion of the term, whatever, contemporary human beings are able to break free from what’s been uttered only a second earlier, while simultaneously acknowledging that it’s been said. In a world where more and more words are peddled, printed and electronically downloaded every day, whatever functions like an escape hatch. Whatever cloaks us with pseudo-invisibility and absolves us of any real responsibility… And yet, before we get too carried away with the laissez-faire benefits of whatever, consider how Jesus latches on to the expression.

Mary says in John’s Gospel, “Do whatever he tells you.” She says it to the servants at a wedding party. She says it because the host of the party is about to run out of wine. Do whatever, whispers the mother of Jesus, with her hand cupped to her mouth. Do whatever words the Word of God exhales in your direction. Do the very sound vibrations that you hear from his lips. Do whatever those syllables signal you to do. Do them.
Long before cell phones and text messaging and social networking, we had a signal. Each of the kids in the neighborhood knew the signal, and we could be playing inside with our toys or watching cartoons or sleeping in late when we heard it. The signal emanated from the vocal chords of the first prepubescent kid to wander outside his or her front door. And what the signal signaled was that every other kid should come out and join in a game of Kick The Can or street hockey or… whatever. The activity itself didn’t matter. What mattered then to a bunch of neighborhood children is still what matters today, which is the tangible doing of what the signal signals.

And let me ask you something on the third Sunday of the New Year: do you imagine that God has a signal? Is there a signal that calls each man, woman and child, made in the image of God, to one worldwide community? If it’s true that a signal exists, then the types of activities, the games that we play, the food that we eat, the drinks we drink, could be whatever. Just so long as we do whatever in response to that original summons, that original signal, that original word.

“Do you dare try,” says the Jesuit priest in The Mission, a film, starring Jeremy Irons and Robert DeNiro. Do you dare try… I remember listening to that line being delivered by Father Gabriel to the character that had just killed his brother. Rodrigo Mendoza sat alone in a prison cell. And I sat alone in my living room. “For me there is no redemption,” says the slave trader to the priest. “There is no penance great enough.” “There is,” replies Father Gabriel. “But do you dare try it.” You see, penance is a practice of the Roman Catholic Church in which a person of faith does something to show how sorry he is for damaging the God-given relationships that comprise his own life. Doing penance is meant to lead to restoration. According to the tradition, penance may involve saying a few Hail Marys. Or, in the case of Rodrigo Mendoza, it could mean lugging a load of heavy armor around the forest of South America. Whatever.
The point, you see, is not the specific thing that we do, but that we resemble those servants who receive their instructions in the second chapter of John’s Gospel.
“Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘fill the jars with water…’”

Now I am no big advocate for the formal practice of penance. At Latah Valley we do not believe it’s necessary for you and I to do anything to receive God’s forgiveness. But here’s the ironic twist of this entire passage. The servants are about to fill the very containers which have been intended for the ritual cleansing of individuals. The H2O that typically comes out of these jars is meant to forgive sins. It’s not meant to be consumed at a party. It’s meant to wash away the dirt of the world. So what might we infer when Jesus tells the party staff to do whatever with those purification jars? And what does it mean for us today that doing whatever may lead to at least 180 gallons of the best wine we’ve ever tasted?

Around Christmas time I attended a party where the wine flowed. On the kitchen table were about twenty-some open bottles. And every once in a while the host of the party fought his way through his guests and brought up another bottle or two. Then, just for fun, a group of us traced his steps and walked down to his basement where the wine had been stored. There it was, amid the ski boots, the dust mop and a few cans of old Campbell’s Soup. We stood there a moment, admiring the variety and asking questions. And then, from the mouth of this attorney who also owned a winery I heard the signal. The signal came in the form of a question about Latah Valley. He asked me about worship, about whatever it is we do together in Jesus’ name. And shortly after that, maybe a few minutes, maybe an hour, we forgot all about filling glasses. We were having fun. Doing whatever Jesus tell us to do, even if it doesn’t always make sense, doing whatever leads to fun. Amen.

Filled With Expectation

Something is not rotten in Denmark. I read recently that the Danish people are more satisfied with their lives than their counterparts in other countries and the primary reason is lower expectations. That’s right. With regard to the economy, for example, the Danes are mediocre at best. But because their bureaucratic leaders start off the year, setting employment goals and loan re-payment goals so low, they actually feel quite good about things. The same is true when it comes to health issues, to the institution of marriage and to the prospects of raising children and getting a good education. Time and time again, the Danish citizens don’t expect much. And, therefore, when a fair number of flu patients actually recover, that’s a beautiful thing. When more than sixty percent of children are born to couples who are not married and have no intention of getting married ever or ever again, hey, it could be worse. In fact, as an illustration of how the Danes massage and milk this lowered-expectation gig, consider this headline. In the very headline from a Copenhagen newspaper, which announced Denmark’s status as the number one happiest country in Europe, the editors included the words lig nu, which means “for now” or “for the time being.” So, Denmark is the happiest country for the time being, and it’s probably not going to last…

Now the reason that I mention this anthropological trivia is not to encourage us to imitate the people of Denmark. I don’t think the secret to living the Christian life is to lower our expectations. On the contrary, based on today’s passage, my sense is that expectations ought not to be raised or lowered, but perhaps re-directed. So, let me just enunciate this point: Jesus of Nazareth can meet our every expectation, provided that we believe in the expectations that he has of us. Moreover, I want to highlight the way in which John the Baptist deflects the expectations of the crowd in Luke 3:15 and how he does it without trivializing the expectations that the people bring to him, but which they really ought to bring to Jesus.

“As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming…”

More powerful. You and I can expect the Messiah to be more powerful. But how might we expect to experience that power?

On the night of the Live Nativity, on December 20, we had two horses that had been donated by Sandy Jones, who runs an equine therapy organization. Anyway, these animals came highly recommended. They were mellow and good with children. But as we packed things up, around 8 o’clock, the horse named Loki decided that he wasn’t going back in his trailer. In fact, he just stood there, and as we watched Sandy tempt him with candy canes and whip him with a rope and poke him with a pitch fork, nothing worked. Sheryl and I felt helpless. For over an hour, we pleaded and begged until the woman who owned the trailer, Carol Granley, contacted her twenty-year old daughter who is veterinary student at Washington State. Carol’s daughter had been the one, the original one who broke Loki and trained him. And so, this is what went down. First, Carol spoke to the horse like this, “Just wait til Amy gets here… Amy’s coming.” And when Amy arrived, she got out of her car with a vengeance. With her big ol’ boots, she then walked directly to the animal and grabbed the reins. She talked to him for about thirty seconds, and then she booted him in the ribs. Amy then adjusted the bit in the horse’s mouth and kicked him again. And this finally helped Loki to make a decision. He would climb in the trailer.

Now, I had no idea what to expect. And as it relates to the New Year and our shared journey of faith, I have relatively few ideas. Can we expect a few candy canes of kindness and compassion? Probably. Can we expect a few lashes with the whip of worry? Most definitely. And can we expect the pitch fork of pride to poke us in the rear end? Absolutely. But, you see, unless we’ve been trained to expect “one more powerful than I,” we are never going home.
Think about this. John the Baptist had been the center of the people’s attention. Far from the Jordan River, his influence had even created ripples in the pool of King Herod. And so, just as the political expectations are about to peak, this man, surviving on locusts and wild honey, deflects everything they expect of him to one more powerful. And check it out. This one who is more powerful will have to power to expect things from you and from me.

“I was in Rwanda a few years ago,” writes Rob Bell,
“and a group of us went hiking in the slums of Kigali with a woman named Pauline. Pauline spends her free time caring for people who are about to die of HIV/AIDS. She agree to take us to visit one of her friends who had only hours to live. We hiked through this slum for what seemed like miles, and as we got farther in, the shacks became smaller and smaller until all we had to walk on were narrow trails with sewage crisscrossing in streams that ran beside, and sometimes under the shacks… Eventually we ended up in a dirt-floored shack about six by six feet. A woman was lying under so many blankets that all we could see was her mouth and eyes. Her name was Jacqueline. Paulene had become her friend and had been visiting her consistently for the past few months. As I knelt down beside her on the floor I watched Pauline, standing in the corner, weeping. Her friend was going to die soon. What overwhelmed me wasn’t the death or despair or poverty. What overwhelmed me was the compassion. In this dark place Pauline’s love and compassion were simply… bigger. More. It is as if the smallest amount of light is infinitely more powerful than massive amounts of dark…” (Velvet Elvis, p. 74).

You see, it’s that kind of revelation—and that kind of power—that we can expect from Jesus. In fact, Jesus will fill us with so many expectations of ourselves we won’t know how we’ll be able to meet them. Only if he helps us will we be able to meet them.

Just this week, I’ve noticed the kind of expectations that dominate my thinking. I fully expected my car repairs to be completed by Friday. I fully expected that Amazon would deliver my package of books in three to five business days. A week after the New Year’s festivities, I fully expected to lose a little weight. But nothing fills me up like the expectation that Jesus gives to me and to us. It is the expectation that in Christ what we do his love. The love that God has for the world and each person in the world—we can expect to do that day after day and night after night… Amen.

REFLECTIONS ON THE GLASS BEING HALF-EMPTY OR HALF-FULL: All Things, Including The Glass

Looking ahead to next 362 days, at least three things, and maybe more, are clear. One is that the glass is half empty. The second is that the glass is half full. And the third thing, according to John’s Gospel, is that the glass itself has been called into being by the Word of God, which has now been made flesh in the person of the Jesus Christ. You see, by believing these words, “all things came into being through him,” the people here, in this room, and in this moment, pre-empt the proverbial glass. No one who pays attention to Jesus is captivated by the glass being half empty because the crucified Lord of all creation has his fingerprints all over it. Moreover, if there happens to be an eternal optimist in the crowd, listen very carefully. You are not the boss. You are not the mastermind of your own life, nor anyone else’s. The most that you may be is “a witness” to the light, and that light has filled the glass long before you ever thought of taking a sip of champagne.

Let me tell you where all this is venting from. Last week, on Christmas Day, the NFL network re-broadcast a classic game of football. It had been played in the snow between the New England Patriots and the Oakland Raiders on January 19th of 2002. I remember the game because, originally, on that day, eight years ago, I had watched the action live, at a party, with a half a glass of beer in my hand, sitting next to a young seminary student from Florida. Patrick had flown up to be interviewed by us about an internship at our church. So, we talked and then took him to the gathering, where we watched the game and mingled. After the game, which featured the famous controversy about the tuck rule, (if you’re into that kind of sports memorabilia), we hired him. Patrick then drove up from Florida that June and spent the summer, praying and playing and participating in ministry with us. We loved him. And then, near the very end of his time, he asked out a young woman, named Jenn, who served on our praise team. Jenn and Patrick eventually married the next year and the year after that they would move to Nebraska, where Patrick would be the pastor of a church in the town of Wahoo. Now, why am I telling you all this?
Well, if it’s indeed true that “all things came into being” through Jesus Christ, then it’s also true that every football game you’ve ever watched came into being through that same Word. And, of course, that applies to every game of cards that you may have played over the last two weeks. And to every ski slope you may have skied. But, you see, if it’s true for those fun things that you and I do for entertainment and pleasure, the Word of God in Christ must also be available to us when the house seems empty and when the afternoons seem to drag on.

For example, during the years since that game in January, 2002, Patrick and Jenn have known times when the glass seemed incredibly full, and devastatingly empty. In the spring before their move to Nebraska we learned with joy about Jenn’s pregnancy. Then, months later, we received a phone call, saying the baby that Jenn had carried for nine months had died due to some complications with the birth. Traveling out to do the service, I felt drained long before Patrick greeted me at the airport with a vacant smile. And when Jenn showed me through their home, failing to open the door to the nursery, we wept until everybody and everything seemed like a foggy window pane. Was it all worth it? Was it worth getting up off the couch? Was it worth the interview and the drive from Florida and the flight to Nebraska? And, you see, after lots of anguish and consternation, I think Patrick and Jenn would say Yes, and so might the child they recently adopted from South Korea.
“All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life…”

Not too long ago, there appeared a book on the best sellers list, known as The Secret. And within the pages of this enigmatic tome, millions of Americans imbibed things like the following:
“The Secret is the Law of Attraction… Whatever is going on in your mind is what you are attracting… You attract your dominant thoughts… Everything in your life you have attracted…”

Now, I’m bringing this to your attention because I think it’s the equivalent of eating a bowl of ice cream that’s been laced with rat poison.
“What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”
Listen, the light of all people is not that you and I will attract good things to our lives if we only think good things and bad things to our lives if we tragically think bad things. That’s not the light of all people. The light of all people is that God gives himself to us every day and in every way, whether we feel empty and alone, or full and well-healed. The light of all people in fact is the light because it shines in the darkness. So how would it be if the light shined in the darkness and we obstinately refused and said, No Thank You, Light of the World, we’re busy attracting our own light?

Consider Marla Runyon, a woman who had been diagnosed as legally blind for 22 years. From the age of nine, the 31 year old runner had not been able to see anything except the fuzzy outline of her competitors. And yet, in spite of her limitations, Marla raced in the Olympics. Qualifying for the 1500 meters, she eventually finished eighth, just seconds behind the medal winners. And this is what she said after the race, after following the blob of indistinguishable runners into the darkness. She said, the real challenge is “making that final turn and racing toward the finish line that I can’t see… I just know it’s there.”

I love contemplating that comment as you and I consider the up and coming year. We are—each one of us—racing toward the finish line that we can’t see. And that means that everything that we may experience in life—all things—whether those things make it seem like the glass is half-empty or half-full—all things lead somewhere. There is, in fact, an ending, a purpose and a meaning to which each of us and all of us have been called. But there is no guarantee of happiness. There is no formula which we require God to keep you healthy and wealthy. There is no iron clad bunker that will keep us all safe and secure. All there is in 2010 is the prospect of discovering the presence of God in all things. And we have that prospect whether our temperament sees the glass as half empty or half full. Amen.

On All My Holy Mountain

1. A Story About Being Judged.

In today’s passage from the prophet Isaiah, three stories intersect and coalesce into a fascinating pattern. And it’s a pattern with which we are very familiar.

C. S. Lewis once described the Christian hope in terms of embroidery. On the one side of the woven work of art there are the beautiful colors, coming together in the form of an image that makes our hearts want to soar and sing. But, you see, on the other side of the embroidery, there exists all kinds of ugly knots and frayed threads. And one of these threads involves a story of being judged.

Do you remember the first time that you felt judged, and on the basis of what criteria you experienced that judgment?

In Isaiah 11:3 the Messianic King is described as a leader who will NOT…

“judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear;

And yet, before we encounter the thrilling beauty of that hope, you and I know very well how easy it is to judge and to be judged according to mere appearances. We know how tiring and how tedious it is to live within the wheel house of the rumor mill.

For example, when eating shrimp with Sheryl, never encourage her to drink a blush wine. Wine, shrimp and Sheryl do not mix. And the combination will lead to your judgment. Here’s what happened. When the kids were very young we took them to the beach in Delaware. At night, against my better judgment, Sheryl ate some shrimp and sloshed back a few glasses of pink rose. After leaving the restaurant, we strolled back to our motel and put Ian and Philip to bed on the pull-out couch. Next to the couch there was a winding spiral staircase, leading to a loft area where we would sleep. Sheryl, in the middle of the night, couldn’t sleep. She went to the bathroom often, and on one occasion I heard this high-pitched cartoon voice, which I imagined to be a dream. I realized it wasn’t a dream when I heard a thud hit the tile floor. Getting up and going to the bathroom, I found my wife there, in a pool of blood. She had fallen and hit the floor with her face, injuring her nose. So, after trying to stop the bleeding, I called 911 and saw the EMT guys ascend our spiral staircase with a metal cart on which they placed my wife. The children remained asleep throughout the entire ordeal, and so not wanting to wake them or to leave them I saw the ambulance take my wife away. And I waited until morning. I waited, gathered the boys, stuffed them with pop-tarts and drove to the hospital. Well, upon entering the emergency room, I experienced a series of angry stares, coming from the nursing staff. Without knowing me, or knowing what happened, they simply looked at Sheryl’s face and had assumed that I had punched her. I had been judged and it didn’t feel good at all.
In fact, it helped me to imagine how an abusive husband or father may be driven to despair, and how the victim of that abuse would be marked forever with the stigma of being a victim. So, what are we to do? When judgment are based on what they eyes see and what the ears hear, where are we to go?

Well, Isaiah seems to suggest that we should go to Jesus, who once staggered up that spiral staircase all the way to the cross on the mountain of calvary. Jesus knows what it’s like to be judged and to be judged wrongly. But he also knows what it means to absorb that evil and reverse it for the good of those who truly seek him.

“but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist and faithfulness the belt around his loins.”

2. A Story About Being Hurt.

Now, closely intertwined with being judged, is a story about being hurt—being physically, emotionally and psychologically and spiritually hurt. Isaiah alludes to that story in verses six through eight, when he recites the marvelous shift that will occur on God’s holy mountain. On God’s holy mountain, a predator will snuggle up with its traditional prey, a domesticated animal will forage for food with a wild beast and a child will be able to handle poisonous snakes as if they were harmless. Yet, in order to encounter that reversal, you and I have to enter into the real pain of the real lives of people near and far.

William Willimon recalls a businessman who everyone regarded as a hurtful human being.
He was brusque to the point of bluntness and no one had ever thought of him for any job in the church because he was a hardboiled business guy who was too rough and direct for nice church people.
Well, this man retired and found retirement difficult. So one day, when he was telling me that he was struggling with depression because of his retirement from his powerful and prestigious business position, I suggested to him that he come work in our church clothes closet and food pantry. I don’t know why on earth I thought that it might be a good idea. Maybe the Holy Spirit put the idea in my head!
So he goes to work there three mornings a week. And there he meets people who are down on their luck, people having a tough time, like the mother who had her electricity turned off because she was late paying her electric bill. Well, he heard about it and next thing you know he was on the telephone talking with the president of the electric company (a golf buddy of his) telling him that he ought to be ashamed of his company turning off the power to this woman’s house. She got her electricity back that very day.
You see, what if all stories of hurt are meant to be twisted back and back into something beautiful. And, what if through battles with depression and fear, the very way that we are made becomes the key to undoing another person’s hurt.

3. A Story About The Future.

This is the way that the prophet Isaiah predicts it will be for all time. He writes,

“They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Now, like you, I’ve been wondering about this story of the future for more than four weeks. A period of four weeks is not nearly long enough for God to produce the changes that he’s promised through the prophets. Seven centuries, from the time of Isaiah to the time of Jesus birth, wasn’t long enough. Two thousand years, from then and until this moment, hasn’t been long enough either. But think this morning, on the cusp of 2010, about the gap that remains between us and a world without hurt or destruction.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, alone in his prison cell, wrote about missing his fiancé during Christmas in 1943. You can imagine him, staring at the walls and scribbling these words:

Nothing can make up for the absence of someone we love, and it would be wrong to try to find a substitute; we must simply hold out and see it through. That sounds very hard at first, but at the same time it is a great consolation, for the gap, as long as it remains unfilled, preserves the bonds between us…

You see, this is a story not just about the people we miss during the holidays, but about a yearning that must be passed on from generation to generation. Keep the gap open. Do not try to stuff a substitute in the vacuum of history and assume that’s the best we can do. God has promised a story that has no ending, and it will be told and re-told on “all my holy mountain.”

Amen.

A Great Light [Poem For Christmas Eve]

Read Isaiah 9:2–7

Only in walking have we seen it.
Around the edge of thick darkness
Around the familiar brick corner
Like a jaded lover, puckering for a kiss,
A great light lurks.

And when, in frantic hours,
we enter hospitals, hotels, motels, restaurants, theatres, courtrooms and prisons,
it’s this same light that steals the hard ground and begins the revisions
Of countless decisions, and awkward, weighty collisions.

This statement runs counter to most we’ve been taught
and to the multitude of angels that we’ve bought
and yet, is true. Is true. Is true. Is true.
A great light lurks
And there’s nothing Assyrian policy can do.

The automatic doors of the ER remain open tonight
For a young mother in flight; she closes her eyes as the doctor shakes his head,
As she hears the monitor-monotone over the bed. How long were they wed?

Never mind. Just never you mind.
On her at least a great light has shined.

Not directly, of course, but slant it slides down
Upon faces with traces of that sad, little clown.

Radiance, we are taught, roars from on high
From a torch or a steeple or a neon sky-scraper
But as it turns out, the city’s illumined with vapor.

A great light lurks
When nothing else works
Not even the car. Not even the fetal position at the bar.
And that guy, let-go, no longer necessary, what’s his name?
Can the severance really remedy his shame?

Never mind. Just never you mind.
On him as well a great light has shined.

And meanwhile, with style, the shoppers resist.
They check Love like a label on the rack,
Incandescent bulbs, revealing everything
the heart wants back. Choose the color according to taste.
Enter the fitting room and pull out the pins. Avoid looking too long
at the tangle of sins, not ageless, in the mirror.

And yet, is true.
Is true. Is true. Is true.

The light of the cosmos
loiters in dust, where all signs say No loitering.
At the mall, where a million shareholders invest
in rust, no one can foresee the landfill of powers,
which already deplete,
and so we repeat.

Jesus, extending his fingers and toes, soaks up the fog of darkness as he goes.
His flesh, so able to bleed,
will finally succeed. And, as the prophets promise in haste,
we awkwardly waste. We awkwardly, gratefully, waste
the dimming digits, the Times Square fidgets.

Waste is the prayer
that weaves a wound or two into the bright fabric.
Waste is that same tunic worn by Mary on the night
she had to believe in despair, when the straw of the manger
infested her hair. And with her jaw set, like a pillar,
against a collapsing roof of pain, we—finally—yes—all of us—
learn a new lesson of ancient birth—where
a great light latches on for Dear Life, and
Dear Death is ripped
to royal
resplendent
rebellious and rowdy
shreds—

each of which
only appears to swaddle the frail infant who
most must emit.

A great light lurks beneath the counter of all these goods—
none of them can be returned during regular business hours.
So, please witness the strain imposed
on each luminous stitch, the shekinah glory of ill-fitting clothes.

Someone brand new will burst through
eventually.
Someone brand new, and yet, is you.
Is you. Is you. You.

Scott Kinder-Pyle
Merry Christmas Latah Valley
2009

One of The Little Clans

1. Starting off small gives the advantage of surprise.

When someone offers you advice—even if you don’t understand the advice—the prudent thing to do is to take it. Don’t necessarily act on the advice, but take it. Make a mental note of it, and worry about understanding it later.

In the fifth chapter of the prophetic book of Micah, I cannot help but feel that a scraggly guy with a really long beard, living in a cave, in the little village of Moresheth, is trying to give me some advice. It’s advice, of course, that has traveled a long way, through rivers, over mountains, across oceans, in and out of secret hiding places in ancient vessels that just barely made it through the storm. And it’s advice that’s also been transmitted through the centuries, just the stone walls of Jerusalem were about to breached. And, you see, the advice that I’m desperately trying to decode from Micah resembles something that I’ve heard from time to time.

For example, when I first moved back to the Philadelphia area with my family in 1996, a bald man without a beard once told me that the street signs in the city of brotherly love were not really intended to help commuters get to where they wanted to go. The street signs in Philadelphia, he said, were placed there by the local citizens in order to remind them of where they already are. So, if I truly wanted to get from Broad Street to the Liberty Bell, I had to stop my car and talk to somebody. You see, that’s some good advice. And it’s very much like the time when I met with a few retired businessmen here in Spokane. We had been discussing the purchase of this property, when I heard the owner of Latah Creek plaza offer this pithy observation: “Spokane is not a little Seattle. Spokane is a big Ritzville.” And, you know, I think that’s pretty accurate. What it actually means—I don’t yet understand. But I’m determined—with your help and with God’s help—to find out.
“But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel…”
Now, here’s what I think Micah, the prophet from 715 BCE, is trying to tell us. He trying to say we can’t act as if we can remain anonymous. In fact, God will hand pick a ruler from a place where it’s impossible to remain anonymous. And so, it behooves us to realize that the person who bags our groceries also knows the teacher who teaches our children and those children have classmates who occasionally shovel snow and do odd chores for the police officer who hands out speeding tickets as if they were Christmas cards and who also used to date the nurse who wonders if we’re allergic to penicillin.

In other words, whether “one of the little clans” hails from Judah or from the South Hill, we are known. And Micah, through all the years and over all the miles, just wants us to be advised. We are known! And one more thing, “from you”—that is, from the very ones who are known to one another and to God—from you shall come forth for me—Yahweh—“one who is to rule…”

Now, if that’s not a kick in the pants I don’t know what it is. Usually, if rulers are coming from anywhere, they’re coming from the top down. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that the standard operating procedure? Hasn’t this been the systemic plague and policy of every world power—from Joseph Stalin to George Steinbrenner? Rulers, by definition, don’t come from the old neighborhood. We don’t know them and they’re not really knowable; that’s part of their authoritative and aloof charm. But, according to Micah, a new regime is about to be installed from the ground up. In fact, starting off small will give this newly emerging enterprise the advantage of surprise. Now, before any of the big-time movers and shakers realize what’s going on, God will anoint
“one who is to rule in Israel
Whose origin is from of old,
From ancient days.
Therefore God shall give them up until the time
when she who is in labor has brought forth; then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel.”

2. The rule or the kingship “from ancient days” will give birth to something radically new.

You see, what’s so fascinating about Micah 5:2—3 is that being known, being small enough to be known, appears like it’s the wave of the future. The rule or the kingship “from ancient days” will give birth to something radically new. And, according to the prophet, that newness involves the return of God’s “kindred” to the people of Israel. Is that a trend? Is it possible that God intends to establish his rule, not through power or force, but through intimacy of some kind of family connection?

During the early 1980’s, the rock band, U2, grappled with the idea of how radical they wanted to be. Under the influence of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Who, anti-establishment songs, which had been all the rage in the 60s and 70’s, soon gave way to the anarchy of the Sex Pistols and the mosh pit. In the midst of this ambivalent trend, the Rolling Stone magazine quotes the lead singer of U2 as offering this take:
“I think that, ultimately, the group is totally rebellious because of our stance against what people accept as rebellion. The whole thing about rock stars driving cars into swimming pools—that’s not rebellion… Rebellion starts at home, in your heart, in your refusal to compromise your beliefs and your values. I’m not interested in politics like people fighting back with sticks and stones, but in the politics of love” (Walk On, p. 17—18).

So consider the politics of love. If that phrase is going to be anything more than a cheap slogan, we’re going to have to start off small. We going to have to take baby steps in the midst of a neighborhood where we are known and where we aren’t afraid of knowing the nitty-gritty details of the kindred of God.

In his book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, Oliver Sacks describes a former US serviceman who developed attacks of severe amnesia. Jimmie had lost years and years of relationships because he could no longer remember the faces of the family members. He could no longer recall the deep and varied experiences he had had with friends. And then comes this question.
“Do you think he has a soul?” Dr. Sacks asked this question of the nuns who took care of Jimmie at the Roman Catholic nursing facility where he stayed. The nuns, in response, became outraged. “Watch Jimmie in chapel and judge for yourself.” The neurologist then did as he had been told. He watched Jimmie kneel…

“Fully, intensely, quietly, in the quietude of absolute concentration and attention, he entered and partook of the Holy Communion. He was wholly held, absorbed, by a feeling. There was no forgetting… for he was no longer at the mercy of a faulty and fallible mechanism…” (Preaching From Memory to Hope, p. 24).

Jimmie was ruled. God, through the story of Jesus Christ, embodied in the bread and in the cup, ruled Jimmie’s heart, ruled Jimmie’s mind, ruled Jimmie’s body and ruled Jimmie’s soul. In fact, the adoration of his king gave to this afflicted man the integrity of soul. Jimmie had a soul because he had a king, who came from “one of the little clans of Judah…” and who “shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord” (v. 4).

3. It’s important that this transition happen through peaceful means.

But, you see, when we hear words like “the strength of the Lord” we’re no longer listening in terms of force or might makes right or the threat of violence. The strength of the Lord is now and forever will be the strength of the babe who will be born in Bethlehem. The strength of the Lord is now the vulnerability of God who makes himself available in one of the little clans of Judah and perhaps in other places too.

In the movie, The Big Kahuna, two businessmen get into a scuffle. Bob, who had been sent to discuss industrial lubricants with a potential client, had instead chosen to talk about Jesus. He had talked about Jesus with the client even though, Larry, Bob’s colleague, had specifically instructed Bob on how to close the deal and win the client’s business.
So, after all this is clarified there’s a fight, and after the fight, there is this important speech, which I want to repeat right now:
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or ‘How to Make Money in Real Estate with No Money Down’… Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it’s not a conversation anymore; it’s a pitch. And you’re not a human being; you’re a marketing rep.”

Now I think this is an important speech for us to hear around Christmas in light of the advice that Micah may be trying to convey. That is, in Micah 5:5 the prophet clearly tells us, “and he shall be the one of peace.” And, you see, “the one of peace” ought to be distinguished from the one who is sold to us in a sales pitch, or the one who makes us feel guilty for asking any genuine questions or the one who forces us to believe by threatening us with hell.

“The one of peace.” That’s how we’ll know Jesus is ruler in Israel and ruler in our hearts. He will come to us when we’re tired of fighting and tired of arguing. He will come to us when we’re exhausted with politics as usual, when we feel under siege in Jerusalem and betrayed by the very institutions we thought would keep us safe and secure.

But you—O Latah Valley of the Little Ritzville, you, who are one of the little congregations of the Presbyterian Church (USA), a denomination that, by many accounts, is dwindling and dying, from you shall come forth for me a conversation. And in that authentic conversation God will begin to rule in the hearts and in the minds and in the bodies and souls of his people. And the one who rules shall also be the one of peace.

Amen.

Sing Aloud, O Daughter Zion

1. Let the inside out, and the outside in. Repeat ad infinitum.

There’s a moment in every Broadway musical, when one of the main characters simply bursts into song. It happens when Don Quixote stops talking to his faithful sidekick, Sancho, and starts “To Dream The Impossible Dream.” And it happens in the South Pacific when Mitzi Gaynor claims that she’s going “to wash that man right outta her hair.” Suddenly, in these performances, the ordinary conversation can’t contain the emotion of what the people on stage are coping with. And what they’re coping with is something that cannot be explained rationally or scientifically. For example, you might want to describe The Man of LaMancha in terms of a senile old man who goes to battle with windmills, but the song will tell you that it’s really much more. You might want to describe the story of South Pacific in terms of the shampoo that an army nurse might use during the rationing of World War Two, but the song would insist that it’s really about much more. And, you see, this is also the choice we face in Zephaniah 3:14—20. Is the song more real than the events on the ground? Wouldn’t a documentary make more sense? Wouldn’t a lab report yield more accurate information? Why are we hanging our lives—or at least our lives of faith—upon the vocal chords of people who lived and died over 2,500 years ago?

Now, if you can’t answer those questions, I invite you this morning to join the club. Join the fan club of that legendary diva, “Daughter Zion,” who has also headlined under the alias of “Daughter Jerusalem.” Zephaniah, in today’s passage, invents a persona—a persona that will include everyone who has ever let what’s inside of them out while simultaneously letting what’s outside of them in. And if you were to take in a matinee of Daughter Zion or Daughter Jerusalem performing live on the stage of human history, my guess is that the men and women and children of Latah Valley would like to sing along. We’d like to sing along and to sing aloud, not because we’re about to be voted on as the next American Idol, but because we don’t know what else to do:
“Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; Rejoice and exult with all your heart….”
A small child died of cancer, and his mother had some bad dreams. You wouldn’t have blamed her for having bad dreams—dreams about her little boy calling for her, screaming for her, reaching for her. But, one night, while drifting off to sleep, the mother listened to the melody of O Come, O Come Emanuel. It had been playing on the stereo, and when she looked up from the couch she observed her child, playing on the kitchen floor. Instinctively she went to pick him up. But just as she got to him, his eyes went blank and his body slipped through her arms. Suddenly God appeared in the kitchen and scooped up the lifeless form of the boy. Don’t ask me how the mother knew it was God; she just knew. And God actually placed the child upon his shoulders as if God wanted him to see a parade. And then, without any warning, the child, who had died of cancer, sang to his mother, “until the Son of God appear…Rejoice… Rejoice… Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.”

Now, I don’t know what to make of dreamy songs like that, except to say that when that distraught and depressed parent experienced that transcendent song, she could live again. Not only could she get up in the morning and go to work—not only could she express love and devotion to her friends and family—this woman could care for the world. That is, instead of retreating into her private bomb shelter and licking her wounds, she saw someone “in (her) midst” who could take care of things far better.
“I will remove disaster from you… I will deal with your oppressors… I will save the lame and gather the outcast and I will change their shame into praise… At that time I will bring you home…”

You see, the verbs in Zephaniah 3:18—20 make some pretty bold promises, and they are (make no mistake) public promises. God announces for everyone to hear his place in the story which is to come. And if we are wise, you and I will find and assume our place as well. So, what do you think? Are we among those who have experienced disaster, been oppressed, rubbed shoulders with the lame and the outcast? Are we missing a place that we might call “home”?
2. Joy depends upon the place we assume in the story.

Listen! Before we sing, it’s good to have the right reason to sing, and for Zephaniah, that reason is that we have found the place in the story where God will be coming to us. That’s the reason that we have to sing. It’s not because we’ve won. It’s not because we’re right and everyone else is wrong. It’s not because we’re safe and secure and no one’s going to bother us ever again. The reason that we sing is that we’ve experienced the joy of God rejoicing over us in Zephaniah 3:17. And that joy depends upon the place we assume in the story that God is telling.

For example, at the start of the Nazi occupation of Italy, Guido Orefice gets a job as a waiter. One of his customers at the restaurant is a German physician, named Dr. Lessing. Dr. Lessing, Guido observes, is obsessed with riddles. So, playing along, he gives him one: What do the dwarves of Snow White eat after the main course? Seven seconds is the answer. But not being able to get it, Dr. Lessing pushes his food aside and worries over the solution. Later in the 1997 film, Life Is Beautiful, Guido and Dr. Lessing meet again. Guido is now a prisoner in a German concentration camp, and the good doctor happens to be the one who examines the Jews and determines if they’re fit for work. Dr. Lessing, of course, recognizes Guido and then begs for his help. Guido is dumbfounded. He should be the one who’s begging for help. And he should be the one who receives help from the man who had been his friend. “I’m in agony,” whispers Dr. Lessing, referring to a riddle that one of his colleagues had sent him. “Please, Guido, I beg of you. Help me.”

You see, what’s relevant here is that many of us are obsessed with our own riddles, with our own hobbies and with our own pet peeves. But pay attention to what the story of the Bible is really about. It’s about the joy of Daughter Zion as she lets the pain of the world in and lets the presence of God out. The story of the Bible isn’t just God helping you, and that’s the end of it. There’s more.
Consider for a moment Miriam, the sister of Moses, in Exodus 15:21. God has just done this most delirious and amazing thing. The Egyptian army who had pursued their former slaves night and day—all of them, horse and rider—had now been thrown into the sea and washed away. They’re gone. So, you see, that’s not just good news for Miriam herself. She sings, God “has triumphed gloriously” because she knows he’ll do it again and again.

Likewise, consider Mary, the mother of Jesus and the fiancé of Joseph, who has work as a carpenter in Nazareth. Mary belts out a tune in Luke 1:47—55, not simply because she’s pregnant. That information, in and of itself, wouldn’t be such happy news. What gives this unwed teenager joy, however, is that through this gestating fetus that now kicks her rib cage,
“(God) has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”

And please don’t miss the point. The point is—God’s into the big reversals.

3. God’s into the big reversals. Wait for them.

Out of darkness—light! Out of despair—hope! Out of chaos—creation! Out of crucifixion—resurrection! Those who lose themselves in search for the truth will be found. And to those, who as a result, feel as they’ve wasted their time, and that they’re always coming in last place, God will guarantee a first place finish! You will be among the first to see, to really see, Jesus, to hear him cry in the night…. And you will be among the first to sing about it aloud until the sun rises.

Amen.

The Way Before Me–Reflections on Malachi 3:1–4

1. God sends before God comes and God comes before God sends.

During this season of the year, many things are being sent. Letters, which provide details on every accomplishment for every member of the family, are being sent. Cards, with images of Frosty the Snowman, are being sent. Packages, marked “This End Up,” or “Fragile”, are being sent. Hastily fingered e-mails and text-messages are being sent, as are all kinds of last-minute purchase orders and reservations. All these items and words are being sent purposely and with the expectation that they will arrive at a particular destination, one that a FedEx driver or a United States Postal carrier could plot on a map. But before we go any further I’d like us to notice the passive nature of the verb that I am using. Letters, packages and messages are being sent, or have already been sent. And if we should reverse the direction of that phenomenon you and I would discover that the act of sending not only implies a passive recipient, but an active sender. In fact, that’s part of the beauty of receiving something that’s been sent; we realize that it comes to us from a person who wants us to have it.

And so, imagine the mysterious and mighty sending of God. If God is sending, what does he want us to have? That’s the question. But before we extract a quick answer from the book of Malachi, allow me to point out that, first and foremost, God has sent and is sending a messenger to the community of Israel. That is, unless we are ethnically Jewish and living around the year 537 BCE, this messenger and this message may not have originally been for us.

That’s a sobering thought. And yet, maybe it’s not so bad after all. Maybe knowing that God has sent a message to someone else may give us a kind of vicarious joy and maybe somehow and in some mysterious way we have been sent to intercept this message that had been intended for someone else.

In the movie Castaway, for example, an employee from Federal Express is the sold survivor of a horrific plane crash. With him on the Pacific island, where he lands, are various packages. These packages had been insured. The company had actually contracted to deliver them to their intended recipients in one to two days, and obviously now that’s not going to happen. Tom Hanks, playing the part of the castaway, will have no scruples about opening the boxes and seeing if there’s anything that he can use. But, even while he finds ice skates and cassette tapes and a volley ball, he keeps one package in tact and refuses to open it. That one package, which has been sent to a woman in Texas, will actually keep him alive. And, at the end of the story, we see that he intends to deliver it in person, with a note that says, “This package kept me alive.”

“See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me…”
Now, as I read those words from Malachi 3:1, what strikes me is how active and on-going the action is. I Am Sending. Yahweh, the God of Israel, Is Sending and Will Seemingly Continue to Send. The Sovereign Maker of the Universe—the Event Shaper of All Human History—the Source of All Life and the Goal of All Right Relationships—that One intends to communicate and to keep on communicating. And it’s interesting, isn’t it? Even if God had originally intended to send that specific package to the Jews, who were specifically returning from exile in the fourth century BCE, it matters to us as well. That package, with that message, may be the very thing that keeps us alive.
“What am I supposed to do now?” I heard a report recently about the unemployment rate and how people are coping with the loss of their jobs. Curiously the interviewer found that most folks who’ve been recently laid off do not initially worry about the money. That’s not their first, gut-level reaction to the news that they no longer have a place to go on Monday morning. Most in fact simply blurt out this awkward question: “What am I supposed to do…?” And then they confess, “For the first time in my life, I don’t have any place to be, or any commitment to keep or any assignment to complete.”

You see, this kind of remark goes way beyond the search for economic solutions. It points to the realization which says that originally, long before we got jobs that sent us out into the world, you and I had been sent for other reasons. Moreover, even now that our jobs may be slipping away, this may be the message that keeps us alive.
“I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple…”

You see, here’s the pattern that I see emerging from Malachi’s prophetic words. Three centuries after they appear, John the Baptist stakes his life upon them. Next comes Jesus, who arrives at the temple as a child, and as a fully grown adult. And after his life, death and resurrection, comes the Spirit. And following the Spirit, people like us are sent.
2. Prepare to be refined.

In her book, Teaching A Stone To Talk, Annie Dillard recognizes the moment that she felt sent. It was the moment that she ran away from Santa Claus. Miss White, the Dillard family neighbor, had gone to the trouble of dressing for the part. Everyone had been shouting, “Look who’s coming” and “Look who’s here,” but when Annie recognized the beaming face beneath the disguise she bolted. Miss White had been the first person in Annie Dillard’s life to burn her. Quite innocently the older lady had been showing the little girl how a magnifying glass can focus the light of the sun. Miss White simply made the mistake of placing Annie’s hand beneath the lens. The light narrowed to a beam and ouch! Annie got burned. Miss White apologized and called after the child, but Annie never forgot. She had been burned by the very person who at that moment masqueraded as the giver of gifts at Christmastime.

And so, think about this. You and I may have a similar reaction to God’s messenger, as he is expected by Malachi. Is God the giver of gifts? Or is God the one who burns us? Malachi describes the effect of God’s messenger of “a refiner’s fire.” Like impure gold and like silver that has other metals mixed into it, we encounter something in God’s messenger that sets off a process of hot purification. That is, from the amalgam of worldly influences and selfish phobias we come and God burns us whether we are ready or not. I have feeling its better to be ready. Another image that Malachi provides is one of “fuller’s soap,” which is the kind of ancient cleanser that takes off a layer of skin. What God does to us sometimes hurts, and during that encounter it may seem that God is angry. And maybe he is angry. And yet, according to Jewish philosopher Abraham Heschel, God’s anger does not come from his essential character like his steadfast love. Nor is God’s wrath an arbitrary outburst. Rather, God pinpoints the fury of his impatience with things that our unjust and untrue. Moreover, in Genesis 18 and Exodus 32:13 Abraham and Moses reason with God in the hope that God’s anger might change.
So prepare to be refined. John Updike once complained that in his teenage years almost no one believed in Christianity although there were signs of it everywhere. He compared the experience to that of a “fog solidly opaque in the distance” that “thins to transparency when you walk into it” (Self-Consciousness, p. 230). By contrast, what if a messenger meets us in the midst of that fog? It might be a starling experience.

In October of 2007 Cali Kaltschmidt was a cheerleader for Auburn High School. At homecoming she had just been crowned queen. Just prior to the start of the second half, the band members and the other cheerleaders held tightly to a banner that they had made out of a large ream of butcher paper. The idea, of course, was that as they held the edges of the banner, the 50 members of the football team would plow through it from the other side and make a bold entrance onto the playing field. Well, Cali thought she had time. She noticed something about the banner that wasn’t right, and it was about to be utterly destroyed anyway she rushed over to fix it. Meanwhile, a 245 pound linebacker, named Zach Tate, led the way. The homecoming queen, while tinkering with the word, GO, had no idea what hit her.

Now I relate this You-tubed trampling because I think it runs parallel with what we’re about during Advent. During Advent, we celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ. But that coming is so spiritually solid and so thick with truth, we might want to prepare. Prepare to receive what refining fire that God has intended for us and prepare to be sent as that refining fire for others…
3. We won’t recognize our own offering.

When I came home for Christmas after my junior year at Penn State, I prepared to give my father a gift. It would be a plaque, which contained a complete poem that had been written by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Anyway, I typed out the words of the poem on a piece of parchment paper and then above them I scribbled my own sentence. I wrote something like, “It’s time to accept the gift.” Well, after pasting the paper on the wooden plaque and then varnishing it, I let it dry. It dried in two or three days just in time for Christmas. But, you see, when I gave it to him, I didn’t recognize my own gift. The words of the poem by Emerson had been erased somehow by the varnish. All that he could read were my words, telling him to accept the gift. Well, for the first time in my life I saw my Dad cry. But I didn’t recognize my own gift…

And you see that makes me wonder about the offerings that Malachi says will be made in Judah and in Jerusalem. He says that will be made in righteousness and that they will be pleasing to the Lord. And maybe we won’t even recognize them. Amen.