The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 24A] - October 16, 2011 (Matthew 22:15-22)

It seems like everyone is thinking or talking about loopholes these days and how they supposedly make the nation’s tax codes unfair. What with the economy on shaky ground and would-be presidential candidates’ touting their alternate tax plans, people everywhere seem disgusted that loopholes exist, and they're demanding an end to them. They go against our idea of fairness—lurking deep in the tiny print, buried beneath all the red tape—those areas of bureaucratic ambiguity that allow the clever or the qualified to circumvent the law. We tend to be resentful of those who can find and exploit the loopholes, and yet, if we’re honest, we wouldn’t exactly pass up an opportunity to have them work in our favor, if you know what I mean.

There is no telling if the Pharisees and the Herodians had found loopholes in Caesar's tax code that demanded a yearly payment for each male above the age of fourteen and each woman between twelve and sixty-five. I’d bet they had, but I have no proof. Both groups were entrenched in the power structures of the day. The Herodians were a group that supported the reign of King Herod, the local puppet of Caesar. Not much is known of them, but they were likely well-connected with people up top—like a modern-day special interest group, maybe. They would have supported the payment of Caesar’s head tax because it helped prop up the system that kept Herod, their fave, in power, even if they had found a way to be exempt from it themselves.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, liked to pretend they weren’t that politically involved, but they certainly could play the game enough to keep themselves at the center of Jewish temple life. Although they never openly organized, let’s say, an “Occupy Temple Street” rally against Caesar’s policies, the Pharisees probably resented Caesar’s tax because—first of all—they knew it was a constant reminder to the Jewish people of their Roman oppression, and—second of all—dealing with the emperor’s printed and minted money raised all kinds of issues regarding false idols and graven images and disobeying the first commandment.

"Show me a coin."

So, both the Pharisees and the Herodians find the issue of paying taxes to the megalomaniacal leader of a foreign military power the perfect way to trap Jesus in his own logic. They consider it the question that will finally do him in. For if Jesus supports paying the tax outright, then he will reveal himself to be party to the Roman law and deeply unpopular with the people. But if he rejects the tax, the Herodians and other local leaders will be able to accuse him of treason or inciting a rebellion. In every commentary I checked, they labelled this the “horns of a dilemma.”  I’d love to know the origin of that expression.  It sounds pointy.  In any case, this is a situation where Jesus can’t win, a situation where Jesus has to choose between two equally bad alternatives, unless, of course, Jesus can find…a loophole. This is a time when we hope Jesus might find a way out of answering directly, of exploiting something in the system that will get him—and us, of course—off the hook.

Already by Jesus’ day emperors and other rulers were imprinting their images on coins to serve as currency for the empire. This system of monopolizing all commerce transactions by inscribing the ruling powers’ mottos and likeness on tokens of common exchange was one of the most effective methods for an empire to extend its authority into every aspect of human life. Soon people would no longer barter for goods and services in the market—(“two camels, say, for a hectare of wheat”)--but they would trade tokens and bills that could be backed by the emperors’ treasure. It’s not just that money made taxes easier to levy and collect; the emperor also essentially had a hand in every business deal that took place, investing, somehow, in every venture out there. I imagine that’s where the term “currency” came from: it was the circulation of money that could keep goods and services flowing, like a current.

Caesar's denarius coin

When the Pharisees present Jesus with one of the empire’s coins with which the tax was to be paid, Jesus shows them that it plainly has Caesar’s head on it. If it contains Caesar’s image, then it must be Caesar’s. In other words, Caesar has made this money and stamped his likeness on it, therefore, it belongs to Caesar and should be rendered to him. If this is how Caesar would like to run his empire—going around minting things of value so that he can eventually control and create wealth, then so be it—keep the system of denarii flowing back to him, Jesus says, corrupt though it may be. But then Jesus adds a phrase that is much more than just a loophole in that process. He throws the whole system on its head, so to speak: “And give to God the things that are God’s.”

The message? As it turns out, it is not just Caesar who has gone around and placed his image on certain things. As the Pharisees and maybe the Herodians surely would have known, each human being on earth bears God’s image. We have been created—male and female—in the image of God, fashioned, each in our own unique way, to reflect back to the Creator something of great value. We have each been formed and shaped with the idea that we are not just precious, but that we bear within us some of the very qualities of God. And, in Jesus’ economy, that also needs to flow back to the being who minted us, and, if the system works like it should, it will enrich the entire universe.

In Jesus’ statement to pay taxes to Caesar, we find the call to a life that is far more radical than anything we might otherwise be up to. It is more activitist than occupying Wall Street and more countercultural than forming a new political party. What Jesus means is that we are the currency through which God will deal change in the world. Created in his image, and redeemed from corruption through the cross of Christ, we are in circulation to God’s glory. And no matter how many other labels get attached to us, no matter how many other images are pounded into our brains, we will always, at our core, be forged in God’s own image.

And that means, with the Spirit’s power, we have the priviledge to interact with this world in much the same way as God does. It means we have the power to love and forgive as well as the power to hate and hold grudges. It means we have been granted the capacity to show compassion rather than indifference. It means we can choose generosity over greed, and selflessness over egocentrism. This is, in part, what it means to be created in God’s image, to bear his likeness. Sin causes us always to choose the latter options—the hate, the indifference, the greed, the selfishness—but in Jesus Christ, God still claims us for the good.

It also means that our lives don’t just matter to us and those with whom we share this planet, but that they matter, in fact, to God. It matters to God what we do with, for example, our money—all of it. It matters to God what we do with our bodies, our minds, our relationships, our sexuality, and our ability to create new life ourselves. And while we might not completely be set free yet from the emperor’s system of weights and balances and levying taxes, we can still begin direct to God’s purposes these things that are rightfully God’s.  We can still remember that, in Jesus Christ, God once more gives us lives that actually matter amidst so many world systems that assign worth and wealth rather arbitrarily, amidst a culture that says we must really only answer to ourselves, which is a total lie.

refugee with her identification card

I can’t help but think here of the Sudanese and Somali refugees I served in the streets of Cairo—a people who would risk almost everything for the chance to possess the blue refugee I.D. card issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The thing was only a little bigger than an index card, but for some reason, in the wacky way the world operates, it bestowed upon them some basic human rights and the chance to be resettled to a new home. It would often take them years to obtain it, and the majority of them would die or lose hope altogether before they’d get one. It was a sad system I didn’t understand (and one in which I somehow participated), but I did notice that in the meantime while they waited, they’d arrive in worship, week after week, tracing the cross in water on their forehead as they passed by the font, hearing once again the source and call of their true citizenship, reminding us privileged westerners that they knew they already had the only identity they card they’d ever need in the love of Jesus Christ.

Because, truth be told, at some point everything that we are will be handed over in death. At some point it won’t matter how many identity cards we’ve secured or how much extra wealth we’ve accrued. All that we’ve become will be given back, and all that we’ve kept will become someone else’s. And at that point, God will be the final recipient, that’s for sure, and there won’t be any loopholes that I know of.

I wonder, regarding my own life: on that day, will God finally get back something that was rightfully his, but had been withheld all the while in greed, selfishness, and spite? Or will he be receiving something that had been lovingly prepared for him out of a response to the generosity of his Son? I shudder to answer, for I think I know.

Yet regardless, in anticipation of that day, as we each answer that question for ourselves, perhaps we should organize a protest campaign. Occupy…let’s see…Monument Avenue!   At least the end of it here…every week. For that matter, every day!  Occupy Horsepen Road…and go ahead and occupy your cubicle at Reynolds packaging or Capital One. Occupy the nurse’s station at Bon Secours and Henrico Doctors. Occupy the locker at Godwin High School and your classroom at Short Pump Middle. Occupy your breakfast conversations each morning and the dinner table each evening Occupy all these places with the news of Jesus, just as God has so graciously occupied your hearts and maybe we can get a little of Jesus’ currency—the kind that makes all things new—circulating in the process.

Play along, if need be, with the world’s system of weights and measures, I.D. cards and head taxes, but all the while lifting hands and lives to the Lord above because “all that we have and all that we are all that we hope to be we give to God…

“We are an offering.  We are an offering.”

Thanks be to God!

   

 The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 16A] - August 21, 2011 (Isaiah 51:1-6 and Matthew 16:13-20)

A desk drawer full of rocks: that is all I had to show as souvenirs from the places my family had visited on vacation when I was a child. My mother, not wanting to spend a dime of family money on cheap, kitschty, gift-shop trinkets whenever we were visiting different places, suggested in one of my bouts of whining for a knick-knack that I simply take a rock from each place to remind me of the occasion. She probably said it flippantly, but I complied, thinking it was the only option left. So over the course of several years, I gathered a piece of shale from here, a smooth river rock from there, a chunk of quartz from over here. They were to become my mementos, tokens that could tell me something about the places I’d been, the experiences I’d had, the person I was becoming.


But years later, when my mother informed me I needed to empty out my desk’s contents so that it could be moved with the rest of my cherished belongings to seminary, I opened the bottom drawer to find a pile of rocks that told me…absolutely nothing. I couldn’t remember which rock had come from which place, which stone was supposed to remind me of which memory. Was this purplish one from the time we went camping in the mountains of West Virginia? Was this small, white pebble from the Mall in Washington, D.C., or did I pick it up somewhere else? And there were about five flat, nondescript rocks that had obviously been worn soft by water somewhere—but which river, which beach? Looking down at them from above, they looked so scattered and pitiful. I racked my brain: from where did these rocks come? From which distant roadside quarry had they been hewn, and—for Pete’s sake—which memories should be attached to them?

The Return from Babylonian exile

This is the same message to the people of Israel, years before, as they try to imagine life beyond the hardship of exile, a life back in their blessed homeland beyond the river. King Darius has promised to free them from Babylon’s grip, and he looks down upon them from his throne and sees them, so scattered and pitiful and doubtful of his assurances that they will ever return. And so, with great encouragement, he reminds them to look to their past experiences. "Look to the rock from which you were hewn,” he calls out, “look to the quarry from which you were dug!” Look to Abraham and Sarah, he means, the flinty types that bore you long ago! They were rocks of faith who once set out, alone and wandering, yet who became a nation of great number and great blessing. These are the rocks from which you were hewn. This is the stuff you are made of, King Darius says. When I “bring near my deliverance your destiny will be little different,” he continues, “for this is the quarry from which you were dug.”

God’s people, themselves, are reminders to the world, souvenirs of God’s amazing faithfulness and improbable power. Pitiful and scattered though they may be, they are nevertheless hewn and dug from much stronger stuff, and therefore there is promise for the future, something to build upon. The “stuff they’re made of” hearkens back not only to their strong ancestors and the faith they displayed, but mainly to God’s determination to do something wonderful for God’s people. His salvation, you see, will be forever! God moved them through their wanderings and gave them a purpose. And they will dwell in their land and with God’s teachings they will live as a light to the nations, a beacon of justice and compassion for all.

What are you made of? When you dig deep down what mineral is there that determines your character, your strength, your direction? Do you feel nameless—scattered and pitiful—unaware of what hillside someone chipped you from?

These questions are not limited to Israel’s yearnings millennia ago. They shape our patterns for life now. Look at the political candidates shaking hands now in Iowa, endlessly burnishing their street cred at the beginning of the campaign trail. Or see the college students arriving on a campus for the first time at this time of year, presented with a dizzying array of academic paths as well as temptation for their social life. What about the scared patient who faces the cancer diagnosis as well as the daunting chemo regimen that goes with it, the soldier who heads into his first battle? “Show ‘em what you’re made of,” we like to say.

Are we surprised, then, when the question rumbles around in Jesus’ head as he approaches the great rock face in western Israel that holds up Herod’s gleaming new city of Caesarea Philippi. He has gone there with his disciples to escape the crowds for a while, contemplating that daunting trip to Jerusalem. And he looks up at the cliffs where ancient pagans had placed statues of their gods, and up at the new edifices that clearly spoke to the strength of Caesar’s empire and asks them, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” as if to say, “What am I made of? What are people saying?” And receiving a list of responses, he turns to them, his closest friends, the ones who know him best: “Who do you say that I am?” Peter’s confession couldn’t be more right-on. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” he answers, although Peter has no idea what kind of Messiah stuff Jesus is really made of.

cave at Caesarea Philippi

It is a turning point in his ministry. Here, at the base of a massive rock structure that for centuries had been used as a place for people to pin their hopes and prayers, Jesus’ own hopes and dreams begin to come into focus.

It is a turning point in his ministry. Someone has finally nailed down exactly who Jesus is, for each of those terms is loaded with meaning: Messiah. Son. Living. God. Jesus is sent straight from the Lord who delivered ancient Israel, who called Abraham and Sarah. He himself is part of God’s own creative and redeeming presence that will bring about lasting justice and peace.

It is a turning point in his ministry, for all the teachings and feedings and healings he’s been about can now been seen as tokens of that living kingdom that God is establishing on earth.

Peter’s response to Jesus’ questions about the Messiah’s identity is so right-on, in fact, that Jesus answers by telling Peter what he is made of. Making a word-play on his name, Peter, Jesus claims that Peter and his words of faith are a rock on which Jesus’ own following will be built. (Peter’s name means “rock,” both in Greek and Aramaic.) Scattered and pitiful group that they are, sitting there in the bottom of the drawer, the disciples will eventually become the granite core of a community that will embody Jesus’ life on earth. Not even the powers of death will be able to prevail against their life together as their congregation grows to include people of all nations. Like ancient Israel, they will become living reminders to all people of God’s amazing faithfulness and improbable power.

In fact, their confession and their life together will be so crucial to the world’s understanding of Jesus, he says, that he gives them keys to the kingdom; that is, tools by which they will provide access and entry to others who experience Jesus as the Son of the Living God. “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven,” Jesus instructs, “and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Peter is often depicted holding keys

The life of Jesus’ community of followers, the church, is given many tasks and missions throughout the course of the New Testament. Baptizing, teaching, sharing the Lord’s Supper, praying, healing, to name a few. But here Jesus connects the keys of his kingdom directly to the forgiveness of sins. There is something about practicing forgiveness and taking forgiveness seriously that relates directly to the experience of God’s kingdom. Loosing refers to proclaiming release from bonds of sin, and binding refers to the withholding of forgiveness, presumably until proper repentance and contrition is made.

It is significant that Jesus links the strength and vitality of his church with its capacity to proclaim and embody forgiveness. The strength and vitality of the church is not ultimately found in its service to others, in how many feet we wash or in the number of members who have joined. The strength and vitality of the church is not primarily found in how inclusive we think we’re being or in how diverse our membership is, but in our willingness to announce and practice the forgiveness of sin. It is a direct reflection of how Jesus deals with us in the first place: how he becomes the type of Messiah that dies on the cross to cleanse the world from sin.

Considering this point, are we surprised that “the forgiveness of sins” is one of the first things we name in the part of the Apostles’ Creed that has to do with the church? “I believe in the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” Considering Jesus’ point here, we can think of how instrumental the church became in South Africa in bringing a surprisingly peaceful end of the racist apartheid regime in the nineties, and how Archbishop Desmond Tutu insisted, against significant secular opposition, that real forgiveness be a part of that country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Considering Jesus’ point about the keys of the kingdom, we can think how many times we’ve sat in a worship service needing to hear, above all else, that we are forgiven.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Forgiveness, you may say, the binding and loosing from sin, turns out to be the main stuff Jesus is really made of, the rock from which he is hewn, and, incredibly, he asks the church to practice it in his name. On the cross we see that it is what he is made of, and so in our baptism we become made of it, too.

Earlier this week as our family sat at the dinner table, our four-year-old looked at Melinda out of the blue and asked, “Mommy, how does God build us?” We’ve been fielding such existential questions from her for a few months now, and she’s learned to address my wife because she knows she’ll get a clearer, better answer. Glancing quickly at one another with our eyebrows raised, Melinda carefully responded by saying something like, “God builds us carefully in our mommy’s tummy when we’re a little baby.”

I was relieved Melinda let me off the hook, and the answer appeared to suffice. But, like so many musings from the younger ones around us, it really was an excellent question, one not to be laughed off. And while I do hope that all our biological parts and pieces are being stitched together seamlessly and perfectly, both within our mommy’s tummy and outside of it, my hope is that God is also building us through faith and opportunities of service, teaching us compassion and love, but, most of all, to say “I’m sorry” when we need to and to extend the hand of forgiveness when the circumstance calls for it.

So, my dear Clare, I hope God is building you the way he promises to build the rest of God’s people: carefully, yes, and with the hope that, over time, our words and actions will so closely reflect Jesus’ that it will be unmistakable—even when we feel scattered and pitiful—from which great rock we were hewn, the one over which even death will not triumph: Messiah. Son. Living. God.


Thanks be to God!



The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 11A] - July 17, 2011 (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 and Romans 8:12-25)

Well, the movie event of my lifetime took place this weekend, and I didn’t even participate in it. The final installment of the wildly successful Harry Potter franchise opened on Friday and, as expected, shattered all box office records for an opening day. It pulled in $92.1 million dollars, which is $20 million more than the previous record-holder. That’s what happens when an entire generation of youth grows up reading the same seven books in sequence.

I’m a late-comer to the Harry Potter phenomenon. I resisted reading or even watching the movies until earlier this year. For others of you who are unfamiliar with the stories, you should know there are seven books, each of which chronicles a year of a young wizard’s education in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, that young wizard being Harry Potter. Each year Harry grows a little older, a little wiser, a little more proficient in wizardry skills. He also grows a little more aware of a cosmic battle going on between good and evil that somehow implicates him and, as we find out, everyone around him. That’s the genius of the series that makes it so popular: Harry and his friends have aged along with an entire cohort of our youth. As of this weekend, it is over. The tagline for this final episode that appears on the movie posters that emblazon every theater from here to Timbuktu contain three simple words: “It all ends.” Seven years at Hogwarts, eight movies. I suppose those who have followed along know what “it” is, in this circumstance. Currently I am getting ready to begin the fifth book, so “it” hasn’t ended for me yet, but I know it’s moving in that direction. (Just a point of privilege: I would appreciate it if people would not spoil any plot details for me. I’ve enjoyed the suspense of the series thus far and would like to continue to do so!).

I do not consider myself to be Harry Potter aficionado, but I have enjoyed one feature of the books that is done remarkably well. You see, the world of Harry Potter is populated with a dizzying array of creative and colorful characters—wizards and witches, giants and elves, mystical creatures of all kinds and, of course, muggles, the name for regular humans like you and me who have no wizarding powers. What is so interesting is that you never can be sure exactly who is on what side, be that good or evil. The author of the series, J.K.Rowling, has done an expert job at keeping the reader in the dark just long enough about who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy. There are a handful characters about whose intentions you have no doubt, but a great many are purposely ambiguous, and the plot is driven by Harry’s attempts to navigate this world. I suppose when “it all ends” these things are revealed to us. The evil will perish and the righteous, good guys go on to shine like the sun. At least, I hope.

I suppose all this means nothing to those of you who haven’t been caught up in the Harry Potter phenomenon, but—fear not!—we have the biblical version of essentially the same thing in the gospel parable this morning. Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds (or, the wheat and the tares, as it is sometimes known) is like a 1st-century allegory for the cosmic battle between good and evil, between the forces that obey God’s word and respond to God’s grace and those forces that seek to undermine God’s goodness. The wheat is the result of the good seed, the words and deeds sown by the Son of Man and, presumably, those who follow him and abide in his righteousness.

The weeds, on the other hand, are the result of the bad seed sown by the evil one, the enemy of God’s plan for love and mercy for God’s people. He is a crafty spreader of lies, this evil one. He works in the dark and is rarely caught in the act, disappearing just before sunrise. Some people doubt he’s real, but evidence of his existence is all around.

And like the world of Harry Potter, it turns out there is some ambiguity in this field gone wild. For even though the slaves are aware that someone has sown weeds in amongst the wheat, the two are not as easy to tell apart and separate as you might think. The particular weed that is growing is actually a close look-alike of the good wheat. Scholarly authorities point out that this weed was likely darnel, a common agricultural pest in Jesus’ time. In fact, darnel had leaves and a stalk of grain that is virtually indistinguishable from regular wheat. Only at the time of harvest was it clear: wheat had grains that were brown and that were so heavy that they drooped. Darnel, on the other hand, had black ears of grain that stood up straight.

Under the soil, too, darnel and wheat grew together. The roots could intertwine and find nourishment together. So, even if the slaves were able to tell each plant apart before harvest time, pulling up the bad weeds could also uproot the good wheat, and that would be counterproductive. The householder, knowing all of this, of course, commands them to leave the weeds alone. As aggravating as it may sound, they are to tend the field like usual and let the two grow side by side. In due time, however, the householder will send in the appropriate workers who, knowing the difference between the good and the bad, will separate them once and for all. Interestingly, that is not the work of the slaves. Their job is to labor in that time of ambiguity, when the good and the bad are sometimes clear—but not always; when the hope of a pure field and a productive yield are sometimes visible—but not always; when the wisdom of the good householder is sometimes evident—but not always. And eventually it all will end.

For Jesus’ first disciples, I imagine this parable served to bolster their work on the kingdom’s behalf. They had likely been working alongside Jesus, even doing some good deeds of the kingdom on their own, and were perplexed that in and amongst their labors for righteousness some bad things were happening. Some people weren’t responding in faith to the good news about Jesus. Some people weren’t receiving him with hope and joy. Some people weren’t hearing of his mercy and then learning to practice forgiveness and love themselves. And if the disciples weren’t perplexed by this point, they certainly would be later on when they would make it to Jerusalem and the opposition they would meet would end up nailing Jesus to the cross.

Evil seems to work its way into the best of situations. Which of us has not experienced frustration and disappointment at the weeds that grow among the good wheat, or a desire that the field could just be purified at the outset? We picture a nation, for example, where everyone comprehends the need to cut the government’s deficit spending…or, as the case may be, where everyone appreciates the need to raise taxes. We desire a family where there are no black sheep and no personality conflicts. Or a congregation where everyone thinks and believes the same things about every issue. Perhaps those are not really examples of evildoing, but we do dream of communities where children can walk home from school or camp without fear of being abducted by people who will do awful things to them, or where we go through airport security without having to take off half our clothes.

And just as we like to dream of such a world where God’s good plans are never crowded out by intrusive evil, it is also somewhat satisfying to think about systematically going around and ridding the world of anything we know is wrong, pulling the doggone things up by the roots, once and for all. That’s what the slaves naturally want to do, and that’s likely where Jesus’ disciples will want to take this as they take up sides with his vision for a world redeemed. Yes, waiting until the end to sort this all out seems a little counterintuitive, yet if we don’t heed his command, we risk diminishing the householder’s harvest…and it is his harvest, after all.

Photo: Thomas J. Abercrombie

Jesus’ own explanation of this parable when he goes inside the house with his disciples could leave us thinking that an individual is either all one or all the other—there’s a weed here…oh, there’s another one there!—when the reality is a little more complex than that. What about the mixture of good intentions and evil intentions that each of us cultivate in our own lives? The apostle Paul happens to talk a good bit about that in his letter to the Romans, noting the endless conflict between the good he knows he should do and the selfishness and sin that come so readily. When we take a good look at our lives, especially in the light of the cross of Christ, the weed-ridden and darkest moment of God’s life, we come to realize that the task of the slaves is really the better option, for in the zeal to uproot and eradicate all sources of evil we would eventually have to turn the spade to ourselves.

And that’s another reason I find Harry Potter intriguing. By and by, even the main characters in those stories who seem clearly on the side of good realize they have the ability to think selfishly rather than altruistically. They, too, must navigate a world where the path to good and evil runs right through their own hearts.

The farming advice that the householder gives to his slaves sure might strike us as peculiar, the wisdom of letting it all grow together a little muddled. It is hard at times to keep our mind on the fact that a good harvest will yet come out of all this mess, not to mention the mess of our lives, but perhaps it’s best to leave that up to the one who raises Jesus from the dead…to the harvester who grants new life after every bit of suffering…to the Lord who promises to vanquish everything that stands in his way…to a God who prizes every good thing that can come from his people.

Eventually it all will end, as Harry Potter learns, it all will end. The final movie will come and all will get hashed out. As we, the people of God wait for our final installment, as the world groans toward that grand unfolding where good reigns and the mercy of God’s kingdom come, it’s best that we tend to the field in prayer and worship, service and encouragement. Even as the strangling weeds continue to pop up it’s best if we wait and keep the good growing, nurtured by the word, our own roots sunk deep in baptism, and tend to the precious grains of good faith in ourselves and each other. Yes, it’s best if we keep things growing, my friends…keep them growing and rejoice at the wheat that is here. As a line from a U2 goes, “always pain before a child is born, I’m still waiting for the dawn.” For, indeed, we are waiting.

I’m afraid I'm going to need to plow through the last three books to learn what Harry Potter discovers in his final chapter (remember…don’t spoil it for me!) but--thank God--because of Jesus Christ we already know ours.

Psst! The weeds don’t win.

Thanks be to God!



The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

The Third Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 9A] - July 3, 2011 (Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30)

“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another…”

Jesus’ words as he addresses a crowd made up both of willing followers and skeptical accusers ring of frustration and puzzlement. Is he lashing out in anger? Is he throwing up his hands in disgust? We’re not really accustomed to hearing Jesus sound like this; that is, wandering into the risky waters of cross-generational criticism. In fact, he sounds here more like us.

“But to what will I compare this generation? They spend too much time in front of the computer or plugged into their iPod!” Or, “Those fuddy-duddies are so out-of-touch and old-fashioned! The world is changing! You better catch up, old man!”

“But to what will I compare this generation? That new music they’re always listening to sounds like pots and pans clanging together with a cat fight in the background!” Or, “That old music they listen to has no beat and no soul.”

“But to what will I compare this generation?” They want to pray a newer version of the Lord’s Prayer! How can you do that!?” Or, “They want to pray an older version of the Lord’s Prayer in language so formal and stilted!”

Choose your topic these days—sacred or secular—and it seems like so many opinions of what’s right and what’s good fall right along generational lines. Heads are shaken in exasperation and—if you’re like me, standing in line recently for a cell-phone upgrade that will drag me kicking and screaming into a new generation—beads of anxious sweat form along the ridge of the brow. New is not always improved, we know…and traditional may not always mean wiser. But the debates rage on, and from this morning’s gospel lesson we see that Jesus is no stranger, either, to the friction that occurs when generations of human beings set their habits and expectations up against one another.

In his case, Jesus is frustrated and almost irritated that the people of his day and age are so unreceptive to the message he is preaching, which is at odds with the message they’ve heard for so long from the Pharisees’ sermons and the scribes’ teachings. And it’s not just his message they’ve questioned and rejected. It’s also his cousin John’s. The crowds can’t seem to get their heads around the God who is presented in their respective messages. They can’t fathom the kingdom of heaven as it is proclaimed from the lips of these two newcomers.

And who can blame them? Both of these yokels hail from off-the-beaten-track Galilean towns, far from the traditional academy of Jerusalem. Neither has a formal synagogue training that we know of. One sequesters himself in the desert half the time, eating wild honey and locusts, coming close to civilization from time to time just long enough to dunk people in the Jordan River and publicly criticize the rulers’ morals. The other one hangs out with a bunch of tax collectors and other low-lifes, frequenting banquets and parties. Both seem to go against the status quo somewhat, setting themselves a number of times as the preferred option to the way things are. But John is too much of an extremist, like pots and pans clanging in the midst of a cat-fight, and Jesus seems too lax. John is a little too fanatical, Jesus not fanatical enough. Who would take these guys seriously, especially about matters that the Pharisees do such a good job of explaining in their sermons, convoluted though they may seem?

This is the situation which both John and Jesus confront: a populace of their own people who can’t seem to get their head around a new way of seeing God act and move in the world. To John, the people are hard-headed and ignorant. They need baptism for repentance and need it now, for the winnowing fork of God’s justice is in his hand and the chaff will be burned. (We must assume that would be John’s reaction to this, of course, for at the time he is currently in prison awaiting what will be his execution for the crime of criticizing Herod’s decision to marry his brother’s wife).

Jesus, on the other hand, compares the generation to children in a marketplace who try to do everything gentle and pleading they can to coax the people to dance or mourn. With inspiring words and uplifting promises of forgiveness he has played the flute, so to speak, to get them to “dance” along with his vision of the kingdom of heaven, and they still stand on the sidelines in their stubbornness. Likewise, he has cried the haunting mourner’s wail, reminding them of their need for mercy, and yet they remain unmoved.

Have you ever tried to explain your faith to someone who perhaps doesn’t believe? Have you ever tried to convince someone of the love of God or your involvement in the life of a congregation to a person who, for whatever reason, is reluctant to follow? To a large degree, Jesus’ experience with people’s doubt of and rejection of his message is common to people of each and every age. Whether we encounter difficulty in preaching the gospel of Jesus on a personal level or whether we get frustrated when our congregations don’t grow and gather new members, it seems as if the church will always have to live with some level of discomfort or frustration with how we’re received by the generation at hand.

Jesus’ immediate response to his own discouragement is to offer thanksgiving that the gospel message is not something to be grasped by knowledge or wisdom or sophisticated reasoning. Faith, as Martin Luther would put it, is ultimately a gift of the Holy Spirit and cannot be conjured by our own strength or power. Indeed, Jesus’ teachings are hidden from the intelligent and revealed to the young and inexperienced, the simple and pure-hearted. How many of us find ourselves more captivated by the children’s sermon than by the words preached from the pulpit? And, by the same token, I know many pastors who, like I, are as intimidated by delivering a children’s sermon as they are preaching a big people’s sermon. A religious system that rightly asks its leaders to attend a seminary and receive a post-secondary degree, can send the unintended message that brains are what’s required for a deeper faith, or to have faith at all. Pretty soon we forget how the infants see things.

St. Augustine (Antonella da Messina)

And here is when Jesus reminds us once again that it’s not brains that will lead to deeper faith, and it’s not a sophisticated understanding about how the universe works that will ultimately cause one to come to Christ. It is not brains we need, but a burden. Our attraction to the kingdom of heaven comes from the desire for an easier burden than the ones we’re carrying, a longing for rest for our souls. St. Augustine, a man of supreme intelligence who did not convert to Christian faith until fairly late in life, once said, “I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very beautiful, but I have never read in either of them, ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.’”

No, it is not wisdom or beauty—although they are there—that ultimately draws us to the way of Christ, but rather the promise of an easier way, the hope that when we cast our sorrows on this whippersnapper from Galilee we receive something far better than we’d ever imagine. It is, rather the confidence that this whippersnapper who goes to the cross for us and exchanges our a path of death and sin and guilt and shame for a new life filled with undying love and forgiveness. It is, rather, the understanding that somehow, with Jesus and his community, our way is indeed made easier, even though following him may be dreadfully difficult at specific times.

Thankfully, this was once again revealed to me this week during the Virginia Synod’s Kairos youth event at Roanoke College. One hundred seventy-five members of a younger generation than mine, including twenty-nine from this congregation, spent a six days praying and worshipping and studying Scripture. Although spending long days away from my family, sleeping on a hard mattress in a barely-air-conditioned residence hall is not how I’d ideally like to spend a week of the summer, I always return from these events somewhat renewed, not because I’ve had the opportunity to teach and lead but because the youth always manage to teach me something about trusting in Jesus.

Some speak it quietly in the comfort of a small group, while others take the opportunity to address the whole large group with a reflection on their faith. Some of them speak of heart-wrenching personal hardship and experiences with grief or abuse while others confess a relatively strong faith bred in their home congregations. No matter the method, no matter the venue, one theme is evident in every testimony: these youth desire an easier yoke than the one they carry now. They long for a Lord who is gentle and humble of heart. They seek a rest and comfort in a world that simultaneously idolizes youth and also expects them to grow up too fast. And in their prayers and concerns I detect a realization that coming to Christ is not purely an unloading and releasing of guilt and shame and heaviness of heart. I also hear an understanding that Jesus gives something in return. That is, he has a yoke, too. He longs for us to change and grow and bear his Word to the world.

But I must tell you it is not primarily at these types of gatherings that I am reminded of Jesus’ promise of an easier yoke and lighter burden. That happens each and every Sunday—indeed, each and every day—when you and I speak on the phone or share a word in the Commons, when you share your own stories of experiencing God’s glory or your own prayer concerns for those you love, when you show up for worship in the middle of a hectic and busied lifestyle to anchor your week in the community of Christ’s disciples.

I am reminded of your deep faith when you arrive at this rail, hands open, head maybe bowed or eyes lifted up in hopeful expectation taking this guy from Nazareth seriously—not too unlike the children who come up here earlier in the service for a time with the pastor—wanting what Christ will give, presenting your shoulders once again for the gracious yoke, handing over your heavied hearts in exchange for that easier burden.

And then I see you, once again—refreshed, empowered, head lifted higher, shouldering that lighter burden of the Spirit’s transformation making your way back to your seat in the pew, making your way back out the door ready to bear this faith once again this week to any generation you happen to meet in the marketplace.


Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

"Stirred, Not Shaken" - Lenten Reflections on the Life of Faith (Guide Our Life)

Texts: Exodus 13:17-22, 2 Timothy 3:14-17

[enter to the "Raider March," complete with whip, fedora, and leather jacket]

Greetings, fellow adventurers!

I was in town to do some top-secret protection for the Picasso exhibit down at your museum of Fine Arts, and I heard about your Lenten Wednesday worship theme this year. Come to find out, it is based on a twist of one of my fellow adventurer’s martini orders. Indeed, my British counterpart, Agent 007, always orders his shaken, not stirred. I suppose I’d take mine the same way. I’ve never met Mr. Bond, but we lead a similar lifestyle: secret missions, international travel and intrigue, and the propensity to display calm, wit, and quick thinking in the face of danger (if I do say so myself). He always prefers things a little shaken up, not just stirred around.

But not you. Oh, no. You, on the other hand, have apparently ordered up a life that is stirred, not shaken. It’s a clever little reversal of wording. I suppose it calls attention to your desire to be stirred up by the Holy Spirit into service and courage rather than shaken into doubt and despair. Apparently you even pray for this type of life. That’s pretty admirable, especially to adrenaline junkies like me. In one of your worship services, the rite of confirmation, you even line up your young whipper-snappers up in front of the church to publicly affirm the promises of their baptism. And right there you pray for God’s Holy Spirit to keep them stirred, not shaken. As they are poised on the brink of adulthood—poised to grab hold of the grace that has been handed them by God—you look the challenges of life square in the eye and pray for the help that will keep them faithful.

Come to think of it, you sound like a fairly intrepid outfit that a guy like me might even fit in! And today/tonight you’re considering part of that prayer that I happen to know a little about: guide our life. Since I have a knack for tracking down my prize by following clues and sometimes raw instinct, I thought might be in order for me to swing by and give you a few pointers about good guidance. You see, I rely on guidance of all types: scholarly knowledge I’ve obtained in the academy, cryptic archaeological symbols, legendary oracles, and an internal sense of where danger might lurk. I know a thing or two about how to navigate adventure, believe you me. Maybe I can help you in your adventure to be stirred, not shaken.

Because, let’s be honest: life is an adventure. Whether you’re ranging all over the planet, attempting feats of daring and danger, or whether circumstances require that you live your whole life within a few square miles, life necessarily involves decisions, and those decisions carry with them the air of adventure. Life involves risk, choices, fear of regret, tiptoeing or diving headfirst into the unknown. What to do Friday night? Where to go to college next year? How to raise a family? What job to take? Which retirement facility to inhabit?—the adventurous aspects of life are inescapable. And for people of faith, there is the added dimension of how to live to the glory of God in each and everything you do. It is nice to know you may pray for some type of guidance in the midst of it all.

And it appears your God is not prepared leave you hanging in that department. Look at the ancient Israelites. As you know, I’ve studied their history very carefully. After God delivered them from their slavery in Egypt, God didn’t just slap them on the rear and turn them loose to their freedom. Against all odds, he found a way to guide them out of a hostile, oppressive environment into an even more hostile desert, right through the middle of a huge body of water, and, eventually, into a land God had set aside especially for them. They were dressed for battle action and carried with them the bones of their great ancestor Joseph as a reminder of who they were.

While they journeyed, of course, two pillars guided them: a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Eventually, when they would obtain the Ark of the Covenant (which, as you know, now sits forgotten in some unmarked box amidst many others somewhere in a government warehouse), the cloud and the fire would rise and fall in the air over the ark. When this cloud would fall over the Ark, the Israelites would set up camp. As soon as it lifted into the air, they knew it was time to move on.

Now, I’ve seen a lot of things on this planet, but I have to say I can’t imagine what that would have looked like. But the Israelites knew it could be trusted. They knew it represented God’s real presence, slogging with them wherever they went.

That’s pretty cool—it’s like some divine GPS device—but what I find most interesting (as a person who likes to get straight to the treasure) is that this long stint in the wilderness was a part of the deal. The wandering is built-in, right from the start. As they get started on this adventure, God is set on leading them a roundabout way. Rather than taking the direct route through the land of the Philistines, God makes them traipse into the wilderness, southward, toward the banks of the Red Sea. And the wandering does not cease once they come out dry on the other side. For a total of forty years they meander through the barren wasteland of the Sinai Peninsula and the northern Arabian Desert before they finally reach where they’re supposed to be. Nevertheless God was with them the whole time, his mysterious pillars of cloud and fire leading the way, but also involved in their own wandering.

I don’t know how you read it, but there are a few things I would take from this account if you’re thinking about guidance. For one, the people of God traveled as a group and were guided as a group. They had leaders that helped mediate the course who struck out on their own occasionally, but the journey of faith was not a “lone ranger” thing. God is clearly interested in guiding a community, not just individuals. To receive God’s guidance, you might not want to stray too far from the desert caravan of your brothers and sisters.

Secondly, wilderness is part of the adventure. In your baptismal journey, you can expect times of wandering and wondering. You can assume there will be days and years you feel lost, miles from where you want to be. You may even feel lost from God. But you should never forget that he has promised to be in the midst of that wandering with you. This is where the sacraments are so important. Tangibility is part of your faith. You’ll need something to hold onto.

Another thing you may want to take from this lesson is to get rid of the idea that every single step of your life has been mapped out by God, and that it’s your job ahead of time to figure out what those steps are. It appears God doesn’t really guide like that, and God isn’t that much of a control freak. People of faith can often get stuck in that trap, though, always waiting for some special secret oracle, some clear signpost that will let them know which path at the fork in the road to take. They worry and wonder about which decision would actually be in God’s will. I mean, sometimes there may be signs, mentors, who can point away. But the danger is getting frozen in your tracks, paralyzed by the thought that your powers of decision may somehow nullify God’s ability to bring good from any circumstance.

There’s one guy who gave some pretty sound advice in this department—I think you may know him. He said, “If you are a sinner, then sin boldly, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.” I believe his name was Martin Luther, and he always had a knack for pointing to the cross.

For that’s really the heart of the matter here. When you Christians are thinking about God’s guidance, about the way through the wilderness, all thinking must begin with that cross. That Jesus…man, was he an adventurer! He thrust himself—body and soul—into his trust in God, and his life and death proved God’s promise to guide his people through any situation. The cross is evidence of God’s ability to redeem any decision we make. It is that guidepost of all guideposts. May I be so bold as to suggest that that the cross is those two pillars—set together—which still lead God’s people, assuring you God is with you at all times, no matter the depth of the danger, no matter the width of your waywardness. Maybe that’s just some crazy archaeologist’s hunch, but I’d run with it. No matter what, it should give you an idea of the form of God’s guidance so that you and all your young whipper-snappers may face life stirred, not shaken.

I suppose our journeying is beginning to look a little different, yours and mine. The nature of my adventure is the recovery of ancient artifacts, the acquisition of rare treasures and secrets. As an archaeologist, my life is committed to the uncovering of truths from the past. The Lost Ark, the Temple of Doom…they all are tokens of by-gone eras. But you, you are called to things ahead. You journey on with the promise of a time yet to come, agents of a kingdom of grace that is being established as we speak.

As the writer to Timothy says, you need to know that you are equipped for every good work. Any adventurer can assure you that in order to be truly guided one must have a place to go. To receive direction, there must be a destination. And that you have! You may walk and wander with the confidence that God will always be guiding you to the place where your gifts participate in the restoration of this world to God through Jesus.

And, just like the ancient Israelites carried with them the bones of their great ancestor Joseph, reminding them of their identity, you travel with the Scriptures in your safekeeping. They are “inspired by God,” as again the writer to Timothy says, “useful for teaching, for reproof…and for training in righteousness.” Let me tell you: don’t forget your own set of ancient texts, and how important those living bones are for your adventure. You may feel sometimes that they burden you down, but don’t ever downplay their ability to guide you and remind you who you are.

Well, it has been with great honor to offer you any words of wisdom tonight. You’ve got your mission as the people of God, rooted in your baptism. I am beginning to recognize that it is far more daring—and, at times, frustrating—than mine ever have been. But also far more exciting, this life of faith. You go forth with a clear vision, drawn ever deeper with your community into God’s redemption of the world. Use whatever gifts you’ve received. And go forth. Boldly make your decisions. Lead the adventure of a lifetime.

Oh, and if you happen to run across any, uh, any snakes—which I hear lurk sometimes in your story—then don’t let them shake you either. Be stirred, stirred to action, ever confident that God has chosen to guide you.

Well, with that, I’m off.  If I don't get back to my post, I can see a fifth episode: "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Picasso."



The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

(as the inimitable Indiana Jones)

The First Sunday in Lent [Year A] - March 13, 2011 (Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 and Romans 5:12-19)

It was supposed to be an idyllic setting. The spot of earth they had come into was almost perfectly flat, ringed by just enough tall oak trees to provide comfortable shade but containing enough open space for them to till and work the earth in a small vegetable garden. And it was a sufficiently wild but never hostile environment. Animals like squirrels and raccoons and even deer often scampered across the lawn in a somewhat friendly manner, and the woods that abutted the back of the property were home to all kind of birds.

The wildlife teemed there, but the backyard was primarily idyllic because of what it offered the children. The instant they looked at it he and his wife could see their two young girls growing up in it. First, a small sandbox. Later would come a play house in the back corner. In the summer, a pool of water would offer refreshment from the heat and the lack of a slope made rolling snowballs for snowmen easy in the winter. But always: nature’s harmony. It was a place the two of them could envision the innocence and happiness of childhood taking shape.

Until the dead bird last week. It was a Hermit Thrush, white breast feathers belly-up for who knows what reason, right in the middle of the path to the shed. I, of course, had become somewhat hardened to such a sight, but how would I explain this to my daughter as she rounded the corner? Had she encountered something this disturbing, this out-of-the-ordinary before? Would it scar her? What kind of questions might she ask that I wouldn’t be able to answer? I found myself wanting to shield her from it, as if its very presence had marred the whole backyard experience, transforming it into something less-than. At first I tried to convince my wife that maybe I should have found a way to chuck it into the bushes before it was discovered by innocent eyes. But in the end, we confronted its reality head-on, but still not 100% satisfied with their explanation.  How does one really make sense of death? There is always a tendency to shield oneself from these awful realities.

The same can be said for other far more idyllic surroundings that have been marred with far worse: the pristine and picturesque Pacific coastline of northern Japan, the war-torn villages of Libya, the poverty- and AIDS-stricken villages of sub-Saharan Africa. We are speechless at the brokenness of creation, the brokenness of our lives, and we come up with any number of ways to rationalize it, or numb ourselves to it, or stitch together fig leaves to cover it up. One of the parishioners in the first congregation I served is the world’s oldest living hypnotherapist. One of his early assignments as an Air Force officer in the Pacific theater of World War II was to hypnotize soldiers who had served at Iwo Jima who were mentally and emotionally paralyzed by the gruesome carnage they had witnessed there. Wracked by those horrific scenes amidst what should also have been an idyllic setting, they came to him for a last-ditch fig-leaf shield. His hypnotherapy could never erase or undo the atrocities, he always acknowledged, but it offered some kind of relief, some kind of shield.

In a sense, this is what we all do to our gruesome human condition, a condition put into remarkably accurate and perceptive language by the ancient Hebrews thousands of years ago. The first man and first woman, set by God’s grace in the garden of Eden, transgress the law—the one law had been issued intended to keep appropriate and life-giving boundaries between the roles between Creator and the created. Tantalized, and also swindled by the tempter, that crafty spreader of lies, they seek God’s private knowledge, some false form of freedom, and they reach for power—they reach to occupy the role that the Creator fulfills.

And at that moment, as the apostle Paul explains, sin comes into the world. A force enters the idyllic backyard that immediately transforms their surroundings into something less-than. It is a force that has somehow both been unleashed by them and caught hold of them. With sin now free to spread its lies, things will never be the same. And the immediate effect is that their eyes are opened, but only to see their vulnerability. The immediate result of their temptation to sin is not wisdom or power, but shame and, eventually, fear…fear even of the one who created them.

For the apostle Paul, and for countless other people of faith, this story in Genesis explains with perfect truth the story of the human condition. “Sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin…and death spread to all because all have sinned,” he says, tracing our condition back to the near-beginning, to the very first humans, but never taking us off the hook, either. It attempts to tell us something that we all know and feel from our own observation—by that inner sense implanted by the Creator—but that can never explained by even our best science; namely, that we look around and find ourselves in what should be an idyllic place, with life in full communion with God, with creation, with each other, and with ourselves—but which isn’t.

Theologians have long plumbed this story of man and woman’s fall to find the root cause or the main character of our sin. Is it, for example, a sense of rebellion, an urge of disobedience, as when woman and man willingly went against the law that had been established? Or is sin best described as disordered desire, a sense that we want the wrong things and turn away from the very things that are good for us? This would be suggested by the fact that woman sees the tree as good for food, a “delight to the eyes,” rather than as the deadly fare that God had maintained it was. So much of our brokenness is brought about by wanting and seeking the very things that do us in. Or is sin, at its root, pride, a craving to be like the Creator in all the Creator’s power? “When you eat of it,” the serpent promises, “you will be like God,” an offer that was—and still is—too good to turn down.  

Or, as Martin Luther and the other reformers proposed, is our sin rooted in our contempt for God’s Word?  When the serpent presses the woman about what God said, she incorrectly quotes what God originally said.  As Luther noted, man and woman were unable or unwilling to cling tightly enough to God’s Word, and there sin has its opening—with all of us (see typescript The Faith of the Christian Church, part II, David S. Yeago, pp 42-43).

"Adam and Eve" Albrecht Duerer, 1504

Perhaps, though, sin is something so insidious that it defies a tidy explanation. Try as we may, we can never really perfectly point at what has gone wrong. Nevertheless, the fact remains that when we open our eyes wide enough, we realize that things are not as they should be. Things like greed, vanity, and selfishness rule our hearts and our relationships far more than they should. Yes, this Genesis story is the story of our condition. From Adam and Eve to Moses, it is the story of you and me. From Moses and the prophets through the wayward years of Israel, God’s people, who tried to live by earthly definitions of power and who grasped after worldly riches and who lived by testing God’s faithfulness, this brief episode tells the story of our condition. From the blood-drenched shores of Iwo Jima to the awkward conversation about a bird’s death between a father and his daughter, this is the story of our condition, the story that something is not right. This is the story of us.

But—thanks be to God—it is not the end. For now there is the story of Jesus, the free gift. Now there is a new Man among us, one who comes to begin a rescue mission that will not just hypnotize us to sin’s effects, or erase the scars it leaves, but that will that will, in fact, miraculously undo its power. There is a new Man among us, born of God himself, yet clothed in flesh like one of us, who will triumphantly withstand the guile of the tempter and unravel his lies, one who will, on our account, cling to the Word of God so tightly that he will become inseparable from it. Now we have the story of Jesus, the free gift, and he will bring about a new birth that will give us new eyes that, when opened again, will see a world with limitless potential for service and love.

And, foremost, Jesus will prove God’s love for us. His rescue will focus on our hearts, to unspoil that which we have ruined, to put back together that which we have helped tear apart, to forgive that which we could never imagine being forgiven, to raise our blessed dead.

Now, my friends, there is the story of Jesus, the free gift, and it assures us that our story does not have the final word. I suppose this is what the American theologian Frederick Buechner meant when he said, “The gospel is bad news before it is good news,” that it is tragedy before it is comedy (Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale, Harper SanFrancisco, 1977, p7).  We first must encounter our state of vulnerability, our state of being lost—in short, the fullness of our sin—before we realize we have been saved. We must come to terms with our need for redemption before we hear the good news of our redeeming. We must first recognize the totality of our filthiness before we hear that God loves us anyway, loves us to the core. We understand that we are wounded, and then we realize that this Jesus is also wounded for us.   

          

It is not just the season of Lent that asks us to grapple with these two stories—the story of us and the story of Jesus. Our entire faith is based on it. Too often we are lulled by the crafty tempter into thinking that nothing is really wrong with us or the world, or, at best, that death and sin are just a permanent part of the picture. Too often we are lured into thinking that belonging to the church or participating in congregational life is simply a way to get some good values and morals, or an avenue for serving others. We must never forget that Jesus’ life and death is not, at its core, about values or morals or even serving others. Jesus goes out into the wilderness to rescue us. He endures the cross to save us, to put a different, beautiful ending on the story we keep writing.

And, in the surprising way God would have it, it is not really a new ending, but, rather, another beginning. It is a beginning that goes on and on with the power to transform creation and our lives, once more, into something good. The challenge of our faith, rooted in baptism, is to see ourselves written into Jesus’ wonderful new beginning, to take hold of this free gift, to cling to his Word that transports us to the idyllic setting of grace that God always intended. 

It is about the challenge of knowing that, yes, we are lost.

But that we also have been found.

Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.         

The Baptism of Our Lord, Year A - January 9, 2011 (Psalm 29, Matthew 3:13-17)

Many years ago, in the summer between two semesters of college, I experienced an event in nature that had a profound effect on my faith. It has never occurred to me very often to share it because I was totally alone when the event happened, and so it became a very personal—almost private—epiphany. On second thought, however, it was an experience that, at the time, so intensely deepened my understanding of God’s grace that I think it might have helped put me on the path towards my vocation as pastor. In a way, that makes that epiphany less private, like it somehow now belongs to everyone who might come in contact with me, even if I never mention it explicitly.

The event of which I speak was nothing more than the peculiarly brilliant glow of a sunset against the snow-covered side of a large mountain in the Sierra Nevada range in California. It happened while I was on a 24-hour period of solitary retreat that was a part of a fourteen-day Outward Bound course in mountaineering. I was tired and alone in my thoughts at the end of a long day, sitting on my sleeping bag on a sun-hardened snow drift, when I looked up into the distance at the perfect instant to catch the rays of evening sun glancing off this large, white mountain. It is difficult to rate sunsets, but at the time, it was the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen, by far.

Yet it was more than a beautiful sunset. As I was moved by its brightness and intensity, it seemed to allow what poet Percy Shelley once called “the everlasting universe of things flow through [my] mind.” And, like all sunsets, it was fleeting. But in the minutes that it lasted, I was consumed by awe and thanksgiving: awe, not simply because of its radiance, but more because I felt something so beautiful in nature—and my appreciation of it—could never occur by accident; and thanksgiving, for the pleasure of seeing it (and that the view wasn’t obscured by thousands of blackbirds plummeting from the sky!) I felt, in a way, as if that sunset might have been a message sent from God directly to me, assuring me not only of his presence, but also of his constant care. I remember what affected me most about the experience was the realization that this vista, as spectacular as it was, was not a one-time occurrence. That kind of sunset happened every day, the world over. I was—and still am—sure that I experienced God’s glory and grace in that sunset, and I was thankful for the opportunity to appreciate it—if that makes any sense.

I’m sure many— if not all—of you have had similar experiences with the grandeur and power of nature. It may not be a sunset, but perhaps the sight of a waterfall, or the complexity of the atom, or the birth of a child, or a loved one making an unexpected recovery from illness. Occurrences with the natural, created world—both the mundane and the extraordinary—have always had a way of communicating something about God’s power and God’s wisdom. Often they catch us off guard, but sometimes we grow into these epiphanies more gradually. Whether or not we can explain the phenomena scientifically makes little difference. They are glimpses of what God is like and how God manifests God’s love to us.

Ancient Israel was no exception in experiencing this. They, too, lived in a natural world that was awesome and beautiful and difficult to explain. That, in fact, is what Psalm 29 is trying to communicate this morning. Psalm 29 is a unique psalm: no other portion of Holy Scripture so closely associates events in nature with the glory of God. In it, the psalmist has clearly experienced some natural event—in this case, it sounds like it might have been a thunderstorm—and he is moved to expound upon God’s power. The imagery is vivid: cedar trees are snapped, like those in hurricane-force winds; the desert shakes and the oak trees writhe and sway; rain and wind consume the landscape so much that the hills in the distance skip like young wild oxen.

The imagery is truly descriptive, but the particular wording of the psalm is more peculiar yet: each verse includes God’s name, sometimes twice. It is thought that this psalm might have actually been partly borrowed from Israel’s nature-worshiping neighbors. Israel, of course, adapted and re-worded it so that it was clear that the wind and the rain were not gods themselves, or tools of a vindictive pantheon of deities overhead, but, rather, manifestations of the one true God’s power. The first two lines of the psalm make clear where the people are to ascribe all this glory: to none other than the Lord, the God of Israel, whose name then rings out, quite repetitively, throughout the song.

And where are the people in the psalm? They are in the temple, praising God and crying “glory!” which would have essentially been the words on my lips as I sat on the side of that mountain years ago: “Glory!” But here Israel is together, hearing about or remembering this magnificent storm, making a public pronouncement about God’s power.

Yet for all our examples of epiphanies and for all of Israel’s poetry regarding God’s grandeur, all things pale in comparison to what happens when Jesus of Nazareth steps into the Jordan River to be baptized by John.

Imagine, for a second, bringing up Google Earth on your computer screen. There, before you, is a color satellite image of the whole earth, or maybe most of one hemisphere. The ridges of the mountain ranges are visible, as are some of the folds and creases of the ocean floor. As if offering God’s own perspective, the whole planet is in our domain…the thunderstorms, the sunsets, and everything else. Then, imagine going to the place where you type in an address or a location. What happens next? As soon as a specific location gets entered, the satellite’s eye immediately zooms in and focuses on that one particular spot. We hover, perhaps like a descending dove, just above one particular spot in God’s creation.

That is akin to what happens at Jesus’ baptism. As Jesus steps into that muddy river, and has his head breaks the surface as he comes back up, God’s glory and power and grace zoom in and become centered in one place like never before. At that point, God’s voice is heard overhead, and it is not announcing, as it was before, “This is my thunderstorm, the sign of my power,” nor does it proclaim, as I once heard, “This is my sunset, the Beautiful.” Rather, now God’s voice declares, “This is my Son, the beloved.” God is acting in a new way—a new message sent straight to us—and his glory and power and beauty and love will be visible and real to us in a way that is altogether unprecedented.

Jesus, God’s own Son, is now walking on the earth, and his baptism claims him from a private, personal existence and sets him forth as a public leader and servant. In his baptism, Jesus is lifted out of relative obscurity set forth as a God’s anointed, one who will at the same time encapsulate for Israel all the righteousness they could never muster and for God all the love for his creation. In his baptism, we not only learn to ascribe to Jesus the glory due God’s name, but God also ascribes to his Son the love and sacrifice he has for us.

For from the waters of the Jordan Jesus will rise and not go home. He will go out into the wilderness to be tempted. From there to the villages and town of Galilee of Judea, preaching God’s word and calling people to take part in God’s kingdom. From this point in the waters of Jordan, you can draw a line directly through all those things right to the judgment hall of Pontius Pilate and, from there, to the cross—and trust all along that God is still zoomed in on him.

It is a challenge to many a person’s faith—including my own—to remember that to this day there is no more positive and definitive demonstration of God’s reality, or of God’s power—and most certainly of God’s love—than in Jesus Christ, no matter how many other beautiful sunsets we’ve seen or how many loved ones we see miraculously healed. Jesus is still the focal point of God’s efforts, that Google Earth zoom effect that we can’t deny. In his small book, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it like this:

“It is not in our life that God’s help and presence must be proved, but rather God’s presence and help have been demonstrated for us in the life of Jesus Christ…The fact that Jesus Christ died is more important that the fact that I shall die, and the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead is the sole ground of my hope that I, too, shall be raised on the Last Day.” (Life Together, HarperSanFrancisco, 1954, p54)

Those have always been challenging words for me, because I have a terrible tendency to think that everything—even God’s love—is all about me. And really, it isn't.  It's more about Jesus.  And while my experiences with sunsets and even hills skipping like young wild oxen are good grounds for believing in God’s glory, God’s action in Jesus’ life is the “sole ground,” Bonhoeffer says, in our hope of eternal life.

Interestingly, it was solid ground that the dove was seeking when Noah thought the forty long days of flooding and waiting was over. Solid ground was needed for a new beginning, a new life. And when the dove returned, descending with the olive branch, the people of God knew that the wait was over.

A new dove descends at Jesus’ baptism, and, likewise, a wait is over. Solid ground has risen up, and we may build. Baptized, ourselves, flooded with forgiveness, we may begin anew and build our lives on the sole ground God so long intended to give us. Brothers and sisters, we may build again—not with a faith too personal and private, but with a courage to be public and prophetic for the whole creation.

In Jesus, we behold God’s beloved Son, and we may build our lives in him. Again, and again…and again. And all the people in the temple shout, “Glory!”

Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.