The Fifth Sunday in Lent [Year C] - March 21, 2010 (Philippians 3:4b-14 and John 12:1-8)

It’s quite a fashionable thing nowadays to have something called a “Bucket List.” Popularized by the movie from a couple of years ago by the same name, starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson as two patients with terminal medical diagnoses, a bucket list is a list of accomplishments one would like to achieve before, well, kicking the bucket. In the movie, the main characters—one of whom is very wealthy—become acquaintances as roommates in the hospital after they’ve learned they will both die within the year from cancer. Throwing caution to the wind, the two then embark on the adventure of their lives, methodically ticking off their bucket list items: skydiving, scaling a Himalayan mountain peak, going on a lion safari in Africa, climbing the Pyramids, and so on. Some of the items on their bucket list are not so far-flung, and include commonplace everyday nuggets, like “help a complete stranger for the common good,” and “laugh till I cry.” It’s an interesting, if not flawed, notion: that a meaningful, fulfilling life can somehow be made up of a string of special accomplishments, that the aim of life is to rack up personal or even altruistic triumphs. The film touches on that tension a bit, but even the touching finale still finds its way revolving around items on the characters’ bucket list.


Whether or not the movie is to blame, I’ve heard more people make mention of their own bucket list. I’ve even fancied a few ideas for myself, experiences I’d like to rack up if I ever have the opportunity. Yet, for all the items I’ve heard—and even considered—for a bucket list, I must admit I’ve never come across the one mentioned by Paul in his letter to the Philippians. And perhaps I should. There, situated in the heart of his letter to his beloved congregation in Philippi, he writes, as if it is the key to a wholesome life, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death.”

In a way, it’s his sole “bucket list” item: “to know Christ and the power of his resurrection,” to “share in his sufferings.” It doesn’t exactly make for something to boast about. After all, what kind of exotic adventures could that produce? Who has any great scrapbook photos or slides to show of “knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection”? Yet, for Paul, it is the aim of life. It is that path—knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection—which is greater than any Himalayan mountain-climb or opportunity to jump out of an airplane and yell “Bonzai!”

To be sure, Paul has not compiled a list of things he’d like to do before he dies, but it is clear that he has struggled to define his life by a list of his own achievements. He names them, one-by-one, in his correspondence with the Philippians, and it is a list that would make any first-century Christian or Jew jealous. He hails from one of the most illustrious and law-abiding pedigrees. His claims about his heritage and even his circumcision all serve to paint the picture of someone whose been doing all the right things since the very beginning. He’s gotten his degrees, proceeding through the ranks of rigorous credentialing to become a Pharisee. He’s even made a name for himself in the cause of persecuting the church. In the eyes of most anyone in the ancient Mediterranean world, man, he’s just about done it all!

Yet, it is all nothing, he says—“rubbish”—compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ his Lord. None of those accomplishments, none of those feathers in his cap, none of that former status is going to provide him the essence of a fulfilled life now that he has come to understand the value that his faith provides. Knowing and being known by Christ is something so great and so deep and so extraordinary that it makes him want to forget what lies behind him and only press on to venture further in faith.

In a culture that preaches the virtues of building a resume, of making the varsity team, of getting accepted into a top-ranked program, of having it all look well-put-together, it is important for people of faith to be reminded that knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection is really the focus of our lives. He is of surpassing value to us because he has demonstrated by his life, death, and resurrection that we are of surpassing value to him. Knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection and sharing in his sufferings means having a share in the love that eventually turns the world upside down. Knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection means in any given moment, in any given place, no matter how dark, no matter how ordinary, lies an opportunity to bring glory to God.

That is what is happening with Mary’s devotion in the gospel text. Even her jar of expensive perfume, which could be used for any number of things, becomes oriented towards Christ and who he is. Jesus has just raised her brother from the dead. The smell everyone has likely had on their mind is the stench for which they braced themselves when Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb. As Mary anoints Jesus’ feet, the whole room is overtaken with the beautiful smell, and the motive of her action it becomes unmistakable: she understands the surpassing value of Jesus. She is sharing in his suffering. To put Paul’s words in her mouth, she is wanting to know the power of his resurrection, because she understands he has come to die and bring salvation to all.

It goes without saying that we all have ways we share in Christ’s suffering and seize those opportunities to model the power of the resurrection. The quilts against your back, the health kits for Haiti relief, the precious hours you put into handbell practice…all are examples of cracking open that expensive jar of perfume, of what Paul calls “straining forward to what lies ahead in Christ.” In doing so, we begin to realize that all other possible achievements and accomplishments pale in comparison to our baptism, to the fact that the Creator of heaven and earth who will eventually bring all the universe under his authority loves us and has redeemed us and made us his. In seeking to know Christ, we realize this gathering this morning—the words we hear in Scripture and the sacraments we behold—is the most formative event of our week. And that’s not because we can go home and check off “going to church” off some list of achievements, but because here we hear and are reminded that our life is not really our own. We don’t need any “experiences” to make our life complete because Christ has already done that and he calls us to press on, to share in his sufferings and know the power of his resurrection another day—to pour out all of our lives for him and not leave any left over.

Truth be told, it was completely unlike any tapestry I’d ever seen. As one of the arts and craft activities at the Seventh Day retreat last weekend, the 5th- and 6th-grade students of our synod assembled a giant patchwork quilt, not too unlike the ones you see draped across our pews this morning. Each participant had been given one cloth square to decorate with markers, and, upon completion, those squares were tied together with small ribbons. That, in and of itself, was nothing out-of-the-ordinary. It was beautiful and colorful and creative—and it hung nicely as a backdrop—but we’ve all seen plenty of quilts or tapestries that are beautiful and colorful and creative. What was so striking about the production of this one last weekend, however, was that the young participants had been learning about Jesus’ command to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. One of the topics of the retreat was “Who does Jesus teach,” and we had been asked to reflect on the fact that Jesus teaches everyone—righteous and unrighteous alike—and that his followers are engaged in loving the world in the way Jesus did, which often entails reaching out to those who seek to do us harm. To make their portion of the tapestry, asked to draw a picture of someone they perceive to be an enemy—someone they are in conflict with whom they might not imagine Jesus teaching. “Oh, my,” I thought to myself, “don’t the craft leaders know they’re asking us to pour out a good bit of our precious perfume?”

Taken individually, each little square did not seem very remarkable, but stitched together and hung as a backdrop for our final worship, they had quite an effect. There in front of us, like an oversized parament, was a piece of cloth decorated with a hodge-podge of stick figures and multi-colored faces depicting playground bullies, classroom tormenters, unfair siblings, back-stabbing friends. As we worshiped, we were stared at a tapestry of the people who were difficult for us to know how to love and communicate with, a visual prayer for those we often have a hard time seeing as “loved by God.”

Could you imagine, for example, if we made one of those tapestries and hung it behind the large cross on the wall behind our altar, so that every Sunday as we sang our hymns, we’d have a visual prayer of all the faces of those with whom Christ came to reconcile us, all those who are being called, along with us, to share in his sufferings? Talk about knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection! Talk about sharing in his sufferings! Talk about filling the whole room with the aroma of love! Even the thought of such sight, added together with all the other offerings of our lives, would send a clear message to ourselves and to the world that we are pressing forward in faith, seeking to know the man of surpassing value. It would send the message that we are moving forward with Paul’s one-item bucket list! Bonzai!



Thanks be to God!




The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

"The Calculus of Forgiveness" - March 10, 2010 (Matthew 18:15-22)

[Speaker enters sanctuary down the center aisle, wearing college-themed hoodie or sweatshirt and blue jeans, carrying a backpack. At the center of the chancel sits a school desk, the kind with the desk part attached to the chair. Speaker sits in the chair and pulls a notebook with the word “Calculus” on it.]


Maybe it was a mistake to sign up for this professor. It’s very likely I could fail. Of all the calculus professors I’d heard about on campus, this one was supposedly the best. As an instructor, he has a reputation for being very demanding, with a good grasp on the material he is teaching. However, he is also one of the most unpopular instructors. For, out of all the calculus and advanced math professors here at the university, he is the only one who offers no partial credit on assignments or exams. Not even a little bit. That is, if the final answer at the end of your four-page solution is wrong—even by a small fraction—he counts the entire problem as wrong.

[face the “front of the class” and act as if responding to a role call]

For those of you who have been lucky enough to escape the purgatory that is calculus, you must know that receiving partial credit is often the only hope of passing a calculus class. Like I said, solutions to problems can go on for pages. It’s not like arithmetic—two-plus-two equals-four, and there you have it. Here, one little misplaced negative sign or one small misstep early on in the process can completely skew the final result. Every step of your logic can be correct and well-thought-out, but the final answer can still be wrong.

Other professors will look at the process you used to answer a problem and grade you on that, overlooking the fact that the end product is off. Other professors will give your thought and intent the benefit of the doubt, saying, “well, up until this point, your solution was on-track,” and reward you for it. In other words, you can take an entire test and still pass without ever getting an answer technically right.

[pause and face the front for a few seconds, as if listening to the instructor]

But this professor doesn’t allow that. He is adamant. He sees no point in partial credit, and it is not uncommon for an entire section of his class to receive a failing grade for the semester. This is not gracious, at least in the eyes of most students, but I’m going to give him a try, anyway.

I suppose I should introduce myself at some point. I’m Peter, college student.  Willing disciple of the academy, going for that degree. My fellow classmates know me as the one who speaks out a lot and gets myself into trouble with some of the questions I ask. Even though it might be foolish for me to be taking calculus from this professor, I suppose I’m drawn to him because something tells me that only someone with truly firm and complete grasp of how to communicate the subject matter can demand such a high standard from his students.

You know, in that sense, calculus is a lot like the business of forgiveness, which I understand is your focus during Lent. It, too, involves grueling work. Like a math problem that goes on and on for pages in search of an undetermined figure, forgiving someone is often a lengthy process striving toward and end result you won’t know until you get there. That’s one of the more frustrating aspects of it. You often have to keep working and working at it and at some point you might even think forgiving someone and re-establishing trust is an unsolvable problem.

Forgiveness can be very complicated. At one point in speaking with his disciples, Jesus lays out quite an extensive, multi-step pattern for how to address sin and brokenness between fellow believers. You begin by going to the offending party alone and address the situation that way. If that doesn’t lead to apology and reconciliation, then you bring a few witnesses along with you the next time. If that still doesn’t help, the larger community gets a say in negotiating the details of the facts and emotions involved. That’s, of course, where it can really get tricky, but the effort of the community in reaching out is powerful. In the end, if the offender still is not regained, Jesus surprises us with the conclusion that “such a person shall be to you like a tax collector or a sinner.” Well, we all know how Jesus treats tax collectors and sinners. Never saw that answer coming!

No matter what occurs, however, Jesus promises that he will be present on the side of whomever is honestly seeking reconciliation. “Where two or three are gathered in my name,” he says, “I am there with them.” That would be gathered in the name of forgiveness. All of this is surrounded in prayer of hearts that are earnestly seeking to do their Father’s will.

Let me tell you: calculus requires an awful lot of prayer, too. Especially in the high standards of this professor’s class.

[pause, as if taking notes]

By the way, a freak accident occurred in the city last week that came up in class. At one of the local malls where a lot of people shop, the parking deck collapsed unexpectedly in the middle of the wee morning hours. For no reason at all the thing just pancaked, each floor of concrete and steel dropping to the next one below it. Thankfully, no one was injured because it happened at such an ungodly hour, but if it had occurred during peak shopping hours, there is no telling how many people could have been killed.

As you can imagine, mall officials and contractors were all over the news, trying to explain the catastrophe. We came in for class the next day and do you know what our calculus professor said? He said, “I bet the engineer who designed that parking garage got partial credit in his calculus class.”

As it turns out, there’s no partial credit in forgiveness, either. Jesus has high standards, too, and he means to hold us to it. The standards for its practice must be high because the stakes are also high. The option, I suppose, is to live in a world that collapses like a parking deck under the weight of everyone’s sin and under the stress of everyone’s pursuit of revenge for every wrong done. The standards are high because if the community who follows Jesus can’t dedicate itself to practice complete forgiveness, then the world will just opt for the partial-credit versions it already has.

When Peter, my biblical namesake, wants specifics and asks Jesus if seven attempts at forgiveness is enough, Jesus sets his standards even higher. Like a master math professor, Jesus comes up with an even more terrific number, saying not just seven times, but 70 times that amount.

Well, you and I could calculate 70 times 7. It’s 490. Talk about an easy calculation! But that’s not the point of that number Jesus gives. You see, 70 times 7 is an ancient biblical way of saying “always,” or “the perfect amount,” or “until it’s done. And then some.” Jesus actually reaches into a story in the Old Testament to come up with that outlandish number. There’s a story in Genesis where a man named Lamech pronounces vengeance not seven-fold, but seventy-seven fold, or seventy-fold times seven. He is really forceful about it, as if this mode of eye-for-seventy-seven-eyes will rule his world.

Jesus’ response to Peter, then, is like the kingdom of heaven’s antidote to an unlimited system of revenge. How many times do we forgive our brother or sister? Until the problem is solved. Unlimited, if that’s the case. We put our energy in the vulnerability of forgiveness rather than the power of revenge. We always remain open—truly open—to the fact that God will bring about reconciliation between two or more parties. That doesn’t mean we lay down at the foot of our abusers and enable their harmful behavior. It doesn’t mean we let people walk all over us, but it does mean we take seriously that revenge-seeking and being utterly closed to a future of hope and reconciliation is not an option for those who follow Jesus.

It is something we are compelled to do, you see, because we are part of the Forgiving One. By virtue of our baptism, we’re all in this calculus class section, you might say. We have literally been made a part of his body here on earth, and the practice of forgiveness is the very blood that courses through its veins. He forgives, so we forgive. And there is no partial credit to it. Thankfully, the Spirit is given to aid us in the pursuit of these seemingly incalculable solutions.

Like I said earlier, only someone with a clear and complete grasp of the subject matter could hold us to such a high standard. I think Jesus pretty much proved that on the cross. There’s nothing really “partial” about that event. It may not sound like grace the first times we hear it—to have a professor who will demand so much from us—but it is.

It really is grace. It is grace to be involved in this world-changing force. Costly, incalculable grace. Grace that we first receive.

[pause and listen to front of class again, as if it’s about to come to a close. Begin putting book into backpack.]

Well, I suppose I’ve probably talked too long already. Class is about over, and he’s already handed out homework. As demanding as it is, I’m thankful for another opportunity to learn at the foot of the master, I presume you could say. Another chance, ears open and pencil ready, leaning forward to hear what he might say. Thankful for another day to have my own errors corrected, my own misperceptions of this calculus straightened out.

[leaving chancel, pausing to speak:]

Just like it’s another day to be forgiven. Yeah, that's it: forgiven. One more time.

But who’s counting?

[exit]

The Second Sunday in Lent [Year C] - February 28, 2010 (Luke 13:31-35)

I never suspected that as a father I would wind up learning how to make so many animal sounds. Our young daughters naturally love to hear the noises different creatures make and, with increasing frequency these days, love to traipse around the house, pretending to be the animals, themselves. I am often drawn in and requested to mimic the roar of a lion or the trumpet of an elephant. When she’s guarding her snack from me, our three-year-old Clare will often fend me off with the fierce growl of a “mean bear,” as she calls it. Laura, our one-year old, can pant just like a dog. We expand our farmyard and jungle onomatopoeia on a monthly basis: we’ve got cats that meow, frogs that ribbit, and giraffes that chew. (Since every picture of a giraffe our daughters have ever seen shows the animal chomping on a mouthful of leaves, our girls have decided that a giraffe says >chew<, an idea that was only reinforced during our visit last summer to the Richmond zoo which affords its visitors with the singular if not slimy opportunity to feed giraffes from the palm of one’s hand.)


I suppose that if Jesus were to show up at our house one day, he’d cluck like a hen. At least, that’s what we could assume from the comments he makes outside Jerusalem, which we hear about in today’s gospel reading. It’s interesting: in all of the New Testament, Jesus compares himself to an animal only once. Although there are several times, specifically in John’s gospel, when he is referred to by others as “the Lamb of God,” and there is a reference to him as the “Lion of Judah” in Revelation, the only time he reaches into the animal kingdom and pulls out a metaphor for himself is this instance in Luke’s gospel, and he chooses a mother hen. We might expect the choice of something more extraordinary or rare, an animal that we would automatically associate with bravery or divinity, yet it is this run-of-the-mill resident of the local farm with which he identifies. It is the maternal, feminine image of a chicken—and a chicken with babies, no less—he chooses to describe his relationship toward Jerusalem, the city toward which he is travelling with his disciples.

Having spent the entirety of my life in the suburbs or the city, I’ve never had the chance to see this barnyard phenomenon. YouTube, which I scoured this week for visual examples, produced nothing satisfying. Apparently a hen, in most cases, will watch over and protect any chick from an egg it incubates. Supposedly at the first sight of danger—a hawk soaring overhead or a fox prowling in the pen—the momma chicken opens her wings and the chicks all come scurrying for shelter underneath. Then she drops her wings again, pulling every one of them in close. And there they remain until the threat has subsided. This survival mechanism serves two purposes: it both protects them from predators and keeps the chicks warm at the same time. According to what I’ve read, the hen is even prepared to offer her own life for the sake of her babies, should it come to that point.

I don’t know at what point the chicks outgrow their mother’s wingspan, or at what point they don’t feel the need to run their for shelter anymore, but this act of seeking shelter and warmth against their mother’s breast is how the each generation of chickens is reared And mother hens never seem to lose the habit. There are even some varieties of hen out there who will welcome into their broods a chick that they haven’t hatched, as if they are the foster moms of the whole coop, poultry parents with such a strong instinct for nurturing that they’re concerned for the preservation of every little baby in the farmyard.

Well, this is how Jesus understands himself in relation to God’s people, which is symbolized by that city that embodies and epitomizes the character and hope of a whole nation, Jerusalem. He stands on some road in Galilee, face firmly set on going there. Speaking from God’s own point of view, he laments the fact that, while he has lifted his wings on occasion, the chicks never come scurrying to him for shelter. He stands in the place many former prophets had stood, looking longingly at a people who had, time and time again, forsaken their role to live as a beacon of justice and compassion for themselves and others. God had given them so much, guided them through so many years, and yet they routinely wanted to go their own way, pursuing others’ ideas of greatness and power.

Considering Jerusalem’s track record for receiving prophets who suggested they repent and turn around from those ideas, it was dangerous for a prophet to enter the city. What’s more, some foxes have been prowling in those parts, and yet the residents of Jerusalem don’t seem to be concerned about their safety. With Pilate in charge, justice has been corrupted and the Roman occupiers have been allowed to tax and enslave. Yet, when Pharisees come to warn Jesus away from Galilee for fear of what Herod might do to him there, Jesus displays that fierce impulse of nurture. He loves God’s people, and despite Herod’s threats, his ministry of healing and casting out demons will not be deterred. He cares for God’s people, and no amount of prowling and snarling from Herod or any other fox will prevent Jesus from responding to their needs of preservation. And so he clucks and raises his wings—on that day, the day after, and all the way into Jerusalem—hoping they’ll recognize the sign and run underneath.

The issue is that for chicks, this is an instinctive response. Their response to their momma’s opened wings is, in a certain sense, pre-determined. They can’t help it. The wings go up, the hen clucks or gives some signal, and they are compelled by biological reflex to go underneath.

Those who live in Jerusalem, on the other hand, don’t operate on instinct. Those who have been created in the image of God, and set loose on the planet to roam at large—free-range chickens that we are—have will. We, like the folks of Jerusalem, have reason and knowledge at hand, flawed though those tools may be. We will, given the chance, often bite the hand that feeds us. We will, given the chance, kill the person who could save us. The wings go up, the signal is given, and we will still choose to press our luck right underneath the nose of the foxes and hawks that could eat us alive. We press our luck, living as though we have no need of the comfort of a faith community, living as though we can outgrow God’s nurture that is offered in the common prayer life of a congregation. We run the other way, suspicious that Scripture and the sacraments offer a false comfort and that a truer, better life lies elsewhere.

Worse yet, we will seek shelter under the shadow of any other substitute momma out there but the one who we’re created to. Free of that instinct to see Jesus as the one, true, loving mother hen—his words driven by nothing more than love and desire for our preservation—we are enticed with the temptation to find ultimate protection and warmth in just about any other relationship—with our education, our careers, our wealth, our friends, our passions.
And yet, we do occasionally glimpse signs of something like an instinctive response to Jesus as guardian. The blip in church attendance and involvement after 9/11 suggested, perhaps, that people sensed a need for togetherness and shelter against the the fear of forces that we perceive as deeply harmful. I have also heard some in the church make the prediction that the current economic downturn might, for whatever reason, lead some folks back to God and their faith communities for hope and support.

Yet, as encouraging as these trends may be, and as nice as it would be to have it a little more crowded under the wings, I’m not sure we should put our hope in them. Jerusalem, too, had a on-again, off-again relationship with God. The fact is that as long as we live, God’s desire to gather and nurture, is almost matched by our desire to wander and reject.

It would be easy for me at this point to decry and bemoan the statistics that show a steady, if not steep, decline in church membership and worship attendance not just in our own denomination, but in our nation as a whole. It would be easy for me to lecture about the lack of compassion we often show, the missed opportunities for mission and outreach, the dysfunction of the church, etc. etc., but to do so would really serve no purpose but to make people feel guilty (or self-righteous) and get you to look away from my own reluctance and forgetfulness about running to the eternal care of Jesus when I’m in need, which is constant.

After all, Jesus doesn’t do all that much lecturing anyway. He does preach and teach, but his ministry is built on healing, casting out demons, actions and words of compassion that are tantamount to lifting his wings and doing whatever he needs to get us realize it’s actually safe and warm under there.

It was my turn to lead chapel in Epiphany’s nursery school this week. Outfitted with photos of chickens and hens, I took this image to the three-year-olds and four-year-olds chicks on-site. I showed them the photos and asked them what a mommy chicken would do if a fox broke into the pen and sensed her chicks were in danger. Their responses, as you can imagine, were like a children’s sermon on steroids. One child suggested the hen would run tell the farmer the babies are in trouble. Another one was convinced that the hen would herd her chicks into the chicken coop and lock the door. A lot of them proposed that the hen would peck the fox to death, or, at least peck him away. Fierce chickens!

What I noticed is that every child knew the instinct of motherly protection. They knew the love of a momma. But not one of them ever supposed she’d protect them by actually taking them under her wing, putting her own life in danger, out in the open. And, truth be told, I wouldn’t have either.

So it is, even with Momma Jesus. There’s just know way we could guess that this would be the way he’d save us yet. There’s just know what that we could figure out, to deduce that he will hold back on the lecturing and really just spread those wings, spread those mighty arms, and take us in. Even on that day when we acclaim him as our king and shout hosanna (“God, save us!”), we would never suspect he’d go to this length, that it would come to that point.  From the streets of Jerusalem, and into the wayward avenues of our own lives, this man will raise his own arms—on the cross—and lay down his life…out in the open.

So, practice your animal noises, if you must. Trumpet, oink, bark, growl, and ribbit. But, above all, listen for those words of love and practice running for shelter. Practice snuggling in tight. His wings are still open.



Thanks be to God!



The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

The Transfiguration of Our Lord [Year C] - February 14, 2010 (Luke 9:28-36 [37-43])

I have this hunch that the story of Jesus’ transfiguration strikes listeners of today as extremely bizarre. Maybe I’m just projecting my own impressions onto everyone else, but I’ve often wondered how we make sense of this account that is attested by three of the four gospel writers. Jesus goes to the top of a mountain with a few of his friends. Then, strangely, his appearance changes, his clothes start glowing crazy white and then two ancient figures from Israel’s history suddenly appear and hold a conversation with him. Before they know it, a cloud descends, out of which a voice is heard to say, “This is my Son, my Chosen! Listen to him!” And then, as soon as that last word is spoken—poof!—Jesus is left alone.


I mean, let’s be honest: this is not an ordinary day in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. This is not, by contrast, Jesus at a wedding reception, or eating in a house with his disciples. Modern ears can make sense of so many parts of Jesus’ story. The nativity, even with all the angels and the shepherds, is familiar to us. We hear, with considerable ease, Jesus’ teachings and parables. They include references and images that we know from our own life experiences: fishing…sowing seeds in a garden…dysfunctional family relationships. Even events like his baptism and his miracles and healings don’t seem altogether too other-worldly and ethereal. We can get a handle on them. We can, in some sense, “relate” to them.

But Jesus’ transfiguration is another story. It’s too short on the details our modern, scientific minds would like to know and too long on mystery—details like, how exactly did his features change? Or, how was he different after this metamorphosis? A hazy account of Jesus’ convening with two of Israel’s most famous prophets is jarringly out of place in the life of a man who hangs out with some of the earthiest people around, and who frequents some of the most common places around. This ascent into the clouds is just not something that happens to regular human beings, which is what we come to understand that Jesus is: One of us. Flesh and blood. God as human.

One of the reasons, perhaps, that this transfiguration account is so remote to modern ears is that we are not as familiar with Moses and Elijah as earlier congregations, and certainly not as familiar as Jesus’ disciples. Here were two figures who loomed large over the Jewish and early Christian mindset. Moses, Elijah, and their individual stories factored some way into the faith and even identity of each and every Jewish person. They were the big guns, the holy head honchos of the Hebrew faith.

The most contemporary thing I might compare this to would be like being on the field, playing in the Super Bowl with Drew Brees as your quarterback, and then looking up in the huddle to see him discussing his next play with Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana. The association made between Jesus and these two figures would have made a profound statement about his identity and about which direction his life was going to take.

What’s more, Luke tells us the three of them are discussing his upcoming departure. Interestingly, the word in the Greek is “exodus”: Moses, Elijah, and Jesus are speaking of his exodus, “which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” Just prior to this trip up the mountain, Jesus had made the first prediction about his suffering, death, and resurrection. Referring to that event, then, as an exodus would have rung even more clearly in the ears of earlier audiences, for that is what Moses was known for. Moses had led his people in their deliverance from captivity in Egypt through the Red Sea and the wilderness of the Sinai to the freedom of the Holy Land. Now Jesus comes to lead God’s people out of captivity through the wilderness of death. It will be an exodus to true freedom.

All of these aspects of the Transfiguration, including the cloud that becomes like a veil to the disciples and the voice that thunders from inside like the words from an ancient prophet—things that may seem mysterious and peculiar to you and me—would have had a profound effect on those who first heard about this day in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

It appears from our text that they do. Peter, James, and John are terrified as they enter the cloud. Peter, amazed at Jesus’ glory, is likely reminded further of the Feast of Tabernacles, the yearly festival during which the Hebrews commemorated the Exodus by constructing makeshift dwellings, or tabernacles, like the ones that had sheltered them in the wilderness. He doesn’t even understand what he’s saying, but he senses how good it is for them to be there and see this transfiguration, but, at least for now, they come down the mountain. There is, after all, an exodus ahead.

And, as they come down that mountain, they run into a man whose only son is overtaken by a demon. As they come down that mountain, they are confronted with the needs of the people, As they come down that mountain, they come face to face with their own failures as disciples, their own powerlessness over the true wilderness of the human experience.

It seems to me that as difficult as it may be for people like us to make sense of this particular transfiguration event, we do have plenty of similar situations in the wilderness of our own lives. In fact, I wonder how often Eagle Eyrie, the Baptist retreat center outside of Lynchburg that serves as the location for our Synod’s youth events, is thought of as Virginia’s own mount of Transfiguration. Several times a year, youth and adults from all over Virginia trek to the top of the hill for a closer encounter with God. Those of us who make the trip often claim to experience while we’re there a deeper understanding of who Jesus is and why he matters. I notice that it is difficult for many youth to leave the sense of intimacy of faith they receive there. I know that, as I read this account, I recognize quite a few sensations I, myself, have at Eagle Eyrie: a trancelike state of sleepiness; stammering and stuttering incomprehensibly with exhaustion; and an inability to articulate exactly what we saw and heard to those who weren’t there.

Our synod youth events, our congregational worship, our pilgrimages of faith and wonder bring us, in some sense, closer to God. We, like the disciples, experience wonder, amazement, an out-of-the-ordinary encounter with faith. Yet for all the excitement and terror that the transfiguration brings, the exodus of faith cannot be continued until they come back down. For all the glory we glimpse on those mountaintop, the glory we will really need to see is that which happens when Jesus confronts the demons in the valley, when Jesus confronts the demons of all on the cross. For all the thrill we get from gazing at Jesus in these moments of grandeur, the truly crucial part of our faith will come when Jesus graciously looks at us, and, in doing so, heals us.

It happens that today, February 14, 2010, is the twentieth anniversary of the most distant photograph of earth ever taken, higher than any mountain view.  On this day in 1990, the spacecraft Voyager 1 rotated in its orbit and clicked its shutter to make one final a snapshot of our solar system from almost 4 billion miles away before it disappeared into the vastness of the universe. Did you say “cheese”? The resulting image has become iconic, and I bet most of you have seen it somewhere before in either books or in movies, or on television. Very different from the famous photograph taken by early space voyages that showed earth as a large round ball of swirling blue, white, and green, the photo taken by Voyager 1 showed just how vast the universe is in comparison to our planet. The photo has been titled “The Pale Blue Dot,” named so because, in it, earth is barely distinguishable among a dizzying number of other tiny flecks as a pale blue dot.

For many who have seen it, the picture of the pale blue dot is humbling, disorienting, and incomprehensible. They are, in a sense, transfigured by what it reveals: that the surrounding universe is so gargantuan and we occupy but a microscopic speck. To them it says we are nothing special, perhaps…just one dot among many, the vista of some remote deity.

For us, I reckon the snapshot could hearken our minds back to our Lord’s Transfiguration when the disciples saw briefly what God’s ultimate glory was like before he resumed his journey back down the mountain to look on us with compassion. For us, it can remind us that an experience with God’s love and glory, though breathtaking and powerful, is not really complete until viewed from the vantage point of the cross, from the vantage point of the boy who is freed from his demon. For us, the distance from that spacecraft to earth is but a fraction of the voyage God undertakes from the top of that mountain.  For the sight of the pale blue dot communicates nothing about the fun of a snow day, or about the smile of a Valentine, or about the joy of holding a newborn baby, or about the suffering of war and torture, or struggling with demons, or the loneliness of grief. But places like that is precisely where Jesus’ exodus will take him. Places like that are on that journey from the splendor of God’s Son on the mountaintop.  Jesus is the true Voyager, going the distance in our direction.

And one day—we are promised—when his new creation is finished, we will once again glimpse him in that splendor from that land of eternal freedom. The veil will be removed from everyone’s eyes and the image of who God is and who we really are in relation to him will be revealed, once and for all. Transformed by his glory, we will share communion with all those who’ve travelled human footsteps before us and after us. I suppose, on some level, that seems incomprehensible, too. From here in the valley on this pale blue dot, it’s mighty hard to grasp. Yet it is true. Just as sure as the words are spoken and the bread is held in our hands, and just as sure as he stands risen Easter morning, it is true.

Let’s listen, then, to the Chosen. He is true.



The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

(image: The Transfiguration, Pietro Perugino, 1498)

The Third Sunday after the Epiphany [Year C] - January 24, 2010 (Luke 4:14-21)

A story is told of a married couple one Sunday morning. The alarm goes off to get ready for church, but only the wife gets out of bed and begins to get ready. After she comes into the bedroom from washing up and dressing, she sees her husband still lying in the covers, trying to go back to sleep. Worried that they’ll be late, she shakes him and says, “Honey. Wake up. We’re going to church, remember?”

He rolls over and with sleepy eyes and says, “Aw, I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to sleep in instead.”

Disgusted, she tries again: “Honey, we have got to go to church. Now get out of bed and get dressed. There’s no sleeping in.”  Again, her husband shows no signs of getting out of bed.

He says, “No, sweetie, I just don’t feel like going to church today. I don’t like the service, the sermons are boring, and, what’s more, I don’t like the people. I can’t stand being around those people.”

His wife looks at him and says with much determination, “Now get out of bed!  You are the preacher and that whole congregation is expecting you to be there this morning!! And I don’t want to hear any more of it!”

What exactly do you expect when you come to worship? In fact, why are you here this morning? What type of experience are you hoping to have, or are you hoping to have one? What words are you expecting to hear? Are you expecting the type of experience that the Israelites have in our first reading today, who weep with emotion as the priest Ezra reads God’s law to them? Suffice it to say, our answers to those questions might be as numerous as the people in this room. They might range from the most self-serving of reasons to the very altruistic.

Such questions are rumbling through my head this morning because I bet that the folks who showed up at that synagogue in Nazareth to hear the Word of God never in their wildest dreams expected to hear what they heard that morning when Jesus rose to read from the scroll. Never in their wildest dreams did they roll out of bed on that Sabbath to hear that that day’s reading of Scripture had been fulfilled. Never in their wildest dreams did they show up for worship with the expectation that God would be bringing his kingdom’s gracious climax to completion in their very synagogue. To be sure, faithful members of the house of Israel had long hoped for the Messiah, the one anointed by God to lead the people in glory, but I’m fairly confident none of them in Nazareth ever expected a local townsman to have the audacity announce it right then and there. Had they expected it, I surmise every last husband and wife—young and old, and everyone in between—might have set the alarm clock and found reason to be there that morning.

When first-century Jews gathered on the Sabbath, worship and prayer was centered on the readings of Scripture. The Hebrew Scriptures, at the time, already pretty much looked a lot like our Old Testament. They began with the Torah, or the Law, which were the first five books of the Bible There were books known as writings, which included some histories of ancient Israel as well as some wisdom literature like Ecclesiastes and Job. Their book of prayers, known as Psalms, was included. Then there was the collection of prophets’ writings, which included the writings of people like Jeremiah, Amos, and, of course, the great Isaiah. All of these Scriptures were recorded on giant scrolls, and each synagogue usually had its own set.

During worship, a scroll was removed from its housing and unrolled in front of the assembly. Different people took turns reading from an appointed portion. The readings were usually followed by periods of teaching and prayer. You can see that early Christian worship had its origins in Jewish worship practices. The doughnut-eating portion was added much later.

So, on that particular Sabbath day Jesus goes into the synagogue, like any other ordinary, faithful Jewish man. (Luke tells us it was his custom.) Jesus stands up to read—like any other ordinary, faithful Jewish man—and they hand him a scroll from Isaiah. It happens to be one of the most beloved parts of the scroll, the segment in the sixty-first chapter where Isaiah highlights what God’s kingdom will be all about. It is the part where the prophet lays out the best, most hoped-for visions of God’s deliverance of his people: good news to the poor and oppressed, release to the captives, sight to the blind and the year of the LORD’s favor. And this vision is furthermore so special and revered because its words are delivered on the lips of God’s anointed, the holy servant of the Lord who will see to it that these things are brought about.

This, incidentally, is the portion that Jesus gets to read, and he hands back the scroll when he’s finished and sits down. Apparently he reads it with such commanding authority because we’re told no one has drifted off into daydreaming. Or maybe their rapt attention is a sign of how tightly gripped they are by that particular Scripture. In either case, “the eyes of all in the synagogue are fixed on him.” They can’t take their eyes off him. Will they weep with emotion?

Then, the bombshell: “Today,” he says, “in your hearing, this Scripture has been fulfilled.” It’s not “Here ends the reading,” or even , “the word of the Lord: thanks be to God.” Jesus’ audacious conclusion to the reading announces, without a doubt, that the year of the Lord’s favor is now. Release is proclaimed to the captive now. The oppressed may go free now. And good news is brought to the poor now. No more waiting. No more wondering when and where God will act in this surprising and gracious way. Right then and there, in that backwater synagogue, what appears to be a plain, ordinary man is claiming that the hopes and dreams of entire generations of Messiah-waiters have been fulfilled as he reads that very Scripture. God’s holy kingdom is beginning. And the only logical conclusion to make, then, is that the plain, ordinary man who delivers such an announcement must be the one whom God himself has anointed to begin it.

A great danger in the Christian faith is to downplay this idea that something glorious and audacious is happening in the life of Jesus Christ. All too often, I find, we come to our places of worship with the sense that we will get something out of the experience, that this whole enterprise of prayer and singing hymns and reading words from the Bible is designed to solely to edify us in some way. I, too, slip into thinking that church, that gathering with the assembly of God’s people, is somehow about me and my needs. And, to an extent, it might be. God certainly provides an abundant life for God’s people, one where the poor are given good news and where the blind are given sight and the one captive to sin is released.

Yes, God is in the business of providing and giving, but participation in the worship and ministry of the community into which we were baptized is never really about us, but about what God is doing in Jesus Christ. As audacious as it sounds, it is from him and his life, alone, where we receive the forgiveness that sets us free, where the world gains the sight to cure its blindness, where the poor hear the news that they have not been forgotten. Even though they lay buried in the rubble of an earthquake, they have not been forgotten.

In his ingenius little book called Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes to a fledgling Christian community that is struggling to be faithful amidst the worsening cultural landscape of Nazi Germany. At one point he states,

“It is not in our life that God’s help and presence must still be proved, but rather God’s presence and help have been demonstrated for us in the life of Jesus Christ. It is in fact more important for us to know what God did to Israel, to His Son Jesus Christ, than to seek what God intends for us today" (Life Together, HarperSanFrancisco, 1954, p54).

I imagine those words kind of fall a little harshly on a faith expression that is a little too self-centered. Nevertheless, the wide-eyed Nazareth townsfolk on that regular, ordinary Sabbath are presented fact that which we need to hear again and again: that the life of faith is not about wondering how God fits into my life but how does my life fit into God’s. It’s not as much about considering the ways Scripture applies to our busied lives, but, rather, about considering the ways in our busied lives might apply to God’s story. It’s not so much about figuring out how God is a part of what is going on in your life or my life or our life, but about praying how we might be a part of what God is doing in Jesus Christ for the sake of this world.

Some people may claim this is semantics, that I’m just playing with words, but I maintain there’s a big difference. Ben Larson, the twenty-five-year-old Lutheran seminarian who died last week in Haiti as he was serving in an orphanage, wasn’t trying to fit God into his life. I didn’t know Ben, but I have learned enough about him from his friends and from reading about his life in the last days to know that he was there, serving among the poorest of the poor, because he was learning to fit his life into what God was doing in the world. He was there, on a short trip before his final semester before he’d become a pastor, helping to set up the Lutheran church among the people of Haiti when the walls crumbled in on him, along with the hundred thousand others among whom God was and is striving to work. Although he, like many others, was taken too soon, Ben Larson serves as a witness--even in his death--of what it means to show the world that Jesus has announced the year of the Lord’s favor.

Come to think of it, this is what’s at the heart of this metaphor of the body in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. We are a part of a body. None of us is a body unto him or herself, as if a body could function all as an eye or entirely as a foot. We are a body, and Jesus is the head that moves us. This image runs roughshod over the idea that we are somehow the center of the world and God’s kingdom needs to edge its way in.

And, so, the guiding question becomes not “where does this all fit in with me?” but rather, “where do I fit in?” It’s not “What part does God play in my life?” but “What part am I to play?” It is the question that guides the life of that young, seemingly ordinary man who has the gall to stand up in his hometown and claim the Scripture pertains to him. “Where do I fit in?” It is essentially the question that eventually will take him to the cross, where he becomes most determined to live a life dedicated not to the will of his own self-interest, but to the will of a God who has promised to set the captive free, to give sight to the blind, to proclaim that this year is the year of the Lord’s favor.

“Where do I fit in? What part do I get to play?” These are the questions that confront the faithful at Epiphany Lutheran Church, because this morning they know God moves and works. This very morning they sense it—that even they are claimed in this ordinary man’s mission to begin God’s kingdom anew. They can sense it! They have a role to play with all God’s people, for on this morning, this very morning, in their hearing, the word has been fulfilled!

Thanks be to God!


The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

The Second Sunday of Christmas [Year C] - January 3, 2010 (Jeremiah 31:7-14 and John 1:1-18)

My wife and I have a running joke between the two of us about an additional wedding vow she made me take. In addition to promising her my love and faithfulness as long as we both shall live, she also made me vow that wherever we lived, I would find a way for her to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers. Oh, you may laugh, but I’m not sure you’re aware how important the Steelers are to a person from western Pennsylvania. At least I wasn’t aware of it until I lived there. The tradition of gathering around the television set on Sunday afternoons to watch the men in black and gold is central to what it means to hail from that area. It has to do with the demise of the Steel industry and the sudden loss of thousands of jobs and a whole region having little but a successful football program to cling to. Melinda knew that, as she became the wife of a pastor, there would likely come a time when she no longer lived in her home territory of Pittsburgh. She would be a member of the Steeler Nation-in-exile. As much as a Steeler fan may love living somewhere else—as Melinda and I do Richmond—the sight of the men in black and gold swarming across Heinz Field can take them back to the place they will always consider home. And so part of my duty is to provide this bit of comfort and consolation. Little did I know that the Redskins’ market share in Richmond would make it so difficult for me to be a faithful husband in this regard.

A former boss of mine from North Carolina spent a good portion of her young adult life in Florida. Even though many people would consider Florida part of the south, she still found herself seeking comfort and consolation from the things of home. Every time her family came to visit, she required them to smuggle in case of North Carolina-brewed Cheerwine, which she then carefully rationed out until their next visit.

Exile is really no laughing matter, especially if you’re in it. The one thing that brings comfort and consolation more than anything else is the thought of going home, the vision of being reunited with that place you belong. Nobody could tell you that more than the prophet Jeremiah. He had seen God’s people, the Israelites, repeatedly turn away from the life of promise that God had laid out before them. He had seen them forsake a society of justice and compassion in order to be like the other corrupt, military powers around them. And he had watched them become ransacked and rampaged by the armies from Babylon that came streaming across the desert as God’s judgment on them. The Babylonians had pillaged their villages, looted the treasuries and desecrated the holy Temple. They had killed by the thousands. And those who were left over were rounded up and carted off to live in exile in Mesopotamia, thousands of miles away. They had no one to promise them access to the things they loved or smuggle in reminders of the land they left. They only have the words of prophets like Jeremiah to guide, chide, and offer instruction.

So, imagine, if you will, the comfort and consolation they hear in Jeremiah’s words from the thirty-first chapter:

“See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north,
and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth.
With weeping they shall come,
and with consolations I will lead them back…

For the LORD has ransomed Jacob,
And has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.”

The homecoming God promises them through Jeremiah’s words is bursting with such joy that young women break into dance and the men young and old make merry right there on the path home. They crack open the cans of Cheerwine and festoon themselves with Steelers gear. God has spoken, and the Word is good. He is bringing them home, and they shall be radiant over the Lord’s goodness, radiant over God’s generosity and grace towards them, radiant “over the grain, the wine, and the oil.”

Even though, in their case, the prophet Jeremiah concludes that it is their own waywardness that led God to scatter them into exile in the first place, their exuberance is not tempered one bit. In fact, this little fact perhaps amplifies it. God, who had first allowed the opportunity for Israel’s self-destructive behavior, is now going to reverse those ruinous effects. Where once they had been scattered by God’s hand, now God was showing them undeserved mercy and grace. Their life will be like a watered garden, and they will never languish again (v.12)

That this text from ancient Israel’s history is appropriate to the message of Christmas should be no surprise to us. In the person of Jesus Christ, God has brought us home. In the Word made flesh, God has brought us back to where we belong, and, as the prophet says, redeemed us from hands too strong for us. In the only Son begotten from the Father, God has gathered each human being from farthest parts of the earth, the darkest corners of sin and self-centeredness, and returned them to himself. It is a perfectly natural fit, as Jeremiah says, “proclaim this message to the coastlands,” because Jesus is our final and full deliverance from the exile. One early church theologian claimed that “the Incarnation is the most blessed and joyful thing that could have happened to the human race” (St. Isaac, in The Orthodox Way, Bishop Kallistos Ware, St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, pg 70). God chooses, out of his love, to identify himself with his creation by becoming human and bringing us to the only true home we have: a life in reconciled communion with Him.

In a few days Melinda and I will begin packing up our Christmas decorations, part of which are a few nativity scenes. Like many of you, we like to bring out the nativity scenes at this time of year. I’ve been quite impressed with how the nativity scene out front here at Epiphany changes from week to week, the different characters slowly making their way to Bethlehem. I’m also quite impressed with how well they can withstand the wind. I came to church this week and huge gusts of wind had the wise men practically on their backs before the baby Jesus, like his glory was blowing them down.

But it has occurred to me that at Holy Week or Easter we never unpack and set up our nativity scenes. Or, we rarely see anything like Calvary scenes or Empty Tomb scenes, little depictions of Jesus’ death or resurrection. Can you imagine it? One could be made relatively easily: the cross, the two criminals on either side, Mary and John standing by with a few Roman soldiers. You could even have Joseph of Arimathea, the man who took Jesus’ body and buried it, standing off to the side. The disciples could be facing the other direction, so that the wind would blow them away from the cross, full of denial and fear. A Calvary scene would be easy to set up, yet we never see them, though, ultimately, that is what God’s incarnation means. Because the Word takes on flesh and lives among us, God opens God’s self up to the whole gamut of things that happen to human flesh. He is not just born and set aside Mary and Joseph and the shepherds. He also grows up, suffers pain and, in the end, his flesh dies and begins the decomposition process. Yet, miraculously, God raises his Son’s flesh from death three days later. God sees to it that his begotten Son will redeem us from all the hands that are too strong for us. God sees to it that his Son will go the length of all our self-imposed exiles, no matter where they lead, to bring us home.

What are the hands that are too strong for you? What is it that is holding you back from a life of true communion with God? Hear the word proclaimed to distant islands: God has redeemed you. In Christ, God brings you home to him, where you belong. Be radiant. Grace abounds from this God whose Word becomes flesh to live among us and save us.

Today, little one-year-old Ashley Grayson Mays sees the end of her own exile as she is united to Jesus, the Word made flesh in the waters of baptism. It has been a big day for her as she sits there in the first pew along with three other generations of her family, all of whom have been nurtured in this congregation’s family. Denise and Chris, her parents, are members of a Lutheran congregation in Ohio, but they chose Epiphany for their baptism because of the strong family connection here. Her great-grandparents are founding members. In that sense, you may say Ashley has been brought home. But in a larger sense, Ashley has been brought home to God today. As she is claimed by Christ and marked with his cross forever, she receives the promise of a life when God will always be with her. No matter which path her life takes, no matter how far away she wanders, no matter how distant she may end of feeling God is to her, she has the promised that Jesus has really ended her exile of sin. God has broken her free from all the hands that will be too strong for her.

This is the promise we all have in baptism. It is the promise God bestows on creation with the news of the birth of the baby in the manger. It is cause for great celebration! Be radiant over this good news, over the the lengths to which God goes in Christ to have us back, over the distance he travels to end our exile! The Word becomes flesh lives among us! Make yourselves radiant over this Table’s grain, over this wine, and this oil of anointing! He has brought us home! Young women, dance! Men, young and old, pass the Cheerwine around and make merry!


Thanks be to God!


The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

The First Sunday of Christmas [Year C] - December 27, 2009 (Luke 2:41-52)

One of the most popular gifts opened this Christmas at our house was a doll that my parents gave to Laura, our 19-month old. It blinks, drinks a bottle, laughs, and even snores. Clare, our 3-year-old has latched onto it rather quickly, even though it is her sister’s gift. It is Laura’s baby, but she will need to share it with her sister, who cradles it and loves it and takes very good care of it.

Here we are, three short days after Christmas—three short days after our own “oohing and ahhing” over the baby in the manger—and we’re presented with another manifestation of our Lord and God most of us rarely consider: the Pre-Teen Jesus. It is perhaps a little strange to ponder a pre-teenage Jesus, one who is clearly no longer a defenseless, cooing infant, wrapped in swaddling clothes, but who is also not yet the charismatic and critical adult Jesus. He’s there, in-between, still under the guardianship of his earthly mother and father, but, by the by, becoming aware of his special relationship to his Heavenly Father, as well. True, Jesus is given to us, but as he grows we’ll need to learn to share him with his Father, too.

Of all the gospels, only Luke provides any information about pre-teen Jesus in this short account of his family’s yearly trek to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover when he is twelve years old. It becomes the only bridge we have between the early Nazareth days of his youth and the more well-known years where he wanders around Galilee and Jerusalem, challenging people with the good news of God’s kingdom.

If we are a bit unfamiliar with the pre-teen Jesus and don’t know what to do with him, we are plenty familiar with some of what we see in this story: a young man testing his parents’ boundaries and causing them considerable anxiety. A precocious youth displaying a mind and will of his own. A young scholar in the making, thirsty for the knowledge of the elders. A thoughtful boy who shows obedience to his parents. And while this flimsy eleven-verse bridge is all we have linking the two Jesuses we know much better, it does offer some stability and comfort to learn that the Lord Jesus did live there, for awhile, in those often-painful, but very exciting in-between years. Isn’t it somewhat fascinating to consider the God of Heaven and Earth making his way not only through the manger and then the high courts of Pilate and Caiaphas, but also through the obscure, undocumented days of a boy growing up in some border town? It makes you wonder how God might be working even now in the obscure, undocumented days of children everywhere.

That is essentially the topic addressed by the watershed book, Soul Searching: the Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, researched and written by two sociologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and published in 2005. In it, the researchers develop the first and most comprehensive study of the current religious and spiritual trends and practices of teenagers. They do so by conducting hundreds of in-depth, one-on-one interviews and thousands of written surveys with teenagers all across the United States, covering as many socio-economic and religious backgrounds as possible.

The book mainly breaks down their findings into statistics and observations that can be rather tedious to wade through, but occasionally they work in an anecdote from one of their interviews. We meet “Joy,” a 15-year-old who drinks and does drugs under the nose of her parents who barely know her or her 23-year-old boyfriend. “Joy’s” take on God is vague, at best, perceiving him as a distant, nondescript figure who doesn’t really do much. Then there’s “Kristen,” whose way to a remarkably strong faith comes about after her father’s tragic suicide and her mother’s struggle to keep the family afloat. The stories are compelling, but the researchers’ two main findings are less so. Namely, they present that the great majority of teenagers in America are frustratingly inarticulate about what they believe about God and that the average American teenager follows whatever religious practices her parents have introduced her to and has not thought too deeply about them. As a teen, myself, I figure I would have been in the same category.

This does not appear to be the case with Jesus, who is discovered in the temple as a twelve-year-old, wowing the elders with his answers. This also does not seem to be the case among our own youth at Epiphany, at least from my perspective. Our youth readily participate in all kinds of youth activities, service projects, Bible studies, and worship roles, often boldly praying aloud before their peers. Nevertheless, the book does paint what I suspect is a fairly accurate, albeit worrisome, picture of religious and spiritual trends in our youth today. I am also confident that the God who is the Father of Jesus is, indeed, present and active in the lives of teenagers everywhere—just as he is present and active in everyone’s lives—whether or not they know how to look for him or whether or not they can articulate it. It’s a question about learning where to find him.

That, I believe, is the mistake that Mary and Joseph make in this morning’s story. Their mistake is not in their failure to keep track of him, but in not understanding where he might be found. The whole scene is quite easy to imagine, especially considering how extended Middle Eastern families often operate. The whole family clan had likely gone up to Jerusalem for the Passover, a big caravan of uncles and aunts and cousins, more distant relatives, and probably a couple of unrelated Nazareth townspeople, to boot. Children of all ages would have tagged along, too, fulfilling the ancient decree. Most likely they would have wandered back and forth between relatives and friends, the adults caring lovingly for whichever children happen to be near them at the time. Last Sunday something similar happened here at Epiphany when Laura, our nineteen-month-old, headed right out an open door, making her way for the parking lot. Before we even realized she was out of sight, a loving adult scooped her up on the sidewalk and brought her back inside to us.

For several hours, it’s no big deal that Mary and Joseph haven’t laid eyes on their son, but after a full day goes by with no sign of him, they start to wonder which relative or friend might have him. They search through the whole caravan to no avail before deciding to back-track to Jerusalem, taking another day in the process. “Where could he be?” they worry and wonder. Luke does not tell us each and every place they search, but apparently they take another whole day scouring the city before they happen upon him at the Temple, of all places, holding forth with the learned elders who reside there. Mary and Joseph are astonished and a bit annoyed with his behavior. “Why have you treated us like this?” they ask. If Jesus had a middle name, they probably used it at this point: “Jesus of Nazareth, don’t you know we were searching for you with great anxiety?!?”
It’s Jesus’ reply that makes me wonder whether Mary and Joseph shouldn’t have first considered the Temple, whether Mary and Joseph should not have approached this whole scenario with a bit more faith, deeper understanding that their son is also the Son of God and therefore they are sharing him. He is taking time to strengthen that relationship. “Why were you looking for me?” he simply asks them. “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I would be here, in my Father’s house?”

Jesus, you see, is never really lost, in the sense that he doesn’t know where he is. Jesus never gets himself lost, not here at the age of twelve, nor as an adult when he’s hanging out with ordinary fishermen and tax-collectors. Jesus, to be sure, always knows exactly where he is and our mistake, in our spiritual and religious lives, is thinking that we can always find him when in reality, he has been given to do precisely the opposite: to find us.

It boils down to what the ancient Christians called “the scandal of the particular”: that a universal, all-knowing and all-powerful God who sits at the helm of the universe and all eternity would somehow unite himself with a particular individual and with all the baggage that accompanies that. Just as it may be difficult for us to imagine Jesus as an adolescent, at that stage where they still need the hugs and authority of human parents but can’t always admit it, it is difficult for the world to understand that God has identified himself with this particular, first-century Jewish individual. It is a stumbling block for quite a few that the divine and eternal would choose to tangle itself up with the human and the mortal. As a result, the world will offer up dozens upon dozens of tantalizing option for encountering God never considering that God would stoop this low to encounter us.
And yet, that is what God is doing in Jesus of Nazareth. That is what God is doing in this precocious boy from a small border town. That is precisely what God is doing in the temple with this kid named Jesus.

So, if search we must—and we will certainly feel that urge—let us not do it half-heartedly. One early church theologian, commenting on this passage, said that “the search for Jesus must be neither careless nor indifferent, for those who seek in this manner will never find him” (Origen of Alexandria, On Luke's Gospel 18, 2-4: GCS 9, 112-113). Let us do it with great anxiety, as if our whole life depended on it, as if our hopes and dreams of what is to be was linked to being found in his embrace.

But let us do it in places where we know he frequents. Where might you suggest we start? In the manger? Well, I think we’ve got that one down pat. In the temple of worship, with God’s people? In the words of a Scripture that is ancient, yet somehow also new? In a frugal meal of bread and wine? What about the cross? Could we find him there, seeking us out in death? Seeking us out to forgive? And then, after three long days…when we’ve grown weary with our anxiety, weary with the trials of life, what about looking for him, at long last…in the…tomb?


Thanks be to God!


The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

image: "The Dispute in the Temple" Simon Bening, 1525-30