Our Knots, God’s Mercy: Yet Not What I want, But What you Want

March 30, 2025

The Fourth Sunday of Lent

Jonah 4:1-11

By Pastor Mike

***

     This story began with God telling the prophet Jonah to travel to Nineveh, a powerful city in the militant Assyrian Empire, and preach against it. As we’ve seen, Jonah ran away from this command; instead of going East, he went West, seeking passage on a ship bound for the faraway city of Tarshish. Sometimes we run from the right thing to do, the thing we sense that God has put in front of us. Sometimes, faced with a call, we grow afraid, and we try to quietly slip away.

     At first, fear seemed like a logical explanation for Jonah’s resistance to God’ call. Israelites and Ninevites were enemies, simple as that. Jonah might be threatened, accosted, or worse, should he leave the comfort of his own land and go rub shoulders with the enemy. 

     But the final moments of this great story reveal that Jonah had a more complicated motive than fear. He knew in his gut that doing the right thing, in this case, would not feel good to him, would not leave him feeling satisfied, happy, or secure. Should he go to Nineveh and speak God’s words, he would lose control of the narrative and the outcome; it would be between this people and the Lord. ‘Ninevites given the chance to receive mercy? You’ve got to be kidding me!’

     You see, the right thing in God’s eyes was the wrong thing in Jonah’s eyes. He was less afraid of the Ninevites’ violence toward himself, and more afraid of God’s kindness toward them.

    In light of their sorrow and repentance, God did relent from punishing the Ninevites. And, oh, this made Jonah’s blood boil. “Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious” – that’s how chapter 4 begins. And we finally understand the deeper, darker reason why Jonah had never wanted to come to Nineveh at all.

     “Please, Lord, isn’t this what I said while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and one who relents from sending disaster” (4:2).

     Jonah is angry at God for being who God is. Jonah hurls God’s essential back at God as an insult. Ugh, of course even here you’d be this way – gracious and compassionate, loving and relenting. And here’s the thing about these words. They are a direct quotation of earlier scripture; they are some of the most precious words an ancient Hebrew would know.

      These words about God’s character were first spoken by God himself to Moses on Mount Sinai. After freeing the Israelite people from slavery in Egypt, God made a covenant with them at Mount Sinai, binding himself to them and promising to always protect and provide for them so long as they adhered to the Divine way of justice and love.

     According to Exodus 34, “the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with [Moses] and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (vv. 6-7).

     God was telling Moses and the people very directly what the Divine character, the Divine heart, is like. And what a beautiful heart – patient, forgiving, loyal, longsuffering, and kind. And this Holy self-disclosure was cherished, written upon the heart of the people, and restated again and again in later stories and prayers. 

     Like Psalm 103: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities” (vv. 8-10).

    Or from the prophet Joel: “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart. …Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment” (2:12-13).

     That God is like this was no secret, no mystery.

     Jonah knew that he served a God with this heart. And when first called to Nineveh, Jonah put the pieces together theologically in an instant. Bringing the words of this kind of God to this kind of people would be a risk: God might be who he is and actually show them mercy. And that would unsettle the easy narrative in Jonah’s mind about who the people are that God likes and chooses, and who the people are that God dislikes and rejects. God’s compassion might extend to Nineveh. Which is to say: God’s compassion might leap the walls around Jonah’s own compassion, and lead him to a reckoning with his own smallness of heart.

    Jonah ran the theologically equation correctly, and his heart could not see it as good news. Jonah was disgusted that he has been called to demonstrate the limitless, borderless, unbounded goodness of God by coming to these people and witnessing their transformation.

     Poor Jonah. Poor Jonah – he wrings his hands and plods out of the city to pout about God’s graciousness under the shade of a rickety hut. 

    Jonah shows us the danger of evaluating God’s kindness according to our own standards and assumptions. When this happens, doing the right thing can leave us feeling angry and baffled. God’s goodness can feel offensive. God’s forgiveness can seem like a downright scandal.

   There is a reason that God says through the prophet Isaiah, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

    And it’s here that I want to remind us of some of the Gospel stories we’ve heard read in worship alongside Jonah these past four weeks. Truth is, the span of God’s mercy was not any easier for people who walked and talked with Jesus to swallow. 

    In one passage from Luke’s Gospel, a religious expert comes to Jesus asking him what he needs to do to gain eternal life. Jesus flips the question around and asks the man, “Well, based on your training, what do you think?” And the man answers dutifully, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says, “That’s right, very good.” But the man, well, he wants to know exactly how much of that neighborly stuff he needs to do to be on the right side of the line. So he asks Jesus a clarifying question: “And who is my neighbor?”

   Jesus answers this by telling a story about a man who walks down the road and gets robbed and beaten and left for dead. And as he’s lying there in agony, two of the “right kind of people” – leaders in government and religion – walk down the road and pass him by. But then a third man – definitely the wrong kind of person, being a foreign, unclean Samaritan – stops and saves the man’s life. “Which of these three,” Jesus asks the scholar in front of him, “was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” 

    Jesus radically redefined the bounds of neighborliness. You’re not a neighbor to someone else primarily because you share a point of view, a philosophy, an ethnicity, a hobby, or even a city block with them. You’re a neighbor when you enter into another person’s need, when you share their suffering and their joy as if they were your own.

     Being a neighbor is not something you are; it’s something you do.

    Later in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells a different story about a man who had two sons. The older son was loyal and responsible, but the younger son was a mess. He took his inheritance early and went and squandered half his father’s estate in hedonistic living in a far country. When he loses everything and is reduced to rags, he comes home, expecting to be given the cold shoulder and treated like a household slave. Instead, the father, seeing him from a distance, runs to him and embraces him. The father throws a party to celebrate his son’s homecoming.

    When the older brother comes in from the fields and hears about it, he gets bitterly angry – envious. He’s always been there, after all; he’s always done right without an expectation of reward. And now this – for him? 

     “Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’” (Luke 15:31-32). The older brother had taken the love of his father so for granted that he had lost touch with the joy of it. And so he feels stingy about sharing it when the moment comes to share it. 

    And then we have our story from today, the parable Jesus tells in Matthew 20 about the day laborers. The guys who got hired at the end of the day and worked only an hour got paid the same amount as the guys who got hired at the beginning of the day and worked clear through it. 

    “And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us…’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; …I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’” (Matthew 20:11-16).

     We can draw lines around our neighborliness. They’re in; they’re out.

     We can feel that appreciating someone else threatens our own position.

     We can balk at God’s generosity to the newcomer, to the latecomer.

     We can make ourselves the measure of God’s mercy, and that is when our heart hardens.

     And sometimes – well, sometimes these resistances begin at home, in the church itself.

    We, friends, can get stingy and fussy about who we are really obligated to as neighbors. We can miss the joy of someone coming home again into the love of God because, well, we’ve always been here, we’ve never left, and who do they think they are and why all this fuss about them? In the church, we’re not always above saying, ‘Hey I’ve been here the longest. I’ve put in more time than all y’all combined. Where’s my gold star, my bit of extra favor?’ Or: ‘Hey, I’ve been here a decade, why is that person who just walked through the door getting the attention and appreciation that I deserve.’

     Oh yes, we can do these things, too. We can become “greatly displeased” just like Jonah – and those toxins make it very difficult to witness to the all-encompassing love of God.

     But friends, we serve a God who sent Jonah to offer grace to his enemies.

     And we serve a God of Gethsemane.

     We serve Jesus Christ, the one who knelt down in the garden on the night before he died and prayed to God that the cup of suffering might pass from him. He didn’t want to do it. Not like that. He was in agony, knowing how difficult it would be to do the thing God had put in front of him to do. But he also prayed, “Yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). And having surrendered to the flow of God’s love, Jesus made of his death and risen life a redemptive sacrifice, a loss that gained everything, a self-gift that received the world in return.

     What it would be like, I wonder, if there was a group of people who decided that no matter how distasteful the call to love was at first, no matter how much it grated against their sensibilities, they would nevertheless pray to God, “Yet not my will, but yours be done.”

     Oh, what would it be like – if there was a people – who would do the right thing and magnify God’s love even though it might cost them their stories about the good and the bad, the worthy and the unworthy. 

     You go and take care of your ailing parents. You stick by them as they slowly decline. You sort through their stuff and tackle the mountain of paperwork. It’s hard and it costs and it will wear you out, but it’s the Jesus thing to do. You take time off from work that you worked hard to earn and all of sudden you are confronted with an urgent need or even a mundane call to service that God puts in front of you, and doing it would be hard and costly, and it may even make you impatient, but it’s the Jesus thing to do. Or you come into some money, and you already have far more than you need for yourself, and you choose to share it with someone who may not deserve it, who may not ever be able to pay you back for it, but who desperately needs the help. It costs but it’s the Jesus thing to do. 

     You feel God tugging on your heart to get to know your next-door neighbor, But God, you do know, don’t you, that they’ve got a Trump sign in their yard? You know they’ve got a Kamala sign? They’ve got that yellow flag with the snake. They’ve got that rainbow flag flying. But you push through the discomfort and check in anyhow because a neighbor is made by the messy sharing of life, not by the ease of ideology. It’s a hard thing and it costs some real comfort and cultural currency, but it’s the Jesus thing to do.

     And I could go on:

     You open your home to someone who needs a place to land and recover for a while. You let go of an old grudge. You agree to help the congregation with something behind the scenes. You watch someone’s kids when you’d rather be watching TV. You listen to your spouse’s concern and decide you will go with her or him to counseling and work to salvage, even strengthen, your marriage. Your neighborhood changes so you start learning another language. You stay up an extra hour to write the letter.

     We want these actions to align with our preferences. We want them to feel good and easy and to fill us with energy and confirm our standing in the world. And because we make ourselves the measure, so much Gospel work gets left on the table.

     Oh, but if we would but let the Spirit of the Lord – the compassionate one, the gracious and forgiving one, the one who is slow to anger and who relents from punishment – if we would but let that Spirit live in us, then we would stop asking, What’s in it for me? and we’d start moving towards the wounded on the streets, towards the runaways coming home, toward our co-laborers in the good work – even, and hardest, as Jonah learned – toward our enemies. 

     Brothers and sisters, God will ask us to love people we don’t think it’s right to love, serve people we don’t feel are worthy of our service. God will ask us to embrace and celebrate people beyond any worldly calculation. God will ask us to the right thing even when we are greatly displeased by it.  But a church that lets God crash through the borders of its concern? A church that can get angry with the demands of God’s compassion and still say at the end of the day, Yet not what I want, but what you want? Well, that’s a church that God can use to usher in the joy and the abundance of the Kingdom.

     May it be here. May it be us. In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.  

Our Knots, God’s Mercy: The Overturning (Jonah 3:1-10)

Our Knots, God’s Mercy: The Overturning

March 23, 2025

Jonah 3:1-10

***

The third chapter of Jonah begins in the same way that the first chapter began. God’s word comes to the prophet, calling him to get up and go to the great city of Nineveh in the heart of the ruthless Assyrian Empire. The first time Jonah received this command from God, he ran away. He boarded a boat bound for the faraway city of Tarshish. He ran away only to be caught in a storm, thrown overboard by his shipmates, and swallowed by a great fish. Jonah survived inside the fish for three days and three nights before he finally prayed for deliverance and was vomited out onto dry ground.

          So here we go, take two: “The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time” (3:1). And… this time Jonah listens. He travels east on a long journey inland until he reaches the city. He walks a day’s journey into it – surrounding by people he considers vile, brutish, unworthy of God’s concern – and he begins to preach: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

         It’s not exactly a message to win you friends among your enemies, not exactly something wise to say while traveling alone in a hostile place. A declaration of doom. But they were the words God gave him. ‘Forty days more and – katastrephō!’ says the ancient Greek translation of this Hebrew story. Catastrophe. Nineveh is bound for a sudden, radical overturning.

         When God spoke to Jonah the first time – before the voyage and the storm and the fish – God told him that the Ninevites “wickedness has come up before me” (1:2). That’s important to remember. Nineveh was not a good place. It was a place where economic injustices, social oppressions, and outright violence were the norm.

          The cries of the people suffering within these realities have reached God’s ears and gained God’s attention, just as, long before, the cries of the Israelites enslaved in Egypt had reached God’s ears and prompted God to act. And even though God had to deal with Jonah’s fickleness up until now, God has had the city’s wickedness and violence in view the whole time. God has not forgotten the cries of its poor.

            These strong terms for the city’s behavior are appropriate; we hear as much from the king of Nineveh’s own mouth. He orders everyone in the city to “turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands” (3:8). That first phrase – ‘evil ways’ – means something like a wicked disposition and the unethical direction. The second phrase – ‘the violence that is in their hands’ – suggests that each person is accountable for the destructive acts that they cling to, when they might otherwise curb and control them.[1]

           Wickedness and violence – ra’ and chamas in the Hebrew – are precisely the words that show up in the Noah story, found in the book of Genesis, when God decides to destroy the earth with a flood. Genesis 6:5 says, “The Lord saw that the wickedness” – the ra’ – “of humans was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually” (6:5). And Genesis 6:11 says, “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence” – with chamas.

           And the overwhelming presence of peoples’ pain stirred up a strong emotional response in God: “And the Lord was sorry that he had made humans on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” – Genesis 6:6. In the case of Noah, God followed through with judgement, saving only Noah and his family and breeding pairs of every animal. But in the Jonah story, God turns away from the planned punishment because the people of Nineveh respond to Jonah’s preaching. 

           All of which is to say: It is significant that God speaks to Jonah a second time. It’s easy for us to focus in on Jonah, to analyze what’s going on in his heart and mind and wonder about what he’s learning from all these experiences. But I think God’s persistence here is less for Jonah’s sake and more for the sake of those who are oppressed in the great city of Nineveh. God needs Jonah’s cooperation precisely because God wants to confront the root causes of that immense pain. Remember, Nineveh was a powerful city in a ruthless, militaristic empire. Neighbors were not treating each other well, and it is more than likely that slaves, foreigners, women, and children were bearing the brunt of systemic injustice and outbursts of aggression.

           And God wouldn’t let it go on. God is responsive to our mistreatment of others. God is responsive to our suffering. God feels fierce anger about it all. So God sent a truthteller – Jonah – to Nineveh to force a reckoning by stating the obvious: you cannot keep going this direction without catastrophic consequence.

             For a moment, let’s ask ourselves whose cries God is attuned to in our own community – be that our block, our city, our state, or our country. The cries of the hungry, the unhoused and displaced, the incarcerated. The cries of women who are trafficked, children who are neglected, the elderly who are forgotten. The cries of species whose homes have been reduced to a barely livable acreage. The cries of Idahoan women now living maternity care deserts, of Idahoan parents raising children in childcare deserts. The cries of children still separated from their parents at our country’s southern border – to be clear, a policy practiced by both parties in the past 10 years.

             God is attuned to the suffering, and God raises up truthtellers: people who will tell us – who are telling us, ‘You cannot keep going this direction as a person or as a community with catastrophic consequence.’ 

             We’ve seen that God is responsive to unjust suffering. God is also responsive to a change of heart, a change of direction. That’s what’s on display most in this third chapter of Jonah. The people who have practiced wickedness and violence decide to put an end to it! It’s not how it has to be – praise God! The Ninevites grieve and fast and put on scratchy clothes to show that they are sorry. And what begins organically in the streets with neighbor telling neighbor to put the violence down eventually reaches the attention of their king, and he – shockingly – gets on board. He tells the whole city to double-down on changing their ways. He’s so enthusiastic that he even orders the animals to join in the community’s turning. Donkeys and sheep and cattle wearing sackcloth and fasting and crying out to God.

                And we see God’s response to this in verse 10: “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.”

                 God changed God’s mind. God did not do what God said God would do. Because God saw that they had made a concerted effort to turn from one way of life, founded on the domination and exploitation of each other, to a new way of life founded on forgiveness, repair, and justice.

               There was, at the end of the day, a great “overturning” in Nineveh. But it was not the violent overturning of brick and mortar. It was the overturning of a community’s heart and way of life. Jonah told the truth about violence, and the people who heard his words took them to heart.

                All you can do is tell the truth:

                If you live under the boot of Nineveh, you cry out honestly to God and trust that God hears you.  If you’re Jonah, you speak the words that God gives you to speak in an ungodly place and an ungodly time. If you’re the Ninevites at large, and you suddenly see how far off the mark you are, you change course and you urge your neighbors to do the same.

                All you can do is tell the truth. What comes after that belongs to God. Remember, this story was written after the Israelites returned from exile in Assyria and Babylon. The storytellers set it in the past in order to hold up a mirror to God’s people. ‘This could have been us,’ the storytellers are suggesting. ‘We could have listened to our prophets. We could have fed the hungry, housed the houseless, cared for the stranger. We could have called one another onto a better path and made a communal turn. But we didn’t, and the catastrophe came. Never again. Let’s do better this time.’

                “And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.”

               I’m compelled by this vision of a community realizing that is doing harm to its members and then doing something about it, spurring others to do the same. Justice starts at home, in the neighborhood, and the work of turning is for all of us, no matter our age or the skills and influence we think we have or lack.

                In Lent, we focus our attention on a God who attuned himself so completely with the sufferings of creation that the depth of his listening and the immediacy of his feelings pulled him from eternity into time, from invisible divinity into visible flesh – drew him into the very matrix of our agony. In Jesus of Nazareth, God joined us in our mess. On the cross, Jesus united himself with those who suffer unjustly. And all along the way, he spoke to us about a better way to live, calling us to love our enemies, to show mercy to those in need of mercy, and to make peace.

                 What might it look like for you and me to be so moved by our neighbors’ pain that we might follow Jonah and Jesus as they enter in, draw close to it, tell the truth about it, and share about a better way?

                   Sometimes, to experience the gospel as good news, we first have to experience it as bad news. We have to look in the mirror and take the logs out of our own eyes. We have to cut off the hand that causes us to sin. We have to go and sell all our possessions and give the proceeds to the poor. We have to see and feel and name our brokenness for what it really is, and then we have to do the hard work of relinquishing our way. We have to turn. It feels like bad news at first because it’s uncomfortable and costly and exposes our complicity in what is not right. But then we suddenly realize that this turning – itself a kind of death, a dying to the selfish ego – is the gateway to resurrection life, for us and for others. 

              God is near to you, the truthtellers say. Mercy is near to you. Love is near to you. A life-changing, world-overturning kindness is available to you. Deep peace, unbreakable hope, restored dreams – they are not far from you. You can have them if you are willing to turn from doing harm. You can experience them if you are willing to take judgment out of your own hands and place it in the hands of God, and then pick up the cross as a way of life. God is near to you as you listen to the point of joining, and love in both words and action.

                     Will we – members and friends of First United Methodist Church – will we believe God? Will we consent to the overturning of our hearts for the sake of love?

In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.  

[1] See Susan Inditch, Jonah: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2023), 96.

Our Knots, God’s Mercy: Ask the Beasts (Jonah 1:17 — 2:10)

Our Knots, God’s Mercy: Ask the Beasts

 First UMC of Pocatello

March 16, 2025

The Second Sunday of Lent

***

            Three days, three nights, I carried that man inside me.

            Three days, three nights, doing as I had been bidden, meandering through waters of the Mediterranean, waiting for him to come to his senses and speak.

            I found him near the mucky bottom – sunk, writhing, tangled in weeds. His strength was nearly spent. I opened my mouth and swallowed him whole, felt him spasm in one last terror as he sloshed into the utter blackness of my belly.

            There had been a great storm, a great disturbance up above. As the sky darkened, so did the waters, and I circled underneath to see if anything of interest or appetite from the upper world would sink down to me. That happens in storms.

My instinct was rewarded. Soon there were crates, barrels, great jugs drifting down. Human things, confirming the presence of a ship up above. I imagined them – the humans – battling the wind and the waves, struggling with their ropes, their canvas, their wooden oars. It was a great storm. I would not be alone in these deep waters for long.

            But all at once, there was a change – a change in the light, a sudden stillness in the water. Strange. I supposed the storm was over, and began to lose interest. It was then that the word came to me: Find the man. Do not let him perish. So I did.

I am a whale -- distant relative of humankind, native of the sea. I sing. I mourn. I remember. I was told to hold onto Jonah until he sang, mourned, remembered.

And I wonder: Are you surprised that I know the voice of the Lord?

***

            In such a way we can imagine the story that this “great fish,” as it’s named the Hebrew, might tell about its encounter with God’s runaway prophet Jonah. And are we surprised? – surprised to imagine that a non-human animal might be deeply in touch with the purposes of God?

In the story of Jonah, God’s connection with all creation is clear. In chapter 1, God hurls a storm upon the sea. In chapter 2, the great fish hears and obeys God’s voice: “Then the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out onto the dry land” (Jonah 2:10). When Jonah finally does go to Nineveh in chapter 3 and preaches in the city, the Ninevites repent, and their king commands everyone in the city, including the animals, to fast from eating and drinking, to wear sackcloth, and to “cry out mightily to God” (3:8). The animals participate in rituals of repentance. In chapter four, while Jonah sits outside the city moping about the mercy God has shown the Ninevites, God appoints a bush to grow and shade Jonah, then a worm to kill the bush, and finally a harsh wind and a glaring sun to make Jonah faint.

The very last word in the book of Jonah is “animals.” God asks his fickle prophet, “Should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals” (4:11)? In considering the fate of this enemy city, God has thought about the wellbeing of all its creatures, human and nonhuman alike. It is as Psalm 36:6 says: “You save humans and animals alike, O Lord.”

Water and wind. Great fish and tiny worms. Shade plants and sackcloth-wearing livestock. Throughout the story of Jonah, God works through, on behalf of, and in response to all things. God loves and is on speaking terms with all the world.

In the Old Testament book of Job, there is a moment when Job says this: “But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you” (12:7-8). In the midst of his great suffering and his failure to understand God’s purpose for it, Job had lifted up his eyes and looked outward – to animals, birds, plants, and fish. He looked to them for wisdom, and encouraged his friends to do the same. We are invited to engage with the great web of life from a posture of curiosity, even one of conscious, grateful dependence.

Jonah, of course, did not move through the world with this curious posture. The ancient Israelites were not a sea-faring people; they were deeply unsettled by open waters. Language of waves, watery depths, mire, and muck fills their poetry as metaphors for sickness, suffering, and death. More important than that, though, is that Jonah’s mind was already made up about who he was and what God’s purposes were all about. Israelites good, Ninevites bad. And God ought to dole out the blessings and punishments accordingly. Jonah had shrunk his understanding of God down to Jonah-size, believing God’s concern to be as laser-focused and exclusive as his own.

So while it makes for a great story, it is also an expression of profound wisdom that Jonah is brought at last to prayer and surrender only after living inside of another creature for three days and three nights. Three days and three nights of being enclosed in another body. Slick, warm insides. Hum of organs. Gurgling sea water. Living, breathing darkness. The world, it turned out, was not reducible to Jonah’s little world, Jonah’s black-and-white way. This is God’s grand world. And Jonah owed his life to this terrible creature that had come to his rescue.

The Hebrew word for the “belly” of the fish can also be translated as the “womb” of the fish. When we recognize that we owe our little lives to capital-L Life, we are reoriented toward wonder, humility, gratitude, and stewardship. 

You and I exist inside of the story of the earth. Our destiny is unfolding within its destiny. The natural world was not created to be a backdrop for human affairs. The natural world is not outside the scope of God’s saving concern. We flourish or perish as a part of it. “The whole creation,” Paul says in Romans 8, “has been groaning” for health and wholeness.

            Jonah had hit rock bottom. He had made a real mess of things. He had run from God and endangered other people with the consequences. He was afraid, angry, and self-righteous. He wanted to die. And then? Then the great fish came and caught him up in a bigger, better story.

Beauty can be a balm to the soul. The beauty of a bear, of a herd of elk, of winter fields full of swans. The beauty of hills tinged with the colors of wildflowers. The beauty of yesterday’s sky, half-filled by the gray fury of hail and half-filled by crisp spring sunlight. The beauty of the stars, of creatures going about their own ancient, instinctual business. The beauty even of the grotesque innards of a great fish.  But the opposite is also true. When the natural world is diminished, our capacity for wholeness is diminished. Today’s climate crisis is a spiritual crisis as much as an ethical and humanitarian crisis.

            I learned this week that there are whales that live in or frequently visit the Mediterranean Sea. It is possible that the “great fish” in Jonah was based on ancient sightings of whale sharks, fin whales, or even sperm whales. I have a book called Wild Hope: Stories for Lent from the Vanishing that includes short chapters about endangered species, and in connection with Jonah I read this week about a species called the Atlantic right whale.

The right whales are now “the world’s smallest population of great whale, …[but] they were so near and numerous in the 1600s that the Pilgrims claimed they could walk across Cape Cod Bay on the backs of [them].”

The right whales were hunted at first for the oil that their blubber produced when boiled, and later for their baleen – the whalebone in their mouths that filters plankton out of great gulps of seawater. Baleen fetched a high price because it was used for hoop skirts and other nineteenth-century fashion items. Right whales got their name because they floated to the surface when they were killed, causing whaler refer to them as the right kind of whale to hunt.

            In the late 1930s, the International Whaling Convention offered complete protection to right whales, but by then they were already nearly extinct. This still persist today but there are only a few hundred of them left. They often die after getting tangled in fishing line attached to crab and lobster traps on the sea bottom, or through collisions with shipping vessels. And that’s just one species of our deep-sea siblings; the conditions of others are just as fraught and fragile.

In his book Wildlife in America, Peter Matthiessen wrote, “The marine fishes—those confined entirely in range and habitat to salt water—are rarely or never threatened with extermination by other than natural causes, since man has as yet been unable to damage the chemistry of the sea.” And even the patron saint of modern American conversation, Rachel Carson, wrote The Sea Around Us that “[man] has returned to his mother sea only on her own terms. He cannot control or change the ocean as, in his brief tenancy of earth, he has subdued and plundered the continents.”

            Carson and Matthiessen were giants of American conversation and natural history. They were contemporaries who changed the way a whole generation thought about its relationship to the earth. Even so, seventy years later we know that on this point they were wrong. Humans have begun to change the very chemistry of the sea through higher salinity and the global circulation of microplastics.

We have flipped the script. We have brought the rest of nature inside our selfish story, inside our peril, when we should be the ones carried along in its womb, learning its wisdom, finding our voice of prayer through our immersion in it, just as Jonah did.

I bet Jonah, who was at the complete mercy of the great fish, would never have imagined it would one day be possible for the great fishes and mammals of the sea to be at our mercy. The reaches of creation that were once thought to be beyond our touch are now known to be vulnerable.

The great fish heard the word of God. But if we lose that great fish, we lose access to that divine word. It’s that simple. For every species and landscape lost, we diminish our vision of God and therefore of ourselves.

The natural world is of sacred worth and it deserves our care. We put God’s love into action when we enjoy, protect, and learn from the nonhuman lives and ecosystems around us. Jonah shows us a God who is already in touch with all creatures great and small, a God who will meet us as we attend and behold, preserve and protect.

Plant a garden. Spend time outside. Climb the mountains, go be near water. Pay attention to what’s around you. Use your voice, your money, and your time to safeguard what we can no longer take for granted. And remember that you are a part of this great and mysterious web of life. Should you ever hit rock bottom, immerse yourself in the womb of the earth, and it will help you find your voice for prayer once again.

In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Our Knots, God’s Mercy (Jonah 1:1-16)

Around 1000 BCE, the twelve tribes of Israel were consolidated into a stable, prosperous monarchy under their first three kings: Saul, David, and Solomon. But unity did not last, and within a couple generations their kingdom was torn in two by warring factions. There was the northern Kingdom of Israel and a southern Kingdom of Judah. Neighbors, kin, and enemies all at once, the Hebrews coexisted uneasily for several centuries, banding together if it was politically advantageous, but more often than not menacing and betraying each other.

God raised up prophets to call the people back to faith, back to justice. But as time went on, both north and south drifted further and further from God’s purpose. In 722 BCE, the Assyrian Empire – ruthless and greedy – invaded and destroyed the northern kingdom, carrying many of its people into exile. In 586 BCE, the Babylonian Empire, which had conquered and absorbed the Assyrians, did the same to the southern kingdom, burning Jerusalem to the ground and dispersing the Judahites into faraway lands.

A little over forty years later, it was the Persian’s turn to dominate the world. Their king, Cyrus the Great, took a more lenient position toward the Jews and allowed them to return to their homeland and rebuild Jerusalem, which they did under Ezra and Nehemiah.

They came back a changed people – changed by their suffering, changed by their exposure to other peoples and other places, having done their best to heed the prophet Jeremiah’s words: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7).

They came back telling stories – stories of their ancestors and of their God. Some of these stories were old, some were new. All the stories were shaped or reshaped in light of their exilic experiences of loss, hope, and rubbing shoulders each day with new kinds of people.

Jonah was one of those stories.[1] Jonah is a story set in the time before the exile, in the days of the divided kingdom when Assyria was growing in power and beginning to terrorize Israel. Nineveh – “that great city” – was a prominent and powerful city in this foreign empire.

For the story’s main character, the post-exilic Israelites chose Jonah’s son of Amittai. He had been a real prophet during the reign of Jeroboam II in the northern kingdom. According to the Book of 2 Kings, Jeroboam led a nationalist revival by seizing land from his estranged siblings in the south and keeping foreign powers at bay. He was a ruler obsessed with borders – expanding them, defending them, monitoring them. 2 Kings 14:25 says that his border policies unfolded “in accordance with the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.” Jonah had been a red-blooded Hebrew whose prophetic ministry aided and abetted this ruler zealous for national security.

What if, the new storytellers asked themselves, what if we told a story about God calling Jonah to minister to his enemies? This was a scandalous proposition. As the well-known American pastor Timothy Keller once wrote, “Up until then prophets had been sent only to God’s people. …It was even more shocking that the God of Israel would want to warn Nineveh. …The original readers of the book of Jonah would have remembered him as intensely patriotic, a highly partisan nationalist. And they would have been amazed that God would send a man like that to preach to the very people he most feared and hated.”[2]

And why would a story like that be important for the new storytellers to tell, as they labored among the rubble and ash of their once glorious kingdom?

It was important because they had been scattered throughout the known world and they had learned that it was possible for them to live among people different from them. Strange customs, yes, strange languages and strange gods. But at the end of the day: people. Some of the Israelites had taken to heart the fact that God’s presence and compassion was not confined to the borders of their ancestral home but could reach them – and others – hundreds and thousands of miles away from it.

They had begun to see that God was not concerned only about one nation or one people, but about them all. So, if the cries of the poor and oppressed were to rise up in an Assyrian city, God would care about that, and God would demand change and offer forgiveness just as God would do at home in Jerusalem. Perhaps God loved and was at work in the whole world. Perhaps God’s people should think twice before judging their neighbors as unworthy, unchosen, and beyond the scope of God’s concern.

So, we can’t say with certainty that the historical Jonah ever traveled outside his beloved borders or ever looked a foreign “enemy” in the eyes and saw them as a person, as a human being who was as much the object of God’s attention and concern as he himself was. But the Jonah of the story – well, he did, and he learned some things from it. Jewish scholar H. L. Ginsberg says that the theme of Jonah is “a lesson of divine forgiveness.”[3] And though Jonah’s not happy about it, it’s clear that the storytellers behind this tale valued what commentator Susan Niditch calls “cosmopolitanism and empathy.”[4]

     I was reading this week about the administration’s order that government agencies must scrub their social media accounts, websites, and databases of photos and stories that highlight the historic contributions of women and people of color to our country. The Department of Defense is caught up in this, and the stories of many veterans are on the verge of deletion.[5] It is always a problem for a country – or a church – when the story becomes too simple, when it is hacked away at and recast as something monolithic and “pure.” Ideological violence always paves the way for physical violence. It is always a blow to our humanity when we insist that there is only one story that can rightly be told. The better stories are the complex ones, the ones that can hold contradictions in productive tension. I don’t think that what we need right now are fewer stories but some new ones that help us to be better and kinder and braver than we have been.

     Jonah begins with the prophet running away from the bigger, riskier story that God has called him into, a story that involves the possibility of mercy for his enemies. Jonah flees “from before the Lord.” The literally wording there in the Hebrew is that Jonah fled from the face of the Lord. God won’t, or can’t, look God in the eye, so to speak, at this moment. How can you call me to go to them? I thought I knew you. I’d rather disappear forever. Jonah runs away, finds a ship in the coastal city of Joppa, pays the fair, and embarks for Tarshish, an exotic city at the farthest edge of the known world.

So, God hurls a storm upon the sea that threatens to destroy the ship. The sea is a place where strangers converge, and the men on this boat are from all over the world. They cry out, each to their own god, to be saved from the storm. Jonah, meanwhile, has gone down below deck and fallen asleep.

He does not seem concerned about his fate or the fate of his shipmates. Susan Niditch calls his sleep “an escapist slumber.”[6] The ancient Greek translation of this story says that Jonah was lying there snoring.[7] The captain of the ship shakes him awake, scolds him and commands him to call upon his God, which Jonah does not do. As they grow more desperate, the crew hurls their cargo overboard and then they cast lots to see if the storm is a divine punishment for a wrong traceable to someone on board. Jonah is found out, and he tells them that he is the cause of their peril. They need to throw him overboard.

Do they? Need to do that? If Jonah had stood up right then and taken responsibility for his actions; if he had prayed a prayer of genuine sorrow and pledged to go to Nineveh, might the storm have stopped? We’re not given the chance to find out. Jonah is bound to the idea of a God of punishment, not a God of mercy. He thinks he must die.

     “Lift me and hurl me into the sea,” he tells them – and they, out of compassion for him, do not want to do this. They try even harder to row to shore so that they can keep him alive, but the power of the storm grows. At last, with no other way to save themselves, they pray that God will not hold against them what they are about to do, and they toss Jonah into the sea. The storm ceases, the water grows still. These men from different cultures and languages make a sacrifice of thanksgiving to Jonah’s God, make vows to praise him in the future, and are delivered.

     “We beseech you, Yahweh, please let us not perish for the life of this man, and do not set against us innocent blood” (Jonah 1:14).  That was their prayer before hurling Jonah overboard, but we know that Jonah wasn’t innocent. They knew he wasn’t innocent. Yet they were willing to see beyond his mistake – his fear and resistance and disobedience – to his essence, to his life and his blood, which runs red like theirs.

This is precisely the kind of sympathetic seeing that Jonah denied them at first when he fell asleep down in the ship. The kind of sight, too, that he denied Nineveh, when he ran away from God’s call.

     Jonah, before his unwilling sojourn to Nineveh, was like the priest and the Levite in Jesus’ parable, who would not stop to help their wounded neighbor on the side of the road. You could say that Jonah becomes like the Good Samaritan in the end, crossing over to help his ideological enemy. But the story leaves open the question of whether Jonah has a real change of heart. Perhaps it is truer to say that Jonah was the bruised one, that his personhood had been diminished and robbed, and that his nationalist passion and his professional religiosity had walked on by leaving him helpless. Perhaps it took the humanity of his enemies – these foreigners who did everything in their power to help each other and him – to restore him to life.

Tim Keller writes, “God sent his prophet to point the pagans toward himself. Yet now it is the pagans pointing the prophet toward God. …God shows [Jonah] here that he is the God of all people and Jonah needs to see himself as being part of the whole human community, not only a member of a faith community. …His private faith is of no public good.”[8]

Is our private faith of public good?

Do we see ourselves only as part of a faith community, or as a part of the whole human community?

Is there one right story and we’re living in it, or are we concerned about the wider story in which all our individual stories are threaded?

Does God’s heart for the world stop at the borders of our affections and allegiances, or do our hearts need to be broken and cracked open to hold the whole world?

These are the questions that Jonah raises. Sometimes we can be so knotted up in our prejudices, but these do not serve us when crises come that affect the whole social fabric, the whole worldwide climate. There is a line in a novel that says, “It would have to be the troublesome act of humanity, or nothing.”[9] That was true for the mariners, true for the Good Samaritan, true eventually, perhaps, for Jonah.

May it be true for us as well.

In the name of God, the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1] “[T]his is Late Biblical prose, a kind of Hebrew not written till after the return from the Babylonian exile in the fifth century BCE.” Robert Alter, Strong as Death is Love (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015), 135.

[2] Timothy Keller, Rediscovering Jonah: The Secret of God’s Mercy (New York: Penguin Books, 2018), 10-12.

[3] H. L. Ginsberg in The Five Megilloth and Jonah (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2008), 115.

[4] Susan Niditch, Jonah: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2023), 41.

[5] https://www.npr.org/2025/03/07/nx-s1-5321003/pentagon-images-flagged-removal-dei-purge-trump. Accessed March 8, 2025.

[6] Susan Niditch, Jonah: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2023), 40.

[7] That is, the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

[8] Timothy Keller, Rediscovering Jonah: The Secret of God’s Mercy (New York: Penguin Books, 2018), 34, 37, 38.

[9] Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire (New York: Picador, 2003), 206.

Prayer, Part 7: Transfiguration (Luke 9:29-36

Prayer, Part 7: Transfiguration

March 2, 2025 - Transfiguration Day

Luke 9:29-36

***

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all feature the story of Jesus’ transfiguration, but only Luke tells us that the transfiguration was a prayer experience. According to him, Jesus went up the mountain to pray, and he took along three of his twelve disciples: Peter, James, and John.  This seems to be the first time Jesus included others directly in his practice of prayer. At least, it’s the first time Luke makes it explicit. Before then, Jesus had prayed either alone or with the disciples “near him” (9:18). Here, on the mountain, he brings Peter, James, and John inside his own praying. This is an important development in Luke’s Gospel. Praying with Jesus and experiencing this glorious vision is a moment for the three disciples to ‘level up,’ to grow in their understanding of who Jesus is and what it means to follow him.  

Jesus helps us to pray by drawing us into the channel of his prayers. “You give your words away,” the poet says with wonder and gratitude, “As though I stood with you in your position, / As though your Father were my Father too.” By bringing the mystery of God’s very life into our earthy world of flesh and blood and bone, by bringing the joy of the eternal divine conversation into our web of human communication, Jesus has opened a place for us to come and join him in the intimacy he shares with the Creator.

Peter, James, and John caught more than a glimpse of this intimacy. As they prayed with Jesus, they saw his appearance change: shining clothes, illuminated skin, the atmosphere around him charged and pulsating. Two of the great former prophets, Moses and Elijah, appeared, speaking with Jesus. Then they withdrew, and a dark cloud fell upon the mountain, and a voice spoke out of the cloud: “This is my chosen Son. Listen to him.” And then, just as quickly as it all had started, they were alone with Jesus again, in grip of a holy hush.  

It’s good this story comes around every year, because it is such a dense passage, packed with Old Testament allusions and New Testament resonances. There are so many different threads we might pull. Since we’re concluding this series on prayer, I want to draw out and explore the things that were communicated, first by Moses and Elijah to Jesus, and then by God’s voice to the disciples.  

Moses and Elijah “appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” That’s how the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible renders verse 31. “His departure.” Departure means leaving, going somewhere else. This can mean departing from life, dying. Some other translations, the King James Version among them, say that Moses and Elijah were speaking of Jesus’ “decease” – his death. 

The Greek word underneath these different translation options is exodon, from the noun exodus. Many interpreters think Luke, with this word, wants to conjure the memory of Israel’s exodus from Egypt, that foundational experience of salvation when God freed the people from oppressive slavery. Yes, exodus can simply mean “departure” or “decease,” but there are other, more common words for these things. It feels like an intentionally super-charged choice. So, the Updated Edition of the NRSV, as well of some other English Bibles, make it explicit: Moses and Elijah, they say, were speaking of Jesus’ “exodus.”

It was a wonderful, terrible conversation. Moses and Elijah appeared to talk with Jesus about what awaited him in Jerusalem. A powerful, saving act of God. An exodus, yes – but an exodus achieved through a kind of departure. Through suffering. Through death. 

The disciples themselves had only recently become aware of this, that following Jesus would mean going with him toward an initially devastating end, into what would amount to a failure – at least at first. It was only about eight days prior to the Transfiguration that Jesus had first told them that he “must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and…killed and on the third day be raised to life” (Luke 9:22). He had followed this startling revelation with a hard teaching on discipleship: “Then he said to them all, If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:23-24). Hard words to digest – even today, even for us. 

And now three of those disciples have come with Jesus into the place of prayer to hear Moses and Elijah affirm the cross-bearing life. I can’t say it better than New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson who writes, “Luke alone supplies the topic of conversation between Jesus, Moses and Elijah: they discuss the ‘departure’ he is to fulfill in Jerusalem. Luke…places the suffering into the very middle of the vision of glory.”

Suffering, in the very middle of glory. 

It’s amazing, the glory. The shining light, the appearance of the saints, the divine voice.

It’s scary, this talk of departure and suffering.

Peter, afraid, blurts out that he wants to make three tents for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. He wants to freeze the good part, the glorious vision, in place. But that would be wrong.

Wrong because God is a God of life. God is a God of this life, this world. God is our God. And you and me? We suffer. We suffer for righteousness in a world that is broken and resistant to grace. 

If there is to be glory that holds any promise for us, it has to be forged in the crucible of suffering and sacrificial love. It has to catch our suffering up into something purposeful and glorious. And this is why, when the disciples might be starting to think that it’s all too heavy to bear – because remember, that’s the literal meaning of glory, heaviness – just when they might be tempted to defect from this teacher who has clarified the cost of following him, God speaks to them on the mountain: “This is my Chosen Son. Listen to him.”

God tells Peter and James and John in no uncertain terms to trust Jesus’ words. He is who he says he is. His teachings are trustworthy and true. He will hold them and helps them as their journey grows more difficult, as they mature in the faith and realize that his way of humility, generosity, and kindness is costly.

Let’s take just one example of this. 

Right after the transfiguration, Jesus “set his face toward Jerusalem.” He shifted from ministering in the northern regions of Israel to a steady journey south, moving closer to what was waiting for him in the city. The first stop on that journey was a town in Samaria. Samaria was a region whose people were hostile to Jews, and they didn’t want anything to do with Jesus once they learned that he was heading toward the Jewish holy city.

Two of the disciples – James and John of all people, who had been on the mountain of transfiguration – became so angry about the Samaritans’ lack of hospitality that they asked Jesus to give them the power to call down fire from heaven and blow up the town. But Jesus strongly rebuked them.

And not long afterward, when answering a stranger’s question about the greatest commandment and what it means to love one’s neighbor, he told a story in which a Samaritan is the hero who cares for a man robbed and left for dead on the side of the road.

Listen to him. Listen to Jesus, who doesn’t return hate for hate or evil for evil. Listen to this teacher who does not draw sweeping conclusions about “those people” but loves – or lovingly rebukes – each individual person in front of him.

Listen to him – because a ministry marked by miracles and healings and minor resistance is about to fall under much harsher scrutiny. It is one thing to be associated with a popular figure up north in Galilee, in the backcountry. It is another to bring the ministry of sacrificial love, a ministry that dissolves social hierarchies and ethnic distinctions and blurs the line between saints and sinners – another thing entirely to bring that into the center of political and religious power. 

If you’re going to endure this call, you have to listen to him – you have to trust him. If you’re going to learn how to let God touch your suffering and transfigure it, the suffering you experience as you confront your own sin and the sins of the world, this thirst within us and around us for retribution, then we have to listen to him. If we listen to him, he will help us carry our own cross daily. 

In the midst of that mountain top prayer, Jesus received from Moses and Elijah the gift of encouragement to remain steadfast in the way set before him. Peter, James, and John received from God’s voice that same gift. 

This is what prayer is all about.

We don’t pray to freeze in place, a kind of static contemplation of glory.

We don’t pray to avoid or banish suffering. 

We don’t pray because it deadens our feelings and makes it easier to grin and bear things.

We pray because prayer transfigures life and helps us to walk with integrity.

I want us to be a praying church precisely because I want us to be a church of action, and a church that acts for righteousness in the world is a church that will suffer. We will suffer in solidarity with those who are oppressed in our society. We will suffer the misunderstanding of our neighbors who’ve acquiesced to the status quo. We will suffer the resistance of systemic powers bound to privilege and violence. And to remain steadfast in the midst of this suffering, to let God touch it and catch it up in glory – that can only happen if we are praying, listening to the words of Jesus.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,” Jesus said, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:11).

And the Apostle Paul tells us: “[We know] that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:3-5).

God has told us to listen to Jesus.

And so we come to him, each and every day, individually and together. We come to him and ask, Lord, teach us to pray. 

Amen.

Prayer, Part 6: The Fruits of Prayer (Psalm 16:9-11)

Prayer, Part 6:

The Fruits of Prayer

First UMC of Pocatello

February 23, 2025

Psalm 16:9-11

***

Back on January 12th, on Baptism of the Lord Sunday, I began this sermon series on prayer. We watched Jesus, who had gone to the Jordan River to be baptized by his cousin John, come up out of those waters and settle into a time of prayer. Luke’s Gospel says that “as [Jesus] was praying, heaven was opened” (Luke 3:21). He prayed and received the anointing of the Holy Spirit. He prayed and heard the voice of God, “You are my son, whom I love” (3:22).

And this is a theme in Luke’s Gospel: Jesus’ own prayer life. Before he chose his twelve apostles, he spent a whole night in prayer (6:12). Prayer, as we will see next week, is what preceded his Transfiguration, unleashing, for a few moments, his inner light and thinning the distance between past and present, time and eternity (9:28-36). Jesus prayed – and things happened. And, as Luke tells it, it was after this series of revelatory events, after Jesus has modeled ministry flowing from communion with God that the disciples came to him and asked, “Lord, teach us to pray” (11:1).

That’s been our prayer these last six weeks:

“Lord, teach us – teach your people here at First United Methodist Church – teach us to pray. We want to hear you speak our belovedness. We want to come into our power as practitioners of mercy and justice. Lord, teach us to pray.”

And to help us stay with that desire for prayer, we’ve been spending time with Psalm 16. Psalm 16 has served as a guide through the great landscape of prayer and shown us some of prayer’s essential elements.

We’ve seen that prayer means asking God for help and getting comfortable with being dependent on God’s grace (vv. 1-2). Also that prayer is an act of attention, and so it matters whether we are paying attention during the day to stories that amplify hatred and shame or stories that inspire steadfastness and mercy (vv. 3-4). Prayer works through metaphor, helping us to see God in all things, and prayer marks moments of transition throughout our day, allowing us to pause and re-center ourselves in God (vv. 5-6). Prayer is a daily tool for gently examining the deep movements of our souls (vv. 7-8). And we’ve tied each of these insights to prayer practices to try out during the week.

Here I want to offer a quick invitation. Next Sunday is the last Sunday before the start of Lent, and I’ll be concluding this series. I’m planning on making time in the service for some of you to testify about how you have grown as a result of this preaching series – either through the teachings or the prayer practices that you’ve been working with. If you have a story to share that would allow us to celebrate you and that would encourage others to keep going, please reach out to me so I will know how to include you in the service. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, just one or two minutes. And I’d be happy to help you craft what you’re going to say.

Today we come to the final three verses of the psalm, and the first word we encounter is a hinge. “Therefore.” This is a shift, a shift away from the “how” of prayer to the “why.” What are the fruits of prayer? What does prayer make possible? Prayer is not a magic trick that immediately fixes all our problems. Prayer is not a hack for understanding why things happen the way that they do. So, what can we expect from it?

Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;

my body also rests secure.

For you do not give me up to Sheol,

or let your faithful one see the Pit.

You show me the path of life.

In your presence there is fullness of joy;

in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Let’s start with that first line: my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; / my body also rests secure. The Psalmist is checking in with the different dimensions of his being – heart and soul and body – and noticing a pervasive sense of gladness and security. Now, this is where just looking at one psalm can be a little incomplete, because there are other psalms – other prayers – that express pain or anger or confusion and don’t end in such a resolved way. We might think of Jesus’ cry from the cross: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Those psalms of anguish tend to be more “of a moment.” They reflect a specific circumstance of suffering and show us how to be fully open and honest before God in moments like it. But Psalm 16 is a wisdom psalm; it takes a long view of prayer. And it promises that, over time, as our communion with God deepens through prayer, as our attunement to God’s constant helping and loving presence keeps getting refined, prayer will strengthen us. In the core of who we are – in our hearts, in our soul, reverberating through our bodies – there will be a sense of wellbeing unlocked by our trust in God’s love.

I want to be clear here: prayer isn’t a substitute for therapy if what you really need is therapy; it doesn’t take the place of exercise or nourishment or sleep; praying is not the same thing as being informed or involved, so it doesn’t eliminate our need for education and our responsibilities to act; neither is prayer a substitute for intimacy with other people. But prayer is an act that integrates all these aspects of our personhood. In prayer, we know ourselves to be held together in God and through God’s Spirit, and prayer helps us rest in God’s perfect knowledge of who we are.

Verse 10 says, For you do not give me up to Sheol or let your faithful one see the Pit.

You know, this verse is quoted twice in the New Testament book of Acts. Acts tells the story of the first Christians and their first churches. Two of its main characters are Peter, who was with Jesus from the start as one of his twelve disciples, and Paul, who came later, starting out as an oppressor of the Church and then becoming the greatest missionary of the movement.

In their sermons, both Peter and Paul quote Psalm 16 verse 10. They use it as a kind of proof text when proclaiming Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus died, they say, but God raised him from the dead. God did not abandon Jesus to the underworld, to the decay of death, to the injustice of the cross. No, God protected Jesus from that bleak finality. And in raising Jesus from the dead, God changed the end of the human story – of our story.

The God who did not allow the powers of cruelty and death to have the last word over Jesus is the God who meets us in prayer!

The God who turned a disastrous ending into a glorious new beginning is the God who helps us when we ask for help!

The God we claim as our good, as our portion and cup, as the one who gives us a good inheritance, who counsels us, is the God of resurrection and life.

No matter what may come, God will keep our lives from being overwhelmed and dragged under, bound and defined by the power of the Pit. We can expect this of prayer. We can expect to be companioned by the God who has let death touch him without being overcome, the God who will not abandon us in our time of need.

And at last we come to the final verse of the psalm, one of my absolute favorites in all of scripture: You show me the path of life. / In your presence there is fullness of joy; / in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

The “path of life” always makes me think of Abraham. Way back in the first book of the Bible, in Genesis chapter 12, Abraham was called by God to leave his home and go to place that would be revealed to him along the way. He didn’t pray about it and see the destination ahead of time; he didn’t say Yes because he caught wind of where he was headed and could get out in the front of the difficulties entailed in getting there. No, he had to live the journey toward Canaan, the path revealed only in the going, each day unfolding into the next. He said Yes because he trusted the one who would walk alongside him and never abandon him.

God shows us the path of life. God leads us day by day – and prayer puts us in touch with that leading. And it is, make no mistake, a path of life – a path that takes us deeper into our real circumstances, not away from them. Deeper into our work, into our families and friendship. Deeper into our leisure, our service, our streets, and our ecosystems. “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly,” Jesus says in John’s Gospel (10:10, ESV). And another Psalm puts it like this: “For you, LORD, have delivered me from death, / my eyes from tears, / my feet from stumbling, / that I may walk before the LORD / in the land of the living” (116:8-9, NLT). Prayer allows us to live our real lives right now with hearts and eyes and hands wide open.

A couple years ago I heard our bishop, Cedrick Bridgeforth, say that Jesus calls us to “pray with our feet.” That can mean two things. There’s the phrase, “stay with your feet,” which means don’t get ahead of yourself, don’t go somewhere else. Stay here in this moment, in this place, and be present. Pay attention to what God is up to in you and around you right where you are.

“Pray with your feet” can also mean putting our prayers into action, become living prayers. And I think our psalm has shown us that that’s possible.

If are in the habit of being met by the God who helps us, won’t we step more bravely toward others who need help? If we are in the habit of saying to God, “I have a good inheritance,” won’t we want to work to make sure that others get what they need to experience joy and rest, even if right now they look ahead and only see struggle and pain? We might even be the one who comes along and helps someone else out of the Pit – like the Good Samaritan in Jesus’ parable, who finds an abused traveler as he walks along the road, and stops what he’s doing to help his neighbor recover.

You show me the path of life. For two nights this week I was at the Monastery of the Ascension in Jerome, not far from Twin Falls. The monastery houses an aging Benedictine order of monks, but attached to the cloister is a lovely retreat center. I was there with other Methodist pastors from our district for a time of prayer, fellowship, and continuing education.

When I woke up on Wednesday morning, there was fresh snow on the ground, and some still softly falling from the sky. I joined the monks for morning prayer and then went out to take a walk. There is a long, straight driveway, probably a quarter of a mile, linking the entrance of the monastery to the closest country road, and along both sides of the driveway the monks long ago planted rows of conifer trees to break the wind and absorb some of the smell of nearby cattle. Today, those trees have grown into full stature; they are tall and thick and dark. Walking through them was like walking through a holy hallway, the wind hushed, life stirring.

Because of the slant of the snowfall, the row of trees to my left were covered with it, but the row of trees to my right were bare. One side white, another side green. In the morning light there were juncos and sparrows, magpies and chickadees stirring in the trees. A few hawks circled overhead. And I saw a Great Horned Owl for the first time in my life; we stood and looked at each other for a long, long time.

By planting those trees for practical reasons, the monks had created a new, micro ecosystem, a place of life and beauty. It took years for the trees to grow into their full effectiveness and purpose, but to walk through them today is to walk through something good and holy. Sometimes we begin to pray for very practical reasons. We’re trying to survive. We need help. We need a little more silence or beauty or reflectiveness in our days. And that’s okay! Prayer is practiced moment by moment, day by day. It is tended and patiently endured. And then? Then prayer grows up and becomes the very thing that holds and protects us, that marks the boundaries of our lives, that teems with life and blesses those who come alongside us, even after us.

If prayer is about coming to expect the presence of God in all persons and things, at all times, in all places – including in our very own heart, and breath, and bodies – then prayer really is about the fullness of life.

And this expectation, this hope, that the God of mercy and love is so very near to us always, is a source of joy and pleasure. It was what they sensed in him, those disciples, when they came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

Amen.Prayer,

Sermon on the Plain: Loving Each Other on Level Ground (Luke 6:17-26)

Sermon on the Plain: Loving Each Other on Level Ground

2/16/25

Luke 6: 17-26

Jesus Teaches and Heals

Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

Blessings and Woes

Then he looked up at his disciples and said:

‘Blessed are you who are poor,

for yours is the kingdom of God.

‘Blessed are you who are hungry now,

for you will be filled.

‘Blessed are you who weep now,

for you will laugh.

‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

‘But woe to you who are rich,

for you have received your consolation.

‘Woe to you who are full now,

for you will be hungry.

‘Woe to you who are laughing now,

for you will mourn and weep.

‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

Luke’s writing is often characterized by literary excellence, historical detail and a warm, sensitive understanding of Jesus. And we can see why in the few verses that I just read. The back-and-forth wordplay between the poor and the rich, the hungry and the full, the sorrowful and the laughing man, the oppressed and the elite set up so elegantly is incredibly simple to unpack in our modern meditation today.

Is Luke saying anything new though? Haven’t we already heard it before in the Sermon on the Mount? Why does Luke repeat what Matthew already wrote about? One possibility is that Luke’s theme differs slightly from Mathew’s not only in the fact that it is shorter, 3 beatitudes as compared to 8 in Matthew’s account, but Luke points out that Jesus is paying particular attention to location. Level ground. There has to be a good deal of metaphor here, that everyone, even Jesus, is on level ground.

But why would Jesus give a sermon on flat land? Why didn’t Luke describe Jesus standing on something, a boulder, a chair, or perhaps another disciple’s shoulders? Why didn’t Luke mention that the throng gathered and sat at his feet? Or that Jesus sat down to preach as he did in the Sermon on the Mount.

Maybe, just maybe, Jesus came down with them and stood on level land with a crowd of his disciples gathered among a cross section of citizens from Judea, Jerusalem, and foreign-born travelers from Tyre and Sidon to prove a very specific point. By most definitions, to be on a level ground usually means to be starting at or on the same level for the sake of being fair regardless of position, power, status or authority.

Consider how Luke, with artful minimalism, conveys the historic image and real presence of so many different people gathered together to collectively be healed by Christ. We read that both peoples from Judea and Jerusalem gathered with the Gentiles from Tyre and Sidon.

History tells us that believers and non-believers, monotheists, and pagans gathered. Rich and poor alike, all of these people shared equal status in the eyes of the Christ. Equal not only in their grief and illness, but also equal in their degenerate spirit.

These tightly packed verses serve as a living testament to us today about Christ’s ministry to every person present in the ancient past when Luke writes: “for power came out from him and healed all of them.” What an incredible idea to contemplate that Jesus came to level the playing field and used the physical feature of the plains to give a sermon. In fact, that is what this sermon is called--The Sermon on the Plains.

In modern context, this scripture adds rich layers to the meaning of Christ’s abundant love, mercy, and forgiveness. There is a place at the table for everyone in God’s Kingdom. How powerful is it that Christ healed the baptized right beside the unbaptized, right alongside the foreigner and the citizen. Newsworthy? You bet! Revolutionary? There is no doubt.

But let’s dig further. What more is there to meditate upon in the scripture? I suggest that the deeper consideration for us to ponder is the “gaze of God” in the flesh through the Christ which was leveled upon his disciples. Do you recall the words of the verse which read: “Then Jesus looked up at his disciples and said: Blessed are you who are poor, you who are hungry, you who weep, Blessed are you when people hate you. Rejoice, for surely your reward is great in heaven.”

Jesus wasn’t addressing the masses. Unlike the Sermon on the Mount, Luke’s deliberate description states that Jesus was talking directly to his disciples. And what are we as baptized members of the body of Christ, if not his disciples, teachers, apostles, and prophets--each to our own and our gifts different one from another. These blessings are followed by a stiff warning of woe my friends. Woe to you disciples who are rich, full, laughing, and elitist like the false prophets. Woe…

Woe to those among us, leaders and lay leaders alike, gifted by position of birth, wealth, intellect, and power who do not follow the Christ’s ministry to disciple everyone. You see, Jesus and Luke both held special interests in the poor and in issues of social justice equally with their concerns for those who oppress others.

These people, these oppressors, are usually labeled in any number of the gospels as sinners. Sinners in that they are using their power and position to separate humankind from God’s all-encompassing love. And the sinners reward? Woe. Sadness. Desolation in the here and now.

Jesus was aware of the oppressive culture that amassed people of all races, creeds, and social status of the day to gather to listen to him. Representative stories from all walks of faith, Hebrew, Greek, pagan and believer are all on display illustrating for us that the oppressed have been waiting for a savior to liberate them from the burden of the Roman Empire for 400 years.

Much like then, there are still many even now waiting to be free of the various forms of oppression that plague our community today. Like the ancients of the past, our current time is still bursting at the seams with people whose struggles are manifest in the more modern form of “diseases” with names like cancer, heart disease, Parkinsons. Even “unclean spirits” exist in our present time. They bear names like racism, authoritarianism, and homophobia or transphobia.

But who wants to go hungry, right? Who wants to cry, and experience being poor. For that matter, how is that even helpful in our current circumstance?

In my own walk with Christ, I have been all three. In 2021, I was 180 pounds. The extra weight combined with extensive walking associated with my job duties cause me to experience plantar fasciitis. I either had to live with debilitating pain in both my feet, loose the weight intentionally, or start working with doctors and potentially get a surgery.

Weight loss was my first and incredibly harder choice because of my relationship with food. I abhorred not being able to eat whatever I wanted for a couple of reasons—one because as a child and even a young adult, I had days when there really wasn’t much to eat or drink. And 2, being born to an LDS mother, as a kid, I was made to fast alongside the rest of the congregation on Fast and Testimony Sunday once a month. I held deep resentment for that religious practice, and honestly didn’t want to face it as a mature Christian.

You can imagine now how hard it was for me to engage in fasting as a necessary practice, let alone a spiritual one. But, because of the plantar fasciitis, I had to rise to the challenge and think about how hunger and fasting in my body was a means to improved health and also a way to heal old religious wounds and connect with my maker. Being me—I was all in.

In my mind—working through the psychological reparations of understanding hunger from a mature spiritual perspective and reconciling the childhood trauma of being forced into a faith practice was hard to be certain. But on the other side, as an adult with much clearer personal understanding of the practice—I am now more spiritually fulfilled and better for it. I now know that God designed my body as another conduit of connection to Them—One that must be engaged with tenderness through maturity and free will and not forced traditions.

Though I am not here to encourage anyone to follow the path I took, I am here to say that you have to discern for your own present journey how your relationship with hunger can bring you closer to Creator Spirit. Eating differently and being present in the nurture and feeding of your body can bring you fulfillment. Maybe your body craves more strength. Go for a walk, and invite God to be present. Maybe your body craves abstaining from excessive amounts of work—give yourself permission to take a nap and rest in the Spirit of the Lord. What I needed may not be what you need—and that is why God gives you the Spirit—so you can discern what and how you should proceed this Sabbath.

Turning now to weeping, I wept as recently as this morning. I will tell you that leaning in and letting God take the wheel in spite of my own anxieties about standing here and speaking has resulted in my own personal growth. For one brief moment, I touched heaven here on earth.

One of my realizations this morning came to me about when and why I weep. I weep most often about how I have judged entire cultures, communities, and individuals poorly. I weep for my bigotry as a younger woman, and for my hardness towards my husband. I weep for the distance between my mother and I. I weep for parental failures—ignoring both of my teen agers when they came out to me. And If I cry now, please forgive me.

In my discernment, I have learned that weeping is just my own outward expression of what needs corrected in my life. Recognizing this signal, sometimes I choose to lean in, wear a seatbelt, and let Jesus take the wheel. My most recent example is an experience with Grandpa last October which resulted in an incredible gift--the gift of forgiveness.

Over 5 years ago, I cut ties with him out of anger, resentment, and if I am being honest, pure jealousy. But God thought that was long enough, so my Heavenly Healer humbled me in spirit and helped me reconnect to Grandpa. I traveled 2 days to see him. And I apologized deeply for my wrongs as his granddaughter. I acknowledged him not as my grandfather, but as a man—human, incredibly strong minded, loyal, and fiercely independent. For that sacrifice of my pride, I was rewarded his last birthday, Christmas and New Years before he passed away a month ago. And there was so much joy my friends—so much joy in the full circle of that reunification that we have laughter now in stories that no one else can share but he and I.

Enough said—or I will cry the rest of today for his recent loss. Let’s circle back a bit here. In my belief, God gives us grief, anxiety, tears, and distress as signals and indicators that we are off the path. If we wander too far for too long, perhaps it is time to be open to the need to correct past mistakes. Maybe these are issues in the workplace, or with our partners, spouses, and adult children. Whatever the conflict, between friends or even with our childhood trauma, these tears will become laughter if we do the hard, hard work of spending time with God and letting the spirit heal what needs mended.

The last bit—the bit about being poor. Oh friends—perhaps this is the hardest bit to chew on. Blessed are the poor—for yours is the Kingdom.

I am by no means rich. Look around the room here. None of us are rich. I have lived at 2 levels of financial wellbeing in my life. Poverty and lower middle class. I came from poverty. I mentioned going hungry as a kid. I wasn’t kidding. As an adult, I was also a single mom on food stamps. I have never been homeless, but should have been. School loans kept a roof over my head for a long time. Marriage was actually one of the ways I elevated my income, if I am being honest. But even then, my offering to the Church really wasn’t whole lot. Debt mounted frequently as I squirmed between title loans, small bank loans, rental centers, and even credit card debt.

Can I share a little wisdom? Credit card debt is, in my mind, the single worst cycle I ever engaged in. Looking back, if I were to give some advice—I would say stop comfort spending on coffee, candy, and new things. Learn to live within your means.

As a younger parent—comfort spending was second hand shopping for junk that I didn’t always need. As a lower middle-class earner today however, comfort spending happens to mean bailing out my kids instead of giving to the church. On my list of “I would rathers” if I am being incredibly candid here, I would rather give $500 to my son who has gone without a bed for the better part of 3 months than actually get one step closer to making a tithe offering into church budget. And so I did.

Justified or not, I have to really take a square look in the mirror and confront places where I need to grow in my faith. And money is certainly one of those places. I am by no means the picture-perfect preacher. Will never be, but I am working on myself, and that is all I can hope for.

In an article published 2 days ago called “A refreshed Wesleyan vision is emerging,” Reverend Dr. Paul W. Chilcote has revitalized what Jesus embodies for our faith—the need to engage in meaningful ministry. “The primary practices associated with this exciting aspect of our discipleship are acts of compassion and justice. We have no mission but to serve in these ways. A refreshed church seeks to care for all and spread the word of liberation to those oppressed and abused.

The rise of xenophobia, nationalism and nativism in our nation and world will call upon our steadfast proclamation of God’s love for all people in Christ. We will need to be those in the world who transform hostility into hospitality. We will bear witness to the extravagant, unconditional and unbounded love of God.”

In Psalm 1 it says, “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law, they meditate day and night.”

If my message today has spoken to you in any way, my prayer is that you understand that you are a disciple. There is a long list of beatitudes given in Matthew. But Luke’s version, the shorter version has 3 that should be your starting point. Choose to start now if you haven’t and gaze back at Jesus, eyes wide to the wonder and joy of a more ascetic life. Be blessed, find moderation in your life and oppose your own self manifested woes.

Know that here and now Jesus is aware of the current oppressive realities our times. Oppressing our bodies. Oppressing our mental health. Oppressing of our loved ones and close friends. Even oppressing how and what we are supposed to believe about the communities we live in and the homes we are stewards over. Everywhere the polarization of community is on display.

The guard might have changed, but there are still guards none the less. And the results? The same. I would wager if Jesus showed up today and called people to him on the Snake River Plain, people of all kinds from both sides of the fence would jump over to touch his garment. And he would heal them—without judgement. Of that, I am sure.

So how should I wrap this up? What is it that I can say to you that will bring home the message? Perhaps this: meditate day and night. Ponder. Consider. And above all—pray. Pray to try not to see yourselves through your own eyes. Pray to see yourself through the eyes of your liberator. Pray that when you see someone who has absolutely nothing in common with your practices, beliefs, or culture, that you will be like trees with deep roots that are planted by streams of living water.

In your season, a season that you alone have been prepared for, having prayed and fully joined in both body and spirit to Your Maker, you will be called to yield the goodness of Gods bounty to someone who has been oppressed—whom you can call out of bondage and into abundance. Meanwhile, it is in God’s name that I pray you will prosper greatly, and in so doing lift others up along the road that God has set you on.

Prayer, Part 5: The Heart is Our Teacher (Psalm 16:7-8)

Prayer, Part 5: The Heart is Our Teacher

First UMC of Pocatello

February 9, 2025

Psalm 16:7-8

 ***

In a little book called The Way of the Heart, Catholic author Henri Nouwen writes about prayer and quotes these words of a nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox bishop named Theophan the Recluse: “To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart, and there to stand before the face of the Lord, ever-present, all-seeing, within you.”

Let’s hear that one more time: “To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart, and there to stand before the face of the Lord, ever-present, all-seeing, within you.”

The first part of Theophan’s statement, the part about the mind coming down into the heart, is instructive; it tells us something about how prayer works. Prayer is at its best when the powers of our minds – the powers to question, reason, associate, and imagine – are united with our emotions and our body’s sensations. The heart is always speaking. We pray when we learn to listen to our heart, becoming aware of its affections, disappointments, and hopes.

The second part of Theophan’s teaching is a promise. When we open the door of our heart and allow our mind to carry its candle of awareness there, God will meet us. God is both the Creator of everything, the Great Mystery always outstripping our understanding, and a personal presence in us. We are made in God’s image, which means we are born with a bone-deep craving for perfect love, for God. Our hearts teach us to pay attention to that holy hunger.

Psalm 16 affirms the goodness of our bodies, and shows us how important they are to a life of prayer.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel,

in the night also my heart instructs me.

I keep the Lord always before me;

because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

Here in verses 7 and 8, we have our first two body words: “my heart” and “my right hand.”

The Hebrew word translated here as heart is literally the word for the kidneys. Ancient Hebrews believed that the heart and the kidneys were closely related. The two organs are often referenced side by side in scripture. For example, in one English translation, Psalm 7:9 says, “The one who examines the thoughts and emotions is a righteous God” – but in the original Hebrew, those “thoughts and emotions” are the “heart and the kidneys.” These organs were considered the places in the body that house a person’s emotions, affections, and deepest thoughts – the very purposes of their soul. It’s common in scripture to hear of God searching, examining, and naming what is in these parts of the body. In Psalm 16, they speak directly to the one praying, offering their wisdom: in the night also my heart instructs me.

Hebrew poetry uses a literary device called parallelism. Parallelism means that one line will – you guessed it – parallel the next. The most common kind of parallelism is when two lines of poetry say pretty much the same thing but in slightly different ways. It’s not always that the second statement builds on the first statement, though that does happen. More often, the second line and the first line expand one another, giving the reader a fuller picture. It’s like describing the same mountain from two different angles.

A good example of parallelism is the first verse of Psalm 51:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love;

according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.

‘Unfailing love’ parallels ‘great compassion.’ The plea for mercy parallels the plea for one’s transgressions to be blotted out.

Here’s what’s wonderful about Psalm 16:7: “I bless the Lord who gives me counsel” is in a parallel structure with “in the night also my heart instructs me.” The psalmist is not driving a hard wedge between the counseling Lord and the teaching heart. They are not the same thing, but they’re not separate either. When we quiet ourselves enough to really hear what our hearts are telling us; when we seek our body’s wisdom, we’ll hear God’s voice, too. The heart knows when it has strayed from God’s purposes and it’s truest desires.

For some of us, this might be a new and revolutionary way of relating to your body. Maybe you’ve been taught that your body is, at best, unimportant to your life with God, or, at worst, a cesspool of sin.  Maybe you’re simply out of touch with your body most of the time, living in your head. We can tell ourselves all sorts of stories up there, some helpful, many far from helpful. We can grind our reason against an immovable problem. We can rationalize anything and everything. We can do all these mental functions while being unaware of what our hearts really want or what our bodies already intuitively know.

Our bodies might contradict our mental stories; they might ask us to do something risky – to feel, and then to act on that feeling. I wonder what it would mean for you to descend into your heart, your chest, your gut as you ask, “What do I want? How am I being called to love? What’s the next right thing that God would have me do?”

How would your heart – speaking in harmony with God’s voice – guide you?

Of course our bodies get sick and suffer injury. They store up trauma and they age. But these challenges are also opportunities to learn to listen and honor the body’s wisdom. They do not mean that our bodies are evil. Our bodies, along with our minds and souls, are created in the image of God. The image of God is Jesus Christ, and he the embodied, enfleshed, incarnate One.

So, what does it actually mean to listen to the heart? How do we do it?

There’s no single answer to this, but the psalmist says that his heart teaches him in the night. For our Jewish siblings, the new 24-hour day begins at sunset. There was evening, and there was morning… There was evening, and there was morning. In the Bible, the days run from evening to evening, which is why Jewish folks begin their Sabbath observance on Friday night with the lighting of candles and singing.

Darkness, the time when most of us are winding down and letting go, is the time when God initiates fresh work. Maybe at the end of the day we’re tired and spent; maybe we’ve finally reached some delicious solitude. Either way, there is something about our vulnerability in the evening that allows us to lower our defenses and listen to what the heart has to say. Perhaps for just this reason, the Psalms speak often of evening prayer. Here are some examples:

·         Psalm 1:2 – “…their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.”

·         Psalm 17:3 –  “If you try my heart, if you visit me by night, / if you test me, you fill find no wickedness in me…”

·         Psalm 42:8 – “By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, / a prayer to the God of my life.”

·         Psalm 77:6 – “I commune with my heart in the night; I meditate and search my spirit.”

·         Psalm 91:1-2 – “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, / to sing praises to your name, O Most High; / to declare your steadfast love in the morning, / and your faithfulness every night.”

Over the past month, I’ve invited you to try some different prayer practices, like praying “Help me” over and over throughout your day, and paying attention to good stories, and praying with metaphors, and saying a simple threshold prayer at moments of transition during your day. I now want to teach you the prayer of Examen.

The daily Examen was designed by St Ignatius of Loyola to take no more than 15 minutes at the end of the day. It has five movements that can take about 2-3 minutes each. The first movement is simply to acknowledge God’s presence with you and become centered and inwardly aware. Deep breaths help us connect to our bodies, maybe followed by saying a favorite psalm or poem or the Lord’s prayer.

The second movement is about gratitude, naming a few gifts from the day. That should be easy for us, since we’re already keeping our 5x5 gratitude journals.

The third and fourth movements involve reviewing the day, first noticing moments of spiritual consolation and then moments of desolation. Consolation is about freedom and love, openness to God and others. Desolation is about being unfree, reactive; distant from God or others.

Positive feelings don’t always correspond to consolation, and negative feelings don’t always correspond to desolation. If we spend time one day with someone who is grieving, we might feel our own sadness and come away from that encounter depleted. But at the end of the day, our hearts will tell us that we were right where we needed to be, alongside our friend.

Ignatius was concerned that we don’t applaud or judge ourselves for these moments; we’re just meant to notice them. The point isn’t to get fixated on one thing and relive the drama of it over and over. We review the day in a detached way, and ask the heart to show us when we were speaking and acting from inside or outside our grounding in God. If a moment from the day stands out as particularly important, we can take a minute to talk to God about it.

After reflecting on consolation and desolation, the final part of the Examen is looking ahead to the next day. One writer describes it this way:

[We] ask God to show us the potential challenges and opportunities of tomorrow. We try to anticipate which moments might go one way or the other for us: toward God’s plan or away from it. We ask for insight into what graces we might need to live this next day well: patience, wisdom, fortitude, self-knowledge, peace, optimism. We ask God for that grace, and we trust that he wants us to succeed in our day even more than we do.

     And that’s the Examen. Centering, thanking, and reviewing today’s consolations and desolations, and tomorrow’s needs. By praying the Examen once a day, we learn to listen to our hearts. Over time we notice patterns that can really unlock growth for us. Patterns of consolation and desolation show us where we are tripping up over and over again or where God’s joy reliably meets us. We can then act based on those patterns, avoiding the things that bring us down and moving toward the things help us love.

That’s partly what the psalmist means when she says, I keep the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be moved. In the ancient world, to be at someone’s right hand was to occupy the place of honor, the place of strength and trust. We come to know God as a strong and trustworthy friend by listening to our own hearts in the night.

     I’ve again made up some cards for you to take home, if you’d like. This time they have instructions for the Examen on them. I still have threshold prayers from last week, too, if you didn’t get one or want to take a few more. Let’s use the Examen to practice keeping the Lord before us by listening for the harmony between our heart’s voice and God’s voice.

“To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart, and there to stand before the face of the Lord, ever-present, all-seeing, within you.”

God is waiting for us.

Lord, teach us to pray.

Amen.

Prayer, Part 4: My Chosen Portion (Psalm 16:5-6)

Prayer, Part 4:

My Chosen Portion

First UMC of Pocatello

February 2, 2025

Psalm 16:5-6

***

The scriptures call us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). This is not because prayer is an end in itself, or because it magically solves all our problems, or because God is handing out gold stars to people who do it. It’s because prayer is communion. Prayer is the practice of being with and before God, letting love search us, claim us, fill us. In this series on prayer, we’ve already seen that one of the ways ancient Christians discovered they could “pray without ceasing” was by asking God for help, everywhere and at all times.

Do you remember Wendell Berry’s poem from two weeks ago?

It puzzled me once,

that ancient call

to ceaseless prayer.

Now I know.

Help me. Help me.

If I must stay

longer at work

give me strength.

We are always in need of help; we never outgrow our dependence on God. Asking God for help is a great foundation for a life of prayer. I want to add to that today.

As we read the scriptures, we see how richly they use metaphors when they are talking about who God is and what God is like. We make metaphors when we place two images or ideas side by side and explore their relationship – not just how they are like one another or not, but how they draw out of each other new dimensions, illuminating was had been hidden.

God is light. God is a vine. God is a rock. God is a desert shrub burning but not consumed. God is a shepherd. God is love. God is a groan. God is a wrestling match in the night. God is the sound of sheer silence. God is a fetus, and a midwife, and a womb. God is water, wind, and bread. An obscure carpenter, a gardener, the first sculptor of primordial clay.

God! Father running to embrace us. God! Son with a criminal record. God! Spirit that is sometimes fire and sometimes a bird and sometimes breath itself. God is.

God is, in the words of Psalm 16, “my chosen portion and my cup” (NRSV). These are metaphors, and their presence in the prayers of the Bible is an invitation for us to cultivate a metaphor-rich imagination and prayer language.

There is a sense in which God is, by definition, ineffable. If something is ineffable, it is “too great to be expressed or described in words.” That’s partly what God meant when Moses asked for God’s name at the burning bush and God said, “I am who I am.” Our words and concepts and images can never capture God with any kind of finality. God exceeds all the bounds.

But God is also the Creator of all things. Creation has its origin in God’s love, desire, and imagination and bears some likeness to its source. Traditionally, theologians have talked of the “two books of divine revelation,” the first ‘book’ being the natural world, and the second being the scriptures.

But more than that, for Christians, is the startling experience of a God who has opened his very life up to the world, to people, to everyday stuff by becoming incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus thought with a human mind and spoke in a human language – and the linguists, neuroscientists, and artists tell us that thought and speech are metaphor all the way down.

There is a kind of boundless playfulness that comes from God’s openness to us, and Jesus creatively worked from his own palette of Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic words, walking around and pointing: “I am like that…and that… and that. And the kingdom of heaven is like that… and that… and that.” Seeds and yeast, salt and light.

One of the ways we can pray without ceasing is by imitating our open and creative God and our image-rich scriptures. If God might be speaking to us, or at least inviting our curious gaze, through all things, then we can move through our day engaged in prayer.

How is God like the waiter who pours your coffee?

How is God like the cup that holds your coffee, that you hold in your hands?

How is God like the chair you sit in, or the friend you sit across from, or the morning light that slants in through the gray clouds and smudged window?

What do these simple, everyday experiences teach us about the God who is in and through all things? Where do they break down and stop making any kind of sense? And once we are playing with an image of God, we can consider how we might relate to a God who is like this thing. For example, here’s a beautiful passage from St. Francis of Assisi: “We are spouses when the faithful soul is joined by the Holy Spirit to our Lord Jesus Christ. We are brothers to Him when we do the will of the Father who is in heaven [sic]. We are mothers when we carry Him in our heart and body through a divine love and a pure and sincere conscience and give birth to Him through a holy activity which must shine as an example before others.” Do you see what he’s doing? He’s saying, ‘Okay, if Jesus is a lover and a brother and a son, what might it mean for us to relate to him in that way – if we were his spouse, sibling, and mother, like Mary?’

Praying with metaphor is not primarily about having interesting ideas about God – though there is pleasure in that. The real heart of it is that metaphor unlocks new ways or relating to God, of imagining who we are to God and with God, and who we are for the world. The Christian tradition, and perhaps our own prayers on account of our formation in it, come heavily laden with dominating, masculine metaphors: Master, King, Warrior, Father, Judge. Not bad metaphors when held in creative tension and conversation with all the others – but definitely bloated ones in many traditions and minds. They’re definitely the metaphors energizing persons and groups vying for power in Jesus’ name in 2025 America. I’d argue that people who have a richer imagination for where and how God might reveal something about who he is and what he is like tend to be more appreciative of differences in the human family.

If God is like that friend sitting across from you and your steaming cup of coffee, if God sees you so kindly and clearly in that way, without agenda, simply enjoying your presence whether you are talking or being silent – well, maybe that’s a different kind of God than you’re used to relating to. Maybe you’d actually open up and tell that God some things you’ve been afraid to say to the God who is Judge or King. And here’s what’s surprising: a true friend might tell us the very thing we need to hear but would rather not hear; a God who is a friend might be the most incisive judge of all, a judge who names what is there directly, with mercy, knowing our faults and possibilities and wanting what’s best for us.

So there is both beauty and seriousness in metaphor play. The beauty is in coming to know God as being very near to us, very eager to engage us. The seriousness is in examining our own certainties about how God acts in the world and asking if they are built upon a very narrow set of pictures. A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say, and images generate feelings – of proximity or distance, of contrition or joy, of purposeful energy or quiet rest.

Do you have favorite metaphors for God? Favorite images?

Each day this week, pick something that you encounter in your daily life and ponder for a while, ‘How is God like this and not like this? How would I relate to God, speak to God, and act toward others, if I believed God was like this.’ And don’t be afraid of pushing some boundaries or venturing into heresy. God can take it. And a robustness of metaphors keeps us in touch with the God who, in his Great Mystery, dwells in the endless beyond, yet meets us here and there and everywhere.

The images in verses 5 and 6 of Psalm 16 all have something to do with measurement, things that hold or contain: a portion, a cup, one’s lot; boundary lines; inheritance.

Here’s how different English translations render verse 5:

NRSV: The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.

NAB: LORD, my allotted portion and my cup, you have made my destiny secure.

CSB: LORD, you are my portion and my cup of blessing; you hold my future. (CSB)

NLT: LORD, you alone are my inheritance, my cup of blessing. You guard all that is mine.

Pausing over a portion of food to eat or over a cup to drink. Considering the boundary lines of our lives as holding good things. Hoping for a good future, a good lot and inheritance. These all brought to mind the idea of thresholds for me, thresholds being moments or places of transition, where we either pause in our day or move from one thing to the next

So, taking a cue from the particular metaphors of this psalm, I’ll also invite you this week to pray a prayer during the “threshold moments” of your own day – when you have your morning coffee or leave for work or come home in the evening.

Blessing the threshold is an ancient practice from Celtic Christianity, and I’ve composed a simple prayer for us using Psalm 121:8 and a line from St Francis of Assisi. It goes like this:

“Lord, you protect our coming and going,

both now and forever” (Psalm 121:8).

“Therefore, let nothing hinder us,

nothing separate us,

nothing come between us.”

Take one of these with you, and tuck in your pocket or your wallet as you go about your days this week.

Lord, as we imagine an illuminated world full of your truth, as we seek to know you in and through all things, and as we pray at our thresholds, help us, for the sake of your love, which is for us and for many. You are our portion and cup, and we want nothing less than to taste and see that you are good. Lord, teach us to pray. Amen.

Prayer, Part 3: Paying Attention to Good Stories (Psalm 16:3-4)

Prayer, Part 3:

Paying Attention to Good Stories

First UMC of Pocatello

January 26, 2025

Psalm 16:3-4

***

Several weeks ago, I shared with you that during this season of Epiphany I would be preaching a series on prayer, asking Jesus to “teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). Prayer essentially means paying attention to God and being open before God. Prayer is the practice of true presence. Each of us was created in God’s image, and as a congregation we are entrusted with God’s “ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18). But it is hard for us to show others what God is like, and we certainly cannot effectively break down walls of division, if we are not grounded internally in God’s kindness and love. To become our fullest selves, we must learn to pray.

How do we do it, then? How do we pray? For this series, Psalm 16 is our guide. And as we reflect on one or two of its verses each Sunday, my goal is for each of us to come away with at least two things: a deeper longing for prayer and a simple practice to try during the week.

When we explored the first two verses of Psalm 16 last Sunday, I invited you to practice a prayer of the heart, a simple phrase playing on repeat that you could carry into any moment. I suggested one of the tried-and-true phrases like “Help me,” “Protect me,” or “Save me” – something that lets you be just as you are while opening a line of communication with God. “Help me” – it’s the way the psalm starts and it’s a good way to start learning how to pray.

Today we’re focusing on verses three and four of Psalm 16, so I invite you to hear the word of the Lord a second time:

3 As for the holy ones in the land,

they are the noble, in whom is all my delight.

4 Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows;

their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out,

or take their names upon my lips.

After asking God for protection and clinging to God as the source of all good things, the Psalmist now looks outward to consider other people. He sees, on the one hand, “the holy ones in the land,” and,

on the other,” those who pour out “offerings of blood” to “another god.” What’s brought to the forefront here is the question of who we are paying attention to.

Whose stories are we telling?

Whose names are we magnifying?

Whose actions are we delighting in and learning from?

Where are our emotional powers concentrated?

It's important to ask these questions. We live inside an economy where attention has become literal currency, where people make money based on how long they can keep your eyes looking at their product or using their app. And we live inside a politics bound to that economy, a politics that carefully manipulates our attention so that we are kept angry and engrossed in the chaos but ineffectively engaged on the ground. The algorithms will feed us a tweet coming out of or aimed at the White House, knowing it’ll raise our blood pressure and keep us scrolling, even as we remain unaware of suffering and injustice in our own backyards.

Let’s take some time to define these two groups of people, for the Psalmist the holy ones and those who choose another god.

The Hebrew word for “holy ones” is the plural form of the adjective qadosh, which means “holy.” Holiness means being set apart for a special purpose, which is a major theme in the Old Testament. Significantly, the first time this word is used is in Exodus chapter 19:3-6, when Moses hikes up Mt. Sinai to speak with God and receive the law. Here’s what God says to him as he goes up the mountain:

“This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’”

What this tells us is that, for an ancient Israelite, the “holy ones in the land” were first and foremost other Israelites, people who shared in God’s covenant. The holy ones were simply the community, those bound together by a shared trust in God and a desire to live out God’s ways.

If we think about what it means to channel our delight toward the “holy ones” in our land, its most basic sense is paying attention to one another – this Beloved Community – looking out for one another, taking care of each other, delighting in the fact that God’s Spirit has brought us together in Jesus’ name.

Then, of course, there’s the way that “the holy ones” has been understood in the Christian tradition to mean “the saints” – special kinds of individuals. The Church has recognized that certain individual lives and stories have been particularly powerful, have manifested the beauty, servanthood, and love of God in radical, world-changing ways.

No matter how we might feel about the institutional idea of saints, the truth is that we all have people we admire and stories that inspire us. The saints are those who make us want to do better for ourselves, to rise up and meet the challenges of our own time. It’s good for us to have these personal saints. They make us braver, more generous, more committed, more loving. As the poet Rilke put it, “Because once someone dared to want you, / I know that we, too, may want you.” It’s not just a poetic truth but a scientific fact that inspiration transforms us, delight steadies us, and stories of remarkable people help us grow. Who are your saints?

Finally, we might consider the “holy ones in the land” a third way, as the people that Jesus specifically pointed out as blessed. The poor and poor in spirit; the ones who mourn; the humble; the peacemakers and workers of justice. Jesus told us that he would be among the hungry and thirsty, the sick and imprisoned in a special way. He promised us that in serving and getting to know them we would be serving and getting to know him.

So, we have these three possibilities for understanding “holy ones” as: one another, as the saints, and as the poor and oppressed. Consider what this means for attention, for where and how we might concentrate our delight and our feelings of connection.

In prayer, we name one another, and we thank God for each other.

We reimagine the stories of those who lived exceptional lives.

We remember those who are typically forgotten, those we are not “supposed to” see.

Now, how about these people that “choose another god.” To understand who the Psalmist is talking about, we have to let the verse fully unspool: “those who choose another God multiply their sorrows; / their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out; / nor will I take their name upon my lips.”

Saints arouse delight. But those who choose another god? Look for sorrow. Look for blood. Look for the readiness to do violence. This is very important for our own context, because part of the crisis for Christians in America is that so many people are using the name of Jesus and the whole vocabulary of Christianity to promote visions of life as different as night and day.

As we know, Christian Nationalism is on the rise, and our own state is a breeding ground for it. Christian Nationalism is a complete blurring of the lines between church and state, where people seek to attain positions of political power or economic influence so that they can use the full weight of governmental policy to constrict personal freedoms and enforce narrowly-defined “Biblical values” on all people. But if you look at the sorrow this ideology causes, if you observe the violence it preaches, teaches, condones, and even commits – these are not saints in the boat with us who we should try our best to delight in. They are people who have chosen a different god, who are multiplying sorrows, who require sacrifices that amount to violence. And of course this doesn’t just apply to Christian

Nationalists, but to anyone who has staked their life on something that diminishes rather than expands their love.

Yes, we are called to pray for our enemies, and even to serve them when they are in need. We absolutely should believe in everyone’s capacity to be transformed, to pray for that transformation, and we need to always remain aware of our own shortcomings and blind spots.

But if prayer is about attention, about who we make ourselves present to and how we make ourselves present, then obsessing over evil and violence, filling our time and our minds and our eyes with only the stories that increase hatred and despair, is really bad for us. It multiplies our sorrows. We should carefully consider whether even to speak these stories one more time, to bring those names to our lips. To be a person of prayer means giving our attention first and foremost to stories that fill us with wonder and courage, and to those among whom Jesus has promised to be.

Here's a test we might give ourselves: Do I feel burning anger? (That’s not right or wrong on its own, but its what we do with it that counts.) Do I feel burning anger? Has it moved me to change my life in a way that specifically addresses the source of that anger? Or am I just stewing in it, letting it consume me? Am I adding to the noise or making a difference?

I quoted the Austrian poet Rilke a moment ago. He lived from 1875 to 1926, dying eight years after the end of the First World War. He lived through a war that ravaged the countries that he loved, that consumed the lives of many people that he knew. During those years, Rilke remained steadfast in his commitment to poetry, in trying to offer a wounded Europe the gift of their forgotten humanity.

Here’s how another poet of that same era, the Russian Maria Tsvetayeva described Rilke’s significance to her:

War, slaughterhouses, flesh shredded by discord – and Rilke. The earth will be forgiven for our times for the sake of Rilke, who lived in them. He could have been born only in our times because he is their opposite, because he is essential, because he is an antidote. That is what makes him our contemporary. The times did not commission him, they brought him forth… Rilke is as…necessary to our times as a priest to the battlefield: to be for these and for those, for them and for us: to pray – for the enlightenment of the still living and at the parting from the fallen.1

I’ve never read a better definition of what it means to be a saint.

In harmony with this, Howard Thurman, an African American pastor, writer, and spiritual director once said this: “Always there is some voice that rises up against what is destructive, calling attention to an alternative, another way.”2 Our times may be ugly and brutal, but if we listen closely and are thoughtful about our attention, we can tune into the alternative voices, the living antidotes, the saints who are here to heal rather than to harm. We can resist the appeal of those blood offerings.

To sum all this up, another verse from the psalms, Psalm 119:37, says this: “Turn my eyes from watching what is worthless; / give me life in your ways.”

And that’s just it: God, turn my focus away from violence, away from sorrow, and away from those who continually stoke violence and sorrow. Teach me who my delight should be in. Show me people who will show me You.

And now for a prayer practice that you can try this week:

Keep praying “Help me” everywhere and all the time. And add to that some focused reflection on a saint. It might be a grandparent, or a friend, or a mentor. It might be someone who lived decades, centuries, millennia ago. It might be someone who lived a very public life or someone whose name only you know. Perhaps in your memory there lingers just a single, bright moment when someone acted in a way that showed God to you, that changed what you believed was possible for your own life.

I want you to think about that moment, that person, or that story. Reimagine it. Journal about it. Tell someone about it. Notice how that offering of attention makes you feel in your body and what it makes you fantasize about. Pay attention to what is expansive in you and in others. That is prayer.

We focus on the holy ones because they teach us how to most honorable and effectively engage the world. They show us how to walk out onto the brutal landscape with a taste for delight rather than sorrow, having left the impulse to violence far behind.

May God make us holy and give us others to delight in.

Lord, teach us to pray.

Amen.

Where there is Darkness, Light (Psalm 16:1-11)

Prayer, Part 2: Protect Me, O God

First UMC of Pocatello

January 19, 2025

Psalm 16:1-2

***

There are 150 written psalms in the Psalter. If you read them straight through, you’ll notice that these prayers express the full range of human emotion: ecstatic joy, blistering anger, deep shame, quiet hope, wide-eyed wonder, and more. For this reason, the Psalms have always been regarded as the essential “school of prayer” by both Jews and Christians. One of the tried-and-true spiritual practices from both religions is to pray psalms every day. From a Christian perspective, there is a unique layer of significance in that Jesus himself would have grown up praying the Psalms, knowing them by heart and drawing upon them in his own spiritual communion with the Father. So, there is a mystical yet very real sense in which we commune with Jesus in his own praying when we pray the psalms.

Psalm 16 will be our guide over the next several weeks as we explore some of the scriptural foundations and practical beginnings of prayer. Today, we will focus on verses one and two, so I invite you to hear the word of the Lord a second time:

Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge.

I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;

I have no good apart from you.”

There are three insights that I want to draw out of these verses, the first being that prayer is not talk about God but conversation and communion with God.

I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord.” That’s first- and second-person speech: I, You. When we say “I” we speak from our personal center. We take ownership of our words and feelings, and we enter into a conversation. When we say “You” we acknowledge the livingness of God. God is not an idea to be debated or dissected, not a creed to assent to, but a personal Being who knows us and wants us. The original Hebrew of this phrase is even more poetic: “I said to the Lord, ‘My Lord, You.’” We can feel the basic affirmation and relishing of God’s there-ness.

There is plenty of room in Christian life to reflect upon God – I’m doing it right now, talking to you about God and prayer in the third person – but if all we ever do is reflect and we never actually pray; if we never say to God “Here I am,” then our talk about God will lose its helpfulness, its edge, its grounding in love.

In our society, we are formed to think of and speak about other people from a distance. Those people over there. They, them. We are quick to talk about people rather than to people. It’s certainly easier. There’s no room for argument, no human face to temper our speech, no other voice that might question our neat, closed narrative.

Prayer teaches us a different way of communication, because it brings even the most burning and painful and confusing emotions into the I-You conversation. “If only you, O God, would slay the wicked!” says Psalm 139:19, a fairly frequent sentiment in the psalms, actually. The motivation there is not so great; slaying the wicked isn’t, at least at face value, a “good” prayer. But it is a true prayer because what was in his heart was spoken to God, giving God space to respond to and transform – or even deny, for our own good – that request. When we learn to communicate with God as I and You, our relationships with other people, our whole posture toward the world, can be transformed, too.

I keep saying words like communication and conversation, but I want to make sure I’m clear that there’s no one “correct” way to pray. Not all prayer sounds or even looks like verbal conversation, something that could be written as dialogue in a story. The point of the “I” and “You” is that prayer means opening our depths to God and expecting to be met by a God who personally reveals himself to us. Prayer is presence, being who we are and as we are before God. So even something like silence can be a very powerful form of prayer if our intention in that silence is to simply be in God’s presence and allow the Spirit of God to search us completely.

The second point to make about these verses is that prayer often begins with acknowledging our dependence on God and our need for God’s provision and protection. “Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge.” That’s how the psalm starts – with a demand, a plea, for protection. One of the best prayers we can pray, whether we are just starting off or have been at it for a while, is this: Help me. Help me. Help me. As the poet Wendell Berry has written:

It puzzled me once,

that ancient call

to ceaseless prayer.

Now I know.

Help me. Help me.

If I must stay

longer at work

give me strength.

Learning this was a huge breakthrough in my own walk with God about a year ago. I’m the kind of person who likes to do research, to go and learn a concept or idea or technique about prayer and then come and actually try to put into practice. Teach me over here, then I’ll pray over here.

But there was a time when Adrienne was still very little and not sleeping very well, and we had been sick probably ten times in a row, and it was late in the wintertime, and all the regular pressures of life and work were there – and I was so desperate for prayer but feeling so unable to pray, and I was short on time and even on interest for going off to learn some profound new thing or brilliant prayer hack. And my spiritual director encouraged me to just start praying the words, Help me, moment by moment, day by day. To turn “Help me” into what the ancients called a Prayer of the Heart, a word or phrase kept on continuous loop within us.

And so I did. I prayed it when I was awake with one of the kids for the 3rd time that night. I prayed it when I felt myself tempted toward anger or hopelessness. I prayed it when I about to have a hard conversation. I prayed it when something spontaneous interrupted my day and all I could do was respond as myself. I prayed “Help me” while grappling with an unexpected painful memory.

I might even be praying it right now!

Help me. Protect me. Save me. These can all be wonderful prayers of the heart. And here’s what was amazing about that: asking for Help is prayer. Even if what we’re needing help with is prayer itself, saying help me or protect me becomes prayer, the very thing we’re longing for. We might feel so stuck, so resistant, so confused or antagonistic or disinterested when it comes to prayer, but if we can be in that feeling and still say, Help me, then God has an opening to transform our hearts.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” There’s absolutely nothing wrong with reaching out to God for help. We are dependent, finite, vulnerable creatures. But there is a difference between, on the one hand, crying out to God every so often when something very devastating or difficult happens and, on the other hand, praying “Help me” on repeat without ceasing, which is something the psalms model for us:

“O Lord my God, in you I take refuge; / save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me, / or like a lion they will tear me apart; / they will drag me away with no one to rescue” (7:1).

“O guard my life and deliver me; / do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you” (25:20).

Psalm 70:1: “Hasten, O God, to save me; / O Lord, come quickly to help me.”

And that’s only scratching the surface.

The third and final point I want to make about these first two verses of Psalm 16 is that prayer is about claiming God as our ultimate good and placing ourselves in God’s story: “I say to the Lord, You are my Lord, apart from you I have no good thing.”

These two short verses contain three different Hebrew names for God. The first, “Protect me, O God” – that’s El, the generic Hebrew term for a god.

I say to the Lord – that’s the holy name revealed to Moses at the burning bush which Jews do not pronounce out of reverence but which Christians occasionally translate as “Yahweh.” It’s the name of the God who makes covenant with the people.

And then, “I say to the Lord, You are my Lord” – that last one is Adonai, another name for God that means Lord or Master, someone in charge who we will listen to and follow and trust.

So, if we play with the translation a bit to bring out the nuances of those names, we might say something like: “Protect me, Creator – you who hold all things – for in you I take refuge. I say to the personal, promise-making God of the People, I am entering your way and your story. I have no good apart from you.”

Prayer is not about coming to know just any God, not God as blind force or impersonal energy or the philosophical idea of Being, but this God – the God of the covenant, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God of Ruth and David and Solomon; the God of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; the God of Elizabeth and Mary and Joseph; of Peter and Andrew, and James and John; of Paul – and of all people from every nation who trust him and receive his Holy Spirit. When we pray we are entering into God’s great story, trusting that it guide us truly and be a source of good.

To sum this up: Prayer begins when, out of courage or desperation or innocence, we speak to God in personal terms. If we do that, we will find that God is always already reaching out to us, too. Prayer integrates us into a story and a community. And, finally, one of the best ways to begin own prayer practice is with that simple, ceaseless, honest prayer of the heart: Help me. Save me. Protect me. Pray it so that it becomes like a creek running outside a cabin, whose sounds become part of the landscape

Lord, teach us to pray.

And help us, for in you we take refuge. Apart from you we have no good thing.

Amen.

Prayer, Part 1: Being with Jesus in the In-Between (Luke 3:1-3, 15-17, 21-22)

First UMC of Pocatello

January 12, 2025

Baptism of the Lord

Luke 3:1-3, 15-17, 21-22

***

There was an in-between time. A passage, very much like a rest note in a musical composition. Purposeful, patient, preparatory. It was the time between Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River and the remarkable vision he received of heaven opening and the Spirit descending and his Father affirming his belovedness.

Luke is the only one who writes the story this way, whose Gospel tells us about the in-between. Matthew and Mark, they pack all of it in, the baptism from below and the gifts of power and love from above forming a single vivid scene. “And just as he was coming up out of the water,” Mark says, “he saw the heavens torn apart” (1:10). Matthew agrees: “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened” (3:16). But Luke slows things down a bit: “Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened” (3:20).

There it is, the in-between time. On one side, baptism. On the other, anointing and the blessing. And in between: Prayer.

Prayer is the only spiritual practice that Jesus’ disciples ever asked him to teach them how to do. “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1), that’s what they asked, and they asked it after they had spent many days witnessing the consistency, intimacy, and power of his prayers.

They were in between. He had called them to follow him, and they followed, but they were not yet all that they would be. They had realized over time that prayer was the foundation of Jesus’ life – his anchor, his center. The truth he spoke, the compassion he exercised, the healing and light he brought to others – it all flowed from prayer. And so at last they came to him and named their own deep sense of need for prayer to be a part of their lives, too.

None of us are strangers to in-between times, those critical passages that bridge our initial responses to God’s activity in our lives and our becoming fully grounded in God’s pleasure and power.

I’ve experienced several in my own life already. I was baptized as a baby, so there was a record but no personal memory. It took many years, until I was about 13, to begin having experiences that woke me to the reality that God was there and wanted something to do with me. If I’m honest, my vocational journey continues to have in-between quality to it. I’ve felt called to ministry as a pastor as far back as high school, but I still resist being fully anchored in God’s unconditional love for me and power through me, often for reasons I’m not aware of in the moment.

I wonder what in-betweens you might be navigating right now. Maybe you got baptized or you joined the church; you started reading the Bible or you started serving in leadership; you sensed that God was calling you to something new – a new perspective, a new vocation, a new spiritual practice – and you took some first steps; or you’ve started a marriage; you’ve become a parent; maybe you’ve gathered great courage to step through the doors of a church for the first time in ages, maybe for the first time in your life. Whatever it is, you’ve had some kind of beginning, an initial response to the movement of God, like Jesus going to the wilderness. It was real and good and true, but no you sense you’re in an in-between time.

There’s more to be had there. More riches of love and power to unlock and unleash. God is deeply pleased with you and wants you to live your life out of that deep sense of love, but you’re not yet grounded in that love. You’re not in touch with the delight God takes in you or with your anointing. Since we are imperfect creatures, the in-betweens are inescapable. The critical thing is that we can respond to them in different ways, and how we respond matters.

For example, sometimes we respond to the in-between as if it is a betrayal. Imagine Jesus coming up out of the waters of baptisms, getting dried off, and, after waiting around for a while, deciding that, since there was no immediate vision of heaven, no obvious spiritual breakthrough, that his intuition had been wrong, that God had tricked or abandoned him, and he’d better get on home to Nazareth and be much more guarded when the next opportunity presented itself. Sometimes the space between beginning and fulfillment devastates us, and we throw in the towel and decide it was all meaningless – those early whispers of grace, those first steps. And we just sort of fade away from what once seemed so promising.

But at other times we take the in-between to be a false destination. We convince ourselves that the initiation without the full grounding in love and power is all that there must be, the best it’s going to get. We try to forge and forge an identity and vocation out of the in-between, out of some element that’s in the vicinity of true faith but not essential to it: skills, knowledge, volunteerism, piety. Others might even admire us for this. But deep down we’re ashamed, and getting by on our own power and self-justification makes us legalist, judgmental, and envious or bitter toward others.

Jesus does not want us to run away from the in-betweens, to count them as failure. He does not want us to make an identity out of emptiness and absence. He wants us to come and be with him in in the in-betweens. He is already there, waiting for us to join him. And he’s showing us how to be in the in-between. He’s teaching us to pray. More than that, he’s calling us to rest with him in his own patient prayers as he waits for heaven to open and the Spirit to come down and the Word of love to be spoken unmistakenly to him.

In his new book Passions of the Soul, Anglican bishop Rowan Williams says that Christian life means being “[p]laced together in the place of Jesus…[and] the place of Jesus is the place of the one to whom the Father has eternally said Yes.” That’s really what this great baptismal story wants us to see. Jesus is the Beloved. And, at least as Luke tells it, that belovedness was fully revealed after the drama of the baptism, as Jesus quietly, hopefully, and persistently prayed. When we join Jesus in prayer in our own in-betweens, we will hear that eternal Yes declared to our hearts. That Yes has been secured for us by the Christ who waits with us. Which means it is with joy, with hope, with great anticipation and tenacity that we can come to him and say, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

Let me try and make it plain: If you are here today, and you have heard that God loves you unconditionally but you feel far from that love, Jesus will wait with you in prayer and teach you how to pray – and the love will come.

If you are here today, and you have sensed that God wants to work wonders of love through you, that you have a purpose, but you feel far from the presence and power of the Spirit, Jesus will wait with you in prayer and teach you how to pray – and the power will come.

As the scripture says, the one “who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion” (Phil. 1:6).

Lord, teach us to pray.

And as it is for us as individuals, so it is for us as a community. In fact, I think we as a congregation are in an in-between time. We have made several good beginnings, we’ve responded to the movements of the Spirit. On the moral plane, we have become a reconciling community, honoring the full humanity of our LGBTQ siblings; we’ve made a public stand against the Death Penalty; we’ve provided for local childcare access. On the programmatic side, we’ve restarted classes for kids; we’ve got a full nursery; we’re empowering people to preach; we’re opening our building as a community resources and participating in local service. We even worked together to reimagine our worship space so that it more clearly reflects the nearness and kindness of the One we worship.

These are just a few things that come to mind, all good beginnings.

But there’s more, isn’t there? God wants us anchor us, as a community, in a deep trust. God wants us to know that we, together, are God’s Beloved Family, and that we will be cared and provided for, that God takes pleasure in us.

And God wants to send us the Holy Spirit so that we can love and serve with power, power exercised humbly, gently, patiently – and yet power that brings about healing; power that creates spaces of freedom and forgiveness; power that challenges injustice without bitterness or rage; power that feels the joy of one of our members as joy for us all, the pain of one of our members as all our pain; power that overflows and expresses itself as creativity, beauty, abundance; power to let go of old comforts and try new things; power that has something to do, something to say, about the overwhelming poverty, loneliness, and anxiety in which so many of our neighbors in Pocatello live.

Luke, the author of the Gospel, also wrote the book of Acts. And there are many ways that the two books mirror each other. Just as Jesus prayed in between his baptism and his vision of heaven, the early church also waited in prayer for their own spiritual anointing.

In Acts chapter 1, Luke tells us that after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, Jesus’ followers gathered in Jerusalem. “They all joined together constantly in prayer” (Acts 1:14). And on the morning of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon in the sound of rushing wind and in the signs of tongues of fire, they were “all together in one place” – praying.

May we – individually and together – ask Jesus to teach us to pray. May our in-between times be full of purpose and communion. We are God’s beloved children. We are God’s chosen instrument. Until we know it for ourselves, may we abide with Jesus in the prayer in-between, patiently and with trust.

Lord, teach us to pray.

Amen.

Prelude to Prayer: His Word Runs Swiftly (Psalm 147)

Prelude to Prayer: His Word Runs Swiftly

First UMC of Pocatello

January 5, 2025

The Second Sunday After Christmas

Psalm 147

***

During the first two months of this year, I will be preaching a series on prayer in our worship services. Two of the Church’s holy days, Baptism of the Lord Sunday, which is next week, and Transfiguration Day, which is on March 2nd, will bookend the series. We’ll be using the versions of those stories from Luke’s Gospel. Luke was a brilliant author, and he wrote these particular stories so that they “talk” to one another in illuminating ways. One of their common elements is prayer. They show us what happens when Jesus prays.

     From Luke’s story of Jesus’ baptism: “And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him…” (3:21-22).

From the transfiguration: “Jesus…went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightening” (9:28-29).

When Jesus prays, God shows up.

When Jesus prays, a channel is created between heaven and earth, a channel through which love and power flow.

When Jesus prays, we look at him and see our destiny as people who pray in his name and through his Spirit. We see what it means for us to be the Body of Christ, continuing his praying life here and now through our own prayers.

In between those opening and closing movements of the series, I’m going to guide us through one of my favorite psalms, Psalm 16. It’s only got 11 verses, so we’re going to take just a verse or two at a time and dig deep. Of course, as a psalm, it’s a prayer in and of itself, a I have found it to also be a helpful teaching tool about prayer; it covers a lot of ground very concisely and contains a lot of the essentials in simple terms. The final verse of Psalm 16 says this: “You show me the path of life. / In your presence there is fullness of joy. / In your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Life, joy, and pleasure because of the nearness of God! That’s what prayer is about and makes possible. It’s also exactly what’s on display when Jesus prays after his baptism and before his transfiguration. He prays and God reaches out to him as the beloved child that he is. He prays and he begins shining like the sun.

I always try to remind myself that Jesus prayed the Psalms. They were his prayerbook. We should try to imagine what he felt and imagined and learned as he prayed them. More than that, we can trust that when we pray them, he is there praying them with us. The Psalms provide a special situation where our prayers, Jesus’ prayers, and the prayers of all God’s people coincide.

Our scripture for this morning is Psalm 147, and Jesus would’ve prayed that one, too.  Psalm 147 is song of praise – a Hallelujah Psalm, named after its first and last word, Hallelujah, which means “praise the Lord!” Reasons for why God is worthy of prays are strung like beads between those hallelujahs. Did you notice the verbs? When it comes to the hurting, God rebuilds, gathers, heals, bandages, helps. When it comes to creation, God covers, prepares, causes to grow, and provides. When it comes to the community, God strengthens, blesses, makes peace, and satisfies. You can imagine Jesus reading this Psalm and thinking, if this is what God does, then this is what I will do.

How does God do these things? “He sends his command throughout all the earth,” says verse 15 of Psalm 147. “His word runs swiftly.”

His word runs swiftly. What a great phrase. The word that was there in the beginning, speaking all creation into existence. The word that has sustained creation ever since. The word that came in a special way as Torah to the Israelite tribes. The Word that took on flesh in Jesus Christ. That same powerful word that orders creation and makes the seasons come and go; that same word that scatters snow and frost and hailstones and later melts them into flowing rivers; that word which reaches out to name the stars and reaches down to heal the brokenhearted – it runs swiftly to us, to meet us and transform us when we pray.

     A moment ago, I said that when Jesus prays, we see our destiny as people who pray in his name and through his Spirit. Let me be more straightforward: Our prayers, and the fruits of our prayers, should really not be all that different from his.

There is a theological term that’s relevant here called theosis. It’s a central belief in the Eastern Orthodox Christian world. Theosis means becoming like God, sharing in God’s life and God’s nature by becoming more and more unified with God. Those who write about theosis say that we become like God through prayer, by abiding in Christ. If you were here when I preached on John Wesley’s teachings about Christian perfection, you have a foundation for understanding this in our own tradition. Because Jesus has given us his Holy Spirit, we can become more like him every day. We can think his thoughts, feel his feelings, speak his words, do what he does. Many of the earliest Christian writers used to repeat the saying, “God became human so that humans might become God.” One of them, St Irenaeus, put it like this: “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

Theosis.

God wants us to be our fullest, best, most beautiful selves by allowing the Word to become flesh in us. Just as Jesus, in the waters of baptism and on the mountain of transfiguration, experienced his own beloved identity while praying, just as he received the power of the Spirit for his ministry, so we can, too.

And let me tell you, our world needs people who pray.

The world needs channels between heaven and earth to open up in its homes, its neighborhoods, its workplaces, its ecosystems.

The world is stuck in patterns of belonging that exclude, in systems of power that oppress, in stories of wrongdoing that seed hatred generation to generation.

But deeper than all that people crave to know their belovedness in God’s eyes; they crave to step into their personal power as creatures who bless and heal others.

If we as a church are going to experience solidarity with the agonies and longings of our own community, then we need to pray, because prayer means paying attention.

If we are going experience the abundance of God’s resources in what can often feel like a fragile material situation, then we need to pray, because prayer means trusting that our daily bread will always come.

If we are going to be a community where wrongs are confessed, labels are dissolved, and divisions are overcome, then we need to pray, because in prayer we meet the God who releases us from shame and debt, who forgives us, and calls us to forgive others.

And if we are going to create space for new generations to come to know the love of God, we need to pray, because in prayer we meet the God who is living in the today and not stuck in the past, whose mercies are new every day; a God who helps us let go of what no longer serves the coming of his kingdom by praying, Your kingdom come.

Now, a lot of the language I just used echoes the Lord’s Prayer, and any extended teaching on prayer would be incomplete without those words that Jesus taught his disciples. Since I’m not going to deal with the Lord’s Prayer directly in this series, I’m instead going to have us pray it in worship in some versions different than the King James English that we’re used to. I’m not out to be a troublemaker. There’s something undeniably good about having a prayer so deeply inscribed in your heart and memory that you can call upon anywhere and anytime, that it becomes a living prayer, part of the fiber of your being.

But there’s also something healthy about doing a familiar thing in an unfamiliar way so as to focus on it freshly and explore the essence of what’s really there. Today, we had the prayer as it appears in the First Nations’ Version of the New Testament, a recent translation prepared by indigenous scholars from around the country. Jesus taught the “Our father” to the disciples in his everyday language, Aramaic, and I think it’s powerful to hear how the prayer can be said in the everyday language of people alive now. That’s really what this whole series will be about: Helping you – helping us –present ourselves to God just as we are so that he can transfigure us into more than we ever thought we could be, for the sake of others.

But here’s one thing I will point out about the Lord’s Prayer: It shows up later in Luke’s Gospel than it does in Matthew’s. Matthew places the teaching much earlier in Jesus’ ministry, embedding it in the Sermon on the Mount. But Luke holds it until his eleventh chapter, two chapter later than the Transfiguration. Luke has the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray after they have seen him do it day after day, after they’ve seen what his prayers make possible.

This is what’s next for First United Methodist Church of Pocatello. We’re going to ask Jesus to teach us to pray. This has to be our work; everything else we might want to do is secondary; everything else we’re called to do will flow from it.

And you know what’s wonderful?

If we ask Jesus to teach us, he will teach us.

His word runs swiftly to meet us.

I’d like to end by reading a few promises about prayer from the scriptures:

Deuteronomy 8:3: “…people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (NLT).

James 1:21: “…humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (CSB).

Colossians 3:16: “Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts” (CSB).

Isaiah 55:10-11: “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, / and do not return to it without watering the earth / and making it bud and flourish/ …so is my word that goes out from my mouth: / It will not return to me empty, / but will accomplish what I desire / and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (NIV).

May God’s purposes be accomplished among us.

Lord, teach us to pray.

Amen.

Star Stories (Matthew 2:1-12)

Star Stories

First UMC of Pocatello

January 4, 2025

Epiphany Service at Trinity Episcopal Church

I’m not aways the most diligent follower of the lectionary, but I do know that the appointed Psalm for tomorrow’s worship is Psalm 147, the second of five Hallelujah Psalms that conclude the Psalter. Here is Psalm 147 verses 3 and 4:

[God] heals the brokenhearted

and bandages their wounds.

[God] counts the number of the stars;

[God] gives names to all of them.

One commentary on my shelf titles its chapter on this psalm “God of Stars and Broken Hearts.”[1] And that’s the truth of it: God — the one who created all things and whose purposes and love extend to the whole universe, even to the stars  — that God cares about our pain. And this Christmas season we celebrate that God did not just care from afar, but condescended to our level, bridged the unbridgeable gap between divinity and humanity, to meet us in the person of Jesus Christ. He comes to heal our broken hearts through his own suffering love.

                God counts the number of the stars, the Psalm says, and here and there throughout the Bible we get to read a good star story. Stories like the two included in our service this morning, one from Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, and one from St Matthew, the first book of the New. I wonder if there’s something to be pondered about beginnings and stars.

They make a curious pairing, don’t they, these two star stories. In the first, a man who has been on a long journey with no end in sight asks God for a bit of clarity. In chapter 12 of Genesis we read that Abram leaves his native land behind after God spoke to him. God promised Abram that we would receive descendants and a homeplace if he said Yes to the journey. More, God promised him a legacy, a new story: “all the families on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen. 12:3, NLT).

But by Genesis 15 ten years have passed, and in a moment of frustration, Abram demands a fresh speaking of the promise. In a wonderfully intimate scene, God brings Abram outside, out of confined space into open air, and says, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them. So shall your descendants be” (15:5). As Abram looks up into a night sky glittering with stars, as he peers into the luminous haze of galaxies, his heart revives, and a patient, righteous faith is born in him. It was the sheer number of the stars that Abram was told to contemplate that night, a vision so awesome and beautiful that it calmed his soul.

Now let’s compare that to Matthew’s Magi. Immediately we see that it was not the grandness of a star-filled sky that caught their attention. No, they pondered that sky every night, charting its movements, developing a theory of its patterns, unpacking its signs. The American writer Wendell Berry has a poem that begins, “In a country you know by heart / it is impossible to go the same way twice, ”[2] which means, among other things, that the more familiar you are with a place the more capable you are of seeing something new. As a birder I can attest to this; its knowing the common birds in a place that makes the rare visitor so thrilling, even visible in the first place.

Well, the night sky was the Magi’s native country, and God reached out to them by manifesting a single difference within it. Not ten thousand stars. Just one. But that unexpected shift in the familiar picture was more than enough to set them off on their own journey into unfamiliar territory to seek the meaning of it for themselves.

I’d like to place one more star story into conversation with these others. Many of you are familiar with the beloved children’s book writer and illustrator Eric Carle, known for books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Walter the Baker. About a year ago, when my son and I were over at the Marshall Public Library raiding the Eric Carle section, we discovered an out-of-print book of Carle’s called Draw Me a Star.[3] We ended up enjoying it so much that I went online and purchased a used copy for us to keep at home.  

Draw Me a Star begins like this: “Draw me a star. And the artist drew a star. It was a good star. Draw me a sun, said the star. And the artist drew the sun. It was a warm sun. Draw me a tree, said the sun. And the artist drew a tree.” And on it goes, each creative act of the artist, beginning with that first star, calling for the creation of something else. The artist in the book proceeds to make a beautiful, full world – to make a life. The artist begins as a small child, laboring over each line of his star. By the time he is a young man, the star “is good” and full of color. The artist disappears for a while until, as a middle-aged man, he appears again, putting the finishing touches on a rainbow that arcs over a scene of dogs and cats; birds, butterflies, and flowers; trees, clouds, and a house. Turn the page and the man is elderly, called to draw “a dark night.” The night asks for a moon, and the moon for a star. The book ends with these words: “Hold on to me, said the star to the artist. Then, together, they traveled across the night sky.”

As readers, we don’t know who spoke that first imperative – “Draw me a star” – to the little child. Was it God? Was it the true self? Was it the artistic spirit laying claim to a life? Do we have to choose? The point is that the call came and that the artist responded, setting off a chain reaction of desire and creation. Every fulfillment opening onto something new. Every end a new beginning. The artist’s task was to submit himself to hearing and doing the next right thing.

As you leave the service a bit later, you’ll be handed your very own Epiphany Star. These stars were created by our friends at First Presbyterian Church. Each star has a word or a Bible verse written on it, and we offer it to you as a way focusing your reflections, prayers, and actions in the coming weeks. How will you write your own star story? And in case that sounds daunting, let me assure you that these other stories – Abram, the Magi, and Eric Carle’s artist – grant us a lot of room for imagining how we might live our own.

Perhaps, like Abram, you’re already on a journey – of a life, a calling, a commitment – but you’re stuck, frustrated, confused. You set out when the call and the promise were fresh and new, but what your heart craves now is a new experience of the wonder of it all. If that’s you, use your star to name these very complaints and questions before God. Ask God to gently lead you outside, out beyond your attempts to understand or predict or control. Ask God to meet you right there in the darkness of your not-knowing and to give you a broader, illuminated view of things. Maybe the best thing you can do for yourself is set aside some time to simply be – to be with God in silence, to be with your story, to be somewhere out in the world that causes you to look up. And there are people who will gladly guide you into these spacious places: spiritual directors, pastors, friends, one of the saints in your church. Perhaps this season is a time to ask for help.

But maybe, like the Magi, this is a season that will initiate a journey for you, that will disrupt your routine, upset your ordinary. They were just at home doing their thing, after all, looking at the sky. But they were present enough to their life and their surroundings that they were able to notice the new star when it appeared among the others. And not just notice it out there; they also noticed the questions it raised; they noticed how it made them feel. The Magi embraced a small change in their ordinary world and through the full weight of their energy at searching out its meaning.

Maybe that’ll be your task this Epiphany. You wouldn’t describe your life as a journey right now, but that’s just because you haven’t given yourself over yet to the subtle shift in the ordinary. You know, the one that’s been nagging at the back of your mind for weeks now, the question or vision surfacing to consciousness in your idle moments and day dreams. The person you’ve been wondering about. The place you’ve been wanting to see. The invitation that seems to keep coming. For you, a bit of journaling or daily prayerful examination to help you notice the subtleties, and then, some risk! A bit of seizing the moment, trusting your gut. Getting up and going to see. Perhaps the star you receive will help shake something loose or bring something into focus. Epiphany, for you, will bring the start of something new.

And for many of us, this might be an Eric-Carle’s-artist kind of Epiphany. Very often, all that God wants us to ask in our lives is this: ‘What’s the next right thing for me to do?’ In his brilliant little book Passions of the Soul, Rowan Williams says, “In the long run, the pattern of integrated, restored human life that we’re called to and drawn to in the labour of prayer and service and love is in all sorts of ways…a matter of doing the next thing.”[4] Williams calls us to “concentrate on the question ‘What has God asked me to just get on with?’” as a way of avoiding unnecessary sojourns into despair or pride or apathy. It’s the old writer’s rule: this follows that. And that doesn’t have to be boring at all. Doing the next right thing means adding the next layer of sediment, the next layer of color. It’s the cumulative beauty of a faithful life, fulfilment and desire giving birth to each other. Maybe your star will simply help you know what’s next: later today or tomorrow or several weeks down the line.

The point I want to emphasize in all this is that God is alive and creative and not bound by rules. God is a personal force, a constant call. Which means God is known in our going. God is encountered in our seeking.

For Abram, the stars provided strength to keep going.

For the Magi, the star of Bethlehem got them going.

For the artist, the star began a lifelong unfolding of creative potential.

In a new year when we will be ever tempted to adhere to old divisions, old labels, old habits, and old stories, may we remain willing to look up, to search out the meaning of new signs, and to do the next right thing.

In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[1] Leslie C. Allen, Psalms 101-120, Volume 21, Word Biblical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 304.

[2] Wendell Berry, Another Day: Sabbath Poems, 2013-2023 (San Francisco: Counterpoint, 2024), 6.

[3] Eric Carle, Draw Me a Star (New York: Philomel Books, 1992).

[4] Rowan Williams, Passions of the Soul (London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2024), 16.

To See: Intention, Fulfillment, and Benediction (Luke 2:1-20)

To See: Intention, Fulfillment, and Benediction

December 24, 2024

 Luke 2:1-20

***

  For the shepherds, Christmas Eve began with an announcement from heaven. An angel of the Lord appeared, telling them about the birth of a Savior in the town of Bethlehem, and then the shepherds stood awestruck as the sky was filled with whole ranks of these heavenly messengers singing their Christmas song. Once the angels had withdrawn again into heaven, once the sounds of proclamation and praise had faded once more into holy silence, the shepherds had a decision to make. Would they rest content with having heard the news, or would they go and see things for themselves? We know their choice; they chose to go: “Let us go now to Bethlehem,” they say to one another, “and see this thing…which the Lord has made known to us” (2:15). But let’s not miss that it was a choice. They talked it over. Word of mouth, word even of an angel’s mouth, was not enough for them. If there really was a Savior born that night for them, they wanted to see the truth with their own eyes.

In telling the story of the shepherds, Luke uses the verb “to see” three times. I’ve already quoted the first instance from the shepherds’ words, “Let’s go and see this thing.” The second instance occurs after they find the holy family: Mary, Joseph, and Jesus wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. “When they saw this” (v. 17), Luke says, they began to tell their story. They tell Jesus’ family and everyone else within earshot about their encounter with the angels. Mary gathers these precious details into her heart and imprints the shepherds’ words on her memory. Finally, as the story ends, the shepherds return to their fields, glorying God “for all that they had heard and seen” (v. 20).

Let’s go and see.

When they saw.

For what they had seen.

Intention. Fulfillment. Benediction.

Intention—they decide to go. Fulfilment—their going is rewarded. Benediction—they say Thank You.

                In many ways, living this cycle over and over again is what it means to be a person of faith. Somewhere along the line we decide that what we’ve heard – from parents, teachers, preachers, culture – isn’t enough. Our longing for a personal encounter with the truth propels us out on a quest. We are set upon by a question that won’t let us go. And then somewhere down the line there is a fulfillment, a resolution, though it often arrives in a form and a manner that we don’t expect. This is followed by a period of integration and reflection whose mood is praise. We return to our “fields” with new eyes and a change of heart until, once again, a holy restlessness sets us on the move.

Intention, fulfilment, benediction.

                If you were to imagine yourself there with the shepherds on that first Christmas night, which of these three moments do you see yourself in? Are you huddled with the others in the field, deciding if you will respond to the words of the messenger? Are you in the manger, staring wide-eyed at the holy child and spilling your side of the story? Are you heading back into the fields with songs on your lips, a changed person?

If your heart is begging you to go to Bethlehem and add firsthand sight to second-hand word, then tonight I think God would want you to set an intention. Jesus, in his kindness, has promised us so many things if we would but seek him for ourselves.

Things like – release from our efforts at holding it all together. He says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). Maybe you are finally ready to go and seek the truth of that word. He has promised us unconditional love – “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love” – and maybe tonight there’s nothing left to do but coming to him at last and learning how to abide.

Or maybe you look at the world today and struggle to believe in the goodness of it, to look hopefully toward its future, and you’ve heard Jesus say, “I have told you these things, so that you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33), and now you are ready to seek that strong peace. Or you have been held captive by old grudges and have heard him say, “Forgive others, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37), and tonight you are ready to take the first step on the hard road of forgiveness.

Whatever it is that you most desire from God – peace, hope, forgiveness, communion, purpose – the shepherds invite you to stand in their company and be moved by their courage to go and see for yourself.

The good news for you this Christmas is that if you seek him, you will find him. You will find him because he has already drawn near to you. He has already bridged the distance between heaven and earth, his divinity and our humanity. He has already chosen to be with you. And his decision is irreversible. He has made himself inseparable from us. And he has united his perfect life with the stuff of creation. He has met us far more than halfway, and he will meet you far more than halfway. Indeed, it’s his Holy Spirit stirring up this restlessness in you from the start, awakening your longings, lighting the spark of your desire. “Everyone who seeks, finds,” Jesus says. I hope this Christmas that you will make it your urgent intention to know God for yourself.

Now, perhaps you are here during a time of fulfilment. You’ve waited faithfully through the darkening weeks of Advent – or far longer: you’ve been on a journey, you’ve been looking for the promised sign. And here he is, and here you are. You are standing face-to-face with the truth, or a facet of it, and something new and precious is being opened for you, unlocked in you. You quest has been rewarded. Christmas is a time of adoration and contemplation.

If that’s you, I want you to notice that in their own moment of fulfillment, the shepherds became messengers. Just as the angel made known the birth of Jesus to them, so they made their experiences to Mary and Joseph. The shepherds become message-bearers, heralds, angels, in their own way, to Mary and Joseph. They pass the great announcement along about who this child is. Mary and Joseph didn’t get heavenly angels, they got these earthy ones who smelled like sheep and campfire and dirt.

In their going, the shepherds found that they had a gift to give. They discovered a vocation. They found their voice.

So, your journey is never just for you. You may set off on a very personal quest, a need to experience the truth of God’s goodness, the reality of God’s nearness, for yourself. But in your going, you will be prepared not only to receive a fulfilment but to give a gift: the gift of your story. You never know at the beginning who else will benefit from your journey, whose heart will someday become a storehouse for your words. But if you are here tonight in a moment of fulfilment, I want you to ask God who your story is meant to bless. How might you encourage someone else with what you have experienced.  Isn’t God good, that the very questions and conundrums and longings that caused us to plunge into the unknown of our seeking were the very things that led us into our power? We went to learn something true for ourselves, and we arrived just in time to strengthen the truth in somebody else. Who is your story for?

Finally, maybe tonight you’re on the return journey, and this Christmas is part of an ongoing benediction for you. You’re looking back on a year, a season, a time of profound growth and change, and you’re here to simply say Thank You. You’ve seen what you went to see, and you’re returning now a different person. You’re learning what it’s like to live in this new skin, to see through these open eyes.

If that’s you, you task is simply to praise, to give gratitude and joy the space they deserve. Don’t underestimate the importance of this movement. The questing is full of turmoil and intensity, high highs and low lows. The fulfilment is a rapture, a time to be fully present and in many ways overcome. But the benediction – the thank you – is a time for memory and praise to do their work. You have a bit of distance from the events and can now turn them over and over in your heart, pondering the meaning of them all. You are here to infuse the darkness with songs of triumph, songs of hope, and if there is a task for you, it is the task of learning to let your praise shape and mold your so-called ordinary life. What will it mean for you to be a shepherd – a mother or a father, a son or a daughter, a colleague or a friend, a teacher or a neighbor – whose eyes have seen the Christ?

Intention, fulfillment, benediction.

What is the call of Christmas for you?

A final thought: Notice how every step of the shepherds’ journey unfolds in community. The shepherds decide to go and see together. They behold the face of Christ together and they tell other people their story. They return to the fields singing songs together.

I pray that God will provide every one of us with a community.

I pray that we find solidarity in our seeking and companionship in asking our questions.

I pray that our fulfillment will arrive among surprising company and that our journey will overflow in blessings for others.

I pray that in our times of return our reflections will be sharpened and our praises amplified by the corroborating witness of others.

In other words, I pray that we will each find a church, or better yet, that we will become the church for one another. For what is the church, if not a people who will say to one another “let us go and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us,” and then make the journey together.

Merry Christmas, friends.

Amen.

The Righteousness of Joseph (Matthew 5:17-20, 1:18-25)

The Righteousness of Joseph

December 15, 2024

 Matthew 5:17-20, Matthew 1:18-25

 In Matthew’s telling of the Christmas story, the whole of Matthew chapter 1, we only get Joseph. We get Joseph’s family tree, Joseph’s dream, Joseph’s naming of his son. Matthew chapter two, we’ve jumped ahead a couple years to Herod’s murder plot and the story of the Magi. But for the birth of Jesus we just get chapter 1. And, as with all Gospel texts, we’re presented with the life of Jesus with a particular point of view: Matthew shows us what he wants to show us, we see what he wants us to see. And what he wants us to see, when it comes to the birth of Christ, is the way that Jesus fits into the tradition. His Christmas story is just 25 verses and 17 of those are this genealogy: “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”

             “Abraham was the father of Isaac,

            Isaac the father of Jacob,

            Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.”

 And this isn’t just a genealogy, it’s a list of the heavy hitters. Boaz. Rahab. Ruth. Jesse. David. Solomon. All the way down the line to:

             “Eleazar the father of Matthan,

            Matthan the father of Jacob,

            And Jacob the father of Joseph,

            the husband of Mary, of whom

            was born Jesus, who is called Christ.”

 Okay, so technically this is the genealogy of Joseph. In the strictest sense of the word “genealogy.” It’s presented in this neat list: “the father of, the father of,” every once and a while shout out to mom, but the lineage is an unbroken chain of fathers and sons. “Fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to Babylonian exile, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.” Well. Sort of. “The father of, the father of, the husband of---Mary.” Mary, who is the one that shares a bloodline with Christ. For a culture singularly fixated on provable paternity, it almost feels like Matthew is winding us up for this little hiccup. The Messiah will come from the line of David. And he has. In a manner of speaking.

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place this way: Mary and Joseph were engaged to be married when Mary got pregnant. Joseph knew that they hadn’t had sex and, being a righteous man and unwilling to disgrace her in public, planned to quietly break off the engagement. Matthew tells us that Mary is “with child from the Holy Spirit,” but even the nicest, coolest guy in the whole world probably isn’t buying that. Culturally, Joseph would have had every right to publicly humiliate her, hurt her, kill her. Any of that would have been mostly in-bounds for his religion and his society; it would have been justifiable. Afterall, his fiancé is pregnant with someone else’s baby.

So, Joseph isn’t just righteous. He doesn’t just know his Torah and his Prophets, he isn’t just in good standing at the Temple. He puts his faith into practice with Mary. A pregnant girl in her teens who has, apparently, sinned and he’s going to do everything he can to protect her, while also distancing himself from a sinful woman. There isn’t an ancient Hebrew advice columnist who would have recommended more than that. Joseph, son of David, son of Abraham, is a credit to his faith and to his faith community.

But just when he had decided to do this; just when he laid himself down to sleep, resolved to wake up in the morning and go to Mary’s house to let her down easy, an angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Well, that’s a dirty trick. To play on sweet Joseph. Righteous Joseph. Joseph who really thought this through, made the godliest decision he could possibly discern. He had it right. And here’s an angel of the Lord, come to tell him he’s wrong. And, also, who said he was afraid? He’s not afraid; he’s not acting out of fear; he just doesn’t want his association with an unmarried pregnant woman to mar his reputation or decrease his standing in the community potentially leading to loss of wages, power, or privilege. He’s not afraid.

He’ll do it. He’ll marry her.

And I wonder how long it took him to wrap his head around this choice. He does what the angel says to do, but how long before his heart was in it? How long before his heart understood  it? Joseph’s original answer was the correct answer. And he’s not just a legalistically correct student of the Torah, he’s spiritually alive. He’s not just following the letter of the law, he’s trying to love God by loving Mary. And his plan to dismiss her is the product of the resources of faith to which he has access: an ancient law, a living body of interpretation (the prophets), and the decisions being made for and about him by the religious and political powers of his day. This is what makes him righteous, in the world of the scriptures. He is doing the absolute, mathematical best he can with what he’s been given. Yet, the minute the body of Jesus comes on the scene, the scaffolding of his faith fails.

Matthew wants us to see the way that Jesus fits into the tradition. Not the idea of Jesus, not the flat words on the page, not the poetic images of the ancient prophets, the body of the actual Christ. The physical, blood and bone of Jesus before it’s even an independent body, the fetus Christ, still inseparable from the person of Mary, is breaking the conclusions reached by those faithfully carrying forward the religious tradition.

Jesus is being grafted into the line of David via adoption, he’s being born into a situation that sits outside Righteous Joseph’s understanding of his faith – it may be “to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet,” but this is a suspect fulfillment. If I know the law and the words of the prophets and the correct way to act within my faith community, I would probably reject your so-called fulfillment of prophecy. It doesn’t add up.

It turns out, of course, that this is what Jesus’s blood-and-bone body does to everyone, everywhere he goes, for the rest of his life. Here is the Messiah that has been foretold and the major complaint of the most righteous religious leaders of his time is that this cannot be the Messiah, he’s wrong for the part. From the moment of conception he doesn’t fit. Not even into the faith of his father.

This morning we heard the part of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount where he addresses this problem head-on: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” I had some questions about those words. Not to abolish but to fulfill. Not exactly opposites, “abolish” and “fulfill.” The word used for “abolish” here is also the word used when talking about destruction of the temple, taking apart, tearing down. The word “fulfill” here is the same word quoted in Matthew 1:22, the same word that points us to fulfilling the words of the prophets. Fulfilling scripture. Animating the story that started way back at the beginning of the book. I didn’t come to tear apart your faith, I came to make it manifest.

Which is very confusing, but— It's the bread. Right?

Jesus is always talking, telling weird little stories, disgruntling his own followers, and no one ever has any idea what he’s talking about. So, finally, he grabs the bread. First, insisting on the mathematical impossibility of feeding the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish. Then, later, the scientific impossibility of feeding all believers for the rest of time with his own body. But there he goes, he starts breaking that bread up and it looks like your portion is getting smaller and smaller, you are going to get less and less as more people show up, and yet somehow there are just twelve, massive baskets of food leftover after everyone has eaten their fill. It’s the year two-thousand-and-twenty-four and that’s bread on that communion table. That’s not magic, that’s a promise fulfilled.

He says he didn’t come to negate even one letter of the law, he came to finally, fully embody godly interpretation of the law. The opposite of abolish, here, the opposite of “tear down” would be “to build up.” But that’s not what he says. He didn’t come to protect the law, fortify the law, he came to live rooted in the law and grow up and out to a fullness that no one could imagine. And his resurrection means that that surprising, surpassing fulfillment is what animates Christians still.

But it also challenges us, we who have found righteousness within the church. Who love the Bible. Who tie our faith to the practices and traditions of our faith community. Who want to see our beliefs valued at the highest levels of government. Who say God is alive, but resist the idea that the Spirit might be growing ever more robust interpretations of the law in the hearts of other Christians. When someone’s faith surprises us, we’re often quick to say: “You’ve come to destroy the church. You want to tear it down.”

It's the bread.

It’s going to look a whole lot like getting torn apart sometimes. It’s only a broken genealogy that puts Jesus in the line of David. Broken Jewish custom that sees Joseph and Mary taking a trip to Bethlehem as a couple. Broken taboos that allow Jesus to touch and cleanse a man with leprosy. Broken physics that let Jesus walk on water. Broken justice that frees Barabbas and crucifies Christ. And that big, thick curtain, protecting the inner sanctum of God’s dwelling place from the people of God, is torn right down the middle.

The presence of the body of Christ, even in the short months between conception and birth, is always characterized by the breaking of things to make people whole. What happens to Mary and her unborn child if Joseph isn’t willing to break with an old idea? When the religious culture, the religious institution is preventing people from being whole, Jesus is breaking the structure to reform it. And Matthew wants to make sure we know that he is doing it while walking perfectly and indisputably within the tradition.

Last Sunday, sitting over there on the side and appreciating the feel of the room in this horseshoe configuration I had a sort of -- I think we would call it a flight of fancy. That it’s almost like God reached two massive hands down and broke the room. And, that seemed to me, a hopeful thought. In an age where it can sometimes feel like Jesus has left the building, so to speak. That our laws, teachings, interpretations – but also – calendars, spaces, programs, and even pews remain good and fruitful material for the new work that God is doing in the world. And, if we can take the angel of the Lord seriously, and not be afraid, that the hand of God might also reach in and break open whatever has become static and rigid within me. No matter how righteous.

It is the third Sunday of Advent. Jesus isn’t even here yet. But the Body of Christ is drawing near. Close enough to throw even the righteous into Holy crisis. I want to be a person who’s willing to sacrifice what I think makes me good, in the eyes of other believers, for a chance to participate in the new work of the Spirit; the new ways Jesus wants to fulfill the law. And – I’m afraid. I should be afraid. Joseph ended up in Egypt in hiding while one of the most powerful rulers of the time hunted his family. It’s not a no-stakes proposal. But that’s the risk of getting close to the body of Christ. Just getting close to it. Whether that’s coming to the table or encountering him among the sick, the hungry, the refugees, the prisoners. Just brush up against him and your life might suddenly not be your own.

At least, that’s the hope.

May we be accepting of what will be broken and attentive to who will be made whole.

Amen.

ADVENT, December 8 2024

The season is changing, temperatures dropping, the wind carries a chilly bite and the hours of daylight are getting shorter. The trees and bushes give a brilliant display of color as they let their leaves go and the animals stock up and hunker down for the period of cold and darkness. They are waiting.

People begin bundling up, raking leaves, putting warm weather items away and get out the cold weather equipment (snow shovels/blowers, make sure their homes are ready for cold), some people get excited with the coming of winter sports and some are looking forward to a blanket, good book, and a hot drink while the wind blows and the snow falls. We wait. Advent means coming. The season of “already, not yet”.

The Hebrew people have always been in a state of “already not yet”. They already know the One True God but have not yet been able to obey and follow His ways. The reason, I think, that it is so hard is that we are easily distracted by this world and the evil one that tempts us all. Of course, we all know that the Evil One, the tempter roams the earth looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8-10)

As a quick recap of the Old Testament;

The Old Testament in a nutshell.

He spoke; the heavens and earth appeared He spoke; The stars twinkled, the sun rose and set the moon lit up the night. He spoke; plants grew, flowered, and gave fruit He spoke; all manner of creatures appeared on the earth, in the skies, under the earth, and seas filled. Man and woman were created He made them in His image and breathed life into their souls. Desiring fellowship with man and woman He gave them choice. They chose for themselves not to hear and obey Him, and sin/evil entered in. Man and Woman walked through the gate and God was sad but they chose. He watched: Abraham obeyed He watched; Noah built the boat and saved the day. He watched; His people were enslaved He gave; Moses instructions from a burning bush. His people were saved He led; his people through the wilderness, raining mana from the sky and water from rocks He watched; His people fall away, too afraid to believe His power God sent; Joshua, the promised land to claim His people; the Deceiver led astray God sent; Judges to show God’s way His people; Cried out: send a king, so like other nations we’ll be God sadly complied; You need only Me God sends; His prophets, to teach, plead, to expose His plan His people; rejected, refused change, their choice, they can God used; the enemies for exiles or correction, to open the Hebrew’s eyes God changed; the ruler’s heart, Hebrews’ were sent home, their temple rebuilt. God waited; for His people to turn, invite Him in His people; wanted His blessings now, their hearts not right, evil ways and apathy prevailed God tried; one more time, sent Malachi, to open their eyes and spirits to revive God sighed; His people denied change, God went silent and continued His plan.

The relationship between the living Creator and the creation He so dearly loves is found in the Old Testament. In the garden the fruit was eaten through an act of free will and that disobedience introduced evil to the world. God immediately had compassion and covered Man’s/Woman’s sin with the first blood atonement, shown in providing animal skins for covering.

The bridge to commune with the Creator was blocked when Man/Woman were evicted from the garden. Mankind has been waiting since then. But God has a plan. First mention of God’s plan is found in Gen. 3:15. “And I will put enmity between you and the women, and between your seed and her Seed”

This is the first mention of God’s plan for redemption, this first sin, evil now in the world and life made hard with man and woman being evicted from the garden.

Now God began waiting to have His people come back to Him so He could bless them and be their God. For about 2 thousand years God, loved, taught, entered into covenants(promises) saved His people from slavery, bequeathed land, He stayed with His children no matter what the people chose, watching, hoping.

God used all manner of peoples and nations, kings, judges and prophets to point His people to Him. the prophets told the people of the coming(advent) of the Messiah. God revealed details of the coming Messiah. For instance, the place of birth revealed in Micah 5:2, preceded by a messenger, just like a King, in Isaiah 40:3, virgin birth Isaiah 7:14. The Messiah is shown in all of the books in the OT.

The time of the Old Testament was a time of highs and lows, of rebellion and return. Times the people would love and worship, seeking Him, then, they would give over to the evil one and turn away from God. The age of the Old Testament came to an end and God sent silence to the people, He sent no more prophets. He remained patient. He waited. He prepared. Remember God HAS a plan which is a mystery to eyes that are not open and ears that cannot hear. We as limited human beings need to remember what is said in Isaiah 55:9; “For as the heavens are higher than the earth. So are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

The people waited. God watched. The four hundred years between the Old and New Testaments brought more of the same as found in the Old Testament. The people find themselves in a desperate situation. A faithful servant arises to “stand in the gap”. Examples of this in the Old Testament would be Noah and the Ark, Moses and Pharoah, Joseph and the famine, the judges, Ester, Nehemiah. In each of these the efforts of Man had to be frustrated, they had to be unable to solve their problems by themselves before divine intervention happened.

During the 400 years between Testaments the people were oppressed by the Persians, Egyptians, Syrians. No one stood up for God until Matthias started the Maccabean revolt against the Syrians and king Antiochus when he demanded animal sacrifice to heathen gods and defiled the temple. Matthias and his 4 sons were successful in defeating the Syrians and the result was 70 years of peace. This revolt is the birth of the Festival of Hanukkah.

The Hasmonean dynasty came to power and the choice of the High Priest changed from selecting from the Aaronic line to more political of a choice. It had little to do with God and serving Him. The Pharisees (follow the Law to the letter) were opposed to the Hasmoneans who wanted to appoint a king that was not of the line of David. Those who opposed the Pharisees, supporting the Hasmoneans were called Sadducees. The Sadducees were related to the high priest and tended toward more social, political, and earthly aspects of their position. They formed the social aristocracy of the Jewish nation, wanted to maintain separation of church and state and believed holiness had nothing to do with the nation's destiny. The Sadducees looked at the Pharisees as old fashioned, irrelevant and fanatical.

The final oppressors in the four-hundred-year period were the Romans. The people are not able to deal with the shifting tide of political power and religious belief. They were now in a kind of spiritual bondage that was more desperate than their political bondage. The different factions and parties (the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealots and the Herodians and the Hasmoneans) were all looking for a solution to their problems all without success. The people waited with no evidence of turning back to their One True God. God has a plan!

Living in these tumultuous days were Zacharias and Elizabeth, a couple that were well advanced in years. Zacharias was a priest in the division of Abijah and he waited to serve, day after day, he was never selected to serve in the temple of the Lord. Never had a chance to serve as he had dreamed of for his entire life. He was well acquainted with waiting. His wife Elizabeth was in the line of the daughters of Aaron, the first high priest, brother of Moses. Elizabeth was well acquainted with waiting also, you see she was unable to give Zacharias an heir. She was barren, childless. Throughout her life she waited, prayed, pleaded to be able to fulfill her purpose as a woman and a wife. In her culture if she was not able to have children, she had no purpose in life. In their culture they would have been scorned, pitied, talked about with sadness because neither of them has been able to perform their duties in this life, all they have been able to do is wait. In spite of a life spent with unfulfilled dreams and expectations Zacharias and Elizabeth “were both righteous before God, walking in ALL the commandments AND ordinances of the Lord. BLAMELESS.” In these days the number of priests that wanted to serve in the temple were extremely numerous. There were so many that not all would be able to serve in the temple, not even once. Zacharias waited and wondered if he would ever have the opportunity to perform the duties that he had been trained for.

Solomon tells us what to do while we wait in Proverbs 3:5-6 “trust in the Lord with all your heart. And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

Notice it does not say that waiting/trusting will be easy. Life happens one day at a time. These folks, heirs to Abraham’s promise, devout, loyal and faithful followers of Adoni, WAITED for the advent of their destinies. They didn’t give up and they were BLAMELESS. Zacharias and Elizabeth focused on the Lord.

God saw Zacharias goes to work as usual, gathering with the others to draw lots, as was the custom, to see who would have the honor of serving at the hour of incense in the temple. Zacharias literally won the lottery; his name was chosen to serve in the temple! Unbelievable, he may have thought, God has finally shown favor on His humble servant. He would have been nervous because verse 10 tells us that the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense. The pressure would have been immense, it all had to be perfect.

Zacharias went into the temple and standing to the right of the altar of incense was an angel. God breaks His silence. read Luke 1:12-23 Zacharias comes home with news that is quite unbelievable and could not tell Elizabeth what had taken place. He would have told her using Something to write on and it probably would have taken a bit. We can only guess at Elizabeth’s reaction to what she was reading but knowing the truth of it by her husband’s lack of speech. Verse 24 tells us that Elizabeth conceived. She was to have a baby! She says, “Thus the Lord had dealt with me, in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.” This tells us that her life had not been easy among her people. Now she and Zacharias waited again, this time for the fulfillment of God’s promise.

Elizabeth and Zacharias were not the only ones waiting. Mary had been visited by Gabriel as well and God chose her to have the Son of God and Gabriel tells her about her cousin being pregnant now 6 months. Mary would have experienced anxiety about being pregnant and not married. In her culture being pregnant out of wedlock could have resulted in her being put to death. She left to go see her cousin in the hill country, while she waited. Mary had no idea what would happen outside of doing God’s will and bearing this child. She knew she could talk to Elizabeth about these miracles they were experiencing. Read Luke 1:40-45 Trust in God and all will be well. God has a plan; He is speaking again and he is using these people who love Him to bring about the miracle of the Messiah. God smiles, we wait.

And now we wait for the only birth that brought true redemption, true salvation, true peace, that of Emmauel, Prince of Peace, God with Us, Jesus’ son of the Living God as foretold throughout the age.

Within Despair, Divine Hope (Luke 1:36)

Within Despair, Divine Hope

Advent Week One, December 01. 2024

Luke 1:36

Good morning:

I would like to thank you all for your warm welcome this Advent Season as we lean in together as a community in waiting…until the arrival and celebration of Christmas.

As some of you have heard, have seen, and have witnessed the following weeks may tend to look a little different than the per usual celebrations of connection, due to the extended help and resources of some wonderful women stepping into sharing their journey and messages of truth along with all of us throughout this advent season… as well as all of you… for your warmth, love, and consideration into welcoming us as a part of our journey. Thank you!

Within the passage of Luke, the angel answered “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of The Most High will overshadow you” . . . Overshadow… this word has always struck such a chord within me… The Greek definition to overshadow means to envelop … to cast shadow upon. But here within this context it is often used to convey divine presence, suggesting a sense of intimacy and or closeness. Sometimes … at times for me within my own journey.. The vulnerability of closeness and change can feel both overshadowing and unimaginable.

Mary’s questioning response in reply to the Angel, when she was met in a life altering shadow of a monumental moment that I can only assume/ imagine… possibly felt deeply overwhelming… unimaginable to say the least and quite overshadowing… her only reply was… within this passage is… “How can this be?” How can this be that I am going to become pregnant… and bare a child…when I haven't strayed, from what I have been taught… have been told… known to be true? How can this be… that such an overwhelming life altering choice is being asked of. made.. for/ been consented for me? To me? “How can this be?!”

Such a narrative … for such a young woman on a path of something not only life altering … but also unimaginable.

Narratives of the unknown. Often, even subconsciously run rampant at times within my own depths and shadow of my soul.

A questioning and response to my own over looming shadows has often arisen and has also impacted me in many ways that have brought solace, peace, and growth when I have allowed myself to sit with…and acknowledge as well as discern and ultimately… loosen the grip of control …. Amongst the overshadowing…. enveloping …of. The unknown.

And. the capability of allowing it to occur. Holding space … within the questioning responses and narratives in overwhelming unknown momentous moments that often felt unimaginable and overshadowing. I too have wondered. “How can this be?” How can this be … that I am a …….

How can this be that I may be a burden to those I love? How can this be that I am now divorced… That I am a single mother … That I didn't finish my college degree… What are the stories… questions are you responding with. telling yourself? What are your narratives that may be feeling overwhelming trying to say to you? How can this be…. Because I am….?

The narratives that live within our beings…coincide with. Entertain. They can at times feel overshading Ing. enveloping … full of looming darkness. fear. …. quite unimaginable… but so often … it is easier to continue these narratives disqualifying ourselves…. disqualifying our actions. Our motives… and ultimately our truth. Just as Mary questioned the journey she was about to embark on. Overshadowing and yet unimaginable in a moment… in days. Within years… WE tend to at times feel fused to the shadowing in all sorts of ways. In questions. And navigating such depth with Self Sabotage. Addictions. Fearing Connections…and not allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and ultimately seen by those we love…

often stating we will start tomorrow. Just a few more minutes of distractions. and or deflecting away from our truth… Our actions/reactions however do hold some truth though.... Some facts. And shed light. For within the overshadowing and allowing. Rumination. And responses...Some sense of purpose. For in the mist of overwhelming shadowing. Unimaginable. Intangible voids.

Often within the solitude and quietness of loneliness …God tends to remind us just as he did Mary that we are not alone. Sometimes he does this quietly with a smile of a stranger. Passing us by… sometimes with the outstretched hand of a neighbor... or the greeting and passing of peace next to each other at church. God reminds us … when we are open to listening. Open to being seen. Open to being a witness to each other.

Luke 1 Verse 36

Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who is said to be barren. Is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.

For within the overshadowing of questions. fears. And unimaginable circumstances amidst the waiting. We can be met with the overshading of growth. Divine presence. the connection of intimacy. Closeness of navigating overshadowing darkness… with the reminder that we are not alone amongst overshadowing light and lamination when we are brave and conscious enough to release our grip of responses and questions when we simply respond by changing our narrative from… “How can this be?” “Let… it be!” Mary near the end of the passage then. surrendered. and answered I am the Lord's servant. and the Angel replied. Let it be as you have said… Mary’s song has often been a nuance … during this season of waiting. tied to beautiful moments of questioning and hope. So, within this space. With you. I would like to offer up to you all a song that has resonated deeply within me… for not only what may have been Mary’s narrative… but also my own.

Interrogation or Conversation?

First UMC of Pocatello

November 24, 2024

John 18:33-40

This is Christ the King Sunday, the final Sunday of the Church’s worship calendar. The story spirals back around to its beginning next week when we enter the season of Avent and again await the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. The Feast of Christ the King is by far the newest of the Church’s holy days. It was created in the Roman Catholic context in 1925 by Pope Pious XI, who sought to resist the rise of Bento Mussolini’s fascist regime in Italy. In response to Mussolini’s nationalist ideology, the Pope reminded Italian Catholics – and by extension Catholics and other Christians around the world – that their allegiance ought to be to Jesus and their citizenship in the kingdom of God. The theme of Christ as king is as old as the scriptures themselves. But the feast day is a modern creation, and it’s a good reminder that the Church can change and adapt something even as important as its worship life to meet the needs of the present moment.

Ideologies are systems of interlocking ideas. The Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann defines ideology as “closed, managed, useful truth.” When he says “closed,” he means that there’s no room to breathe in an ideology, no room to question the artificial boundaries or point out the blind spots of its claims. By managed, Brueggemann means that ideologies are actively protected and enforced. And then they’re useful; ideologies help those in power to achieve and maintain certain results. Ideologies protect an old status quo, or they want to overthrow the current one and impose a new one.

And so we have Pilate interrogating Jesus on the morning of his crucifixion. “Are you the King of the Jews?” Pilate asked him. It was an important question, one that could’ve been asked sincerely, but Pilate was only vetting the threat level that Jesus presented to the prevailing ideological order. The Apostles’ Creed, which is an ancient and distilled statement of belief shared by many Christians, says that Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” Of all the details of Jesus’ life, the creed chooses to remind us of Pilate’s role in Jesus’ death. So we should know something about him.

Pontius Pilate was a Roman governor installed to maintain law and order in the Roman-occupied territory of Judea, which included the city of Jerusalem. In the Roman Empire, there was only one ultimate authority: the Emperor. At that time it was Emperor Tiberius. As long as obedience to the Emperor was expressed materially, through paying taxes and keeping the peace, people in occupied territories were generally allowed to continue with their own religious and cultural practices. But any suggestion of revolt against Roman rule was quickly and violently suppressed. Natives who were able to survive in positions of relative power – like tax collectors or religious elites – were often as loath to rock the political boat as their Roman occupiers. The Jewish prophetic hope for a coming Messiah, an anointed ruler who would set the people free, was a particular threat to the prevailing ideology, so much so that even the Jewish Pharisees refused to see Jesus for who he was. Instead, they handed him over to Pilate and told him, “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against Caesar” (19:12). They get Pilate to comply with their desire to kill Jesus by playing on his fears and duties as a Roman governor.

So, early in the morning, inside his headquarters, Pilate asks this exhausted, captive man, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And Jesus responds to his question with another question: “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” In other words, Jesus is asking Pilate, Is this a conversation or an interrogation? Are we encountering one another face to face, heart to heart? Or are you standing above me asking an ideological question, assessing whether I fit within your system or threaten its authority? Conversation or interrogation. Are you asking for yourself or on behalf of others?

Jesus tells Pilate that he came into the world to witness to the truth, and that those who are from the truth listen to his voice. He did not come to set up an ideology alongside other ideologies, some close system of ideas that would compete with others. If Jesus came to impose his own regime, he would’ve had soldiers fighting on his behalf right then and there! He tells Pilate: “If my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over.” Several hours earlier, an armed mob came to arrest Jesus while he was with his disciples in a garden. Violence did almost erupt. John 18:10-11: “Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. Jesus said to Peter, ‘Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me’”?

Jesus did not permit Peter to defend him violently. Jesus rebukes him for drawing the sword. Only in John’s Gospel are we told the name of the person who drew the sword and the name of the person who was struck, Malchus. Ideology clouds over personal responsibility; it allows people to take refuge in the closed, managed system. The choice to do violence is a personal choice with personal consequences.

But Jesus will not allow it. He does not compel by force. He compels by the truth of his words, by the genuineness of his presence, by the sincerity of his love. And those who hear his voice – his living, breathing voice; those who desire authentic life and relationship beyond all pretense and propaganda are the ones who respond to it.

“Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”

Pilate deflects Jesus’ words with a cynical question, “What is truth?” It doesn’t matter what’s true! It matters what’s useful, what’s normal, what keeps things the way that they are now. What matters is that I don’t have to change, that I don’t feel threatened, that I keep benefitting from the way things currently are. Pilate goes out and tells the Pharisees that he finds no fault with Jesus; he even attempts to release him. Yet when Pilate realizes that releasing Jesus would cause more local unrest than condemning him to death, he makes the politically advantageous choice, the choice that ideology, not truth, demands. In his eyes, it is the responsible choice. But it’s always the violent choice.

…

What does all this mean for you and me on Christ the King Sunday?

Here are three things we can consider for ourselves.

First, have we strayed from having a relationship with Jesus as a person to flattening him onto some closed system of ideas? Is Jesus a concept or a presence? Are the scriptures proof-texts or stories still crackling with the sacred? Are the creeds gates that we keep or doors that we pass through into deeper mysteries? I think Jesus wants us to assess whether our love for him has grown cold. We might think we are very zealous, very engaged, when in fact we’ve distanced ourselves, made ourselves safe.

Second, if our relationship with Jesus or our faith has strayed toward ideology, then we are probably protecting ourselves from the pain of change that we know that we need. Admitting we are struggling in some areas of our life is hard. Getting free from an addiction is hard. Dealing with loneliness, with old trauma, with fresh disappointment is hard. Sometimes, in response to our pain or our guilt, we harden rather than soften. We take up faith as ideology that we can hide behind. If we were to really talk to Jesus as life meeting life and personal truth meeting personal truth, we’d have to hear Jesus’ voice of truth in those dark, wild, murky spaces deep inside us. Love and truth are anything but safe. Easier, sometimes, to deflect and turn outward to defend Jesus with the sword – even if it’s the sword of our words or our Facebook posts. If you feel that your faith may be hardening into a kind of ideology, I wonder what you may be avoiding talking with Jesus about, where the possibility of change terrifies you? Underneath that terror is probably a desire for change, a desire to hear your inner voice speak, to really hear and know yourself. But when we interrogate ourselves to see if we are conforming to our ideology, or when we put off facing ourselves by focusing on interrogating others, that true self which belongs to Jesus and yearns for his voice of truth remains unheard.

Finally, if the mode of speech in ideology is interrogation, then we are likely not encountering our neighbors as full persons. Does being a Christian mean that we are right and everyone else is wrong? That others must see it the way we see it, or else? Do we sometimes think that being a Christian means that we are entitled to a kind of political power over others or economic security at the expense of others? Are we fighting for our turf among others fighting for their turf?

Treating faith as ideology will lead us to interrogating the people around us. Even if we act nicely in the moment, our questions will not be real expressions of curiosity and love, because we don’t intend to let the answers to our questions touch and change us. Instead, we are evaluating whether others are ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ We don’t encounter others name by name, face to face. We see the human family in categories, and categories applied to people are violent.

At the end of the day, are we practicing interrogation or conversation?

Toward God, toward ourselves, toward others?

Have we traded in a living relationship with the One who is truth and love and freedom for a set of ideas about truth that are closed, manageable, and useful to us?

If so, Jesus wants us to come to the Table and encounter him again in what can be heard, what can be seen, what can be looked at and touched with our hands (1 John 1:1). He calls us back to a life of prayer – of openness, curiosity, longing, and love. He wants you to digest him and become him, not systematize him and defend him. And he will meet you here. A living God who will put you in touch with your truest self and teach you to converse with others from a place of freedom, not interrogate them from a place of fear or pride.

On this Christ the King Sunday, Jesus wants us to ask about him from the depths of our own hearts. Only then can we know him as a King who sets us free from our self-imposed prisons, for a love that embraces all creation.

Amen.

Inside (Hebrews 10:11-25)

First UMC of Pocatello

November 17, 2024

Hebrews 10:11-25

I’d like to begin by sharing a poem with you. I read it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and have been returning to it almost daily. Marie Howe, a former poet laureate of New York, wrote it, and the title of the poem is “The Affliction.” I’d like to hold her poem up next to this highly theological passage from Hebrews, which, as we’ve heard, speaks of the affliction of sin, the saving sacrifice of Christ, and the promise of a cleansed conscience and renewed heart.

Here’s “The Affliction” by Marie Howe:

When I walked across a room I saw myself walking

as if I were someone else,

when I picked up a fork, when I pulled off a dress,

as if I were in a movie.

It’s what I thought you saw when you looked at me.

So when I looked at you, I didn’t see you

I saw the me I thought you saw, as if I were someone else.

I called that outside—watching. Well I didn’t call it anything

when it happened all the time.

But one morning after I stopped the pills—standing in the kitchen

for one second I was inside looking out.

Then I popped back outside. And saw myself looking.

Would it happen again? It did, a few days later.

My friend Wendy was pulling on her winter coat, standing by the kitchen door

and suddenly I was inside and I saw her.

I looked out from my own eyes

and I saw: her eyes: blue gray transparent

and inside them: Wendy herself!

Then I was outside again,

and Wendy was saying, Bye-bye, see you soon,

as if Nothing Had Happened.

She hadn’t noticed. She hadn’t known that I’d Been There

for Maybe 40 Seconds,

and that then I was Gone.

She hadn’t noticed that I Hadn’t Been There for Months,

years, the entire time she’d known me.

I needn’t have been embarrassed to have been there for those seconds;

she had not Noticed The Difference.

This happened on and off for weeks,

and then I was looking at my old friend John:

: suddenly I was in: and I saw him,

and he: (and this was almost unbearable)

he saw me see him,

and I saw him see me.

He said something like, You’re going to be ok now,

or, It’s been difficult hasn’t it,

but what he said mattered only a little.

We met—in our mutual gaze—in between

a third place I’d not yet been.

Outside or inside. Absent or present. Distant or close. Watching the fiction of the self or seeing the reality of others. Marie Howe uses these dichotomies and tensions to explore the condition of sin as a kind of dissociation, an inability or unwillingness to be present. There are many reasons why we might dissociate from reality, flee the moment that we’re in, or numb our perceptions. It can be a legitimate defense against trauma, a way to manage anxiety. It can also come from a compulsion toward perfection, or a fear of intimacy.

This poem speaks to such a deep place in me because this is very often how I experience the affliction of sin. Just as an example, sometimes I will be playing with my kids and, suddenly, instead of truly seeing them, I will watch myself with them from the outside, see the dad I think others are seeing, evaluating whether or not he is one of the good dads. This happened just a few days ago at the Spaghetti dinner on Friday night. I was with the toddlers in the gym. They were running around, chasing each other, kicking and throwing balls. My son, Loren, got so carried away that without warning he tore all his clothes off and started sprinting around the gym naked, cackling. He was so completely happy. And I had a real war within me. On the one hand I was so happy to see him so happy. I was amazed by his unselfconscious joy. On the other hand, I felt myself popping outside, glancing over at the kitchen, wondering what other people were thinking. I was seeing myself and my reaction through the invented judgment of others.

I think that on balance I won that inner struggle. I noticed myself moving away in the moment and I called myself back. I didn’t experience the whole thing purely, but neither did I yell at or shame Loren. I laughed. Sus and I slowly corralled him and helped him get his clothes back on.

I wonder if you ever catch yourself watching your life from the outside, rather than seeing reality vividly through your own eyes? I wonder if there are voices that you carry which whisper or shout to you that you are not enough, that you need to keep close tabs on your behavior or image, that you need to go away, even when you’re “there,” to be safe. I wonder if it hurts that the people closest to you can’t tell that you haven’t been there, really, the whole time they’ve known you.

In Hebrews 10, the author quotes the prophet Jeremiah. In the tradition, Jeremiah is sometimes called the “Weeping Prophet” because of the intensity of his grief over the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians six centuries before Christ. The Babylonian Exile was the darkest moment in the Israelite’s history. It felt like God had forsaken them because of how bad and broken they had been. Yet in a profound passage, the promise of God cuts through the darkness, speaking through Jeremiah about a complete forgiveness and forgetting of sins. There is coming a day, God says, when “I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them.”

We might wonder where Jeremiah found the strength to stay centered in himself. To see clearly and feel fully both the brutal reality of his people’s situation and the future hope of God’s salvation. Marie Howe would have us wonder if Jeremiah had been fully seen by someone else, whether someone’s fully present gaze had met his own gaze, and if, in that powerful third space where presence meets presence, this new possibility was born. And the answer is Yes! Yes, Jeremiah was fully seen, fully known. Here is how he describes his call into prophetic ministry in the first chapter of his book.

This is what God said:

“Before I shaped you in the womb, I knew all about you. Before you saw the light of day, I had holy plans for you: A prophet to the nations— that’s what I had in mind for you.” But I said, “Hold it, Master God! Look at me. I don’t know anything. I’m only a boy!” God told me, “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a boy.’ I’ll tell you where to go and you’ll go there. I’ll tell you what to say and you’ll say it. Don’t be afraid of a soul. I’ll be right there, looking after you.” God reached out, touched my mouth, and said, “Look! I’ve just put my words in your mouth—hand-delivered! See what I’ve done? I’ve given you a job to do…”

Before we were born, God saw us. Before we saw the light of day, God had crafted holy plans for us. God will show us where we need to go and provide exactly what we need to do what we’re called to do. And God knew our essence and our purpose before things got all beaten up and muddled and scary – before the affliction.

What Jeremiah experienced with God – knowing himself according to how God saw him – was special, but he prophesied that one day it would be the norm. And the author of Hebrews tells us that the day has come. Today, Jesus has put away our sin, broken the powers of sin and death. Jesus has forgiven us and forgotten all the mess that we’ve made of things or that the world has made of us. The affliction can be healed because God is there to meet our gaze, to really see us. And God calls us into a community of mutual seeing. God wants us to experience the power of that third space, where we all, seeing through our own eyes, experiencing things from the inside, meet each other’s reality.

What happens in that new creation where we are once again “naked and unashamed” (Gen. 2:25) as our ancestors were in the Garden? What happens in that new community where we know each other fully as we are fully known (1 Cor. 13:12)?

Well, the author of Hebrews tells us that we can “consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching” (10:24-25). When we really let ourselves be seen as we are, and when we really see others as they are, then we will know the right ways to encourage and be encouraged to step into our gifts and embrace the various beautiful “holy plans” that God has for us.

How can we work with the Holy Spirit to form this community of presence and holy provocation? The Church must be a place of profound hospitality. Marie Howe describes the experience of being seen as “almost unbearable.” We who are regulars must know this, and we must recognize that, for most people, coming to Church starts as a risk: How will I be seen? Will I be seen at all? What will the sight of the people teach me about the sight of God?

We have a responsibility to create an environment that corresponds to the reality of Christ’s forgiveness and forgetting of sins. This means being on guard against snap judgments, against making assumptions, against a consumer attitude toward Church. Coming to Church is not primarily about getting filled up or about defending a tradition. It’s about seeing and being seen. It’s about experiencing the power and possibilities of God among us when we encounter each other with true presence.

Perhaps today you are wrestling with The Affliction. I’m sure that, like me, some of you find yourselves from time to time watching life from the outside. Perhaps you’re even, like the poet, numbing yourself from dealing with the Affliction. She used pills, but there are a million different ways to avoid the “almost unbearable” journey back inside.

I want you to know that the journey back inside is worth it. It is the only way to experience the fullness of life, the ripeness of the present; it is the only way to experience true communion with others. The law of love can be written on your heart. You can be renewed from the inside out. You can come home to yourself, because God has made a home with you and in you.

There is a God who sees you and who has seen you from before the beginning.

There is a God who loves the you that he sees.

It is “almost unbearable,” being seen. Almost.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.