The Sermon Trilogy

It seems well and proper to do things in threes. I mean you got your Trinity, your Trinity, and your Trinity. You can check out your Three Musketeers, your three-toed sloth, and, well let's face it, three is just the best number there is. Now that the case as been built, I shall follow the model and post not one, not two, not five, but three sermons, all for the price of ten. You can thank me later by donating donuts to my breakfast cause. Sermon #1:

Luke 1:39-55 39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!" 46 And Mary said: "My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, 49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me-- holy is his name. 50 His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. 51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. 52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. 53 He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. 54 He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful 55 to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers."

If you’ve ever sat in the dark long enough, you know that your eyes begin to adjust after a while. The initial shock of the darkness makes you momentarily blind. Then as time goes on, your pupils dilate and eventually your eyes adapt to the change in light and you are able to see again. Maybe not as well as when the lights were on, but a little bit better than when you started. Your eyes become sensitive to the little light that is remaining, and change so that what little light is there now becomes the norm. But have you ever sat in a place where there is no light? I don’t mean very little light, I mean no light. When the light leaves, everything goes black, just like when you first flip off a light switch at night, but then, when you expect your eyes to adjust, nothing happens. You can even feel your eyes struggling to pick up on any sort of light anywhere, but to no avail. Then, of course, the tell tale sign of whether or not you can see is to put your hand a foot in front of your face. When there’s a little light, you usually say that you can’t see your hand, but sometimes you can. But when there’s no light, you do say that you can see your hand. The tricky thing is that you’re not really seeing your hand, but your mind is playing tricks on you. It knows that your hand is supposed to be there, and it pretends to see your hand. When there’s no light, you convince yourself that you can see.

I would be willing to bet that there’s not a person in this room that doesn’t know what Christmas preparation is all about. Even if you don’t have gigantic plans for this Christmas season, you’ve seen the preparation in the form of traffic on the roads, or paranoia or stress in neighbors, and family, and friends. You’ve seen people get tired and burned out, and all for the sake of what? To give presents to another person? To set aside time to spend with those you love? It seems like people stumble around for one, maybe even two months at a time, without even knowing what they’re looking at. We’ve been given eyes to see what’s going on, but our brain has tricked us into seeing something else.

When I think of Mary, I think of the criticisms I hear directed towards young pregnant unmarried women today. It’s not too favorable, is it? Aside from the snide comments made by her classmates, she hears from those in the community that she is irresponsible, out of control, a deviant, immoral, corrupt, and that she has ruined her life. You see, I hear that and think, that’s how it was for Mary, too. Mary would no doubt go on to hear ridicule, and scorn, to hear shouts cursing her and calling her a miscreant. People would see her walking around with Jesus inside, and utter some of the harshest insults that they could muster. People would see with their eyes that this young unmarried woman was pregnant, and they would call her out for what they see as unacceptable behavior, but again, they missed what is really there to be seen.

This interaction between Mary and Elizabeth in today’s Gospel, gives us the piece that has been missing, the thing that has been there, but we haven’t been seeing: God. God gives meaning to everything that goes on around us. You see without God, this season would be just a bunch of busy little ants scurrying about from place to place with no purpose for living. Without God, Mary and Elizabeth would not be remembered in any books as anything significant, except maybe that they were kind people. Without God we would be sitting in the darkness staring into the pitch black and convincing ourselves that we could see things as they are when we really can’t.

John, in Elizabeth’s womb, teaches us a little piece about that. John, who cannot see the world around him, who cannot use his eyes to play tricks on him, perks up to pay attention, because he can see, already, that God is doing something here. Without God, John won’t be good for a whole lot. John’s whole reason for living is to be an arrow which points to what is going to happen, and that is, that God is coming to bring down the powerful, and lift up the lowly. God is coming to feed the hungry, and take away from the rich. God is coming, but not in the way that we would expect to see with our eyes, but that seems to be just the way that God works. God is coming to be born from the lowest person on the totem pole: a pregnant, unmarried, teenager, who finds herself without a home for the birth of her child.

Without God, there is no meaning to what we do day in and day out. We could be kind if we wanted, we could be cruel if we wanted, we could love, or we could hate, it would make no difference. But because of God, everything has meaning. Because of God, Mary is lifted to be blessed by all generations. Because of God, John sits up gives his mom a kick and says, “See what’s going on here, God is coming!” Because of God, we no longer sit in darkness with our minds fooling us into telling us what is real and what is important.

We give gifts, because of what God gives us, we spend time with family, because God came to spend time with us. We rejoice because we, who were low and sitting in the dark, have been given vision and meaning to all that is around us. We, like Mary, have been blessed to be the favored ones, and we, like Mary, like the church before, and after us, are blessed to have God give meaning to our lives, and purpose to everything around us. Amen.

Advent 3. Is It Really a Week Before Christmas?

The middle one:

Luke 3:7-18 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? ⁸ Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. ⁹ The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." ¹⁰ "What should we do then?" the crowd asked. ¹¹ John answered, "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same." ¹² Tax collectors also came to be baptized. "Teacher," they asked, "what should we do?" ¹³ "Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told them. ¹⁴ Then some soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?" He replied, "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely-- be content with your pay." ¹⁵ The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ. ¹⁶ John answered them all, "I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. ¹⁷ His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." ¹⁸ And with many other words John exhorted the people and preached the good news to them.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Polite, simple to the point. You snake bellied, poisonous, good for nothing slobs! A bit less kind, it certainly still gets a point across, but not one that would encourage further conversation. John’s greeting would certainly not pass for the front of a Hallmark card, at least not for one that you would send to a person that you would like to be your friend after reading it. It is an offensive greeting, and one that is intended to offend, at least, I’ve never called someone a snake to their face and meant it in a good way.

You brood of vipers, you pack of snakes, you who take life away from those around you. John really sets the table to get worked up and beats people over the head with the bad that they are doing in their lives.

This Sunday, this third week in advent, has a tradition of being called Gaudete Sunday, or “rejoice” Sunday. Certainly you can hear that theme running through some of the lessons, but maybe no one told John the Baptist that this was supposed to be Rejoice Sunday. Maybe no one told him that we’re supposed to be excited that the Messiah is coming, maybe no one told him that we were supposed to be having parties and sharing gifts in celebration. Or maybe someone did tell him. And maybe he realized why exactly it was that the Messiah was coming, why it was that God had to come down to earth in the first place. John is just telling us how it is, so that we understand where we are.

We have come looking for the easy way out. We want the baptism from John, but he wants to make sure we understand what it’s all about. Forgiveness of sins after you change your ways. Baptism after repentance. You brood of vipers, you don’t even get who you are, you just want to feel good about the way you conduct your life. What we don’t even get is that the way we live our lives leads us to death, our selfish, greedy passions walk us right down the path.

And not only that, but the way that we live our lives leads others to death. I find it to resonate completely that John answers the three requests for direction, with answers about how to deal with our money, and our possessions. To the tax collectors: collect your honest amounts, to the Soldiers: be happy with what you earn, and don’t use force to take money from others, and to the everyday person: take what you have and share it with others. John tells us to take the things that we want to hide, the things we don’t want to talk about, the things we want to keep private, and use them in a way that helps lift up the people around you.

After sitting for a while and reflecting on the speech from John, I think we’d all like to move on. We’d like to get someone else on the podium, someone who’s gonna let us off the hook. Well John gives us a glimpse of what’s coming next. And I got bad news for you, it sounds like it’s gonna get worse. This new person that’s coming has way more authority than John will ever have, this new person, is going to tell you how it really is, this new person is coming with the Holy Spirit and fire to clean you all out. If you thought John was bad, you haven’t seen anything yet. Rejoice! This is the good news that John is sharing! Not buying that, eh?

I think we misinterpret John’s message a little bit. I’ve certainly heard a fair bit of talks about how damnation and the fires of hell await you if you don’t straighten up your act, and if you read John’s speech in a certain way, that’s the meaning that you’re going to get. What I think we miss out of John’s speech is God’s desire for life. The ultimate conclusion is not that the wicked get punished, but that things need to change in order for life to grow. Look again at the directions of John’s answers. The replies to the people who ask are less about the people themselves, and more about the people that are going to benefit from this new way of living. Collecting the right amount of taxes is less about the tax collector, and more about the person struggling to make ends meet. Giving away the clothes is less about you breaking with your possessions, and more about allowing the naked person to be clothed. The reason that you continue to host interns like me is less about getting some of the needs in this congregation met, and more about equipping us interns to go and preach the word in another place.

This text puts a whole new spin on stewardship for us. That our money, and our talents, and our time, and our work is less about preserving ourselves and making us feel good about contributing, and more about the people who will benefit from the continued ministries of this place. Now that sounds an awful lot more like good news to me. I think what stings us about John’s words is that he is telling us how far all of this needs to go. John is giving us the formula for what needs are still out there, what ministry needs to be done, and telling us with his not so kind greeting that we have been blind to seeing it so far. And the Messiah, who is coming down the road next is going deeper than John, and going to tell you exactly how much needs to happen in order for life to flourish.

We don’t have any requirements in our Baptism that say you need to live your life in a certain way in order to be forgiven. We can sit here, and we can become greedy and selfish, exploit people, tend to our own needs until the end of our lives. But I ask you, when you hear the words of John telling us what needs to be done in order for life to grow, and when you think that whoever is coming after John is going to teach you a new way of living that goes beyond death and suffering, can you really just sit there and continue on with the same pattern you’ve always been in?

The caboose, or the beginning, depending on how you look at it

This is the sermon I did for the midweek service on Thursday...that's right a Thursday midweek. It makes sense when you look at the 7 day week, unless of course you put Sunday as the first day in the calendar, weirdos.

Malachi 3:1-4 "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty. ² But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap. ³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, ⁴ and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.

I’ve always been intrigued by the image of refining. The process of continually cooking something until it reaches perfection, or at least perceived perfection. The end product, as you know, of refining dirty, nasty gold that you find in the ground is the shiny, glamorous, reflective material that many of us wear on our fingers, or around our necks, maybe on our teeth if we wanted to start a rap career. The process of refining gold, using the image from Malachi, is a tad bit bland for me, however. Gold either is heated, or has electricity run through it until it reaches its pure state. Every batch of gold that comes out essentially looks exactly the same. I imagine that if you worked at a gold refinery, you’d probably be sick of gold by now. I’m sure you’ve heard the devotional story by now that the gold refiner keeps a careful eye on the gold and knows that it’s pure when he can see his reflection in the metal. This of course being a metaphor for how Jesus is carefully grooming us to be more in his image. That’s nice and heart warming, and I like it, but like any image or metaphor we use to describe something, it’s incomplete.

The reason I sway away from this image is because I’m not convinced that we all start from the same place, all get formed by the same process, and all come out looking the same. Have you ever stopped and looked at the people around you. They’re a little bit weird. Some are downright crazy. While we may find some things we have in common, there are still a number of quite distinguishing characteristics about all of us, not just in the way we look or act, but how things affect us. We all react differently to different situations. Think of the reading from Luke. You don’t try to fill a crooked road, and you don’t try to make the rough road low. Each obstacle that presents itself as needing work gets dealt with in a manner appropriate to the situation. And the results are not always the same. Maybe it’s just me, but when you level a mountain, I don’t think you get a straight path.

I’m not convinced that when God has done the sanctification in this world, when Jesus comes again, when all the roads, paths, mountains, and all manner of things are prepared that we all end up like cookie cut-outs, indistinguishable from one another. Maybe it’s my desire to hold on to some of my person that I really like, or maybe it’s my desire to not be like some of the quirky things I see in people like him. But as I look at my past, and hear the stories of others, it seems to me quite obvious that we neither came from the same place, nor are headed in exactly the same direction.

The gold refining process might be a good broad analogy for the ultimate beginning and end. We are all born into new life as part of this body of God. We all die and get shiny new resurrected bodies free from the burdens of death and sin. But what about the in between? What about where we are now? I liken it a little more to a refining process the writer of Malachi was not familiar with in his time. The refining of crude oil.

Crude oil, when found in the ground, is dirty, smelly, nasty, rotten, but technically still functional. You could put it in a car and it would run, but you’d do more damage than good, maybe even blow up your car. Instead the oil gets processed. But the process does not proceed from one end to the other in the same manner, first the oil gets separated into component parts, the parts which will be used for gasoline, kerosene, diesel fuel, oil, wax, etc. Then once separated, each of these parts goes through its own process, some further separated, some things get added, some taken away. Through this series of labor and energy intensive processes, the oil gets changed into things which more often than not don’t look quite like they used to. The purposes for these many different products are multitudinous. Some were required to get you here tonight, some required to cook the soup we just ate, some to clean the floors your feet are dirtying. All from the same source, with different processes and different results.

You see, I’m not convinced that we’re all gonna end up exactly the same in the end, and just by sitting next to one another now, you can tell, we’re not in the same place currently. But we are all in the midst of this continuing creation. We have been brought out from where we were. Dirty, gross, functional, but barely and certainly not a whole lot else, kind of like mud. And we’re all in the process of being refined, of being formed into what Christ would have us be. So that we can end up as different parts, but parts that function together for the sole purpose of God’s glory.

The beauty in this middle time, between the beginning and the end, and the difference between the gold and the crude oil, is that the refining is specific for you. Not in the plural sense, like the you is the broader congregation, or the church, or the world, but you, the singular. You the quirky, you the broken, you the child of God, you. Part of this process is coming to receive Christ’s blood, and Christ’s body. The body and blood of Christ given for you, for you.

We come to be the Body of Christ by the broader refining, the same process as gold if you will. But to become the individual parts of the body, we grow and change in a process that is designed to help us grow into the person that God intends us to be, to be the individuals that God wants us to be, to make the creation that God intends to make.

From where we sit now, it’s a bit difficult to make out the beginning and the end of what’s happening here. And I would contend that even the best theologians and the best spiritual leaders see that the beginning and end are a mystery. But they realize that we who live here in the middle of the beginning and the end, we are continually being refined, seeing in life both something beyond what was happening day in and day out, and valuing what God’s doing in the world right now. Sometimes that can be comforting, other times it can feel like a burden. But to know that we have a creator with our best interests at heart; active by continually refining gives us hope. So that we can walk through whatever life gives us, be it good or bad, and keep an eye on the horizon for what’s coming in the end.

What Shall I Say?

No, this is not some discernment book for your candidacy committee. Rather, it is my musings about the NCAA football national championship game which already happened. I am, how you say, a Michigan fan. I placed a bet on the OSU-UM game and lost. Now every Saturday next fall I will don a Buckeye shirt. I watched the game, and yes while it was a few plays away from being a blowout by the Buckeyes, it was also a few plays away from being a blowout by the Wolverines. But it played out the way it did and it was a close game. Now we watch Ohio State and Florida play in the "real" championship game. Here's my thoughts on the whole BCS process:

1) For those people who argue for a playoff in college football, well, you got one this year. It wasn't bracketed in a #1 vs. #4 & #2 vs. #3 fashion, but it happened. If a playoff system was implemented, then the underdogs would have to visit the favored team's HQ and play. Well, Michigan went to The 'Shoe, and they ended up losing. Did this prove that OSU was decidedly better than UM? No. If they played in a neutral stadium would the result be different? Maybe, but it might be different even if they played in the same stadium. My point is this, there is no way to objectively evaluate whether one team is better than the other. Subjectivity comes in the form of playing conditions, spirit of the team, injuries, booth reviews, any manner of variables in or out of game that shape the atmosphere and the game itself. In short, even the NCAA basketball system doesn't provide an objective answer to who is #1. What we got this year was a 4 team playoff structure between Michigan, Ohio State, Florida, and Arkansas, we just didn't call it a playoff, oh and Arkansas got dropped off at the curb.

2) Following previous statement, it is completely my opinion that Michigan is better than Florida. Anything I read either way will not sway my opinion. You could make an argument either way and have a convincing case, if you really look at things honestly. If you want ideas, I could post ideas. If you want stats, I could post stats. Any fool that says they can show me definitive evidence that one team is better than the other can take his/her "objective analysis" and choke it down with a nice cool bottle of "I don't give a crap". We've built in our minds that one team beating another determines who's best for the entire year. It's not objective, but it's what we've settled for. So until UM and UF play, which won't happen, there's no comprehensive answer to the question.

3) Why I think Fla should be in the championship game: Regardless of whether or not UM got "jobbed" by the voting, someone else should get to play Ohio State. I still think USC is a better team than UF, but they aren't even in the conversation. And now for a twist: why I think Florida shouldn't be in the championship game: whining and lobbying should be punished, not rewarded. I wish Urban Meyer and I were friends so I could call him and dump him. Both arguments made, UF belongs in the championship game.

4) It's not beneath me to root for Ohio State, especially when such bad press is going around about the Big Ten. But I've got extra ammo for a gator-stompin this year.

5) I'm still gonna love every minute of the Rose Bowl, because two of the top teams in the country are gonna smash it out. That's what football's about, not about championships and voting, but about insulting the other person's mother, then stepping on their neck until they tap-out.

That's my 1,347 cents worth. Go Blue!