Month: February 2020

2/23/20

(Exodus 24:12-18; Ps. 2; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9)

            The confirmation class that I’m teaching this year at St. John’s is organized into eight sessions, each of which focuses on a major area in the Christian life: the Bible; church; prayer; that kind of thing. I do it this way, for one thing, because in a confirmation class there’s a certain amount of factual information that confirmands need to know.

            But I also do it this way because confirmands are almost always adolescents – these guys are in their mid-teens.  And that means, among other things, that they’ve at an age at which learned enough about the world to start making their own decisions about what’s important in life, and not just accept at face value what their parents and their culture have presented to them about that.  So in each of these classes I try to give them something about Christian faith which they can feel is real, is meaningful, has to do with life as we live it; and is not just the product of a closed system, which any church, unfortunately, can be.

            The subject of last Sunday’s class was Jesus; and in the course of preparing for it I came across a quote from a man named Dwight L. Moody, who was one of the great evangelists of the 19^thcentury in America.  This is what he said: “A rule I have had for years is: to treat the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal friend.  He is not a creed, a mere doctrine, but He Himself that we have.”

            Now, this is probably not an unfamiliar idea, many of us know the famous hymn, “What A Friend We Have In Jesus”; but I doubt that very many people are actually in the habit of thinking of Jesus in that way.  The truth of God’s presence among us – that God not only cares about us,, but loves us, all the time – is the basis of our faith, it’s what gives us life. And in thinking of Jesus Christ as our personal friend, we open ourselves to that truth in a uniquely immediate, and joyful, way. 

            But the idea has to be handled with care. It’s not right to think of Jesus as a friend, in the sense of someone we goof around with; or as a casual friend. Rather, Jesus is the kind of friend we seek out in those times in life when we need a friend, high times and low times: when we celebrate, when we mourn; when we’re uncertain about the future, whether that uncertainty makes us anxious and fearful, or excited and eager to explore.  At such times we want, and need, a friend whom we know knows us, and who we know will be our friend no matter what; a friend with whom we can be – and must be – completely honest; and a friend whom we know we can trust to tell us the truth, whether we’ll like it or not.

            Dwight Moody says he “has it as a rule” to treat Jesus Christ as a personal friend.  It’s good to think of it that way; because it is through regular, intentional behavior that we live in the truth, that Christ is alive.  Jesus Christ – in our Christian understanding, the second Person of the Trinity – God, the eternal God, beyond time – that God, in Jesus Christ, is alive, now, with us, here on earth.  Impossible.  But true. That’s what we Christians say.  And I think the gospel story we heard today – the story of the Transfiguration – is both an illustration of this truth, and a lesson about how we are to live with our friend, the Lord Jesus Christ.

            There’s something about why we’re hearing this story today that I think helps us understand all this.  In our church calendar, today is the Last Sunday After the Epiphany.  The lectionary readings for this particular Sunday are on a rotating three-year cycle, like almost all of the lectionary; the selections from the Old Testament, the Psalms, and the New Testament are all different each of those three years. But the gospel reading for this day is always the story of the Transfiguration; but told in one of the three different versions we find in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  So our church wants us to hear this story on this particular day.  And I think that’s because, as we stand here on this day of the church year, on the threshold of Lent, we look ahead of us, across a valley – the hard, gritty, this-world reality of Lent – to a pinnacle – the eternal life of the Resurrection, at Easter.  We stand here and see, in Christian faith, that both are part of God’s creation; and understand that Jesus Christ stands with us in both places: in this broken world, and in eternal life.  On one level, that’s the story of the Transfiguration.  And the story it tells is how Jesus Christ is our friend.

            This year we hear Matthew’s version.  He tells us, “Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.”  There are a couple of things to note about this. One is that Jesus had his own personal friends among the twelve apostles.  Peter – and the brothers James and John, the sons of Zebedee –  are these friends.  He takes these three apart with him one other time: in the garden of Gethsemane, at a time of deep anguish in his life, when he’s facing death – a time when – like anybody – he needs a friend, to just be there with him.  On this occasion he takes them “by themselves” – just the friends – “up on a high mountain” – a place presented throughout the Bible as the setting for a close encounter with God.  Jesus takes them up there because he wants them to experience something – something big, and important – and, as their friend, he wants to be there to live through it with them.

            And suddenly, “before them” (Matthew tells us) – right before their eyes – something happens to Jesus: “…he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.”  Mathew’s description is as hard for us to understand as we hear it as it must have been hard for the disciples to understand as they saw it, because it was unlike anything anyone had ever seen before: their friend Jesus was still recognizably himself, but also somehow – plainly -an entirely different kind of being. They are seeing Jesus Christ.

            And then: “Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.”  The language suggests that this is a conversation between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah which has already been going on, and of which the disciples have all of a sudden become aware.  So out of the blue, they find themselves in a completely different world.

            And Peter – good old Peter – tries to show that he’s not thrown by this, tries to show that he’s on top of the situation, by pronouncing that it’s good they’re all there, and he’ll make three dwellings, for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah; and it feels like he could keep on babbling until someone stops hm.. 

            And someone does.  Suddenly they all hear the voice of God, coming from a cloud; and Matthew tells us that this happens before Peter has finished speaking.  God is saying: Peter: stop.  Just stop.  There’s something completely new going on here, and don’t try to pretend that you’ve seen it before.  Just behold. This is my Son; listen to him!

            This is the lesson in this story. There are plenty of things about God that, in this life, we don’t understand. But Jesus Christ does; and Jesus Christ is our friend – and we listen to him.  We can trust him.  Because we can trust God.  

All this is too much for the disciples – as it’s too much for us, the reality of God’s presence in our lives is way too much for most of us most of the time – and the disciples fall to the ground, paralyzed with fear.  (Think about how much of the time we shut God out.)  And Jesus comes over, and touches them – reminding them, I’m still me; and I’m still your friend – and says, Get up and do not be afraid.

            Get up: do not be afraid: trust God.  Live life as the unique human being God created you to be.   As we listen to Jesus Christ – who is not a creed, a mere doctrine, but he himself, that we have, our personal friend – we live in the truth; to the glory of God. Thanks be to God.

2/16/20

(Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Ps. 119:1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37

            I have a friend who’s a long-time parishioner at a local church; she’s in her 70’s, and not long ago her two grown children, and their families, were visiting her for the weekend; and on Sunday morning, as she was getting ready to go to church – by herself, the others weren’t in the habit – one of her kids said, Mom, why do you go to church?

             Knowing her, and the kind of children she would have brought up, I’m sure it was a sincere question.  And I think she was probably glad of the chance to answer it; and not just because it was her kids and she wants them to understand her; but because it’s part of our life as Christians, to ask ourselves that question.  It’s healthy, and it’s necessary, because life is always new, and the answer is always evolving.  Why do I go to church?  Why am I here?

            There are two ways to answer that question. One is short-range, and specific: what am I doing here today?  What’s going on in my life that I want to work on here, now, in this worship service; rather than just sit here and watch it happen?  What’s on my mind, and my heart?  Who do I need to pray for?  What am I anxious, or angry, or fearful, about, that I need to offer up to God? What am I thankful for today?  Is there something I need to confess, to face the truth about?  Am I really present here today?  Lord, help me to be present today.

And there’s the question in its larger context: Why do I come to church in the first place?  Why do I come here for all of that?  Of course, there are many ways to answer that question.  But for me, one of them would be: we come to church, on a regular basis, because we want to live truthful, honest lives, in a world that’s noisy and confusing, and in which we are pulled, powerfully, in many directions. And here, in church, we’re not going to allow ourselves to be pulled: there is one God, one source of truth, who governs our lives, and whom we strive to recognize; and we’re going to be intentional about that.   We want to see, speak, and do the truth.  And we come here to learn about that because we can feel that the truth is here, uniquely, in this Christian story that we soak ourselves in; that we explore together, that we celebrate together, that we work on together, week in and week out.  That’s why we come to church. 

I’m thinking about this because the lectionary readings for today, the sixth Sunday in Epiphany, all seem to point toward an answer to this question. 

            On first hearing, these three readings don’t appear to have anything in common, other than the fact that all of the people we hear from in them – Moses, Paul, and Jesus – all sound just a bit like they got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.  Because – each in his own way – they’re all three responding to the same truth about us humans (about all of us together, and each one of us individually), which is: how easy it is for us to go wrong; and, at the same time, how simple it is to go right.  (Notice that “easy” and “simple” are not the same thing: something may be simple, and still be very hard to do.)

            The sayings of Jesus in the gospel passage sound like a grab-bag of judgments on various points of the Law, which seem unrelated, except to say that we’re not nearly as hard on ourselves as we should be, and shame on us.  But if we look at them a little more closely, a common theme emerges.  Jesus mentions a bunch of things that the Law prohibits: you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not swear falsely; you shall divorce only in the proper manner as prescribed by law.  But Jesus goes further: he says, forget murder: if you’re angry with someone, if you call someone a fool, you’re just as liable to judgment.  Forget adultery: if you look at someone with lust in your heart, you’re just as liable to judgment; forget swearing falsely: if you swear at all – if you use an oath of any kind – you’re just as liable to judgment; and so on.  Sounds crabby, doesn’t it?

            But it’s not that.  In each of these comparisons– as different as they appear to be: murder and casual insult, the act of adultery and a lustful glance, swearing falsely and swearing at all – what we’re actually doing, in both cases, Jesus sees, is putting ourselves in place of God.  We’re shoving God out of the way, ignoring God’s presence in our lives. The degree of the offense may be different, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves, Jesus says: in both, the movement of the spirit is in essentially the same direction.  Even when the offense seems small – is small – we’re bypassing God, shutting God out; and we need to be aware of that; because when we do that, we cut ourselves off from the one true source of love and peace and joy.  That’s why Jesus cares about this. It’s not about punishment: not about making sure the guilty get their just deserts.  It’s about staying awake to the life of God that is right there waiting for us: God in Christ, who tells us, I have come that you might have life, and have it in abundance.  How easy it is to forget that; how easy it is to go wrong.

            And in today’s reading from First Corinthians, Paul points us toward how simple it is to go right.  As in most of his letters, Paul is here writing back to a church he founded and has moved on from, but with whom he stays in touch, to make sure they stay on track.  And the message has gotten to Paul that there’s a problem: the church in Corinth has split into rival factions.  One of the leaders there is a man named Apollos, and some church members have been saying, we need to follow what this guy is teaching; and others saying, no, Paul’s the man; and that’s what they’re squabbling about.

            Now, Paul writes nothing here about the substance of what Apollos is saying; nor, whatever that might be, does Paul say, he’s wrong.  In fact, he actually endorses Apollos, on a level with himself: Paul writes, I planted, Apollos watered; but this is what’s important: God gave the growth.  So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.  And this is not an idea, for Paul, it’s not a theory he’s proposing, or something which he hopes is true: it’s a description of reality, of the way things actually work, in life.   And that’s what we need to focus on.  The way to go right is simple: turn to God: keep our eyes on God: only God gives the growth.

            Only God gives the growth. That same truth is expressed beautifully, and powerfully, in words of Moses that we heard in the first lesson today.  This reading is from very near the end of the book of Deuteronomy, very near the end of the long, long story of Moses (four whole books of the Bible.)  He’s led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, over many miles, many years; and they’re now at the very edge of the Promised Land, finally, on the bank of the River Jordan.  Moses also led them through the wilderness of the spirit, to a relationship with God; and now he gives them the Law (that’s the book of Deuteronomy), to guide them forward, after he’s gone, which is going to happen very soon (Moses dies four chapters later.).  And at the very end, as we heard today, Moses says, “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity“ (that is, according to the Law, things to do, and things to avoid.)  And having put those two before them, his final word to his people is this: “Choose life…, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you….”

            Choose life.  It’s no different for us.  I think that’s a pretty darn good capsule description of what we do here: of why we come to church: we are here to choose life.  However imperfectly, however messily we do it, we choose to open our eyes to God’s new creation that is going on around us all the time.  We choose continually to face in that direction, to join in that work: we plant, and we water, knowing that God will give the growth.  So we give thanks to God.  We give thanks for this life that we have here together, and for the new life that we see is forever springing up around us.  Thanks be to God.