First Sunday in Lent

Alice M.C. Ling, Senior Pastor
Matthew 4:1-11

The guy has a point, you know. Not that I’d ever go so far as to call Jesus a loser, but you have to admit that he doesn’t play by the rules most of us do. Rules, assumptions, norms, understanding of how the world works. Whatever you want to call it, he walks to the beat of a different drummer, that’s for sure. Can you tell me, please, why someone who hasn’t eaten for forty days would refuse to produce bread in whatever way he could? I assure you that it didn’t take any superhuman mind reading ability to perceive that after 40 days of fasting he was famished. What I don’t understand is why he wouldn’t succumb to a little something to snack on when it was offered, especially a nice warm loaf of bread. I don’t know how I ever got hooked up with this Jesus guy if he can say no to bread.

Then again, if I’m willing to stop and think about it for a few minutes – and if I’m willing to let you in on my inner workings when it comes to food, I just might be able to catch a glimpse of what the man was dealing with. I have to admit that my relationship with food operates on some kind of continuum. Near one end, there’s a place I visit far more often than I want to admit, I see food and it looks good, so I say yes. I’m offered food and I want to be polite, so I say yes. On my worst days, it really doesn’t matter when I last ate or what I last ate. If it strikes me as appealing, I smile and say thank you. When I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago, I had a mid-afternoon meal, deciding that that would be it for the day. I rehearsed what I had in the room that I could eat if I got hungry (some of it was even healthy), and decided to head back and tuck myself in for the night. But when the owner of the B&B recommended a place just down the road, and I knew this was my last chance to check it out, I headed back into the night. To my credit, I did waffle awhile before I went, and I only had a salad. But still, I didn’t need to be there at all.

There’s another place where I spend far more of my time, and that’s a place where I ponder and debate what I eat. We go out for lunch and I think about what we’re having for supper and how this choice will work alongside that. I think about the desserts I’ve eaten recently and the leftovers we have at home, and encourage all of that to add wisdom and restraint to the choice I make here and now. Sometimes it does; too often it doesn’t. Too often, I give in again and say, yeah, I should say no, but I’m not going to. This is what I want, and this is what I’m going to have. I’ll be good tonight. Or if not then, we’ll shoot for tomorrow.

But on my good days, on my strong and clear and focused days, I’m much more clear headed and able to say, no. Yes, those fries would taste good, but broccoli is better for me. I know that Janie’s apple cranberry pie is out of this world, but I don’t need it. I can have it another day. I know there’s still pizza in that box, but I don’t need another piece. For today, I’ll be better off if I stop here. I’ve had enough. I like the way I feel this way better than when I’m overstuffed, pumped up with sugar or overflowing with caffeine. I need to know when I need something and when I really don’t need another thing at all. I’m done.

What we eat is about far more than what we need to nourish and sustain our bodies. Whether we’re stuffing or starving ourselves, there’s a whole lot more going on than the food that is or is not going in to our bodies. Often it’s about deeper hungers and hurts, about restlessness and emptiness, about comfort and consolation and covering up some kind of hole that we neither want to glimpse nor reveal. So we bury it under food. Or clothes, computer games, alcohol, books, staying fit, accumulating a larger bank account or more houses or nicer cars. We don’t ever want to feel those feelings again, go through that humiliation again, admit that weakness again, catch a second glimpse of that hurt again, so we bury it, feed it, hide it, cover it and try our very best to run away from it.

In an amazing way, Jesus was saying, I could feed the hunger in my stomach right now, but even if I did, it wouldn’t feed my real and deepest hunger – and that’s for God and God alone. I’m not willing to let food take on an ultimate kind of importance in my life, or drive a wedge between myself and God. It’s not that he wasn’t into food – he was later accused of being a drunkard and a glutton because he and his friends had so much fun at the table. He did several miracles to feed thousands of people. But here, where the rubber hit the road, he knew that what mattered most to him was not visible or edible, tangible or collectible, bankable or investable. What mattered most was the word and love of God, and he wasn’t willing to do, say or eat anything that would move God out of first place.

When Jesus told his tempter that he would feed on the word of God rather than turn stones to bread, Satan picked up on that language and asked Jesus just how much he was willing to trust the word of God. In the Psalms, God said that if you fall, the angels will bear you up and carry you safely to the ground, so show me if you trust it. Climb up to the very tip top of this steeple and throw yourself over the edge. If you trust God enough, you’ll do it, and then you’ll have proof positive for yourself and for the skeptics you’re bound to meet along the way. To which Jesus calmly said, I trust God enough that I don’t need to test God. I know that when I need God, God will be there. But I don’t expect God to stand in the wings waiting for my beck and call, offering me a morsel of reassurance when and if I get a little anxious. In fact, more than likely I will get anxious, but God’s faithfulness doesn’t need an annual inspection to make sure that it’s still functioning as promised.

At which point, Satan moved on to the third temptation: the promise of ruling all the kingdoms of the world. In order to make this come true, all Jesus had to do was bow down in an act of false worship. Bow before me, and in the snap of your fingers, it can all be yours. I don’t know how much Jesus understood at that point of where his ministry was going to take him, but you have to wonder if he knew then what he came to know later, if he would have changed his answer. Clearly, he had come to establish a kingdom which would govern people’s lives. And to think, it all could have been his in the twinkling of an eye. Why not skip over all that unpleasantness of tauntings and trials, of scourging and ridiculing, or a cross and nails. It’s the end point that matters, right? Does it really matter how you get there as long as you get there? It’s a question that each of us has to answer from time to time, but for Jesus, the answer was clear and unquestioning. Yes, the way you get there matters every bit as much as where you get to. He was not willing to worship any one or anything other than God, regardless of how much easier it made the road. He wouldn’t try to soften the cost of discipleship if it meant turning away from God.

The people of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and during that time, they were faced with temptations about hunger, about putting God to the test and about false worship. And in each case, they failed their faith and their God miserably. Jesus began his ministry with 40 days in the wilderness and faced precisely the same temptations. This time, where the Israelites had stumbled, Jesus walked steadfast and sure. And we have and we do face the same temptations: questions of what we will use to touch and fill the hunger that lies deep within each of us, how much evidence and proof we want before we can trust, and how able and willing we are to walk the road in front of us, and whether we’ll try to short circuit the path in order to make it smoother and easier.

Jesus didn’t play by our rules and still refuses to live by our standards. One of the questions before us this Lent is whether we will be willing to listen to his wisdom and learn from his faith in order to live by his standards and walk in his path.

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Second Sunday after Epiphany

Alice M.C. Ling, Senior Pastor
Isaiah 49:1-7, John 1:29-42

How do you make decisions? I suppose it depends what the decision is, but I suspect most of us have a preferred and instinctive style. There are those who gather facts, do research, weigh pros and cons, and in a perfectly rational, linear sort of way decide what’s what – which car to buy, what to eat for dinner, how much money to give the church, what career to enter and whether and when to change jobs. A + B = C, so of course C is the plan. No questions asked, no conversation required. Others of us feel our way around the choices. We may try to use logic, and on some decisions actually succeed at doing that, but overall, it’s a matter of feel and instinct and intuition and just knowing what’s right in some inarticulate deep in the gut sort of way. Or continuing to weigh the options until the course of action does eventually become clear.

One part of the question of how we make decisions is the question of how quickly or slowly. I have a friend who likes to say, I’m a Gemini and we’re the worst at making decisions, so don’t leave it to me! One of my favorite ways to talk about the timeline for decision making is the Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator. According to this framework, there are four categories of pairs that talk about how we function in the world, and one of those pairings is a continuum referred to as Judging or Perceiving. A “J” as we like to refer to those on the Judging side, asks straightforward, rational sorts of questions, learns when the deadline is, goes to work and comes up with a result promptly – well before the deadline. A “P” or perceiving type of person is the creative sort who wants to know what the options are and will spend an eternity of time exploring those choices. Give them a deadline or they will never feel like they’ve weighed all of their choices. Why narrow down and focus in prematurely? You never know when something better might come along, so stay open and flexible; creativity takes time.

I may well be missing something, but it seems to me that all of those variables and categories go out the window when it comes to this morning’s Gospel lesson and that roadside encounter between John’s disciples and Jesus. They may have been J’s who make decisions quickly, but there was absolutely no time allowed for data gathering and linear thought. John watched Jesus walk by, said, “Look, here is the Lamb of God.” And his two followers turned away from John and headed off behind Jesus. Just like that. And while P’s are apt to operate on instinct and intuition, no self-respecting P would ever jump that quickly. Who knows who else might be coming around the next bend? Maybe they would have a better approach. Were they all simultaneously feeling restless and uneasy and ready for a new adventure? Had they grown bored with John? Or disillusioned? Had a falling out the night before about the words he used when he baptized or gotten sick and tired of that dismal diet of locusts and wild honey? Had their conversations filled them with so much anticipation that words like Lamb of God and Messiah triggered a knee jerk readiness to launch themselves from their current location? Just what was so compelling about the sight and sound of Jesus, or the words that John spoke about him, that caused them to turn away from everything they’d known up to this point to head off into the sunset behind a complete stranger?

I don’t think we know. I’m sure that John had set the stage and prepared them for their openness to Jesus. But I also think there was something so uniquely compelling about Jesus that, once Andrew and his friend were in Jesus’ presence, nothing other than discipleship made any sense. Rational or not, logical and linear or wild and wacky, it really didn’t matter to them. They had gotten a whiff of something unique, and in the very depths of their being, they simply knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that they had no choice but to up and follow. And so follow they did. In the end, it really wasn’t even about thinking or decision-making; it was about doing. There was something magnetic and overwhelming about being in Jesus’ presence, and what else could they do? Jesus walked up, John said, here is the Lamb of God, and two disciples turned and followed Jesus. He asked them what they were looking for, and they asked him where he was staying. He told them to come and see.

I’m well aware, as I assume we all are, that Jesus is no longer here in the flesh, walking the road in front of our houses, calling us to come and see and to follow him on the road to Boston or to Concord or wherever he may be headed. And yet here we are. For some reason, and with differing levels of commitment and confidence, we’ve decided to follow, or at least to check this Jesus thing out. Has something grabbed us by the lapel that we couldn’t resist or ignore, so we turned on our heels and set out to follow? Or are we still exploring and pondering and trying to decide how seriously we’re going to take this fellow Jesus? How do we decide? From where do we hear God calling? What is it that compels us enough that we just might pull a few things together and take off to follow in someone’s wake? Have we found him in the church? Will we? Or somewhere else altogether?

I was drawn to words I read this week by a man who was busy making his way inside a religious organization. He wrote:

     I went into religion partly because I was not very good at dealing with the world… In my innocence I confused spirituality with droopiness, and I imagined myself with equally droopy colleagues, sighing blessings to each other.
     I got a rude shock. Synagogue (and church) …meetings are not the Communion of the Saints, and an awful lot of religious business is concerned with balance sheets, not blessings. At international meetings where the pace is hotter, I got used to seeing clerics fingering calculators as expertly as their beads.…
     This led to a crisis in my religious life. My religious organization was a place where I gave blessings; this was after all what I was paid to do. But it was not a place where I seemed to receive any – at least not obviously. As my teacher tartly remarked when I complained to him, the congregation employed me to solve their problems. I didn’t pay them to solve mine.

The writer goes on to say that he got a lot of his blessing and inspiration from places he hadn’t expected – from the world he had rejected: in airport lounges, bars, cafes, bus queues. And to his astonishment, the still small voice of God even came to him through a juke box. He listened over and over to words familiar to many of us: “Where Have all the Flowers Gone?” Young girls had picked them. They had given them to their men. The men went to war and were killed. Out of their graves flowers grew, and then young girls picked them again. With those words as a backdrop, he was in a café in Germany and saw a young girl and a boy at the next table. A vase of flowers sat between them. He says, “The full tragedy of Europe came home to me, and I knew the work I must do. So many people had to be reconciled to break that terrible repetition. God had spoken. (Lionel Blue, Resources for Preaching and Worship, Year A, pages 52-53)

The religious organization to which he turned failed him and did not provide blessings. Through the juke box, God spoke and said, Come and see, this is work I am doing, this is work you can do, come and see. Come and work with me.

Contrast that with the story of a Japanese Zen Buddhist who spent time in a French monastery. After he had been there about a month, he only had one question. It seemed to him that the monks did not live very well. They worked hard, their food was neither good nor plentiful, and they did not get enough sleep. “Yet you are joyful,” he said, “and I want to know: from where does this joy come?” (Kathleen Norris, The Christian Century, January 15, 2008, page 22) Come and see. Come and walk with us.

If the Church is now Christ’s body, called to carry on Jesus’ witness and ministry, what do you think people see when they look at us and our life together? Do they see a community more concerned with balance sheets than blessings, or do they see a group of people overflowing with joy even in the midst of challenges and struggles? God spoke in Nazareth through Jesus, the carpenter’s son, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. God speaks through Benedictine monks and juke boxes. How clearly is God speaking through us? When we invite people to come and see, what do they see? What’s the message, the song, the light that we’re sharing with the world? I pray it will be one of joy, of hope, of love and of peace.

Amen.
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Epiphany Sunday

Alice M.C. Ling, Senior Pastor

Isaiah 60:1-6, Matthew 2:1-12

There’s no way of knowing, so I suppose it’s pointless speculation, but I have to wonder if they were restless and looking for something new and exciting to break the monotony, or if they’d just settled in for a long winter’s nap. Was it a delightful 75 degrees, cool breeze, gentle sun, and the perfect day to set out on an adventure? Or was it the coldest night of the year, winds howling, snow blowing, not fit for man nor beast, with every weather person in the country advising no one to go out regardless of the emergency? Were they deeply in love with each and every person who shared their houses and lives, still basking in the joy of a new marriage or reveling in the delight of a new baby? Or were they more than grateful for a chance to get away and the gift of a moment’s peace? Were they looking for a life-changing, world-rearranging journey that would finally help them make sense of their existence, or desperate for a quiet corner there they could crawl up in a ball and try to recover from the rat race that had left them utterly and completely depleted? Just who were those wise guys anyway, and what in the world compelled them to pack some treasures in a saddlebag and head out across the desert with nothing more than a flickering strand of light to point the way?

It was an amazing journey that led them to King Herod’s door asking the whereabouts of the child who had been born king of the Jews. We don’t know much about them – even less than we’re inclined to think we know. Regardless of what the old carol says, they weren’t kings. They were magi, which means their work was a combination of astrology, astronomy and dreams. We don’t know how many of them there were. Sure, they gave three gifts, so we seem to have latched on to that number, but Matthew didn’t think the count was significant enough to pass along. They came from the East, probably from Persia or Babylon, which was a long way from Jerusalem, so without a doubt they’d been on the road a long time. This was no idle Sunday afternoon meandering for lack of anything better to do; this was a major commitment and investment of time and resources. They’d come from the East, which means they were Gentiles and not Jews. And yet they’d come in search of the newborn king of the Jews. It’s all really quite odd, don’t you think?

Sure, maybe we can write it off to the astronomy thing. A new and intriguing star in the sky would get to folks who spent their lives watching the stars, and would be bound to tug at their curiosity and lead them outside. But these days, that would mean outside to set up a telescope, to find the best vantage point for viewing and studying. No need to leave home for that. And yes, Jews had been in exile in Babylon, so maybe these folks had bumped up against some of them and knew about their hopes and longings and the ancient promises about a king who was to come and make everything right. But that was a king for others – not them. What sort of curiosity could possibly stir them deeply enough to propel them out of their living rooms or off their observation decks and send them out to trudge across the desert for a year or two? What sort of longing and desire that attached itself to them so deeply that they were wiling to invest so much in such an odd journey?

From what I can find in the text, it was something about the newborn king of the Jews. It wasn’t just a star they were following. It was a king they were seeking. And not just out of curiosity, but so that they could pay him homage, so they could give rich and extravagant gifts, so they could fall at his feet and worship him, show him their hearts’ devotion, welcome him to the world and seek his wisdom – perhaps for their lives and everyone else’s at the same time.

I marvel at their openness and their longing. Something latched on to them in such a way that they couldn’t ignore it, whether they wanted to or not, and so they set out. They were open to more than what they already knew, more than they’d experienced, more than they could understand or explain, and so they followed it. Followed the star, followed their intuition, followed the longing that refused to give them a moment’s rest or peace. And while I don’t know what they expected to find once they found this child that had been born king of the Jews, I’m fairly sure it wasn’t a carpenter’s son, born to a peasant woman, with some strange sort of scandal circling around about when and how he had been conceived and where he had come from. And still, none of that stopped them. None of that appeared to matter to them. They recognized him for who he was, they worshipped him, they praised God for the ways in which God was working and moving in the world, they offered their gifts and they offered themselves to this child, and to the God who had sent him in to the world.

Perhaps there’s been a time or two in your life when something latched on to you and wouldn’t let go until you gave in to it, followed where it was leading, and gave yourself over to something you couldn’t begin to understand or explain. I hope so. But I also know it’s not the way we’re apt to do things – individually or as a congregation. We’re much more rational than that. And logical. And predisposed to assuming we know the answer before a question is even asked. We’re cautious and reserved, measured and intentional. But if that’s the only way we ever work or move or live in the world, we just may miss the miracle of new life and new possibility that is being born in our midst. We just may miss out on the presence and miracle and gift of a new born child who has been born to lead us, has come to save us from ourselves and all that threatens to harm us, has come to lead us to God and one another.

I pray these words by Kate Compston will become our words and our prayer for the journey that lies ahead.

Beckoning God –
who called the rich to travel toward poverty,
         the wise to embrace your folly,
         the powerful to know their own frailty;
who gave to strangers
        a sense of homecoming in an alien land
and to stargazers
        true light and vision as they bowed to earth –
we lay ourselves open to your signs for us.
Stir us with holy discontent over a world
which gives its gifts to those
        who have plenty already
        whose talents are obvious
         whose power is recognized;
and help us
both to share our resources with those who have little
and to receive with humility the gifts they bring to us.

Rise within us, like a star;
and make us restless
till we journey forth
to seek our rest in you.
(Kate Compston, in Resources for Preaching and Worship, Year A, page 44)

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Reign of Christ Sunday

Reverend Lucy M. Alexander
Colossians 1:11-20, Luke 23:33-43

Who is He?

Jesus.
The Christ.
Saviour.
Word.
Of God.
Born in human flesh.
Healer.
Redeemer.
Drunkard.
Drunkard?
Oh Yes, Jesus had a reputation. Matthew tells us: The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”
Rabbi.
Monarch.
Refugee.
Refugee?
Indeed, for Jesus’ family fled to Egypt when he was born.
Seated at the right hand of God.
Maker of heaven and earth.
Yet he was homeless, a wanderer.
Homeless?
A wanderer?
Yes. Jesus said that the Son of Man had nowhere to rest his head. Even foxes and birds were better off than him.
Good shepherd.
Sovereign of all the world.
Crucified.
Crucified?
Dead?
Alive!
Alive?
Within and among us even now.
In you?
And me?
In all of us.
Jesus.
Christ.
Saviour.
Alive forever!
Alive forever!
(Seasons of the Spirit curriculum, Year C, Sunday, November 25, 2007)

Who is He? You’ve just heard the answer. And it’s full of questions. And that’s just as it should be. Marcus Borg, theologian and author, talks about two ways of thinking of Jesus: the pre-Easter Jesus and the post-Easter Jesus. He prefers this way of speaking of Jesus to thinking of the Jesus of history and the Jesus of faith. He doesn’t want to separate the living, breathing, historical man, from the Resurrected One who has pierced the hearts of so many down through the centuries. Except for one or two mentions of Jesus in historical texts of his time, there is no historical record of Jesus except through the gospels. And those gospels are permeated by the faith of those who recognized in Jesus a particular view of reality and of God. So where does that leave us?

Today, I think, we are offered three distinct ways of approaching – not answering – but approaching the question of who Jesus is. The first has to do with the fact that today is Reign of Christ Sunday. It is the last Sunday of the Christian year. It is in many ways the culmination of the Christian year. It is a grand view: Jesus reigning in our lives, in the world, in the cosmos. For those for whom such a view might seem too hierarchical, maybe even too exclusive, perhaps a circular image might work. Today we celebrate Jesus as the center of our lives. Our Colossians text for today says this: “He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Eugene Peterson describes the Christians in Colossae in this way. He says that these Christians are surrounded by a polytheistic culture. He says that, “most people of that day believed the air around them was thick with unseen spirits that humans ignored at their peril.” He says that, “we may think at first that this sounds strange and outdated, but
don't we live in fear of many powers ourselves? Don't we fear the power of greed, and war, and violence, and addiction, and commercialism? Doesn't it feel sometimes like the Powers That Be influence our lives more than our own careful plans and preparations, let alone the power of God? Who is He? Who is Jesus? Jesus is the One in whom all things are held together, in whom all the parts of our lives can be channeled towards an integrity of body, mind, and spirit.

Our second way of approaching who Jesus is comes with the end of the church year. Here we are today, as the Colossians text asserts, celebrating “all the strength that comes from his glorious power.” Tomorrow He won’t be here. It’s like looking over the top of a great mountain and seeing deep into the gorge on the other side. There is a sense of dizziness, maybe even of nausea. Tomorrow, we will be plunged into Advent, into the waiting with longing for a Messiah. We will be plunged into darkness, not being able to know what is to come, having no idea that there is a Mary who has felt some movement deep in the core of her being.

And yet this journey too is how we begin to get a sense of who Jesus is. We walk with Him, year after year. We wait. We watch Him be held tenderly in Mary and Joseph’s arms. We travel with Him as disciples, not really knowing where we’re going, but knowing this is the journey we must take. We fear the Romans and the increasing antagonism of the religious authorities. We sense what will happen if we go with Him to Jerusalem. And we do try to go, even as we want to flee. The anguish of His crucifixion is more than we can bear, even as the joy of His resurrection is also more than we can bear. We don’t know what to make of either one. And yet we walk, we try to walk with Him. Increasingly we know that He walks with us. One day we wake up and we know who He is, even in the midst of our not knowing.

Our Third way of approaching who Jesus is comes to us with today’s gospel text. It is this text that took my breath away as I was going over the lectionary texts for today for the first time. We are taken abruptly from the glory of reign of Christ Sunday directly to the crucifixion. As the text tells us, “when they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left….(and) the leaders scoffed at him, saying, 'He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!' The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, 'If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!'”

Save yourself! How many of us know all about that. When we are faced with a small bump in the road of our lives, we don’t need to save ourselves. We can turn to God for help. When we have a friend who is in trouble, a friend who is not too close to us to give us too much grief, we don’t need to save ourselves. We can turn to God for help.

When our lives feel fairly secure, we don’t need to save ourselves. We can turn to God for help. But what about those times when we, like Jesus, are on the cross? Can we turn to God then? What about those times when our very lives are in jeopardy, those times when we feel utterly doomed? Can we turn to God then? What about those times when we simply can’t get out of bed because of the blackness of the world around us?

Can we turn to God then? Or are we in such extreme circumstances that God seems to have lost all power. We have no choice but to save ourselves, because God couldn’t possibly do it. We have only ourselves.

This third way of approaching who Jesus is has to do with relationship: his deep, abiding faith in God, even at the depths of his life. We begin to approach who Jesus is, not by seeing Him alone. We begin to see who Jesus is, only by seeing how intertwined He is with God. It’s not that He doesn’t question God. It’s not that He doesn’t get angry at God. It’s not that He never becomes afraid, even as He knows God is with him.

It’s just this. God is at the core of who He is and that relationship transcends all.

Jesus.
          Crucified.
Crucified?
          Dead?
Alive!
          Alive?
Alive!
          Within and among us even now.

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