Breathless

Fifth Sunday of Lent

Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1-14

Sermon: Breathless

It was four summers ago that I experienced what, for men, is thought to almost rival the pain of child-birth. I gave birth to a stone that was ... was ... about this big (indicating quite a small size). When mild morning discomfort gave way to discomfort that bordered on the extreme, Jan did a stint as an Indy car driver and got me to a distant Tennessee hospital in record time. I was quickly wheeled into the emergency room on a sleepy Sunday morning and then everything but the pain seemed to slow down. A young doctor strolled into the ER yawning and picked up the clipboard. “You’re Mr. Ledbetter?” he asked. “Yes” I said through gritted teeth. Words were becoming a luxury at this point. “I’ve known some Ledbetters” he said. I tried to nod pleasantly. “So what seems to be the problem?” he asked blandly. “It hurts ... real ... bad ... right ... here.” I said through gasps of breath. I pointed to my side where it felt like something was trying to burrow its way out. “Hmm” he said, puzzling over this information. “Hmm” he said again. By this time I am literally—not figuratively, but literally—writhing in pain on the examination table. “Hmm” he said a third time. “Mr. Ledbetter,” he asked, “on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest, could you—“ he paused thoughtfully, thinking I would appreciate this opportunity to participate in my own diagnosis, “—rate your pain?” I don’t quite remember my response, but I don’t think it was ... numerical.

Has this happened to you? Have you been asked to “rate your pain”? And did it fit neatly on a scale of 1 to 10? And in thinking about rating our pain, I found myself wondering if mental health professionals ever ask their patients to rate their emotional pain? “Mr. Ledbetter, I know you’re frustrated and discouraged, but on a scale of 1 to 10, just HOW frustrated and discouraged are you?” Perhaps there’s a new angle for mental healthcare.

So ... how DO you “describe” emotional pain? How do you describe Bewilderment? Loss? Grief? Desolation? Hopelessness?

Perhaps simple words won’t do. Perhaps a picture is needed ... a visual representation that makes words unnecessary.

Years ago, when I was a young pastor in New England, a frightened mother brought her teenaged son over to the parsonage and asked him to show me a drawing he’d done recently. Reluctantly, he pulled a drawing from a binder and held it in front of me. He was obviously a skilled young artist. His drawing showed, in great detail, all kinds of horrible violence being done to the subject of the drawing which, he admitted, was himself. Like his family, he was a young man of few words, but his drawing spoke volumes of the extraordinary pain he was feeling within himself.

This seems to be where we find the prophet Ezekiel in this morning’s reading. Ezekiel is a prophet who speaks to the nation of Israel in a time following crushing losses and the exile of many of its people to far-distant lands. We’ve made a huge leap in a couple of weeks time. We had been journeying with the children of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness following their triumphant escape from slavery in Egypt. Under the leadership of Moses, they slowly made their way to the promised land ... and were slowly shaped into a people worthy of their calling and worthy of the gift of the land.

In time, the people entered the land, established themselves, and were transformed from a wandering band of refugees into a nation ... the nation of Israel. King David was the first ruler of the unified northern and southern kingdoms ... and wise King Solomon succeeded his father. But the nation that should have remained the crown jewel in its creator’s crown became complacent and corrupt. They forgot their humble beginnings, they forgot how they were slowly forged into a people of God, they forgot the lessons of the wilderness, and they forgot the God who had shaped and guided them.

As they became complacent and corrupt, they also became highly vulnerable to being overtaken by their powerful neighbors. First the northern kingdom fell, then the southern kingdom and the city of Jerusalem and its temple along with it. Jerusalem and its Temple were the most obvious symbols of God’s favor, God’s blessing. When the city and the Temple were destroyed by invading armies, Ezekiel was among those deported to what is modern day Iraq. It is in that land, far from the place of his birth and far from the place of God’s promise that Ezekiel speaks his prophecies to the fallen people of Israel.

They had once had everything. Now they had nothing. No land. No promises. No faith. No future. No God.

Could you please try and “rate” your emotional pain?

Standing among the exiles, Ezekiel gives voice to the mood and the feelings of his fellow exiles. But the pain and the loss are so deep, that mere words will not do. Ezekiel describes what feels like a visionary trance ... in his vision, the Spirit of God takes Ezekiel to a desolate valley ... desolate like the people are desolate. But the desolation is deeper than that. It’s not simply a barren valley, but a barren valley full of bones ... dry bones ... the dry bones of “the whole house of Israel.”

It’s hard to imagine a more powerful way to portray hopelessness than this bleak vision of the prophet. And we do well not to move to quickly through the vision ... to allow ourselves to stand alongside Ezekiel and wordlessly ponder the immensity of loss, the enormity of grief, the deep and hollow hopelessness of a people who had lost so much that now it seemed they had lost the very future itself and the God who makes futures possible.

Ezekiel’s vision has “connected” with people over many, many generations ... paintings and literature and music abound with references to Ezekiel and the valley of dry bones. Perhaps you, like I, grew up singing the old slave spiritual “Dem bones gonna rise again.” It was a fun song to sing around the campfire at church camp, but it pointed to a real experience of slavery and the desolation of those whose future had been robbed from them.

Jan and I have just driven by Donner Lake in the high sierra as we have many times over the years ... and I don’t think there’s a single time I have gone by Donner when I haven’t thought of that band of travelers stranded in the snow during a winter very much like this winter. The chill in the air I feel as I drive by Donner is not winter so much as it is the lingering hopelessness of a people who fear that their future has disappeared and their lives soon along with it.

Have you ever had the wind knocked out of you? I remember as budding 6th grade football star getting blocked by what must’ve been the biggest kid in the state. I sailed backward a good distance and when I landed on my back, every bit of breath was knocked out of my lungs and I thought I was going to die right there on the grass. I didn’t die, of course, but it felt like I was going to.

When you get the “wind” knocked out of you ... there is what feels to be an interminable period of time before finally, with a gasp, breath is drawn into your lungs ... but for a while it feels as though you will die ... but you don’t, it only feels that way ...

Ezekiel’s community is down for the count ... there is no breath within them ... and they feel like their end is near. And Ezekiel offers this extraordinary graphic depiction of Israel’s “breathlessness”. But Ezekiel’s calling as a prophet of God wasn’t simply to give voice to the pain and desolation of the people, it was also to give voice to the presence and the promises of God.

In his vision, God commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones: “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!” He prophesies to the dried bones of his people that God’s breath will come upon them, reconnect them, and give them new life and new hope. The breath and the wind that had been knocked out of them is about to reenter them and with the reanimating breath and wind and Spirit of God there also comes a new sense of “future” ... the future is no longer closed off, dead and dried. Ezekiel prophesies of a future that can be seen from the valley of dry bones.

In many ways, the story of the valley of dry bones is a story of learning to breathe again. It is a story of finding ourselves flat on our backs with no breath and no future. But the story doesn’t have to end there. For a powerful reanimating breath is available to those who will trust the days ahead, and trust that the Spirit of life that is God is more powerful than our despair and is able to create new futures out of dried bones.

In the middle East, in the midst of what must feel like suffocating realities, some of Ezekiel’s descendants are trying to breathe new life and hope into the seemingly hopeless pain of the ancient conflict between Jews and their neighbors. I’ve just read an email from one such descendant of Ezekiel’s who works hard to bring together different faith groups so as to encourage dialogue and understanding and new respect. He describes a December meeting of women on both sides of the ancient conflict. They visited one another’s homes in Galilee and enjoyed dessert and conversation. One of the Jewish women described Hanukkah to the others, they all lit candles and then they prayed together for a better future for everyone in their region.

Descriptions like these feel like new whispers of breath coming into flattened lungs ... and with the whispers of breath, hints of a new future that is brighter than the shadowed time in which these women now live.

The Spirit of God which can create new futures out of old dried bones seems to blow the strongest in community ... in our gathered times. It is when we light candles of hope together and breathe the same air as we pray for one another that the Spirit of hopeful futures seems most lively and present.

Perhaps what we need are more classes on “breathing” and “birthing”. As we think of the church as it seeks to take its rightful place in helping create new futures in our world, we could do worse than to think of ourselves as a “breathing and birth class”.

When we were preparing for the birth of Jordan—a quarter century ago this Tuesday, we attended birthing classes. And I’ve forgotten most of what I learned in that pre-natal class, but what I do remember is that the moms-to-be were taught how to face the coming pain of labor by learning to breathe properly and we birthing partners were taught how to coach them in their breathing.

Isn’t that a pretty good image of our role as peacemakers as a church and as hope and future builders with one another as we encounter some of life’s devastating times? Learning to breathe and learning how to coach others to breathe.

Sometimes we are the ones who need to catch our breaths and need the coach of a loving friend ... and sometimes we will be called upon to coach another who needs to catch their breath.

Long ago I described a college retreat where we considered the story of the paralyzed man who was taken to Jesus by four caring friends. Jesus pronounces the man’s healing by saying to him: “pick up your bed and walk.” It’s a hopeful declaration that announces new hope and a new future for that man. It was akin to saying, in today’s context: “Breathe, breathe, breathe.” We were then encouraged to speak that word to one another and I remember as well now as the day it happened my friend getting on his knees in front of me, taking my hands in his, looking me in the eye and declaring to me: “pick up your bed and walk, sucker.” It was my friend Steve who better than anyone in my life knew my own struggles and trials and paralysis. He was saying in effect: “You’ve had the wind knocked out of you, now breathe and stand and walk into a new future.”

In an ironic shift of time and circumstance, it is to Steve’s wife and now his widow that I have said more times than I can count over the past few months: “Breathe, Polly ... breathe.” And I can only hope and trust that the encouragement to “breathe” and her courage to continue breathing will help open up a new future for her and her two children.

The life and future giving Spirit of God is as inexorable and true as the growth-full powers of spring that calls forth new life into barren branches, puffs latent buds to blossom, and calls to a living fruitfulness what might have once been called a valley of dry bones.

Dear friends, let us not forget how to breathe in the life-returning energies of the one whose life and love cannot be overcome by death ... and let us not fail, when we, like Ezekiel, are called upon, to coach another to find her breath ... his breath ... our breath ... our hopeful future.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Amen.

Sustained

Fourth Sunday of Lent

Psalm 23

The Divine Shepherd

A Psalm of David.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;

he leads me beside still waters;

he restores my soul.

He leads me in right paths

for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,

I fear no evil;

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff—

they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

my whole life long.

Sermon: SUSTAINED

Many of you likely know LeDayne McLeese Polaski ... she is the program coordinator of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America. She preached here a month ago or so following the peace fellowship’s board meetings that we hosted. Recently I saw references on LeDayne’s Facebook update to “boot camp”. Now that’s a pretty odd reference for someone who helps direct a peace organization. I dropped her a note about this expressing my curiosity ... it turns out that it’s an exercise class ... a very rigorous and demanding exercise class ... it’s exhausting, but, I guess, also exhilarating.

Life can be like an ongoing boot camp, don’t you think? A boot camp that strips you, disorients you, leaves you panting with thirst ... but it can be exhilarating as well.

Lent is kind of like our annual “spiritual boot camp” ... it challenges us ... puts us to the test ... it invites us to draw on whatever inner reserves we have. And it can exhilarate us, all the same.

Lent is a season where we consider a bit more plainly some of the challenging conditions and questions of existence. What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to live on this earth? What does it mean to inhabit this unique body of mine? What does it mean to suffer? What does it mean to live in relationship with people who are so terribly imperfect ... just like me?

In the past three weeks of Lent, we have used the weekly lectionary texts to suggest some of the challenging conditions of life and living that we encounter on this winding journey we call life: the condition of being naked (that is: being stripped and vulnerable, yet finding grace) ... the condition of being lost (that is: leaving behind the familiar and losing our way, and finding new ways)... the condition of being thirsty (that is: naming the parched and fearful places within, and then discovering Jesus’ water of life). Painful though they can be, these challenging and sometimes painful conditions can be a means to spiritual growth and the deepening of our lives and faith. As one of my Lenten authors has said: “pain makes theologians of us all.”

Naked, lost and thirsty are only a few of the many challenging conditions of body and soul that we encounter along the way. It is to say, in part, that the journey of life is exceptionally “REAL”.

I have a close friend who has been living with prostate cancer for 20 years now. For a good number of those years his PSA count was so low as to almost declare the cancer gone. Almost. Recently his PSA levels began to rise and he and his physician decided it was time to get stern with the disease once more. For the past 8 weeks, my friend has been receiving daily radiation treatments ... nearly a hundred zaps each day from a machine that he has named “the Beast”.

My friend is a retired pastor who has heard it all and seen it all. One of the things he has decided he has seen too much of is “spiritual pablum” ... that is, inspirational drivel that too many of his friends and former church members send him that seem to him to trivialize life’s challenges and struggles and pain. Recently he decided to start his own blog with a few like-minded friends. In an introductory statement at the top of the blog, he expresses the reason for the blog this way:

He says: Sometimes, we grow weary of the inspirational stuff we receive over the Internet and long for something a little more personal, something that reveals the struggles, hurts, and doubts that occur in our lives, something that is “Skin Horse real.” “Skin horse real” is the name of his blog. He goes on: “Skinhorsereal” is an idea we borrowed from The Velveteen Rabbit, a wonderful fantasy story written by Margery Williams. In her story, the Velveteen Rabbit asks the Skin Horse, who had been around for a very long time and was very wise and rather beat up, “What is real?” The Skin Horse answers that when someone loves you for a very long time, that’s when you become real. This blog exists for this purpose.

I want to suggest that Lent ... this season of recognizing our nakedness and lostness and thirst is a season of seeking to become “skin horse real”.

VELVETEEN RABBIT by Margery Williams (this starts at the point when the Skin Horse and the Rabbit are talking)

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

When we are naked and know our nakedness, when we are lost and know our lost-ness, when we are thirsty and know our thirst ... it is then that we become most vulnerable to LOVE and most vulnerable to God ... and it is then that we become most capable of becoming FULLY HUMAN and FULLY ALIVE to use that wonderful phrase from St. Irenaeus. Irenaeus said that “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.” Or ... to use Margery Williams’ word: REAL.

I want to suggest that the writer of this morning’s psalm—Psalm 23--is one such human being. This anonymous psalmist is, I believe, a devout and sensitive soul who knows his own nakedness, lost-ness and thirst, and knowing these things has become profoundly aware of God’s great care for him in the midst of these things. In the midst of life most challenging conditions, the psalmist has come to a deep awareness of the overriding condition of God’s love ... God’s sustaining love. Naked ... lost ... thirsty ... and sustained.

I think the people who have touched me the most deeply as a pastor are those who can name their pain ... and name the one who yet sustains them. I think of Katherine Crow who has lost two adult daughters in the past few months. I think of my old preacher friend Bill Coffin who lost his son in an automobile accident. Preaching ten days after that tragic loss, Bill said to his congregation: “God may not protect us in the ways we’d like, but God sustains us in the ways we need. I have been sustained,” he said. “I have been upheld.”

In the back of the church I pastored in Vermont so many years ago there is an enormous painting of Jesus, the good Shepherd, on the back wall of the sanctuary. It’s probably a copy of an original, but in this painting Jesus is at least twice life-size. It’s HUGE. Every single sermon I preached in that place was preached looking the good Shepherd in the eye. What I remember best about that painting is that Jesus has a baby lamb slung over his shoulders ... a lamb that he has loved and rescued.

It is just that sense of God that the psalmist speaks in the 23rd Psalm ... loved and rescued by the God who seeks to love and rescue all ... loved and rescued by God who abides with us when we are naked and lost and thirsty ... loved and rescued by God who will never leave us and who seeks ever and always to nurture and sustain and uphold us.

We recently celebrated the life of our dear 105 year old friend, Sue Smith. Sue is one of the great souls of which I speak who had known both the losses and pain that life can bring as well as God’s faithful, abiding, sustaining presence.

At Sue’s memorial, I read a paraphrase of the 23rd psalm that brings the words and the heart of the psalmist even closer to my own heart and life and faith. I close with these words and offer them as a prayer. Let us pray:

God you are my constant companion.

There is no need that you cannot fulfill.

Whether your course for me points

to the mountaintops of glorious ecstasy

or to the valleys of human suffering,

You are by my side,

You are ever present with me.

You are close beside me

when I tread the dark streets of danger,

and even when I flirt with death itself,

You will not leave me.

When the pain is severe,

You are near to comfort.

When the burden is heavy,

You are there to lean upon.

When depression darkens my soul,

You touch me with eternal joy.

When I feel empty and alone,

You fill the aching vacuum with your power.

My security is in your promise

to be near to me always,

and in the knowledge

that you will never let me go.

Psalms/Now, Brandt/Kent, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis 1973

Amen.

Thirsty

Third Sunday of Lent

Exodus 17:1-7

Water from the Rock

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarrelled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’ So Moses cried out to the Lord, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.’ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’

John 4:1-15

Jesus and the Woman of Samaria

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’— although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

Water.

How can I not talk about water this morning? We have just endured one of the rainiest late winters and early springs in memory. Over 50 feet of “crystallized water” have fallen in the mountains. Basking in the sunshine up in normally rainy Bellingham, Laura Hindes wrote gleefully on Facebook the other day that she was glad she didn’t live in “rainy California”. The “golden state” may have to rename itself the “moldy state”.

We’re a bit hard to please, if the truth were known. We grumble about droughts and water shortages which are caused by overly abundant sunshine. But when the drought is relieved by an abundance of rain, we grumble about too many rainy days and how depressing the weather is. Jan has a solution for us ... her preference is that it rain at night when we are asleep and when we awake, the skies clear and the sunshine spreads itself warmly over the drying land. There ... now if someone could just work that out ... make it happen. I know I have no control over such things. I can only promise fair weather for the day of your very special outdoor event, at least as long as the weather prognosticators call for zero chance of precipitation.

Water is such an enormous paradox ... too little and we suffer and die. Too much and ... we suffer and die. But just the right amount ... and we flourish and have hope. This is what has made water such a potent symbol in religious writings, including the writings in our Bible. Water is a chaotic flood. Water is a gentle stream. Water is pure. Water is brackish. “Waterless” equals judgment and thirst and dying gardens. “Watered” equals blessing and refreshment and abundant yield.

It was out of the watery chaos that the dry habitable lands of earth emerged in the stories of creation ... and re-emerged after the flood. It was watery chaos through which the children of Israel were led by Moses to liberation and the same watery chaos that submerged and thwarted Pharaoh’s army. Water as freedom and water as judgment. It is that ancient Biblical understanding of water as related to birth and re-birth and to judgment and freedom that is present in the sacred act of Baptism ... Baptism then and Baptism now ... birth, judgment, re-birth and freedom all bound up in the drowning, cleansing and saving waters of Baptism. Anyone care to take a dip? With any luck I’ll pull you back up.

Perhaps that’s a subconscious part of the reason we don’t baptize babies ... it seems to me that you, the potential baptizee, ought to have some part of the decision to enter such symbolically potent and meaning-laden waters. And that’s a little hard to do when you’re still blowing bubbles with your own saliva.

Water plays a central role in our two Biblical narratives today. In the first narrative, it is a shortage of water that has the grumpy children of Israel grousing at Moses and grousing at God. And in the second narrative, Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at a well and offers her living water. Thirst of various kinds dominates these two narratives.

Hunger and thirst are related physical impulses. Too little food as with too little water equals too little cheeriness. My dad and my younger son, Alex, don’t look particularly “related” to the casual observer ... to be sure, most buzz-cut 20 year old grandsons don’t resemble their 82 year old grandfathers. But here’s how I know they’re related: both of them can get quite grumpy when food is withheld too long. Let either stray too far past their stomach’s understanding of mealtime and, let’s just say that these ordinarily sweet-natured souls can get a bit ... testy. It was especially true when Alex was a young lad ... the saying around our house was a well-fed Alex was a happy Alex. It’s truer than ever with my dad ... if you promise him lunch, then it had better be served at lunchtime. A well-fed Jim is a happy Jim. My oh my.

As it is with food with my family—and likely your family, so it was with the children of Israel following poor brow-beaten Moses through wilderness that was nearly devoid of food and water.

It wasn’t so long before that the children of Israel were oppressed and suffering slaves in Egypt. The apparently modern themes of oppression and suffering in Egypt go back a long, long way as we know. The suffering of the children of Israel was so intense that it caught God’s ear ... and God’s heart. Before long, God had raised up a leader to liberate the freedom hungering slaves. The book of Exodus from which this morning’s story comes is aptly named for it is one of the central and defining moments in Israel’s existence ... an exodus or a getting out and leaving behind of that which oppresses and enslaves and dehumanizes.

Now if a visible and tangible leader representing an invisible and intangible—but very powerful God—miraculously led you out of an oppressive and life-threatening experience ... how long would your gratitude last? For how long would this “expedition to freedom” and this “journey to the promised land of milk and honey” be fun? Enjoyable? How long might it take for you to begin to take notice of the rumbling in your belly ... the dust in your mouth ... and the still lingering memories of bad food, but all you could eat of it in Egypt. Bad food, but all you can eat sounds like the $3.99 buffet in Las Vegas. Now there’s a place to get out of if you can.

How much hunger and how much thirst does it take to begin to prefer less freedom to a mere promise of freedom? This is a critical question in that wilderness and in any wilderness. Through Moses’ flawed leadership, and through very trying circumstances, God is trying to shape a people ... trying to gain their trust, trying to deepen their faith, trying to shake their complacency, trying to whet their appetite for freedom and steel their resolve against oppression.

I truly would hate to think how most modern Americans would fare in the real wilderness. We who can get down-right cranky if our paper is late or our beer is flat or our favorite TV show is canceled. It’s like George Clooney in “O Brother Where Art Thou” standing in the mercantile shouting at the storekeeper who didn’t stock his favorite hair grease, “I don’t want Fop, dad-gummit, I want Dapper Dan.” If you at all believe how we are depicted in modern media and entertainment, we have become impossibly shallow and whiny and picky and self-possessed. I’ve heard an ad recently on the radio for Kohl’s Department Stores that speaks to its shoppers in tones and terms that make shopping sound like the single most important act of our human existence. Are we shaped by these ads? Or are they simply reflective of who we’ve become? A little of both, very likely, but neither is cause for much rejoicing.

But it goes deeper than that. Not so long ago, we were a society that prided itself in “rolling up its sleeves” and “doing our share” and “getting it done”. Those are slogans from the first half of the 20th century. Concern for the other at least equaled concern for self. I remember Lora Ingalls telling about how poor families during the Depression would come by her family’s farm in Nebraska and how her mother and father would offer them a meal and place to sleep.

But now a growing number, perhaps even a majority of this nation’s citizens and leaders treats the idea of carrying our fair share in the form of the public burden as a crime against American freedom. We severely underfund shared public services and services for the poor, struggling and disadvantaged and yet a shocking number of people attack any attempt to personally or properly fund these things. It has been noted, wisely, that the general health of a society or a nation can be seen in how they treat their weakest members.

And I guess the line of connection that I’d like to draw is the ever-shallowing and the inward turning of the human soul that helps create a “lifeboat mentality” where if only a few can be saved, then it’s going be “me first”. The only problem is that there’s still an extraordinary abundance and a never-ending shopping spree by Americans that is quite at odds with the perception that we are being taxed to within an inch of our lives. And it’s an extraordinary abundance that is quite unevenly spread ... far too much here and far too little there. There seems to be a battle on for the “American soul” and it’s not at all clear who’s going to win, but it does seem clear who’s currently losing: those on the lower side of the economic spectrum.

In the wilderness of Sin—that is the actual name ... in the wilderness of Sin it is a battle for the soul of the wandering Children of Israel. In the wilderness journey between Egypt and the Promised Land, God is seeking to lead and teach and guide the people of Israel into a depth of faith and trust and experience that will serve them well in any future wilderness journeys, any exiles, any times of oppression. And yet the people resisted—as people will, and sometimes outright refused to put their trust in God.

We sometimes struggle or even refuse to put our trust in deeper, more substantial things and then wonder why we feel so frail and so beset when trouble comes our way. And we wonder why the little gods we can buy with our credit cards, when trouble comes, fail to console us. And when we struggle or even refuse to put our trust in deeper, more substantial things, then it should be no surprise to see us grasping more and giving less, more easily fearful of the future, resisting the generous impulse, resisting the needs of our neighbors.

We all of us ... all of us ... need a little more of what Jesus offered to a nameless woman on a hot day in Samaria.

Jesus, the gospel of John tells us, is on a journey through another wilderness of a fashion ... he’s en route from Judea to Galilee, but on the way passes through Samaria ... which would be like a modern Israeli traveling to Jerusalem via the Gaza Strip. It is not a friendly and hospitable place to say the least. It’s midday and Jesus stops by Jacob’s well to rest and attend to his thirst. At the same time a woman arrives at the well to draw her daily water. And we most of us know enough about this story to know that nearly everything is wrong about their encounter ... Jews and Samaritans in contact ... a man and a woman in contact ... a woman who has to draw water when no one else is around because of all the rumors that surround her presumably licentious behavior.

Everything is wrong except that Jesus is not bound or defined by these conventions. Jesus defines his rules of conduct according to a deeper, more honorable code. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And who is your neighbor, someone asks Jesus in Luke’s gospel? Well, according to Jesus’ answer—which also involved a Samaritan, there’s no one you can see or think of who is not your neighbor.

Jesus intuits this woman’s story, her need to draw water away from the gossips who come in the morning. He sees and senses her loneliness and her struggles. And though he is thirsty himself, he offers her a gift of water ... and it is water of a kind that will tend to a thirst deeper than even one’s bodily needs.

Living water from a living God for our living souls. Need any of that? Got water?

Let me say again: we sometimes struggle or even refuse to put our trust in deeper, more substantial things and then wonder why we feel so frail and so beset when trouble comes our way. And when we struggle or even refuse to put our trust in deeper, more substantial things, then it should be no surprise to see us grasping more and giving less, more easily fearful of the future, resisting the generous impulse, resisting the needs of our neighbors.

Water from a rock ... living water from the well of God’s being.

The Children of Israel wandering in the wilderness received water from a rock to slake their physical thirst ... but their story reminds us that it took more than that moment of thirst relieved to relieve their quarreling with God and their fear of the future. The story tells us that their school of hard knocks in the wilderness stretched on for whole ‘nother generation.

The Samarian woman, on the other hand, received outright the gift of living water offered her. And her testimony about Jesus brought that gift to many, many more in her city ... and many more since.

The promise of water from a rock is hard one ... unless you know where to drill and have a good pump on hand. The promise of living water, however, is sure and real. It is the water of generous grace and acceptance, it is the water of abundance for our neighbors and us, it is the water that ends quarrelling and brings our passions to bear on the problems that confront us all.

Living water can be chaotic and wet and messy, to be sure, but perhaps the upside of the chaos is the promise to scour away and even drown the selfishness and greed and tawdriness that can afflict overly self-satisfied people and societies.

Dear friends, as an antidote to the fear that seems to drive so much selfishness, let us again and again drop our buckets into that well that promises never to go dry.

Amen.

Lost

Second Sunday of Lent

Genesis 12:1-4a

The Call of Abram

Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him;

Lost.

Lost is a short, terrifying word. Someone sent me a link to aerial photographs showing before and after the tsunami pictures in Japan. As you moved your mouse from right to left, the “before” picture gives way to the “after” picture, almost as if you are causing the watery onslaught that scoured whole communities from the earth. 8000 people from one community alone still “lost”.

Such a small word, such shattering implications.

Some of you may remember an old evangelical bumper sticker and billboard campaign that offered the simple phrase: “I found it!” which implied, I guess, what “lost” persons could find if they looked hard enough for it. Not surprisingly, the “I found it” campaign spawned a counter-campaign that said: “I never lost it.” Within more orthodox understandings of Christianity, the word “lost” is used, rather harshly, to describe the bleak prospects of a person and their soul apart from a “saving knowledge” of Jesus. That grim view of people outside of the faith seems in jarring contrast with the story Jesus told of the shepherd who left behind 99 “found” sheep to go in search of the one “lost” sheep. That story says very powerfully that even when humans have given up, God does not give up.

One morning, a few years ago, I noticed I had a voicemail on my cell phone from our dear friend Elizabeth Murphy. I listened to the message and whereas Elizabeth is usually pretty unflappable and upbeat, there was a scared tremor in her voice. “Greg,” she said, “I’m calling because Michael is lost in the mountains.” At first I wasn’t sure if she was pulling my leg ... it almost sounded like a practical joke. But I listened a couple more times and decided that the fear in her voice was real and no joke. It seems that Michael and a couple of friends had gone on a short backpacking trip in the Trinity Alps. At the end of their trip, Michael started out for the car ahead of the others. But when his friends reached the car, Michael was nowhere to be found. They immediately called Elizabeth who had not heard from Michael ... and Elizabeth, thinking I had a keen sense about these things, called me.

Well, you know how the story comes out because we’re pretty sure the fellow who is still hanging around with Elizabeth is Michael ... but it gave us all a good scare when the word “lost” got attached to someone we cared about.

I have been slowly reading a book that I’m recommending to anyone who might be interested. “An Altar in the World” is the latest writing from well-known author, Barbara Brown Taylor. Taylor is an Episcopal priest who has left the pastoral ministry for farming with her husband, Ed, and teaching at a nearby college and seminary. My mentor, David Bartlett, for it’s worth, teaches with Barbara at Columbia Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. “An Altar in the World” is a book that suggests that we Christians have nearly forgotten how to encounter God beyond the walls of the church or beyond our formal religious practices. Taylor offers twelve “practices” which hold the promise of encountering God “out there” somewhere.

One of the practices is the act of walking on this earth which speaks of becoming more thoroughly grounded in God through the simple act of walking. That chapter and that practice have been enormously helpful to my own thinking about “Journeys of Faith and Feet”. On Ash Wednesday, Chris led us on a “walk of mindfulness” where we were invited to walk very slowly with great awareness of our feet, breath and bodies as we walked, as well as a deep awareness of the ground upon which we walked. Even though most of us prefer to whiz from one place to another in our cars, when we do walk, even that is often done in great haste and with little thought. Pump those arms, get that heart rate going, burn those calories. It is good that we do that kind of walking, but it is also good to sometimes slow down and walk in a far more mindful manner.

Last Sunday and again today we are taking “mindful walks” of a fashion and using the lenses of our cameras through which to better see the world that we so often rush by. A few of us strolled and sauntered around downtown Walnut Creek last Sunday looking for things we might ordinarily miss at a faster pace. People looked at us and our cameras as though we were weirdly dressed tourists from a far off land. But I have found that a camera is like the brakes on your car that forces you to slow down and take notice ... to pause, to focus, the frame and reframe your view. Walking and seeing that way is to experience a familiar place almost as though for the first time. Allowing a toddler to take you by the hand and lead you in a rambling perambulation of any locale can serve the same purpose. You are forced to see the world at their speed and at their level ... which is “up close and personal”.

Another practice Barbara Brown Taylor suggests is “the practice of getting lost”. Perhaps it was a spiritual exercise which Michael was engaged in when he gave Elizabeth such a start. The practice of getting lost is the practice of knowingly entering the wilderness. It is the practice of consciously leaving behind the known and the familiar for paths and experiences that are unfamiliar and unpredictable. There is, apparently, a common belief among women that men do not need to practice what is already thought to be well developed art ... the art of getting lost and the closely related art of refusing to ask directions.

But all joking aside, there is much to be gained in being lost ... much to be gained in the wilderness ... much to be gained in leaving for a time the utterly familiar for the largely unknown. We who are so self-possessed and so self-directed leave almost no opening or opportunity for the gentle, inhabiting breath of the Spirit ... or the Spirit’s leading. I think this is part of the allure of travel to foreign places ... that there is something we might almost describe as “sacred” in walking in a Mayan jungle, or snorkeling over a living reef, or eating rice and curried goat from a palm leaf in India, or watching elderly French men play “boules”. When we return home from adventures to foreign places and the experience of unfamiliar customs, our lives are not quite the same as before the journey began. We are changed.

Was it the prospect of exotic customs in far off lands that compelled Abram and Sarai to leave behind their family and their homeland to follow a God whose name they did not even know? The ancient storyteller in Genesis describes the commencement of this great, great journey in the sparest of terms: Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

I don’t know about you, but I’d be tempted to ask to see a travel itinerary, kind of like the one Darby sends out when she and Dudley head north. But an itinerary doesn’t seem to be a part of the call to journey. There are several vague and absurdly grandiose sounding promises in God’s call to Abram and Sarai to leave it all behind. “So tell me a bit more about this “land that I will show you” ... could you be a bit more specific?” But in this terse description of the journey’s start, we are not left with the sense that a lack of details troubled Abram and Sarai ... God said “go” and Abram and Sarai “went”. There is something about their willingness to know nothing but the backside of the God they followed that is rather extraordinary ... they were willing to consciously become “lost” knowing only that they were following a divine presence they couldn’t quite see or name, a divine presence they had no particularly good reason to trust. It is, I think, the first “leap of faith” recorded in the Bible.

You probably remember the description of “faith” by the author of Hebrews:

faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ... By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.

It is a leap of faith Abram and Sarai take that leads them to follow God into an unknown wilderness and an uncertain future. And here is where we come to that bit of a spiritual cliché that the destination is the journey. Whether it is Abram and Sarai’s wilderness journey, or the 40 year journey by Moses and the children of Israel ... there is a “proximity” to God in real or perceived wildernesses that rarely exists in more settled and predictable times. Routines have a way of stifling our need for an experience of the “divine mystery”, life’s ruts can dull our Spiritual receptors, strict adherence to convention can shrivel our souls. Surprise is the enemy and sameness is salvation.

But here’s the thing: anyone past the age of 6 months knows that you don’t have to choose to go to the wilderness ... the wilderness will often come to you. Perhaps you step out your front door one day, and instead of your front yard and your car parked in the driveway and all of life familiar and comfortable, some horrible event has snatched it all away or made it all seem completely unimportant. A job is lost ... an infidelity is admitted ... a diagnosis is gravely offered ... a wall of water washes ashore ... and suddenly the wilderness has arrived on your doorstep without your having to move an inch. And just as suddenly we realize that we have fooled ourselves into thinking that we could do it all on our own ... that our own spiritual strength that we have largely ignored and neglected to exercise is enough to float our boats on this new inland sea.

When Sandra lost Eldon, she described herself as feeling lost. My friend Polly describes herself as feeling lost without Steve. Watching the sea rush inland sweeping away everything in its path made me feel lost and disoriented ... imagine how it feels to actually live amongst such realities. It almost feels like a sin to speak at this safe distance of such awful realities, as though I have ANY idea at all.

But I have known other losses ... other calamities ... and I can only say that those wilderness journeys, those times and experiences of being lost did not end with simply stating that fact. Because I can join many others in saying that I was not alone in those times and places that felt like no time and no place. A presence that we should feel no need to rush to name or describe also inhabits any wilderness we inhabit. It is enough to say that when your journey veers sharply toward the wilderness, trust that you will not be alone.

And it is enough to say that the simple practice of allowing yourself to “lose your way” from time to time can gradually build the muscles necessary for radical trust, and open spaces for the inbreathing of that presence that will not abandon in the wilderness.

Anything can become a spiritual practice once you are willing to approach it that way—once you let it bring you to your knees and show you what is real, including who you really are, who other people are, and how near God can be when you have lost your way.

So ... turn off your GPS ... fold up the map ... put on your walking shoes, or take them off ... and set out for ... well, God only knows.

Amen.

Naked

First Sunday of Lent

Genesis 3:6-7, 23-24

… when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Then the LORD God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever’— therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

And so we enter that winding, meandering path known as Lent. Not all of us grew up observing Lent, and so there may be a bit of unfamiliarity to the season. It’s a strange territory we’ve entered ... but I’d suggest that it should be ... for novice and veterans of Lent, alike. Our own inner selves ... our minds and motives ... our wishes and our wills ... are all so labyrinthine, so full of twists and turns and switchbacks and blind corners, that were every season a Lenten season, there would still be more discovery to do, more miles to log and paths to tread.

Lent is, perhaps blessedly, a finite season ... a season with an end ... getting lost in the inner labyrinth will not do ... and besides, the end of Lent, the end of this seasonal journey is this fabulous explosion of life and hope that we call Easter and resurrection. Who among us, if we cherish life at all, would want to miss that? If we stick to our Lenten paths for the season, then our celebration at season’s end can be quite extraordinary, quite life-giving, quite “life-saving”.

Just as any journey worthy of the name begins with a single step, the Lenten journey from a Biblical perspective begins with our beginnings. We begin in Genesis with the ancient tale of creation that speaks of God’s loving work of crafting heavenly bodies and somewhat less than heavenly beings. And, of course, we’ll never want to forget that the storyteller repeatedly reminds us that with every creative step, God pauses to wonder at the goodness of God’s own creating. Not even earthquakes and tsunamis nor humanly created blights like war can change this essential truth that creation is fundamentally good. That’s not all there is to say about creation, but to fail to say at least this much would be to forget that creation and our very lives are inseparably intertwined. To know and say that creation is good is to know and say that our life on this earth—our corporeal, bodily existence is good, as well.

The Lenten journey begins in Eden, this wondrously mythical garden of delights. But before Adam and Eve even have a chance how to learn how to cook a delicious pie from their new pickings, they are thrust from the garden with only their hand-sewn fig-leaf outfits to protect them. Is it any wonder that the very first Lenten reading of the three-cycle of readings is a not-quite-reachable garden that ends up being a fast-track to the wilderness of real life.

The now former residents and caretakers of God’s holy garden are left to wander and wonder ... perhaps we can think of Eve and Adam as the first observers of the season of Lent. One would like to think that after a full day of hunting and gathering that these two primordial parents sat in the light of the night’s fire pondering where they went wrong.

Of course the story is not really about two “original” human beings, per se. It’s a much bigger story than that. The story is about the difficulty of life in general—its toils and troubles ... and the story is about the difficulty of living “up” to the high vision of God’s original creative intents for us.

In part, the story simply offers an explanation for why life can be so incredibly challenging ... so gritty and grueling. In ancient narrative style, it was common to create stories that explained known, observable realities. If a story could be told of earth’s first parents wherein there was a fatal tendency to disobey divine orders and the punishment for disobeying was the difficult lives known by the listener, then the listener could do the genetic math and conclude that the real trouble was in their DNA ... and there’s not much a poor, toiling farmer can do about that.

But the other part of the story is that God’s original purpose for God’s human creation was to serve and preserve the garden ... or, translated, to serve and preserve creation. It was when the first couple decided to live outside of God’s wisdom and purposes that they were no longer deemed worthy of such a high calling and such a high creative intent. But that is a part of our spiritual DNA as well. Not only can life be hard work and painfully gritty and real, but somewhere within these lives that experience all of the “trouble and strife” there still exists the awareness of that inordinately higher calling.

The journey of Lent, that begins with these creatures created from the dust of the earth, is a journey to rediscovering our own highest calling ... for each of us, no matter how that calling gets defined exactly, it still comes back by one means or another to serving and preserving God’s creation ... ALL of God’s creation including the earth and every creature, human and otherwise, that lives upon it.

One of the steps that is intrigue-ingly implied by this story, is the journey to the knowledge that we are “naked”. It is choosing to live outside of God’s wisdom that reveals to Adam and Eve that they are naked. One of the ways I have come to understand Adam and Eve’s “nakedness” is their human awareness that they were fallible, finite and mortal. Within the context of the story, once they are aware they are naked, they can already see beyond the gates of Eden where they will spend the remainder of their lives.

So when did you come to know you were naked? That is, when did you come to know you were fallible, finite and mortal. Most of us cruise through life a good long time before we come to this knowledge ... this awareness. I spoke with Katherine Crow about the death of her daughter, Barbara, who passed away on Friday. This is the second child Katherine has lost in four months. Which side of the gates of Eden do you think Katherine feels she lives on? As we spoke about these losses, Katherine mused out loud about these women who had, not so long ago it seems, been these heedless, devil-may-care kids who lived as though they’d never die ... as though nothing could ever touch them. That’s how I was, certainly, at that age ... I didn’t know my own nakedness ... my own real finiteness.

I can’t help but wonder about the 16 year old boy from Windsor who this week jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and survived. NOW does he know that he is “naked”? Have his eyes been opened? What does it take to open our eyes to this essential truth.

One of the “blessings” of this truth is that we learn to properly cherish life—to cherish our lives and the lives of others. It is to truly learn for the first time that life is sacred—and in no small measure because it is not guaranteed. Life is a gift and knowing ourselves “unwrapped” is to see and appreciate the gift as fully as we are able.

Of the many reasons we go to Mexico for our annual mission, one of the most important is for each participant to be stripped for a time of her or his comforts and to be pressed up against naked human need. There is an enormous sense of vulnerability that can be experienced by those of us who come out of our hyper-clean, hyper-organized middle-class culture. We cross the border as well-dressed, confident, cocky suburbanites with our pockets full of money and our heads full of illusions about the work we are doing, and we find ourselves driving on unpaved streets surrounded by extraordinary need. And there’s no place, really, to hide. And when we get out of our air-conditioned vans and put our feet in the dust that the peeling and stripping begins. And even if we come back home with a fig leaf or two in place, we know that the suburban suit of armor we went down with no longer fits very well.

Sometimes it is a “life-changing” mission journey that can strip you naked ... and sometimes it’s the sheer power of words.

[READING ... Buechner]

Conclusion

One of the great challenges of both life and Lent is to allow our times of nakedness to soften us ... to soften our hearts, our motives, our way of being in the world. The alternative, of course, is to allow ourselves to withdraw and to become hardened until we can no longer be stripped and can no longer feel our own life and needs and pain and no longer feel the life and needs and pain of another. To allow ourselves to live for a time in that undressed, vulnerable state is to offer ourselves a wonderful opportunity to know the sacredness of our lives and every life.

I have spent enough time with enough of you to know that you are no stranger to vulnerability and nakedness and pain. And I trust that in the paths and footsteps and journeys ahead that you will accept your vulnerability as a gift ... and in that gift you will rediscover your own sacredness, and in that gift you will rediscover the sacredness of others and all life, and in that gift you will continue to discover your own truest self and your own highest calling as sons and daughters of God, as the handiwork of God’s own good creation, and as servers and preservers of God’s Shalom.

Shalom to you.

Amen.

The gift of the future (follow your star)

The tale of the wise men has always fascinated me. In my youth, I was in a handful of Christmas pageants and I was always cast as one of the wise men. I never really knew why. Maybe it was because I had the right amount of charm or because I seem to exude wisdom. Or maybe it was because shepherds look sillier in glasses than wise men. Whatever the case, being the wise man in the church or school Christmas pageant was my destiny from year to year. So I have a kinship with this story. I have a connection to the wise men and I hope after today you will too.

The first aspect that is remarkable about the wise men is their journey. We rarely ever see the wise men mid-expedition. We usually focus on the payoff, them surrounding the Christ child. But let us not forget that it was a long path in getting there. Imagine it. You and a bunch of your astronomer buddies decide to take off for a foreign land following a star. Now of course back then you could just not charter a flight and head over to Jerusalem. This journey would take much planning. You would have to stock up on provisions. Strap up your camels. Bring everything that you needed on your backs and in your caravan, and begin. Begin the long slow journey westward. This is what the wise men faced. Not knowing what they would find, they traveled through desert, darkness, cold and rain. The were likely tired, perhaps frustrated and certainly unsure of what they would find. Maybe that is why most of the images of the journey are taken from afar like the one on the cover of the bulletin today. This is a familiar image. The three camels silhouetted against the evening sky. You don’t see them close up because maybe if you did you would see the struggle on their faces. The frustration that can only come from days and days of travel. If any of you have ever been stuck in an airport overnight, you can sympathize.

Like the wise men, we also are on a journey, a journey of life. And it is not so different from the wise men’s. It is sometimes dark, sometimes unsure, Treacherous. Confusing. Frustrating. At times, we wander through life not really sure where we are going or what we are supposed to be doing. From a distance we may seem fine, a silhouette that appears calm cool and collected, but when the camera gets close, it shows the lines on our faces, the weariness that the journey has caused. What can we do to ease this struggle?

If we look to the story of the wise men, one of the lessons that we can learn is that we do not have to go it alone. There was not a wise man, but rather wise men. Partners, compatriots. Now there is some question as to how many wise men there really were. If you look closely at the text, it never actually gives a number. We have a tradition of three because of the three gifts, but we really do not know. There could have been a dozen or more. A whole crew. Partners, friends helping each other out through their journey across the harsh lands.

Who are your traveling companions? Maybe it is a spouse that you have grown to love and committed to be with through thick and thin. Maybe it is a close friend, someone with whom you can share your deepest secrets and problems. Perhaps it is your children or your parents that have become your kin in the truest sense of the word. Maybe it is this church. I believe that church should be one of your closest traveling companions through life. It should be here to support and help you as you move from place to place. If you do not feel like this is the case, let me know. I want to talk to you about it.

Just as the wise men traveled together, all of your traveling companions are with you as well. They are there to share with you in all of your greatest accomplishments. They are there to keep you moving when the times get tough and you want to give up. They are there to support you and be supported by you.

With the help and companionship of each other the wise men reached Jerusalem, and that is where they found help in one of the most unlikely of places. This brings us to our second lesson to be learned from the wise men: seeking help from the stranger. If you will permit me a little dramatic license, I see the wise men arriving at Jerusalem tired and frustrated. After the long and wearisome journey they have still not found what they have been seeking. Their impatience is evident in the way that they talk to Herod. “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” Herod, though with his own agenda, calls in all of the priests and the scribes to find out where the Messiah is supposed to be born. The wise men had the when, given to them by the observance of the star, but not there where. Conversely, the priests and the scribes had the where, Bethlehem, but not the when. Together they give a wonderful example of cross-cultural religious collaboration. The wise men’s knowledge was made complete because they sought help from others. Even though Herod’s people were strangers, they became great help to the wise men telling them where to go. Help can come in unlikely places.

Up until now the wise men might seem like another group of traveling wanderers that we find in the Bible, that of the Hebrews leaving Egypt. It took them forty years to get where they were going, but they were missing one very important element that the wise men had, the star! Though their journey is long, the wise men are not aimlessly wandering. They have a guide, a light that directs them. A star in the West. Okay so when we last left them they were about to leave Herod’s. From the priests and scribes they gain a newly acquired drive and purpose and set forth toward Bethlehem. And as they do, day begins to turn into night. Darkness creeps up over the horizon and with it, their guiding star. It continues to move, the texts says, leading them all the way to their final destination, the baby Jesus.

Finding a guide is the third lesson that the wise men have to teach us this morning. Their guide, their star, meant a great deal to them. It was what initially prompted them to leave their country and begin their journey. It was for them a sign of change. The old would pass away and something new would be born. A new king. A new era. It is then appropriate that we would be hearing this story at the beginning of the New Year. This is a time for us to spark hope of something new. Something that will allow us to leave the old and start fresh.

So the question that I have for you is this: “What is your star?” The wise men found their king because they had a guide, a God-given sign in the sky. It gave them hope. It gave them direction. It forged them onward. So what is your star? What is going to guide you this year? Perhaps your life is generally troubled. You do not have a clear heading, you are wandering around without a course to direct you. Spinning and spiraling downward. Or maybe you are coasting. Just getting by. Whatever the case, perhaps what you need is a light to guide you, a star to shine the way. Something to give your life focus and direction.

So what is your star? What is leading you this new year? Where do you want to go? Who do you want to be? Where are you going to seek God’s presence in your life? Perhaps you have a relationship in your life that has become broken. Perhaps there is someone with whom you need to make amends. Let reconciliation be your star. Perhaps it is something that is troubling you. A broken promise. A mistake that you cannot put behind you. Let forgiveness be your star. Some of you may have struggled with addiction, or are struggling now and a star of recovery is what is sitting on your horizon. Remember to keep it there and follow it. Others of you may be committed to social justice. Put a star of peace and of equality up so that you can see it and follow it to your destination.

We will have more of a moment to reflect on this in our time of prayer today, but I want to make clear that I am not talking about a simple New Year’s resolution. Those usually take the form of one minor change or decision that you want to make, try for a while, and then give up on. I am talking about a God-given guiding force in your life. Something that will put you on a journey of transformation. What that will be is only something that you can decide for yourself with the help and guidance of a God that loves you and wants to see you grow.

Remember from the wise men that it may not be an easy journey. Likely, it won’t be, but you must forge ahead. And also remember that you are not alone. There are all of your traveling companions. And there is whole community here that can help and support you. And finally remember when the times are the hardest is when we forget to look up, to see our star and to remember that God is with us.

When the wise men finally arrived at the house and gazed upon the baby Jesus, they were struck with his majesty. All of the toil and journey was worth it. They knew that they had reached their destination and they were filled with such reverence that they began to worship. In a tiny baby they saw all of the hope and love for a new era. They were filled with the presence of God. By staying focused, by following their star, they had come to a future that was more radiant and beautiful than they could have imagined. What is your star?

This is where their journey ended but it is where ours begins. God gives us so much opportunity for love and hope in the world. We only need to seek it out. So pack your bags. Find some companions, maybe some strangers. And follow your star. Seek God’s hope for you and for the world. For just as the wise men found hope and renewal in the eyes of a child, so will we find it at the end of our journeys. May God bless us as we continue onward. Amen.

Spring Cleaning for the Soul

A Sermon by Rev. Angela Yarber | First Sunday in Lent | February 21, 2010

Scripture: Luke 4:1-13

4Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. 3The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” 4Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” 5Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” 9Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ 11and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” 12Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

As you have heard and seen, our Lenten theme this year is “The Many Faces of Jesus.” For forty days and forty nights, we journey along side of Jesus into the wilderness to experience the myriad ways we can see Jesus’ face in our world: in our own reflection, in the eyes of our community, in the beauty of our aching planet, and in the faces of a fragile humanity. Here there is no limit to the multiplicity of Jesus’ faces: healer, friend, parent, lover, prophet, activist, peace-maker, teacher. I’m sure that it’s all of our hope that Pastor Greg is experiencing the healing face of Jesus as he seeks to recover from being so sick.

For the next thirty some odd days and nights, let us journey together throughout this wilderness land and challenge one another to see Jesus differently. Let’s revel in the familiar and the uncomfortable, the challenging and the soothing. Most importantly, let us not journey into the wilderness lightly, but with the intention of returning transformed, renewed, ready to bring about resurrection in our broken world. For such transformations are the stuff of wilderness journeys.

I’m sure that many of you know that this is not only the first Sunday of Lent, but it’s also the second weekend of the winter Olympics. While I haven’t heard of any Olympians fasting for forty days and forty nights or being tempting to turn stones into bread, I have heard many stories of journeys into the wilderness.

The American short track speed skater Apolo Ohno comes to mind. Some of you may be familiar with his story. He’s won seven Olympic medals and after these Olympics could become the most decorated winter Olympian in history. His wilderness journey occurred at age 15. Apolo was raised by his Japanese father, Yuki, who drove him to and from practices and races throughout Washington state and British Columbia. In 1998 he tried out for the Olympics and choked, finishing in dead last. His father was disappointed, not because his son lost and didn’t make the Olympic team, but because he did not remain true to who he was and what he was capable of doing; he gave up and didn’t try his best. So, on their way home from the trials, Yuki dropped off his 15 year old son at a secluded cabin in Washington state. He told him, “you are at the threshold and you have a decision to make. This can be your life and who you are or you can choose to let it go.” For eight days the teenager pondered his life in the wilderness. Will I be an Olympian? Is this what I’m made for? Or will I be an “ordinary” teenager. Seven medals later, Apolo has answered his father’s question and made an unequivocal decision. This is who I am and I will give everything in my being toward achieving this goal.

While we certainly can’t compare being the son of God to being the most decorated winter Olympian in history, I think the pressure, soul-searching, and wilderness journey of Apolo Ohno rings true as we stand on this first Sunday in our wilderness journey. Hard work, dedication, pressure, soul-searching are not for the faint of heart. We do not tread into this desert journey lightly, but with intentionality.

This intentionality and soul-searching was the precise purpose of the early church when creating the season of Lent. The concept of Lent cannot be found in our bibles, nor can any proscriptions for fasting or feasting or abstaining from particular foods—like meats, chocolate, junk food, soda, or anything else you’ve chosen to give up for Lent. All we have is the story of Jesus journeying into the wilderness for forty days and forty nights. No food. No drink. A lot of pressure and soul-searching.

Jesus has a rich history of forty days of soul-searching upon which to base his wilderness journey. Israel spent 40 years in the wilderness learning to trust the God. Elijah spent 40 days there before hearing the sound of sheer silence that was God’s voice on the same mountain where Moses spent 40 days listening to God give the law.

Given these stories of wilderness journeys, and especially Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, the early church announced a season of Lent, from the old English word lenten, meaning "spring" -- not only a reference to the season before Easter, but also an invitation to a springtime for the soul. Forty days of spring cleaning. Brushing away the cobwebs of bitterness. Sweeping out the dust of regret. Opening up the freshly cleaned windows to let in the fresh spring air of acceptance, hope, compassion, and love.

Lent isn’t a dark, brooding season in the church year. Rather, it’s a season of spring cleaning, wilderness journey, contemplation for the body and soul. It’s not about giving up chocolate or taking on a morning devotional. It’s bigger than Hershey’s bars and devotional books; Lent is less about giving up or taking on things that may seem trivial to others, but are a big deal to us. It’s about digging in and cleaning out. Lent isn’t about beating ourselves up or feeling unworthy and stained. It’s about polishing our hearts, reevaluating our souls, examining our motives so that we can walk out of the wilderness more loving, compassionate, and caring.

Lent is a time when we have the luxury of abiding in the messy, confusing, overwhelming wilderness of our inner beings. We don’t have to physically hike there; we don’t need a backpack. Rather, amidst the end of the winter Olympics, the start of spring, the every day-in-and-day-out of life, we can simultaneously journey inward and sweep out the cobwebs of our souls. In some ways, it might be easier to retreat for forty days. No distractions, or at least no cell phones, internet, work, or people to please. Just soul searching. But what kind of challenge would that be?

What are the challenges that tempt the spring cleaning of your soul? What questions pull at your heart this Lenten season? Jesus was faced with turning stones into bread. When you journey into the wilderness of your soul, will you ask yourself, “Is my job fulfilling my calling? Am I a good parent? Is this marriage working? Who am I now that I’ve retired? What does it mean for my parents to be ageing? Am I healthy physically, emotionally, and spiritually?

I know one thing that clutters up the spring cleaning of my soul this Lenten season. Many of you know that just before Lent began, I completed my dissertation. Of course I am very happy. But many scholars refer to the time after the dissertation as post-dissertation depression. It’s a wilderness time of asking, “So what? Who cares? What does this matter?” In my heart and mind, I continue to grapple with the vast disparity between what I’m doing, where I’ve come from, and who I want to be. What does it mean for me to finish a dissertation and PhD, to be less than one month away from being Rev. Dr. Ang when most of my family didn’t finish high school? What does it mean for me to have the luxury of contemplating esoteric theories about dance and women’s empowerment in world religions when many of the women I write about are never afforded the “luxury” of education, who are hungry and oppressed and would be quite satisfied if only Jesus would turn those stones into bread. What does this make me and what will I do with it?

My luxurious Lenten existential crisis forces me to contend with the fact that many of us choose to enter into the wilderness for soul searching and spring cleaning. It is our choice; it is our luxury. Like Jesus, we are led into the wilderness by the spirit and we have the hope of exiting the wilderness on the other side—the side of resurrection, famished, but resurrected nonetheless. And these luxuries are good for the soul, necessary for this Lenten season of spring cleaning and seeking the many faces of Jesus in our world.

But I cannot help but think about all those people who are not guided into the wilderness by choice or with the Spirit protectively holding their eager hands. Rather, so many are forced into the wilderness, often times for much longer than a mere forty days and forty nights. Forced into the wilderness of poverty, oppression, racism, homophobia, depression, addiction, trafficking. I cannot help but think of the weary souls that will journey to our sanctuary in the coming weeks for Winter Nights, living in the constant wilderness of homelessness.

Our Lenten season of soul searching is for not if it does not gird us forward to see the face of Jesus in the eyes of those myriad people groping in the wilderness for glimpses of hope, for a helping hand, for resurrected bodies. And merely seeing Jesus’ face is for not, if we do not do something about it.

So, perhaps this question should guide our Lenten journey of soul searching: what are we going to do about it? And perhaps the “it” is as ambiguous and open-ended as our Lenten theme is. You interpret what it means to see the many faces of Jesus. You interpret what the it is that you’re going to do something about. We commit to creating a world where all of humanity can look into the mirror filled with the confidence and vitality to see the face of Jesus staring back at them.

Journeys into the wilderness may not be easy, but we certainly don’t have to brave them alone.