Transfiguration and Field of Dreams

Good morning. Many movies over the years have moved me emotionally, but one movie that gets me every time is Field of Dreams. How many have seen this? It's a story about an Iowa farmer named Ray, who hears a Voice that says If You Build It, He Will Come. So Ray ploughs under his corn field and builds a baseball field. Sure enough, long-dead baseball players start showing up on Ray's field, beginning with shoeless Joe Jackson. It's a magical movie, and as a young man I was watching it with my girlfriend. At the end of the movie, when Ray sees his father as a young man, I started to tear up. After I took my girlfriend home I went back to my house, sat on my couch, and cried my eyes out for at least half an hour. I wasn't even sure why I was crying, but something about voices, baseball, and fathers touched something deep in my heart. Every time I see Field Of Dreams I still feel that magic.  

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration, and as I was looking at our readings, I felt a magic similar to what I feel when watching Field of Dreams. And I heard a voice saying, "If you preach it, they will come."  So this morning I want to use Field of Dreams as a guide for looking at the magic, the mystery, and the poignancy of the Transfiguration.

In our gospel reading Jesus takes three of his closest disciples, and ascends a high mountain. There, He is transfigured in glory, and is joined by Moses and Elijah who shine with an amazing brightness.  Moses and Elijah were the fathers of Judaism, Moses the father of law, and Elijah the father of prophecy. What a story!  What a Field of Dreams!  For Peter, James, and John, this would be like Todd Helton taking you to a baseball game, and being joined there in glory by Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle. At the old Yankees stadium. It had to be incredible. 

Then Peter, dazzled by the sight, and in the presence of the greatest figures in Jewish history, says, hey, let me build some condos so you can all stay for awhile. Good old Peter. Mark says Peter was flustered and scared, and didn't know what he was saying. But I wonder if Peter didn't know exactly what he was saying. In Field of Dreams Ray hears a voice saying if you build it, he will come.  Peter also hears a voice, and his voice says, since they have come, I better build it. Peter wanted to make this experience last. He wanted to make it permanent. He didn't want it to ever end. 

This deep human instinct to build a container for the sacred, and make it permanent, is universal. If you were a Freudian, you might say that in the presence of the holy, human beings have an edifice complex. Just think about how many churches, synagogues, mosques, shrines, pyramids, kivas, and other religious structures have been built in human history. It's easy to understand why: our encounters with the sacred are magical and profound, but they don't happen often enough, and they don't last long enough.  So we want to honor these experiences, and make them tangible and permanent. We don't ever want them to end. Ray heard a voice and built a ball park. Peter heard a voice and was going to build some condos. 

But just as Peter is discussing with James and John his building plans, poof, Moses and Elijah disappear. Peter is thinking permanence, but he is slammed by the temporary. We've all had mountain-top spiritual experiences that end way too soon. We have visions of the divine, we see how everything fits together, and then a friend calls whose life is completely falling apart. We touch God in nature, and then have to return to the city. In worship we come into the very presence of God, and then on the way home some idiot cuts us off in traffic. On retreats, camps, and mission trips we clearly see God in our brothers and sisters.  But then we have to go back to work. We wish so much these experiences would never end. 

But they do end. In this life we all have to come down from the mountain.  The Voice says build it, but reality whispers, it doesn't last. 

In our Old Testament reading, we learn the story of Elijah the prophet passing the blessing to Elisha. Elisha was the chosen successor of Elijah, and he knew that Elijah would soon leave on a fiery chariot to be with God.  There was no way Elisha was going to let Elijah get away without receiving a double blessing, so he stuck to Elijah like glue, following Him from city to city, until he got the blessing. As Elijah was being taken to heaven, Elisha said, "My Father!  You are like a Father to me!  Elisha loved Elijah, and he pursued Elijah so he could receive his father's blessing. 

In Field of Dreams, Ray hints throughout the movie that his relationship with his father was not a good one. His father had been worn out by work, and Ray was a cocky 17 year old kid. Ray left for college, and never saw his dad alive again. Ray's father could not give the blessing, and Ray couldn't receive it. But at the end of the movie Ray's father is one of the ballplayers that shows up on the baseball field. Ray's dad is a young man, and as Ray and his dad start to play catch, you know that their relationship will be healed. Ray will receive the blessing. 

Fathers are very significant people in our lives, for both sons and daughters, and a father's blessing is deeply, deeply, important.  As a psychotherapist, I have worked with far too many people who never received their father's blessing. Like with Isaac and Esau, too often blind fathers can't bless their children, and with tears the children, like Esau, never seem to find healing. I know people, and I'm sure you do too, who are desperately seeking their father's blessing, 20 or 30 years after their father has died. Whatever a father's blessing is, it is incredibly powerful. 

I wonder if Peter, James, and John felt this loss of a father's blessing when Moses and Elijah disappeared. They weren't denied the blessing, but they were this close to touching, and hugging, and playing catch with Moses and Elijah, the fathers of the faith. And then the fathers were gone. To switch metaphors, it must have been like the Super Bowl, with Seattle on the goal line, the championship right there a yard away, and then it's gone. Ouch. 

Fathers are a great mystery. We long to know them, understand them, and be blessed by them. Many of us have heard a voice that says ease their pain, which is also our pain.  Peter, James, and John heard the voice of God the Father saying this is Jesus, my son. I love Him. We all Long to hear the voice that says that we, too, are beloved. 

In second Corinthians, Paul says that God's radiant glory is displayed in the face of Christ, but there is a veil that prevents the world from seeing this glory.  Believers can see through the veil, but most people can't. This reminds me of a scene in Field of Dreams, where Ray is faced with a very difficult decision. He is bankrupt because he turned his cornfield into a baseball field, and his wife's brother is insisting that Ray sell what's left to the bank. But Ray's brother-in-law can't see the players on the field.  He doesn't believe. There is a veil that prevents him from seeing the glorious treasure of the baseball field, a treasure that people will come and pay to see.  

This is such a great metaphor for our lives. We know the glorious reality of heaven is there, but the hardships of this world often veil our eyes from seeing it. There are times when we feel bankrupt, and we don't have the inner resources to dig deep to see how God is working in our lives. Sometimes our financial issues are so pressing that we lose track of the other reality of God and heaven.  Our relationships are often such a mess that God seems a million miles away. Sometimes our health aches and pains us enough that the reality of a heaven of peace and joy seems like a dream.  On the other hand, our riches and affluence can veil our eyes to the reality of heaven, because in our comfort we are tempted to believe that this world is heaven. It isn't easy to consistently raise the veil, and be comforted by, and challenged by, the reality of God's world. 

But for Peter, James, and John, on the mount of Transfiguration, the veil was completely removed.  They saw clearly the glorious reality of heaven.  After Moses and Elijah left, however, Jesus says something strange. He says, don't tell anybody about this. Don't tell anybody about this?  Really Jesus?  What's that about?  We've seen past the veil, and you want us to keep quiet?

I have a confession to make. I get this whole veil thing. But I don't like this whole veil thing. Sure, I get that not seeing through the veil all the time develops our faith. I get that it disciplines us to seek God, and patient seeking builds perseverance, and persevering in hope builds character. I get all that. But I don't always like it. I don't like that some people have been so bruised by this world that they seem unable to see past the veil. I don't like it that in certain seasons of our life the glimpses beyond the veil are way too few, and way too far between. I wish it were different. 

Seriously.  Why couldn't Jesus have walked down from the mountain with Moses and Elijah, removed the veil for good, strolled into Jerusalem, and inaugurated His messianic kingdom?  Would that have been so hard?  

Jesus tells us why He didn't do that. He told the three, don't tell anyone what you have seen on this mountain until after I have risen from the dead. That's the catch. There's the rub. In order to play on the Field of Dreams, we all must journey through suffering and death. The veil will be lifted, but only after we journey through suffering and death. We will know permanence, but only after we journey through suffering and death. We will be blessed by our fathers, and all our relationships will be healed, but only after we journey through suffering and death. I don't like it, but this is our entire faith. This is the good news. 

This is why we always celebrate the feast of the Transfiguration right before  Ash Wednesday and Lent. It's a liturgical reminder that nothing stays transfigured unless it first goes into the grave. As Jesus had to journey through suffering and death before He entered into glory, so must we. One day we will all play on a field of dreams with all the saints.  But first, we must go the distance. 

Field of Dreams is about longing, and magic, and heaven. When we long for permanence, we long for heaven. When we long for our Father's blessing, and for healed relationships, we long for heaven. And when we long to see through the veil, and see God face to face, we long for heaven. In this holy season of Lent, may we all find heaven in our journey to the cross, and may we all follow the Voice that leads us home. 

Amen

 

The Far Side Of Our Estrangement

Good morning.  When I was in college, I was a member of a non-denominational Christian ministry at the University of Colorado. One Fall we had a retreat in the mountains, and the leader of our group, I'll call him Larry, gave a wonderful talk called "The Far Side Of Our Estrangement."  Larry's message was that God came all the way into our sinful humanity in Christ, identifying with our every weakness and shortcoming. Larry's text was 2nd Corinthians 5:21, where Paul says that "God made him (Christ) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." Larry pushed this idea that Christ became sin for us as far as it could go, almost, almost, saying that Christ actually sinned so He could partake of our estrangement. 

After the talk I was talking to another campus minister, I'll call him Rick, and I said something that I regret saying to this day. What I said to Rick set in motion a chain of events that led to misunderstanding, deep bitterness, and broken relationships. What I said to Rick is one of those things that if I could get a do-over about things in my past, this would be one of those things I would change. 

Our gospel reading this morning is a difficult passage. Jesus gives us some guidelines about how to deal with conflict with our brothers and sisters in the church, and His principles are difficult to understand, they are very hard to practice, and, to be honest, they have been terribly abused by Christians throughout church history.  Hopefully, by telling you what went wrong with Rick and Larry, as initiated by me, we can gain some insights into what Christians should be striving for when there is conflict in the church. 

When I was chatting with Rick after Larry's message, not for the first time my sense of humor got me into trouble. I praised Larry's talk, but I said, "boy, it sounded like Larry said that Christ sinned. That Larry is a real heretic." A week later Larry asked to speak to me, and he asked me what I thought he had said at the retreat. I said I thought he pushed the idea that Jesus became sin as far as he could go, but not too far.  Larry then showed me a letter from Rick. In the letter Rick said he was very concerned about Larry's theology, he had spoken to a bright young student named Jim Banks, that would be me, who thought Larry was teaching heresy, and that Larry needed to repent of his heresies and make a public apology.  Uh oh.  I felt terrible. I assured Larry that I was kidding when I said he was a heretic, and I in no way felt he really was. Larry thanked me, and said he would try to patch things up with Rick. What a mess.

We all hope that church can be a safe place to fellowship, grow, and learn, and that with our brothers and sisters in Christ we can be safe from the problems of the world. But we learn quickly, unfortunately, that church can be as rough, and sometimes rougher, than the world. I'm sure all of us, at some time in our life, have been hurt by a brother or sister in Christ. And we may well have hurt others.  That's why Jesus in Matthew 18 tells us how to handle a situation where a brother or sister has wounded us. He says if we've been hurt, go and talk to the person, in private, tell him or her our issue, and if our brother or sister listens to us, then we have won them back. Go in private with humility, in the spirit of reconciliation, with the goal of restoring your relationship.

Unfortunately, Rick did not do this with Larry.  Rick's sense of Christian theology was offended, and he should have gone to Larry, humbly, and asked for clarification, told him his concerns, and sought to bring harmony and understanding to the situation.  Instead, Rick, in a spirit of superiority, did not go to Larry but wrote a letter. He was not seeking reconciliation, but vindication, and as a judge told Larry to publicly repent. Everything Rick could do wrong, he did wrong. 

In fairness to Rick, I think we have all played the part of Rick at some point in our church lives.  Someone has hurt us, and we have not gone to them about it. Instead, we let our anger simmer. We are not particularly humble in our feelings toward our brother or sister. We know what they need to do to correct the situation, and we are not so much interested in reconciliation, as in being right. By doing this we do not win back our brother or sister.  Instead we grow cold towards them. We avoid them. Maybe we even start to get burned out about the church and about people who go to church. That's why Jesus says go to your brother and sister and try to make things right. Go in private with humility, in the spirit of reconciliation, striving to restore your relationship.  Easy to hear, but very hard to do. 

About a week and a half after I talked to Larry, he asked to meet with me again. He had sent a letter to Rick apologizing for the confusion, and he promised to meet personally with every student at the retreat to correct any misconceptions he may have inadvertently left them with. I thought that sounded very reasonable.  But then Larry showed me Rick's response.  Rick said no, not a private apology with with each student, but only a public apology would do. In addition, Rick had met "discreetly" with a theology professor at Denver seminary, and the professor agreed that Larry was teaching heresy, and there were hints that Larry might have to appear before a seminary tribunal to "clarify" his teachings. This had turned into a disaster. 

In Matthew Jesus says if you go to your brother or sister, and there is no healing, then take one or two people with you, humbly and privately, with the goal of healing and reconciliation. The force of Jesus's teaching is that reconciliation is so important that you keep working at it if it isn't happening, and you bring a small crisis team with you to give you the best possible chance for success. Do whatever it takes to achieve reconciliation. 

Again, Rick didn't do this. If he believed that Larry was resisting his attempts to deal with their problems, he should have met with Larry, with one or two others, and in a spirit of grace and humility done everything possible to to achieve a breakthrough. Instead, Rick went privately to someone else with his grievances, and began to devise a "remedy" for the situation. This was not a graceful next step. This was not a step seeking reconciliation. 

It's easy to do what Rick did in this situation. A fellow Christian hurts you, and your first instinct is to go tell someone about it, and to find an ally who will understand and agree with you. We've all done it. But this is not the path of grace and reconciliation. In a church body, wounds between people are like an infection, and if left untreated that infection will certainly spread. Too many churches have died because a rampant infection of bitterness and side-taking has killed them. That's why Jesus says if need be, take one or two people with you, not to spread the conflict, but to contain it.  Strive to quickly to heal the wound. 

There is a church in Denver that does something I really like. When someone wants to become a member, they tell them all about the church, and then they sit the person down, and tell them very honestly, we are going to fail you. We will hurt you, and we will disappoint you. We guarantee it. But, if you can hang in there with us, if you can patiently bring  your frustrations to us and deal with them, then that is where grace begins.  That is where grace begins.  That is so wonderful!  But that is so very hard.  When something goes wrong with another Christian, our first instinct is to believe that grace has failed and been defeated. But the opposite can be true Grace can begin when we are wounded by our brothers and sisters, if we are open to it, and if we strive for it.

Two weeks after reading Rick's second letter, Larry asked to meet with me one more time. Oh boy.  Larry told me that he had written to Rick telling him that he believed they were at an impasse, and that if Rick felt the need to continue dealing with this, then they would have to proceed according to our gospel reading, Matthew 18.  Larry meant that Rick should bring one or two along, and meet with Larry, and see if they could work it out. But Rick thought that Larry meant that Larry wanted to bring one or two along and go after Rick, and get Rick to repent. A total and complete misunderstanding. Rick said he was prepared to fight Larry, and basically, come and get me. 

What do we do in a church or Christian organization when something like this happens?  Jesus says in Matthew 18 that if you go to your brother and sister with one or two others, and you still aren't reconciled, then take it to the whole church. Of course, when a situation has gotten this bad, it will come before the church, one way or another. It always does. The question is, how will a church deal with it?  Jesus says hopefully those who are involved will listen to, and follow, the wisdom of the church. And if that doesn't work? Then let the resisting brother or sister be to you as a Gentile  and a tax collector.  We can't avoid it, these are very hard words. But in my opinion, Christians have consistently misunderstood and terribly abused this passage. Christians have believed that if a person won't listen to the church, then throw the bum out. You had your chance. Adios. But this isn't what Jesus is saying. 

We need to remember that Jesus loved Gentiles and building inspectors. Uh, tax collectors. He spent lots of time with them. He even said that Gentiles and tax collectors were going into the Kingdom of God before a lot of Jews.  Jesus is saying that if someone won't listen even to the church, then something has gone wrong.  On some level they haven't understood what the church is, or what reconciliation is, and in that sense they are like a Gentile or tax-collector. But Gentiles and tax collectors they are of infinite worth.  Go get them!  Strive to love them even more. What do you think?  If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off ?  And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish. Jesus spoke these words right before our passage in Matthew 18.

Matthew 18 is a tough passage. We must take problems with our brothers and sisters very seriously. If I can use our Old Testament reading as an analogy, to be honest, there is an angel of death that hovers over every church, and that dark angel is the angel of hurt feelings, misunderstandings, gossip, and division. No church is immune. My guess is that at some time in our church lives, at some church, we have felt the presence of this angel of death, and maybe we have been members at a church where this angel has caused great destruction. It isn't pretty.  

But there are things we can do to make sure this angel passes over us.  We can paint our door posts with the grace of Jesus, a grace that seeks reconciliation at all costs, a grace that doesn't divide but heals, and a grace that doesn't cast out our problems, but believes instead that our problems are where grace begins.  If we cover our door posts with this attitude, we will be delivered from the darkness.

The angel of death did not spare Rick and Larry. Though Rick eventually dropped everything, he and Larry have never spoken again. They could not find the grace that heals. They could not find the grace that reconciles. It is a true tragedy.

So, one last thought.  The passionate Christians of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church are about to embark on a large building project. Some feelings will be hurt. Misunderstandings will occur. Some relationships might be strained. Are we ready?  Does the reconciling grace of God cover our door posts?  Just askin.

Amen

Doubting Thomas

Good morning. He is Risen!  When my oldest son Mario was a junior in high school, he and a friend and his friend's father traveled to Missouri for a camping trip. When Mario got back he was very excited.  Dad, I saw a spook light!  Spook light, I said? Yeah, a spook light. We were in our car at the bottom of a hill on a dirt road, and these lights appeared right after dark at the top of the hill. As we watched them, one of the lights came flying down the road and went right past us. It was a spook light!  Okay Mario, I said. That's nice.  Mario sensed my disbelief. Don't you believe me dad?  Do you think I'm making this up? I said no, I don't think you're making it up, but, a spook light?  Mario was less than happy with my reluctance to believe his story.  So I said look Mario, I'm not sure what you saw, it sounds amazing, but I guess I would have to be there to see it before I can really believe it.  Putting it mildly, Mario found my lack of faith disturbing. 

In our gospel today we read about the story of doubting Thomas. Over the course of church history, many sermons have been preached about Thomas, faith and doubt.  Should Thomas have simply believed his friends when they told him that Jesus had risen from the dead? Was he right to doubt? Did Jesus find Thomas' lack of faith disturbing?  These are difficult questions.  But for me, they leave out the question of context.  Questions of faith and doubt cannot be examined in the abstract.  You can't answer these questions without looking at the context of Thomas' life and experiences. In the same way, for each of us, questions of faith and doubt can only be answered in the context of who we are, and what is going on in our lives.  

When I was discussing with Mario his vision of the spook light, the very first thing that came to mind was not whether he really saw something, or if he was fibbing. My first thought was, what is my relationship with my son?  This was the context in which I had to address my doubts.  Though I had questions about Mario's story, I knew if I expressed these doubts to Mario that this could endanger our relationship. The relationship between dads and teenage sons is precarious anyway, and I knew that if I told Mario I doubted him that I could make our father/ teenager journey more dicey.  

I had to weigh being honest on the one hand, with preserving our relationship on the other hand.

 I believe that Thomas was responding to the other disciples in a similar context.  He and the other disciples had been through a lot together. They had spent three years with Jesus. They had seen his miracles and listened to His teachings, and they had spent the last week with him in Jerusalem, from the triumphal entry to the crucifixion. Thomas and the other disciples were a team, a band of brothers and sisters, and if Thomas told them he didn't believe them, which was to say he didn't trust them, then his relationship with them might be in big trouble. This is part of the context of Thomas' story.

So I think that Thomas telling them that he needed to put his hands in Jesus' wounds in order to believe their testimony was actually an act not so much of doubt, but of courage. He was taking a big risk that his honesty might damage his relationship with them.  He was risking being compared to another disciple, Judas, who didn't really believe in Jesus and ended up betraying him. I took a risk in being honest with Mario, and in a similar way I believe Thomas took a big risk in being honest with his friends.

It is never easy to find the courage to speak a difficult truth in a close relationship. Sometimes we need to talk to a friend, a spouse, or a family member about a problem, an addiction, or some other issue.  We all know how scary that can be, because we might be putting our relationship with them in jeopardy.  Sometimes we need to talk to a fellow employee, or maybe our boss, about something going on that needs to change, and that takes courage.  Our jobs and our livelihood can be at risk by telling the truth.  As hard as these are, it is infinitely harder to tell someone that you are close to that you don't believe them. I believe, in context, that Thomas had to make this decision, whether to be honest about his doubts, or not, even if that meant that his relationship with his friends and disciples might be damaged.  Thomas found the courage to be honest. 

Here is another story, this time from my college days. When I was a sophomore I had a crush on a girl in our campus ministry named Marilyn.  We started dating, and getting closer, until one day her old boyfriend came back into town.  Within a week Marilyn and I were no longer an item. That was really hard for me.  Well, about a year later, Marilyn started giving me hints and signals that maybe she was interested in me again (it didn't work out with her old boyfriend).  And some friends confirmed that they thought Marilyn was again looking romantically in my direction.  I wanted to believe it, because I still had feelings for her. But I was too wounded to do anything about it. I told everyone, I'm just too scarred from what happened last time. If Marilyn wants to be involved with me again, she'll have to show me. She'll have to make the first move, and make it abundantly clear that this is what she wants. I just don't have the energy to believe her. 

In context, Thomas and the other disciples were deeply wounded. They had given up everything to follow Jesus, they believed he was the messiah and the son of God, and they expected the kingdom of God to be revealed at any moment. But then their hopes, their dreams, and their beloved leader were killed, and their world ended.  Now the other disciples were telling Thomas that they had seen Jesus.  He was alive!  I'm sure Thomas wanted to believe.  He had heard Jesus say that if you destroy this temple in three days I will rebuild it.  But like I was with Marilyn, he was too wounded to believe, too wounded to make a step of faith. Jesus would have to meet him.  Jesus would have to show him the wounds in His feet and hands. It is only in the context of Thomas' woundedness that we can understand Thomas' doubts.

We all know people who for a variety of reasons are too wounded by life to hear and accept the good news of Jesus' resurrection.  For whatever reason they just can't put their faith in God.  And all of us know what it's like to be  wounded to the point where we can barely reach out to God. Sometimes we go through through seasons where we have to retreat from the church, and maybe even God, and tend our wounds.  And you know what?  That's okay. God understands. In fact, I believe that these seasons of pain and doubt are a key part of our faith journey. God's ways are hard sometimes. Very hard. Sometimes God wounds us almost to our breaking point.  And it is often at these times of doubt and darkness that God does his deepest work in us. God understands when we can't reach out.  God understands our wounded contexts. Just like with Thomas, Jesus will gladly show us his hands and feet.

One more story from my life.  My mom died last year, and in January we started to remodel her house so we could use it as a rental.  Her backyard was a mess, and my youngest son Joey and some others were cleaning things up outside. In early February Joey called me, and said, hey, we found something buried in your Mom's backyard.   What is it, I asked?  He said his friend found a hole, and there was a can in it, and there was something in the can. But his friend had found it, so Joey wasn't sure what it was.  As you can imagine, I found this news very exciting.  What treasure was buried in that can?  What gift had my mom or dad left me, knowing I would only find it after their deaths?  I am a Jungian oriented psychotherapist, and this archetypal symbolism of parental buried treasure was pure gold!  I had to get over there as soon as I could!  But, I was also hesitant, and a bit reluctant.  Was this too good to be true?  Though I felt like a kid on Christmas morning, I didn't want to get my hopes up, and I didn't want to be disappointed.  I would have to calmly wait and see what treasure was buried in that can. 

In context, I imagine Thomas must have felt the same way.  The other disciples were clearly very excited about having seen Jesus.  And Thomas knew the Old Testament prophecies, he had seen the miracles, and He believed Jesus was the messiah. But was this too good to be true?  Jesus had been betrayed, condemned to death, and then crucified.  Was it possible that this story might have a happy ending?  Was it really possible that the other disciples had seen Jesus alive?  Thomas was afraid to hope.  He didn't want to be disappointed. Again. He needed to see for himself. 

We know what this is like. Maybe we hear about someone who has been miraculously healed. We wonder, can this really be true? Could God do this for me?  Or maybe we hear about someone who has had a miraculous conversion to Christianity. We wonder, is it real? Will it last?  Is it too good to be true?  Or maybe a family member tells us that this time, it's going to be different. None of us want to be disappointed. We have all had our hopes raised, only to be dashed, and we don't want to go through that again. We understandably defend ourselves against disappointment. In context, I think this is what Thomas was doing.  When he said he needed to see the wounds in Jesus' feet and hands, he was saying he couldn't bear to be disappointed. 

So was Thomas flippant? Cynical? A man of little faith?  I don't think so.  Thomas was just like us.  He was honest with his doubts, He was wounded and didn't have the energy to believe, and he wanted to believe, but was afraid of being disappointed.  

So you're probably wondering, what treasure did I find in that can? You're curious, aren't you?  Well, for now, I'm not going to tell you. But hold that feeling of curiosity.  Because, in the context of of John's gospel, curiosity and anticipation are what Easter is all about.  Mary was curious about who moved the stone.  John and Peter were curious and filled with anticipation as they ran to the tomb to check out Mary's story. And I believe Thomas must have been beyond curious about whether the disciple's story of seeing Jesus alive was true.  Though he was wounded and didn't want to be disappointed, in every hour of every day, and every time he was in a room with the other disciples, he must have wondered if Jesus was going to show up.  And he did show up!  

We must never lose that feeling of curiosity and wonder. Curiosity and wonder are our Easter faith. When we have doubts, and when we are wounded and can't bear to be disappointed again, we must keep the flame of curiosity burning. When we have to back off and heal our wounds, we must keep anticipating what our next season will look like, and what God will do next. We must understand that Easter is not just something that happened two thousand years ago.  Easter is happening all the time. Jesus is coming alive in our hearts every day.  This is the faith of Doubting Thomas. This is the faith of the church.  And this is the faith that will set us free.

So let us never forget our contexts and the contexts of others, and when we are filled with doubt, and when we are locked up in fear of being disappointed again, tell Jesus you need to feel him and touch him.  He'll show up.  He always does.

Amen

By the way, there was candy in the can. 

 

Jim and Eian!

Curious

What will you tell us?

Hi Coyote

Hello
It's been a while
Where have you been?

Forbidden Planet

Good morning. As you know, I love all the the Star Wars movies. But my favorite science fiction movie of all time is the 1956 classic, Forbidden Planet. Anybody seen Forbidden Planet? Forbidden Planet is about a planet in a distant solar system that was once populated by an incredible race called the Krell. The Krell were amazingly advanced. They had eliminated sickness and suffering, they were ethically and morally stellar, they had travelled the galaxy, and they were technologically light years ahead of earth. But, on the threshold of their ultimate cultural achievement, the Krell perished in a single night.

Two different expeditions from earth visited this Forbidden Planet long after the Krell had disappeared, and discovered that something dark and evil still haunted this world. At the end of the movie we learn that the Krell had been murdered, and this murderous evil still existed, threatening to kill all of the earth visitors.

What was this evil? The Krell heard subtle but devilish cultural voices tempting them. The Krell succumbed to these cultural voices and temptations, and by giving in, they created an evil that caused their extinction. The Krell listened to the voice of the tempter, and perished.

The cultural voices the Krell faced are the same cultural voices and temptations that Jesus faced while He was in the desert. The same evil tempter tempted both. And, the same cultural temptations, and the same evil tempter, tempt us in exactly the same ways. As we all begin the journey of Lent, I want to look this morning at three cultural voices and temptations that the Krell, Jesus and we all wrestle with. By looking at how Jesus and the Krell faced these three cultural temptations, we will learn what the devil’s cultural temptations are, how to resist them, and, what the tragic consequences are if we don’t.

Let me begin by painting the scene in Luke. The big picture that we so often miss is that when the Spirit drove Jesus into the desert, Jesus was going on a classic vision quest. Many cultures then, and still a few today, sent their young people away from society for a period of time to help them prepare for their public vocation or ministry. On a vision quest the goal is to get away from all the voices of family, culture, and civilization, and to clearly hear the voice of God, the voice of your own soul, and, the voice of evil.

Through fasting and isolation, the vision-quester is more open to hearing these important voices. This is why the Spirit drove Jesus into the desert. Jesus didn’t go into the desert simply to individually wrestle with Satan. Jesus went into the desert on a vision quest to turn off cultural voices, and turn other voices on.

But, voices we try to turn off always come back full force. Prepared by fasting and isolation, the very voices of culture that Jesus was trying to get away from on his vision quest came back at Him full force.

The first cultural temptation that Jesus faced was the tempation of compensating for human fraility with omnipotence. After living in the desert for over a month, Jesus is very hungry. The tempter says, “if you’re starving, turn these stones into bread. You are all powerful, use your omnipotence to compensate for your human frailty.” Human beings are frail. We are prone to sickness and suffering. We get weak from hunger, and we get scared when we are all alone. Culture, our shared human community, helps us with our frailities, healing us when we are sick, comforting us in our sorrows, feeding us when we are hungry, and providing us companionship when we are all alone. But, the voices of culture also tell us that we can compensate for our human frailty by becoming omnipotent.

Look at what humans have done to compensate for our frailty. We’ve turned deserts into oasis, we’ve cured diseases, we feed the world, we shelter ourselves from violent nature, and, if we continue on this path, who knows what else our power might accomplish. We just might become all powerful. We just might be able to turn stones into bread. This is the voice of the tempter, speaking through culture, telling us that we can become God.

The Krell also heard the voice of the tempter. They were so powerful that they had eliminated sickness, suffering, fraility, and vulnerability. There was nothing they couldn’t do. They were virtually omnipotent. They compensated for their fraility by almost becoming God.

This first cultural temptation we must battle on our lenten vision quests says if our fraility makes us insecure, then maybe our power can make us secure. Jesus responds to the voice of the tempter by saying that humans do not live by bread alone. Our security does not come by turning stones into bread, but by trusting God. We are secure not by becoming God, but by trusting God.



This is a tough battle. I feel this cultural temptation all the time. If I can make enough money, then I can turn that money into bread, and I will be secure. If I do just the right exercises, and take just the right supplements, then I can avoid sickness and disease, and be secure. If I can just develop myself enough psychologically, then I can turn that hoped-for maturity into mental security against rejection, failure, or political and economic unrest. And on and on.

I’m sure you feel similar temptations too. The cultural temptations to compensate for our human fraility by becoming God are everywhere. Like Jesus, when confronted by the voice of the tempter, we all need to compensate for our human fraility not by striving to become omnipotent, but by trusting our fraility to God.

The second cultural temptation that Jesus faced was the temptation to compensate for being limited to one place, by being able to go to all places. After a rough season in the wilderness, Jesus was feeling powerless and alone. Surely He was tired of living in the desert. The tempter leads Jesus to a high place and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world. “All their glory and splendor will be yours,” Satan says. Jesus, trying to get away from the voices of culture, is immediately hit with a powerful cultural temptation to be somewhere else.

The tempter says, “You can be everywhere at once. You need not be limited to one place. From this high ground all the kingdoms of the world are right here before you. There is no place you can’t have. There is no place you can’t reach” This temptation is about power, authority, and omnipresence.

The Krell, from their high place, were also tempted to be omnipresent. On the threshold of their greatest cultural achievement, Krell technology was so advanced that their computers and machinery could connect to the electromagnetic signals of individual Krell brains. This allowed individual Krells to project their presence instantaneously to any place of their planet. The Krell overcame the physical limitations of a body, and achieved virtual omnipresence. They listened to the voice of the tempter.

What are the high places in our culture from which we are tempted to become omnipresent? Militarily, omipresence means our army, navy and air force can fight the enemy anywhere and everywhere in the world. Tourism-wise, omnipresence means we can go to, learn from, and enjoy any place in the world. Internet-wise, omnipresence means we can connect to and communicate with anyone on earth, and, through fantasy, as super-heroes we can battle anyone we want, and, have sex with any image we want.

We can literally travel to the moon, and through our incredible telescopes see back to the beginning of the universe. We can go to the stars. We can color outside any lines. We are no longer tied to body, or to place. As the commercial says, we are without limits.

Jesus responded to the voice of the tempter by saying “you will worship God alone.” By worshipping God who alone is everywhere at all times, we are forced to remember that we are limited physical creatures. We do indeed have limits. There are all kinds of lines we can’t color outside of. There is no place high enough to get us everywhere. There is no place high enough to make us God. We must compensate for being physically limited to one body, in one place, at one time, not by being omnipresent, but by trusting God who is everywhere at all times.

The final temptation that Jesus faced was the temptation to compensate for being mortal, by being immortal. The desert Jesus was vision-questing in was not flat. It had hills and canyons, and certainly, weakened by fasting, Jesus must have worried about falling. So, the tempter took Jesus to the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God, Jump! Your angels will catch you. Don’t worry about falling. Scripture says you can’t be harmed. You won’t die. You are immortal.” Satan tempts Jesus to compensate for His human frailities by trusting in His divine invulnerability and immortality.

Again, the Krell were tempted by the same tempter and the same temptation. Having overcome sickness and suffering, having overcome being physically limited to one place, the Krell were on the verge of attaining immortality. Immortality not through their achievements, and not through their history, but immortality by living forever. The Krell compensated for the greatest fraility of all, death, by swallowing up death up in eternal life.

The promise of eternal life is a profound cultural temptation that we must battle ceasely on our Lenten vision quests. In spite of earthquakes, tsunamis, plagues, and wars, culture keeps promising us eternal life. Think of how much money we spend as a culture on make-up and hair dye to keep us looking young; light beer, shiny cars, and pretty women to keep us feeling young, and angioplastys, stents, and bypass surgeries to keep us living and young. These things aren’t bad in and of themselves. But the subtle cultural message we are hit with all the time is that if we do the right things, then, maybe, just maybe, we will live forever.

Jesus responded to this temptation by saying, “Don’t put God to the test. Don’t challenge God to show you how mortal you really are.” We should trust our mortality to God’s immortality. We should not try to compensate for our mortality by trying to become immortal.”

These cultural temptations are not just quirks of 21st century humanity. Put all these temptations together and humanity has a very serious problem. I want to look at a recent example of how all these temptations came together at one time: Wall Street and the economic meltdown. I want to preface this by saying that my observations are in no way political, and, the executives, accountants, and brokers of Wall Street are not the bad guys. They are just like us, tempted by exactly the same things we are. The only difference is that the drama of their temptations and failures are played out on a much bigger stage.

What do Wall Street executives refer to themselves as? Masters of the universe. Through extremely fast computers and the internet they have the power and authority to economically make all the nations of the world bow down. They are rich beyond their wildest dreams. They believe they have computer programs and economic strategies that remove all risk from their financial activities. These masters of the universe are all-powerful, omnipresent, and invulnerable. And it totally fell apart.


And we are no different. In our small realms don’t we strive with all our might to be masters of our universe? Don’t we arrange our lives to such an extent that we believe, or at least hope, that we are invulnerable? Don’t we dream of what we would do if we were economically or politically powerful? Don’t we way too often spread ourselves way too thin in our quest to be at way too many places at the same time? Wall Street is us. We are Wall Street. We have all given in to the same cultural temptation to think we are God. And it always falls apart.

It all fell apart for the Krell because they thought they could become God. At the very threshold of being technologically able to travel and create everywhere, the Krell destroyed themselves. Having unlimited power, when the Krell went to sleep murderous monsters from their unconscious, that they didnt even know were there, were free to roam and destroy. In striving to be God their inner demons, given unlimited power, destroyed everything, and the Krell never even knew what hit them.

We are in danger of the exact same catastrophe. We think we are becoming masters of the universe. The same energy that fuels the stars humanity has harnessed in our nuclear weapons and reactors. Think about how amazing that really is. And I read recently that we are on the verge of creating life. Think about that. Not genetically altering life, but creating life from scratch in our own image. It is almost unbelieveable. And these almost unlimited powers are in the hands of a human race that is tempted to be God, with all kinds of monsters and demons running around in our souls. To be honest, this scares me to death.


If we as a species believe the illusion that we are progressing towards omnipotence, if we believe the illusion that we are progressing towards omnipresence, and if we really believe the illusion that we are progressing towards immortality, if we really believe like the Krell that we are progressing towards divinity, then we will be destroyed, and just like the Krell, we won’t even know what hit us.

So what do we do? As each of us go on a vision quest this Lent, how do we battle the cultural temptations to become God? Let me tell you what I’m going to do. Since Lent is traditionally the time of “giving things up,” let me tell you what I’m giving up to resist the cultural temptation to think I can be God. Many of you will find this shocking, disturbing, and even unbelieveable, and if what I am about to say makes you feel faint, ushers are standing by to help you. For Lent, I am giving up my iPod.

I know, I know, this is stunning, but let me tell you why. By being instantly connected to the internet wherever I am, I am tempted to think I am God. Through this iPod I can connect to all the knowledge of the world. I can be omniscient. By posting to my blog, twitter and Facebook, I can influence people all over the world. I can be omnipotent. As our resident philosopher Rob Jones says, with this iPod, no matter where I am, I can be somewhere else. I can be omnipresent.

And maybe, just maybe, by leaving a lasting, digital mark in this world that can be accessed forever and ever, I can be immortal. Maybe. This iPod is incredible, but it also subtley whispers in my ear that I can be God. So this Lent, on this vision quest, I am putting it away.

The voice of the tempter never changes, whether on a Forbidden Planet, or on our planet. Just as in the Garden of Eden, the devil is always whispering to us that we can be divine. We must not go this high place of arrogance and greed. This wish to be God takes us away from nature that gives us life, takes us away from our bodies that exist in only one place and time, and takes us away from the desert, the inhospitable desert, that always reminds us how mortal we really are. That is why Lent always sends us back to the desert. Because only in the desert are we reminded, beyond any doubt, that we are, after all, not God.

Amen

Transitions

All things considered, Maundy Thursday is my favorite service of the year. The Easter Vigil is a very, very, very close second, but if I had to pick, for me tonight is the most meaningful liturgy in the church calendar. There is so much going on tonight: the washing of the feet, the last supper and the institution of the Eucharist, which harkens back to and fulfills the Jewish Passover, the incredible upper room discourses, the stripping of the church, and walking to the altar of repose where the smell of flowers hits you before you even get to the stairs. Maundy Thursday is a multi-sensory liturgical experience.

I also love Maundy Thursday because of all the transitions, both biblically and liturgically, and all the befores and afters. Biblically, before tonight was the old covenant. After tonight is the new covenant. Before tonight the blood of the Passover lamb protected us from death. After tonight the blood of the Lamb of God delivers us from death. Before tonight our forefathers and mothers celebrated the Passover Seder. After tonight we celebrate the Eucharist. Before tonight Jesus was master and Lord. After tonight he is also a servant and friend.

Liturgically, we mirror this before and after by slowly transitioning, in a different direction, from joyful celebration, to stripping the church, and afterwards to waiting and praying. It’s as if Maundy Thursday is the large end of a funnel, and tonight we liturgically start down and get narrower, moving from celebration and life, to being stripped of everything, to watching and waiting, and then to death on Good Friday. Biblically, on this most holy night, the befores and afters go in a wonderful direction towards life. Liturgically, the befores and afters lead to the cross. That tension is why I love Maundy Thursday.

A little over two years ago I experienced a profound life transition when my father passed away, and as I look back, the evening he died reminds me in some significant ways of Maundy Thursday. That night was a time of transitions and tensions, it was a time of thinking back to all that had come before in my life, and it was a time of anxiously wondering what would happen next. As I fell asleep that night, I had three small dreams that spoke directly to the before and after of life and death, and tonight I’d like to share these dreams with you, because the texture of these dreams has a Maundy Thursday feel: a feel of transition, a feel of before and after, and a feel of tension.

When I got to the hospital on January 31, 2007, I was told that my father had passed away about ten minutes earlier. That news hit me like a punch in the stomach. I sadly went to his room, and as I held my dad’s hand, I was overwhelmed by two thoughts. First, whatever was happening, I knew that this was big, really, really big. Second, I was deeply aware that my dad’s death was in Christ’s image. Because Christ experienced death, human death is now in the image of Christ. I thought back to all my dad had meant to me in my life, and I wondered what my life would be like without him.

I cried as I drove home, and then cried and talked with Andrea. I felt sad and anxious, and I was waiting and longing for something, but I didn’t know what. After a while I tried to fall asleep, but I couldn’t, because, strangely, I kept thinking about atomic bombs.
Let me give you a brief context for this. A few weeks earlier I had read a book about the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, and the author said that in the Nagasaki bomb the fissionable material had lost mass, and that this loss of mass caused the explosion. Usually we think of nuclear fission not as a loss of mass, but as a chain reaction, the classic picture being a gymnasium floor completely full of armed mouse traps, with a ping-pong ball resting gently on each trap. If you throw one more ping-pong ball into the gymnasium, in just a few seconds the entire gym is full of flying ping-pong balls, because that ball springs a ball, which springs others, and the chain reaction is almost instantaneous, just like in a nuclear explosion.

But in the book I read, the author said another way to look at it was that the explosive charges in the Nagasaki bomb had significantly reduced the mass of fissionable material, and according to Einstein’s equations, lost mass is converted into incredible amounts of energy. I had never looked at it that way before, and this image of lost mass had been floating around in my mind for the past few weeks. On the night my dad died, for some reason that image of lost mass kept me awake. I couldn’t shake it, and I couldn’t fall asleep. As a therapist I have tried to train myself to welcome all thoughts and feelings, so I thought that maybe the destruction and loss of death was appearing to me in the image of lost mass and atomic destruction. Eventually I fell asleep.

My first dream was very brief, and in terms of the before and after of death, it clearly spoke to the after. I dreamt that a woman wearing dark glasses was looking at me, and as she looked at me she put on a fur coat, and took off her dark glasses. I woke with a start, and I knew instantly what this dream meant. Maybe atom bombs lost mass, but not my dad. This dream was not about lost mass, or lost anything, but about gain, gaining everything in the world. The fur coat was a putting on, gaining mass, being further clothed. I knew immediately this referred to Second Corinthians chapter five. Paul says in verse one:

“Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in (our body) is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked....because we do not wish to be unclothed, but to be further clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.”

The fur coat said in death my dad was not losing anything. Instead, he was putting on, and gaining, everything.

I also knew instantly that the dark glasses referred to First Corinthians thirteen: “now we see through a glass darkly, but then we shall see face to face.” The woman taking off her dark glasses meant that the “then” was now for my dad. He did not see God darkly anymore. Now he saw God face to face. In death my dad had gained everything.

I was amazed at this small dream, and deeply thankful for its hopefulness. What a wonderful picture of what happens to us after death! I thought about this dream for a while, and then fell back asleep. My second dream was as brief as the first, and it also dealt with the after side of death. I dreamt that I was in a very large aircraft hangar, and a man of about forty was joyously leaping and dancing and doing pirouettes in large circles all around the hangar. Again I woke with a start, and again, I knew instantly what this dream meant. In death my dad had not been reduced or made smaller in any way. Now my dad was dancing in a world much bigger than this one. Now my dad was free.

On this side of death, on the before side of death, death so often seems like a reduction, a loss, a getting smaller, a freezing and stopping of everything. But my dreams were saying just the opposite. It was such a comfort to me that within hours of my dad’s death, I could feel him being clothed with life, and dancing with God in a gigantic world.

After a while I feel asleep again, and I had my third and final dream. This dream was clearly a before death dream. I dreamt I was in Arches National park, in Moab, Utah, which is one of my sacred places in the world. I was on a path, walking on the red desert soil, and on the ground I saw a dead rabbit. Behind me was double arch, and though everything else was completely silent, I could hear small rocks slowly rolling down the arches, and I knew the arches were slowly eroding.

Then I looked down on the ground again, and I saw an ear of corn. I picked it up, put the end to my mouth, and started inhaling as deeply as I could. I woke up suddenly, but this time the interpretation of the dream was not immediately apparent, and it took me a while to get a feel for the meaning. But slowly I began to understand.

In my very sacred place the symbol of the rabbit was from one of my favorite books, “Desert Solitaire”, by Edward Abbey. In this book Abbey talks about a dead rabbit, and how death is part of the rhythm of life. The arches, though seemingly immense and permanent, are slowly eroding, and one day will be gone. As the buffalo was the very life of the plains Indians, so corn was the very life of the native Americans who lived in the Moab area. By inhaling from the corn I was taking in all the life and mystery of this very sacred place.

Putting it all together, my last dream was about “this side” of the transition. On “this side”, before death, nothing is permanent. The rhythm of nature tells us that things are always changing. Life is born, and life dies. Incredible geology is slowly formed, and slowly erodes away. And, most important, the mystery of this changing life, on “this side”, before death, must be inhaled, taken in deeply, and lived to the full. Our life on this side of death is absolutely sacred.

We all can’t wait to get to heaven, where we will be further clothed, where we will see God face to face, and where we will dance in freedom forever. We all long for the eternal and the permanent. But though we long for heaven, we are not meant to simply wait for the sweet by and by. We are meant to experience this life of change and decay to the utmost, because “this side”, before death, is also sacred. This was the Maundy Thursday lesson of my dreams.

I am reminded of a marvelous quotation by Father Alexander Schmeman, a Greek Orthodox theologian. In his book “Great Lent”, he says....”Death is no more!...oh, death is still there, to be sure, and we still face it and someday it will come and take us. But it is our whole faith that by His own death Christ changed the very nature of death, made it a passage, a passover, a Pascha--into the Kingdom of God, transforming the tragedy of tragedies into the ultimate victory.”

Every transition in this life, every time we go from a before to an after, involves death. Every disappointment, every change in a relationship, every move in a job, every sickness and disability, every economic downturn or political upheaval, involves death. And we instinctively hate to die. But, because Christ has redeemed even death, all our little deaths can become a passover for us into eternal life. Every change can be a change into heaven. If we inhale this life and take it all in, taking in even death, then this life will be heaven, even as we wait for the heaven that is to come. That is the great mystery of Christianity, and that is part of the mystery of Maundy Thursday.

When the life of our church is taken down and put away later this evening, it will hurt. We will be reminded that sometimes death follows life in an instant, and that even our Savior did not escape betrayal and the grave.

But hopefully the dreams I had the night my dad died will also remind us that whatever this life is, we must experience it to the full, because through Christ and in Christ this life is the entrace to heaven, being stripped of everything is the door to being completely clothed, trying our best to see in the dark is the path to one day to seeing clearly face to face, and being buried in the ground is the portal to dancing with God forever, in a world bigger than anything we could ever imagine.

Amen.

What Is There To Say?

Please pray for my cousin, who lost both feet and one hand after a terrible fight with meningitis. It is so sad.

And now his life begins again.

Coyote

Incredible

Though I live to be a hundred
I will never figure out
What causes people to take their toys,
Go home, and whine and pout.

Poor Rush is so unhappy
With the good man John McCain,
That he will vote for Hillary instead;
Republican loss but conservative gain.

Whatever.

Coyote is a wise one,
And he swears upon his paw,
That this world has rarely seen an ass,
Like the sorry Rush Limbaugh.

The South Seas

The Joy of just being here on this beach
still without a Hilton or Sheraton.
Sand as at the dawn of creation, triumph
of existence. Look how the baby turtles
crawl from their egg shells.

Watch how they advance over the hot beach
to the sea which itself is life, the source of our own.
Taste this cool water fresh from the well.
We will not even eat the clams,
do nothing that would remind us of death.

Paradise lasting an instant.

The birds come. They nose dive,
rake low over the shore, then pull up
with prey in their beaks:turtles
just born. And the birds are not gulls:
It is the Luftwaffe over Warsaw.

With great anguish the turtles drag themselves to the tide,
victims whose only fault was their birth.
Ten out of a thousand will reach the sea.
The rest will be devoured.

Let others say this is natural selection,
survival of the fit.

For me it is the horror of the world.


Jose Emilio Pacheco
Translated from the Spanish by Michael Collier

A Great Mystery

Coyote looks in his crystal ball.
Which candidates will fall?
Not since '68 a race so great,
Obama, Clinton, or McCain?
Romeny? Huckabee? Edwards?
Say one, so say you all,
Denver's convention will be
A free-for-all.

Coyote's Warning

Now that Coyote is fifty, he once again reminds any and all, thou shalt not take my age in vain!

Big And Small

Good morning. Sometimes, the unpredictability of life can be funny, or serious, or both. Because my psychotherapy income is seasonal, I have worked, for the past three years, a small part time job delivering magazines to local stores. The income from this work helps level out the financial ups and downs of my profession. I set my own hours, and overall it is not a bad little job.

It was not a bad little job, that is, until about a month ago. Corporate, in an effort to cut expenses and increase profits, decided to significantly cut our mileage reimbursement. For a number of reasons this didn’t pass my smell test, so I wrote a nice little letter to our local General Manager, telling him that we have always received a generous mileage reimbursement, and that if we local employees could just stick together, maybe we could convince corporate to cut costs elsewhere.

KABOOM!!!! Talk about unpredictability! For some reason this letter was passed up to corporate, and literally, across the country, everything exploded. The previous General Manager, who now works in Sacramento, was massively chewed out because he answered a few questions I had about previous mileage policy, and I was told that supervisors would now follow me around, to find mistakes so I could be fired. I smelled a rat.

So I wrote a second letter to Human Resources, telling them if I lost my mileage reimbursement, I was going to file an arbitration claim for breach of contract. That got people’s attention. The GM in Sacramento got called on the carpet again, so he resigned. The president of the company called me personally from Virginia, promising to take care of this mess, and my Denver GM suddenly got very, very quiet. He was now in trouble too. Everybody was running for cover. My two little letters caused a ten thousand employee national corporation to shake like a leaf. That was the funny part.

The serious part is that a good guy resigned. And in Denver, in a move just short of retaliatory, work for all drivers was immediately cut back by a third. For some drivers this delivery job is their only source of income. Others are working to help support older parents. This cutback seriously affects them. That isn’t funny at all.

When I wrote those two letters I had no idea what kind of a journey I was about to begin with Dominion Enterprises. The unpredictability of how this story played out is both very funny, and very serious. When a journey begins, we have no way of knowing how it will play out.

Today we celebrate the feast of Epiphany, and contrary to popular Christmas mythology, I believe the journey of the Magi was filled with great unpredictability. I am sure this made their long journey to find the newborn King at times very funny, and at other times quite serious. Just like our journeys with God, we never know what is going to happen next.

Instead of the We Three Kings of Orient Are version of the Magi’s journey, imagine with me this morning what their journey might really have been like:

One night astronomers from what is now eastern Iraq, or Iran, or maybe even India, were studying the heavens, and they saw a new star. Their astrological and astronomical charts told them that a new star in this part of the sky meant a new King would soon be born. As they talked about this new star over the next few days, one of them probably said, “hey, maybe we should try to find this new King.” They all agreed, and their journey was born.

I believe that right from the beginning two unpredictable elements must have hit their plans. First, I’m sure the Magi expected their families and friends to be excited about their decision to find the new King. How could they not be? And I’m sure those around them found their quest very amusing. For example, if I told my wife that Phil and I and Bill Newbloom had seen a new star, and decided to take a few years to follow it, I promise you, Andrea would find that very amusing. I can’t tell you how amused she would be. The families and friends of the Magi must have felt the same way. Nice idea guys. Ha Ha. Funny and serious.

As it became clear that the Magi were serious about going, however, a second unpredictable issue must have troubled their minds. The quest to find the new king was big, and mythical. But for the families left behind, this journey was certainly not big and mythical. The Magi’s big adventure was not their friend. Why is life like this? Why do we sometimes have to decide between the quest, and home? Why do the things that inspire me seem hostile to someone else?

I am reminded of Homer’s classic The Odyssey. Odysseus has had many amazing experiences during the Trojan War, and now he is trying to find his way home. He is still having incredible adventures. But for Telemachos, his son, and Penelope, his wife, things at home are very different. Is Odysseus dead, or alive? Should Penelope marry one of her numerous suitors, or preserve Odysseus’ treasures, hoping that one day he will return? Penelope and Telemachos’ experience doesn’t feel mythical at all. Their experience is full of sorrow and uncertainty.

The big and the small often don’t seem to fit together. We feel bad for Penelope and Telemachos. But we in Western Civilization need Odysseus to experience and complete his journey. If Odysseus and Achilles had not gone on their noble adventure, even mythically, then Homer would not have written The Iliad and the Odyssey, there would have been no Trojan Horse, and, perhaps most important of all, we would never have seen Brad Pitt all bulked up in the movie Troy. That would have been an incredible loss!

But that is the mystery of the big and the small. We want big corporations to make money, but we don’t want them to treat their employees indifferently or with hostility. We want churches and denominations to grow, and build, and reach out, but we don’t want them to forget the everyday parishioner. We want our nation to be strong and successful, but we don’t want it to forget the sick, the poor, and the homeless. We want wise men and women to dream dreams and follow stars, but we don’t want other people to feel unimportant or left out. We want it all. Sometimes it works, but many times it doesn’t. That is the funny, and serious, and unpredictable mystery that must have weighed heavily on the minds of the Magi as they waved goodbye to all that was familiar, and set their sights to the West.


In my imagination the Magi’s journey to Israel must have had many unpredictable aspects, some of which were funny, and some of which were serious. Big trips like this never go as planned. Somebody always forgets their underwear, somebody always gets sick, somebody never asks for directions, and though the Pax Romana, or peace of Rome, made travel much easier and safer at this time, there was still the threat of robbers or murderers. And, of course, when you are traveling with a bunch of people for a long period of time, certain individuals don’t get along. That is unavoidable.

But balancing the funny and the serious, I think this part of the Magi’s trip was probably more fun than hardship. Whenever you go on a long trip, a special sense of camaraderie and community is always built. I remember a mission trip to the Grand Canyon I took in college. Everybody who went had a special and fun time, and we really got to know each other. I can still remember the song one of the students wrote, called “The Mole Skin Blues”, because all of us had blister and toe problems after hiking twelve miles to the Colorado River. I will never forget that trip.

I noticed this same dynamic with the people I work with at my delivery job. Until a month ago I really didn’t know any of the other drivers. I would pick up my stuff in the morning, and leave. But when things started rocking and rolling after the cutbacks and my letters, many of us would hang out for a while, discuss the labor issues, and just chat. We gained a sense of community that only a journey of labor versus corporate can provide.

In the life of any church, there are difficult seasons when people aren’t getting along, church life is boring, leadership is questioned, and the congregation lacks purpose and direction. Do you know what the best cure for this season is? A godly journey. Let me phrase this another way. The level of unhappiness and complaining in a church is directly proportional to the lack of a sense of mission and journey among its members. A happy and healthy church is a church that is going somewhere together. Because the Magi were going somewhere together, all the unpredictable parts of their journey didn’t trip them up.

So, finally the Magi arrived in Israel. If the journey itself was tilted towards the fun side of the balance, I believe that arriving in Jerusalem was definitely tilted towards the serious. For the first time the presence and power of Rome was clearly felt. I’m sure the Magi felt Rome as they traveled across the eastern side of the Empire, but upon entering Israel the visibility of Roman power very much increased. This gave the whole journey a much more serious feel.

And almost immediately the Magi made what could have been a fatal mistake. They started asking about a new King. Not a good idea, considering that the Roman Herod called himself a king. Maybe the Magi were naive, but it did get Herod’s attention. They were lucky; Herod didn’t kill them, he granted them an audience. I’m sure not many travelers got a personal audience with Herod, but they did.

This reminds me of my experience with corporate. When I was just complaining about cutbacks nobody listened. But when I said the magic word “arbitration”, the president of the company gave me a call. When the Magi said the magic word “new King”, they were quickly informed that Herod would see them. Their journey was seriously on Herod’s radar now.

Upon meeting Herod, I believe the Magi’s first impression must have been quite humorous. This guy is a King? From all we know about Herod from history, he was not a physically or personally impressive person. But it didn’t matter. This small person had the entire power of the Roman Empire behind him. Their life and journey was in the hands of this unimpressive man. And Herod said he wanted to worship the new king too. Yeah, right. Herod was unimpressive, and deceitful.

Then Herod seemingly made a big mistake. After talking with the Magi, he told them to check back with him if they found the new King. Bad idea. If you were Herod, what you should have done was send some spies to follow the Magi, and when they found the new king, to kill both them and Jesus. But for some reason Herod let the Magi go. I’m sure he heard a lot about new kings and new messiahs, and he must have thought he could wait and see. Herod was powerful, but he wasn’t necessarily smart.

We know from history that Herod was also unstable and unpredictable. When the Magi didn’t check back with Herod before they went home, this made Herod nervous. After a month or so he thought, “you know, I probably should have done more when those guys were here looking for a new King. I think I’ll just kill all boys two years or under in that area and I won’t have to worry about it.” So he went off his rocker, and ordered the murder of hundreds of children. Herod was a crazy man with the power of Rome behind him, a bad combination. The Magi were lucky to escape with their lives.


When someone’s power is threatened, they can act unpredictably. My General Manager is usually a nice guy. But when I sent my second letter to HR, he lost it. In his best Rambo voice he screamed at me, “I don’t get paid to drive home, why should you?” A perceived challenge to power can make a good guy say bizarre things. A perceived challenge to power made Herod go insane.

As Christians, we all know about power. We have seen churches use power both constructively, and destructively. But, when it comes to real strength, I think Christians have one interesting thing in common with Herod; we are personally small, but backed by a very great power.

I heard a story once that illustrates this reality. In the past, in Mexico City, certain giant intersections were controlled not by traffic lights, but by a person who climbed a large platform, and started and stopped traffic with his hand. One day, when one of these traffic controllers wasn’t watching, a small child climbed the platform and put up his hand. Instantly, all the cars stopped. On his own, there is no way this little child had any power to stop a car. But when this child was on that platform, he had all the power and authority of the Mexican government behind him. He could stop any car he wanted to.

We are like that little child. On our own, we are small and unimpressive. We have no real power. But because we have all the power of the Kingdom of God behind us, we can accomplish anything. We have power over the demonic, we have the power to overcome sin, we have the power of the gifts of the spirit, and we have the power to share the gospel to the ends of the world. With God, all things are possible.

Now we move to the final act. An historical note here: The Magi didn’t appear right as Jesus was born. The shepherds came immediately and saw Jesus in swadling clothes, but the Magi came about two years later. We know this because Matthew tells us they came to Mary’s house, not a stable. Also, Herod asked the Magi to tell him exactly when they first saw the star. When the Magi didn’t return to Herod, he killed all boys two years old and younger. So the Magi must have told Herod that they had seen the star, and begun their journey, two years earlier.

After the Magi left Herod, I imagine they kept asking questions, and finally zeroed in on Bethlehem, then an area of the city, and then a house. After a talk with Mary and Joseph, they were introduced to Jesus. Their first response was probably laughter; we traveled all this way, and this is the King? No palaces, no servants, no guards, nothing at all like Herod. How could this boy be a king?

And yet....and yet. Something big was here. The more time they spent with Jesus, the bigger He became, and the more powerful He seemed. But not a power like Roman power, which made others small and scared. This power made them larger, and courageous. And what was this other feeling? Belonging, happiness, community. Experiencing this bigness in Jesus made the Magi, and Mary and Joseph, a new community. They were all related to each other in a new way now, because they had been with the King. They were all on a new journey together. How could something so new, so big, be coming from this small child?

The only way to describe this mystery of something so big being in someone so small is through poetry. One of my favorite saints, St. Ephrem the Syrian, wrote these words about the big and the small, about Mary and Jesus, in the second century. They could easily be the words of the Magi:

“Your mother is a cause for wonder. The Lord entered her/and became a servant. He who is the Word entered/and became silent within her. Thunder entered her/and made no sound. There entered the Shepherd of all/and in her He became the Lamb, bleating as He came forth.

Your mother’s womb has reversed the roles. The Establisher of all entered in His richness/but came forth poor. The Exalted One entered her/but came forth meek. The Splendorous One entered her/but came forth having put on a lowly hue. The Mighty One entered/and put on insecurity from her womb. The Provisioner of all entered/and experienced hunger. He who gives drink to all entered/and experienced thirst. Naked and stripped/there came forth from her He who clothes all.”

That says it all. The Magi found everything they were looking for. And much more. They gave their gifts to the new King, and after a few days went home. The new King had changed them forever.

My journey with corporate America is not over. Every time I go in, I hear rumors of more changes and more firings. And though I have poked fun at this whole journey, I have to be honest and say that this has been a stressful experience. It isn’t easy to know when to speak up, and when to be silent. And, I am well aware that what I do has an impact on the jobs and careers of others. So I try to do what is right, and live by this principle: I don’t know what the future holds, but I know Who holds the future.

I believe this principle is what the Magi learned. Their lives, just like ours, continued to be unpredictable. But they had met the Lord of the unpredictable. They had met the King. And that King held their lives, and their futures, in his hand. In 2008, may we all experience the peace that passes all understanding, knowing that the Lord of the unpredictable holds our futures in His hand.

Amen

Marathon

Good morning. Before I begin, I’ve been asked to announce that after communion this morning the ushers will collect a second offering, the proceeds going to help me pay off a lunch bet with Father Phil, because, you may have heard, the Red Sox beat the Rockies in the World Series. I am a man of my word, and I pay off my bets, so Phil, I am going to take you to a very, very nice part of town; it’s called Commerce City. There is an elegant McDonalds there that serves awesome Boston Clam Chowder. Just kidding. Phil, congratulations to you and the Red Sox, and I promise, I will take you somewhere nice.

I learned a lot in kindergarten. I really did. But some of the most important lessons I have learned in life come my from experiences of running, but not quite completing, two marathons. Here’s the story.

About two years ago Charlie Schlaufman sent me an e-mail about a new race called the Colfax Marathon, and Charlie wondered if I wanted to run it with him. A marathon is a short race of 26.2 miles, and for someone of my limited running ability, running this distance would take only five or six hours, starting five miles east of Fitzimmons in Aurora, and running straight west on Colfax to Colorado Mills Mall in Lakewood. Piece of cake. Having run only seven or eight miles of distance at any one time in my life, I enthusiastically told Charlie I would do it.

I began training in January of 2006, and by May I had pushed my long runs to almost four hours. I was ready. On a beautiful day in late May Charlie and I took off at dawn. I was doing well until mile fifteen, when my quads started to tighten up. By mile twenty I could barely walk, and at mile 24, just two miles shy of the finish, my legs shut down. So I stopped. I had told myself if at any point during the race my body said stop, I would listen. My body said stop, and I was done.

I was disappointed, but I had had a wonderful time, and I immediately started training to try again in 2007. I did more long runs, I lifted weights, and I ate more nutritious foods. As I lined up at the starting line in May of 2007 I was confident that this time I would make it.
I should have known that getting the stomach flu one week before the marathon was a bad sign. I thought I would be okay. But at mile three I knew I was in trouble because the sweet gatorade I was drinking every mile was not digesting, it was just sloshing around in my stomach. Not good. More bad news came at mile sixteen as I experienced a digestive reversal; in other words, I threw up. At mile twenty-two, hot, sick, and about to reverse my digestion again, I stopped. As you can imagine, I wasn’t having any fun. My second marathon was over.

Today we celebrate one of my favorite days in the church year, the feast of All Saints, and I had assumed that the lessons of All Saints would be closely related to the lessons I learned in running, but not quite finishing, two marathons. I discovered, however, that sometimes the lessons of All Saints are exactly the opposite of what we earthly runners would expect.

The first lesson I learned from my marathon experiences is that training for and running marathons is often a long and lonely endeavor. Although I got in a few training runs with Charlie, most of the time I was running all by myself, sometimes for three, four, or five hours. I pretty much ran the entire second marathon all by myself. Running is not a team sport. Most of the time you are all alone.

One of the hardest parts of running all by yourself for long periods of time is not so much the physical challenge, but the mental. What do you think about for four or more hours? Boredom is a big problem. And finding mental tenacity is probably the hardest part of all. Before every run you ask yourself, how am I possibly going to do this? During the run you ask yourself, how am I going to keep going? Do I have anything left? Why, exactly, did I decide to do this? There is nobody to help you answer these questions. You are all by yourself.

Life is sometimes very much like running marathons. In many ways, we feel like we are all by ourselves. Maybe we have been dealing with an addiction or a character issue for years. It has been a long battle, and we feel worn out and all alone. Maybe we have been trying with all our might to make an important relationship work. We may be exhausted, and unsure if we have anything left to give, or if we can even keep trying.

Maybe we have been working for years at an unfulfilling job, and every morning we ask ourselves, how am I going to do this? Where will I find the energy and creativity to deal with a job and with people who bore me out of my mind? Sometimes life itself just wears us out, and we wonder, do I have anything left? Will my pain ever stop? We all must deal with these difficult questions, and many times, just like running a marathon, it feels like there is nobody to help us, and we are all alone.

But the message of All Saints is just the opposite. The message of All Saints is that we are never alone! In our Old Testament reading this morning Daniel is troubled. In a dream he has seen four different beasts coming out of the sea, and like Elvis, Daniel is all shook up. So he asks an angel what the dream means, and the angel tells him that the four beasts are four kingdoms that will arise out of the earth. But don’t worry, the angel says; the saints of the Most High will also receive a kingdom, and they will possess it forever, yes, forever and ever.

Who are these saints? Earlier in chapter eleven Daniel says that in his dream, as he watched, the Ancient of Days, or God, took his seat. A river of fire was flowing out from before him, and thousands upon thousands attended him, ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. These countless thousands who are standing before God are his saints.

It is the historic faith of the church that these saints are God’s beloved people, living and dead, and that those saints who have died, the faithful departed, are just as real, and just as present to us, as we the living are present and real to one another. That is why, no matter how tired we are in life, and no matter how lonely we feel, because we are surrounded by the saints, we are never alone.

It’s like the new Verizon commercial, where somebody is talking on a cell phone, and suddenly they realize that they aren’t alone, but they’re surrounded by a network of thousands and thousands that make Verizon’s cell phone service the best of all. The slogan of that commercial is, “It’s the network.” That’s our slogan too. We don’t live the Christian life alone. We are constantly surrounded by a network of saints who are encouraging us and praying for us. Without that network of saints, we couldn’t do it.

And it’s important to remember that these saints don’t join us only when we die. Remember the final scene in the movie Titanic? Rose has told her entire moving story, and then she dies, and is reunited with her love Jack, and with all those who died on the Titanic that awful night. That is a great scene. But that scene has nothing to do with All Saints. We are not reunited with those who have died when we die. We are reunited with those who have died every single day, all the time, and we feel their presence especially as we worship together. Though life can discourage us in so many ways, the saints are always there to pick us up and help us keep running. That is what All Saints is all about.

The second lesson I learned from my marathon experiences is that there are often honest and legitimate excuses for why we didn’t finish the race. During my second marathon I got sick. What do you do? If I hadn’t gotten sick, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have finished. If I had done two or three more long runs, I am sure I would have finished my first marathon. The weather for both marathons was unusually hot for that time of year. If it had been in the mid-60’s, as is normal, instead of the low 80’s, I am sure I would have had enough in the tank to finish my first marathon, and maybe even my second. There are several other small things, like measuring the course correctly, that, if they had just been a little different, I likely would have finished both races. These excuses are honest, and legitimate. Sometimes there are good reasons why the race doesn’t turn out like we want it to.

Life is like that. Many times there are honest and legitimate reasons why our lives haven’t turned out like we wanted them to. Maybe we have real genetic inheritances that make us vulnerable to addictions, or depression, or anxiety. With a different genetic makeup, our lives would honestly be different. Maybe we were raised in truly dysfunctional families that deeply wounded our souls, and those wounds have made us victims in life, or perhaps perpetrators of the same pain. Growing up in a different family would honestly have made us different people.

Maybe we have made some well-intentioned, but bad choices in our lives. If we hadn’t made those choices, our lives would honestly be in a very different place. Or maybe life has simply dealt us some difficult cards. Maybe we have had to deal with medical issues, problems with a spouse, unexpected financial burdens, or simply been hit by the unexpected earthquakes and tsunamis that human flesh is heir to. Each of us have honest and legitimate excuses for why our lives haven’t turned out like we wanted them to.

But the message of All Saints is exactly the opposite. The message of all All Saints is that for Christians, there are absolutely, 100%, no excuses. And do you know why there are no excuses? There are no excuses because we have already won. We have already crossed the finish line. We are already champions. There are no excuses for why we didn’t make it, because we made it!


In Luke’s gospel this morning Jesus is ministering to the poor, the sick, and the outcasts of society. Jesus preaches to them the sermon on the plain, which is very similar to the sermon on the mount in Matthew chapter five. Jesus tell his audience that it isn’t necessarily good to be rich, because the rich already have their reward. Don’t envy those who are well fed now, because they will soon be hungry. And those who laugh now and have few cares will soon mourn and weep. But blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger, for you will be satisfied. And blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Jesus then says rejoice, and leap for joy, for great is your reward in heaven. We made it! The whole sense of the Greek in these verses is that the kingdom of God is ours, right now. No qualifications. We’re in.

I think that word heaven is what trips us up. When we hear heaven, we think of the next world. We have the idea that if we persevere in this life, then in the next life, in heaven, we will laugh, and be satisfied, and see God. Wrong. This isn’t Iowa. This is heaven. We are in heaven, in God’s presence, right now. All the blessings of the kingdom of God are ours, right now. We made it! If we don’t have to wait until we die to be reunited with God’s saints, then in the same way we don’t have to die to be a saint. We are all the saints of God, and wherever God is with his saints, that is heaven.

I know, so many times this world doesn’t seem like heaven. But on All Saints we celebrate the triumphant last chapter of the story, and what a chapter it is. Paul says in Romans eight that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. In today’s part of the story we see through a glass darkly, but we will see that God is transforming our genetic weaknesses, our family upbringings, our bad choices, and even our seemingly random fate into an incredible story of triumph and victory.

Our lives never turn out as we hoped. But our lives will turn out better than we ever could have imagined. No ifs, ands, or buts; no excuses or legitimate reasons. We did it. We made it to the finish line. That’s what All Saints is all about.

The final lesson I learned from my marathon experiences is that sometimes you give it your all, but you don’t get the medal. After I stopped running my first marathon Andrea picked me up, and we went to the finish line to congratulate Charlie. As I crawled out of the car I saw two young women marathoners walking by, and they had these beautiful medals around their necks, signifying that they completed the race. My heart sank. I knew I had done the right thing stopping when I did, but I would not be receiving a medal. I instantly thought of the apostle Paul’s admonition to run the race that you might finish it. I had given everything I had, but there was no medal for me. That was tough.

Again, I think life is often like that. Have you ever been in love with that special someone, and you said all the right things, sent all the right flowers, and wrote all the most beautiful poetry? You did everything you could possibly do, but when you looked in their eyes your heart sank, because you knew you were not the one. You gave it everything you had, but you didn’t get the prize. Or have you ever found the job that was just perfect for you? Your resume was awesome, your qualifications fit the job perfectly, and your interview went great. But your heart sank when they called to tell you they had chosen someone else. You gave it everything you had, but it wasn’t enough.

Or maybe you are a fan of the Colorado Rockies (though Red Sox fans know this experience too). You watch your team play perfect baseball for a month, and your spirits soar because everything seems just right to win the World Series. But then, even though they played their hearts out, it just wasn’t enough, and your heart sinks because they came so close, but they couldn’t capture the big prize. Sometimes in life, as players and as fans, you do everything you know how to do, but you don’t get what you longed for.

Again, the message of All Saints is just the opposite. The message of All Saints is that it is okay for our hearts to soar, because we already have a medal around our necks, and our joy has only just begun. In our reading from Ephesians, Paul says that “having believed, we were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance, until the redemption of those who are God’s possession--to the praise of His glory.” The Holy Spirit, who lives in our hearts, is also the champion’s medal around our necks.

Picture it like this. You run a marathon, and as you cross the finish line, a beautiful medal is placed around your neck. That medal is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, who we received at baptism, is the victory seal, the triumph symbol, written on our hearts, proclaiming that we are champions and God’s own forever. We did it! No sinking hearts because we tried with all our might and failed. Just victory and joy.


Then, you look down at that medal with great pride, and you tell the person who placed it around your neck that the medal is awesome. They say to you, “you think that medal is awesome, just wait till you see the post race banquet.” That is also what the Holy Spirit is. The medal around our necks, the Spirit, is our ticket into the post race banquet. If we have the medal, we are guaranteed of getting into the banquet. The banquet is our inheritance, eternal life with God, forever. A life of joy at God’s table that we can’t even begin to imagine. So, our life today is life is like a victory lap. We finished the race, we received the medal of the Holy Spirit, and now we are taking a victory lap around the track as we head to a banquet that will feed us for eternity. It doesn’t get any better than that. Every team winning the World Series forever. That is what All Saints is all about.

And don’t forget, the banquet doesn’t start when we die. We join with the saints at the heavenly banquet table every time we celebrate the Eucharist. Several of you have told me about impressions or visions of coming to the communion rail, and sensing that the rail extends off into heaven, with all the saints kneeling beside us. That is exactly what happens at every communion. Every Eucharist is heaven on earth.

So, there is only one question left this morning. Will I try another marathon? To be honest, I don’t feel a great need to try again. My two marathons were wonderful experiences, I got a good sermon illustration out of them, and I’m not sure I’m up for the hard work of training again. Plus, less than 1% of people ever even try a marathon, so though I don’t have a medal, my effort itself is it’s own reward. I had a lot of fun. Therefore, this morning I want to announce to my family, my friends, and my church, that my marathoning days are officially ooooo, let me try that again........my marathoning days are officially ooooooo, one more time, my marathoning days are officially oooooo, only just begun. Yes, I am going to try it one more time.

Why you ask? I’ll tell you. I have no idea. But here is what I want you do to. On May 21, 2008, as many of you as are able, please meet me at Colfax and Sheridan at about ten o’clock a.m. Come prepared to jog, walk, or crawl the final six miles with me, and bring food, water, medical supplies, umbrellas, and a wagon. Yes, a wagon. One way or another I’m getting in this time, and if I have to be pulled in, so be it. The point is, I’m not sure I can do it on my own. I need your help and support. And I’m going to get that medal. Isn’t that what All Saints is all about?

It is so appropriate that this morning, on All Saints, we are celebrating three baptisms, so please join me in prayer.

Dear Lord, thank you so much for Rebecca Sadie Lee, Magdalena Grace Lee, and Mason Harper Smith, three saints who are born into your kingdom today. As they begin the marathon of life, help them know that they will always be surrounded both by your presence, and by all the saints of God. Strengthen them when they are tired, keep them going when there are plenty of good reasons to stop, and always remind them that the Holy Spirit in their hearts is the champion’s trophy that guarantees their life with you for ever and ever. We pledge as your followers and saints to run with them every step of the way, and to greet them at the finish line, where we will all continue to worship you forever and ever at the glorious feast you have prepared for all your saints. In Jesus’ precious name, Amen.