The Mayberry Preacher

STARING UP AT AN EMPTY SKY

Isaiah 43: 14-21; Acts 1: 1-11
Steve Lindsley
May 13, 2012

Listen To Sermon

Today’s scripture passage is on the ascension of Jesus.  This is not something we Christians talk about much.  We don’t know quite what to do with it, honestly.  We do a pretty good job with Easter, and we get our red on for Pentecost, which is coming in a few weeks.  But the whole “Jesus-being-taken-up-into-heaven” thing doesn’t get a lot of press time.     

Nevertheless, it’s what we find there in the very first chapter of Acts – the sequel, if you will, of Luke’s gospel; written by the same person.  The ascension is a way of bridging the work of Jesus and the work of the early church, led by the Holy Spirit.  It’s a way that we as followers of Christ understand our calling to continue what he started, even as he himself is no longer with us to do it.   

But make no mistake, y’all: the ascension of Jesus is awkward.  There’s really no other way to put it.  Maybe this is why we kind of gloss over it.  Jesus has gathered his disciples together.  They ask him if it is time – time to complete the restoration of Israel, which is what Jesus said he’d do.  Jesus tells them no one knows the time; but that until the time comes, they are witnesses – witnesses to what they had seen and heard to those who didn’t get a chance to see and hear.  They are to carry the torch, so to speak; continue what Jesus had started.     

That’s what he’s telling those disciples there.  And then, before they get a chance to respond, before they get a chance to say anything, Jesus is gone.  Just……gone.   

Awkward!  I’ve always tried to imagine what this must have looked like, you know?  How exactly did this ascension happen?  I kind of envision it like when you release a helium balloon into the air – which, by the way, you never should do, because it’s bad for the birds – but just for the sake of argument, how that balloon rises up and up and up into a crystal blue sky, and how it gets smaller and smaller and smaller until it’s just a tiny little dot, barely visible.  And then at some point you can’t see it anymore – you know it’s there, somewhere up there, but you can’t see it.  That doesn’t stop you from looking, though – at least for a little while.  You keep looking to see if you might catch a glimpse of it again.  Just looking.   

Was that what it was like the day that Jesus ascended?  All those faces, looking up…..?  How long do you think they stood there, huh?  Five minutes?  Ten?  Twenty?  Thirty?  I like the way someone in our Bob Chilton Bible study put it this past week: when you see something go up, you expect it to come down!  How long did they stand there, looking up to try and see Jesus again?..........   

Do you figure some other folks kind of wandered onto the scene; people who just happened to see this crowd looking up and wondering to themselves what they were looking at?  I mean, it’d pique your curiosity a bit, wouldn’t it?  Do you figure some of them kind of joined in, adding to their numbers, staring up at an empty sky?   

Eventually you have to figure some of them gave up looking and walked off.  I mean, there comes a point when you realize, he’s not coming back!  What goes up doesn’t necessarily come down.  So I imagine there were a few who peeled off, one by one.  But I bet there were others who kept standing there; kept looking up, like they were trying to find that helium balloon they couldn’t see anymore but knew was up there, somewhere……   

They’re still looking when these two guys in white show up.  We’re not sure how they got there.  Maybe they were part of the crowd that wandered onto the scene.  And their voices cut through the silence of this upward-focused bunch, and they said: Hey people – why are you just standing there staring up at an empty sky?     

If the disciples had answered them, you know what they would have said: Because Jesus is up there!  The same Jesus who asked us to follow him and showed us the breadth and depth of God’s amazing love.  The same Jesus who followed that love all the way to the cross and died for it; the same Jesus whose love was too great to be kept in some silly old tomb.  He was just here with us, and now is gone – gone up there somewhere.  And that is why we’re standing here, staring up at an empty sky – because when someone that like that is part of your life one moment and gone the next, you just don’t know what you’re supposed to do anymore.   

Don’t you think that’s kind of what they were thinking?  Don’t you think they were stumped by this, and what they were supposed to do now that Jesus was gone?     

You know, it’s kind of ironic – for the little attention we give to the ascension of Jesus, this seems to be the perfect metaphor for our Christian journey today.  You and I, not always sure what to do, not always sure what God wants for us or from us.  So there we are, staring up at an empty sky; waiting for Jesus to come back down so he can tell us what to do, because so much of the time we’re not sure what exactly Jesus wants from us.   

I mean, what’s the Christian stand on this issue?  What does the Bible say about that topic?  You ever had questions like that before?  I know I have!  And isn’t that one of the greatest struggles – knowing what God wants from us; knowing what God wants us to do?  Heck, over a hundred years ago a Congregationalist preacher named Charles Sheldon coined the well-known phrase, the same one that adorned t-shirts and bracelets and was all the rage just a few years back: WWJD – What Would Jesus Do?  You know why that saying has stood the test of time?  Because it’s the truth!  We want so badly to know what Jesus would do, because knowing that helps us determine what we’re supposed to do, right?  To be more like Jesus – that’s our goal.  That’s what we’re trying to figure out.  Trying to figure it out as we’re part of that crowd, staring up there, hoping and wishing that at some point we’ll see Jesus again….   

The problem is, all that looking-up stuff, it’s not really accomplishing much, is it?  But that’s what I feel like we do a lot, First Presbyterian.  We as a church, we as a denomination, we as Christians around the world.  We’re just staring up, looking for Jesus, trying to find him up like a tiny helium balloon that we just can’t see.     

You know, some of you may know that, as part of her studies at Union Presbyterian Seminary, Shasta is doing an internship on faith and movies.  It’s pretty cool when you can take a passion of yours and get graded for it – Tiki Room heaven!  In our Bible study this past week, Shasta pulled from her hefty movie arsenal and referenced the deeply theological cinematic experience, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  Remember the end of that movie, when the credits start rolling?  It’s like any other move – all the names of various actors, directors, producers, makeup artists, script writers.  All the thanks to municipalities and organizations for their cooperation.  All the copyrights, with the year in Roman numerals and that squashed earth symbol.  All the stuff that you and I don’t typically see, because by this time we’ve either headed to our cars in the parking lot or have hit the “stop” button on our DVD remotes.   

And then as the very last credit rolls through the top of the screen, we are suddenly back in Ferris Bueller’s bedroom, the one he was supposed to be in sick all day; and he’s looking straight at us as if our presence has caught him off-guard.  And he says to us, What are you still doing here?  The movie’s over.  Go – go on home.  Go on, get out of here.  Go!   

I mean, if Ferris Bueller had been dressed in white and standing outside the city of Jerusalem instead of in his bedroom when he said that, I’d almost think he was actually talking to those disciples in Acts – and talking to us, too.  Talking to us as followers of Jesus; followers whose Lord and Savior had been taken up in a cloud, followers who are immobilized by our indecision and confusion and, yes, fear; followers who are staring up at an empty sky because sometimes we don’t know what to do when the whole reason for our doing is no longer with us…   

And that’s when we hear the voice say to us:

What are you still doing here?  Stop staring up!  Start looking down and around.  Look at the world around you; the world that Jesus came to in the first place.  Look around at all the things that need his love, need his healing, need his mission.  Because that’s where you focus has to be – not up, but down and around!  You’ve got work to do down here.  You are witnesses!  You’ve seen the power of God; you’ve witnessed the building of the foundation of God’s kingdom on earth. So stop staring up at the heavens – look down at the world around you, and see just how much it is in desperate need of your witness.

That foundation, by the way, that Jesus came to build – it’s not something he came up with.  It’s a foundation that’s been in place for years, thousands of years.  It’s what the prophet Isaiah had talked about long before:

Do not remember the former things
or consider the things of old;
I am about to do a new thing;
Now it springs forth – do you not perceive it?

How appropriate is that last question on Ascension Sunday: Do you not perceive it?   Well, if all we’re doing is staring up at an empty sky, of course we’re not!  If all we’re worried about is what’s happening up there, we’re sure not going to perceive much of what God is doing down here, are we?  It’s like we talked about last week – the Christian life is not all about the finish line.  It’s not all about getting that ticket to heaven.  It’s about the journey that gets us there.  Our lives matter, people!  What we do with our lives and our time and our gifts and talents and treasure, and how we treat God’s children – all of God’s children – that stuff actually means something.  And if all we’re doing is staring up at an empty sky, we’re going to miss a whole lot of what God needs us doing down here.

If all we’re doing is staring up at an empty sky, we’re going to miss the ever-increasing number of children and adults in our quaint little town who look into their kitchen pantry every night and see slim pickings, and so they can’t wait for Thursdays to roll around, because they know at least then they’ll get a decent meal at Friends Feeding Friends, served to them by some very kindly Presbyterians and Baptists.   

If all we’re doing is staring up at an empty sky, we’re going to miss the people in our lives, the people we’re closest to, seeking reconciliation with us because of some wrong in the past.  We’re going to miss an opportunity to live into the love of Jesus and let that love permeate all aspects of our lives, changing us from the inside out.  

If all we’re doing is staring up at an empty sky, we’re going to miss all the horrible things that are carried out in Jesus’ name in the world, and an opportunity to unite our voices together and say, “No, that’s not what he was talking about” or “No, that’s not what the Bible says.”   

But you know what we’re going to miss most of all if we’re just staring up at an empty sky?  We’re going to miss Jesus himself!  Because even though those disciples watched his go up and disappear from their sight all those years ago, he told them: Inasmuch as you’ve done this to the least of these, you’ve done it to me.  We are surrounded by Jesuses, y’all!  They’re in the pew next to us; they’re out there walking the streets, they’re in our classrooms and offices and with us in the grocery check-out line.  They look and act and live like us, and they don’t look or act or live like us.  Jesus hasn’t left us at all.  He’s right here.   

So forget the old and welcome in the new.  Stop staring up there – start looking down and around.  Look for the Jesus among you.  He’s there.  And he’ll show you what you need to be doing.  In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.

DRAWING LARGE, SHOUTING LOUD

Luke 4: 16-30; Isaiah 61: 1-3b
Steve Lindsley
January 29, 2012

If it happened in 2012, you know how it would’ve gone down.  CNN and FOX and all the others would’ve broken into their daily stream to report the breaking news. Newspapers would drape huge headlines across the top of the front page, the kind reserved for special occasions.  All the local networks would be scrambling to schedule an exclusive interview in their studio.  Family and friends would send out mass emails and text messages to get the word out. 

At the synagogue, life as they once knew it would be no more.  They’d be struggling to accommodate the crowd expected to descend upon them.  Folding chairs would be set up in every space possible.  Large speakers would be erected outside the sanctuary so the masses unable to get inside could still hear him speak.  Part of the parking lot next door would be leased out for television trucks with satellite dishes so they could broadcast all of it live.  And no doubt a handful of ingenious entrepreneurs would position themselves in the mix, eagerly selling specially-designed t-shirts, caps, bumper stickers, and key chains.

You have to figure that’s pretty much how it’d all happen if Jesus’ homecoming took place today.  In a time where news travels as fast as the stream in our television cable or the speed of our internet connection, in a world where we seem to possess an insatiable desire to hype things to the greatest extent, no stone would be left unturned, no angle left unexamined, no sub-plot unexplored as Jesus – that “Wonder-kid” visited by kings at his birth, who wowed the temple scholars as a young boy, who already had made a name for himself in just a few short months of preaching – when Jesus took time out of his new-found celebrity to come back home.

But you and I know it wasn’t like that almost 2000 years ago in the little town of Nazareth.  There was no 24-hour news cycle, no internet, no newspapers, no television studios.  There was simply a town of people who had heard through word of mouth – as they always heard things – about Jesus, Mary and Joseph’s boy, and what he’d been up to recently.  They’d watched him grow from a child into an astute teacher, a captivating preacher, and maybe, just maybe even more than that.  And the greatest part was that he was one of their own.  He was one of them.

So when it first came around that Jesus was coming home – perhaps his mother knew first, as mothers usually do, and she shared it with her neighbor, and it spread like wildfire from there – when word got around that Jesus was coming home, nothing could quell their excitement.  They packed the sanctuary that day to hear the hometown boy read scripture and comment on it – a tradition for Hebrew males.  When Jesus stepped up front, I imagine you could’ve heard a pin drop as the gathering waited in excitement to hear what he’d say.  He unrolled the scriptures, as they were written on scrolls back then – and proceeded to read verses from the great prophet Isaiah, words read earlier this morning:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

And to this, Jesus simply added:

You’ve just heard this scripture come true in your presence.

It was a home run!  Jesus couldn’t have said anything better to those hometown folks.  And the thing was, it wasn’t just about seeing the local boy make good.  It wasn’t just about pride.  Jesus had just told them that he was coming to change things.  And those folks from Nazareth desperately wanted things to change.  Those people were an oppressed people, a poor people, a suffering people.  Life had been unbearable.  And now the native son – the one who had done marvelous things elsewhere – now Jesus was coming home to do the same.

And all would’ve gone superbly, and everyone would’ve been perfectly happy had it simply stopped there.  Jesus’ homecoming would’ve been a huge success, and people would’ve talked about it for years.  Maybe the mayor would’ve given him a key to the city, and the city council erect a monument in his honor.  Maybe there would’ve been a parade down Main Street and designate it as “Jesus Day,” and the kids would have gotten out of school for it.

But none of that was going to happen.  Because Jesus knew something the hometown folk did not – that his calling, his mission, his very reason for being was not just about them.  Jesus’ mission was bigger and bolder than they could possibly imagine, or even want.  And so Jesus recounts two stories that would’ve been familiar to those Jews; albeit ones they would rather forget.  The great prophet Elijah, during a terrible famine, once gave food to a widow from Sidon – a hated foreigner – even when there were plenty of Israelite widows who needed help too.  His successor Elisha bypassed all of the lepers in Israel to heal one from Syria.

Now, just in case you're wondering, this wasn't exactly the most politically-correct thing Jesus could've said here.  I once heard someone remark that a sure-fire way to go from a hero to a zero is to remind people of the painful realities of their own history. So what Jesus said in the temple that day was akin to someone going to modern-day Germany and bringing up Hitler and the Third Reich, or going to Apple headquarters out in California and talking about the recently-discovered human rights violations at their plants in China.  In other words, it's the last thing the crowd wants to hear you mention.

So if Jesus had those hometown folk eating out of his hand and ready to give him the keys to the city earlier, now he couldn’t have said anything that would’ve drawn more of their wrath and rage.  They turned on him on a dime.  And scripture tells us that they ran him out of that temple and actually tried to kill him, so angered they’d become at their native son.

Now psychologists and sociologists would observe this scene with great interest.  They would certainly highlight the dynamics of the group mob and how quickly it can go from one extreme to the other.  And it does leave us wondering how in the world things could have changed so suddenly – I mean, seriously, wanting to throw Jesus off a cliff??  One scholar surmised that the crowd in the temple that day saw Jesus” declaration of fulfillment as a promise of special favor for his own people and his ‘hometown.’”   If that was the case, then Jesus’ response must’ve felt like they were being disowned and he was turning his back on the community who raised and nurtured him.  Perhaps that was part of their anger.  But there had to be something else, too.  I wonder what it could’ve been?

Flannery O’Connor, the well-known Southern writer, was once asked why she persisted in creating such freakish characters in her short-story fiction.  And I love her response.  She said: To the almost blind, you must draw very large; and to the almost deaf, you just have to shout loud.   In other words, the only way you’re going to get your message across, especially if it’s one the people won’t easily recognize or don’t want to hear, is to be bold in proclamation and extend the boundaries far and wide.

Think of the people down through history who’ve made a point of drawing large and shouting loud.  A few weeks ago we celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day, honoring a man who went to great lengths to bring to light the civil injustices that persist in our society.  Others on that list: Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Susan B. Anthony, Gandhi, just to name a few.  At a time when our world needed things to change, these individuals and many others did what needed to be done to make that change happen.

The problem, of course, is that people don’t always like it when you draw large and shout loud.  They don’t always respond well to that sort of thing.  They might shoot you, as they did to King.  Or they might throw you in prison, like Nelson Mandela.  Or the people might run you out of the synagogue and try to throw you off a cliff.  Which is exactly what this crowd at Jesus’ homecoming tried to do when they began to understand just how large and how loud his mission on earth really was. 

If this story about Jesus' homecoming is about anything, it's about that uncomfortable “rub” we feel when we realize that the gospel message Jesus came to convey is not about a special few, but about everyone – challenging our understanding of who is “in” and who is “out” and who is deserving of God’s grace and love and mercy.  About the essence of not only our relationship with God, but our relationship with each other and with the world around us.  And honestly, that sort of stuff can really tick people off!

The Gospel has a way of doing that, doesn’t it?  Oh, we can try to fashion it into a form that’s more digestible.  We can water things down to nothing more than the Golden Rule and “loving your neighbor” – the “neighbor,” of course, being someone who’s easy to love.  We can do away with, or at least minimize, the elements of our faith that are hard to deal with – like Jesus asking us to deny father and mother, or God’s judgment on his own people, or the “Pauls” in our midst who never stop nagging us about church imperfections.  We can draw small and whisper quietly if we want to.  But if we do, the gospel isn’t the gospel anymore.  It’s not good news – it’s no-news.    

Jesus spent a lifetime in three years telling us and showing us how much God loves us.  But he never said that this love was designed to make us feel comfortable.  There is nothing comfortable about the gospel, my friends.  If we aren’t shaken by God’s radical love, if we aren’t a little irked with how large Jesus draws and how loud Jesus shouts, then maybe we’re in the wrong crowd.  Maybe we’re part of that synagogue crowd, the hometown folk, expecting special favors and preferential treatment. 

No, the crowd you and I should be part of is the crowd that never places expectations or limits on Jesus’ love.  The crowd you and I should be part of is the crowd that understands the gospel does not belong to any one denomination, church, or group of people.  It belongs to and is for everyone.  It is not ours to mold or shape to our conveniences, to our whims, to our preferences.  The crowd you and I should be part of is the crowd that recognizes and receives God’s wonderful grace not only for ourselves and those like us, but for those not at all like us.  And the question the gospel forces us to confront, the question Jesus asks us with his very life, is quite simple: which crowd are you part of?

You know, part of me feels a little bad for Jesus that his homecoming ended the way it did.  I kind of wish things would’ve turned out differently.  And yet, another part of me is eternally grateful that Jesus – then and throughout his life – stuck to his mission and persisted in living out the radical ramifications of God’s everlasting love; drawing large and shouting loud, even with a human race that just can’t seem to wrap their minds and hearts around this whole grace thing.  For that grace, as the old hymn says, is what “leads us home.”  And maybe – just maybe – that’s where the real homecoming takes place.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

(Flannery O'Connor quote from “Heroes and Zeroes,” Homiletics 16 no. 4, January-February 2004: 34.)

PREPARING THE WAY

Luke 3: 1-6, 10-14; Isaiah 40: 3-5
Steve Lindsley
December 18, 2011

Does this sound like anyone you know?  It’s mid-December, and he’s moving non-stop.  He’s trying to wrap up things at the office in time for the holidays – closing out the books at the end of the year is always a fun task.  Then there's the office party, and he’s in charge of snacks this year.  He’s hoping to take an afternoon off this week to scramble for much-needed Christmas shopping for the wife and kids.  He’d do it on a weekend, but this Saturday is the traditional “decorate the house” day, and he still hasn’t figured out how to make those darn Christmas tree lights work.  Plus his son’s basketball team has a big game, and that’s not even mentioning all the stuff at church.  It’s all special and wonderful, but there are only so many hours in a day.  He’s just hoping he can cram it in sometime in the next week! 

Does this sound like anyone you know?  She lives with her seven-year old son in a run-down apartment complex in town.  It's not much, but it's something, and she’s thankful for that.  What she’s not thankful for is the boyfriend who vanished from the scene without a trace last summer, taking every last bit of security with him.  Or the rent bill that comes every month that she pays by scraping pennies together from her part-time job as a waitress, along with some financial assistance from a few local church.  Or the neighbor next door who seems to delight in hurling racial insults at her and her son on a frequent basis.  Her greatest fear is that she is one month away from being banished to the streets, along with her son.  It is a very real fear.  Still, she tries to keep things as normal as possible – she's got her son’s name on one of the Angel Trees in town and is hoping someone will do for her son what she cannot.

You know, the Advent season that we are well into finds us in the middle of all kinds of preparations.  There are cakes to be baked; trees to be trimmed, gifts to be bought.  And for some, there are bills that can't be paid, trees with nothing under then, pantries that are empty.  All of us, in our own ways, with what we have or what we don’t have, preparing for the baby in the manger.  This is Advent.
Long ago a man named John did some preparing of his own.  He was like you and me – eager to serve, passionate about what he believed in.  And he was also unlike you and me – a nomad, living on the outskirts of society.  This man, like us and not like us, was called to announce the coming of Christ and, in the words of the prophet, to prepare the way.

Now John, as you might already know, was not one for mincing words.  So in the third chapter of the Gospel of Luke we read the bold declaration he makes to a crowd of people desperate to hear good news; words borrowed from the prophet Isaiah:

Prepare the way of the Lord!  Make his paths straight,
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill be made low,
And the crooked shall be made straight,
And the rough ways made smooth,
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Prepare the way!  It was something those first century Palestinians understood.  They were used to Roman emperors and governors making grand entrances into their cities as a show of power and might.  Riding chariots, flanked by centurions and horses and the weaponry of war.  It was a production if there every was one; and practically speaking, it needed the dirt roads of the city to be made ready.  Divits had to be filled in and bumps smoothed out so that chariot wheels and horses' hooves could pass over them with no problem.  Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill made low. Prepare the way!

So here’s the question you and I need to ask ourselves on this fourth Sunday of Advent: if so much of our rich scriptural heritage is telling us to “prepare the way,” then why is it that you and I are so often ill-prepared for the coming of Christ?  Why is it that, even with all our best intentions, we often wind up further from the manger than where we started? 

Sometimes I wonder if the pageantry of the season has the effect of overwhelming us; where decorating trees, preparing goodies, and shopping for perfect gifts takes precedence over the baby in the manger, and the star in the sky, and the Savior in our midst.  It is all-too-easy to get consumed by the “things” and the “tasks” of this time of year, as enjoyable as those things and tasks might be. 

It reminds me of a little boy, exhausted from a long day of Christmas shopping with the family, fighting their way through malls and checkout lines.  And when it came time to say his prayers before crawling into bed that night, he spoke with the brutal honesty of a child and said, "God, forgive us our Christmases, as we forgive those who Christmas against us!”

I think the boy’s on to something!  But there's another reason, I think, that we’re not always as prepared as we need to be.  It’s one that gets lost in the shuffle of all the red and green, and the general feeling that everyone is supposed to be happy this time of year.  The reality is that, while there is a lot of joy, for some that joy can ring hollow; those who are reminded of what is not with them this Christmas season – a job, a full pantry, even a loved one.

Studies have shown that Christmas can be a significant time of depression and struggle for many.  Earlier this week I was reading about a different type of Christmas service some churches are doing these days.  Unlike the typical celebration, there's no Christmas tree in the sanctuary, no poinsettias or Christmas carols or any of the typical sights and sounds.  Instead it’s a much more somber occasion – the sanctuary is filled with the sound of melancholy piano and the stale scent of dead branches placed on a table up front.  Women and men hold each other and cry on their shoulders.  They call it a “Blue Christmas” service; and it’s meant for people who, for whatever reason, struggle this time of year.  And you know what?  More church are doing them, because more people are showing up.

Now that’s a whole a different kind of preparing, isn’t it?  But it’s probably one that deserves our attention.  Jesus didn’t come when all was right with the world.  He came to make it right!  He came in the midst of chaos, of uncertaintly, of hopelessness. And there’s still plenty of that to go around today!  Which is why preparing is so important.  Those rough places can be pretty rough, those bumps in the road a little bumpy.

Advent is not a tradition we observe.  It’s a journey of transition and transformation.  As Christians we hold fast to the belief that, with the birth of Jesus, something in the world changes – and not in some nostalgic sense, but in a way that cuts deep to the heart of each one of us.  And that transformation is what enables us to come before the baby in the manger as we are – with all our joys and hopes and dreams, along with all our fears and pains and scars.  Contrary to what we sometimes think, we don’t have to put on a façade for Jesus just because it’s his birthday.  We come before him exactly as we are, because that’s exactly the way he wants us to.

Christmas is really that simple!  And yet, it’s anything but simple.  Somehow a basic birthday celebration has morphed into something else entirely. Kind of reminds me of what English professor Lionel Basney wrote in a newspaper editorial years ago:

The real crime of Christmas is the way we heap pretensions on its simplicity. Christmas is a complex cultural possession….and the problem is how to keep clean in the welter of it all – how to distinguish the valuable cultural extension of Christmas from the pretense, the true branch from the tin. (http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=2510, visited on 12.15.2009)

Heaping pretensions on its simplicity.  As wonderful and as meaningful as this time of year can be, we teeter-totter on the brink – as weird as it may sound – of making Christmas into more than it actually is. 
A little girl and her older brother are riding in the back of the car one Christmas Eve, bundled in thick jackets, hot cocoa from dinner still warm in their bellies.  Dad and Mom are in the front seats; and they are all heading to church for the traditional Christmas candlelight service.  It’s Dad’s favorite service of the year; and he relishes in recounting over and over again the details of what will happen and why this service is so special to him.  And as they pull into the church parking lot, the girl cuts her father off in mid-sentence and says, “Daddy, are you gonna let us enjoy Christmas, or are you gonna try to explain it to everybody?

The honesty of a child!  But you know, she's got a point.  Christmas is not all that complicated!  The message is as clear as it could be: God with us.  And that’s it.  Of course, it does involve a teenaged girl getting pregnant by someone – or something – other than her fiancee.  And it involves a census decree that couldn’t have come at a worse time, and a journey that no pregnant woman should’ve ever had to take.  And yes, it does involve having no place to go when the labor pains kick in, and an old barn that suddenly looks like the Ritz Carlton.  And it involves wrapping a newborn child in some torn musty blankets and laying him in an animal’s feeding trough.  But other than that, Christmas isn’t complicated!

Here in a nutshell is what Christmas means: God’s uncomplicated and everlasting love, coming to us in the midst of our complicated and chaotic world.  That’s Christmas!  And that’s why we need to prepare the way for him.  Because whether life is good or life stinks, Jesus is still coming.  Whether we get all nostalgic this time of year, or whether we loathe the pageantry, Jesus is still coming.  And Jesus needs us to “make those mountains low” and “raise those valleys up.” 

And when we do, it’s beautiful – because our eyes are opened to see things we may not otherwise see.  Are there those in our community who are lacking and would gladly receive some of the plenty that we have?  Are there those in our midst who need to know that we love them and are there for them in their time of need?  And are there those who have forgotten how Jesus’ simple act of God-With-Us broke into and changed our broken world?

This, my friends, is our journey of Advent: to “prepare the way” for the coming of Christ into our lives, into the life of our church, and into our world.  So let us embrace the simplicity of the baby in the manger, and welcome into our midst the infinite possibilities that can take place when God comes to be with us.

It is that simple!  And it is anything but simple.  But it is Christmas, and we are called to prepare for it – this year, and all year long.  Come, Immanuel, Come.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

WHISPERS OF WHAT IS COMING

Isaiah 9: 1-7
Steve Lindsley
November 27, 2011

Shhh…..do you hear it?
    The whispers of what is coming?
        Soft sounds of an impending arrival, breaking through the silence
            of our loud and deafening world?
Can you see it?
    Can you see the light in the midst of darkness?
        The shadows we walk through every day,
            Lurking in the abyss of perpetual blindness.
The faint illumination in the distance, a hope, a dream,
            Of what is to come?
Can you feel it?
    The excited anticipation of what will be,
        Of what is not here – not yet?
Can you feel it coming?
    Can you see the light?
        Do you hear the whispers?

They are whispers spoken through the darkness;
    Stubbornly persistent in a season awash with red and green,
        The signs of the holidays already long upon us.
    Department stores adorned with seasonal cheer,
        radio stations playing “Little Drummer Boy” in early November.
    Christmas parades and television specials –
        Will they ever let Rudolph play reindeer games??
    Advent Wednesdays and Cantatas and Christmas pageants,
        Candle lighting and poinsettias,
    Ornaments hung and lights strung around the tree –
        Why won’t they stop blinking??
    Gifts wrapped for young children under the tree,
        We face the harsh irony of the vastly misleading declaration:
             Some assembly required.

What whispers?  What darkness?
    Light surrounds us!  Sounds ring in our ears!
Christmas is not coming.  It is here,
    Screaming at us, clamoring for our attention,
        Our time, our gifts, our credit card numbers.
    Is this the light that has entered our darkness?
        Is this the reason for the season?
            Where are the whispers?

Long ago, the world at the time,
    Different from ours and yet in many ways the same,
        Powers vying for dominance,
            Nation against nation, they raged continuously.
God’s people, oppressed once again
    Under the rule of many a foreign nation.
It was Egypt all over again,
    And they prayed for another Exodus.
Deliverance and the promise of something more,
            The hope of the renewed covenant,
                Darkness defeated, once and for all.

Scriptures long before had spoken of a Messiah that would come,
    Delivering freedom to God’s Chosen.
And so they watched patiently for their savior.
But they looked in all the wrong places,
    Expecting a leader riding on chariot,
Calling together an army with sword
    Victory won with a mighty hand.
                They looked and waited for this Messiah
                    But he never came.

The whisper, drowned out by the noise and clamor
    Of a people looking for something else entirely:
        Other voices louder, more forceful,
Speaking the will of a wayward nation:
        Release us, Lord – let our people go!
            O God, where are you?  Where are we?
                Who will deliver us?  Who will save?
And yet the whisper persisted, never relenting;
    For the message yearned to be heard
        By a people praying for change.

And then, one day, the whisper began.
Loud and bombastic, as are all things from the mouth of the prophet.
        His lips cleansed with burning coal,
            Called to serve as the voice of God.
Isaiah, speaking to the nation Israel,
        Telling them of the whispers of what was coming:

The people who walked in darkness
    Have seen a great light.
        Those who lived in a land of darkness
            On them light has shined.

The people – God’s chosen.
    The darkness – the world they lived in.
        The light – the hope of what was to come.
A light that shines not only into the darkness, but through it;
    Barely visible at first,
        Like riding in a mountain tunnel with black surrounding
                And then, a glimmer of daylight,
                    Sun peaking through the opening on the other side,
                        The darkness begins to fade.
    The darkness they knew all too well
        Filled with broken promises and dashed hopes
            Over a Messiah who had not yet come.
Into their darkened world, a sliver of light and hope,
        And the whispers of what was coming:

For a child has been born for us,
    A son given to us:
        Authority rests upon his shoulders
    And he is named
        Wonderful Counselor,
            Mighty God,
                Everlasting Father,
                    Prince of Peace.

A child.  A child?!
    This is the light that is coming??
        Not a mighty warrior,
            Or a great leader,
                Or a prophet as of old.
But a child – upon which is placed not only the blanket of a newborn
    But authority of heaven and earth!
A child – called not by his given name
    But bestowed with accolades such as Wonderful Counselor and Prince of Peace.
        The Messiah in their very midst.
The whispers spoken long before,
    Now coming to fruition and completion
        In a child.

These whispers made their way across the lands,
    Kings and Shepherds hearing the news, paying homage,
        The whispers, spoken through the years and centuries,
            And are heard by us today.
The whispers are here with you and with me;
    Even when we struggle to hear them.
        Drowned out by the busyness of our hectic lives
            And frenzied schedules that fill up holiday calendars.

We plan and prepare, we cook and clean,
    We wrap and unwrap, we feast and celebrate.
        We go from here to there, we never stop,
            Often too fast and too quick.
We outrun the whispers.
    We think it’s already here.
So drawn to the red and green, the blinking Christmas tree lights,
    That we fail to remember that we are still walking in darkness,
            Forever searching for our salvation and our home.

But – if we listen closely,
    If we drown out the noise of all that surrounds us,
        Clear our minds of distraction,
            We can hear the whispers:
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
    For a child has been born for us.

Jesus, coming into our midst – not now, not yet,
    But promised by a God who never breaks promises.
Jesus, a child in a manger, surrounded by barnyard animals
    And an odd assortment of herdsmen and kings,
        A makeshift court of honor in his holy presence.
Jesus, who would grow into a young boy, then a teenager, then a man,
    Trained as a carpenter but called to build something more:
        The kingdom of God on earth.
    He told others what those before him had long anticipated:
        I am the Way.  The Truth.  The Life.
Not a military leader.  Not a king.  Not a prophet.
    But a son, a carpenter, a teacher and preacher.
        A Messiah.
And it is through Jesus that the world would finally know the heart of God,
    Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer all,
        Yahweh, forever our God and we forever God's people,
            A love without end.

And yet – Jesus has not come. 
    He is not here – not yet.
        The manger, the birth, the star;
            Still weeks away,
                even though all that surrounds us suggests otherwise.
            The signs of the season threaten to deceive,
                Because he has not yet arrived.

We are still just hearing the whispers,
    Still just seeing the sliver of light in the darkness,

So let us, in a season when so much is filled with false light,
    Where we are surrounded by noise upon noise,
Let us remind ourselves of the darkness that God chose to break into long ago,
    A broken and hurting world
        A people wanting their Egypt to become their Exodus.

And let us realize that their darkness is not unlike our own,
    And that our world is just as broken
        And that we, too, are yearning for redemption.

So that, when we hear those same whispers centuries removed,
    We know that we are on the doorstep of God’s marvelous work:

        That light will shine through the darkness,
            That a child will come to us,
                That he will be holy,
                    And God’s love will have no end.

Can you feel it coming?
    Can you see the light?
        Do you hear the whispers?
Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

THERE'S ALWAYS TROUBLE IN THE VINEYARD

Isaiah 5: 1-7; Matthew 21: 33-46
Steve Lindsley
October 9, 2011

You ever had a lousy landlord?  I had one my second year in seminary. Two other guys and I rented a house just a block away from campus.  The location was great, the house size was perfect, and it came furnished.  As it turned out, however, the landlord, who had just moved out of the house himself, had apparently left more behind than just furniture and appliances.  The place was absolutely infested with fleas.  I’m sure they were from his dog.  Walking around that house was like walking in the middle of a flea war zone with your legs suffering the greatest casualties.  We set off a few flea bombs, but they barely made a dent in the problem.  We complained to the landlord and were quickly chastised for being so “ungrateful.”  Our stay in that house lasted all of two weeks.

Lousy landlords tend to get most of the attention and “press time.”  The thing is, though, there are “terrible tenants” too.  I was talking to my brother this past week, who owns a few condos in Raleigh that he rents out.  He was sharing with me his worst tenant story.  Apparently some guy who rented an apartment from him just left town one day – no trace, no contact info.  My brother didn’t realize he was gone until two weeks later.  His tenant had left pretty much everything in the apartment, including a packed fridge that had somehow gotten turned off.  Cheese, milk, sandwich meat, produce and other perishables – all festering in there for two weeks.  And my brother had to clean it out.  Now that’s a terrible tenant!

So we may find it interesting, in our scripture today, that Jesus tells a story about some terrible tenants – I mean, really terrible.  And it’s not an apartment or condo, but a vineyard.  You know, the more we read the gospels, the more we realize that vineyards seem to be one of Jesus’ favorite parable locales.  And that makes sense, if we think about it – the Jewish people of Jesus’ time were still at heart an agrarian society, and they knew all too well the cultural divide that existed between those who owned land and those who worked in it.  Vineyards by their nature are great spiritual metaphors – the harvesting season, the “fruits of one’s labors,” the interplay between workers and owners.  Lots of stuff can happen in the vineyard.

And so Jesus tells a story about a vineyard.  Two stories, actually.  Jesus is on a roll!  Just the other day he entered Jerusalem with a whole lot of fanfare to people waving palm branches and shouting “hosannas” at him.  He kicked over some tables in the temple; he cursed a fig tree.  He’s not in much of a conciliatory mood; he knows his time is short.  And so he’s telling it like it is.

Jesus tells the first vineyard parable, but the crowd doesn’t seem to get it.  It’s hard to tell in black and white, but you get the sense that there was this uncomfortable pause after he finished that first vineyard story; people kind of looking at each other; Jesus waiting for that “aha” moment that never came.  And so Jesus goes back to the drawing board, perhaps rolling his eyes a bit as he does, and tries again: Let me tell you another parable!

We’re back in the vineyard, but something has changed.  There’s trouble brewing in the vineyard.  Jesus tells a story about a man who has lovingly and painstakingly built this wonderful vineyard and leases it to some tenants while he’s away.  Have you ever noticed in Jesus’ parables how everything seems to happen; everything seems to fall to pieces when the landowner is “away?”  When the harvest season comes, the landowner sends servants to collect the fruits.  But those tenants, those terrible tenants, will have none of it; and they beat and kill those servants.  The landowner is horrified when he hears of this, and sends more servants who receive the same treatment.  Finally as a last resort, the landowner sends his own flesh and blood, figuring that his son will command some respect.  But can you believe those terrible tenants show the son no mercy, casting him out of the vineyard and killing him in cold blood?

How’s that for a nice ending!  You know, sometimes Jesus’ parables have some closure to them – the shepherd finding the lost sheep after leaving 99, for instance.  But other times, Jesus’ stories don’t end all nice and neat.  And I’m pretty sure he does this on purpose.  Because life isn’t always nice and neat; nor is the message Jesus wants to convey to the people in what would be his last week.  Sometimes the message is messy.

The crowds get the message.  They understand what this story is about: God is like a landlord who leases his vineyard – his kingdom – to God’s people. And the time has come for God to see fruit from his workers. He wants to see faith in his promises and trust in his messengers. He wants his vineyard to produce a robust wine that leaves the boundaries of the kingdom walls and fills the entire world with the goodness of what grows. But rather than produce a measurable crop for the owner, the vineyard's tenants have sat on their hands and have nothing to show him. And worse, those tenants have flat-out ignored the warnings of eviction and murdered every prophet he sent on his behalf.

So what happens next?  Interesting, isn’t it, that Jesus asks the crowd what they think.  He lets them finish the story – did you notice that?  As it turns out, both the crowd and Jesus kind of come to the same conclusion: the terrible tenants are given the boot, and replaced with people who will not only treat the landowner with respect, but will make sure the vineyard produces the fruit its supposed to.

It’s an expected ending to the story, right?  It fits with what they – and we – believe about God’s kingdom: grace, when experienced and lived out in our lives, leads to changed lives through the good fruit we bear.  Because it’s all about the fruit, isn’t it?  It’s all about how our belief in Jesus affects our actions in the greater world. The time for the old tenants – the do-nothing, ungrateful bunch – is long gone.  The time for new tenants – faith-filled, Messiah-following, fruit-bearing – their time has arrived.

Everyone there that day agreed.  Well, almost everyone.  There’s this little verse at the end of the story that’s sometimes overlooked:

When the chief priests and Pharisees heard this parable,
They realized Jesus was speaking about them.

 “Them,” of course, being the wicked tenants.  The ones who disgraced God’s vineyard and didn’t bear any fruit.  The ones who did away with God’s representatives.  And the ones who would throw God’s very son out of the vineyard and put him to death.  This was Jesus’ last week on earth, remember.  How’s that for foreshadowing?  Those chief priests and Pharisees picked up on the subtext of Jesus’ little vineyard story and they weren’t all that thrilled with it.  Or, for that matter, with Jesus himself.

Ah, but that’s okay, they thought to themselves.  After all, that’s them.  That’s those other people who’ve messed up.  That’s their problem.  Not ours.  Right? 

Is it really not our problem, either?  You know, I’ve always found it curious in stories like this, where there’s a good guy and a bad guy, how we instinctively assume we’re the good one.  You know what I mean?  We do it with, say, the parable of the Prodigal Son.  We hear Jesus tell that famous story and imagine ourselves as the younger brother who messes up and is nevertheless welcomed back into the father’s embrace.  Because that’s a pretty good place to be!  Even though Jesus told that story so we could identify with the older brother, the one stewing in the field because grace had been extended where he didn’t think grace belonged.  Or last week’s parable of the Good Samaritan – we’re that noble Samaritan who overcame hate to lend a helping hand.  How awesome we are!  Except Jesus really has us as the other guy; the one who was saved by his greatest enemy and has to live with that for the rest of his life.

Why do we assume that we’re the ones in the right, and everyone else is not?  Why wouldn’t Jesus’ audience that day consider the possibility that it wasn’t just the chief priests and Pharisees who’d been terrible tenants, but themselves too? Obviously, it’s not a popular place to be!  But when we become so blind to the larger picture, as those tenants did, we run the risk of losing perspective – and losing faith. 

Do you remember a decade or so ago, the huge ruckus made over a hunk of granite in the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court?  The rock was a 5300-lb. monument, the top cut to look like the two tablets of the Ten Commandments.  A federal court had ordered its removal as a violation of church and state.  But Chief Justice Roy Moore, an evangelical Christian, stubbornly refused; and a firestorm worthy of 24-hour cable news ensued. Hundreds of supporters rallied to the steps of the courthouse to defend their martyr hero and swear their allegiance to what became known as “Roy’s Rock.”  They promised to do everything in their power to prevent it from being taken away – even if it meant going to jail. 

I remember reading an interview with one of those supporters a few years later as she thought back on those firestorm days – she being in a much different place than she was at the time.  And she remarked how, in the midst of all the hubbub and their well-intentioned efforts to do what they truly thought was doing God’s will, they kind of forgot something – something that was, quite ironically, etched in stone.  The second commandment on that very monument, which read: Thou shalt have no other gods; thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image… 

It is frighteningly easy to convince ourselves that we are on the right side of things when that simply isn’t the case.  And when it comes to Jesus’ little vineyard parable, it’s tempting for Christians today, the new tenants, to read these words as simply a rebuke of the old guard. But if we do that, we miss the whole point. Because if your landlord is feeling the need to recount stories of previous folks who let the vines go unpruned, who watched the grapes wither, and who treated the boss’ reps with not one ounce of respect, there’s a good chance he’s not doing it just to pass time.  He just might be trying to give you a healthy warning.  A warning that says:  Take care of all you’ve been entrusted with.  Show some respect for the boss!  And never confuse the tenant with the landlord.      

You know, Jesus seemed to be okay with parables that didn’t end all nice and neat.  And maybe we should, too.  Because there will always be trouble in the vineyard – until we take good care of what we’ve been given.  Until we bear the fruit God intends.  And until we live our lives as if this is God’s time, God’s earth, God’s vineyard – not ours.  As long as there’s trouble in the vineyard, there will always be a need for each and every one of us to do everything we can to bear that good fruit.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

THERE GOES GOD, MAKING EVERYTHING SO NEW!

Isaiah 65: 17-25, Revelation 21: 1-6
Steve Lindsley
August 28, 2011
Rally Day Sunday

Oftentimes, “new” is nothing more than a tag line; a sales pitch to stand out in the crowd and garner attention; when in fact nothing is really “new” at all.  The “Under New Management” sign hanging over the restaurant entrance doesn’t change the fact that the food is still average and the service still sub-par.  The front cover of the football team’s program proudly proclaims, “A New Season!,” but halfway through the schedule and six losses later, it sure looks an awful lot like the previous one.

Sometimes, “new” means something is different; something is not what it was before.  It’s that lingering smell of fresh paint when you walk into your home for the very first time.  It’s the way the sun casts its rays on a brand new day in a manner it never had before, and never will again.  It’s every single time a baby is born and a totally unique life enters the world.

And then there are times when “new” doesn’t just mean something is different, but something has changed.  What’s old is gone, forever.  This is the kind of “new” that’s talked about in our two scriptures today – two different passages, two different audiences, but a very similar message.

It’s a “new” that the writer of Isaiah wrote frequently about; a former resident of the city of Jerusalem and later a captive in Babylon.  For a generation or so, the people longed for something new, longed for something to change.  They had lost so much when they were forced to leave their beloved city Jerusalem and live in Babylonian captivity.  And yet with Isaiah’s words, the people are put on notice: something is changing.

That same message would resurface some 700 years later, located this time not in an Old Testament prophet but in Jesus of Nazareth.  It wasn’t easy following this man.  Rome was the new world power, ruling over the faithful without mercy.  The Jews and early Christians were one of dozens of nations oppressed by this empire.  As before, the city of Jerusalem fell, leaving God’s people homeless.  And yet with Jesus’ words that came to John of Patmos in a vision, the people are put on notice again: something is changing. 

It is tempting, especially for us here on this Rally Day Sunday as we’re beginning new things in this church, it’s tempting to read these two passages and ask ourselves: so what’s new?  That’s the obvious question, isn’t it?  But you know, I wonder – I wonder if the better question to ask is not “what’s new” but “how” – how those Babylonian captives and first-century Christians grabbed a hold of it?  How they were not only able to believe in the ridiculous, outlandish hope of God’s “newness,” but live into it?  No one would’ve faulted them if they decided to throw in the towel and call it a day, as the saying goes.  So how did they stand there in the midst of all their suffering, surrounded by all that “old” stuff, and dare to proclaim “all things new?” 

Because that’s not how you and I typically respond, is it?  When we get the “same old same old;” when those old familiar powers come crashing into our lives, we often tell ourselves there’s nothing we can do.  We might even convince ourselves of the greatest lie – that this is the way God wants it.  We let the powers of Rome and Babylon dictate not only what we do but, more devastatingly, who we become.

It would’ve been easy, for instance, for Oskar Schindler to have rationalized that using his position to save Jews from the Holocaust wouldn’t amount to much – not to mention putting himself in extreme danger.  It would’ve been easy for Jackie Robertson to prematurely hang up his major league baseball cap because the racial slurs hurled in his direction at every bat simply weren’t worth being the first African American to play the game.  It would’ve been easy for Rosa Parks to heed the bus driver’s demand and relinquish her seat to the white man standing there.  Just as it’s easier for you and me to go with the flow, not create any waves, because to suffer in silence seems the safer option over sharing our heart.

So where exactly do people find this hope for God’s newness?  Where do we find it?

You know, I look at the images in both our readings today – pretty unorthodox stuff.  They do more than just communicate a message – they announce a reality that goes beyond words.  The prophet Isaiah paints this scandalous picture of the wolf and the lamb feeding together, and the lion eating straw like the ox.  That’s just not in their nature to do things like that, is it?  The writer of Revelation dares to portray a time when God wipes away every tear from our eyes, death and mourning and crying and pain will be no more.  Is it even possible these days to turn on the evening news or flip through the newspaper and not be confronted with such things?

There is something deeply evocative that Isaiah and John are trying to tell us; something that goes beyond simple “inspirational reading.”  Like Oskar and Jackie and Rosa, they declare loud and clear: something has changed.  Not just “different,” but changed. Something is brand spankin’ new in this old world of ours; and we’ve got a term for that new world.  We call it the kingdom of God.

Now you and I have talked about this kingdom before – that when Jesus and others speak of it, it’s not just heaven they’re talking about.  It’s not some far-off reality in the distant future.  In fact, both scriptures today are pretty clear that it’s this life they’re referring to – an earth where God comes down to us, not where we are “taken up” to God.  When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God, he was speaking to the possibilities that exist when we as God’s people follow Christ and live lives that reflect that following – even and especially when it’s not easy.  Even when we must contend with our own Babylons and Romes.  Oddly enough, it’s then when the kingdom of God is most obvious.

And you know what?  This isn’t some “pie-in-the-sky” theology here.  This isn’t a crutch designed to provide a sense of comfort to the downtrodden at the end of their rope.  This is real.  This is what Isaiah and the writer of Revelation had in mind when, in the midst of their loss, their suffering, their hopelessness, they put pen to paper and with broad strokes painted pictures of God’s kingdom.   For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the prophet says, the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.  The old is gone – there goes God, making everything so new!

That last sentence, by the way, is not mine.  It was spoken by someone else; by Margaret.  Margaret was a member at my former church in Lexington.  I always get a little nervous sharing stories about church members in sermons – I don’t want you thinking that our relationship as pastor and parishioner is solely about extracting potential sermon illustrations.  But I did ask Margaret’s permission to one day share this story.

Margaret died about a year before I left that church and came here.  There was a blizzard on the day of her funeral; one the meteorologist actually got right.  The other pastor and I tried to encourage the out-of-town family to consider postponing the service a day, because we knew, as much as everyone in the church loved Margaret, that there would be a lot of disappointed folks who simply couldn’t make it.  But her family was from Minnesota and didn’t understand how we Southerners react to a foot of the white stuff, much less a few inches.

At so at the graveside, standing there underneath the tent with swirling snow blanketing my robe, I told my story of Margaret.  It had happened just a few weeks before when I had gone to see her at her home.  She was ill, very ill; and even she acknowledged that, as she would always put it, my time is coming quick.  You didn’t argue with Margaret when she said this.  You couldn’t. 

The truth was, Margaret was in terrible shape.  She had lost nearly all of her eyesight years before; I remember the way she sang hymns in church with her eyes closed because she knew them all by heart.  Her hearing was fading, too.  It had been nearly a year since she was able to walk on her own, and she only got up when she absolutely needed to – always with help.  In recent months she’d lost her appetite and the simple pleasure of enjoying food.  It almost seemed like some kind of cruel joke that the cancer in her body, the cancer that would eventually kill her, had to take a back seat to everything else.  So you didn’t try to convince Margaret otherwise when she’d say “her time was coming quick,” because you both knew it was true.

It didn’t seem fair, Margaret having to suffer like that.  It just didn’t.  That’s what everyone thought, whether they said it or not.  One time I made the mistake of saying it in front of her, right to her face; a moment when that “pastoral façade” we clergy sometimes try to wear simply broke down. Margaret’s response was swift: compassionate and firm.  You better start reading that Bible of yours, Margaret gently scolded me, looking right at me with her blind eyes.  God’s got a new heaven and a new earth for us.  There won’t be any more death, Steve!  There won’t be any more crying or pain.  The old is gone – There goes God, making everything so new!

I shared that story at her graveside, shivering uncontrollably in the blizzard.  I shared it even as I couldn’t feel my feet standing on that frozen earth; an earth Margaret said God would be making new.  I shared that story, and as I did I found that the chill of the day wasn’t as chilly anymore.  The old is gone – there goes God, making everything so new!  When you hear that coming from a blind, deaf, bed-bound, emaciated, cancer-ridden child of God, it’s hard to stay cold for very long. 

Because if someone like Margaret could experience God making all things new, then imagine what God can do among us!  Imagine what God has in store for this church – this body of believers and Christ-followers.  You know, it’s typical at this time of year, on this Rally Day Sunday, that we mark the beginning of one or two new activities in the life of the church.  But this year, newness abounds!  We have a new Director of Music and a new organist, and with them a revitalized ministry of music that includes not just gifted staff but the musical gifts of this congregation – gifts that were put to use last week in our member-led music Sunday; gifts that will be put to use when children and youth choirs begin later this church year.  We have a concentrated effort in our midst to continue becoming a “missional church” with our first-ever church-wide Habitat build.  That’s exciting and important stuff, folks!  Next Sunday we’ll experience a different kind of Christian education and nurture through the intergenerational fellowship ministry we’re calling The Gathering.  You’ve already heard a little bit about it this morning, and you will not want to miss this next week.  And later this year, all of us will take part in a new way of committing ourselves to the future of God’s church, with what’s being called Consecration Sunday.

Now please understand, friends: these are more than just “new church programs” (I’ve never liked using that word in the church, anyway!)  It’s not just that something’s “different.”  These ministries are evidence of the fact that, as the people of God, as followers of the One who is doing a new thing in our midst, something has changed.  The signs are all around us.  They’re found wherever God’s people stand together and put their faith into action, one step at a time, one tear at a time, one hope-filled moment at a time. 

And so may our lives as people of faith never fail to radiate God’s newness in and all around us.  Even in the darkest of places, there is hope.  There is always hope.  Thanks be to God, AMEN.

WAKING UP AFTER THE DREAM

Matthew 1: 18-25; Isaiah 7: 13-14
Steve Lindsley
December 12, 2010

You ever had one of those dreams where you woke up and the dream seemed so real, so “alive,” that you could actually still feel it?  I’ve heard of people who dreamt about walking in a field of flowers and can still smell the sweet aroma when morning comes.  Or someone who dreams about a deceased loved one, and then when they wake up they can still feel their presence right there with them.  And I’ve always wondered if the line between dreams and reality isn’t as defined as we make it out to be.  Maybe there’s more of a connection between the two that we’re aware of.

I mean, I’m just thinking off the top of my head, of course.  But I’m telling you, after the dream I just woke up from, I can’t help but wonder.  Because, you see, God came to me in a dream last night – me, little old Joseph!  And I know; right now you’re probably thinking to yourself, okay, this guy’s off his rocker!  I wouldn’t blame you if you did.  But you’ve got to understand: in light of recent events in my life – and trust me, there have been many! – in light of all that’s happened I’m willing to consider just about anything.

Cause it all goes back to her, really.  It all begins with her.  I remember the first day we met, a little under a year ago.  I had known her for a while, of course, but when you’re a teenager like me, perceptions can change in an instant.  Mary had always been that sweet, unassuming girl that often went unnoticed in the crowd.  She was always beautiful, don’t get me wrong; but it wasn’t in an eye-popping way.  I think that’s because the real source of her beauty came from within – this tremendous strength of spirit; this energy and resolve unlike anyone I had ever met.  It took me a while to admit it to myself, but I knew that I was falling for her.

So I did what all good Jewish boys do – I spoke with her father, a kind and honest man.  I told him I was a carpenter and would provide for his daughter and the family we would have together.  I know this may sound strange to your 21st century ears – the formality of things in our male-oriented society.  But this was how it worked back in my day – father and prospective husband working out the terms.  We bonded quickly, I must say.  I think he liked the fact that I made a good living, and that I seemed to have a personality that would match well with his only daughter. I was happy for his blessing!

Our engagement was a typical affair; everyone was so excited!  Over the years Mary had become the darling of our little community, so this was a big deal.  I was doing my best to keep things moving along as we made our plans and preparations.  I wanted this to be the perfect wedding for Mary, because with each passing day I grew to love her more and more. And I thought often about our life together after that day – the love we would share as husband and wife, and the children that would come and how we would raise them to know God and live as good honorable people.  Times would be tough for us, don’t get me wrong – the Romans rule with an iron fist, and they tax us heavily, as they do everyone.  Our lives would not always be comfortable.  But our lives would be full of love, and that love would pull us through whatever life dished out at us.  Whatever came our way.

I had no idea……

I remember exactly where I was when I first heard it.  I was at the marketplace picking up some wood for a project I was working on – money that I would be putting aside for our wedding day.  I had my back to a couple of older ladies around a produce cart, and above the din of the market crowd I heard one say to the other, “Well at least she’s not facing what Mary’s parents are. Can you believe their little girl is pregnant?  And not even married yet??” 

It was like all the air went out of my body in an instant.  The denials kicked in: surely this wasn’t my Mary they were talking about.  Surely this was a nasty rumor floating around – it wouldn’t be the first time!  But no matter how hard I tried to convince myself otherwise, something inside of me knew, somehow, that this was the truth: that my beloved fiancé Mary was carrying a child inside her that was not mine.  My world was falling apart.

The worst part of it all was having that conversation with her, and her father and mother, when she confirmed to me that the news was true.  I just sat there in a stupor as the tears streamed down her cheeks; as her father stormed around the room in disgust.  Mary tried to tell me – she tried to explain that this child was a special child, like no other; and that we could still be married and raise the child together.  That this was somehow God’s will.  And I wanted to answer her, scream at her, NO.  This was not God’s will!  God’s will was for the two of us to be married and live happy lives and raise children together; our children, and grow old together.  No way was this God’s will!  What had I done to deserve this?  Why did this have to happen??  That’s what I felt like asking her, but I didn’t.  Mainly because Mary’s father was already saying it and I didn’t feel like piling it on would do any good.  It was just a horrible scene.  A nightmare.

So, as you say today, the ball was in my court – that’s the way things worked back then.  I was the offended party, the husband-to-be whose future wife had transgressed on my good name.  And under Jewish law it was fully within my right to subject Mary to public ridicule and scorn – even to have her stoned, if I wished.  Our laws are straightforward and unambiguous and it was clear what needed to be done.  And I was the one to decide it.

And you know why I made the choice I did?  You know why I elected to simply end the engagement without a lot of pomp and circumstance?  It wasn’t just because I still loved her – which I did, madly.  It wasn’t just because I was trying to be the good guy, despite the fact that everyone – even Mary’s own parents – fully expected me and encouraged me to have her punished to the fullest extent of the law.  I made the decision to divorce her quietly because I believe – have always believed – that God does some of God’s greatest work when things are falling apart.  My pride, my ego, my love had all been crushed.  But even so, I knew that somehow God was still in the mix of everything, still watching over me, still standing beside me in the chaos of the swirling storm that had engulfed my life.  And no matter what everyone else was saying or thinking, it just didn’t seem right to cave into the chaos of it all, to go deeper into the madness, even if our customs permitted it.  People were going to think I was crazy for what I would do.  But I knew, for me, it was the right thing.

So that’s what I was thinking as I lay down in bed last night to go to sleep.  And I felt good about it, you know; like when you come to terms with a troubling decision and can already feel the release before you act on it.  I would wake up in the morning, I told myself, and go down to the synagogue to make everything official.  I would do it quietly, so Mary wouldn’t have to suffer any more embarrassment or ridicule.  And then I would go on with the rest of my life, whatever that life would be, knowing that God would be with me every step of the way.

And that’s when I had the dream.

It’s always hard trying to explain dreams, because it’s kind of like grasping hold of air.  It came on like most dreams do; kind of out of a fog, with no real beginning or end to it.  Everything about the dream was familiar, and everything about it was different.  It was a voice that spoke to me in the dream, although I can’t remember what it sounded like. It was the voice of the angel of the Lord; that much I’m sure of.  And it told me that my well-thought out plans about ending my engagement were not the plans God wanted.  The angel spoke to me, but the angel also painted a picture for me – a visual masterpiece of a life I had anticipated so much but had given up in recent days.

It was a picture of me working away in my carpenter’s shop, busy at work, and this wonderful brightness and energy about the way I was working, as if my wooden creations had some purpose beyond the people they were being created for.  And then it was the end of the work day and I would walk through the front door of my home.  And there I would be greeted by the embrace of a woman, my wife – Mary.  My Mary!  We were together in this dream, we were husband and wife, and everything about it felt perfect.

And then, a tug at my leg; and I would look down to see a young boy, his wide smile capturing my heart as if he were my own.  It was Mary’s child; the one she had been pregnant with.  And now, he was mine too.  But he was also someone else’s.  His name will be Jesus, the voice said to me in the dream.  Jesus, the Greek name for the Hebrew “Joshua,” which means salvation.  And as the angel is sharing this name with me I hear another voice; the voice of the prophet Isaiah, speaking thousands of years before:

Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
And they shall call him Emmanuel,
Which means “God-with-us.”

And as quickly as the dream came, it was gone, like that fog that burns off with the heat of the morning sun. 

And so here I am. I am awake now. The dream is gone.  But the dream is still here, too; still very much a part of me as I stand before you greeting the new day.  I can still smell the wood from my carpenter’s shop in the dream.  I can still feel her embrace; I can see the look of joy in the boy’s eyes.  And I can still hear the angel’s voice saying to me over and over again: His name will be Jesus.  His name will be Jesus.  His name will be Jesus……

And I’m telling you – if everyone thought I was crazy for what I said I was going to do last night, they’re really going to flip out now!  I mean, when they hear that I’ve decided to stay with Mary and make her my bride, they’re not going to understand.  When they learn that I’m going to raise Mary’s child as my own, love him as my son, they’re going to take issue with that.  And when it comes to pass that our child is given the name Salvation, they’re going to think I’ve gone mad.

And you know what? I’m so okay with that!  I’m perfectly fine with whatever “they” wind up thinking.  Because this isn’t about “them.”  It never has been.  This isn’t about them or our customs and our laws.  This isn’t even about Mary or me.  It’s not even about our son.  If there’s one thing that my dream last night revealed to me, it’s that this has always been about God – God coming to us in the chaos of life and doing some of God’s greatest work.  I have no idea what God is up to in all of this – I can’t wrap my mind around it.  Why such a wonderful child, a child who will save us from our sins, had to be born like this.  Why God would chose a teenaged unwed mother and a simple carpenter to bring into the world the joy of our salvation.  It doesn’t make sense!

But dreams rarely make sense, do they?  They float in and out of our consciousness, unannounced, when we least expect them.  Last night I had my dream; last night I heard the angel’s voice.  And in the weeks to come I will see God do God’s greatest work.  And I’m hoping – dreaming – that you will see it with me.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

WHAT KIND OF CHRISTMAS CROWD IS THIS??

Isaiah 40: 1-5; Matthew 3: 1-12
Steve Lindsley
December 5, 2010

If there’s one thing you can count on at Christmastime, it is this: wherever you go, you are bound to run into a Christmas crowd.  There just seem to be more people about, more things going on and crammed into our already busy schedules.  There are crowds everywhere you go.

There was a crowd a little over a week ago in malls, department stores and shopping establishments all across this country; that retail ritual known as “Black Friday.”  My wife took part in the extravaganza as a first-timer.  She joined a friend of hers at Target at 4:30 in the morning.  The line to the checkout wrapped all around aisles throughout the store, like some sort of obstacle course.  One source estimates that close to 150 million people are part of this particular crowd every year.  Just so you know, that’s roughly the equivalent of the entire populations of England, France and Spain combined. That’s quite a crowd! (http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2007/11/26/daily4.html" http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2007/11/26/daily4.html, visited on 12.1.2010)

There was another crowd that gathered a few nights ago just outside our church doors – maybe you were part of it.  I always enjoy being part of the crowd for the Christmas tree lighting – it’s one of my favorite “signs of the season.”  The weather might have been cold, but there was plenty of hot chocolate, courtesy of our Beacons.  And great music and Santa Claus.  And when those lights come on for the first time, the look of childhood joy in everyone’s face is something to behold.

Maybe you’ll be part of the Christmas parade crowd that will line the streets of our town in just a few hours.  It’s a lot of fun, seeing everyone decked out in their Christmas glory.  It’s a test of endurance too – last year’s clocked in at one hour and 50 minutes, by my watch.  Even so, it always draws a crowd.

You and I, we’re not only part of these crowds year after year.  We understand them.  We embrace them.  They are fun and festive.  They’re what we do in this Christmas season.  And typically we get something out of being part of these crowds – whether it’s some hot chocolate in our bellies, or a warm feeling in our hearts, or a 42-inch LCD flat-screen television.

We “get” Christmas crowds like that.  What we don’t get is the kind of crowd we find in our scripture today.  We’re not talking here about Main Street or the comfy confines of a shopping mall.  The “wilderness of Judea” was the furthest thing from creature comforts – scorching hot in the day, frigid cold at night; dry and dusty all the time.  And it’s not Saint Nick or a helpful store employee who greets us, but a thirty-something nomad named John.  John the Baptist, they called him.  He’s standing out there, clothed in basically what amounted to a burlap sack.  His daily meal consist of things like grasshoppers and wild honey.  Lord knows how long it had been since he had a bath or brushed his teeth.

But it’s not just his appearance that is somewhat shocking.  What comes out of his mouth is enough to make us blush, either with embarrassment or anger. With a booming voice that surely projected across the Palestinian plains, ol’ John rants and raves about how messed-up the world is, and how someone was coming to fix it.  Prepare the way of the Lord, he shouts at the top of his lungs.  And that’s when he’s being nice!  When he gets angry, oh man – the stuff he says!  Just in case you’re wondering, calling people a “brood of vipers” is not an ancient Middle-Eastern expression for “I love you.” 

This is not the kind of scene that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, folks.  This is the guy on the street corner or college campus who yells and screams at you as you walk by, telling you in no uncertain terms where you are going and how fast you’re going there.  This is the crazed man spouting off nonsense on the subway and drawing the attention of authorities charged with keeping the peace.  This is the last thing we expect – especially at this time of year when everything is supposed to be peaceful and loving; when everyone is supposed to be filled with good cheer.

But this was John the Baptist that day, and many days; standing outside Jerusalem, doing his yelling/screaming/confronting/angry thing.  And you know what’s even crazier?  The people flocked to him.  The guy always had a crowd!  Remember what scripture said?

The people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him,and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

These people – this crowd – made the rigorous journey outside the city comforts of Jerusalem into the harsh wilderness.  And it wasn’t just that they came to see him, like some freak show entertainment.  They let him baptize them; their children.   They subjected themselves to his rants and raves.  And they believed every word he had to say.

You know, I wonder what you and I would’ve thought had we been there in the wilderness, too.  I wonder if we would’ve asked ourselves, maybe even out loud, What kind of Christmas crowd is this??  Is this really the way to welcome Christ into the world?  It’s a reasonable question, when you think about it.  The whole John thing doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially when you consider what he was not saying.  He wasn’t standing up there in front of everyone promising the people that he was going to make their lives easier, or that he would lead an uprising against the hated Romans and free the people from tyranny.  John wasn’t telling the crowds that he was the one to do away with their poverty and their problems and somehow give them a better life. 

In fact, the amazing thing about John is that, despite his attention-getting appearance and behavior, he really wasn’t focused on himself at all.  It was all about someone else: Prepare the way of the Lord! John is quoting from the prophet Isaiah here; the same passage that Dave read earlier in worship:

A voice cries out:
In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up
And every mountain and hill be made low.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
And all the people shall see it together.

Could it be that the reason John drew such a crowd was not because he told them what they wanted to hear, but because he told them what they needed to hear? I don’t know.  Maybe it was some kind of relief for the people to know that the God who loved them also held them and everyone else accountable.  Perhaps they found reassurance from this nomad that the world in which they lived was not amoral; that morality was not reduced to a single command of “Thou shalt not get caught.”  With every word that passed from his lips, John focused not on himself but on the one that was to come – sent by God to bring about the completion of God’s work in the world.  And this message had to have been a huge comfort – even if it came from a grasshopper-eating itinerant.  It reassured them that there was rhyme and reason in what appeared to be a meaningless, haphazard world.  Which I guess is why we’ve always called it “good news.”  And good news – even when it comes from someone like John – seems to have a way of attracting a crowd.

And you know what I think?  I think you and I today want that same message of comfort, accountability and hope in our lives.  Actually, I don’t think we just want it – I think we hunger and thirst for it!  I think we are desperate for some good news to come crashing down on us!  Even though it is all too easy to get cocooned in our own little worlds, our own responsibilities.  Even though it’s simpler to take comfort in the routines, to avoid change.  Because while good news is certainly good and bad news is bad, what we really prefer most times is no news – where we can continue on our merry way from one day to the next, just like we did the day before, just like we’ll do the day after.

And then John the Baptist bursts onto the scene, and shocks us with his persona and his message.  Our senses are jolted from their slumber, and we may be offended at first.  But the more we listen to him and the Good News he proclaims, the more we find that something deep within us is awakened.  It is the spirit of the living God that stirs inside us.  It takes us to a place where we simply refuse to put up with the no-news, dull monotony of life; where there burns a passion for something different.  Where we not only want but are willing to work to see a broken world mended; all mountains made low and all valleys raised up.  Where we yearn for God, like John, to interrupt our rituals and routines and tell us not what we want to hear, but what we need to hear.  Prepare the way of the Lord!

Do you see now why the crowds came?  Do you see why they couldn’t keep away from there, away from John, even if they tried?  And do you see why, if we had been there too, it would’ve been awfully hard for us to walk away from the Good News and continue living as always had? 

Well, we were not part of John’s crowd way back when.  But we are part of this crowd – this gathering of believers and followers at First Presbyterian Church.  And I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t ask: why are we part of this crowd, anyway?  What brings us to this place?  Is it because we feel obligated?  Is it because we are assured that things will stay the same; that nothing is going to change?  Or are we part of this crowd because things are on the very cusp of changing, radically; and we can’t wait another moment for it to happen?

My friends, we are weary.  We are weary of our no-news lives; everything so ordinary.  We are tired of a world where we just get through the day rather than celebrate it, where we work harder and we play less, where we are enslaved to our busy schedules and many tasks.  And we are tired of a world where a single dad can’t afford to buy food for his four kids, where millions of people die every day from diseases that are preventable, and where our leaders rule more out of fear than hope.  We long to come face to face with a God who doesn’t have to guess at what it’s like being human because He already knows first-hand.

Maybe that, more than anything, is what brings our crowd together on this second Sunday in Advent, and every Sunday before and after it.  Because this world of ours is so ready for some good news – even if John the Baptist is the one sharing it.  And unlike so much around us that is fake and fleeting, this news is real and eternal.  So let us proclaim the good news of the coming of Jesus.  Because that, my friends, that is the kind of Christmas crowd we are.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

THE HOME ON THE MOUNTAIN AND THE SOUNDTRACK OF ADVENT

Isaiah 2: 1-5; Psalm 122: 1-9
Steve Lindsley
November 28, 2010

Today may be the first Sunday after Thanksgiving.  It may very well be the 331st day of 2010, drawing to the close of yet another calendar year.  But for you and for me, in this place, today is Day One.  It is the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the annual life cycle of the church.  Happy New Year, folks!  And even though we know where the days ahead will take us – the birth of the messiah, his life, death and resurrection, Pentecost and beyond – even though we know all that’s coming, right here and right now we’re just beginning.

It is the beginning of a story that is told over and over again this time each year, like a production at the local theater that plays every November and December.  It is a story that we not only watch from our seats in the audience, but a story that we take part in as well.  The auditorium lights flash once, twice, three times to let us know the show is about to begin.  We take our seats.  Anticipation builds as the house lights go down and the curtain opens.  A single spot light shines on a lone figure positioned at center stage.  It is the prophet; and as he stands there he opens his mouth and the most beautiful song comes out of it.  His song is about a mountain; a very particular mountain that rests high above all others; the mountain that everyone knows. 

And on that mountain, he sings about a house.  Not a palace, as we might expect, but just a house.  We hear his voice and his words, and we see it all as clear as day; the mountain and the house and all the people streaming to it.  They come from everywhere, entire nations, seeking something that can be found only there.  They come from far and wide, and their journey is almost done.  And as the prophet sings about all of this, the musicians in the orchestra pit below raise their instruments on cue and begin their accompaniment.  But the music that they make is not the melodic sounds of strings and woodwinds and brass.  It is the sound of metal banging on metal, over and over again; as swords and spears are refashioned into shovels and hoes.

(the sound of metal banging on metal here...)

This is how you and I begin our new church year.  On this first Sunday of Advent, we are greeted by a prophet, a home on the highest mountain, and the sound of metal on metal.  It is a new sound; it is strange to our ears.  It is Advent.

It’s not really what we expect, is it?  And it’s not just the sound or the home on the mountain that is unexpected. Look around us: the sanctuary decked out beautifully in all its Christmas glory.  Look and listen outside our church doors – retail stores that quickly swapped out Halloween decorations for holiday trimmings, radio stations who long ago traded in their top 40 soft rock playlists for seasonal tunes, Christmas wish lists already written, airline flights already reserved.  We in the church may be starting Advent today, but everywhere else, it seems, the journey has been going on for a long time!  So what does it mean for us to begin the journey today, and to begin it here, on this mountain, in this house and with this strange sound? 

If the beginning of Advent as described by Isaiah seems a tad strange to us, if the home on the mountain and the “soundtrack of Advent” are not at all what we expect to find on this day, then take great comfort in knowing that it sounded just as out-of-place to the people the prophet spoke to long ago.  And that’s exactly what it was supposed to do.  It caught their attention, these strange images and sounds; it diverted them from their normal rituals and routines.  And it signaled to God’s people that something new was taking place; that the “same old same old” of their lives, up to that point, was not going to be the same anymore.  And for the people of that day, as for the people in ours, that was welcome news.  For, see, they were living in uncertain times.  Their future was in doubt.  Enemy nations were swirling around them on all sides, ready to pounce.  Threats loomed large.  That’s when the prophet spoke.  And as a general rule, when prophets start speaking, things can’t be good.

The voice of Isaiah here brings to light the disconnect that often exists between the world we live in and the world that is to come; the distance between what is expected and what actually happens.  You expect people to avoid the mountain, not hike up it.  You expect folks to live on edge and take up arms – those swords and spears can be awfully comforting. You expect people to be defined not by their hopes and dreams but by their fears; not by the good that is coming but the bad that is already there. 

You and I, we know all too well about those expectations, don’t we?  These are tough times we are living in.  You can feel it in the air – a sort of anxious tension, like standing on the edge of the precipice engaged in a perpetual balancing act.  The economy is tenuous.  People are unemployed. Tensions are running high.  Nations are engaged in war or, as we saw this past week it North and South Korea, flirting dangerously close to it.  We don’t trust each other like we used to.  Rather than looking outward, we withdraw in.  And it’s a vicious cycle, isn’t it – the more we accept living this way, the more we give others permission to do the same.  It is life in the valley with the mountains all around us. 

Until we come to the beginning of our new church year – this time of Advent.  Now we hear the prophet singing his new song for us, as he takes center stage and begins our journey by challenging our expectations and undoing our fears:

In days to come,
The mountain of the Lord’s house
Shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
And all the nations shall stream to it.
Come, let us go up to the mountain.
That he may teach us his ways,
That we may walk in his paths.

You know that scene from the Charlie Brown Christmas special, where Charlie Brown and Linus are out looking for a Christmas tree for the Christmas pageant?  You remember that?  They walk outside, the two of them, all bundled up in their coats and hats; and looking up in the sky they see these two huge skylights shining all over the place, the same kind of lights the car dealership uses when they have a sale going on.  They follow the lights to a Christmas tree lot, draped with strings and strings of small lights. 
Except the trees in this lot – and apparently in every tree lot in Charlie Brown-land – are made out of aluminum.  Linus knocks on one with his fist and it makes this hollow, metallic sound, like when you hit an empty gas can. The camera scans through the lot of multi-colored aluminum Christmas trees – red and blue, gold, silver and purple.  It’s the same trees they find there every year.  It’s exactly what they expect.

And then, amidst this seas of metal, they find a tree that stands out from the rest.  It is a puny little tree; and unlike the others it's a real one.  Three stubby branches hang off its tiny trunk, each with a handful of needles.  It is anchored to a wooden cross stand with some bent nails.  Linus marvels out loud that someone actually still uses real Christmas trees.  Charlie Brown, upon seeing it, declares that their search is over.

The reaction from the other kids when Charlie Brown and Linus show up with this scrawny tree is easy to anticipate  - shock, bewilderment, ridicule.  Had they simply done what everyone expected them to, things would’ve been different.  Things would’ve been okay.  But there’s always going to be a backlash when the truth is spoken.  There’s always going to be an uproar we take the long journey up to the house on the highest mountain.  No one wants to hear the sound of metal on metal drowning out the lulling melodies of Christmas carols.

You know, I think ol’ Charlie Brown and the prophet Isaiah would’ve gotten along marvelously!  Because in their own way they each recognized the meaning of this thing we call Advent – how God gets our attention and jolts us back to consciousness from our year-long slumber.  Advent is when God cuts right through the anxieties and fears and expectations that have come to dictate so much of how we look at and live our lives. The birth of Jesus, and the waiting of Advent for that birth, is the only way God can show us just how loved and treasured and precious we really are.

Advent marks that time in the life of people of faith when ordinary expectations are surpassed by God’s extraordinary action.  So as we begin this surprising season of our church year, as we take part in this annual dramatic presentation, we step out of the audience seats and step into that journey up the mountain to the house of the Lord.  We join together with fellow sojourners from all over, people who look and act and think like us, and people who don’t. 

We soak in the sweet, sweet sound of God’s own music, music that sounds like metal banging on metal.  We come to the house of the Lord, which looks an awful lot like a manger.  We walk in to the house and see the throne of God, which looks like a barnyard feeding trough.  We notice the presence of the royal court gathered there, which looks an awful lot like sheep and goats and cattle and ox and shepherds.  We are bathed by a glorious light from above, which looks an awful lot like a bright star shining in the night sky.  And there in that house, we gather together and share in a meal; a meal which tastes to us of bread and wine.

So today may be the 331st day of 2010.  But know this, my friends – it is Day One.  And on this day we will see new sights and hear new sounds.  It will be strange; it will be different.  It won’t be what we expect.  And it will transform us.  Let us join in the journey up the mountain.  Let us go together to the house of our Lord!  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

TO EACH IS GIVEN: THE GIFT OF A NEW CITY

Revelation 21: 1-6; Isaiah 65: 17-25
Steve Lindsley
March 14, 2010

Nearly three years ago, it was a blustery spring morning  at Virginia Tech University.  What started out as any normal weekday morning on the college campus soon took a horrible turn, as the first shots were fired in what would become the worst shooting incident ever to take place on American soil.  Thirty-three people dead, a dozen or so injured, and millions around the world crying out in mourning.  The press, who descended on the campus like a hornet’s nest, would be camped out all day and night, covering the story 24-7 to satisfy a never-ending news cycle and human consumption of tragedy.  They talked with a student whose younger sister died, an English professor who tried to steer the future killer to counseling, a staff person holed up in a dorm room.

And then they interviewed a campus minister during the wee hours of the following morning.  He led a Christian fellowship group at the school.  He was bald and looked to be in his mid-30’s.  The reporter asked the standard entry questions: where were you when it happened, did you know any of the murdered.  And then she asked the question that had been on everyone's mind since the news first broke; the real question everyone wanted answered: what do you do with this as a person of faith?  How do you put this horrific event in a spiritual context?

Man.  Talk about being put on the spot!  I don't know anything about this campus minister.  I can only assume he makes a meager salary, as most campus ministers do, and that he probably ranks pretty low in the university hierarchy.  I can only assume that two days before his life was consumed by fairly mundane things like planning out a Thursday night Bible study, or making reservations for the end-of-year lake trip, or counseling a senior on life after graduation.  And yet now he has suddenly been thrust onto the national and international stage, in effect speaking for the entire Christian faith, on a dilemma that even the most seasoned theologians have wrestled with for centuries; the greatest Biblical scholars unable to arrive at a definitive conclusion – because there isn't one.

What do you do with this as a person of faith, Mr. Campus Minister?  How do you put this in a spiritual context?

That is the question that keeps us up at night, that leaves us grasping for answers, that troubles us to the day we die. That's the question that disrupts the even flow of our carefully-crafted belief systems.  We have no problem putting good things in a spiritual context – it fits like a glove, it feels right.  But what do we do with earthquakes and tsunamis and mass shootings?  How do we explain it when someone dies before their time, leaving behind a wife and three young kids?  What do we do with these things as people of faith?  How do we put them in a spiritual context?

It is hard sometimes to find the “location” of our faith – meaning that “center,” that place from which everything else springs forth.  It has been said – and rightly so – that the story of the Bible begins in a garden and ends in a city. Genesis brings us to the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve and everything perfect until the first bite of that tempting apple.  Revelation leads us to a different place – a city; a renewed Jerusalem that descends down from the heavens to the earth below. 

It's an interesting location for the Bible to conclude, isn't it?  Because cities in general come with a lot of problems.  The more people you cram in them, the more issues you're going to have.  Resources can only go so far.  Local governments and municipalities can only do so much.  What makes the location of the Bible's climactic conclusion even more curious is that, at the time Revelation was written, the Roman armies had descended on Jerusalem and reduced it to flames – eerily similar to Babylon's devastation of the same city a mere 500 years before.  Why would the Bible's story finish here?  Wouldn't it make more sense to end where it began – in the garden before the fall?  Why a city?

I bring this question up because I'm wondering if this question and the earlier question about finding faith in unimaginable tragedies are intertwined in a very intimate way.  There's a reason for where the culmination of God's work in the world happens – and how it happens.  Thousands of years earlier, the prophet Isaiah painted a scandalous picture in the latter chapters of his book: a wolf and a lamb feeding together; a lion eating straw like an ox.  The writer of Revelation dares to announce a time when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, death and mourning and crying and pain will be no more.  All of this sounds strange to our city ears.

There is something deeply evocative in the images from these two books; something that takes on a life of its own and moves beyond just being “inspiring reading.”  They tell us unequivocally: something has changed.  Things aren’t the way they used to be. This is a radical shift from the way our world operates, because it's a commonly-accepted fact that wolves and lambs don’t hang out together.  Likewise, death and mourning are frequent companions in life.  So something has changed!  Something is new in this old world of ours, and we have an expression for a changed world.  We call it the kingdom of God.

Except it's different than the kingdom of God we typically think of.  Most people hear that phrase and automatically think “heaven” – in fact, we like to use the two interchangeably.  We hear someone say “kingdom of God” and we think of the afterlife, the place we go when we leave this earth.  We hear someone say “kingdom of God” and we think of a white stone palace in the sky glistening with gold, angels with wings bearing the souls of those who have long left this earth, fluttering about.

But that's not the kind of “kingdom of God” that Revelation talks about.  This is a city that has come down from the heavens.  This kingdom of God is earthbound, anchored in good ol' terra firma.  And in Isaiah's vision, it's not some mythical creatures living in peaceful harmony, but beasts of the earth on the earth.  And every bit of this marks the culmination of God's great work: an earth ruled not by the oppressive powers of the world but by the outlandish hope of God.  When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God, he was speaking about the possibilities that exist when we as God’s people follow Christ and live lives that reflect that following – even and especially when it is the hardest thing to do; even when we just don't know whether our faith is going to give us any answers or not.

Like when we come face-to-face with those troubling questions the campus minister had to answer at 6am in the morning.  On CNN live, nonetheless; the whole country watching.  This is not what he expected to be doing just a few days before.  This is not a burden he chose to bear.  The burden came to him; it came to all of us as the morning sun began to rise over the city of Blacksburg, VA.  The reporter asked, What do you do with this as a person of faith?  How do you put this horrific event in a spiritual context?  And you know how he answered her?  This is what he said:

This tragedy has brought home to all of us the fact that evil is real and is not some concept.  Evil came yesterday to Virginia Tech and sat down with us for a while.  But our understanding of faith, and what the Bible tells us, is that evil won’t sit here forever.  And that’s what will get us through times like this.  That’s what gives us the hope we so desperately need right now.

Evil won't sit here forever – I love that!  It's the voice of hope when all hope seems lost.  It's the voice of the one on the throne in Revelation as he looks out over the renewed city he had just created, straight from the heavens.  It's the voice of the prophet in the aftermath of Israel's most turbulent time, as he describes how even the animals will be at peace.  This is the hope we have as people of faith: that while the hardships we encounter, the unexplainable things, will certainly take place, they will not rule over us.  They won't sit with us forever.

And you know something?  This isn’t “pie-in-the-sky” theology.  This isn’t some quick fix that denies the seriousness of a broken world.  This empowers us to look beyond the current state of the city to see the kingdom that will soon arrive.  This is what Isaiah and the writer of Revelation had in mind when, in the midst of their loss, their suffering, their hopelessness, they put pen to paper and painted pictures of God’s great kingdom.   For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the prophet says, the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.  The old is gone – all things new. 

And we should never lose sight of the fact that all of this takes place in a city – a place where people gather together, live together, work together, play together.  A place where, by its very design, people depend on each another for fellowship and the necessities of life.  If the Biblical story begins in a garden with just two people, it has now come full circle to a beautiful renewed city, bustling with activity.

And what a gift – what a gift this city is!  It's a gift because it reminds us that God is forever with us, even in those dark times when we don't always feel him there.  I can't help but think back to another tragedy this country endured, when planes were flown into buildings and thousands of lives were lost on a September morning.  I remember the questions that emulated from that; good questions, serious questions: Where was God?  Where was God when those planes hit the Twin Towers, when thousands of people died?  And I remember hearing someone answer very sincerely and compassionately that God was, in fact, in those planes; God was in those towers.  It wasn't a flippant answer; it was an answer of deep faith.  It was a simple acknowledgment that God is with us wherever we go, even and especially in the unimaginable places.  As a good friend of mine once expressed in a moment of spiritual clarity, “Thanks be to God that God's presence with us does not depend on whether we always feel it or not.”

The new city is also a gift because it give us a real and living hope in the midst of hopelessness.  It was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, almost forty years ago in the height of the civil rights struggle, who wrote this in his book The Trumpet of Conscience: If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.  King recognized that it is a human need to grasp hold of something beyond ourselves; something outlandish and unordinary and real, no matter how out-of-reach it may seem.  This is what drove God's people to the city they loved; and this is what drove God to make that city new again.

Which leads us to the final gift of the city – an eternal reminder that God is always, always doing a new thing our midst.  The God we worship every Sunday and follow every day is not a stagnant God; not a God that is into maintaining the status quo.  Our God is a God who builds a world from nothing, frees a people from bondage, parts the water, fashions a new land.  Our God defeats Goliaths, sets saturated altars aflame, speaks in still silence, travels with us to foreign lands.  Our God is born in mangers, makes more wine for the wedding, turns over temple tables, rolls away gravestones.  Our God never ceases to move in and among us in ways we cannot possibly imagine, including the gift of a new city that will be our home forever. 

    The city is where we belong – it is God's gift to us.  So let's get busy bringing that city to fruition, shall we?  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.