The Spirit says... Patience

Are we there yet?

I wonder if the original disciples ever bothered Jesus with that question as they traveled around the countryside.  His present-day disciples spend a lot of time bothering with that question—a recent poll reports that about 1/5thof all Americans figure we’ve reached our destination and that the world will end in their lifetimes. But you don’t have to be obsessed with the apocalypse to be impatient.  The Bible may encourage us to “wait for the Lord,” but that’s not much fun, no matter how holy it sounds.  Maybe it’s because everything is so fast now, but the long haul doesn’t have a lot of appeal.  So I don’t think I’m the only one whose prayers are about results.  I may not be preaching for an altar call and counting up the souls I’ve saved, but I still want to know now—is any of this working?

But that’s not how the Gospel works. No matter how you understand the Bible, it presents the story of a God taking centuries and many generations to work out his purpose.  Through those centuries things do change until one day, in the fullness of time, the waiting ends, the predictions are met and the Messiah appears.  Then, with the end of Jesus’ ministry and the coming of the Spirit, a new chapter begins.  The writing of that chapter has taken its own slow centuries.  We forget about the work of those who came before us, but Christian history is full of examples of people who spent their entire lives working for a cause without seeing success—William Wilberforce, for example, who spent 45 years in the English Parliament fighting to end slavery in the British Empire.  On what grounds should we expect that God will bless us of all people with instant results?

Time for a change.  In the last week, one word keeps coming up in my prayer:  Patience.

As the Sunday School students could tell you, patience is one of the Fruits of the Spirit. That means it is a good thing.   Knowing that we are part of a salvation story that stretches back for centuries, patience should be a no-brainer.  Living by faith means that we trust God to work things out—everything from the coming of the Kingdom to the answering of prayer—in his time, not ours.  It’s one more way of recognizing that the Gospel isn’t all about us, which frees us to worship the One at the center. 

Patience, of course, requires practice.  It may be a gift from the Spirit, but such a gift only comes through use—otherwise how would you know you had it? 

Trinity’s blessings are all about living this life of faith, not about results. Patience belongs here.  But we should know that patience isn’t the same thing as doing nothing, so even as we try to trust, we should be seeing the Spirit’s presence making a difference in the way things are. 

So  I figured I’d give it a try---if we haven’t reached our destination, then where are we?  Let’s see….

God’s Good News IS Good News

• Faith is a journey, not a line to be crossed, and we welcome you at any point in

your journey.

• The saving work of Christ is for all people - whether within our walls or without.

Since success for us isn’t found in counting up the number of souls saved, maybe we can focus on other signs of faithfulness.  Change would be one sign of growth, but not just any change.  What demonstrates that this change is grounded in the Good News is the response.  Do we cling stubbornly to what was—we’ve always done it this way—or do we accept new styles and ideas?  The Spirit gives us the freedom to try.

. 

Welcome

• Trinity is a place for people of all ages, genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations,

abilities, political beliefs, and marital/family status.

• We foster community by spending time, eating, worshiping, and working together.

My welcome to Trinity was a little different from most since I met Trinity members for the first time in a job interview.  Many of those interviewers are no longer with us, which brings me to an insight about our welcoming practices:  Those now offering welcome were once guests here.  Our welcome speaks of grace when we are able to get past the polite warmth of a first meeting and into the companionship of belonging—where guests become friends.

Wisdom

• The gifts, insights, and interests of our individual members constitute our

community’s authority, trusting that “Where two or three are gathered...”, the

Spirit of Christ is present with us.

• The stability of our Anglican tradition informs and inspires us.

 Wisdom at Trinity is all about receiving the contributions of all.  Just to take our music programs as examples—we can see how many different voices and talents, adults and children, lead worship.  It’s not just worship, of course—from new vestrymembers to breakfast cooks—gifts offered in service are a sign of wisdom in the community.  When people can try something new or change their opinions because of the Gospel, we know the Spirit is working here.

All Is Done to God’s Glory

• Our thoughtful words and actions are what make God’s goodness more real in

our families and communities.

• We choose gratitude as a way of life, recognizing that all good gifts come from

God.

• We freely offer our effort and our work enthusiastically, unselfconsciously, and

fearlessly for the sake of God and others. We welcome loud mistakes!

God’s glory is all about the risks we take in faith.  But risks aren’t all about being a daredevil.  They don’t always even look like risks.

St. Francis once said that if you focus on doing what is possible, you will soon find yourself doing the impossible.  If we focus on the work that needs to be done instead of the obstacles and excuses, St. Francis’ advice makes sense.  Be faithful.  Do what has be done, no matter how ill-equipped and unready you think you are, because it needs doing, and the impossible becomes possible. 

Has the impossible become possible at Trinity?  If so, we’re not there yet, but we’re on the way, and that brings us back to the Good News of the journey.  The signs are there, almost unnoticed, but we are on the way. 

Patience.  We’ll get there in God’s time.  Can’t you see that we are on the way?

Daring to be... Imaginative!

Imagination—it’s not really a common church word, and it's where I ended the sermon today.  John Lennon might think imagining is a good idea, but generally we preachers and priests do not, probably because we think of imagination as being part of Fantasyland, and we in the church want to be sure we are dealing with reality.

We're forgetting that Jesus had a great imagination. 

Jesus invited his disciples to imagine a new world as he guided them into what that world would be:  the Kingdom of God.  His followers knew about kingdoms, but not about this one.  The Kingdom of God plays by different rules.  Imagine a place where the meek and the poor were blessed.  Imagine a power structure turned upside down, prominence belongs to servant, where the last are first, the weak are strong.  In Jesus’ message, things could be different—not a fantasy, but the vision of a possibility.

It’s that new possibility that gets him into trouble--he challenges the way things are with the way things could be, and the ruling powers are not amused.  Before this new vision can gain any traction, they must stop it, and they do.  But they can’t.  In Jesus’ resurrection, this new vision is vindicated—it’s not just wishful thinking, there’s a reality here. 

Now to Trinity: 

Trinity is on a mission! 

OK, we’re always on a mission, but this particular mission has its own twist.  During this Easter season, we are spending time discussing and considering the specific realities that make Trinity unique.  Why do we do what we do?  Yes, our Christian identity is the answer, but dive in a bit deeper and consider the Trinity difference.  

 In the last two years, through conversations ranging from the Annual Meeting to the vestry, from the Rector’s Forum and a task force specifically formed to take on this task, we’ve been considering the ways God has called Trinity in particular to live as a church at this time.  We call those ways, values.  They were written by the task force, but in many ways they were written by all of us. 

But before we consider those, let’s return to Jesus’ story, and put the whole thing together.  Today we heard part of the story of Peter, who finds himself speaking about Jesus to the very same powerful men who sent him to the cross.  Probably in a million years, Peter never imagined himself in this place.  If Jesus had invited Peter to imagine this future, he probably would have gone back to his boats and never turned around.   Peter, an ordinary fisherman and family man, now challenging some very dangerous people—how did he get here?

What happened, of course, is Jesus.  Following Jesus, Peter has had a taste of that alternative world, the place where peacemakers are blessed, and life wins out over death.  The way things are is not the way things have to be. He imagines a new reality. Imagine what it will be like when that message spreads. 

That’s where Peter is—inspired by that new reality—a reality that gives Peter the courage to confront Jesus’ killers, and a reality that will send him all the way to Rome and his own martyrdom.

Now, let's get back to our story—it’s not martyrdom we’re imagining for Trinity.  We have a description of what we are and could be, and here it is:

Trinity’s Values:

God’s Good News IS Good News

• Faith is a journey, not a line to be crossed, and we welcome you at any point in

your journey.

• The saving work of Christ is for all people - whether within our walls or without.

Welcome

• Trinity is a place for people of all ages, genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations,

abilities, political beliefs, and marital/family status.

• We foster community by spending time, eating, worshiping, and working together.

Wisdom

• The gifts, insights, and interests of our individual members constitute our

community’s authority, trusting that “Where two or three are gathered...”, the

Spirit of Christ is present with us.

• The stability of our Anglican tradition informs and inspires us.

All Is Done to God’s Glory

• Our thoughtful words and actions are what make God’s goodness more real in our families and communities.

• We choose gratitude as a way of life, recognizing that all good gifts come from God.

• We freely offer our effort and our work enthusiastically, unselfconsciously, and fearlessly for the sake of God and others. We welcome loud mistakes!

 Imagine the possibilities.  


Like Peter, we don’t need to get caught up in details and unknowns—those can be scary. But  this alternative world—this place of welcome and wisdom, of Good News and risks taken to God’s glory--we have tasted it and we know:  it could change everything, if we allowed this message to take hold of our lives.  So let’s imagine the message taking hold.  


What’s the difference?  How are you inspired?

Holy Week is finished and the Fountain is full of rocks.

Holy Week is finished, and we’ve got a fountain full of rocks. There are a few dozen new pictures on the website, and the office computers are all buried under hymnals and prayerbooks that didn't get back in the church.  What else do we have to show for an intense week of work and worship?

 Like the Beloved Disciple, I came, I saw, I believed, and then I went home.  Now that I’m home, I can’t help but debrief.  Who was here—who was missing?  And, as always, how many?

Numbers—such an issue.  In the church we count attendance, money, sometimes even Easter eggs.  I noticed one church in our area advertising the biggest egg hunt in the County—50,000 eggs!  (The church service is optional, but attending does get you to the front of the line--avoid the crowds; hear a sermon!)  We didn't count the eggs, but I can't help count the worshipers.

Numbers demonstrate success because they show that you matter.  You must really be something if that many people listen to you, and conversely, something is wrong if there aren’t enough.  So, for the record, around 500 people were here at one point or another (not counting Palm Sunday, which is too far in the past to be remembered) for a service, thereby hearing my message.  Is that enough to make it worth preaching?

Just before the 10:00 Easter service today, I was lamenting with a choir member over an unexpectedly empty church (that was 5 minutes before, it was much fuller 10 minutes later).  How can people not recognize a need for God, we wondered.  How is that we work so hard and yet connect with so few?  But then, as I read the Gospel today, the truth of the story struck me again.  This victory over death--it happened!.  Without my help, without any publicity or even a single legal pad, God brings salvation. God did this.  Not me—I can talk, report and remind, but I can nothing to make this message more true.  So how do you substantiate the truth?  What do numbers have to do with the Gospel?

What we have done, those of us active in faith, is join the Resistance.  We hold out to the world another possibility of life.  Resistance requires a different strategy--we're not about invading territory and body counts; we're about witnessing to something different and inviting people to join.  We have to share the message, live it out, encourage others to live it out and all the rest, but in the midst of all that work, it’s easy to forget the real point, that it isn’t about our work.  It’s worth remembering that the Kingdom came without our help.  Its victory isn’t in numbers, but in the reality of God’s presence.  Whether there are 500 or 50 or 5, the Kingdom is somewhere, always.  This Resistance is powered not by our cleverness or success, or even preaching skills, but by the Spirit of God.

So, as I said in my sermon, we're always looking for that Alleluia--the sign of God's power in our world.  We're out there with this word of hope, giving it to those who do not see it; challenging those who do not think there's a place for Alleluia in our world.  In faith we set out to be different from the world and to see what so many cannot see of meaning and hope.  That's a lot more complicated in real life than in a 10 minute sermon, but that's the general idea.

 Like the Beloved Disciple, I came, I saw, I believed, I went home, and like any 21^st Century Christian, I got on Facebook—if you’re reading this, you probably did, too.  I found dozens of messages of faith there—hymn quotes, services described, scripture written in Greek. But it isn’t all Christian victory on Facebook.  Given my profession, you can guess that most of the people I see on Facebook were quoting hymns and writing in Greek.  But even so, here and there I also found friends defiantly and even with some hostility not celebrating Easter.  It was as if they wanted to start a fight--just try to make me say Alleluia!  

So I wished them all a happy Easter.  Because today I am not going to fight.  Even if all you celebrate of Easter is the chocolate, one of God's finest creations—rejoice!  Today, I am going be at peace with all the celebrations. Today, I'm not going to count anything. Christ is risen, the victory is complete.  Tomorrow or the next day I'll lead the charge again but for today, enough, thank God.

So, Alleluia, Christ is Risen!  That's enough Good News for today.

Wishful thinking or something more?

On the off chance that anyone at Trinity is still observing Lent, I thought I would ask a question:  What do you think following the way of the cross means?

What interests me is that following part.  I guess there is a part of Christianity that glories in suffering, but I don't know those folks.  Rational folks avoid suffering.  We come up with ways that the suffering we witness in the world doesn’t involve us—why it is “their” fault, so we don’t have to get involved or sympathize.  Christians often imagine their own suffering to be some injustice or some sort of test God has set up for God knows what reasons.  However we do it, the Christian faith becomes a spectator sport—we watch Jesus on his way of the cross, but we  don't have to get into the game.

But what if instead of watching, we surrender?  Jesus does.  He puts up no fight at all.  He lets himself be arrested, puts up no defense at trial.  Of course, we’re not surprised.  We’ve heard this story enough to know that this is the way Jesus will achieve his victory.  But what if surrender is the way we achieve victory, too?

By surrender, I don’t mean give up.  Jesus doesn’t quit.  He surrenders to the authorities—the Romans, the priests—because they aren’t his real enemies.  They are simply the powers of the moment, but Jesus’ battle is much bigger than that.  He faces the strengths and powers of all the voices throughout the centuries that would have us believe that life is empty and meaningless.  His real battle is fought on the cross, not in arguments with Pilate or the priests.

If we were to surrender, what we would be surrendering is our own rules and regulations that define reality.  We set our own boundaries, and live within that self-created reality.  But what is it that Jesus said about judging?  How do we know we are so right?  What if the worse thing that could possibly happen, be that the end of a job, a relationship or a life, wasn’t the worst thing, but instead a gateway—the place where Christ could meet us?  This is redemption—those worst moments being turned into times of healing or strength or even blessing, not by our power but by Christ’s presence.  It is when we surrender to the possibility of his grace that we recognize salvation.

This is why his path of downward mobility described in Philippians 2 is not a mistake but the essential path of salvation.  It is why we have to follow him, and not just watch.  And this is what makes the Christian hope into a way of life instead of simply wishful thinking. 

So how about it?  Have you walked this way of the cross and found it to be the way of life?  Any stories to share?

Questions for Lent 5

Lent 5

Instructions:  You can use these questions—all, some, or none, as you seek to understand the scriptures.  Each Sunday as you come to worship, you will have an opportunity to share your (written) insights, either by offering them symbolically, or writing them so others can read and benefit.  

Jeremiah 31:31-34

1.  Jeremiah is often called the “weeping prophet.”  This section is an exception to Jeremiah’s general message, which is that Jerusalem will fall to the Babylonians (which indeed happened in 587 BC) because of Israel’s unfaithfulness.  Here Jeremiah is offering words of assurance for the future, even while he does not reverse his overall message of destruction.  How do we reconcile Jeremiah’s good news/bad news message?

2.  In this new covenant, God promises that he will forgive and forget the sins of Israel.  How do you think forgetting and forgiving go together?  Is it possible to forgive and not forget?  What does it mean to say that God forgets?

3.  Notice that the new covenant does not stop the destruction Jeremiah sees coming, but the new covenant is a new start arising out of that disaster.  Has there been a time in your life when you experienced a new start when everything was lost?  How was God/faith part of that?  How do you hold on to faith in difficult times?  Do you have a story of victory you could share?

4.  While Jeremiah preaches destruction, he also maintains that God will never abandon his people, even though they cannot avoid the consequences of their sin.  Do consequences and forgiveness contradict?  What does this story of God’s presence and judgment tell us about God’s love?

John 12:20-33

1. The Greeks who come to see Jesus are most likely Jews who have come to Jerusalem for Passover.  What significance do you think Jesus draws from their interest in him?  Is this a sign that the end of his ministry is here?

2. What do you think it means to “hate” your life in this world?  Why would Jesus tell us to hate our life in order to gain eternal life?

3. “Glory” is one of those church words that covers a lot of ground.  When Jesus (and God) speak of being glorified, and glorifying the Father’s name, what do you think he means?  How is God glorified in Jesus’ death?  Can you think of a better way to describe all this to people who don’t speak church?

Sermon for Lent 5

Lent 5

Jeremiah 31:27-34

John 12:20-36

There was a book a year or two making the talk show circuit called The Secret.  It was supposed to contain the secret for getting everything you want out of life.  We Christians have a secret to life, too, which happens to be the subject of our scripture today. 

The secret isn’t Jesus—there’s no secret there—everyone mentions him all the time.  But the reality he brings—that’s not quite as widely known.  In our Old Testament reading today, the prophet Jeremiah speaks of this new reality, something that he claims we should all know.  We don’t even need a teacher or a preacher according to Jeremiah.  So what is this reality that will answer all our needs? 

According to Jeremiah, it’s God’s forgiveness.  Jeremiah describes a new covenant  written not on stone tablets, but  on the hearst of each of us, based on the gift of God’s forgetting our sins.  What is strange is that Jeremiah is the prophet who describes this gift.  Jeremiah’s words in the Bible are many, and they aren’t happy ones. Jeremiah looks into the future and sees gloom, doom, destruction, and not much else.  Jeremiah predicts that everything that makes up the nation of Israel is about to be destroyed.  The government, the cities, the economy, even the religious institutions, all will be lost.  Life as the people of Israel know it soon will be gone forever.

Why is Jeremiah so confident in his predictions of doom?  The nation of Babylon, the conquering power of their day, is about to invade, and nothing will stop them.  This impending disaster is the result of Israel’s inability to keep the covenant with God—somehow they never could worship just one God, somehow they failed to be the people of a unique society of justice and law as they were meant to be.  But while sin has brought them to this place, Jeremiah never suggests that if the people repent God will then protect them.  It’s too late for that now.  Jeremiah actually advises surrender; you can imagine how popular that made him in the palace where he preached.

Odd, then, that here, when all is lost and destruction is overdue, Jeremiah would start talking about something new.  Is there really hope here at the edge of disaster?

Hold that thought.  We’re going to leave Jeremiah here at the edge of disaster for just a moment, because we need to bring the Gospel story into our biblical picture. 

At first it would seem that Jesus’ situation is far removed from Jeremiah’s.  Jesus isn’t at the edge of disaster, in fact he is at the pinnacle of his success.  That’s what is behind his strange response to Philip’s inquiry.  Some Greeks want to hear Jesus.  These people are Jews, in town just as Jesus is for the Passover.  They talk to Philip, probably because they don’t speak the same language as Jesus (Aramaic), and Philip, who is from a Gentile area of the country, is probably bilingual.  What their request tells Jesus is that he’s gone viral.  Here are people who don’t speak his language, have never been anywhere he has been, don’t know anyone he knows, and they have heard of Jesus.  His message has gone way beyond his personal presence and teaching now, so it is time for the next step in his ministry.  What is that next step going to be?

Now Jesus and Jeremiah stand on common ground, at the edge of destruction.  Jesus is clear about this:  “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it cannot bear fruit.”  He is going to be that grain of wheat.  He will be “lifted up,” a metaphor our author John points out describes his death, just in case we missed the reference.  Jesus is at the edge, but he uses a strange word to describe that end:

Glory.  His death, his being lifted up, will be a sign of glory. 

Now here’s a good church word:  glory.  We use it all the time here—what does it mean?  Bright and shiny?  Or something more?

Probably the best definition we can use for glory is truth.  To see God’s glory is to recognize the truth of who God is—holy, almighty, utterly beyond us.  To give God glory is to acknowledge this same truth, knowing that God deserves our worship.  If the cross gives God glory, that cross must reveal the truth, and so it does.

The first truth of the cross is judgment,  the judgment of this world.  “This world”—that’s the code we heard last week for all the parts of reality that are opposed to God’s plan--everything and everyone who does not hear Jesus’ message of the Kingdom as Good News.  Certainly that means judgment falls on the religious establishment who oppose Jesus, and the political regime that kills him, seeing him as a threat to its power.  But the “world” is more than that.  It’s also all the parts of us who would rather not acknowledge this truth.  The parts that would prefer to pretend that our place is at the center of creation, the parts that are content with prejudice and self-justification, the parts that just don’t want to care—all belong to this world.  We live in this world coming under judgment, in our fears and excuses we are also part of this world. 

This world, opposing his message, puts Jesus on the cross.  In silencing Jesus, putting him to death, the victory would seem clear.  That’s where the judgment comes in, God’s judgment, that is.  The powers of this world are judged as weak—they cannot stand.  They are judged as the losers, and the power that wins has another name, the one Jeremiah gave us so long ago:  Forgiveness—another word for glory, for the truth.

The glory seen on the cross is the victory of forgiveness. Notice that while forgiveness is the truth revealed, we don’t hear one word about repentance.  I mentioned that Jeremiah doesn’t suggest it.  Jesus preached repentance earlier as a preparation for hearing the Good News, but as the glory is revealed, repentance drops out of the picture.  Forgiveness is God’s gift alone.

Isn’t this irresponsible on the part of our Creator?  Forgiveness without any remorse on our part—isn’t that just an excuse for us to run amok, doing whatever, and assuming we’ll be forgiven at the end?

Notice that the consequences of sin remain.  Israel will get a new start with a new covenant based on forgiveness, but not before God’s people have lost everything.  We, too, although forgiven, live with the consequences of our choices and the sins of others.  What has changed is that we are not alone.  God’s forgiveness is here.  Judgment has come, but not as we expected.  We assume that God’s judgment is based in anger—that when he comes to judge, God will throw away all the parts of his creation that he hates, tossing everyone who offends him, and we hope not to be part of that.  But God’s judgment is founded on forgiveness.  Instead of tossing us away in anger, our Creator comes to us, breaking down, sweeping away all the barriers that stand between him and the Creation he loves.  And when the barriers are gone, and judgment is complete, we stand before our Creator with nowhere to hide, only to be met with love.

So is this irresponsible or life-giving?  What does it mean to us to know where we belong, to be at peace and unafraid, to let go of the past without regrets?  In other words, what does it mean to be whole?

The scripture invites us to reflect this week on what it would mean if we based our lives on God’s forgiveness.  If we knew that there was one, and only one, opinion that mattered, what would we do differently?  Are there battles we wouldn’t have to fight?  Or maybe battles we need to engage? If it were clear that we were freed from the past, what excuses would we put aside, what new tasks might we take up?  Once it is clear that we can’t have it all and we can’t do it all, and that’s all ok—where do we want to be? 

The Good News is that we are free.  So what does that look like now?

Lent 4: Snakes!

Lent 4

Numbers 21:4-9

John 3:14-21

Snakes!  Just like in Indiana Jones, except these snakes are sent by God to bite anyone who complains--that will get them to think positive!  It’s one of those weird Bible stories that we’re probably better off not reading, and yet here we are in church reading it.  It’s obvious why--Jesus not only reads this story, he somehow sees it as part of his message.  So we’re reading it to see if we can find the same Good News message Jesus sees.

First, we need a little background.  The Book of Numbers tells the story of the people of Israel on their way to the Promised Land.  Having been rescued from slavery in Egypt by God with Moses as his spokesman, they are now traveling through the desert.  Along the way they stopped at the holy mountain where Moses talked to God and got for them the Law, the agreement that God has made that will make them his people and God their God.  As our story unfolds they are traveling again—this won’t be a short trip—40 years it will take of walking through the desert.  You can imagine this won’t be an easy trip either.  The people of Israel will have a lot to complain about before they’re done—lacking food and water, suffering in the heat. 

And complain, they do! The story follows a pattern.  It begins with a complaint—in this case, they are tired of the food.  Then God gets angry at the people complaining, and he responds accordingly. The people of Israel then get all repentant, and Moses has to intercede for them, even negotiating with God.  Finally God provides a divine solution to the problem at hand, and everyone goes on. The people of Israel are slowly learning what it means to belong to this God, and you wonder how many times God is going to have to prove himself before they get it.  But a little sympathy for the people—does everything have to be such a struggle? 

God seems to be learning as well, discovering what it means to care.  Of course, in this learning experience, God has the advantage. After all, he’s the one who set the terms of the faith agreement. We read that Covenant today, the 10 Commandments.  While some of the commandments are simple and straightforward—don’t kill anyone—others, like loving this one God, are a little harder to work out.  Still, all of them together make up the agreement that tells us that God will be God, and his people will have to adjust or face the consequences, which just might be snakes. 

Is this how we understand our relationship with God?  Often I will hear or read of someone who is described as religious, even Christian.  So often what is meant is someone who talks about God a lot, using words of judgment and condemnation. Whether it’s women who should stay silent, the poor who should just accept God’s will,or ignorant unbelievers, the message is clear:  Obey, if you know what’s good for you.  Disobey, and God might send snakes. 

Oddly enough, it’s nonbelievers who object to such a God.  You’ll hear that a lot too:  “I just can’t believe in a God who would___________ (fill in the blank—send babies and Buddists to hell, appoint tsunamis to destroy Bangladesh, etc.).”  It’s a protest:  if this petty god is the only option, then I’d rather worship nothing at all.  We believers are content with just this petty god?

If this is God as we understand him, this is not God as Jesus knows him. Jesus describes his ministry today in these (famous) words:  God so loved the world.  In the Gospel of John the word world is a code word for that part of Creation that has forgotten its creator.  The Creation that is content with darkness, the world that has forgotten its purpose or direction—this is the world that God loves.  Jesus’ point, and we should say it over and over, is that God is not our enemy.  Jesus does not rescue us from our Creator. 

Jesus brings God’s message of love, but let’s not stop here. Love is an overused term, all full of Hollywood happy endings and sentimental valentines.  Don’t expect to hear choirs of angels singing pop love songs because Jesus has a deeper message to share, one about love in a world full of snakes. 

See, we live in a world of snakes. Some of them, we must be honest, we bring upon ourselves.  Other snakes, like the snakes of our economy, favoring the rich over the rest of us, snakes of circumstances, just surround us.  Still others we inherited, like the strange family dynamics and dysfunctions we all enjoy.  Others we just end up with—snakes bringing illnesses, and grief and pain.  Wherever the snakes come from, they do bite, and we suffer their poison of bitterness and helplessness, anxieties and insecurities, violence and all the rest. 

We live in a world of snakes, but we are not alone, because here in this world of snakes is the God who so loves this world.  Somehow God who created the rules and seemed to have everything so stacked in his favor has changed the game.  The God who wrote the rules has joined us in the obedience side, and this time he finds the rules are stacked against him.  Jesus brings that message of love and life, but the cost is too great, the change too difficult, and he is met with violence and opposition.  Jesus is lifted up, as he says euphemistically, and that is not a good thing.  Jesus on the cross is a sign of rejection, a rejection and rebellion much worse than that of the Israelites complaining in the desert.  But it isn’t just a sign of rejection.  This cross is also a sign of grace.  In the midst of snakes, there is life.

You’ll notice that the snakes aren’t gone, not in the desert experience, not in our lives.  What we see is God’s love, but we need a new word. Let’s call it mercy—a good church word with no pop songs surrounding it.  Mercy is God’s love.

So what does mercy look like?  It’s not always easy to spot.  Often we only recognize mercy later, after the snakes are gone.  Mercy can be that friend who stayed around, even though you weren’t so nice.  Mercy might be the coincidence, or the strength coming from somewhere beyond you that got you past the snakes.  Mercy might even be the prayer that wasn’t answered, and now you are very glad it wasn’t. 

But you might know the reality of mercy now—the support of friends or church, a strength of faith or experience of peace that tells you that this is not the end, that you are not alone.

Or too, we could experience mercy in our future—this may be the fullest meaning of salvation—because it is through our wounds that our healing comes.  Compassion comes through experience—we can understand the mistakes others make because we’ve been there, too.  We can forgive, we can assist.  We can be agents of mercy. 

So here’s what we want to share this week:  stories of mercy—past, present, the mercy we offer others—where do we know the gift of this Gospel story in our lives?  Let’s share what we know so we can all give thanks—we may live in a world of snakes, but we are not in it alone. 


I almost forgot--here are the questions for these readings:

Lent 4

Instructions:  You can use these questions—all, some, or none, as you seek to understand the scriptures.  Each Sunday as you come to worship, you will have an opportunity to share your (written) insights, either by offering them symbolically, or writing them so others can read and benefit. 

Numbers 21:4-9

1.  This passage provides a serious challenge to our understanding of God, since it is God’s anger at the complaining people that brings the poisonous snakes into the camp.  One explanation is that the lack of faith on the part of the people breaks the first commandment, and violates the covenant made on Sinai, thereby justifying God’s wrath.  Does this context help us in seeing God’s mercy in the story?  Do you believe that God punishes people? 

2.  A distinction is often made between mercy and righteousness (or justice), two attributes of God, with the understanding that one has to have the last word over the other. Can you think of ways that either of these attributes describes the way you see God active in the world?  Which one wins? Do you think you have to choose? 

3.  Notice that even while God provides the instrument for healing, the poisonous snakes remain a threat.  Can you imagine a parallel situation in your own life of healing found in the midst of difficulties or danger?

John 3:14-21

1.  These words, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life,” are the “John 3:16” so often seen on signs in the football stands.  What do you think the people who hold these signs are trying to say?   If a nonbeliever asked you to explain, what would you say?

2.  Jesus is saying that his being “lifted up” on the cross will be a sign to inspire belief.  Does the crucifixion define or explain anything to you about God’s presence in the world or in your life?

3. This passage makes a clear distinction between those who are saved and those who are condemned, based on deeds as well as faith.  This is certainly a major theological issue in our world today.  What is your understanding of salvation and/or damnation?