Beyond The Pale

Advent Week 2

This is the sermon I preached on Sunday - Peace Sunday.  There are a few reflections on Advent week 2.

I love the book of Matthew – especially the birth narrative. When I knew that I was to preach an Advent service from the book of Matthew, I was so excited – then I saw the passage – suddenly I am not so excited after all.

 

I mean seriously, I could preach the genealogy of the first chapter better than John the Baptist. Why, I could even do the happy dance if I could have preached about the wise men seeing a star in the East and going West because they knew where to look for the Messiah. But no – I get John the Baptist. I mean really – who wants to preach repentance in the middle of Advent – Go God!!!!!!!! I ask myself – who figures the lectionary any way.

 

But alas, the fact doesn’t change – the Gospel for today is John the Baptist. Yes, I could have preached one of the other scriptures but they are equally about judgment and stuff. Then I came to our Romans reading and it all made sense – repentance, judgment, wilderness – its all about HOPE.

 

One of the key factors in the birth narrative in Matthew is KAIROS – in the Greek language Kairos is a passing instant when an opening appears which must be driven through with force if success is to be achieved. It’s the fullness of time in God’s purpose – it’s when God acts. The birth of the Messiah was definitely such a time but we also see Kairos here with John the Baptist. In fact, it is the first point on which all four gospels agree. They all mention John preaching in the wilderness a message of repentance. They all mention that Jesus’ public ministry began with John and Jesus meeting in the desert. This is a moment when God pushed through with force to act. NOW that makes me want to do a happy dance!!! So what is God saying to us today?

 

Well let’s see – I don’t think God is telling us to market a new diet called JTB diet – although we could probably market it. Perhaps we could find an example here – there are many modern theologians, ministers and preachers that take a view that miraculous gifts have ceased – much like the religious folks of John’s day. The religious leadership of John’s day was probably just as surprised and aggravated when God’s sovereign activity challenged their presuppositions. It is kind of funny to watch the different reactions when God shows up – much less the Son of God!!!!!!!!

 

All of these things are great points but the thing that caught my eye the most was, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness…” It reminded me of my time in the desert. While I lived in the desert Southwest, a Christian musician moved to my neck of the Navajo reservation and we learned a lot together about wilderness. When Rich first came to the Southwest, I wished he had stayed in

Wichita

. Because with him came hoopla and I liked quiet. However after he had been there a bit, we developed a friendship and we learned about the desert. We would go hiking at Canyon De Shelly and we did a lot of exploring there as well. It was great. We came to realize that the significance of what David Douglas meant when he said, “wilderness is not who resides there, but what we ourselves have left behind in coming.” I think John the Baptist knew this and who could know it better then Christ himself.

 

When I first went to the desert, I went kicking and screaming. I had planned my missionary path well and the desert Southwest was NOT in the plan. However, I knew the Lord had spoken and I went but I was not happy and I let him know as often as I could. Why Oh Lord in your infinite wisdom did you lead me to the armpit of Arizona? Don’t you know, I was supposed to be in Croatia? Do you remember how many languages I had to learn to be a missionary in Europe? Did you forget how many ministries wanted me to work for them? God do they have deity refresher courses – I mean really GALLUP, NEW MEXICO to HOLBROOK,ARIZONA! They don’t even know what a brook is in Arizona!!! You get the picture.

 

I also remember the moment I surrendered to the desert. I remember the moment I realized what a wonderful grace God had allowed me in being there. I repented for fighting what was truly a gift from God. It was a truth Rich recognized as well and allowed him to write, “I’ve come to the desert just to find my way to forever…” I found hope in the desert. I found forgiveness. I found grace there. It was the moment I learned that grace rarely comes as a gentle invitation. More often it is the John the Baptist type grace. The grace of a crazy prophet screaming in the desert – REPENT for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Often grace comes as an assault and we are tempted to run.

 

God’s grace comes sometimes comes like a punch in the nose, leaving us broken and wholly unable to deny our need any longer. We are force to recognize that we cannot escape from our sin. We cannot be imposters because the desert doesn’t allow that. There is nothing to prostitute in the desert – it’s a come-as-you-are party with God. In the desert, we come to the end of ourselves and we are ready to embrace God – that’s what repenting is all about.

We recognize our limitations and our deep need of the Messiah. A prophetic function is served and we are disturbed into accepting the fact that we need a Savior.

 

John the Baptist was absurd and that is exactly where grace bursts forth. That is where God is found. We need to reconsider the way we picture God because God is not what we expect. Our image of God often doesn’t prepare us for a truth realized in brokenness. We need to be shaken out of our expectations.

 

God isn’t what we expect nor is he what Herod expected. Herod the Great – King of the Jews – threatened by a babe lying in a manger. I mean it is rather comical when you think about it. Herod was shaking in his sandals because some astrologers from the East came looking for a baby. It is almost as comical as whom God decided to about the baby first. Imagine – the Messiah is born, angels appear in the sky (who wouldn’t listen to them?) Do you think if they appeared to Herod there would have been any questions? But no – the angels show up to tell shepherds standing in a field of sheep excrement that the King of the Universe is born – the long awaited Messiah and he can be found in a cave wrapped in rags!!!!!!!!!! Go figure! It seems to me that Biblically – what you see is not always what you get – God’s funny like that.

 

The God of the Bible is equally revealed in vulnerability and in triumph because both actions are rooted in love. God’s love is incessantly restless until He turns all woundedness to health, all deformity into beauty, and all embarrassment into laughter.  God is funny like that – He brings hope into impossible situations.

In C.S. Lewis’ tale The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the little girl Lucy is frightened by the dragon like terrors of the White Witch. But when she hears Mr. and Mrs. Beaver speaking of the lion Aslan, a fierce King who’ll come to put things to right, she’s not entirely sure the unknown danger will be any better than the known. Of this Aslan, the wild promised King, she asks with trepidation, “Is he safe?” and Mr. Beaver, as honest as he is wise, responds, “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course, he isn’t safe! But he’s good! He’s the King, I tell you.”

 

Christ isn’t safe either, but he’s good and he is the king and he shows up in the strangest places. He shows up in the desert to begin his public ministry with a crazy prophet who has questionable food and dress. He is hailed in Revelation as the Lion of the tribe of

Judah

yet when all turn to look they see a slain Lamb. He comes as a leper to St. Francis and St. Francis heart is so full of recognition and joy he embraces and kisses the leper. We have to learn to have those “Oh there you are moments” – where we find Christ in the strangest places. Perhaps in the wilderness, our brokenness, or maybe even in All Saint’s Hall. A few weeks ago the youth helped at Martha’s Kitchen and I saw Christ!!!!!!!! A couple of our youth girls were serving ice cream and a young girl came through the line. The girl attends Marshall High and asked Hannah and Jodi if they attended

Marshall

. Hannah and Jodi said yes. The girl felt ashamed and said that she didn’t want anyone to know that she ate here. Hannah looked at the girl and said, “Well, I eat here too.” The girls then grabbed a plate and they sat down with this young girl. They talked and laughed as only Hannah and Jodi can make you laugh. I saw Jesus!!!!!!!!!!! My heart swelled with love, my eyes burned with tears, and I said to myself, “Oh there you are Jesus.”

 

To find Jesus, we have to come to the end of ourselves, we have to let go of our expectations, we have to look for him and then we have to go to him. It is only then that we understand what John the Baptist meant when he said, “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Advent week 1

Today marks the first day of the new liturgical year.  I can't believe it.  We are almost at Christmas 2007.  It seems like it was just 2000 and everyone was celebrating the new millennium now here we are seven years later.  Time passes so quickly.  A man at church this morning said, "The only thing quicker than time moving is how fast money goes out of my wallet when I fill my gas tank."  Perhaps.

As I reflect on the last year, I am amazed at how I have changed.  I guess going to Africa does that to a person.  I find myself astounded at humanity's capacity to harm each other.  At the same time, I am awed at humanity's capacity to survive the most horrible atrocities.  All the more amazing is a person's ability to hope in the most dire of circumstances.  My heart is full of anticipation on this first day of Advent.  I am anticipating peace, reconciliation, and compassion.  I am hoping for the balm of a loving God to heal the broken hearted.  I am longing for my Savior to make things right in the world.  Here we are at the beginning of the liturgical year anticipating the Messiah's salvation much like those of the first century.  We are waiting , waiting on the world to change.  Even so come Lord Jesus.

Why Go?

Below is a copy of the sermon I preach September 9th.  As some of you know, I read a book by Rob Bell called Sex God.  He had a chapter in the book titled God Wears Red Lipstick and it is one of the best explanations I have read about why we matter.  The whole summer I have been teaching and preaching that: PEOPLE ARE NOT OBJECTS!!!!!!!!!!!  Anyway the sermon below is why kids in Africa matter.

The Image of God

As many of you know, in about two weeks I will be leaving for Africa.  I have been asked to train aid workers in Uganda and Kenya to help severally traumatized children to begin to cope with the problems associated with violent trauma.  Many of the children we will encounter are labeled “war affected.”  Most of the children have been victims of war or participated in war as child soldiers.  Some of the children have been brutalized as a result of war and other have been perpetrators because of drugs and behavior modification.  Now that the wars are quiet (for the moment) the children are in camps or slums awaiting the next phase. 
Often the child soldiers were given a steady diet of drugs and violence.  They were told you must kill this village because these people are responsible for the deaths of your family members.  They were given copious amounts of cocaine and marijuana to keep them numb but hyped up.  They were kept numb so the memories of the violence they have seen and participated in would not affect them.  They were kept hyped up so that at a moment’s notice they could continue the rampage that has so ravaged their land. 
Once the drugs begin to wear off and the children are no longer a part of the “army,” memories come and they become despondent.  The children are victims all the way around; either because they were child soldiers or because they suffered at the hands of soldiers.  The memories they are left with are overwhelming because they can recount first hand what it is to be stripped of their humanity.  They know what the term anti-human means. 
Why should this matter to Trinity Church?
Because children should not be soldiers?
Because kids shouldn’t have to experience these things?
Because one of our youth group members fled Freetown, Sierra Leone for his life?
Yes to all of the above – IT IS ANTI-HUMAN.
Being anti-human is anti-God.  The Bible begins with the book of Genesis and one of the first things we are told is that God created humans in his image.  We are created in the image of God!! Wow!!  Everybody everywhere is a bearer of the Divine Image. 
Imagine for a moment: a group of adult soldiers invading a village.  Immediately people are categorized – useful or not.  They become objects.   The problem is they are not objects but people with names and families.
Jesus had much to say about what happens when a child, an image-bearer, a carrier of the divine spark, becomes an object.  In the book of Matthew, Jesus teaches that, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”
That sounds unpleasant.  Taken literally much of the human race would be dead in a matter of minutes.  It seems that the truth of Christ’s statement went beyond a horrible wet death.  How should we take this scripture? 
To understand how Jesus makes this connection, we have to explore the first-century Jewish understanding of heaven.
In the book of Psalms, it’s written: “The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.”  To the Jewish mind, heaven is not a fixed, unchanging geographical location somewhere other than this world.  Heaven is the realm where things are as God intends them to be.  Heaven is where things are under the rule and reign of God.
If heaven is a realm where things are as God wants them to be, what would hell be?  It seems to me that hell would be where God is not.  We often hear statements like “for the hell of it” or “that was a living hell.”  We have heard people refer to war zones as being “like hell.”  Wars that use children as pawns are hells on earth. 
And that is Jesus’ point on the millstone death.  His point isn’t that one should drown themselves if they hurt a child.  His point is that something seriously anti-human takes place – something hellish happens when people are treated as objects.  He warns us that PEOPLE ARE NOT OBJECTS.
Christ talks about the Kingdom of Heaven being at hand and Paul goes further in talking about the already but the not yet.  There are some serious paradoxical theological implications for us because I believe it is possible for heaven to invade earth but it is also possible for hell to invade earth.  Disrespecting the Image of God in another doesn’t just make the other an object; it’s about our humanity as well.
It is my intention to go to Africa to remind aid workers and the children they work with that they are indeed in the image of God.  I intend to take the message of a loving God to people who have been treated as objects – a people who have been shown that diamonds and oil are more important than they are - in order to remind them they matter.  I intend to invade hell with heaven. 
In the beginning God created us in His image, before male and female, before race, creed or color, before the diversity – he made in His image.  All too often we start with the differences – Hutu or Tutsi; Mexican or Indian; Rebel or National; Black or White; Serbian or Croatian; Male or Female - rather than our similarities.  We are ALL created in the image of God.  God’s humanity is about seeing people as God sees them.
When I first went to the reservation, I went with the pious zeal of many new missionaries.  God and I were going to change the world.  God had sent me to the Native Americans.  One of my first encounters on the reservation was with Johnny.  He was 12 and an obvious lover of God.  He was proof that God was working – (sounds a lot like an object).  One wintry Friday night, Johnny was home alone.  His mother worked the night shift because that was the only job she could find.  He would dutifully lock himself in for the night.  On this Friday night, shortly after his mother left, a pick-up truck was coming up the road.  This is not usually a good thing if you are not expecting anyone.  Johnny’s uncle and several cousins were in the truck and they were very drunk.  They knocked on the door and Johnny did his best to keep them out but they eventually got in and dragged Johnny out.  They wanted him to drink but he refused.  He tried to reason with them and tell them of His love for God but this made them angry.  To make an unpleasant story short – the next morning his mother found him beaten and frozen in the barbed wire fence.  Johnny literally died for His love of Christ.
I, the missionary, learned about loving Christ more than anything from someone I was supposed to be discipling.  I learned in that moment there is no us and them – only we.  The moments when a minister becomes a parishioner, a teacher becomes a student, a statistic becomes a reality.  When they become we.  When those become us.  When he becomes me.  Moments when all of the ways that we divide ourselves and rank each other and convince ourselves of how different, better, and unalike we are disappear, and we are faced with the fact that first and foremost, we are humans, in this together.  And not much different from each other.
9.11 brought this message to America.  On the day the towers fell there was no democrat or republican, no politics, no taxes, no rich, no poor, no race, no religion – we were all Americans and we were all in this together.
Jew.  Gentile
War affected child.  Traumatized Adult.
Minister.  Parishioner.
We could be them.

At my house, I have a plastic tub full of amazing artwork created over the years by my nieces and nephews.  I have this one particular piece created by my niece Brittany.  It is a large piece of white finger painting paper with a bunch of little white buttons glued to it.  It could be a study on the shades of white.  It is important to me and I have carried it all over the world.  You know why I keep it?  Because how I treat the creation reflects how I feel about the creator.  And I love her very much.
When a human is mistreated, objectified, or neglected, when they are treated as less than human, when they are treated as objects, these actions are actions against God.  Because how you treat the creation reflects how you feel about the Creator.
This week marks my one year anniversary at Trinity.  In this year, I have tried to treat each member of our youth group as an image-bearer.  I have watched their hurt as others have treated them as objects.  I have prayed with them and loved them and reminded them that they are not objects but that they are in the very image of God.  I don’t say this to pat myself on the back – because I am human and I know my weaknesses as do our youth.  I say this because with all of my heart I believe the church exists to be a display of a new humanity.  A community of people who honor and respect the poor and rich and educated and uneducated and African and American and black and white and young and old and powerful and helpless as fully human, created in the image of God.
These bonds we have with each other are why, for many, there is so much power in the Eucharist.  We take the bread and wine to remind us of Jesus’ body and blood.  To reflect the truth that we’re all in this together, one body, and that his body being broken and blood being spilled are for our union.  It is about our relationship with God and each other. 
I am going to Africa because I am a Christian.  Jesus commands his followers to feed and clothe and visit and take care of those who need it.  I am going as a Franciscan whose vocation is to love Christ and the world.  I am going as an extension of Trinity Impact EYC because we are image-bearers and the Africans are image-bearers, they are just like us, and when we love them we are loving God.  I am going as a fellow image-bearer hoping to reflect the image of God and in the process allowing heaven to invade hell.  Amen