There is always hope...

I was called to the hospital yesterday to pray with a twenty year old college student who had been admitted earlier this week after collapsing.  It turns out she has cancer.  Pancreatic cancer.  She's twenty.  TWENTY! 

A couple of weeks ago a vibrant young mom, a pastor, a preacher, a mission worker, lost her life to complications from the flu.  

My friend recently lost her 18 year old niece who died in her sleep.  They still do not know why she died.  

Last year I had a pulmonary embolism and my mom had a liver transplant.  We both lived and we are both doing quite well.  

I thank God for that.  I thank God that I am still around to care for my babies.  I thank God that Mom is still around to care for me.  

But I also have questions.  Big questions.  I'm certainly not the first to ever ask these questions.  In fact, my questions are simply echoes of the many questions asked throughout scripture.  

Why God?  Why do you let these things happen?  Why must we lose people we love?  Where are you?  Don't you know it's NOT FAIR for children or mommies or daddies to die? 

And then, after the questions come the doubts...

Are you really there?  Do you care?  What if everything upon which I've staked my life isn't true?  What if there isn't eternal life?  What if, when we die, we simply die, period?  

I know the "right" answers to my questions.  I know that I 'm supposed to say that in our suffering, Jesus is out best possible companion because he's been there.  He's suffered.  He's gone to hell and back.  I know I'm supposed to say that God doesn't cause suffering but is always with us in our pain.  But remember, those doubts?  Well, that's when they creep in.  

There was a night a few years ago when someone I loved dearly was sick.  I remember feeling desperate for God to fix my loved one.  In my grief I began reading through the Psalms and it was then that I realized for the first time, God may not "fix" this.  In fact, this may not be fixable.  I wondered if God was even listening to me.

Boy did that mess with my theology and my faith.  Basically I lost my faith virginity that night.  No longer could I hold on to a faith in which God would always swoop in and make everything better.  My faith got messy, really messy.  

Since then I've had to work out some trust issues with God.  I've wrestled with God and I now walk with a limp.  But I think I'm thankful for that.  It's made me stronger, more compassionate, able to simply sit with someone in their pain, knowing that there are no easy answers when life hurts.  I can pray now, pleading and begging God to take away hurt, to heal, to make new but I know that even though I plead with all my might for God to swoop in and make it all better, this world is broken and terrible things happen and sometimes all we can do is hold on to hope for each other.

My doubts will not win.  I have to hold on to hope because without hope there is nothing.  I know I can't do this life thing on my own.  I need God, and I need God in Jesus Christ because I need to believe that death does not have the last word.  I need to believe that there is always hope, even in death.  

I do believe that there is always hope.  I do believe that God is here.  I just wish it could be a little easier to know that.  But then again, I guess that's what faith is all about.

Zacchaeus was a wee little man...

Luke 19:1-10

Is anyone else singing “Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he!”? 

This is a well known text; one many of us heard and sung as young children.  It is so well known that there is a story circulating around Columbia Theological Seminary that Tom Long taught preaching at CTS in Atlanta, he began his class by asking students to prepare a sermon on Zacchaeus because it was so familiar and he thought it would be an easy place for new preaching students to start. Many of the students over the years served the same rural churches.  One day Columbia Seminary received a letter from one of the churches saying. "We really do appreciate your service to us in providing preachers, but is there anyone there who can preach on anything other than Zacchaeus?”

I don’t know if it’s because of the silly song or if it’s because it’s such a funny image to think of Zacchaeus climbing a sycamore tree to see Jesus, but it is definitely one of those Bible stories that people seem to remember.  But Luke didn’t just write it because it was a funny sweet story, he wrote it because it epitomized what he felt the purpose of Jesus’ ministry was:  Seeking out and finding the lost – no matter who or where they are.

To set the context, Jesus and his disciples were on their way to Jerusalem.  The journey to the cross had begun.  From city to city they walked.  As they walked through the dusty streets of Jericho they began to attract a large crowd.  Among the crowd was Zacchaeus – chief tax collector – not just a tax collector but head of the tax collectors, boss of all the tax collectors, someone who had made his living taking money from his fellow Jews, keeping some for himself, and handing the rest over to the despised Roman government.  And not only had he taken money from his fellow Jews, his own people but he also took money from the other tax collectors.  My bet is that there was not one Jewish person who was happy to see Zacchaeus.  But like everyone else, Zacchaeus had heard about Jesus and like everyone else in the city good old Zach wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  The text doesn’t say or even allude to the idea that Zacchaeus wanted to be transformed or saved by Jesus.  It doesn’t say that Zach, like many others, wanted Jesus to heal him.  He certainly wasn’t thinking Jesus would invite himself to his house!  If anything, I’d think Zacchaeus, because of all the trouble he’s caused for the Jewish people, wanted to avoid being seen by Jesus.  If anything, he simply wanted to see who this Jesus was so that HE could stay out of Jesus’ way and avoid being accused of being greedy and stealing from Jesus’ people.  

So, Zacchaeus avoids the crowd running ahead and climbs a sycamore tree.  This way, not only will he be able to see Jesus as he passes by but Zacchaeus will also be hidden – out of the sight of Jesus and all the people he has spent his career stealing from.   

But things don’t pan out exactly as Zacchaeus planned.  When Jesus gets to the tree he stops and calls out to him.  “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down for I must stay at your house tonight!”  And this is where for me, the story gets really baffling.

What baffles me is Zacchaeus’ response to Jesus inviting himself over!  The text says that Zacchaeus hurried down and welcomed him.  I don’t get that.  Here was a man who had made his fortune stealing from his own Jewish brothers and sisters and yet, for some reason, when Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, tells him to come down from the tree because he’s planning on hanging out with him that night Zach just scurries down that tree welcoming him!   I mean, there is no suspicion, no questioning, no arguing, no “I didn’t do it!  I didn’t steal their money!  I earned it fair and square!”  There’s nothing on Zacchaeus’ part – simply an “Okay, great!  Come on over!”

I don’t get it.  In fact, if I’m honest, it’s a little too “fairy-tale ending” for me.  Like Luke was just trying to make up a nice story.  And it gets worse.  Not only is Zacchaeus totally fine with Jesus inviting himself over to his house, but in the next breath something happens to Zach and he pledges to give half his possessions to the poor and to pay back anyone he has defrauded 4x’s as much as he originally stole from them – even when Roman law said he only had to pay back 3x’s as much.  

Could it really have happened this way?  Was Luke exaggerating when he wrote this story?  Could Zacchaeus, a rich tax collector, a greedy man, a man who had reached the top of his profession by working for the enemy, who had everything money could buy, really be this receptive to Jesus?  Something happened when Jesus called his name.  

Sometimes it’s surprising who is receptive to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

In verse 10 Jesus makes a statement in which he pretty much sums up the entire Gospel of Luke, expressing the heart of his ministry in this one statement.  Talking to Zacchaeus and the crowd, he says, “Today salvation has come to this house because he too is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost.  Zacchaeus, despised, greedy, dishonest Zacchaeus, is a son of Abraham too, he is a child of the covenant, included in God’s grace, a beloved member of God’s family.  Jesus is for everyone – and Jesus is not content waiting for people to come to him.  He came to SEEK OUT and save the lost.

I think the last time I was here I read a quote from one of author, Anne Lamott’s books.  Well, today I have another story from good ol’ Annie.  In Lamott’s book, Traveling Mercies  she tells the story about her encounter with Jesus.  Anne was someone who, like Zacchaeus, was not looking for an encounter with Jesus – at least she was not aware that she was looking for an encounter with Jesus.  In the days leading up to this account in Traveling Mercies she had been finding herself drawn to a church – almost like Zacchaeus was drawn to catching a glimpse of Jesus - but only for the music.  Not the sermon.  She didn’t want to hear anything about Jesus.  And she definitely didn’t want to be seen in this church.  Like Zacchaeus, she really wanted nothing to do with Jesus – and she was quite vocal about this.  Yet Jesus sought her out.  At the point Jesus seeks Annie out she is at the lowest point of her life.  She has just had an abortion and spends the week afterwards in her houseboat on a solitary drinking and drugging binge.  She starts to bleed heavily and is too disgusted with herself to seek help.  She writes:

After a while, as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my [dead] father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone. The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there--of course, there wasn't. But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus. I felt him as surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this.

And I was appalled. I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends, I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed utterly an impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, "I would rather die."

I felt him just sitting there on his haunches in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and love, and I squinched my eyes shut, but that didn't help because that's not what I was seeing him with.

Finally I fell asleep, and in the morning, he was gone.

This experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition, born of fear and self-loathing and booze and loss of blood. But then, everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever. So I tried to keep one step ahead of it, slamming my houseboat door when I entered or left.

And one week later, when I went back to church, I was so hungover that I couldn't stand up for the songs, and this time I stayed for the sermon, which I just thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling--and it washed over me.

I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running along at my heels, and I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God's own dreams, and I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there for a minute, and then I hung my head and said, "I quit." I took a long deep breath and said out loud, "All right. You can come in."

So this was my beautiful moment of conversion.

This is the Gospel.  This is the Good News.  Jesus, sitting in the dark corner of our room when we are at our lowest, when we are so disgusted with ourselves we can’t pray, we can’t even think.  And then continuing to pursue us – seeking us out – no matter how lost we are, and no matter how hard we think we want to stay lost.  This is Gospel.  This is Good News.  Jesus stopping beneath the tree in which we have hidden ourselves and calling our name.  

See something happened when Jesus invited himself over to Zacchaeus’ house.  Perhaps it was that someone finally showed interest in Zacchaeus – not interest in his money, but interest in him.  Perhaps it was because Zacchaeus finally felt that he was loved – even though he had done all these horrible things in his life.  Something happened in that conversation when Jesus sought out Zacchaeus and met him face to face – Zach was changed.  The prodigal son was home, he had been found.

Churches today – our church, the PC(USA) included, tend to have a “come to us” approach.  We are really good at putting “Everyone Welcome” signs outside the church.  “Visitors Wecome!” thousands of advertisements proclaim.  And we’re really good at welcoming people once they walk through our doors.  As soon as they walk through our doors we’ll go right up and greet them, show them around, invite them back.  

But Jesus doesn’t wait for people to walk through the doors.  Jesus is about SEEKING people out.   Jesus meets people where they are in their daily activities, going about their daily business – most of the time when they least expect it.  Matthew was sitting at his tax collector office.  Peter was out fishing.  The woman at the well was drawing the daily water for her family.  Paul was on his way to a meeting in Damascus.  Jesus doesn’t just stay in one place, doesn’t build himself a temple or a synagogue, or a church, and say, “Come to me.”  Jesus travels.  He goes to people.  Sure, he invites people to come to him, to follow him.  But first he seeks those people out – as he sought out Zacchaeus all the way up in that tree – and they are transformed by knowing him.

My question is, do we do this?  Do we actively seek people out?  Our church is very active in reaching out to those who are obviously in need, those who go through the proper venues of receiving help.  Volunteer Ministries, KARM, Living Waters for the World, etc…but what about those people who may not look like they are in need?  Do we meet people where they are – and I don’t mean meet them by way of a billboard – but do we meet them where they are, in the bars, in the restaurants, clubs, workplace, gym, in the house right next door to our own, on the college campus?  

I hear more people bemoaning the fact that the PC(USA) membership is declining.  I have to wonder though what would happen if we could put aside all our traditions, rituals, our churchy code words and doctrines and meet people where they are.  This might mean we have to hang out in some places we’d rather not hang out.  This might mean we have to learn to speak another language and even perhaps do church another way.  

Many people did not grow up going to church, and even if they did, they are no longer as tied to a particular denomination as they once might have been.  That means that we can’t count on people recognizing the Presbyterian cross (you know, the one with the flames) and thinking, “Oh yeah, that’s the Presbyterian Church, I should go there!”    So what are we, as followers of The Ultimate Seeker going to do about it?  Will we put out our “Welcome Visitors” sign and hope that they’ll enter our doors?  Pray that they’ll come in so that they can experience the same warmth and love, the same sense of community, the same love of God in Jesus Christ, we’ve experienced here?

If we are going to follow the example of Jesus Christ we have to be seekers – that is we have to get out from behind the walls of this church building, outside even the programs the church has set up to do ministry and meet people in their daily lives and activities.  We need to invite them to our homes (or if we want to do what Jesus did…invite ourselves to their homes!).  We need to go where they go, speak the language they speak, be seeking out the lost!  That’s what Jesus did.  And the good news?  That’s what Jesus still does.  

Some thoughts on Ash Wednesday, based on Matthew 6

There is a song by Grammy Award Winning Band, Mumford and Sons with a line in it that goes like this,

In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die.  Where you invest your love, you invest your life.  In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die, where you invest your love, you invest your life.  Awake my soul.  For you were made to meet your Maker.

It’s a favorite of mine.  And it’s a favorite because every time I listen to it I am reminded of the urgency to invest my life in something that matters.  That I only have this one mortal life to walk this earth, to make a difference here - that in this body I will live but that one day I will die and therefore these days that I am alive, matter.

They matter because if I want to make a difference for good in this world, if I want people to know that I love them, then I better not waste anymore time on things that at the end of my life really won’t matter.  Where I invest my love - there, I invest my life.  Or, as Jesus so eloquently said, where my treasure is, there my heart will be also.

But sometimes I forget this.  Our culture sends us a lot of messages about who we are supposed to be, what we are supposed to look like, how much money we should be acquiring, what kind of car we should be driving.  And, if you’re anything like me, you frequently believe these messages!  My husband currently drives a ’94 Dodge Caravan minivan.  We call it our ghetto van and I have to admit, I am quite embarrassed whenever he comes cruisin’ down the street with the radio blaring.  I’m like, can’t you at least turn the radio down so you don’t call so much attention to yourself!  But he drives that minivan because if we were to buy ourselves a nicer and newer car that would mean my husband would have to spend more time at work and less time with our kids.  It would mean that he wouldn’t be able to coach our son’s basketball teams or be at home with our daughter in the mornings.  He knows, where he invests his love - there he invests his life.  His treasure is his kids, not his car, and there his heart is also.

If my husband were to die tomorrow, my kids would be able to say they knew their dad and they knew that he loved them dearly.  That’s a life well invested.  

And not to be a downer, but a fact of life is that we will all die and we don’t get to know when that time will come.  But let me assure you, no matter how many vitamins you take, magic creams you rub on your wrinkles, or exercises you do to keep your body strong, death will come.  Though we may like to live in denial about death - I mean, nobody likes to think about being vulnerable to death, - what the reality of death makes clear to us is that we are completely and totally dependent upon the Creator who fashioned us together out of the dust of the ground.  We were made, to meet our Maker.

Today we will mark you with ashes.  We will take ashes upon our finger and draw a cross upon your forehead.  This might seem to contradict that part of scripture we just heard in which Jesus says, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them”, I mean we’re going to walk out of here wearing a sign of our faith front and center on our FOREHEADS, in ashes, and I’m going to guess that more than a few people will stop you and say, “Hey, you’ve got something on your forehead...” which then you’ll have to say, “Oh, yeah, thanks, it’s actually ashes from our Ash Wednesday service....blah blah blah.”  And that might just come off as being a bit pietistic.

But hopefully, that is not why we walk around all day looking ridiculous with a smear of ash upon on our foreheads.  On Ash Wednesday, yes, we’ll be marked with ashes - but not so that we can proclaim to the world that we are Christian and others are not.  

We are marked with ashes for a few reasons.  In scripture ashes are repeatedly used as a sign of repentance or a need and desire to return to God.  In the Hebrew bible, to repent means “to return” so putting on ashes symbolizes our desire to return to God - to remember that we are wholly and completely dependent upon God.  And here’s the Good News, the putting on of ashes also symbolizes God’s generous invitation to us, to return to God’s open arms, to return to walking with God!

Ashes also remind us that all things are temporary - When you put something in a fire, eventually it will turn to ashes. Ashes remind us that all things are in our world are fleeting, including us.

But we won’t leave here with death as the last word - with you turning into dust as the the end of the story because we also mark you with ashes, in the sign of the cross, as a reminder that you belong to God.  That even though, this life is temporary, that these bodies are temporary, that from dust we came to dust we shall return, even in all of that, we belong to God.  We may be dust, but we are loved.  You are God’s beloved child.  Precious and wanted.  And nothing, in all of life, in all of creation, and in all of death can ever separate you from the love of God in Jesus Christ.

Many of us will incorporate a Lenten practice this season with the intention growing closer to Christ.  Some of you might fast from something - Starbucks, Facebook, chocolate.  Some of you might add a practice - reading scripture daily, visiting the sick, feeding the hungry.  But what if instead of focusing on just these forty days as a time to change our habits and grow closer to Christ, what if we make a life change - something that isn’t done or forgotten about at Easter but that continues, changing us and changing the world - for good?  A change that says to the world - these days matter and I’m going to make the most of them!  Where you invest your love, you invest your life.  Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.   

So how will you use this gift of time upon this earth?  God invites you to return, to walk with your Maker, investing your life, your treasure, in the the things that matter to God:  relationships, justice, the poor, people, creation, mercy, peace.  

You are dust.  But you are beloved dust.  You are God’s child.  You are marked with the cross.  Amen.

Jesus, the Mother Hen, based on Luke 13

We can find many images of God, in scripture.  God is often imaged as Lord, as King, as Shepherd, as Father.  But a chicken?  A mother hen?  Really?  

Images of God are important.  They shape the way we think about God, about theology.  They shape our beliefs, how we relate to God and to each other.  

I’m not trying to ruffle any feathers (so sorry about that) by referring to Jesus as a hen or as a mother but in this scripture Jesus refers to himself as a Mother Hen.  “How I have longed to gather you under my wings, but you were not willing.”  And with that one lament Jesus pretty much sums up God’s relationship with us doesn’t he?

From the beginning, the first days in the Garden of Eden, to the days wandering in the wilderness, to the days in exile, to the days of the prophets, the days of Jesus of Nazareth.

And today.  This very day. God has been trying to gather us as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings but we were not willing.

Last night I got to rock my fourteen month old daughter to sleep.  As I held my freshly bathed baby and her fleecy blanket close to my chest, I smelled the top of her head.  I wanted to remember her smell.  I watched her chubby hand stroke her blanket and tried desperately to sear the memory of those little fingers into my mind.  I rocked and sang to her, praying that the words of the song would somehow work their way into her heart, that she would know deep down that the God of amazing grace loves her more deeply than she will ever comprehend.  I loved holding her.  Sure, I had other things I needed to do, but at that moment, I felt like I could hold my baby girl forever.  

Anyone who has ever loved a child, who has ever rocked a baby to sleep can probably understand this feeling.  A feeling of deep love, a desire to protect and nurture, to somehow hold that baby until he or she just KNOWS how much he or she is loved.

How I have longed to gather you under my wings.

God feels this way about us.  And this image of God as protective mother is vitally important to our understanding of how much God loves us.  

But Mother Hen isn’t the only image used in this scripture.   

As he’s in the middle of healing and teaching, and proclaiming the Kingdom of God, the Pharisees, Jewish teachers of the Law, come to warn Jesus that Herod has issued death warrant for him.  

Herod was not someone you wanted to mess with.  He was known as the cruel, unscrupulous ruler who had John the Baptist beheaded and his head served up on a platter.  Not one of the brightest men, he was a puppet ruler for the Roman Empire and had made some pretty ignorant moves in his tenure, including but not limited to, building an entire city upon a Jewish graveyard. His ignorance and abuse of power made him a disliked and dangerous ruler amongst the Jewish people.

But when Jesus hears of Herod’s threat he seems nonplussed.  “Go and tell that fox for me, I don’t have time for your threats.  I am busy fulfilling the mission God gave me to do and I am going to continue until I complete my mission, on God’s terms, not on yours!”

Foxes (sometimes called jackals in the Old Testament), were known to be predators, but not in the grand, top of the food chain kind of way.  They were scavenging animals who hunted at night preying upon remnants of carcasses left by hunters or other predators.  They were known to hit up battle fields after times of warfare, devouring the remains of soldiers left behind.  In Psalm 63  David makes reference to this, saying, "But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth; they shall be given over to the power of the sword, they shall be prey for foxes.

This is the image of Herod Jesus gives us.  A fox.  Sneaky, hunting in the dark, preying upon that which was easy to kill - baby chicks for instance.    We all have foxes in our lives.  I have mine, I’m sure you have yours.

The fox is in the hen house--as credit cards promise shiny objects that can make us happy, but really only deliver mountains of debt and worry.

The fox is in the hen house--as the news assaults us with a continual alarm, fear of who or what is lurking out there waiting to get us.

The fox is in the hen house - as the internet tempts us with perpetual opportunities for relationships outside of the one to which we are committed.

The fox is in the hen house--telling us that working long, long hours each week will pay off in time, but meanwhile our kids are growing up and we don’t really know them.  

The fox is in the hen house - as magazines, tv, movies, advertisements, give you images of the perfect woman or the perfect man - and you just don’t measure up.

The fox is in the hen house - as religious zeal has us pointing fingers at one another saying, “You are not my brother.”  “You are not my sister.”   Driving divisions in the Church deeper and deeper.  

So why would Jesus call himself a chicken?  Something so unimportant, so weak, so chicken?  Given the number of animals used for imagery and illustration in the Bible, why would Jesus choose to image himself as a hen?  Why wouldn’t Jesus choose an eagle or a lion, or anything BUT a chicken?  

We were discussing this text at the campus ministry the other night and one of my students was struggling with the idea of Jesus as a vulnerable mother hen.  He said, “I want Jesus to be the lion.  To be able to defeat the fox.  I want to know I’m protected!  I want to know Jesus is going to win!”  

But Jesus chooses a hen, and if you think about it, a hen is really, so Jesus.  He is always saying and doing things we don’t expect of him!  Hanging out with the wrong kind of people, breaking religious rules, saying things like “blessed are the meek and the poor”.  So, of course he chooses a chicken, which is about as opposite of a fox as you can get.  

But do you know what a hen does when a fox gets into the hen house?  She puts herself between the fox and the chicks. 

Jesus didn’t come to conquer with bloodshed and power.  He came to show the people of the world how much God loves them.  He came knowing we are lost chicks, straying here and there, never knowing where to go or who to turn to in times of trouble!  Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “If you have ever loved someone you could not protect, then you understand the depth of Jesus’ lament.   All you can do is open your arms.   You cannot make anyone walk into them. Meanwhile, this is the most vulnerable posture in the world --wings spread, breast exposed.

Jesus won’t be king of the jungle.  He’s not the “winner” in a battle of might.  What he will be is a mother hen who stands between her chicks and the fox.  She doesn’t have sharp teeth, she doesn’t have the strength or the speed.  All she has is her readiness to put herself between the fox and her babies.  And that is what she does.

I need a Mother Hen of a God to show me a better way. 

Part of the call of Lent is to accept God’s generous invitation to return to God, to return to the hen-house (if you will), to allow the Mother Hen to gather us under her wings.  To remember, who we are and Whose we are - we are her chicks, her children and that she loves us fiercely with a mother’s love.

So friends, images are important.  Today we give thanks for the God who is imaged in scripture as the mother hen, who gathers us under her wings of protection, who tends to us, who calls us her children, and who loves us enough to give of her life.