Cleaning house, Jesus style

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I was cleaning out the fridge this week, and found all sorts of moldy and rotten stuff that had been neglected for too long, and I thought, we really have to pay attention to things or everything goes to hell in a hand basket.  That’s why spring cleaning is so necessary - to get rid of all that ‘stuff’ that has accumulated over the year, or sometimes over the years plural.  

I’m reading a fluff of a book called “The Junkyard Man” and it centers around a hoarder who has collected so much stuff that you can’t even find a pathway through his house or his yard.  It sounds sad, but there are people who are like that.  I look around at our stuff and wonder if we are becoming hoarders.  I mean, I have 4 trumpets and multiple containers in 3 different locations for all of the crafts I have started or want to start.  It’s such a pain to go through all that stuff and decide what to keep and what needs to be thrown away.

And then you read today’s gospel lesson and there is Jesus, clearing out the temple from those who have turned it into a market place.  Oh, and maybe I need to clean house, too!  I believe more than anything Jesus is calling us to spiritual housecleaning.  That’s a lot of what Lent is all about - spiritual housecleaning.

When Moses brought the Israelites out of Egypt, they were in need of spiritual cleansing also.  Moses almost wore himself out trying to be judge for the people who came to him for help.  So God made a way - rules to live by - rules to govern behavior - a covenant with the people of God.  “I am the Lord your God.  You will be my people.”  It is a covenant relationship based on mutual trust and respect.  God sets out in this covenant what he expects of his people based on his own standards of holiness.

In the first part of our service, we/I recited the summary of the Law.   When he was asked what the most important law was, Jesus replied, “The first commandment is this: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is the only Lord.  Love the Lord our God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and all the prophets.”  (Mark 12:29-31)

And the lawyer asked him, “well, who is my neighbor?”  I learned a long time ago that communications depends on understanding and defining terms in the same way.  Two people can say the same thing, but if they define the terms differently, there is no communication.  The lawyer wanted to restrict who he could treat as himself, but Jesus busted it wide open when he indicated all people - even your hated enemy. 

Jesus brings the law down to two greatest commandments – this is the lens through which all interpretation is to be understood.  All 630 laws are to be interpreted in light of loving God and loving your neighbor and the 10 commandments.

The 10 commandments boiled down to two – love God – love your neighbor.  The first four commandments help you understand how to go about loving God – don’t have any other gods, don’t make idols out of anything, don’t misuse God's name, and remember to spend time with God especially on that 7th day when you rest from your labors.

The last 6 commandments help you understand a little bit about how to love your neighbor.  Honor your mother and father – don’t steal, don’t commit adultery, don’t murder, don’t bear false witness, don’t covet anything that belongs to another…  Jesus is saying that we should always treat others in such a way that we demonstrate our love of God through our actions toward others.  He even defined that elsewhere in scripture when he said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  As selfish human beings, we sometimes have a hard time with that.  Our human nature wants to look toward our own creature comforts first.

Too often, we see Jesus as this gentle person – soft-spoken and meek – and then we get today’s gospel reading and see him making a whip of cords, and overturning tables and yelling at people – and it shocks our sensibilities.  Jesus sees his father’s house being turned into a market place - the people have taken several of the laws regarding temple worship and figured out how to make a profit from it - changing the Roman coin for the temple coin for the temple tax, - providing animals for sell for the sacrifice, etc.

But Jesus is getting ready to totally overturn the system and offer himself as a sacrifice for all time.  Jesus, in reducing his commandments down to two, in rebelling at the temple system, is not doing anything new – not really.  Other prophets have said before that this system of sacrifice is not what God wants.  We read in Micah 6:8   

`He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?   To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. 

If we consider that Jesus is prefiguring the end of the sacrificial system, and we look at the timeline, it was another 40 years before the destruction of the temple and the end of the sacrifices.  Jesus’ tirade didn’t really make any difference in the system at that time.  All it really did was irritate the authorities and flag Jesus as being someone to watch – as someone who could be a trouble maker.  And so the countdown began - to Good Friday and the ultimate sacrifice. 

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Ever since Ash Wednesday, Danny has been threatening to put up on the signboard outside, in place of the sermon title, a sign that says, “It’s Lent.  Give it up!”  I know he’s only half joking, but its catchy so I put it up on Facebook today just to see what kind of response it gets.  Quite often in Lent, rather than specifically giving something up, God gives me something personal to deal with.  One year it was to walk with a cousin through his emotional turmoil and to wrestle with my own beliefs.  Another year I had a broken arm, but it ended up being fun because my temporary cast was a deep purple for Lent.  Then I got the real cast on Good Friday.  I had that one done in white and on Easter Sunday all the kids in the church got to sign my cast with brightly colored markers.  Sam and I left on vacation the next day so I got to show off that cast all the way to Virginia and back.  We still have that cast.  

The reason I’m telling you this, is that God has once again given me something to wrestle with during Lent.  Some of you know that I have been going through a series of medical tests for the last month.  I was just notified on Friday that I do have breast cancer, but the good news is that it is stage zero - meaning that it has not spread beyond the duct it started in. 

And I want you to know that through this whole process, God has been so very gracious.  (And ladies, this was picked up on a routine mammogram in a very early stage, so I would encourage you all to keep current on your mammograms.) It had been 3 years since my last mammogram but when the time had come, God spurred me on to get the mammogram so that it was caught early.  At this stage it is both treatable and curable.  He has placed me in a church family here at Grace who have been very supportive and caring.  I know that God is walking with me every step of this journey and that He is as close to me as the air I breathe.

🎶You are the air I breathe,  You are the air I breathe,

Your very presence, living in me.🎵

I am in the very palm of God’s hand and pray that I may continue to be his witness in and to the world.  

Obviously, we are early in this process, so hopefully we will be able to meet with the oncologist this coming week and look at a plan of action.  I am told that treatment should begin within 6 weeks and will probably entail surgery and possibly radiation.  I guess you could say that God is in the process of cleaning my physical house/ my body.  So I am asking you to keep Sam and I in your prayers as we walk down this path, and I will keep all of you in my prayers. 

Amen.

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Choosing the Fruits of the Spirit.

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Our lessons are full of symbols (or signs) today – from the rainbow in our Old Testament lesson, to the dove in our gospel lesson.

They give us hope in a world that does not always appear very hopeful.  We often struggle in this world to make sense in the things that happen around us.  And we are not perfect - as much as we would like to be.  We often do not come up with the best solution to the problems that face us on a daily basis.  We often do not react in a Christ like manner when we are confronted by problems that remind us of the past.  More often than not, we react out of our brokenness – the history we try to leave behind, but can’t because our healing has not yet been perfected.

At one conference I went to, the question was asked, how many have gone through some life changing experience that had shaped us and formed our lives.  The reference was to an experience that moved us toward the understanding that ultimately we are not in control of our own destiny.  One man talked about his daughter’s attempted suicide, and how that event had changed him forever.  We have no idea of the things that people around us might be dealing with on a daily basis.  And we need to understand that we are not always in control.  

But going back to our symbol - here in the beginning of Mark’s gospel we see some of the glory and power of God – “the heavens torn apart” and the Spirit descends – but not like thunder or lightning.  The Spirit descends like a dove – a gentleness that is not normally acknowledged in association with God.

But remember Elijah, fearing for his life and hiding in a cave, he hears the voice of God – not in the earthquake, fire or wind, but in the stillness he experienced the gentleness of God.  Or look at Jonah sitting on the hillside overlooking Nineveh, mad at God for not destroying the city.  God takes pity on him and causes a bush to grow to shelter him from the heat of the sun.

And so with Jesus, this same Spirit that descended with the gentleness of a dove, also drives Jesus out into the wilderness – to be tempted and to face his worse fears and nightmares – . . .   And only now, after learning firsthand about the hardships of life and standing firm and trusting on the Lord, Jesus comes through the ordeal and the angels minister to him.  He is ready to partner with God – knowing that it is not his own power, but God’s grace that will carry him through to the end.

It is only after John’s arrest that Jesus comes proclaiming the good news – the message goes on, repent and believe and follow me.  God has drawn near – he has come down - to deal gently with broken and needful humankind – as Isaiah says, “to bind up the brokenhearted, to free the captives, to set at liberty those who are oppressed.”

This Lenten season let us enter into our own period of wilderness experience – inviting God in – to teach us something new – or just to remind us of what we already know – that God himself is with us and is willing to partner with us as we journey through this life.  

I was reminded the other day of Trish Schlegel, who, a number of years ago, said that she chose joy for her Lenten discipline.  Joy is one of the Fruits of the Spirit.  In Galatians 5:22-23 we read, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”  What if each of us chose one of the fruits of the spirit as our Lenten discipline?  How could we, embodying that fruit, have a positive effect on the world around us?  

We (mostly) have no idea of the kind of pain, or anguish, the inner turmoil or hopelessness that any person we meet might be facing.  

It might be dealing with a child who is ill or unruly or failing in school.  It might be dealing with a parent or other loved one who is dying or suffering dementia.  It might be worry over how to provide food for their children that evening.  I can’t even imagine what kind of pain would cause someone to take their own life; or to go into a school or other venue and begin to shoot innocent people.  What if some small kindness could give them pause, to think maybe there is hope in this world; maybe someone does care!

I was surprised earlier this week to have a deputy sheriff pay for my meal at the McDonald’s drive-thru.  I decided to “pass it on” and paid for the person behind me.  The whole experience set the tone for the rest of my day.   An act of kindness does not go unrewarded, even if only in the feeling you get when you have done something to make someone else’s day just a little brighter.  You may never know the difference your kindness might make to another soul, especially when they are sad, or depressed, harried or stressed or just having a rough day.

God calls us to reach out to others in a positive way, to make a difference in the world around us.  Truth be told, if we look around us, to see how we can make someone else’s day a little better, it will often make our own day brighter and our problems seem much smaller.  With a smile or a kind word, some small gesture, the love of Jesus might spread further and wider than this year’s flu.  I invite you to allow God’s grace to flow through you and reach out to others through acts of love, or kindness, or generosity, or patience, or any of the Fruits of the Spirit.  We might not be able to change the world, but with such small measures, we can spread a little joy to the joyless corners of the world - or at least here in Alvin.  So I ask you - What Fruit of the Spirit could you take on as your discipline, and share to help make someone else’s life just a little better today?

Walking with Jesus thru pain and suffering

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Palm Sunday always bothers me – it moves too quickly from the joyful, triumphant entry into Jerusalem to the sorrowful, dumbfounding ordeal of the trial and the crucifixion – how are we supposed to move between those extremes of emotions so quickly?  How does one fall from grace so quickly.  But it happens all the time – all it takes is making one mistake – look at the number of movie stars or politicians who are on top of the world one day and fallen from grace the next.  

In his book, Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis talks about finding joy in a small toy garden made of sticks in a biscuit tin.  For Lewis, joy is not fun or happy times when things are going right, but an instant when you see beyond the thing in front of you and receive a glimpse of some greater truth beyond the thing itself.  For Lewis, it was not the sticks, dried leaves and dirt of the toy garden that caught his imagination, but a yearning or longing - a momentary vision of something far more desirable.  The crucifixion of Jesus is something like that – for it points to a far greater truth, that if we understood the depth of love involved in that one voluntary act, we would be humbled, brought to our knees by the knowledge.       

That’s what our second lesson is about.  Christ Jesus had equal status with God, but he didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to that status no matter what and he never exploited it - instead he took the form of a human, and made himself obedient unto God.  So many people today feel the need to make sure that everyone know who they are and what they have done to deserve honor or power, or attention.  That seems to be part of human nature, but Paul warns us against the temptation to boast. 

We must remind ourselves that we must suffer with Christ in order to be raised with him to newness of life.  As much as we would like to skip the whole crucifixion and dying part of the story and go directly to the resurrection, it is the dying part that is most important.  Without the death of Jesus, there would be no resurrection, no Easter Sunday, no churches, no Christians…

It’s not what we do that saves us, no decision we make (other than to follow Jesus), no good deed we do, will bring us that saving grace – only this gift of Jesus – the gift of his life given for us, so that we might live. 

One year, during a Lenten program, my congregation was challenged to a new idea of what it might mean to suffer – and that was to carry a burden for something.  That year during Lent, I carried an emotional burden that helped me understand the very real emotional pain some people suffer.  The next year I carried a physical burden of a broken wrist and I still have the cast that the kids of my congregation gladly decorated with colored pens on Easter morning.

Holy week is most important for us, because it gives us hope – hope that after the pain and agony of our life, we too might find resurrection.  

There is a story told about the factory worker who bought a single lottery ticket every Sunday and waited all week for the drawing on Saturday night.  When asked why she wasted her money like that, she answered, “One dollar is not too much to pay for a week of hope.”  That is what this week is about – it is a week of hope – knowing that resurrection follows the pain and suffering.

There’s a song – 

Helping you go was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, 

Watching you walk to a place of pain broke my heart in two – 

The fragrance of you lingers with me after you’re gone; 

the words that you spoke, and the way that you laugh, and I cry.  

But the sun’s gonna shine, just wait and see; 

Spring’s gonna come, I can feel it in me, can you?  

Life has a way of becoming so real, if you want it to.  

You know the thing that you said and the things that you did, 

they brought you where you are.  

But the sun’s gonna shine, just wait and see.  

Spring’s gonna come I can feel it in me, can you?  

To find your life, you’ve got to loose you’re life, so you say.  

Well, it’s hard to believe, but in your life – I see it working that way.  

You know the sun’s gonna shine, just wait and see; 

Spring’s gonna come, I can feel it in me, can you….

No matter what we do, or where we go, if we believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he died for our sins, there is hope at the end of the trial – and resurrection always follows death.

Hope for our generation

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Ezekiel was one of the Israelites taken captive at the fall of Jerusalem 

and moved from his home in Jerusalem to Babylon. 

Basically his world has been destroyed - his home ransacked 

- his career as a priest crumbled when the temple was demolished 

and he was carted off, along with thousands of others, 

Most sent to Babylon.  

So instead of being a priest leading the people in temple worship, 

he became a prophet - seeing visions from God 

and hearing the words of the Lord: 

bringing messages to the people of God 

in their foreign land.  

In this visitation of the Lord, Ezekiel is transported to a valley 

and the valley is filled with bones - dry bones – 

that seem to have been there for centuries.  

And the Lord asks him, "Can these bones live?" 

 Well, what would you say?  

Ezekiel, says, "You know" - implied in that is 

"How should I know?  You're God, you tell me."  

And God tells him to prophesy - prophesy to the bones.  

And I can see Ezekiel thinking, "wait a minute, 

these are bones - they got no ears to hear – 

why should I waste my time?"

Ezekiel looks out over that valley of dry bones – 

hopeless, unredeemable.  They represent all that is lost in Israel – 

the destroyed temple, the lost homes, 

the broken and bleeding people, the lost jobs, 

all the hopeless and helpless situations that can 

go along with the aftermath of a conquered, 

defeated people.  

What are the hopeless situations - the dry bones in our lives today?  

So many possible out there - a bankrupt business, 

a failed marriage, a broken relationship, a flooded house,

unfulfilled dreams, lost jobs, lost loved ones, 

illnesses, cancer, death, and disappointment.

Ezekiel envisions all that and more as he looks at 

this immense graveyard representing total desolation – 

but he follows what the Lord tells him to do 

and he begins to prophesy - and as he does, 

an amazing thing happens, 

what he prophesies begins to come true.  

The bones begin to rustle - they come together and 

sinew and muscle appear and flesh covers it all.  

But there is no breath - and so God tells him to 

prophesy to the breath - the winds - the spirit – 

and that breath (or spirit) comes and 

enters the bodies & they live & stand &

they are more than Ezekiel can count.

You know, I was at a Eucharist once - and it was just me and the priest – 

it's only a side note that it was my birthday – 

it was just that it was a weekday Eucharist here at Grace

and I was the only one who showed up.  

So the priest invited me to come 

and stand at the altar with him.  

As he began the Eucharist – 

I became aware of a whole host filling the church, 

communing with us - if I turned and looked down the nave, 

it was bare, empty - but from my peripheral vision 

I could see this happening.  

it was like every angel and every person who had ever worship in

this place were gathered to join us.

So I have an idea what Ezekiel might have felt like at this point – 

a very surreal experience that makes you wonder 

what kind of parallel universe you've fallen into.

And God says, "This is the whole house of Israel and they say, 

'Our bones are dried up and our hope is lost'."  

But God has an answer – "I am the Lord and 

I will open your graves and raise you up.  

I will put my spirit within you and you shall live."  

God brings hope and life out of the 

hopeless and helpless situations in our lives.

This is the hope of Israel - the resurrection that the Pharisees claim – 

here is that starting point for the kind of faith 

that God is calling for.  This is the hope of the nation – 

the whole house of Israel. This is a communal hope – 

not an individual hope.  

I think maybe it's not unlike the hope of our nation 

as we watched the events of 9-11.  Out of the rubble and ashes 

of the twin towers came the determination of a diverse people 

- out of the symbol of defeat, came a unifying hope of a nation – 

That we would rise again.  

What Ezekiel reported seeing 

gave hope to a defeated nation – 

the hope that they would indeed live again. 

 Some people find our current political situation almost as hopeless -

But God is even in the midst of it and he can bring

hope to a hopeless generation.

God does not leave us in those barren, dry, parched places – 

crying over those dry bones.

Our world cries out for that kind of hope – 

the kind of hope that brings life and resurrection.  

If you have seen the Harry Potter movies 

I don’t remember which one but there was one

– where Professor Dumbledore’s bird - a phoenix – 

wilted away, burst into flames and became a pile of ashes.  

Harry was devastated at having witnessed this scene – 

but the professor assured him that this was a part of life 

and that the bird would indeed rise again out of the ashes.

Many years ago Sam & I saw the movie "Flight of the Phoenix" – 

In this classic tale, a plane goes down and is lost in the desert.  

It seemed like a hopeless situation with insurmountable odds 

- and yet hope arises from unexpected places.  

It's a story of faith - faith which almost crumbles when they find out 

the person designing the escape aircraft isn't exactly 

what they think, but only a model airplane designer.  

But out of hope and necessity, 

they pull together and overcome the odds to live again. 

These stories demonstrate a desperate need for the story 

of resurrection out of death – 

the need of the people for the kind of hope 

that is presented in our lessons this morning – 

the understanding that we can live again.  

We need to understand that when things seem the darkest, 

we can have still have hope because God is here with us.

We find the same kind of situation in our gospel lesson, 

just a smaller scale.  Here is not a valley of dry bones – 

here is a single person, in the grave four days.  

The 'four days' seems strange to us – 

especially since we find Jesus himself was raised in three days.  

But four days is significant - the Israelites believed that 

the soul or spirit of a person stayed in the vicinity 

for three days before rising up to heaven.  

So the four days means the soul has departed – 

making the miracle even more unlikely.

Jesus was late – 

and what do we do when God doesn't come through 

when or like we think he should?  

Mary and Martha berated Jesus - "

Lord, if you had only been here..."  

God doesn't always act in the way we expect – 

and how do we handle that.  But you see, Jesus had come  -  

Jesus calls forth life even amid  the conditions of death.  

Just as people looking out over that valley of dry bones 

would call it hopeless - so the family of Lazarus 

called the loss of their brother hopeless.  

And Jesus comes - not when they wanted him to, but he does come – 

and he comforts them, his presence is tangible – 

he weeps with them at their loss.  

Although Martha tells Jesus that she believes 

that God will give him whatever he asks for, 

she doesn't believe that this is possible – 

the spirit has already left that place.

"Lord, if you had only been here - our brother would not have died..."  

In our darkest hour, Jesus comes.  Jesus calls us forth 

from the tomb of broken hearts and disappointments, 

from the tombs of rejection and loneliness, 

from the tomb of self-loathing and meaninglessness. 

As humans, we fix our eyes on a goal, 

quite often to the exclusion of other possibilities.  

As humans in this world, we too often want what we want, 

when we want it, the way we want it, 

because we've been convinced by the world 

around us that we are in control.  

But the truth is that we are not in control 

and sometimes our hopes and dreams must die 

before we become capable of accepting a new idea 

or a new dream.  

Sometimes we don't see or even look for the window of opportunity 

that is open for us until the door we are so focused on 

is slammed shut.

Jesus comes to open new doors, to cry with us when we are devastated 

and then to help us to new understanding and new life.  

He comes to restore the spirit that has left our bodies.  

Out of the conditions of death and devastation 

can arise new life.  

Jesus calls forth life even amid the conditions of death.  

Can you hear his call?

I am a recovering smoker.  I smoked for 30 years.  

After my first year in seminary, 

Jesus called me out of the tomb of destruction – 

I had been diagnosed as borderline emphysema 

but I continued to smoke. Then I was having to use my inhaler 

two or three times a day – 

pre-cursors of the conditions of death – 

and yet I kept smoking.  

God finally told me that if I was going to live 

to proclaim his good news – 

I was going to have to come out of that 

tomb of death and destruction and walk in life.  

I quit smoking.  Recovering alcoholics and 

recovering drug addicts can tell you the same story, 

Jesus calls forth life even amid the conditions of death.  

Please pray with me.

Lord, open our hearts and minds to hear you when you call, 

To follow you where you lead us

And to trust you to restore our spirit

And to bring new life and hope in all the situations

And circumstances of our lives.

Amen.