Jesus words this morning are meant to prepare his disciples for their lifelong work.  He has taught them about the Kingdom.  Now he is preparing them to take the kingdom into the world.  Remember his words, ‘the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.’

Here is a quiz for you:
Which country has the Christian church with the largest attendance?  Korea
What is the dominant historic religion in that country? Buddhism
Which country has the Christian church with the largest seating capacity? Nigeria
What is the dominant religion of Nigeria? Islam
In what country is the largest Buddhist university located? US (Boulder)
Where is the largest Muslim training center? NY
Which country has the largest Jewish population? US
What country has the 8th largest Hindu population? US
Where is the world’s largest training center for Transcendental Meditation? Fairfield, Iowa

Things have changed…
We can look at the changes of our country as a bad thing or an opportunity for the greatest revival of the Christian faith in our history.

The United Nations declares June 20th as World Refugee Day and it is ironic that the gospel today is so applicable.  Few of us understand what it means to be persecuted but there are millions in our country now who are here because they have been persecuted for their faith or for other reasons.  They understand what it means to have to deny Christ or be tortured.
Listen to the words of Jesus just previous to this passage:
“See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”

This is not our experience in the least.  We might have to see a bad movie about Christians or have to endure another Dan Brown novel or watch the 10 commandments get taken down in places, but normally we are unaffected by persecution.  We can worship without fear.  We can share our faith freely in most circumstances.  It may not be welcome, but we are rarely at risk of outright persecution.  But there are many who can understand what these words mean in the depths of their souls.

In Ethiopia this year, a number of men broke into several churches simultaneously and went after congregations with machetes.

In Iraq this year, there have been attempts to wipe out entire Christian neighborhoods.

In Burma, the government teaches that the problem with their country is ABC: AIDS, Hepatitis B, and Christianity.

Over the last 20 years the conflict in Sudan has been about the attempted genocide of black Christians, especially in southern Sudan.

I could tell you about Pakistan, India, China, Turkey and many other places.  Yet the faith grows and thrives in these areas more than anywhere else.  Persecution and hardship create Christians.  ‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church’ said Tertullian.

Many of the persecuted come to this country for safety.  Here is an amazing opportunity.

But I want to continue our reflection by getting to the heart of what Jesus is saying in today’s gospel.   Jesus tells his disciples:

“A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!”

Beelzebub was tied to the prince of demons Baal Shamayim ‘the lord of heaven’ whom Antiochus the IV offered sacrificed to in the Jewish temple in 167 BC, an ‘abomination of desolation’ in Jewish thought.  Jesus said that his disciples would be equated with that kind of evil because of their belief in Christ, and they were.  They were all, but one, killed for their faith.
In many places in the world, there are Christians who are killed because those persecuting believe they are wiping evil from the earth.

We may never know that kind of hatred as Christians.  But there is a way of living that will put us at odds with every system of earth.

‘A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; a disciple will be like the teacher, the servant like the master.’

So what are the characteristics of the teacher and the master?

‘Taking a stand for Jesus’ in many of our minds means to take an issue and to try to convince the world that we are right about it through strong language.  We think that our faith and morality is a ‘point of view’ that needs to be pushed through public life.

There is some truth here.  We need to learn to defend our faith.  However, what is it about the teacher that we are not above?  In other words, what is it about Jesus that we cannot get around?  First he is above us as God.  He is Lord.  The kingdom is not a volunteer organization.  It is a kingdom with a king.

But the heart of what Jesus says, is that it is his way of life that we are not above.  If he loved, we are to love.  If he prayed intimately with his Father, so are we to pray.  If he fasted, so are we to fast.  If he hung out with tax collectors and sinners.  We are to hang out with tax collectors and sinners.  Where he showed mercy, so are we to show mercy.  If he gave his life for the world, so are we to give our lives for the world.  If he was persecuted, so must we be persecuted.  We are not above our teacher, our master.  Jesus words are the ultimate WWJD.   This is what it means to be a disciple.  How are we to live as Christians?  Jesus taught it, lived it, modeled it.  A disciple is not above his teacher, a servant is not above his master.

There are many reasons for the decline in many mainline denominations.  But I think there is something that is subtle yet important for us to look at in terms of our own Episcopal Tradition.  It is something that is in our DNA that we must overcome not only in terms of growth, but more importantly in terms of living the kind of life that Jesus asks us to live.

Perhaps you’ve heard this ditty:

A Methodist is a Baptist who can read.
A Presbyterian is a Methodist with money.
An Episcopalian is a Presbyterian with manners.

There is a reason (perhaps several) as to why Anglicanism is more indigenous in other parts of the world and more upper crust in our country, and that is the sentiment that is expressed in the ditty I just read.

The DNA of our church is that the Episcopal Church acts like the state church, (the National Cathedral is ours after all) it began and continued to be the church of the elite–politicians and the highly educated.

Now there is nothing inherently wrong with this pedigree.  However, underneath it is a contempt for those who are not of the upper crust.  I know that I am not telling you anything you don’t already know, of course.

When any old soul from any old place walks into a Roman Catholic Church anywhere in the world, they might be a little confused or they may not like it, but by and large, they ‘get it.’  There is liturgy and sometimes high church stuff going on.

Now, our liturgy is much better (in my opinion) because we have had liturgists skilled in the English language.  However, what is the common critique of our worship?  ‘I don’t know which book to use, I don’t understand things, it’s so complicated.’

But we’re no more complicated than Rome.  We would just rather you figure it out on your own.  If you are educated, welcome, if not, well….

There are two denominations that should not exist in our country but that are a reflection of our sins: the Methodist Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

John Wesley based all of his preaching and teaching on three sources: the Church Fathers, the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.  He was Anglican through and through, reared and ordained in the Church of England.  But Wesley was a different sort of guy.  He preached to the masses on horseback.  If he needed an altar, he would set one up in the prairie or by the river.  What got Wesley in trouble was not so much the illegal ordinations he performed (it was hard to find a bishop in the middle of nowhere), but because he was willing to go where the parochial church was unwilling to go, to the people: poor whites, Native Americans and blacks.

The African Methodist Episcopal Church was formed because blacks were not allowed to worship in white Episcopal Churches.  If you were black in colonial America you would not be welcome into an Episcopal Church, so the black folks went about things there own way.  To this day you will hear something like this: Blacks are Baptists, Hispanics are Catholic, they have their churches, we have ours.  (Unless of course, the black person or Latino happens to have wealth behind them, then, well maybe we can have one or two.)

Why am I spending time on this?  Because we don’t want anything to be a barrier between us and Christ, nothing.  When we decide to become disciples of Jesus we decide to live on the edge.  God could call us anywhere at any time for any reason.  I want us to be open to that.

If the nations come to us, God is doing something.  If you read about a country in the world that is in peril and your heart goes out, God is doing something.  I don’t want us to get back to ‘that upscale religion,’ but the kingdom life of Jesus Christ.

If he loved, we are to love.  If he prayed intimately with his Father, so are we to pray.  If he fasted, so are we to fast.  If he hung out with tax collectors and sinners, we are to hang out with tax collectors and sinners.  Where he showed mercy, so are we to show mercy.  If he gave his life for the world, so are we to give our lives for the world.  If he was persecuted, so must we be persecuted.  We are not above our teacher, our master.  A disciple is not above his teacher, a servant is not above his master.

Paul goes to great pains to describe the church as the Body of Christ.  This is his primary metaphor.  We are Christ to this world.  I close with the words of St. Teresa of Avila which was adapted into a song by John Michael Talbot.

Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
Compassion on this world
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good
Yours are the hands with which He blesses all the world
Yours are the hands
Yours are the feet
Yours are the eyes
You are His body
Christ has no body now on earth but yours

An ancient rabbi said, A man should always teach his son a simple task, and let him pray to Him to whom riches and possessions belong, for there is no craft wherein there is not both poverty and wealth; for poverty comes not from a man’s craft, nor riches from a man’s craft, but it is all according to his character.

Our gospel is part of the best sermon ever recorded–Jesus sermon on the mount.  In the SM Jesus tells his disciples what the kingdom of God is about.  It is for the poor of spirit, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers.  It is an upside down kingdom.

We often romanticize this passage.  We picture Jesus preaching on the green grass with people listening like hippies, flowers in their hair and nodding approvingly.  But to have this picture in mind is to miss the starkness and the desperation of many of Jesus’ hearers.

Life in the ancient world was different even than the most difficult situations even in our modern urban environments.  There was limited water and means of sanitation.  People and animals lived piled one on top of the other.

Matthew, more than likely, was written to a church or churches in Antioch.  Scholar Rodney Stark describes ancient Antioch this way, ‘Tenement cubicles were smoky, dark, often damp, and always dirty.  The smell of sweat, urine feces, and decay permeated everything.  Outside, on the street, it was little better–mud, open sewers, manure and crowds.  In fact, human corpses–adult as well as infant–were sometimes just pushed into the street and abandoned.’

Jesus’ original hearers living in rural Galilee did not have it any easier.  It was an agricultural, hand to mouth existence.  Peasants owned no land.  Speaking of ancient farmers, one scholar says, ‘What they [could] produce from the land [went] for food supplies until the next harvest, feed for their work animals, extra seed for next years crops, and enough to sell or barter for other necessities.’  Yet any surplus was under heavy taxation and it is no surprise that there were constant revolutions and zealot uprising in protest of the oppressive Roman Empire and of greedy landowners.

It was to this environment that Jesus gives his Sermon on the Mount.  It was to people who, understandably, had every right to worry about tomorrow.

What about our world?

We live in a world of prosperity even with our economic challenges.  But anxiety and worry are also part of our lives.

A couple of years ago Time magazine’s cover story was on anxiety.  Time journalist Christine Gorman writes, ‘It’s 4am, and you’re wide awake–palms sweaty, heart racing.  You’re worried about your kids.  Your aging parents.  Your 401k.  Your health…Breathing evenly beside you, your spouse is oblivious.  Doesn’t he or she see the dangers that lurk in every shadow?  He must not. Otherwise, how could he, with all that’s going on in the world, have talked so calmly at dinner last night about flying to Florida on vacation.’

What is different about today’s environment is that we have so much access to information.  We are globalized and aware not only of our problems, but that of the whole world.  We live in a world of tragedy, terrorism, war, potential genocides, cyclones, earthquakes and tornadoes, and that’s just the last couple of weeks.

An example from across the world.  Merna Chamoun, 15, an Iraqi refugee in Jordan hopes to settle in Germany or the US.  She left Iraq 2 years ago.  Why? “On her last day of school, a bomb exploded in the school five minutes after the students were dismissed.  Students ran away in fear as the glass shattered from the explosion.  The church she attended in Baghdad (Chaldean Catholic) was bombed twice and she could not go to church.”  So she fled.

We could go on and on.  But we want to bring things to our level.  Our worries.  Our fears.

We could talk of the whole concept of anxiety psychologically.  We could talk of the health problems related to worry and anxiety.

Or we could talk about Jesus.

25″Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

God knows our needs and our anxieties.  He feeds the birds of the air, he clothes the lilies of the field.  Most of us do not have to think about food or clothing.  Why then do we worry.

I do not think that Jesus is naive about 1st century Galilee or our world.  He knows that there are countless difficulties in front of us and behind us.

What snares us, though, and what prompts Jesus’ words is our tendency to get caught up in things that do not matter at the expense of things that do.  ‘Wherever your treasure lies, there will you find your heart.’

The kind of worry that Jesus refers to is a concentration on what we do not have and what we are afraid to lose.

Jesus’ words about the eyes is a fascinating metaphor.  The eyes are the key to ones heart.  In other words, what you look to and look at for happiness is a reflection of what is inside.  Do we have eyes full of envy for what we do not possess?  Are we constantly looking for what someone else has and obsessing about what we do not have?  Often we are like the flies on the screen door.  Those who are inside want outside and those who are outside want inside.

Jesus says do not look to what others have.  Be content.  Seek the Kingdom.

Secondly, Jesus warns about being afraid to lose what we do have.  ‘Do not store up treasures…do not build bigger barns…don’t work for what rust and moths destroy.’

I mentioned once that I was having a conversation with Fr. Daniel from Sudan.  Fr. Daniel is a missionary priest who goes back and forth from the US to Sudan to plant churches and build schools.  He lives in Omaha and, like many African priests in the US, he relies on support from various places.

I asked him what he did about his pension and his retirement.  He said, ‘you Americans are always worried about retiring and what you will do when you’re old, but God has given me work to do today.  All I can worry about is today.’  Sounds familiar.

There is one of many starter castles in our neighborhood that has been on the market for quite a while.  It is a beautiful house–with five bedrooms and eight, yes eight, bathrooms.

We want bigger barns so that we can have eight bathrooms.  I’m guessing that the people who have families big enough for 8 bathrooms could never in a million years afford to live in it.

Barns, barns and more barns.  For stuff we can do without. So why are we afraid to lose it?  ‘All things come from thee, O Lord, and from thine own have we given thee.’

Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights, says James.  Nothing belongs to us, all is his.

Lastly, the heart of Jesus’ message is, ‘seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will added to you as well.’

Jesus’ primary teaching was the kingdom.  His focus was that, the reality of God’s realm in Christ was invading our realm.   The kingdom of heaven is at hand–suddenly upon you.

The deepest fears we have, the most profound anxieties, the things that keep us up at night are passing like the sunset to give rise to the Sun of righteousness, Jesus.  ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’

Faith in Jesus ought to be an antidote to fear, but it is not an exemption from suffering.   However, if we really, deeply, felt and understood Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom, we would have one characteristic that no other philosophy or ideology could ever have.  That characteristic is HOPE.

Jesus gives us hope.  Without him our world is war, genocide, illness, natural disaster, etc. after another.  But Jesus gives us hope that the darkness is clearing away and beyond that darkness are people whose treasures and hearts are set on Christ; like John, these people are at the table, leaning at the breast of Jesus, close to his heartbeat.

Cast your cares on Christ.  Do not worry, for beyond the darkness is a manger, a mountain called calvary and an empty tomb.  Beyond the darkness a kingdom has broken all other kingdoms.  Beyond the darkness is Jesus.  Beyond the darkness there is hope.

Let us pray:
Come, O Spirit of God,
and make within us your dwelling place and home.
May our darkness be dispelled by your light,
and our troubles calmed by your peace;
may all evil be redeemed by your love,
all pain and suffering of Christ,
and all dying glorified in his risen life.  Amen.

What is the Christmas hymn you hear every year?

Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night, tho’ the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight, gath’ring winter fuel.

The hymn is about Winceslas I, a Checz king who helped the poor in his country even during winter months.  The Feast of Stephen, of course, is when?  December 26th.

That begs the question, who is Stephen?  He is the main character in today’s reading from Acts.  He was chosen and ordained by the apostles themselves to be one of the first Deacons.

We live in a day where our resumes are extremely important.  What is our experience?  Where were we educated?  What degrees do we have?  What are our references?  It’s not what you know, but who you know.  This whole process is agonizing for me and a bit narcissistic! But it’s got to be done.  I would challenge you to think of a different kind of resume.  Since we’re in Easter season, I might call it a ‘resurrection resume.’

Stephen had a heckuva ‘resurrection resume.’  The Scripture says he was full of faith, full of the Holy Spirit, and that he was (charis)matic–that is, gifted of God and full of God’s power.  So much so that miracles were done at his hands.  The book of Acts is a vast document which has important speeches by its two stars: Peter and Paul.  But Luke reserves his longest speech for a little known Deacon full of the Spirit, Stephen.

For Luke, a strong symbol of the presence of the Holy Spirit is someone who opens their mouth and speaks truth.  ‘Were not our hearts burning within us when he was explaining the Scriptures?’ So say the two on the road to Emmaus when Jesus opened their minds to understand the Law and the Prophets.  Stephen does the exact same thing.  Top on his resume was his knowledge of the Scriptures.

But it is a knowledge that is unconventional.  It is seeing and understanding the Scriptures in a new way–or at least being able to see what was not obvious on its face.  The religious leaders knew the story of Abraham, Moses and Solomon just as well as Stephen.  But Stephen was able to get to the heart of the Tanakah and see it as a huge signpost to Jesus–the Son of Man and Son of God.

Abraham was important because he was father Abraham.  All of the promises of God about the people of God are represented by Abraham, especially in terms of the land of promise.  Yet Jesus transcends Abraham–hence Jesus transcends the land.  Moses was the representative of the Law–the Law which gave the people of God their identity. The Law that showed them the heart of God–yet nothing showed the heart of God more than his Son Jesus.

Solomon is a representation of the Temple.  The Temple was God’s footstool, his throne.  The presence of God was palpable in the Temple.  Yet, as Stephen says, no place can contain God.  Yet God is very much contained in Jesus Christ.  He is now the Temple of God.

Stephen’s words were from the Scriptures–yet they were words no one wanted to hear–because if they heard them the way Stephen preached them–they would have to change their lives.  I hope that you don’t miss the real radicalism that is in the Scripture.  Here’s one–‘love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who harm you.’

That’s radical stuff.  More than ever our world needs a different vision of how to live and we conduct ourselves.  You may or may not like Jim Wallis.  But he has recently coined one of the most intriguing terms, ‘Conservative Radical.’  He writes this:

Maybe what we need is a new paradigm altogether—we might call it “the conservative radical.” To be conservative means to be rooted—in a tradition, in faith, in core values. To be radical also means to be rooted (“radical” stems from the Latin word “radix,” which means “root”), which gives one a consistent perspective on the world. So these two—conservative radical—may not be contradictory but in fact deeply complementary.

While Wallis is talking mostly about the political process, I would argue that this kind of thing can only come from the people of God, the Body of Christ.  The Bible makes us radical and counter cultural.  It talks about sexual purity and faithfulness in marriage and all of the ‘family values’ kind of thing.  But it also gives a radical nature of the world–go back to the words of Jesus.  Love your enemies, rejoice when people speak bad of you and when they exclude and revile you on account of the Son of Man–rejoice and be glad!! Do good to those who hate you.

Even the Old Testament is one of the most radical documents.  The prophets railed against the people of God because they worshiped as if everything was great–yet their worship was perverted because they were observing the feasts of Israel, yet at one and the same time they were negligent of the poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger.

The content of Stephen’s sermon caused his hearers to consider one important thing: we are dead wrong about everything that we hold dear.  If Jesus is the Son of God, if Jesus is risen, everything changes.  One of my favorite historians was Jaroslav Pelikan–a deep writer on the history of the Church who taught many years at Yale.  He wrote with the insight of a historian, yet with the passion of a faithful Christian.  He died of cancer a couple of years ago.  On his deathbed he said this: ‘If Christ is risen, nothing else matters.  And if Christ is not risen—nothing else matters.’

The religious leaders who heard Stephen’s sermon had a choice, repent and change everything, or go on doing what they were doing and eliminate Stephen.  They chose the latter.  They chose to ignore Stephen’s words, they refused to see the Scriptures in a different way.

More than ever we need to see the Scriptures radical documents for our time.  They tell us about God, but they also bring us face to face with this God.  They tell us stories of Jesus, but if we allow them we can hear the radical call to follow him, no matter what we have to leave behind in the process.

There is one last entry in Stephen’s resurrection resume.  Though his radical preaching of the Scriptures got him stoned, he was full great love.  What were his last words?  ‘Do not hold this sin against them.’

This is love of the radical sort.  This is a love that loves whether the other deserves it or not, a love only Jesus can give–a love of the most radical sort.  Stephen’s words should remind you of Jesus’ words, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’

This is the kind of love that doesn’t ignore the wrongdoing of the other, it is loving despite their wrongdoing.  In Stephen’s case, it was a love for the ones killing him.  This is incarnational love of the highest sort.  If loving cost us our lives, could we do it?  Love of Christ and love of neighbor?

I read recently of a 19th century Belguim saint named Father Damien.  He was one of the first missionaries to Hawaii.  Now that sounds great to me but there was an island in the 19th century called the Island of Molokai.  This was no resort island but a colony for lepers.  But Fr. Damien felt the Lord wanted him there not only to preach Christ but to serve the lepers in a most radical way.  The island itself smelled of rotting flesh and was full of contagion. One writer says that he:
“Built homes for the people, made coffins for the dead, and grew food for the hungry.  He worked tirelessly among a people who were not his own and who had an illness he did not have.”

He constantly knocked on the doors of Rome for them to send supplies and to be advocates for his new brothers and sisters in Christ.

Then one day, after a hard day of work, he was soaking his feet in a pot of hot water, and he could no longer feel them.  He had so wanted to relate to his people that he allowed nothing to separate him from them.  He caught the disease and died at the age of 49.  His day is April 15.  When you are panicked about taxes on Tuesday, remember Fr. Damien!

Only a biblical radical would live and die this way.  This is the resurrection resume of so many of the saints of God.  No fanfare.  No riches.  No ‘man or woman of the year’ awards.  Only Christ at the right hand of God cheering them on, like Stephen.

Our gospel reading is one of the most profound of the resurrection stories in the gospels.  It goes from failed expectation and sadness to burning hearts to a revelation to a fever pitch of excitement with the exclamation ‘The Lord is Risen indeed!’

Two followers of Jesus are walking on a road going to a village called Emmaus.  They are sad, disappointed, confused and cannot stop talking about Jesus and his horrible and untimely death.  Who are these followers?  One is named Cleopas and the other is unnamed.  Eusebius identifies the unnamed follower as Luke the evangelist himself and Cleopas as the brother of Joseph, hence Jesus’ (step) uncle. Whether this tradition is accurate or not, these two followers know the Scriptures and have walked intimately with Christ.

I won’t recount the whole story again.  The two were unable to recognize Jesus because of their grief and because they were ‘kept from recognizing him,’ whatever that means.  What was it that turned them from grief stricken, disillusioned, skeptics to faith-filled believers with burning hearts?  It was Christ, revealing himself in a simple but powerful way.

Christ revealed himself through two things—the Scripture and the breaking of the bread.  It is interesting that in the book of Acts, which was also written by Luke, the church was a powerful community that was unified and also ‘devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the breaking of the bread.’  The same pattern, the same actions that for the early church made people long to be a part of them.

Things haven’t changed and they shouldn’t.  Jesus, the risen Lord, still reveals himself to us through the Scriptures, and in the breaking of the bread.

Let’s take those consecutively.  In the age of special effects, the Internet and glossy images, the Scripture seems to many in our world as a boring tome.  ‘What does Leviticus and King Hezekiah have do with me?’  Someone might say. Yet Scripture is sometimes referred to as a ‘roaring lion’ that invades our hearts and challenges our preconceived notions of the world.  With the travelers, Jesus pours the Scripture into them, revealing his fingerprints throughout the Law, the Prophets and the Writings.   The invading lion is Jesus, the Word himself.  Sometimes his words are gentle and comforting, other times they are intrusive and direct.  Henri Nouwen describes Jesus’ explanation of the Scriptures to the travelers on the road this way, ‘This was not a soothing conversation.  The stranger [Jesus] was strong, direct, unsentimental.  There were no easy consolations.  It even seemed that he pierced their complaints with a truth they might not have preferred to know…the stranger was not the least bit afraid to break through their defenses and to call them far beyond their narrowness of mind and heart.’  Even so, their hearts were set on fire.  Even to discover that the messiah first had to endure suffering before he was given glory.  Even to discover that the messiah’s followers would also have to follow the same path.

This is what Christ does to us as we find him in Scripture.  His opening words when he began to preach was ‘repent!’  Christ confronts us, lovingly, for us and for our salvation.  Through the Scripture he forms us, makes us what he wants us to be, and changes us, so much so that our hearts burn within us.

The book of Hebrews describes the Bible like a double edged sword that is so sharp and precise that it can cut in places where nothing else can.  Christ through his Word cuts sharply and precisely to heal us.

Lastly, Jesus reveals himself in the ‘breaking of the bread.’  The travelers recognized Jesus when he broke the bread and blessed it.  While this meal may not have been Eucharistic, all who read Luke’s account cannot help but think of the Sacrament as Christ distributes bread to Cleopas and his friend.

At Epiphany we take the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist very seriously.  One of the reasons we kneel or bow to the altar and the Aumbry (or Tabernacle) is because we believe the presence of Christ is in the Eucharist in a very mysterious, yet tangible way.  We believe that Jesus comes to us under the form of bread and wine, yet he is present in a real way.  Remember, every Sunday, you are approaching the very Presence of Jesus.  It is a healing Presence.  Commune with him, let him reveal himself to you in a new and powerful way.  Open your eyes and hearts to behold him.

There is another meaning, though, to the breaking of the bread in our gospel.  While Luke is alluding to the Eucharist, he also means to show that Jesus reveals himself in commonplace yet intimate settings.  Eating at the table with his friends was an ordinary, everyday thing to do, yet in an ordinary event an extraordinary thing happened:  their eyes were open.  In the book of Luke table fellowship is extremely important.  You remember that Jesus did much of his teaching around meals.  Meals in the ancient world were a sign of intimacy and family.  On the road to Emmaus, Jesus was seen clearly when he participated in what was most intimate.

We remember going home to mom or grandma’s and eating the home cooking.  For me every time I eat my mom’s enchiladas, I feel a sense of home because it reminds me of home.

Jesus was able to open the eyes of these two men through the bread and wine.  He was able to change them through something familiar

I keep going back, though, to the burning hearts phrase.  ‘Did not our hearts burn within us?’

When is the last time your heart burned?  Our faith is not a bore but an opportunity to live on the edge.

Jesus is in the life-changing business. He is able to make bread and wine his Body and Blood.  He is able to turn a bloody cross into a glorious resurrection.  He is able to turn death into victory.  If he can do all of these things, he can make sense of our lives.  He can make our cold hearts burn.  He can redeem our sin and brokenness.  He can restore relationships.  He can heal, forgive and change us.  The reason why?  Because he is risen.  ‘Because he lives, I can face tomorrow.  Because he lives, all fears are gone.  Because I know, I know, he holds the future.  And life is worth the living just because he lives.’  So goes the song I used to sing as a child.

There are times and places where God breaks in, to give us a glimpse of himself.  Where our hearts burn.  Where he makes the ordinary extraordinary.

St. Patrick’s Day kind of came and went since it was during holy week.  Remember Patrick evangelized the early Celts who became Christians.
The ancient Celtic Christians, who are the spiritual ancestors of us Anglicans talked about what they called ‘thin places.’  These are holy places or
incidents where heaven and earth meet each other.  Where the material and the spiritual come together.  Retreat leader and author Sylvia Maddox says this,

‘There is a Celtic saying that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places that distance is even smaller. A thin place is where the veil that separates heaven and earth is lifted and one is able to receive a glimpse of the glory of God…In a thin place there is an immediacy of experience where words of faith become words of life. In this hallowed space and time heaven and earth for a moment are one.’

While Christ is revealed through Word and Sacrament, he also meets us in the everyday.  Our worship is a thin place.  We have had liturgies, especially in the last 4 or 5 months that I have strongly sensed the Spirit of God, where this aisle and this altar have for me been a ‘thin’ place, where I have felt my heart burn.  For me, church and retreat settings are more than likely to be ‘thin places.’

You might be different.  You might have a prayer corner at home or a place in the mountains that is a ‘thin place’ for you.  You might not think of any place as a ‘thin place’ but they are there if we could just discern them.

I’d have to say that at our Easter vigil we encountered a thin place.  All of us who were witnesses of the baptisms and the passion of the baptized, we can say our hearts were burning.

When is the last time your heart burned and pizza was not involved?  Our faith is not a dispassionate bore.  I heard Stan Perea say recently that 30,000 Americans leave church every Sunday and never come back.  He said, ‘they are not being chased out, they are being bored out!’

Our faith is not a bore but an opportunity to live on the edge…

Do you know what the most popular class at Harvard in the last two decades of the 20th century was?  “The moral example and teachings of Jesus.”  This was one of the few courses at Harvard that was not aimed at discrediting Christianity, but one that asked what Jesus would do with the moral conundrums of the day.  Students were genuinely looking for a Jesus that no one presented to them at church.  A Jesus who was relevant to their lives.  800 students signed up for it per year.

There is a hunger.  There is a harvest. There are those who want to see Jesus. There are those who want their hearts to burn for something other than the daily dose of work and entertainment.

Does your heart burn with the presence of Christ?  The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  Does your heart burn in telling others about Jesus?  Our faith is not a bore but an opportunity to live on the edge…

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, stay with us, for the night is at hand and the day is far spent;  be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread.  Grant this for the sake of your love.  Amen.

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, `I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

A few observations about our gospel this morning.  First, it is very personal.  Remember we looked at the raising of Lazarus a couple of weeks ago.  Lazarus responded from the grave when Jesus called his name.  Read this chapter and the chapter on Lazarus side by side and you’ll see a parallel.  Here is Mary, confused and sad.  When Jesus appears to her, she thinks he is the gardener or someone who has carried away Jesus’ body.  There is no response from her until Jesus calls her name.  One simple word.  ‘Mary.’  And her life is forever changed.

Eugene Peterson writes, “The man asks her the same question as the angels, and she gives the same answer.  Then he speaks her name: ‘Mary.’  She turns to face him, her tear-blurred eyes now clear.  She sees Jesus, and she answers, ‘Rabboni.’” a term of great reverence and intimacy, as if to say, ‘my dear teacher.’

There is a difference between a faith that is cultural or a faith that is based on a few curious encounters with God once and awhile–and a real, living relationship with the living Christ.  We can say ‘happy Easter’ and miss out on a life giving relationship with Jesus.

Secondly, the resurrection, and really the gospel itself is all about second chances.  Not Jesus’ second chance, mind you, but ours.  Jesus did the work of redemption.  Jesus conquered death on our behalf.  But he is also there with forgiveness and love on his heart.  You remember that Peter denied Jesus three times while Jesus was in his darkest hour.  Each of the four gospels mention Peter as one of the first of the disciples to believe.  He wasn’t entirely convinced right away, of course, but he began to believe in the face of his own misery and guilt.  But John records a unique conversation with the risen Lord and Peter’s full restoration.

Do you want a fresh start?  Have you been wandering in every direction but towards Jesus?  He is there to restore you, to renew you, and to give you the opportunity to turn the reigns back over to him.  Today is the day of salvation.  Today is the day where all things are made new.  Why not make this a new beginning by giving your heart and life to Christ.  Sometimes his presence is unexpected.  Sometimes he takes us places we may not understand.  But in Christ is purpose, in Christ is life!

Lastly, the resurrection of Jesus is a challenge to everything.  It is a challenge to our notion that politics, or science, or whatever is best in humanity as the answer to the problems of this world..  It is a challenge to our assumption that God does not intervene in this world.  It is challenge to our moral life (or lack thereof).  There are those who, in the name of sounding deep, try to say that whether Jesus was raised or not doesn’t really matter.  Whether Jesus physically rose is irrelevant.

Marcus Borg has said, “I now see Easter very differently.  For me it is irrelevant whether or not the tomb was empty.  Whether Easter involved something remarkable happening to the physical body of Jesus is irrelevant.  My argument is not that we know the tomb was not empty or that nothing happened to his body, but simply that it doesn’t matter.  The truth of Easter, as I see it, is not at stake in this issue.”

The writers of the gospels, the Christians of the last 2000 years, all of us who have shown up today take issue with Borg’s statement.  The gospel writers are insistent in their narratives that Jesus rose in a flesh and blood resurrection .  Jesus eats.  You can touch him.  He is physically real.  He is no ghost or phantom or spirit in the sky.  Yet he is so much more.  The challenge of Easter is to believe in this Jesus who rose again.  It is to see that if he is risen, everything changes.  He is available for a real relationship.

C.H. Dodd said, “now that he is no longer visible to the bodily eye, faith remains the capacity for seeing his glory.”  What is faith?  It is a matter of relationship, a matter of ‘investing everything in the person of Jesus Christ.’  There is no place for neutrality when it comes to the person of Jesus.  The resurrection invites, actually demands, a response.

What will your response be?  In many ways, we are like the first disciple who peeked into the empty tomb.  Tradition says this is John himself.

John simply looked in and believed.  His faith was not naive, for he saw Jesus crucified.  In fact he was the only disciple who did not flee the scene.  As you remember, from the cross, Jesus handed over his mother Mary for John to care for.

But John simply peeked into the tomb and be believed, even before he saw Jesus personally.  We were not there on Easter morning.  We simply have the word of faithful believers throughout the ages who have proclaimed, ‘Christ is Risen!’

Our challenge is to have faith, not naive faith, but faith that recognizes the suffering of Christ and the suffering of the world, but a faith that will acknowledge that the resurrection changes everything.  Jesus is not dead, he is with us always, raised by the power of God and the power of God alone.  As Eugene Peterson says, ‘resurrection is not available for our use.  It’s exclusively God’s operation.’

I hope this day is more than a cultural nicety or a chance to eat a nice lunch.

If Christ is Risen, risen indeed, we all have to give account.  But if he is risen.  Everything changes.  ‘Alleluia, Christ is Risen!’

We have been blessed to go through some vignettes from John this Lent.  In John, there are seven miracles or ‘signs’ that he records as pointers to the identity of Christ.  In some of them are assigned ‘I Am’ statements.  He miraculously feeds the 5000, and he says ‘I am the bread of life.’  He heals the blind man, and he says ‘I am the light of the world.’

In the seventh and final ‘sign,’ Jesus raises his friends Lazarus from the dead.  Here is the ultimate of Jesus’ signs.  Before it, he says, “I am the resurrection and I am the Life,” leaving little doubt to Jesus’ authority and his identity.  Here, in the carpenter of Nazareth is also the God of the universe.  In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

This gospel is read towards the end of Lent because it was the event that caused the Pharisees to begin their plot to arrest and kill Jesus.  Soon Jesus will ride into Jerusalem with hosannas ringing in the air.  However, the cross is right around the corner.

Jesus weeps.  Critics of John’s gospel say that John characterizes Jesus as a divine being that has come down from heaven whose feet never touch the ground.  In fact, one of my seminary professors said that in John, Jesus is more like Spock than a real man.  I couldn’t disagree more.  Yes, it is obvious from John’s gospel that Jesus is God, equal with the Father, but in John Jesus turns water into wine.  He eats and drinks.  He puts mud in a blind man’s eyes.  He washes his disciples’ dirty feet.  And here, he weeps.  He is both God and man.

And isn’t it comforting to know that Jesus wept?  Why did he weep?  Because Lazurus is a friend.  Because he is hurt for his family.  Isn’t it comforting to know that when we lose a loved one God is also hurt?  Death was never meant to be part of the human condition.  Even Jesus weeps at the reality and finality of death.

Fred Craddock says, ‘Is there any place where this text does not fit?  Spray paint it on the gray walls of the inner city: Jesus wept.  Scrawl it with a crayon on a hallway of an orphanage: Jesus wept.  Embroider it on every pillow in the nursing home: Jesus wept.  Nail it on posts along a refugee road out of an African nation: Jesus wept.  Flash it in blinking neon at the bus station where the homeless are draped over pitiless benches: Jesus wept…’  He weeps at the suffering and death of our world.  The text says that he was disturbed, even angry at Lazarus’ death.

But here is the crux of our reflection.  Jesus can do something about it.  Jesus said, ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life, the one who believes in me, even though they die, yet shall they live.’  Jesus did call Lazarus from his grave to come out of death back into life.

This raising of Lazarus is one of those cosmic events.  It is the ultimate ‘sign’ of Jesus’ deity and Godhood.  It is cosmic because it anticipates Jesus own resurrection as well as shows us just who is in charge here.

Jesus is in charge of calling forth from the grave.

Jesus can stare death in the face and turn it into something else.  By pulling Lazarus out of the grave, he changes the meaning of death all together.  For Jesus, there is no time and death is irrelevant.  ‘I am the resurrection and I am the life.’  But this story is more than just a cosmic story.  It is also a personal story.  What does Jesus say to this dead man wrapped in grave clothes?  ‘Lazarus, come forth.’  He calls him by name.  Lazarus is more than a pawn in a divine chess game.  He is Jesus’ friend.

There is nothing like hearing someone call us by name.  Experts say it is what we want to hear the most from others.  I remember when Sarah and I first met, I introduced myself and she shook my hand and said, ‘Hello, Stace.’  That was no big deal for her I’m sure but I loved the way my name sounded coming from her.

In life and in death, those in Christ hear the most wonderful sound, the voice of Jesus crying out there name.  When Jesus rises from the grave, Mary Magdeline recognizes him because he says her name.

When Jesus raises Lazarus, it show us his love extends beyond the grave.  Jesus’ love is so powerful that not even death can quench it.  The Song of Solomon says that human love is as strong as death.  Christ shows that his love is even stronger than death itself.

I love the Eastern Icon of the resurrection.  It shows Jesus in hell reaching out his hands and pulling Adam and Eve out in an act of rescue.  Jesus love is the great reversal of fortunes.  It is beyond all that we can ask or imagine.

Jesus love is a great reversal of everything we know of as disordered and evil.  He invades the temporal world to bring a Kingdom in which love reigns. This is the kind of love that encompasses all that is righteous and all that is holy.  It is love that penetrates the darkness and invades the powers of hell.

This story of Lazarus is cosmic, but it is so much more.  It is a clear picture of Jesus’ love for us, a love that is stronger than death.  ‘I am the resurrection and the life,’ says the Lord, ‘all who believe in me shall live, even though they die.’

But there is more here.  Even though we’ve been talking about death, and Jesus’ conquering of it, notice what Jesus actually says.  ‘I am the resurrection and the life…’  He does not say, ‘I will be the resurrection and the life.’  ‘I am’, present tense.

Many critics of Christianity say that it is too much oriented to the future, to clouds and angel wings.  Jesus has a lot to do with our souls after death but not much to our physical realities and our everyday existence.  But the life Jesus offers is for a present kingdom reality.  Jesus says in John 17, ‘This is eternal life, that [my followers] know the Father, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.’  Salvation in Christ is a present, living relationship with the living God, not just a guarantee of heaven when we die.  Christ conquers final death but also ‘living death.’  We live in a world of the living dead.  We live in a culture obsessed with me myself and I.  Jesus says, ‘apart from me you can do nothing.’

I often do my work at Starbuck’s down the road and often I get to eavesdrop on conversations.  There were three young hotshot lawyers there the other day (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  I was struck at how three young, sharp, intelligent men could be such examples of what Dr. Hollis calls ‘rectal cranial inversion.’

They were talking about women walking by, they were talking about all the hot cases in the headlines and not a sentence went by without the ‘F’ word.

You can have it all and still be walking around as the living dead.  We can ask the question of Ezekiel about most of our culture, ‘Can these bones live?’ You can be at the top of your game and still be completely lost.  ‘I am the resurrection and the life…I have come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly.’

But how do we get there?
The last point is the most ironic.  When Jesus reaches the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, there is a line that seems like a throwaway line but it is not.  Jesus asks the sisters, ‘where have you laid him?’  And they say, ‘Lord, come and see.’  Jesus does and he weeps.

If you are a careful reader, (and remember, when the gospels were first presented to the church, they were read aloud) you would note the repetition of the phrase ‘come and see.’
When the disciples first met Jesus they asked, ‘where are you staying’ and Jesus said, ‘come and see.’  Nathaniel said to Philip, ‘can anything good come from Nazareth?’  And Philip says, ‘come and see.’  When the Samaritan woman was on her evangelistic tour of her village, what did she say?  ‘Come and see the man…’

‘Come and see’ is an invitation to discipleship.  It is a call to believe and to follow.  Yet here the sisters say, ‘come and see a tomb,’ ‘come and see death.’

Come and see the way of Jesus.  ‘Whoever does not lose his life, will never find it…’  Jesus way is the way of death and entombment.  To find your life you must lose it.  To rise with Christ you must first realize you are walking in grave clothes.

You can be at the top of your game and still be completely lost.  That is, without Jesus as the center of everything you do and everything you are.  You can still be alive and vital and in shape and financially stable and be lost without Jesus.

Charles Schulz began his career with great faith, but fame and money drove him away.  He had affairs and paid more attention to the ‘kids’ in his strip than his real life kids.  Close to his death he said, ‘the poor kid never got a chance to kick the ball, what a dirty trick.’  Linus’ words from Luke were far away from him and it is said that he died angry and bitter.

The way of discipleship is illustrated by what Lazarus experiences in a very literal way.  If Nicodemas wants to know what it is to be born again, Lazarus is your man.  If you want to know the radical call of following Christ, which we reenact liturgically in baptism, just ask Lazarus.  Being in Christ is dying to yourself and being raised in and by Jesus Christ.  Forsaking, denying, walking away from, dying to–your way of doing things
and having Christ take it all.  As the silly Carrie Underwood song says, ‘Jesus take the wheel.’

You can be at the top of your game and still be completely lost.
Come and See the way of Jesus…

This story is one of my favorites from John. The Samaritan woman is an interesting contrast to Nicodemus, who we read about last week. He is the one who comes in the darkness to see Jesus in secret. In contrast, the woman is portrayed as one who has come to the light. This woman interacts with Jesus at high noon, out in the open. Nicodemus came in hiding and left in silence. This woman comes in the daylight and leaves proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus.

This morning I want to reflect on two things, what the story says about Jesus and what the story says about the woman at the well.

First, what does this story say about Jesus? One, that he will go anywhere and do anything to rescue one of his sheep. You can’t read this story without marveling at Jesus’ willingness to ignore the propriety of the culture in those days. A Jew didn’t associate with Samaritans because Samaritans were half Assyrian conqueror and half Jewish. Secondly, they worshiped on Mt. Gerazim rather than in Jerusalem. Not only that, it was unthinkable for a Jewish man to openly talk to a Samaritan woman. A single Jewish man wasn’t supposed to talk to any woman, much less a Samaritan. Not only was it bad enough that he talked to a Samaritan woman, she was a loose Samaritan woman at that. Jesus went out of his way to ignore the religious and cultural barriers to offer her living water. The woman was probably confused at first and may have even thought Jesus was looking for a date. A well was a common place to meet people. Don’t forget Jacob himself found his wife at this very well. And when Jesus asked about her husband, and she said, ‘I have no husband,’ she may have been giving him an invitation. But that was not Jesus intent. He broke all rules of the religiously correct to reach into this woman’s world and heal her. His intent was to change her life—to bring her freedom.

Second, Jesus message to this woman said much about his identity. And ‘who it is that is offering you living water.’

Jacob’s well was an important place. It was the well that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. It represented the calling of Israel for Jacob’s name was changed to Israel. It was a tie to a holy and ancient past. It was a well that had been there as a reminder of God’s care for his people. It was almost like a shrine of God’s pouring out of the waters of his blessing. What does Jesus offer immediately to this woman? Living water, water that when you drink it, you never thirst again.

Jesus returns to the imagery of water that he talked to Nicodemus about. Here living water is ‘the water of life,’ living because it comes from a pure, running stream.

What does this say about Jesus? Jesus here is saying that he is better that the water of Jacob, the water of Israel. The water he gives is greater.

Even more important is the conversation they have about the Temple. The Samaritans and Jews disagreed on where the Temple ought to be and where God’s glory is correctly experienced. Jesus went with the Jewish interpretation. But he said that a time is coming when the true worshipers will worship God, not in Samaria or Jerusalem, or the Temple, but in ‘Spirit and Truth.’ Jesus is saying that the experience of God that he offers transcends even the holiest of places, the Temple. In essence he is saying that he is more than the Temple, that the glory of God is revealed in him. He is the truth and he sends the Spirit. The living water of Jesus surpasses sacred places even the most sacred.

We need to hear what Jesus is saying here. Isn’t it easy to limit God to a place? Isn’t it easy to put God in our Sunday box and forget about him the rest of the week? I believe that Christ is present here in this Temple. I am a sacramental Christian and I believe this place is sacred. But what happens when we leave this morning. What happens when we go out for lunch or go home or go to work tomorrow? Have we left Christ here?

One of the wonders of our faith is that anywhere Christ is and where his people are, there is a holy and sacred place. Remember what the bishop from Sudan said: ‘I was consecrated under a tree.’ There are 1200 churches in his diocese alone, most of which meet under a tree—therefore that place becomes holy.

This is true for us as well. And worship doesn’t only take place at this time and in this place. Paul says to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, this is our spiritual act of worship. Worship doesn’t cease when we walk out of those doors. The challenge for liturgical Christians like ourselves is to long for the holy presence of God in every aspect of our existence. A modern Christian Cyprian monk has said, ‘the natural state of man is the continuous contemplation and memory of God. I do not mean a cerebral memory of God but a memory that works from within the heart…the heart is attached to God, lives with God, functions in God, and is joyous with the presence of God even while [being] absorbed by everyday activities.’

Continuous contemplation of God. Continuous worship. Continuous waiting and yielding ourselves to him, no matter where we are or what we are doing. We need to be careful not to limit God to a church building or a particular way of worship. True worshipers worship him in Sprit and in Truth, even during everyday activities.

There is one more observation about Christ from this story that is worth noting. It is his insight and perception. He knows the right words for the right time for the right reasons. His goal? To change her life. He is not after a convert and he is not out to win an argument. He is there to change her life. He is there to give her a freedom that she has never had. He is there to be living water.

As Richard Lischer says, ‘Only one who loves you knows your deepest desires. Only one who loves you can look at your past without blinking.’ Jesus had every right to judge her and to bring the law of Moses down hard on her. But he loved her. All he wanted to do was to quench her thirst and make her free.

This brings us to the woman. She comes by herself to the well. This is an indication that she was an outcast even among the woman of the community. This is probably because of what Jesus says—‘You have had five husbands, and the man you are with now is not your husband.’

Now her ‘looseness’ was not her only difficulty. She was more than likely cast aside and divorced by those husbands for no real reason. Some men in those days interpreted the law as a way to give license to walk away. If the wife burned the toast, you could divorce her. She was in a no win situation.

She does not know what to do with Jesus. She probably thinks that he is hitting on her at first, but then he offers her this living water, and talks about worship and tells her everything there is to know about her.

He wants to give her something that the other men in her life won’t or can’t. Freedom. A purpose. A reason to live. Joy. Living water.

And you know what? It doesn’t take her long to understand. She is in great contrast with Nicodemus the religious expert. She is a sinner. She is broken. But she is in the light and the religious leader is in the darkness. And she wants to be in the light, no matter how vulnerable it makes her feel, not even if the Son of God sees all of the darkness and brokenness inside of her. As one author has put it, ‘The light has exposed her, but she chooses to remain, and it must have been a decision of remarkable courage and will.’

Aren’t the broken the better witnesses to the faith than those who have it all together? For example many ministries on college campuses have a strategy that I don’t particularly like. The strategy is to do everything to convert the cool people. Get the cheerleaders and the football players to come to Bible study and everyone else will follow. There is not as much of a focus on those who are really broken. But I would rather hear stories like the woman at the well’s.

It not that the popular don’t have something to share, but the broken often have more credibility because you know they are not putting on. You know that they are not pretentious about their faith. You know that they have been put into the light and have had the guts to be changed by it. God often chooses the weak, for his strength is made perfect through weakness.

Author Brian Dodd tells an old Indian parable about a water bearer with two water pots that hung on opposite ends of a pole that he carried around his neck. One of the pots had a crack and another one was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house. The cracked pot arrived only half full. For two full years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water for his master’s house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments and the cracked pot was embarrassed that it could only produce half of what it was supposed to do.

After two years the cracked pot spoke to the water bearer and said, ‘I am ashamed that I can only deliver half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak all the way back to your master’s house.

The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and said, ‘as we return to the master’s house, I want you to notice something you may have missed along the path.’ As they went up the hill, the cracked pot noticed the sun warming the beautiful wildflowers on the side of the path, but it still felt bad that at the end of the trail, it still leaked half of its load.

But the bearer said to the pot, ‘Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and everyday while we walk back from the stream, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.’

God often uses the broken and even has a purpose for their brokenness, like the woman at the well, to make something beautiful. She responded to Jesus the way no one else does—she immediately started to spread the gospel. She does so knowing her brokenness and sin. But God made from her brokenness something beautiful.

A key challenge for us is to find where Samaria is in our world. Where are the broken? Where are the places and who are the people we are afraid to interact with? There is a church down the road who has decided that Cherry Creek is not worth trying to evangelize. There is a church in LA that has decided it will not exceed a certain number because it has deliberately decided to be an international church.

One last observation. Lent is about repentance and change. What did repentance look like to the woman at the well? Did she start weeping and hitting herself with sticks when she realized that Jesus saw right through her? What did her repentance look like? she simply walked away with joy from her former life. John points out that she forgot all about the water she had come for. Jesus filled her broken and cracked cup with living water. And then she could hardly contain herself. The living water welled up within her and she couldn’t keep it to herself. ‘Come and see the man, who knew everything about me. Could this be the messiah?’ Because of her, the gospel reached where the disciples could not have reached. The gospel reached the unreachable Samaritans because one woman dared to be exposed to the light and changed. She dared to take the cup of living water because she believed Jesus could change her.

What about us? Can we handle being in the light of Christ, knowing all that we are and all that we are not? Can we be filled with living water in our broken and cracked cups or is it too much to bear? Can we be healed by Jesus, or has the pain or prosperity of life taken away our ability to even know how thirsty we really are? As the old song goes, ‘there is a fountain that never shall run dry.’ In the words of Christ, ‘Whoever drinks of the water I give you will never thirst. The water that I shall give you will become in you a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.’ Are we able to take the cup of living water? Can we, like the woman at the well, walk away from our former selves and walk in the joy and freedom of Christ?

In the words of Joyce Rupp:Love waits to heal. All he wants to do is change our lives. All he wants to do is give us freedom. All he wants to do is give us living water.

You have come today perhaps by some instinct that Lent is a good thing.  We know that last night Mardi Gras was celebrated throughout the world by many who have never even heard of Shrove Tuesday and who have no desire to even think about Lent.  We live in a world of pleasure and entertainment, not a world of repentance and fasting.  We live in a world where pleasure is a right and difficulty is an inconvenience.

Maybe now, more than ever, we need Lent.

Prior to the 4th century, the early Christians had a strict, three year training period for baptism.  It was serious business to be a Christian because it was a life or death decision.  At the beginning of the 4th century, with the emperor Constantine putting an end to the persecution of Christians, the training period for baptism was changed from three years to the 7 weeks before Easter.  This became also a time for those who had renounced Christ during the age of persecution to come back to the church, undergoing a time of prayer and fasting.

Many have reduced Lent to a time when we give up candy or chocolate and that’s not a bad thing.  We certainly to not need more candy or chocolate in our lives.  However, what brings us to the heart of Lenten discipline are Jesus’ words: ‘For wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’

How do you know where your heart is?  Easy.  How do you spend your time?  How do you know where your treasure is?  Easy.  How do you spend your time?

TV time.  Work time.  Family time.  Tinker time.  Fun time.  Me time.  God time?

Jesus says, ‘when you fast, when you pray, when you give alms.’  He says ‘when’ and not ‘if.’  The greatest thing you can give the Lord is your time.  Time in doing what is right.  Time in giving money and skills, time in prayer and fasting, and studying the Scriptures.

I have to say that if Jesus were to preach to us today, his emphasis would not be on our self-righteousness, but our lack of desire for righteousness.

Maybe to us he would say, ‘When you get that smudge on your head, leave it on, maybe then you’ll have to talk about your faith!’ ‘When you fast and pray, hey, when’s the last time you fasted and prayed?’ ‘When you give alms, hey, when’s the last time you helped someone in need?’

What Jesus describes as prayer, fasting and almsgiving are meant to help us gain an eternal perspective.  We pray because we believe there is someone on the other end listening.  We believe there is someone on the other end who is not controlled by our space and time.

We fast so we can take ourselves away from the American consumer and food addiction.  The bread of heaven and the cup of salvation become our food.  The nourishment of the Word of God becomes our staple.

We give alms so we won’t store up treasures on earth, but in heaven.  We give alms so we can invest in eternity. As C. S. Lewis said, “All that is not eternal is eternally useless.”  More than ever we need to be aware of the suffering of our world and do our part to bring Jesus into it and alleviate it.  This Lent, perhaps read some books that will shake you out of our cultural selfishness.  There is a book called Left To Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza or God Grew Tired of Us by Jon Dau which tells the story of the Lost Boys of Sudan.

Prayer. Fasting. Almsgiving.

Why Lent?  Augustine said, ‘Love God and do as you please.’  In other words, when you love God and draw near to him, there is no question about what will please you–his word and his will.  Lent is a chance for us to draw near to him and a chance to evaluate our relationship with Christ.  It is a time for perspective of the fleetingness of our lives.  For we are dust, and to dust we shall return.

What we have this morning is the ultimate Epiphany.  It is the story of the Transfiguration.
Last week we talked about Epiphany as a season of contemplation–and disruption.  On the mountain we have both.

This remarkable event most likely took place on the mountain known as Mt. Tabor outside of the city of Jerusalem.  You know the story well.  This is an endorsement of the highest kind pertaining to Jesus’ identity and his mission.  Here he is endorsed by Moses, Elijah, and God the Father himself.

The scene echoes Moses’ experience on Mt. Sinai after receiving the Law from the finger of God.  Moses’ face shone with the glory of God and the children of Israel could barely look on his face.

Mt. Tabor becomes the new Sinai and Jesus shines, not from an outside glory, but from a glory that is within.  When the people ask in Matthew 7, after Jesus has preached the sermon on the mount, who is this?  He speaks with authority, not as the scribes and Pharisees! This text is an obvious answer to that question.

If the readers of the gospels have any doubt as to who Jesus is, Moses reminds them that Jesus transcends the Law.  Elijah reminds readers that Jesus transcends the prophets.  Elijah is also the penultimate sign from the writings of the prophets that the end is near, that in Jesus the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

Remember that when Moses died, only God knew where he was buried and Elijah was taken to heaven in a chariot of fire–having escaped death.  Both of these figures in Jewish tradition are figures of their own time, but are also figures of the Kingdom to come.  Here they are, talking to Jesus about his ‘departure’ or his Exodus (using more Old Testament imagery), which is Jesus’ journey where?  To the cross.

Matthew, Mark and Luke all emphasize Peter’s confusion as to what is going on here.  This is important because the Transfiguration occurs after Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  It also follows Jesus’ prediction of his own death and his teaching that all who would follow him would have to take up their cross as well.  Peter, of course is rebuked because he doesn’t want Jesus to face the scandal of the cross.  Matthew records Jesus’ words to Peter, “Away from me Satan, you are an offense to me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

The Transfiguration is a scene of irony.  Jesus’ exodus for the salvation of Israel and humanity began in a manger and ended on the cross.  Most of his life he had nowhere to lay his head and lived in humility.  The Transfiguration is a glimpse of Christ’s divinity amidst his poverty, of his glory amidst his lowliness.  It shows us the heights that he has descended for the ultimate Exodus, the salvation of all who would put their trust in him.

There are two themes we need to concentrate on this morning they come directly from God the Father himself within the cloud: “This is my beloved Son.  Listen to him.”

First, the first part of the phrase: ‘This is my beloved Son.’  The imagery around the Transfiguration is very important.  A cloud envelops Jesus.  This kind of cloud in the Old Testament represents God’s ‘Shekinah,’ or his ‘Chabod,’ that is, his glory.  For Moses, the glory came from above, for Jesus, the glory comes from within.

One scholar says that glory, in the OT, ‘implies more than a disclosure by God of who he is.  It  implies an invasion of the material universe, an expression of God’s active presence among his people.”  The cloud of glory is often associated with the Temple or the tabernacle, the presence of God among men.

Jesus transcends the tabernacle and the Temple, the Law and the Prophets, Moses and Elijah.  Jesus does not ask for a booth alongside the others.  God’s presence is most evident in Jesus Christ because he is God become human flesh.  ‘This is my beloved Son.’

We have a familiarity around Jesus that is not good.  He is a commodity in our culture just like anything else.  Chris saw a bumper sticker the other day: ‘I found Jesus: behind my couch.’  He sells shirts and movies.  He is too familiar–even among Christians.  What did the disciples do when they say Jesus in all his glory?  They said, ‘whassup JC?’  No—they ‘fell face down.’  They were terrified.  Peter stumbled and bumbled because he was afraid.

Mid 20th century there was a push to talk about God’s stern-ness and his judgement.  Then, late 20th century and early 21st century, there is a push to talk about the milktoast, teddy bear savior.

In the Scriptures, people weren’t afraid of God because they were afraid he didn’t ‘like’ them.  They feared God because God  transcends our categories and understanding. He ain’t like us.  A glimpse of the glory of Jesus ought to be terrifying–not because he is not loving, but because his love is on a different plane and in a different category.  He is light shining in a dark place and everything else is dark in comparison.

‘This is my beloved Son.’

The second point.  ‘This is my beloved Son.  Listen to him.’  Whenever you read a story in the gospels, it is important to read and study how things are arranged because then you will learn what the gospel writers are trying to emphasize.  The question you should ask is ‘what, in particular, should we listen to?’  Of course all of Jesus’ teachings are indispensable, but in this context, God the Father is pointing to Jesus’ teachings about the cross and more specifically, Christ’s teachings about discipleship.

Discipleship is an overused word in church circles, what does it mean?  It is rabbinic language from the Jewish tradition that means, to follow and to emulate.  If the master, the rabbi, the teacher say ‘jump,’ you jump.  If he says ‘go’ you go.  Where he goes, you go.  If there is any doubt in the disciples minds that Jesus is worthy of listening to and following, the Transfiguration dispels those doubts.  But they and we, must open our hearts to the greatness of this master, this rabbi, this teacher.  In fact, we need a new heart to follow him.  One writer says, “to fathom the Transfiguration requires something other than words, it takes a new heart.  A new heart leads us to sit at Jesus’ feet, ready to learn and listen…our walk with God requires a different way of assessing the world and expects a distinct perspective on moral values…”  To listen to Jesus is to change our heart and to change our life.  Jesus said as much.
“If anyone would come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily, and follow me.  For whoever desires to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will save it.  For what profit is it to gain the world and lose your soul?”

‘This is my beloved Son.  Listen to him.’

Jesus’ words are more than love and tolerance.  They are a disruption! They are an invasion on all of our values and all of our instincts.  ‘Take up your cross, lose your life.’  To hear his words we must have a new heart and a new life.  The secularism of this world is not only non-Christian, it militates against all that is Christian.  British thinker Os Guiness says, ‘Americans with a purely secular view of life have too much to live with, too little to life for.  Everything is permitted and nothing is important.’

Because of this secularism, we need to, as the late Russian priest Father Alexander Schmemann has said, ‘…to see once again what we have forgotten how to see; to feel what we no longer feel; to experience what we are no longer capable of expressing.’

‘This is my beloved Son.  Listen to him.’

Our goals as a parish should be: to be committed followers of Jesus who train committed followers of Jesus who make committed followers of Jesus.  But it takes a new heart and new lives to do so.  We cannot pass along what we ourselves do not have.  We cannot ask anyone to take up the cross if we have not taken up the cross ourselves.  We cannot ask anyone to have a relationship with Christ if we don’t have one ourselves.

This Jesus ought to give us a new world-view altogether.

Lent begins this Wednesday.  It is not 40 days of guilt or giving up Mr. Goodbars.  It is an opportunity.  Easter is the feast of feasts in our Christian Tradition.  But you can’t feast unless you fast.  This Lent is our opportunity to ‘listen.’  We have New Testaments on MP3s for everyone in our church and it is a chance to listen to the whole NT in 40 days, 28 minutes a day.
We can’t listen to Christ if we are not in his word.  I had a spiritual formation class as a part of my doctoral studies and we were challenged to memorize a large portion of Scripture.  I memorized Luke 6:20-36 and I would recommend that you try something like that as well.  It is amazing that memorizing Scripture allows us internalize it in a way that nothing else can.  I don’t mean a verse here and there for fighting others, I mean a chunk–10 to 15 verses at a time to make it yours.

I read your surveys and beginning next week will have a class called ‘The whys and hows of Lent’ to maximize our practice of Lent.  I also have a couple of guest speakers to come to both services to challenge us to think of Lent as also a time to consider the needs of others.  No one will be asking for money by the way.

Another way to ‘listen to Jesus’ is to consider what he is doing in our community…

One of the greatest gifts of Christian Liturgy, wonderfully written in our Prayer Book is the liturgy for baptism.  It is a crystal clear description of the Christian life, its beliefs and what is expected of us as disciples of Jesus.  We look at baptism often as a one-time deal but it is really a covenant that we enter into with God of and for all of life.

But let’s get back to Jesus’ baptism.  What was happening?  Why was Jesus baptized and why is this an Epiphany event?  Matthew fasts forward from the Holy Family’s settling in Nazareth to the ministry of John the Baptist.  In many ways, Matthew portrays Jesus as the ‘new Moses,’ who supplants and fulfils everything that Moses and the prophets wrote and spoke about.  So the key term for Matthew is the term ‘fulfill.’  When the Holy Family fled to Egypt as refugees Matthew says it is a ‘fulfilling’ of the prophet Hosea who said, ‘out of Egypt I will cal my Son.  When John questions Jesus’ desire to be baptized, Jesus says it is to ‘fulfill’ all righteousness.

This is very important.  All the hopes and dreams of Israel’s messiah are fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  ‘I have not come to abolish the Law,’ says Jesus in the sermon on the mount, ‘but to fulfill it.’  God is with us in Jesus.  He fulfills the expectations of the messiah but he even goes further, he is God in the flesh.  There is a wonderful portrayal of the Trinity in this passage.  The Father speaks his approval, the Son is baptized and the Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove.

Jesus is the second member of the Trinity and this baptismal picture is echoed at the end of Matthew, when Jesus commands his disciples to ‘make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’

There is more than a prophet, more than a man, even more than a messiah here; this is Immanuel, Christ the Lord.  This bold claim has been challenged for 2000 years.  Be sure that when Easter rolls around this year someone will come up with some kind of so-called new discovery of the ‘true’ identity of Jesus.  We had the DaVinci code, we had the gospel of Judas, we had the director of Titanic say that he found the bones of Jesus.

A Muslim scholar was disappointed a few years back when he went to debate with Christian scholars in Europe and he won so easily because they all said, ‘Oh that Trinity thing, the divinity of Christ, we don’t believe that anymore.’

What did Jesus say?  Be careful when someone claims says ‘I am he.’  It is possible to use the name of Jesus and to have the wrong Jesus altogether.  Matthew is clear–this is God with us, this is the second member of the Trinity, this is Christ the Lord.

That, my friends, is an Epiphany.  Or a ‘Theophany’ which means a ‘revealing of God.’  There are some points of theology that are debatable, but when it comes to the manifestation of God, the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, we must proclaim it loud and clear.  This is my beloved Son!  Listen to him!

But there is the age-old question which John the Baptist began, why does Jesus need to be baptized to begin with?  He should be the one doing the baptizing.  He should be the one making the rules, not submitting to someone else.

Two reasons why Jesus is baptized.  The first is a theological one important to the gospel writers.  In essence, John was the last of the Old Testament prophets.  He was ‘Elijah’ in the scheme of biblical prophecy.  So, it makes sense for the representative of the Old Testament to be giving credence to the messiah.  In essence, through John, it is a final commissioning of Jesus by the whole Old Testament tradition.

But there is another reason that relates directly to all of humanity.

Remember, John has prepared for us a powerful figure (military conqueror? ancient warrior like David? Prophet?) –yet here is Jesus who is from insignificant Galilee, wanting to baptized with everyone else.

To follow God’s upside down pattern, Jesus is not taking over the world in his first year of ministry.  He is among his people, in their weakness, in their foibles, in their insignificance.

One author says, “As Jesus goes into the waters of baptism, he identifies with his people in their need; that is, he identifies with the sinful humanity he has come to save…”

Leon Morris: ‘He was down there with the sinners, affirming his solidarity with them, making himself one with them in the process of salvation that he would in due course accomplish.’

Jesus, by being baptized was not only commissioned, he was identifying himself with the world he had come to save in all of its poverty–both material and spiritual.  His ministry was truly incarnational, among the little people of Galilee, rather than in Rome or even in Jerusalem.

There is much we can say here.  Remember when we talked about Jesus radical call to discipleship.  He said, ‘no servant is greater than his master,’ and that was spelled out in the events of John the Baptist himself, who was killed for his faith in Christ.

But if it is true in the death of Christ, that if Christ was crucified, why are we surprised if Christians around the world are martyred, then it is also true in the life of Christ.  That is, if he identified and was among the materially and spiritually poor, then so must we.
This brings us back to our vocation as the Church of the Epiphany, who is defined by the ‘Epiphanies’ in the gospel.  If Jesus’ baptism is an identification with humanity in all of its sin and brokenness, and that this is an ‘Epiphany,’ what then are we to do?  No servant is greater than his or her master.

I read recently of a new movement among younger Christians that some are calling a ‘neo-monasticism.’  It is a movement that some are undertaking to have a greater and more radical impact on poverty stricken communities.  Shane Claireborne has written a book called the Irresistible Revolution in which he describes a community that he and some of his friends started to be an intentional Christian community in inner city Philadelphia.  They all live simple lives (they call their community the Simple Way) and they help the homeless and the downtrodden in Philadelphia.  The house they purchased was a crack house and place of prostitution which they transformed into a place of peace and simplicity.  There are other places like Clairborne’s in Jersey and North Carolina and it is beginning a welcomed trend–to live incarnationally as Jesus did.  I know of a couple of churches renting apartments in the slums even here in Denver to transform neighborhoods.  This is to live as Jesus did, to identify with the impoverished by living among them.

Not everyone is called to this, but I hope that someone is.  I hope that there is someone even among us here who is willing to live like Jesus did.  Maybe it is not living among the poor, but have the poor live with us, I don’t know.

But for most of us, we live in a different kind of world.  Notice that I have intentionally used the phrase, ‘materially and spiritually impoverished.’  While the needs of the poor and the downtrodden are legion, and we need to be at the forefront in this area—the needs of the spiritually poor are even greater.  By the spiritually poor, I do not mean the ‘poor in spirit’ that Jesus refers to.  He is referring to those who are humble of heart.  The spiritually poor are the spiritually broken or impoverished.  In fact they are the ones who inhabit the world we live in.  They are the ones who have everything they want in terms of material things, yet they are the ones who are blind to their own poverty.

We can identify with them because it is where many of us are.  Who needs God when you’ve worked hard to get ahead in the world?  Who needs God when we can extend adolescence into our 40s?  Who needs God when there is so much fun to be had–even if it is of the ‘good clean’ variety?

Our task as Epiphany is to be a challenge to that mind set.  Our task is to find the way in which we are called by God to be different and to run with it.

Next week we are having a bishop from the Sudan visit us.  I think this is an indication that we are becoming more and more different as a parish community.  That this church would be the one he would want to visit is an indication that we are making a difference, that there is something about Epiphany…