Welcome! As always, mark your attendance and share your prayer concerns with our *Connection Card*. 

We bring our tithes and offerings through online giving  You can also mail offerings to the church address, or contact Business & Finance Director Nedean Geurin to set up autopay and other giving options.

Join Children Worship & Wonder, telling one of our favorites, the parable of the mustard seed.

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THIS WEEK IN WORSHIP

Welcome! As always, mark your attendance and share your prayer concerns with our *Connection Card*. 

We bring our tithes and offerings through online giving  You can also mail offerings to the church address, or contact Business & Finance Director Nedean Geurin to set up autopay and other giving options.

Enjoy this week’s Children Worship & Wonder, telling a wonderful story of Peter healing a man in Jerusalem.

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THIS WEEK IN WORSHIP

Welcome! As always, let us know you’re here by using the *Connection Card*. Share any concerns and celebrations so that we can be in prayer with you and for you. (These go directly to our Connections Pastor, and you can note ‘pastors only’ if you choose.)

We bring our tithes and offerings through online giving  You can also mail offerings to the church address, or contact Business & Finance Director Nedean Geurin to set up autopay and other giving options.

Enjoy this week’s Children Worship & Wonder, telling the story of the ascension (and getting ready for next week: Pentecost!).

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THIS WEEK IN WORSHIP

Welcome! As always, let us know you’re here by using the *Connection Card*. Share any concerns and celebrations so that we can be in prayer with you and for you. (These go directly to our Connections Pastor, and you can note ‘pastors only’ if you choose.)

Offerings are possible through online giving  or can be mailed to the church address. (You may also contact Business & Finance Director Nedean Geurin to set up autopay and other giving options.)

Enjoy this week’s Children Worship & Wonder, telling the story of Jesus appearing to the disciples by the sea.

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THIS WEEK IN WORSHIP

> Welcome :: Rev. David Emery
> Call to Worship :: Nancy Pittman
> Pastoral Prayer & Lord’s Prayer ::  Rev. Kevin Howe
> ‘Blessed Assurance’
> Sermon  (text John 21: 1 – 17)  ::  Rev. David Emery
> ‘Waiting for My Real Life to Begin’ (Colin Hay)  ::  Isaac & Sarah Grace Herbert
> Communion  ::  Rev. Courtney Richards; Ashley Gibson
> ‘Both of Us’ll Feel the Blast’ (Waterdeep)  ::  Isaac & Sarah Grace Herbert
> Welcoming New Members
> ‘Your First Day in Heaven’ (Hamlin) :: Todd Maxwell, Kelly Ford, Ron Lee, Barry Epperley, & Donald Ryan
> Benediction :: Nancy Pittman

Find our *Connection Card* to share attendance, concerns, and celebrations so that pastors, elders, and prayer teams can be in prayer with you and for you. (These are emailed directly to our Connections Pastor, and you can note ‘pastors only’ if you choose.)

Offerings are brought forward through online giving  or mailed to the church address. (You may also contact our business manager to set up autopay and other giving options.)

You can also find this week’s Children Worship & Wonder, telling the story of Jesus appearing to Thomas.

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Today, as we hear the story of Thomas, we realize his questioning actually shows us how to be faithful. This week’s photo offering borrows from our sermon theme picture: **Show us your question mark!** Draw one and take a picture. Build it out of coffee cups. Lay your children on the floor in the right shape. Line up those flower pots. Thinking about a new quarantine cut? 🙂 Have some fun!

We all have questions; let’s see your question marks! Post to Facebook and Instagram, and hashtag it: #CanWeBeHonest – #LoveStaysHome – #BEingHACC so we can find each other! (As always, you can just send your pictures to Courtney, too.)

> Call to Worship  ::  Andy & Jennie McMillan; Addie, Kendall, Embry
> Pastoral Prayer  ::  Rev. Courtney Richards
> ‘Honest’ (Evens/Seibold/Wilson/Noel)  ::  Isaac Herbert
> Sermon  (text John 20: 24-29)  ::  Rev. David Emery
> ‘Why?’ (Harris/Koch/Clark)  ::  Kelly Ford & Rick Fraley
> Communion  ::  Rev. Kevin Howe, Jodi Howe; Bob & Sue Flint
> ‘How Great is Our God’ (Tomlin)  ::  Rick Fraley
> Benediction  ::  Bill & Betsy Richert

EASTER SUNDAY

Please use this *Connection Card* to let us know you were here, sharing any prayer concerns and celebrations so that your pastors, elders, and prayer teams can be in prayer with you and for you. (These are emailed directly to our Connections Pastor, and you can note ‘pastors only’ if you choose.)

Your tithes & offerings can be made through online giving  or sent to the church address. (Mail is collected daily.)

You can also find this week’s Children Worship & Wonder, celebrating the events of Easter morning.

> Scripture (Matthew 28: 1 – 10)  ::  Rev. Kevin Howe
> Call to Worship  ::  Colt Stubblefield
> ‘Living Hope’ (Phil Wickham)  ::  Rising Worship band
> Pastoral Prayer & Lord’s Prayer  ::  Rev. Darlene & Zoey Martinez
> Sermon  ::  Rev. David Emery
> ‘Joyful Joyful, We Adore Thee’ (arr.Maddux/Ryan)  ::  Kelly Ford & Donald Ryan
> Communion – Rev. Courtney Richards
> ‘Behold the Lamb’ (Townsend)  ::  Rick Fraley
> Benediction

Maundy Thursday
reflection

Rev. Kevin Howe

Please use our Connection Card to let us know you joined in worship today, and to share prayer concerns with our pastors, staff, and prayer team.
> Gather elements to serve as your bread and cup, to be shared during today’s reflection.
> text : John 6: 22 – 35
> music : ‘Be Near to Me’ (Enter the Worship Circle) :: Rising Worship Band; Isaac Herbert, leader

‘Do this in remembrance of me.’
All are welcome.

Welcome to worship with Harvard Avenue! Please use this link to send a ‘virtual Connection Card’ email : let us know you were here, and any prayer concerns, celebrations, news and information so that your pastors, elders, and prayer teams can be in prayer with you and for you in the days and weeks ahead. (These are emailed directly to our Connections Pastor, and you can note ‘pastors only’ if you choose.)

Your tithes and offerings can be offered through online giving

, or mailed to the church address. (Mail is collected daily.)

You can also find a 15-minute video of this week’s Children Worship & Wonder, this week exploring the story of Zaccheus. 

+ Welcome & Call to Worship :: Rev. Courtney Richards
guitar : Isaac Herbert

Here we are again … together, apart. Not distanced, but in solidarity: Here we are to worship. We’re so glad to have this podcast, a few moments to breathe, sing, pray, sit, listen, be. We hope you’ll use the virtual Connection Card email. Let us know you came to worship today, and share any prayer concerns, joy and needs and news that you might have, so our pastors and staff, elders and prayer groups, can care for you in this season.

Perhaps you want to pause already before we go further. Find a candle and bring it to where you’re listening. Get your Bible so that you can read the scripture with us in a few minutes. Find the right place to sit and listen with your heart. Close all the other apps, put down all the other devices. Take that pause now, if you’d like. We’ll wait.

And now here we are to worship. Here we are to say that God is still God. Here we are, beloved of God, beloved to one another, in our homes, creating sacred spaces, finding sacred moments … together, apart. Here we are. To worship.

+ Pastoral Prayer :: Rev. Kevin Howe

Let us pray together.

Holy God, Giver and Author of Life, Maker of all Creation, we gather our minds and hearts together today in your Spirit, to seek refuge from the storms of life. In you we find strength for our living, joy and energy for new tomorrows. Lord, grant us your peace. Fortify our faith.

We name this day that there have been many times when the tragedies in our lives and on the news overwhelm us. And Lord we confess that our hope can begin to falter in your good news. We see troubles many and bitter, and yet Lord, you restore life.

You have been our refuge and strength, our rock in times of need, and we ask Lord that you continue to make your presence known among our lives and in our world, especially for all those who suffer this day. There are many who need your healing touch, God, and we ask that you would enfold them and all of us in your never-failing care.

Lord use us to be instruments of your hope and love with the world, and may we continue to adhere to the ways of Jesus Christ your son, who taught us to pray saying…

+ The Lord’s Prayer
piano : Susie Monger Daugherty

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

+ Reflection :: shifting toward delight :: Rev. Howe

In the 58th chapter of Isaiah, the prophet pleads with the people of Israel to delight in the Sabbath and to delight in the ways of the Lord. And so my wondering today is this: How does one make a shift to delight?

You know, often we tend to view delight as something we have no control over; we either find something to be delightful or we don’t. And it’s far easier to view things this way, because if enjoyment is something for which we have no control over, then we need not entertain the idea of trying something again that we did not like the first time. If we have no control over that in which we find delight, we can simply double down on our expressions of displeasure and disinterest in activities or circumstances that we did not previously find to be delightful.

I came into this season of social distancing and quarantines with a strong predetermination that these practices would be ones in which I would find no delight. And that was destined to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as I was bound and determined to find everything unpleasant about these circumstances for which none of us have control over.

Then about a week back I came across an article on the internet that invited me to see my circumstances in a different way. The article was entitled “QuaranTraining,” and it spoke of the creative ways that people from within the mountaineering and rock-climbing community were choosing to fully embrace their time at home. Here is a community of people who much prefer travel and the outdoors to the confines of home. And yet the article contains images from climbers all over the world who are finding that there are in fact many ways to train for their sport of passion in their homes and apartments. Parents beware! The images show people scaling bookshelves, hanging from the underside of their stairs, setting protective gear between cabinets—and not for the sake of security but rather for a light-hearted laugh. One man suited up in the attire he would use for scaling the highest peaks in the world, so that he could climb his six-foot ladder and cleaning dust-bunnies from the crown moulding!

Rather than stew in resentment about not being able to participate in their outdoor pursuits, the community is finding ways to lean into the discomfort of these new circumstances, and is even finding some delight in it. Where there was once the mundaneness of home, there was new adventure. Where there was once lemons, now lemonade.

A great deal of suffering in our lives is bound up in our struggle to preserve our predetermined ways of thinking, feeling, and acting in the world. Because it is rare that the circumstances of our days align with our notion of what we would have for ourselves, it can be a continual struggle not to sit our own self-imposed quarantine of resentment toward how things are unfolding. But our faith calls us to continually refresh the way we see our circumstances, particularly about how we see adversity in our living.

I think about the Apostle Paul’s words in the 12th chapter of Romans, where he says

“Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

It takes a real measure of faith to renew one’s mind – to free ourselves of our preconceived notions about how things should go, in this world in which we have very little control. But our faith offers us this beautiful invitation: To choose a new way of seeing our circumstances, to take up Christ’s invitation to lean into adversity with the confidences of God’s care and God’s presence. And when God is in the picture, there is always the audacious possibility that we will find delight.

This is my hope: That we will lean into God during this season, to find comfort and security in God’s presence, so that we may see our lives and circumstances anew, open to the radical possibility of delight.

+ ‘Precious Lord, Take My Hand’ :: Avenue; Barry Epperley, director

+ Scripture :: Isaiah 58: 1 – 14

Shout out, do not hold back!
    Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
    to the house of Jacob their sins.
2 Yet day after day they seek me
    and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
    and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
    they delight to draw near to God.
3 “Why do we fast, but you do not see?
    Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
    and oppress all your workers.
4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
    and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
    will not make your voice heard on high.
5 Is such the fast that I choose,
    a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
    and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord?

6 Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
    and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator[a] shall go before you,
    the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
    you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. 

If you remove the yoke from among you,
    the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
10 if you offer your food to the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
    and your gloom be like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you continually,
    and satisfy your needs in parched places,
    and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
    like a spring of water,
    whose waters never fail.
12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
    you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
    the restorer of streets to live in. 

13 If you refrain from trampling the sabbath,
    from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;
if you call the sabbath a delight
    and the holy day of the Lord honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
    serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;
14 then you shall take delight in the Lord,
    and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob,
    for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. 

+ Reflection : Prepare: delight :: Rev. Richards

We do not like being told what to do. We just don’t. The pioneering spirit of American lore is ingrained in us. (We ignore the parts of that history that are problematic.) We’ve spent our lives, and certainly our adult years, with incredible benefits and privileges. (Even the times that we’ve been down and out, or left behind, or gone without, we were still so far ahead of the curve …) We’ve also been told, and come to believe, that in this country, in this society, in this church, in this family, we can be and do anything we want.

And right now? In this moment in world, national, state, city, neighborhood, family life? It’s just not true. We cannot do and be everything we want to … right now. We cannot see all of the people we want to see – at least not the way we’re used to seeing them. We cannot do all of the things we want to do – at least not the way we’re used to doing them. We cannot go all of the places we want to go – and even the places we can go are fraught with restriction and limits.

We don’t like limits. We do not like being told what to do. It’s cramping our style, and changing our plans. It’s having a financial impact, and an emotional one. This has disrupted our schedule, our work, our school, our homes, our love, our grief, our health, and our spirits.

And?

It is making us sit still. And listen. Carefully.
We are getting a right-in-our-face lesson about caring for our neighbors. And learning that our definition of neighbor has always needed a little expanding.

It is making us think about our choices.
We are being forced to consider what is important, and what is not, and why we’ve always thought it was.

It is making us make things.
Phone calls to people we would usually just see. Appointments with coworkers we would ordinarily just go talk to. Meals with ingredients we didn’t even realize were in our house, let alone could go together!

This season has sparked some of the most creative communications – from drivewalk chalk, to posters in the window, to combined technologies across miles and time zones.

We’re expanding our understanding of education, what it is and how it happens and who’s involved. (And when we said over and over that we HAVE to figure out how to pay our teachers the money they deserve, we were absolutely not kidding.)

More of us are finding ways to move our bodies, even when our social movement is restricted. From breathing exercises, to living room yoga, to backyard catch, to neighborhood walks with dogs that are wondering why they’re suddenly not the ones who have to ask to go outside!

We’re picking up food from local businesses, and writing actual letters and using actual stamps. We’re cleaning out closets and dropping off donations. We’re paying attention to how we interact, and we’re being intentional with our words and with our movements. And we are remembering that everything we do can be done with someone else in mind.

And we’re finding – at least we’re trying to find – ways to reset our spirits. We’re digging out music we haven’t listened to in a while. That stack of books we’ve been staring at is actually getting read. We’ve rediscovered our love for crosswords, and jigsaw puzzles, and coloring books. And we are gathering with our church friends: listening to worship, reading prayers, doing video call bible studies, and calling and texting and emailing just to say hello.

Is not this the fast God chooses? That the oppressed would be released, that the lost would be found, that the discarded would be regathered, that the sabbath would be honored and the rhythm of life would be that which honors the best of who we are and who God intends us to be?

As you read and heard our Isaiah text today, adding verses as we have each week, and completing the chapter this time, we may at first think ‘Delight?! Where on earth can we find that right now?’

But it’s right there, in the text, and in us:

When we actively choose not to go our own way, but to honor the sabbath, to remember God’s holiness. When we feed on the heritage of our ancestors and delight in the keeping of God’s intentions for us … not for us as individuals, but recognizing that God’s desire and delight is for all of us, for everyone of us, all together.

So this week, while we are still sheltering, still safe, still healthy, still at home … where will you find your delight? Where will God’s delight be revealed to you?

Will you find a word here in Isaiah, or in the Psalms, or in a Gospel, and pray that word over your family? Will you write it on a post-it note … or sit it at your desk … or tuck it in as a bookmark … see it and repeat it and hold it close as strength and guide?

Will you remember, in the moments when anxiety kicks in, when fear comes too close, when case reports and patient counts become too real – will you remember that everything you feel is fine to feel, and normal, and part of this whole wild process. And will you remember that God is still, at the same time, right there with you?

Will you sit at an ordinary meal, and see it as communion – a sharing in the body of Christ? Whether by yourself, or with whoever else is sheltered with you, can you see that bread, that cup, that plate, those gifts, as the peace of Christ given to you, the salvation of Christ for your and for all? Can you even say those words, to yourself and to each other, calling each other by name … These are the gifts of Christ, for you

These are my prayers for us today, in this season that is not at all what we thought it would be. On this last Sunday of March, Kevin and I planned to lead worship out of this interim season the way we led into it: sitting side by side. But we are in spirit. And we are in spirit with each of you, rejoicing to welcome our new Lead Pastor, Rev David Emery, and know that you are praying with us for him as he leads us through this next moment and he joins us in worship next week.

So these are the gifts of Christ, given for you. These are the things I’m praying:

That we would delight in the Lord.
That we would take nourishment from all that has gone before us.
That we would honor God’s intent for us by living and loving with intention and compassion.

That we would trust, and not be moved.

+ ‘Those Who Trust’ :: The Rising Band; Isaac Herbert, leader

+ Benediction :: Rev. Richards
guitar: Isaac Herbert

Our words of benediction today, from Quaker singer/songwriter Carrie Newcomer. We’ll link to this full piece in the transcript; she is well worth your attention.

Now I don’t know and never will
What rises in the evening still.
How empty cups keep getting filled
How healing comes and hope rebuilds 

Today I sense that all is near
Evermore and soon to be
Within us and between us is
Is everything we need.
                                                                                                                  (Carrie Newcomer, Everything We Need)

Go in peace, beloved of God. Go and stay : stay at home, stay in health, stay with God. Amen.

+ Welcome & Call to Worship :: Rev. Courtney Richards
Our highest call as people of faith, as those who follow the ways of Jesus, is to love. For now, love looks like an empty sanctuary. It looks like love of neighbor, over love of self. It looks like concern for the greater good, over doing what we’d rather. We know that faith is active, that it is lived out, that it moves and breathes in the world. But today – for a number of days we don’t yet know – we’re moving differently, and breathing slower, and we’re doing all of this each in our own place. Yes, it is strange. And it’s something we’re still sorting out. What we know for sure is that sanctuary is more than a room. It is the soul-deep truth that we are held and loved by the God who made us. For now, love looks like an empty sanctuary. But God is here, wherever we are, and sanctuary is wherever we find it.

+ ‘Sanctuary’  ::  Rev. Kevin Howe

+ “Pandemic” (Lynn Ungar 3-11-20)  ::  Rev. Darlene Martinez

 What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath –
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing.  Pray.  Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down. 

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny that now.) 

Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch. 

Promise this world your love –
for better or worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

+ Pastoral Prayer / Lord’s Prayer :: Rev. Howe

Holy God, Word among all words,
you were there in the beginning.
You remain still the most important word
that is spoken into our lives;
one of grace and love and mercy.
We give thanks for the word of Good News
that you have imprinted on our hearts,
and we ask that you give us awareness of that Word this day,
and the strength and courage that comes from knowing You are with us.

Take our words and live your grace through them.
Transform our words and change our lives through them.
Take our voices and use them to speak out against the injustices
that are out of line with what You would have this world be.
And when our words are too deep to speak aloud,
we pray that your Spirit will speak them for us,
so that all the words of our mouths
and the meditations of our hearts
will be acceptable in your sight.
We lift these things to You, O God,
Word beyond all words.
Amen.

+ ‘Great Is Thy Faithfulness’ :: Kelly Ford and Mark DeLuca

+ from ‘For Courage’ (John O’Donohue)  ::  Rev. Martinez

Close your eyes.
Gather all the kindling
About your heart
To create one spark.
That is all you need
To nourish the flame
That will cleanse the dark
Of its weight of festered fear.

+ Reflection  ::  “change”  ::  Rev. Howe

Change: the only constant everyone agrees upon and that everyone resists. Every day—at church, at home, at work—we are expected to adapt, to modify, to alter, to change. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt there is absolutely nothing in this world that is not changing, and for the most part, we fight every minute of that change. Especially, when it comes to deeply instilled routines and patterns of being.

Even trying to putting on our socks in a different order can make us feel like we’re starting our day off on the wrong foot. There are actual physiological explanations about the neurological connections in your brain that explain why this is so discombobulating, but the bottom line is: having to learn a new way of doing things—a new way of communicating, a new working, a new way of being church, does not come without its fears and anxieties.

Fear and anxiety are natural reactions when we cannot see the future or know for sure what will happen next. But the invitation to follow Jesus is an invitation to trust God with an unknown future. And this commitment comes with a promise. The promise of the gospel is that we can choose abundant life over our fears of what will come next. It is a promise that God will walk beside us and will equip us to be faithful even when our circumstances demand that we live into new ways of being and doing.

Our current context requires that we do things a new way. It‘s unchartered territory for many communities of faith, but the promises of God remain: God takes the people who are willing to lean in to the gospel during the changes of life, and with them God does beautiful, beautiful things.

In this time, what new and beautiful things will God do through you?

“Behold: I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” – Isaiah 43:19

+ Scripture  ::  Isaiah 58: 1 – 11  ::  Rev. Richards

Shout out, do not hold back!
   Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
    to the house of Jacob their sins.
² Yet day after day they seek me
    and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
    and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
    they delight to draw near to God.
³ “Why do we fast, but you do not see?
    Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
    and oppress all your workers.
⁴ Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
    and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
    will not make your voice heard on high.
⁵ Is such the fast that I choose,
    a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
    and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord?

+ Reflection  ::  “prepare: satisfied”  ::  Rev. Richards

We’ve been reading Isaiah 58 together this Lenten season. Beginning with vs. 1 – 5 on Ash Wednesday, we’ve added verses the last two Sundays. Today, our new verses, verses 10 and 11 … satisfying the needs of the afflicted, the Lord guiding us continually, the spiritual strength and refreshment of never-failing waters.

Wow. I feel like the fact that this happens to already be our text for today … for today of all days, for all that our worship on this morning changes and means … it is a sermon in itself, just as it is.

It is impossible to shape a theological reflection, to consider a scripture and what it might say to us, and not address the events of the day. That’s part of the purpose, right?

Here is text, a sacred word from within our faith history … words spoken to and about God, words gathered to represent God’s speaking to us, words shaped and retold by people who encountered God and wanted others to know what it meant and that it mattered.

We take these sacred texts, and we consider how others have shared them … who was the original audience? What was going on that the speaker or writer was trying to address? How were these words held or shared within the community? How have other audiences absorbed these same words in the generations since?

And then we do the work of the ‘so what?’ … so what does this mean for us? All these generations removed from the original scene, entire millenia past the prophet’s first speaking, what do we do with a call to fasting, to compassion, to justice, to mercy?

We sit in our homes, on a spring Sunday morning, and listen to worship we can’t see, with people we won’t join for a while, and imagine a place and a day when our familiar room is filled again with laughter and song and familiar greetings and ritual practices.

What do we do with this sacred text, these words of the prophet?
We get out our church directory, and we pick up the phone, and we call the person we usually sit next to, and we ask how they are, and how they feel, and what they need.

We keep our eyes open for new ways to be together … for writing notes to people we haven’t seen in a while … for texting happy birthday wishes and anniversary greetings. We take advantage of the technology at our fingertips to see each other’s faces even when we can’t be in each other’s spaces.

We read that book we’ve been meaning to. We choose a scripture to calm our spirits. We search out music that brings meaning. We watch our children, and our friends, and our neighbors, create new things in the midst of this wild and unknown season.

We remember the meaning of a fast. That Ash Wednesday started us into a season called Lent, where we’ve said from the beginning that it isn’t a diet plan, it isn’t about giving something up to get credit for being good at being good. We hear the words of the prophet bringing the word from the Lord that the fast to seek is one that clears distraction, and sets aside personal privilege, and brings forth community, and empowers those who need encouragement, and cares for those who need help, and does it all in the name and for the sake of the One who is in and above and beyond all that we could ever fear, or know, or imagine.

This feels like a very dark time. And in so many ways it is. In biblical imagery, darkness is often a way to name what feels like the absence, instead of the presence, of God. And so light is its opposite; light is the image that brings God closer to us, and us closer to God.

So maybe right now, wherever you are, whoever you’re with, maybe right now you can light a candle.
Sit for a minute with that light.

Take a slow breath in, and then let that breath out.
Feel the yoke of worry release from your shoulders.
Break free of the urge to dismiss, and demean, and even just to be frustrated.
Breathe in, looking toward that light.
Unburden your spirit of the evil and distraction that wants to rest there.

Later today, maybe even in just a few minutes, when you’re washing your hands – again – for those 20 seconds … consider that blessing of water that never fails. One of our great resources in this public health moment is the simple task of hygiene – of opening a faucet, of using soap, and washing our hands. As the water runs over your skin, as it does its work on you and for the health of the community, sing a doxology, give thanks.

This is a season of uncertainty and chaos. It can also be a season of creativity and wonder. Of inspiration and miracle. Of God’s breaking in and light coming forth. That is the promise of our faith, and the foundation of our life … that God will make a way, where it seems there is no way. The words of the prophet remind us, when we focus on the work that is ours to do, when we remove the distractions that tell us we can’t do it, then the Lord will be satisfied and we will be strengthened, and the life-giving waters of grace and mercy will flow with abundance.

Our time spent physically apart from one another does not mean God is apart from us. God is closer than ever, and the Spirit is at work to bind our hearts with steadfast love, with relief for our parched and anxious souls, with streams of life, which never fail.

+ ‘My Feet Are On the Rock’ (I Am They) :: The Rising Band; Isaac Herbert, leader

+ Benediction  ::  Rev. Richards

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping;
that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.

Lord, you now have set your servant free 
to go in peace as you have promised;

For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, 
whom you have prepared for all the world to see:

A Light to enlighten the nations, 
and the glory of your people Israel.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: 
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. 

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping;
that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest with peace.
(The Song of Simeon)

Sunday March 1 2020

Use this week’s GPS (GrowPrayStudy) Guide to reflect on the sermon.

Isaiah 58: 1 – 7
Shout out, do not hold back!
    Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
    to the house of Jacob their sins.
2 Yet day after day they seek me
    and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
    and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
    they delight to draw near to God.
3 “Why do we fast, but you do not see?
    Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
    and oppress all your workers.
4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
    and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
    will not make your voice heard on high.
5 Is such the fast that I choose,
    a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
    and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord? 

6 Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
    and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Over dinner recently, a teenager I know entertained her dad’s friends by imitating him, repeating the phrases used in their house most often:
     Where does that go?
     Why is that light on?
     Are you done in that room?
     Where does that go? {That one is repeated fairly often.}

We all need course correction from time to time. In our daily habits, in our personal relationships, in our local and national organization, sometimes just in our own self-understanding.

In biblical history, in our faith history, that is where prophets come in. (And no, if you see him sometime soon, I did not just equate the father of that teenager to a prophet. Don’t let him think I did.)

Isaiah is one of the ‘major prophets’ we turn to, who had a great deal to say about where the people of Israel were, and how they were behaving, and what they should actually probably be doing instead. We are a few days into the season of Lent, when we take time to look more closely at our spiritual practices and see where we can more closely shape ourselves into what God has in mind.

‘Lay down your burden.’ ‘Take up your cross.’

In the New Testament, we take both instructions from Jesus … but they seem contradictory. How can we follow them both at once? Perhaps we can take this less as pressure and more as permission: to not do it all but to do what we can, to know that who and how we are IS what Jesus desires, and that God’s grace will do the work to make us work as we need to in the world.

The Christian recognition of Lent begins with Ash Wednesday and moves through 40 days: a season of releasing that which controls us, those things to which we cling too tightly, anything that keeps us from depth of experience and fullness of faith.

As we look toward the coming-again Christ, this Savior reborn in resurrection, how do we overcome fear and death to bring about new life? How do we prepare ourselves? What do our hearts need to be ready for a Messiah?

The prophet Isaiah has guidance to offer. We’re going to spend this month’s Sundays looking at Isaiah 58. Just this one chapter, which we started on Wednesday night, and we’ll continue to add verses each week. We want to take a slow walk through a significant text, taking a careful look at the things that make for holiness, preparing to live life that brings us closer to God.

Prophets have ‘uncommon access’ to God’s will and intent. We see them in roles similar to the work of shamans in other cultures.

Prophets aren’t predictors or fortune tellers. They know the future God will bring, but not because of a crystal ball. “Rather, the prophets know in deep and intimate ways about the character of God”, about the ways God has worked and still can work in the world, reminding the people to align themselves with that.

Sometimes they come from outside the normal scene, to speak a new word into community. New

insight or caution and correction can encourage and empower transformation that isn’t otherwise possible with someone you know. But sometimes they are part of a culture and community, and so speak into social setting as advocates for things that are in line with God’s will.

Prophets speak as the word of God and spirit of God moves them. The poetry of prophecy reveals the reimagination of life when lived in God’s attention, purpose, and intent.

The declarations of the prophets are generally about judgment and deliverance: Judgment against those who resist will surely end badly. But deliverance says that “in, through, and beyond judgment, God will work newnesses that are beyond {anything imagined}.”

The most important part of prophetic declarations is that they reorient us: They set the entire world as the arena of God’s faithful work, showing how different life can be when God, and God’s will for the world, is the deciding factor in our action and life together.[1]

The season of Lent is about spiritual disciplines and the work of preparing, of opening our spirits for deeper encounters with God’s longing for us.

In the gospels, we receive instruction from Jesus about the ways we can prepare to be as God desires us. Give, pray, and fast.
     When you give charity, he says … act like you’re not giving. Don’t show it.
     When you pray … go into your room, shut the door, and do it there. Don’t let people hear you.
     While you’re there praying … quit going on and on, just pray and get on with it. God already knows.[2]

This paradoxical, upside-down nature of the gospel keeps us guessing and sometimes it’s hard to know what we’re supposed to do and when and how. Generations before Jesus, those who taught and spoke into his own ancestral community – these prophets – like Isaiah – had something to say about the practices of fasting and giving as well.

As we’ve said, Lent has traditionally been marked by penitential prayer – study, self-reflection, the who-am­l-and-what-have-I-done kind of prayer. But the extension of that – the enhancement of it – is fasting.

Fasting, in this sense, is not the lose-10-pounds-in-3-days Hollywood juice cleanse. The idea of fasting is removing distractions. That’s where ‘giving things up’ came from. While it is theoretically our understanding all the time, we take this 40 day season to look more closely, to be sure that nothing is in between us and our goal of being closer to God. We need to abstain from things that get in the way. And things are always in the way.

But when we remove them – when we fast from what distracts us, when we create a space – God’s hope moves in. We admit that we’re not who we should be – and there is room for God there. The whole entire idea of Lent in the first place – the whole idea of reflection and discipline and penance – is that in the end we are something better, somewhere closer to God, somehow truer to ourselves, than when we started.

Here’s the catch: Sometimes it’s our fasting itself that gets in the way.

What’s the question we ask during Lent (assuming we know what Lent is and that we’re maybe supposed to do something with it)? What do we say? We talked about this a few days ago at Ash Wednesday worship.

“What are you giving up?” we ask
Do we ask – What do you want God to make of you?
     Do we ask – How can I pray for your spirit to be renewed?

Very rarely.

We say, with more than a little anguish and more than a little self -righteousness: “I can’t have cokes.” Or “We gave up bread.” Or “I’m not spending money on that.” Or “Why does Girl Scout Cookie Time have to come during Lent?!”

We often fast like it’s a badge of honor. Like it’s about us. It has been said that “Lent wasn’t created to resurrect failed New Year’s resolutions, but to put to death the very thing that makes resolutions necessary.”[3]

If whatever we think we’re supposed to be giving up is keeping us from paying attention to what God is trying so very hard do in our lives … if we’re so busy talking about the fast we choose that we aren’t actually fasting toward faithfulness, then maybe we should give up giving up.

Just a few chapters ahead of where we read from Isaiah today, the ones who were to be on watch over a lavish banquet God had prepared, had left their posts, and let it be devoured by wild animals. As today’s chapter opens, the prophet is told to warn and proclaim loudly, shouting out and lifting his voice like a trumpet.

After God’s word to the prophet about his responsibility to speak, the voice changes, and the prophet addresses the people themselves, with the twin calls to justice and righteousness the clear focus.

The people feel God has let them down, that God hasn’t seen their acts of faithfulness, or noticed how much they’ve done; they think God hasn’t cared about their fasting. The prophet doesn’t give them sympathy, but says basically ‘You’re right. God doesn’t care.’ Because there is a vast difference between what you say you’re doing to set things right with God, and the fact that right in the midst of your community, actual injustice still exists.

When fasting becomes just ritual, the results aren’t honored. The fasting that is done should lead to justice for the community, not credit for the individual. “Fasting that doesn’t alleviate these conditions, but worsens them, stands under prophetic condemnation. Fasting is meant to be a response of penitence and contrition, seeking God’s favor. Such attitudes are inconsistent with oppression and disregard for those in need.” Saying we’re seeking God, and striving for holiness, and longing for God’s presence – whether for the first time or for a long time, for 40 days or 40 years or just for 40 minutes on a Sunday morning – saying that’s what we’re doing doesn’t matter if the results do not show in our community.[4]

The prophet’s focus is on righteousness and justice. Righteousness means right relationship with God. This can only be found by investment in community, showing attention especially to the needs of the poor and oppressed. Those who are righteous live as contributors to community, to improve and carry on the community’s well-being.

This means recognizing our place in systems of oppression. It means admitting that privilege isn’t just a buzzword, but a reality. In Proverbs, the word righteous refers especially to those who live with integrity, whose very presence and actions contribute to the stability of the community.

Righteousness is taking care of the community, and is the primary marker of what God’s heavenly reign looks like.[5]

And so here at the start of Lent, only a few days out from being marked with ash and oil, having blessed the dirt and remembered our beginnings in it …

We are here to confess our sin. Sin, not in the sense of actions that are ‘bad,’ or even in the sense of inaction being harmful. Sin in the sense of separation. Sin as a state of being. We are here to confess that we are not always very good at this human being job of ours. We are here to say that we do not always get it right.

And God is here to remind us that sometimes, though, we do. And to remind us that always, God does. God gets it right, and trusts us to live toward righteousness and justice.

Frederick Buechner says

Justice does not preclude mercy. It makes mercy possible. Justice is the pitch of the roof and the structure of the walls. Mercy is the patter of the rain on the roof and the life sheltered by the walls. Justice is the grammar of things. Mercy is the poetry.[6]

So we are here for both, in this season of Lent, these weeks in which we prepare. We are here for righteousness and hope, we will fast for justice and mercy.

We are here to turn over our need to judge. We are here to sacrifice our need to be right. We are here to remember that being privileged is not the same as being entitled, and that being here first doesn’t mean we’re the most important ones here. We come to the altar of justice, fast from our superiority complex, and receive the mercy of humility and gratitude.

We are here to relinquish our spiritual pride. We are here to remember that our faith was given to us as a gift, and we attend to it imperfectly, at best. We are here to rein in our quickness to make demands of others, or dictate to them a standard we ourselves refuse to uphold. We come to the altar of justice, fast from our arrogance, and receive the mercy of forgiveness and compassion.

We are here to cast out the demon of careless words. We are here to admit that sometimes we say things because we know they’ll make a point, and sometimes we say things not giving any thought to how they sound, or what they imply. We come to the altar of justice, fast from our carelessness, and receive the mercy of wisdom and thoughtfulness.

We are here to do away with the sense that we are not worthy. Even in the midst of remembering our flaws, let’s keep in mind that light still shines through cracked windowpanes, and blades of grass come up through broken sidewalks. We come to the altar of justice, fast from our self-doubt and shame, and receive the mercy of wholeness and new life.

Buechner goes on to speak of this freedom in faith, the freedom Isaiah reminds us to proclaim:

We have freedom to the degree that the master who we obey grants it to us in return for our obedience. We do well to choose a master in terms of how much freedom we get for how much obedience.

To obey the law of the land leaves us our constitutional freedom, but not the freedom to follow our own consciences wherever they lead.

To obey the dictates of our own consciences leaves us freedom from the sense of moral guilt, but not the freedom to gratify our own strongest appetites.

To obey our strongest appetites for drink, sex, power, revenge, or whatever leaves us the freedom of an animal to take what we want when we want it, but not the freedom of a human being to be human.

The old prayer speaks of God ‘in whose service is perfect freedom’. The paradox is not as opaque as it sounds. It means that to obey Love itself, which above all else wishes us well, leaves us the freedom to be the best and gladdest that we have it in us to become[7]

We will spend forty days seeking forgiveness and justice, and we will leave having received mercy and freedom at Easter. We are marked, on Ash Wednesday and always, not so that others will ask and give us credit, but so that during Lent and well beyond we see, and we ask, and we know that God is our God, and we are God’s people.

Is such the fast that I choose,
    a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
    and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord? 

Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the thongs of the yoke,
    to let the oppressed go free…

[1] on prophets, Walter Brueggemann, Reverberations of Faith: A Theological Handbook of Old Testament Themes (WJK 2002), p158-161
[2] Matthew 6, my very loose paraphrase
[3] This was quoted by someone I read but do not know. It was cited only as ‘C. Holtz,’ so I cannot fully reference the source, but so appreciate the reflection.
[4] Christopher R. Seitz, ‘Isaiah’, New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary (Abingdon 1996), pp498-503.
[5] on righteousness, Brueggemann, pp177-178.
[6] Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words (HarperCollins 2004), p209.
[7] Buechner, p119-120.

1 John 4:7-12
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. ¹⁰In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

¹⁹We love because he first loved us. ²⁰Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. ²¹The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.  

At the center of the Christian faith, there is a story. It is the story of God’s unending love for the world. It is the story of the sovereign God of the universe choosing to come close enough to touch, and hold, and embrace, and deny, and betray, and crucify. We Christians tell the story of a God who is not distant and unapproachable, but who is available to each of us so that we may know that we are loved. But this divine love story is not just one that is to be told. It is one in which we are called to live. You and I are a part of the story of God’s love for the world.

During this sermon series, we’ve looked at four Greek words that are often translated into the English word, “love.” And we’ve aimed at faithful reflection on each—teasing out the differences so that we might better understand the complexities of loving relationships and make good on our call to love God and love neighbor. And so we’ve considered storge, or familial love—the kind of love that takes place through healthy family relationships. We’ve reflected on phileo, brotherly love, as it has been referred to, or that tie that binds us to those in whom we find deep and abiding friendship. We have spoken of eros, the love expressed through intimate, physical relationships. And today we conclude our series by considering the word agape.

Agape is a word mentioned often in the New Testament and refers to the love that God exercises towards the world through Christ. Agape is unconditional love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance as noted in the ways that Christ has suffered for love of the world and of us. Agape is not an abstract proposition. God’s love is not simply a theory. This love is about doing. We see that in Jesus. His love was not abstract, but rather concrete, active, lived love. And it is love that is bound to transform those who take it seriously.

During the brief time that I lived and worked in Atlanta, I attended a congregation there and was engaged in a Sunday School class with other young professionals. We met each week before worship service for prayer and bible study, and we were quite content with the rhythm and nature of our brief time together each Sunday. That is, until one day a visitor showed up to class. He was another twenty-something like the rest of us who had apparently been visiting many different churches around the area. And when we asked him if he’d be willing to share a little about his search for a community of faith he said to us, “Well, it’s been pretty interesting. I’ve gone to some churches and I heard a lot about Jesus but very little about the world. I’ve gone to other churches and I heard a lot about the world but not much about Jesus.” Then he continued, “Last Sunday in this congregation, I heard a lot about Jesus and a lot about the world. But here’s my question: if I hang out at this church, will I meet people who are like Jesus?”

Well, of course, we were all taken by surprise at this serious, yet simple question. And I looked into his eyes for any signs that he was just being cynical or accusing. But I have to tell you, what I saw were honest eyes asking a clear and earnest question: Does following Jesus show?

That question has stuck with me through these years. Is our love of God, our commitment to Jesus Christ, visible in the way we live? Many in our time are justifiably skeptical. They have heard messages of exclusion and judgment thinly covered in Christian language. They’ve seen acts of hatred done in the name of Christ and watched churches preach love while practicing condemnation. Does following Jesus show in the way that we live our lives?

According to our passage this morning from 1 John, there is a straightforward and unambiguous way to determine this. The test is this: Do we love one another? It is as simple—and as difficult—as that. Do we love one another?

Back in the day, before memes became the popular means for communicating all of life’s clichés, there were bumper stickers. I still see a few vehicles out on the roadways that have their back end wallpapered with these stickers, offering those of us behind them the opportunity—or misfortunate—of reading whatever the driver thought was worthy of risking the resale value of their car. There have been a few that have stuck with me over the years, one in particular that left me with a bit of sticker shock. It said, “I love my wife, I love my dog; but everyone else can go to …” – well, you can guess the destination. And there I was at the stop light thinking to myself, “My wife, my dog”… that’s a pretty short list to have to keep track of.

You know, for reasons I can’t begin to explain, there are so many folks who believe that it is perfectly okay for us to pick and choose—among various lists and categories—those whom we will love and those whom we will not. But agape does not take into account these categories that we construct. If we are to follow the example of Jesus, we are not called to just love those that are easiest to love, or those most capable of responding in kind. Our faith proclaims an all-encompassing love accompanied by sacrificial acts.

For years now, one of the ways that this congregation has taken action toward loving all people has been through our collaboration with Week of Compassion. To get everyone up-to-speed, WEEK OF COMPASSION is the relief, refugee and development mission fund of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Our support of Week of Compassion has enabled us to show compassion through disaster response, humanitarian aid, sustainable development and the promotion of mission opportunities.

The impact that we have through Week of Compassion is great and widespread—both here and abroad, but I thought you’d be interesting in learning that Week of Compassion helps to fund a program called Global Mission Internships, which allows young folks between the ages of 21 and 30 the opportunity to serve alongside one of our many international mission partners.

To place young adults in the missionary context allows them to explore ways that we can extend the love of God to others across the globe. It is a powerful program. We currently have a couple from within our congregation that is serving through this program. Dusty and Kelsey Riebel just began serving alongside on of our denomination’s partners based out of Quito, Ecuador, and I very much look forward to hearing from them about how the Spirit is at work in that place.(1)

From 2007-2009, I also served as Global Mission Intern, thanks to the support of Week of Compassion. I was able to follow a calling to ministry alongside our sisters and brothers in Honduras; an experience that has deeply shaped my faith. And it was during my time there that my eyes were opened to the nature of agape love in a way it had not yet been revealed in my life.

I was on my way to meet with local leaders of a small, far flung village that was located in the heart of the Mosquito Coast, a massive expanse of rainforest most famously highlighted in a strange Harrison Ford movie of the same name that came out after the original Star Wars movies. There, in the jungles of La Mosquitia, there are no roads, the river is the highway—and long dugout canoes, called pipantes, are the means of transportation to your destination. These pipantes are impressive vehicles but, being wood, are also vulnerable to the occasion encounter with rapids that come at the rainy season, like the ones that flipped the vessel that I was traveling in…dumping us passengers and our contents into the quickly moving waters. I was soaked, but worse yet-already two days travel into the jungle, I was without my pack–no snacks, no clothing, no money…just little ol’ wet me.

I arrived at Krausirpe that afternoon and, in this strange twist of events, my first impression to these folks was no longer that of long-expected guest coming to offer support and guidance—I was first and foremost a stranger in need of help. I was the one who needed tangible expression of God’s love, and the community did just that for me, caring for me with food and supplies until my departure.

What I learned from that trip to the jungle, and the humble village of Krausirpe, is that it’s easy to forget that we are also the neighbor that stands in need of God’s love from others, and it is beautiful to see the face of Christ in those around us.

It is something that I hope that we are able to do for those around us, because we are called to pay God’s love forward to those around us. It’s the notable turn that agape takes in the scriptures. Notice that the passage this morning does not say “since God has loved us this much, we also ought to love God.” (That would be the logical conclusion to the sentence.) But what does it say? “Since God has loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:11)  This is the important turn of agape love—the love of God is not reciprocal. But then again, how could it be? We humans could never love God as God loves us. Of this the author of 1 John proclaims that God’s love is made complete when we, in turn, pour out love to those around us. It is then that God is made known in us—and divine love’s intention complete—when we pay it forward in concrete acts of compassion, justice, and kindness towards others.

Author, journalist, and radio host, Krista Tippett wrote that “When all is said and done, none of us will be judged on how much we accomplish but on how well we love.” (2) And so it is for church; we will be measured by love—how much of God’s love pours back into the world. And I’m convinced that there has never been a more important time to live out of that call.

We’ve spoken often of the divisive rhetoric and hateful actions that threaten to tear us apart. In such a time as this, an abstract love is simply not enough; we are called to more than that. And to attempt to love the world as Christ has loved us is a difficult, soul-searching, life-changing demand. Loving like Jesus requires each of us to question our intentions, and actions, and priorities, and commitments—to ask ourselves, “I wonder if God sees it that way? I wonder if I’m investing my whole heart and soul and mind in ways that God would intend?”

Attempting to model agape—unconditional, sacrificial love—is perhaps the single greatest challenge we are issued as disciples of Christ. But, friends, here is what I know: you can quote scripture until you are blue in the face, shout out pious proclamations of pure love for Jesus, you can boast and brag about how much faith you have, or how devoted you are to the idea of God’s grace and love, but simple fact remains that the only real evidence of our love of God we have to offer is the life we live. Can we love one another as Christ has loved us?

At the center of the Christian faith, there is a story—a story of which we are a part. It is the story of agape—of God’s unconditional love for the world that we are called to share as best we know how with every bit of creation. Church, may we be defined by nothing less than love.

(1) Keep up with the Riebels on their Facebook page, and at their blog.

⁽²⁾ Krista Tippett, Speaking of Faith: Why Religion Matters – and How to Talk About It. (Penguin Books, 2008) p111

Romans 12:3-10
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. 9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; ¹⁰love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour.

[singing]

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.¹

For many years that song was the way that this congregation responded when someone would come forward and stand here where I am this morning to join this community in membership. The song’s words “Blest be the tie that binds” are an affirmation of just how powerful our connection to one another can be when we take seriously Jesus’ call to love one another just as he loves us.

If you’re at all curious, the song was written by a pastor named John Fawcett, who served a poor congregation in Wainsgate, England in the middle of the 18^th century. John had come to form deep and meaningful bonds with the motley crew from this town that one writer described as being as “poor as Job’s turkey.”² So, understandably, John Fawcett was hard-pressed to provide for his family while serving that community.

Well, one day, a large church in London came asking for John to serve their congregation. It was a move that offered his family a chance at financial stability. So John agreed and was set to go. But on the day of their departure, seeing the deep sadness of those impoverished folk that he had come to love; the despondence of those who he had come to call friends, John is said to have turned to the crowd and pronounced from atop the wagon, “We’ve changed our minds! We are going to stay!” And he did. Serving alongside those people for 54 years. Sacrificing the shot at financial stability, for love of the poor folks of Wainsgate. Even establishing an education center for the community’s children out of his home.² “Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love!” he wrote.

To me, it is always awe-inspiring to consider what some people will do for the sake of those they call dear friends. I hope you can think of moments in your own life, when a friend has shown just how unconditional their love for you can be.

The Apostle Paul, whose writings make up a sizable portion of the New Testament, spent his years considering the impact that these sorts of loving relationships could have on Christian believers. Today, nearly two thousand years later, it’s easy for us to make the mistake of reading his letters as though they were dissertations designed to shape Christian theology for all time. But really, the letters of Paul were written to Christian communities who struggled with how to live together. Take a look, and you will see that behind all those theological treatises is a care and concern for building Christ-like relationships. Paul wanted to help people see how they could come to work out meaningful and loving relationships in Christ…which are the building blocks of the community we call “church.”

In the passage from Romans that we just heard read, Paul paints a picture of church at its best. And in verse 10 of his appeal, Paul says “love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor” and in the koine Greek with which his text was originally written, that statement uses variations of the Greek word phileo.

Now, I am to understand that you are all experts on phileo because you saw the Super Bowl commercial, right? Which highlighted the four primary words used in ancient Greek that get translated to our English word “love.” And in this sermon series, we are taking time to look at these four words, not because of the commercial, but because doing so gives us some means of teasing out and making distinctions about different types of love; especially, since love is such a primary focus of our faith.

Phileo is the Greek word that describes a sort of love that has an emotional connection that goes beyond acquaintances or casual friendships. It suggests relationships that our bound tightly together in enjoyment, appreciation, and deep care—hence the translation in this text as loving each other with mutual affection. In other translations, it says “Be good friends who love deeply” (MSG); “Love each other like the members of your family.” (CEB); “Have kindly affection one for another with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another;” (KJV).

We seem to understand that there is a sort of deepening of love between friends when we use a phrase like, “I love you like a brother/sister/sibling.” That is phileo, and it is an important type of love to the Christian community because it is a deep part of what it takes to embody the way of Jesus in the world. In fact, it’s the only way; We cannot learn to love, or forgive, or show compassion, like Jesus taught, unless we commit ourselves to the messiness of human relationships. And so my word of encouragement to you this day is to expand the circle of those you call friends and work towards deepening those relationships.

But there is something else that must be said here, because we usually lean towards forming friendships with those who are most like us (or at least appear most like us, outwardly). We are encouraged by what is modeled to us in our culture and through the metrics of social media to cluster in comfortable enclaves of sameness, and to avoid the discomfort of difference. This lie has been handed to the church to some extent as well, sell visions of church as a tribe of like-minded individuals defined by a static set of convictions and a uniformity of perspective. This concerns me. The perception that the church is a club for likeminded people who already have it all figured out creates a barrier to meaningful community and radical hospitality.

And after all, we tell ourselves that birds of a feather flock together. But birds flocking with cats, impossible, right!? It seems for Yasha the parakeet and Fozi the housecat.⁴ It seems a meaningful friendship for them.

Or how about Anjana the chimp with her tiger cubs Mitra and Shiva?⁵

Or the friendship I am most delighted in, that Bubbles the African elephant and Bella the black lab have formed?⁶

Yes, turns out, they have more to bond over than you thought they might at snap judgement, like a mutual love for water and general aquatic antics.

But I digress. This is perhaps an entirely too cute way of trying to get at something far more serious: don’t buy the lie that is handed to you by our culture which says you only stand a chance with those that think and feel and act and vote like you. Many are finding it easier to end relationships than to listen to a different point of view. What was once disagreement has become outright disdain. And it’s so easy for churches to become conformed to this view of the world; a world of us versus them, polarized extremes, fractured relationships, shouting matches, hatred spewed on social media. God forbid we ever become so puffed up with pride in the church that we forget to listen to brothers and sisters who do not agree with us.

Rachel Held Evans, was a theologian and writer who tragically died last year at the age of thirty-seven. She was full of love for the church and, out of that love, she challenged the church to deeper engagement. In one of her blog posts she wrote, “Let’s learn to argue better. I have no problem with Christians arguing with one another. Really. We’re brothers and sisters, for goodness sake! Of course we’re going to argue…But surely we can allow differences to exist without questioning one another’s commitment to the faith and without rooting for one another’s demise.”³

I hear the Apostle Paul’s words echoing in my head, “Do not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgement…For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we—who are many—are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us…”⁴ I get that this is not an easy time to belong to people who don’t already share all your opinions or take part in the same social enclaves. To be conformed is easy. It is comfortable. It is tempting. It is not faithful.

Living out phileo also means that we will belong to others—other perspectives, other backgrounds, other ideologies, and, yes, even other political parties. To form loving relationship with those that are different than us is to assemble the Body that Paul speaks of. And seeking to build abiding friendships like this is to the greater lie of an age that pushes isolation, division, fear, and anger.

The Apostle Paul seems to believe that the faithfulness of our living is determined by the quality of the relationships that we form. So what if we did what Paul says? What if we loved with mutual affection?  What if the church was a place where we were so friended up in deep and abiding ways that we could tell our stories and be ourselves without fear of rejection or judgment? What if we were to invest in relationship in such a way that we were able to really rejoice with those who are rejoicing and truly weep with those who are weeping?  Oh, how desperately the world needs those who want to build loving friendships!

Listen; belonging to this congregation is no spectator sport. It is in our core values here at Harvard Avenue Christian Church—when we say “Beloved,” we mean to say that we are ready to do the work of building relationships grounded in love—that in deep friendship, we find profound fulfillment, greater joy, stronger character.

And this is what gives me hope about the future of the church. Because the community called the church—with all its flaws, imperfections, limitations, and faults—can be a holy place of building deep and abiding relationships of mutual affection. It can be community that outdoes itself in honoring one another as the beautiful children of God that all people are.

I believe that this community here at Harvard Avenue has learned something about the goodness of phileo. And we’re still learning. We’re continuing to learn that we need one another. We are learning that the impulse to divide is a snare that leaves us all short of God’s vision. We are learning that genuine community does not require conformity. We are learning that the God whose grace and mercy brings us together is far more powerful than all that seeks to separate us. In other words, we are leaning that we belong to each other. For as siblings in Christ, we are bound together.

[singing]

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.

Oh Lord, may it be so in this place.

¹John Fawcett. “Blest Be the Tie that Binds” 1782.
 ² Dr. Michael Hawn. History of Hymns: “Blest Be the Tie That Binds” June 13, 2013. https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-blest-be-the-tie-that-binds
³ Ibid.
⁴ https://www.thedodo.com/cat-bird-best-friends-2295178086.html
⁵ https://scoopempire.com/unlikely-animal-friendships-that-will-make-you-melt/
⁶ https://www.boredpanda.com/elephant-dog-friendship-bubbles-and-bella/
⁷ Rachel Held Evans. “Liberal Christianity, Conservative Christianity, and the Caught-In-Between.” JJuly 16, 2012. https://rachelheldevans.com/blog/liberal-conservative-christianity
⁸ Romans 12:3-5

Ephesians 3: 14 – 21
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. 16 I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

20 Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Somewhere in my early high school years, we realized I needed glasses. Conveniently, one of our church members, who also happened to be one of my best babysitting customers, was an eye doctor. So off to Dr Blair we go. Several rounds of ‘Is this better? Or is this better?’… ‘A? or B?’ later, and I’m on my way out the door with glasses.

Shortly thereafter, I graduated to contacts. I was also graduating high school, and I think those things were related.

I’ve been putting contacts into and taking contacts out of my eyeballs for … a lot of years. Every day. And for the longest time, when I needed a new prescription – because once all of that college reading and seminary paperwriting kicked in, and all of the reading and screentime that the last 25 years of ministry has involved, I needed a new prescription – I would still make the trip to see Dr Blair. Yes, at home in El Paso. Visit the Mom, see the eye doctor. Because when you find someone you trust to do things to your eyeballs, you stick with them. And because of the Favorite Babysitter status I’d earned with his daughter (who was by then, of course, an adult), I still got a “student” discount well past my student days. God bless him.

Dr Blair retired last year. I mean, of all the nerve.

Also last year, I finally got so annoyed with the contacts I was wearing, and the glasses that were at least three prescriptions old, that I made a quick stop here in town … and I now wear multifocal contact lenses. This is both incredibly weird, and really great. I get, theoretically, how bifocals work on actual glasses lenses. You’re looking through a lens that’s sectioned off and it corrects for what you need corrected. But when that lens is a liiiittle piece of plastic that goes onto the surface of your eye? I mean, how does it know what you need?! But it does.

At the same time, I’ve started giving my eyes a rest on the weekends. (I know, I should probably give other things a rest as well.) And here’s what I’ve learned: I can become unreasonably annoyed by even the smallest smudge on my glasses. You have to find something to clean the glasses with. And while sleeves and shirttails are convenient, they’re not always the best. Fabrics have different finishes and sometimes they leave more smudges than they clear. And carrying an actual for-real glasses cleaning kit is way too much responsibility for those of us who are only-occasional glasses wearers.

But here’s what happens. My friends who are legit glasses-wearers always have those cleaning kit things handy. And they share. And people will always offer friendly advice. Like the best cloth they’ve found to clean glasses. Have you tried this thing in particular? Or here, use mine. I even know one couple, who both wear glasses, and we were sitting around one night, and she was saying something and just took off her glasses, holding them off the side, and he just took them from her, took a cloth from his pocket, cleaned them, and handed them back. Never broke stride.

There’s the vision we have.
And the things we correct for.
And the people who make sure we have what we need.

Be loved.
Believe.
Become.

There’s where we start – we’re loved.
There’s where we go – to sort out what we believe.
And there’s the vision that the first two make possible. It’s who we become.

There is a physicality to vision, to what we see and what we don’t.
The same with the vision that God has of us, and for us.
There is a place and a time that God sees for our lives … here, and now, and always. It is easy in the life of faith to focus on the things to come … as if what we do or say earns us some future seat at a special event. But the gospel message of Jesus Christ is that heaven comes to earth … the kingdom of God is here, at hand.

There is a physicality to vision. Not just the thing we’re seeing, but the literal way we are seeing it, and where we are when it happens.

In this 3^rd chapter of the letter to the church at Ephesus, we are basically overhearing a prayer. “For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father…” (Eph3:14)

But it isn’t a prayer of ‘help them get themselves sorted out so they all get to heaven’. It’s a reminder that God is already at work in us, not waiting on us to arrive for some reward, but here and now, where we are – as we are – God is doing God’s glorious thing. The word glory is even used! (Who got ‘glory’ as their star word this year? Anyone?)

This is a prayer we’re hearing, probably a letter that the early believers, figuring out how to be church, gathered in their secret places, would have read over and over and been able to nearly recite together by heart. They knew what it meant to bend their knees, to give themselves over to a spirit so powerful they had to just let go.

It may seem weird (if you think about it, that is) that a prayer that sounds like a benediction and blessing would be shared in the middle of a letter, with so much instruction and reminder still to come. It might have been the random writing choice of Paul – or one of his students writing as Paul (there’s some debate about that).

But I think it’s actually more strategic than that. In this season where we are challenged to be and do certain things in certain ways; when the world is trying to tell us what we’re worth and what we aren’t; when people we don’t even know decide they are the arbiters of our value as human beings … before we get to any kind of instruction about our behavior, our choices, our decisions, our practices … this letter to the Ephesians points out that FIRST we are to remember that we. are. God’s. beloved. Everything else goes from there.

Sally Brown wrote to preachers some years ago about this text:

The indwelling presence of God is sheer and utter gift, not a reward for merit. God chooses to live among us, God’s glory fills us. This is sheer grace, unimaginable possibility, life-giving hope.[1]

This prayer, that we would not just recognize but truly know the richness of God’s presence, beyond our understanding – as it is said, “surpassing knowledge” – is not just about something beyond our capacity to understand. It IS that tremendous. It is indeed. But it is also something, that we simply can’t contain. The spirit of God just IS.

Which perhaps is a helpful thing for us to keep in mind as we await and receive and respond to information today in our own congregational meeting! Well beyond any information we can gather, God’s spirit is at work. Has been, and is, and will be.

We can only sort of make out the image. We have to adjust the lenses, look through the right glasses, be in the right place to get the things inside our brain to register what is happening around us. Let alone to sort out what sort of vision we’re offering to others.

Our three BE core values have guided us for nearly a decade, and are still at the heart of who we’ll be for the decade to come. It sounds good to say them: be loved, believe, become. They’re simple and roll together easily. When you’re here you’ll be loved, as you are, for who you are, with all we are, as Christ commands.

Together, in the strength of community, we’ll explore what and how we believe, and why.

And as the world clamors to make us self-centered and self-interested, we will work to be just the opposite … to become who God has called us to be: engaged, compassionate, looking beyond ourselves, and looking with care on the world God so loves.

This is 3-Be vision.

This is what we’re asking you to be part of, with that additional insert in your bulletin today. How will you connect in this new year? What opportunity opens your eyes and excites your spirit? Add these to the offering plate or return them to the office and we’ll move right away to engage that vision together.

God has done and will do far more than we can ask or imagine. And when we get small glimpses of that, our imagination tingles just a bit, because we are here together:

We want to grow the choir, they said. And so we committed to excellent worship and meaningful music and now we need to figure out how to get more chairs up here.

My mother has died and my heart is broken, and so a family gathers, and friends gather with them, bringing food, and desserts, and standing to welcome, and for as long as you need.

We have 400 or more pieces of paper to hand out every week, and each of those bulletins also has an insert. And so every single week, friends sit in the office and get that folding machine going and the bulletin you have today is in your hands because of them.

Every time you gather, do this in remembrance of me. So Christ instructed his first disciples, and so disciples have done for generations since. And every week, deacons arrive before worship begins to be sure that communion is prepared, and offering can be received, and everyone who comes will find their way and their place.

Certain pants and shirts and accessories are required uniform at most public schools today. But for many, those pieces are too costly and families were straining to provide basics for their children. No scholar should go without, our Disciples Women said, and so a closet was cleared and clothing was purchased and our neighborhood students have what they need when they need it.

We are happy to help get the space ready for the holiday season, we’ll take our Sunday morning hour together to do it. And while that Sunday small group carried garlands up and down stairs, draped railings and mantel in greenery, some of them also noticed that a few folks were on their own, not connected to a group. And so they said Do you want to help? And they did, and so they did. And the laughter was great and the décor was beautiful.

Will you pray for me? For my nephew? For our friends? We are so honored when you ask. And if someone is going to ask, then they should know that someone actually prays. Your pastors, the church staff, our elders, and two prayer groups take the time to read, and listen, and bow heads and speak names. Prayer matters, and transforms, and we want you to know that.

We are preparing for a new year, and for a new pastoral leader, and we don’t know what all that will mean. And rather than step back and wait … the church stepped forward … with confidence and hope and made 2020 our strongest stewardship response ever, with total pledges that surpass last year’s budget, and continued, even in a transition year, to steadily welcome new visitors and new members, fully half of whom came into membership after the announcement and during the interim season.

“If there is a divine being who made everything, including us,” Rob Bell said, “what would our experiences with this being look like? The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God. We are dealing with somebody we made up. And if we made [God] up, then we are in control. And so in passage after passage [of scripture], we find God reminding people that [God] is beyond and bigger and more.”[2]

While God is doing more than we can imagine, Ephesians also says that God is doing it through us. And if God is working through us, then we can do more than we can imagine.

God is more than our grief …                           God is our shield.
Christ is more than our teacher …                    Jesus is our shepherd and guide.
God is more than our worry …                                     God is our calm.
Jesus is more than our uncertainty …              Christ is our salvation and our rock.
The Spirit is more than a notion that wanders around and sounds like something good that we might like if we could find it. The Holy is right here. The Divine calls us to join in. To clear our vision, to drop our walls, to dance with joy.

God can do, has done, will do more than we can ask or imagine.

“I have been told that I need to believe in Jesus,” Rob Bell went on to say. “Which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that Jesus believes in me.”

I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

20 Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

[1] Sally A. Brown, Preach This Week 7-29-12 http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1333 (the ‘not waiting on a reward’ part is hers too)
[2] Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (HarperCollins, 2012)

Joshua 23:14
‘And now I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one thing has failed of all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you; all have come to pass for you, not one of them has failed.

There he is perched, a hopeless and dejected young prince, gazing over the surface of a small pond. A look of disillusionment flashes across his face as he looks into the calm water only to be greeted by his own likeness mirrored back. “That’s not my father. That’s just my reflection,” he says turning to the one who had promised him an encounter with the dead King. And then, with wisdom that can only be found with the most learned of primates, Rafiki, the mandrill, immediately interjects, “No. Look harder.”

And sure enough, prince Simba’s reflection gives way a rendering of his father. And what follows is a scene that is engraved in the memory of every young, impressionable mind in 1994. Behold, the lion king, Mufasa, appearing in the thunderclouds to his successor. “Simba,” his voice thunders, “you have forgotten who you are and so have forgotten me…Remember, you are my son, the one true king. Remember who you are. Remember…”

You know, it’s a shame how disappointingly prone we are to forget even the simplest of things, from time to time—not the least of which is who we are. If you are like me you find that in the hustle and bustle of our distracted lives, forgetfulness plagues us far more than we would care to admit.

( … it’s still edible! )

Now, the good news is that many slips of the mind carry with them only minor consequences. Like, for example, forgetting the chocolate in your car…

But then there are those times when our forgetfulness is a bit more embarrassing. Like showing up to the marching band competition only to realize that you left your instrument at home. Not to worry; just play it cool.

And then, there are those times when our absent-mindedness is a bit more costly, like that time you forgot to put the drain plugs in the new boat? Hmmm.

But friends, rest assured, you know nothing of the consequences of forgetfulness, until you have borrowed your wife’s cell phone and she says “The password’s my birthday!” …*sigh*. I am still digging my way out of that one.

Yes, we are disappointingly prone to forgetfulness. It’s one of the primary reasons that you and I are here this morning: so that we can remember of some things which we are inclined to forget; namely, who we are and whose we are.

The single verse of scripture that was read this morning, contains the words of Joshua. He was a central figure for the people of ancient Israel, becoming their leader after the death of Moses. And we pick up on Joshua’s story near the end of his life. He knows he is about to die and that there is going to be a season of transition for his people. And he knew that seasons of transition are always good season’s to refresh the memory about who and who’s we are. So Joshua gathers the Israelites together and starts in to his farewell address. He says “Look, I’m about to go the way of all the earth, so I need you to remember something. I need you to remember, in your heart of hearts, that not one of all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you has failed; all of them have come to pass. Not a single one of God’s promises has failed you.”

Joshua then goes on to set the record straight by looking over his shoulder into their collective past.¹ “Once upon a time,” he says “God called to your ancestor Abraham and promised him that if he would go from where he was living to a place where the Lord would lead him, that he would become the father of a whole nation. Of course, Abraham and his wife Sarah had no kids and they were old (I mean really old!). But sure enough, God kept the promise, and they had a child, Isaac. And Isaac had children of his own: Jacob and Esau. And from there…just look how many of us there are!

“Or how about the time our people were enslaved in Egypt and God promised to liberate them? God called upon the unlikeliest of duos to help with the escape: a fugitive named Moses and his brother Aaron. But God kept the promise. And Egypt got hit hard with plagues and Moses got the people out of Dodge.

And remember just how intense the chase scene was? The Egyptian were in hot pursuit with chariots and cavalry, had our people pinned at the edge of the Red Sea! And your ancestors cried out to God…and God heard their cries. And the Lord made a way—right through the middle of the sea…and left the Egyptians waterlogged behind ‘em.”

Well, Joshua was preachin’ now. And he was going to drive the point home so he continued: “And how about that time we roamed around for 40 years in the wilderness. We were at our wits end, worn out and discombobulated, only to be bought into a land where people wanted to pick fights and curse us. But God promised us a land of milk and honey. And see here, that God has handed you a land for which you did not work, towns you did not build. And now you’re living the good life. Please, don’t you forget how faithful God has been to you. Not one of his promises has failed you.”

It was the Jewish philosopher and theologian, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who said that much of what the Bible demands can be summed up in one imperative: remember.²

Remembering who we are and whose we are as a people of faith, is about employing a certain kind of vision. A vision that involves looking our shoulders to see God’s proverbial footprints in the sand of our lives. When comes to our faith, remembering is more like an art form, than it is the rote memory of facts and figures. It’s about telling stories of the past—from our personal lives and our shared life together—that help establish a precedence or expectation in which to ground our living. When we recount the stories of God’s people in scripture and add to that our own glimpses of God’s good works, we are offered the chance to jog our memory about God’s track record of faithfulness to those who put their trust in God.

To remember that we are God’s and that God remains faithful to us, is truly a scandalous act of resistance in a world that tries to peddle us the lie that we are unloved and unclaimed. When we reach back to see that we are, in fact, all children of God, precious and cared for by our Creator, that allows us to operate out of love and justice for our neighbors and ourselves, in a world that so often functions out of doom and gloom. Recalling the stories of God’s accompaniment with God’s people, allows us to move into an uncertain future with the assurance of a long-established precedent; that God that has promised to love of this world and bring abundant life to it, and that not one of God’s promises has failed.

But if we don’t take time to stop and remember, it seems that our daily worries begin to erode our memory. Worry, it seems, has a way of making us forgetful. I don’t know about you, but I have found quite a bit to be worried about these days. I worry about the future of this country we live in. The future of the world. I worry about the future of this congregation. I even worry about whether our mostly unused milk jug is reaching its expiration date.

And in the thick of all this worry, I start looking for places to run and hide. Ironically, instead of using the past to remember the things that will give me the strength to move me forward through the storms of my living, I begin to use the past as a place to hide. I start running towards a half-truth of the past that I have created shaped in my mind and have come to know as “the good ol’ days.” A fairytale escape located somewhere in years gone by where everything was much better, easier, and far simpler.

I have to tell you, I started in using this small paper calendar as my go-to planner for this year, simply because it was lying around and seem the ideal practical size. Well, only about a week ago did I pay any attention the theme of the calendar. It’s titled “Simpler Times,” and has these pictures of beautiful paintings from artist Terry Redlin that invoke nostalgia for a bygone era. Images of summer fields with children in their knickerbockers, frolicking about; wintry wonderlands that strangely warm my soul.

On a particularly stressful day last week, I grabbed the calendar and was drawn in to the serenity of the cover picture: a winter scene, complete with a gorgeous log home—windows lit with warmth. A couple setting off in a horse-drawn sleigh, and children playing around a disgustingly perfect snowman. And I said, “Yes, take me there and double time.” The good ‘ol days. A simpler time.

And no sooner than I had mentally inserted myself behind the reigns of the sleigh, my mind followed the plot a bit further. “So, after this sleigh ride…do I have to get the horse back in the barn? And what am I gonna’ do to pay off the mortgage on that fancy cabin? I’m guessing the kids aren’t quite at night…so much for simpler times.

A desire to run and hide in the past is a temptation of every generation. When the Israelites where in the wilderness wandering about aimlessly, they started yearning for simpler times. They said to one another “This is brutal. We’re going to perish out here. Honestly, Egypt seemed simpler than this.” But the Lord wasn’t interested in sending them back to a terrible past they had conveniently reframed as the good ‘ol days. In their worry about the challenges of the present moment and fear about their future, the collective memory of Israel about the trustworthiness of God had become a bit fuzzy.

Our own worries, fears, and anxieties also carry with them a profound question of God’s trustworthiness. Can God be trusted with a world that seems out of control? Can God be trusted in a time defined by deep division and incivility? Can God be trusted with the future…with your future? Can God be trusted enough to release my stranglehold on control, through power and possessions? No matter how we ask it, the question is this: Can God be trusted?

Our answer to that question and our subsequent actions will hinge on whether we will take the time to look back over our shoulder and what we will choose to remember. What stories will you tell yourself when all seems lost? What will you choose to remember when the going gets tough? What will you call upon when the future seems far too uncertain?

As disciples of Jesus, we have been asked each time we gather together to remember him. That is at the heart of what we are about as a community. Our mission is one of remembrance of the Good News of who we are and whose we are in Christ. To let our living and the ways we respond to the world around us be directed by the remembrance of a trustworthy God who acts and speaks, who lives and deal in surprising and beautiful alternatives far beyond our small visions of what our lives and this world can be.

So, have a look over your shoulder. Do some searching into the past, uncover something that may help jog your memory this week. And I pray that you will come to remember in your hearts and souls, that not one thing has failed of all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you. Not one of them has failed. Thanks be to God!

¹ Heschel, Abraham Joshua. God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism
² Renderings of the stories from Joshua 24:1-12

Hebrews 11: 1 – 16
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ² Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. ³ By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

⁴ By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain’s. Through this he received approval as righteous, God himself giving approval to his gifts; he died, but through his faith he still speaks. ⁵ By faith Enoch was taken so that he did not experience death; and “he was not found, because God had taken him.” For it was attested before he was taken away that “he had pleased God.” ⁶ And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. ⁷ By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir to the righteousness that is in accordance with faith.

⁸ By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. ⁹ By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰ For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. ¹¹ By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old—and Sarah herself was barren—because he considered him faithful who had promised. ¹² Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”

¹³ All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, ¹⁴ for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. ¹⁵ If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶ But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

Matthew 11: 2 – 10
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples ³ and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” ⁴ Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: ⁵ the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. ⁶ And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

⁷ As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? ⁸ What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. ⁹ What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. ¹⁰ This is the one about whom it is written,

‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’

You’ve made the trip into the attic, or the garage, or the basement, or the shed, to drag out all the boxes and bins and bags. You open each one, remember what’s been packed where, and remind yourself of where it sits or hangs or stands. Inevitably, something you know you had is no longer where you thought it was. And there’s one bulb out somewhere in the hundreds of them, and now that whole section is dark. Do you dig through for spares? Do you go get something new? Do you just cram another strand in there, or decide this year you’ll go without lights and next year you’ll fix it – knowing good and well that you’ll forget between now and next year and you’ll do this all over again. And as you unwrap each piece, you tell and retell the story that goes with it. And you find a place for everything. And inevitably the dog ends up in the Styrofoam, and the cat slips into the lowest tree branches, and you realize that it’s time to glue Joseph’s head back on (again), and you find a place to put the Baby Jesus figure so that he can make his appearance in the nativity on Christmas morning. (Hopefully this year you’ll remember where he is.)

And there’s the choir concert one night, and the band concert the next night. And your office party is a pitch-in lunch, and theirs is a dress-up dinner. And the babysitter’s at her friend’s party, so you hope maybe the college friend next door is home from school already. You thought you were so far ahead on the shopping and then you realize that you still haven’t figured out what to get your brother-in-law. And you forgot you need a Secret Santa gift for the teacher. And maybe something for the mail carrier; they work so many extra hours this time of year.

And everyone’s coming to your house for Christmas dinner because your sister decided to remodel her kitchen and of course it isn’t done yet. And is that a tickle in the back of your throat? Why are you so tired? Uh oh. A light’s on down the hall. Who’s gotten sick in the middle of the night? And why is there water on the kitchen floor? How does a refrigerator just suddenly quit working entirely?

So. Everyone’s feeling that JOY of Christmas, right?

Well, one of the things you managed to do in the middle of everything else that we think this season demands of us … you managed to get to worship today. That may have included its own series of comical events and annoying circumstances and even near-disasters, but you made it. You’re here. So maybe we can take a moment of pause together. And breathe. And consider. And refresh our memory, about the JOY.

Today’s text is a departure from the timeline. It’s a much later part of the story and maybe not one you would first think about when you think of this time of year. But it’s also a series of events that help us refresh our memory, and help us pause, and breathe, and consider the source of our joy.

John the Baptist was born just before Jesus. His mother Elizabeth was Mary’s cousin. We see in the other nativity telling, in Luke, that when a pregnant Mary visits a pregnant Elizabeth, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps with joy as the two greet each other. It is one of the simplest and most beautiful moments of scripture. The gift of a child in Elizabeth’s age, and the gift of a child in Mary’s innocence, resonates in each woman’s spirit and they are deeply and wondrously linked from the earliest moments of their being.

John spends his life as a herald for Jesus: the one who goes before him to declare the way, to proclaim the good news of the Messiah, the one who will save the people. John calls the community to repentance and doesn’t sugar coat it even a little bit – they need to prepare themselves, be ready, be different, pay attention. He steps from the wilderness, from his locust-eating and hairshirt-wearing, and baptizes Jesus, as the skies part and the voice of God declares it all blessed.

This is no ordinary preacher, and no ordinary relationship. It is deep, and profound, and lifelong, and sometimes unexplainable.

In this text from Matthew, John has landed in prison … for telling the truth. King Herod had visited his brother, seduced his brother’s wife, come home and disposed of his own, and taken the sister-in-law as his new bride. John, not one to mince words, called him out on that debacle … and, as you might imagine, that didn’t go over well. So, here is John, in prison.

As he had traveled and preached and told the stories of Jesus and who he was for the world, John had gathered his own following, his own students and disciples. While in prison now, he had heard from them about the ways Jesus continued to teach and preach and heal, how he was drawing attention and gathering crowds and troubling the authorities and stirring up notice.

And John had to wonder: So why am I the one sitting here in this jail cell? After all this, is this what it’s come to? Has all of this been worth it? Or has it been for nothing?

But it’s for that very reason that John’s question strikes us as odd: He’s been right there the whole time, leading the way, clearing the path, setting things up, getting people ready, preparing them to hear the good news of God’s love from God’s own Son. How in the world does he still need to send his disciples to Jesus to ask that incredibly puzzling question “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

But we ask it too, don’t we? Even from this side of history, even knowing how the story starts, and how it goes, and how it ends, and what it means. We still sometimes ask ‘Is this it? Is that what we’re looking for?’ It makes sense that perhaps we would wonder if we match up with Jesus’ expectations. We know the many ways we can fall short of following faithfully.

But this scripture, this moment with John in his prison cell, this moment when he’s seen and done and lead and heard and been part of all the ways that Jesus shows all of us to be: In this moment, John seems to make a way to say that maybe when we think we’ve met all that was expected of us, we will still find a moment to wonder if Jesus is matching up with what we expect of him?

But how does Jesus respond? Does he tell John’s disciples to get a grip, that yes of course he’s the messiah, haven’t we already covered this, haven’t you been paying attention? No. But does he just give them a simple and straightforward ‘Yes, I’m the one’? No. This is Jesus. You knew that wouldn’t happen. You ask him a simple question, you get a long and round-about answer. It’s his thing.

What Jesus gives to John in this moment … in the midst of John’s waning confidence and overwhelming sense of things being impossible … what Jesus gives John is permission to ask the questions, and the reminder that he already has the answer.

Debie Thomas wrote a beautiful essay last week called ‘Has It All Been For Nothing?’ and points out the generosity and beauty of Jesus’s response to the question John’s disciples bring:

… Jesus says: go back to John and tell him your stories.  Tell him my stories.  Tell him what your eyes have seen and your ears have heard.  Tell him what only the stories — quiet as they are, scattered as they are, questionable as they are — will reveal.[1]

Lutheran pastor Rev Dr Janet Hunt said a few years ago:

Sometimes I simply find that I, too, simply need someone else to tell me what they know for sure.

And apparently that’s OK.  For Jesus’ response to John’s question carries no judgment, no surprise, not even a small measure of wondering that John would wonder.  It’s as though it’s to be expected that all of us — every single one of us — would need the witness of one another to bear us up.[2]

Jesus doesn’t answer John and his disciples directly. He gives them a recitation of his works. ‘You ask if I’m the one? Here is what I’ve done. Does that sound like the one you were looking for?’ They have to decide. Because Jesus doesn’t take offense … because he doesn’t come back with any sort of blame or shame, no accusation of a wavering faith … because Jesus knows how new and different and revelatory this kind of understanding of the world can be … he isn’t offended by John’s question. And he isn’t wounded by ours.

This takes the magic out of it … but not the wonder. This means we can ask our questions too, and still rest in the joy of a God who loves us enough to move among us again and again and again and again until we come to know what such love can mean. Discipleship and faith must constantly be renewed. Even John the Baptist had to ask the question. As treasured preaching professor Ron Allen says, “…God never gives up on offering the world opportunities to become more like the realm of heaven.”[3]

We are in a season called Advent – from the Latin word adventus, which means ‘coming.’ Christ is coming. The Light of the World, Prince of Peace. And isn’t THAT something we need? Isn’t that what we eagerly await?

Purple candles are lighted through the season – purple to signify royalty as we await the coming King. But it is also the color of penitence and reflection, and in earliest tradition, this was the case for Advent. Much like Lent, Advent began as a season of somber reflection, including fasting and increased devotion through prayer and discipline. It is a season of waiting and watching.

But at this point something happens. This third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete Sunday. The first word spoken in the ancient mass on this third Sunday in Advent is gaudete. ‘Rejoice.’ Gaudete in Domino semper. ‘Rejoice in the Lord always.’

Seven years ago, in 2012, it was my first Advent season here with you. Many of you will remember that in those days, to use a biblical phrase, in those days we were not worshipping in this space. This room was torn down the concrete and steel, being completely renovated into the sacred space we treasure each week. So during that season, we worshipped in Peake Hall. When you walk out of the sanctuary, there are two doors in front of you – one to the Library, one to the Chapel. Those were one room then, and none of the commons, gym, or education space was there. (I know, it’s weird to remember, isn’t it?!)

But that Advent, on the 3^rd weekend, the weekend I was to preach, on the Advent theme of joy, something happened. That Friday, with a sermon already tucked away and ready to go, we were in offices and cars and homes and schools … and heard about children at a school in Connecticut. The horrific killing of 20 little ones, and 6 teachers. Sandy Hook. And 48 hours later, we were to gather in worship and talk about joy.

I think of that day often. The number of times we have gathered for worship and been forced to name another tragedy of violence in our nation … Sandy Hook Elementary School. Emanuel AME in Charleston. The Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. The campus square in Charlottesville. The Islamic Center in Detroit. The Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg. So many. Too many to name. Too many.

As people of faith, as those who claim Jesus, as individuals and a community privileged to choose to follow the one we call Savior … in a world that would divide us, in a time that would have us choose sides, in a season of rancor and dissent and sheer inhumanity and injustice like we could never have imagined … as this community, in this moment, what are we asking of Jesus? And what is he asking of us?

Here’s what I said on December 16 2012, after Sandy Hook, and here’s what I’ll say today, in the middle of the chaos that is around us – and inside us – in seemingly every waking moment:

There is only one thing. There is only one thing that makes any bit of sense.

It does not explain why. It does not answer how. It does not promise never again. It does not make it all okay. But it is the only thing to say … the only thing that makes sense to say. And it is the very thing we say every time we’re together. It is the very thing we say in the fact that we are together at all. 

God. Is. Here.

That’s it.

The Lord your God is in your midst. (Zeph 3:17)

How can we still read words of JOY today? How can we still light this pink candle? Why do we sing ‘Gloria’? How can we possibly ‘come with joy’

Because God is here.

God was there.

In every anguished cry, in every injured body, in every moment of panic.
In every act of bravery and compassion and selflessness and goodness and heart.
God was there.
And God is here.
In the tears we cry, the grief we carry for people we do not even know.
In our fear that this could be our child.
In our certainty that if it is anyone’s child anywhere, it is everyone’s child everywhere.

And in our lighting of a candle,
and our singing of songs,
and our praying of prayers,
and our breaking of bread.

God is here.

I heard a great phrase the other day: “Jesus did not come to meet our expectations … he came to meet our needs.”[4]

What do we need of Jesus right now? What does he need of us?

Joy, maybe?

In the midst of all the stuff from the attic, and the things on the calendar, and the preparation left to make, here we are, at the 3^rd Sunday of Advent. JOY.

We are halfway there … we move from waiting for the Promised One, and we turn our hearts in expectation … we actually expect that Christ will come! And so on Gaudete Sunday, we ease our penitence, we breathe in celebration, we soften the color from purple to rose, and we rejoice.

We rejoice.

In the presence of God, we rejoice.

We rejoice in the presence of God.