Making the Ordinary Extraordinary

When I was a child, my parents liked looking around in cemeteries to find the gravestones of our long-deceased relatives.  I have a vague memory of searching through what seemed like dozens, but was probably only two or three, cemeteries in Massachusetts looking for one Albert Haven Slocomb, the grandfather of the person for whom our son Slocomb was named.  In Princeton, Arkansas, a very small town known only to the people who live there or have relatives buried there, we found the graves of dozens of my great-grandmother’s relatives.  As a child, this activity seemed boring, pointless, and a complete waste of a perfectly good day.  Why would any rational person want to spend the day looking for dead people?  Now, however, I understand.  The cemeteries themselves are places of tranquility.  The graves of our loved ones give us a sense of their presence with us.  The stones remind us of our connection with our loved ones and with our past. For the people we actually knew, we are reminded of their impact on our lives. 

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary set out to do something very similar on that first Easter morning.  We are told that the two women went to see the tomb.  In Matthew’s gospel, the women do not come to anoint Jesus’ body for burial.  The tomb had been made secure by the sealing of the stone in the doorway, so there was no reason for the women to think they could get in, even if they wanted to. They simply came to see the tomb.  Perhaps they were looking for that sense of tranquility in the midst of the chaos of the past few days.  Or perhaps they wanted to remember all that Jesus had been and done for them.  Or perhaps they wanted to feel Jesus’ presence with them, even from the other side of a very large stone.

Whatever their motive, I doubt they expected an angel of the Lord, accompanied by an earthquake, to appear, roll back the stone, and take a seat.  The angel’s appearance was like lightening and his clothing was white as snow.  Between the angel and the earthquake, any hope the women might have had for a little peace and quiet was dashed.  If the women were wondering anything as they approached the tomb, they probably wondered how they would get past the guards.  In the presence of the angel and the open tomb, however, the guards shook and became like dead men, giving the women complete and total access to the surprisingly empty tomb.

“Do not be afraid,” says the angel, “Take a quick look, then go tell the disciples that Jesus has gone ahead of you to Galilee.”  There is no need for the women to linger at the tomb, nor is there any need for them to be afraid like the soldiers.  The person they came to remember is no longer there.  In fact, there is no need to remember him as if he is gone.  As the women run from the tomb, the Risen Christ meets them and repeats the message of the angel: “Do not be afraid.  Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee.  There they will see me.”

At the end of the Last Supper, after Jesus had shared bread and wine with his disciples, and after they had sung the hymn and gone out to the Mount of Olives, Jesus had said to his disciples “After I am raised up, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.”  Galilee?  Why Galilee?  Galilee was no place special.  Why would the risen Jesus appear to his disciples in such an ordinary place?  Why not a mountain top, or the temple, or some other place of grandeur and significance?  Why Galilee of all places?

Galilee is the place where Jesus had called his twelve disciples, healed the sick, told parables and taught about the inclusive kingdom of God, fed the 5000 plus women and children, worked miracles, preached the sermon on the mount, sent the disciples on their mission, grieved the death of his cousin John the Baptist, blessed children, settled legal questions in ways that got him in further trouble, and demonstrated the love of God to the people.  Galilee might have been an ordinary place, but extraordinary things had happened there. 

When Jesus tells the disciples that he is going before them to Galilee, perhaps he is telling them that he has been raised, not into some distant and supernatural place, or some place outside the realm of ordinary human life where there is no pain or suffering, but into our own common everyday world.  The promise to the women and to the disciples is the promise that Jesus will meet them in the midst of their ordinary lives so that they, too, can do extraordinary things.  The promise to the women and to the disciples is that even in the midst of the joy and the fear of their everyday lives, Jesus will be present. The women go into the tomb to remember a  dead Jesus, and they are sent away from the tomb, into the world, to encounter the living Christ, who will be found in the very same world that crucified him. 

Jesus’ message to the women, to the disciples, and to us is that the risen Christ will meet us where ever we are, in whatever situation we find ourselves, to proclaim that there is no stone that will separate us from the Risen Christ.  As St. Paul puts it in the well known passage from Romans “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

On this glorious Easter morning, as we stand before the empty tomb in the midst of the flowers, the music, and the resurrected alleluias, and we greet the Risen Christ, Jesus says to each of us what he said to the women: “Do not be afraid.”  And then the risen Jesus sends us out of this place and into the world with the promise that he will meet us in the midst of our ordinary lives to do the extraordinary.

Amen.

Stories

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

April 2, 2017

5 Lent A

          My father lives in the house he and my mom bought about 30 years ago.  My siblings and I never lived in this house, so the house does not contain the stories of our childhood.  However, the house is decorated in what could be called “late ancestor.”  There are pieces of furniture that belonged to relatives who entered into the nearer presence of God many decades ago.  The walls are adorned with photos my parents lovingly framed of my great-grandparents and various great or great-great aunts and uncles I never knew.  So, for my sister, brother, and I, the house does contain many stories, just not about us.  My dad can tell stories for hours about Aunt Mary and Uncle Fletcher, both born in the 1880’s, in whose chair he likes to sit and read, or the escapades of his grandfather, my great grandfather, born in the 1860’s, or my grandfather who died when I was two years old.  I love listening to those stories because they tell me something of who I am as part of a family much larger than my own experience.  Through photos, stories, and even an occasional piece of furniture, I am connected with those who came before me.

          This Lent has been a time of stories for us at Christ Church.  Our Lenten Reflection booklets contain stories from many of us, and many more of us have been enriched by those reflections.  While not a lot can be said in 200 words, the reflection we read each day connects us with the person who wrote the reflection and with the God the author loves.  Our understanding of each other, our church, and most importantly our faith has been expanded by these great nuggets of theological reflection.  I believe we are more connected with each other and God through the sharing of these stories.

          We have also heard some of the most beloved stories in scripture this Lenten season.  Jesus was led into the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil, and we were reminded how we often learn more about who we are as beloved children of God when we pass through difficult times.  Nicodemus came to visit Jesus in the dark of the night time visit to where he heard the mystery of his relationship with God described with the words of childbirth.  The Samaritan woman met Jesus at the well and two people with very different experiences of the world engage each other in genuine conversation where both are renewed.  And last week, Jesus healed a man born blind, and we saw the resulting furor, calling us to look at the world with God’s eyes rather than our own.  Through these stories and their various characters, we have been able to connect with the story of Jesus and perhaps Jesus himself.

          This morning, on the last Sunday in Lent before Palm Sunday, Lazarus is raised from the dead.  With Easter two weeks away, today seems an odd day to hear about resurrection.  But from this story, I believe we connect with Jesus and his disciples in at least three ways. 

          First, when Lazarus falls ill, Mary and Martha send a message to Jesus.  While at first, we might think that they simply want Jesus to know about his friend’s illness, once Jesus arrives, we know that Mary and Martha expected Jesus to come and do something.  “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  So now it is Jesus’ fault that Lazarus is dead!  But then Martha said “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”  But when Jesus asks that the stone be moved from the tomb, Martha objects.  “Lord, there is already a stench because he has been dead four days.”  If we ever go back and forth in our confidence in Jesus, proclaiming him the Messiah one moment and failing to trust his actions the next, we are in good, scriptural company.

          Secondly, and this is my favorite part of the story, and perhaps my favorite verse in all of scripture, when Lazarus emerges from the tomb, having been dead for four days and alive, Jesus says “Unbind him and let him go.”  Jesus has done the work of resurrection with the words “Lazarus, come out,” and one would think Jesus could do the work of unbinding Lazarus with similar words.  The strips of cloth would fall off and Lazarus would be free.  But instead, Jesus calls on others to do the work of unbinding.  Perhaps the work of unbinding is the work of Jesus’ followers.  Sometimes that unbinding is a word of comfort of support.  Sometimes unbinding takes the form of providing food to those who are hungry.  Sometimes the unbinding takes the form of creating safe space for those who are afraid.  Perhaps our work is to make sure people are actually freed by the gospel and not held hostage by bandages that keep them from living.

          Lastly, even though Lazarus was brought back from the dead after 4 days in the tomb, Lazarus’ resurrection is not like Jesus’ resurrection as Lazarus will eventually die again.  But just as Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb that held him from life, Jesus calls us out of whatever tombs hold us from living fully.  Every time we are able to step out of darkness and into light, or out of fear and into hope, or out of death of whatever sort and into life, resurrection has happened. 

          Hearing the story of Lazarus during Lent calls us to prepare to greet the Crucified and Risen One by recognizing the stories of resurrection in our own lives and the ways we are called to make resurrection real in the lives of those around us.  The stories of Scripture tell us that in the Christian life, nothing, not even resurrection, is a spectator sport.

                                                                           Amen.                                        

                                                                                      

         

God's Eyes

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

March 26, 2017

4 Lent A

          When natural disaster strikes, whether on a personal level or a global level, we watch as people spring into action, to help total strangers, often at risk to themselves.  While the attack in London this week was not a natural disaster, we certainly witnessed the same phenomena at work as people risked their own lives to help those who were injured.  We have watched people pick through the rubble looking for signs of life in the case of earthquakes, risk their lives to try to save others in the case of floods, and offer generously to assist in the face of tragedy upon tragedy.  Disasters, natural and otherwise, often bring out tremendous good in humankind as we respond to our hurting brothers and sisters, often in far away lands.  Such tragedies also raise important questions about God's role in those events, and inevitably the subject of divine punishment appears.  When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, I heard suggestions that this was caused by divine wrath over egotism and populism.  I have heard the suggestion that the earthquake in Haiti in 2011 and the hurricane there last year were God's punishment for allegedly making a pact with the devil and that Hurricane Katrina was God's wrath being poured out upon New Orleans for "tolerating and welcoming wickedness in their city." On the one hand, when these disasters strike, we see all kinds of barriers come down as people and countries reach out to each other across religious, economic, racial, national, language, cultural, and countless other divides. On the other hand, when disaster strikes, there seems to be a need to blame someone.  The explanations of meteorologists and geologists do not suffice.  God must be angry and someone is to blame.  But in most cases, the great burden of that alleged punishment falls on the innocent.

          This morning we hear Jesus' disciples say to Jesus "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"  There seem to be only two options for the cause of the man's blindness.  Either the man's own sin is the cause, which is doubtful since he had been blind from birth and opportunities for sin seem quite limited in the womb, or the sin of his parents is to blame.  Jesus' answer is that no one's sin caused the man's blindness, but the blindness is the occasion for God's work to be revealed.  Then Jesus spits in the dirt, spreads the resulting mud on the man's eyes, sends the man off to wash his face, and the man comes back to Jesus able to see.  While we still don't know the cause of the man's blindness, what we do know is that the man born blind can now see. 

          The resulting furor among the people sounds a bit like the resulting furor in the aftermath of a disaster when blame turns from God to whichever human being is responsible for failed levies, lack of disaster preparedness, inadequate warning systems, and on and on.  In the gospel reading, the formerly blind man is peppered with question about his healing, as if he is guilty of his recovery.  How did it happen?  Who did it? Where is he?  What did he do?  And on and on.  The man who was formerly blind does not know the answer to some of the questions-after all he was blind when the story started- and the answers he does give are not believed.  Mistrust and suspicion abound-just like they do in the days and weeks following a natural disaster.

          At first glance, the reading from I Samuel seems to have little to do with the healing of the man born blind.  The prophet Samuel is sent by God to identify the second king of Israel, Saul being the first king.  God sends Samuel to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for the new king is to come from his sons.  Seven of Jesse's sons pass before Samuel, but none is the one chosen by God to be Israel's new king.  So Samuel asks Jesse "Are all of your sons here?"  And Jesse replies "There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep."  The implication is that youngest son could not possibly be the next king. But sure enough, David, the youngest, least experienced son, is the one God had chosen to be King.

          What these two stories have in common is the call to see the world with God's eyes.  In the eyes of the disciples and the others in the gospel reading, the man's blindness must point to someone's sin.  In the eyes of God, the man's blindness was an opportunity for God's works to be revealed.  God could use that situation to show God's power in the world.  Likewise, in the eyes of Jesse and his first seven sons, and perhaps even Samuel, an older, wiser, more experienced son would be the best choice for Israel's king.  But in God's eyes, the youngest, least likely of the brothers was the best choice.  God sees the world differently than we do, and the categories we set up for success and promotion may not be God's categories.

          When disasters become occasions for finger pointing and blame, and we look to see who God is punishing, we take a dark situation and make it darker.  Yes, there is always room for evaluation and to see how people might prepare better, respond more effectively, and learn things that will help in future disasters.  And yes, human error and human sin have human consequences.  But the writer of Ephesians warns us to take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness.  The same writer tells us that the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.  The fruit of light is found by seeing the world through God's eyes, seeing the brokenness and working to heal, seeing the damage and working to repair, building up rather than tearing down, seeing the youngest, smallest, least experienced and having the vision of a great leader.  This is the same God who says in the book of Isaiah "My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts," and "Behold, I am about to do a new thing."  That new thing is not to tear down and destroy, but to create and build up.  On Good Friday, on the day that we mark the crucifixion of Jesus, on a day that would incur God's wrath if anything would, we do not tremble before an angry God.  Rather, we stand before God and we pray the collect for Good Friday found in our prayer book:  "O God of unchangeable power and eternal light....let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to perfection by him through whom all things were made."  We are called to proclaim a God who sees life where the world sees death, who raises up that which has been cast down, and who expects us to do the same.

                                                                             Amen.

Conversation

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

March 19, 2017

3 Lent A

          Ahmad Deeb is the Executive Director of the Islamic Society of Akron and Kent.  We met at a gathering next door at First Congregational Church just before Thanksgiving, then we were both speakers the following week at the Interfaith Thanksgiving service at Walsh Jesuit.   Ahmad and I have sent text messages back and forth since Thanksgiving, trying to get a date on the calendar for a conversation.  We finally landed on this past Tuesday.  Snow or no snow, I was getting to Cuyahoga Falls to talk with Ahmad.  When I arrived at the Islamic Center, the first thing I noticed was that the entrance is kept locked, even during the day.  At Christ Church, our doors are open during the week.  When I asked Ahmad about the doors, he replied that they have to be very careful at the Islamic Center.  The security concerns at an Islamic Center are real, especially since they have a school on the premises.  The other day, an unknown person was seen taking photos of the Islamic Center and the police were called.  At Christ Church, if someone is outside taking photos of our church, we assume that they are interested in our historic buildings and we think nothing else about it.  From the moment I walked into the Islamic Center, the very different ways Ahmad and I experience the world were quite evident.  We talked for a long time about that, as Ahmad gave me a tour of their facility and offered me cup after cup of tea.  We talked about the similarities and the differences between our faiths, the different ways our scriptures are interpreted, the role of women in our traditions over the centuries, and many other things over the course of an hour and a half.  Toward the end of our conversation, we talked about how we might begin to build bridges and relationships between faith communities that go deeper than simply doing good works together, as wonderful as those works might be.  How do we begin to engage in meaningful conversation with people whose faith and experience of the world may be quite different from our own?

          This morning, two very different people who experience the world in two very different ways have a surprising conversation.  The Samaritan woman has gone to the well in the heat of the day to draw water, and her plan is to get her water and go home before she encountered anyone.  No one goes to the well in the heat of the day if they can avoid it.  When she sees Jesus, she certainly did not expect him to talk with her.  In the years after Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC, the Jews remaining in what had been Israel married non-Jews, and mixed Jewish beliefs and practices with those of their non-Jewish spouses.  These were the Samaritans, and they were considered by the Jewish people to be unclean.  The Samaritan woman expected to be alone at the well in the heat of the day, and when she discovers that she is not alone, she expects to be ignored if she is lucky, and banished if she is not.  She certainly does not expect to be engaged in conversation by a Jewish man.

          Jesus is also at a point of vulnerability, although in a very different way than the Samaritan woman.  Jesus is alone, hot, tired, and deeply thirsty, yet has no way to satisfy his thirst.  Jesus and the woman have both arrived at the well at noon, for very different reasons, and conversation happens.

          The Samaritan woman is clearly capable of holding her own in a conversation with a Jewish man.  When Jesus asks for a drink, or actually seems to demand a drink, the Samaritan woman doesn’t just hand Jesus some water.  Instead she is curious why Jesus would ask a Samaritan woman for a drink.  Jesus takes the conversation a bit deeper by telling the Samaritan woman that if she would ask him for a drink of water, he would give her living water.  To which the woman replies, perhaps with laughter in her voice, “Sir, you don’t even have a bucket!”  But when Jesus tells her that his water will keep her from ever having to draw water again, the woman is immediately intrigued, realizing that living water could mean that she never has to come to this well again in the heat of the day.

          And then the conversation turns to the woman’s marital status, which Jesus names but does not judge, the proper place and manner of worship, and the coming of the Messiah.  This is quite a range of conversation topics for two people considered to have nothing in common.  But the woman at the well and Jesus engage one another.  Each has something the other needs, and both are willing to participate in a conversation that takes them deeper into an understanding of each other.  Neither is defensive, even if both are a little snarky at times.  Both are changed in some way by the conversation.  The woman comes to know the living water and goes off to tell others.  Jesus, who began the conversation tired out by his journey and thirsty, seems quite revived by the conversation, even though there is no evidence that he ever got his drink of water. 

          How do we engage in meaningful conversation with people whose faith and whose experience of the world may be quite different from our own?  I think we begin by admitting that we need each other.  Jesus needed the water that the Samaritan woman could provide and she needed the living water Jesus could provide.  We need the perspective and insight that can only be provided by those who experience and faith is different from our own.  Secondly, we cultivate curiosity.  The woman at the well was curious about this man who asked her for a drink of water.  Curiosity allows us to engage in meaningful conversation that takes us deeper into the depths of what we and they believe, without being defensive.  Lastly, we allow ourselves to be nourished and strengthened by the conversation. 

            Our baptismal covenant calls us to seek and serve Christ in all people and to respect the dignity of every human being.  When we engage in the kind of conversation Jesus and the woman at the well exemplify, we are not just being nice or doing something special.  We are not just learning about another culture for our own benefit.  We are living as the people Jesus calls us to be and the people we promise to be in baptism.

                                                                             Amen                                                          

Wrestling

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Episcopal Church

March 12, 2017

2 Lent A

The course “Philosophy of Religion” was one of the greatest challenges of my academic career.  The course was taught by a professor in the philosophy department, which should have been my first clue that I was in over my head.  But I had always worked hard and done well in school.  I figured if I read the material, went to class, paid attention, and did the assignments, I would be fine.  I was oh, so very wrong.  Looking through the books for the course, there were sentences that rambled on for entire paragraphs, words that I could not pronounce, much less decipher, and chapter titles that boggled my mind.  But, I kept telling myself, the class could not be that bad.

My naivete was short lived.  The syllabus was pretty much the only thing about the class that I understood.  Neither the readings nor the explanations of the readings made sense.  The comments of my fellow students did not make sense.  The answers never seemed to match the questions.  I felt like I was on a different planet and everyone else spoke a language I did not understand.  I thought about dropping the class.  In the end, I wrestled and struggled my way through the writing of a paper on some subject I do not remember, turned the paper in, and to my great surprise, got full credit for having wrestled diligently with whatever the subject of the paper was.  For the first time in my life, I had taken a class where the point was not to accomplish a certain number of tasks to gain mastery of a subject, but to surrender myself to wrestling with something beyond my comprehension. 

Nicodemus finds himself in a similarly perplexing and frustrating situation this morning.  Nicodemus knows that Jesus turned an enormous amount of water into an equal amount of wine at the wedding in Cana.  Nicodemus also knows that Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple with an impressive display of passion, if not fury.  Now Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, comes to Jesus in the dark of the night and says “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”  Perhaps Nicodemus is just curious.  Or maybe he would like to be able to do such signs and be a more effective leader.  Or perhaps he is looking for a deeper relationship with God.  Whatever Nicodemus’ motive, I doubt he expected Jesus to reply: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without first being born from above.”  What is that supposed to mean?  Is Nicodemus to enter his mother’s womb and be born again?  While a concrete explanation of what Jesus meant would be nice, Jesus makes matters worse by continuing with “No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.  What is born of the flesh is flesh, what is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  How is that supposed to help Nicodemus understand?  Nicodemus and Jesus might as well have been speaking different languages, and the answers certainly do not seem to fit the questions.  Nicodemus came to Jesus to find out about the signs, which he understood to be miracles, and Jesus is talking about being born of the Spirit.  Nicodemus must be thinking that he should have just stayed home that night.

When Jesus sees that Nicodemus is truly perplexed, Jesus reminds Nicodemus of a story that Nicodemus certainly knows.  In the book of Numbers, the Hebrew people got tired of wandering in the wilderness and they begin to grumble against God and against Moses.  They said “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?  For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable manna.”  God is fed up with all the complaining, so God sent poisonous serpents among the people.  The serpents bit the people and they died.  When the people realize that they had sinned against the Lord, God said to Moses “Make a bronze serpent and set it on a pole; everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.”  Moses did as God asked, and from then on, anyone bitten by a poisonous serpent could look at the bronze serpent on the pole and live.  Whatever we might think about a story in which God inflicts poisonous serpents on God’s people, Jesus has finally said something Nicodemus can understand.  Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so the people could live, so Jesus will be lifted up so that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.  We will next see Nicodemus when he arrives at the cross with Joseph of Arimathea to remove the dead body of Jesus and place it in the tomb.

The gospel ends with what Martin Luther called the “Gospel in miniature.”  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”  Nicodemus came to Jesus to understand the signs.  What he got in return was a description of a relationship so intimate it can only be described using the language of childbirth.  Nicodemus wanted to gain mastery of a subject that he knew came from God.  Jesus wanted him to wrestle with a relationship that cannot be captured any more than the wind can be captured.  When Nicodemus needed something more concrete, Jesus reminded him of a story in which God’s gift of life is exactly that...a gift, certainly nothing the people earned or even understood.  When Jesus offers the “Gospel in miniature” to Nicodemus, and to us, Jesus is not finally giving up and offering us a sound-bite that makes sense and fits well on a billboard.  Jesus offers us the gospel about the God who is beyond our comprehension, who loves us in a way that is beyond our understanding, and has given us eternal life as a gift, nothing we can earn and beyond anything we can imagine.  Jesus has given us the gospel, not as a subject to be mastered, but as a gift and a mystery to wrestle with.

Amen.

Wilderness

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

March 5, 2017

1 Lent A

          My first clergy colleague when I came out of seminary was something of a wilderness man.  Think John the Baptist in a clergy collar.  David’s idea of a good time was to be dropped off by himself at the entrance of a vast wilderness area in Michigan’s upper peninsula with nothing but the clothes he was wearing and a small backpack.  He would eat what he could find and sleep where he could.  This was not a state park with cabins, indoor plumbing, or cooking facilities.  This was nothing but acres and acres of wilderness.  Weeks later, his wife would pick him back up at the entrance, unshowered, unshaved, unkempt, but happy.  How David even knew what day he would be picked up is beyond me.  How does one keep track of the days out in the wilderness?  This was before cell phones were readily available, and my guess is that he doesn’t own one even today.  And if he had one, how would he have kept it charged in the wilderness?  Somehow, David managed not only to survive his wilderness time, but to thrive there.  The challenge of conquering the wilderness energized David and I believe he experienced something of God there.

          We hear two wilderness stories from scripture this morning.  In the story from Genesis, we hear about Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the garden.  God has put Adam and Eve in the garden to till it and to keep it.  Then God gives Adam some simple instructions about what may, and may not be eaten.  And we know what happened after that.  In short Adam and Eve eat from the fruit of the one forbidden tree and realize they are naked.  The lectionary reading stops before we get to God’s response, but obviously God is not going to be happy with this turn of events.  God had said “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, for of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.  For in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.” 

          What is God’s response to Adam and Eve’s disobedience?  If we read further in chapter 3, we will hear God’s fury as he addresses first the serpent, then Eve, then Adam.  But, Adam and Eve do not die that day and God certainly does not kill them.  In fact, after God finishes rebuking them, God makes garments of skin for Adam and Eve and God clothes them.  And then God sends Adam and Eve forth from the garden to till the ground from which Adam was taken.  The picture of God that we get from the whole story, and not just the piece in today’s reading, is of a God who deeply loves the creatures God has made, to the point of making garments for them and clothing them, even after they have disobeyed the one simple command God gave them.  While God does send Adam and Eve out of the garden and into the wilderness, God gives them what they need to survive there in an act of love and compassion.

          This morning, we also hear about Jesus’ time in the wilderness.  When the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness, Jesus is still wet from his baptism and the words of the voice from heaven are still ringing in his ears “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  We are not told what happens during the forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, other than that Jesus did not eat.  But the last thing Jesus heard before entering the wilderness was God’s voice saying “This is my Son, the beloved.” The first voice Jesus hears in the wilderness is the voice of the tempter saying “If you are the Son of God.” So, my hunch is that Jesus spent some time in the wilderness wrestling with what it means to be the Son of God.  What we learn from Jesus’ response to the three temptations is that whatever it means to be the Son of God, it does not mean using special powers, like the ability to turning stones into bread, or calling on special protection such as safety if he throws himself off the top of the temple, or abusing special privilege such as having all the kingdoms of the world.  When the devil departs, presumably in frustration, angels come and wait on Jesus.

We all find ourselves in the wilderness from time to time.  Sometimes entering the wilderness is completely our choice, like my colleague David.  Sometimes we enter a wilderness of our own making, like Adam and Eve.  Sometimes we wake up to one morning to a wilderness not of our own making when suddenly our whole life has been turned upside down-by natural disaster, diagnosis, or tragedy.  And sometimes we are led by the Spirit into the wilderness as Jesus was, and as we are during Lent, to spend some time deliberately figuring out what it means to be a child of God.  Lent is not about entering the wilderness to be without God.  Lent is a time to enter the wilderness so we recognize our dependence on God and wonder more deeply about who we are as children of God.

In both of stories this morning, and in all the wilderness stories in Scripture, no matter the cause of the wilderness, God is present.  God did not abandon Adam and Eve, and God does not abandon us, even when the wilderness is of our own making.  God did not abandon Jesus, and God does not abandon us, when we enter the wilderness voluntarily.  And God did not abandon Jesus and does not abandon us in the darkest wilderness of our lives, when all hope seems pointless.  In the wilderness, however we got there and no matter how desolate, we learn more deeply who we are as children of God, and how to be sustained by nothing more and nothing less, than the sheer presence of God who never abandons us.

                                                                   Amen.

Gifts

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Episcopal Church

March 1, 2017

Ash Wednesday

          The season of Epiphany began almost two months ago with the visit of the Magi to the child Jesus.  The Magi brought Jesus three gifts, fit for a king.  They arrived with gold, frankincense, and myrrh as gifts appropriate for the one born King of the Jews.  If Jesus is a king, the magi thought, he should have these things.

          The season of Epiphany has come to an end and the season of Lent has now begun.  On Ash Wednesday, Jesus gives us three gifts.  We don't normally think of Ash Wednesday as a time to receive gifts.  Instead, we think of Ash Wednesday and Lent as a time of self-denial.  But in the Ash Wednesday gospel lesson, Jesus talks about three gifts; gifts fit for children of God.  Those gifts are almsgiving, prayer, and fasting.  If we are children of God, we should have these things. In a service in which we confess a whole host of ways we fail to live as God's children, it is easy to assume that almsgiving, prayer, and fasting are, if not punishment for our sins, at least our way of making things up to God, or earning a little forgiveness. We are also tempted to understand fasting as just about giving up food, prayer as just about talking to God, and almsgiving as about putting a few more dollars in the offering plate.  On Ash Wednesday, however, we are reminded that forgiveness is God's job, and that these are gifts, not punishments.

          The first gift Jesus mentions is almsgiving.  Almsgiving is not just a matter of denying ourselves so that we have some extra money to give to the poor.  Almsgiving is about acknowledging that all of humanity is connected and that when one person suffers from lack of food, clothing, or shelter, we are all responsible for that.  In the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul reminds us that we are all one body, and that when one part of the body suffers, all suffer.  When one part of the body is homeless, or hungry, or marginalized, we are all broken. Almsgiving reminds us that we are all connected in a world that stresses rugged individualism.  The litany of penitence, which we will pray in a few minutes, gives us a whole host of ways that we fail to live as if we are connected to our fellow human being: not loving our neighbor as ourselves, our dishonesty in our daily life and work, our exploitation of other people, and blindness to human need and suffering.  Jesus offers us the gift of almsgiving as a way to reconnect and be reminded that God made us all from the dust of the earth and that we are all connected.

          Jesus' second gift is the gift of prayer.  The world tells us that we should fill our lives with activity, and the one who accomplishes the most, wins.  From sun up to sun down and beyond, we are busy to the point that busyness has become competitive sport.  Jesus' tells us to stop.  Stop and make room for God.  Be still and feel the connection not only with each other but with the God who created us.  That is prayer.  In our Litany of Penitence we also confess the ways we fail to make room for God: filling our lives with our self-indulgent appetites and ways, our negligence in prayer and worship, our pride, hypocrisy and impatience, and our love of worldly goods and comforts.  Jesus offers us the gift of prayer as a way to empty ourselves of that which clutters our souls and make room for the God who creates in us a new and contrite heart. 

          Jesus' final gift is the gift of fasting.  Fasting is usually and historically associated with abstaining from food.  In a world that tells us that the one who dies with the most toys, wins, fasting can have a broader meaning.  We fill our lives with possessions, people, food, all kinds of things in order to make ourselves feel full.  Jesus calls us to a different kind of fullness.  Jesus calls us to a life that is full and rich because it is centered in the richness of God's Spirit.  Again, in the Litany of Penitence we confess the many ways we try to make ourselves feel less empty by relying on material things rather than God for that sense of fullness: our self- indulgent appetites and ways, our intemperate love of worldly goods, our waste and pollution of creation.  Jesus offers us the gift of fasting so that we may know God as the source of our contentment and fullness.

          In the reading from 2 Corinthians, Paul entreats us to be reconciled to God.  Lent is a time to live into that reconciliation and to learn how to better live as the children of God we were created to be.  Jesus does not leave us to our own devices to figure out how to do that, but instead gives us almsgiving, prayer, and fasting as gifts to help us on that journey.  In a few minutes, we will be anointed with ashes in the form of a cross, just as we were anointed with oil at our baptism in the form of a cross.  Both the cross made of oil and the one made of ashes are reminders that we are children of God, not the world, and that without God, we are empty.  On this Ash Wednesday, Jesus offers us the gifts of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, not to make us suffer for our sins, but so that we may deepen our relationship with the God who created us. May this Lenten time of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving be a holy time that breathes life into the dust of our being.

                                                                             Amen