Forgetful Us

Text: Luke 13:31-35

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

From time to time the relationship between God and people has been tumultuous and troubled. I can’t speak for how God views it, but people seem to have mixed feelings. We are often of two minds. The first mind welcomes—calls for—God’s involvement in our lives. We are grateful to God, and we bring to our relationship reverence, thanksgiving, and praise. The second mind finds God to be at best irrelevant and at worst demanding, interfering, and difficult to live with. In the Bible, which is the story of God and us, this on-again off-again relationship starts in the Garden of Eden and carries right on through. And up to the present.

The complaint Jesus makes about Jerusalem—and its habit of killing the prophets who are sent to it—is just one more episode in this conflicted story.

In one sense the passage is not about Jesus at all. It is about God’s role in history and the prophets who try to speak for God to an uninterested or antagonistic audience. When Jesus quotes psalm 117—blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord—the question is not so much whether the blessed one is Jesus. That is, we know that someone is blessed, but is Jesus the one? The question is whether this man, this prophet, is blessed or otherwise. That is, we see this man, but is he really blessed or not? If the people answer Yes, then they are acknowledging that God is speaking to them through Jesus. And Christians would say that God is even appearing to them. But the track record is not good; Jerusalem is not often willing to grant God’s voice. If ever.

This is not too shocking. The role of any prophet is to be in conflict with the powers and principalities. The whole point of a prophet—including and especially Jesus—is to preach and act against the prevailing systems of power that have forgotten God. It is not surprising the Jerusalem kills prophets sent its way. Jerusalem in its day was like a combination of New York City and Washington DC. A city of commerce and government. Why would they welcome someone who told them that God was on their case and had a few things to tell them?

What Jerusalem had forgotten was that the city owed its entire existence to God. The whole of Israel, the nation, came as a gift from God. Starting with God’s promise to Abraham, who is called Abram when we first meet him in Genesis, God makes covenants, or agreements, with Israel. “I am the Lord who brought you out of [your birthplace] to give you this land to possess.” You are my people, says God repeatedly. This is your land that I give to you and that I bless for your use. Over and over in this passage the word is repeated: give, gift. “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying ‘to your descendant I give this land.’” And the land God is talking about is the land in which Jerusalem, by the time of Jesus a thriving metropolis, sits.

But Jerusalem has forgotten. It has taken the land, the city, the gift of life, for granted. It goes its own way. And when God reminds them, it puts God’s voices to death.

So in another sense this passage is all about Jesus. What can be more personal than a contract out on you, a price on your head? One can speak in general of prophets and their troubles, but the prophet in this case is someone particular. It is Jesus. Herod wants to kill you, claim the Pharisees. You, Jesus, in particular, is the one they are talking about. Jesus has just told the people in power that they won’t be there for long. The last will be first and the first last, they have heard him say. Not pleasing words to those who are now first. And he has a bad attitude. Jesus in Luke has a confident arrogant swagger that we today might admire, but that I’m sure the officials of his day did not. I must, he rebuts the Pharisees, I must go to Jerusalem, who kills the prophets like me. But not right this minute. I am busy. Casting out demons and healing people. I’m busy today, and I’m busy tomorrow, and pretty much the day after. But then I’ll go.

Jesus preaches an astounding gospel. Especially in Luke. The good news is that the poor and the outcast will no longer be so. The rich and the powerful will not longer be so, but will be cast down from their thrones. He preaches that the vertical will become horizontal. That the relationships of power than go up and down will become level, a plain. In his sermon on the plain (its a plain in Luke, a mount in Matthew), he tells us not to judge, not to charge interest on loans, to give whenever and for whatever we are asked, to not try to recover what is taken from us. We do not, evidenced by our actions, take these words of Jesus seriously. We therefore should not condemn the people of Jerusalem too harshly, who like us simply equivocated and hedged when it came to the hard parts.

How I wished I could gather you, you people of Jerusalem, gather you to me as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. Jesus mourns. You were not willing. The chicks say no. They will not be embraced by mother Jesus. Why not? Why would they not accept their mama’s embrace?

There is a time when an embrace is all we need. Our parents’ arms around us to comfort us and make us feel protected. Little children, like chicks under the wing. But later we push away our parent’s embrace. It is embarrassing. We want to forget our mama. We are grown up and independent. And we have learned that our parents cannot save us. So thinks Jerusalem.

Yet after this adolescence, we again see the embrace to be the gift it can be. An expression of comfort, affection, condolence, hopefulness. A quiet and undemanding presence. Part of an eternal relationship. Is that what Jesus longs for in deadly Jerusalem?

Gratitude is the foundation of religion. Maybe it is possible to be spiritual without gratitude, but I’m not sure about that. Christians attach gratitude to an agent, to God. Gratitude is a first connection to God, and serves among other things to remind us who God is and what God has given us.

But we, like Jerusalem, forget God. Then our relationship with God gets into trouble. Then it is easy to think that there is nothing to be grateful for and no one to be grateful to. It is easy to think we owe God nothing. Rather than life, existence, everything.

I said at the beginning that I couldn’t speak to how God views our relationship, but that is not true. The story of the Bible, the story of us and God together, is a story of loyalty. On God’s part. Even when not on ours. You can hear this in the other readings for today and the psalm. God remains loyal to God’s people. God keeps the covenant. God constantly tries to make contact. God weeps for us and longs for us. God comes to be with us. With open wings.

Down to the desert to pray

Text: Luke 4:1-13

We are now 10% into the season of Lent. Lent is usually thought of mainly as the preface to Easter, much as Advent is thought of as the preface to Christmas. But like Advent, it is not just a prelude to something better. If the pleasure of the journey is its unfolding, then the worth of Lent is in the journey to which it invites us.

People have described Lent as a time of penitence and as a time of preparation. Historically and currently those are both accurate. But the word Lent in English has the same root as the word “lengthen,” as in the lengthening days. In Lent the days get longer, at least in the northern hemisphere. Lent is therefore not only lengthening but also lighten-ing, becoming lighter. The days are lighter as in they contain more light. And also, in the other sense, as Lent goes on, the spiritual load gets lighter, as in they get less ponderous. In the end—and we all know how the story turns out at Easter—we celebrate joyfully.

But we do not not start there. We do not start the journey there. We start the story with Jesus in the desert, led (as Luke says) or driven (as Mark says) there by the Holy Spirit. We start with Jesus famished in the desert.

Jesus is there a long time, which is what “forty days” means in the Bible. Forty means “long enough.” Long enough for whatever needs to happen to happen. It is clear that Jesus had to be in the desert. It is the first thing he does, after his baptism, in his adult ministry. He is guided by the Spirit. This is not, evidently, an optional step.

While there, Jesus is tempted or tested or tried—the word means all these things. But he is not tempted to wickedness and evil. He is presented with three temptations. None of them are diabolical. They are, all three, temptations to satisfy central human needs. The need for food or sustenance, the need for power or control, and the need for safety and security.

The devil offers Jesus bread. What do we need to sustain us? Food, plus shelter, clothing. Not everyone in the world has them. But don’t we want more? Medical care? Housing? Transportation? How about entertainment? Do we need a reserve to prepare for hard times? Do we need more than our daily bread? How much more? Perhaps a little more. Perhaps more than a little. And a place to store it. And perhaps a few luxuries. For fun. The devil offers freedom from want.

The devil offers Jesus authority. How much control over our own lives do we need? None of us want to be led, as the apostle Paul once wrote, tied to a rope held by someone else, or blown by the whims of an uncertain wind. To be slaves or servants of another. Should we not be masters of our own fates? And then perhaps master of a few others who threaten our fates. Shouldn’t we insure ourselves against circumstances? Shouldn’t we be self-reliant, self-sufficient? Not dependent on others. Neither a borrower or a lender be, says the proverb. Should we hedge our bets, protect our borders, maintain our fences? Shouldn’t we establish rules and codes and limits and order? The devil offers freedom from uncertainty.

The devil offers Jesus protection from harm. How safe do we need to be? Can we save ourselves from accident, stupidity, or evil? Can we identify all enemies? Can we ferret out all dangerous secrets? Can we preserve ourselves against all disease that threatens our bodies? How about against craziness, against mis-directed anger? How about against righteous anger? Can we protect ourselves from from love turned cold, from change of heart, from loss? The devil offers freedom from human pain.

The devil offers freedom from want, uncertainty, and pain. The things we fear the most. Any yet Jesus says three times: No! No. No. Three hard to refuse offers. Three instant rejections.

It is not that Jesus hates a full stomach, or stability, or safety. We need those things. Those are the things that God provides for us (as we heard in the all the other readings for today). The question is, first, whether the fear of not having those things seduces us more fervently than God does, and second, whether we trust God to provide them. We have many suitors for our loyalty, obedience, and attention. Who guides our life? We cannot say yes to God unless at some point we say no, as Jesus does in the desert, to God’s rivals for us. We need that desert time.

The desert is a place where there is nothing else. Just we and our thoughts. It is a metaphor for retreat, silence, meditation, and cleansing. We need time there. And Lent is a good and traditional time.

What is it about the desert?

The desert is far away. It is isolated from all the voices that call on us every minute to attend to them. Including our desires and our responsibilities.

The desert is empty. It has none of the shiny things that we usually have all around us. Things that are interesting, or falling apart, or need organizing or otherwise attending to.

In the desert we are unobserved. We are not required to please anyone (nor will we get their admiration). We are not required to be anyone, or to act in any special impressive, or polite, or outrageous way.

In the desert we are vulnerable. The quiet of the desert lets our thoughts come unimpeded. The harshness and limits of the desert test our comfort.

And finally, in the desert we are alone. We have only ourselves and God as companions. It is a good time for intimate, disturbing, renewing, and lengthy conversations.

This kind of removed, empty, unobserved, vulnerable, alone time is an important Christian practice. It is a prayer discipline and one of the traditional practices of Lent. Not literally time in the desert, though lots of people have done that, but more practically time that we reserve in our lives, weekly or daily, yearly, removed from the normal calendar.

The temptations of Jesus in the desert are temptations to deny our limits and our finite-ness. But the truth is that hunger, uncertainty, and pain are essential parts of the story of our lives. And the lives of all people. Our attempts to deny that induces in us a kind of sleepiness or depressive fuzziness in life. Desert prayer helps us remember what is true. It wakes us up. It makes our vision sharper.

The season of Lent is a season of repentance. The word means not so much remorse as a change of direction, a turning. But abstract repentance is meaningless. So Lenten disciplines—which are just everyday Christian disciplines, but we talk about them more pointedly—Lenten disciplines are tactics, rules of thumb, things that have worked for others who wish to change their lives. There are a handful. We’ll come across others during these weeks in Lent. But they all start, as it did for Jesus, in a desert place. It is evidently not optional. They all start with time enough in the desert.

First Impressions

Text: Luke 5:1-11

When you are introduced to a story in the Bible, it is a little like meeting someone for the first time. You wonder whether this person is going to be a life-long friend or more a friend-of-a-friend kind of person. In either case, first impressions are important. But in the case of life-long friends, first impressions often turn out to be wrong. Some of my best friends were idiots when I first met them. I’m sure the feeling was mutual. But now we see each other more deeply, we have had more shared experiences, and though the idiocy remains, the connection is much more rich, complicated, and respectful. This is true of scripture as much as it is true of people.

When you first meet this story in Luke, which seems to be about fishing and fishers, you might be impressed by different things. Certainly biblical scholars have. They do not agree. For example, you might think this passage was put together from three separate stories mashed together by a common marine theme. There is a story of Jesus teaching people. There is the story of a miraculous catch of fish. And there is the story of Jesus calling new disciples.

Or you might think this passage is mostly about the miraculous power of Jesus to provide abundantly, helping the laborers gratefully gather the fruit of creation.

Or you might think this passage is an allegory, in which the parts of the story—the fishers, the nets, the fish, the catch—all stand for something else. This is a common interpretation, but full of difficulties. If it is an allegory, then who are we? Are we the disciples, catching others? Or are we the fish, being caught? (And you know what happens to fish!) Or are we the net, which God uses to gather disciples? Or the other partners, James and John? Or something else altogether.

My impression today—which is different than it was years ago and will be different, I’m sure, in the years ahead—my impression today is that this passage is like a piece of young adult fiction. Those YA books in the library, written for teens. Like mystery stories and romances, these books all follow the same plot, more or less. And they all have the same point, more or less, which is how friends are made and friendships kept. The plot always goes like this:

1. The bad first impression.

2. The big event.

3. The awkward moment.

4. The commitment of true friendship.

And that’s how today’s Gospel story goes.

#1: The bad first impression. Imagine Peter’s point of view. Actually, he is still Simon, since he has not yet joined Jesus nor been renamed by him. So, Simon’s point of view. This man Jesus hops into Simon’s boat. He makes Simon—who has been up all night fishing—row out a bit just so Jesus can speak to some folks who have come to see him. Presumably Simon has to just sit there with Jesus. Then he tells Simon, who has caught no fish, to go out and try again. Jesus knows nothing about fishing. Nobody goes fishing in the daytime. What is with this guy?

#2: The big event. Nonetheless, Peter—can we call him Peter?—does what Jesus asks. That’s how it goes in stories like this. There is a little bit of trust that becomes possible here. Like a bit of tinder for a fire. Something about Jesus makes Jesus seem OK to Peter. Peter doesn’t tell Jesus to take a hike. Instead, Peter is willing to give it a shot. Wow, good thing he did. They throw their nets into the water and a whole bunch of fish swim in. “Many a lot” it says in Greek. Who is this person?

#3: The awkward moment. Or, to be more religious, the conversion. There is always a point in these stories when the protagonist—Peter in this case—sees his new friend in a different light. When suspicion turns to realization, when doubt turns to respect. The beginning of love. Peter realizes that the annoying parts that he first saw in Jesus don’t really matter. It doesn’t matter that Jesus is a little bossy and ignorant about fishing. That is not the main thing. In a young adult novel one person says to the other, “well, I guess you are OK after all. I’m sorry I was such a jerk.” In the Gospel of Luke, Peter says “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Same thing.

And #4: The commitment of true friendship. Jesus responds to Peter’s offer of apology and affection with one of his own. Not a problem, Jesus says. Let’s go do something great together. And off they go, catching people and having all sorts of other adventures. Which you’ll have to read about in the next book in the series. In our case, the rest of Luke and Acts. And then the letters of Paul, and then the adventure of the whole church. But that’s for another day in the future for Peter and Jesus.

Some people, like Isaiah in today’s first reading, have their lives dramatically changed in a moment by God’s voice. As Paul was, for example. People have a transforming experience, becoming in an instant what seems to them to be a new person. But for most of us, our connection with Jesus is much more like a growing friendship. It develops over time.

There are times when we think that we have, or that God has, made a terrible mistake. There are times when we don’t know who God is and feel that God doesn’t know us very well either, in spite of what it says in the Bible about God counting the hairs on our heads. And there are times when we get a big pleasant unlikely surprise. We learn more about God. More importantly, we see God better, and we know God more, and we begin to trust God. And we begin to want to hang out more together, and then to look forward to doing great things together.

I know less about fishing than Jesus did. But from the little fishing I’ve done, it seems to combine two things. First, fishing is a sport of predictions. Where are the fish, what will they be doing, what will they like today? Lots of little predictions based on previous knowledge, the wisdom of others, intuition, and an sensitivity to the what’s going on in the present. And second, related to this, is that fishing is a series of offers and acceptances. The fishing person makes offers in terms of bait and lure, of course, and hopes the fish will accept. But the fish make offers, too. Tiny and subtle revelations, inviting the fisher to have an open mind. To doubt his or her first impressions and to make changes.

That is how friendship works. With humans or with God. Anglican archbishop and theologian Rowan Williams has said that to say we believe in Jesus is the equivalent of saying we have confidence in Jesus above all things. That confidence emerges over time, like friendship. Developed through little, experimental, trial-sized trusting steps. And big events. And awkward moments. And out of that friendship comes the rest: obedience, loyalty, interdependence, service.

Part of God is big and mysterious. Ineffable, unknowable. But part of the God we know is close and intimate. As connected to us and we to God as one young friend to another.