A New Road

Text: Luke 24:13-35

There is a theory of the physical world that says that in every instant things decide what they will become in the next instant. In this theory there is a kind of timeout between the past and the future. In that tiny moment, a thing has a chance to become the same as it was, or become something new. It pays attention to the things around it and makes a choice of what to be. Mostly, of course, things choose to be just what they were. But not always. So, for example, the pieces of this pulpit mostly stay pulpit pieces, being strongly influenced by the other pieces of the pulpit surrounding them. But some are influenced by the air, for example, or my hand resting here. That explains why the pulpit can remain a pulpit for hundreds of years, but eventually will be worn away, eroded by the elements and by the preachers.

“Things” in this theory are undefined in size or type. So it applies not only to pulpits but to human things, people, you and me. In this theory, the basis of the whole world is not permanence, but transition. The universe is not a place in which things are, but a place in which things happen.

In our local part of the universe, mostly things remain the same. Good thing, too, or we would have to deal with a whole new world each morning. Mostly the people we met in the office yesterday will be there today. Mostly the home we come back to at the end of the day is the same one we left at the beginning. Mostly the people we love act pretty much the way they have always acted. Life advances with twists and turns and bumps and potholes, but mostly it advances on the same road.

But not always. Tomorrow is not always the same as today. Sometimes that is a good thing, when today is not so hot. Sometimes not so good, when tomorrow turns out to be not so hot. Sometimes changes are gradual: getting older, learning more, becoming friends. Sometimes sudden: getting sick, getting fired, falling in love. Sometimes you see the change coming a mile away, welcome it, and are prepared: like getting married, or going away to school. Sometimes you don’t even notice the change until it is too late. Sometimes the change is a result of something you do. Sometimes it is a result of things that happen outside of your control. Sometimes you think, how the heck did I end up in this place, or in this job, or with this person. Sometimes it is a good thing you did, and sometimes not.

For all their differences, these kinds of transitions are like hinges. Bending a little or a lot, they mark a boundary between one place and another, one situation and another.

But some transitions are not so well marked. Sometimes it seems that the past ends before the future begins. What you thought you knew no longer applies. And what you need to know, you do not know yet. It is a foggy time. Things are up in the air, an apt metaphor, for your feet certainly do not feel they are on the ground. In such time, it is hard to recognize what part of your life is the old life and what part is the new life.

That is the way it was for the travelers on the road to the village called Emmaus. Just a few days ago they saw a future of a glorious and victorious Jesus, mighty prophet, the one to redeem Israel. The expectations had been high and confident. Yet in an instant, it seemed, all that was gone. Jesus was arrested, tried, condemned, executed. On one dark Friday, they had gone from disciples of Jesus to… To what? Who were they now? What would they do? To whom would they turn. In whom would they put their hopes? What would happen to them?

They stand in the road, standing still, the story says. There is no future for them yet. They have no plan. Their only hope is denial and disbelief. What had happened could not have happened.

This is where Jesus meets them. Half-way there, between the city and the village. Jesus meets them half-way there, between the past and the future. He comes in the transition, in the gap. He speaks to them there. But he does not, by his meeting them, undo what has been done. Though he returns from the dead, he does not return to stay. He does not return as if nothing had happened. Though the disciples no doubt hope that things will be just as they were, things will not be. They will be something different, but as yet unknown. We know, from watching two thousand years later, that they will go from disciples—students—to apostles—ones who are sent. They will go from learning to doing. Jesus will go from teacher to resurrected Christ. But they don’t know that yet.

God calls to us most loudly in times of transition. Or probably we listen to God most loudly in these moments. Acting like the creatures we are in times of stress, our eyes are open to signs and our ears strain to hear a voice of comfort, certainly, and guidance. God, now what? What now?

It is a scary time when the past is disintegrating and the future is still forming. Stay with us, Lord, they said, the day is almost over. Stay with us. In this time, Jesus came, but not to push the rewind button and restore what had gone, or to reveal the future in high def. Jesus came to lead his followers through the foggy parts. To share with them a common and ritual meal and a reminder of their life together. They knew him, it says, in the taking, the blessing, the breaking, and the sharing of the bread. The meal we share every Sunday.

None of us knows the future. It is not an extension of the past. It rarely turns out as we predict. Our best bets of what will happen are poor wagers. But we don’t have to make any such bets. As we wander in that timeout moment between what we have been and what we are about to be, God walks with us.

Why Are These Men Laughing?

Text: John 20:19-31

It hardly seemed a joyful occasion. Even after Mary had come to tell them what she had discovered. That Jesus had risen from death and that she and Jesus had spoken.

“Go to my brothers,” Jesus had told her, “and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” So she did. She “went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.”

And yet, here they are, on that very same day, locked together in a room, frightened and confused.

What they hoped to have happened had not. Jesus had not freed the people of Israel from Roman rule. He had not rescued them. He had not transformed the world, he had not freed the prisoners, not lifted up the poor and oppressed, not fed the hungry. The rich were still rich and the powerful still powerful. And they, the disciples, were alone and scared.

What they thought had happened was this: Jesus had stood in a cruel trial and had unfairly been convicted of treason and sedition and had been ingloriously nailed to the cross. On which he had died.

They had much to grieve. They grieved their friend and leader and teacher. They had lost the person who glued them all together into a band of healers and witnesses to miracles. A rowdy and hopeful bunch. They grieved their hopes. They grieved the lost chance for a new world, a world founded on different principles, the kingdom of God. They grieved the new kind of life that they had been promised. And most of all, they grieved that, after all Jesus was and had done and had said, that after all that, death was victorious. Once again. Once again. As death, it seemed, always was and had been and, it looked like, always would be.

You can see how Mary’s news was no match for their convictions. Would you have believed Mary? The forces of death always seem to have the upper hand.

Those forces of death have been unchanged since the time and Jesus and long before that: greed, fear, indifference. Cruelty and injustice. People starve while others dine, just like in the days of Jesus. People sell others into slavery, just like in the days of Jesus. And people buy those slaves. People of power send the powerless into battle, just like in those days. People step over the poor and sick, avoiding them as awkward interruptions, just like in those days.

And just like in those days, people choose for themselves things that diminish their own lives, that weaken their spirits. And just like in those days, bad things happen without explanation or regard. Illness or accident or tragedy. The universe itself seems indifferent.

Most of us have firsthand knowledge of life-draining, life-squashing, life-inhibiting events, or things, or people.

The forces of death are strong and the power of fear is great. Moses gave a choice to the Israelites in the dessert, freed from slavery but not yet settled in a new home. I put before you life and death, he said. Choose life. Choose life. As if it were so easy. In most of what we do, in what we buy, in how we treat friends and strangers, how we treat ourselves, in our jobs, in what we hope for, we are presented with Moses’ choice. Think: is what I’m about to do on the side of life or death. Martin Luther said that one reason we should share in Holy Communion is because it nourishes us so that we may engage in a daily fight with the devil. Who is on the side of death. Whom we are right to despise. It seems that just when things are going well, the evil one looks for a foothold, ever ready.

So it must have seemed to the disciples, gathering in fear in a room they had locked. Afraid, all except Thomas, even to go out. How in the world could Jesus be alive in the face of the evil of the world?

And yet. And yet he was. Here he was, in this room, standing here. The disciples rejoiced, the story says. What filled them with joy?

Were they joyful to see their old friend back? Maybe, but I suspect they found that more weird than joyful. I would have. The pleasure of the miracle, though great, would have been overwhelmed by the even greater strangeness of seeing my dead friend walking toward me, talking, wishing me peace.

Were they were joyful because he brought them a taste of the afterlife? Maybe, but he brings them no news of what is beyond the grave, no slide shows of his weekend journey to the dead. On the contrary, he speaks to the disciples of their lives, of his expectations for them in this world. What they needed to do. And he brings them gifts to help them do that. The Holy Spirit, the power of forgiveness. Peace. He spoke to them about their continuing life.

Or were the disciples joyful because they suddenly realized that what they knew about death was all wrong. That they had it wrong. They, not Thomas, had been the doubting disciples. They had doubted the power of life. The powerfulness of life. But Jesus brings them news. Good news. Death does not have the last word. Jesus teaches them to doubt death. And to doubt the conclusions they had held with such certainty.

Like the disciples, we are tempted to give in to death’s public relations campaign. To fear that in the end there is only the end. But Jesus shows us that even with our experience of it, we overrate the power of death. Jesus shows us that death is weaker than we imagine. For the followers of Jesus this is not wishful thinking. This is not whistling in the dark. It is a kind of physics. It is information. Jesus’ presence in the room is a message that life is a strong as we hope. Stronger than we had hoped. That the forces of life prevail.

Desmond Tutu, who knew a thing or two about the power of life in the face of death, said that:

We are able to declare that God’s intention for the world is that all of this ugliness must be transformed and transfigured, that there will be peace, that there will be joy, that there will be laughter, that there will be fellowship and reconciliation… God has made us for goodness, for love, for compassion, for peace, for laughter, for gentleness, for sharing and caring—and God is in charge.

He closed with words that could have come from the hearts of the disciples:

Goodness is stronger than evil,
love is stronger than hate,
light is stronger than darkness,
life is stronger than death.

Wind from Above

Text: John 3:1-9

What is your question, Nicodemus? What do you want to know, Nicodemus? What do you want?

Nicodemus comes in the night. He comes in the darkness. Under protection of the night. In the dark. He comes, perhaps, at risk to himself. Fearful, perhaps, we don’t know, of his fellow Pharisees. He comes, perhaps, in secret. To meet this man Jesus.

Nicodemus speaks to Jesus. He tells Jesus what he has heard. He tells Jesus about his own conclusions. He does not ask Jesus a question. He is like the caller on a talk radio show. He has something to say. He does not ask a question. The host in these shows always says, what is your question? Do you have a question for Jesus, we can imagine the host saying. Nicodemus does have a question, for the story says that Jesus answered him. Nicodemus has a question. But it is not a question on his lips. It is a question in his heart.

Nicodemus lives in a time when his nation is occupied and oppressed. The poor are many, and they are very poor. The rich are few, and very rich. Something is wrong. With the world, with the Pharisees, maybe even with Nicodemus himself. The question in Nicodemus’s heart is, I suspect, the question we always have: who are you, who am I, what shall I do, what is going to happen? Maybe those questions are not on your lips, but I bet they are in your heart, too.

Poor Nicodemus. Jesus answers his question, the story says. But what a strange answer. “No one can see the kingdom of God without having been born from above.” What kind of answer is that? Did I ask you anything about the kingdom of God? I guess Jesus thinks he did.

Let’s talk a second about the phrase: born from above. It is a problem. The word that our Bible translates “from above” could also be translated “again.” Born again. As in born-again Christian. The Greek word in the Bible means both things. From above, and again. Both at the same time. It is like the phrase “take it from the top,” meaning start up again.

It obviously does not mean literally to be born all over again. That’s the mistake that Nicodemus makes. What’s the deal, can I go back into the womb, is that what you mean, Jesus? (Or maybe Nicodemus is not so dumb. Maybe he’s just making a joke.) Besides that, when we are born, we come into the world with no history. I’m not sure Jesus means we have to start with a clean slate. We bring our past, the good and the troubled. In the same way, there is not much reason to think that the phrase means you have to have a sudden and mysterious conversion in order to be saved.

But no matter what the details, it seems that Jesus is talking about transformation. About something changing. About your life changing. Or being changed. If you wish to find what you seek, Nicodemus, something will change. This is not proscriptive. It is not a rule that Jesus is making up. Not a task to be accomplished. It is descriptive. No matter what, things will not continue the way they have. That is the way it works.

Nicodemus evidently is not one for letting things just happen. He would like to know things, and once he knows, would like to control what happens. He is a ruler. Rulers are like that.A man of power. In this passage, the word “can” appears six times. And the word really means “have the power.” It is the root of the words “dynamic” and “dynamo.” How can these things be? asks Nicodemus at one point. He is concerned about impossibility. Who has the power to make these things happen? Jesus tells Nicodemus, “I don’t think you quite understand what I’m talking about.”

We are born, Jesus says, of water and Spirit. Of water and wind, you could say, for there is only one word for wind and spirit. We are born as the world was born. In the very beginning, it says at the very beginning of the Bible, “In the beginning, … the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” That is what we are. Part water, born from the waters of the womb, part wind, animated by the Spirit. Part earth, part heaven.

We are as solid as substance. Practical and able, full of power and ability, full of knowledge. At the same time, we are blown about on the wind, fragile, and crazy, and helpless. Our earth side thinks we are in control of things, and sometimes we are. Our wind side knows that we are not. If we think only with the earth side, we are doomed to sadness, frustration, and disappointment. The wind, says Jesus, blows where it chooses. This does not mean we are powerless. It does mean we are not very powerful. It does mean that perhaps we should let go of the notion that we have a destiny.

The forces that move us, the combination of our own and the Spirit’s, never drive us forward on a straight path. We hear God’s voice, the sound of the wind, the voice of the Spirit, as Jesus says here, in the experiences of our lives and the lives of others, we hear God’s voice in the wonder of creation, we hear God’s voice in the person of Jesus, we hear God’s voice in music and prayer and the bread and wine and the gathering of our friends. God’s voice, the sound of the wind, is not hard to hear. You hear the sound of it, Jesus says, but that does not mean you know where it goes. Not exactly. You are a teacher, Nicodemus, Jesus says. How can you not understand these things?

Nicodemus comes, as we do, with a question in his heart. That question in each of us is not always well-formed. We know, as Jesus saw in Nicodemus, that we have a question there, but we rarely know exactly what that question is. Or what it is in terms of the practical details of each of our lives. But just because we cannot articulate the question does not mean that it is not there. It is there.

And if the answer we hear is that transformation is ahead, and that the Spirit will guide you, then what?

Nicodemus, what did you do? What did you do after hearing Jesus? Did you return to your study, to the things of which you were certain, to the calculating and figuring out? Or was your life changed? Did you let go worrying about what could and could not be? What would and would not be? Were you freed? Nicodemus, did you turn and ride the wind?

In the beginning. If we can find it.

Text: Matthew 17:1-9

Let’s begin at the beginning. If only we could find the beginning.

We have a model of our lives. The big picture. Sort of a scheme of things. A common model is that our lives are lived in stages. Grammar school, middle school, high school, college, graduate school, post-doc. Or: Dating, courtship, marriage. Or: That time when I lived in Boston, when I lived in California, when I lived in Cambodia. Or: Intern, novice, manager, partner. As if we were a reality TV show, divided into seasons and episodes. In this view of things, it seems inside of us as if life were a series of discreet steps, steps usually made intentionally, and sometimes marked by ritual. Graduation, wedding, promotion. Each step a new beginning.

But beginnings are seen only in retrospect. What constitutes an episode is clear only when events are passed. That time your eyes met on the dance floor is only significant after it has turned into a long-term relationship. Otherwise, it was only a glance that, like most others, led to nothing. You can see beginnings only when looking backward. In hindsight. You know that something new has already begun when you can no longer choose to do anything different. If you can get out of a relationship, no harm done, then there was no relationship begun. The relationship with someone begins when you discover that you can choose no other.

The story we just heard in the Gospel reading is commonly called the Transfiguration, because in it Jesus is changed, which is what transfiguration means. But the story could just as well have been called “Jesus meets the old prophets” or “God speaks to the disciples” or “Peter gets it wrong” or “Tempted by heavenly persons, Jesus decides instead to return to earth.” I think that what Matthew—whose version of the story of Jesus we are reading this year—what Matthew would like to call it is “The beginning of the end.”

Matthew, who wrote this Gospel long after Jesus had died and been risen, had the benefit of hindsight. Matthew knew, as the disciples could not have known at this moment, that Jesus was about to go to be executed in a horrible way. And he knew more than that. He also knew that a movement would spring up from the stories of Jesus' resurrection, and that people would gather in worship and tell those stories, and that some people would believe the stories and some would laugh at them.

Matthew takes this story of the Transfiguration and puts it in his rendering of the Gospel in a spot that makes it the perfect lead-in to the passion story, the crucifixion story. Which is why we read it just before Lent, which starts this Wednesday. Matthew likes to see beginnings when he looks back on the story of Jesus. A genealogy begins the birth story of Jesus. His baptism begins his ministry. The transfiguration begins the Passion.

The story proves things, according the Matthew. It proves that Jesus hangs around with the greatest prophets, it proves that Jesus is connected to the divine, it proves that Jesus is God’s son. It gives Jesus authority and authenticity. And furthermore, there are witnesses to the whole thing. James and John and Peter were there watching and listening. Matthew needs these witnesses, because he wants to argue his case about Jesus. It is good for us to be here, says Peter. Good for Matthew and his argument, at least.

But inside the story, so to speak, things are different. In the drama of the story, the disciples don’t know the future as Matthew does. They follow Jesus, a mysterious and charismatic man who says and does amazing things. Peter has just declared Jesus to be the Messiah, the one who comes to fix the world. Peter has also just heard that Jesus plans to go to his death, and has pleaded with Jesus not to. Even in this Transfiguration story, so full of formal symbols and purposes, we hear the friendship of the disciples, and Peter in particular, for Jesus and their love for him. They would follow him to the ends of the earth, and they do. Matthew wants the disciples to be nothing more than witnesses—they had roles to play, they could be anybody. But the story itself is so powerful that the disciples’ personalities and love come breaking through. Why did they think Jesus took them up on the mountain? Not to prove a point, I’m guessing. But to show them something cool and revealing. Or maybe just to have their company. It is good for us to be here, says Peter. Good for you, Jesus, that we are here with you.

We look back on the life of Jesus from a distance much further away than Matthew did. We know, as Matthew did, how the story ends. But we know more, which is that the story has become the foundation for a huge amount of theology, doctrine, tradition, and that a gigantic and mostly successful institution has grown up around it. There is no way that the disciples could have imagined Christianity.

We need to be careful not to look at Jesus with too much hindsight. We are followers of Jesus, and as such we have a lot in common with the first disciples. The church exists to preserve the story of Jesus, but it does not substitute for that story. How we know God develops over time. And like the disciples, we are not sure how it will all play out. We do not know whether events in our faith life are beginnings or middles or nothing at all, at least so far. Like the disciples, we could approach Jesus with less knowledge and with a simple willingness to go where Jesus invites us to.

The inscription around the chancel, the altar area here, reads “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” At the beginning and the end are the Greeks letters Alpha and Omicron. But they were supposed to be—or usually are—the letters Alpha (the first letter of the Greek alphabet) and Omega (which is the last letter) which is not shaped like an “O” but a little like a bowler hat. I have always thought that this was a mistake made by the builders of Faith. But maybe not. Mistake or no, it has the timeline right. Because for us in this time, the story is not over. We are in the middle of it. As far as we know, at the Omicron, not the Omega.

Seeing the life of the church, seeing your faith life, seeing your life, in episodes is not super helpful. Worrying about what things are beginnings and what things are just things makes us anxious about everything. Seeing things as episodes makes us impatient. Seeing things as episodes makes us live in the past or the future. Seeing things as episodes makes us miss the whole story.

I’m trying out a GPS in my car. I’m not sure I like it. It shows the street I’m on and the next street at which I’ll be expected to take some action. It makes something which is more or less continuous into a series of distinct stages, each one just beyond the horizon, demanding my attention. Left turn in half a mile onto Prospect Street. It makes the trip a series of inexorable and tedious events. It makes me anxious, not relieved. It makes me tired.

Life is not a series of small firm steps, one after the other. It is a discovery. The episodes appear after we have lived them. We can not figure it all out in advance. The path is not determined. We can do what the disciples did. Trust in God with an open heart. Do not be afraid. And see what happens.

Christ Divided

Text: 1 Corinthians 1:10-17

The Lutheran church in the U.S. is fostering splinter groups. Some people are not happy with the way things are going. Some folks do not like the agreement Lutherans have made with the Episcopalians. Some don’t like the agreement made with the UCC and Presbyterian churches. Some don’t like the stance of the church on the ordination of gay or lesbian pastors, some think the church is too liberal and others think it too conservative. Some think they are the real Lutherans. Some think they are the real Christians. Some of these folks have formed clubs of like-minded people. Some of these clubs have threatened to resign from the Lutheran church. That’ll show ‘em, they think.

Has Christ been divided, Paul asks. Has Christ been divided? You bet he has.

In this letter to the church at Corinth, a church he started, it is clear that Paul is not a happy camper. The church is full of splinter groups, just like the Lutherans. I’m with Paul, some say. I’m with Apollos, some say back. I’m with Peter, say a third group. What are you guys doing? Paul writes to them. You are all strutting around, disagreeing with each other, each group thinking they have it right. Where do you get that arrogance from? Not from me, that’s for sure. And not from Jesus, that’s for sure, too. I appeal to you, Paul writes, stop the division. Stop it.

Not that they should all be the same. That is not it. Paul later writes about how the follows of Jesus have all sorts of different skills and gifts, but they all come together in Christ. No longer Jew or Greek, male or female—we quote Paul from one of his other letters. We are all one in Christ Jesus. What Paul asks is that they all be on the same page, as we would say now.

But not that they spend too much time on the page, or on too many of those pages. Following Jesus is not the same as writing a treatise about Jesus. Eloquent wisdom is not what this is all about, says Paul. In fact, eloquent wisdom sometimes gets in the way. The fights between one Christian faction and the other are rarely based on personal experiences of God or understandings of the heart. They are and have always been more often based on theology and doctrine and creeds and interpretation. Such talk, while really interesting and entertaining (I like to do it, anyway)—but such talk, Paul says, can drain the cross of its power.

When you gather with other Christians, don’t ask them to explain what they believe. Ask them to tell their own story about what God means and has meant in their own lives. That would be a good way to start. It works with people who are not Christian, too, I’ve found.

Paul uses the phrase “brothers and sisters” twice as often in this letter (38 times, to be precise) as in any other letter. He wants the people in Corinth to remember that they are all God’s children, and that God has no favorites among them. If they are putting on airs, it is because of their own valuation of themselves, not God’s.

There is a unity among the followers of Jesus that comes from the heart of Jesus' teachings and his resurrection. But that unity does not come because we think we should be unified and should work really hard at not being divisive. It comes from God’s grace. As a consequence, Paul’s relationship with other Christians does not depend on how Paul feels about them or whether Paul likes them or whether he thinks they are good people or whether he agrees with them. It is based on the fact that God’s grace is alive in them.

Paul was a missionary. And this appeal he makes to the people has a lot to do with evangelism and hospitality. It has to do with evangelism because it means that you cannot convince someone anything about Jesus by talking at them. What you can do, and what Paul does all the time, is tell them some stories. Real ones, that you know about because they are yours. And it has to do with hospitality because everyone is welcome. Everyone is welcome because there is nothing on the face of it that can tell us any reason to not welcome them. Listen to their story. It is the flip side of evangelism. Evangelism: you tell your story. Hospitality: someone tells you his or her story. It works out nice.

Noah [a child in the church] was just baptized. He has become a Christian by this sacrament, marked with the mark of Christ, we said. This is part of Noah's story, should he someday want to tell it. It is part of your story too, having been witnesses to it and having promised to nurture Noah in his faith. He was baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The name we call God. Noah and we share a story and always will.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians starts with the greeting: “to all people everywhere who call on the name of Jesus.” Paul has nothing against eloquent wisdom per se. But it is not the first thing, nor the most important thing, maybe not even an important thing. The first thing, the most important thing, is that we are followers of Jesus.

For now, all those Lutheran groups I mentioned have decided that they will stay within the larger church. Partly because they think they can be more effective. But mostly because though they differ in many ways, they share in common one thing. They are all people who call on the name of Jesus.

Come and See

Text: John 1:29-42

It seems a little foolish.

It seems a little foolish to follow this man to who-knows-where for who-knows-what purpose. To follow Jesus on the strength of John’s exclamation: Look, here is the lamb of God. As if that were a reason. But it turned out that that was reason enough for Andrew and the other disciple (who does not even get mentioned by name). Enough to abandon one kind of life, known and familiar, for another kind, unknown and exotic.

There is a notion that becoming a follower of Jesus, becoming a Christian, allowing Jesus to be one’s guide and leader, is a decision that can be made rationally and with clarity. Something thought through and figured out. And sometimes that may be how it works. But often enough what happens between you and Jesus is unexpected and mysterious, and in a moment one’s life is rearranged. It is rarely prudent.

So it was with the first disciples, who in all the Gospels follow Jesus suddenly and for no apparent good reason. Come and see, Jesus says, and they do.

Or mostly suddenly. They do ask Jesus for his resume, for a reference. “Where are you staying?” Where do you live, might be another way to put it, where do you abide. But “where are you at?” is more the meaning. What exactly is with you? Where do you stand on important issues? They try for a moment to pin Jesus down. But as so often in the Gospels, Jesus will not give them a straight answer. Jesus does not offer them a position paper or a business plan or mission statement. Instead of an answer of this sort, Jesus makes them an invitation. Jesus just invites them: Come and see.

They call him a teacher, and like all teachers he teaches less about truth and more about possibility, which is perhaps better truth. Jesus’ invitation is always: Come and see. Come and see what might happen, Come and see who you might be, Come and see who you might become, Come and see what the world might become, Come and see what it might be like to follow me. The disciples do not know the answers to these questions when they turn to follow Jesus. All they really know is that they have received an invitation. That seems to be enough.

Invitations draw us into the future. Invitations are the foundation for adventure, freedom, and joy. They are spoilers of certainty, stability, and control. Life makes steps by constant invitation. Who knows where they will lead or how things will turn out? You are invited to be married, have a family, change jobs, go to school, start a company, join the army, run for office, speak out against injustice, leave your home. Who knows what will happen? The disciples didn’t.

It seems to me that the invitation that Jesus makes to us has four parts. Or maybe better to say Jesus makes four invitations, each intertwined with the others.

First, Jesus invites us: Come and be with me. The invitation is both personal and corporate. That means that Jesus is asking you to be connected with him. It also means that you will be connected to his ministry, and therefore all the other followers of Jesus. Our focus is on a particular person, Jesus Christ. We are not invited to join an organization that is centered around an idea or a doctrine. The center for each of us is Jesus. At the same time, we are part of a group of people who are all expected to work together and who bring each other hope, comfort, and mutual admiration and also warning, and to embolden and hearten each other.

Second, Jesus invites us: Come and transform the world. In his ministry, Jesus paints a picture of a world different from the one of his time and of ours. In it, people give away all their money. They do not fight back. They lend without expecting anything in return. They love their enemies and their neighbors. They are compassionate even if it leads to trouble. They rely on the good will of others to be fed and housed, and those who have food and housing freely share them. What kind of world would it be if all who followed Jesus did as he preached? Or worked to make a world in which it was easy to do those things rather a world which considers this kind of talk to be unrealistic and naive at best and revolutionary at worst.

Third, Jesus invites us: Come and be brave. The disciples suspected soon enough that to follow Jesus was a risky endeavor. We in our time know it is. To be Christian is to take risks. Not so much risks of persecution, though that has been a risk and still is in some places. But more, the risk involved with doing what Jesus tells us to do and to be. Transformation is not welcome if you like the way things are. If you preach that the last will be first and the first last, those who are first now might not be happy with you. If you love your enemies, your friends might not be be happy with you.

And fourth, Jesus invites us: Come and transform yourself. If we accept Jesus’ invitation to come and see, what we will see is a broader horizon. We might be able to see people who before were invisible. We might act with courage where before we were timid. We might accomplish things that before were impossible. We might love the unlovely. We might let go what before we grasped tightly. We might walk lightly where before we were burdened with things of the earth and things of the spirit. We might trust God where before we trusted no one. We might become different people, with new names, as Simon became Peter.

The invitation of Jesus in all its parts is of the essence of Christianity. A God of grace, as we know God to be, does not coerce us, does not boss us around, does not play games with us. A God of grace makes us an offer. Christianity is in part an invitation to see and be and behave in a new way.

People sometimes describe faith as a body of knowledge, a done deal, learn it and be it. but because it is invitational, it is more experimental. Christianity is an experimental religion, not in the way that people say “an experimental airplane,” but experimental in that we don't quite know what is going to happen moment to moment. We try things out. Our faith is built on experiences. We respond to Jesus step by step, as the first disciples did, opening our faith as he continues as he continues to offer his invitation.

On the radio last week there was a story of a young girl who was blind. She had been reading a new kind of book, a picture book in braille, with bumps and forms on the page that let her imagine the images as a seeing person would from a photograph. The book was a book about astronomy, and the pictures were pictures of galaxies and nebulae and shooting clouds of interstellar gas. The girl, having been given the gift of the universe through this book, said she was interested in space exploration. The interviewer asked her whether she would like to be an astronaut some day. She said: Uh huh, totally, yes!

Not all of us answer as emphatically when we hear Jesus’ call. Sometimes we respond “totally, yes!” and sometimes it takes a while. We do not know why Andrew and his friend—and later Simon Peter and all the others—we don’t know why each of them followed Jesus. We don’t know whether they were confident or nervous. We don’t know whether they thought they were frightened or amused. We do know that Jesus invited them to come and see—and they did.

It may be that the message of Jesus is universal. But that does not mean it reveals itself in each of us in the same way, or that we all hear it in the same way. It is interpreted in each of our lives in individual ways. And the way you interpret it and respond is a result of how the invitation you hear bangs up against all that you know, and are, and have been.

Our bishop wonders whether it is time go go from “come and see” to “go and tell.” But all we really can tell is that there is an invitation. And all we can really tell is the invitation that we, each of us, have heard. All all we can really tell is what happens to us when we hear jesus call us: Come and see.

Getting to Know You

Text: Ephesians 3:1-12
Other texts: Matthew 2:1-12

Herod wanted to know. He was ignorant. He knew a little something. He wanted to know more. Herod knew what he had heard through rumor, gossip, and from mysterious travelers. What little Herod knew made him afraid. Herod was a frightened man. Anyone who rules through coercion, through violence, is an frightened man. Anyone who rules by making people afraid—and that is how Herod ruled—anyone who rules like that lives in fear. Someday, something will be happen. Herod heard from the mysterious travelers, the magi, that maybe his replacement had just been born. You have to be pretty jumpy to worry about babies who were just born who might possibly someday replace you, but it seems that Herod was pretty jumpy.

The wise men were not super reliable. We call them wise and we call them kings, but really they were not the sort of people anyone in Herod’s time or Herod’s position would normally have respected. Neither kings nor necessarily wise, they were magi, which is the root word for magician, which is what they mostly were. They would not have been honored, being one step up, at best, from charlatans. They claimed supernatural powers. They were held in esteem then about as much as television psychics are today.

But Herod was super-vigilant, and he paid attention to the news that these flaky magi brought. And he gathered his own wise counselors and priests and scholars, who told him a little more about what he wanted to know. But they didn’t tell him enough to find Jesus, fortunately. Providentially, you would have to say. Through providence, Herod’s hunger for knowledge was not satisfied.

Herod wanted to know. He wanted to know so that he could keep his power. That’s one of the big reasons people do want to know things. To be powerful, to get power, to keep power, to protect power. Knowledge is power. That is why we have state secrets. Secrets are powerful. But God in this case knew how to keep a secret.

Today is Epiphany. Epiphany of our Lord, to be more formal, to distinguish it from just plain old epiphanies. The word epiphany means to reveal, or to make manifest, and its roots mean to shine up. As if there were something buried in the ground but which suddenly emits a ray of light, shining up into the sky. Like in the movies when the archeologists digging in the ruins uncover the mysterious source of energy they have been searching for, and a light shines up like a geyser. Epiphany does not mean “turn on the light.” It means “see the light.” Like the hymn, “I saw the light.” See the light which was already there, but perhaps hidden. Or perhaps you were not looking in the right place. Or for the right thing.

Epiphany is an (often sudden) revelation. An understanding.

Paul wanted to know, too. He already knew a lot. But he wanted to know more. Paul wanted to know more about God. And Paul wanted to know God more. God knows how to keep a secret, but fortunately God knows how to reveal one, too.

There is a strong consensus among scholars that Ephesians, from which we just heard, was not written by the Apostle Paul. They think this for a lots of different reasons. But generally it is like the way you could tell whether a letter from your significant other or parent or good friend was authentic. The style, the words used, the ideas or content of the letter—nothing is quite the same as the letters that most people agree Paul himself wrote. It just doesn’t sound like Paul.

This passage in particular is full of ideas and words not used elsewhere by Paul. Even so, I think whoever wrote this letter had a good sense of Paul’s hunger to know God.

When you fall in love with someone, you want to know everything about them. If you are falling in love with someone, and they with you, you are willing, eager, to spend time learning about them, discovering them, being surprised by what you find out, being amazed by them.

Paul is in love with God. And the story of Paul told through the epistles is a love story. In it, we see Paul’s excitement at learning about God through God’s call to him and as revealed in Jesus. Paul is amazed by God. And Paul is amazed at what God reveals. The passage in these verses are an explosion of revelation.

“ … you have already heard of the commission of God's grace that was given me for you, and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, [… you will be able] to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ. In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.”

Three things excite Paul about his relationship with God. First, that God would be such a person of grace as to send Jesus to this world to heal the whole world. Second, that God would be so open as to let Paul in particular and humans in general see what God is like inside, because Jesus is God’s insides. What Jesus does, God does. Jesus tells the truth about God in the way Jesus is and what Jesus does. And the third thing that excites Paul is that God has chosen him, Paul, to get the message out.

We all share, more or less, Paul’s hunger to know God. Your presence here is evidence of that. Not all of us—but some, for sure—were knocked off our feet by God the way Paul was. Not all of us were called so energetically to serve God. But some have been, and some will be yet. Our relationship with God is like the relationship between two courting friends getting acquainted, or two people falling in love.

As in all developing relationships, there are ups and downs. Sometimes things go great. Sometimes it seems we feel like were have to break up. We experience little epiphanies. God is revealed to us. We allow more parts of ourselves to be revealed to God; we bring more to God. We learn, as we do with someone with whom we are falling in love, that there are things we can say to God without driving God away. Even though they might be embarrassing and awkward. Even though we have never told these things to anyone else. We long to know, but we also long to be known.

We want to know. Sometimes we want to know like Herod, so that we feel more powerful, more in control. We want to know what God wants exactly, what we can do to make God favor us, what we have to do to stay out of God’s wrath, what we might do to cajole God and get what we want.

But sometimes we are like Paul. Head over heals in love with God. Being powerless but being eager. Letting our relationship with God unfold, looking forward to our future together. Being grateful and amazed.