With You I Am Well Pleased!

sermon by Torin Eikler
Isaiah 43:1-7   Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

You may not realize it, but the scripture Nick just read – and its counterparts in the other three gospels - have caused quite a bit of conflict in the Christian Church.  It seems innocuous enough – Jesus getting baptized.  It ought to be a source of celebration and joy, if anything, since it is the reason that believers have been baptizing one another for millennia.  Yet, across the years it has been at the heart of many a theological argument and quite a few church splits.  It has even been the catalyst for the creation of at least two denominations that I know of … (and I think you might know which two I’m thinking of.)

The question that has stirred up all of this hubbub is why.  Why did Jesus get baptized in the first place?

As far as I know, there is only one answer for that in the scripture, and that is found in Matthew.  The story as he tells it has John objecting on the grounds that he is unworthy to baptize Jesus.  And Jesus responds, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

That’s an answer that is about as clear as the mud stirred up in the waters of the river Jordan all those years ago.  It seems to imply one of two possibilities: Jesus was baptized simply to check off one more fulfilled prophesy or Jesus really needed John’s baptism – a baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

Neither one of those options is very compelling to me … though … if I am honest, I would prefer the second.  It might mean that we have to give up the image of Jesus as being without sin, but that's not so hard … at least for me.  It makes him seem more human … fallible, and I can actually relate to that better than I can to the perfect Jesus.  It gives me hope that I might be able to follow in his path more fully if he was as susceptible to temptation and failure as all the rest of us … if he had to pass through some of that fire and water that Isaiah was talking about.

The other interpretation – the one where Jesus is just checking off a to-do list – leaves me feeling empty.  Empty because it strips baptism of the power that I have found in it.  Empty because it portrays both Jesus and God as concerned with little more than fulfilling prophesy as if we needed more proof than Jesus life and teachings to accept him as the Messiah.  Empty because it challenges much of my understanding of who Jesus was and what he was about.  …  Empty.

 

But leaving behind the question of righteousness which, honestly, no one but Matthew and the community he wrote may ever really understand, this story also rests at the heart of the discussion of Jesus’ divinity.  As someone brought up in Sunday school in the past couple of weeks, Jesus never claimed divinity.  He never claimed to be the son of God.  And there is no other place in the gospels where the case is made so clearly as when the voice from the heavens says, “This is my beloved son.”  (or, in this case, “You are my beloved son.”)  So, whether God intended this to be a statement of Jesus’ divine heritage or the gospel authors added this as a way to compel belief in those who would read their writing, this is the scripture has engendered a lot of discussion among Christians, and it stands at the heart of our doctrine of the Trinity.

Many other discussions – theological discussions – that revolve around these scriptures, and they are endlessly fascinating … at least to me.  But there is another possibility that comes to mind if we leave theology behind in favor of a less esoteric and more human perspective … a perspective that we can all understand.

 

What if Jesus just needed some reassurance?

I say, “just,” but take a moment to think about it with me….  After a spectacular birth and a childhood that included an escape to and return from Egypt as well as at least one very notable visit to the Temple, perhaps Jesus had reached the point in his own spiritual growth where he was acutely aware of his special relationship to God.  Perhaps some of his motivation, then, was that he felt the need to identify himself with all the people he hoped to lead into a deeper fellowship with God.  And perhaps, in part, he needed to find reassurance … reassurance that he had understood his role in the grand mission correctly … reassurance that he was not … would not be alone in the midst of his trials.

Imagine how it must have felt to hear the words recorded by Luke.  I don’t mean “You are my beloved son.”  I’m thinking of “With you I am well pleased.”  I think that would have been just what Jesus needed to hear.  It would have relieved all of his doubts.  Had he learned enough?  Was he good enough?  Was he worthy of the mission God had given him?  Could he do what was asked of him?  … All of his questions answered with those words ….

I expect that would have made Jesus feel pretty good to hear God say, “With you I am well pleased” … to know that everything that you had already done was more than sufficient.  It was good.  To know that God accepted you as you were … wanted you to be just like you were … was with you just as you were … and would be there for you wherever you went and whatever you did.  It’s hard to imagine what that would have felt like … what a difference that might have made.

 

This morning I’d like us to try.  I want to invite you on a journey of imagination. I wish to take you back, back to your beginnings, your earliest memories, have you image how your world might have been different had you heard these words: "With you I am well pleased."

We all have a first memory - that first moment that we can remember as a child. Those memories are fixed in us as the moment when we first realized our separateness from the others. That first memory may be one of delight, of pure joy, or it may evoke sadness or anger, bewilderment or - the list is really endless….  Imagine, if you can, that in the midst of this situation, this memory, the first words spoken by the other are these: "With you I am well pleased".

Then imagine, or remember, your first day of school - that first moment away from a parent when you immersed into a world of other children, one or two adults, and the structure of learning. Imagine yourself hearing from that teacher, as the first words out of his or her mouth – “with you I am well pleased.”

Imagine your first time at an afterschool program like brownies, cub scouts, or some other place where children gather to form bonds and learn to work in groups towards a common goal. Imagine that the adult leaders pull you all together and says, "With you I am well pleased."

Imagine you have just arrived to try out or audition for the school team, choir, band, or some other extracurricular activity, and the first words from the coach or conductor to everyone, regardless of whether or not they will be choose is: "With you I am well pleased."

Imagine the first day you held a child of your own with all the worries and doubts that come with new parenthood, and as you look into those clear, squinting eyes, you hear a voice from heaven say, “With you I am well pleased.”

 

Take the relief and the pride and the hope that filled you in any one of those moments and multiply it by 10 … 100 … maybe even 1000 times, and you might get close to how it would have felt for Jesus.  Called to save the world … stepping into the river Jordan to be washed clean as he took his first steps down the road to the cross, he received a powerful gift.  It must have been an experience unlike any other, and we’ll never know how much of a difference it made in Jesus life. 

But we can know the difference it makes in our lives….

This week, a colleague of mine shared a story on email.  She told us about a service that she had been part of some years ago – a baptismal renewal service, and as she reflected on that service, she said, “That day that I dipped my hand into the baptismal water years ago … was the very day when I first heard that I was a beloved child of God ... and I was 40 years old. That day of baptismal renewal within our church was a life-changing day for me.”

My deepest hope is that most of you heard or felt those words on the day of your baptism or your confirmation, but I know that those days are often so full of distractions and anxiety that it is hard to hear the love of God speaking to us.  So, I’d like to invite you all to participate in an anointing this morning if you are so led.  If you have been baptized, I encourage you to think of this as a renewal of those vows.  If you haven’t made that commitment yet, you are welcome to come forward to receive the gift of a renewal of your spirit….

Shining Your Light

sermon by Torin Eikler
Isaiah 60:1-6     Matthew 2:1-12

This is always a fun Sunday.  Even though it’s the last of the twelve days of Christmas and the holiday is officially over according to the Church’s calendar, the celebration isn’t over yet because we are moving into the season of Epiphany.  Epiphany … the lifting of the veil between God and the world … the manifestation of God’s mercy shining forth in the light of Christ.  In some countries this is the day when children put shoes outside their door for the kings to fill with gifts.

That’s what makes it fun, the kings.  Every year, we hear their story on this Sunday, and all the extra bits that we have learned from tradition fill in the story.  Three wise men come from the east, following a miraculous star to the stable in Bethlehem in order to offer their majestic gifts to the Christ child.  Never mind that there is no indication that there were only three of them or that they were from the east or even that they arrived in Bethlehem in time to see the baby.  In fact, there is some evidence that they arrived a good deal after the birth.  But that doesn’t get in the way … not really.  The “kings” still came.  They still offered their gifts and their homage.  We still get to imagine their story and celebrate for one more Sunday.

And one of the most intriguing retellings of the story that I have run across is in “Amahl and the Night Visitors” by Gian-Carlo Menotti.  Instead of describing the arrival at the stable, Menotti tells a tale that might have happened on the journey when the kings stopped to spend the night in an unsuspecting home along the way. 

In the story, Amahl was the crippled son of a poor widow.  The two of them eked out a living somehow, and while they often suffered from a lack of food, Amahl did not suffer from a lack of imagination, often inventing incredible stories. 

One night as he sits outside their shack, he hears his mother calling him to bed.  "Coming...," he answered, as he continued to gaze at the stars above him.  Again, his mother called, and again, Amahl replied, "coming..." but otherwise he seems not to have heard.  Then his mother stormed out of the house, and pried him away from his star-gazing.

Once they were inside, Amahl’s mother asked, “What was keeping you outside?”  Amahl replied excitedly, "Oh Mother! You should go out and see! There's never been such a sky.  Damp clouds have shined it, and soft winds have swept it, as if to make it ready for a king's ball. All its lanterns are lit, all its torches are burning, and its dark floor is shining like crystal. Hanging over our roof, there is a star as large as a window; and the star has a tail, and it moves across the sky like a chariot on fire."

"Oh Amahl!” responded his mother, “When will you stop telling lies? All day long you wander about in a dream. Here we are with nothing to eat - not a stick of wood on the fire, not a drop of oil in the jug, and all you do is to worry your mother with fairy tales. Oh Amahl... have you forgotten your promise never never to lie to your mother again?"

"Mother, I'm not lying,” said Amahl.  “Please believe me. Come outside and let me show you. See for yourself."

“Amahl!” burst his mother.  “Stop bothering me!  Why should I believe you?  You come with a new one every day! … [Just] kiss me goodnight, [and we’ll go to bed.]”[1]

The two of them laid down for the night and had just fallen asleep when there was a knock at the door.  At the sound of the knock, Amahl’s mother awoke with a start by didn’t move from her bed on the bench.  “Amahl,” she said drowsily, “go and see who’s knocking at the door.”

            “Yes, mother.”  He went to the door and opened it a crack, his heart thudding in his chest.  He closed the door quickly and rushed to his mother.

            Amahl was shaking with excitement.  “Mother-” he stopped.  he hardly dared tell her what he had seen.  “Outside the door there is -” he swallowed and went on with an effort – “there is a king with a crown.”

            [Assuming this was another of his fanciful tales, Amahl’s mother] went with determination toward the door and Amahl limped close behind her.  As the door swung open and she saw the three kings standing there in all their splendor, she caught her breath.  She bowed to them in utter amazement.

            The three kings introduced themselves.  Two of them – Melchior and Balthazar – were regal and resplendent in their robes.  The third – Kaspar – was … less so.  Kaspar’s robes were rich, but they didn’t fit him very well, and his crown was askew on his head as if he had just slapped it on any old way.  His shoes didn’t match either – one was gold and the other was purple.  Amahl whispered triumphantly to his mother, “What did I tell you?”

 

As the evening progresses, Amahl gets to know Kaspar a bit better.  Drawn in by his strange appearance and his inviting personality, Amahl begins to ask questions about why the kings are traveling much to his mother’s chagrin.  And Kaspar is happy to answer.

He tells of how he and the others read the prophesy of a great king’s coming in the stars and prepared to make a pilgrimage when that king arrived.  He tells of the appearance of the fiery star that Amahl himself had noticed earlier and of how the three men set off to follow wherever it led.  He tells a bit about their journey through strange lands ….  And he eventually tells Amahl about the treasures that they have brought along as gifts to honor the king.  In his case, the gift is gold.

Amahl’s mother listens to the story as she is preparing the beds and serving some tea.  As the night wears on, she wrestles with temptation.  While everyone is sleeping, she decides to take some of the gold for herself and her son.  In the process, though, she is discovered by a pageboy who is sleeping near the treasure.

Everyone wakes up at the boy’s shout, and once the confusion has quieted down, Amahl offers to send his crutch along with the kings in compensation for the affront.  It’s all that he has to offer … his most precious possession to honor the great king.  But, as he picks up the crutch to take it over to Kaspar, he discovers that his leg has been miraculously healed.

As everyone celebrates this sign of the new king’s blessing in response to Amahl’s selflessness, Kaspar forgives Amahl’s mother and offers her some of the gold.  She refuses and asks, instead, that Amahl be allowed to travel with the kings and offer his gift himself.  The request is granted, and the story ends with the sun rising on the kings and the young boy heading out to follow the star.

 

There are several things that I like about that story.  First, it is an opera in one act, and the music is both fun and accessible to adults and children alike.  Also, I’m always attracted to imaginative stories that fill in gaps in the scriptural record.  They can open up whole worlds of thought and wonder.  And, there’s the excellent example of why it’s not so good to make things up too much … especially if you are talking to your parents.  Always good to have another boy-who-cried-wolf story on hand when your children are tempted to pull your leg once too often. 

But the thing that I like most about Amahl and the Night Visitors is that it gets at one of the deeper meanings of the story of the kings in a way that the scripture in Matthew doesn’t make quite so clear.

Matthew told this story, in part, to remind his audience of the prophesies of Isaiah.  A light coming to the chosen people … the nations of the world following the light  … gold and frankincense brought as gifts (along with camels and sheep … always sheep).  Those are the building blocks for the story of the kings.  But, we have tended to idealize and romanticize the story in so many ways that we have neglected its more obvious meaning.

The intent, here, is to help us understand that the prophecies being fulfilled by Jesus' birth were about foreign nations coming to Jerusalem to worship Israel's God.  It’s a kind of religious universalism that is prominent in many parts of the OT, especially in the writings of Isaiah.  God’s mercy floods the world … the whole world.  And in this day and age, when religious traditions seem to clash with one another and even with themselves instead of coming together around the worship of God, that is a message that needs to be shared.

That’s what at the heart of the story about the kings … both in Matthew and in Amahl.  In the opera, the light of God’s coming in Christ brought the kings to the door of  a poor shack in search of hospitality … and they found that small mercy there.  Amahl’s mother received the gift when she was forgiven for trying to steal the gold intended for the Christ child.  Even the page boy who was so intent on protecting the kings’ treasures discovered that mercy is more important than gold.  And Amahl … Amahl received the most obvious gift.  He was blessed with the healing of his leg and the opportunity to go and visit the child who made it possible.

And it goes further still.  Matthew makes it clear that the kings did not go about their business quietly.  As they traveled they passed through cities and palaces, asking questions and telling the story of their hope.  After seeing the Christ child, they avoided Herod, but still they didn’t go quietly.  They shined the light of the glory they had seen … the mercy they had found into the lives of those they encountered along the way.

 

God’s mercy floods the world.  Its light shines on carpenters and virgins.  It shines on shepherds and kings.  It comes to Jews and Gentiles.  It comes to us as it comes to all people.  All that is required of us is that we receive the gift that is offered and that we pass it on.

Sometimes that’s hard.  Sometimes we feel too nervous about what people will think, or we don’t want to share with certain people we may not like much.  But, that’s how mercy works.  It is passed on from person to person even when … maybe especially when it seems impossible.  That’s how the light of grace is spread throughout the world.

And … behold, the star of God’s grace has risen.  Let us follow to the manger as did those wise men of old.  Let us bow in awe at the merciful light that it sheds … take that light into our hearts and nurture it so that it shine within us … so that it flows out from us.  Let us become messengers of that great grace and mercy and shine it’s light into a world that suffers in the midst of great darkness.

---

[1] “Amahl and the Night Visitors” Gian-Carlo Menotti, 1951, adapted.

Challenging Faith

sermon by Torin Eikler
Luke 3:7-18                 Isaiah 12:2-6

We are all familiar with Luke’s introduction of John the Baptist as the prophet come to fulfill Isaiah’s vision and announce the coming of the Messiah. 

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

Prepare the way of the Lord,
     make his paths straight. 
Every valley shall be filled,
     and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
     and the crooked shall be made straight,
           and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

It finally seems like we have a scripture that match the spirit of the day.  What could be more joyful than the coming of salvation for all?

Those would have been the thoughts of some who heard the news of John’s proclamation.  They had waited a long time for the Messiah to come and finally their faith was being vindicated.  Israel would rise again and salvation would come for all.  It must have made them want to sing with prophets: “I will fear disaster no more, for God is my strength!  I shall rejoice and exult with all my heart for the Lord has taken away the judgments against me, and I shall draw water from the wells of salvation with joy!”

It kind of makes me want to sing too … at least until I get to the verses that actually tell us John’s message, and then I feel out of place again as I hear his harsh words of judgment and repentance.  “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  . . . Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”  It’s not exactly a message that we find reflected in the holiday movies and cards that flood into our homes at this time of the year, and it doesn’t really get us into the Christmas Spirit.  What we really want to hear is Tiny Tim’s “God bless us everyone” so that we can sail on toward the birth of the salvation with the carefree wind of grace filling our sails, but John has some important things to say about salvation.

 

We tend to think of salvation as a matter for the individual.  Not so much that it’s private, but that salvation comes to each of us as we accept Jesus Christ as our savior.  It’s a matter of faith and of sin, and so it depends on each person recognizing and repenting his or her sin and building a relationship with the Christ who offers grace to forgive us.  That’s what I was taught when I was younger, and I would guess you learned something similar.  It’s certainly the message that is out there in our society.

So what do with do with the John’s call to “bear fruits worthy of repentance?”  He wasn’t holding an emotional altar call as he stood there thigh-high in the waters of the river Jordan.  He wasn’t satisfied with an internal change.  He was calling for a fundamental change of the heart, soul, mind, and … way of life.  True repentance, for John, bore fruit in the lives of the faithful as they patterned their living after the God who sought to “save the lame, gather the outcast, and transform shame into praise.”  And the stakes are high, for every tree that does not bear this kind of fruit will be “cut down and thrown into the fire.”

The stakes are high because the hope that John was proclaiming is more than just an individual salvation.  It embraces all flesh not just by being available to all, but by bringing about a transformation in the world.  With the advent of the Messiah, the Kingdom of God had drawn near, and that is a realm where everyone lives out of such love and compassion that justice and mercy are the norm rather than the exception.

John’s vision challenged the faith of those that gathered to listen to his preaching just as it challenges us.  And when we stop to consider what he is asking of us, our response is the same today as it was for those in the crowd 2,000 years ago: “What then shall we do?”

Elizabeth Myer Boulton suggests that we start with where we are….

“’Tis the season of mobbed malls, credit card debt, to-do lists, dysfunctional relatives and pants that used to fit. How can we slow down? How can we simplify? How can we start “turning around” when we Americans [spent upward of $560 billion on Christmas last year]?[1]

John’s answer is simple: “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Yet it’s not so simple. I don’t know about you, but I have more than one coat. I have more than two, actually, and something deep down inside of me doesn’t buy it when, in an impressive gesture of Christian generosity, I drop off a coat or two (one that no longer fits and one that I no longer like) at the Salvation Army.

John’s preaching cuts like an ax to the bone. Jesus is no picnic either. Can you see him, standing among baskets of leftover bread and fish? “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Can you hear him, counseling not only that rich young ruler but you and me? “Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”[2]

 

That’s a challenging vision.  It’s challenging because it’s not just about us.  It’s not just about our own personal relationship with God … not just about a clean and right spirit … not just about the forgiveness of sins.  The salvation preached by John … taught by Jesus is about everybody.  It calls us to a way of life that is dedicated to serving the needs of a weary world whether that means feeding or clothing people or marching in the streets to demand justice from the system in power or walking the path of forgiveness with murderers or with that one person who seems to rub us the wrong way….  And it’s hard to do that. 

We struggle to find the time and energy to reach out to others.  At the best of times, our lives are hectic … filled with all the things that we have to do:  things that just have to be done … and really good things that we do because our faith calls us to them.  In the midst of the holiday season, it’s even more of a strain to even think about anything but getting through all of our preparations.

And that’s where the axe really cuts (as Boulton put it) … because the salvation that we are offered is not a once in a while thing.  We are called to be part of it every day … every day.  Every day we should be sharing our food and handing out clothing.  Every day we should be visiting with the lonely and despairing among us.  Every day we should seeking out those who have wronged us, offering forgiveness, and working at reconciliation.  Every day we should be striving toward the Kingdom of love and peace.

It’s exhausting … physically, mentally, and spiritually … even thinking about it.  And it’s even more challenging when we know that all of our best intentions … our best efforts will not be enough to transform the world.

But … you know … that’s not really ours to worry about.  We are not called to change the whole world.  That’s the work of the Holy Spirit.  We are only called to be a part of the transformation … to reach out as often as we can and bring a small part of the promised salvation into one other life.  And as tired as we are … as despairing as we can become, the beauty of the Advent season is that we get another chance to start anew.  We get to lay down the burden for just a moment and celebrate the promise and the hope that empowers and encourages us.  We get to charge up on joy and excitement as we look forward to another year of preparing the way for the One whose coming is changing things.

 

I recently heard Arnold Eisen reflecting on his experience with Abraham Heschel who was a noted Jewish theologian and very involved in the Civil Rights movement, the anti-Vietnam movement, and many other justice-related activities.  One of the many memories he shared struck me ….

You know, I remember, … when I met [Abraham Heschel] in Washington, D.C., and saw a tired, bedraggled [man], who had spent his day lobbying against the war in Vietnam, I felt that somehow it wasn't worth his dignity to knock on the doors of those congressmen. He should be in his study thinking great thoughts, writing great books. It was a total contradiction of what I had felt a few months earlier, but it was a sign of Heschel's greatness that he knew he should be in the study and he should be on the streets and life was too short to do all of them all the time, but he would do the best he could. And that taught me something I'll never forget.[3]

 

That’s all that we can do.  That’s all that we are asked to do … the best we can.  
     The best we can to give food to the hungry. 
     The best we can to give shelter and clothing to the cold and homeless. 
     The best we can to welcome the stranger at our door. 
The best we can to live faithful lives filled with the joy of salvation found in the promise of the Christ child and shared with others.

When we do that … when we give our best, our worries often seem to fall away, and we are freed to enter more truly into the salvation we crave … into the Kingdom of peace and joy.

---

[1] http://www.statista.com/topics/991/us-christmas-season/

[2] Elizabeth Myer Boulton in The Christian Century, 12-1-2009

[3] Arnold Eisen in interview with Krista Tippett “On Being,” aired 12-12-12

 

Refined Courage

sermon by Carrie Eikler
Micah 3:1-4, Luke 1:68-79
December 9, 2012 (Advent 2)

You know me.  I stand up here every two weeks and share my insights into the gospel, stories from my life.  It’s not an easy thing.  It’s not necessarily a fun thing.  Frankly, it’s quite a vulnerable thing. But it is a blessed thing, for me in my life, and hopefully for you. 

And if you know me, you know how much I love the PBS icon Julia Child.  Not just because she was a fascinating cook and media personality, but because she was so…real. 

One of the most beloved scenes in her French Chef episodes, is when she attempt s to flip a potato pancake.  As she is holding the pan over the flame (or probably, the electric range), she is sweating over all the heat and exertion she has been putting in the kitchen, and as she’s kind of out of breath and she says “When you flip anything…you just have to have the courage of your convictions” and she flips this loose mass of potatoes and some fall out of the side to which she delightfully responds “Well that didn’t go very well, but you can always pick it up.  [and she plops it back into the pan] And if you are alone in the kitchen, who is going to see?”

Courage.  From the Latin cor, or from the heart. 
Courage. 
What you’ve got when do you the things you don’t think you can do. 
Courage. 
A little known prophet named Malachi speaking about God’s power and judgment. 
Courage. 
A man name Zecheriah, rendered mute by his understandable doubts, proclaiming greatness of an unseen God in the face of immediate occupation. 
Courage.

Maybe what got you out of bed this moring.

One thing I like about these two texts today, is that they are courageous words spoken from minor characters.  Malachi, eh…he was one of the minor prophets.  Not an Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or even an Amos.  In the face of these prophets, Malachi is a short, simple book about “bored priests, unfaithful husbands, and complaining laity.” [i]

And the reading from Luke comes from Zecheriah…who?  we might ask ourselves.  Zechariah.  Husband of Elizabeth.  Father of John the Baptist.  When an angel tells him that Elizabeth will bear a child, he scoffs and snorts riiight. And he is rendered mute, unable to speak, until the child is born.  And after nine months of not speaking, watching the evidence of the truth of this prophecy growing larger and larger, he *bursts* out with this song of praise.

So really, these are *eh* kind of characters and prophets in our tradition.  Easily forgotten.  Nothing too grand.  But what they say, and how we can receive what they say, can pierce us to the heart.  Can burn us like the refiner’s fire.

And really, each day of our life is like this.  Small struggles, perhaps insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but they are huge in our lives.  They each take some small (and big) acts of courage.   Actions that require us to move from our heart.  And I know that it may sound strange, but I’m sure you can attest…
 any act of courage you have undertaken, requires an enormous amount…of vulnerability.

And we don’t like vulnerability.  Vulnerability means opening ourselves up to get hurt.  Vulnerability means fleeing from the heat of our God’s love for fear we will be consumed completely.  Only that’s not what Malachi says.  God’s fire is not about consumption.  Judgment is not about condemnation.  In the heat of God’s fire for us we come out-- not perfected-- but righteous.  We come out more loved than we thought possible.  More worthy than our world would have us believe.

Advent is a time of waiting.  But not really a kick your feet up and lean back sort of waiting
If you have been a woman pregnant and waiting to give birth,
or a man waiting to be a father,
or an angel who has waited with someone who is scared
—and I’m sure those three have covered everyone here—
you know…this type of waiting and expectation is infused with intense vulnerability. 

And it changes you.

The vulnerability of Advent is not something we think about, because vulnerability is not something we like to think about.  Am I right?  I mean, if I actually had to stop and think about my vulnerabilities, I’d probably be incapacitated for hours.

We protect ourselves by hiding where and how we are vulnerable, for fear that others might find that weak spot—that place of pain—and exploit it, and hurt us.  So we act like it’s not there. 

Brené Brown is a shame and vulnerability expert.  That sure does sound appealing, doesn’t it?  Brown gave a speech at a TEDx Conference a few years ago that went viral—meaning, it took off across the internet.  Some of you may have heard of these TED Conferences.  TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design.  They were created, as they put it, to share ideas worth spreading.  Notable Nobel Prize winners, scientists, former presidents have all been speakers.  Brown is a social work professor who researches shame and vulnerability.  Much of her research focuses on how we experience
and process
and use
and avoid
shame and vulnerability
 in our contemporary American context.

So what is vulnerability?  Well Brown says, “When I ask people what is vulnerability the answers were things like
                         my first date after my divorce,
                                           saying I love you first,
                                                 asking for a raise,
sitting with my wife who has Stage III breast cancer and trying to make plans for our children,

To me,” she says “vulnerability is courage. It's about the willingness to show up and be seen in our lives. And… those moments when we show up… are the most powerful meaning-making moments of our lives even if they don't go well. I think they define who we are.”[ii]

The scriptures today all have a thread of vulnerability to the outside world and the strength to move through the fire, the struggle, the occupation, the inability to speak and come out on the other side—not just alive, not just stronger--but completely transformed.

Brown recounts “The most beautiful things I look back on in my life are coming out from underneath things I didn't know I could get out from underneath. …[those moments of struggle] those are the moments that made me,”

And what is Jesus’ life encapsulated in, if not vulnerability.  Born with animals, with a price on his head from the King.  Ended:  stripped, on a cross, a crown to mock him.  Think about it--our god was born not into opulence and power, but into vulnerability.  And that’s what makes his gospel seem like foolishness sometimes: loving your enemies, turning the cheek, being the servant, soulforce over brute force.  We think it’s foolishness because it requires us not to be brave, but to be courageous—to be vulnerable.

But that appears to be what we’re invited into this season.  To reconnect with vulnerability.  Whether through the fire we’ve been put through, or the cleansing we are experiencing, or the hard reality that our lives are simply beyond our control—if we open ourselves to that vulnerability, we are opening ourselves to known and transformed by God.  Transformed by the circumstances in our lives.

--

I’ll admit, it’s hard for me to resonate with Malachi’s image of fire, of the judgment from the righteous Lord.  It’s hard for me, even when it is “softened by Zechariah’s words that show us the end result of God’s work—[is that] light [will be given] to those who sit in darkness and [will guide] our feet into the way of peace.”[iii]

So I was happy when I came across a metaphor by Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, a physician, therapist, and storyteller. So let’s move away from the fiery furnace to the coolness of the ocean floor.  Our Advent theme is, after all, rooted in water imagery.  Imagine each of us an oyster.  Now this image may actually seem completely opposite of what a refining fire does—eliminating the impurities.  But somehow these two connected for me, and helped understand Malachi’s words and Zecheriah’s prophecy and how they invite us into transforming vulnerability.

So an oyster.

 Open up an oyster and you will see that it is “soft, tender, and vulnerable.
      Without the sanctuary of its shell it could not survive. 
           But oysters must open their shells in order to “breathe” water. 
Sometimes while an oyster is breathing, a grain of sand will enter its shell and become a part of its life from then on.

Such grains of sand cause pain, but an oyster does not alter its… nature because of this.
 It does not become hard and leathery in order not to feel.
            It continues to entrust itself to the ocean, to open and breathe in order to live. 
 But it does respond. 
Slowly and patiently, the oyster wraps the grain of sand in thin translucent layers until,
 over time,
it has created something of great value in the place where it was most vulnerable to its pain.  A pearl… might be thought of as an oyster’s response to its suffering. 

Sand is a way of life for an oyster.  If you are soft and tender and must live on the sandy floor of the ocean, making pearls becomes a necessity if you are to live well.”

As Dr. Remen reflects, “Disappointment and loss are a part of every life.  Many times we can put such things behind us and get on with the rest of our lives.  But not everything is amenable to this approach.  Some things are too big or too deep to do this, and we will have to leave important parts of ourselves behind if we treat them in this way.  These are the places where wisdom begins to grow in us.  It begins with suffering that we do not avoid or rationalize or put behind us.  It starts with the realization that our loss, whatever it is, has become a part of us and has altered our lives so profoundly that we cannot go back to the way it was before.

Something in us can transform such suffering into wisdom.  The process of turning pain into wisdom often looks like a sorting process.  First we experience everything.  Then one by one we let things go, the anger, the blame, the sense of injustice, and finally even the pain itself, until all we have left is a deeper sense of the value of life and a greater capacity to live it.”[iv]

Whether through fire, or water, the washer ringer or due to a grain of sand, or simply getting flipped wrong and falling out of the pan, or cancer or divorce or unemployment or Alzheimer’s… our pain is entrusted to God.
 

But it can burn.  It can burn like the hottest fires of hell, like soap in your eyes
and you wonder if there is a force that is putting you into it
           and a grace that can take you out. 

But the courage is there.  Call on it.  And it will refine you.  May it be so.

[Silence in Waiting Worship]

Hymn-How firm a foundation

Benediction – For my benediction, I leave with you the words of another little prophet of sorts: Christopher Robin from Winnie and the Pooh.  Christopher and Pooh are sitting in a tree one night, and the little boy tells the loveable bear, “If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together.. there is something you must always remember. you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. but the most important thing is, even if we're apart.. I'll always be with you.”

 

                                                                                                                    

---

[i] Schuller, Eileen M., “The Book of Malachi.”    The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary vol VII. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996)

[ii] Brené Brown from interview “Brené Brown on Vulnerability” with Krista Tippet.  On Being (www.onbeing.org)

 

[iii]Advent Worship Resources in The Leader (Harrisonburg, VA: MennoMedia)

[iv] Remen, Rachel Naomi.  My Grandfather’s Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging (New York: Penguin Press, 2000)

A Flood of Mercy

Sermon by Torin Eikler
Luke 21:25-36             Jeremiah 33:10-16

This week I received one of those little stories that are often forwarded again and again on email.  Usually I feel put out by messages like that because they take up space and waste my time, but this one came from someone who knows me well and doesn’t often send them my way.  So I opened it up for a glance before deleting it.  Here’s what I found….

 The Best Explanation of Stress…

A young lady confidently walked around the room while leading and explaining stress management to an audience with a raised glass of water.  Everyone knew she was going to ask the ultimate question, 'half empty or half full?'..

She fooled them all .... "How heavy is this glass of water?" she inquired with a smile. Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.

She replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. In each case it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes." She continued, "and that's the way it is with stress. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on."

"As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden - holding stress longer and better each time practiced.”

We stand at the beginning of the season of Advent:  a season of hope … a season of joy and happiness … a season in which we celebrate liberating love.  But, this is also a season of business and of stress.  There seem to be too many events to get to and too much to get done.  And then there are the presents.  Who do we buy for, and what do we buy?  Can we get a gift that seems to fit a friend perfectly without buying something for everyone else that we know?  Who do we have to get something for even if we know that it’s something they won’t really love?  And … can we afford to get even small things for everyone on that list.

That’s just part of my list.  (You all know that.  You have your own lists.)  But Even that’s enough to stress me out … to twist my advent season into a bit of a nightmare instead of a joy. … And then there’s the added challenge of doing all of this … of putting together a meaningful Advent season for all of us to share, and it doesn’t help when the whole thing starts off with hints of the apocalypse that will come with the end of time….

In the words of Emory Gillespie[1] … When Advent comes, I worry, agonize and [stress out]. Advent is daunting. Advent is my Everest….  The problem is that I’m working with a hairball of Advent scriptural phrases.

Once again I read the account of “distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.” Once again I react—both personally and as a pastor thinking of my congregation—to ominous forecasts that speak of people fainting “from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world.” People are fainting, heavens are shaking, and there is fear and foreboding in abundance—how am I to shape all of this into something that the congregation will find charming …?

Advent scriptures are unapologetically crude. Their prophetic barking and guttural slings make me feel spat upon. My personal context is to blame for this oversensitivity. I’m feeling fairly normal right now, fairly pulled-together. My family is healthy. My employment at church seems solid—knock on wood. My phone is ringing a modest number of times with modest news. My wardrobe is working. In ordinary times such as this, when my family is afloat on a sea of relative stability, the bellicose and crass war cries of Advent are incomprehensible to me. They come off as misplaced, misanthropic rants, to which I’m tempted to reply, “You can’t mean me. If, by chance, you can and do mean me, your anger is disproportionate to my [transgression]."

 

That is exactly how I feel every year.  Who me?  Again?  Then I start thinking about the past year and worrying if I have actually done anything that might warrant such a response.  I usually come with some small things but nothing that deserves an apocalypse on the scale of roaring seas or a shaking of the heavens.  “I can live with this,” I think to myself.  “It’s meant for other people.”  And I feel okay… for a while.

But this text from Luke doesn’t go away so easily.  It doesn’t let you off the hook just because you are reasonably well-behaved.  The coming of the Son of Man will affect everyone.  We will all see the signs in the heavens.  We will all hear the roaring of the waves.  We will all feel the overwhelming sense of foreboding that leaves some fainting from fear.  We will see and hear and feel it all … unless we have kept our hearts free from the worries of this life. 

 

Where is the hope in that?  Who among us is free from worries?  Those teachings about following the example of the birds of the air and the flowers of the fields are all well and good, but it is hard to live that way.  It would be difficult enough for a person who is all alone, but for those of us with families to care about, it is next to impossible.  It would seem that these words just add one more worry to my list.

But Jesus is speaking in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets here.  He is intending to offer hope.  In the face of a world gone wrong – a world where justice has been perverted and compassion seems to have gone extinct, Jesus was offering a vision that stood at the heart of the Jewish faith … a vision that stands at the heart of our faith – a vision of a future where the world will be remade according to God’s intentions rather than our own.

If the prophets are to be believed (and I choose to believe them), that world will be a place where justice and righteousness hold sway in place of corruption and greed.  Its soul is marked with love and compassion in place of hatred and selfishness.  And instead of suffering and want all people will enjoy abundance and peace.

Jeremiah describes the wonder of that future with powerful images of renewal:  In the wasteland there will be towns filled with people, animals will graze on lush grasses in the desolate places, and those who live in bondage will know freedom.  And what is the source of all this wonderful change … of this outpouring of mercy on the people?  “The days are surely coming,” he says, when the Lord “will cause a righteous branch to spring up . . . and Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.”

There's our hope. 

There's the fulfillment of the promise we have been given. 

Christ will come … the Prince of peace … the one who brings justice to the oppressed … Loves Perfection … Immanuel – God dwelling with us … pouring out enough mercy and grace to cleanse us of our sins and wash away our worries.

 

You remember that glass of stress that I mentioned earlier this morning.  As we head into Advent – into the time of preparation for the coming of our hope, instead of adding more and more to that glass and trying to hold it up even though it may be killing our souls.  Set the glass down and take a break….

Better yet, pour it all out.  Give it all to the God whose grace bring new life.  Empty your heart of all the worries that weigh you down, and make space for mercy to flood into your soul. 
Make space for the Son of Man … the shoot of Jesse’s tree.

Make space for a flood of mercy that comes to us in a little baby whose birth brings us hope.

---

[1] from Living by the Word in the November 28 edition of The Christian Century.