#IamAlive

sermon by Carrie Eikler
John 20:19-31, 1 Peter 1:3-9

I will admit, I am not the quickest when it comes to new technology. 

My mother made us get a cell phone when I was pregnant with Sebastian  8 years ago.

Since then Torin and I have had only one cell phone between us, and it is pretty basic.  Texting, calls.  No internet, no GPS.

I didn’t get on facebook until a couple of years ago.  I really didn’t get what apps were.  I’ve never sent a Tweet.  I’m still trying to figure out what this whole hashtag craze is (for an example, check the title of your sermon).

So for those of you as slow, or slower, than I am with bringing in new social media lingo into your life, let me give you a quick glossary of terms.

Social media=is the interaction among people in which they create, share or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks.  Facebook and Twitter are the most popular, but more and more are popping up all over the place.

App=short for applications.  These are essentially…things that help you do stuff on your devices.  I can’t explain it more than that.

Tweets=the cute name for messages put on the social media site Twitter.

Selfie=a picture one takes of oneself, generally with their phone, a sort of digital self-portrait.

Hash tag (again, sermon title)= these are number signs placed before certain words in social media, such as Twitter, to group messages containing the same hashtagged word.  For example, if you sent a Tweet saying I’m having a great Sunday at #MorgantownCOB, others might use #MorgantownCOB in their tweets and you could see all the people talking about Morgantown COB!

Sometimes, even I, long for the romantic process of pen and paper.  An envelope and a stamp.  But this is how contemporary society communicates.  Sometimes it all seems mundane or narcissistic or a playground for the bored and unfocused, but sometimes this social media has taken a deeper purpose.

Sandra Hassan is a 26-year old student from Lebanon living in Paris.  Hassan had gotten sick of worrying about family and friends whenever she heard news of a suicide bombing in her hometown of Beirut.  A detonation on January 21 spurred her to action.  Partly out of dark humor, partly out of practical concern, she created the “I Am Alive” app.  According to an article in the most recent edition of The Atlantic, the was an “expression of discontent” on Hassan’s part. 

This app allows users, with one touch to tweet a reassuring message to their followers: “I am still alive! #Lebanon #LatestBombing.”  The app quickly caught on: within a month it was downloaded more than 5,000 times.  In addition to cultural commentary, it provided a much-needed service to people who live in areas targeted by terrorists—and to those who care about them.   The moments following a suicide bombing are, after all, among the worst times to make a phone call.  Networks jam.  Getting sent to voice mail induces dread.  “It’s the same cycle each time,” Hassan says.  “You have to rush to your phone or Facebook or Twitter to try to make sure that everyone you know is okay.  It’s a horrible feeling.”  On the ground, the trilling of victims’ phones becomes an eerie score to the aftermath.

In the moments after crisis, everything is stripped away.  Belief, hope, peace. 

This is exactly how I picture Jesus’ followers in the days following the crucifixion.  Moments after crisis.  Everything stripped away.  Not knowing what was going out amidst the rubble, not knowing what to believe in, hope for, where to find peace.

After reading this article about instant survival messages, I was imagining what it would have been like if Jesus was crucified in the age of social media.

Jesus texting Thomas he was alive.
Thomas not believing it.

Jesus taking a selfie to prove it.

Thomas saying someone could have simply gotten that off of Jesus’ Facebook account.

Jesus tweeting pictures of his bloody hands, feet, and side with the hash tag #IamAlive.

Wow.  Now that is to be believed.

And Jesus comes in. Just as he burst from the tomb, so he maneuvers around locked doors to stand among them.  Without the benefit of social media, Jesus comes to prove he is alive, not berating Thomas of his understandable doubts, he gives Thomas what he needs in order to believe.

He gives Thomas what he needs in order to believe.

Unashamed, unembarrassed, he offers his wounds.  Go ahead, touch them, get your fingers in there.  Get messy.  Feel it.  Be a part of it.  I am alive.

The Thomas story is presented every year, the Sunday after Easter.  This is an important story to the Easter season, showing us that we are now witnesses to the Risen Christ.  And we often talk about Thomas’ doubt.  And I have given many an apologetic sermon for Thomas, bestowing the virtures of Thomas, the place we all share with Thomas’ doubts.

But there is more to this story than focusing on Thomas’ doubts.  There is more than imagining what it would be like to feel Jesus’ wounds.

What would it be like, to feel Jesus’ breath?

Before Thomas even came into the room, Jesus said “Peace be with you.  as the Father has sent me, so I send you.” and then he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

This story is sometimes called John’s Pentecost, because here Jesus breathes (which in Hebrew breath and spirit are the same word) the spirit on them, just like the spirit comes upon the people at Pentecost.

Here it is not in tongues of fire, but hot wet breath.

And while the breath is still settling on them Jesus tells them now, go forgive.

Wasn’t that what he said when he breathed is last breath on the cross? “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do?

Receive the Spirit.  Forgive sins.

Not receive the spirit, go convert people.

Not, receive the spirit, go testify.

Not, receive the spirit, go start a war to vindicate my torture.

Not even, receive the spirit, go pray.

Once we receive the spirit, we are compelled to go forgive others.

Forgiveness: the first task of discipleship.

We have just come out of the Lenten season, with its focus on confession, repentance, asking God to forgive our sins.

What if, in the season of Easter (the 50 days between Easter and Pentecost), we shifted our focus to forgiving others?  Easter as a season of forgiveness.

 

Forgiveness is close and personal, like breath on your face.

Definitely like touching an open wound.

Like a locked door in our heart, Christ omes to us, comes in, gives us peace, and strengthens us to forgive.

So take a moment and think about who have you been withholding your forgiveness from? (pause)

What happened between you and that person?

What might forgiving them look like?  Is it a face-to-face conversation?  A letter?  Is it simply consciously letting go of hurt, and a prayer saying “I forgive you.” 

What would it feel like to release that anger, and open it up with forgiveness?

Our quest to forgive can be our hashtag that Christ is alive.  The sign that connects us to Christ’s message in the world.

Christ is alive in us when we forgive. 

Christ is alive in the world when we walk through the rubble of violence and seek reconciliation.

Christ is alive when even in our doubts we seek understanding, and we forgive our shortcomings.

Christ is Alive!  Receive the Spirit.  Forgive sins.

Alleluia and Amen.

Christ is Alive!

sermon by Torin Eikler
John 20:1-18

The Lord is Risen!

The dark days are over.  The stone has been rolled away.  Death has been defeated.  And Christ has opened the way to eternal life and joy in the embrace of God.  Christ is alive!

 

That is the eternal message of Easter – the promise laid out for us in the scriptures – the gift given to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  Sometimes we lose sight of that as we walk through the stories year after year and get caught up in the details of what happened and the experiences of those who witnessed the miracle of that first morning.  Still the power and promise and hope remains, and it is cause for us to celebrate.

So I was taken aback several years ago, when I found myself talking to someone who seemed to be disturbed by Easter morning worship.  I was working with youth at the Disciples of Christ church at the time, and this young man came into the classroom the week after Easter looking very disturbed.  I was concerned myself because I knew that he had a difficult family life, and I was worried that something might have happened at home.  But when I asked him what was the problem, he asked me a question in return.

“Did Jesus have to die?”

“What?” I said.

 

“What?” … That was my brilliant reply.  His question caught me so off guard that I couldn’t think of anything else to say.  And it turned out to be a good reply, because it opened the door for him to tell me about the struggle he had been having that week, wondering why Jesus had to die.  If God was so powerful and loving, he thought, why would he send his son to Earth just to be killed as a sacrifice?

I spent some time explaining that, from my perspective, Jesus did not have to die.  He came to teach us and show the way of life that would bring the Kingdom – that would bring heaven on earth, and that kind of change didn’t sit well with the people who were in power.  So, rather than allow him to continue, they killed him.  He let them do it because he understood the importance of treating each other with love, the power of forgiveness, and our need to follow God even if it takes us to the cross.  “But,” I told him, “things might have been different if everyone would have listened to him.  If everyone had gotten the message, the world might have become paradise in one lifetime.” 

I told him that because I believe it.  I believed it then, and I believe it now.  Jesus life was more important than his death, … and I think that his resurrection validates that claim.

And yet, I have been thinking a lot about Jesus’ death this year.  I’ve been thinking about death in general more than usual.  I’ve been looking around at the way that the hard winter and the late frosts have killed off some of the plants and even frozen the leaves of many of the hardiest shrubs and ivies in our neighborhood.  And I guess that has made me a little bit sad.

But this week I noticed that newer, more vibrant leaves and shoots are coming out on those very same vines and branches that still hold the brittle memories of previous years.  I have noticed new seedlings growing up through the browned and decaying collections of weeds and other plants that took too much encouragement from the earlier warm spells.  And I was reminded of a truth I learned as a child and again as a youth … and again as a young man – death makes way for new life.

 

I have come to feel that Jesus’ death was important … that even the manner of his dying – held up for all to see – was important.  It made space in the hearts and minds of the disciples.  It cleared out the brittle hopes and the decaying expectations of glory that had collected over their years following the strange, wise, prophetic miracle worker they had come to call teacher and friend.  It prepared the way for something new – something more vibrant … more wonderful – to take root.

I see that happening in the story of Mary and the disciples rushing to the tomb.  Lost and confused they left their huddled grief and confusion behind them to run and see what had happened to Jesus’ body.  They found the empty tomb and the first shoots of new hope and faith began to sprout in their hearts as they walked back to the others.  Mary stood, though, her tears pouring from her heart and watering the earth that had been covered by stone.  She stayed, looking for more … hoping for something.  She looked and saw not only angelic messengers but the very face of the risen Christ, and whole new fields of possibility sprang to life within her, beckoning her to grab hold of new life, calling her to share the good news.

 

Not just good news for the disciples.  Not just good news for the people of Israel.  Good news for us.  Christ is alive!  He has risen from the tomb and goes before to prepare the way.  He calls out to all people through the Spirit that lives within. 

He calls out, inviting to those who would follow him to step onto the new way he has opened to us. 

He calls out … calls us by name,

            gently beckons:
                    “Come to me.  Embrace new life.”

Christ is alive.  Let us rejoice!

Do You Believe in Miracles?

sermon by Carrie Eikler

I have a question easy to ask, but likely hard to answer.

Do you believe in miracles?

Yes?  No?

I’m not going to venture who among you would say yes and who would say no.  But I would venture to guess that among you, there is what I like to call a “but” response.  These but responses are very common among us, I believe.

Do you believe in miracles?    “Yes, but…” 

Do you believe in miracles?    “No, but…”

Do you believe in miracles?

 

Miracles are tricky things to talk about in a Western Christian context.  Add to that a largely Protestant dismissiveness of mystery and a twenty-first century skepticism and rationalism, it is easy to leave the miracles stories in the bible as nice fairy tales, but not things to hitch our hopes on.

When we encounter miracle stories--when we talk about the presence of these stories in our sacred text-- it is, for me, spoken with reservation.

Because our belief or lack of belief in miracles points to something.

It points to how we see God working in the world.  It points to what we do or do not believe is possible in the natural realm.  It points to how and what we put our faith in.

And we are nervous to share those possibilities with other people.  Either our church folk won’t appreciate our rational doubts, or our non-church friends will feel we are too…

I was presented with this…

In Allegheny Mennonite Conference there is a new church plant in Pittsburgh.  It is made up entirely of immigrants from the south Asian countries of Nepal and Bhutan.  You may remember a couple of years ago, a prayer request went out to pray for a baby named Simran.  Simran was born and not expected to live.  Her parents along with other sisters and brothers in the congregation gathered around Simran and prayed over Simran and waited on Simran and blessed Simran.

The doctors had said there was little hope.

Simran is alive and well today.  Was it a miracle?  Was it the prayers?

Then at the Allegheny Conference delegate gathering last October, Simran’s parents brought her to the meeting.  Simran was well beyond the age when most young children walk, but she showed no signs of being able to.  Her parents asked for prayers, prayers to strengthen little Simran’s legs, to help her walk.

The delegate body gathered around Simran and her parents, laid their hands on them and prayed.

We received word that the next day, Simran, who showed no previous ability to walk, took a step.  And then another.  And Simran walked.

Why did this happen?  How did it happen? 

I think what blocks me from fully embracing the possibility of miracles iswhy do some people get them, and some people don’t?  It’s the question Torin’s dad posed recently when preaching on Job…why do bad things happen to good people?

Why didn’t a miracle happen to those who died in the mudslide in Seattle, or the jetliner from Malaysia?  Why weren’t fervent prayers for a miracle answered by the mother who watched her young son die from leukemia, or answered by the young man who watched his partner die of AIDS?

These are the questions that have, in the past, bound me up and prevented me from embracing the possibilities of miracles.

I posed this question to my virtual community on Facebook.  I sometimes post things to generate conversation that might help me process my sermon.  So I simply asked “Do you believe in miracles?”  Here are some of the answers:

“Yes”

“No”

“Anything is possible”

“absolutely. Yet....I think that the miracle is in that we see what is already in place and happening”

"no. I believe in miraculous events, wonders seen and unseen, unexplainable phenomena and grace. But supernatural interventions are never going to be my thing because they are too hitched to a cosmology I don't follow."

"Yes. I believe creation is full of mysteries I will never comprehend, and some of those mysteries are miraculous."

"I believe life is miraculous on so many levels that it feels magical and unexplainable. I believe when incredibly good things happen to us…and being unexpected or unexplainable, we call it a miracle. But when something tragic happens that we can't explain, we don't call it a miracle."

"Miracles are everywhere, constant and ingrained in every cell of our body and every wee atom."

I loved all these answers.  And yet one, from our very own Elesha Coffman, who is now a professor of church history at the Dubuque Seminary responded to the question Do you believe in miracles with the following: Yes, but I’d say they are best glimpsed by not staring straight at them sort of like the Pleiades”.  She then attached a link to a question forum where someone asked the question

“I've noticed that the Pleiades but when I look directly at the constellation, it suddenly goes dim and it's more difficult to make out the individual stars.”  The Pleiades are a seven star cluster that is in the constellation Taurus.  But many have found that the clearest way to see these stars are not by looking directly at them, but to look around them, or to use your peripheral vision.  Once you try to look directly at them, head on, squinty to see the detail, it all goes fuzzy.

The answer to this question has to do with eye structure, which one respondent went into great detail about.  It’s about how we use the rods and cones in our eyes.  The cones in our eyes are greatly sensitive to color and work best in bright light.  This contrasts the works of rods which are more effective in low light conditions.  These rods are located off the center of our retina, meaning we see more clearly at night when looking not at the center or straight on.  This is called “averted vision.”

So what Elesha was pointing to, and a way that helps me look at these miracle stories of Jesus is embracing this averted vision. Not averting as in looking away, but averting as looking around, or looking from a different perspective in the darkness…in the space around the object, the stars, the miracle.

Our rational mind wants to read the miracle stories, or think about miracles in how the story and the action bumps up and challenges our conventional thinking of the physical.  Or we look at the story and hold it up as a biblical truth that validates our traditional thinking of spiritual truths.  So would it mean to look at the miracle stories, not looking at them straight on, but glimpsing them indirectly?

Let’s look at our miracle story today, the raising of Lazarus, with this averted vision.

I like that this all goes down in the dark, so already, we are using a different sort of vision, aren’t we?  Getting those rods in gear.  If we look around the story, we will take our focus off of Lazarus for a moment and the miracles that happened to him and looking at the side at the mysterious miraculous things going on.

And so much goes on in this story, my friend.

My favorite thing that happens is that here Martha gets a chance to redeem her scarred reputation as a whirling dervish who was too busy to sit by Jesus’ feet where Mary was.  You remember.  Martha, Martha.  Why do you bustle about when you could sit here?

Well, here it is Martha’s doing that gets something done.  She runs out into the dark, while Mary sits…you guessed it…at home.  Now I don’t mean to diminish Mary here, but I have to say I’m glad Martha gets some good stuff her way.  This miracle story starts to illumine when can action, busyness, assertiveness…be holy. 


When take our gaze away from looking directly at Lazarus, we see something about Jesus that we don’t come across much: his weeping.  His being moved.  Or as commentator David Howell says, here we witness “that even Jesus finds death horrible and gut-wrenching and real. What a relief that Jesus is moved to tears by our tears when we mourn. There is, as the book of Ecclesiastes tells us, "a time to mourn" (3:4). Apparently even for God.”


And I think that this averted sight can help us not just look at the goodness of miracles in a new way, but the pain of tragedy.  When September 11 happened, many parents sought ways to protect their children from the horror of the event, but media made that challenging.  Mr. Rogers was still alive at that time and he recounted something his mother told him as a child.  When he would see some catastrophe on the newsreels at the movies (because Mr. Rogers didn’t have a TV until he was out of college), when he would feel scared by what he saw, his mother would tell him:
 
“Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, he said, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world…”They are often on the sidelines, but they are there.  That’s where our focus should be.”

Even Mr. Rogers shares this wisdom.  Look around, on the sidelines.  Here you will see miracles taking place.  Small miracles.  Small acts of mercy.
 When we started looking around the miracles, our eye sight changes.  Or maybe it’s our heart. We may unbind the need to look at these stories as factual accounts, and begin to see them as stories that point to something else, maybe even something more amazing, more incredible, more miraculous.

The Beloved Woman Behind the Mask

Meditation on monologue of the same title by Carrie Eikler
John 4:5-29        John 4:31-42

As many of you know, I had a 6 day trip this past week.  I drove from Morgantown to N. Manchester Indiana with Patrick, dropped him off with the grandparents, and continued on to the COB General Offices in Elgin Illinois.  While I was there I participated in the Mission and Ministry board meetings.   I also had the chance to get away and spend the night with my brother in Chicago [and let me tell you, Chicago on St. Patrick’s Day weekend is an experienced to savored or avoided, depending on your perspective].  There is a lot of drinking going on.  A lot.  I of course was not nearly so liberal in my libations, as Chris and I enjoyed a quiet dinner in an Indian restaurant.

But I’ll tell you, when I travel and have meetings, I do drink a lot.  And before you make assumptions, what I mean is I drink a lot of coffee.  Maybe soda.   Lots of cups of tea.  Generally this is to help me “wake up” from long hours in the car, or long meetings that are perhaps less than thrilling.  And I realize, on these trips, while I drink a lot of things, I rarely drink water.

Oh sure, I have a bottle, but it’s never feels like “what I need.”  I need caffeine!  I need something more interesting!  But by the end of my trip, or maybe even in the middle, I recognize the foolishness of my choices.  I begin feeling dry, tired.  So I drink more coffee to help me feel less tired.

As I’m sure you know, caffeinated drinks are not good substitutes for pure water when one is dehydrated.  In fact, caffeinated drinks dehydrate you and dehydration makes one lethargic and then it becomes a vicious dry cycle of drink caffeine to wake up but ultimately just feeling more and more run down.

It’s about this time…two or three days into the trip, when I drink some water and realize how this is what I really need.  Not milky sweet coffee.  Not acai-berry flavored vitamin water sweetened with organic cane sugar.  Not even a soothing cup of chamomile.  What I need is water.  Real water.  And you know that feeling…when I don’t even know I’m thirsty but I take a cup of water and I wonder why I’ve been depriving myself of this for so long.

The other stuff is just masking my real thirst.  My real need.  Masking what my body needs.  The West Virginia born country star Kathy Mattea wrote a song called “Standing Knee Deep in a River (Dying of Thirst).”  She talks about good friends she could count on, sweethearts she let go, how they all roll by like water.  We go through life parched and empty, standing knee deep in a river, dying of thirst.

The monologue about the beloved woman in the mask was presented to those of us at the Sister Care seminar this past fall, a seminar hosted by Mennonite Women USA.  It was a powerful weekend of Mennonite and ecumenical sisters discovering how not only to support other sisters, but discovering our own needs for self-care, honesty, and to claim our own identity as God’s beloved.

We were reminded that as we grow in this life, we forget our original identity as a beloved woman or man of God.  Culture tells us we are not good enough, beautiful enough, talented enough, smart enough.  People or experiences in our lives may have told us the same thing, and added the shame of sexual abuse, emotional and physicalabuse, spiritual neglect, bullying, and other forms of shaming.  It doesn’t take very long for those little girls and boys, fresh faced and shining with God’s love, to grow into self-protecting men and women who wear a variety of masks.

We wear masks to hide things we may be ashamed of.  We wear masks because we think those in the church might not approve of our past stories, our present circumstances, or even our future endeavors.  We wear masks because our thirst for a unified life, is masked by drinking the lie that it is simply easier to put on false airs.  To wear a mask.  To show one face to someone when what is in your heart and soul is completely different.

Now, as the monologue makes obvious, God sees beyond this mask.  God knows the woman behind it.  God knows the man behind the mask.  And God loves her. God loves him.  We must claim that mercy and grace in each part of our lives.  We claim our identity as beloved daughters and sons.

And yet, I wonder…what would it look like if you gave someone else permission to take off their masks, not only in front of God, but in front of you.  Could you handle that?  What spiritual depth does that take?  What needs to be released in you in order for you to tell someone: God loves the person behind the mask, and so do I.

You’re saying, I know you’re thirsty and I won’t give you a can of Coke.  I won’t give you a cup of coffee.  Something that will not satisfy, and maybe even make you thirstier.  I know you are thirsty, and I will give you water.  Living water. I will show you what it means to be loved unconditionally.  I will physically manifest with it is that God proclaims. 

What will it take for you to do that?

Standing here this moment, I can say that I don’t know what it will take for you to get there, because I don’t know the mask you are wearing.  I don’t know how far you need to go before claiming your identity as God’s beloved.  I don’t know what blocks you from being willing to see behind the mask of someone else.  Only you know that.

Drink of the living water.  The living water.  Water that quenches all thirst.  Drink in God’s unconditional love for you.  And suddenly, you will feel it.  That welling spring.  Joy bubbling up, beginning to spill over until it’s running like rivers all over the ground.

And you will find, it’s too much for one person to drink alone. 

Nothing Ventured ...

sermon by Torin Eikler
Genesis 12:1-4a           John 3:1-17

I was surfing the net the other day and one of those pop-up ads came on the screen.  Usually when that happens I close them immediately and exit the browser just to reduce the chance of any unwanted program loading onto my computer.  But this time, the ad actually caught my attention.  With the words, “What could you do if you knew who you really were?” it was luring me into taking a free online personality test.  It almost got me ….  I paused for just a moment before closing everything down.

Personality tests have become commonplace in our society these days…. Myers-Briggs, Enneagrams, Jung test, Human-metrics, Kirsey Temperment sorter, and a host of other less well known and less trusted tools out there.
 

My first experience of tests like these was when I went to work with the workcamps office in Elgin.  It wasn’t a personality test.  It was a communications style assessment – a survey that evaluates your tendencies and approach toward communicating with others both in words and in other ways.  Carrie and I have both found it to be a useful tool in our life together and in helping other couples headed toward marriage understand some of how and why they struggle with each other’s annoying habits.

To give you a little overview, the assessment divides your responses into four different categories: Accommodating/harmonizing, Analyzing/preserving, Achieving/directing, and Affiliating/perfecting.  Each one of these has a characteristic way communicating and of approaching the world based on different central concerns.  Everyone can and does access all of the styles at different times, but most people are more comfortable with one approach and they tend to use that style most of the time.

People who are primarily accomodating/harmonizing try to avoid conflict.  If they have to, they will sacrifice their own goals and sometimes their own wellbeing to accomplish their goal, but they prefer to use humor and a sunny disposition.  A phrase that has often been associated with this group is “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

Achieving/directors take a different approach.  They like to try new things and innovate, and they prefer to work quickly to get things done.  Sometimes they are compared to semi-trucks speeding along in the passing lane by those who might get in their way, but they are really just focused on accomplishing their goals.  They’re motto is “nothing ventured … noting gained.”
 

Those who live out of their Affiliating/perfecting natures value … well … strong values.  They follow a strong moral compass, choose causes and people who they feel they can trust and look up to, and give them their loyalty.  They feel that “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”
 

And, analyzing/preserving people value limiting risk.  They feel anxious when faced with new situations or new people that they don’t understand because they are missing important information that would clarify how their environment fits together.  They will work tirelessly to gather all the data before making a change so that they can make the right decision – a safe decision.  They believe in the wisdom of the phrase “look before you leap.”
 

 

That last one is my strongest suit.  I’m also pretty strong in the achieving/directing tendencies … which makes for an interesting struggle from time to time.  (Do I keep looking for information OR do I just get things done however that happens.)  Most often, though, I spend my time trying to assess risks and choose the most prudent path.

I see the same thing in Nicodemus.  It’s risky to try and analyze the psychology of Biblical characters.  There’s just so little to go on, and the world they lived in was so different from anything we know that it’s next to impossible to figure out what they were like or what they might have been thinking.  Still, there something about this secret nighttime meeting with Jesus that smacks of the need to gather information without risking the judgment of the authorities.  I suppose it might be something I would do… calling Jesus in … to answer my questions in the secrecy of afforded by darkness.
 

So, I feel like I understand what Nicodemus is doing.  He finds a safe … ish way to get the information that he needs to make his decision, and he starts to asks Jesus his questions.  But things get out of hand … because Jesus interrupts him.  He doesn’t get a chance to ask his questions.  He doesn’t get the answers he wanted.  He gets Jesus … at his best … Jesus talking on two and three levels at the same time … Jesus offering explanations that only lead to more questions … Jesus challenging everything he thinks he knows. 
 

And he gets Jesus asking him to let go of control and take a leap of faith … nothing ventured, nothing gained.

That is hard for all of us.  It’s scary to consider let go and stepping out in trust that someone will guide us where we need to go … that anyone could get us there safely.  And it’s particularly hard for people who live out of the style that Nicodemus and I share.  Picture a trust fall – you know the group building exercise where you stand on a chair or a table or just the floor, you cross you arms and close your eyes, and you fall backward into the waiting hands of your friends or colleagues who catch you.  Now picture falling through those hands onto the hard ground, and you can understand the fear this kind of situation bring up in me.

 

I don’t know how many of you have the heard the story of my struggle with baptism.  It started when I was 10 years old and my Sunday School went through a membership class.  For some reason, I missed the first day of that series, and I didn’t know that it was a membership class.  Six Sunday’s later, as we wrapped up the lesson, the teacher said (in a matter-of-fact voice), “So, next Sunday will be the baptisms.  I’m going to pass around note cards, and I want you to write your names and the word ‘yes’ or ‘no’ so we know who will be getting baptized.”

 

I was stunned… stunned and terrified, and I think mine might have been the first card she got back … with the word “no” written in capital letters and circled (just to make sure that she saw it).

For the next 19 years, I struggled with the idea of baptism.  Any number of excuses came and went.  I wasn’t sure that I believed in God.  I wasn’t ready to accept that Jesus actually divine.  I had already been baptized at a healing garden when I was 8 years old, and wasn’t baptism a once-and-for-all-time kind of thing.
 

Eventually, I realized that my real issue was control.  I just wasn’t sure that I was willing to give up control of my own life.  I wasn’t sure that I trusted God enough to believe that the Spirit would be a gentle and loving guide as I was shepherded through whatever wildernesses there were down the path on the way to a new life and a different kind of living.

 

I did finally decide to take the plunge … to be born again of water and the Spirit, and even then, I had mixed emotions.  On the one hand, I was so eager and excited.  I dreamed of the Spirit descending on me … of speaking in tongues … or any other kind of obvious manifestation.  It wasn’t because I wanted everyone else to be impressed (or not mostly because of that).  What I really wanted was confirmation that I had made the right choice and a clear sense of purpose to replace the uncertainty that had plagued me during my long struggle.
 

At the same time, I was scared.  Another very big part of me was still reluctant to give up control, and I was terrified that the Spirit would fall on me in the moment that I rose from the waters for the third time.  Even if that Spirit was the very God that I was committing myself to, I was not eager to find myself speaking words that I couldn’t understand or waking up to discover that I had “gone out in the Spirit.”

In the end, I didn’t get any special signs … unless you want to count the moment in the hallway behind the sanctuary when my sponsor (who was helping me get out of the baptismal robe and dry off) accidentally knocked a sign over on my toe and I managed not to curse or even to shout.  He seemed to think that was an act of God.

 

I was so relieved.  I felt so disappointed.  I also felt a new sense of freedom.  It wasn’t all up to me to figure everything out anymore.  I was riding on the wind of the Spirit, and even facing the inevitability of being blown to places I wouldn’t always like … to places I certainly wouldn’t choose on my own, I felt less worry and fear about the future than I had in years.  That spiritual high only lasted for a few weeks, but I still feel that taking that risk was one of the best decisions of my life, and it has been one of the greatest blessings.

For many of us, the idea that we are kites riding on the breath of the Spirit can be … well let just say that it doesn’t seem like much of a blessing!  And yet, with a little shift of perspective, that same vision can bring forth excitement and ….  As David Lose puts it:
 

I think this declaration that the Spirit -- and those born of the Spirit -- blows where it will gives us tremendous freedom when we think about how best to respond to the challenges and opportunities of the age. Part of what is so anxiety provoking about this time is that it feels like there are no road maps….  [the] reliable patterns by which [have organized our lives are gone].  [And when] we give those up…, we feel like we are sailing in uncharted waters or driving down a foreign and forbidding road.
 

Except that we are not alone! The Spirit … accompanies and empowers us to face a future that we may feel is uncertain but has been secured by the death and resurrection of Jesus. From this perspective, the anxiety that many of us feel -- there is no roadmap! -- can be transformed into excitement -- there is no roadmap! :) Which means that we are free -- we don’t have to do things the way they’ve always been done. We can experiment, risk, fail (you can’t experiment without failing), learn, and grow in ways we’d never imagined. Because the Spirit of Christ will blow us in directions we hadn’t imagined.[1]

It is risky ... stepping out on the breath of the Spirit.  Letting go of control and riding the wind wherever it may take us … that’s not a comforting thought (even for the achieving/directors among us).  But hope and promise ride the same wind along with the blessings of freedom and new life.

 

My prayer every day is that I will find the courage and the strength to accept the risk – that we all will accept it so that we can know the great blessings that come to us on the Spirit’s breath.
 

Amen.

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[1] David Lose - http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=3103

Choosing the Best

sermon by Torin Eikler
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7            Matthew 4:1-11

I have to admit that when I first read the scriptures for today, I was tempted to talk with you about how Adam and Eve are much maligned in Christian teachings (especially Eve).  Or to talk about some of the interesting thoughts out there that try to interpret Jesus’ temptations in different lights … especially after Carrie mentioned Henri Nouwen’s perspective on being relevant.  Or to talk about the metaphor of Satan and how we have defanged its power … just about anything except the obvious topic - temptation

I suppose that I have given in to that temptation having indulged in that little detour, but I promise that I will try my best to stick the task at hand ….

 

When I was a child, an important part of Sunday School being memorizing certain scriptures – the beatitudes, the ten commandments, 1^st John 4 especially verse 7 and 8, and the 23^rd Psalm come to mind.  I think things have changed a little bit since then because the curriculum that we have used during our years here have had very little if any memorizing in them, and I have wondered about that.

I do remember a love-hate relationship with those verses.  It was great when they were pretty easy because we got prizes for being able to reel them off in front of the class.  But when the scriptures were particularly long or challenging, it was a nightmare, because we still had to stand up in front of everyone and there was always someone who had managed to get them right.  And the rest of us … or sometimes just me … felt embarrassed.  Still, I have appreciated knowing those verses over the course of my life, and when I began to work with the middler class this year, I decided that it would be good for them (and for me) to work on some of the big ones.  So, we have gone through the Ten Commandments and have begun to work on the Lord’s Prayer before diving into the 23^rd Psalm.
 

Last week, we went through the Lord’s Prayer phrase by phrase before we put the whole thing together.  We worked out “hallowed” and discussed what God’s Kingdom might look like and noticed that the prayer has us ask to receive the same forgiveness we have given.  When we got close to the end, we talked about what evil means and how good it is to be delivered from it.  But, we didn’t talk about temptation.  Everyone seemed to know what it meant, and there wasn’t very much time left.  After this week, I’m kind of wishing that we had at least mentioned it….
 

 

Though, temptation is that desire that we feel to do something that we shouldn’t, sometimes it is easier to see and understand than others – like when we are faced with an unguarded cookie on the steps or any time we are faced with something that is obviously evil.  But what happens when we come up against less clear-cut decisions?  What about the times when we could accomplish something good if we would only make the tiniest of compromises … only take a small detour from the straight and narrow path?  That’s when we face the power of temptation … when we feel the real appeal of justifying the means by the end … the lure of choosing good rather than God’s best.[1]

 

On Thursday, Pope Francis made a bit of a shocking confession at a meeting with priests in Rome.  He told them that he had stolen the rosary cross of his late confessor from the casket at his funeral.  As he told the story, he went to the pray at the casket of the [man known as the] “great confessor” of Buenos Aires, and was stunned that no one had brought any flowers….  So he went out and bought a bouquet of roses, and when he returned to arrange them around the casket, he saw the rosary the priest still held in his hand.

“And immediately there came to mind the thief we all have inside ourselves, and while I arranged the flowers, I took the cross and with just a bit of force, I removed it,” he said, showing with his hands how he pulled the cross off the rosary. “And in that moment I looked at him and I said, ‘Give me half your mercy.’”
 

Francis said he kept the cross in his shirt pocket for years, but that the cassock he wears now as pope doesn’t have a pocket. He now keeps it in a little pouch underneath.  “And,” he says, “whenever a bad thought comes to mind about someone, my hand goes here, always,” he said, gesturing to his heart. “And I feel the grace, and that makes me feel better.”[2]

I’m not sure whether that qualifies as choosing good over the best, or if Pope Francis really did wish so much for an extra measure of mercy, but it does show how tempting it can be to reach for good things in the wrong way, especially when it’s such a little thing – a cross that no one will miss.

And yet, I don’t think temptation is evil in and of itself.  No, temptation is just part and parcel of free will.  You can’t have the ability to choose without the option of choosing poorly.  It’s been that way since the beginning, and even Jesus felt the urge to take the shorter, easier way.  (Maybe that’s why the prayer he gave us goes to the extra effort of mentioning both things.)

I’m tempted again to go into the reasons why Jesus had to be tempted and what that says about his nature and God’s desire to be one with us even though it’s not in my manuscript.  That would be a good thing to talk about, but I promised to stay on task.  And, I think talking about how Jesus responded would actually be closer to the best for us….

We have a tendency to dismiss Jesus’ struggle in the wilderness because he was the Son of God – God herself in human form.  And what’s a little temptation to someone who is divine – who knows all things and has all the power he needs already?  But, faced with his temptations, Jesus turned to the word of God as he had learned it over the past 20 years.  The truth in the holy verses he had memorized became the words with which he resisted the power of The Deceiver.  And that’s not particularly miraculous.  It’s something all of us could do if we had the strength and the presence of mind … although I’m pretty sure I would need more than that to resist a little bread after forty days of fasting.

Jesus was fresh from his baptism and he did have the Holy Spirit accompanying him which certainly would have helped, but it was not all that power that helped him resist.  It was actually that power that made his temptation more intense.  Why not turn a few stones into bread or even a more elaborate meal?  No one was there to see him.  No one would have suffered for his indulgence.  And it would have been good to prepare himself physically for the ministry he was about to begin.

Yet he refused.

He refused … and we can only speculate as to the why.  Somehow he understood that God’s plan for the world would not … could not be served by taking the easy way out.  Eventually, he would have power over all the kingdoms and rulers of Earth.  Eventually, Jesus would experience God’s protection (not from mere beatings or even crucifixion, but from death itself).  Eventually, he would make bread to feed thousands appear from next to nothing.  But this was not the time or the way to do it.  God’s best hopes for the world required a different path … a longer path … a path without compromise.  And with the power of the God’s word and the Spirit’s guidance, he was able to choose the harder path.

  There is a phrase that I don’t really like though I know that it brings comfort to many … “God never gives us more than we can handle.”  Every time that I hear those words, I cringe a little inside because I can’t help thinking about how they incriminate God.  They imply that God actually does lead us into the path of temptation and evil or that God wants to test us with suffering and pain.  I know that image is present in the Bible, but I believe that Jesus’ gift to us is an assurance that God isn’t really like that … that God is really all about love and grace and mercy and healing.

I do think, though, that if we change that phrase just a little bit, it would be true.  God always gives us what we need to make it through.  We have the wisdom of scriptures.  We have the teachings and example of Jesus and others who have lived well throughout the centuries.  We have the assurance of grace and love.  We have the guidance and support of the Holy Spirit who walks beside us through every trial.

 

Each day of our lives, we face temptations.  Little ones and big ones, they come to us as a part of our journey through life.  Often we don’t even notice them until we look back with regret or satisfaction on the choices we have made.
 
I have a feeling that we might find ourselves regretting less if we paid attention more … because we have all that we need.  We have the wisdom to choose God’s best (at least as well as we understand what that is).  We have the strength to resist.  And we have the Spirit to help us along the way … if we are willing to take the first step.

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[1] Maggie Dawn, The Christian Century (March 5, 2014), 20.

[2] http://nypost.com/2014/03/06/pope-francis-took-cross-from-late-confessors-rosary/