Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who enters our world anew
tonight.

Mary shifted a bit trying to ease the ache in her back.  She didn’t want to wake the baby – finally asleep after the trial of being born and then the bustle of visitors coming to see him, but she was still sore from giving birth and just couldn’t seem to get comfortable.  In the thin pre-dawn light coming in the ventilation-holes she gazed again at the child sleeping next to her – it was hard to take her eyes off him.  He was wrapped in strips of soft cloth the family had given her to use and he lay cradled in the feeding trough.  Just looking at him caused her heart to jump as a surge of fierce, protective love poured through her.  Her baby.  Her son.  Jesus. She still could hardly believe he was real.  She could hardly believe that she had actually given birth to this amazing child – although her body was telling her in no uncertain terms that she certainly had given birth! She wished her mother had been with her for the birth.  Although Joseph’s family here in Bethlehem couldn’t have been more kind.  With so many people in town for the census the upper room was packed with visitors when they arrived and there was no place to squeeze them in.  And of course, just then her water broke – she had been so embarrassed!  But the women of the household had just matter-of-factly cleaned things up and then after a bit of a conference decided the best place to give her some privacy for the birth was for her and Joseph to go down to the main floor.  One of the boys was sent off to get the midwife, the animals moved outside and the women quickly scrubbed everything down and brought in some bedding.  Poor Joseph had ended up staying in the room but he’d been pushed off to the side out of the way.  She’d heard him pacing back and forth.  Probably desperately wishing he was back home and he could go hang out with his friends.  Well at that moment she would have given anything to be back home just hanging out with her friends too!  Nobody had told her just how painful it was to give birth!

The light was getting a bit stronger and she looked down into the feeding trough at the baby again.  He looked so peaceful as he slept.  And beautiful – of course he was beautiful!  Although, if she was honest, like all newborns his face was wrinkled and a bit blotchy.  But she could see the handsome man he was going to be.  And he had a head-full of dark hair – no bald baby here!  She gazed a bit longer and thought – he had the air of a sage about him. Like the wrinkles were those of an old man – a wise old man with a calm and dignified air about him.  When he was born he’d fussed a little bit – but not too much.  They were both tired after the ordeal of the birth and when the midwife laid him on her belly at first they’d both just laid there recovering. But then Mary had lifted him up and looked at him.  And he looked back at her – his newborn-blue eyes wide as he gazed at her.  It felt like his gaze went deep into her soul.  Like he knew her down into the depths of her being.  The love coming from him was so strong she felt like she could reach out and touch it.  She wondered if everyone would be able to feel the deep love radiating from him.

She smiled to herself.  He was so special.  Of course, all mothers thought their babies were special. But he really was.  She’d never forget the visit from the angel all those months ago – she’d been so terrified.  And confused.  Even now she wasn’t sure if the angel had actually been there or if it had all just been a strange dream.   The idea that God was going to give her a baby, and not just any baby but one that would be a king – the son of God.  Savior of the world.  She and Joseph hadn’t told their parents about the pregnancy at first. She kept thinking this couldn’t possibly be happening.  When they finally did tell their parents both their mothers were furious and her father had stomped around the house for hours yelling about family honour and how was he ever going to show his face in town again.  She’d tried to explain but anything she said just made things worse.

And then, just when she was getting close to giving birth they’d been forced to travel all the way to Bethlehem for the Roman census. Just thinking about it made her feel irritated again. Stupid Romans.  Counting people so they can control them and tax them more efficiently.  They don’t care how inconvenient it is. They just want to show their power – prove that they’re the ones in control.  The very idea that the people of God should be subjugated to some foreign king was an abomination.  But for that conqueror to be Rome was almost beyond her ability to stomach.  Imagine the nerve of Augustus calling himself the Divine Son and asking people to worship him as a god!  As if any true worshipper of God would compromise their faithfulness by lighting incense at an altar dedicated to the likes of Augustus.  Or accept his much vaunted ‘pax romana’ – peace indeed!  It’s a strange kind of peace that’s imposed at the end of a roman short sword!  That’s not the peace God demands of his people.  God’s peace finds expression in humility and generosity, and in true justice for all.

That made her think of the shepherds that had turned up earlier.  They were clearly a bit worried that they wouldn’t be welcome – well, of course they were!  Who would want smelly, grubby shepherds turning up to see their baby?  Normally you wouldn’t let a shepherd in your house at all – couldn’t trust them not to steal something.  But they’d been so wide eyed in wonder as they looked at the baby that she hadn’t had the heart to send them away and she’d told Joseph to let them in.  They said God had sent them a message that the baby was the Messiah.  Well, wasn’t that just like God – sending a message like that to shepherds of all people. Talk about lifting up the lowly.  But with God no one was too poor or unimportant.  So maybe that was the point – it was just like God to send a message with some shepherds!

She glanced again at her sleeping son and pondered what God had planned for him.  Clearly, he was someone very special – God was with him in a way she couldn’t even begin to understand or imagine.  He looked so tiny, so helpless laying there.  But he was the Messiah – come to save his people.  She looked up as a shaft of morning light broke into the room.  The dark night was over – it was a new day.

2 Samuel 7:1–11, 16; Luke 1:47–55; Romans 16:25–27; Luke 1:26–38

This morning’s gospel reading tells the story of the angel Gabriel informing the perplexed Mary that she is going to give birth to a son born of the Holy Spirit.  We aren’t told that there’s anything special about Mary – certainly nothing which would
explain her being ‘favoured’ by God.  As far as we know she’s an ordinary young girl from an ordinary family living in an ordinary town.  But despite all that ‘ordinariness’, Luke tells us something extraordinary and unexpected happened.  The Bible has quite a few stories of remarkable and impossible births.  Indeed, Luke places this annunciation to Mary in the context of another remarkable pregnancy – the birth of John the Baptist to an elderly and barren Elizabeth.  Through the commonly
understood medium of the story of a miraculous birth, Luke is proclaiming that God is breaking into our ordinary world in a new way.  God is about to be born into the world in the person of a tiny, helpless infant whose mother is a simple peasant girl from a small, unimportant town in the middle of no-where.

But, sadly, despite all the ordinary elements of this story we usually get caught up in the extraordinary bits.  And so we turn
simple, ordinary Mary into an icon of humility – we make her someone extraordinary.  Which allows us to think of this as a story about how God broke into the life of someone who was nothing like us – someone who lived long ago and far away.   So, for me the question we need to ask ourselves is, “do you believe that God is still active in the world today?”  I don’t mean, “do you believe in God?”  You can probably answer ‘yes’ to that question, at least at some level, or you likely wouldn’t be sitting here in church today.  No, the question I’m asking is more personal than that… do you believe God is an active character in the story of your life?  Sadly for most of us God seems kind of … well, passive.  Most of us tend to think of God as just hanging out in the background, watching, waiting, being supportive maybe and encouraging.  More like a kindly uncle perhaps than a partner in life. As the refrain from that Bette Midler song says, we think “God is watching us…from a distance.”

Of course, that’s not the picture of God we get in the bible.  Sure, God watches.  But God is also involved in the events of the world – God does things, all kinds of things – great and small, mundane and miraculous – God is constantly at work. More than that, God most often does this by working in partnership with various people. Usually the least likely person – like an ordinary peasant girl from Nazareth. But working in partnership requires, well … partners. Take today’s Gospel reading, for instance, Gabriel bursts unexpectedly into the life of Mary to tell her that she has found favour of God and will conceive, carry, and bear the Son of God.   God is actively breaking into the world, but without Mary’s willing acceptance, there is no Jesus.  Jesus does not burst forth fully formed from the forehead of Zeus like Athena – Mary carries him in her womb, feeds him, teaches him, gets up in the night when he’s sick.  In short she is about to spend years of her life in the hard work of nurturing this son that God is offering her in today’s gospel.

Through the centuries Mary has been held up as an icon of faithfulness for her response “Let it be with me according to your word”.  But in doing that we tend to skip over the big gap between Gabriel’s “Greetings, favored one,” and Mary’s “Let it be according to your word.” As Luke tells the story, Mary is, by turns, perplexed, confused, and perhaps troubled by this proclamation that God has noticed her, that God favours her, and that God has wondrous things to accomplish through her.  And really… of course she is!   Who wouldn’t be?  But I think Mary’s ordinary humanity shines through most clearly in her initial response to the angel.  The angel has just said that she is going to become pregnant in the mystery of the Holy Spirit and that the child will be the Son of the Most High whose kingdom will have no end. But you have this sense that as soon as the angel said the word “conceive” Mary’s mind got stuck and she didn’t hear anything else. She immediately gets caught up in
the whole “how” question.   “How can this be?” she says, “I’m a virgin”.  I think her immediate focus on the practical details of the whole conception thing is priceless.  Mary doesn’t say, “My son is going to a king?” Or, “my child is going to be called the Son of the Most High?”  No, Mary is still stuck on ‘how’ she’s going to get pregnant.   I suspect God gets that a lot!  God calls for something big in our lives, in our ministries, in our church, only to find that we’re stuck on the seemingly impossibility of it all – we’re still stuck on the “how” question.  But how can I do that?  How can WE do that?  We’re just ordinary people, we’re
insignificant – not the kind of person that God would favour with the task of doing anything important.

So here’s that question again – do you think God is still active in the world, today?  Or did God for some reason go away and stopped doing anything much since the New Testament was written?  Do you think God is done interrupting people’s lives and asking them to do something for the health of the world?  Or is it just possible to imagine that God is still doing things just like this?  And that God just might be planning on doing so through people just like you?

Look around at the people sitting here with you this morning.  Can you see them as someone who’s favoured by God, and through whom God plans to do marvellous things? And if not… why not?  If you’d passed Mary on the street she would have looked just as ordinary as the rest of us.  And here’s the harder question… if you look in a mirror, do you see the face of someone who’s favoured by God?  Someone that God just might invite to do God’s work in the world?  Now, maybe not
conceive and bear the Son of God, but really – it’s been done!  But think how many other wonderful things there are that God wants to accomplish through us, through you – so many that you and I couldn’t begin to count them all!

Now, maybe the idea that God favours you and that God has wondrous things to accomplish through you might make you feel… perplexed, confused, and perhaps troubled.  And really, that’s ok.  I think God gets that a lot!  The word angel simply means ‘messenger’.  So I, as a messenger of God, invite you in the minute of silence that follows, to imagine one concrete place you can make a difference in God’s world.  One thing – big or small – where God may be at work with you working for the health and wholeness of the world.  Open yourself to the joy of responding to God’s call with receptivity and a willingness to work in partnership with God.  Because you are favoured by God and indeed God does plan to do wonderful things through you!  It’s ok if your initial response to the idea is “How can this be? We are ordinary, everyday people.” Because God works through ordinary people.  You have found favour with God, and the Holy Spirit will come upon you, guide you, and work through you to care for this world and the people God loves so much. For nothing is impossible with God.  So, believe… believe that God is still active in this world.  Believe that God is an active participant in your life.  Believe that God is inviting you into partnership. And, whatever your fears or doubts, risk responding to God invitation with: “Here am I, a servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.”

Isaiah 64:1-9a; Psalm 80; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; Mark 13:24-37

What would you do if you knew the world was going to end tomorrow?  I suspect it’s not a question that most of us spend much, if any, time thinking about.  Of course, there are some people who think about it a lot. You might have heard about Harold Camping’s heavily promoted prediction that Jesus would return this past May 21^st, and then when that didn’t happen his ‘recalculation’ that it would be October 21st. Other people believe that the Mayan calendar says Dec. 21 next year will be the end of the world. Over the years so many people have predicted the end of the world to great fanfare, and failure, that for most of us it’s more like a joke than something to be taken seriously.

And yet, and yet – here we are today at the start of the season of Advent listening to a gospel reading about the end of the world. It’s no wonder that some people read these passages and assume that the suffering we see around us must indicate that the end is here.  In this passage Jesus is certainly not painting a pretty picture. Doom, gloom, a darkened sun, falling stars, shaking
heavens, and all the rest. It’s pretty vivid; the stuff of fantasy novels or Hollywood films. And that’s the problem for us.  This is written in the common imagery of Jesus; day and it made perfect sense to early generations of Christians who expected Jesus to return at any moment.  But 2000 years later it’s a bit hard for us to connect to it.

I love Advent, but as a preacher I sometimes despair about how to try to approach these ancient texts in a way that will speak to us today.  The world around us is already focusing on Christmas, but here in the church we start Advent not by looking back to that night in Bethlehem thousands of years ago, but by looking forward in anticipation to the day when our ancient destiny is fulfilled. The day when Christ brings all things to completion and the deepest longings of all creation are satisfied.

In a sense all those predictions of the end of the world are right. No, of course not right about the timing, or even the attempt to predict the date – as Jesus says no one can know the day or the hour. But they are right that one of the promises of Scripture is that God will, in God’s own time, bring creation to a good end, and that everything we tend to think of as permanent is more fragile, more vulnerable, than we typically like to admit. Deep down I suspect we know this. Nothing in this world is permanent.  There are moments when awareness of the fragility and impermanence of our world and of our lives overwhelm us.  Sometimes it’s in simple things like the falling leaves of autumn, and sometimes it’s events like the death of a dear
friend, an illness that took longer to recover from, or reports of global warming.  Part of truly growing up is the inner acknowledgement that life is finite and we don’t have forever to do what we’re here to do.

So what would you do if you knew the world was going to end tomorrow? Would you reconcile with a long lost friend or
family member? Would you finish a project you started long ago? Would you try to do something to make the world a better place – even if it’s only for the one day?  Would you tell your children, or your parents, or your partner that you love them one last time? What would you do?

Really thinking about our answer to that question is a way of clarifying our values and sharpening our priorities, so it’s not a bad question to ask ourselves as we move into the headlong dash toward Christmas. It’s so easy to get so caught up in the cultural pressure to have the perfect Christmas that we can lose a sense not only of what Christmas is supposed to mean, but actually of ourselves. Which is not the start of a lecture on the true meaning of Christmas!  There’s nothing inherently wrong with enjoying the secular celebration of the season.  Rather, amid all the planning and preparing, amid the parties and shopping, amid the cards and cooking – amid, that is, all the festive craziness that most of us, truth be told, simultaneously love and dread – Advent offers us some space; to be still, to experience just a bit of quiet, and to be reminded of who we are: God’s beloved children.  Advent invites us to think about our answer to the question of what is ultimately important.

And here’s where Mark’s otherwise confusing and alarming passage has something to say to us. Because after all the predictions about the end, Jesus says that no one will know the day or the hour so we have to keep watch.  He then compares our situation to that of servants who don’t know when their master will return and yet are expected to be prepared for it whenever it does happen. One way to read this mini-parable is as a call to constant watchfulness. To be always on the lookout
for our Lord – whether at the end of time or, as we were reminded last week, in the face of our neighbors’ need.

The outcome of the world is not just about waiting for another physical appearance of Jesus in the future, although some Christians put great stock in that hope. But I think it’s more fruitful to consider that it’s about patiently and watchfully training our attention on where Christ might be found today. And so in Advent we ask where Christ is already at work in the world. Where are God’s desires becoming actualized?  And how can we be part of Christ’s ‘advent’ into this world of need?

Martin Luther was once asked what he would do if he believed the world would end tomorrow.  He’s said to have responded, “I would plant a tree today.” In the metaphorical sense that’s what we’re all called to do.  We’re invited to be so confident of God’s love and so sure of God’s promises about the future, that we’re willing to invest in God’s vision for the present, in the everyday and the ordinary, in the community and needs all around us. Because we have God’s promise, in the cross and resurrection of Christ, that in time God will indeed draw all of God’s creation not just to an end, but to a good end.

So don’t let the seemingly endless problems facing us drive you to despair. Mother Teresa often reminded her sisters that Christians were not called to be successful, they were called to be faithful. Jesus does not call us to be perfect…nor even to have success as the world measures it; we are, instead, to be faithful - to live as if we really believe in the promises of God’s love at all times – whether they are the ‘end times’ or not. Christ asks us to let “Advent” happen in our lives. To let Christ come in our hearts and our lives – and in doing so, to allow ourselves to be empowered to live with our God, our world and our fellow humans in a way that won’t cause us to be afraid or worried or even surprised at our Lord’s return – but overjoyed.

So remember your answer to that question about what you would do if the world were to end tomorrow? Well, you don’t need to wait for the end of the world! You can do those things now! Love the ones you want to love; do the ministry you are called to do; be reconciled to those who need you; be faithful to the people and community and tasks around you; undertake some endeavour – small or great that brings just a little bit more of God’s Kingdom into realization in this world. After all, why not? The end is certain – Christ has come, Christ is coming, and Christ will come again, all in the name of love. And we – God’s beloved children – along with all of God’s blessed creation are those from whom, and for whom, Christ is coming!

Judges 4:1–7, 14–25; Psalm 123; 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11; Matthew 25:14–30

Each year as we move towards the final days of the Church year the readings remind us of the fact that someday we’ll all stand before God and be called to account for what we’ve done in life while we’re waiting for the coming Kingdom of God.  Today’s gospel reading is one of a series of parables in Matthew and it’s left its mark on our language.  It’s because of this story that the word talent came into our language as a term for natural abilities.   Which is really too bad since it means when we hear the word ‘talent’ we think of things like being good at sports or piano or some such ability and so we usually miss the point that the parable is actually talking about money and what you can do with it. Here in Matthew’s version of the parable the slaves are given various amounts of talents by their master.  We might think the 3^rd slave, who ‘only’ received one talent was being hard done by.  But a talent is worth about 6000 times the amount of the usual daily wage – so roughly the equivalent of about 17 year’s wages for an ordinary person.  And the first servant was given 30,000 times the usual daily wage – or about 80 or 90 years worth of wages. Those are both hefty sums in anyone’s world! In terms of today’s money it would be equivalent
to millions of dollars.  The ancient world didn’t have our complex finance markets, but it knew about money and profit. And
the people originally listening to this parable would know what you could do with such a sum. Money was powerful then, too.   People often have trouble with this parable because it seems to compare God to a cut-throat, entrepreneurial multi-millionaire who wants profit at any cost. Although I do hope it’s obvious to everybody that this parable is NOT intended to be an introductory lesson how the Kingdom of Heaven is like modern Western capitalism – extolling the virtues of using wealth to make even more wealth.

Today’s parable needs to be read in the context of the parable that follows immediately after it which is the one where Jesus talks about a judgement where we’ll have the unexpected realisation that the way we’ve treated others, especially the ‘nobodies’, will be the basis for how our lives will be judged.  We need to keep in the back of our mind that that’s God’s criteria for how we’re expected to live our lives.

In today’s parable three slaves are called to account for how they’ve handled the enormous sums of money the master entrusted them with.  Notice that Jesus says the three slaves are given different amounts of money based on their abilities – which indicates the parable isn’t about salvation, which we all receive equally, but about something else.  It’s abundantly clear to us all that life isn’t a level playing field and some people start with a bigger advantage than others.  We all have a different starting point.  But each slave is judged solely on what they did with what they were given.  The slave with 2 talents is not judged on whether or not he made as much as the slave given 5 talents but only on the basis of how he did with his 2 talents.  What matters is what we do with what we have.  The first two are praised for what they’ve done – only the slave that refused to do anything with what he was given was condemned.

Now the interesting thing about the first two servants, is that they were able to take what the master had given them, and recognize that what the master had given them was meant to be used. And by making that conscious decision to risk using what they’d been entrusted with, they were they able to multiply the gift. For both of these servants, it was a leap of faith to risk, perhaps even lose, the money. But they were able to emulate the master and do what he asked of them.

The third servant, however, wasn’t able to take the same risk. He fears the master, believing him to be harsh and unforgiving.  And so he takes his portion of the money – which keep in mind although the smallest amount of the three, is still around a
lifetime’s earnings – and he buries it in the ground. Now, in one sense he was doing what was considered the prudent thing to do to keep the money safe. But by doing so he doesn’t use what he’s been given. And so the master is furious. He had entrusted this servant with a portion of his property in order that the slave would use his abilities to turn a profit for his lord. This slave, however, was too afraid to take a risk – even though in fact, risky behaviour was part of the master’s business. Instead, he hoarded the money to try to secure his own well-being. But in the end his unfaithfulness to the master’s business cost him severely. The master expected the servants to continue his business by emulating his behaviour.  Not to just bury what they were given.

In its literary setting, Jesus tells this story to his disciples to prepare them for the days ahead when their faith will be tested.
This parable depicts how the disciples are to demonstrate their faithfulness as they anticipate the return of the Lord.  And what does faithfulness look like in a time of waiting? In Matthew’s Gospel faithfulness is emulating the ministry of Jesus. Jesus has announced the arrival of God’s kingdom by feeding the hungry, curing the sick, blessing the meek, and serving the least.  And so everyone who wants to follow Jesus is expected in like fashion to preach the good news of the kingdom to the whole world by doing likewise.  But we can’t do that if we hoard and keep for our own use the money, time and abilities God has given to us.  We can’t do the work of the Kingdom if we metaphorically bury our treasure.

The human instinct to hoard and stay safe runs deep. Give into it, and it will suffocate the instinct to risk and to share.  Everything around you begins to look like uninsurable goods. What if you gave away your extra coat? You might need it—and then you wouldn’t have it. What if you shared your bread recipe? Everyone else could make it, too—and then you wouldn’t be special. What if you gave away some of your money – you might not have enough to live the lifestyle you want to when you retire.

If at some level you buy into the idea that the earth and everything in it is just a lot of stuff waiting to be claimed, then the laws of buried talent and treasure prevail: the talent and treasure in this world is (1) finite, and (2) scarce. There’s not enough to go around and you’d better get busy gathering and hoarding, because if you don’t, someone else will get there first. If you get
anything good, make sure you find a good place to hide it, so no one else can get it. But if the earth and all that is in it belongs to God…then the laws of buried talent and treasure are quite different. Radically different, actually.  Because then it’s not about how to hold on to scare resources, but how to spread around God’s abundance.

In this parable money represents, well… money and all that can be done with that resource.  But it’s also a metaphor for what is potent and powerful in the kingdom.  The question being asked of us is “how do we let God flow through the actions of our life?”  Do we take risks?  Do we use the resources entrusted to us to further the ministry of Jesus?  Do we, to use the words of Luther, “sin boldly” which might be paraphrased here as “get off your butt and do something – even if it’s wrong”?   If we bury the most alive part of ourselves out of fear, if we hold on tightly to what we have and don’t learn to share, then we never become who we might have been.  As Frederick Buechner wrote “I think the outer darkness the Master casts him into is not to be thought of so much as a punishment, as it is to be thought of as the inevitable consequence of what it means to bury your life. If you bury your life, you don’t live your life. You don’t meet other people who are alive. You are alone; you are in the dark.” This parable challenges us not to sit on the life of God in us.  And not to hoard all the resources entrusted to us so they don’t accomplish the work of our Lord.

As Paul reminds us, our future is in solidarity with Christ and that’s also our hope – to live now, as well as then, in the ways Jesus taught. Paul with his usual good sense of the implications of faith statements encourages the Thessalonians to mutual support. Hope only grows where love flows, and love needs to flow through people. Paul understands this life of faith, hope, and love as one lived in community, where change and renewal are generated through real experiences.  Fear can close us down and keep us from living the life that God intends for us.  But together we can support one another as we risk moving forward in faith.  Together we can support one another to do what we can with whatever’s been given to us, and to stand in solidarity
with the abused and powerless of our time.  Paul believes that in Christ we can live a life of radical hope and love – not just in some future end time but here and now – each day of our life.  The question is – are you willing to risk living your life in the
light of that belief?

Do you think much about how you make decisions in your life? We all make hundreds of decisions every day – like, am I actually going to get out of bed today; cereal or eggs for breakfast; what route am I going to take to work; should I stop at Safeway and pick up all the groceries I need in one place or take more time and go to all the little specialty stores that have
products that I like better.  Different people have different decision making styles. Some of us just ‘go for it’ and make quick decisions without thinking about the details too much.  Running by ‘gut instinct’ or what feels right or whatever catches your attention first.  Some people agonize over every decision, pouring over the details, trying to ensure that they’ve made the best possible choice. Some people love to make impulse purchases when they run across something they love.  Others go shopping with a plan and a budget and stick to it – if it’s not in the budget then it doesn’t get bought no matter how nice it is.  Some of us do a lot of research before making a big purchase, like a car for example– reading consumer reports, checking on the gas mileage etc.  Others of us just love the look or feel of a particular car and buy it without a lot of research because we want it. Of course, for most of us the answer to how we make decisions depends at least in part on how much is at stake.  You may not bother putting too much thought into the simple choices– like what to wear to work, for example.  Just pulling out of the closet
whatever is at hand that’s suitable.  But you might spend much more time with a bigger decision like what car or house to
buy.  There’s no one right way to make decisions.  Too little thought put into your decisions can leave you with a career that doesn’t suit you, purchases you never use and broken relationships.  But on the other hand if you obsess about every detail of every decision you’ll probably end up driving everyone else crazy and never getting anything done.  But whether we agonize over little decisions or make big ones on a whim, we need to recognize that at some level almost everything we do is a choice.  Very few things in life are fixed so that we truly have no choice – and even when we are faced with something we can’t change, like say the illness or death of a loved one.  We can, and do, still choose how we react to it.  Even things that have become habits that we do without thinking are still choices.

Just like every other aspect of our life, our faith and relationship with God are a choice. Martin Luther King Jr. begins his autobiography by saying, “Of course I was religious. I grew up in the church. My father is a preacher, my grandfather was a preacher, my great-grandfather was a preacher, my only brother is a preacher, my daddy’s brother is a preacher. So I didn’t have much choice.”  But of course King did have a choice.  None of us inherits faith.  As someone once said, ‘God doesn’t have any grandchildren’.  So each of us, whether we grow up in a household where faith is just in the air and we breathe it in every day along with the smell of breakfast cooking, or we grow up in a home where the very idea of God is shrugged off as a delusion, at some point we have to make our own decision about what we believe, what we value and how we’re going to live out that belief.

In today’s Old Testament Joshua speaks to a community with a historical, covenantal relationship with God but who must nevertheless choose to live into that relationship – or not.  Today’s text comes at the end of the book of Joshua, when Joshua has summoned the people to Schechem to renew their covenant with God. He recounts the history of this covenant relationship. He begins by remembering their distant past, “long ago,” literally “from eternity,” when their distant ancestors lived “in the land beyond the river” – which is to say the Euphrates. He reminds them what God did for their ancestors: he gave them descendents and good land; afflicted their enemies and brought them out of slavery; brought them to this new land and gave them victory over the Amorites. And so now the choice before them is to choose to serve this God who has been so gracious to them or to choose to serve others gods.  As Joshua sees it, the people standing before him have emerged from the fraught mists of historical memory into the rich abundance of a present in which everything has been graciously provided by their God.

So now Joshua presses them to commit themselves anew to the LORD, thundering, “Choose this day whom you will serve!” By this point in the speech, the choice is pretty clear: Israel can serve the old foreign gods of those who oppressed them, or the shamed gods of the defeated Amorites – or they can serve the LORD, whose has brought them safely through times of brutal deprivation and fierce conflict. With all that on the table in front of you, how could you make any other decision but to worship God?  And so, of course, the people do commit themselves.

It might be hard for us to see ourselves in this picture.  After all, few of us are tempted by any foreign gods or any gods with other names, but as Luther wrote in his explanation of the First Commandment, anything we fear, love, and trust above everything else—whether that’s riches, self, prestige, or whatever—is our God. And it’s often said that the First Commandment implicitly incorporates all the rest of the commandments – which is to say, if you do love God, you will want to live for God and follow God’s ways.

So perhaps the question this passage lays out in front of us is not simply whether we will affirm that God is our God, but how
do we make the daily, ongoing choices that will result in living in a way that’s faithful to God.   How do we make God’s ways a ‘habit’ in our daily life?  Simply knowing what we ‘should’ do isn’t enough.  We can have all the knowledge in the world about something without it having a significant effect on the actual choices we make about what we do or don’t do.  Take losing weight for example.  If information on how to eat right and exercise more was all it took to change our lifestyle so we’d be healthy there wouldn’t be very many overweight and out of shape people in our world! We all know what we should do to be healthy – actually doing it is something else again.  And in the same way we can know that living a spiritually healthy life means being compassionate and generous, and still end up mostly being self-centered, egotistical and spending the vast majority of our money and time on ourselves and our own loved ones.

In order to actually change your behavior there needs to be congruence between what your head knows and what your heart wants. You must know what you need to do AND you must feel the passion to want to do it.  You have to want to be healthy more than you want to eat that brownie!  As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous — “AA is not for people who need it, it’s for
people who want it.” This is true regardless of the behavior we’re talking about. A journey of 1,000 miles doesn’t just begin with the first step, it begins with the desire to travel 1,000 miles. It begins with the choice to actually take that first step. If you want your relationship with God to be more than a hobby that you spend an occasional Sunday morning on, you first have to want to allow the love of God to transform you into that kinder, gentler, more generous person that God created you to be.

This text invites us into profound gratitude for the unmerited graciousness of God.  It invites us to confirm anew in our own
lives the covenant with God made in our baptism.  Most of us don’t experience a single, pivotal conversion that instantly changes our heart and head so we live life anew. Instead, life is a series of small, seemingly insignificant decisions that add up over a lifetime.  Every day is a new opportunity to choose to step towards the vision of God’s kingdom of justice, generosity, compassion and commitment.  Every day is a new chance to choose to serve God with what you do, and don’t do with your time, your energy, your money. With what you focus your attention on and what you choose to ignore. My prayer for each of you, is that you choose to love and serve God.  Today, and every day.

Proper 19A, September 11, 2011 – St. Anselm’s

Ex 14:19-31; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35

Unless you’ve been living in isolation it would be hard to be unaware that today is the 10^th anniversary of 9-11.  Newspapers, TV, the web have all been full of retrospectives and articles on what happened then and what has happened as a result over the last 10 years.  If you were an adult at the time then you probably have vivid memories of that day no matter where you lived in the world.  I still remember waking up to my clock radio and trying to make sense of the announcer talking about a plane flying into the Pentagon.  And then about planes having hit the World Trade Centre.  I got up and turned on the TV (something I never do in the morning) to try to make sense of things.  And so it was that in shock and horror I watched as people leapt from windows to escape the fire and then the dramatic catastrophic collapse of the towers, live on TV.  Knowing that those buildings were still full of people who I had just watched die was a profoundly horrifying experience.  So, even though I live a continent away from where the events took place and my own worldview and sense of security were not changed by the event, I do understand how shocking the events were for millions of people who, like me, experienced it through the medium of TV – not to mention the seemingly endless news reports over the following weeks and months and years. But for me, what has been even worse than the tragedy of that day and the lives lost in the attack has been the response of the western world over the ensuing years.  The increasing demands for ever more security no matter what the costs in human rights or damage to our social contact – as if we can ever have a risk free world. Racial profiling and irrational prejudice against Muslims – as if al-Qaida actually represented the values of Islam or the majority of Muslims.  The so called ‘war on terror’ and all the thousands upon thousands of more lives – both civilian and military – lost in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which, (no matter how horrible the governments in question were) were largely been driven by fear and politics.  And the inability of so many people, especially in the US, to let go of their anger and fear and move on to forgiveness for the attack. But forgiveness while it can be called for, can’t be forced.  I find it amazing to see how some people who lost beloved husbands or wives or children have been able to forgive and move on, and are trying to use their pain as the impetus to work for a better world.  While others who suffered no personal loss, struggle to do the same. 

In this week’s readings Matthew and Paul remind us about our need for forgiveness and grace, of living with diversity and not judging each other. In today’s gospel Peter asks how many times he should forgive someone – as many as seven times he generously suggests.  But Jesus says no, not just seven, but seventy-seven, or as it can also be translated seventy times seven.  In other words there’s no limit to the number of times we’re expected to forgive. And then he tells a parable.  We often miss the joke Jesus is telling.  In his day it wouldn’t have been possible to owe anyone 10,000 talents. 10,000 talents in today’s terms would come to something on the order of $4 or 5 billion dollars!  King Herod only received about 900 talents a year from all his territories.  So the original hearers of this parable would have laughed when the servant asks for ‘just a bit more time’ to pay back the debt.  They would have got the point about God’s generosity and mercy when the king simply forgives such an impossible sum.  And they probably would have blanched at the idea that they too were to be so impossibly forgiving.

Because let’s be honest – forgiveness is hard and most of us find it difficult to forgive major wrongs.  So what do we do when we can’t forgive? Part of the problem may be that we don’t really know what forgivingness is. Sometimes we think that if we forgive it implies that the wrongdoing wasn’t all that bad and what they did didn’t really matter – but that’s not what forgiveness means.  Nor does it mean the person shouldn’t face the consequences of the wrong they committed.  Forgiving someone doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t have to make amends for their actions, or face the legal consequences.  Nor does forgiveness necessarily mean you should trust them again or act as if nothing ever happened.  They may indeed have proved themselves untrustworthy.

Or maybe we find forgiveness hard because it deprives us of our excuse to be angry.  Anger can be useful in the short term.  It can motivate us to fight for necessary changes and it can, for a time, protect us from overwhelming feelings of fear or insecurity and make us feel ‘in control’.  But the problem with anger is that it’s ultimately us who pays the price.  Anger is corrosive and in the end the person it really hurts is ourselves.

But knowing that holding a grudge or desiring revenge are not good for us, or that we’re expected and commanded by God to forgive, doesn’t make forgiveness any easier.  Especially for major betrays, like our spouse committing adultery, or a parent who abuses us.  It’s hard to forgive when the person isn’t repentant, or refuses to even acknowledge that they’ve harmed us.  Or when we have to endure ongoing offensive behaviour that never seems to end – like a boss or a spouse who constantly belittles you, or a child that turns their anger and disrespect on you day after day. 

But before you start to feel guilty about your inability to forgive someone let me just say that forgiveness is a process.  In the words of Edna Hong “Forgiveness is a work as well as a grace.”  Small hurts and slights generally can, and should, be forgiven easily and relatively quickly.  But when we’ve been hurt badly, forgiveness usually takes time.  The pain has to be worked through, and for true healing that ‘working through’ needs to be more than superficial.  True forgiveness doesn’t always happen overnight and it isn’t easy.  But it is transforming when we get it right – both for ourselves and for the world around us.

Today we along with millions of people are looking back to a decade ago when four hijacked airplanes wreaked destruction and woe. But we are also called to look forward, to see and lean into a future that’s not defined by the tragedy of that one day but instead is shaped by hope, possibility, and the grace of God.  Because today we also remember the events of 2000 years ago when God’s Son, surveying a field of broken lives and desolate hearts, chose to walk the path of forgiveness, not vengeance, and in this way opened a future marked not by judgment but by mercy, not by despair but hope, not by fear but courage, not by violence but healing, not by scarcity but abundance, not by hate but love, and not by death but by new life. That’s what forgiveness can do. May God give to all of us a palpable sense of the forgiveness granted to us, and give us the faith and courage to walk boldly into the future that forgiveness creates.

Exodus 3:1-15; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28

Today we heard the story of Moses’ confrontation with the famous burning bush. Many of you will picture the scene under the influence of Cecil B. DeMille production from the 1950s, starring Charlton Heston.  If you’re of a younger generation it’s probably Dreamwork’s Prince of Egypt that you see in your mind’s eye.  In either case these shows have encouraged the mistaken conception that God makes Godself known to ordinary humans like us only in ways worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster – with the parting of vast seas, or through dreadful plagues, or by speaking from burning bushes.  In the Hollywood version of the story we usually picture this scene as one of awe and wonder.  And we think “Boy, if God ever spoke to me out of a burning bush, THEN I’d know for sure what God wanted me to do and I would get right to it!”  But that isn’t quite the story the bible tells us. Forget Charlton Heston – this passage isn’t about a timid exile’s reverent first meeting with the God of his ancestors. Rather, this story is about a no-holds-barred encounter between a wily, even conniving outlaw and a God who’s more than up to the challenge of transforming him into an instrument of salvation.
You may remember that Moses, after having been raised in the palace as an adopted son of the Princess, had had to flee Egypt after killing a cruel overseer who was beating a Hebrew slave.  There, at a well in the desert he meets Zipporah and they marry and have a son.  Forty years have passed as Moses lives an ordinary and unremarkable life. As we rejoin him in today’s reading it’s a seemingly ordinary day like thousands of ones before it with Moses going about his shepherding duties for his father-in-law. There’s no reason to think Moses was expecting anything unusual to happen that day.  It was a normal, probably humdrum day, looking after the sheep.  But then in the midst of it he notices that off to one side there’s a bush that’s burning without being burned up. And so Moses wanders over to see what’s going on.  Moses’ willingness to wander off the path led him to a holy conversation with God; a conversation that was marked by holy ground, keeping a distance, taking off shoes, and a feeling of intimacy with the divine that marked Moses for the rest of his life.

It’s a small point, but one worth keeping in mind, that God didn’t choose a bush right in front of Moses. God didn’t choose the bush that Moses was about to stumble over. It was within sight, but at enough distance that Moses has to go out of his way to explore it. And clearly even the burning shrub itself is not that particularly awesome at first glance. More of a curiosity, really.  But enough to catch his attention. I think we all imagine we too would go have a look if confronted with such a sight.  After all that’s what you would do, isn’t it? Go and have a look? I mean, I would. Well, at least, I think I would…

But, if we’re honest with each other we know that we have an almost endless capacity to keep walking and not stop to see what God is up to. We’ve got a schedule to keep. We’re terribly busy. We need to get someplace, no time to stop; we’ll come back later. There are plenty of sound reasons to keep on walking.

This story of the call of Moses is thick with layers and layers of meaning to sift through. But one thing the burning bush reminds us of is that the mission field isn’t always right in front of us. Sometimes we need to follow our instincts off the path to get a closer look. Being followers of God means we’re called to be curious about the world ‘out there’.  Look more closely. Listen more intently. Search out the nooks and crannies of the world around us, and hear the cry of people we might not normally hear.

To know God, you have to go with God wherever that might take you even if that’s not on the path you’re used to following. Faith is a full contact, participation sport. You just can’t sit back and expect to really know God, you have to get up off the couch and get in the game, take a risk, try something, reach for something you thought unachievable, step out onto a road which you can’t see the end of from your comfortable doorstep.

Not that Moses is exactly thrilled when he gets to the bush and discovers that it’s not just an interesting diversion but God Almighty come calling. We might picture Moses at this point face down in the sand in front of the bush, listening to this mighty announcement of God about oppression and God’s decision to act against it on behalf of Israel.  Well, sounds good doesn’t it?  Especially after noting an important fact: every pronoun has been a first person one. It is obviously GOD who has made the decision to intervene in the world for Israel, and Moses is surely thinking, “You go God!” But unfortunately for Moses, the pronouns take an abrupt turn in verse 10. “So, come, I will send you to pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

Whaa…?! Well, that’s a camel of a different color! And this pronouncement sends Moses off into a series of questions that have one purpose – namely, to get Moses off the hook of this preposterous command. It takes him only the blink of an eye, and the time to spit the sand out of his mouth, before he starts his objections, “Who am I that I should go to pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?  After all, God, I’m a fugitive from Egyptian justice, and besides I have a wife and child and a steady job”.  God’s call to service is regularly met with reluctance, resistance and lack of enthusiasm. Which is little wonder since God is forever calling people to speak truth to power and say things that most people have no desire to hear. But Moses tops the list of Biblical prophets who resist God’s call.  He has a seemingly inexhaustible list of reasons why it shouldn’t be HIM that God sends.  (today’s reading only includes a small portion of the exchange between God and Moses so we’ve missed most of his objections to God’s plan).

He even tries to stick-handle God. “Suppose”, he says, “I go to the Israelites and tell them all this great news and they’re a tad sceptical, you know, to the point of asking just who this God is who sent me. What shall I tell them?” Such an innocent, understandable, even reasonable question, don’t you think? Except that it’s not. It’s a total power play; subtle, even sly, to be sure, but a power play none the less. In ancient culture names have power and they reveal the character of a person. Moses isn’t asking for a calling card, he’s trying to get the name out of this divine being because to know someone’s name is to have a certain power over them.  And in reply God gives that great ambiguous answer “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh”: “I am who I am!” Maybe God is saying, in a sense, “Don’t try to box me in, Moses!” Significantly, God’s answer can also be translated as “I will be who I will be.” So maybe what God is telling us is that you can’t really know who God is unless you’re willing to sign on for God’s mission in the world. Which is what Moses ultimately does, once he runs out of objections to the idea – going back to Egypt, confronting Pharaoh, leading his people out of Egypt, taking then through the parted waters and into the wilderness. And there, on the other side of things, Moses doesn’t need to ask for God’s name anymore – he’s learned it first hand, though his own experience.

No, Moses is hardly Charlton Heston. He is, in fact, you and me—less than eager to speak the truth, more than eager to leave the task to someone else. But sometimes, the task is ours and only ours, and we, and only we, must be the agents of God.
So in two minutes of silence I want you to reflect on what God might possibly be calling you to do.  What mission are you called to? What path have you been asked to follow? It doesn’t have to be spectacular. When done in faith, there’s no small ministry. But the sad truth is most of us don’t see ourselves as the stuff of which faith-heroes are made – we don’t really believe that God might decide to do something important with US. But that’s probably because we haven’t been reading our Bibles very carefully.  After all, few of the characters God employs – including Moses – are the stuff of heroes. And yet God uses these frail, fallible, and oh so ordinary people, over and over again, to do extraordinary things.  God continues to stand elusively out in front of us, beckoning us forward into a future that we can’t yet see but which God is fashioning both for us and through us. 

So as you tend your sheep this week be on the lookout for interesting bushes by the wayside. You never know when, where, or how God might be calling.

 Let us pray,

“O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”- Evangelical Lutheran Worship, p. 304,

If I told you that you could do something this week that would change the world would you be hopeful and excited?  Or would you just smile politely and wonder how long my sermon is going to take?   I rather suspect that most of you would fall into the ‘smile politely’ category – although hopefully not too many of you are already looking at your watch and wondering how long I’m going to talk for!   Of course, the truth is that you ARE going to change the world with what you do or don’t do this week.  Perhaps not in any big way, although the reality is none of us know what the consequences of our actions will be.  Our lives are all interconnected, and every action can ripple across time and space to ultimately affect the lives of millions.  We call that the butterfly effect.  So named from the illustrating story that says that a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world can cause hurricanes on the other.   Small actions can add together in ways we don’t expect to cause big changes at some point in the future. 

I was reminded of this truth last weekend when I presided at Michael and Sandra’s wedding.  They’re a lovely young couple and they were glowing with happiness as they made their vows and started on their new life as a married couple.  It was a great joy for me to be able to preside at their wedding.  But where the butterfly effect comes into this is how they met.  Back some years ago when I was trying to find a way to engage with the UBC students I decided to start holding Sunday evening dinners for the students here at the church and we’ve been holding them ever since.  One Sunday evening Michael (who was then in first year and living in residence) walked by the church and saw the lights on.  He wandered over to see what was going on and got invited in for dinner.  He was short of money and a free meal was a big help so he started coming back every week and eventually became a member of the parish as well.  Sandra meanwhile joined the Lutheran student ministry and after we held some events in common some of the Lutheran students would also participate in our events and vice versa.  Michael and Sandra became friends and eventually more than friends.  Nor are they the only romantic relationship to have come out of our student ministry.  Geoff for example, met his girlfriend Laura through our student ministry as well.  In fact, they date the start of their relationship as a couple to one of our annual wine and cheese parties that I invited all the students to come to.  And I fully expect to hear in the not too distant future that they too are engaged.  Now, of course, when I decided that part of our outreach to the UBC student population would be a weekly dinner it never occurred to me that we would change their lives by introducing them to their future spouses!  I was just trying to find a way to help them connect to God in some way.  But it’s just one more example of the ways our actions can have consequences, both good and bad, that we never expected.  When the outcome is negative we sometimes refer to it as ‘The Law of Unintended Consequences’.   Government policy, to take one example, seems to be stuffed with examples of the Law of Unintended Consequences as efforts to fix one problem invariably seem to result in the creation of one or more new problems.

Today’s Old Testament reading has examples of unexpected and unintended consequences of both positive and negative kinds caused by the actions of the characters in the story.  Pharaoh’s actions are full of examples of the “Law of Unintended Consequences”.  Pharaoh is acting out of deep seated fear.  And the irony is that his fear-based actions are, in large part, responsible for producing the very things he was trying to avoid. His attempts to control the Hebrew population lead to its exponential increase instead! He doesn’t see the females as a threat and so ignores the baby girls in his genocidal plans.  But it’s the women who thwart his plans and help bring about his downfall.  His plan to make the Hebrews slaves and keep them from escaping the land moves God to commission Moses to bring the people out.  Nothing works out the way Pharaoh had hoped!

But Pharaoh is certainly not alone in this experience.  Sadly, if we’re honest, I suspect we can all remember times when our own actions, especially those founded in fear or anger, resulted in making a situation worse rather than better. Certainly I know I’ve been there – looking back with 20/20 hindsight wishing I’d done something different.  Of course, most of us don’t have the ability, or thankfully the desire to act on our fears in such a horrifying way as Pharaoh chose to, or on as public a stage as the one in this story!  But the principal is the same none-the-less.  When we follow the path of fear we are pretty much never following God’s plan.  And unintended negative consequences are almost guaranteed.

But this story doesn’t just have examples of negative unintended consequences – it’s also full of examples of people changing the world for the better just by doing what they think is the right thing.  Take the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah for example.  They’re ordered by Pharaoh to kill all male Hebrew babies.  Girls being of no account in Pharaoh’s world he says they can be allowed to live. But these two no-account females refuse to obey mighty Pharaoh and they don’t kill the boys. And when called to account they lie to Pharaoh, telling him that the Hebrew women give birth too quickly, delivering the babies before the midwives arrive on the scene. 
It’s a courageous act of civil disobedience that changes history – for one of the boys spared from Pharaoh’s genocide, with the help of Pharaoh’s own daughter, will be called Moses and he will lead the Israelites out of Egyptian captivity and bring them to the Promised Land. And it all starts here, with three women willing to say “no” to an act of injustice. I doubt very much they thought they were changing the world. But they were, just by being faithful and heeding the call of conscience.

So who knows? None of us knows which of our actions might be the one that results in some major change down the road.   Maybe you’ll give encouragement to a young person who will then see something in herself that she hadn’t before,  so that she in her own turn befriends another student who was on the verge of giving up on life…. Or maybe you’ll choose to stand up to a bully at work or school and not only help the others being bullied but also the bully, who never had anyone willing to stand up to him before…. Or maybe you’ll be moved to volunteer to read to kids at the local library and one of those kids will discover a passion for language and will grow up to be the poet laureate…. Or maybe something you say will shape the future choices of someone who will go on to discover something important…. or…

The things we do this week, and every week – our actions, decision, choices – will, in fact, ripple out with consequences foreseen and unforeseen, for good or for ill, for the health or damage of the world. The question isn’t whether, but what…what will we do this week to make a difference in the world. Some of these actions may be big, bold, and courageous. Others may be small, hardly noticeable. And yet they all have the potential to ripple out, affecting countless lives. In today’s reading it’s Shiphrah and Puah, two ordinary and seemingly unimportant people quietly standing up to a bully and tyrant, and who, in doing so set in motion actions that ripple across history. Who knows which actions it will be today, this week, this year that tip the balance towards another major change. The Apostle Paul, in the second reading, says we are all are members of the body of Christ, each with different gifts, yet all one in faith and with the same potential for God to use us to change the world.

So what would you do if I told you that what you do this week will change the world? Will you choose to act in courage or fear?  To act to change the world for the better or worse?  Because make no mistake – for better or for worse, you and your actions will change the world!

If you’ve been here during Lent you’ll know that during the children’s talks I’ve been putting up all those little footsteps on the wall as a way to help us all think of Lent as a journey.  A journey with Jesus through the wilderness time of Lent.  Well, the journey’s not over yet – in fact we’re just getting to the really important part!  Today is Palm/Passion Sunday – the start of the journey of Holy Week.  There’s a tension in today – we hear it clearly in the two gospel readings of the day.  We started with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. After forty days of Lenten travel that have often focused on serious and sometimes dark subjects, suddenly we arrive at a day that seems at first blush to be surprisingly cheery. The Palm Sunday parade has color and spectacle, cheering and singing, festive voices and joyful exuberance. It seems like this should be a happy day.  But this sunlit scene is quickly followed by the dark agony of Gethsemane – the ill wind of arrest and trial, of abuse and whipping, and the final bitterness of cruel death.  Now, you may wish we’d just focus on the Palm part of Palm/Passion Sunday and leave all this dark and gloomy stuff to later in the week.  But really, the seeds of Friday are already sown in the misguided triumph of Sunday – and so we don’t, we can’t, stay long in that festive moment of entry.  The cheers and hosannas of Palm Sunday are for the expectation of a messiah who’ll use power and violence to accomplish what the people want.  And all too soon, they’ll turn on Jesus as they discover that Jesus is following God towards what looks like defeat instead of victory.  And so, today we hold the light and the dark, the jubilation and the suffering in tension.  Today we acknowledge that there’s something both gloriously joyful and awesomely bitter about this day, and this week.

Many of us would like to skip straight from the waving palms and “Hosannas” of the Palm Sunday liturgy to the “Alleluias” of Easter next Sunday.  But hosanna and alleluia are not the whole story of this week.  There’s also inescapable darkness and pain in this story.  And, that makes it hard, because really most of us would rather avoid pain and suffering if we can. I suspect that’s why so many people come on Easter but skip the services on Thursday and Friday where the painful parts of this story come to life.  Most of us would rather cover our eyes and not peek out again until we know the stone’s been rolled away.  But whether we want to face the painful parts of the story or not, if we want to be followers of Jesus then we need to walk with him.  And this week Jesus is on the journey of journeys.  We’ve already entered Jerusalem with him.  And soon Jesus will be walking from the Last Supper to betrayal on the Mount of Olives, and from there to a mock trial, and then onward to Golgotha and an ugly death, and finally the journey from the cross to the tomb.  Each of these steps on the journey takes us further into a world of darkness, of betrayal, of naked power, of cowardice and of death. This week we’re on a roller-coaster ride from triumph through tragedy before we arrive at the ultimate victory of the Resurrection. 

Despite the fact that we, from our vantage point in history, re-enter this week aware of its ultimate outcome, I still can’t help but be moved by its ups and downs. For two millennia this has been the central week of the year for Christians – this is the week when we journey into the very heart of our faith.  And like most of the profound moments of life, this Sunday, and indeed this whole week, are a mixture of joy and tears. And that’s appropriate because joy and sadness are entwined in life.  We all try to avoid pain and suffering if we can, but the truth is that if we try to arrange our life so that we get just happiness and avoid all bitterness, it stunts our emotional and spiritual growth.  Being people of faith doesn’t mean avoiding pain – nor for that matter does it mean enduring pain just for pain’s sake. Being a Christian means following Jesus, and like him following the will of God. Choosing love and justice and goodness no matter where that choice takes us.  And it means that we, like Jesus must be willing, at least, to bear whatever suffering comes in order to follow that path with God. 

Now, you may think this is all very gloomy stuff but that’s not how it reads in the gospels. There’s no despair here. Hope rules. In the events of this week we’re taken close to the pulsing, passionate Centre of existence.  We’re taken to the heart of God, where we find redemption at work through willing love, self-sacrifice and forgiveness. Throughout life, we shouldn’t try to dodge the bitter in our quest for the sweet. That’s why journeying through all of Holy Week is important. We can’t skip over Good Friday and leap forward to Easter. There’s no Easter in today’s readings. Nor will there be until Saturday night.  Because unless we can walk this path with Jesus, leaving our comfort zone, our self-satisfaction and daring to walk beyond safety into the darkness of evil and death.  Unless we can dare to risk allowing ourselves to cry with sorrow and outrage as we carry Jesus’ lifeless body to the tomb, we will not even begin to grasp the power of the Resurrection in our own lives.

This day of palms and passion begins with a king’s welcome and ends with a prisoner’s execution. But Jesus’ painful journey isn’t just an event in time; a memorial of the past.  Rather, it’s a recurring journey for those of us who try to live in the way that Jesus taught us.  Jesus took a journey of faith through the wilderness.  Faith was his sustaining power and God’s grace was the underground river that supported him. God did not abandon Jesus as he walked towards his death on a cross.  God took the journey with Jesus. And God will journey with us too – no matter where the path takes us.

Imagine yourself standing next to Ezekiel in his vision of the valley filled with dry bones. It’s a scene of death and desolation and disintegration – of lost hope and quenched dreams.  Standing there you feel horror, grief and despair for all that was lost.  And into this desolation you hear the voice of God ask “Mortal, can these bones live?” you might very well think, ‘What kind of question is that?’  Who could even begin to think that life could be brought out of this destruction? These bones are dead!  They’re VERY dead.  I think I might have given a less temperate answer than Ezekiel’s “God, you know.”  But, of course God does know and imagine your amazement as you obey God’s strange commands and see those oh so dead bones join together, bone on bone, and then become enfleshed and finally stand up filled with the breath of God.  Ezekiel’s vision was spoken for the lost and scattered house of Israel—exiles in a foreign land, torn away from all that was vital to them, living without hope for the future.  They themselves feel like dry bones with no life in them.  And so this vision assures them that God has not abandoned them.  Despite how they feel, despite how things look right now, there’s a new day coming, when they will once again be a mighty throng, “standing up” in the presence of God.

And then go in imagination to Bethany to stand with Mary and Martha as they cry to Jesus that their brother is dead. They believe that Jesus could have saved him from dying, had he only been there. But Jesus wasn’t there, and their hopes for life for Lazarus are gone—dried up and vanished away, like the life of those dry bones. Martha did hope, as most Jews of her day did, for the general resurrection “on the last day.” But that can seem like cold comfort when someone that we love has been lost in this life.  And we all know that in this life, dead is dead.  Those dead and rotting in their graves don’t come back to life.  So Martha can be forgiven for protesting when Jesus asks for the stone to be rolled away from Lazarus’ grave.  He’s been dead four days!  It’s too late.  Even his hovering spirit is gone away and all that is left is a stinking corpse.   But Jesus knows what he’s asking, and Lazarus answers the summons to rise from his grave and come out. 

Both these stories are surprising because they run against our natural assumptions of how the world works.  We know that in this world dead is dead, and yet both are about unexpected life where we see only death.  We’re approaching Easter and so our thoughts turn naturally to resurrection and we often interpret these passages as examples of resurrection – as examples of how life continues after death.  And in a sense they are – but not in the way we usually think.  Because resurrection isn’t just about raising the dead – resurrection is about life in all its abundance.  In their exchange Jesus tells Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life.”  I AM resurrection, here, now, always.  Resurrection is not just something that happens in the future.  Jesus is the resurrection and the life not only at our death, but also in all the daily moments of our lives.  Because each moment, whether we are aware of it or not, are also lived in the face of death. Jesus is the resurrection and the life not just for the crisis moment of death, but for all moments in life.

John included the story of the raising of Lazarus in his gospel to help us understand that resurrection is not simply a matter of being raised from the dead.  Lazarus was not “resurrected” in this story – he was brought back to this life, and presumably died again at some future point. Faith in the resurrection is not just concerned with what happens to us after death but also with the new life God gives us while we’re still in this one.  Of course resurrection is about the new and unknowable life God brings us to after death, but it’s also about raising broken spirits, strengthening hearts that lack strength and courage, healing communities that are fractured, supporting people who have no hope and a million and one other ways of bringing life into the world.

So just how do we live a resurrected life in the here and now?  Paul gives us some hints in today’s passage from Romans. He’s just reached a climax in his argument about the Law. His point is that the demands of Law, of following the ‘rules’, don’t bring about change. Intellectually we may affirm those rules as good, but there are other forces operating which lead us into more guilt and captivity to destructive patterns of behaviour. Paul is saying in effect, that we can’t pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps – we need divine intervention.  And that divine intervention comes in the person of Jesus.

Paul is not showing disrespect for the law, he’s proclaiming a gospel that liberates people to live in ways that fulfil, and more than fulfil, what the Law asks of them. But, he says, we can’t do that by just trying harder.  What Paul reminds us is that the way to truly live the life we long for is by becoming engaged in a relationship with God through Jesus.  Because when we live into that relationship it changes us.

To talk about this, Paul uses the metaphor of living according to “the flesh” or according to “the Spirit”. These are two ‘mindsets’. By being in ‘the flesh’ Paul means trying to improve yourself by your own efforts and remaining focused on yourself. “Flesh” doesn’t mean our human nature in itself, let alone our sexual nature. “Flesh” is a certain way of living, a perversion of our true selves. Paul says, if you focus on yourself, you won’t succeed. That’s the way of death. The way to liberation is to let go of trying to be self-sufficient.

By contrast being in the ‘spirit’ means opening yourself to the transforming reality of divine love.  Living in the spirit means giving up the struggle to try to justify yourself to others or to God or even to yourself, and accepting your human frailty and sinfulness.  Accepting God’s love means you can stop fighting to make yourself feel good.  Sometimes it takes a lot of courage to let go of the masks that we all use to protect our self-identity.  But divine love liberates us from the need to try to protect our ego-selves because it allows us to become who we were created to be.  Living in relationship with Jesus brings us to new life here and now. It transforms us into people who are living a resurrected life.

Susan Russell, writes: “I am convinced that the same kind of transformation that turned Saul from the persecutor to Paul the evangelist — that turned Peter from the blustery fisherman who denied Jesus in the courtyard into the “rock” on which the church was founded — changed Martha from a woman whining about needing help in the kitchen to a woman empowered to go out and ask for what she wanted. That transformation is nothing less than the power of the Spirit of God calling each and every one of us to health — to wholeness — to realizing our full potential as children of God and to the life abundant which is our inheritance. It is a change that isn’t about making us someone we’re not but making us more authentically who we are. (Proclaiming Gospel Justice: Reflections on the Scriptures and Progressive Spirituality, The Witness, 2005)

 That’s what today’s readings are about.  Transformation from a life steeped in a million ways of experiencing death into people of hope and life.  People willing to trust God’s strange commands and act with hope even though we see only death.  Even though we can’t see any reason to hope. Today’s readings remind us that God brings life and hope where we see only death.  When we ground our lives in relationship with the God who loves us, when we allow that relationship to seep into our actions and change our attitudes and assumptions, then we are living a resurrected life.  Through relationship with God in Jesus we are transformed and brought to new life – here and in the world to come.