Becoming Blessedly Scatterbrained

Ezekiel 17:22-24; Mark 4:26-34

            Becoming blessedly scatterbrained is a good and faithful thing.   I’ll explain what I mean by this in just a few minutes.   Let’s first focus our brains on the origin of the New Testament word we translate in English as “parable.”  

            It’s rooted in two Greek words.     The first word is “para” which means “beside,” and the second word is “ballo” meaning “to cast or throw.”     So we can say that “parables are stories thrown alongside our lives.”[i]   Jesus did a good amount of this throwing alongside the lives of his disciples.   He did so, as one of my Presbyterian colleagues has pointed out, “to stimulate his audience’s imagination so that they might perceive the power and presence of God in a new and immediate way.”[ii]    He used these symbolically spoken, comparisons driven, economically worded, paradoxical parables to teach and reinforce awesome holy truth. 

             In this morning’s Gospel passage, we read of Jesus tossing out twin parables about the word kingdom as it relates to God.   What does your mind remind you about concerning kingdoms?    Beyond all the King Arthur images that might quick bob up to the surface, what you are reminded about is likely not terribly different than what came to mind for the first disciples who lived under the brazen reign of Roman emperors and whose own Jewish history was steeped in complex stories of King David.    We think of lands and ruling people that have all the privileges and perils of greatness and power.   We think of maintaining and consistently feeding certain social systems, no matter the human cost.    We think of growing kingdoms in terms of conquering other rulers and peoples.    

            To the ears of those who directly heard Jesus speak parables about God’s kingdom, and to ours today, the message is clear – God’s good rule and reign is greater than any worldly one.   By way of His God-in-person presence, Jesus made it clear that the holy kingdom was very directly, radically, and redemptively breaking-in.  It does so to take over unjust, sin-swamped ruling structures and to restore God’s loving order and great hope to all God’s children.   I really like that when it comes to God’s kingdom, some Christians prefer to call it God’s kin-dom since it is truly about being and respecting and growing the diverse family of God’s beloved community in Christ.  

            For those first century folks being pressed down by the giant thumb of Roman authority – with its deifying of human emperors, it’s idol worship, it’s hungry lions and such – this was amazing and radical news.  It doesn’t take much imagination for us to sense how much they must have wanted to receive and to be part of immediate, miraculous results as the good greater power promptly trumped the lesser.   It doesn’t take much imagination to realize they wanted to do whatever it took to make God’s fair, beautiful, inclusive kingdom grow.   Their role and responsibility in this holy revolution is what Jesus is addressing in the twin-parables of this morning’s text in Mark.   What he had to say, however, did not sound like any brave-hearted battle cry of William Wallace.

            He used the commonly understood language of farming to get his unexpected holy point across.    In our scientifically enlightened age, many of us here know what is needed to cultivate good soil.  We can explain in great detail the stages and variables of crop growth.   For Jesus and his hearers in their time, it was enough to just know that a farmer scatters seed and then lived with the day and night however-long-it-takes process of patiently waiting for the earth to mysteriously produce of itself.   It was enough to know that the sowing of something tiny and seemingly insignificant – such a simple mustard seed – can grow into a very great shelter for life.   

            These twin-parables – of the seed scatterers and the mustard seed – seem straightforward enough.   But it required human imagination then and still does today to see and accept that the almighty, eternal, egalitarian power of God works in this way.    It does not conquer and expand by violent, oppressive force.   The seeds of it – in the form of the love Jesus taught by word and personal example -- need to be sown from faithful hands, but those same hands then need to patiently fold together and trust in God alone to produce holy-timed harvests.   For the first Christians and every Christian ever since, this teaches us completely trust in Jesus while we await with great faith the further breaking-in of God’s reign of love, peace, and justice.

            We human beings are such industrious doers.   We have tried and true methods for producing the results we need, want, expect, demand.  We trust in these methods and in ourselves for carrying them out.    As another pastor puts it, “Being busy and dogmatic makes a lot of sense to us. It fits with our normal way of being human. We achieve all sorts of goods by working hard and committing ourselves to our values: well-run offices, good grades, better schools, the politicians of our choice, svelte figures, neatly trimmed lawns, and so on.”[iii]   And I know this industrious tendency certainly holds true in church life as well.  We want to know exactly how to “sow seeds” that will produce “the harvest” of more church members, more money coming in, more of whatever it takes to help us feel the local and national and global church future is secure. 

            Yes, it can be terribly hard to abide in what Jesus taught in these parables.  It feels flat out unnatural to sow, let go, and let grow in God’s grace.   The timing, depth and breadth of God’s growing kingdom is not in our control.  Once we’ve obediently scattered the Good News of Jesus Christ in every field we find ourselves in, we wait on the real power to sprout.   The grace of God is all-sufficient.  In this we place our most deeply faithful trust.

            The lesson of this parable also comes into play with regard to our parenting and grandparenting.     Mindful of this morning’s parable and today being Father’s Day, my seminary preaching professor, Dr. Alyce McKenzie, offers the following perspective –

            “Some parents are too controlling and want to tell the seed exactly what kind of plant to become.  Some parents are too lax and don't help create good conditions for the seeds to grow. While other parents are like the sower in the parable of the growing seed, they sow and wait with patience.”[iv]    As a parent in the “garden” with two daughters and a step-son in hand (so to speak), I can certainly relate on all three of these counts!  As I aspire to sow and wait with patience, I’m daily reminded of how very much I deeply trust in the gracious power of Jesus Christ alive in our lives.

            Now, back to the idea of becoming blessedly scatterbrained.    We’ve been reminded that our daily discipline as Christians is to scatter Gospel seed on the grounds of our lives.  And, again, today’s twin-parables teach us that we have to then loose our control about what happens next.   We must truly trust God is cultivating it all.    As I interpret this, we have to become blessedly scatterbrained – that is, we have to have an obedient mind always at the read to scatter the seeds, but then this same mind has to become less organized, less in control of direct outcomes.    The flightier in faith we become after we sow, the deeper our trust in God’s power to bring about holy flourishing!

            To bring this home more, and as a final illustration, let’s briefly consider last Sunday’s wonderful and successful Fairmount Country Fair.   This wasn’t just a festival … it was also and more importantly faithful farming.     It wasn’t just an event fostering family fun and helping church funds.  It was witness to our Gospel presence in this community and to our Christian commitment to faithfully work together in scattering seeds of loving welcome and hospitality.    And now that it has ended, we trust that the grace of God that inspired us to sow will then sprout up in the lives of all who gave time to planning, presenting and attending.    Let’s be blessedly scatterbrained about it, let’s realize this was more than a community event … it was a faithful happening to God’s glory and for the sake of God’s kin-dom.  Amen!

           

           

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[i] Bartlett, David L. and Taylor, Barbara Brown (2011-05-31). Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3, Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Kindle Locations 5155-5156). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition

[ii]ibid.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] http://www.patheos.com/Progressive-Christian/What-Good-Fathers-Know-Alyce-McKenzie-06-11-2012.html

Jesus Mail

Psalm 103:1-13, 22, 2 Corinthians 3:1-6
                                                                                                    

While I was attending Summit High School, I briefly worked for Burgdorf Realtors and then a small art gallery.   Too much alphabetical filing as an office clerk and then too much pressure moving super expensive gold-leaf frames inspired me to different employment.   So I settled into over two years of employment working for a small, local, family-run stationer and office supplies store.  

Perhaps it’s because I like creative ways of organizing tasks and schedules, artistically well-done presentations, and lots of variety when it comes to everyday tools such as pens and pushpins, I have to say I really liked most everything about selling office supplies.    I even liked moving endless and heavy amounts of boxes full of reams of copy paper because it made scrawny, bespeckled me feel young and strong.    The only thing I didn’t particularly like was the store swamping that took place every late August, when kids would come in to buy school supplies, many times paying with sweat-drenched scrunched up bills pulled out of the bottom of stinky sneakers!

As a stationer, we of course sold a good variety of high quality stuff … the nicely weighted, watermarked kind colored in bright white, beige, and a respectable looking light blue.   This quality of paper was and I assume still is properly required for resumes, official correspondences with the company letterhead, letters of recommendation, and such.  I’m quite sure that when I the associate pastor of my home church wrote a recommendation letter to Princeton Seminary admissions on my behalf, it was on some nice stock and not the standard sheets that live in photocopiers.   

I’m reliving some of the 1980’s out loud here because the historic context of today’s passage from 2 Corinthians has to do with letter writing.  Specifically, it’s about letters of recommendation.    In the very socially stratified culture of the ancient Roman Empire, such letters had great power to cement deals between people and to build up human institutions.  Like today, they would be sent from someone with a certain credibility and authority to attest to the character and qualifications of the person being recommended. 

Such letters also came into play regarding leadership in the early church.  They were carried by certain people who wanted to gain acceptance and authority and influence in ecclesial circles.   I can’t say I know where or by what authority these certain people came from.  And I can’t say what motivated them, though from our New Testament reading we can assume any number of them were sinfully self-promoting.    I understand such individuals would especially show up where a Christian community was in conflict.    They would arrive, some letter of recommendation in hand, and declare their authority as apostles – as followers of Jesus Christ carrying the Gospel to the world.  

          

One such conflicted congregation that received this attention was in the ancient Greek city of Corinth.   It’s been said that a moral cancer had been eating away at the vitals of this faith community[i]  and that the “difficulties faced by the Corinthian church are legendary.”  In addition to moral laxness, there had been fighting among various factions, arguing over spiritual gifts, abusing of the Lord’s Supper, and, to my main point this morning, following after interloping leaders.[ii]  

    

Interloping is a fun word, isn’t it?  By definition, interlopers are those who thrust themselves into the affairs of others.   And this seems exactly the right label for those letter-carrying opportunists of the early church.   We can say this because the person that planted the Corinthian church was none other than the Apostle Paul, who had lived there in Corinth about 18 months (Acts 18:1-18).

        

Given his clear status as the authentic apostle of Christ in the early church, the fact that the Corinthian Christians were a conflicted mess proved to be quite a problem.   In addressing this, Paul had to do two things at the same time -- he needed to reestablish his credibility and authority as their church leader by finding a way to discredit the interlopers, and he also needed to pastorally empower the congregation and help them get themselves back on track to rightly loving and serving the Lord as he had taught through the clout of his holy calling.

His attempt to do is found in today’s lesson.   These words reveal how he turned the entire cultural practice of letter-of-recommendation writing inside-out.    He did so emphasizing that it is the Spirit of the Living Lord that directly recommended and commissioned him and thus his “letter” was carried in and shared from his heart, mind and soul.   As the church planter, as their pastor, Paul made it clear that no human recommendation of apostolic authority counted and thus should be dismissed.  

Then, shifting focus away from what could have been interpreted as egotistical posturing and self-glorification, Paul further turned things inside-out by including every person in the community.    The faithful authority the Living Spirit of Christ had “written” on his heart was also being “written” on the heart of every member in the church community.   All, he preached, are in ministry together, all are living letters of the Lord.    All have the gifts needed to work together to recommend and mail the Good News of Jesus across their congregation, into their homes, and out into the culture-at-large.

Empowered today by this same teaching, how are you a letter written by Christ to be delivered everywhere you go?   As Paul taught elsewhere in his writing to the Corinthians (2:5-11), how are you behaving in the concrete ways of forgiveness, comfort and love?  How is your obedience in the Lord more than just a private affair and one that is known and read by many?  Inspired by Paul, I need to ask -- in what ways have I helped you and can I further help you to deliver your Jesus mail?

It’s an interesting and fresh perspective to see our congregation as a holy mail room.    It helps me take an inventory of all the faithful words and actions that come in and that go back out to God’s glory.  And, you know, in a delightful play on words, it reminds me of our baptisms, where we are “signed and sealed,” not to mention “delivered” as Christ’s own forever!  Amen.

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[i] http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/1531-corinth-a-troubled-church

[ii] Bartlett, David L. and Taylor, Barbara Brown (2011-05-31). Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3, Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Kindle Location 2450). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

It's God Calling on Lines 1, 2, and 3!

It’s God Calling on Lines 1, 2 and 3!”

Psalm 29, Isaiah 6:1-8

Trinity Sunday, June 3, 2012

Rev. Rich Gelson, Fairmount Presbtyerian Church

 

            

You’ve heard people talk about being “called” by God, right?   I know I use this wording whenever asked why I chose to become an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church (USA).  I’ve made lots of education and career decisions that at various times seemed to be leading me in any number of directions, but I firmly believe they have all been under God’s purposefully influencing guidance.  More specifically, I say my sense of “calling” from God is why I am passionate about preaching the Bible and leading worship, about spiritually companioning any and all people, about loving our neighbors through selfless service, about small groups being the backbone of congregational health, and about Sunday School and youth ministry being critically important heartbeats for every church family’s present and future.   

           

More generally this morning, I’m wondering what you all start thinking about when I proclaim on behalf of the total witness of our Scriptures that every single one of us is uniquely called by God.    How and where does it happen that any of us flawed human creatures dare to admit that we’ve been, and continue to be, contacted and called by the Almighty?  

            

Before we consider this further, let’s reflect a moment on some ways we contact each other in this day and age.    E-mails.  Text messages.   Facebook updates and chats.   Written notes.  Greeting cards.   Talking on the phone.   Face to face interactions with loved ones, friends, colleagues, and work associates that are in person or by way of a real-time computer video services such as Skype.  In fact, just this past week Simon Kamande, who visited us from Nairobi, Kenya last year, and I began trying to set up a live video chat sometime soon.

            

I believe God, the Father, who created each of us and who redeems each of us through Jesus Christ, the Son, is fully present in all our human interactions through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.   In this way God does connect with us through every face-to-face, ear-to-ear, text-to-text, email-to-email communication.  Yet I haven’t met anyone who has straight up received a phone call or a text or a Skype request or an email or written letter or a full in-person face to face from any person of the Holy Trinity.    I don’t find this to be how God “calls” us, though a “call” may well happen as a result of those interactions.     I do enjoy joking about how my email address @gmail stands for God.mail!  

             

In all the ways they happen, “call” stories have a wonderfully mysterious and profound tone to them – whether they are about God calling someone to a particular career, church home, path of service, friendship, or committed loving relationship.   They can immediately or eventually make perfectly good sense to the people receiving and responding to them.   A brief further word of personal witness -- I believe with all my heart, mind, and soul that I received the gift of a holy vision while in my first year of graduate school.  This happening changed my career path from mental health professional to pastor.   And I am similarly convinced that I “heard” God offer a word of strong confirmation to me very early on in my relationship with my wife Stefanie.   If you take time to listen faithfully to people, especially those you love and trust, I do believe you’ll hear honest stories about how they believe God has communicated more or less directly with them at critical moments in their lives.  

            

Today’s passage from the Book of Isaiah is one person’s call story.  It’s as totally unique and curious as any of ours.   Yet I believe it also teaches how and where God most constantly contacts and calls on each of us.   This is a generally well known bit of the Bible, but since it always sounds quite bizarre, let’s quickly review …

            

This call story is about God directly contacting one particular person at one particular time in the ancient history of the Hebrew people and of the world.    God did so in order to call this person, Isaiah, to become a mighty prophet.    As we read it and hear it, the holy contact comes by way of Isaiah suddenly seeing God seated on a great throne in a heavenly court.   Flying all around the throne are several fiery, smoky, six-winged celestial beings shouting mighty praises to God the Father, Son and Spirit -- “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”   These essentially angelic beings were doing what Psalm 29 teaches us all to do.  

            

Isaiah, understandably, is awe-struck and overwhelmed to be witnessing this heavenly scene.    More specifically, he feels that because of his sinful human nature, he is very much unworthy and spiritually unclean to have been granted this great heavenly glimpse.    So he cries out a bold confession of this.   This then triggers an even more amazing ethereal experience as he senses one of the fiery, smoky, six-winged celestial beings – called a seraph – flying straight to his face and placing a burning hot piece of coal on his lips.  It does this while also offering a word of forgiveness.   It seems the wound of the sinfulness Isaiah confessed with those lips had been spiritually cauterized.   

           

Then, there’s more!   Before the call story scene ends, the newly pardoned Isaiah also experiences God speaking directly to him!  Representing the entire Trinity, he hears a voice rather rhetorically ask, “Whom shall I send, and who shall go for us?”    Isaiah’s reply is immediate, faithful and famous – “Here I am, Lord, send me!”

            

This particular call story is nicely summed up by one contemporary Bible teacher with these words – Isaiah “knows he is unworthy to serve, yet what other option does he have here at the throne of God? This is not the time to say no; it is the time, in Isaiah’s words, to say woe. “Woe is me! I am lost.”  There is a deep mystery at work here, and it profoundly upsets Isaiah’s equilibrium. But in the upsetting, Isaiah is able to confess his sin, be cleansed of his guilt, and receive a clean heart. Only then can he hear God’s call with clarity.”[i]

           

I don’t know how well you can relate to experiencing seeing God enthroned in heaven.  I don’t know how well you can relate to seeing seraphs and having them speak and act in a way that offers you pardon for your sin.    My guess is it’s all too strange, and so you don’t really relate to it terribly well.    But I’m also guessing – no, let me say that I trust in faith -- that you do strongly relate to the great praise for God shouted by these seraphs, and that you do understand what inspired Isaiah’s enthusiastic reply of “Here am I, send me!”     I believe it’s why you are here in worship right now – and being in worship is the big, not-to-be missed point of this Bible passage.    In the midst of the strange and mysterious things you read about, do not overlook the fact that we are told it all happened while Isaiah was in worship on one particular day in his life.    It may well have been a day for him back then like today is for us – rather ordinary until a holy in-breaking summoned a strong commitment.  

            

 So let’s go back to the question I asked several minutes ago.   How and where does it happen that any of us flawed human creatures dare to admit that we’ve been, and continue to be, contacted and called by the Almighty?   It happens whenever and wherever we are actively worshipping the God of our biblical faith – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  

            

As Fairmount Presbyterian Church, as Faithful People in Christ in this particular time and in this particular historic place, this very hour every Sunday is where we are gathered together in faith to sing holy, holy, holy praises, confess our sin, seek and receive forgiveness, and hear a fresh call to loving service through God’s Word.    Here we are!   And our worship doesn’t ever cease, for God’s sanctuary is building-less and boundless.   So when we leave this beautiful sanctuary, just as Isaiah left his worship space long ago, our faithfully committed hearts and minds go with us into our daily lives to spiritually influence the whole world for God’s sake.   

           

We go forth from here as long-time members and friends of this faith community.  One of us will go forth (hi, Emma!) as a freshly professed and confirmed part of the FPC fold.   We all go, I hope and pray, feeling spiritually renewed and urgently called to bear good witness to our Christian faith through our words and actions in all times, places, and social circles.   

            

We are all heavenly beings amongst a great diversity of heavenly beings called according to God’s purposes.   I’m glad, as perhaps are you, to not be of the fiery, smoky, six-winged variety.   Though how wonderful to also respond to the instruction we find in Psalm 29 --  “Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name; worship the Lord in holy splendor.”  And how wonderful as well to celebrate Psalm 29’s benediction as we too pray, “May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!”  Amen.  

           

           

           

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[i] Bartlett, David L. and Taylor, Barbara Brown (2011-05-31). Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3, Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Kindle Locations 1113-1115). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

From Human Sorrow to Sacred Surprise

Luke 24:13-35

                Have you ever gone for a walk because you felt sad or stressed?  It can really help move you beyond sinking and sulking further into some terribly unsettling place within your heart and mind.   There is something about putting yourself into forward motion, step by step, along some road or pathway, which can realign and restore your spirit when it gets to feeling gimpy.  

            These days, I mostly do this by way of slow and meditative strolls through Fairmount Cemetery.   But now and again I do miss a very special place of solace from over twenty years ago while in college.  Back then I’d escape the campus epicenter of concrete, glass and steel and head out the path behind the senior class on-campus apartments.    I vividly recall that soul-mending movement away from solid stressful stuff into loosely swaying tree canopies.    It helped me keep balance between my student life (with all of its young adult experiences) and my maturing spiritual life.  

            The path led to a most wonderful spot … a sort of secret waterfall in what used to be the rock quarry that fed a lot of the buildings in Paterson, New Jersey.   And as my knowledge of and faith in Jesus Christ grew greater, that trek to such a soul refreshing spot reminded me that I never walked alone either on and or off campus.   He and I would communicate in a profoundly unique way that can never be accurately written or spoken of.   I’d gain His strength and serenity in the midst of strife.    This is not to say there weren’t times when I felt disconnected, as though I’d either abandoned Him or He’d abandoned me.   But I learned to accept and even appreciate the mystery of this tension, and to be grateful when the faithful fusion was most wonderfully felt.

            Reflecting on those many walks helps me identify with the two men we read about in this morning’s lesson from the Gospel According to Luke.    I encourage you as well to recall your own such special walks, for in doing so you might find yourself more in the footsteps of these two biblical friends.

            What do we know of these fellow sojourners?    We know they both regarded Jesus as a “prophet mighty in deed and word” and were part of his inner-circle, which they called “our group.”  We know one of them was named Cleopas.  And we know they were on the road to the little-noted village of Emmaus because their hearts were devastated about Jesus’ death and the disappearance of his body from the tomb.   It was the third day after the crucifixion of their friend, teacher, prophet, embodiment of holy hope.   

            We aren’t told why they went to Emmaus for this overwhelmed walk.  It seems it was as a good a way to go as any when feeling terribly sad.   It was, I understand, about seven miles northwest of present day Jerusalem.  They just needed to get away from the great holy city which, for them, had turned into a great city of sorrow.              

            As we reflect on the name Emmaus today, it is much more than just a geographical marker found in the Bible or merely part of these two people’s story.  It’s a poignant biblical metaphor for all of us.   The Presbyterian novelist Fred Buechner identifies Emmaus as being any place “we go to in order to escape … to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred.  That even the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die.  That even the noblest ideas – about love and freedom and justice – have always in time been twisted out of shape” by selfish people for selfish ends.  

            In this interpretive light, the road to Emmaus was the way our fellow sojourners went to escape the earth-quaked epicenter of their most fervent hopes.  It was the direction they chose to go in so as to process grief and deep disillusionments.   The world had killed a truly good and innocent man.  Their best friend.   We can envision them shaking their low-hung heads, staring down at pebbles because a horizon was beyond their ability to focus.   We can hear them mournfully muttering, “Dear God, is nothing sacred?”  They had moved on, but without really having any idea how to move on with the sorrow being stapled to their hearts with every step.

            It would be inspiring for us to read that Jesus, resplendent with resurrection glory, suddenly appeared to these forlorn friends of His … that He gave them an unexpected, sorrow-eviscerating visit on their Emmaus walk.   Alas, according to Luke, they did not receive such and instantaneous reversal of great sorrow and despair.

            The Risen Lord did decide to make an appearance on that road where they felt little hope for any further authentically sacred encounters.   It’s just He did so in a way that they could not at first recognize Him.   He seemed only a stranger who had somehow not heard any of the headline news from Jerusalem.  

            By being present in this cloaked way, Jesus was better able to walk with and beside their sorrow for a while;  to listen, ask questions, help them process the grief and begin to grow through it; to greater prepare them for the coming sacred surprise revelation of His return.

            In the form of a stranger, however this mysteriously happened, Jesus also issued a bit of rebuke.   This make sense since these men had called him a “great prophet” and rebukes are part and parcel of prophetic  announcements to people who don’t seem to get the big picture of God’s promises and providence.   So they listened to the stranger who had sidled up to them on their sorrow-stroll say, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?”   Then they received quite a Bible study as Jesus, like a steadily rising dawn, offered divine illumination by interpreting all the things Scripture had to say about Him.

            As these three arrived in the village, daylight was coming to an end.   The two friends urged this captivating teacher to stay with them through supper and sleep.   Jesus accepted the hospitality.  It was then, while at supper, that He chose to fully reveal the sacred surprise of his identity.  Their blinders blew off through the breaking of bread.   There could not have been a more appropriate place and time, for at the start of His holy Passion, Jesus had commanded all of His followers to always remember Him in this tangible, fulfilling way.

            Luke next tells us that before there could be joyful hugs and hallelujahs, Jesus up and mysteriously vanished.    This was, I believe, Luke’s way of directing our attention back to the Emmaus walk.    He returns us to the big point of the narrative -- Jesus walks with those who truly love and long to be beside Him.   The way this happens is very often not clear to us at first, but greater revelation eventually arrives, especially as we gather in community to remember His commandments.    In remembering, His words comes to new life, they burn within us as fresh, refining, inspiring fire for our daily living.    The focus here is on the journey, not the destination.

            We all have our own uniquely intimate Emmaus walks.    And we can spiritually grow from hearing witness about one another’s experiences.   A few moments ago I mentioned Fred Beuchner.    Before he was an ordained Presbyterian minister and absolutely poignant writer, he was a sorrow-sadled son.   His father had taken his own life when Fred was ten years old.   All of his fiction, theological studies, and memoirs in one way or another reflect his subsequent journey with grief and with God.   He understood in a terrible but very relatable way what our fellow sojourners from the Bible were experiencing as they set off to get away from Jerusalem.  He understood the journey of grieving, of leaving, of being found, and of the eventual Emmaus shift from human sorrow to sacred surprise.

            On your present and future Emmaus journeys, trust Jesus is walking with you.  Open the Bible and let Him speak to and inspire and remind you of this.  And, down the road, be sure to keep making time for even greater revelations through the breaking of bread in the company of faithful friends.     Amen.   

           

           

Where Are You On Your Walk?

1 John 3:16-24

            Where do Jesus Christ and pop-culture meet?  The college sociology major in me likes to constantly dance with my interpretations of the Bible.   I seem to always be watching for signs and waiting on revelations as I consider popular phenomena.  I stay especially alert to the entertainment industry and how mass media influences the mainstream of our American culture.  As an individual person, as a parent and as a pastor, I want and need divine direction about how we friends of Jesus might faithfully respond to various trends.

             Sometimes I quite happily involve myself in the latest entertainment boom.   My recent fascination with all things related to The Hunger Games trilogy of books and their first movie adaptation is a good case point.   At other times I avoid like a plague whatever happens to be what all of the buzz is about … as in my absolutely avoiding anything and everything related to “The Jersey Shore” reality television spectacle.   And then there are the times when, like a fish suddenly snagged in a drag net, I unexpectedly find myself completely caught up.  

            I confess that there is one continually popular entertainment trend I never imagined I’d ever feel called to address in a sermon.   Yet I’m currently caught up in it, right along with my immediate family.  So please listen and process patiently as I attempt to have today’s Bible passage speak to it, even though the trend of which I am speaking has to do with … zombies!

            I’m making mention of these totally made up monsters of the human mind because in various art forms they are a deep gold mine for the entertainment industry.    Time and time again, people gladly pay to have this ghoulish experience.   

            On the silver screen, this genre was kicked off by the great Bela Legosi’s 1932 film, White Zombie.  It took a defining turn in 1968 with writer-director George Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead.   And more recently, the action-comedy Zombieland gained a considerable audience.  

            Beyond film, folks were singing and dancing with the undead by way of Michael Jackson’s very successful 1982 music video for the song “Thriller.”   

            These days many personal computer owners are being entertained by a popular game application called “Plants and Zombies.”  

             And in the past two years, one of the hugest television hits of all time has been an apocalyptic themed series titled “The Walking Dead.”  

            There are lots of positive, pleasant and fun ways to relax, to temporarily escape the daily grind and woes of the world.   What is it that draws so many people to sidle up to this eerie stuff?  Why are so many rather regular folks driving the demand and making zombie productions very popular and profitable? 

            Lots of well-qualified people of various academic fields have studied this and continue to do so.   I speak from my particular nook, the one that has biblical faith in one hand and real world curiosities, trends and truths in the other.   Here’s my conclusion so far.    I don’t think that the cultural zeal for zombies is primarily about a need to be captivated by cold creepiness, gross gore, and horrifying notions of death.   I believe a lot of people pay for, watch and get caught up in all this because of a much less morbid, more positive, and deeply human need.  I think it a good deal about people yearning to be engaged in a dramatic fight to hold onto indomitable, against-the-odds hope in this world.  Nobody wants the terrifying and utterly pointless zombies to win in the end.  We want the best characteristics of our humanity – our inborn love of life and need to protect it, our fervent belief in brighter tomorrows and eternal peace, the beauty and strength of family bonds and friendships -- to absolutely prevail against what can seem like undying desperations and desecrations.     

            Every day, there are a great many realities in this sin-saturated world that can add up to a person feeling far from fully alive, trapped by a sense of dread existence, arrested in any excitement or hope for the future, imperiled by truly monstrous things that want to consume them.   It’s liberating and energizing to escape such realities, however briefly, by imaginatively conquering them in the fictional form of defeated zombies.

            So, people of biblical faith, how might we respond to this profitable pop-culture phenomenon and what it may more profoundly be telling us about the human hunger for indomitable hope?   We can try to ignore it, though from a market perspective there aren’t any indicators it’s going away.    We can choose to dismiss it as mostly mindless entertainment, or conversely, to condemn and try to censor it.   Or, as I’ve been suggesting, we can pay attention and focus on its popularity being at least partly the result of the human need to fight for hope in the face of great fear – fear of a meaningless life, death, and afterlife.   There is a strong root reason why The Walking Dead television series resonates so strongly with me and millions of viewers.  The title doesn’t actually refer to the zombies, but to the survivors struggling to hold on to the best of their humanity -- including faith, hope and love – in the midst of all a horrifying reality trying to consume it.

            1 John reminds us what we friends of Jesus have to offer people who feel constantly pursued by fear and are yearning to escape deadly despair.    It reminds us of the good news that no matter how dreadful, how conflicted, how heart-condemning and utterly hopeless life can seem at times, Jesus – God in the flesh -- suffered it all and came through it all and conquered it all with love and light and true life.    His rising from the grave was the profound polar opposite of a morbidly entertaining fiction – it miraculously embodied all human hope for good, abundant, purposeful life here and in the hereafter.   We are people of His resurrection.  With faith, hope and love, we strive to positively influence others and the greater culture we live in as we follow our Risen Lord’s footprints in this too often terribly grave world.

            Believing in Jesus Christ has this very practical consequence.   We should not confess His name and say we belong to Him but then live as though we aren’t paying diligent attention to His holy example.   Our faith should not be so half-dead.    And, further, being Christian is first and foremost not about future survival beyond the grave … it’s about living every day with the durable responsibility of loving one another.   It’s about daily demonstrating our “crossover into life that is real and indestructible.”[i]   

            This means, 1 John reminds us, we are to lay down our lives for one another in the name of our Lord.   There is ample historical and for many of us personal witness to people who have done this unto death.   Selfless, heroic action is what we most think of when we read and hear this commandment to “lay down our lives.”    But the focus here in 1 John is on being alive, fully alive in the Risen Lord, and making smaller, practical, life-affirming, doing-as-Jesus-taught-us sacrifices.   It is, as one of my favorite scholars has written, “obviously not about vicarious sacrifice, but love which goes the whole way in the interest of others.”[ii]

            Our Scripture lesson this morning also reminds us that God knows everything about what’s on our hearts.   So ask your heart a question that God already knows the answer to, but perhaps you need to hear today.    Where are you on this walk of faith?  Are you sort of lifelessly lumbering along?  Are you constantly craving things to consume that don’t actually feed your spirit, help your neighbors out, and glorify God?    Or is every step an Easter one striving to walk in faithful truth and action?   Are committed to keep walking to all the grave places with the real love, light, and life of Christ?   Amen.

           

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[i] New Interpreter’s Bible commentary on 1 John

[ii] William Loader, First Thoughts on Year B Epistle Passage from the Lectionary, April 29