Morning Walk

Morning Walk from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Genesis 32:6-12, 22-31

6The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.” 7Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people that were with him, and also the flocks and herds and camels, into two companies, 8thinking, “If Esau comes to the one company and destroys it, then the company that is left will escape.”

9And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will do you good,’ 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff have I crossed this Jordan; and now I have become two companies. 11Deliver me, please, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us all, the mothers with the children. 12Yet you have said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number.’”

22The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children,  and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23Jd took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 24Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” 29Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” 31The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

Matthew 14:22-33

Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. 25And early in the morning he came walking on toward them on the sea. 26But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. 27But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid.”

28Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29He said, “Come,” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. 30But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God.

Jacob, the classic trickster of the Old Testament, is out of ideas. He may have fooled his father Isaac and stolen his brother Esau’s birthright, but now his brother is back with an army of 400 men. Jacob is a wealthy man, but all his gains are ill-gotten, results of his trickster ways and his ability to use his cleverness to gain at the expense of others.

The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.”

Jacob, whose pranks are the stuff of legend, who has always managed to gain and keep the upper hand, is out of ideas. He writes off have of his household as lost, knowing that he cannot withstand an attack by such a large force, but maybe he can escape with the survivors. His mother’s favorite, but second-born, child, Jacob learned to always look for the advantage.

Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people that were with him, and also the flocks and herds and camels, into two companies, thinking, “If Esau comes to the one company and destroys it, then the company that is left will escape.”

Jacob, the heel-grabbing younger twin, faced with the potential wrath of a cheated older brother, is out of ideas. 

Unless,

Unless the promises of God, unlike those of Jacob, are reliable and sure. The only trick Jacob has left is that God is not a trickster like he is.

“And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will do you good,’  I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff have I crossed  this Jordan; and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, please, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us all, the mothers with the children. Yet you have said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number.’”

This prayer, I think, marks a turning point for Jacob. His whole life he has been able to take the blessing of a sharp mind, which God had given him, and used it for his own benefit. This time, with the weight of past debts riding towards him, that's not at option. He recognizes that his ability to outmaneuver his opponents has failed him, so he must turn from cleverness to faith, reminding God of the blessings of God's promise, and crediting God with what the Trickster had "earned" in his journeys.

He has no other option, and turns to God, knowing full well that if God chooses not to intervene, it will mean his destruction. "The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok."

Peter has been in and around boats his whole life. He was a fisherman, after all, before a traveling preacher named Jesus told him to "Come, follow me." Now he's learning to fish for people, but he's the one who feels caught.

He's caught up in the moments when Jesus heals the sick, he's caught up in the inspiration of the crowds when Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, even when he doesn't understand Jesus's full meaning. Peter is caught in a storm on the Sea of Galilee while his miracle-working master is praying on his own.

But the ranks of the disciples are filled with experienced fishermen, who know how to handle the wind and the waves. They're in the deep water, where their boat was designed to be. A strong headwind and some battering waves far away from land is a good workout, but no reason to panic, at least not yet.

But then something strange appears out of the fog, a human figure, at first mistaken for a ghost. "And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, 'Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid.'" The disciples do not fear the storm, they have experience with the natural. The idea, however, that something supernatural is at work gives them reason to cry out in fear.

Something supernatural is at work at the Jabbok.

Jacob is striving against a mysterious figure, a man who is not clearly identified in the text. They grapple with one another through the night, and Jacob cannot quite get the upper hand. On the other hand, the unnamed man does not prevail against the heel-grabber either. "When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, 'Let me go, for the day is breaking.' But Jacob said, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.'"

The Trickster, the Heel-Grabber, refuses to loose his hold on the man, even though his hip is dislocated. “Jacob had asked for a blessing. Perhaps he dreamed of security, land, more sons. But what he got was a new identity through an assault from God.” He demands a blessing, and receives a new identity. "So he said to him, 'What is your name?' And he said, 'Jacob.' Then the man said, 'You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.'" The Heel-Grabber is liberated from the hold the past held on him. Esau is still waiting for him, but a newly-named Israel is able to face his past without being bound by it. Instead of hanging on for every possible advantage, Israel can see the value in the struggle, knowing that the process is perhaps even more important than the results.

The blessing of Israel is a new liveliness that means he can move forward to reconciliation with Esau, he is no longer the weary trickster out of ideas, he is Israel, who has struggle with God and with people and prevailed. But he is neither in a position to strut, nor swagger. Neither can he run away from trouble or dodge the storms that lie ahead in his path. The blessing of newness of life is so great that it leaves him limping.

But the limp blessed him with the ability to step out on faith.

Peter stands on a boat in the middle of a storm, but the storm he can handle. It’s this supernatural walking on water that gives him pause. He cries out in fear at the sight. 

“But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid.

Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come,’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus.”

Peter hears his master’s voice telling him “Come,” and in it he hears a command powerful enough to convince him to get out of the boat. he hears the same voice that commanded him to put down his nets and become a fisher of people. He hears the same voice that told him that Blessed are the peacemakers. I wonder if he heard the Word that was with God and was God at the beginning. I wonder if he heard the Word that rang out saying “Hear O Israel, the LORD is our God, the LORD alone.” He heard his teacher and his friend say “Come,” so whatever was packed in that simple command, he got out of the boat and walked on water.

Peter can only hold on to his faith in Jesus’s command for a moment. “But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” 

Peter’s absolute faith in God’s ability to call him out onto the stormy water falters, but his hope that his Lord can still save him does not. When you’re out on the water, in the midst of a storm, and you go from walking on water to sinking, there are no more tricks. There are no sails for this fisherman to trim, no clever ideas for keeping the collection of beams and sealant afloat, because Peter, nicknamed “Rock” has walked out onto the water to have an encounter with God. Not even his faith, a blessing time and again in the past, is sufficient to save him. The only solid thing he has left is the hope that his Lord is trustworthy and sure, that God’s blessings can outmatch the storm.

“Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’”

I imagine “You of little faith,” which is only directed at Jesus’s followers, never unbelievers, as though it is always said with a smile. Drawing Peter up out of the water, Jesus knows full well with which kind of limited people he is working. Jesus knows that the faith of all of his followers is finite.

But the God in whom we have faith is infinite, and perfects out faith in us even before we know how to act on it or carry it forward into the world. God’s blessings are not a promise that everything will suddenly be easy. In fact, God’s blessings challenge us to do what is difficult. Peter did not walk on calm waters, after all. He stepped out of the boat in the middle of a storm. While his fear sank him, for a moment there, God blessed him by letting him walk on water.

Peter’s cry as he is sinking echoes Jacob’s prayer when he knows he will encounter Esau. Both rely solely on God’s grace when their own abilities, Jacob’s cleverness and Peter’s faith, fail. “Lord, Save me!” and “Deliver me, please,” are variations on the same hope. Our hope is in the one who blesses us in ways beyond our imagination.

But those blessings are not always the grace that is usually imagined. One could say that Israel limped on water for the rest of his life. He was free from his old patterns of behavior, but his damaged hip was among the blessings he was given that night at the ford of the river Jabbok. Jesus caught Peter and pulled him up, a reminder that even as a fisher of people, he had been caught already, and that one day others would take him to a place he did not with to go.

God’s blessings can leave us limping or empower us to walk on water. Perhaps though, those are not so far apart as we may suppose. Israel’s morning walk took him from the place where he had spent the night struggling with God, called Penuel, and led him to reconciliation with his brother, Esau, rather than the battle he had perhaps expected. Peter’s morning walk took him from the familiarity and safety of a boat into the middle of a raging storm just because his Lord called to him.

God has blessed us with each other, with a unique community and a particular place to go out and do the ministry to which God has called us. We will find our own version of walking on water as we seek to worship God, grow in faith, and show God’s love to everyone. We will find our own painful reconciliation as we limp across the ford of the river Jabbok. But we know that the blessings of the LORD are all around us, and that whether we are limping or walking on water, God is still active among us, and for that, we will live in gratitude, service, and love, singing praises to the one who intervenes in this world and empowers our ministry.

How's That Working out for you? (Acts 15:5-19 and Jonah 4:1-11)

How's That Working Out for You from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Acts 15:5-19

5Some of the believers from among the Pharisees stood up and claimed “The Gentiles must be circumcised. They must be required to keep the law of Moses.”

6The apostles and the elders gathered to consider this matter. 7After much debate, Peter stood and addressed them, “Fellow believers, you know that, early on, God chose me from among you as the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the word of the Gospel and come to believe. 8God, who know’s people’s deepest thoughts and desires, confirmed this by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. 9He made no distinction between us and them, but purified their deepest thoughts and desires though faith. 10Why then are you placing a burden on the shoulders of these disciples that neither we nor our ancestors could bear? 11On the contrary, we believe that we and they are saved in the same way, by the grace of the Lord Jesus.”

12The entire assembly fell quiet as they listened to Barnabas and Paul describe all the signs and wonders God did among the Gentiles through their activity. 13When Barnabas and Paul also fell silent, James responded, “Fellow believers, listen to me. 14Simon reported how, in his kindness, God came to the Gentiles in the first place, to raise up from them a people of God. 15The prophets agree with this; as it is written,

16After this I will return,

and I will rebuild David’s fallen tent;

I will rebuild what has been torn down.

I will restore it

17so that the rest of humanity will seek the Lord,

even all the Gentiles who belong to me.

The Lord says this, the one who does these things

18known from earliest times.

19Therefore, I conclude that we shouldn’t create problems for Gentiles who turn to God. 

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Jonah 4:1-11

1But Jonah thought this was utterly wrong, and he became angry. 2He prayed to the LORD, “Come on, LORD! Wasn’t this precisely my point when I was back in my own land? This is why I fled to Tarshish earlier! I know that you are a merciful and compassionate God, very patient, full of faithful love, and willing not to destroy. 3At this point, LORD, you may as well take my life from me, because it would be better for me to die than to live.”

4The LORD responded, “Is your anger a good thing?” 5But Jonah went out from the city and sat down east of the city. There he made himself a hut and sat under it, in the shade, to see what would happen to the city.

6Then the LORD God provided a shrub, and it grew up over Jonah, providing shade for his head and saving him from his misery. Jonah was very happy about the shrub. 7But God provided a worm the next day at dawn, and it attacked the shrub so that it died. 8Then as the sun rose God provided a dry east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint. He begged that he might die, saying, “It’s better for me to die than to live.”

9God said to Jonah, “Is your anger about the shrub a good thing?”

Jonah said, “Yes, my anger is good - even to the point of death!”

10But the LORD said, “You ‘pitied’ the shrub, for which you didn’t work and which you didn’t raise; it grew in a night and perished in a night. 11But for my part, can’t I pity Ninevah, that great city, in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand people who can’t tell their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Jonah’s story is familiar. It’s one of the most portrayed stories in scripture, and we can probably all recite its highlights. When Jonah get’s the call to get up go to Ninevah, that great city, and cry out against it, He runs away, unwilling to do the Lord’s will, not out of fear, but knowing God’s character well enough to see where this is going to end up.

After a fish-bellied layover, he finds himself back on shore, and this time does as he is told. He goes to Ninevah, delivers a very short message, and the whole town repents of their evil, rather comically dressing even their animals in mourning clothes.

The people living in Ninevah are taking a chance that even though they don’t know the law, if they show some effort, that perhaps God will still spare them from the fate they have earned. Not entirely unlike the Gentile believers in the early church. They knew that the gospel appealed to them, that Christ was the kind of God worth following, even though they had no idea where to start. Church leaders gathered in Jerusalem to discuss what to do with this new group of eager converts to the faith. “Some of the believers from among the Pharisees stood up and claimed ‘The Gentiles must be circumcised, They must be required to keep the law of Moses.’” These new people must be held to the same rules as we have held ourselves! They’ve got to fit in with the old traditions, and if the gospel means enough to them, then they will do things the correct way. You know, our way.

That sounds rather familiar to a 21st century church. We’re here, got a big beautiful building with lots of loving people inside it. There are greeters at the door, programs for the children, and the seats are even pretty comfortable! Come and find us, we’re a very welcoming church!

So long as you know how to use a hymnal, when to sit down and stand up, what to do when you’re praying, what to do when someone else is praying, and don’t mind someone standing at the front and talking to you for half an hour, we’ll absolutely welcome you among us!

I have every confidence that when people come to the typical church, they will like what they find. They’ll find faithful, loving people. They’ll find a community that is willing to nurture them on their journey. They’ll find that we’re not all that pharisaical or judgmental, and that those stories about people getting kicked out of a little old lady’s pew are more folklore than fact.

Perhaps they’ll even learn to love the tradition that feeds us. Eventually the ritual of saying the Lord’s Prayer together will become as familiar a comfort to them as it is to us. Eventually they may even feel their hearts strangely warmed by the “thee’s” and “thou’s” of the King James Version of the Bible.

Perhaps they may choose to live according to the law of Moses?

Like the Pharisees, we often expect others who come into our home to fit into the patterns that are already in place. It’s the way things are done, and it’s our understanding of how we live out who we are. It’s a very specific formula that perhaps doesn’t involve a codified religious legal system, but does have certain expectations about the way one acts in church.

It’s a fact of the human condition that we tend to associate with those who are most like us: our families, with the same backgrounds and habits, even physical features and mannerisms; our friends, with whom we have shared experiences and common interests; our co-workers, who share the pattern of our daily lives; and our churches, who tend to share similar theological ideals, political affiliations, and economic levels within each congregation. Churches tend to be one of the most segregated places in our culture. Those who join us are expected to look and act within the margins of appropriateness, and they may bring their own flavors and variations on the way we’ve always done things, but at some point if they find themselves not fitting in, they’l leave.

It’s only natural then, that churches who want to grow tend to look for people who are a lot like them. Folks who know to come to church at 10:30, who know how to dress for worship, and who know how to carry themselves with an appropriate amount of reverence. I would guess though, that the people who are likely to adhere to those often unspoken traditions already have a church home. So your growth is going to come either from new people moving into the community or church members having babies.

But those aren’t the only people whom God has chosen and called. Christianity isn’t a birthright, it’s a life lived in response to the free gift of God’s grace. There are people in this world who know that there is something out there greater than them, who have experienced God, but don’t have the language to articulate that experience. We use ugly words to describe them, like “unchurched,” and they are not us, unless they become just like us. It’s an “us” and “them” division drawn over who belongs in the club. But being chosen by God is not based on whether or not one attends church. It’s based solely on the will of God, even if that means that we are sent from our Israelite spiritual heritage into a Gentile world.

Perhaps we should heed Peter’s words to the inner circle of the church council in our Acts passage, “God, who know’s people’s deepest thoughts and desires, confirmed this by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, but purified their deepest thoughts and desires though faith.” The Gentile and Jewish Christians are going to end up doing things differently, but God is not the one who makes the distinction. We are the one’s who point and say “Why can’t you just fit in to what we’re already doing? All of our members are happy with the way we do things now.”

Because God chooses to expand his kingdom without regard to the boundaries we draw for ourselves. The church in Acts sees that God is acting across ethnic and religious boundaries, and chooses to change themselves to unite all of God’s people in Christ. Jonah, likewise, is called out of his homeland to preach to Ninevah, that great city, and goes knowing that God will be as merciful to them as she has been to Israel. 

God does not stop with the law of Moses, or at the boundaries of the Holy Land. Neither does God stop with our church traditions, or at the borders of the United States. The LORD is God of all creation, and chooses whomever he will, even people who are not like us.

Sometimes God chooses people who are very not like us. People who look different, sound different, act different, or express themselves differently than we do. I mean, why would God choose to act through someone who has to be up and moving all the time when she could be acting through me, who is perfectly content to sit quietly and reverently.

I’ve spent a lot of time in my preaching career talking about the wondrous works of God. How when we see the amazing things God is doing in the world, we cannot help but sing praises, and be astounded by the Greatness of our Lord.

I mean, God is the one who spoke creation into existence at the very beginning. God is the one who made Abraham’s childless household into a mighty nation. God brought that nation out of Egypt into a land of milk and honey. Our God sent fire to Mount Carmel to prove Baal a false God, and preserved God’s people through their exile in Babylon, bringing them home again. Then our God became a human being, and walked among us. That same God, who fed the multitude, and performed innumerable healings, died on our behalf, and rose again. I mean, wow! Those are some wonders!

But to use someone who is doing it wrong? Doesn’t God know he has his wonderful servants here at this church to choose from? For generations this way of being the church has ministered faithfully to God’s people. We’ve established thoughtful positions on why we order our worship services the way we do, we’ve considered the needs of our members in our architecture, and now God is going to use someone who isn’t a part of that system? I mean, God is good all the time, but if this is how it’s going to be, I don’t know that I like it all that much. This kind of radical inclusivity, I think that’s utterly wrong.

And so I find myself sitting outside of Ninevah praying with Jonah. ““Come on, LORD! Wasn’t this precisely my point when I was back in my own land? This is why I fled to Tarshish earlier! I know that you are a merciful and compassionate God, very patient, full of faithful love, and willing not to destroy. At this point, LORD, you may as well take my life from me, because it would be better for me to die than to live.”

God responds with, to paraphrase using that classic southern phrase, “How’s that working out for you?” Jonah pouts, and builds himself a hut to watch the city, hoping that Ninevah will mess up, that Jonah’s view of the world, the view of God as depicted elsewhere in scripture as being unapologetically and exclusively the God of Israel, will be vindicated with a good old fashioned smiting of the sinful citizens of Ninevah.

An unnamed shrub grows up overnight, and provides Jonah with some lush greenery. Scripture tells us that it “[provides] shade for his head [saves] him from his misery. Jonah was very happy about the shrub.” Perhaps he interprets this divine providence as a comfort under which he can wait out the coming destruction of Ninevah, that great city. After all, this indicates that God doesn’t intend to take Jonah’s life from him, so surely that means that God has come to his senses and is going to give Ninevah what they deserve. I imagine he smiled smugly to himself right up until “God provided a worm the next day at dawn, and it attacked the shrub so that it died.” 

The LORD God, who is merciful and compassionate, very patient, full of faithful love, and willing not to destroy, looked at his petulant prophet sitting outside the city, and through that comforting shrub reminded him of what was really at stake.

The LORD God is very patient even with his crotchety church. Perhaps the decline of mainline protestantism is a like Jonah’s shrub: a reminder that God can choose Ninevah as well as Jonah, God can choose the Gentile Christians as well as the Jewish Christians, that God can choose both us and them.

Though we never hear Jonah’s answer to the question God poses, the third act of this play is staged in our own lives. How will we respond to God’s question: This thing you “pitied” was not something for which you worked, it’s not your creation, it was mine, and is fleeting.

“Yet for my part, I cannot pity Ninevah, that great city...?” I can’t use these people whom I have created to work my will in the world? I have called them and given them the Holy Spirit, just as I did you, and yet you choose to neglect them? Why then should I not have mercy upon them? They are created by the one God who speaks into being things which do not exist, and exactly as worthy of God’s love as we are.

Because if we are honest with ourselves, we have not done a great job of keeping the commandments we have been given. The fact that the Christian Church is as fragmented as it is testifies to our lack of love for one another across our history. The “good old days” were perhaps not as good as the nostalgic stories we tell indicate. 

Peter, who stuck his foot in his mouth consistently throughout the earthy ministry of Jesus, gets it. “Why then are you placing a burden on the shoulders of these disciples that neither we nor our ancestors could bear?” Because if it were up to us to earn the righteousness in which we are wrapped, we would never even get close. We are David’s fallen tent, a people given a covenant who simply do not have it in them to hold up their end.

I think we sit with Jonah in stubborn judgement over God’s merciful treatment of Ninevah because we are afraid that maybe if God loves people who are not like us, that means that God has noticed how full of sin we are, and has given up on us. We create and us and them to keep those others separate from God’s blessings in case it might run out and we be left up to our own failing devices. They’ve got to earn it, because we’ve convinced ourselves that we deserve it!

Uh-huh, how’s that working out for you?

“On the contrary, we believe that we and they are saved in the same way, by the grace of the Lord Jesus.” Though they will not live their lives in the same way as we do, though they will not worship in the same way we do, and though God has called them to do things differently than we do, God can, and does, cross all those boundaries, for we are united in the Lord Jesus.

These people are out there, filled with the Holy Spirit, willing to enact the works of God, and who are we to say that because they enact them differently that our churches are not where they can have a home.

We act like Jonah because we have forgotten that we are Gentiles, and a sect of Judaism made room for us within their customs. Choosing not to require us to keep their traditions, but rather allowing God to do a new thing among them through us.

When we look at having to change the way we live as the Church, it’s a scary proposition, and we would perhaps rather that God kept us among our own people, rather than sending us to Ninevah that it might know the graciousness of God. For we are Jonah, and Ninevah, and the fallen tent of David, and the Gentiles who belong to God. It is scary to have to change ourselves. So God changes us by putting people who are different from us in our lives. It is our task, then, in gratitude to God who is making a new creation out of us, to seek out those people and invite them in that we may be changed through them, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Silenced

Mark 9:2-9

2Six days later Jesus took Peter, James and John, and brought them to the top of a very high mountain where they were alone. He was transformed in front of them, 3and his clothes were amazingly bright, brighter than if they had been bleached white. 4Elijah and Moses appeared and were talking with Jesus. 5Peter reacted to all of this by saying to Jesus, “Rabbi, it’s good that we’re here. Let’s make three shrines - one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 6He said this because he didn’t know how to respond, for the three of them were terrified.

7Then a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice spoke from the cloud, “This is my Son, whom I dearly love. Listen to him!” 8Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

9As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them not to tell anyone what they had seen until after the Human One had risen from the dead.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

What a familiar scene. We tell this story every year, pulled from one of the three gospels. Each time we see the same thing happening, Jesus goes up with either his elite disciples or his special needs disciples, depending on one’s interpretation. Every time These great historical figures appear with Jesus, every time Jesus is shown to be God’s son. Every time, every time, every time, Peter sticks his foot in his mouth.

I asked my dear friend John what he thought of this passage, and he gave me a playful grin and quoted Peter, “Rabbi, it’s good that we’re here.” What a totally silly thing for Peter to say, “Rabbi, it’s good that we’re here,” it’s almost as though he’s congratulating Jesus for having the foresight to bring some people up there to know what to do when Moses and Elijah show up to, as my generation would say, “Hang Out.”

Peter’s statement is a perfect blend of humility and arrogance. He’s been pulled aside for the opportunity to see Jesus doing something that reveals that he is God, and he knows he’s not worthy of standing alongside the great prophets and the Messiah on this mountain. That’s his humility. He is profoundly uncomfortable with seeing God as God.

With good reason, I mean, if one ever encounters God and is left comfortable, one has a rather small God. The God Peter, James, and John encounter is quite large, and the three of them are terrified.

Now, this is not to say that one cannot be comforted by God, that’s something different. Those who have encountered God in times of strife and indeed frequently comforted, but they are never left with a charge that the world is going alright, don’t worry about changing anything, we’ve arrived at our destination so don’t do anything, just get comfortable.

So Peter finds a way to ease his discomfort with encountering God in a classic way. Looking busy. Doesn’t really matter what, so long as it’s something of which God would approve. So we imagine Peter looking around so the big boss won’t find him just standing there, and he says, “Let’s make three shrines - one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” But if you’re building a shrine, you’re near the moment, not in the moment. Peter can’t stand it, so he decides he’d rather be close to Jesus than with Jesus.

Clergy are guilty of this all the time, we find ways to distance ourselves from the very God we serve in the name of “organization”, or of “flow of worship,” and because we’re already looking to the next thing we have to lead in the bulletin, we miss what’s happening right in front of us.

One of the Pastors with whom I have worked closely over the years preached a brilliant sermon on listening for the still, small voice of God, and how important it is to sit in silence, reverently experiencing what God has for us without trying to fill time and space with our own contributions. The time came for the anthem, which was also about God’s voice speaking in the silence rather than our busyness, at the conclusion of which the music leader paused to allow the room to grow silent, and sit in that uncomfortable place. The Pastor, looking ahead to the next thing, started the Doxology on his own, keeping the service moving.

What a totally Peter thing to do. Got to do something because I just can’t handle what God is doing. So Peter opens his mouth, even though he doesn’t know what to say, and offers to do something, because he doesn’t know what to do.

We just saw something really amazing happen. We just saw our great historical heroes of faith standing alongside Jesus. We don’t know how to respond, but we think we have to so we start talking just to fill the space inside our own heads where we should be silenced by the awe of the situation.

We find all sorts of ways of distancing ourselves from what God is doing, even the way we approach the Bible, the unique and authoritative witness to the Word of God, can distance us from God if we approach it on a purely intellectual level. I can entertain a thought without being changed by it, I can read how it ought to be without feeling like I should make it that way. I can see Jesus in these pages without being crucified with him. We can together watch God do amazing things and wrap it up in a blanket of “context” and never have to be challenged by the parts with which I disagree. I can read a commentary or two and get answers to the problems I have with the text and don’t have to actually wrestle with what the Spirit is trying to do inside of me, inside of us, and I can stand before God with a stupid look on my face and say, “Rabbi it is good that we are here, Let us build three shrines - one for you, one for Elijah, and one for Moses.” So that I don’t have to just watch God be God, because a true encounter with God will change me and I am absolutely terrified of that change.

“Then a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice spoke from the cloud, “This is my Son, whom I dearly love. Listen to him!”

Don’t you know, Peter, what’s going on here? Don’t you know that you’re dealing with your Lord? Do you really want to run off and try to get a little work done? “This is my Son, whom I dearly love. Listen to him!”

Why are you talking when you could be listen to the very Son of God who has come here to save the whole world from itself? Why are you trying to build a shrine when you can watch the author of creation re-write your sinful reality into something that is whole again?

And Peter is silenced. He had not only seen that Jesus is indeed the Christ, but he has heard the LORD speaking to him and his terror is replaced with wonder.

Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent. A season when we do not say Hallelujah, but sit in silence, remembering Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness. Confessing our sins and waiting for an Assurance of Pardon that for those forty days is withheld. The transfiguration we witness today is when we are silenced with awe for what God has done in our lives, transforming us when we’d rather change the subject. This transfiguration changes everything, and “Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.”

A huge part of the Gospel is God bridging what separates us from God, and this story is an example of exactly that. Peter finds a way to distance himself from God under the guise of serving Jesus, and God refuses to be kept at bay. God will not be kept at a safe distance, whether we would do that by building shrines on a mountaintop, by hiding from our calling, by anticipating what might come next, or by cloaking the gospel with facts and figures. God strips us whatever it is we would put in God’s way and leaves us, on a mountaintop, with Jesus.

I’ve already said that my tendency is to keep God at arms length by thinking abstractly about God, and when I tend to really encounter God, it’s an emotional moment, not a thoughtful one. I’m not willing to make the leap that thinking about God is a bad thing, but only loving God with my mind is only giving me a very small piece of what God wants to be for me.

So like Peter, I find myself silenced in the presence of God.

Because when God reveals Godself, there’s a reason that the first thing said is “Do not be afraid.” When we hear the word of the Lord, it consumes us and wipes away all of the pretense and shrine-building we can throw at it. It leaves us with only our Lord, once we get out of our own way and allow ourselves to be in that moment rather than veiling it, we can be with God, and be filled with a wholeness that we cannot imagine. Because in that moment, all of our fear is swept away, replaced with the assurance that we are standing in the presence of God’s Son, whom God dearly loves.

Peter is silent after being given that command, as are the other disciples. They stand in the presence of the transfigured Jesus for an unknown length of time, participating in what God is doing in their lives, not anticipating what the needs of those before them will be. “Rabbi, it’s good that we are here.” But not for the reasons we think, it’s good that we are here because you have chosen to share yourself with us.

God has chosen to share himself with us, and it’s an intimate moment that should be kept private, not out of shame, but because moments when God silences us should be cherished. I think this is why Christ tells the disciples to keep their experiences to themselves until after his resurrection. I don’t think it’s any kind of Messianic secret, I think it’s a recognition that something amazing has happened, but that the moment has passed, and we cannot relive it or recreate it in any way that does it justice. We can only wait for the next time that God reveals herself to us, and do our best to take part in what is happening around us.

For now we’re headed off the mountain, and we’re preparing to walk out into the Wilderness on Wednesday. There will be a time for Hosannas and Hallelujahs, and there will be a time when we no longer think that we need to protect ourselves from our awesome God. There will be a time when we see our Lord’s transfiguration and know that we can see him not because he is different but because we ourselves have been transformed. There will be a time when all of creation hears the voice from heaven affirming that Christ is the Lord. There will be a time when God will enter every trembling heart and set them free from our own brokenness. There will be a time when even the stones will shout. But for now, we have to leave behind the things that hold us back, because God is doing something truly amazing in each of us. A work of redemption and re-creation that will, like the disciples on top of the mountain, leave us with nothing to say.

And I am confident that we have faith enough in our risen Lord to be silenced...

Because we know that God’s voice is worth listening for.

Oh Peter.

Oh Peter from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Our third scripture reading this afternoon comes from the 14th Gospel of Matthew. This story comes right after Jesus dismisses a recently fed multitude, and has gone up onto the mountain to pray by himself. The disciples are out on a boat in the middle of a storm. Listen now for the Word of the Lord.

Matthew 14:25-33

Very early in the morning he came to his disciples, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified and said, “It’s a ghost!” They were so frightened they screamed.

Just then, Jesus spoke to them, “Be encouraged, It’s me. Don’t be afraid.”

Peter replied, “Lord, if it’s you, order me to come to you on the water.”

And Jesus said, “Come.”

Then Peter got out of the boat and was walking on the water toward Jesus. But when Peter saw the strong wind, he became frightened. As he began to sink, he shouted, “Lord, rescue me!”

Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him, saying, “You man of weak faith! Why did you begin to have doubts?” When they got into the boat, the wind settled down.

Then those in the boat worshipped Jesus and said, “You must be God’s son!”

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

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Oh Peter. You’ve got to give it to him, he certainly tries. He is by no means lukewarm, and definitely at least tries to keep the Lord always before him. When he sees Jesus out on the lake, we can almost hear him say to himself, “If Jesus can do that, I wanna too!” So at a word from the Lord, Peter gets out of the relative safely of the boat, and joins Jesus in the storm.

Oh Peter, why’d you get out of the boat.

Imagine Peter telling the story to some folks later: So there’s this storm right? And we’re all out in the boat trying to keep her afloat, and she’s doing a pretty good job of protecting us from the waves that are battering us. Then we see Jesus out walking on the water. So we start freaking out, and Jesus calls out to us and says “Chill out, it’s me, no worries.” So I get the big idea to call back, and I say “If that’s really you, prove it! Tell me to come out there with you!” And Jesus yells back “Well come on then!”

Oh Peter, why’d you get out of the boat. We all knew where this was going, we all knew you were just going to sink.

Jesus responds simply, “Come.” And in that short command, Peter hears enough that he’s willing to do something as ridiculous as trying to walk on water with Christ.

Maybe he heard the Word that was with God and was God in the beginning. Maybe Peter heard the voice that called out “Let there be light!” Or the word given to the ancient Israelites “Hear O Israel: The Lord is God, the Lord alone!” Perhaps in Jesus’s command to walk on the water, Peter heard the words recorded by Isaiah, “Comfort, O Comfort my people.”

Peter certainly heard the voice that said “You give them something to eat.” We know he heard the words of the Parables contained in that simple command. He heard the voice that cast out demons and healed the sick and lame. He heard the words of the sermon on the mount. He heard the voice that said long before, Come, follow me.” Christ is doing something that reveals that he is God, and Peter hears all of that authority in Jesus’s voice, and gets out of the boat.

Oh Peter, why’d you get out of the boat. We all knew where this was going, we all knew you were just going to sink. You’re just a poor sinner, you can’t walk on water.

Jonah makes a great foil to this story. He gets the command from God to “Go” and immediately gets on to a boat, hoping to run away to the farthest reaches of the earth to prevent another people from experiencing God. He expects the hull and mast to protect him from not only the storm they encounter, but his identity as a prophet. His attempt is an image for the way all of us try to run and hide from what God has created us to be, because we can’t get past our own weaknesses and fears. So we hide on a boat until someone throws us out into the raging waters, and a large fish comes to swallow us. Jonah hears the command, and books passage on the farthest ranging boat he can find. We’ve all heard this same call. And we can’t help but build little boats around ourselves to protect us from being honest and vulnerable. But when Jesus speaks in this passage, Peter gets out of the boat, and joins Jesus in the storm.

Oh Peter, why’d you get out of the boat. We all knew where this was going, we all know you were just going to sink. You’re just a poor sinner, you can’t walk on water. Come back to where it’s safe, stay out of the storm, we don’t want you to sink.

Peter does begin to sink, and for some reason, rather than running to the boat, he cries out “Lord, rescue me!” And Jesus does, and says to him: Oh Peter, my beloved little idiot, why did you doubt? I didn’t call you out here because it’s safe, I called you out here because you belong here, with me, in this raging power that you cannot understand or control.

This is a great pulpit. Great big piece of wood to lean on, Great place to *thump* for emphasis when a prophet says “THEREFORE!” It’s also a nice sturdy barrier to protect those of us who preach from those of us who hear. This is a great pulpit, but there’s this terrifying little brass plaque on the back that says “We would see Jesus.” And though I’d like to use this pulpit as a boat to protect myself, that little piece of brass grabs me and proclaims in my ear that there’s a storm out there, and I’ve got to get out and walk in it.

We do love these things that provide limits, boundaries, control. Especially when we’re doing something that risks as much of ourselves as preaching does. But we don’t need to hold onto these little boats, our futile comfort blankets that we think keep us afloat when it would be easier to be overwhelmed. We don’t need the boats, because the voice that spoke creation into being, the Son who redeemed us, and the God who reigns over all, the Word made flesh, who is foolishly in love with us, says “Come.”

Although Peter sank, his great triumph is that of all the disciples, he alone was willing to trust God enough to get out of the boat in the first place. Likewise we will sink, from time to time, I don’t doubt that. We will begin to have doubts that will drive us down into the chaotic waters. Sometimes we have to sink before we remember to cry out “Lord, rescue me!” But our God is powerful enough to save us, and loves us enough to drown alongside us when we will not be helped. The world asks us, as we ask ourselves, why in the world would we go into this storm, why would we leave behind the safety of what we build around ourselves.

Oh Peter, why’d you get out of the boat? We all knew you were just going to sink. “I’ve got to get out of the boat, even if I sink, because that’s where Jesus is. Never mind the storm, my God told me to come. That’s why I get out of the boat.”