Hopeful Preparation

Hopeful Preparation from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

13But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14for since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. 15For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. 16For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. 18Therefore encourage one another with these words.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

Matthew 25:1-13

1”Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; 4but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. 8The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ 10and while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. 11Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ 12But he replied, ‘truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ 13Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God.

The church calendar is starting to pick up speed as we lean forward into advent. We’re rushing headlong into a season of waiting, and along the way we pick up some kingdom parables and impressions of our eschatological destination. “The kingdom will be like this…” begins Jesus, introducing a parable that is unique to Matthew’s gospel. We’re looking expectably to the story, hoping for the clue about the kingdom of heaven which is to come.

The characters begin to emerge, as actors preparing themselves for the stage. “Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise,” the foolish enter from stage left, the wise from stage right, and we know, as we watch and listen, that this distinction will matter somehow. We prepare ourselves to find grief with the foolish and to take hope with the actions of the wise.

Our whole Christian tradition is built on the intermingling of grief and hope. We rightly grieve at the foot of the cross, but the resurrection establishes a new reality in which all peoples can have hope. In the kingdom parables, Jesus gives us an impression of what that hope looks like. But for Christ, and for his church throughout the centuries, these hopeful impressions are not meaningless set pieces. The kingdom of heaven is an oncoming reality for which we must be prepared. It will jump out and surprise us when we least expect it, and its radical freedom energizes us to be the disciples Christ expects us to be.

Expecting that energizing freedom, the ten bridesmaids carry lamps, beacons of their hope. They prepare for the bridegroom and the accompanying celebration. Their lights are dim and the darkness is vast, but the are prepared and hopeful. But there’s a misstep along the way, “When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.”

Commentators have argued about what the oil represents for centuries. Some argue that it’s good works, other argue that it’s faith, others wisdom. I think if it were essential for us to know, Christ would have told us. The foolish bridesmaids probably trusted that there would be enough oil already in the lamp, that it wouldn’t run dry before the bridegroom arrived. After all, the wedding prepared, the director had cued the bridegroom’s entrance, everything would come together as soon as he arrived!

But the players will have to carry the show longer than they thought, as the bridegroom was delayed.

The most trivial delay can still be a magnificent bother in our Veruca-Salt, Don't-Care-How-I-Want-it-Now world. As our days grow shorter and the temperature drops at night, it often takes shower water longer and longer to heat up, because the pipes are colder. So we test the lukewarm water, and crank the "hot" up just a little bit. Then we wait a moment, and test it again. It's still pretty lukewarm, so we crank it up just a little bit more. Wait another moment, still lukewarm, so we crank it up just a little bit more. That seems like about the right temperature, and then by the time we get into the shower we get a moment of perfect temperature water on our backs before it suddenly turns to a river of lava and we try and leap out from under the showerhead before we scald ourselves to death. We flip the hot water down and the cold water up and after a moment the water is so cold that icebergs start forming around the shower drain. The the process starts all over again, all because there's a delay between when we adjust the faucet handle and when the water actually changes.

We've got control over our water temperature, we can fiddle with the handles all morning if we need to. Delays outside our control are more than irritating, they can be downright terrifying. "Thank you for submitting your application, we'll get back to you at some point in the next few weeks." "We have to wait for some project funding to become available before we can do that..." "We've done what we can to get them stable, we'll have to wait until morning to know more..." In times of intense stress, the delay only intensifies things. Waiting is, as they say, the hardest part. We pass the time any way we can: small talk, reading a magazine, or taking a nap "As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept."

The wise bridesmaids are not more diligent than the foolish ones. As the night marches on with no word from the bridegroom, all ten of them fall asleep. "The wise bridesmaids are distinctive not because they were ready for the groom but because they were ready for the groom’s delay." All of the bridesmaids held lamps, ready for the groom’s arrival. The foolish ones trim their lamps alongside the wise, but their hope was immediate and their preparation short-term.

A short-term action assumes that God will show up when we expect, as though we were the director, casting whatever image we fancy in God’s role and demanding cues be met are marks be hit. We know, however, that’s not the way things really are. Even though we struggle to live by it, we know God is the both the playwright and the director, and we are enacting his hope-filled story. Preparation for the delay acknowledges God's freedom, and shows faith that God will show up even if it's not on our calendar.

While it is possible, and often healthy, to schedule time for our relationship with God, we've got to recognize that God is not bound to a minute moment when we decide we are ready. God will show up and break up our carefully constructed days and nights, inviting all who are watchful to participate in the work of the kingdom. "Being watchful means being ready at all times, whether waking or sleeping.” We can be faithful, and hopeful at all times. Even dormant faith can shine in a dark enough world. God can use those dim, flickering lamps to light up the whole stage as the theater wakes up to a  magnificent final act.

Jesus finishes his parable, and the play comes to a close, and the audience is left with their impressions, wondering at the meaning behind his words as they move back out into the world. We work to understand and enact Christ’s words of hope, delay and preparation. "It cannot be that we are all supposed to bring with us the resources necessary for the celebration: while not all of them get in, all ten [bridesmaids] bring only lamps with oil in them. The text's theological claim about anticipating the bridegroom's great banquet does not negate the grace-shaped joy of a feast in which the host brings and shares all that we will actually need.” The focus of this passage is not that we should grab on to every possible provision and hoard it for ourselves. "The point is living expectantly and hopefully. Christian hope rests on trust that the God who created the world will continue to live the world with gentle providence." As church-type-people, we have the privilege and responsibility of hopeful preparation.

Each disciple may be a bridesmaid in this allegory, called to hopeful preparation for the day of the LORD. Perhaps, in this passage, the Church is not the bridesmaids. Perhaps we are the oil merchants, tasked with equipping disciples for the journey ahead, even though we do not know how long the journey will take. The Church is a place where we can fill our lamps together with the hope all will be prepared and none will be left out when the doors are shut. The foolish bridesmaids were not present to join the procession when the bridegroom arrived, and so they missed the party. Remaining unrecognized was the judgement on their foolishness. But the wise bridesmaids are under God's judgment too. They were unwilling to share either the oil or their wisdom to take an extra flask. The wedding party, therefore, was only half the size it could have been. Maybe the incompleteness is God's judgment on them for their failings too?

As the foolish bridesmaids found out, you can't fill your lamp at the last minute. As disciples, we have to grab the extra flask of lamp-oil, we have to take the risk that we will wait a while, because there is an abundance for all who are willing to keep their lamps filled. "The wise ones in the church are those who are prepared for the delay; who hold onto the faith deep into the night."

Prepare for the future, not a future where we're on our own and have to scramble to hold on to what is ours, but a future where Christ is returned, and returns us to the messianic banquet where joy and amazement will be without end. God gives us hope so that we can act, not just for our own benefit, but so that God may be glorified and we will enjoy God forever. The stage is set for the arrival of the kingdom of heaven, as we rush headlong into the season of Advent waiting. So we maintain our hopeful preparation, so that we may act in hope when the bridegroom at last arrives.

Imperative

Imperative from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.
Matthew 16:13-20

13Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14and they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15He said to them, “But who do you say that I am? 16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heavens and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

Isaiah 51:1-6

1Listen to Me, you who pursue justice,

You who seek the LORD:

Look to the rock you were hewn from,

To the quarry you were dug from.

2Look back to Abraham your father

And to Sarah who brought you forth.

For he was only one when I called him,

But I blessed him and made him many.

3Truly the LORD has comforted Zion,

Comforted all her ruins;

He has made her wilderness like Eden,

Her desert like the Garden of the LORD.

Gladness and joy shall abide there,

Thanksgiving and the sound of music.

4Hearken to Me, My people,

And give ear to Me, O My nation,

For teaching shall go forth from Me,

My way for the light of peoples.

In a moment I will bring it;

5the triumph I grant is near,

The success I give has gone forth.

My arms shall provide for the peoples;

The coastlands shall trust in Me,

They shall look to My arm.

6Raise your eyes to the heavens,

And look upon the earth beneath:

Though the heavens should melt away like smoke,

and the earth wear out like a garment,

and its inhabitants die out as well,

My victory shall stand forever,

My triumph shall remain unbroken.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God.

Listen! Look! Look! Hearken! Give ear! Raise your eyes! Look!

Seven times in six verses, God gives us a word that commands us to act. The Lord of heaven and earth issues an Imperial Decree, and we are expected comply.

Listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise your eyes, look!

We 21st century American Christians tend to shy away from talking too much about God's commands. We're much more comfortable hearing about how God invites us to join with what God is doing, we'd rather not hear as much about what God expects us. Instead, tell us again about how God loves us no matter what we do or think.

God is speaking to a people who are empty, who have spent so long trying to just get by in a world full of exile and terror. People who inherited vineyards which they did not plant, only to see the beauty of the earth melt away as they were taken from their places of comfort.

This passage is not addressed to the righteous, the delivered, the victorious. It's addressed to those who are chasing it down. “Listen to Me, you who pursue justice. “This word is for those who are desperate for hope, but haven't found it yet.

God's people are in exile, far away from the land that symbolizes the covenant, far away from the trappings of their temple worship, far away from their connection to the ancestral inheritance. They are in Babylon. Yet even in exile in Babylon, God calls them to pay attention to their roots, which are not just in Israel and Judah, or in Sinai, or even Egypt. For once, long ago, God told a man named Abram to get up and leave the city and house of his father and to go to a place where God would show him. So Abram, who would become known as Abraham, left the city of Ur, an ancient  city in the Babylonian empire. Even in exile, God reminds the people of their roots, of the covenant God has bade with them. Look at the quarry from which you were hewn. Look at the rocks from which you were formed. Listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise your eyes, look!

These divine commands, these orders from on high, God's Word made imperative, are not instructions to go on a spiritual journey or to enact some sort of ritual. The people to whom God is speaking cannot carry their end of the relationship, at least not yet. These seven verbs grab our attention and orient us to a God who is acting. Listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise your eyes, look!

We've been waiting for a long time to see God's action. We've trained ourselves to see God in the small actions, but we long to see God really roll up his sleeves and do something amazing. We remember a time when the pews were so full we had to think creatively about how to fit everyone inside the church, and many congregations built larger grander sanctuaries as well. Now we see not only available seats, but pews which lie empty, like unplanted fields gone to weeds. We remember a time when church life was the center of whole communities. Now we see communities, even communities of faith, divided by political differences and family squabbles.

Is that the rock we were hewn from? Is that the quarry from which we were dug? Are we to remain in this desert of institutional decline? No wonder God is issuing commands! It’s time for us to turn things around, to be ready to act, if we just work a little harder at what we’re doing, everything will go back to the way it was, a whole company of believers making sure that the church is the focus of society!

God's word spoken through the prophet Isaiah does not call some spiritual army to attention, it calls us to pay attention. This text does not point us to our own action, or even our own comfort. The focus of this passage, and ideally of the life of the church, is on what God is doing. Because God is about to make the wilderness like Eden, the desert like the Garden of The Lord.

Listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise your eyes, look!

None of these verbs are missional, or empowering, they do not invite participation in the work God is doing, they don't even require purity or the right belief. They are all observational. Listen. Look. Look. Hearken. Give ear. Raise your eyes. Look!

As God speaks these words to them, the people of God are too beaten down to participate in what God is doing. They're just too tired to respond in faith. Too many years of decline, too many years of chasing after justice, and never reaching it. God's people, in this text, need to be reminded that God is acting, that God is mighty, and that God is working for their good.

So God commands them to pay attention, and to remember to whom they belong.

We are dug from the same quarry, hewn from the same rocky ground, as our spiritual ancestors. But God can make that rocky wilderness like Eden. God transforms the desert into the Garden of The Lord. Our spiritual ancestors did not accomplish great things, or even great faith, by themselves, or grow from two old people into a nation, a childless couple into the Matriarch and Patriarch through whom all peoples bless themselves. Only God can do that. So why do we focus so much of our attention on replicating their results through our own feeble efforts, instead of trusting in the God who is leading us to a land which God will show us?

Our exile is spiritually exhausting. We’re so tired of trying to continue forward out of our own strength, which we know is not sufficient. In our anxiety, we make decisions based on what we think will make our denomination not decline as quickly. We try and hold on to our resources because we can only see the day when they run out. We forget that the church is not called to promote itself, but always to Proclaim the Lordship of Christ. We exile ourselves with our own sense of self-importance, until we find ourselves in a land where anxiety and fear abide, hand-wringing and the sound of worry.

But even in our exile, God is still at work, bringing us back to himself, to the land which God will show us. Gladness and joy shall abide there, Thanksgiving and the sound of music. Listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise your eyes, look, for God is acting. Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, even though that looks different, in our different world, than it looked for our ancestors. Even in exile we have hope in God,  whose “arms shall provide for the peoples; The coastlands shall trust in [God], They shall look to [God’s] arm.”

We know that God is faithful to the covenant even when we are not. We have seen this theme played out time and again throughout scripture, church history, and our own lives. What has gone before us is not to be discarded, ”Our ancestors and their history and connected to our hope; our hope is the foundation of our future. God's promises to Sarah and Abraham flow to and infuse hope in the exile.” Out of exile comes life, and beauty, and a people who are reformed, and are always being reformed. They are different, sure, and have their own particularity, but they are also connected to all the saints in every time and place. Listen. Look. Look. Hearken. Give ear. Raise your eyes. Look!

We share hope in a new minister, and a new congregation. We see fruits beginning to flourish within ourselves and one another, we're caught up in the excitement of new life, where we had only seen a dormant grind for so long. But that newness will fade into a mature and trusting Pastoral Relationship. The hope of newness is ephemeral and will fade. the hope in God’s promises to our ancestors is sure, even though we do not know the form it will take.

God says “For teaching shall go forth from Me, My way for the light of peoples. In a moment I will bring it; the triumph I grant is near,” The teaching which shall go forth from God gives us the words to answer “Who do you say that I am?” with “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise your eyes, look! God’s imperative to us is not to grow in stature, or number, or to fit in with the culture, or be popular. God doesn’t issue a call to attention so that we will be ready to act immediately, God calls us to pay attention so that we will see who God is, and be able in all things to proclaim the Lordship of Christ. Listen. Look. Look. Hearken. Give ear. Raise your eyes. Look!

These commands remind us of God's love, they connect us to the narrative that gives the events of our lives meaning. Listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise your eyes, look! "Though the heavens should melt away like smoke, and the earth wear out like a garment, and its inhabitants die out as well, My victory shall stand forever, My triumph shall remain unbroken.”

So the church remains connected to the rock frown which we are hewn, to the quarry from which we were dug. We still pursue justice, but we find ourselves watching for God, exploring creation with the hope that we will find what God is already doing for us, to us, and through us. We respond in faith when we are able, and when we cannot, God commands us to Listen. Look. Look. Hearken. Give ear. Raise your eyes. Look!

God's commands remind us of the covenant, and call us to remember the wonders God has done in our sight in the past. So our obedience to God’s command is not an obligation, but a joy. God’s commands remind us of the covenant, linking our action to the reasons we act. God’s imperative empowers our declaration that Christ is Lord. QGod’s victory shall stand forever, God’s triumph shall remain unbroken,” and we listen, look, look, hearken, give ear, raise our eyes, look, and finally answer, QJesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”

Dinner Conversation

Dinner Conversation from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for* you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ 25In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

Matthew 14:13-21

13 Now when Jesus heard [that John had been executed], he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ 16Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ 17They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’ 18And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’ 19Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

My Dad is a storyteller, many of us know him from his days as the Executive Presbyter here in Western North Carolina, others of us met him Friday night as he moved around the reception, proud papa of a teaching elder. I, of course, know him in a different way than the rest of our congregation, what with him being my Dad and all.

Dad had some wisdom that he shared, periodically, on the subject of storytelling: "All stories are true, some of them actually happened."

A human life is a collection of stories. We are the main character in most of them, but not all of our stories feature our names on the title page. We inherit stories from those who have gone before us, and pass them on to generations whom we have not yet met. "For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,"

Our stories define us and connect us with the ones with whom we share them. That's why we so lovingly choose children's books when we gather for a baby shower, books like The Runaway Bunny, or Goodnight Moon, or I Love You Forever, because we remember how lovingly those stories were shared with us, even before we knew why that mattered. We know that many of those stories did not happen, but that doesn't make them less true.

The stories that did happen are our Mothers reading us The Runaway Bunny and we knew that she would love us to the end of the earth, no matter what happened. The stories that did happen were our Father's telling us the stories of what happened at work that day, and making us feel loved and accepted by including us in the Dinner Conversations. The stories that did happen were our Mothers' making up a tune to sing while reading I Love You Forever, before we understood that it meant more to her than it did to us.

Our experience with those stories made their truth real to us.

But not every dinner conversation was a pleasant one, and there is more than one story in our anthology that doesn't have a happy ending. There are tragedies alongside the comedies. Those stories are true too, and their harshness shapes our lives just as much as the warmth of the happy stories does. We don't tell those stories as often, and we certainly don't tell them because they're pleasant, or happy, or polite dinner conversation.

In a few minutes, we will gather around the Lord's Table for a sacrament, but we will do so knowing that the dinner table was not a safe place for everyone. Some tables are terrifying centers of abuse, altars to trauma that removes our ability to tell our story the way it happened.

We tell the hard stories because they're true. Even we cannot face that truth straight on, we can tell the truth, but tell it slant.

Sometimes we tell stories in ways that open up old wounds, it's painful and may leave us bleeding, but it's also the only way to make room for healing.

All this happened, more or less.

Our Gospel lesson this morning tells the story of a miracle. Jesus, out of his grief over the loss of his cousin and colleague in ministry, John the Baptist, "he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns."

The story of Jesus is so filled with truth, that crowds gather and walk around the outside of a lake just for a chance to have a piece of God's truth.

"When [Jesus] went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick."

Even in his grief, Jesus is still filled with compassion for God's people, and rolls up his sleeves to minister to them.

"15When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’"

The disciples see God doing great things, and immediately miss the point. Again. But I wonder if maybe they saw that Jesus was tired, and that he needed space to grieve, but this crowd did not see it, they only saw their own need for healing. Perhaps the disciples were trying to protect Jesus, and were showing love and care for him, at the expense of the crowds.

16Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ 

The disciples, perhaps hoping to give Jesus a chance to rest, want to just wave the crowds off to fend for themselves, Jesus’s boundless compassion looks creatively at the situation and finds a way to teach the disciples what it looks like to love God and neighbor by feeding those who are hungry.

17They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’18And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’

When our mission falls flat on its face, and we are left with “we have nothing,” God finds a way to include us in the healing work of God. God’s compassion includes us even when we think we have nothing to give. Because even when we have nothing, we can still share our story, our part in God’s story, our partaking of the bread of life. “The Lord’s Supper is, in the first place, the sacrament of the sharing of the divine life with humanity.”

19Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Ah, the miracle. The part of the story where more empirically minded folk raise an eyebrow. There is some speculation as to how this miracle actually happened. One theory is the traditional magic basket approach, where the bread and fish multiplied and never ran out. The other is the stone soup version, where the crowed, inspired by Jesus's generosity in sharing what little the disciples had, revealed that they had brought a little with them, and the hearts of the whole multitude were changed such that they shared everything they had, with plenty left over.

I think either one counts as a miracle. I personally favor the traditional interpretation, that God provided abundance from nothing so that all could be fed. The more modern understanding, however, that God changed the hearts of thousands through a simple act of generosity is a profound miracle as well.

I also think that if it were essential for us to know one way or the other, the Holy Spirit would have included the pertinent details in the unique and authoritative witness we have in scripture. Such a detail would fit in well alongside the stories of God providing manna in the wilderness, or alongside the account in Numbers of each tribe's identical offering for sacrifice and for the tabernacle.

But irrespective of the details, the truth of the story is that through God's intervention, we are fed and what looked like scarcity has become abundance.

But without the stories we tell, we would never get to experience that truth. For Presbyterians, the reading and proclamation of the Word is always tied to the sacraments, because the story and the truth it contains, give us language to describe our experience of God. “The elements of bread and with mediate the spiritual presence of Jesus Christ only insofar as they are celebrated in the larger context of those narratives that identify Jesus as the Christ.”

All stories are true, some actually happened.

But the stories we tell around God’s table are not empty fantasies, they are truth-laden testimony to who God is, and to who we are as followers of Jesus Christ.

The proof is at the table, where we are invited by Christ to dine with our God throughout the power of the Holy Spirit. We are elevated by God through the sacrament to sit and share a meal with disciples in every time and place, and the elements of bread and wine awaken us to the real presence of Christ among us.

One theologian, writing about what happens at Communion, confessed that nobody really gets it, that the sacrament, by its nature, is a mystery. “Now, if anyone should ask me how this takes place, I shall not be ashamed to confess that it is a secret to lofty for either my mind to comprehend or my words to declare. And, to speak more plainly, I rather experience than understand it.”

Perhaps the feeding of the five thousand serves as a reminder that we cannot do our work apart from God. Communion reminds, reveals, and promises the God is in our midst, empowering our mission, finding ways for us is worship God, grow in faith, and show God’s love to everyone.

Thanks be to God for that.

Go, Therefore

1 Kings 19:9-18

9At [Horeb, the mount of God, Elijah] came to a cave, and spent the night there. Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" 10He answered, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it way."

11[God] said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD  is about to pass by." Now there was a great wind, so string that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; 12and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 13When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and wont out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" 14He answered, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away." 15Then the LORD said to him, "Go return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as King of Aram. 16Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha, son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. 17Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kind, and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. 18Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him."

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

Matthew 28:16-20

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

Both of our stories this morning are, I'm quite sure, familiar to all of us. They are stories where God shows us something of himself. In 1 Kings, God reveals something of himself through the sound of sheer silence, or a still, small voice in other translations. In Matthew, God's self-revelation comes in the form of the post-resurrection Christ, sending the disciples throughout the world and promising to be with them.

But besides their familiarity and God's self-sharing, these stories are connected through the doubt they portray in those who serve God. Some of the disciples, seeing Jesus ready to ascend to heaven, doubted. Elijah is just coming off of a major victory against the prophets of Baal and loses his nerve, fleeing into the wilderness until he comes to Horeb, the mount of God, which is sometimes also called Sinai.

One story takes place where the instruction of God came down, the other where the Word of God made flesh was taken up, and both are filled with the doubt of those who lived through them.

We are living through frightening times. An hour's worth of evening news is good for a full night of unsleeping anxiety. That doesn't even count the innumerable small things that make our daily lives uneasy: family unrest, problems at work, troubled friendships, health issues, money troubles, the list goes on. Like Elijah, we may be driven out into the wilderness just for a chance to get away from the problems we see.

"I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it way."

I feel like I've been doing everything right, and yet so much is still going wrong! I'm out of ideas, out of energy, out of resources, "I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away." We can almost taste the unspoken plea as it rests just behind our lips and Elijah's, "O God, please help me..."

We expect God to intervene out of wind, earthquake, and flame, elemental solutions to the problems of our souls. We see them as something we can grab hold of, a solution tailor-made to impress us and restart our struggling faith.

But God was not in the wind, neither was God in the earthquake, or even the fire. "After the fire a sound of sheer silence." No distractions, no excuses: it's time for a face-to-face chat with the almighty.

I don't think it goes the way Elijah envisioned it.

When we're in the kind of mindset that I see in Elijah here, we expect that God has somehow done us a disservice, and that when we present our case, God will apologize and take us up into his loving embrace and promise that it'll all be better soon. "Look God, we had a deal. I would be a good person and you would make my life easy. I've been a good person, very zealous for the Lord, and yet my life is still difficult. Come on! Do your job! Make me happy!"

"Elijah..." says the LORD, in the same tone of voice, no doubt, that God used when he called to  Adam and said "where are you?" The tone of voice that indicates that God already knows the answer, but is giving us the opportunity to confess it ourselves. "There came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

So Elijah lays out his case, woe is him, for his task as a prophet is so difficult, and he's all alone. "He answered, 'I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.'"

I love God's response here, because it's so vastly different than what we expect from God when we're standing in Elijah's shoes. I think we expect a pat on the head and an invitation to rest until we're no longer tired of the big mean world in which we live.

God response, instead, bypasses our whining and sends us back out to work. For the prophet Elijah, on the run and feeling all alone, "The outcome of the [experience of God] is vigorous, risky intervention in the life of Israel and of its neighbors." Elijah's solution was to retreat from the world' God's commissions him to engage it, to continue preaching the Word of the Lord in the face of ridicule and persecution. God's command of faithfulness does not mean withdrawing from the world, but getting to work for the good of God's people.

And yet God does not just leave Elijah feeling ignored either. His concerns are valid, our world is harsh, and its people resist their Lord beyond belief. God reminds Elijah that he is not alone, as he feels. He is called to anoint the next generation's prophet: Elisha, son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah. God also tells him of seven thousand other faithful people still living in Israel. Elijah is not as alone as he thought.

Though it's tempting to get caught up in our own struggles, and to imagine that we are alone in all the world, God reminds us that we do not go into the world by ourselves. Wherever we go, we're going together.

I am terrible at telling ahead of time what events in my life are going to be a big deal to me. I didn't think my Seminary graduation back in May was going to be a big deal, and it surprised me. I thought the Presbytery meeting on Tuesday would be just another, final, hoop through which to jump, after all, I've already been a pastoral presence in this congregation for two months. I had been through the wind, the earthquake, the fire, in seminary, in the committee on preparation for ministry, and the call search process. No distractions, no excuses: it's time for a face-to-face chat with the presbytery.

It did not go the way I envisioned it.

Like Elijah’s prideful loneliness, I had overlooked my community of faith who surprised me with a profound expression of y'all's love for me. A group of folks, representing this whole congregation, met at the church at way-too-early in the morning to ride the church bus for two hours because we neither struggle nor triumph alone. Wherever we go, we're going together.

That's the lesson I took from Elijah's encounter at Horeb, the mount of God. The impressive fanfare of wind, earthquake, and fire do not contain God, although they point to him. Once God has our attention, through the sound of sheer silence, we encounter him face-to-face and are reminded that, excepting only Christ, the world does not begin or end with any lone individual. God elects a people.

We have stories of individual encounters with God, Jacob at the ford of the river Jabbok, Moses at the burning bush, Saul on the road to Damascus. "These encounters with individual persons are characteristically not ends in themselves but concern [the LORD's] larger purposes.”

God’s purposes are almost always larger than a single individual. God intends good for all of creation, and for all of those whom he loves. God gives us one another and calls us to journey though our lives as connected, particular people. We each have our own experiences and are called to share them with one another. Even though I was surrounded by my fellow Presbyterians on Tuesday, many of whom have known me since childhood, the fact that my church sent a group to represent them means more than I can express. Through your expression of love, God spoke to me saying that wherever our church is going, we’re going together.

“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.”

There will be days when we have doubts, both as individuals and as a congregation. When we do, however, we join the company of Elijah and Christ’s earliest disciples. They make for good company, even in our doubts. Even though Elijah’s plea may taste just a bit like self-centered whining, even though the disciples doubt in the very face of the resurrected Christ, their doubts are not unfounded.

We are living through frightening times. An hour's worth of evening news is good for a full night of unsleeping anxiety. That doesn't even count the innumerable small things that make our daily lives uneasy: family unrest, problems at work, troubled friendships, health issues, money troubles, the list goes on…

But we do not have to face our fears alone.

Like the disciples, called by God to a place of worship, we have seen the risen Christ among us. God has promised to go with us, even when it means death on a cross and the depths of human suffering. Like Elijah on Horeb, the mount of God, we are reminded that there are faithful people in our communities who can be a comfort and fellow kingdom-workers with us.

God shares himself in the face of Elijah’s fear by giving him a job to do, and reminds Elijah that he is part of a beloved community on whom God would not give up. “The LORD said to him, "Go return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as King of Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha, son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place… Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” I do not know where this church is going, but we are going there together.

Christ sent us out into the world saying “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” I do not know where this church is going, but I know that God goes with us.

We will have doubts, we will have fears, but we will also have triumphs and will lift up our heads in hope, because God goes with us as we travel together. From Horeb, the mount of God, to Galilee, the mountain to which Jesus had directed them, to the foothills of Western North Carolina in a little town called Lowell, we will move forward together, knowing that God goes with us.

These stories are familiar to us because we have keep telling them to one another. They are not just bible stories, they are our stories, and we have lived them as much as the characters who are featured in the text. We know that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and that support can overwhelm our loneliness and help us get back to showing the love of Christ as we work with each other and walk hand in hand.

I do not know where this church is going. My hope is that we are on the edge of profound spiritual growth and faithful service, but I do not know what that journey will look like.

I do not know where this church is going. My hope is that we are leaning forward into a future where we will see God’s wonders in our congregation, our presbytery, our denomination, our community, our region, our world, but I do not know what service God has in mind for us.

I do not know where this church is going, but I know we go with God, and with one another. So let us Go, therefore, into the world. We have work to do, obedient service to Christ our king. It is not our ability that makes this work doable, it is the fact that wherever we are going, we go together. It is the truth that whoever we are going, God goes with us.

Alleluia, Amen

Festal Shout

Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18
A Maskil of Ethan the Ezrahite
1I will sing of your steadfast love, O LORD, forever;
With my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.
2I declare that your steadfast love is established forever;
your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.
3You said, "I have made a covenant with my chosen one,
I have sworn to my servant David:
4'I will establish your descendants forever,
And build your throne for all generations.''" Selah
15Happy are the people who know the festal shout,
Who walk, O LORD, in the light of your countenance;
16They exult in your name all day long,
And extol your righteousness.
17For you are the glory of their strength;
By your favor our horn is exalted.
18For our shield belongs to the LORD,
Our king to the Holy One of Israel.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God

It's been a long week at the Presbyterian Church of Lowell. Last Sunday, volunteers waited for a throng of children to come join us for the Workshop of Wonders Bible School, we threw open our doors at five ready to begin the events that had been in motion for weeks and months before, as we prepared a place for the children who will lead worship for us during the offertory later today.

The parents and grandparents dropped their kids off with us, trusting us to provide a safe environment to entertain their children, and perhaps teach them something important about life in the process. Vacation Bible School isn't just children's ministry, it's also ministry to the adults who care for them. Some of the parents took the opportunity to go out on a date together, tending to their relationships while we tended to their children. Others had a quiet night at home, enjoying the opportunity to be still, an opportunity that young children make rare. I'm sure a few also had details, either at work or at home, that they had shelved in order to spend time with their families, and were able to take them back up knowing that we were taking up their children.

But the volunteers who worked at our Vacation Bible School weren't just free childcare, giving the adults the chance to do grown-up work in the grown-up world. We learned from those children, from their wonder at the amazing Bible stories, and the way they got into the narrative the youth enacted before them. We learned from their excitement as the science experiments showed the wonders of God's created order. We learned from their laughter and playfulness at the recreation station, showcasing the joy that is a sacred part of childhood. We learned from their creativity as they made crafts together, artistically expressing their thoughts and emotions, both simple and profound. We learned from their silliness and rapt attention at the opening and closing assemblies each evening, as they joined with James and Rivet, Marie and Mimi, in exploring the themes of the night through skits and music.

Even as our Volunteers sought to share God with the children, so too the children shared God with us, each generation proclaiming God's love to every other.

"I will sing of your steadfast love, O LORD, forever. With my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations."

The church is one of the few places in our culture where we can interact with people across generations. That's a huge strength. It gives us the perspective to see beyond the anxieties of our own lives. We can look with a child's wonder and discern with an elder's wisdom on the same action.

Crossing generations gives us the vision to reach beyond our own experience and testify to how God has acted throughout our history and into our future. We can say together that Our God is the one who works wonders. We can tell the stories of faith together, reading from a script passed down to us through the generations, yet bringing our own interpretation as we enact the stories for one another, telling and retelling the same ancient truths in new ways. God's truths are eternal, and we share them through our stories about God's steadfast love. This shifting world cannot move us out of the reach of God's loving kindness.

"I declare that your steadfast love is established forever; your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens."

Our Psalm reading this morning comes from a specific context, and is littered with references to the world in which its writer lived. It emerged as a response to crisis within the people of God, when they were losing sight of who they were and whose they were.

Ethan the Ezrahite, to whom this Psalm is attributed, had probably seen the Babylonian exile, when the Jewish people who had been deported after Babylon conquered Judah were finally able to come home again. It gave the people a chance to rebuild their lives and their culture, which had been utterly shattered when the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed by the invading armies. We simply don't have an analogue for what that would be like in our own history. The heartbreak in the stories written during that time is simply inaccessible to most of us. Ethan the Ezrahite wrote this psalm as the people were finally allowed to return home.

This Psalm also references the line of King David. Just about everyone with any contact with Judeo-Christian culture recognizes that reference. He's the one who killed Goliath,  became king after Saul, and had the affair with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.

This Psalm, by invoking that dynastic imagery, by remembering God's covenant with king David, is reestablishing the commitment to living by God's promise. The promise is not a political reality, but a liturgical, visionary, ideological hope which continued to shape the life and imagination of Israel.

God promised David that his kingdom would not end. That's part of what made the babylonian captivity so difficult for those who endured it. It wasn't just a national tragedy, it was a religious one as well. David's dynasty had failed, and with it God's promise seemed to evaporate. Without the promise of God, nothing about the Israelite national identity made sense anymore.

"You said, 'I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to my servant David:'"

And yet in spite of the missing king from David's line, the tone of this psalm is still joyful. Perhaps the vanity of a powerful empire is lost, but our ability to praise our God is not. Because we live in a quickly changing world and there's certainly a lot for us to fear. But we have the truth of the gospel to support us, and the testimony of innumerable generation of our spiritual ancestors to hold us up.

The truth is that God is active in the world, God intervenes in our lives, even when we cannot see it. Sometimes we will see God's action only in hindsight, when we reflect on our lives and look for God's hands amid our history. Other times we will never know what it is God has done for us, because how can we know everything. Our lives are full of overlooked blessings and turns that could have gone wrong, we could not possibly keep track of all of them. But the covenant, though it may change forms as it did for the Israelites and God's covenant with David, is still strong. When God made a promise the people of God knew that they could count on God to keep it, even if they didn't understand how it would take place. God is faithful even when we don't see it. God's people are ensured a future even while exiled in Babylon.

"'I will establish your descendants forever, and build your throne for all generations.' Selah"

As American Christians, we've got plenty of reasons to worry about the future. American culture has shifted away from the church, and we can no longer enjoy the privilege of social dominance like we once did. As a result, membership is declining across our denomination, youth are aging out of the programs we designed for them and they aren't coming back the way their parents did. People generally don't take the time to memorize scripture or the catechism anymore. Religiously affiliated schools and charities are shifting their identity to one that is more easily marketable so that they can continue the work that is important to them. Our confidence in the economy has been shaken and still has not recovered. Many of our political leaders seem more interested in gathering their own power than serving the people. One can understand how the American Church might be having a bit of an identity crisis as we try to grab any program or idea that we can rely on.

Israel, likewise, was having an identity crisis. The threefold destruction of their monarchy, their temple, and their city left a nationwide case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in its wake. They had to learn how to function when their homes had been destroyed with no chance to rebuild, much less the decline of their holy city. They had to learn how to be a people of God when temple worship was no longer even possible, much less the center of their culture. They had to learn how to affirm that God was their sovereign when their ruler was an occupying foreign power, much less of the house and lineage of David. Their whole identity as a covenant people was at stake, and the people of Judah were struggling to hold on to who they were and whose they were.

But none of those problems were enough to stifle Ethan the Ezrahite's Festal Shout. This long psalm walks through much of the pain of the Babylonian Exile in its later verses, giving language to the experience of an Israel that still didn't understand what God was doing in the world. But it begins with a celebrate of God's greatness, reminding them and us of what God had promised, and that those promises were trustworthy, even if we couldn't understand how they could possibly still be true. Those who read this Psalm have seen God's face in the promises he made to their ancestors. God's promises brought a little light to the darkness of their exile.

"Happy are the people who know the festal shout. Who walk, O LORD, in the light of your countenance."

There are plenty of reasons to celebrate at the Presbyterian Church of Lowell, plenty of reasons to be proud of our church family. We just finished a successful week of Bible school. Our average weekly worship attendance is up. We are struggling through complex issues together instead of cutting one another off when we disagree. Our choir is faithful, talented, and hard-working, so is our staff. Our church feeds the hungry through our Chicken Pot Pie sales, and we provide funds so that others outside our community can be fed by participating in and financially supporting the mission work of the Presbytery.

Even though we have much to celebrate here at the Presbyterian Church of Lowell, even though we have reasons to be pleased with ourselves, none of those are why we show up for worship each week. None of those raise a Festal Shout. All the little markers of our growth and health bring on a grateful smile, but songs of praise are more deeply rooted.

For shout's of praise, we have God's promises, just as Ethan the Ezrahite and the Judeans returning from exile had. Those promises are real even when we cannot see them. We join the people who sing to God from a ruined temple in a city with half-built walls. We praise God with the Israelites who remember being forced from the homes and resettling in a foreign land. They can praise God because they know that God is active, and that God's promises are sure. So even while we struggle, we are filled with the richness of God's grace.

"They exult in your name all day long, and extol your righteousness."

Israel's monarchy had been crushed by the Babylonian empire, yet they still hoped for a king like David, who would restore Israel to its former glory. But God, in my experience, is not as concerned with the preservation of national interests. God is interested in creating relationships out of steadfast love and faithfulness with God's people. So the king who is a descendant of David is not a political leader who re-establishes the monarchy. He's the son of a carpenter who restores all of humanity to its former relationship with God. Because our exile was not at the hands of a conquering nation, it's of our own making as we bear the consequences of our limited humanity.

But even in our brokenness, we know the Festal Shout, Jesus is Lord. We know that God is our protector, and even though that does not guarantee wealth or power, or the other ways we measure success in this world, we know that we are cared for. God is faithful even when we don't see it. Our testimony is not based on our own abilities or talents, our talents and abilities testify to the strength of our God.

"For you are the glory of their strength; By your favor our horn is exalted."

It's been a long history for the Presbyterian Church of Lowell, for we have inherited the stories of the Israelites and Judeans. We have just finished a week of Bible School, where we shared the stories of our faith with one another, that our God is the one who works wonders. We know that God is faithful, even when we don't see it.  For we know the Festal Shout that Jesus Christ is the King of Heaven. We know that in life and in death we belong to God. Even when we think we are losing ourselves, God is still our defender and the one whom we serve.



"For our shield belongs to the LORD, our king to the Holy One of Israel."

Perichoresis

I grew up with a Preschool Music Teacher as a mother. Every time we got into the car it was an opportunity for her to do research with my brother and me as test subjects. We have heard more children's music tapes than you would believe even exist.

The song that has stayed with me most is Tom Chapin's "Great Big Words," which extols the virtues of excessively ponderous verbiage, or as the song's chorus puts it: Great big words, I like big words.

On a Sunday celebrating the trinity, one runs into a bunch of Great Big Words. I think this is largely because the trinity is one of descriptions of God that we can only understand by faith, because mortal minds can't wrap around the bigness of our God in three persons, who is still one God, and yet each person is also the full expression of God. Western Theologians have sought for generations to find an image that adequately portrays the Trinity, and nobody has succeeded. Every image either leans too far towards "God is one" or "God is three" So we professional theologians hide behind our big words so that we can look smart even while we admit that God is greater than our ability to describe God.

Today's sermon title is one of those big words: Perichoresis.

Having grown up singing songs about liking big words, and then majoring in English at Presbyterian College, I've become one of those people who talks about grammar and stuff for fun. So I'm going to take down the big-word mask and break it up so I can't hide behind it.

Perichoresis is the word you get when you mash "perimeter" and "choreography" together. One is the measurement around something, the other is dancing. Perichoresis, therefore, is dancing around together. We get it from the Eastern branches of the Christian Church, who use the image of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit dancing together to grab hold of the mystery of the trinity.

The dancing trinity shows how closely and joyfully the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work together, and that's the image I want us to hold in our Genesis passage. "When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth, being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God sweeping over the water." Already the dance has begun, sweeping back and forth over the world before it even existed.

The word-lover in me is excitedly caught up in how artfully our Genesis passage is woven together. The shape of this creation story as first God builds and then fills creation, placing the capstone of God's blessing as God rests on the sabbath day. The way all the components relate with one another fills the Creator with joy. It doesn't just tell a story, story itself dances within the text, taking familiar steps each day: beginning each day with "God said..." and ending each one with "And there was evening, and there was morning..." The first three days God separates and creates space, light is separated from dark, the waters are separated by an expanse, and dry land is separated from water. Then in the next three days the sky is filled with greater and lesser lights, the sky and sea are filled with birds and fish, and the dry land is filled with all manner of animal life, including us!

Then on day seven, the dance moves we learned from days one through six are capped off with a blessing, with sabbath, with rest, "The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array. On the seventh day God finished the work that he had been doing, and he ceased on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that he had done."

My Dad is a woodworker, always tinkering with some project or another in his shop. As soon as I was old enough to listen when I was told "Don't touch, you'll hurt yourself" he started inviting me to come help him on whatever project he was working on at the time. I might be reading or watching television and he would walk past and say "How about giving me a hand?" There was always an understanding that he would still love me if I said "No," but I usually jumped up from what I was doing anyway.

We would work for a while, sometimes until we were at a convenient stopping point, sometimes the stopping point came when Dad was frustrated and needed to walk away before he smashed the project into a thousand pieces.

Once we were done for the night, he'd pour himself a glass of wine and we'd sit out on the back porch, resting because our work for the day was done. We still work in the shop together when we visit one another. These days I'll have a glass as well, and that's the image I have of sabbath: a couple of people, lightly dusted with wood shavings, sitting with their feet up talking about the world after a long day of work.

Even holding up the images of Sabbath rest and the dancing trinity, this bible story is still very familiar. I've read this bible story more times than I can count, I've even preached on it before at an evening prayer service. Every time I read it through the words of Paul's letter to the church in Rome, "God speaks into being things which do not exist." God says "Lights!" and suddenly from everywhere and from nowhere, light floods the scene. But this time I noticed something different: "Let there be..."

In this passage, God's creative word is an invitation. "Let there be..." And at God's creative invitation, light, and an expanse, and dry land, and vegetation, and lights, and swarms of living creatures, and every kind of living creature, and people, all joyfully leap into existence.

In a world where folks very seriously and sternly debate precisely how the cosmos came into being, and the timetable in which it happened, the idea of joyfully answering God's invitation sweeps the perspective so far that we almost don't know it when we see it. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are having so much fun dancing together that God wants more dance partners! They say "Dance with me!" and light suddenly dances across the darkness, land dances between the waters, birds dance in the air, fish in the sea, animals dance on land and God sees that it is good!

Then God gets an idea: "And God said, 'Let us make [people] in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.' And God created a human in his image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

Just by being people we are answering God's invitation to dance alongside the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But because we are created in God's image, we are able to join participate in what God is doing in so many other ways, and we can celebrate each other the way the three persons of the Trinity joyfully dance around together!

This church is one body, but "none is the full image of God alone. Only in community of humankind is God reflected." We each are invited to dance alongside God, and none of us can see the full image of God in our own dance, no matter how sweet our dance moves may be.

Each summer for the last several years, I've been invited to serve on staff at Tri-Cities Workcamp, which is sort of a mix of church camp and mission trip. During the day, youth are sent out into inner-city Petersburg to do home repair in some of the most run-down neighborhoods in the city. After their daily work is done, we come together to share a meal and do an evening program. As the night draws to a close and we get ready to send the campers off to dessert and then to sleep, we invite a few folks to come forward and tell the whole camp where they saw God that day.

There's always a moment or two of silence, and then someone who has come to Workcamp for years will pop up, stride over to the stage and share their experience of God, and how they were able to participate in God's continuing acts of creation. Then another camper, perhaps a little younger, a little less sure of themselves, will take their place and share as well. And the kingdom of God gathered in that place will celebrate both of their stories, clapping and joyfully shouting even before they make it to the microphone because the invitation has been answered.

Workcamp is one of those communities where I have seen a slightly clearer image of God. This church is, and will be, another community where our congregation, and others around us, can see the image of God, sweeping over the waters, dancing through creation, joyfully doing the work God invites us to do!

But like all people, and all communities, we're broken. We're a little afraid of looking silly when no one else seems to be joining the dance. It's so much easier to stand at the edges and watch what God is doing than to answer the invitation ourselves. We don't even fully understand what God is doing. We only have access to a piece of the greatness of God, a small part of the dance that God has chosen to share with us. It's more comfortable to hide behind our big words, even if it means trading joyful faces for stern looks.

When we got so wrapped up that we could not recognize the image of God, God the Son, the Word spoken at creation, came to us to get us out on the floor! We know him as Jesus of Nazareth, God-with-us, the Word made flesh. Just as God created people in God's image so that we could share relationship with God, so we are created anew through the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Jesus brings us back into communion with God. After the resurrection, Matthew's gospel tells us a story of a new invitation to participate in what God is doing in the world.

"Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus told them to go. When they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. Jesus came near and spoke to them, 'I've received all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you. Look, I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age.'"

Still learning to dance, still learning to joyfully leap into the world where God is at work, some of the disciples doubted. They were so used to their brokenness they didn't know how to live in a world made new by the God who was dancing around it. Maybe they still saw themselves as broken, or couldn't accept that God loved them anyway. Maybe they didn't understand how God was still able to work after Jesus had been killed on a cross. Maybe they would rather hide behind big words than admit they didn't really know what was going on.

But even when we don't get it, even when we can't find the beat and our dance moves are terrible, God still extends the invitation, because it's not about who's the best dancer, it's about answering God's invitation to join in the work of the kingdom. It's about joyfully living as people created in the image of God. God's sovereignty is an invitation to communion with God. In a broken world that is still distorted by sin, "the good news is that life in God's well-ordered world can be joyous and grateful response."

So even though we know only in part, "We take a fragmentary community, fragmentary faith, a fragmentary understanding of the Trinitarian God, and we go into the world with everything Jesus has taught us." One day we will know fully, even as we are fully known.

God is dancing around the whole of creation, and is inviting us to dance alongside the Perichoresis. How will you answer God's invitation to join the work of the Kingdom of God?

Here's one suggestion from a guy named Jesus: "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you. Look, I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age."

Kind of makes you want to dance, doesn't it?