Abraham, Fear and Faith (Genesis 15 and Romans 4)

Genesis 15:1-8

1After these events, the LORD’s word came to Abram in a vision, “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I am your protector. Your reward will be very great.”

2But Abram said, “LORD God, what can you possible give me, since I have no children? The head of my household is Eliezer, a man from Damascus.” 3He continued, “Since you haven’t given me any children, the head of my household will be my heir.”

4The LORD’s word came immediately to him, “This man will not be your heir. Your heir will definitely be your very own biological child.” 5Then he brought Abram outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars if you think you can count them.” The LORD continued, “This is how many children you will have.” 6Abram had faith in the LORD, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

7The LORD said to Abram, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as your possession.” 8But Abram said, “LORD God, how do I know that I will actually possess it?”

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Romans 4:13-25

13The promise to Abraham and to his descendants, that he would inherit the world, didn’t come through the law but through the righteousness that comes from faith. 14If they inherit because of the Law, the faith has no effect and the promise has been cancelled. 15The Law brings about wrath. But when there isn’t any law, there isn’t any violation of the law. 16That’s why the inheritance comes through faith, so that it will be on the basis of God’s grace. In that way, the promise is secure for all of Abraham’s descendants, not just for those who are related by Law but also for those who are related by the faith of Abraham, who is the father of all of us. 17As it is written: “I have appointed you to be the father of many nations.” So Abraham is our father in the eyes of God in whom he had faith, the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that don’t exist into existence. 18When it was beyond hope, he had faith in the hope that he would become the father of many nations, in keeping with the promise God spoke to him: “That’s how many descendants you will have.” 19Without losing faith, Abraham, who was nearly 100 years old, took into account his own body, which was as good as dead, and Sarah’s womb, which was dead. 20He didn’t hesitate with a lack of faith in God’s promise, but he grew strong in faith and gave glory to God. 21He was fully convinced that God was able to do what he promised. 22Therefore it was credited to him as righteousness.

23But the scripture that says “it was credited to him” wasn’t written only for Abraham’s sake. 24It was written also for our sake, because it is going to be credited to us too. It will be credited to those of us who have faith in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25He was handed over because of our mistakes, and he was raised to meet the requirements of righteousness for us.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Abraham is held up in the Romans passage as the height of believing. Paul paints a picture through the stories with which he grew up. It’s a portrait of of a man who’s righteousness was counted to him because he believed what God said. Genesis weaves a different tapestry. It’s not a different character than Paul’s, just a more complex version of the story. In the Genesis passage, Abram is full of questions. Knowing the story of Genesis 15 and reading Paul’s interpretation in Romans 4 leaves me with the question Abraham, what are you afraid of?

I imagine Abraham responding, I’m afraid that I’m too old for the promise. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to respond to what I know God is doing in the world. I’m afraid that this wrinkled body, this tired mind, will fail somehow, and I won’t get to see God’s promise fulfilled.

Abraham, what are you afraid of?

I’m afraid that all that God has given to me will pass to Eleizar of Damascus. I’m afraid that everything I’ve built will pass out of the hands of my family and into the hands of another. I’m afraid that I will not be able to leave something behind that will outlive me. I’m afraid that the things around me that carry my memories will be sold because they won’t mean anything to the one who possesses them. They’re not just trinkets, they’re artifacts from my story, and I cherish the moments of which they remind me.

Abraham, what are you afraid of?

I’m afraid that my wife Sarah, whom I love, has lost out on the promise. I’m afraid that her body is not up to the task and that I will have to go someplace where she cannot follow. I’m afraid that her story and mine are no longer the same. I’m afraid that she has no part to play, for her womb is dead, and though God has promised children, I do not see how it can happen. I know the promise is there, but I don’t see how it will happen, and that makes me afraid.

Abraham, what are you afraid of?

I’m afraid for my life! I’m not a young man anymore, I thought I could live out my days in the city my father built, the city that shares its name with my brother who died. I’m afraid that I live in a strange land where people do not know me, and where I do not know them.

Abraham, what are you afraid of?

I’m afraid that one day, no one will remember me, that I’ll be a footnote in someone’s family tree, and my story will be lost. I have struggled and succeeded, I have fought and lost, and I am afraid that none of it will matter because those around me won’t care anymore. When the times comes for me to sleep with my ancestors, I am afraid that the ways that God has acted in my life will die with me, and no one will give my testimony. I’m afraid that after I’m gone, people will only say nice things about me, because they do not know the true things to say.

Abraham, what are you afraid of?

I’m afraid that people look at me, at my age, and call me as good as dead. I still have more to offer, but I’m afraid that I’ll get lost in what other people tell me I am. I’m afraid that I’ve outlived my own narrative, and now I’m just waiting for the book to be closed. I’m afraid that I no longer have a say in my own reality, that all I am is what people say about me, because I don’t think I’m as good as dead. I’m afraid that even though God has promised me much, I cannot keep my end of the deal. I’m afraid that by choosing Sarah and me, God has made a mistake, and we don’t have what will be required of us to embody God’s promise for the world.

Abraham, what are you afraid of?

I’m afraid that all these things that I have floating around in my head will hold me back, and I won’t see what God is doing in the world. I know that my fears are real, and I know that God’s promise is as well. I know that God is wholly reliable, but I am afraid that I will miss God’s promise. I have faith in God, but I’m afraid that my faith has no effect and the promise has been cancelled. I am afraid that I am beyond hope. God has promised me much, but “LORD God, how do I know that I will actually possess it?”

In spite of all these questions we can image Abraham having, “He was fully convinced that God was able to do what he promised. Therefore it was credited to him as righteousness.” Like the Abram of Genesis 15, we have questions, doubts, and much fear. But Paul shows us Abraham not full of fear, but “when it is beyond hope, he had faith.” And when Abram was filled with fear, he chose instead to have faith in the LORD, and it was credited to him as righteousness. These are two impressions of the same man, chosen by God to give glory to God. God who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. So we can ask Abraham a new question. A question to which we already know the answer.

Abraham, what do you have faith in?

My faith is in the God of my father, who is the author of all creation. I have faith in the God who is beyond time, and who’s promises are upheld in every age. My faith is in the God who does not fail, even when I cannot see how it will happen, my faith is that God will make it happen. My faith is in the stories my father and mother told me as a child. Stories about God’s faithfulness, passed down in the family to whom I am connected. Stories that cannot be forgotten, because they are the stories that create reality for all of creation. My faith is in the God who calls things that don’t exist into existence. My faith is that even though the part I have played in this story may be lost, the story still remains. Because it is not only my story, but yours, and ours, and God’s.

Abram’s faith was credited to him as righteousness, and he only had a few stories to hold up. For Abraham, it was the promise of a child. But the child of promise is not just Isaac or Ishmael. The child of promise is something that Abraham could not have imagined. Abraham wandered the promised land generations before his descendants would call it their home. And Generations after those who settled there, his descendant would be born in Bethlehem, and play out a pageant that we have seen and know to be true. We have seen so much more of God’s glory than Abraham could have imagined. Like Abraham, we are sometimes caught up in our fear. But we know that the faith of Jesus Christ is credited to us even more than Abraham’s faith is credited to him.

“[Jesus] was handed over because of our mistakes, and he was raised to meet the requirements for us.” The requirements are met, the promise is made, and it has been credited to us as righteousness before we have a chance to debate it. We do not have to earn it, in fact we cannot. But neither can we lose it, “the promise is secure for all of Abraham’s descendants, not just for those who are related by Law but also for those who are related by the faith of Abraham, who is the father of all of us.” The promise is secure not because of anything we have done or left undone. The promise is secure because God says so.

And when we ask of ourselves the same question we have asked of Abraham, “Christian, what do you have faith in?” The answers can ring out with confidence, because our faith is in the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that don’t exist into existence. Our faith is that when we poor sinners make a mess of this world, God doesn’t stop at cleaning up the mess, God cleans the sinners. God has declared that God will be with us and our own sinful nature cannot stop him. Like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child, like a father who welcomes the prodigal home, the requirements of righteousness have already been met.

Even when our faith falters and we revert to our fears, God still keeps God’s promises. Even when we cannot let our statement of faith rise up from within us, even when we cannot whisper our own faith, the faith of Abraham is counted as ours. Even more, the faith of Jesus our Lord is counted to us. We don’t have to be good enough, we don’t have to have enough faith. God is good enough, and faithful enough, to carry out the redemptive promise.

So don’t be afraid, says the LORD, I am your protector. How freeing is that? How freeing is the promise that we are a redeemed people, and there’s nothing that is not already taken care of? “The promise to Abraham and to his descendants, that he would inherit the world, didn’t come through the Law, but through the righteousness that comes from faith.” The faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, who “was handed over because of our mistakes, and he was raised to meet the requirements of righteousness for us.”

So to answer Abram’s final question, “LORD God, how do I know that I will actually posses it?” You know it because God sweeps away all that we have to fear, and frees us to act in faith, rather than fear.

Amen.

Focus: God is faithful in spite of our fears.

Function: To encourage people to act out of faith, rather than fear.

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.

God is Home

God is Home from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Luke 19:29-40

As Jesus came to Bethphage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives, he gave two disciples a task. He said, “Go into the village over there, when you enter it, you will find tied up there a colt that no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If someone asks, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say, ‘Its master needs it.’” Those who had been sent found it exactly as he had said.

As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?”

They replied, “Its master needs it.” They brought it to Jesus, threw their clothes on the colt, and lifted Jesus onto it. As Jesus rode along, they spread their clothes on the road.

As Jesus approached the road leading down from the Mount of Olives, the whole throng of his disciples began rejoicing. They praised God with a loud voice because of all the mighty things they had seen. They said,

“Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens.”

Some of the Pharisees from the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, scold your disciples! Tell them to stop!”

He answered, “I tell you, if they were silent, the stones would shout.”

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

We are not at the gates of Jerusalem just yet. We’re on the Mount of Olives, near Bethphage and Bethany, and our Lord is looking forward to Jerusalem. We’ve been on this journey alongside the disciples for quite some time, and we’re seen great things along the way. Things that can only be acts of God, performed before our eyes. So we look down the mountain at Jerusalem, the cultural home of Israel.

We see this text’s Jerusalem through the mixture of passages we’ve pulled together to celebrate Palm Sunday, but the Hosannas and Palm Fronds we so often associate with that holiday come from other gospels, and are not present here. Lacking those favorite images, my first instinct is to deconstruct the Palm-Sunday narrative we’ve all heard a hundred times and find out what Luke has to say about all this “triumphal entry” stuff. Then I want to take this text specifically and break it down into its components. My natural inclination is to vivisect this Living Word, and see what it’s made of. But that’s exegesis, not preaching.

So we’ve got this text, an ingredient in the Palm Sunday mixture, and Jesus seems to play a very passive role here. We’ve got a little direction in the first half, and a little dialogue in the second, but the rest of the action is done by the disciples. They go to the nearby village, they untie the colt, they bring it back to Jesus, they set him on the colt, they spread their clothes along the ground while Jesus, carried downhill by gravity and supported by an animal they borrowed from the nearest town, just rides along.

But we’re headed for Jerusalem. God’s activity is less overt in this passage. But we’re looking down from the Mount of Olives, and God is taking us to Jerusalem. From here, we begin a relentless drive to the cross, gathering the momentum we will need as we walk down the hill with our eyes on the gates of Jerusalem.

We’re not at the gates of Jerusalem, as we are in other Gospels’ accounts, we’re at a crossroads. “As Jesus approached the road leading down from the Mount of Olives, the whole throng of his disciples began rejoicing. They praised God with a loud voice because of all the mighty things they had seen.” We’re approaching the road leading down the mountain, and we see our spiritual home, the whole city of Jerusalem laid out before us, and we can look back, figuratively, and see everything that God has done for us. All the mighty things that we have seen, that have shown us that God is active in our world. We look back and see our whole history, from Creation to Egypt to the Promised Land, from Monarchs to the Divided Kingdom to the Exile. From a birth in Bethlehem to a baptism in the Jordan, to parables and miracles and wonders beyond words. When we look back and see that, we can look forward to Jerusalem and know that the redemptive moment is at hand. Though we are living in an occupied land, we look back, this time literally, and see this man Jesus, Jesus who is our redeemer, Jesus who has enacted all of the mighty works we have seen. We look back and see Jesus, and we know that it is God who leads us to Jerusalem.

The disciples can’t keep it inside them, they have to celebrate what they have seen, what they see now. “Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heavens.” Listen y’all, God’s coming home! God is going down to Jerusalem to be with us, to be our home! We’ve wandered in Canaan with Abraham and Jacob, we were slaves in Egypt with the ancient Israelites, we wandered the wilderness with Moses, we carved out a place for ourselves in the land God promised us, only to be taken away from it and carried into exile in Babylon. We may count ourselves as righteous, saying we’ve followed the law and deserve the land that was promised to us, but even released from Babylon, we’ve been in exile for our whole lives. Even out from under Pharaoh’s lash, we are slaves to our own sinfulness. We have consistently distanced ourselves from our God, but now we get to go home, because God is here, this man right behind me.

I know this man behind me just looks like a man on a colt, but he’s not just a man. This is the Lord! God’s coming home, we’re going to be home again! We’re going to be with God again! And when that’s what is see laid out before us, how can we stay silent? “Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens.”

Then the Pharisees step out of the crowd.

We’ve grown accustomed to the image of Jesus parading through the streets of Jerusalem with droves of people on either side cheering him on, but in this section of Luke, the only crowd mentioned is “the whole throng of [Jesus’s] disciples.” So these Pharisees can only come from the multitude that has been following Jesus.

These aren’t just off-duty priests, as are so often depicted in the cartoon versions of this story we saw as children in Vacation Bible School. Fred Craddock connects these Pharisees with those that warned Jesus about Herod’s plot to kill Jesus. They even acknowledge his authority by calling him “Teacher.” It’s entirely possible that these Pharisees are following Jesus, maybe not as disciples, but they don’t seem to want to interfere with Jesus’s mission, they just want him to do it quietly.

And what a good place for those among us who are Presbyterian to stand. Here are the educated Elite of the Jewish community telling a bunch of rowdy Galileans to maybe try keeping it down a little bit. You can still do your proclamation, just don’t shout about it where the Romans can hear you. Don’t shout it where the high priests can hear you, whisper it politely, decently, orderly, “Teacher, scold your disciples! Tell them to stop!”

But can it be stopped? Some stories need to be told. Some stories are not content to bridge the gap between book covers. Some news must make itself heard, must leap off the pages on which it is printed and take hold of those who know it, compelling them to tell us that God is coming home. God is coming home to be with us, her children. Nevermind all the ways that we have resisted, rebelled, mutinied against God. God is not meeting us halfway, God is bridging the full distance to make his home among us. God is coming to Jerusalem, to reclaim the people as God’s own, because their master has need of them.

So we can imagine Jesus, with Pharisees pleading for reverent silence that won’t offended anybody, looking over the crowd of boisterous disciples. These disciples have got it right, and I hear Jesus’s voice swell with a little bit of pride at the followers who understand the importance of what is happening around them. “I tell you, if they were silent, the stones would shout.”

Stones, as a rule, don’t shout. It’s not in their nature, so far as I can tell. My experience of stones is, at its most poetic, that they are silent witnesses to our histories and struggles. Silent witnesses, barely participating in the world around them, being acted upon, rather than acting themselves, because they’re just rocks.

We can allegorize Jesus’s pronouncement, the stones wouldn’t actually shout, that’s contrary to their nature! Just so the disciples silence in this manner is contrary to their nature. But if you want to see something happen contrary to what we’ve seen before, Jesus is the right place to look. The lame walk, the blind see, the sick are healed, and the dead live. Mighty things are done, and both we and the disciples before us have seen them happen. If these are possible for Jesus, I take him at his word when he says that the stones will shout. Some stories need to be told, and the story that God has come to redeem all of creation is one of those stories that cannot be silenced.

So Jesus tells us, “if they were silent, the stones would shout.” Because the Gospel is irrepressible. God’s story will get told, and it’s our decision as to whether or not we choose to participate in the telling. But with or without us, the good news of God will be spread.

God is active in this passage, driving us down from the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem. The disciples are witnessing to what God has actively done before them. We cannot help but cry out with joy, driven like a flock before our Lord, witnessing to what God has done for us, what God is doing to us, and what God will do through us. This is a story that even a stone could shout, but we have the joy and privilege of proclaiming this Gospel, that God chooses to make God’s home here, with us. The Gospel that when Jesus looks down the mountain at Jerusalem, he also sees the next hill, where he will be crucified. The Gospel that doesn’t conclude in Jerusalem, but merely transitions there. The Gospel that God will be our home, through the redemptive power of both the cross and the empty tomb. With this Gospel in our hearts, how can we possibly be silent.

Focus: When we see what God has done, the nature of who we are compels us to proclaim the Gospel

Function: To remind people of the joy of being a redeemed people.

The Time is Fulfilled

Psalm 62:

5 For God alone my soul waits in silence,
 for my hope is from him. 
6 He alone is my rock and my salvation,
 my fortress; I shall not be shaken. 
7 On God rests my deliverance and my honor;
 my mighty rock, my refuge is in God.


8 Trust in him at all times, O people;
 pour out your heart before him;
 God is a refuge for us.
 Selah


9 Those of low estate are but a breath,
 those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
 they are together lighter than a breath. 
10 Put no confidence in extortion,
 and set no vain hopes on robbery;
 if riches increase, do not set your heart on them.


11 Once God has spoken;
 twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God, 
12 and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord.
For you repay to all
 according to their work.

Mark 1

14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. 17And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ 18And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

This is the word of the Lord

Thanks Be to God

I’ve heard this passage, and the corresponding texts in the other gospels, preached a number of times. Each time the focus has been on the calling of the disciples. Either they had enough faith to drop what they were doing, and we should be like them, or that there must have been something special about our God to just make them abandon their obligations to join this man Jesus on his journey. We’re even left with a somewhat comical image of Zebedee looking around for his sons after they’ve seemingly disappeared. But the focus for me is on verses fourteen and fifteen, which set the pattern for the rest of Mark’s gospel.

There’s no Christmas story in Mark, our birth narratives come from Matthew and Luke. Mark’s gospel is filled with “immediately,” and everything happens quickly after the preceding event. Mark only has time for the most important stuff, and chooses to start with this man John, who is out baptizing, using the same words as our call to worship this morning: “Prepare a way.” And here we are, with ten verses in between, and this seemingly central character we’ve been introduced to has been arrested.

There’s no fanfare here, no story about how Herod had him arrested so he could later be executed, no account of why, he just disappears. Because this isn’t the Good News of John the Baptist, it’s the good news of Jesus Christ. John is not the story, he prophesied about the story that was coming. And Jesus is in Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.

The Common English Bible, which is quickly becoming my preferred translation, has three exclamation points in verse 15 of our Mark passage. It reads “Now is the time! Here come’s God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” These words are not just a call to action, they’re not something to sleepily read in a morning devotion, Haven’t you heard? Jesus is on the move!

We live in a world where our churches are in decline, and some are even dying. But we also live in a world that is waiting to hear God’s voice. In everything we do, if we are not acting out God’s voice, we’re just performing a party trick. Our accomplishments may impress us, and it is indeed easy to put our trust in visible touchable things. But the psalmist tells us that they’re just empty air. For God alone is our rock and our salvation, and we shall not be shaken. Like the old hymn says, You can have the whole world, just give me Jesus. You can keep your securities, your mutual funds, your fishing nets that I’ll just have to end up mending, all I want is a God who is my refuge, a God who is worth waiting for. Just give me Jesus. The psalmist says “Those of low estate are but a breath, those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath.” Our world has so little that we can really know. But I know Jesus is the truth, and Jesus is on the move.

We’re in a world that sometimes is spinning out of control and other times is mired in a mess that we can’t break ourselves out of. But the thing we can hang all of our faith on is God, who is our rock, our salvation, our fortress. In a world that we don’t understand, Just give me Jesus, because I know that God is a refuge for us, but it’s not a refuge where we can just sit around, waiting to be picked up by our heavenly mother to take us home. All that time spent waiting, and we know it’s worth for, and now the time is fulfilled, Because Jesus is on the move.

Jesus is moving from the wilderness to Promised Land, crossing the river Jordan into Galilee, and then Jesus will move to Jerusalem, the seat of the promised land. But the promised land is a shadow of the promise that is embodied by God-With-Us. The time is fulfilled in Jesus, the Christ, the source of all our hope. And Jesus is on the move.

He’s moving in new church developments, and in century old churches bringing new life into communities that all reason says we should just abandon. He’s moving in our communities, bringing us together over a meal, or helping us to clean fallen limbs out of our yard after a storm. He’s moving through peacemakers and warriors, even though they do not understand one another, Jesus is moving in both of them, acting in love so that neither peace nor war will need to be made. Jesus is moving through a world that is waiting for the time when it will be redeemed from it’s fallen state. Jesus is on the move, proclaiming the good news of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand.” It’s not some far off dream, it’s not a day to await, it’s already here, happening all around us. So come, Jesus says, “Follow me.” Leave behind what you know, what you have resigned yourself to, because I’m on the move, and even though you have no idea what it will look like, in following me you will be transformed. You can stay stagnant, but Jesus is on the move.

Not too long ago, I was met outside the chapel door by a Korean artist and worship leader. Right before we entered he addressed all of us who would be worshipping that day saying that we were required to participate in worship, and that none of us would be permitted to spectate. For me, it was a wake-up call. How many times had I attended worship and merely watched Jesus move past me. You have the option to stay stagnant and spectating, but Jesus is on the move.

So here we are, the church, in the world but not of the world. We are the body of Christ, we are the face and hands and feet of Jesus. And we have long thought that we could expect our church to grow without really working at it. We could just wait for the time when our pews would be filled like they once were, when we couldn’t get that new building fast enough. When we would prepare ourselves to be disciples with pulpit lectures and passed plates. Then when the day of the Lord came we would be swept up like the faithful church mice we were. Our task was to prepare the way of the Lord, and to make his paths straight. John’s message is one of preparation. But it’s too late to prepare, because the one for whom we were preparing has arrived. The Time is fulfilled because Jesus is on the scene, and Jesus is on the move. With Jesus on the move, we cannot expect to keep up just by being passive. The time is fulfilled, Jesus is on the move, and wants us to go with him.

We are the body of Christ, and we are part of a movement. We are not individuals taking a stand, we are not waiting for the Day of the Lord foretold by the prophets. At least I hope not. Because this is not the good news of John the Baptist, it’s the Good News of Jesus Christ. Because if the church is just waiting for the world to change, it’s going to pass us by. The Psalmist speaks to this, “For God alone my soul waits in silence.” We’re not supposed to wait for the world to accommodate us, we’re supposed to wait for God. With Jesus on the scene proclaiming that the kingdom is at hand, we no longer have to wait for God. John pointed to what was coming, but now The time is fulfilled. God-with-us is on the move.

Columbia Seminary has a January term where one takes a single course and does nothing but that for the month of January. So the professor’s have to pack a semester’s worth of information into about three weeks. The course I’ve been taking is Transformational Church and Urban Ministry in Atlanta. And we’ve been looking at various different models for what a church can look like and still be a church. Because the world is changing around us and traditional models don’t speak to everyone.

In studying the various contemporary church models, I have come to the conclusion that there is only one “right way” to do church, and that is as faithfully as possible. Whatever model we use now and in the future, so long as we act in faith, our offering is pleasing to God. We can’t stand still just because we’re afraid of what might happen, as Nicholas Wolterstorff wrote in his book Lament for a Son, “Faith is a footbridge that you don’t know will hold you up over the chasm until you’re forced to walk out onto it.” But we have to walk out over the chasm, because that’s where Jesus is, and Jesus is on the move. So we must step out of our fishing boats and follow wherever our God calls us, because power and steadfast love belong to our Lord. Even when it is scary, and it will be. But when we step onto that bridge of faith, we are one step closer to a God who is too loving and powerful to just stand still, but is always active in our lives, even when we aren’t active ourselves.

Jesus is on the move, and the gospel message isn’t passive, it’s an urgent message to the people of God that we are no longer enslaved to sin and death. We have been purchased by God, and although on our own we are only a breath, God says we are valuable enough that God moves through us even in our brokenness, for no other reason than God loves us. I’m not sure what it will look like to fish for people, but I want to be on the move with the God who loves us all that much.

Christmas Present Ideas

This is just for family and anyone else who might ask me what I want for Christmas. I'll keep a running list as I think of new things, so check back in from time to time.

Gift Cards:

Amazon.com gift cards

Ace Hardware gift cards

iTunes gift cards

Books:

Theology of the Old Testament - Walter Brueggemann

Jeremiah, Pain and Promise - Kathleen O'Connor

Feasting on the Word Commentary for year B or C

Interpretation Commentary Series, I already have Matthew.

Williams Hebrew Syntax - Williams R.

Seeing the Text - Schertz, M.

The Identity of Jesus - Frei

Why Narrative - Hauerwas

The Nature of Doctrine - Lindbeck

Stuff:

Airport Express

Liturgical Stoles

Cordless Power Drill

Small Cast Iron Skillet (I already have a big one).

Center Channel Speaker

Why Bother

Joshua 24:1-25

I grew up with this text, or rather, a portion of it. Both my parents and my Grandparents have a plaque prominently displayed in their respective houses that read “The Taber House, Choose this day whom you will serve...But as for me and my house, we shall serve the LORD.” My presence with you today is a testament to how my family has adopted this almost defiant challenge as a motto. So when I read those lines in this text, I immediately connected it to my rich family history, and all the things that have happened with my ancestors to bring me to the point in my life when I am actively pursuing God as a vocation.

This text starts with the same reminder for the people of Israel, and Joshua makes sure everybody is there to hear it. One could imagine the scene, everybody gathers together, closes up their shops, ties up their animals, puts down whatever they’re doing, and goes to listen to Joshua deliver the word of God. Then Joshua calls up all the community leaders, for us it would be the teachers, the lawyers, the doctors, and they get to sit in the hot seat, or as our passage puts it, “They presented themselves before God.”

In my Theology class, we all sit in a circle to discuss the readings for that week, and everybody races to get to class early, so that we don’t have to sit next to the professor, and when somebody does have to sit next to Dr. Stroup, we all glance knowingly back and forth as if we know that they’re going to get the brunt of his questions. We avoid it because we’re worried we won’t measure up to his judgement. He’s an imposing presence, but being at his side is nothing near presenting yourself before God. The elders of Israel are about hear the word of the LORD, and they get to sit right under God’s nose while it is spoken.

This word could have been a new code of laws to replace the ones they received in the desert. But it wasn’t. It could have been a declaration of who would replace Joshua, who dies after these events, just as Joshua replaced Moses. But it wasn’t. It could have been an announcement about where the people would go to expand their new promised land next. But it wasn’t.

Instead they got a History Lesson from author of all creation. “In olden times, your forefathers...lived beyond the Euphrates and worshiped other gods.” But God intervened, and brought Abraham out of Ur and into Canaan. Abraham was childless, but God intervened. “I gave him Isaac, and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau.” Jacob, the same man who would wrestle with God, father the beginnings of the twelve tribes of Israel, and in chapter 35 of Genesis tells his household to put away their foreign gods in the same city where all of Israel is now gathered. The same man who would lead his family to Egypt, where they survived a great famine, and eventually became slaves.

But God intervened, and brought the people out of their slavery in Egypt, into the wilderness where they became a nation, instead of a slave population. And many battles later, God reminds the people standing in the land given to their ancestor Abraham hundreds of Godly interventions before that “I have given you a land for which you did not labor and towns which you did not build, and you have settled in them; you are enjoying vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.”

God has given the people these things, they did not earn them. It is not a matter of deserving, it is a matter of God giving freely as God so chooses. Joshua tells the people, as Jacob had long ago, to put away the gods of their forefathers beyond the Euphrates, and the gods of Egypt, and to serve the LORD.

Interestingly though, this is an option, not a command. Joshua says “If you are unwilling to serve the LORD, choose whom you will serve,” the gods of your forefathers or of the people in whose land you are settled. If God has not intervened in our lives and in our history enough for you, go ahead and worship the gods of other nations, and remember that this was their land first, and that the LORD gave it to us. There’s no downside offered here, only an account of what God has done and a charge to choose to whom we will devote ourselves.

The people speak in one voice: “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD and serve other gods!...We too will serve the LORD, for he is our God.” There is no mention of what God will do in the future for the Israelites. As far as this passage is concerned, the promise has been fulfilled. God has intervened in their history and freed them from slavery, and the people are now committed to serving the LORD despite Joshua’s warnings that they will fall and be punished because they cannot live up to the gifts God has given them.

So why bother? Joshua gives them the out, they won’t be expelled if they choose not to serve the LORD. They aren’t promised eternal life for serving God, or even extra “stars in their crown.” So far as I can see, there’s no advantage in choosing to serve God, the only threat I see is when one falls off the wagon after claiming to serve God and making a new golden calf out of their new valuables. “Now therefore revere the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness” is an invitation to enter into relationship with God, an ordination of service in gratitude to God who has already done so much for the people of Israel.

I remember when I was in high school, I was sitting on the front lawn of the school waiting for my parents to come pick me up at the end of the day, and one of my classmates, a very intelligent young woman taking upper-level classes, asked me why I was a Christian. She saw me as an equal who believed in something that did not make sense to her, and wanted to know how I got there. The same question was later posed as the subject of a Bible Study when I was in college. The professor leading the discussion answered his own question with a claim that there is no advantage in being a Christian. It doesn’t make life’s hardships go away, or even less hard. There’s no magic prayer that will fix any of us. Those of us in the Calvinist tradition say that our salvation is not at stake based on anything we do or believe. Why bother then?

This passage provides the answer for me. The people speak with one voice saying “It was the LORD who brought us and our fathers and mothers up from...the house of bondage, and who wrought those wondrous signs before our very eyes.” We are Christians not because it gives us a special connection with God. We are Christians because serving our Christ how we show our gratitude for all God has already done for us.

Our slavery was to sin and death, and had been since the fall of Adam and Eve. But as Paul’s letter to the Romans tells us “The free gift of Christ isn’t like Adam’s failure. If many people died through what one person did wrong, God’s grace is multiplied even more for many people with the gift - of the one person Jesus Christ - that comes through grace.” We were slaves to sin, but now we have been brought out of the house of that bondage, and Christ is our liberator. And we remember that our salvation is not earned, our salvation is created by the same one who created all that is, and is given to us by a God of love.

That is why we choose to serve Christ. We were buried together with him through baptism into his death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too can walk in newness of life. We are freed from sin’s power because we belong to God, and in gratitude to God for all God has done for us, “We will serve none but the LORD our God, and we will obey none but him.”

The people of Israel are gathered at Shechem, and are waiting to hear the word of the LORD. We do not know what is ahead, but we know what God has already done for us, God brought our forefathers to the promised land, turned an old man into the father of a tribe, protected our tribe from a famine, brought our people out of Egypt and made us a nation. God gave the nation of Israel a home, and they chose to serve the LORD.

It is a scene of devotion. The people of Israel don’t know what is coming, but we do know what happened next. Although they are free from their Egyptian slavery, they are still under the power of sin and death. So God intervenes, and Christ breaks the power of sin and death over all of us. We’ve seen more than these Israelites could have dreamed of, and the question is still put to us, Whom will you serve? As a response in faith to all God has done for us, me and my house shall serve the Lord.

Thanks be to God?

Matthew 5:1-11

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Amos 5:21-24

I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

This is the word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Thanks be to God? Really? Were we reading the same passage? What’s all this “I hate, I despise” stuff? I thought we worshipped the God of love? Thanks be to God?I’m not sure I am grateful for this word. Give me more of that first one, where Jesus tells me I’m going to be happy later because I’m poor now...

At the seminary, we would read this passage and say that nobody is safe from this text. If you can see yourself in this text, it will convict you. For some reason though, I find myself drawn to it.

Maybe I’m tired of a culture who confuses God with Santa Claus, “Be a good boy or girl and you’ll get what you want.” Maybe I’m angry at the injustices in the world and it’s nice to see that God gets mad too. With all the lovey-peacey fluff floating around maybe I’m drawn to this passage because it’s about a God I haven’t heard as much about: a God of fire and wrath, the Lion of Judah, rather than the lamb. After all, this passage is talking about other people right? This one isn’t about me.

When I decided on this text, I thought it opened with “I hate, I loath your false worship.” That’s what I wanted it to say. I wanted to rail against the people who were just going through the motions and didn’t really mean what they were saying or doing. I even had a children’s sermon about how important it is to mean it when you say you’re sorry, or it doesn’t count.

But it doesn’t say that.

I wanted this text to look at the world and see all the same things I saw wrong with our culture. I wanted it to condemn the people who put our nation in a war with which I didn’t agree and sent other people’s brothers and sisters and daughters and sons to fight it for them. I wanted it to attack the people who’s emphasis of profit over safety dumped oil into our water. I want the prophet Amos to shake his fist at the people who created this economic crisis that threatens the jobs of an entire generation.

But it doesn’t do that.

I want to take this text and reword it so that it agrees with me, and then I get to have that Wrath of God in my hand, to throw at anyone that I think unworthy. I want this text to be a locker-room pep-talk that gets me back in the game so I can score the winning point.

But I don’t get to do that.

I get to read this text and let it lay me bare the same way it would have laid the rulers of Israel bare. I don’t like it. But this text is not one of comfort to a suffering people, it’s one of Judgement on a people who think they are immune from suffering because they do everything right. And I don’t like it. I don’t want our heavenly Father to be angry with me. I want to do something to fix it, find a way to soften that anger, or at least blame someone else so God won’t be angry with me. I don’t want to have a place in this text. But this text has a place for me whether I like it or not. Right next to everyone else who has tried to put their words in God’s mouth over the centuries. The text grabs us when we think we can bribe God into doing what we want and says: “But even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them... I will not listen to the melody of your harps.”

Let me stop there, and we can reassure ourselves that God still loves us, even when God is angry with us. That’s one thing that never changes. But we can’t just look for a happy-fun god in the Bible, because we spend a lot of time deserving God’s anger. We can’t duck out of this mess we’ve made with a few well placed sacrifices, or a few perfectly orchestrated songs. We can’t buy God off with a one time deal, or a limited time offer. We can’t have a party in God’s honor and expect God to be pleased enough to forget all the times we get it wrong. That’s not what God’s about. God created us, and God knows that we’re better than this mess we’ve made of the world. But we’re not going to earn it with offerings of material goods or with songs. We’re not going to win God over by giving back a portion of what God gives to us. God isn’t impressed by our wealth or cleverness or our own insight. The more time we spend trying to impress God, the more we hear “Take away from me the noise of your songs.” God wants to see us make a change in our world.

And So God says to Amos, “Let Justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.”

I remember when I was nine or ten, we had a huge series of thunderstorms, and a flash flood warning was issued for Morganton, where I grew up. We had these woods behind our house, and all the water from the storms flowed down to the bottom of the hill, and filled up what was a ditch in drier weather. I could hear the water dripping down onto the brim of my hat, filtering down from the tops of the pine trees to reach the bed of leaves that made up the forest floor. My father and I went exploring this brand new river, hiking deep into the woods seeing where it led, where it came from. The water was rushing in from all sides, all converging at the bottom of these two hills that formed the gully that was now a streambed. It pooled up in some places, several feet across, but only a few inches deep, and the leaves in those sections floated out to the edges, settling in a ring around the pools. In other places it was deep enough to fill up your rain boots if you made the mistake of stepping into it, and it was always moving, finding new places to fill as the rains continued to filter through the pine trees. The movement was strong enough that it pulled limbs and dead trees that were too big for a nine-year-old to move with it, collecting in narrower places to form its own dams, moving what seemed to me to be immovable, only to let it settle in a new place, changing the landscape of the woods. That memory, and the image of a storm-fed river changing everything about the landscape it touches is what comes to my mind when Amos writes “Let Justice roll down like waters.”

David LaMotte, a songwriter and peacemaker, recently gave a talk about the myth of the hero as a vehicle of change. “As a culture,” says LaMotte, “We tend to believe that what changes things is heroes, dramatic people doing dramatic things in dramatic moments.” But while heroes certainly exist, LaMotte says that big changes come out of movements, lots of regular people making small changes over time, rather than one larger than life person making one larger than life action in one larger than life moment. Those larger than life moments deserve a festival, like a fourth of July party, with fireworks commemorating a day when about 34 people signed a letter that started a nation. But this didn’t happen over night. Neither did a group of slaves taken out of Egypt become a nation just by crossing the red sea. It took 40 years of learning to live with one another in the wilderness, under a new set of laws to morph them into the people of God.. Likewise our nation didn’t just wake up one morning tired of being English, and we wouldn’t have a constitution, the document that sets us apart from other nations that came before, for another eleven years after we decided we were through with English rule.

Thousands of small changes. Thousands of tiny water droplets, filtering through the pines, creating the flood that changes the landscape. And once the rains stop, we’re still not done. because though Justice has rolled down like waters, we still have righteousness like an ever flowing stream. Always moving, always changing, like the Linville river, gradually cutting into the rocks to form a magnificent gorge, or to cut into the mountain itself to form the famous caverns. Thousands of years, thousands of water droplets, and an ever flowing stream providing life to the valley below.

Or like the Jordan river, which once dried up so the people of Israel could cross into the promised land, and eventually, thousands of drops of water later, baptized Jesus and began his earthly ministry. A ministry that proclaimed that this world would be turned upside down, and the poor would have a kingdom, and that mourners will be comforted, and that those whom the world has walked over would receive the world. An ever flowing stream, filled with living water, that would fill those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. It’s not a pool that we can go to when it’s convenient for us. A River that cuts through the landscape, changing everything around it, and the central point of life around it. It’s a continuous movement, not a singular moment. When we see the ever flowing stream, we know that God’s path is through the waters. It is not our place to skip across the stream like thrown stones, barely getting wet. If we want to bring change to this world, because we know we can be better than it is right now, we have to swim deeply.

If we buy into the myth that change comes from dramatic people doing dramatic things at dramatic moments, all we have to do is wait for the moment, and then be ready to act. Wait for the Day of the Lord, and then proclaim the good news. Wait for God to prove Godself, then decide to act. Wait for the two roads to diverge in the yellow wood, and then take the road less travelled. Wait for the Day of the Lord, and then take part in the establishment of the kingdom. But we’re not waiting for the day of the Lord anymore. The dramatic action has happened. Christ has been crucified, and Christ is risen. The day of the Lord has come. Now we live in the age of the Spirit, and it’s not dramatic Damascus road moments that change the world for the better. It’s not festivals or offerings or benefit concerts. It’s the mission of Paul, traveling throughout Europe telling the gospel even when nobody will listen. It’s the growing awareness that the poor aren’t different from us, so we help them not because it’s a tax deduction, but because it’s what needs to be done. It’s a movement, a movement of the Spirit within us and through us that makes us uncomfortable with what Amos has to say to us, and forces us to make the small changes, the thousands of water droplets, filtering through the pines, that effect real change in the world. Very few of us are tasked with making the decisive moments that move history forward. And even those who are called to those dramatic acts are charged with making all the small changes that lead up to the larger than life moment. But we’re not here to wait for the day of the Lord. We’re here to filter through the pines, and change the landscape around us, piece by piece. We’re called to work on behalf of the Kingdom of God in the age of the Spirit. Let’s get to work.

In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit, Amen.