The 5th Sunday of Lent - Conflict and Transformation

First comes the downside of change:  “How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb?  Three:  One to call the electrician; one to pour the drinks; and one who says, 'Change [horrified tone], change . . . no . . . don't you know that my great-grandfather gave the church that light bulb?'”

Is there an upside?  Br. Mark Brown, a member of the Society of St. John the Evangelist (an Episcopalian monastic order) posted this observation about change in a daily e-mail sent by SSJE called, “Brother, give us a word.”  He entitled his posting “Tradition.”  This is what he wrote:  “The Church, the Body of Christ, is essentially progressive.  Rooted in the past, grounded in the Eternal, but always renewing, always renovating.”  How positive does that sound to you?

I've spent all of last week—32 hours of sitting, listening, and role playing—attempting to understand and to learn how to deal with conflict using mediation skills—skills rooted in family systems theory.  This class, offered by the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center, took place at Grace Church on Concord Pike.

Both resisting change or renewal and promoting change or renewal often lead to conflict in the church—think Protestant Reformation.  However, according to the curriculum for my week of study, conflict should be approached as positive for the church.  Why? Because conflict, properly handled, can become of a time of transformation—and because conflict has always been a part of the life of the church—think of the conflict between Peter and Paul about the full inclusion of Gentile Christians without their having to obey the laws contained in Torah (the first five books of our Old Testament).

So if conflict is a normal and expected part of the life of the church, how can it become something positive when it feels so uncomfortable?  Because, the Mennonite Peace Center claims, properly handled conflict can result in positive transformation.

Positive transformation can be seen clearly in two of our readings today.  In the reading from Jeremiah God declares divine action will transform humanity's relationship with God.  No longer will God's covenant with them be external, written on stone tablets, but “I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts . . . for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. . .”  Torah, the law or instruction about how to live, had been difficult to understand and keep.  Now God, through Jeremiah's prophecy, announced a transformed relationship with God's people.

Knowing God—the path to a close relationship with God's self—would be placed within every one of God's people. And the result of that new covenant was forgiveness of sins—what we call “grace”—God was no longer condemning human beings for our sins.  God had acted to transform our resistance to accepting God's will—to transform our conflict with God's way—into a new relationship.  Indeed, that's what the Mennonite Peace Center maintains can happen when we face conflict honestly and we open our hearts to God's transforming love and power.  Our instructor called this “being hard on issues and soft on people.”

“Soft on people” means being able to make statements of regret to someone with whom you have been in conflict and to accept statements of regret from them.  Then after this exchange both people should be able move on without continuing to hold a grudge about the conflict.  God's assurance of “softness” toward humanity, given through Jeremiah's prophecy said, “for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.”  Can we open our hearts to this assurance?  Can we listen carefully and offer the same assurance when someone expresses regret to us?

Positive transformation can also be found in the reading from John's gospel.  Jesus uses a mini parable to explain the transformation that will happen through his death and resurrection.  He said: “Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  But the image of a single, dormant grain becoming an abundance of wheat surely applies to our lives.  Jesus calls it “hating” one's life in this world. 

“Hating” is such a strong term—but like the grain we have to give up our lives as they are and allow ourselves to be transformed in the fertile ground of God's love and forgiveness.  But doesn't this happen when we are baptized, and we are never the same again?  True enough, but we continue to have free will and we continue to make choices that can push us away from God.  Reacting to a conflict with another person by allowing our pain to fester will indeed push us away from God.

Through expressing ourselves with a humble and generous spirit, we can “be soft” both on ourselves and on anyone with whom we have a conflict.  This attitude will allow God to transform us and transform the situation in positive ways. Even in role-plays this week we witnessed God's spirit moving as the person in the role of the mediator coached and encouraged the two people in the role of disputants to find common ground and move past the conflict they had.

As the church—as the Body of Christ—we have a vocation to seek renewal through our openness to the transforming power of God.  Whether we experience God through a heart on which God has written or as the fertile soil that will give us new life, we can find ourselves renewed.  So we need not fear change.  We need not fear ending conflict by making peace with someone else in the Body of Christ. For as Br. Mark explained, “The Church, the Body of Christ, is essentially progressive.  Rooted in the past, grounded in the Eternal, but always renewing, always renovating.”  So as members of the Body of Christ, let us be renewed!

The 4th Sunday of Lent - Accepting Unconditional Love?

To discern the will of God—to know the mind of God:  these phrases express what all who wrote holy scripture, all who read that scripture, all who pray to God, all who worship God seek.  Luke Timothy Johnson, the theologian and scholar, on one of the videos from our Lenten series used a phrase to describe those who wrote what has become accepted as holy scripture this way: “intoxicated with God.”

Most, if not all of us, have either been intoxicated at least once or been with someone who was intoxicated.  This is not such a positive image—in fact, I would call it a negative image.  But I think Professor Johnson is asking us to view “intoxication” in a different way—as being completely overtaken by, completely filled with an awareness of God's presence in one's life and the life of the world.

So each recounting of the history of God's chosen people, each prophecy, each story from the life of Jesus, each letter to the early church with admonitions and theological teaching flows from a state of intoxication with God.  This does not mean that scripture is untrustworthy; rather, it means scripture comes from the hearts and minds of people whose lives have been caught up fully in the divine life of God.

In this divinely “intoxicated” writing, we find many themes.  Two primary ones are: God who judges those who stray from the path of righteousness and God who saves by God's grace and mercy—unmerited grace and mercy—grace and mercy we have done nothing AND can do nothing to earn.  When we allow ourselves to be open to the experience God's grace and mercy, we find ourselves called to respond by suspending our tendency to judge and by sharing God's compassion.  In doing these things we allow God's grace to be manifest in our lives.

I want to share a story with you. It comes from a sermon published online on a website called Day One.  The preacher is a Lutheran pastor and seminary professor, Dr. David Lose. He wrote:  “Tom, a member of our congregation, told me a story. Several nights earlier, Tom's six year-old son, Benjamin, protested his bedtime. Frustrated by his father's refusal to budge, Benjamin finally became so frustrated that he said, "Daddy, I hate you!" Tom, possessing the presence of mind I wish I more frequently had--especially when dealing with my children--replied, "I'm sorry you feel that way, Ben, but I love you." And then what do you think Benjamin said? "Oh, it's okay." Or maybe, "Sorry, Dad. I love you, too." Nope. When Tom told his son that he loved him, Benjamin yelled back, "Don't say that!" Surprised, Tom continued, "But, Ben, but it's true--I love you." "Don't say that, Daddy." "But I love you, Ben." "Stop saying that, Daddy! Stop saying it right now!" And then it came, Tom reported, almost completely unbidden: "Benjamin, now listen to me: I love you...like it or not!"

Dr. Lose continued: “Even at six years old, you see, Benjamin realized that in the face of unconditional love he was powerless. If Tom had been willing to negotiate--"I'll love you if you go to bed nicely"—then Benjamin would have been a player: "Okay, this time, but I'm not eating my vegetables at dinner tomorrow." But once Tom refused to negotiate, refused to make his love for his son conditional on something Benjamin did, then Ben could do nothing but accept or flee that love.”

Yes, that is our choice, too: once we have glimpsed God's love, we can accept God's love or we can flee away.  Those God-intoxicated folks who wrote down their experiences of God, which we read in holy scripture, may have felt like fleeing at times, too.  But in the end they chose to accept God's love and grace.  The psalmist [Psalm 139: 7-12] expressed this well:

“Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,

even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

In the scripture passages we read during Lent, we usually find a theme of God's judgment in them.  Lent should be a time for us to reflect on where we have fallen short of living as people fully responding to God's grace.  But dwelling only on our sinfulness—or the sinfulness of others—cuts off the full picture.  The full picture of God's loving grace appears again and again in holy scripture.  It may be enacted—as when Jesus and his disciples fed the multitude of hungry people with five loaves and two fish.  Or it may be explained—as in the Gospel of John [3:21] with these words: “But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

To discern the will of God—to know the mind of God: let us use this holy season of Lent to read holy scripture, to pray to God, and to listen for God both alone and in our faith community of St. Nicholas'.  May we use this time not only to recognize our sinfulness and ask for forgiveness; but may we use this time to allow ourselves to accept God's grace.  Then through our deeds—within our families, within the life of our faith community, and within the life of the world, may God's grace bring healing and peace.

The 3rd Sunday of Lent - Faith and Commandments

A Lutheran pastor and a Jewish rabbi had been eating lunch at a cafe.  Now they were saying good-bye to each other.  “Keep the faith,” the pastor said as the two friends parted.  The rabbi responded, “Keep the commandments.”  This little story reflects what some see as the two principal aspects of religion: what we believe in and how we will live.

At any particular moment we may emphasize one over the other.  Martin Luther saw the writings of St. Paul, particularly in his letter to the Romans, as saying that salvation comes to us from God by grace through our faith.  On the other hand, in his epistle, James emphasizes the importance of how we choose to live.  In the second chapter James wrote: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith, but do not have works?”  He continues by describing how we should help those in need and by declaring that faith without works is “dead.”  He challenges those who would disagree, “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.”  So could keeping the commandments and keeping the faith really refer to the same thing?

So let's look at how God's commandments can be understood in the context of our faith and how our faith can be understood in the context of God's commandments.  One scholar commenting on the passage we heard from Exodus call it “a gift, an opportunity to grow deeper in relationship with God in Christ.”  He goes on to say that these commandments—God's words—help us reflect on how we “fall short of Christ-likeness” and also give us “a roadmap of faith”—could we say a GPS of faith?  Our faith in God as our GPS—what an interesting image!  What destination should we type in?  Heaven?  God?  Will our faith guide us to God by telling us how to get there—by describing what we must do to get to God?  But the brains of the GPS—the processing unit, if you will—would be God's words—the Ten Words—the Ten Commandments.  So when we come to an intersection, a choice point, the commandments will guide us into making a faithful choice, leading us closer and closer to God.

Here is another perspective of how faith and the law are intertwined. In Psalm 19's hymn to the law, we see the law as foundational for faith in God.  The English translation of verses 7 through 9 by the International Consultation on English in the Liturgy makes this obvious:

God's perfect law revives the soul.

God's stable rule guides the simple.

God's just demands delight the heart.

God's clear commands sharpen vision.

God's fautless decrees stand forever.

God's right judgments keep their truth.

We can understand God better and our faith will be supported by hearing how God wants us to live. The theologian Walter Brueggemann wrote:  “These commands might be taken not as a series of rules, but as a proclamation in God's own mouth of who God is and how God shall be 'practiced' by this community of liberated slaves.”

So the “practicing of God” as a way of faith:  In the Gospel reading this morning we heard that when Jesus' disciples saw him drive the animal sellers out of the temple and overturn the table of the money changers, they “remembered that it was written, 'Zeal for your house will consume me.'”  Jesus' consuming zeal that God's house should be holy place, not a market place, appeared to be placing faith in God—not the purity practices of no blemished animals and no Roman money—at the center of the most holy spot for Judaism.

Jesus' zealousness for keeping practices in the Temple faithful to God was carried one step further by his teaching about believing in God's power.  He prophesied: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” God’s power to redeem what humanity seeks to destroy becomes the sign that Jesus is God's Messiah and our Savior.  The disciples' faith then (and our faith now) has become strengthened through Jesus' zealous words and actions.  For Jesus knew the law: “ . . .you shall have no other gods before me . . . You shall not make for yourself an idol . . .”   No correct coins, no unblemished animals, no pile of stones is more important than a relationship with the living God.

The gift of the law God gave to the recently freed Hebrew slaves at Mt. Sinai to strengthen their faith and bring them closer to God's self became the gift Jesus gave to his disciples, to the people coming to worship in the temple that day, and finally to us.  Jesus' gift was to show us God's commandments, faithfully practiced, should free us from fear.   Because our efforts to keep God's commandments, successful or not, should lead us closer to knowing God, thereby strengthening our faith.

The monk Thomas Merton expressed this thought in a prayer with great eloquence.  You may have heard his prayer before, but let me share it now:

O Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going,
I do not see the road ahead of me,
I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,
And the fact that I think
I am following Your will
Does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe
That the desire to please You
Does in fact please You.
And I hope I have that desire
In all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything
Apart from that desire to please You.
And I know that if I do this
You will lead me by the right road,
Though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore I will trust You always
Though I may seem to be lost
And in the shadow of death.
I will not fear,
For You are ever with me,
And You will never leave me
To make my journey alone.

So let’s go back to that cafe I spoke about in the beginning.  Were we present that day in the cafe and sitting close enough to hear the Lutheran pastor and the Jewish rabbi bid each other farewell, we might quietly say to God, “I offer you myself as I seek to keep the faith, and seek to keep the commandments.”

Except for the Merton prayer, quotes in this sermon were taken from commentary for the Third Sunday in Lent, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol 2., edited by D. L. Bartlett & B. B. Taylor, p 74-97.

The 2nd Sunday of Lent - What kind of martyrdom?

This past month I have preached one funeral sermon and listened to homilies, eulogies, and one poem at three funerals.  Although none of the folks who died were martyrs in the sense of being killed because of their witness to the gospel, all three spent their lives in ways that reflected their belief in the good news of God in Jesus Christ.  They made choices about how to live their lives—about what their path would be, as we all do.

In our gospel reading today, we glimpse a picture of conflicting paths.  Peter rebukes Jesus for suggesting a path of suffering and death and resurrection for the Son of man, a Messianic title from a vision described in the 7^th chapter of the Old Testament book of Daniel. Peter has confessed earlier that he believed Jesus was the Messiah of God, but he—and other disciples as well—appeared to expect the Messiah to be a triumphant, victorious Savior.  Had he been following Jesus expecting a place in the triumphant reign of God?  Did he not understand resurrection as a triumphant over evil?

Jesus' rebuke of Peter and his words to the “crowd with the disciples” seems harsh, but also prophetic. Let's look more closely at the points Jesus made.

His first point: Peter was “not setting his mind on divine things, but on human things.”  Jesus is setting up a either/or situation: Accept the way I'm describing how God will work or you will be part of the problem, holding naturally human expectations of self-interest and power.

His second point:  My followers will be persecuted, be tortured and die for their faith. Jesus pulls no punches in telling how bad it will get for those who follow him.  If his followers seek to avoid death, life forever in God's presence will be lost to them.  No matter how large and wonderful the prize one might gain, if one avoids being killed for the gospel, it will not be worth it.  Accept that what I will have to endure, Jesus says, for you will have to endure it as well.

His final point:  If you choose the ways of human beings, you will be part of the sinful, adulterous people who live full of self-interest and lust for evil.  And there will be no hope of salvation when the Messiah returns in the great glory of God and the angelic hosts.  I, Jesus, will view you as losers.

All this sounds judgmental and punitive—can accepting the good news of God ever be based on making a choice based on fear?  And can one's choice be less than risking death for the sake of the good news?

Let's remember at this point Jesus was speaking to the crowd: What do possibly have to offer in return for your life?  If you try to save your life from taking a difficult path for the sake of the gospel, you will lose it.

If Jesus had passed a sign-up sheet for becoming his disciples at that moment, how many folks in the multitude do you think would have signed up?  Remember on the night Jesus was arrested and his disciples faced the frightening possible of arrest and crucifixion as conspirators in rebellion against Roman authority, they just disappeared and hid in a locked room.

Yet if we look at the arc of Jesus' teaching and ministry, we find a great deal of compassion for those who are suffering.  He defended the woman taken in adultery.  He touched and healed lepers and a man born blind. He blessed children. He sparred verbally with a foreign woman, was bested by her in their argument and then he agreed to heal her daughter. He taught us to love our enemies. He even forgave the disciples who had deserted him and renewed their calling to be his disciples.  And in response the disciples did take up their crosses and follow him, even to their deaths.

To become martyrs for the gospel was not an attractive idea when Jesus called on his disciples to choose this path.  Most, if not all, of us, view taking up our cross as a metaphor for dealing with some extremely difficult situation or person.  We never expect to be asked to put our lives on the line for the sake of the gospel. Rather we take up our metaphorical crosses in an effort to offer Jesus' compassion to others through what we do or say.

So our witness to the good news of Jesus [for martyr is from a Greek word for to witness] may not be to choose a path that might well lead to our death, but to choose a path that involves giving up something society values in order to choose what God values.

In his book How the Irish Saved Civilization Thomas Cahill tells how martyrdom came to be redefined when being killed for publicly expressing one’s faith.  So-called “red martyrdom” was not an issue in Ireland until the Reformation.  Therefore, ascetic practices—often by monks or nuns—such as fasting, living alone as a holy hermit, penitent physical labor, and other types of self-denial, served as public expressions of one's faith in Christ and came to be called “green martyrdom.”   Green martyrdom was understood to fulfill Jesus' command to deny yourself, to take up your cross and to follow him, when becoming a “red martyr” was not likely.  If red martyrdom drew you closer to God, green martyrdom should as well.

Thus, when we “give up” something for Lent, could we consider ourselves as practicing green martyrdom? How does that work for you?  Does whatever you have chosen for your Lenten discipline appear to bring you closer to God?  What seems to get in your way?  Whatever gets in your way, speak forcefully to it saying, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”  Then you can allow your life to be lost in God's love!

The 1st Sunday of Lent - Wilderness Times

A backdrop is a painted cloth hung behind the area on a stage where the action in the play occurs. It provides a setting or a context to help us understand what is being acted out in front of us. Sometimes a play can be produced without backdrop and with a minimal stage set.  Then the audience must use imagination to supply context.

However, biblical passages usually have a backdrop of other passages to help us understand them.  We use study Bibles to aid us in seeing what the context of the passage might be.  Sermons should also address such context.  Last week I said that one context for the story of Jesus' transfiguration on the mountain with Moses and Elijah was the story of his baptism we heard this morning. Could the voice speaking from the cloud at the Transfiguration saying to listen to Jesus have been the same voice calling Jesus in today's gospel, “my Son, the Beloved?”  The writer of the Gospel of Mark appears to believe it was.

Today's gospel serves as a backdrop not only for the story of the Transfiguration but also for the whole of Jesus' ministry.  What Jesus saw and heard as he came out of the baptismal water set him on a path that would lead from the waters of the Jordan river back to a ministry in Galilee and finally to Jerusalem where he would be executed by the Romans.  The Roman authorities feared a Jewish uprising and executed anyone who appeared to threaten political stability.

Even though it is Sunday—and we know every Sunday is a feast day of our Lord's resurrection—we can't ignore the backdrop of this penitential season of Lent.  To turn the title of a book by evangelical preacher, Tony Campolo, on its head:  “It's Sunday, but Friday's coming.”  We prepare during Lent for Easter, yes; but we prepare against the backdrop of Jesus' crucifixion.  He willing went to the cross out of love for us so that evil, sin and death could do their worst—and then be defeated.

Yes, it's Sunday, but Friday's coming.  To prepare Jesus for what lay ahead, the Spirit of God drove Jesus into the wilderness.  What happened in the wilderness also serves as a backdrop for the rest of his ministry.  Although Mark does less with this episode than either Matthew or Luke, I believe Jesus’ time in the wilderness was essential to understanding his life.  I also believe it can become an important backdrop for understanding our own wilderness times.

I strongly dislike the concept that God tests us with troubles.  But our lives do provide us with times of feeling empty, times of feeling lost, times of feeling alone and without what we need, times of feeling overwhelmed by troubles or danger. How we navigate those times becomes critical for our wellbeing—for our feeling of being whole or complete.  In them we can learn to accept God's love for us and God's care for us, often given to us through other people—just as Jesus accepted the angels caring for him.  Navigating our wilderness times well, recognizing what we can learn from these times and how we can gain strength from these times, may be a gift to others as well.

Verlyn Klinkenborg, an editorial writer for the New York Times, wrote a short op-ed piece published last Sunday entitled, “In a Lenten Season.”  He asserted that observing a “Lenten” discipline as a time in the wilderness can be life giving, even to those who chose a secular life style.  Here is what he said:

“But what if this were really a season for renunciation, even for non-believers? In the ancestral stories of nearly every culture, wisdom comes from the bare places, from deserts and dry mountains. The season of Lent itself is based on a “wilderness” — the one in which Jesus fasted for 40 days after his baptism.

It’s common to read this story and others like it as though the wilderness were little more than a blank [italics mine] backdrop. I read it a different way. Wisdom comes from the bare places because they force humility upon us. In these Lenten places, where life thrives on almost nothing, we can see clearly how large a shadow modern life and consumption cast upon the earth. In secular terms, Lent seems the opposite of Christmas — “What are you giving up?” versus “What are you getting?” Perhaps it might be a season in which to learn the value of abstention and to consider how to let the bare places flourish, or even simply to exist.”

Yes, it's Sunday, but Friday's coming.  Yet let us not fear the bare places in our lives.  Jesus flourished in the wilderness.  Despite Satan's temptations and the terror of the wild beasts, he became strengthened to face what lay ahead for him, crucifixion on the Friday we call “good.”  We can flourish in our wilderness times as well.  We can learn the humility of saying “no” when we are tempted to act as if fulfilling a certain, specific desire defines our wellbeing. We can learn the humility of saying “no” when we are tempted to believe only we know what is best for ourselves or for others.  In fact, our humble flourishing in wilderness times can be so strong a witness to our faith that, through it, others may discover Christ.

The Last Sunday after Epiphany - Seeking God's Face

The psalmist (Ps. 27:11) wrote: “You speak in my heart and say, 'Seek my face.' Your face, Lord, will I seek.” 

Sunday after Sunday, week after week, year after year—for all our lives long we have a reminder on Sundays of our Lord's resurrection.  Sometimes we are in church worshipping, sometimes we are sleeping, sometimes we are watching or playing a sport, sometimes we are working, sometimes . . . we can add to this list, making it quite long.  But whatever we are doing on a Sunday, we will always know it is the day of  Christ’s resurrection.

This week we will enter the season of Lent—for 40 days, starting this coming Wednesday.  Our prayerbook urges us to observe a holy Lent “by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word.”  It's a penitential season Monday through Saturday each week, but not on Sunday—always a feast day—except, of course, in Lent we mustn't sing or say “Alleluia!”

So whether we are feasting or fasting, we are reminded by the psalmist to listen and look for God: “You speak in my heart and say, 'Seek my face.' Your face, Lord, will I seek.”

What does it mean to seek God's face?  When Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman at the well in the 4^th chapter of John, he describes God as “spirit.” The Common English Bible translates what Jesus said this way: “God is spirit, and it is necessary to worship God in spirit and truth.” 

So although we often talk about God's relationship with us being a “personal” one, we shouldn't mistake the metaphor of seeking God's face as looking into the face of a person with whom we have a deep and loving relationship.  Rather seeking God's face means searching for the spirit of God, seeking the truth of God's divine and transcendent nature.

For Elijah that meant being forthright to God about his precarious situation and his fear of being murdered.  He had been “zealous” in declaring God's Word against idolatry to the powerful elite.  Now he was on the run, hiding in a cave.  In seeking God, Elijah encountered God's presence in “a sound of sheer silence.”  Entering into that divine and transcendent silence with his face covered, Elijah encountered the Word of God, which pointed him forward to his next tasks as God's prophet.  For Elijah, then the face of God was “sheer silence.”

For Peter, James, and John, the face of God was the dazzling glory we call “transfiguration.”  Jesus walked up the mountain with them as a person—although Peter had previously claimed he understood that Jesus was the Messiah of God.  But on that mountaintop, the three disciples encountered something very different from anything they had ever seen or known before.  God's spirit infused their vision of the two great men of their faith, Moses, the law-giver, and Elijah, the greatest of all the prophets of ancient Israel.  And with Moses and Elijah was the man who just walked up the mountain with them—all transfigured—changed by the radiance of God's glory.  The face of God was the glory that surrounded and transfigured Moses, Elijah and Jesus.

Then came the cloud overshadowing them and the voice from the cloud—just as God had manifested God's self at Jesus' baptism.  Except this time, the command was to listen to God's Son, the Beloved.  The face of God's glory becomes the Word of God:  Listen—to Jesus!

To seek the face of God means to seek a relationship with the divine.  To seek a relationship with the divine involves listening to God.  And listening to God means listening to Jesus!

So how can we listen?  The track record of Jesus’ disciples in listening wasn't that good.  Just a few verses after those we heard this morning the disciples were arguing about who would be the greatest in the coming kingdom. And this argument came right after Jesus had explained that following him meant suffering:  “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.” (CEB)

So “listening” to Jesus might well involve doing what our prayerbook commends for keeping a holy Lent: “self-examination and repentance; . . . prayer, fasting and self-denial; and . . .reading and meditating on God's holy Word.”

Yes, God, often we don't do much better than Jesus' headstrong, self-centered, rather clueless disciples.  But we ask for your help as we try once more to listen—really listen—to Jesus and to keep a holy Lent.

The 5th Sunday after Epiphany - The Liberty of Abundant Life

I went to lunch at an Indian restaurant with a friend on Friday.  At this restaurant for lunch there is a buffet and after eating you pay at the cash register. The young man taking our payments asked me with a smile, “Are you excited about the Super Bowl?”  Perhaps that was his stock question for all customers that day, but it seemed an incongruous question to be asking a couple of “ladies” who were lunching.

But if I could reframe his question a bit, it might fit a phrase from our Collect of the Day, which is, “give us the liberty of abundant life.”  “The liberty of abundant life” in the specific context of the collect asks God to free us from the effects of our sins through Jesus Christ—especially as Jesus has shown us what abundant life looks like by the way he lived.

Of course, we don't have Jesus attending or commenting on sporting events in the scriptures.  It was the conquerors and occupiers of Palestine, the Romans, who engaged in sports.  But I think we can expand the scope of the phrase “the liberty of abundant life.”  In the context of the young man's question, I think this phrase could mean this, “Do I expect to find joy and fulfillment in what I may experience in a couple of days?”  Of course, I had no time to do this theological work as I opened my purse and paid him—so I just deflected the question and said I had enjoyed my lunch.

But we certainly have the time to ask this question of the folks who populate our scripture readings today and finally of ourselves.  So let's ask,  “How does each one expect to find abundant life—that is, joy and fulfillment—in what they were experiencing or what they expected to experience.”

Elisha:  As a prophet, his call came to carry on the tradition Elijah had begun of speaking truth or God's word to those in power.  But he came to care about this couple who provided him and his servant with hospitality. When he declared God's blessing on them, he did not expect the trouble that came. When trouble came, Elisha's servant tried to push the woman away from a prophet busy with obviously more important things.  But Elisha found abundant life came not only from his dealing with those in power, but in his aid to those in need.  It also came from exercising the gift of healing God had given him.

The Shunammite woman: Her abundant life appears to come from her persistence in doing what was right, no matter what her social place might have dictated.  She prevailed upon her husband to spend money to show extravagant hospitality to this man of God, before there was any hint of a benefit to her. Then when fate seemed to destroy that abundant life with her son's apparent death, her persistence brought Elisha back to revive her son. She was empowered to act at a time when most women were without power and in doing so experienced abundant life.

St. Paul:  Abundant life for him was serving Jesus Christ.  His conversion experience on the road to Damacus so empowered him that he no longer worried about his reputation or his personal safety.  In another passage Paul said that he can give thanks to God in all circumstances.  In the passage we heard this morning, he told the Corinthians: “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.  I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.”

Simon's mother-in-law:  Her illness kept her from what gave her life its purpose—running her household.  In hearing this passage we must be careful not to lay our modern expectations on her.  Rather we should see her in the light of the second part of Proverbs 31's ode to a capable wife who’s clever, entrepreneurial, wise, reverent, and hardworking. Her ability to have an abundant life had been taken from her, but Jesus restored it to her.  Mark's gospel says that Jesus “came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.”  Her lifting up seems both literal and metaphorical.  Her healing by Jesus lifted back to her to where she had been, restored to the abundant life of service.

Jesus:  For him, as for Elisha, abundant life involved both a bigger picture and a smaller one.  Everyone he healed received abundant life, but Jesus' abundant life needed to be balanced between service to others, prayer time along in a deserted place, and proclaiming the message that the reign of God had come and the long awaited Messiah was here:  Repent, believe the good news and follow.  We see in all the gospels that Jesus struggled with balance among service to others, prayer away by himself, and preaching and teaching in his ministry.  For him abundant life meant seeking God's will and balancing the different facets of his ministry—in all situations—even in the face of execution.

And now for each of us and for our parish we can ask—what does “the liberty of abundant life” look like?  Perhaps you are expecting me to give you an answer to that question??  For each of us that answer must be worked out in the context of our lives, as we reach out for God's guidance.  For our parish, it must be worked out in the context of our life together, as we reach out for God's guidance. But as we have seen, there are many examples in scripture.  “The liberty of abundant life” for these holy women and holy men included faithfulness to tasks given them, compassion for the people God has placed in their lives, persistence, thankfulness, and a balance of prayer and action.  Help us, O God, to follow not only these examples in scripture, but also the examples of holy men and women who have blessed our lives.