1.8.23 "The Adventure" - Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Isaiah 42.1-9; Matthew 3.13-17

Off we go into the wild blue yonder,

Climbing high into the sun …

So the Eggebeens would sing at the start of a family vacation … everyone piled into the car, seatbelts fastened, ready to go …

And then we’d play a Willie Nelson song:

On the road again

Just can't wait to get on the road again

The life I love is making music with my friends

Off we go … to see something of God’s grand and glorious world, to see old friends, visit family, take some time off from work and school … a splendid adventure.

I think of the conversation between Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins at the beginning of The Hobbit:

Gandalf: I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.

Bilbo: I should think so—in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them….

Gandalf: You’ll have a tale or two to tell when you come back. 

Bilbo: You can promise that I’ll come back?

Gandalf: No. And if you do, you will not be the same.

There is much to life that meets the eye … and even more that doesn’t … 

Things hidden … things mysterious and wonderful … things strange and odd and fearful and fascinating, even dangerous … 

The mysteries of life … birth and death … gain and loss … joy and sorrow … laughter and lament … these are the realities of life … the clock ticks and the clock tocks … things come and things go … we live and we love, and we do the best we can, and sometimes, with clear intent, we don’t.

These are the realities …

Part of what it means to follow Christ is to deal with our realities … to live in the reality of world, the world of time and hope, disappointment and grief.

This is the only world in which we can live, and to live in this world, consciously, thoughtfully, is to live with God …

Our consumer culture is on a mission, however.

Our consumer culture prefers us not to think too deeply … but to get out there and buy a few things … and stay in debt.

Frederick Buechner says:

To journey for the sake of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world's sake - even when the world bores and sickens and scares you half to death - that little by little we start to come alive." 

William Barclay wrote: There are two great days in a person’s life—the day we are born and the day we discover why.

When we think deeply, we’re praying … prayer is nothing less, and nothing more, than thinking deeply: who am I? where am going? what do I value? … and God? God is always woven into the those kinds of questions … probe, push, ponder … sooner or later we end up on the boundary of the infinite.

Prayer is deep thinking … wondering … stepping back for a moment or two to look at the big picture … or at least as big as we can take it in … 

Infants and children take it all in … When a child is born, all the windows are open … everything pours in like an avalanche … but in time, the brain begins to sort things out, and windows begin to close. 

A person couldn’t spend a lifetime with all the windows open; there’d be too much of everything. So we sort things out, close a few windows, most of the windows actually, maybe too many.

When we engage in prayer, when we try to take in the big picture, we have to pry open some of the windows, windows long shut and painted over … the paint has to be chipped away … with a little hammering and some screwdriver work, we soon have an open window.

In the ancient language of faith, it’s called conversion … windows of the soul opened to the love and wonder of God … the mind changes … the soul grows larger, in sense and sensibility … 

This was the experience of the Apostle Paul on the Damascus Road … a bright light blinded him … this man who thought he could see everything, quickly realized that he could see nothing … he was spiritually blind … he believed in God with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind … but he had it all wrong … 

History is full of such stories - zealous and pious people get it wrong … time and again.  

Some of the most dangerous people I’ve ever known have been the fully-convinced … the “true believers,” as Eric Hoffer calls them … 

Dangerous, because they have small minds … the windows of the soul have been slammed shut and painted over by dogma and creed … they become people of small sympathies and harsh judgments. 

As Hoffer notes: Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

The Damascus Road for Paul - he came face-to-face face with his spiritual blindness … this man, with the keenest of minds, had to learn that he had it wrong … he had to start all over again.  

Amazing grace how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost, but now I'm found

Was blind but now I see

Jesus comes to be one with us … to heal the wounds and bind up the broken hearted … to recast the vision of life … to help us pray, pray deeply, to live in the deeps rather than the shallows … to be less driven by consumerism, and more devoted to the things of God … less about getting, more about giving.

Jesus comes to us with an adventure: to engage in the great ideas and works of justice and peace … to plunge into the world … to be one with God, in God’s purpose … one with others, in their dreams and their sorrows … to follow Christ where’er he lead.

Gandalf was looking for someone to share an adventure … at first, Bilbo wanted nothing to do with it … he wanted only to stay in his burrow … but in time, the allure of Gandalf won the day, and off went Mr. Baggins on the adventure of a lifetime …

And so it is for us … even now, here, in this place and time, Christ is looking for someone to share an adventure … like Mr. Baggins, we want to stay in our burrow, close the windows, bar the door … 

But our soul cries out and begs us to go … there is so much more to life than meets the eye …  

Here I am LORD … here. I. am!

Hallelujah and Amen!

December 23, 2012 - "I Glorify the Lord" -4th Advent

Micah 5.2-5; Luke 1.46-56

One of the greatest tales of the 20^th Century, The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien and the stories that follow, The Return of the King.

Translated into dozens of languages, and made available in Peter Jackson’s film trilogy 12 years ago, and now again with a new trilogy telling the tale of The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Wizard, the Dwarves and their quest to reclaim a lost homeland and treasure, taken violently from them by the Dragon who so long ago devastated their lands and destroyed their dreams.

The tale begins with Gandalf the Wizard making an unexpected appearance at Bilbo’s home … it’s been years since Gandalf visited, so Bilbo doesn’t recognize him, and finds Gandalf’s presence unnerving, like What are you doing here? You make me nervous.

Gandalf says, I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.

Bilbo’s response: No way … I’m not interested in any adventures … I wanna stay right here … enjoy my garden, puff away on my pipe, eat my seed cakes and drink some beer - go away Gandalf, I’m not interested.

Gandalf leaves, but not before scratching a secret mark on Bilbo’s front door, and later in the evening, when Bilbo answers a knock on the door, there’s a Dwarf who barges in unbidden, hangs his hat and sits down with Bilbo - it isn’t long before 11 other dwarves arrive, one-by-one and in groups of two and three.

Bilbo is beside himself … no idea what’s happening … they’re eating all of his food and making a mess of things.

Gandalf comes back and tells Bilbo that he’s chosen Bilbo to join with the Dwarves in their quest to reclaim their homeland.

Because Gandalf sees something great in Bilbo … something Bilbo himself cannot see …

Gandalf sees a Hobbit of much courage and resourcefulness … a Hobbit with a proud ancestry … forebears who took on strange adventures, traveled beyond the waters into unknown lands and faraway places … Gandalf sees a Hobbit who will rise to the occasion and do great things … who will not abandon the cause nor leave his friends … but will stay the course, go the distance, finish the work.

I love these stories - the call to adventure … is this not the call of God to all of us?

A call to great adventure?

To travel far and wide, across strange waters, into faraway lands? … or at least across the street or on the other side of town.

To meet strange and wondrous people and all sorts of creatures, great and small … 

Danger along the way there will be … goblins and trolls and orcs … great evil, darkness and suffering … and who knows if we’ll make it or not.

But God sees in us what we often fail to see ourselves … God sees our greatness … God sees what we’re made of, because God made us of good stuff … God sees our true soul, our real character, who we truly are, and who we can be when the chips are down, the stakes are high, and the winds of ill-fate blow against us.

It was true of Mary, I suppose - God saw in this young lady great courage … a strength of character that would see her through the toughest of times … the stuff of a mother for the Son of God.

The angel tells her that she will bear a child, and to name him Jesus:

He will be great and he will be called the Son of the Most High. The LORD God will give him the throne of David his father. He will rule Jacob’s house forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom.

Mary isn’t at all sure; How will this happen? she asks.

The angel explains … this is of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit … and even now your relative, Elizabeth, has conceived a son … she who was labeled, unable to conceive, is now six months pregnant. Nothing is impossible for God.

Mary consents with the simplest of words … I am the LORD’s servant. Let it be with me just as you have said.

Mary hurries off to visit Elizabeth and Zechariah … when Mary greets Elizabeth, the child in her womb leaps and Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. 

Elizabeth cries out, God has blessed you above all women, and he has blessed the child you carry.

With all my heart, says Mary, I glorify the LORD! In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior. 

There is joy in Mary’s obedience … though danger lies close at hand … but where can any of us find safety, if not in the LORD God Almighty? 

Better to go on a great adventure and meet a bad end - as the martyrs have all known - then to be cowardly and die the slow death of dreams denied and courage refused.

Gandalf said to Bilbo, I’m looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging.

And such an adventure it proved to be.

And what an adventure it is to be a part of what God is doing in this world of ours … 

Come and follow me, says Jesus … 

Like Bilbo, we’re not sure … we’d rather be left alone, but there’s always the knock on the door … and there on the front steps of our soul, a million people who’ve already said Yes! to the adventure … grammas and grampas, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters, children and grandchildren … the cloud of witnesses too numerous to number … the saints of old who now wear the crown of glory because they were willing to wear the rags of shame for their LORD …

All of them stand at the doorway of our home … they come on in, the moment the door is opened, even before we can say, Come on in … they take their place at our table, and make their plans for the great adventure that still lies ahead … their work unfinished, and they need us … they ask, Will you finish our work? … and they wait for us to say Yes!

They won’t stay in our home forever … there’s but a moment to decide … as the hymn puts it, Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide … 

Within our heart, we hear the call to go … to be great in the things of the LORD, to rise to the occasion, and join the adventure God has arranged.

There is something great in all of us … God knows it … we have great ancestors in the faith … we have good blood in our veins … we’re brave, and maybe braver than we know … our love is strong, and our strength is gentle … and the call of the wild stirs our heart.

Advent is the Season when it all comes to us, and bids us Prepare! 

Get ready for the adventure of a lifetime … very soon we’ll have to leave the comfort of home and family and the familiar … we’ll have to travel some … to Bethlehem … there to see the Savior … 

Shepherds are there … and wise men, too … from near and far … Mary’s Child draws the whole world unto himself … that all the world might know the grace of God and the hope of salvation.

For God has not left behind this world … God has not abandoned creation, and never will … though devils and demons fill this world with darkness, their darkness is only for awhile … God remains the light of the world, and God is fast at work to undo the damages of sin and repeal the deadly decisions humankind makes … in order to renew all things and bring all things together into the great love of God.

God has taken up our cause … 

God has taken on our humanity … 

From within and below … in Mary’s womb for nine months … then in Bethlehem’s cradle … in his parents’ arms as they flee to Egypt, when Herod rants and rages and sends soldiers to do his dirty work.

The great son of God, the Son of the most High, held in the arms of loving parents, taught by rabbis and schooled in Torah … learning and growing in the wisdom of God … baptized by John in the Jordan … and we know the rest of the story.

And Mary sings with all heart, I glorify the LORD! For the LORD has done great things.

For Mary … and for us!

And there’s no end to it!

The work of the LORD goes on … and still and always the call to adventure … in every part of the world, in every generation, time and place … the knock on the door, the guests with their strange talk of faraway places and great danger … comes the moment to decide … 

There will be danger ahead and delight … you will meet people of virtue and you will see great evil … you will know my joy, and you will know my suffering … you will have fine friends for much of the journey, and sometimes you’ll be all alone … it will end badly for some of you, but for all who take up the cross of adventure, it will end well in the end, and in the end, all will be good … for the word of God prevails … the darkness cannot overcome the light … and this is yet my father’s world! 

Don’t give up … no matter what … stay the course and believe … there is always a way, and you will find it.

The lost are found … the blind can see … the world made new.

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

Are you ready for some adventure?

Amen and Amen!

Rescue - November 23, 2008

Audio Version HERE.

Ezekiel 34:7-31

Is there anything ultimate?
Anything so real, so final, so good, so absolute – that no matter what else happens, it remains true and good?

I recently saw the film, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” – set in Nazi Germany – a father who’s promoted to be the commandant of a concentration camp, his wife who knows nothing about it as of yet, and two children: Gretel, a 12-year old girl, and Bruno, an 8-year old boy who, by accident, befriends an 8-year old boy “on the other side of the fence” – Shmuel, a little Jewish boy who wears striped pajamas, because “the soldiers took away our clothes.”

Bruno says, “My father is a soldier, but he wouldn’t take clothes away.”

What we see in this film is a portrait of evil … great evil … systemic evil … evil baked into the fiber of a culture … evil so commonplace, that only a few can recognize it, and fewer still speak out about it.

Tolkien’s masterpiece, “Lord of the Rings” spins an epic tale of evil and the struggle of a white wizard named Gandalf and his motley crew of hobbits, elves and dwarves – to defeat the Lord of the rings and return the earth to goodness.

C. S. Lewis in his wonderful series, “The Chronicles of Narnia” …
S.K. Rowling in her incredible Harry Potter series …
These writers deal with the mystery and power of evil …

Paul the Apostle writes: Our struggle is not against enemies of flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12).

The Apostle Peter writes: Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8b).

EVIL is real …

Dafur and the Sudan …
Bosnia …
Iraq and Afghanistan …

An economic meltdown of unimaginable proportions … a world of suffering and sorrow for millions … lost jobs, lost homes …
Countless horrors enfolded in the history of humanity …

EVIL is pervasive and real … that we know …

But is there anything beyond the darkness sitting on our doorstep, the monster in our closet, this elephant in the living room?

Is there something so real, so good, so beautiful … so true and right … that no matter what happens, no matter how powerful the present darkness may be …
Is there some Reality, with a capital “R,” which underpins the universe for good?

Psalm 46 says:

We will not fear,
Though the earth should change,
Though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
Though its waters roar and foam,
Though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.

The LORD of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge.

Jesus said to his disciples moments before his ascension: I am with you always.

We say in the Creed, I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth …

The ancient writers of Israel believed there was a capital “R” Reality, a reality of goodness and light …
The ancient writers of Israel believed in God … the creator of the heavens and the earth … the God who called out to Adam and Eve, Where are you?
Who called out to Cain, Where is your brother?
The God who said to Moses, Go back to Egypt and set my people free.

The ancient writers were not naïve.
The ancient writers knew full-well the horrors of war and natural disaster … slavery, betrayal and murder … war and rumors of war, hopes dashed again and again …
The ancient writers knew full well the dark side of life …

But they said to their children, there is a goodness to life greater than the darkness …
There is a God, just and kind … a God of great love …
A God hard at work in a fierce and dangerous world …
A God who takes a deep and personal interest in the wellbeing of humanity, a God whose love is small enough to fit inside the human heart …

There is an ultimate goodness …
An ultimate love …
Yahweh Elohim Sabaoth … the LORD God of Hosts …

God loves the world …
God loves us personally and intimately …
Rescues, saves, and makes all things new …
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob …
The God of Sarah, Rachel and Leah …

The God who called Israel for the sake of the world …
And gave Israel a message:
Good is greater than evil …
Love greater than hatred …
Hope greater than despair …
Life greater than death …
Truth greater than all the lies humankind will ever tell …
Eternity woven into time …
And time headed toward a real future.

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want …

Ezekiel’s imagery of the shepherd …

Jesus uses Ezekiel’s imagery to describe his work and purpose: I am the good shepherd, says Jesus.

In the Parable of the Lost Sheep, Jesus tells of a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep in order to find the one lost sheep.

When Jesus restores Peter after Peter’s monumental failure, Jesus says to him: If you love me Peter, feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep (John 21:15-17).

The love of God … the Good Shepherd …

Personal and close at hand …
I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the LORD God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.

But the love of God is more than sunshine and light …
The love of God is just and right …
The love of God restores balance and equity …
The LORD lifts up valleys … and brings down mountains …

The love of God addresses crimes committed … crimes of inequity and power … crimes of exclusion and manipulation …
Fat sheep feed on good pasture and trample the rest of it …
Fat sheep drink clear water and foul it for others …
Fat sheep push with flank and shoulder … butting the weak until the flock is scattered far and wide.

God says: I will set things right … I will feed justice to the fat sheep who didn’t care about the weak.

God’s justice sets things right … God’s love addresses the crimes …
Never directed to the lonely and the weak …
Never directed to the lost and the lame …
But to the powerful … priests and politicians of Israel …
Well-fed and the comfortable …
Who have received much but will not give …
Blind to the needs of others because they’re too busy taking care of themselves …

Jesus takes up this image of judgment in (Matthew 25) …
Sheep separated from goats …

And the goats protest: LORD, if we had only known you were the hungry man by the road … if we had only known you were the thirsty little girl dying in her mother’s arms … LORD, if we had only you were stranger we feared and hated … if we had only known you were the naked prisoner we humiliated … we would have done something about it.

But Jesus says:
You had your chance …
You knew better …
You’re a human being … and you treated your fellow human being with cruelty and harshness …
You were given so much and you gave so little …
You knew the Golden Rule … but you choose to do unto others what you would never allow anyone to do to you …
Where there was need, you took even more …
Where there was pain, you added to it …
Where there was hatred, you joined the chorus …

Where there was little, you took what was left …
Where there never enough, you took all the more …
And just like Cain, you claim innocence …
You deny any responsibility …

You have earned your wages well …
You have your reward …

Be gone from me …
To a place of fire and regret …
A place created by your own ingenuity and pride …
A place well suited to a hard heart and a self-serving will.

“Preacher, enough of this,” you say!
We don’t want to hear about judgment.
We don’t want to hear about such hard things.
Let’s get on with the love of God.

Well, yes, let’s get on with the love of God.

But the ancient writers would have us hear the whole counsel of God … all of God’s love …
Jesus would have us hear the rest of the story.

It’s not about the sins so often decried by some Christians …
Sin isn’t a pregnant young girl who gets an abortion …
Sin isn’t about gays or lesbians who fall in love and want to marry …
Sin isn’t about not believing in Jesus …
Sin isn’t about movies and books that offend our sensibilities …

I wish sin were that easy!

The real sins of the world are sins of power and control – fat sheep butting the weak out of the way …
Sins of manipulation for personal gain – wealth without conscience, commerce without kindness, worship without sacrifice, and politics in service of the fat sheep.
Sin is a world upside down …
W world where children die before the age of 5 from simple diseases so easily cured if we but had the will to do it.
Sin is always the sin of Cain who denies knowing where his brother is, and shuns responsibility - “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The answer is clear: Yes, you are your brother’s keeper!

Real love is just!
A love that rights what’s wrong … and rescues the lost!

God has rescued US … that’s why we’re here this morning … we’re the rescued ones …
We were lost and injured, but the Good Shepherd came to OUR wilderness and found us … shouldered us when we were unable to make the journey ourselves … bandaged our wounds and fed us …
We are the rescued ones!
And now God wants the rescued to become rescuers for others.

We have to ask Ezekiel’s questions …
Who are the injured in our world today?
Who are the weak?
Who are the wounded?
Who are the lost?
Who needs to be rescued?

A 12-year old girl in a third-world factory sewing shirts 12 hours a day for a pittance?
A family in Flint, Michigan facing the loss of everything?
Who needs to be rescued?
A man of power who wears a $25,000 wristwatch and still doesn’t have the time of day to think beyond his own prestige and power?
Who doesn’t need to be rescued?
But let’s be clear about one thing:
To those to whom much has been given, much is required.
The 12-year old girl has no choice and no chance …
The man with the wristwatch should know better!

We might look at God and ask, “Where are YOU in all of this?”
And God looks at us and asks, “Where are YOU in all of this?”

Can you be my rescuers as I have rescued you?
Will you keep the pastures green and the water clear?

God has told us what’s required:
To do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8).

Can we do this? Of course we can! We are the Church of Jesus Christ!

Amen and Amen!