January 10, 2010- "Sense and Nonsense"

Luke 3:15-23

What can we learn from the gospel?

What can we learn from looking at Jesus?

And does it make any sense?

We’ve all wondered, haven’t we?

Just like the folks who showed up to see John the Baptist … along the southern stretches of the Jordan River … about 15 miles east of Jerusalem, down from the cool mountains into the hot and arid wilderness, just north of the Dead Sea.

The people were full of questions … and hope, too.

Don’t we all have hope of some sort?

Of course we do.

To be alive is have to hope.

No matter how beat up we may be, no matter how tough life has been, hope is wired into our DNA.

We don’t give up easily.

And if we do give up, we give up on only for a time.

Someone comes along and surprises us with an unexpected blessing.

Something nice happens, and the light goes on in the room that was dark … a window is thrown open, curtains flutter, a fresh wind blows into the house of our soul.

Hope springs eternal.

Or we might say, the Eternal springs hope!

The Eternal God springs hope on us!

God with us.

Emmanuel.

The love of God at work in all things for good.

I will never leave you or forsake you.

I am with you always!

But Jesus is no Pollyanna …

Jesus lives in a very real world.

A world of joys, of course.

But a world of sorrows, as well.

Life is no cakewalk for the Son of God.

Because life is no cakewalk.

For any of us.

It’s complicated, as Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin play it in their recent film.

Yes, life is complicated.

A friend recently told this delightful tale: in between one business call after another, his wife called the office. They talked. And when they finished, he said, "Love you" and hung up.

One of his customers called a second later, they talked, they finished and he said "Love you," and hung up.

Realizing what he said, he offered an expletive, and called HER right back; she was laughing so hard. She said, "I knew exactly what happened!" He said, “thanks” and joked, "Well, I'm just trying to be a full-service supplier."

Life is complicated.

It was complicated for Jesus.

And it’s complicated for us.

And it’s okay to be complicated!

Life is NOT about getting all the wrinkles out of the sheets and all the creases in just the right places for our shirts and blouses.

Life is finding a purpose in the midst of the journey.

A purpose that makes sense.

A purpose that can help us with the big questions.

Why are we here?

What are we to do?

Where are we going?

From Christ, a purpose.

A good purpose, a worthy purpose.

Big enough to encompass everything else.

A purpose that makes sense in a world with more than it’s share of nonsense!

Our purpose?

To love God.

To love others.

And what is love, but to seek the wellbeing of those we love!

When we love God, we bless God.

We bring pleasure to God’s heart.

And we when we love our neighbor, we help them.

Smooth out the road ahead.

Level the rough places.

Make it easier for folks.

Prepare the way of the Lord,

      make his paths straight.

      Every valley shall be filled,

      and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

      and the crooked shall be made straight,

      and the rough ways made smooth;

      and all flesh shall see the salvation of God

We can do it.

We really can!

And we ARE doing it!

Tomorrow, we’ll get up and go to work.

Some of us are gifted to make money, and we can leverage our money, to change the world, and still have enough left for a nice car.

We’re teachers and we’re builders.

We’re bankers and machinists.

We’re engineers and we’re firefighters.

We’re city employees and we’re entrepreneurs.

We’re attorneys and we’re police officers.

We’re actors and we’re filmmakers.

We’re nurses and we’re homemakers.

We’re young and we’re old.

We’re short and we’re tall.

And we’re all remarkable!

Every last one of us.

Everyone of us is living the love of God!

Everyone of us is making a difference.

Every smile.

Every prayer.

Every pilgrimage to Covenant.

At home and work and play.

We are living,

We are building.

The love of God!

With all the great faiths of the world, we share a common purpose - straighten crooked roads … fill in the valleys, take the high places down a peg or two, smooth out the rough places.

If Christ came for any reason whatsoever, Christ came to make this purpose a reality of us.

And Christ backs it up with his own life on the line.

With a simple message for each of us:

It’s going to be all right.

No matter what, it’s going to be all right!

To the woman at the well with her life upside down, It’s going to be all right.

To a lonely man up a tree, It’s going to be all right.

To a blind man beside the road, It’s going to be all right.

To Peter who denied him, It’s going to be all right!

A simple message, for sure!

But it’s true.

It’s the gospel.

It’s the love of God.

It’s our hope.

It’s going to be all right!

No matter what, it’s going to be all right.

Back in Detroit, I did a lot of bicycle riding, and often rode through two huge Jewish cemeteries, side by side … one was for Orthodox synagogues, the other was for Reform synagogues – even in death, they were divided, but with only a simple wrought iron fence; they could at least see each other.

The cemeteries were safe places to do some serious biking – good roads, no traffic, quarter-mile straightaways and plenty of curves.

From time-to-time, I’d stop to wet my whistle, and look at the graves … Mrs. Sophie Horowitz, faithful wife and mother and a loving grandmother … David Baumgarten, two-years old, beloved son of Anna and Frederick … “he lived but awhile, but our love for him is forever.”

Every grave, a story.

Every story, profound.

And I could always hear a simple message echoing from ten thousand voices: “We did it, and so will you.”

It’ll be all right.

No matter what, it’ll be all right!

Strength for the journey.

Bread for the soul.

The courage to get up and the will to keep going.

To make it one more day, if that’s what it boils down to.

And sometimes it boils down to just one day at a time.

The recent film, “A Single Man,” starring Colin Firth as college professor, George, captures the heart of grief better than anything I’ve ever seen.

George’s lover of 16 years is killed in an auto accident, so George is now alone, and life is unbearable, fear and sadness at every turn … George looks at himself in the mirror in the morning and says, “Just make it through the day. Just make it through the day!”

Life isn’t easy!

And it wasn’t easy for Jesus either.

Yet we learn from Jesus; his message gives strength for the journey:

Stay with it.

Remember the basics.

Love God  and love your neighbor, as best you can.

Forgive deeply and forgive quickly, and you will be forgiven, too.

Be generous and be kind; it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Trust God even when you can’t, and trust God even when you don’t want to.

I think trusting God is tough sometimes.

It was tough for Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

It was tough for Jesus dying on the cross.

Trusting God ain’t for sissies!

Nor is love.

Love and trust go hand in hand.

Trust opens our heart to the flow of love.

So, when we trust God, peace and love come our way.

But we’re not consistent, and that’s okay!

Life is complicated.

We love God fiercely sometimes …

And sometimes our love evaporates like a stray raindrop on a July sidewalk in Enid, Oklahoma.

We love our neighbor as we love ourselves, as long our neighbor doesn’t get too pushy.

Love is a challenge.

Because love calls for behavior.

Sometimes love is sentimental – a warm, gushy feeling.

But love is ALWAYS ethical, even when the feelings are not so warm and gushy!

The test of our love is laid out for us in the life and teaching of Jesus.

To love those who don’t love us, and may never love us.

To love those who don’t know us, and don’t want to know us.

To love even the enemy.

I think that’s a tall order, don’t you?

But it’s the kind of love God gives to the world.

Because the world doesn’t always love God.

The world doesn’t always know God.

And sometimes the world is God’s enemy.

And sometimes it’s not just the world out there.

It’s you and me, isn’t it?

We don’t always love God.

We don’t always know God.

And sometimes we’re God’s enemies!

But Jesus says it well: God is just and God is kind – God gives rain to both the righteous and the unrighteous, to the deserving and the undeserving, to those who are in and to those who are out – to everyone. No questions asked.

It was Peter the Apostle who later discovered and proclaimed to the world, God is no respecter of persons. God loves everyone with an equal fervency and an equal desire for their wellbeing.

For God so loved the world!

And Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Love is never easy!

Never has been; never will be.

I walked by a parked car in a grocery store lot a few days ago … a man and woman … who were they? I don’t know. But I heard raised voices; I didn’t eavesdrop and kept on walking … I thought to myself, Love is never easy, even for lovers!

But stay with it, because Jesus did.

Jesus faced all kinds of barriers, and he stayed with it.

All kinds of disappointments, and he stayed with it.

Resistance and resentments, and he stayed with it.

All the way to the cross.

All the way to hell.

And back again!

He suffered under Pontius Pilate,

Was crucified, dead and buried.

He descended into hell.

The third day he rose again from the dead!

When folks thought Jesus was finished, he wasn’t.

When Pilate washed his hands and walked away, Jesus would live another day.

When it seemed as if the curtain were down for good, it was but an intermission!

Folks might think we’re down and out.

But we’re not.

We might even think we’re down and out.

But we’re not thinking right.

Because God raises us from the dead.

No matter what … IT WILL BE ALL RIGHT!

To God be the glory!

Amen and Amen!