Ascension - the promise of hope.

From today's reading: I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation..., so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.  Ephesians 1:17-18

Today we celebrate the feast of the Ascension - the day Jesus was taken up into heaven.  After the devastation of seeing their teacher put to death as a common criminal, they were given an opportunity to see him again and to be with him, to ask questions, to pay more attention to what he was saying, to be with him for a little longer..

As Jesus is taken up out of their sight, he assures them that he will not leave them comfortless, that he will send an advocate, to guide them and to be with them.  Jesus has a task for them to accomplish - the spreading of the gospel and they will need power and wisdom as they move out into the world.

These are the same gifts that Jesus gives us today if we are willing to open up  our minds to the power of the Holy Spirit.  He has been taken up and we no longer see him, but he is now with us at all times and in all places, inside us; ready to respond when we call on him.  And that hope to which he has called us?  The establishment of God's kingdom on earth and the promise of eternal life!

Jesus calls forth life out of death

Ezekiel was one of the Israelites taken captive at the fall of Jerusalem and moved from his home in Jerusalem to Babylon. Basically his world has been destroyed - his home ransacked - his career as a priest crumbled when the temple was demolished and he was taken off along with thousands of others.   

So instead of being a priest leading the people in temple worship, he becomes a prophet - seeing visions from the Lord and hearing the words of the Lord.  In this visitation of the Lord, Ezekiel is transported to a valley and the valley is filled with bones - dry bones - that seem to have been there for centuries.  And the Lord asks him, "Can these bones live?"  Well, what would you say?  Ezekiel, says, "You know" - implied in that is "how should I know?  You're Lord, you tell me."  And God tells him to prophesy - prophesy to the bones. 

 

Ezekiel looks out over that valley of dry bones - hopeless, unredeemable.  They represent all that is lost in Israel - the destroyed temple, the lost homes, the broken and bleeding people, the lost jobs, all the hopeless and helpless situations that can go along with the aftermath of a conquered, defeated people. 

 

(What are the hopeless situations - the dry bones in our lives?  So many possible out there - a lost job, a bankrupt business, a failed marriage, a broken relationship, unfulfilled dreams, lost loved ones, illnesses and death, a house in rubble following a hurricane or tornado...)

 

Ezekiel faces all that and more when he looks at this immense graveyard - total desolation - but he follows what the Lord tells him to do and he begins to prophesy - and as he does, an amazing thing happens, what he prophesies begins to come true.  The bones begin to rustle - they come together and sinew and muscle appear and flesh covers it all.  But there is no breath and so God has him prophesy to the breath - the winds - the spirit - and that breath (or spirit) comes and enters the body and they live and stand and they are more Ezekiel can count.

 

And God says, "this is the whole house of Israel and they say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is lost'."  But God has an answer - "I am the Lord and I will open your graves and raise you up.  I will put my spirit within you and you shall live."  God brings hope and life out of the hopeless and helpless in our lives.

 

This is the hope of Israel - the resurrection that the Pharisees claim - here is that starting point for the kind of faith that God is calling for.  This is the hope of the nation - the whole house of Israel. This is a communal hope - not an individual hope. 

 

America has seen that kind of hope more than once.  Pearl Harbor and 9/11 both were a defeat – death and destruction that could have crumbled our nation – but it didn’t.  Out of that death and destruction were sown the seeds of resurrection – the determination to rise out of the rubble – a unifying hope.  What Ezekiel reported seeing gave hope to a defeated nation - the hope that they would indeed live again.  God does not leave us in those barren, dry, parched places - crying over those dry bones.

 

Our world cries out for that kind of hope - the kind of hope that brings life and resurrection.  Two of a number of movies that use the image of death and resurrection are Harry Potter and Flight of the Phoenix.  In Harry Potter - Professor Dumbledore has a very unique bird - a phoenix - Harry sees it wilt away, burst into flames and becomes a pile of ashes.  When the professor comes in, Harry, devastated at having witnessed this scene is assured by the professor that this was a part of life and that the bird will indeed rise again out of the ashes.

 

The second movie is the Flight of the Phoenix – a story about a plane that goes down in the desert - a hopeless situation with seeming insurmountable odds - and yet hope arises from unexpected places.  It is a story of faith - faith which almost crumbles when they find out the person designing the escape craft isn't exactly what they think and only has experience designing model airplanes.  But out of hope and necessity, they pull together and overcome the odds to live again. .

 

These stories demonstrate the need for the story of resurrection out of death - the need of the people for the kind of hope that is presented in these stories.  The understanding that we can live again.  We need to understand that when things seem the darkest, we can have still have hope and that the Lord is there with us.

 

We find the same kind of situation in our gospel lesson when Jesus brings that kind of hope to the individual level.  Here is not a valley of dry bones - here is a single person, in the grave four days.  The 'four days' seems strange to us - especially since we find Jesus raised in three days.  But the four days is significant - the Israelites believed that the soul or spirit of a person stayed in the vicinity for three days before rising up to heaven.  So the four days means the soul has departed - making the miracle even more unlikely.

 

Jesus was late - and what do we do when God doesn't come through when or like we think he should?  Mary and Martha berated Jesus - "Lord if you had only been here..."  God doesn't always act in the way we expect - and how do we handle that.  But you see, Jesus had come  -  Jesus calls forth life out of the conditions of death. 

 

Just as people looking out over that valley of dry bones would call it hopeless - so the family of Lazarus called the loss of their brother hopeless.  And Jesus comes - not when they wanted him to, but he does come - and he comforts them, his presence is tangible - he weeps with them at their loss.  Although Martha tells Jesus that she believes that God will give him whatever he asks for, she doesn't believe that this is possible - the spirit has already left that place.

 

"Lord, if you had only been here - our brother would not have died..."  In our darkest hour, Jesus comes.  Jesus calls us forth from the tomb of broken hearts and disappointments, from the tombs of rejection and loneliness, from the tomb of self-loathing and meaninglessness.

 

As humans, we fix our eyes on a goal, quite often to the exclusion of other possibilities.  As humans in this world, we too often want what we want, the way we want it, because we've been convinced by the world around us that we are in control.  But the truth is that we are not in control and sometimes our hopes and dreams must die before we become capable of accepting a new idea, a new dream.  Sometimes we don't see or even look for the window of opportunity that is open for us until the door we are focused on is slammed shut.

 

Jesus comes to open new doors, to cry with us when we are devastated and then to help us to new understanding and new life.  He comes to restore the spirit that has left our bodies.  Out of the conditions of death and devastation can arise new life.  Jesus calls forth life even amid the conditions of death.  Can you hear his call?

 

I'm a recovering smoker.  I smoked for 30 years.  After my first year in seminary, Jesus called me out of the tomb of destruction - I was having to use my inhaler two or three times a day - pre-cursors of the conditions of death - and yet I kept smoking.  God finally told me that if I was going to live to proclaim his good news - I was going to have to come out of that tomb of death and destruction and walk in life.  I quit smoking.  Recovering alcoholics and recovering drug addicts can tell you the same story, Jesus calls forth life even amid the conditions of death. 

 

Please pray with me.  Lord, open our hearts and minds to hear you when you call, to follow you where you lead and to trust you to restore our spirit and to bring new life and hope in all the situations and circumstances of our life.  Amen.

Temptation, is it really what we think?

In today's gospel, Jesus has just been baptized and instilled with the Holy Spirit of God.  And our scripture tells us that he is led by that same Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil.  Its called a desert because it is deserted - it is a place where very little grows and very few live.  It is a place where you are alone - with little to eat or to shelter you from the scorching heat. 

 

And Jesus fasted for 40 days - living off what little the land could provide - no contact with other people - utterly alone.  And at the end of those 40 days comes the temptation.  Jesus is hungry; he's lonely; he's in a physically and emotionally weakened condition.  This is one of the circumstances in life when we are most susceptible to temptation – when we are weak, when we have been beaten down by life.   When we are strong and among our true friends, we can fight off temptation.  It doesn't control us. 

 

So Jesus is in a weakened condition - both physically and spiritually and the devil comes... -  this is a stumbling block for many people - the devil - some translations say Satan - other meanings used for the Greek word diabolos are false accuser, and slanderer.   Our lesson also calls him tempter - which can be translated enticer or tester. 

 

I once had a parishioner ask me if Satan was real.  Our catechism in the back of the prayer book never mentions Satan - it talks about human nature, rebelling against God, and sin, which it defines as seeking our own will over the will of God.  So I followed the catechismal party line and rather than talking about the person of Satan, I talked about the reality of evil in the world - and the need for people to personify that reality. 

 

But even at that, some people don't want to admit the reality of evil in the world today.  That's why you hear people say things like, he's just misguided, or she showed poor judgment, or they made a mistake, or they're just going through a dark period.  Any euphemism to keep us from having to confront the concept of evil.

 

But there is evil in the world - people want to believe that it doesn't exist, but if evil doesn't exist, how do you explain things like the two young men who recently ceremonially raped and killed a young girl in order to sell their souls to the Satan.  This is evil.  Or another topic that has been much in the news lately is the “slave trade“ in the Houston area – young ladies being sold especially for sexual uses. 

 

Several years ago there was a show called Joan of Arcadia about a teenage girl who talked to God.  It was a great show because it dared to talk about realities of life and ways of facing those realities.  One episode had a discussion between two characters concerning evil.  Joan's mother was taking catechism from a former Roman Catholic nun turned surfer.  The word evil comes up in their conversation.  Joan's mother said, "Evil's so ugly and foreign..."  The nun replied, "Evil is charming and beautiful - it asks for one small compromise after another until it whittles you down.  It makes you doubt yourself, and it functions best when no one believes in it."

 

You know, Satan is called the deceiver - and not without reason.  He lures us into a false sense of security weaving a tale of deception.  The three temptations of Jesus are an example of that kind of deception.

 

In the first temptation, the devil comes to Jesus with a temptation that doesn't seem so outlandish. "You are hungry.  You are the Son of God.  (the word translated "if" can also be translated "since" - Satan is not questioning Jesus' sonship, he is affirming it with a suggestion that Jesus prove it.)  You don't have to be hungry.  You can do something about it.  Turn these stones into bread and satisfy your hunger."

 

This is more than a temptation to satisfy the desires of the flesh.  It is a temptation to deny our need for God.  Nothing wrong with a little bread, but consider this difference - God gave the children of Israel manna from heaven - a free gift - they didn't have to do anything - it fell from the sky and they just picked it up.  But Satan is asking Jesus to take matters in his own hands - not wait for God's gift, but to make the bread himself - to be self-sufficient - not to rely on God's promise.  It's subtle - it looks like taking care of a necessity, when the issue is actually much deeper - putting himself in the place of God, denying even the need of God.

 

Next we find that Satan has taken Jesus up on the temple - and once again tempts him - "You are the Son of God.  You can do whatever you want.  Scripture says that God will send his angels to take care of you.  Go ahead - throw yourself off the temple - you won't get hurt." Jesus has already shown in the first temptation that he will rely on God, that Jesus will trust God to take care of him.  Since Jesus understands that, Satan is trying to encourage Jesus to 'call the shots' on how - and when - God is going to take care of him - it's actually an attempt to make Jesus seize control by forcing God's hand.

 

And finally Satan takes Jesus up on a high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the world.  And he tells Jesus, "Fall down and worship me and all this will be yours."  Well, okay - we know Jesus is a king - king of the Jews, light of the world, prince of peace - what's wrong with taking up his throne now, and then he can dictate what he's trying to teach to the people.  They'd have to obey him and surely he could have spread his message much faster. 

 

That would have been an attractive compromise that looks good on the surface - but what a difference it is from what God offers.  What Satan was offering was for Jesus to be king over an imperfect earthly world.  What God offered was for Jesus to be king over the redeemed kingdom of heaven.  A kingdom he himself would redeem. 

God has planned for us something greater than we could ever imagine for ourselves.  But like Jesus, we have to be willing to wait on God's plan, in God's time.  But the evil that permeates this world would convince us that what we can gain through our own efforts in this place, at this time, is the goal we should aim for.  That we should settle for something less than God's plan for our lives.  The darkness that people talk about is what Satan uses to obscure God's plan by injecting his own end objectives - that of drawing us away from the love of God - away from the help of God's saving grace.  Jesus is the light of the world - and he does shine out in the darkness - and in his light, Satan - evil – sin - call it what you will - cannot hide.  After all we can't see heaven, we can't prove its existence.  It's a matter of faith.

 

So I suggest that, yes, we are tested - after all, there is a reason we pray, "Lead us not into temptation - but deliver us from evil."  We are led into temptation every day.  Temptation comes in all sizes and shapes.  Temptation

          to keep the extra change the clerk gives us

          to fudge on our taxes
          to tell a small untruth that might help us get ahead at work
          to listen or pass on gossip about a neighbor or co-worker
          to cut off that driver who’s trying to get ahead of the line
          to glance at your neighbor's paper when you don't know the
              answer to that test question.

And even though we are led into temptation - please remember that temptation itself is not sin.  Sin (or evil) comes when we succumb to that temptation - when we choose to act less than Godly in any given situation.   

 
Let us pray:  Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan:  come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ our Lord who overcame temptation, and died and rose again that we might have life eternal.  Amen.

Rejoicing in the face of struggle

From today's reading:  Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation.  Habakkuk 3:17-18

Once a month there is a Friday night celebration service at Fr. Jim's house in Huntsville.  The person in charge of the music would often pick a song called "I will rejoice in the Lord always" based on these verses from Habakkuk and it always drove Fr. Jim crazy.  I think he questioned the reason for such rejoicing when everything was obviously going wrong.  But the truth is, that even when things go wrong, and maybe especially when they go wrong, that is the time when we often draw closer to God. 

There are so many things that happen to us that we have no control over, and those are the times that we feel helpless.  When we are helpless to do anything ourselves, it helps to know that there is a God who is in control - even when things don't go the way we want them to go.  My sister-in-law Jane died three weeks ago.  That was a hard loss for the whole family.  When we first learned that she was dying, she told me, "I don't like God's plan.". She had so much she wanted to do and to accomplish before leaving this earth and no time to do it.  And yet, God was so present at her bedside.  I saw an acceptance come over her and a smile on her face as she listen to her favorite scriptures being read.  I was not there as she died, but I understand from those who were that she began to get glimpses of heaven and those who were waiting for her to cross over.

Those of us who are left behind take comfort that she is in the arms of a loving God who has taken away the cancer and the pain and raised her to new life.  I will rejoice in the Lord always.  And we live in the promise that we will be with her when our time has come.  I will exult in God my Savior.

Be renewed in the Spirit

You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, . . and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.  Ephesians 4:22-24

 

Albeit, easier said than done.  Today is the 3^rd of January.  Have you made your new year resolution(s)?  What might they consist of?  What is it that you want to change in your life?  Where do your priorities lie?  Are the ideals that we think we might like to have actually what we want in our life.  It’s much easier to say we want something than to actually work toward it.

Although a new year is a great time to make changes in your life, don’t be over ambitious with your resolutions.  Too often we try to bite off more than we can possibly achieve.  Remember, resolutions are similar to goals – those things we actually want to achieve in our life.  Goal-setting ideally involves establishing specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bounded (S.M.A.R.T.) objectives.  

 

It’s not too late to make your resolutions.  Where is God calling you to make changes, to improve your life, to grow in knowledge or wisdom, or minister in his Name.  Take time to make a prayerful decision when choosing your resolutions.  Remember when God is in the equation, all things are possible.

 

Dear God, help me to see where I need to make changes during the coming months.  Give me the strength and perseverance needed to remain true to the resolutions we make together.  Amen.

 

God works through our weaknesses

Elijah was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, . . Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, "Get up and eat. . . otherwise the journey will be too much for you."  1 Kings 19:3,5,7

 

Elijah has run away, fearing for his life because Jezebel has threatened to kill him.  He has gone into the wilderness and asked God to allow him to die.  Instead, the Lord prepares him for a journey to the mountain where he hears the still small voice of God.

 

When the Lord calls us to some task or journey, he will use whatever means necessary to get us to the place where he wants us to be.  In this case, God used Elijah’s fear of Jezebel to start him on journey to the place where he (Elijah) could hear the voice of God.  I can recount several occasions where God has used my fear or weakness to put me in a place where I could hear the voice of God or where I could do ministry in his name. 

 

The other part of this is that when God calls you to a place of ministry or instruction, He will provide the means for you to make that journey or accomplish that ministry, to survive as you seek His face.  Just as the Lord provided food for Elijah’s journey, he will also provide for you as he calls you out to accomplish his purpose.

 

Almighty God, open my eyes to behold you as I stumble through this life.  Allow me to see your face in the people around me and to hear your voice in the stillness that sometimes surrounds me. Use me, Lord, to do your work and to grow closer to you especially when I feel furthest from you.  Help me, Lord, to climb the mountain that I may remain close to you in this life.  Amen.

Advent 2 - Prepare the Way

In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'". . .  "I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; . . .His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."  Matthew 3:1-2,11-12

This week, the world lost a great leader, Nelson Mandela – something of a modern day prophet.  He was a man not afraid to stand up and speak out for what he believe.  And even though he served nearly 30 years in prison, he was able to effect great changes in South Africa, was primary in ridding the country of the travesty of Apartheid, and served as their first black president.  He was not afraid to pay the price to prepare the way for a better life for the people of South Africa.  This is not unlike what John the Baptizer was doing in his day.

John the Baptizer proclaimed, “Prepare the way of the Lord – make straight his paths.”  This means to go out and make the road smooth; get rid of the potholes and the rocks.  Straighten out the curves.  This is what you did when you knew the king was coming – you prepared the road for his arrival.

 

John is using this metaphorically – the path that the Lord wants cleared, is the road to your heart.

The ministry of John was a bridge between the Old Testament prophetic word and Jesus, the incarnate Word.  The Word of God, once uttered by prophets, now lived in human form.  John’s call to repentance precedes Jesus’ call to new life.  It’s about getting rid of those things in our life that separate us – that draw us away from God.

 

 

You might be able to think back to various storms, hurricanes that leave piles of debris all over your yard and in your driveways – tree branches, parts of houses, lawn furniture, other belongings; that is quite often what the road to our heart looks like – littered with the debris of our life. 

 

 

 That debris might be the stings and arrows that have assaulted us – abandonment and betrayal are two of the big ones – being so hurt that it affects our whole life.  And then there are the rocks and potholes that have caused us to stumble and fall – the addictions and temptations we have given in to.  The human condition – self-centeredness – is being so involved in ourselves and our own problems that we fail to reach out to others. 

 

 

In the last verse of our Gospel lesson today we hear John speak of Jesus saying, “His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear the threshing floor and will gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”  Too many people have a simplistic view of this and see judgment, either you are wheat (good) and get into heaven, or you are chaff (bad) and you burn in hell.  But I don’t think this is at all what John is alluding to.  If you look at the elements of this story you will find evidence that John means something different. 

 

 

It starts by understanding that wheat and chaff are both part of the same plant.  Wheat is a small grain, the fruit of the plant, and the chaff is the light covering that covers the grain.  The chaff is stripped off the grain by beating it or tramping on it, leaving both lying together on the threshing floor – most often the open ground.  This winnowing fork has been translated by various versions of the Bible as a fork, or a shovel, or a fan.  It is an instrument used to toss the mixture of grain and chaff into the air allowing the wind (or a fan) to blow away the light chaff leaving the heavier grain to be gathered for storing until it is used for making bread.

 

The chaff and the wheat are part of the same plant and I am now given to understand that they represent two parts that make up every person.  The wheat represents that which is good, that part of us that is holy and godly, that connects us to God.  And the chaff represents that which is less than holy, that which separates us from God.  It is that debris in our life that needs to be purged from the pathway to our hearts. 

 

 

That which is not of God cannot exist in the presence of God – There is something good in every person – but in all people, that good exists alongside that which is not of God.  Jesus has come to ignite a fire within us that will help us cast off that part of us that cannot exist in the presence of God.  It will be blown away like chaff from the wheat.  Removing the chaff from our life is necessary for us to be able to stand before God.

 

 

We are in the season of Advent – it is a season when we are preparing our hearts to receive Jesus.  Pray with me, “Lord, what are the things that you are purging from my life?”  What are the things that I need to let go of, in order for my heart to be ready to receive Jesus when he comes?  Lord, help me to prepare the way in my life, in my family, in my heart that I may with gladness welcome you and rejoice at your return.  Amen.