The Voice

January 8, 2012

Mark 1:4-11; Psalm 29; Genesis 1:1-5

The power of the voice is celebrated in today’s scriptures-- the power of the voice of God to create, destroy, and re-create. It is the voice of God that calls creation into being, the voice of God that strips the forest bare, the voice of God that claims Jesus as “my beloved,” and calls him good.
Before the earth had shape and form the wind of God moved over the waters and God said… and it was so.
When Jesus came up out of the water he saw the Spirit descending on him in the form of a dove and he heard a voice from heaven call out, you are my son, my beloved, with you I am well pleased. In Mark’s gospel, no one else hears or sees what Jesus hears and sees. Jesus alone hears the voice. It is no wonder that immediately afterward he went into the wilderness for a 40 day retreat. He probably needed some alone time to think about what had just happened to him.
In our faith tradition, we proclaim that God is still speaking. We listen for the voice of God speaking not only through the scriptures, not only through tradition, but also through the world that God created. We listen for the still speaking God when we take our morning walk, and hear God in the silence of snow falling; we listen for God in the dark cold night and hear God in the boom of the ice cracking. We listen for God when we read and we hear God speaking through careful study of the world. We listen for God and hear God speaking in the world in many ways, in many languages, including the languages of mathematics and science. We hear God speaking from the Hubble telescope and we hear God speaking from the depths of the earth at CERN; we hear God speaking from the first spark of creation and we hear God speaking at the forward edge of the universe.
God is still speaking, and the voice of God continues to call the world into being. The voice shouts and the voice whispers in the ear, the voice is universal and intimately personal. The voice of God continues to create and destroy and re-create.
The power to destroy is not a power we like to ascribe to God, not as much as the ancients did anyway. Remember the last time a tornado ripped through the south end of town? The psalm seems to have been written in response to an event like that, the psalmist was awed by the power of the wind. It’s not in the destruction of barns and cattle that we see God at work. But what about the power to remove what needs to be removed, to make way for something better? The power to remove old prejudices, the power to remove accepted customs that we now see as barriers, these are the walls that the voice of God can knock down.
We perceive that God is still speaking. But not everyone seems to hear what we hear. And, other Christians seem to hear things that we don’t hear. What do we do when others don’t seem to hear what we hear? How do we know we aren’t just hearing what we want to hear? What’s the difference between hearing the voice of God and hearing voices?
Part of the work of the church is to discern the voice of God, to discern where God is at work in the world for good. We meet together as the church to help one another discern God’s loving Spirit. We meet together to listen for the voice of God, and to test every revelation through the measure of Christ’s compassion and God’s steadfast love. We test every revelation—the new ones and the old standards—by asking if they measure up to Christ’s compassion and God’s steadfast love. Which sounds simple when put so succinctly, but it gets complicated, we know it does. That is why it is vital that the congregation come together for worship, every week.
We know that “being the church” isn’t just about “going to church.” We know that the mission of the church begins at the doorstep. But it is here, in worship together, that we get our marching orders. It is here that we hear and discern the voice that calls us, and here that we get the inspiration and the power and the energy to be the church in the world. Ideally, that’s what worship is. Worship generates the power and light that fuels the mission.
We meet together to share with one another what we hear the voice of God calling us to do, to encourage one another, and to hold one another accountable.
God calls to you, God calls to each of us, “You are my beloved.” God calls to us as a congregation, “You are my beloved.” How then shall we live?

The Jesus Experience: Like Being Born. Again.

for the 2nd Sunday in Lent, 20th March 2011
text: John 3:1-17

During this season of Lent, the Revised Common Lectionary, which is the list of scriptures used by many churches, assigns passages from the gospel of John. Now John’s gospel is, to put it in polite Minnesotan, “different.” I remember reading the gospels in canonical order for the first time, staring with Matthew, then Mark and Luke, chapter one verse one until the end. [This was when I was in high school. I used to read the Bible before I went to bed at night. Because I didn’t want my parents to worry that I was turning into some religious freak, I hid the bible in a shoebox under my bed.] When I got to John, I thought, “Is this the same Jesus?” John’s Jesus talks differently, thinks differently, relates to people differently than the Jesus of the other gospels. There are stories and characters in John’s gospel that appear nowhere else. It really bothered me. For a long time it has bothered me.
But, [as I wrote previously in my blog] perhaps the gospel of John is to the other gospels as a poetic ballad is to a historical novel. Perhaps the gospel of John is an attempt to convey the experience of Jesus. John’s gospel was compiled as many as 40 years after Mark, decades after Matthew and Luke. It is different. The gospel according to John is not another collection of the sayings of Jesus, not another collection of the letters of apostles-- the church already had those by the time the gospel of John was created. So the gospel of John had another mission. I think this gospel was an attempt to convey the experience of Jesus to people who had never met him in the flesh. It was an attempt to explain to new Christians “This is what it is like to meet Jesus.”
The people we meet in the gospel of John-- Nicodemus, the Samaritan Woman, the man born blind, and Lazarus—each one is, in a sense, an "Everyman," or "Everywoman." Their stories are examples of how we might experience the Christ in our lives.
This week, we will consider how the Jesus Experience is like “being born again.” Next week we will consider how the Jesus experience is like drinking water so pure and refreshing that you are never thirsty again. The following week, how the Jesus Experience is like seeing the world clearly for the first time ever, and finally, like coming back from the dead. “The Jesus Experience” is an invitation to contemplate the presence of Jesus, the Christ, in our lives.
So, meet Nicodemus. A Pharisee. One of THOSE people who were always critical of Jesus. And yet, Nicodemus is drawn to Jesus. This is Nicodemus’s first appearance in the gospel, but we will meet him again, as we read along. At this point, in the third chapter of John’s gospel, Nic’s relationship with Jesus is just beginning. In the beginning, Nicodemus seems to be suffering from a divided self. Nicodemus follows Jesus in secret, because he is firmly entrenched in his family and community as a leader of the conservative movement, the movement that views strict adherence to the law, or to a particular interpretation of the law of Moses, as Israel’s only salvation. He continues to live as a Pharisee, but follows Jesus in secret, and that’s what I mean by a divided self, he is trying to live in two worlds. So the story goes that he comes to Jesus in secret, to say (in paraphrase), Hey, I’m on your side. I know you are from God, because no one could do what you do apart from God.
Jesus called him out. You can’t follow me half-way.
Jesus said, you must be born again, born anew, born from above. (All acceptable translations.)
“Born again” is one of those terms that people in my tradition say with at least a hint of derision. My tradition is “cradle Christianity.” It was the goal of 19th century Congregationalists and Presbyterians and others in the mainstream Protestant tradition, who invented the “Sunday School,” that a child born into the church should never know what it is NOT to be Christian. I think they did their job well, so well in fact that it is hard for us “cradle Christians” to understand just how difficult it is to make a change from being “not particularly religious” to claiming the name of Christian. It is like being born again. Because a person who leaves one identity, one community, one family for another is completely vulnerable, naked and scared, and in need of special care and protection. Like a newborn infant.
The image of being born again of water and the Spirit is a reference to baptism; that reference would have been clear to the first Christians reading John’s gospel. In the early church, adult converts were baptized during the great Easter vigil. In the pre-dawn darkness, catechumens were led to the baptistery, a circular building outside of a church, often a womb-like structure, where they undressed, immersed themselves in the water, and emerged cold and wet as a new born babe. They were then received by their new family, their Christian family, toweled off and anointed with oil, and dressed in a new white robe. Just like a newborn baby.
If you are, like me, a cradle Christian, if you have a hard time imagining what it would be like to embrace a life that is wholly foreign to your family and your community, then perhaps you can think of a different sort of change in your life that has been like being born again. Your coming out, your leaving home, your return from battle. Think of a welcome change, which made you tremble in anticipation of – you knew not what.
That is what it is like having Christ in your life, it is like being born again, naked and screaming.
Now, in the past, if a church like ours has grown, it has grown because people who were raised in a tradition like ours moved to our town and transferred their membership from their church in Anoka or Wadena or Zumbrota to became a member of our church. That was then, this is now.
Now, the fastest growing religious demographic in America is that group that checks the box “no religious preference.” Now, when a young couple comes to me for a wedding, and I ask them if they are affiliated with a local church (because, I believe being a professional means I shouldn’t steal some other pastor’s wedding!), usually they have to go back two generations to identify a religious affliliation. The bride and groom didn’t go to church, their parents didn’t go to church, but they seem to remember that Grandma used to go to St. Something or Other until she moved to Florida. So now, if the church is going to grow, it is going to have to be ready to care for infant Christians. We as a church have to be born again, we have to change our way of thinking and relating to the world. The old assumptions no longer apply.
We now need to be ready to care for those who are completely new to the faith. Those who, because of their decision to follow Christ, might need a new family. Our newest members will need us to be their family. We will need to think like a nursery, if we are to help other people have the Jesus experience that we cradle Christians have taken for granted. The Jesus experience is too good to keep to ourselves. It is an experience that we want to share with others.
But, I don’t want you to get the idea that it’s all work, work, work. Just as a new baby brings joy to a family, newborn Christians infuse the church with new joy. New and newly born folks tend to have the energy and stamina and enthusiasm to bring new life to an old congregation. If we let them.
We have watch ourselves, lest we be tempted to say those killer words, “We’ve never done it that way before.” We ought to be ready to say, “We’ve never done it that way before. Let’s try it!”
We may even find ourselves being born anew, to a new understanding of our faith. Being born again doesn’t necessarily happen only once. As one of my favorite musicians named after two apostles, Paul Simon, sang:

I was born before my father and my children before me
And we are born and born again like the waves of the sea.
That’s the way it’s always been. That’s how I want it to be.
(Senorita with a Necklace of Tears, 2000)

Born and born again. That’s the way it’s always been, and God willing, that’s how it will be. Thanks Be to God. Amen!

Who Do You Think You Are?

I was in the car, listening to mid-day on Public Radio, and I think Julia was with me when I heard Mitch Albom talking about his book, Have a Little Faith. Albom was describing a conversation he had with his rabbi, who was nearing the end of his life. The rabbi prayed in his characteristic sing-song voice,

Dear God,
Please let Mitch lead a long and interesting life,
So that when we meet in heaven,
We will have lots to talk about.

And he smiled.
But Mitch was uncomfortable, and his old rabbi could see that something was bothering him.
What?
Well, I don’t think we are going to the same place.
Why not?
Because, you’re on a different level, you’re a man of God.
So are you the rabbi said. Everyone is.

I could feel the rabbi’s pain when I heard that story. I said aloud, “The man’s been working all his life to tell you, Mitch, that you’re a child of God, and you still don’t get it! What’s up with that?”

Julia just laughed. She’s used to hearing me argue with the radio.

But even a man or woman of God needs reminding, now and then, of who and whose we are. It’s not just a New Testament thing, it goes back to the beginning, to when God made us, male and female, in God’s own image, God made us as children, created us and declared us good. Behold! It was very good.

And in the time of the prophet Isaiah God spoke to a people who felt something less than human, because they were a defeated and enslaved nation. God said,

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine!”

This season of the church year which we call “after Epiphany,” or Ordinary Time, it begins and ends with the voice of God. When Jesus was baptized he, and perhaps he alone heard the voice say, you are my son, my beloved. And at the end of this season we will hear that again, when Jesus is on the mountaintop with Peter, James and John, and Moses and Elijah too. The cloud will cover the mountain and the voice from the cloud will boom,

“This is my Son, my beloved. Listen to him!”

Listen to him and watch and learn. Rabbi Jesus was all about calling people to their true identity. Calling them by name, and sometimes giving them a new name, something to live up to. To Simon the fisherman he said, you are the rock, Peter. There was a woman who was healed on the Sabbath day, a woman who was called “untouchable” by the pious religious leaders, but Jesus reminded them and her of her true name, “daughter of Israel.” And she was redeemed, set free, healed and made whole.

When we are lost, the one who calls us by name can save us.

Those of us who went on the mission trip to Pine Ridge (SD), had the privilege of witnessing a naming ceremony. When the Lakota people were defeated, seven generations ago, their children were taken into religious boarding schools. The children lost their homes and families, and the next thing that they lost was their names. Their Lakota names were taken from them, and they were given names like Mary and Sally and Jack and Will. They were forbidden to speak their old names. As the generations passed, so did the Lakota language.

But now, the people have recovered the power of their name. Lakota people do not chose their own names, but ask a tribal elder to dream a name for them. And the elder considers the person’s past and potential, and gives a Lakota name to live up to-- a name with the power to redeem, to set free.

When we are baptized, we are named. We speak the particular names by which the person who is being baptized will be called: like “Anna Sophia,” or “James Robert,” names given by their parents, to honor their ancestors, or confer a virtue. But we also speak our common name, the name that identifies us as members of the same family, the name which connects us with all the people of the earth: “Child of God.”

This is the name which has the power to remind us who and whose we are, and therefore call us out from darkness into light, from slavery into freedom, from sickness into wholeness. This is the name which reminds us that we are born for blessing, created and declared good. This is the name which calls us to rise up and become master over our addictions, healer of our wounds, and restorers of our own brokenness.

It is also the name that reminds us of our relation to every living thing. It reminds us that the irritating clerk at the store is our sister, that the man writing up a speeding ticket is our brother. When we are tempted to say in anger and frustration, “Just who do you think you are,” we must stop and remember that we know the answer to that question already. You are a child of God. So before we speak or act we must remember that we are bound together, as members of one family. When we live in peace, God rejoices.

How very good and pleasant it is when brothers and sister live together in unity! (Psalm 133)

We have the opportunity today to remember our baptism, to remember who and whose we are by participating in an affirmation of baptism. If you chose you can come to the font and receive a sprinkling of the water and a reminder of your identity and a call to remember your baptism.

We have the opportunity every day to give to another the same power that comes from remembering and being called by our true name, "child of God." How do we confirm that identity in others? In what ways can we speak and act to convince the self-destructive youth and the withering elder that they are children of God. How do we reach out, and down, and raise a brother up, wake a sister from living death-- like Jesus did? For if we are imitators of Christ, that is what we must do. If we are followers of Jesus, that is the way to go.

May God bless us with insight, and creativity, and courage to follow the light that goes before us. Amen.

For May 25, 2008

Scriptures:

Hebrew Bible:	Isaiah 49:8-16a
Psalm:	Psalm 131
Epistle:	1 Corinthians 4:1-5
New Testament:	Matthew 6:24-34

Sunday Bulletin Service Theme: Seeking God's Way
Our theme will emphasize God's care for us throughout life's journey. We have a baptism, we will honor our high school and college graduates, and we will dedicate our memorial garden. So naturally, one of hymns will be "I was there to hear your borning cry."

I was there to hear your borning cry
I'll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized,
to see your life unfold.
#351 New Century Hymnal

Other hymn selections for the day are #423 "Great Is Your Faithfulness," #323 "Little Children Welcome" (for the baptism), and #438 "When Peace Like a River."

When peace, like a river, upholds me each day,
when sorrows like sea billows roll,
whatever my lot, you have taught me to say,
"It is well, it is well with my soul."

The scriptures speak of God's mercy and tender care. "Can a woman forget her nursing child?" Isaiah asks. Even if your mother forgets you, God will not forget you. "I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother," reads the psalm. "Do not worry about your life," Jesus says in the gospel. God takes care of the birds. Don't you think you are worth at least as much as the birds to God?

Some people may hear the old hymn "God's eye in on the sparrow" when they read that gospel message. I hear Bobby McFarren singing, "Don't worry. Be happy (Don't worry be happy now...doo, doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo...)." Is anyone on deck for "special music?"

At the end of the service, we will process out to the memorial garden (on the south lawn) to consecrate and dedicate it as a place set apart to receive cremated remains and memorials to those who go before us into glory. "I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice." Thanks be to God.