Fourth Sunday of Advent 2016

The sign of the birth. What does this mean? We know in our own lives what it means to expect a child. We worry about the health of mother and child. Maybe we plan and collect furniture, clothes, and books of names. There is a joyful expectation and we wonder what will happen. The birth of a child is still a sign for us. It is a sign of hope. It is a reminder of what's most important. We remember the miracle of life.

What's going on in Isaiah? Ahaz is king of Judah. There is a great empire, Assyria to the north, and they are conquering all their neighbors. Israel (the northern kingdom centered in Samaria) has made an alliance with Syria (centered around Damascus.) These two kingdoms want Judah to join them against Assyria. Ahaz is afraid of Assyria and would rather pay tribute. Isaiah has been encouraging him that it is the right way, and he offers a sign to encourage him.

Ahaz seems to offer a humble reply, but it is a false or empty humility. He won't ask because he doesn't believe. Isaiah offers a sign anyway. A young woman will bear a son. (Some commentators believe that this is Ahaz's wife, who is about to birth Hezekiah.) The sign is not a virgin birth. The sign is the child itself. The child will be called Immanuel, meaning, "God is with us." The sign is that as soon as the child knows right from wrong, he will be eating curds and honey (simple, local food - whatever is available after a long siege.) and by the time the child grows this old, the two kings besieging Jerusalem will be gone and conquered.

I suppose that this proof is offered to encourage Ahaz in that moment. It is also given to remind Ahaz in the future. When deliverance comes, he might be tempted to congratulate himself on his wisdom and statecraft. He might even lend his faith to the power of Assyria. Instead, this sign reminds Ahaz that it has been God all along who protects and guides him. This might even help Ahaz to deepen his faith and perhaps teach his own son how to be a faithful king after him.

I explore this old historical reference so that we can see the context of the dream of Joseph. He too is offered a sign. He is encouraged to take Mary as his wife and to accept the child born of the Holy Spirit.

We have our own stories about Joseph. He is often depicted as an old man. This explains why he is only referenced in the birth stories and he is absent from later stories. This also gives us a reason for Jesus to have brothers and sisters. They can all be his stepfamily, and Mary never has to have normal relations with Joseph, and we can keep her in an ideal celibate state. Thankfully, in the Episcopal Church, we don't have to hang onto these fussy ideas about Mary. I think she is a more powerful figure if she isn't set aside on some special plane of existence, but allowed to live a remarkable life among us.

Perhaps Joseph has his own children, or not. Perhaps he is young, or old. The story says that he is righteous, meaning that he seeks to do the right thing. Since he has found that Mary is pregnant and he is not the father, it is within his legal right to have her stoned. He is trying to do the right thing beyond the law, so he is planning to break off the engagement quietly, and Mary would return to her own family. Instead, he has a dream. He is a carpenter, or a builder. He doesn't seek proof or arguments. He is a dreamer (like another Joseph long ago.) He is open to God. He is open to whatever new and unexpected thing that God will do.

The child is named Jesus (or Joshua), meaning, "God saves." This seems to be a fulfillment of Isaiah - a virgin will conceive and bear a son. What's the miracle? What is the sign? It's not Mary, although the birth is miraculous and Mary is blessed. The miracle is the child. The child is a sign of how God is with us. Ahaz didn't want a sign. He didn't believe that God was with him. (He was trusting in his military alliance.) Joseph wasn't looking for a sign, yet he was seeking to do the right thing. He was open to the will of God - he was not demanding what he thought was God's will.

Jesus is not born yet - in our liturgical year. We still have time to prepare for the coming of Jesus. I'm sure we all have lists of things to do to get ready. We are expecting celebrations and gatherings. We are still getting ready. Maybe some of us are still seeking quiet and reflection to make our hearts ready. Some of us have the happy and also anxious preparations to welcome a refugee family of Syrian Kurds on January 3rd. Whatever our worry, we may never be ready. It's a good reminder that it isn't about us. Joseph reminds us that this is a story about God's work. God will be with us. God will save us.

I'm not arguing that we be passive. All the good and righteous things that we seek to do we are still responsible to do. The story is not about our perfection, but about finding God's presence in the life we have. Joseph will be a stepparent. Each blended family we know is a blessing built upon something broken. He is taking on a responsibility (which is noble) because there is no one else present to do so. Other fathers and mothers take on this work in the midst of divorce or death, and somehow with love create new life.

Something new is being created by God. Like Mary, and like Joseph, we are invited to accept whatever God desires to birth in us. Perhaps we can set aside some of our plans of perfection and accept what grows among us. Perhaps we can set aside the perfect present we are trying to buy, the perfect tree we are trying to decorate, the perfect gathering we are trying to arrange. Perhaps we can close our eyes and dream. What might God be trying to create in us?

Third Sunday of Advent 2016

It’s not uncommon in times of anxiety to look to the past. This is a time of year for nostalgia. We bring out old decorations. We make grandma’s cookies. We buy our kids toys that we remember. This is not merely escape. We are connecting ourselves to the truth of the story. We are remembering what we’ve been through, and how we hope to get through the next round of uncertainty.

Scripture often sounds like an echo. One verse reminds us of another. The prophets remember promises made in the past. They look to the stories of God’s great works as a way to interpret how God will return to us. The beautiful poetry of the return in Isaiah evokes creation and it has images of the exodus. Even so, God will create something new. Redemption and return will touch the whole of creation. All the people of the earth will be restored to God.

This season we offer our own hopes for peace and goodwill. I wonder how much we believe it will happen. Maybe someday, but not right now? On any particular Sunday morning we can sing the great hymns of faith and feel pretty good. Then we switch on the news on Tuesday and it all seems so far away.

It is good to remind ourselves that the act of faith is not based upon how we feel in any particular moment. We exercise the greatest faith when things seem most bleak. The Apostle James writes to Christians who are not finding it easy to wait. I’m certain that they were suffering persecution. It’s possible that these were Christians forced to flee from Jerusalem (and legend has it that this is James, the brother of Jesus.) James reminds them to be patent in persecution. He even reminds them that they must be patient with one another. We have to work at building community even as we wait for our salvation (and especially in difficult times.)

We gather with a fallacy that because God has saved us that everything ought to be easy. Our salvation is only the first step. We have to grow in our re-creation. We have to stretch ourselves and go deeper in our faith. We will discover along the way just how much we have to let go of. We will discern our true gifts and our true calling. All of these things keep changing as we grow and the world around us keep changing. We can’t escape the stress and confusion of life. Jesus urges us to jump right into the mess, and find our way.

John the Baptist is in prison. I’m sure he wasn’t feeling comfortable or strong. In his weakness, he sends a question to Jesus. “Are you the one, or should we wait for someone else?” Maybe John didn’t think his ministry would end in prison but in revolution. Maybe he thought he would see more conversion and transformation.

Jesus answers back, echoing the prophets, “The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news.” This is what John was preparing for. Salvation comes to those who thought they’d never get it. Did you hear the edge to it? Who hears good news? The poor. Who gets healed? The blind, the lame, the lepers, the deaf. Who gets new life? The dead.

In a confusing and backward and inside-out way, Jesus says that salvation comes to those who are unequipped to look for it. We worry so much about how we look or what people think about us. We are anxious about our place in the world. None of this will save us. It is those very aspects of our lives that we wish to avoid and hide that Jesus uses to save us and recreate us.

There are other worries floating around in the world. When we see injustice, it is still our duty to stand up and fight for what is right. We worry about jobs, we worry about money, and we worry about the weather. Mostly we need to do what we must and trust God to take care of us (and acknowledge that God has done a pretty good job so far.)

Maybe we can let go of the need for perfect holidays. We have more than enough to do in simply loving our families, our friends, and our neighbors. More than ever before, if we can make time to listen to each other, it will go far. When we go through the holidays and we see a family ornament, or taste familiar cookies, part of the joy is in how we got through everything. The blessings have not all been easy. We have also fought and cried. We’ve held one another in our losses. We’ve had to regroup and start again. That’s what we are remembering too.

What have you come to see? Someone in soft robes – an easy message. Nobody needs that. We need the whole truth, and a reminder that it is often hard – and God has been with us always. In a time of worry and confusion, God is still with us.

Second Sunday of Advent 2016

John the Baptist always seems so mad. What is he angry about? He has a particular ministry, and unlike many of us, he seems to have found some success. He doesn't seem satisfied. Even when the important people show up, it only seems to make him angrier. "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee the wrath that is to come?" Is he really taking the elite down a peg or two? I wonder if he might be directing his angry words at us. After all, we are the upright, spiritual people of our day. Maybe he is challenging our hypocrisy.

John challenges us to pay attention to our own blindness. The Sadducees were part of the temple religion, so they were tied up in the system of sacrifices and temple worship. The Pharisees were more local and close by. They taught and served in synagogues, helping people interpret the law and live correctly. Nothing is wrong with either of these paths of spiritual discipline. We follow similar ways of living out our faith. The blindness comes in when the religious leaders failed to see the burdens they were creating. In their zeal to live in full compliance with the law, they raised the bar so high, only the wealthy or those with empty schedules could hope to live up to it.

We are more reasonable, yet we create our lists of what it means to be good people - deserving people - wise people. When we are not aware, we judge the poor. We judge or avoid the sick. We look down on people who have problems - all the while assuming that people get what they deserve - and when we are doing OK it's because we deserve everything we have. We easily forget our parents, our teachers, and our partners, who have all helped us along. We take our health and property and good jobs for granted. If we are unaware, we act as if we deserve our blessings and other people deserve their suffering.

The divisions we create are not what God desires. God's plan is to have all people come together to worship and rejoice. Paul reminds the Christians in Rome that their faith is a gift from another people who hoped for what God is now doing. Paul writes to a somewhat divided church. It was originally run by Jewish Christians until the emperor drove all the Jews out of Rome. The remaining gentile Christians had to take on leadership roles. When the Jewish Christians were allowed to return, there was quite a bit of conflict around leadership and values. Paul reminds them that God's plan is to bring them all to a place of blessing. We get our hope from the Jews and we are called to glorify God together.

The prophet Isaiah shares a vision of a future messiah. The spirit of the Lord will rest on this messiah. There is a list of actions that this inspired messiah will do, and in all things this messiah will act with righteousness. Every act will restore or establish a new and ordered world where violence will not be needed. Even animals will live in peace. A toddler will be able to lead them.

Of course, when we hear these words, we think about Jesus. He is the perfect fulfillment of all these hopes. Of course, we have only seen the beginnings of this fulfillment. We still live with injustice and violence and war. Judaism does not recognize Jesus as their messiah. They read these words and imagine this messianic figure as not simply one man, but as a people (much as how Israel describes an historic figure and also the people descended from him.) The Jews hear these words and they see themselves. They hear this as an aspiration for what God imagines for them. They will not only be saved by God, God will inspire them to be a people who bring salvation to the world.

This is some of what Paul is sharing with the church in Rome. We are to glorify God together. The spirit of the Lord is upon us. We have wisdom and understanding and counsel and might. We have knowledge and we delight in the fear of the Lord. We do not judge by what we see or hear. We judge the poor with righteousness and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. Perhaps we lack the authority to strike the wicked, but we can fight for what is right. God calls us to be blessed and to be a blessing to the world.

Maybe this is why John is angry. He has no patience for us when we cross our arms and pass judgment on our neighbors. The world is full of frightened and angry people. Our neighbors bear burdens we have never seen. How can we bless them with good news? Unlike lent, when it is appropriate that we look into our hearts and consider our own sin, we are called to something more in advent. We are getting ready for the coming of our messiah. We are called to do more than clean up our act. We are called to be light to the world around us and bring our neighbors along. The judgment we are given is not to discern what is wrong - we are called to discern how we can glorify God together.

We are already filled with God’s Spirit. God has chosen us for new life. This gift means nothing if we do not share it. We are called to proclaim good news with all wisdom and knowledge and understanding and strength. This assumes that we have received this message deeply in our hearts. We can declare the renewal of the world because we ourselves have been renewed. This what John wishes for us. We need the courage to discard our good-enough selves and humbly accept the new life and different God is offering. Only then will we have good news to share.

First Sunday of Advent, 2016

I hope you all had many opportunities to give thanks this week. It is an antidote to the anxiety and uncertainty of our times. We can always get caught up in the rush and worry that seems to be always present. I hope that many of us had the chance to take a pause, gather with family and friends, and count our blessings.

It may also be helpful to remind ourselves that we are not the first people to live in uncertain times. The first pilgrims had a kind of celebration after their first harvest. They shared it with local Indians as a way to solidify their alliance. We imagine pilgrims feasting. They were probably eating more simply, with whatever they managed to grow over one season. They were sharing with their neighbors because they were desperate for allies. They were still mourning the loss of most of the original settlers who had died of cold or starvation or disease.

Jesus sounds grim as he speaks of the end of the world, but Isaiah sounds hopeful. His promise may have been written just before the fall of Jerusalem or while the people waited to return. He describes a hope that one day all of God’s people would gather on God’s holy mountain. Instruments of war will be turned into farm tools. All the nations of the world will seek God as teacher and judge.

Some of us gathered at Temple B’nai Israel for our Thanksgiving service. We prayed and sang together. We were reminded that God has commanded us to give thanks, to rejoice. We are not yet one people worshipping one God, but we practiced what it might be like.

The early church, which passed down this message of joy, did so in a time of anxiety and fear. They were glad that they knew a word of hope, and they looked around and assumed that their hope would be fulfilled very soon. They faced persecution and punishment for their beliefs. They didn’t know how they could continue to fit in, in their society. They prepared for the return of Jesus.

They prepared for the advent of their King. This is where we get the word. In ancient times, a city would make great plans for a visit from a king or the emperor. They would have to clean up the streets. They might erect monuments to mark the occasion. This extended time, this parousia; this advent suggested that everyone was part of the work of getting ready. The “advent” did not mean simply the day that the king arrived. It encompassed all that had to be done to welcome the king.

The early church felt that they were in that time, and so are we. No matter what the church calendar says, we are getting ready for the return of Jesus. How do we do this? First, we remember what we believe and who we are. We are God’s children, blessed with the good news about God’s love. Second, we do as Paul suggests in his letter to eth Romans. We put on light in a time of darkness. We dress, we act, and we embody what it means to be Christian. We may not be perfect, yet we live the good we know how to do. We share the good news as we can articulate it. Finally, we pray to God to intervene and bring about the promise. This is not our work alone. We call on God to show us the way and we call on God to equip us – and to make a way.

We have been given word that a family may be coming to us from the Congo. New Start Ministries has been scrambling a bit to find interpreters who can speak with them, and we have some possibilities. We were prepared to be ready for the unexpected. We knew from eth start that we would not really know what we needed until we needed it. This is good practice for us. We are so used to efficiency and order that we don’t know what to do with the disorder of life. We believe, we trust, that God will show us what to do.

When Jesus describes the last days, he talks about the days of Noah. Most people didn’t know that their world was about to end. We have to learn to live without expecting a warning. Then Jesus describes pairs of people, suddenly one goes missing. Is this the rapture? It’s difficult to say whether it’s better to be the one missing or the one left behind. (Taken away to be judged or taken away to be saved?) Without explaining, Jesus tells us about a homeowner who would stay awake if they knew when a thief was coming. So we need to stay awake.

We need to keep awake. We need to be aware of what God is doing around us. The exercise of faith is doing, and it is also believing that God will act. The antidote to all our worries is to give thanks for what God has given us. God has blessed us and God has called us. God has also given us gifts to share. We cannot truly be thankful if we hoard our gifts in fear. Generosity is an expression of true faith.

So we will pray for true peace – not calm, but a desire for justice and bounty. We will work for peace – not an acceptance of the status quo but an active seeking of the good of our neighbor and the stranger. It is not easy work. In our day, we will be misunderstood and targets for angry people. We seek God’s peace for them as well. That is who we are. That is where we are headed. We are getting ready for the coming of our king.

June 19, 2016 - What do we believe?

Proper 7, year C

I have spent most of last week feeling sad. I didn’t get the news about the Orlando shooting until after I got home from church on Sunday – so I was already pretty tired. I think I was also depressed about all of the predictable reactions to the shooting. It seems as if everyone retreated to his or her default positions, and all the old arguments were repeated over and over.

Being an Episcopal priest, I have many friends and colleagues who are gay. They are very sad and afraid. We are all too old to be dancing in nightclubs, but Pulse was a kind of place where my friends remember feeling safe – and now that’s gone. The violence and hatred that we hope to keep away visits us anyway. It is hard not to be discouraged.

I remember a time when the NRA was all about gun safety. As a youth I remember going to a shooting range with my father. There were many rules. You never point a gun at anyone, ever. You treat every weapon as if it were loaded. You never take off the safety until you have looked downrange and are prepared to fire the weapon. Swagger, bragging, boasting, were all looked down upon. There was great respect – for the weapon – but more importantly, for human life. Now there is the noise and nonsense of hate and a selfish assertion of rights over respect for the other.

It does not have to be this way. We get caught up in all the rhetoric and in the endless news cycle as if it were true simply because it is so loud. What do we truly believe? In what do we place our faith?

Today we hear another chapter in the life of Elijah. He has just prevailed spectacularly over the priests of Baal. Now Jezebel wants him dead. He flees in fear. Has he already forgotten what God has done? Perhaps he thought that the great miracle on Mt. Carmel should have been enough to change Israel. He runs and hides and he is depressed. Through angels, God guides and sustains Elijah through the wilderness. Eventually God passes by Elijah on the mountaintop. God is not in the wind, or in the earthquake, or in the fire. God comes to Elijah in the sound of sheer silence.

Maybe we want spectacular displays of strength. God often gives us only the words of truth we already know. Is it a test of our faith that that should be enough?

Jesus takes a detour across the Sea of Galilee to visit the place called Gerasene. There is a place of tombs where a man tormented by many demons lives alone and wild. The people try to restrain him, but he breaks the chains and howls. They are used to him being this way. Jesus frees him by casting the demons into a herd of pigs – an odd but spectacular display of power. I find it interesting that the people only become afraid when the see the man clothed and in his right mind.

What causes the fear? Perhaps the people are afraid because they are confronted with the reality that the status quo will no longer be tolerated. God will not let us settle for the abuse or neglect of others, even if we cannot find a way to change. Jesus has compassion even on the people whom we have cast aside or hidden away as not acceptable to our sensibilities or our worthy of our compassion.

I believe that the Pulse nightclub would be just the kind of place that Jesus would have gone. I think he would have enjoyed Latin Night in Gay Pride month. I also believe that he would be unafraid to confront people bound by hate and fear. He would reach out to those who feel they need to protect themselves with guns or who only feel safe surrounded by angry rhetoric. He would have offered an ear to zealots who feel it is their duty to destroy – even their own lives.

We have our own mountaintop miracle that defines what we believe. Jesus died on the cross and rose again. He destroyed sin and death. Don’t we believe that? Why do we live as if it were not true?

We need to listen to the sound of sheer silence. What is the truth we already know? God loves the whole world – no exceptions. God is saving the whole world – no exceptions. Every person is a child of God, no matter how angry, or violent, or foolish, or frightened.

What can we do? First, we need to remember our faith. God’s love can never be broken – no matter how much we fail. God has given us a message of love. We need to share it. More than ever, our world needs to hear about God’s love. We need not worry ourselves about clever apologetics, we need only tell God’s love, as we know it.

We also need to take up our work as agents of reconciliation. We need to reach out to those who are isolated and lost. We need to find a neighbor who is different from us and listen to them with compassion. We need to cross those human barriers we take for granted. We may not like their story. We may not agree with them. God loves them: we can too. We can’t change all the madness of the world. We can live the truth of God’s love and live in peace with all our neighbors. We can create with God a new way to live together.

 

June 12, 2016, What is forgiveness?

Today we have the chance to think about forgiveness. What does it mean to be forgiven? What does it mean to forgive? There’s more to it than being sorry and hearing, “That’s OK.” There seems to be something else important. It seems to be wrapped up in the meaning of relationships and how we go about creating good relationships.

So much of what the church has taught about forgiveness has turned into some sort of mechanical ritual. Private confession becomes a necessary prerequisite for receiving the sacrament of communion. At it’s worst, confession becomes a way for religion to dominate and control the lives and beliefs of dependent penitents. It’s no wonder that most people want nothing to do with it. This is sad, because true confession can be a discipline of freedom where we let go of our burdens. Our public confession often becomes just another prayer we recite together. We have lost the depth and extent of what it means to be forgiven.

Perhaps this is an explanation for why we have become such unforgiving people. We almost expect the next celebrity or politician to do something shameful so we can set them aside as “just like all the others.” We see in Ahab a kind of ruler we recognize. We have seen his entitled attitude. We have seen his petulance and complaint of the uncooperative poor. We have seen the backroom machinations with plausible deniability. He’s powerful and he gets what he wants. It is the way of the world.

We cheer the righteous words of Elijah. Do we recognize the charge? It is easy to see the sins of others, especially public abuses of power and authority. We know we have had enough of all the pride and contempt of those who think they are our betters. Is that all there is to this story? What about our own pride and contempt of those who oppose or disagree with us? What about our own abuse or neglect of those weaker than us? Most importantly, what about all our plans that are crafted by our own cleverness with no reference to God? Ahab is certainly proud and ruthless. Elijah chides him for lack of respect for God.

Forgiveness is something greater than a righting of accounts. Of course, we are all in debt to someone. Intentionally or not, we often take more than our fair share. In our ignorance, we often abuse of neglect our neighbors. We know that we have done much that needs forgiveness. What is needed is more than paying off our debts. God seeks to restore our relationships. God seeks for us a right ordering of how we relate to each other and to God.

Forgiveness is giving something before it is deserved. God reaches out in love to us before we have anything to return or repay. This is what God seeks for us, and this is what God encourages us to do. The other does not deserve it and that is entirely the point. This also implies that the forgiven one has no power or control over the one who forgives. God forgives because God loves. God wants us to forgive so that we know love and so that we live in relationships where no one has a debt to another and no one has control over another.

Jesus is invited to a meal at the house of a Pharisee. It is a great honor. It is a way of showing respect to Jesus and a way that Jesus can show respect to the Pharisee. Underneath is a sort of control. The Pharisee is imposing a way of understanding God and the world. The Pharisee is in control – or is he? A woman (who is without honor) cries at the feet of Jesus and anoints his feet with oil. This is just as odd at that time as we would find it today. Jesus sees the meaning of it. She has been forgiven much therefore she loves much. In contrast, the Pharisee does not love much and has been forgiven little (or he knows little about how much he has been forgiven.)

God’s forgiveness is never in question. God always forgives. There is nothing we can do that can overcome God’s will to forgive us. The question for us is, “Do we know it?” If we know it (or as much as we can know it), we can know God’s love and grow in our relationship with God. As we grow in our knowledge of God’s love and forgiveness, we become able to forgive and love our neighbors – even the difficult ones! – Even ourselves. God forgives and asks us to forgive because God wants to restore us to each other.

June 5, 2016

What gets in the way of getting what we want? We think if only we had a different boss, or a different job, or a different president – everything would be better. We know that those sorts of external changes don’t really change us. So what gets in the way? We are afraid. We don’t know what might happen. We take the easy path, even though we know it will take us to the wrong destination.

We think we know what we need, and we know what has to happen. We often project our desires on the powerful people over us. Oh, how they manipulate us with promises and threats! How easily we are swayed because of our fear! We also know that we need something true and right. We need to find meaning. We need to be connected. It would be nice if someone we could trust could simply appear and show us the way.

Elijah takes on that task. Last week, he defeated the prophets of Baal in a spectacular contest on Mt. Carmel. What we didn’t hear was what happened next. He killed all 450 of the prophets of Baal. Today we have the story out of order. This is part of the story that leads to the contest on the mountaintop. Ahab marries Jezebel and builds an altar to Baal. Elijah proclaims a drought throughout the land. Everyone is suffering. God seems a very hard master. I believe that Elijah is depressed and feeling very alone.

Elijah wanders into Zarapheth. He meets a widow, who is starving. He asks for water and bread. She is planning to make a cake out of the last of her flour and oil. Elijah promises that her flour and oil will not run out. So it happens. I wonder about the neighbors. The widow’s son dies and the widow wonders why the holy man has brought this on her. She mentions her sin – not that she has done anything wrong, except lived too close to holiness. Is this is what happens when you get too close to God?

Elijah raises her son. Now she knows that he speaks God’s words. Now she also knows new words from God. God is not dangerous or distant. Perhaps, even that God is not cruel. Elijah isn’t just a messenger of an angry God. God dwells with strangers and restores them to life.

Jesus performs a similar miracle of resurrection. We can hear the story of the dead being raised to life, and we think, “That’s great! I wish we could see something like that!” I wonder how we would react in the moment? The people were amazed and they were afraid. The boy sat upright and started to talk. This sounds more like a Stephen King novel than good news.

The healing is creepy but there is more than death and life. There is also restoration. A child wasn’t just a nice blessing. People relied on children to help them in their old age. This widow had no one else. When she lost her son, she lost all hope of income and status. No one would care for her. She would be dependent on charity.

Jesus has compassion. He crosses all the barriers and taboos. He intrudes on the funeral rites. He touches the bier – the body – making himself unclean. He commands the boy to live and he restores him to his mother. The first reaction is fear – then rejoicing. But why the fear? What are they afraid of? What are we afraid of? We rejoice in any healing or restoration that comes our way. We want to feel better and to be in good relationship with those close to us. Our discomfort comes from acknowledging our dependence on God, and on our dependence on others.

The sin of Ahab is his idolatry. The deeper sin is turning away from God and raising up a God of Ahab’s own making. He wants to control God. He wants a God who will do what Ahab wants. He wants a God that is perhaps a servant of the state, to enlarge and extend the power of his kingship. We are in no danger of setting up idols, however, we often attempt to define God on our terms. We think we know what we need from God. We think we can tame God to do only what we need God to do.

Of course, it doesn’t work that way at all. We only fool ourselves. God will not live in the little square box we create for God. God continues to create and save and love the world. God crosses every barrier, every wall we create to contain God. God stubbornly refuses to live into our narrow job description. When we see this, when we know this, we often rejoice. If we consider the implications, there might be a little fear as well.

God is closer than we like to admit. Between us and God there is no private space where we can really have our way. We are always being pursued, wooed, invited by God into new life. God invites us to cross the comfortable walls we have created or accepted. There is nothing that keeps us from our neighbors except habit and fear. We are afraid of what people will think of us. We are afraid of offending. We are afraid of the implications.

If we were to offer our hands and our hearts to our neighbors, they very well might think we were a little off, or a little presumptuous. I don’t think this is our primary fear. If we were to extend ourselves to our neighbors, we would acknowledge our connection – a connection that demands accountability. We can no longer live as if we do not need one another. We cannot live as if our actions do not matter.

This is what scares us. We all construct a world that we think we can manage. We have an illusion of control. If we act as if our neighbors matter to us, then we admit we are not in control. I cannot control what my neighbor does. I cannot control what God will create in this new relationship. I cannot determine the outcome. I can only be open to what might be possible. Who knows what might happen?

God knows. This is what God asks us to do. God asks us to trust. This is the essence of faith – not a series of statements I agree might be true. Faith is acting on what we believe. Will we cross the barrier that separates us and discover what love means?