For those who may not remember the movie, it was about a young boy named Charlie Bucket who was one of a handful of children who received a Golden Ticket to enter into the mysterious factory of Willy Wonka (played by Gene Wilder in the movie). One by one, these children are revealed to be selfish or uncaring, and end up in vats of chocolate, or turned into blueberries, other similar punishments. Until at last, the only one left is Charlie, who Wonka reveals gets to inherit the whole thing. The factory, the chocolate, everything is his!

Which is, of course, a movie all about the Holy Trinity? Obvious, isn’t it?

Today is Trinity Sunday, which is a Sunday that many preachers dread every year. They dread the pressure and expectation of taking one of the most complex and unclear doctrines of the faith and turning it into a 25 minute sermon. And if you think it is hard for preachers, imagine the task in front of those who have to do the children’s sermon! Try and explain the Trinity in three minutes or less! With an object lesson, if possible!

And I think that this dread is shared…by preachers on Trinity Sunday, or parents trying to explain it to their kids, or Christians trying to explain it to friends or co-workers who don’t share the faith. Trying to explain the substance and personhood and nature of God is something that seminary professors and big-time theologians have struggled to do over the years, let alone the rest of us!

But let me suggest something perhaps a little radical today. Maybe our job this morning isn’t to explain the Trinity.

I think that part of where this dread comes from is that we think we have to have this airtight, crystal clear, doctrinally sound theological explanation, that sparkles from the pulpit, or wows our neighbors. We think that our salvation depends on some unambiguous theological understanding of who God is…as Creator, as Christ, and as Spirit. With an object lesson, if possible! And maybe a chart. And some long Greek words.

But look at how the Bible talks about the Trinity. It is very much chart-free. And metaphor-free. And even free of the actual word “Trinity.”

But we have seen examples from the lectionary today as a handful of the passages that reference this “multiple” nature of God:

·         The call of Isaiah has this three-fold, singular-yet-plural nature of God, as the prophet is called in the power of this Temple experience.

·         Then Psalm 29 is a creation psalm—it would fit just as well in our Season of Creation at the end of the summer—but again speaks of God in this plural and eternal and omnipresent way.

·         And John 3 is one of the most famous, as Jesus the Son talks about God as Father and references the Spirit.

·         And there are plenty of others. One of my favorites is the baptism of Jesus in Mark especially, and the Two-Way named others, including the first creation story in Genesis one and the spirit of God hovering over the deep, and John 1 and “the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

But, again, there is this distinct lack of tables and charts and complex theological language. These passages seem to point to a truth off in the distance, but one shrouded in a mist. Maybe the point of the Trinity is not to take that truth and package it into something that can be stenciled onto a wall, or printed in a greeting card, or placed on a doo-dad at a Christian bookstore. But the point of the Trinity seems to be that its fullness exists beyond that mist:

·         Like the smoke-filled Temple of Isaiah, where even this prophet, this powerful speaker, this wordsmith, cannot help but say, “I am a man of unclean lips.”

·         Or the psalmist, who finds the best language to describe God comes from Creation, with phrases like “holy splendor” and “flames of fire” and wilderness.

·         Or Nicodemus, who was a wise and learned scholar of his day, who just. didn’t. get it. Who Jesus chides for being unable to understand what it means to be born from above. In Nicodemus’ confusion, Jesus uses language of wind and water and slippery serpents, in conjunction with the words of salvation and eternity.

If these words of Scripture say one thing with utmost clarity, it is this: we cannot speak of God with utmost clarity. Our words cannot be perfect. Our understanding cannot be complete. Even here in Romans 8, Paul, who never shies away from sounding like he has all the answers, shares this language of Trinity that is humble and open and full of mystery. When you don’t know how to pray, when the ways of the world and the ways of God are a mystery, the Spirit will intercede “with sighs too deep for words.” When you don’t understand, you are not alone. When you cannot explain what is happening, the Triune God is with you. The God beyond our explaining is not a God beyond our knowing.

“God with us.” Maybe that’s all the theology you need to understand of the Trinity. The God of “with”… “Jesus with the One he called Father”… “Christ with the power of the Spirit”…God with God with God… is also God with us. The “withness” of God is what you need to remember from Trinity Sunday. God who has always been God in relationship, in community, in family, is the God who invites you into that family, to share that relationship.

Which is exactly where Paul goes in his theological treatise in Romans. At the time that Paul writes, according to scholar Sarah Ruden, a popular form of literature is what is sometimes called “adoption fantasy.” In the midst of a people who were under the thumb of the Romans, often living in poverty and despair, there was a popular genre of story that suggested a form of salvation. The short version of these stories is that a normal nobody—like you and me—would get adopted by a high-ranking Roman official. They would get noticed for their virtue or their giftedness, and this rich Roman patron would adopt this nobody. Instead of giving their money to their own rotten children, they would give it all to this adopted child.

We see a similar story in our own culture. Little orphan Annie? Not abandoned and left in the cruel, hard-knock orphanage, but adopted by the gracious Daddy Warbucks! Or Harry Potter? Not an unloved orphan, locked in a closet by his uncaring aunt and uncle, but a boy with incredible power and true family heritage!

Or, you waited so patiently for it…Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! The best known adoption narrative of my generation. This poor boy who wasn’t rich, or powerful, or charismatic, or smart. Those kids all went by the wayside. Willy Wonka chose him! Adopted him as his protégé. To receive his paradise.

Paul asks, what if that story came true? What if we were loved so dearly…not just by a Roman patron, or a family of wizards, or millionaire with a candy factory? What if we were loved so dearly by the Creator of the universe, that we would be adopted into the Family of God? What if we could leave behind the emptiness and the brokenness of the world around us, and instead enter into the eternity of that Family? Of that relationship? Of that love? What if that adoption meant that we were children of God? What if that adoption meant that Jesus—the One and Only—became our brother? What if the Holy Spirit of God dwelt in us? Isn’t that the kind of family that we yearn for in our wildest dreams? The kind of family that Paul wistfully wrote about…that Isaiah glimpsed in that Temple, that the psalmist saw in Creation, and that even old Nicodemus could figure out.

And it’s true. That’s the truth of the Trinity. That God with God with God…is God with us. That we are grafted into the Family of God. That our inheritance is beyond that of Willy Wonka or Daddy Warbucks…it is the eternity of God’s heaven!

There is a song that Gene Wilder sings in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It is a little silly in parts, but I can imagine the Holy God singing it today, in three-part harmony…

Come with me and you’ll be

In a world of pure imagination

Take a look and you’ll see

Into your imagination

We’ll begin with a spin

Travelling in the world of my creation

What we’ll see will defy explanation…

May it be so! Even as the God that we see defies explanation, it is with the fullness of our hearts and minds and hopes and imaginings that we see that God with God with God…with us…invites us into the eternal love and grace and family of faith, where God waits to bring us home.

Several weeks ago, now, you woke up in First Century Palestine, somehow becoming the apostle of Jesus known as James, Son of Alphaeus. You looked like James. You sounded like James. You even understood the language that the women and men around you spoke. You fell asleep in Kansas, and you woke up as one of Jesus’ disciples. Over these weeks, you have followed Jesus, as he has taught and healed and ruffled feathers through every small town between Galilee and Jerusalem. And finally, you can see the city on the hill, rising in the distance. Jerusalem awaits.

Along the way, you have had a few sleepless nights, tossing and turning your way through every science fiction theory, trying to figure out what is happening. You have seen enough sci fi movies to know that there are at least two options for what is going on. The first is the Back to the Future hypothesis. That is the idea that if you go back in time, you have the potential to change history. You save your mother, and you cease to exist. Deep down, you hope this is not the case. You’ve tried to minimize your contact with others, but that day when you accidentally dropped a heavy pot of food on Peter’s foot, you wondered if that would make it into the Gospel of Luke! Meanwhile, you have also considered another possibility, what you have called the Prisoner of Azkaban hypothesis. According to that one, history is just that…history. If you go back in time and do something, that something has already happened. You cannot change what has already happened. Of course, that hypothesis gives you fits, too, because you wonder if part of the reason that you never hear much about James, Son of Alphaeus in the Bible is because it was you all along, and you were trying to stay out of trouble!

Needless to say, your brain has been doing loops over these last weeks, but you still see it all as an amazing gift. The chance to see Jesus’ final march toward Jerusalem. To see his amazing power displayed. To listen to his words. You have tried to settle into the role of interested observer, soaking in as much as you can, while saying as little and doing as little as possible. Let the Sons of Thunder thunder, and Simon Peter open his mouth every ten seconds. You stay quiet and take it all in.

But things, you might say, have become complicated. You cannot count how many times in your life you have sung that old hymn, “O How I Love Jesus, because he first loved me!” But in hindsight, you were really loving a concept, or an idea, or a story. You would say that you had a relationship with Jesus, but that relationship was a bit…abstract, to say the least.

But now, you have come to know this man standing in front of you. And you have found a deep love for him. You understand personally what it means that “a man might lay down his life for his friends,” because you have become friends with Jesus. And have discovered that love in new forms. The way Jesus looks at his disciples, even knowing that they are relatively clueless. The way he looks at anyone that he meets, everyone who stands in front of him. Even the way that he looks at you! You wonder sometimes if he knows what is happening. If he knows that you are actually from Kansas in the year 2021. If he knows where you actually live. If he knows what is going through your mind.

But whatever Jesus knows, he isn’t saying. Yet, he looks at you in a way that bores straight into your soul, not in an intrusive or unwelcome way, but in a way that makes you want to give him everything you are and hope to be, wrap it up as a gift, and hand it over to him. You understand the disciples so much better now. You would usually laugh at them from the other side of your study Bible, because whenever Jesus told them he was going to die, they didn’t believe it. Silly disciples! But now you start to understand…they don’t want to believe it. Jesus has become so important to them and to you, that even if the brain understands what is coming, the heart simply overpowers it. You simply cannot imagine Jesus ever leaving your side.

Which helps you understand even better the way that he finally enters the city of Jerusalem. You and the apostles, and all of the disciples who have left their homes to follow him on this journey, cannot bear to watch him enter the city like a commoner. You want him to enter like a king, like the Messiah he is, like the prophets of old wrote and preached about. So when he enters from the Mount of Olives, the place where the Messiah was long rumored to enter the city, and he sits on a colt, the symbol of peaceful power long foretold, you all want to make it special. Now, for your whole life, you remember celebrating the joy of Palm Sunday. The kids and the palms and the music and the “hosanna.” But now, as you stand in the muck and the raw sewage of the roadways of the city, you understand viscerally what was really happening. It wasn’t about the palms themselves, but about covering the ground as Jesus entered. You don’t want even the animal Jesus is riding on to become unclean! First, they stripped their cloaks…the one piece of protective outer clothing that they owned, and threw them in the mud. Then, they ran and climbed trees, pulling off the widest branches that they could so that the colt would walk in on a welcome mat instead of mud and muck like a commoner.

Yet, even that moment, so often remembered as joyful and exciting from Palm Sundays past, has a heaviness to it. As you see the disciples start to pick Jesus up, and lovingly lift him onto the colt, you are overwhelmed…by the love and care they use…by the honor that they bestow upon him…and by the realization that they next time his body is lifted up by many hands again, it will be to place him up on a cross.

You step away from the parade for a moment, as the emotion overwhelms you. You are so used to smiling children waving palms and celebrating that you are surprised when you experience a moment that feels more weighty than light and hopeful. You probably read it somewhere in those study bibles, that the word hosanna means “save” but when you hear dozens, if not hundreds of people around you chanting “save us!” there is a more desperate tone to the event than you imagined.

And you are not surprised, then, when Jesus stands atop the city and weeps tears of his own. You have seen him lament his people before, even the city of Jerusalem. But to see him standing, shoulders heaving, ugly tears on his face, you find yourself overwhelmed again with emotion…to know how much he loves these people and he simply cannot say or do enough to get them to see it. You are right there, and you know what is coming, but you still wonder if you barely understand what is going on.

The rush of sadness is matched by a feeling of terror that comes in waves over into the next hours and the next days. The Gospels make that last week of Christ take forever, but for you, it comes in a rush. Jesus’ sharp tone. Angry temple leaders. A violent military police force. Part of you tells yourself that you would never betray Jesus…you have said it out loud in Bible studies for years. “Weak disciples!” But to stand at the wrong end of a centurion’s spear, to be the target of angry looks and feel the vulnerability of being associated with Jesus, you start to understand what the disciples were feeling. You even understand the Pharisees fear a little more, when they try and hush the disciples on the day he enters the city…they fear retribution from those spears and violence from those sworn to protect the king. To hear a growing crowd chanting, “we want this Jew to be our king,” feels like political insurrection. And the kind of thing that Romans wouldn’t take too kindly to. Nor would they pay much attention to what Jews they are killing in response to a perceived insurrection. The Pharisees aren’t just jealous of Jesus…they are terrified of what his growing power might mean for them. With this oppressive and powerful force in front of you, you see why his message of inclusion and equality and love and forgiveness is an affront to their way of seeing the world.

But, alongside of that sadness, and that terror, comes a third emotion: Gratitude. You are so thankful for this opportunity to learn at the feet of Jesus. You don’t know if you will ever make it back to Kansas, but if you do, you know that you will live a changed life:

•             You have learned to be less arrogant. Living through these days shows you how easy it was to “armchair quarterback” the Gospels from your place of privilege 2,000 years later. You thought you would do it so much better. But now, you understand how chaotic and anxious the times really were. Following Jesus then and there was good and faithful, but it was also risky and vulnerable and hard work and nothing like what you thought or understood, sitting around plastic tables in church basements your whole life, drinking bad coffee, highlighting your Zondervan NIV’s. You know what is coming, but you have learned not to judge Peter for his impending denial, even Judas for his impending betrayal, for you understand now that to live these things is a terrifying and unpredictable and incredibly difficult experience. And it has given you a new humility.

•             You have learned what true community is. It’s not just hanging out with people who look like you and agree with you, patting each other on the back for being right all the time. But the community that Jesus lived with was risky and vulnerable and diverse and broken and really depending on one another. If you have learned anything, it is to spend less time worrying about your Netflix queue, and more about the line outside of Ladybird or LINK. Community is radical reliance, and Jesus has shown that to you, and there is a reason why Jesus picked these folks to hang out with.

You’ve learned about humility, and about community, and you have come to trust that in the end…

In the end.

Even has you turn that phrase in your mind, it strikes you that you already know the end of the story. You know what is coming. You know about Sunday. But in the moment, that feels so far away, feels so impossible. After a rush of the week…a rush of anger and reaction and betrayal and abuse and violence, you find yourself standing, looking up into the eyes of the man you have deeply come to love.

You ran, too. You assumed you would be better than them. But then the police in the darkness, pointing fingers and spears at you, sent you into the weeds along with every other apostle. And then the chaos of the night, the whispers, “Where is everyone else? Where is Jesus? What will happen next?” Even though you knew the outcome, your love for Jesus and your fear of his captors took your brain out of the equation. And so you ran and hid.

But now, there is no hiding from his eyes. Those eyes. The crowd is thick enough that you and the others feel as though you can get close enough to see Jesus on the cross. And at once, you feel the weight of that moment. Not just the weight of your own cowardice to run, when you promised yourself that you would not. But the weight of it all…of your own arrogance and sin and unrecognized privilege and brokenness and participation personally and systemically in the breaking of others. You feel the weight of it all on your shoulders…

And that’s when you notice that Jesus has caught your eye. You have wondered over the weeks if he really knew who you are, but now you have no doubt. Of course he knows. He knows your arrogance. Your sin. Your foolishness. Your selfishness. Your brokenness. He knows you, and he loves you anyway. He knows exactly who you are, and he went through it all anyway. To show you, to show the world, to show history, that there is a better way. That there is more to the Purposes of God than the rules of this world. That the oppression of the world and the violence of the cross is not the final story. That even the powers of violence and death and destruction and oppression will not win…in the end.

I would suggest that Luke must have been a big fan of road trips, too. Remember how he reported in Chapter 9 that Jesus “set his face toward Jerusalem.” The teaching and healing ministry of the Gospel takes place on the road, as he and the disciples travelled from Galilee to Jerusalem. And now, in the short few chapters since Jesus’ Resurrection, we have all of these road trip stories. Easter evening, Jesus meets travelers on the Road to Emmaus…it is in the journey that Christ appears to them. Stephen doesn’t take a road trip, but his famous sermon—the one that makes everyone mad enough to kill him—is all about how God never really wanted the Temple and was fine in the tabernacle, wandering from place to place on a holy road trip. And—spoiler-alert!—in the next chapter we are going to read about a guy named Saul who is once again on the road, this time the road to Damascus, where some things might happen. For Luke, there is power in the road trip, in the energy and relationship built on the journey. The ministry of Jesus and the Church of Jesus takes place in the dynamism and motion of the journey.

And so there should be no surprise when we read today about Phillip, a master of the road trip. After Stephen’s death, he started on the road north to Samaria where he preached to Simon Magus and the Samaritans. And now he is on the road south out of Jerusalem, on yet another road trip. As I read it, it may not feel like a long trip, but remember that the Bible and especially the book of Acts collapses time, so that while this story only lasts a few verses, Justo Gonzalez suggests that it might have taken hours or even days. The Two Way folks loved playing around with the road trip in this story a little bit, talking about the Ethiopian must have stopped at the gas station in South Jerusalem on the way out of town. It must have been a Phillips 66 (get it?) and he probably picked up a Slim Jim and a pocket copy of the book of Isaiah to read on the way home to Ethiopia. There really is something for us to discern about our journey of faith, our walk of faith, from what we see in this story. What can this story teach us about our faith? There are three different characters, if you will, that make up this story. Let’s look at what each one teaches us.

The first character to look at more closely is the Ethiopian Eunuch, who I think has something to teach us about the experience of the outsider. Now, we have to be careful assuming too much about this man. Luke doesn’t give us much backstory, or too many details. But it seems to me that part of why he is included in this narrative is his outsider status:

•             Whether it was the fact that he was an Ethiopian, kind of a catch-all category for all non-Egyptian Africans or simply those with dark skin, which would have made him a racial minority in Palestine.

•             Or perhaps it was the fact that he was a eunuch, a sexual minority, potentially naturally-castrated and thus considered safe enough to put into position of authority around the Queen, or potentially forcible castrated in order to make him “safe.”

•             Or perhaps even his role as a government official, which made him a kind of unpopular cultural minority, like the hated tax collectors who had authority over the people.

•             Or some scholars think that he is what some call a “god-fearer,” someone who believed in Yahweh, but didn’t take part in religious practice, perhaps for some of these other reasons; today we might call him “spiritual but not religious” potentially even inviting scorn.

•             Or perhaps even all four of these categories were relevant, meaning that he was quadruply an outsider!

To me, it feels like he saw himself as an outsider because as he read this passage from Isaiah, and engaged in Philip in conversation about it, he asks a fascinating question: “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” From being included. He somehow knew that there were reasons, and likely he had heard them his whole life. Philip must have known them, too. He could have given this man a valid Bible study, based on the book of Deuteronomy, that told him exactly why he couldn’t be included. Why he couldn’t be baptized as a eunuch and non-Israelite and an outsider. What is to prevent me? The Bible says so!

Which is a question that a lot of Christians ask, even today? The figure of the Ethiopian eunuch is one that many identify with, especially those who see themselves as outsiders. Racial minorities connect with the fact that he is from Ethiopia. LGBTQI persons connect with the eunuch’s sexual minority status. Or anyone who feels outside of the accepted norm of the church: as single parents or divorced persons or those choosing or not able to have children or choosing or not able to get married. So many have read this story and heard the reasons why they must be excluded, including “the Bible says so.”

But look at Philip’s response here. Take a look at Character Number Two in the story. Again, Philip could have come at the Ethiopian with some hard-core Bible study. But instead of an aggressive stance, Philip seems to follow the rule of “listen first; talk second.” He gets this feeling, this prompting to walk along that road, and then another feeling/prompting to walk up next to the man’s chariot, and so he does, and hears him reading out loud the book of Isaiah. He doesn’t walk right in with an agenda of conversion, or a script to read out loud. Phillip simply shows up and listens first. And then, he talks. But even then, he begins with a question: “Do you understand what you are reading?”

And the dialogue begins! For Philip, the good news does not come as a pre-packaged speech to deliver to this man, in order to convert him and put him in the win column. It is the beginning of a conversation. To help him understand his truth, and eventually for Philip to share his understanding of the truth. Notice that Philip doesn’t listen first and listen second, simply idling until the Ethiopian figures it out for himself. Philip has something to say. But he doesn’t unload a Roman Road or Four Spiritual Laws or anything learned in a Tuesday night training session. He listens to the man and his questions. And when the time is right, he speaks. Remember that like Stephen, Philip is one of the Seven, one of the Hellenistic, outsider Jewish Christ-followers, who was put in charge of the food pantry and followed the food pantry right out the door. As an outsider himself, he was able to understand and speak truth to the outsider Ethiopian. Because it became a dialogue, he was able to understand and be understood.

A helpful word for those of us 2,000 years later that feel like we want to share the good news of Jesus, but aren’t sure how to do it. Listen first and speak second. The Evangelism committee talked about this just this last week, asking how we can encourage those conversations. You know, we live in a world that is hurting and angry and afraid and not sure what to do next. A lot of folks are feeling left out. If we approach these conversations with a willingness to listen and learn, then maybe, the Spirit of God can use us. We can speak our truth, and listen as other speak theirs. Philip teaches us that for the good news to take root, it takes dialogue, patience, and a willingness to listen.

So, we have talked about two of the three main characters of the story, but there is a third. Besides the Ethiopian and Philip, the third voice we hear is the voice of the Spirit of God. You know, I don’t think it is an accident that all these big moments take place on road trips in Luke and Acts. Because I think that Luke is making a theological point about how God works.

In short, these stories remind us that God is on the road. Journey to Jerusalem. The Road to Emmaus. The Wilderness Road. The Damascus Road. This is more than a literary device. The God of the tabernacle in Stephen’s sermon is still a God on the move. God is dynamic and active and on the road. This theology of dynamism is crucial for us to remember today. Especially out of a pandemic, when we have yearned so deeply to return to a physical space. Let us remember that the Church has always been scattered and sent! The theology of God throughout Scripture is that God is on the move. The life of faith is a never-ending road trip. This physical space is always meant to be a rest stop to the real work of the Gospel, in the workplaces, and classrooms, and ballfields and coffeehouses of God’s world. And let us now add the social networks and virtual spaces and Zoom Rooms. Like Philip, we are called to be responsive and dialogical open to how God is at work out there.

Like Philip, we are called to be on the move!

The people of God worried about the future before them. Their leader, Moses, had left on a hiking expedition some time ago, and they had caught glimpses of him as he climbed to the top of the mountain. But now the mountain was filled with smoke and fire and trembled with the power of God, and they wondered if Moses would ever return.

In fact, some had given up hope. Many had begun to grumble. They melted their gold down to create a symbol of earthly virility and strength, because they thought they would all be better off if they returned to the old ways. Back to the bondage of requirements and coercion and certainty. Back to the security of slavery to the ways of the world.

Little did the people of God know what awaited them! For before long, Moses would descend the mountain, holding the Torah. The law. The sign of the covenant of God with God’s people. Torah would not be simply a how-to guide, a to-do list, a prescription of “supposed to’s.”

But it would be a description of a life that God wanted for them, a celebration of community and relationship and calling and covenant and justice and purpose, a gift of the knowledge of what life would look like when God’s people lived in right relationship: about how they would treat each other, about how they would honor God holy and above all, about how their bodies mattered to God, about the things that flow out of a Spirit-led life.

As the mountain rumbled and God spoke, little did God’s people know what was in store from the Spirit of God!

Story Two

The people of God worried about the future before them. Their leader, the Risen Jesus, had left to return to God’s glory some time ago, and they had caught glimpses of him as he ascended into the heavens. But now they were unsure what to do next, how to behave, how to live the life that he had shown them. They hid together in an upper room, peeking outside to see the throngs gathered for the Pentecost festival. From all corners of the globe, pilgrims gathered, while the followers of Jesus huddled together.

In fact, some had given up hope. They were most worried about the structure of the institution…Jesus had chosen 12, so they needed a 12th apostle to replace Judas. They chose Matthias by lot, in an attempt to return to the old ways. 12 Tribes. 12 Apostles. Structure complete. They thought they would all be better off if they simply returned to the old ways. Back to the bondage of requirements and coercion and certainty. Back to the security of slavery to the ways of the world.

Little did the people of God know what awaited them! For before long, The Spirit of God would descend on each of them, empowering them to Gospel ministry. Women and men. Powerful and powerless. Outgoing and reserved. It didn’t matter. At once, they were ALL empowered to tell of the Good News of Jesus to all who gathered for the festival.

It was the sign of the covenant of God with God’s people. The covenant that the throngs in the streets had come to witness to. The sign that they yearned to experience. Every one of them in the streets would hear that good news, in their own language. In their own tongue. Not a how-to guide, a to-do list, a prescription of “supposed to’s.” But it would be a description of a life that God wanted for them, a celebration of community and relationship and calling and covenant and justice and purpose, a gift of the knowledge of what life would look like when God’s people lived in right relationship: about how they would treat each other, about how they would honor God holy and above all, about how they mattered to God, about the things that flow out of a Spirit-led life.

As the room rumbled and God spoke, little did God’s people know what was in store from the Spirit of God!

Story Three

The people of God worried about the future before them. Their leader, Paul, had moved on, left the congregations in the Roman providence of Galatia, in order to begin more churches, support other congregations elsewhere. Here in the highlands of Galatia, these Gentiles had heard the words of Paul and responded. They fell in love with the stories of Jesus that he shared. They entered into community of service and care and worship. But now, Paul had been gone for some time, and they wondered if he would ever return.

In fact, some had given up hope. Many had begun to grumble. There were “certain individuals” who had come from the home office in Jerusalem and they warned these Galatian Gentiles that there was more to the community of God than they had been led to believe. Some in the congregations had become enamored with the requirements that these certain individuals spoke of. They thought they would all be better off if they returned to their old ways. Back to the bondage of requirements and coercion and certainty. Back to the security of slavery to the ways of the world.

Little did the people of God know what awaited them! For before long, a courier would arrive, breathless, with a letter from Paul. Congregations would be gathered. The letter would be read. Faces would turn red as they heard the anger of Paul’s words. But tears of gratitude would also be shed, as they heard Paul’s description of the power of the Spirit. Of the fruit that comes when the community sets their eyes on this holy and Spirit-filled life. Not “fruits” with an “s.” Not a plural list of to-do’s, a how-to-guide, a prescription of “supposed to’s.”

But “fruit of the spirit.” In the collective. A cornucopia. A bountiful banquet that is the sign of the covenant of God with God’s people. A description of a life that God wanted for them, a celebration of community and relationship and calling and covenant and justice and purpose, a gift of the knowledge of what life would look like when God’s people lived in right relationship: about how they would treat each other, about how they would honor God holy and above all, about how their bodies mattered to God, about the things that flow out of a Spirit-led life.

As the letter rumbled and God spoke through the words of Paul, little did God’s people know what was in store from the Spirit of God!

Story Four

The people of God worried about the future before them. Their congregation had been through so many leadership changes in the last few years, and so much had changed in their church and their little university community in the hills of northeast Kansas. The world was changing around them, and they wondered what these changes would mean for their church and their faith.

In fact, some had given up hope. Many had begun to grumble. They remembered the church of years before, decades earlier. If it had worked then, why wouldn’t it work again? They thought they would all be better off if they returned to the old ways. Back to the bondage of requirements and coercion and certainty. Back to the security of slavery to the ways of the world.

Little did the people of God know what awaited them! For before long, a small band of leaders would climb aboard a plane and fly to the tiny island nation of Haiti. There, they would find themselves, and eventually their church, changed by the very power of the Spirit of God. In Haiti, they would meet missionaries of incredible faith and trust in God’s power. They would see Kingdom work as they dug holes for the foundation of a school, and fell in love with a people and a purpose. And on Pentecost Sunday, sweating in the open-air sanctuary at the end of a dusty Haitian road, they would see the power of God. As a clueless and ineffectual preacher stood in front of that Haitian congregation, they watched his translator, a young woman mentored and chosen for her gifts, turn his words into Gospel power. As the Church celebrated its birth at Pentecost, this team of Kansans watched the birth of a preacher, a pastor with a vision and a dream to change the world for God.

And through the next decade, the partnership with these missionaries, with this country, with this preacher, has changed this congregation forever. Not with a tired how-to guide, a to-do list, a prescription of “supposed to’s.” But instead, their partnership with these Haitian missionaries, the school they built together, and new understandings of what it means to join God at work in the world would be a catalyst. It would be a description of a life that God wanted for them, a celebration of community and relationship and calling and covenant and justice and purpose, a gift of the knowledge of what life would look like when God’s people lived in right relationship: about how they would treat each other, about how they would honor God holy and above all, about how all bodies—including black and brown bodies—matter to God, about the things that flow out of a Spirit-led life.

As the Haitian preacher rumbled with power, and God spoke through her, little did God’s people know what was in store from the Spirit of God!

Story Five

The people of God worry about the future before them. Their way of being church, of practicing their faith, has been disrupted and forever altered by a global pandemic and desperate attempts to keep people healthy in its wake. Now, with some predicting that one in every three churches in the United States will close, and the other two in three churches visibly shaken, some wonder if “normal” will ever return.

In fact, some have given up hope. Many have begun to grumble. They think they would all be better off if they return to the old ways. Back to the bondage of requirements and coercion and certainty. Back to the security of slavery to the ways of the world.

But in the midst of the fear, there are those who are excited about the future church that awaits them! They gather together on Zoom meetings, in Sunday school classes, at youth group, and on Sunday evenings. They sit together for hours as a leadership team…praying, dreaming, listening to comments and questions and hopes and dreams of a congregation, asking what it means to be reshaped.

Their work is not simply to create another how-to guide, a to-do list, a prescription of “supposed to’s.” But they are busy seeking God’s call on the “future church,” asking what kind of life God wants for them, celebrating community and relationship and calling and covenant and justice and purpose, eyes open to the a gift of the knowledge of what life looks like when God’s people live in right relationship: about how they will treat each other, about how they will honor God holy and above all, about how their bodies—and the bodies of all of God’s children—matter to God, about the things that flow out of a Spirit-led life. They are busy “ReShaping Church,”…or really paying attention to the ways that God is ReShaping it!

As the world around them changes and rumbles and God speaks through it all, may we celebrate on this Pentecost Sunday that we cannot even imagine a fraction of the power that is in store from the Spirit of God! May it be so! And may we have eyes to see!

Of course, I have had plenty of years of experience preaching, and actually have an advanced degree in it. But I never took a class in pandemic preaching: “How to Preach to an Empty Room and an iPhone 101” The education and experience I have is not based on this situation, and I don’t even get to shake your hands at the end of the service these days, for you to tell me what you like (and don’t like) about my sermon. I have no idea what I am doing up here.

Meanwhile, I along with the SLT are trying to figure out a schedule for a return to in-person worship, balancing the return of kids to school…and the appearance of more and more variants…and the impact of social isolation after all these months…and now talk of a third wave here in the Midwest. I won’t speak for the SLT, but I would say for my part, I don’t have all this figured out, for sure. We’ll know more in hindsight in a few years, but in the moment, we are trying to figure it all out. In fact, I would suggest that the whole underlying premise of the ReShape initiative is “we don’t know what we are doing here…help us figure it out together.”

Maybe you know the feeling. I think a lot of us feel pretty clueless these days. Some think they have all the answers (see Facebook) and know exactly what we should do! But most of us acknowledge some cluelessness…some desperation. We thought we knew some things, but then we had to figure out how to teach in a pandemic or sell products in a pandemic or be retired in a pandemic, when we expected to be able to hang out with friends and travel to see our grandkids! None of us really know what we are doing.

And for some of us, that is hard. My guess is that there are days where we feel at the end of our rope. Of course, some of us have felt that more acutely than others: some have suffered personally the consequences of the coronavirus or other health issues. Others have lost income or jobs. Others have struggled with mental health during this past year. There are plenty who have suffered more than I have. But I think a lot of us, even if we don’t have this clear and targeted reason for it, feel clueless and weary and worn. If I had to name it, I would call it Communal Coronavirus Confusion. A shared feeling of cluelessness and desperation and weariness. One day, psychologists will have a better name for it. For now, it just feels like we have no idea what is going on, and it wears us out. Again, I will speak for myself that I am tired of it all…mentally tired and confused by all the decisions that have to be made, and the new learning required and the extra work needed to accomplish the same thing. And physically tired…I think it has hit me this week, as we all lost an hour of sleep, how confused my body is. We share this communal malaise, and we don’t like it.

Let me suggest that what has been happening to us is not unlike what we read in the book of Luke. Throughout the Gospel, there is this heavy oppressive regime that leads to a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. Some turn violent, like the Zealots. Others turn perfectionistic, like the Pharisees. Some turn capitalist, like the tax collectors. But it feels like throughout the Gospel of Luke, no one really understands what is going on.

The first part of the reading today, suggests that very thing. Jesus once again predicts his death, but it says three times at the end of the passage that they have no idea what is going on. “They understood nothing…the truth was hidden from them…they did not grasp it.” Got it, Luke. They didn’t know what was going on. And of course, we have seen that theme over and over again throughout Luke. The disciples don’t understand what Jesus is about. The Pharisees don’t understand what Jesus is about. The crowds loved him, but they don’t really get it, either. No one knows how this is going to end up. And it feels like there is this general malaise throughout Palestine at this point. Helplessness. Desperation. Cluelessness. Grief. Pain. Trauma.

And it is out of this malaise that we see Zacchaeus emerge. Now, Zacchaeus is an interesting bird in the context of Luke. We know the story mostly as a kids’ story. For good reason: kids can really understand the experience of being left out, brushed aside, and literally too short to see over people. But this is not a kids’ story (or at least not only a kids’ story). The shortness of Zacchaeus seems less about his stature, and instead more about a detail to set up his desperation.  Zaccaheus had some pretty adult motivations going on. He was stuck in an unhealthy system. The Roman tax collection system was a kind of legalized extortion, where tax collectors would charge their salary from those who paid their taxes, because they weren’t being paid by the Roman overlords. They were victims, too. Thus, the common people hated the tax collectors, because they represented the Roman oppressors, and because they took their money for themselves.

The best current comparison I can think of is an employee at one of these payday loan places that charge 500% interest rates. Unpopular among those who are getting gouged, but also disposable to those at the top who use them to gouge their neighbors. And in a moral quandary about how to take care of their own needs at the expense of others. Zacchaeus found himself in the middle of this moral malaise. Zacchaeus participated in this system, and perpetuated it, and benefitted from it, but was also a victim of it. When the whole system is broken, everyone loses. He must have seen what it was doing to his neighbors. He must have known what people said about him behind his back (or to his face). He was worn and weary and broken and desperate and hurting and tired.

And then Jesus came to town. In each of these stories, the desperation for what Jesus could offer is palpable. The blind man, screaming in his desperation and darkness for Jesus to heal him. The desperation of Zacchaeus. There was something that Jesus represented that Zacchaeus wanted. Needed. Desperately yearned for. Was willing to debase himself by climbing up in a tree for. Look at the lengths to which he goes to seek that transformation, that healing, that wholeness. In our photography as a spiritual discipline course last fall, Tom Wilcox brought an old picture of fans after the 1988 National Championship. Crowded around the victorious Jayhawks are a press of fans, including grown men up in trees! Desperate to catch a glimpse of Danny Manning and Chris Piper! As silly as it looks to us to see a grown man in a tree, it looked just as silly for those who saw Zacchaeus! But he was desperate, and didn’t care what others thought of him.

But let me suggest that the power of the story is not in the energy of these people seeking Jesus. Watch the flip in the story. Zacchaeus is desperately seeking Jesus…and then Jesus desperately seeks him. “hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”  It feels funny to use words like desperate to talk about Jesus. It’s not a desperation of need, like it was with the blind man and Zacchaeus, but there is a desperation in Jesus’ words and actions. What else would cause a man to march to his certain death, but a desperate hope that that march would make a difference? A desperate love for a people hurting and lonely and afraid. The end of the passage is explicit: “the Son of Man was sent to seek and save the lost.” The urgency of those seeking Jesus is matched by his urgency seeking them.

This story is first and foremost, is a story of welcome by Jesus. Zacchaeus’s response is significant, to be sure: he will return four-fold to those he wronged! But it is not meant to be a calculated figure of repentance. Of logical reparations. This is not a math problem for Zacchaeus to pay off his community debts. This is an act of praise, an illogical and impractical declaration that comes in the face of the fact that he has been sought. He understands himself—maybe for the first time ever—to be someone worthy of love. Worthy of grace. Worthy of invitation. When Jesus calls him down from that tree, he moves from confused to cared-for. From powerless to purposeful. From desperate to dedicated. We like to poke fun at those who don’t get it in the Gospels…the disciples and the Pharisees and the like. But the bottom line is that Jesus doesn’t seem to have much room for those who know it all! The only ones who get it…are those who don’t get it! Who are ready to be sought and found and saved by Jesus, not by their own expertise.

OK, so what does that mean for us? That we should celebrate our own cluelessness? Well, yeah. Kind of. Barbara Brown Taylor actually talks about this in her book Altar in the World. It is a book of spiritual practices. And one of the practices that she invites us to is “getting lost.” She speaks of the power of the wilderness in the Scriptures. Story after story tell of the truth that only when we are lost, only when we are clueless, can God get to work on us. She says it this way: “when the safety net has split, when the resources are gone, when the way ahead is not clear, the sudden exposure can be both frightening and revealing. We spend so much of our time protecting ourselves from this exposure that a weird kind of relief can result when we fail. To lie flat on the ground with the breath knocked out of you is to find a solid resting place….The point is to give up on the sufficiency of your own resources. The point is to admit that you are lost….”

This spiritual practice of getting lost fits pretty well with the work of Lent, doesn’t it? Over these last weeks, we have been offering this Lenten Rule…practices to engage in this season: listening, humility, communal lament, celebration, and last week the implication was service to the poor and marginalized. But the more I tell you what to do as Christians, the more I run the risk of implying that in order to be acceptable to Jesus, the more things you have to do. The Two-Way pointed this out last week, and used the language of the Reformation: salvation based on works. The Reformers wisely rejected that notion, proclaiming that a salvation based on works (the things we do) is more problematic than one based on grace (the things that God does for us). This is exactly that the Pharisees did wrong. They played Holy Bingo, assuming that their salvation was tied to getting enough numbers crossed off their scorecard. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Now Jesus loves me, this I know. For my overworked and over-busy calendar tells me so. But Barbara Brown Taylor tells us that the only way to win is to throw away the card and receive the grace of being found. Being sought. Being loved.

As does the story of Zacchaeus. He didn’t earn his invitation by Jesus. His works didn’t preclude a holy welcome. All he did was live out of his lostness. His desperation. His confusion. His need. And Jesus did the rest. Zacchaeus’s response to make reparations to others was a natural result of being exposed to a love so deep that it made him want to run out and show that love to others. Even if the mathematics don’t line up. Grace isn’t a mathematical equation anyway!

When you start looking for medieval pictures of Zacchaeus, you will start to find a trend. There are pictures of Zacchaeus up a tree, alongside of pictures of Jesus on the donkey from the triumphal entry of Palm Sunday. In fact, this passage is only a few verses away from the entry into Palm Sunday, which we will read next week. And in a more concrete way, they seemed to see the connection between the tree that Zacchaeus climbed, and the trees which were stripped to lay branches on the road in front of Jesus. In their minds, since Zacchaeus was up the tree anyway, he could throw a few branches down to honor Jesus.

But I think that there is a spiritual connection, as well. Jesus was willing to seek and save the lost, willing to enter into the teeth of the enemy in Jerusalem, willing to lay down his life in desperate love. In some ways, Zacchaeus is the symbol of that love. When he enters that city next week, Jesus is telling every single one of us like he told Zacchaeus  “Hurry on down, because I am seeking you. I am desperately in love with you. You are sought.” The donkey. The temple. The cross. All symbols of that age-old story: Jesus seeks you. Even unto death. Even to the ends of the earth.

I am going to ask you to suspend reason with me for a few minutes this morning. Imagine with me a fantastic scenario. One night, a cold night in Kansas in the middle of a global pandemic and a mediocre season of KU basketball, you fall asleep in your own bed. But when you wake up, something is very different. You have somehow become James, son of Alphaeus, one of the Apostles of Jesus. It obviously takes you a little while to figure this out, but you recognize from Sunday school this name that people keep calling you, you can see that you are one of twelve followers of a Teacher that sure acts a lot like Jesus, and can tell that somehow you have been transported into the body of a man in First Century Palestine. Inexplicably, you have become him. Somehow, you can understand the Aramaic that they are speaking. You look like James instead of yourself. And find yourself following in the footsteps of the most important man who ever walked the earth. It’s like Quantum Leap meets the Gospel of Luke! You know that they would never believe you if you told them you were from the future, so you just follow along.

Biblical scholars would envy your position, as they don’t really know much about James. They know it is not the famous James, brother of John, who was on top of the mountain of Transfiguration with Peter and Jesus. Some wonder if it is the James who wrote the book of the Bible with that name, but most scholars doubt it. Others wonder if it was James, the brother of Jesus, though there is no clear indicator of this. All we know is that he was one of the Apostles, but we don’t know anything more about his ministry, his life after Jesus, or what he thought about Jesus’ ministry. And all you know for sure is that you have somehow become him!

You have never been so thankful that you paid attention in Sunday school! From your best guess, you are somewhere near the border of Jewish territory and Samaritan territory. It is hard for you to physically tell the difference, but you know that Jews and Samaritans don’t like each other much. The cold icy stares that they give you make it clear you are not welcome: everyone you ask for hospitality is like a brick wall…no one wants to help. The other Apostles of Jesus return the favor with angry stares of their own. And plenty of muttering under their breath; you hear one say, “I wish Jesus would have let us rain fire down from heaven on their heads. That would have taught them!” You don’t know for sure who is who, but you think it might be wise to avoid that guy.

From the things that Jesus says combined with your knowledge of the Gospels, you start to piece together where you are in the timeline of Jesus’ ministry. You remember from church the phrase that Luke repeats: “he turned his face toward Jerusalem,” preparing for and indeed walking right into the death that he knew was coming. You are travelling from town to town; Jesus keeps talking about his death; and everyone keeps talking about what will happen once they get to Jerusalem. You know what is coming.

You follow the Apostles as Jesus finds a village and begins to teach. Along the edges of crowd as Jesus teaches, you can see a man inch closer. He is clearly a man of authority and notoriety, as he is dressed in fine robes and others step aside in reverence as he comes closer. All of a sudden, he speaks, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” You can tell that this is the expert in the law who was trying to test Jesus…you can tell by his demeanor and his tone of voice that he is trying stump him instead of actually learn from him. Their exchange at first looks like it might be brief. Jesus responds, showing little interest, “you know the law…what does it say?” This learned law-expert responds, as if he were reading from a textbook, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus’ response is short: “You have given the right answer. Do this and you will live.”

But that is when things get tense. “But who is my neighbor?” Again, you can tell by the tone of his voice, that he is trying to catch Jesus with an unanswerable question. You have read about this exchange a thousand times since you were a child, but seeing it unfold, you realize what he is really asking, “who is NOT my neighbor? Where are the allowable limits of love?” Thinking he had Jesus stuck, he smiled just a bit, smug as can be. Jesus, who seemed almost uninterested in the conversation until that point, seems to light up in that moment. He turns to face the man, but directs his attention to the whole crowd. This is a teacher in his element, and the expert on the law has no idea what is coming.

Jesus tells a story. Again, you have heard the story called “The Good Samaritan” a thousand times, but hearing it told for the first time by Jesus gives you cold chills. The priest walked by on the other side. The Levite walked by on the other side. Standing here watching Jesus tell this story, the implication is clear: these two men were exactly like the expert in the law who had tested Jesus. They were authoritative. They were knowledgeable. And they set very clear limits on who would be their neighbor. In that moment, you remember a Scriptural commentator by the name of Amy-Jill Levine who compared this story to the Three Stooges. The pattern of this sort of story was meant to be predictable. “First came Moe…then came Larry…then came…”  Of course, Curly. And, indeed, you watch the people around you predict who the third person would be. They guess that it would be a regular, ordinary Joe…a Jew just like them. And as you stand there as James son of Alphaeus, you can see them pointing at the law expert and laughing, know that he was the badguy, but they were going to be the hero! But you remember in that moment the rest of Dr. Levine’s words: she wrote that Jesus’ story would have sounded like “First came Moe…then came Larry…then came Osama bin Laden.” A mortal enemy. Not someone like them, but someone that they muttered under their breath about, and wished they could rain down fire upon. And you can hear the gasp in the crowd, as soon as they hear the word Samaritan. By the end, not only is the law expert nearly speechless, but so is the entire crowd. Jesus’ point is clear: love everyone…no questions asked. There are no limits to neighbor love. The person in front of you—whoever they are—is a child of God.

The crowd disperses, and Jesus leads you and the other eleven onto the next town. The other Apostles seem to struggle with the words that Jesus has preached. This is too much. Surely Jesus doesn’t mean that loving their neighbor would mean loving Samaritans. That same Apostle who was ready to rain down fire on the heads of the Samaritans was particularly angry…Jesus can’t really mean what he seemed to say. Surely hospitality has its limits! Surely love cannot extend that far!

The confusion and the anger continued to simmer along the way, until they came to a home where Jesus announced they would stay the night. Two women were working to prepare the home for such a large crowd of guests, and you realized at once that this was the home of sisters Mary and Martha. Those sermons and Sunday school lessons you listened to over the years sure are coming in handy! As you all began to make yourself at home, some of the Apostles start to talk to Jesus about what had happened during the day. Like the teacher of the law, they try to corner him on what he actually meant. Again, you get cold chills when you start to see one of the two sisters quietly slip into the corner of the room and begin to listen. Mary has chosen to sit at the feet of Jesus, while Martha continues her work! As you watch her, you see her attention as a gift that she gives Jesus by stopping what she is doing and giving him her undivided attention. It strikes you as gracious hospitality, just in a different form than Martha. But Martha, looking in from her work, seems embarrassed…like Mary shouldn’t be there learning with the men…like she doesn’t know her place.

As Jesus continues teaching, you are nervous with anticipation. When is Jesus going to stand up and go into the kitchen, and yell at Martha for working so hard? When is he going to laud Mary and rebuke Martha for doing it all wrong? Again, while you have heard the story a thousand times, you are surprised that Jesus doesn’t really come after Martha, until she comes after him, and complains that her sister is not helping. Like before, Jesus gets a light in his eyes that is the opportunity that all teachers wait for…that teachable moment. He turns to Martha, but again directs his words to all those in the room: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

And there, in that moment, you have an epiphany. It wasn’t until you lived it all in one day that you began to understand what the powerful Teacher Jesus was up to in these two encounters. You realize that both of the law expert and Martha took a wrong turn by trying to justify themselves. When the law expert came to Jesus, Jesus didn’t make a big deal about it, and he actually agreed with his assessment about the greatest commandments. Jesus was ready to move on…UNTIL the lawyer tried to set the limits of hospitality. “Who is NOT my neighbor? Who do I NOT have to love?” Likewise, Jesus didn’t make a big deal about Martha, calling her in from the kitchen and dressing her down. He kept teaching…UNTIL Martha tried to set the limits of hospitality. “Mary isn’t doing hospitality the right way…tell her to do it my way!” In watching Jesus’ interaction with both of these individuals, you can see that he is not angry at first with what they are doing or how they are doing it. What catches his attention is when they come with a need to be justified…with arrogant and closed hearts: “you have to do it my way.” An expert in the Torah who doesn’t understand God’s command to include everyone…and a queen of hospitality who refuses to offer grace…have taken a wrong turn somewhere. And their words become for Jesus teaching moments. At least, for you they are. You think about how many times you wished fire down on your enemies, how many times you tried to justify yourself, how many times you put limits on hospitality and grace and love.

As you stand there, inhabiting the body of a man in First Century Palestine listening to the words of Jesus, your mind goes back to the book on your nightstand in cold 21st Century Kansas, by a woman named Christine Valters-Paintner. Before you fell asleep, you were reading her chapter on humility, and you found it particularly moving. Valters-Paintner writes about what true humility is not. It is not an “aw-shucks” putting down of oneself in order to fish for compliments. That is a little bit of what the law expert did, trying to justify himself before Jesus even though he thought he had all of the answers. And true humility is not low self-worth, believing that you not are worthwhile unless you accomplish a certain number of tasks in the “right” way. True humility is not misguided perfectionism. Again, Valters-Paintner suggests that this is a misguided understanding of humility that through the centuries has caused many Christians, especially women, to believe that they must be subject and submissive to the men in their lives, doing what they demand. And perhaps that is part of the struggle that Martha felt, embarrassed that Mary wasn’t accomplishing her tasks.

But Jesus showed them another way. You remember reading Valters-Paintner’s suggestion that once you set aside these misguided examples of humility, you can find a true Christ-like humbleness. A true clarity of understanding of self, as God would see us. An honest evaluation of strengths and weaknesses. Our gifts, as well as our “limitations and our woundedness.” She points out that the word humility is tied to the word “humus,” or earth. Humility represents a groundedness, a rootedness.

As you lie on the ground that night, trying to fall asleep, Valters-Paintner’s words come back to you, and you see their wisdom echoed in the words of Jesus. In fact, as your mind is spinning, and you feel the hard earth beneath you, it comes in a rush of revelation that this is what Jesus seems to be teaching his Apostles on this one momentous day in the life of his ministry. Or, at the very least, this is what Jesus has taught you today. Humility. Grace. Love…of God and of neighbor. Love everyone…no questions asked.

You fall asleep that night, as James son of Alphaeus. You don’t know if this was all a dream or a vision, or if this was really happening. Your head is spinning. You have learned so much…in just one day with Jesus! What will tomorrow bring? Where will you even wake up? Back home in Kansas, or on the road to Jerusalem with Jesus? Either way, you know you will live your life differently. For you have learned again what it means to be a humble follower of Jesus.

For the last 2,000 years, I think that the Church has gotten a little caught up in this. If there is one thing you know about Stephen, it is probably the fact that he was killed. Stoned by those who disagreed with him. And the Church has focused on that fact more than much else that he did! He is often heralded as the first Christian martyr. It is hard to find a picture of him that doesn’t somehow involve stones…there are ancient icons that have these rocks hovering by his body…and even Sunday school curriculum shows some pretty graphic, bloody pictures of Stephen. I mean, he is patron saint of stonemasons, for crying out loud! Come on, Church, can we do better by Stephen?

I think we should. While his sacrifice at the end of the story is definitely important, it is not the only important thing that happens. And I think it distracts us from what might be even more important.

First, let’s set the stage. Before we hear anything about Stephen, we learn that there is an injustice happening in the early church. Acts 2 describes that the community sold its possessions and shared everything communally. Everyone shared and everyone received. But by the time we get to Acts 6, we see that this arrangement wasn’t working out for everyone. Scholar Justo Gonzalez shocked me when he suggests that the events of this chapter likely took place six years after the Pentecost. The Early Church has been preaching and growing for a significant time, trying to figure out how to live this communal life of Christ. At this point, they would have all still considered themselves Jewish, but were Christ-followers within that broader faith. Now, a handful of years later, there are inequities. “All were together and had all things in common” is falling short of the ideal. Specifically, there are inequities between two types of widows. As you have heard me say before, widows were often the most vulnerable in the society, as they had no husband to provide resources, nor ability to work for themselves. The Bible, from the Torah to Hebrews, talks about making sure that we take care of the widows and orphans. They are 1 and 1a on the list of vulnerable people that we should care for.

But the Early Church had set up invisible lines between two kinds of widows. There were the widows who were born in Palestine, in what we might call the Holy Land, who spoke Aramaic and were considered culturally Hebrew. Acts calls them the Hebrew widows. Then, there were those who were from outside of Palestine, often called the Diaspora, who were religiously Jewish but culturally more like the Greco-Roman culture that surrounded them.  Acts calls them Hellenist widows, referring to the culture where they came from more than language that they spoke.

The bottom line is that there were insiders and outsiders. Closer to the central hub of Jerusalem, the Hebrew (Palestinian) widows were being cared for with enough food and shelter and attention. But farther away, the Hellenistic widows were being neglected. As much as the Early Church wanted to take care of everyone, and talking about taking care of everyone, and even stormed through the Temple like Jesus did and told the religious leaders to take care of everyone, there were still inequities and injustices. It happens. It always happens.

It still happens. I want to thank the good folks at the Lawrence Journal World for making my sermon illustration easy this week. For those of you who get the paper, you might have seen the same thing that I did. On Tuesday, two big pieces of news landed on the front page.

• The first is the surprise announcement that Brandon Woods will be closing their nursing facility by the end of the year, if not earlier. If you do not live in town, you may not know that Brandon Woods is one of the bigger elder care facilities in the community, and is set up with graduated care, allowing its residents to live as independently as possible, until the need for greater care is required. But now, the out-of-state owners have announced that they will be closing the facility that cares for those greatest needs, and focusing on the independent and assisted living segments instead. The nursing care is just too expensive.
• The second is the announcement that Kennedy Elementary School will be closed next month. Full disclosure, my wife Kimberly teaches at Kennedy, and so I have been able to see first-hand what a special place that school has become especially in the last few years. It is a smaller neighborhood school, and also one that cares for some of the greatest at-risk families in our community. Many of our indigenous families in town attend there, as it is closely connected to Haskell University. Kennedy has made major gains in academic scoring in the last few years, but now, to save money, the school is closing.

Community of Lawrence, where did we go wrong? Like the Early Church, we have somehow managed to say at once that the needs of our most vulnerable, our most at-risk residents, our most marginalized, literally our widows and orphans, is “too expensive.” And I am not going to just point fingers at the school district, or at the owners of Brandon Woods. Just like I said a few weeks ago, this is about “all y’all.” This is on all of us:

• Anyone who has perpetuated the myth that east Lawrence schools are bad and filled with bad kids, and insisted that we draw boundary lines that shrink and starve those neighborhoods, so our kids don’t have to be around “those people.”
• Anyone who has perpetuated the myths that nursing homes are gross or dangerous.
• Anyone who has complained about our schools or our teachers for not working enough miracles in the lives of our children.
• Anyone who has complained about our nurses and medical staff for not working enough miracles in the lives of our least healthy elderly adults.
• Anyone who spends more time worried about a transgender athlete law in Kansas, impacting an estimated 5 or 6 young people statewide, instead of paying attention to the 500,000 students in Kansas who need politicians to pay attention to them.
• Anyone who pushes back on Medicare Expansion or Health Care Reform or the ACA, while across the state, hospitals and nursing homes close their doors forever.

Thank you, Journal World, because if it bleeds it leads, and I am not overstating this—that Tuesday’s paper screams loud and clear that there is blood on all of our hands. And it is the widows and orphans who will suffer the most.

With a similar level of anger and frustration, the Early Church bubbled over. There were insiders and there were outsiders. And the outsiders were getting left out. But that is not the end of the story. Look what happens in response. Again, it is Justo Gonzalez who helped me to see what was at stake here. The Hellenistic, outsider, enculturated Christians cried out for justice, and justice was given. The Twelve Apostles put their heads together and chose to empower seven individuals to bring justice to the community. They prayed about who to choose, found individuals who were sensitive to the workings of the Holy Spirit, laid hands on them (for the first time in the Early Church), and empowered them. And this was more than just creating a committee to look into the issue. This was more than just appointing a token member from the impacted community to some board. They gave these Seven the blessing, the power, and the authority to make sure that justice was done. The word here that the NRSV translates as “waiting on tables” is “diakonia,” which has both a connotation of servanthood and also of financial power. Some translations say “keeping accounts.” They gave them all the church credit cards! In short, Gonzalez writes, they brought these marginalized outsiders into the middle of the power structure and gave them what they needed to make things right. The Church of Jesus is radical in the fact that those who are most vulnerable, most in need, set the standard for the rest of the community. When someone has been marginalized, the Church of Jesus puts them in the center. Which is exactly what they did with Stephen. Sorry, it’s taken half the sermon to get to him, but you had to know why Stephen is important. Stephen is one of the Seven.

Now, let me tell you something about the food pantry. When you work the food pantry, look out. When you stand side-by-side with some of the most desperate and needy in our community, watch out. When you see the vulnerable and afraid and hurting week after week after week, be careful. Because there is a good chance you are going to get set on fire by the Spirit of God. The Twelve told the Seven, “Go take care of the food pantry,” and before they knew it the Seven had disappeared and started preaching the Gospel of a Risen Christ. And that is exactly what happened to Stephen. He saw the power of a God who cared for the most vulnerable in the community, and it set him on fire for the Gospel. He was brought in from the margins to the center, and couldn’t help but go back out to bring more in. From the very beginning, the Church of Jesus followed the food pantry team out the doors, and it changed the way they saw God and the world.

I would suggest that Stephen’s death and martyrdom is really a footnote in the story. What makes the story powerful is what got him killed in the first place. You see, when you go back out and bring the marginalized back in, the establishment doesn’t like it much. People don’t like it when you upset the status quo, when you break down the barriers and boundaries that they have set up. But Stephen, who lived his life by the rule of inclusion and embrace, even asking for forgiveness to the people as they were killing him, demonstrates what we are to be about in the Church of Jesus.

You know, there are two phrases that I have heard over and over again in the last year that I have come to hate.

It sets my teeth on edge when I hear that churches are considering “opening back up.” Because that implies that we have been closed. That implies that we turned the sign around and said we’d be back after the pandemic is over. That implies that this crew out here that you can’t see hasn’t been working their tails off to figure out how to get picture and sound and non-buffering video into your living rooms. That implies that we haven’t been doing Gospel ministry every single step of the way. In fact, follow me. If you want to see what an opened up church looks like, check out our food pantry. Church, you have been open! You have been hard at work. Week in and week out, you have been hard at work, caring for the needs of our community. And just this last week, while I watched some of those volunteers doing their work, one of the case managers for Bert Nash showed up. He works with families dealing with homelessness and housing insecurity, as well as mental health issues. And he said something that has stuck with me: “I don’t know where we’d be without the churches. So many more wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for your generosity.” That’s you all. That’s following the food pantry out into the world. And that is because we never closed up.

Another phrase sets my teeth on edge:  “back to normal.” Let me make it clear that the last thing I want is to go back to normal. Back to 2019. Back to the pre-pandemic world. Because let’s be honest…was 2019 that great? Were there no outsiders in 2019? No people underfed in 2019? No people underhoused in 2019? No people marginalized and left out and ignored in 2019? No people suffering from mental health imbalances in 2019? Let me say this as clearly as I can, “if we go back to normal, we have failed.” Because God has better than normal in store. God has justice in store. God has restoration in store. God has healing and security and hope and health in store. God has a community who doesn’t make their children walk across 5 lane highways to get to school. God has a community who doesn’t tell their elderly that they are just out of luck. Church, let’s never go back to normal again…God has something better than normal in store. Church, let’s never go back to normal again. Just like the Early Church, let’s follow the food pantry out the doors. Let’s go out like Stephen and find the vulnerable and hurting and put them front and center. Let’s get back to being an abnormal family of love and inclusion and care. Let’s get to work being the Church of Jesus.

Galatians 3:1–9, 23–29

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified! 2 The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? 4 Did you experience so much for nothing?—if it really was for nothing. 5 Well then, does God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? 6 Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” 7 so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham. 8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.” 9 For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed.

23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Imagine a new Christian, someone who was just starting to get excited about following Jesus, who didn’t know a lot about God, but was on fire and excited about Jesus. But then, other people started talking to them saying, Jesus is great, but make sure you don’t do this list of sins and no-nos, or yes, Jesus is great, but make sure you are following these six steps to stay on the right path. Jesus is great, but make sure you’re following my church’s version of Jesus and not that church’s Jesus. And instead of continuing to be excited about Jesus and the love of God and consumed by the Holy Spirit, they start becoming consumed with following the right rules, their focus turns to making sure they don’t fall into a list of extra-bad sins, instead of remembering God’s extravagant love and grace, judging others becomes a way of life. This person was so excited about Jesus, but while they were trying to follow Jesus, other people got in the way and started leading them towards their version of Jesus and truth instead of the Jesus who is Truth. It's pretty easy to imagine something like this happening.

Something similar was happening to the churches in Galatia. Paul came and preached the good news about Jesus and they were excited and ready to follow Jesus, but then Paul left to go someplace else, and other teachers came in saying, “Yes, Jesus is great, but what also is important, is following the law--men, you need to be circumcised and everyone should follow the Jewish dietary rules.” The people in Galatia were Gentiles, they had never followed the law before, but these teachers spoke with such authority and seemed to know what they were talking about, so the people in Galatia started focusing on following the law and lost their focus on Jesus.

When Paul found out about this, he was quick to put them back in their place. My version of his rant goes something like this—You fools! Who pulled the wool over your eyes? Did someone put you under a spell? I told you clearly and at length about the crucified and risen Christ, you experienced the power of the Holy Spirit in your lives, but you are acting like you have forgotten all of this. It was the Holy Spirit who began a new work in you, why are you turning to the law now, thinking that the law would continue the work of grace and love that the Holy Spirit established. It just doesn’t make sense! You should have stuck with the Spirit.

The Message version reads, “Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives.” And throughout this week, I have been wondering, what would it look like for us to refocus our lives on Jesus?

The past fourteen months have been filled with unexpected, hard challenges that most of us never imagined. Our focus had to shift to learning a new way of life and a whole new pandemic vocabulary—social distancing, quarantine, isolation pods, mask wearing. Now, as more people are being vaccinated and the research of how COVID spreads become clearer, our focus is able to shift again, away from pandemic life, and onto something new. Perhaps this could be an opportunity for us to refocus our life on Jesus, and today’s Galatians passage gives us some ideas on how to refocus our lives by remembering three key ideas.

First, Paul wants us to remember that the Holy Spirit is active in our lives. From what Paul says, it seems as though the Holy Spirit was active and flourishing in the churches of Galatia, miracles were happening and people were turning to Jesus. But when false teachers started coming in and emphasizing the importance of the law, focus shifted to following the law in order to gain favor with God, instead of remembering it was God’s grace that brought them to God in the first place.

Today, we might not have the law to contend with, but there are plenty of other things to take our focus off of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. While sometimes well meaning, we are good at making extra qualifications to be a good Christian. Just check social media, and you will get a wide array of opinions on what it looks like to be a real Christian. You can’t be a Christian unless you are a part of this political party and passionate about this issue. In order to be a good Christian, you should follow this Bible reading plan, only read this version of the Bible, and listen to this podcast every week. All Christians should read their Bible every morning before putting your feet on the ground—that is how you need to start your day. The lists can go on…

But when we make lists of rules and qualifications about how to be a Christian, we are leaving the work of the Holy Spirit out of our lives.

Because what might be a life-giving Bible reading plan for you, could be overwhelming and guilt-ridden for someone else. What could be an informative, insightful writer for one person, could be harmful and triggering for another.

God made each of us uniquely and so each of us relates and connects with God differently, and that is okay. In fact, that is good because it gives us a bigger, fuller picture of God as we learn from one another, trusting that the Holy Spirit is at work in each of us.

So instead of trying to find the right list of rules and practices to be a good Christian, we need to intentionally invite the Holy Spirit into our lives. And this will look differently for each of us, but perhaps it could begin with a prayer, inviting the Holy Spirit into our lives once again. One prayer for this that I have come across comes from a book called Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, and it goes like this, “Stir us to rise each morning expecting to encounter you and be caught up in your work.” “Stir us to rise each morning expecting to encounter you and be caught up in your work.”

The second thing Paul invites us to remember is that we are children of God. He reminds us of Abraham, who believed in God, listened to God’s call on his life, and was blessed. Paul tells the Galatians that it was not the law that started the people of God, the Israelites, it was the faith of Abraham. The law came later. First, Abraham believed and put his faith in God and God said from Abraham, all nations were to be blessed, Jew and Gentile alike. Paul reminds us that we are all children of God if we just believe.

Believing in God does not mean we are going to live perfect lives. Abraham definitely didn’t—at times he doubted and questioned God and tried to make his own plans when he didn’t think God was acting fast enough—but God continued to work through Abraham. Believing in God puts us on the road to experience God’s love and grace.

Being a child of God is one of the most precious titles we are given, and I think we often underestimate its importance. I know it’s meaning hasn’t fully seeped into my being yet. How would my life change if claiming that I am a child of God took precedence in my life? If I remembered that my value stemmed from being God’s beloved child and not my job, bank account, grades, or friends? How would my anxieties and fears lessen if I was able to fully embrace and realize that I am a part of God’s family and that only happens because of God’s grace and love in Christ Jesus? It would be life changing, and Paul wants us to remember and latch on to that identity.

And lastly, Paul tells us we need to remember our baptism, that we have been made new and are clothed with Christ.

Going to a Presbyterian school and interning at an Episcopalian church, I was surprised by how often they talked about and remembered their baptism. We might have "Baptist" in our name, but I think we could learn something from other denominations in remembering the meaning of our baptism as a visible sign of God’s grace and becoming a part of God’s family. When you walk into my seminary’s chapel, there is a large clear glass bowl filled with water, encouraging us to remember our baptism as we enter. Frequently, worship leaders would go to it, scoop up the water, and pour it back in so we could hear the sounds of our baptism.

One of the gifts of believer’s baptism is that we can actually remember our baptism. Dying to ourselves as we enter the water and emerging as a new creation, one with Christ. And perhaps even feeling new, changed, and cloaked in the Spirit as we walked out of the water. When I taught this spring’s baptism class, we talked about how baptism was a visible symbol of a person’s decision to believe in and follow Jesus, but that it was also a symbol from God that God would always love us, that God would always be with us, and that God calls us God’s beloved child.

Through our baptism, Paul suggests that we are given new clothes to wear--the clothes of Christ. Robert Grosseteste says that “a bodily garment is fitted for the one who wears it, whereas a spiritual garment shapes its wearer.” In baptism, we are united with Christ, clothed with Christ, so we can become more and more like him.

And Paul says this should bring unity among the people of God. Paul quotes what many scholars believe to be part of a baptismal liturgy used at that time-—“that there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” And this liturgy was a play off of a common prayer that Jewish men would say in the mornings, where they would thank God that they were not a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.

The early church is proposing something radical—those hierarchies are no longer at play; a man is not better than a woman, a master is not better than a slave, Jews are not the only ones with access to God; for we are all one in Christ Jesus. It is tempting to say that in Jesus Christ differences are erased, but I don’t think that is the case because God created this big, beautiful world full of diversity so we can see and experience our big, beautiful God as we were all uniquely created in God’s image. No, in Christ and through our baptism, we now have something bigger than our differences to unite us—the transformative love and grace of God.

What a picture Paul has given us in Galatians 3 of what a life re-focused on Jesus looks like!

It is a life in the Spirit, where we remember that God is actively working in our lives, that life with God is not as much about what we do as it is about what the Holy Spirit does in and through us.

It is a life where we know and claim that we are children of God, that our value lies in God calling us a beloved child and not what the world says.

And it is a life with Christ, through our baptism, which unites us together and transforms us to become more and more like him. May it be so! Let’s pray…

God of Abraham and Sarah, God of Hagar, God of Paul and Mary… thank you for inviting us into a new life with Christ Jesus. Thank you for your reminders today that the Holy Spirit is actively at work among us, and we invite you, Holy Spirit, intentionally into our lives once more, that we may expect to encounter you and be caught up in your work daily. Thank you that you call us your children, that no matter what our earthly families look like, we can rest knowing that we are a part of the family of God, so we are never alone. And thank you for our baptism, that we are clothed and united with Christ, transformed into a new creation where hierarchies fall and all are one through Christ Jesus. May we become a little more like you, Lord Jesus, everyday and be transformed into the people you created us to be. Amen.

Benediction: May you go today remembering that you are a child of God, united with Christ, expecting the Holy Spirit to work in and through you this week. Amen.

Once upon a time, there were once six brothers, who will remain nameless for the point of our story. They were not the richest brothers on the planet, but they sure had enough money to live comfortably. All six brothers made sure that they had the “right” clothes, ate at the “right” restaurants, drove the “right” cars, and lived in the “right” neighborhoods. They never were quite ostentatious with their money, but always found subtle ways to remind people that they had it.

All six continued to live in the community in which they had been born. A few of them lived in the same neighborhood where they had been raised as children. Again, they didn’t live in the nicest houses on the block. But they paid lawn services to keep their yards the greenest around. They proudly displayed their security system signs to ward off would-be thieves and remind everyone else that they had things worth stealing. And they spent plenty of money on landscaping and decks and backyard oases so that the backyard parties that they hosted would impress all who showed up.

Everything seemed fine and dandy until one day, when one of the six brothers received a knock on his door. It was a worker from the city government, assigned to visit all of the homes in their boyhood neighborhood with some news: a developer had bought the property adjoining the neighborhood and had plans to build several units of affordable housing. The city commission, fearing blowback from neighbors, assigned this intern to knock on all of the doors and hand out information sheets with a phone number to call. The brother smiled graciously and took the information. Within the hour, he had made six phone calls: one to each of his brothers and the final call to the city number on the bottom of the sheet. How dare the city shift the demographics of their neighborhood?! How dare they lower the property values of their homes?! How dare they consider allowing “those people” into the streets that they would have to drive every day?! The city number rang off the hook that day and into the next week, including separate calls from all six brothers.

Within a month, the city had called a special meeting for the purpose of listening to the concerns of the neighbors. The room was packed and overflowing that night, as neighbor after neighbor told stories of how much work they had put into their homes for over a generation. They shook fists at city leaders for their insensitivity. Some of them gave some version of what they thought was a generous response: “we know that there is a need for affordable housing, but can’t it be somewhere else?”

But the city leaders were insistent. The need was great. The options were few. The neighbors were getting desperate as they began to see that they had no recourse. Finally, one of the six brothers came up with a solution: “what if we build a wall? There is already a bit of a drainage ditch that runs along the border between neighborhoods. What if we widened that ditch, and alongside of it built a wall? The wall could extend around this new affordable housing, allowing an entrance on the opposite side, but eliminating vehicle and foot traffic through our neighborhood? Anyway, wouldn’t those people love the neighborhood all to themselves?” The rest of the neighbors at the meeting, seeing this as they only shot, jumped at the idea. The city leaders said that they would take the idea under advisement, and release a plan soon. The next week, there came another knock at that same brother’s door. It was that same city intern, this time with a new city information sheet with a new plan. He was sent to ask all of the neighbors for their permission to build a wall around the new development; if any neighbor opposed the idea, it would not go through. The brother smiled, gave his wholehearted approval, and went inside to make six phone calls: one to each of his five brothers and one to the city to thank them for their wisdom. Within a week, every neighbor had approved the plan.

This same brother smiled every time he saw the construction on the wall and drainage ditch over the next months. It meant that he had to drive the long way around to his favorite coffee shop, but it was worth it for the peace of mind that it would give him. Eventually, the housing was built, the wall and ditch were completed, and the brother made his way to meet some friends at the coffee shop. As he sat by the window, he watched the quality of cars that pulled in and out of the new neighborhood. Many were sensible, if not older models, but some were in pretty rough shape. The brother smiled to himself that he did not have to see them drive through his neighborhood. Occasionally, he would see people walking by the shop, or even sitting nearby, near the gate of the community.

One face began to look familiar to him. A Latino man would often sit near the entrance of the neighborhood, and hold a sign: “Injured in an accident. Anything helps. God bless.” The brother began to recognize him because of his horrible disfigurement. His face seemed to have burns and open sores, and even on the hottest days of the year he would wear long sleeves and pants; the brother guessed it was to hide the skin of his arms and legs. The only creature who would come close was an old and mangy dog. The brother felt his stomach turn every time he saw the pair of them. He wasn’t sure if the man owned a house in the neighborhood, or was couch surfing with someone there, or perhaps even slept outside within the walls. He asked his friends if they had seen the man. Some had not noticed, though he had been there for months. Others had noticed and felt equally disgusted. One actually piped up that he had felt sorry enough for him that he had hired him to do some work one day. The man did the work well, but he never asked again: let someone else offer the charity next time…he had done his part. That day, he happened to ask the man his name. It was Lazero.

Act II

Unbeknownst to either of them, this brother and Lazero became ill at the same time. Both had a rare form of cancer with no known treatment. The brother, with excellent health insurance, found out through a routine screening. He immediately began expensive and complicated treatment, but it did not work. He died in the hospital, with his family and friends around him. The funeral was one of the biggest that the preacher remembered at his church.

Months earlier, Lazero had begun to suffer with the same symptoms, but had no health insurance and no medical care. He was never diagnosed, and never treated. Months before the brother died, Lazero passed out and slumped over at his spot by the coffee shop. No one paid any attention except for the mangy dog, who sat by his side until the next morning, when the coffee shop employees noticed. He had died in the middle of the night, alone and afraid.

Both the brother and Lazero were ushered to the Land of the Dead. The brother found himself in immediate torment. The god that he had worshipped when he was alive, the god of prestige and position and possession, had no power in this place. He thought that he would be given a position greater than that which he had on earth, in a neighborhood paved with streets of gold and a mansion built just for him. But instead he shuffled among those like him, rewarded on earth, in a place that looked like row upon row of colorless, drab government housing, leaving him in a constant state of emptiness and shame. Black, ugly concrete melted in the unbearable heat that surrounded him. Meanwhile, when he had the strength to look up, he could see in the distance a beautiful land filled with flowers and trees and amazing mansions. But between he and those mansions, he saw a chasm: a vast expanse filled with rocks and snarled trees, and beside it, a wall. Towering above him, separating him from the beauty and peace he saw beyond.

One, he chanced to look up and see a face he knew: it was Lazero! The man still had his scars, but in that place they seemed to be ignored or even rewarded as symbols of survival of a world that had not cared for him, had not protected him, had not loved him. Here, he was loved, and the angels carried him from place to place as his servants. The brother, flashing back to the memory of his friend who had hired Lazero for a day, had an idea. He called out to Abraham, who protected Lazero and guarded the wall to keep the two sides apart. “Abraham, send Lazero to me! Let him come to me, and bring just a drop of water to refresh me in my agony.” Abraham, incredulous of the brother’s arrogance, attempting to order Lazero around even in death, rolled his eyes and brushed him aside: “you received your comfort in life. He receives his in death.” Even though it looked as though Lazero would have done it, out of the kindness and grace of his heart, the chasm was too wide and the wall was too ominous. The brother remained in agony for an eternity.

Act III

The funeral was over and the five brothers grieved the loss of their sixth brother, and put his house on the market. When they gathered in his home to go through his things, they were impressed by the number of possessions that he owned. Such a beautiful home, with all the bells and whistles. One noticed how the fridge still held bottles and bottles and bottles of expensive, sparkling spring water. Only the best. The house was snatched up in a hurry, and the five brothers went back to their lives. Each took a bottle of water with them, not only to quench their thirst, but to remember their brother who had the right priorities, who valued the good things in this life.

The next Sunday, they all agreed that they would go to church together at their brother’s congregation. It was another way to say goodbye. Little did they know that at that moment, in the Land of the Dead, their brother was agonizing over their eternity. He even tried again to send Lazero as a holy messenger to warn them. But again, Abraham rolled his eyes and left the brother in agony. Unwarned, the brothers listened to the sermon from Luke 16. Or maybe “listened” was a generous term. As the preacher droned on about the “law of love,” and the “prophet’s call for justice,” most of them checked their phones and their fantasy baseball rankings before the game started in a couple of hours. They were there to see friends, and be seen as loyal and supportive brothers. As the preacher delivered the final line—“they will not be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead!”—they checked the time and wondered when it would all be over.

Except for one. One brother found himself that afternoon sitting alone, at his kitchen table, staring at his bottle of water. He had in mind to pour a glass and drink it in his brother’s memory, while he watched the game. But next to that bottle on the table was the morning’s paper. On the front page was a report on the heat wave that had gripped the city. Several older residents had been hospitalized due to the heat and the fact that they could not pay their air conditioning bills. One homeless man had died in the heat the day before. As the brother looked at that cold bottle of water, he wondered what had happened to his priorities. He and his brothers had “oohed and ahhed” over their dead brother’s possessions, but what good were they to him now? What legacy had he left, besides an awesome man cave and a green yard? The words of the preacher and the law of love haunted him, as he remembered that last line, “even if someone rises from the dead.” What would his brother tell him now, if he had the chance?

Before he knew what he was doing, he had grabbed that bottle of water and walked out the door. As the first pitch was thrown at the game, he was walking through the neighborhood, looking for someone who could use a bit of refreshment. As he passed house after house, all he heard was the whir of air conditioners. Finally, he happened upon a group of kids bouncing a basketball. They were walking dangerously close to a busy road. He remembered a story from the year before, in which a young teenager was killed on this very road…a distracted driver had swerved over and hit the child. He stopped the kids and asked them, a little more accusatory than he had meant, “why are you all walking by this road? Don’t you know it’s dangerous?” All of the kids froze in their tracks, clearly afraid that they were in trouble. Only one had the courage to answer, “we were going to the school, sir, to play some basketball.” The brother was incredulous. “But why would walk this way? Next to this busy road?” Again, shifting and nervously looking at the ground. Until the youngest boy piped up, “there’s this wall, and we can’t get over it and have to go around.”

The wall.

Of course. The same wall that he had fought for, and petitioned the city for. His brother’s wall. Those kids went to the school in his neighborhood, the same one he had gone to growing up, and every one of them had to walk the long way around every day to get to school, and in this Sunday afternoon heat, just to play a little basketball. The man didn’t know what to say. He felt a little stupid holding a bottle of water, like it was going to make all the difference. But he gave it to them anyway, told them to share it, and asked them to please be careful. The next morning, 8 am on Monday, he was standing at the front doors of City Hall to petition that a gate be built in the wall, and a bridge over the drainage ditch, so that kids could make it safely to school. He wasn’t the first to petition, and parents had been begging for a year for the same thing. But now someone cared who could make a difference. He called his friends on the city commission. He talked to his brothers, who all said that he was crazy. He himself went door to door, asking the neighbors to approve the building of the bridge. And he went door to door in the walled in neighborhood, introducing himself as someone who had messed up a lot in his life, but wanted to help. He listened to the needs of the neighbors, his neighbors, and learned how dangerous that wall had been. Not only had it kept kids and parents from the school and parks, and made it hard for people without cars to get to work, but it had been a symbol of shameful separation. They internalized the message that they were somehow less than…something to be feared. He learned more about the man named Lazero. “San Lazero,” they called him…”Saint Lazero.” Disfigured and unable to get a job, who had sat on the corner, asking rich passers-by for money. He learned that he had never kept a cent of the money he collected. Every penny went to the families and children of the neighborhood.

Before long, the man didn’t care about the gate anymore…he had bigger plans in mind. He was back on the front stoop of City Hall the next day with a new plan: the wall must come down, and in its place a park. The drainage ditch would be cleaned out and landscaped and more bridges built across. His old neighbors threw a fit of course, but the brother didn’t care. He persisted. He gave his money for the project. He knocked on more and more doors, hand in hand with his new neighbors. He argued for more affordable housing for the city, and insisted that it be built close enough for kids to walk to school.

A year later, on the hottest day of the summer, the city held a dedication for the new park. The wall was gone, the bridges were built, and the trees were planted. It was named the San Lazero Garcia Memorial Park, in memory of the man who sat by the gate because he had to. And on a table in the middle sat a hundred bottles of his brother’s favorite sparkling spring water, giving it away to all who were there. He knew this was only the beginning. But he also knew that today, his friends would find their thirst quenched by one who had finally learned the law of love.

And somewhere, beyond the grave, Father Abraham smiled.

Luke 9:28-45

Listen: An Invitation for Lent

Last Sunday we left Jesus and his disciples after two healing stories. People were amazed at Jesus’ power. Luke says that “fear seized” those that saw the healings “and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us!’ and ‘God has looked favorably on his people!’” (Luke 7:16). Words of Jesus’ greatness and power spread across the land.

Today we skip ahead to chapter 9 and meet Jesus and three of his disciples, Peter, James, and John, on a mountain, where they had gone to pray. Jesus did this quite regularly. He knew he needed time alone to spend with his Father and listen. But this prayer time became a prayer experience like no other. For while Jesus was praying, two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared and began talking to Jesus. 

Whether the disciples were asleep when this first occurred or were just very sleepy, it is unclear, but when Peter wipes the sleep from his eyes and realizes what is before him, he feels called to act, so he offers to build three dwellings for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah to stay in. Oftentimes we give Peter a hard time for this and read Peter as a blundering fisherman, who speaks without thinking. But I think more is going on here. Just as Peter had previously declared that Jesus was the Messiah, earlier in chapter 9, Peter now sees that something divine is happening and Peter wants to honor this. When Peter offers to build a dwelling, a tent. This same word is used in scripture for tabernacle, which is more than just an ordinary tent. 

To understand this, we need to go back and remember the story of the exodus, of Moses and the Israelites journey in the wilderness. It is a well known story for Peter because the Jews reenact this story every year during the Festival of Booths. He knows the story in Exodus when Moses goes up to the mountain and meets with God and Moses’ face literally shines from being in the presence of the LORD. When Moses came back down from the mountain, Moses told the Israelites that God was commanding them to build a tabernacle, a portable sanctuary so God could dwell among them during their journey. This tent was very elaborate and there were specific instructions for its dimensions and the materials used to build it. Once it was finally complete, scripture says that “a cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:32). And not even Moses could enter into the tabernacle because God’s presence was too powerful and glorious for even Moses to withstand. This cloud then became the guide for the Israelites during their time in the wilderness. When the cloud filled the tabernacle, they Israelites would stay camped until the cloud lifted, and then they would move. During this wilderness experience, God was still present among God’s people. God dwelled with them and God guided them each step of the way. One Rabbi described the Festival of Booths as “living in temporary shelters for seven days as a reminder that when their ancestors were in the wilderness, God provided them booths to dwell in.” 

So, when Peter sees Jesus’ face glowing, radiating the divine, and also sees Moses and Elijah, it makes sense that Peter’s impulse is to build some tents. Peter recognizes that something divine is happening and does not want it to end. So, not fully understanding the implications of what he is saying, Peter wants to build tents to keep this divine presence among them. 

As Peter is saying this, though, a cloud overshadows them and then they actually enter into the cloud. If you compare this to the exodus story, something has changed. In the exodus story, when the cloud entered into the tabernacle, no one could enter. God’s glory and power was too great for humans to withstand. But now, Peter, James, and John are in the cloud with Jesus! They are directly in the presence of God! Actually, they have already been living with God for some time at this point since they have been following Jesus. The presence of God is no longer contained to the tabernacle, it is among them. 

And then, once they are immersed in this cloud, God speaks. “This is my son, my chosen; listen to him!” This echoes Jesus’ baptism, when God says to Jesus, “You are my son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” But in this moment, God is addressing the disciples, declaring Jesus’ divinity and affirming Peter’s declaration that Jesus is the Messiah. Then a command is added, “Listen to him!” 

And as quickly as the cloud had appeared, it was gone. Now the experience was over. There was no need to build the tents. Elijah and Moses had vanished. The mountaintop experience was over and it seems that the disciples did not know what to make of it. So, they stay silent about it. They did have something to take with them, an experience affirming Jesus’ divinity and a command given by God – listen to Jesus, but the next things Jesus says aren’t things you necessarily want to hear. First, Jesus comments on the “faithless and perverse” state of the generation and then he predicts betrayal. These are hard words to hear, and the disciples don’t even know what to do with Jesus predicting his betrayal. 

But perhaps, this is fitting. After mountaintop experiences, after spiritual highs, we have to re-enter reality, and reality isn’t always pretty. It’s messy and broken. I appreciated how one commentator described this scene as especially fitting this year–after a moment of hope, when God’s glory shone around, Jesus and the disciples emerged back into a health crisis. Another boy ill, another father pleading for Jesus to heal his son, and the disciples not being able to do anything about it. 

This is something I think we can relate to right now. We have moments of hope, moments of joy–news about the vaccine, we find a way to see friends or family for the first time in months–but then we still find ourselves in this pandemic and it feels like nothing has changed. Another person we love testing positive, another day of masks and social distancing. We feel helpless. 

The good news is that this is not the final word. Jesus knew humanity was weak and limited, yet Jesus still chose to come and dwell among us, to be a living tabernacle in our midst. So while we feel helpless, we can be comforted by the fact that we are not alone. God is in our midst. The Holy Spirit is present with us to give us what we need to keep going. 

While we may falter, Jesus is faithful. The disciples could not heal the boy, but Jesus did. And once again, everyone was amazed. The glory of God, the power of Jesus was evident. But Jesus had another hard word to give. “Let these words sink into your ears,” he says, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.” “Let these words sink into your ears.” God just told his disciples to listen to Jesus, and now Jesus is saying really pay attention and listen to what I am about to say. I am going to be betrayed. And while Jesus wants them to listen, they do not understand. Actually it says they cannot understand and they were scared and embarrassed to ask more about what Jesus meant. 

“Listen to him!” “Let these words sink into your ears!” 

The command to listen has been sinking into my ears and touching my heart this week. As I was thinking about listening, I thought about times when I felt listened to, when I felt heard, and times when I did not. I thought about a time when I was having a bad day and called a friend to talk. I said, “Hey, I was just calling to say hi and I need to talk,” and then my friend started telling me about her day. I listened and then said, “I need to talk,” but she was excited about what was going on in her life and didn’t process it. So I listened some more and then said, “Hey, I’m having a bad day. I need to talk,” and I started crying. Then she quickly realized that I had been trying to tell her I needed to talk and it wasn’t sinking into her ears. She apologized and then listened as I told her about my day. I was thinking about this, and all of a sudden a question came into my mind and pierced my heart. How often does God experience this with me? How often does God reach out to talk to me and keep on with my day? This question shocked me because I consider myself to be a good listener, but I realized that way too often, I am guilty of not listening to God’s nudgings in my spirit to be quiet and listen to what God has to say. Instead, I ignore God and keep playing on my phone, I watch one more episode of Netflix, or keep background noise going so I do not have the space to listen to what God has to say. 

Jesus asked his disciples to listen to him, to let his words about his betrayal sink into their ears, to touch their hearts. But the disciples did not know what to do with those words at the time. We have an advantage because we know what Jesus was talking about. We know the journey that he was about to go on. And in our church year, we are about to embark on that journey again. On Wednesday we will remember that we are made of dust and to dust we will return, that we are fragile beings that are in need of a savior. Then, we will journey with Jesus, remembering his last days, during the Lenten season. 

Now, when I was younger, I thought that Lent was just something that Catholics and Lutherans did because that was what I saw in my town. In college, though, I started to wonder if maybe there was something to observing Lent, to giving up something or incorporating a new practice. Since then, I have experimented with different things–giving up cookies, Facebook, one year I even gave up sleeping in, another I committed to journaling every day. Lent is an opportunity to reflect and examine ourselves, to remember that we are lacking and that we need God to flourish. 

This Lent, I am inviting you to engage in holy listening. Holy listening is more than hearing what someone is saying. It is believing that God is present and speaking in the midst of everyday life and training our ears to be attuned to what the Holy Spirit is saying. It means that we believe that we are all made in the image of God and that we can learn about God from one another. The transfiguration story is filled with good news–God is present among us! God no longer stays inside a tabernacle but lives in our midst. God is calling us to listen, to journey with Jesus this Lenten season, and discover how God is active and speaking to us today.

 Practicing listening can take many forms, but to help us start thinking about what practicing holy listening might look like, I have created a worksheet with different ideas and practices for holy listening that Jenny will put in the chat and can also be accessed on our website. There are suggestions for how to make space for listening in your daily life, ideas for spiritual practices to listen to God, and ideas for families about how to engage in listening together. I created this list just as a starting point to help you think about how you might want to engage in holy listening this Lenten season. I created this list with people of all ages in mind, so kids, teens, adults–there could be something for you on this list! Pick one or two things to try. Take what is helpful and leave what is not. I would love to hear about what you choose to do and what you learn through this journey. 

Now let’s pray. Dazzling God, Thank you for coming into our midst through Jesus Christ and for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Open our ears, hearts, and eyes to listen to you, Lord Jesus, during this Lenten season. Guide us as we take this journey to Jerusalem. Show us that you are still speaking and active in the world today.