March 3, 2013 Third Sunday in Lent

Luke 13: 1-9

   1 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
    6 Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, 'For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?'
    8" 'Sir,' the man replied, 'leave it alone for one more year, and I'll dig around it and fertilize it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.' "

Part I

When ever I judge someone else’s innocence or guilt  I am:
1. Saying more about myself than them.
2.  Staying clear of my need to repent, keeping the focus out there
so it won’t have to be in here.
3.  Keeping myself from being much good to anyone, God included.

There is always a second chance with Jesus - and we need it!
Repentance is a necessity for all of us!
“No one is righteous, no not one.” Rom. 3:10

Part 2

Whatever else this parable is about, it is about grace - God’s grace.

We have only once place to stand in this parable - we are the barren fig tree.
And the meaning is that no matter what, God is first, last and always a God of grace; “whose love will over rule his anger and whose mercy is stronger then her logic.”

Grace means “God never lets us go; God never lets us down; God never lets us off.”  I can blow it but I can’t lose it!

We are to live as those who have be so graced; we are to be graceful in all that we do.

p.s.  E. Susan Bond writes in New Proclamation, Year C 2013, p. 163:

"Praise God!  Everything doesn't happen for a reason.  Shout hallelujah!  What goes around doesn't come around.  The holy gardener looks on the unfruitfulness of the church and the unfruitfulness of the world and says,
it's not a lost case yet.  Let's give it another chance."

Amen!  And again I say, AMEN!

Feb. 24, 2013 Second Sunday in Lent

Luke 13:31-35

31 At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, "Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you."
32 He replied, "Go tell that fox, 'I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.' 33 In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!
34"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! 35 Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

“AGENTS OF LOVE”

God wants to love us more then we want to be loved.
God wants his love to be a living power and passion in our lives, sustaining us when we are down, challenging us when we are off course, directing us when we are confused and loving us into joyful obedience and hopeful servant hood, no matter what.

We don’t want that!
It is scary to be loved by God that much, for it “demands our life our soul our all.”
Being loved this much means I can no longer play at being religious - I have to become real.
Like Mother Teresa who was an agent of God’s unrelenting love in the midst of unrelenting odds.


“I WOULD - YOU WOULD NOT”

One of the most destructive things we can do is try force our way on someone else.
We can weep for them but we can’t live for them.

The best we can do is model - try influence someone into wanting what we have.
Jesus did a lot of modeling as he walked among us.  He didn’t force anyone to follow him;
he modeled Gods love and it drew people to him.

His weeping over Jerusalem is modeling that love.  A love that will not let us go, but will not force us to come either.  A love which wants the best for us, and is willing to risk our not wanting it, and weeps for us when we don’t.  O what a wondrous love!

Feb. 17, 2013 First Sunday in Lent

Luke 4:1-13

1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
    3 The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread."
    4 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone.'[a]"
    5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 So if you worship me, it will all be yours."
    8 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.'[b]"
    9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written:
   " 'He will command his angels concerning you
      to guard you carefully;
    11 they will lift you up in their hands,
      so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'[c]"
    12 Jesus answered, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'[d]"
    13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

“JESUS TEMPTATION AND OURS”

Jesus is ready to take on the world and all that needs changing therein.  He knew God better then any mortal before him, and was more ready to do God’s will then anyone had ever been.

And yet, he is still temptable.
The battle with evil begins at the moment when he is sure he is the One sent of God.

It is the temptation to take the easy way out.  To sell his soul for a bite of bread.
We too are tempted to think that we can live by bread alone.

It is the temptation to believe that the end does justify the means - idolatry is okay if it is for the right reason. I can keep my faith separate from the rest of my life, bowing to God on Sunday and doing what I have to do to make it the rest of the time.
No!  Our faith is to lead us to do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with our God”   (Micah 6:8)  Nothing less is enough.

It is the temptation to prove God’s goodness by trying to control what God does - by thinking we can be in charge of God’s miracles.

And the temptations keep coming as long as we live; as well as the challenge to make our faith a “power and passion in authority among the powers and passions of our lives.”  P.T. Forsyth


“GOOD - AND TEMPTING”

It would be easy to say that the way to deal with temptation is to not really live.  Not really affirm the appetites and passions of life as beautiful.  Not really affirm the ambition of life as good.  Not let the spirit of life out of its cage to really fly.

The church has implied this in the past by making the holier less passionate , the purer less ambitious, the righteous less in touch with the real world.  But it "ain’t necessarily so!"

It is the good, the beautiful, the precious which tempts us, not the ugly, bad, valueless.

Ours is the task of learning how to overcome temptation without destroying the good which is ours to experience and share.  Learning how to live with passion, ambition and the desire to get all we can out of life, and doing this in a way which does not destroy but enhances life

For we do not live by bread alone and we do not live alone.
We cannot continually put ourselves first and come out on top.

 “TEMPTED TO BELONG TO THE WORLD”

Jesus second temptation was to go for it big.  As Henri Nouwen says, “The whole life of Jesus of Nazareth was a life in which all upward mobility was resisted.”

With Jesus the first are last, the wise are the foolish, the powerful are the weak, the rich are the poor, and the free are the slaves.  He reverses the order of things.  He comes down to us.  He didn’t go for the biggest and the best in the eyes of this world.

This is our temptation too.  “In (our) technological and highly competitive society we are characterized by a pervasive drive for upward mobility....The result is a spiral of increasing desire for power which parallels a spiral of increasing feelings of weakness.”  Nouwan

We do not belong to the world.  We belong to God.  But we are tempted to belong to the world.  To worship power.  It is for this reason that we need to repent many times and say with Jesus, “Be off Satan, I must follow the downward way of the cross, for I worship the Lord my God and serve only Him.  In my powerlessness his power and love are made perfect.”

Feb. 10, 2013 Transfiguration Sunday

Luke 9: 29-36

29 As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. 30 Two men, Moses and Elijah, 31 appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. 32 Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. 33 As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, "Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." (He did not know what he was saying.)
    34 While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. 35 A voice came from the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him." 36 When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves, and told no one at that time what they had seen.

“A Holy Moment”

Our text shares with us a holy moment.  A moment which cannot be captured with words but can only be lived out with deeds.  Holy moments are not so much to be talked about as lived out.  And we all have them if we will only stop and see them.

They also are not to be lived in; we can’t stop the world and just stay in the holy moment.
This would make an idol of that experience.  Rather they are to be windows through which we see more clearly the road we are to travel and the presence of a loving God for our journey.


“They Told No One”

It was a mystical, spiritual, psychic, weird, crazy, spooky experience; too big, too powerful, too unreal for them to talk about.  It couldn’t be communicated with words.  Words could not contain it, describe it, pass it on.  So they said nothing.

I’m glad they couldn’t talk about it.  To talk about it would cheapen the experience and make it less real.   Something this sacred you don’t cheapen with words.

To do so is to end up worshiping the experience rather than the God who created it.
It is to have pride in our great experience with God; and even gloat over it, rather than be humbled by God’s grace.

What counts is genuine human beings whose lives reflect that something great has happened to them.  They may not be able to talk about it; but their lives reflect it.  It is felt more then heard.  This is what really counts with God.  What we do outwardly, because of what has happened to us, often in secret.


p.s.  A Zen proverb:  "After enlightenment, the laundry."