A Sermon for Holy Saturday

This semester, I'm taking a course entitled "Preaching about Death."  It's a charming class, as I'm sure you can tell by its title. Charming and fascinating.  As part of the class, we have to write sermons on different death related topics.  Most recently, we had to write a sermon for a death-related event in the church year--Good Friday, Easter, All Saints Day, Maundy Thursday, and so on.  


I chose to write a sermon for Holy Saturday. I've never actually been to a Holy Saturday service (not to be confused with Easter Vigil services which occur late that same night).  In fact, I'm not sure I've ever heard a sermon preached on this passage--the story of Jesus' burial. As you read, be mindful that this sermon would be one of many preached during Holy Week beginning with one on Palm Sunday journeying through the Last Supper and to the Cross and ending with the Resurrection.  Here's what I came up with for one of the in between days--one of the days when we have to wait.

To Sit and Wait
John 19: 38-42

What a week. Six days ago we were on a high.  We sang songs of Hosanna. We saw the prophecies fulfilled. The words of the Psalmist were shouted by the people of Jerusalem: “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” This past Thursday we heard the stories of the last days of Jesus read to us. We listened to him instruct his disciples (and so us) to love one another. We broke bread together, shared the cup, and watched as the symbols of our faith were stripped away from this sacred space.

The next day we returned and listened as our worst fears were confirmed.  Jesus was crucified. We sat together in silence, then ate in silence--everyone feeling like they should say something, no one knowing quite what to say.

And today, we find ourselves gathered here again--not exactly sure why we returned to this space, but positive it needed to be done.

Today is one of the hollow days of Holy Week.  A day where there isn’t much to be said or to be done other than to sit and keep watch.  This is a common theme during the church year, particularly during seasons of preparation.  As we look toward coming events, we are often exhorted to keep watch.  It’s a central theme of Advent, and today we find ourselves reminded to do it again. 

The season of Lent, like Advent, is not just a season of preparation, but also of waiting. Specifically, it’s a season of waiting for new life, of hoping for the resurrection, and of longing for redemption.  But before any of that can happen, we must wait.  And during Lent, our waiting isn’t filled with joyful anticipation, but with mourning.

This story of Jesus’ burial is found in all of the gospels. In each telling, we see Joseph of Arimethea, considered by many to be a member of the Sandhedrin (the group of powerful Jews who were influential in Jesus’ death), receive permission to take Jesus’ body and place him in a tomb.  In all the stories, the stage is set at the start of Passover, a central holiday in the Jewish tradition that focuses on the story of the Exodus. 

One element the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) tell us, that John is missing is the presence of the women.  They aren’t central to this story, but they are crucial in their actions.  They follow Jesus’ body to the tomb, and they wait.

The Markan account is sure to tell us that Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus saw the body in the tomb. This, of course, is a necessary literary element.  Ensuring that the women saw Jesus in the tomb makes their coming claim of the Resurrection more viable. What they once saw was no longer.

Luke, always the historian, expands upon Marks version, adding that after the women saw Jesus in the tomb, “they returned, and prepared the spices and ointments.”

But Matthew offers us a different detail.  The author of Matthew tells us that after Joseph of Arimethea had rolled a rock in front of the tomb and left, “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb."

Sitting.  Waiting.  So often, when we are met with death, we find ourselves sitting and waiting.  For some families, death is a welcome relief from hours and hours of sitting and waiting for the inevitable to come. For others, death is so sudden that it doesn’t seem like there is anything to do but sit and wait for the reality to sink in.

The women in our story seem to realize this: that after everything that had happened, there was nothing left to do but to sit and wait.  Surely, it was difficult--difficult to see years of miracles and healings and teachings sealed in a tomb. 

Even in death, however, we find a model for how to live in the Gospel. Namely, we are called to sit, to wait, and to keep watch.  We aren’t told what these two Mary’s were thinking.  We don’t know whether they were weeping or whether their tears had dried hours ago. We aren’t told if they spoke to one another, remembering the good days, or if they sat in silence, mourning.  We are simply told that they are sitting across from the tomb. 

It seems to me that we rush death when it occurs.  Official periods of mourning have shrunk from potentially years to perhaps a day or two off from work.  We might send flowers or a card if someone close to us dies.  But, convinced that life goes on for the rest of us, we hardly pause for the dead. Maybe we can make it to visitation tomorrow night--if I don’t have to pick Tim up from soccer practice.  I want to go to the funeral, but I’ve got a meeting I just can’t miss.

Mary and Mary were faced with a similar quandary.  They had spent the day at the execution site, their hope that Jesus might live slowly turning to a hope that the mercy of death might come quickly.  Sundown was approaching, and with it the Sabbath.

The Day of Preparation in the Jewish tradition is the time to make sure that all the chores and tasks that need to be completed for the Sabbath are done. The strict rules of Judaism concerning labor on the day prescribed to be one of rest made the day before the Sabbath critical.  There was bread to bake, houses to clean, goods to purchase.  Anything not completed by sundown would have to wait until after Sabbath. 

To put it another way, these women had things to do.  They needed to go get the groceries, needed to vacuum before the family came over. They needed to make sure the kids were all cleaned up and all the food was cooked.

But instead of running to do these chores, they sat and waited. Were they destroyed by what had just happened? Perhaps.  Were the disappointed? Probably. Were they lost? Absolutely. 

It certainly would’ve been easy to rush back into a routine. There’s comfort in routine, in knowing what’s next, in accomplishing something you set off to do. They certainly had plenty to do, and the rhythm of the life they knew before surely would’ve provided some reassuring structure. 

But they didn’t leave. Not just yet.  Instead, they sat and waited and kept watch. 

Maybe they were waiting on the Resurrection, Jesus’ words of return echoing in their minds.  Perhaps they were so devastated that they simply didn’t know what else to do. Or maybe they knew they had to be there, that as long as they stayed the reality of what happened simply wouldn’t be true. But the fact remains, they sat and the waited.

John O’Donohue, author, poet and spiritualist, writes in his book Anam Cara that “it takes a good while to really die.” He relates an Irish mourning tradition called the Caoineadh.  He explains that “One of the lovely things about the Irish tradition is its great hospitality to death. When someone in the village dies, everyone goes to the funeral...All the neighbors gather around to support the family and to help them. It is a lovely gift. When you are really desperate and lonely, you need neighbors to help you,support you and bring you through that broken time.”

Despite our desire for solitude during the painful times and emotions surrounding the death of a loved one, it is important for us to be gathered in community. The women waited at the tomb together. This is important to us as a community of faith because our memories of a person who had died are not solely individual.  We share corporate memories as well.  We remember the ways that person has influenced the life of the community, their contributions and gifts.

But there is a second part to this Irish tradition of mourning.  O’Donohue tells us that the people who gathered, “women mainly,  came in and keened the deceased. It was a kind of high-pitched wailing cry full of incredible loneliness. The narrative of the caoineadh was actually the history of the person’s life as the women had known him.  A sad liturgy, beautifully woven of narrative, was gradually put into the place of the person’s new absence from the world. [It] gathered all the key events of the person’s life. It was certainly heartbreakingly lonely, but it made a hospitable, ritual space for the mourning and sadness of the bereaved family.”

What a beautiful thought, to have friends and neighbors come and sit and wait with you. Your wailing, your crying out, becomes their wailing.  Your grief is theirs. We have some of that still.  I think of every Southern funeral I’ve been to and the feast that is laid out afterward.  I think of my own mother’s funeral, and the swell of support from the Candler community that was evident in the over 50 students who joined us for lunch after the service.

The women at the tomb knew what we all know, that they had to mourn--that sometimes, all you can do it mourn and sit and wait.  And they knew they couldn’t do it alone. This is the model, and indeed the good news, that the Gospel lays before us--that we don’t face death alone, that mourning is part of it all, but that we don’t have to encounter death deserted. Even facing death, we find community.

And so, we find ourselves here, today. Sitting and waiting and mourning.  Hoping against hope that we will wake tomorrow to hear the Good news that Jesus is alive.

But for now, we will sit. For now we wait. For now, we will keep watch. And we will sit and we will wait and we will keep watch together.

Confused by the Spirit: a sermon for Haiti

Originally preaching on Sunday, January 17 using the Epiphany 2C lectionary readings. The service that had been planned for this Sunday was scrapped the day before in light of the tragedy of Haiti.


Confused by the Spirit

Before I begin, I’d like to present a small disclaimer.  This is in no way the sermon I intended to write.  This service is in no way the service any of the staff intended on having today.  In fact, the title listed is more a reflection of my personal feelings in preparation for this morning than the actual sermon.

But as the reports continued to flood in and the scale of the tragedy in Haiti began to come to light, there was simply no way we could gather today and sing “Joyful, Joyful.”

If you have a TV or a radio, surely you’ve seen or heard of the devastation.  Streets lined with bodies.  Children orphaned. The elderly unable to help themselves.  Destruction at every turn.

Many of you may not realize this,  but I have a brother in Haiti. A brother whom I have not heard from. A brother who worked at one of the resorts that crumbled on Tuesday.

I also have a sister who works in Haiti.  She was one of the UN staff who died.

My mother is there too, still searching the body-lined streets to find her other children. She and my uncle have found a few of them alive, but most are dead.

You see, we all have family in Haiti.  In the gospel of Mark, we are told of a rather tense interaction Jesus has with his followers around the idea of family.1 The story opens with Mary and her other sons standing on the outskirts of the crowd that had gathered around Jesus.  His family sends to him, and the messenger tells Jesus “Your mother and brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.”

Do you remember Jesus’ reply?  It’s shocking, not at all the good ol’ boy we’ve made Jesus into over the years.  His reply is a simple question: ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?”

What? Who are your mother and brothers? Easy--your mother is the one you gave birth to you. And your brothers are her other children.  Right?

Jesus doesn’t seem to think so.  He looks at those who are surrounding him, the ones who have come to hear him speak words of wisdom and of truth. “Here,” he exclaims, “Here are my mother and my brothers!”   Realizing that he’s probably lost some of his followers in this statement, he adds “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.

What, then, does it mean to do the will of God?  Despite a myriad of possible answers to this question, there is only one true response. It’s the action that we see prevail time and again in the Bible. It is the theme we see over and over and over again in the Gospels.  Jesus sums it up in his teaching about the two greatest commandments.

In the New Testament canon we are first introduced to these commandments in Matthew.  The writer of the gospel of Matthew tells us that it was the Pharisees who brought about this teaching.  You see, the Pharisees were trying to test Jesus’ knowledge about the law, or Torah.

This particular pharisee, a lawyer, asked him this question: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Now a lawyer in Jesus’ day was not a lawyer as we think of them. A Lawyer was someone concerned with the meaning of the law. In a sense, he was a theologian.  The question he asked in no way was a serious one. He starts by addressing Jesus as Teacher, a obvious and insincere shift from Jesus’ believer’s use of Lord.

This conversation between the Pharisees and Jesus is a recurrence of a common theme in Matthew. Once again the Kingdom of God is at odds with the kingdom of religion.

The way the question is phrased is an attempt on behalf of the pharisees to catch Jesus off guard.  Traditional understanding of the law is that all 613 commandments found in the Torah are equal in stature and value.  Asking Jesus to choose one commandment or one kind of commandment over another is essentially trying to ask him a trick question.

Jesus doesn’t skip a beat. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind.”  Now this is part of what is known in Judaism as the Shema. This statement of faith is the closest thing to a creedal statement in Jewish tradition. The Shema is spoken upon going to bed and upon waking from sleep.  It is even uttered with one’s last breath.

In the Markan account of this story, we hear the whole of the Shema as the first commandment: Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength.”

Jesus knows of its importance, and offers it as the most important commandment, but then he adds his own explaining that “the second is like it.” Jesus isn’t suggesting here that the second is similar to the first in meaning. Rather, he is emphasizing its equal importance. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” For Jesus the love of one’s neighbor is inseparable from the great command to love God.  One professor writes “To love God is to love one’s neighbor, and to love one’s neighbor is to love God.”

Jesus isn’t finished quite yet. Just to hammer home his point, he adds: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”6 Essentially, love God and love others. The rest is commentary.

So, if we are to be family in Christ, then we should do God’s will. And from what we just discussed, it seems like a pretty fair statement to say that God’s will is for us to love God and for us to love one another.
   
But what does that look like? This is our true challenge: what does love look like? What does love of God and love of neighbor look like? Notice what Jesus doesn’t talk about. Jesus doesn’t seem to believe that our job is to judge our neighbor or blame them for their misfortunes.  He doesn’t even seem particularly concerned with their past. Time and again, we hear stories of Jesus calling people from their tragic past into a hope filled future.

So how, then, do we figure out what love looks like? Lucky for us, we’ve got a whole book of clues.

As we read the pages of the Bible, we are presented with answer after answer to this question.  The reading from Isaiah that we heard this morning is one answer: “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest.”7 We flip to Micah: “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”8 The psalms speak of love as refuge and shelter: “How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.”   

We flip to the New Testament and find Jesus’ words reminding us of what our call to love means.  Every time we face a tragedy, these words are at once words of comfort and words of action.  Hear these words:

Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
    “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the kingdom of heaven.
    “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
    “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
    “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
    “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy
    “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God
    “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
   

 It seems to me that almost every time we hear these words spoken we dismiss them as some sort of hippie speak.  We live in a world of concrete success.  Spiritual things are rarely touted as markers of success.  Rather, we look to salaries and bonuses and cars and houses and trips.  But we look at these teachings, the beatitudes, and hear nothing about split-levels and Mercedes.

Then we hear these words in the midst of crisis and they take on whole new meaning.  What does it mean to be “poor in spirit?” Could it mean being so broken by the devastation around you that all you can do is fall on your knees and wail? What does it mean to mourn when a whole society has been torn apart? What does it mean to be merciful? What does it mean to be a peacemaker in a country not ripped apart by war, but by brute natural force?

Hidden in these words of comfort are words of action. They are statements that urge us to be a merciful people convinced of the importance of peacemaking. They are statements that not only affirm the hardship of life, but call us to respond to them.

But there are also more direct calls to action.  Take the story of Jesus teaching his disciples about the return of “the Son of Man.” As part of this teaching, he tells us that the sheep will be at his right had and the goats at his left. He explains that those at his right hand are blessed by his Father. Why?  “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

The righteous, confused, ask him “When did we do any of these.”  And the king will reply “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

These aren’t menacing instructions. If anything they are empowering. Often God’s greatest commandment: to Love God and your neighbors is intimidating.  Exactly how can we ever repay the love God has shown us.  The short answer is: we can’t. But we can try.  And Jesus gives us a starting place.

How can we repay that love? We can feed those who are hungry. We can care for the sick. We clothe the naked. We can lift up the downtrodden. We can be merciful. We can be a refuge. We can love kindness.  We can work for justice. We can shout of love and truth and hope from the mountaintops.

Yes, it is a daunting task. But Paul reminds us that we are equipped for the job. The words from his first letter to the church in Corinth which we heard earlier remind us that we share a variety of gifts all inspired by the one Spirit. In times of need or distress, we can claim these gifts and use them to lift up a world which is broken and hurting and in desperate need of help.

You see, the Good News here, is not just some heady theological notion that Jesus came to save the whole world. The Good News is that we are equipped to aid in this salvation.  I’m not talking about bringing people to Christ. While that is a good and worthy endeavor, its not what is needed here and now.

Our call today, in the midst of this crisis, is to be the hands of Christ in this world--to not remain silent when hatred is spewed about reasons for this catastrophe. To send aid--to send as much aid as we can as fast as we can. To pray, to pray hard, and hope against hope that more living are found. To hold the families who’ve lost loved ones in our hearts and lift them in God’s grace. To remind ourselves that God has indeed been our help in ages past and is our sure and confident hope in the days to come. To look toward the day with our faith may become sight and all will be made well.

Friends, can you see it? Can you see our call to be the light of Christ in this situation? Can you see our call beyond the politics of money and government to help those in need?  Can you look at the people in Haiti and claim them as your own family?

 For in Christ, we each have brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts and children and god-daughters and nephews to call our own. What will you do to help them?

Amen.

Thomas the Believer

Another sermon, this one offered the Sunday after Easter at my home church Elon using the Doubting Thomas text.


During the months leading up to my first semester of seminary, advice was around every corner. Most offered well wishes and practical advice—try to make sure you get sleep, eat well, don’t forget to pray. This kind of advice might be categorized as nice advice—the kind that builds you up, reminds you to be nice to yourself. There was another type of advice that I received, however, that was more along the lines of warning. Mostly this advice came from retired ministers—none here (I think) and was along the lines of “don’t let them tell you that Jesus was a woman;” or worse: “don’t let them take the Trinity away from you;” or worse still: “don’t let them turn you into an Atheist.”

Well, friends, you can breathe a sigh of relief. While the gender of Christ has been discussed, the gender of Jesus has not been questioned and we do talk about the Trinity—maybe in a some non-traditional ways, but its there. Belief in God, well, that’s a different story.

Don’t worry. I still believe in God. The difference is, I don’t believe in the same way I once did. That’s not to say I believe more in God or any less in God, just that I buy it now—I can grasp the realness of God in a way I hadn’t before. I hadn’t quite had a wound-touching experience yet.

When I first arrived, third year students, those with one year left in their degree, had a plethora of metaphors to share about seminary. One said that during your first year they cut you open. Your second year, they pull everything out, and your final year, they tell you to put it all back.

Another third year told me: “It’s like the passion narrative: year one they crucify you. Your second year you spend in the tomb. Just when things get hopeless, you find yourself resurrected by your third year.” I thought that they were exaggerating. “I cant be that bad,” I remember thinking to myself “I mean, it’s Seminary.” They weren’t exaggerating. It is hard.

It’s hard because it’s demanding—pages upon pages on reading, books worth of papers to write. But you expect those things to be hard—It’s graduate school. But what I’ve found really challenging is that everything is questioned. Every time I walk into a classroom, what we may or may not discuss that day has the potential to fundamentally alter what I believe.

Our gospel lesson this week is about belief—about knowing and not knowing. It’s about wounds and proof. This week, we find ourselves still in the heart of the surprise of the Resurrection. Mary has returned to the disciples after her conversation with the risen Christ and has told them all about it. That evening, Jesus shows up again. “Peace be with you” is his greeting, and then he proceeds to show them his hands and his side. Thomas, the twin, isn’t there for this part. He misses it.

We all know this part by heart: The disciples tell him what they have seen, and he doesn’t believe them saying: “ Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side. I will not believe.” Jesus, of course, appears again to the disciples (this time with Thomas present), then turns to Thomas and tells him to touch the wounds. “Do not doubt, but believe.” To which Thomas answers: “My Lord and My God.”

It all finishes with one of Jesus’ iconic teachings (This is just like Jesus isn’t it—keep teaching even after death and Resurrection.) He says: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

What fascinates me about the way we relate this story is that we gloss over the whole first part of this passage to get to the verse that we think is most meaningful. What we remember about these verses aren’t the specifics of the story. What first comes to mind is Jesus’ admonition to Thomas. I say Doubting Thomas, you think…wounds, belief, but mostly Jesus saying to Thomas: Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.

Belief is a funny thing. It’s a hard thing—hard to grasp, hard to understand, hard to do. So often we equate knowledge with belief. Before I came to seminary, I thought I knew a lot of things about God. But education, as American philosopher and historian Will Durant would say, is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

I’ve learned far more than I realized I needed to learn in my two years of graduate work. I’ve learned about historical councils and debates. I’ve done my far share of work on 20th century theologians and I’ll give you a tip: If the question is about Karl Barth, the answer involves Christ. But, unfortunately, Jesus isn’t the easy answer to all the questions that have arisen during my time at Emory. Knowledge isn’t always the answer.

We often refer to Thomas’ character in this passage as Doubting Thomas. It’s a phrase that we often hear in the midst of discussions when questions are directed toward pillars of our faith. It doesn’t carry a positive connotation. Being a “Doubting Thomas” means that you aren’t willing to believe as easily as should, that you need proof or knowledge that others don’t seem to require.

But what we forget is that Thomas isn’t asking for anything different than what the disciples had already seen. During his first appearance to the disciples on the Evening of that third day, John tells us that “Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.’” then “he showed them his hands and his side.”

It would be easy, as a seminarian, to preach an all too cliché sermon about the
benefits of asking questions—how we should give ourselves to theological inquiry. It would be just as easy to give a sermon implying that Jesus doesn’t want us to question our faith, but believe.

But, what matters to me today, is that Jesus did for Thomas exactly what Jesus will do for us—he gave Thomas a wound-touching experience. Jesus offered his own wounds of suffering as a witness to the resurrection. Wound-touching experiences then are the moments Jesus give us what we need so that we can believe. This doesn’t mean that Jesus gives us belief or faith, but it does mean that when we are desperate for something to hold on, desperate for something for us to put our fingers in—Christ is there holding out his hands or pointing to his side saying, “Touch here.”

Interestingly, the author of the Gospel of John never tells us that Thomas actually touches Jesus’ wounds. Sometimes, what we think we need to be able to believe isn’t what we need at all.

And here’s the thing, Thomas believed! “My Lord and My God” is his reply directly after Jesus offers him his hands and side. “My Lord and My God.” Thomas believed.

So often we pass over the things around us that act as beacons of belief—moments of natural beauty that point to God, stressful times that miraculously work out.
This past year I had an experience that pointed to God in the midst of extreme hardship.

The fact is that hard times make cynical minds—you like that? I came up with it myself—hard times make cynical minds. Belief is hard enough to come by when things seem fine, but throw in persecution, fear, disappointment and unknowing and belief seems nearly impossible. With the roller coaster of emotions that comes with Holy Week, it’s no surprise that Thomas didn’t want to believe his disciples. They’re making it up, he might say. Or maybe he simply dismissed them as crazy. Hard times make cynical minds.

Thomas and the disciples experience with hardship isn’t an unique one. We’ve all been through our own moments of suffering—our own crossless passions. And in the midst of the moments sitting with pain and hardship, we long for those wound-touching experiences that remind us of the promise of the resurrection. We long for moments where belief overtakes knowledge and proof.

As many of you know, my mother was diagnosed with stage three lymphoma last February. We made it through weeks of treatments to hear that much hoped for word—remission. We savored that word. Remission. We were going to be OK. It was a triumphant day--our own Palm Sunday, of sorts.

But, after Palm Sunday (as we experienced these past two weeks), you so often have to face death. After falling in the shower on a Sunday, she was taken to the hospital. Tests revealed that one tiny piece of the lymphoma that had remained in her brain had spread to the lining between her brain and skull. Her death was immanent.

Those five days that we waited for death in the hospital were the longest days I have lived. I have never been so heartbroken and so relieved as I was that Friday when the labored breath ended. It was a devastating moment, a shattering one that redefined my life.

But those five days taught me more about life and love and belief than any other experience I’ve had to date. Those days showed me the value of holding the hand of dear loved one. I don’t know if she felt it, but I believe she did. I sang songs to her. I don’t know if she heard them, but I believe she did. I prayed with her. I don’t know if she prayed with me, but I believe she did. I still don’t know any of these things for sure, but I believe all of them hold heartedly.

Toward the end of our stay in the hospital, I was singing to her. She had been unconscious for a few days, and we were simply waiting. I was holding her hand, and I began to sing: [sings] Precious Lord, take my hand. Lead me on, let me stand. I’m tired, I’m weak, I’m warn. Through the storm, through the night, Lead me on, to the light. Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me home.
A flicker of recognition ran across her face, and her eyes opened slightly.

I don’t know if she heard me, but I believe she did. Looking back, that moment pointed me toward faith—toward the belief in something that seemed utterly unbelievable. My mom had heard me. It was as if Jesus had walked in and said, “touch here. It’s going to be OK.”

The good news of the Resurrection doesn’t end with the empty tomb—it continues in the living Christ who appears and points us toward his wounds saying: touch and believe. Far more than what we need to believe has already been laid before us. It’s our job to claim our belief with Thomas: My Lord and My God.

God Has a History of Moving

As is obvious by now, I'm taking a preaching class this semester. This sermon is on 2 Samuel 7.1-14a, otherwise known as the Davidic Covenant.

God has a history of moving. Did you know that? God has a history of moving. God moved in the flames of the burning bush and in the waters of the red sea. God moved in the breath that brought life to dry bones. God moved in the walls of Jericho and stirred in the heart of Solomon. God embraced Mary and challenged Joseph. God guided the disciples and raised the dead. God has inspired protests against war and witnessed to the power of non-violence. God has a history of moving. And, in this passage, God is concerned with doing just that—moving.

We’ve been talking about David a lot recently. We’ve heard the stories that tell of David’s anointing, of great victories in battle. Joshua just told us about David’s triumphant return to Jerusalem with the Ark of the Covenant—God’s holy throne. David returns as a war hero, but quickly changes roles into that of the priest. We see him officiating rituals and wearing priestly clothing.

But David is not a priest, he’s a king. And, starting with chapter seven, we see David acting like one. Basically, he starts making decisions. About God. There’s no doubt that his intentions were good ones. David wanted to give the Ark a proper place to reside—shelter, protection. And now, as king and savior of Jerusalem, he could do it.

I can imagine David feeling awkward and uncomfortable, living in such splendor while the Ark, the symbol and manifestation of God in the world was stowed in a tent. So he decided to build the Ark a proper “house” out of Cedar—a fine, fragrant wood.

David tells his plans to Nathan, a prophet in the King’s court. And Nathan sees no problems with David’s idea, offering the Lord’s approval. But that same night, we are told. That same night, the Lord moves. God came to Nathan and, in the first part of the oracle at least, David gets (as we might say today) told.

“When did I tell you to do this?” God asks. “Have I ever told anyone, since the Egypt days, to do this?” God then proceeds to outline to Nathan (and thus to David) all the good works God has done for David. God doesn’t stop with simply listing the benevolence that he has poured upon David. God keeps going, adding that the Lord will make David a house and will give David a dynasty. “I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever,” God says. “I will be father to him and he shall be a son to me.”

In this passage we find a tremendous promise to David, one filled with hope for the future. These are good things—lineage and blessing. The favor of the Lord. This oracle is often referred to as the Davidic Covenant—in this case, an unconditional promise God makes to his people through David.

It’s a passage that is formative for our faith and our world even if we don’t speak of it explicitly. As Christians, we point to this text as the foundation for the importance of the Messiah we call Jesus. In the world, this oracle is often pointed to as a reason to have a Jewish state—an issue that has long been a hotbed of debate around the intersection of religion and global politics.

But, what fascinates me about this passage isn’t these or other implications. What is fascinating is the way it all began. David sets out to take care of God. God, instead, takes care of David. In the text, as I’ve already mentioned, we hear that David is planning on making a “house” for the Ark. House could be translated as temple or palace. Either way, David wants to build a permanent place for the Ark—a place of protection and shelter and safety.

The history of the Ark is a colorful one. It was the symbolic throne of God that was so holy that if anyone touched it, they would be struck dead—even in attempt to save it from disaster as we heard in the scripture read at the beginning of class. Through out the Hebrew Bible we find mention of the famed Ark of the Covenant—of its shape and covering and adornments. Yet, even though we have some of these details, the Ark remains shrouded in mystery. While we have descriptions, none are thorough enough for us to get a true picture of it. We’re not even sure what happened to it.

But what we can be sure of is that it was held in high esteem. This was a revered part of the Hebrew faith, so holy that it was taken everywhere the people went. Holy enough, David decides, to have its own building. So, as we’ve heard, David wanted to do the logical thing—protect that which was important to his people. Keep the sacred safe, the holy protected.

But God refuses to be grounded. God refuses to be made immobile. The oracle asks David “Of all the times I’ve lead you and been with you, have I ever asked for a house of Cedar?” David, of course, knows the answer—no. God continues, pointing out that not only has God not asked for protection, but God was the one to choose and protect the people of Israel and David

The oracle Nathan channels is, undoubtedly, an intense one. It calls on the history of the Hebrew people, not just in recent times of success and triumph, but all the way back to its days of enslavement. God, as we’ve heard already, has a history of moving.

A temple or palace for the Ark, then, immobilizes God. Certainly God is not confined to human walls, but all too often the fault is ours. God’s ability to move in his people and in this world is independent of human attempts to limit God. We are the ones that keep people away from God. We are the ones who forget the ways God has moved in the past and ignore the ways that God is moving now.

But God doesn’t simply shun the protection David tries to offer. God turns David’s offer on its head. Not only does God not want or need David’s house, but God declares that he will make David a house. Here we find “house” carrying another meaning beyond palace or temple. Here, God speaks of David’s house, or dynasty—a royal lineage. David’s initial idea of securing the Ark is met with God’s intent to do just that for David—secure his lineage.

Attempting to secure God, of course, is no unusual occurrence—the faithful have long tried to save and protect God. The crusades sought to defend Christianity and Jerusalem against perceived threats from Islam. Airplanes have been flown into buildings in the name of God.

The struggle to protect God isn’t limited to religions fighting it out, however. We also find it in our own churches, our own communities. And I wonder, what are we scared of? What is it that heightens our fear and causes us to hold so tightly to the God of blessing and promise that we build societies and traditions that keep others away from God? Who or what are we protecting God from?

In the local church, it is often the fear of losing our Jesus that causes us to push others away from God. Churches struggle with using inclusive language, and not just because it’s hard to change old habits. They struggle because if God isn’t male, then what is God? Suddenly, the boundaries and lines that we’ve drawn around the Divine are blurred and that makes us uneasy. It’s far simpler to compartmentalize God than to expand our understanding of the Divine. The idea that God can move and inspire and create beyond what we know and experience is terrifying and awe-inspiring in one breath.

But, it seems, the terror overtakes the wonder, and so we don’t stop at simply limiting God. We also build fences around the people searching to find and connect to God.

For the past year, I’ve worked as the music minister at a small, country church dealing with the explosion of Atlanta suburbia around it. Church members are friendly and, for the most part, genuine. I like it there. It reminds me a lot of the church I grew up in—family oriented and kind. It’s comfortable, familiar. But there are reasons I left the church I grew up in, and reasons I struggle at this church too.

I came out as a gay man to my parents when I was 15. The years prior to that conversation were rough ones. I was raised in the South, in a geographic, social, and religious location that had very particular understandings of who and what gay people were. Namely, sinners.

I was terrified about how my parents would respond, but equally as scary was the thought of what my church might say. The people at church, it seems, never quite got it. I didn’t want to change them. I just wanted to be me.

I had been going there since I was four. They weren’t just distant old people at church, they were family. I wasn’t just another snot-faced kid, I was a son. For a long time, I was that kid. The one that couldn’t seem to do wrong. The one that all the kids were friends with. The one that the parents loved. The one that the older adults adored.

I couldn’t do wrong, that is, until they found out that I was gay.

There wasn’t any big revelation. More of a sliding secret that crept beneath the pews and into peoples ears. People started drifting away. Phone calls that once rang often to include me in non-church youth activities, all but vanished. And then, 12 years of church family seemed to be distant.

I wasn’t sure what was happening. The God they had taught me about, the God I knew, didn’t abandon me. Why did they? Why did they push me away? Weren’t they supposed to be the ones of all the people in my life to hold me close?

It was hard, and to be honest, I’m waiting for the same thing to happen at the church that employs me now. Hardly a Sunday goes by that I’m not asked if I have a girlfriend or why I’m not married. If I mention I’m hungry or that I woke up late, it seems, amazingly, that a wife would fix all of those problems.

And every comment and question along those lines is another block in the wall being built up around God to keep people like me away from God. Sure, it isn’t explicit, but I know what the implications are. Come out, and loose my job. Be honest about my reality and, suddenly not be good enough. Admit to being gay, and you just aren’t welcome here.

The sad thing is this: the outcasts communities create to protect God aren’t just because of hot-button issues. We exile those who think differently about how to pray or share the table or, as Mallory pointed out a few weeks ago, think different paint colors should’ve been chosen.

We’ve forced our only interactions with God into holy stone and wooden shrines filled with quiet agreement about the blessed poor and meek. Yet, as we’ve immobilized God, we’ve immobilized ourselves. We, like David, have decided that God looks better as cross on hanging behind the chancel, a symbol of God in the security of a temple, then out in the world. And because we listen for God an hour a week sitting in a pew, we miss the action that we are called to take. We miss God’s call to move.

But hear the good news: God, still has a history of moving. And, sooner or later, God’s movement will inspire our own. The movement and action that God leads through the Hebrew Bible is hardly dormant. It was in the streets of Memphis and Selma. It’s in the community’s efforts in the flooding Dakotas. It is in the banners calling for justice made by our own peers that hung from interstate overpasses. God moves now. God moves in churches that insist that God loves people regardless of race or sexuality or gender or ability or age. God isn’t finished moving and creating and inspiring, and this must awaken our deepest sense of wonder.

We must stop telling God what to do or who to be. We have to release God from the chains we’ve bound him in, and let God move. Our attempts to hold God for ourselves have been met with the same proclamation David heard millennia ago: I will hold You because I have chosen you. Do not tell me how to move. Instead, move with me.”

Thanks be to God. Amen.

another day, another sermon.

In preaching class, we've been in our small groups preaching to one another on assigned texts. My text focused on a moment when the Jesus we see isn't the Jesus we're used to seeing found in Mark 7 Here is the sermon:

There is no denying it, this is a hard text. If we were reading through Mark, we would have just come off a few chapters of fun miracles--the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus walking on water, and so on. We've witnessed Jesus' ability to care for people in really pragmatic ways (I mean, he fed people--lots of fish and bread) and his desire to strengthen their faith.

We’re used to this Jesus—the Jesus who helps, heals, cares for. Last week’s sermons told focused on other stories of Jesus’ helping hands. We heard about demons being cast out and bodies being healed and children being brought back to life.. Sometimes, those who were healed didn’t even ask for it. The John 9 text we lived in for the first weeks of the semester saw that to be the case—the blind man was brought to Jesus, and he was healed. With out asking.

But here, in these words, we stumble on another Jesus. One that, if we are honest with the text, is a hard Jesus to deal with. The Jesus we know wouldn't turn people away. But here, in Mark 7, we see Jesus tell this syro-phoenician woman—a gentile--that He won't heal her daughter because she isn't a Jew.

The story has Jesus roaming around the northern coastal plain, near Tyre in what is modern-day Lebanon. Trying not to be noticed, he ducks into a house, yet, it seems, word is already spreading about his arrival. A woman, whose daughter has an unclean spirit falls at his feet.

This is the familiar part, the scenario that we see played out again and again in Mark. Jesus is walking, doesn’t want to be noticed, tries to keep a low profile, but those who need help find Jesus anyway.

But, we find out, this isn’t just any woman.

The text points out that this is a Gentile woman, of the syrophoenician race. This certainly wasn’t a surprise to Jesus. He knew where he was, and what kind of people lived there. Tyre was near the border of the land of Israel. It was no secret that Gentiles lived over its northern border, nor that Jews of that time were living in a Gentile world.

This woman who shouldn’t be even talking to Jesus because she isn’t a Jew, much less asking for anything because she is a woman, approaches Jesus and asks him multiple times to heal her daughter. In the Matthean version of the story, there is a little more interaction here. She pleads with Jesus, and he denies her twice. In the Markan scene, we are told that “she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter.”

In either case, the response Jesus gives is surprising to say the least. “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

I think it is probably safe to assume we aren't talking about our family pet here. This isn't a compliment. In fact, I'd say its mean.

Imagine--Jesus being mean? Not very Christ-like, eh?

Still, she doesn't give up. She responds: Yes, Lord. But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's tables.

And with this response, Jesus seems to do an amazing thing—he changes his mind. He tells the woman “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” She goes home, and finds that it is true. Her daughter has been healed.

This one woman’s faith in the crumbs healed her daughter.

What’s interesting about Jesus’ last words to this woman is that they don’t match the model. We’ve heard Jesus time and again through the gospels say ‘your faith has made you well.” But here, he is hardly as explicit.

Instead, he cites her response as the thing that saved her daughter, not her faith explicitly. Yet, it seems to me, it was her faith that inspired her to go after the crumbs.

That is where the gospel is in this story—in the crumbs, crumbs that have the ability to change people’s minds—even Jesus’.

But, here’s the thing about food—people like to hoard it, even the crumbs. Sometimes I hear these hoarders referred to as “half-way Christians”—folks who are so concerned about what THEIR gospel says to THEIR community, that when it’s time to share it with the world beyond, they fall short. Sometimes we call them, seminarians.

You know the people I'm talking about. They claim to believe in Christ, then push people away from Him.

Or they say they care about God's creation: "I recycle!" the say. But recycling only happens when it is convenient. You want to shout that Christianity isn't convenient--you don't get to choose it just when it happens to fit.

Better yet, they are the people who watch the church clock. "What do you mean we have to sing all six verses?," they wonder aloud. "We are supposed to be out of here at noon! We have to beat the Baptists to lunch..." or “I have a blackboard post to finish writing.”

Or those who mourn for the homeless population's reality, but when begged for a dollar, refuse to give it. "They'll just buy drugs or alcohol," the half-way Christian argues.

What about the people who sing of God's love for everyone, but really can't stand that black kid who came to church today wearing a baseball hat and low riding pants?

Or the ones whose words of love begin to go sour as attempts for inclusion merely bring an exclusion of another sort?

Or they squabble about the details--about who God loves more or who sins less or who got it first or who hasn't ever gotten it.

These are the people who hoard the crumbs, who desperately hold on to the way things are instead of looking to the way things might be.

And here’s the worst part is: I'm one of them. And, I suspect, at one point or another, you’ve had a moment of being one too.

But hear the good news of this story: Jesus. Changed. His. Mind. Jesus changed his mind. And we can too.

We can fling our arms wider to those who are desperate for crumbs of hope, peace, belonging, faith, love, all of those identifiers of the Christian faith. We can call people to us, look them in their eyes and see Christ whether or not we are the same color or the same gender or the same sexual orientation. In changing his mind, Jesus threw out the old, rigid traditions that separated people from one another and from God. He changed his mind, and healed her anyway.

Sometimes, however, we aren’t the ones with the minds to change. Sometimes, we are the ones frantic for the crumbs, for little bits of sustenance for the journey. Can you think of times that you were desperate for crumbs? I can.

The cold of Copenhagen was unrelenting. I had been there for 3 months, since January, and was beginning to think that winter would never end. I was an ocean away from home, my birthday was quickly approaching, and I had never felt so alone in my life. My time was consumed with study and reading and sleeping—hardly an adventure.

I was riding my bicycle home from school late one night when I passed the cathedral—the Church of Our Lady. I had been in it before. It’s a huge church, one that glows with white marble and the clean lines of Scandinavian design.

As I rode by, I noticed the church doors were open. So, I stopped, locked my bike and timidly walked in. All around the church were candles and silence. Every ten minutes or so, a prayer or psalm was sung to mark the passing of time. After a long quiet, a priest emerged from the front with bread and wine, and those there moved toward the front.

Danes, like most Europeans, are not very religious. They seem to have gotten it out of there system, but the small gathered community here seemed to pay no attention to the cultural mores of the day. They gathered in a semi-circle around the altar in the front of the church. Desperate for my own crumbs, I joined them.

The liturgy began. In Danish. But amazingly, I knew everything that was happening. These words spoken for millennia united us in Christ that night. The bread began to make its way around. To my right, a woman said offered it to me in Danish. I took it and offered it to the man to my left, in English. The cup was passed in the same way. We fed each other, sustained each other. And, if I’m honest, they gave me the crumbs, literally and figuratively, that I’d been craving all along.

You see, we’re all searching for crumbs from the table and we all hold bread for others. Christ challenges us to change our minds—to open them to those who we’ve shunned away from the table, and for us to acknowledge when we’re desperate to be fed ourselves. Think of how the crumbs sustain us, then imagine how the feast will feed us all. Thanks be to God.

the return of the dog dooner, and john 9

So, it's been a long while since I updated the Dog Dooner Cafe. A lot has happened, in the past four months. Namely, Mom died. I'm not sure where November, December and January went, but I'm glad they're over.

I'm taking Intro. to Preaching with Tom Long and Gail O'Day this semester. One of our first assignments had us doing exegetical work with John 9 (the story of the blind man being made to see). All 144 of us then preached a brief, 5 minute long sermon on the text.

Here is mine:

The classroom was cold, which was a good thing. It kept my fellow Con Ed students and I awake during the two-hour afternoon sessions that had somehow been scheduled during prime nap time. I was in a group of chaplains. Half of us were stationed at a private hospital on the north side, and the other half, my half, had been placed at Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital.

At the start of our assignments, we jumped through all sorts of hoops—security checks and vaccinations. When our first day at the site finally arrived, we were given tours of the facility and an ID badge, then told to get to it.

“That’s it?” I remember asking. “You aren’t going to tell us what to do?” My supervisor responded with a pat on the back and those familiar words of encouragement “you’ll figure it out—you’ll learn better this way. Trust me..”

Two months later, I was frustrated. I kept visiting sick kids and their families, but still didn’t feel like I had a clue as to what was happening or what I was doing. This was confirmed by the overwhelming sense that parents were placing their hearts into my hands, and I could think of was “You know I’m 22 and barely passing Hebrew, right?”

At this particular group meeting, I was lamenting our lack of concrete direction. I came back to the same phrase: “I..I just don’t know what I’m doing.” Once I had finished my diatribe, with that statement, my supervisor was quiet for a minute. Then, looking me dead in the eyes, she spoke. “Jon, you keep telling me what you don’t know. Tell me, what do you know?”

I had to think about that. “Well, I know how to make people laugh,” I said. “And I know how to cry. And how to hug. And how to listen.” And soon, my initial denial of ability turned into a deep realization of the talents and abilities that I, indeed did have. Simple things. Sure, I couldn’t solve the world’s problems, but I could play Candy Land with the 4 year old who spent his days alone because his parents have to work.

The man who was born blind had a similar experience. He, being blind from his birth, happened to be in the right place at the right time. Jesus, making his way through Samaria, happened across this man. His disciples, seeing this man, asked Jesus why this man was unable to see, suggesting that it was sin which had blinded him. Jesus refuted their assumption, then proceeded to heal the man.

When word spread of the miraculous healing to the religious authorities of the day, they began to investigate the healing. After confronting the man who was born blind, the Pharisees sought out the man’s parents. His parents, nervous about the consequences of becoming involved with such a tense situation, point the religious leaders back to their son. “He’s of age,” they explained. “Ask him.”

The Pharisees approach the man once again, this time exhorting him to praise God, then exclaiming, “we know this man (Jesus) is a sinner.”

Here is the where things, at least for me, get interesting. The man has a few options. He could agree with the Pharisees and be in good standing with the religious authorities. He could deny that Jesus had anything to do with his healing. He could remain silent altogether.

But he doesn’t do any of those. Instead, he responds from his own personal experience. I can hear him begin to speak, slow and low, nervous and unsure about the new beauty he is able to see all around him. “Whether he is a sinner or not, I Don’t know.” A safe beginning, but he doesn’t stop there—he doesn’t let his reality end with what he doesn’t know. Instead, he exclaims: “One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”

Then, as the Pharisees ask more questions and begin to make declarations about God and Jesus and Moses, the man who was born blind but can now see calls them all to task: “You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We now that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” Instead of being intimidated, he turns the question to them: What do you really know?

It seems to me that we often find ourselves in the midst of situations that are beyond our understanding. When asked what life is about, many of us answer: I don’t know. What is the Trinity? I don’t know. What is the difference between a claim statement, a focus statement, a function statement, and a summary? I don’t know.

The mystery of Christ is that we simply can’t know. I can’t tell you how the incarnation has influenced and continues to influence our lives. I simply don’t know. The beauty of the incarnation, miracles, teachings and resurrections is in their mystery. But there are things I know. I know that somehow, we meet him. That somehow, he impacts our lives and carries us along when we stumble and fall. And, that somehow, however unbelievable it might be, he can make the blind see. We might not know it all, but what we do know changes our lives.

So, it seems, it is our turn to answer. What is it that we know? I bet the answer will change our lives.

The Other Half of Christmas

This past sunday I delivered a sermon at my home church in North Carolina. It's a little long in print, but moves fast. Before you actually read the sermon, you should probably check out the Gospel reading for the day. The Hebrew Scripture and Epistle Lesson are also included.


The holidays are a time of traditions. From watching Santa arrive at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to favorite Christmas dishes, traditions define our time together during Christmas. One of my family’s traditions is to read the Nativity story on Christmas eve. We read it from the same old family Bible that’s been passed down from generation to generation. My dad turns to Luke, and in a quiet voice begins to read…

We never read about this, though. Partly, that’s because in Luke the next scene we are offered is Jesus’ circumcision then, bam, he’s teaching in the temple. Luke also offers a much tidier ending. “But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” That’s nice.

Matthew, however, is hardly as neat. Matthew presents a more frantic story; and while we like to read the birth narrative reverently and calmly, there are some pretty anxious moments in Matthew’s version of events. We all know the first part: Mary finds out (by way of an Angel, mind you) that’s she’s pregnant even though she has done nothing that might make her with child. Joseph is visited in a dream by an angel encouraging him to stay with his wife who is expecting a baby that isn’t his. The baby is born in a cowshed out back behind an inn as a star rises above that is brighter and bigger than any other star that night. Shepherds somehow make their way to see the newborn child. So do wise men who bring a wealth of gifts. and For an instant, there is a Kodak moment of Christmas perfection.

Then things get even crazier, according to Matthew. Joseph gets this intense dream where an angel says “Hey, listen up Joe, get the kid and haul it to Egypt. Herod’s out to get him.” And Joseph does as he’s told and uproots his family for Egypt (the land that enslaved his people generations before—just so we’re clear). And, with the holy family safely stowed in a far off land, Herod proceeds to kill all the boys under the age of two in the region around Bethlehem in an attempt to thwart any sort of revolutionary child king. And Rachel weeps for her children. Jesus is saved.

This is the other half of Christmas. And it’s a hard half to confront. right before my final exams began, I first glanced at the gospel lection for today. “The Massacre of the Infants,” it read or “the slaughter of the innocents” as Dan called it, jumped at me. it Seemed rather appropriate at that point of my first semester of school. “Oh,” I thought, “I can just talk about seminary finals, then.”

I read more closely, though, and realized just what a challenge lay before me. Here I am: twenty-two and barely a semester into my theological education and I am being asked to discuss quite possibly one of the most theologically challenging passages in the Bible. It’s challenging because it forces us to fundamentally wonder about the nature of a God that would allow the death of children for the sake of his own. It makes us question the notion of a savior that would run while not warning others to flee as well, or of a God that wouldn’t make that part of the plan.

And I had to wonder, “Am I old enough for this?” That question has been the common denominator of the past six months. Am I old enough to have a mortgage? Or a cat? Am I old enough for my friends to be getting married? Am I old enough to be fixing the tiles that crumbled off my shower? Or to be I receiving major kitchen appliances for Christmas?

And beyond the little changes have been much larger ones. Twice a week, I don my security ID and make my rounds on Four East at Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital in Atlanta. Rarely are there patients that have been there for more than a few days. So my time is spent making initial visits to patients and families, and attempting to assist them in some way. Mostly, after I go into a room and introduce myself as a chaplain (talk about wondering if you’re old enough…), the families politely answer a few questions then indirectly or, sometimes painfully directly, let me know it’s time to go. But every once and while, someone opens up. A young parent wants to know why this is happening to their child? If it was something they did? They want to know why bad things happen, or why God lets the innocent become ill. And I stand in those rooms, with these people bearing their souls to me and I want to say “You know I’m twenty-two, in my first semester of seminary and barely making a B in Hebrew.right?”

But that isn’t their concern. Their concern is finding a way to get through the ordeal they are facing, and they want me to help them.

I think Mary and Joseph might have felt the same way. I can imagine Joseph thinking “Am I old enough to be taking my family to Egypt?” Mary might wonder “am I old enough to be a mother?” We all question our own preparedness in the world around us. Somehow, I don’t think you ever feel old enough.

But hear the good news of the story! This, the other half of Christmas, is the promise coming to life. Until this point, the story has been grand—angels and singing, shepherds, magi and gifts. The promise is said to have been fulfilled.

But if we journey with the story as though it is the first time we’ve heard it, we don’t know that yet. We don’t know about Lazarus coming back to life or the sick being made well. We haven’t gotten to the part where Christ walks on water or feeds a hillside of hungry followers.

We just have a manger, a new mother and father, a small child and an angry king. The flight to Egypt and the mere survival of Christ, then, is a morsel of promise made real in an otherwise fairy-tale of a story.

And in this morsel of survival is a world of truth and hope and certainty in the midst of the most uncertain times much like the ones we live in now.

Like Rachel we weep for the brokenness of this world. We cry out when it seems that good has been slaughtered by evil. We tremble when we witness the destruction of war and famine and drought.

I think about my patient Bobby. The four-year old had been admitted to the hospital with an abdominal wound which came from his brother who stabbed him (accidentally) with a box cutter while playing power rangers. I sat with Bobby for 3 hours or so, playing candy land, watching power rangers, and talking about what he wanted for Christmas. He knew he was being released later that day, so he talked about home, and how he was ready to “get out of this town.” What he didn’t know was that the Department of Family and Children Services would be picking him up. He would be leaving the hospital, but he wouldn’t be going home.

And I wept for Bobby as I left that day. I felt like I had abandoned him like everyone else had in his life. I was angry at a society that would let a child be harmed like he was. I was angry at the God that didn’t protect him.

Don’t you see, this is the other half of Christmas—It’s a shot of reality in an otherwise fairytale experience. And in the midst of that harsh truth, there is the light of the fact that the Christ lived through trying times, and suffered with us so we might be able to survive this world.

This is the joy of the other half of Christmas—we can make it. God is indeed with us, because as the author of Hebrews reminds us, Christ has suffered along side us. And for this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters.

The Nativity isn’t just a pleasant little tale that weaves a story around angels and sheep.

It is a promise made real.

Amen.