After This Life--a sermon for August 10

Rev. Teri Peterson

PCOP

After This Life

1 Thessalonians 4.16-18, Revelation 7.9-17, 21.3-6a, Matthew 13.33

10 August 2014, Faith Questions 8

1 Thessalonians 4.16-18

For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Revelation 7.9-17, 21.3-6a

 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ 
And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, singing,
‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’

 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?’ I said to him, ‘Sir, you are the one that knows.’ Then he said to me, ‘These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
For this reason they are before the throne of God,
and worship him day and night within his temple,
and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.
They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;
for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

…

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
‘See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them; 
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.’

 And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ Then he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

Matthew 13.33

Jesus told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’

When you hear the word heaven, what comes to mind?

For many people, the mental image of heaven is a shining city built on fluffy clouds, with gates of pearl, streets of gold, angels and harps, peace and light, contentment—a place of beauty, wonder, and rest, infused with the presence of God, as a reward for those who are good during this life, or sometimes as a reward for those who suffered a lot in this life.

And when we think about hell, we conjure up images of fire, darkness, and pain, eternal punishment for actions committed during a finite life.

In these mental images, the colors of hell are reds and black, angry and hurtful; the colors of heaven are sun-kissed white and blue and gold.

Of course, these images come to us mostly from medieval artwork, from Dante’s Divine Comedy, and from greeting cards. Since they are about what happens after this life, they are by definition a work of hopeful imagination. Part of what it means to be human is to not know for certain what God has in store when these bodies complete their earthly journey. We don’t know what heaven looks like, or where it might be, or what it will feel like, or who will be there. Those things are the purview of the creator, not the created.

We do know that God does not break promises, and that God’s promise is for life beyond what we can see and peace that passes all understanding. We know that God is the God of the living, and that our knowledge of what constitutes life is sadly limited. So it’s a fairly safe bet that God will keep this promise: that those whom God loves will indeed rest in peace and rise in glory. As for the physical location or interior decoration or musical choices, unfortunately we’ll have to wait and see.

There is a bit of a cottage industry in Near Death Experiences, though. We long for certainty, for a sense of control, and the reports of people who see a warm light, or who visit heaven and see their loved ones and then wake up on earth again, give us a glimpse of what we hope for. To be caught up in the clouds with Jesus and with those we miss so dearly, to join the multitude from every nation in praising God in the city square, to be in a place where every tear is wiped away—who doesn’t want that? We cling to reports that it is true, because it is so hard to trust a promise we cannot see. It is comforting to know that someone has seen, it makes believing a little bit easier, and somehow makes powering through this life seem more worthwhile.

Interestingly, the early church didn’t focus much on the afterlife. It’s a rare topic in Jewish scripture, and a rare topic for Jesus. Paul talks about it in the context of communities who believed that Jesus would return very soon—and who worried about people who died while they were waiting. And the early church knew that Revelation was a book mostly written in code designed to allow them to tell their story of persecution, and to give them hope in the midst of horror. It wasn’t until the middle ages that images of an afterlife became common. When Christianity had taken over the European continent, and Charlemagne had become the first Holy Roman Emperor, and the vast majority of people were living as serfs, in abject poverty, with incredible suffering as their day-to-day reality—that is when the Church began to teach most about the afterlife, especially as a reward or consequence for this life. It was a way to remind people that though things were terrible, better days were ahead. That use of God’s promise as a way to manipulate people into accepting horrible conditions persisted right through the transatlantic slave trade and even beyond. In fact, it is still in use as a way to suggest that people living in poverty or suffering abuse are earning a reward in heaven, which lets the rest of us off the hook for solving problems of injustice or helping our neighbors.

It is never okay to use God’s promises to manipulate people or to perpetuate injustice. It is never okay to use God’s promises as an excuse for inaction in the face of suffering.

The promise of life abundant is for you, and for your children, and for all who are far off—everyone the Lord our God shall call. The reading today from Revelation gave us a glimpse of people from every tribe gathered together, of a world with no hunger and no thirst and no sorrow. Notice the reading didn’t say anyone had earned it—God is the one who sets the table and invites whomever God pleases. All things will be made new—some things little by little, some things all at once. And that promise is both for now and for after. And God keeps promises—every time. Some of those times, God uses us to fulfill the promise for others. Some of those times, miracles happen. Some of those times, we get a glimpse of what is to come, and sometimes we power through in faith.

Is anyone wondering about those first 800 years, before the afterlife became a way to placate people in the midst of this life? What did the early church teach about heaven?

Based on artwork and writings, it seems that they taught something much like what Jesus says in that one verse we heard from Matthew—the kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into flour until all of it was leavened. When a person was baptized, they came up out of the water and the first image they would see was of the Garden of Eden—of paradise, which they were now entering. Their calling as Christians was to be the yeast that makes this world into paradise. The gathered church was living already in the kingdom of God, in paradise that was basically invisible, but all can see the results. Yeast gets all mixed in, and we cannot separate it from the flour, but we can see it working. In the same way, the promise of heaven: we cannot separate it from this life, but we can see it working.

At the end of the movie Heaven is for Real, the pastor and father whose child had a near death experience and visited heaven preaches a sermon in which he asks the question: IS heaven for real? He answers it by saying yes, it is, and we get glimpses of it every day: in the smile of a stranger, in acts of kindness and justice, in the touch of loved ones. It’s just that we’re too busy living as if heaven is not for real, as if we have some level of control over God’s promise, and we miss those glimpses. And here’s the kicker: what we believe determines what we see. Do we want to see God’s promise at work in small yeasty ways right now? Or do we want to think God’s promise is only for after this life? Do we want to see opportunities to be agents of God’s mission, or do we want to insist it’s not our job?

Jesus said that the kingdom of God is here, is at hand, is nearby. After his ascension, the disciples stand staring up at the clouds, and I imagine their longing was similar to ours—take us with you, let us see the kingdom that is coming, set our feet on lofty places. Yet the instructions from the angels start with “why are you standing here looking up?” They are supposed to go back to the city, full of people created and loved by God.

What if heaven is so close we could touch it, but we’re so busy looking forward to it that we’re missing it? Instead of constantly looking toward the sky, let’s try trusting God’s promise—for a future with hope, for our welfare not for our harm, for life abundant both now and after, for all the tribes gathered together at one table, for peace that passes all understanding. We may just catch a glimpse of heaven.

May it be so.

Amen. 

breaking point--a sermon on forgiveness and sin

Rev. Teri Peterson

PCOP

Breaking Point

Luke 15.20b-24, Matthew 18.21-22

3 August 2014, Faith Questions 7

(A young man made some questionable choices along his life’s path…) While he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.

~~

 Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

Over the years I have noticed that sin is simultaneously a wildly unpopular topic and something we love to talk about. I mean, when it comes to other people, particularly people with whom we disagree or people we fear, we stand ready to explain their sinfulness from multiple angles. But considering our own sin—especially in any way that might require us to relinquish privilege or change profitable behavior—is the last thing on most of our minds. Even those of us who think about our wrongdoing are only occasionally willing to repent—to turn around and go another way. The Hebrew word for repent—shuv—literally means to turn your body around and go in a different direction. The Greek word, metanoia, is about changing heart and mind, thinking differently, believing differently, loving differently, living differently.

Differently from what? What is sin anyway? I think the classic definition of “things that separate us from God” can be helpful, except that then we run straight into Romans 8, where Paul declares that nothing can separate us from God’s love. So God’s love is always present, in and through and among us, and we can’t do anything to stop that. We can, however, miss it. We can feel separated, as if there are barriers between us. Nothing can change the fact of God’s love, but many things change or even block our experience of love and our response to God. Those things that block us from experiencing God’s grace and responding to it with gratitude—those are sin. And they grow out of a human reality—that all have sinned and fall short. It is not possible for us to shed that second nature of brokenness.

We know that our calling as human beings made in the image of God is to reflect the glory of God into the world. We also know that we are like broken mirrors—we reflect a cracked, distorted, and incomplete image. Because of the cracks, sometimes the choices we make lead to more brokenness, rather than more healing. In many ways, we can’t help it. In the 7^th chapter of Romans Paul talks about how he does the very thing he does not want to do, and he can’t help himself. Only through Christ working in him is he ever able to make a good decision or do a good work. Under his own power, sin will always rule.

If this line of thinking makes you uncomfortable, just wait. Because while I’ve noticed that we don't much like talking about sin, I’ve also noticed that there’s something we are even more uncomfortable with. It seems odd and I’m still very curious about why this is, but I think it’s true: we are incredibly uncomfortable with forgiveness. The concept of forgiveness breaks all our rules of fairness and stomps on our hopes for vengeance. And while we might even be okay with the idea that we should work to forgive one another, we have real problems with the idea that God might just be in the business of forgiving more than we would.

An example, from a story many of us know—that story of the boy who asks for his inheritance, runs away and squanders it all with bad choices, and whose father is waiting for him, watching out the window, running down the road to meet him as soon as he sees the clouds of dust rising behind his steps. So often we read that as being about God the Father—who watches for our return and greets us with an extravagant party. Yet how often are we the next character in the story—the older brother who is bitter and angry that he, who followed the rules, didn’t get a party? He stands outside, listening to the music but refusing to go in because he can’t believe his father would be so forgiving—not even listening to the younger brother’s repentant speech before starting the grill.

How long did the younger brother wait before acting on his hope that his father would be forgiving? How long did the older brother stand outside fuming and disbelieving? How often do we decide what God’s breaking point must be, and live by that, rather than simply coming in the house?

When Peter asked Jesus how many times he was to forgive another person, Jesus answer was preposterous—77 times? or in some translations, 70 times 7? Some commentators say this is an indication that forgiveness is hard work—that it might take 77 steps, or 490 little daily efforts, to truly forgive someone. That is probably true. But I also wonder if it isn’t a lesson for us who seek to be transformed ever more into Christ’s likeness—we are to practice forgiveness over and over and over, until we lose count, because that’s what God is like.

What if God has no breaking point? What if the whole reason that God is God and we are not, the whole reason that eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil was enough to get Adam and Eve kicked out of the garden, is precisely because God knows that we humans do have a breaking point—a point when we cannot take any more, when it is healthier for us to step away, create boundaries, leave abusive situations, stand up to bullies. Sometimes the first step we humans can possibly make toward forgiveness is to leave a situation or relationship. But God doesn’t need that—God is relationship, is love, in essence and by definition.

No wonder we don’t like to think about this—it puts God in such a different category from us, a category that refuses to be defined by our ability or our judgment. The idea that God has no breaking point, that forgiveness is possible over and over, that love is present all the time no matter what we do, that all people are broken mirrors and God chooses to use us to reflect the divine image anyway—this reality means that God is outside our control. And part of our sinfulness is that we desperately want to be in control. Isn’t that what the younger brother and the older brother both wanted? Isn’t that what Peter wanted? Isn’t that what Adam and Eve wanted? What Paul lamented? Control. Perhaps that is the true original sin.

But whatever form that takes in our lives, there is a greater reality, something planted more deeply in human beings, and in all creation, a force well beyond our understanding and beyond our capability: for God is love. Whether we like it or not, whether we comprehend or not, and whether we are willing to be forgiven or not, God’s love is all about the seventy times seven, the preposterous grace that makes life possible. What would happen if we lowered our barriers, opened our eyes, practiced the kind of forgiveness Jesus talked about rather than the kind we think we deserve, and lived as if grace and gratitude were from the same root?

May it be so.

Amen.

Many Other Things--a sermon for July 27

Rev. Teri Peterson

PCOP

Many Other Things

John 16.12-13, 20.30-31, 21.25

27 July 2014, Faith Questions 6

Jesus said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

…

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

Many of you know that I did not grow up in the church. When I was 15, I had plans that involved studying both music and English Literature in college. I figured I could easily double major, because I liked and was good at both those things, and neither one would get me a job, so surely there must be time for both. I spent a lot of time reading and writing. But it wasn’t long into my journey with classic and important literature and music that I figured out that I was missing something. I was missing the undertones, the subtext, the metaphor, the language and background that authors and composers assumed people would have. So I decided that I was going to have to read the Bible. Otherwise, I spent a lot of time wondering what characters were talking about or why things were important. So I started reading. At the beginning. And at the rate of about 5 chapters per day, I read straight through this book from beginning to end.

It was a weird book. Repetitive in parts, confusing in parts, and downright disturbing sometimes. It had stories of lying, murder, seduction, despair, hope, coming-of-age, and traveling adventures. One day it was like Swiss Family Robinson, and the next day it was Agatha Christie, and the next day it was worse than trying to read the Waterloo section of Les Mis in French. Which, of course, is because the Bible isn’t just one book, it’s dozens—more like a library than a novel. The story arc weaves in and out throughout the history and mythology and weird social contracts to create something I’d never experienced before. What made it even stranger was that by the time I got near the end, I was pretty sure that it wasn’t just a good story. There was something more to this God-story, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, besides to say that I thought it might just be True.

Now, I’m one of those people who gets sucked in to a good story. The worlds that authors create can be very compelling, and it’s difficult sometimes to remember that there really aren’t wizards and witches cloaking themselves from our eyes or Time Lords winging their way through the universe…probably. So it wasn’t surprising to me when I first felt that the story of God’s people was maybe more than just a good story. What was surprising was that the feeling held on, even as I turned to other books with other worlds and their stories. There was something about this library that held this particular story of this particular people. It wasn’t just another novel. When I eventually went to church, I used to say that I was Presbyterian in part because I was converted by the scriptures—reading the Bible was the beginning of my journey with God.

For the first 300 years of the church, there was disagreement about what should be in the library—there are still a few books that various denominations disagree about! And then until the printing press and the Protestant Reformation, it was unheard of for regular people to read anything, especially the Bible, for themselves. We lowly ones can’t be trusted with the sacred words—they’re holy and full of God’s own writing! But then along come Gutenberg and Luther and Calvin and Knox, and suddenly we can read the word of God, and learn it, and encounter the Living Word in it, ourselves. It’s out in the open, like any other book…but it isn’t just like any other book. When Paul writes to Timothy that “all scripture is inspired by God and useful,” which scripture is he talking about? Is he just talking about the Hebrew Bible, which was pretty well agreed upon by then? Is he thinking that the letter he’s writing might one day be considered Inspired—literally breathed by God? Does he know about how confusing it will be for one page to commend the women preachers and another to command women to be silent? If all scripture is the very breath of God, the word of God, then what about the books and letters that got left out? What about the stories that reveal just as much about the time and culture and people as they do about God? How can it be the breathy word of God if it reads more like it’s written by a bunch of guys perfecting their family’s campfire stories than like lightning bolts streaming from God’s fingertips?

Well, in short, because it can be both of those things at the same time.

The Bible is the story of God and God’s people—through good and bad times, through untimely relocations and strange family trees and sibling feuds and inside jokes, through flood and drought and good ideas and bad ideas, through times of widening the gap between humans and God and times of God closing the gap sometimes slower than a snail and sometimes faster than the sun can rise. Those stories are the stuff of every family reunion, and this library is our set of family stories—it tells us who we are, and who God is, and how our family has worked out a life with God and with each other in all kinds of situations and circumstances. It’s written by people, like any family story, but the breath of God flows through the words and makes them come alive in ways that open up Truth and Love and Real Life that novelists can’t even imagine. So it is all useful for learning how to be in right relationship and for correcting our course, because each story points the way—there’s nothing in there that is an end in itself. The written word points us to the Living Word, about whom the world could not contain all the books that could be written, and who came that all—whether we are in this sheepfold or another—may have abundant life. Instead of more books to fill the shelves, that Living Word gave the world something else—something living and breathing and moving…the Spirit, who continually whispers God’s word to us, offering guidance and comfort and challenge.

In scripture, God is telling a story of love speaking and acting, calling together flawed people to create something beautiful, a story of the Kingdom of God breaking into the world, little by little. It is a story that reveals God’s purpose and calls us to trust God enough to participate in that mission. Everything we need in order to see God in Christ is there. Scripture is a complete picture. And yet God’s story is not finished—it is still being told in every breath, every act of love, every word of kindness, every hand reaching out, every voice lifted in song, every prayer said and every loaf of bread broken. It is still being told every time we open the book that is our foundation, and every time we build on that foundation. Just as Jesus did and said many other things, so the Spirit is still busy sharing the many other things God has to say through us. For the word of God is for every time and every place—and sometimes we hear it through words on a page, and sometimes we hear it through the voice of a child, and sometimes we hear it through the scraping of plates, and sometimes we hear it in the silence of a sanctuary.

Every week we use that response after the scripture reading—for the word of God in scripture, for the word of God among us, for the word of God within us. Every week we affirm that we can hear the voice of God through stories told long ago and through listening carefully in our own lives and relationships. Our God is one who speaks—not just in the past, but in the present.

Or, as the United Church of Christ advertising campaign says, “God is still speaking.”

As people of the Reformed Christian tradition, we say it like this: “reformed and always being reformed by the word of God.”

It’s amazing to think that every time we come to scripture, God gives us something new, even thousands of years after the words were first spoken or written. God reveals the truth to us, little by little, every time we come to the word—maybe partly as an incentive to keep reading and listening! In prayer, in reading, in seeking together in community, we can hear God’s voice again and again, in our own heart’s language. Not just words on a page, not just long ago in a place far away, but even right now, God is still speaking. Or, as Jesus put it, The Spirit is still whispering through these ancient words, in our ears and in our hearts, telling us God’s good news and God’s plans.

May we listen, hear, and obey.

Amen.

Friday Five: Background Music!

It's been a zillion years since I played the Friday Five. As I sit here (in silence, incidentally), it seemed like a fun way to end my Friday afternoon.

Over at RGBP, Deb invites us to talk background music this week for our Friday Five.

1. At the office: If you have a choice, do you turn it up, turn it off, or drown it out with headphones? 
turn it off! I'm not good at having background music--I mostly find it distracting. I prefer to work in quiet and/or to eavesdrop on other people around. :-)
I will, however, admit that occasionally when I'm stuck on a sermon, I make a playlist of the songs we're singing on Sunday morning and play that for a while until I come up with something to say that ties it all together.

2. At the grocery store or mall: What song (or genre of music) makes you want to hurl? Or throw something? 
"christian" muzak makes my soul hurt. Please, businesses--just say no to the canned Kenny-G-sounding instrumental versions of "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" and "Shine Jesus Shine."
(please note: there's nothing wrong with those songs, until they are played by someone attempting to be Kenny G, then turned into muzak.)

3. If you were going to create a “perfect playlist”, who are the artists (or songs/pieces) that you would include? 
It would be full of the Indigo Girls, Carrie Newcomer, and David Lamotte, with a smattering of Gungor, Mozart, and the BareNaked Ladies. 

4. Have you ever tried using recorded music in worship? If so, what was your plan, and how did it go over? 
I think there was one instance when we were using a piece that actually faded from recording to live...I would call that a disaster. Most of the times we've used recorded music has been for VBS songs (so, once a year, basically). I'm not opposed to it if there is a good reason for wanting to use music that can't be made live.

 5. When is the earliest you’ve heard Christmas music in the grocery store or mall? 
I'm sure I've complained about it and then blocked it from my memory, because I really can't recall. Probably in October, at least...

BONUS: “Weird Al Yankovich” has been releasing a stream of his parody music videos lately. Among my favorites: “Because I’m Tacky” :) If Weird Al was going to do a music video of your life, or a recent experience, what song/hymn/musical would the parody be based on?
Some days I think that song Ariel sings (in the Little Mermaid) about "I wanna be where the people are..." pretty much sums up my suburban-single experience. It would make a hilarious parody that might make me feel better about that situation, actually...

A Particular Way--a sermon on John 14

Rev. Teri Peterson

PCOP

A Particular Way

John 14.1-7

20 July 2014, Faith Questions 5

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’

A few years ago, the Presbyterian Church USA put out a survey. It was mostly your run-of-the-mill questions about age, ethnicity, length of time in a particular congregation, mission involvement. It also had some theology questions, and among those was a question that asked about level of agreement with the statement “only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved.” The options were Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree.

On the surface, the answer to this question is obvious. Of course we Christians would all strongly agree that God saves those who follow Christ.

But theology is never just on the surface. As people who believe God created the world with a word, every word matters. So the word “only” became problematic for many people taking the survey. Are we really willing to say that our friends and family members who don’t go to church aren’t saved? What about the classic conundrum of people who never hear about Jesus? What about people who lived before Jesus? What about people who faithfully follow another religion? What about people like Gandhi?

These are all good and important questions, and they bring up the question of what it means to follow Christ, and who gets to decide what constitutes being a good enough Christian.

But there is another word in the question that is even more difficult. It comes at the end of the statement—only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved.

Nearly half the people taking the survey said they disagreed or strongly disagreed with this statement. This pesky word can is at the root of many of those answers. Because in the Reformed theological tradition, we affirm first and foremost that God is sovereign, and we are not. God is the one who creates, redeems, and sustains. God is the one who calls even those who are not good enough. God is the one who rescues people from Egypt long before giving them the 10 commandments. God is the one who leads, and who even uses those who are not part of the “chosen people” to fulfill God’s purpose. We say that the good news is that while we were yet sinners, Christ lived and died and rose for us. We baptize infants as a sign that God loves us before we can respond. For us to say what God can and cannot do is to claim sovereignty ourselves, to usurp the position of God and make an idol of our human understanding and judgment. As we heard last week in the Ephesians reading, our salvation is a gift from God, not the result of works. There is nothing we can do to control God’s saving grace, no words we can say or actions we can perform in order to earn salvation—for ourselves or for others.

And yet we have stories like the one we just heard, where Jesus says to Thomas “I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Doesn’t that seem to imply that the statement is right after all? That it’s a requirement that we affirm belief in Jesus in order to get to the Father? The verse has certainly been read that way in many other traditions, for many years. It has been used to say that non-Christians are going to hell, or even that some flavors of Christians are not good enough. How do we reconcile the idea that there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation with the idea that we have to believe certain things about Jesus in order to be saved?

It’s always a good idea to pull back a bit and look at the whole story any biblical writer is telling, especially since chapter and verse numbers were added later, so it helps to have the full context. The original hearers of John’s gospel were Jews who followed Jesus, and their community was being kicked out of the synagogue because they proclaimed Christ’s resurrection, and because they were a community that believed they could experience oneness with God through Christ. John starts his story of Jesus with “in the beginning was the word…and all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” Right from chapter one, he sets up Christ as the conduit for God’s power of love and creativity. In chapter 6, Jesus talks about how God gives manna from heaven, bread that sustains all life, and then he says “I am the bread of life.” He tells us that “no one comes to me unless drawn by the Father” and that he will not lose any of those whom God has given to him. In chapter 10, Jesus says he is the good shepherd, and he has sheep in many folds, and he came that all may have abundant life. In chapter 13, at the last supper, Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, then over dinner told them he was going away to a place they could not come. And now here, in chapter 14, after dinner, they are anxious and afraid. So Jesus tells them not to fear, for God’s house contains many mansions. The kingdom of God is more than an apartment block, it’s bigger and has more room than we can imagine. But still Thomas and the other disciples are worried. Jesus called them to follow him, but now he’s saying that he’s going somewhere without them. What are they supposed to do? How will they know what to do and where to go?

And so Jesus reiterates to Thomas: do not worry. You know the way, because I am the way.

So these are words for the disciples—who became known as “Followers of The Way.” They are words for Christians worried about how to follow when they do not think they understand enough, words for Followers of the Way whose lives are being turned upside down because they are walking this path. They are words meant to reassure that those whom God has called do not need to panic about being alone or lost. We know the way. Do not worry: there is room in the kingdom of God, where God is sovereign and grace abounds.

Jesus speaks these words to a community of his followers, not to tell them who is in and who is out, but to tell them their particular path. To follow Jesus is a particular way. The Jesus Way involves indifference to everything but God’s will. It involves a different understanding of economy and community. It involves aligning ourselves with the outcast and the sinner, the broken and the hopeless. It involves breaking ourselves open for the life of the world. It involves welcoming the stranger and feeding the hungry, and also working for a system where no one is hungry or outcast or alone. It is a different way from the world’s way. That is not to say that God is not at work in other ways, because we believe that God is the creator of all that is, seen and unseen, and that God can work through all things. It is to say that the Jesus way is a particular way—one that, as we heard last week, God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

What if Jesus’ statement that no one comes to the Father except through him is directed straight to those people who already follow him, and are worried that they don’t know the next step? Those disciples who got it wrong so often, and weren’t sure what to do? What if these words are spoken to tell followers of Christ how to experience God and obey our calling right now, here on earth? Remember that John’s community was seeking oneness with the divine through their relationship with Christ. Imagine all those nights spent praying for God to reveal the path, and hearing Jesus say “you have seen it—because I am the way. All things came into being through me, and you find the with-God life through me.” Or, as Eugene Peterson paraphrased it, “Only when we do the Jesus truth in the Jesus way do we get the Jesus life.”

This particular way will go against most things we have been taught by the world. We have been taught to look down on those who are different, secure our borders, and to grasp for power. We have been taught to defend ourselves, to climb the ladder, and to put our best foot forward. We have been taught that the ends justify the means, that some people are worth more than others, and that violence is the way to create peace. Yet Jesus said “turn the other cheek” and “you give them something to eat,” and “blessed are the meek.” He walked across borders and welcomed foreigners and praised the faith of those the community labeled sinners. Jesus touched people with all kinds of illnesses, ate dinner with people who broke the law, and undercut the economic system at every turn. He insisted that we see his image in every face, and that we love our neighbors and our enemies the same way we love ourselves. Jesus insisted that we put down our swords, and he called the little children to come to him, and he told stories of equal pay for unequal work. He taught that we cannot separate the weeds from the wheat, because that is God’s job. Jesus willingly submitted to the worst torture and shame people could think of, and forgave them with his last breath. This is The Way.

And he said that people would know we were his followers by how we love.

So when it comes to the survey question: I, as a pastor in the Reformed Christian tradition, am not willing to say what God can and cannot do with our eternal salvation. That kind of human meddling in God’s power has gotten people in trouble ever since the garden of Eden. But I am willing to say that when it comes to knowing God, experiencing God, and living in God’s kingdom right here in this life, there is one particular way, and it is the Jesus way. If you want to be in relationship with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then walking the way of Christ is how to get there. But it won’t be easy—because while grace is free it is also costly. So costly that we can never do it on our own—it is only by the Spirit’s power that we receive courage to trust and obey, to seek God’s will and to be transformed, in order that the kingdom may come on earth as it is in heaven.

May it be so.

Amen.

boundary training

it's not about right, not about wrong...it's about power.

All the boundary training pastors have to go through could probably be summed up with this great Buffy quote. It doesn't matter much whether "it was consensual" or "I was right" or whatever...anytime there is a power differential (and when there is an authority figure involved--whether pastor, professor, boss, doctor, etc--there is always a power differential) then it doesn't matter what we perceive to be "right" or "wrong" because the situation is really about power.

Many pastors like to pretend that we don't really have the power, that this idea is a holdover from the days when pastors were respected authority figures in the culture--days that are long gone.

And of course, boundary training rarely takes into account the reality that female pastors (professors/doctors/bosses) often do not have the power in situations with male parishioners. Or the reality that young pastors rarely have the power that older clergy do.

But even so: it's still about power. And with power comes responsibility.

It is always--ALWAYS--the responsibility of the person with the power to set the boundary.

Extrapolating to other situations--for instance those of racial or gender or sexual privilege--it is always the responsibility of the person with the power to show restraint and to seek wholeness and peace for all people.

And extrapolating to international relations, it is always the responsibility of the nation with the power to show restraint and to seek peace. "But they started it" isn't a valid excuse for fighting between children, or for abuse in a relationship, or for clergy misconduct. It shouldn't be an excuse for war either.

Maybe we should send Israel, and the US, to boundary training.

the life of a lamp

The other day, Andrew was particularly clumsy*. He knocked over a number of things, from my water bottle to a stack of books...and also a lamp. This particular lamp has been sitting on the same table in the same place for nearly 8 years, and this was the first time either of the cats had ever knocked it over, despite plenty of behind-the-couch escapades.

The lamp is special for two main reasons. One: it's made out of my first clarinet. Two: my mother made it for me.

This Artley brand clarinet (made of resin) belonged to one of my grandma's friend's daughters before it became mine, for a mere $60, when I was in fourth or fifth grade. It served me well and faithfully until my senior year of high school, when someone stepped on it during a basketball game at which the pep band was playing. The plastic broke just below the middle joint.

Luckily I already had my professional (wood) clarinets by then, and I was able to get by until the end of the spring marching season with some other instrument. In the meantime, the broken Artley sat in the case.

In a pawn shop, I'd seen an all-metal clarinet, and the shop owner had (jokingly?) mentioned that they're really only suitable for lamps.

And in my mom's mind, the clarinet lamp was born.

I'm not sure how much other family members had to do with this, but...the broken piece was glued, a base was constructed, a cord threaded, a lightbulb attached, a lampshade purchased. It's basically the perfect lamp--tall and thin, classy and bright, all at the same time.

Plus, it's mine.

And Andrew knocked it over, and that old break re-broke.

The clarinet lamp sat on my couch, in two pieces, along with my heart.

And then I went to the store, picked up some Krazy Glue (did you know you need to show ID proving you are over 18 in order to buy Krazy Glue?), and came home to put the lamp and my mom-memories back together.

It was a relatively easy fix, unlike so many other parts of life. And now the clarinet stands again, lighting the living room with memories of love.

If only the washing machine could be fixed/replaced so easily.


*no matter how much he may have deserved it, no cats were harmed, other than by my very loud and anguished yelling.*