No Other

Ken Robinson in his inspirational TED talk about education spoke of the importance of giving people the opportunity to be creative not only when they are young, but throughout their formal education and beyond. Our education system currently teaches creative thinking out of pupils as they must learn for a test and not for real world problems. As art classes, bands, choirs, drama, and sports diminish children lose more and more chances to learn to think and be creative. Adult life is no better.

While modern employers seek to provide some new ways to work, how often are recess or art breaks part of work? Still, within every one of us resides a creative force that connects us to our Divine Creator. Do you remember a time when you were young and creative? Or, perhaps are you still young or at least young at heart? 

By the grace of God I have never completely jettisoned my inner child. One may joke about how many stories I remember from my childhood, but those foundational tales continue to impact me today. One such tale still lives vividly within my soul.

I have said in previous sermons that I had many imaginary friends growing up—not just one, but many! We would play and run around and go on adventures wherever we were. Quite often this benefited my parents who did not have to entertain me. However, there was one time every week when I had to use my creative powers in a more confined way. 

One evening a week I had to go with my mom to pick up my sister from dance rehearsal. When it was too dark I had to sit in the car and entertain myself. However, over the course of time my mom and I developed a game that still makes me laugh. My sister’s dance studio was on a busy street, so many people walked by on their way to other stores or restaurants. As people walked by my mom would ask, “Is that your sister?” For example, a 50 year-old-man with a mustache strolled by and my mom said, “Is that your sister?” The same with a mother pushing a baby stroller or a kid on a skateboard. Each time I would erupt in laughter. I found this creative game so funny because I knew these people were not my sister, until finally it was my sister walking to the car. 

What happens though when we are looking for God? When we seek out the Messiah? In both the passage from Isaiah and our Gospel lesson from Luke these questions of God’s identity hover over the text. There is only one God. God is the one who creates all: light and dark, weal and woe. God says I am the one and there is no other god. Whereas I had a really easy time as a kid spotting which person was my sister walking up to me, I believe we continually struggle with identifying that there is only one God!

Often we try to make God into our little deity who shows up for our group of people and so conveniently leaves out those whom we do not like or who see God differently than we do. As we look at Luke’s story of John’s disciples going to see if Jesus was the Messiah—recall we heard Matthew’s version this past Sunday—we discover that John the Baptist is wondering about the identity of God. In particular, John wants to know is this the Messiah who came to show the world the way back to God?

The response sounds almost identical in Luke as it does in Matthew: “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.” Jesus’ answer does not directly respond with a yes. Instead, he points a finger to the examples that correspond with how the people of Israel have been expecting to see God’s coming. The wild thing is that this is still how we see God coming into this world.

I think I need to resurrect that old game I used to play while waiting for my sister, but this time I am going to wonder, “Is that God coming?” Regardless of where someone was born, where they live, or what religion they practice if they take part in creativity within this world, if they take part in the healing of this world, if they are uniting “individual” parts of this world then they are from God, the one God. For there is one Lord, and there is no other; besides God there is no god.

“Hey, Watch This!”

I bet you know the phrase “famous last words,” yes? But, have you ever scrolled through a list of them? Some are fitting and some are funny. At least that is what I found with the famous last words spoken by famous people.

 

Nostradamus the seer and sage, on the night before he died said, “Tomorrow, at sun rise I shall no longer be here.” He may not have gotten all his other predictions correct, but he nailed that one. 

Before Marie Antoinette was famously beheaded, she said not “let them eat cake,” but after stepping on her executioner’s foot she said, “Excuse me sir.” She was courteous, but perhaps oblivious to the end.

There are a bunch of sweet, sappy things that other famous people said right before they died, but I prefer Winston Churchill’s “I’m bored with it all.” Of course, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom had a mastery of the English language that few will be able to approach. Whereas the previous phrases were spoken by famous people the following are words that were uttered by less popular figures:

“This glass looks fine to lean on.” 

“Yes, it’s fire proof.” 

“I think it has airbags.” or “I’m sure the brakes work.”

“Of course it’s not poisonous.” 

“Here honey taste this.” (Well, that one are famously last heard words). 

One day during college I thought I heard someone shouting another fitting last phrase when I was out hiking. At a beautiful state park up in Tennessee I walked down a pathway to a majestic waterfall. I have an affinity for jumping off of cliffs into water, a hobby that my family continues to dislike. Still, the distance between this particular path to the water at the bottom of this particular waterfall made it seem more than a danger to jump. Almost out of nowhere a man with a wife-beater t-shirt and cutoff jeans almost bowled me over as he screamed at his friends, “Hey y’all! Watch this!” Over the cliff-face he went and wouldn’t you know it? He landed gracefully in the pool’s deep spot. 

“Hey y’all watch this!” I would have sworn these would be this Tennessean’s last words. Sometimes though we cannot believe something until we see it. There are times in life when we just cannot comprehend the possibility of an event occurring until it happens. It is not just confined to a redneck jumping off a cliff. It is Leceister City winning the Premier League at 1000-1 odds. It is coffin looking boxes on our parish grounds turning into a vibrant community garden. It is the supposedly infertile couple getting pregnant or the allegedly incurable disease being overcome by a new treatment. Somethings are too strange or far-fetched to believe, until they actually happen.

The Messiah, who is God Incarnate or the hope of all humanity, coming to earth falls squarely into this category. For thousands of years the people of Israel had been waiting. They had been groaning to God. They had been hoping with one another that the Messiah would come to set them free and to fulfill their hopes and dreams. John the Baptist announced in last week’s gospel lesson that this person was on the way. In today’s Gospel lesson we hear John question with some trepidation could this be happening?

From prison John desired to know if this thousands-year-old hope and everything for which he had worked was pointing to Jesus’ own ministry. “Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait?” Instead of answering John’s question in a direct manner Jesus in his typical fashion decided to take it in another direction. I’m paraphrasing here, but Jesus said, “Hey y’all! Watch this!”

“Go tell John what you hear and what you see, the blind have sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, [and] the dead are raised.” Boom! Walk-off! Drop the mic! Jesus says, look around and see what we are doing. I could tell you, but you might not believe it unless you saw it with your own eyes and heard it with your own ears. However, this is not all. It’s amazing and unbelievable to give a blind person sight or to raise the dead from the grave! And yet, this is not where we end. Jesus said one more thing, “The poor have good news brought to them.” Why not end with the dead being raised?

“The poor will always be with you,” Jesus later in Matthew. The poor here are an overarching group, not like lazy good-for-nothings, but a people impoverished because of a broken system—a system not unlike the one that keeps down the poor today. For Jesus to say that the poor have good news brought to them is to say that he is not some phony prophet who promises peace but brings none, like Jeremiah warns (6:14) in his prophecy. No, Jesus is the one who brings real and lasting peace even to those who everyone else in society forgets.

Yet, Jesus was right. The poor are still with us. And, I wonder how we might bring good news to them. Not just a moment of help and not just a temporary fix, although that can be helpful when things are bleak and dire. Rather, in this season when we remember Jesus’ first coming and look ahead to Christ’s fulfilling of all things at the End of Time, we must challenge ourselves to see that Christ comes to us disguised as those poor and lowly who are no different than us. The poor are not different human beings they are just like you and me!

I get overwhelmed thinking, “How can I solve homelessness or end poverty?” I do not believe I can say, “Hey y’all! Watch this!” and magically change everything. Yet, our hope, our very purpose as Christians is to yearn so passionately for Christ’s coming, like the people of Israel did for so long, like John the Baptist did for his life. And, as we yearn for Christ’s coming we know that when we come together we re-member the Body of Christ and we have the ability to share good news with the poor and to bring real hope to those most in need! 

We must first start though by watching and waiting, which this season of Advent calls us to do already. Watch for Christ coming to us in many different disguises. Watch for the Good News already being proclaimed in this world (and yes, there is good news being shared). How will we care for the Christ that dwells in all? How will we share good news to the poor? Christ still says look around, will we be messengers of his Good News?

Not Even Fools

This past Sunday evening was the 33rd (or 34th, depending on who you ask) Annual Festival of Lessons and Carols at St. John's Church. It was marvelous! A packed congregation heard delightful music from a joint choir of Good Shepherd Church and St. John's, with superb stringed accompaniment, a masterful director (Lauren Cantrell Salerno), and even an average sounding organist (I kid Foster Bailey). This service was a rarity for me, as my only responsibility was to read the first lesson, which meant I was able to sit in the congregation with my wife enjoying the festivities from there.

Right before the service I was sitting on the aisle, doing my best to look pious, and waiting on my wife to arrive when all of a sudden there arose such a clatter. Okay, it was not that clattery, but one of the acolyte servers went to get the processional cross and in the process the flowers attached to the front of it fell askew. The server looked around in distress, and I went up to help him repair the disheveled looking ornamentation. As I left my seat, I put my bulletin down to reserve my place.

After a few minutes of three sets of hands holding the cross, steadying the arrangement, and twisting some pipe cleaners into place the cross' decoration looked as good as new! I walked back around to where I had been sitting only to discover that not only was my seat missing, but there were no longer any aisle seats to be found in the whole church. No good deed goes unpunished! The apologetic parishioner who had accidentally sat down where I had been had not seen my bulletin and this kind person offered to get up, but there was not room enough for both my wife and myself there as the rest of the pew had been filled.

Usually I am a pretty well balanced person, but in this moment I kind of lost my cool. I went to the very back of the church and sat fuming for a few moments until my wife arrived. When she did I expressed what had happened, and I found myself getting more upset, not at anyone in particular, but irrationally I huffed and puffed over the situation. How foolish I can be!

Fortunately, the service started and the opening anthem drew me ever so slightly away from my frustration. Then, when the appointed time came I walked all the way up the side aisle to read Isaiah 35:1-10, which was not only the first reading at Lessons and Carols, but is the first lesson for this coming Sunday. This beautiful passage with vivid images of a crocus blooming, deer leaping, and springs of water bubbling up depicts how God will make even the deserts lush, even the fearful strong, and even the blind sighted! And yet, what convicted me this past Sunday night causing me to question my own silly behavior jumped off the page when the prophet described the Holy Highway.

"A highway shall be there, 

and it shall be called the Holy Way;
the unclean shall not travel on it,

but it shall be for God's people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray." 

(emboldened for emphasis)

As the service continued my own foolishness kept on nagging at my soul. Isaiah's passage describes not only when Christ came in the person of Jesus bringing healing to the deaf, lame, and blind, but also how Christ will come in the future to fulfill all things. On Sunday evening, as the beauty of the service unfurled and the words of the hymns kept sticking in my throat as the loveliness of the music struck me mute, I saw Christ coming in the present. Mostly telling me to let go of my foolish ways!

Advent is a season when God may just slow us down enough to remind us of how foolish we are, and yet even as fools we shall not go astray! Jesus came to claim not only the deaf, lame, blind, fearful, and poor, but also all of us fools who think that somehow we are better than those with different needs than our own. As you prepare your heart for the coming of Christ enjoy the music and celebrations that are planned and executed so well, but even if or when everything falls apart know that Christ is still there guiding all us foolish travelers on the Holy Way that leads us home to God!

Wilderness and Prison

As I continue to look ahead at this coming Sunday’s Gospel lesson (Matthew 11:2-11), I am struck by a stark juxtaposition. Since we last saw John the Baptist in our reading for the Second Sunday of Advent (Matthew 3:1-12), the prophetic messenger has moved from the wilderness to a prison cell. What a difference a week makes! Of course, this happened over a longer period of time, but as we fast-forward through John’s ministry I am disheartened by this juxtaposition.

I am disheartened by where John’s speaking out led him. I am saddened that when the Baptizer chose to speak truth to power the result was jail time. I am upset because in just a couple more chapters John’s fate will be sealed by a bitter mother and a power-drunk politician, and that fate will be a gruesome death. Mostly though I am angry because a prophet’s life has not gotten any easier over the past two thousand years.

No one likes to hear challenging news, as we all too often confuse it with bad news. And, to some degree for those who cling to power the message of John the Baptist is bad news. This news is bad or at least worrisome to the power-brokers because holding onto the status quo is not part of God’s plan. It never has been and (spoiler alert) it never will be!

Even dating back to the time of Isaiah the way that God was speaking through the Judeo (and later Christian) people seems pretty clear: the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf will be unstopped, the lame shall not just walk but leap, the speechless shall sing, those who are weak will be strengthened, and the fearful will become strong. And yet, the way that this happens is not by keeping things the way they are. Clearly this is true because otherwise our Scriptures would speak of the rich becoming richer, the powerful casting out the powerless, the blind staying blind, and the poor being cast away even further! No, the way things are is bad enough for those who are blind, deaf, lame, speechless, weak, fearful, and poor! Why on earth would God who loves all creatures with the same love want to keep the unhealthy ways of this world the same?!

Change though does not come easily. I can think of very few people who are good at welcoming change. Even good change is tough. This part of Advent—when we remember the forerunner of Christ coming and shifting things, so that all things could be further disrupted by the person of Jesus—reminds us that change is difficult for all involved, but it is necessary for the Kingdom of God to come! As you wait and watch for God's Coming be ready for the change, even if it requires going to the wilderness or even jail in the process!