“Come and See”

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 and John 1:43-51

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

1/14/24

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from far away.
³ You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue,
    O Lord, you know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is so high that I cannot attain it.

¹³For it was you who formed my inward parts;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
    Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
¹⁵     My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
    all the days that were formed for me,
    when none of them as yet existed. 
¹⁷ How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
    I come to the end—I am still with you. (NRSV)

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”

⁴⁴Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.”

⁴⁶Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

⁴⁷When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”

⁴⁸Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?”

Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

⁴⁹Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

⁵⁰Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” ⁵¹And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” (NRSV)

Tony was a member of my first congregation in Mebane, NC. He was a kind and soft-spoken outdoorsman who especially loved fishing. When the stripers were running in Jordan Lake near Chapel Hill, Tony would go to work with his boat in tow. At quitting time he’d drive down to the lake and catch ten or fifteen big fish before dark.

         The next Sunday, an excited Tony would tell me about it and invite me to come join him. If I were available, I’d meet him at the plant where he worked and throw my stuff in his truck. At the lake, we’d launch his boat, and Tony would set two lines that trolled way behind the boat and two downriggers to run deep beneath it. With the fish-finder sweeping the depths, we’d chug slowly around the lake, watching, waiting, talking, and eating junk food while the afternoon sun shattered into glitter on the surface of the lake.

In all the times I went fishing with Tony, I caught exactly one fish. Every other time a pole bent or a downrigger popped up—which was exactly two times—I hauled in a three-pound chunk of waterlogged wood. To make things worse, when Tony took me along, even he caught nothing. Then, a few days later, he’d go back by himself and catch another mess of fish.

         I don’t know why my fishing luck has been mostly bad luck, but I do know this: When Tony invited me to join him, he went out of his way to share with me the excitement and the peace he found in fishing.

There’s the thing. Fishing was the only guarantee. Catching was never more than a possibility.

Maybe God prefers that I enjoy the Creation on foot with a camera in hand, or on a motorcycle with a full tank of gas. And that’s fine…unless I’m fishing.

         We’re currently in the liturgical season of Epiphany, a word which means revelation. Fred Craddock said that “Revelation is never open and obvious to everyone, regardless of their current state of interest or belief. There is always about [revelation] a kind of radiant obscurity, a concealing that requires faith to grasp the revealing.”*

         “There is always a…radiant obscurity” to the revealing of holiness. Maybe it’s sort of like dropping a hook into the water and knowing that whether or not a fish strikes, there are fish present. The radiance is in the gratitude of being where fish are.

It seems appropriate that the first disciples Jesus calls are fishermen. Who better to have a sense of the holiness of the possibility of encountering holiness than fishermen who have been caught by the excitement of the possibility of the excitement of catching? (How’s that for radiant obscurity?!)

         In today’s story, Philip offers to Nathanael the Johannine invitation: “Come and see.” Jesus spoke those words earlier to John and his disciples. Appearing in several places throughout the fourth Gospel, “Come and see” are words of witness. They’re a kind of Johannine mantra, and a call to the possibility of encountering the radiant obscurity of God’s presence. And while witness is tied intimately to revelation, the two are distinct. Witness is the casting of lines and nets; and that’s our work. Revelation is the opening of the heart; and that is the work of the Holy Spirit. Through our witness of doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God, all we can do is create situations and conditions conducive to recognizing God’s ongoing revelatory work.

         There are times, however, when we experience God as something more obscure than radiant. Times when we are consumed by things internal and external—challenges, fears, and the inevitable uncertainties of faith. Or maybe times when it seems that all we’re doing is fishing, and never catching.

         A sophisticated storyteller, John introduces us to individuals that the synoptics do not. And he uses these folks with creative intention. In John, just as the Son is always deflecting attention toward the Father, these characters represent entities beyond themselves. Nathanael is a good example.

         In John’s imaginative hands, Nathanael represents all of Israel, past and present. Crouched beneath that fig tree, Nathanael reminds us of Adam and Eve trying to hide their nakedness after having eaten the forbidden fruit, or King Saul hiding in the luggage, or Peter hiding behind his certainty that his militant messianic expectations and God’s Messiah will match perfectly.

         Beneath that fig tree, Nathanael is no more hidden from Jesus than Adam and Eve are hidden from God. And Jesus not only sees Nathanael, he sees through him to the “Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Seeing Nathanael through the eyes of love, through the depth-finder of grace, Jesus isn’t dissuaded by Nathanael’s sarcastic question, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Jesus sees straight into the holiness of God’s image within Nathanael. In that moment of revelation, Nathanael, affirmed and loved, immediately dives into the waters of faith. His confession happens much quicker than Peter’s confession. Even Jesus seems surprised.

         You’re on board already? Well, hang on, because you haven’t seen anything yet.

         In verse 51, John switches the pronoun “you” from the singular to the plural. So, he’s addressing not just Nathanael, but all of us, and the image Jesus uses, the image of “angels…ascending and descending [on] the Son of Man,” recalls Jacob’s dream at Bethel.

         In that story in Genesis, Jacob, on the run from Esau, sleeps with a rock for a pillow. During a dream, he sees that, through him, God will continue the covenant of blessing God made with Abraham. Jacob and his family, imperfect as they are, live Come and See lives, lives of witness to God’s revelation and faithfulness.

Jesus calls Nathanael, and us, to the same witness—a witness to God’s vision which sees more than the future. God’s vision sees the transcendent possibilities of today by seeing through the selfishness of the Adams, Eves, Jacobs, and Nathanaels within us. The Christ, however, who is also within us, is the fish beneath the surface of the lake. The Christ within us and within the Creation around us is our glimpse of God’s realm of radiant obscurity.

         We are called, then, to live new lives, lives of witness and vision. Come and See lives shaped by the dynamic and tension-wrought threshold where the Creation and God’s realm of grace meet.

So, we’re like fishermen living on the shore where the heights of the firmament and the depths of the waters meet. This liminal place is a place of joyful witness because it’s a place of relentless possibility, profound risk, and trustworthy hope.

         I make no promises, but does anyone want to go fishing?

*While I always footnote quotations, this one was in a previous sermon and did not include a citation. I only know that it is Fred Craddock’s wisdom.

“Then He Consented”

Isaiah 42:1-9 and Matthew 3:13-17

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

1/7/24

Baptism of the Lord Sunday

Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
    my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
    he will bring forth justice to the nations.
² He will not cry out or lift up his voice
    or make it heard in the street;
³ a bruised reed he will not break,
    and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
    he will faithfully bring forth justice.
⁴ He will not grow faint or be crushed
    until he has established justice in the earth,
    and the coastlands wait for his teaching.

⁵ Thus says God, the Lord,
    who created the heavens and stretched them out,
    who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people upon it
    and spirit to those who walk in it:
⁶ I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness;
    I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
    a light to the nations,
⁷     to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
    from the prison those who sit in darkness.
⁸ I am the Lord; that is my name;
    my glory I give to no other,
    nor my praise to idols.
⁹ See, the former things have come to pass,
    and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth,
    I tell you of them. (NRSV)

¹³Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.

¹⁴John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

¹⁵But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

Then he consented.

¹⁶And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” (NRSV)

         In Matthew’s telling of the story of Jesus’ baptism, verse 15 concludes abruptly: “Then he consented.”

         What sounds like a simple reference to timing, points to the rolling away of a great stone. Getting to Then he consented involves the same movement of the Spirit we see in, “So Abram left, as the Lord had told him;” “Let it be with me according to your word;” and “He is risen.”

         Then he consented invites us into something much deeper and broader than John’s reluctant consent to baptize Jesus. When John says that he should be baptized by Jesus, Jesus says, No. For now, you baptize me. Jesus’ own consent to the same baptism to which so many others consent implies much more than acquiescence. It implies trust of and faithfulness to a transforming spiritual reality. And it signals Jesus’ commitment to his own specific calling.

Immediately after his baptism, Jesus embarks on a forty-day wilderness sojourn. And during that time, he agonizes over the consequences of his baptismal consent. He faces a choice we all make in one way or another: He can use his gifts for personal benefit, or he can offer himself to the Creation as a blessing. As a uniquely gifted man, he can live as either the Christ or just another Herod or Caesar.

For similar reasons, confirmation is crucial in denominations that practice infant baptism. Confirmation gives young people the opportunity to declare that they are beloved children of God, that they have rich, God-given potential, and then to follow Jesus as beloved disciples. And belovedness is most fully realized when we choose to live as blessings.

         Baptism, you see, is about identity as well as grace. It declares that we, and all things, belong to God, who delights in us, and who wants us to recognize the elemental and indelible holiness within all humanity, and within the earth itself.

         Now, I know that there are some folks we struggle with. They push every button and get on our last nerve. We’ve all experienced people like that. I also know from experience that I can be that person for others. And I’m very often that person for my own, conflicted self. No one causes me more grief than me.

         Richard Rohr has said that we often look at the world around us and can’t help seeing more darkness than light. And when we can’t get past that, it’s easy to give up and say, ‘That’s just the way things are.’ But Rohr says that when we fixate on brokenness and hopelessness, we’re not seeing things as they are. We’re seeing things as we are,¹ because broken hearts feel nothing but brokenness, and blind eyes see nothing but darkness.

         Listen, it doesn’t happen suddenly or magically, but the journey of baptismal consent does give us new hearts, new eyes, and new minds. Another metaphor for that transformation is, ironically enough, death. Because re-creation springs from death, it’s not by accident that Paul speaks of baptism as dying and rising with Christ. (Romans 6:1-11) Jesus dies at his baptism. He dies during his temptation. He dies repeatedly as he shepherds fickle disciples. And he dies during his agony in Gethsemane, and then, finally, on Golgotha.

         Baptism challenges us to take seriously our call to die to all the false selves, shallow desires, and paralyzing fears that would have us live as if the sin of war is just the way things are, as if starving and homeless children is just the way things are, as if school shootings—something no healthy-minded person can simply “get over”—is just the way things are, and as if our own secret self-loathings are all just the way things are.

         In one way or another, those realities all point to the ever-present powers of nihilistic greed and fear. And to do nothing about them is to consent to those powers, and to let greed and fear have their violent ways. Jesus does not consent to those powers. Nor does he give us permission to do so. He calls us to consent to his lordship here and now. He calls us to take up our crosses, to die to all that is selfish, fearful, and falsely pious. He calls us to enter the world in all of its heart-wrenching brokenness and suffering and to live as ones being made new in the power of the Holy Spirit. He calls us to declare that God claims all human beings as beloved children. And anything that allows us to avoid or compromise the call to die and rise with Jesus, is not of God.

When making suggestions on how to prepare for reading scripture, Richard Rohr advises—and I hope all new and continuing elders really hear this—to seek “an open heart and mind…[to detach from ego-driven] desires to be correct [and] secure…Then…listen for a deeper voice than your own, which you will know because it will never shame or frighten you, but rather strengthen you, even when it [challenges] you…As you read, if you sense any negative or punitive emotions like…feelings of superiority, self-satisfaction, arrogant…certitude, desire for revenge…or a spirit of…exclusion, you must trust that this is not Jesus…at work, but your own ego still steering the ship.”²

I hear Rohr saying that when we claim our baptisms and still seek power or advantage over others, we’re choosing to see things as we are, not as God sees them—and not as God sees us.

         Baptism invites us and challenges us into the mystical practice of learning to see as Jesus sees.

Baptism invites and empowers us for new sight, new strength, new courage.

Baptism empowers us to see ourselves, our neighbors, and the earth as tangible expressions of God’s gracious presence and creative purposes.

When we see and engage the world with eyes and hearts transformed by baptism, we live as followers of Jesus rather than followers of worldly politics, economics, and religiosity.

May we all consent—each day—to following Jesus in the new life of baptismal faithfulness, so that our lives and our living may always serve as signs of God’s love and grace for one another and for all Creation.

¹From Richard Rohr in Falling Upward: Spirituality for the Second Half of Life.

²https://email.cac.org/t/ViewEmail/d/43960629A8B44BD52540EF23F30FEDED/CAEF12FB6B3D7B5544D0DD5392A9C75A

“The Light of Righteousness and Justice”

Isaiah 9:2-7

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

Christmas Eve – 2023

²The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
    on them light has shined.
³ You have multiplied exultation;
    you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
    as with joy at the harvest,
    as people exult when dividing plunder.
⁴ For the yoke of their burden
    and the bar across their shoulders,
    the rod of their oppressor,
    you have broken as on the day of Midian.
⁵ For all the boots of the tramping warriors
    and all the garments rolled in blood
    shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
⁶ For a child has been born for us,
    a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders,
    and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷ Great will be his authority,
    and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
    He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
    from this time onward and forevermore. (NRSV)

         Tibetan Buddhists like to say that a Dalai Lama is not chosen. He’s discovered. The elders watch, engage, and teach many boys. And when that one, extraordinary youngster begins to shine, begins to demonstrate the raw traits of a spiritual leader, he begins the long process of training and preparation.

         For Tibetans, this child has been born for them. He’s been given to them. And while he is not yet spiritually mature, not yet a fulfillment, he has begun the work of adopting and being adopted by his new name, Dalai Lama, which means “Ocean of Compassion,” or “Ocean of Wisdom.”¹

         The ancient Hebrews, fumbling through the darkness of defeat and exile, are being told that a new light is shining on them. A child has been born for them, a son given to them. He will redeem and renew them. He will live into and will be known by new names: “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

         It seems that the great spiritual traditions of the world often have more in common than they do in the way of differences. And one of those commonalities has to do with the metaphor of childhood as a time of immediate, yet not-quite-fulfilled presence. Even the most gifted children, require attention, love, and patience. And we are called to steward these new lights, who represent God’s promise—not because God is dependent on us for whatever success may look like, but because in ways that are as mystical and mysterious as glorias from the heavens, and earthy as childbirth in a stable, we share in God’s ongoing work in and for the Creation.

         Another common metaphor is light. And you and I, we’re kind of like candles. We don’t create fire or light, and we don’t last forever, but for a time, we do burn. We shine with a light that is given to us. That light is itself The Gift, the gift of God’s Shalom, which is God’s Peace, Wholeness, and Holiness. God’s great light in the world is the brightness of all our individual wicks burning, side-by-side with the virtues of justice and righteousness—that is of compassion and joy.

When burning with justice and righteousness, we work for peace and understanding between peoples, nations, and religions.

When burning with justice and righteousness, we advocate for fellow human beings who are suffering; and we leave to God all judgments regarding a given person’s worthiness.

When burning with justice and righteousness, we care for the earth, which is not a resource to be exploited, but a magnificent, personal re-presentation of the Creator, something given to us to steward gratefully in the present moment and with vision for the future. Indeed, in ancient Celtic Christianity, the Creation is considered the First Incarnation of God.

When burning with justice and righteousness, we become midwives in the Creation’s groaning and labor pains as it moves toward adoption and redemption.

No matter whom we follow, everything we do, every decision we make declares whom we love and whom we trust. When burning with the selfishness of the world’s Herods and Caesars, we’re not candles but the blazing funeral pyre of humankind’s brokenness. Being fed by Isaiah’s tramping boots and blood-soaked garments, that fire will, one day, burn out. For good.

When burning with “the zeal of the Lord of hosts,” however, our little flickers declare that we belong to God. So, our celebration of Christmas includes the re-discovery of our own selves as expressions of the incarnate Christ, whose coming we celebrate.

And this Jesus, the Christ, born of Mary, frees us from serving the Herods and Caesars of the world. He frees us from the absolutes that they seek to impose through invoking fear and igniting violence.

In Christ, we live over against the Herods and Caesars. So, while their power can burn with terrifying heat and fury, and while, at times, those things may even consume some part of us, Christ’s gracious authority burns and grows continually with the compassion, the wisdom, and the grace we call love. And Love heals. Love renews. Or, as Rob Bell says, “Love Wins.”

In his song “Go Light Your World,” Chris Rice sings:

There is a candle in every soul

Some brightly burning, some dark and cold.

There is a Spirit who brings a fire,

Ignites a candle and makes his home.

So carry your candle; run to the darkness.

Seek out the helpless, confused and torn.

Hold out your candle for all to see it;

Take your candle, and go light your world.

         May your Christmas be more than merry. May it be transforming—for yourself and for others.

May your life be a constant discovery of the living Christ within you and within those around you.

And may you light the world with his justice, righteousness, compassion, and joy

¹http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/04/how-the-dalai-lama-is-chosen/

“An Apocalypse of Grace”

Psalm 25:1-10 and Luke 21:25-36

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

12/3/23

¹ To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
² O my God, in you I trust;
    do not let me be put to shame;
    do not let my enemies exult over me.
³ Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame;
    let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

⁴ Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
    teach me your paths.
⁵ Lead me in your truth and teach me,
    for you are the God of my salvation;
    for you I wait all day long.

⁶ Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love,
    for they have been from of old.
⁷ Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
    according to your steadfast love remember me,
    for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!

⁸ Good and upright is the Lord;
    therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
⁹ He leads the humble in what is right
    and teaches the humble his way.
¹⁰ All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
    for those who keep his covenant and his decrees. (NRSV)

Advent begins today. And while we have decked this hall with signs of the season, let’s remind ourselves that Advent is not Christmas. I’m not trying to be a Scrooge. It’s just that to celebrate something like the Incarnation of the eternal God in the person of a first-century, blue-collar rabbi takes some preparation.

Neither Advent nor Christmas were celebrations for the early church. And maybe that’s because they lacked a season of intentional preparation. And maybe that helps explain why, of the four canonical gospels, three show no real interest in Jesus’ nativity.

Matthew does tell us about Joseph’s dream, but afterward jumps straight to the visit of the Magi, who would have visited not an infant in a stable but a toddler in a carpenter’s home. Mark opens his story with an adult John the Baptist calling people to respond to an adult Jesus who’s already at work. John starts out with abstract theological reflection: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…” Then, like Mark, John moves straight to an adult John the Baptist.

Only Luke records a nativity story, and he prepares us very carefully. Before any “good news of great joy,” Luke forecasts the birth of John the Baptist by telling the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth. Then comes the story of Mary’s Annunciation. When Mary visits Elizabeth, and hears her prophecy, Mary sings her own prophetic song of praise.

When Elizabeth’s child is born, a doubt-muted Zechariah names him John. Then, when his voice is restored, Zechariah utters his own prophecy about God sending a “mighty savior [to] guide our feet into the way of peace.” Zechariah’s and Elizabeth’s son will be an Advent prophet. He will help prepare the way for thelong-expected Jesus.

At this moment in Luke, though, John is an infant, and Jesus is not yet born. There are years of waiting and struggle before these remarkable prophecies begin to take shape and to stir people’s imaginations and their hope.

That is the feeling we’re after in Advent. During this indispensable season, we stop and mull over all the prophecies. We prepare ourselves to receive and declare the news that this flesh is God’s chosen medium for God’s self-revelation. In the organ of Creation—in which we live and of which we’re a part—God incarnates God’s own self in a particular human being, and in a particular place, time, and socio-political environment. The four weeks of Advent call us to examine our own hearts and minds, our own spiritual communities, and our interactions with our own earthly circumstances. That’s why we begin Advent with texts like this one:

²⁵“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. ²⁶People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ²⁷Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. ²⁸Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

²⁹Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; ³⁰as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. ³¹So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. ³²Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. ³³Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

³⁴“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, ³⁵like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. ³⁶Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”(NRSV)

         Let’s back up and look at this passage in the context of Luke’s wider story, which doesn’t end with the Ascension, but continues all the way through the book of Acts. Like Mary’s Magnificat and Zechariah’s prophecy preceding the births of their children, Jesus’ entire prophetic life precedes his passion, resurrection, and return in the person of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Always engaging political, social, and economic realities as well as spiritual realities, Jesus’ words can make us uneasy.¹ He speaks of political distress and confusion. He speaks of chaos in nature. And by calling such things signs of the coming of the Son of Man, Luke presents Jesus as an apocalyptic figure—as someone speaking about the end times. And there are two primary voices at work in this passage: Jesus, the prophetic Word of God, and Luke, the first century narrative theologian.

As the first voice, Jesus—the Son of Man—points toward God’s redemption of the Creation, that is, toward God’s gracious gathering up of all things into God’s Self. And yes, the apocalyptic tradition in Judaism often describes a dramatic, even disruptive grace.

A word of caution, though: Every human attempt to define or identify some culminating, apocalyptic event has proven wrong. And we needn’t think of only within the Judeo-Christian tradition. The ancient Mayan calendar predicted that the world would end on December 21, 2012. Sometimes human effort has proven just plain silly, like Harold Camping and his multiple, failed doomsday predictions based on some absurd numerology. And Camping himself has now been dead for ten years.²

Occasionally, some have tried, with horrifying and deadly futility, to force the issue. Consider the Crusades in Medieval times. Or think of Christian Zionists who, right now, are salivating at the war between Israel and Palestine because they believe that such horrific and ungodly violence is a divinely-ordained prerequisite for Jesus’ physical return. Does that sound Christ-like to you?

While Advent it not an exercise in doomsday preparation, our faith tradition takes seriously the socio-political realities of human existence. That brings us to the second voice.

Luke wrote his gospel in the early-to-mid 80’sCE—that means ten to fifteen years after the fall of Jerusalem in 70CE. The distress, confusion, and chaos of the Jewish rebellion and Rome’s over-powering response lingered like the smell of smoke around the ruins of a burned-down home. Having a long history of enduring conquest and occupation, Luke’s Jewish readers would still feel that fresh wound and remember ancient ones. They would wrestle with God’s goodness and providence as they continued to wait for good news and deliverance.

Maybe Luke was trying to say that he expected some imminent and apocalyptic act. As followers of Jesus, we trust and proclaim that Jesus is that act. In the person of Jesus of Nazareth, born to a Jewish carpenter and his fiancé, in the town of Bethlehem, in the midst of a Roman census, God’s deliverance has come. Embracing news like that means embracing a paradox. We prepare for the fulfillment of God’s promised redemption by intentionally living our lives in the realm of Incarnate love—here and now.

Because Christmas proclaims the gift of God’s eternal presence in, with, and for the Creation, Advent, instead of being a time of busyness and acquisition, is best observed as a time of contemplation and release. It’s a time to create space to receive anew God’s ongoing apocalypse of grace.

The more we clutter our lives, or to use Jesus’ words, the more “weighed down [and trapped] with…the worries of this life” we become, the less “alert [and prayerful]” we will be. And the less able we are to recognize and welcome what God offers in Jesus.

Christmas may be the headliner, but Advent is the way of life. And without it, this time of year is, even for Christians, nothing more than “The Holidays.”

As you come to Christ’s table this morning, may you come with open hearts and unclenched fists so that you may truly receive the signs of grace. And instead of helping you to escape creation’s suffering and struggles, may this sacrament send you out to live as sprouting fig leaves, as incarnate signs of God’s redeeming love at work in a grieving, anguished, and yet beautiful, beloved, and holy Creation.

¹Like so much of scripture, especially prophetic and apocalyptic texts, Jesus’ words often get misused. Many people find grace a bit fluffy and fragile, and turn to fear (judgement, shame, etc.) as means of proclamation. The gospel, then, gets lost in human efforts to make grace a merited and measurable commodity rather than that the gift it is, and which it must be to be grace.

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Camping

I grew up privileged. It wasn’t silver-spoon-stuck-to-the-tongue kind of privilege. Having been raised by parents who had survived the Great Depression, my parents diligently avoided ostentation. Dad always bought Plymouths, for heaven’s sake. He was a physician, and he was never really “off duty.” He could have bought nicer (and more dependable) cars, but he didn’t. When I was in high school, he splurged and bought, of all things, a light blue VW Rabbit—just for himself. The only time I saw Dr. Dad work on a car or do something less than honest was when he crawled under that Rabbit and performed a catalytic converterectomy.

Without the catalytic converter, the Rabbit could burn regular gas instead of unleaded.

Because it was cheaper.

I learned to drive a straight-shift in that non-street-legal VW Rabbit.

         Car talk aside, my three siblings and I never ever lacked for food, clothing, shelter, health care. We always had everything we needed as well as a good bit of stuff we didn’t. Our enough-and-then-some made us privileged in a world in which far too many people struggle simply to meet their basic human needs—which are, themselves, chief among basic human rights.

For some reason, Christmas has become about satisfying desires for extraneous, material stuff. That means it has become as much (more?) about greed as it is about grace. Even when we buy gifts for things like Angel Tree or donate to Salvation Army, we often say that we’re trying to help others “have a Christmas.” As a child of privilege, and as a dad who did his best to “give his children a Christmas,” I get that. I do. As a pastor who preaches Jesus week after week, I have, by God’s incarnate grace, lost a lot of that, too.

         Every year, I still buy a few things for my family at Christmas, but we no longer have presents piled under the tree like sacks of rice and beans in a doomsday prepper’s basement. Having said that, our celebration of the nativity of the Christ does involve preparation. In paradoxical contrast to the commercial carnival of Christmas, the spiritual practice of Advent is a season of letting go. It’s a season during which we make space in our harried lives for quiet mystery and subtle miracle. To make that kind of room, we need less feasting and more fasting—which was the principal Advent practice as the season evolved during the late fourth and early fifth centuries.

          Advent invites us into a subversive, counter-cultural observance. During these four weeks, we say Yes to surrender, to emptiness, to what Jesus calls “poverty of spirit.” Letting go is how we prepare ourselves to receive the immeasurable gift of God’s eternal Yes to us in Christ. In Jesus, God says to all Creation, I created you. I love you. I am with you. And I send you out, vulnerable as children, to discover the Christ within you and to embody love in the world.

         Now, another Yes: Yes, we all need certain material things. We need food, water, clothing, and shelter. We all need health care. We need human conversation and touch. We need sleep and exercise. We need personal, physical interaction with the natural world. We need exposure to and appreciation for music and art.

It just seems to me that to follow and love the One whose birth we celebrate, we also need to surrender our learned attachments to whatever makes us feel entitled, defensive, and suspicious of others.

And since it requires less getting and more giving to learn to surrender, could it be that we need to focus more intentionally on Advent so that Christmas truly becomes the gift we proclaim it to be?

                                    Peace,

                                             Pastor Allen

 “Sheep, Goats, and Grace”

Matthew 25:31-46 and Psalm 95:1-7a

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

11/26/23

Come, let’s sing out loud to the Lord!
    Let’s raise a joyful shout to the rock of our salvation!
² Let’s come before him with thanks!
    Let’s shout songs of joy to him!
³ The Lord is a great God,
    the great king over all other gods.
⁴ The earth’s depths are in his hands;
    the mountain heights belong to him;
⁵     the sea, which he made, is his
        along with the dry ground,
        which his own hands formed.

⁶ Come, let’s worship and bow down!
    Let’s kneel before the Lord, our maker!
⁷ He is our God,
    and we are the people of his pasture,
    the sheep in his hands.  (CEB)

³¹ “Now when the Human One comes in his majesty and all his angels are with him, he will sit on his majestic throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered in front of him. He will separate them from each other, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on his right side. But the goats he will put on his left.

³⁴ “Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who will receive good things from my Father. Inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world began. ³⁵ I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. ³⁶ I was naked and you gave me clothes to wear. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me.’

³⁷ “Then those who are righteous will reply to him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? ³⁸ When did we see you as a stranger and welcome you, or naked and give you clothes to wear? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

⁴⁰ “Then the king will reply to them, ‘I assure you that when you have done it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done it for me.’

⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Get away from me, you who will receive terrible things. Go into the unending fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² I was hungry and you didn’t give me food to eat. I was thirsty and you didn’t give me anything to drink. ⁴³ I was a stranger and you didn’t welcome me. I was naked and you didn’t give me clothes to wear. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’

⁴⁴ “Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and didn’t do anything to help you?’ ⁴⁵ Then he will answer, ‘I assure you that when you haven’t done it for one of the least of these, you haven’t done it for me.’⁴⁶ And they will go away into eternal punishment. But the righteous ones will go into eternal life.” (CEB)

         Every time I face this passage, I reflect on those times when I have come face-to-face with God in the face of someone in need. Like Jacob at the Jabbok, I wrestle with feelings of both concern and inconvenience. It takes a hard heart to look hunger in the face and not feel some compassion. Then there’s the guilt of relief when ten bucks of fast food and a God bless you so easily buys my way out of truly seeing the human being in need. The whole experience leaves me feeling, again like Jacob, out-of-joint.

         It can also be frustrating trying to decide whether an expressed need is real or just a front for some sort of addiction. Feeling used even once can jade us and make us treat all requests as suspect. And when that happens, the truly insidious thing happens: Trying decide who deserves help, we set ourselves in a position to make judgments that none of us are equipped, much less called, to make. Our judgments often fail the test of true grace.

If there’s no other hopeful word to hear in these dislocating verses from Matthew 25, there is this one hopeful word: The Father’s judgment will be carried out by none other than the Son; and his love-drenched authority to welcome, to heal, and to redeem knows no bounds.

         Today, on Reign of Christ Sunday, we celebrate our faith claim that God’s realm is revealed and embodied in a first-century rabbi from Nazareth. And this rabbi not only teaches that God’s realm is manifest in the simplest, most earthy expressions of love and compassion, he lives what he teaches. Even when speaking sharply to those who oppose him, his words well up from his eternal love for them.

         In the end, you see, as far as this judge is concerned, everyone is a sheep. Some just don’t act like it because they just don’t know it.

         The story we’re looking at today is Jesus’ final teaching in the first gospel, and Matthew sets up an interesting juxtaposition. Jesus’ breakout sermon in Matthew 5-7 occurs on a mountain before a big crowd of people. The Sermon on the Mount begins with the Beatitudes, the proclamation of blessedness on specific people. And here, at the end of his ministry, Jesus speaks only to his disciples, telling them to go and be a blessing. Tend to the hungry, the thirsty, the lonely, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned.

         Reflecting on this passage, Charles Cousar says that the “judgments declared by the Son of Man and the categories describing the needy…carry immense and even threatening power.”¹ He reminds us that in the first century, each of the groups of people Jesus mentions is considered unclean.

         “Sickness,” says Cousar, “carries the notion of sin and contagion, and nakedness implies shame and powerlessness.” Prisoners represent those whom society has locked out of sight and out of mind. And, while hospitality to the stranger was a crucial part of everyday life, strangers still represent those who lie at society’s outermost fringes.

         “To be deeply involved with such people,” says Cousar, “means to be…guilty by association. This teaching,” he says, “demands something more profound than” being nice. To live under the Reign of Christ means mixing it up with the very people that goats turn away from in judgmental fear or disgust. To live under the Reign of Christ means to reach out to those who suffer, for whatever reason, and to love them as God loves them.

That means that goats are not people out there who don’t do right. Goats are those within the body who know better and still withhold the transforming power of God’s joy and God’s hope from people in need. The distinction between sheep and goats is hard to assess because the only person whose relative sheep-ness or goat-ness any of us have the right to judge is our own self. Besides, within each of us is an unblemished sheep and an old cranky, spotted goat.

          Tony Campolo is a writer, teacher, preacher, and out-spoken advocate for people who languish on the fringes of society. I’m going to let him finish this sermon with a personal story that illustrates one facet of the sheep-and-goat dynamic.²

         Walking down a street in his hometown of Philadelphia, PA, Campolo met a street person. The man’s clothes were ragged and covered with soot. Neither his clothes nor his body had been recently washed, so his bouquet was arresting. His thick beard was strung with bits of old food like ornaments on a Christmas tree. The man, whom many people today would call a bum, approached Campolo and held out a cup of McDonald’s coffee saying, “Hey mister, want some of my coffee?”

         Initially seized by his inner goat, Campolo politely declined and walked on. Then his inner sheep gave his inner goat a powerful headbutt. So, he stopped and said, “You know, I think I’d like some coffee.” Campolo took a deep breath, then he took a sip, and gave the cup back to the man saying, “You’re being pretty generous today.”

          “Well,” the man said, “the coffee was especially good today, and I think that when God gives you something good, you ought to share it.”

         Stunned, Campolo said, “Can I give you anything?” I thought that he would hit me for five dollars.

         At first, the man said “No,” then he said, “Yeah…You can give me a hug.”

         “As I looked at him,” said Campolo, “I was hoping for the five dollars!” The two men embraced right there in the street—Tony Campolo in his coat and tie, and the street person in his filthy rags.

“I had the strange awareness,” said Campolo, “that I wasn’t hugging a [dirty street person], I was hugging Jesus. I found Jesus in that suffering man.

         “Whenever you meet a suffering person,” he says, “you will find that Jesus is there waiting to be loved in that individual. That’s why Jesus said, ‘when you have done it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done it for me.’

“You cannot embrace somebody…who is in desperate straits,” says Campolo, “without having that eerie and wonderful awareness that Jesus is coming back at you right through that person.”

         Are we sheep, or are we goats? Well, we’re both, aren’t we? When we withhold compassion, we are goats. And there is that much more darkness, that much more weeping and gnashing of teeth, within us as well as around us.

         And whenever, and for whatever reason, we show compassion to another human being, we are sheep crowning the Universal Christ as Lord. And then and there, some new brightness, some new wholeness, joy, and hope of God’s realm breaks through into our lives, and into the world.

¹All references to Charles Cousar come from: Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year A, Westminster John Knox Press, 1995, p. 575-577.

²I don’t recall where I got this story, but all credit goes to Tony Campolo.

“A Holy Balance”

Joshua 24:14:15 and Romans 12:1-8

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

11/19/23

Now, therefore, revere the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt and serve the Lord. 15 Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living, but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. (NRSV)

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship. ² Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

³ For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴ For as in one body we have many members and not all the members have the same function, ⁵ so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶ We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸ the encourager, in encouragement; the giver, in sincerity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. (NRSV)

         When reading through Paul’s letter to the Romans, one notices that the Apostle is both passionate and compassionate. He manages to be candid with his criticism and gracious with his readers. He demonstrates the kind of holy balance it takes to be both prophetic and pastoral. And he challenges us to find that same balance.

The word balance may be a little misleading. The dynamic to which Paul invites us is not like a gymnast on a balance beam. It’s more of a one-foot-in/one-foot-out kind of thing. “Do not be conformed to this world,” he says, “but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” This is one of the principal passages from which we extrapolate the adage, Be in the world but not of the world.

Holy balance becomes a kind of paradox that helps us to live amid all the world’s idolatry and fear without forgetting that God’s redeeming love and goodness flow without ceasing at the deepest core of our human being and of all that exists, because the Creation itself is God’s seminal medium for self-revelation.

Now, yes, the world is constantly plagued by both random and human-induced suffering. Then again, the story of Israel and the life of Jesus declare that we experience God no less immediately in the midst of suffering than in the midst of joy and thanksgiving. Being all about transformation and renewal, God demonstrates a particular preference for working through and being known in all that is weak and despised in the world. (1Cor. 1:27-28)

People who, by sheer luck, are born into contexts of privilege, and who feel empowered in that privilege, almost always dismiss the wisdom of being in but not of the world. Their situation tempts them to associate power and privilege with divine favor. It tempts them to deny things like, “Blessed are the poor…the hungry…the meek…the merciful…[and] the persecuted.” (Matthew 5); and things like, “what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

Paul seems to find the Romans lacking in the crucial trait of humility. “For by the grace given to me,” he says, “I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment.”

Sober judgment.

A philosophy professor named Joe Sachs translated numerous ancient Greek texts, and where the NRSV translators chose “sober judgment,” Sachs would have chosen “temperance.” Either way, says Sachs, the Greek word, sophrosune, refers to the “condition by which one chooses bodily pleasures in the ways and to the extent that they enhance life, not by an effort of self-control but by a harmony of desire with reason.”¹ A willfully-chosen harmony of desire with reason. Talk about a holy balance!

Sachs says that the ancient Greco-Roman culture recognized human desire as crucial aspect of human nature that warranted satisfaction. Paul, himself a Roman, would not entirely disagree. Recall what he said to the Corinthians: “I have the freedom to do anything, but not everything is helpful…[because] I…won’t be controlled by anything.” (1Corinthians 6:12) So, the Apostle is always trying to temper runaway indulgence by encouraging sophrosune. And according to Sachs, this sobriety/temperance is “the stable state of character which, in any mature human being, replaces the overgrown impulses of childhood.”

 “When I was a child,” says Paul, “I spoke…thought…[and] reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” (1Cor. 13:11)

Mature disciples of Jesus inhabit God’s creation with minds constantly open to transformation and direction. Childish minds are vulnerable to the intoxicating ways and means of the world. Greed and fear can overwhelm a mind that has not learned to recognize its longings as potential sources of blessing for others. Consumed by worldly wants, the untransformed mind fixates on its desire for possessions, power, and attention.

How many times has the story been told of people who reach the top of some ladder only to find themselves unfulfilled? How many times have each of us wanted one thing or another, expecting it to complete us in some way, only to have that thing expose nothing more than a deeper emptiness within us? When we strive only to acquire something, we may achieve what economists call “satisfaction,” but we usually end up unsatisfied and wanting more. And that leaves us out of balance.

While it’s important to recognize that reality, it’s even more important not to stop with: Quit wanting stuff. Just want God. Aren’t we physical creatures? And don’t we engage the world not only through our minds, but also through our bodies? Paul encourages us to be prophets, ministers, teachers, givers, andleaders, and we can do those things only in the context of physical reality.

Years ago, the great preacher and teacher Barbara Brown Taylor was invited to speak at an Episcopal church in Alabama. She asked the priest what he wanted her to talk about, and he said, “Come tell us what is saving your life right now.”²

The priest’s invitation made Dr. Brown Taylor stop and think very carefully and creatively. As she thought, prayed, and wrote, she realized that her saving conviction was that “there is no spiritual treasure to be found apart from the bodily experiences of human life on earth. My life depends,” she says, “on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most exquisite attention I can give them.”

Barbara Brown Taylor is describing the holy balance that blurs the lines between secular and sacred. And she discovers that she becomes most authentically human when she trusts that an authentic path to God necessarily involves a faithful embodiment her own human, physical being in a beloved, physical creation.

Barbara Brown Taylor says all of this in the introduction to her book An Altar in the World: A Geography of God. And in that book, she talks about twelve physical practices through which one can encounter God and deepen one’s faith and one’s ability find blessing in the world and to live as a blessing for others.

It seems to me that Barbara Brown Taylor helps us to understand that inhabiting this Creation as Christian humans means accepting a magnificent and often-frustrating paradox. While we always have one foot in this world, as followers of Jesus, we also have one foot in God’s realm of grace—which is our true hope, identity, and home.

In this week of Thanksgiving, may we all open ourselves to the gifts God gives to each of us, and to the truest, deepest gratitude we find in the transforming presence of the One who creates all things, loves all things, and provides more than enough for all that has being.

¹All Joe Sachs references come from: Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle. Translation by Joe Sachs. Focus Publishing, R. Pullins Co., 2002. P. 211.

²All BBT references come from: An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, Barbara Brown Taylor. Harper One, 2009. Pp. xv-xvi.

“A New Heaven and a New Earth”

Isaiah 65:17-25 and Colossians 3:12-13

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

11/12/23

17 Look! I’m creating a new heaven and a new earth:
    past events won’t be remembered;
    they won’t come to mind.
18 Be glad and rejoice forever
    in what I’m creating,
    because I’m creating Jerusalem as a joy
    and her people as a source of gladness.
19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad about my people.
    No one will ever hear the sound of weeping or crying in it again.
20 No more will babies live only a few days,
    or the old fail to live out their days.
The one who dies at a hundred will be like a young person,
    and the one falling short of a hundred will seem cursed.
21 They will build houses and live in them;
    they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 They won’t build for others to live in,
    nor plant for others to eat.
Like the days of a tree will be the days of my people;
    my chosen will make full use of their handiwork.
23 They won’t labor in vain,
    nor bear children to a world of horrors,
    because they will be people blessed by the Lord,
    they along with their descendants.
24 Before they call, I will answer;
    while they are still speaking, I will hear.
25 Wolf and lamb will graze together,
    and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
    but the snake—its food will be dust.
They won’t hurt or destroy at any place on my holy mountain,
    says the Lord. (CEB)

12 Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (CEB)

         Most of Isaiah’s audience knows nothing but exile. Then again, for those Hebrews born and raised in Babylon, distinguishing between exile life and “normal” life is probably splitting hairs because Babylonians manage to be relatively progressive captors. After defeating and dispersing a weaker nation, the Babylonians offer the vanquished the chance to maintain some semblance of self—at least they do for those whom they bring home to Babylon. Instead of treating the Hebrews like Pharaoh did in Egypt, the Babylonians allow the Hebrews to practice their faith and, to some extent, flourish.

         So the Hebrew’s stories remain. Stories about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Stories about Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and David. Stories about Hebron and Jerusalem. These are stories about providence, redemption, and belonging.

         Then there’s the flip side of the situation. While things could be worse for the Israelites, Isaiah’s prophetic job in Babylon is to make the Hebrews long for Israel. So, when he paints a picture of a “new heaven and a new earth” in which suffering yields to joy, gladness, fruitful vineyards, and homes of their own, Isaiah is acknowledging the fact that the people’s situation in Babylon includes more than enough sadness, servitude, and a deep and haunting homesickness.

         As a prophet of hope, Isaiah not only describes a new future, he declares that God is already at work bringing it about. “Before they call, I will answer,” says God. God is already creating something new in the midst of all that is diminishing and disheartening.

         Isaiah’s prophecy flies in the face of Solomon’s much earlier, conditional prophecy that has been so revered by revivalists: “If my people…pray, [if they] seek my face, and [if they] turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear…forgive…and heal.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)

No ifs, says Isaiah. By grace, God is already redeeming Israel. God has already filled out, signed, and turned in a pledge card on behalf of the Israelites. And, because that one nation serves as a symbol for all that God has made and loves, God is acting on behalf of the entire Creation.

As encouraging as that proclamation may be, for the Israelites and for us, Isaiah’s beautiful day prophecy meets some sharp skepticism. What appears real doesn’t look new and promising.

Consider our own context: Poverty. Addiction. Natural disasters, many of which are the result of an out-of-kilter climate. Wars, and not just rumors of wars, but overt threats of escalated conflict. The relentless tyranny of guns and gun violence oppressing us with suspicion and fear. And political rhetoric that crosses the line into hate speech—speech aimed at the very neighbors Jesus calls us to love.

Like ancient Israel, we, too, could use “a new heaven and a new earth.” And given the immediacy and the magnitude of our concerns, it’s a new earth that most of us want. Don’t many of us crave an experience of God’s vision for the future in this moment?

God’s vision declares shalom, that is wholeness and well-being for all. In God’s vision, you and I are aware of, in love with, and eager to celebrate God’s grace by choosing, each day, to live in harmony with our neighbors and the earth.

According to Luke, in Jesus’ first sermon, he reads from Isaiah saying, “‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because [God] has anointed me to bring good news to the poor…to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’” Then Jesus lays down the scroll and says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:18-19, 21) That’s what I want—God’s promises fulfilled today.

        But that just makes me lazy. I say that because isn’t it specifically the work of Jesus-followers to embody in the world God’s vision for the world, today?

In his book Growing Churh Leaders, Dr. Bob Ramey said, “Whatever our denomination…I am convinced [that] we share a common call: [we are] a people called by God to be a sign, a foretaste, and an instrument of the [household] of God.”¹ Dr. Ramey then quoted Walter Bruggeman who said, “The purpose of [our] call is to fashion an alternative community in creation gone awry, to embody in human history the power of the blessing. It is the hope of God that in this new family all human history can be brought to the unity and harmony intended by the one who calls.”² Ramey and Bruggeman are describing God’s new heaven and new earth.

        As the Church, we are called to make room for moments in which God’s vision of redemption and reconciliation burst through. It’s our call to embody the promises of God in our own lives. That’s a tall order because we don’t make those moments happen through individual effort. We humble ourselves, empty ourselves, offer ourselves to the Spirit saying, like Isaiah said when he was called, “Here I am. Send me.” (Isaiah 6:8b) From there, God’s Spirit works through us for the sake of others, undeterred by our lapses into selfishness and idolatry.

        So, our lives—our hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits—are the most crucial offerings, the most important pledges, we make to God. For in offering ourselves completely, in faith, hope, and love, we give more than resources. We give to ourselves the best chance to experience God’s new heaven and new earth right here, right now.

While we can receive gifts of grace, when we offer ourselves to God by offering ourselves to others in love, we can experience in far deeper and more transforming ways the holy power and presence of the living God. Sure, it’s good to receive a gift. And sometimes they save us. It’s an even higher thing to experience God loving others through us.

        If you haven’t already, I hope you will make a pledge to support the mission of Jonesborough Presbyterian Church. I challenge all of us to commit ourselves to God’s vision for a whole and holy creation. The relational, hands-on mission to which God calls us is more important than ever right now.

Writing to the Colossians, Paul reminds us that our collective witness depends on how gratefully and fearlessly we, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe [ourselves] with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience…[and how we] bear with one another and…forgive each other.” (Colossians 3:12-13)

This morning, we consecrate far more than money.

We consecrate ourselves.

¹Robert H. Ramey, Growing Church Leaders, CTS Press, 1995, p. 13.

²Ramey, p. 35, (Ramey is quoting Walter Brueggemann).

“Love Is…Fierce”

Psalm 131 and 1Corinthians 13:1-13

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

11/5/23

Lord, my heart isn’t proud;
        my eyes aren’t conceited.
    I don’t get involved with things too great or wonderful for me.
² No. But I have calmed and quieted myself
    like a weaned child on its mother;
    I’m like the weaned child that is with me.

³ Israel, wait for the Lord—
    from now until forever from now! (CEB)

If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.³ If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs;⁶ it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. ⁷ It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. ⁹ For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, ¹⁰ but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.

¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

¹² For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³ And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love. (NRSV)

         Sometimes I stop, stand outside myself, and like the psalmist, ‘I look at the heavens…the moon and the stars…[and] human beings.” (Psalm 8) In that moment, I get a little overwhelmed by the very fact of existence. What are the chances of oceans and amoeba, consciousness and creativity, ecstasy and agony? What are the chances of tulips, toucans, Tolstoy, and time itself?

While I cannot prove anything, neither can I accept chance as our origin, and oblivion as our destiny. So, I receive wonder as a gift of grace, as the Creator’s own joyous love within me. And wonder takes me back to the origins.

         “When God began to create the heavens and the earth,” says Genesis 1. “In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,” says Genesis 2. The two versions of creation in Genesis do not speak in unison, but they do sing in harmony. And while they are not history, they are magnificent, poetic affirmations of faith in a Presence that precedes, gives birth to, and infuses the Creation with Itself. The ancient storytellers call this generative, outpouring Presence God. So does John. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came into being through” this Word.

         Whatever God is (Light, Energy, Grace), and whatever God is not (a huge white guy with a long beard and anger issues), by faith, I am helpless to do anything but affirm that, because the Creation exists, God exists. And the very essence of God is love.

“Love is patient…kind…” generous, humble, mature, compassionate, level-headed. Love seeks justice and truth.

When we consider what Christian theology calls the communion of the saints, I cannot help considering every human being past and present. I say that because I trust that Love knows no bounds. Only the most un-loving side of me casts anyone out, and I have to fend off that guy constantly. I trust that, ultimately, ALL that God has made and loves, no matter how broken in God’s eyes nor infuriating in ours, returns to God.

Today we observe All Saints Day. We stop to remember those whom we have loved and who have loved us and for whom this life has ended. And in that remembrance, we give thanks to God for everything about those people that revealed love to us. For whenever and however any of us reveals patient, kind, generous, humble, mature, compassionate, level-headed, justice-seeking, truth-telling love, we reveal something of God. And whenever and however any of us do not embody love, we obscure God. And exactly none of us love faithfully all the time.

         Now, let’s acknowledge that the word love often becomes so trivialized that it actually avoids the love which Jesus embodies and about which Paul teaches. One’s “love” for a favorite celebrity or pair of shoes is emphatically not the same as the love with which God loves us and the love to which God calls us. Love is for-the-sake-of-others action. It’s a way of embracing and inhabiting the world that sets one who loves over against all the selfishness, resentment, and anything else that allows anyone or any group to ignore, persecute, or exploit another person or group.

This makes me remember two people who are now among the timeless communion of the saints. During his declining years, my dad kept going by talking about what he called “practical thanksgiving.” Briefly, practical thanksgiving involves choosing to be grateful for that person before you at any given moment. It means recognizing them, regardless of background or worldview, as one whom God loves. It means asking ourselves, What is the good and right thing to do with and for this person right now? How can we live as mutual blessings to each other and to our community?

         Practical thanksgiving requires a fierce love. I say fierce because that love includes speaking the truth graciously and without fear of rejection or persecution. That’s how Jesus loved the Pharisees, the Sadducees, Herod, and how he loved his own often-less-than-loving disciples.

         Into the institutionalized terror of apartheid, Desmond Tutu loved fiercely. “I wish I could shut up,” he said, “but I can’t, and I won’t.” That angered the minority white establishment. Then, when apartheid ended, he loved even more fiercely, saying to the black majority, who had been tortured, murdered, and exploited, “Be nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.”

I remember these two saints this morning, and as we gather at the table, I trust that they are with us. “When we gather at the Lord’s table,” says our Book of Order, “the Spirit draws us into Christ’s presence and unites us with the Church in every time and place. We join with all the faithful in heaven and on earth in offering thanksgiving to the triune God.” (PC(USA) Book of Order, W-3.0409)

In the end, as in the beginning, God’s fierce love, which surpasses all understanding, prevails. Because of that, I step out in faith and hope to say that I trust that all who have gone before us, those whom we knew and miss, those whom we knew and do not miss, and those whom we never knew, gather with us at this table. For again, in the end, God’s creative and redeeming love makes all things new and all things one.

A book group I lead recently finished reading and discussing Cynthia Bourgeault’s book The Wisdom Jesus. One of the central ideas of that book has to do with kenosis. The term kenosis derives from a Greek word that means to let go or to empty oneself. While kenosis isn’t a spiritual practice per se, it is a crucial pathway.

         The intent of a spiritual practice is to make oneself available to God’s Presence and to approach a deeper sense of oneness with God. Through kenosis,one allows all the distractions, all those anxieties, fears, and selfish desires to dissipate and fall away so that one becomes more open to God, who both calms and energizes. And the more one learns to be present to the Presence through a contemplative practice, the more one becomes conscious of and in communion with God in the midst of all those same distractions.

         Contemplative practices include contemplative prayer, chanting, journaling, spiritual walking, lectio divina Bible study. There is no “right” contemplative practice. It is a very personal process of discovering what helps you to let go so that you may experience God’s presence in a more immediate way.

This may sound self-serving, but one at least quasi-spiritual practice I’ve enjoyed over the last three years is riding my motorcycle. While it’s not so helpful while riding straighter roads or dodging traffic on city streets, when I find myself on roads that have sustained stretches of curves, all that matters is looking through the curve, then into and through the next curve. All I pay attention to is the road, its surface, and the indicators of how tight a given curve may be—the tree line, guardrails, power lines. I don’t look at the speedometer. I just feel the bike, the engine, the lean, and, by now, my hands and feet change the gears as needed without much conscious input. They know by feel, for instance, when to downshift and when not to (i.e. in the middle of a curve!). When negotiating curves, I enter a mindset during which everything else falls away. I am uniquely open to the moment, and my normally highly-distractible mind is both intensely focused and blissfully free.

A similar kenosis happens when I am in the throes of writing a sermon or a song. Something within me awakens, stirs, and will not be ignored. In attending to that energy, other things fall away, and I am open to what wants to be heard, experienced, and, ultimately, said.

Because things like riding and writing are more active disciplines, they are not kenotic practices in the strict sense. They are, however, activities through which one may begin implementing lessons learned through authentic contemplative practices. They become touchstones that reveal how contemplation and kenosisaren’t such foreign ideas after all.

In today’s context, kenotic practice in some form is extremely important, even life-giving. It’s a way to jettison all the unavoidable angst and noise of a world in chaotic flux. Contemplative disciplines help us learn to reflect and respond in healthier and more faithful ways because we do so from a place of intimacy with God.

Almost everything around us is changing. And while tomorrow will not look like the past we remember and romanticize, God remains faithful. God remains the source and ground of being, of love, of hope, and of restorative justice. Making space for people to learn to linger in God’s Presence—and to learn to want to—may be the most important work of any faith community right now.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds today, tomorrow, and always.