Refrain from Trampling the Sabbath

A sermon on Isaiah 58:9b-14 & Luke 13:10-17

I have a couple of fund raising ideas I’d like to run pass you this morning. What do you think of this? I have a niece who is a very good dancer – very good. One of the kinds of dance she does is tap dancing. I think it would be great to have her come and perform here at St. Barnabas. We can sell tickets and raise money. The best venue would probably be right here in the worship space. But, I was wondering where might be the best place for her to dance so everyone can see her and especially her feet. It seems the obvious platform is right over there [motion toward the altar which is made of dark granite]. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? We’d take the Fair Linen off, of course. I can see many of you have a problem with that. Raise your hand if you don’t like this idea. I see.

Well, then, how about this? Every other year, the Outreach Commission sells crafts and jewelry from Kenya to raise funds for the Africa Team Ministry to assist victims of AIDS. I’m thinking that next time we do that we should have the tables of merchandise around the outside of the altar railing [the railing at St. Barnabas in circular]. And whoever is collecting the money can stand behind the altar using it as a counter with the cash box and everything. Who has a problem with that? I see.

You people are so disagreeable, it is making me thirsty [I pull out from the pulpit a bottle of 7–UP and a chalice and make like I am going to pour the soda pop into the chalice]. What?

OK, so you’ve got some scruples about how we treat some spaces and things. How about these? Does it bother you to . . .

Work on Sunday?

Buy stuff on Sunday?

Run errands on Sunday?

Curious, isn’t it? We understand the sacredness of some spaces and some things that have been consecrated for set apart for holy use, but we have largely forgotten the idea of sacred time which is fundamental to both Judaism and Christianity.

There might not be any more telling sign of the Church’s capitulation to secular culture than the fact that outside of sometimes coming to church on Sunday mornings, most American Christians behave on Sunday pretty much like everyone else. Secularism says that all days are the same, one following another in a pointless sequence. That we often live as though we agree is a problem. I’ve become convinced that this is a more serious problem than we have come to think.

It certainly sounds pretty serious in this morning’s Old Testament lesson from Isaiah:

If you refrain from trampling the sabbath,

from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;

if you call the sabbath a delight

and the holy day of the LORD honorable;

if you honor it, not going your own ways,

serving your own interests,

or pursuing your own affairs;

then you shall take delight in the LORD,

and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth

(Isaiah 58:13 – 14a)

“Refrain from trampling the sabbath.” Wow! Like, “Refrain from tap dancing on the altar.”

In the Old Testament

·         The sabbath is coded into creation – God created the Sabbath and ‘rested’ contemplating what he had done in all its goodness.

·         The sabbath was a great leveler. Whether you were the king or the poorest peasant, on the sabbath you were equal in dignity and obligation.

·         Relatedly, keeping sabbath was a matter of justice. Slaves and servants could not be made to work. On the sabbath there were no masters or no slaves, no employers or employees. Even animals and the fields got to rest without human interference.

·         There was no buying or selling on the sabbath

·         The sabbath was a reminder that God is in control and you are not. Lauren Winner has written, “When we cease interfering in the world we are acknowledging that it is God’s world.”

·         The sabbath was also reminder of liberation. In Deuteronomy 5, the sabbath is connected to God's deliverance of the people of Israel from bondage in Egypt.

·         Early on, for reasons we don’t have time to go into, the Church shifted its observance of sabbath from Saturday to Sunday (See: Eight Days a Week). I will just say that given that it was on a Sunday that Jesus rose from the tomb liberating us from the bondage of sin and death and inaugurating a new creation, it makes sense.

And it makes sense that we not treat this day just like any other.

In Exodus 20:8 – part of the Ten Commandments whose authority we still claim to recognize – we hear, "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy." Keep it holy, set apart. Like a chalice. Like the altar.

Jesus does not contradict this basic Old Testament revelation. He reorients it. He asserts that the sabbath was made for humans, not humans for the Sabbath. It is not a day to obsess about many detailed rules. Certainly not a day to obsess about whether your neighbor is doing it right – no “pointing of the finger” like the synagogue ruler in this morning’s gospel.

It is a day when it is good to do good like Jesus did. And it is a day when we can be liberated from the burdens we bear like Jesus liberated the bent over woman.

Some of the early teachers of the Church interpreted this gospel passage metaphorically in ways that are instructive when thinking of the Sabbath:

St. Augustine suggested that the woman represents humanity that has bent itself over looking at the world and temporal concerns rather than looking up to God. The result is crippled souls.

Augustine’s mentor, St. Ambrose, likened the woman to people who are weighed down with the burdens of this life – money, family, work, school, etc. Worry over these matters weighs people down.  We all know the feeling, “It feels like a giant weight on my shoulders.”

Maryann McKibben-Dana, in her book Sabbath in the Suburbs, describes this well, "Life felt like a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle with 600 pieces."  She was caught up in a frenetic suburban existence –a relentless list of work, errands, carpool, dishes, email, bills, yardwork, etc., etc., etc.

Weighed down, with our eyes on our own temporal concerns, serving our own interests, and pursuing our own affairs without interruption will bend our spirits and make it more difficult to see God.

If we really want to be counter-cultural, if we really want to resist the secularization of the church, if we really want to “ride upon the heights of the earth”, if we want to stand up straight, one place we should start is by reclaiming the liberating discipline of keeping Sabbath.

That discipline might well take various shapes. Given the realities of the society in which we live it might be truly difficult for some, if not impossible, to dedicate all of Sunday. But, I doubt that there are many here for whom that is the case. For almost all of us it would require a kind of commitment, discipline, and planning that we are not used to. So take baby steps if you need to. But here are some ideas to refrain from trampling on the Sabbath:

·         Attend worship. Be here on Sunday morning.

·         Refrain from paid employment,

·         Refrain from commercial activity – no buying, no selling

·         Refrain from running errands – pursuing your own affairs

·         Refrain from the Internet – This is one I have found particularly difficult, but also one that I have come to value. I dare you to try it. And that means your iPhone as well.

·         Refrain from watching the News – turn off CNN. Turn off Fox. Turn off MSNBC. The usual madness of the world will go on whether or not you witness it or worry about it. Remember, the world is in God’s hands.

But keeping Sabbath is not just about refraining from some things, important as that is. It is also about investing in other things – investing in things that matter.

·         Invest time in relationships

·         Take a nap – some rabbis have suggested that if you are married, you might do more than nap.

·         Celebrate creation – go for a walk in the woods

·         Do things that refresh your spirit

·         Meditate on God’s goodness and give thanks

·         Reflect on the past week – did you tend to things that really matter? Pray for the week ahead

·         Feast – Sunday is not a fast day. Enjoy some good food.

·         Invest in intentional acts of kindness.

·         Rest. Be refreshed.

Saint Augustine famously wrote in Confessions, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."

If we want to rest in God, why not start by “refraining from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing our own interests on God’s holy day.”

All you need is love – or maybe not

Sermon for the 5th Sunday of Easter:

“All you need is love, love; love is all you need.” So sang the Beatles. I saw a bumper-sticker once that proclaimed a similar sentiment: “My religion is kindness.” My first thought upon seeing this was a twinge of guilt and sadness, because I took it to imply an indictment on Christianity which many have experienced as less than kind. Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” The measure of our faithfulness to Jesus is our love for others. And St. Paul affirms that love is kind. So, when people think of Christianity, they should immediately think, “Ah, yes, the religion of kindness.” That they don’t is a scandal.

But, upon a little more reflection, something else occurred to me regarding the bumper-sticker. “My religion is kindness” suggests that I need not be bothered by all the other trappings of religion – ideas about God, creeds, doctrines, prayer, worship, church, etc.  Love and kindness is all there is to it. But is it? It certainly is an attractive notion. But, is it that simple?

 

The Christian religion – the religion of love and kindness – asserts that the answer is ‘no’. Christians can affirm that the Beatles song and bumper-sticker are definitely onto something. Our story is that the world was created out of God’s love and humans, created in the image of God, are created for love. And we do well to remind ourselves of that basic truth. Our fundamental rule of life is Jesus’ new commandment to love one another as he has loved us – serving one another self-sacrificially.
 

To be followers of Jesus – to be his disciples – means to pursue the disciplines of love, e.g., humility, kindness, gentleness, reverence, forgiveness, mercy, patience, hospitality, generosity, reconciliation, self-control. We need to take that much more seriously. The classic spiritual disciplines like prayer, worship, fasting, Sabbath, etc. are meant to open us to receiving more of God’s love and making us better channels of that love.

But that is only part of the story and insufficient by itself. Our problem is not simply that we need to know that love (or kindness) is the most important thing. If it was, then Jesus and the church would be unnecessary. The Christian insight is that our problem is much deeper and more serious than that. Our problem is our inability to love as we should. Or even as well as we want.

Just as St. Paul says we do not know how to pray as we ought, we don’t know how to love as we ought. There are lots of ways we confuse other things with love – co-dependence, manipulation, conflict avoidance, being nice, or even being mean and calling it love. We sometimes define love in the framework of modern western individualism. We decide that some are worthy our kindness and love and others, not so much.

We do not just need to know that love, or kindness, is the point. We need to know what that means. That is why Jesus doesn’t just say, “love one another”. He defines love. In fact he declares himself the very definition of love. To know what love is, we look to Jesus. That means we need to make the effort to know Jesus and his way of love rather than how we might imagine him to be. By becoming familiar with the Gospels for starters.

And what is that way? It is not primarily about how we feel about others, though Jesus does demonstrate deep feeling toward others. Love is about desiring good for others. It is the way of self-sacrificial service. It is the way of forbearing, cheek-turning patience. It is love, not just of family, not just of fellow believers, but extends to all neighbors and to enemies. It is indiscriminate, profligate love like the love God demonstrates in the rain that falls on the good and the wicked alike. It is mercy. And our mercy is to be perfect as God is perfect.

I can pat myself on the back for being loving. But, if I look to Jesus as the definition of love, I know that where he has gone I have not gone. And cannot go on my own.

And that is another part of our deep and serious problem. We know love is what we are supposed to be about. But we aren’t very good at it. We’re not good at the kind of love Jesus is about. But we’re not even very good at love by more mundane measures. If we were, the divorce rate would be much lower. We would all have wonderful, uncomplicated relationships with our parents and children and extended families. The church would not be divided.

Our love is skewed by our own fears, suspicions, and insecurities. Our love limps due to our own emotional wounds. We are masters of rationalization by which we excuse or deny our own failure to love. We convince ourselves that our words and actions are loving when those on the receiving end experience them as less than loving. We are often selfish and self-absorbed. We are busy, distracted, and inattentive.

Most of us are aware of the painful realization that even our attempts to love those who we love are so broken that we end up hurting one another. The Beatles sang, “All you need is love” and then they broke up. As St. Paul famously wrote in Romans 7:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me . . . I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Our religion is kindness – the love of Jesus is kindness and then some. But, we are, to one degree or another, failures at love. That is why I am glad one of the lines in the Apostles’ Creed is “I believe in the forgiveness of sins” (“We believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins” in the Nicene Creed). I need forgiveness for my failure to love. I need to be honest about that failure and repent. The assurance of forgiveness frees us to do that.

Jesus doesn’t just say love one another. Jesus doesn’t even stop at showing us what that means. Jesus bears all our unlove on the cross and makes a way for us to enter into the forgiveness of God who is love (1 John 4:8). Receiving that forgiveness does not just free us from the guilt we feel for our failure to love. It frees us to love better and more fully.

And freedom is what we need. We need deliverance and healing because we are bound by our fears, insecurities, and all the emotional wounds that get in the way of our loving freely and fully. And it is freedom and healing that Jesus brings. Not all at once perhaps. Not without our participation. But, by the power of his Holy, healing, liberating Spirit he will work in our hearts to that end.

That transformation can begin now. But some of it will not come until the End that we hear about in the Revelation to John when there is a new heaven and a new earth. The world is a mess. We are a mess. We are not very good at giving or receiving love. And the mess of the world is testimony to that. Our fractured or broken relations are testimony to that. The violence and destruction that is so much a part of the world is testimony to that.

Even more troubling, we know that while each of us loves in more or less broken ways, for some the ability to give and receive love is more profoundly broken – people suffering from personality disorders, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and other mental illnesses that will only experience partial healing this side of the kingdom. "All you need is love" and "My religion is kindness" are inadequate in light of such brokenness. Without the hope of healing that is just sentimentalism. There are therapists who work to bring emotional and psychological healing. But, for many that healing will only be partial. But, we are still celebrating Easter and the resurrection of Jesus. His resurrection is the first fruits, the down payment on the promise that all creation will be healed, restored, transfigured, and renewed. In the end, love wins.

And that is another reason why we need Jesus. We need the resurrection hope of healing and restoration.

“My religion is kindness” is a good start. But it is not enough.

“All you need is love” is a good start. But it is not enough.

We need to know what kindness and love look like. They look like Jesus.

We need forgiveness for our failure to love. Jesus cries out on our behalf, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

We need freedom from and healing of all those things in us that get in the way of and sabotage our being able to love as we desire to love. Jesus gives us his Holy Spirit to heal, liberate and empower us to love.

And we need hope that love triumphs in the end. Jesus’ resurrection is the assurance that we will all know resurrection and restoration.

That is the promise of Jesus. That is the promise of Christianity.

That is the promise of a faith that is kindness and love – and much, much more.

We are called to live into that promise.

We are called to live with love at the center. Jesus is at that center and he will enable us to grow in that love.

By this everyone will know that we are his disciples, if we have love for one another.

What do you want to be, anyway?

A Sermon for All Saints' Sunday

Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9, Psalm 24, Revelation 21:1-6a, John 11:32-44

“What do you want to be, anyway?”

That is the question a friend asked Thomas Merton not too long after his conversion from atheism to Roman Catholicism. Merton recalls this conversation in his spiritual autobiography, The Seven Story Mountain:

I forget what we were arguing about, but in the end Lax suddenly turned around and asked me the question:

“What do you want to be, anyway?”

I could not say, “I want to be Thomas Merton the well-known writer of all those book reviews in the back pages of the Times Book Review,” or “Thomas Merton the assistant instructor of Freshman English at the New Life Social Institute for Progress and Culture,” so I put the thing on the spiritual plane, where I knew it belonged and said:

            “I don’t know; I guess what I want is to be a good Catholic.”

            “What do you mean, you want to be a good Catholic?”

The explanation I gave was lame enough, and expressed my confusion, and betrayed how little I had really thought about it at all.

Lax did not accept it.

“What you should say” – he told me – “what you should say is that you want to be a saint.”

A saint!  The thought struck me as a little weird.  I said:

“How do you expect me to become a saint?”

“By wanting to,” said Lax simply.

“I can’t be a saint,” I said, “I can’t be a saint.” And my mind darkened with a confusion of realities and unrealities: the knowledge of my own sins, and the false humility which makes men say that they cannot do the things that they must do, cannot reach the level that they must reach: the cowardice that says: “I am satisfied to save my soul, to keep out of mortal sin,” but which means, by those words: “I do not want to give up my sins and my attachments.”

“What do you want to be, anyway?” Why not say that you want to be a saint?

Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints’ in which we commemorate those exemplary disciples in the Church’s history who have inspired the imagination of Christians. We commemorate those who, as the Wisdom of Solomon says, “In the time of their visitation they shone forth, and ran like sparks through the stubble.” We commemorate all the saints, well known, less well known, unknown, and forgotten. We remember ‘official’ saints like Francis, Clare, Barnabas, Nicholas, Catherine, etc. and more contemporary ‘unofficial’ saints like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Mother Teresa. And we rejoice in believing that we are united with them in the one great communion of the saints.

Why commemorate the saints? It is not to do them any favor. As Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) said,

The saints have no need of honor from us; neither does our devotion add the slightest thing to what is theirs.  Clearly, if we venerate their memory, it serves us, not them. But I tell you, when I think of them, I feel myself inflamed by tremendous yearning.

The saints inspire us. If we let them, they also inflame a tremendous yearning in us to live lives of similar faithfulness, love, and joy. That yearning is the challenge of the saints. We need to be careful not to put them on a pedestal that makes them fantastical and unreal. Otherwise we will miss the challenge of the saints. And here is the challenge: all saints were made of the same stuff as you and me. By God’s grace and their own discipline they became more nearly what each of us could be, what each of us are meant to be – saints.

Of course, like Merton, we are all very aware of our own sin. But, there is also that false humility which makes us say that we cannot do the things that we must do, cannot reach the level that we must reach: the cowardice that says: “I am satisfied with not being any better or worse than most people” but which really means, “I do not want to give up my sins and my attachments.”

But, when we are honest with ourselves we know that that leaves us off balance and keeps us from entering more fully into the love and joy and peace that we believe God desires to pour into every crook and cranny of our lives. And it keeps us from being that love and joy and peace in the world around us.

What do you want to be, anyway? Why not say that you want to be is a saint?

What is a saint? Here is a description from one of my favorite singers, Leonard Cohen:

What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is a caress of the hill.  His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shapes of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.

Balancing monsters of love. What do you want to be, anyway? Why not say that you want to be is a balancing monster of love running like a spark through the stubble?

Frederick Buechner wrote this of saints:

Maybe more than anything else, to be a saint is to know joy. Not happiness that comes and goes with the moments that occasion it, but joy that is always there like an underground spring no matter how dark and terrible the night. To be a saint is to be a little out of one's mind, which is a very good thing to be a little out of from time to time. It is to live a life that is always giving itself away and yet is always full.

What do you want to be, anyway? Why not say that you want to be a little out of you mind, living a life that is always giving itself away and yet always full – full of the joy of God, running like a spark through the stubble?

Thomas Merton, in a different book wrote this about the sanctity that typifies a saint:

Sanctity is not a matter of being less human, but more human. This implies a greater capacity for concern, for suffering, for understanding, for sympathy, and also for humor, for appreciation of the good and beautiful things of life.

What do you want to be, anyway? Why not say that you want to be more human?

Why not? Is it cowardice and false humility? Sin and attachments? Complacency with being ‘less than human’, less than fully alive? When we are honest with ourselves do we not sometimes sense that we are less than fully alive – not fully alive to God, not fully alive to others, not even fully alive to ourselves? I sense it in myself. The saints are those who are more fully alive and they inflame a yearning in us to be similarly alive.

And they challenge us to respond to Jesus calling to us, “Come out and be unbound.” We are like Lazarus. Parts of us are dead and need resurrecting. We all know well enough that there are things shut up in our hearts that would cause a stench if we uncovered them. Sin and attachments bind us like strips of grave cloth.

Jesus stands before us, weeping, desiring to fill is with his life and love and joy and peace. We need only role away the stone and allow him to have his way with us. Diligently practicing the classic spiritual disciplines is how we take away the stone – self-scrutiny and repentance, prayer and fasting, practicing the self-emptying, patient love of Jesus.

This is not about trying to get God to love us more. Through Jesus, we know that God already loves us – however dead we might be. We cannot make God love us more because God already loves us freely and completely. But our sins and our attachments can get in the way of our experiencing that love. It is not that God loves the saints more but that the saints availed themselves more to that love.

Only God can work in us the radical life-giving change in us for which we yearn. Only God can right all that unbalances us. Only God can transform us into balancing monsters of love. Only God can produce in us inner springs of joy and make us more fully human, more fully alive. But, God usually waits for us to take away the stone. If we want it, we can do the things that open us to God’s Holy transforming Spirit. Do we dare take the stone away? Do we dare ascend the hill of the LORD with the saints and stand in his holy place?

Why not say that you want to be is a balancing monster of love running like a spark through the stubble?

Why not say that you want to be a saint?

The Rich Man (That’s Us)

A Sermon on Mark 10:17-27
Year B, 18 Pentecost, Proper 23

 

For thirty years Thomas Cannon was a postal worker. During that time rarely made more than $30,000 a year including overtime. What made Thomas Cannon unusual is the fact that over the last twenty-five of those years, he gave away $96,000 to various individuals and groups in need. Math has never been my forte, but I figure that comes to about $3,800 a year. On a salary of $30,000 a year!

Cannon said, "If people work hard to buy a Cadillac, nobody asks why. But if they give it to philanthropy, nobody understands."

In his entire life, Cannon, who died in 2005, never knew luxury. His preacher father died when Thomas was 3 years old. Although he received a degree in art education from Hampton Institute, Cannon opted for the steady salary of the post office to support his wife, Princetta, and their two sons. After serving in the Navy in World War II, Cannon settled into his post office job. The family lived in a tiny, kerosene-heated home in a neighborhood of Richmond that was poor even then and has since acquired a reputation as a drug marketplace. Cannon never gave a thought to luxuries: "We had food, we had clothes, we had all the basic necessities," he said. (Who needs $96,000?) Here was a man with a carefree and generous attitude toward money.

(From Parade Magazine, September 21, 1997, page 16)

Which brings us to this morning's gospel.A man ran up to Jesus and asked, "What must I do to inherit eternal life? I've followed the commandments to a “T” and led a blameless life. Surely, that's enough." Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said, "You lack one thing. Go, sell what you own, give your money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me." In other words, “If you want heaven, if you want to start shaping your life in that direction now, if you want to point your heart toward your deepest joy; you lack one thing. Go, sell what you own, give your money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me."

As if that weren't bad enough, after the man refused his offer, Jesus said, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." Ouch! It is one of those hard passages that begs to be played with so that it will say something other than what it seems to say. Surely Jesus didn't mean to say it is impossible for people with more than enough money to go to heaven. After all, that's you and me. We are the rich man. The rich people. Just by virtue of the fact that we live in the United States, let alone that we live in comfortable suburbs of a major city. By any standard, past or present, we are among the wealthy.

This gospel is hard for us to hear – and not for us only. The rich man was shocked. The disciples were perplexed and astonished. Ever since, people have found this a problematic text. Consequently, various ways have been proposed to interpret this passage in order to make it softer.

1) A particularly popular one is that the eye of the needle refers to a narrow gate in the city wall of Jerusalem. A camel, the story goes, could just squeeze through the gate after being relieved of its cargo. NO. There is no evidence of such a gate and the interpretation does not show up until the late middle ages when an imaginative monk put it in a commentary on the gospel.

2) The Greek word for camel is spelled like the Greek word for rope. A rope still won't fit through the eye of a needle, but it is less preposterous than a camel. NO. There is no evidence that the writer of the Gospel of Mark had a spelling problem or that Jesus did not pronounce his words clearly.

3) Jesus is only referring to those who trust in their money. NO. That’s not what it says. Look again. Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” Someone who is rich. Period. John Wesley was probably right when he explained that, “[I]t is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for those who have riches not to trust in them.”

There’s no getting around it. Jesus said what he said and meant what he said. He was a master of hyperbole, the exaggerated image. The absurd image of a camel trying to get through the eye of a needle drives home a point. And the point is that there is something perilous, spiritually, about wealth. Like anything in our lives, money and wealth can be used as a means to praise and serve God and neighbor. Or it can be used to hide and shield us from God and others. The problem is money and wealth have a particular and powerful tendency toward the latter. Jesus suggests that the best thing we can do with our wealth is give as much of it away as we can.

The burden of wealth offers us great opportunities and responsibilities. It might or might not be that being wealthy is, in and of itself, sinful. But wealth and money are particularly dangerous to the soul. Money, along with the things it can get for us, is not neutral such that it can be used just as easily for God's kingdom as for anything else. No, money has a power of its own. It takes a good deal of spiritual discipline to have much of it and not let it seduce our hearts or intoxicate us.

Money is a lot like wine that way. You can get drunk on it and destroy your relationship with God and your neighbor. And just as many alcoholics deny they have a drinking problem, few of us are willing to admit that we have a money problem, that we have an attachment to our money and belongings that is dangerous to our souls and separates us from God.

You can use wine to get drunk. You can also use it to make Eucharist. The Eucharist is the particular place where we enter into communion with God and one another. Perhaps we can learn to see money eucharistically so it can also become a means of communion. How do we use our money eucharistically?

1) Remember Jesus is present with you. He is your true wealth -not your job, not your income, not your house. He is your security. He is your hope for the future. Begin to see everything else as revolving around him. The more we attach ourselves to Jesus, the more we can lose our attachment to money and stuff.

2) Trust in the power of God working in you to release you from the grip of money and

possessions. Like all addictions, this one is hard to overcome. But, Jesus assured his disciples and us that, though it is impossible for mortals, for God all things are possible.

3) Learn to see it as not an end in itself but a means to serve and encounter God. Every time we give, especially when we give until we feel it, we make room in our hearts for God’s Spirit to move in our lives and to draw us deeper into his heart and to fill with his life. Giving can become prayer and praise.

4) 'Eucharist' means 'thanksgiving'. Give thanks for al you are given. But, constantly remind yourself from whom it all comes and to whom it ultimately belongs. When we present our offering to the altar we say, "All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee." We can learn receive it with thanksgiving and pass it on in gratitude. Giving becomes a way of giving thanks, of making Eucharist.

That was the man's problem in the gospel. He had allowed himself to be deceived into believing his wealth was his own. When the real owner showed up and told him what to do with it, he was not prepared.

What if we began to imagine, to really believe, think, and act as though everything we have was on loan? A gift? Not only what we give but what we have left after we give. It's all God’s, so we are accountable for how we use all of it. The real question is not how much of my money will I give for God, but how much of God’s money do I need to keep for myself? What would God have us do with it. What if we really believed we would be held accountable?

This is a troubling passage. It is good for us to be trouble by it. Maybe it will shake us loose a bit from our attachment to money and wealth. But it does not have to be onerous or a burden. If we learn to understand our money eucharistically, it can be a sort of game. For example:

[Paraphrase the story humble Zacharias who challenged God, "Let us see who surpasses the other --Thou in sending blessings or I in scattering them! For Thou, Lord, are clearly the source of our riches and the giver of our livelihood."]

What if we at St. Barnabas made such a deal with God. What if, unlike the rich man in the Gospel, but like Thomas Cannon and Zacharius, we dared God to bless us faster than we can pass the blessings on–we who have already been blessed with so much? What would he do with us? What would he do with us–except fill us with himself. And fill us with joy beyond imagining. And lead us to eternal life.

God’s Love is Not Enough

A Sermon
Numbers 21:4-9, Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22,
Ephesians 2:1-10, John 3:14-21

"For God so loved the world . . ."

I saw a bumper sticker a while back that said, “God loves you. No exceptions.” I believe this is so. And I believe just accepting that can be life-changing (see here). It makes a huge difference to understand that, when God looks upon you, it is with eyes of love. I know there are some among us who have mental tapes recorded deeply in their minds telling them that they are not lovable. And I appreciate that the sentiment of the bumper sticker is addressing the reality that there are groups of people who have been made to feel that they are somehow the exception to God’s love. So it is important to remember that when Jesus said, “God so loved the world,” that does not leave anyone out. “God so loved the world” - no exceptions.

But, I also need to say that the bumper sticker is inadequate. Wonderful as it is, God’s love is not enough.

Just before the justly famous line in John 3:16, Jesus says, "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” What’s that about? Clearly, it is a reference to the passage from the book of Numbers that we heard read a moment ago:

From Mount Hor the Israelites set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food." Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live. – Numbers 21:4-9

It’s a strange passage in lots of ways. But, let’s start by reviewing the context. Israel was enslaved in Egypt. They were miserable. God heard their cry, called Moses to lead them, and through a series of miracles delivered them from their bondage, setting them on the path to the Promised Land. Soon after they became impatient and ungrateful and began to complain about how God was managing their deliverance. We have here an example of that complaining.

"Why have you brought us up out of Egypt?”

“Well, because you asked me to. And because I love you and desire your good.”

“To die in the wilderness?”

“So far I have provided for you at every turn, haven’t I?”

“There is no food and no water.” That is an outright lie – or willful forgetting. God has miraculously provided water. God has rained down upon them the wonder of manna, "the grain of heaven", for their nourishment and quail as well.

“We detest this miserable food." Now we’re getting a little closer to the truth. It’s not that they have no food, but that they are dissatisfied with the food God has provided. And so they declare their displeasure. I wonder if the serpents are not an outward and visible manifestation of the inward and spiritual impatience and ingratitude. But, God provides a means of healing through the bronze serpent attached to a pole for the people to look upon and be healed.

That is the story in Numbers. But, since Jesus suggests that we read this story metaphorically as a type or analogy of what he accomplishes on the cross, what might it be saying about us and about the Son of Man?

First of all, we can say that the attitude of the Hebrews in the wilderness is, as usual, representative of the attitude of each of us. Are we not impatient with God and one another? An early church theologian, Ephrem the Syrian, suggested that impatience might be the sin that started it all. He wrote that God all along intended us to have a share in his divinity. But, Adam and Eve, at the suggestion of the serpent, were impatient with God’s timing and seized the fruit the serpent promised would make them like God.

Are we not often ungrateful? Discontent with enough and more than enough? Are we not inclined to believe we are our own and what we own is ours alone? But, in a little while we will repeat these words that should always be on our hearts, “All things come of thee O Lord. And of Thine own have we given Thee.” All things. All that I am and all that I have, moment by moment, I receive from God – whether I receive it gratefully or not. All creation and every person I encounter is the gift of God to be received with gratitude. But much of the time I turn my heart from God and from most others. I detest this miserable food.

Like Adam and Eve we listen to the serpent in our impatience with God and the way our lives and others are unfolding and our ingratitude for all God has given us. And as with Israel, that turning of our hearts gives birth to the serpents of sin in our hearts, the poisonous serpents of our own impatience and ingratitude, our own envy and enmity. The serpents of our own hearts bite us and bite those around us. What’s more, we become addicted to the poison. Like an alcoholic, we are addicted to the very thing that causes us to perish. This might sound harsh, but that is because we take too lightly our own failure to attend to God and to one another, our failure to love, our lack of true generosity and hospitality. And when we turn our hearts from God, our hearts begin to breed the serpents of sin. And we perish.

And here’s the thing. We are beset by the serpents of our own making. And worse, we are addicted to the poison of our own serpents. Like alcoholics we are unable to help ourselves. That is why hearing that God loves us with no exceptions isn’t enough. If I am trapped at the bottom of a pit full of rattle snakes, having someone shout from the top, “I love you,” isn’t all I need. Even if that one jumps into the pit with me to tell me how much I am loved, that only does me so much good. No, I need someone who can extract the poison. I need an antidote. I need someone who will come into my heart and drive out the serpents like Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. We need God to “take away the serpents from us.”

And, my friends, as William Temple wrote,

This is the heart of the Gospel, not, ‘God is Love’ – a precious truth, but affirming no divine act for our redemption. God so loved that he gave; of course the words indicate the cost to the Father’s heart. He gave; it was an act, not only a continuing mood of generosity, it was an act at a particular time and place. - Readings in John's Gospel

"Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so was the Son of Man lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” God has provided the means of our redemption, our deliverance, our healing, and our restoration. God does not love us and leave us as we are, beset by the serpents of our hearts. He has acted on our behalf to drive out the snakes and heal us of their venom. Crux Est Mundi Medicina – the cross is the medicine of the world. “God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ”(Ephesians 2:4).

God loves you. No exceptions. But the really good news is, "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

You need only turn your heart to him and in trusting belief receive the gift of God.

Picture This: Self-denial and the Obesity of Sin

A sermon on Mark 8:31-38

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Last summer, when I returned from sabbatical, I saw a picture of myself that had been taken the previous spring. You know how you get used to seeing yourself in the mirror and become so familiar that you hardly notice? And then you see a picture of yourself and you respond, “Really?”? Well, that was how I felt about this particular picture. I knew I had put on some weight, but yikes! I did a little research online and found that given my age and height, I was borderline obese. That was sobering. So I started watching what I eat and bought an exercise bike. I’ve lost 25 lbs. since and hope to lose another 10.

The process has been instructive spiritually. There is no easy way to get in better shape. I have been getting acquainted with a sort of self-denial. I have also come to realize how mindless was my eating before – undisciplined and ungrateful. I used to eat just about anything that was around without any thought of how much I was eating. No batch of cookies or bag of potato chips was safe in our house. But I also was not eating with any real gratitude. Sure I said my prayers before meals. But, then I just stuffed my face. It is quite different to take the time to savor what I eat – to really experience the miracle of say a ripe cherry tomato exploding with flavor in my mouth.

I have also come to a new appreciation of the wisdom of the ancient practice of fasting. Our ancestors taught that, because it is so basic to our lives, self-denial in our eating was the foundation of other more significant self-denial. And Jesus, in this morning’s gospel does call us to self-denial: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Let’s face it; the very idea of self-denial cuts against the grain of our society. We are an affluent and indulgent people – and Christians are just about as indulgent as anyone else. We are the people who are convinced we deserve a break today. We live in excess. Self-denial is not part of our vocabulary. Why are we to practice self-denial and what are we to deny ourselves? To what end?

All you have to do is drive around Chicago on the expressway to see evidence of our indulgence. Look at the billboards and ask yourself which of the seven deadly sins is being appealed to. Our indulgence in food has led to an epidemic of obesity. But, classically, gluttony does not refer only to overeating. Being finicky or obsessed with what one eats is also gluttony. When was the last time you confessed your gluttony to God? Greed, for sure; getting and having newer, bigger, and more, is what we are about. Lust, you bet; and not just the proliferation of “Gentlemen’s” Clubs. Almost anything can be advertised appealing to our lust. Of course, these do not just exist on billboards. We have become inured to their presence in our lives. When did we decide that greed, gluttony, and lust were no big deal? Each of those creates such spiritual static in our lives that we should not wonder that it can seem difficult to hear the still small voice of God calling in our hearts. One way or another, each interferes with our ability to truly love our neighbor.

But, while greed, gluttony, and lust are basic, we are also indulgent when it comes to deeper, more deadly sins. I suspect that my lack of discipline, ungratefulness, and excessive eating have been reflected in those areas of my life as well. And I suspect I am not alone.

Are we not indulgent when it comes to pride? Far from denying it, in our celebrity society, we celebrate it. We are infatuated with our own self-importance and self-sufficiency. Or we indulge in fantasies of our own uselessness and worthlessness which is a different sort of self-absorption. C. S. Lewis said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less.” And if we think of ourselves less, we can think more of God and others. The word that is where Jesus challenges us to do just that can also mean “disown” yourself or “de-center” yourself. But, one way or another, I am often full of myself. I wonder. If there was a spiritual camera that could take a picture revealing my pride, my self-centeredness, and self-absorption, how obese would I look? A photograph of that would not be pretty. Am I willing to deny my self?

Are we not indulgent when it comes to envy? You know that twinge of resentment when some good comes to another? I confess that sometimes I feel this when other clergy get some recognition or a clergy colleague tells me about their attendance numbers or some new program at their church. Which is really quite ridiculous because I get plenty of recognition and I don’t know of a church where I would rather serve than St. Barnabas. So what’s up with the envy? Or what about the other side of envy when we rejoice when something bad happens to those we dislike or with whom we disagree? Isn’t that tasty? Tasty, but not good for you. But, if there was a spiritual camera that could take a picture revealing my envy, how obese would I look? I do not think I would want that one on my refrigerator. Am I willing to deny myself the pleasure of envy?

We indulge in anger and malice. We almost celebrate it. We feel free to say or write the most disdainful things about others. Snarkiness has become so common as to be unremarkable. And we carry ill-will toward others without a qualm, feeling self-righteous in our anger and resentment. What if the camera took a picture revealing my anger? And not just how I look when I yell. What about my passive-aggressiveness? How about all the bitterness, resentment, and malice I store in my heart toward others? The impatience with which I engage people who I find difficult or just inconvenient? My lack of generosity of spirit toward others? The way I hold onto old slights and hurts? My unwillingness to love those who I have identified as an enemy – or think about and treat like an enemy even if I am not honest enough to name them as such? The picture of my excess would, I fear, reveal an obesity of anger. Am I willing to deny myself the satisfaction of my anger?

And of course, sloth is what keeps us from exerting the effort to deny ourselves, take up the cross and follow Jesus. It just takes too much effort. Or, we run around filling our lives with busyness to avoid doing so. We indulge in being spiritual and moral couch potatoes. Again, not a pretty picture.

“Deny yourself, take up the cross and follow.” That is Jesus’ challenge. I will not have the strength to take up the cross if I am content with being spiritually out of shape. I will not have the stamina to follow Jesus in his way of self-sacrificial love if I indulge myself and am obese in sin.

So in Lent we take on extra disciplines of self-denial to work a bit more at denying ourselves and getting ourselves in shape. But the disciplines of Lent are not meant to be unusual. They are supposed to be an intensification of disciplines and self-denial we practice all year. Classically there are three self-denying disciplines that are understood to be basic in getting us in shape:

Prayer: Prayer is self-denial inasmuch as it means sacrificing some time and attention. It is meant to de-center us and reorient us away from ourselves to the things of God.

Fasting: This is meant to get our biological desires under control – and not just eating. As I said, this is the foundation of other more significant self-denials. Indulging our every bodily desire makes it impossible to deny ourselves in more important “spiritual” matters.

Almsgiving: Given the way money and wealth mess with our minds and hearts and how we confuse our sense of self with how much stuff we have, this is critical. Certainly, giving to help those in need is an essential means of practicing compassion. But, the letting go of our wealth is an outward and visible sign of our giving away some of ourselves.

If we intend to be serious about it, we will look at ourselves and admit our excess. We will not indulge our gluttony, greed, or lust. We will not indulge in our pride, anger, and envy. We will not be content with spiritual flabbiness. We will attend to the obesity of our sin. We will seek ways to deny ourselves so we can take up the cross and follow Jesus. We will tend to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

The point of all this is to open us up to God and our neighbor. John Chrysostom (347-407) said:

Do you fast?
Give me proof of it by your works.

If you see a poor man, take pity on him.

If you see a friend being honored, do not envy him.

Do not let only your mouth fast, but also the eye, the ear, and the feet, and the hands, and all members of our bodies.

Let the hands fast, by being free of avarice.

Let the feet fast, by ceasing to run after sin.

Let the eye fast, by disciplining them not to glare at that which is sinful.

Let the ear fast, by not listening to evil talk and gossip.

Let the mouth fast from foul words and criticism. For what good is it if we abstain from fowl and fishes, but bite and devour one another?

There's a Wildness in God's Mercy

A sermon for the first Sunday in Lent, Year B
1 Genesis 9:8-17, Psalm 25:1-9, 1 Peter 3:18-22, Mark 1:9-13

[Singing] Like the murmur of the dove’s song, like the challenge of her flight . . . come, Holy Spiri–Crraaak! Like lightning splitting the sky, the heavens are torn apart and the Spirit descends - swoops down - on Jesus. Jesus experiences the ecstasy of hearing the Father call him his beloved Son with whom he is well pleased. But, while those words are still echoing in his heart, the Spirit-dove - immediately - drives Jesus into the wilderness. In Mark's gospel, the Holy Spirit appears as a dove, but it is a dove with an attitude – like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

The Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness like a nail into wood. The wilderness represented the realm of chaos – of evil. The ancients did not have romantic notions of nature. The wilderness was inhospitable, untamed, dangerous, wild. It was the habitation of demons, the territory under the sway of Satan. It is into that realm of the demonic that the Spirit drives Jesus.

The Greek word used for the Spirit's driving Jesus out into the wilderness is the same as that used when Jesus drives out demons. Here, things are reversed. Instead of Jesus ejecting demons out of someone, we have the Holy Spirit injecting Jesus out into the wilderness – the devil’s turf. God is going on the offensive. Mark does not elaborate the confrontation as do Matthew and Luke, but it is clear that the confrontation happens and that Satan is defeated. This is the beginning of the end for the Evil One. It is probably in the wilderness that Jesus "watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning" (Luke 10:18). The rest of Jesus' ministry - the exorcisms, the healings, the miracles are part of the mop-up operation. Jesus is injected into the domain of Satan, symbolized by the wilderness, and his mission of reclamation and liberation has begun.

I am struck by the wildness in this passage - the heavens torn apart, the Spirit driving Jesus into the wilderness. There is a wideness in God’s mercy, but there is also a wildness in God’s mercy. We try so hard to tame that wildness. We have a tendency to try to domesticate God, to house-train him. When we do that, we end up with a God who is just an extension of our own biases – a God who lends spiritual support to our political and social prejudices. A God who will not step on our toes. A God who will not drive us into the wilderness. But we also end up with a fairly anemic God – a God who mostly wants us to be just a little more polite, a little more nice. Not a God who wants us to be wild.

We are all familiar with the domesticated images of God. There is God as the old man with a long beard, riding on a cloud. He is rather remote and old fashioned – out of touch with real life. There is Jesus "meek and mild," timid as a rabbit. In some of the old Hollywood films, we see this Jesus walking around like he is trying to dry his nails. He does not appear as one who would get his nails dirty, let alone risk breaking one. Then there is the Holy Spirit, a vague, benign, sort of spiritual gas; there to give me a little energy so I can get on with living my life the way I already know it should be lived. Such housebroken, tame images God neither threaten nor excite.

The picture we get in the Bible is much wilder. And more exciting. Certainly, it is much more interesting. The God of the Bible is a wild God, even dangerous. If we are not at least a little afraid of God, we probably have too domesticated an image of God and one that is not very biblical. The God of the Bible might very well step on our toes. The God of the Bible might very well swoop down on us like a dove with serious intent. The God of the Bible might very well drive us into the wilderness. But that is good news. Only a wild God can deal with the wilderness of our world. And with the wilderness of our own hearts. Only a wild and untamed God can save.

Remember the old westerns in which people gathered in a wagon train to head across prairie and desert to get to the promised land of Oregon? The folk, gathered on the outskirts of St. Louis, need a trail guide to lead them through the wilderness. It is clear that it is not going to be any of the characters introduced so far. It won't be the timid grocer. It won't be the English dandy just off the boat. It won't be the wealthy banker. He can throw his weight around the financial district in New York, but he won't be much use in the wilderness. Then, the one who is clearly the man for the job appears. He is barely civilized and undomesticated. He might be part Indian. He's got scars, both physical and emotional. You would not likely invite him to a tea party. But he is just the one you want to lead you through the wilderness.

Only a wild undomesticated God can save us. Only such a God can lead us through our wilderness. We need a God who is not afraid of the wilderness – the wilderness in our world and in our lives. We need a God who can enter into the wilderness of a world beset with sorrow and sin, tragedy and death. We need a wild God who is present in the midst of floods, in the midst of starvation, in the midst of torture.

Yes, Jesus is the relentless love of God. He came to gather us into the Father’s heart. He named us his friends. But, never forget; he is the same Jesus who did battle with Satan in the wilderness. Remember that the same Jesus who said, “Suffer the little children to come to me,” also tore through the Temple like a cyclone. He is the same Jesus who came calling us to repentance and then dared to suffer for us and, according to 1 Peter, went to hell and back for us.

Yes, the Holy Spirit is a dove, the comforter. But, the Holy Spirit is also a fire, come to burn away the dead brush of our lives like a wild, prairie fire making room for new life. The same Holy Spirit who tore open the heavens can tear open our hearts and inject Jesus into the wilderness of our lives to conquer whatever demons hold us captive.

The Holy Spirit wants to drive Jesus into the wilderness of our hearts and make us “little Christs.” It is the Spirit's intention then to inject us into the wilderness of the world around us. There we can dare to confront the demonic in our world. We can be peacemakers in a society captivated by violence. We can seek justice and righteousness. We can live lives of hospitality and generosity. We can take part in God’s mission of reclamation. We can be part of his healing and reconciliation.

Lent is about exposing whatever keeps us from allowing the Holy Spirit to have its way with us. That is scary because we don’t really like change. Change is often uncomfortable, even painful. We mostly prefer a tame dove who will not ruffle our feathers to one that might tear things apart and drive us into the wilderness. What might the Spirit of the wild God do with us? We are not sure we trust that the changes the Spirit might drive us to are really going to be for our truest joy. But the faith we are called to is exactly that kind of trust.

Ultimately, the Spirit, who descends like a dove and drives us into whatever wildernesses we must face, is indeed driving us toward our truest joy, which is participation in God's life. The Spirit who is a wildfire, burning away our dead wood, is also a refining fire come to remove the dross from our lives and recreate us into finest gold and silver. When we understand this, we can dare to say, "come, Holy Spirit, come."

I’m Converted, But I’m Not Converted That Far

An Ash Wednesday sermon:

Joel 2:1-2,12-17; Psalm 51:1-17;
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

E. Stanley Jones was a missionary in India. While there, he established a Christian Ashram. An Ashram is a sort of spiritual community and retreat center. Jones recounted this story:

In the Ashram, we gave the servants, including the sweeper, a holiday one day each week, and we volunteered to do their jobs for them. The sweeper’s work included the cleaning of the latrines before the days of flush toilets. No one would touch that job but an outcaste, but we volunteered.

One day I said to a Brahmin convert who was hesitating to volunteer: ‘Brother, when are you going to volunteer?’ He shook his head slowly and said: ‘Brother Stanley, I’m converted, but I’m not converted that far.’

Devotional Classics, Selected Readings for Individuals & Groups, Richard Foster and James Byyan Smith, ed., p. 303-304

“I’m converted, but I’m not converted that far.”

You’ve got to appreciate the honesty. Here we are again - Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. This is the time in the spiritual rhythm of the church year when we take an honest look at the state of our faith, thestate of our souls, and ask ourselves, How far am I converted? Is my conversion limited? What limits it? What holds me back from loving God with my whole heart, mind and strength? From loving my neighbor as myself? Do I live each day shaped by the knowledge that God’s kingdom has broken into the world and into my life; God’s kingdom of love, truth and joy; justice, freedom and peace? I’m converted, but I’m not converted that far.

Where am I storing my treasure? Am I caught up in the madness of accumulating more and more or am I learning to let go, learning to give more and more? I’m converted, but I’m not converted that far.

Am I dying to self so I can enter more fully into the joy of God and live for others? Do I see every person I meet, every encounter, as a gift? I’m converted, but I’m not converted that far.

Do I receive each day with expectancy? Have I made peace? Is there forgiveness I have yet to give? I’m converted, but I’m not converted that far.

In the reading from 2 Corinthians, we are told that, for our sake, God made Jesus to be sin - he who knew no sin. Jesus took on our humanity and, in so doing, took on the end result of human sindisconnectedness, brokenness, suffering, and death. He defeated Sin and Death and everything
in-between. Now, by the power of his victory, in him we can become the righteousness of God.

To be the righteousness of God means to live according to our original purpose - right with God, right with one another, to be free to live in the direction of our truest joy. This is the Gospel. This is the Gift (which is what grace means in the passage). But, we are free to live into that gift or to not live into it. We can receive it in vain - to no effect. I’m converted, but I’m not converted that far.

Paul encourages us - entreats us - to be converted farther, to become the righteousness of God. Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation. The gift is free, but the full experience of it depends on openness and preparedness.

Here are some ideas that can further our conversion and help us to enter more fully into God’s purpose for us:

1. Pray – Set aside 20 - 30 minutes a day during Lent for prayer. Sit quietly with God. Rest in the gift of God's love and pray for wisdom to love those you will engage each day.

2. Meditate - Sit quietly and meditate on the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12). What might it mean in your life to become more poor in spirit, meek, merciful, pure in heart, etc.? (Here is something on the Beatitudes for congregations that might also be helpful for individuals.)

3. Read the Bible – Read through the Psalms or the Gospel of Mark this Lent.

4. Find someone you can talk to about what you are learning in prayer and scripture.

5. Act on what you know – serve others, love with abandon, seek the welfare of the least of those around you. Develop a specific “action plan” for serving others during Lent.

6. Reconcile. Seek reconciliation with a person who you need to forgive or from whom you need to ask forgiveness. Or reach out to a person from whom you have grown distant.

During Lent, let us never forget that the gift of God’s grace is free. But let us look carefully at where we have fallen short, and at what hinders us from receiving more of the gift and from living it more with those around us.

We will be reminded again, in a few minutes, that life is short and that we are not our own. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” One life to live, will soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.

I am converted, but not converted that far.

Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation.