See, Jesus understands that faith is not first and foremost a matter of knowledge.  He knows that ‘love’, as in “Love your God,” and “Love your neighbor’ is not something people learn quickly.  It’s something that takes a lifetime of training.  Years of struggling to build an entire life that honors the complex and interconnected obligations we have to the One who creates and saves us and the ones with whom we share that creation and salvation.  – July 14, 2019

A few years ago, there was a story–or perhaps you could call it a publicity stunt, or a communication strategy, that made the rounds amongst my friends and through my social media.  The story went something like this: a homeless man is camped out in front of a church.  He sits on a bench, looking scruffy and unclean.  His beard and hair are long, thick, and dirty.  His clothes are torn and raggedy.  His eyes are sunken and hollow.  It’s Sunday, and church members walk past, eager to get into the church because their new pastor is coming to the church that day, and they’re excited to meet him.  And as they walk in, they walk past the homeless man on the bench.  Each time they walk past, they notice out of the corner of their eyes that the homeless man is looking at them with cupped hands and searching eyes.  But the church people barely notice him.  They walk briskly through the doors and into the sanctuary, looking for their spots in the pews.  They make small talk with their neighbors, waiting for the pastor to come out.  And then, finally, a leader in the church looks out and excitedly announces that the pastor is here!  Everyone starts clapping, looking around for the pastor.  When they can’t find him, they look around, trying to figure out where he is.  Until finally the homeless man, who is standing in the back of the church, walks past all the pews, comes up to the pulpit, and looks out at everyone who had spent the morning ignoring him.  

Now one of the things I love in relating that to you is that, when I go into a restaurant, and I’m rude to the waiters, I tend to do so with clean clothes on my back and a credit card in my wallet.  I might have all the trappings of ‘respectability’ even if I don’t act very respectable.  The homeless folks I served barely had anything to claim as their own, and most of what they had was dirty and ragged.  And yet they would almost always find a way to be polite and kind and grateful.  Isn’t it amazing how outward appearances can so often be misleading?  How important is it to truly remember that old saying that “It’s what’s on the inside that counts”?

The other thing I loved about homeless ministry is that I could always tell the folks I was serving were really dedicated to their faith.  When I’d ask them how they were doing, so often they’d say things like “Thankful that God woke me up this morning” or “I’m blessed because I know God’s watching out for me.”  At the time I was focused mostly on getting everyone’s food and drinks out, but looking back, I have to wonder if the joy and peace so many of these folks seemed to carry in their hearts was connected to their belief that God was interested in their lives, and that even though they were living on the street, that God was with them and showing them how to live their lives.  To me today, those folks were a great example of what we’re talking about today.  They didn’t wear nice clothes, but they were cloaked in the love of God, and they tapped into that love to live lives that, in my case, remain a blessing to me.  Their clothes had holes in them, but in their hearts they were holy people.  

It’s at this point in the sermon that I should probably pause for a moment and acknowledge that I just spent the last few minutes talking about the holiness of homeless people, and that’s not common.  After all, there are few words in the English language with as much weight to them as the word ‘holiness.’  We tend to think of holiness or ‘holy people’ using ideas and images that are basically summarized by me right now.  I mean look at me.  My alb is all bright white.  There are no stains on it–at least not today.  And it’s that kind of idea we tend to associate most with holiness. – October 20, 2019

Make no mistake about it, behind all of the Christmas shopping, the decorating, the holiday travel, we are currently in one of those moments.  And for us, that moment is bigger and more meaningful, dare I say even more ‘epic,’ more cataclysmic, more titanic, than anything I can compress into a twelve minute sermon.  And we need to be ready.  

We are currently living in the pause.  You might not know it.  You probably don’t know what I’m talking about anyway.  But we are living there.  All of us.  Right now.  And things are about to get crazy.  

“It all comes down to this.” – December 22, 2019

The leprosy of 2020 is being infected with the wrong opinions.  If someone’s politics, someone’s views on race relations, someone’s views on law enforcement, someone’s views on masks don’t align with our own, we look at them as if they are suffering with a contagious disease of the mind.  We no longer want to engage with them.  We can barely tolerate their presence, and if we aren’t careful we tend to get disproportionately wound up about these things.  I remember a few years ago, when I was home from college and my brother was much smaller than he is now, physically chasing him down the stairs of our family home because we disagreed about some current event.  Not my proudest moment, but in my life, that moment does illustrate how ‘suffering from leprosy’ in Jesus’ lifetime and ‘having the wrong opinion’ today receive similar reactions.  It can feel scary, sad, overwhelming, to contemplate where we are right now.  – July 12, 2020

About two years ago, I went into the Egleston hospital in the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta system.  I was there to interview for an internship as a hospital chaplain, and I was extremely nervous.  I needed the internship.  But more than that, I was still in seminary, and I’d heard from a lot of my friends in seminary that if you had to intern at a hospital, as I did for the UMC, you didn’t want to do it at a Children’s Hospital.  I was told the grief would be too deep, the sadness too all consuming.  

I accomplished a lot that day.  I met the program supervisors, saw the inside of the hospital for the first time, completed the interview, and later that day I was offered a spot as an intern.  But I went home feeling really anxious.  Because there was a point in the interview when I was asked my comfort level with baptisms.  I said that I hadn’t done one before, but that I was sure I could handle it.  Then, I was asked about how I would do baptizing a child on the brink of death.  That was a different question altogether.  I said that yes, I would be able to do that.  But in the back of my head, there was a lingering doubt.  A lingering sense that maybe I was wrong.  There was a voice whispering, over and over again “I can’t do this.”  

When we meet Peter in our passage from John for today, we’re meeting them at what I have always expected was a similar moment.   Peter is speaking with Jesus shortly after the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  Shortly after Jesus has risen, yes, but also shortly after Jesus has been killed by the Romans and the Sanhedrin and the people of Jerusalem.  And now, Jesus was preparing to leave.  This is near to the end of the Gospel of John, and the end of Peter and Jesus’ time together.  Peter had to know where this left him.  As our passage from Matthew shows us, Peter would be the anchor, the linchpin, the cornerstone for a new thing called the church.  He would no longer be just a disciple.  He would now be the disciple.  He would be the human being responsible for safeguarding the movement Jesus started.  

I wonder what Peter thought about all this, in this moment.  Do you think he thought he’d ever be here?  After all, by trade, Peter’s life was supposed to be spent on a boat, trawling nets as the sun beat down on his back and the salt water sprayed into his beard.  He was supposed to be a simple fisherman.  Maybe he hoped to have a family and some children whom he could teach how to fish, too.  An honest job, an honest life, but nothing extraordinary.  And yes, his life as a disciple had produced some extraordinary moments, but now that Jesus was leaving, Peter was about to assume a level of responsibility not known by anyone apart from Jesus.  Peter, let’s don’t forget, was the rock upon whom Jesus built his Church.  He was no longer just a disciple, he was now the disciple, the first, the highest, the final ultimate authority in the movement Jesus had built.  This man with no scholarly background would have to explain and argue for the validity of his faith to crowds of skeptics.  This man with no known management skills or administrative genius to speak of would have to organize a movement that, even in its early days, stretched out to the edges of the largest land empire the world had yet seen.  And this man who had no background in leading others would have to keep Christianity together as the Romans tried to eradicate their beliefs and hunt them to extinction.  

Can you imagine what that must’ve been like to carry?  To be that person?  You know Peter tried to put on a brave face about it, but you also have to believe, don’t you, that he felt a little uneasy about where this all was going.  Many of us are in a similar position these days.  There are actual hospital chaplains and doctors and nurses who are bearing the burdens of others in ways that none of us on the outside could imagine, but there are also more ordinary people making dealing with the extraordinary circumstances these extraordinary times have presented us with.  How many parents have had to learn how to juggle Zoom calls while teaching kids how to do long division.  How many people have had to learn new technology because doing so was the only way to keep doing their jobs, serving in their churches, or keeping their families afloat?  How many people have had to ask themselves hard questions and reevaluate long-held truths about our society as they look at the unrest, pain, and trauma that is currently touching every community and home in America?  These days, to perform well in your job, stay engaged as a parent or grandparent, do your duties as a citizen, even just stay engaged with the life of this church, is to be stretched beyond where you would normally like to, to be put in a position where you could very logically say “I can’t do this.” – October 11, 2020

Jacob’s descendants became numerous, then they gained their independence from Egypt, then they cleared out lands belonging to others – an action we might question – and settled down in a land overflowing with milk and honey.  Then, they started fighting each other.  They succumbed to disorder and violence until, disgusted, God withdrew from them and appointed a King to rule over them.  That King, Saul, fell out of favor with God and was replaced by a young shepherd’s boy named David.  David ruled wisely, as did his son Solomon.  But after Solomon, Jacob’s descendants fell to infighting again.  They split apart, from one united family to two fractured ones.  In both, the poor were consumed by the rich.  Idol worship became common.  Jacob’s God was forgotten.  Eventually foreign powers hungry for empire came and devoured their land.  Memories of Jacob’s dream about God, about angels, about a ladder faded into nothing.  And life, it appeared, had destroyed a dream, once again.  

Time went on, of course.  Jacob’s people came home, and tried to rebuild their lives.  They did this under occupation, of course – they traded the Empires of Assyria and Babylon for the Persian Empire, and then the Macedonians, then the Roman Empire – but what choice did they really have?  They settled into routines, and found comfort in the same-ness of those routines.  And yet, some of them kept daring to dream bigger dreams.  John the Baptist was one such man, and he and his followers were condemned as radicals.  Still, they hung on.  Waiting.  Hoping.  Trusting.  Sometimes doubting.  Knowing that their situation was hopeless without God, but wanting desperately to believe that the dream Jacob had once had in the desert was not dead, but might yet come fully true.  

And as they hung on to this dream, whispers started to reach them.  About a baby born in a manger to a virgin mother.  About a Messiah who wasn’t like all the other promised prophets.  No, this one was the real deal, the one they’d been waiting for.  And then, one day, John sees this Messiah on the road.  John calls out to him, and this Messiah, this “Jesus Christ” invites him and others in.  “Where are you staying” they ask.  The reply?  “Come and see.”  

What could someone from Nazareth do, really?  The reply?  “Come and see.”  Others have done so.  Jesus has already called his first disciples.  And they have begun to see the fulfillment of God’s promises to Jacob approaching.  This is what it means to be a disciple sometimes.  Sometimes, you believe in Christ when no one else will.  The reward?  Well, let’s come and see.  – May 10, 2022

People have been performing coolness, pretending to have the perfect life, putting up a front that everything is always good and our lives always feel blessed, for as long as there have been people.  And spaces like the one we share today, spaces in which we often feel compelled to wear our Sunday best clothes and be on our Sunday best behavior, are no exception.  Which is part of the challenge of our passage for today.  Our passage for today comes out of the Psalms.  Written by the ancient Israelites as a shared liturgy for worship, the Psalms contain dozens of different messages about who God is, and who we are.  Today, we hear from the Psalms a message of unambiguous praise.  This Psalm paints God as powerful and kind, wise and gentle, just and devoted.  To the Psalmist, God is unambiguously good, and together, the Israelites should be unambiguously grateful.  God is who God is.  If we truly understand this, praise is the only appropriate response.   So, at any rate, says the Psalmist.  What happens, though, when praise is not just the only appropriate response, but the only permitted one? – August 18, 2024

I hate spiders.  Always have.  Always will.  And while I understand that Spiders play a critical role in managing the world’s population of bugs, I trust in God’s power enough to believe that, in some mysterious way, that same role could have been filled by Golden Retrievers.  

I learned to manage my fear of spiders through what might be called “Immersion therapy.”  As a camp counselor at an outdoors camp in my college years, I spent my summers caring for elementary school aged children living in rickety cabins out in the woods.  In this environment, there was no escape.  Eight legged guests would frequently make their way into these cabins, and each time, I was expected to eliminate the threat.  In three summers working at the camp, I probably killed dozens of spiders.  In doing so, I gradually learned to ignore the voice in my head that wanted to run as far and as fast in the other direction as possible.  That experience helped me to be a better camp counselor, and in some ways, a better leader overall, although I still get the heebie jeebies whenever I feel an itch in the middle of the night.  

In some ways, there is a resemblance between how I see spiders, and how the Bible presents God to us.  Most of the time, spiders and other such critters are something we are not aware of.  And yet when we do become aware of their presence nearby, their presence can completely steal our attention. 

Similarly, in scripture, the people who know God, who truly experience God’s presence, are relatively few in number.  And yet, for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, being around God is truly overwhelming.  In the Bible, God is good, but as the creator of our world, God is beyond our world, and beyond our understanding.  When this God chooses to be in our midst, fully present with us as our full relationship partner, unease and gratitude, reverence and confusion, love and wonder, are bound to mix. – December 8, 2024