Shepherd Soul

Luke 2:15  When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

The shepherds are an indispensable part of any nativity scene, as they represent the first people outside the Holy Family to know that the Christ has just come into the world.  The angel's appearance to them has a great deal of symbolism.  Not only do the shepherds foretell the life of The Good Shepherd, but the birth has happened in David's city, and he was, of course, a shepherd himself.  But above these things, by appearing to these lowly and lonely members of an agrarian society, the angel shows that the Messiah has come for all people, no matter their status or role.

That universality of the announcement to the shepherds should not be lost on us.  Even though we may feel far removed from them today the message still applies.  The poet George Herbert understood this.  Herbert, a saintly Anglican priest with Welsh origins who died in 1633 at age 39, left behind many well-crafted verses on various subjects, most especially religious ones.  In his poem, "Christmas," Herbert writes:

My soul's a shepherd too; a flock it feeds
     Of thoughts, and words, and deeds,
The pasture is thy word: the streams thy grace
     Enriching all the place.

What a beautiful way to see one's soul, as a shepherd, just as those shepherds of Bethlehem.  And as a shepherd, our soul feeds our thoughts, words, and deeds, for better or for ill.  But through the help of Christ, through the presence of his Word, we are better able to care for our thoughts, our words, and our deeds.

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep," Jesus tells his followers in John 10.  And again, "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep."  Not only did Jesus lay his life down for the sheep, he left heaven in the first place for them, appearing to us in Bethlehem on that first Christmas.  That in itself was a sacrifice.  And just as the angels made clear to the shepherds in the fields that special night, so too does Jesus make clear to us -- he came for all people: "I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd."

On this day after Christmas, as we sort through the mess and reheat the leftovers, let's not forget the lesson of the shepherds who first saw that child.  And like George Herbert, may our souls be shepherds, too.  Good shepherds, inspired by the best shepherd of them all. 

Walking on Water

[Adapted from last Sunday's sanctuary re-dedication sermon.]

Matthew 14:28-29  "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."  "Come," he said.  Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.

There have been many symbols of Christianity and of the Church over the centuries.  We are all familiar with the cross, of course.  And many people are aware of the fish as a symbol of the faith. In Mark 1 Jesus tells his first disciples, who were fishermen, that he will make them fishers of men.  This and other references to fish in the New Testament led to the fish being an early symbol of Christianity, and one that has certainly made a resurgence in modern times.

Another important early symbol is less seen today -- the boat.  Have you ever considered the church as a boat?  This symbol has many scriptural bases.  Moses and his family and the animals were saved on a boat.  The early disciples, as fishermen, worked with boats.  And it was from a boat that the Apostles saw Jesus miraculously calm a storm and also walk on water.



Logo of the World Council of Churches

But the symbolism goes deeper than that.  A boat is a place of safety, even on turbulent waters.  It is a place of stability when everything around you is unstable.  A boat can take you almost anywhere you want to go.  And wherever that might be, you can still keep fishing.

Think of the sea's waves as the turbulence of sin and of a broken world.  The boat -- the church -- is a refuge from that turbulence.  It is a refuge but it is not a hiding place.  Quite the contrary, we are encouraged to sail our boat out across those frightening waters in search of others who are floundering, needing to be saved.

The boat would not be carrying us if Jesus had not first entered our world.  He broke into history first in Bethlehem, in that stable, over two millennia ago, but he continues to reenter our lives even still.  He comes to us again and again, knocking at the door, seeking entry, and he asks only one thing of us -- to follow him. 

When Jesus approached Simon and Andrew, and James and John, he invited them to follow him, and they did so.  They had no way of knowing at that moment just what following Jesus would truly mean, but they could be assured then, as every day after, that he would always be there to protect them.  Likewise, when Jesus appears, in Matthew 14, walking on the water toward his disciples in a boat, he calls upon them not to have fear.  He was their source of all security.  And so when Peter asks Jesus to call him out upon the waters, Jesus' answer is immediate -- "Come!"

We normally focus on what comes next.  In a panic, Peter begins to sink, and Jesus has to grab him to save him, and gently chastises his lack of faith.  However, pondering that passage, one has to ask what deeper meaning there might be here.  Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus perform a miracle just to show off.  His miracles have meaning and symbolism, if not immediate comfort and healing.  So why has Jesus chosen to walk on water?  Why does he allow Peter to do the same? 

I believe Jesus is teaching Peter, and us, a lesson.  He teaches here that through true faith we can walk across the waves of sin and brokenness, and Jesus will sustain and lead us.  That's what walking on water truly means.  It is more than the ability to perform a physical miracle.  Instead of sinking into sin and despair, you can rise above it.  You can take the safety and security of your boat, the church, into places even the boat itself cannot go.  Because Jesus is always there to lift you up, to sustain you and protect you.

The church is your boat.  With Jesus piloting us, this boat can bring you through every turbulent storm you may face.  It can ride the waves day after day.  But the blessings don't end there.  Because yes, the church is your boat, but when you walk out the doors, even you can walk on water.

Living as a Saint: A Tribute to Dr. Susan A. Keefe

Psalm 116:14  "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."

I'll never forget that amazing morning.  It was August 29, 2000, and I had settled into my seat in the middle of a small and crowded classroom, waiting for one of my first classes at Duke Divinity School to begin.  That course was Church History 13: Early and Medieval Christianity, a staple of the curriculum.  A hush fell on the room as the professor walked through the door.  She was a small, wisp of a woman, emaciated, her hair clean but limp, her face sunken, her frame fragile.  She was wearing what looked to be a homemade dress and carrying a stack of books and papers that appeared to outweigh her.  She settled into place, and breathlessly began...

"The history of the church...is a love story."

She went on to describe the story of Jesus' sacrifice for the Church -- for us -- as told in the Gospels and expounded in Acts, in such a way that any of us could have believed she had been there, witnessing it all, from the foot of the cross to Pentecost.

That woman was Susan Keefe, and after that day, I would never view the church, or my role in it, quite the same again.

In all I would take three classes with Dr. Keefe, Associate Professor of Church History at Duke, and I would spend countless hours over five years in conversation with her.  Since my leaving Duke in 2006, we kept in touch through letters, cards, and emails.  News of her death at age 58, which reached me on August 8th, left me chilled to the bone, and yet then almost immediately comforted, as I realized, in some special way, she would always be near me now.  She was, after all, a living saint.

It is hard to describe this exceptional woman, in part because she was not exceptional in ways we are used to describing.  She eschewed professional attention. She was also very private. This is not to say she kept to herself -- quite the contrary, she was gregarious and caring at all times.  However, she did not make herself a topic of conversation.  I knew almost nothing about her.  I knew she was Catholic and came from a close-knit family in Connecticut. She was rumored to have once been a nun, yet to this day I don't know if that was indeed the case.  She was, doubtless, an ascetic.  No one I knew had ever witnessed her eat or drink anything.  It was rumored she lived on the Eucharist alone (though I didn't believe that).  Reactions to her appearance were wide-ranging.  Those who did not know her at all could be forgiven for wide-eyed shock. Among her students, there was reverence for her self-denial, fear for her health, and assumptions that she suffered from an eating disorder disguised as a spiritual discipline.  Some were drawn to her, some repelled by her.  But I believe that in virtually every case, Susan Keefe didn't even notice. She was too focused on her love of God.

Dr. Keefe's office was a small, top floor space crammed full of well-worn books and pictures.  She had travelled throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East to study ancient baptismal sites and find primary sources still extant in places like monastery libraries. Postcards and snapshots of these amazing places were everywhere in her office, as well as pictures of saints.  She adored the saints.  She had a true love of those holy men and women who had gone before and reminders of them were everywhere.  In December 2007 we visited St. Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana, founded by the newly canonized St. Mother Theodore Guerin.  Shortly thereafter I mailed a package to Dr. Keefe containing a small framed picture of the Saint, as well as a few other items.  Her reply speaks volumes:

I am utterly flabbergasted, and profoundly moved by St. Mother Guerin in my lap at this moment, and SS. Bill and Brooke, to have understood my love for the saints and endowed me so richly with a new one. This is indeed the communion of all saints! Indeed, indeed, your package DID arrive, to my great delight as I went to my mailbox this morning. When you sent me photos by email of Mother Guerin, I had secretly said in my heart, Oh, how I wish I could save the pictures of her, and her reliquary with the bones, and the church…but I had no way to download colored pictures. So your package was an answer to prayer, as well as a total surprise. You are both sweet beyond measure to have thought of me when you visited her shrine, and then to have collected and sent me the framed picture, the photographs, the medal, and the holy card. I am doubly touched at your letter, Bill, in which you took the time to explain your own emotions about the visit and about touching her reliquary, and then laying the holy card you sent me on it. I pray she becomes a special patron for both of you in Indiana. Her recent canonization makes her especially fascinating to me. She will hang beside me in my office, so that every time I see her, I also think of you both, and recommend you to her care.

Dr. Keefe lived out her faith in the subtlest of ways. She was always doing little things for people, almost unnoticed, in order to share her love through Jesus.  When we shared the news that my wife, Brooke, was pregnant, she proceeded to pray daily for the baby. When he was born she came to me with a little box, wrapped in paper, that weighed far more than I would have expected.  Inside were six rolls of quarters, each one slipped into a baby sock.  Those 240 quarters paid for our loads of laundry for weeks and weeks. In fact, they took so long to run out that they almost seemed to have miraculously multiplied.

During my last year as a student, Dr. Keefe's two-volume book was finally published -- Water and the Word, a beautifully bound collection of ancient texts on baptism, along with Dr. Keefe's commentaries on them.  I was working in the mail room the day the shipment arrived, and had the joy of carrying the box to her office for her.  I opened the box and laid my eyes on her book -- her life's work -- at the very first time that she did.  For my graduation, Brooke purchased a copy of the book from the school bookstore as a gift to me, and she went to Dr. Keefe asking for her to sign it.  She literally cried when she learned that Brooke had bought her "expensive book" for me.  Not only did she inscribe it with a sentiment that deeply touched me, she also exchanged it.  She gave Brooke her own copy, her only copy, which she felt was in slightly better shape, and kept the store copy that had a ding on the cover.



Me with Dr. Keefe, May 2003

That book is among my prized possessions, along with the many Christmas cards -- drawn and inscribed individually, by her hand -- postcards and letters Dr. Keefe mailed us over the years. But above these objects is her memory, and the lessons she had to teach.  The Bible mentions "saints" many times, always as the holy family of people set aside by God to advance His church.  We are all "called to be saints" as Paul says in Romans 1:7 -- we are called to be holy.  And indeed, perhaps we rightly reserve the term, in our culture, if not our theology, for those who display a special holiness, who truly light the way.  And so I thank God for my opportunity to have known such a Saint.  She has now gone home, after her sojourn in this foreign place.  Surely, "precious in the sight of the lord" was the death of Susan Keefe.

The Prodigal Father

Luke 15: 22-24   "But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.  And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.  For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’"

We know the story as "The Prodigal Son."  If not the most famous, it is surely among the most famous of the parables of Jesus, well known to Christians and non-Christians alike.  It is the longest of the parables and with good reason -- it is an extraordinary story about the human condition.  Foolishness and forgiveness; helplessness and hypocrisy; jealousy and joy -- all are found in this short tale.  


Members of the religious establishment had questioned the company Jesus liked to keep.  "Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him.  And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, 'This man receives sinners and eats with them.'"  Jesus confronts their complaints with three vivid parables, first, that of a lost sheep, then of a lost coin, and finally, a lost child, the prodigal son.  Through these stories he aimed to point out that God wants to save sinners, not merely tend after saints. 

The story is a familiar one.  An impetuous young man wants to go off and live an independent life.  He asks for his portion of his father's inheritance, receives it, and wanders off, to foreign lands.  But he does not carry his values along with his valuables.  He spends his money unwisely at best, wickedly at worst.  A famine overtakes him, leaving him destitute,and he can only work tending hogs and longing after the scraps they are fed.  At last, he "comes to himself," and, deciding that he needs salvation, he "arises."  He gets up from his situation of sin, dusts himself off, and begins the trek homeward. 

The young man is completely unprepared for the level of grace his father will exhibit upon his return.  And, quite frankly, his older brother is completely unprepared as well.  After the son is received with joy and effusive celebration and emotion, the spotlight turns to the elder brother, who asks what we might expect him to --  what about me?  He has been the good one, the responsible one, the hard worker.  He has known and followed his duty.  Yet his father celebrates not this model of sonship, but instead the wretch who has finally come home in rags?  Why?  How?

And then comes the whole point of the story -- the unfailing and unlimited grace of the father.  He is willing to forgive, and he is ready to love.  "It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found."  


"Prodigal" is a word we normally only hear in relation to this parable.  It is so inextricably linked to the parable that it seems unusual to hear it in any other context.  What does the word in fact mean?  Related to words like "prodigious" and "prodigy," it means, "recklessly extravagant," "lavish," or "luxuriant."  Given that, I would argue that the parable is inaptly named.  This is not a story of a prodigal son.  True, the younger son went off and lived a lavish life, squandering his money, but he is not the center of the tale.  The father is.  And it is the father, just like our heavenly Father, who is truly prodigal.  His grace is "recklessly extravagant."  His love is "lavish and luxuriant."  Jesus is pointing out here that we indeed have a "prodigal Father," who is waiting for our return.It is up to us to come to ourselves, to arise, and to leave that faraway country, and return, finally, to home.

At the Right Time

Romans 5:6  "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly."

We are creatures trapped by time.  Time is the hidden framework for our universe, the basic foundation for all that we know and understand.  As much as we may dream of escaping it, of moving back or forth within it or making it move slower or faster, or even to stand still, we cannot change it, not in the least.  We live in time, moving at its established pace, ever onward, and there is nothing we can do to change it.  


"At just the right time," Paul tells us, Jesus broke into history, to live for us and die for us.  Christ, being divine, transcends time and history, yet he condescended to be a part of history, to live amongst us for a moment in the sea of time, to live a life in this temporal world we share.  We accept this, but we rarely ask the obvious question: why that given window in time?  Why was Jesus not born into our world earlier (or later, for that matter)?  Have you ever considered that question?


Why didn't Jesus appear right after the sin of Adam and Eve?  That certainly could have saved the world a lot of trouble.  Or why not right before Noah, to divert the sinful population of the world from catastrophe?  Why not in the days after Noah, or perhaps in the time of the Patriarchs, as God was establishing his chosen people?  Why not when the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt?  Why did God send Moses when he could have sent the Son himself?  


Why didn't Jesus appear as the people were populating the Promised Land, or in the time of the Judges, or before David, or after?  Why not in the days of the bad kings, when the people were in such desperate need of moral leadership?  Why not during the exile in Babylon, one of the lowest points for the people of Israel?  Why not upon their return?  Jumping ahead, why didn't Jesus appear in the days of the Maccabees, that window of Jewish independence?  Why was he not born 100 years before he was, or 50, or even 10?  Or why not 10 years later,or 50, or 100?


Instead of every other possibility, God chose this particular window of time in the middle of the life of the Roman Empire to break into history.  As someone fascinated by the ancient world, the question has fascinated me for years: why was Jesus brought into the world precisely when he was?  It's easy to say, "In order to fulfill the words of the prophets," but let's be honest, if God had wanted the Advent to occur at a different time or in a different way, he would have simply given the prophets different prophecies.


We can speculate as much as we'd like, but in the final analysis all we can say is that God did this in his own good time.  His timing is beyond our questioning or understanding, and it alone is perfect.  God deals with us through history, and so Jesus Christ had to come into our lives via a window in that same history, but as to why the time and place that was chosen, only God can ever know.


God has made us creatures of time, living in a universe built on time as we know it.  Theoretically, God could have created something else, a framework which didn't depend on time as we understand it.  But since he did create time for us, he also uses it as part of his revelation. He reveals himself through history in the story of salvation --in other words, salvation history.  It is a history that isn't finished yet.  It will find completeness in a new creation governed entirely by God, with evil finally defeated.  When God broke into our human history in the person of Jesus, he gave us a foretaste of that future, and indeed allowed us to experience it and to live within it even in this imperfect world.  Christ conquered time itself to bring us the Kingdom of God (Mark 1:15, “The time has come,” [Jesus] said. “The kingdom of God has come near.").  It is a Kingdom that does not yet exist in our reality, but has always existed and will always exist in God's reality.  As Pannenberg puts it, we witness through God a "permanent present," because the Godhead transcends time, and through a relation with the divine, so can we.


What does all this mean for us?  First, it means that we believe in a God who cares so deeply for us that he was willing to break into history in order to save us.  But that event was not simply an event that happened once in first century Palestine.  It happens anew again and again and again, every time a new believer accepts Christ into their heart and soul.  Despite death and time and generations apart, we all live as part of that permanent present in the presence of the Son of God.


But it also is a reminder that not only did Christ break into history, on a human and physical scale, once in the midst of time, but that he will do so again.  At an hour we least expect, he will enter our human history again.  For the God of history, the God of the universe, is also the God our our lives and of our souls.  And just as he entered history once to see us face to face, he is coming once more, to do so yet again.

Finding What You're Looking For

Jeremiah 29:13  "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

I often fiddle with the radio as I'm driving, flipping from one station to the next hoping to land on something worth listening to.  The other night I happened to land on one station just as U2 was beginning this classic:

I have climbed the highest mountains 
I have run through the fields 
Only to be with you
Only to be with you

Several U2 songs have religious undertones, few more so than I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.  It is a song of yearning and searching, and even 25 years after it came out (yes, 25 years next month -- believe it or not) it still holds the power to evoke deep feelings for listeners.  It touches upon [dare I say it] existential thoughts that virtually every individual carries, no matter how rarely we want to examine them.  That aspect of the song, more than its aesthetic qualities, may be the true point of its staying power.  It makes us, when we hear it on the radio, alone on a stretch of highway, think of the big questions.  It forces us to ask what we are doing here, where we are headed, and what we want our final destination to be.


"Seeking" is a big term in the modern church.  It captures various aspects of our culture -- a consumerism that allows us to sample and try on various forms of faith as we look for the one most right for us; the abstract, unplanned way of the modern pilgrim, searching for spiritual completeness amidst the wilderness of modernity; and beyond that the frustration of the beginning believer in the face of contradictory, competing, and confusing options among churches, denominations, and traditions.  The modern church has an eye on the seekers, as we hope to bring them into our doors and convince them ours is the best club to join.  


Rather, we should convince the seeker that finding a church, finding a community, is the least part of their task.  It can be difficult and even frustrating, but it is secondary to the wonder of finding God himself.  We too often want to make the pilgrimage process for the modern seeker harder than it needs to be.  We need instead to remind them that Jesus Christ is not out there somewhere, waiting for us to find him.  He isn't hiding; instead, he's the one looking for us.  He's the one who initiates the contact.  Opening the door to his quiet knocking is not a hard process -- or, it doesn't need to be.  It is not reliant on finding the right this or that.  It is reliant on one thing only: our willingness to say, Yes, I believe.


U2 sings of the long search for meaning and joy in this broken world of ours -- searching through this sordid world, looking for the answers in relationships and in ideologies.  We've all been there.  Even when we think we know the answers, sometimes we only know them in book form:

I believe in the Kingdom Come 
Then all the colors will bleed into one 
Bleed into one
But, yes, I'm still running

You broke the bonds 
And you loosed the chains
Carried the cross of my shame 
Oh, my shame
You know I believe it

Many children -- many adults, for that matter-- have learned these things as facts, but never accepted them as matters of deep faith.  They end up looking for a truth they already know, but don't know how to accept.  And we convince them all too often that they need to go searching for their answer.  In reality, God is trying every day to give the answer to them. Decades ago the Christian writer A.W. Tozer published a classic book he called, The Pursuit of God. It is about forming a deeper relationship with God, but it is so poorly named.  God does not need to be pursued.  That implies he is running away.  Quite the contrary, God is always there; if anything, God pursues us.  He is always next to us, waiting for us to simply open our hearts to his grace.  It may seem more complicated than that, but it's really not.  It's all about surrendering; not pursuing, or searching, or seeking, but surrendering.  That can indeed be a hard thing for us to do, but the difficulty lies within us, not in the roadblocks around us.  Until we learn to surrender, and accept the presence of God right here and right now, right where we are, we too will continue to say, I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

How Great is Our God

Psalm 8:1  "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"


Last night I heard a local trio sing "How Great Is Our God" at a church-related meeting.  I first encountered this Chris Tomlin song during Friday night large group meetings at the Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship in the early '90s.  We would sing it over and over with fervor and joy, as I have heard it sung many times since.  As I listened to these three women singing last night, thoroughly enjoying the music that was washing over me, I found myself realizing the key to the song's appeal -- it's simplicity.  Sure, we can talk on and on about theology and come up with limitless things to discuss and debate regarding God, but only rarely can theology be translated well into music.  The Wesleys could do it, for instance, but many songwriters have tried and failed.  The reality is that God is so complex that limited beings like us can only hope to understand him  by seeing him in the simplest possible terms.  That's what this song does. It is theologically sound, but also recognizes that God is best described in terms of majesty, since we cannot comprehend him fully in any other way:

The splendor of a King
Clothed in majesty
Let all the earth rejoice
All the earth rejoice

I've been thinking over the past several months about the question of how to "prove" God.  I've known many atheists and agnostics who have said, basically, sure I would believe in a God if his existence could be proven.  I thought for years that it would be the ultimate breakthrough to come up with that "proof" and have the final argument explaining that yes, there is a God.  In the 11th century St. Anselm developed a proof of God that is known as the Ontological Argument: "God is that being than which no greater can be conceived."  Convinced?  Probably not.  Anselm tried to say that since the idea of God exists in our minds as the greatest of all possible things, and obviously nothing greater than this exists in reality since the concept of God is already the concept of the greatest of all things, then God must exist.  Or at least that is my butchering of Anselm's argument.  The point though is that Anselm's argument will not -- cannot -- convince an unbeliever that there is a God.  But what could?

The more I have pondered this the more convinced I am of this answer: God cannot be proven.  Not in an earthly or scientific manner. I may say I am convinced there is a God, but others could say my certainty was merely a psychological quirk, as if I were convinced I was Napoleon.  The reason we cannot prove God through worldly means is this: a God that can be proven isn't big enough to be God.  Really, wouldn't you be disappointed if God could be measured by an instrument or described by a mathematical equation?  He is beyond proof, as we normally describe proof. 

Is that a cop-out?  Not in the least.  I think it's just being truthful.  I recently read a new book by Dinesh D'Souza titled Forsaken, in which he tries to show that not only does God exist, but also that despite the horrors we see in this world, God is good and caring.  D'Souza seems to bend over backwards to do this.  For instance, he points out that earthquakes and volcanoes may have taken many innocent lives throughout the centuries, but they are produced by tectonic plates, which are a fundamental part of what allows life to exist on this earth, due to their job in creating carbon dioxide that plants need to live.  D'Souza has built his arguments around counter-arguments he has heard many times in debates with atheists, and indeed sometimes you can imagine him and his interlocutor coming to a stalemate.  But that hardly means he has convinced anyone of God's existence, let alone proven God. 

Because really, how does anyone prove this?:

He wraps Himself in light
And darkness tries to hide
It trembles at His voice
Trembles at His voice

My point is that God, as Christians see God, cannot be explained, but only experienced.  Unbelievers who come to have belief do so not because they worked it out in their head or were convinced by an argument; they do so because in some way or another they experienced God, and therefore know God to exist.

I feel for people who are trying to figure out if God is real through the means of science and logic and reason.  They will never find the answer this way.  If a God exists who is indeed creator and lord of all, it is ludicrous to believe that we can explain his existence in human terms.  Belief comes from accepting that which is offered, not by exploring for an answer and discovering it on one's own.  That is in fact why this song is so moving, because it does not attempt to explain God but only to describe his majesty and character, as that being who is so above us and beyond us, yet also so close to us, as to belie any attempt at expression aside from mere awe.  Really, how else do you approach this?:

Age to age, He stands
And time is in His hands
Beginning and the end
Beginning and the end

From Anselm to D'Souza, and so many in between, we too often have forgetten that God cannot be shared intellectually, only experientially.  So do you want someone to believe in God?  Help them experience him.  Be his ambassador on earth, and that will be more of a proof than all the books in the world.

Water and Fire

Ephesians 4:5  "...one Lord, one faith, one baptism..."

Late January always reminds me of my baptism.  That event occurred on January 31, 1988, nearly a quarter century ago.  I was 15 at the time.  I had started attending church about two years earlier with my grandmother, who had herself only attended for maybe a year before that.  It was a small church in a small town, and Sunday mornings brought out 25 to 35 people.  It was part of a three-point Methodist charge and during my few years there went through four ministers – Revs. Beckwith, Swann, Hogue, and Dunaway.  I still remember their names.  As a teenager, and one who attended willingly, I was an anomaly and the congregation simply didn’t know what to do with me. 

           

Rev. Swann decided at one point to hold confirmation classes for anyone interested.  My grandmother and I took part as did a couple of adults from another church on the charge.  I still remember sitting in the parsonage one evening per week, looking through an oversimplified booklet with cartoonish characters, meant to explain the most basic tenets of faith.  Finally, we set a date for our baptisms and confirmations.  Though my grandmother’s own grandfather had been a minister, there was no memory of her having been baptized, so she took part in that ritual as did I.

Baptisms at that church were exceedingly rare, and Rev. Swann was so young these might have been his first ones for all I knew.  It was an important day for me.  I had been soaking up what I could learn at the church and this moment of initiation meant a great deal.  It was a time of anticipation and pride -- of the good kind.  We had gone over the short ceremony in detail and I was ready. I had been instructed to kneel for the baptism (which, at most, could have been described as a light sprinkling), but my grandmother could not do so due to a bad hip.  But when the moment came, with a bunch of much older folks looking on, my 15-year old self felt a bit embarrassed and I didn’t kneel, but instead stood there as the pastor baptized me.  I’m sure no one thought about or even noticed this, but I had a sudden sense of guilt for failing to follow through on this one, simple action of kneeling at the altar. 

As the years went by, whenever I considered my baptism, this guilt would always crop up.  It was a small thing, yet it seemed big to me.  But now I realize that even this taught me a lesson in grace.  The very imperfections of our humanity that caused me to hesitate that day are what Jesus came to address.  The very act of baptism both cleanses us from sin and welcomes us into a lifetime of improving who we are through an on-going relationship with Christ.  Sure, I was weak that day, but it was alright.  To say the least, I had a lot left to learn. I still do.

The Year of the Lord's Favor

Isaiah 61:1-2  "The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me...to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor."

[Adapted from my New Year's Day sermon]

There has been a fair amount of hubbub about 2012 already, maybe more than for any year I can recall since 2000, what with all the talk about the end of the world and all. But let's place all that aside and focus on something productive. What will this new year hold for us?  It may seem to be a question every new year brings, but what can we do about the answer?  What can we do to make 2012 better than 2011?  How can we make our lives more meaningful and productive, how can we grow and help others to grow, in this coming year?

I think we can start by looking at a short passage from the Prophet Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
   because the LORD has anointed me
   to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
   to proclaim freedom for the captives
   and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
   and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
   instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
   instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
   instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
   a planting of the LORD
   for the display of his splendor.

As we read these words, we need to remember that they are not really the words of Isaiah.  Instead, he is prophesying a future message of the Messiah. Did the words sound familiar? If so, that might be because they show up again in the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 4.  Jesus arrives in his hometown of Nazareth and goes to the synagogue, where he stands up to read from the scroll of Isaiah.  He automatically find this text to read, and after reading the first few lines explains to the people, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."  To say the least, the people were not convinced.  It would not be the last time that Jesus' promises would be ignored.

In this passage out of Isaiah, five kinds of people are being addressed: the poor, the brokenhearted, captives, prisoners, and those who mourn.  Are we poor in spirit?  Are our hearts broken in some way?  Are we captive to sin?  Are we bound by the darkness and snares of this crazy world?  Do we mourn lost dreams?  If so, then this message applies to us. The good news is that Jesus is anointed to address these issues.  He brings good news to the poor, binds up broken hearts, releases prisoners from darkness, proclaims the year of the Lord's favor...

The year of the Lord's favor?  What does that mean?

"The year of the Lord's favor" simply denotes a new era of blessing.  It is not confined to a specific time in history or even a specific period of time.  It is available to all people, at all times.  Jesus speaks it into being, literally, by proclaiming it, both in Isaiah's prophecy and through his promise at Nazareth that the scripture is fulfilled.  The year of the Lord's favor is there for the taking.  The question is whether we will accept it. 

The human race has a terrible tendency to rely upon the self, and not upon the maker. Our churches are great examples of this.  In Asia, Africa, and in many other places, despite adversities such as poverty, oppression, and poor infrastructure, churches are booming due to trust in God.  It is no great news for a church to triple in size in a year, or spawn new churches in nearby communities.  And yet in the seemingly "Christian" West, with wealth, freedom, and established buildings, leadership structures, and everything else we might think necessary, it is usually an accomplishment if church growth outpaces deaths and drop-outs at the end of each year.  Why?  Because far too often our established churches and their denominations rely on programs and committees to do what God does best -- change lives. 

Every time the ancient Hebrews believed in God's blessings, blessings were showered upon them.  Every time they tried to succeed on their own, they met with utter failure.  There are no exceptions in the whole of the Old Testament to this simple fact.  What's more, they never, as a whole, learned the lesson.  Perhaps more amazingly, neither do we. Where is our faith?  Where is our common sense, even?  If we can call upon the creator of the universe and judge of the world for aid, why on earth do we try to do things on our own?  Why rely on our own fragile and finite selves when we can rely on God Most High?

So here we are, in 2012.  As we think back upon all God has brought us through, look ahead at all He can still do.  Remember that He wants to bless us, to change us, to redeem us, to refine us.  Let us make the decision that this will be the year; that starting today, we will heed the promise of Jesus and accept the year of the Lord's favor.  Jesus has proclaimed it, so let it come, let it be as he has promised.  Let this be the year that you open your heart, your mind, your soul, your life to God, to be changed forever.