Tue, 22 May 2012 06:13:30 -0800WeeblySun, 13 May 2012 17:05:46 -0800http://www.unitylutheranchicago.org/1/post/2012/05/may-13-2012-spirit-interruptus-easter-6b.html“While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.”  And just like that, the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry!  It was a kind of, spirit interruptus, if you will.  Until that weekend, Peter and Cornelius thought everything was fine, existing and living in separate worlds, tolerating each other’s communities, but having no integration, much less, unity.  Our 1st reading from Acts is only the conclusion to a long story about the conversion of Cornelius, and some say, the conversion of Peter, as well.  But as we have seen throughout this novella, this book of The Acts of the Apostles, it’s really the Holy Spirit who directs the action of the disciples, and so many other characters. 

What strikes me about the breadth of this story is how the plot concentrates simply around the 1 on 1 conversation, which the Holy Spirit arranges between Cornelius and Peter.  The two are, step by step, little by little, brought together.  Two unlikely strangers, meeting for the purpose of furthering their faith and the work of the gospel, even though they were ethnically estranged, and have no idea what it is they will talk about or collaborate on together. 

So, there is a kind of hesitancy and nervousness about even getting together.  Cornelius is a Roman soldier, an officer and leader of 100 troops, part of the same military that helped crucify Jesus, and who represents the occupation and bondage of the Jews, and the followers of Jesus – not unlike the U.S. military who occupy Afghanistan today.  But Cornelius was also a believer, who practiced his faith in sympathy with Judaism, with regular prayers and generous offerings.  He is close to the realm of God. 

Peter is also a leader, of course, of this fledgling Jesus movement called, “the Way.”  He is evolving as a leader, much like President Obama on marriage equality, both of whom finally had no other choice but to do the right thing.  Peter’s own opinions were led by the Spirit, and she shaped and transformed Peter, until it became clear there was only one faithful choice to make, include the Gentiles. 

Peter’s conversion is the proto-typical story of every believer.  His conversion is not just one moment in time, but always evolving.  Was it when he walked on water with Jesus?  When he confessed Jesus was the true Messiah?  When he jumped off the boat after that miracle catch of fish to swim ashore and meet the resurrected Jesus for a fish fry and then receive the three-fold commission from Jesus to feed his sheep?  Was it in this story, of meeting up for a 1 on 1 with Cornelius, and having the Holy Spirit fall on him and everyone present, opening their eyes to a Roman soldier’s baptism, the first Gentile convert?  With the Spirit, it seems, conversion, whether Peter’s, or our own, is an ongoing enterprise, a thing of beauty in progress, a never ending work of art, which God is creating. 

Which is not to say it’s always smooth or without controversy.  When Peter arrives at Cornelius’ goyim, unclean household, the first words out of his mouth are, you know I’m not supposed to be here, so if you don’t mind, can we just get to the “why did you send for me,” part?  ‘I’m not sure,’ Cornelius says, why don’t you sing me a few bars!  To which Peter winds up into one of his wonderful speeches about Jesus fulfilling the scriptures, and offering life and salvation.  But in the middle, as he’s waxing eloquent, the Spirit interrupted! …which is where our reading in Acts begins today: “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.” 

At our special Council and Vision Steering Team meeting this week, I had a similar experience!  The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry!  You see, as I waxed eloquent about the vision, and possibilities Unity has, in developing a Mission Plan, and for applying for a synod mission grant, which is the impetus for calling John to Unity as a part time Assistant Pastor – and believe me, I did wax eloquent – “the HS *interrupted* [and] fell upon all who heard the word!”  Not my words, so much as God’s word that reached through and touched our hearts!  And our vision for mission began to grow wings and take flight!  Enough talking about what we should be doing, it’s time to actually do it!  Why don’t we enlist the talents and passions each of us has for outreach.  Why are we holding them back? 

As Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing [Cornelius, and his household] who have [clearly] received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”  In our meeting, we discovered that there are talents people are already willing to offer here at Unity, but which have not be authorized or put into action.  And though unintentional, it’s the same really, isn’t it, as having blocked or told them their gifts are not welcome.  Enough!  The Spirit has fallen on us!  How can we withhold the water for baptizing each others gifts, and for empowering and enlivening one another in mission? 

So, when the Spirit interrupts, a movement can be ignited into action, and dare not wait for a formal process or council to discuss it to death.  I believe the Spirit is alive and well and blowing through us, the church.  And our mission plan is to identify the power of the Spirit, directing our vision and core values.  Our mission plan is, not to get in the way of the Spirit, so that each of us will be set free, to “put our faith into action courageously!”  In our 1 on 1 conversations with one another, and with neighborhood leaders and groups, we can learn to be on the look-out for the Spirit, realizing how they are simply occasions to build a relationship with others we don’t yet know, even with strangers, like Cornelius and Peter were.  We may not even know why God is calling us to meet them, we may only have a hunch, maybe a silly dream in the middle of the night, or during prayers.  Our mission plan is to stopping babbling, and get out of the way of the Spirit’s power – to recognize the faith, and God’s Spirit of life, in our neighbor right in front of us, and to empower them to offer their gift and let them do the same with us. 

Ironically, as Acts was being composed, the church was already in the process of quenching the Spirit, codifying doctrines and boxing her up in worldly hierarchies of exclusion.  The Spirit works well for movements, but fares poorly in institutions, which has been the Churches struggle ever since. 


Which is why we return often to our core value of “the Gospel of Jesus.”  Jesus, as you know, didn’t say a whole lot about the Holy Spirit.  But the Spirit was vital, in his mission, descending on him at his baptism “like a dove.”  Luke adds that he was “filled with the power of the Spirit” when he returned to Galilee, to begin his public ministry, and read from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor” (Lk 4:14-18).  Jesus didn’t talk much about the Spirit – the Spirit, lived in and through him, and guided him in all things.


And so, the Gospels and Book of Acts are not just a story, some classic to take off and return to the shelf, at our convenience.  Remember when the disciples had locked themselves in the upper room for fear of the authorities after the resurrection, and Jesus comes and interrupts them, and “he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’?” (John 20:22).  

And soon after, Peter was out in the streets inviting others to meet the Spirit too!  Peter wouldn’t let anyone or anything prevent him from growing and transforming the church, by the guidance of the Spirit.  And so Acts is just the beginning of the story.  Now the Spirit lives in us, the church, too.  

The nature of the Spirit, is to interrupt, to enliven and send us out.  Let us welcome her, in all her beauty and creativity.  Let the mission begin!  

]]>Sun, 06 May 2012 12:53:49 -0800http://www.unitylutheranchicago.org/1/post/2012/05/may-6-2012-everything-is-connected-how-acts-826-40-john-151-8easter-5b.html“Everything is connected to everything else in the universe.”  This has become a popular idea of late, and finds expression in novels and movies, creating beauty and entertainment for us, but mostly reassuring us that we remain the center of our own universes.  So what does the 5th Sunday of Easter, have to say about our connectedness?  “How” and by “who” are we connected? 

In the independent film, “Jeff Who Lives at Home,” a comedy/slash/drama, the anti-hero, Jeff believes, pure of heart, in ‘the interconnectedness of everything.’  But it seems like a bad joke when we discover he’s 30, still living in his mother’s basement, and, has no job, save the little errands she concocts for him each day.  His older brother is supposedly the successful one, a paint salesman, but is obsessed with making the world spin around his own selfish needs – and ends up blowing up his marriage.  So it turns out that Jeff, though a dreamer, really is the most focused and single-minded, and works the hardest at fulfilling his call in God’s world.  Okay, it’s a crazy vision – that he’s connected to someone named Kevin, who he’s never met, has no clue how to get in touch with him, or what he’s supposed to do if he does!  And so, there are some hilarious comic dead-ends along the way, but in the end he is vindicated when he rescues a drowning man, who just happens to be named, Kevin.  In the final scene, Jeff is back in his basement apartment, but now we see him in a new light, the one who really is connected up to everything, because he did not give up on his calling.  Success is measured not by material wealth or status, but by his connectedness to God’s purpose.  

In Acts, the story of the Ethiopian eunuch gives us some clues too.   This court treasurer to the queen of Ethiopia, is a powerful player, and who, in his spare time, is determined to fulfill a spiritual journey.  In the empire, most eunuchs become slaves, but some, like our protagonist, find favor in high places.  Their reliability as keepers of the king’s harem, for example, was noted in the book of Sirach. (Sirach 30:20)  But this Ethiopian eunuch has risen higher yet, and is incredibly well connected politically, and well-off financially.  Yet for all his clout, he cannot buy his way into Israel’s monotheistic religion, his deepest desire.  He is a faithful follower and “god-fearer”, who came all the way to Jerusalem just to worship at the Temple.  But his sexual identity cuts him off from full inclusion.  Still, he refuses to let that deter him from practicing his faith.  His love of God is palpable, reading from the prophet Isaiah, as he travels back home to Africa, somewhere on the Nile south of Egypt, to the edge, and margins, of the known world.  The Ethiopian Treasurer knows he is connected to everything, and everything is connected to him.  Instead of being cut off from the God who made all things, he’s determined to find his place in the creation, working harder than all the rest – well, except perhaps, the Holy Spirit! 

It’s the Spirit, who directs the connection of everything to everything else, in this story, and she calls on the disciple Philip to be the human connection, the vehicle and hired actor, by which the eunuch comes to be grafted on to the tree of life, though any disciple probably could have been chosen.  Philip works, because, he has just been in Samaria, bringing those disconnected and outcast Jewish cousins in the hill country into the fold.  Just as Jesus had reached out to the Samaritans, calling them examples of neighborliness in the parable of the Good Samaritan, instead of cutting them off for their intermarriage during the Exile years, now the Church reaches out across ancient walls of division and re-connects the Samaritans to the Spirit-led movement in Jesus’ name.  So, Philip works too, for this god-fearer, from the ends of the earth! 

“Get up [Philip],” the Spirit calls, “and go… down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”  When he finds the Ethiopian’s chariot, “the Spirit said to Philip, ‘go over and join it.’  So Philip runs up along-side, the Spirit huffing and puffing, agitating and inspiring, him! – and, taking an active role for the first time, he calls out, ‘do you understand what you are reading, [sir]?”  ‘Who can make this stuff out,’ says the Ethiopian, ‘unless you have a guide?  “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,” and “in his humiliation justice was denied him,” I don’t even know if it’s about Isaiah or maybe somebody completely different!’ 

So Philip, interpreted to the Ethiopian, how Jesus, like the innocent “suffering servant” in Isaiah, came to re-connect us, if you will, through forgiveness, and overcoming barriers of division, in the cross and resurrection.  Excited, the Ethiopian Treasurer asks to be baptized.  And when they came “up out of the water,” it says, the Ethiopian “went on his way rejoicing,” and Philip was transported by the ‘Spirit of the Lord, “snatched away” it says, to a city some 20 miles north.  Have you ever felt like God is putting you in a certain situation you didn’t plan being in – but were able to help connect up someone in need?  ‘Everything is connected to everything else in the universe.’  But we would say, human relationships are connected by the Spirit, for holy purposes, that we may be vehicles to help break down barriers that cut us off from one another through forgiveness – through us, who “burn with justice, peace, and love.” 

Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches,” we’re connected, connected to everything.  In this way, Jesus formed a new social group, the church, making new connections between families, religion, education and the economy.  And so the early church in Acts lived out this initiative that Jesus started, overcoming the family and clan barriers of hierarchy and patronage.  When Jesus’ family came calling for him, Jesus said, who are my brothers and my sisters?  And pointing to those gathered around him, he said, here are my brothers and sisters and mother, the faithful – engaged in the journey. 

The Ethiopian eunuch, of course, could not have a ‘family’ of his own, but was cut off from that life.  But in baptism, he was grafted on to the vine of faith, one branch among so many other believer-branches who, abiding in Jesus the true vine, bear much fruit, and who each have, in their own way, life from its source, from the Tree of Life.  In one strand of church history tradition from the 4th C, Eusebius says that the Ethiopian eunuch returned home, and was the founder of the Ethiopian Christian Church there.  How are we connected?  How can we be the healthy and abundant branches of the vine who in turn bear good fruit.  How is the Spirit calling us and connecting us up?  Who is our root? 

The church today has also changed in some ways from the early church in Acts.  The idea of plentiful fertile fields just lying in wait for us to spread the seeds of the gospel there, is pretty much long gone.  We still need to continue sharing our faith with our family and friends and neighbors.  But the mission fields, especially here in our neighborhood, are those who feel like they already know the vine, Jesus, and are not just waiting for us to arrive and enlighten them.  They understand the metaphor of the vine, and how we are ‘interconnected with everything.’  And so our calling in the world, is to partner with our neighbors, for the life of God’s world that we live in and share together.  We are called with a single-minded devotion to connect up with those we live with, whoever they are, beyond the walls of our self-righteousness and any barriers we have put up in our minds.  Instead of a church demanding allegiance because we have all the answers, we must be the church in the world, be the vehicles of connectedness where there is division, running up along-side the chariots along the way, to make common cause, which strengthens and enlivens the whole community.  We are called to be connecters, and to be bridge builders.  The way of the church – which is the people – is to be a Eucharist without walls, to be partners for the good of God’s world, by the work of the Spirit.

The gospel cannot be walled in by wealth, or ethnicity, or race, or gender, or sexual orientation.  Today we celebrate the faith of the Ethiopian eunuch, and the work of the Holy Spirit to make us the church.  The barriers that once cut us off from one another are overcome in the resurrection life of Jesus, the vine, that connects us up with everything in God’s universe.  

]]>Mon, 30 Apr 2012 06:17:03 -0800http://www.unitylutheranchicago.org/1/post/2012/04/april-29-2012-healing-words-deeds-easter-4b.html Why, are the disciples in trouble?  Because they’re backing up their promises with actions!  The disciples were jailed overnight, after they were teaching in the Temple about the “rejected cornerstone,” Jesus.  And standing right next to them, in the beautiful portico of Solomon, on the southern side of the Temple, had been the man who was paralyzed from birth, who had never stood up straight before!  It was hard to say which was more offensive to the Temple leaders, the healed man, or Peter’s speech about a supposed Messiah, crucified, and raised from the dead.  But the leaders were afraid to punish Peter & John, because they were so popular with the people for the act of healing they had done, and their public word, pointing to Jesus. 

Yesterday, at the MCS Stewardship Conference, we heard a funny story about what happens when you don’t keep word and deed together.  As the story goes, it was back in Reformation times when a group of princes were getting baptized in a German church, a baptism by immersion.  And each of them as they were dunked under, held one arm up above water.  Everyone thought that was a little strange at the time, but it wasn’t until later that they discovered their intentions.  The princes had been thinking ahead to when they would be called into battle, and that that was the arm they would have to use to wield their swords.  ‘This is our un-baptized arm,’ they said.  ‘It’s okay!’  Sort of like crossing your fingers with your hand behind your back, I guess!  Obviously, we can’t separate out our baptized life, in this way.  The words and promises of baptism go together, and apply to what we do in our whole lives, all the time. 

At their trial, the two disciples are given a chance to set the record straight, by which the leaders of Jerusalem expect they will renounce Jesus.  But something had happened to them since the crucifixion and resurrection.  As they reflected on it together in the upper room, they had been changed.  Jesus had even told them that they wouldn’t have to worry what they would say when they were arrested and brought before rulers, for the Spirit would give them the words they needed.  And now Peter, when asked “by what power or name he was doing this” preaching and healing, takes a deep breath, and it says, he was “filled with the Holy Spirit.”  Only then did he launched into his, Jesus is the cornerstone speech.    

The anachronistic irony of course is that, the Temple where Peter is speaking from in this story, has long since been destroyed, and both Jewish-Christian followers, and the Jewish leaders, have been dispersed for some 40 or 50 years by the time the book of Acts is written.  Acts is written to a new community some distance away from Jerusalem.  Both, Jewish-Christian, and Jewish believers, are frantically trying to figure out how to put their lives back together without a Temple, without the ark of the covenant safely tucked away at the center of the Temple, in the Holy of Holy’s. 

Jews and Christians came up with slightly different answers to this question after 70 AD, and not just out of thin air!  But for the Jews, by going back to the tradition of the Ark of the Covenant being mobile, when it led the people on their 40 year journey of faith, in the wilderness.  Now, after a similar crisis, the Jews became a faith of the book, the Torah, worshiping in synagogues, on their new journey, everywhere, throughout the world. 

And the Christians remembered how Jesus called the Temple his father’s house, and that, when he was asked for a sign of his authority Jesus said, tear down this temple and in three days I will raise it up.  No one had understood this cryptic saying before his death.  But one of the “aha” moments the disciples had afterwards in the upper room, was that Jesus had been talking about his resurrection.  Jesus, the stone that was rejected by some, was for them, the cornerstone of a new and mobile temple.  Jesus had backed up his words with one very large deed, in being raised!  Jesus is our ark of the covenant, our light and salvation, our breath of life, going before us, like a Good Shepherd, to lead the way, 24/7, by night and by day. 

I have been challenging the Church Council, and all of us this year, to be on the look-out for where God is calling Unity to go, in these days.  Perhaps a special ministry, or a defining identity that centers and energizes us?  If you asked anyone in Edgewater about Unity Lutheran Church, what would they say about us?  Are we backing up our core values and vision, with an active mission?  Who are we?  What are we becoming? 

One little example: I heard this story this week about a mobile food project and restaurant on wheels, Enemy Kitchen, the brainchild of Chicago-based artist, Michael Rakowitz.  On his food truck flies an Iraqi flag and he serves Iraqi food.  The chef’s are Iraqi too, Jawher Shaer and his two sons, who own and run Milo’s Pita Place, a nice little restaurant in Rogers Park.  The four servers on the truck, on the other hand, are all U.S. veterans of the Iraq war.  And so, through this Enemy Kitchen project, Rakowitz has been using Iraqi food and culture to break down cultural barriers for several years already.  One of the veterans, Aaron Hughes, has added his own twist to the project.  Hughes served at Guantanamo Bay, where he said he learned not to trust the prisoners, part of military training, of course, even though it has long since been proved that the vast majority of prisoners there had nothing to do with Al Qaida, and many were swept up as innocent businessmen themselves.  Hughes remembers how he was offered tea daily by some of those prisoners, but he always refused.  So now he’s on the Enemy Kitchen food truck, and instead of the usual street art that aims to shock, his “Tea” performance is pure hospitality.  ‘Each evening at sunset he’ll unfurl an Iraqi prayer rug, fire up a hot plate and begin the time-consuming double-boiler method of traditional Iraqi tea service. When he’s done, he’ll hand passersby cardamom-scented black tea in Styrofoam cups that he adorns with arabesque flowers.’ (Time Out Chicago)  At Guantanamo, you see, the prisoners are allowed to keep only one possession in their cells, a Styrofoam cup for tea, which each prisoner decorates by hand, usually with flowers. 

This ministry of Enemy Truck, and act of societal healing, is a “good deed” that begs for a word of conversation – on our part – which was exactly the aim of creator Rakowitz. 

Together, through our words and deeds, and in the name of “the one who laid down his life in order to take it up again,” healing can happen – in our neighborhood, in our world.  Each week, we are energized at this table when we receive the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ, and remember the powerful words and deeds of Jesus.  And so, let us take a deep breath, and let the Holy Spirit fill us.  Jesus promises to give us the words, if we live the deeds we’re being called to.  Where is God calling you?  Where is God calling Unity?  Go, let us be healers, as Christ has healed us – loving our neighbors, and even our enemies – and the words we should say, will be given to us. 

]]>Sun, 22 Apr 2012 12:42:56 -0800http://www.unitylutheranchicago.org/1/post/2012/04/april-22-2012-author-of-lifes-earth-day-script.html Our Eucharistic Prayer over the bread and wine concludes in this resounding crescendo: “With your holy ones of all times and places, with the earth and all its creatures, with sun and moon and stars, we praise you, O God, blessed and holy trinity, now and forever.  Amen, amen, amen.”  I like to think Earth Day has nothing on the church.  That at the heart of the churches tradition, is care for the creation.  That at our best, we understand that the human race, along with, all creatures, even sun, moon and stars, thank and praise, the “Author of Life,” as Peter calls Jesus, in our worship, and our work, in the world. 

The communion liturgy, remembers the creating, redeeming, and life sustaining work of God, in the world.  Specifically, we remember Jesus’ body and blood, given and shed for us in the bread and wine – and that it was during the Passover meal, with the sacrifice of an innocent lamb, and the deliverance and gift of freedom given, that Jesus also liberates us – and in the remembrance and presence of the gift, we eat and drink the meal of blessing, so that, we are freed from our bondage to sin and death, and saved and made alive, in Christ.  And that it is not only us, singing God’s praise, but all creatures, and all creation, “with sun and moon and stars,” as Psalm 148 declares, sing too!  It’s a song that reflects our high calling to care for God’s creation!  Can we do this?  Be this? 

Earth Day began with idealistic dreams on April 22, 1970, under the initiative of Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson.  Hoping to give legislative birth to Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” the Environmental Protection Agency came into being, and soon after, the passage of the Clean Air and Water Acts, that some say have saved hundreds of 1,000’s of lives, and, at the time, gave the 99%, protection, if not voice, in its caring for creation. 

Originally, the passage of that legislation was a bipartisan effort, under a Republican President.  Opposition, however, has only increased over time and coalesced into a movement whose success is bank-rolled by an emergent oligarchy – a caring for the 1%, more than creation, kind of movement.  And so Earth Day will be another stand off resulting in no action – at least for climate change.  Protests will run into the buzz saw of well organized climate deniers, who have bought and paid for, our elected leaders.  There is an Earth Day celebration going on the National Mall in Washington DC as we speak, famous bands entertain, and speakers enlighten.  And the Earth Day website urges us to join the “campaign for communities,” offering hundreds of suggestions for connecting up with people and resources to make a difference in your community.  But who will speak for the earth as a whole, as our mother, who alone, silently, continues to pay the price for our sins of excess, as carbon emissions, among many other pollutants, continue to climb beyond safe limits?  The Opposition is kicking her butt, if you’ll pardon my French, and winning! 

Peter and John were familiar with the Opposition, and suffered for it – willingly suffered for it, if you take the book of Acts at face value.  Joyfully, almost!  Going to prison for it, but making friends and continuing to spread the good news, under guard!  Before being arrested, however, they intended to come to a prayer breakfast, if you will, at the temple.  Having recently baptized 2,000 new members, and agreeing to share “all things in common,” they “sell all their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need,” but they never make it to their prayer meeting.  On the way, they run into a man on the street, paralyzed from the waist down.   

Every day someone helped carry the man to the street corner near the temple so he could put out his hat to beg for some change, to eat.  Unfortunately, Peter and John don’t have any cash on them.  They gave it all away - donated everything to share with their church community!  But, they do stop and, do what they can.  Peter and John say to him, “look at us,” as they “stare” at him intently.  And looking up, he expected the usual handout.  But Peter said to him, “I don’t have a nickel to my name, but what I do have, I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk!”   And taking him by the hand he helped him up, and his feet and ankles were made firm at the same time.  And “he jumped to his feet,” it says, “and began to walk, and went with Peter and John into the temple where he was “dancing and praising God.” [The Message trans.]  Others recognized him as the one they had passed outside everyday, and they were “astonished and amazed.”  “And the man threw his arms around Peter and John,” it says, “ecstatic.” 

When the leaders of the temple began to grumble and complain because the crowds were getting the impression that Peter and John had special powers, Peter begins his now second speech, in Acts.  “Why do you wonder at this… as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?”  Don’t look to us, look to the power of Jesus, the servant of humanity, and the "Author of life.”  He did this. 

And this healing, was what got them thrown into prison!  Bad men!  Healing someone!  Bringing to life that which was dead!  And making a useful citizen out a man paralyzed from birth!  But, that is how Opposition works.  March for peace, and you get thrown in jail.  Bring light to the darkness of our society, and you become a target.  Opposition to the realm, and Spirit of God, is strong, and ever alert, to intimidate, shame and disappear!

But Peter and John were undeterred, and didn’t falter in prison – think Nelson Mandela, in our times.  The light of Christ, and the gift of life in the resurrection, had enlivened them.  Peter and John, who before the resurrection, couldn’t give speeches if their lives depended on it, now become a font of good news.  Peter, the one who curtly denied Jesus three times, and John, the one who wanted special privileges from Jesus when he came into his kingdom, now speak with the same power as their servant-teacher, had.  Though uneducated, they speak passionately from the heart.  They laugh in the face of the Opposition, being alive in Christ, beyond fear! 

As gospel-story, we see in the raising of the paralyzed man, how Peter and John see through what holds him down, and into his need to be re-created, not just given a hand out.  In standing up to the opposition, they reject the way of privilege and self-preservation.  The Author of life, writes us, more than a book, giving us the gift of life itself.  We see in Jesus’ death and resurrection the way of life beyond death, not just heaven, but the understanding of a servant-vocation, and the freedom to live authentically, which we might call, the way of no fear – or faith.  In Jesus, the Author of life, there is no death.  Which is opposite of, the way of the Opposition, who desperately seek to hang on to their life, and so, sadly loose it. 

Easter teaches us that “death has lost its sting.”  In Christ, we banquet with the crucified, living one, singing with the saints, who are alive to us now, and with all the creatures, with sun and moon and stars.  In this song, earth day can begin.  Creation, put in it’s rightful order, is no longer our servant, but we serve it, and its Creator.  For death no longer has dominion over us!    

]]>Tue, 17 Apr 2012 07:26:11 -0800http://www.unitylutheranchicago.org/1/post/2012/04/april-15-2012-peace-be-with-you.html“Thomas, who was called the Twin, one of the twelve,” is an iconic figure.  His questioning-unbelief, or doubting, is legend, even beyond Christianity.  What remains a mystery, is, we don’t know who Thomas’ twin was?  Nothing in scripture reveals it to us.  Though, the creative conjecture today is that, we all know who Thomas’ twin is… we see him or her every morning, when we look in the mirror!  

Thomas, it seems, isn’t one to just skip over the fact that the risen Jesus has died!  Was buried even!  Thomas isn’t jumping from Good Friday to Easter joy, without some proof, some connective evidence, to link death and resurrection. 

We all have, or will, experience the death of a loved one.  And though painful to our core, it can become, fruitful and life changing – but one dare not jump over the pain and loss, just because we are so well schooled in the resurrection.  The dialog between Thomas and Jesus is instructive.  “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”  Earlier, Jesus taught his disciples with a very earthy metaphor: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain.  But if it dies it bears much fruit.” 

Grief is a tricky thing!  I will never forget the unfortunate faux pas of our bishop in the NGLS when we lived in the UP.  At the wake for Kim’s mom, Tedi, Bishop Tom was nice enough to drive out of his way to pay his respects.  But his theology of glory was not what Kim needed.  And unfortunately for him, she would not let his office, or even death itself, hold her back from speaking the truth.  And so when he led off with, ‘isn’t it great that we can hang onto the promise of the resurrection at times like these,’ he probably, after 15 years, should have known her better.  Kim, with eloquence and unswerving focus, would let him know that that’s not what she needed, now.  Now, as they stood side by side in front of her mother’s still, and casket-entombed body, Kim was clear that she needed to grieve and remember how Jesus had also died and was buried, and that he continued to carry the marks of the crucifixion in his hands and side, with him, forever.  She needed the bishop to remember that we are all ‘dust and to dust we shall return’ – that the pain of loss is real.  And the peace that Christ comes to bring us, is accompanied by those scabbed over hands that know the depth of our lives, and all our woundedness. 

When our grief is deep, we need peace.  Jesus, in his newly resurrected body, appears to the disciples, bringing them shalom.  “Peace be with you,” he says.  Jesus, understanding the disciples entombed fear, holed up in their hiding place, knew enough to connect the dots between his surprising appearance to them behind locked doors, and so immediately offers to show them his wounds from the crucifixion.  And only then, paradoxically, do they rejoice!  Oh, here is our Lord!  Yes, what a relief to see his scars! 

Not much makes sense in times of grieving.  Nothing except perhaps, facing up to the pain, and loss, and realizing you can’t make it go away, even if you try.  You can only go through the experience, one foot in front of the other.  Loss and grief feel like being buried in the ground, and so we can only cling to the hope of Jesus’ promise, lean on friends who water and tend to us, knowing that seeds must first die, before they spring forth and bear much fruit. 

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain,” said Jesus.  “But if it dies it bear much fruit.” 

Thomas portrays the paradox of faith to us – Thomas our twin.  We don’t demean his doubt, but we acknowledge his human struggle to come to terms with the new reality of the crucified one now resurrected – for we too are somewhere on the boundary of unbelief and becoming a believer. 

And, the disciples will come around after they take time to face up to their pain and loss.  In our Acts reading we find them a-ways on down the road, when they have already been transformed by this new life, gifted them by the glory of cross and resurrection.  They have been united as fledgling-church now, by faith and trust, and this motivates them to restructure how they live together.  In a word, they share.  “They share all things in common.”  Those who are more well-to-do “sell their property, lay it at the apostles’ feet, who distribute it to each as any had need.” 

No one knows how long this may have worked, or to what degree it was followed.  But Luke, the author of Acts, makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is directing them to form their community around this sharing principle.  Today, politicians claiming to be the spokes-people for the bible, run this very principle down as godless, and insist out of thin air, that God wants us to have the unbridled freedom to be successful on our own, individually.  Despite Acts Ch 4, and also Ch 2, and throughout the gospels, sharing for them, is some kind of class warfare.  Those who are left behind, or left out of their circle of privilege, deserve it, it seems. 

But what actually happened to the apostles, is that they faced up to their grief, and they remembered the mark of the nails their risen Lord had showed them.  And in this way they came to know that the peace Jesus kept offering over and over to them, was not just a peaceful tranquility to cultivate in their private lives for their own personal betterment.  But it was also a peace that was to be shared, and de-clared, to the whole world. 

The risen Christ shows his wounds to us, because they are the root of God’s gift of forgiveness.  Even in the face of death and painful brokenness, whether done to us voluntarily or involuntarily, we now see in Jesus, the one who is our innocent victim, the crucified Lord who comes back, not for revenge, but to gather his scattered flock – to forgive, that we too may forgive others.  In the gift of peace, and the breath of the Holy Spirit from Jesus who has conquered death, we are offered a new way to relate with the world, and to all our sisters and brothers.  We are given a grace sufficient to the unity of “heart and soul,” as Acts says.  Inner peace begins to give way, to giving peace away – for others!  As Martin Luther King liked to say, “justice denied anywhere, diminishes justice everywhere.”  Such is Christ’s gift of peace, for all. 

I am not advocating that you sell all your possessions and deposit them in our Unity coffers – that would be foolish of me!  But I am saying, that when Jesus tells Thomas, “Do not become unbelieving, but believing,” he’s inviting us, the twins of Thomas, into the new life of the resurrection, a life of peace with justice, that does not retaliate, but learns the way of forgiveness and the way of the common good for society.  In a word, sharing.  When we do the grief work of facing up to the pain and loss we find all around us, it’s hard to ignore – sharing is not class warfare, but it’s the gift of life, the breathe and Spirit of Jesus, in our world.  

]]>Mon, 09 Apr 2012 07:59:48 -0800http://www.unitylutheranchicago.org/1/post/2012/04/april-8-2012-surprising-good-bye-the-resurrection-of-our-lordeaster-1.htmlP: Alleluia, Christ is risen!  C: Christ is risen indeed, alleluia! 

On this Easter morn, as darkness and grief turn to light and joy, the “good news” of Mark’s gospel is, Jesus is not here!  None of the women, or men disciples, even get to see him.  No one celebrates.  And the women who encounter the handsome young angel and hear that Jesus is raised, run away in fear, saying nothing to anyone!  Happy Easter!  Sometimes a little distance – say 2,000 years – is a good thing! 

Ann Tyler, one of my favorite authors, just came out with a new book called, “The Beginner’s Good-Bye.”  The protagonist, who becomes a widower at age 35, says this in the book’s opening line, “The strangest thing about my wife’s return from the dead was how other people reacted.”  No, the novel is not about the supernatural!  If you know Ann Tyler, you know that wouldn’t be her thing.  Her novels live in a world of the ordinary.  She celebrates amateurs and novices, not experts.  She’s sometimes called, the patron saint of misfits, always introducing characters that are either, awkward or shy, eccentric or mismatched.  And the lesson of The Beginner’s Good-Bye, according to one reviewer, is that the widower learns how to say farewell, not just to his wife, but to the person he was when he was married to her – in a surprising transformation. 

The beloved, eccentric and mismatched disciples, including many women who follow Jesus from Galilee, were shocked by the empty tomb on Easter morn.  And, seized by chaos, they have no idea that they will learn how to say farewell, not only to Jesus, but also to the people they were, before they came to know their Lord in the flesh. 

The Gospel of Mark’s ending is somewhat of a downer, by our contemporary standards.  But that’s alright, because we can fill-in the joy that we need.  Belly’s full from Easter Breakfast, “roast-something” in the oven for when we get home, the feast is here, the Lord is risen!  No one will roll the stone back and entomb our joy!  And here in this place we celebrate that.  We are renewed and reformed into God’s people at the font, and we feast at the Lord’s table, simple fare by comparison, this bread and wine, yet extravagant too, knowing it is the gift of Jesus’ body and blood for us, and in consuming it, Jesus turns into energy for us, coursing through our blood stream, making us one with our brother and our savior. 

So, is there any way to make sense of Mark’s surprising and fear filled ending, all these crazy centuries later?  How do we dust off the ancient pages of scripture and square it with our reality?  Certainly not by bopping each other over the head with the literal words of the “good book”, whether in English or Greek, Swedish or Swahili!  But only in desiring and devouring the meaning of the words, the proclamation of the good news for our time, so that they may live in us, a pumping life-blood message which takes flesh in its real-time witnesses, you and I, then it can be resurrected once again, and becomes a story that changes the world! 

This book of Mark confounded many a reader, from early on.  So much so, that the copyists and keepers of the written manuscripts, began to add on more palatable endings of their own.  Not surprisingly – because they didn’t understand the joy already embedded in it – they wrote happier, more traditional endings, mostly copying Matthew and Luke.  And this time, made sure Jesus appeared to the disciples, and then ascended.  Your bible at home probably has these alternate endings in them, without any note of explanation. 

But the original ending is just how I told it to you today.  That after the women hear the announcement, Jesus has been raised, and is going ahead of you to Galilee, …just as he told you, they went out and fled in fear and amazement, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. 

If that doesn’t affect you in some way, confound you, give you pause about the faith and religion you have been baptized into, the realm and kingdom of God that you represent every time you walk out into the world, then, we have a problem, Houston!  Mark wants us to feel that something is not quite right!  That the women say nothing to anyone should worry us.  How will the message get through?  There’s no business or government agency, no army or non-profit that will exist for very long if the vital messages of the organization aren’t communicated well! 

Mark’s ending is not a story to be put on the shelf and forget, but it affects us, changes and turns us, and calls us to react.  Mark’s ending challenges us, to be the ones to go and tell someone.  “Go spread the news,” our Hymn of the Day urges, “he’s not in the grave. He has arisen this world to save.” 

And so the ending, creates the possibility for a new beginning.  In fact, it’s the only way out of the tomb!  Jesus has been pointing to it in this story all along, but standing in the shoes of the disciples, we seem to have ignored it, just as they disbelieved it!  Jesus told them plainly, he must suffer and die, and on the third day be raised.  Jesus told them he would go ahead of them, back to Galilee, where they would find him again.  Mark’s ending is not a failure, or somehow, badly written.  Mark’s ending is a challenge to be inspired, eternally pointing us back to the beginning to re-read the story for all the parts we first missed.  What is the good news, again?  Who is this Jesus, Son of God?  The ending is a new beginning, just as our lives, baptized in Christ, are remade and redeemed by this transformative cross of daily forgiveness and renewal, our public coming out, because every part of us has been reconstituted and raised up. 

And so we might call this story, The Beginner’s Good-Bye.  We say farewell, not only to Jesus at the empty tomb, but we say good-bye to who we have been before – before we knew the crucified one, now raised.  We let go of selfish, short-sighted desires, so that we may truly desire what brings joy in our world, the light and life of Christ.  We let go of fear, addictions, and hatred, and find self-respect, forgiveness and growth in faith.  We find that we are a new self, alive, because “He is risen.”  We find in our neighborhoods new possibilities for life, because “he has gone before us,” to occupy the places we live in.  The real ending of Mark is grounded in the real-ity of our own human fears – while pointing to the way where true joy is found, in the new life of the risen Christ.     

]]>Sat, 07 Apr 2012 05:22:51 -0800http://www.unitylutheranchicago.org/1/post/2012/04/april-6-2012-from-death-to-life-good-friday.html We gather around the cross tonight,  symbol of life overcoming death, and remember and give thanks for its power to unite us.  The cross, in its multi-layered diversity of meaning, for me, and you, and for all, is the most universal of Christian symbols.  To adore it, is to enter deeply into its meaning for our own lives.  And in this most stark, and empty, and forsaken of nights, we find buried in the root and stump of this tree, life everlasting, a gift of God to the world. 

But looking on the cross can also recall nightmares of the violence, first of all to Jesus its innocent victim, but also the visions of the violence we have encountered in our lives, and throughout history.  These echo’s of hurt, anger, misappropriated power, war, and countless spin offs of violence passed on down through believers and non-believers alike, sober us in the shadow of Jesus’ cross.  For God has made Jesus’ cross a living, breathing word, not a moment locked in time, but a liberating word addressed to this violence, and especially sacred violence, the kind of violence we declare good and so sanction, on our behalf, but which is revealed by the cross itself as unacceptable, not of Jesus, and the life-giving power of the trinity. 

So, what catches my ear in the passion of John reading this year, is the comment by the gospel writer, just as Jesus is brought to be tried before the Sanhedrin.  In a little aside we almost miss, it says, “Caiaphas, the high priest that year… was the one who had advised the Jews that it was better to have one person die for the people, than to have the whole nation destroyed.  He prophesied that Jesus was about to die … not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God.  So from that day on they planned to put him to death.”  (John 18.14 & 11.50f.)

A perfect example of sacred violence, by the way.  One person, a scapegoat - in this case, Jesus - is to be offered up to keep the peace for the greater society.  And so, the high priest, Caiaphas, plots against his own kin.  Jesus' execution will passify the Roman overlords from taking action against the whole of the nation of Israel.  Never mind that Jesus is actually God’s appointed high priest for Israel, the true king, and Son of God!  By sacred violence, one carefully calculated crucifixion can unite a restless society, at least for the moment, until the next time.  

And so, the cross unveils all these multi-layered levels and drivers of violence, that live in and around us, exposing our complicity with the crowds who shouted “crucify him.”  But also revealing the seed of faith growing inside us, the deep root of God’s gift of life in a new world of forgiveness, the turning from, death to life, from sacred violence to justice and non-violence.  The cross is our best friend, and also the most revealing mirror of our hearts. 

So, you can understand how the vigil around the cross this night is not strictly speaking, attractive, and may even repel.  But such a mirror is necessary to gaze into, if we are to learn forgiveness and the way of the cross. 

For, love conquers violence, and looking up to the cross unveils the scapegoating mechanism that has perpetrated the brokenness and violence we do to one another.  In the cross, we are turned and transformed and offered “a way out of no way,” a way to the realm and kingdom of God, blooming forth with a fragrance and beauty like no other, in this, our tree of life. 

As we continue our service tonight and tomorrow in the Easter Vigil, we have prayers to offer and faith work to do.  How will we hold ourselves accountable to this remarkable power found in the cross which turns and transforms the whole world?  Let The Three Days continue, as we glory, this Good Friday, in the life-giving cross of Christ. 

]]>Fri, 06 Apr 2012 07:23:51 -0800http://www.unitylutheranchicago.org/1/post/2012/04/april-5-2012-a-gift-a-trust-for-later-in-this-washing-today-maundy-thursday.html Jesus’ death and resurrection are a gracious gift of God, beyond our ability to completely apprehend.  Yet baptized in Christ we ourselves embody this gift, living it fruitfully for others.  We cannot accomplish our own salvation; yet we are living examples of new life for the world.  These polarities, which inform our core values, we hold in tension by faith.  We believe Jesus died - to save us.  That he was lifted up - to conquer the world’s brokenness.  A contradiction?  Or a holy mystery?  As doctrine - folly to the world.  As lived out in the Body of Christ, - the spirit in all created things are enhanced for the life of the world. 

In the night in which he knew Peter would deny him three times, Jesus got down on his hands and knees in an act of loving service to wash Peter’s feet.  Perhaps here is the place to begin!  Here is the story of the Passion in miniature. 

Peter will turn away, be torn from Christ this night, instead of following.  Jesus tells him plainly ahead of time, but without rancor.  When Peter asks Jesus, “‘Lord, where are you going?’ Jesus answered, ‘Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward.’”  That is, later on, after the passion, Peter will find his voice, he will follow and become a leader of others. 

Jesus - denied and betrayed by us - must go all the way to the cross, that we will be changed, that we will be redeemed, and that we will desire to follow.  Afterward!  Jesus turns us, to desire what is life-giving, by giving his life. 

So after the meal -this last supper together- Jesus gives them a sign; a promise, a gift of hope, which they don’t quite understand or appreciate at the time, but which will sustain them, later.  This Foot Washing!  And if you think about it, who wouldn’t want to have their tired and dusty ol’ feet washed and cared for? 

In my baby book, there is a picture of me getting washed in the kitchen sink as an infant.  And each of my siblings have a similar snap shot in their book.  I’m guessing they make something out of plastic now-a-days, something safer for baby baths?  But then, it was simply sitting in the porcelain sink, with only a parents hand to cradle you.  I have no recollection of that first bath, lovingly gifted me by my mother, but whenever I look at the photo, the action is unmistakable.  Helpless, not yet fully formed, totally dependent – parents do all the giving, granting life or death each day, washing us clean and preparing the way for what is to come afterward – later, when we will understand and be able to grasp hold of the desire to be life-givers too, to wash our own children, and share the new commandment Jesus gave us, to love one another. 

Jesus, about to be betrayed, denied, and crucified, by us, loves us to the end, and gives us a simple gift, a foot washing, the gift and sign of a new day, if we but come and journey with him, all the way, through cross and resurrection.  We are Peter, promising to stand by our man, our woman, and then somehow, as things turn out differently than we’d expected, we find ourselves fleeing away, abandoning, instead of what we had desired, in all good faith. 

But love, Jesus’ love, does not desert us, but always cradles us and holds us steady.  We cannot always depend on parental love to be gracious and pure, to guide and protect us in our years of dependency and maturation.  So in Jesus, our true brother and teacher, we learn what confession and forgiveness, laying on hands and absolution, really are. 

In the foot washing we have the Gospel in miniature.  It is not a requirement, to be washed, but only a gift.  A loving gift we are now able to offer one another as a sign of the forgiveness we have in Jesus, the blessed message and meaning, of the  cross and resurrection, which saves and transforms the whole world. 

]]>Mon, 02 Apr 2012 07:17:08 -0800http://www.unitylutheranchicago.org/1/post/2012/04/april-1-2012-peace-of-mind-sunday-of-the-passionpalm-sunday.htmlI’m going to “give him a piece of my mind” when he gets here.  But first I’ll give him a big hug! 

The mother had just got off the phone with her son, in tears of relief.  The son had gone AWOL over-night, and he’d never done that before.  He was too old for a curfew now, she knew, but he was generally home before midnight, anyway.  And, if something unexpected came up, he usually called, which made it all the more worrisome this time.  Maybe he just had a new love interest, or maybe he was in trouble.  She was thinking the worst, couldn’t sleep, swinging back and forth between rage and denial!  How many of us have been there, either as a parent or a child before! 

Finally he did call in the wee hours of the morning, and she was relieved he was safe.  He had gone with a friend to help him move his stuff out of his old apartment, to his new place.  Only, the friend didn’t tell him the reason he was moving was because he was trying to get out of the gang he just got involved with.  The friend’s cousin at the apartment was also in the gang, and when he saw what was going down, he called his homie’s – you can’t just quit your gang.  And even though the friend packed in a hurry, just as they were driving away, the gang’s enforcers were coming down the block at the same time.  And spotting them, they started shooting.  The back window was hit and shattered, but otherwise the son and his friend made their get-a-way.  When they were out of the hood, he finally called his mom, who was upset about her car – but happy to hear from him, considering!  She would “give him a piece of her mind,” when he came home, but first she’d give him a big hug, because, he was alive, after all!    

Paul writes in our 2nd reading from Philippians, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…”  Paul knows, Jesus wants to give us a piece of his mind.  He has a right to be frustrated and angry with us, but what he really desires for us, is all to be one, united in him, in the mind of Christ, to turn and transform us into, a people of faith, who serve others – like Jesus, who “emptied himself,” as a “humble” servant, “becoming obedient to the point of death…”  Jesus wants to give us a piece of his mind, but first he gives us a big hug – the gift of life!

Many of you, I know, have been taking time in the Lenten Prayer Area, and trying the spiritual exercise of “Letting Go.”  This is an exercise that is not to be taken lightly.  Jesus, too, had to let go, or “humble” himself, as he went to the cross not knowing, but trusting, that his disciples would be his Body in the world, when he was gone.  Trusting that they would find and accept “the piece of mind” he was offering. 

And it’s not like Jesus was a passive push-over, in letting go.  He didn’t, close his eyes and make a wish, that God would take care of everything.  Jesus first did everything in his power, applying all his talents, engaging the world in healing, teaching, being prophetic in his preaching, and enacting his message in signs and miracles.  It was a risky venture – this trusting.  A typical example is when Peter, with great passion, confessed Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, but then took issue with Jesus, that this meant he would have to suffer and die – for that Jesus rebuked him in the strongest possible way!  The disciples kept struggling to get it.  And so, even at the Last Supper, having lovingly prepared the Passover meal, Peter and the 12 again misunderstand the Passion.  And, in the Courtyard, Peter’s third denial, just as Jesus predicted before the cock crowed twice, is heartbreaking, “I do not know this man you are talking about,” and I guess that sums it up – he doesn’t yet know Jesus as the one who, became our servant, who humbled himself, and became the Lamb of God, to forgive the sin of the whole world. 

Yet still, Jesus lets go of trying to control Peter and the 12, and stays focused on the mission God calls him to, one of faith and trust.  Was Jesus angry with the disciples?  Is Christ ever angry with us?  “Let the same mind be in [all of] you that was in Christ Jesus.”  Jesus wants to give us “a piece of his mind” – and no doubt we deserve it at times!  But instead of forcing, controlling or berating us, even as he was so treated, he gives us, the peace which passes all understanding, the gift of freedom and grace, to turn and live a new life in him, the way of trusting one another, by staying focused on our mission. 

Wherever there is lack of trust, an abuse of power, a failure to live as a servant, sin and brokenness enter in, and disrupt the life and growth in the Spirit we need for a healthy society, a healthy church, a healthy neighborhood.  Jesus had to let go, and trust – trust the 12 disciples, the many women followers from Galilee who were at the cross, and the untold others Jesus touched along the way.  Jesus gives us “a piece of his mind,” which unites us in faith, love and forgiveness, which forms us as a community of servants, the true power of God, we find hidden in the cross. 

In his passion – in his loving act of trust in God, and in us – Jesus gives us “a piece of his mind”.  And what that looks like, is the picture of a mother embracing her son, who risked his life for his friend, and, came back to tell about it.  

]]>Sun, 25 Mar 2012 16:13:08 -0800http://www.unitylutheranchicago.org/1/post/2012/03/march-25-2012-transforming-the-hoodie.htmlI planted some lettuce seeds the other day!  There is a planter out in front of the apartment building we live in, and the first year, when we saw it sitting fallow, we asked the owners permission to plant some herbs and greens, which, after they got over their shock and surprise, were okay with, and so it continues to supplement our summer salads ever since.  Yet, never before have I planted this early in the season.  May 1st, I believe, is the suggested frost free day for planting in our Zone here.  But when we had had three or four days in a row of record high temperatures, and another week of 70’s and 80’s predicted, we looked at the pack of lettuce seeds left over from last season and said, why not? 

The soil was still quite good, so I simply made a few rows with my fingers and scattered the seeds, covered them up and gave them a drink of water.  “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain,” said Jesus. “But if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  It’s that dying part that always brings a shadow of doubt to my mind, and makes me wonder, will these seeds really sprout and bear fruit?!  Not all seeds make it, if the conditions aren’t right.  But five days later, Kim announced, “the lettuce is up!”  Sure enough, the dead seeds had sprung to life, in the middle of March.  Wonders never cease! 

Jeremiah, the so-called “weeping prophet,” because of all his lenten-like themes of sin, judgment and repentance, offers up, a brazen hopefulness in a renewed future in chapter 31, that God’s chosen people will be lifted up and restored.  “The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”  And he goes on to explain, ‘why.’  That after the chosen people had broken the covenant God made with them, in the Ten Commandments, God reveals a new plan, says Jeremiah.  Because the Sinai covenant was written on stone tablets, and people learned how to blame God, or one another, for the demands that were not perceived to be of their own responsibility, now God will write the new covenant, with God’s own finger, on our hearts, within us.  There won’t be any excuse anymore!  Everyone will know God, from the least of us to the greatest.  And it will work because, in an unprecedented turning, never known before, God will “forgive” their failures of the past, “and remember their sin no more.” 

Is it even possible to forget sin?  Not to remember anymore?  Can we do that?  ‘Forgive and forget?’  Is it humanly possible, or even healthy?  

I remember visiting my grandmother when she had finally been admitted into the Nursing Home because of her Alzheimer’s.  She was stuck in a stage, of looping around, and reliving a particularly difficult moment in her life – when her husband, my grandfather, had made the impossible decision during the Depression days that they couldn’t take in a cousin in my grandmothers’ family because of the fear it would bankrupt the family.  They were already raising three small children at the time.  My grandmother wanted me to help her convince my grandfather otherwise.   

The next year when I saw her, she was in a new stage, happy and not quite sure who I was.  But when we parted she said this: Can you tell everyone, even though I can’t remember my family, I still love them.  Grandma could remember us no more, none of our hurts or sins, but her love endured and remained strong. 

Is that what God means by “I will remember their sin no more”?  It would seem God does love us that emphatically, but not because God has been stricken with Alzheimer’s!  God will declare our sin forgiven, dead and buried, like so much seed scattered in the cold dark earth, so that we may be lifted up and arise to new life, full of fruitfulness to live in Christ, in the new covenant of his body and blood. 

As we journey these 40 days to the Great Three Days of Jesus death and resurrection, God turns us, and transforms the cross from a sign of death and humiliation, a symbol of judgment for criminals, into a sign of life & liberation, a sign of the new covenant of forgiveness, written on our hearts. 

Still, how hard it is, for a parent, to forgive and forget the loss of a child, especially the murder of an innocent 17 year old boy, like Treyvon Martin?  In the wake of his death, the ugly stain of prejudice and racism have once again come to light.   How can a young man returning from a run to the grocery store, end up dead at the hand of a neighborhood watch capta in? 

A helpful media interview for me this week was with Donna Britt, columnist for the Washington Post, and her two grown sons.  Steve Inskeep on NPR interviewed them about, “the talk.”  The talk, said Britt, an African-American woman, “is what many black parents have with their sons - and daughters, but… probably more often, their sons. It's a preparatory explanation and a warning, to let them know what's out there for them. You know, when they shift from the adorableness of childhood into, …, their early preteen and teen years, where they can be perceived as dangerous, as threatening, as things that most of them really aren't.” 

Obviously, Inskeep, in cooperation with Britt, was helping us, to bridge the gap – especially those of us privileged simply by the color of our skin, not to have had to have “the talk” – helping us to understand a cultural difference, of a horrible racial divide.  And then as we listen to the 911 tapes, we hear Mr. Zimmerman with new ears, as a profiling of Trayvon, describing him as suspect, basically for wearing a hoodie, while black. 

Soon after this, Geraldo Rivera spoke up on the subject, calling for parents to ban their children from wearing hooded sweatshirts, because “the hoodie can’t be rehabilitated,” he said.  Or can it?  In NYC hundreds of supporters marched in favor of making the hoodie a sign of solidarity, chanting, “We are all Trayvon Martin!”  A similar group rallied in Washington D.C., and now other gatherings around the country have been scheduled. 

The hoodie is being transformed from the sign of intimidation and death, used by criminals and gang-bangers, into a symbol of life and a demand for justice, as God continues to make our crosses into resurrection moments for the world, and our seeds to bear much fruit.    

In Jesus on the cross, God forgives our past unfaithfulness, and remembers our sin no more, transforming the cross into a symbol of life, so that we may be filled with forgiveness and make a stand against injustice, until that day when it will no longer be necessary for parents to have “the talk” with their children.  And this is why God has made a new covenant with us!  For, “the day is surely coming, says the LORD,” when everyone will know God, from the least of us to the greatest of us, when everyone has the law of love written on their hearts.  

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