Thirst and Life, Part 4

Steve and I have become interested in a live Youtube feed from a bald eagles’ nest in California.  The nest belongs to a breeding pair of eagles – Jackie, the female, and Shadow, the male.  Jackie laid two eggs this year, and everyone watching the live feed has been holding their collective breath, hoping the eggs would hatch.  Last year, the egg Jackie laid did not hatch – everyone was hoping for a better outcome this year.  It’s fascinating to watch this pair of eagles care for these eggs.  They take turns on the nest, bringing food to each other.  They run potential predators away, they keep the eggs warm in the snow, they gently turn them – they haven’t given up.  

Happily, one of the eggs has hatched, and the pair is caring for their eaglet together.  But they are still caring for the unhatched egg – an egg that will probably never hatch.  The egg is much older now than the average incubation time for an egg.  We, as logical humans, know it will never hatch, but the eagles ignore logic, and keep the unhatched egg in the nest with their new eaglet.  

We live a life of sin.  We fail to love our neighbors, especially those who don’t agree with us.  We put other gods before our God.  We turn away, and we are so thirsty that we don’t even recognize what we need, even though it is offered to us in abundance.

But God doesn’t give up on us.  God is standing with us, urging us to turn around, and return.  

I found a poem by Jan Richardson this week in a book called Circle of Grace.  I think it applies.  (Note: please see the book for the text of the poem - I don't feel right about printing it here).

God is waiting for us to return.  To be fruitful.  To recognize the dryness of our lives and seek living water.  Will you seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near?  Will you return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on you? 

Will you step into the rest of your story? Will you return?

Thirst and Life, Part 3

This, the posts before it, and one that follows are from a sermon I delivered at Bethesda UMC, based on Isaiah 55:1-9 and Luke 13:1-9.

The gospel reading for today is from Luke 13:1-9.  The very first line says, “At that very time there were some present who told him…”  People were coming to Jesus and telling him news or rumors out of Jerusalem.  They told about Galileans who Pilate ordered to be killed while they were in the temple worshipping God with their sacrifices.  

When you hear this scripture, did you wonder, “Why did they tell Jesus this story?”

Did they just want to make sure he was well informed? Or could it be that they hoped he would take a political stand?  Maybe they were zealots who hoped Jesus would support their revolutionary agenda against Rome.  Maybe they were looking at someone else, assuming the other person had sinned, and they were hoping Jesus could tell them what those people had done to deserve such a fate, so that they themselves could feel safer. 

Sometimes seeing someone else’s sin makes us forget our own.

But Jesus won’t get involved in the political debate.  He won’t point fingers at Rome or at Pilate.  And he didn’t accuse the other people – the ones who had died, or the ones who had killed them, of sin.  Instead, he says, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”

They are looking in the wrong direction.  They are looking away from themselves.  And Jesus says, “You are the ones who needs to repent.”  

And then he tells them the rest of the story.  He tells them a parable about a fig tree that isn’t producing figs.  A man had planted a fig tree three years ago.  It has not been fruitful, so the man tells the gardener to cut it down.  Everyone listening to the story would have understood the man’s request – three years is long enough to wait for the fig tree to bear fruit.  But the gardener convinces the owner to give the tree one more year.  The gardener is going to nurture the tree, put manure on it, give it one more chance.  

But what stops us from recognizing our own sin, our own thirst, and our need of God’s grace? One commentator I read said the clue may be in the treatment the gardener suggests for the fig tree – he plans to dig around it and put manure on it.  The commentator suggests that we should read “manure” as humility – there is nothing much more humble than manure, is there?

When Josh was in elementary school, he brought his class picture home.  The picture showed him with his arm bent, posed for the camera.  He insisted that his arm hadn’t been held like that when they took the picture.  If you asked him today – at 25 years old – he would still insist that his arm had been held different – all evidence to the contrary.  

We are proud.  We can be arrogant.  We certainly don’t want to be wrong.  We all, I think, close our minds even to what God might be trying to tell us.  

We love to tell the latest gossip, share the Facebook post that we agree with, even while not seeing if it is true. We insist we are right, because anything else would require humility.

But there is more to the story.

Thirst and Life, Part 2

This, the post before it, and ones that follow are form a sermon I delivered at Bethesda UMC, based on Isaiah 55:1-9 and Luke 13:1-9.

The scripture we heard today from Isaiah was written to the Israelites after the fall of Judah.  They were in exile in Babylon.  For them, God had always been in Jerusalem.  The temple was the only place of worship. The temple in Jerusalem was where God dwelled.  And here they are, far from home, far from what they had always known, and, perhaps, as far as they were concerned, far from God.  Maybe, at this point, they were even doubting that God existed, or at least they were unsure if God cared what happened to them. They were in a desert.  Literally, and figuratively.  They were thirsty, and they were trying to quench that thirst with whatever they could find.   Isaiah tells them that God is asking, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”

Then Isaiah tells them the rest of the story.

Isaiah tells them that God isn’t absent – they just need to turn around: “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

I like how one commentator put it: Isaiah tells them, “Hey, stop it.  Whether or not you are thirsty, whether or not you are hungry, you need what God has to give.”

Think for a moment about the desert in which we live, for surely we do live in a desert, even in our lush mountains.  We live in a time that is highly commercialized, where everything is marketable.  We are bombarded with commercials telling us what we need in order to live a happy life. 

We live in a time when even as Christians, we stand in opposition to each other, seeing so many people as the enemy, instead of seeing them as beloved children of God, beautiful to behold.  We see Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, rich or poor, employed or not, addicted or clean.  We see the sinner, and we fail to realize how thirsty we are ourselves, as we strive to make our point. Or to buy the biggest car, or to have the last word, or cast the righteous judgement. 

We have turned away from what can be the rest of our story.  And that is what Lent is about – recognizing our thirst, seeing our own sin, and turning back to God.

God says to us, “Turn around.  Repent.  Look toward me instead of what you think will satisfy your thirst.  You need what I am so willing to give you so that you can live.”

Thirst and Life, Part 1

This, and the posts that follow it, are a sermon I delivered today at Bethesda UMC

You may remember, if you have been part of Bethesda UMC for a few years, that you had a pianist for a few months in 2015-2016, who was named Josh Matthews.  Josh is our son.  I thought today I would tell you the Rest of the Story (as Paul Harvey used to say). 

Josh finished his undergraduate degree at Marshall and then moved to Tuscaloosa. Alabama to do his graduate work at the University of Alabama, which leads me to say something I never imagined I would say: Roll Tide. 

Anyway, he worked with the Million Dollar Band as a graduate assistant and earned his Masters degree in Music Education.  His next goal was to find a job as a music teacher, and he did.  In the late spring early summer of 2020, he accepted a position as an assistant band director at Green Valley High School in Henderson, Nevada.  Henderson is a neighboring community to Las Vegas.  And in case you don’t know, they are both in the desert.  The hot desert.

So, in July of 2020 – in the middle of a pandemic – in the middle of a hot summer - Steve and I drove to Tuscaloosa, helped Josh pack up his moving truck, and began our four day, three vehicle caravan across the country to Nevada.  It was great – we enjoyed the time together, saw beautiful scenery – beauty that is so different from our West Virginia Hills. 

At noon on our last travel day, we pulled into Henderson, got the keys to his apartment, and started unpacking the truck.  It was 106 degrees.  And there was no shade.  And his apartment is on the second floor.  And Josh owns the heaviest couch in the country.  And it had to be carried up 19 steps, and a hillside.  In the 106 degree sun.

They say it is a dry heat. As if that is something different from a wet heat.  It is.  What I discovered is that a dry heat is just as hot as any other heat – but you are much more thirsty.

Steve is a long-distance bike rider.  When he is preparing for a ride, he doesn’t start drinking when he’s riding the bike.  He starts drinking water before the ride – to prepare for what is to come.  When you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated. 

Our need for water as living beings is just as fundamental as our need for oxygen or food.  Water keeps us alive, and thirst is our body’s warning sign to us we are dehydrated and that we need water. 

The problem is, sometimes, that we don’t even recognize our thirst, do we?  

 

Turning Around

A few weeks ago, Steve and I were traveling in West Virginia, visiting State Parks. We have a goal to visit them all. Almost all of the parks we visit are new to us, so we are often following a GPS or a map to try to find the park entrance - they are not always obvious.

On this particular Sunday, we were traveling to Audra State Park, and we missed the turn. The road to the park is a two lane road and there weren't many places to turn around. We ended up at the top of the mountain, and we found a little white church - Bethel United Methodist Church. Across the road from the church was a gravel parking lot, and that is where we turned around. 

 As I think about that, I am reminded of one of the scriptures from last Sunday's lectionary. Mark 1:4 says, "John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." 

Repentance. It means to turn around. To change direction. Steve and I were going the wrong direction, and we were grateful the church was there to provide us a place to turn around. 

Do we do that as churches? Do we provide safe places for people who are going in the wrong direction to turn around? To repent? To find forgiveness? Not in a judgmental way, but in a way full of love and caring?

As if we do not have a home

From Nouwen's book, The Return of the Prodigal Son:

Leaving home is, then, much more than an historical event bound to time and place.  it is a denial of the spiritual reality that I belong to God with every part of my being, that God holds me safe in an eternal embrace, that a I am indeed carved in the palms of God's hands and hidden in their shadows.  leaving home means ignoring the truth that God has "fashioned me in secret, molded me in the depths of the earth and knitted me together in  my mother's womb."  Leaving home is living as though I do not yet have a home and must look far and wide to find one.

Consider the younger son in the parable. Consider what it meant that left home. There are times when we are the younger son. When we leave home. Reading this quote, we can grasp the idea that turning away from God is in a way doing what the younger son did. We leave home. We leave God. We act as if we do not have a home in God, and we strike out, searching for our home. For where we belong.

Repentance, then, is the returning. It is the remember that we belong to God, have a home in God. The Father accepts our return - and in fact never let us leave him in the first place.

As I read from Nouwen's book this morning, though, I was saddened by the realization that we leave God "as if we do not have a home and must look far and wide to find one." 

It is no wonder that we feel lost.

Return

The word today is return.

This is an image of the palms used on Palm Sunday in our church and the ashes used last night for Ash Wednesday.  Sunday's palms are Wednesday's ashes.

Our pride, our arroagance, our sin is turned to ash.  On Ash Wednesday, we endeavor to return to God, just as the palsm are returned to the dust and ash.

Perhaps it is in the reminder of our human-ness that we are able to return to the divine. 

Repent

Repent.  What does it mean?  We've been talking about it in church lately.  Repent does not necessarily mean sackcloth and ashes or a deep pit of dispair.  But what does it mean to "turn" to God?

• To repent is to turn to God.  To center on God.  I think turning to God means that we open ourselves to listen to God.  Where is he leading us? 
• To repent might mean that we confess our sins.  We apologize.  Perhaps to God.  Perhaps to someone else.  It might mean that we restore a relationship so that God can be seen through us. 
• It might mean that we turn toward God instead of sticking to our stubbornness.
• It might mean that we set aside our schedules and our distractions to look toward God.

What does it mean to you?

Turn Back

One of the lectionary readings for the week is from Jeremiah 18:1-11.

The book of Jeremiah is not a the story of a joyful, happy prophet telling a message of great news to the people. God is not pleased, and Jeremiah shares that with the people of Judah.

There are moments of hope, though. Even in the midst of a description of possible destruction, there is hope.

God talks about the potter forming a pot that is spoiled. What does the potter do? He doesn't give up and throw the pot away. He continues to work, forming the piece into something pleasing.

Repent, and be shaped by the potter, for he has not given up on you or on me.