Come! Listen!

O God, our God, may my lips give you praise and may our thoughts and words bless you as long as we live. Amen.

The prophet proclaimed God’s word to the people:

Let the wicked forsake their way,

  and the unrighteous their thoughts;

 let them return to the Lord for mercy,

  and to our God for abundant pardon.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

  nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

(Isaiah 55:7-8, NRSV – modified)

Let the wicked forsake their way.

That’s what I’m talking about. Those people who drive us crazy, who have done something to hurt us – those people had better change their ways.

I don’t know about you, but when someone has wronged me in some way, my gut reaction is that I want them to get what’s coming to them.

That person who cut me off in traffic? I hope they get a ticket.

The guy who made a sexist comment about me? I hope he gets passed over for his next promotion, in favor of a lower-ranked female employee.

And you know what? Even if someone hasn’t actively wronged me, I still want them to get what they deserve. One of my colleagues shared a slightly less vindictive example… she and her brother are on the same diet. He totally went off of it and ate a whole bunch of junk food. Didn’t gain an ounce. She ate exactly as she was supposed to, and gained half a pound.

It’s not fair! If he’s going to cheat on the diet, he’s the one who should gain the extra weight!

I would like to say, let’s bring judgment down on these people’s heads, and let them suffer the consequences of their actions!

And I’m pretty sure I’m not alone.

Thankfully, God’s mercy is broader than mine is.

God’s thoughts are not my thoughts, nor are my ways God’s ways.

Where I see someone who has done something wrong and needs to suffer the consequences, God just sees a beloved child.

God’s grace and love and forgiveness and mercy are shared with all people, even the ones who tick me off.

God’s response to the person who upset me is the same response that God gives to me and to you – God says, “Come! Eat the good food. Listen! Hear the good news.”

It’s a message of love, not a message of judgment.

This is the message that God sent to the people of Israel in today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah.

There is just one catch to that story.

At the time, the people of Israel weren’t actually living in Israel.

A few years back, God’s people had been living in the Promised Land, but then they were conquered by the Babylonians. All the people were taken into exile – at least, all of the important people. If anyone was left in Israel, they were the poor and powerless folks, who were of no interest to the conquering regime.

The people who were the audience for Isaiah’s prophesy were the exiled Hebrew people. They would have been mostly second-generation exiles – people who had never themselves lived in the Promised Land. The only home they knew was Babylon.

They didn’t know anyone who was still living back in the old world. They only knew about the place at all through the stories of their parents.

And yet, Isaiah tells them to go back.

The Babylonian Empire had just been defeated by the Persians. Cyrus the Great, the Persian ruler, released the exiles from captivity and told them to go back to their homeland.

Now that they have the freedom to return to the Promised Land, this message comes from God, through Isaiah – go back home.

People of God, return to the land that your God gave to your ancestors.

Go back to that land flowing with milk and honey.

Abundant gifts await you there!  

A rich banquet and the promise of God’s love are beckoning.

While they were living in exile, some of the Israelites turned away from worshipping God. They became involved with Babylonian culture at the expense of their Hebrew identity.

You might remember the stories from the book of Daniel, which took place in Babylon during this time of exile – the people were challenged to abandon their culture and religion and join forces with their captors.

Some of them did give up their culture and religion.

Those who refused to do so were likely to get thrown into a fire or a pit filled with lions.

Those people who abandoned God when they were challenged by the Babylonians – why should they get to go back to the Promised Land? They made their choice – God shouldn’t be showing any special care to them.

At least, that’s what our human nature would say.

But God’s ways are not our ways, and God’s mercy is bigger than our judgment.

It doesn’t matter how much someone deserves good things – or whether they have done nothing at all to deserve them. As long as that person is focused on God, they can receive the grace that God has to offer.

Come, God says!

Take your fill of all this great food, and don’t worry about the bill! I’ve got this one covered. Wine and milk, rich food and things that satisfy – have as much as you want.

Listen, God says!

Turn to God and listen to the promises that God is making with you. God has glorified you – yes, you! – and will give you a good life. God is making good on the promises that had been made to Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Miriam.  

It doesn’t matter whether you turned away from God while you were in exile in Babylon, or remained faithful.

It doesn’t matter whether you cheated on your diet or cut me off in traffic.

God’s message of love and abundance and mercy is for everyone – not just those people who have earned it.

Return to the Lord – or as Jesus says, repent!

Turn back to God, as the Israelites returned to the Promised Land. When you focus yourself on God, you’ll notice the gifts that are being offered to you.

God’s banquet table is filled with food that bypasses all dietary restrictions and ethical issues and personal preferences.

It is a feast that fulfills all of our deepest desires.

In Isaiah, repentance means, come and get the free stuff that God has to offer! It’s just sitting here waiting for you. All you have to do is turn and accept it.

So why do we spend our time and energy on things that don’t matter and things that aren’t life-giving?

That anger I described earlier – the frustration with bad drivers or sexist colleagues or people who just seem to get an unfair advantage – that anger doesn’t bring me life.

Why should I spend my time on what doesn’t satisfy me? Why should I eat the junk food of bitterness and frustration when God is offering me a table full of peace and love?

When someone has done something that we think is wrong, our human society tends to want justice to be carried out.

And what we mean by justice, in this kind of situation, is usually that the guilty party will pay for their error. That kind of justice, we think, will bring us satisfaction.

But God’s justice doesn’t work that way.

God’s justice means that all people receive mercy. Everyone has access to forgiveness, not to punishment. 

We want people to be held accountable for their actions.

And sometimes that happens.

But making sure that it happens isn’t our job. It’s God’s job.

And more often than not, the way that God carries out that job is to extend forgiveness and mercy and grace to people.

God gives people a second chance, like the gardener did with the fig tree in today’s Gospel lesson.

And really, that’s the good news of today’s readings. Because all of us have found ourselves in need of a second chance at some point or other in our lives.

Sometimes we’re the ones who neglect to check our blind spot and cut someone off in traffic. Sometimes we make an insensitive comment. Sometimes we just get lucky, and we might not notice those others around us who are less lucky.

We all need to be given a second chance when we mess up.

And God tells us today, you’ve got that second chance.

In fact, I’m going to set you up for success by giving you everything that you need to get past this next challenge in your life. And then, go for it!

And if you mess up, there will be a third and forth and four hundredth chance waiting for you.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

So, come! Enjoy the richness of this free food!

Listen! Hear the good news that God loves and welcomes all people!

Give up your desire for justice, and repent – return to God, and live in the light of God’s forgiveness and mercy.

Amen.

Lent 3C, 2/28/16
Isaiah 55:1-9
(with Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9)

Transfiguration

Mighty God, lover of justice, speak to us today through Scripture and singing and sacraments, as you spoke through the clouds to your people in the wilderness and on mountaintops. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Those of you who were in worship last Sunday heard a brief history of the black church in America from Pastor Stephen, and an invitation into Black History month, which we celebrate every February.

Inspired by Pastor Stephen’s sermon, in between services last week, I spent a few minutes with the Sunday School kids and asked them to name some important black people they knew about. They listed off Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr, and our current president.

And then someone said, Jesus!

Now, maybe they were doing the Sunday School thing where the answer is always Jesus. Maybe this kid didn’t hear or understand the question.

Or maybe this student’s answer points to a deeper truth about who Jesus is.

Some of you are familiar with the theologian James Cone. A group of us read his book The Cross and the Lynching Tree last spring for a Bible study.

Just over 45 years ago, James Cone published his first books addressing Christian theology from an African American point of view. He attracted a lot of attention for his claim that God is black.

It’s a pretty simple claim, actually.

If James Cone is black – which he is – and if he has been created in the image of God, which we believe to be true based on the creation story in Genesis 1, the one that says all humanity was created in God’s image – then God must be black.

Moreover, if God is on the side of the oppressed – and the ministry of Jesus tells us nothing if not that God cares for people who are oppressed, marginalized, and outcast from society – and if in American society, many of the oppressed people happen to be black, which any demographic study will tell you that they undoubtedly are – then again, God must be black.

You can see how James Cone became a controversial religious voice.

For the first time, many white Christians in America were challenged to consider that they might not be God’s chosen people. They weren’t a new Israel, they weren’t the heirs of Abraham – they were an afterthought, the ones who had been added to the promise after it had already been shared with the people God came to help in the first place – people with dark skin.

So we’ve got a Sunday School student suggesting that Jesus was black, and a prominent American theologian claiming that God is black.

        

And in today’s Gospel story, we have Jesus on a mountaintop, dazzling white.

Today is the last Sunday in the season of Epiphany. Throughout this whole season, we’ve been emphasizing light as a symbol of God’s presence.

Historically, there have been some misinterpretations of the symbol of light for the presence of God. Some people want to claim that, since people of European descent have lighter skin than people of African descent, they must be closer to God – more divine – because they are more white.

James Cone and our Sunday School class tell us that this isn’t right.

         God isn’t white.

White things aren’t better than dark ones.

The difference between light and dark in the season of Epiphany is the difference between being in the presence of God, and turning our backs to God.

Humans are all in the same boat when it comes to being in the light of God’s glory or not. Left to our own devices, humans are all in darkness, regardless of the color of our skin.

God’s divine presence breaks in to our human darkness and allows us to see and understand what surrounds us.

One of our favorite songs speaks to this reality…

I once was lost, but now am found; was blind but now I see.

The magi, the wise ones who brought gifts to Jesus, were able to find the infant Messiah by following the sign of God’s light as it shone through the star that they discovered.

We remember God’s light coming to earth, to the magi, through the star directing them to Jesus, on the day of Epiphany.

And in the season following the day of Epiphany, over the past few weeks, we have seen God’s light breaking into human lives at the baptism of Jesus, at a wedding in Cana, and while Jesus was teaching in the synagogue in Nazareth.

As a congregation, we celebrated God’s presence in our lives at a cross-generational education event last Saturday.

As a congregation we also honored God’s light that shone into our lives through the witness of other people – through Marie, one of our charter members, and through Mary and Rudie and Bob, and other loved ones who have completed their journey in this life, and entered God’s eternal light.

This Epiphany season gives us ample opportunity to reflect on the glory of God – the love and power and light that comes when God is active in our lives.

In today’s Gospel story, Jesus takes a select few followers to the mountain with him. Peter and James and John are following Jesus, they are actively seeking to be in the presence of the divine.

Once on the mountaintop, Moses and Elijah join them there. I’m not really sure how the disciples know that it’s Moses and Elijah, but there seems to be no question about it. These heroes of their faith have shown up on the mountain with Jesus.

And Jesus is transfigured – transformed – radically changed – into a dazzling display of the light of God.  

The critical piece to remember here is that Jesus’ transfigured presence is full of God’s glory – God’s power and love – Jesus himself isn’t all sparkly and white.

The presence of God transforms something ordinary – a hike up a mountain – into something extraordinary – a personal encounter with the divine.

At a surface level, we have Jesus transfigured into a dazzling white being.

But Jesus isn’t white.

Jesus is filled with the presence of God.

Based on the archaeological evidence, people have created a portrait of what Jesus might actually have looked like, historically. He would have had black hair and dark skin – somewhere in between the color of mine and Pastor Stephen’s.

If you own the Lutheran Study Bible, you can find the picture in there. We’ve got a copy in the library too, if you want to take a look after worship.

But ultimately, it doesn’t matter what the historical Jesus looked like.

What matters is that Jesus was a vehicle for God’s presence in the world.

God’s glory is the light that surrounds Jesus in today’s Bible story,

And that glory shone through Jesus when he came down the mountain also.

It appears that, even though Peter wasn’t supposed to build houses for Jesus and Moses and Elijah on the mountaintop, they did at least stay up there for the night.

When they came down the next day, there were no divine visions or voices from the clouds – there was just the everyday grit of daily life.

A boy was suffering, a father lamenting, and the disciples had failed to resolve the situation. Jesus healed the boy, and all were astounded at the greatness of God.

Even when he wasn’t shining with the light of God, Jesus was able to bring God’s presence to the people and places where it was needed.

Jesus was transfigured on the mountain with Moses and Elijah, but Jesus still reflected God’s glory when he came down the mountain.

God’s glory – God’s presence – God’s light – can come into our human darkness at any time, even when we least expect it.

But we know this already. Haven’t you ever seen God’s love reflected in the face of a friend, or the strains of some music, or the colors of the sky at sunset? Haven’t you ever looked at the face of someone familiar to you and seen it as if for the first time?

The theologian Frederick Buechner described this phenomenon as “something so touching, so incandescent, so alive [that] transfigures the human face [so] that it's almost beyond bearing.”

(originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words , shared on his Facebook wall, https://www.facebook.com/Frederick.Buechner.Center/posts/1080372078679993)

Desmond Tutu calls us God’s “agents of transfiguration. We work with God so that injustice is transfigured into justice, so that there will be more compassion and caring, that there will be more laughter and joy, that there will be more togetherness in God’s world.”

(available various places online, including http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-god-places-us-in-the-world-as-his-fellow-workers-agents-of-transfiguration-we-work-with-desmond-tutu-84-77-39.jpg)

Transfiguration can happen to any one of us, at any point in time.

We don’t have to go to a mountaintop, and we don’t have to become dazzling white. The only prerequisite is to be open to the movement of God in our lives – and sometimes, miraculously, God will break through in such a brilliant way that the whole world appears differently to those around us.

The glory of God can shine through any one of us as we’re doing God’s work down the mountain, in the everyday ups and downs of life.

Climbing the mountain, as Peter and James and John got to do with Jesus, can be a good thing. It can provide inspiration.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King proclaims “I’ve been to the mountaintop! … And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. … Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27ve_Been_to_the_Mountaintop)

Going up the mountain with Jesus can give us inspiration and motivation and a vision of the glory of God.

But we can’t stay on the mountaintop. The vision that we get there only comes to fruition once we descend back into the real world.

That is why Jesus chastised Peter for wanting to build homes for them all on the mountain. God’s glory was dazzlingly apparent at the top of the mountain.

But God’s glory is just as present in the demon-possessed boy and his father, in the lepers and paralytics, in the people living with tainted water and the aid workers who are trying to assist them.

God’s light can shine just as brightly through the dark skin of humanity as through the light of the Transfiguration.

So as we wrap up this season of Epiphany, we are left with an image of God’s power and love reflected through the person of Jesus at the top of a mountain.

And we are also left with an image of an earthy Jesus with dirty feet, surrounded by his tired and frustrated disciples, approached by countless people requesting healing for themselves or their loves ones.

And God’s power and love shine through just as brightly in those places down the mountain as they do on the summit.

This is why James Cone, Frederick Buechner, Desmond Tutu, and our Sunday School students can all teach us something about God, and how God bursts into our lives. Jesus may be beautifully black or dazzlingly white, but God’s power and love is present in either case.

Whether we are looking for it or not, the light and glory of God can show up in our interactions with other people – and most importantly, we ourselves can be vessels of that glory and love for other people.

Let us strive to make it so.

Amen.

Transfiguration C 2/7/16

Luke 9:28-43