Fig trees, burning bushes, and God's search for us (J. Barry Vaughn, March 3, 2013)

Years ago I had the opportunity to visit a park in Israel - Ne'ot Kedumim - that claims to have one of every plant mentioned in the Bible. I have to admit to being a little skeptical about that claim - I doubt that they have a burning bush!

 

Nevertheless, the Bible abounds in plant life. It begins, of course, with the Garden of Eden, which, according to Genesis, contained "every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food", including the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

 

And the Bible ends with the vision of the New Jerusalem that contains the tree whose "leaves are for the healing of the nations."

 

Trees figure prominently in today's Old Testament and gospel reading.

 

First, in Exodus we have the bush that burned but was not consumed. And then in Luke, there is the strange and ominous story of the fig tree that did not bear fruit.

 

Let's look first at the story of the fig tree. At first glance the story seems straightforward: bear fruit or be destroyed.

 

Isn't that the message of the Bible, the message of the Christian faith? God has put us here for a reason - to refrain from evil and do good. And God is watching, measuring, weighing everything we do. If we do the wrong thing or fail to do the right thing, then - BANG! - God will let us have it. Right?

 

I'm not so sure about that. Consider the context of the story of the fig tree. Someone asked Jesus about two catastrophes that had recently happened. First, Pilate, the Roman governor, had killed some pilgrims from Galilee who had come to offer sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem, and second, a tower had fallen and killed 18 people. Surely, people reasoned, the victims of these catastrophes must have done something to merit their terrible fates, because that's how God works. Bad things happen to bad people; good things happen to good pideople.

 

But Jesus said, "Wait just a minute. Do you believe that God let Pilate kill those pilgrims because they were bad people or that that tower fell on those folks because they had led wicked lives?" Jesus rejected that kind of thinking. "No," he says. "No."

 

We so desperately want to believe in a world that is fair, a world in which people receive exactly what they deserve - no more, no less. A world in which good and decent people flourish and the evil are punished.

 

Many years ago, when his son died of a terrible disease, Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote the book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. It's a good title, because we all know that bad things DO happen to good people. But I've often wondered if there would be a market for a book entitled When Good Things Happen to Bad People. We don't seem to be as bothered by that, and that also happens a lot. We are troubled when we think that we haven't gotten what we deserve; when things happen to us that seem unfair. But we are not bothered at all when we receive far more than we deserve.

 

We may be angry, even bitter, when a raise or a promotion that we believe that we deserve goes instead to Bob or Mary who don't have a tenth as much ability as us and who take frequent "mental health" days. But do we ever stop to ask what we have ever done to deserve the clear blue sky? Or the sun glinting off the snow atop Mt. Charleston? or the love of our husband, wife, partner, or children?

 

God is always showering us with gifts we do not deserve and instead of receiving them with gratitude, we focus on the disappointment and sorrow that come our way.

 

Jesus invites us to give up trying to figure out what we and others deserve or do not deserve. But then, no sooner than Jesus has told his listeners that Pilate did not kill the Galileans because they were bad and the tower did not fall down to punish those who were killed, he says "unless you repent, you will perish just as they did."

 

Abraham Lincoln liked to tell the story of the man who owned a parrot who could say only one thing, "The end of the world is at hand as foretold in scripture." And the parrot said this constantly. One day the parrot's owner couldn't stand it any more and shot the parrot, thus fulfilling, for the parrot at least, the truth of his statement!

 

Listen again to what Jesus says: "Unless YOU repent, YOU will perish, just as they did." Jesus invites us to turn our attention from others to ourselves, to stop trying to figure out whether or not God is playing fair with someone else's life and instead to get our own house in order.

 

And that's when he tells the story of the fig tree. A farmer had a fig tree that had not borne fruit in three years. He was frustrated and decided that the tree would be more useful as fire wood. But the man in charge of his orchard said, "Let the tree have one more year."

 

The point of the story of the fig tree is not that God has an itchy trigger finger, that God is just waiting for us to slip up so that he can hurl thunderbolts at us. The point of the story is that God is patient, that God wants to give us a second chance and a third chance, another whole year in which to bear fruit.

 

Now, the story of the burning bush in Exodus is quite different. Here we have to do not with a conventional tree but with a miraculous one. The story in Exodus takes place in a desert, in other words, it is a place much like Las Vegas! And Moses is not yet the great leader who leads his people out of bondage. In fact, Moses is a defeated man. He has lost everything.

 

Exodus tells us that Moses had been brought up in the very household of Pharaoh, the god-king who ruled Egypt with absolute power. But Moses was a Hebrew, an Israelite, and one day he saw an Egyptian strike one of his countrymen. In anger, Moses struck and killed the Egyptian, so Moses had to leave. He fled to a place of desolation where he could hide and not be found. And it is in this place of hiding, of desolation, of defeat that Moses encountered God in the bush that burned but was not consumed.

 

We often think of religion as a quest, a search for God. But is that really the case? The great Jewish thinker Abraham Heschel wrote a book entitled, God in Search of Man. The Bible tells us at least as much about God's quest for us as about our quest for God. In fact, I would say that the Bible has more to say about our desperate attempts to flee from God and hide from the divine gaze.

 

Moses wasn't looking for God when he saw the burning bush. Moses was running away. He did not want to be found by anyone. But God found him.

 

The Bible is full of stories like that. David was tending his family's sheep when the prophet Samuel found him and anointed him king of Israel. Mary was minding her own business when the angel Gabriel told her that she would be the mother of Jesus. Paul was on his way to Damascus when the Risen Christ appeared to him.

 

The Bible is the story of God's quest for us. It is the story of God's infinite patience. God calls us, summons us, pursues us. And we turn away, refuse to listen, sometimes we even run and hide. But God will not let us alone.

 

The story of human life occupies not even a fraction of a second in the history of the universe. Scientists tell us that the universe is 14 billion years old, give or take 60 million years. What's 60 million years, right?

 

Scientists also say that homo sapiens, that is, the human race, is about 5 million years old.

 

What do you suppose God was doing in the 13.95 billion years between the creation of the universe and the emergence of the human race? Could it be that God spent all that time building this beautiful universe for us? Putting every star in just the right place? Heating the oceans to the perfect temperature? Testing different shades of blue for the sky? Could it be that God was lonely, that God longed for the day when you and I would exist? How long do you suppose God was waiting in that burning bush before Moses came along?

 

Is it possible that God longed to talk to us and listen to what we had to say? And what a disappointment we must be to God so much of the time? Instead of listening to God, we turn up the radio or television, instead of talking to God, we update our Facebook pages, instead of loving one another we kill our brothers and sisters, instead of caring for the garden in which God has set us, we dump our garbage in the land, sea, and air.

 

And the miracle is that God still listens, still pursues, still loves.

 

God will wait for us and search for us with infinite patience because God loves us with an infinite love.

 

But sometimes, maybe most of the time, we have to be at the end of the rope before we can see and hear God. Like Moses, we have to be in the wilderness before we can see the bush that burns with the fire of God's presence.

 

All of us know about the wilderness. We've all been there or will be there one day. We have been through the wilderness of unemployment or grief or a broken heart. I believe that this church knows something about going through the wilderness. But I absolutely assure you of this: God is in the wilderness with us.

 

And this is where the stories of the burning bush and the fig tree come together. While we are running away and hiding from God, God is like a patient farmer tilling the soil of our hearts, preparing us to bear fruit - the fruit of love and kindness and patience and faith.

 

Because there is one other Biblical tree to consider: the cross. The cross is the eternal sign of God's presence in the wilderness, in the midst of suffering. And the fruit of the cross is life abundant and eternal.

Love Actually (J. Barry Vaughn, Feb. 3, 2013)

First Corinthians was written to a deeply troubled church. What else is new, right? The trouble started on the day of Pentecost and will continue until Gabriel blows his horn. The church is troubled because it's made up of people such as you and I. But that's a topic for another sermon.

 

The troubles of the Corinthian church were different from the troubles of other churches in degree and not kind. But the troubles in the Corinthian church were pretty bad.

 

We've been reading First Corinthians in our Wednesday Bible study, so it's been on my mind a lot. Right away, in the first chapter, Paul mocks the Corinthians. " For it has been reported to me by Chlo'e's people that there is quarreling among you, my brethren.  What I mean is that each one of you says, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apol'los," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?"

 

Paul reminds them of their baptism. He reminds them of the source of their unity. He points out how absurd it is to divide up into parties because they have all been named and claimed in baptism by God in the name of Christ.

 

And then at the end of First Corinthians, Paul gives us his great hymn to love. The 13th chapter of First Corinthians wasn't written to be read at a wedding; it wasn't even written for the funeral of Princess Diana (although former PM Tony Blair's reading of it at her funeral would almost make you think that it had been written for that very occasion). First Corinthians 13 was written for a first century church that was deeply divided. It was divided between rich and poor; between Jews and Gentiles; between those who spoke in tongues and those who didn't.

 

First Corinthians 13 is not a Hallmark Valentine's day card. It is a desperate plea for unity in a divided church.

 

There are two fundamentally different theories about the universe in which we live. Maybe some of you who know more about science than I do can tell me which is currently favored.

 

One theory has it that the Big Bang exploded with such force and the basic matter of the universe was launched outward with so much momentum that the universe will never collapse back upon itself. But eventually it will slow and stall in the cold and dark of space.

 

The other theory is that the momentum of the matter that exploded outward in the Big Bang was not quite enough to propel the universe outward forever and eventually gravity will win and the universe will collapse in upon itself. In other words, the universe will eventually slow down and its outward momentum will reverse, and its whole structure will collapse inward.

 

A simpler way of looking at this is to say that there are two fundamental forces in the universe - one that propels us outward and one that pulls us inward.

 

There is a force of disintegration and a force of integration.

 

Paul tells us which will win: "Love is patient and kind. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends "

 

Love is that force that draws us together, that draws us toward our source, that draws us toward God.

 

One of my favorite movies is Love Actually.  I would recommend that you all see it, except for the fact that the characters use certain four letter words a little too frequently.

 

But in spite of that, it has a good message. At the very beginning, the newly elected British PM played by Hugh Grant, says that  he likes to visit the arrival section at Heathrow Airport. So the movie shows people embracing each other: parents and children; husbands and wives; sisters and brothers; long lost friends; and so on. As he reflects on this, Hugh Grant's character adds, "When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge. They were all messages of love."

 

There is something in the human heart that reminds us that the basic principle of the universe is integration, not disintegration; the force that draws us together, not the one that pushes us apart.

 

One of my favorite translations of 1 Corinthians 13 is by British New Testament scholar J.B. Phillips. I'd like to share it with you.

 

If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing.

This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience - it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.

Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.

Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.

 

One of the most important things to notice about 1 Corinthians 13 is that Paul says nothing about feelings. He describes love entirely in terms of characteristics, qualities, and actions. Love is patient; love is kind; love is humble; love endures.

 

But in almost every description of love in popular culture, love is described in terms of feelings.

 

That's why I often think that love is the most dangerous four letter word in the English language. It is so easy to fool ourselves into believing that we are loving another when we are really serving our own interests.

 

The Greek philosopher Plato said that love is the child of poverty. What he meant is that all too often we love others to satisfy our own needs and desires and not out of a real interest in their own needs and desires.

 

I believe that that is part of what Paul was saying when he said that "When I was a little child I talked and felt and thought like a little child. Now that I am a man my childish speech and feeling and thought have no further significance for me. At present we are looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror. The time will come when we shall see reality whole and face to face! At present all I know is a little fraction of the truth, but the time will come when I shall know it as fully as God now knows me!"

 

In other words, under present circumstances our love will always be needy, it will always be compromised by our own selfishness, our own egotism. That is why we are not saved by love alone; we are also saved by faith and hope.

 

There is a marvelously enigmatic saying by the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: " Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness."

 

In other words, not only is our love for others compromised by our own selfishness, we are not even able to see our own selfishness. That is why we need others. We need them to point out our shortcomings.

Love is patient and kind but it is not easy. Love requires a lifetime of practice. Love is costly.

For several years I taught piano to a little boy named Stevie, but he was not all that interested in learning piano. One day I said something about my own piano teacher. Stevie's eyes got big and he said, "How long do I have to keep taking piano lessons????"

Love is a little like piano lessons. We have to keep practicing. Paul names the scales and arpeggios and exercises of love in 1 Corinthians 13: Patience, kindness, humility.  Keep practicing!

Dr. King Remembered (J. Barry Vaughn)

I grew up in Alabama in the age of the civil rights movement. I was born in 1955, the year that the Montgomery bus boycott catapulted Dr. King to national prominence. I was eight years old in 1963, the year of Dr. King's Birmingham campaign and the horrific bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which resulted in the deaths of four little girls who were waiting for Sunday school to begin.

I would like to be able to tell you that I have vivid memories of these events, but I don't. I remember some fear and anxiety in my family over the demonstrations that were going on in Birmingham. I am embarrassed to admit that I remember seeing separate drinking fountains and rest rooms and being told by my grandmother not to drink from the so-called "colored" drinking fountain. I remember that I was not allowed to take swimming lessons at the newly-integrated Birmingham YMCA because of fear of … well, I'm not really sure what the fear was about. And I remember being nervous when my elementary school was integrated, although I am certain I was not nearly as afraid as the black children who suddenly found themselves in a room full of white children.

Even though I don't personally remember much about the Birmingham campaign, the Selma march, and so on, I had the good fortune many years later to know some persons who did know a lot about these events from their personal experience. At two different universities in Birmingham I taught a course on religion and American history. Each of the three years that I taught the course, I invited a speaker to the class who had been personally involved in the movement. The first speaker was the Rev. John Porter, pastor of the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church, who had been Dr. King's associate at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery. The second speaker was Rabbi Milton Grafman, the rabbi emeritus of Temple Emanu-El, and the third was David Vann, who had been city attorney for the city of Birmingham during the Birmingham campaign.

The most illuminating speaker by far was Rabbi Grafman. A good and gracious man, Rabbi Grafman led Birmingham's Temple Emanu-El wisely and well for many years. However, he will forever be remembered as one of the seven white clergymen who wrote to Dr. King urging him to delay his protests in Birmingham. Dr. King replied to them in his best-known essay, "A Letter from a Birmingham Jail". When Rabbi Grafman and his colleagues urged King to wait, he replied, "To the Negro, 'wait' has meant 'never'. We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights". Rabbi Grafman came to my class and gave my students and me a very persuasive explanation for why he urged Dr. King to wait. After he had left, I asked my students to tell me who they thought had been right: Rabbi Grafman or Dr. King. Every one of the students in my class was white, middle-class, and southern, and unanimously they said that Rabbi Grafman had been wrong and Dr. King had been right.

Undoubtedly, Dr. King's greatest accomplishment was his role as a leader in the civil rights' movement and a catalyst who must be given a large share of responsibility for the civil rights' legislation of the 1960s. However, I want to mention two other accomplishments for which he should be remembered.

Dr. King came to national prominence in the late 1950s. We remember the 50s as the age of Leave it to Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, and "I like Ike". Historian of religion Mark Noll argues that complacency characterized American religion the 50s: "Conservative evangelicals... translated the gospel into forms of entertainment that looked as much like versions of youthful diversion as alternatives to it. Mainline Protestants… were also busy creating a religion of the lowest common denominator with less and less that was distinctly Christian". (Noll, p. 441) And then suddenly, in this decade of complacency, Martin Luther King appeared.

One of King’s greatest accomplishments was to be a "public Christian". What I mean is that Dr. King brought the teachings of the Christian faith to bear on public issues, especially the most important issue of the 50s and 60s, full and equal civil rights for African Americans. In doing so, Dr. King gave new credibility to the Christian faith. Many American intellectuals thought of the Christian faith as intellectually bankrupt and as having little or nothing to say about the great issues of the day. Dr. King never spoke simply as a politician; he spoke as a prophet. That is to say, he spoke as one who could see God's hand at work in human history and who gave voice to God's demands upon human life, both individual and corporate. In his very first public statement as leader of the Montgomery bus boycott, he said, "We must keep God in the forefront. Let us be Christian in all of our action." The protestors must not hate their white opponents, but be guided by Christian love while seeking justice… "Love is one of the pinnacle parts of the Christian faith. There is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation". (Garrow, p. 24)

At the same time that Dr. King gave new credibility to the Christian faith to those who regarded it with suspicion and skepticism, he also provided a model for Christians to speak out on the great issues of the day. His example inspired and encouraged any number of other Christians to apply the Christian faith to the great issues of the day, especially the anti-war movement. In other words, Dr. King stood on that blurry line dividing the sacred and the secular, the church and the world. He reminded the world that God is active in its history, whether the world recognizes God's presence or not, and he reminded the church that God created and loves the world and calls us to engagement in the world on behalf of the poor and the powerless.

Enough of history… the purpose of celebrating Dr. King's life should not be just about praising a great man. Charles Willie, one of Dr. King's classmates at Morehouse College, said, "By idolizing those whom we honor, we do a disservice both to them and to ourselves. By exalting the accomplishments of Martin Luther King, Jr., into a legendary tale that is annually told, we fail to recognize his humanity - his personal and public struggles-that are similar to yours and mine. By idolizing those whom we honor, we fail to realize that we could go and do likewise". (Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 625)

I am certain that Dr. King himself would urge us not to dwell on his accomplishments. Ever a Baptist preacher, King would invite us to turn our attention from the messenger to the message and to invite the God whom Dr. King served to work as redemptively and powerfully in our own lives as God did in Dr. King's life.

What I take away from Dr. King is this: God has a mission for each of us. It will often be a mission that is difficult to bear, but God will give us strength. Dr. King put it better than I could. He said, "I pray that recognizing the necessity of suffering we will make of it a virtue…. To suffer in a righteous cause is to grow to our humanity's full stature. If only to save ourselves, we need the vision to see the ordeals of this generation as the opportunity to transform ourselves and American society…. We have … a responsibility to set out to discover what we are called to do. And after we discover that, we should set out to do it with all of the strength and all of the power that we can muster…. One knows deep down with there is something in the very structure of the cosmos that will ultimately bring about fulfillment and the triumph of that which is right. And this is the only thing that can keep one going in difficult periods."

Several years ago I read A.N. Wilson's biography of the English writer C.S. Lewis. It was a very controversial biography because it revealed many of Lewis' weaknesses and failings. However, I came away from it with greater respect for Lewis, because I discovered that he struggled with many of the same temptations that plague me. I feel much the same way about Dr. King. Did Dr. King have feet of clay? Of course, he did. Do all of us have feet of clay? Of course we do. But the message of Dr. King's life, as St. Paul reminds us, is that "God's strength is made perfect in weakness." Dr. King accepted the burden, the mission, that God gave him, even though the cost was great, even though it led to death. It was God's power in Dr. King's life that made him great, in spite of his weaknesses. And so it is in our lives. Our weaknesses are the very stuff which God uses to build a new world.

 

What do you get for the couple who have everything? (J. Barry Vaughn, Jan. 20, 2013)

What do you get for the couple who have everything? These days that’s a lot easier to answer than it used to be. We have online gift registries.

 

Where would you go to find a truly outrageous gift? The answer, of course, is Nieman Marcus. A friend of mine has a saying, “If I die in Walmart, drag my cold, dead corpse to Nieman Marcus!”

 

So, Kevin and Krystal, take note, here are some truly outrageous gifts that you can get from Nieman’s.

 

1. A $175,000 personalized library full of photography, art, and travel destinations from around the world. Personally, I don’t get that. Why would you want a room full of books that you didn’t pick out yourself?
2. For only $1.5M you can get “his and hers” dancing fountains like the ones in front of the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas.
3. A $75,000 “yurt”, you know, a Mongoloian tent, resembling Jeannie’s tent in the 60s TV show “I dream of Jeannie”, complete with carpets and a chandelier.
4. A $395,000 Ferrari that goes from zero to 60 in 3.7 secs. Oh, and it includes customized luggage.
5. For $30,000 you can get a walk on role in the musical “Annie.”

 

Do you suppose Mary, the mother of Jesus, was embarrassed that she had not brought a gift to the wedding in Cana? Is that what motivated her to ask Jesus to do something about the wine shortage?

 

The story in John 2 is mysterious.

 

Who were the couple getting married? Why did Mary ask Jesus to do something about the shortage of wine? Also notice that the steward compliments the bridegroom on the quality of the miraculous wine. Why compliment him rather than Jesus, the real source of the wine?

 

This led Bishop John Spong to suggest that the wedding feast was really for Jesus’ own wedding. I don’t find this persuasive b/c at the very beginning of the story we are told that Jesus and his disciples were invited guests. And anyway, I am absolutely certain that there is no way that the fact that if Jesus had been married, there is no way it could have been concealed for 2000 years.

 

There are some things you should know about John’s gospel that will help make sense of this story.

 

First, John’s gospel is neatly divided into 2 parts: the book of signs and the book of glory.

 

One of my favorite tricks for my New Testament students was, “How many miracles are there in John’s gospel?” The answer is none. I don’t mean that Jesus did not perform amazing deeds; what I mean is that John never uses the word “miracle;” instead, he speaks of “signs,” and there are seven of them.

 

1. water into wine
2. healing the centurion’s son
3. healing the paralytic at the pool of Bethsaida
4. feeding the 5000
5. walking on water
6. healing the man blind from birth
7. raising Lazarus

 

A second mysterious aspect of this story is Jesus’ cryptic comment that his hour has not yet come.

 

The word “hour” or “time” pops up througout John’s gospel.

 

When Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, he says, “The hour is coming and now is when you will worship God neither at Samaria nor at the temple in Jerusalem.”

 

But in John 12, when some Greeks, that is Greek speaking Jews, say that they wish to see Jesus, he says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

 

In other words, at the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, he tells his mother that his “time” or “hour” has not yet come. According to John’s chronology, his hour is 2 yrs in the future. But for just a moment the curtain is pulled back and we get a glimpse of things to come, a preview of coming attractions, a vision of God’s glory embodied in Jesus.

 

Glory is another key theme in John’s gospel. In the first chapter of John, the author tells us that in Jesus “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.”

 

But what does the miracle or sign of water become wine tell us about God’s glory?

 

It tells us that God’s purpose is to enhance and deepen our joy, that God’s deepest desire for us is that our joy not only be full but running over like the six jars full of rich wine.

 

Presbyterian minister and poet J. Barrie Shepherd writes:

 

"They have no wine,"

the mother said, and did not

realize she spoke for all of us

since then whose lives drink

of those stone cold jars of water,

never seem to taste the rich and ruby wine

made by her son that wedding day.

What happened to that transformation scene?

How could the kingdom broached at Cana

turn into a cross, our festal song

become one long funereal dirge?

Might there be a bridegroom yet, beyond

the graveyard, at whose feast the wine

flows freely and forever, blesses,

kisses every tasting lip with

sweet surprising laughter?

 

But that brings me back again to my original question, what prompted Mary’s original request that Jesus do something about the shortage of wine? Did she come to the wedding feast without a gift?

 

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians reminds us that we all have gifts: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit… To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.”

 

A wedding is just a sprint, but a marriage is a marathon. I imagine that a long marriage may begin to feel like a wedding party that has run out of wine. The joy that was there in the beginning plays out, and the wine of gladness becomes the water of drudgery and the commonplace.

 

What happens when she discovers that he snores? What happens when he discovers that she can’t boil water to save her life? Paul reminds us that no one of us has all the gifts, that the spiritual gifts are something that we possess together as the body of Christ.

 

And John reminds us that even the water of the ordinary and commonplace can once again be shot through with the glory of God when we remember and realize that in and through Christ we have married into God’s family.

Jesus' baptism and our identity (J. Barry Vaughn, Jan. 13, 2013)

Last spring I had the opportunity to stand beside the Jordan River and talk about Jesus’ baptism to the Christians and Jews from Birmingham with whom I went to Israel.  I had been to the Jordan before, but I’d never had the opportunity to stand there, to touch the water, to read aloud the story of Jesus’ baptism, and to reflect on its meaning.

 

The baptism of Jesus is a story that we tend to skip over lightly, but for the early church the baptism of Jesus summed up the whole mystery of salvation.

 

First, the baptism of Jesus helps us understand the forgiveness of sins.

 

The baptism of Jesus is a difficult story. If John the baptizer is proclaiming a “baptism for the forgiveness of sins,” then why is Jesus being baptized? Surely, he was sinless, so Jesus could not have been going to the Jordan to receive forgiveness. So the fathers and mothers of the early church reasoned that Jesus was baptized not in order that HE might be forgiven, but so that WE might be forgiven. One early Christian writer said that Christ imparted his sinlessness to the water so that we might receive it when we are baptized.

 

Second, Jesus’ baptism begins to heal the damage done by sin.

 

In Romans 8, Paul tells us that “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

 

Genesis 1 tells us that the Spirit hovered over chaos and was the agent by which God imparted order, so the Spirit descends on Jesus in his baptism and once again brings order out of disorder. Through the Spirit, God turns chaos into creation.

 

Third, the baptism of Jesus is a decisive event in God’s war against evil.

 

Have you ever noticed that at the beginning of the baptismal service, we ask the person being baptized or the parents and godparents of the child being baptized to renounce evil three times. What’s that about?

 

The ancient world and the ancient church had a much more vivid sense of evil than we do. They saw the presence of demons and evil spirits everywhere. And evil spirits were especially associated with water. When Jesus exorcises the Gadarene demoniac, he sends the evil spirits into the sea of Galilee because water is their natural dwelling place.

 

The writers of the OT had a love/hate relationship with water. On the one hand, it is necessary for life, but on the other hand, water is destructive. You can sail your boat on it, but you can also drown in it. Water cannot be contained forever. Unlike stone and metal, you cannot impart a form to it.

 

So in baptism, Jesus was declaring his power over darkness and evil. He went down into the water just as on the cross he went down into death. And in both cases, he met and defeated evil.

 

Finally, Jesus’ baptism is the moment when his identity is established and revealed to the world.

 

Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree that when Jesus was baptized, a heavenly voice said, “This is my Son, my beloved…”

 

Only Luke tells us that the angels revealed Jesus’ identity to the shepherds. Only Matthew says that the magi knew who Jesus was. But they all agree that the baptism of Jesus is the declaration to the whole world of Jesus’ identity.

 

But what does this have to do with us?

 

We are sinful people who live in a sinful world. Let’s change the word “sin” to “broken.” We are broken people and we long for wholeness. The baptism of Jesus tells us that we can find wholeness, that Jesus imparted a power to the water of baptism to heal us and make us whole. The gift is there for the taking.

 

The baptism of Jesus tells us that the gift of wholeness is not just for us; it is for the whole of creation. Now, that’s good news. We live in a time when the created order is staggering under the weight of the damage we have inflicted. The baptism of Jesus reminds us that God loves the WORLD, the cosmos, the created order, not just puny little human beings, and that God will be our partner in healing and restoring the created world.

 

And above all, Jesus’ baptism tells us who we are.

‘

We live in a world that tries to define us. Every TV commercial, every newspaper or magazine ad, every “pop up” on the internet tells us that if we eat this, wear that, or buy the other thing we will be happy, young, good looking, and sexy. In other words, they tell us that we are deficient, that we lack some essential ingredient of happiness, fulfillment, and satisfaction. We live in a world that defines us as a cog in an economic machine.

 

But Jesus’ baptism reminds us that we are God’s beloved children, that we are God’s daughters and sons. Jesus’ baptism reminds us of God’s original blessing on the world: “And God saw all that had been made and behold it was very good indeed.” Did you hear that? God declared creation to be good, not perfect. And that’s what we are: God’s beloved daughters and son… good but not perfect.

The Word became flesh (J. Barry Vaughn, Dec. 30, 2012)

John tells us that “The Word became flesh…” It is a statement that we hear every Christmas. It is especially well liked by Episcopalian clergy, because (as we are often told) the Anglican tradition is incarnational.

 

But I’d like to step back and look at this idea of “incarnation.” The root Carneus means “of the flesh” or even “not spiritual.” It’s also the root of our word “carnival.” I’m sure you know this but “carnival” is a compound of two words that literally mean “farewell to meat” because carnival immediately precedes Lent and the beginning of the Lenten fast.

 

But let’s put the idea of incarnation into simpler terms. “The Word became flesh…”

 

What do you do when you are trying to communicate a difficult and complicated concept to a child? You look for a simple illustration.

 

In a sense, the incarnation is God’s illustration. God had filled an enormous book with words. It’s a wonderful book, and if you want to know about God, you can hardly do better than read the Old Testament. But words only take us so far.

 

It’s as though God said, “I give up! I’ve been talking myself hoarse for centuries. I talked to Moses and David and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Amos, and you still don’t get it. Well, allow me to illustrate…”

 

And the Word… the WORDS of God… became flesh.

 

The abstract became concrete

 

The distant drew close

 

The invisible became visible

 

The intangible reached out and grasped our hand

 

All the words that God had spoken… all the words the prophets spoke… all the commandments that Moses received on Sinai… they all took on flesh and blood.

 

Jesus embodies all of God’s words, God’s thoughts, God’s love. He is God’s living, breathing illustration.

 

Forgive this somewhat irreverent illustration, but think about incarnation in this way. The internet is a wonderful thing. I love being able to read The New York Times on my computer and Shakespeare’s plays on my Kindle. But it’s not the same thing as holding a copy of the Times or a leather-bound copy of Romeo and Juliet. And when you receive an important email, it’s not enough just to read it on your computer screen. So what do you do? You print it out. You make a “hard copy.”

 

In a sense, that’s what the incarnation is all about. Jesus is the “hard copy” of God’s message. He embodies God’s message.

 

The incarnation was a unique and unrepeatable event. But the principle, the idea of incarnation is all around us.

 

It’s all very well and good to write love letters to our sweetheart. At least, I hope that people still write love letters! But when we really want them to understand that we love them, we have to look them in the eye, take their hand, and put our arms around them.

 

English poet Richard Crashaw wrote,

 

“Welcome, all wonders in one sight !
Eternity shut in a span !

Summer in Winter, Day in Night !
Heaven in Earth, and God in man !

Great, little One ! whose all-embracing birth

Lifts Earth to Heaven, stoops Heaven to Earth !”

 

That’s what the incarnation means: In Jesus’ birth, God embraces us, literally wraps the divine arms around our humanity, blesses us in all our messy humanity—

 

Our flesh and blood

 

Our tears and fears

 

Our life and our death.

 

And God invites us to do the same, to be agents of the incarnation by extending its reach, to wrap our arms around those we love and those we don’t love… the whole and the broken… the sad and the happy… the cheerful and the fearful…

 

Oh, come let us adore him!

On a day when men were numbered (J. Barry Vaughn, Dec. 24, 2012)

 

On Sept. 23, 63 BC, a son was born to a prominent Roman family.  They gave him the name Gaius, but when Julius Caesar adopted the young man, he took the name Octavian.  Elected consul in 43, the Roman senate gave him the title "Augustus" on Jan. 16, in the year 27 BC.

 

Sometime around 3 or 4 BC, the Gospel of Luke tells us that the divine Augustus ordered "that a census should be taken of the whole inhabited world." (Barclay's translation)

 

In the distant, backwater province of Judea, men and women descended on their ancestral homes.  Hundreds streamed into Bethlehem, a small, dusty village about 5 miles south of Jerusalem.  Among them were a peasant couple from another dusty village, Nazareth, up north, in the Galilee.  Their names were Yosef and Miriam, or as they have been anglicized, Joseph and Mary.  And again Luke tells us that while they were in Bethlehem, Mary went into labor and their first child, a son, was born.  They named him Yeshua, Joshua, Jesus, a Hebrew name meaning, "God saves".

 

Like hundreds of others in Bethlehem, Yosef registered himself and Miriam and Yeshua.  The minor Roman bureaucrat who wrote down their names and treated Yosef with the indifference or contempt that the conquerors feel toward the conquered.  Their names were scratched with quill pens on to papyrus, and the required number of copies were made.  Perhaps a copy was kept in the Roman headquarters in Caesarea Maritima, and perhaps another copy was sent to Rome.  However, it is unlikely that it ever came to the attention of the divine Augustus that a Jewish peasant named Yosef and his wife Miriam had a son named Yeshua.

 

Augustus presided over a period of extraordinary peace, the pax Romana.  An inscription dating from 7 BC states that "it is hard to say whether the birthday of the most divine Caesar is more joyful or more advantageous; we may rightly regard it as like the beginning of all things, if not in the world of nature, yet in advantage; everything was deteriorating and changing into misfortune, but he set it right and gave the whole world another appearance.... The birthday of the god was the beginning of the good news to the world on his account". (IDB, vol. 1, p. 319)

 

Then, on August 14, in the year 14 AD, something happened to the divine Augustus that is not supposed to happen to gods:  he died.  The Jewish infant, Yeshua, who had been registered in the Roman census in Bethlehem many years before, was now a young man nearly 20 years old. 

 

Augustus died; Yeshua, Jesus, lived.  He lived and taught and called men and women to follow him and learn from him and worked miracles and, of course, he ran afoul of the authorities, was arrested, given a mock trial, was crucified, and died... and rose again and lives... and lives... and lives.

 

About 30 years after Jesus died and rose again, an author we know as Mark wrote an account of the life of Jesus.  Perhaps echoing the inscription that honored the divine Augustus, Mark began his account of Jesus' life in this way:  "The beginning of the good news of Jesus the Messiah..."

 

One Roman emperor followed another and in the course of time, the rule of Rome fell to one Constantine.  Unlike his predecessor Augustus, Constantine did not accept divine honors.  Instead, he honored the divinity of the Jewish peasant Yeshua and accepted baptism in his name.

 

Constantine raised a great church in Bethlehem over the site of Yeshua's birth, and today a church still stands over the site of Constantine's basilica.

 

Several years ago the English author Malcolm Muggeridge visited the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.  He was taken aback by the gaudy ornamentation that surrounds the crypt where the birth of Jesus is remembered.

 

"Who but a credulous fool could possibly suppose that the place marked in the crypt with a silver cross was veritably the precise spot where Jesus had been born?  The Holy Land, as it seemed to me, had been turned into a sort of Jesusland, on the lines of Disneyland.

 

"Everything in the crypt ‑‑ the garish hangings which covered the stone walls, the tawdry crucifixes and pictures and hanging lamps ‑‑ was conducive to such a mood... How foolish and inappropriate... to furbish up what purported to be Jesus's birthplace with stage effects decking out his bare manger to look like a junk‑shop crammed with discarded ecclesiastical bric‑a‑brac!"

 

Then Muggeridge began to notice the men and women who descended to the crypt and peered into the shrine where the birth of Jesus is commemorated.

 

"...each face as it came into view was in some degree transfigured by the experience of being in what purported to be the actual scene of Jesus's birth.  This, they all seemed to be saying, was where it happened; here he came into the world!  here we shall find him!  The boredom, the idle curiosity, the vagrant thinking all disappeared.  Once more in that place glory shone around, and angel voices proclaimed:  Unto you is born this day ... a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord!"  (Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus, pp. 14‑15)

 

Even though we are in Birmingham, Alabama, and not in Bethlehem, we can, as the Bidding Prayer, said go "in heart and mind... even unto Bethlehem".  We can go because, unlike the divine Augustus, the divine Jesus lives.

 

His birth was a sharp, bright spark of light in the midst of darkest night.  It was a flame that has kindled other flames, spreading throughout Judea and Samaria, going on to Rome, and out to the ends of the world.  The light kindled by that birth in Bethlehem was "the light that enlightens every one".  "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it". (John 1.5, 9)

 

The inscription honoring the divine Augustus was wrong.  The birthday of Augustus is forgotten.  Augustus, the bureaucrats who administered his census, and the papyrus on which it was recorded all lie in the dust.  Jesus, though, who proclaimed that his kingdom was not of this world, rules in the hearts of men and women on every continent.  It is his birthday which "we may rightly regard as the beginning of all things... everything was deteriorating and changing into misfortune, but he set it right and gave the whole world another appearance.... [his] birthday ... was the beginning of the good news to the world ..." (IDB, vol. 1, p. 319)

 

Glory to God in the highest.  Amen.

To Sing and Pray Magnificat (J. Barry Vaughn, Dec. 23, 2012)

One of the most interesting and important religious and cultural developments in 20^th c America was the birth of the Pentecostal movement. In 1906 at a church on Azusa Street in Los Angeles, William Seymour, the son of former slaves, sparked a revival that resulted in the modern Pentecostal movement and the origin of denominations such as the Assemblies of God, the Church of God, and so on.

 

The Pentecostal movement was different from other Christian movements in several ways. First and most obviously, Pentecostals claim to exercise the so-called “gifts of the Spirit” mentioned in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, especially the gift of speaking in tongues. Second, the Azusa St movement and many of the groups that sprang from it ordain women and allow them to preach. Third, the movement began as an interracial movement. Not only was William Seymour black but his congregation had both black and white members.

 

Now, you must be wondering why I’m giving a church history lecture this morning. My point (and I do have one) is that Pentecostalism claims to trace its roots right back to the New Testament, and today’s gospel reading sheds some light on Pentecostalism.

 

The author we know as Luke not only wrote the third gospel, he also wrote a second volume – the Acts of the Apostles. Luke had a special interest in the Holy Spirit. Throughout both Luke’s Gospel and Acts, the Holy Spirit fills the hearts of believers and empowers them to do and say great things.

 

Today’s reading is one of the most powerful examples of what happens when the Spirit gets a grip on someone.

 

Mary, the mother of Jesus, has just learned that she is to be the mother of the one who will redeem the world. Notice that the gospel reading says that “Mary rose and went with haste.” Why the urgency? Mary is running for her life; she is scared to death. Immediately before she gets up and runs to her cousin’s house, an enormously powerful and unearthly being has appeared to her. Just imagine a flying saucer landing in your back yard and its alien passenger giving you a message from beyond the stars. This being told Mary that even though she was unmarried and had never been intimate with a man, she was going to bear a child. Furthermore, her son will be the Son of God and he will inherit the throne of David. That would make anyone get up and run for their life!

 

So Mary comes to Elizabeth’s house, and when Mary speaks to Elizabeth, Luke tells us that Elizabeth was filled with the Spirit. Then, Mary speaks what can only be called a prophetic message: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my Spirit rejoices in God my savior…”

 

And there’s the connection with Pentecostalism – women are the main actors in this story.  Elizabeth is filled with the Spirit and Mary delivers a prophetic message. Another important aspect of the Pentecostal movement is that it originated with and has been most successful among the poor and powerless. Mary’s song, the Magnificat, is about God lifting up the poor and bringing down the rich and powerful: Mary sings, “God has cast down the mighty and lifted up those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich empty away.”

 

Perhaps it has always been like that. Perhaps the poor and those on the margins, such as women, have always been more likely to be filled with the Spirit and to hear God’s message. Perhaps they have always been speaking God’s word and we just haven’t been listening.

 

I am also struck by another thing in this story that seems to me to have an important message for us at this moment. Mary and Elizabeth were pregnant. They were both preparing to give birth to their first children. I have no idea what that feels like, but I imagine that it is both a thing of great joy and also perhaps a time of some anxiety, perhaps even fear.

 

There is the fear of childbirth itself and also fear for one’s child. Up until very recently childhood, especially infancy, was a very dangerous time. Children routinely died in infancy and early childhood. Pres. Lincoln lost two children – one before he became president and one while he was in the White House. Nicholas Cobbs, the first bishop of Alabama, lost one of his children after he moved to Alabama. Any of you who have traced the genealogy of your families know that the death of children was extraordinarily common up until the early 20^th century.

 

Even today parents have many things to fear. Childhood is a vulnerable time. And the unspeakable shootings in Newtown, CT, just over a week ago show just how vulnerable children are.

 

I am not a pacifist, although I believe that Jesus was a pacifist. And I expect some day to have to explain to our Lord why I did not oppose violence the way that he did. But I am convinced that the way to protect our children is not by putting armed guards in our schools. Indeed, I am convinced that that would make them more vulnerable, not less vulnerable.

 

We live in a violent world and childhood seems to be an especially violent time. The world of childhood is saturated with violence in the forms of video games, movies, and television. We need to do something to reduce all forms of violence.

 

Parents, teachers, and clergy should do everything in their power to protect children, but we can never protect  them from all dangers and risks, nor should we. Learning how to manage risk and even danger are parts of growing up. Children have to learn how to manage risk from crossing the street to driving cars.

 

I believe that the way to protect our children is by creating the world that Mary dreamed about in her song, her Magnificat – a world in which the poor are lifted up and the hungry are fed. Will it be a perfectly safe world? No, of course not. God does not promise us safety; God promises us a good world and summons us to join with him in creating it.

 

So, I invite you to sing and pray Mary’s Magnificat. In particular, I invite you to pray for our children who are still too often the most vulnerable among us.

 

I want to conclude with a prayer for children by Marian Wright Edelman.

We pray for children
Who sneak popsicles before supper,
Who erase holes in math workbooks,
Who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those
Who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
Who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers, 
Who are born in places we wouldn't be caught dead,
Who never go to the circus,
Who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children
Who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
Who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
And we pray for those
Who never get dessert,
Who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
Who watch their parents watch them die,
Who can't find any bread to steal,
Who don't have any rooms to clean up,
Whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser,
Whose monsters are real.

We pray for children
Who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
Who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
Who like ghost stories,
Who shove dirty clothes under the bed and never rinse out the tub,
Who get visits from the tooth fairy,
Who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
Who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,
Whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those
Whose nightmares come in the daytime,
Who will eat anything,
Who have never seen a dentist,
Who aren't spoiled by anybody,
Who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
Who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children who want to be carried and for those who must,
For those we never give up on and for those who don't get a second chance.
For those we smother ... and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

Let’s pray for the children and give them all a better world. Amen.