Hebrew Text & Gospel for Sunday 21 February 2021

Genesis 9:8-17        God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Mark 1:9-15        In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and b

believe in the good news.

Reflection       Seven years ago my younger brother died of a rare and raging blood cancer. While speaking on the phone to my nephew, my brother’s son, he said, “ Dad is dying right now. I have to go.” With all of the air kicked out of my gut I stumbled outside, dangled my feet in the pool and raged at God. “You better make good on your promise to be with my brother.” And as God is my witness I tell you, on this sun smothered June afternoon with hardly a cloud in the sky a rainbow appeared rising from the Catalinas, a wee bit north of Mount Lemmon. I wept. I wept because I knew that even though my brother had no faith in God and zero use for religion, God was faithful to him and all was well. 

This is the promise, “the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” Never again will God abandon any one of us. And ever since that June afternoon when in the wake of my brother’s death God’s rainbow affirmed God’s uncompromising promise, during every Memorial Celebration of life that I have had the privilege of celebrating  I have been able to preach Paul’s words to the Romans with unwavering conviction,  “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God … ” (Ro 8.38-39)

God is faithful, even when we are not. As people of God we need this assurance because as soon as we are baptized, as quickly as the priest pours water over our crowns and marks us with holy oil as God’s own forever, like Jesus we are driven directly to the wilderness. We are cast into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan, taunted by wild beasts and also cared for by the angels. Just in case you are wondering what that wilderness looks like, stop and look around. 

The wilderness is the thin ice of existence on which we all skate, the dubious daze and erratic maze of life that we call reality. The wilderness is history’s playground replete with adversity and advantage, blessing and curse, hardship and comfort, pleasure and affliction. You see, just as quickly as we, like Jesus, realize we are God’s beloved, we are driven into the wilderness to be tempted, humbled, refined and compelled along the way to Jerusalem.

“What is the way to Jerusalem?” I believe it is the long walk of life, the mariner’s cruise, the sojourner’s trek, the simple persons shuffle through puzzling days and sleepless nights. For those inclined toward things relating to the Spirit or soul, the walk to Jerusalem is understood as the Spiritual Journey of the lover moving toward union and unity with the Beloved. For the less spiritually inclined the way to Jerusalem may seem to be the road of baseless suffering bent on an arch toward doom. 

When almost all of the earth was destroyed by a flood, God made an everlasting covenant with all that lives, represented by a rainbow bridging earth and sky. This is the good news of God with us through floods, fires, freezes and political sea changes;  through climate catastrophes and pandemics, isolation, desolation as well as consolation. God is faithful, no matter what. So stop wagging your tongues and waving your fingers. Put down your complaints and turn around.  Repent. Believe the good news. God is near. Open the eyes of your heart to see God’s rainbow.

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Gospel text for Sunday 10 May 2015

John 15:9-17        Jesus said to his disciples, "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

Reflection        On this Mothers’ Day Jesus implores us to “Love one another as (he) has loved us,” a command to love as a mother loves. We need mothers, not only to give us birth but also to give us value, to show us by the way they interact with us that we are a gift, a treasure. How else will be experience ourselves as a precious gift of God? And, not all of us had mothers who were capable of doing that. 

Does that mean we are doomed to a life of self-loathing or endless psychotherapy? I do not think so because mothers are not the only people capable of mothering love.  Which is to say, the mother who gives us birth may or may not be the one who gives us value. And that is where all the rest of us come in. Every one of us is needed by someone to give them a sense of being a treasure, a gift from God.  Unless another human being treats us as a beloved treasure we will not experience the deepest truth of ourselves, that we are beloved. I believe this is why Jesus’ cardinal instruction to the disciples and us is, “Love as I have loved.” Everyone, without exception, needs to be unconditionally loved in order to know they truly are the beloved and every one of us needs to make the decision to love without expectation or motive.

A question before us today is not, “Who is my biological mother?” It is, “ Who is the person that showed me I am a treasure, a precious gift?” For me the answer is, Aunt Frances. My parents were of the belief, “Spare the rod, spoil the child” and that “Children should be seen and not heard.” By contrast, Aunt Frances was tender, kind, spent endless hours listening to me, telling me stories, taking me to special places and letting me know that I was a treasure, beloved. Of course this meant I grew up with competing voices in my head, voices that gave me migraine headaches until a wise psychologist suggested I choose whichever voice was more life giving and banish the other. 

Everyone needs an Aunt Frances; someone who loves them the way Jesus loves, without judgment or agendas, which is why it is essential that every one of us decides to be an Aunt Frances and love the people around us with a selfless mother love, to let the people in our families and neighborhoods know they are valuable treasures, precious gifts of God, beloved. 

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Psalm 139 for Sunday 18 January 2015

Psalm 139:1-5, 11-17

LORD, you have searched me out and known me; *

you know my sitting down and my rising up;

you discern my thoughts from afar.

You trace my journeys and my resting-places *

and are acquainted with all my ways.

Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, *

but you, O LORD, know it altogether.

You press upon me behind and before *

and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; *

it is so high that I cannot attain to it.

For you yourself created my inmost parts; *

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I will thank you because I am marvelously made; *

your works are wonderful, and I know it well.

My body was not hidden from you, *

while I was being made in secret

and woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb;

all of them were written in your book; *

they were fashioned day by day,

when as yet there was none of them.

How deep I find your thoughts, O God! *

how great is the sum of them!

If I were to count them, they would be more in number than the sand; *

to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.

Reflection       We humans have a knack for hiding, burying, avoiding ourselves; critical thoughts about the person whose voice pushes us over our edge, the swelling of lust for our neighbor or stranger in the market, the times we were offended, overlooked, misrepresented, forgotten or failed. We pretend we do not eat, drink or buy too much. We leap to judgments then cling to them. We deny our feelings then get stuck in loops rehearsing the awful things people said to or about us. Then, we build thick brick walls around all of this, hoping to keep it from leaking out. The trouble is, it does not work.

God sees and knows and so we cry,  

“Where can I go from your spirit?
   Or where can I flee from your presence?
 If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,
   and the light around me become night’,
 even the darkness is not dark to you;
   the night is as bright as the day,
   for darkness is as light to you. “

The only one who is left out in the dark is us. Those thick brick walls we build keep us from knowing who we are and whose we are. We cannot see that we are the beloved of God who sees and knows our whole story and loves us anyway. 

Years ago while making retreat at Christ in the Desert Monastery in Abique, New Mexico,  a single question rang through my soul, “Have I come here to find or avoid myself?” During Compline the first night of my retreat I quite forgot the question until we turned to Psalm 139 and chanted,                                                                                             

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
   you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down,
   and are acquainted with all my ways. 

Warm tears spilled on my psalm. I am seen. I am known. And I am not annihilated.  While walking to my room I paused in the uninterrupted darkness. “Lord, all the things I have never admitted, You see, You already know. Still You hold me in the breath of this night. You light my way with showers of stars.” Then I noticed a deer, maybe twenty or thirty feet away, watching me watching her. Amidst the unspeakable beauty of the canyon, with echoes of the monks chanting in my heart, I prayed , “Lord, you have searched me out and known me and not thrown me away. You have not stepped on me like an insect. You brought me to this holy place to wake me up in the middle of the night and let me know.  You know me; my journey, my comings, my goings and all the things I thought I had to hide.”

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Matthew 3:13-17          Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."

Reflection           Maybe he wasn’t really thinking about where he was going, or maybe he had a plan from the start. It was a full day’s walk from Nazareth of Galilee to the river Jordan. I wonder if the psalmist’s song, “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters... the voice of the Lord splits the flames of fire...” echoed in Jesus’ heart as he crossed the desert and finally ascended the rocky ridge from which he caught his first glimpse of his cousin John and the people, oh so many people, some wet and resting in the sun, some standing at the river’s edge waiting for their time with the prophet? I wonder how many baptisms Jesus watched before he left his lookout, wound his way among the waiting crowd to the river bank? 

The warm water of the Jordan must have felt fantastic on his dust encrusted feet. I wonder if the psalmist’s song, “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters....” rose in Jesus’ heart as he approached his cousin John? I wonder how Jesus felt as he yielded his weight to John’s outstretched arms? as he caught his breath and surrendered to the watery grave? I wonder if the psalmists’ song “The voice fo the Lord is upon the waters...” was bursting in his chest as he “came up from the water, (and) suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. I wonder how fast his heart was pounding as he caught his breath and heard “.. a voice from heaven (say) “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased?” 

I wonder, how would it be if this tree breaking, wilderness shaking, fire splitting altered state experience  happened to you.. or to me? I hate to admit it but I must. If this happened to me there is every chance it would go straight to my head and I would sizzle,  “Aren’t I special!”  Heaven was torn open to me! A dove flew down from heaven and landed on me! I am afraid I would be tempted to make the experience of the Spirit of God all about me. 

Perhaps that’s why the prophet John warned that the one who came after him would baptize by the Spirit and fire. Maybe the fire John the baptizer mentions has to do with tempering the Spirit? Maybe baptism by fire has to do with seperating the wheat from the chaff, breaking the shell and getting rid of the hard edges of our human minds and personalities. Maybe the fire is about refining the haughty bits of our human condition which tempt us to think of our selves as special, as god?

With that in mind it makes sense that immediately following his baptism,  “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” (Matt 4.1) where we will meet Jesus in next week's gospel text. Stay tuned.

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New Testament reading for Sunday 28 April 2013

Revelation 21:1-6           I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

"See, the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them as their God;

they will be his peoples,

and God himself will be with them;

he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

for the first things have passed away."

And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life."

Reflection    Screaming from an enormous flat screen TV were images of a firefight and a paralyzed Watertown, Massachusetts. I passed by quickly as I was leaving a skilled nursing facility where I had just visited a dying woman. All this on the heals of the Marathon bombing. I could not get to the parking lot fast enough. I sat in my hot car and let the tears have their way. 

Tears are grief’s companion. They tug at the pit of emptiness. They seep into the places where words fail and sense is stunned. Tears and questions, that’s all I had. Where is God in all this darkness? When will the new heaven and new earth be realized? And what does that mean anyway? 

I believe the essence of the age to come, the new heaven and new earth, is this. Every person realizes that God is with her or him, no matter what. And, every person recognizes God’s caring and comforting presence in “the other.” There is no one with whom God is not. When we all truly realize this we will have no need to kill one another.

As I read the apostle John’s description of his vision I can almost hear Martin Luther King’s deep gravelly voice proclaiming,”The home of God is with you. Nothing... I say....nothing can seperate you from God. I can seeeeee the new Church. I can seeeee the new Church and it is you. You, the people of God. And I hear a loud voice from heaven saying, “Know me, know me the way the bride and the bridegroom know one another. Know that we are one. Know that no thing, no darkness, no bombings, no firefights, no evil, nothing can seperate you from me in all eternity. You are my people. In you I live and dwell, I Am. It is done.”

This is a mighty truth. The troubles of this time will pass away when we enter the bridal chamber, when we consent to our mystical union in God. God is our intimate companion, partner, beloved. And it is God, the bridegroom, who will wipe away our every tear. “These words are trustworthy and true.”