Unfinished Houses

JD and I moved to Kansas in 2002.  We bought an old home, built in 1917, in the neighborhood of College Hill in Wichita, Kansas. The home was large and drafty and needed constant work, but it was full of personality and full of history.  The Murdochs, who ran the local paper back in the 1920's, had a meeting with Charles Lindberg in our living room. Lindberg proposed the Spirit of Wichita, but the Murdocks turned him down so he went to St. Louis.

The legend of a botched buisness deal, beautiful wood floors, high ceilings and constant work.  There was very little insulation in the house which we discovered in our first winter there.  It would become incredibly drafty. The third floor was completely unfinished and the kitchen desperately needed to be rennovated. We had a long list of projects in mind.  Kitchen first, insulation, third floor.  The basement flooded when it rained. But, I loved that house.  I really loved it.

And I came to realize that there was a certain culture in the College Hill neighborhood.  People would talk of their homes, their latest projects and their dreams.  We hosted the neighborhood Christmas party which was customary as the neighbors all expected to be allowed into our home. They all had advice and they all commiserated with our leaky basement.

Some days, I was all enthusiastic, almost buzzing about the next thing to be painted or the next project to focus on.  Other times, I just felt overwhelmed, thinking I would never finish it all.  And there was some truth to that.  Most College Hill residents lived in unfinished houses. It seemed that nothing could be completed, truly completed.

Jesus gives us some really hard instructions this morning.  He tells us that when someone punches us in the face we should turn and offer them the other side.  When someone takes something from us, we should give them more.  We should love our enemies, he says.

We define our lives by the relationships we have with the people we love.  Our spouses, our parents, our children, our life-long best friends. But Jesus says God is not impressed nor does God define our lives by the people we love.  No, God watches how we relate to our enemies.  It is our troubled relationships that God wants us to focus on, the people we cant stand, the ones who seem angry at us for reasons we cant fathom and the ones who cant seem to stop trying to hurt us.  Love them, he says.  Now that is hard work. 

But that is what distinguishes true believers from people who just talk the talk.

Do you give money away, generously?  Do you give even when you feel that no one appreciates it or notices?  And do you love the people who hate you?  By love, Jesus did not mean having good feelings, thank God, because feelings are beyond our control.  He meant do you honor them, treat them well, do them no harm, bless them and even pray for them?

How you act and what you do with the people that disgust you, that is what makes you a true believer.  

Then Jesus says, "Be perfect, as my Father in heaven in perfect."

I looked up the greek word for perfect.  Teleoi.  It means finished, complete, fully matured.

God wants us to work on loving our enemies and giving generously until, one day, we are complete.

But sometimes, I feel like an old house.  As soon as I mend one relationship and do the right thing, another broken one pops up. I wonder if I will ever be perfected, if I will ever get it right. I pray with a grumbling heart and speak the names of those who offend me but I silently would rather do something else. I am still so much a work in progress.

Saul hated David and wanted to kill him, but even when Saul was having rages and going insane, David would pray for him and even sing for him.  Many of the Psalms of the Old Testament were written by David in an attempt to sing to his enemy, to love Saul even when Saul despised him. The best poetry of Scripture was written by a man trying to love his enemy.

Do you ever get up really early?  I have lately been waking up to pray at about 4:30 or 5:00 a.m.  There is this moment, when the sun has not yet risen and the darkness of night still surrounds everything, when the birds begin to sing. It is as if they can sense the coming of the sun, the coming of the light. First one chortles, then another, then they all begin to sing and quietly, slivers of light begin to mark the horizon.

God wants us to act as if the Kingdom has come and the world is put right.  He wants us to sing like those birds even though the darkness is still all around us, even though crime is high and people are killed at Gate stations and the Ukraine and Venezuela are coming apart at the seams.  He wants us to sing and love like the birds because, even though the world is dark and our houses are yet unfinished, yet the Son of God will come again and nothing will be able to prevent the dawn from on high breaking upon us.

Perhaps God loves us like I loved my old house in College Hill, never sure when all the projects would be over, if ever, but loving it just the same. A work in progress, a beautiful thing in need of repair. One day we will be finished, one day we will be complete. Until that time, we are to sing and love even in the midst of the darkness.

Simeon and Answers to Prayers

A woman was considered unclean for forty days after the birth of a son. Once the forty days were over, she and her husband were to take the child to the temple in Jerusalem, where they were to offer up a sacrifice of thanksgiving for the child. If they were rich, they would be expected to sacrifice a lamb. If they were poor, they would be asked to sacrifice just two turtle doves or two pigeons.  

Mary and Joseph went from Bethlehem to Jerusalem for this rite of purification.  They held their newborn baby in their arms with all the anxiety of young parents, wondering if they were doing OK, if the baby would be OK.

I remember taking our son Luke to a restaurant when he was just a few weeks old.  We were so young and inexperienced that we left before even eating. We did not know how to keep him quiet, where to change him.  So we just went home. But Mary and Joseph had to walk.  They could not just turn around and go home. Bethlehem is a good few miles from Jerusalem.  Once they reached the temple, there was no turning back.

And then they saw him. The old man. He came up to them with such a look of intensity in his eyes. This was Simeon.  God told him that he would not die until he saw the Messiah, the Lord's annointed. And God told him to go to worship that day. And so there he was, looking all around, waiting for Jesus.  We dont know how many years he waited but we do know that he stayed alive just for this reason, just to see this Messiah.

Did Simeon know that it would be a baby? Was he looking for a child?

 We will never know.  But we do know that he came to the Temple expecting to see God's annointed one and he did see Christ. He recognized him.

I can just picture the old man, the look on his eyes as he sees that baby, the one he has been waiting for.

There is a beautiful picture of the Dalai Lama on the Internet. He is standing beside a metro car in a subway station underground.  There is a baby boy in his mothers arms seated inside the car by the window. The baby is leaning into the window, smiling at the Dalai Lama and the Dalai Lama has his hand to the window, with this playful look of anticipation and joy on his face, as if he has never seen anything more beautiful than that child.

"Now, I can die," Simeon says, "for I have seen this child."

Simeon came to the temple expecting to see God. 

Why did you come here today?  Were you expecting to see God?  Were you expecting to have your life changed forever, to catch a glimpse of God's will for your life?  Simeon not only prayed deeply, but he took the next step in a life of prayer, the courageous step that most of us are terrified to take.  After he prayed, he EXPECTED and WAITED for God's promise.  But often we do not dare to expect so much of God. Often, we are satisfied with a beautiful piece of music or a piece of inspiration from a sermon. Often we come to church out of habit or some deep sense of hunger, but rarely do we dare to expect so much of God.

Why do you come to church? What are you hoping to find?  Can you articulate your expectations? What do you long for, hope for, dream for?  If you do not name your hopes and dreams and desires to God, how will you know when you have been heard?  How will you know when your prayers have been answered?

Nehemiah's heart was broken over the state of the holy city of Jerusalem.  After the exile, the city was ruined, the walls torn down and the remnant of Jews that remained were hungry, afraid and beaten down by foreigners.  Nehemiah cried out to God to help rebuild the walls of the holy city.  He prayed hard and then Nehemiah, just like Simeon, waited, expecting an answer. This time, God answered Nehemiah's prayers by sending him back to Jerusalem to raise the money and build the walls himself.

God's answer to Nehemiah was to enlist his help. He became the very one to answer his own prayers.  He became the agent of God's will.

What do you want from life? Do you want to see the hungry fed?  Do you want your family to be healthy and loving? Do you want peace in the world?  Simeon had the courage to ask God to see Christ and then to wait and go to worship expecting to see Him.  Nehemiah asked God for his city and then answered when God asked him to go there himself and help rebuild it.

Today is our Annual Meeting here at the Cathedral.  Since the 1840's, this Cathedral has been worshipping God here in downtown Jacksonville, Florida.  We have built schools, housed hundreds of elderly who live on little or no income, we have fed the hungry, built homeless shelters, taught art to thousands of children in the public schools who would not have had art without us. And yet, it is never enough to thank God for all that we have been given.  Our greatest challenge to this date is that we dream too small.  We expect too little.  We dont dare enough.

After four years as your Dean, I am convinced that this Cathedral is a giant which has only partially awoken. We need the courage of Simeon, the motivation of Nehemiah.  We need to have the audacity to say to ourselves that we expect to see God here every Sunday and that this radical encounter is going to shape us in such ways that we are no longer concerned with survival but with the doing of the gospel in profound ways. 

This country is divided and enslaved by fear, fear of a weak economy, fear of never finding solutions to our problems, fear of terrorism and fear that we have seen our peak that our days as the leading country in the world are numbered.  This city is blighted in the downtown. It is worse than any other city in Florida.  We have not yet succeeded in finding a way to revitalize our core. We are struggling.

What do you ask of God today?  And if you dare to pray boldly and specifically, are you also willing to be part of the solution?  Are you, like Nehemiah, willing to work to rebuild relationships and strive for a better city? We are all so busy, busier than ever before. But we do have choices. And if we do not choose how to live our lives, our lives will live us.  If we do not ask God for specific goals and expect and wait for an answer, we will spend our lives spinning our wheels and worrying about next steps.

This Cathedral has the capacity to lead this city. We have the capacity to light our building, reroute traffic, create jobs, envision a changed downtown. But we must believe that Christ is among us. We must come to church EXPECTING to see God and have our lives changed. And we must be willing to accept the challenge that comes when God takes over our hearts.

This place is a birthplace for ministry. It is a heartbeat that keeps this downtown alive. And when you walk into this beautiful sanctuary, expect to see God.