Praying Big

    I got scammed this week. I went online to find out about a summer camp at one of our local universities and the University asked me to complete a survey and I would get a reward. So I filled out the survey about how I was visiting the website and why I logged on, etc. And then my reward popped up.  A free trial of Cellogica Skin care products, a new revolutionary brand of skin care designed to make wrinkles disappear! Cellogica will send me the product for free. I just have to pay shipping and handling.

Well, I am in my forties.  It is a great age for the most part. I am not as naive as I was in my twenties and yet I am still able to do almost anything physically.  The only problem with your forties is that's when the wrinkles start coming. They seem to appear from out of nowhere and there they are, signs of age. And I have always wondered if these really expensive creams work or if its just a hoax. So here it was, my chance to try Cellogica for free! I ordered the stuff.

Luckily, I married a man who is much wiser than I.  When I told him about my "reward," he groaned, and looked up my order.  JD discovered that they planned to charge me $130 a month for the rest of my life! "Call them tomorrow to cancel the order" was his advice. So I did. And I found out that if I did not return the skin care product within forteen days, that they would charge me $150. The "free"trial really meant that I didnt have to pay for fourteen days. 

So I found myself driving to the post office, where the man behind the counter laughed at me and told me about goats milk cream. 

The internet is full of scams.  Companies don't tell the whole truth or they don't tell the truth at all. When I tried to argue, the man at Cellogica said that it was all there in the fine print, at about 5 point font. I would need a microscope to read it.

Today, we encounter the longest recorded conversation that Jesus had with any one human being. The person to whom he spoke was as surprising as the conversation itself. She was not Jewish. She was not married. She was a SHE. 

Men were not supposed to talk to women except their wives and relatives in Jesus' day. Women were called "GeNay" which meant, literally, Womb. They were seen not as human beings but as walking wombs, sources of potential sons, an investment, a piece of property.  So it was extraordinary that Jesus, sitting at Jacob's well, asked this woman for a drink of water. And even more astonishing is her bold question in reply, "Why do you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?"  In other words, "Why in the world are you talking to me?  Are you trying to get something from me? What is it that you want?"

This woman wants the truth. And it is only the truth that can enable you to see God, for God does not lie and God does not scam.

Jesus answers her, "If you knew who I really was, you would be asking me for another kind of product, something much better than normal water, you would be asking me for living water, water so incredible that you will never be thirsty again..."

The woman likes the idea of never being thirsty, but she does not comprehend the fullness of what Jesus is saying. She thinks about how hot she gets every day going to the well at noon, during the worst heat of the day. She had to go at noon because no one else was there at that time, when the sun beat down so severely as to kill a man. She had to come at that time because this woman was an outcast.  Not only was she a woman and a Samartian and not married, but she had been married five times before.  Whether her husbands had died or kicked her out for asking too many questions, we will never know. But a woman who had had five husbands was scandalous. She was a social praia, a monster.

All this woman wants is to be heard, to not have to be alone. But what Jesus is offering her is so much more than that, it is a love that extends far beyond her understanding and life that lasts forever.

When Jesus tells her that he knows of her husbands, she is so impressed that she cant shut up. She runs into the village and tells everyone that he is the Messiah.  And, for the first time perhaps, they listen to her. She is heard.

What was the woman looking for?  She wanted a chance to become part of the community again, to not have to walk to the well alone.  She wanted to be seen as a person and not a monster.  But Jesus wanted so much more for her.  Jesus wanted her to go down in history as the one who spoke to him the longest, the brave woman who heard him at the well.  Jesus wanted her to learn to love God so that her life would extend far beyond the first and physical world into eternal life.  Jesus was offering her the Universe and all she wanted was a little respect and a glass of water.

Often our greatest failure in our relationship with God is that we don't ask for enough. We want to not be alone and God reveals the Messiah to us.  We want some extra money and God offers us the treasures of heaven.  We want someone to hold and God wants us to have love eternal.  We want to get rid of wrinkles and God wants to give us heaven itself.

Sometimes our greatest sin is our incapacity to dream big enough for God's great goodness.

In a few weeks, on Palm Sunday, something is happening downtown in Jacksonville. For five years, I have been praying that this downtown core would ignite, that this city would begin to focus our efforts on caring for and nurturing the city's heart.  And, after almost five years, something is finally happening. We are on the brink of something new.

A fire is being ignited downtown. It began as an event last year called OneSpark.  This year, OneSpark has grown.  Last year, over one hundred thousand people attended OneSpark.  This year, more are predicted to come and walk the streets of downtown, where small businesses, entrepreneurs and artists will present new ideas and projects. And this all falls on Palm Sunday Weekend, the one holy day when churches traditionally walk out of their sanctuaries and into the streets.

Could it be that God may be answering our prayers about this Urban core in ways that surpass our very asking? There is no other church downtown that has claimed a voice, no spiritual presence at OneSpark. 

When the Samaritan woman realized who Jesus was, she dropped her water jar (an expensive thing by the way) and ran to the city.  She ran into the city to tell everybody about the man she met, the man who surpassed her every expectation.

Walk with me into the heart of the city.  Pray with me about Palm Sunday and OneSpark. And lets not make the age old mistake of praying for too little. Instead, lets dream boldly and open our hearts to the One who never scams us but instead always gives us more than we could ever even begin to imagine.

To be Born Again

When I was in college, I went to see a self-help guru. We met in his house with my then boyfriend and he told me a bunch of stuff and I needed to work on and I had no idea what he was talking about. It was one of the strangest conversations of my life. I could not tell if I was just dumb and could not comprehend his wisdom or if he actually, literally, made no sense. I left more confused than when I came.

The conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus was a bit like this. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a member of the elite group of Jewish scholars called the Sanhedrin, and he was used to being the smartest man in the room. But Nicodemus also knew when God was doing something and, unlike his fellow Sanhedrin, he recognized God in Jesus.  Afraid of tarnishing his reputation as a wise man, he went to Jesus by night, to question him about God.

What Jesus told Nicodemus was so profound as to completely stump him.  He had no idea what Jesus was talking about. But the words stuck in his mind and he kept chewing on them for years. When it came time for Jesus to be crucified, Nicodemus was there in the background to take his body down and, along with Joseph of Arimathea, to bury him. Clearly, something did sink in.

Jesus told Nicodemus that in order to be of God, one must be "born again." To this very day, Christians all over the world have wondered what Jesus meant by being "born again." All that I can offer you are my own musings, for the meaning of this concept goes far beyond anything that most of us can comprehend.

The Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor tells a story about herself in college. She was agnostic, having been raised in a home where her folks just didn't seem to care about God or think about God. She was studying one night in her dorm room and two girls from Campus Crusade for Christ came and knocked on her door. She opened it and groaned. There they were, the pests, standing there with their electric smiles, clutching their bibles, so earnest and so annoying. Barbara thought to herself, "How can I get rid of these girls fast?  I need to study!" 

The two girls asked her if she had accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. She decided that the easiest thing to do would be to just play along, so that she could get them to leave. So she admitted the truth,. "No," she said.  "I have not accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior."

"Do you want to?" they asked earnestly.

"Sure," she said.

So they came into her room. They faced her and asked her to repeat after them, "I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior."

 

She said the words.  They hugged her and then they left.

Thank God, Barbara thought. Now I can get back to studying.

She sat back down at her desk and couldn't concentrate, so she went for a walk.  The leaves on the trees looked so beautiful to her in the setting sun. Something was different. Everything looked so beautiful. 

Then she realized, with a start, that maybe she actually had accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior and maybe that's why everything looked different. And from that moment on, things didnt get easy, they got harder.  She was turned upside down and began to study religion and her parents thought she was crazy and she ended up a priest!

Something happened in that dorm room.  Something definitely happened.

 

Think about birth with me for a moment, from the perspective of the one who is born.  God made it so that we don't remember our birth and that is probably a good thing because it could not have been anything but painful. Getting squeezed through some tiny spot. Leaving warmth and comfort and a place where your every need is taken care of and emerging into a cold, confusing place that makes no sense at all. When we are born, we are lost at first. We cannot distinguish colors, sounds, smells. We are helpless and must learn how to do everything.  To be born again must also mean to go through something that could be quite painful or taxing and emerge as someone new, having to learn how to do everything all over again. You might need to learn to see again after being born. If this is true, then being born again is scary and I'm not sure I want to do it. 

In the first life, the physical life that we are born into, we are the center of the Universe. People feed you, dress you, change you. And, as we grow up, human beings think of our own needs and wants and we wonder what we will become in the world and what is happening to us. And our lives belong to ourselves.

To be born again means to give up your life and belong to God. Your self dies and is reborn as God's child. It is God who lives in you and directs your life. You literally give up the drivers seat and become helpless again. And this process, of dying to self, can be painful and scary and many people, even those who say that they are saved or born again, have never really done it.

In his book The Dance of Hope, Bill Frey tells the story of a teenager named John who was in an accident and lost his sight. John was so angry and bitter about becoming blind and helpless that he just went to bed and shut the door. At first, his parents and family waited on him hand and foot and he was miserable.  But, his parents got weary of his self-pity and his dad did something radical one day.

John's dad came to his room one morning and told him that he expected John to mount the storm windows around their house that day. "Winter is coming soon. I need you to do this. Do the work before I get home or else," his dad said. And then he left.

John was furious.  He groped his way to the garage where his dad kept the storm windows.  Crying and muttering in anger, he found the tools, the stepladder, the windows and felt his way around the house.  He could not believe that his dad had asked him to do this. "They'll be sorry when I fall off the ladder and break my neck," he said to himself. But he didn't fall. Little by little, he groped his way around the house and he completed the task. That was the beginning of a new life for John.  He realized that, even though he was blind, he could learn new ways to function and he could put in storm windows and he could learn.  He began to live again.

It was only years later, when he was home from college and talking with his dad one night, that he spoke of that pivotal day, the day his dad challenged him to move beyond himself, beyond his misery. He told his dad how shocked he was that he had asked John to do something so dangerous. "I could have fallen and broken my neck," he said. 

It was then that his dad told him that he had not gone to work that day.  At no point in the day had he been more than four feet away from his son. His dad had no intention of letting John fall.

    Being born again is scary.  It can often involve something painful, in which you are asked to give up your old self and become someone new. Sometimes the catalyst for new birth is suffering, illness, depression, loss of work, grief. But the suffering acts as a catalyst for the emergence of something wholly new. A new life emerges in which you are no longer asking Jesus to follow you but actually being willing to follow him. Sometimes the only thing that can bring about this kind of rebirth is the total and complete failure of the first life, a time in which you realize, consciously or unconsciously, that doing things your way just is not working. Being born again can happen sometimes suddenly and unpredictably as it did for Barbara and sometimes it takes a long and painful process before a new life emerges. Being born again is as unpredictable as the wind, Jesus said.

But one thing is clear. There are many of us who claim to follow Christ but what we really want is for Christ to follow us and help our lives be better, more comfortable, more successful.  It is only when we give our whole selves up to Him and let Him be in charge that we can be born again. You have to let go of life as usual before you can begin eternal life. Being born again is an all or nothing kind of a thing.  You either are born or you are not. And when you are born again, you are blind for awhile.  You have to grope your way around and trust that Jesus is close by, waiting to catch you.

What's it going to be, your life or God's life?  Your way or God's way? You have to say goodbye to comfort and your own way and be born to a new life of grace if you are to stand a chance of catching a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven. You have to be willing to be helpless in the face of the unknown before you can understand what it is that God has in store for you. 

 Jesus didn't die to keep us safe.  He died to help us be born again, into Him.

The Conversation

Do you believe in the devil?

CS Lewis says that there are two fundamental mistakes we can make about the devil, one is to ignore his existence and the other is to spend too give him too much attention.

I knew a woman once who talked about the devil all the time. When her car broke down and she could not get to bible study, she claimed that it was the devil. So many things in her life were caused by the devil that the devil played a major role in her life. 

On the other hand, there are many people out there who don't believe in the existence of evil at all and this seems wholly inadequate. How else can we explain all the suffering in the world? 

On one Sunday a year, the church talks about the devil and we think about temptation. One Sunday out of 52. That is a good ratio. We are following CS Lewis' advice and taking the devil seriously but not giving the subject all our attention. 

On this Sunday, we pray in detail for all the pain and suffering in the world and we wonder why we have fallen so far. The prayers that we said at the beginning of this service are part of an ancient practice called The Great Litany. It is traditional, on this, the first Sunday of Lent, to pray for the pain and suffering in the world. So it seems appropriate that we read about Jesus' encounter with the devil this one Sunday. According to scripture, the Devil is a fallen angel, not an uncreated being equivalent to God, but the ultimate expression of our free will. The devil is the personification of our worst choices, the choice to run from God. That is why his name is tempter.

If we are called to model Jesus, then we must notice that the very first thing he did before ministering to anyone was to face the devil. Jesus went out alone to an empty place. He ate nothing and he prayed. And the devil came to him. He did not go to the devil, the devil came to him, and the devil comes to all of us too. On the first Sunday of Lent, we read about Jesus conversation with the devil. 

The devil offers Jesus three choices. First, he suggests that Jesus put himself first by breaking his fast and feeding himself. Second, he challenges Jesus to test God and despair by throwing himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple. And lastly, the devil offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if only he would fall down and worship the devil himself.

Feed yourself, kill yourself, take all the kingdoms of the world for yourself. 

The key to all the temptations of the devil are that they are all about the self.

The devil wants us stuck inside ourselves. The devil wants you to think only of yourself all the time, what you are feeling, how you are doing, whether or not people like you, if you have what you want and need. The devil talks in the language of me and me and me. Giving to others, refraining from taking everything you are offered, thinking about other people-these actions are antithetical to the devil's work. The devil does not know generosity. Not at all.

This past week, I traveled up north to New York City. I picked up my son and after seeing a friend, we drove at night into Newark New Jersey so that I could take the train into Manhattan to preach at General Seminary the next day. As all of you well know, it is freezing cold up north right now. In the mornings, the ice and snow covered the windshield of our rental car. I rented a jeep with four wheel drive just in case the weather got really bad. As we drove through the night, I kept those windshield wipers on to brush away the ice and snow so that I could see where I was going.

The devil is much like the ice, snow, sleet and rain that cloud the windows of our true nature. God created us to look out on the creation and think of others and be awake and live fully. The devil wants to block our vision, to cloud over who we really are and get us stuck inside ourselves, unable to see clearly. Think about what would have happened to me on the road down to Newark if my windshield wipers had broken. I would have been unable to see clearly. I could have been in a terrible accident and hurt myself or others.

Sometimes the devil won't completely block our vision but will skew it. Take for example a woman who was mistreated and beaten by her father as a small child. The abuse gave the devil an opening. She began to believe that she was bad and deserved to be mistreated. This false map of life, if it is not identified as false by her, will cover her windshield and she will not see the world clearly but only through the lens of her temptation to believe herself unworthy. Hence, she will only chose men who mistreat her and she will wonder why her life is broken. In reality, the temptation has colored her vision and she cannot see clearly.

Identifying temptation is key. You cannot refuse the devil if you don't know that he is there or what he sees. Get to know your temptations so that you can wipe them away.

I believe that CS Lewis was right. We should not deny the existence of the devil but we should not get consumed with him either.  We should brush off the devil like windshield wipers brush off bad weather. Wipe off his temptations, his distractions. You don't need to go to war with the devil, just say no as Jesus did.  The devil is intent on getting you to be completely and totally self-absorbed, to put yourself before God. If you close in on yourself, you will not only be miserable but you will make terrible mistakes, hurting yourself and others. So wipe off the self-absorption and say no to temptations daily.

Every day, you and I must wake up and wipe off the temptations to be self-pitying or consumed by worry or afraid for our futures. We must wipe away despair and hopelessness and vanity. If you are thinking about yourself all the time, it's time to clean the windshield. A healthy Christian should be awake, watching what God is doing in the world, listening to the needs of others and responding in kind. We ought to take care of ourselves, yes, but only so that we can serve God, not as an end unto itself.

Years ago, I came up with a new phrase which meant repent. "Get over Yourself" seemed a more accurate translation and I still stick to it. It is the main message of Lent. Jesus told us to repent over and over again. When he called his disciples, he said that the Kingdom of heaven was at hand but they could not see it because they had not repented, they had not cleaned off their windshields, they were too absorbed with themselves. 

Remember that the devil wants you to be all about yourself. Brush him off like frost, like old residue or dirty water, clear your mind. Only then will you be ready to begin your ministry in the world.

Ashes to Go?

Good afternoon, General Seminary.  It is such an honor to be with you on this Ash Wednesday. Since most of you are reading a lot, you are well aware of the existence of the Lectionary and the trouble that scholars and priests go to to select readings appropriate for every holiday and Sunday. I must admit to you that I have never understood why this particular gospel is selected for Ash Wednesday.

For the most part, Episcopalians are a modest group.  We do not wear strange hats or habits or shave our heads, we dont wear bonnets or phyulacteries or carry prayer rugs. Most of the time, you cannot tell us from the average agnostic if you were to run into us on the street. We dress how ever we want to dress. But on this one day of the year, we put Ashes on our foreheads and we actually wear them out of the church and into the street and, for one day of the year, we are visibly identifiable as Christians.

So, why, on this one day, do we choose to read the one passage from the gospels where Jesus tells us NOT to practice our piety in order to be seen by others.  When you are fasting, he says, wash your face. Dont make out that you are any different from anyone else. Dont show off your devotion.

I have heard of a few churches that pass out wash clothes after their Ash Wednesday services and invite people to wipe off the ashes from their foreheads so as to follow the gospel of the day more precisely, but I have never done such a thing. Nor do I think it is a good idea. I like wearing my ashes out on the streets and here is why.

On Sunday night, at the Oscars, Ellen DeGeneres said that the most important thing in the world was youth. She was joking, or at least I think she meant it as a joke, but the truth is that most of us believe that in America today.  Youth is beautiful. Youth is money.  China and the US are competing for younger work forces. Everyone wants to hide their grey hairs, smooth out wrinkles, exercise and use Oil of Olay.  The point is to look young because when you are young and vigorous, you can pretend that you are not going to die.

And there is this secret part of every American that believes that he or she will be the first not to die.  That is why we work so hard to build up our 401K's but dont write a will. That is why we work so hard to look young. Because when you are old, you are useless and you have to admit that your life is waning.  And no one wants to admit that.

I buried a woman who died of breast cancer last year. Her husband was only in his fifties.  He had to be led to the sanctuary, like a child.  He could hardly speak.  We went to the burial site and they put out that fake grass to cover over the dirt and after the service, he stayed.  They urged him to leave but he, unlike most, wanted to see the coffin being lowered into the ground.  So he stayed and I stayed with him and we watched as they pulled the fake grass away and got out this big machine and lowered the casket into the dark dirt. And he looked at me, his eyes full of grief and fear. It was so dark down there.

I dont think that we wear ashes today to show off our piety.  We are not stating that we are praying, though we obviously went to church today. We wear these ashes to say something much more important.

I AM DUST.

In other words, I am going to die.  I myself will be dirt and dust and ashes. I will be nothing at all.

In Jesus' day, when a loved one died, the family would tear their clothes and pour dirt over their heads and wail and they werent showing off their piety, they were honest about their despair.

Today, we predict our own deaths and we admit that the death rate is 100% and that we will NOT get out of it.  Today, we are not showing off.  Today we are telling the truth.

And why, why do we do this?  Why do we walk around New York City like the living dead? Because we are beginning a journey today, a forty day journey that will take us to heart of the tomb and beyond.  

If you think that somehow you will never die, then there is no room in your life for God and you can't start the journey to Easter.  If you think that you are perfect, then there is no room for God's salvation. Jesus came to the poor and the outcast because they knew that they needed help.  They knew that they had made mistakes, that they needed redemption, that their lives were a mess. If, deep down inside, you think that you are good and that you will go to heaven no matter what you do or what you believe, then dont put ashes on your forehead. Dont do it. 

But if you see how much of a failure you are and that you never can quite get your life just right.  If you understand that you are wounded and in need of healing.  If you see now that you are helpless without God, then put ashes on. Because ashes are telling the truth about our essential natures, that, without God, we are nothing but dirt. And that is not practicing piety.  That is telling the truth.

Do you remember the movie, Walk the Line, about Johnny Cash?  Cash was told by his Dad that he was nothing and he believed his dad.  He took so many drugs that he almost died.  But June Carter and her parents stayed with him, chasing off the drug dealers and waiting while he detoxed and shook and was mostly unconscious. And, when he finally came to, June was sitting by his bed with a bowl of raspberries. As he began to eat them, John spoke the truth about who he thought he was.

"I am nothing," he said.

June looked at him straight in the eyes and she responded. "You are not nothing! God has given you a second chance, John.  This is your chance!"

Ash Wednesday is our chance to say we are nothing. And then we can begin the journey of salvation.  You see, the only way to begin the journey to the resurrection is by starting in the dirt. Because we can NEVER begin to contemplate the miracle of the resurrection if we do not first go to the tomb and admit that we are going to die, that we are nothing but dust without God. Salvation is not something that we deserve, something that we are due. Easter is a gift! An undeserved gift. The greatest of all gifts. If you secretly believe that you are going to live forever and that you go straight to heaven with no questions asked, then you do not understand the radical act of resurrection.

The truth is that, without God and Christ's salvation, we are nothing at all.  We are dirt and dust and ashes. And that is the truth.