Jump

Anna was three. She loved to jump on the bed and into her daddy's arms. She would jump on the bed, higher, higher, warming up. And then she would start telling her dad what to do. 

"Take a step back, Daddy! Another one...another one!"

"Is this far enough, Anna?" He would ask, beginning to get nervous.

"No! Not far enough! Another one!!" And then, finally, she was ready.

Daddy would hold out his arms and she would jump, without hesitation or fear, she would jump. She was like a bird, like a superhero flying through the air. She would jump and he would catch her, every time. It was their game. It was so much fun. He always got nervous but she didn't. She knew that he was there, solid and good. She knew that he would always catch her.

Last Thursday, I went to see George Weller in the hospital. George has been a member of this church for many decades. He was bright and chipper and sitting up in bed, in fabulous shape for 93. He was so happy to see me. We talked and prayed together and I found myself saying, "George, you are 93. If you should see Jesus come and open his arms to you, just go to him. It's OK. Just jump."

The very next day, I got a call from George's daughter. He was dying. Could I come and say the last rites? I drove over to the hospital, marveling that Jesus and come to him so quickly. I arrived in his room and he revived a bit, enough to tell me that he was glad I came. "Two days in a row!"he said. I should have felt sad, but I was not. I felt joyful. We gathered around his bed and joined hands. Into your hands, we commit your servant George, we prayed. And I whispered to George, "Great job! You are getting ready to jump!"

But then I knew that I needed to leave. People tend to get excited when I show up. He needed to not be distracted. He was getting ready to jump, after all. So I gave the family my cell phone and I left. It took him three more days to jump. Just a mystery. They are so much alike, dying and being born. I guess it is also a birth, to eternal life.

George's ancestor, Reginald Heber (1783-1826) wrote the famous hymns Holy Holy Holy from the Isaiah reading that we heard today. Coincidence? I don't think so. I think that is the Holy Spirit moving today, telling us that the one who sees and knows all things is with us, urging us to trust that spirit and to jump.

When God asks Isaiah who will go for him, Isaiah jumps. He does not know where he is going or what God is asking him to do, but he just decides to risk it. He jumps and he says to the angels, "Send me!"

Nicodemus was too scared to trust Jesus so he went to a Jesus at night, when no one could see him and no one would know that he went. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. He had a reputation. He did not want to send the wrong message, going to see this radical preacher. Nicodemus was not free to jump. He cared too much about what people thought of him, how to make his decisions, how to be popular. So he snuck to Jesus in the dark to ask Jesus some questions, to see if he was really from God.

Nicodemus asked Jesus about himself and about God and Jesus told him that if he wanted to see God, he must be born of water and the spirit. "You cannot see the Kingdom of heaven unless you are born from above," is what Jesus said. You must be born of water and the spirit in order to know God. You must make the change into another world. You must be born. 

Born into what? That's the tough part. If you are to see the kingdom of heaven, you must be born into something that you cannot see. "The wind blows where it will," Jesus explained, "and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit." They must be born into something that they cannot see and cannot understand, but something that they can feel.

When we are baptized, we are born into something that we cannot see and do not understand. We are born to a life that no longer belongs to us. Outside these walls today, people are sliding down the urban slide, the largest water slide in the nation. But these three children are taking the biggest jump today. They are jumping into eternal life.

Olivia is wearing her princess dress today. She calls this church God's castle, which is perfect since she will be gaining an entrance into the kingdom of heaven. Spencer is our baby, happy and wonderful. Show him pictures of this day, the day of his birth to eternal life. And Jamari, his mom works in the nursery and he is big enough to carry the Holy Spirit dove out of here today. 

All three of these children will encounter moments in their lives when they feel terribly alone, when they have to make difficult choices or risk great things. This world is changing fast and becoming Christian is much riskier than going on that water slide. They will grow up in a world where it is no longer standard or normal to actually go to church or be baptized. They may be questioned or even made fun of or ridiculed because of their faith. It may become harder to be Christian. Think of how many people have come here today to slide and how few have come to worship. We are taking risks. We are different. But if you have the courage to live the life of the baptized, Jesus will be standing there always with his hands open, ready to catch you when you are ready to jump.

Leaving

So I heard a joke this week. There is this young man ushering in church on a Sunday morning and a very elegant older woman walks in. The young man hands her a program and kindly asks her where she would like to sit. "Up front, sir." She says with a smile. And the young man starts to head up the center aisle to seat her. But on the way there, he takes her arm and, speaking softly, tells her, "If I were you, I would not sit too far up front. The pastor tends to preach really boring sermons and if you are seated up front, he looks directly at you from time to time. You can't really space out or read or anything. Let me sit you here in the middle. That way, if you need to just daydream a bit, no one will notice." 

She stopped as he was ushering her into a pew half-way down the aisle, looked at him, and said, 

"Son, do you know who I am?"

"No, ma'am," he said.

She looked at him. "I am the pastors mother," she said.

The young man froze. Then, after catching his breath, he ushered woman to her pew. The woman sat down and he leaned in and said to the her, "Ma'am, do you know who I am?" 

"No, young man, I don't," she said.

"Good!" He said and high-tailed it out of there.

Sometimes we encounter a situation that we cannot wait to escape. There are people who we would be happy to never see again. The student speaker at Episcopal's graduation ceremony, Collin Walker, admitted yesterday morning that there were some students he would miss and others that he felt grateful to leave. 

This weekend is a weekend of graduations and it is not coincidental that the church remembers how Jesus left us. We actually celebrate his leaving. It is the strangest holiday, a holiday that feels more sad than almost any other day.

Jesus returned from the dead and all four of the gospels recount how he appeared to his disciples over and over again. He would appear while they were walking, while they were eating, when they were just hanging out in a room or when they were just out fishing. He came to them over and over again so that they would believe that he was not dead. But then, after a period of forty days, he left. His body literally was lifted up into heaven. 

The scene of Jesus' departure is described in two books: Luke and Acts. The strange thing is that these two books are really volumes one and two of the same book, written to a man named Theophilus from the physician Luke who traveled with Paul. So why would Luke tell the same story twice? It was as if this part, the leaving, was really important to Luke. He wanted to make sure that we remembered that Jesus left us.

Human beings are designed for leaving. Our bodies are built not to last. We cannot hold onto each other, we cannot hold onto our stuff, we can't even hold onto our children. We are temporal beings. We are designed with the one single truth of our existence in mind...we must leave one another. Any attempt that we make to forget this truth of our existence is a waste of time. You and I don't belong on this earth. We simply will not last.

Our lives are a series of changes. We graduate, we move, we age, we retire, we die. We are always moving, we cannot help it. Even if all that we want to do, the world is constantly teaching us to let go.

When I lived in Connecticut, I lived across the street from a woman who tried not to let go. She would not move out of her large home even when she could no longer care for it. She would not ask for help from her neighbors but barked at us when we came by to check on her. She was terrified that we would call social services. When she got a wound on her leg, she denied that it was bad. They found her dead on her kitchen floor after her mail piled up. After all her efforts not to leave, she still eventually left.

Jesus modeled for us how to be human. He was born, he served others, he prayed. He even died and then returned to show us that death is not the end. But then, in order to fully express his humanity, he had to leave. No human being stays on this earth forever. If Jesus was to be both fully God and fully man, he would have to leave us. This temporal life has to end, even for those who are to experience eternal life. All human beings have to die, we have to leave.

So Jesus left us publically, to show us how. He gathered all the people that he loved and he told them the truth, that he was going. He blessed them and gave them the Holy Spirit, the part of God that will never leave us. And then he left, physically, openly, he left.

The harder that you hold onto the things of this life, the more pain you will feel when you have to leave. Love greatly but do not become too attached. Why do we hold on so hard? But the hardest part of this reality is that most people are scared of being left alone.  We are scared that no one will want us, no one will love us. It makes us feel better to be with each other. Even most introverts need company sometimes. That's why solitary confinement is one of the worst forms of punishment. It scares us to be left alone.

Last Saturday, there was a funeral for Charlie Towers just down the street at the First Presbyterian Church. Charlie did something amazing. He knew that he was old and dying so he made a video of himself. Now, I was not there so help me if I get this wrong, but what I heard was that he told everyone to celebrate and to get to know the one who they can hold onto, Jesus. He made an old fashioned altar call from the grave! Now that's evangelism!!

You don't belong here. There is only one permanent relationship for you, a relationship that lasts from this life into the life to come. It is the most important relationship of your life. You must find a way to spend time with God. You must give things away in service to God, sacrificially giving your money, your belongings, your time. Eventually, everything else must either be given away or it will be taken away from you simply because you can't take it with you. Hold onto God when all else fails. It is not your body or your accomplishments or even the people who you love the most who will stay with you. Only ONE knows your name for all eternity. Only one.

  

Friend

My cousin Edward had not just one but two imaginary friends. Their names were strange, names he heard somewhere. One of them was called Humid. I think he heard that name on the radio. The other's name was Buttergy. Humid and Buttergy.

The great thing about imaginary friends is that they go everywhere with you. Humid and Buttergy would go everywhere with Edward. They never seemed to get tired of his company. They agreed with him most of the time. Only once did he say that they scolded him. They were his constant companions. 

I'm not sure what happened to Humid and Buttergy.  By the time I was old enough to know what was going on, Edward was way too cool to have imaginary friends. Maybe some kid laughed at him in first grade and told him that they did not exist. Maybe he just decided that they could not be true, but it must have been a sad day, the day that they went away.

"Unless you become like little children, you cannot come to me," Jesus said. Only little children can believe that they could have a friend who never leaves them, a friend who always listens, a friend who understands who they really are. Only little children could believe in a friend who no one can see.

Jesus is talking to his friends in today's gospel. He tells them that they are not his servants, they are his friends. They are his friends. And so are we. All of us who try to follow his example, who try to do his will and bear fruit to feed the world, all of us are his friends. But how can we begin to believe that Jesus could be our Humid and Buttergy?

When a child is scared at night, it is good to introduce Jesus. After all, he is the one friend who will never leave them. With him, they are never alone. They can talk to him and he will listen. And many of us, if we were asked to comfort a child, would tell them to talk to Jesus. But when it comes to our own prayer lives, well, we get all intimidated and formal. We think that we must sit in silence or pray prayers that sound good. We feel guilty for not praying right or often enough or with a particular style, when all Jesus is really asking is for us to be friends.

I love the TV show House. It is a wild, sometimes ethically and scientifically challenging show about a doctor who's last name is House. And House is brilliant, probably the most brilliant diagnostician in the world, in fact, but House is also a jerk. He is a total jerk. And no one likes him. So he spends his time alone. And that seems to be the way that he likes it.

But as the show progresses, it becomes clear that House remarkably does have one friend. His friends name is Wilson. And the weird part is that Wilson doesn't like House either. Like everybody else, he too thinks that House is a jerk. But he cares about House anyway. And when House needs to talk, Wilson is always there.

"What have you done now, House?"  Wilson will ask. And often House has done something mean or petty or juvenile. Wilson will often gently remind House that he doesn't have to act like such a jerk. He will disagree with House and even get angry or frustrated, but he is always there. And he clearly loves his friend.

For Christ to call us his friends is, on the one hand, absurd. We are bumbling idiots when it comes to God. We may try to do what's right but we can be completely self-absorbed, greedy, self-pitying creatures. In comparison with Jesus, well, we all come out looking like jerks. But he sticks it out with us anyway. He truly cares. Christ really is your friend and when he said that he would never leave you, he meant it.

And this changes everything. First of all, we are never alone. Second of all, prayer is nothing more than a conversation with our best friend. It is that comfortable. You are sitting down with a cup of warm coffee and just talking with your best friend, sharing the thoughts that plague you, the mistakes that you have made, your worried and doubts and insecurities. You can say it all. Because God is your friend. 

What if prayer were to become as easy as breathing for you? What if you just start talking and don't ever stop. Yes, people will look at you as you drive by and you are talking  to God. They will think one of two things: either you have a Bluetooth or you have an imaginary friend. Or maybe they will think your crazy but does it really matter what anyone else thinks? If you are truly able to get back to that childhood trust that someone who loves you is right there, there is nothing that you cannot do. Nothing.

Oh, and one last thing. Jesus makes this incredible promise to all his friends. He promises that God will give us whatever we ask in Jesus' name. Whatever we ask.

I once came up to a well known professor after a great lecture. Many students were asking him a questions and vying for his time. He seemed scattered and unable to fully focus on any one of us. But when I mentioned that I knew his daughter, he immediately looked at me with sharp focus and seemed to hear my every word.

Whatever you ask for in my name, Jesus says, you will receive.

Not only do you have a friend, but he has major connections. Connections to God, the Maker of the Universe, who is unfathomable and beyond our understanding. 

    And Jesus has his ear and he advocates for us. Our friend. Not imaginary but more real than anything else here on earth.

Now, that's some kind of friendship.

Friend

My cousin Edward had not just one but two imaginary friends. Their names were strange, names he heard somewhere. One of them was called Humid. I think he heard that name on the radio. The other's name was Buttergy. Humid and Buttergy.

The great thing about imaginary friends is that they go everywhere with you. Humid and Buttergy would go everywhere with Edward. They never seemed to get tired of his company. They agreed with him most of the time. Only once did he say that they scolded him. They were his constant companions. 

I'm not sure what happened to Humid and Buttergy.  By the time I was old enough to know what was going on, Edward was way too cool to have imaginary friends. Maybe some kid laughed at him in first grade and told him that they did not exist. Maybe he just decided that they could not be true, but it must have been a sad day, the day that they went away.

"Unless you become like little children, you cannot come to me," Jesus said. Only little children can believe that they could have a friend who never leaves them, a friend who always listens, a friend who understands who they really are. Only little children could believe in a friend who no one can see.

Jesus is talking to his friends in today's gospel. He tells them that they are not his servants, they are his friends. They are his friends. And so are we. All of us who try to follow his example, who try to do his will and bear fruit to feed the world, all of us are his friends. But how can we begin to believe that Jesus could be our Humid and Buttergy?

When a child is scared at night, it is good to introduce Jesus. After all, he is the one friend who will never leave them. With him, they are never alone. They can talk to him and he will listen. And many of us, if we were asked to comfort a child, would tell them to talk to Jesus. But when it comes to our own prayer lives, well, we get all intimidated and formal. We think that we must sit in silence or pray prayers that sound good. We feel guilty for not praying right or often enough or with a particular style, when all Jesus is really asking is for us to be friends.

I love the TV show House. It is a wild, sometimes ethically and scientifically challenging show about a doctor who's last name is House. And House is brilliant, probably the most brilliant diagnostician in the world, in fact, but House is also a jerk. He is a total jerk. And no one likes him. So he spends his time alone. And that seems to be the way that he likes it.

But as the show progresses, it becomes clear that House remarkably does have one friend. His friends name is Wilson. And the weird part is that Wilson doesn't like House either. Like everybody else, he too thinks that House is a jerk. But he cares about House anyway. And when House needs to talk, Wilson is always there.

"What have you done now, House?"  Wilson will ask. And often House has done something mean or petty or juvenile. Wilson will often gently remind House that he doesn't have to act like such a jerk. He will disagree with House and even get angry or frustrated, but he is always there. And he clearly loves his friend.

For Christ to call us his friends is, on the one hand, absurd. We are bumbling idiots when it comes to God. We may try to do what's right but we can be completely self-absorbed, greedy, self-pitying creatures. In comparison with Jesus, well, we all come out looking like jerks. But he sticks it out with us anyway. He truly cares. Christ really is your friend and when he said that he would never leave you, he meant it.

And this changes everything. First of all, we are never alone. Second of all, prayer is nothing more than a conversation with our best friend. It is that comfortable. You are sitting down with a cup of warm coffee and just talking with your best friend, sharing the thoughts that plague you, the mistakes that you have made, your worried and doubts and insecurities. You can say it all. Because God is your friend. 

What if prayer were to become as easy as breathing for you? What if you just start talking and don't ever stop. Yes, people will look at you as you drive by and you are talking  to God. They will think one of two things: either you have a Bluetooth or you have an imaginary friend. Or maybe they will think your crazy but does it really matter what anyone else thinks? If you are truly able to get back to that childhood trust that someone who loves you is right there, there is nothing that you cannot do. Nothing.

Oh, and one last thing. Jesus makes this incredible promise to all his friends. He promises that God will give us whatever we ask in Jesus' name. Whatever we ask.

I once came up to a well known professor after a great lecture. Many students were asking him a questions and vying for his time. He seemed scattered and unable to fully focus on any one of us. But when I mentioned that I knew his daughter, he immediately looked at me with sharp focus and seemed to hear my every word.

Whatever you ask for in my name, Jesus says, you will receive.

Not only do you have a friend, but he has major connections. Connections to God, the Maker of the Universe, who is unfathomable and beyond our understanding. 

    And Jesus has his ear and he advocates for us. Our friend. Not imaginary but more real than anything else here on earth.

Now, that's some kind of friendship.

Understanding Pruning

Most all of us who are old enough to remember September 11, 2001 remember exactly where we were when the planes hit those twin towers. A friend of mine was speaking in West Virginia. He had just turned on the news in his hotel room when the first plane hit. And he remembers the strange way his mind worked when the second plane hit. He thought, "There is something wrong with air-traffic control! Why are they giving these pilots the wrong coordinates?" 

There is something wrong with air-traffic control! I think we sometimes think about God as a kind of air-traffic control. When things go wrong and people suffer, we wonder if God just stepped out for a moment or if God possibly could have intended for us to suffer.

Our world seems to be torn apart by suffering, our cities aflame, the Middle East in crisis. The people of Nepal are devastated by natural disaster. Why does it have to happen? What is wrong with air-traffic control?

Studying religion all my life, I have come to the conclusion that suffering was not God's plan for us. No, we were meant for Eden, created for something much more harmonious and peaceful than the world in which we find ourselves. Suffering was not God's original intent. But when we chose to take our lives into our own hands, we chose free will and people were given the choice to do violence, to fly planes into buildings. God is still in control, yes, but God allows us to find our own way. 

Because of the fallen nature of this world, we feel pain and loneliness and heartbreak. The question is not why we suffer but how are we to view our suffering. When you encounter hardship and sickness and loneliness, how  will you respond? Jesus tells us how we should conceive of suffering in this gospel for today. How we view suffering has everything to do with the way that we understand God. By loving God and living in and with God, our suffering can teach us and even help us to grow spiritually. 

We all will suffer in this broken world. But how will you respond when you?

The God of the Old Testament was understood to be a God of punishment. When the Israelites disobeyed or failed to comply with the law, God would get angry. David the King even had a child die because he was being punished for his affair with Bathsheeba and the murder of her husband. David understood God to be a God who would take the life of a child to punish a crime. That is how they conceived of a God, that God willed suffering. They believed in a God who punished.

But not Jesus. Jesus knew that God is love and that love does not punish. As the disciple John would later write in his letter that we heard this morning, it is only fear that believes in punishment. 

Let me say that again. It is only fear that believes in punishment. 

God does not punish. But when we have to suffer because of the nature of our fallen world, Jesus tells us to look upon our pain as a kind of pruning. 

There is a rosebush in my front yard. This spring, early on, I took some sheers and I cut back its branches. I did not want to do this but I knew that a plant or tree, when pruned, will fill in stronger and will produce fruit or blooms. So I took my sheers and cut some of the branches. I did not cut them right to the stem, I left some part of the branch, but I cut off the old blooms and even some buds. It felt strange, to cut something so beautiful, but I knew that it would grow stronger because of the pruning.

Jesus often used images from nature. The people of the Galilee would have understood this image. They would have understood without having to think. But we no longer innately understand. Think with me for a minute about pruning. If God is the vine grower and Christ is the vine, then when we cut a branch back, it hurts the branch, but the branch becomes closer to the vine again....and as a result of its proximity to the source of life itself, it becomes stronger and produces fruit. It blooms. 

A gardener prunes out of love, to strengthen and produce. Though it hurts, it has purpose.

Did you know that scar tissue is stronger than any other kind of skin tissue? The body, responding to the wound, fortifies itself. It ends up stronger. 

The life of faith is the same way. If we know how to pray and how to rely on God and if we can believe that God does not punish but loves us, then we can approach our suffering as pruning. And in this way, it will make us stronger. Just like the cross made Jesus the Christ.

If we allow it to happen, suffering causes us to draw closer to God. When we fall ill, we pray. When we have to go to war, we pray. When we find our marriages breaking down, we pray. We are drawn closer to our maker through sheer necessity itself. It simply forces us back home to our Maker.  We must understand that this suffering is not part of Gods original plan for us, but if it has to happen, then let it be a pruning and not a punishment. Let it make us stronger and draw us closer to God.

I went to Wyoming last weekend to speak to the women of the Diocese. They have so little. The head of the ECW is a priest and a cleaning lady. She makes her living cleaning houses and her church has an average  attendance of seven people on Sunday. The suicide rate in Wyoming is the highest in the nation. And there she was, eager to hear whatever I had to say. She had so little but was so close to Jesus. She told me that just a month before, when the snow was still on the ground, she had baptized a raging alcoholic who dropped dead just days later on his way home from a bar at night. In his unconscious stupor, he had frozen to death. Pruned back to so little, this woman held onto Christ with all her strength. And her life was bearing fruit even in the bleakest of conditions. She listened to everything we spoke about with such intensity, as if she was starving for good teaching. And she cried whenever we sang about Jesus. 

I knew a young man whose mother got addicted to drugs and abandoned him to the foster care system when he was just four years old. He had memories of brushing her hair, of how beautiful she was but how she would go into a stupor and fall asleep. When he grew up, this man became a father. He learned all about his past and had to confront great feelings of worthlessness. But he also knew for sure that he would never abandon his little boy. His boy would want for nothing. This young man could have chosen to be angry his whole life, to do violence and end up in jail. But instead, he chose to be the parent he never had. He let his suffering make him strong.

Live in me and your suffering will become pruning, Jesus says to us. We live in a fallen world of 

free will. But we are never alone.

A Visit to Wyoming

I am seated in a small airplane, coasting above the sparce clouds on a windy day. We have just taken off from Casper, Wyoming and the vast expanse of brown and green land lies beneath us, just visible between the clouds.

I came to Wyoming to preach and teach a group of devout women. We spent one weekend together, singing, talking, praying, worshipping. This visit gave me a new perspective into the life of the rural Episcopal church. And times are truly changing.

The president of the Diocesan ECW in Wyoming is a priest and a cleaning lady. She has been locally trained at their Iona school for ministry. She is not paid for her priesthood but makes her living cleaning houses. Her congregation last Sunday had seven people in attendance. Her church building is what she described as "a log cabin church." She is bright and energetic and has a deep and abiding faith. She is a woman of God.

There were 35 women gathered. We talked honestly about the new era when church is no longer an assumed activity on Sunday mornings. The woman priest had recently baptized a Vietnam vet who was an alcoholic and died by falling face down in the snow on his way home from a bar. The suicide rate in Wyoming is the highest in the country. 

While praying in a church on Friday night, we were visited by three deer and an antelope. They came to the grass right outside the sanctuary window. We rushed to the window and took pictures.

These women are learning to adapt. Their churches are not dying but very much alive. They are learning that they must go out into the towns and listen to the loneliness and desperation of the people around them. They will be bringing people to church one by one, day by day. Whereas once the ECW in Wyoming would gather 100 women for their annual retreat, now they gather 35, but these women are faithful as the day is long. And the Holy Spirit is alive and well within them.

I bought a hand-made apron at their silent auction. It has a head of lettuce on it and it says "Lettuce Give Thanks." And I do give thanks, for these women and for the heartbeat of the small churches on the northern plains.