The Waiting Game

The Waiting Game December 4, 2011 Franktown United Methodist Church Have I ever told you the story of Big Jake? Victor Pentz, pastor of Peachtree Presbyterian Church, tells the story kind of like this: Imagine an old West Texas town. One day a horse wanders in carrying a battered cowboy slumped over his saddle. The townsfolk rush toward the man just in time to hear him utter his final words: "Big Jake is comin'." With that his body went limp. Needless to say the townspeople started to get ready. They locked up the children in their houses. They barred the doors to their businesses and covered the windows in their homes. They crawled behind tables as their lips moved in inaudible prayer. And before long they heard the clap, clap of a horse’s hooves. They peered out the window and out on Main Street here came the biggest, meanest-looking cowboy they'd ever seen in their lives. The guy was seven feet tall, riding a black horse, with a rifle, two six guns and bandoleers criss-crossing his chest. He has an ugly scar along his jaw, one glass eye, and lips curled into a cruel sneer. He stopped in front of the saloon and tied up his horse and as he walked through the swinging doors, he tore them off at their hinges. He brought his fist down on the bar and yelled, “Whiskey!” With that he grabbed a bottle from the bartender’s hand and polished it off in a single gulp. The bartender said, "Well, h-h-how ‘bout another one?" to which the big cowpoke said, "You crazy? I’ve got to get out of here. Big Jake is comin’.”* You might imagine John the Baptist a little like that cowboy. Not that he was a whiskey-drinking, gun-toting giant. He wasn't any of those things. But he was somebody he caught your attention. Like the Old Testament prophets we read about - Jeremiah, Elijah, and Ezekiel and others - John was known for disturbing the peace. He wandered around the desert places, wearing clothes made out of camel skin with a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey. And, you know, none of these things would make him a fashion icon in our time, but they wouldn't have been all that strange to people who grew up with stories of Jeremiah and his ilk. You expect your prophets to look a little strange. What was remarkable was that people went out to see him. They went to the deserts to see John. They thought maybe he was the one they had been waiting for. But like the cowboy in the story, John said, "No. It's not me. Somebody more powerful than I am is coming. I'm not worthy to even untie the thong of his sandal" - the lowliest role that a servant could have. The people were waiting for a Messiah, but what they expected was someone seven-feet-tall and armed to the teeth. What they expected was a cataclysmic confrontation. But what John wanted to prepare them for was a savior who was not just going to challenge the enemies of God's people, but also challenge God's people themselves. In the Disciple Bible Study that meets on Sunday evenings we have been studying those Old Testament prophets and what we have discovered week after week is a really consistent message. The people of Israel and Judah are facing threats from foreign powers - Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt. They are hopelessly outmatched by these greater powers. It looks like the end is near. They are praying for God to deliver them. They look to the prophets and what do they say? Invariably the prophets say, "You have brought this on yourself. God has told you how to live and you ignored what God said. God said to care for the poor and you holed up in ivory palaces and ignored them. God told you to love only God - the one, true God of Israel and you worshipped other gods. God told you to give justice to the people in the gate where the legal cases are decided and you tipped the balance in favor of the well-connected. Why are you now surprised that things are going badly?" That's not all the prophets say, though. They talk about doom but they also talk about hope. They talk about a day of restoration that will come. It's almost like God is saying that even the worst thing that could happen to the people, and which will happen to the people, is not powerful enough to end the story of God's presence with the people. Big Jake is coming. Something greater than destruction is coming. Last week we saw how Jesus warned his followers about the things that would accompany his return to earth. We talked about the destruction and the division and the persecutions that would come and we wondered about Jesus' saying that that generation would not pass away before all these things happened. We wondered because that generation did pass away and we are still here. Still waiting. We're not the first to wonder. When Peter was writing his epistles to a group of Christians late in the first century AD, they were wondering, too. Why had Jesus not come yet? They had been looking forward to his return. When was it going to happen? In the passage we read this morning from 2 Peter, just before that section it says that people were beginning to ask, "Where is his promised return? For ever since our ancestors died, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation.” (2 Peter 3:4 NET) But the writer goes on to say, "The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because [God] does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9 NET) Our time doesn't work like God's time. We get moment after moment in a sequence so there is a sense of space between this moment and some time down the road. But God, who dwells outside of time, in eternity, doesn't experience things like that. "A thousand ages in God's sight are like an evening past," to quote an old hymn. But it's not even like that. No evenings pass for God. Everything is eternally present for God. And this passage from 2 Peter tells us that in the eternal present of God there is something more powerful than punishment and destruction. God is not just sitting around waiting to zap us for our misdeeds. "God is patient not wanting any to perish." And that shows us that along with God's justice we also get God's love. Now if love is the thing that really matters. If love is the engine that the universe runs on, then some extraordinary things happen. There can be destruction and fire and all the heavens may melt away. That's what 2 Peter says and that's what science tells us earth's final destiny is - it will be swallowed up by the sun some billions of years in the future. But that's not the last word over us. If love is the most powerful thing in the universe then the consequence of our sin is not to make us forever unacceptable to God. Jesus came into the world so that our sin would not have the power to end our relationship with God. When we repent God is quick to forgive, because Jesus lays bare our lives before God, lays bare our every weakness, every failure, every blemish and God says through Jesus, "Come to me. I love you even in your broken condition. I love you just as you are because I know who you can be." If love is the thing we are waiting for, then it is a sign that God will not accept our despair and our hopelessness. These are consequences of not being able to see as God sees. God knows what our destiny is - we are meant for God - every one is meant for God. And God waits on us to accept that we have been accepted by God and to repent, to turn around, to let go of our junk and to walk with Jesus. If love is what God is really all about, and it is, then it is also a sign that God will not ultimately accept even God's own despair over this broken world. God weeps at the tragedies of war and poverty and neglect. God weeps when children die of AIDS. God weeps when people turn to hate-filled philosophies instead of towards life. God weeps when religion is perverted to be an instrument for death. But God's weeping is not the last word. What's the last word? It's born in a manger. It's been whispering in the wind since the dawn of creation. It's been spoken through the prophets. But at Christmas the last word became flesh. The curtain was drawn back on the greatest mystery of creation. And suddenly what God has been up to all along was laid bare before all who had eyes to see. Some got angels in a neighboring field to tell them the news. Some got a star to call them across eastern deserts to let them know. And what we get is the story. John the Baptist would say that your sin is unacceptable. Your despair is unacceptable. Your belief that you are eternally unacceptable is unacceptable. Because no matter what you have done or what has been done to you, you cannot escape the God whose name is love. Psalm 139 has a section where the psalmist talks about fleeing from God and finding that no place he could go would take him from God's pursuing love. "If I were to say, 'Certainly the darkness will cover me, and the light will turn to night all around me,' even the darkness is not too dark for you to see, and the night is as bright as day; darkness and light are the same to you." (Psalm 139:11, 12 NET) "Darkness and light are the same to you." God sees in the darkness. God knows who we are. And God loves us anyway. Thanks be to God. *Dr. Victor Pentz, "The Baby that Rocked the World," Peachtree Presbyterian Church website, 30 Nov 2008, http://www.peachtreepres.org/downloads/sermons/20081130sermon.pdf. Accessed 3 Dec 2011.

An Advent of Biblical Proportions

I had been in Jerusalem for two days. The adrenaline that had been powering me through the jet lag was beginning to wear off. But I was determined to keep up my schedule. Just before I went to bed at the hotel I looked at the map to plan a morning run. Our hotel was on the west side of the Old City and I saw that if I ran around to the east side of the city and crossed the bridge across the Kidron Valley I would find myself in Gethsemane - the place where Jesus prayed on the night of his betrayal. Our schedule was full so if I was going to do this I had to get up at 5 am for a 5:30 run. But when the alarm went off at 5 am I groaned. I hit the button and briefly considered skipping the run and going to sleep. But then I heard Jesus' voice. That happened a lot in Jerusalem. I kept hearing Jesus say things. Like when I was running up the Via Dolorosa, the route Jesus had taken to the cross, and it was steeper than anything I had run on the Eastern Shore, and I was considering walking a little bit, and I heard a voice saying, "What would Jesus do?" But this was not the Via Dolorosa; it was the Garden of Gethsemane I wanted to go to. And what did Jesus say to Peter, James & John when he came back from praying there and found them sleeping? "Why are you sleeping? Could you not stay awake with me for one hour?" That's what I heard. So I got my lazy self out of bed and went running. It was dark at 5:30. The street lamps put splotches of fluorescent light on the sidewalks and pavement. Dogs barked. A rooster crowed down in the valley. Along the street in front of the south walls of the Old City Hassidic Jews lined up to catch buses to work. Around the east side Muslim workers did the same thing. Bells rang in the Christian quarter to call people to prayer. A recorded voice sang out the call to prayer from the minarets. In some ways it was like every other city in the world. In other ways it was like no other place. When I got to southeast corner of the walls the sun was just starting to peek over the Mount of Olives. The first morning I went running it shocked me to get to this point because I suddenly realized that I was surrounded by graves. Along the walls was a large Arab cemetery with graves right up to the walls below the Temple of the Rock. They even covered the entrance to the Golden Gate - an ancient gate that has been closed up for centuries now. Down below me in the Kidron Valley was a Christian cemetery and across the valley, all along the southern base of the Mount of Olives was a huge Jewish cemetery. Now why are all these people buried in the same area? The prophet Zechariah, in chapter 14, tells of a time when the Lord would come to vindicate the people against all their enemies. And Zechariah clearly says that God's feet will be on the Mount of Olives and the mountain will split in half to create a valley through which the people besieged in Jerusalem will escape (Zech 14:4). So the Jewish Messianic belief has centered on this notion that when the Messiah comes he will appear first on the Mount of Olives and that closed up gate, the Golden Gate, will open. To be buried on the Mount of Olives is to be in the front row for the day of the Lord's salvation. Muslim beliefs about the end of times also have a role for Jerusalem as a place of judgment. But as I heard the story, there is a defensive reason for the graves. No Jewish messiah would dare to touch dead bodies and to risk becoming unclean, so the graves are meant to block the Golden Gate. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but there are lots of stories in Jerusalem. Then there are the Christians. And what is it that we expect? Christians have traditionally looked to the east as the direction from which Jesus will return in the clouds to claim the chosen people. Most old churches are oriented toward the east. And if you're in Jerusalem, the sun comes up in the east over the Mount of Olives. So to be buried near the Mount of Olives, again, is to be in the front rows for the return of our Messiah. Why am I telling you this story on the first day of Advent? Because this is that strange season of the year. Time gets muddled. Expectations are all mixed up. Music in the malls has been proclaiming a baby in a manger since the day after Halloween. Thanksgiving disappeared in a Black Friday avalanche. The ABC Family TV network is proclaiming the 25 days of Christmas ending on December 25 instead of the traditional 12 days of Christmas beginning on Christmas Day. Santa Claus is already getting overexposed. Our credit cards are already maxed out. Cats living with dogs. It's all mixed up. Even in our scripture readings it's all mixed up. We come expecting angel choirs and shepherds in the fields and Isaiah tells us about dried up leaves and broken pottery. We want to sing 'joy to the world' and 'peace on earth,' but Jesus tells us to stay awake because the heavens are going to shake and the earth is going to quake and something dreadful is going to happen before the coming Day of the Lord. There will be wars and rumors of wars, famines, persecutions, family divisions. Happy holidays! Advent must be something we didn't expect. Advent must be more than just a rehearsal of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. Advent must be about a day we didn't expect, but maybe we should. Advent on the Mount of Olives is about a time yet to come when even death is not the end of the story. There are thousands of dead people waiting at the Golden Gate for one more chapter in this story. So maybe we ought to be looking for more than just a good deal during this season. Maybe we ought to expect an advent of biblical proportions. The 13th chapter of Mark's gospel, which we read from this morning, has always troubled Christians. It comes near the end of the gospel as Jesus is preparing for his arrest and crucifixion. His disciples are trying to get a handle on how this all going to go down. They're in awe of Jerusalem and the Temple. In the opening verses of this chapter they sound like tourists. "Teacher, look at these buildings! Look at these stones!" Jesus is not impressed. "These will all be torn down," he tells the disciples. "Not one stone will be left upon another." Then he goes on to describe for them the tribulations that are to come. Disturbances of the earth and of the heavens. Persecutions for his followers. Conflicts that will lead to death and destruction. Horrible things. "Pray that it may not come in the winter," he said. Then Jesus concludes his warnings with this line that we have been puzzling over ever since. After saying that no one, not even Jesus, knows when the end will come, when he will appear over the Mount of Olives with his angels to gather the chosen from the ends of the earth, he says, "This generation will not pass away before these things come to pass." Now to hear this in 33 AD is one thing. And that generation did not pass away before many of those things did take place. The city was destroyed. The holy site of the Temple was desecrated with pagan worship. There were wars and rumors of wars. There was death and destruction and persecution. By 70 AD Jerusalem was a wasteland. But that generation did pass away and still Christians waited. And each new generation has waited. Maybe it will come when Rome falls. Maybe it will happen when we get to the year 1000. Maybe the year 2000. Maybe on in May of 2011. No, we miscalculated. Maybe it's October. Everyone who has ever made a prediction about the end of time in their lifetime has been wrong. Unless we missed something dramatic. So what could that mean? Well, maybe "this generation" doesn't mean a specific strata of time, but a kind of people. A kind of people who are less than holy, but who need a savior. A kind of people who know struggles and trials. A kind of people who thirst for a word from God. In God's time, maybe we are of the same generation of those disciples because we are the same kind of people. And what does Jesus tell such a people? To stay awake. To be ready. To be alert. How hard is that? Well, in chapter 13 Jesus tells the disciples to be alert and in chapter 14 he asks three of them, "Why are you sleeping? Could you not stay awake with me for one hour?" It's harder than it looks to stay awake. Staying awake means living your life in expectation. It's an active expectation. We don't wait for Jesus by putting our lives on hold and neglecting the world around us because, really, what does it matter if Jesus is coming again? No, to have an Advent of biblical proportions means to be know that everything we do every day, every moment is invested with meaning and importance. You think you're living your life and yours alone? You think nobody else should care what you are doing because really, it's nobody's business? Your business is my business. I can't live your life for you, but I can tell you that it matters how you treat other people. It matters how you manage the resources that have been given to you - your time, your money, your talents and gifts. It matters how you direct your life and what you give yourself to. It matters because there is a time at the end of time when our lives are exposed for what they are - a day of judgment. But it also matters because if the message of Jesus has transformed our lives and we are expecting the coming kingdom, our lives in the here and now ought to be infused with glimpses of that kingdom - "Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven." This season is a hard one. It's hard to keep. It's hard to hold yourself in a creative tension between what is now and what is to come. It's also hard because so many of us have so many things going on within us during the holidays. It's not always soft lights and warm memories. In our minds and our hearts are memories of past hurts that grow more painful at the holidays. Ways we have been wronged or slighted or neglected or abused. Loved ones that we have lost and that we miss more acutely at the holidays. Rough places that feel rougher. Hard times that feel harder. But keep alert. Keep watch. Don't hit the snooze bar until Christmas. Because you are not alone in this season. God has things for you to do and things for you to receive. And we have things to do together as a people waiting for Christ to come. Thanks be to God.

When the King Has Got Your Back

Paul was a pain in the rear end. Yes, I'm talking about the Apostle Paul. Yes, I'm talking about the Paul who is credited as the author of the book of Ephesians which we read this morning. Yes, I'm talking about the Paul who was knocked off his donkey by a blinding revelation of Jesus, who started churches all over Asia Minor and Greece, who wrote the letters that formed the nucleus of our New Testament. That Paul was a pain in the rear end. If you don't believe me just ask the other disciples. I mean, they had been with Jesus. They had travelled with Jesus. They had seen the arrest and the trial and the death and the resurrection. If anybody knew Jesus, they knew Jesus. Paul had not been there. In fact, Paul had been trained as a Pharisee. Paul had been standing by when Stephen, a deacon in the new Church, was stoned to death. Paul was holding the cloaks of the people throwing the stones. He was a coat clerk at the first Christian martyrdom. He persecuted Christians. Then he got converted and you know that there is nothing more annoying than a new convert. They think they know it all. They think nobody ever had an experience like theirs. And they want to tell you how you've got it wrong. Even if you're one of the original twelve disciples! That's what it was like with Paul. He was not from Jerusalem. He had been born up in what is now Turkey. A tentmaker by trade, but trained in the traditions of the Jewish law. Then he had that conversion experience on the Damascus Road and he suddenly saw something that the original group of disciples was having difficulty acknowledging. Paul could see that Jesus of Nazareth was not just a Jewish Messiah but the Savior of the whole world. If it was good news for the Jews it was also good news for the Greeks, the Romans, the Cretes, and the Gauls. It was a hard thing for good Jews to hear. Peter had to have a vision from heaven to tell him that it was OK to go baptize a Roman centurian named Cornelius and his family. But it was just obvious to Paul. So they finally had a conference in Jerusalem somewhere around 50 AD, some 17 years after Jesus' crucifixion. Paul met with Peter and James, the brother of Jesus, who had become a leader of the Jerusalem church. You can read about it in Acts chapter 15. The Jerusalem Council was tense. There were many Christians in Jerusalem who still believed that Jewish rites like circumcision would be required even for new converts. But Paul was convinced that God would not burden new Christians with unnecessary rules. In the end they agreed to endorse Paul's mission and they sent him out with some representatives from their group. Things were still tense though and about 8 years later Paul had to come back. Simon Montefiore describes the scene in his new book, Jerusalem: A Biography: By now James and the elders in Jerusalem disapproved of Paul. They had known the real Jesus, yet Paul insisted: "I have been crucified with Christ. The life I live now is not my life but the life Christ lives in me." He claimed, "I bear the marks of Jesus branded on my body." James, that respected holy man, accused him of rejecting Judaism. Even Paul could not ignore Jesus' own brother.* So he came back to Jerusalem and went to the Temple with James to pray as a Jew. In the process he created such an uproar that he was arrested. When he demanded a trial as a Roman citizen he was shipped off to Rome. There, according to tradition, he was executed. But what he did before dying was to open the door for all of us to follow. The Church that was born at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon all those Jews gathered from all those nations would now go to all those nations with good news for everyone. I think it's kind of comforting to know that the early Church had its fights and conflicts, too. And I think it's kind of comforting to know that God can work through people like Paul, who was a pain in the rear end for the people around him. Paul could see what others had a hard time seeing - that Jesus was the King and that changed everything. We live with so many flawed kings and queens these days. We have always lived with so many flawed rulers. They are vulnerable to corruption, hopelessly weak or dangerously dictatorial, too enslaved to public opinion or too unmoved by it. We need our leaders to be the best we have to offer but they always turn out to be...human. So what was so compelling about Paul's vision of Jesus that made him such a pain? The passage from Ephesians gives us a glimpse. Verse 15 of chapter 1 says, and I'm reading from the New English translation here, "For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you when I remember you in my prayers." Paul is writing to a community that has caught the vision, that has seen Jesus for who he was. Paul is giving thanks as he starts and he is encouraging this community. The next verse he starts laying out what he is praying for on behalf of these new Christians, "I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you spiritual wisdom and revelation in your growing knowledge of him, – since the eyes of your heart have been enlightened – so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the incomparable greatness of his power toward us who believe, as displayed in the exercise of his immense strength." So what is he saying here? He wants them to burn like he is burning. He wants them to get the big picture because it is so easy to get swallowed up in the day to day. He wants them to see with the "eyes of their heart" and not just with their physical eyes. Because you know what you see when you just look with your physical eyes? You see a world that is falling apart. You see life as a slow progression of loss and disintegration. You see disease winning. You see poverty winning. You see injustice winning. You see the powers and principalities getting a chokehold on our institutions. You see your bad habits and your addictions and your wounds and your failures and your sin beginning to define your life. And that is not the truth. What do we sing in that praise song, "Open the eyes of my heart, Lord, I want to see you." That's the prayer Paul has here for the Ephesians. He wants them to see a greater reality breaking into this one. There's more though. He goes on...and I hate to say it but Paul, in addition to being a pain is also a difficult writer to comprehend...he gets too excited and just starts piling on the clauses...but he goes on to say that he wants them to know "the hope of Jesus' calling" - that he wants them to know that their reality starts in Jesus' calling them to be a set apart people. They have a particular mission on earth and that is to be witnesses to hope. They are to be hope. So that's one thing he wants to remind them of. Secondly, he wants them to know "the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints." Christians aren't known for their great wealth in this world. Joel Osteen not withstanding, the primary witness to Christ is the message of sacrifice and service. Right living is the mark of the Christian. The wealth Paul is talking about is in the people - the saints - who have responded to Jesus' call and who are now living in the wealth of God's kingdom. The Crystal Cathedral in California, this great marvel of glass and architecture, was sold this week because the ministry that built it failed. This week we sent 127 shoeboxes with the good news of Jesus around the world and we distributed 267 bags of food to people in our community. I believe God appreciates beauty but when it is disconnected from the needs of the world, where is our true wealth. Paul wants us to see it ahead of us. Finally, Paul wants the Ephesians to know "the incomparable greatness of his power toward us who believe." They may be poor and persecuted. They may be on the margins of the society. But the Christians Paul was talking to, like us, should never believe that they have no power. If God could raise Jesus from the dead in this world, God can do greater things yet. So when we believe that all our good efforts have come to naught. When we believe that bad things will always happen to good people. When we believe that we can't make a difference or that things have always been this way and always will be. When we believe these things we make the mistake of believing we have no power. But God knows that King has got our back. Paul has talked about the past, present and future. He has talked about our calling in the past that has set us on a different journey. He has talked about the riches of the saints in glory who tell us about our destiny. And he has talked about the power that God exhibits in the here and now to be what God knows we can be. One thing great kings and queens can do is to inspire us to be like them. How else do you explain the thousands of Elvis impersonators in this world? Everybody wants to be the King. But King Jesus came to us in a very particular way. His life revealed that the way of kingship was through humility. The way of glory came through suffering. The way of community was through love. And only through death with a crown made of thorns on his head could he then take his place at the right hand of God. We are getting ready to enter a very special season of the year. In a lot of ways it's our season. The world is putting on bright lights and its shiny best because we have a message of light and life. The world is celebrating because we have told the world there is a reason to celebrate. But we will also be challenged. We will be challenged by the messages we hear to spend too much, to do too much, to eat too much, and to listen for God too little. Don't forget who you are. You were called by the King. You are meant for the King. And the King has got your back. Thanks be to God. *Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography, [Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 2011], p. 212 (electronic edition)

What We Shall Be

Last week was Halloween and if you came out to our Harvest Party at the church last Monday night you would have seen a great collection of costumes. I saw people dressed up as pirates and cowboys, a flower in a pot, Mario from the video games, and Sawyer came as a Northampton County Sheriff's Deputy. It was really great. But what I have been trying to figure out is why we are so fascinated these days with zombies.


In Norfolk they had a huge zombie night in Ghent where people came dressed as zombies and, I don't know, I guess they chased each other slowly around the city. It seems like everywhere you look these days there are movies and TV shows and events where zombies are the star of the show.
I'm sure there's some great cultural point to be made about all this. What is it about where we are as a society right now that makes zombies our favorite scary creatures? Is it because the economy is in such bad shape that we like to envision our fears as a slumping, lumbering zombie? Is it a sign of our guilt over things we have done in the past - a symbol for the debt crisis where the things we thought were long gone are coming back to haunt us because we still haven't paid for them? I don't know. Maybe some of us just like gory movies and there's plenty of gore in zombie movies.

Or maybe there's some image of us in those zombies. Maybe we feel like zombies. Maybe we're feeling a little disconnected from life. Not quite dead but not fully alive either. Maybe we're hungry for life, hungry for something we can't even name. And because we are so bad at imagining that that hunger could lead us to something beautiful and life-giving we imagine that the only future for us is ugly and disturbing. Maybe we're the zombies. Or maybe that's just me.

The first letter of John in the New Testament is a short little book. It was written to Christians near the end of the first century and it imagines a world of conflict - the children of light versus...zombies...no, actually the antichrists. Now, I need to be clear about who the antichrists were. These are not some strange, supernatural creatures. Antichrist is the term the letter-writer was using to describe the false teachers who had taken the gospel message and perverted it - teaching things that were contrary to what Christ taught - antichristian teachings. Chapter 2 verse 19 tells us that, "They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us, because if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us." (NET). And who is an antichrist? Verse 22 tells us that the antichrist is "the person who denies the Father and the Son."

The letter-writer reminds us that we should expect false teachings, especially as the second coming of Christ comes near. We should expect that there will be some who will try to present some other picture of God and Jesus. But what is the promise that we have been given that the antichrists want to deny? Verse 25 says: "Now this is the promise that he himself made to us: eternal life." (NET) It is eternal life that sets Christians apart.

And how do we hold on that promise? By remaining in Christ, remaining in the light, and by doing the things that Jesus told us to do. "The one who says he or she resides in God ought to walk just as Jesus walked" - verse 6 - loving their fellow Christians, trusting in the forgiveness of our sins, and expecting Christ's coming again.

When we talk about saints, as we do today on this All Saints Day, one of the things that marks them is the way that they are able to focus on exactly these things when it seems that all the world is coming apart around them. I think about my colleague in ministry, Kathleen Baskin-Ball, who I talk about in my new Advent book. Kathleen went into West Dallas, which was a difficult place, to begin a difficult ministry as pastor of a new church in an old, abandoned United Methodist Church. She was a single woman and she was determined to live in the neighborhood even though everybody around her told her that the toll would be too great. And it was hard but Kathleen said, “When it’s not convenient, when it costs us and we still take the time to listen to another’s heart and we love deeply, hope emerges.” So she did. And her church grew, mostly with young kids and poor folks.

Then she got a diagnosis of cancer at a very young age. Three years ago she died. But until her last week she was preaching at her new church, welcoming people at her home and asking them how they were.
People like Kathleen are remarkable because, when the world closes in on them and they are experiencing pain and discouragement, they keep their eyes focused on another place. The natural things, when we are experiencing illness or grief or loss is to let the horizon of our world shrink to the limits of our pain. We become captive to the thing that is happening to us. We define ourselves by what we can't do. But saints have a bigger vision.

The verses from 1 John that we actually read today tell us that the thing that defines Christians is not that they are better than the rest of the world. Not that they are immune from the pains of this world. The thing that defines them is that they know they are children of God. Their identity is secure. It doesn't flap around in the wind. It is secure. So as a Christian I know that whatever label others want to put on me - victim, outcast, old, weak, ugly, fat, scrawny, sick, loser, incapable, unable, unwanted - whatever label others want to put on me - none of those things define who I am. Because I am a child of God whose life is in Christ. And because of that I can love and look at the world with new eyes.

"See what sort of love the Father has given to us," 1 John chapter 3 says, "that we should be called God’s children – and indeed we are!...The world does not know us: because it did not know him. Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that whenever it is revealed we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is." What we will be has not yet been revealed - but we know this - that we will not be zombies - we will be like Jesus. Seeing Jesus, just as he is, we will be like Jesus.

We've got a lot of things to celebrate as we remember today the names of those who have gone before us. The moments when grace pervaded the space between us and that other person. The hands we held. The prayers they prayed. The witness they gave in confronting the evil powers of this world. The tears they shed and the laughter. These things don't die because they grow out of love and, as Song of Songs tells us, "Love is stronger than death; passion fierce as the grave. Many waters cannot quench love."

But the saints don't die because they now have their eyes fixed on Jesus. Even in this life our eyes can be fixed on Jesus. It's one of the reasons Paul could call the Christians he wrote to "the saints assembled" in Rome or Ephesus or wherever they were. We are saints, not because we are holy in ourselves, but because we have our hope in the one who is holy and who can make us whole.

So what are you doing to get ready for the banquet table that God has prepared for us in heaven? Have you put your confidence in the one who shines in light? Or you lumbering and shuffling along in darkness and death? Are you focused on all that you have lost or are you trusting in the promise that what lies ahead makes all that we are going through now look like a dim shadow?

I don't put down this life. It is where we get a foretaste of what love is all about. It's where we get to live in love and fellowship with others. It's where we know the touch of our mother's lips on our forehead. It's where we know the smell of a meal at our grandmother's table. It's where we feel the strength of our fathers, the wisdom of our grandfathers, the thrill of a lover's kiss. It's where we experience the deep, warm rumble of a cat's purr, the eager, panting energy of a dog, and the soaring wonder of an eagle high above us. There is a lot that is good about this world. And the promise is better. It only gets better from here.

What shall we be? I don't know for sure, but we have a glimpse when we see what the saints see. So go out to love. Thanks be to God.

Moses, the Mountain & the Land

What was it like up on that mountain? Old Moses at 120 climbing up to the top of Mount Nebo, 4,000 feet above the Dead Sea that lay at the foot of the mountain. But Moses was used to climbing mountains. He was on a mountain when God came and spoke to him from the burning bush. He was on a mountain when God came in clouds and delivered the Ten Commandments and the Law to him. And the scripture says that even now, at 120, his eyes were not dim and his vigor was not gone. Like the 100-year-old marathoner who finished that race in Canada a few weeks ago, Moses was fit right to the end. But this was the end. He was climbing his last mountain. He knew it was the end. The whole book of Deuteronomy is the record of his farewell addresses to the people of Israel because he knew he was going. After resisting the call to go back to Egypt to liberate these people from slavery, after confronting Pharaoh with signs and wonders on behalf of these people, after enduring the grumblings and hostility of these people through forty years in the desert, after interceding on behalf of these people before God -- after all this the people were going on into the Promised Land and Moses was staying behind. He climbed up Mount Nebo, across the Jordan River from the land of Canaan. It's a high spot. A great spot from which to see the whole of the Jordan River valley and the hill country of Canaan. You can't see all the way to the Mediterranean from there, but God gives Moses a special vision and allows him to see that far and from the northern extent of the future Israel to the southern deserts. It's a little like another scene in the Bible when God gives Abraham a vision from a high place after her has split from his nephew Lot. In Genesis chapter 13 it tells us that God told Abraham to raise his eyes and look to the north and the south, the east and the west. "All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever," God says. When Moses comes along, it is still an unfulfilled promise but God repeats it: "This is the land I sore to Abraham, Isaac & Jacob. I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over to it." Moses knew the moment was coming. Knew, somehow, that he would not be going over the Jordan into the land. But it is still a hard thing for us to hear. Even Moses, who surely did more than anyone to work on behalf of his people, to bring this about, couldn't cross over to the other side. You know the first five books of the Bible are looked at as a special section of the Bible by Jews and Christians. It's called the Pentateuch - the Five Books and they are the foundational story for everything else that comes in the Hebrew Scriptures. But the Pentateuch doesn't end with Israel in the Promised Land. It ends with a vision that is incomplete. For Israel it will always be a little incomplete. O, there will be high moments. David and Solomon will build a great city out of Jerusalem and the united kingdom will briefly shine as the great fulfillment of Israel's dream of being a nation like other nations. But that kingdom will split into two. Other powers will threaten. The people will forget the law and the words of Moses. They will turn to other gods. They will forget where they came from. The kingdoms will fall. The land will be occupied by other powers. And to this day, even though there is once again an independent Israel in the land, the promise seems incomplete. So maybe it's not so strange that Deuteronomy ends here. It's where we still live - with a vision of promise and yet, 'not yet.' Moses, the servant of God, dies there in Moab. Moses is buried there in an unmarked grave. The Bible is even unclear about who buried him. The Hebrew text says that is was God. God, who covered Moses with a hand in the cleft of a rock to prevent him from being killed by God's glory passing by, now covers him with earth in a place no one knows. And he will not appear again until Jesus is with him on another mountain at his transfiguration. It's not the end of the story, though, because there is Joshua. God did not leave the people without a leader. Moses laid his hands on Joshua and he carried on and led the people into the land, into their future. So here we are. And I wonder if Moses could see as far as Franktown - to see what God would do. Here we are 3000+ years later and who could have imagined that the name of Moses would still be on our lips? But I don't want you just to remember Moses - I want you to be Moses. There are a lot of discouraging things in this world. This week I read about the closing of the last Christian church in Afghanistan. The last one. They're closing because to be a Christian in that country is to be marked for intimidation, bombings, and death. In Iran, a Christian pastor, Yosef Nadarkhani, was sentenced to death last month for refusing to renounce his Christian faith. In Bethlehem, the place of Jesus' birth, 86% of the population was Christian in 1915. Today, in the West Bank, Christians make up only 1.7% of the whole population. Again it is intimidation and violence from gangs and government policy and economic strangulation from the ongoing conflicts. These things are to be expected. Jesus told us that suffering would come to the church. Jesus said that persecutions would happen because of him. These things are to be expected but they should not be accepted. I long for a renewed Christian witness in the Middle East. The Middle East needs Christians and the people of the land need Jesus. I long for the same things here. Our disappointments may be different. People may not be dying because of their faith here. Thanks be to God. But churches are dying because we have lost the vision from the mountaintop. We have given in to our despair. We have forgotten the promises of God. We have forgotten who we are. And so we are formed by the morality of reality TV. We get our identity from brand name consumer items. We have such limited expectations of who we can be that we let advertisements and the illusion of the lottery fill the void. Moses' eyes had not gone dim but ours have. Moses' vigor had not diminished but ours has. We tell ourselves the story of how the church has lost its way rather than the story of how the church reveals the Way. We lament the fact that there are no more Moseses and forget that all the wisdom given to Moses was passed on to Joshua and through others to us. What we need we have been given. And what the world needs is for us to give away what we have been given. Let me tell you about another mountaintop. On the West Bank, the area loosely run by the Palestinian Authority, across the Jordan River from Moses' Mount Nebo, there is a mountain where I went on my recent trip. From the top of this mountain you get a feel for what a small place Israel is. When we looked north we could see all the way to the edge of the Galilee. When we looked south we could see the outskirts of Jerusalem. When we looked west we could see ships coming into the Mediterranean port of Ashdod and the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv. What could you do with such a mountaintop? If you were committed to violence against Israel you could certainly put missiles on top of it and hit just about anywhere in the country. But I was there with a man named Bashar Masri and he wants to build a city on that mountain. Not just any city. He wants to build the biggest city on the West Bank - a place where 40,000 people can come to live and work. It is the biggest development project in Palestinian history. It will create 8,000 to 10,000 jobs during construction. It will cost about $1 billion. All for a place that is modeled after Reston, Virginia. He wants to draw people looking for affordable housing and who are looking for a normal life when everything around them is not normal. When he told his staff that, for his last project, he wanted to build a city, they immediately started to list out reasons why it couldn't be done. The Israeli government wouldn't cooperate. The Palestinian government wouldn't cooperate. How were they going to get water up on the mountain? How were they going to get access through the security zones? How would they keep militants out? How could they find investors? They listed 102 obstacles. After three hours of this, Masri said, "O.K., let's call these challenges and get to work." And they did and now that list of 102 has come down to three. They have begun construction. They have advertised the first 2,000 units and they have already oversold them. If somebody can stand on top of a mountain in the West Bank and see a city, why can't we see what God is doing in our land? Why can't we declare that a new day is coming? And why can't we believe that all the obstacles we can list are really challenges waiting to be overcome through the power of the Holy Spirit? What is 'not yet' here that God has given you to see? How do you keep yourself close to that vision? God has not stopped helping the people dream dreams. So don't stop listening for that new day coming. Thanks be to God.

Plagues and Passover

When Israel was in Egypt’s land,

Let my people go!

Oppressed so hard they could not stand,

Let my people go!

Go down, Moses,

Way down in Egypt’s land;

Tell old Pharaoh

To let my people go!

Moses was a reluctant savior.  Oh, once he had been a fiery young radical.  Back in the day when he wore the robes of the Egyptian royalty he snapped at injustice.  One day when he was out among the Pharaoh’s work projects watching the overseers…probably wondering to himself how he could really be a Hebrew and stand by to watch his own people suffer.  What did his mother whisper to him as he nursed from her right under Pharaoh’s nose?  What did his sister say to him about his destiny?

At any rate, as I said, one day Moses was out and about and he saw one of the Egyptians overseers beating a Hebrew slave.  And he was not reluctant to act then.  He was impulsive.  He struck back.  Hard.  Killed that Egyptian and then worried about what he had done.  Hid the body in the sand.  Not such a great place to hide a dead body.  And sure enough his crime doesn’t stay covered up.  But it’s not the Egyptians who know.  It’s the Hebrews.  And they’re not grateful to him.

The next day he’s out and now he sees two Hebrews fighting with each other.  And he confronts one man, who was clearly in the wrong.  “Hey, why are you hitting your companion?”

The man turns on him.  “Who made you a prince and judge over us?  Are you going to kill me like you killed that Egyptian?”  That’s when Moses knew the game was up.  So he fled to Midian.

Years later he was out in the desert tending sheep, long removed from Egypt.  He was married now.  Had a new life now.  Wandered the wilderness with his sheep.  Not the brave young instrument of justice.  An aging man with different priorities.

Then he saw the bush.  That bush that burned but which was not consumed.  That bush that spoke with God’s voice.  Told him to go to Egypt.  Told him that God had experienced the suffering of God’s people.  A new day of liberation was coming.  And who was going to proclaim this new day?

Go down, Moses!

But Moses was now a reluctant savior.  He thought the people would not receive him.  He thought the people would not receive God.  He thought he didn’t have what it took.  He couldn’t speak good.  Finally after God gave him God’s name, after God gave him two nifty tricks to do in front of Pharaoh – the stick into snake trick and the leprous hand trick, after God told him, “I will be with you, Moses,” after God told him, “I will be with your mouth, Moses, and I’ll even give you your brother, Aaron, as a mouthpiece”…finally Moses goes down to Egypt.  A reluctant savior.

The showdown was wonderful.  Moses & Aaron versus the most powerful ruler in the most powerful nation on earth.  Aaron throws down the stick in front of Pharaoh and his servants.  It becomes a stick.  But the magicians of Egypt were there and with their secret arts they can do the same thing.  They throw down their sticks.  They become snakes.  But Aaron’s snake eats up all the other snakes.  Pharaoh was unimpressed.

So the plagues begin.  First there was the plague of water turned to blood.  As Pharaoh went out to the Nile, that great river on which all life in Egypt depended, Moses struck the water with that same staff that had turned to a serpent and the river turned to blood.  All the fish in the river died.  The river stank.  The people couldn’t drink from the river.  Some must have wondered what had happened to the Egyptian gods.  To Khnum, the creator of water and life.  To Hapi, the god of the Nile.  To Osiris for whom the Nile was his very bloodstream.  But Pharaoh did not wonder.  He turned his back on Moses and went back to his palace and God hardened his heart.

Next there were frogs.  Frogs in the beds.  Frogs in the houses.  Frogs in the ovens and the kneading bowls.  People must have pleaded to Heket, the Egyptian goddess of childbirth whose symbol was the frog.  But still they came.  These cursed frogs.  Pharaoh calls in Moses and Aaron and pleads for a respite.  Moses prays to God and the frogs die.  They pile up piles of stinking dead frogs.  And Pharaoh hardened his heart.

It kept on going.  There were gnats and flies.  Then the livestock died.  Then boils broke out, even on the beasts.  Hail.  Locusts.  Darkness.  Even the great Egyptian gods of the sun, Amon-Re, Atum and Horus, could not prevent the darkness.  Each time the plague would affect only the Egyptians, not the Hebrews.  Each time Moses proclaimed the victory of the God of the Hebrews.  Usually Pharaoh pleaded for relief, even promised at times to let the people go, but each time the plague lifted, his heart would harden and the people remained slaves.

Through nine plagues this was the pattern.  Then came the tenth.  And the tenth was a horrible plague.  At midnight on a certain night, the angel of death would come to the house of all who lived in the land.  And this angel of death would kill the firstborn of every house.

Through all of this, God had had a special message for the Egyptians.  Now God had a message for the Hebrews, too.  This night.  This horrible night when so much death would come to Egypt.  This was the night that was going to mark the beginning of a new life for the Hebrew people.  It was a night they would remember even in their calendar.  It was now going to be the first of all the months.  And on the tenth day of that month from now on they were going to remember what they did on this night.

What did they do on this night when the angel of death was coming to every house in Egypt?  They were to take a lamb.  Each household was to take a lamb.  A lamb without blemish.  A year-old male in the prime of life.  And on the fourteenth day of the month, just as the sun was setting in the west, the whole assembly would kill the lambs.

Imagine the Egyptians watching this scene.  All those Hebrew slaves simultaneously slaughtering a lamb.  Then they took blood from the slaughter and painted the doorposts of their houses.  They dressed for travel.  Even though it was night, they dressed as if they were ready to leave.  Their belts fastened.  Their sandals on their feet.  Their walking sticks in their hands.  And they ate their roasted lambs in haste as if they were going to be called out at any minute.

Later that night, at midnight, the destroyer came.  And the firstborn of Egypt were struck down, from the captive in the dungeon to the palace of Pharaoh.  But when the destroyer came to the houses of the Hebrews and saw the blood of the lamb on the doorposts, it passed over their houses.  The death that came to all Egypt did not come to them.  Their firstborn were preserved.

Pharaoh called in Moses and Aaron in the middle of that night.  “Leave.  Go.  Serve Yahweh, your god.  Take your flocks and go.”  The reluctant savior went back to tell his people that God had set them free.

O, there was more to come.  Pharaoh had a change of heart one more time.  There was the dramatic crossing of the Red Sea.  The drowning of Pharaoh’s army.  The long journey in the wilderness.  But a new day had come.  And the Hebrews, who became the Israelites, were to remember this day on the fourteenth day of the first month of every new year.

Why do we still tell this story?  As Christians we don’t set aside the fourteenth day of the first month for Passover.  We don’t even use the Jewish calendar.  What happened to this commandment from Exodus?

It is still our story.  And nowadays you hear it just about every week in this service.  A least a hint of it.  When we come to the baptismal font and give thanks over the water we remind God and ourselves that “when you saw your people as slaves in Egypt, you led them to freedom through the sea.”  When we come to the table we often hear in the Great Thanksgiving those words, “you set us free from slavery to sin and death.”  When we say these things we remember what God has done for  God’s people and we count ourselves among those people that God has claimed and loved and freed.  We remember the Passover.

But as Christians we see it through new eyes.  We count time differently because of one particular Passover when Jesus gathered with his disciples probably to eat this meal that is described in Exodus 12.  Only now Jesus says something different about the meal.  We don’t slaughter lambs anymore because Jesus, who was the Lamb of God, laid down his life once for all.  The sacrifice was made once for all. 

It was a perfect lamb in the prime of his life.  Jesus was sinless, in the prime of his life.  Not a bone of it was to be broken.  At his crucifixion the gospel writers are careful to note that not a bone of Jesus’ body was broken.  The lamb’s blood was to be sprinkled on the doorposts so that its benefits could protect the inhabitants from death.  Jesus’ blood is shed for us so that we can find protection form wrath, forgiveness from our sins, and freedom from death.

Christians look back at this story of the Passover and they see Christ all over it.  As First Corinthians 5:17 says, “Christ has become our Passover.”  And we see a much bigger exodus for us every time we come to this table.  We remember God calling that reluctant savior Moses and leading a people to freedom from slavery.  But we also remember that savior who went all the way to the cross to lead us to a freedom that cannot be taken away from us.

All of life is wrapped up in this story.  There is humor as we think about a land overrun with frogs and Pharaoh playing his silly game of “You can go; no, wait, I lied.”  There is wonder as we think about the awesomeness of the plagues and the greatness of God.  There is trauma and death and blood – the tragedies that are part of all of our lives.  There is sacrifice where the strong and the innocent die and those who are unworthy continue on.  And there is deep, deep mystery as we think that something as simple as gathering around a table and sharing a meal can somehow make real for us the kingdom of God.

Yesterday Suzanne and Rachel and I made a trip to Capron in Southampton County.  We were picking up several pieces of furniture that were part of Suzanne’s inheritance from her Aunt Augusta who died earlier this year.  Augusta was the last of her generation and the house seemed very empty and lonely as we left it for the last time.

We stopped to eat in Franklin at the Golden Skillet.  Rachel was not impressed.  It is a fast food restaurant that has seen many better days.  Even I wondered how many extra layers of grease had been added to the walls and ceilings in recent years.  There were flies.

Why did we go there?  We went there because that’s where my grandparents went to eat.  They knew it had great North Carolina-style barbecue.  And it was one of my Grandma’s favorite places to go.  So when I sit down in that place and eat it is a way for me to commune with the saints.  And when I sat there with my wife and daughter I felt that deep, deep mystery of life and death and life beyond life continuing.

This table is where that happens for this family.  At this table we are reminded that whatever has a hold on us, whatever Pharaoh is holding us in his grip…his power is broken by the action of the God of Israel and Jesus Christ.  Whatever temptation we have to linger in slavery is shown up for what it is – a failure to embrace life and the freedom God gives us through God’s mighty works in Jesus.

So, let us all from bondage flee,

Let my people go!

And let us all in Christ be free,

Let my people go!

Go down, Moses,

Way down in Egypt’s land;

Tell old Pharaoh

To let my people go!

Intending Good

All of us love a good transformation story. The troubled teenager who turns her life around and makes good. The man who is destructive to himself and others who confronts his issues and builds a new life. The rundown neighborhood filled with crime and broken windows that is redone and renewed. We live for those kind of stories.

So let me tell you the story of Joseph and his brothers, but let me warn you before we start that, if it's a story of transformation, it's an incomplete story. There is more reconciliation to be done.

It's a great story, though. The last chapters of the book of Genesis form one big cycle of stories around the figure of Joseph and it is a heck of a story. Even Andrew Lloyd Webber recognizes that. He turned it into a musical called Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. But one thing you might ask as you watch that play or as you read this story is - where is God? What is God up to in this story? The people in the story will sometimes try to interpret for us what God is up to, but they're not always reliable. So we need to be asking, what is God doing?

We're picking the story up in chapter 45 of Genesis, so if you want to follow along in your Bible or a pew Bible I invite you to turn there with me. But by the time we get to this chapter we're getting near the end of the story. So maybe we need a little recap on the characters in this story.

The father who is mentioned in this story is Jacob, also known as Israel because of a little wrestling match he had one night with a man whom he took to be God and who gave him that name. And what do we know about Jacob? He began his life in a struggle with his twin brother Esau. Tricked his brother out of his birthright and his father's blessing. Ran for his life after Esau threatened to kill him. Was blessed by God in a dream where he saw a ladder reaching up to heaven. Travelled to his mother's far-off homeland where he fell in love with the beautiful Rachel. Worked seven years for her and was tricked by his father-in-law into marrying Rachel's sister, Leah. Worked seven more years so that he could marry Rachel as well. Tricked his father-in-law out of the best of his flocks. Scurried back to Canaan where he had a tearful reunion with Esau and then had a very large family.

What do we know about Jacob's family? He had twelve sons and at least one daughter. He loved the children of his wife, Rachel, more than the sons of Leah, or the maidservants with whom he also had children. And he loved Joseph best of all. So much so that he gave Joseph a special coat to well - that fabled coat of many colors.

The relationship between Joseph and his brothers? What do we know about that? Not that good, right? The ten brothers who were older than Joseph hated him. He was daddy's favorite. He was a tattletale. He was arrogant. He had these dreams. Once he was out in the fields and he said to his brothers, "Hey, guys, I had a dream. In my dream we were out binding sheaves in the field and then, all of a sudden, my bundle of grain stood up and all of your bundles came and bowed down to it. What do you think that means?"

Another time he was out in the fields and he said to his eleven brothers, "Hey, guys, I had a dream. In my dream the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing to me. Weird, huh? What do you think it means?"

Well, what it meant was that the brothers were going to try to get rid of him. The next time he came out to the fields they made plans to do him in. They were going to kill him, but one of the brothers, Rueben, intervened and instead they stripped off his fancy coat and threw him in a pit. When some passing slave traders came by, they sold Joseph to them for twenty pieces of silver and went back home to Jacob with the sad tale of how Joseph had been eaten by wild animals.

They thought it was the end of the story, but it wasn't. Joseph ended up in Egypt as the slave to a high Egyptian official. Eventually he ended up as the right hand man to the king of Egypt himself, the Pharaoh. It was his ability to interpret dreams that got him into this position. He knew that a famine was coming to the land following seven years of plenty and he was given charge of a grain storage and distribution program.

It was the famine that brought the brothers back into Joseph's life. Jacob sends the brothers from Canaan to see if they can get some grain. He sends them all except Benjamin, who has now become the favorite since Joseph's loss.

The brothers go to Egypt and they appear before Joseph, but they don't recognize him because he is made up like a mighty Egyptian. Besides, they thought he was long gone. Joseph doesn't tell them it's him, either. He toys with them. Demands that one of them go back to Canaan and get Benjamin. Eventually settles for keeping one of them in prison while the rest go back.

They come back with Benjamin and Joseph still doesn't let on who he is. He sends them off again and puts his silver cup in one of their sacks of grain. Joseph gives them a little headstart, then sends a servant after them and accuses them of theft. They deny it, but, wouldn't you know it, the silver cup is found in the bag of Benjamin.

Benjamin is arrested and brought back. The brothers plead for Benjamin's life. They know their father will never survive the loss of another favorite son. One of the brothers offers himself as a replacement.

This is where we pick up the story today. Joseph has ratcheted up the anxiety so much that even he can't take it anymore. So verse one tells us that he could not restrain himself in front of all the people in the room. So he sends the other members of the court out. Joseph seems to be concerned with how this is going to look. He's concerned for his appearance. But he's not very successful because verse 2 tells us that the Egyptians could hear him wailing in the next room.

Now pay attention to a couple of things here as we read on. Pay attention to who cries and how many times Joseph refers to himself. Verse 3 is where he finally makes the big reveal. "I am Joseph," he says. "How is my father?"

At this point, he hasn't offered a big reunion. He hasn't said, "All is forgiven. Come on over and give me a hug." He has just laid the bombshell on them that he is Joseph. So the brothers don't answer. They are scared. They don't know what Joseph might do to them.

In verse 4 Joseph says, "Come over here." And they come. He's decreasing the distance between them. Not using his elevated status as a barrier. But he's still not telling them what he's going to do. In fact, he begins by reminding them that he is their brother and they sold him to the Egyptians. He's naming the wound. He's pointing to the act that has dominated all of their lives. The thing that needs to be healed.

In verse 5 he says, "Don't be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me into slavery." Joseph thinks he knows how they're feeling. But do we know that's how these brothers feel? We've seen how they are kind of protective of their father but not a whole lot of grief and self-loathing.

In verse 7 Joseph goes on to interpret the situation. "God sent me ahead to preserve our lives. God sent me to preserve your future." Verse 8: "You didn't sent me. God sent me and made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his house and a ruler over all Egypt." Three times he repeats it - God sent me. It's all about him. In fact, Joseph seems to deny that the brothers had any hand in this at all. The emphasis is on God and Joseph. Joseph is the object of God's favor. Joseph is the one who was the focus of those dreams he shared in the field with them so long ago. Now Joseph's dreams have come true. His brothers have come to bow down before him.

Then in verse 9 he uses his position to give the brothers a command. "Go back to my father and tell him that his son, Joseph, says, 'God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to live with me, you and your children and all of your possessions. I will support you through the famine.'" The brothers will be taken care of, but primarily because of Joseph's concern for his father.

Then by verse 14 he gets around to the hugs. He starts with Benjamin. No surprise. Then he turns to his brothers and weeps over them. But notice that the Bible never says whether they join in the weeping.

Now what do we say about a story like this. I love the stories from Genesis because they are so honest and they give us real people who act like the real people we know. They make big mistakes and they have big character flaws and despite all that they end up being claimed by God. That's hopeful for us.

There is reconciliation in this story, too. A dark chapter in this family's history is beginning to be closed. And when we see it played out on the stage or in retellings, this scene is lifted up as the happy ending.

But is there something missing here? It's an imperfect reunion, isn't it? Joseph gets a chance to be magnanimous and to embrace his brothers. He can find comfort in the dreams and visions that tell him that he stands within the realm of God's favor. But the brothers don't have that assurance. They can't be sure of any favor, not even their father's. What they desperately need is a blessing, a healing, a word, an act that will help them know that they too are recipients of grace.

The brothers kind of disappear in Joseph's story. As he tells it they don't even get credit for their sin. God is working it all out and it's not their crime but God's plan that sends Joseph to Egypt. If they don't get a chance to confess their sin and to own it, they don't have the chance for absolution and healing. We rejoice when we see people who have been estranged from each other embracing, but what we want even more is transformation.

You know from your own life how distorting sin can be. You know how it turns us in on ourselves...keeps us from living open, joyful lives...keeps us from experiencing the life God intends for us. Sin is the thing Jesus went to the cross for. Sin is the thing that God says 'No' to. Sin is the thing God did not create and the thing that God cannot tolerate in the restored creation. Sin is the one thing in the universe that is truly ours as human beings. It is an impossibility for God but it is all too real in our lives. How does God deal with sin?

One time a professor was going to share with his class an image for the atonement. The atonement is the word we use for talking about how God reconciles us with God through the cross. God reconciles us through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. The professor held up a glass and it was a dirty glass. Smudged and covered with dirt. He said, "This glass is us and the dirt on the glass is the sin that has marred our lives. God hates the sin of our lives. God's justice demands that it be dealt with."

The professor set the glass down on the table and held up a hammer. "This hammer is God's justice which will come down with full force on the sin of the world." He raised the hammer up over the glass and began to bring it down and at the last minute he put a metal pan between the hammer and the glass so that the pan took the force of the blow with a mighty crash. "That pan," the professor said, "is the self-giving love of God which interposes itself on our behalf, preventing us from getting what we deserve for the sin in our lives. It is Jesus' death on the cross."*

It's a dramatic image, but something is wrong with the way that story is told. The glass remains unchanged. It's still dirty. To extend the analogy, Jesus' death may give us a different status with God, but we are still not transformed. And what we desperately want to know is that we can be changed.

This is where Methodists want to talk about the power of God's sanctifying grace. God's justifying grace is powerful...amazing. It opens the door for all people to come before God boldly...to know that because of the work of Jesus Christ we can have a place in the reign of God. But there is more. Now that we have come in, we want to be changed.

So we open our lives to fellow Christians in small groups. We know that we can't see all the problems in our lives on our own. None of us is that self-aware. We need others who will listen to our struggles, ask us about our spiritual journey, support us in our failures, and confront us in our stubbornness. If you are not in a small group that does these things you are not yet fully immersed in Christian community. Talk to me and we'll hook you up.

Where is God in this story of Joseph? What is God up to? Joseph says that God is taking evil intent and using it for good. God is doing that. But something more happens in real reconciliation. God is not just redirecting events, God is transforming people. God is taking us sinners and restoring us to health.

We know this because we have seen God in Jesus Christ. In Jesus God was reconciling all the world to God's own self. That's what 2 Corinthians tells us. God became incarnate, became human, became one of us, so that we could see what true humanity looks like. And ultimately so that we could be truly human ourselves.

Ask yourself - is Joseph really the pinnacle of what humans can be? Or is there something more? Don't we want a deeper experience of transformation for ourselves and for the world?

Do you remember the story of Allison Jolly? The district ministry to migrant peoples here on the Shore grew up in an old gas station in Wachapreague named the Allison Jolly Casa de Esperanza. Allison Jolly was a young woman who was killed by a Mexican migrant worker here on the Shore. It was a horrible crime. It could have led to a lifetime of bitterness and hatred.

Allison's father was devastated. Who would have asked him to seek reconciliation with the man who killed his daughter? If he never reached out to the migrant community, who would have batted an eye?

But he did reach out. He wrote the man in prison and offered his forgiveness for what the murderer had done. He gave the building in Wachapreague to Carmen Colona for use as a food and clothes pantry for migrant peoples in our midst. He took the evil that had been done and sought out God's intent to make it good.

Don't tell me that reconciliation isn't a powerful thing. In our stumbling, imperfect reunions there is a distant echo in heaven where the reconciling God is still reaching out to us. We live with imperfection and we long for something more. We see our world wounded and scarred. We see our lives imprisoned by old wounds and bad habits. We see huge divides and rifts between us and those we would love.

But God...God sees brothers and sisters reunited, long lost children, prodigals even, returning home, orphans given new homes, and communities where all share in God's abundance. God sees the world as it should be and as it will be and as it already is, if we will open our hearts and eyes and hands to do the sanctifying work of grace. How good and pleasant it is when we dwell together in unity. Thanks be to God!

*Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr., Christian Doctrine, [Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1968], p. 242-3. Story adapted.