Tired of My Tears

The other day I heard a heartbreaking story. Anthony Griffith, a stand-up comedian, was telling a group the story of what his life was like when he was breaking into show business in the early 1990s. It was recorded for a podcast called "The Moth," which gives people 12 minutes to share stories with a live audience. I listen to it every so often because I believe in the power of stories. Most of the stories are funny, poignant, forgettable, or just plain bad. There aren't many I'd recommend. But Anthony Griffith's story stopped me in my tracks.

As Griffith tells it, he was invited to go on the Johnny Carson show, which was the main way comics made it back in the day. For those too young to remember, Johnny Carson was the host of the Tonight Show before Jay Leno or Conan. Griffith got the call at about the same time that he got the news that his 2-year-old daughter's cancer had recurred. So there was the hook. Listening to his story now, I was following these two tracks - one the story of a young man finding success in a field he felt called to, and the other the story of the same man struggling to walk with his daughter through a battle with cancer.

He talked about the struggle to make people laugh when all he wanted to do was cry. He talked about his managers who were telling him his humor was getting too dark. He talked about his daughter's failing health and worsening diagnosis. He talked about watching her small body struggle with chemotherapy. Finally he talked about her death.

It was the first time he had told the story publicly and his voice cracked several times. He broke down in tears. He said, "I had a plan to teach her to drive. I had a plan to send her to college. I had a plan to walk her down the aisle at her wedding. I didn't have a plan for this."

He consoled himself with a figure from the movies, Denzel Washington's police trainer in the movie Training Day. He heard Denzel's voice telling him, "Man up...You think you the only one losing kids, today? 25 kids walked in this cancer ward, only 5 walking out. This ain't no sitcom. It don't all wrap up all nice and tidy in 30 minutes. This is life. Welcome to the real world."*

It was a heartbreaking story. Well told, as if that matters. All it meant was that Anthony Griffith's ability to communicate meant we could feel his anger, his tears, and his pain even better. It was a heartbreaking story. And I believe in the power of stories.

Jesus stands face to face with Martha in the roadway to his friend Lazarus' tomb. Her sister Mary is the one who falls at his feet. Mary is the one who sat at Jesus' feet to listen as he talked. Mary is the one who anointed his head and wiped his feet dry with her hair. Martha stares him down.

"Lord, if you had been here...if you had been here, my brother would not have died." She struggles to keep it under control. She fights down her disappointment. (He waited two days more to come when he heard of Lazarus' sickness!) She fights down her pain. Fights back the tears. Holds on to the hope beyond hope. "Even now I I know that God will give you whatever you ask." Her brother may be dead, but she will still allow that Jesus may be the one. But still her brother will be dead.

"Your brother will rise again," Jesus says.

"I know. I know. At the resurrection. At the end of all things."

"Martha. I am the resurrection. I am the life. If a person believes in me, that person will live. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

We hear echoes as he talks. Jesus saying to a Samaritan woman, "I will give you water that will never run out." Jesus saying to a blind man, "I am the light of the world." Jesus saying to Nicodemus, "You can be, you must be, born anew."

It seems a cruel thing to say to Martha. She is standing in the road. Dust swirling. Mourners wailing. A grieving sister in the house. A dead brother in the tomb. Shouldn't Jesus be telling her something like Denzel? "Get yourself together woman! You think you're the only one losing someone today? This ain't no fantasy. This is real life. Welcome to the real world." But he doesn't say that. And she doesn't protest. She confesses. "Yes. I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God." And she goes to get Mary.

Mary is the emotional one. She runs out of the house and the mourners follow her thinking she is off to the tomb to weep and she might need some help from their culturally appropriate, manufactured tears. But Mary doesn't go to the tomb. She goes to Jesus. And falls at his feet.

"Lord, if you had been here...if you had only been here." The story has not changed. The tears testify to the pain that will not go away, even in the presence of the Messiah.

"Where have you laid him?" The text says anger was rising in Jesus' spirit and he was troubled in himself.

"Come and see," they said. The same thing Philip, Jesus' disciple, had said to Nathaniel when he was telling him about Jesus. Nathaniel had asked, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" and Philip replied, "Come and see."

Come and see this body. Come and see the death. Come and see where all our fantasies bump up against the real world. This is the real world, Jesus.

And Jesus wept.

This is the point where I wept with Anthony Griffith, too. I've been there all too often with people whose faith has gone off a cliff. I've been there in the back of an ambulance to tell a couple that the children they fought to get out of a burning house have died. I've been there when marriages have failed. When the diagnosis is bad. When the job is lost. When the boyfriend bails. And what does God give us for times like these but tears?

Yesterday, I posted the topic for today's sermon on Facebook with the question: What makes you want to cry? And people posted replies. What makes me want to cry? People being hungry and not being able to feed their children. Congress. My friend's baby dying. Hatred, violence and suffering..especially the suffering of children. The New York Mets.

We are tired of our tears.

And the answer Denzel gives is to "Man up. This is the real world." That's not what I want to tell Anthony Griffith. I want to tell him that, yes, the pain is real. Yes, the suffering is real. Yes, the death is real. But that is not nearly enough to tell the story of this world.

If death is all there is to the real world then every story is a tragedy. Every tale I tell will end in woe. Every tear I shed is a wasted sign of a world with no God.

But that's not what our tears are and that's not what this world is. Those tears are for a broken world that hasn't yet reached the end of its long road. Those tears are prayers for God to break in on this world. Come, Lord Jesus, and stand before my tomb and let something happen.

I want to tell Anthony Griffith. Man up? Yes, the man is up. And the man is not going to tell you that your pain doesn't matter just because its mixed with the pain of a million others. The man is not going to say, "Stuff happens" and that's the end of it. The man is going to stand in front of the tomb and say, "Take off that stone."

The people will protest. "Lord, think of the stench."

"Take off that stone."

"He's been in there for four days."

"Lift off that stone."

They will lift off that stone. They will expect the worst. They will not expect life. They will not know what to do with it. They will not know how to handle it. They will not know what Jesus is saying when he says,

"Didn't I tell you that you would see the glory of God if you believe?"

They will not know what to think when he calls out in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"

They will not know who they are when they hear a rustling in the dark. They will not know where to run when they hear a shuffling in the tomb. They will not know what the world is coming to when a dead man sheds his wraps and walks once more.

I would weep with Anthony Griffith. I would not know what words could touch the pain. But eventually I would say that someone is standing outside his tomb. I would say to you, "Someone is standing outside your tomb." You know what it is. You know the places where you think even God can't go. You know the stones that seal those places off.

And you know who says to you, "Lift off that stone." You know who says to you, "Come out of that tomb." The man is up and he's waiting for you to meet the real world...the real world where saviors weep over the pain of the world and then say, "Wait, there's more."

I believe in the power of stories. Especially I believe in the gospel story. Because it shows that love wins the day. Death is defeated and God is here to stay. Thanks be to God.

*"Anthony Griffith: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times," www.themoth.org/podcast. Accessed April 9, 2011.

How Can I See Miracles?

I don't know how to explain what it is that I saw. A few weeks ago I was out on Cedar Island. If you've been around me since then you're probably sick of hearing me talk about it. I was out on Cedar Island. It was a Friday. I'd just come off doing another funeral. It was a good funeral. Suzanne's aunt, Augusta, had died at the age of 98 and we had celebrated her life. Celebrated life in the face of death.

And the next day was Friday and it was a relatively warm day and the kayak was hanging there in the garage, staring me in the face every time I pulled the car in, and saying, "Alex, help me. Get me down from here. I need water. I need water." I could hear it.

So I got the kayak down and went over to Burton's Shore. It was a little breezy but the water was calm. The clouds were all drifting in a line that pointed straight across Burton's Bay to Cedar Island. So I waded into the chilly water, jumped in the kayak and paddled off.

When I got to the island I put my stuff down and I started running. I know I don't look like a runner, and I'm not. But the district superintendent in Richmond, Steve Jones, has challenged all the clergy in the conference to participate in the Richmond Marathon in November this year and I'm working on it. The worst part about running is the first two miles. After that, it's a really neat thing. I just wish I could start with mile 3.

So, anyway, I set out down the beach, and here's the critical thing - I left my glasses back with my stuff near the kayak. I don't like running with my glasses on, but the side effect of that is that I can't see very well. So as I ran I could see shapes and hear birds and the waves, but I couldn't get much detail. It was impressionist running.

I had run about as far as I had set out to run and was just about to turn back, but I knew that there was a boat beached on the island that ran aground during a storm last winter and I wanted to see it. So I ran a little bit further to see if I could see it and sure enough, around a bend in the island, there was the shape of the boat. So I kept running.

I was getting very close to the boat when I saw a shape over next to the small dunes. It looked to me like a mesh bag of potatoes and I thought, "How did a bag of potatoes get washed up on the shore?" So, like Moses on the mountain when he saw the bush burning without being consumed, I said to myself, "I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why a sack of potatoes has washed up on this beach."

So I ran up towards the dunes and as I did, the sack of potatoes moved. I was only about four feet away from it. It moved and looked up at me with these sad, black eyes. It was not a sack of potatoes. It was a seal.

I don't know who was more scared - me or the seal. It startled me more than anything. I jumped back and stared. It was about as big as a large child. Brown with black spots. Those mournful, puppy dog eyes. It was a long way from the surf but it started making its way there - pushing its fins into the sand and dragging itself forward, stopping every so often to catch its breath. I pulled out my phone to take a picture.

But here's the thing: even though I was only a few feet from it, I knew I was actually going to be able to see it better when I looked at the pictures I was taking. Even close up I was feeling the seal's presence more than seeing it in any detail. And it's hard for me to describe what I was feeling.

It was such a strange place on the beach. There was a boat on the land which should have been in the sea. Next to it was a cabin on stilts that was out in the water where it shouldn't be. Here was a seal from the Arctic and there was me. Did I belong?

I was sensing the seal's fear and my own sense of awe. I felt a kind of fellow-creature feeling for it - like we were both alike on this beach - God's own critters in a place we couldn't describe. And I felt a deep tremor within. It was the day of the earthquake in Japan. I felt like I was in the presence of something beyond me - something holy like that burning bush. It's such a strange thing to be a preacher sometimes - you can stare down death at a funeral one day and the next you can be totally undone by a seal. But you don't have to be a preacher to feel this. You can know that the world is more than you can say. That miracles are out there. You just have to be able to see them and with more than your eyes.

Over the last couple of weeks we have been looking at a series of Jesus' close encounters with people. There was Nicodemus who came in the night. The Samaritan woman at the well. And today it's a blind man.

The healing part of this story is pretty straightforward. Jesus sees a blind man, walks up to him, and spits in the dirt. This is a scene you don't often see depicted in stained-glass windows - Jesus spitting in the dirt. But it's basic and graphic. Even more so in the dirt because the Greek word for spitting is ptuo. Which is the perfect word for spitting. Ptuo is the sound you make when you spit.

So Jesus comes to heal the blind man and ptuo right in the dirt. He reaches down and grabs some of this glop he's made in the dirt and he puts it on the eyes of the blind man. He tells him, "Go and bathe in the pool of Siloam." So the blind man leaves, the clay still on his face, and goes to dunk himself in the pool. When he returns, he can see. The healing is done. But it doesn't yet qualify as a miracle. The blind man has sight, but he's not yet a disciple.

Scene 2. Let's call this scene "The Curious Neighbors." The people who have lived with this man who was healed all their lives suddenly have a hard time identifying him. Some of the neighbors were saying, "It's him." Others were saying, "No, it just looks like him." And finally, the man gets tired of the guessing and says, "It's me." And the confused and curious people say, "Who did this and how?"

Listen to how the man answers. He doesn't make any claims for Jesus. Doesn't try to go beyond the facts. He simply says, "The man Jesus made mud and put it on my eyes and said, 'Go wash,' so I did, and look what happened."

We know, because the gospel of John tells us this from the very beginning, that Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus has told the disciples this before the healing even. But that was very uncomfortable for the neighbors, who weren't sure what to think. So they decided to take the man to the Pharisees, the religious leaders, to get an opinion.

Scene 3. We might call this the scene where the Pharisees become blind. Something happened to the Pharisees when they were training at Pharasaic Junior College or wherever it was they went to school. They got hung up on sin and started to see it everywhere. They were were convinced that they had clear answers to all the major questions and anyone who disagreed with them or acted differently was a sinner. They already had problems with Jesus because he had healed a man on the Sabbath, which qualified as a prohibited work for them - a sin. And guess what? The day that Jesus touched the blind man was...a Sabbath.

The Pharisees ask the man the same questions as the neighbors - who and how - and the man gives the same answer except that it's even simpler this time. He leaves out the spitting part and says, "He put mud on my eyes and I washed and I can see." This is enough to divide the Pharisees and they try to get beyond the disagreement by asking the man who he thinks Jesus is. And the man makes his first statement of belief. He goes beyond the bare facts and says, "He is a prophet."

This really disturbed the Pharisees so they decide to call in his parents, who are no help. The parents say, "He's a grown man. Ask him who this Jesus is."

So a third time they call him back and the man who was blind says, "Look, I've told you the story. What do you want to hear? You can sit here and figure out if Jesus is a sinner or not if you want to, but what I know is that I was blind and now I see. Now that's the story. Do you want to be his disciple, too?"

Now he's finally let it slip. He's a disciple. Jesus is not just a man. Not just a prophet that I can choose to follow or not. He is worthy of the man's faith, worthy of the man's witness and worthy of the man's life. He has now come to see clearly who Jesus is and who he is. The miracle has finally happened.

For this the Pharisees call him a sinner and they throw him out. They have become totally blind.

But there is one more interrogation for the man. Jesus now comes to him. "Do you believe in the Son of Humanity?" he asks.

"Who is he? Tell me so that I can believe in him." He is starting to sound like the woman at the well who asked, "Where is this living water?" and who talked of the Messiah. Just like in that conversation, Jesus says, "You are looking at him. The one speaking to you is the one."

The miraculous thing here is not that a healing happened. Like most miracles that are worth their salt the healing is only an opportunity to see the deeper miracle. The miraculous happens at a level that can't be accessed by facts or labels or expectations. It happens when you confront a reality that you've been desiring all your life. Miracles don't come to contradict our skepticism about the world - they come to confirm our hopes. They don't come to confound our minds, they come to dwell in our hearts.

So what does that tell us about how we see miracles? If you're a Pharisee you're not going to see a miracle because you've got too much invested in your rules and in a rigid worldview that is a closed system. Nothing gets into a Pharisee's world that he (and they were all 'he's) can't explain. Jesus won't be welcome in a Pharisee's heart.

If you're a fearful neighbor or a fearful parent you're not going to see a miracle because your fear is going to close you off from hope. Your fear will keep your world small. Your fear will determine the answer to every question because you will only allow yourself to believe what is acceptable. The parents of the blind man don't testify to who Jesus is because they knew they would be expelled from the synagogue if they professed him as Messiah.

So the miracle comes to the one who knows what darkness is like. Who knows what it's like to live on the margins and to be dependent on others for his very survival. The one who has been called a sinner just for being blind. The one who has been longing to see. This is the one who sees a miracle.

So what's keeping you from seeing a miracle in your life? Are you shut down by a closed system in your mind that thinks that nothing can be believed unless all the answers are provided ahead of time? Is there room in your heart, in your life, in your mind for something that you can't explain - something that feels less like facts and more like love?

Or are you shut down by fear? Fear of loss? Fear of the future? Fear of inadequacy? Fear of rejection? Fear of failure? Remember that perfect love casts out fear and that you cannot see the miracles right in front of you if you are in the grip of fear. But perfect love casts out fear.

What's keeping you from seeing a miracle in your life and what is keeping us from seeing a miracle in this world? We are not in touch with our deepest hopes and greatest desires. We lead with our defenses instead of our trust. And we suffer. Our neighbors suffer. Our world suffers.

Jesus and the blind man walked through the same land as the Pharisees and the fearful neighbors. But some saw miracles and others saw sin. What you see is not up to the Pharisees to decide for you. What you see is up to you. What the blind man saw is still here in front of us. In this very room. Remember what the angels say when they show up? Do not be afraid. For if you are not afraid and if you listen to God speaking in your heart - there are miracles. Thanks be to God.


John 9:1-41
Now as he was passing by he saw a man who had been blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned so that he was born blind, this man or his parents?

Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned. This happened so that the works of God might be revealed in him. As long as the day lasts we must be about the work of the one who sent me. The night is coming when no one will be able to work. As long as I in the world, I am the light of the world."

Having said this, he spit on the ground and he made mud from the spittle and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the mud. He said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is translated 'Sent'). So he went, washed and came back seeing.

Then the neighbors and the ones who were used to seeing him around, (for he had been a beggar), said, "Isn't this the man who used to sit and beg?" Others said, "This IS the same one." Others said, "It looks like him."

He said, "It's me."

So they said, "How were your eyes opened?"

He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes, saying to me, "Go to the pool at Siloam and wash.' So I went and washed and I could see."

They said to him, "Where is he?"

He said, "I don't know."

They brought the man who had been blind to the Pharisees. Now it was a sabbath when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees asked him again how we received his sight. He said to them, "He put mud on my eyes and I washed and I can see."

Then some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God because he doesn't observe the sabbath." Others said, "How can a sinner do signs like this?" They were a divided group. So they spoke to the blind man again and said, "What have you got to say about him? He opened your eyes."

He said, "He is a prophet."

But the Jews would not believe this about him, that he had been blind and received his sight, until they sent for the parent of the man who had gained his sight. They asked them, "Is this your son who you say was born blind? If so, how can he now see?"

His parents answered them, "We know that he is our son and that he was born blind. But we don't know how he can now see nor do we know who opened his eyes. He's a grown-up. Ask him. He can speak for himself." His parents said this because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that anybody who professed him as Messiah would be expelled from the synagogue. This was the reason his parents said, "He's a grown-up. Ask him."

So they called the man who had been blind for a second time and said to him, "Give God the glory instead. We know that this man is a sinner."

The man said, "I don't know if he is a sinner or not. The one thing I know is that I was blind and now I see."

They said to him, "Who did his to you? How did he open your eyes?"

He answered them, "I have already told you and you didn't listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?"

Then they went off on him and said, "You are that man's disciple. We are disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses, but we don't know where this man comes from."

The man responded to them, "This is a wonder! You don't know where he comes from and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God doesn't hear sinners but God does hear the one who fears God and does God's will. From the very beginning it's unheard of for someone to open the eyes of someone blind from birth. If this man weren't from God he wouldn't be able to do anything."

They answered him, "You were totally born in sin and you want to teach us?!" Then they threw him out.

When Jesus heard that they threw him out, he found him and said, "Do you believe in the Son of Humanity?"

The man replied and said, "Who is he, Lord? Tell me so that I can believe in him."

Jesus said to him, "You are looking at him. The one speaking with you is the one."

He said, "I believe, Lord." Then he worshipped him.

Jesus said then, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who can't see could see and those who see would become blind."

When they heard this, some of the Pharisees who were with him said, "We aren't blind are we?"

Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you wouldn't have sin. But now that you claim to see, sin remains in you."

La Desesperación, La Pereza y La Esperanza

Despair, Sloth and Hope

Course of Study School – Perkins School of Theology

Bueno. Aquí estamos en el segundo día de la segunda sesión del Curso de Estudio. Fuera hay luz y sol. El arrullo de la tórtola se oye en nuestro país. O por lo menos el sinsonte. Las clases parecen lleno de promesas. Los proyectos de final? ¿Qué proyectos final? Nos encontramos en el oleaje lleno de vida.

Entonces yo quiero hablar sobre... la desesperación. La pereza. Uno de los siete pecados capitales que roe nuestras vidas, poniendo en peligro la alegría que, naturalmente, debe sentirse. Especialmente cuando estamos en el oleaje de la vida plena. ¿Qué dice Dios acerca de la desesperación, la pereza y la esperanza?

So here we are on the second day of the second session of Course of Study School. Outside there is light and sunshine. The voice of the turtledove is heard in the land. Or at least the mockingbird. Classes seem full of promise. Final projects? What final projects? We are in the full swell of life.

So it seems appropriate today to turn to…despair. To sloth. To one of those seven deadly sins that gnaws at our lives, threatening the joy we should naturally feel when we are in the full swell of life. What does God have to say about despair, sloth and hope?

I actually want to start with sloth just because…well, it’s a neat word. Granted ‘sloth’ is not a word we hear much any more and when we do it usually is referring to the cuddly-looking, leaf-sucking beasts that swing in the rainforest trees. But that’s not the kind of sloth I’m talking about. The sloth I’m talking about is, like pride, envy, anger and the other deadly sins, something that is found deep inside and, like them, it threatens our life with God.

Now if someone has ever accused you of being a sloth, of the ten-toed variety, they were probably accusing you of being lazy. That’s the generally-accepted synonym for sloth. Slothful people lie about and do nothing. They refuse to put themselves out for anything or anyone. They just don’t seem to have a whole lot of ambition. That’s how this line of argument usually goes.

Now if that’s the case, sloth might seem to be a problem, and maybe even a character flaw, but we’d hardly describe it as a deadly sin. In fact, in a society where nobody seems to have enough time for anything…when 24/7 is the standard measure of how much we want to be available to work…when families are stretched because of work schedules, ball schedules, music lesson schedules and even church schedules…when everything is rushed…when high stress lifestyles lead to high blood pressure…when there aren’t enough hours in the day to do all that we feel we have to do…when cats are living with dogs…you know, a little bit of sloth might be a healthy thing.

In fact, there is a health researcher in Germany who has suggested just that! Professor Peter Axt, in a paper entitled “The Joy of Laziness,” says, “The benefits of procrastination are grossly undervalued in modern society. People are working longer hours and trying to fit more into every day. But when you are already stressed and anxious, it can be much better to do nothing than rush to the gym for a workout…People who would rather relax in a hammock than run a marathon certainly have a better chance of living to old age.” And they may be smarter.[i] Now that’s my kind of study.

So sloth, if it is laziness, sounds like a pretty minor sin. But what if sloth is something more? Surely it must be since it made the list of the Seven Deadlies. What was it about sloth that made this sin seem like such a threat to our very souls?

Desea iniciar con la pereza. Si alguien tiene alguna vez acusado de ser un perezoso, de la variedad de diez dedos, fueron probablemente le acusa de ser poncho. Ese es el sinónimo de aceptación general para la pereza. Los perezosos son indolentes y no hacer nada. Se niegan a ponerse a cabo por nada ni por nadie. Ellos no parecen tener un montón de ambición. Así es como esta línea de argumento generalmente es.

Ahora bien, si ese es el caso, la pereza puede parecer un problema, y tal vez es un defecto de carácter, pero no es un pecado mortal. De hecho, en una sociedad donde nadie parece tener tiempo para nada ... cuando 24 / 7 es la medida estándar de lo mucho que desea que estén disponibles para trabajar ... cuando las familias están al límite debido a los horarios de trabajo, los horarios de pelota, los horarios de clase de música e incluso los horarios iglesia ... cuando todo se precipitó cuando los estilos de vida ... de alta tensión provocar presión arterial alta ... cuando no hay suficientes horas en el día para hacer todo lo que sentimos que tenemos que hacer ... ya sabes , un poco de pereza podría ser una cosa sana.

De hecho, hay un investigador de la salud en Alemania, que ha sugerido justamente eso! El profesor Peter Axt, en un artículo titulado "El placer de la pereza", dice, "Los beneficios de la dilación son claramente infravalorado en la sociedad moderna. La gente está trabajando más horas y tratar de encajar más en todos los días. Pero cuando ya estás estresada y ansiosa, puede ser mucho mejor no hacer nada que correr al gimnasio para una sesión de ejercicios ... La gente que prefiere relajarse en una hamaca que correr un maratón sin duda tienen una mejor oportunidad de vida hasta la vejez." Y pueden ser más inteligentes. Es mi tipo de estudio.

Así que la pereza, si es indolencia, suena como un pecado bastante pequeño. Pero ¿y si la pereza es algo más? Con toda seguridad debe ser, ya que en la lista de las Siete Deadlies. ¿Qué había en la pereza que hizo este pecado parece ser una amenaza para nuestras almas?

In my first pastorate in Virginia I worked with a young man who was very gifted. He was bright, sociable and had all kinds of potential. He had a lot of things going for him. He had all these things going for him despite the fact that he had a lot working against him, too.

He was being raised by a mother who had overcome her own drug addiction to straighten her life out. She had been through a resurrection of sorts, leaving behind the death that her old ways represented and creating a new life for herself and her two boys. She had done this with the help of family and with the help of God who had given her this new life and who was opening her up to give to others.

This young man, in other words, had a great mother, who had a strong faith, but she didn’t have a lot of money and she worried over her son. He often got into trouble and, even though he was smart, he didn’t get the best grades. Even so, when he graduated from school she worked hard to get him into college.

It was late in the summer before he got a place and they were sure of being able to pay for his tuition. A generous scholarship from the school helped. Then he started school with all of his potential and all of his gifts.

But something happened to him at school. The dark shadows that often overtook him followed him there. Despite all that he had and the support that he had and the promise that this new life represented, he made some bad choices that got him kicked out of school. What finally did it was smoking pot in his dorm room, but something worse than drugs had gotten him. Something worse than laziness. He had given in to his own joylessness and given up on being what even he knew that he could be. What struck him was the sin of sloth.

En mi primera iglesia trabajé con un hombre joven que estaba muy dotado. Era inteligente, sociable y tenía todo tipo de potencial. Tenía un montón de cosas a su favor. Él tenía todas esas cosas a su favor a pesar de que tenía mucho trabajo en su contra, también.

Él estaba siendo criado por una madre que había superado su propia adicción a las drogas para enderezar su vida fuera. Había pasado por una especie de resurrección, dejando tras de sí la muerte que sus viejos hábitos representados y la creación de una nueva vida para ella y sus dos hijos. Lo había hecho con la ayuda de la familia y con la ayuda de Dios, que le había dado esta nueva vida y que fue su apertura para dar a otros.

Este joven, en otras palabras, había una gran madre, que tenía una fe fuerte, pero no tenía mucho dinero y se preocupaba por su hijo. Con ayuda el vino a un colegio. Y él comenzó la escuela con todo su potencial y todos sus dones.

Pero algo pasó con él en la escuela. A pesar de todo lo que tenía y el apoyo que tenía, y la promesa de que esta nueva vida representada, tomó algunas decisiones malas que tiene lo echaron de la escuela. Fumando marihuana en su propio dormitorio, pero algo peor que drogas le había conseguido. Algo peor que la indolencia. Lo que le golpeó fue el pecado de la pereza.

The ancients used to call sloth “sadness” and by that they meant despair -- a deep despair that kept people from living up to their potential. The desert monks of the fourth century referred to it as “the noonday demon” because it crept in in the middle of the day when the sun was at its hottest. It’s the time of day when the life and energy they experienced in the early morning was burnt off by the heat and what was left was a sense of the pointlessness of work in the midst of a desert day. Why not sleep? Why not give up on the work they were given to do?

I know this experience. I know it well. How many times have I met with people at the beginning of a project when everyone is excited by a new idea! We all sit around the table and say, “Yes, we will start an evangelistic campaign!” “Yes, we will draw up plans for a new building!” “Yes, we will read through the Bible!” “Yes, we will floss!” And everyone is intoxicated by the notion and assignments are made, plans are put in place. Then a few weeks later, the energy has flagged. Everyone still agrees that it is a good idea, but the work has ground to a halt. Nothing seems to be moving forward. Sloth has set in. It’s as if there is a great drowsiness in the land.

We all know the old saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It is for this reason that Jesus didn’t say to folks, “Let your mind transformed. Believe differently. Try on a new mental paradigm.” He did want our minds to be transformed, but he wanted us to do more than that. He wanted us to bear fruit.

Los antiguos solía llamar la pereza "tristeza" y entiende por desesperación--una profunda desesperación que impidieron que las personas viven su potencial. Hay un dicho - el camino al infierno está pavimentado de buenas intenciones. Es por esta razón que Jesús no decir a la gente, "Cree de forma diferente. Pruebe en un nuevo paradigma mental". Él quería que nuestras mentes para ser transformado, pero quería que hagamos más que eso. Quería que nosotros a dar sus frutos.

Este es el punto de la parábola de Juan que hemos leído esta mañana. Cuando Jesús dice que él es la vid y nosotros somos los pámpanos, el siguiente paso es para que los pámpanos producir frutos. Si sólo escuchar la palabra…si sólo escuchamos y creemos…pero no vayamos a vivir la palabra y poner en práctica en nuestra vida, entonces ¿qué buena es la palabra para nosotros o para el mundo? El deseo de Dios es que damos sus frutos y que de esa manera ser discípulos de Jesús.

Bearing fruit is the point of the parable from John which we read this morning. When Jesus says that he is the vine and we are the branches, the next step is for the branches to produce fruit. If we only hear the word…if we only listen and believe…but then do not go on to live the word and put into practice in our lives, then what good is the word to us or to the world? God’s desire is that we bear fruit and in that way be Jesus’ disciples.

Sloth is the sin that threatens that fruit bearing. It is, as Thomas Aquinas said, “that sluggishness of mind which neglects to begin good.”[ii] This is a lot more than laziness. Even busy people can suffer this kind of sin. Wendy Wasserstein, who wrote a satirical book all about how to be slothful, says busy people in our society are the ultimate examples of slothdom. They are übersloths. She admits that it’s hard to imagine: “Any woman who is obsessed with her Palm Pilot, her Blackberry, and her cell phone can’t possibly be construed as” a sloth, but they are. “When you achieve true slothdom, you have no desire for the world to change. True sloths are not revolutionaries…It doesn’t matter if the world evolves, because your purpose is not to get things done. Sloths are neither angry nor hopeful. They are not even anarchists. Anarchy takes too much work. Sloths are the lazy guardians at the gate of the status quo.”[iii]

The lazy guardians at the gate of the status quo. Wasserstein suspects that there is no point to all of our work. It’s a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Are we really producing anything of value? Is all of our activity really leading us somewhere new? Somewhere important? Why are you so busy and how is that working out for you?

La pereza realmente no es acerca de la indolencia en absoluto. Se trata de prestando atención a lo que realmente importa. Él es aproximadamente prestando atención a Dios. Y si usted está sentado en un Barcalounger con un remota de la TV 7 horas en un día o trabajando como un maníaco 24/7 le puede aún ser atrapados en perezoso. O bien, uno puede ser inútil y puede llevar lejos de lo que realmente importa.

Cuando Jesús va con los discípulos en el jardín de Getsemaní a orar, lo qué pasa con ellos es simbólico de lo que ocurre a todos nosotros. Jesús tiene sólo una simple solicitud a Pedro, Santiago y Juan como él sale a orar: "Permanecer aquí y mantener despierto". Pero, ¿qué es lo que hacen? Ellos se quedan dormidos. Sus intenciones eran buenas. Estaban dispuestos a hacer todo lo que Jesús les pide. Pero ellos fueron superados por el sueño.

Nuestro dormiendo toma muchas formas. Nuestra capacidad para responder a Dios puede ser perjudicado de muchas maneras. Y podemos olvidarnos de lo que realmente es importante.

Sloth is the shadow side of pride. If pride is thinking too much of ourselves, sloth can sometimes show up as thinking too little of ourselves and of our abilities. It is failing to claim the capacities that God has given us to be the people we were meant to be. Sometimes that comes across as low self-esteem. Sometimes it comes across as a busy-ness that distracts us from the abundant life Christ calls us to live. Either way, we fail to be what God has made us to be.

But the most devastating effect of despair and sloth is how it saps our joy and saps our hope. When we lose the capacity for hope we have entered into the deadly realm. What have we lost when we lose our ability to take joy in the world around us, to take joy in the people around us, to take joy in our lives, and to take joy in God?

The movie Life is Beautiful depicts the love of a father and son as they are taken off to concentration camps in the middle of World War II. The father is a born comic and he is able to convince his son that they are part of some great contest. It is the father’s ability to maintain his joy even in the midst of the most dehumanizing conditions that sustains the boy and sustains hope.

Jesus, when he went to the cross, was able to remind his followers that no one was taking his life from him. He was laying down his life willingly. He was suffering the worst that the world had to offer, but he was not giving up the joy, the hope and the promise that God had put into the heart of creation. Those things would remain. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he said. “And do not let them be afraid.”

La película La Vida es Bella representa el amor de un padre y su hijo, como son despegados a campos de concentración en medio de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El padre es un cómic nacido y es capaz de convencer a su hijo que forman parte de algún gran concurso. Se trata capacidad del padre para mantener su alegría incluso en medio de las condiciones más deshumanizadoras que sustenta al chico y sostiene la esperanza.

Jesús, cuando iba a la Cruz, fue capaz de recordar a sus seguidores que nadie estaba tomando su vida de él. Él fue establecen su vida voluntariamente. Él estaba sufriendo el peor que el mundo tenía que ofrecer, pero él no estaba dando hasta la alegría, la esperanza y la promesa de que Dios habían puesto en el corazón de la creación. Serían siendo esas cosas. "No dejes que vuestros corazones se agitada," dijo. "Y no les permiten tener miedo". No miedo. No desesperacion. No perezoso. Gracias a Dios.

God does not want sour-faced Christians who do not know how to experience deep joy. God wants you with all of your capacities for life and joy and fruitfulness. It doesn’t matter what obstacles you face. It doesn’t matter where you have been or what you have done. It doesn’t matter how far you have felt from God to this point…God is calling you to life. This is our hope. This is our strength. This is the promise that we know in Christ Jesus, who will not be defeated, even by our slothfulness. Thanks be to God.

John 15:1-8 [NRSV]

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.

“You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

“Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

Juan 15:1-8 [Reina Valera 1995]

"Yo soy la vid verdadera y mi Padre es el labrador. Todo pámpano que en mí no lleva fruto, lo quitará; y todo aquel que lleva fruto, lo limpiará, para que lleve más fruto.

“Ya vosotros estáis limpios por la palabra que os he hablado. Permaneced en mí, y yo en vosotros. Como el pámpano no puede llevar fruto por sí mismo, si no permanece en la vid, así tampoco vosotros, si no permanecéis en mí.

"Yo soy la vid, vosotros los pámpanos; el que permanece en mí y yo en él, este lleva mucho fruto, porque separados de mí nada podéis hacer. El que en mí no permanece, será echado fuera como pámpano, y se secará; y los recogen, los echan en el fuego y arden. Si permanecéis en mí y mis palabras permanecen en vosotros, pedid todo lo que queráis y os será hecho. En esto es glorificado mi Padre: en que llevéis mucho fruto y seáis así mis discípulos.”

---

[i] Anastasia Stephens, “Sloth-the cardinal virtue,” The Independent Newspaper, 2001.

[ii] Summa Theologica, II.2.35

[iii] Wendy Wasserstein, Sloth, [New York: Oxford University Press, 2005], p. 104.

Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles

It was a sad day when Pastor Parker got pulled over while driving home one night. The police officer came to the driver’s window and leaned in and said, “Pastor Parker you were weaving back and forth a little bit on the road there. You haven’t been drinking have you?”

“Oh, no,” said Pastor Parker. “Certainly not.”

“Well, what’s in that bottle there in the passenger seat? It looks like a wine bottle.”

“Oh, no,” said Pastor Parker. “Just water. It’s only water, Officer.”

“Then may I have a look?”

“Absolutely,” the pastor said and he handed over the bottle.

The officer sniffed it and said, “Pastor Parker, I know you’ve got connections with Jesus, but that’s wine in this bottle.”

Pastor Parker looked up to the heavens and said, “Glory be, he’s done it again!”

Turning water into wine, of course, was Jesus’ first miracle, or sign, as the gospel of John calls it. It happened at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, which also happens to be the place where he did his second Galilean miracle, or sign, as we heard in the gospel reading today. So Cana is a good place for us to go today because the thing I want to talk about is miracles. What are they and how do we understand them?

We are now in the third week of this series on faith and science. In the first week we talked about the big bang and evolution. Last week we talked about psychology and faith. And what I have learned is that this series is opening up a huge area for exploration. A sermon series that was three months long couldn’t begin to touch all the issues raised by the intersection of faith and science. But it has been fascinating and I hope that by just beginning this conversation it will lead you to do some more exploration. If we are thoughtful about our faith, this conversation is unavoidable and I hope this will give you some confidence to see that your Christian faith is not something you have to hide when you are confronted with scientific discoveries.

No area has been more troubling to the scientific mindset, however, than miracles. We read the biblical stories and miracles are all over the place. Moses and the people of Israel cross the Red Sea by walking between walls of water that God has piled up. Joshua commands the sun and the moon to stop and they do. Elijah calls down fire on a sacrifice soaked with water in a contest with the prophets of Baal and the fire comes. Jesus turns water into wine, walks on water and feeds five thousand. Peter and John heal a lame man so that he goes off leaping and praising God. Miracles are the stuff of Bible stories.

Here’s the thing about miracles, though – for many years modern science has operated under the presumption, the firm presumption, that the universe is predictable. There is an order to things. There are natural laws that govern how things operate. For something to be true it must be true always. To prove that something can be done I not only have to do it but someone else has to be able to replicate it. Most of us would accept that that’s how science works and that that is how science needs to work in order to arrive at scientific truth.

Science has a hard time with miracles. They don’t compute. The doctor comes in with a report and says, “Mr. Conrad, I don’t know how to explain this but your latest CT scan shows that your tumor has completely disappeared.” Mr. Conrad may think it’s a miracle. Mr. Conrad may believe that God has intervened in answer to prayer. The doctor may believe the same thing. But science would look for an alternative explanation.

It is a wonderful thing that Mr. Conrad no longer has cancer, but modern medicine would want to know what happened in this case and how it might be replicated for other patients. Science might do a study on prayer and its effectiveness in healing patients. A few studies have been done with mixed results. More likely the doctor’s scientific side would say, “With a little more study one day we will know why Mr. Conrad’s tumor reacted the way it did.” God doesn’t have to be part of the equation. And the more science discovers, the fewer gaps in knowledge there are for God to fill. So goes the story.

Albert Einstein, the great 20^th century physicist who took science to some very weird and wonderful places as he unfolded his great scientific theories, had a great confidence that this way of talking about science that I’ve just described would go on. Even in his universe of black holes and a space-time continuum there was predictability. Einstein said famously, “I do not believe that God plays dice with the universe.”[i] Einstein didn’t have a traditional belief in God, but he did talk about God as the underlying order of the universe. That’s what he’s getting at with that statement – the universe is predictable ultimately. He felt there must be an objective reality that could be understood if we just had the right equations or the right instruments of observation.

Science, however, is changing. The weird physics of Einstein have gotten even weirder. On one level, Isaac Newton’s laws of physics are still true. An apple that breaks loose from a tree will still fall down and hit you on the head if you’re sitting under it. The theory of gravity is still pretty useful for understanding situations like that even after three centuries. But when you get down to the atomic level it’s a whole other ball game. At that level, we’re discovering that “anything can happen,” as the quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg said.[ii] At that level the apple, instead of falling, might appear over there or in San Francisco or split into two, or disappear. All bets are off. And even stranger, it seems that, at the atomic level, because something is being observed it behaves in unpredictable ways.

So what am I saying? Has quantum physics made it possible to talk about God again? In a sense. Two hundred years ago Thomas Jefferson, who was a great scientist himself in addition to being the founder of the University of Virginia and, oh, yes, president, was cutting up his New Testament, taking out the stories of Jesus’ miracles and republishing what was left as an acceptable Enlightenment book to give to members of Congress. He thought Jesus was a great teacher but could never reconcile himself to the idea that God would be actively involved in the world in a way that would defy the laws of nature, in other words God’s laws. God was very remote for Jefferson and Einstein.

Now, however, we have a whole new way of seeing. The physicist Paul Davies says that “when one gets to an indeterministic universe, if you allow quantum physics, then there is some sort of lassitude in the operation of these laws…God could load the quantum dice…this is one way of influencing what happens in the world, working through these quantum uncertainties.”[iii] It’s still a pretty remote God, but it opens the door for a much more complex understanding of how the universe works that could have more scientists talking about how God could be at work.

From a Christian understanding, though, we want something more. We need something more. What are miracles? Are they just magical things that prove how awesome biblical characters were -- like superhero powers? Moses with the Staff of Power!

The preacher and writer Frederick Buechner defines miracles this way:

“A cancer inexplicably cured. A voice in a dream. A statue that weeps. A miracle is an event that strengthens faith. It is possible to look at most miracles and find a rational explanation in terms of natural cause and effect. It is possible to look at Rembrandt’s Supper at Emmaus and find a rational explanation in paint and canvas.

Faith in God is less apt to proceed from miracles than miracles from faith in God.”[iv]

What I like about Buechner’s definition is that it doesn’t make miracles into superhero powers. They are events that show us that faith is already there. They are visible when we have the eyes to see them.

Which brings us back around to Cana. A royal official comes to Jesus in Cana. He lives in Capernaum, at least a half-day’s journey away. The man works for the king. Jesus is a nobody, only just beginning his ministry. His only public act in the area has been to be the best wedding party guest ever, turning six huge vats of water into truly excellent wine. There were stories. Stories of how he had overturned tables in the temple in Jerusalem. Of how he stirred up the crowds with signs. But in Galilee it was just the wedding feast trick.

The royal official comes because he has a sick son. Every desperate parent knows what it’s like to have a sick child. You do what you need to do to get help – even if it means trying out the new miracle worker. So he goes to Jesus and begs him to come with him to Capernaum. To heal his son because the boy was at the point of death.

The official is interested in one thing – a healing – but Jesus seems interested in something else. He turns to the man and says, “Unless you see signs and wonders you won’t believe.” It’s pretty much what he says to Thomas, his doubting disciple, after the resurrection. “You need to see so you can believe.”

If it’s a rebuke the man doesn’t catch it. He says, “Sir, come down and my son will live.” The important thing is to get Jesus to the boy. Get Jesus to the boy and everything will be alright.

But Jesus is not going. “Go,” he says. “Your son will live.” First, go, then your son will live. The man gets it. Believe first and then you’ll find life. Jesus had just told Nicodemus, a religious leader, pretty much the same thing a chapter earlier – “God sent the only begotten Son that whoever believes in him will have life everlasting.” Whoever believes lives.

So it’s really no surprise when the servants show up with the news that the boy was alive. In fact, he started to revive at exactly the hour that Jesus said he would live. The man had gone because he wanted the healing. Only then would he be able to think about who Jesus was. But when Jesus asked him to believe first and to act on that belief, the miracle followed.

Science is discovering that the way you see things really does make a difference. The lens you take with you into the world affects what you see. A scientific theory…and ‘theory’ is a word that goes back to the Greek word that also gives us ‘theater’ – it’s about watching and observation…a scientific theory is a way of looking at things that helps us understand them. Science moves forward by coming up with new ways of looking at things.

Guy Consolmagno is the curator of the Vatican’s meteorite collection. He’s a scientist and a priest and he sees how this happens in earth science – his field of specialty:

“While there's a lot of places where we can put measures and write equations, an awful lot of it is still being able to look at a road cut and saying these layers came before those layers and I can see it. And either you see it or you don't. There's a geologist friend of mine who came back from one of these trips saying, ‘You know, if I hadn't believed it, I'd have never seen it.’”[v]

“If I hadn’t believed it, I’d have never seen it.” Wasn’t that the experience of the man seeking healing for his son? Isn’t that the experience of so many miracles? They illuminate the miracles that pervade the universe.

Wendell Berry is a kind of modern-day prophet who continues to push those around him to see the dangers of our contemporary lifestyles. He lives on a farm and insists that only by cultivating the land and community can we find our way forward. He is also a critic of the way science has systematically reduced our understanding of life from something rich and mysterious to something mechanical. When he looks at new technologies like the human genome project that maps the building blocks of the human animal or the cloning of sheep, Berry worries that we will begin to think of animals less as creatures and more as machines:

“Though we have life, it is beyond us. We do not know how we have it, or why. We do not know what is going to happen to it, or to us. It is not predictable; though we can destroy it, we cannot make it. It cannot, except by reduction and the grave risk of damage, be controlled. It is, as [William] Blake said, holy. To think otherwise is to enslave life.”[vi]

For Wendell Berry, miracles are not just rare things that interrupt the world as we know it, they are necessary things, essential elements of everyday life. The most important things we have in this life are not reducible to formulas and chemical compounds. Life, love, soul, spirit – such things are mysteries that demand a different way of seeing. All good science begins with the recognition that every scientific exploration is ultimately a journey into the miraculous. And miracles are ultimately not about believing impossible things – they are about seeing the world through the eyes of faith.

A great contemporary novel for exploring miracles is Leif Enger’s Peace Like a River. Told through the eyes of Reuben, a young boy growing up in Minnesota in the middle of the last century, the book introduces us to a character who can do miracles--his father. A skeptic might say that the boy is really just seeing his dad through rose-colored glasses, but reading this story you believe right along with Reuben.

The first miracle is Rueben’s birth. He is born with his lungs filled with fluid, unable to breathe. At the moment of his birth his father, who is outside pacing and praying, senses that he is born and comes racing to the delivery room of the hospital. Here’s the scene as described by Rueben based on the stories his dad has told him about his birth:

“Dad lifted me gently…A little clay boy is what I was.

‘Breathe,’ Dad said.

I lay in his arms.

Dr. Nokes said, ‘Jeremiah, it has been twelve minutes.’

‘Breathe!’ The picture I see is of Dad, brown hair short and wild, giving this order as if he expected nothing but obedience.

Dr. Nokes approached him. ‘Jeremiah. There would be brain damage now. His lungs can’t fill.’

Dad leaned down, laid me back on the table, took off his jacket and wrapped me in it—a black canvas jacket with a quilted lining, I have it still. He left my face uncovered.

‘Sometimes,’ said Dr. Nokes, ‘there is something unworkable in one of the organs. A ventricle that won’t pump correctly. A liver that poisons the blood.’ Dr. Nokes was a kindly and reasonable man. ‘Lungs that can’t expand to take in air. In these cases,’ said Dr. Nokes, ‘we must trust the Almighty to do what is best.’ At which Dad stepped across and smote Dr. Nokes with a right hand, so that the doctor went down and lay on his side with his pupils unfocused. As Mother cried out, Dad turned to me, a clay child wrapped in a canvas coat, and said in a normal voice, ‘Rueben Land, in the name of the living God I am telling you to breathe.’”

Which he did.

Rueben’s learning from this is that “real miracles bother people…they rebut every rule all we good citizens take comfort in.” He credits his little sister with the insight that “people fear miracles because they fear being changed—though ignoring them will change you also…No miracle happens,” she said, “without a witness. Someone to declare, Here’s what I saw. Here’s how it went. Make of it what you will.”[vii]

A scientist’s job is to approach this miraculous world with the best tools available to try and see where the inquiry will lead. If they go into it with the naïve belief that scientific truth is the only kind of truth there is, more’s the pity for them that they have such an impoverished view of the world. And more’s the pity for us because we know how monstrous science can turn when it loses its wonder at life.

As people of faith, our job is to go into the world expecting that miracles will happen and to be unafraid to call them forth from this enchanted world, full of the presence of God. With the eyes of faith we can see incredible things happening. As Jesus told the man that day in Cana – Go. Believe. Life will come. And when it does – tell somebody, because miracles need a witness. Someone to declare, Here’s what I saw. Here’s how it went. Make of it what you will. Are you ready for a miracle? Go. Thanks be to God.

John 4:46-54 [NRSV]

Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, "Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe."

The official said to him, "Sir, come down before my little boy dies."

Jesus said to him, "Go; your son will live."

The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, "Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him." The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live." So he himself believed, along with his whole household.

Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

---

[i] Quoted in Krista Tippett, Einstein’s God: Conversations about Science and the Human Spirit, [Penguin Books: New York, 2010], ebook location 419-425.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Ibid, ebook location 605.

[iv] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, [Harper Collins: San Francisco, 1973], p. 74.

[v] Guy Consolmagno, interview with Krista Tippett on “Asteroids, Stars and the Love of God,” Speak of Faith, American Public Radio, broadcast April 1, 2010, transcript at http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2010/asteroids/transcript.shtml.

[vi] Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition, [Counterpoint: Washington, DC, 2000], p. 9.

[vii] Leif Enger, Peace Like a River, [Grove Press: New York, 2001], pp. 2-3.