A Better Country

Do you ever get the feeling that the whole world is passing through the Eastern Shore? I often get that feeling watching the traffic go by on Rt. 13. Usually I’m sitting at stoplight trying to get ONTO Rt. 13. There go all these cars with license plates from exotic places like New Jersey, Connecticut, New York or even Quebec. All moving on.
As a United Methodist preacher I’ve gotten to be pretty good at moving on. It’s what Mr. Wesley would have wanted. He used to tell his preachers back in the day, “Never stay in any one place any longer than is strictly necessary.” Most days I hope that it’s going to be strictly necessary for me to stay on the Eastern Shore for awhile longer. But the bishop keeps reminding me that I’m an itinerant pastor and that means that one day I could be moving on again.

It’s not just a United Methodist thing, though. Being a pilgrim on a journey is part of the greater American experience. The California Gold Rush, The Trail of Tears, The Dust Bowl migration, Thelma and Louise – we’ve got a lot of stories of moving on in our past. We’re good at moving on. We just need someone to tell us when we’ve gotten where we’re going.

I remember an experience I had one time in the early days of cell phones. I was at a gas station in Dallas filling up my tank, which is a time of silence and reflection for me usually. It’s not mystical or anything, it’s just that I’m stationary for a moment of time. The radio is not playing. I’m not paying attention to traffic, except maybe to the cars on 13. Mostly, though, I’m just there.

On this occasion, I had pulled into the station and began the ritual of getting the car gassed up. I wasn’t expecting anyone to talk to me, but as I was punching in the buttons on the pump I became aware of people talking on both sides of me. One was behind me on the other side of the pump; the other at the next pump over. The woman I could see was looking directly at me and speaking so clearly that I assumed she must be speaking to me, but I couldn’t understand what she was talking about. Then I noticed the cell phone by her ear. And wouldn’t you know, the other man talking was on his cell phone, too.

This is not a tirade against cell phones…some of my best friends are cell phones…but it struck me that though we were occupying the same general space, the three of us were in vastly different worlds. With our technology we seldom are where we are. We’re on the way to somewhere else.

This has its negative consequences. One of the things I’m grateful for about the church and about this strange counter-cultural thing that we do every week – gathering for worship – is that it provides an antidote and an alternative reality to the headlong rush into oblivion that I sometimes worry we are engaged in in the world. The church, especially in its Sabbath mode, is place just to be. It invites others to stop and reflect and feel and pray and worship. It is time OUT to be IN a PLACE.

You could say, as the author of the letter to the Hebrews does, that we are seeking a better country, a place where we are not constantly in motion towards nothing in particular. As a pilgrim people, the Church is looking for a place of purpose. We are called to move on towards a city “founded, designed and built by God” [11:10, Jerusalem Bible].

In chapter 11, from which our reading for today was taken, we are invited to see this long legacy of faith moving everyone from murdered Abel to the prophets. They’re all listed there. The author takes particular care to lift up Abraham, who arrived as a foreigner in the promised land and who died still a stranger and a nomad upon the earth. All of these, Hebrews tells us, had their eyes on the prize and they were headed to a heavenly homeland.

You’ve heard this language before – “eyes on the prize,” “headed to a better country.” It echoes throughout our history. Through the centuries martyrs and saints of all types and varieties have chose the despised path because they believed sincerely and fervently that it was leading them some place different…some place blessed. In our country, Massachusetts pilgrims and tidewater Virginia slaves both found inspiration in the belief that moving would mean entering into that better country that God has waiting in store.

There’ll be pie in the sky by and by. We’re in the world, not of the world. Some glad morning when this life is over, I’ll fly away. We’re only passing through. Let’s pass over to the other side of the river and rest in the shades of the trees. We’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion. You know this language. You know that Christians are a pilgrim people.

So, why is it that being a pilgrim disturbs me so much? Doesn’t this language imply that the world in which we travel is somehow unimportant? If we’re only passing through, does that mea we can’t appreciate and care for the creation in which we live? When the roll is called up YONDER I’ll be there, but until then you can PROBABLY reach me at one of the fifteen different numbers or addresses listed on my business card, but no guarantees.

This is the problem with pilgrimage, you see. One glad morning we may fly away, but what about the glad morning that greeted us today? When we don’t taste the pie in the sky today, will the crust of communion bread and the hint of wine do? We need to learn to live in this world as we’re moving through. There is something sacred space about this space, too. Take off your shoes because this is holy ground and somehow the foreshadows of the better country to come can be found in mud marsh and mountains.

But I was talking about Hebrews. What does Hebrews say about us pilgrims? When I look at this text I’m struck by the sorts of people picked out as faith-full pilgrims on the road to a better country. You might want to look in your Bibles and take a look at who’s there. Abraham seems like a natural selection there in verse 8, but Sarah is almost absent in this recollection and she seems pretty significant to the story. Moses gets mentioned in verse 23, as we would expect, and all of his deeds are named, but then Gideon comes along in verse 32 and he’s an interesting example of faith. Gideon was a timid hero who demanded multiple signs from God in order to perform his heroic deeds. Barak is there in verse 32, too, and do you remember what he did? He refused to even consider following God’s commands unless Deborah, the wise and confident judge goes with him, and she doesn’t even get mentioned.

Samson is there, too, in this ancestry of the faithful even though he was as great as slave to his passions as ever he was to God. Jepthah is there, too. Jepthah! He was the one who opted to sacrifice his own daughter rather than to renounce a rash vow. David and Samuel are here, but where are Ruth and Joshua, Caleb and Miriam? Where are Esau and Saul, who, in their own way, kept God’s story moving? Where are the unnamed victims of violence who calling and faith remain a mystery to us?

This is troubling to me, until I begin to see, near the end of the litany, that even though these were called the heroes of faith, their journey is still incomplete and their story is still unfinished. Then the most ironic twist of all – we, who should be the last to do the judging I’ve just done, are the ones chosen to accompany this cohort of imperfect people in the pilgrim way to the better country God is preparing. The Jerusalem Bible translates the last verse of chapter 11 this way, “These are all heroes of faith, but they did not receive what was promised, since God had made provision for us to have something better, and they were not to reach perfection except with us” [11:40].

Some candidates for perfection we are. No offence, but if the hopes of the ancestors, named and unnamed, are on the likes of me and you then it would seem that something is not right with the universe.

Except that we do have someone who has moved on to show us the way. We do have someone who did not think that earth was a mere way station on the way to somewhere else, but a place where even the substance of existence – our human flesh - was worthy to reveal the greatest of treasures. We do have someone who was one with us, flesh and bone, and who came to touch these bodies and make sacred these places with the knowledge of God. We do have someone who knew that the most powerful things in the universe could be conveyed in the touch of a hand and the shedding of a tear.

We have Jesus. And for Jesus, I’ll move on. I’ll be a stranger and nomad upon the earth, with my eyes set on that distant, better country. Because Jesus revealed the miraculous in the mundane, the holy in the humble. And here we are –pilgrims despite ourselves.

So we baptize this baby and we welcome these confirmands and we tell them that this is not the end of the road but the beginning of the journey. We have a lifetime to learn to live in a God-filled place and we the place we have to figure that out is already filled with the presence of God. Yes, there is evil and darkness in this world. There is a shadow on the goodness of creation caused by our sin and the sin of the world. But it can never change the fact that Jesus came into this world and defeated the powers of darkness. They may still resist, but all we have to do is look at the cross to know that the power of hell has been broken. And all we are asked to do is to have faith. By faith we move on.

So swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home. Coming for to carry e home to the place where earth and heaven are not two places but one. When you were created God said, “This is good. This, my creation, is very good.” And God wants to draw the circle whole once more. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Thanks be to God.

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 [NRSV]
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible…
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old -- and Sarah herself was barren -- because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore."
All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

Hide and Go Seek

I have a confession to make. I once melted a vinyl-upholstered chair. I’m not exactly proud of it, but there, I’ve said it. Now I can live in peace. It happened a long, long time ago when I was a student at the University of Virginia. During my second year there, I was living in a house with three other guys and we had a hideous orange vinyl chair in our living room. I think my roommate, Wart, had brought it from his house, or the landfill, I really don’t remember. It was ugly, no doubt, but it served its purpose and everything was fine until it started to get cold. That’s when we stoked up the wood stove in the living room that happened to be right next to the hideous orange vinyl chair.

Well, I suppose that I, as stoker of the fire, should have known better, but I was young and inexperienced in the ways of fires and vinyl. The fire I mastered. We had a roaring blaze in no time and we were soon stripped down to T-shirts and shorts just to survive the heat. It wasn’t long before we noticed a funny smell, though, and looking at the orange vinyl chair we discovered what it was. One side of the chair had turned to liquid. Now if you school children have been studying your science SOLs, you know that it’s perfectly normal for matter to exist in different states--solid, liquid, gas--but this is not acceptable for a chair. Needless to say, it was never the same again, which doesn’t mean that we didn’t continue to use it after this little incident. It was just more hideous than ever.

I have another confession from those years, though, and this one is a little more serious. I had a roommate by the name of Geoff and it was during that year, that second year of college, that we grew apart. Geoff was from New York City and he was trying to find his way in a houseful of Southern guys and there was a certain cultural adjustment we all had to work through.

Geoff loved basketball. We all did and that’s how we spent a lot of our free time. Once we even played a four-and-a-half hour marathon game that in our memories has now become legendary. The Game. But our interests started to diverge through that second year. Geoff spent less and less time in the house. I’m sure the fact that I was teaching myself to play the guitar during this time had absolutely nothing to do with it. We started to get on each other’s nerves. And we stopped talking to one another, not in a hateful way, but just because we didn’t know what to say anymore.

Friendships that develop in college can be intense. Lifelong friends emerge from the experience of sharing space and time together. But it’s also a time of change and growth and in a year you look back and realize how different you are than you were when the year started. What happens to relationships in the midst of change?

Well, they can take the route my relationship with Geoff took. A year later we were living separate lives in separate parts of the university and we rarely saw each other. But another way they can go is to introduce honesty and really confront the changes that are going on. I wish, instead of letting that relationship go, I had had the strength to say, “Geoff, I know we are going separate ways, but we’re still friends. Let’s talk about what’s really going on.” Perhaps we would have still gone very different ways. But maybe we would still be friends.

Richard Foster, in his book, The Celebration of Discipline, talks about the importance of honesty in relation to simplicity. He talks about the spiritual discipline of simplicity and considering what it means to live simply, since it is something that Jesus asked of his disciples. Foster says that part of that discipline is simple, plain speech. He’s pretty blunt about what that means: “If you consent to do a task, do it. Avoid flattery and half-truths. Make honesty and integrity the distinguishing characteristics of your speech” (CD, 93-4). Our culture now laughs at the blunt honesty therapy methods of the sixties and seventies as a “touchy-feely” extravagance, but there was a great truth there. We can’t be real until we can really say what we mean.

For most of us, me included, this really is a difficult discipline. Maybe we’re too respectful, especially us Southerners…too respectful to speak an unvarnished truth even when we see someone we love dying from the decisions they are making. Maybe we’re too fearful that the world can’t handle the truth. Maybe I’m too fearful that the world can’t handle me. “If they really knew what I was like, with all the mess that there is within me and in my life…if they really knew me they would abandon me.” And so we live our lives with some of the richest, deepest parts of ourselves tucked away, even from the people to whom we say we want to be most open.

Paul, in his letter to the Colossian Christians, reminds us, “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self.” Failing to be truly honest with each other is a form of that lying.

This is my memory of a Garrison Keillor story. He once told a story on his radio program, A Prairie Home Companion, about a time when he was a boy and he saw his neighbor, a farmer in the town of Lake Wobegon, walking down to a ravine outside of town. Being curious he followed him from a distance, watching to see what the man was up to. He saw him pull a box from under some rocks and get something out and look at it. Then, after awhile, he put whatever it was back in the box and hid it away under the rocks again.

Well, of course, this got Garrison’s curiosity up, and after he was sure that the man was gone, he snuck down and got that box out from under the rocks. He opened it up and there inside were old, faded letters from many years ago. Love letters written to the man when he was much younger. He realizes that they must have been from an old flame in a time before the man was married and he kept the letters for who knows what reason – to remember a special time in his life? To reconnect with something that was very important to him, something the relationship with the young woman brought to life? But it was definitely something that he wanted to keep hidden, even though he was now very old.

Garrison says that he would often go to the ravine after that and read the letters, even though he knew he was invading a very private space. He was fascinated by the depth of the exchange between the two lovers, the ideas they talked about, the plays they attended. Plays! He had never known that this dour, old farmer had an interest in plays or philosophy. He would never have expected it. Suddenly he looked at this man in a whole, new light, with a whole, new respect for how deeply he experienced life.

Then one day he was putting the box away beneath the rocks when he saw the man approaching from down the ravine. He didn’t think it was obvious what he was doing, but he hurried away trying not to look guilty. Later that afternoon, though, he saw the man standing over a fire behind his house burning all of those notes. Now, Garrison says, that man is dead and all the richness of those letters has never been told. Only he knows that story of what that man was capable of and one day he will be gone, too.

“Do not lie to each other,” the apostle Paul says, “because you have put on a new self in Christ.” You have put on a new self in Christ. Have you ever worried that putting on a new self in Christ might mean giving up your true self? If I give myself to Christ, does it mean that I lose my individuality? If I say ‘Yes’ to Jesus does it mean that I am less than I was? After all, Paul says that when we are in Christ “there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!” I don’t know what the modern equivalents to that are but it certainly sounds like there will no longer be Cavaliers and Hokies, baysiders and seasiders or any other distinctions. Christ is all in all. And where does that leave me?

The promise Paul gives to us comes a little earlier. To me this one of the most amazing promises in the Bible. It’s one of those things that takes a lifetime to live into. “Your life,” Paul says, “is hidden with Christ in God.” Your life, your true life, your authentic life, your honest life, your honest-to-God life, your life that you have been dying to live, your abundant life, your life that you have been trying so hard to conceal from everyone else because you’re just not sure how it could possibly be your real life, your life that is waiting to be born, to be exposed, to be revealed, your life that you never knew you even had until Christ came to liberate you from the life that is death…that life is hidden with Christ in God.

You know what this says to me? It says that we get real when we get closer to Christ. We get to be…we get to be the people God always intended us to be. And when we do we can give up all of the lies and illusions and delusions with which we’ve been trying to cobble together a life. We can stop trying to pretend that we’ve got it all together or that our lives are fine…no really, I’m fine…or that we’re not dependent on someone or something. We can stop the defensiveness, stop the elusiveness…and risk being honest with ourselves and with our brothers and sisters in Christ and, most importantly, with God. Most of us are giving lip service to God, saying that we trust God to take care of things, but as soon as our prayers are over we are grabbing everything back again. If we could be honest, oh, then we could be more than we ever imagined.

What does it mean that our lives are hidden with Christ in God? It means that we ultimately find out who we are by getting in touch with something outside ourselves. We don’t get dropped into the world self-sufficient. We, unlike any other creature on God’s earth, have the capacity to change our orientation to the world entirely. A possum does not come into the world with the capacity to ignore its instincts, pierce its tongue, get tattoos and start up a garage band. Only humans can do that. But humans can also find themselves in Christ. Humans also need to find themselves in relation to God. And the way has been opened for us to do just that.

I aspire to one day be the Alex Joyner that God intends me to be. It will be the most honest and authentic day I can imagine. It will also be the day when I give up trying to be separated from God’s love for me in Jesus Christ. I want to ask you to help me be that honest and open and I will pray to be able to do that for you. Thanks be to God.

Colossians 3:1-11 (NRSV)
So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.
Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of all such things -- anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.
In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all! As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

Fish, not Snakes

Why did we just do that? That prayer we just finished - "May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer" – why do we do it? The words are from the Psalms - Psalm 19. But why do we say it?

You know, it could be some kind of insurance policy so that what I say and what you understand me to say will be holy. It could also be a way of redeeming this sermon in case it’s really awful and maybe the Holy Spirit can fix it into something that looks like. Or maybe you’re not ready for it – you’re worried about falling asleep or your mind wandering. After all, a lot of the time we come to church not too sure that we're really ready for it or worthy of it, and I know that there are a lot of times I come with a sermon I'm not real sure is the best I can do. Maybe if we just offer it all up to God at the beginning like that God can salvage the morning for us. Is that what we're doing? Or worst of all, is this prayer just a set piece in some kind of meaningless ritual?

So here’s the problem of the day. Prayer is a funny thing. As Christians we talk about it all the time, but we don’t really believe in it. At least we don’t act like we believe in it. Prayer is one of the things that make us different from the rest of the world – it’s a strange thing that Christians do. But I wonder if we really believe in it.

We know it's important because Jesus did it. In Luke's gospel especially we see Jesus going apart to pray on a regular basis. Jesus talks about prayer more in Luke's gospel as well, as he does in this passage we read this morning.

All through the history of the Church the followers of Jesus have prayed. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, set aside two hours a day at a minimum to pray. Martin Luther, who was one of the early leaders of the Protestant movement, once said, "I'm so busy that I couldn't go on without three hours of daily prayer." Not all of the Christian family has been that disciplined, but prayer was a large part of what Christians did.

And now? Now it seems that we treat our prayers like relics from the past or liturgical Muzak - background music for the real business of worship. Do you worry about this? Do you worry that prayer gives us a chance to air out our best intentions and our current worries, we talk about the things we wish for and the people we care for, but without any confidence that the things we pray for will really happen? And when they do we are very reluctant to give the credit to prayer.

The world around us has changed. The early disciples and even Martin Luther didn't have what we have. We can trot out physics or medicine to explain away miracles. We can test things to see if God had any involvement in them and since God leaves no DNA evidence behind, God never gets the credit. Good things still happen in this world - but do they really happen because of prayer?

Which brings us right to the heart of Jesus' promises. One of Jesus' disciples saw him praying and said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just like John the Baptist taught his disciples." What the disciple was looking for, we really don't know, but he was probably looking for a set prayer, which was a common thing for a teacher to give to his disciples in those days - a prayer that they could repeat and which would identify them with the teacher.

Jesus responds to this request by giving the disciples what we now call the Lord's Prayer. But he goes on to say several other things - one of which we say so often that it has become almost a cliché, yet when we really look at it I'm not sure we really believe it. Jesus said, "Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened to you."

Now one of the things Jesus is saying with these short statements is that we need to be persistent in prayer - not just consistent, but shamelessly persistent. Just before this he has told the disciples a rather strange parable about how they expect a friend to get up in the night to give them something they need. Jesus said, even if the friend won't get up for friendship's sake, he will eventually get up because you won't quit knocking on the door and he wants to shut you up. Shameless persistence has its rewards and Jesus seems to be saying that we need to be knocking on heaven's door in the same way. Then he goes on to say, "Ask, seek, knock. Keep up the racket. God will hear you."

But the other thing that Jesus says with these statements is the really hard thing. Jesus seems to be saying that whatever we ask for we will get. "Ask - you will receive. Seek - you will find." Really? Now normally I'm really cautious about trying to change the plain meaning of Jesus' statements. Jesus said some pretty harsh things and I think he meant them to be harsh. When Jesus said it's harder for a rich person to get into the kingdom than it is for to squeeze a camel through the eye of the needle - I don't think he was talking about spiritual riches - I think he was talking about physical riches and yes, it is very, very hard to enter the kingdom of heaven that way. When Jesus said, "Be kind to your enemies and turn the other cheek," I don't think he meant only in certain situations and with certain enemies, I think he meant with all enemies. It's too easy for us to say, "Yes, Jesus, but..."

But...ask and you shall receive? Seek and you shall find? These are simple truths that are too simple to be truth! The world doesn't work like that. For every prayer that asks for justice to be done there is the cry of one who feels their prayers have not been answered. Prayers certainly don't work like Burger King where you can "have it your way".

Besides all this there is a theological problem - which is a fancy way of saying that this is not the God I know! God doesn't exist to fulfill our desires like Aladdin’s genie. That sort of God would be a God created in our image instead of the other way around. There's a word for a god like that - it's called an idol. And from all we know of Jesus and the Jewish faith which he grew up in, I don't think he was talking about a magic spell when he said, "Ask, and you shall receive."

So where does that leave us? If prayer is not about the power to ask God to change the world as we know it - what is it about?

I remember a time when a prayer was a very important thing to me. It was 1984 and I was at the United Methodist Assembly Center in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina where we were having the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference. This is the event that happens once every four years where we elect bishops for this region of the country. And in 1984 I was a lay delegate.

I remember this prayer because I was asked to begin it. It was late in the night near the end of the conference. About twenty of us were gathered in a cabin on the edge of the lake there. We were there because one member of our group, Rev. Leontine Kelly, was getting ready to get on a plane to go to Idaho. We didn't know for sure at the time, but Tina Kelly was about to be voted in as the first African-American woman bishop in the United Methodist Church by the Western Jurisdiction.

It had been a very disappointing week for us in Lake Junaluska. All of us had come to the conference hoping that the Southeastern Jurisdiction would see what we saw in Tina Kelly, a strong, dynamic, faith-filled woman who could lead the Church as a bishop. Instead she was forgotten and ignored - even by the members of the Virginia delegation. It became clear very quickly that she would not be elected by this conference.

But then one night, word came to us that the Western Jurisdiction, which was meeting at the same time, had put her name in as a nominee. There was a chance that she would be elected. So we gathered together in that cabin and held hands in a circle and prepared to send her off. That's when Tina Kelly asked me to begin the prayer.

So we prayed. We really wanted Tina to become a bishop. We really did. We were amazed that other people were so blinded to her gifts in ministry and leadership. So we didn't hide that from God in the prayer. We prayed that she would be elected. We prayed that those who might demean her because she was black and a woman would see her true worth. We were really honest. But in the end we prayed that God's will would be done. Because God knew the Church better than we did. God could see the true needs even if we thought we had the clearest vision. And we said, 'not our will but yours be done'.

Tina Kelly got on the plane that night in Asheville and the next day in Boise, Idaho she was elected bishop. She served in the San Francisco area and she was a wonderful bishop. She's retired now and she came to our annual conference one year as the guest preacher. And one of her sermons was about that night at Lake Junaluska and about that prayer. It was a powerful moment.

God didn't make that happen because we knew best. It was a powerful moment because somehow in that prayer we were drawn into the will of God. The prayer opened us to the new possibilities of the Holy Spirit moving among us. The prayer deepened our relationship with a God who is so close to us that we can refer to God as a loving parent. That's what prayer does. It doesn't guarantee us everything we want - it guarantees that we will receive, that we will find, that God will answer the door in the middle of the night.

That's why Jesus teaches us a prayer that says "My will be done" – no, it doesn’t say that -- it says, in the version from Matthew’s gospel, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done". The greatest answer to prayer that we can receive is the knowledge of God. The greatest quest we can go on doesn't end with a prize of gold - it ends with the companionship of the Holy Spirit.

You see, a very wise person once said that God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. Opening ourselves up to God - really being honest about who we are and how flawed we are - shamelessly persisting in offering our worries and cares to God...when we lay ourselves out there like that we are on the road to discovering the God who dwells within us and knows our deepest needs.

After all, what does knocking on heaven’s door do for us except get us close to God? If we are at God’s door every day, how much closer will be to God? Then, maybe, we will be able to see that even if God doesn’t always answer our prayers the way that we think they ought to be answered, we will at least be able to trust that God’s intention is always for our good. A good parent does not give a snake to a child who is asking for a fish. A good parent doesn’t give a scorpion to a child who wants an egg. God gives us fish, not snakes.

Richard Foster, who wrote the book Celebration of Discipline, says that "to pray is to change". But what we change is not God - or even God's mind. What changes is us. So those impossible words bring us closer to who God has always intended that we should be. Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock on heaven's door, and it will be opened unto you. Thanks be to God.

Luke 11:1-13
Now he was praying in a certain place and it happened, as he finished, that some of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just like John taught his disciples."
He said to them, "When you pray, say:
'Father, may thy name be held in reverence,
may your kingdom come.
Give us the bread we need for the coming day,
and forgive us our sins
for we also forgive all those who are indebted to us.
And do not lead us into a time of testing.'"
He also said to them, "What if one of you has a friend and you go to him in the middle of the night and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because my friend has arrived on a journey and I do not have anything to set before him.'? And he answers from within, 'Don't bother me; the door has already been shut and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even if he doesn't get up and give it to him because he is his friend, then because of his shameless persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
"And I tell you this as well: Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For all who ask receive and all those who seek find and to the one knocking the door shall be opened.
"Is there a parent among you, who, when their child asks for a fish will then, instead of a fish, give the child a snake? Or if the child asks for an egg will give a scorpion? So if you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?”

A Troubling Day in the Neighborhood

I hate stories. Always have. You see I am a lawyer and in my legal training in the Jewish faith I always know to look out when someone starts a story. When I ask a rabbi for a legal opinion and he starts to ramble on about some figure in the scriptures or to talk about the example used by Rabbi Zerubbabel I know he's trying to avoid the question. So I just keep pushing until I can show him up or be proved wrong. But I'm rarely proved wrong.

But today I'm feeling a little stumped. There's a new teacher on the scene – one of these rabble-rousing prophets who wander through every so often with a cluster of disciples in their wake. Jesus was this man's name. He's gotten a bit of a reputation for his healings and his teachings. People are beginning to talk. Crowds are beginning to gather. Whenever one of these folks comes to town, it's time for one of us to put him in his place. So that's what I did. I think.

Jesus was sitting and teaching in our village. His disciples were nearby and they were nearly glowing. Someone told me they had just returned from a mission in which they had started to display some of the same signs as Jesus. They were on fire. But Jesus was still clearly the focus.

So I stood up. Sure it attracted attention. With me standing and Jesus sitting it looked like I was lording it over him. Looking down on him. But that's kind of my role. If someone is going to prove me wrong they're going to have to accept my challenge. And I'm rarely wrong.

I had my question all prepared. “Teacher,” I said, giving Jesus the honor of a title he hadn't earned. “Teacher, what do I have to do to get eternal life?” I was a little worried about this. Some of the more traditional Jews would not have started with a question about eternal life. Not everyone believes in it. But Jesus seems to and I wanted to see how he put all the pieces together. How would he talk about the obligations of the Law and the promise of the resurrection? I was ready to take notes.

He responded with a question. A common trick of teachers. Put the question back on the questioner. “What does the Law say?” he asked. “How do you read it?” But that was no trap for me. I responded with my favorite summary of the Law. One which Jesus himself used on occasion.

“The Law says you shall love God with your whole heart, your whole soul, you whole strength and your whole mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

He seemed pleased with this and tried to end the conversation right there. “That's right,” he said. “Do this and you will live.” But he hadn't really talked about the reward of eternal life and he hadn't gotten himself into any trouble. I would have to draw him out more to give him enough rope to hang himself. I needed to get him talking about the particulars of the Law. I needed to get him to give me a controversial legal opinion. Something I could use to nail him and tell the crowds, “See! I told you he was not to be trusted.”

Besides I was standing there looking like an overanxious student looking for a head pat. So I pushed him. “Jesus,” I said, “but who is my neighbor?” This was a slippery slope for Jesus. If he got into sorting out who was lovable and who wasn't he was bound to offend somebody. The people are so divided that they all have some lines they won't cross.

THAT'S when he told a story. Right then. No introduction. Just launched into a story. I know I wasn't the only one scratching my head at what came next. He starts to tell a story about a man taking a trip from Jerusalem down to Jericho. Right away it was a strange thing to do. The Jericho Road is a dangerous stretch of highway. Not only is it steep but it's prime territory for bandits. A person traveling that road would want a companion and it seems this man didn't have one. I kept listening, wondering when he would start to talk about neighbors.

The next part of the story was predictable. The man was ambushed by a group of robbers on the road. They stripped him, beat him, left him for dead on the side of the road. Well, of course. What was he thinking going down a road like that without any protection? I'm surprised they didn't cut his throat. But this is a story and somewhere in this story, I'm thinking, Jesus better start talking about neighbors or I'm going to nail him.

The next part was also predictable. A priest comes by and sees the beat-up man but passes by on the other side of the road. Then a Levite, another worker in the Temple comes by and does the same thing. Of course these folks were not going to stop because they have holy professions with strict rules about remaining pure. They could not have helped the man because he was probably bloody and they didn't know if he was dead. If they defiled themselves by coming into contact with the blood or a dead body they would be unable to perform their duties for the Temple...for God. Nothing surprising yet.

Then Jesus gets to the heart of the story. Somebody finally does stop by and this...this is really disturbing. The guy who stops is a Samaritan. Now you know about Samaritans. They are...well, they're half-breeds. Not really Jews. Not really Gentiles. But some strange mixture of races. And even though we live cheek by jowl with them, true Jews have nothing to do with them.

I know that Jesus has a thing about the Samaritans, though. Someone told me that he had a confrontation with the Samaritans not too long ago. He and the disciples were traveling through Samaria on their way towards Jerusalem and the disciples had gone ahead on into the town to find a place for them to stay. But the Samaritans were having none of it. They knew that Jesus was a Jew and that he was headed to Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people. So they gave the disciples the cold shoulder.

The disciples were mad, though I really don't know why they were surprised. They came back to Jesus and said, “Do you want us to call down fire from heaven and wipe out this village?” I'd've wanted to do the same thing. But Jesus called them down for it. And they just kept walking.

So here he is telling this story about a Samaritan traveling alone along the Jericho road. No smarter than the man who got beaten up. He doesn't have any protection either. But when he sees the man lying their bloody and half-dead, what does he do? He has compassion for him. Doesn't know him from Adam, but he has compassion for him. He comes over and...and this is really a foolish and extravagant thing to do...he takes the man and binds up his wounds and then he pours oil and...and not just oil, which I can understand, but wine...he pours oil and wine on his wounds and then puts him on his donkey to take him into the next town.

But it doesn't end there. Jesus just goes over the top with this story. This Samaritan takes him to an inn and spends the night with him, caring for him into the next day. And then he goes to the innkeeper and gives him two denarii, which is like two days' wages, and says, “Look, you take care of him and if you spend any more in addition, when I come back I will repay you.” It's like an open account! He has no idea how much it's actually going to cost to help this man heal. He could be taken advantage of by the man or the innkeeper.

Well, if Jesus was trying to paint the picture of a man who was willing to give without measure, he surely did it in creating this character. A man from another land who loves this broken down, beat up human being so much that he would pour out wine on him like blood from an open wound, who would nurse him and then promise to return to finish the job – this is too much.

So it caught me by surprise when Jesus finished the story by asking me another question. “Which of these three seems to you to have been the neighbor to the one who fell into the hands of the robbers?” I was caught so off-guard that I didn't have time to realize that he wasn't answering my question. I wanted to know who we were supposed to love as a neighbor. That's what I had asked Jesus. And now he was asking me who was doing the loving! He had turned this question around so that it was no longer about the object of our love – who it is that we're supposed to care for. In fact in Jesus' that was the most unclear thing. All we know about the man being cared for was that he was walking to Jericho. I assume he was a fool, too, but Jesus didn't say that.

But that's not even the point. What Jesus was asking me was about the subject of our love – who's doing the loving. And of the three choices on offer – the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan – it was pretty obvious who was the one loving, even if it was extreme and extravagant.

I couldn't bring myself to say it. To admit in front of a Jewish audience that a Samaritan was the hero of the story? I just couldn't do it. So I just said, “The one acting like a neighbor to the beaten up man was...the one who showed him mercy.”

And at that moment I should have pressed the point. I should have kept going and questioned Jesus about his feelings toward Samaritans...about whether he really was concerned about keeping the traditions of our ancestors. But he had me confused. He hadn't answered my question on my terms. Instead he had told me a story. A story! I told you how I feel about stories. And after the story I was left with the choice of defending the integrity of religious figures going about their tasks while a man bled to death on the side of the road or admitting that a foreigner understood mercy better than they did. So I swallowed my pride and played along.

But then Jesus gave me a command. This is not how I wanted this to end. He looked at me...and he really looked at me...with those piercing, loving eyes and said, “Go and do likewise.”

Now I understand that that's when he answered my question. Who is the neighbor? It's the person who acts like one. Who is the neighbor? It's the one who gives without counting the cost, even when it seems foolish and extravagant. Who is the neighbor? It's me. If I can let myself love enough to see the person right in front of me who may be wounded and dying and needing me to spend some time at their side.

I hate stories. They make me question everything I think I believe. And they make me

say foolish things. Such as – I want to love like that Good Samaritan so that I can learn to love like God. Thanks be to God.

Luke 10:25-37
Just then a certain lawyer put him to the test.
--Jesus, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
--What does the law say? How do you read it?
--You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul and your whole strength and your whole mind and your neighbor as yourself.
--You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.
But he wanted to justify himself, so he said to Jesus,
--So who is my neighbor?
--A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell into the hands of robbers who stripped him and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead. Now as chance would have it, a certain priest was going down that road and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite, when he came to that place and saw what was going on, passed by on the other side.
But a Samaritan who was traveling came upon him and he was moved with compassion when he saw him. Coming to him, he bound up his wounds, poured oil and wine on them, and placed him on his own beast of burden. He brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave to the innkeeper and said, 'Care for him and if you spend any more in addition, when I return I will repay you.'
Which of these three seems to you to have been the neighbor to the one who fell into the hands of robbers?
--The one doing mercy to him.
--Go and do likewise.

Set Free to be a Servant

On Wednesday we will celebrate this nation's Independence Day – a day to lift up the ideal of freedom – and none of us believe in it. That's what I think in my darker moments. A nation built on the ideal of freedom, and yet it seems that we have an anemic idea of what freedom is, what it entails, what it means. And so I wonder sometimes if any of us truly believe in it. Oh, we believe in a right to privacy. We believe in the freedom of the individual to choose what is best for him or herself. But do we really believe in freedom?

What I mean is – I question whether we believe in freedom for anything in particular. We believe in freedom from all kinds of things – freedom from oppression, freedom from the terror of unelected rulers, freedom from those who would tell us how to pray or think or assemble. Just look at the Virginia flag with that seal in the center: The figure of a woman with a spear standing over an overthrown despot and the words sic semper tyrannius - “Thus always to tyrants.” No, we don't have a lot of patience with those who would deny us freedom. But the question I want to ask today is – What are we free for? And that's the question that's harder to answer because I'm not sure we believe in that kind of freedom.

Most of us have our roots and citizenship here in the United States, though I'm aware that today we've got folks in this congregation who claim roots in many different parts of the world – Portugal, Chile, Mexico, Spain. That's one of the things that I love about this place. We are connected around the world. But this week we have a chance to think about what it means to be American. And we have a lot to be thankful for this week, even as we realize that we are a nation at war.

In our long history we have produced people like James Madison, Sojourner Truth, Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King, Jr. who have opened our eyes to the power of a place where people were liberated from bondage. Despite its failings, this country still offers opportunity and hope and people still come here looking for something that is too often missing in their own land – freedom. If we are divided right now it is because we are struggling ourselves with the notion of what it means to protect freedom, to hold up freedom as a model, and to represent freedom around the world.

But there is a way that we have misunderstood our freedom. We have misunderstood our freedom and too often we have taken it to mean a freedom for individuals to do whatever they want. That's not what freedom is all about. Freedom from slavery or tyranny does not mean freedom from responsibility or from community. But we’re prone to this error as Americans.

It’s not recent. It has always been with us. The pioneers went West for new opportunities, but many of them also liked the idea of being able to get away from everybody. They were loners by choice. There's a great quote from a diary written by a settler in Michigan in the 1840's who was angry because people were moving in and there was now a house within eight miles of his home! Michigan was getting overcrowded and he was thinking about moving on.

We have always sought to break away and to get away. We’ve got this Thelma and Louise streak in us. It's how we define our freedom. But it can be a very empty freedom.
D.H. Lawrence, the British author, spent a lot of time on the move. In the early twentieth century he wrote the book Lady Chatterley's Lover, which was a scandalous book. He spent many years in a kind of self-exile. You could say that he was someone who tested freedom and lived a “free” life. But he recognized something of the loneliness of this kind of freedom. And after spending some time in the U.S. he said this in 1924 in a book on American literature:

Men are free when they are in a living homeland, not when they are straying and breaking away. Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice of religious belief. Obeying from within. Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom. Men are freest when they are most unconscious of freedom. The shout is a rattling of chains, always was.[i]

So what it is that constitutes real freedom? The apostle Paul gives us a hint in the passage we read from Galatians this morning. The church that Paul was writing to in Galatia was obviously a congregation with many members who believed that the only way to be a Christian was to follow every part of the old Jewish law. But Paul told them that Christ changed everything. This new freedom must have been a little scary for the Galatians. If you're used to following the book there is a certain kind of certainty in knowing where you stand. Suddenly Paul is saying that you don't walk on the same ground, you walk by faith.

So Paul is dealing with these scared Galatians and telling them, "For freedom Christ has set you free". But then the obvious questions come up - If Christ has really set me free, then what's to stop me from doing something horrible? If Christ has really set me free, what's to stop me from determining my own rules, establishing my own law, starting my own Church? These are the kind of questions that Americans tend to ask in different ways. We have been trained to think that we have the power to interpret Scripture as well as anybody - so what's to stop us from justifying everything we do? What’s the purpose of Christian community if believing is enough?

But Paul says to the Galatians, and to us, "No, no, no. Yes, you were called to freedom, but it's not a freedom of opportunity for self-indulgence - it's a freedom to become slaves of one another."

Now this is hard to understand, but there it is - Paul says - You're free, don't be a slave anymore. And then he says you are free to be a slave - but not a slave to sin, not a slave to those things that oppress you, not a slave to abuse and degradation, not a slave to discrimination, but you are free to be a slave to one another.

Now I say this is the freedom we don't believe in because it is so contrary to what we think we want freedom to be. I have spent the last week at the beach and I think I learned again the lesson about what we think freedom is supposed to be like. On vacation we think, “Hey, on vacation anything goes. I am freed from my regular schedule so I can do anything I want. Eat anything I want. Drink what I want.” And at a place like the Outer Banks there are any number of places to help you pursue the list that Paul spells out as works of the flesh. Drunkenness, carousing, fornication, debauchery – I think there are even some places to help you pursue idolatry and sorcery. And you don't have to go to tourist towns to find the means to these. They're here on the Eastern Shore.

I used to be a campus minister in Charlottesville and I know that they were there, too. One of the great temptations for young people leaving home for the first time is to see college as the place where they can throw off all the things that seemed like restraints before. I couldn't drink before; now there's no one to tell me I can't. I couldn't stay up all night before; now there's no one to tell me when to go to bed. There are all these folks who live by such different moral codes; maybe I could try theirs. And half a semester later I would find students who were sleep-deprived, developing some really unhealthy habits and making some decisions they had come to regret. You college students can tell me if things have changed, but managing your freedom is one of the great life lessons of leaving home. There are innumerable ways that we can get it wrong. Freedom can end up making us a slave to our bad choices.

But, listen, there is something more to it than this. It's not just about the “temptations of the flesh.” It's not that freedom in Christ means that I now have to beware of all the ways I can go off the rails. There is the danger that we will use our freedom to turn in ourselves and that we will follow illusions of what the good life is instead of staying on the path that leads us to a truly good life. We can get our freedom and choose our misguided passions instead of choosing to follow the God who gives us life. But there is a promise contained in this passage, a promise that is more than a command. There is a promise that we will discover what true freedom is. There is a promise that if we stop accepting a libertine lifestyle as a pitifully poor substitute for true life that we will be able to get in touch with the deepest desires of our heart. There is the promise that we can finally become really human...finally, the people we were meant to be.

What is it that Jesus told us was the greatest commandment? When he was asked by someone what a person must do to inherit eternal life, to get into the kingdom, Jesus referred the man who asked him back to the Ten Commandments but then he went on to sum up the entire law in two simple clauses. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. It's the second clause that Paul quotes here in Galatians. “The whole Law is fulfilled in one commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is not just a command; to me it seems also a promise. It's not just “You SHALL love your neighbor as yourself” but “You shall!” You shall! You think all the dissensions and divisions of human community are the final destiny for us? No. If we have found new life in Christ, the promise is that we shall love our neighbors. Can there be any deeper desire of our hearts? Most of us do a pretty good job of trying to love ourselves. We think we're showering ourselves with happiness by giving ourselves over to the things that give us momentary pleasure, but the drink, the rich meal, the extramarital fling are not the ends for which we were made and they can't bring us the thing we really want, which is the ability to truly love. To quote those great 60s philosophers, Lennon and McCartney, “Money can't buy me love.”

This is the freedom that comes from being a servant: When we put ourselves in the service of others, when we spend ourselves in the pursuit of creating a better community, when we learn the ways of love, we will know the freedom that Christ intends for us all. Freedom is not served by walls that divide us. Freedom is not served by violence and hatred. Freedom is served by following the example of the one who knelt at his disciples’ feet and washed them.

Lech Walesa, the leader of the Solidarity movement that brought down the communist government of Poland in the 1980s, a man who was known as being the author of freedom in his country, took his first trip to the West in 1988 and his observation was, “You have riches and freedom here but I feel no sense of faith or direction. You have so many computers, why don't you use them in the search for love?”[ii] I don't think he was talking about eharmony.com either. We are a free people, but what are we free for?

What are you free for? Where is God calling you to be a servant, not so that you can be burdened with responsibilities you didn't ask for, but so that you can claim the promise that we are made to love? What are those habits of the flesh that are still keeping you from being all that you can be? Where are you wasting your gifts on things that are not worthy of them? What do you need to be released from in order to serve? Whatever it is that is holding you back, bring it to the table this morning. Lay those things down. Let them go. Because the host at the communion table is our brother Jesus who passed through death to bring us life. The host at this table is a servant who was the freest man who ever lived. And when you open your eyes you will find that you are at a table with a lot of others who are struggling just like you to be free. And in the strength of this meal, in the strength of the Spirit, you will be free to love them. That's a promise. Thanks be to God.

Galatians 5:1, 13-25
For freedom Christ has set us free. So stand and do not be loaded down again with the yoke of slavery.
For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters! Not to the freedom of opportunity for self-indulgence, but rather, through love, to become slaves of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one commandment - "Love your neighbor as yourself". But if you bite and tear one another to pieces, see that you do not devour one another.
So, I say, walk by the Spirit and do not satisfy the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh, because these two are in opposition to each other in order that you might not do what you will. But if you allow yourself to be led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.
Now the works of the flesh are clear - fornication, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, selfish ambition, dissension, factionalism, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, just as I said before: those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God!
But the works of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, humility, and self-control; against such things there is no law.
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with all of its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

[i] D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930), British author. Studies in Classic American Literature, ch. 1 (1924). "Men are not free when they are doing just what they like," added Lawrence. "The moment you can do just what you like, there is nothing you care about doing."
[ii] Daily Telegraph (London, 14 Dec. 1988)