The Jesus "Do-Over"

Matthew 15:21-28 (the "Message")

Once, when I was a chemical dependency counselor, client Cassie made a point I thought could be corrected. Using my best therapist logic, and being careful to choose the most acceptable way to make my point, I tried to suggest a different way to look at the situation she was describing. When I finished, she flashed me a bright smile, her eyes sparkling, and she said, “You know, you are so wise and so helpful, I love what you’ve done for me. So it just slays me when you say stupid things like that!”


* * * * *

When I listen to Jesus, frankly, I am not amused. This saying is not his finest hour. A woman has come to him with a perfectly reasonable request. She has done so at the risk of being rejected. She knows she’s not a Jew. She knows she has no rights, no standing, with this stranger/miracle worker. And she knows she has made a nuisance of herself. She’s an embarrassment to everyone there.

But she loves her daughter, she knows her daughter’s affliction, and she doesn’t care what anyone else might think of her bold maneuver to get her help. Love cancels out all other considerations. Isn’t that enough? Can’t even the most callous person understand this act and make allowances? How could Jesus act so unfeelingly? I want to reach through the pages of the Bible, grasp Jesus by the throat and shake him. “Take that back, Jesus. That’s beneath you. You are the Son of God. You came to teach us a new gospel of hope. You are recruiting people to join your kingdom. You tell us the first commandment is to love one another. You can’t mean what you just said.”

* * * * *

I pause and reflect. No, he didn’t say this. He couldn’t have. This is all a big mistake. Someone has put these words in his mouth. After all, Matthew was writing for Jewish Christians, wasn’t he? He knew how offended they would be if Jesus helped a Gentile. Didn’t Jews call them “dogs” all the time? It was as common as the “N” word once was in our mouths not that many years ago.

But can you be sure? If Jesus didn’t say it, how did it ever get put in here and not challenged centuries ago?

Theologians have wrestled with it. Bible translators struggle with it. Read a half dozen translations and notice how they try to blunt it a little. Peterson’s paraphrase takes a stab at it by suggesting Jesus was so busy, so over-worked, so preoccupied with his mission to the Jews he simply missed the anguish in the woman’s voice. Her persistent clamor went unheard by the Master. It was the disciples who finally had had enough and urged him to get rid of her.

Understandable. Possible. Yes, I could see myself acting that way if I were in that situation. But it’s a stretch. Jesus was so good at identifying needs, even before people knew they had the need. He healed a lame man who seemed less than anxious to be healed. He gave sight to a blind man who hadn’t even asked for it. He challenged a tax collector to come down out of a tree and make dinner for him, a man who certainly did not need or want the publicity. How could Jesus miss this woman’s? What excuse can he give for his actions. “I’m too busy?” Excuse me, Jesus. A request for a trophy house in Telluride, or a winning ticket in the lottery - yes, I’d say those requests can be ignored, or at least put down the list a ways - way down, actually. But a loving, despairing cry for a beloved child? No. We don’t brush that off with a peremptory shrug, and a demeaning insult to boot.

But Jesus said it, apparently, and he has to be accountable for his words.

* * * * *

In his defense, we might point out that he was speaking the truth. He was busy. He did have a big job on his hands. He wasn’t handing out Tootsie Rolls to children, or autographed pictures of himself to an adoring crowd. He was about his Father’s business, remember? That’s the way Luke would describe it in his gospel. The dispensing of the grace of God is serious stuff. It costs. His very life before it’s over. Don’t come to Jesus looking for a miracle for amusement. Andrew Lloyd-Webber has King Herod taunt Jesus with the words:

     Prove to me that you’re no fool,
     Walk across my swimming pool!

Jesus was not a carnival attraction, here to amaze us with cheap tricks. “Take me seriously” he is saying to this mother.

Here is where the rubber meets the road. Here is where the Canaanite Mother looks him square in the eye and challenges Jesus to take her seriously too. “Call me a dog if you will, I know my place. I know what I deserve. I’ll take the scraps, and willingly. But give them to me. My daughter needs them, and I’ll do anything you ask of me. Just heal her, for pity sake.”

How many times have we approached God with requests that were frivolous, half-hearted, or worse, flippant as if such requests were our right? I remember Cora (not her real name, although you wouldn’t know her real name anyway) approaching me and demanding that I pray for total healing for a sick child. Wealthy Cora, who could demand obedience from anyone she met. She paid her way. She was entitled to get whatever she wanted.

Not this Canaanite woman. She did not come to Jesus expecting to be granted her wish because of her rank and position in society. She did not “buy” her miracle with the power of her pocketbook. She knew who she was, and what she asked. She faced the master with naked honesty and integrity. We could learn a thing or two about real praying from her.

* * * * *

But there’s one thing more happening here: it’s called real faith. Really believing that God is approachable, God really cares, and that we really matter whether we’re dogs or not. I think we tend to forget this. In the hurry and scurry of our daily lives, we act as if we are either our own gods and expend boundless energy on getting our own way and doing our own thing as if God is only needed when we’ve exhausted all other human resources. Or we act as if God was running some kind of gigantic machine that moves without thought to us. We don’t count in the grander scheme of things. Our petty problems are just part of the collateral damages of a universe busily going its own way.

How many of you still give yourselves comfort with the thought that “Whatever will be will be?” “If it’s your time to go, you’ll go?” “There’s no point in pestering God with juvenile requests. God won’t listen to us anyway.” We scoff at the advice of the prophet Joel, who cried out to the people:

     Yet even now, says the LORD,
     turn back to me wholeheartedly
     with fasting, weeping, and mourning,
     Rend your hearts and not your garments,
     and turn back to the LORD your God,
     for he is gracious and compassionate,
     long-suffering and ever constant,
     ready always to relent when he threatens disaster.
     It may be he will turn back and relent
     and leave a blessing behind him. (Joel 2:12-14a REB)

Joel holds out a slim but vital hope. God is not implacable. God does relent. God has changed course before. Even when God is most enraged, yet the almighty hand of wrath has been withdrawn.

The Gospels tell us Jesus himself could change his mind. Matthew relates that, when he heard of the beheading of his cousin John the Baptist, he was so disturbed, he took his disciples and tried to withdraw into a “lonely place apart” to rest and pray. He was exhausted and struck to the heart with grief. Who could blame him for seeking such solace in silence and retreat? But when he got there, he found the crowd had already anticipated his actions and were gathered there, “a great throng”. As exhausted and grief-stricken as he was, he could not ignore them. You see his heart had gone out to them, because they were like “sheep without a shepherd”.

That’s the clincher. That’s the hope in this story. The mother’s plea was heard and answered. No matter what has happened, no matter what we may have done, no matter how undeserving we feel, ours is a God whose heart goes out to us. God can have a change of heart. Jesus may be busy, he may even be unthinking and rude (and that’s a novel thought, isn’t it?) But he can also change his mind.

I will not speculate on what God will do. The solace, the healing of God may not come in the manner we wish. But it will come.

Even Jesus can use a “do-over”, and don’t you forget it! Amen

God’s Treasure

(Based on Matthew 13:31-33; 44-46)


“Are you listening to this? Really listening?”

That’s a curious question Jesus asks, right in the middle of these sayings. Of course, we’re listening, Jesus. We are soaking up every word you ever uttered. And yet Jesus seems bent on prodding us with this question, as if he was saying “Do you get it? Do you really understand what I’m trying to say to you?”

This doesn’t strike me as an offhand remark, something like the tedious habit some people have of following each sentence with that irritating “you know?”, as if they can’t think of anything else to say, but they don’t want to stop talking.

No, I think Jesus may well be trying to give us a new thought that is on the edge of our comprehension, one that we are so unaccustomed to hearing he does well to wonder if we are catching his meaning.
* * * * *

He’s talking about the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Kingdom of Heaven - a curious remark when you stop to think about it. I dare say most of us think of it as the heavenly after-life, one we’ve grown accustomed to hearing about and hoping we’ll get into some day. But if that is all it is, these sayings are difficult to comprehend.

It’s valuable, it’s a treasure buried in a field so valuable a man would sell all he has to get it. It starts small, but grows incredibly. Eugene Peterson increases the size a bit by changing the metaphor from a mustard plant to a pine tree. I think Jesus would approve of that.

But where will we find this Kingdom? What will it really look like? And what relevance does it have to us, here on this side of the grave?

Frankly, it’s not very helpful if what it refers to is something we have to die to get into. And that’s pretty uncharacteristic of the rest of Jesus’ sayings. The beatitudes, the Golden Rule, the Great Commandment of love, all are solidly grounded in the present. They apply in the here and now.

So if the Kingdom of Heaven is supposed to be understood as a “Here and Now” place, just as we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer - “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” - then I think an attitude adjustment is in order.
* * * * *
The Kingdom is quite simply that place where God is king. To enter the kingdom of God is to become a naturalized citizen of heaven. It is to live life as a member of God’s family. It is to think of God as a present reality. We do not walk alone.

With that said, where do we look for it? Where is that pearl of great price? Where is the field worth selling all we have to purchase it?

Many people spend their lives searching for “the truth” but they wonder if any one will ever find it. It’s sort of like treasure hunters trying to find the Lost Dutchman Mine in the Superstition mountains of Arizona. Or the lost treasure of Captain Kidd. Or the “Open Sesame” Cave of Wonder of Ali Baba. So many hunters, so few finders.

Do you suppose we’ve got it wrong?

Maybe Jesus wasn’t sending us on a scavenger hunt, maybe we’re not supposed to be the ones looking. What if Jesus is the hunter, and we are the treasure?

I know that sounds crazy, but think about it. If you look at the Bible as the story of the human race gone missing with God trying to find us and bring us home, it takes on a whole new meaning.

The children of Israel lost in Egypt are rescued by God and set free on a journey to new life and hope. They are given the Law of Moses so they won’t get lost again.

They get lost.

Judges are provided to give them guidance, but they prefer establishing their own form of government. Kings are what other nations have, they want them too. So God gives them Saul and David and what turns into a double line of kings in a divided kingdom, men who, by and large turn out to be corrupt, greedy, despicable tyrants. Again the Jews get lost.

God then provides a series of prophets, spokesmen who can give them guidance. Such prophets supplied them a more direct line to God, but that doesn’t work either. “If you can’t prophesy anything nice,” the people complain, “then don’t prophesy anything at all”- and again they get lost.

Now Jesus has come, the living embodiment of a searching God, the shepherd trying to reclaim his sheep, the God who spends his all - the life of his incarnate son, to demonstrate just how valuable he considers these precious human lives he’s created.

Suddenly these parables come leaping off the page. A pine seed - so small, so insignificant, but look what it can produce. Thus, the kingdom of Heaven is made up of insignificant human lives, mister and missus anonymous, but the accumulation of these nameless people is a mighty tree of strength and endurance.

A germ of yeast, so small we can’t really see it, turns out to have power that lies dormant in its chemical structure. More important, that power can permeate the whole lump of dough, making it rise many many times its own size.

And we, the people of God, far from being soiled, worn out, worthless - as we have been taught to think of ourselves - are treasure, buried in an empty field, and infinitely valuable. As one wagster put it, “If God had a refrigerator, our pictures would be on its door”. Face it, God’s crazy about you.

Are you getting it? Jesus asked. “Do you really get it?”

* * * * *

I’ve had my days of feeling worthless. I’ve had my moments of shame. I carry memories that plague me like locust that don’t wait seven years to come down on me with their buzzing fury. Why did I do that? Why did I say that? Oh how I wish I could do that over again.

And St. Paul - the mighty giant of the Christian faith, Paul - cries out about his “thorn in the flesh”, his constant reminder that he is far from perfect. “That which I should do, I do not; and that which I should not do, is the very thing I do do every time. Woe is me. Who can rescue me from this hell I’m in?”

Jesus himself depicts it indelibly in his Sermon on the Mount. “You say, thou shalt not kill, but I tell you, all you have to do is hate your brother and you have already committed murder. You say you will not commit adultery, but I must remind you, even if the only thing you’ve done is lusted after another, you’ve already done the deed.”

“Good Lord, master,” his disciples object, “If that’s true, who can ever be saved?”

Miserable sinners. Loathsome to ourselves. Despised by all decent people. Surely God knows the dreadful truth better than anyone else. We are worthless.

But what does the Bible show us? A God who never gives up on us. Hear Jesus’ reply to his disciples, “Left up to ourselves, it is impossible. But cheer up, with God, all things are possible.”

Here’s the good: ours is a God who says “I’ll pay the price. You’re worth it to me.”

* * * * *

The Kingdom of Heaven is you and me. The Kingdom of Heaven is growing in us. The Kingdom of Heaven is a treasure of infinite worth. The Kingdom of Heaven is that place where God is King - and that is in our hearts. It is in our mouths. It is in our hands. It is in our pocket books. It is in our imaginations. It is in our hopes and dreams. It is in us, right here, right now.

This is the amazing news God has for us. But be careful. This is not news that should make us proud and boastful. We have not been given permission to strut like peacocks, or stand in the Temple loudly proclaiming “God, I’m so glad I’m not like other people. I’m way better than that pitiful sinner over there.” Ah, how our attitude can tarnish the precious metal of God’s treasure.

But we can also tarnish it by robbing God of his treasure, by living as if we were the ones in charge, the seekers, the builders of our own dreams. Like the ancient story of tower of Babel, we would prefer to be our own masters, our own gods. And like Jesus’ parable of the laborers in the landlord’s vineyard who kill the owner’s son so they can claim the vineyard as their own.

We are the owner’s treasure; we do not belong to ourselves.  Amen.

HOPE - the Labor Pains of Life


based on Romans 8:12-25

When Viktor Frankl wrote his classic “Man’s Search for Meaning”, he focused his attention on the concept of “Hope”. He had survived the holocaust and become a beacon of light for countless people who have read and cherished his writings. He was a psychotherapist, and a Jew, when he was imprisoned, and used his time in the camp observing and pondering the lessons people were learning there. On the surface, the book is a memoir of his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp. At a deeper level, it is a revelation of the nature of the human soul.

At one point he remarks, “The prisoner who had lost faith in the future–his future–was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay.” (P. 82)

“Faith in the Future” is another way of saying “Hope”, and for Frankl, hope was – and is - the essential mode for existence. We cannot exist without it.

The Irish playwright Bernard Shaw, writing in quite a different style, came to the same conclusion. He wrote a witty drama depicting hell as the place where hope no longer exists. That’s an odd approach, isn’t it? Well, Shaw was a most eccentric author. In the play, a woman has just discovered that she has died and gone to hell; a development she considers shocking. All her good works had gone for nothing. She immediately announces she will starting praying. Another character quickly interrupts her saying, “Don’t do that. If you pray, you will throw away one of the chief advantages of this place. Written over the gates are the words ‘Leave all hope behind, ye who enter’. Think what a relief that is. For what is hope after all but a form of moral responsibility. Here we have nothing to hope for, nothing to work for, nothing to pray for. We can do exactly as we please.’” To another character, that is an excellent definition of hell, and the very thing that makes it so horrible. To be forced to live wheren there is nothing left to live for - that is the ultimate essence of hell.

One might think Paul had every reason to long for death. His was not an easy life. As a young man he was tormented with depression, insecurity, doubt. He was driven to live a good life even when he found no satisfaction or relief in his austere life. After his conversion on the road to Damascus, his life got significantly worse. As a Jew he had been admired and respected. As a Christian he would be beaten, imprisoned, stoned, ship-wrecked, and if tradition is accurate, finally executed in Rome - all for his loyalty to a Jewish carpenter who had been crucified and whose body mysteriously disappeared. Paul dedicated his life to telling this unbelievable story to people who constantly misunderstood him or argued with him or ignored him. But in spite of all this, he would write friends in Corinth that, as much as he would like to die and be with God, yet he still very much wanted to live and serve that God. “So that, whether here or away, whether in this body or in the new body of eternal life, (he) was always content.”

The key to this attitude was, and is, hope. Even in that famous passage in I Corinthians, when he sums up his belief in those familiar words “Thus abideth faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love,” hope cannot be overlooked. It may or may not be the greatest, I will not quarrel with St. Paul about that. But I think I will demure just a bit and suggest, while love is what life is really all about, such an insight rests on an intellectual belief - a matter of faith. And faith, as a mere creedal statement is good for a memorable quote, a beloved verse of scripture to memorize. But where the rubber meets the road, where it all comes down to energizing a human life, is in that four letter word HOPE. That is what makes it possible to get up in the morning.

Frankl said of the moment when hope died: “We all feared this moment–not for ourselves, which would have been pointless, but for our friends. Usually it began with the prisoner refusing one morning to get dressed and wash or to go out on the parade grounds. No entreaties, no blows, no threats had any effect. He just lay there, hardly moving.” The death of hope was the prelude to death itself.

He also made it clear that such a hope had to be grounded in the present. One cannot live merely on the promise of some day. You see, hope for someone, someday, somewhere is rather like a well-dressed store window at Christmastide. It’s lovely, it’s admirable, and it may even be enjoyed by live people - but it’s not my feast, my fireside, my festivity. Hope is that elusive quality that makes the possible my possible. It grows in the heart that has been affirmed, cherished, valued, loved.

I wish I had known St. Paul. I wish we’d been able to sit down together and talk about the weather. I wish I could have heard about his day. About the sandal strap that was coming loose and caused him to limp a little as he climbed Mars hill. I wish I could have told him about the scary dream that grabbed my mind and would not go away. I wish we could have compared our taste in vegetables. Did he despise bell peppers too? I wish I could have felt his hand grab hold of mine as I struggled to get to my feet. It would have been a steady hand that not only helped me but believed in the strength of my legs. I wish I had known all this, for it is out of this seed bed of common humanity that faith is bred and hope ignited.

Hope is hard. It must survive the blind rush of life that can bruise as well as heal. It must stand up against the impersonal, the mindless, the selfish, the cruel. It is the beacon light that reassures us that we do matter, that someone does indeed care, that someone laughs with joy at our awkward loveliness, and weeps with our disappointments and our losses. And hope never settles for rewards postponed. Hope sustained St. Paul, and four year old Jeanette who skipped through her house singing lustily “Jesus loves me! Rah! Rah! Rah!”

Hope is the Energizer Bunny that keeps going whether anyone is looking or not. Hope is the springboard of creativity that strives to perfect the turn of a phrase, to return to that one brief shade on a painting that makes the picture come alive. A story is told of the actress Lynne Fontaine that she had struggled with one brief line in a play that had never seemed to be just right. The evening of the last performance, she burst into her husband’s dressing room and exclaimed, “I’ve got it! I know how to do that line.” “For heaven’s sake, Lynnie,” Alfred Lunt replied, “It’s our last night.” “Ah,” she replied wisely, “But that’s just it. There is still tonight!”

And hope can get exhausted prisoners up out of bed in the morning, convinced that this new day matters. It matters because they matter.

That’s the message of our Psalm today, isn’t it? The indisputable truth is crystal clear. God created us. God knows us. And God never gives up on us. The missing link was establishing that truth in us. A link, a bond, a connection that transformed theory into reality. For me, that link has always been reinforced with a human hand. God in human flesh. God in human hearts. God, incarnate, in the Holy Spirit.

I remember Bill. He had hit bottom, a truly terrible bottom. He had lost his career, his reputation, his ‘significant other’. He had given up on sobriety. He could not believe in God. His substitute was an empty whisky bottle that had given him no relief. And finally, the thought that he might be able to redeem himself by donating a kidney to his sister was rejected. Doctor’s established it was not a suitable match. In his despair, Bill chose a bullet in his brain, only to wake up in a hospital bed with the humiliating thought he couldn’t even successfully kill himself. One thing sustained him. One friend was left; a friend who loved and valued him in spite of all the rest that had gone before. It was a slim thread to tie on to life, but it would be enough. I call that thread hope. And it was held out by the human hand of a friend.

Paul called hope our birth pangs. Never forget. Where there is labor, there is life. Life, the ultimate gracious gift of God. Amen.

Tag, You're It!

(based on John 14:1-14)

I wish we knew more about John. His gospel is so deeply loved and cherished, it would be nice to know just who this man was and how he came about recording this special view of Christ and his teachings. I referred to him as a "he", but we don't even know that for sure. The name has been added to the Gospel later, it has not been verified anywhere in the gospel itself - or anywhere else for that matter. All that we think we know comes from tradition about the Gospel and could be quite wrong.

But putting aside such questions for the moment and just reading the gospel as a piece of literature, it is so different from the other three gospels, one wonders how it got written this way in the first place. Much of what it reports does not occur elsewhere. And much that does occur is presented in a totally different light. Who is this mysterious author and where did he get his information? Again, we simply do not know.

We can infer some things. It appears to have been the last of the gospels to be written. It seems to have been written for new Christians who needed a word of encouragement in a time of cruel persecution. And it seems to call on us to look deep into the inner workings of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those who knew Jesus and those who now are striving to keep faith with him now that his physical body is gone. While Matthew, Mark and Luke tell the story of Jesus, John preaches the story, striving to get at the relevance of it to our lives. Without realizing it, readers are drawn to John's gospel for it's direct appeal to us to have faith, believe, trust this mighty Son of God, so that we might have life, real life, a full and fruitful life, as God originally intended for us to have. We move out of theoretical belief into living action. If our creed tells us Christ is alive, John tells us because Christ is alive, we are too.

The center of the gospel is chapter eleven where we are told the story of the raising of Lazarus. I don't think it's a coincidence that John chooses this point for this story. It is the apex of the gospel, it is the miracle of miracles Jesus performs, and it is the entrance into the life of faith we are urged to discover for ourselves. Put simply, we believe in Jesus so that we can be fully and completely alive, people who had been dead before but are now vibrantly alive, and not just frantically busy as are many people who think the more they put on their calendars, the more important they are. No, in a quite incredible turn of events, we find ourselves more completely alive in order that we might take up the work Christ was doing and carry it further than he did.

Christianity is not a "feel good" joy ride at Disneyland. It is a transformed existence fraught with exhilaration and challenge. It is true living and also genuine danger. It is glorious and terrible in its opportunities for distortion and destruction. The film "Bruce Almighty" tries to get at this in a comedic way. Bruce is given the job of being God for a day to see how well he can handle the infinite number of problems in the world. The result is chaos.

John's gospel shows us what that job looks like. He does his best to sort through all the qualities that made Jesus God in human flesh and then points his finger directly at us and says "Tag: you're it." The movie is just a movie, and Bruce is let off the hook in the end. We don't get let off the hook. We're more like Tim Allen's character in "The Santa Claus" who has no graceful way out of the job. Try as he might to shed the uniform, it keeps coming back.

"You will do the work I do" Jesus cautions us. And what's more, we will do even greater work than Jesus did. You don't hear that verse preached very often, do you? My God, we cry out in dismay, this is too much. You better believe it's too much. That's why we are promised a helper, a Holy Spirit, a safety net of friends of faith who will sustain us when the storm gets too heavy, who will enlighten us when our eyesight is too feeble, who will comfort us when our defeats - and there will be defeats - are too painful. The church is God's ark, if you will, our last place of refuge and safety in a storm that threatens to overwhelm us.

The TV series "Joan of Arcadia" tried to get at this truth and stumbled. The concept made it one of the most important and relevant "Christian" TV series ever attempted, but the writers and producers just weren't up to the task. They stumbled and the public soon sensed the hokeyeness of it. Joan was not asked to be "Joan Almighty" but she was challenged to be a living presence of God in the world. It did not take long for her to realize just how inadequate she was for the job, and we - the audience watching her - were invited to discover just how weak and ineffective we are too. Unfortunately, a TV series couldn't quite offer the hope Jesus offered. There were friends surrounding Joan but they didn't seem to have what it takes to be a Holy Spirit, if you will.

You and I have a job we didn't look for and can't see how we have the qualifications to fill. It's only training is "on the job". There will be no retirement from it, unless you consider death as the final resting place. (Frankly, I have an uneasy suspicion that it's more like the next level in a video game where new challenges, new lessons, new opportunities emerge.) Jesus' appearances to the disciples after his resurrection suggest as much to me. I'm still alive, mates, I'm still working, the Kingdom is still coming. And now YOU are that Kingdom, you are the living, breathing presence of a vibrantly alive God in a world that is infinitely more challenging and complex than the one Christ knew or could even imagine. Think what Christ might have accomplished if he'd had Facebook and Twitter to work with!

John tells us that Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. But the kicker in this "good news" is that the life we now have doesn't really belong to us. It's God's life. It's God's work in the world. It's the continuing revelation of Almighty God taking on human flesh.

You may have read the story of the student who watched a new boy in school get bullied and teased and shunned and saw him knocked down, spilling has backpack of books all over the ground. He went to the aid of the boy, helped him pick up his books, and started to get to know him. What was a mere moment of kindness turned into the start of a genuine friendship. And what had been a shy, introverted school untouchable became a strong, confident student and at graduation the one who was chosen to be class valedictorian. Imagine how he must have felt when he heard his friend begin by telling of that awful moment when he was knocked to the ground. All those books, they were not a sign of a bookworm nerd, he had just cleaned out his school locker and was taking his possessions home where he intended to kill himself - an intention that was avoided by the spontaneous act of kindness of another boy who had been picked by God to do a work God needed to have done.

Now that is a pretty dramatic example, but please believe me, God is alive and well and working in the world, and he's at work in simple human beings just like you and me. We rarely know when we've done our job - or where we've failed to do it for that matter! But we are on the job all the same. When Marilyn died and I discovered grief in ways I had never even thought of before, I once remarked to a kind friend, "I don't know if I can do this. I don't even know if I want to do this. It's too hard." My friend only looked at me and listened with patience and understanding. And after a moment, I added, "But I don't have a choice, do I?" He smiled and nodded. "That's what I was thinking too." That smile, that acceptance, that patient understanding was God at work offering me the help I needed, the only help that could sustain me in that dark place called grief.

"The works I do, you will do," Jesus tells us, "and not only my work, but even greater work than I could ever do. But don't worry, you won't have to do it alone. The Holy Spirit will be there helping you." That's what John believed. That's what I believe too. Amen.

On the Road

(Based on Luke 24:13-35)

If there’s one story in the Bible upon which I most often depend, it’s this story of the two disciples making their way on the road to Emmaus. It reminds me of many truths, chief among them is what it tells us about our search for God.


You see, rarely in the Bible do we read of any one finding God. The cry of Elijah, "Oh if I knew where I might find Him" is a universal lament. We all long for union with God, one way or another. Augustine said it in his Confessions when he prays to God, "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you."

We look in many ways. The weak struggle to be strong, the poor rich, the bored entertained. The alcoholic is not thirsty for drink, he is thirsty for the Spirit of God, a spirit he tries to copycat with the "spirits" of alcohol. The sex addict pursues sexual encounters, the gambler the thrill of "living on the edge". They all have one thing in common: they all reveal an empty space within themselves they are trying to fill, a space only the true God can occupy, and all these other things become their pseudo-gods.

Those who turn to the Bible for wisdom will discover that we do not "find" God. The truth is, it is God who finds them. It is God who is searching. It is God who initiates the divine encounter. And the human reaction for them all is virtually the same: surprise, disbelief, fear. Isaiah cowering in the temple; Jeremiah amazed; Moses trembling barefoot before a burning bush; Elijah more ready to die than to hear the voice of God; Paul struck blind.

This fact is not a comfortable one for a people used to making their own happiness, figuring out their own problems, lording over creation with their own superior power. We are the children who were raised to help ourselves, be independent, go after our own goals, claim success as our well-earned right. It’s almost un-American to propose the notion that we must give up our searching and wait patiently for God to find us. The poet Henley captures our national creed in his poem "Invictus" when he declares "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”

Today’s story presents a different truth. Two men, disciples of Jesus, walking down a dusty road, discouraged, heart-broken, are met on the road by a stranger. Their grief is so deep they do not recognize him. Why would they? Jesus had been crucified, his body put in a tomb and then taken away. There’s no reason why they should expect to be walking beside him on this road. Now see what happens.

FIRST Jesus listens to them and in listening is able to help them sort out their thoughts. If we see God, we must first sort out our thoughts, clear away our preconceptions, become teachable. How often do we take time to look at why we are as busy as we are? Why are we so driven to achieve our unexamined goals? Where is that empty space inside ourselves we are so intent on filling? C.S. Lewis put it in an interesting parable. He says we cannot encounter God "Until We Have Faces". We must first become genuine and real ourselves. Then God has something to meet.

SECOND we must journey together. Rare is the individual who can map out his or her road entirely alone. Even the reclusive scholar is not really alone. He walks with his books, his mentors, his invisible guides. We walk with the teachers of our past. As many have confessed, we stand on the shoulders of giants. We are the recipients of wisdom, insight, understanding passed on to us by benefactors of yesterday. The myth of the self-made man is just that: a myth.

I understand that we do much, we are not merely passive objects, empty vessels to be filled by someone else. But we need the training, we need a model, we need the touch of another to set afire the creativity within us. The very conduit of learning - language - must be learned from others. Without it there is no making sense of our complex world.

THIRD we must be truly hungry. The disciples have stopped at an inn to share a meal with the stranger who has joined them. For most of us, we can be so obsessed with our own plans, our own search and satisfying what we think is our hunger with the substitute that most pleases us, that we are unaware of our real hunger. It’s only when we encounter the stone wall of tragedy, when we are broken and unable to get up, when our carefully manicured facade cracks that we become ready to be fed.

How often have we pushed food on people who are in the beginning stages of grief. "You’ve got to eat something!" we say. In part that is our need to believe we’re being helpful, but it is also in recognition that grief robs people of the will to go on. Get them to eat and they will have taken their first step toward recovery.

FOURTH we must realize that the Christ who meets us, listens to us, feeds us, disappears. Once glimpse God and he is gone. We don’t like this. Peter instinctively voiced our concern when he was on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus. Let’s build a temple up here so we can stay here forever. We want permanence. We want dependability. The Prudential Insurance Company showed astute business sense when it chose the rock of Gibralter as their logo. As strong and dependable as a rock. That’s what we want.

In the face of that demand, Jesus disappears. No leaning post he, he goes on before us. The place to expect an encounter with God is on the road. We will stop and rest. We will say our prayers. We will take up our cross, as Jesus put it, our mission in the world. But we will do so with the memory of what we once saw and heard. "Did our hearts not burn when he spoke to us?" the disciples remark. And we will go "on the road" ourselves.

FIFTH we must be careful that we not get too busy again. Once know what our true hunger is, be careful that the old ways of satisfying our hunger don’t return. Remember to stop, to eat, to share with others. Remain open to when he might join us again. For he does. We do not have only one encounter. There will be many. And like as not, they will come disguised and ill-timed.

I was a child riding a carousel at the zoo in San Francisco. I was delirious with the game of it all. There was a contraption that offered rings for you to try and grasp as you went whirling by. Most were mere iron, but some were brass, and if you caught the gold-colored ring, you could have an extra free ride. There was also a canvas with a clown’s face painted on it. It had a gaping hole for the clown’s mouth. You threw the useless iron rings in the clown’s mouth. I was delirious with delight throwing my rings into that mouth. Then, as I threw the next ring I heard voices shouting, "You’ve got the gold ring! You’ve got the gold ring!" And I saw that, indeed, I had just thrown the gold ring into the grinning mouth of that clown.

We must all seek God on the road. But we must be open and ready for his coming. God will come and dine with you, but in His time and in His way. Amen.