Jer 29: 4-7

When I was in seminary I fell in love with this particular section of scripture. Most people when they think of the words of the prophet Jeremiah, especially in chapter 29, think of the often quoted, “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” But for me, when I think of Jeremiah I think of his call that comes for the folks in Israel to settle in and to pray for the peace of where they are located.

And where exactly are the people of Israel and Jeremiah at in chapter 29? Babaloyn. Exile. They have been taken from Judea and now are refugees in a strange and foreign land. A land of their enemies. A land where they are being held captive. 

In the midst of all of the heartache of being far from home and not of their own choosing the people start to do what many of us would do in their shoes - they look out into the unknown future and they start to long for what once was. They are thinking about all of the trauma they have experienced and the loneliness that marks their current lives and they wish it would just go away and go away quickly.

There are even prophets, albeit false prophets, who are telling the folks that’s what’s going to happen. If they could only just weather this for a little while, two years at most, then they will be able to return back to home. Back to normal. 

To which the prophet Jeremiah has a different message - yes the future is unknown. Yes, there’s a lot of ambiguity right now. But stop expecting a quick and easy return to Judah.  In fact, settle in because we are in this for the long haul. 

Not a popular message to be sure.

But nonetheless true. 

In the words of the prophet Jeremiah - Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have kids. Keep doing life, just differently and in a strange place, because this is our current reality. 

I first learned this particular scripture in the context of being a faith based community organizer with Communities of Shalom. I was sent to Texas one summer to live and settle in and be with the people to build community. Even in the midst of tension. Even in the midst of poverty. Even in the midst of violence and decline and pain. 

But while I was there I talked about what could be. That this is where we are now - but it’s not God’s vision for the future. See God’s vision is one of Shalom - peace, wholeness, completeness, well-being. But while that is God’s vision that we are to put our hope in, we had to       journey through where we currently were to get there. When I was in Texas we had to journey through our current reality to get to the promise of hope. For the people of Israel, they had to settle down into Jerusalem for this part of the journey in order to return to the Promise Land. For us, my friends, we need to settle down into this season in order to get to a place of healing and wholeness.

See, while I like this particular scripture, it honestly would not let me go this week looking at our current reality. Friends, it seems like there is no quick fix to be had with the situation with COVID-19, and like the Israelites many of us are longing and yearning for our former life. And to us, just like those Israelites long ago, it would seem the prophet Jeremiah’s words are harsh at first - settle on in, hunker down, we are going to be here a while. Yet, they are also an invitation. 

A companion text to Jeremiah that is perhaps more well known is Psalm 137 (made popular in our time by Don McLean with his 1971 song “By the Waters of Babylon” based on this text). Psalm 137 asks this question of a desperate people, “how are we to sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” In other words, how are we to seek the Lord in this place? How are we to know who we are in this land? 

To which Jeremiah replies you are to seek the welfare of the city you are in and pray to the Lord for it, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. Who are you in this strange time? You are still the church - even when we can’t meet in our buildings. How are we to seek the Lord in this place? By crying out to God in prayer. And not just pray for the people we know or the people who are like us - but the people of the world, Church, who are struggling like we are struggling here.

We may be in a strange land - a land many of us have never experienced before - but we still sing the Lord’s song. We may not know the future, but we know where healing and wholeness and peace will come from - from the Lord alone. We know our comfort will come from the Lord’s hand, in the words of the prophet Isaiah. 

But Pastor Michelle, shouldn’t we think that all of this will end soon? That my friends is optimism and optimism is not the same thing as hope. Earlier this week, a colleague and I were talking about a project that we oversee. We were talking about scheduling a date for said project on the calendar, to which he said to me, “that’s very optimistic”. As I reflected on his words, I realized that optimism or what I want to be true is not the same thing as the hope of Jesus Christ. 

Who is my hope in right here and right now - Jesus Christ. And what hope has been coming to me again and again this week - “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” I may feel like I want to resist or resent our current circumstances because they make me feel weak and out of control - but friends, I never really had any control in the first place. And what seems like a weakness on my end is all to the honor and glory of the power of Christ on the Kingdom end. 

So what are we to do in a time such as this? The same thing the folks in Jeremiah’s time were called to do - to settle in and pray. To pray for even those we once considered enemies, because they are facing the same thing here and now as us. To pray for grace. To pray for acceptance and to pray for healing - because we have hope in the One our healing comes from. St. Theresa of Liseaux puts the spiritual wisdom of settling down and being in prayer this way, “One must have passed through the tunnel to understand how black the darkness is.”

But there is a light, my friends. Perhaps it is just the light of a single candle in what seems like a world of darkness, but it is still there. So I want to invite us this week to be in prayer every single time we see or light a candle. When we do so, I invite us to pray for three things. First, pray for each other. Remember each other in prayer, for it is one of the ways we support one another as the body of Christ. Two, like Jeremiah encourage the people of Israel, pray for someone you don’t agree with (or perhaps may even consider an enemy.) This isn’t just praying that they be changed. It’s praying for them as you pray for each other. Pray for their peace, for in doing so, we will find our own peace as well. Three, pray for the city in which you live, the county, the state, the nation, the continent, and the world. For we are all in this together.

If you want to take it a step further, take a picture of the candles you see and share them as a call to pray. Often when an event rocks an area there is a prayer vigil with candles - only right now we cannot be gathered together in one place to pray. So let us share our candles far and wide as a call to prayer. By accepting we are in this together and handing it over in prayer, we know that our healing is coming. It may seem like we are in the darkness, but Shalom is coming my friends. Amen. 

“Great Commandment” Mark 12:28-44

In the Gospel we find two “greats”. The great commission is found in the Gospel of Matthew to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is the basis for our mission as the United Methodist Church to go and make disciples for the transformation of the world. But there is another “great” as well. The Great Commandment. That is found in today’s text. To love God and love our neighbor. 

Unlike last week, the question that we find at the start of today’s text isn’t one that is meant to trick Jesus. The person asking is genuinely interested. Part of the Jewish religion is to debate about texts. Its a beautiful practice of deeply diving into them and learning something new. So when it says that Jesus was debating, it wasn’t adversarial, as we often think about it in the American context. It was simply part of their learning and love of the text. 

So someone comes up to Jesus and asks this beautiful question -Of all the commandments, which is the most important? There were hundreds of commandments in the Jewish Scriptures that were written. Then on top of that there were socially acceptable customs and rules, like those we talked about a few weeks ago. No one this person was wondering what was the most important! There were so many of them! That folks were expected to both memorize and live into. 

Why? Because they are God’s covenantal people. These commandments weren’t given for just individual people, they were to be lived out by all people under the covenant as a sign of their relationship to God. 

But Jesus didn’t just pick one. He picked two. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Why? Because love of God and love of neighbor are deeply intertwined. You cannot separate them.

Think about it this way. If you say to someone that you are a Christian and that means you love Jesus, but then you turn around and treat people poorly, is that a good witness? By no means!

For the people Jesus was speaking to love and justice were linked in a way that could not be broken. You could not say that you loved God and then act in an unjust way. The laws were meant to help aid people in this love of God and justice/ love for their neighbor. 

And this love that Jesus was talking about. It wasn’t based on sentiment. It wasn’t based on if you felt like it. Love for neighbor as an embodiment of the love of God, wasn’t conditional. It wasn’t optional. It wasn’t based on what you felt like that day or how someone else treated you. Because in showing love you were proclaiming the convent love of God. 

It seems so simple, right? But just because something is simple does not mean that it is easy. What does it look like for us to love God and love our neighbor today? 

Because here’s the thing. We are still witness for Christ today in the world when we live into the Great Commandment. We follow a Savior who showed up the ultimate form of love on the cross, giving his life for the world. Christianity should be known for love. Yet that isn’t how we often come across. 

The Barna Group is known for doing research about Christianity. Do you know when they asked a group of non-Christians what the first thing they thought of when they they heard Christian was? It wasn’t love. Number one, hypocritical. Number two, judgmental. 

Now it would be really easy to get defensive about that. But friends, if those are the first thing that folks outside of the Church think about Christians, that isn’t on them. That’s on us. Because obviously something about how we are loving God and loving our neighbor is not coming through.

It’s interesting, because shorty after Jesus spoke about the Great Commandment, he ran into a very similar situation. He is teaching to a crowd who had delight, but that doesn’t mean they understood or accepted what he was saying. You could say that there were more adventures in missing the point, like we have seen so often throughout the Gospel of Mark. 

So Jesus took a real life example for them. Saying watch out. Now we often read this as if Jesus is saying to watch out for all of the scribes, all of the religious leaders. But what he was really trying to point out was watch out for people who behave this way. Why? Because how people lived out their faith matter. People were watching them. People were mirror their actions as an expression of their faith. In other words people were paying attention to them.

Is that not true of you and I as well, friends. I can tell you, when people know that you are a follower of Christ they pay attention to you. They want to see if your words and your actions match. They want to see how this love of Jesus has changed your life. And when we fail to do that - when we act like we only need to love God on Sundays and love our neighbor when its to our benefit, then we are no better than the religious leaders who were behaving badly. 

So what does it look like to live out your faith? It looks like the widow. The widow who gave everything she had. How are we love God, friends?  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. It would be very hard to claim that wasn’t what the widow was doing that day. Loving God. And it lead her to give out of that love. 

This love of God, it makes us want to give of ourselves. Not just when it is convient or when we know that people are watching, but in all times and all places. This love of God makes us want to go out and share it with our neighbors. Not just the people we like and find it easy to get along with. But even folks who are difficult. Why? Because we are the living expression of God’s love in the world. How we live matters. 

The Apostle Paul had something to say about this type of love in 1 Corinthians. If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,[a] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

If we do not have love we are empty noisy sounds. If we do not have love, we are nothing. If we do not have love, we gain nothing. 

Church, the world is waiting for love like this. The world is waiting for us to actually live into this Great Commandment. To love God and love our neighbor. How can we go out and be those people in the world this week? Amen. 

2 Cor 5: 14-20 Lam. 3: 19-26

Friends, for many of us this has been a long week. For some of us, plans we had were canceled. For others jobs were lost. Still others are trying to figure out creative ways to take care of children or loved ones. The best I can do to sum up this particular week is that each day felt longer than 24 hours. And what keeps coming to my mind is that this is not what I ever expected the New Year to bring as we rang in 2020.

In the past Ohio United Methodist Church has had a New Year’s Eve service. For the last two years we have not hosted, but I prepared as if we were going to. Looking back on that particular sermon, I wrote “We worship God no matter what 2019 held and we worship God no matter what 2020 may bring.”

That is even more true now, my friends. We are living in unprecedented times. It seems like each day is changing, and yet even in the midst of the unknown we gather together and worship our God. 

But sometimes worship can look a little different. In our first scripture for today the prophet Jeremiah is crying out to God. Often when we talk about Jeremiah we reference the book in the Hebrew Scriptures bearing his name. But Jeremiah also penned Lamentations, this book of just aching heart cries to God. Jeremiah is talking about being afflicted and without a home. Of all of the heartache that is weighing him down. And yet. And yet that isn’t where he leaves his thoughts. 

He has hope. 

Why in the midst of all of his sufferings and trials does he still have hope? Because God’s love is steadfast.

Friends, many of us are feeling grief, a sense of loss, after this week. Others are feeling anxiety and fear. A lack of peace. For others it feels like the world is in chaos and we don’t quite know what our place and purpose is. Know that whatever you are feeling today - Jeremiah has been there. 

But that isn’t the end of the story. Jeremiah looked out on what seemed like the shambles of his life and he still knew the faithfulness of God. He knew that God showed up every single day and was with him through everything that he faced. He knew that when he didn’t seem to have faith himself that God still had great faithfulness towards Jeremiah. 

No one looking on Jeremiah’s life during this season would have said that his life was good. Yet Jeremiah proclaimed that God was still good. And he was still waiting every single day upon God.

Friends, we do not know when this particular time of being physically distant from one another will end. We don’t know when all that we are carrying in our hearts at this time will fade away. But as we come together today from our separate spaces, I want to proclaim this - God has been with us in the past and God will be with us in the future. That God is good, even when we cannot feel it. That we wait upon the Lord as we step into the unknown because we know who our God is and that God is worthy of all honor, glory, and praise

The Apostle Paul, too, knew a time of trial. He faced persecution, imprisonment, beatings, and false statements against him. Yet, like Jeremiah, for him that wasn’t the end of the story. For him the story was greater - that Christ has come and died our death and rose for our sake and because of that we are a new creation. 

Does that mean that that everything always goes smoothly or as we have planned? No. Does it mean that we always understand what God is up to or how God can take and redeem our struggles and pain? No. But we put our hope in Christ anyway. Because Christ is not limited by our lack of understanding. Why? Because our lives our testimonies to Christ’s love and faithfulness. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us.”

Friends, I yearn for the day and time when we can be back together in one another’s presence. But even as we are spread far and wide, we are still ambassadors for Christ. Our light still shines. We still are the Church. 

And all of things that you are feeling and thinking - my guess is your neighbor is feeling them too. So now, above any time, is when we still need to have the light of Christ shining through us into the world. I shared earlier this week that I have been so proud to be your pastor this week - as I’ve called to check in - many of you had said you have been checking in with others as well. We have been finding creative ways to reach out and serve one another during difficult times. I thank God for you. Keep shining. Keep loving boldly. Keep anchored in Christ. 

Is it going to look different? Yes. But we do not stop. It does not mean that we deny what we are feeling. It does not mean we diminish the current situation, for ourselves or for others. But it does mean we still look for hope. A hope that is not contained. A hope that does not end. A hope that we share. 

We are going do something just a bit different right now. We are going to offer hope to one another. If you follow me on Facebook, this past week, some of us have been engaging in a spiritual exercise together called the Daily Examen. This exercise is a series of questions that help us reflect upon the day and discern the movement of God’s spirit that we maybe wouldn’t notice if we did not pause and think about it. There’s a whole series of questions - but I have two for us today - where did you notice the presence of God this week and what brings you hope?

Take a moment to reflect upon these questions. Then if you feel so moved share them. If you are joining us live, feel free to share them in the chat box. If you are joining us by video recording - share them in a place that is meaningful to you. Maybe its in a phone conversation this week. Or a text to a friend. Or on Facebook. But friends, let us be the bearers of hope, as we join together with the prophet Jeremiah in proclaiming that we are waiting upon the Lord. Amen. 

“Parable of the Tenants” Mark 12: 1-17

Last week we encountered Bartamaius, the last person to be healed by Jesus and the last person to join Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem. This week we move forward a few chapters, but we encounter another last - the last parable that Jesus told someone. 

Parables are stories that use every day things that people would understand from the world around them - vocations, items, experiences, relationships - to explain a deeper truth. For Jesus, this deeper truth points to something about the Kingdom of God.

What we miss, however, with starting this parable in the first verse of chapter 12 is who Jesus is speaking to. At the end of chapter 11 Jesus challenges the authors at the temple. It is that same group that he is speaking to in this parable. 

Because most parables don’t come out and tell us exactly what they mean there is a beauty in their adaptability across time and different groups of people hearing them. However, this parable is also one of the most abused in scripture. Because Jesus is speaking to the religious leaders it has been used to attack those of the Jewish faith over the years by Christians. But here is Jesus, a Jew, speaking to other Jews. 

With that in mind let us enter into today’s text. 

A man who owned the vineyard, creating it, protecting it, sent slaves to those who were currently tenants on the land (i.e. using it) to collect what was his. He wasn’t asking for all of the money - he was asking for what was rightful his for letting them use the land. Only things didn’t go as planned. The tenants beat the slave and sent him back. Then the land owner sent another slave and the same thing happened. He sent a third slave and the tenants killed that one. Finally, the land owner sent his son, his beloved son, thinking they would surely listen to and respect him. Only they killed him and threw his body back onto his father’s land. 

Let’s pause here. If parables are stories that people are supposed to be able to relate to and put themselves in the narrative of - then what exactly is Jesus talking about with this particular story to this group of people. Jesus is inviting the religious leaders to see themselves as the tenants, those who are shepherding Israel, but who did not create it. God is the owner of the vineyard, the one who has control over the land. But who are the servants? They are the prophets God sent to the people of Israel again and again and again, hoping that they would listen to their call for repentance - only to often be rejected. Which brings us to the son. The son is Jesus, which the religious leaders do not realize. But as hearers of Mark’s Gospel we cannot help but remember that the same words were spoken over Jesus at the beginning of the Gospel - “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” The son, Jesus, has the authority of God the Father sending him. Only the people will still reject him. 

The vineyard is also an interesting setting for this parable to take place. Over the years, the prophets of old had used the Vineyard as a metaphor for Israel’s faithfulness. When the people were faithful - the vineyard was healthy. When they strayed - the vineyard did not yield its crop. The words in Jesus’s parable even harken back to one of those prophets in particular, Isaiah, which those hearing it would have instantly known. Isaiah said, My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones  and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

This behavior, the way that the tenants treated both the slaves and the son, are like the wild grapes. Unexpected. Not good for the purpose of the vineyard. Bad fruit. 

Hosea talks more about his bad fruit when he said: You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped injustice, you have eaten the fruit of lies.

And Isaiah continues: For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!

The religious leaders were understandably angry at what Jesus was saying when they realized who they were in the midst of the story. But here’s the thing - a few weeks ago we heard about the Rich Man who Jesus convicted out of love. Friends, something very similar is happening here. Jesus is trying to offer the leaders and opportunity to repent. To return to right relationship with God. 

Sometimes we act like the religious leaders of the time. When we feel that God is trying to speak into our spirits, pointing out areas of sin and pridefulness, we ignore our part in what has taken place. We get angry instead of coming to our knees. But God isn’t trying to point out our sin in order to gloat - God is trying to point out our sin to invite us to change! It is a gift of grace!

The same people Jesus had just made angry at what he was trying to offer him, sent some Pharisees to try to trick him. Pharisees were an interesting group in this day and time. They were a reform movement who wanted to influence a change in a bunch of different areas - social, political, and legal to name a few. And one of the ways that they set about doing so was by forming a political alliance with the Herodians who were tied to Rome. 

So when they came to Jesus and asked: Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not? They weren’t coming from a place of neutrality. They knew that this was a painful subject for Jews - their relationship to Rome. 

Of course, Jesus saw right through it and pointed out to give to Ceaser’s what is Ceasar’s. Now before we jump too quickly to this answer, think about what is also implicitly under what Jesus is saying - give to God what is Gods.

God is the owner of the vineyard - give him the praise that he is due. God is the God of Israel - put your allegiance in him alone. We don’t own anything - Rome doesn’t own anything -we are simply called to care for that which is God’s and God’s alone. 

Those questions that are undergirding what Jesus said to the Pharisees still resonate with us today. Who are we tying our allegiance to in order to get ahead? Further, who are we ultimately pledging allegiance to? 

Sometimes we too quickly look for where we can gain privilege in this world instead of standing as people of principle. And in doing so we miss the point. It’s not about protecting our status or our honor. It’s about how we live as God’s people. 

Friends, how are we doing today? How are we living as God’s people? Are we making it more about putting our allegiance with that which will get us ahead, or are we putting our ultimate hope and trust in God alone? Amen. 

“Finding Our Breath” Romans 8: 26-30; 38-39

This is going to be an interactive sermon right from the beginning. I want you to take a deep breathe in and then let it out. Go ahead. 

We go through our entire days breathing - yet we rarely think about it. Unless we are struggling to catch our breath, struggling to breathe. Then we think about it all the time. Around this time last year I came down with the respiratory version of the flu for the first time I’ve ever remembered. It was hard to breathe. A labor. And I thought about it all the time - how to make myself breathe. How to get air into my lungs. 

While many of us wake up every day and don’t think about breathing, for the early church it was vital to who they were. In Hebrew the word for Spirit and breath are one in the same, Ruach. In Greek, it’s the same way - wind, Spirit, and breath all are one word, pneuma. Back to the very beginning of our faith and the Bible, we proclaim that God breathed life into us. In fact, when we celebrate communion, one of the things that we often say is:  “From the dust of the earth you formed us in your image, and breathed into us the very breath of life.”

But for those early Christians it was more than just a saying - it was what they counted on. That the breath of God was what created them and that it was the breath of God that sustained them, in good times and in bad times. But how often do we pause to truly think that it is the breath of God that is within us today? How often do we proclaim that it is the Spirit of God that sustains us?

Romans is a dense and beautiful scripture. Paul is writing to the church in Rome to try to explain to them something that is central to our faith - salvation. Specifically the salvation that is offered through Jesus Christ alone. By the time we get to the eighth chapter, Paul is preaching about the assurance of salvation. Specifically the hope that only comes through salvation. 

And yet, I am a firm believer that Paul was not one to waste words, and he was probably writing this section of the letter because he heard that folks in the church in Rome were having questions. Questions about salvation. Questions about what could separate them from God. 

Why may there be questions? Because while we proclaim to have certainty in hope as a people of faith, sometimes it can seem hidden. Sometimes, especially when we are going through a time of deep suffering or sorrow, hope can seem hidden. So what then?

When I was in college, I went through a time when I found it hard to pray. I wanted desperately to pray, to put words to what I was feeling and experiencing, yet, I just couldn’t. I distinctly remember asking one of my friends if there was something wrong with me, some reason that I could not pray - and that person brought up this scripture in Romans - the Spirit helps us in our weakness. And the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. 

Have you ever been there, friends? Have you ever been in that place where you want to pray, but you just can’t. Or can’t put words to what you are going through? Paul tells us even then that the Spirit is listening to us and is interceding on our behalf. 

Suffering is something that is hard for us to wrap our minds around. And to be honest with you, I have heard a lot of poor theology around suffering over the years. But here’s what I know about suffering - we do not suffer alone. And God is not absent even when we go through the darkest night. While it may seem like everything gets stripped away from us in seasons of suffering and sorrow - our hope is this - Christ remains. Even if everything else seems like it is changing Christ remains. 

If we are really honest with ourselves, life can be hard. Sometimes every day can seem like a struggle. But Paul is proclaiming that even when we feel like that the Spirit is interceding and nothing can undo the love that God has for us. Nothing. In fact, we know that the love of God is present and real because God didn’t even withhold his own son from suffering, all for our sake. 

Whenever we feel like God is absent, all we need to do is breath and know that the breath of God is within us. Let’s take another breath together and be reminded of the Spirit of God in this place. 

In fact, for ancient Israel, the very name of God reminded them of breath. The name of God was so sacred to them that they didn’t say it out loud. Yahweh. Yod. Heh. Vav. Heh. The sound of breathing. 

But the question for me is are we sharing that breath with the world? Are we sharing the word of God? Are we sharing the proclamation that its not about what you say when you pray, its about where your heart is at? Have we been telling people about the love of God?

A few years ago there was a popular Christian video series named Nooma in which Pastor Rob Bell would unpack big topics in ways that people could understand. One of the videos he made was called “Breathe” and in it he said this “When you let God in, when you breathe, what happens is that you become aware of all the things you need to leave behind, everything you need to let go of.”

Sounds a lot like Lent does it not? During this season we pick up spiritual practices and set aside things that block us from God. Its the season where we ask God to search our hearts. But we need to make space to do that. We need to make space to breathe. 

In the spirit of picking up spiritual practices during Lent, I want to take a moment to talk about the ways we pray this evening. There are lots of ways to pray, though we often gravitate towards the way that we were taught. So I want to shake things up this evening. Maybe this is something you already do or maybe this is completely new to you - but one way to pray is called a “breath prayer”. A breath prayer is one that you say as you inhale and exhale. 

Lets get ourselves ready - Breathe in. Breathe out. Let the breath move through you. Sometimes people use specific words when they do breath prayers. Other times as they focus on their breath, they let the Spirit intercede for them. For me one of the breath prayers I have been doing is “deep and wide.” The image that I have been given for this year is to go deep with the Spirit and wide in reaching out to others. Deep and wide. What is the word or phrase you can pray as you focus on your breath? What are the sighs of the Spirit for in your life?

Here’s the thing - we need breath.Without it we perish. But we also need the Spirit. Because without it we spiritually die. When we cut ourselves off from the Spirit by failing to breath, failing to listen - we won’t be in a place where we are spiritually nourished and strengthened to walk beside others, remind them that God is not absent, but as present as our next breath. 

Let me conclude with part of the benediction from the Nooma video “Breathe” - “As you slow down, may you become aware that it is in ‘Yod,’ ‘Heh,’ “Vav,’ ‘Heh’ that we live and we move and we breathe.” Amen. 

“Bartimaeus Healed” Mark 10: 32-52

How do we examine the state of our soul? That’s a really weighty question. John Wesley used to put it this way - how is it with your soul? For many of us that still seems intimidating. Yet, John Wesley had folks answer that in a Sunday school like setting week in and week out. And guess what? People were honest with one another. It wasn’t about trying to impress the people around you with your piety - it was about honestly coming before God in a humble attitude. 

Jesus was trying to teach his disciples once again about what is going to take place to him. He is going to be persecuted, tortured, and killed. He is going to be stripped of his dignity and his life. He is going to be disrespected. That is what lies ahead for Jesus in Jerusalem. And yet, he is leading them right into it. 

Why? Because there is a hope that will come from all of this. In three days he will rise again. His disciples didn’t yet understand what all of this meant - both the killing and the rising. Yet, they still follow him along the way. 

But perhaps only with their feet and not yet their spirits. Because shortly after Jesus tries to explain to his disciples what is to come, we find the brothers James and John coming forward and asking Jesus to sit at his right and left sides in glory. 

Wow. They missed the entirety of the humility and the humiliation of what is to come. They still think this is about ruling and power. They haven’t grasped what Jesus has been trying to convey to them as they march closer and closer to his death. 

What is about to come isn’t just about Jesus. Surely its going to be challenging for him, but he also knows its going to be challenging for his disciples. He knows what awaits him, but he also knows what awaits them. And everything that is going to be resting on their shoulders. He is asking them to go with him on this journey of faith, where every step counts, and James and John  want to rush ahead to what they perceive to be the end, their reward. 

They’ve also missed the point that this hope that we have in Jesus isn’t about individual people rising to power. It’s about the community we have with Christ as the head. Think about this - Mark is writing to believers who are young in their faith. Maybe some of them are so brand new that they still have the mentality of James and John - what am I going to get out of this? How am I going to succeed? But Mark needs to give hope and teaching to this new groups of believers who are in the thick of persecution. He needs to stress that discipleship is costly, but the hope is worth it. 

In the grace that is so emblamatic of Jesus, he doesn’t call James and John out for their misunderstanding or arrogance. Instead, he poses to them a question. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? In other words, are you able to take on yourself all of the sorrow, pain, suffering and death that is to come? 

Because they do not understand this question either, they jump right away into saying of course Lord. We are able. Showing that they did not take time to really dwell in what Jesus is saying or that they had taken time for prayer and reflection. 

It is so easy to criticize James and John. It would seem that is what the other disciples did as they began to grumble and get angry with the brothers. But don’t we do the same thing? Don’t we sometimes not know what discipleship really means. Or how costly it is. We’ve heard of fair weather fans when it comes to sports team, but Church there are also fair weather disciples. They want to follow Jesus, but only on their terms. They want what they want, not realizing that a life in Christ calls for sacrificial discipleship. 

James and John were thinking in terms of the world. They wanted greatness that would come from sitting by Jesus when he would rule in what they believed would be his political kingdom. They wanted the position of power. They wanted the popularity, but their wants blocked their ears from hearing what Jesus was trying to tell them about what being a disciples truly means. 

See, the Kingdom of God isn’t about our individual greatness, its about this beloved community. The Kingdom of God isn’t about putting ourselves first, its about being led by Christ alone. The Kingdom of God isn’t about seeking our own glory, its about challenging the evil forces of this world that are like chains around the souls of folks. The Kingdom of God isn’t about us, its about Christ. 

While the disciples may not have understood this about the Kingdom of God, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus did. Bartimaeus is an interesting character in the Gospel of Mark. He is the last person that we hear a healing story about. He is also the only person we are told the name of. Here is this man who is the lowest of low, he is blind and he is a beggar. Maybe he had heard the rumors about the healings Jesus had performed throughout the region or maybe something just stirred in his spirit that day but he cried out “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 

He makes this Messianic statement - and it made Jesus stand still. 

Jesus who knows all that is to come. Jesus who is on the road traveling with a purpose. He stops and stands still and see this man. 

He asks the man what do you want me to do for you? And maybe the man thinks its an obvious answer but he states clearly - let me see. Heal me. 

And Jesus did. He sent him away saying that his faith had made him well. 

I always loved this story in the Gospel of Mark because Jesus asked the man how he wanted to be healed. He asked him why he was crying out to him. He knew that he was in need of healing and humbly laid it out before this one who he identified and called the Son of Man. 

Friends, we have no idea what lead James and John to make the request they did of Jesus. But we know what lead Bartimaeus - a desire to be changed, a desire to be healed. 

How about us - where are we in need of healing? Where are we blind like James and John? Where do we need Jesus to whisper into our lives and help us to both see and proclaim the obvious - that we are broken and we want to be made whole. 

Notice what happens at the end of Bartimaeus’s story. He follows. He is the also the last person we are told followed Jesus on his journey. Bartimaeus’s life was so drastically changed that he could not help but commit his life to Christ and follow him. 

Friends, we are now in the season of Lent. A season where we are to examine our hearts and ask God to poke around in the corners where we may be blind. Where we may not be aware and ask for healing and forgiveness. Because everything that happened in this section of Mark, Chapter 10 still happens to us today. We still can let our ambitions make us blind to the call of Christ in our lives. We are still in need of healing. We are still able to follow Jesus today.

Let us take time this week to really pray to God to examine us. To heal us. And to send us out anew. Amen. 

“First Last, Last First" Mark 10: 17-31

Have you ever asked a question expecting one answer, but getting a completely different one? Especially if you were expecting an affirmation, but got handed a rebuke or more work - you may recognize some of the feelings in the story of the rich man in today’s scripture from the Gospel of Mark. 

As we heard from last weeks scripture, Jesus has his eyes and feet set towards Jerusalem. While the first nine chapters of the Gospel of Mark take place over a longer period of time in Jesus’s ministry, this section starts the point that slowly works through his last days and weeks. He intends to be heading to Jerusalem, knowing all that he is to face there, when a man came and interrupted him. 

In fact, the man didn’t just interrupt him with his words, but literally came and knelt before him, and asked this question, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Now, we don’t know exactly what the man was expecting as an answer, but we can assume that he is looking for some sort of check-list. If you to 1,2,3,a,b,c you are good to go. Only that isn’t the answer he finds at all. 

First, Jesus starts out with a correction, asking why he was calling Jesus good, for only God is good. From hindsight this can give us a bit of pause, because we know that Jesus and God are in relationship with one another, part of the Trinity, so of course Jesus is good. But we have to remember that the man didn’t know that. He simply said Jesus was a teacher. Not the Messiah. And certainly not God’s Son. 

So Jesus takes this moment to dig deeper into the man’s introduction to his question and point out that God alone is good. Another way to say this is that good is the source of all goodness. Something can only be called truly good if it is part of God, if it comes from God. 

Jesus had to take this opportunity to correct the man, because the underlying intent of what he was saying, what he was asking, would soon be revealed. 

Second, Jesus goes on to tell him that this man knows the commandments and starts to list them off. 

The man is estatic and quickly replies the he has kept all these since his youth. This may have been a good moment for more correction from Jesus. But he doesn’t address the fact that there is no way that this man has kept all of the commandments all the time since he was young. That would make him sinless and perfect, which we are not as human beings. Instead, Jesus looked at him and told him that he only lacked one thing - to sell all that he had, give the money to the poor, and come and follow Jesus. 

Ouch. 

This is not what the man thought was coming at all! He was looking for an affirmation that he was well on his way to inheriting eternal life, only to be told do something that he felt was impossible.

In the man’s question and Jesus’s response we see that there was more undergirding his question then what it looks like at first glance. See, when the man was calling Jesus “Good teacher” only to have Jesus point out that which is good is of God, Jesus saw in the man’s heart that he was more worried about goods than what is good. Let me say that again, the man was more concerned with goods than what is good. 

A good is something that can be consumed. Something we can have possession over. In asking this question it is almost as if he is making eternal life something he could consume. Something he could possess. Something that he could make happen through his actions. Completely missing the point that it wasn’t found in the category of goods, but instead was a gift from our good God. 

He equally got confused when it came to inheritance. On one hand, inheritances aren’t something that we can earn. It is something that we are given because of the relationship we have to a person. It is something that we wait for, something that we receive. But the way that the man was using it in this interaction with Jesus didn’t seem to take those things into account. Instead, he acts more like the Prodigal Son found in the Gospel of Luke, acting as if it was something that he earned, something that he could demand as payment for his good actions. 

The man didn’t understand what he was asking. Didn’t understand the ramifications. So of course he wasn’t expecting Jesus’s reply. 

But we are also told that Jesus’s reply was said in love. Because he loved this man, he had to tell him some hard truths. Things that he wouldn’t want to hear. And if we are honest, things that he had to walk away from because it was too much for him. But Jesus answered him openly and honestly anyway, even if it wasn’t what the man wanted to hear, because he loved this man so so much. 

Jesus also loved his disciples and took this interruption as an opportunity to teach them as well. He said these oft quoted lines about “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Jesus wasn’t discounting anyone, including the wealthy, from the Kingdom of God. Instead, he is saying these things to ask his disciples as they enter into Jerusalem and us, here and now, where our heart truly is. What is our priority? What is our treasure? What may prevent us from coming to be a part of the Kingdom of God?

See, Jesus couldn’t force that man to sell his possessions. Just like he doesn’t force us today to follow him. It is our choice because of free will. But Jesus loves us enough to invite us to be a part. To tell us how it is. And to remind us, ultimately that the Kingdom of God is not about us. We can’t inherit it on our own. We can’t be saved on our own. That is only possible with God. 

Jesus is talking about a complete reversal of the way of the world. The Kingdom of God is about a new way of being. For the Rich Man, he thought keeping the commandments would be the easy solution - but it wasn’t just about the commandments. For us, we may think the Kingdom of God is about getting into Heaven, but it is about so much more than getting into Heaven. Its about following Jesus no matter what the cost. Even if it will make you look like the lowly and the last on this earth. Because the first will be last and the last will be first. 

Friends, we cannot make God do anything. This is not about a formula or a check-list. It’s about your heart. Where is your heart this morning? Are you looking at yourself through the standards of the world or the standards of the Kingdom of Heaven? Because Jesus is calling us to so much more than what this world has to offer. Amen.