Time Passes, Things Change

Time Passes and Things Change

When we moved to Taiwan in 1982 my wife and I didn’t expect many, or ANY, visits from friends and relatives in California and Michigan. If visits were to happen at all, it would require that WE boarded a plane. But time passes and things change. Fifteen years later some of her cousins came just to see US.  Ten years later more cousins visited, who had been touring China, paused in Taiwan on their way home. In the 80s we didn’t expect anyone from far away would come, but time passes, and things change.

When the biblical King David announced his predecessor’s death, he did so by means that fit the time and place. He wrote a song, “The Mighty have Fallen.” The men of whom he sang were only two of the many dead on both sides of a war. The tragedies touched families of both nations. Because there were no newspapers back then, King David’s “How the Mighty have Fallen” incident report spread slowly. Time passes and things change.

In 2005 some Thai construction workers building a mass transit system in southern Taiwan burned down the dormitories in which they were ill-housed and mal-treated. It was on TV the same night and all over the newspapers for weeks following. Accompanying photos and interviews starkly depicted how corrupt some private construction companies and local government agencies were. A lot of accusations were made. But apart from those whose complaints were formally registered, the people who had grievances were forgotten.The accusations endured because anyone can stand up to say anything about another person, good OR bad, then disappear. What remains is only the impression of badness.

       One day in the middle of 2006 Taiwan’s newspapers reported a middle school teacher raping a student. People said, “That never would have happened before. How terrible things have become. Taiwan needs a new president.” Nobody wanted to admit that ever since some men have been stronger than women and girls rape has been all too common. What changed as time passed was the speed and breadth of news distribution.

For several years I administered a college’s foreign student program. Early on in that assignment, at a meal with library staff, I heard a complaint. During ONE past year, ONE foreign student had been difficult to get along with. Just which student, from which country, in which year wasn’t reported. But the situation had left to an impression that all foreign students were bad.

        We need good information and we need to know where it comes from. If not, we might fall into believing anything just because “somebody said it.” Though time passes and things change, our needs for truth, accuracy, compassion and grace don’t.

 

David Alexander resides in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan.

Now Let Your Servant Depart in Peace

 

Luke 2: 29-32

Introduction:

Thank you, Rehoboth Church and anyone else who sticks around this morning, for allowing me to stand on your platform today.  Char and I, accompanied by our cat, arrived in the USA not quite two weeks ago. This if the first of many times during the coming months that we’ll be visiting churches that have supported us as missionaries in Taiwan for most of the past 40 years. What you’ll hear this morning is the “first draft” of our goodbye speech. It’ll get better as we move towards the last of the 30 or so churches on our list. Thanks for being willing to hear it “rough”.

Newly arrived as we are here in Michigan, we are also newly departed from our home of so many years. With Simeon in the story that the girls just read for us, we find ourselves saying, “Lord, now according to your word, allow your servants to depart in peace.”

I: Simeon Could Depart in Peace

When we grow older, as Simeon did, letting go of things is more and more common. Dr. Ted Siverns, a Canadian who served as a visiting professor at the Taiwanese college where we lived, told of how, after raising four children, he had his wife, Betty, had house by house moved to smaller and smaller quarters until they retired to a 2-bedroom condominium near Vancouver. Though they reduced their possessions along the way, they confessed that their current place was still “too full.”

Simeon, no doubt, still retained several things, one of  which was the Holy Spirit’s promise that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. The promise was enough. He had no details. He would know the Messiah when he saw him. He probably did not expect a baby.

But when he met Jesus on the day that Joseph and Mary came into the temple to present him to the Lord, Simeon knew that the promise had been fulfilled. He also knew that it was time to go, and he welcomed “going”in peace. We don’t know what he expected upon that departure, but having seen the sign of the promise, he willingly went to the God whom he trusted. And trusting in God who keeps promises, he needed nothing more.

Simeon’s words to God were not just about departing, like going home after a day of work at the temple. He was ready to depart the world. Char and I are not quite that far along, (and we hope that none of you are, either.)

II: We can Depart in Peace

Our own time to depart from Taiwan came on July 31^st. (Char had been feted by faculty colleagues of Chang Jung Christian University not long before.)  On the day of departure, we were seen off by faculty, staff and students of Tainan Theological College, where I had taught and where we resided on campus. When we got to the international airport, three hours away, our pastor and the elders of the local church we’d been part of since 2008 met us. (They had been near there for a different event,  and delayed their own return home in order to see us off with prayers and best wishes.  Then 3 staff members from the General Assembly of Taiwan’s Presbyterian Church joined us and remained at our side until we went through the security screening.

We have departed, not because we had seen the sign of God’s fulfilled promise, but because we knew that the time had come. Like Simeon who knew that HIS time had come, and didn’t know what lay beyond it, we have departed in peace, not entirely sure of what lays ahead, but trusting God who saw Simeon through and who carries us every step of the way.

Life can be filled with transitions.

Last spring Amy, a young woman who had been Char’s student for 2 years, sent her an email with ‘an important question’. She asked how to choose a church. She wanted to visit one but had never been before. She wondered if it was OK for a person who had never been to church to go directly? She said that she was interested in Christianity and in Jesus. She was majoring in translation, so considered finding worship or a Bible study in English. Char was both surprised and delighted to get this contact because most modern Taiwanese college students seem to have very little interest in matters of faith or God or religion. It’s certainly not the typical question she gets from her students. Her response was to set up an appointment to chat, which they did soon afterwards.

When they met, Amy reported that she was initially attracted to Christianity through the influence of a classmate when she was in middle school. Her mother had no problem with her checking out a church back then, but her father was against it so she dropped the idea. The family is not particularly religious but keeps some folk religion customs more out of habit than belief. But as an adult in college, Amy felt the freedom to make her own decision about religion. A good discussion followed. Char was pleased to show her all the information about the Chaplains’ Office on the school’s website. There are lots of things she can explore that would be conveniently on campus close to where she lives. There’s even one fellowship group plus an additional Bible study that are done in English and led by a Korean pastor, who was Amy’s teacher for a required class her freshman year. They discussed the problems of exploring faith only in English and not in her own language. There are some English or bi-lingual services available in Tainan that she can consider, but Char encouraged her to think of going to a Mandarin or Taiwanese one as well. Amy discerned the time, and she is following the path to something new.

Theological and Bible colleges in Taiwan have historically operated outside of the structures of the education department. That’s because in the old days there was a lot of political and military interference that the churches didn’t need to bother about. But as Taiwan has become free, the religious schools have begun to seek government licenses so that their graduates can compete with others in the modern economy on an equal basis. Tainan Theological college discerned that “the time had come” about 10 years ago, and last February was approved to accept students into programs that lead to approved Masters Degrees. But it has come at a cost. The entire “college division” disappeared, and with it the younger faces and voices on campus. Numbers have also dipped. Where there were once over 200 students, there are now fewer than 100. These are enough to fulfill the future needs for church leaders, but the place seems lonelier as it transitions to a new format. Students, focusing on academic success, are less involved in formation as ministers and becoming a blessed community.

As for us, well, our time has come. I’m 66 and Char is……(it’s not polite to reveal a young woman’s age in public). We’ve given as much as there is in us to give to Taiwan. We have seen many capable younger teachers, pastors and theological educators who can occupy the spots in the schools and churches that we’ve been serving, and we should not be keeping them back by occupying THEIR space. We have a privilege that Simeon didn’t have. We’ve come to Michigan (just a smidgen below heaven). The Reformed Church has provided us a furnished house in which to reside for the coming months while we visit churches and look for a house in which to retire.  We’re here to: find new places to serve; make new friends; and learn new things.

III: Rehoboth Church is getting a new pastor

Simeon went into an unknown, We’ve come to a known place. Both are transitions. But these aren’t the only changes afoot.

As you at Rehoboth look forward to the beginning of September, the beginning of a new relationship with a new pastoral leader…  like Simeon, you need to continue to look for the signs of God’s presence and revelation. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been part of this wonderful community of God’s people for generations, decades, years, months or weeks.

Look up and look outward. Listen for what God is saying: through the Holy Spirit (as to Simeon); through the fellowship of this community; through the scriptures that you’ll be studying in Sunday school and hearing preached from this platform each week; and in the exciting things that God is doing in this world around us.  But don’t JUST listen. Having listened, follow up with action.

Do whatever God tells you to do. Even, and especially : if that means to welcome an out of town Harley Davidson Riders Club to a barbecue; if it means to accompany a young people’s group going to learn about urban poverty in Detroit; if it means to open your church basement to  a homeless shelter or a refugee family or an Alcoholics Anonymous group; even if it means to  support another missionary family overseas. DO IT!

As you cooperate, congregation, consistory and new pastor, in being God’s church in this place, doing the mission of God locally, regionally, and around the world… don’t forget Simeon. He kept his eyes open and found God’s sign in the LEAST likely place for a Messiah, in a baby brought by poor folks from a distant land.

He saw, he knew, and he obeyed, blessed by God in whom he had trusted.

May the same be true for Rehoboth Church and for all churches of Christ near and far.

In the name of the Father, and of  the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN

 

Let us Pray:

Pressed on Every Side

Lamentations 3:22-33 and Mark 5:21-24

Look for new mercy from God in all situations

Introduction

I seem to be stuck in a time trap. Last week I began by referring to a popular song from 1979, and this week with a novel from 1979. The author is Timothy Mo, from Hong Kong, and the novel, his first, is The Monkey King.

The story is set in Macau in the years following the second world war. There’s a young man whose only asset is a Portuguese name (obtained from a distant ancestor but carrying the feeling of privilege in that colony.) He marries into what he thinks is an “old money” Cantonese family, which has properties and businesses. He learns that the only property remaining to them is their ancient mansion. Everything else has been sold or mortgaged, and the businesses are failing. When he meets the eldest male in the family, he notices stacks of newspapers filling the room where the old man drinks tea, smokes and reads. Grandfather throws nothing away. When he finishes a newspaper, he places it on the top if the nearest stack. Though the room is large, there’s no space in it to move about. Anyone who enters is “pressed on every side.” If you choose to read the novel, you’ll find out about this young man’s adventures, how he eventually becomes the head of the family, and how he inherits the house and newspapers in it. (here’s a hint, though, he doesn’t clean things out).

The picture of a person pressed on every side describes Jesus, as we found him in Mark 5 this afternoon. He was going somewhere, but as he walked he was crowded on every side by people. The picture also describes the poetic verses that we read from Lamentations. These were words of hope sandwiched in between words of desperation. With those two bits of scripture in mind, we have sandwiches on the bulletin and the screen today. I hope it becomes obvious why.

I  Lamentations as a sandwich book

“Lamentations” goes by the title “The Lamentations of Jeremiah” in many Bibles. That’s half right. It consists of five sad poems, “laments.” But they are not likely to have been written by the prophet Jeremiah. The tradition that he wrote them comes from the kind of Judaism that was common at around the time of Jesus. It’s said that, when Rabbis were discussing which materials belonged in their Bible and which didn’t, they were feeling sad because Jerusalem and the temple in it had recently been destroyed by the government of Rome. They wanted these poems in their bibles to use in worship. By declaring that they had been written by Jeremiah, they were “qualified” to be included.

The book has a very interesting structure. The first poem is about the sad condition of the city of Jerusalem, which has been destroyed, and the sad condition of the nation, which no longer existed. The second and fourth poems are about the people of that city and that nation, and how miserable they were. The middle poem is by an individual person, complaining about his own misery. And at the center of that middle poem we find the verses we read today, about hope. The people who assembled Lamentations, out of poems by different authors, arranged it in a way that helped them use their national history (of the first time their nation and temple were destroyed by an empire) to reflect on the second time that they were destroyed.

The structure also helps us to think about and consider our own lives. We are often pressed on every side. If, at the center of who we are, there’s a relationship to God, then we have hope of making it through. The poetry reminds us that God’s steadfast love never changes, and God’s mercies never come to an end. If we can trust in that, hold onto that “core” of our faith and life, then we’ll have a way through the hard parts.

II Don’t forget the filling in the sandwich

From the New Testament we only read the first part of the story of Jesus healing a little girl. Her father was the leader of a synagogue, (not the typical kind of person who would bother asking Jesus for favors because Jesus broke synagogue rules all the time. But out of love for his daughter, this man humbled himself and asked. In a “sandwich pattern” this is the first slice of bread. The story gets interrupted by what’s in the middle of the sandwich, a story of a woman needing healing. She gets the healing, and Jesus praises her for her faith. But that’s followed by the other slice of bread in the story. Jesus and the synagogue leader get to the place where the girl is and hear that she’s already dead.

The point is, the faith, demonstrated by the woman in the “story in the middle of the sandwich” is what turns this other “disaster” into victory. Jesus told the man and his wife not to be afraid. They were to continue believing. They did, and the girl lived.

When you look at a sandwich, like the ones on the screen, what you see mostly is bread. That’s as it should be. The tradition about sandwiches is that they were invented by a British nobleman, the Earl of Sandwich. He liked to play cards. He didn’t want to put them down while he ate, so he put some meat and other things between two slices of bread, enabling him to hold his cards in one hand and his food in the other.

When we look at Lamentations, we see the complaints, the sadness, the despair. It’s kind of like beginning to read Bible books that begin with long lists of names. Sometimes we give up and skip on to the interesting bits. Sometimes we give up entirely. That’s very understandable. Chapter 1 of Lamentations is about how a city was ruined. Chapter two continues with how a people have experienced sadness and despair. The writers say that the city’s leaders and people were to blame for their sad condition, but they also complain that God didn’t do the “saving part” to rescue them from themselves and the foreign destroyers. Chapter three gets more personal.  I tell you, after so much of this stuff, I give up too.

So, skip on ahead to chapter 3, verses 22 to 33, which we read today. This is the filling of the sandwich, the really, good part. Steadfast love that never changes. Mercies that are renewed regularly, as often as daily. When life is like the tasteless part of a sandwich that just keeps our hands from getting messy, we need to focus on what is at the center.  In the Jesus story from the New Testament, the center was faith. In Lamentations, it is hope and love.

III Us looking for the mercy to be renewed

Of course, a “sandwich” is not the only way to see a pattern in our lives. Sometimes we might see things as an ascending line: “Every day in every way we get a little better, hey!”  Sometimes we may feel we’re on a downward slope, “If it’s not one thing, it’s two, or three.”  Another way to look at life is as a spiral, “round and round and round it goes, and where it stops, nobody knows.” If it weren’t for the “sandwich” analogy that we’re using today (forced upon us by the Lamentations text), I’d generally think that life was like a wave form, “sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down”.

All kinds of things press us on many sides. Sometimes what’s on one side of our “sandwich” is different from what’s on the other side. Sometimes the same thing presses us from two directions. Consider for a minute the arrangements we might have with family. We are supposed to love everyone, and they are supposed to love us, unconditionally. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes family “honor” presses from one side and family “expectations” on the other. If we can keep love and hope at the center, and we may be better able to make it through these tough times.

Academic life can press us almost beyond our ability to endure. (I can personally testify to that because I dropped out of a doctoral program 11 years ago.)  We may be pushing for the top degree because of a sense of “having to” get there, or because, having begun, it would be shameful to quit or to change to something else. Knowing the reasons why we study, knowing whether or not this is: 1) a calling from God; or 2) a pressure from the devil; or 3) personal ambition; or 4)for the sake of some other person’s honor    may help us see the light at the middle.

Religion is often a breaking point for people. It obligates us to follow rules and tells us that complaining about the rules is “not proper conduct toward God.” In those cases, “God” becomes the oppressor. When your religion oppresses you, it’s time to re-envision God as the one who loves steadfastly, who renews mercies every morning, and to hope in God for the salvation of the world.

Conclusion

For today, though, consider life as like a sandwich. Maybe, if you’re from Taiwan, you would do better to consider life to be like a Bau-tze or a Chang-hwa Meatball. What you see with your eyes is not what’s at the center of things. In life, God’s love is at the center. Look for it, hope in it, and trust in it.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.

Let Now Thy Servant Depart in Peace

(In Taiwanese at the Tainan Theological College June 2018 Graduation Ceremony)

Luke 2: 29-32

Introduction:

Thank you, Dr. Wong, and everyone else here for allowing me to stand in this pulpit on this day. Though I still have a few more sermons to preach before leaving Taiwan, this is my final one at Tainan Theological College. The expression in English is, “I’m outta here.”

So, “Lord, now according to your word, allow your servant to depart in peace.”

I: Simeon Could Depart in Peace

When we grow older, as Simeon had, letting go of things is more and more common. Our Tainan Theological College visiting professor a few years ago told of how, after raising four children, he had his wife had step by step moved to smaller and smaller houses until they retired, reducing their possessions along the way. Even so, they still had many things remaining to them.

Simeon, no doubt, still retained several things, including which was God’s promise to him, that he would not die until he had seen God’s Messiah. The promise was enough. He had no details. He would know the Messiah when he saw him. He probably did not expect a baby.

But when he met Jesus on the day that Joseph and Mary brought him to the temple to present him to the Lord, Simeon knew that the promise had been fulfilled.

He knew it was time to go, and he welcomed it “in peace”. We don’t know what he expected upon that departure, but he willingly went to the God whom he trusted. And trusting God who keeps promises, he needed nothing more.

Simeon’s words to God were not just about departing, like going home after a day of work at the temple, he was ready to depart the world. I’m not quite that far along.

II: I can Depart in Peace

My own time to depart from Taiwan is at hand. Those who have served in the military will understand, “there remain only 41 pieces of mantou to me.”

Although I go, it is not because I have seen God’s promise fulfilled, but because God who has always proven trustworthy has shown me a bit of the future in you graduates who sit before me.

I go because my time has come. I’m already 66 years old, and I’ve given as much as is in me to give in Taiwan. I go because there are many capable younger teachers, pastors and theological educators who can occupy my spots at this school and in Taiwan’s church. I should not be occupying THEIR space.

I have a privilege that Simeon didn’t have. I know where I’m going from here. It’s not back to the place where I was born, but to the area where my wife was born. We go there to do something that I’d never imagined before I came to Taiwan… we will accompany an aged parent… something that you may have heard Americans don’t do. But I learned here in Taiwan that this is a right and good thing to do. Thank you for teaching me.  When I get there, I hope to make new friends and learn new things.

Simeon went into an unknown, I go to a known. But these are not the only departures we mark today. After all, it’s graduation day.

III: To the Graduates: Depart in Peace

I recommend to all of you who graduate today that you, like Simeon, look for the signs that it is time for you to depart in peace. It doesn’t matter if you’ve spent one, two, three, four or as many as seven years as part of this community. If it’s your time to depart, you should go, and do so in peace. Go to wherever God calls you to go, if lot is drawn to a remote place or a struggling city church, go there. If you leave this school carrying a diploma to go to a social service agency or to another school, go there. If you leave here to go to a different country where you’ll have to learn a new language to serve, go there!

Go there in service of God. Go there to make new friends (don’t forget to make new friends).  Go there to learn new things. Go in peace. Do not forget that you were part of this community, and that to the end of your lives you remain part of this community. Especially remember that every year in March when someone comes to your church asking for money. Become members of your new communities. Enrich them with how this place has formed you.

Conclusion

All of us: not just graduating students; or old folks who have come to the end of our careers; or prophets from the Bible (like Simeon and others); have to know when and how to let go, how to move on, how to depart. God who is trustworthy stands ahead of us. God’s promise to our parents and teachers has been fulfilled. God’s promises to us are being fulfilled every day. God stands before us, ready to receive us wherever we go next.

Let us sing with gladness, let us dance with gladness.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN

(Response Hymn: “Let Us Sing With Gladness”)

Let us sing with gladness Ho-lak-ki-ma  Let us dance with gladness, Ka-la-u-a-he.

Let us sing with gladness. Let us dance with gladness Ho-lak-ki-ma, Ka-la-u-a-he

Let us praise the Lord God Ho-lak-ki-ma Offer thanks unceasing Ka-la-u-a-he

Let us praise the Lord God, offer thanks unceasing. Ho-lak-ki-ma, Ka-la-u-a-he

Let us trust God always Ho-lak-ki-ma Live in hope all our days. Ka-la-u-a-he

Let us trust God always, live in hope all our days. Ho-lak-ki-ma , Ka-la-u-a-he

Let us spread the gospel, Ho-lak-ki-ma Follow Jesus’ true light, Ka-la-u-a-he

Let us spread the gospel, follow Jesus’ true light. Ho-lak-ki-ma, Ka-la-u-a-he

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QMM-iH479U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjJ85SQNFdQ

When in Wildernesses of our Own

Mark 1:9-15 and Psalm 25:1-10

Introduction

There are seasons of life that are just so wonderful we hope they’ll never end. These are sometimes called, “honeymoons”, when no defects are visible and everything is “on the up and up.” If you imagine the thrill of finishing a degree program and walking across the stage to receive your diploma from whoever gives it to you, and having friends crowd around with congratulations and best wishes. People say good things about you, maybe they even give you money!

This must be kind of what Jesus experienced where we met him in the gospel today. He was in the company of a prophet (John) and part of a crowd. And as he submitted to baptism, the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove, a kind of feathered blessing. And beyond that, a voice proclaimed that he was beloved. You can’t get much higher than that.

At times like that, it’s easy to say something like what we read this afternoon at the beginning of Psalm 25: “To you, O Lord, I offer my prayer, in you, my God, I trust.”

But, those “honeymoon” times are not ALL OF the times.

I The Dark Night of the Soul

The term “dark night of the soul” describes a spiritual crisis in the human journey toward union with God. In the 16^th Century it was described by the Spanish monk John of the Cross. In the 19^th Century a French nun, Therese of Liseux wrote of her own experience of the dark night, which started with a doubt of eternity. She painfully suffered through a prolonged period of spiritual darkness. While this spiritual crisis is usually temporary, it may endure for a long time. The “dark night” of Paul of the Cross in the 18th century endured 45 years, from which he ultimately recovered. The dark night of Mother Teresa of Calcutta “may be the most extensive such case on record”. It endured from 1948 almost until her death in 1997, with only brief interludes of relief.

In going through these times of “dark night”, these saints of the church basically experienced something that we read in the gospel today, which for Jesus lasted 40 days. And it was nothing that he “fell into” by accident. We read in verse 12 that it was the same Spirit which had descended on him from heaven like a dove in verse 11 that made him go out into the wilderness. He couldn’t blame some enemy or a bad meal or a teacher with whom he didn’t get along. We can’t say that he got too high and mighty and had to be taken down a peg. His wilderness experience was laid upon him as part of his growth and formation.

It does no good at all to say to someone who is suffering that “this is for your own good.” Expressions that someone might grow from adversity, or through hard times, are of no help at all when someone is in the wilderness. Neither is it of any help to look to your own past for reasons why this might be a punishment sent upon you by God or by Heaven (there’s a difference).

A dear Christian friend from Kaohsiung experienced some difficult years in her extended family’s life in the 1990s. Her brother in law had a brain tumor, which robbed him of his musical talent. Her father, a pastor, died from cancer, her brother treated her harshly. She was asking, “What did I do, what did my family do, to cause God to punish us so dreadfully?” There is no answer to that kind of question. There is no point in asking it. We wander through our wildernesses, we experience our dark nights, because that’s how life goes sometimes. Jesus endured his 40 days in the wilderness. Other gospels say that he fasted. Other gospels tell us about the particular temptations he endured. We read from Mark today, so have few details. Maybe that frees us to think of our own situations.

Sometimes a wilderness experience comes to us, as we read in Psalm 25:2b-3 because we’ve experienced defeat by the hand of enemies or from shame over things we have done. The Psalm even allows for the possibility that we are in the wilderness because of our own rebellion. Whatever the reason, and no matter how we or anyone else may try to dress it up as “for our good” or as “growth stimulant”, wilderness time is not good time.

A friend who had worked for a mission organization in the 1970s was required to write a note to his supporters every month. Of course, if someone was having a difficult time, they tried not to admit that too directly. He said that when his colleagues were having problems with their supervisors, they would write to supporters “lately, God is teaching me about patience.”

II Wilderness a difficult time. It is not a camping trip

Jesus’ time in the wilderness was 40 days. During that time Jesus met his adversary. We’re also told that there were wild animals. Like the lack of mention of what he ate (or didn’t eat) and the temptations he overcame, we don’t know much more about his wilderness time.

We’re left to ponder who WE meet in our wildernesses. Those saints of the church, John, Paul and the two Teresas, testified to feeling alone. That’s quite a surprise, given that some of them lived in monasteries or convents, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta was the head of a large organization. Their loneliness and hunger, though, was likely for something more spiritual, it was for a deep communion with God through the Holy Spirit.

When we’re in that kind of wilderness, “wild animals” are not far away. They can take the form of otherwise good things which become sinful. There’s a list going back to the ancient philosophers of 7 deadly sins. It includes Pride, Envy, Anger, Gluttony, Lust, Greed and Sloth. Some of these things are not wrong in themselves, but when they come at us in the wilderness, they can take control. We have probably all met someone who is rightfully proud of something that he or she has accomplished, and someone else who is OVERLY proud of the same thing. Similarly the way we look at and aspire to another’s good luck can turn into envy, our indignation over something may turn to anger, our natural appetite for foods and experiences to gluttony, for sex to lust, for property to greed and for rest to sloth.

In his own wilderness, Jesus was tempted by his adversary, Satan, who sought to derail him from the life to which God had called him. When we’re in our own times of wilderness, we need to pay attention to what is tempting us, to what wild animals are out there to harm us.

The writer of Psalm 25 called out for guidance and help. We find that in verse 5, “Teach me to live according to your truth, for you are my God, who saves us. I always trust in you.” You can be sure that the saints in their dark nights of the soul called out. The 19^th century St. Therese (not the 20^th century one from India) testified that it was in the deepening of her faith that her doubts were erased.

III Help is on the way

In Jesus’ case, we read that help came. At the end of verse 13 “Angels came to help him.” Through their aid, he was restored, and through the commission that he received in verse 14, he went on to a life of meaning for himself and for others.

There are people who look for angels to come out of the sky with feathery wings and halos around their heads. We get the “wings” from various places in the old testament, and imagine they must be there because New Testament angels sometimes are seen in the air (so they MUST have wings, right?) We get the halos because of artistic styles that put auras around holy people, and eventually thinned those out to halos.

But it’s much more likely that any angels we may encounter will look very much like us. For example, because I’ve been known to drive a bit too fast and a bit too aggressively, I’ve learned to regard anyone who gets in front of me and makes me slow down as my guardian angel.

We have the opportunity to be angels to each other, and to anyone we meet. The point here is that we are not alone. We are watched over by other people, by God, and by “angels” however you might imagine them.

And like Jesus, we have a commission. We are to be involved with, engaged with, the world around us. The 19^th century St. Therese lived in a convent, where the rule was you couldn’t talk to anyone else except for a few hours a day. But she was engaged with people during those hours, choosing sisters who looked particularly downcast or “in their own wildernesses.” Through engagement with them, she walked out of her wilderness.

Jesus emerged from the wilderness to take on the duty of telling the good news to people he met. What is your commission? It may be to finish that degree, move to that different job, take up a different habit of spiritual development, or something else. Like your personal wilderness (from which you will emerge, your commission is your own personal vocation, to which you respond.

In all things, remember, as the psalm writer did, who God is. “Righteous and Good… a leader to the humble… faithful in his promises.”

Conclusion

Emerging from your wilderness, do what Jesus did, tell the good news. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN

 

 

The Things We Carry

 2 Kings 2:1-14 and Mark 9:2-8

 Influenced as we are by our pasts (and our faiths’ pasts), we move into the future equipped for service to people and to God.

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INTRODUCTION

In 1968 Tim O’Brien, a young man recently graduated from college with a bachelors degree in Political Science, was called to serve in the United States Army. He was trained to fight, and sent to Vietnam, where he served in a combat unit in 1969 and 1970.  When his time as a soldier ended, he became a writer. Short stories based on his wartime experiences began to appear in magazines, and in 1990 were published as a collection. The Things They Carried is the first story in the book.

The things that they (his group of soldiers) carried included the equipment (guns and ammunition) that the infantry-men needed to do their fighting jobs, and the radios & medical things required by others who had special responsibilities. Each man also carried some things that he had brought from home to remind him of family or girlfriends, or things they took for comfort. The platoon leader carried a packet of letters from a girl he had known in college. Though she didn’t love him, he re-read the letters and fantasized about his love for her. Other soldiers carried other things: one, a Bible; one, some tranquilizers; one, some marijuana; and others, other things. The Things They Carried linked them to their pasts as lovers, believers, druggies and human beings.

Soldiers aren’t the only people who carry their pasts with them as they move through life. I was on a train in Canada 15 years ago and discovered that I hadn’t brought along enough reading material to last the entire trip. I looked around and saw that someone who had already left the train had forgotten a magazine, so I picked it up and began reading. It was Cosmo Girl, which targeted teenage girls and featured fashion and celebrities. Cosmo Girl was an adaptation of Cosmopolitan, the international fashion magazine for women. One article in the issue that I read was intended for young women headed away to college. It had a list of things that you should pack and bring for your dormitory room, and included, “anything that will remind you of HOME.” Apparently that article was written by someone who had missed home when she got to college.

In my first job after leaving graduate school in 1980, I met a couple, the Ecclestons, at a churches where I had an office. They were deeply faithful people and active in church happenings. Both had grown up in the Roman Catholic church, but each had been divorced. What moved them out of the Roman Catholic church and into the Protestant church across the street was that they had married each other, which they were not allowed to do as Roman Catholics back then. It was wonderful to learn from the Ecclestons as I moved into Christian ministry, but sometimes I noticed that the things that they carried from their Roman Catholic background were different from the ones I carried from my own Protestant religious upbringing.

Wherever we go, we all carry things with us.

I  Elijah was followed by prophets, and Elisha carried his mantle

Today We read the story of Elijah going up into heaven by a whirlwind today. Almost hidden in verse 13 is mention that he didn’t carry his cloak with him as he ascended. It “had fallen from him.” There’s a lot of stuff “left-behind” in the story… PLACES: Gilgal, Bethel, Jericho, the Jordan; PEOPLE: a group of 50 prophets, and a successor. But there are also “things that they carried” in the story. Elisha got the cloak to carry, and the 50 prophets retained their belief in gravity. In verses 15-18, which we didn’t read, they went searching for Elijah’s body, which they were sure had dropped from the sky wherever the whirlwind dropped it.

As the stories in the next several chapters of II Kings go, Elisha became a prophet much like his teacher. He was consulted by kings and leaders. He  consorted with the poor, the diseased and the outcast of his nation, and he taught  the “school of prophets” who served the religious needs of people high and low.

Whether after striking the river with that cloak he ever used it again or not, we don’t know. BUT, he carried with him the authority of the one who had trained him, and the power of the God whom both of them had served.

The story of Elijah going up into heaven in a whirlwind was included in the Bible that Jesus used, and made its way into the new religion based on his life and work. When that religion, which is MY religion, and I hope is also yours, was preached in regions where Greek folk religion prevailed, people who became Christians focused on the chariot, and brought into their NEW religion some habits of their OLD religion. All over Southern Greece there are churches named for “Saint Elijah”. God is worshipped there. The Christian gospel is proclaimed there. These churches stand on mountaintops, where there HAD BEEN temples dedicated to Apollo, the Greek god who crossed the sky daily in a horse-drawn chariot pulling the sun.         Another story of carrying an old religion into a new was in our New Testament reading.

II Peter carried the high places Canaanite Religion (transfiguration story)

We meet Jesus today on a mountaintop, where he has led three of his friends on a little retreat. Up there, where the light is clearer and the sky nearer, he was “transfigured” in front of them. His face shined, his clothes looked bright, and two of the major prophets of his religion were seen beside him. Moses, the lawgiver, and Elijah (from the Old Testament story we just read). This story links Jesus, and the religion that grew from his life and work, to the religion into which he was born and in which he grew up. But the story also shows us, in Peter, that the religion of that time also included things that had been carried along, perhaps unconsciously, from further back in his ethnic memory.

The Old Testament history is of a people who invaded and took over land that had been inhabited by other peoples for hundreds of years. Upon entering the land, they were to destroy all evidences of the “resident” religion and replace them with the religion that they brought, a religion that was still “under development” (It hadn’t yet even reached the Beta stage).

But they didn’t destroy everything. It had been the practice of the local people to worship agricultural and sky gods on the tops of mountains. These “high places” are condemned all through the history stories from Joshua through the Chronicles in the Old Testament (a history stretching over many centuries). The repeated condemnations were necessary, because not long after some king on a campaign to purify the land would have them torn down, people would build them up again. Going to the official places for sacrifice and worship, early on at the tabernacle, later on at the temple in Jerusalem, was wonderful, but it wasn’t convenient. The “ready-made” worship centers on the mountain tops were pressed into service. Even King Solomon, who had a worship center (the tabernacle) all the symbols of his religion right next door in Jerusalem, went to “the principal high place” to worship God just after being crowned.

In our gospel reading today, Peter showed himself to be a true son of his ancestors. There on the mountaintop with Jesus, seeing the vision of Moses and Elijah, he brought out what he had carried, the idea that the high place is where you ought to be to be near God. But God would have none of it. In response to this suggestion, Peter heard, “This is my son. Listen to HIM!”

TRANSITION

As Christianity spread in that part of the world (you can read about it in the Acts of the Apostles) it encountered and was changed by the religions and contexts it met. In the region just to the north of Galilee, where Jesus grew up, the folk religions included a goddess known as The Queen of Heaven. There was also a myth of the Goddess Ishtar and her son, Tammuz (who would regularly die and rise again). During the sixth century AD, some early Christians in the Middle East borrowed elements from poems of Ishtar mourning over the death of Tammuz into their own retellings of the Virgin Mary mourning over the death of her son, Jesus.

III Habits of thought and being that inform how we live as people of faith

Wherever we go, we carry with us bits of what we’ve learned in the past, and we apply them to what we do going forward. Teachers generally hope that some of the things they have tried to impart to students will remain with them. But, “Carrying things forward” can be a problem, as Peter’s inclination to high place worship was problematic. It can be an opportunity, as Elisha’s use of Elijah’s cloak gave him authority. What is almost always a problem, though, is turning to something in the past that served an oppressive purpose and declaring it to be a necessary part of life in the new religion. You might call it, “Baptizing Bad Behavior”.

Last Monday, February 5^th, was the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, a harmful practice that still happens all around the world and is prevalent in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. In some societies there, the practice is endorsed by religious leaders, Christian and Muslim, as being “part of what our religion teaches about proper womanhood”. But those who preach the practice and promote it are lying. Female Genital Mutilation is neither Christian, nor Islamic, nor religious at all. It is a fundamental human rights violation. It is an extreme form of discrimination against women and girls.  Medical evidence shows that Female Genital Mutilation seriously impacts many normal body functions, increases maternal and infant mortality, and can cause lifelong psychological dmage. It prevents women and girls from meaningfully participating in public life to the same extent men do.

Somebody, somewhere along the line in moving from traditional folk religion into Islam and Christianity, retroactively baptized violence against women. They were, and are, wrong.

In the story “The Things They Carry”, the platoon leader realized that daydreaming about the girl he loved (but who did not return his love) kept him from being an effective leader. His distraction led to one of the soldiers in his group dying, so he burned the letters he had carried and buried their ashes.

All of us need, from time to time, to look at our lives, to discern which of our bad habits have been “baptized into our religions,” and let go of things. Hopefully what remains will be what is useful.  God’s voice to Peter was about the new thing in front of him, “this is my son. Listen to him!”

CONCLUSION

As we do this “reflection and discernment homework” in the days, weeks, months and years to come, the standard, “listening to Jesus” can and should be a guide to us for what is loving, grace-filled, forgiving and accepting.  As we work towards becoming “Christ-like”, let us do so in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN

She Was Pregnant: a Christmas Meditation

Luke 2:1-7              24^th December, 2017.

Introduction

We’ve arrived. After 4 weeks of scripture readings, songs and sermons putting off Christmas, we’re finally here. What is it about Christmas that pushes us to “rush the season”? What’s so important about Christmas that we make such a big deal of it? Is it the angels, or the shepherds, or the baby? Is it the wishes of peace and goodwill?

I recently read that in the English-speaking world, especially that of England and North America, the “modern” emphasis on Christmas as a generalized festival is a fairly recent thing, and that it really got “kicked into gear” with Charles Dickens’ 19^th century novel, “A Christmas Carol”. Commercial interests piled on, and churches (as if often the case) followed the trend.

I: Important things in Luke 2

It doesn’t matter much which gospel is being read through in the Church calendar in any year, at Christmas we converge on the second chapter of Luke, and read about the angels singing to the shepherds who go to the place where the baby is lying in a manger. This evening we read the introduction to that part of the story, just a few verses about how a bunch of men (Augustus, Quirinius, Joseph and David) conspired in such a way that Mary had to be away from home at an uncomfortable time in her life. As we read in verse 5, She Was Pregnant.

For Mary, probably being pregnant was the only thing that she had in mind then. Part of being pregnant is being bigger than typical. For example: if, in speaking, I am silent for a brief period to emphasize something I’ve said, (PAUSE), that’s a pause. But if I’m silent even longer (Long pause), THAT’S known as a Pregnant pause.

A lot of things move around the world by air freight now. For some very large things, like pieces of airplanes and such, that have to move by air, there are specially built planes which have longer wings and wider fuselages. They’re known as “pregnant guppies”.

Pregnant is also, I’ve been told, uncomfortable. Have you seen women who are soon to give birth walking anywhere, with their hands supporting their backs?

Pregnant, especially first time pregnant, is also for some women a time of uncertainty. “Can I do this? Will I be good at it? Will I fail at something?”

Yes, Mary was special, but likely not so special that she was small, comfortable and clearheaded with all that was going on around her. I’d venture that she didn’t care much about Augustus, Quirinius or David, and likely, when in pain, cared little for Joseph either.

When we think Jesus, the baby she bore, we easily forget about what Mary endured.

II: Unimportant things in Luke 2

Who the emperor, the governor, the ancestor (and maybe even the husband) were becomes relatively unimportant in this story when seen in the light of what Mary endured, and of who got born. In terms of Mary, if, for a while in the pain of childbirth, she even forgot that she was giving birth to the son of God, if all she could think of for those hours of labor and delivery was her own pain, I think she deserves a pass from us.

She was pregnant with our savior, who came to save all of creation. And because she went through with it, and because HE went through with all that lay ahead of him, we can confidently face our future.

Conclusion

Thank God for Mary, who accepted God’s call given to her through an angel messenger. Thank God for Jesus, firstborn son of Mary, who accepted his destined role to save creation. Praise God for what has been given to us.

For the rest of this afternoon, while we sing about the events of Christmas, remembering what has happened for us, we join sisters and brothers around the world in praise of God, and in hope for our future.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy S

Preparing a Way in Our Wilderness

Texts: Isaiah 40:1-11 and Mark 1:1-8

Proposition: The way doesn’t just appear; we do things to prepare it.

Introduction

Life has been compared to many things. An English metaphor that’s occasionally heard is: “Life is like a bowl of cherries” (meaning it’s sweet and fresh and delightful).  An 1890s American poem that turned into a church song says, “Life is like a mountain railroad” (https://hymnary.org/text/life_is_like_a_mountain_railroad)

Life is like a mountain railroad,
With an engineer that’s brave;
We must make the run successful,
From the cradle to the grave;
Watch the curves, the fills, the tunnels;
Never falter, never quail;
Keep your hand upon the throttle,
And your eye upon the rail.

Blessed Savior, Thou wilt guide us,
Till we reach the blissful shore,
Where the angels wait to join us
In Thy praise forevermore.

Other metaphors include “a walk on the wild side” and, from the Bible texts we read this afternoon, a wilderness.

Wildernesses come in different sorts. One is the desert, which was familiar to both the writers of Isaiah and of Mark’s gospel.  A desert is a dry place, and because it is dry, it is usually empty. Northwest Australia, Inner Mongolia, Northern Africa and Southwest Peru.

There’s another kind of wilderness. It is deeply forested mountain regions. Like Siberia. For one reason or another, these places are hard to get to, and few people live there. It’s not that people CAN’T live there (in fact, parts of America that 250 years ago were considered wilderness are now full of towns, roads and people), it’s that they are not populated, unmapped and unexplored, that makes them wildernesses.

Life may, from time to time, be as wonderful as a bowl of cherries, as challenging as a mountain railway, or as dangerously exciting as a walk on the wild side. But from time to time all lives are like wilderness, whether that means lonely and dry, or lonely and unmapped.  Both the Old Testament and New Testament readings this afternoon encourage us to make a way in the wilderness (in our lives) for the one who is coming.

Clear the Way (Isaiah 40:1-5 and Mark 1:4)

We’re encouraged to clear and smooth the way for the Lord. Since the New Testament reading quotes the Old Testament one, we’ll begin with Isaiah. The reading began with God’s command to “comfort my people”

Do you want to prepare a way? The first step is to get to a starting point, and if your life is a wilderness of one thing after another, a new assignment or engagement following the one that has just been finished, or of the busy affairs of the day crowding in upon you before you even leave the place where you live in the morning to start them, you may need, first, to find a place of comfort. Put down the smart phone (or, even, turn it off). Sit still, breathe, and think of nothing other than, “this is how air feels in my nose, throat and lungs”.  I’ve tried a breathing prayer before, imagining myself saying, “Lord Jesus Christ” as I inhale, and “Have Mercy upon me” as I exhale. It’s possible that it works for other people, but for me it gave me “something to think about” and I remained busy.

Start from a place of comfort. And prepare the way by doing what we read in Mark 1:4, “Repent”.  …   I imagine I just lost some of you. Repent sounds like a mean preacher who considers himself or herself to be sin-free condemning everyone else. There is, truly, something important in the message to us that we are to repent, which means to turn away from one thing and to another, and some of what we have to turn from may, indeed, be sinful.  But the wilderness of modern life from which we are called to repent may not be as sinful as it is just packed with the unnecessary.

A few years ago, an elderly relative of my wife died. He and his wife (who had died a few years before him) had lived in the same house for more than 50 years. As their children went to clean out the house and put it on the market, they discovered that he had never thrown away anything that he had paid money for. Every closet was full of his and his wife’s old clothes and things. This man was a life-long Christian, a leading member of his church. In his life, repenting may have had more to do with how he treated his property.  We each discover that from which we need to repent. I’m not ordering you about any particular thing in your life, I’ve got enough trouble in my own.

Repenting to clear the way is something we do “inside” ourselves. We are not called to tell others about our messes and wildernesses, about our sins and failings. That’s between us and the Lord for whom we prepare the way. But that doesn’t mean our preparation is totally internal.

Proclaim the good news (Isaiah 40:6 and Mark 1:7)

We’re told, both in Isaiah 40:6 and Mark 1:7, to proclaim something. To tell it out aloud.

In Isaiah there’s beautiful poetic language of the fragile beauty of human life, it’s like grass and wild flowers. These are wonderful to contemplate.

Where I live on the campus of Tainan Theological College there are many trees. At least once a year, a crew is called in with trucks, tractors and chain saws. They trim back the overgrowth. My own house is near the end of a lane, and they hadn’t reached that far for a long time, but last summer they came, saw, and conquered. The giant mango trees both in front and in back were left looking like posts with a few leaves on top. In my neighbor’s yard, a giant Dragon Eye tree which hadn’t been cut for years was brought under control.  BUT, as they worked above and hauled away the branches that they had cut, they destroyed the grass lawn under the tree, a beautiful place that he had worked on for a couple of years, taking it from a wilderness of bare earth to a lush green carpet.

So, in October he planted new seed, and what has grown since then looks soft enough to sleep on. He also cultivates flowers around its edges. That’s the vision of Isaiah 40:6.

But, we’re told here, ‘Grass withers and flowers fade’, and that’s true, but there is something enduring, which is the word of God. Preparing a way in our wilderness, or in our gardens, takes something from the word (the proclamation) that God makes.

In the New Testament we learn something of that word. It is that, however great we may think ourselves to be, there is one who is greater.  John the Baptist, who grabbed onto and used the language of Isaiah in his own preaching, didn’t claim to be much. But he pointed to the one who was coming. So, preparing the way means looking at ourselves humbly (which doesn’t mean as dirt, but means not seeing ourselves as diamonds, either. If your vision of yourself is as dirt, then you need to upgrade to “rich soil”. If your image of yourself is as a large gem-quality diamond, perhaps a more accurate self-understanding might be a diamond in the rough, or cloudy glass.)

Preparing a way in our own wilderness, then, involves creating some quiet space and then giving ourselves a good talking to. I have to do that from time to time, especially when I get all bound up in my own imagining of other people being my opponents or enemies. Sometimes I have to tell myself clearly that it’s all in my imagination. Other times I have to tell myself that, even if there is something going on from “the other side”, it’s my own responses that I have to control.  Occasionally, I have to go tell someone that I was wrong, and that I’m sorry.  I don’t like having to do that, but it does, “prepare the way in my wilderness” for better relationships.

We prepare internally through repenting, we prepare externally by proclaiming, and yet, there is more. There’s “transactional” preparation to be made with the one who is coming, the one for whose arrival we are preparing in the first place.

Come under the Care of the Shepherd (Isaiah 40:10-11 and Mark 1:8)

In the last verses of each of our readings today, (Isaiah 40:10-11 and Mark 1:8), we are encouraged to step out in the direction of the Lord who is coming. In Isaiah we are compared to a flock of sheep, gathered, comforted and cared for. We come to the leadership of a shepherd who carries us along the way, who leads us.

In the New Testament we were told to be baptized. It’s important to recall here that this is John the Baptist talking. His was not only advertising for his own product (others weren’t baptizing very much. Their rules were tighter than his.), he was talking about a baptism in which people declared publicly that they were starting over, letting go of the things in their lives that even they knew were blocking their good communication with God, and starting again. Oppressors (tax collectors and soldiers) were among those who came to John. He did NOT tell them to quit collecting taxes or serving the emperor. He told them to stop oppressing as they did their jobs. His harshest words were for the people who considered themselves as already good enough, as religious and righteous. He called these people “snakes”.

Preparing the way of the Lord in our own wilderness calls on us to come under the care of the Shepherd, whom Christians have found in the person of Jesus Christ. Preparing the way of the Lord in our own wilderness calls on us to turn away from whatever blocks the way. That may mean certain priorities in our lives, certain practices, or even certain people with whom we have associated. We turn away from those and we turn to Christ. It is the decision to do so, more than the water of the baptism or the method by which the water is applied, that makes prepares the way.

Conclusion

We’ve had an afternoon full of metaphors and images: Bowl of Cherries, Mountain Railway, Wilderness, a house full of old clothes, a lawn, dirt, diamonds, a shepherd. Here’s one more:  The egg tooth.

Chickens have many things, but they don’t have teeth. Right?  But, each chicken did, at one time, have an egg tooth: a small, sharp temporary cap on the end of the beak of a chick and used while it is still in the egg.  It’s primary use is to break out of the membrane that contains it in the egg to get to the air that’s also in there. Strengthened by this air, it uses the egg tooth to chip its way out of the egg shell. After the chick is out, the “egg tooth” falls off in a few days later, because it is no longer needed.

What we’ve been offered in these two bible readings today can be seen as an egg tooth. We prepare the way for good communication between us and the Lord. We clear out our wilderness, we tell ourselves who we really are, and we come under the care of the shepherd of our souls. At that time, our preparation, like a chicken’s egg tooth, is no longer necessary. We are under the care of the one who carries and cares for us.

That, in part, is why we observe these weeks of Advent. To get our hearts and souls ready for the liberation that comes in the one who came after John the Baptist, who comes to us even today at the lord of life.  Come to him, and he will give you rest.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN

One Sunday In Taipei

http://www.slpcenglish.org/multimedia-archive/2017-12-11-seeking-gods-face-finding-gods-bottom-exodus-3312-23/

 

If you hold at all, hold loose

John 20:17

         Have you ever heard a sentence or saying that seemed so “right” that you’re sure it came from an authoritative place? Like, “That’s so wise, I’m sure that my grandmother was the first one to have ever thought it!” Christian people are often tempted to, and sometimes guilty of, crediting anything “wise” to the Bible. “It’s in there somewhere, I just can’t remember the chapter and verse right now.” So things like “The Lord helps those who help themselves” get into our religion even though they are exactly opposite of what we learn from the Bible.

This week’s Gospel reading (John 20:1-18) included Jesus saying to Mary, “Do not hold on to me.(v.17)” As I pondered that sentence, I thought of a “wise saying” about “holding on”, “When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.” To learn more, I did preachers do in the 21^st century, I googled it. I found lots of pictures of young cats hanging from ropes (no surprise), and also found the same quote attributed to no fewer than 4 different American presidents and one of the heroes of the American Revolution. Though any of all of them may have used it, it was not original to even a single one. Maybe a cat thought it up.

In the story we found Mary, who dearly loved Jesus, at the end of her rope. For all she knew, he was dead. She had seen it happen, and she knew where his grave was. Like many, or any, of us whose friend has died, she could get no nearer to him than to go to the tomb. So she went, and found what appeared to her to be the scene of a grave robbing: an open tomb and no body anywhere.

She was at the end of her rope. Even the testimony of ANGELS couldn’t change her mind. So when, at last, because of the sound of the voice of the risen Jesus, speaking her name, fell on her ears, she reached toward him, she intended to “tie a knot and hang on.”

But Jesus said, to her “Do not hold on to me.”

I Have To Go

He continued talking, explaining that he couldn’t stay around, “…because I have not yet gone back up to the Father…” He had an agenda, a set of other appointments to keep.

Ever since he started out his life as a wandering preacher, he had a set of things to do. Even being betrayed, tried and executed were things on his list, as was rising from death. He had told people as much, they just couldn’t hear him.

All of these things were done in service of an even greater task, to demonstrate God’s love for the world, that no person who believed in him would perish, but would have everlasting life.

Last week in a class that I teach to future pastors I asked students ahead of time to choose a Bible story that has characters in it, then to choose one of those characters, and then to plan the structure of a sermon preached as if the student was that character.  One student chose the story of David and Goliath, and said she would tell it from the viewpoint of David. Another chose a story about the prophet Elijah, and claimed the part of Elijah. A third chose a story about Joshua, and chose the part of Joshua. We like to compare ourselves to people in the Bible, and usually choose the greater ones. I the story we just read from John 20, we’d likely see ourselves as Peter or the other disciple, the two “who believed”. Or maybe of Jesus, who “had risen”. Few of us would choose Mary, because she was the one who didn’t listen to the angels and then had to be warned away by Jesus because her agenda was to “hold on to” him..

The things we want are so immediate. We want our favorite football team to win the regional championship or the world cup. We want God to make sure that our Master’s Thesis, Doctoral Dissertation or Job Application is accepted. We want the number on our lottery ticket (or on our receipt from 7-eleven) to lead to the grand prize. All of these things are “in” time. But Christ is “above” time, and has a different set of goals.

When we are at the end of our rope, and hear Jesus call our name, and know we have been saved (as Mary did), we want everything else to stop, because nothing matters more than where we are at RIGHT NOW.  That’s why Mary reached for him, and it’s when she heard him say, to her “Do not hold on to me, I have to go.”

They Have to Know

        More than his own having to go, though, was his mission for her. She also had to go. People had to be told, “THEY” had to “KNOW”. Now, Mary had already gone to them once, we read that in verse 2, “She went running away to Simon Peter and the other disciple,whom Jesus loved, and told them….” Wasn’t that enough? Now she had to go again and tell them about the living Jesus. This was good news, but why her, why another trip, couldn’t he just send an angel or something so they could sit down for a cup of tea and some conversation?

No. Jesus mission for her was for the immediate errand, and then for her life as part of that group of disciples that grew on Pentecost and afterward to be the church of Jerusalem.

Jesus has a mission for us even when we’d rather stay. Jesus has stuff for us to say, even when we’d rather keep silent. Though he is “everyplace” and has armies of angels at his command, he sends us, to tell, to act, and to live the good news of the gospel, in the ways we treat each other, in the ways we treat strangers, and in the ways that people we don’t even know see us treating anyone and everyone we meet with and in the love of Jesus.

That seems too hard, especially when, like Mary, you find yourself at the end of your rope……and Jesus says to you, “Do not hold on to me. I have to go, and they have to know.

You Have to Grow

        The name “Mary” is found on a lot of women in the New Testament. Jesus’ mother was Mary, Lazarus’ sister was Mary, and this one, known as “the Magdalene” because of her home town, was a third. Each of them, after her own fashion, loved Jesus, and as he loved (and loves) all people, Jesus loved each of them.

Part of what it means to love someone is to want the best for him or her. Parents learn this about children. At certain ages you just wish they would ALWAYS be like this, and at other ages you can’t wait for them to “grow out of it.” Loving means living with the conditions, good or bad, that people grow through, and taking joy in seeing people develop…. Not freezing them in place like a bee in amber.

It may seem that Mary wanted to hold onto Jesus just as he was that morning by the tomb, but its more likely she wanted him as he had been some time in the past  (though she was “willing” to take him, dead or alive, as she found him that day). Jesus had been changed by crucifixion and resurrection, but there hadn’t been time for her to learn that yet. She wanted to stop herself, and stop him. That was no longer “love” but was “possession”.

Jesus did the loving thing, the hard thing. He set her free to grow.

Imagine two things, both common enough in our Taiwan context. The first you don’t see any more, but there are monuments to it at the Christian girl’s high school across the street. High class women in the Ching Dynasty in China hobbled around on bound feet. When an upper class girl was only 3 or 4 years old her parents would bind up her feet in tight wrappings to deform them and keep them small. The Scottish missionary women who founded the girl’s school across the street were part of a movement that said girls and women should be free, that the upper class cultural norms of the Ching dynasty were barbarity. If upper class families wanted their daughters educated, that school would not accept anyone with bound feet. The monuments over there were given by the Ministry of the Interior of Taiwan’s government, recognizing the school’s role in setting Taiwan’s women free. Their feet could grow, and their minds and spirits grow through the life education and example they got at a Christian school.

The other image is of a boat with an anchor. When a boat is to be kept from drifting, an anchor is cast out and grabs the land at the bottom of the water. But you don’t just stop the boat and let the anchor down. You have to know how deep the water is (let’s say, 10 meters) and let out 3 to five times that much rope from the boat to the anchor. And you have to do it while the boat is moving, otherwise the rope gets all tangled up and the anchor doesn’t hold. If you don’t let out enough line, then when the tide comes in and your boat rises, the anchor will pull away from what it’s holding onto and the boat will drift away. The art is in getting the anchor down at the right time and leaving enough length of rope or chain to hold the boat where it needs to be, but leave it free enough to go where it needs to go. .

Mary needed to keep her faith in Jesus. That was her anchor. She also needed to get some distance, so that her faith could grow, that was her “anchor rope.”

Jesus says to all of us, “Do not hold on to me, you have to grow.”

CONCLUSION

As we grow up we are constantly leaving things behind. Whether it’s the shoes that used to fit, and have been outgrown, or the earlier model of computer or smart phone that is no longer up to standards, or even the things we once believed, but which no longer “fit with” the person who we are becoming.

As it was for Mary, who was told not to hold onto the Jesus whom she had known, and lost, in the past, and not even to hold on to the Jesus who was standing in front of her, so it is also for us. Freedom from the past may be needed for us to fulfill our immediate mission in life, whatever that may be. Being anchored to that which gives life meaning, while free to drift with the movements of current and tide, is ESSENTIAL if we are to grow into the future that God has for us.

Whether you’re near or at the end of your rope, remember that it’s a rope, not a rock, that you’re on. Hold on…. Yes but let God’s Holy Spirit blow you in the direction that you need to drift, and in which you must grow.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  AMEN