By the Well -- Sermon Series

John 4:1-26

July 27, 2025

 

            In her book, Bird by Bird¸ Anne Lamott writes about writing. She writes about the process of writing, the love of writing, the stages of writing, the self-loathing and hating everything that you put on page stage of writing. Bird by Bird is a book by a writer for writers or wanna-be writers. Her goal, I think, was to help other people experience the deep, visceral joy that can come with writing – if you just allow yourself to write.

            Bird by Bird was my first introduction to Anne Lamott, and I have been a devotee ever since. I haven’t read all her books, but I’ve read a fair few, and Bird by Bird is one that I turn to repeatedly when I need a dose of inspiration and courage to face a blank page.

            One thing from this book that has stuck with me is her chapter about perfectionism. Perfectionism, and I’m paraphrasing her, kills creativity. Trying to make each sentence perfect from the very beginning will only make you frustrated and stymied and will eventually drive you away from writing anything. She counsels her readers to write a terrible first draft. Just put everything down on paper. Don’t worry about whether it’s good, or if every plot line makes sense, just get it down. The first draft is all about getting it down on paper. Then in the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and maybe more, drafts, you perfect, you refine, you leave some things in, and you throw other bits away. The key is, she gently but firmly writes, is that you write that terrible first draft to get everything you are creating in any piece of writing onto the page. Don’t worry about it being perfect. Perfecting comes later. But trying to be perfect from the very beginning, trying to make everything just so, will only stop you from writing altogether. Perfectionism kills creativity.

            Sociologist and author, Brene Brown, also talks about the dangers of perfectionism. But she doesn’t limit it to writing, she describes how perfectionism kills our spirits, our souls. Trying to make ourselves perfect, our lives perfect, trying for the appearance of perfection, something that will never happen, not only kills our creativity, it makes life that much harder. Trying to be perfect is an illusion. And it drives us to depression, to self-medicating with food, drink, and other substances, and it keeps people from really seeing themselves honestly and vulnerably as well as seeing others through that same lens. Think about it, if we are constantly trying to be perfect and condemning ourselves for failing – which we do and will because perfection isn’t going to happen on this side of the veil – doesn’t that also translate to condemning and judging others for also failing to be perfect?

            Perfectionism is debilitating. It cripples our creativity and sets unrealistic and unhealthy expectations for ourselves and others. It prevents us from allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and it too often causes us to condemn vulnerability in other people.

            But then there is Jesus, who has the gift for seeing people as they truly are, their imperfections, their flaws, their foibles, their mistakes, and their misdeeds. Jesus sees the truth in other people and loves them anyway. If they need forgiveness and they want it, he forgives them. If they need to speak their name, he asks them to share it. If they need to know that they are loved just because they are a child of God, he makes that truth clear. If a person encountering Jesus needs hope or healing, he offers it. Jesus sees people as they truly are. He sees their heart, their hurt, their hope or lack thereof, and allows them to show themselves as they are to others, to the world.

            So we come to this story from John’s gospel about a Samaritan woman meeting Jesus by the well of Jacob, and Jesus seeing her as she is. I want us, if it is possible, to try and empty our minds of all the preconceived ideas we have about this story. Try, if you are able, to forget the ways that it has been interpreted or misinterpreted in the past. Because it has. Repeatedly. Both traditional interpretation and scholarship have speculated that the woman came to the well alone at the heat of the day and by herself because she was an outcast among her people. In fact, she is an outcast among outcasts. We learn from Jesus in later verses as to why she might be an outcast, but if we look at this text with open minds, with no preconceived notions, all we know about her so far is that she is a woman, a Samaritan, and that she came to draw her water from the well at noon.

            When she gets to the well, she is not alone. Jesus is there. We, the readers, know who Jesus is, but to this woman he is a stranger. But this stranger is thirsty – after all he is clearly traveling, and he must be hot and dusty and parched. So, Jesus, this stranger, asks her to give him a drink. We can assume that the Samaritan woman did just that, but she doesn’t do it without asking a question.

            “How is that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

            Jews and Samaritans were bitter enemies. That point was made clear in the story of holy ground that we read last week from Luke’s gospel about the Samaritan who helps a stranger on the road to Jericho. Although, Jews and the Samaritans were enemies, they shared a common ancestor in Jacob. And this well where Jesus was sitting and where the woman came to draw water was Jacob’s well. But religious, social, and cultural differences kept Jews and Samaritans apart for centuries.

            Jesus, when he spoke to this woman, when he asked her to give him water, and the fact that he was in Samaria at all, was crossing boundaries and lines that were not supposed to be crossed. He was a man alone speaking to a woman alone. He was a Jew speaking to a Samaritan. And the woman clearly understands all of this, which is why she asks the question of him.

            “How is that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

            Jesus responds in typical Johannine fashion.

            “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

            The woman takes his words literally at first. You don’t have a bucket. How would you give me living water? Where would you get this water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob was? He gave this well to us.             But Jesus responds to her with a deeper meaning to his words. Everyone who drinks from this well will be thirsty again. But those who drink from the living water that I offer will never be thirsty. The water that I offer becomes a gushing spring of eternal life in those who drink it.

            The woman is still hearing him literally. Sir, please give me some of this water, so I don’t have to keep returning to this well; so I don’t have to keep carrying these heavy buckets back and forth. And then we come to the moment in the story when our preconceived notions about the woman kick in. Jesus tells her to go and call her husband and bring him back with her. But the woman tells him that she has no husband. And Jesus says to her,

            “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”

            And it is this one statement by Jesus, this one moment that has influenced interpretation of this story for centuries. This woman has had five husbands, and she is currently living with a man who is not her husband. That must mean that she is a fallen woman! That must mean that she is a terrible sinner and an outcast among outcasts. But does Jesus condemn her? Does he criticize? Or does he just state this as the facts of her life?

            In truth, this woman like any other woman in that time and context would have had no control over her marital status. It’s highly unlikely that she had any choice in her marriages. Husbands could divorce wives at the drop of a hat, but the reverse was not true. It’s quite possible that she was married to five brothers in secession, each one dying and passing her to the next brother – which was the law. There is nothing in the text to suggest that the man she was currently living with was there for anything other than protection. There’s a reason why widows and orphans are emphasized in scripture as needing special care. They were the most vulnerable in society. A woman needed a man, in some fashion, for protection.

            All we really know at this moment is that Jesus shows the woman that he knows her. He knows her life. He knows her story. And he lets her know that he knows without shame or criticism. Again, there is nothing in the text to suggest that he was shaming her.  As preacher and teacher, Fred Craddock, wrote,

            “All we know is that Jesus, as is his custom in John, reveals special knowledge of the individuals he encounters and alerts them that in meeting him they may encounter the transcendent.”

            Jesus did not shame this woman; he just spoke to her vulnerability. He spoke to her vulnerability, her lack of perfection, by first being vulnerable himself. He was alone and thirsty and in need. To get water, he had to ask for her help – a Jewish man asked for help from a Samaritan woman. That was vulnerable. And then without shame or criticism, Jesus lets this woman know that he sees her, really and truly sees her. He sees her past, he sees her present, and he sees who she truly is at heart. He sees her as the beloved child of God that she is. He sees her.

            Jesus sees this woman, and he tells her about living water that will quench the thirst in her soul. He tells her that worship will no longer be limited to a geographical place, and that salvation is coming through the Jewish people but ultimately all true worshippers will worship God in spirit and in truth. The woman confesses that she believes the Messiah is coming, and Jesus tells her, “I’m here.”

            Our reading today ends at this moment, but what the woman does next is remarkable and not often given the credit that she deserves. She leaves her water jar by the well, the jar of water that could only quench a physical thirst. She runs back to the city and tells everyone that they should come and see. Come and see this man who saw me. Can he be the Messiah? Which was her way of saying that he most definitely is the Messiah.

            This woman, with whom Jesus has the longest conversation recorded in John’s gospel, is also the first evangelist. She does what a true evangelist does, she tells people about her experience with God through Jesus. That’s what evangelism is, really. It’s proclaiming the good news not through intimidation or scare tactics but just telling others that you bumped into God and now everything is different because it turns out the ground you were standing on was holy, and you didn’t even know it.

            In this sermon series, we’ve considered that holy ground is where we discover our call. Holy ground is where we wrestle and struggle with God. Holy ground is ground where we show mercy or receive mercy from someone else, and holy ground is where we are seen. Holy ground is where we are seen for all that we are, good, bad, and otherwise. Holy ground is where we can let go of our need to appear perfect. Holy ground is where we are most vulnerable and loved unconditionally anyway. Holy ground is any place where we encounter God through unexpected intuition or unexpected people. Holy ground is the ground where God meets us just as we are, right we are, and calls us to see ourselves, each other, and the world through the eyes of love. And the more we can see through the eyes of love, the more we can see others – all others – as God sees, then the more we understand that every inch of ground, every foot, every meter, every acre, every topography, every place, everywhere is holy, and that makes all the difference. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

           

           

 

Have Mercy -- July Sermon Series

Luke 10:25-37

July 20, 2025

           

            When I was in seminary, I was sitting with outside with some friends and classmates on a warm spring evening. We were talking about our next day of classes and someone remarked that  they needed to go and study because we had a test in Survey of the Bible the next day. I was going to do the same thing because I was also in that class, and I knew I needed to study. My friend, Ellen, was part of this group and when she heard that we had a quiz the next day, she said,  

“The test is tomorrow?! I thought it was next week.”

We assured her that it was indeed the next day. And with that assurance she was gone – back to her room to study in a panic. I went back to my apartment to do the same thing, regretting that I had taken any down time at all to sit with friends when I should have been home studying for the quiz the next day.

When I had chosen my classes for that semester, I was assured by other classmates that “Survey of the Bible” was a good choice for me because I had not really read the entire bible before, cover to cover. I’d read lots of portions of the bible, but I had never managed to read the whole thing straight. I remember trying many times when I was a kid, but the only bibles I had access to at that time were the King James Version, and I would always get bogged down in the “begats” in Genesis.

So, I was told that “Survey of the Bible” would be a great resource for me. It would teach me the arc of the whole of scripture, and yes, Elizabeth Achtemeier was a strict professor and her tests were hard, but she was fair and brilliant, and I would learn so much.

All the above is true. That class was a tremendous resource for me. I learned so much about scripture, and I was able to see the connections of the whole cannon in a way that I had not seen before. Dr. Achtemeier was brilliant and fair, but to say that her quizzes were hard was a profound example of understatement. Each quiz in that class was like having all my teeth removed without Novocain by a buffalo. And they relentlessly came every week for an entire semester. They were awful. You have no idea how similar the psalms are, or Paul’s letters are when you’re trying to identify them by chapter and verse. I dreaded those quizzes, but miraculously I scraped by with a passing grade. And I hoped and prayed that the adage attributed to Walker Percy, “You can make all A’s and still flunk life,” would be true in reverse in that I could barely pass this class and yet not flunk ministry in the long run.

Whenever I read about Jesus being tested by one of the religious elites, I remember the stomach churning trepidation I felt for those quizzes in “Survey of the Bible.” And I wonder if he also dreaded them or just got annoyed by their frequency; as in, “Oh brother, here comes another test. Do they every get tired of this? When are they going to realize they’re not going to get me, not this way anyway.”

That’s how our passage starts this morning, with another test. This story from Luke’s gospel  is so well-known and so familiar that it makes it hard to preach, because we all think that we already know it. It’s not just well known in churches and biblical circles; it’s well known in the culture. Nursing homes and rehab facilities are named after this good Samaritan. There are Good Samaritan laws to protect people who help strangers after accidents from unnecessary litigation. This story is so well-known that surely nothing about the Good Samaritan can surprise us anymore. But let’s dig in and see what we find.

As I said, it begins with a test. A lawyer, who would have been a professional of the Law of Moses, stood up to test Jesus. Jesus’ fame has been growing. Along with the original 12 disciples, he has just sent 70 followers out to spread the good news and to heal and preach in his name. On their return to him, they tell him that in his name even demons have submitted to them. Clearly, Jesus’ ministry is causing both a clamoring of joy from the growing crowds surrounding him and consternation among the religious professionals who view him as a threat. This lawyer is one of the latter.

He stands up to test Jesus, asking him what he must do to inherit eternal life. It is clear that the lawyer thinks he already knows the answer, but he wants to see what Jesus will say, looking to catch him blaspheming. But Jesus knows what he’s up to, and he turns the question back on the lawyer. What is written in the law? The lawyer quotes the Shema from Deuteronomy.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus responds that the lawyer has given the right answer. Just do this, follow these commands, and he will live. But the lawyer, knowing that he has not gotten to Jesus, pushes back, trying to justify himself, trying to save face.

“Okay, Jesus, but who is my neighbor?”

Another question. Another test. But Jesus does not answer the question. Instead, he tells a story about a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho on a road known for its lurking danger. The danger proves real, and the man is robbed and beaten almost to death. His attackers leave him by the side of the road to die. Three people passed by. One was a priest, who sees the man and crosses to the other side of the road to avoid him. The second is a Levite, and he does the same thing. The third is a Samaritan.

Let’s pause for a moment and let me point out two things: Jesus never calls the Samaritan good. He just refers to him by his ethnic and cultural designation. He is a Samaritan. But just hearing that it was a Samaritan would have riled up the people around Jesus. They would have had many associations with that, and I doubt that any of them were good. The Samaritans were enemies of the Jews. The Jews were enemies of the Samaritans. No Jew would have considered the possibility of a Samaritan being good, and probably vice versa. But the Samaritan does not follow the lead of the first two men and cross to the other side of the road. The Samaritan was moved with pity and compassion for this man left to die. The Samaritan does not walk away from the man; he goes to him. He pours oil and wine on his wounds and bandages them. He puts the man on his own animal and brings him to an inn and cares for him there. The next day, when he must leave again, he gives the innkeeper money to continue taking care of the injured man, and he promises to give him whatever more he spends when he returns. Jesus ends the story here, but now he asks the crucial question, the test question that the lawyer probably dreaded as much as I dreaded my bible quizzes.

“Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fill into the hands of the robbers?”

“The one who showed him mercy.” “Go and do likewise.”

Jesus doesn’t answer the lawyer’s question, not really, not directly. He does not fall into the trap the lawyer set of trying to define neighbor because it seems to me that what the lawyer really wanted was for Jesus to define boundaries. Tell me who is my neighbor, Jesus, and more importantly who is not. Tell me who I must treat as neighbor and who I do not. Show me the boundary lines of neighborliness that I am allowed not to cross. But Jesus turns all of this on its head, as he always did, and essentially said, there are no boundaries. You are a good Jew, and in this story two good Jews, two religious professionals saw the man and kept on going. Others have tried to defend the Priest and the Levites’ actions by saying that the Law prohibited them from touching a potentially dead body and becoming unclean themselves. But Dr. Amy Jill-Levine, a renowned Jewish studies and New Testament scholar, debunks this saying that the Law always allowed people to come to the aid of a hurt person without risk of defilement. The Priest and the Levite could have helped. They chose not to. They messed up, just as anyone of any culture or place or time can mess up. They chose not to be a neighbor to the man on the side of the road. But to the shock of everyone listening, especially to the shock of that lawyer, a Samaritan stops and helps. A Samaritan cares for the injured man. A Samaritan binds up his wounds and puts him on his own animal and takes him to an inn and continues to care for him, continues to show mercy. Because of the Samaritan that road, that dangerous, treacherous road became holy ground. Because that’s where mercy was shown.

If you can make all A’s and still flunk life, then that lawyer was facing the distinct possibility of flunking life. He knew the law, but he couldn’t pass the test of mercy. And Jesus would not be caught in his trap of defining boundaries around neighbor. He would not be tripped up by a quiz that wanted him to say specifically who is a neighbor and who is not. He would not give the lawyer the benefit of thinking that he could leave some for dead and not others. Have mercy was his response. You want to know who is a neighbor. It is the one who has mercy, who shows mercy, who lives mercy. Have mercy. To be a neighbor is to have mercy. To recognize a neighbor is to recognize the one who has mercy, even if it’s the one you least expect. Dr. King said, and I paraphrase, that the Priest and the Levite both thought about what would happen to them if they acted, but the Samaritan thought about what would happen to the man if he didn’t act.

Have mercy. That’s the test. Maybe you dread it. Maybe you feel unprepared and ill-equipped. But that’s the test and to have mercy is the way you avoid flunking life. Have mercy. Recognize that the whole world is filled with neighbors and we are called to have mercy on them all. Have mercy just as God has mercy on us. And when you have mercy, when you show mercy, when you live mercy, you will be on holy ground.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

 

Face to Face -- July Sermon Series

Genesis 32:22-32

July 13, 2025

            The Pink Panther movies were popular when I was a kid. Peter Sellers starred as Inspector Clouseau, who was a bumbling but very funny detective. While I was more attuned to the Saturday morning Pink Panther cartoon, I do remember one aspect of each film. Clouseau had a manservant named Cato. Cato was a master of martial arts, and it was his job to attack Clouseau at unexpected times. This was meant to keep the inspector vigilant and, on his toes, when dealing with criminals. What was funny is that Cato would ambush him anyplace, any time, even at home. But if the telephone rang or someone came to the door, he would immediately return to his role as the devoted valet. 

            When I read this story about Jacob wrestling this mysterious man by the river Jabbok, the ongoing Cato/Clouseau ambush attack came to my mind. It's not that I find humor in this story from Genesis. It's not a funny story. But reading about the struggle between Jacob and this man, I can't help but get the sense that this was an ambush of sorts. I doubt the man presented himself to Jacob and said, "Hey Jacob, wanna wrestle?" And I don’t think it was a friendly match between buddies. It was a slugfest. 

            It is nighttime and Jacob has sent his family, his wives and children, ahead of him. He is left alone, and in the dark a man wrestles with him. I cannot imagine how exhausting it would have been to wrestle back and forth like this for hours. And it must have been hours, because it is just before daybreak that this man realizes that Jacob won’t be overcome, so he touches his hip and dislocates that joint between hip and thigh.

As the sky around them begins to change from dark to light, the man demands release. But Jacob won’t let him go. Jacob was given the name, Jacob, because it means grasper, and he was born grasping, clinging and clutching his older brother's heel. Jacob, the grasper, refuses to let the man go. He wants a blessing. Jacob has stood his ground after all. The mysterious man who attacked him in the dark of night could not best Jacob. The man demands release and Jacob demands a blessing. The man asks Jacob his name. When Jacob replies, "Jacob," the man gives him a new name; Israel. The name Israel, according to the text, means one who has striven against God and humans and prevailed. 

This is the story that we are wrestling with today. It is a strange and a somewhat disturbing story. However, I think to understand a little better what's happening in this text, we have to know more about the larger context that surrounds this story. What events led up to this nighttime wrestling match?

Jacob, who ran away from his home after tricking his twin brother, Esau, and stealing Esau’s blessing by tricking his father, Isaac, was tricked by Laban, into marrying both of his daughters, Leah and Rachel. Jacob has now worked for his father-in-law for 20 years. While Jacob was growing his family, he was also growing Laban's flocks. Jacob's labor for Laban has made Laban wealthy and prosperous. When Rachel, who was barren for so long, gives birth to Joseph, Jacob goes to Laban and asks to be released from his bonds to Laban. He wishes to return to his homeland, to make things right with his brother Esau.

Laban agrees to divide the flocks with Jacob. Jacob will take the goats, the sheep that are striped, spotted or speckled and leave the rest for Laban. Laban orders that any animal with those markings must be separated from the flocks and herds before Jacob can take them. Jacob knows what his father-in-law has done, and in either the first instance of genetic engineering or through some sort of supernatural trickery, is able to manipulate the animals as they breed. So more lambs and kids are born striped, speckled or spotted than any other kind. Thus they belong to Jacob. 

            Jacob hears Laban's sons grumbling that he has more of their father’s wealth than he deserves. He also knows that his esteem in Laban's eyes has decreased significantly. Being told by God in a dream that it's time to leave, Jacob talks it over with Leah and Rachel. They pack up, people and animals alike, and leave early in the morning. When Laban hears about it, he chases after them. Amid the packing and the leaving, Rachel stole her father's household gods. Laban thinks Jacob stole them and accuses him of it when he finally catches up to them. Jacob doesn't know what Rachel has done, so he tells Laban to freely search for them. Rachel hides the gods by stuffing them into a saddle bag and sitting on them. When her father comes into her tent to search, she apologizes for not standing up in the presence of her father, but she is "in the way of women." When Laban is satisfied that his gods are not with Jacob and company, they make a covenant and mark it with two pillars of stone. I find it almost funny that the beginning words of their covenant – “The Lord watch between you and me, when we are absent one from the other" – are used on matching necklaces to be shared with friends, and embroidered on sentimental little pillows. However when you read them in their actual context, it's not a sweet sentiment between father and son-in-law. It is an uneasy truce at best. And before he leaves, Laban reminds Jacob that if he does anything to hurt Laban's daughters, God will know.

Laban and his posse leave, and now Jacob must face the prospect of seeing his brother again. He divides his entourage into groups and sends them ahead one after the other, both to offer gifts to Esau, and most likely to show off his wealth and resources. Finally he sends his wives and children ahead, and we come at last to our part of the story. Jacob, alone at night, on the run from one angry man whom he tricked and deceived and about to face another, Esau, also tricked and deceived by Jacob. Whatever Jacob was thinking or feeling in that darkness on that night, he most likely did not realize that the ground beneath his feet was holy.             

            Up until this moment, I’ve always seen Jacob as sort of the Justin Bieber of the Old Testament. I can't understand why a punk like him has been chosen in the first place, and there’s something about him that makes me think he needs to be smacked upside his head. But something about this night is different. Something about this encounter with the divine is different. The encounter with God that he had many years before when he dreamed of staircases and angels was a holy moment to be sure, but it was merely a portent of what was to come. That dream didn't seem to fundamentally change Jacob. But this night is different. As one commentator noted on this night, in the darkness, faced with an unexpected ambush, for the first time Jacob, the trickster, the deceiver, doesn't try to weasel his way out of a confrontation. He doesn't bargain or try to slip away. He wrestles the man face-to-face. He struggles. He stands his ground as surely as the other man stands his. And from those dark hours of struggle and wrestling, as the new day dawns, Jacob is changed. He is transformed. He becomes Israel. He has been wrestling on holy ground.

            But how could it be holy ground if Jacob walks away with a limp? Wouldn’t meeting God face-to-face on holy ground be a healing moment instead of a wounding one? Jacob’s wound is not temporary either. He will limp for the rest of his life. He will bear a physical reminder of his night spent on holy ground. Maybe this seems counterintuitive to us, because surely we should not walk away from holy ground with scars. We should walk away from holy ground, from encountering the divine, with shining faces not scarred and limping. But if you’ve lived for any amount of time, you bear the scars of that life, don’t you? And it is our scars and our healed over wounds that tell our stories. The scars on my knees tell the story of how many times I tried to skateboard down the street I grew up on. I have a scar on the top of my foot from the summer when I was expecting Zach and tried to cut rhubarb and dropped the knife.

            And I bear other scars too, scars that can’t be seen but are there. Scars from the long dark nights of the soul. Scars that come from wrestling with God and my inner demons and my fears and doubts. Scars that were made while I stood on holy ground, even if I didn’t know it was holy ground at the time. Because standing on holy ground is not always nice. It is not necessarily a place of optimism or sweetness and light. Holy ground may be the place where we wrestle and struggle and strive with God. Holy ground may be the ground we stand on when we wrestle with our fears and our failures, when we wrestle with the parts of ourselves we would rather not come to the light. Standing on holy ground may leave us limping.

Meeting God on holy ground did not leave Jacob unscathed. But he was transformed. He walked away from this encounter with God, away from this holy ground not only with a limp but with a blessing and with a new name. Jacob, who has been living up to his name his whole life as a grasper of others, a trickster, a cunning deceiver, now bears the name Israel – one who has striven with God and with humans and prevailed. Israel is the name that he will live into and live up to from this moment on.

Holy ground, the places and times when we encounter God, reveals our call and reveals ourselves. Holy ground can be uncomfortable and even frightening, but it can transform us, body and soul. Thanks be to God for those times we stand on holy ground, for those long nights when we wrestle with God, for those encounters with God that transform us even if that transformation comes with a limp. Thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

Holy Ground -- July Sermon Series

Exodus 3:1-6

July 6, 2025

 

            When Brent and I went to Richmond, Virginia in May to attend a conference at my seminary, I realized that I had not been back to my alma mater or to Richmond in general in 25 years. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to go back, it’s just been because, you know, life. Family, work, distance, money, time, life. All those factors and more have made it hard to get back to the seminary and the city that I loved. So, it was great to get to make the trip this Spring and show Brent the place where I encountered my burning bush.

            You heard me correctly. I’ve tried to describe what I’m about to describe countless times, and I’m never sure I’ve given a clear account but I’m going to try again. I moved to Richmond not to attend seminary but for a job. The job was terrible, but I found my way to a Presbyterian Church and my life was transformed. The job went away, which was both terrifying and a blessing, and I was scrambling to find another one. I’d heard through folks at church that the Presbyterian seminary in town was hiring. So, resumé in hand, I went to the school to apply. I parked in front of the main building and walked around the corner of that building trying to get oriented to the campus when I was stopped short.

            This is an old seminary in an old neighborhood. At the top of Watts, which is the main administration building, there are gargoyles watching over the campus. There is a quad, which is just what the name implies – a large rectangle of grass surround on all four sides by buildings – the library, dorms, the chapel, faculty offices located in old houses. It’s very pretty but there’s nothing extraordinary about it, about any of it. But when I walked around that corner, saw the quad, saw the other buildings, I was overwhelmed with this intense feeling, intuition, deep-seated knowledge – there are no suitable words – and whatever this sensation was, it stopped me in my tracks. I just stood there and looked and looked and looked. The seminary can be intimidating, but I didn’t feel intimidated. I felt overwhelmed and overcome. In that moment, I just knew in a way that I had never experienced before or since I must be on that campus. I had to be in that community. I had to be on those grounds and in those buildings. Whatever that feeling or intuition or sudden knowledge was, it was powerful. But it was only in hindsight that I recognized it for what it was: I was being called. That sounds hokey, I know, but I believe it to be true. I was hearing, feeling, intuiting a call. There was no deep voice calling my name.

“Amy, I want you to be a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA).”

I didn’t actually see any bushes, burning or otherwise. I just knew I needed to be there. At that moment, I thought it would be through a job. It wasn’t until a month or two later that I began to contemplate being there as a student. But that’s what would eventually happen. Whatever it was that happened to me in that moment, whatever it was that I felt or knew or understood, it was a call. It was my Moses moment, my metaphorical burning bush.

Moses encountered an actual burning bush.

He was out tending the flock for his father-in-law, Jethro. He led the flock beyond the wilderness to the mountain Horeb. We, as the readers and hearers of this story, know that Horeb is the mountain of God, but there is no indication that Moses understood that he was encountering the divine. Again, we also know that what is making the bush burn is no ordinary fire but the flame of the angel of the Lord. But Moses does not know that. What Moses knows is that there is a bush that appears to be burning, but the fire is not consuming it. It’s not being turned into ash as it burns. It grabs his attention, it piques his curiosity, so he decides to go and see what this burning bush is all about.

“I must turn aside and look at this great sight and see why the bush is not burned up.”

Biblical scholar Terence Fretheim points out that Moses was not frightened by the sight of the burning bush. He was not repelled by it either. He does not seem to think that there is anything godly about it. He is merely curious, and God uses his curiosity to draw him closer. As Fretheim wrote, “curiosity leads to call.” It is only when Moses’ curiosity compels him to go closer that God begins to speak to him.

And when God speaks to him, he tells Moses to remove his sandals for the place where Moses is standing is holy ground. Again, there is nothing to indicate that this is holy ground. God chooses to call Moses away from anything overtly religious or sacred. There are no temples nearby. There is no religious altar or marking to designate this as holy ground. But it is holy because this is where God and Moses meet. This is where God identifies himself to Moses as being the God of his father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. If we were to keep reading in the text, God tells Moses that he has seen the misery of his people. He has witnessed their suffering and heard their cries. So God is calling Moses to be his messenger to Pharaoh. God is calling Moses to lead his people out of enslavement and into freedom.

This is a big calling, bigger than Moses was prepared for, bigger than he wanted or thought he could handle. And God has yet to reveal the full scope of Moses’ call. Moses will argue with God. Moses will tell God that he has no business being the Lord’s messenger. He is not a gifted speaker; in fact he struggles with speaking. Moses tells God that God should call his brother Aaron instead. Aaron can speak to Pharaoh. Aaron can do this job much better than Moses can. Oh, and by the way, God, if I do this and it’s still an if, the people are going to want to know who this God is who sent me. They are going to want to know your name.

God tells Moses that his name is “I Am who I Am.” Tell the people “I Am has sent me to you.”

This name God gives Moses has been studied and pondered for years, centuries. Grammatically, it could also be translated as “I Will Be who I Will Be.” Tell them “I Will Be” sent you. Or it could be translated as “I Create who I Create.” In other words, the name of God is bigger and broader and fuller than what our language or any language can communicate.

This is the call of Moses. This is the call that came from his curiosity to see a bush that was burning but not being consumed. And while the call itself is essential and important, I want to circle back to the ground, the holy ground.

It seems to me that what made the ground holy was not the presence of the bush or the mountain Horeb. There was nothing in that particular spot that designated it as holy. It was holy because it is where God chose to be. It was holy not only because it is where God chose to be, but because it is where God chose to be and where God called Moses. What made the ground holy is because God and Moses encountered each other there. It was holy because that is the site of the encounter between divine and human.  

This broadens the scope of holy ground, doesn’t it? Holy ground is not necessarily ground that is set apart for the divine. Holy ground is wherever God meets us and where we meet God. Holy ground is wherever God calls us, and we recognize that call. When I stood on that spot leading to the quad of the seminary, I was standing on holy ground. I didn’t know that, not intellectually anyway. Something in me recognized that I was standing on more than brick and concrete. I was being called even though I didn’t fully understand or comprehend that call. But it was holy ground.

If you are comfortable and able, slip off your shoes for a moment. Let your feet touch the ground beneath you. Look down and look at where your feet are. Maybe it’s where your feet are most Sundays. You are sitting in the pew or the chair where you always sit. The ground beneath you is carpet or floor, just like it always is. But I think something more is happening in this moment. I think the ground where we are standing is holy ground, because God is calling us in this moment. God is calling us in this moment, in this place, on this ground. God is calling us to hear the cries of his people, to see the suffering in the world and to respond – with our prayers, with the work of our hands, with our voices, with our whole beings. We are called and because we are called this ground beneath our feet is holy. We are standing on holy ground. Wherever God calls us, wherever God encounters us is holy ground. And because God calls us through others, those people are holy as well. It seems to me that God infuses all of creation with holiness, if only we could be curious enough to turn aside and see, if only we could recognize it in ourselves and in others. Take off your shoes because this is holy ground. Thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”

Amen.

 

Along the Road

Luke 9:51-62

June 29, 2025

 

            I was a communications major in college. My focus was on radio and television, and I had an English Writing minor. That meant that when I entered the real world after graduation, I was qualified to be an assistant to the Public Relations Director for a talent and booking agency in Nashville. Being the assistant meant that I did the grunt work of the job. I answered phones and brought coffee to our clients when they came to the office. I collected headshots and other press items from other assistants to other artists and directors to keep our stock up-to-date. I ran errands. I took the CEO’s wife’s car to the shop. And it turned out that when that same wife wanted to make venison chili for the entire office, I was the one who had to locate the venison.

            It was not a glamorous job by any stretch of the imagination, but I learned a lot. I learned by doing and I learned by listening. Mainly I learned by listening to my boss. She was great. A hard worker. A tough boss. But we became good friends, and nobody could sell like she could. Now, technically, PR is not selling. Except that it is. You’re not selling a product like dish soap, but you are selling people on the talent you represent. One of our responsibilities was creating tour press for some of the artists we represented. That meant that we had to send out press releases and schedule interviews for the upcoming shows in the cities and towns where the talent was touring. So you’d have to reach out to newspapers and radio and tv stations. My boss was a master at creating amazing tour press. She could talk to anybody about anything. She could make the most mediocre album sound like it was destined to go platinum. I would listen to her do her pitch and just marvel. She was a PR dream come true, and she knew how to spin information just so and make it work, make it believable and exciting. I would listen to her and marvel because I did not have that talent. And at the risk of sounding irreverent and sacrilegious, neither did Jesus.

            If you are looking for a lesson in selling discipleship in a neat and happy package, do not turn to our passage from Luke’s gospel as guidance. Jesus’ approach to would-be disciples is a public relations nightmare. He is not interested in making following him sound palatable. He clearly does not want to market discipleship as fun or easy. He puts no spin on what it costs to follow. He just speaks the truth, the hard truth, the messy truth, and keeps on going.

            What we learn about discipleship from this passage is that if you want to follow Jesus, you better really think it through because nothing about it is going to be easy or tidy or nice. It’s going to require total commitment on our part. Even to the point of giving up our lives for the sake of following Jesus. 

            But are we ready to do that? Are we prepared to take that step, set off down that path, and be willing to give up everything, even our lives, to follow Jesus?

            That’s the question that Jesus has for the three would-be followers in our passage from Luke. The time for the cross has drawn near so Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the place where his last days would be lived out, where he would stand up to the powers and principalities, not with violence nor bloodshed but with love and the power that comes from being the suffering servant.

            Jesus has set his face. This is not just a point about the direction Jesus has chosen to take. Setting his face means that Jesus is going to Jerusalem no matter what. Jesus is fully aware of what waits for him in Jerusalem, but he has set his face and there is no looking back. This is not the road most people would choose willingly. I suspect that many of us would choose to go anywhere but Jerusalem if we could foresee what lies ahead. But that isn’t Jesus. Jesus knows that taking the road to Jerusalem will make all the difference.

            So, the scene is set, and Jesus is on his way. In the first part of this narrative Luke tells us that Jesus sends messengers ahead of him. They stop in a Samaritan village but are not welcomed there because of Jesus’ destination. The enmity between Jews and Samaritans was deep and wide, so I suspect that just the idea that Jesus was going to Jerusalem, the center of Judaism, was enough reason for the Samaritans to refuse him welcome. When James and John witness this they are outraged and ask Jesus if he wants them to rain down fire on the village.  But Jesus rebukes them, not the villagers like we might expect. Rejection is part and parcel of following Jesus, and to respond with anger to anyone who disagrees with you or rejects your message is to spend more energy on anger than on love. Therefore, there will be no raining down fire on villages.

            They travel on, and along the road the first of the would-be disciples approaches them and declares to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.”

            Seeing as how Jesus’ disciples often made the decision to follow him in an instant, it is surprising that Jesus doesn’t immediately take this person up on his offer. But Jesus replies in an unexpected way, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” It’s as if Jesus is asking this person, “Are you sure about this? Are you really sure? Following me is not about comfort and stability. Following me means that you are not guaranteed even a pillow to lay your head on at night. Are you sure you want to follow?

            Then Jesus calls to another person, “Follow me.” This person tells Jesus that he must first go and bury his father. Jesus’ responses continue to surprise. “Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

            Scholars far smarter than me have been trying to work out the exact meaning of Jesus’ words about letting the dead bury the dead. Is this about the spiritual dead burying the physically dead? Or something else? But I’m not sure understanding his exact meaning is really the point. I think it is more about understanding his urgency. If you want to follow me, you must let go of everything that holds you here, even burying your father.

            Jesus approaches still another person who tells him that he will gladly follow him but first let him say goodbye to the loved ones back home. For the third time, Jesus responds with the unexpected, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.”

            Again, Jesus seems to be telling these potential followers that they must let go of all that holds them where they are. What they consider priorities are really obstacles to following. What they think are responsibilities are really excuses to prevent them from following him.

            Think about the first person. He wants to follow. He’s eager to follow. He seeks discipleship with Jesus voluntarily. But Jesus issues him a stern warning. Even animals have a place to call home, but the Son of Man doesn’t. And the implication of this is that anyone who follows Jesus will suffer the same consequences. So are you ready to follow Jesus, to be without security, without home? Are you ready to face the trials and tribulations that will inevitably be encountered on the road of discipleship? Have you counted the cost?

            The next prospective disciples are also willing to follow Jesus, BUT. I will follow you, Jesus, but I have duties I must fulfill. But I have responsibilities I must take care of. But I have priorities. I have prior commitments. I have a long to-do list and very little checked off. However Jesus wants them to understand that discipleship, following him, is not something you put off until its convenient. It will never be convenient. You can’t check off discipleship on a list of tasks and think that it’s over and done. It is ongoing. It is all the time. It is not a priority, it must be your top priority.

            Following Jesus along this road comes with a cost. Have you counted the cost?

The Biblical scholars I’ve read agree that Jesus’ responses are harsh. They are, and it would be easy to try and explain this harshness away by saying that Jesus was using hyperbole, deliberate exaggeration to make his point. But that doesn’t do justice to Jesus’ words. Jesus’ face is set toward Jerusalem. He’s going. He has chosen this road, and he knows what lies ahead. He’s told the disciples, twice, what it means for him to be the Son of God. He will suffer. He will die. He will be raised again. Jesus refuses to put a pleasant PR spin on following him. Jesus knows what’s coming, so there is no time for waffling. There is no such thing as casual discipleship.   

There is no such thing as casual discipleship, and that should give us pause. Jesus wasn’t speaking in hyperbole. He wasn’t exaggerating to make a point. Discipleship is hard, uncomfortable, inconvenient, and it could cost you everything. There is no spin on this that can make it nice and tidy and easy. There is no way to sell this so that it is palatable and polite. Discipleship is hard. Following is hard. Choosing the road that Jesus chose is hard. I think Jesus really means what he is saying, and that gives me pause. That makes me uncomfortable, because I know that I do not follow him with this level of commitment. I like comfort. I enjoy having a soft place to lay my head. I am good at nesting. Please don’t ask me to lay aside my to-do list. Please don’t ask me to reprioritize. There are some costs that I am still not willing to count.

An acquaintance that I met on a study trip in seminary many years ago, joked with me about the serious signatures of most pastors. He wasn’t talking about our names. He was talking about the ways we end letters or emails. Like in my weekly emails to the church, I always sign off by writing, “Peace and blessings.” Other ministers will write, “In Christ,” or “Serving Christ,” or “In Christ’s holy name,” and so on and so on. But this person joked that when he became a full-fledged minister, he was going to sign off with “Serving him leisurely in my spare time.”

We both laughed at the irony of this, but looking back I wonder if that signature is truer than I care to admit. Do I serve leisurely? Is my commitment more on the spare time side and not on the this is my top priority side? Have I really counted the cost?

So, what is the good news in all this? What is the good news in this passage that gives us pause? What is the good news about following Jesus when it’s hard and uncomfortable and even scary? The good news is that we’re here. That we’re listening. That we keep on trying. We may fail and falter, but we come back. We continue along the road. I’m not trying to let us off the hook, but I am trying to trust in the power of grace. I trust that the call to follow continues to be offered. I trust that God’s love is bigger than my mistakes, my misgivings, and my missteps. And I trust that the Holy Spirit is still moving, still working, through me and in me, through us and in us. And that gives me hope. Hope that even when I mess up and fall away, Jesus still calls, Jesus still challenges, Jesus still wants us to follow. That is good news indeed. Thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

 

 

How Much God Has Done

Luke 8:26-39

June 22, 2025

 

            When I was 7, I wrote a poem entitled A Wish. My mother saved this poem with the intention of embroidering it and giving it to me as a gift, which she did. It is in my office right now. Mom told me when she gave it to me that she wanted me to have proof that I was a well-adjusted child. We can dig into my mother’s reasons for thinking it necessary for me to know that I was a well-adjusted child in another sermon, but here is the content of my poem, A Wish.

            “I wish I were a teacher. Or even a nurse. Or a mother with children all around her. I wish I had a husband who was a millionaire. But I am just glad to be me. Because Amy Busse is me and that is that.”

            If I could make a wish today, it would be to talk with my seven-year-old self and discover what it was that made her happy to be her. What did she know about herself that made her so fundamentally content with the person she was? How did the seven-year-old Amy have such a solid understanding of what it means to be Amy? Because I can tell you that since that time I haven’t always had that understanding.

            I hope that it doesn’t shock or concern any of you that I admit that truth; admit that I have struggled with understanding myself, knowing myself, of having periods of identity crises, however that may be defined. I think it probably makes me normal. I think that one of the challenges we often face as we grow up and grow older is trying to figure out who we are amid all the good and the bad that we encounter and endure, all the life we experience. The self-assuredness I had at seven was lost to the deep self-consciousness of adolescence. It began to come back as I entered adulthood, but it was never the same because I was not the same. Who is the same?  Our living changes us, challenges us. All that we experience, the good and bad, the dramatic and the everyday shapes us. What we learn, what we see, who we meet, who we are in relationship with, friendship with, the loves and the losses, the joys and the heartbreaks – all those pieces and parts of our lives shape us, shape our identities. At different times in my life, at turning points along the way, in seminal moments, and in everyday reflections I have wrestled with the question of “Who am I?”  Sometimes my answer to that question has come with grief as well as hope, pain along with pride.

            I realize the pain I’ve felt during my times of identity wrestling is a far cry from the pain this man, this demoniac, endures. We often write off the stories of demon possession in scripture as being undiagnosed mental illness, as though mental illness is so easily treated and dealt with today. But the reality is that mental illness still carries a terrible stigma in our culture and context, so it isn’t as though we fully understand or accept it now. And while I am not sure what I believe about actual demons, I do agree with theologian Debie Thomas, who wrote that if we understand demon possession in a broader, more general way, as that which tries to separate and keep us from God, to keep us dead, when God wants us fully alive, then we are under bombardment every day by demonic forces. And they are coming after us and at us from all possible directions.

            But whether this man was under literal demonic possession or experiencing a severe and ongoing psychotic breakdown or both, he was in pain. He was in physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual pain. Think about how awful this man’s life must have been. He is described as a man of the city. Does this mean that once upon a time he was an upright citizen? Fully functioning and capable? A person with family and friends, a profession, a life? But something changed for him. For a long time, he was without adequate clothing and shelter. He roamed among the tombs, which was probably its own sort of wasteland and wilderness. He was kept under guard but was that more for his protection or for the other people in the city.

He was bound with shackles and chains, but they could not hold him. He would break out of them and be driven by his demons “into the wilds.” The demons drove him to break loose of his bindings, but he could never break free. There was no liberation. Whatever had once made this man a whole person, a unique child of God, seemed to have been destroyed forever. It was a nightmarish existence indeed.

            But then … Jesus arrives. Jesus and his disciples have been traveling in a boat across the sea. While they were sailing they were assailed by a terrible storm, but Jesus calmed it with a word. Now that the storm has subsided and he and his disciples have crossed over to dry land, Jesus is confronted with a different kind of storm – the storm of possession that rages inside this man. 

            This story is found in all three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. Luke tells us that when the man sees Jesus, the demons in him cry out,

“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” 

The demons recognize Jesus as the Son of God before the people do, and this is not the first instance of that happening. I find it interesting that, if I’m reading it correctly, Jesus has made at least one attempt at commanding the demons to leave the man. It’s almost as if their words are in response to his command. What changes everything is when Jesus asks the man, “What is your name?”  His answer? “Legion.”

            To us, hearing the word legion probably translates to “a great number” or “many” or “a whole bunch.” But the people witnessing this encounter would have heard it differently. They would have had a crystal clear picture of what a legion was. These were people living under Roman occupation. A legion of Roman soldiers was a troop of 5,000 to 6,000 men. That goes well beyond my initial assumption of what a legion might look like.   

            If the demons possessing this man are legion, then how could there be anything left of him? Whoever he was before surely was gone. But Jesus asking that question, “what is your name?” opens the door for the demons to leave and calls the man back to himself. The demons did not want to leave the man. They did not want to go back to the abyss of chaos and evil. As Debie Thomas also pointed out, even evil and chaos resist evil and chaos. The legion of demons  begs Jesus to let them enter a herd of swine feeding on a hillside. Jesus gives them permission. The demons rush out of the man, enter the pigs and the entire herd runs down the steep bank into the lake and drown. 

            This is the point in the story where I think many of us stop listening because we’re horrified at either the animal cruelty that’s involved here or the lost livelihood to the people who own those pigs, or both. It horrifies me too, I promise. But right or wrong, I think we need to get past that and pay attention to what happens next. We need to pay attention to the people’s response to the man. The swineherds have witnessed this, so they run off to tell everyone what they have seen and heard. The people come out to see for themselves and what do they find? This man, who had been so completely possessed by demons that his existence – for that’s all it was – was now truly alive. He who had been naked was clothed. He who had raged and fought and broken every chain that bound him was in his right mind. He who could not be still, be quiet, be calm was now seated at the feet of Jesus, the place where disciples sit. This man, who had been lost to the demons that warred inside him, was now returned and restored.

What do we think the people’s reaction should have been? Do we think they should have rejoiced, celebrated, praised God? Whatever we might think their response should have been, we are all probably disappointed at what it was. They did not run to the man with tears in their eyes, welcoming him back into the fold. They did not rejoice at his restoration. They did not praise God. They did not thank Jesus for giving them back one of their own. Their response was fear. They were afraid. Luke says that they were “seized with great fear.” To be seized with great fear sounds almost like another kind of demon possession doesn’t it?

            The people were seized with great fear, so they did not invite Jesus and the disciples back to their homes for dinner. There were no parties thrown or feasts given. They ask Jesus to leave. Look, Jesus, could you and your friends just go? Could you just leave us in peace and stop changing everything we know and understand? So Jesus gets back in the boat to return to the other side, to Galilee. The man – now healed and whole – begs Jesus to let him go along. But Jesus tells him to go home and tell the people at home how much God has done for him. Jesus commissions the man, the restored man, the whole man, to stay where he was and witness to the people. Make them hear you. Make them see you. Let them know how much God has done for you.

            We may believe this story doesn’t have a place in our contemporary lives. We may believe that we can explain away what the man suffered by calling it mental illness. We may think that that was then and this is now, so what does this story have to teach us? Where in this story, this strange, baffling, out-there there story do we find good news?

            Maybe this story is good news because it challenges us to confront our own fear. How have we been seized with great fear in the face of what God has done and is doing for us? How many times have we chosen the demons of death that we know rather than step into the life we don’t? How many times have we, again as Debie Thomas wrote, settled for tolerance instead of challenging ourselves to love, to really, really, really love?

            And maybe the good news is that this story calls us to remember how much God has done for us. Done, already, past tense. What has God already done for us? What life has God already given us? What healing has God already offered? What transformation has God already accomplished in our midst, in our community, in our lives?

            If I were to look over my whole life to this point, from that seven-year-old I was to the person I am now, I could name so many things that God has done for me. I could point to so many times when God has been there, with me, with, me, pulling me, pushing me, calling me, comforting me, challenging me, confronting me. And that’s just my one life. What about you? What about us? What about others who need to hear from us? Because Jesus didn’t tell the man to go home and praise God and stop there. Jesus told the man to go home and tell others. Tell others the good news. Tell others how he was unshackled and unbound and loved and made whole. Tell others his name and ask them theirs.

            We are called to witness to others what God has done for us, through our words, through our actions, through our lives. And we are called to help unbind and unshackle, to loose and to love. There is no such thing as privatized salvation. Salvation is for us, and salvation is for the world. It can all begin with one simple question. What is your name?

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

 

 

 

Wisdom -- Trinity Sunday and Father's Day

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

June 15, 2025

“O God grant me …

The Serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

The Courage to change the things I can,

And the Wisdom to know the difference.”

 

            Some of you probably recognize this by its most common name, “The Serenity Prayer.” I tend to associate it with Twelve Step Groups. Perhaps you do too. And it is also widely attributed to theologian Dr. Reinhold Neibuhr. But there is a longer version of this prayer, which is less well known.

It is, “God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it, trusting that You will make all things right, if I surrender to Your will, so that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.”

I struggle with both versions, not in what they say. They are both beautiful and hopeful and speak to my mind and my heart. But I struggle with them, because reading them and hearing them and finding a moment’s peace in them is one thing but putting them into practice is a whole other ballgame.

It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Beautiful. Lovely. Poetic. Courage to change the things I can. Inspiring. Hopeful. Encouraging. And the Wisdom to know the difference. Well, there’s where you lost me. It’s the Wisdom part. That last part of the shortened prayer sounds spot on, doesn’t it? I just need the wisdom to know the difference between what I can change and what I can’t. But how much time have I wasted in my life trying to change the things I cannot change, and lacking the courage to change the things I can, but believing that I was doing the opposite? How much time have I spent trying to change what cannot be changed? How much good could I have done – in my life and in the life of others – had I found the courage to change the things I can?  It’s the wisdom to know the difference that throws me off. Where do we find the wisdom? And what is wisdom anyway? It seems to be more  than knowledge or fact or intelligence. But if it is more, what is it? What is wisdom?

With this question in mind, and in preparation for this sermon, I put out a question on a clergy group that I follow on Facebook, asking others, “What does Wisdom mean to you?” Here are some of the responses that I received. “Common sense.” “Wisdom is knowing the only person I can control is myself and that is through the power of the Holy Spirit.” “Wisdom is found in the balance between logic and feeling or head and heart.” “Foolish people blame others for their mistakes. Smart people learn from their mistakes. Wise people learn from the mistakes other people make.” “Wisdom is a deep knowing and discernment that – from and with the Spirit – allows a person to translate skills/information/events into fruitful and shalom-filled living.” “Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit not a vegetable. Wisdom is knowing that tomatoes don’t belong in a fruit salad.”

And one of the best pieces of wisdom that my mother ever imparted to me – and she imparted quite a bit – was this. When Phoebe was a baby, I called my mom upset because I had read something in one of my baby books that contradicted what I was doing from instinct to care for my little one. My mom listened to my fears and then she said, “Amy, baby books are great, but the problem is the babies never read the same books that you do.” Wisdom.

So, wisdom is knowledge plus experience. Wisdom is discernment. Wisdom is balancing logic and heart. Wisdom is learning from the mistakes of others. Wisdom is knowing that a tomato doesn’t belong in a fruit salad. Wisdom is trusting your instincts when those instincts are connected to a deep love. Wisdom is trusting the Holy Spirit for a guidance that goes deeper than facts. And, to take our verses from Proverbs seriously, Wisdom is not only connected to God and creation, but Wisdom is also a gift of and part of the Spirit, part of the trinity, and has its deep origins in the creation itself.

Proverbs is a lovely but odd book in our canon. Some of this book is made up of what we tend to think of as proverbs, short, pithy statements that you might find in a fortune cookie. But other parts of this book are what we have before us today, a lengthier narrative that doesn’t just proscribe wise advice but offers a deeper understanding and description of Wisdom with a capital W.

In these verses from Chapter 8, Wisdom, described in both the Hebrew and Greek translations, as feminine, stands on a high place besides the crossroads, besides the busy intersection where people travel and encounter one another. She stands beside the gates of the town, another busy place where people would be coming and going on a regular basis, and she calls out to the people. She cries out to all the people who live. Wisdom does not stand at a distance from the people. She stands by the busiest places, the intersections of everyday life, and she calls out to the people to hear her, to be instructed by her.

In the later verses of our passage, Wisdom speaks of her origins in the beginning of creation itself. “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of acts long ago.” Wisdom was there before the earth was even formed. Wisdom was there before the depths were created, before there were springs overflowing with water, before mountains and hills had been shaped, before soil and fields, before the heavens, before the separation of earth from sky. When the Spirit of the Lord brooded over creation, Wisdom was in that brooding. Wisdom was beside the Lord, “like a master worker.” Wisdom was the delight of the Lord and rejoiced in the Lord and rejoiced in the human race.

So Wisdom is both cosmic and creation. Wisdom is the delight of God and Wisdom takes delight in humanity. Wisdom is the gift of the Spirit and the Spirit. Wisdom is big and out there and Wisdom is deeply connected to our daily living. Wisdom “touches grass” as one commentator put it. She is not just some cosmic entity above and beyond us. Wisdom is here – in us, and around us, and working through us. Perhaps Wisdom is what John was referring to in the beginning of his gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”

In the language of philosophy, Wisdom is both a concept and a property. I realize that is a very heady, challenging way of trying to understand it. But then again, so is the Trinity, and this is Trinity Sunday. The day when we observe and celebrate something that is ultimately incomprehensible. And I say that after years and years of trying to understand it and impart what little understanding I have to others. But what I do sort of understand is this, Wisdom is part of the Trinity in that it is the Holy Spirit, and wisdom is also that force of love and delight that connects and binds the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in relationship to each other and to us. If Wisdom touches grass, that means that it is practical and pragmatic and is ours as well as God’s. We have access to Wisdom, capital W and wisdom, lowercase w. Wisdom is not just out there. It is here.

Remember those first verses of Proverbs. Wisdom stands by the busiest places of human life and calls out to us. She calls out to us to hear her, to heed her, to learn from her, to delight in her as she delights in us.

I know that I have probably only confused us even more when it comes to Wisdom. But it seems to me that while wisdom is something we most often gain through experience, through making mistakes and learning from them (hopefully after the first time, although often it takes several rounds of messing up for me to finally gain wisdom), the Wisdom that is the Spirit is already ours. The people who responded to my query on Facebook often mentioned that wisdom is trusting in the Spirit for discernment and help. Wisdom is allowing the Spirit to teach and lead. Wisdom comes through the Spirit connecting our experience in the world to our heart and minds. Wisdom is trusting the Spirit to be and do what it was created to be and do: a guide, a teacher, an advocate, an abiding presence, a creative, brooding wind that pushes and pulls us, a deep understanding, a gift, a delight.

And maybe as we trust the Spirit more, we will find that delight, we will celebrate that gift, we will see the Trinity as God in relationship and work harder to build relationships with each other. Maybe as we trust the Spirit with all our hearts and minds, we will be able to live out, every day, every moment, the words of the Serenity prayer.

O God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom – the trust, the relationship, the gift, the delight in the Holy Spirit – to know the difference. Thanks be to God, Father, Son, and Spirit.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.