The Whole World -- Second Sunday of Lent

 

Mark 8:31-38

February 28, 2021

 

            I’m with Peter on this one. I know, I know, it feels terrible to admit that, to myself, and even worse to admit that to all of you. I have preached this passage from Mark’s gospel several times, and I’ve preached the other gospel versions of this story as well. In the past I have empathized with Peter’s shock and struggle and his impulsive response, but even in my empathy I’ve always thought,

“Oh Peter. Just listen to Jesus. Just wait a minute. You don’t want to say what you’re saying.”

But this time around, I find myself thinking, “Tell him, Peter. Tell him. Tell Jesus to stop it. Tell Jesus to stop saying these things. Tell him to stop, Peter, because I want him to stop talking about these things too.” 

            I find myself wanting to add my voice to Peter’s. I want to raise a chorus of many voices crying out, “Stop it, Jesus. Just stop it. Stop talking about suffering. Stop talking about rejection, suffering, killing, death. I don’t want to hear it. None of us wants to hear these things. You, Jesus, you of all people are not supposed to suffer. You are not supposed to die. And what is it with this talk about resurrection? We don’t get it cause dead is dead.”

            Stop it, Jesus, just stop it. Like I said, I’m with Peter on this one.

            But why? Why am I feeling so strongly about this? In previous years and in previous sermons, I have generally focused on Peter’s response to Jesus as being a clash of expectations. Peter and the other disciples, in fact most of the Jewish population, believed that the Messiah would be the one to rescue them from the brutal Roman occupation of their land, of their homes, their minds, their hearts. The Messiah would be a great warrior. He would lead them in a battle of divine might and righteousness. He would oust the Romans once and for all, and the people would be free – free from occupation, domination, free to self-govern, free to live as they choose.

            If that was their expectation, then they were in for a shock. Because when Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus turns around and says,

“Okay, here’s what it really means to be the Messiah. I’m going to suffer, and I’m going to be rejected and betrayed by the religious leaders, and I’m going be killed, and then after three days, I’m going to rise again.”

Wait a minute? What?! You’re going to do what?! You’re going to go through what?! Jesus defies their expectations of what it means to be a Messiah, and Peter, who I suspect puts voice to what the other disciples were thinking, rebukes Jesus. Peter essentially tells Jesus that all this talk about suffering isn’t helping anybody. It’s certainly not helping Jesus’ cause. They are all on board with him being the Messiah of their expectations, but not with the Messiah that he is describing.

I do believe that all this factors into Peter’s rebuke of Jesus. There were great differences in expectations of how and what the Messiah would be. But I also wonder if Peter just couldn’t bear to hear anymore talk of suffering. I suspect that he and the other disciples would have experienced enough suffering in their own lives already. They did not want to hear about suffering from their Messiah as well.

We know some particulars about Peter. He was a fisherman. That had to have been a grueling, hard life. Fishing with large nets, risking their lives in often stormy and dangerous waters. Their livelihood, their survival, always dependent on the daily catch. It was not a job that made them rich. If anything, it just kept them going from one day to the next. That is, if they didn’t give up most of their meager income to taxes.

As we know from other passages, taxation was a huge exploitation of the people. There is a reason that we read about tax collectors and sinners. Tax collectors weren’t just sinners, they had their own category of sin. I suspect Peter and the other disciples paid far more than their share in taxes to a government that sought only to oppress them.

And as I said earlier, Israel was a people who lived under occupation. Not only would that have been physically, mentally, and economically unbearable, the fact that foreign aggressors lived and ruled on the land God had given them would have been spiritually untenable. It would have been nothing short of sacrilege.

And when Jesus talked about his own death, his own killing? Crucifixion was a common form of Roman execution. As one commentator pointed out, it is highly probable that Peter and the other disciples had seen far too many crosses in their lives already. The thought of their Rabbi, the Messiah hanging on one of his own was too much to bear.

I can’t help but wonder if Peter rebuked Jesus because he just couldn’t stomach hearing anymore about suffering. Life was suffering enough. And I can’t help but agree with Peter on this one. Suffering is never easy to bear or to hear, but never have I not wanted to Jesus’ words about his own suffering more than I do not want to hear them this year.

Usually, I try to give something up for Lent each year. Some years what I’ve given up has been more frivolous than others. Chocolate. Ice cream. Losing those things has challenged my sweet tooth, but little else. My husband made the joke that some people give up their New Year’s resolutions for Lent. But this year, I couldn’t seem to come up with something to give up that felt right. A friend and a spiritual leader in our denomination wrote on social media that this year it is okay if we can’t give something up for Lent this year. It’s okay to let ourselves off the hook on that one. We have given up so much already, it’s okay to not add any more sacrifice to all of the sacrifices we’ve already made.

Last year at this time, life as we knew it was about to dramatically change. Who would have thought that a year later we would still be struggling with this pandemic? Well, I didn’t think it. It is safe to say that we are all suffering from what a colleague termed, “pandemic fatigue.” And I realize that if that is all I’m suffering from, then I am exceedingly lucky. Luckier than far too many of my sisters and brothers in this country and in this world. Someone told me at the beginning of this that most of us would probably know at least two people who had died from Covid by the time we came through it. I couldn’t imagine that being possible at the time, and yet I know two people who have died.

Last year at this time, it was unfathomable that even 40,000 Americans might die from this, but 500,000?! I don’t even know what to do with that number. I cannot wrap my head around it. There has just been so much suffering, in our country, in the world, I don’t want to hear anymore about suffering. I don’t want to hear it.

And I suspect that Peter didn’t want to hear it either. So he rebuked Jesus, but Jesus rebuked him right back.

“Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Then Jesus told them about the picking up of their own crosses and following him. He told them that if they only worked to preserve their lives, they would lose them, but in being willing to give up their life for Jesus’ sake, for the sake of the gospel, they would save their lives. As far as the expectations that the disciples and the people may have had about the Messiah, those were worldly. Those were about freedom according to the world. They could win their freedom. They could win their land back. They could foment an uprising and oust the Romans, they could have all the worldly glory and riches and honor, but in the end that would give them nothing.

It seems to me that Jesus was telling them in no uncertain terms that there are no shortcuts. There are no shortcuts to avoid suffering. There are no shortcuts to bypass it, not even for him. If Lent reminds us of anything, it’s that there are no shortcuts for us either. We cannot get to Easter without Good Friday. We cannot get to life, full life, life with God, without going through the cross. There are no shortcuts when it comes to following Jesus. There are no shortcuts when it comes to discipleship. And I know that these are not the words of comfort that we all want to hear. I know.

And as I have thought about comfort and consolation in light of this passage, I have realized that perhaps the most comforting words we have in scripture are not found specifically in this passage, but I think they are implied. Those words are: “Do not be afraid.”

I think these words underline the message Jesus is speaking to Peter and the others, even if he does not say them aloud. Do not be afraid. You are so afraid of suffering. You are so afraid of losing your life, that you forget what living is supposed to be. You are so afraid of suffering, that you would gladly gain the whole world, but you would lose everything that really matters.

Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid to pick up your cross and follow me. Do not be afraid to lose your life for my sake. Do not be afraid of the suffering that lies ahead – for me or for you. Do not be afraid. Because when you finally give up your fear, when you finally let it go, you will not only gain the life that follows this one, but you will also, in fact, gain the whole world. You will gain the world that God created, the world that God meant to be. When you let go of your fear, when you let go of your need to preserve your life, you will be able to see the world more through the eyes of God than through your own. When you are finally ready to give up the whole world, that is when you will gain it.

There are no shortcuts or bypasses through suffering, but do not be afraid. Pick up your cross and follow me. Be willing to lose what in the end does not matter. Be prepared to gain everything that does.

Do not be afraid. Pick up your cross. Follow me.

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

Amen.

Between the Lines -- First Sunday in Lent

 

Mark 1:9-15

February 21, 2021

 

            When we were in the planning stages of our seminary trip to the Middle East, I thought that the desert areas would look like what I assumed all deserts would look like: rolling dunes of sand, broken only by the occasional caravan of camels or an oasis or two. Certainly, there are areas of the Near and Middle East that have desert just like that. But the desert I saw in Jordan and Syria looked very different. It was January, so it was brown and dusty. There was sparse vegetation, scrub brush, straggly bushes. Jordan, as I recall, was mountainous. We stood on Mount Nebo, where Moses stood. And driving through some of those winding mountain roads had its moments of terror. I learned not to look out the bus window and watch how close we came to the edge of the cliff. We never saw wild animals, but again it was January. They may have been hibernating, or perhaps they have been pushed to other more hospitable habitats.

I remember marveling that I was traveling through the wilderness, the same wilderness where Moses and the Israelites wandered. The same wilderness where Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights being tempted by Satan. The same wilderness where Jesus survived in the presence of animals and angels.

Scripture gives us some clues about the animals that Jesus might have encountered. Lions, bears, wolves, foxes, snakes. I would not want to encounter any of these close up and personal on a day when I had enough to eat and drink, much less when I was on a 40 day fast.

In true Markan fashion, we only know the bare minimum about Jesus’ experience in the wilderness. Luke and Matthew filled in the picture of these 40 days and 40 nights. We read more specifically about the temptations Jesus faced from Satan. Temptations of worldly power, riches, influence. But in Mark’s gospel, we have to read between the lines because Mark is quiet about those specifics. Mark either wants us to just understand that the temptation happened or to use our own imaginations and ponder, wonder about what Jesus might have faced in that wilderness with those wild animals circling, with a stomach that was starving and a throat that was burning with thirst.

I have spent some time this week thinking long and hard about what it must have been like for Jesus to survive those 40 days and 40 nights. I have wondered and imagined what he must have thought about, felt, seen, heard, experienced. I’ve tried to imagine what it might have really been like going through that long time without anything to eat or drink, without any other humans around. Would Satan have appeared to him in human form, as he did in the other gospels? Or would Satan have appeared in his mind, in his dreams? Maybe it was both?

I suspect that going that long without food and water, without hearing another human would begin to mess with your mind. Yes, I say that even about Jesus. I have said in other sermons about Jesus in the wilderness that too often we tend to think of Jesus in superhuman, superhero terms. As though he could pull back his robes and we would find a large S for Savior emblazoned on his true superhero clothing. Writer and commentator Debie Thomas lifted up this same idea in her lectionary essay this week. Jesus being fully divine does not cancel out his full humanity. He would have been truly tempted. He would have been susceptible to all the temptations that we are susceptible to. To say that he was tempted as we are means that he was tempted. Really tempted. It’s just that in Mark, we have to imagine what those temptations might have been.

Was he afraid? Did the sounds of the wilderness sound sharper, louder, more threatening the longer he was there, the hungrier and thirstier he became? Was it just the sounds of the wilderness that made him afraid or was it the fears he wrestled with in his own heart and mind? One of the things that Mark writes is that after Jesus’ baptism, after the Spirit descended on him, and the clouds opened, and he heard the voice of God speaking to him.

“You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

After that the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. Drove him, not escorted him, not lead him. There was no gentle nudge or invitation. The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. And if the Spirit drove him there, is there a chance that Jesus did not want to go? Is it possible that Jesus was hesitant or reluctant to go through with this? Could Jesus have had another idea in mind about how to spend the next month plus? Maybe? But the Spirit was not having it. The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness, and Jesus stayed. Jesus obeyed.

But what did he think about? What rose to the surface as those days marched on? Maybe one of the temptations that he wrestled with was what his call would require him to give up? He would have no ordinary life. He would not marry or have children of his own. He would not get to stay in one place, content and comfortable. He would not get to grow old. He would not belong anywhere or really to anyone. His life would uncomfortable, challenging, daunting, sacrificial to say the least. He would not belong.

I use the word belong deliberately. Earlier in January I encouraged you to choose a Star Word or let a Star Word pick you. There’s still plenty of Star Words left by the way. The Star Word that I have is Belonging. I did not want this word at first. I wanted something else. But I decided to stick with it, even though it felt uncomfortable to say the least.

The reason it is uncomfortable for me is because I have struggled with belonging for a long, long time. When you are a geeky, funny little kid who grows into a geeky, awkward teenager, and never fully loses the geeky, awkwardness as an adult, sometimes belonging seems elusive at best. Then to be called into ministry and realize that your vocation will force you to do what is hardest for you; which is change and move and leave, belonging becomes even harder. And when you try to belong through the many roles you play: wife, mother, daughter, friend, neighbor, pastor, but you don’t quite fit in the way you thought you would, belonging is a struggle.

Just recently, a very wise person in my life told me that belonging is not about where you are or even who you are with, belonging is about belonging to God and belonging to yourself. If you can remember that, if you can remember that you belong to God and that you belong to yourself, you are not as easily buffeted by the constant change that life brings. When everything around you feels swirling and chaotic, if you belong to yourself than you can find a stillness within yourself. Belonging to yourself means you don’t have to be swirling and chaotic. There’s a lot to be said for that because the world seems more chaotic and swirling than ever before, doesn’t it?

             Before I go much further, I don’t want to make it seem in any way, shape, or form that I am equating myself to Jesus. I realize I am using eisogesis: I am placing my own thoughts and feelings and ideas onto this passage. I am putting myself into the wilderness and speculating as to what might I struggle with, what I already do struggle with. Yet, I have wandered in my own wildernesses before. I have resided in barren places I never expected to see or hoped to go. We all have, haven’t we? The times of wilderness in our lives are part of what it means to be human beings. To think we can avoid them, to believe we can walk around them may be one of the most universal of temptations.

            No, I don’t know what Jesus faced in that wilderness, not in Marks gospel anyway. But I do know that time spent in the wilderness in scripture is not necessarily about punishment or deprivation. Those factors may be there, but they are not the underlying reason for a wilderness experience. Time spent in the wilderness makes us become who we are supposed to be. Time spent in the wilderness is about forming and defining. When the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years, they needed to become the nation that God was calling them to be. They needed to learn to trust God and God alone. When they left the wilderness, they would stray from this and the consequences of their straying would be harsh. But the wilderness time was meant to shape them, to strip away their pretense of relying on themselves and relying solely on God.

            Isn’t that what happened with Jesus as well? Wasn’t his identity as the Messiah, the son of God, brought into sharp and clear focus in those 40 days and 40 nights? And it will be on the cross that the fullness of Jesus’ identity will be revealed.  It seems to me that this is the gift the wilderness offers us. It is a place to be formed and defined in heart, soul, body. and mind. If Jesus resisted going into the wilderness, when he came out, it was a different story. He knew his ministry. He knew his call. He was about God’s work and there was no time to be lost. He came out of the wilderness preaching the good news, the saving news of the gospel.

            Mark does not give the specifics of Jesus’ time in the wilderness. But we are invited to read between the lines. And as we read between those lines, maybe we will see where we have encountered our own wildernesses. When we read between the lines, maybe we will understand a little more, grasp a little more clearly who God calls us to be, what God calls us to do, and where God calls us to go. Maybe it is in between the lines that we find out where we belong, and to whom we belong. Maybe the good news has been between the lines all along.

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

            Amen.

           

In a Different Light -- Transfiguration Sunday

 

Mark 9:2-9

February 14, 2021

            Back in 2013, Phoebe, Zach and I flew from Oklahoma to Iowa to help my parents move back to Minnesota. That does not sound like a big deal on the surface, but we did not fly commercially. A dear friend was a licensed pilot, and he flew us in his private plane. This was not a private jet. His plane was bigger than a crop duster, but not by much. It was a beautiful plane, but it was small. We had to pack very carefully and lightly, so the plane would not be weighed down. Vic and I sat up front and the kids sat in the back. In order to talk to one another you had to have headsets on. To hear yourself think, you had to have headsets on. It was loud.

            One of the things that I love about flying is flying through clouds. That moment of going from seeing the world below you to seeing nothing but white cotton all around you still seems almost magical to me. It’s like the whole world changes right before your eyes. Well, if that moment is magical in a commercial jet, try it in a small plane. The clouds had never seemed closer and more intense than when we were in that small plane in the sky. I took some pictures as were going, and the colors that would reflect off the clouds were incredible.

            In one of these cloud moments, we heard talking. I wish I could say that it was a deep voice booming from the heavens, because that would not only be the greatest illustration for Transfiguration Sunday ever, I could also end my sermon right here.

            We heard a voice from heaven! Wow! Amen.

            No, it was air traffic control from some airport below us. And the voice we heard was not directed at us. But as my friend explained, the chatter of air traffic control is a constant. And, I’m sure, as a pilot, you are in constant communication with all the air traffic controls you pass over. They need to know you’re there, and you need to know from them the other planes that are in the air at the same time you are. I would never have thought that listening to air traffic control would be fascinating, but it was. I didn’t understand the technical lingo but hearing these voices in the clouds was kind of comforting. Down there, on the ground somewhere, people knew we were passing over. They knew we were there. We were not completely alone up there in the clouds.

            For me it was a comfort to hear the voice in the clouds as we flew over, but I suspect that being overshadowed by a great cloud on that mountain and hearing that voice, that eternal, divine, holy, awesome and awful voice, speaking to them, declaring to them that Jesus was indeed the Son, the Beloved, and they must listen to him, probably only added to their terror.

            To be honest, if I had been in their situation, I would have been terrified too. Jesus takes these three disciples, Peter, James and John, up a high mountain, and there he is transfigured before them. I will forever quote Rev. Dr. Anna Carter Florence when it comes to this passage. She said that we tend to think of these three disciples as being special to Jesus, not his favorites necessarily, but very close to him. What, she proposed, if Jesus took them up on that mountain not because they were special to him, but because they were the remedial group? What if they needed extra help in understanding, so Jesus took them with him so he could show himself in a different light altogether?

            And the more I study this passage, read it, preach on it, the more I think Dr. Carter Florence has a point. This story always begins with the words, “Six days later.” Six days later than what? Six days earlier, Jesus and the disciples were going to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way, he asked them what people were saying about him.

            They think you are John the Baptist, some said. They think you are Elijah, others chimed in. But then Jesus asked the question, “But who do you say that I am?”

            And Peter responds without hesitation, maybe speaking before he even knew what he was going to say,

            “You are the Messiah.”

            Peter spoke the great truth, whether he fully understood that or not. Peter made a great confession of faith, whether he fully got it or not. And the truth is, he didn’t get it. None of them did. Because after Peter’s confession, Jesus tells them what it really means to be Messiah. To be Messiah is to suffer. To be Messiah is to be rejected and mocked and laughed at. To be Messiah is to die a terrible, painful death. To be Messiah is to be killed and after three days rise again.

            But Peter – and I’m sure the other disciples with him – was not having it. He was not going to listen to that. He was not going to hear it. Stop it, Jesus! Just stop it. Stop all this talk about suffering and rejection and pain and death. You are scaring the others. You are scaring me. Peter rebuked Jesus, and Jesus rebuked him in turn. And remember the others that Jesus rebuked? They were demons. He rebuked the unclean spirits. The meaning and the intensity of this word does not change in this particular context.

            So here we are: six days later. And Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. And there on that mountain, they get a glimpse of who is really is. Who do you say that I am? Watch and you’ll see who I really am.

            For years as a preacher, I tried to articulate what the transfiguration must have been like. I have compared it to the transformer toys. It looks like a truck, but it transforms into a robot. I’ve talked about how our greatest laundry detergent and bleach could not get our clothes as white and as dazzling as Jesus’ were. I’ve tried to find the words to capture this moment on this mountain, but the truth is there are no words.

How do you describe glory? How do you portray the holy?

You don’t. You can’t. There are no words to describe what happened up there. Even if we had been privileged to experience it along with those three disciples. But I’ve tried so hard to find words and failed. That is why I empathize with Peter when he impulsively suggests that they build three dwellings, so that Jesus, Elijah, and Moses could all stay right there in that moment. Peter did not know what to say because he, they were terrified, so he reduced this dazzling, holy, terrifying moment down to something tangible; something they could understand.

How do you describe glory? How do you portray the holy?

Ultimately you can’t. And the truth is, I think most of the time I forget that there might be reason to try. Because many days, maybe even most days, walking this walk of faith feels more like being in that cloud, that overshadowing cloud. Only there is no voice giving me clear, unmistakable instructions. Listen to Jesus. Listen to him. I know that those instructions are implied to us modern day disciples, but how do we do it exactly? I think that I’m listening to Jesus, only to find out I might be wrong. Someone else thinks they are listening to Jesus, and I can’t imagine that they know the same Jesus I do.

The disciples were given a tremendous gift. They saw Jesus in his fullness. They saw him transfigured, changed not into someone different, but into his fullness as both human and divine. They saw him talking with Moses and Elijah, not as one who follows in the two great leaders’ footsteps, but as the One who has taken his place at the head. They were given the gift of true sight, even if it was for just a moment. And they were given the gift of God’s voice in the cloud, even though all of this was terrifying and beyond description. They were given such a tremendous gift up there on that mountain.

And there are days, weeks, months, when I long to be given that same gift; when I long to be assured and reassured that I clearly see Jesus, that I clearly and definitively hear God’s voice. I long for this because so much of the time I feel as though I am just living in the cloud. Feeling my way forward, unsure and unknowing of what comes next, what lies ahead, waiting, longing, hoping for even the briefest glimmer of Jesus the Christ in front of me. I just want to see, clearly, in a different light.

But the times when the cloud feels most overwhelming are also the times when I must remember those glimmers that I have experienced, those glimpses of Jesus I have been given. I have to remember that God has spoken to me, maybe not in a voice booming from the heavens, but through others, through unexpected encounters, through help and comfort being offered to me when I least expected it.

When life gets hard and the cloud of unknowing and unseeing bears down, I cling to my belief that faith is found in memory. I have had those moments of insight and those glimpses of truth. So, I remember them. I remember them and I move forward in hope – hope that gets frayed and bruised but hope that is also dogged and determined.

And, when life gets hard and the cloud of unknowing and unseeing bears down, I also remember a quote I read from the late writer, E.L. Doctorow.

He said that writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

Substitute the word writing for faith.

Faith is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

The disciples will leave with Jesus and go back down the mountain. They will leave this liminal place, this place where the mystery and matter met, and go back into the valley. They will see their beloved Teacher rejected and they will see him suffer. They will see him crucified. And they will run away in shame and terror. They will have to walk through their own valley of the shadow of death, and make their way forward in faith, step by step, inch by inch.

But Jesus will not abandon them in that valley, nor will he abandon us. He is with us even when we can’t see him, even when we don’t hear his voice. He’s there, and we continue on this path of faith, able to see only so far ahead, but trusting that we will make the whole trip that way.

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

Amen.

Everyone Is Searching -- Fifth Sunday After Epiphany

Mark 1:29-39

February 7, 2021

When I was a little girl, I learned that you could tell the age of a downed tree by counting the rings on the stump. The more rings, the older the tree. A few years ago, when I was still a single mom raising two kids, I learned that you can tell how long mom has been sick by the number of dishes stacked in the kitchen sink. 

I arrived at church one Sunday morning feeling very, very poorly. My Music Director and my Clerk of Session looked at me and said,

“You’re not well. Someone else can preach your sermon. Go home.” 

So, I handed my sermon to a young woman who had preached for me before, and we went home. I told my kids they needed to fend for themselves and I went back to bed. Mid-afternoon I got up, feeling a little better, and ventured out to the kitchen. The sink was full, and that’s when the wisdom I mentioned above came to me. 

You can tell how long mom has been sick by the number of dishes stacked in the sink. 

It’s through this lens – the lens of a mom who gets up from her sick bed and starts cleaning dishes – that I often read this passage, particularly this opening section of our passage, from Mark’s gospel. A woman has been ill, and no sooner than she is healed by Jesus, she gets up and starts taking care of the people in her house. Whenever I read it, I want to shout, 

“Couldn’t someone fix her a cup of tea first? And couldn’t we know what her name is too. For heaven’s sake.” 

    This part of the story has bugged me for a long time. It would seem that Simon’s mother-in-law was healed only to serve. She literally lived to serve. But to read the story through this narrow lens is to miss the beauty that is embedded in this story. And there is great beauty in this story. There is more going on in this story, in this whole passage, than what we may realize on a quick reading of it. 

    As soon as Jesus and the disciples leave the synagogue, they go directly to the home of Simon’s mother-in-law. She was ill with a fever. If we had read this passage last year at this time, we probably would not have thought too much about someone having a fever. It might have been life-threatening in the context of the story, but in our time? However, now in these days of Covid, fevers carry a new level of fear with them. 

    Understanding that fear of a fever may help us to emphasize with the fear the people in that house may have felt. Simon, his wife, the other family members who may have been there, the other disciples who were with them. They all knew that a fever could have dire consequences. Jesus surely knew this too. When they entered the home, they told him about her, and he immediately went to her, took her hand, and lifted her up. In a very real sense, he resurrected her to new life. That makes Jesus’ healing of her even more powerful. Just as people marveled at his authority in teaching and casting out demons, he also showed authority in healing. He brought this woman back to life. What’s more, his was unlike any other authority ever witnessed. He needed no words to perform this miraculous healing. He simply took her by the hand and lifted her up. 

    He restored this woman to health, and to her rightful place in her household and in her community. She responded by serving. She was brought back to life, and she responded by serving those in her home. 

    In response to this passage, Rolf Jacobson, a professor of Old Testament and a commentator on Working Preacher.org shared about his own mother. When she was getting too sick and frail to host a holiday get-together, her children came and did the work for her. This was a lovely thing for them to do, but it was terribly hard on his mother, because she had always been the one to host. She had always been the one to organize and coordinate the meals and the parties and the family celebrations. Now she was reduced to watching. I imagine this mother would have longed to be healed so she too could be lifted up to serve. 

    It’s the word serve that rubs me the wrong way. And it does so because it has been used and misused against women time and time again. But I am doing my best to separate out the ways this passage has been wrongly interpreted from what Jesus was actually doing. Hospitality was critical in that culture; it was not to be taken lightly. And a woman’s responsibility in the home was to make sure hospitality happened. In serving, Simon’s mother-in-law was doing what was required and expected of her. She was restored to health and she responded by serving. 

    But what kind of serving was this? Was it just an obligation? A well-defined and narrow role for a female in a male society? What does it mean to serve in the particular context of this story? The Greek word that Mark uses is diakonos. If that sounds somewhat familiar to you, it is because our word deacon comes from it. Traditionally, the deacons in a church are those who offer pastoral ministry. They help those who are sick, lost, hurting, alone. In other words, they serve. This is also the word that Mark used to describe the attentions the angels gave to Jesus after his time in the wilderness. In that passage, the word is translated as ministered. The angels ministered to Jesus. They served him. 

    Seeing the woman’s actions in this way is eye opening. Her response to being healed by Jesus was just that – response. He healed her. He manifested God’s love for her. She responded by serving. She responded by ministering. In that sense, she was light years ahead of the disciples, who would struggle with their response to Jesus and his call for the rest of their time with him. Yes, serving, offering hospitality, would have been her role and duty at that time, but I do not believe that she was serving merely out of begrudging obligation. This woman, this unnamed woman, was ministering. She had been healed, and in being healed, she had also answered a call. A call to serve others. A call to minister. A call to respond to the needs of others just as her needs had been met. She may not have been listed as a disciple of Jesus, but she took on the rolls and actions of one, named or not. She had been brought back to life, and in her new life, she served. She served out of joyful response. She served out of love. She lived to serve.

    And that is what Jesus lived to do as well. He lived to serve and minister and teach and proclaim and heal and cast out the demons that possessed people. Word about the woman’s healing spread fast, and soon people were gathered around him, needing healing, needing help and wholeness and hope. And Jesus responded by serving. He healed and cleansed them. He brought them back to life. And early in the morning, he went out on hi sown to pray, to spend time with God, and I suspect, to recoup, to gather himself and rest and renew. 

    The disciples come looking for him, saying that everyone was searching for him. Everyone was looking for him. They wanted him to do more. I suspect that they wanted him to stay there, to stay and continue to heal and make whole. And you know, Jesus could have done that. He could have stayed. He could have lived there and been loved and popular and revered. He could have stayed there and remained safe and content and comfortable. He could have stayed in that place and lived a long life and died a peaceful death. 

    But Jesus had serving to do. He had more people, other people to reach. He had the good news of God’s kingdom come to proclaim. Jesus had serving to do, so he left and went on through Galilee, preaching the good news in other towns, to other people who were also searching. He left because he was called to serve, because he lived to serve. 

In that place, everyone was searching for him. But Jesus knew that everyone was searching for him in so many other places, so he moved on. He went where he was needed. He went to minister, to heal, to serve. 

Everyone is still searching for Jesus, aren’t they? Aren’t we? We are still searching for him, looking for him, desperately wanting to be healed of the many viruses that plague us. We search for him wanting to be cured of the sicknesses of body and spirit that harm us and diminish us. We are searching for him everywhere, but maybe we forget that he is already with us, not only healing us, but raising us up to serve. We forget, I think, that Jesus is with us in our serving, in our caring, in our acts of compassion and justice and righteousness. Jesus is with us. Jesus heals us, Jesus raises us up to new life, to love and to serve in joyful response. Everyone is searching, but we have already been found. That is the glorious and good news. We have already been found, so let us serve with joy. 

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

    Amen.

What Is This? -- Fourth Sunday After Epiphany

Mark 1:21-28
January 31, 2021
Fourth Sunday After Epiphany

    Karen was angry. She had young children and a husband who travelled for long periods of time. Her father-in-law was living with them, and his physical ailments along with his emotional and verbal abusiveness was creating stress for the entire family. Karen was angry.  

    She was so angry that one day after a particularly difficult exchange with her father-in-law, she ran downstairs to the laundry room and kicked a full laundry basket across the floor. Hard.  

    So hard in fact that she broke her toe. She was embarrassed to be that angry, embarrassed that she had lost control like that. Humiliated that she had actually caused harm to herself because she couldn’t deal with her anger. And Karen was never able to forget what happened because from that point on whenever the weather changed, her toe ached. She was reminded over and over again of how powerful her anger was. In her words, it felt as though she was possessed by her anger. 

    I heard this story many years ago, and although I did not want to admit it then – or now -- I resonate with Karen’s description of feeling possessed by anger. I have been that angry; so angry that I felt controlled by it. So angry that it felt like the anger had taken over my entire being. Karen’s story about breaking her toe put into words what I felt. To be that angry was not only to feel it, but to be possessed by it. Possessed by an emotion that seems out of my control. Possessed in a way that I do or say things I don’t mean and immediately wish that I could take back.

    According to some of the commentators I’ve read in preparation for this sermon, I’m missing the point by starting with the possession in the story. Some of the scholars I’ve consulted believe that the greater point in this passage from Mark is not that Jesus healed a man besieged by a demon, but that Jesus has a previously unseen, unheard of authority. That is what the people respond to. That is what their exclamation, “What is this?” is referring to. Jesus possesses an authority that goes beyond even the scribes and Pharisees. He teaches and interprets Scripture with authority, and through that authority he casts out a demon. His authority amazed and astonished them.

    “What is this?!”

    I have always found a fascinating aspect of the gospels is that the demonic recognized Jesus first. The religious folks are unable to recognize Jesus, certainly not the ones in authority. Even the disciples cannot quite grasp Jesus’ full identity. But the demons he encounters? They know right away. This is certainly true in our passage. The demon not only recognized Jesus, but it also called Jesus by the identifying title of Holy One of God. The only other ones who know this so far are the readers. Mark has made it clear to us who Jesus is, but for the people who were actually with Jesus, who encountered him and followed him, their grasping the knowledge of Jesus’ identity as the Messiah, will take the entire gospel and beyond.  

    This is Jesus’s first act of ministry in Mark’s gospel. In each of the gospels, Jesus has a different first. In the gospel of John, Jesus turns water into wine. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus climbs up on a mountain and preaches a sermon. And in Luke, he heals a man of leprosy. The first thing that Jesus does in each gospel sets the tone for that gospel. In Mark, it is an exorcism.  Like the man with leprosy in Luke, it is a healing, true. But to cast out a demon is a different kind of healing altogether. 

    It is the kind of healing that we are least comfortable with in our Western, children of the enlightenment kind of thinking. Demonic possession is not something many of us like to think about or consider. I mean, it is one thing for Jesus to heal someone who is physically ill, to bring that person into health and wholeness. But talk of demon possession makes us uncomfortable doesn’t it? Well, it makes me uncomfortable. In that culture and time, many things were blamed on demons. People were irreparably harmed because it was believed they were possessed by demons. And that didn’t end in Jesus’ time. For centuries there was no understanding of emotional or mental illness or a-neurotypical behavior; it was all just pinned on demons. But what comes to our minds when we hear the phrase demonic possession? Anyone?  Anyone?

    I know what I think of. I think of The Exorcist. I have never, ever seen this movie, nor do I plan to, because I just don’t need to be that scared. But I know enough about it, and I have seen enough of the pertinent clips from the movie to get its gist. So, the words demonic possession brings up a mental image of Linda Blair and, you know, things spinning. And while The Exorcist may be the definitive demon possession movie, there are still plenty more being made. Our culture seems to be fascinated by them as equally as we are repelled.

    But I think it’s far more helpful for our purposes and for our understanding to see demons in a different way.  Dr. David Lose of Workingpreacher.org writes about the demonic as that which opposes God, works against God, breaks down, rips apart, and destroys. A demon is what keeps us separated from God and from one another. If I am so possessed with anger that I say or do something that causes great harm, then that’s not working for God, is it?  Even if what I say or do harms myself.  

    If I am possessed by greed or jealousy or despair or despondency then I am not about building up God’s children, am I? I am not seeking to create or mend, but to rip apart and destroy.  

    Thinking of this in light of our passage from I Corinthians, if I am so possessed by my own belief in what I know, or at least what I think I know, that I can actually cause harm to come to someone else, then I am not just puffed up, I am possessed.  

    Possession grips us in other ways. Think about those who are addicted – whether it’s to drugs or alcohol, food or something else. There is a line in a Tim McGraw song that says, 

    “This is for the lost junkie who spends all his hard-earned money on something that he hates.”  

    That is a description of possession.  

    And none of us are immune from possession, from being gripped by something that feels much larger than us, more powerful than us. Let’s remember where Jesus encounters this demon possessed man. In the synagogue. The man was in church, listening to the preaching and the teaching. When Jesus speaks with his authority, the authority as the Holy One of God, the demon recognizes him. The demon sees Jesus for who he truly is. The demon calls out to him. And Jesus, with authority, with the power of his word alone – not a ritual, not a rite, the power of his word alone – casts out the demon.  

    The people who attended that synagogue were not expecting this. They were not expecting to be amazed or astonished. And amazement in that time and place was not necessarily a good thing. They just went to synagogue as they were supposed to do, as they were obligated to do, thinking perhaps that they would hear the same prayers, the same lessons, see the same rituals as they did on every other Sabbath. Yet this Jesus person showed up and encountered a person possessed. And in that encounter, he healed the person. He did not heal through trickery or magic. He healed with authority. He healed as God would heal. And the people were not expecting that. They were not expecting to be amazed. They were not expecting to be astonished. 

    Of course they exclaimed, “What is this?!” Jesus’ healing was the furthest thing from their minds, but still it happened. 

    And that makes me wonder if we have lost our ability to be amazed during this time of worship. Have we lost our sense of wonder of what God can do in our midst? Have we become too skeptical or even cynical for our own good? We worship, whether it is in person or virtually, and we expect to see the same old thing week after week. I wonder if we have forgotten to take seriously the words of scripture that says God is doing a new thing. Because God is doing a new thing right here. Right now. 

    What would worship be like if we approached it expecting to be amazed? What would our worship feel like if we expected to be astonished? I’m not trying to set us up for anything. I am not promising exorcisms or healings. I’m just reminding us, you and me, that God in Jesus did the extraordinary, the beyond-belief. Jesus started his ministry in Mark’s gospel by exorcising a person possessed. Can’t we also be exorcised of our demons? Isn’t church, isn’t worship where it just might happen? 

    Can’t we also be exorcised of the demons of fear, of jealousy and envy, of anger here in this time, this sacred space? Surely, there is no better time than in this sacred time for our demons to be exorcised? Because although we do not have the authority to heal as Jesus did, we do have the authority, the command to love. I mean, really, really love. We have the command to love as Jesus loved, to give our whole selves to one another, and to the world beyond these doors. We have the command to love, and by love I mean work, work for justice, work for equity, work for the wholeness and wellness of all people. 

    Jesus healed and exorcised and preached and made miracles happen with authority not through magic but through the power of Love, love from God, of God, with God. Are we not called to strive to love in the same way? Wouldn’t it be incredible if we expected that kind of authoritative love to astonish and amaze us every time we worshipped? Wouldn’t it be amazing if others looked at us, recognized our love for each other and for them, and exclaimed, 

    “What is this?”

    I know that to just proclaim we need to love more does not make loving any easier. We are possessed by demons that cannot always be cured by love alone. But love is our starting point. Love is the authority and the power that we have been given. Jesus commanded the unclean spirit, the demon, to leave the man possessed. And it did because Jesus spoke with the authority of the Holy One of God. What do we know of God through Jesus? We know love. It seems to me that if we’re going to be possessed by anything, let us be possessed by love. Let us love one another so powerfully, so graciously, that we astonish ourselves and others. Let us love one another so deeply that the whole world sees us and exclaims, 

    “What is this?!” 

    Let us love as God loves us and let us be astonished and amazed by that love. 

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

    Amen.

How Can This Be? Fourth Sunday of Advent

 

Luke 1:26-38

December 20, 2020

 

            “Mary, did you know that your baby boy will one day walk on water?

            Mary did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?

            Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?

            This child that you delivered will soon deliver you.”

            The first time I ever heard this song was on my now well-played Kathy Mattea Christmas Album. With all due respect to other groups who have recorded this song, Mattea’s version is my favorite. I admit that the first time I heard this song I did not give the larger theological implications of the lyrics much thought. The question of whether Mary knew the fullness of her son’s identity was not an issue for me. When I listened to the lyrics, I just thought,

            “This is such a pretty song, especially in Mattea’s rich alto. And the questions posed are interesting. They make me think both about this tiny baby and the larger scope of who he was, who he grew up to be, and who he is right now to all of us.”

            However, the question, “Mary did you know?” is a much larger issue than I ever realized. I even think it is fair to call it a controversy. Every year about this time I see emphatic statements on social media,

            “Mary knew!”

            “Of course Mary knew. Gabriel told her.”

            I think this goes beyond loving or hating this song. It seems to me that the question of Mary knowing or not knowing points to a deeper theological question about Mary, who she was and the part she played in bringing Jesus into the world – literally and figuratively.

            So, I am going to wade into the controversy and say definitively, without hesitation, without vacillation – that I think it is both and. Mary knew! And … Mary didn’t know!

First, Mary knew what Gabriel told her. Gabriel was sent to Mary by God, and he began this tremendous announcement by saying,

“Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you!”

In what is perhaps the greatest understatement of all time, Luke wrote that Mary was,

“much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.”

I too would have been perplexed … and baffled … and confounded … and terrified. Did

Mary turn around to see if her heavenly visitor was addressing someone behind her? Did she pale and begin to shake when she realized he was speaking to her? Did she grow faint or bow low to the ground in terror? Perhaps she did all the above because Gabriel’s next words were,

            “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

            Mary responded with only one question,

            “How can this be?”

            Unlike Zachariah, John the Baptist’ father, Mary did not protest or question the angel’s words. Richard Rohr wrote that while Zachariah sought knowledge, Mary sought wisdom. But I suspect that still she could not fathom, could not begin to imagine how what the angel was saying would be or could be accomplished. How can this be?

            The angel explained to her that through the power of the Holy Spirit she would conceive, and because the child she would carry was created this way, he would be called the “Son of God.”  And remember, “Nothing is impossible with God.”

            Mary knew. Mary knew. She believed Gabriel’s words that God regarded her, God favored her. Mary accepted and understood that God was doing something amazing, miraculous, and incredible through her, and that the son she would bear would be the king, the savior for whom her people had so long waited. He would sit on the throne of his ancestor David. His kingdom would have no end. She, a lowly, poor, insignificant young girl, was favored by God. She would bear the Son of God into the world. Mary knew.

            I understand how important it is theologically and spiritually that Mary knew. Mary was not just an empty vessel or a mindless pawn that God used to fulfill God’s purposes. Mary was a flesh and blood person. She had a mind and a heart. She had a will. She had a voice and a conscience. Mary heard the angel’s words. She asked her question, and she accepted the answer. Mary knew she was going to have a baby, and that this baby was born of God and destined for an unimaginable greatness. She was favored by God, and this baby would be God’s own. Mary was a flesh and blood person, and Mary knew.

            But … Mary was a flesh and blood person, which meant that she had limits. She believed the angel Gabriel, and she could grasp the bigger picture of who her son would be. But Mary was also finite, and she – like any of us – could only grasp so much. Gabriel gave her a general outline of who her son would be. The fullness of his identity, his detailed, lived truth would be revealed over time. Mary was a flesh and blood human being. While she knew and believed that the child she was about to bear would be special, God’s own Son, could she see beyond that? Could she fully understand what being God’s Son would entail? Could she see what was to come? Could she envision how his life and her own would unfold? Did she know, really know, what lay ahead? Could anyone really know? Mary could grasp the bigger picture, but that did not mean that she could foresee the details. In that moment when Gabriel gave her this amazing and overwhelming news, I cannot imagine that she could fully know. Mary did not know.

            Mary both knew and didn’t know. It seems to me that what is really important, really necessary, about this passage is not so much the depth or expanse of Mary’s understanding at that moment. What matters is how she responded.

            Mary said, “yes.”

            Mary was a flesh and blood person with a mind, a heart, a will. We Presbyterians believe both in predestination and free will. Free will suggests that Mary could have said, “No.” She could have said, “No thank you, Gabriel. Not me.” Think about it. Isn’t it possible that Mary could have said, “No.” She had a will. She had a mind. She was not just an empty vessel or a pawn to be manipulated by the divine. Think about why God worked through Mary in the first place. Wasn’t it so that God would become one of us? God would take on our flesh. What that says to me is that God does not just value our eternal souls. God values our flesh, this flesh, all flesh, right here and right now. And if God values flesh as well as souls, wouldn’t God have valued this young woman enough to bear her “no,” if she had said it?

            But that is what makes this story so amazing, even beyond this visit from an angel. Mary said, “Yes.” And listen to her yes.

            “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

            Here am I. These are the same words Isaiah spoke in response to God’s call.

            “Whom shall I send? Here am I, send me.”

            Mary’s response is no less a response to a call from God than Isaiah or any of the prophets, any of the people God worked through over the course of history. She said, “yes,” to God’s call. She said, “yes,” to God’s purposes. She may not have known fully what was to come, but then again, do any of us know that when we answer a call from God? If we knew everything that lay ahead, every detail of what following God’s call means, what would our answer be? Mary knew, but what Mary knew was enough. She knew enough. And more importantly than that, is that she trusted. She trusted God completely. Whatever Mary knew or did not know about the future and this child she would bear, she knew something about the God who called her. She knew God and she trusted God.

            She trusted God and she said, “Yes.” She trusted God and she said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Let it be with me. Here am I.

            I’m a pretty solid protestant, but I think we have something to learn from our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters. I think we need to stop relegating Mary to this one Sunday of the year: The Annunciation Sunday, Mary’s Sunday. It seems to me that Mary is a role model for all of us when it comes to answering God’s call. She embodies what it means to trust God. She models what it means to step up, to say, “yes,” to have the courage to say, “Here am I; let it be with me.”

            Mary lived in troubled, tumultuous times just as we do. She lived as one was marginalized and overlooked. I suspect that sickness and death was as much a part of her world as life was. In this past year, haven’t those things become equally as real to us? Mary was a real person, with a real spirit, a real will and mind and heart. She was young, she was poor, she was female, and those factors increased her vulnerability. She would have been considered insignificant by the powers and principalities of that time and place. But her courage was as great as any warrior of her day or our own. Whatever Mary knew, whatever Mary didn’t know, she knew enough, and she trusted more. How can this be? With God, how can it not be?

            Let all of us, God’s regarded and loved children, trust God as Mary did. Let all of ustrust God enough to say, “Here am I.” Let all of us say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

 

           

Oil of Gladness -- Third Sunday of Advent

 

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

December 13, 2020

 

            During the peak of the lockdown last winter and spring, I realized that if I was going to be washing my hands frequently during the day, I wanted hand soaps that both cleaned well and smelled good. Essentially, I wanted aroma therapy while I washed my hands. I was using a brand that does all this and that I liked just fine. It is plant based, cleans well and it smells good, but I was running low. When I ventured out to the store to buy some more, I discovered that the store was also running low of this brand of cleaning products. Running low is an understatement. The shelves were bare of this product. So, I chose another brand that I had heard about, still plant based, still non-toxic, but I had never tried.

            Oh. My. Gosh!

            I know it is just soap, but oh my gosh. The fragrances are amazing! They have made washing my hands, perhaps not a heavenly experience, but a floating-on-a-cloud just below heaven kind of experience. I have to resist the temptation to hold my freshly washed hands up to my family and say,

“Quick! Smell my hands! Don’t they smell amazing?!”

I don’t do that, something for which my family should be grateful. But I am hooked, and I admit, a bit obsessed. We have this hand wash in the kitchen and both bathrooms. I buy the laundry detergent. I have the multi-purpose cleaner, the bathroom cleaner, and I have some dish soap ready to go. I am obsessed. I know I am. From that initial purchase of hand soap, I have tried to bring aroma therapy to every corner of our house.

And it is aroma therapy. It is. During this long, difficult, and painful year, having hand wash that smells like Iowa pine and laundry soap that smells like basil has made other things more bearable. It is aroma therapy.

When I read the words “oil of gladness” in these verses from the prophet Isaiah, I thought of aroma therapy. The oil and oils that are so often referred to in scripture would have been oils with scents. Some of the oils mentioned in scripture would be comparable to what we know as essential oils today. There would have been myrrh and frankincense and lavender oil and olive oil. If I remember my brief research into this correctly, the nard that we read about would have been similar to what we know as lemongrass. The oil and oils that are spoken of in both the Old and New Testament would have had fragrance and aroma. They would have smelled of spices or flowers and grasses or of wood and tree.

I’m not entirely sure what specific oil was being referred to in our verses today. I don’t know if it would have been frankincense or lavender or olive, but I do believe that this oil of gladness would have had a particular, defining scent. And maybe when the original audience for these words heard them, they would have known exactly what that aroma was. And when they thought about that oil, they would have been able to conjure up in their imaginations its scent, its aroma. And even if the fragrance was limited only to their imagination, it would have helped them to remember.

Remember what you may be asking. Maybe even just imagining the aroma of the oil of gladness unlocked their memories of the time before the exile, the time when they still lived and worked and harvested from their own land. Maybe it helped them remember times when they were joyful and hopeful. Perhaps the scent of the oil of gladness helped them remember who they once were and who they were called to be. Maybe it helped them remember the One to whom they belonged, the One who called them, the One who was assuring and reassuring them that they were not forgotten, not abandoned, still beloved children.

Perhaps even just the memory of the scent of the oil of gladness evoked other memories, memories of life before loss, before mourning. That memory of scent, of fragrance, may have helped them remember loved ones who had died, and friends who were far away.

If the complex mechanics of the human body is not enough to convince us that there is a God, then the power of our senses should. Think about the power of scent to unlock memories.

Close your eyes just for a moment, and try to remember a smell, a scent, a fragrance. I know it may not be easy but try.

What comes to mind? Who comes to mind?

(pause and let them try and remember)

Were you able to remember something? Were you able to remember someone?

The smell of Old Spice will be forever linked to my dad.

The aroma of vanilla and fresh butter is my mom baking for Christmas.

The sharp tang of licorice and peppermint is the Christmas candy we would make every year.

The smell of freshly sharpened pencils reminds me of first days of school.

And when I am lucky enough to hold a baby, the smell of milk reminds me of cradling my own babies.

I know that our sense of smell can bring back other memories, sad memories, traumatic memories as well. But in this moment, remember the joy in your life. Remember the smells and scents attached to those moments of joy. Focus on the oil of gladness that is promised in these verses.

For the point of these verses from the prophet is to tell the people that God is doing a great reversal. To all those in exile, take heart. The anointed One, the One who has been touched by fragrant oil, the oil of the Holy Spirit, has come. And with his coming, he brings good news to those who are oppressed, beaten down by life and those in power.

And this anointed One, this One who has been touched by fragrant oil, the oil of the Holy Spirit has come to bind up the brokenhearted, to bring back together their hearts which have been rendered in two.

This anointed One, this One touched by fragrant oil and the oil of the Holy Spirit, has come to release the prisoners, those locked behind walls and those locked in the darkness of despair.

This anointed One, this One touched by fragrant oil and the oil of the Holy Spirit, has come to proclaim the Lord’s favor and the Lord’s vengeance. This anointed one has come to bring comfort to those who mourn, to wipe away their tears, to give them a garland instead of ashes, something growing and green instead of brown dust. This anointed One has come bearing the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the aroma of life and love and joy instead of the acrid smell of death. This anointed One has come to lay the mantle of praise on their shoulders, to rest the cloak of courage upon them and replace a fearful spirit that faints within them.

These verses in Isaiah and throughout our sacred texts speak of reversal. They speak to the world turning upside down, not in chaos and tragedy, but in joy and hope. They speak of the growing Light of God shining brighter and brighter even as the darkness of the world deepens. This oil of gladness reminds us of our need for joy. For that is what today is about, this third Sunday of Advent. That is what we celebrate and remember and hope for this day, when we light the pink candle, and remember that joy bursts forth even in the darkness.

And the world does feel dark and growing darker. In this country we near the grim milestone of 300,000 deaths due to Covid-19. Protests and violence continue to erupt on the streets of our cities. People are angry and they are scared and they are grieving. But on this day, when joy is the watchword, we close our eyes and smell the oil of gladness. The oil not designed for burial but for living. We close our eyes and let the aroma surround us. We close our eyes and let the scent of this oil fill us and delight us and carry us. We let its rich aroma fill us with hope and peace and joy. God’s oil of gladness is here to give us joy. It is here to give us life. God gives us life, even as death and darkness threatens, God gives us life in this sweet, fragrant oil of gladness.

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

Amen.