Feasting, Lumps and All!

       When I was growing up, my mom was always saying that my brothers had hollow legs.  I was never quite sure what she meant until I had sons of my own and they started growing.  I think they were always hungry!  They would come home from school and go through the kitchen looking for something to eat.  I learned how to be prepared or else the kitchen would look like a hoard of locusts had gone through and eaten everything in sight!
       This willingness to eat anything and everything came in handy though.
       One time when my parents were gone for several days, I was left in the care of my older brothers and sisters.  At the ripe age of twelve, I decided I was going to show off my cooking skills by making fried chicken and gravy with mashed potatoes and some can of vegetables.  I did okay until it came to making gravy.
       I knew that mom would make gravy by mixing flour into the fat in the pan.  The step that I missed was that she would pour off all but a couple of tablespoons of grease.  So I put it flour and flour and flour, trying to make a roux.  It was a good thing I was using the big and deep chicken pan, because after cooking that a bit and scraping up all the good flavor bits, I began adding milk and water to make the gravy and it took more and more liquid to keep from becoming a thick paste.  By the time supper was ready, I had a huge pan full of gravy!
       By the time the gravy started to cool a bit, it got thick enough to spread with a knife.  I was so embarrassed, especially as my oldest brother had a friend from college with him.  But the guys thought it was great! (I don't remember where my sisters where that night.)
       After everything else was eaten, one of them went to the kitchen and got a loaf of bread and they proceeded to pile bread and gravy onto their plates, and eating their way through it.  They loved it and did a good job of making that terrible gravy disappear!  They said later that it was a wonderful feast and would I do it again some time.
       From birth, children go through growth spurts where their bodies demand more calories.  It is demanding and can be tiring to keep up with it especially when nursing a baby, but how wonderful a blessing it is when you have the resources to give them the resources they need.  And how awful it must be to not have enough food to give your children.
       Perhaps that is why that there are many places in the Bible where God's love, blessings and grace are equated with feasts and gathering together God's people to feed them.  Just before his crucifixion and after the resurrection, Jesus tells the disciples to gather at the table to eat together and to go from there to serve those in need.  We "do this to remember" Jesus.
       It is no wonder then that so much research has shown that the best thing we can do for our families is to eat together.  The family meal is the best prevention of drug abuse, dropping out of school, and other things such as teen-age pregnancy.  It is a powerful thing when we gather together at the table and share a meal.  Even of lumpy, spreadable gravy on white bread or boxed macaroni and cheese.  Make a meal to share and begin with prayer, inviting God to share your table.  Read Isaiah 25:6-8

Looking for Love

       (I realized recently that I have not really addressed Easter in my blog this year.  Not only has it been very busy, but also I was really concentrating my energy on my preaching.  So I am going to share some of Holy Week's preaching with you.)

       During Good Friday worship, people are invited to spend time meditating upon the empty cross.  As it is carried forward in procession, you hear these words being spoken three times, “Behold the life-giving cross on which was hung the salvation of the whole world.”  The response is “O Come, let us worship him.”
       Let us worship him.  Him who?  We know the answer.  The one we worship is the Christ, our lord Jesus.  We will say these words knowing that.  And yet, what we are actually beholding, what we actually will see is an empty cross.
       The words are spoken as if Jesus is here on the cross and we can see him.  Behold!  See! It’s Jesus!

       But it is not.  The cross is empty.

       That is the conundrum, the puzzle of Good Friday.

We come to the cross.  We come to see and worship the crucified Jesus, the Jesus nailed to, bleeding, and dying on the cross.  The Jesus with the blood running from the welts of the whip-lashing and the thorns of the cruel crown on his head poking into his head. 

       We come to see the beaten Jesus, and many today will cry at the cross, to see that sight in their minds and heart.

       BUT --- and this is huge --- The cross we see is empty. 

       "Behold" the liturgy tells us.  Worship the cross, but Jesus is not there. 

       We are asked to spend time meditating, thinking, and praying on that empty cross.  What do you see in your mind’s eye when you gaze at that despised tree?

       When you look at a cross or a picture of one, you might see in your mind’s eye a bloody Jesus, or the empty cross in the darkness of that fell on Jerusalem that first Friday or you might even imagine the empty cross shining in the sun that first Sunday.  However you see the cross, this is what my prayer is for you.

       Behold the love of God.  Look at the cross and see the height and depth, the strength, and the richness of God’s love for the world  --- and for you.  That is the reason that drove Jesus to the cross; God’s love.

       Now there are a lot of people who will preach and argue us to the cross to scare us.  It’s as if to say that since God is willing to do that to the beloved Son, what will happen to those who don’t believe?  They will tell us that we had better worry about getting saved because if we aren’t saved their way, God is going to get us and not just once but forever and ever.

      There have many times in the church’s history over the last two thousand years when the focus of theology and preaching has been full of fire and brimstone talk of hell to scare people into Jesus.

       But that is NOT what Jesus said.

       I have had conversation recently about someone’s grandchild who is scared of God because God gets mad.  Is that true?

       My response to them is what I want you to reflect on today.  Jesus says in John 3:16 & 17: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

       Jesus came to earth, gave himself up to betrayal and trial, hung on the cross, died on the cross, and rose from the dead, for one reason and one reason only.  For God so loved the world.

       And my response to those who would scare people into faith is what Jesus says: “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save it – to save us.  God’s will and action is love.

       Today, I invite you to look on the cruel and even bloody cross, not to feel bad or guilty or to scare you into faith (as if that works), but I invite you to see the immensity of God’s love for you that Jesus did this, FOR YOU!

       Pray that you may see God’s love!  Read John 3:16-17

We Need a Nap!

       I had a great conversation with a friend yesterday.  One of the things we talked about was how busy and jammed-packed our lives have been of late.  And then of course, we talked about how tired we both felt.   It seems like it is not only a common conversation but also a universal experience. Are we are all rushed, tired, harried, and harassed?
       It seems like it.
       When I was young, I remember that summer seemed to stretch on forever; the wait for Christmas was agonizing, and good things never happened quickly enough.  Older people commonly talk about how time seems to pass more quickly as we age.  And I was willing to accept this as the reason time feels more rushed.  And that may indeed be part of what is happening (I can't deny it, we all do get older!).  But that doesn't explain it all.
       Our time really is getting pushed to and beyond our limits.
       Commercials now try to sell us new phones and services by telling us how unacceptable it is if our information is 29 or 14 seconds behind.  If we are even 27 seconds behind, we will have already missed our chance to participate in a party, give a gift, or say goodbye.
       The effects of this time compression are aggravated by the fact that the lines between our personal and work lives have become blurred.  As our electronic gadgets have become smaller and more portable, people assume we should be instantly available to one another.  Several years ago, there were articles about how we could make better use of our time by multi-tasking while waiting in line or at the doctor's office.  Now it is not uncommon to see people texting while sitting in a meeting or eating dinner with someone else.  Young people are exhausted, texting into the night and or sleeping with their phones so they don't miss anything.
       It has gotten hard for us to just do one thing at a time.
       This is taking a toll on us, spiritually, physically, and emotionally.  Tired and rushed people have a harder time being creative and are not as good at problem solving.  Our immune systems don't work as well, so we tend to pick up all the viruses and bugs going around.  We have less patience, less tolerance for change, and we are more irritable.  It's no wonder that stressed people have a lower opinion of their quality of life.
       Everything stinks when you are tired!  Even when we want to be positive, we have fewer resources to allow us respond positively.
       We need a collective nap.
       From the beginning, God modeled a different way.  For six days, God worked at creative the universe and all that it contains and on the seventh day, God rested.  One of the first commandments given was the command to keep the sabbath day, the seventh day of rest.  And not just those in charge but everyone, including children, servants, and work animals.  Rest, time completely away and apart from work is vitally important to our health.  In Deuteronomy, God reminds the people that life without sabbath rest is like their years in slavery.  We are a freed people and we honor God by taking holy rest.
       Even on our "work" days, we need to slow our lives down and give ourselves and others the gift of grace.  Our worth and value do not depend on a life lived in increments of seconds.  Take time to pray, to breathe, to pause, and to be in relationship, not with a gadget but with each other.  Read Deuteronomy 5:12-15.