Up and Down

Up and Down
John 1:43-51
Lent 1
February 25, 2023

For those who wondered if we would ever get through the winter with Isaiah, I have good news this morning. We are moving on from Isaiah. And to set the context, here’s a story from John’s first chapter.

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

 

We are going to take a journey with the Gospel of John for the next few months. The readings for Lent will come from John, as will the readings for Easter and the weeks following. John has written a rich book, full of layers of meaning and deep spiritual insight. So it’s appropriate that we linger with this book. 

John’s primary concern is to point to Jesus. “No one has ever seen God,” he says, “But some of us have seen Jesus. And we have come to believe that he shows us what God is like. God is revealed as a God of grace and truth.” This is big stuff. I have visited Christian monasteries where the occupants devote themselves to work and prayer. A monk can hear a single line from the Gospel of John and meditate on it all day.

I mentioned that to somebody, the last time I taught my way through this book. She seemed earnest, so I said, “Let’s read some of the first chapter.” We did that, and I said, “What do you think?” She was silent. After a while, and a little bit of nudging, she replied, “It’s not what I expected.”

What were you expecting? “I didn’t think it would be so ordinary.” Ordinary? “Yes, ordinary. One of them says Jesus came from Nazareth. The other one says, ‘Nazareth? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? He might as well have come from Nanticoke. Can anything good come out of Nanticoke? There’s nothing happening in Nanticoke.”

“OK,” I said, “fair enough. But Nathanael, the one who said it, ends up calling Jesus the Son of God and the King of Israel.” “Yeah,” she said, “but he sure didn’t have a lot to go on. Jesus saw him standing under a tree. Big deal. What’s the big deal about standing under a tree?” She had a point. Jesus sounds pretty ordinary.

According to the story, one day John the Baptist pointed him out and said, “Lamb of God,” and two of his own followers followed Jesus. One of them was Andrew who took his brother Simon Peter to see Jesus. The day after that, Jesus found Philip, who came from the same hometown as Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said, “Come and see the one whom Moses and the prophets wrote about.”

The circle grows. There’s no sermon, no lesson, not even much of a conversation. Just a lot of hanging out, after the recurring invitation, “Come and see.” That’s how faith is generated in the Gospel of John. No pounding the pulpit, no life and death decision, no pressure, no emotional manipulation, no choir singing all three hundred verses of “Just as I Am” while the buses wait. Nope. Just the simple open-ended invitation, “Come and see.” Those who hear it, and come, and look, are impressed how simple the invitation is. “Come and see.” Come, because the invitation found you – you weren’t looking for the Son of God, but there he was, looking for you. And life happens.

Already John is teaching us about the character of faith. Faith doesn’t need a lot of miracle juice. It can happen anywhere, any time. Faith comes, not by force, not by action, but by invitation. And the invitation passes among, brother to brother, neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend. No flash, no siren, no billboards, but relationships. Friendships. Mouth to ear.

Somebody said, “How are we going to get people to come to church?” The best answer, “Have you invited the people you know?” That’s the difference between marketing and friendship. Guess which one is more effective! True faith is planted in the words, “Come and see.” Not very complicated. In fact, it’s quite simple.

But come and see … what? Come and see a man who saw me under a tree? And Jesus replies with his very first curious line in the Gospel of John. He will speak a lot of curious lines, but this is the first one: “Truly, truly, very truly, all of you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man”

If you hear that cold, you might scratch your head, and wonder, “What in the world?” The first clue is that Jesus says, “Truly, truly, very truly.” Whenever he says that, he invited us to lean forward. Something Big is about to be said. In this case, three things to be said: heaven opened, angels ascending and descending, and the Son of Man.

First things first: “You will see the heaven opened.” Is heaven open or closed? In the time of Elijah the prophet, everybody thought heaven was closed, as if a big sign posted in the sky: Closed for Business, Shut Down Until Further Business, Nothing for You.

This is the experience that some people have of prayer. “I prayed and nobody was listening.” I knocked on heaven’s door and it stayed shut. I asked God to make things right and nothing happened. I begged for my child in danger and the only sound above me was silence.

In the days of Elijah, there was a terrible famine. No rain, no crops, no help. Jesus says elsewhere, at that time, heaven was shut (Luke 4:25). There was no help, until God sent the prophet Elijah to a Gentile widow. She brought to the prophet what little flour she had – and it did not wear out. She brought a few drops of oil – and there was more. And when her son, her only son ran out of breath, when he stopped breathing, Elijah called out to heaven, “You are being harsh here.” Then leaning down to hug the boy, the boy began to breath.

You though heaven was closed, but it was open. It is open. All of you will see this.

Second, “angels ascending and descending.” Have you ever heard something like that? Of course you did – about ten minutes ago. In the book of Genesis, Jacob had a dream. He was running away from his brother Esau because Esau was running after him. Jacob swindled the family blessing from his big brother, so his brother Esau was coming to get it back, with a club in one hand and a pitchfork in the other.

One night, Jacob collapsed in exhaustion and put his head on a rock. As he slept, he had a dream of “angels ascending and descending the ladder to heaven.” Heaven was open – the angels were going up, climbing to take the troubles of earth up the ladder to God. That’s where the old spiritual comes from. “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder.”

But give it a second look: the angels are coming back down, not merely to take the prayers up, but to bring the mercy down. Grace moves in both directions, up and down. When Jacob is startled awake by the vision, he shouts out loud, “Surely God is in this place, and I didn’t know it.” Of course you didn’t know it. Life looks so ordinary, but something invisible is going on. God may be quiet, but God is here. We have our pack of troubles, but the angels are telling God about them, and God is sending the angels back down to us.

Jesus quotes the old story of Jacob and his two-way ladder. “Nathanael, you’re going to see this.” There’s something far more significant than spotting somebody under a fig tree. He’s going to see the unseen movement of grace – up and down.

And there is a third mystery afoot, and it’s connected to that old Jacob story. When Jacob wakes from the vision, he says, “This is an awesome place, this bleak desert, this stone pillow. It’s awesome – because it’s the habitation of God. It is the Open Gate of Heaven.” And now Jesus points to himself. He appears so normal, so human – but he is the Habitation of God, the One on whom the unseen angels go up and down. He is the Open Gate, the One through whom the truth and grace of God are revealed.

It's a lot to see, too much perhaps to take it all in. But this is what we will look for in the weeks and texts to come.  In fact, soon after this, Jesus attends a wedding. It’s in the village of Cana, a village so small that the archeologists aren’t sure where it was. It was a big party in a small town. Everybody has come. With Jesus, there is a handful of his followers, and his mother, too. And of all people, Nathanael was from the village of Cana. That’s what he is named on the last page of John’s book: Nathanael of Cana (21:1). Makes you wonder if that was Nathanael’s wedding!

Don’t know but it must have been a good party: music, dancing, good food, and lot of wine. A whole lot of wine. So much wine that the banquet managers ran out of wine. What a disastrous embarrassment for the host family! There’s some whispering behind the scenes, some quiet activity. Suddenly, the music starts up again and there’s plenty of wine. Lots of wine. Tasty, too. The steward compliments the host, “You’ve saved the good stuff until now.”

How did that happen, in Nathanael’s little village that nobody can now find? Well, something must have happened. Something very curious. Something bigger than the wine. Something like the generosity of an Opened Heaven.

Will Nathanael ever see it? Will we? Don’t know, not yet. But if he does, if we do, there will be angels ascending and descending upon Jesus, and somebody will say, “He is where the fullness of God resides.”

Come and see.

(c) William G. Carter

Be Reconciled

2 Corinthian 5:16-6:2
Ash Wednesday
February 22, 2023

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!

I hoped to get a lot of work done yesterday but was interrupted by a lot of well-wishers for my birthday. It is not every year that my birthday falls on Fat Tuesday, so everybody was in a festive mood. This was especially true of a somebody who called from another state to check in and wish me the best. We had a long chat, about a half hour. It was a warm conversation. We hadn't talked in a while, and it was good to catch up.

She is United Methodist now, at least for the time being. As you may know, the Methodists are in a turmoil over issues of sexuality. Different factions are not sure they want to be in the same church together. We live in a consumer environment in America, which many folks think they get to pick and choose what church they want to be in.

She said, “I'm not sure I can be in the church where I don't agree with the preacher, much less the person across the aisle.” Drawing on my experience, I replied, “It’s not so bad. Sometimes people disagree with me, but we're in the church.”

She said, “Well, that's not the way that I see it.” And the conversation went on from there.

I tell this brief episode because it illustrates what it's like to be in the household of God. Not just the consumer based American church, where people want to buy and sell their preferred form of religion that coincides with their preconceptions, but the church through the ages where this has been a recurring issue. How can we worship together, and serve together, and bless the world together if we can't agree on being together?

There is consolation to recall the apostle Paul wrestled this through with his congregations. He started a lot of congregations, often in the thick of conflict, and then moved on to another city. As a good pastor, he checks in with them by letter and discovers the turmoil continued. The same world that divided itself in response to Jesus is the same world where the church resides. Division, disagreement, and estrangement seem to persist in the baptismal water.

In the church of Corinth, Greece, divisions formed between the rich and the poor. That is, those who had communion bread and those who did not. The church was divided between the so-called true believers and the rank and file. The Christians – and they were Christians all - were divided over supernatural experiences and their significance. Sometimes they divided simply because they were cranky people. I know it's hard for you to imagine cranky people in a church, but it can happen.

In the advice which we overhear tonight, Paul offers a two-part response. First, he declares everything is different because of Jesus. “If anybody is in Christ,” he says, “there is a whole new creation.” Not simply a new person but a new universe, a new perception of reality, a participation in a new kind of community. Christ stands at the center of it all, as he has always stood at the center. When other distractions refocus the center, we obscure and divide.

The second truth he invites us to claim the reconciliation that Christ has created. From heaven, there has come a cessation of hostilities. Our tendency to divide has been canceled from the cross. For the true spiritual reality is not that we are divided, but that we are included. We belong to God through Jesus Christ, and not through the clarity of our devotion or the superiority of our character. Inclusion is always through Christ, who opened his arms to all of us, giving himself on the cross that all hostility will cease between people and their God.

If we take seriously God's peacemaking with us, we are invited to step into our peacemaking with one another. In the words of Paul, to “be reconciled” in the name of the Christ who has already broken down the walls between us and God, and between us and others. That is what his forgiveness from the cross establishes.  Our task is to agree to the gift and live in its light.

You may have heard me describe how my mother handled conflicts between me and my sister. When a fight became intractable, she placed two kitchen chairs to face one another. Then she commanded each of us to sit down. There were two conditions: we were required to look at one another and we could not smile. Don’t smile. Don’t laugh. Don’t discuss. Sit and look at one another without escaping.

You might guess what happened. Within a few minutes one of us cracked a grin. Or one of us began to cry in remorse. Or one of us decided we were done with the fight because we were stuck with one another.

I later learned this is a common technique in psychotherapy. The technique is to push people toward their pathology until they become repulsed by it. They decide to live a different way.

So, Paul says to his cranky and divided congregation in Corinth, “Be reconciled.” He does not specify. Reconciled to God through Christ, which is a given? Reconciled to one another through Christ, which is an ongoing task? Paul will not separate the love of God from the love of one another. If there is peace from God, we cannot claim a selfish salvation which is reduced only to a relationship between me and Jesus. No. If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.

Huddled in the shadows of the Nazi empire, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote these words to a group of church people:

Christian (community) is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly, we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our fellowship is in Jesus Christ alone, the more serene shall we think of our fellowship and pray and hope for it.[1]

 And so, the Word comes to us: be reconciled. Claim the love of Christ that has opened the way to God and one another. God has love for you because God has love for all. And God calls us to make room for one another.

 

 (c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1954) p, 30

Stepping into the Fire

Matthew 17:1-8
Transfiguration/Mardi Gras

February 19, 2023  
William G. Carter

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” 

I hope you don’t think less of me for saying this, but I have absolutely no idea what to do with this story. It shows up every year, exactly halfway between Christmas and Easter. It is the second of three occasions in Matthew’s book where we hear Somebody say, “This is the Son of God.” First at the baptism, when the heavens rip open. Third at the cross, when the temple curtain rips open. And now, on an unnamed mountain top, as Jesus bursts into flame. The Voice thunders from the heavy cloud, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased.” And I don’t know what to do with that.

I wasn’t there, of course. Neither were you. We can picture the scene in our imagination, just as if we were children. When somebody first told me the story in church, it never occurred to me that there was something unusual about Jesus conversing with Moses and Elijah. They were all Bible characters. Of course they knew one another. I did not know at the time that Moses lived over a thousand years before Jesus, or that Elijah the prophet was hundreds of years before him, too. How did they know one another? How did they arrive at the same mountain at the same time? And how did time collapse to make that conversation possible? It’s a head-scratcher, more than it was when I was a child.

Oh, and there’s this: what were they talking about? Were they have a Class Reunion, from the Class of Eternity? Was Jesus explaining one of his confusing parables? Was he ganging up with Moses to tell Elijah to lighten up? Were they discussing the mysteries of the universe – or the hidden secrets of redemption? Don’t know. It’s curious that Peter, James, and John didn’t report to Matthew on the topic of their conversation. The words are out of earshot, as if we aren’t supposed to know. That makes the event even more mysterious – and obscure. It’s weird.

So please understand. This mountain-top tale is too big for me to comprehend. Too confusing. Too dazzling. Too loud. Too cinematic. Too spectacular. I don’t understand it.

But I utterly understand the response of Peter. “Lord, I’m glad to be here,” he sputters. “This is a special moment. And if you wish, I will mark it in your honor. I’ll build three monuments, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.” We know what he’s doing – he’s chattering. He’s saying something because he doesn’t know what to say. The words are dribbling out of a mouth that was already opened by awe. Because he’s got to do something.

How many times have you seen something big, something glorious, and you tried to mark the moment? It’s like seeing the Grand Canyon at sunset. Colors shifting, orange, then pink, clear across the sky. Feet frozen, knees locked, just stunned by the glory of it all. And when the moment is over, what do we do? Stop by the gift shop and ask, “Do you have any postcards of sunset from the rim?” If they do, it’s just so small. It can’t begin to frame the moment, much less touch it.

I’ve never been to the top of Mount Tabor, which might be the mountain “set apart” where Jesus took Peter, James, and John. I’ve seen it across the valley, from the cliffs of Nazareth. You look over there, see the rounded slope, and ask, “Is that where it happened?” I wonder if they have a gift shop. Can’t say; I do know the Christians through the ages have built one chapel after another up there. Climb the zig-zag trail. There are the remains of one foundation here, a newer monastery built over there. Yet there’s nothing left to mark the actual spot. It’s been vaporized. And as we heard, Jesus and the others came down from that mountain. They didn’t stay up there. They came down.

This reminds us of the nature of spiritual experiences. They can come, but they don’t stick around. Something might happen. Our eyes see it. Or our heart sees it. There is a deep impact – and then it’s gone.

I think of Moses, chasing after a lost sheep on the mountain, or wherever he was. Suddenly he sees a burning bush. It is a shrub. It is on fire – you know it had to be a fire – but the bush itself is not burning. It was as if the fire was in the bush. Distinct from it, but there. When God stopped speaking, we can presume the fire stopped burning. Centuries later, we can assume the bush is no longer there. There might be a gift shop, but no more burning bush. It came, it went.

Or how about Elijah, that feisty prophet, so intoxicated with the Holy Spirit. He put the prophets of Baal to the test: who can start a Holy Fire? (Like I said, you know there had to be a fire!) And those pagan prophets did their business. Danced around, hollered, and moaned, even cut themselves and let the blood gush over the altar. Nothing happened.

Elijah sat on a stump, laughed at their antics, made fun of them. “Maybe your deity took a nap, or maybe he took a trip to the rest room and hasn’t come back,” he said. “But that you might know there is a God in Israel, throw a lot of water on the wood of my altar, and stand back.” Woosh! The Holy Fire of God came down and singed their eyebrows. (1 Kings 18) Then the fire was gone. It came, it went.

I’ve seen paintings of Jesus, religious paintings, well-intentioned painting, portraying his heart aflame. I can guess what message they are attempting to communicate. The thing is, Jesus usually looked so normal. That’s scared Peter, James, and John when they saw him shine as bright as the sun. Most of our lives are not all that extraordinary. In fact, a lot of it is dull. Some of it is boring. Nothing ever happens.

And then – woosh! Something’s on fire. And what do we do? What do we do when the fire comes?

Some of you know I’m fond of music. Just a little bit. I was raised in a home filled with music. We went to a church with a lot of music. There was a concert series in our little town, and my parents took us to hear some jazz. Sometimes the music was so full of life, it was like the musicians were on fire. One night, we heard the Woody Herman big band. A saxophonist stood to blow his horn. Soon everybody started to cheer. I never forgot that moment. I wanted whatever he had.

The truth is, I started taking piano lessons, but as my mom will tell you, I hated to practice. Still hate to practice! But one thing led to another, I kept at it, and my music teacher invited to play in the jazz band. It was a lot of fun because other musicians are a lot of fun. When I was in eighth grade, we boarded a bus (a school bus) and went on tour. Know where we went? We went to New Milford, Pennsylvania. The next stop was Carbondale. Our band was on the move. We were really something.

But then the moment of terror arrived. We played a tune called “Chameleon.” It’s based on two chords. Maynard Ferguson had nothing on us – until the band director pointed at me and said, “Play a solo!” And I froze. The band was cooking along. I dare say the trumpets were full of fire. The trombones, well, they were just trombones. But he pointed at me, and said, “Take it. It’s all yours.” And I was afraid.

You don’t have to be a musician to know the experience. Somebody told me about a dream they had. Sounded like a nightmare. “I dreamed I opened the door to a room. It was crowded with people,” she said. “Somebody saw me, called out my name, and said they had been waiting for my speech. What speech? And they gave me a microphone and said it was time for me to talk. I had no idea what to say. Hadn’t prepared. Didn’t expect it. I was mortified.” And I looked at her and said, “Well, Reverend, what did you do?”  

Fear can shut us down. Especially if it’s the kind of fear experienced by Peter, James, and John. Peter sees his friend Jesus, a peasant like himself, callouses on his hands, dirty feet, a bit of tartar sauce in his beard, but now he was glowing with the glory of God. He’s talking with two famous people who had been gone for centuries, and they’re right there. So what does he do? He babbles on about building a monument. Maybe he had plans to add a gift shop.

But leave it to God to step in and silence the nonsense. From somewhere deep in the cloud, the Voice said, “This is my Son, my Beloved Son.” And then God said, “Listen to him.”

And that’s when Peter fell to his knees. After all, this is the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus speaks a lot in the Gospel of Matthew. He shines only once, but he talks all the time. And we’ve heard what he says: “Blessed at the poor in spirit. Don’t hoard the riches when others are hungry. Love your neighbors. Love your enemies because they your neighbors too. Do the will of God.” That’s what we hear him say.

And he also says this, “Don’t be afraid.” For Jesus comes to Peter, James, and John. He touches them on the shoulder, his hands no longer burning hot, and he says, “Don’t be afraid.” He says it repeatedly. “Fear not, don’t be afraid.” Then he leads them down the mountain and keeps giving himself away in love.

Years ago, my good friend Terry Singer moved from this town to Louisville, Kentucky. The year after he moved, I was invited to speak at a conference in Louisville, Kentucky. I called my friend. We made plans, I traveled down there, we got together for lunch. It was time for me to get back the conference, so Terry said, “I’ll drop you off.” He took me to the corner of South 4^th Street and Muhammed Ali Boulevard. We said goodbye, I climbed out of the car, and then I saw it.

On the corner of 4^th and Muhammed Ali, there’s a street sign. If you’re ever there, don’t miss it. On one side, it memorializes a famous man: “Thomas Merton, 1915-1968. Trappist monk, poet, social critic, and spiritual writer.” Merton had lived in a monastery about an hour away. And he loved jazz. When he came into town for doctors’ visits, he stuck around to listen to some music. Not a lot of jazz in a monastery.

One side of the sign remembered him. On the other side, this is how the sign reads. “A Revelation: Merton had a sudden insight on this corner March 18, 1958, that led him to redefine his monastic identity with greater involvement in social justice issues. He was “suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people…” He found them “walking around shining like the sun.”

First time I’ve ever seen a street sign marking a spiritual vision, but there it was. All the marks of a spiritual vision are there: he saw fire, shining like the sun – and he loved all these people. There it is. Love and fire, fire and love. And he wasn’t afraid of either one.

So Jesus takes Peter, James, and John to climb a high mountain. While he is there, he starts shining like the sun. I still don’t know what to do with that story. But I know what Jesus wants us to do with our lives: to love one another, no matter what. If we listen, that’s what we hear him say.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

On Trampling the Sabbath

Isaiah 58:13-14
Epiphany 5
February 12, 2022

William G. Carter  

If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Shortly after I began my work as a pastor, I had a curious invitation from a church member. I’ve had lots of curious invitations, but this one was particularly curious. He said, “I have an extra ticket to an Eagles game in Philadelphia. Want to go?”

·         When is it? “Next Sunday.”

·         When would we have to leave? “About ten in the morning. It’s a one o’clock game, and there will be traffic.”

·         Do you have any idea what I do on Sunday mornings? “Oh yeah. Right. But do you want to go?”

With some regret, I took a raincheck, knowing that while I was employed as a pastor, I would probably never cash in that raincheck. Yet if today’s sermon is about keeping the sabbath, that story bubbles up in my memory.

For a lot of people, Sunday is a special day of the week. Few people call it a holy Sabbath or have any idea what that means. Rather, they claim it as a day of pleasure, a chance to break up the routine and do something fun. These days, affluent Americans have countless options for Sundays: go out to brunch, shop at the outlet mall, head out for a festival or a footrace, book the weekend getaway on VRBO, or in the case today, eat a lot of chicken wings and cheer on the Eagles.

A hundred years ago, no church member would have invited the preacher to skip church and head off to the stadium. Times have changed. The world around us has loosened up. Religious rules sound like restrictions at worst, or suggestions at best. For an increasing number of people around us, church is optional or unnecessary. And the whole notion of doing nothing for twenty-four hours strikes most folk as impossible.

That’s what the Sabbath commandment teaches: “For six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your town.”

God says this twice. In Exodus, chapter twenty, God says, “Remember how I created a world in six days and rested on the seventh. You should imitate me and stop hovering. Let the world run without you.” In Deuteronomy, chapter five, God says, “Remember how you were slaves in Egypt, working your fingers to the bone, and I set you free. Claim your freedom by taking a full day’s break.”

The Ten Commandments are given to us as a gift. They structure our lives by providing necessary restraints so that we can flourish. Don’t go worshiping other gods; they can’t feed you and they can’t save you. Don’t reduce the invisible God of Israel to something small you could hold in your hand; they can’t deliver any of their promises. Honor your folks, keep your promises to your partners. Don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t murder – isn’t it interesting how not breaking the Sabbath is held with same authority as ‘don’t murder’? They have equal weight, equivalent importance. And all the commandments are given because they are good for us.

So Isaiah says to the people returning from the Babylonian exile, stop trampling the Sabbath. Apparently, they were. Apparently, they had compromised with the surrounding culture, giving in, making allowances, or exceptions, or excuses.

Years ago, my father and I spent a few nights in the Jerusalem Hilton. Jerusalem is a complicated place, full of inconsistencies. But one thing we discovered: the elevator buttons don’t work on Friday night. They are wired that way. I had heard that, my dad had not, so here’s this retired IBM engineer poking the little circle with the number eight. Nothing happens, so he pokes it again and again. Still nothing. “Must be broken,” he mutters. “No, Dad,” I replied, “it’s the Sabbath.”

“What do you mean?”

“No work on the Sabbath. Traditional Jews regard the poking of an elevator button as work.” He tilted his head to look at me, as if to say, “Do they teach you this at Preacher School?” The door closed automatically. On the way up, we stopped at every floor. One at a time. Then another. It took a while. The elevator was programed to keep us from breaking the Sabbath. The restraint was imposed on us.

Some of us can remember a day when the shops were closed on Sunday, which has become the Christian Sabbath. The banks, the restaurants, the grocery stores – seems so long ago, and to hear how Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-a still give their employees Sundays off sounds quaint. Charming, even admirable, but bucking the tide.

During a trip to the Outer Hebrides, the islands off the west coast of Scotland, my wife and I discovered the same restraint. The city of Stornoway is run by old fashioned Presbyterians, well starched and very conservative. On Sunday, everything shuts down except the churches. We stayed in a B and B some distance from the center of town.

The proprietor told us how, one Sunday morning, she hung up some wet laundry on the line behind the house. When she returned from attending church, a neighbor had taken all of it down, folded it still wet, and put all the laundry back in the basket. “Just a bit obsessive,” she remarked, “but well intentioned.”

It’s worth reflecting on what lessons can be learned this restraint. What do you think? We don’t have to get it all done today. We could manage our time differently, especially with some advance planning. Perhaps the to-do list might be overrated. And maybe, just maybe, we could learn how to rest, and breathe, and receive rather than produce.

Just the other day, a fellow pastor told me about Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho. They normally worship at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday mornings. But on the second weekend of the month, they worship on Saturday at 5:00 in the afternoon. According to the church’s website, “One weekend a month, we take Sunday as a day of intentional Sabbath rest.”[1] There’s nothing scheduled in the building on that weekend, no meetings on the calendar. The church has decided to break the prevailing obsession with activity, and announce to the city, “We do not live by work alone.”

If we read through the Jewish scriptures, we find how Sabbath keeping shaped Israel’s life as a community. The scriptures taught restraint on obsessive work. It carried over to restraint on harvesting the fields. “Don’t pick all the grapes in your vineyard,” teaches Leviticus. “Leave some grapes for the poor and the immigrants to pick.”[2] “When you knock the olives out of the olive trees,” says Deuteronomy, do not strip the trees of what’s left; it shall be for the immigrants, the orphans, and the widows.”[3]

The principle here is the same as our use of time: create a margin. Don’t plunder your vineyards and olive trees when others are hungry. Don’t fill every hour of the week with activity. Break the habit of having to control everything. Chill out, to the glory of God.

Now, there’s no evidence that anybody has ever done this consistently or well. A Sabbath can get trampled rather easily. Just remember the last time you decided to relax for a while – and the phone rang, or the neighbor bugged you, or you checked your email “just for a minute” – and two hours later, you’re still on the computer. It happens. Even the best of intentions goes awry.

One of the young adults in our family worked for a while in a large hotel. One Friday, a large contingent of Orthodox Jews checked in for a weekend conference. They filled the place. They brought in experts to scrub down the kitchen. They hired their own chefs to prepare kosher food. They prepared a ballroom as a worship sanctuary. It was a cultural revelation for her, which she viewed from the front desk.

But then the moment came when a bunch of the group arrived from New Jersey. It was shortly before sundown, and they had been stuck in traffic. The people in the group were three deep at the front desk, hollering and pushing, all of them waving their credit cards, demanding to prepay their hotel bills. What was the commotion about? Well, if you keep Sabbath, you refrain from commerce. No buying or selling! And here were the hotel guests, fearful of trampling the Sabbath. Instead they were trampling one another.

And that seems to be a good part of Isaiah’s concern. “On the seventh day, you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the alien resident in your town.” For Sabbath is more than an individual discipline. It is providing rest for others, too. For all the others. And it’s a choice that God invites us to make.

One of the Hebrew scholars did a deep dive on that phrase, “trampling on the Sabbath.” It turns out to be an idiomatic phrase, literally, “turning away the foot.” It means to stop whatever you’re doing and return to where you came from. It sounds like “returning,” or hitting the reset button (as long as the button’s still working, I guess). There’s a sense of repentance. And an invitation to begin again.[4]

And this becomes the invitation for all of us. Wean away from the obsession. Breathe deeply. Lean back into God’s arms and float. Perhaps most of all, to slow down and pay attention to the glory of God all around us.

You’ve heard me quote Barbara Brown Taylor from time to time. She’s a great preacher and a wonderful writer. For a while she served as the pastor of an Episcopalian church in a small town in north Georgia. She and her husband Ed bought a farmhouse outside of town. One Sunday morning, she left home late for church. She was focused on tearing up the country roads to get to the church and lead Sabbath worship for others. Here’s what she says:

With nine miles to go and fifteen minutes to travel them in, I hardly noticed the dew-soaked cobwebs in the tall grass by the side of the road, which the morning sun had turned into pockets of light. I barely glanced at the herd of deer grazing in the meadow and had less than my usual appreciation for the red-tailed hawk that lifted off a fence post as I ruined his morning watch.

 

For seven miles I had the road to myself. Then I roared up behind a red sports utility vehicle that was traveling significantly below the speed limit. The driver, who was all alone, was sipping a cup of something hot enough to steam in the cool morning air. As I rode his bumper, he admired the mountain view with one elbow propped on his open window. All I could see was the solid yellow line that forbade me to pass him. He slowed down a little when he saw the Holstein cows circling the old Indian mound. As he turned his face toward them, I could see his face smiling in his side rear-view mirror. Finally he pulled over to read a historical marker and I zoomed past him, wondering who was doing a better job of observing the sabbath.[5]

Oh, yes, it’s so easy to trample a perfectly good Sabbath. Fortunately, the opportunity keeps coming around every seven days to “turn away the foot.” God wants us to stay grounded, to take notice, and to enjoy this world and one another. It’s one of the primary ways we can enjoy God.

So I bring all of this up in the grand hope that maybe we can learn to breathe a good bit more. Busyness is overrated, but resting and delighting in the Lord – why, that’s a rehearsal for eternity!  

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] See https://spcboise.org/our-worship/

[2] Leviticus 19:10

[3] Deuteronomy 24:20

[4] Ed Christian, “Sabbath Is a Happy Day! What Does Isaiah 58:13–14 Mean?” Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, 13/1 (Spring 2002): 81–90. Online at https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1268&context=jats

[5]Barbara Brown Taylor, "Remember the sabbath," Christian Century (May 5, 1999): 510.

Fasting for Justice

Isaiah 58:1-12
February 4, 2023
William G. Carter

Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.

"Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?" Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.

Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD? Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

 

Picture a little chapel in a summer community, set among the pine trees. Inside, a small community of the faithful gathers on Sunday morning. Not a lot of neckties nor fancy dresses, at least not anymore. In fact, a few of God’s people wear sandals. One man brought a tennis racquet and put it on the pew beside him. The building is simple but beautiful. On a small table, there’s a vase full of cut flowers. It’s a comfortable place for worship. Even though there aren’t any cushions on the pews, it’s very comfortable.

One woman was overheard to say to a friend who visited for the weekend, “I love to come here. It’s how I get away from the world.”

I’m sure she means well by it. All of us want a respite from the noise, the commotion, and the conflict. For an hour a week, we can step away from it all. The demanding boss, the troublesome relationships, the kids who don’t keep in touch, the struggles of heart and mind – just take a break. Go to church.  

Reminded me of the invitation that another congregation posted on a bulletin board by the corner: “Don’t let worry kill you. Let the church help.” Gave me a chuckle, but I know what they were trying to say. Let’s get away from the world.

There’s only one problem with that, and Isaiah names it clearly. The church can’t get away from the world because the church exists in the world. The world is our home, the only home we have. The church sits in our home. We exist in a neighborhood.

In this section of Isaiah’s writings, the people of God are coming out of exile. Well, a lot of them were. Not everybody. Some stayed behind in Babylon. Others lost their faith over the destruction of their temple and never came back. Quite a few had forgotten to make room for God in their lives, or by attrition, their children had forgotten. Yet some of the people of God have returned home to the old Promised Land.

And how might they live out a Temple-based religion if they no longer have a Temple? Well, they still have the commandments of God. Moses gave them the commandments, long before there even was a temple. They can live by the commandments.

And they have the scriptures. Not all of them, but a good bit. The Bible wouldn’t be finished for another seven hundred years, and some of the books were still being written. But they had some of the early writings, like Exodus or Leviticus or Deuteronomy – and they offer guidance on living out God’s commandments. So they do have some instruction, and some old stories to guide them for a new day.

And they also have the spiritual disciplines. They can keep Sabbath. They can reflect on the scriptures. They can pray together. And they can fast – you know what fasting is? If you’ve ever had a blood test, you know: you give up food to prepare yourself. And that practice originates with religious fasting: you give up food to pray and get God’s attention. That’s fasting as a spiritual practice.

Yet here’s the problem. They reflect on scripture, keep Sabbath, pray, and fast. We can presume they are gathering for worship – but God’s not paying any attention to them. It feels like God is far off. Distant. Silent. Life is still disordered. All those spiritual things just aren’t working!

I must compliment them on trying. Sometimes people say to me, “If there is a God, I don’t feel it. I can’t sense his presence. What should I do? Is there something I can do?” And I’ll say, “Have you tried reading the Bible? Or being still for 24 hours? Or praying? Or fasting?” (One honest man said, “Why would I do any of that?”)

The crisis for Isaiah’s bunch is precisely that they are undertaking the spiritual work – but it’s not working. The prophet quotes what he overhears. “Hey God, we are humbling ourselves down here and you’re not looking!”

To which God, through the prophet responds, “Your problem is self-indulgence. You are serving only your own interests.” Then he singles out fasting and names the issue: when you fast, you are giving up food while some people around you are going hungry. You are fasting while they are starving.” What kind of religion is that? Good question. It is a question that comes up again and again once the rest of the scripture gets written down.

If we might return ever so gently to that sweet soul who sits in the chapel to say, “I love to get away from the world.” Isaiah would say ever so directly, “Lady, you are practicing a fake religion. You are participating in a breach between heaven and earth, which begins in the breach between neighbor and neighbor.” We can’t get away from the world. It’s our home. It’s our neighbors’ home.

If we had time today, we could work through all the Bible texts about loving your neighbor. It would take a while. We might get done in time for next week’s Super Bowl. Or if we had time, I could give you my movie review of “A Man Called Otto,” a film that only adults should see, but a heavenly reflection on what it takes to rebuild a neighborhood. Here’s the quick answer if you don’t want to spend nine bucks for a ticket: take care of your neighbors.

We have enough to chew on from the prophet Isaiah, especially when he talks about fasting. What kind of fasting does God want? Among his answers are these three: share your bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your house, and provide clothing for those who have no clothing. Those are the big three. Food, shelter, and clothing.

If you’re awake, you’ll notice our church takes all three seriously. Last month, somebody told us that the shelters don’t provide some meals on the weekends, so we set up an assembly line during coffee hour to make ham and cheese sandwiches. Let’s do it again. Folks are bringing clothing to share with those who need it. Can you imagine sleeping outside in negative-four degrees? And bring the homeless into shelter.

That line still makes me flinch. It reminds me of one of my many moral failings. In my first church, the sexton found a homeless couple sleeping in the church’s courtyard. He rustled them awake and said, “Let’s go see the pastor.” I think he wanted me to shew them away. He knocked on my back door, told me he found them, and then he skedaddled away.

I said, “What’s going on?” The young pregnant woman said, “We don’t have anything to eat.” So I went inside, pulled two boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese out of the cupboard, and said, “Could you use this?” She looked at me. He looked at me. They both broke into laughter. I said, “What’s so funny? She said, “Are you crazy? We’re homeless. How are we going to cook macaroni and cheese?” They turned and walked away.

Ugh. How stupid I am. What was I thinking? Was I thinking that, maybe, if I give them this box of unprepared food, they will go away, and I will have fixed the problem of homelessness in my town? “Here, take this box of uncooked elbow noodles with the little foil packet of fake cheese powder. That will solve all your problems and get you off my porch.”

It had not occurred to me, privileged, employed, with a roof over my head, blankets on my bed, to invite them in, make a pot of coffee, cook up those noodles, and sit down alongside to ask, “Tell me about your life.”

You know, Isaiah may have been writing twenty-six hundred years ago, but he has just told us how to solve the problem of homelessness. Did you hear what he said? “Bring the homeless poor” - not merely to a shelter - “bring them into your own house.” Wow. Imagine that. Who here wants to be that holy? Anybody want to go first? 

In a minute we baptize a beautiful young girl named Eloise. We promise not only to get her wet but to teach her the faith. Who’s going to tell our children what God teaches all of us in the Bible? Who’s going to declare the two fundamental commandments of heaven, to love God and love neighbor? Who’s going to tell the truth, that if we say, “I love God” but neglect the brother or sister we can see, we cannot love the God we cannot see (1 John 4:20).

God calls us to keep repairing the breach. That is, to mend our broken relationships with those in need. This is how God’s people live in the real world. This is how we rebuild the neighborhood. This is how worship becomes holy.   

For the prophet Isaiah gives his promise: “Do these things, and your light shall break forth like the dawn. Your healing shall spring up quickly. Your vindicator shall go before you. The glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and God will say, Here I am.”

 

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.