Saturday, December 22, 2018

Ordinary Path to Glory

Sermon for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists for December 22, 2018

Texts: Exodus 2:5-10, Luke 2:1-7

Years ago, before smartphones, we were headed over Blewett Pass. We had four horses in a 25-year old horse trailer. Our tow vehicle was a fourteen year old Ford van. We were almost to the summit when the motor quit. We managed to back down to broad shoulder area where we were off the highway.

What to do? It was late in the afternoon. Besides the four horses we had four kids and three dogs. We waited a while thinking maybe it was just overheated and would start after it cooled off. No luck. Karin did not want to be stuck up there on the pass in the wilderness, so she decided to go for help leaving me with the kids, horses and dogs. She flagged down a passing car--a Cadillac with two old people in it.

The angels in the Cadillac dropped her off at the first place with a phone, the Ingalls Creek Store, which had snacks and a couple of gas pumps. There was a pay phone outside. Karin went into the store to ask for a phone book. The people asked what she needed. She explained our van and horse trailer were broken down up at the pass. A man who was there in the store asked what was her plan for the horses.

She didn’t rightly know.

Dean Dewes said he lived across the street. He had a pasture where we could camp and care for our horses.

It was after dark when Karin and the tow trucks made it back to where we were stranded up at the pass. One truck hauled the van away to a garage in Leavenworth. The other tow truck hauled our horse trailer to Ed’s pasture.

We tied out our horses. (The pasture did not have a secure fence.) Set up our tents and about midnight settled down to sleep.

One last element in the story that connects our experience with Christmas night of long ago:
Karin and the girls slept in the tent. Garrett and I spread our sleeping bags under the stars. We lay down and looked at the sky, and suddenly the sky began to dance with Northern Lights. Shimmering, waving, enchanting. A perfect ending to a difficult day.

Which reminds me of this morning’s New Testament reading.

At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. . . . 3 All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. 4 And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David's ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. 5 He took with him Mary, his fiancée, who was now obviously pregnant. 6 And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. 7 She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them. Luke 2:1-7 NLT

We can picture Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem and stopping at the first inn. There was no vacancy. But no worries. This is the Holy Family, so we know there will be room. They just need to go to the next inn. But there is no vacancy there, either. How can this be? They are the mother and father of God. Their baby, the Son of God is going to be born this evening. Obviously, there has to be a room. Surely God would not allow the Holy Family to arrive in Bethlehem only to discover there is no vacancy! But that is, in fact, what happened. There was no room in the inn.

Sometimes we “horriblize” this. How terrible! The innkeeper should have realized how special these people were. The innkeeper should have given up his own bed. Instead, he turned away the Lord of Glory.

I’ve read meditations this week that spiritualize this and urge us to be careful not to copy the innkeeper. Let’s not allow our lives to be so full that there is no room for the Christ Child.

But I think all this misses the point. The “no vacancy” was not some evil thing. It was certainly a difficult spot for Mary and Joseph. It was an emergency for them. But it was an ordinary emergency. Like a car breaking down on a lonely stretch of road. It was the kind of thing that happened all the time. And that is just the point. Joseph and Mary, the father and mother of God, had trouble like the rest of us. If we are alive, we will encounter difficulties.

Sometimes when trouble happens we try to think, What did I do wrong? Where did I miss God’s guidance? Often the answer is simply: I did nothing wrong. I did not miss God’s guidance. Life has problems. Evil people have trouble. Good people have trouble. Jerks run into difficulty. Saints run into difficulty. That’s life. It’s okay.

Trouble is ordinary. It’s normal.

And the innkeeper? He did not fail. He did not screw up. His beds were full. That was legit. It was not evil when he refused a bed to the Holy Family. There was no call for him to turn out a customer already inside so he could accommodate this late-arriving family.

But he did what he could.

The text does not say it was the innkeeper. But I like to imagine it was.

“Look, I’m sorry. Every bed in the place is occupied. In fact, there are two people in every bed. I have nothing to offer you. No. Wait. I’m embarrassed to offer it, but you could bed down in the barn. It would be a roof over your heads and walls to keep out the wind. And you’ll be off the street safe from prowlers. I’m sorry but it’s all I’ve got.”

All he had. The best he could offer. And it was enough.

So baby Jesus was born in a barn. Which was way better than being born outside the barn.

The innkeeper did what he could. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t dramatic. But it was helpful. He did what he could.

With this simple act, the innkeeper goes from villain to hero. He sheltered the Lord of glory.
Not in a palace. But he didn’t have a palace to offer.
Not in a motel room. Because he didn’t have a room to offer.
He sheltered the Lord of Glory in a barn. Because that’s what he had.
How terrible?
No. How wonderful.
He did what he could.

This story portrays essential Christianity. First, it acknowledges that in human stories that God writes--in the stories where people perfectly follow the guidance of God, trouble still comes. God is with us in the trouble. God does not always lead around the trouble.

Second, we become heroes in the stories God is writing by doing what we can. By acts of ordinary goodness.

I received a call just yesterday from someone who asked me about helping someone in the church. I was struck by his explanation: he wanted to do this because he had been in a similar difficult spot once and knew what it felt like. Metaphorically, he had tasted no vacancy, so he wanted to offer room in his barn.

I listened in on a conversation about someone connected with the church who is in difficulty and learned of this person and that couple and this other person who has reached out to help. In small ways. But real ways. Performing ordinary acts of goodness.

Christmas is the perfect season to remind ourselves that at the very heart of our faith is a tenderness toward people in trouble. They are our people.

Refugees on our southern border and starving children in Yemen. They are still part of us. They are our people. Even if we don’t have room in the inn, we can still offer them shelter in the barn--whatever that looks like. We can do what we can.

Closer to home:

Our children struggling with mental illness or addiction.
Our friends who lose their jobs or lose their health or lose their minds.
Our people.

Neighbors whose lives have been ripped apart by personal disasters.
Church members whose lives have battered by all the various troubles that are available in this world. They, especially, are our people.
Let’s do what we can.
Their troubles are ordinary.
Let’s make sure our goodness is also ordinary. Frequent. Generous.

Like the innkeeper.

Like God.

Saturday, December 8, 2018

God Behind the Camera

Sermon for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists for December , 2018
Texts: 1 Kings 10:1-7, 10, John 7:31-32, 45-51, and Matthew 2

Bill used to be a minister. He left the ministry and God, went into business, and was quite successful, amassing assets of hundreds of millions of dollars. In recent years Bill rediscovered faith and God and church. A family event brought him to Seattle and because he attended Green Lake Church 35 years ago we had coffee together. He talked of his personal journey and of his current work on mega-projects to help the disadvantaged.

A few days later I spent time with a Green Lake family facing a sudden, shocking diagnosis. We talked together of the terror of death and of a business dream that didn’t work out and the threat of bankruptcy. Being sick is expensive.

Two wildly different lives brought together here in this place.

I thought of these two stories as I meditated this week again on the story of the Wise Men from the East.  

According to ancient legend there were three men living in Persia. Old men. Deeply religious and philosophical. They saw a vision of a star in the west. They understood the star to be the sign of the birth of the Jewish Messiah King.

Their convictions were so strong and their resources were so deep they organized a caravan to travel west to pay their respects to the newborn king.

The caravan headed west across the desert in Iraq then south through Syria and Lebanon to the city of Jerusalem. There, they inquired of the whereabouts of the new king. No one knew anything.

Finally, they get a hot tip. The baby was supposed to be born in Bethlehem, not Jerusalem. They rode the few miles to Bethlehem and found the child. They were ecstatic. They had traveled a thousand miles to find this baby. And here it was. The fulfillment of a lifetime of hoping. The satisfaction of months of seeking.

We looking through their eyes--we, too, delight in the Christ child. And influenced by the teachings of the adult Jesus and by 2000 years of Christian theology, when we think of baby Jesus, we are reminded that every child born to woman is also a child of God.

The Wise Men give us eyes to see the divine light that shines in the face of every baby.

Mary did you know that your baby boy would one day walk on water?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered, will soon deliver you . . .

Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kiss your little baby, you kiss the face of God

. . .
Mary did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is heaven's perfect lamb?
That sleeping child you're holding is the great I am
Mary did you know? Mary did you know? Mary did you know? . . .
Songwriters: Buddy Greene / Mark Lowry
Mary, Did You Know? lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc, Capitol Christian Music Group

One of the great traditions of Green Lake Church is baby showers. When a baby is born, we place a white rose on the communion table. And we hold a baby shower. Donna van Fossen knits (crochets?) a baby blanket. People buy gifts. People give money. Sometimes the mom and dad are well-known to us. Other times the connection is rather tenuous. But if the baby can be called a child of Green Lake, we hold a baby shower because every baby reminds us of Immanuel, God with us.

We looking through the eyes of the Wise Men see Christ in every baby. We see God among us.

Just yesterday I met one of our members here at the church. I asked about her new grandbaby. She eagerly pulled out her phone and showed me a picture of the most beautiful little girl in the whole world. If the picture didn’t tell you that, grandma would be happy to spell it out in so many words. The Wise Men on their camels had nothing on this grandmother in fiery passion.

Because it is Christmas time, we easily see God in the person of babies. Of course. Baby Jesus was the divine son of God. And every baby boy and girl is thus an invitation to see the face of God.

We pull out our cameras and take pictures of these beautiful exemplars of the glory of God. We look through the eyes of the Wise Men and see in the baby the face of God.

But what if we turned the camera around? What if we point the camera at the Wise Men? Where is God then?

Right in front of us.

Just as the Baby is Immanuel God with Us. So these Wise Men themselves are portraits of God. These rich Persians who have traveled a thousand miles in a camel caravan to see the baby, they, too, are exquisite pictures of God. Their adoration of the baby is the adoration of God.

And by extension, Grandma’s adoration of her grandbaby is a mirror of the adoration of God for every baby.

In the passage in Matthew that I quote probably more frequently than any other Jesus urges us to show indiscriminate kindness because doing so mirrors the habits of God who sends his rain on the just and unjust, his sun on the good and evil.

God gives out of his wealth, making every act of generosity by those who are wealthy, a mirror of God. God is the generous father, the loving mother. Every impulse of love that arises in our hearts toward the little ones is a mirror of the heart of God.

Baby Jesus is a picture of God. And so are those three Persians in the manger scenes, dressed in their luxurious robes and holding out their extravagant gifts.

And the reality is that the Wise Men and their wealth are an indispensable part of Jesus' story. Later, when Jesus' life and ministry was dependent on the action of a rich man. In John 7, we read that the Sanhedrin was moving to formally condemn Jesus, prematurely ending his ministry. Their efforts were thwarted by Nicodemus, a wealthy, powerful man.

At the beginning of my sermon, I mentioned Bill, a church member who is very wealthy. And I mentioned some other church members who are struggling financially and are now facing crisis. We are all part of one family. Church is a place that teaches us to hang onto one another.

It is Christmas season. Everywhere we can see creches, imaginary scenes of the birth of Jesus. Some purists might point out that the Wise Men and shepherds arrived at different points in the story. Yes, of course. But the creches capture the essential truth--adoring middle class parents, excited shepherds (who would have been at the bottom of the social ladder), and rich Persians--all crucial actors in the story that is our story.

Jesus brings together all in one story, one community, one family.

Just as the story of Jesus would not be complete without the dramatic wealth of the Wise Men, so church is not whole with some among us who possess extraordinary wealth. And just as the Wise Men found their highest purpose in life in using their wealth to connect with a peasant baby a thousand miles away, so we who have means find our highest purpose in using some of our wealth to touch the lives of people who appear to be insignificant. We are bound together in one family. We have one story together.

So let’s mount our camels and ride. Let’s find babies who need our help and deserve our admiration. And let’s lie back in the manger straw and know that we, too, are precious beyond words. All of us are indeed, Immanuel. God in the flesh.