February 22, 2015 Mark 1:9-15

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee 

and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 

And just as he was coming up out of the water, 

he saw the heavens torn apart 

and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 

And a voice came from heaven, 

“You are my Son, the Beloved; 

with you I am well pleased.” 

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 

He was in the wilderness forty days, 

tempted by Satan; 

and he was with the wild beasts; 

and the angels waited on him. 

Now after John was arrested, 

Jesus came to Galilee, 

proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, 

“The time is fulfilled, 

and the kingdom of God has come near; 

repent, and believe in the good news.” 

***

I have always imagined heaven a wilderness. I imagine it to feel like lying on my back in the itchy grass, of the empty lot, beside the house of my Texas childhood, a region they call big sky country, when it is rather short tree country, and as much as Texans would like to have it, not its own country at all, but perhaps God’s country, as all those places are, where you can lie down and watch the whips of clouds ebb slowly, morphing from one side of sky to the other, be it an empty lot, or a lake, or a part in the alpine canopy. 

It was there in that unfilled space that I filled much of my early childhood - plucking blades of grass, some green and wet like plastic, on which I later learned to whistle, and others rolled and dry as sandpaper, reminiscent of our ever present drought. From under the twisted live oak, I would feel the acorn’s bullet smooth shape, and the crumble of their tan top berets, the whole of which my parents once paid us a penny for each collected, which was probably more a penny for their time, as the hundreds of acorns would have been worth a dollar for our hours of entertainment. 

Toward the neighbor’s side of the lot, just before the grass became more rulley, was a dirt circle of an ant colony, at the edge of which I would perch, with long narrow stick, one end touching the ground, and for eternity I would watch as their black and red bodies stepped up the thin wooden line toward my hand, until I would take the ground side of the stick and reverse it, watching them climb a never-ending stick staircase, I would wonder if there was giant God at the other end of the lot, watching me, in a never ending circle that only seemed to be going forward. 

Sometimes, my mother would take us down to the drainage ditch behind the house at the edge of the neighborhood, and for a city kid, this was wilderness. We would catch tadpoles in spring, and bring them inside, feeding them boiled lettuce and watching them grow little legs beside their long tail, the amphibian’s awkward middle school stage like giant feet on still immature bodies. When they became tiny frogs, the size of our thumbs, we would set them out in our mother’s garden to catch bugs that thwarted her tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley, and mint, the tastes of which are my childhood, the memory of which is my heaven, out there in the wilderness.

Likewise, I imagine Jesus. The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness, for what seemed like forty days, he was tempted by Satan. Was he tempted to have the power over creation, to smash an ant if he so pleased, or chop down the live oak, or take every last tadpole from the limestone ponds? Was he tempted to eat all the cheery tomatoes from the vine or did he selectively pick blades of grass on which to trumpet sound? I suppose a lot depends on if he was able to see heaven in the wilderness, and I think he was.

I imagine Jesus’ wilderness time, like a hike to Twin Lakes on the Elkhorn Crest Trail, where Jay and Eth and I were talking, and suddenly, there was a giant mountain goat and two kids. Halting in our step, voices hushed and hushing one another, movements paused, we watched and waited, until tip-toed step we came closer with cameras and awe filled eyes, to see the clumps of wind blown shedding fur and stark white clumsy kids lying down like sheep against their mother. This is how I imagine Jesus, with the furry wild beasts, and stark white angels waiting on him, waiting on him that he might see them, look them in the eye, zoom in the camera, and know each other’s presence, holding still in the fragile humility of the created order, watching the balance of heaven before his eyes. I suppose surpassing temptation, depends a lot on if he was able to see heaven in the wilderness, and I think he was, and I hope we are. 

I have always imagined heaven a wilderness, a place where the earth and the cosmos are righted, where there is equilibrium in our created order, such that there is enough for all, enough space, enough food, enough water, enough time, enough freedom, a world to explore and existence itself called good. Enough that there is balance, no wars over resources, no debates between access and preservation, between the proximity of wolves and cattle, no debts and debtors, or mountain top removal, or building over an aquifer’s recharge zone, instead a place where crops are rotated and the land is allowed to lye fallow, a place where is neither over-population nor endangered animals or plants, where the oceans of trash are instead wreaths of coral and we are merely divers opening the front door to look in on a home of life in another world, a wilderness, a heaven with wild beasts and bugs and beings all as angels.

Because we’re not there yet, in the scripture John the Baptist was arrested, and in yesterday’s news 660 million people are loosing over three years of their life due to India’s polluted air, and in the church we still have a long forty days of Lent before us, a desert, a wilderness, that could both be heaven or hell, an empty lot to be filled or a childhood place to wonder and wander. Our surpassing temptation, depends a lot on if we are able to see heaven in the wilderness, and I hope we are. That we might be like, Jesus coming to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”  

February 15, 2015 Mark 1:40-45

A leper came to Jesus begging him,

and kneeling the leper said to Jesus, 

“If you choose, you can make me clean.” 

Moved with anger, 

Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, 

and said to him, 

“I do choose. Be made clean!” 

Immediately the leprosy left him, 

and he was made clean. 

After sternly warning the man Jesus sent him away at once, saying to him, 

“See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, 

and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, 

as a testimony to them.” 

But the leper went out and began to proclaim it freely,

and to spread the word, 

so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, 

but stayed out in the country; 

and people came to him from every quarter.

***

The leper says to Jesus, “If you choose, you can make me clean,” and Jesus replies, “I do choose. Be made clean!” I have always found the word, “choose,” in this passage problematic, because I thought it implied faith healing, which, to me, makes a loving God too judgmental, and a fallen people to providential. It makes for a God who might actually choose not to heal a leper, and it makes a leper in control of his own healing, and I don't think life is that balanced, that good faithful people are healed, and bad unfaithful people remain ill, or that all faithful people are good, and all unfaithful people are bad, many agnostics are downright exemplary. Sometimes, I think we interpret these passages and the world around us like the priests, we try to pretend that we, and God have a lot more choice then we do, and I think the leper and Christ know this. 

In this time, leprosy described a number of afflictions, but what was common among among them, was the religious community, and the people, deemed them both, evil and contagious. Lepers were sent outside the city, to live in colonies, with others, who were exiled and shunned. In not a dissimilar way, I think of some of the homeless youth, whom we met in L.A., who represented the staggering statistics of the many, who were kicked out of their own homes, in other places, for being gay, transgender, bisexual or lesbian. I think of the things these kids must have been called in their own family, and what they are called as they walk the streets. I think of the community they have had to create for their own survival, and stories of the times they didn't survive because they walked alone. I think of their lack of choice over who they were created to be, and the choices others made to exile and exclude them, and I think this reality is what both the leper and Jesus know. 

I think this is why the leper says that healing is a choice. He knows that leprosy cannot leave him by the speaking of mere words, just as homosexuality is likewise something which cannot be talked out in some kind of One Flew Over The Cookoo’s Nest, Conversion Therapy. Instead, the leper sees the choice to be made clean, is not answered by changing who he is, but by changing the definition of unclean. And this too Jesus chooses. 

Jesus is moved with anger, anger not at the leper, but anger at a system that has chosen not to heal, that has chosen to split, to ignore, to oppress, and to remain infected and unclean. This same scene happened in our own town, and I am proud, as I hope you will be, at the actions of one our youth. After Oregon legalized same-sex marriage, Facebook was a buzz with the kind of bullying we adults only hear about in the news. Students were posturing, and posting homophobic comments, wondering to what the state had come, and one of our youth, moved with anger, made the tongue and cheek response, that those who had a problem with homosexuality could be the ones to leave. Now, perhaps there are better ways to handle conflict then sarcasm, but Jesus too was moved with anger, and in anger for justice there can be a holy righteous. Our youth made the comment because he had visited the exiled, he knew the leper. The youth went on to explain that the students who were posting on Facebook were hurting actual people, and were tearing the community apart, ‘How would they feel if the comments were posted about them, or a group to which they belonged?’ As the pastor of this outspoken youth, what I imagined when I heard this story, was a student who is homosexual reading our youth’s comment. I imagine, like Jesus, this youth is pretty popular, and could have chosen to ignore the leper, to safeguard his own social standing, but instead our Bryson, like Jesus, stretched out his hand and touched the leper, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” And I imagine what that other student, sitting there, looking at his phone, must have felt with Bryson’s touching words, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean, not because he was any different than before, but because Jesus had redefined what was clean. I imagine the social constructs of student life shaking up at bit, as not only youth who identify as GLBTQ saw the post, but as others saw the act of courage and community that Bryson displayed. But displays can have repercussions.

Now, after sternly warning the man, Jesus sent him away at once, saying to him, 

“See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” Jesus sent the former leper to the priests to show those in the religious system what healing looked like. Jesus also asked the leper not to speak to anyone, so Jesus could keep healing without being caught by that system. For me, I too struggled with the question of whether to speak, and though I asked Bryson’s permission, both to tell his story, with or without name, it was not without hesitation. I thought about what it would mean to preach this one from my own, which until now, I have never done so directly on this subject from any pulpit before. Because there is a way, in speaking truth to power, you are liable to get caught, “Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.” And, if you feel inclined, to look for the leper, the priests, and Jesus in this text and our world, I will be teaching Lectionary Bible Study on Tuesday, where we critique the prior week’s sermon. But, the leper went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, and I look at youth’s honesty from Bryson, and the ordination of this pulpit and I can not refrain from proclaiming freely and spreading the word toward the healing of this world. “I do choose.” Do you choose?

February 8, 2015 Mark 1:29-39

As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.


That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

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“Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.”

Its the reason people are willing to pay more for a salon haircut, because the stylist will wash your hair, and despite the awkwardness of leaning back and putting your head into what looks a glorified toilet bowl painted black, the touch alone, on a place, that as an adult, is never touched, hair and scalp, is a decadent, yet necessary, comfort. The same comfort that little girls know, during story-time on the circle carpet floor, when they line up sitting criss-cross applesauce, braiding one another’s hair.

Its the reason that, despite a child’s safety, there is something else tender about reaching down past your arm’s length with the bend of waist, to hold their little hand in the entirety of yours, while you, ‘look both ways,’ and cross the street.

Or how, when I was a toddler, my grandfather made up the game of stealing kisses, that he would bow down and kiss my sister and I on top of the head and proclaim he had stolen a kiss, such that, when he would be reading the paper on the couch, we would crawl up next to him and steal one back, and how even today, after giving him a giant hug upon arrival, I still look for that moment when he is on the couch and I can come up behind him and surprise him with a kiss on head, proclaiming, ‘I stole a kiss,’ and though speechless, he laughter and smile is counterpoint enough. He can no longer physically get me back, but the score is no longer the point, because I know he is too far behind to keep count. I highly doubt, when grandpa lives with my Uncle John, a car guy, in Detroit, they are playing any of these games. I on the other hand live in a world of hugs, and touch, and occasional kisses.

I live in world where just last Sunday, Melissa asked Maddie, “Did you give Katy a hug?” and before I knew it there was a blond head squeezing around my knees, and I leaned over to rub a thank you between those little shoulder blades. Or how Little Kathryn Gentry, who is only person in the world allowed to call me Big Kathryn, also gives great squeeze-your-breath-out hugs.

I live in world of baby showers where I can picture dozens of church women in the fellowship hall passing around little May and watching each grey head coo and rock, and tuck, and gleam at the tininess and sacredness of touch. This is my world,

but I also live in a world of babies who are not touched, of hospitals with the need for volunteers to come in and hold infants and rock them, because if not, the words, “failure to thrive,’ are common, and the lasting psychoses are devastating. I live in a world where children are not the only ones with this need, and I think of Simon’s mother in law.

Described as such, mother-in-law, I think about her, thrice removed. I suppose had her husband been alive, she would have been described as his wife. I think about being called someone’s mother, and I harken back to playgrounds, where parents were not their own names, but named from their relationship to the child who was my friend. I wonder too about the age difference between Simon’s mother and law, and Simon, and Jesus his friend. Finally, I think about in-law, and I know it is yet another step of distance and all of this makes me wonder when was the last time she was touched, that someone leaned down and kissed her forehead, or touched her shoulder, or put their hand on her hair.

Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever. “Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.” It is this moment, it is this act, from which, the fever left her. It is the shampoo of a haircut, or little girls braiding hair in a line, or holding hands crossing the street, or stealing kisses no matter the age. It is baby showers where infants are passed, and volunteers coo in hospitals for the purpose of being present and the healing that is touch. This, this simple act, is what Jesus knew, and what healed the woman.

How many times has a hug changed your day? Maddie’s knee squeeze was the best part of last Sunday for me, and likewise, those who open their arms upon leaving the sanctuary, I am sure to hug, because for some I know this might their only hug that week, or one of few, or just maybe one they need, or perhaps I need as I am a hugger. In our world today, I wonder how hugs or a pat on the back, or the squeeze of a hand or knee, might be healing for our world. I wonder how our foreign policy might change if the pictures we saw where not the power play of a political handshake, turning one over the other and squeezing out authority, but if instead if authority was squeezed out in hugs, Obama embracing Netanyahu, or house speaker Boelner. Can you imagine, what fevers might leave us, and leave us to serve with love, with wholeness, with vision and purpose, with care. ““Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.” Just imagine.

February 1, 2015 Mark 1:21-28

They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 

Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, 

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” 

But Jesus rebuked him, saying,

 “Be silent, and come out of him!” 

And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 

They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, 

“What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” 

At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

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It is so bad, I have learned to warn people before I go to sleep. New roommates, church mission trips, camping with friends, etc. they never seem to understand the gravity of my sleep talk until I am being a complete and total, well another word for it is, nightmare. In middle-school, I would unknowingly, tell my friends, who were up late talking, “You can finish in the morning.” One night in college I chewed out my freshman year roommate and came home to an apology letter written on the door’s white board to which my response was, “Oh no, what did I say this time.” When I lived in Yosemite, my roommate worked for the coffee shop which meant she woke up and had to get ready before the sun, in the last week of our summer I found out I had been yelling at her every morning. The stories go on and on, it is like I have a demon in me in my sleep, which is hard to wake me out of. 

I had another roommate in college, that didn't talk but slept-walked. About once a week she would wake up and start getting ready for her five am crew practice at midnight. Those of us who were still up would have to convince Anna not to wake up Fredyne her teammate and then get Anna back to bed. Anne, knowing her sleep oddities better than I, had explained to just tell her to go back to bed, “because, if say, wake up, I will, and I will be really disoriented.” 

I think of the man with the unclean spirit like a combination of Anna and I, all our worst sleeping in one. Me saying things like, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” and Anna, sleepwalking somewhere where she shouldn’t be, like the synagogue, or like the time she actually made it to practice across campus, including a major road, and woke up there because the gym doors were locked. Jesus, instead of telling the man, “Go back to sleep,” had said the disorienting words, “Be silent. Come out of him,” or “Wake up,” and Anna and I would have found ourselves wondering what had I said to prompt a white board apology, and what time had she walked to practice to find the doors locked. Our thoughts immediately go to how we had messed up. But Jesus here isn’t focused on what had happened, what I had said, or how Anna crossed the road, or what the man possessed by the unclean spirit had done. Jesus is focused on teaching, and renewal. 

He says, “Be silent,” which can actually mean to muzzle, he says, “Come out of him!” and both of these are actions, actions which point forward, not behind, actions which show grace not punishment, and I wonder how many times, when we have done something unclean, that Jesus is not focused on what we did, but instead gives gracious authority to overcome that which posses us. A simple example from my own life is the number of times, after eating out, or eating an entire bag of goldfish, my absolute weakness, I think, ‘I will begin to make healthier choices tomorrow and then I proceed to blow off being healthy the rest of the day.’ Likewise, in seminary, we had coozies, that read, “When sinning, sin boldly,” the church version of, “Go big or Go home.” But, I think of Jesus in this passage giving the example that one mistake, or many, like seven servings worth in a bag of Goldfish, doesn’t define us, doesn’t define our day, that even after three, or four servings, we don’t have to say, “Well, I might as well finish the bag, so tomorrow I can start over.” Jesus says, “Be silent. Come out of him,” or in my case, ‘Begin again now. You are not merely what you eat. You are who I have called you to be.’ Its grace Jesus shows, and I think grace being paramount goes for a lot of things. 

I have read, in Gottman’s scientific psychological studies, that the most detrimental thing for a marriage is resentment, which truly is the opposite of grace. That doesn’t mean not to be mad, or disappointed, or even hurt, but that if a relationship is to last it cannot last with a list of wrongdoings. Interestingly enough, the piece of advice new brides and grooms are most commonly told, is not to go to bed on your anger. This colloquial wisdom may have some significant basis. Likewise, there is research that says that couples who last are those who are able to remember who they are together during a fight, be it a smile out of tears, asking for a hug after being yelled at, or the ability to make someone laugh in the middle of a disagreement. It isn’t that they don’t fight, it isn't that they never say an unclean thing to one another, it’s that they do, but that even as they do, they remember, that they love one another and want to make the relationship work. I think of Jesus like this, continually focused on now, using his authority not to punish, but to offer grace. It’s not easy, but it certainly is admirable, its why the people at the synagogue were amazed at his teaching, and frankly, its why anyone ever lasted as my roommate. Its grace to seek to see people, and to see ourselves, as who we were called to be, rather than the list of our mistakes, of times we slept-walked, or polished off a bag of Goldfish, or said an unkind thing. Its grace, which can command the unclean spirit, and leave us amazed. 

January 25, 2015 Mark 1:14-20

 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’ 

 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

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I imagine the their nets - ropes, winding, twisting, knotted to completeness. I imagine the way the nets are cast, full out, then dropping cinch, as to capture all in their wake. I imagine James and John mending their nets, in careful mesmerizing rhythm, like untangling precious jewelry, a concentrated effort. that if imperfect, yields a complete miss. I imagine the haul, the old man and the sea, type of strength that still remains in the body father Zebedee. I imagine the fish they catch convulsing for the air in the sea and slapping in an attempt to get back to water. These are all men who know the chances of freedom juxtaposed with capture. And so they forsake their nets; they leave them in the boat. You cannot drag a net as you cast about on land, you must relinquish control. They must live like fish at sea.

And I wonder, what nets have we been casting? What ties have been mending to the world’s control, and which net would be the hardest to leave behind? Do we have nets of timelines for our lives that our measured by our age, by others progress of wealth, or perceived familial perfection? Do we have nets of beauty, or intelligence? Do we have nets of over confidence or low self esteem, both capturing us and tying us down? Do we have nets of social status and power? Do we have nets of fear and worry? What is the net that ties you down, and captures you and what would it look like to be free? 

Jesus tells them the Kingdom of God has come near, and of this they have imagined and heard. John the Baptist told them of a time and a man who was to come, who would come with freedom from the nets of their lives, for whom the fig tree around blossom and bloom, for whom the heavens would open, for whom the vineyard would fruit, would would feed the multitude and heal the wounded, and bind up the broken hearted, and for all the day of freedom would draw near. I wonder, when was the last time you felt this free? When was your last day without worry or fear? When was the last time where how much you caught wasn’t how you measured yourself? When was the last time you just followed your heart? Because the kingdom of God has come near.

I saw it yesterday on the last run of the day as the sun was setting on the slopes of Anthony and the lift was smiling flipping up the chairs, getting ready to go home. I saw the kingdom in strips of yellow light. But I would have missed it had I simply worked through the weekend not stirring from the net of my computer. I heard of it in celebrations of birthdays with youth and new births. I heard it in the healings that have come. I heard it in the way you sang, or the PYGS Souper Bowl of Caring. I see it in our staff in Larry’s offertory, in Luke’s engagement with our youth even of a Saturday day off ski day, I see it in Molly scanning every session minute since she was clerk. I see it in the community of church that happens at basketball games. I see it in Lynn sitting down and explaining some of the church budget to me. I see it in our volunteers for backpack or Open Door - from those in the basement trenches or those spending time to write grants….I see the kingdom so clearly here. Where have you seen the nets cast aside? Where have you seen the freedom of the kingdom of God? Where first must you cast aside your net and followed the heart of God?