Accounting for God

And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this is in his Son – 1 John 5:11

Human beings are storytellers. Most conversations we have with each other communicate events both current and in the past that we have experienced. Every year over a million new books are published in the United States alone. Hundreds of new scripted shows and movies premiere annually. Storytelling has been a part of our human experience since the first days we were able to communicate. It comes naturally to us. As Christians, we have a story to tell. We have been redeemed by the cross of Christ and claimed in the waters of baptism. Every one of us has a testimony to give about the eternal life that we have received through Jesus. 

Often though we fall into the trap of comparison. We hear someone’s story about receiving a miracle from God, on the brink of death and brought back, or about being deep in a lifestyle of addiction and sin and how Jesus found them, and by comparison our story feels somehow less than. What might we have to say about Jesus and his love for us to others if we have always been members of a worshipping community, the church, faithful, committed followers of Jesus Christ from the day we learned to walk and talk?

Perhaps we might, on a lesser day, find ourselves, thinking like the elder son in the story of the Prodigal Son in St. Luke’s gospel saying, “For all these years, I have been working like a slave for you and I have never disobeyed your command…but when this son of yours comes back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you kill the fattened calf for him!” (Luke 15.29-30) In these moments, I wonder if we aren’t missing something Jesus taught in many other parables like this one. 

God’s abundant grace and everlasting love have always been with us. The same love and grace have always been with those who have tried to wander far from the God who loves them, far from their heavenly home. This is our testimony. This our story of eternal life. 

Maybe we need more stories told about ordinary holiness and extraordinary grace. Perhaps we need to tell the stories about how we see God’s love in showing up when we go to work, raise a family, spend time with friends, and attend church. Perhaps instead of falling into the trap of comparison, we take a few moments and meditate on the father’s response to the elder son, “Son you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours.” And in doing so, we might see the story that God has given us to tell. God’s love for us has remained with us through every moment of our sometimes boring, ordinary lives. This love has sustained us whether we realized it or not, whether we felt it or not. This love gifted from the Father and the Son, and poured out by the Holy Spirit, the trinity of love, abides in our hearts. And our hearts bear witness to this love in the world. This is our story to tell.

And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. – 1 John 5:4b

There is an old hymn found in the This Far by Faith hymnal, “Victory is Mine”. After spending the morning researching the backstory for this hymn, I came up empty. The hymnal lists both the text and music as traditional. However, it wasn’t a total loss, I did find a very stirring recording of the hymn by Gospel singer, Dorothy Norwood. If you’re not familiar with the lyrics to the hymn, they read:

Victory is mine. Victory is mine. Victory today is mine.
I told Satan, “Get thee behind.” Victory today is mine.

The hymn continues repeating the same pattern substituting another of the abundant gifts (joy, peace, love, hope, faith, happiness, etc.) that God graciously gives us in place of “victory.” The song proclaims the good news by reminding us that there are many things that God has given to us that are greater than any power that attempts to overthrow God’s work in us. The powers and principalities that try to overwhelm us are themselves overwhelmed and defeated at the foot of the cross and from the empty tomb.

By faith, we live. The writer of Hebrews teaches us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Heb 11.1) It was our ancestors in faith that model for us trusting perseverance. Their faith models for us the victory that we have now received in Jesus. By faith, they lived and were instruments of God’s tremendous power in the world, and yet they “never received the promises, but from a distance, they saw and greeted them.” (Heb 11.13) By following their examples, we, too, are invited to “run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith.” (Heb 12.1-2) By faith, we will endure.

Our faith in Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord, will see us through this life. When the world weighs us down, Jesus lifts us up. When we feel like we can’t go on, Jesus carries us. When we are lost and do not know the way, Jesus is our light and the way. When we are broken and unloved, Jesus abides in us and loves us. And when we feel our past choices have sullied our future and defined our present, Jesus washes us clean in the power of his blood.

The victory of the cross and grave grants to us the gift of faith. We receive through hearing and cling to the good news that Jesus has conquered the world and all other powers that lay claim to his beloved people. This victory has seen us through hard times, it remains with us now, reminding us that we are loved and never alone, and it will continue to hold to us through whatever may be ahead, until this earthly pilgrimage is complete, and we rest with the one who claims us by his cross.

And so we can sing boldly:

Faith is mine! Faith is mine! Faith today is mine!
I told Satan, “Get thee behind!” Faith today is mine!

No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. – 1 John 4.12

“Who doesn’t want to be loved unconditionally?” asked our enlightened professor of systematic theology in the dimly lit back room of the tavern that we met at weekly for Beer and Theology. B&T’s format was simple. We went around the room introducing ourselves by name, year in school (alumni status, pastorate, etc.), and offered our deepest theological and biblical questioning of the week. It was a great way to decompress, have a beer (Millstream, brewed in the Amana Colonies, was the unofficial beer of choice) or root beer for the teetotalers among us, and enjoy a conversation. I can’t say that we ever really received an answer to the group-decided ponderings, we loved discussing it, and may have on occasion, learned something. Most of the time, it just created more questions. But that is theology, the Bible, life, and even God. When you think you have it all figured out, something comes along to remind you, perhaps even humble you, that there is always something more to learn. God is a mystery.

The Letter of St. John gives us a glimpse into one of the certain, knowable attributes of God, God is love. Where there is love, there is God. And where there is God, there is Jesus and the Holy Spirit, a perfect unity, the blessed Trinity. St. Augustine writes that “God is invisible, and must be looked at not with the eye, but with the heart.” When we explore the mysteries of God this is our starting point. Everything that we are as the church, as citizens, as children of God begins with the heart where divine love abides. Divine love is sacrificial. Love that as St. Paul reminds us often “is patient and kind, not envious, boastful, or arrogant…it bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” (cf. 1 Corinthians 13)

As human beings, prone to wandering, our love is imperfect, but we have been given Jesus, whose perfect love we cling to by faith. That perfect love, by faith, casts out fear, especially the fear of being unloved. In Jesus, God’s love is presented in human likeness. And in the incarnation of God’s beloved Son, who offered his life for the sake of the whole world, you are perfectly made and unconditionally loved. God loved you first. Not as you should be, but as you are. Yet, God’s love doesn’t leave you there but raises you up in that love to abundant life. This love abides in you. And in this everlasting, sacrificial, divine love, we see God. Who doesn’t want to be loved unconditionally?

He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. – Psalm 23:2b-3

I believe it is safe to say that the 23rd Psalm is the most beloved and well-known psalm in the world. I’ve known many people have it memorized. It is the most requested psalm at funeral services. There is a multitude of stained-glass windows, congregation names, and hymns inspired by this simple six-versed poem. It transcends denomination and religious tradition. It speaks to the depth of our human condition and to the deep longing for God to nurture and provide for us. The psalm gives us hope as we journey through the darkest valleys of life. These sacred words promise us that we will dwell in the house of the Lord our life long.

Although we may have read these words a hundred times before, they still speak to us. Like the re-reading of all scripture, the Spirit awakens us to new insights, the Spirit speaks to us through the timelessness of God’s Word. This time, for me, it was the repeated phrase, “He leads”. Twice the psalmist reminds both writer and reader that we are not the ones in charge here. It is God who leads and apart from the Lord, we can do nothing. (John 15:5)

It brings to mind the third step of the twelve steps, “We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.” Only by surrendering our will and our lives to God’s care can we be freed from our ego-driven addiction to controlling the outcome of our lives and the actions of others. Far too often, we place God in the role of consultant. We make God just one of the many voices that we seek advice from when faced with seemingly impossible obstacles in the decisions about how to be or what to do. We find ourselves caught up in the minute details of “how” and the “what if” questions that we have built for ourselves in our imaginations, when in reality, the place of God’s dwelling, the answers to those questions have already been figured out. The Lord is leading. As a friend once advised, “we need to get out of our own way.” If only we’d get out of the way, and stop fighting the losing battle against God’s will, God will do what God is going to do, what God has promised. God will lead us through the darkest valleys and along the stillest waters to the place where God has prepared a eucharistic table for us.

When moved by the Spirit to trust the Lord with our problems, our struggles, our difficulties, and our doubts, we can trust that our surrender leads to resting in the goodness, mercy, and love that God has freely given to us through Jesus. There may always be challenges. We may always wrestle with our demons. Yet over and over again the scriptures call us to rest in the one who is our good shepherd. He is the shepherd who dwells with his sheep and lays down his life for them. He is the shepherd who has promised to be with us all of our days. He is the Christ, the Lord Jesus, and our cup overflows.

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. – 1 John 3:2

When our first daughter was born, we received this advice, “Don’t blink.” As the weeks and months went by, we watched our little girl observe the world, curious about everything new happening around her. We couldn’t wait for her to crawl. Months later, we watched her learn to walk. We encouraged her to talk, something that we may regret, as even now she is filled with elementary school sass. Now she reads, and not only for school but for herself. She helps with her sisters, especially her youngest one. She proclaims daily what she would like to be when she grows up. Her heart and mind are filled with play, curiosity, possibility, and wonder. And I feel like we blink too often.

St. John writes that we are called children of God. He writes that God’s love for us is so great that this love transforms us into who we really are, children. Yet, we grow up too fast. We blink. We forget too easily what it was like to be lost in imagination and play. We leave behind a world that was once filled with infinite possibilities. We cease being curious. We lose sight of the one who loves us and what that loves makes us. In our so-called growing up, taking on adult responsibilities, we define ourselves by the things that we do and dry ourselves of the waters of baptism that first claimed us and ultimately define us. We are children of God, marked by Christ’s cross forever.

And as children, we are free-range and can wander and wonder. We can make mistakes and be imperfect. We can learn. We can grieve small things. We can cry when we feel wronged or perceive injustice in our world. We can celebrate and dance for no reason at all. We can take naps. We can play and imagine a different world. We can be curious. And as children, we can have a trusting faith that no matter what happens we will fall into the hands of the loving and merciful God.

When we fall into those hands, when we rest in God’s loving arms, we are awakened and through the eyes of children see, once again, Jesus through whom, with whom, and in whom, we are made siblings, one body in the risen Lord.

Beloved, you are God’s children.

We declare to you, what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at, and touched with our hand, concerning the word of life. – 1 John 1:1

One of the most well-known dialogues of Socrates from Plato’s Republic is the Allegory of the Cave. It goes something like this. A group of men are chained to a cave wall in such a way that all they can see are shadows of the world above them projected by a fire. One day a man breaks free of the cave and climbs out seeing for the first time the world as it is, the warmth of the fire, the brightness of sun, the earth in its diversity. After a time, he returns to the cave and begins to share the story of his experiences, what he heard, saw, and touched. Socrates asks the question, “If he were to return and they were not to believe him, ridicule him, and possibly kill him, was it worth it to go up?”

The apostles and the first hearers of the Resurrection were faced with the same question. Having experienced the crucified and risen Christ, can they go back to the world that they knew before? Having weighed the risk of their message, would they instead choose to be chained in the darkness? This is a recurring theme throughout the New Testament from the rich man who goes away sad and the disciples who turned away after Jesus said, “I am the bread of life,” to the early Christians who debated keeping the practices of the Mosaic law. From these writings, the questions are passed to us. Will we live what we have experienced? Will we tell what we have seen and heard having been transformed by the resurrection of Christ?

Sometimes, I wonder if it is all too easy to hide in the church, to use the rituals and memorized prayers to prevent us from encountering Jesus who calls us into a real fellowship with him and the people that he loves. The rituals and prayers are meant to facilitate the meeting, not to shield us from him. Hiding behind the locked doors of the church, we are exposed only to the incomplete shadows and receive only incomplete joy that God intends for us to be gifted with in its fullness in the crucified and risen Lord.

The one who suffered and was risen, Jesus, the Christ, comes to us. He calls us by name, breaks through doors, meets us where we are, frees us from the chains that we fashion for ourselves, and raises us to the new and complete life that he has won for us. Not only for us does he come, but for the whole world. We no longer have to be confined by shadows, but life abundantly in the light of the world that he reveals. The God who forgives us. The God who loves us. The God who calls us to walk in the light and see the world as it was intended to be from the beginning. The crucified and risen Lord is our light. To cling to him is to see his risen radiance and be set free forever.  

For I have handed on to you as of first importance what I, in turn, have received; that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. – 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

I received my first bible around the time I was in Kindergarten, a collection of short bible stories with artwork opposite of the written text. I can still see many of those pictures when I think about them. Ever since then I have had a deep love for the sacred scriptures. A copy of the bible has always accompanied me wherever I’ve been led. I received my first study bible, which I still have, when I was preparing to be confirmed in the Church, gifted one, which I took with me to Basic Training, and purchased a new bible when I began attending a Lutheran church. It is the one book in my house that is opened every day for study, reading, or prayer. The words of the scriptures have been a faithful, and sometimes mysterious and challenging, friend.

I don’t fully understand them. I have more questions and fewer answers when I read. I miss things in the readings. I question what and why God reacts the way God does. What is deeply intriguing, can be outright frustrating! And yet, I still love them, and want to learn more, and be challenged, and proclaim the whole point, that Jesus has died, Jesus was buried, and Jesus was raised. 

We have been given this beautiful library of God’s faithfulness, generational questioning, and witnesses of love, hope, and faith in a challenging world so that we receive what was handed on before us. Like family histories told around supper tables and at the foot of a grandparent’s recliner, these stories, poems, and theological discourses bear witness to the ways that God shows up, cares for us, and triumphs over the seemingly impossible challenges that we are faced as a human family. 

Christ is risen to us today! Christ is risen to us when we read the bible. Christ is risen to us when we hear the public reading of God’s word in the liturgy, the preaching, and the Eucharistic meal we partake. The words have been given to you of first importance that what you have received may be handed on to others, in accordance with the scriptures.

Alleluia! Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

…but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. – Philippians 2:7

Palm Sunday. Maundy (or Holy) Thursday. Good Friday. Easter (The Resurrection of Our Lord). We renew this week our most important story. We walk the steps that Jesus walked for us. We rejoice with palm branches at the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, gather with the apostles for Passover, desert him at the cross, only looking on from a distance, and peer into the empty tomb, uncertain as to what, if anything we will find there. Holy Week is a snapshot of our life’s journey. It runs the full range of our human experiences of joy and sorrow, gain and loss, certainty and doubt.

In our lives, how many of us have not felt the freedom of being with the crowd, of belonging? We, too, might wave and shout praises. Or who has not gathered to share a seemingly, ordinary meal only to be shocked by the conversation, or even a bit uncomfortable when the discussion becomes serious? How many times in our life have we promised undivided loyalty to a friend only to abandon them when they needed us the most? Or waited…who has not waited for an answer, a response to a job interview, the call from the doctor’s office, or notice of the death of a loved one? All the time praying that God’s promises are real and that when our prayers are too deep for words, our sighs will suffice. And how often in our life have we been able to rejoice when the relationship or journey that we thought was over, finished, and dead, has been breathed new life into it by the Spirit and made alive in Christ?

This week is a story told for our sake. God became like us. Humbling himself, Jesus bore the full weight of human experience. He ate and drank with friends. He walked through a weary world and was moved to compassion for the sick and suffering. He accepted death. All for us, so that we would know the depth of God’s love for us and that in knowing, we might trust and walk in love, trusting in God’s promise, and be transformed by divine love.

Holy Week offers a bold reminder that there is no place that God has not been before us. From the highest places to the lowest of lows, God has entered into our story, has taken all of our life experiences to the cross and has returned to us the peace, love, mercy, forgiveness, hope, and new life that he promised. All of our life is wrapped up in the beautiful story of this holiest of weeks.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. – Jeremiah 31:31

“The days are surely coming…” are words of hope and consolation. Our experience in this earthly exile weighs on our hearts and we long for the days that “thy kingdom come.”

 “The days are surely coming…,” we might say, when the pandemic will end, and life will return to “normal.” Vacations will return. Families and friends will be visited. We watch the news of vaccines and dropping rates of spread. The days are surely coming.

“The days are surely coming…,” we might say, when violence against women and children, persons of Asian and African descent, and all of God’s beloved will cease. War ends, and Christ’s peace reigns. The days are surely coming.

“The days are surely coming…,” we might say, when our LGBTQ siblings in Christ will have their love validated by the church who preaches love of neighbor and welcome the stranger but denies them Christ’s own body and blessing. The days are surely coming.

“The days are surely coming…,” we might say, when every child who wants to learn may grow up in safety and the ability to live to their full potential, and every school and teacher is fully funded, so that no one is missed. The days are surely coming.

“The days are surely coming…,” we might say, when every person who without home, or food, will be housed and fed, and each person who is unemployed or underemployed will find meaningful work, at a livable wage to support themselves and the people who depend on them. The days are surely coming.

“The days are surely coming…,” we might say, when all of God’s beloved are made whole in mind, body, and spirit, and no one feels they have to face depression, anxiety, addiction, illness, or death alone. The days are surely coming.

“The days are surely coming…”, the Lord says, “that I will be their God and they shall be my people…for they shall know me the least of them to the greatest.”
The days are surely coming.

As we wait, pray, and live for the days that are surely coming, we are called by the promise to do what we can now so the days that are surely coming don’t feel so far away. The days will come with or without us, but we pray here that the days that are surely coming may come to us.

Lord, grant me the serenity me to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen. (The Serenity Prayer)

So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it on a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live. – Numbers 21.9

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. – John 3:14-15

I finished distributing communion to the congregation and was stopped. I paused for a moment, took a deep breath, looked at the gathered congregation, singing One Bread, One Body, and felt a sadness come over me. I knew that this was going to be our last time together for a while. I had hoped that it wasn’t going to be for very long, thinking maybe we’d be back before Holy Week or Easter, only a few weeks away, but something gnawing in the back of my mind that our separation might last longer.

The following day, I drafted a letter to the congregation and guests announcing the suspension of in-person worship and gatherings in the church building writing, 

These are challenging and anxious days. The uncertainty that lies ahead challenges even those with great faith in the Lord and the Lord’s promises for the world. Yet, even in the canceling of everyday life, we recognize that Christ’s promise remains. After all, to get to the promised resurrection, Christ bore the cross for us. To drastically paraphrase Isaiah 40.8, the schools close, churches suspend worship, and the store might be out of toilet paper, but the Word of our God will stand forever.

A year later that promise remains true for us as the day God spoke it through the prophet Isaiah. Through the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows, the gains and the losses, God’s promised one, Jesus, the Christ, has remained with us and for us. There are still challenging and anxious days ahead. There is always uncertainty, even in faith, yet God’s love and promise remain. 

These days, we may be closer to the end than the beginning; each day still belongs to God, to Christ, who is the beginning and the end. Each day, the Holy Spirit, through the lifting up of God’s Word, turns us to look to the cross, and live. No matter where the Spirit leads the Body of Christ, that same Spirit will continue to raise us up to see Christ crucified in every one of God’s beloved people. And by looking towards the face of the One crucified for us, we will always be given life, mercy, and wholeness in the wilderness. 

God has had this.
God has this. 
God has you.