Is the Lord among us? Yes!

      Again, if this sermon speaks to you, you owe 8 o’clockers and God a prayer of thanksgiving, especially on a day where they rolled out of bed and into church at that hour, after losing an hour of sleep last night.  My sermon today is a bit “off” for Lent.  I know we are called traditionally to focus on our need of the Savior for these six weeks, as we work our way to Holy Week and especially the Triduum.  But sometimes the readings and experience, in light of prayer, lead us in a bit different way.

     Truth be told, there were a lot of sermons possible for us today.  There was even an opportunity for me to remind you in light of last week’s Morning Prayer ante Communion that, contrary to the belief of some Adventers, the Bible did not copy the BCP.  Yes, that’s right.  The Venite, which many of you know the song from your youth, is a lyrical composition based on Psalm 95.  I know. I know. Minds are blown. 

     I was led, I hope and pray, to focus on a hard understanding or two and on a common experience in light of both the Gospel and OT lesson.  Last week, had I focused on the Gospel and Nicodemus, we would have likely spent some time considering Jesus’ instruction to Nicodemus and its meaning.  Specifically, as our translators rendered the Greek, Jesus tells Nicodemus of the need to be born again from above.  For his part, Nicodemus is confused by the instruction.  Keep in mind, Nicodemus finds Jesus’ instructions and works of power significant enough to risk his position among the leadership of Jewish society.  He wants to learn more about Jesus, even though his reputation and standing are at risk.

     Of course, he was not a stupid man.  He approaches Jesus at night.  There is less chance of someone seeing and reporting him to those whose opinions matter to him.  Typical of encounters with Jesus, Nicodemus gets far more than he planned.  For His part, Jesus warns Nicodemus that if he cannot accept the basics, how will he ever accept the harder stuff or the heavenly things.

     Born again from above has been shortened in our culture to simply born again.  And, boy, is it ever a loaded phrase now.  As good Episcopalians, I am certain everyone of you would say that this event which causes some passionate discussion in both the wider world and wider Church happens during baptism, right?  I’d give some of us a pass if we argued Confirmation, that Rite when we take on the responsibilities of faith so gladly carried by our parents and godparents, well, at least faithful parents and godparents.  The born from above part of Jesus’ instruction reminds us that our birth comes from above, specifically, our Father in heaven.  We understand that this birth is accomplished by our baptism into Christ’s death and Resurrection and through the coming of the Holy Spirit.  As short of a teaching as Jesus gives Nicodemus, it is a loaded statement.

     In the Sacrament of Baptism we proclaim that we are dying to self and asking God to begin that long process of sanctification.  In effect, we are asking God to make us more like Him.  How is that accomplished?  The presence of the Holy Spirit certainly helps.  But we are called to gather in the worship, prayers, and fellowship of believers –you know, come to church even on days when our clocks spring forward.  We are called to study God’s Word in Scripture.  We are called to serve others in His Name, recognizing that everyone we encounter in the world around us was made in His image and loved deeply by Him.  And, of course, perhaps most importantly in this season, when we fail or sin, we are called to repent and go forth once again to do those things He has given us to do.  These things, as Jesus points out to Nicodemus and us, are not of this world; they come from our Father in heaven.  Those who are baptized from above live a life reflective of Kingdom values, of honoring our Father in heaven.

     This week, in the well-known encounter with the Samaritan woman, Jesus makes another statement that is not easily understood either by the woman, her contemporaries, or us.  Jesus asks the woman for a drink of water.  Putting aside today the observations on how unlikely such a request would have been, she and Jesus go through an exchange where Jesus instructs her that, if she knew Who was asking her for a drink, she would ask for His living water.  To further confuse all of us, Jesus tells her that everyone who drinks from Jacob’s well will be thirsty again, but those who drink from His living water will never thirst.  Part of the lady’s desire to drink that water is easily understood.  Every day, she must go to the well and draw water.  Depending upon containers and household need, she may have to go more than once every day.  Such work gets old pretty quickly, despite its obvious necessity.  It would not be unlike Jesus telling us that we would no longer have to load the dishwasher or do the laundry or takes out the trash or go to work.  Naturally, the lady wants it.

     What Jesus offers, though, is far from a mundane release from work.  One of those deeper instructions is cultural, and we miss it because of our culture and context.  Water was incredibly important in the ANE cultures.  We live in a land surrounded by creeks and streams and rivers.  Our faucets always work unless there is a problem with the delivery system pipes or pumps.  In the ANE, though, people had to live near natural sources of water or dig them.  Water was so valuable that battles were fought over the control of wells.  Water was so valuable that God instructs Israel that He will get their attention with droughts.  So long as they keep the covenant, He will send the gentle rains.  But when they sin and refuse to repent, He will withhold the rain.

     For His part, God describes Himself as living water in the Old Testament.  Eden is described in Genesis as the source of the four great rivers on earth.  The prophets remind us that the Lord is the source of living water and that turning from Him is to embrace death and destruction.  Ezekiel, though, has even more impressive instruction about living water.  In his vision, Ezekiel sees a creek of living water flowing out of the Temple heading Southeast from Jerusalem across the near desert toward the Dead Sea, a sea so named because it was not perceived as living water—the salinity killed most things around it.  As that creek heads towards the Dead Sea, the creek gets wider and deeper.  It gets so wide that it cannot be crossed!  As you might have figured out by now, even if you have never paid attention to Ezekiel, the living water flows into the Dead Sea and refreshes it.  All living things return to drink from that living water.  Fish will be caught; plants will flourish!

     If you ever suffer from insomnia, browse through the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy and pay attention to the need for living water.  Priests had to be washed in living water before performing their intercessions and sacrifices.  Those healed from leprosy had to bathe in living water before their full restoration to the community.  And let’s not get started with all the rules, some of God and some of rabbinic origin, regarding the need for living water in mikvahs.  Water was important to everyone in the ANE, and God used that imagery to reveal Himself to His people and to us.

     It is so important that we continue to use it in both our Sacraments.  When we baptize someone we have the blessing over the water and remind ourselves how God has used water for the benefit of His people.  Over it God moved in the beginning of Creation.  Through it Israel was led from suffering and death into the blessed promises of the Covenant.  In it Jesus was anointed as the Christ.  Good, I see nods of remembrance.  In a few minutes, when we celebrate the Sacrament, water is added to the wine.  Why?  Some of us might say it was culturally common in that day when our Lord instituted the Eucharist, and they would be correct.  Some might say that water represents Christ’s humanity even as the wine represents His divinity.  Others, especially around this time of year, may even note how water poured from His side when pierced by the spear, representing the cleansing power of His blood and the life-giving power of His offer in the water.  Perhaps you can think of another reason as you are hopefully engaged with the Holy Spirit in this sermon--you know, that pesky “meditation in all our hearts” for which we prayed a few minutes ago.

     In all His engagement with His people and humanity, God is reminding us that He is the source of life.  To live, and to live abundantly, is to accept His loving embrace made possible through Christ’s work on the Cross for our behalf.  Some denominations focus on the life to come or afterlife as the sole reason for this embrace.  But Jesus, in both His teaching last week and this week, reminds us that His embrace has an effect on us and those around us today.  Those who embrace Him, and His calls on their lives, are reborn from above, sources of water to those around them.  And though the metaphors might be challenging to understand intellectually, we should be able to understand them experientially.

     Turn back to Genesis.  Hmmm.  Look at that. Water is once again important in God’s provision to His people.  Isn’t that odd?  For those unfamiliar with the story, Israel has been freed from slavery and Egypt and is being led to freedom in the Promised Land.  Just to remind ourselves, God has executed the 10 plagues on Egypt causing Egypt to free Israel.  God has delivered them through the sea with walls of water on their right and on the left.  God has destroyed the chariots of Egypt with no loss of life, even no loss of animal life, on the part of Israel.  Despite God’s leading, presence, protection, and provision, Israel does not trust Him.  For the fourth time, now, Israel doubts God.  In this case, Israel complains that they may die of thirst.

     On one level, the fear makes sense.  They are wandering in an arid land, and water is important to both human beings and their herds.  Modern folks like to doubt the accuracy of numbers, especially in the Book of Numbers, when it comes to the Bible, but if the author, in this case Moses, was accurate in His estimate, Israel may number as many as 2 million plus people, in addition to the herds.  On another level, though, the fear does not make sense to us, right?  After all, think of all the miracles they have experienced thus far, and now they do not know whether they can trust God to keep them watered?  But then we remember that we fail to trust God, too, and we have the advantage of the Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension in our own rear-view mirrors, and how well do we do?

     Moses, for his part, is concerned that the people are blaming him.  “What shall I do?  They are almost ready to stone me?”  God instructs Moses to take the elders and go ahead of the people and strike the rock with the staff and water will flow from it.  Moses almost completely obeys God.  We learn later that Moses does something in this, maybe striking the rock twice, which results in his exclusion from the Promised Land.  But Moses otherwise does what is commanded by God.  The elders are there to witness, record, and teach Israel what happened and to witness, yet again, the provision of the Lord who created all things.  Moses names the place Massah and Meribah, quarreling and testing, because that’s what Israel did to the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

     The question is one that Christians still ask today, both in private and in public.  Part of the question is stoked by the enemy of God.  When we hear that whisper, we are not unlike Adam and Eve who wondered whether God really intended good things for them.  We know our Lord loved us enough to become incarnate, live and teach among us, and eventually die for us, despite His holiness, that we might be reconciled to God and able to share in His kingdom.  Despite that knowledge, though, how often do we find ourselves wondering?  Diseases, privations, reputational harm, and who knows how many things, cause us to doubt whether God knows or cares about our hurts.  Yet that Cross stands clearly as a reminder of His tender love of each one of us, of His willingness to bear the Cross to reconcile us to Him even when we demonstrate and proclaim by word and our acceptance of the whispered lie that He is not among us.

     We gather, of course, to worship and praise God for the redeeming work that He has done in our lives and in the lives of others and in the world through the work and person of Christ Jesus.  But we also gather to remind ourselves of the work He is currently doing for each one of us.  That is accomplished by sharing in fellowship and sharing in our prayers.  You might call it the modern version of the leaders of Israel witnessing Moses strike the rock.  As a community, we share need, hurts, pains, brokenness, praises, provisions, and everything like a family.  God, of course, uses our sharing to help exhort, encourage, strengthen whatever is needed in the body we call a parish.  And those stories become part of our history, part of who we are.

     In one sense, all of us gathered here should understand the Exodus story far better than we did five years ago.  I have been a bit nostalgic with the death of Dick.  Not quite nine years ago, Dick and Dale showed up in Iowa three days after the bishop’s call and inquiry while he was on vacation and within a week of my Vestry discerning that maybe my time among them was drawing to a close.  Dick and Dale, although they could never agree who was the sidekick of their dynamic duo, did agree on what Advent was and what the parish claimed it wanted to see happen, highlighting the fact that Adventers saw themselves more members of a country club than ambassadors of Christ in the world around them.  They, and then the Search Committee and Vestry shared their gifts, dreams, and fears.

     Advent was, and still is, made up of some talented and passionate people.  Some of that talent and passion was misplaced, Dick allowed.  His explanation was that too many believed it was their genius, their work ethic, their creativeness, and the like that made Church of the Advent work.  Both he and Dale wondered if and how a parish could ever reclaim that essential understanding that God was truly in charge and how individuals could ever internalize such a claim. 

     Fast forward three or four challenging years, and look what happened.  Rich Woolard shows up and excites members with tales of Messiah, Pulaski’s work feeding the hungry in their midst.  Bartimaeus could have seen the longing and desire in Adventer’s eyes and voices, a fact another departed saint among us, Ron Taylor, observed at the table in my office.  It was enough to cause me to go discuss with my bishop violating some pastoral guidance he had given me.  After some passionate discussions, Bishop John relented and said I had a year to produce the fruit.  Leadership would need to step up.  The rest, as they say, is now our history.

     What is amazing, though, is that each one of us gathered knows just how little plotting and planning went in to what became Body & Soul.  I started us off simply buying 1000 pounds of groceries each month for three months.  Then I kicked it up to 2000 pounds a month.  Then, Hilary and Nancy offered their CDO.  Those less organized than them call it OCD, but they are better organized than most!  The two of them had about 18 months before the pandemic started and the calls came.  Hilary and Nancy spent almost no time planning or strategizing.  Many of you participated as you could and know there was no genius on our part.  We answered yes to every Can you . . .? we received.  Word travelled, both among those food insecure in our midst and those who had too much food and did not want to throw it away.  There was no “How do we get lettuce?”  No, “How do we get bread?” Our guiding principle was simply to honor God by feeding those who were hungry.  We did not limit need to once a month or by zip code.  We did remind people that we were caring for more and more families and limited the number of some items, but we seemed always to receive more stuff.

     Even on the foodstuffs we were not planning.  Some months we received rice, which excited certain groups to which we were ministering.  Other months, we received lots of pasta.  Then the cows showed up.  Then the baked goods showed up.  Then the produce.  And every one of you watch it and know those participating.  You have heard the challenges, the blessings, the provisions, the fears—and you know that this event has been directed by and provided for by God.  And we have been blessed for our faithful obedience.  CARES became an integral part of our life for almost two years.  Thanks to that work, the rectory basement was repaired, the rectory HVAC and water heater were replace, another Parish Hall HVAC was replaced, and other deferred maintenance issues addressed, with zero impact on our budget!  We received so much coffee from Starbuck’s, Pete’s, and Seattle’s best that we could not give it away to those whom we served that we were able to bless the Insight counselors, who make sure money is not an impediment to mental health in our community, and other non-profits and churches with whom we partner in the world.  Heck, we even were able to use some for us!  Of course, some Adventers did not want that expensive coffee because it cost too much out there in the real world even though it was gifted for free to us.  But even that fight was fun as we teased one another about happy coffee and sad coffee, bougie coffee and regular coffee.  Heck, in further proof of us flying by the seat of our pants trying to keep up with God, how many of us were able to purchase beef at crazy discounts to what was happening in the stores.  And do not forget, because I mispriced it, and nobody here was familiar with butchering and pricing and the like, we lost somewhere between $3-5000 dollars selling it to Adventers and giving too much away to non-members.  Still, we ended up in the black for the year!  Such was God’s provision.

     Now that ministry that started with 1000 pounds of food a month usually goes through 25,000 pound or more a month and helps care for 1500 individuals each month.  None of us prepared for the logistics.  None of us planned the growth.  Heck, we seem always to be lagging behind on our storage needs.  That little beginning has now spawned a mobile pantry that takes care of 90 families or 450 individuals each month, as we learned some who are hungry could not make it to us, thanks to our work with local schools.  That little beginning receives more financial assistance from outside the parish than it does from us!  That little beginning is now attracting the attention of parishes around the diocese and the country.  Rightfully so, as the food insecure are all around us everywhere.  And our Lord Christ has commanded us to feed them in His Name.

     And I have focused almost entirely on the physical side of our ministry.  What of the emotional and spiritual benefit to those whom we serve and ourselves?  How often have those who served heard you are an answered prayer, are you sure I am allowed to take this, and my least favorite if more Christians were like you all, I could be convinced to worship God.  How many of us have seen the tears of thankfulness for a provided feast, a feast that pales by comparison the Feast our Lord offers all who come to Him in faith?  How many of us have been privileged to answer the question Why do you do this, knowing I can never repay you? and realized mid-answer how your work is but a shadowy example of the grace offered by your Father in heaven?  How many of us have learned the truth of our Lord’s instruction that we are blessed in serving others?

     Like the big community of Israel before us, we have a deliverance in our recent history.  When we find ourselves grumbling and quarreling and questioning whether God is among us, despite the evidence of the Cross, we have yet another work of power to celebrate.  We know ourselves.  We know our ages, our aches and pains, our talent for organization, our busy schedules.  We know that we could never have plotted and planned and gotten these results.  We know that our faithful obedience, our desire to glorify God in our midst, resulted in His provision and even sharing in some of that glory.  We know, because we have seen and lived it.  And it will become a part of our history, a part of our spiritual DNA, just like those stories of those who have come at Advent before us.  And when we begin to doubt, when we begin to listen a bit too attentively to the whisper of God’s enemy, we can look back on this deliverance, a deliverance that was as important to the community around us as it was and is to us.  The living water, the born from above of Christ’s instruction has been demonstrated once again in our lives, that we and those to whom we minister and those who watch might know the truth of His words and the depth of His love for all His children.

     And I get it.  Life is hard.  Challenges appear.  Personalities sometimes come into conflict.  Dick and Dale laugh with me sometimes, depending on whether I credit them or blame them that I am here.  Both of them had a hunger and thirst to glorify God in the midst of Advent, both of them saw the possibilities, and both of them shared their hopes and dreams for years after I came.  Their only complaint was the time it took to get to this point.  Could I not have done this my first day and sped this along?  And while I suppose I could have, we would have missed out on the lessons of the wilderness.  We would have missed out on the lessons that God needed us and wanted us to learn, that we might give up some of those old habits and old attitudes that needed to be understood and addressed.  And, just as He always refines and prepares His people for the work He has given them to do, He refined and prepared us.  He has, to put it quite simply, reminded us that He is truly among us.  And with that reminder comes amazing comfort, but equally amazing responsibility.  We are called not just to mouth the words, but to live as if we believe His words.  And when we sin, when we forget His instruction or forget He is truly with us, repent and try again.  And in that effort to obey Him, He is glorified, and we become those feet of peace and grace by which the world around us is blessed.  Is the Lord among us?  We have seen with our eyes, heard with our ears, and know it in our hearts!

 

In Christ’s Peace,

Brian†