On gadens and creation . . .

      My mind has been on two things the past couple weeks.  As I am sure with many of you, the aftermath of the shootings at Covenant School has occupied a number of conversations around here.  Mostly, my pastoral conversations have been with non-members, some from the neighborhood, some from around the wider area here, discussing the “where’s God?” questions, and all that goes with that question, as well as offering the liturgy we observed last Tuesday, where a number of non-Adventers joined us in person or online to complain to God, repent, ask for healing, and then to be reminded of His sacred pledge to each of us in the Eucharist.  Given that we were nearing the end of Lent, Holy Week, and today, the timing has caused people to touch on any number of related questions.

     While my professional work has been consumed with those questions, my personal has had questions of a different sort.  Many of you gathered here today know I have seven kids, all of whom at one time or another lived in Iowa, where they learned to like, if not love, growing things to eat!  Long time Adventers got to hear younger McVey’s ask what was wrong with the dirt in Tennessee years ago.  In Iowa, one need only worry about the length of the growing season to make things grow and produce.  Annuals like asparagus grew every season with their seeds simply dropping in the fall at harvest time.  But my family definitely caught the gardening bug living in that part of the world.

     Like any family where gardeners are present, there’s a bit of negotiating and planning.  Nathan and David LOVE hot peppers.  I mean LOVE.  The hotter the better.  Hannah loves herbs for cooking and strawberries.  I love tomatoes.  Well, what I really love in the summer time is fresh tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella.  Over pasta.  With croutons.  In a bowl.  You get the idea.  And now you are really confused, right?  How is this guy going to connect the Covenant shooting and gardening?  See, I am not as dumb as I look.  But, in truth, I will not do the connecting.  If I do my job today, you will see the connection.  You will see the connection with that evil and every other evil because the Holy Spirit will be working in each of us to lead us into all truth.

     Our passage from John today occurs near the end of his Gospel.  Nearly everyone here today is familiar with John’s Gospel.  We read the prologue of John’s Gospel on Christmas Eve when we light our candles from the Paschal candle at the midnight service, reminding us that the Light has come into the world and we are, as the image of the liturgy reminds us, all flickering candle-like lights of His.  God, I see nods.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God!  We are reminded that what we remember this past week was not a surprise to God.  The events of Palm Sunday and Holy Week did not catch Him unawares.  As Paul reminds us elsewhere, Christ was slain before the foundation of the world.  John’s Gospel begins with a look back to that initial creation we read in Genesis, even as it tells us that what is happening with the birth of Jesus is the beginning of the New Creation.

     It is, of course, hard for Christians, and Christian-adjacent folks, to think of Creation and not remember the Garden.  In fact, the Creation story is far more theological in nature rather than biological or geo-physical.  What do I mean?  Genesis was not written to teach us what dinosaur bones are fake or that science is deserving of scorn.  Genesis makes the theological claim that God created all that is, seen and unseen, from nothing.  He spoke all things into being, including human beings.  Men and women were placed in the Garden where they had unfettered access to God.

     What do we mean by unfettered access?  Well, Protestant me would remind us all that Adam and Eve called God by His real name, Andy.  You know, and He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I’m one of His own.  See, choir, it’s a good old Protestant joke.  I had too many lapsed Romans at the first service for anyone to have laughed.  On a serious note, though, Adam and Eve literally walked and talked with God. . . all the time.  They could ask Him whatever crossed their minds.  Lord, I don’t mean to question Your thinking, but what’s up with the platypus?  Why do the stars have so many different colors?  Why do some stars seem to wander, but others follow circular patterns?  Imagine, all those questions that pop into your mind being able to ask Him!

     Eventually, though, Adam and Eve were seduced by Satan’s whisper.  Does God REALLY want what’s best for you?  I mean. . . look at that Tree.  Doesn’t that fruit look juicy and yummy?  From that moment, humanity has been dealing with what some call a God-shaped hole.  We want desperately to know we are loved, heard, valued, and the like.  We create all kinds of idols to convince ourselves of our worth, of our value.  We seek our value and worth in things which, in truth, lead us further from God.  Put more bluntly, we find ourselves wandering further and further from the Garden and the intimate relationship offered by God.

     John, though, reminded us God was not surprised by any of it.  He came into the world, into what was His own and was rejected.  The world chooses darkness rather that the Light.  Christmas Eve services are so full of hope, so full of wonder and expectation, that we forget that part of John’s prologue.  We forget that the little Babe in a manger will grow to be rejected, betrayed, tortured, crucified, and die.  We have a cognitive dissonance with the reality that the One for whom we shout last week, “Crucify Him,” begins in that manger scene of Silent Night.

     And make no mistake, we can never get back to the relationship by our own efforts, our own desires, or, to use the language of our Protestant forebears, our own works.  What’s worse, if we can speak anthropomorphically of God for just a brief moment today, were we to somehow bridge the chasm on our own efforts, God would destroy us because of our sin.  Think about the times in Scripture when His people complain He is far away.  Why?  God destroys sin in much the same way you or I breathe or blink.  It is autonomic, to use nervous system language.  God withdraws from His people time and time again to avoid destroying them, not because He is a cosmic meanie.  Time and time and time again, His people sin and refuse to repent.  Were He to stay among them, He would destroy them by His very presence, much as you or I blink or breathe.  His removal of His presence is an act of grace and mercy and a warning.  We love to remind people that God is love, and He is; but God is also just; God is also holy; God is also a number of revealed characteristics we esteem.  All of them met on the Cross during Good Friday.  We sinned.  Justice demands a death consequence.  He loved us.  Love demands He willed Himself to stay on that Cross for each one of us.

     Each one of you gathered here likely knows this on some level.  When in your life has God felt the farthest from you?  When have you noticed that God did not seem as close as He does at other times in your life?  If God is unchanging, guess who changes?  And the only change we need to make when we find ourselves at a distance from God?  Repentance.  The moment we cry to Him we want to change, He is right back beside us.  Guiding us.  Nurturing us.  Loving us.  Sanctifying us for His purposes.  John understood this when He wrote the Gospel that bears His name.  God kicked us out of the Garden not because He was a meanie, but because He wanted us to know that He was trustworthy, that He truly loved us and wants what is best for us.

     Look to the end of the Gospel from where we read this morning.  Where do the events occur?  Hmmmm.  That’s right.  You can say it.  A garden.  I heard a couple empty tombs, but that tomb is in a garden.  Re-Creation begins in a garden.  When does Mary Magdalene arrive at the garden?  Hmmm.  Isn’t that weird, in darkness.  Just like in the beginning of Genesis.  She sees the stone rolled away and supposes that someone has taken her Lord’s body.  And she runs to tell the Apostles and disciples.

     These giants of the faith are so smart and have everything so well-figured out, they accept her testimony, right?  Good.  Some of you paid attention to the story.  Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved run to the tomb to see for themselves.  What do they see?  The disciple whom Jesus loved peeks in the tomb and sees linen wrappings lying there.  That disciple waits, though, until Peter catches up and goes in.  They see the linen wrappings and the head covering rolled up in a place by itself.  Hmm.  This does not look like the actions of grave-robbers.  Who takes the time to clean up after themselves when they are robbing a grave?  Then we are told they believe, but what do they believe?  The next half verse makes it clear that they did not yet understand that Scriptures, that He must rise from the dead?  Do they believe Mary’s assumption that someone stole Jesus’ Body?  We are not told.  We are told, however, that they did as yet not believe He was risen from the dead.

     The guys head back to the other disciples, but Mary stays in the garden as the sun continues to rise.  And as the sun continues to brighten the day, she encounters two angles in white.  They ask her why she is weeping.  She answers.  She came to care for the Body of her Lord, but she cannot even offer Him that kind of service because the Body has been moved.  She turns and sees a figure.  The figure asks whom she seeks and why she is weeping.  She assumes it is the gardener.  So she asks him if he knows where they have taken His Body.  Jesus calls her by name.  She knows His voice, as do all His sheep.  And she cries out “Teacher!”  To us it might seem a weird identifier, given the lack of esteem we give our own educators in this country, but Jesus was counter-cultural in that He allowed women to study under Him.  Rabbis did not do that in 1^st Century Israel.  But Jesus taught the women as well as the men who chose to follow Him.

     For her part, Mary apparently clings to Jesus.  He instructs her to let Him go, that He is ascending to the Father—we will talk more about that as we get closer to Ascension and Pentecost.  For now, He instructs her to go and tell the disciples that He is ascending, which she does!  Notice the disbelief still present?  Does anyone other than Mary comprehend what has happened?  No!  Dead men do not rise from tombs.  Death is THE darkness we cannot overcome.

     Again, my friends, we all know this.  We know there is lots of darkness and THE darkness.  For three years now, we have been living with the effects of a pandemic.  All of us likely know someone who has died from COVID.  All of us now know what it is like to be part of a learning process in medicine, lab rats of a sort.  Never mind the mistakes that happened because we had to learn how to protect ourselves on the fly, all of us know the social unrest caused by the misinformation being spread about vaccinations.  All of us know how certain businesses stole funds intended to keep people afloat as the pandemic raged at its highest mortality levels.  Many of us know the exhaustion of our healthcare workers – that’s why we pray for them weekly here.  And many of us know individuals who suffer from the isolation that helped slow the spread of the disease.  So much darkness for three years, and I have not exhausted it.

     For a year now, we have watched Russia attack a nation that was full of their cousins.  For months, Ukrainians told the West that Russia would not attack.  To them, it was as preposterous as our Canadian neighbors worrying about us attacking them.  But look what happened.  Destruction.  Death.  Torture.  Rape.  Kidnapping.  And far too many “bad guys” had no idea why they were sent or what they were supposed to do.  And how many of us have worried that nuclear war is the closest it has been in decades?  Would anyone gathered here really be shocked to awaken to news that Putin nuked Ukraine?

     As if that is not enough, halfway around the world, a potential similar event could take place any day.  China and Taiwan continue to escalate their own issues.  Wargamers and others are actively expecting there to be a battle between the United States and China before it’s all said and done.  I suppose we can take some comfort that India occupies some of China’s attention on its western border.

     And lest we forget, North Korea is waving their hands from time to time reminding us “hey, we have nuclear missiles and we just might use them!  Don’t forget about us!”

     At least the darkness is only geopolitical, right?  Oh, wait.  Our politicians do not govern as we elect them.  They look for soundbites and zingers rather than solutions, their goals being to line their pockets and to win the next election.

     Inflation has raged this last year.  Many of us gathered here are economically privileged, but we notice the effects on our wallets and our bank accounts.  Imagine being those whom we serve through our ministries.  Imagine that you were barely getting by before the pandemic hit.  Imagine where you would be today!  More darkness.

     Locally, of course, we are still in the darkness as a community surrounding the shootings at Covenant.  Families lost children and adult loved ones.  First responders now live with sights no one should see.  Medical professionals have that frustration of ramping up for action, to put all the training and practice to heroic use, only to see there was nothing to be done.  So, much darkness.

     But at least our state politicians are trying to govern rather than score political points, right?

     Even here at Advent, we experienced a bit more.  A beloved patriarch of the parish died a couple weeks ago.  Dick lived an amazing life.  He was a healer, a missionary, a friend, and a discipler.  A number of Adventers learned about their own gifts for ministry through Dick’s gentle guidance and prayer.  And though we recognize his death was a release from the dementia, we know his family misses him; heck, most Adventers miss him.  So much darkness.

     It is for all those dark reasons, but especially THE dark reason we call death that we are all gathered this morning in the garden of re-Creation.  Like Mary and Peter, we find ourselves at the garden in darkness, wondering if it is true, hoping it is true, maybe even scoffing that it is too hard to believe.  Dead men do not rise from the dead!  It is impossible!

     I get it.  Better still, God gets it.  Mary and Peter and Paul and all the other disciples do not begin to get it until they experience the Risen Jesus.  For the next few weeks we will talk of the importance of Jesus eating with them, drinking with them, journeying with them, and instructing them.  And us.  He will remind each one of us next week, as we appellate Thomas with that horrible moniker, Doubting, even though every other disciple, including us, is skeptical, doubts, that we are blessed for believing when we have not seen.

     But it is fitting that we, in the midst of all the darknesses I named and the ones of which you thought as the Holy Spirit prompted you, that we gather in a garden, that we remind ourselves that God is in the business of redemption.  And because He has overcome THE darkness, death, through which none of us can see this morning, we can trust that He has power and desire to overcome all the darknesses in our lives, that He might be glorified in each one of us who call Him Father, who call Him Lord.  And, as one of those original skeptics, actually a persecutor of those who first came to believe that Jesus was truly raised from the dead reminds us this morning, when He is finally revealed and returns in judgment on the glorious Day, we who call upon Him, who call Him Lord of our lives, will be revealed with Him in His glory!  We will shine, not like those flickering candles we light on the night He entered into the world, but with His Light that drives all darkness, all tears, all suffering, from all creation!  That is His promise and our hope!

 

In His Peace,

Brian†

A remembrance of those slain at Covenant School and litany of complaint, penitence, healing, and promise.

      We are gathered in person and online for different reasons.  I know a couple of faces are here because of the deep-seated anger they feel at those in charge for refusing to protect the most vulnerable.  I know one face knew one of the victims and simply does not know how to mourn and celebrate appropriately, given the friend’s life and faith.  Some of us are gathered worried about our children and grandchildren and the traumas with which they must grow up.  And probably a few are looking for a bit of wisdom in such a tragedy.  The truth is, of course, that I have no such wisdom.  There is nothing I can say that will wipe away the tears or the anger or the impotent frustration.  Lives have been taken and lost.  Lives have been impacted by the sight of that violence.  There is very little I can do to make it make sense, to make it seem worthwhile. 

     What I can do, however, is point each and every one of us back to the One who can redeem this mess, the One who can wipe away every tear and use for good those things intended for evil.  In truth, it is for events and so many other reasons that you and I are reminded that God has called each and every single one of us as a nation of priests, as flickering lights in a dark world.  We are constantly being prepared by God to face these things, so it should come as no surprise that we bear this kind of cross.

     Some of you gathered with us here tonight are here because you are angry at God.  You want to know, you demand of God why, if He is truly good and all-powerful, He did not step in and stop the shooter or save the lives of those children and adults.  It is one of THE QUESTIONS asked by non-believers over the ages.  Could God have acted in that way?  Of course.  Why did He not?  We remind ourselves that our Lord wants human beings to choose Him of their own free will.  Most of the time, we love the idea that we have free will.  For many of us it amounts to choosing what kind of car to buy or what to have for dinner, but the most consequential decision any human being will ever make is whether to accept God’s offer of salvation through Jesus Christ.

     Rejecting that offer makes us servants of idols we create or of ourselves.  We believe that we are capable of doing what needs to be done, or we convince ourselves there is no real consequences for the things which we do.  Or perhaps even worse, we believe the whispers of the enemy and accept the seeming futility of the work to which our Lord calls us.  And though we might write a different story, for those who choose wisely, we know that immediate gratification is not the case.  Choosing to follow God through Christ means we become cross-bearers for God’s glory.  None of our problems are magically waved away by choosing to serve God.  Heck, if anything, our problems are multiplied, as so many in the world like to reject God and His wisdom, to say nothing of the His enemy who seeks to draw us from the love of God.

     Unfortunately from our perspective, sometimes our own cross-bearing leads to our own death.  I say from our perspective because we liturgical Christians specifically understand death as a horizon, a limit of our own seeing.  When we mourn the death of a brother or sister or loved one in our church, we remind ourselves that life is simply changed for our loved one, not ended.  And though our sight is limited, we trust God’s promises that one glorious Day we will all be gathered by Him for eternity.  We trust His promises that every tear will be wiped away.  So, in the midst of mourning we remind ourselves of God’s unfailing promises and power to undo all that has gone wrong.  How can those impacted by the shooting at Covenant ever have their tears wiped away?  Can you do it?  Can I?  No!  Only God has that power and wisdom.  More important to us than His power, however, is His desire for each of us as a consequence of our choosing Him above all things.  He has promised that we will one Day dewll with Him and bask in His love and share in His glory; and He always keeps His promises.  And so we have hope!

     For now, though, we are left on this side of the horizon.  We mourn, we rail, we cower, we do any number of things in response to such a tragedy.  And yet, as I reminded some of us gathered tonight, those responses are not sins.  Our very liturgy, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out, trains us and prepares us for honoring God in our lives even in the midst of horrific tragedy.  I know a few of you were drawn in to join us this night by the idea that we could rightly complain to God and it not be a sin.  More than one forgot that God’s people are not only allowed to complain but encouraged by God to complain when things are not as they should be.  None of this liturgy before you was unique.  I did not pour over the Scriptures for these last thirty hours fashioning this service.  The Church has dealt with innocent deaths and unjust suffering since God called Her to be His chosen people just as God’s chosen people always have.  And so we rightly complain to God.  Like the martyrs gathered right around Him we rightly wonder “How long, O Lord?”  “How long until You put an end to this mess and bring us safely to Your dwelling place?”  “How long until we are comforted?”  Like Rachel before us, we refuse to be comforted.

     We do not end there, though.  Those of us who attend liturgical churches have been engaged in the observance of a Holy Lent for five full weeks now.  We reminded ourselves on Ash Wednesday that we are ashes and will, one day, return to ashes, unless our Lord returns before then.  Hopefully, we have all been focused on our individual and corporate sins and, most importantly, our inability to fix the consequences of those sins—our need of a Savior.  Certainly this event brings our corporate sins to the fore of our minds.  Some of us who identify as Christians love guns far more than Jesus; some of us place greater trust in our ability to defend ourselves and our loved ones than in God’s redemptive grace and power.  Our self-described “Christian” politicians chase money, votes for the next election, or higher office, rather than leading, rather than protecting and serving—the very oaths that they swear upon taking office, rather than honoring the God they claim to serve in their words, their actions, and the exercise of the authority God has given them.  And when confronted with difficult challenges or tensions, some even throw up their hands and proclaim there is nothing that can be done, as if there is zero hope commended to them in their faith in God promises.  We, as a nation, have devalued mental health care to the point that it is incredibly challenging and expensive to get, to say nothing of the scorn associated with it.  We value pithy statements and zingers online rather than true relationships.  We excel in “othering” whatever group we do not understand, convincing ourselves that they deserve to suffer, even as we remind ourselves week-in and week-out that He stretched out His arms of love on the hard wood of the cross to draw everyone, everyone—even the others--into His saving embrace.

     And lest we think such events are only corporate sins, how many of us are tacit in our support of such failed leadership or participate in the online zingers?  How many of us vote for politicians who would rather play “gotcha” with those across the aisle than work for the benefit of all their constituents?  How many of us would rather spend a few minutes here and there lobbing online grenades than getting to know those with differing opinions on whatever the hot take of the day happens to be?  How many of us join in the scorn of those whom we know who seek mental health care?  What’s worse, how many of us would rather not be cross-bearers for God’s glory?  How many of us would rather leave things as they are, rather than picking up our crosses and following Him?  How many of us like to give those drowning around us a cinderblock rather than a lifeline to Christ?

     That’s why the liturgy always leads us to our own culpabilities, our own sin.  Though we complain and rail against God for what He has not done in our estimation, we also forced to acknowledge our own roles, known and unknown.  And we recognize that the teachings of Scripture and our liturgies are right.  We need a Savior.  Only God can restore us to Himself.

     Then we gladly celebrate the Eucharist.  We remind ourselves over and over that the Cross, which we will talk a lot about next week, is the means whereby we were all raised to new life, where we were all healed by His wounds, where we know ourselves to be loved beyond measure.  And we eat that flesh and drink that blood knowing it feeds us in ways we can never truly understand; knowing it nourishes us for the work that God has given us to do, even when such work is as dark as many of us now face.

     Like athletes who practice constantly or astronauts who prepare and prepare, you and I do this work trusting that God will prepare us for the work He has given us to do.  Better still, in the midst of our preparations, He tells us not to worry.  He will be present with us in the struggles.  He will give us the words; He will give us the materials; He will give our work the meaning; He will even give us the faith to glorify Him in our lives.  And even if that calling and cross-bearing leads to our deaths; even that He will give back to us, just as He gave back Jesus’ life to Him!

     I get the hurt, the anger, the fear, the despondence, all of it.  We are all clay vessels called to witness to God’s redeeming work.  It is part of why tonight we offer anointing of oil.  We will intentionally pray that God will take those emotions and transform them into the passion we need to do the work He has given us to do, that we will hear our Father’s reminder that He will use us, if we are willing, to draw others into relationship with Him.  But far more significantly, we are reminded this night that our Lord understands us, that our Lord, better than we can ever truly know and far better than any commercial, gets us.  All the stories about His Incarnation instruct us that He became one of us, He enfleshed Himself among us.  Among other things, those stories should comfort us because He experienced the same life as many of us.  He lived under oppression. He experienced the suffering of others.  Heck, as we reminded ourselves just this past Sunday, He experienced the deaths of those whom He loved.  And we know those deaths caused deep sadness and anger, because death was not part of His plan.  And even though He knew death was not the final barrier, He was still moved.  And now, thanks to His faithfulness, hits sits at the right hand of the Father making intercessions on our behalf, resulting in our own empowerment to glorify God in our lives.

     My friends, I cannot begin to know how God will redeem this mess.  I cannot begin to know how He wants to use each one of us in the darkness outside this sanctuary.  But the God who rescued His people from slavery, who called His people home from Exile, who has time and time again rescued and strengthened His people will do the same for us.  Some of us may be called to mourn with those who mourn.  Some of us may be called to walk with those who are rightly angered and frustrated.  Some of us may be called to minister to those who are only just now hearing the Gospel in a new, meaningful way.  Some of us may be called to challenge our leadership to honor the God in whom they claim to believe.  The possibilities are as different as each one of us gathered here and online.  But as a gathered people, as a gathered community of disciples of Christ Jesus, you and I are reminded of the One whom we each serve.  And reminded of His love for all of us and of His purposes for us, we are the fit priests sent out into that darkness, confidant in the dawn that He promises, and the eventual life where all these tears, all these hurts, all these fears are wiped away, and that we will one Day bask in and share His glory!

 

In His Peace,

Brian†