the fifth sunday in lent, year b

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John 12:20-36

So, have you ever bought anything as seen on tv? A Salad Shooter? OxyClean? Don’t try to pretend that you’ve never been tempted to buy Debbie Meyer Green Bags. Or a Big City Slider Station? Can’t you just hear that Bill Mays guy YELLING at you about how YOUR LIFE WILL IMPROVE and YOUR KIDS WILL BE SO HAPPY if you buy a Big City Slider Station so you can make the perfect little, tiny burger JUST LIKE AT THE RESTAURANTS. And IF YOU ORDER RIGHT NOW you can get a Big City Slider Station cookbook FOR FREE. All this can be yours for 19.99. Plus shipping and handling.

We are easily seduced by the urgency of advertising.

Buy it NOW
or ELSE
it won’t be OFFERED
to YOU
AGAIN.

It’s very American of us, isn't it? To be pulled into the fast-paced urgency of NOW and YES and MUST so that we can get SOME before SUPPLIES run out. I make jokes about Billy Mays and the As Seen On TV phenomenon, because it strikes me that it is who we are at our most ridiculous. It exploits our manic frantic need for a quick fix.

We are suckers for a promise, aren’t we? A promise that if we do this we will get that. If we buy this our lives will be easier. If we do this we will be more productive, efficient, happy. We’ll be beautiful. We’ll be rich. It’s all of this stuff, right?

Our culture tells us that the more we have the better we are, and, as a result we can’t get enough of all this stuff that we don’t need.

The current state of the economy isn’t helping, is it?
Everyday it is practically crammed down our throats that supplies are running out.
We’re in the middle of that manic frantic that tells us that there isn’t enough.
We’re losing our jobs. Money is running out. It seems that our natural inclination is to stretch and reach for whatever we can get a hold of.
Whether or not it’s good for us. Whether or not we need it.
Something, anything is better than nothing, and even though we don’t have nothing yet, we’re being told that any day now we’ll find our satchels hollow and our wallets empty. Everything’s gonna run out and nothing is precisely all we’ll have.

* * * * * * * *
Today’s Gospel lesson from the 12th chapter of John brings us to a time when Jesus’ ministry is just itching to go global. It’s not like in the first century they had airplanes or the internet or digital billboards in the sky, so launching a maybe-powerhouse like Jesus much past walking distance was kinda out of the question. But, at the same time, never underestimate the power of the mouth—word of Jesus and his healing and compassion spread like wildfire.

So. It should come as no surprise that just as his life was approaching crescendo, people from other places started showing up. Today, it’s the Greeks. They make a cameo in today’s gospel—they want to see this Jesus guy.

They started the game of telephone. “Hey, Philip. We wanna see Jesus.” Philip went to Andrew, “Hey, Andrew. The Greek people wanna see Jesus.” Then Andrew was like, “Well, come with me!” And together they said, “Dude, Jesus. The Greeks want to see you now.”

“Well, actually...” Jesus said. “They don’t have to see me, because the hour has come. Everyone’s about to know me. God will be glorified.”

…In today’s gospel text it’s not made entirely clear, but we know the story. We know that soon and very soon, Jesus is going to be glorified on the cross. It’s ironic that John uses the word glorified, because there’s no glory in the suffering whippings and beatings and crucifixion. But it is God’s Glory on the cross that draws us into the radical love of God. Our God who is present to all people at all times in the midst of their recession and pain, suffering and grief.

It’s beginning, folks. Until now, this kind of love was limited to a very specific region of the world.
That Grecian Cameo is an important clue for us. They play a symbolic role in today’s Gospel, because they came from a far away land to see Jesus. They show us that the love of Jesus Christ spreads beyond Judea, Samaria, and Galilee—the land he walked. Turns out that today is the day that we find that Jesus Christ’s availability is universal. His love is open to us all the time, no matter what, no limited time offer.

“The hour has come for Jesus to be glorified.”

The time has come for Jesus to be available outside the limits of his land,
through his death and resurrection,
he’s available everywhere,
all the time, to all persons.
Jesus even says that he’s about to be lifted up
so that all people will be drawn to him. All, all, all.

Rich, poor.
Black, white, yellow, red.
Friendless, needy.
Privileged, impoverished.
Educated and stuck-in-a-rut.
Prostitute and slave, doctor and lawyer.
Gay and straight.
Male and female.
Grown ups and school children.

Jesus Christ + The Cross = God’s Glory = Unconditional, Unimaginable, Unfathomable, 100%, No Doubt Everlasting Life & Love for Every Human Being No Matter What.

Of course there’s a weakness with God’s Great Love Equation. It’s the human being part. All, all, all people get to know God’s Love now, but all all all of us are too distracted and scared to accept it. The promise of God’s Glory doesn’t necessarily result in convenience. We might not be more beautiful or more rich. We might not be smarter or better. In fact, being Loved By God 100% doesn’t mean we won’t suffer in this life. Quite the opposite. What God’s love DOES do, however, is meet up where we are. At all times, and in all places, God is With Us. God’s Name Glorified might not be as handy as a salad shooter; it might not give us the immediate results of Oxyclean. But I tell you what:

God’s Love for us—God’s Name Glorified—is sufficient. It’s all we need.
Stained and miserable, God Loves You Anyway.
Depressed and mournful. God loves You anyway.
Doubtful, cynical? God loves you anyway.

And the Good News is that that this stuff is available in abundance. It never runs out, it never gets old. It’s not a limited time offer. No gimmicks. No smoke and mirrors.

No one—no one!—gets to be exempt from the love of God’s Glory. Everyone gets salvation. Everyone gets salvation. No matter what.

And you don’t have to look far at all to find the Glory. You don’t have to look any further than the people sitting to your left, to your right, before you and behind you. God’s Glory is alive and active in every one of us. God created us out of Love so that we might be able to see the face of God Glorified in each other.

I know one thing for sure and it is that the power of human relationships is strong and resilient force. And I believe that the number one way to know God’s Love is to Be In Love With One Another. To reach out, through thick and through thin, to stick together, to not isolate, but move toward community. Toward relationship.

You don’t need the stuff they sell on the tv. You don’t need your fancy handbags or good grades. You don’t need trophies, medals, honors or degrees. To know God’s Glory, you just need each other.

Your families, your friends, your neighbors. You are what God’s Glory looks like.

And it’s a beautiful sight.

the 5th sunday of easter, year a

Saint Anne's, Atlanta
Gospel Text: John 14:1-14
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My big red suitcase was packed and tagged, and I had a one-way ticket to New York City waiting for me on the fridge. The next morning, I was going to seminary.

That night, I decided to take my Volkswagen out for our swan song. I was about to leave her for the subways and sidewalks of New York City, and, let me tell you, it was a sad break-up for me. I took her to Stone Mountain Park and we drove around the mountain for at least an hour. Round and round I drove that car and round and round went my thoughts, and next thing I knew I was in tears. What am I thinking? New York? Really? Seminary? Really? Whatever. I’m not going. I’m going to call Rob Nash.

Some of y’all have heard me talk about ole Rob before. A college professor, Baptist pastor, missionary, dear friend and mentor to me. He answered the phone, “Hello?”

“Hey, Dr. Nash. It’s Wendy. I’m not going to seminary tomorrow. Ever. No way.”

There was a five-second-feels-like-five-hours-long pause before he cut it with his signature belly laugh.

“Porter,” he said.

“What.”

“LEAP,” he said.

“What.”

“LEAP.”

“Leap? Rob, really. Leap where?”

“Just LEAP, Porter. LEAP.”

* * * * * *

Today’s Gospel lesson launches us into a story that takes place before the crucifixion, before the resurrection, before Easter. Jesus is in the midst of saying goodbye to his friends. He has predicted his imminent betrayal and death, and he’s trying his best to give them some peace, some comfort, and a little bit of instruction.

This scene comes immediately after Jesus hands them the new commandment: Love one another. Big time. He tells them to love each other the way he’s loved them—and that Love is huge and radical and boundary-breaking. It crosses every line, every norm, every standard. Jesus has just told them to love, love, love.

Then he’s all like, “Okay. See ya later.”

You can imagine the waves of fear that shook those disciples. He’s given them this huge, radical commandment—one that they can’t imagine living out with him around to help—and then tells them that they have to do it on their own. They’re scared.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says to them. “I’ll come back, dudes. No worries. And I will take you to where I am going so that where I am, there you will be also. Besides, you totally know the way.”

Well, leave it to Thomas to chime in.

Thomas gets a bad rap. They call him “doubting” and he carries the unfortunate reputation of being the disciple that doesn’t trust, doesn’t let go, doesn’t believe. But he’s indispensable. We need Thomas to name what’s actually going on with the disciples. He doesn’t mince words, he tells the truth. And because of his openness, Jesus gets the opportunity to clarify, to teach, and to proclaim even more than before.

“Lord,” says Thomas, “we don’t know where you’re going. How can we possibly know the way?” The subtext here isn’t hard to find: Jesus, man, we’re scared. Don’t leave us.

And Jesus’ answer is remarkably simple: “I am the way.”

Relax, Jesus is saying. Do not be troubled. Stop freaking out.

* * * * *

Four years before I went to seminary, four years before Rob Nash laughed and told me to LEAP, I was babysitting his kids. As I was tucking the 11-year-old Lindsay into bed she casually asked what I wanted to do when I graduated from college.

“Well, I might go to seminary.” I cringed when I said it.

“Why did you make that face?” she asked.

“It’s kind of a big commitment, Linds. It seems pretty scary to me.”

And then—y’all I’m not making this up—she placed her hand on my cheek and said, “Wendy, fear is not from God.”

And, you know what? That eleven-year-old was totally right. There’s a proverb or something that even says it: Perfect Love Casts Out Fear. And today’s Gospel lesson taps into that very truth. When Jesus looks at his disciples and says, “I am the way. I am truth. I am life,” he is handing them a piece of themselves that they already know. “Trust yourselves a little more,” he’s saying. “You’ve got Love on your side. You’re going to be great. Greater than you can imagine. You will carry on without me. Feel the Love and Let Go. Leap.”

“What’s more,” says Jesus, “you know God. That’s why you’re going to be great. Because you know me you know God.”
This is Gospel. This is Good News. You know God. Because the Spirit dwells in you, because you devote yourself to Jesus, you get to know God. I can’t think of a greater motivator, a greater source of fuel, a greater reason to get up in the morning and go.

Can you see? Can you turn on your mind’s eye and see God inside of you? Can you feel this Good News? You don’t need to be shown the way to God because you’ve already got it. Right here, in your heart, in your gut, in your mind. God’s there. God is yours and you are God’s.

And now for the scary vulnerable work…

Not only are we called to see the face of God in the mirror. We are being called to see the face of God in each other. We are called to take a step forward and look into each other’s eyes. Get close enough to smell the sweat and the dirt. Nose-to-nose. See God in each other.

In a minute you are going to renew your Baptismal Covenant. Listen to what is asked of you: to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to love your neighbors as you love yourselves, to strive for justice and peace, to respect the dignity of every human being.

The work I’m talking about here is big. This Baptismal Covenant is at the heart of what it means walk the way, live the truth, be the life of God.

The common denominator,
the thread that runs through every soul,
the truth of God,
is the truth that
we were all created in God’s image.

And we Christians are called to seek that common denominator,
and when we tap into that denominator,
when we are at our best,
when we are living out that Baptismal Covenant,
when we have our thumbs on the heartbeat of humanity…
that’s when we find ourselves in the throes of God’s call for us.

So, you gotta trust Jesus on this one. You gotta believe—really believe—that you know God because you know Jesus. You gotta believe—really believe—that, even though it might not always be clear, you know the way. The way that points us to the radical, boundary-breaking Love of Jesus Christ.

When you recommit yourselves to Christ in a minute, pay attention. And when you answer that you “will with God’s help”, really say it.

Take the Leap.

the 4th sunday in lent, year a

Saint Anne’s Episcopal Church, Atlanta GA
Gospel Text: John 9:1-41
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I don’t think the blind man in today’s Gospel lesson moved very much. He was a beggar who couldn’t see, so he probably just did a lot of sitting while other, better-abled people did the moving. He was a fixture in the lives of the people in the same way that I can’t hear the grandfather clock in my parent’s house anymore. Sometimes we just get so used to something, some noise, some sight, that it simply seems to disappear.

Every morning the women walked by him to fetch the day’s water. Every afternoon the Pharisees walked by him on their way to temple for midday prayers. Every evening, as it was getting dark, children raced past him to make it home in time for dinner. Once every couple days, someone might drop a coin or a crumb in his general vicinity. He adds it to his cup. And that is the closest thing to attention the blind man ever gets. For all intents and purposes, he is invisible.

For the people of Jesus’ time, blindness was far more than a physical condition. For the folks in first-century Mesopotamia, blindness was a result of sin, of poor living, of being outside of God’s favor. More than being simply unable to see, blind folks were considered to be full of darkness. [i]

The people thought of light as a substance, as something you either have or have not. If your body has light in it, then your eyes work. It’s almost as if your eyes are the things that shed light into the world. Sight comes from the inside out. Light is present in the human body, and when it flows from a person’s eyeballs it allows them to see. If someone is blind, if they cannot see, their body has darkness instead of light. [ii]

So, our blind man was a bone fide, big fat, full-of-sin-and-darkness nobody. He was nothing more than the requisite beggar taking his place on the curb, sitting there to make us feel better about ourselves, placed there to give our egos a boost, hanging out with nothing more than his coin cup and his walking stick, to remind us that we have everything and he has nothing. Who would we be if we didn’t have that blind beggar to complete the social circle?

Enter Jesus.

He and his disciples are on a walk on the Sabbath. It’s a day of rest, so there is not to be any business at all. They’re just on a simple, Saturday stroll when Jesus sees the blind man. His disciples see him, too…See how when you hang out with Jesus your perspective starts to change? See how suddenly the disciples start picking up on things that they might have otherwise ignored? “Jesus?” they asked. “What did this man do to be born this way?” “Nothing,” he says. He makes mud, rubs it on the man’s eyes, sends him to take a bath, and he comes back with sight.

It is unclear to us where Jesus went for the next 26 verses of scripture. What is clear that for the better part of the story chaos swirls around the healed man. People begin to see him. People begin to give him attention. The neighbors of the town and the Pharisees are divided over the details of the miracle, and the once-blind man is forced to defend the whole thing. There’s almost a steady refrain in the story, isn’t there? “I was blind. Now I’m not.” Over and over again. “Who? What? How?” They ask. “Jesus. Healed me. With Mud.” Over and over again.

The people just can’t seem to understand how a miracle could have happened to a darkness-filled sinner. The people just won’t accept that this kind of miracle-work can happen on the Sabbath. This healing is breaking rules, and therefore it must be wrong somehow.

My favorite line in the story is: “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes…”[iii] It’s almost as though he’s saying, “HELLO! DUH! What’s so difficult about this? Just because something happened outside of your realm of possibility doesn’t mean that it’s not possible! Abandon the trifles, unhook yourself from your way of doing things, and open YOUR eyes! God is among us. See the miracle.”

In Churchworld, we can get pretty wrapped up in this kinda stuff, huh? We tend to get caught in the rules and traditions and the way we think things should be. We want the best programs, the best preaching, the best Sunday school, and we all have an opinion about what that looks like. We go around and around about buildings and committees and budgets. And it’s not that all of these things aren’t important—They Are! But.

Sometimes in a system like the church, we aren’t very gentle with ourselves. We want things done our way or no way at all. When something different happens…when someone comes along with a different style, with a different way of looking at the truth…When the rules as we know them are confronted… When the protocol or norm is challenged… When our traditions are questioned… We get uncomfortable, squeamish, and sometimes we hedge out the possibility of the Gospel. When we get tunnel vision, we might as well close our eyes all together. We can’t see God’s movement in the world.

It’s easy, too easy, to forget the big picture. It’s our mission to seek and serve Christ in all persons. What are the real ingredients? What are the real rules? Justice. Mercy. Grace. Hospitality. Stewardship. Feeding people. Love. The Gospel is not made of protocol, trifles, or even logic. The Gospel does not hinge on one way of doing things. No, the Gospel is cloaked in the life, teaching, and miracles of Jesus Christ, the Light of the World. He hasn’t just come to brighten things up. He has come to give us sight. He has come to dwell in us so that we might see, so that we might illumine the earth with the truth of Love.

I believe that when we are brave enough to step outside of lines, to think outside of the box, to resist the tail-chasing, to question the rules…When we have the courage to let go of the emotional tornado that we attach to doing things the right way…When we take a deep breath and start living into the Grace of God… When we are gentle with ourselves and with others…Our eyes open, and we are filled with Light. Our eyes open and we start seeing God’s work in the most unexpected places. And then? Miracles happen.


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[i] Props to Sarah Dylan Breuer for this insight. Second-handed props to the Social Science Commentary on John where she got the insight in the first place!
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] As always, kudos to the ever-genius Barbara Crafton for today’s e-mo.