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Love: It’s Not All You Need

Jason Micheli —  February 25, 2013 — 4 Comments

Myth_of_You_Complete_MeHere is the manuscript of this weekend’s sermon for our Lenten Series, Counterfeit Gods. Unfortunately the text itself doesn’t convey the sermon and the video recording didn’t work out. You can listen to the sermon here, in the ‘Listen’ widget on this page or download it in the iTunes library. 

The sermon began with a flash-mob style rendition of ‘All You Need is Love’ sung by the Men of Note. In the middle of the sermon, I retold the story of Jacob and Leah using glasses and a whole lot of water. 

Choir:

Love, love, love.

Love, love, love.

Love, love, love.

There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.

Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.

Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game.

It’s easy.

 

Nothing you can make that can’t be made.

No one you can save that can’t be saved.

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time.

It’s easy.

 

All you need is love.

All you need is love.

All you need is love, love.

Love is all you need.

 

Nothing you can know that isn’t known.

Nothing you can see that isn’t shown.

Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.

It’s easy.

 

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Not to burst anyone’s bubble, but you all know that’s a lie right?

 

It’s a nice sentiment for a pop song or a rom-com, but as biblical truth it’s what theologians call ‘complete crap.’

 

Far be it from me to be cynical, but that song is a lie. It’s not true.

 

Love, whether we’re talking about your love for your spouse or your love for your children or their love for you, is NOT all you need.

 

We live in a culture that tells us love is what gives our lives meaning and value. We live in a culture that tells us you’re nobody ‘til somebody loves you; consequently, some of us will let any body love us.

 

We live in a culture that tells us if we just find the perfect person- or have the perfect child- then everything else that’s empty in our lives will be filled.

 

Love is all we need to live happily ever after.

 

Those are all lies.

You can call me cranky if you like, but you know I’m right.

 

Anyone who’s ever been married or had children knows love isn’t all you need.

On your wedding day you say with a twinkle in your eye: ‘Of all the people in the world, I choose you.’

 

But after the day you say ‘I do’ there are other days when you just want to pull your hair out and scream: ‘Of all the people in the world, I chose you?!’

 

     So, no. Love is not all you need to live happily ever after.

     It wasn’t enough to keep the Beatles together.

     It wasn’t enough to rescue some of your relationships.

     And it wasn’t enough to keep Jacob’s life from unraveling and damaging everyone in it.

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Speaking of Jacob, just as an aside, you need to appreciate the degree of difficulty I’m dealing with today. A few of you may have noticed that I have a certain affinity for those silly, salacious, crude and even offensive parts of the Bible. So you should know that today’s scripture passage contains the Hebrew equivalent of the F-word, as when Jacob says to Laban: ‘I want to ___________ your daughter.’

In Hebrew, Rachel is described as having a ‘hot body’ while her older sister, Leah, whose name means ‘cow’ in Hebrew, is said to have ‘nice eyes,’ which is a Jewish colloquialism for ‘she has a nice personality.’

And then, to top it off, Jacob, the hero for whom the People of Israel are named, gets completely wasted and has sex with the wrong sister.

Can you even begin to appreciate how difficult it is for me not run wild with this story and offend you all in the process? It was all I could do not to title my sermon ‘Beer Goggles.’

 

As tempting as the silly parts of this story might be for me on other days, today I want to take the story straight up. I want to be serious.

 

Because once you push aside the preposterous Jerry Springer parts of the story, this story is more common and more relevant for this community than you could possibly guess.

 

By my conservative estimate, I’ve done about 1500 hours of counseling with couples during my ministry: couples jumping into marriage, couples struggling through their marriage, couples jumping into parenthood in order to fix what’s broken in their marriage, couples getting out of their marriage- after a long time or not long at all.

 

Confidentiality means I can’t tell you who those couples are. I can’t point to them or tell you if you’re sitting next to one of them, though some of you are.

 

     But that doesn’t matter because I can tell you: whenever those couples come to my office, there’s a better than even chance their names are Jacob and Leah.

 

So, I think it’s important you know their story.

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[Pull out two glasses. ‘Leah’ is half empty and ‘Jacob’ is full] 

 

Jacob and Leah’s story- it has everything to do with the stories they brought with them to their marriage. It almost always does.

 

The story starts with Jacob.

 

Jacob has an older brother.

Jacob’s Dad always preferred his brother to him. [Pour out some water from his glass, letting it drip everywhere]

 

When you get past all the drama and bad decisions in Jacob’s life, that’s what it boils down to.

 

His Dad always insisted ‘I love you both the same.’

But even when you’re a child, you know better. You notice. You notice if your parent’s really listening, really paying attention to you, really enjoying you.

 

So Jacob grows up in his brother’s shadow, and the anger and hurt Jacob feels because of his Father gets expressed as resentment towards his brother. [Pour out some water from his glass, letting it drip everywhere]

 

And Jacob’s Mom, she deals with it the way all abusive families cope. She tries to compensate for what her husband won’t do. She turns a blind eye. She pretends the problem doesn’t exist. [Pour out some water from his glass, letting it drip everywhere]

 

But that never works.

 

Eventually it comes to a head. It always comes to a head.

 

So when Jacob is older, he hurts his brother- in a way that can’t be taken back. And, if he’s honest, he does it to spite his Father.

 

In just one self-destructive moment: his brother hates him, his relationship with his Father is ruined forever, and his Mother is forced to take sides. She doesn’t choose his. [Pour out some water from his glass, letting it drip everywhere]

 

Jacob’s never had his Father’s love. He’s lost his Mother and brother’s love. He has no sense of God’s love. He has no one in his life. He has no direction to his life. He has no meaning for his life.

 

He leaves home, completely empty inside. [EMPTY his glass]

 

The next part of Jacob’s story starts at a well.

 

But it just as easily could’ve taken place at a college or a club. In an office or at a party. Or over the computer.

 

He meets a woman. [Leah’s CUP]

He takes one look at her and he convinces himself:

 

She can fix what’s broken in my life.

She can give me what I’m missing.

She can fill the emptiness inside me, he says.

 

And he calls that love.

 

He’s like an addict, using the idea of this person to escape the pain in his own life, which makes him vulnerable to being taken advantage of.

Maybe he doesn’t realize it, but Jacob’s not looking for a soulmate. He’s looking for a salve. Or a savior.

Jacob marries this woman, hoping she can fill what’s missing in him.

His need keeps him from seeing who she really is. He doesn’t see that she has an emptiness insider her too. [hold up her glass] and that she can’t possibly fill what’s empty in his life. 

[pour her water into his so that he’s only half-filled].

So after they get married, he finds that emptiness is still there inside him.

And that brings conflict. It’s not long before he’s shouting at her:

‘You’re not the person I thought you were.’ [Pour out some water from his glass, letting it drip everywhere]

‘You’re not the person I married.’ [Pour out some water from his glass, letting it drip everywhere]

‘Why can’t you be more like this….’ [Pour out some water from his glass, letting it drip everywhere]

Eventually he stops speaking to her much at all. [Pour out some water from his glass, letting it drip everywhere]

Until finally Jacob’s married with children and discovers he’s even emptier on the inside than he was before and he’s long way from happily ever after. [EMPTY his glass]

 

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Then there’s Leah’s story. [FILL her glass]

 

On the one hand, she’s the causality of Jacob’s need, but on the other hand, she does to him exactly what he did to her.

 

Leah grew up in the shadow of her little sister.

 

Her sister was a knockout, always the center of attention. [Pour out some water from her glass, letting it drip everywhere]

 

 

Compared to her, Leah was unlovely. [Pour out some water from her glass, letting it drip everywhere]

 

 

Or at least that’s how Leah saw herself; such that, she didn’t believe anyone would ever love her because she didn’t believe she was worth loving. [Pour out some water from her glass, letting it drip everywhere]

 

 

And one day she meets a man, whose heart has an emptiness every bit as big as her own.

 

She meets him at a well, but they could’ve met anywhere.

 

Even though she knows he doesn’t really know her, doesn’t really see her for who she is, she marries him.

 

She marries him because she thinks he’s the only one who will ever marry her.

 

So she pins her hopes for happiness on this man, only to find one day that her emptiness is still there.

 

And that he can’t fill what’s missing in her life. [pour his empty glass into hers]

 

It’s not long before the marriage starts to suffer and strain from the emptiness both of them bring to it. [empty her glass completely]

 

So what’s Leah do?

 

She thinks children are the solution.

 

She thinks kids will fix her marriage and win her husband’s love.

 

So she has a little boy. She names him Reuben, and she says to herself: ‘Surely, my husband will love now.’ [POUR water into a shot glass]

 

But no, it doesn’t work that way. Never does. Though you’d be surprised how many think it will.

 

She tries again. She has another little boy. She names him Simeon. And this time she says to herself, ‘Surely my husband will pay attention to me now, will listen to me.’ [POUR water into a shot glass]

 

But with each child she’s pushed further into unhappiness.

 

She has another boy. She names him Levi. And she says to herself: ‘With three kids, now my husband will become attached to me.’ [POUR water into a shot glass]

 

     But kids can never fix what was broken before they were born.

 

Three kids later, Leah finds herself still empty on the inside.

 

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It’s not in the story today, but I can tell you how the rest of it goes because I’ve heard it too many times.

 

Leah turns to her children to bring her the happiness her husband hasn’t, to fill what’s missing in her life, to give her life meaning and purpose.

 

But no child is big enough to fill what’s missing in their parent’s life. [EMPTY the shot glasses into Leah’s glass, should only fill her 1/4 of the way]

And no kid should have to bear such a burden. They’ll only get crushed underneath your expectations. Because if you look to your children for validation, to fill an emptiness inside you, you’ll need them to be perfect.

 

And when they’re not-because no child is- there will be conflict. [EMPTY Leah’s glass completely]

 

And it’s not long before everyone is left feeling empty inside.

 

And a long way from happily ever after.

 

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Love is NOT all you need.

 

Psychologists call this a lack of differentiation, a lack of the ability to be a complete, fulfilled individual within the context of a relationship.

 

But Christians- Christians call this idolatry: Looking to others to give you what only God can give. Let’s not beat around the bush. It doesn’t matter how old you are, how long you’ve been married or whether your kids are young or grown.

     For most of you, this is the primary way you break the first commandment.

     Scripture says God is love; it doesn’t say love is God.

     You can’t replace God with your spouse.

     And you can’t replace God with your child.

     No spouse should have to love you that much and no kid can.

Until you realize that, you’ll always be frustrated with your kids and you’ll never stop complaining that you thought you were marrying Rachel only to discover you’re living with Leah.

 

For some of you, your marriage or your children play too big a role in your life precisely because God plays too small a role.

 

I mean, we forget that the first vows a bride and groom make aren’t to each other but to God.

 

If we make too much of our marriage and our children, we make too little of God. And when we put too much pressure on our marriage and children, we depend too little on God.

 

I’m not saying you should love your spouse or your kids less. I’m saying you should love God more. Because the bitter irony is that when we make too little of God in our relationships, we cut ourselves off from the source of Love.

 

Trust me, this is just on-the-job knowledge: focusing too much on your marriage or your relationship or your children is the best way to undermine them.

 

     I mean, some of you need Jesus Christ to come in to your hearts not so you can go to heaven when you die but so your relationships here and now will stop being a living hell.

Because you can only be generous with what you’ve got in the bank to give. If your only source of meaning and love and purpose and happiness and validation and affirmation and worth is another person, then you can never really love them.

 

The only way to say ‘I do’ and keep on saying ‘I do’ day after day is to first be able to say: ‘I’m a sinner saved by the grace of Jesus Christ.’

When God has the proper, primary place in your life- Your spouse can let you down, and sure it upsets you but it doesn’t undo you. Because you know God will never let you down.

When God has the proper, primary place in your life- Your spouse can speak the ugliest truths about you, and you don’t have to run away. Because that (the cross) has already spoken the deepest, darkest truth about who you really are and from that God said: ‘I forgive you because you have no idea what you’re doing.’

When God has the proper, primary place in your life- You can have patience with the flaws and sins in someone else. Because you know God has been gracious to you.

When God has the proper, primary place in your life- Your spouse can take you for granted, and yes it will disappoint you, but it won’t demolish your self-image. Because you know to God you are infinitely precious and worth dying for.

     [Pull out another glass and baptismal pitcher.]

 

There’s another story.

Jesus was on his way to Galilee, and along the way he stopped in Samaria.

At a well.

Jacob’s Well.

Jesus meets a woman there. She’s carrying an empty bucket.

But it’s the emptiness insider her that Jesus notices. The emptiness has carried her from man to man to man to man to man…

And Jesus says to her: [Pour water into glass, let it fill up and then overflow out on to the floor until pitcher is empty.]

I am Living Water.

What I can give you is a spring of water that never stops gushing, never stops flowing, never dries up.

    I can fill you, Jesus says.

With love. With meaning. With purpose. With value and healing and worth and validation.

I can fill you, Jesus says.

So that you can give love, not need it.

And she left that day, gushing to everyone about what Jesus had done for her.

She learned that day what the Beatles never did.

     The only way to live happily ever after is to first be happy with who you are in Jesus Christ.

 

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Fell Through The Cracks: Sermon on Acts 2

Jason Micheli —  February 11, 2013 — 4 Comments

imagesIn case you missed it, Teer Hardy preached his maiden sermon this weekend and did a great job. How could he not, listening to me every week?

There’s audio of it here and in the iTunes store under ‘Tamed Cynic.’

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Xmas Angel

Christmas Eve Sermon

Jason Micheli —  January 4, 2013 — Leave a comment

20121222-173929A lot of you have asked about a podcast from the Christmas Eve service. If you weren’t there, the format followed something more like the arc of a play with ‘the sermon’ being drawn out over the course of the service in vignettes using actors. For that reason, it’s been tricky to get a good recording.

Here’s a video from one of the 5 services.

Here’s audio of just my portion of the sermon. It’s also in iTunes under ‘Tamed Cynic.’

Below is the full script of the sermon and actors’ lines.

Merry Christmas. Only 1 day left of the season.

———————————————————————-

Believe

Opening 

You want to know a dirty, little secret?

There’s a whole lot of every Sunday church people who think its enough just to believe in God.

There’s a whole lot of religious folks who think they’ve done their job if they just believe that God exists.

But there’s a difference.

There’s a difference between believing in God and believing God.

There’s a difference between believing in God in here (the mind) and believing the promises of God in here (the heart).

There’s a difference between believing in God and believing God, believing God can be at work in your life, alive in you, fill what is missing in you and turn your world upside down.

And you want to know another secret?

That difference- that difference is the secret of the Christmas Story.

Act 1: Zechariah

[Zechariah kneeling, holding a bible, praying silently with incense] 

Everyone thinks the Christmas story begins with Mary and the angel Gabriel.

Not so.

The Christmas story begins months earlier with Jesus’ uncle.

A man named Zechariah, who’s a priest.

For generations Zechariah and his people have suffered at the hand of Caesar and his Empire. Rome.

And for generations they’ve prayed for God to send them someone to save them, to send them an Emmanuel, a Messiah.

Every day of his life Zechariah has prayed this prayer. He’s an old man now.

His prayer’s expiration date has long since passed and Zechariah has given up all hope that God will ever answer.

But one day, when Zechariah is in the Temple offering the same stale prayer he’s always prayed, God sends a message:

Gabriel: Zechariah…Zechariah….

  (Zechariah, falls back, completely startled and visibly shaken.)

  don’t be afraid. 

  Your prayers have been heard. 

  Your wife, Elizabeth, is going to have a son. 

  Name him John. 

  He’s going to bring you great joy and happiness, but that’s not all. 

      Your son will also be the Lord’s messenger. He will be the one to    prepare the people and make them ready for the One you’ve been      praying for for so many years, the Messiah.

Zechariah: (confused) But this is too much to believe! 

      Look how old I am! My wife, Elizabeth, too! 

      It’s much too late for those prayers to come true. 

Zechariah’s an every Sunday religious person.

Zechariah believed in God; he just didn’t believe God.

He’d given up believing God would ever answer his prayer, would ever work in his life.

And because he didn’t believe, the angel renders him mute.

(Zechariah, rendered mute, feels his mouth and tries to talk to no avail.)

He’s pushed to the sidelines. Because he didn’t believe God, Zechariah has to watch what God’s doing in the world from the outside looking in.

You want to know a secret? [Zechariah begins to take off costume]

Once you get past the incense and bible-timey, Raiders of the Lost Ark costume, Zechariah’s no different than you.

He’s just an old man who’s rubbed the same prayer raw.

Until he finally tossed it in the trash. [Chucks his bible off to the side]

Now I don’t know all of you. I only know the every Sunday folks.

Even still, I know enough of you to know there are Zechariah’s all over this room.

Sometimes-

Zechariah is a woman with cancer, convinced God’s not with her. Convinced God can’t beat it.

Sometimes-

Zechariah is a mom, who’s exhausted from praying the same prayer for her teenager and no longer believes that anything can be done for her.

A lot of times-

Zechariah is a husband and a wife, whose relationship has frayed past the point of repair and if anyone, angel or otherwise, told them anything different, then they’d react the very same way as Zechariah: ‘That’s too much to believe.’

There are Zechariah’s all over this room.

But hear the good news: Emmanuel does come. You’ve got to believe.

Act 2: Magi

The magi- the wise men- were Gentiles.

Meaning: they weren’t Jews.

Meaning: they didn’t know anything about God or God’s promise of a Messiah.

They were astronomers. Not priests or prophets.

They were men of science. Not faith.

They were men of cold, hard empirical facts, trial and error, objective observation.

They were the kinds of people that if you can’t see it with your own eyes, if you can’t hold it in your hands for yourself, if you can’t explain it rationally and back it up with evidence then it simply isn’t true.

It’s a fantasy we might still tell our children but we’ve outgrown it.

[Magi’s cell phone begins to ring underneath his costume...Magi picks up and begins to argue with his mom]

Jason: 

Um, excuse me. 

Magi: [to Jason]

Just a sec. 

Jason: 

I’m kind of in the middle of something here.  was just about to make my big point about how the magi were basically like all of us. 

[To Magi] 

What else do you guys have under there? [Magi pull out other gadgets] 

Magi: 

It’s not what you think…See, I’ve this Star-Finder App on my iPhone. That way, not only can I track the star I can research it on Wikipedia. I can learn about this obscure Jewish prophecy and Google maps can lead us right there to this King.

I bet you don’t know that the magi’s star charts- their reason and research, the latest technology- only gets them as far as Jerusalem.

It doesn’t get them to Bethlehem.

The wise men get lost. They miss Bethlehem by about 9 miles.

The wise men have to ask for directions, which implies they had some wise women with them too.

[female magi enter]

The wise men had to ask for directions.

Who do they have to ask?

Scribes. People who studied scripture. People of faith.

They’re the ones who point the magi in the right direction.

The magi believed in facts, in data, in human wisdom.

And maybe they believed in god the way you believe in gravity.

But that kind of belief only got them so far.

For them to find their way to Bethlehem, to make their way to the manger, they had to believe God.

To believe God’s promise about a little, no account town 9 miles beyond Jerusalem.

For them to make their way to the manger- they had to believe- believe God was doing things in this world they couldn’t see or prove, Google or Tweet, deduce or demonstrate.

They had to believe.

And so do you.

If you want to get close enough to the manger…

close enough to offer this God your best gift

close enough to see him at work in the world with your own two eyes

close enough to hold his presence within you

close enough for him to change your life in a way that resists all explanation

…if you want to get close to the manger, then you’ve got to take a leap of faith.

And believe.

Act 3: Mary

If you’re like me-

When you picture Mary, you picture like the Mona Lisa but dressed in pink and blue. You picture a 30-something woman who looks like Al Pacino’s Sicilian wife from Godfather Part II. Before she explodes.

If you’re like me, you picture this angel who’s glorious and not threatening at all even though he’s constantly having to say ‘don’t be afraid.’

And you picture Mary bowing down stoically ready to serve the Lord at a moment’s notice.

You picture something like this…[Overly dramatic and stoic]

Gabriel:

Mary! The Lord is with you! You are touched by his grace! Among all the women in the world you have been blessed.

Mary: (like she was expecting this)

Gabriel : 

You have found favor with God. Listen, you are going to have a Son. His name will mean: ‘God will save us.’ He will be the answer to your people’s prayers.

Mary: 

How can this be? 

Gabriel: 

The Holy Spirit will come upon you and overshadow you. That’s why this holy child is not just your son but is the Son of God. Remember Mary, the impossible is possible with God.

Mary: (Bowing stoically) 

You want to know a secret?

That’s not who Mary was. And that’s not how it went down.

Not at all.

[Mary removes her costume, revealing more ordinary and contemporary clothing]

According to tradition, Joseph was an older man, marrying Mary as a favor to her family because they couldn’t afford to provide for her.

According to Jewish Law, because Mary and Joseph were betrothed, any you-know-what before her wedding day would be considered adultery.

And now the angel Gabriel has just told Mary she’s expecting.

Not by Joseph.

By the Holy Spirit.

Just curious: if someone told you they were pregnant by the Holy Spirit, how likely would you be to believe them?

I didn’t think so.

That’s the dark side of the story we never picture when we picture Mary.

The angel’s news is news almost no one will believe.

And Mary’s got to know that the second Gabriel’s finished talking.

I’ll tell you what else a good Jewish girl, like Mary, would’ve known.

Mary would’ve known that if she was accused of adultery then, according to the Jewish Law, she would be brought before a priest.

She would be shamed publicly.

And then-under oath- she’d be forced to drink a mixture of ash, holy water and the ink from the priest’s written accusation against her.

If the drink made her sick, which was very likely, then she was guilty.

And if she was guilty, then she’d be stoned.

Mary would’ve known that the second the angel started talking.

She would’ve known that Joseph would be humiliated.

And she certainly would’ve known that her child would be regarded as illegitimate and banned as an outcast.

No matter what we picture when we picture Mary, that was the reality she knew.

And yet-

And yet when she hears Gabriel’s news: [Understated, Gabriel more empathetic, Mary more troubled]

Gabriel : 

Don’t be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. 

Listen, you are going to have a Son. His name will mean: ‘God will save us.’ He will be the answer to your people’s prayers.

Mary:

How can this be…I’m not…I mean, I’ve never….how is this possible?

Gabriel: 

The Holy Spirit will come upon you and overshadow you. That’s why this holy child is not just your son but is the Son of God. Remember Mary, the impossible is possible with God.

Jason: And Mary replies…

Mary: 

‘May it be with me according to your word.’ 

Jason: In other words, Mary says…

Mary: 

‘Here I am God. I trust you.’ 

Don’t take it from me. Take it from Mary.

There is a big, life-changing, ante-up, make-or-break difference between just believing in God and believing God. 

Believing that, no matter how things look now, no matter what obstacles stand in your way, no matter what it seems life has dealt you, nothing is impossible.

Nothing is impossible. 

Nothing is impossible.

With God.

Act 4: Joseph

[Jason interrupts music]

Wait …what is that?

[Musician replies]

[To crowd]

Do you all know that song?

Actually, come to think of it, do you all know any songs about Joseph?

I didn’t think so. I don’t either. I mean, there are no ‘Ave Josephs.’

I’ll let you in on a secret:

The Church has treated Joseph like an extra in a story starring his wife and her child.

It’s the annunciation to Mary that artists have always chosen to paint, not the annunciation to Joseph.

You don’t see many Renaissance paintings of Joseph snoring on his sofa as the angel Gabriel whispers into his ear:

[Joseph laying down to sleep]

Gabriel: [whispering]

‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, all this is happening to fulfill what the Lord promised: ‘The virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will name him Emmanuel.’ 

But when we ignore Joseph, we miss something important.

Because everything about Christmas- it all hinges on the angel’s three words.

Gabriel: [whispers]

  ‘Joseph, son of David.’

If Emmanuel is to be born the son of David then Joseph’s got to be the father.

Our salvation hinges on what Joseph decides to do about Mary.

If Joseph believes the angel then Mary will have a home and a family and her child will be born the son of David.

But if Joseph wakes up from his dream, rubs his eyes and files for divorce, then Mary is an outcast forever- either stoned by the priests or disowned by her family, leaving her and her illegitimate child to beg.

Or worse.

Whether or not he’s the biological father doesn’t matter. According to Jewish Law, Mary’s child becomes Joseph’s child just by Joseph claiming him as such.

So everything about tonight hangs on Joseph.

You think you struggle with believing the virgin birth?

Joseph wakes up one morning to find his fiancee pregnant, his trust betrayed, his future and his reputation ruined, the life he thought he had gone forever.

And then he’s asked to believe.

The unbelievable.

Everything we celebrate tonight- it all hinges on a very big IF- if Joseph believes.

Even though we treat him like an extra in someone else’s story, of all the people in the Christmas story, Joseph is just like you and me.

Joseph doesn’t get a Burning Bush telling him beyond a shadow of a doubt what he should do.

Joseph doesn’t get an Annunciation like Mary does. The angel Gabriel doesn’t stand in front of Joseph’s own two eyes and say: ‘Hail Joseph.’

Joseph just has a dream. [Gabriel whispers silently into Joseph’s sleeping ear]

Which would’ve felt like… what exactly? A hunch? A gut feeling?

Joseph doesn’t get a Burning Bush.

And neither do we.

When we’re faced with circumstances beyond our control

When we’re tempted to choose the easy way out

When we worry about it might cost us or what pain will come our way or what others might think

We have to wrestle with what God wants us to do

And then we have to believe

Believe that if we make the hard choice and do the right thing

Then God will be with us.

Because that’s what Emmanuel means.

God is WITH us.

Act 5: Angels and Shepherds

[Luke’s Nativity is read. Shepherds and Gabriel take spots during reading.]

Has anyone seen the Monty Python movie, Life of Brian?

It’s set in first-century Judaea when the Jewish opposition to the Romans is hopelessly split into factions.

There’s a scene where one of the splinter groups has a secret meeting where a vigilante soldier asks, “What have the Romans ever done for us?”

One by one his fellow freedom-fighters grudgingly admit a host of benefits the Romans have brought the Jews. But Reggie, their leader, remains unconvinced.

He finally demands, “All right … all right … but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order … what have the Romans done for us?”

To which the reply comes, “Brought peace.”

And Reggie has no answer.

I’ll tell you a secret, something most church folks don’t know.

Before Luke ever wrote his Gospel.

Before Jesus ever preached ‘the’ Gospel.

Rome already had a Gospel of their own. You know what it was?

All over the Empire, Roman citizens- ordinary men and women just like you- would proclaim with thankful hearts: ‘Glory in the highest. Caesar Augustus, son of god, our savior, has brought peace to the whole world.’

Peace by any means necessary.

To anyone who wasn’t stuck under Rome’s boot, the advent of Caesar Augustus was considered gospel: “Good news of great joy.”

You see, it’s no accident when the angel Gabriel appears to the shepherds, he plagiarizes Rome’s Gospel.

He takes it and he literally turns it upside down:

Gabriel: 

  “Do not be afraid. I’m bringing you GOOD NEWS of great joy for all the people. For you, a SAVIOR has been born. Glory to God in the highest…and on earth, PEACE TO THOSE ON WHOM GOD’S FAVOR RESTS.’

Glory to God in the highest.

Gloria in excelsis Deo…We hear those words as a pretty song.

But to the shepherds, to Mary or Joseph, to Zechariah., to anyone else living in Israel- for a generation those words had instead always sounded more like this…

(Liz plays the Darth Vader music). 

The angel Gabriel takes Rome’s Gospel and he twists it and then he turns it to point not at a throne but at a manger.

And of all the people in Judea, Gabriel delivers this news to shepherds.

We’d call them unskilled workers.

[Shepherds remove their shepherding costumes]

Shepherds were at the absolute rock bottom of society.

Not only that, their work made them ritually unclean, which made them invisible to the rest of society.

We’d call them unskilled workers.

Gabriel:

“I’m bringing you GOOD NEWS of great joy for all the people. For you, a SAVIOR has been born. Glory to God in the highest and on earth, PEACE TO THOSE ON WHOM GOD’S FAVOR RESTS.’

That’s not just a birth announcement written in the sky.

It’s a defiant declaration. It’s a declaration that dares us to believe.

Not just to believe in God. Anyone can do that.

No, the angels dare us to believe that things in our world are not as they seem.

That Caesar and Herod and Rome and anyone like them in our day or in our lives- they’re not in charge.

That pain does not have the last word.

That poverty does not exclude you from the grace of God.

That Power goes by another name. Because Christ is King.

The angels dare you to believe.

That as small or insignificant or unlikely you might see yourself, just like shepherds, you can play a part in his Kingdom.

 Act 6: Simeon

The Christmas story doesn’t end with ‘Silent Night.’

After Jesus is born, Mary and Joseph take their baby to Jerusalem, to the Temple.

To offer a sacrifice to God. Two pigeons, a peasant’s offering.

[Mary and Joseph and baby enter] 

And there in the Temple they dedicate their baby to God.

But the story doesn’t end there either.

An old man sees them there in the Temple.

[Simeon rushes up to them]

Scripture says he was a man who’d been praying his entire life for a Savior.

Scripture says God had promised him that he would not die without seeing the Savior for himself.

But God never gave him any details: no who, what, when, where or how.

So he’s has just been waiting and praying his whole life.

And somehow he doesn’t need an angel or the heavenly host or any clues about a babe wrapped in bands of cloth to point him in the right direction.

Somehow when he sees this tiny scrap of a child- somehow he believes:

Simeon:

‘God, I’ve been waiting my whole life for this moment, but now I have peace for I see salvation with my own two eyes.’ 

His name’s Simeon.

I’ll let you in on one last secret.

The Christmas Story doesn’t end there either.

It can’t…because here are all of you.

And I know enough of you to know there are Simeons- young and old, religious and not so much- all over this room.

Maybe like Simeon, you’ve been waiting and wondering if what’s missing in your life will ever come.

Maybe like Simeon, you’ve been longing for the hole you feel in your life to be filled.

Maybe you’re like Simeon and peace is the one thing in your life, the one thing in your family, the one thing in your marriage that you still don’t have.

If you’re like Simeon, if you’re like Simeon at all, then I dare you.

I double-dare you.

To believe like Simeon.

Believe that the meaning you’ve been waiting for, the significance you’ve been longing for, the peace you’ve been praying for your whole life-

It’s there in Mary’s arms.

Merry Christmas.

And may the peace of Christ be yours now and forever.

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With Us: A Christmas Sermon

Jason Micheli —  December 24, 2012 — 4 Comments

20121222-173929.jpgHere’s a Christmas Eve sermon on John 1.1-16 from several years ago. Merry Christmas to all of you. 

The first time I ever went to church was on a night like tonight. Christmas Eve.

My mother made us go, my sister and me. We’d never gone to church before so we didn’t know on Christmas Eve you have to come early. We sat far up in the balcony in some of the last seats left.

I was a teenager then, 16 or 17 years old. And I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to get dressed up. I didn’t want to sing songs that others knew better than me. I didn’t want to sit in a hard, uncomfortable pew and listen to a minister preach. Or tell lame jokes.

I mean- why would anyone want to ruin Christmas by going to church?

I didn’t believe. Better still, I disbelieved more strongly than I believed in anything.

I was convinced you Christians just turn God into whatever and whom ever you want God to be. If you’re a Republican then so is God. If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat then, surprise, God agrees with you on most essential things.

You put God in a box. You wrap him in whatever flag you’re already flying. You put him on your side of this or that issue.

And what better example of that could there be than tonight? I thought. Christmas Eve, the night when, you Christians say, God Almighty swapped heaven for a trough, when God took flesh and became a baby: a sweet, passive, docile, wordless, dependant baby.

You know…if you want a god that can be used by us, then Christmas Eve is made to order. A baby? That’s a god that lets us be in charge. That’s a god we can worship and celebrate without having to be changed or challenged. I thought.

The philosopher Ludwig Feurbach said that when Christians say “God” they’re really just talking about themselves in a loud voice. When I was 16 or 17, I was a lot like Feurbach- except I also like Super Mario Brothers and Professional Wrestling.

I didn’t believe. And I knew all the arguments why I didn’t.

The thing is, back then, I didn’t know much about babies.

My first son, Gabriel, was already 15 months old when I got to hold him for the first time. My wife and I, we held him for the first time not in a hospital or maternity ward but in a hotel.

That’s where our adoption worker brought him to us. Instead of pinks and blues, the “delivery” room was decorated with tropical plants and Mayan art.

Technically speaking, he wasn’t still a baby. He was no longer a newborn but his toddler’s eyes still looked out at the world with innocence and wonder. His fingers were still small and fragile beneath their soft, pudgy skin, and they still clutched onto my fingers for protection. And even though he knew a handful of words already, he still most often spoke in shrieks and cries that demanded care.

We spent our first few days as a new family in that little hotel in Guatemala while we completed the paperwork for Gabriel’s adoption.

The wrought-iron table in the hotel courtyard was where I first sat him on my lap and learned how to feed him and wipe his mouth and clean up after his spills.

The slate patio outside our hotel room, where we sat down on the ground opposite each other, pushing plastic cars back and forth, that’s where I learned to earn his trust.

The hotel garden had a tall, thin palm tree growing in it. That’s the tree I pulled on and swayed back and forth, pretending to be an angry gorilla. That’s where I made Gabriel laugh for the first time. That’s where I made him laugh away his fears.

And then there was the old burgundy armchair in our room- that’s where I held him against me and, for the first time in my life, let my too-cool, cynical voice sing soothing and silly songs to him.

When I was 16 or 17, I didn’t know much about babies. I thought that just because they’re wordless and dependant then they must be passive, harmless. I didn’t know then that babies alter lives. They clutch and grab and pull on us when we’d like to get on to something else.

How could I have known at 16 or 17 how babies disturb schedules, how they force us to think about someone other than ourselves? They jumble and reorient priorities. They call out of us a tenderness and compassion we didn’t know we possessed.

Babies give us a glimpse at the person we could be if everything else in our lives was wiped clean or made new.

I didn’t know it when I was 16 or 17, but if you really want to invade someone’s life, if you want to mess with their priorities and preconceptions, if you want to change them or draw out them love and mercy- then you send them a baby.

If the Gospels were college courses, then John’s Gospel would be a 400-level class. John’s Gospel is the course with all the prerequisites because John presumes you’ve already heard the Nativity story before.

John expects you to know that, when the story opens, Caesar rules the world by the sword and that he needs a census to pay for it.

John expects you to remember that this “king” is born to a poor, unwed, 15 year old Jewish girl, whose unlikely pregnancy few will believe is a sign of anything more than what you could read on the bathroom wall about her.

John expects that by the time you get to his Gospel you should be able to write a short answer essay on the paradox of this cosmic news being delivered not to the press or priests, not to the wealthy or the wise, but to shepherds, who in first century eyes were about as smart and savory as the sheep they kept.

You need to know that the news the shepherds hear from angels is an answer to a prayer so old it had almost been forgotten.

John expects you to know all that because John doesn’t just want to tell you the story of Christmas. He wants to interpret it for you.

He wants you to be able do more than point at tonight’s scene and say ‘the manger goes here, the wise men go over there.’

John instead wants you to be able to creep up to the manger and look down upon the baby it holds and say to whoever will hear your awed whisper: ‘This is what it means. This is why this birth, this night, is more holy than any other.’

Holy because the baby Mary holds is, inexplicably, God- made flesh.

His cooing voice is the same voice that long ago said: ‘Let there be light.’ His tiny fingers that hold onto Mary’s are somehow the hands that first hung the stars in the sky, and the light in his half-open eyes is the same unquenchable fire that once met Moses in a burning bush.

Tonight, his skin is still splotchy. It feels new and warm, but the truth is he is timeless. Eternal. And in his small, gently rising lungs is the power to make worlds.

John wants you to know that tonight.

John wants you to look down into the manger and know that God’s plan to finally disarm us of everything but our love is to send a baby.

And not just any- but Himself, made weak and wordless and wrapped in strips of cloth. Made flesh.

Made every bit like one of us so that every one of us might be made more like God.

Our first night with Gabriel was Easter night, a year and a half ago. My wife was asleep on top of the bed still in all her clothes. The television played softly in Spanish and showed pictures of Easter parades from earlier that day. Gabriel stirred awake next to my wife, crying and fearful.

At that point in my life I’d been a Christian for 11 years. I’d been a minister for 5. And it was Easter. But it was the first time in my life that I really understood tonight.

I sat Gabriel in the burgundy armchair with me. He curled up in my arms and I sang him back to sleep. I saw pictures of the Easter Jesus play across the TV screen and I looked down at Gabriel: tiny, trusting and unknowing. And I thought to myself: ‘This could be God.  In my arms. Breathing against me.’

That’s when the strangeness and mystery of what John tells us tonight really hit me for the first time. Thinking about how much Gabriel had already changed me in just a few hours, I realized for the first time what a powerful thing it is that God does tonight.

I used to scoff at Christmas because I thought a baby was just a safe idol that could be used by us, could be made into whatever and whomever we wanted. But it’s actually the opposite. Babies have within them the power to remake us. What God does tonight is actually more powerful than a hundred floods or a thousand armies.

I mean- go ahead and ask a baby about what you’ve done or not done in the past. Ask a baby about that relationship you’ve yet to reconcile. Ask them about the expectations you’ve not met or about the sins you’ve committed or that thing you’re afraid to tell your spouse or your children or your parents.

You’re not going to get an answer. Babies don’t give answers. They just give light. With babies all that matters is that they are present, that they are there, that they are with you.

I mean- try telling a baby you’re not completely convinced they exist. Try telling a baby: ‘I don’t think believing in you really works in a modern world.’ It’s not going to get you off the hook. With a baby all our questions are relativized.

Babies force us to love them on their terms.

The calendar and the TV said it was Easter, but to me that first night with Gabriel was like Christmas. Holding him in my arms I could sense a new life that he opened up to me. He had neither the words nor the power to absolve me, but, holding him, I felt that everything had been forgiven. Who I’d been before he came into the world no longer mattered.

It only mattered who I would be from that moment on.

Tonight, the baby Mary holds in her arms, the baby breathing against her, IS God. Maybe you’ve heard the story before. Maybe you know where the manger and the wise men should be placed.

But I don’t want you to leave her tonight without knowing that- without knowing that because God takes on a life that means your life is sacred, without knowing that God is new and warm and cooing tonight in order to disarm you of everything but love, without knowing that God is born tonight in order to draw out of you the person you no longer thought could be.

Tonight, Mary holds him in her arms: the Word made flesh.

Tomorrow, Mary’s reputation will still be suspect in the eyes of her community. Tomorrow, she and her fiancé will still be homeless. They’ll still be poor. Tomorrow, their lives will be in danger. Tomorrow Mary won’t know what the future holds or if she’s strong enough to get there.

Tomorrow, her questions and fears and doubts will still be there. And so will yours.

But tonight none of that matters. Tonight, all that matters is he is with us. Tonight, that’s enough.

So listen to John’s invitation and creep up to the manger. Look at the light in his eternal, newborn eyes and know that everything you’ve done or been before tonight is forgiven. Know that all matters is who you are from this moment on, the moment he comes into the world.

Because I can speak from personal experience- this child, he has the power to make you new again.

Merry Christmas.

 

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‘We went back and did some research. Turns out the whole virgin birth thing…’

Jason Micheli —  December 6, 2012 — Leave a comment

20121124-123103.jpgThis week for our ‘Questions about Christmas’ sermon series I’ll be doing a sort of Midrash in the Moment. Randomly selecting your questions and answering them in the time allowed. It’ll be a little off the cuff and a little different than a normal worship service. Hopefully it’ll be fun and edifying too and if not…Dennis gets back soon.

Anyway, every Christmas season and I mean EVERY CHRISTMAS SEASON people ask me about the Virgin Birth and/or tell me they bite their tongue during that part of the Creed.

So I expect to get Virgin Birth questions this Sunday.

Here’s a great, hilarious and insightful spin on how some of our beliefs and scriptures can sound loony to a skeptic. It’s from Mr Deity which all of you should know….This is worth 3.5 mins of your time.

For the denser among us….the guy in the goatee, Mr Deity, is Yahweh. ‘Jesse’ is Jesus and Larry the neurotic OCD character is the Holy Spirit.

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What Kind of Bedtime Story Do You Tell The Incarnate Deity?

Jason Micheli —  December 5, 2012 — 2 Comments

Chalk this one down as Worst Sermon Ever. 

I’ve already mentioned here before how my Advent and Christmas sermons are generally panned. The Advent ones for being too obscure. The Christmas ones for resisting sentimentality. P1290750-1

Here’s one I wrote based on the Book of Ruth. In case you don’t know, Ruth’s story finds its way into Jesus’ family tree in Matthew’s Gospel. I tried to imagine the Holy Family telling her story to the little Jesus.

It’s my favorite of the sermons I’ve written….but still everyone else votes ‘Worst Sermon Ever.’

——————————————————————————————————-

‘Your father and I read this story at our wedding,’ the young mother told her little boy. And when the boy asked why, his father told him that it was tradition. ‘It’s a love story,’ he said.

The lights from the menorah on the window sill made the boy’s dark room glow. The light of the candles danced off the colored Hanukah decorations. The smells of holiday food lingered in the house. Mary and Joseph were curled up with their little boy.

He’d taken the old, black family bible from its shelf in his room, and it now rested on his lap just as he sat on his mother’s lap. The bible was the kind with the thick, special paper in the front, the kind with gilt lines to fill in important dates: marriages, births, baptisms and, beneath those, lots of lines to sketch the family tree.

Mary had filled in the family tree before she was even properly married, before she started to show. At the time she’d been confused by a great many things, but she absolutely knew that one day it would be important for her boy to know: where he came from, who is ancestors were, and what kind of person they made him.

And so, every night before his parents’ kiss and lullaby, they would read him a story from the bible, a story about one of those names his mother had written on the front, cream-colored page of Joseph’s family bible.

He would point with his little boy finger at one of the names on the family tree. ‘Tell me a story about that one’ he would say. He was just a boy. He liked the adventure stories the best- the stories with action and danger, stories where God spoke like thunder or moved like fire and wind, stories like those of Abraham and Jacob and, of course, David- the boy who would be king.

But on this night the boy pointed to a different name, one he hadn’t pointed to before. ‘Tell me a story about that one.’ And his mother smiled and looked over at her husband. ‘We read this story at our wedding,’ she said. ‘It’s a love story.’ The boy looked skeptically at his mother as she began…

A long, long time ago, in the days when judges ruled… famine struck the whole land that God had promised his people. The stomachs of God’s people were grumbling and empty. Even in Bethlehem where you were born people went hungry.

There was a man on your father’s side of the family named Elimelech. Elimelech had a family and, like everyone else in the land, his family was starving.

‘What did he do?’ the little boy asked, ‘did God provide bread from heaven like in the story of Moses?’

And his mother said, no, not like that. Elimelech had to look out for his family so one night he and his wife and their two sons packed only what they could carry. In the cover of darkness, they snuck across the border and crossed through the muddy river into a new country, Moab.

Elimelech’s wife was a woman named Naomi. ‘Naomi means ‘sweetness,’ said the boy’s father, ‘but Naomi was anything but sweet.’

The little boy asked why that was and his father told him that no sooner did Elimelech’s family arrive in Moab than Elimelech died and Naomi was left alone with her two sons. A widow’s life is hard his mother explained. Don’t ever forget that.

At first things went well for Naomi. Her sons married two girls from Moab, Orpah and Ruth. They weren’t Jewish girls so their marriages would’ve been forbidden back in Bethlehem, but they were happy.  Naomi’s boys were married happily for ten years. They had food and money and work. After ten years both of Naomi’s boys died. Just like that, no one knows why.

And poor Naomi, she always worried in the back of her mind that they died because God was punishing her for something, perhaps for letting her boys marry unbelievers.

‘But God doesn’t do things like that, does he?’ the boy asked. No, his mother said, God doesn’t do that and she kissed the top of his head.

But Naomi felt she was being punished. She was left with two daughters-in-law, in a country where she didn’t belong, in a man’s world with no man, no husband, no sons.

‘What does she do?’ the boy asked. Naomi decided to return home, to go back to Bethlehem. ‘All by her self?’ he asked. An uncertain future seemed better to her than what she could expect if she stayed in Moab. So she packed up her things- again just what she needed- along with a photo of her husband and boys, and after her sons were buried, numb with grief, she just started walking… towards home.

‘Is that the story?’ the boy wanted to know.

No, his mother said and looked at the lights in the window. You see, her sons’ wives followed behind her. At first Naomi simply thought they wanted to say goodbye, to wave to her as she disappeared over the horizon. When they got to the outskirts of town, though, Naomi realized they weren’t just seeing her off. Orpah and Ruth, she realized, intended to stay with her, to go with Naomi all the long way back to Israel, back to Bethlehem.

‘Well, did they?’ the boy wanted to know. Not exactly, his mother replied. First Naomi turned around and yelled at them. She yelled at Ruth and Orpah. She told them to turn around, to turn back, to go home to their own families.

They didn’t belong with her. In her country they’d just be foreigners. They wouldn’t be welcome. I’m very grateful for you, Naomi told Ruth and Orpah; I pray that God would give you happiness and husbands. But go.

Ruth and Orpah, they just stood there- stubborn. Naomi yelled at them again, but she was really yelling at God. When Naomi was done cursing, she fell down weeping, crying in the middle of the road with traffic going by.

That was when Orpah decided to do as her mother-in-law asked. She gave her dead husband’s mother a long embrace and picked up her bags and walked back into town.

But Ruth, your great….grandmother, she wouldn’t budge. She wouldn’t leave Naomi to fend for herself. She just planted her feet in the dirt and put her hands on her hips and told Naomi that wherever Naomi went Ruth would be going too, wherever Naomi lived Ruth would be living there too, and the place Naomi died would be where Ruth would die.

Ruth, your great…grandma, she was willing to leave behind her home, family, country, even her religion just to care for someone else.

And God never told Ruth to risk all this. She never had a special word of calling like Abraham, never a vision like Moses, no dream like Jacob.

‘God really speaks to people in their dreams?’ the boy asked. Yes, he does, said the boy’s father.

Ruth and Naomi walked the long walk to Bethlehem in silence. Naomi didn’t speak a word until she introduced herself to the people they met in Bethlehem, but she didn’t say that her name was Naomi. Call me ‘Mara’ she told people.

‘Why would she change her name?’ the little boy asked. Mara means bitterness; Naomi was convinced that her life was already over. Remember, a widow’s life is hard. God’s Kingdom should belong to them. Don’t ever forget that. ‘I won’t,’ the boy promised.

Ruth and Naomi found a place to live in Bethlehem. Nothing fancy, not even nice, but Ruth tried to make the best of it. Naomi though just sat in the dark corner of the apartment and stared blankly through her tears and through the window. Ruth had promised to take care of Naomi and she wasn’t about to quit.

They still had no food so, after they settled, Ruth went out to the fields to scavenge what the harvesters left behind. She didn’t know it at the time, but the fields belonged to a rich man named Boaz. Boaz was family to Naomi.

Every day Ruth left to scavenge for food and every day she came home to Naomi’s bitter quiet. But one day, everything started to change.

One day, the same as any other, Ruth was working the fields, looking for leftovers.

On that day, Boaz came out to look over his property and check on his workers. He said hello and thanked them. Then he saw someone he didn’t recognize bent over at the edge of the field, a woman. He pointed to Ruth out in the distance and he asked his foreman: ‘Who is she?’

And his foreman told him all about Ruth and how much Ruth loved her bitter mother-in-law and how Ruth had risked everything to care for her.

Boaz listened to the foreman’s story, and later that day he walked out to the edge of the field. He said hello to Ruth. Then he did a strange thing.

‘What?’ the boy asked. He urged Ruth to scavenge only in his fields. He promised her that his men would never bother her and that they would even leave extra grain behind for her. Ruth stood in the sun and listened to Boaz tell her all of this.

Now, for the first time since her husband had died, it was Ruth’s turn to cry. She fell down at Boaz’s feet and wept and she told him that she was just a foreigner, that she deserved rejection not kindness.

Boaz just smiled gently and he said softly: ‘May God reward the love you’ve shown Naomi.’

When Ruth returned home that day, she told Naomi everything that happened with Boaz.

For the first time, Naomi pulled her wistful eyes away from the window and she said, almost like she’d been holding her breath for a great long while: ‘Bless you!’

When she said it, Ruth didn’t know whether Naomi was talking to her or to God.

‘Is that it?’ the boy wondered aloud, thinking it not nearly as exciting a story as David and Goliath.

No, his mother said. Nothing else happened to Ruth or Naomi for a while. Then one morning Naomi burst into Ruth’s bedroom and she told her that that day Boaz would be winnowing barley with his workers. Its long work, Naomi explained.

The whole town will be there to help. It’s like a festival. There’ll be food and music and dancing and wine, lots of wine, she said with knowing eyes.

Ruth still looked puzzled so Naomi grabbed her by the shoulders and told Ruth to take off the black clothes she’d been wearing since her husband died. Go take a long shower, Naomi told her. And when you’re done anoint your whole body with perfume and then put on a nice dress. You need to look beautiful in every way.

And when Ruth asked why, Naomi told her what she was to do.

That night, after the day’s work and the evening’s party, Boaz wouldn’t be going home. Instead he’d be sleeping in his barn. You’re to go to him, Naomi told Ruth. Go to him and lie down next to him.

‘What did Ruth say?” asked the boy. ‘Probably something like: let it be with me according to your word,’ his mother answered. Whatever Ruth said, she did everything Naomi told her. When she snuck into the barn that night, the band was still playing outside and Boaz was already fast asleep in the hay.

Before Ruth lay down in the straw next to Boaz, she tried to take off his shoes for him. She woke him up. I imagine he was surprised, said the boy’s mother.

When Boaz startled awake, he asked Ruth what she was doing there. And Ruth blushed and panicked. Naomi had told her what to do, but not what to say.

‘What did she say?’ the boy asked.

Ruth told him that if he really wanted to care for her, if he really prayed that God would reward her kindness to Naomi, if he really wanted to help her care for Naomi, then he would marry her.

‘She asked him to marry her?’ the boy asked surprised.

Yes, and Boaz said yes. And he let Ruth sleep there next to him that night.

In the morning, before the sun came up or anyone else awoke, Boaz told Ruth to meet him that afternoon at the gateway that led into town. That’s where he would marry her.

And before Ruth left that early morning, Boaz gave her a gift of barley. He helped load the bag of barley onto her back. Your great-grandma Ruth, she always told people that that morning, helping her with the barley, was the first time they ever touched.

Mary could see that her boy was drifting asleep. So they married, she concluded. And they had a boy named Obed. And he became King David’s grandfather, and, without them, you might not be here with us…

Joseph crept up and blew out the lights on the menorah, and Mary tucked her little boy into bed. And with half open eyes, the little boy said that God wasn’t even in that story. God didn’t say anything or do anything or appear to anyone.

And Mary kissed the word made flesh on the forehead and she said that sometimes God’s love is revealed to us in our love for one another.

Sometimes God is in the person right in front of you. That’s what the story’s about, she said.

And of all the people in the world, only Mary knew just how true that was.

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Theology on Tap, Midrash in the Moment, Sermonic Bingo

Jason Micheli —  December 4, 2012 — Leave a comment

Christmas is a season for questions:

Why a virgin birth?

Why does Jesus come in the first place? Why can’t God just forgive us?

Is Jesus really human or did he just seem human? Is Jesus really divine or did he just seem divine?

What if there’d been no Fall- if we hadn’t sinned? Would Jesus still have come?

I’ve already received a ton of good questions from you all, more than I can respond to by email.

P1290750-1It’ll be Jason unfiltered, which could lead to a lot of ‘ummmms’ and inadvertent off color vocabulary but it may just be fun and edifying too.

 

 

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Tamed Cynic Now Available in the iTunes Store

Jason Micheli —  November 25, 2012 — Leave a comment

You can now download sermons free from the iTunes store as well receive future ones as automatic downloads. Just search ‘Tamed Cynic’ in the iTunes Store.

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Sermon Audio (From Yours Truly) Now Available

Jason Micheli —  November 20, 2012 — 2 Comments

Sermons are ultimately oral events and something is lost on the page alone.

If reading my lucid, probing prose isn’t enough, you can now listen to my sermons delivered in my sexier than Barry White voice at Spreaker.

You can listen there, on FB or download to your computer/phone where you can make sure my voice survives the zombie apocalypse (See: Eli, Book of)

I’m working to add the sermon audio to a Tamed Cynic podcast in the iTunes store. So stayed tuned.

Click here to listen to Sunday’s sermon.

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My Afternoon of Biblical Ignorance

Jason Micheli —  November 19, 2012 — Leave a comment

Sermon based on Nehemiah 8.13-17

*For those non-church members out there, ‘Dennis Perry’ is the Sr Pastor of Aldersgate. Senior = Old 

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A few weeks ago Dennis threw a lot of numbers at you, data, from the recent Pew Trust Survey on Religion, the one that found that 20% of Americans now identify themselves as ‘unaffiliated’ with any religion.

But for me it’s a different Pew Trust Survey that’s gotten stuck in my craw: The Pew Trust Survey of Religious Knowledge. It’s from 2010 and contains 16 multiple choice questions.

You can still take the survey online. For the record, I got a perfect score.

Here’s what the survey found:

40% of Americans can correctly identify Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as books called Gospels. Not too bad, right?

Even better, 72% correctly answered that someone named Moses led the Israelites through the Red Sea.

However, 55% of Americans- presumably not in Alabama- think the Golden Rule (Do unto others…) is one of the 10 Commandments.

But here’s the better-pay-attention-now number:

16%, only 16% of Americans know that Christians believe ‘salvation comes to us by faith alone’ not by anything we have to do or prove or be.

Just 16%

I scored higher than that in People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive Survey.

16%

More people follow Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Ashton Kutcher on Twitter than know the basic claim of the Gospel:

that a gracious God died in your place and the only way you participate in that salvation is through faith that changes you from the inside out.

16%

It’s a scary number.

And so this week I decided to test out how accurate that number really is; I decided to conduct my own little ‘experiment.’

Like previous ‘experiments,’ my wife call it a bad, jerky idea.

You might call it shamelessly trolling for sermon material.

I just like to call it ministry.

Friday afternoon I decided to take a guided tour of the National Cathedral, posing as one of the 84% who apparently don’t know our Story.

After paying my ‘suggested donation’ of $10, I walked into the sanctuary to the Docent’s desk where I waited for the next tour to begin.

Waiting with me was a slim couple in their 40‘s, speaking what sounded like Swedish to each other, along with 4 other couples, with sullen preteens in tow. They were all wearing sweatshirts and t-shirts and hats that said ‘DC’ or ‘FBI’ on them. So obviously they were from somewhere else.

A man in a crewcut and an Ohio State Buckeyes sweater looked at me and said: ‘My name’s Gary.’

Then he just stared at me, waiting for me to introduce myself.

So I said: ‘Dennis. My name’s Dennis Perry.’

‘You from around here?’ Gary asked.

‘No’ I said, ‘I’m from Harrisonburg, Va.’

At the top of the hour, the docent arrived and using her ‘inside voice’ gathered us together.  She had silver rimmed glasses and long, silver hair.

She was wearing a purple choir robe, for some reason, and a floppy satin hat she’d apparently stolen from Henry the 8th.

Maybe it was the silliness of her outfit or the stone confines of the church but it felt like we were all at Hogwarts and she was Professor Maganachacallit, showing us to our respective houses.

She began by telling us how much the largest stone weighed: 55 tons. She told us the original cost of all that brick and mortar: 65 million. She told us the number of stained glass windows: 231.

What she didn’t tell us, I noticed, was anything about why the church was there in the first place.

As the walking tour began so did my “experiment” in which I, Dennis Wayne Perry, pretended to be a complete ignoramus.

Fortunately, it’s a character I know well and can pull off convincingly.

For example, at the famous Space Window, the stained glass window containing a piece of lunar rock, I said loudly: ‘I didn’t know the moon landing was in the bible.’

Gary from Ohio squinted and said with authority: ‘I think it’s predicted in the bible, you know, like a prophecy.’

And when we were standing near a window showing Moses holding the 10 Commandments, I pointed at the window and said: ‘Wait, who’s that guy holding those tablet thingeys?

Sure enough the Pew Survey must be accurate because about 3/4 of our group all mumbled: ‘Moses.’

But Gary from Ohio whispered to me: ‘It’s Jesus. Gotta be Jesus.’

The tour continued and all along the way Dennis Perry, ignoramus extraordinaire, kept asking questions.

And while it’s true no one in the group necessarily thought that, say, Abraham’s sacrificial son was named Steve, as I speculated aloud, it’s also true no one in the group had enough confidence in their own answers to argue with me.

In the Bethlehem Chapel, I asked why Jesus is born in Bethlehem, to which the only response I got was from one of the sullen seventh graders: ‘Because otherwise we’d have to celebrate Hanukkah and Hannakah means less presents.’

Fair enough, I thought.

But standing in front of a gold crucifix, I pointed and asked innocently: ‘Who’s that?’

Several murmured ‘Jesus.’

But it wasn’t clear whether by ‘Jesus’ they were identifying the carpenter on the cross or the idiot named Dennis.

‘I don’t get it,’ I said, ‘why’s he on that cross?’

A middle-aged woman clicked a picture and said ‘He got crucified because he wanted us to love one another.’

‘That doesn’t make any sense. Why would anyone kill someone for that?’ I said.

She just shrugged her shoulders and said ‘Dunno, that’s what I’d always heard.’

Gary from Ohio said: ‘He died so we can go to heaven, Dennis.’

‘Really? How’s that supposed to work?’ I asked.

And while the docent pointed upwards at the scaffolding and construction, Gary from Ohio blushed: ‘I’m not sure.’

After 50 years of God’s People suffering captivity in Babylon, Nehemiah returns to the Promised Land armed with a vision to rebuild the city walls which Babylon had laid to waste.

The work took several months.

But it wasn’t until the wall was complete that it sunk in:

God had delivered them from captivity.

Even though they hadn’t deserved it.

God had redeemed them.

And they’d taken him for granted.

That’s why, not long after the last bit of mortar is spread and the trowels are put away, the people- all the people- with no goading or prompting from Nehemiah or Ezra or any of the priests, the people flash mob Jerusalem.

They realized what they needed more than anything else- more even than the bricks and mortar they’d just finished- was God.

So the people gather at the Water Gate and the prophet Ezra reads the Word of God to them.

While listening at the Water Gate they hear Ezra read about a festival, a holy day, that God had commanded them to keep: Booths.

The Festival of Booths was meant to remind Israel of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt and how God had provided for them every step of the way.

God commanded them to construct Booths once a year to remind them of the tents they lived in as they were making their journey from slavery to freedom.

The booths were meant to be a visible, tangible reminder of a salvation they did nothing to earn or deserve. That (the booth) was meant to function just like that (the cross).

Did you catch the end of our passage?

Nehemiah says Israel had not celebrated Booths since the days of Joshua.

In case you don’t know your bible, Joshua’s the one who picked up where Moses left off and led the people into the Promised Land.

Hundreds of years before Nehemiah.

This good news of salvation. Their core story of redemption.

They’d forgotten it. What’s more, they didn’t realize they’d forgotten it.

And you know what’s scary for us?

What’s scary for us is that that means, for generations, God’s People had said their prayers, and done their rituals, and built their sanctuaries, and they’d even worked against injustice and poverty.

For generations they’d done religion

Without celebrating their core story, their Gospel.

“Not since the days of Joshua” means that for a long time they’d just been going through the motions without having their hearts changed by this story of a gracious God who had saved them and asked only for faith in return.

This is from Jamie, a colleague, who’s recently returned from serving as a missionary:

“I always think it’s interesting when people pat us on the back for being missionaries to Latin America. Perhaps they think we were doing something difficult because they don’t know that in Latin America there’s a bleeding-Jesus-in-a-crown-of-thorns bumper sticker on every bus, taxi, and pizza delivery scooter. 

     You can easily engage nearly every person you cross paths with in a conversation about God or Jesus or Faith or whatever. It’s really not hard. 

     In Latin America, “Jesus” is generally a familiar and comfortable word – not an instant conversation killer.

     I’ve been back in the NorCal suburbs for a whole three months now, and all I can say is that ministry is way harder here than it ever was in Latin America. 

     Being an agent for Love and Grace in a place where people truly don’t recognize their own need is really tough. 

      I believe Jesus has competition in the American suburbs like no place else on Earth. Everyone here is surrounded by so much shiny new stuff, it’s hard to see the Light. 

     Here, depravity is hidden behind tall double doors, and the things that separate us from God often come gleaming, right out of the box. The contrast between Dark and Light has been cleverly obscured by the polish of materialism and vanity. 

     This place is overflowing with people who have full closets, full bank accounts, full bellies… and empty hearts. Here, poverty is internal, hunger is spiritual, and need feels non-existent. 

     But it’s there.

     Behind the facade of perfection in suburban America, past the fake boobs and fancy cars and fat paychecks, and at the bottom of aaalll thoooose wine glasses, there’s a need so desperate, a loneliness so great, and a brokenness so crushing that you can practically hear the collective cry for Redemption. 

     I’ve only just returned from Latin America, and now for the first time in my life, I feel like maybe I’m supposed to be a missionary…”

As our Cathedral tour ended, the docent encouraged us to sign the guest book. I couldn’t resist so I did.

Under ‘name,’ I signed Dennis W Perry.

Under ‘from,’ I put Harrisonburg, Va.

And under ‘comments,’ I wrote:

“You treat this place like a museum when you’re surrounded by a mission field”

The thing is- that’s a comment I could leave in any church in the country.

This week I sent you all a mass email, saying our theme this weekend would highlight our mission and service ministries.

And probably many of you came here this morning expecting me to tell you about what we’re doing in Guatemala and the difference we’re making in hundreds of lives there and how we can do more.

Or maybe you expected me to tell you about how our church serves the poor along Route One and how we can do more.

And we can

do more.

But if the term ‘mission field’ only refers to places like Guatemala or homeless shelters, we’re not really clear about what our mission is as Church.

The fact is- the poverty that can be fought with food drives is NOT the only poverty Jesus cares about.

As Mike Crane told me this week: “Aldersgate’s doing a great job serving the poor here and around the world but there are thousands who are spiritually poor, who don’t even realize what they’re lacking. And, just like the song says, Mike said, they’re not too far from here.

Some are as close as these pews. Some have been doing religion for years but haven’t yet let the Gospel into their hearts and let it change them from the inside out.

And that’s a kind of poverty.

These last few weeks we’ve been throwing a lot of numbers at you.

Data.

20%

16%

Here’s another number I want to grab you: 63%

That’s the percentage of people in a 10-mile radius of Fort Belvoir who currently are not a part of any church.

63%- I want that to change.

So listen up.

Here’s the God-Sized-Ante-Up-Let’s-Stop-Playing-Church-And-Find-Out-If-We-Really-Believe-in-the-Holy-Spirit-Vision:

Our bishop has asked us, as in, us, to consider planting a second congregation- a satellite congregation- in the Ft Belvoir region in the next 18 months.

Because every study shows- and the Book of Acts shows- the best way to make new Christians is to start new churches.

But I’m not talking about bricks and mortar; I’m talking about extending the ministry of this church, south.

I’m talking about people from here willing to imagine new ways to reach people there with the Gospel.

I’m not talking about starting yet another church for church people.

I’m talking about creating a worshipping community to reach the kinds of people who might need a different kind of church in order to meet Jesus.

Nehemiah says, when the people make booths and rediscover this God who saves us sinners, Nehemiah says they rejoice.

They’re changed.  That’s what we’re about. That’s what I want.

For you. For my kids.

For the 84% who don’t know the Story behind that (the cross).

And for the 63% not too far from here.

If we do this, if we discern that this is where God is calling us, then it can’t just be owned me or Dennis.

It’s going to take all of us.

And specifically, we’re going to need a team of 40-50 of you to commit yourselves to it.

The how/when/where/what/who questions are still down the road.

And you’ll be hearing more about.

But the first step?

The first step is probably for us to build ourselves some booths and rediscover the Gospel for ourselves.

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