Shawna R. B. Atteberry

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

The NIH chapel this morning was beautiful. Sitting among people who were so sick, and yet so filled hope, this was an Easter where the resurrection, its power and hope were center stage, believed and proclaimed in full faith. I didn’t preach this morning, but I wanted to post one of my favorite Easter hymns: “Christ the Lord Is Risen, Today” by Charles Wesley.

“Christ, the Lord, is risen today,” Sons of men and angels say! Raise your joys and triumphs high: Sing, ye heavens; thou earth, reply.

Love’s redeeming work is done; Fought the fight, the battle won: Lo! the sun’s eclipse is o’er, Lo! he sets in blood no more!

Vain the stone, the watch, the seal, Christ hath burst the gates of hell: Death in vain forbids his rise, Christ hath opened Paradise.

Lives again our glorious King! Where, O death, is now thy sting? Once he died our souls to save; Where’s thy victory, boasting grave

Soar we now where Christ hath led, Following our exalted Head: Made like him, like him we rise, Ours the cross, the grave, the skies.

King of glory! Soul of bliss! Everlasting life is this, Thee to know, thy power to prove, Thus to sing, and thus to love.

Fasting from food is the normal fasting practice during Lent. Although now people fast from many things: a particular food group, sweets, TV, or the internet. On Street Prophets Starwoman posted a great post on fasting last year. Fortunately she linked to it in yesterday’s coffee hour for those of us who missed it the first time or just forgot about it. Here is an excerpt:

Fasting and Gratitude

This is a simple application of the old saying Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Fasting can sharpen our appreciation of what we do have, what we may otherwise take for granted.

Americans have a lack of appreciation for the things we have; we waste so much that what we discard in one day could feed all of Africa.
- Brother V., Franciscan missionary to Africa for 17 years

Physical hunger, Spiritual hunger

For me, this is the most compelling reason to fast. Hunger is frequently used metaphorically in the Jewish and Christian scriptures, and I suspect in other scriptures as well. We hunger for God, we hunger for justice, we hunger and thirst for mercy, we thirst for God as a deer thirsts for running streams.

Let your body teach you what it means to hunger.

What do you hunger for?
Who or what is the Divine for which you hunger?
What do you hunger to see in the world?

She also has tips for those of us that have trouble fasting because of low blood sugar levels. I stopped fasting because of low blood sugar and what it did to me after 3:00. With her advice, I think I am going to fast until after the Ash Wednesday service (8:00 p.m.). And if it goes well fast on Fridays this Lent. Thank you Starwoman.

I found two artlices on Lent that I really enjoyed. The first one describes why Christians need to observe Lent, and the second one offers a Lenten discipline.

In Images of Lent, Ron Rolheiser says:

Religiously the richest image we have for lent is the image of the desert, of Jesus going into there voluntarily to fast and pray. Scripture tells us that Jesus went into the desert for forty days and, while there, he ate nothing. This doesn’t necessarily mean that, literally, he took no food or water during that time, but rather that he deprived himself of all physical supports (including food, water, enjoyments, distractions) that protected him from feeling, full force, his vulnerability, dependence, and need to surrender in deeper trust to God. And in doing this, we are told, he found himself hungry and consequently vulnerable to temptations from the devil - but also, by that same token, more open to God.

Scot McKnight at Jesus Creed challenges his readers to practice this discipline through Lent:

I am asking my blog’s readers to consider a challenge for Lent. No, it is not giving up anything. Instead, it helps move Lent into 40 days of living out the gospel: I am asking you to begin and end each day of Lent (beginning Wednesday) by reciting the Jesus Creed. And, whenever it comes to mind throughout the day, I am asking you to recite it again. In your evening recitation of the Jesus Creed, we are asking you to give some moments of recollection to confess any sins against the Jesus Creed throughout the day. |inline

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Jesus: A Glimpse of God

Matthew 17:1-9

I am not ready for Lent. And I did not want to leave Epiphany this year. In fact, as far as I’m concerned Lent is coming far too early this year. So I found myself dragging my feet writing this sermon. Fleming Rutledge said that on this Sunday “the church turns away from the light of Epiphany into the shadows of the Cross.” I find myself like Peter: wanting to build and stay where the light is. But Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem–not to overthrow the Roman rulers and rule an independent Israel. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to die. In Matthew 16 right after Peter’s confession of faith and right before today’s passage, Jesus predicted his suffering, death and resurrection. The Transfiguration is the first step toward the Cross. Even with Jesus’ prophecies and warnings, the disciples weren’t ready for the trip to Jerusalem. And most of the time, no matter how much we prepare, we are not ready for the long shadows of Lent. Which is the reason for the Transfiguration. This really is a pivotal Sunday. This is the last Sunday of Epiphany, but we are already looking to Ash Wednesday, just as the glorified Jesus is already looking toward Jerusalem.

But before we begin the long journey to Jerusalem, we get a glimpse of who it is who is calling us to deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow him. Jesus leads the disciples up to the top of the mountain. To a place where humans and gods met. It doesn’t matter where you go in the world, mountain tops are places to encounter the divine. The Celts called these thin places: places where this world and the spiritual world intertwine, and it is easy to step from one world into the other. Jesus takes the disciples to this thin place. And there his divinity is revealed: “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” God’s glory, the same glory that filled the tabernacle in the wilderness and then Solomon’s temple, emanates from Jesus. Then two other men who met God on mountain tops appear: Moses and Elijah. We read of one of Moses’ mountain top encounters with God in today’s reading from Hebrew Scripture. Light and clouds shroud Mt. Sinai as Moses goes up to receive God’s commands. Elijah met God in sheer silence on a mountain. Now time is put aside as the lawgiver and the prophet of prophets meet with the Son of God on another mountain. It’s a scene we can’t quite imagine or get our minds around. We’re not supposed to, just as the disciples did not. As usual it is Peter who opens his big mouth before he’s really thought about what he’s saying. He wants to build booths for all three and stay on the mountain for awhile. We all do. None of us likes to move on from the glory of God when faith is easy and God’s presence is so evident in our lives. But move on they have to do as do we.

As clouds envelope the mountain top God once again approves of what Jesus is doing: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” The same voice that approved of his baptism now approves of his obedience to go to Jerusalem. God tells the three disciples to listen to him. In the powerful presence of God in light, clouds, and hearing his voice, the disciples fall to the ground. In her sermon on the Transfiguration, Madeline L’Engle said:

The story of the Mount of Transfiguration is also strong stuff, not to be understood in the language of provable fact. Jesus, like Elijah, stands “upon the mount before the Lord.” He took with him Peter and James and John, and extraordinary, incomprehensible things came to pass. Jesus’ clothing became shining, and Elijah himself appeared to Jesus in the brilliance, and Moses came, too, and they talked together, the three of them, breaking ordinary chronology into a million fragments. And then a cloud overshadowed them, as it overshadowed Moses on the mount, and the voice of God shouted out of the cloud.

Strong stuff. Mythic stuff. That stuff which makes life worth living, which lies on the other side of provable fact. How can we be Christians without understanding this? The incarnation itself bursts out of the bounds of reason. That the power which created all of the galaxies, all of the stars in all of their courses, should willingly limit that power in order to be one of us, and all for love of us, cannot be understood in terms of laboratory proof, but only of love. And it is that love which calls us to move beyond the limited world of fact and into the glorious world of love itself. Of Jesus standing with Moses and Elijah, both of whom had themselves stood on the mount and been illuminated by God’s glory. When Moses went down from the mountain his face was so brilliant that people could not bear to look on him, and he had to cover his face in order not to blind them.

The brilliance of God is indeed blinding, and we need myth, story, to help us bear the light.

At the Transfiguration we see the incarnation through divine eyes. This is what God sees. We can only catch a glimpse because of the brightness. At the same time the Transfiguration is full of revelation and shrouded in mystery. But it is this mysterious light and glory that will see us through the long days of Lent as we travel in the shadow of the cross. In her sermon, Madeline continues on why we have a hard time understanding Jesus:

Jesus was not a westerner and He did not have a western mind, which is perhaps why He is so frequently misunderstood by the western mind today. His first miracle was a lavish turning of a large quantity of water into very fine wine at a wedding feast where the guests had already had a lot to drink. He was not interested in the righteous and morally upright people whom He saw to be hard of heart and judgmental, but in those who knew they were sinners and who came to Him for healing. His birth was heralded by angels, visited by adoring shepherds, and resulted in the slaughter of all Jewish infants under the age of two.

If Jesus was a threat to Herod two thousand years ago, He is still a threat today because He demands that we see ourselves as we really are, that we drop our self-protective devices, that we become willing to live the abundant life He calls us to live. We retaliate by trying to turn Him into a wimp who has come to protect us from an angry father who wants us punished, and the retaliation hasn’t worked, and we’re left even more frightened and even more grasping and even more judgmental.

And that is what Lent is about: seeing who we really are and letting Christ lead us into that abundant life that is full of the love of God. It is a season of repentance and self-examination. One thing the Transfiguration makes clear is that we are not God. But as we walk the days of Lent, seeing our humanness good and bad, we have the light of the Transfiguration to remind us of who our God is. And it helps us make it to Easter when not even death can hold onto the light that has come into the world.

But we have three more days before Lent begins, and during this time we can dwell and meditate on the mysterious light of God in our lives and world. This is the light that will sustain us through Lent until Easter.

The picture is from the St. John’s Bible.

Strong stuff. Mythic stuff. That stuff which makes life worth living, which lies on the other side of provable fact. How can we be Christians without understanding this? The incarnation itself bursts out of the bounds of reason. That the power which created all of the galaxies, all of the stars in all of their courses, should willingly limit that power in order to be one of us, and all for love of us, cannot be understood in terms of laboratory proof, but only of love. And it is that love which calls us to move beyond the limited world of fact and into the glorious world of love itself. Of Jesus standing with Moses and Elijah, both of whom had themselves stood on the mount and been illuminated by God’s glory. When Moses went down from the mountain his face was so brilliant that people could not bear to look on him, and he had to cover his face in order not to blind them.

I found this doing some research for my sermon tomorrow from 30GoodMinutes.org (yes, I am way behind).

Jesus: Salvation to the Ends of the Earth

Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Is. 49:6) This is what God says to God’s servant in Isaiah 49. It is too light a thing for you only to raise up and restore Israel. That just isn’t enough for my servant: you are going to be a light to the nations: the very nations that destroyed you and now hold you in exile. Yeah to those nations. You’re going to bring my salvation to the ends of the earth–that’s right the ends of the Persian Empire you are a part of, and no it’s not small. It’s not enough that just Israel is restored: you are going to show to the world the kind of God I am, and they will see my light and salvation. Wow, what a job description. And this is after the servant sighs, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.” May be he should have stopped there, but no, he goes on, “yet surely my cause is with the LORD, and my reward with my God.”

This phrase has been going through my mind all week: It is too little of a thing for you just to save your own people, or one people, or just those who are like you and you agree with. That is too little of a thing for the servant of God. In the context of Isaiah, God is telling this to the Jews. The Jews that are in exile. The Jews that are enslaved and indentured by other countries. They’re not at all sure about this whole return to Jerusalem thing anyway. They know what they’re going to find: rubble. They know what they’re going to have to do: rebuild. That’s why the servant thinks they have labored in vain. But oh no, that’s not all God has in store for the Jews. God has a much bigger plan, a much broader agenda. Much bigger than the Jews wanted. And let’s face it, most of the time bigger than we want.

As we discussed last week, the servant of God began as Israel, then Jesus fulfilled these passages, and as the Body of Christ, we are now the servant. And what does God tell us? It’s too light of a thing to reach out just to our neighbors, just to our friends, just to those who look like us and agree with us. As God expected Jesus, and as God expected Israel, God expects us to bring God’s light to the nations and God’s salvation to the ends of the earth. Admittedly in Chicago, this is a little more palatable since the nations have come to us. But still it is a monstrous call, to say the least. It’s enough to make a pastor freak out. It’s enough to make most churches freak out. What are we going to do with this call?

Let’s take a look at how Jesus started. This week our Gospel is from John. Right after Jesus’ baptism in John’s Gospel, John is pointing him out to his disciples and yelling everywhere he goes: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” John’s disciples start paying attention, but two actually do something about John’s testimony. Two of them started following Jesus. When Jesus ask them what they are seeking, they answer that they want to know where he is staying or abiding. Jesus tells them to come and see, and the two abide with Jesus for the afternoon. The next day the two bring two more to Jesus. Andrew brings his brother, Simon, whom Jesus renames upon meeting, and Phillip brings a sarcastic Nathaniel. In all the gospels Jesus starts the same way, with two to four people. He starts small–he does start with the Jews, and it is only later after his resurrection that his light goes to the nations of the world. And then it takes some doing on God’s part to get the Jewish Christians out of Jerusalem and taking the Gospel to the ends of the Roman Empire.

God’s call is to take God’s light and salvation everywhere. We do begin in our homes, buildings, and neighborhoods. That is what we are supposed to do. But we are always to keep in mind that is not where we stop. God’s call is still for God’s love, compassion, and salvation to go to the ends of the earth. God’s call is still for us to show God’s light to people that are not like us, to people who don’t agree with us, with people who could be our enemies. Yes, we are small, but so was Jesus and the first disciples. The mission to be light to the ends of the earth always starts small. It grows as we give faithful witness to Jesus and live how he commanded us to live. As more and more of us live this way, people will start asking questions, and then we can say to them “Come and see.” Come and see what this Jesus person is about. Come and see why he makes such a difference in our lives. Come and see why we believe he is the Son of God and Savior of the world. Come and see the light to the nations and the salvation to the ends of the earth. And like John the Baptist that’s what we have to remember. We are not the light. We are only witnesses to the light. And as we live as faithful witnesses to the light of Christ, people will see his light, his love, and his compassion in our lives.

King of Just the Jews?

Matthew 2:1-12

In her sermon, “Home By Another Way” Barbara Brown Taylor tells this story: Once upon a time there were three–yes, three–very wise men who were all sitting in their own countries minding their own business when a bright star lodged in the right eye of each one of them. It was so bright that none of them could tell whether it was burning in the sky or in their own imaginations, but they were so wise they knew it did not matter all that much. The point was, something beyond them was calling them, and it was a tug they had been waiting for all their lives.

Each in his own country had tried books, tried magic, tried astrology and reflexology. One had spent his entire fortune learning how to read and write runes. Another lived on nothing but dried herbs boiled in water. The third could walk on hot coals but it did nothing for him beyond the great sense of relief he felt at the end.

They were all glad for a reason to get out of town–because that was clearly where the star was calling them, out–away from everything they knew how to manage and survive, out from under the reputations they had built for themselves, the high expectations, the disappointing returns. And so they set out, one by one, each believing that he was the only one with a star in his eye until they all ran into one another on the road to Jerusalem…

The Wise Men, the Magi, the Three Kings, or even the Three Wise Guys have always been a part of the Christmas story. Normally they are just like us, only dressed in fancy robes. Unless you’re at the children’s Christmas pageant, and then they’re normally in bathrobes. But they are nonthreatening, normally, white men or boys all dressed up with some expensive gifts. We don’t see how different they are from Mary and Joseph in particular or the Jews in general. Or how this would look to Matthew’s mainly Jewish Christian readers. Matthew tells us that the Wise Men came from the East. They were probably from Persia, what is now Iraq and Iran. What was Assyria and Babylon. Why is this significant? Because these two countries destroyed Israel over the course of about 100 years with the climax of Babylon destroying Jerusalem and taking its people into captivity. This part of the world did not hold good memories for the Jewish people.

Another reason this is odd is that these men were not followers of the Jewish God. They probably worshiped many gods, and as Barbara Brown Taylor noted, they were astronomers and astrologers, which is why they knew the significance of the star. Most likely they were priests who used many practices forbidden by the Hebrew Scriptures: divination, magic, and astrology. They were not kosher. Why in the world would they be seeking the King of the Jews?

That goes back to the exile in Babylon. One of the Jews taken was Daniel. You’ve probably heard the story of Daniel and the Lion’s Den. He was thrown into a pit filled with lions, and they did not eat him because God had shut their mouths. That’s the same Daniel. He was a lay-prophet, and he worked for King Nebuchadnezzar–the same king who destroyed Jerusalem. He was one of the king’s top advisors. Although this cannot be proved, there is a story that Daniel reaffirmed a prophecy given in Numbers 24:17 that “a star shall rise out of Jacob [Israel]” that would be a great king and savior and deliver his people from their enemies. Daniel told the Babylonian mages to watch for this star. Whether or not Daniel did this, one fact remains: not all of the Jews returned to Judah after the exile. Communities of Jews remained in Persia and were there during this time. They knew about this prophecy in Numbers and looked forward to the coming of their Messiah to free them from other countries and empires that had dominated and ruled them for the last 500 years.

Seeds sown throughout the years finally ripened and bloomed along with an astrological belief: when a great leader was a born a new star would appear in the skies. It’s said this happened when Alexander the Great was born. A merging of Jewish belief and astrological teachings merge to send the Wise Men on their way to find this new king.

This time instead of invading Jerusalem, the descendants of the Babylonians, came to worship their new born king. But the Jewish establishment was not so happy to hear about this new King of the Jews. They didn’t even know where he was supposed to be born until they looked it up. The Roman appointed king, Herod, “was frightened.” Herod was a paranoid leader who had killed three of his own sons and his favorite wife to insure his own throne. And when Herod was troubled, so was Jerusalem. After it was discovered that this king was to be born in Bethlehem, Herod told the Wise Men to go and find him, then let him know, so he could go and worship himself. But Herod had other intentions.

The Wise Men went on their way and found what they were looking for again with the star guiding them. It led them to a house–yes a house, not a stable–where they found Mary and Jesus. Then these foreign strangers who were priests who served other gods, knelt down and worshiped Jesus, the king of the Jews. They gave him expensive gifts that would make a king gasp, let alone a poor peasant family. They gave frankincense, gold, and myrrh. All gifts and signs of royalty, wealth and power.

Then we are told that the Wise Men were warned in a dream not to return to Jerusalem but to go home by a different way. And that is where our text for today ends. That is because last Sunday was the Sunday when the rest of the passage is read. Infuriated, that the Wise Men had not come back and fearful of his throne, Herod sent troops to Bethlehem to slaughter boys under the age of 2. But again a dream comes–this time to Jesus’ adoptive father Joseph and tells Joseph to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt until Herod had died.

So what are we to make of this King of the Jews? Foreigners who are pagan priests travel a great distance to worship a king that has no authority over them. While the Jews (and Herod was a Jew) are frightened, troubled, and Herod attempts to have this new king assassinated. Is Jesus just the King of the Jews?

According to Matthew: no. And Matthew starts at the beginning of his gospel showing that Jesus’ coming was not just for his own people, but all people. Even the most unlikely of people: like a group of priests from a country that once enslaved Judah and worshiped many other gods and not the one God of the Jews. The people who ought to have been worshiping Jesus and proclaiming him their leader are frightened and trying to kill him. What does this say about the Son of God? What does it say about who can come to Jesus, worship, and be accepted?

As I said earlier, the Wise Men are from what is now Iraq and Iran. What would we do if an Iraqi or Irani–who was not a Christian–came to see who this Jesus person is? How would we react? What happens when people who aren’t like us come to see if this Jesus really is King and God’s Son? Do we let them worship and give the gifts they have? Or do we put certain requirements on them that they have to meet first? We have no record of Mary protesting the Wise Men worshiping Jesus or telling them how they were worshiping was wrong. Can we do the same thing for those, who like the Wise Men, come to find out about this King? It is worth noting, that in Matthew no Jews come to worship Jesus–only Gentiles and pagan Gentiles at that. What does that say to Christians who think that certain requirements need to be met before we let people worship?

And what does this say about Jesus: at this point an infant whose only concerns are being fed and sleeping? Matthew clearly announces that Jesus in not just King of the Jews. He is King to whoever comes to him. Jesus will not be Savior to only the Jews, but to everyone who will come and follow him. That is how Matthew begins his gospel and that is what happens throughout his gospel. Jesus is for everyone–not an elite few. He’s not just for the ones who carry his name and claim him as their Savior. He is for everyone: Jew, Gentile, Pagan, Muslim, and Christian. Are we ready for the Savior who will let anyone come to him no strings attached?