This is the deeper maturity to which our Lord call us: that together as a community we grow into the kind of people who can face our sinfulness and brokenness honestly and truthfully, and confess it to God, seeking a new life in the Spirit.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Ash Wednesday; texts:  Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21; Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 51; Psalm 103:8-14

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

In the waning weeks of the Epiphany season we have just concluded together, we heard a persistent call from our Lord Jesus to grow up into a maturity of faith and discipleship.  Today we face perhaps the most difficult challenge to such maturing and deepening: the question of how we do or do not face our own sin and brokenness.

Finding some of the joy and hope Jesus intends in his description of the way of God we’ve been hearing in these past weeks at least opens the possibility that we might also become people who can honestly and openly look at our failures to live in that way.  If God’s law is intended for our life and joy and fullness, then confession of our failure to live in God’s law need not be a fearful thing; it could be a life-giving thing to recognize and admit when we do not live abundantly and graciously as God made us to live.  Such recognition and confession, in this mature view, would be the only logical thing to do, that we might be forgiven and given the strength to once more walk in the way of God.

Today the Church gathers to confess our sins to Almighty God as we begin an intentional 40 day journey together; today we remind each other of our mortality and fragility.  Today, as much as any day we have, we openly say we are not God – all our foolishness and posturing notwithstanding – and we don’t live individually or collectively as the true God would have us live.  Today, then, we face the hard question of whether we want what we do today or fear it, whether this is a day of hope for us or one which we sometimes wish the Church would not do.

This is no small question, either, because the tendency to avoid such honesty and truthfulness is a very human tendency.

From when we were children we knew that it was an attractive option to dodge any honest assessment of our faults, certainly internally, but equally when confronted by a parent or another in authority.  When we did wrong, even if we knew it, it didn’t take a lot of thought to find some way to divert it.

We would divert by ignoring it and hoping nobody noticed.  Maybe if I just lean the lamp against the wall and walk away, no one will know it’s broken.  Or we would dodge it by blaming someone else, either for the thing itself, or even the person who had the temerity to point it out to us.

This tendency as children often isn’t outgrown in adulthood.  There are many adults who still live by ignoring, constantly saying, “Who, me?  I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  There are many adults who still live as if the only way something is wrong is if you get caught at it, and even then it’s in dispute.  There are many adults who still angrily resent it when their wrongdoing is pointed out.

We’ve become a society and a culture that has elevated individual rights and autonomy so high we have brought along a sense that each of us is entitled to act however and whenever we choose, and no one can tell us otherwise.

So when someone talks about sin, about the possibility of a standard of living beyond our own inner decisions, it’s seen as intrusive, outdated, offensive, oppressive.

Even in the Church this can be true: I once had a pastor of a large Lutheran church tell me that they didn’t do confession there because it was too depressing.  That’s not what people wanted to come and hear about or do.  And that is not an isolated view in the Lutheran church, or even beyond Lutheran boundaries.

It’s a logical next step to our avoidance tendency: If sin is not a reality to be faced but an arbitrary category we can avoid, why get everybody down and talk about it, even in church? some would say.  No one wants to do that.  Lift people’s spirits, make them feel good about themselves, that’s how to build a congregation.

When we persist in such immaturity we also mistake the conversation about sin to be strictly about avoiding punishment.  Most of the avoidance techniques we have are designed to keep us from being punished, from dealing with consequences.

In this immature view, sin is irrelevant, but if punishment is in the offing, that we wish to avoid, by denying, ignoring, or deflecting our sin onto another.  Confession is seen as a way to get out of being in trouble, not as an honest asking for forgiveness so that a relationship can be restored.

Within the Church this can be seen both in the need for some to rail against the sins of others and threaten eternal punishment on them if they don’t change, and the need for some to see confession and forgiveness as only a convenient get out of jail free card, with no impact on the rest of one’s life.

In this view, resentment extends even to spiritual disciplines which others have found helpful in maturing and growing in faith.  The disciplines of Lent we name, fasting, sacrificial giving, prayer, self-examination, works of love – which are actually disciplines of life in the Spirit, we only are invited to begin to learn and practice them during this season – these are great gifts believers have found deeply helpful in their growth in faith.

When we’re immature, however, we treat them as “have to” things.  Do I have to fast?  Do I have to give up something for Lent?  Do I have to put ashes on my head on this day?  Do I have to pray daily, read the Scriptures daily?  Do I have to . . .?

Asking “do I have to” is a sure sign that we haven’t quite grown up to the place we could be.

Growing up into an understanding of the gift of God’s way leads to a very different perspective on all of this.

If God’s way is seen as a way of life for us and for our community and even the world, then sin – going off of that path – is dangerous and needs correction, not a topic for avoidance.

Think of it this way: if you’ve fallen out of the lifeboat, it’s not something to fear to shout for help, so that you can be brought back into the lifeboat.  Even if it’s your fault you fell.  If you’re walking the only safe path in a dangerous place and you step off to the side, denying it, resenting someone for pointing it out, or pretending you didn’t notice is only going to get you hurt.

This is the attitude toward sin that is going to be life-giving for us.

We begin to recognize God’s way as a way of life, and so any time we get off we want to get back on.  We confess our sin not to avoid punishment, but to be put back by God into a relationship of life and love with God and each other, to be put back on the safe road, into the lifeboat, on the way of love and grace.

This mature attitude helps us understand what Isaiah says today.  The people are angry because they’re doing all these things that they think are going to keep them from being punished by God, or to make God like them, and the LORD God tells Isaiah to tell them they’re missing the point entirely.

Living in God’s ways of justice and life – sharing bread with the hungry, ending oppression for those in bondage, clothing the naked – this is the way for the healing of the world, for the community and the world to have life.  That’s the way, God says, that is like light breaking forth in the dawn of morning, the way of a watered garden, of rebuilt ruins.

In this attitude, confession becomes a gift, a hope, a joy.  So David, even in the throes of confession, is seeking a return to the joy of relationship with God, not seeking to avoid punishment.  “Let me hear joy and gladness,” he sang, “restore to me the joy of your salvation . . . and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.”

Confession, what we do today, becomes a mature hope in our restoration and in God’s great forgiveness, just as we sang together in Psalm 103 today.

And Jesus’ invitation to spiritual discipline isn’t “have to,” but a possible way of life.  He’s rejecting spiritual disciplines as show-off things, but he assumes they are all part of our practice.  And in that spirit we can take on such disciplines, not just for Lent, but for life, in hopes that they help us continue to grow, to walk this path, to find life in Christ.

There’s a key element left to consider, though: the community of faith.

We have gathered together today, and that’s significant.  We do not walk this road alone.

We often speak of Lent as a journey, which it is, but it is best understood as a model for the journey of life.  This is a helpful metaphor for us to carry, that we are walking our lives on a journey, sometimes through lush, beautiful places, sometimes through rough wilderness.  The Scriptures are full of references to this metaphor, so it comes before us a lot.

Now, if we each are on this journey alone, that’s a very difficult thought.  If you’re driving or walking all by yourself, it’s easy to get lost, frustrated, resentful of wrong paths, confused.  Alone, we can even be completely unaware we’re on the wrong path.

In community, it’s a very different feeling.  Think of what it’s like with two in a car instead of one, two on a wilderness path instead of one.  There are lots of advantages: shared wisdom as to direction, comfort in difficulty, correction of each other when going astray, companionship and joy in the journey.  That’s the gift Christ gives us in the Church, the Body of Christ.  We are journeying through life on the same road, together, and that makes all the difference.

Together, then, we can encourage each other to this maturity and life.  We name truths that need confession to each other, not to beat each other up but for good and growth.  David needed the prophet Nathan to help him recognize his great sin with Bathsheba and Uriah before he could confess as he did in Psalm 51.

We need each other to tell us the truth, individually and collectively.  When the group is straying, someone needs to speak up.  When individuals start getting lost, the loving companions reach out a hand and help them back to the path.

In the community, then, we strengthen one another to have the courage to approach God with confession, trusting that forgiveness will restore us all to new life, to the path of life.  There are times for individual confession, and in fact I will be offering some times for that this Lent.  But today we come together, to encourage each other to be bold before God, honest about ourselves, truthful about our sin.

Together we can approach the throne of God and remind each other that our Lord Jesus has promised forgiveness and grace when we come.  Alone, we might fear even facing this.

And together we can support each other in our spiritual disciplines.  As we all come to the Lord’s Supper in a little bit, we will be a sea of ashen crosses flowing up to the meal and back to the pews.  We wear the mark of our mortality together, because we share it.  And fasting, prayer, alms-giving, and other spiritual disciplines become things we teach each other, the wise ones among us sharing how these things have helped to deepened connection with the Triune God, to deepened maturity.

We need each other.  That’s the great gift of Christian community.

So, sisters and brothers, I am glad you are here with me today.

Let us stand together, and approach the throne of grace, holding each other by the hand, strengthening the weak knees, as the Scriptures say, encouraging each other as we all honestly make confession, and eagerly seek the Spirit’s grace in our growing up into the people we are meant to be.

It is good we are called here together today.  We need each other.  Together we come before God’s throne, together we open our hearts in confession, together we stand, expecting to receive God’s grace.  God be with us now in our confession, and in the new life God will give us as we go from here.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

As we listen to the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration, the Triune God is gathering us together, transforming us, and accompanying us so that we can be strengthened for the journey upon which we are sent: following our Lord Jesus into the pain and suffering of our neighbors. 

Vicar Emily Beckering; Transfiguration Sunday, year A; texts: Matthew 17:1-9; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 2:12

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Remember the last time that you took a trip?

Perhaps you just returned from one, or perhaps you are getting ready for one right now. If you are, then the rest of us are all envious that you get to escape the tundra. And if you are, then you know all the preparations that have to be made before you leave.

There’s transportation and lodging plans, arranging for things to be taken care of back home while you’re gone, and securing all of the proper documents and vaccinations necessary to travel. We make lists, pack—some of us unpack, repack—all in order to ensure that we will have everything that we need to handle the weather, get business done, enjoy the trip, or face the possible difficulties that we might encounter along the way.

We prepare ourselves for the journey ahead.

That is exactly what is happening at the Transfiguration. On that mountain, God was preparing the disciples for the journey ahead.

Here, today, now, God is also at work to strengthen us. As we listen to this story of the Transfiguration, we hear three things that the Triune God is doing in our lives to prepare us for the journey ahead so that we may live as Jesus’ disciples.

First, to strengthen us for the journey, the Triune God calls and gathers us together.

“Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain.”

Jesus calls these disciples together—draws them close to himself—so that they might believe and have something to hold to for what is yet to come: his crucifixion and death—events that will cause them to doubt. This moment is meant to be a light when it seems that all other lights have gone out.

There, on the mountain, God the Father confirms the disciples’ faith: Jesus really is the Messiah promised to them through the prophets to fulfill the law. Jesus is the Beloved, the Son of God. They can trust Jesus, and they can entrust themselves to him.

Some of us may feel that we have never had a mountain-top experience like the disciples. How we long for an experience of revelation, of beholding the glory of God! This is important to name because it is true that we will not always “feel” or recognize God’s presence.

It is evident to me, however, that here at Mount Olive, we do trust the promise that God is present with us. We come to worship, expecting to encounter God.

The Holy Spirit has gathered us together in worship today so that we might be enfolded by God’s love, shielded against any doubt that we have struggled with, and drawn in to God’s bosom in order to trust and believe. Jesus really is our Savior, God with us and for us. And we are the Beloved.

In our baptisms, we are given the same promise that God the Father speaks on the mountain to Jesus, the Son. God the Father proclaims to us, “You are mine, beloved. I am pleased with you.” When God the Father looks at us, we are already seen as Christ, but we are being formed so that when the world looks at us, they also see Christ.

This is the second word for us today: the Triune God is transforming us in order to prepare us for the journey.

“Jesus was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes become dazzling white.”

The word, “transfigured,” is only used four times in all of scripture. Twice for Jesus and twice for us. Matthew and Mark use “transfigured” in their gospels to describe this exact moment on the mountain top. Paul also uses this word—“transfigured” or “transformed”—to describe the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

As we will hear in today’s anthem, Paul writes to the Romans: “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.”

And he writes this in the second letter to the Corinthians:
And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

Transfiguration does not belong to Jesus alone; it is the pattern of our daily lives because of the Spirit work. We are being transformed by the Holy Spirit to bear Christ’s image, to be Christ in the world. We are transformed to glow and to reflect Christ’s light to all still trapped in darkness.

Certainly, we know from our daily lives that we continue to turn away from this promise, that we still hurt ourselves and one another, that we still seek our own interests at the expense of others—even those whom we love the most. For the past three weeks, we have heard of the joy and life meant for us in God’s gift of the law, but we continually resist and reject it. We hear again today that this transforming work of the Holy Spirit is how we will be made new, fulfill the law, love our enemies, be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and live as Christ.

God is not finished with us yet. We may not always feel it, or see evidence of it, and so we trust instead Christ’s promise: we are being transfigured, transformed by the Holy Spirit into Christ’s image.

We are not being transformed into Christ for our own sakes, but for the sake of the world, which is why the third word for us today is one of sending.

Jesus and the disciples come down the mountain.

Departing the mountain begins Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. From this moment on, Jesus makes his way to the cross. They cannot stay on the mountain because of the brokenness that lies below: a world that yearns for this light of Christ. Because of that brokenness, those who yearn for the light will also reject it, and so the way of this Son of God is the way of the cross.

The way of discipleship is also the way of the cross. They are to follow Jesus on the path to Jerusalem, to his rejection, and to his crucifixion.

They cannot stay on the mountain, but they do not go down into the valley below alone.

“Get up,” Jesus says, touching them, “Do not be afraid.” With this, he calls them back from fear, for he is with them.

Here in worship, God draws us up to the mountain so that we can follow into the valley. We are being prepared to enter into the suffering and pain of others, to give of ourselves, to lose. When we hear this story, Christ is coming to us here and now, touching us on the shoulder and saying, “Get up, do not be afraid,” for he is with us on the journey. We do not leave him here in worship, but are promised that we will meet him again and again in the people to whom we are sent.

What might it look like to trust God’s love for us, Christ’s presence, and the Spirit’s work of transformation in us so that we can follow Jesus down into the valley?

I have seen it. For me, it looks like the life of David Selvaraaj.

David was the director of the social justice, peace, and development study-abroad program that I did during college in Bangalore, India. He is also the co-founder of a school for girls between the ages of 6 and 15 who are at risk of being dedicated as devadasis. A devadasi is a woman or a girl who has reached puberty, who, on the basis of family tradition, economic need, or abuse of the caste system which still holds power in small villages, is dedicated in a ritual at a Hindu temple and is then sold to the highest bidder, or given to a powerful man in the village. She is then used as a sex slave and is supposed to support her parents, relatives, and children through the money given to her by the man or men who use her. Without intervention, the children have no choice and are bound to a life of poverty and abuse.

The school founded by David and his colleagues, however, offers a different life: a real childhood where they can play and make friends. A place to learn academics so that they can go to college, career skills so that they can work, and street theater, visual art, and music, which they use in public demonstrations to work for justice on behalf of other marginalized children.

Upon our arrival on campus, the other college students and I noticed that the perimeter was completely surrounded by 15-foot high fences topped with barbed-wire. We asked David about the fences, and he explained that they were necessary to protect the children.

When they first began the school, men from their villages came to take the girls back by force so that they could still have devadasis. The men threatened David and the employees. They did not manage to scale the fences, but they did not leave without terrifying the children or the staff.

When asked how he and the staff were able to keep going in such conditions, how they were able to face the threat that these men posed, or how they could tirelessly resist the opposition of their neighbors or other people in the city who did not want a school that brought such dangers with it in their neighborhood, David responded, “Much of what we do here is risky, but we do it to affirm life. My Lord, Jesus, suffers with and among people, and so will I.”

If we are truly to follow Jesus down the mountain and into the valley where the cross is, then we will enter into the suffering and pain of others, and it will involve risk.

We may never bear the kind of risk that David does, nor will we likely be stoned to death or crucified like the disciples, but make no mistake: if we enter into the suffering of others, if we dwell with them, listen to them rather than try to fix them our way, if we open ourselves to feeling their pain, then it will be difficult. We will not be left unscathed.

We are not strangers to suffering or injustice.

We know that there is poverty, abuse, and discrimination in our own society; it is not unique to India. We know the stories of loss in our own lives—the suffering friends, the chronic illness, the change from the way that life used to be,  the death of a loved one, the job that has ended, the relationship that seems beyond the point of healing.

The question before us is this: will we risk the price of going down into these valleys with Jesus, of following him into this suffering? Will we hold onto our fear, or will we trust that the Triune God has something to say and something to do in the valley? Will we avoid these places of pain in our lives and the lives of those around us, or will we go where we have been sent?

David was sent to the children trapped in the devadasi system, but if you ask him, he will tell you that they were sent to him, for they have taught him to forgive and to love like Christ. It has not been without costs, but now there is freedom where there was slavery, joy where there was fear, healing where there was pain, and hope and a future where there was only death.

Will the journey ahead of us be easy? No.

Safe? Probably not.

But will we encounter the Triune God bringing healing, transformation, and life? Most definitely.

God the Father has claimed you. Christ is with you. The Holy Spirit is transforming you. So get up, Beloved, go, and do not be afraid.

We are the image of God.  It’s time to start living that way, time for us to seek the Spirit’s grace in maturing and growing up in faith that we might see God’s way as our way of life and the way of life for the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Seventh Sunday after Epiphany, year A; texts:  Matthew 5:38-48; Leviticus 19:1-2, 19-18; 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23; Psalm 119:33-40

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

I wonder what would happen if the Church started to take seriously the Biblical claim that we, that humanity, are created in the image of God.  What it would look like if we – you, I, this congregation, the Church – if we actually expected that to be true, and lived into that truth.  If we let that reality shape our teaching, direct our decisions, even make a claim on our individual lives and presence in the world.

We certainly don’t seem to show much desire to do this yet.  While I doubt you would find any Christian who would deny that we are made in God’s image, the depths of what such a truth actually means seem far beyond our willingness to dig or dive or probe.

What would it mean for this world if that were not our way?  If we acted as if we believe that the Triune God was serious about this, and about what it means for us?  We hear this from God’s Word today: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”  And from Jesus, the Son of God himself, today: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  What would it mean if we embraced these commands instead of wincing at them, hiding from them?  What would it mean if we took God’s Word seriously – as, by the way, we claim to do – and saw such claims on our identity as our hope and our future, not as something from which we run?  If we found joy in such commands, as our psalmist does today, not seeing them as something we need to parse and dissect until they don’t mean for our lives what they clearly seem to mean?

These weeks with the teachings of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount, alongside various similar teachings from the Torah and the prophets, have been calling us to find a greater growth in our faith and lives, to recognize that we can often persist in an immaturity when it comes to the way of life God has set before us, and so we miss the fullness of life God intends for us.  Today we face the full scope of that call to “grow up”: that we learn to find joy in this promise of our identity as the image of the living God, and learn to eagerly seek the Spirit’s strength in living into that identity, for the sake of the world.

Today we see a powerful glimpse of what this image of God looks like across the Scriptures.

We begin with the words of Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who describes a way that is God’s, but that is laid out as our path as well.

The path Jesus describes is one where we resist evil and violence not with more violence and evil, but with the strength of standing in the face of it non-violently, peacefully, strongly.  A way where we never retaliate when wronged.  Where if someone wants to deprive us of something, even by taking us to court, we get ahead of them and give freely.  A way where if someone needs something, we give it to them.  And a way where we stand against the way of the world and treat our enemies with love, where we lift them up in our prayer as much as we lift up those who are dearest to our hearts.

Now you can see what I mean about our problem as the Church.  Does this look at all like the public face of the Church in the world?  The center, driving force behind our teaching, our life, our work, individually and collectively?

But Jesus, the Son of God, only continues in the great tradition of God’s people Israel, for we hear much the same from the LORD God in Leviticus today.  To be holy as the LORD God is holy looks like this:

It is to live with wealth in such a way that we do not consume all, but share with those in need: here it’s sharing the edges of fields, the grapes of the vine we do not need, but we can supply the metaphors that work for our way of life.  That we do not rapaciously consume what we have and what resources the world provides as if it is our right and ours alone, but see ourselves as one with all and the resources we have as shared, communal.  This is the way of the LORD God.

And God’s way also looks like this: that we do not cheat or steal or lie to one another.  That we live justly, giving laborers a fair wage and not keeping it ourselves, that we do not profit from the blood of another.  That we do not take vengeance, or even bear a grudge against anyone, but love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Not surprisingly, Jesus sounds very much like this, and not surprisingly, this is also not the way, the image, we see in ourselves and in the Church.

Let’s keep this very simple today: clearly we fail to live as the image of God shown here.  But there are different ways to fail, and that difference is critical.

One way to fail to live in this way is simply to fail to live in this way.  That is, to live in such a way that the fullness of this graciousness isn’t always how we act and react, how we present ourselves.

And if there is anything in what we heard from Leviticus and Jesus that you realized you didn’t live into fully, you know what I mean.  We call this sin; we could call it failure.  It’s a truth about our human nature that we do not always live in the way we are called to live, the way we were created to live.  We know this, and when we are honest, we confess such failings, such sin, and seek God’s grace and forgiveness.

Another way to fail is a truly problematic one, though, because it is a failure of intent and desire and design.  This is the way that fears the law of God, that seeks to mitigate it, reduce it, explain it away.

To say, “Jesus might have preached non-violent resistance to the evil of the world, but we live in a real world where sometimes you just have to fight back and harm.  Where war can be justified.”  (As if Jesus, the Son of God who was present at creation, doesn’t know about the “real” world.)

Or to say, “realistically, you can’t run an economy where people share equally and there is no profit incentive, where people aren’t allowed to accumulate capital; in fact, that way, we say, will eventually lift all to a better standard of living.”  (As if the God who created all things doesn’t know what to do with the gift of creation, doesn’t know what’s best for the creatures so lovingly made and planted on this earth.)

We do this kind of thing all the time with the teachings of Jesus, the way of God.  We cut them, shape them, cleverly explain why they can’t work fully, why the Bible really didn’t mean that anyway.

Do you see why this way of failing to reflect God’s image is the dangerous one?  In the first way we fail, but we know it.  We seek forgiveness that we might continue to learn the better way, God’s way.  In the second, we don’t even have it as a goal.  We find any number of ways to avoid facing the truth that the Triune God lays before us about what we actually look like in the world and what God would have us look like.

And for we who are Lutheran, there is an especially potent temptation to this second path, ironically.  We proclaim so loudly that we are saved by God’s grace, forgiven of our sins, but we can easily let that become for us only the thought that we are out of trouble, we’re not punished.  When in fact the Biblical model of forgiveness is restoration to relationship with God so that we might once again live as people of God, become the image of God in the world.  Sometimes we forget that, and rejoice in forgiveness as if it’s the end goal, crisis averted, punishment set aside.

But it’s not the end goal.  It’s the beginning of new life.

The Good News for us today is that God’s Word tells us that not only are we created in God’s image.  God will also continue to shape us to be so.

This is the promise our Lord gives through the working of the Spirit: we will be made new, changed into people who look like our God once again.  We don’t have to do this alone.

And so we gather weekly to hear God’s Word because that’s how we are shaped and made new.  By hearing it again and again and finally having it sink in, “this is God’s way”.  By speaking it to each other, teaching each other, listening together, discerning together, so that we never forget these words, this call, this claim God has on us, and so that we continue to understand better and better what it might mean.

And we gather, we gather: we come together in community because we need each other and God works through the community to shape us into the image of God.  We need each other because we pray for each other, encourage each other, support each other as we all seek to reflect this image in the world.  We especially need the community because we each need people who are truth-tellers to us, who can name the behavior of the community, or our behavior as individuals, or the direction of the Church, when any stray from God’s image, move into ways that are not of God.

But the truly deep mystery is that we are shaped as we gather to worship through the very grace of God we come to find, and are made into the image of God.  It is no coincidence that we see the community of the Church as the Body of Christ and we gather to be fed by the Body of Christ, because the latter creates the former.

As we are fed and nourished by these gifts of grace, and by God’s Word, we become what we are given.  We become the grace of God, the body of Christ, the image of the Triune God in the world.  So we leave here and our Lord says to the world about us: Take these, they are my body broken for you.
And we will be broken, let’s not pretend otherwise.

One of the reasons we sometimes run from the command to be like God is that to be like God is to lose, to give away, to let go, to love even when no one thinks we should.  You know this, if you’ve ever forgiven someone who truly hurt you, forgiven and loved them.  That costs, that hurts.  It’s what happens when we are like God.

You know this if you’ve ever stood with love and grace in the face of evil and been run over by it, hurt by it.  That costs, that hurts.  It’s what happens when we are like God.

Make no mistake, there’s plenty of reason for us not to seek this.  If we are called by God to be like God, we will find great cost in many ways.  But what we need to hold before us this: where else do we ever want to be but with God?  What life could we ever imagine being real without God?

A life lived fully as Leviticus and Jesus speak today, a community, a world, shaped like this would be astonishing to see.  Life-giving, rich, abundant.  Living with the Spirit of God inside us, as if we were a temple of God, as Paul describes today, is not just the way we are given the power to be new people, it is a place of joy and hope and grace for us, because God is with us and in us, and that is life.

This is where we want to be, even if it costs us everything.

It did, after all, cost the Son of God his life, too.  And it is in his resurrection life we most dearly wish to live, even now.  It’s tempting to run from this, because it can seem hard, too much.  Because we realize how much we fail at this.

But we can grow up, mature, with God’s help.  As we do, as the Spirit lives in us and moves in us, more and more we see this light as the way we need to go, the way we want to go.  More and more we learn that the cost is negligible compared to the alternative, not being with the God whose love for us and for the world is overwhelming and is life.

We are the image of God.  That’s the truth.  God give us the grace and strength, and forgiveness, and courage, to actually start looking like it.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen