Truth is not a thing to be grasped or fought over; Truth is the One who is God-with-us, who gives us and the world life when we abide in relationship with this Truth.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Reign of Christ, Last Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 34 B
Text: John 18:33-37 (added 38a)

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

“What is truth?”

Pilate’s question lingers over this story, over Jesus himself.

And it’s a potent question in our day. Today there isn’t even agreement amongst ourselves as a nation about whether facts are static, real, measurable things. People can, and do, shout “Fake news!” any time something is said that is inconvenient or troublesome to their public persona or point of view.

Truth has become relative. No one can stand in the public square and declare, “This is the truth” without many disputing it. Not on the grounds that the truth is something else, but still discoverable, but on the grounds that “that’s not my truth.” The bitterness and spite in our public arena is amplified by each group or person claiming “their” truth is the only truth, while treating the facts and truth others speak as make-believe or personal opinion.

Yet, we gather here each week with a shared understanding. We believe, and we believe together. Coming here we have an expectation of some kind of agreed-upon truth. We might disagree about nuance or interpretation, but our gathering here together, as a community in worship, implies that as a community we seek truth together, that we even find truth together.

So, Pilate’s question is still vital for us. What, indeed, is truth? Well, it depends on what you mean by truth.

For Pilate, truth was a complicated goal.

Already on a short leash from the Roman emperor due to previous missteps in his governance, this prefect of the troublesome province of Judea faced the truth that he might lose his job. What information he had about Jesus’ case is unknown. As we heard, Pilate wants to know if Jesus is the King of the Jews. Which could translate, “King of the Judeans.” Since Pilate was the Roman prefect of the Judeans, the sole authority in the empire for that province, if Jesus was claiming overlordship of that province, Pilate needed to know.

Perhaps Pilate really wanted to know the truth of Jesus’ case. Is he a criminal or is he innocent? Does he claim to be a king or not? Is he a revolutionary threat or a harmless lunatic? What we do know is that after Pilate said, “What is truth?” he immediately went out and told the religious leaders that he “found no case against [Jesus].”

Seemingly he found the truth about Jesus: the charges were unfounded. And yet, he still issued an order of execution for a man he had declared to be innocent. Truth, for Pilate, seems to be whatever will keep him in his job longer.

The truth about Jesus is also complicated for Christians.

There’s likely nothing Christians have fought over, hated each other about, and broken the community of Christ for more, than the truth about Jesus.

Is Jesus God or is Jesus a human being? Is Jesus a king or is Jesus a servant? Is Jesus a shepherd, or is Jesus a sacrificial lamb? Is Jesus a peacemaker or does Jesus bring a sword?

Generally the Church tries to nail down these paradoxical realities of what the Scriptures say about Jesus into an agreed doctrine. So, for example, in the fourth century, long, drawn-out theological battles over the “true” nature of Christ Jesus finally led to the formation of the Nicene Creed we still proclaim. Fully God, fully human, the Church declared, and used carefully chosen theological terms, as if somehow we could parse out the very details of the mystery of the Son of God in meaningful distinctions.

But if we pay attention to Jesus in John’s Gospel, truth is not something to be nailed down.

John’s Gospel weaves the word “truth” throughout, and it’s not about having your facts straight.

In John 1, we hear that “the law was given through Moses, [but] grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” So, Christ Jesus, God’s eternal Word who participated in creation and now has taken on human flesh, brings “truth” into the world.

Then, in John 8, Jesus says: “If you continue in my Word, you are truly my disciples [my followers, my learners]; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Now the eternal Word of God, in human flesh, invites those who would follow him to abide, live, continue in this same Word of God, and find truth that frees.

But in John 14, Jesus makes the truth about truth abundantly clear: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

This is the great wonder: The Truth is in fact the Son of God himself, the Incarnate Word. Truth isn’t something we can grasp or fight over. Truth isn’t something I have and you don’t. Truth is a Someone. “I am the way, the truth, and the life” means we don’t find God by knowing or believing the right things. It means the One who is Truth embodied brings us to God.

The true Truth cannot be controlled, boxed up in a perfect theology, or fought over. The true Truth can only be known in relationship.

This is what Jesus wants Pilate to see.

It isn’t whether Jesus claims to be a king as Pilate defines king. Jesus asks, “Do you say I’m a king on your own, or did others tell you?” Jesus wants to know what Pilate says of him, what he claims. The only ones who know Truth, Jesus says, are “my followers.” The only ones who know the Truth are the ones who live in relationship with the Truth, with Jesus.

“Everyone who belongs to the Truth listens to my voice,” Jesus says. You don’t belong to a thing, to an abstract argument, to a stated fact. You belong to a Someone, to a Person. And in belonging, you hear that Person’s voice and follow.

So too, we find the true Truth, the Incarnate God in our lives, not by argument but by living with the One who is the Truth.

“If you continue in my Word, live in my Word,” Jesus says, “you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. I will make you free.”

True followers live in the Word and in relationship with the One who is the Truth. Is Jesus a king or a servant? Instead of arguing that out, trying to teach the truth, Jesus put on a towel, knelt, and washed his followers’ feet. In relationship, Jesus showed them Truth. And then he said, “Go, do the same. Be like me, live as servant. Be the Truth yourself.”

And Jesus didn’t make a philosophical argument about the kind of King he was, or a theological lecture about self-giving, sacrificial Love. He allowed himself to be arrested, tortured, and executed, and in the power of God’s eternal life, rose from the dead as Ruler of all things. In relationship, on the cross Jesus showed them Truth. And then he said, “Go, do the same. Be like me. Love, as I have loved you. Be the Truth yourself.”

The question isn’t “what is truth?” It’s “Who is Truth?”

And thanks be to God you have met this Truth in Word and Sacrament, in this community of children of God formed by God’s love and grace. Here you live as Truth to each other, and by your lives witness to the undying love of God that fills you and all things. Here you learn to follow, to love, to serve, to abide in Truth for the sake of the world. And for your own sake.

And this One who is Truth truly makes you free.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

God calls us together today and invites us to let go of our anxiety and fear, and, walking in God’s reign, let God center us and make us part of the healing of all things.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Day of Thanksgiving, year B
Texts: Matthew 6:25-33 (adding v. 34); 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Joel 2:21-27

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

Why are we here this morning?

This is the only day on the Church calendar that’s not a Church holy day. Now, the Church strongly approves of giving thanks; our weekly worship is called Eucharist, which means Thanksgiving. But we’re only here today because for over 150 years U.S. presidents have declared a national Day of Thanksgiving, and for nearly 80 years it’s been on November’s fourth Thursday. Otherwise, this would be a normal work day and we’d gather for our weekly Thanksgiving feast next Sunday.

This secular holiday is complicated for us. Nationally, this day is marked by the encouragement of gluttony and joking about that, by the spectacle of parades and football games, by the official launch of the rampant consumerism of the so-called “holiday season”, by pressure on families to get along, and by regurgitating the national myth of benevolent forebears coming to this land in peace, eating a feast with the natives, never mentioning the destruction, genocide, religious intolerance, and suffering that those pilgrims brought with them on their little ships. We like to give thanks to God. But this day is filled with lots of things we’re not thankful for.

But a funny thing happens when the Church adopts a day into the calendar. Drawing this national, secular holiday onto the calendar meant the Church did what the Church normally does: gave this day readings from Scripture, three years’ worth.

And suddenly today has the same reason to worship as every day on the Church calendar. God’s Word tells us what we’re about, defines why we’re here today, not presidents or the marketplace or the parade announcers.

And it turns out we actually have important reasons to be here.

For this lectionary year, we’re drawn here for a simple message from God: don’t be anxious or afraid.

Joel first beautifully addresses the earth’s soil, saying, “Don’t fear, O soil, be glad and rejoice, for God has done great things for you!” Then he says to the animals of the field, “Don’t fear, for the pastures are green, the trees are bearing fruit!” Last, the prophet tells God’s people to rejoice and be glad, for God is providing abundant rain and harvest of grain and oil and wine.

Jesus doesn’t directly address the non-humans. But he portrays the lilies of the field and the birds of the air as models of ones who have no fear, no anxiety, who trust in God’s abundant care. From their model, Jesus says to the people, “Don’t worry about what you’ll eat or drink or wear, be like the birds and the flowers and trust God will provide.”

A national Day of Non-Anxiety. That’s worth gathering for. So, we give thanks, and we hear God’s prophet and God’s Son invite us to release our worries and fears and rejoice in God’s abundance.

But then we think about the world.

And we realize the soil, the animals of the field, the birds of the air, and the flowers have much to fear.

When we consider our world, we want to restate Joel and Jesus and say instead, “Be afraid, O soil, for the people of this world are dumping their toxic waste into you, stripping you of your nutrients, and exploiting you until you are incapable of supporting life. Be afraid, you animals and birds and flowers, for the people of this world are consuming the resources of your abundance, polluting your habitats, dangerously and rapidly heating up your planet, and blithely ignoring the disappearance of millions of your siblings and species.”

Joel couldn’t have imagined this. Jesus could have, but didn’t speak of it. But in our age we can’t simply look at the natural world and rejoice in God’s abundance. The human race has been systematically exploiting God’s abundance, without care or concern for any of our fellow inhabitants, the soil, the animals, the birds, the plants. We’re equally dismissive and destructive of our fellow human beings, creating systems of oppression and violence and indifference which, on top of our destruction of the climate, harm the most vulnerable of God’s children.

How can today be a Day of Non-Anxiety with the world as we’ve abused it for so long? And then, the writer of 1 Timothy urges today that we give supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving for everyone, including kings and all in high positions. So, we’re commanded to pray for current leaders who do this horror not with well-meant ignorance but with malice and purpose.

What can we do here today that is at all faithful?

First, breathe for a moment. And then return to Jesus’ words.

Jesus doesn’t deny our reasons for anxiety and fear. But for those who follow him, who hear his voice, he says, “Change your focus. Don’t worry about what might or might not happen, about what is wrong with the world, about all the things that make you anxious. Instead, focus on God’s reign and God’s righteousness.”

Seek God’s reign. For Jesus, this means focus your life on following God’s way as Jesus has taught it. Beginning with love of God and love of neighbor, this is a way that Jesus invites you to follow with everything you have. It’s the way of the cross, the way of self-giving love. Let your heart be ruled by that, Jesus says, and you’ll find peace.

And seek God’s righteousness. To be righteous is to be in tune with your true self, the way you were made. A car that is finely tuned, that has all its parts oiled and working correctly, is righteous, what it was created to be. So, Jesus says, seek God’s true-ing of you, making your heart and soul and mind to be what they are meant to be. God’s clearing out blocks and hindrances, shaping you into Christ, your pattern of righteousness.

God’s reign and righteousness are our path out of our anxiety into trust.

Knowing that we are loving as God is, walking where God is, and shaped to be God’s people we were made to be, gives us peace of mind in the worst of the world’s evil and pain.

And as people trued to God’s pattern, walking God’s path, we are agents of God’s healing of this broken, sinful world ourselves. So we become the ones who protect the soil, who look out for the animals of the field. We become the ones God uses to keep the flowers clothed in beauty and the birds of the air safe in their nests. We rejoice in the abundance we still see God pouring on the earth, and ensure that all are included in its grace. This also lessens our anxiety.

And, we become witnesses of the truth of God’s undying love for all things. We witness to the God who, 1 Timothy also says, “desires everyone to be saved – healed, rescued – and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” That’s why we pray for everyone, even “kings and all in high positions.” Because God will not rest until all are drawn into the life-giving reign of God and are made righteous. Until all are saved, and know God’s truth.

Whatever reason we have for coming here today, the Church in her wisdom has said, “focus on this: Don’t be anxious or afraid. God’s abundant love is healing all things.”

God’s pleasure, God’s desire, God’s dream is to have the whole creation blessed with abundance and fullness. And we get to be a part of that dream, bringing healing and wholeness in our very lives as Christ, and calming not only our anxiety and fear, but that of our siblings in this abundant creation, from humans to all God’s creatures.

So today, let’s join the soil, the animals of the field, the birds of the air, the flowers, and all God’s children in singing praise and thanksgiving to the Triune God, whose love brings calm and trust in an anxious and frightened world.

Focus on that today, Jesus says. Leave tomorrow in God’s hands.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The suffering creation is being brought to new birth in God’s grace in Christ: hold fast to this hope even while participating in that new birth.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 33 B
Texts: Mark 13:1-8; Hebrews 10:11-25; 1 Samuel 2:1-10 (psalm for the day)

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

The disciples were a lot more optimistic than we are these days.

They’re rubes in the big city, gawking at the massive Temple and the beautiful buildings in Jerusalem. They’d be taking selfies with these buildings if they lived today.

Jesus throws cold water on their awe, saying that all these buildings will be thrown down, and hard as it is to believe, not one stone will be left on another. Forty years later, that’s exactly what Rome did to Jerusalem. All that seemed so permanent was wiped off the face of the earth.

But Jesus doesn’t need to throw cold water on us. We’re not looking in awe at our world, thinking it will last forever. In the daily chaos of our reality we wonder if our massive institutions of democracy, checks and balances, decency, and care for the common good, can survive the next two years, or more. We worry whether there is irrevocable damage to our democracy, to voter rights, to structures that keep people from starving, or that provide good medical care, to countless things we’ve valued as a nation. Abraham Lincoln’s hopeful words at Gettysburg, “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth,” seem more and more a tenuous hope.

But instead of cold water, Jesus says something beautifully mysterious to us about this falling apart of the world we face: “this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

This is a birth process, Jesus says!

There might be wars, earthquakes, famines, persecutions, cruelty, oppression. Times, Jesus says here and elsewhere, when people despair at this world’s falling apart. But something is being born in that chaos. God is creating a new reality.

Paul says the same in Romans 8: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now,” he writes, and God is working through this painfulness to bring forth new life.

Birth pangs are a wondrous image for the pain of this world. Contractions and labor, indescribable pains to those of us who haven’t experienced them, have a purpose: they move the baby through the birth canal, bringing new life into existence. So, too, God is working within the suffering creation to bring about new life. It’s no less painful. But there is hope for what comes at the end of it.

And Hannah sings that hope, what that birth, will be.

She joins her sister Mary, Jesus’ mother, whose Magnificat echoes Hannah’s song, and declares that in this world of injustice and cruel hate, where those in power crush those beneath them, where those who have nothing to eat starve, her heart exults in The One Who Is, the God of Israel.

This God, Hannah sings, will break the weapons of the mighty, and the feeble will find new strength. Those who were full will sell themselves as slaves to buy bread, while those who were hungry grow fat. Those who are poor are lifted from the dust, the pile of ashes, and sit in places of honor.

Hannah, like Mary after her, envisions a Magnificat world of grace and mercy for all people, where no one is in need, all live in love, and all are safe and whole. It is an overturning, because those on top aren’t going to give up their seats easily. But even for them, even for us, this new reality of God could be a blessing and a hope, once all are equally cared for and blessed in God’s abundance.

Hannah sings after she gives birth to Samuel; she knows the joy of the outcome of painful labor. Mary sings while still pregnant with Jesus; she, like us, lives in hope of what will come through the pain and suffering ahead.

This is what God is doing. This world will be made new, even in this life. But right now, we’re in the midst of the birth pains.

So our writer to the Hebrews encourages what we can do while God’s birthing continues.

For ten chapters, some of which we’ve heard these past Sundays, this writer has encouraged a group of Jewish Christians in their journey of faith, their pilgrimage, by naming Jesus, the Son of God, as their pioneer and guide for that journey. Jesus has suffered all they have, so he’s a faithful and knowledgeable guide. Jesus is also their new high priest, and as God’s Son, offered the ultimate sacrifice to end all sacrifices: God’s own self, offered for the world. This is God’s new covenant, we heard, written on our hearts forever, a covenant of forgiveness, even of forgetting of sins, and of new life as God’s people.

Then our author writes a glorious word: “Therefore.” “Therefore,” since Jesus has opened the Holy of Holies with his body and blood, since Jesus is our great high priest giving us full access to God’s inner life and grace, “therefore,” let us live in these following ways.

Let us approach God with a bold, true heart, we heard.

We have nothing to fear because Jesus, God’s Son, has opened the way to God. In the midst of the birth pangs, the struggles of this world, a door is opened into the heart of God. Let’s go boldly into the Holy of Holies, Hebrews says, fully assured in faith, with baptismally washed hearts and bodies, to be held by God.

And let us also “hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering.” Let’s cling to this hope of God’s undying love as to a lifeline in a hurricane. God’s love will be with you now, giving you courage and strength to live in the birth pangs of the changing creation. And God’s love in Christ Jesus’ death and resurrection promises hope of a life to come in the world beyond death. Hold tightly to this, Hebrews says.

And last, let us “consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.”

Because, my dear friends, this is exactly how God is creating a new creation. Through the love and good deeds of God’s children. That’s why it’s taking so long. That’s why the forces of evil seem to run unchecked, why chaos seems to be in charge, why the labor pains are lasting for centuries. Because God’s not magically making a creation that appears and fixes everything. God’s painstakingly – literally taking pain to do this – painstakingly making a new creation such as Hannah and Mary proclaim, through the love and good deeds of all God’s children. Through yours. Through mine.

So let’s consider how to provoke each other to this, Hebrews says. Isn’t that lovely? “Provoke” means exactly what you think: irritate, annoy, even anger. Let’s be pests to each other, gnats who sting each other to love and good deeds. To do that, Hebrews says, we can’t neglect to meet together. But when we do meet together, let’s prod, poke, even annoy each other to be a part of the new creation with love and good deeds.

This is our good news: the world’s suffering is birth pangs, leading to a new creation birthed by God.

Since they’re birth pangs, that means God’s reign is certain. It will arrive. There will be a restored creation. And Christ Jesus, God’s Son, who made this birth process possible by all that he did, will be our midwife, the world’s midwife, guiding us through this process.

Therefore. Therefore, always remember what is coming, what God is birthing. That will give you hope in the darkest times.

Therefore, remember that you are safe in God’s arms now, and always, and that you can come right into God’s heart and find that love. That will give you strength in the most frightening times.

And therefore, remember because of what Jesus has done, in that confidence and hope, you know what to do: love and good deeds, the work of the birthing process that belongs to you and me. That will bring about God’s new birth more and more even in the times when it is most impossible to see.

Let us do all this, unwavering in trust and hope, until the birth happens and the universe rejoices.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

Jesus calls us to let go of everything. Can we learn to trust this together, and watch God change the world in us?

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 32 B
Text: Mark 12:38-44 (also referring to several other texts)

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

A month ago on October 14 we witnessed an encounter between Jesus and an earnest rich man.

The man asked how to inherit eternal life, and Jesus spoke of keeping the commandments. In fact, Jesus saw how well he kept the commandments and loved him. But then Jesus said, “you’re too weighed down by all that you have. You’re going to want to sell everything, give the money to someone who needs it, and then, come, follow me.” The man couldn’t imagine doing that, because he was so wealthy.

Today we witness another moment with Jesus. As he watches people put big sums in the Temple treasury, he notices a poor widow come forward and put in two nearly worthless coins, less than a penny. Everything she had, in fact. And Jesus looked at the disciples and said, “That seems about right.”

A hugely rich man and an impoverished widow both face the truth of their wealth. And for both, our Lord and Savior says letting go of everything is the way of God.

Here’s another moment, from the fourth chapter of Acts.

Did you know there was a second Pentecost event in Acts? After Peter and John were arrested and released, they returned to the community. Then all the believers prayed. Luke goes on:

³¹ When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness. ³² Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. ³³ With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. ³⁴ There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.     Acts 4:31-34

This is astonishing. Because of the Spirit’s blowing and shaking their lives, they lived in love together, one heart, one soul, and shared everything, and no one was needy.

This didn’t last very long. By Acts 6 there are cracks in the sharing, and some widows weren’t getting food, so six deacons were elected to help. Not too much later, by First Corinthians, it seems the believers had returned to the world’s way, with rich and poor members. But for a brief moment, the Church got Jesus.

Why do we consider this impossible today? Do we believe the Spirit still moves among us, still shakes us?

I believe the Spirit does still shake us. And I believe the Holy Spirit is calling Mount Olive to a completely new and ancient way of being Christ’s community together.

I have seen a vision over the past couple months that the Spirit compels me to share with you.

It’s a vision of this community of faith leaping deeper into community together than we’ve ever dared. Having one heart, one soul, and sharing everything with each other.

It’s a vision where we stop thinking of stewardship as “giving” but as letting go, as sharing together in Christ’s work. Where a 10% tithe is fine, but just the beginning of the path toward the 100% Jesus calls us to let go.

It’s a vision of this community recognizing its idolatry of commerce and the economy, admitting its addiction to possessions and security, and turning to each other in Christ to break that addiction. By understanding our general fund, our budget, not as a budget but as a community purse, into which each of us starts the path toward fully letting go, pooling it together, for the good of the community, for the good of the world.

I believe we are an ideal community to try to actually follow Jesus together.

We are deeply shaped by God’s grace and love and the inclusion of all people in God’s embrace. God’s love fills our hearts and lives every time we gather here, and these people here with whom we worship, with whom we walk on our faith journey, are family in Christ. We even disagree and argue, and still gather in joy at Christ’s table afterward.

We have a transparent structure, with leaders we elect from our midst. We meet twice a year as a community for business, and monthly as a Vestry, and we report to each other what we are doing. What other place could we even dare to risk letting go? What other people would we even trust to be the ones with whom we let go?

Listen to another vision your leadership has.

At our October Vestry retreat, President David Anderson asked each Vestry member to reflect on four questions ahead of time and bring them to the retreat. One question was: It’s ten years from now, and you’re looking north from Mount Olive’s door. What do you see? At least eight of the thirteen independently saw Mount Olive involved in some kind of housing initiative. Some saw a three-story apartment building of affordable housing. Others saw houses purchased and renovated and used for transitional housing. It was breathtaking.

There’s no shortage of imagination amongst your elected leaders. But we can’t begin to follow that dream, which I firmly believe was given our leaders by the Holy Spirit, if we view stewardship as giving to a budget, and nudge our yearly budget up a couple percentage points every year. What we do right now is good. We care for many people. We have a new loan program. Our care for the environment and our building makes this a safe place for our neighbors and the creation.

But if we caught the Spirit’s vision, and first a few of us, then a few more, then over the years more and more until we reached critical mass, if this happened and people seriously took wealth and possessions that we were keeping for ourselves and put them in a communal purse here together, God could change this city.

If we really sensed the Spirit shaking us and bringing us into one heart and one mind, and we strategically started sharing 10%, 20%, 30% together, God could do wonders here. We don’t have to let go of everything all at once, cold turkey, like Jesus asked the man. We can do it a day at a time, as addiction recovery people have taught us, and take steps down Jesus’ path together.

I expect some objections are rising in your hearts and minds.

There’s no time to list them now, but I’ve heard over ten specific kinds of objections in the past few weeks as I’ve tested some of this with people here and elsewhere, so you know them. I’ll just note a couple things.

First, the more you or I resist a teaching of Jesus, the more easily we have our answers why it’s not realistic or won’t work, the more we push back, the more it’s a sign we need to hear the teaching more deeply. Take your objections and sit with them. Ask yourself why they’re so easy to come to. Ask yourself what you’re afraid of, and why. Ask the Spirit to help you sort out if they are objections that must prevent you from following.

Second, this vision is not one-size-fits-all. Jesus encounters a wide spectrum of wealth in these stories, from someone with almost nothing to someone with great wealth. I don’t know where you are on that spectrum. Some of you are much closer to the widow’s end. I also believe that many of you join me closer to the rich man’s wealth. We do this vision together, as each senses the Spirit’s call. None of this can be forced, or guilted into reality, and each will do what each can, with the Spirit’s help.

Third, there’s an overlooked truth in today’s Gospel. If this poor widow gives away everything, someone has to take care of her, make sure she has food and shelter and love. There’s a reason the Scriptures are full of God’s command to care for the widows and orphans: God expects the community of God’s beloved to do this.

So not only would this vision transform our neighborhood and city. It would also make us a community where no one who sojourns with us ever has to worry about having enough to live on when they get old, or worry about where they’ll sleep at night or whether they’ll eat. It would make us a community where we learned to be vulnerable with each other about our needs, not so fiercely private and independent, so that we can care for each other and no one falls through the cracks. That’s the most beautiful thing about the whole Acts 4 story. No one in the community was in need.

There is much to think about. Please do that. Pray. And be in this conversation.

If the Spirit moves you right now and you want to start letting go of more of your possessions and wealth, for your own spiritual health and well-being, and you’ve already filled out your pledge card, take it home and bring it back with what you’re feeling called to do.

If you aren’t sure what this means for you but feel you’re being pulled by the Spirit, talk to me. We need to get a group together that talks about this vision and helps each other live into it.

If this is all too much and you don’t know what to think, that’s OK, too. But do think about it. Pay attention to where you are pushing back and ask what that might say to you. Pray about what God might need you to see, or change, or do.

And whatever your reaction to this vision, if you never pledge but you give faithfully, I invite you to change and pledge this year. Not to me, not to something else, but as your family in Christ at Mount Olive. When we commit to each other as Christ’s community, we make a sacred bond together, something that can’t happen if I keep my own counsel between me and God about what I will do to join this vision.

We are baptized, anointed children of God, just like those early believers.

Here we have found grace and hope in God’s undying love that gives us life beyond anything we could have imagined, just like they did. And the Holy Spirit is just as committed to moving and working among us as back then.

So: what happens when you feel the room start to shake and you hear the sound of the Spirit?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

In darkness, suffering, and grief, we are able to see that God is with us, and that’s all we need to know.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
All Saints Sunday, year B
Texts: John 11:32-44 (also read vv. 17, 20-31); Isaiah 25:6-9; Revelation 21:1-6

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

If you had been here, this wouldn’t have happened.

It’s a damning indictment these sisters lay on Jesus. Our beloved brother, your beloved friend, died. And you weren’t here to stop it. You abandoned us to this terrible grief.

They had reason to believe Jesus could stop this. As some of their mourning friends said, “he’s healed blind people, surely he could have healed Lazarus.” They’d seen him heal others, and knew he could’ve prevented this heart-wrenching pain.

But they counted on more than Jesus’ ability. Jesus was their friend. He’d eaten at their home, they loved him and he loved them. They trusted that friendship, that love. So when Lazarus grew sick, of course they called on this relationship. If you’re friends with the Son of God, who heals even strangers, why wouldn’t you expect such a favor?

We understand Mary and Martha and their friends.

If God really loves you, you should be safe from suffering, shouldn’t you?

We’re dismissive of Christians who preach a prosperity Gospel, who claim that if you just believe in God, you’ll become wealthy, you’ll have all you want. That God wants you to be a success in all areas of your life. We find such theology distasteful, dishonest, and unscriptural.

But a friend of mine recently reminded me that we’re not so far from this when we expect God’s protection from harm, an escape from suffering. When we ask, where were you God, when this terrible thing happened? Whether it’s an enraged killing of unsuspecting people at worship whom we don’t know, or a cancerous blow on the one closest to us, or the pain of our loneliness: if you’d have shown up, God, we say, this wouldn’t have happened.

Martha and Mary still believe in Jesus. But they can’t understand why he lets them suffer such unnecessary pain.

Martha believes her brother will live in the resurrection on the last day. She believes the promise of Isaiah we heard today, that in those days on the mountain of God, death will be swallowed up and all tears wiped away. She believes in the promise of John’s Revelation we heard today, that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and no more death, no more crying, no more pain.

But I’m in grief right now, Martha says. Mary doesn’t have to say it. She can barely speak for her weeping. If you’d been here, Jesus, we wouldn’t feel this way.

And Jesus says to Martha: I’m here now, and I am life. Is that enough for you? He says to Mary: I’m here now, and I share your tears. Is that enough for you?

We think we want, maybe even deserve, freedom from suffering in this life.

Now, if we know someone who has suffered greatly in ways that we haven’t, we know we don’t believe God loves us more. When we’re rational, we know suffering happens to all sorts of people and there’s never a rational explanation. But like Mary and Martha, we don’t always think clearly in our grief and pain. All we want is for it to go away.

But what we really need – since we know suffering happens to anyone and everyone – is to know we aren’t alone in it. To know that our struggles, and the struggles of so many, aren’t something we or they endure all alone, with no one to care. What we really need is God-with-us. Emmanuel.

And that’s what happens in Bethany. Jesus stands in the face of Martha’s anger and loves her. He kneels alongside Mary’s tears and weeps with her.

Don’t be distracted by the joyful ending of this story. We know that such things almost never happen in this life. And the critical moment for the sisters is what happens before.

When Jesus is with them. When the Son of God comes to be with them in the darkness of their tears and grief. That’s his answer. No defense of his delay, no explanation why Lazarus died when others were healed. He comes, and holds them in their pain. He is willing to roll back the stone of their grief and look into the worst of their darkness, smell the stench of death, and hold it with them.

Christian theologian James Finley has said that “the absolute love of God . . . protects us from nothing, even as it sustains us in all things.”[1] That’s what Jesus does at Bethany.

We actually meet God most clearly in our darkness, in our tears.

That’s the wonder we learn at the cross. The God of the universe bears all our pain and grief and suffering in the body and blood of God’s Son. Even within the Trinity, the Son feels abandoned by the Father, wondering “have you forsaken me?” That’s how far God goes to be with us: even sharing our confusion at God’s apparent absence.

This is the deep grace of the Incarnation: God comes to bear our lives with us. Our joys and happiness, yes. But also, and most importantly, our suffering and sorrow and pain.

It is this absolute love of God that never promises to protect us but always, always sustains and strengthens us, in which we live most deeply today. We bring George to the waters of baptism, unsure of his or the world’s future, wishing that he and all children would be protected from every possible harm. But we wash him in God’s healing waters and join him to Christ’s death and resurrection, claiming him as a child of God. Claiming that even though his life to come is mystery, we know this: God is with him. The crucified and risen Emmanuel embraces George.

We carry our brother Ken the last steps to his resting place, aware that even as people of faith we are filled with grief and pain in the face of death. But we place our brother next to his beloved Ellie trusting that their baptism is completed, and they are joined to Christ’s death and resurrection, claiming they are children of God. Claiming that even though death is mystery, we know this: God is with them. The crucified and risen Emmanuel embraces them.

“I am here with you. I will always, always, sustain you in my love.”

That’s Jesus’ answer when we cry out, “If you’d been here . . .” This is the absolute love of God on which we ground our lives. Not that we expect special treatment, avoiding suffering because we believe in God. Not that we claim any answers for why suffering happens or why God sometimes seems to prevent it, but not always.

You are grounded in the absolute love of the Triune God who enters the depth of darkness and fear and pain with you and holds you by the hand. Who weeps with you, sits with you in silence, holds your anger, grieves with you, even while breathing in and out in a rhythm of love that calms your heart.

God is with you. Always. And you never need to be afraid. But when you are, you will not be alone. And God’s love will speak to your fear, hold your sorrow, and sustain your life.

Until all things are made new, and the reign of God Isaiah and John promise is finally brought to fullness, and the whole creation sings for joy in God’s new world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1] James Finley, from an audio presentation, Intimacy: The Divine Ambush (Center for Action and Contemplation, 2013, audio CD)