Lent 5 Sermon

Typing up a sermon afterwards always feels so last Sunday, March 22nd, but I had a couple of requests for a copy and I need blog content (or fodder, maybe), so here it is, more or less. By the way, it preached better than it reads.

• Ezekiel 37:1-14


I really liked my opening prayer:

From all the ends of the earth, come to us, breath of God.
Breathing life of the Divine, embrace your people and your land.
Let us live again.
In the name of the One Spirit-sent for the life of the world.
Amen.


Two days ago on Friday we celebrated the Spring equinox, a verdant greening time as days get longer. And now we celebrate the Persian New Year with our friends—thirteen festive days of rejoicing in creation!

We're two-thirds through Lent, as Jesus and his followers draw closer to the holy city Jerusalem. They draw closer to Jesus' trial, conviction, crucifixion, death, and burial. Nearer to the day of resurrection, Easter Sunday.

Throughout scripture, hints and types and realities of resurrection foreshadow Jesus' resurrection. New life out of ashes, ruins, destruction, devastation. New life out of the death of the old.

Less than two weeks from the Friday called Good, the lectionary that gives us our scripture readings pairs Ezekiel's provocative and pictorial dialogue with God as Ezekiel raises dry bones from death to life, with the seventh and last of Jesus' "I Am" statements from John's gospel. After Jesus' raises Lazarus back to life from death (he really was dead, already buried in the tomb), Jesus declares "I Am the Resurrection and the life." John 11:25

* * *
Ezekiel was a priest in the holiness tradition of the Jerusalem Temple. About 600 years before Jesus, during the last years of Jerusalem and the Temple before the exile to Babylon, Ezekiel ministered with words from God and words of God. Deep into the long book that bears his name, chapter 37 happens when Ezekiel's proclamation moved from discouragement and lament to hope and a vision of the future.

This is pivotal because it came about when news of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple reached the exiles.

"These people" somehow had developed bad theology that located God in a special way in the heart of the temple, accessible only once a year, only to the high priest under certain circumstances.

Had they forgotten the God who liberated them from slavery in Egypt? The God of the Exodus who journeyed alongside them and ahead of them throughout those forty years in the wilderness? God who provided gifts like water from the rock and manna from the sky? The Ten Words or Commandments of the Sinai Covenant that showed them how to honor God by living together faithfully honoring their neighbors?

Since the temple was gone, did that mean God was dead? They were away from the land of promise that yielded such agricultural bounty. Did that mean all of God's promises were null and void?

* * *
We don't know if Ezekiel's conversation in the Spirit with God was a physical event, a sleeping dream, or a waking vision. We do know his experience of God's initiative and the subsequent call and response as Ezekiel spoke words in the Spirit from God and words of God convinced him there was a future.

Although the human Ezekiel spoke words from God and words of God and raised dead bones to new life, we often consider new life and resurrection primarily God's thing.

But wait! In the second reading for today (that we didn't hear), the apostle Paul tells us:

If [since, because] the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, God who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the same Spirit that dwells in you. Romans 8:11

Earlier on, in his first letter to the church at Corinth, we hear from Paul regarding us as the gathered body of Christ – the church, the assembly of the faithful – and us as individuals:

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? 1 Corinthian 3:16

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? ! Corinthians 6:19

So we've moved from bad theology of God being contained (God in a box?) in the Jerusalem Temple, to biblical theology of God indwelling us, making a home with us. We are temples of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, moving, walking, and talking alongside the people.

* * *
Ezekiel's words from God in the Spirit revitalized people who had been reduced to bones.

What dry bones of loss, death, disappointment is God calling you to resurrect with Words in the Spirit? Words from God? Words of God?

* * *
Today Jesus again invites us to the table of grace, the feast of new beginnings.

In the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist, we reenact and remember the history of the world's salvation that also belongs to us.

God remembers that we forget.

Jesus welcome everyone. You are welcome. I am welcome. We are welcome!

To God alone be glory.

Amen!

Five Minute Friday :: Bury

• Five Minute Friday :: Bury Linkup


The pastor I was counseling with in an informal conversational manner said to me, "In Jesus Christ's death and resurrection, you can bury your need to prove yourself." It was that obvious. (I may have blogged how I love "the thrill of the chase," which is related.) But proving what? A batch of dough? What's death, burial, resurrection about anyway? Crucified, dead, and buried. That's Jesus. Or is it also each one of us?

After Mardi Gras and/or Shrove Tuesday, Lent 2026 began on Ash Wednesday—yesterday as I write this. Best guess is a few thousand devotional books have been written to guide one through the forty day long (minus Sundays that are "in but not of Lent.") Preaching and hearing about Jesus post-baptismal temptations in the wilderness on the first Sunday in Lent is a given for churches that follow the lectionary. You know about "giving up" a favorite food or activity, often adding on a service project or something (anything!) that will draw you closer to God and make you a better version of yourself.

But burying my need to prove myself? Burial follows death. Death follows? A serious illness or accident. Maybe old age (Louise was 105!) or simply God's time for you, even if you've been on earth only a few years or a couple of decades. Death follows life, but death of a human body isn't the only kind. I can bury my need to prove myself? That's one aspect of my human body and spirit, but it's not the sum of my life or years.

We're moving toward Good Friday, the day of Jesus' crucifixion and death. You may have heard Holy Saturday described as "the day nothing happens yet everything happens?" And then Easter.

On the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found the stone was rolled away. John 20:1.

I need help here. If something gets buried, it must have died. How can my "need to prove myself" die? Can you tell me? Standard answers include being less of a perfectionist (I'm a moderate one, far from extreme), praying to understand my history of compulsive behaviors, and my excitement whenever I do something well, because excellent performance(!) is a huge part of proving my worth to the world.

What needs to occur before resurrection can happen? Something or someone needs to die. Must be dead. "Dead and buried." That's Jesus, and it's each one of us. Unless something dies it can't be resurrected. What will the resurrected version of my "need to prove myself" look like? I hope to begin spiritual direction soon, probably during Lent. That sounds like a great question to explore.

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Five Minute Friday :: Affection

• Five Minute Friday :: Affection Linkup

Only this evening I told someone else I'm everyone's Best Friend Forever, exactly like my late uncle. Is it genetic? Probably not, because quite a few people have that characteristic, but I like to identify with him.

What is affection? We think of it as emotional longing, a desire to be present with and for them, a trait that doesn't depend upon their good behavior but happens just because they are. We want to stay connected and we feel affection for them even when we're far away from them. That yearning tends to draw us back to them, so we find ways to be close to them again.

Like my uncle, I'm always for the underdog and undercat. I have so much affection for those who haven't won a chance for the spotlight that when a baseball team I don't follow and that's overall not doing well this season wins a game against one of my teams, I'm happy and excited. (My main teams are the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox with a frequent side of San Diego Padres and Toronto Blue Jays.)

As recorded in John's gospel 15:15 Jesus says we're no longer his servants but now we're his friends. Is that good news? I hope it is! Because we know Jesus as the ultimate BFF. As we read all the gospel accounts, we observe Jesus and his companions demonstrating immense affection for one another.

Following Jesus, Paul of Tarsus had deep concern, gratitude, joy, and affection for the churches he planted and served. The church at Philippi that I've written a fair amount about seems to have captured Paul to an extreme extent, although he prayed constantly for all of them. Like Paul, most pastors feel both affection and frustration for their congregations. Like Paul, most pastors pray a whole lot for the churches they serve.

In Hebrew biology and therefore in scripture we know the heart is mostly the seat of will and intention, yet it encompasses the tenderness and affection we post-enlightenment westerners identify with our hearts. Jesus and Paul showed us all of that to perfection!

How about you? What are some objects of your affection? Notice the peaches picture? Food gets a lot of my affection.

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Five Minute Friday :: Pick

• Five Minute Friday :: Pick Linkup

When given a live choice, which option do you pick? When you have no real choice does it feel as if discouragement and disappointment have picked you? In other situations, though maybe you can't pick because there's only one option, does if feel as if providence has smiled on you and serendipity is your companion?

Food is my love language. Because food is my love language my most careful, most fraught, least carefree, most emotionally charged picks are culinary and gastronomical.

But I'll backtrack and mention Kate wrote about a university and a scholarship fund picking her son. For sure he had an element of sorting through, choosing, discarding, and picking, although in his case a whole lot of the picking came from outside, and not from her son or his family.

For all of us, some life changing picking and choosing comes from outside ourselves, yet it endures with us:

"You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you to go and bear fruit, and that your fruit will abide, so that whatever you ask of the Father in my name he will give you." John 15:16

Does if feel as if Providence has smiled on you and you walk alongside serendipity?

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Epiphany 2C

Intro

Tony Campolo, "The kingdom of God is a party." Not like a party, not some semblance of a celebration, but the reign of heaven on earth is the real thing.

This is MLK weekend. The USA and many other countries have been impacted with frightening political, social, and economic uncertainties. Unprecedented wildfires have leveled Los Angeles area neighborhoods. Wars and other armed conflicts simmer and explode across the globe.

John 2:1-11

¹ On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ² Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." ⁴ And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." ⁵ His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

⁶ Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷ Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸ He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it.

⁹ When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the best wine until now."

¹¹ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Background

So far in this year of grace and season of revelation we've waited for God in our midst, we've been awed at the nativity of the infant Savior, we've met visitors from the East bearing gifts, we've joined a crowd alongside the Jordan.

After his riverside baptism by his cousin John the Baptist that all four gospels include, each gospel brings us a different version of Jesus' first act of public ministry. How can that be? Most likely they all happened around the same time, but each writer chose a particular one because it fit their perspective better.

The community surrounding John the beloved disciple writes about Jesus' signs rather than miracles. A miracle implies suspension of natural laws (which sometimes is the case, and sometimes there is a logical explanation), but a sign points beyond itself to a place, event, person, or idea—in this case, to Jesus. The Greek here is like our word semiotic that relates to signs, symbols, meanings. This gospel includes seven signs and seven "I Am" statements from Jesus. In Hebrew numerology, seven is the number of perfection or completion.


New Creation

In Matthew and Luke, after incarcerated John the Baptist wonders about Jesus being "the one who is to come," Jesus replies "go tell John what you see and hear: blind see; lame walk; diseased become clean; dead are raised! poor receive good news."

• Luke 7:20-22

• Matthew 11:2-5

These events fulfill John's signs.

John's gospel brings us the most explicit new creation.

• In the beginning … God –Genesis 1:1
• In the beginning … was the word –John 1:1

logos, word connotes both origin (where this came from) and immanence (what this might become). Does that sound theological?

On the seventh day God finished the work. –Genesis 2:2
"It is finished!" –John 19:30

• And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden… –Genesis 2:8

The garden of Jesus' burial and resurrection becomes the new garden of Eden

• Now there was a garden in the place where Jesus was crucified, and in the garden was a new tomb in which no one ever had been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. –John 9:41-42

The first day of the week is the eighth day of creation, the first day of the new creation.

• Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. –John 20:1
• Supposing him [Jesus] to be the gardener… –John 20:15b

Of the four canonical gospels, John brings us the most fully realized eschatology (protology is the word about first things, about origins; eschatology is the word about last things, about conclusions)—the clearest right here and right now of the reign of heaven on earth. A wedding party perfectly fits that worldview!


Today's Good News

This reading begins, "On the third day." In that place and time, the third day – Tuesday – was considered the best day for a wedding. But as Easter people, we also recognize the third day as the day of resurrection that initiates the new creation. And back then and there, an extravagant wedding party where everyone gets more than the dayenu or "it would have been enough" of the Passover song would be a primary indicator of the messianic age.

Cana in Galilee was disreputable gentile territory known for thieves and petty criminals. This wedding was not at an elite venue or an aspirational destination. Jesus performed this sign among regular, ordinary, working class people. Most of the guests and reception attendants probably lived nearby; some may have worked in the vineyard.

A wedding is an occasion to party; a wedding brings families together and gathers a community in one place for a single purpose. Whatever is happening elsewhere in the world, a wedding hopes for and promises a future. The couple getting married trusts that a future will arrive.

This isn't the old band Canned Heat Going Up the Country singing about "where the water tastes like wine." This is water that has become wine, and "you have kept the best wine until now!" –John 2:10


Where We Live

At the start of his public ministry Jesus attends a party and makes the party even better, in a preview of the rest of his time on earth. But two thousand years after Jesus' death and resurrection, we still experience death, disease, destruction, deadly fires, nations at war, a threat of government that is not by the people, of the people, or for the people.

Evidently a recent article in The Atlantic informed readers we need to party more. It was behind a paywall and no one provided a summary, but I agree.

After the 911 attack on the World Trade Center, although we didn't exactly rejoice with a block party, two days later on Thursday evening several churches in our neighborhood gathered to celebrate Eucharist, a meal with the risen Christ. Here's one of my reflections about it:

• 911 :: 22 years later

Literally in spite of everything we glanced into all creation healed and whole. We briefly lived in that future moment God dreams of and calls us to help create. Did you know the chasuble the person presiding at Eucharist vests in is the wedding garment of the messianic feast?

To paraphrase Cornel West, "We are people of hope. Why do we party on Friday night? Why do we go to church on Sunday?"

Because the Kingdom of God, the Reign of Heaven is a party!

Stewardship :: Go and Bear Fruit

Go and Bear Fruit
John 15:16

Five Minute Friday :: Choice

• Five Minute Friday :: Choice Linkup

Choice:

• something chosen or selected

• the object of choosing or selection


For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.
The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth
to be his people, God's treasured possession.
Deuteronomy 7:6

For you are a chosen generation
a royal priesthood
a holy nation
a people for God's own possession.
that you may proclaim the excellencies
of the One who called you out of darkness
into the marvelous light.
1 Peter 2:9

...I have called you friends...
you did not choose me
but I chose you.
John 15:15, 16

God reminds us to remember:

I led you through the desert
I quenched your thirst with water from the rock
I fed you with manna from the sky
I zapped your enemies
I made you my chosen

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Five Minute Friday :: Through

• Five Minute Friday :: Through Linkup

Churches that follow the lectionary read this scripture on Good Shepherd Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Easter:

The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.
John 10:2

I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.
John 10:9

Door and gate are the same word in Greek. Gate better fits rural, agricultural life; a door may be more common to us, but how about gates at the entrance to our yards, to our apartment buildings? Back in bible times, cities had gates and walls! You may have visited European cities that still have a gate and wall fragments from medieval times. In any case, to get to the other side of the gate or the door, you must walk through it. Not around, not over, not under. Through.

We need to go through Jesus the door, the gate. Even with Jesus, you can't go over, around, or under. Go through Jesus and you'll be saved, safe, and whole because Jesus the door is the shepherd, the savior, who already has gone through to wait for us, to welcome us home to our pasture—or other settled place.

Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.
Genesis 12:1-4a

For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was reckoned (credited, counted) to him as righteousness.
Romans4:3

Did you ever sing Rock My Soul at church camp, vacation bible school, or Sunday school?

Rock My Soul

Rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham,
Rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham,
Rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham,
Oh, rock my soul.

Too high, can't get over it
Too wide, can't get round it
Too deep, can't get under it
Gotta go through the door.

You can see through the type on my header because I used a layer style that…lets you see what's behind, though at the cost of the text itself being a little harder to read.

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Five Minute Friday :: Already

Already Nightfall or is it Already Daybreak?

• Five Minute Friday :: Already Linkup

With Already I immediately remembered the Eagle's triumphant breakup song announcing, "I'm already gone – I'm feeling strong – I will sing this victory song"

That refrain is great when we need to break up with our pasts. Oh, I know, if you don't remember the past you're bound to repeat it; if you don't focus on the future you'll never reach it. (How often do how many of us stay balanced in this eternal now?) But we seriously need to breakup with some aspects of our pasts. Only some.

It's already evening? How can days be so short?

Three years ago on the second Sunday of Easter I observed, "On this side of Easter we often find ourselves in the "Yes, already!" of resurrection and the "No, not yet!" of Holy Saturday, that time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been rolled away. John 20:1

This is the day the Lord has made.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it! Psalm 118:24

It's already time to break up with some of those pasts. The worst of yesterday's already gone—dead and buried with Jesus of Nazareth. The best of tomorrow is yet to come—risen, free, and full of hope with the Savior's victory.

Nectarine Flowers in Tucson :: Already Spring

Five Minute Friday :: Hurry

Mid-June 2015 along Interstate Highway 8 in San Diego, California


• Five Minute Friday :: Hurry Linkup

Intro

FMF host Kate has been participating in a study of the gospel according to John at her church. When she mentioned they're using a book by Melissa Spoelstra, I lit up because I remembered Melissa's excellent study on Joseph and forgiveness I read and reviewed.

Although Kate observed that Jesus never seemed to hurry through his (three year long, according to John) public ministry, that really depends on which gospel account you're considering. John's Jesus feels focused, calm, and deliberate, because *even* more than synoptics Mark, Luke, and Matthew, John brings us realized eschatology of the right here, right now of the reign of heaven on earth. Celebrating at a wedding party is Jesus' first act of public ministry in John, so we've got the astonishing goods that happen "on the third day" at this very moment, in this very place, and it only will get better.

John is the latest gospel, and in many ways it's an outlier from the other three that made the canonical cut.

However, when we read Mark, the earliest and shortest gospel, all the action is urgent and the Savior moves nonstop. In Mark the transitional word "immediately, straightway/straightaway" occurs at least forty times. Just sayin'…


Hurry

As I write to Hurry alongside Kate's roadway traffic image, the vehicular freeway congestion and pollution that has emerged as an icon of American haste and ambition won't escape me. The worst part is that so few of us differentiate between ideas, activities, and outcomes that need to be treated as urgent, that must be attended to post-haste, and those that can take their time, those many that fare much better if they have time to wait, sprout, then finally blossom and bloom.

The day I took these photos along "The 8," or Interstate Highway 8 in Mission Valley, San Diego, I was on my way to a noontime meeting and intentionally captured the road without cars. That probably would have been impossible in Los Angeles, but San Diego is slower paced, hurries less, and leans into its small town heritage and personality more readily than places like ultra megalopolis Los Angeles (yet the city of LA has neighborhoods zoned for horses!). Does that mean San Diegans are better at discerning whether or not to hurry? To a limited extent, yes.

Whether within our family, at work, sharing the gospel, or caring for ourselves, we need to discern when to hurry ("time is of the essence!") and when hurrying is unnecessary or counter productive.


Heaven on Earth

Along with John's, the synoptic gospels all acknowledge the reign of heaven, God's Kingdom already is here on earth. A couple of proof texts, though God's presence, love, healing, and hope fills all the gospels:

• But if I cast out demons with the finger [power] of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. Luke 11:20

The reign of heaven is here.

• But if it is by the Spirit of God I cast out demons, surely the kingdom of God has come unto you. Matthew 12:28

If. Since. Then. Surely. Without a doubt.

In the Spirit of Pentecost God's reign continues with the church in the world as the body of Christ. We often don't feel the calm deliberation of John's Jesus, but I love how we're slowed down and unhurried when we assemble on the Lord's day. In words from one of my favorite more recent hymns we acknowledge:

God is here!
As we your people meet to offer praise and prayer. …
Here are symbols to remind us of our lifelong need of grace;
here are table, font, and pulpit; here the cross has central place.

Written by Fred Pratt Green; please sing it to the tune Abbot's Leigh
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Five Minute Friday :: Season

• Five Minute Friday :: Season Linkup

Intro

It's always reassuring to remember our lives have seasons similar to creation's. In addition to clear "life seasons" of struggle, growth, plateau, reversal, and glory like the weather outside, we also experience hints of different seasons within any current one. Have you ever had a sunny July day turn into a horizontal downpour with near zero visibility? Or been surprised by mid-February melting snow and bright crocuses when you know the calendar says spring is weeks away? I've mentioned human seasons enough in this blog; for this Five Minute Friday let's conside our planetary winter, spring, summer, autumn. Their necessity, their interrelatedness, their gifts. This week's five minutes hasn't turned into a book, but the subject of season was so fun I kept on writing.

In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no vegetation of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground, but a stream would rise from the earth and water the whole face of the ground—

then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.… Genesis 2:4b-9

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. Genesis 2:15

Seasons

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Genesis 8:22


Winter

Five Novembers ago I blogged Bulbs Roots Beauty about the gift of winter. When I lived in places with cold, snowy winters, though going outside to work, school, or other activities often was a major challenge, I enjoyed the coziness of being inside looking out, especially if I didn't need to go outside soon. Related to winter I love warm sweaters, and (of course) body and spirit warming savory soups and hot drinks. What are your faves?


Spring

Spring's colorful new growth—how did this happen after winter?

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and reburied; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Matthew 13:44

In his Reading the Parables, pastor-professor Richard Lischer quotes from a sermon he happened upon: "When Jesus was taken from the cross, they hid his body in a tomb and then sealed it lest someone find him. For 3 days, Jesus himself was the Treasure hidden in the field; for 3 days he was the seed lying dormant in the ground. Jesus was a human parable of God's love and power."

A seed of God's love and power…

What are your fave things about spring? I especially enjoy lighter brighter colors in our natural surroundings and in spring clothing. They both remind us spring is a beginning of new life that hasn't grown or developed much into what it will become.


Summer

Always my favorite! From spring greens intensifying as days grow longer and then shorter days but more sunshine, more parties, more fun, and better times. I don't want summer to end because I love the hot days, now and then cloudbursts, bright, light, mostly casual clothes, sometimes spontaneous get togethers and outings. What are your summer joys?


Autumn

Autumn is my most real and best new year, because back in my day and back when many others were younger, that's when school started again. New beginnings, a new classroom, new teachers, books, (notebooks, pencils, pens, markers, crayons) classes, and activities. And there's even something new and novel as the natural world starts to slow down, bright summer colors fade and mellow, life at the same time deepens and broadens. Despite summer being my best season, I always appreciate fall's sense of wisdom and maturity, of knowing what battles to choose and which ones to ignore, of getting into warmer clothes that somehow always look like better quality and better styling. How about your autumns?


Seasons

…Mary turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher).
John 20:14-16

Supposing him to be the gardener??

But Jesus is the gardener. Jesus is the seed that is the Word of God that is the seed. Without a seed, without a beginning, (without the Spirit,) there is no growth or life or resurrection from death.

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden … [and] made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food…

Yahweh is a fertility God! Created in God's image, God calls us and we become people who care for the land, protect creation's integrity. Without a seed or source there's no growth, no fruit.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
Genesis 2:15

The earth, the land, the garden first was gift of grace before it was a covenantal charge and endeavor. Earth and land and garden are gifts for all four seasons, earthbound realities for every one of our summers, springs, winters, and autumns.

What's your favorite and best?

Five Minute Friday :: Watch

• Five Minute Friday :: Watch Linkup

Patterned after the church's liturgical practice of praying the canonical hours but in remembrance and anticipation of Easter dawn, there's a tradition of Morning Watch. The fourth and last segment of the night watch – the morning watch – happens from 3-6 a.m.. During this final watch of the night, darkness gently eases into the quiet early light of Easter dawn and God's Glory softly splashes over all creation.

This week my weekly lectionary-based scripture blog was feeding five thousand in Matthew 14:13-21 at "a deserted place, and the hour is now late." (Matthew 14:15) As time unwinds, sunlight retreats, evidence of civilization and active population wanes, we humans tend to assume declining hope, maybe immanent death. We typically hope, watch, and wait for new life on sunny days at centers where people interact, create community, do commerce, and generally demonstrate evidence of life. After all, our active watching has shown that's frequently the case.

Think back to your own experience and check out the witness of scripture. In all four gospel narratives, the very large and very hungry crowd of 5,000+ got fed so fully there were leftovers—completely unheard of for poorer people in that place and time! A beyond bountiful, life-restoring meal even happened as night descended, and while they still were in the desolate place they'd followed Jesus to.

A verse I often return to reminds us watching for daylight and established activity in order to welcome new life and new beginnings isn't always necessary:

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb. John 20:1

Our morning watch happens whatever the time of day, season of life, wherever we are, in whatever circumstance. Let's expect resurrection!

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Five Minute Friday :: Chapter

• Five Minute Friday :: Chapter Linkup

Intro

Thanks to my church springing for the registration, this past week I had the amazing privilege of virtually attending Festival of Homiletics 2023; Preaching Hope for a Weary World was this year's theme. Despite all those years of all those zoom and other distance meetings, I was surprised that being there online was quite satisfying. I'd compare it to something like no-fat salad dressing—did you know Kraft Raspberry Vinaigrette Fat Free is surprisingly good? I don't know that any ultra-low fat anything quite approaches a high calorie counterpart, but the good ones are more than adequate because you save so many calories. Sermons, lectures, short worship services at the preaching conference all came through just fine. However, closing worship via electronic screen and sound was so not enough.

Preacher for concluding worship Barbara Lundblad doesn't have her own website, though you can find her on Day1, Working Preacher, Amazon and other places. It was the last event of the 4-day conference, but… it wasn't over. It's not over. There's more! She pointed out how John 20:30 sounds like The End as it announces, "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book," but it's not over because you turn the page and there's a chapter 21 that starts: "After these things…" Although 21 turns out to be the real last chapter of John in our bibles, according to verse 25, "there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." So the last part of the last-written gospel account reminds us our lives are open ended as we travel with Jesus.


Chapters and Seasons

Our host Kate wrote about her daughter finishing high school; an occasion or event like graduation clearly ends a chapter, but everyone expects several more interesting and probably complicated ones will follow. Although any chapter unfolds alongside other chapters in the life of an individual, family, or community, as months and years go by, parallel chapters eventually will end, others open. I don't know how many times I've written about each of us having recognizable seasons that are similar to meteorological and astronomical ones. Sometimes we cycle through them like the planet does; sometimes we never experience a particular season again.

You probably realize scripture originally wasn't divided into chapters and verses. The Wycliffe Bible probably was the first Bible published with chapters, the Geneva Bible first with verses. I'd need to confirm it with a reliable source, but I think even the Reformers had only chapter divisions and not yet individual verses in the bibles they used. Our scriptures may not have started out with chapters, but all of us in developed countries expect discrete and overlapping chapters of adventure, change, disappointment, and surprise.

The worldwide pandemic officially is over, yet like almost everyone as Covid continues, as many have done across the decades, and as I've had to do more than I'd anticipated, I hope to turn the page into a new life chapter very soon. I'm excited to see what the next one brings.


Illustrations

Do you write your story in journals or notebooks with months, days, and years, in chapters or page numbers? Do you blog or instagram or facebook photos or drawings? Or do mostly your memories store your narrative?

Back in elementary school, writing a story or a paragraph to a picture the teacher provided was one of my favorite assignments. Today's header illustrates books that collectively contain hundreds of chapters on various topics. (It's also a photograph I've enjoyed editing a few dozen times.) The life chapter of those books ended eons ago, but many of the books have played a part in most of the chapters that followed. By the way, almost none of the books were or even now are as thoroughly read and almost tattered as they look. That's photoshop filters and other effects! Did I say edited a few times?

Some of the books, quite a few memories, even some hopes from back in those days have made it into succeeding chapters. The next chapter? All I know is God has gone ahead of me. I'm still weary, but I'll walk safely and surely in resurrection hope.

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Five Minute Friday :: Access

• Five Minute friday :: Access Linkup

How do you access it? With a key? Is there an access code with letters and/or numbers? What do you mean by "access?" Unlock? Go inside? Learn the secret? Is this access one-sided or reciprocal? So many questions. Speaking of codes and accessing, the proper code helps you access and engage apps, pages, and related.

And then… there's the debate about accessible places, opportunities, and "other," mostly related to public spaces, employment, and the digital world.

Sound bytes from the Youngbloods' classic hippie anthem "Get Together" have been getting airplay. The song's from an idealistic era of love don't hate, include don't exclude, accept don't reject, but isn't that idealism lived out exactly what we need in this fragmented world where hatred, exclusion, rejection, and refusal to listen and try to understand threaten to send civil society and the proclamation of the gospel into oblivion?

Love is the currency of the gospeled community:

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. John 13:35

"Get Together" reminds us we have the key, the access code that unlocks both fear (how many times does scripture counsel us do not fear?) and love.

Love is but a song we sing
Fear's the way we die
You can make the mountains ring
Or make the angels cry
Though the bird is on the wing
And you may not know why

If you hear the song I sing
You will understand, listen
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at your command

Come on, people now
Smile on each other
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Songwriters: Chet Powers
Get Together lyrics © Ivan Mogull Music Corp., Irving Music Inc.

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Five Minute Friday :: Laugh

• Five Minute Friday :: Laugh Linkup

John 20:1, 12-16

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb.

…and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener…

Jesus is not here—He is risen! But it still is dark!

Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth! Do you not perceive it? I will make a a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:18-19

At first Mary didn't recognize Jesus; she imagined Jesus was the gardener. But wasn't her initial perception very correct? Jesus created it all, a world that began with a garden that, well-tended, would grow, expand, blossom, and flourish into a city. Wasn't Mary's anxious guess more than right? On the first day of the week, the eighth day of creation, Jesus the first gardener returns as lover of a new creation, a restored and expanded glory.

"Two angels in white." In some traditions, white is the color for harvest. Like the first creation, the new creation begins with light. Light that pierces "while it still is dark" with a Word of resurrection.

Angels rolled the stone away—Jesus is here, after all. No longer dead and buried. Jesus still is risen! Everything may look hopeless and bleak, yet God always is doing a new thing: God's final answer always is resurrection.

God's laughter behind the empty grave!

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Five Minute Friday :: Testimony

• Five Minute Friday :: Testimony Linkup

¹ Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb. John 20

²¹ "So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
²² beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—
one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection."
²⁶ And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias,
and he was added to the eleven apostles. Acts 1

The apostle Paul called himself an apostle because he had seen the risen Christ! As the Acts of the Apostles make clear, someone who has seen the risen Christ is an apostle of Jesus Christ like the original twelve! For Paul the gospel is death and resurrection. Throughout the epistles or letters he sent to local assemblies he founded or visited, Paul shared his testimony of meeting the living Christ along with more formal theology that grew from his experiences. Paul's words would resonate through the centuries, would lead to others knowing Christ, and in turn bearing their own testimonies in word and action to a world in pain, a world enmeshed in death, a world that desperately needs hope. More often than not (almost never!) we don't encounter the whole entire world, but rather one or two individuals who may be neighbors, random strangers, coworkers, or someone else God providentially has placed in your life, you in theirs.

In my tradition, when we gather to celebrate Eucharist, together we proclaim the mystery of faith:

Christ has died;
Christ is risen;
Christ will come again.

Death. Resurrection. New Creation.

The broken bread and poured out wine testify to the presence of the risen Savior. The welcome table itself testifies to the presence of the Lord of life within the assembly.

Our actions announce the reign of life despite the reality of death, but we often need to tell the story of Jesus in our life. We frequently need to describe the transformation that happens when we meet the risen Christ and become easter people. Why did you notice me? Why were you kind to me? Why did you help at the toy drive? Why do you always attend the reach out-gather in dinner? They've seen it; now you explain it!

The world needs all of our apostolic (yes, we're all apostles, because we've witnessed death and resurrection) testimonies, yet more often we get to share it with one or two residents of this planet at a time—definitely not in ways that trend worldwide. When someone asks you to bear your testimony how do you begin?

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