The Porch Light

This story was told as part of our "Longest Night" service of worship on December 21, 2008

Old man Pete Fracas was eighty five if he was a day,
and he lived up in Green County outside of Ruckersville.
A friend of mine, John, a pastor, was a neighbor of Pete’s
though he didn’t claim to know him well.
Pete wasn’t the kind of man anyone seemed to know really well.
He and his wife, Carol, kept pretty much to themselves
though they lived barely a football field’s length away from John.

John says Pete’s main passion – his only passion, it seemed,
was cultivating the perfect lawn.
Pete’ lawn indeed was a thing to behold;
a two-acre carpet of green that was smooth as a pool table top.
On that lawn not a blade was bent.
No leaf ever spent more than five minutes on Pete’s lawn
unless it was at night when he sometimes slept.
Even at night though, John said he’d seen Pete out with a flashlight
getting up leaves.

But you know how it is living in the country.
Things happen you just don’t have much control over.
Dandelion seeds blow in from fields all around.
Voles are bad to invade when you’re not looking.
And John said it wasn’t unusual for nearby cows to break a fence
and find their way to old man Fracas’ beautiful green lawn -
Either the cows or the another neighbor's horse.
Pete didn’t seem able to work up any appreciation for the free fertilizer they left behind.
He’d just call up the animals’ owners and inform them in angry but efficient bursts that they needed to come retrieve their “ever-lovin’ poop factories.”
As meticulous as Pete Fracas was in trying to create a two acre patch of absolute order chaos had a way of bullying it’s way in.

There was one other absolutely consistent thing about Pete Fracas.
Every night after the sun went down he would turn on the front porch light.
John says he noticed the consistency and he wondered if it might have a light sensor
or be on a timer.
But he realized that though Pete was consistent in turning on the light every night
there was enough variation for John to know that he did it manually – every night.
John could see the porch light from his front window – a tiny point of light
shining in the darkness.

The one night when the porch light didn’t come on,
John realized there must be something seriously wrong with his neighbor.
He called the house but there was no answer.
He then called UVA hospital and sure enough, Pete was there. Carol was with him.
He’d had a massive stroke.
There was nothing to be done.
He died the next day.

Though the neighbors didn’t really know Carol, it was the country
and people take care of their neighbors in the country.
John remembers that each evening for a week he would stand at his front window
and look for the porch light that no longer came on.
It wasn’t much of a light, but it had made a remarkable difference for a weak bulb. Without it, the darkness seemed to swallow up everything.

A week after Pete’s funeral, John and his wife Elizabeth went to see Carol.
She was friendly, but a little formal, and, as you might expect, a bit distracted.
To make conversation John said, “I miss seeing your porch light.”
Carol looked at him as thought she didn’t understand,
but then in a far off voice she said, “You do?”
“Yes,” he said, in what he hoped was a cheerful voice,
“I got real used to it. It cut the gloom somehow.”

Carol looked at him, focused now, and said, “I’m surprised to hear that.
I thought people around here hated lights. Light pollution and all that.
I tried to get him not to turn it on.”
John said, “So, was it a security light? Something like that?”
Carol gave a little chuckle, “Oh no, nothing like that.”
Again, the faraway look returned.
She said, “When Pete was a young man his older brother went off to World War II.
His mother promised that she would turn on the front porch light
every night he was away.
But it was only six months before they got word back that his brother had been killed.
The night they learned of his death Pete’s mother didn’t turn on the porch light.
So Pete did.
And when we’ve been home, which is most every night the past 62 years,
He’s turned on that light.
It wasn’t a denial of his brother’s death – nothing like that.
It was just Pete’s way of remembering.”

John says he didn’t know what to say other than to nod his head
and hope he looked appropriately sympathetic.
He and Elizabeth said their goodbyes and that evening he stood by the front window.
He thought of Pete, fighting his never ending battle
for his little patch of order in the world.
He thought of Carol, not knowing what to do with herself now that she was alone
for the first time in forever.
He remembered how just a weak little bulb, the tiniest little light,
can go a long way in pushing back the darkness.
He stepped over to the switch by the front door, flipped it up,
and turned his front porch light on.

Perplexed Luke 1:26-56

Have you ever wondered why God put the future of humankind
in the hands of a young teenaged girl?
Seriously…what was God thinking
when God sent Angel-In-Chief Gabriel to a young girl, Mary,
who was about 13 or 14 assuming she was at the average age of engagement.
Think about it. That's basically an eighth grader!

If it was 2008 and Gabriel suddenly appeared in an eighth-grade girl's room
He'd likely find someone with a mouth full of braces,
a bed full of stuffed animals,
a closet full of clothes,
and sitting at her computer instant-messaging at least five friends at once.
Was Mary, at 13, all that different?
Some might say it was too risky for God to give such responsibility to someone so young
But, God being God, I suppose we should say it was inspired.

Teenagers don't get a whole lot of respect from their elders
mainly because they remind us of all the awkward, uncertain, fanciful qualities
we have spent so much energy as adults trying to overcome or leave behind.
But maybe a teenager has just the right combination of irreverence and awe,
of hard-headedness and wishful thinking
of literalism and idealism to be of use in God’s most important mission.
Maybe Mary was the perfect choice to be the mother of God’s son.

What are we to think of Mary?
We preachers can’t stop ourselves this time of year
from putting on theological waders and mucking around
in the mire of unanswerable questions concerning Mary,
trying to sort out fact from fiction
in Luke's account of the beginning of Mary's pregnancy.

Most of our effort goes into the issue of Mary's virginity.
Some say the fact that she is referred to as a virgin
is proof of God's mischievous inclination toward the grand gesture
a way of backing up Gabriel’s claim that nothing will be impossible with God.
Others say the story of Mary's virginity is simply a literary device.
It’s a way of putting Jesus on equal footing with Roman emperors
who were also said to be born of divine intervention.
But we don't have to suspend what we know of the science of reproduction
to find meaning in God's invitation or in Mary's response.

Despite all the hard battles that have been fought over the issue,
the question of Mary's virginity is really a curious footnote to the story of Jesus' birth;
and I would say, is not that essential to the meaning of this story for us.
What gives this story such power and what makes it such a challenge to our own faith
is not Mary’s past but more her present.
It’s not what she had or had not done, but more what she was willing to do
and how able she was to give up the illusion of certainty in her life
and live in the more unsettled realm of perplexity.

Mary responded to Gabriel's greeting.
She was "perplexed," it says.
She was "perplexed"
and she "pondered" what sort of greeting Gabriel had given.
She was perplexed and she pondered
And she couldn't possibly perceive what kind of power was going to pursue her
yet, she was able to say at the end of the visit,
"Here am I, the servant of the Lord;
Let it be to me according to your word.”

I’ve read this story at least a hundred times
but this year, for some reason, the word in the passage that glows with radioactivity
is the word “perplexed.”
“She was much perplexed by his words,” we’re told,
and that was just Gabriel’s GREETING!
That was before he even got to the heart of his message!

I know this isn’t the kind of story we should examine
with tweezers and a magnifying glass.
After all, there’s an angel in the story.
If there’s an angel in the story don’t waste your time analyzing grammar.
It’s an ANGEL, for goodness sake. God’s own emissary.
I’ve never seen an angel (that I know of)
but the fact that the first words out of an angel’s mouth is always “Do not be afraid,”
gives me an idea what kind of experience it is.

So when an angel appears to an eighth grade girl
and that girl is not terrified or paralyzed or rendered incontinent
but is instead, “perplexed” it grabs my attention.
it touches the perplexity in me.

The word “perplexed” is a great word.
It’s fun to say, for one thing. “Perplexed.”
But more than that, it strikes me as the perfect word
to sum up the kind of year we’ve had in 2008.
The end of this year leaves us with a lot of questions,
more questions, certainly, than answers, and we are perplexed.

We are perplexed because this nation of ours,
which we’ve always counted on to be strong and vibrant,
God’s favored nation among all nations,
seems uncharacteristically impotent these days.
We’re perplexed because people we’ve depended on,
professionals whom we’ve entrusted with our money or our vote,
have proven unusually inept at best, corrupt at worst.
We’re perplexed because in difficult times we count on those in the entertainment industry
to distract us from our problems,
but the culture of celebrity these days has become so outrageous
that we find ourselves more often disgusted than distracted.

We are perplexed and we hate to be perplexed.
We’d much rather be certain.
We like our transactions neat and resolutions to our problems quick.
In the best of all possible worlds,
we prefer to base our decisions on predictable outcomes.
Given the state we’re in, however,
the future that lies ahead of us is anything but predictable.
But instead of panicking, instead of trying to force square pegs into round holes
just for the sake of getting something done,
just to feed the illusion of certainty,
maybe the most important thing is to make friends with our perplexity.
Maybe the best thing we can do is learn to be more like an eighth grader.
I’m not trying to glorify eighth graders.
I grew six inches in the eighth grade
and it was ten years before my arms and legs
started working in coordination again.
My voice changed in the eighth grade
so that I didn’t know from one word to the next
if I was going to be a soprano or a baritone.

But one thing eighth graders have over us is the ability to live in a state of perplexity.
For them, perplexity is a given.
One reason eighth graders are always perplexed
is that they KNOW they aren’t in control of their own destiny.
Oh, they WANT to be, and they sometimes try to ACT like they are,
but in their heart of hearts they know they aren’t likely to get very far on their own.
So, they understand that their life is not entirely their own
and they are dependent on someone more powerful than they.

Another thing – eighth graders live in a state of perplexity
because they are romantic in nature.
And I don’t just mean eighth grade girls.
What I mean by romantic is that they have a capacity for imagining an alternative reality.
They do a lot of day dreaming, imagining themselves in different scenarios,
pretending that they could take any one of a dozen different paths in life
and be happy.
If there is any grace in their life, they are at age 13 still free to indulge in fantasy,
and stay fluid in their dreaming.
In their minds, at least, they still have the capacity to be heroic.

The fact of the matter is that perplexity is much more fertile ground for faith
than is the certainty we adults are always chasing.
When we are perplexed we are more able and apt to look to God for direction.
When we are perplexed we are more able to imagine a new possibility.

When Gabriel came to Mary, a young teenaged girl, and made his speech
he was coming to one who seemed a most unlikely candidate
to carry out God’s grand design.
But let me ask you this.
Are we any more likely candidates to be vessels of God’s grace?
Are we any more likely candidates to be entrusted with spreading the good news
that in Christ God has chosen to fully identify with our pain and our promise?
Are we, who are so enamored with certainty,
able to attain the necessary level of perplexity
that will make US into willing servants of the Lord
that will make us flexible enough to align our aspirations with God’s design?

This Thursday Christmas comes again.
Amid all the other traditional trappings that mark our celebration of it,
allow yourself to see it again as an eighth-grader, as a thirteen-year-old.
And in that teenager’s frame of mind
allow yourself to imagine that with God all things are possible.

Unquenching the Spirit Isaiah 61:1-3, 10-11, John 1:6-14, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

There is a Christmas curmudgeon that lives inside of me
who does his best every year in the run up to Christmas
to set off “bah, humbug” stink bombs wherever I go.
Like, when we’re out in Christmas traffic in Charlottesville he’ll grumble,
“Why can’t people just stay home? Stupid people buying stupid presents!”
Or when we bring a tree home and set it up he’ll say,
“I’ll bet ten bucks the needles fall off in a week.”
Or if somebody wears a fun reindeer sweater to a Christmas party he’ll hiss,
“Some people just shouldn’t be allowed out in public.”

It’s awful! He’s cynical, catty, sarcastic, and downright rude
but sure as December comes every year,
every year he elbows his way to the front of my inner psyche
and starts his anti-Christmas carping.
If I try to ignore him he only yells louder.
If I try to evict him from my interior cast of characters, he only fights back harder.

So every year, about this time, I find myself locked in an exhausting inner struggle;
my Christmas Curmudgeon engaged in mortal combat
with the other parts of me that would like to have some fun at Christmas;
the other parts of me that would like to relax and enjoy the season.
And every year I have to take a deep breath and remind myself of a bit of wisdom
that I learned back in my days as a counselor.

What I learned is this.
Every member of my interior family has a purpose; a reason for doing what it does.
Even if it seems on the surface destructive or inappropriate or unhelpful,
if I take a little time and explore a little more carefully,
I usually discover that there are hidden good intentions
at the root of every emotion or behavior.
That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t challenge some of the messages I give myself.
It just means that sometimes instead of fighting it or being ashamed of it,
what I really need to do is listen more carefully to it;
see if there might be something important this annoying part of myself
is trying to say to me.

I wasn’t sure what my inner Christmas Curmudgeon was trying to tell me
until I read this week Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians.
That’s when it hit me.
There in verse 21 of chapter 5 I read Paul’s advice to his Christian friends.
“Test everything,” he writes. “Test everything.”

Test everything.
That’s what my Christmas Curmudgeon is trying to tell me.
Test EVERYTHING.
You see, my Christmas Curmudgeon knows all too well
that some of the other parts of me are too easily taken in.
• One part of me is a pushover for the sentimental.
• Another is an easy target for appeals to my guilt or my eagerness to please.
• Still another part of me is marked by an insatiable appetite,
especially for things that aren’t really good for me.
My Christmas Curmudgeon is trying to protect me from Christmas
He has good intentions.
He just goes overboard sometimes.

Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians is widely believed to be the earliest document
we have preserved in the New Testament.
He’s writing to a group of new Christians who have ventured out into uncharted waters.
They are part of the church, the ecclesia, those who have been called out for service
in the name of their risen Lord.
As Paul comes to the end of his letter it’s as though he’s running out of time
and he’s just throwing in a final laundry list of advice –
short, staccato bits of wisdom to guide his friends in their holy experiment.
“Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances.
Test everything.” And I mean, everything.

The Thessalonians had no template on which to build their model of “church.”
They were making it up as they went;
trying to separate the wheat from the chaff;
trying to identify which practices drew them closer to God
and which ones made them feel more isolated and alone;
trying to figure out which practices made them stronger in their faith
and which ones dissipated and sapped their strength.
“Test everything,” Paul told them. “Assume nothing.”
“Make every effort.”

Nearly 2000 years after Paul wrote his letter,
we have a different challenge, but Paul’s advice is just as essential for us.
The Thessalonians were blazing a trail,
they were trying to figure out what shape the new church would take
as they sought to put a saddle on God’s Holy Spirit
and follow where it led.
“Don’t quench the Spirit,” Paul writes, “Just jump on and hold tight!”

Our challenge is different.
In too many ways God’s Spirit nearly has been quenched in our lives.
Theoretically it’s still as powerful and active as it ever was,
but we’ve let our EXPERIENCE of God’s Spirit become terribly diluted.

I’m reminded of the TV commercial I used to see advertising a floor cleaning product.
The tag line was, “It cuts through dirty wax build-up.”
In the years since the Thessalonians first answered God’s call
and stepped out in faith to begin their grand experiment as a church
So many extraneous, non-essential elements have crept into our life of faith
and built up, layer upon layer.
And like dirty wax build-up, these elements of apathy and commercialism,
of pride and pettiness have dulled the shine;
have become unfortunate, shallow distractions
taking our attention away from that which is most valuable.
At no time is this more evident than at Christmas.

Test everything.
That’s what Paul wrote and that’s what my Christmas Curmudgeon
keeps trying to tell me in his own rude, sarcastic, cynical way.
There’s hardly any aspect of Christmas that’s not dulled somehow
by being too commercial, too sentimental, too manipulative, or too gaudy.
It’s easy to get distracted by these non-essential elements
and lose sight of the light that shines at it’s core.
But that doesn’t mean we should automatically outlaw gift giving
or ban the very mention of Santa’s name.
We don’t necessarily need to forgo office parties or writing Christmas cards.
We just need to be aware of what we do and how we do it.

We need to evaluate our traditions and practices using a very simple guideline.
Does it bring us closer to God, or make us feel more isolated and alone?
Does it strengthen our faith or leave us feeling exhausted and depleted?

Granted, it takes courage to buck the Christmas machine.
And it takes energy to do something different when you’ve already got traditions
no matter how soul-sapping those traditions may be.
But let me hold out an example to you of the wonderful things that are possible
when you take time to test your traditions, your practices
and resolve yourself to cut through some of the dirty wax build-up.

Just this past Thursday some volunteers at Rockfish
gathered up all the Care Bear Tree gifts you contributed and took them
to families representing fifty-one children.
One grandfather who participated in the Care Bear Tree giving this year
told me of a very particular unquenching of the Spirit
that happened to him and his grandson as they shopped together.

The first thing is that though this grandfather and his wife
have always bought gifts for their 13 year old grandson on Christmases past,
they took time this year to test if this was still a good idea.
They decided, in fact, that it was NOT a good idea.
The boy already has plenty of stuff.
He doesn’t need any more stuff.
So the grandparents told their grandson that his Christmas gift this year
was not going to be more stuff
but it was going to be the privilege of going on a shopping trip with his grandfather
to buy gifts for an eight year old boy that was on the Care Bear tree.

On the appointed day, the grandfather and the grandson went to the store
and the first thing they did was pick out a bicycle for the 8 year old.
The grandfather knew that the bike needed a safe helmet to go with it
so he selected one with colors that matched the bike.
“No, Grandad,” said the grandson. “Not that one.”
“THIS one,” he said holding a helmet that was painted in a camouflage pattern.
“But that doesn’t match the bike,” the grandfather protested.
“Doesn’t matter,” said the grandson. “It’s cool.”
At that point recounted the grandfather, the grandson took over the shopping
and was very much into the experience.
Now, I could stop there and it would be a good story.
But there’s more…

The next day, the grandson rode with his regular carpool to school
and the mother who drove the carpool was compelled to call the boy’s mother
that evening to tell her what happened.
It seems that all the grandson could talk about on the ride to school
was the gift his grandparents had given him – the gift of shopping for a little boy.
Now, I could stop there and it would be a good story.
But there’s more…

The carpool Mom went on to say that the unusual gift the grandparents had given
was the topic of conversation at her own dinner table that evening.
It was all her son could talk about.
And after dinner she reports that her son came to her and asked her, pleading really…
“Can I call Grandpa and see if he’ll do that with me?”

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” - John 1:14

A Future Expected

A panel on Friday’s NPR “Morning Edition”
was discussing the roots of the current financial crisis.
After batting around a few ideas,
all the panelists agreed with one member’s summary.
He said, “We still don’t understand everything, but one thing we know for sure.
Too many people borrowed too heavily on a future that did not materialize.”1

“They borrowed too heavily on a future that did not materialize.”
It’s a sobering assessment.
Psychologists would tell us, and rightly so,
that happiness is more likely to come to us when we learn to live in the present.
But we can’t ignore the fact that most of our choices and our commitments
are clearly affected by the kind of future we envision for ourselves.

Most of us have the tendency as a fallible human beings
to envision a future for ourselves
that is nowhere near the future God envisions for us
It’s true. If we’re honest, the future we envision for ourselves is often pretty pitiful.
Compared to God’s vision for us anything we come up with
it’s like comparing vanilla pudding to a wedding cake;
or a comic book to Moby Dick.

The future we envision for ourselves usually comes nowhere near
adequately reflecting the full, rich, multi-layered, multi-textured,
all-encompassing grandeur of the gospel.
If anything it’s more likely to reflect the pop-psychology of talk show hosts
and the self-serving prognostications of financial consultants and political pundits.

Our scripture lessons today are passages written some six hundred years apart
but they are both written to people for whom the future seems is uncertain.
The passage in Isaiah is written to Jews who’d been living in exile in Babylon.
King Cyrus and the Persian army have routed the Babylonians
and the decree has come that the Jews can go home – back to Jerusalem.
Theoretically this is good news – a victory has been accomplished.
But practically what the Jews are being told
is that they should leave behind them the only life many of them have known;
a life into which they have become fully assimilated;
and return to a city – Jerusalem – that is in ruins
and live among people who may not be too excited to see them.

The opening verses of Mark’s gospel describe the first days of Jesus’ ministry
and the role of John the Baptist as his forerunner.
But what we’ve got to remember is that these words are written by Mark
some forty years after Jesus’ death -
written to a tiny Christian community, many of whom are Jews,
who have just heard about the total destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.

Neither audience – not the Jews in Babylon nor the early Christians
have any reason to envision much in the way of a future for themselves
based on current events and a realistic assessment of the present situation.
But Isaiah and Mark both write as though victory is theirs;
as though they cannot imagine a better time to be alive.
God’s hand is at work, they both proclaim,
and the future ahead of those who are called and empowered by God,
has never been brighter.

This is the second Sunday of Advent,
and even though the way we celebrate this season
mostly involves looking back 2000 years to remember Jesus’ birth,
Advent really should be more about looking forward into the future;
about mining the scripture for signs of what God has in store for us
AND choosing whether we want to be a part of that future.

The season of Advent reminds us that God calls us toward a particular future,
but we have to be deliberate in responding to that call.
It’s not automatic.
The choices we make, the priorities we set, the impulses we indulge
have a way of catapulting us onto a particular future track, like it or not,
and if we don’t make these choices consciously
we could very well end up betting heavily on a future that does not materialize.

If we forget God, if we choose the future we want to live into without scripture;
without the wisdom of 2000 years of church life together
we tend to make one of two big mistakes.

The first mistake we make is we choose a future that’s too shallow.
What I mean is that it’s all too tempting to choose a future with only one thing in mind
– our financial security.
You know what I mean.
We focus everything on building that retirement nest egg,
we give our children every advantage our money can buy,
and if, along the way our relationships suffer,
that seems at the time a small price to pay to be financially comfortable.

But it’s no secret that when Isaiah and Mark talk about God’s future
part of that future always involves a wilderness experience.
In Mark the people are explicitly called to meet John in the wilderness.
In Isaiah there is no way back to Jerusalem except through the wilderness.

We can’t buy our way out of the wilderness, no matter how much money we have.
We can only pass through it,
And the good news of the gospel is that under God’s guidance
the wilderness doesn’t destroy us.
In fact, in God’s hands, it’s the wilderness experiences we have that most often
give our lives meaning and purpose.
How can we know joy without sadness?
How can we know the satisfaction of success without first knowing struggle?

So, one mistake is thinking that comfort is our main goal
and that we can achieve it if we make enough money.
The second mistake is like the first.
The second mistake is thinking we can achieve comfort
if we select a future that doesn’t require too much of us.
If the first mistake is that we choose a future too shallow.
The second mistake is that we choose a future far too small.

Choosing a future too small has nothing to do with whether you travel the world
or never leave the town of your birth.
It has nothing to do with whether you climb Mt. Everst
or dedicate your life to caring for an ailing parent or a child with special needs.
By choosing a future too small I mean choosing a future that never asks you to change
or that never requires you to put the needs of another ahead of your own,
or that never asks you to keep a promise even if that promise proves inconvenient.

It is a mistake to choose a future
in which we try to keep ourselves untouched by anyone else’s expectations.
The future God chooses for us won’t let us get away with isolating ourselves.
God chooses for us a big future in which we are both accountable and connected.

God’s future for John the Baptist was for him to wear funny clothes
and eat strange food,
and say things to people they didn’t always want to hear.
And God’s future for those whom he called to John
was that they should repent of their sins – come clean, so to speak,
and together become a part of God’s new creation as followers of Jesus.

When you allow yourself to live into the future God has for you
just accept the fact that you will immediately stick out
as different from those who have chosen
for themselves a future too shallow or too small.
Some will shake their heads at what they consider your lack of responsibility,
as you choose to give away your money instead of hoard it,
or refuse to panic as Wall Street’s fortunes wane.
Others may admonish you for being too involved, for caring too much,
for choosing to stand by your commitments
even when others would have long since walked away.

I was reading the latest Elon University magazine this week
and I ran across an article about an alumnus, Dr. Aiah Gbakima
that seems a perfect illustration of someone who has chosen to live into God’s future.2
Dr. Gbakima battled poverty and disease as a child in Sierra Leone.
Most of the people in his hometown suffer from river blindness,
a disease carried by river-breeding flies.
He himself contracted the disease just before coming to the United States
to pursue a college degree.
Fortunately, with quick treatment he was cured of the disease
without any permanent damage to his sight.

Gbakima could have pursued a future of financial security.
He did well enough in school, earning a PhD from UNC.
He could have pursued a future of self-protection and
decided to isolate himself from poverty and disease of his childhood
that could only serve to drag him down.
But Gbakima sensed a calling, a future neither too shallow nor too small.
He earned his degree in immunoparasitology and is now vice chancellor
of the University of Sierra Leone where he continues to find better ways
to fight river blindness among his people.
He continues to go back to the wilderness of poverty and disease and civil war
because he has glimpsed the power of God’s future.

This Advent I urge you not to bet too heavily on a future
that has no chance to materialize.
But instead I urge you to consider God’ future for your life.
This is only the beginning of the good new of Jesus Christ, Son of God
Whether you are 9 or 90 God’s has plans for you.
______
1 Where Did the Money in the Housing Market Go? NPR “Morning Edition.” December 5, 2008.
2 Chapman, Julie, For Love of Country: Aiah Gbakima Fights to Save His Homeland, The Magazine of Elon,
p. 11, Fall, 2008.

Identity Ephesians 1:15-23, Matthew 25:31-46

I want you to reach back…
reach back into the deep recesses of your memory to elementary science class.
Remember the model of the solar system you made
with coat hangers and Styrofoam balls.
Nine planets (now eight) revolving in different orbits around the sun.

Now remember the name Copernicus – Nicolaus Copernicus –
the sixteenth century Catholic priest
who is known as the “Father of modern Astronomy.”
It was Copernicus who first drew the controversial conclusion
that the planets, including Earth, revolve around the sun in a helio-centric model,
instead of the sun and all the other planets revolving around the Earth.
Despite the fact that the church he was a part of at the time thought it blasphemous,
Copernicus had the courage to stand behind his own calculations and observations
and proclaim that you and I are not the center of the universe.

I bring this up because a team of researchers have just identified the remains
discovered in a crypt in a Polish cathedral as those of Nicolaus Capernicus.
They did this by comparing the DNA of these remains
with the DNA of a hair found in one of Copernicus’ books.
They’ve even used the skull they found to make a facial reconstruction
the picture of which is on the back of your prayer list.
It’s amazing! After nearly 500 years scientists working in a laboratory
can make a positive ID through nothing more than a hair and a piece of bone.

Which begs the question…what is the essence of a person’s identity?
What is it that allows a person to be known as unique from every other person?
Is it the microscopic genetic code packed in a single strand of DNA?
Is it the whorls of a fingerprint, the slant of a forehead, the jut of a chin?
Is it the quirky laugh that begins with a gurgle and ends with a snort?
Or the complex set of mannerisms a person might display
from twisting hair to drumming fingers
to a characteristic way of clearing the throat when about to speak?

What is the essence of YOUR identity?
How would a friend describe you to someone you’ve never met?
How would you describe yourself?
What is it that makes you RECOGNIZABLE as you?
I ask this because the question of identity is at the heart of our gospel lesson –
Jesus’ identity AND the identity of his disciples.

Throughout the gospels Jesus’ identity is a moving target.
Is he a teacher first? Teaching is clearly at the heart of his mission.
Is he a healer? An exorcist?
Some call him the Messiah, but, curiously, he shies away from that term.
He’s a child of Nazareth, that we know, the son of working class parents,
but also one who, from an early age, inspires an attitude of worship in others.
In his lesson today, his last classroom lecture
before the quick downward spiral of arrest and crucifixion,
Jesus envisions his ultimate identity as being that of judge.
He sees himself as the Son of Man, coming at the end of days to judge the nations.
He sees himself seated on a throne of glory,
a far cry from where he was born – a crude feed trough in a rented stable.

What are we to think of Jesus? How can we know him? What is his primary identity?
The answer appears to elude those whom he judges.
When Jesus separates the nations as a shepherd might separate sheep from goats
his judgment against the goat-people is that they had seen him
hungry, thirsty, lost, naked, sick and in prison
and had failed to assist him in his time of need.

“Now hold on there!” cry the goat-people. “Time out!”
“When did we see you hungry, thirsty, lost, naked, sick, or in prison
and fail to administer to your needs?”
“We didn’t know it was you!”
“If we’d known it was you, we would’ve pulled out all the stops!
We would’ve spared no expense!
Why didn’t you identify yourself?
Why didn’t you use the secret password?
Wear the proper lapel pin?
Or put on a nametag for goodness’ sake!”
HI, MY NAME IS: Son of Man
“Is that so hard?
“How can you blame us for not knowing you
if you didn’t identify yourself properly?
if you didn’t wear an I D badge?”

The goat-people might have had a point
if not for those blasted sheep-people,
the ones the Son of Man puts on his right side, the side of honor.

It turns out the sheep-people were just as clueless as the goat-people
with one major difference.
Jesus, the Son of Man, the Judge of the nations
says to those on his right hand, to his sheep,
“I was hungry and thirsty, lost and naked, sick and in prison
and you cared tenderly for my needs.
You looked after me so compassionately.”
Like the goat-people, the sheep-people are floored by this.
They too ask, “Lord, when did we see you hungry, thirsty, lost,
naked, sick or in prison and take such good care of you?”
We certainly didn’t look for name tags. We didn’t check I D’s.

“Ah, but you did,” says Jesus, Son of Man, Righteous Judge.
Even in your ignorance you registered the one facet
that is the essence of my identity.
“The moment you looked into the eyes of any of those
who were hungry, thirsty, lost, naked, sick, in prison,
without shelter, scared, powerless, cold, or simply poor
and saw reflected there the words “Human being,”
saw stamped there across the forehead in big bold letters,
“Child of God,” you saw me.

That’s what makes Jesus Jesus, what makes the Christ the Christ.
He is the Word made flesh, God incarnate, Emmanuel. That’s his ID.
When we try to deny our humanity by separating ourselves from those who are frail.
When we try to ignore our mortality, our capacity for error, our insecurity
by putting distance between ourselves and those who are sick
or in prison, or lost and alone
we only end up putting distance between ourselves and Jesus.

The author of Ephesians writes of the power that is ours
when we recognize Jesus at work.
But the power spoken of in the letter to the Ephesians
is far different from the way we typically think of power.
We think of power in terms of who has the largest defense budget,
who has the ear of the president,
who has the most aggressive style – tolerating no dissent, taking no prisoners.

But the author of Ephesians knows differently.
He knows that the only power that means anything,
the only power that gives purpose to life
is the power that comes through God’s gift of wisdom
and the ability to discern the presence of the incarnation.
In other words, the ability to ID Jesus in the most unusual people and places.

So it comes to this. After all the pictures painted, all the statues erected,
all the cathedrals built in his name;
the Son of Man, the Judge of all nations,
the Lord, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ
is most clearly seen, most accurately identified
in the face of the one who is most in need.

We have here today in the Fellowship Hall what we’re calling our Global Village Market.
Every one of the tables, every one of the organizations represented
has to do with serving people who are in need.
Some of the people these organizations serve live right here in Nelson County.
Some of them live on the other side of the world.
You will find in this Global Village Market opportunities to buy,
opportunities to give, and opportunities to learn.
I encourage you to take advantage of what they have to offer.
And when you leave today I want you to take with you a question.
Let it be your question of the week.
Use your quiet time after dinner,
or you time in line at the checkout to give it some thought.

What is your ID? Your identity?
How do you want people to know you? To remember you?
500 years from now when they dig up your bones
will they have enough evidence to know who you really were?
Will they know you by your DNA as simply another human being?
Or will they somehow know you as more than that?
A Child of God, perhaps.
Or better still, a sheep, a disciple,
servant of Christ and your neighbor in need.