Taking Off the Training Wheels. There Is Presence in Absence.

Lookee here: Acts 1:1-11

Like Rachel Held Evans, the Ascension has me struggling with feelings of abandonment. She says to Jesus, “I can’t help but think that if you’d stayed a little longer, we might have avoided the Crusades.  Or the Great Schism. Or that time we used the Bible to justify slavery and invoked “Manifest Destiny” to slaughter women and children.  We’ve made a mess of things, Jesus, often in your name. We could use a little micromanaging.” 

Why does Jesus leave us? One day, he’s just poof, gone. He’s not kidnapped or killed, not arrested or taken. He’s just gone. Sucked up into the clouds somewhere, seemingly out of his own volition. 

Like a child who doesn’t understand her parents’ divorce, her dad leaving, her mom crying in the chair he’d left behind, I’m left asking all the same questions: Why does he leave us? And where does he go? And why can’t he stay?  

The Ascension is a tough one for me. It’s a story of God leaving. Of God letting go. Of separation and division and distance. Every bone in my body wants to resist. Wants to reject this story. God should always be with us, in the fleshy, incarnational, real life, living body of Jesus. 

Isn’t that the amazing thing about the incarnation - the Emmanuel, God-With-Us, coming to us to show us that God isn’t to be found in the far off, in the ethereal, in the out there somewhere, or trapped in a box and paraded around the countryside, but in the here and now, in the real, in the every day? In everything? 

We get the horrors of the crucifixion and then the wonders of the resurrection and then forty or so short days. A little over a month. That’s it. We get forty days of Jesus appearing from nowhere, walking through walls, revealing his scars, showing up on the beach, looking like a gardener or a stranger until he says our names or shares a little bit of fish and bread with his friends. 

Forty short days of these strange, quick appearances, until, suddenly, he says, “It’s time to go.” And then he leaves. Poof. Gone. Sucked up into the heavens.

Where is the good news…when God leaves?

I want the resurrected Christ to sit still and settle down. I want him to build a nice house in the Jerusalem suburbs, marry a pretty girl, have a few kids and a golden retriever, keep teaching us on Sundays, keep healing us when we ask. I want Jesus to keep pointing us to God in clear and physical ways, I want him to spell it out for us, I want neon lights and sky writing and simple texts messages that say “go. Feed them. Hug them. Hold them. Over there is the kingdom of God.” 

Of course. That was never the Jesus we got. Like the Spirit who will enter our lives with wind and fire, Jesus was always wild, always a little off center, always a little hard to understand. Jesus was always with us, but even when he was here, we never really understood all that was going on. We never grasped the fullness of who he was or what he was doing here on earth, in a body, telling strange stories about weeds and seeds and lost coins. But at least he was here. We could reach out and touch him, grasp his hem, feel his touch, know that he was still here. 

But he leaves. He disappears. He goes away. 

He promises a Spirit that will come. He commands us to be his witnesses. And then up he goes, the disciples watching the bottoms of his feet as he ascends, to…where? Where does he go? 

How much horror and sorrow could have been avoided if he’d just stayed? Stayed even just a little bit longer? But instead, he puts us in charge and we screw it all up. Like Rachel Held Evans says, “We’ve made a mess of things, Jesus, often in your name. We could use little micromanaging.”

But Jesus promises to be with us “until the end of the age.” He says that where two or more are gathered, there he is in the midst of us. How can this be true if Jesus leaves? Does he lie? Renege on his promises? Or is something else going on? Could both things be true? Could Jesus be gone and still…be here?

Is it possible to be both present and absent at the same time? 

I mean, the converse feels true. It’s certainly possible to have absence in presence, to be surrounded by people and still feel alone, to have everything you need and still feel as if something is missing. So maybe it’s also possible to be completely alone, and yet, not really be alone. Maybe it’s possible that there is such thing as presence in the midst of absence. 

I’ve been wondering all week, and probably for longer than that, if there can be presence in absence? Is there such thing as really, truly being all alone? When the thing itself is gone, is it really gone? Or like art, is something maintained, something saved, even when the object and inspiration for our painting or drawing or music or story is gone? 

In drawing class, we’d study and draw the lines and shapes, the colors and shadows of a bowl of fruit. We’d do our best to savor the form and beauty of that bowl of fruit, we’d copy their images on to canvas or paper, and then the days would pass and the fruit would eventually change form, would rot and then disappear, to be finally thrown in the trash or the compost and return to the earth. 

But something of that bowl of fruit was saved in our drawings. Some part, some essence, some piece of that bowl of fruit was saved, preserved in our images, preserved in our inaccurate sketches, preserved in our seeing and our studying, preserved in our memories. Some part of that fruit was still present, even when the actual fruit was gone. 

I know I’m not being very clear here. I’m entering in to a dangerous liminal space where things aren’t all that coherent, where heresies are possible, but where deep truths can be revealed if not quite articulated. I’m probably being a little too mystical, too philosophical. 

But my hunch is, that with God, somehow, it is possible to have presence in absence, it’s possible to be completely separated from a thing, and yet, there’s still a small thread of connection, a small hint of presence, there is being even in unbeing. There is presence even in absence. There is form even in emptiness. The sun still burns, even while there’s night. Maybe there’s still Jesus even after Jesus is gone. Maybe, when Jesus was ascending, going wherever the heck he was going, he left a line of light, a thin string of presence behind him, that leads us to him, that helps us remember him, that offers us his presence even when he’s not physically here. 

The best way I have right now to think of this is when my dad was helping me learn to ride a bike. I’d been using training wheels for awhile, but then the day came when it was time. It was time to take them off. So we went to the empty parking lot across the street from my house, and I hopped on, started to pedal, and my dad kept his hand on the back of my seat, correcting my balance whenever I wavered. He ran along beside me, encouraging me, holding on to me, balancing me, until he just didn’t anymore. He let go. I didn’t even realize it at first. I just kept pedaling, feeling the wind in my hair, the exhilaration of speed. Dad was gone, watching me from afar, cheering me on, and it wasn’t until I started to wobble that I realized that Dad wasn’t holding on to me anymore. 

Dad was gone, way on the other side of the parking lot, and I was on my own, balancing by myself. My dad let go, and I raced forward. And a whole new world of streets and paths, neighborhoods and adventures opened up to me right at that moment when my dad let go. New possibilities and new dangers and new discoveries appeared as soon as my dad let me go. My dad didn’t abandon me; rather, he opened up a new world to me. 

What if the Ascension is about Jesus taking off the training wheels for us? What if the Ascension is about opening up a new world to us, whether we’re ready for it or not?

Maybe the Ascension is a gift of absence. Maybe the Ascension is a gift of emptiness. Maybe God leaving is different from God abandoning. Maybe God holds us steady, runs alongside us, encourages us, and then, in some sense, lets us go, lets us propel ourselves forward in fear and hope and exhilaration? But like my dad, watching, waiting, ready to pick me up when I hit that curb and crash my bike, God is still with us, that line of light still connecting us to things we cannot see or hear or touch or directly know? 

I don’t know. I’m probably not making any sense at all. But like the Ascension, I feel this truth, this thing I’m holding on to that I can’t quite grasp, I can’t quite put in to words, I can’t quite see or know or feel, but is real just the same. 

Dan’s grandpa was the sweetest man you’d ever met. His name was Stew, and he was quiet, thoughtful, funny, and so easy going. One day, he and his wife, Dan’s grandma, Punky, went with us to look for some stones in the Arizona desert. He was unsteady on his feet, and he fell into a barrel cactus. He had cactus quills and pins and spikes all over his face, in his hands, through his torn pants. When we got home, he took sips of martini as Dan plucked out each glochid, one by one. He’d smile, ask for a break, and then take another sip. Then he got Alzheimers and, eventually, died. Punky and Stew had been married for over sixty years, and I’m sure they had their challenges. But their greatest struggle might have been when Stew started to disappear from her, he lost his memories, he lost his thoughts, his abilities and eventually, his presence. She stayed in their apartment while he moved in to an assisted living building, away from her. She visited for lunch every day. And every day, she watched as pieces of him disappeared. 

But at his funeral, she said something that I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand until and unless I go through it myself. She said that, in a way, Stew’s death had brought him back to her. In his death, he stopped disappearing, and started being present to her again. Stew had become present his his absence. That line of light and love and devotion did not sever, but grew stronger, even after his death. 

And I wonder if a little bit of Grandpa Stew is present every time I think about that day in the Arizona desert. I wonder if my dad is with me every time I go for a bike ride with my kids.

I don’t know. But what if the Ascension is a little bit like that? Jesus leaves, but he doesn’t really leave. Jesus disappears into the clouds, but he’s not really gone. Jesus is absent, but becomes present to us in a new way. God takes off the training wheels and lets us go, but is still with us in new and fearful and exhilarating and exhausting and overwhelming ways.

We are called to be Jesus’s witnesses. We are called, not to watch the bottoms of his feet as they ascend into the clouds, not to stare witlessly into the sky, but to look down and out, forward and far, into the new world where Jesus reveals himself in new, confusing, but real and present ways. Maybe there is presence in the absence. 

There is Jesus in the world, even after he has ascended into the heavens, and we are called, like artists, to see him and name him and reflect him as best we can. And like all art, like memory, like riding a bike, there will be a piece of his presence still remaining, long after he has sat down on the right hand of God the Father almighty. Jesus is still with us, the line of light and love still connects us, in every created thing, God’s artwork, even when it’s hard to see. 

Thanks be to God. 

Fully Known, Full Attention.

Read these!

Acts 17:22-31

John 14:15-21

This quarantine has us focusing a lot on our kids. We want to create a new normal for them. We want to create some kind of rhythm and structure to our days. We want them to not lose their minds over too much screen time. We want them to not live in fear all the time, but we also want them to see that their sacrifices are important, that they mean something, they are contributing to the betterment of society, just by staying home and flattening the curve. 

But we have a lot of other things to do. We have our own work that needs to be done. We have our commitments to our jobs and our people. We have laundry, mostly pajamas, but still. We have dishes, so many dishes. We have a new composter that needs to be put together with a thousand tiny little screws.

I’m reminded of that intense time right after Levi was born, when there weren’t enough hands and there wasn’t enough time or enough Momma to go around. 

After my son’s brother was born, I heard a lot of “Momma. Momma. Momma! Mommmmmmaaa!”

“just a minute, Jonah,” I’d say.

“hang on, Jonah,” I’d plead.

“I’m coming, Jonah,” I’d sigh.

And then I’d proceed to try doing two - or more - things at once. Nursing while spreading the peanut butter. Tying the shoe while bouncing the baby. Listening to the story about a truck and a tree and a polka dotted monster while shushing and rocking and folding the baby and the laundry, respectively. Filling the sippy cup and listening to NPR and catching the baby before he rolled off the couch.

And when I’d try to have an adult conversation? Forget it.

“Momma! Momma! Momma!” 

“WHAAAAAT??”

“There’s a squirrel over there!” 

“I just saw a flatbed truck!”

“Where does hail come from?” 

“Why are there owls?”

I’d have to continually remind myself that I wanted the title, “Momma” and that I am honored to be called that, and that before he could talk, I couldn’t wait until he said it out loud: “Momma.”

Poor Jonah. When his brother was born, his whole world split in two. Now Momma and Dadda have two kids they’re caring for, two kids they’re devoted to, two sets of needs, two sets of demands, two sets of stories and questions and observations to listen to.

And all Jonah wanted was his Momma’s attention. He wanted, and in some ways, still wants, to be the focus of her world. He wants to share his life with her and know that she’s there, that she’s listening, that she’s watching.

In our Acts passage today, Paul is entering a scene full of searchers. People full of the desire to find God, to know God, to figure God out, to know the who and the what and the why of God. 

So they go to what they know - gold and silver and burnt offerings and temples and shrines. They go to reason and philosophy and altars and thinkers. And they even have enough sense to include what they don’t know - just in case they’ve missed something - the unknown god.

And Paul honors that. He honors their searching, their questions, the answers they find, and the journey they’re on.  

I think he understands how unknown God can seem.

He sees a hillside full of people calling out “God. God. God! Goddddd!!!” People aching for just a little attention from God. People aching to be known. And so, they think, we’ll try to say it in as many ways as we can in the hopes that we’ll get it right, even just once. In hopes that God will hear us, will answer us, if we just figure out how to do it, how to be heard. 

They are striving. Reaching out. Reaching towards. Reaching for. Reaching, always reaching. 

And that persistence, that stubbornness, that courage and endurance is a gift. It’s a sign of grace. And is to be commended and encouraged.

But what if, after all that striving and reaching and trying, God still seems so far away?

You know, at least to me, more often than is probably “right” for a leader in the church, God seems so far away. So silent. So...unknown.

Prayers seem to go unanswered. And life is so hard. We wait for jobs or healings or our numbers to come up or for the violence to end or for the relationship to stop being so broken. And we stay unemployed, we stay sick and poor and we stay beat up and hurt by our families. The virus keeps mutating, and the vaccine seems so far away, and people are being killed in their beds and while out for a run, and there are still shootings in Homewood and the baby still won’t sleep through the night and the pollen in the air just won’t let up and that tumor is still there, still growing.

And maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel, or maybe we’ll look back on all this tough stuff and we’ll see where God was working. But for now, it’s empty. It’s an abyss. It’s looking down into a steaming volcano. It’s the profound darkness of a cave when you turn off your headlamps. It’s 11:00 at night and you still have three loads of laundry to do and lunches to pack. You’re 65 and you still haven’t saved a dime for your retirement. You’re an alcoholic and you know you’re drinking yourself to death but the thought of quitting seems impossible, so you take one more drink. You’ve fed a 100 people at your community meal and they’re back the next day, hungry again.

Still we search. 

We call out and hear our echoes against the cave walls. 

We feel the weight of the darkness. It makes it hard to breathe. And yet we keep breathing.

We put up shrines to God - hoping that if we change them from gold to silver, from traditional to contemporary worship, from organs to guitars and drum kits, from the Latin Mass to the Quaker Meeting, from socialism to capitalism, from Democrat to Republican and back again, that we’ll finally get it right.

We are searching for an unknown God. At least, a God who can never be fully known. At least, not independently, not on our own.

It feels as if the more we walk towards God, the further away God is. 

And yet. And yet, Paul tells us, “For in him we live and move and have our being.”  - Fascinatingly, this is not even a traditional Christian or Jewish thought - it is a Greek concept. And yet, nonetheless true. A foreign idea that still proclaims the truth of God.

For in God we live and move and have our very being.

We are inside of God. In the womb of God. Living off of, being created by, breathing in the very being of God.

God is the one in whom we live and move and have our being. 

It’s not what we do, but who we are that makes us children of God. God is the air that we breathe. 

Does a fish notice the water all around it? Or does it simply swim, going about its fishy day, never noticing that the substance all around it is what gives it breath and life? 

God is the air we breathe. That substance or light or spirit all around us that we fail to notice, but is still there, still present and consistent and life-giving nonetheless.

And it is God who knows us. Who surrounds us. Who has birthed us. Who sees us. 

The Athenians, though commendable in their attempt to know God, have it backwards. 

In their striving to know God, they miss that God already knows them.

Our God is The Unknown Knowing God.

And whether we know it or not doesn’t make it any less true. Whether the fish knows what this water does for it, whether it knows that it needs the water flowing over its gills in order to have life or not, doesn’t make the water any less real, any less necessary, any less life giving.

It’s not what we hear or what we feel or what we believe or what we know. 

It is that we are known.

I don’t think this just a diatribe against idols. Although it is that. I think that the real question here is one of direction - our constant striving to get God right - to make God out of silver or gold or “Facebook likes” or bank accounts or military might - versus our need, and God’s desire, for us to know that God has gotten us right. We’ll never be able to know and see and love God like we should. But we are known and seen and loved by God. And that’s Grace. And that’s what it’s all about.

When I travelled to India in 2005, I was really perplexed by the thousands of deities we saw in the hundreds of temples and shrines that we visited all over the country. First, I was surprised by how small these deities seemed. We’d walk through these giant temples, with parapets reaching to the skies and towering gates filled with ornately decorated scenes from the Bhagavad Gita and the Ramayana and the Vedas, walk through what seemed like miles of courtyards and walkways to the center of the temple to get a glimpse of the main deity housed within. And then, there it would be, most of them 2-3 feet tall. A stone figure, draped in silk and flowers and spices, but almost disappointingly unimpressive. 

I mean, obviously, they had to know that God was so much bigger than this carved stone, more than this porcelain figure, more than this tiny flame dancing in an oil lamp. 

And yet they approached this deity with all the boldness and adoration of the children of God.

But I don’t think devotees come to these shrines to see the fullness of God. I think they come with incredible humility, they come with the realization that this tiny little figure, this piece of carved rock or painted porcelain is all the God they can really know, all the God that they can handle. 

They don’t come to their temple to know God. They come to be seen by God.

It’s a concept called, “Darshan.” - Being seen by God is so much more important than knowing all there is to know about God. 

In fact these deities are just plastic or porcelain or stone - just objects - until they are literally given eyes, until they are able to see. 

For the Hindus, and I think for us, too, God isn’t God unless God sees, unless God knows, unless God comes to us.

And the ultimate Darshan? The ultimate seeing? The ultimate knowing that God comes to us?

It is the one in whom the Father lives, and the one who lives in the Father. 

The one who advocates for us. 

The one whom we can know - just a little bit - because he abides with us, and he is in us, just as we are in him.

The incarnation:

God’s greatest expression that you are known. That you are loved. That you are in God and God is in you. That in him we live and move and have our being. 

And our response? Our response to our being known is to be the hands and feet of Christ himself. To follow Christ’s commandment to love one another, as we are loved. To know one another as we are known.

When Jonah is calling out to me, “Momma! Momma! Momma!”, instead of being totally overwhelmed and flabbergasted and annoyed, when I stop what I’m doing, when I bend down to him and look him in the eye and say, “Yes, Jonah, you have my full attention,” that is when he and I are most connected, when he knows that I am listening, that I am fully participating in his life, that I’m ready to respond to what he wants to show me, and that I am truly delighted to hear his question or his story or see the nest in the tree or the rock on the sidewalk or the red car that just passed by. Even now, even at almost eleven years old, he wants my full attention. He needs to tell me about Minecraft and Lego creations and the newest YouTube video that he’s made.

God’s always bending down to us. Knowing us. Reminding us that we are fully known. Looking us in the eye and saying, “yes, sweet child of mine, yes, yes, you have my full attention.”

Thanks be to God.

Searching for Target

Here! Read this first please! John 14:1-14

There are murder bees flying into the United States. It’s snowing in May. My older son is trying to learn fractions. My younger son is addicted to this Minecraft video where some guy named Grian talks about nothing while he builds strange structures and fills them with chickens. We are out of bananas, orange juice, yogurt that comes in a tube, and frozen pizza.

A black man was murdered while running in a predominantly white neighborhood in Georgia two months ago, and he is only now just starting to get a glimmer of a piece of a part of justice. 

Others are carrying assault rifles while they demand the opportunity to get a hair cut.

Some folks want to get this economy back open quickly, but don’t seem to be taking in to account the impact this will have and already has had on the working poor. 

It feels like we’re all so lost. It’s been...a discouraging week.

Jesus is leaving the disciples to navigate their dashed hopes and dreams about the coming of the messiah on their own. In John’s “farewell discourse” Jesus is telling his friends that he has to go, he has to leave, he has to die.

Do not let your hearts be troubled. 

I don’t know, guys. I just don’t know. 

When Dan and I first moved to Pittsburgh, we didn’t have smartphones. We had one cellphone that we shared between us, along with one car, and a sweet tiny little house in Stanton Heights. East Liberty was still a few years away from its full gentrification and its Target, so one day I decided to venture out through the East End, over Squirrel Hill, and all the way out to the Waterfront to get some toilet paper, some laundry detergent, a box of Raisin Bran Crunch, and a bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. 

Now for those of you who don’t know Pittsburgh, It’s a landscape of hills and rivers, bridges and tunnels that don’t lend themselves to any form of a grid of any kind. So I printed out a mapquest, remember those?, to give me directions to the nearest Target. 

I took a left on Stanton and then a right on Negley,  followed that as it twisted and turned through three different neighborhoods, down to Murray Avenue, where I was supposed to first turn left on Wilkins, and then was supposed to go straight through to Beechwood Boulevard, which would turn into Browns Hill Road, which would turn in to the Homestead Grays Bridge, turn left on 5th street, another left on Amity street, a right on Waterfront Drive, which would inevitably lead me to the oasis of all middle class moms everywhere, our beloved Target. 

Easy peasy, right? Needless to say, I got lost. I was used to three lefts equalling a right, you know, simple ways to recalculate and turn around when I went the wrong way, but these were not the easy perpendicular streets of Chicago or Indianapolis; this was Pittsburgh. 

For years after, wherever we went in Pittsburgh, we needed a map, clear directions, instructions for getting us from point A to point B. Making even one wrong turn was so stressful.

I’m pretty sure I never found the Target that day. But I did pass by a curious church, with a rainbow flag waving at its doorstep, and an ALL are welcome sign, with the a, l, l, all in capital letters. I’d never before seen such a thing. It was a moment of cognitive dissonance. I stopped and stared at that church a little too long, and the guy behind me had to honk me through the green light. 

What on earth? An open, affirming, church? One that didn’t just say all are welcome on their marquee in order to trick people in to coming to their church only to be belittled and berated for who God made them to be, but a church that actually meant it? Could it even be possible? 

And if they truly believed that all are welcome, would they welcome me, a Catholic apostate with serious doubts about who Jesus was and is, serious doubts about Christianity in general and about what, if anything, it had to offer the human race? Would they welcome me, with my furrowed brow and questions about the Trinity and the incarnation and the divinity of Christ? 

The next Sunday, we printed up another set of Mapquest directions, this time, in order to find that church again, in order to check out what they were all about. I mean, was such a place even real?

We found the church that Sunday, or rather, they found us. 

They encouraged my questions and my doubts, they let me flex my heretical muscles, they even eventually hired me as their Director of Children and Youth. They walked with me and stood by me as I deconstructed my faith, down to the very foundations, and then slowly, gently, offered me the tools with which to build it back up again. 

The pastor there gave me the opportunity to preach, and I was hooked. So, I went to seminary. I won a bunch of stupid academic awards. I had two babies and some depression and kept asking hard questions. A bunch of other hard and good things happened, we moved to some houses, we said goodbye to some dogs, we entered in to anxiety and came out and then went back in again. 

I was looking for the Target. I wanted Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. 

I was looking for Target,  but I got lost, and I found Jesus instead. Not in some exclusivist, presumptuous, now-I-have-all-the-answers way. But in a way that is the way.

Give me a map. I want a map and a gps and clear directions in enough time to turn on my signal and anticipate the turn. I’m looking for Target. I’m looking for laundry detergent and cleaning supplies and peanut butter cups. I’m looking for the things I think I need to get through this crazy, confusing thing called life. Instead, I got a church full of people who loved us, who walked with us, who shared their lives with us.

I want a map. I’m supposed to know things, after all. I have student debt and diplomas enough to show that I should know things. I should have answers. I should have clear directions. As a pastor, I should be a Mapquest for the Christian life, right? Give me a map. I want to know where I’m going. I want to know when we’ll get there, how long it will take, how many potty breaks we’ll take in-between. But there is no map. 

There is only relationship. 

And like the disciples in our passage today, we are all desperate for a map, even when Jesus is standing right in front of us. Thomas, my favorite, asks explicitly for a map. “Lord,” he says, “we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?” And Jesus says, “I am The Way.” “I AM,” he says, resonant of God’s revelation to Moses at the burning bush. I am the way. Echoing God’s pronouncement that God will be who God will be. I am what I am. I am that I am. It’s being. It’s presence. Here and now, real life, concrete presence. “God is not to be found in eventualities,” as Nadia Bolz-Weber says. 

God is to be found in the here and now, in the presence, in the relationship, even when we’re lost, even when we don’t know where we’re going or how to get there. Even when we’re looking for one thing, but then find something completely different.

Relationship is the way. That’s why two thirds of the Trinity is defined by relationship and the last third is relationship. The Father is not a father unless he is in relationship with the Son. The Son is not a son, unless he is in relationship with the father. The Holy Spirit is that God within all of us, connecting us to each other, showing us the Way. 

And that is why we need relationships, we need connection with others, we need new encounters with people, to grow us and stretch us and invited us into new lands that we’ve never been to before. That’s why, as poet Jack Ridl says, “the most important word is with.” You can never not be with. You’re always with something. With some one, with yourself, with nature. Even in quarantine, we’re never not with. 

We don’t get a map. We get a relationship.

If someone had mapped out my journey with my relationship with my husband before we got married, I probably wouldn’t have taken on the challenge. It was too fraught, the lows were too low, the hardships too scary. But we entered in, as young as we were, as naive as we were, because we believed in the relationship. We didn’t have a map. And we got a little lost. We hung on by the thinnest of threads. Things fell apart and we didn’t know where we were going or how we even got where we were. But we hung on to relationship.  And for that, I’m so grateful. It’s the same, any time we’re in a relationship of any kind. Think about when you had kids, or adopted that dog, or made that new friend in the cafeteria at lunch time. There are no maps for the things that are greatest in our lives, only relationships.

And there are maps. There are lots of other maps. There are maps towards racism and injustice. Maps towards oppression and prejudice. There are clear maps that will take you to greed and consumerism and violence and protests against wearing masks in the Costco parking lot. There are triptiks and turn by turn directions to get you to grudges and judgment and broken relationships. There aren’t, however, a lot of clear maps on how to get us out of such predicaments.

But “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says. “I know you want a map. I know you want to know the way. I know you want to know how this is all going to end up.” We think it would be nice to know the future, to know what’s going to happen, to know how we’re going to get to where we want to go. But what if we’re looking for the Target, and Jesus wants us to show us something else? Take us somewhere else? Somewhere we can’t imagine or predict or quantify or manipulate or simplify? Somewhere beyond aisles of clearly marked housewares. Somewhere messy. Somewhere unpredictable. It will probably be somewhere impractical. It will probably waste a lot of money. But it will definitely be where there is love and justice, where everyone is fed.

So often, I get so anxious about the future that I just assume it doesn’t include me. I can’t envision where I’m going to be, so I just assume I won’t be there at all. Or that, wherever I’ll be, it’s going to be bad. The murder bees are going to get me. Fourth grade fractions are going to be the end of us all. Racism and injustice will rule the day. 

But we get one guarantee. Jesus has prepared a place for us. In God’s house there are many rooms. There is a place for you, wherever it is that Jesus is going. There is room for you. Room for your questions and your doubt and your heresies and your assertions. There’s room for you because the journey isn’t done yet. 

You’re still bushwhacking and forging your way ahead, mapless, pathless, seemingly without trail markings that bring us comfort and assurance. 

But we do get some markings, some cairns, some towers of rocks that remind us that we’re on the right track. We get healing, we get justice, we get redemption, little piles of rocks to tell us that we’re going the right way, little, precarious pebbles, stacked, one on top of the other, to encourage us to keep going. 

The murder bees aren’t really a thing. Jonah will figure out his fractions. The CDC’s plans are being leaked, and Ahmaud Arbery is finally starting to get some of the justice he deserves. Everything feels awful, but the arc of history bends towards justice. 

 If you can’t believe what Jesus says, let the works speak for themselves. Let those times when you were lost and then when you found a new way, when you were looking for one thing, but found another, better, thing, let them be your guide. If you can’t believe what Jesus says, then just hold on to the journey, hold on to the way, hold on to the justice and the good things that are still there, still around us. Believe, as Nadia says, in “the sacrament of the present moment.” Believe in relationship. Believe that there is room for you, as you are, no matter where you are on the journey.

Thanks be to God.

In the Upside Down

Here First! John 20:1-10 and Acts 2:37-47

When all this is over, I’m getting myself a Starbucks. It’s been eight weeks since my last overpriced coffee drink, and I’m ready to break the fast. I know, in the grand scheme of things, my Starbucks fast is the epitome of “first world problems.” Truth be told, my family and I have gotten through this pandemic relatively unscathed. At least so far. We’re sheltering in place in our beautiful, although messy, new home, the boys are healthy and their teachers are supportive. Still, we are starting to miss the little things. The boys want to walk to the nearby candy store, I’d like to get a new tattoo, wander around Target, hire a babysitter, Dan would like to venture to some parks, refill his gin, and actually teach his students in person. 

It’s tempting to think that things will go back to “normal,” that all that’s been missing from our lives are the daily conveniences of Starbucks drinks, beer and liquor stores, and the daily routine of school and jobs and pizza delivery. And boy, after this is all over, the companies and the politicians and even the churches are going to come at us to cure what ails us. They are going to tell us that if we buy this product, if we claim this perspective, or vote for this or that politician, things will go back to normal. We’ll have everything we ever wanted and needed. Our desires will be satisfied. If we just open things back up, everything will be ok again.

But the truth is, things weren’t perfect before this pandemic happened. Couples were still bickering, children were still getting subpar educations, families were going hungry. Our church was still struggling. Politicians were still politicianing. After all this is over, whatever that means, every corporation and business and super pac and television station is going to tell us that they have the key to getting things back to normal, back to the way things were before. And we will be so desperate for “normal” that we’ll take the bait, we’ll buy what they’re selling, we will vote for the sound bite. We’ll pine for the “good ol’ days,” and we’ll forget the real suffering and struggle that was there before this pandemic came and turned everything upside down. 

But maybe, maybe the upside down is an opportunity for us to re-envision the world entirely. Instead of going back to the way things were, maybe we can write a new script. Like Noah and the ark, we can start over, make things new, try again, this time as justice and fairness and cooperation as our guideposts. Maybe there’s more to life than the next triple grande one pump vanilla caramel macchiatto. 

That’s the opportunity that presented itself to the disciples and their friends in our first reading today. Their whole world has been turned upside down. The impossible has happened. Jesus has been raised from the dead and has shown himself to them. He’s strangely and magically ascended in to heaven.  

The Holy Spirit has come upon them in a violent wind and with tongues of fire. Peter preaches to them. He tells them his story. And their hearts are changed. Their whole world has changed. Suddenly, the rules no longer apply. Death has lost its sting. A crucified prophet has been raised and become their Lord. The laws of physics have been defied. Nothing will be the same again. Everything has been turned upside down. They have found what truly satisfies, and nothing that can be sold or bought can compare. 

They have to re-make their life after the upside down. They have to reconstruct everything they knew before, because the after is so very different. So what do they do? How do they reconstruct now that their world has been deconstructed? 

First, their hearts are changed. They’re “cut to the heart.” Deconstruction and reconstruction start on the inside. Everything they know is now filtered through this change of heart. They enter in to the death of baptism and come up again, seeing the world anew. It’s a rebirth. It’s a starting over. It’s a pressing the reset button and a rebooting and a clearing of the cache. They keep it simple. They begin again, start their learning over, they make new friends and they eat together. They form a community. They share. They pray. These are blueprints for how to navigate the upside down.

And awe comes upon them. Somehow, they see with new eyes, interpret the world around them with new hearts, encounter life where they couldn’t or wouldn’t encounter it before. Miraculous things have happened, hearts are changed, and the upside down world becomes a new place for new possibilities, new opportunities, new perspectives, new hope. Enough to give them a feeling of awe. Amazement. Something has happened. Their allegiances have changed. They’re no longer placing their hope and their desires on what others can sell them, not on what they can buy, not on a picket sign or a political ideology,  but on a person, a life, a story, a community. 

That’s our opportunity and our challenge today. We are on the cusp of the upside down. It’s terrifying. And it’s a tremendous opportunity to remake and renew and restart. That’s what I love about our second passage for today. The sheep are invited to a whole new world. A world outside of the cosy sheep pen that they know so well. The thieves and the bandits enter in to the sheepfold by another way, not by the gate. They want to come in and keep you satisfied with how things are right now. But the Good Shepherd comes to open the gate for the sheep, to let them out, to give them freedom and a chance to explore and create. Thieves and bandits are those who deceive, who defy, who slyly convince, and maybe, just maybe, are those who do it without the sheep even realizing it.  

If the sheep take a moment to hear and recognize their voices, the sheep aren’t deceived; they know the sound of the true shepherd’s voice when they hear it.  But, are these thieves so sneaky, so deceptive, and have access to advertising budgets worth billions of dollars, so much so, that the sheep are tempted to accept what they claim to offer without even having to hear their voice?  Are we so used to expecting regularity and sameness, predictability and assurance, that we don’t even realize who we’re following?  Who are our bandits and thieves in our day?  Who should we consider to be false shepherds in our lives? What are the Powers of our day offering us, and what do we believe because of their influence? 

These are going to be crucial questions as things begin to open back up, as this pandemic passes over, as we try to return things back to “normal.” 

The thieves and bandits enter the sheepfold, but there is no mention of them exiting or leading the sheep anywhere.  In order for the sheep to go anywhere, there’s only one way out - through the gate.  So the thieves and the bandits are stuck inside the sheepfold, with the rest of the sheep. They’re offering the status quo. They offering the same muddy, trampled stall. They’re offering life as usual.. But the sheep would be gathered together in one place, trampling what little vegetation there would be into a slush of mud.  The sheep would feel safe there, but they’d hardly be nourished.  

And that’s why the shepherd would open the gate and let the sheep out to the pasture to graze, get a little fresh air, encounter new things.  The thieves of our day would be just as happy if we never went out that gate - if we just spent our days looking down, pawing at the mud, and consuming plenty of red dye number 40 and mono-sodium glutamate. The Shepherd offers real life in the upside down.

But.  The pasture is Out There. The pasture is the upside down. 

Jesus says that he came to offer us abundant life - but that life is not in the sheepfold with the thieves and the bandits. That life isn’t with the advertisers and the celebrities and the conservative or the liberal media.  

It’s out there.  Out there with the wolves, and the hot sun and the occasional thunderstorm, yes.  But out there with the cool breeze, the clean water, the nourishment that will bring us life.  Out there with the sticky and the sweaty and the forlorn and the lost. Out there with the funny and the creative and the vibrant and the exciting.

There is pasture OUT THERE.  Abundant life is OUT THERE.

We want to stay in here - where there are familiar slogans and the food tastes the same and everything is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. Where we don’t have to do the work of defining ourselves - because the Powers of corporations and political structures and cultural assumptions will do it for us. 

 Do we want to be satisfied?  Eat a Snickers bar.  Do we want to feel “worth it?” Try L’Oreal products.  Do we want to “get more?” Get a T-mobile cell phone.  Do we want to feel valued among our peers? Get a PhD and a 4.0 or drive a Mercedes and make a six-figure salary.  

And these aren’t inherently evil things.  They’re just things that are tools, sometimes useful tools - but if we let them, they can claim to define us, claim to offer us things that they can’t really give us, and can make us feel complacent, completely content pacing our hallways, staring at the floor, wearing out the ground below us.  That’s not life; that’s just existing.  They’re things that are going to tell us that they can return things to normal. They’re going to tell us that they can fix our problems. Only they can make things “right” again. 

Following God is not easy.  There will be stones that trip us up, thorns that will tear at our ankles, and a wilderness that will make us seem lost. We’ll encounter painful relationships, we’ll fail, we’ll lose some money and trust someone we shouldn’t.  But, God promises abundant life - not a safe life, not a secure life, not a comfortable life - a life of joy and belly laughs and deep deep feeling. An upside down life. An unpredictable life.  And God promises to be with us through it all.  

But in order for us to experience this abundant life, we have to step out of that pen and get into the pasture. We have to reject the voices that claim to be able to fix it for us. We have to re-envision life anew, where we share what we have, where we learn from each other, where we eat together, and where we are filled with awe. That is life in the upside down. That is life turned on its head. That is the new life that is coming for us after all this waiting and uncertainty is over. It came for the first disciples. It will come for us.  May we all choose to follow the voice of the One who can lead us to an adventurous and abundant life.

Sure, I want things to go back to “normal.” I’m craving my predictable, reliable Starbucks. But what if there is something more on the other side of this? What if there is awe and amazement and a chance to be “cut to the heart?” What if? Let’s at least ask the questions. Let’s step out of the sheepfold. Let’s follow the Shepherd who will lead us through the upside down. We have the disciples to guide us. They entered in, they studied and prayed and ate with their friends. They shared what they had. And their numbers increased. 

Thanks be to God.