It All Depends: The Red Knot, Jesus's Mission, and the Body of Christ

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Luke 4: 14-21

 To my woefully untrained eye, the red knot looks like a cross between a robin and a seagull. Perhaps I just see them that way because those are two of the small handful of birds that I can identify without the use of Google. But unlike robins, these birds don’t thrive in urban areas. And unlike seagulls, they can’t survive on a diet of French fries snatched from some unsuspecting tourist’s lunch. When they’re not breeding, the red knot is pretty unremarkable. They’re grey and black and white, and they look a little dumpy with their broad chests and spindly legs, and they hang out way way down in the southern hemisphere. They spend their days along the shore poking around for mussels and clams that they swallow whole, their gizzards doing the work of breaking down the calcium and other minerals so that they can gain enough weight for the long trek ahead of them. Sometime soon, around a month from now, the red knot will begin its migration north, a 9,000 mile journey that will end somewhere in the islands of the Arctic Circle. They’ll make a few pit stops on the way, flitting up the coast of South America to rest and refill their stores with the shellfish they find. But they can’t stay long. They have a date with destiny. 

I’m not really sure, as I write this, where this sermon is going. I just have gotten to the point in my faith journey were, if I get two references to these little birds by two different admired spiritual guides in the same week, I just know I have to pay attention. Red knots aren’t very big, about the weight of an avocado, with a 20 inch wingspan. They travel in groups. They fly as high as twenty thousand feet in the air. And their lives have to be impeccably timed, a perfect balance of weather, wind current, food source, flight and rest. They’ll feast on the shellfish they find as they travel the coasts north, but the increasingly acidic ocean has made shellfish harder to find, less meaty, less nourishing to the hungry birds. Still, they persist, they fly north, drawn by an instinct, a power, an innate desire that they don’t worry about analyzing or understanding or even being aware of. They feel the tug, the urge, and they go. 

As they fly, their feathers will transform into a rusty red from neck to breast. For the strongest of them, for the best shellfish hunters, those with the most efficient metabolisms, they’ll reach Delaware Bay, a final rest before their final slog to the barren tundras of the Arctic. But each year, there are fewer and fewer that make it to the bay, and even for those few who get there, there still aren’t enough resources for them all to store up enough of what they’ll need to make it the rest of the journey. After almost 7,500 miles, these birds are exhausted, and starving. And they’re scouring the bay for the nutrient dense and easy protein that is left behind by the horseshoe crabs that have laid billions eggs before heading out to sea. The birds will devour these easy to digest gelatinous blobs, hoping to double their weight, before the final stretch of their yearly journey. 

For us humans, horseshoe crabs have been a bit of an ugly nuisance. They’ve been no real use to us economically until local fishermen discovered that they make pretty good, cheap, and easy to gather fish bait. But now, these crabs have been overfished, and their numbers are falling. And as the warming climate has increased the severity of storms, and those storms and ever-increasing development have washed out the crabs’ beach where they lay their eggs, life has gotten much much more difficult for the red knot, so much more difficult that around 80% of the rufa red knots have been lost in the last 50 or so years, almost completely due to the disruption of their delicately timed balance of resources, their fragile, but life-giving synergy with the earth. It’s all stacked dominoes now. If they can’t get enough to eat in Delaware Bay, they won’t make it up north to lay their eggs. If they don’t lay their eggs in time, they’ll miss the hatching season for the insects that their hungry chicks will need to grow and thrive and make it back down south. If they do make it south, will there be enough shellfish to nourish them before it’s their turn for the pilgrimage north? Once exhausted and starving and landing in the Delaware Bay, will there be enough horseshoe crab eggs to prepare them for the rest of the journey to the arctic, where the lucky ones will mate, lay, and support a new generation of red knots so that the cycle may continue. Around and around it goes. For a red knot, so much depends on a horseshoe crab, laying her eggs, 7,500 miles away.

Maybe I don’t have to make some grand connection between our reading today and these birds. Maybe I don’t need to draw theological conclusions at all. They don’t have to be a metaphor. They don’t have to be an allegory or a symbol.They can be just birds, and that will be enough. They can be threatened, and we can be concerned enough to do something about it. Maybe if we held a tiny chick in our hands, felt its weight, its fragility, its tenacity, and its total dependence upon the intricate balance of life here on earth, that would be spiritual enough. If we weighed its chances of survival, calculated the likelihood of this one tiny bird to endure all its challenges, if we let our hearts be broken by its simple beauty, its pure innocence, and this rotten broken system that we have created, it’d be enough for today. Maybe for a whole lifetime. We would be changed. An imprint of that fluffy chick would be forever imprinted upon our palms. These birds mean something. They matter. Simply because. 

But how easy it is to miss it. To forget it. To choose not to care. And, for some of us, how hard it is to love this fragile world and all its brokenness without getting swept up and overwhelmed in the process. We harden for convenience. We harden out of ignorance. We harden out of our stubborn independence. We harden for survival. 

Maybe you think that I’ve finally lost it as a pastor. Maybe I am just waxing philosophical over a couple of endangered birds. Maybe I’m too stubborn to accept that this ship we’re all on is sinking and paying attention to one species of bird is all we need to plug the hole, right the ship, and get back on track.

But today we get Jesus’s vision statement. And today we get Paul’s revolutionary disruption of the hierarchy of all humanity. And if all we do today is meditate on the migratory challenges of the threatened red knot, then I think we’re a lot closer to the scriptures than we might originally believe. Because this is why Jesus came and still comes. This is why the church was founded. For the red knot. And the horseshoe crab. And the polluted oceans. The warming climate. And you. And me.

It’s all connected. All of it. You can’t pull one thread without unraveling the whole thing. You can’t darn the hole without reconnecting all the threads. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For just as all of God’s creation is one and has many members, and all the members of creation, though many, are one creation, so it is with Christ. 

You cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” You cannot say to the eye, “I don’t need you.” You cannot say to the horseshoe crab, “We have no need of you,” and we cannot say to the red knot, “eh, your loss is of no concern for us.” Because we are all connected. We are all created by and loved by God. Without you, I cannot be fully me. Without those ugly horseshoe crab eggs, there’s no red knot. Without the tiny red knot’s yearly 9,000 mile pilgrimage, the earth is diminished. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it. 

I really don’t think this is some kind of hippy-tree-hugging-out-there perspective. It’s the Christian perspective. It’s what we profess to believe when we say that God became human and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. It’s what we rely on when we proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord. It’s what we know, deep to our bones, is true, when we encounter the beauty of a sunset, or the giggle of a baby, or the heartbreak of a bird that has fallen from the sky. 

Jesus proclaims this mission statement in the midst of his family, in his hometown, surrounded by all the things he is intimately connected to. He takes this mission statement deep from his culture and from the past, knowing that it’s all connected — the past, the present, the future. It’s all one. These words from Isaiah are woven into the tapestry of the life and mission of Jesus, just as the good news to the poor, the release to the captives, the sight to the blind, and the freedom of the oppressed are all woven into that same life and that same mission. It’s all connected. The dominoes are all lined up. If the poor are knocked down, then so are we. If the captives are imprisoned, then so are we. If we are blind to the presence of God in all things, then the red knot, and the horseshoe crab, and the homeless man with his cardboard sign, and the trafficked teen, and the baby born to the refugees at the border, and yes, us, all of us, are lost. 

Jesus comes and proclaims that it all matters. The poor, the imprisoned, the blind, the oppressed, all that God has created and we have thrown away, Jesus has come to say, “they matter,” “it matters,” “you matter.” That is why he’s here. That is why he’s come. That is why God didn’t just snap God’s fingers and fix it all, or start all over from scratch, or wipe us out of existence - because God and them and it and you and I are all connected. You knock down one domino tile and they’re all coming down. 

There are many members, yet one body, and the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. When one suffers, we all suffer.

Now. You are the body of Christ and individually members of it. This world is the body of Christ, and all creation is individually members of it. Every piece of creation that God has touched has the imprint of God upon it. 

Two seemingly unrelated writers bring your attention to a tiny migratory seabird, and so you pay attention. Hold that red knot hatchling in your hand, let it imprint itself upon your palm, let it break your heart. And when one is redeemed, then all are redeemed. When one is saved, then all of us are saved. Jesus Christ came to us as one of us, connected to all of us, so that when he is resurrected, we all are resurrected, and the birds and the crabs and the tiny drops that make up the ocean are too.

Christ calls us, as his body, to continue his mission: to pay attention to the little things, to bring relief where we can, to be present with them, to let them break our hearts. Imagine what it would be like to live in a world where we knew, really knew, that through Christ, all things are connected? What, then, could be saved? 

Thanks be to God. 

Hamburgers and Hot Dogs

John 2:1-11

 The story of Jesus is not the first story of a baby born from a mortal mother and an immortal father. His is not the only miraculous birth. The story of Jesus is not the first story of a god who dies and then resurrects. His is not the first story to contain miraculous healings, nor is his story the only story of a god being the ground of all being from which all that exists comes to exist. There are even stories of gods being crucified much in the same manner as Jesus was. Jesus’s story isn’t the first where a people fail to recognize him as god because he dons mortal clothing and is, therefore, persecuted by the ruling elites. He’s not the only one who claims to be a source of ever-flowing water. And he’s not the only one to be depicted carrying a lamb on his shoulders. He is not the only one referred to as “the son of god,” nor is he the only one who brings peace on earth. He isn’t even the only one to sacrifice himself out of love for the people. And to get really down to brass tacks, Jesus isn’t the only deity who turned water into wine or referred to himself as “The True Vine.” 

But this isn’t going to be a sermon about how Jesus is so much better than all the other faith traditions and myths and folklores that have helped articulate and find meaning in the human experience over the ages. Life is really hard. And if someone finds hope in Zeus or Buddha or Krishna or Confucius, then they should dig that well and dig it deep until they find water. 

This sermon is about how Christ is in everything in this incarnated world, and about how, as Richard Rohr says, Christ is “someone happening between two people.” A person who is a verb. A relationship. A transformation.

Sometimes when we compare and contrast two things, it’s not so that we can name one as better than the other, one as the victor and the other as the loser, I mean, lots of times we do that, but comparing and contrasting doesn’t have to be that. Putting two things up side by side can help us not only define basic differences without putting values upon those differences, but they can also help us better understand ourselves. Asking myself why I like cheeseburgers more than hot dogs or brown ales more than IPAs doesn’t really tell me very much that’s interesting about the hamburgers or the hot dogs or the beers themselves; more importantly, they tell me something about me. If you’re firing up the grill and you ask me “hey Jenn, hot dog or hamburger?” I’m going to crack open my ice-cold can of Fat Tire Amber Ale and shout out, “ooh! Cheeseburger please!” I mean, maybe a less mundane, less ridiculous example might help; after all, this is God we’re talking about, not ballpark concessions. But if we’re looking to compare, and we’re looking to “prove” which God is better, or argue for one over the other using the textual and historical evidence that is laid out before us, we might be just as split over that as we are over hot dogs and hamburgers. Other gods are born of virgins. Other gods perform miracles. Other gods have risen from the dead. I mean, honestly, because of what I believe about Jesus, about the incarnation, it really does all feel the same. We all get it a little bit wrong. And, if we’re lucky, we get it a little bit right, too. Hot dogs and cheeseburgers are both decent sources of protein containing too much fat, but they both taste pretty good when slathered in ketchup, and the beers are both going to be equally overpriced when you slosh them back to your seat at the ballpark. Jesus can redeem them both. And…Jesus would probably condemn them both. Jesus is in and around and among it all. But for me, there’s something about that first bite into a juicy hamburger, and the ketchup seeps out the sides and the cheese is all melty, ah. 

But because of what we as Christians believe about the incarnation, it’s not the physical presentation of the thing that really matters, it’s not the label that we put on the box, it’s the encounter that makes the difference. The specificity absolutely matters, but it matters to us because of how it relates to us, because we are specific, embodied, unique people, because of our unique relationship to it, not because my Jesus has a beard and yours has blue eyes.

The greek god Dionysus turns water in to wine. Dionysus is said to have been the true vine. Grapes and wine were thought to be the incarnated expression of Dionysus on earth. He is said to have died and risen again. He was born of a virgin mother and God his father. 

And here, in our story today, we have Jesus, who turns water into wine, who will later refer to himself as the true vine, who will say that wine is now his blood, a true presence to us here on earth. He was born of a virgin through the will of the Holy Spirit. He will die and rise again. 

But if we look deeply into this story, this story that has so many parallels with the stories of the Greek gods, if we really engage it, we will learn about ourselves, we will hear how we can be more ourselves, and we can find healing for our souls. All the little particularities and hiccups and ridiculosities that make us who we are reveal God’s love for us, they’re incarnations for us, if we enter in to these stores. And maybe you can find all that, too, if you look at the Dionysian stories, but these Jesus stories are ours, simply because that is where we’ve found ourselves. Simply because I’ve had encounter after encounter with something real and true and alive that came in the stories titled “Jesus.”

My wedding was, in a lot of ways, a total disaster. It rained all day. My bridesmaid burned her dress with the iron. One of Dan’s groomsmen drove over another groomsman’s foot with his car. I’m pretty sure my siblings had a food fight at the reception. My mistress of ceremonies got drunk on white zinfandel even before Dan and I arrived. The chicken was so dry. And it was an amazing day. One of the best days of my life. We were surrounded by family and friends who were just happy for us. And neither Dan nor I ever had dreams of the “perfect wedding day” carved into our brains since we were little, so we just had fun. A DJ was too expensive, so we put our favorite songs on cd’s. Our pastor who married us took the microphone from the previously mentioned drunk mistress of ceremonies and sang Neil Young’s “Down by the River.” All the fellas ran out onto the beach and skinny dipped in Lake Michigan, leaving their cheap rental tuxes in piles on the sand. We smashed boxed white wedding cake into each other’s faces. 

And still, I wonder, while I was wiping icing off my cheeks and reapplying mascara, while Dan was dancing the electric slide, while pictures were taken and jokes were shared and the Bud Light was being poured, I wonder, who was there, behind the scenes, who kept the party going? Who was the one who turned burnt dresses and broken feet and white zinfandel into a truly joyous occasion? Who was it that took the dry chicken and the tree sapling party favors that would all die and the bickering siblings and turned it in to one of the best days of my life? 

That’s where I find myself in this story, in the stuff, in the humanity, in the relationships. Does Jesus really defy the Law of Conservation of Mass and turn water into wine? Did Dionysus? I don’t know. But I do know that Mary makes the suggestion. The servants do all the work. Jesus reluctantly provides the power. And the steward is amazed by this highest of quality wine left for last. And a bridegroom, whose amazing day isn’t ruined after all, is given all the credit, and gets to keep going on with his life as if no miracle had happened right in front of his nose. That feels really real to me. Maybe because I think I’ve seen it.

 I know that it was through the generosity of my parents and Dan’s parents that we had a place to celebrate, that we had dry chicken to eat, a lake front view, and unending bottles of white zin. It was through the generosity of my friends who came from hours away to iron their wrinkled dresses, bring the flowers in precarious buckets of water in their back seats, walk it off when the tire left tread marks on his shoe. And it was this feeling of just joy, and gratitude, and hope, that made everyone so generous, that made everything that went wrong just not a big deal, we’d deal with it in the morning, or shake it off, or find it hilarious, and I know that that feeling, at least for me, came from that amazing collision of the incarnation, where Jesus produces the wine and becomes the wine, where God lifts all the ridiculously concrete and embodied things that went wrong with our wedding and just made it so so joyful. Lots of people worked so hard that day. And I believe it’s because they love us. And that love, I’m going to say, comes from Christ. 

We can argue all day over hamburgers or hot dogs. Dionysus makes wine. Jesus makes wine. We can fight wars over them. We can draw lines in the sand and argue over semantics and practice apologetics until we feel like we’ve got it all figured out, until we feel like we’ve made the right choice, until we have this sense of assurance that if only people saw and named the world the way we do, then everything would be perfect. But that’s not where the power is. The power is in the encounter. The power is when you dig and dig and dig and you finally get some water. The power is when you can see all the things that have gone wrong and somehow still see the joy and the beauty in the mess of it. The power is when you’re blessed by the dry chicken, even if you didn’t know it or couldn’t name it at the time.

And the beauty of our Christian faith is that, through the incarnation, we can see it all as Jesus. Jesus is in the Buddha and in Zeus. Jesus is present in the trees and the mountains and the ice cold brown ale. Jesus is even in the bickering siblings and the rental tuxes full of sand. Jesus is in Mary’s gentle observation, and in his own reticence, and in the servants to carry hundreds of liters of water, pail by pail, from the well to the purification jars. Jesus is the wine that keeps the party going. And even when the guests and the wedding coordinator and the bride and the groom are totally oblivious to the miracle that has just happened in front of them, Jesus is still there, still inviting them to partake in the miracle, even though they have no idea where it came from, or how it happened, or even that there was a need for it to happen. They all drank. They were all intoxicated by the love of God, whether they knew it or could name it or had the “right” name for it or not. 

Hamburgers. Hot Dogs. Bring yourself to either. You’re full, whole, embodied self. Dig in. Christ will be there.

Thanks be to God.