Like Sands through the Hourglass

ACTS 3:12-19

¹²When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? ¹³The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. ¹⁴But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, ¹⁵and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. ¹⁶And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.

¹⁷“And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. ¹⁸In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. ¹⁹Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out/”

I was raised on soap operas. 

My mom was either pregnant and sick and unable to move from the couch, or nursing and exhausted and unable to move from the couch, or she was folding mountains of laundry on the couch, so often she’d open a package of saltines, stab a butter knife into some peanut butter, and let all us kids go at it -- All while Marlena once again forgot who she was and Roman somehow had a dramatic face lift because Stefano had him kidnapped and was doing some kind of experiments on him as an undercover spy. And Bo and Hope were betrayed again, because while they thought the other was dead, they fell in love with someone else, and now they realize that they’re alive and they’re just. so. conflicted. And if only Sammy would just tell Lucas the truth, all of their problems will be solved, but she can’t because Austin is in a coma and she might be pregnant with his baby. 

We'd be on the edges of our seats — wondering, will Kari finally confess her love to Austin? — when the characters would suddenly look off into the distance, and a commercial for Dawn dish detergent would come on. Tune in next time, for the same. ridiculous. plots. recycled again and again.  

It was kinda fun though, watching fictional characters whom I pretended were real make a complete mess of their lives while I ate peanut butter and saltines and wondered why everyone was sharing beds all the time. 

But seriously, guys, read the narratives in the Hebrew Scriptures. Them’s some soap operas. Sarah wants a baby so bad that she tells her husband to have one with her handmaid, and when, at 90 years old, she finally gets pregnant and has a son, she tells her husband to dump Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness to die. Or, Jacob, who falls in love with the beautiful Rachel, and wants to marry her, so he works for seven years and then seven more years to please her father only to get super drunk on his wedding night and realize he’d “married” the wrong woman. And there’s David, who falls in love with one of his commander’s wives, sleeps with her, and then sends her husband out to the front lines so that he’ll get killed and he’ll have her all to himself. 

And I don’t know what says “soap opera” more than Solomon walking around his huge palace wearing purple robes adorned with pomegranates surrounded by thousands of his concubines and eating grapes off of silver platters. I picture him with a pinkie ring.

Get out the saltines, guys. This is some crazy shit. And it just gets crazier. 

And the most crazy thing of all is that this is the story of God’s relationship with God’s chosen people. 

These guys are the ones who are supposed to be special, specially picked to do God’s will, and throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, and on to the New Testament, they do nothing but screw it up -- with a few demands for justice by bedraggled prophets that are subsequently ignored spattered here and there throughout the text. 

This is their story. Full of screw ups and morons and selfish manipulators and liars and broken relationships. 

And this story all leads up to this, this moment: Peter is standing in front of his gang - his posse, his crew, his people, the folks descended from all those soap opera characters.  And he gives them a sermon.

Someone, in perfect soap opera form, has suddenly been healed. No, he hasn’t awoken from a six year coma or had his face splashed with acid only to be perfectly smooth only a few months later. But, he was lame. And now he can walk. And the crowd gathers to find out more about this spectacle. They’re shocked. Amazed. They're fast forwarding through the Tide commercials. They want to figure this out.

And Peter asks, “Why are you screw-ups surprised? Don’t you remember your story? Your story of all your ancestors who screwed up? Guys - you’re the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! Of all our forefathers who screwed the pooch more than once."

You’re the children of Abraham, who was so scared of the pharaoh, he tells him that his wife is his sister, and then had a child with his mistress and cast them both to the desert to die of exposure, and then later, would almost kill his own son because he heard some voices in his head. 

Or Isaac, who, as far as we can tell, never speaks to his father after that, and who is so afraid of conflict that he moves his family all over creation whenever someone else contests his right to use the well. Who is so scared that he also passes his wife off as his sister, and then plays favorites with his two boys, preferring Esau over Jacob — and then — and then is so naive, he lets Jacob trick him into giving Esau’s birthright to him. 

And you’re the children of Jacob - who tricks his father in order to steal the firstborn inheritance from his brother, and then runs away like a coward when Esau chases after him. He schemes and manipulates his whole life, and then makes the same mistake his grandfather and his own father made - he has a favorite son. And he's got a whole slew of sons with borderline personality disorder.  And then he wrestles with God. And walks with a limp for the rest of his life. 

Think about all these people, all these screw ups and failures and schemers and faithless people who are in your story, whom you belong to. All failures, morons, manipulators, power-hungry rejectors of God’s will. 

They’re all part of your story, your “soap”. They are a part of you. And yet, God still loves. God still walks with you. God still tunes in. Throughout your whole history, even when you were watching bad television, even when you hoped beyond hope that the plot line would move forward, even when God was desperate to wipe you out and start all over, God’s love relented, God’s care endured. 

And here you are, Israelites, with your story of screwing up and your story of God’s consistent rescue, and you’re surprised that a lame man can now walk? You’re surprised that God is still working here? You, who formed the mob that is partially to blame for Jesus’ death, who chose a murderer instead of God himself, you’re surprised that God still loves you? That your pig-headed stubbornness and your misguided preferences are no match for  God’s persistent love? Why are you so surprised? So shocked? Pull out the VCR, rewind all the tapes, let’s review, shall we?

"And you think I’m the one who did this?" Peter asks. "I’m the one who healed this guy? Ha! I’m a failure, just like you. Just another character in a daytime television series. I rejected Jesus, not once, but THREE times. And I was supposed to be his best friend. My mouth was always running faster than my brain, and I said the most idiotic things, and I fought with my brothers over who would be Jesus’ right hand man, and I ran away when Jesus was being tortured and killed, and I didn’t believe the women when they came to tell us that Jesus had risen from the dead, and when I saw Jesus — face to face — I still didn’t recognize him! Yes. I’m an Israelite too. A screw up. A failure. A wreck among the wrecks. 

But here I am. Here I am, a witness to all that Christ has done. A witness who remembers his story, remembers from whom he has come, who comes before you — flaws and failures and all — to tell you that Christ has risen, that God has been among us, and that the story continues."

Even when you try to end the story. The story keeps going. 

Like Marlena and all of her memory loss and comas and demon possessions, God keeps coming back.

And God is going to keep coming back. God is going to keep dying at your hand, and is going to continue rising again. It’s the same plot. Repeated again and again until we all finally get it.

Children are going to be killed in drone strikes, and the ice caps are going to keep melting, and we’re going to waste water and drive our cars too often and let our kid cry longer than he should because we are so tired. We are going to be a part of systems and powers that are violent and consuming and power-hungry.  But our story is also a story of resurrection, of starting again, of renewal and transformation. Of taking one more breath when we’re hopeless, of trying again when we fail, of stubbornly insisting on justice for the homeless and disenfranchised and abused and lonely. 

And aren’t we all part of this story? This story of persistently rejecting what God wants, of thinking that we can do all this on our own, of being stubborn and violent and hard-hearted, preferring war over peace, desiring stuff over relationship, finding self-worth in achievements and busyness instead of just living in the eternal now that God has given us?

Remember your story. Remember God’s constant love for you. For your family. For your ancestors who maybe owned slaves, or who went to prison, or cheated on their wives, or didn't wear condoms, or wrecked their cars, or wasted their leftovers. Remember that God loves them, too. 

So that when you think about your failures, your losses and your screw-ups, you’ll know that in this one thing God doesn’t change - God’s love continues. God’s love is stubborn and long-suffering and real. When you feel the shame and start to believe all that this world tells you you are, you can go back to your story, go back to your community, your family - maybe not by blood - but by spirit. And you can remember that God’s love didn’t stop with Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob or David or Solomon or Jonah or Peter. And it won’t stop with you. 

Tune In. There is more to come.

"So, repent" Peter says. 

And I don’t think he means we should walk over hot coals or wear hairshirts or sit in a windowless room reciting hail marys or watch the 24 hour soap opera channel. I don’t think repenting means to be ashamed and weeping and made to feel like trash. In Hebrew, the word for repent is “shuv” which means “to return.” I think to repent means to go back. Return to who you are. Who you really are. Who God made you to be. Go back to who you are and whose you are. Go back to the community that loves you.

Realize your story. Tune in. Don’t be surprised when crazy miracles happen; instead, repent, literally, “change your mind” — “metanoia” in Greek.  Turn your heads — not from your story, but back to your story, your story of screwing up and trying again and God’s persistent relentless continuing love for you. Turn back to that. Return to your story. The story of your community. The story of God’s continual forgiveness. You’ve strayed from who you are. From who made you. From the amazing things that God has done and will still do. Go back. Turn back. Turn your heads. Repent and be saved. 

And when you do, don’t be surprised when miracles happen. Don’t be surprised when you or someone you love receives a healing you never thought possible. 

Because this is the God of our story. A God who keeps loving and healing and curing and fixing and transforming and resurrecting - mostly - and most frustratingly - in ways that are so tiny we can hardly see it, but it’s there. The buds come back on the trees, someone opens the door for you when your arms are full of kids and groceries, you get to snack on peanut butter and saltines, you drink a really good latte. Or maybe you share a vulnerable piece of yourself, a part of your story, with someone else and they get it, they walk with you in it. Those parts of yourself that you think are lame and broken and unmovable - they’re going to be healed. Tune in.

Thanks be to God.

Let's Just Eat Pasta.

Matthew 21:1-11

21When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, ²saying to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. ³If anyone says anything to you, just say this, “The Lord needs them.” And he will send them immediately.^*’ ⁴This took place to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, 
⁵ ‘Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
   humble, and mounted on a donkey,
     and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ 
⁶The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; ⁷they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. ⁸A very large crowd^* spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
‘Hosanna to the Son of David!
   Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’ 
¹⁰When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’ ¹¹The crowds were saying, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.’

This is not a triumphal sermon.

This will not be a “good” sermon.

I want to be done with the good sermon.

I’m tired of the stress and the fear and the wringing the Holy Spirit around the neck just to give me, something, anything, that will please and meet the needs and entertain and spiritually feed. I’m tired of being a fraud.

So. You’re gonna leave this place and your mother-in-law will ask what you did today. And you’ll say, “I went to church.” And your father-in-law will ask, “so how was the sermon?” And you’ll say, “It totally sucked. An absolute waste of my time. I should have gone home and eaten pasta.”

And maybe that’s what we should do. Just stop this whole thing right now, just sit around and eat pasta. Because pasta doesn’t surprise, it doesn’t disappoint, it’s everything you expect it to be. 

I wonder if that’s what Jesus was thinking as he somehow rode both a donkey and a colt into Jerusalem, for what he knew, and we know, to be the last time: "We should have just stayed home and eaten pasta. Linguini, Fettuccine, Farfalle, Angel Hair, whatever.”

I’m not what they want me to be, he thinks, as they wave their palms and lay down their cloaks and shout “Hosanna!” - a royal welcome.  

And so they expect him to bring chariots and spears and gold and jewels and a new constitution and his virgin betrothed riding in a palanquin on the back of an elephant and whatever else goes along with being a king in first century Palestine. 

They cried:

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! 

Hosanna to the Son of David! The Davidic monarchy is back!

The one who is going to give us pensions and health insurance and stable jobs with paid sick leave!

Blessed is the one who is going to stick it to the man and free us from this back-breaking work and finally make things fair.

Blessed is the one who is finally going to give the powers what’s coming to them.

Hosanna to King Jesus! It’s all going to be peaches and cream and caviar from now on!

“Every thing is awesome! Every thing is cool when you’re part of the team!”

I wonder if Jesus thinks, as he rides that coltney? donklt?, I am a fraud. That he can’t be what they set him out to be. That his kingship means suffering and death and fear and exile. 

Or does he just laugh at their ignorance, does he just smile down at them from atop his donkey-colt for not really knowing what they’re asking for? I wonder if he thinks, “guys, just go home. Get a big pot of water boiling. It’s time for some ziti with marinara sauce.” 

I spend a lot of my time, wandering around, feeling aimless, doing all the things, buying the groceries and feeding the kids and doing the work, all while thinking that I’m a total fraud. I don’t do quiet times. I don’t tithe anywhere near 10%. I drink too much Starbucks and once in awhile I let my kids eat at McDonald’s. I want to look like I’ve got it all together, but the truth is, I’ve lived in my house for almost eight years and have NEVER cleaned behind the fridge. 

Get a pot of water boiling, kids. It’s time for pasta.

Except, what Jesus was doing was really countercultural - and dangerous. He was directly taunting the empire, coming in to Jerusalem like a royal dignitary, like a military hero, and is surrounded on every side by adoring crowds. This is subversive. This is a treasonous act for sure. 

And the whole time, he’s revealing who and what are the real frauds:

People so hungry for power that they’ll tax the commoner to near-destitution. 

People so nervous about their status in the world they’ll crucify an innocent man just to prove who’s boss.

An empire so fragile that this crucified peasant from the dirty junk-town of Nazareth will overturn every status quo and notion of imperial power. 

Funny, how just one man riding in to town on a pokey little donkey-colt can cause such a ruckus.

Funny, how refusing to play the game of power and control can pull the thread out of the system, unravelling the whole thing.

Funny, how deciding to spend an hour eating waffles with my boys on a Saturday morning, instead of working on the perfect sermon, or balancing my checkbook, or getting the oil changed in my car, has the power to undo a little bit of fear that I’m just a fraud, that I can’t be who the world wants me to be, or, really, who I think I should be. 

Funny, how spending an evening feeding hungry folks, or tutoring antsy kids, or just getting out of bed when you really just want to hide has the power to turn the world upside down.

Funny how riding a donkey into town, or planting a garden, or looking for crocuses at the end of a grey and painful March is enough. It’s enough. 

Because these systems that control us, that tell us we need manicured fingernails and well-behaved kids and excellent credit scores, they’re really fragile. They’re so easily torn down, if we just look and see what the real fraud is. 

A homeless peasant from the junk town of Nazareth riding on a donkey is enough to disrupt the entire Roman Empire. He enters the gates and the whole city stirs, a low rumble like the thunder of an impending storm. 

Who is this guy? What’s he doing? What is he about?

And as soon as they start asking that question, it’s all over. 

As soon as you start asking, “who is this Jesus guy? What is he about?” It’s all over. Your life is changed. The thread has been pulled, and all the systems of power and control - the addictions, the consumerism, the fear and the manipulation, the “I need a new minivan-ness” start to fall apart. 

It doesn’t even matter what your answer ends up being. 

Because you’ve let Jesus in to your gates. 

You’ve let him in, riding on a donkey, maybe, or in the back of a pickup truck, or in the form of weeping or despair or desperate need, like the crowds waving their palms, with the expectation that he’s going to fix everything that is wrong in your life.

And he comes in, and instead, he upends it all. The temple you’ve built is torn down and will be rebuilt in three days. The temple of achievement and accolades, of security, of fear, or creativity, or religion, or capitalism, all those temples, torn down. 

He’s coming in, not to take the power and the control and to sit in the governor’s throne. He’s coming in to tear it all down. He comes to show us who the real fraud is. He comes to tear down all the walls of judgment and fear and depression and hunger, but he’s not going to give us jewels and low deductibles and sexy spouses and steady jobs in their place. 

He’s going to give us bread instead. Real. Good. Bread. Simple - yeast and flour and salt and water. But real. Not at all what we think we need. Not at all what we think we want. But real. 

You’re not the fraud. The gate and the temple and the empire and the internet and the drugs and the insecurity and the fear are the frauds. How can we get to the point where we can believe this? 

Where we can let the guy on the donkey come in and claim us for who we really are, and be for us, not who we think he should be, but who he actually is - The one who comes in the name of the Lord, the one who comes to overturn all the systems, all the fear, all the inadequacies, all of it. The one who comes to sit with us at the Table, who comes enjoy a good baked ziti or super-cheesy lasagna with us and we'll be surprised how good it is, how filling, how nourishing, how it was just what we needed. And Jesus will smile at you and say, this is good. Real and good. This is so good.

Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.