Jonah 3:1-10   Mark 1:14-20

If you were here last week, you might notice a theme beginning to happen; someone discovers that God is calling them and then they decide what action to take. This morning we have two more classic stories.

In one, God calls the prophet Jonah, who as we might remember from Sunday School, gets eaten by a fish because...he didn’t want to do what God was calling him to do. The other is Jesus calling the four fishermen, who abandon their personal responsibilities to become fisher’s of people. There is also prophetic nature to each story that offer us insight to God's personality. 

The title of my sermon, “A second chance,” speaks to this. God is a God of second chances. To me, that is the good news. I don't know about you, but I have lived on the grace of second chances.  I can't think of anyone who doesn't long to be redeem,  to have their past wiped clean and given the chance to live as God intended us to live.

Sadly, some might believe our cynical world has made it too difficult or too hard to get a second chance, much-less enjoy it. Too often we get more satisfaction watching a Tiger Woods, or Bernie Madoff, suffer a great moral collapse, then we do watching them get redeemed. When they fail, we feel better about who we are...But when they are redeemed we have to accept the fact that we are all equal...we are no different than other sinners. But aren't we all worthy of a second chance? Jonah wasn't so sure. But Jesus was.

We can't read the story of Jonah, and ignore the story of Nineveh. Nor can we read the a story of Jesus and the disciples, without seeing ourselves in the words. For this is the living word of God, and God speaks to all of us...No matter who we are or where we are at in life, God finds us. Jonah knows this all too well. Now, if you're unfamiliar with the backstory of Jonah, it goes like this. God asks him to deliver a message to his enemies, but instead he runs away.  There's a storm, a giant fish, and three days of solitude to contemplate...and reconsider God's offer. Since there is nowhere to run from God, Jonah gives in. He repents, sort of, and gets a second chance to redeem himself. He goes to Nineveh and begrudgingly does what God asks. And in the end, everything works out.

Jesus, on the other hand, calls out the fishermen who instantly abandon their family business and blindly follow him. There is much more to their story, of course. But instead of zipping through it, I invite you to imagine jumping in your car and driving off in whatever direction the spirit moves you. Of course, you're leaving your life behind. You will have no forwarding address...No cell phone, no map, no hotel reservations, no money. Doesn't that sound like fun? To just trust God and go for it!

So which one of these stories is more like you? The allegory of a reluctant prophet...who knows what he is suppose to do but doesn’t want to do it? Or the tale of the runaway fishermen...who skip out of their responsibilities to blindly go wherever the wind blows.  (Which, by the way, is too the land of hardship and death)  

As you weigh your choices, I’ll tell you a little yarn of myself. It’s about the first time I ever rode a horse. It was in Yellowstone Park. I was ten and had gone on a trip with my best friend, Jeff Price, and his parents. Now I wasn't new to horses; I had driven past them every Sunday on the way to church. But these were much bigger in person then they were from the backseat of my father’s VW Bug. They were much more intimidating as well. Now the ones they put us on weren’t shinny and silky, like the ones you see in the movies. Ours were more dusty and dirty, and more saggy than strong. In cowboy terms, their saddles were very well worn.

Sporting new cowboy hats from souvenir shop, Jeff and I rode through the wooded trails of Wyoming. We were given clear instructions not to do anything…other than hold on...and not fall off. Our horses knew to follow the leader, whose rider was…a gristled old cowpoke that kept spitting chewing tobacco along the trail. My horse was not fast by any measure. Even in my wildest imagination, she and I would not be able to escape an attack like the one we saw reenacted a few days earlier at Little Big Horn.

Giving it all her best effort, I fell quickly behind. I would soon discover how truly unpleasant it is to bring up the rear; especially with in a group of elderly horses. It didn't take long for mine to decide she’d had enough. She just stopped. I don’t know why...but she didn’t want to go any further. There was no amount of kicking I could do to get this old gal going. All I could do was sit there....And not fall off. My heart sunk and my eyes began to water as I watched the others trod up the mountain without me. I was left all alone holding the old leather reigns. Which makes me very sympathetic to Mr. Zebedee…who was left holding the worn out nets, as his son walk away with Jesus.

The good news of this tale is there was another group sporting new cowboy hats from souvenir shop that came up behind me. They too were following a gruff old cowboy spitting tobacco. Without flinching, he smacked that stubborn mare hard enough to get her going again. I was saved. Thanks be to God.

So which one are you more like? The stubborn Jonah, who for some reason or another just doesn’t want to get up and go? Or the ones that just blindly follows the pack trying not to step in the mess that has been left in your path?

Jonah knew exactly what God wanted him to do...he just didn’t want  to do it. And for a good reason. God was sending him into a foreign country, giving him an impossible mission. Imagine, going into an ISIS training camp wagging your finger and professing, “Allah doesn’t like you killing all those Christians and Jews. Stop it now or you will be overthrown.” Jonah wasn’t stupid. In fact he knew exactly what God was going to do. And I'm sure he didn’t really care if God wiped his mortal enemy off the face of the earth. Nor was he motivated to have himself killed in the process of saving them. In contrast, there are the disciples, who had no idea what they were getting into when Jesus said, “Follow Me.” I'm sure it sounded like a great idea, at first. But at what expense?

We eventually find out that things get a little weird. Jesus will tell them, “Take no shoes, no extra cloak, no money, or food. But instead rely only on the Spirit of God.” Don't think about how you’re going to support the family? Never mind how you are going to pay the phone bill, the rent, the car payment, the health insurance, and so on...Have faith, and God will provide for your needs. They would come discover there is a cost to being a disciple. 

So who are you more like? Jonah or John? Perhaps you're a little bit of both?

In the way the story is often told, Jonah sounds like a whining and insecure failure. God gives him a second chance, and even then he goes off and pouts about it. Throughout all four Gospels the disciples sound simple and naïve, if not a bit dim witted. Yet God calls them out, and redeems them.  Both stories give a clear picture of God. He is understanding, persistent, and grace-filled.

Jonah relents. He goes to Nineveh and proclaims, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” That’s it. That’s all he had to say. It was the world’s shortest sermon. There is no lesson of hope or grace, no thought-provoking quotes from Barth or Bonnheoffer. Just “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” And by the power of God’s Spirit, the people repent. They hear God calling to them. And make the decision to act. The entire city, from the king to their cattle, take their second chance. They turn from their evil ways, and return back to God.

God gives Jonah a second chance. God gives the Ninevites a second chance. God even gives the cows and horse a second chance. God gives you and me the same. What Jonah and Jesus teach us is that God is not just a God of Israel. God is the God of all people and all creation. God is all-in-all. A God of grace, faithful, steadfast in love and mercy. A God of second chances. But this is also a God we cannot hide from. Nor hide anything from. 

We have our own failures and short comings...God knows we are stubborn; God knows we are insecure; God knows we are mean to our brothers and sisters, and that we treat strangers unkindly. God knows we are greedy, we are violent, and we are vane. God knows we are selfish, that we believe our survival means looking out for ourselves, at the expense of someone else's suffering. Yet through the grace of God in Jesus Christ, we are still given a second chance. God sent his Son, not to punish us but to save us...to redeem us. God gave the world His Son, because we matter to God. God loves you and me. Not our sin, but our soul. Not our selfishness, but our true selves. You and me matter to God. We may not be perfect...but we are not so bad that we cannot be redeemed. 

One of the ministers at the retreat I attended this week had this to say, “God finds us where we are, but loves us too much to leave us there.” I love this. It is the perfect summation of Jesus’ entire calling, from the crib to the cross! No matter what sin we have committed, no matter how bad our life is, God loves us...no matter what. And more importantly, God loves us too much to leave us there in our sin. 

We don’t need to be perfect to be a beloved child of God, we just have to answer the call to put our new life to work. To be redeemed is to receive a second chance...to love each other, to forgive one another, to accept one another with all our differences; to offer compassion and our companionship, and so on. In other words, God calls us to be the presence of God in the midst of an often ungodly world. We don’t have to stop being human to answer the call.

So you see...it really doesn’t matter if you are more like Jonah or James or John, or Mary or Martha, or Peter or Paul…God loves you and me equally. He calls us all by name. And welcomes home...all who are willing to drop their nets, …and fears, and anxieties, addictions, and anger, to follow the way of Jesus, the way of peace, freedom, serenity and everlasting life.  This is redemption and grace. This is good new for you and me and anyone who wants it.

Amen.

Last summer Kathleen and I took the kids on a road trip through the mid-west. Part of our adventures led us to a pig farm in Iowa. Is it safe to assume most of you know what a pig farm looks like? If not, I am sure you can guess what it might smell like. Surprisingly, it does not smell like bacon crisping in the frying pan. What was more surprising was discovering that pigs have a keen sense of their surroundings, in that they instinctively react to strangers in their midst.  This made it impossible for us to sneak up on them. If one detected us, he’d warn the other pigs with a frightening squeal, sending the entire pen into a frenzy. However, once the farmer came over they would immediately calm down. They may have been blind, but they knew who was their Master and who was a stranger.

In our readings today both Samuel and Nathanial had trouble distinguishing the Master calling out to them. Is it because these men had not established a relationship with God?  Perhaps they didn’t feel worthy of such a divine visit.  

A question we might ponder this morning is: “How do we know it is God who is calling us?” 

I mean, why would God want to speak to you or me in the first place? We’re not world leaders or famous personalities, we don’t have any sway or influence in pop culture and social media. We are just a bunch of simple church folk, right? How do we know it is not some other voice in our head vying for our attention? Like the one that says, "So what if it’s wrong, it feels good" Or the one that says, "You should be ashamed of yourself." Maybe it says, "Nobody really cares about you," Or "Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful."

Henri Nouwen offers us this hope. That underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says, "You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you." That's the voice we need to hear most of all. That is the voice of our Master who calls out, “Follow Me,” and says to us “Get up and walk, your sins are forgiven.” To hear that voice requires special effort; not a heightened sense like pigs but solitude, silence, and a strong determination to listen, to recognize his call within us. Only when the voices are separated can we understand our Master is here with us. Once we discover it is God calling, then can we discern why God is calling us today. 

In his book “Secrets in the Dark,” Frederick Buechner reminds us, “Jesus made his Church out of human beings, with more or less the same mixture in them of cowardice and guts, intelligence and stupidity, of selfishness and generosity, of openness of heart and sheer cussedness as you would be apt to find in any of us. Jesus made the church out of human beings because human beings were all that was there to make the church out of.”  

God is calling you and me. We are the Beloved. For some mysterious reason, God’s favor rests on us. God calls out to us with a purpose…because I believe God wants to be with us.

As I was discerning my call to ministry I remember asking myself what would God want with a washed up copywriter. I knew nothing about religion, and even less about the Bible. But then again, why did God need a corrupt tax collector like Matthew?  And yet God called him. If Noah were alive today he probably couldn’t float a construction loan to build his ark. Yet God called him for a purpose. Moses, David, and Paul acting like crime bosses, each were guilty of murder. And still, God called them by name. God searched them, and knew who they were. And each one answered the call.  Samuel, Philip and Nathanial, and all the Disciples heard God calling them by name. Calling them with a purpose. If we take a close look at the Bible, nearly every character in it follows this simple formula to help us understand not just why God calls, but also for what purpose.  

First, a person discovers God has called them. Second, this person decides to answer the call. And third, the person acts, accepts what God is asking of them. Discover. Decide. Act.

Notice how God called Samuel 3 times, and each time Samuel was convinced it was someone else.  But with Eli's help Samuel finally realized who was truly calling him. Samuel made a discovery. Eli also discovered God was utilizing him too. Samuel did not know it was God calling. But Eli did, even though he could see or hear a thing. He sensed the Master’s presence.

Jesus discovered Philip, and called him to follow. Then Philip found Nathanial and told him about Jesus. Philip said, “Come...and see!”  When Jesus saw Nathanial he knew him and called out to him too; proclaiming what kind of man Nathanial was. We discover he is like many of us. He is skeptical. After all, “can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But in spite of our skepticism, God discovers us before we discover God.  God sees, even if we can’t see God.

Now this reminds me of a story about a drunk who stumbles along a baptismal service down by the river. Not being of sound mind, the drunk walks in the water and stand next to the preacher who says, "Mister, are you ready to find Jesus?" 

The drunk looks back and says, "Yes, preacher, I sure am."  

The minister dunks the fellow under the water and pulls him right back up. "Well? Have you found Jesus?" the preacher asks. "Nooo, sir I didn't!" said the drunk.  

The preacher then dunks him under for quite a bit longer this time. He brings him up, and says, "Now, brother, have you found Jesus?"  To which the man exclaims…"Noooo, I have not." So back down under the man goes.

This time the preacher holds him there for at least 30 seconds. Lifting him out of the water he says a bit frustrated, "I’ll ask you one more time, brother, have you found Jesus yet?" 

The old drunk wipes his eyes and asks the preacher, "Are you sure this is where he fell in?"

We might be skeptical like Nathanial, or unsure like Samuel, we may even be a bit misguided and not of sober mind. But whoever we are, and wherever we are, when God finds us, and says to us "Come follow me and I will show things you never could imagine," we must decide how to respond. First we discover, then we decide.

When God called Samuel the 4th time, Samuel answered with these words, "Speak, for your servant is listening." Jesus said to Philip, “Follow me.” And Philip made a decision to follow. God is calling each of us to be in relationship. Whether we’re lost, wounded, broken, weak or strong, whether we are poor in spirit and rich in wealth, or the other way around, when God calls we are all equal…we are all the same…scared. And rightfully so.

For some of us are called to physically leave this life behind. For someone, like myself, we are called to shed the comforts and security of one life to put on the robe of a new life. There is always a spiritual wake-up call our “come to Jesus” moment when we decide to act upon the grace that we have been given.  Christ says, “Follow me;” but goes on to warns us that whoever does must take up their cross, and sacrifice their old life, for the new and everlasting life.  This is our faith put into action.

Discover. Decide. Take Action. We either accept God’s call, or we let it go to voice mail. We either ignore the nagging ring, or we pick up and say, “Here I am, Lord.”  How do we know it is God calling? Simple. We answer the call, with faith. 

We trust that our decision to accept our call is a decision to grow, to advance our spiritual life and even our personal life. This takes faith; faith in God's promise to us; faith which allows us to develop a deeper, thicker, richer relationship with God and with one another. Yet faith without works is dead. Faith is a verb, an action that requires work. We cannot let our faith sit there and do nothing.

God is calling to us, to do for others what Christ has taught us to do. To love one another; to stop judging and start accepting our differences, to put down the stones of violence and carry the cross of peace; to forgive the debts and trespasses of others; to put caring for the sick and the poor at the top of our priorities; to offer a seat around our dinner table to prostitutes, lawyers, and even the IRS; we are even called to forgive those who sink the nails into our flesh. This is the Good News of Jesus’ sacrifice, made on the cross, for the forgiveness of all. This is faith in action. This is why God is calling.

Tomorrow we celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, who paid the ultimate price to answer God’s call for justice and reform. While we remember all the work he did to advance civil rights, and to promote peacemaking in a country divided by war, let us not forget the nameless saints and countless sinners who also bravely said, “Here I am, Lord.” These are people like you and me, the broken and redeemed. We are the Body of Christ.  Our Congregational forebears lead the way of social justice…will we keep their dream alive? Will we face our human insecurities and fears to take up our cross?  

While this sounds scary even to me, I will leave you with this from the Book of Isaiah. “Fear not, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you;I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” These statements “Fear not,” and “Be not afraid” appear in the Bible 365 times. You don’t have to be a tax collector to know that equals one for every day. So “Fear Not.” And "Be not afraid!" The Master is in our midst.  Amen.

My freshman year at college I made the decision not to go home for Thanksgiving. Instead I chose to go to a skateboard competition in Atlanta, six hours away from school. A friend and I caught a ride with four other guys who were going to compete.  As far as I can remember, the drive north was uneventful. The contest itself was fun, but eating Thanksgiving dinner at the nearby Waffle House did not sit well with either my stomach or my parents.  By the end of the three-day competition, we were all running on very little sleep and even less money.  So, as a group, we decided it would be best to leave early and miss the party that closed out the event.  We pooled our money to fill up the car’s tank, and began our journey home with sore muscles and empty stomachs.

The warmth of the car felt nice, and the dark roads lulled everyone but the driver and myself to sleep. I am not sure how long I had been watching the green mile markers on the side of the road before I realized they were going up, not down. Eventually it would dawn on me that we were driving north, not south. We would have to travel 27 miles more miles out of our way before we could turn ourselves around and get going in the right direction. We limped home with just enough gas, but the error depleted us of what litter energy we had left. Had I not seen the signs along the side of the road, who knows how far out of our way we would have gone before we would have really been in trouble.

A church’s life often takes similar journeys. Congregations often operate in cruise control, overlooking the warning signs that they are going the wrong way. Instead of following the uncertainty of the Spirit, many churches just keep going and going the same way. When they realize they’re not where they want to be, they are often out of gas and out of money.  It’s imperative that we keep alert to God’s warning signs that are all around the community and the people we serve.  We cannot afford to be like the Pharisees, whose religious habits were causing them to miss seeing God in their midst. As our spiritual practices become automatic, we too become vulnerable. We tend to fall asleep at the wheel.  This is what makes change both necessary and difficult.

As the church is busy preparing for the Annual Meeting on January 28, I’d like to invite each board and committee to look at the way your group has operated over the last year and contemplate new ways to help the church move in a different direction. I encourage you all to publish those ideas and goals in your report. Likewise, if anyone has an idea, opinion, objective, concept, or proposal, please feel free to share it. A new church year always brings new opportunities to implement new ideas through mutual ministry. After all, this is our church. And together we take this journey.  I’m buckled in for the ride. Are you?

Readings:  Genesis 1:1-5; Mark 1:1-11

How many here have heard of this thing called the Polar Plunge? It's this bizarre sport of sorts, that crazy people do in the dead of winter. In communities all around the country, people gather and jump into freezing cold water to raise money and awareness  for certain causes. It was once believed that taking such chilly dips was good for your health; that the cold water would boost stamina, vitality and immunity. 

Not all doctors agree. Some suggest that the sudden drop in temperature can be dangerous for people with underlying health issues, and for people like myself who have just recently moved from balmy Southern California. My father, who is a doctor, has taken the polar plunge every year since he was a kid growing up in New York. While I think he is crazy I can see how such a action might feel exhilarating; If not a brisk reminder of what it means to be alive. 

Today, Christian churches around the world celebrate Baptism Sunday. It is a time to gather and remember that through the baptismal waters we become alive in Christ. With this living water we jump from the old and into the new. Yet I wonder if we still feel spiritually exhilarated, or has our sacred ritual become so ceremonial that we have forgotten what it really means to give up our old life in order to be made anew in Christ Jesus? As Congregationalist we believe the water is a visible sign of a spiritual action, which is why this church pours or sprinkles water on the forehead of the one who wishes to be baptized. 

I remember having a discussion in seminary with a friend whose Baptist tradition believed...total immersion in water was the only way one could be truly baptized. No other kind would suffice. Being who I am, I couldn’t help but question his methods. I asked, “So if you walked a person into a stream up to his ankles and splashed him with water would that be sufficient?”

He said, “Nope. Not baptism.”

I asked, “Well what if you got them wet up past their knees?”

“Still not good enough,” he assured me. 

“What about if they waded in to their chest?

Holding back his frustration as best as he could he replied, “What part of total immersion do you not understand?” 

Ignoring this I continued to ask, “Neck?”  ...”Nope!”

“Nose?”  ....”Nope!”

“Well what if he walked all the way in but the water only came up to his eyeballs?  Wouldn't that count?”

“No!” he demanded, “the water has to be over the head.”

I smile at him and said, “So you and I agree that water being administered on the head is sufficient enough to consider one baptized.” 

I am not surprised that we celebrate Jesus’ baptism at the start of the New Year. It is, after all, an evocative time to talk about new beginnings. Like my father jumping into the cold water, we too are called to take a plunge of sorts, to live a new life in the living water of Christ.  Baptism, you see, is the genesis of Christian life. Like the very water itself, it is a necessity to remain spiritually alive. Water is the essential element of all life, physical and spiritual. It all begins with water.

Both readings today in Genesis and Mark begin with a story of water. And in both books this water is tied to a story of redemption. In each one we see how God rescues humanity from the currents of life that pin us down and drown us. In essence, our baptism assures us that we are not too small for God to notice; that in fact...we still matter.  It all begins with water. It was over water that the Spirit moved in the beginning of creation. It was through water the children of Israel were led out of bondage and into the promise land. 

And it was in water that Jesus received the baptism of John, and was anointed by the Holy Spirit to lead us through his death and resurrection, from the bondage of our sin into the promise of everlasting life. In the Gospel of John, Jesus offers us “the living water.” He says, “Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." Again, it all begins with water.

Though our baptism, we promise to follow the ways of Jesus Christ, the very one God declared, “This is my beloved Son.”  Through our baptism we are promised that we too become beloved children of God. You and I, and the mess that we have created in our lives, find redemption and renewal in the living waters of Christ. Our spiritual thirst is quenched. In him we are washed clean. And sealed with God’s Spirit into the Body of Christ’s church. 

This is the same Spirit that hovered over the waters in Genesis; the same Spirit that hovered over the waters of the Jordan River; It is the same unchanging, all-caring Spirit of God that hovers around us today. Our baptismal water is a refreshing reminder that we are alive in God’s Spirit, now and forever. It all begins with water.

But let us not forget that water can be very dangerous. Outside the church, a gentle rain has frozen into slippery ice that wreaks all sorts of havoc. While a gentle babbling brook can be soothing and calming under certain circumstances it can become a grave threat to the environment. The mountain snows that melt in spring, overflow riverbanks and flood communities hundreds of miles away. In California too much water ruins crops and vineyards while the lack of water has destroyed entire farmlands. Even a simple roof leak can produce deadly mold inside the walls of your home.

As a young surfer I learned quickly how dangerous water can be. Make the slightest mistake and you might find yourself under the shear weight of a wave; pinned to the rocky ocean floor below...as the undertow grabs you and drags you out to sea. Every time I paddled out, I did so with the respect of the ocean, that untamed body of water, which seemed to have a mind of its own.  What I learned is that water plays by a different set of rules. But so does God.

Notice in both readings God doesn’t just come down to hang out with us, like with Adam and Eve, or with Abraham. Instead God cuts through the darkness and rips through the heavens to pull us to safety. God hears our cries, and dives into the deep waters to rescue us; to make wrongs right again; to lift up the poor, free the captives, empower the oppressed, and heal all who suffer. And when Jesus emerges out from beneath the Jordan, God’s voice fills the universe. Like the Genesis story, God sees that this new creation is good and declares, “This is my beloved Son. In whom I am well pleased.” God disrupts the old to usher in the new. But in order to receive a new life, the old must die first. 

Our baptism is as dangerous as the water used to seal it. That sounds crazy, doesn't it? That baptism is risky and dangerous. This is something we often overlook when we move our fingers from the font to one’s forehead. Have we neglected to comprehend the uncomfortable implications of inviting God’s Spirit to rip us open and invade our lives? To be baptized in the living water of Jesus, is dangerous because it ties us also to Jesus' ministry. 

In the latest issue of Christian Century, Diane Roth reminds us of this, “In the wilderness river Jesus is given not just an identity but a mission, and that his mission is not just comforting, but dangerous. This mission drives Jesus back to the wilderness to wrestle with the devil, and it leads him to places of suffering, chaos and despair.” It all begins with water.

Like my father jumping into the icy waters on New Years Day, we, the people of Christ, are called to fearlessly leap into God’s justice, passion and mercy. We are called to see the face of Christ in the other; to open our arms, to embody and proclaim God’s love to the World. 

We, the church, are called to swim against the social norms and currents of life, to wonder the wilderness, and to cut and carve new pathways back to God. This is dangerous business. Perhaps that is why American author, Annie Dillard suggests we should not only wear crash helmets and life preservers to our baptisms, but also issue warnings on our baptismal certificates stating: “This is a passport to places you never thought you would go, to be an emissary of the living God in the desert and the wilderness, to plant seeds of hope and healing and life.”

Yet it is with this passport we meet God, and experience God's peace. With this passport, we do not travel alone but move throughout eternity as members of God's redeemed family. At our baptism God rips through the heavens to bring us safely home. For we are God's beloved children in whom God is well pleased. 

What that tells me is that you and I still matter to God. But does God matter to us?

Will we give up our old life? Or risk our new life in Christ to jump into the raging waters that God has called to? It’s risky. It’s dangerous. But it is also exhilarating. And more importantly...life giving...Because we bear God's name...having been sealed with the living water of everlasting life.

Amen.

Lectionary Readings: Genesis 1:1-6; John 1:1-18

When I was a little boy I had an older friend named Edna. But I called her Eddie. She was a widow who rented a small beach cottage near my house. I frequently paid her visits, not just because she always had candy to share but also because she and I seemed to like the same stuff. Eddie was an artist who spent her days in the sun making little sculptures out of pieces of metal and junk.  As she soldered, I would watch her hands, and eyes, and mind work in perfect unity. She would take frequent breaks to sip sweet tea from an old plastic cup or to draw a slow, contemplative drag from a cigarette that she kept clutched in her tan, chunky fingers. It was with her, sitting at her picnic bench studio, I first discovered my love for art…and smoking. I learned a lot more from my friend. Like how the light brings out the extraordinary from the ordinary. As we watched the evening sun dip into the Gulf of Mexico she would say, “Notice the light transforms simple life into a work of art?” 

When the summer rains dropped, we’d eat candy inside and look at books by Rembrandt and Caravaggio. It was there that I learned how their meticulous use of warm, glowing light increased the drama of their paintings. With Ansell Adams, life was in the darkness of the dramatic shadows that contrasted against the bright sunlit landscapes he so famously photographed. In short, Eddie taught me how to see the world differently. How to see the beauty that was always right there, living gracefully and fearlessly in the moment. Many years after she died, I would come to see what she meant when she told me, “Light always makes a difference to the darkness.”

I am reminded of this when I read John’s gospel. In these dramatic opening verses we learn how to see the light in the darkness, and even darkness in the light. My question this morning is this:  Do we still faithfully see the light, or have we been so “enlightened” that we no longer comprehend the darkness for what it really is?

In John’s famous prologue, we meet Jesus, not under the starlit skies or in the Bethlehem stable. Instead we meet him before creation itself, when light broke through the darkness. John strips out the virgin birth, the shepherds and angels, and the Magi who have come to visit. Instead, he gives us two metaphorical accounts of Jesus to highlight the complex theology behind the Divinity and the Humanity of Jesus.

The first metaphor is “the logos,” which translated from the Greek means, “the Word.” Jesus is the very Divine Word of God who brought us the Good News of our redemption. John offers hints of last week’s text, in that “through Jesus we are adopted into God’s family and become heirs of God.” As we hear the word of God spoken to us through Jesus, we are brought closer to a place of faith that helps us better understand what the Good News means to us today.   

The second image of Jesus is as the true light that enlightens every human. God came to us in human form to shine on our darkness, to illuminate our pathways that lead us back to our creator. Christ came down from heaven, to bring us the Word. And to light up our lives. From the story of the Magi seeking the newborn king to Paul’s blinding encounter with the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus, whenever Jesus shows up, a new light seems to enter the atmosphere. It is this light that John says, “shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Or to quote my childhood friend, “Light always makes a difference to the darkness.”

But not everyone comprehends this notion. There are some people today who do not see Jesus Christ as the “true light, which came to his own and his own people did not receive him.” To hear the Word and to see the light, takes faith. And faith is not always easy to come by. We are living in a post-modern, “enlightened” world, where the popular notion is there are no absolutes. There is no black and white, light and dark, just grayish ambiguity. I am sure many of you have friends who do not share your faith. I have friends whose life is only black and white. Their faith is based on that which can be scientifically proven and fact checked. (I mean if it can’t be Googled, it can’t be true, right?) And there are others whose faith is based in situational ethics. Right and wrong are defined on “what makes one feel good” rather than on “what is good.” 

There are many Christians as well who are so blinded by the light that all they see is darkness around them. This brings its own set of crippling challenges to one’s faith. Jesus came to his own people, who had been praying for a savior to rescue them from the darkness that was enslaving them. God answered their prayers, yet they did not believe. Why? Did they lack faith? Perhaps it was hard for them to see the true light because they had been living in the darkness for so long. Perhaps, like many of my friends today, the people of Israel had come to understand the darkness as light and the light as something to avoid, or mistrust.

What about you? Do you need to see in order to believe? Or is believing seeing? This is where our faith roads diverge. Taking a leap of faith is the most important action we can do. To take a leap of faith means trusting in something not quite understood. It means making our hearts vulnerable,(which we do not like to do.) But it is in our leaping that we begin to see God and life in a new light. And in that light we see a Supreme Being who loves us so much that he will humble himself in human form to walk in our shoes, eat at our table, and cry at our bedside.  

It should be of no surprise that our faith is often put to the test in our darkest moments, when we are scared and frightened, when our minds race and anxieties overwhelm us. Darkness is often just as blinding and as crippling as the light. In her book “Learning to Walk in the Dark” Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us that darkness need not to always be feared. She writes, “Even when it’s so dark you cannot see God, God can still see you.” 

Kathleen and I discovered this  Friday night while coming home from our trip to Washington D.C. We discovered how a little light and a lot of faith always makes a difference in the darkness. As we were getting closer to home our car’s GPS took us on a detour through the pitch-black farmlands south of Belding. Out there, off the main road, our high beams seemed to be swallowed up by the darkness. We had barely enough light to see the twists and turns that darted out of the road like deer from behind the trees. Even though we could see the faint red glow of taillights off in the distance, it was the immediate space around us that we needed help seeing.  

Before fear set in or the muscles in our necks tightened, we chose to live in the moment with our faith, in the light of Christ. For it is only in the moment that things jump out at us cause us to swerve off course. But it is also in the moment that we catch glimpse of God at work. It is in these moments of darkness God’s blinding light stops us in our tracks and surprises us.

We could have  kept going straight on the road we were on until we hit the 44. But instead we chose to follow the directions faithfully, if not blindly. Because we did our renegade GPS led us to the Shoe Tree, a little known roadside attraction that Kathleen and I had just talked about the night before at my parent’s house. Believe it or not we had put it on our bucket list of weird things to see one day. There is no time like the present, or the middle of the night, right? 

To live faithfully in the moment with the light of Christ means we don’t have to think about the darkness behind us, because all has been forgiven. Nor do we have to worry about what is far ahead of us, because Christ has taken care of that as well. As long as we faithfully follow the way of Christ, we know exactly where we are and where we are going in every moment. It is in the moment we see the light. The darkness no longer has power over us. Christ gives us all the light we need to make the next step; to leap faithfully....free of fear. In this light we see more clearly the place to which we are jumping towards.  

This is great comfort for all. (Especially those of us with poor eyesight.) Just as light makes it easier for a person to see, Jesus Christ who came into the world as the divine light, the one who gave sight to the blind, He has come to help us see the Word of God right there in front of us, in the flesh, full of grace and truth.  

The disciples would come to understand this. As they sat at the Passover meal, they too began to see Jesus in a new light.  (move to the communion table)