Angry Birds (Matthew 3:1-12)

Note: I delivered this sermon extemporaneously. The text printed here is a lightly edited AI generated transcript taken from the church's video of the serivce.

John the Baptist is one of those characters who always grabs our attention at this time of year. It is one of the funny things, one of those moments where we sense a little bit of tension between the biblical stories that we read during the leadup to Christmas and the way in which we celebrate Christmas as a culture that while we fill our lives with presents, festive occasions, parties, food, and decorations, we get the wildest, craziest prophet anywhere in the New Testament preaching to us and calling us and inviting us to open ourselves to what God might be doing in our world and in our lives.

John's physical appearance is the stuff of legend. He's wearing the wild clothes, the camel's hair. He's got the leather belt around his waist. He's eating locusts and wild honey.

But above all, his message strikes like an arrow to the heart of the people.

It's simple really.

“Repent. Repent. The kingdom of God has come near.”

We read these words every year during the Advent season. And today, I think it's worth pausing for a moment and to think about what that even means.

What does it mean to repent, to be a people of repentance?

Frankly, we talk about that throughout the year, offering prayers of repentance, acts of repentance throughout our life as Christians.

What does it mean?

What did the people who were drawn to John's message, the people who were coming away from civilization and into the wilderness where he was working and preaching?

What did they understand his message to be?

I think one of the classic ways we're schooled to understand repentance is as an invitation to stop doing the things that we know are wrong. And that's certainly a part of what we're talking about here.

You know, you're doing something, but you keep doing it.

You know it's not right. You're cooking the books, you're telling lies, you know, in your heart, I’ve got to stop doing this stuff.

So, yeah, part of John’s message is “Stop doing those things that you know are hurting people and that you know are wrong!”

But as we dig into John's message and as we kind of look at our lives a little bit, well, obviously if you're doing something wrong, stop doing it. But I think there's something else going on in John's proclamation of repentance.

It seems to me that while we've all willingly done the wrong thing at different times in our lives, most of the trouble we find ourselves in is caused when we've perhaps even stepped out with good intentions but just ended up in a mess. Or we tried something and it didn't work and we were just so stubborn about it, we just kept doing it and we dug ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole.

You know the word in scripture that we translate as sin comes from comes from the Greek and its roots are actually in the practice of archery, in shooting arrows, and in that context the word that we translate as sin means to miss the mark.

It's the archer shooting the arrow and missing the bullseye. And I think that's very evocative and very interesting as we think about what this message of repentance might mean for us because no archer except for the most insane archer would stand up there and say, "I'm deliberately not going to make the best shot possible."

Of course not. Right? They keep trying and they shoot and they miss.

They miss the mark.

Now, a good archer at that point will make the corrections, right?

Did I not judge for the wind? Did I not have the right angle? They will make the correction so their next shot is better.

The foolish archer would say, "I'm going to do the exact same thing I did last time." And they would continue to miss the mark.

Now, I've never been an archer, but I've recently become obsessed with the old video game Angry Birds.

Have any of you ever played that game before?

This has been my little moment of zen. I know some of you do Wordle and you like to stimulate your mind by expanding your vocabulary.

I like throwing angry birds at pigs.

Angry Birds is a puzzle game.

This will sound crazy if you’ve never played the game, but the goal of Angry Birds is to sling shot birds at structures in which there are pigs.

You're trying to knock down the structure and wipe out the pigs.

All right? It's a very, very sensible game.

There are two ways you can play it. One is to get all the pigs. You get to move on to the next level if you get all the pigs.

Or you can try to accumulate the most points to get a three star win and then you move on and try to accumulate as many stars as you can.

I've noticed something in my behavior as I play that game. In the effort to score the most points, I will sit there and repeatedly do the exact same thing, throwing the exact same bird to the exact same spot, expecting a different result, and I will do it repeatedly, obsessively.

It's not healthy. Dana probably wants to take away every device in the house that has this game on it.

But I will sit there, why am I not scoring the point?

Why am I doing the exact same thing expecting a different result?

Then finally, sense and reason take over and I think maybe I have to try a different approach.

Throw this bird over here instead of over here. And you know what?

Almost inevitably within one or two tries with that new perspective, there will be a breakthrough and I'll score the points and get the stars and move on.

I'm convinced that playing Angry Birds is not the only area in our lives where we demonstrate such behavior.

We don't set out to do the wrong thing, but our stubbornness gets the best of us. And even as we are trying to do something, maybe even trying to do something good and positive and uplifting, we keep doing the same thing in the same way, expecting a different result, and we get nowhere with it.

So what if we were to understand repentance as, in addition to stop doing the things that we know are wrong, as an openness to the way in which God might be showing us a better way and a better pattern for doing the things that we'd like to do that will yield the results that we'd like to accomplish.

We talk about making a positive difference in our community.

We talk about being an open and inclusive church.

We talk about living our lives centered in God's goodness and God's grace.

But if we keep doing the exact same things that we've been doing, are we really going to get there?

Are we going to make progress in that regard?

Or do we need to say, "No, I've missed the mark. I want to be open to the correction that I need to hit the mark to accomplish the good and positive things, the holy things that God has set before me.”

John came into the wilderness and said, "Repent. The kingdom of God is near."

I don't think his only goal was to shame people into not doing what they knew was wrong.

I think that there might be something about playing Angry Birds that helps us understand John the Baptist's message a little bit more clearly.

God is present in our midst, moving and guiding and leading us forward.

Are we willing to be humbled, to open our hearts and minds to changing the behaviors and attitudes that have blinded us or led us astray from the path that God would set before us.

Maybe that's what repentance can mean for us today.

Maybe God is calling us to make the corrections to throw the birds at the pigs in a different way, to make the changes that God wills for us so that we might experience the transformation of life and community and heart and mind that God's grace makes possible.

And if we do that, we will truly be a people of Good News.

Thanks be to God for this Good News today. Amen.

Image: Eyck, Jan van, 1390-1440. John the Baptist, Ghent Altarpiece, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the C Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

Slowly, Then All of a Sudden (Matthew 24: 36-44)

Our Gospel reading this morning finds Jesus and his disciples in an animated conversation about big changes that were coming to Jerusalem, the holy city at the center of their lives and ministry.

The conversation took place as Jesus was turning up the rhetorical heat on the people and the institutions who represented the religious status quo.

According to Jesus, these leading figures were leading the people astray.

“Woe to you, hypocrites!” declared Jesus. “You are like whitewashed tombs….[You] look beautiful [on the outside,] but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (Matthew 23:27-28)

Leadership was corrupt and was corrupting the hearts of God’s people.

Jesus even went so far as to say that the Temple, the second one to stand on Temple Mount, would be destroyed, just like the first one.

The disciples were fascinated, curious, and probably a bit nervous.

Jesus was talking about big, history making changes, and they wanted to know how and when everything would come to pass, so they asked him.

That’s when things got weird.

The disciples knew that Jesus had a habit of answering questions with questions or a thought-provoking parable, but this time, his response really had their heads spinning.

First, he said that no one knew when this change would come, not even him, but then he started talking about Noah and the flood, and how people weren’t paying attention then, but that the disciples should pay attention now.

And on top of all that, he kept referring to himself as the Son of Man, an old term used by ancient prophets that carried all kinds of implications about who Jesus was, what he was going to accomplish, and the hopes that people placed upon him.

Jesus said,

For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so, too, will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken, and one will be left. Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. (Matthew 24:38-42)

In order to help us unpack all of this, I’m going to follow Jesus’ lead.

When asked when change would come to Jerusalem, he threw his disciples a curveball and started talking about Noah’s Ark, so as we try to connect his words with our lives, I’m going to talk to you about volcanoes.

In 1980, after appearing to do nothing for one hundred forty years, Mount Saint Helens, a volcano in Washington state, woke up.

It started on March 15th. That’s when the mountain literally began to shake as magma, or molten rock, began to move closer to the surface.

As Mount Saint Helens continued to shake for several weeks, its appearance began to change, too. Steam vents emerged, as did a new crater. Mudslides caused by melting snow rolled down the slope. The atmosphere was charged with electricity. Lightning flashed.

The most ominous change on the mountain, however, was the growth of a gigantic bulge on its northside.

Marring what was once an almost perfect conical shape, this feature grew steadily as more and more magma pushed upward.

By May 18th, the northern slope was distended by more than 500 feet.

And then, just around 8:30 that morning, the northern slope of Mount Saint Helens exploded.

That eruption set off the largest landslide in recorded history and wiped away everything it encountered in a tsunami of mud, rocks, and melting glaciers.

Scientists have determined that the landslide traveled at speeds between 110 and 155 miles per hour and covered an area larger than Manhattan in debris.

And that was just the beginning.

Mount Saint Helens continued to erupt for several hours.

By the time it was over, 540,000,000 tons of ash had been spewed into the atmosphere, 1.1 billion dollars in damages had occurred, and 57 people were dead.

Like so many geological cataclysms, the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens is a powerful example of change that comes slowly, then all of a sudden.

Slow, then sudden change is a feature of the Bible’s major stories, too.

It’s said that the Israelites suffered as slaves in Egypt for centuries and wandered in the wilderness for forty years before the Jordan River miraculously parted before them and the Exodus finally ended as they entered the Promised Land.

Prophets like Elijah, Amos, Jeremiah, and Isaiah called God’s people back to covenant faithfulness for almost three hundred years, but it still hit the people like a sucker punch when Babylon’s army sacked Jerusalem and carried them into Exile.

And then there’s the slowest developing storyline of them all, the long burning fuse of hope that God would take action to make right what the people could not do for themselves, “the belief,” as Father David Neuhaus notes, “that God would eventually win victory against the forces of darkness and evil that have troubled the world since the expulsion from Eden.”(Vatican News)

A flickering flame of hope kept alive since the days of Eden, yet destined to light the way to restoration, renewal, and new life with God—this has everything to do with the way Jesus talked to his disciples.

It’s also the slow, then sudden change we remember and celebrate during Advent and Christmas.

If you’ve ever watched the classic Christmas Eve Service of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge, then you’ve seen this hope on display.

In that service, which hasn’t changed the order of readings since 1919, the familiar elements of the Christmas story don’t even appear until lesson number five. That’s when the angel Gabriel visits the Virgin Mary.

Prior to that, it’s all about hope’s long arch.

The service begins with readings from the prophets and a selection from the story of Abraham, but in the very first lesson, worshippers hear how Adam and Eve succumbed to temptation and, in shame, “hid themselves from the presence of the Lord.”

Everything that follows is about the incredible lengths to which God goes to correct that wrong and heal that wound.

Recounting our faith’s story in this way, the Service of Lessons and Carols helps us appreciate hope’s slow burning nature.

Hope also explains Jesus’ wild-eyed exchange with his disciples.

Jesus didn’t tell his disciples when the change they wanted was going to come, but there’s an urgency in his tone–like the urgency you would feel if you were talking to a friend and they’d suddenly disappeared.

If that happened to you, you’d stop dead in your tracks. You’d get dialed into your surroundings and what was happening all around you very quickly.

You’d be laser focused on figuring out what was going on.

And that’s exactly what Jesus wanted from his disciples.

He said,

Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. (Matthew 26:42-43)

The ground beneath their feet was shaking and the pressure was building.

Something big was about to happen, but their hope was not in vain.

The conversation between Jesus and his disciples continued for a while.

We only read a small portion of it this morning, but Jesus goes on.

His tone becomes less “apocalyptic prophet” and more “the preacher of parables” that we know so well, but the whole discourse remains difficult to understand.

Until the end, that is, when he told the disciples something that made it all make sense.

Matthew tells us that,

When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” (Matthew 26:1-2)

“The hopes and fears of all the years,” the heartaches of exiles and wanderers, the sermons Jesus preached, the miracles he performed, the way he loved all the people, on a cross, slowly, then all of a sudden, everything would change.

That brings us back to Lessons and Carols.

Beginning in the shadow of Eden’s shame, the service ends in the light of God’s love.

The ninth and final lesson is from John 1,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1:1-5)

You and I have a calling to walk in that light, to point the attention of others toward it, to follow where it leads, to worship in its presence.

Ultimately, I think our Gospel passage is about the challenges of living in this light, because, like the disciples, worry, fear, anxiety, our desire to do things our way–the creep of sin’s darkness–can blind us to what God is doing in our midst.

God’s word to us this morning, then, echoes what Jesus told his friends.

Stay awake.

Your hope is not in vain.

Change can come, slowly, then all of a sudden.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Image: Mount St. Helens on May 17, 1980, one day before the devastating eruption. The view is from Johnston's Ridge, six miles (10 kilometers) northwest of the volcano. Photo by Harry Glicken (Public Domain)

Salt of the Earth (Philippians 4:4-9)

This morning we conclude a series of sermons aimed at helping us remember that Jesus calls his disciples to be “the salt of the earth.”

With this in mind, for the past three weeks, we’ve placed a spotlight on qualities and characteristics that Jesus wants to see in us as his followers.

Along the way, we’ve connected each characteristic with a letter in the word salt in order to create an acronym for marks of salty discipleship.

Do you remember what each letter stands for?

S is for Surrender because surrender is what Jesus is talking about when he tells us to take up our cross and follow him.

A is for Awake because Jesus needs awake, alert, and attentive followers to share Good News in a hurting world.

L is for Livid because Jesus needs disciples who burn with righteous anger like him and are ready to take loving, self-sacrificing, holy action to heal broken hearts, relationships, and communities.

And today, T is for thanksgiving because we can’t understand grace, praise–basically anything else about who Jesus is and what Jesus wants for us–unless our lives are firmly rooted in a deep sense and disposition of gratitude.

Now, to help us unpack what that means, I want to tell you about the person who shaped my understanding of discipleship as much as, if not more, than anybody else, my Grandmother Kemp.

My Grandmother Kemp, Gram as we called her, my mom’s mom, was a major figure in my life.

Gram and my Grandpa looked after my brothers and me after school and during the summers when we were little and they helped to give us an unbelievably good childhood.

My grandparents had a little farm with a garden, a couple of cows, and chickens. We spent our time on sunny days fishing, taking walks in the woods, and playing baseball in the pasture. We called it Cow Patty Stadium.

On rainy days, we played board games or colored pictures. Gram even taught us how to sew.

Whether we were goofing off by the pond, cooling off with a pitcher of Kool-Aid, or playing a game of Yahtzee around the kitchen table, if Gram was with us, then she made sure that we knew Jesus was there, too, and I mean that in the absolute best possible way.

That was just the way she lived her life and the way she talked.

Faith, love, and joy permeated everything that she did.

Throughout this month I’ve thought of my grandmother a lot because she was the kind of person many people think of when they talk about “the salt of the earth.”

She was kind, modest, loving, honest, decent, good.

My grandmother was also the kind of person more sophisticated and cynical people might regard as naive, her faith simplistic.

A wife and mom on a small farm in a small town? What does she know of the world and its troubles?

But those who loved her knew that my grandmother’s faith came from a very deep place and that it had been forged in the fires of intense grief and loss.

When we were little, Grandma always told us that one day she was going to write a book about her life–the hard things she’d experienced, and how good God was to her through it all.

When she was almost 90 years old, she wrote that book. She called it The Message Glorious, a title she’d selected almost fifty years earlier.

Gram died a few years ago and every now and then, I’ll pick up her book and read a little bit.

It always makes me smile. Sometimes I’ll cry.

It helps put things in perspective.

I read some of The Message Glorious this week and noticed a passage that I’d never really appreciated before.

There’s a paragraph toward the end where she writes about the three times in her life when she felt closest to God.

Now keep in mind that this was a woman who spent every Sunday in church, attended her weekly prayer and share group faithfully for decades, and began every day reading her Bible, praying, and journaling.

Here’s what she wrote,

Three times in my life, I’ve felt the Lord’s presence so close I could nearly reach out and touch him. One time was when I was looking out our hospital window seeking God’s wisdom concerning [my 12-year old son] David’s terminal [cancer diagnosis]. Another time was when our dear [David] breathed his last breath here on earth. And then, [at my husband’s funeral] when we started to sing [his favorite hymn], and we all rose to our feet in the crowded funeral parlor. (p. 170)

It’s not lost on me that the person who taught me so much about God’s love, the person whose kindness touched so many, someone who could talk about time spent with Jesus so genuinely, so sincerely, knew heartbreak so deeply.

That’s what grabs my attention this week as we’re thinking about giving thanks.

If I have even a glimmer of insight into the profound wisdom Saint Paul shared in the passage we’ve read today from his Letter to the Philippians, it’s because of my grandmother.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice…The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:4-7)

“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say rejoice.”

While some of the Bible’s teachings cause us to do a double take—things like loving our enemies and always being ready to forgive, for example—Paul’s admonition to rejoice seems on the surface to be much more palatable to our modern sensibilities.

“Rejoice in the Lord always.” We put it on cards and bumper stickers and share it on Facebook.

The only problem with all of that, though, is that joy is often as difficult to find in life as the will to forgive and love.

In a broken world, amid broken lives, joy can be elusive—and it doesn’t take a particularly dour person to notice that.

If we’re going to hear and respond to the Good News about joy, gratitude, and thanksgiving with some integrity, though, instead of reducing all this to some syrupy sweet slogans, then we need to take a closer look at the Letter to the Philippians, and taking that closer look, we find two essential characteristics about the joy Paul describes.

First, Paul’s joy is rooted in a deep love for God and an understanding of God’s deep love for all people. There’s nothing superficial or self-serving about it.

When Paul says “rejoice in the Lord always” he isn’t saying that we should “always look on the bright side of life,” nor is he particularly interested in seeing people become more optimistic or positive in their thinking. He’s not interested in those things because he knows—from experience—that that’s not how the Christian life worked.

Paul’s letter to the Philippians is one of a handful of letters that the Apostle wrote while he was in prison because of his work as a missionary.

“I’ve been thrown in jail more than any other minister,” he wrote in another of those letters. “I’ve been flogged too many times to count, whipped five times, beaten with rods three times, and stoned with rocks once…I’ve even been on three ships that sank…Yet even so, I am content with weaknesses, insults, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 11:23-25)

To an outsider, it might seem as though Paul had joy in spite of his faith, not because of it. Those who knew him, however, knew that the Good News about God’s forgiving mercies made known through Jesus Christ was the only thing that mattered to Paul, and worth any cost he would personally have to pay.

That’s why he could write with so much joy, even from his prison cell.

"I want you to know, beloved, that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel…and I will continue to rejoice!" (Philippians 1:12)

When Paul encouraged the church to rejoice, then, he was drawing from his own experience with God—the experience of finding joy and peace in the midst of tremendous hardships—because he wanted the faithful to have that experience, too.

He wanted them and he wanted us to have that experience because Paul knew that when God’s love defines us, we will find joy and peace and the will, passion, and encouragement to accomplish great things in God’s kingdom.

This brings us to our second point about Paul’s joy. Paul believed that when Christ-centered joy takes root in our hearts, then we are one step closer to the fullness of life God’s grace makes possible.

We find the second step just a few lines below where we stopped reading today, in the 13th verse of chapter 4 where Paul writes, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

Paul’s ministry teaches us that when we know where we stand with God we will be able to stand up against any challenge we might face.

The chains of his prison, the hardships of his travels—Paul met these head on with the confidence of someone who knew that his body could be held, but his mind, his heart, his spirit were forever set free by Jesus.

“Rejoice in the Lord always…The Lord is near.”—closer than your fears, closer than your doubts.

The Philippians might face persecutions, they might suffer unjustly—but what they had within their hearts, the world didn’t give it to them and the world couldn’t take it away.

Faithful disciples–salty disciples– like my Gram, know the power of this wisdom, too.

Salt is small, but it makes a big difference.

A pinch of it can transform a meal; it preserves what might otherwise be lost; it brings out the best flavor in what already exists.

In the same way, when stale ideas and bitter words leave people searching for something that will satisfy their hunger, Jesus reminds us that the Church should season the world with faith, hope, and love.

There is power when disciples commit themselves to be Surrendered, Awake, Livid, and Thankful.

There is power when we heed the call to be the salt of the earth.

Thanks be to God for this Good News. Amen.

Image: Doris Kemp, my grandmother

Livid (Isaiah 53:4-9, John 2:13-17)

I graduated from a Christian liberal arts college, which means that while I attended school with many future pastors and leaders of faith based not-for-profits, I also counted a wide array of future nurses, doctors, business people, teachers, journalists, and artists among my classmates.

I was studying to be a social worker–so most of my course work was in the social sciences–sociology, psychology, and the like–but I also really enjoyed two required classes in biblical studies that everyone had to take freshmen year so I added a minor in Bible, too.

Since the school was small there weren’t a lot of options when it came to planning your schedule of classes.

Classes needed to complete your degree might only be offered once a year, and if that happened to be at 8AM every Monday morning, well, then you planned your weekends accordingly.

I was fortunate. An important class that I needed to take at the beginning of my junior year was offered Mondays at 10, earlier than my twenty-year-old self preferred, but doable.

However, this class had the reputation of being the school’s most depressing course regardless of when it was offered.

The class was called, rather ominously, Social Problems.

Social Problems might’ve just as well been named "People Are Horrible” because every class, every lecture, every assignment was about the horrible things people, countries, and corporations do to hurt others, often in the name of religion, ethnic supremacy, or profit.

Racism, genocide, pollution, landmines, domestic violence, child abuse–every topic we discussed displayed humanity’s inhumanity.

The callousness of it all was disturbing.

It was infuriating!

We listened to stories, and testimonies, and read research on topics like these every day that semester, and every day I’d ask myself, “How can people be so selfish? How can people be so cruel?”

And then, after Social Problems, I’d walk across the quad for my 11:00, which was required for my minor in Bible, Old Testament Prophets.

In Prophets, we’d read and discuss the relevant books of the Bible–books like Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, and Hosea–and it didn’t take long before I realized that the people the ancient prophets called out were just as selfish and cruel as people are today!

“This is just like Social Problems!” I wanted to shout.

Taking Social Problems and Prophets back-to-back really did a number on me.

They woke me up and opened my eyes to the historic and ongoing realities of suffering and injustice.

But, in addition to that, while they made me see that there are horrible things happening in this world, they also pushed and invited me to see the world’s brokenness not as evidence of God’s absence, but as one of the most well-traveled paths between God and humanity.

Social Problems confronted me with stories of a hurting world filled with hurting people.

Old Testament Prophets taught me that God not only hears the cries of the people, but jumps into the fray on behalf of those who are suffering, neglected, discounted, and oppressed.

These two classes also showed me that righteous anger has been a part of our faith tradition for a very long time.

Over 2000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle described the promise and challenge of righteous anger.

Writing in The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle noted,

Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power, that is not easy.

We read from John’s Gospel today what is probably the most iconic example of righteous anger in the Bible, an event commonly called The Cleansing of the Temple.

The Cleansing of the Temple occurred when Jesus entered the Temple in Jerusalem and drove out a group of merchants who were cheating and exploiting the pilgrims who came there to worship, to give their offerings, and to make animal sacrifices in accordance with the Jewish Law.

Saint John tells us that,

In the temple [Jesus] found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves and the money changers seated at their tables. (John 2:14)

The cheats and money changers were part of a system that was rigged, especially against the poor.

Officials would judge the animals and the money that the people brought with them to the Temple to be unworthy of being used in such a holy place. Instead, for a fee, there were perfectly acceptable animals available for purchase and acceptable currency for which you could exchange your own.

Taking it all in, Jesus was livid!

Making a whip of cords, [Jesus] drove all of them out of the temple, with the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” (John 2:15-16)

It’s worth noting that Jesus’ last point about selling doves hit close to home.

Doves were the offerings made by the poorest people, including, according to Luke’s Gospel, Mary and Joseph–Jesus’ own family.

This was the abusive and unjust system that set Jesus alight.

Saint John concludes his account by telling us that when the disciples had an opportunity to debrief from what happened in the Temple that day, they recalled a verse they had read in the Book of Psalms.

“Zeal for your house will consume me.” or, said another way, “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.” (Psalm 69:9 in John 2:17)

“Jesus was like that,” they said to themselves. “Eaten up with zeal for God and God’s people.”

This morning, Jesus’ example and the role of righteous anger in our lives leads us to another mark of salty discipleship.

Again, to review, this month, in order to help us remember that Jesus calls his disciples to be “the salt of the earth” we’re creating an acronym from the letters that spell salt to highlight some of the qualities and characteristics Jesus wants to see in his followers.

S is for Surrender because surrender is what Jesus is talking about when he tells us to take up our cross and follow him.

A is for Awake because Jesus needs awake, alert, and attentive followers to share Good News in a hurting world.

And, today, L is for Livid because Jesus needs disciples who burn with righteous anger like him and are ready to take loving, self-sacrificing, holy action to heal broken hearts, relationships, and communities.

Livid means to be furiously angry, and I’ll admit that it’s a combustible addition to our list.

Aristotle was correct. It’s easy to get righteous anger wrong.

Nevertheless, I think it’s worth talking about righteous anger because getting in touch with why some things bother us so deeply while being committed to keeping our egos in check and using that anger for good strikes me as a worthwhile and holy pursuit.

L is for Livid because Jesus wasn’t wrong to let some things “eat him up.”

But Jesus has a way of doing weird things with anger–ours and his own, for that matter.

That’s where the course I had after Social Problems and Prophets comes into play.

After spending my mornings getting all worked up at stories of horrible people doing horrible things, at 1:00PM I headed back to the classroom for The Life of Christ. And along the way, one couldn’t help but to notice that Jesus didn’t really have a ministry to hurting people. He had a life among them.

Poor people, Samaritans, lepers, the grieving, sick people–Jesus walked among these and shared his life with them.

He loved them, suffered alongside them, and, in the end, he died and rose up for them.

And that led me to a huge realization.

Well, two realizations actually.

It’s a story for another day, but this was the time in my life when I heard and said yes to a call to ordained ministry. That was one very important realization.

But the second realization was that while our anger with a broken world often tempts us to lash out, maybe even to throw a punch, Jesus turns anger inside out, offers forgiveness to his enemies (even money changers and cheats), and takes the punches of a broken world instead.

As Isaiah prophesied,

[He] was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

Do you know what the word livid meant when it first came into the English language?

It meant the black and blue color of a bruise.

To be livid was to be bruised.

I think that knowledge coupled with Isaiah’s prophecy helps us better understand righteous anger and salty discipleship.

Love leaves a mark and sometimes that mark looks and feels like a bruise–not in some perverse “He only hits me because he loves me” way, but in the way that we will take on suffering for those we love–our kids, our closest friends, and as Jesus would have it, our neighbors in need as well.

Pricked by conscience and guided by God’s grace at work within us, therefore, there’s no shame in being bothered, disturbed, and even angered by actions and attitudes that degrade and harm others.

It’s a far greater problem to be indifferent to their suffering.

Jesus, however, teaches us that if it is to be righteous, anger must compel us to stand with those who are hurting, so close to them, in fact, that we might even get hit with a punch that was intended for them.

L is for Livid because Jesus needs disciples who burn with righteous anger–who get “eaten up” with injustice and cruelty–and are ready to take loving, self-sacrificing, holy action to heal broken hearts, relationships, and communities.

Thanks be to God, then, for righteous anger and salty discipleship.

Thanks be to God for this Good News. Amen.

Image: JESUS MAFA. Jesus drives out the merchants, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

Awake, Alert, and Attentive (Ephesians 5:14, Luke 10:25-37)

A painting entitled “At Dawn” by Belgian artist Charles Hermans caught my eye this week.

Completed in 1875, “At Dawn” captures the essence of the era that history remembers as The Gilded Age–a time of explosive wealth and riches for the privileged few and back-breaking poorly compensated toil for the many.

“At Dawn” shows us something like a snapshot from the time–an early morning scene on a city sidewalk.

Bleary eyed and well-dressed revelers pouring out of a club dominate the scene.

The men wear black suits and top hats; the women, long and brightly colored gowns.

The group is obviously drunk, unsteady. They look like they might tumble into the street at any moment.

In contrast, the figures on the remainder of the canvas stand sober and upright.

They are workers and laborers at the start of a new day.

They’re dressed modestly, practically.

They appear to be yielding the sidewalk to the revelers.

None of the figures make eye-contact with one another, but they definitely see each other.

A reveler glances toward the workers as he descends the club’s steps.

Is it contempt in his eyes, or shame? Disgust with the common folk or with himself?

A working class mom on her husband’s arm stares at a woman’s dress.

Maybe she’s jealous. Maybe she recognizes the flowers the woman carries.

Her son also takes in the scene while his father looks at him.

What must the young boy be thinking?

What thoughts are on the father’s mind?

The contrast between the two groups is the painting’s greatest source of energy.

Hermans keeps the two, who are emblematic of the proverbial “haves” and “have nots,” at a distance from one another, yet fills the space between them with tension, a tension that was a hot topic of conversation and commentary in Europe and the U.S. as he painted.

At that time, people were beginning to wonder if such incredible inequality was compatible with the basic functions of government, Christian virtue, or any notion of a civilized society.

Many believed it wasn’t and that what they were living through was unsustainable.

Writing just a few years after the painting was completed, for example, Henry George, one of the era’s best selling authors, wrote in Progress and Poverty,

In our time, as in times before, creep on the insidious forces that, producing inequality, destroy Liberty . . .It is not enough that men should vote; it is not enough that they should be theoretically equal before the law. They must have liberty to avail themselves of the opportunities and means of life; they must stand on equal terms with reference to the bounty of nature. Either this, or Liberty withdraws her light! Either this, or darkness comes on, and the very forces that progress has evolved turn to powers that work destruction.

At its premier, “At Dawn” caused a stir. It was controversial and some of Hermans’ peers wondered if the piece “had a socialist reach.”

The artist always denied that charge, however, noting that he had only painted a scene that he had witnessed one morning on a city sidewalk.

He remarked,

I tried to be as sincere as possible, while avoiding being both too sentimental and too realistic. The workers of the foreground, refreshed, peacefully go to work in the morning, while the dissolute, dressed in black, stagger noisily out of the golden pleasure-shacks where they spent the night….I never thought of ennobling the worker by showing the decline of [the] debauched. (quoted by Arthur Chandler)

While he might’ve resisted being pigeon-holed politically, I think it’s clear that Hermans wasn’t just an indifferent observer.

He had a point of view.

Whatever his politics were, the artist saw value in the stories of, or in his case, pictures of, the working class, and in an era when the rich and powerful regarded themselves as the rightful Masters of the Universe, just bearing witness to the humanity and dignity of those who worked was an inherently political and moral act.

Maybe there’s even a clue about the artist’s perspective right there in the title.

“At Dawn”--sure, that’s when the golden pleasure shacks close and the work day begins, but that’s also the time when many people wake up.

Perhaps the artist sensed it was time for the sleeping world to open its eyes.

Last Sunday I began a sermon series based on the favorable comparison Jesus made between his disciples and salt.

“You are the salt of the earth,” said the Lord.

I told you that we’d be building an acronym using the letters in salt (s.a.l.t.) to put a spotlight on qualities and characteristics that are intrinsic to the discipleship Jesus desires.

Last week we heard that S is for Surrender because surrender is what Jesus is talking about when he tells us to take up our cross and follow him. Today, A is for Awake because Jesus needs awake, alert, and attentive followers to share Good News in a hurting world.

Awake, O sleeper, rise from death, and Christ shall give you light;

so learn his love, its length and breadth, its fullness, depth, and height.

That’s the lyric of a hymn based on Ephesians 5:14 that invites us to note the connection between our spiritual posture or positioning and our effectiveness as disciples.

Called to reflect God’s light into the world, we must, first, be in alignment with God’s love.

Pastor Sammy Alfaro of Iglesia Nuevo Dia in Phoenix explains,

The mission [given disciples in Ephesians 5] is not to change the world through our own efforts or wisdom. But rather, believers reflect the light of the gospel into a dark world by allowing Christ, who is the Light, to shine on us!

You know it to be true that a mirror kept in a dark room will remain as dark as its surroundings, but when it is brought into the light, it can shine with the brightness of the sun.

Awake, alert, and attentive souls, therefore, will engage in truth telling, wisdom seeking, forgiveness practicing, peace making work in order to place themselves and their Church in the best position to powerfully reflect God’s light.

This, I think, gets at what it means to be “awake” in the New Testament sense of the word.

It’s about understanding that we are the best, most radiant, most effective, most faithful, “saltiest” version of ourselves when we are awash in the light that shines from Jesus, then, equipped with such understanding, doing whatever we can, working with God’s grace, to be where Jesus is, blessing who he blesses, and serving as he serves.

One way to read the Parable of the Good Samaritan is to see it as a wake up call for people who are sleeping on this point.

The story of a wounded traveler who was ignored by two members of his own community, yet who received lifesaving help from one of his community’s supposed enemies–a Samaritan–is one of the most beloved stories Jesus ever told.

The parable emphasizes generosity, compassion, and mercy, and it is, justifiably, revered for these reasons.

But there’s more to it than that, a message bound up in what prompted Jesus to tell the story in the first place.

Luke tells us,

An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to vindicate [or justify] himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:25-29)

The man’s self-serving question revealed to Jesus that something essential was potentially missing from his understanding of life with God.

Even though he knew the right words to say and the right scripture to quote, he seemed to lack an awakened heart that would make that knowledge useful or efficacious.

He was acting as though all of this was about a set of propositions to be affirmed, rather than a humble disposition before God to be lived.

In other words, he was asleep and the parable was his alarm clock.

Jesus asked,

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:36-37)

Hearing this wake up call, it’s also time for you and me to open our eyes.

Trying to be a Christian or a Church without tending to a deep connection with Jesus is about as useful as a mirror kept in a dark room.

But our destiny, our calling, our mission, our duty is to come into the light and shine.

Awakened souls will do whatever they can, therefore, working with God’s grace, to be where Jesus is, blessing who he blesses, and serving as he serves because we are the best, most radiant, most effective, most faithful, “saltiest” version of ourselves when we are awash in the light that shines from him.

A is for Awake.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Image: Hermans, Charles, 1839-1924. At Dawn, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

I Surrender All (Matthew 16:24-25)

‘You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.” (Matthew 5:13)

In this passage from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus compares his disciples to salt, and he meant it as a compliment. Salt, after all, is intrinsically useful. In Jesus’ day, salt was used in medicine, industry, agriculture, and was an incredibly valuable commodity, not to mention that it made food taste better and last longer.

Salt made people’s lives better.

But salt would lose its effectiveness if it got mixed up with other stuff. In the scene Jesus describes, it’s salt getting mixed up with dirt or sand or so much of some other substance that it becomes good for nothing–incapable of adding flavor, preserving, helping.

In a similar way, Jesus would teach his disciples that they could lose their effectiveness by getting mixed up with worldly concerns and vices.

Greed, materialism, self-righteousness, anger and violence–it’s not much of a stretch to imagine Jesus saying, “When your faith gets mixed up with things like these it’s no longer good for anything.”

In fact, he basically does say that in the sermon’s takeaway line,

But strive [or seek ye] first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33)

Today and for the next three Sundays we’re going to use the comparison Jesus made between his disciples and salt as our starting point for a deeper look at what qualities or attributes might be lacking from our life with God or what we might need in greater measure.

Remembering salt’s usefulness, we’re going to look at some of the ways good discipleship can make our lives and the lives of people around us better.

In order to help us maintain our focus and organize our thoughts through this series, I’ve created a simple acronym for salt or s-a-l-t.

Each week we’ll examine a quality of discipleship that begins with the corresponding letter in salt. For example, today, week one, it’s something that begins with the letter “s,” in week two, a quality that begins with “a,” and so on and so forth.

All the while, we’ll be looking for positive connections between our life with God, our inner life, and our life with others.

So let’s begin.

S, S is for Surrender.

An old gospel hymn introduces us to this elusive, yet powerful mark of Christian discipleship.

All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give;

I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live.

“I surrender all.”

I remember singing those words in church as a child. I didn’t really know what they meant, but I remember singing them nonetheless.

Actually, to be fair to little-kid-me, I wasn’t totally clueless. My parents, grandparents, and some of the saints I’m remembering today, worked hard to teach me the difference between right and wrong. They taught me that I should always try to do good, but that they and God would always love me and would forgive me when I messed up.

“To surrender,” in that context, was almost synonymous with asking for forgiveness.

“I surrender all to you, Jesus. Please forgive me for the wrong that I have done, the sins that I have committed.”

I can picture myself sitting in Sunday School circa 1982 in a hand-me-down suit with a clip on tie, bowing my head and praying a prayer that sounded a whole lot like that.

Maybe you have similar memories about the beginnings of your faith journey–baisc lessons, simple lessons, about Jesus’s love and the power of forgiveness.

That’s not a bad place to start, but our faith, like our understanding of self, grows and changes over time.

So does our understanding of life’s complexities and the web of motivations that often leave us confused, broken, and adrift.

If only the challenges and stresses of life were always about the decisions we make when faced with clear cut choices between right and wrong, then maybe we’d have a shot at figuring things out.

Instead, despite our best efforts, we often make a mess of things, hurt the people we love, and find ourselves discovering, like Saint Paul, that ”we can will what is right, but we cannot do it.” (Romans 7:18)

Our understanding of surrender, therefore, should change and evolve, too.

You see, it’s not that surrender isn’t about forgiveness, it’s just more than that.

Surrender is an inner disposition, a spiritual posture.

It’s not unlike the way Jesus talks about the crosses that he and his disciples must carry.

If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16:24-25)

Now it is, of course, true that Jesus’ death on a cross is a catalyst for and a sign of the forgiveness offered by God to all people.

But, as Jesus reveals in these words from the Gospel, carrying crosses is just as much about how he lived as it is how he died.

Carrying the cross is a way of life that is deeply rooted in selflessness, in sacrifice, in love, in surrender.

If you ever start studying about how Christians understand surrender, you will soon find yourself reading memoirs and reflections written by people who are working the 12-steps of recovery and sobriety.

There’s something about realizing your old way of doing things has led to rock bottom that can really make you consider an alternative operating system.

Holly Whitaker is one such writer.

She addresses the evolution of her thoughts about surrender in her memoir “Quit Like a Woman”

Whitaker writes,

I’d always considered the word surrender to be blasphemous. Surrender was never a possibility to consider; it wasn’t something self-respecting, self-reliant folk like me do—we scheme around and bulldoze through whatever stands in our way. That all changed, abruptly, on that day in 2012 when I finally ran out of options and did the thing I thought I could never do—concede.

Whitaker was struggling with depression, bulimia, and alcohol, among other things–but grief can take you to that moment, so can any kind of trauma–a job loss, a breakup, stress about money–anything that makes you feel like life is spinning out of control, slipping from your grasp, or shattering into a million pieces.

Experience shows that many paths have led people to the moment of surrender.

Considering this, Whitaker continues,

In A Return to Love, Marianne Williamson says,…“The moment of surrender is not when life is over. It’s when it begins.” It is entirely cliché, but this was exactly my experience. The moment I finally let my knees hit the floor was when I finally stopped playing at life, and every bit of good that’s come to me since then stems from this reversal of opinion on surrender. (The Power of Surrender — Center for Action and Contemplation)

In much the same way, rockstar Bono describes his friend and bandmate Adam Clayton’s sobriety as “long obedience in the same direction,” saying, “I’ve had the honor of watching “surrender” work through this man’s remarkable life and times. I’ve watched this most elusive word become flesh in a series of good decisions that gave Adam back his life.” (Surrender, p. 540)

Surrender is long obedience in the same direction.

It takes our knees to the floor so that we stop playing at life and really live.

It becomes flesh, in us, through a series of good decisions.

It’s what Jesus is talking about when he invites us to take up our cross and follow him.

If you and I are to be useful and effective like the salt of the earth–if Asbury Church is going to make the lives of people all around us better–then we need to discover the wisdom, beauty, and power of surrendering ourselves to God’s love, to God will, to God’s grace.

We need to learn what it means truly to sing, “All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.”

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Image: Dubravko Sorić SoraZG on Flickr, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Improper Estimates of My Importance (Luke 18:9-14)

It’s the week of Halloween, so I thought I’d begin this morning with a chapter from my favorite ghost story, Dante’s Divine Comedy.

The Divine Comedy is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri (Al-uh-geary) in the 14th century. Like the ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah, it is a story shaped by exile—the reality of Dante’s political exile from his hometown–Florence, Italy–and of the more common experience of losing one’s way in life—a sentiment expressed beautifully and memorably in the poem’s opening lines.

Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path. (I.1-3)

For Dante, the journey back to the “straight path” was an imaginative trek through the afterlife which, inspired by his 14th century Catholic faith, included a slog through Hell, an ascent through Purgatory, and, ultimately, a vision of God’s glory with an assist from the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Along the way, he meets and converses with souls numbered among the damned and souls counted among the saved—learning, accordingly, of their pain and torment, their joy and peace.

The Divine Comedy is one of history’s greatest literary works and, although a masterpiece of fiction, insofar as it points its readers to deep realities of life and faith, it is true.

Take for example Dante’s emphasis on the problem with pride.

Dante wove warnings about pride throughout his work, but there’s a particularly memorable scene in volume one, The Inferno.

Travelling through the region where the proud and violent received their punishments, while Dante and his guide, the Roman poet Virgil, were making their way across the ghastly River Styx, a tormented spirit reached up from the muck and mire to block their way.

Shockingly, Dante recognized the “slimy shape” of a figure. It was one of his family’s most bitter rivals, the man who had taken Dante’s home and possessions when he was forced into exile, the same man who worked to ensure the poet would never be welcomed in Florence again.

Dante wasn’t exactly moved with pity by his old foe’s miserable condition and he shouted a curse.

“May you weep and wail, stuck here in this place forever, you damned soul, for, filthy as you are, I recognize you.”

With that, the spirit reached out his arms and advanced, as if to pull Dante into Hell’s river, too, but Virgil pushed him aside, and left him howling with rage.

In the aftermath of the encounter, Virgil, noticing that Dante still had a lot to learn about pride, underscored the moment’s significance by sharing with his charge a bit of wisdom.

Offering Dante a blessing, Virgil said,

In the world this man was filled with arrogance, and nothing good about him decks his memory; for this, his shade is filled with fury here. Many in life esteem themselves great men who then will wallow here like pigs in mud, leaving behind them their repulsive fame. (VIII.46-51)

Like history’s best ghost stories, Dante has a way of using suspense and twisted imagery to deliver his message.

In this case, he uses a once proud Florentine left raging in Hell to bring to mind words Jesus spoke about pride.

“All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

That was the main idea behind the parable Jesus told about two people praying in the Temple.

Here’s how Luke recounts that story.

[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

Now what you and I need to understand is that the Pharisees were generally regarded to be devout and meticulous followers of the Jewish law. They also detested the Romans and, for that reason, had a very low opinion of tax collectors, who were Jews who aligned themselves with the Romans in order to get rich by collecting taxes from other Jews.

Pharisees, therefore, judged tax collectors to be greedy, morally corrupt sellouts and traitors.

In other words, Jesus set up his story with an easily identifiable good guy and a bad guy.

Or so it seemed.

The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man [the tax collector] went down to his home justified rather than the other, for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14)

I like how Eugene Peterson paraphrases this final verse.

He writes,

Jesus commented, "If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself." (The Message)

If you’re familiar with the stories that Jesus tells, then you’ll recognize this as an example of the kind of plot twist that Jesus loves.

He has a way of upending our preconceived notions of how situations are going to play out, how people and even God, for that matter, are going to respond.

In this parable—the case of a pious rule follower versus someone who was willing to cash in their virtue in order to make a profit—the storyline seems so predictable at first.

But what Jesus reveals is that there were things going on within these characters that weren’t so obvious.

One had a proud and arrogant heart and was so satisfied to compare himself with others that he didn’t even know how serious his condition was.

On the other hand, I’m not sure that the tax collector even saw the Pharisee in the Temple with him, and even if he did, it just didn’t matter.

He had more important business to attend to.

He was in the Temple because somewhere, somehow, he had learned how important it was to take a good hard look at himself, and when he did, he did not like what he saw.

“God,” he prayed, “be merciful to me, a sinner!”

The tax collector knew that "if you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face."

You and I are heirs to a Methodist movement that placed a high priority on following the tax collector’s humble example and of doing the work of self-reflection that leads to confession and to a deeper experience of God’s grace.

An entry from the journal of our church’s namesake, Francis Asbury, demonstrates his commitment to such practices.

There Asbury discloses,

I am not so humble as I should be; and it may be I am in danger of forming improper estimates of my importance…My body is weak, but my mind is kept in peace: I desire to trust God with my body and soul.

May we be so attentive to the “improper estimates of our importance” that stroke our egos and fuel our pride.

Like the tax collector in Jesus’ story, like the room to grow Virgil saw in Dante, like Asbury and all others who show us the way of holiness, we aim to be and to see who we truly are so that we might become what we are meant to be.

This brings us back to another memorable moment from Dante’s ghost story.

After making his way through the Inferno, Dante began to ascend a great mountain.

Leaving perdition behind, he now encountered the songs and prayers of the redeemed.

It was a totally different scene, one filled with music, art, and color, but the souls Dante encountered there revealed the greatest difference of all.

Pilgrims on this mountain were honest, humble, and willing to take responsibility for their own actions.

This was where the weight of pride was cast off, and it was there that Dante’s growing edge finally burst through.

Breaking down the wall between author and audience, he delivered a message that is as relevant in our day as it was in his.

O prideful Christians! Sluggish and miserable. Your inner vision is distorted, and you put your trust in things that hold you back from God. Think of this, instead: we are worms now, but each of us will be transformed into a heavenly butterfly that soars upward to God. (Purgatorio, X.121-126)

You and I must aim to be and to see who we truly are so that we might become what we are meant to be.

Jesus said, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

May we forever be counted among those who see God’s love and our hope in his words.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Image: Cuyos, Stephen. Humbled, exalted, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.