Tag Archives: Liberty

Advent(ure) Time

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Isaiah 61.1-4, 8-11

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion – to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the plant of the Lord, to display his glory. They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with garland, and as a bride adorns herself with jewels. For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations. 

Two weeks ago, on the first Sunday of Advent, my family and I loaded ourselves into the car to drive around and check out the early Christmas Lights. We figured that there would either be only a handful of houses with any indication of the Holiday spirit, or because this has been the craziest year in recent memory that we would luck out with some incredible displays.

So we drove and we drove, and we saw all the staples: The LED projection of green snowflakes frantically circling around on the siding of a house, the dangling and frenetically flashing bulbs adorning the lowest limbs of trees, and we even saw a giant inflatable rainbow unicorn.

But the best house, the Clark Griswold house, was only a block away. I passed it on a run earlier in the week and knew we had to see it in all its electric, and eclectic glory. For, unlike houses with similar color schemes or even thematic connections throughout the lawn, this house had a little bit of everything.

None of the light strands matched any of the others.

There were six different Santa Clauses of every shape, size, and variety.

An inflatable Snoopy was, apparently, keeping watch over the pre-lit reindeer.

And, to cap it all off, there was a blimp floating in mid-air with penguins parachuting to the ground like they were in the middle of a holiday invasion.

And yet, even with all its glory, I couldn’t help but wonder what Isaiah, or Luke, or even John the Baptist would make of all our holiday pageantry. Because, chances are they would be horrified to see the ways we’ve trivialized the turning of the cosmos.

I don’t mean to sound too harsh, I too have lights up on the house, with a Christmas tree standing in the front window with far too many presents already wrapped and under the tree. 

But we need to know, all of us, that these things, with all of their safe and sanitized renderings, may actually prevent us from seeing, hearing, knowing, and believing what the Lord has come to do. 

The audience for this Advent text from Isaiah are those forced to the margins of life, the last, least, lost, little, and dead. They are, strangely enough, words of hope for people who feel no hope. They are words meant to comfort a people who feel no comfort in the world.

Even all these centuries later, this proclamation is aimed toward the afflicted, the brokenhearted, the captives, the mourners.

From those locked up in physical prisons, to those who feel imprisoned by their situations, Isaiah speaks to those who know not what tomorrow will bring.

It might feel or even seem bizarre, but this passage is also meant for people like us, those who are willing to wake up and live-stream a worship service on their phones, iPads, and computers on a Sunday morning.

Most of us move through life without giving too much thought to whatever it is we are wading through. Worship, blessedly, offers us opportunities to reflect on the here and the now, and we are challenged to imagine the not yet, the more of God’s design. 

And we do this because who among us is truly content with our current circumstances?

Right now we are seeing more and more people kicked out of their homes and apartments because they simply can’t put together the money necessary because the bottom third of our economy is crumbling.

Right now parents are preparing to wake up with their children on Christmas morning without a single present under the non-existent tree.

Right now we are being warned that gatherings of more than ten people will most likely result in the most devastating of Januarys in which we will be burying more people than any of us are used to – 5 of the top 10 most deadly days in American history have all happened within the last week.

And, in the midst of all of this, most of us flock to the sentimentalities that hopefully distract us from the truth. 

But when has that ever worked?

Whether we like it or not, our lives are bombarded with calls of such frightening frequency to make the best with what we’ve got that we no longer know what it is to hope.

And thus speaks Isaiah: The spirit of God is with me and I’ve been commanded to bring good news to a people drowning in bad news, to announce freedom to those who are trapped, and to break down the walls of prisons, it’s time for jubilee. We shall comfort those who mourn and give them garlands instead of ashes. They will be like tall trees for the Lord, steadfast and glorious. All the ruins shall be remade and the devastations of previous generations will be rectified. For I the Lord love justice!

God, through Isaiah, speaks to those who live in the world wondering if it has anything more to offer. It is received by those in worship who don’t know whether or not to hope for more. And, it is also spoken to those (though we know not how they will hear) who stopped coming to church long ago because they’ve given up hoping for anything else.

Listen – God has arrived; God shows up. God has taken action in the world to bring about a reality that we could scarcely come up with in our wildest dreams. And God’s work in the world is downright political – prisoners are getting released, reparations are being made to those who have been wronged, justice is for all.

It’s the time for jubilee in which debts are forgiven, punishments are lifted, and rectification reigns supreme. 

God has, and is, turning the world upside down such that all of the empty streets of our too-comfortable neighborhoods are being transfigured into festivals of joy.

Why?

We were slaves in Egypt but God showed up and intervened – delivered us from bondage into the Promised land. Sure, we were content with what we had back there, at least in slavery we got three meals a day and clean water to drink and it only cost us our first born children! But God said there was more for us than Egypt-land.

We were slaves to sin and death but God showed up and intervened – delivered us from our miserable estate into salvation. Sure, we were fine with the way things were, so much so that when Jesus started talking about the first being last and the last being first we nailed him to the cross. But God said there was more for us than all of this.

God is in the business of intervention – an intrusion that will bring forth new life and halt our relentless march toward dust.

There have been many divine interventions – Exodus, Calvary, The Upper Room, The Empty Tomb.

And without those interventions of the Lord there is no hope and there is no “more.”

But God is the God of impossible possibility, who makes a way where there is no way, who delights in bringing something out of nothing.

God says through the prophet Isaiah, “Even in circumstances of the worst imaginings, captivity and imprisonment and mourning, this is not the end; there will always be more.”

Do we deserve it?

Nope.

Can we earn it?

Nope.

In the end, the gospel isn’t about being good – it’s about being rescued. It’s not about being safe – it’s about being saved. 

For, there is nothing safe about the Lord. Isaiah speaks a word beyond the present, beyond the status quo, where there is actual Good News, where there is true liberty, where we wear garlands instead of ashes.

And it’s downright dangerous.

Consider the vision the Isaiah proclaims: It truly is an inversion of the ways things are for the way things should be. A world without prisons or borders or hunger or suffering. 

To many that sounds more like chaos than paradise.

But, in the church we call this apocalyptic – Bible talk about the more beyond the now. 

Isaiah’s apocalyptic proclamation is what taught Mary, the mother of God, how to sing:

“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy.”

When we come to church (even online) and are exposed to the words of Isaiah and Mary and so many others we are beckoned out beyond the world of predictability and into another world, a world of more, or risk, of gift.

In short, we’re given hope for things not yet seen.

And that hope, as noted, is a dangerous one, for good reason – just look at what happened to Jesus. Advent is the time between time in which we wait not only for the baby born in the manger, but also for the return of that baby-born-King who is the great I AM. 

God is not done with this world and God is not done with us. 

After all, these words of eschatological rendering don’t just describe the world – they re-create the world. It is a world made open in which the old foundations are destroyed in order for something new and something more to take their place.

Imagine – the lowliest of the low raised to the highest heights, the brokenhearted bound up in love, the captives set free, the prisoners released, no more debts, no more pain, no more suffering, no more death.

This is what God desires for us and for the world. 

And, make no mistake, this is God’s work – the history of humanity has shown over and over again that we are incapable of rescuing ourselves from the forces that weigh us down. The great Good News of Isaiah’s declaration is that God will set everything right once and for all. God will end war forever. 

God will bring down the mighty and raise up the last, least, lost, little, and dead. 

God will overthrow the pride of the smug and the arrogant.

God will engulf the cosmos in a blaze of righteousness that will consume everything in us that needs to be burned away.

God has more in store for us than all of this.

And yet, we go forth from church (or from our couches as the case may be) and there are the same arguments around the dinner table, the same anxieties about our ever-shrinking bank accounts, the same blue Mondays will break in the morning. 

We are not the world of God’s more.

At least, not yet.

For we all still sit in the shadow of sin, of our choices that result in the world looking more like our kingdom and less like God’s kingdom. We are so captivated by the ways things have been that we can scarcely imagine what they could be. We assume the world runs by debt and punishment all while God exists to show grace and mercy.

In spite of the condition of our condition, Isaiah has given us the possibility to be aware of a new world with new hope and new possibilities and new dreams and new hunger for something else, something more. 

The church gives us the vision to see how watered down our versions of the Kingdom have been and it gives us the thirst for the new wine that intoxicates us with grace. 

The church opens us up to the strange new world of the Bible where God exists not only with us but for us.

The church envelops us into the body of Christ where we are bound to and with one another for the sake of the already but not yet.

In short: The church gives us the Gospel, the Good News.

The very best worship services are those from which we go forth not to more of the same, but to more of the name that is above all names: Jesus the Christ. For, in him, we begin to see that the Good News really is good

A number of years ago, a rather famous theologian was in the middle of a lecture about the early church when a bright eyed and bushy tailed student raised his hand and said, “Professor, I don’t understand. If the early Christians were suffering daily, why did they stay committed to the cause?”

The professor did not hesitate before answering, “They kept the faith because the Gospel is an adventure; the Gospel is fun.”

Advent is actually an adventure – it reminds us that we are caught up in God’s great story and we have the good fortune of being characters in the epic-tale. It is an adventure because it is still unfolding, it is not over, greater things are just on the horizon. 

In the Kingdom of God that is the adventure without end, there is always more to come. Amen.

Give Me Liberty And Give Me Death

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Luke 14.15-24

One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Then Jesus said to him, “Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ And the salve said, ‘Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’ Then the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’”

I wrote three versions of this sermon.

In the first version I, the preacher, encouraged you, the listener, to imagine yourself as a party host. You worked diligently to prepare a feast, ordered the perfect set of invitations, and you even hired a wine sommelier just to make sure everything was in harmony. For months you laid awake at night not worrying about the extravaganza itself, but imagining all the profoundly kind compliments you were about to receive.

And then, as the day of the shindig got closer and closer, the RSVPs started to arrive and with every “No” your heart started to sink deeper and deeper until you realized that no one, not a single invitee, would be coming.

You fretted over what to do next. After all, you had spent a small fortune to set the whole thing up and you couldn’t just return everything. You began calling all your family members, and knocking on the doors of all your neighbors, but it still wasn’t enough. It got to the point that, like a crazy person, you started yelling at people on the street demanding that they come to your party.

But, it wasn’t a very good sermon. It wasn’t a very good sermon because it made all of you, the listeners, out to be like God. You became the divine party host and when no one showed up, it just left you with a bit of rage.

And where’s the Good News in that?

In the second version I, the preacher, encouraged you, the listener, to imagine yourself as one of the invited guests. You received an invitation in the mail to a very posh party and though you were initially excited about the prospect of attending, you quickly realized that the celebration would be an impossibility.

You knew that it would not be responsible to accept such a grand invitation and you thought about how it was all really such a waste. You pictured in your mind all of the hungry children across the globe and you just shuddered with the thought of such delicious food in the midst of a broken world like ours.

So you came up with a list of reasons why you would not be attending. For some of you it was because of your spouse. For others you had responsibilities in the home that could not be overlooked. And still yet a few more of you simply lied because you had better things to do.

But that one wasn’t a very good sermon either. It wasn’t a good sermon because when all of you found out about the lengths the host went to to make sure the party was full in your absence, you weren’t really jealous. I mean, he invited all of the delinquents and riffraff from the community; who would want to go to a party with those people? You became satisfied by your excuses and patted yourselves on the back for a job well done.

And where’s the Good News in that?

The third version was my favorite. In it I, the preacher, encouraged you, the listener, to imagine that you had no business attending the party in the first place. You were down on your luck, worrying about how to pay your bills, fretting over your child’s grades, overwhelmed by domestic trivialities. And all the while you saw the host preparing for the party. You witnessed truck after truck bringing in the wine and beer, you saw the caterers lugging in all of their equipment, and when the day of the party arrived you could hear the live band playing all of your favorite songs and yet, you weren’t invited.

And then, miracle of miracles, the host came and knocked on your front door, grabbed you by the collar, and started dragging you to the party. And, because you were full of humility, you pleaded with the host to realize the mistake he was making. You didn’t deserve to be at the party, you would never be able to return the favor, and you really didn’t even have anything nice to wear.

To which the host simply waved his hand and told you to raid the closets at his house and take whatever clothes you wanted. The party simply must be full and he didn’t give a flip about who you were, he just wanted you to be there.

And so you went, and you had the time of your life. You ate, and drank, and danced. You fraternized with people who never would have give you the time of day. And the longer you partied, the more people started showing up. And they, like you, had sparkles in their eyes because something like this was beyond all of your wildest imaginations. 

And that sermon, that sermon was a good one. It was good because it spoke truly about the ridiculousness of grace, how unmerited it is, how we, even up to the moment we receive it, make excuses for why we shouldn’t be the ones to get it. And I almost preached that sermon – one long story about being dragged to a party that you didn’t deserve to attend – it was going to end with the host bringing out another case of wine as the sun rose in the east and everyone trotting back out onto the dance floor to do it all over again.

But I’m not preaching that sermon.

Nope.

I’m not preaching it because the Good News sounds too good.

Goodnews word on vintage broken car license plates, concept sign

Jesus is still at the dinner table when our scripture for today begins. He has already healed a man much to the chagrin of everyone else at the party, he has called everyone out for wanting to sit in the best places, and he just commanded them to invite the wrong people to their own parties when someone inexplicably stands up to shout, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.”

The comment sounds like the man is mocking Jesus. As in, “No one is going to buy whatever you’re selling. Blessed would be anyone, and apparently everyone in your kingdom Jesus, but that ain’t the way it works.”

And Jesus won’t stand for it.

What the interrupting man doesn’t know, what he can’t know, is that the very kingdom of God he referenced was sitting right there at the table with him, and none of them want it. They don’t want to eat bread in the kingdom if it means what Jesus was describing. They had all worked too hard to get where they were, and it doesn’t sound like good news when the first are told that they are going to be last.

So Jesus jumps into another story. 

A man had invited many to his awesome party. Everyone had already responded to the card in the mail, but when the day of arrived, they were no-shows. Each of the guests, in their own way, said, “Hey Lord, I’ll spend time with you later. But right now, I’ve got other things to take care of.”

And all of the people at the table hearing Jesus’ story, are like the people in the parable with their excuses – they had pursed the sensible paths, they were what we could call successful, and Jesus tells them, to their faces, that it is precisely all their pursuing that keeps them from the party.

For this crazy Lord of ours, the one we worship and adore, he has no use for winners, people only concerned with their own definitions of what it means to do and to win in this life. So instead of bringing all of the right people to the party, the host, Jesus, goes out looking for all the wrong people. 

One way or another, the host will fill the tables – the food will be eaten – the drinks will be consumed – the band will be enjoyed. 

It sounds too good to be true but this is the gospel: the losers of life are the winners at God’s table. On a day when they woke up expecting nothing, or worse, they rise to a new way of being that surpasses even the people who first received their invitation. 

The last, least, lost, little, and dead never get invited to parties because they run counter to everything the world tells us to do.

But in the kingdom of God, lastness, leastness, lostness, littleness, and deadness are all Jesus is looking for.

As Jesus has been saying again and again and again throughout all of these parables in different ways, shapes, and forms, you and I don’t get to earn our spot at the party. There’s no to-do list to get in. 

Parables-of-Jesus

In this particular parable none of the people who had a right to be at the party came, and all of the people who came had no right to be there. Nothing in the kingdom has anything to do with rights; God is going to deal with us in spite of our deservings, not according to them.

And that just gets under our skin, or, worse, we completely ignore it. We’re so accustom to a way of being about earning and rewarding that free grace sounds irresponsible or too good to be true. 

But hear this, hear it in all of its craziness and bizarreness: Grace works by raising the dead – not by rewarding the living. 

This story from the lips of Jesus is about liberty. Not liberty from monarchy like so many of us celebrated this week with our food and fun and fireworks. But a liberty from all of the labeling that comes about in this life. Liberty from the truest tyranny that the world has ever known – sin and death.

This party of Jesus’, the parable of the host dragging in people from the street, it shows us how God in Christ gives us liberty in death. It even shows us how free we really are right now for we have been baptized into Jesus’ death. 

Or, at least, it shows us how free we should be.

Because most of us aren’t, myself included. I too am shackled to the expectations of the world, of the need and the desire to appear first even when I am really last. The need and desire to appear wealthy even when I’m in debt. The need and desire to seem as if I’ve got it all figured out even when I really have no idea what I’m doing.

I want to be a winner, but Jesus saves losers.

I want to be first, but Jesus is for the last.

I want to be in control of my life, but Jesus wants me to die.

Jesus wants me and you and all of us to die to all of these overwhelming expectations we place on ourselves and on others. Jesus tells these stories to break down all of the labels we throw around and to show how salvation, our salvation, has already been figured out. 

Jesus turns things upside down. The whole gospel is one topsy turvy tumbling narrative. The chosen people of this world, the privileged, the powerful, the righteous, the religious, the pious, they will not be the ones filling up the dance floor because they often ignore the invitation.

But at God’s party, it’s those of us who’ve been crippled by our sin, blinded by our shame, and made lame by our guilt who eat, and drink, and dance. We do so precisely because we were a bunch of outsiders and nobodies who never thought we had a chance in the world.

God desires a full house – God wants the party to be bumpin’ – and we’re all invited. Amen. 

Devotional – 1 Corinthians 8.9

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Devotional:

1 Corinthians 8.9

But take care that this liberty of your does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.

Weekly Devotional Image

When I graduated from High School, my family put together a big party in the backyard and invited a ton of people. All of the usual suspects were in attendance: relatives, neighbors, and family friends. But my parents also extended a handful of invitations to my favorite teachers. And of all the teachers I had, my very favorite was my band director.

Mr. Rice was everything you could have wanted in a teacher. He was intelligent, funny, and easy to talk to. He made studying, and performing music, an absolute joy. Because of his commitment to his discipline, and his ability to lead and engage his students, some of my fondest memories from high school are of sitting in the band room playing music.

So I was in my parents’ backyard, celebrating my graduation from High School, when Mr. Rice walked around the corner. I remember the immense pride I felt in that moment, and not just for graduating, but also for the fact that he took the time to come celebrate with us.

As the afternoon wore on, people came and went, and Mr. Rice continued to mingle among the crowd, always keeping his right hand down by his side. He was someone who always spoke with both arms flying about (as if he were conducting) so it stood out that one arm remained unmoved. Finally, I had a chance to ask him about it and I noticed that he was holding a beer bottle, wrapped in five napkins, hidden down by his side. At first I thought he was hiding the drink because he was embarrassed, or worried it wasn’t allowed, and then I just decided to ask what the deal was. And I’ll never forget what he said: “I don’t want to become a stumbling block to others. Particularly my students.”

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Mr. Rice was there to rejoice with us, but he was also cognizant of the role he was still playing regardless of the location and occasion. There were plenty of high school students in the backyard and he didn’t not want them to make some assumption that because he was drinking, that it would be okay for them to do so as well. Mr. Rice, even in the midst of a party, remembered who he was, and the impact he had on us.

To this day I give thanks to God for placing Mr. Rice into my life. I learned a lot from him, and not just about music. From his witness I learned about the virtues of kindness, hope, and patience. Through his leadership I learned what it means to listen and to guide. And above all, he taught me what it means to carry myself in such a way that I won’t become a stumbling block to others.