Text: Psalm 63:1-8

Lutheran World Relief is an admirable organization that provides help for hungry, impoverished, or devastated people all over the world. They know that God calls them to help those who need help, and they are dedicated to do so effectively and efficiently. This church, Faith, and individuals in it have supported them by giving them money. I think they are great.

In a recent issue of their newsletter, the president of Lutheran World Relief offered what he called a devotional. “A Christian Devotion,” is what the article was called. In it, the president talked about how his organization hears the cries of the suffering, said that evil is real and sorrow inevitable, told a little story from his personal life, and ended by quoting Luther. It was a nice article. Encouraging and hopeful. But how was it devotional? How would we have known? If the newsletter had not labeled it “A Christian Devotion,” how would we have recognized it as anything different than a reflection by this good man on the need to help others? Or is that the same thing as a devotional? What does that mean anyway? What is devotion?

Devoted, devout, devotion. All related words. But not too specific. People say things like “he’s devoted to his mother,” or “she’s devoted to her husband,” or “she’s devoted to her job—she comes home late and works hard.” Or “he is devoted to his political party” or “devoted to an idea.” Paul Farmer is devoted to the people of Haiti and the idea of providing them medical care otherwise not available. Are devotion to parent, spouse, employer, calling—are they all the same? We say that a dog is devoted to his owner. How about that? Is that the same thing, too?

Lutherans in the past have been a little nervous about the word “devotion.” That is because there have been battles in the past about whether Lutherans should be more or less interested in doctrine or more or less interested in one’s relationship with God. Especially if that relationship has anything to do with an emotional attachment to God. Which a devotion to God certainly does. But whether you are somber or passionate, an emotional attachment to God is part of your faith, even if you are Lutheran.

Someone wrote about today’s psalm that it is “one of the truly great pieces of devotional writing in all of human history.” This psalm is all about the relationship people have with God. Or to be more exact, what one person has. “People” is too general here. This is about a person and God. About, if you choose to make it so, about you and God.

The word “devotion” hardly appears in the Bible. But a devotional life has been part of people’s response to God since way before Jesus. Anything that starts out “My God, you are my God,”—that’s devotional. Anything that starts out like a letter to God written from the heart—that’s devotional. Scripture, poem, prayer, or thought, it does not matter.

Devotion has been fundamental to Christian experience. It is both something on which our faith stands and, at the same time, something that is a result of what we do in our faith. It is a pre-requisite and a perquisite. We need it to give power and energy and patience to our Christian life, but it is also a benefit of that life.

Devotion is a word that describes a kind of intense relationship. It does not have to be a happy one. Someone who is devoted to his or her dying spouse does not have to be thrilled about it. Someone who is devoted to his or her job or calling usually has good days and bad days. Same with devotion to God. But it is still devotion.

Devotion, to God or otherwise, has two attributes that are key. The first is that it is other-centered. That is, if you are devoted to another, that other person is the center of your life. Not necessarily all of your life, but the focus of its attention. What you think about in the idle times, the things you wake up wondering about, the mental reminder notes you write yourself.

The second attribute of devotion is that it changes you. It changes the way you act and it changes the way you see. Toward the object of your devotion you are more attentive, expectant, and patient. People sometimes say of someone’s devotion: “I don’t see how you can put up with that.” “That” being some difficult condition, or demand, or effort. But it does not matter; devotion uses some other calculation.

When we are devoted to something or someone, we see them differently than others do or than we ourselves did before. We see ourselves, perhaps, more as servants than as served. More humble. More generous to others. Our hopes become both less grandiose and at the same time more likely to be met. “I hope I can make a difference here.” “I hope I can be with her until the end.” “I hope to be at peace with my life.”

Psalm 63—this great piece of devotional writing—paints a picture of the devoted life. It tells us what we might expect when we are devoted to God, who is the object of devotion here, and hints at ways we might strengthen that devotion.

The protagonist in this psalm—what religious folks call the “psalmist”—the psalmist can hardly stand it. He or she feels a deep longing toward God that is so powerful that the psalmist faints in desire. This is how you feel when you first become infatuated with someone. You can hardly stand up. A glimpse of that person, a voice, makes your insides go all crazy. The protagonist needs God just as desperately as a starving person needs food or water—more so. As much as an insomniac needs sleep. “Your love is better than life,” it says.

The psalmist seeks God out in church, in the sanctuary, where God is likely, one hopes, to be found. He or she speaks aloud to others about God—“my mouth praises you with joyful lips.” The psalmist tells God what’s going on: I bless you, I praise you, I life up my hands to you. God, you are great. God, you are my God.

And in the end it comes down this: the object of your devotion is worthy of it, and worthy of your trust, and that you consider yourself worthy to be devoted. In the end, the writer of the psalm sings out in joy. “My soul clings to you, your hand upholds me.”

It is these kinds of words, these powerful and radiant words, that has made Lutherans queasy. It sounds pretty emotional. It sounds pretty pious.

And so it is. But our quest is the quest for the ultimate. It comes from our whole selves (what the psalm calls soul) and from our bodies (what the psalm calls flesh). People rarely show up in church because of, or only because of, intellect and right thinking. They show up because they want to know God. The words of the psalm are over the top. Good. We want some of that.

How do we get there? There is a chicken and the egg nature to devotion. Devotion leads to acts that bind us together with the person, the thing, God, to whom we are devoted. At the same time, acts of devotion—worship, kindness, mindfulness, patience, praise—lead to powerfully connected relationships.

It is blessed for us that this is a virtuous cycle. It grows on you. Devotion is not a feeling. It is a practice. And like other Christian practices—prayer, charity, compassion—it takes practice. The husband was not the devoted nurse at the start. The worker was not devoted to her job at the start. The psalmist, probably, did not go weak in the knees at the start.

Devotion is an intense and intimate relationship. But it begins with small steps. The psalm teaches us. Send God messages from your heart. This Lent, may we open each day, praying: My God, you are my God. I seek you. And may we end each day: My spirit is content.

Text: Luke 13:31-35

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

From time to time the relationship between God and people has been tumultuous and troubled. I can’t speak for how God views it, but people seem to have mixed feelings. We are often of two minds. The first mind welcomes—calls for—God’s involvement in our lives. We are grateful to God, and we bring to our relationship reverence, thanksgiving, and praise. The second mind finds God to be at best irrelevant and at worst demanding, interfering, and difficult to live with. In the Bible, which is the story of God and us, this on-again off-again relationship starts in the Garden of Eden and carries right on through. And up to the present.

The complaint Jesus makes about Jerusalem—and its habit of killing the prophets who are sent to it—is just one more episode in this conflicted story.

In one sense the passage is not about Jesus at all. It is about God’s role in history and the prophets who try to speak for God to an uninterested or antagonistic audience. When Jesus quotes psalm 117—blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord—the question is not so much whether the blessed one is Jesus. That is, we know that someone is blessed, but is Jesus the one? The question is whether this man, this prophet, is blessed or otherwise. That is, we see this man, but is he really blessed or not? If the people answer Yes, then they are acknowledging that God is speaking to them through Jesus. And Christians would say that God is even appearing to them. But the track record is not good; Jerusalem is not often willing to grant God’s voice. If ever.

This is not too shocking. The role of any prophet is to be in conflict with the powers and principalities. The whole point of a prophet—including and especially Jesus—is to preach and act against the prevailing systems of power that have forgotten God. It is not surprising the Jerusalem kills prophets sent its way. Jerusalem in its day was like a combination of New York City and Washington DC. A city of commerce and government. Why would they welcome someone who told them that God was on their case and had a few things to tell them?

What Jerusalem had forgotten was that the city owed its entire existence to God. The whole of Israel, the nation, came as a gift from God. Starting with God’s promise to Abraham, who is called Abram when we first meet him in Genesis, God makes covenants, or agreements, with Israel. “I am the Lord who brought you out of [your birthplace] to give you this land to possess.” You are my people, says God repeatedly. This is your land that I give to you and that I bless for your use. Over and over in this passage the word is repeated: give, gift. “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying ‘to your descendant I give this land.’” And the land God is talking about is the land in which Jerusalem, by the time of Jesus a thriving metropolis, sits.

But Jerusalem has forgotten. It has taken the land, the city, the gift of life, for granted. It goes its own way. And when God reminds them, it puts God’s voices to death.

So in another sense this passage is all about Jesus. What can be more personal than a contract out on you, a price on your head? One can speak in general of prophets and their troubles, but the prophet in this case is someone particular. It is Jesus. Herod wants to kill you, claim the Pharisees. You, Jesus, in particular, is the one they are talking about. Jesus has just told the people in power that they won’t be there for long. The last will be first and the first last, they have heard him say. Not pleasing words to those who are now first. And he has a bad attitude. Jesus in Luke has a confident arrogant swagger that we today might admire, but that I’m sure the officials of his day did not. I must, he rebuts the Pharisees, I must go to Jerusalem, who kills the prophets like me. But not right this minute. I am busy. Casting out demons and healing people. I’m busy today, and I’m busy tomorrow, and pretty much the day after. But then I’ll go.

Jesus preaches an astounding gospel. Especially in Luke. The good news is that the poor and the outcast will no longer be so. The rich and the powerful will not longer be so, but will be cast down from their thrones. He preaches that the vertical will become horizontal. That the relationships of power than go up and down will become level, a plain. In his sermon on the plain (its a plain in Luke, a mount in Matthew), he tells us not to judge, not to charge interest on loans, to give whenever and for whatever we are asked, to not try to recover what is taken from us. We do not, evidenced by our actions, take these words of Jesus seriously. We therefore should not condemn the people of Jerusalem too harshly, who like us simply equivocated and hedged when it came to the hard parts.

How I wished I could gather you, you people of Jerusalem, gather you to me as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. Jesus mourns. You were not willing. The chicks say no. They will not be embraced by mother Jesus. Why not? Why would they not accept their mama’s embrace?

There is a time when an embrace is all we need. Our parents’ arms around us to comfort us and make us feel protected. Little children, like chicks under the wing. But later we push away our parent’s embrace. It is embarrassing. We want to forget our mama. We are grown up and independent. And we have learned that our parents cannot save us. So thinks Jerusalem.

Yet after this adolescence, we again see the embrace to be the gift it can be. An expression of comfort, affection, condolence, hopefulness. A quiet and undemanding presence. Part of an eternal relationship. Is that what Jesus longs for in deadly Jerusalem?

Gratitude is the foundation of religion. Maybe it is possible to be spiritual without gratitude, but I’m not sure about that. Christians attach gratitude to an agent, to God. Gratitude is a first connection to God, and serves among other things to remind us who God is and what God has given us.

But we, like Jerusalem, forget God. Then our relationship with God gets into trouble. Then it is easy to think that there is nothing to be grateful for and no one to be grateful to. It is easy to think we owe God nothing. Rather than life, existence, everything.

I said at the beginning that I couldn’t speak to how God views our relationship, but that is not true. The story of the Bible, the story of us and God together, is a story of loyalty. On God’s part. Even when not on ours. You can hear this in the other readings for today and the psalm. God remains loyal to God’s people. God keeps the covenant. God constantly tries to make contact. God weeps for us and longs for us. God comes to be with us. With open wings.

Text: Luke 4:1-13

We are now 10% into the season of Lent. Lent is usually thought of mainly as the preface to Easter, much as Advent is thought of as the preface to Christmas. But like Advent, it is not just a prelude to something better. If the pleasure of the journey is its unfolding, then the worth of Lent is in the journey to which it invites us.

People have described Lent as a time of penitence and as a time of preparation. Historically and currently those are both accurate. But the word Lent in English has the same root as the word “lengthen,” as in the lengthening days. In Lent the days get longer, at least in the northern hemisphere. Lent is therefore not only lengthening but also lighten-ing, becoming lighter. The days are lighter as in they contain more light. And also, in the other sense, as Lent goes on, the spiritual load gets lighter, as in they get less ponderous. In the end—and we all know how the story turns out at Easter—we celebrate joyfully.

But we do not not start there. We do not start the journey there. We start the story with Jesus in the desert, led (as Luke says) or driven (as Mark says) there by the Holy Spirit. We start with Jesus famished in the desert.

Jesus is there a long time, which is what “forty days” means in the Bible. Forty means “long enough.” Long enough for whatever needs to happen to happen. It is clear that Jesus had to be in the desert. It is the first thing he does, after his baptism, in his adult ministry. He is guided by the Spirit. This is not, evidently, an optional step.

While there, Jesus is tempted or tested or tried—the word means all these things. But he is not tempted to wickedness and evil. He is presented with three temptations. None of them are diabolical. They are, all three, temptations to satisfy central human needs. The need for food or sustenance, the need for power or control, and the need for safety and security.

The devil offers Jesus bread. What do we need to sustain us? Food, plus shelter, clothing. Not everyone in the world has them. But don’t we want more? Medical care? Housing? Transportation? How about entertainment? Do we need a reserve to prepare for hard times? Do we need more than our daily bread? How much more? Perhaps a little more. Perhaps more than a little. And a place to store it. And perhaps a few luxuries. For fun. The devil offers freedom from want.

The devil offers Jesus authority. How much control over our own lives do we need? None of us want to be led, as the apostle Paul once wrote, tied to a rope held by someone else, or blown by the whims of an uncertain wind. To be slaves or servants of another. Should we not be masters of our own fates? And then perhaps master of a few others who threaten our fates. Shouldn’t we insure ourselves against circumstances? Shouldn’t we be self-reliant, self-sufficient? Not dependent on others. Neither a borrower or a lender be, says the proverb. Should we hedge our bets, protect our borders, maintain our fences? Shouldn’t we establish rules and codes and limits and order? The devil offers freedom from uncertainty.

The devil offers Jesus protection from harm. How safe do we need to be? Can we save ourselves from accident, stupidity, or evil? Can we identify all enemies? Can we ferret out all dangerous secrets? Can we preserve ourselves against all disease that threatens our bodies? How about against craziness, against mis-directed anger? How about against righteous anger? Can we protect ourselves from from love turned cold, from change of heart, from loss? The devil offers freedom from human pain.

The devil offers freedom from want, uncertainty, and pain. The things we fear the most. Any yet Jesus says three times: No! No. No. Three hard to refuse offers. Three instant rejections.

It is not that Jesus hates a full stomach, or stability, or safety. We need those things. Those are the things that God provides for us (as we heard in the all the other readings for today). The question is, first, whether the fear of not having those things seduces us more fervently than God does, and second, whether we trust God to provide them. We have many suitors for our loyalty, obedience, and attention. Who guides our life? We cannot say yes to God unless at some point we say no, as Jesus does in the desert, to God’s rivals for us. We need that desert time.

The desert is a place where there is nothing else. Just we and our thoughts. It is a metaphor for retreat, silence, meditation, and cleansing. We need time there. And Lent is a good and traditional time.

What is it about the desert?

The desert is far away. It is isolated from all the voices that call on us every minute to attend to them. Including our desires and our responsibilities.

The desert is empty. It has none of the shiny things that we usually have all around us. Things that are interesting, or falling apart, or need organizing or otherwise attending to.

In the desert we are unobserved. We are not required to please anyone (nor will we get their admiration). We are not required to be anyone, or to act in any special impressive, or polite, or outrageous way.

In the desert we are vulnerable. The quiet of the desert lets our thoughts come unimpeded. The harshness and limits of the desert test our comfort.

And finally, in the desert we are alone. We have only ourselves and God as companions. It is a good time for intimate, disturbing, renewing, and lengthy conversations.

This kind of removed, empty, unobserved, vulnerable, alone time is an important Christian practice. It is a prayer discipline and one of the traditional practices of Lent. Not literally time in the desert, though lots of people have done that, but more practically time that we reserve in our lives, weekly or daily, yearly, removed from the normal calendar.

The temptations of Jesus in the desert are temptations to deny our limits and our finite-ness. But the truth is that hunger, uncertainty, and pain are essential parts of the story of our lives. And the lives of all people. Our attempts to deny that induces in us a kind of sleepiness or depressive fuzziness in life. Desert prayer helps us remember what is true. It wakes us up. It makes our vision sharper.

The season of Lent is a season of repentance. The word means not so much remorse as a change of direction, a turning. But abstract repentance is meaningless. So Lenten disciplines—which are just everyday Christian disciplines, but we talk about them more pointedly—Lenten disciplines are tactics, rules of thumb, things that have worked for others who wish to change their lives. There are a handful. We’ll come across others during these weeks in Lent. But they all start, as it did for Jesus, in a desert place. It is evidently not optional. They all start with time enough in the desert.

Text: Luke 5:1-11

When you are introduced to a story in the Bible, it is a little like meeting someone for the first time. You wonder whether this person is going to be a life-long friend or more a friend-of-a-friend kind of person. In either case, first impressions are important. But in the case of life-long friends, first impressions often turn out to be wrong. Some of my best friends were idiots when I first met them. I’m sure the feeling was mutual. But now we see each other more deeply, we have had more shared experiences, and though the idiocy remains, the connection is much more rich, complicated, and respectful. This is true of scripture as much as it is true of people.

When you first meet this story in Luke, which seems to be about fishing and fishers, you might be impressed by different things. Certainly biblical scholars have. They do not agree. For example, you might think this passage was put together from three separate stories mashed together by a common marine theme. There is a story of Jesus teaching people. There is the story of a miraculous catch of fish. And there is the story of Jesus calling new disciples.

Or you might think this passage is mostly about the miraculous power of Jesus to provide abundantly, helping the laborers gratefully gather the fruit of creation.

Or you might think this passage is an allegory, in which the parts of the story—the fishers, the nets, the fish, the catch—all stand for something else. This is a common interpretation, but full of difficulties. If it is an allegory, then who are we? Are we the disciples, catching others? Or are we the fish, being caught? (And you know what happens to fish!) Or are we the net, which God uses to gather disciples? Or the other partners, James and John? Or something else altogether.

My impression today—which is different than it was years ago and will be different, I’m sure, in the years ahead—my impression today is that this passage is like a piece of young adult fiction. Those YA books in the library, written for teens. Like mystery stories and romances, these books all follow the same plot, more or less. And they all have the same point, more or less, which is how friends are made and friendships kept. The plot always goes like this:

1. The bad first impression.

2. The big event.

3. The awkward moment.

4. The commitment of true friendship.

And that’s how today’s Gospel story goes.

#1: The bad first impression. Imagine Peter’s point of view. Actually, he is still Simon, since he has not yet joined Jesus nor been renamed by him. So, Simon’s point of view. This man Jesus hops into Simon’s boat. He makes Simon—who has been up all night fishing—row out a bit just so Jesus can speak to some folks who have come to see him. Presumably Simon has to just sit there with Jesus. Then he tells Simon, who has caught no fish, to go out and try again. Jesus knows nothing about fishing. Nobody goes fishing in the daytime. What is with this guy?

#2: The big event. Nonetheless, Peter—can we call him Peter?—does what Jesus asks. That’s how it goes in stories like this. There is a little bit of trust that becomes possible here. Like a bit of tinder for a fire. Something about Jesus makes Jesus seem OK to Peter. Peter doesn’t tell Jesus to take a hike. Instead, Peter is willing to give it a shot. Wow, good thing he did. They throw their nets into the water and a whole bunch of fish swim in. “Many a lot” it says in Greek. Who is this person?

#3: The awkward moment. Or, to be more religious, the conversion. There is always a point in these stories when the protagonist—Peter in this case—sees his new friend in a different light. When suspicion turns to realization, when doubt turns to respect. The beginning of love. Peter realizes that the annoying parts that he first saw in Jesus don’t really matter. It doesn’t matter that Jesus is a little bossy and ignorant about fishing. That is not the main thing. In a young adult novel one person says to the other, “well, I guess you are OK after all. I’m sorry I was such a jerk.” In the Gospel of Luke, Peter says “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Same thing.

And #4: The commitment of true friendship. Jesus responds to Peter’s offer of apology and affection with one of his own. Not a problem, Jesus says. Let’s go do something great together. And off they go, catching people and having all sorts of other adventures. Which you’ll have to read about in the next book in the series. In our case, the rest of Luke and Acts. And then the letters of Paul, and then the adventure of the whole church. But that’s for another day in the future for Peter and Jesus.

Some people, like Isaiah in today’s first reading, have their lives dramatically changed in a moment by God’s voice. As Paul was, for example. People have a transforming experience, becoming in an instant what seems to them to be a new person. But for most of us, our connection with Jesus is much more like a growing friendship. It develops over time.

There are times when we think that we have, or that God has, made a terrible mistake. There are times when we don’t know who God is and feel that God doesn’t know us very well either, in spite of what it says in the Bible about God counting the hairs on our heads. And there are times when we get a big pleasant unlikely surprise. We learn more about God. More importantly, we see God better, and we know God more, and we begin to trust God. And we begin to want to hang out more together, and then to look forward to doing great things together.

I know less about fishing than Jesus did. But from the little fishing I’ve done, it seems to combine two things. First, fishing is a sport of predictions. Where are the fish, what will they be doing, what will they like today? Lots of little predictions based on previous knowledge, the wisdom of others, intuition, and an sensitivity to the what’s going on in the present. And second, related to this, is that fishing is a series of offers and acceptances. The fishing person makes offers in terms of bait and lure, of course, and hopes the fish will accept. But the fish make offers, too. Tiny and subtle revelations, inviting the fisher to have an open mind. To doubt his or her first impressions and to make changes.

That is how friendship works. With humans or with God. Anglican archbishop and theologian Rowan Williams has said that to say we believe in Jesus is the equivalent of saying we have confidence in Jesus above all things. That confidence emerges over time, like friendship. Developed through little, experimental, trial-sized trusting steps. And big events. And awkward moments. And out of that friendship comes the rest: obedience, loyalty, interdependence, service.

Part of God is big and mysterious. Ineffable, unknowable. But part of the God we know is close and intimate. As connected to us and we to God as one young friend to another.

Text: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Other texts: Jeremiah 1:4-10

You may be wondering why we are gathered here today. I myself often wonder that. Wonder less in the sense of being mystified as being amazed. Filled with wonder. It is a wonder that God has called us each to be here together. Perhaps you feel the same way. Or perhaps you are also mystified. Perhaps you wonder, how did you ever get involved with a Lutheran church like Faith? What are you doing here?

There is no social requirement for you to be here, as there was for previous generations of Christians. One thing you might say is that you are here because you want to be. But I’m not exactly sure that explains anything. It just moves the question along to another question. All those answers that have mostly to do with something that we chose or we did or we planned for seem to me to be slightly inadequate and incomplete. Perhaps, instead, or in addition, you felt called to be here.

I’ve talked before about the idea of being called. The word is sort of jargon-y. But like most good jargon, it was invented because other, similar words were not quite satisfactory. For starters, when we say we are called, we mean that God is doing the calling. A call is more than an invitation. It has an urgency that most invitations do not. Being called is like being hungry. Something you need to attend to, whether you welcome it or not. But a call is not coercive, either. A call is not a demand. You can refuse it, though maybe with difficulty.

Jeremiah was called by God to be a prophet. He tried to refuse the call. He was in good company in that regard. Many prophets try to refuse God’s call at first. Moses said he was not a good speaker. David was just a kid. Isaiah had unclean lips. Samuel was a young apprentice. God’s response in each case was not to be stern and threatening. God instead offers to help, to support, to augment, to make accepting the call possible. Jeremiah says “I’m only a boy.” Not a problem, says God, I’ll help you along.

When God calls, it is not like a job search. God calls the most unlikely people. God calls people without regard to their accomplishments, their abilities even, or their devotion, their faith, or their longing. Or their goodness. It seems like God calls without reason, so to speak. Without resumes.

People liken small churches like Faith to families. There are a lot of things wrong with that metaphor. But one thing that is right is that churches are not what sociologists called “voluntary associations.” Even though it seems people join them voluntarily. Churches are also called “affinity groups.” But as in a family, people in churches don’t necessarily choose each other, or even like each other. They don’t necessarily have affinity for each other. It is nice when they do, but that is not a requirement for membership. You are born or adopted into a family. You are called into a church.

Which brings us to the apostle Paul and the church in Corinth to which he writes today. There were a lot of bad things going on in Corinth. The people were fighting one another. Some snobby ones were patronizing the poor ones. Some people were complaining about how other people ate. Some people were putting on airs, fighting over who was the better leader, more valuable to the church. Paul writes them to say: Stop it! No fighting, no biting, as the children’s book says it.

He tells them that in the church they are to love one another. Things he says that love is, the Corinthians are not. Love does not envy, but they are envious. Love is not boastful, but they are boasting. Love is patient, but they are impatient. Love is not self-seeking, but they seek to promote themselves.

The kind of love that Paul is talking about is not the same as romantic or even friendly love. The King James Version translates the word as “charity.” Not giving money away, but being charitable. Generous of heart. It is the same word Jesus uses when he tells us to love our enemies as well as our neighbors.

The love for one another that is the cement of a church is not based on accomplishment, character, ability, or goodness. It does not depend on the worthiness of the other to deserve our love. They just get it, that love, worthy or not. God calls us without criteria (at least that we can see) to be in a community of people who love one another without criteria. We are called together for no reason to love one another for no reason.

When you love another, you put up with them, watch out for them, hope for the best for them. Things that Paul says that love does. But Paul is not asking us to first feel a certain way about other people. How can we control how we feel? He is asking his church to act in a certain way. Paul’s comments are a recipe. We are not angels. We are incomplete, as Paul says. We don’t see everything clearly. It is not automatically in us to be loving. So be patient, don’t strut around arrogantly, don’t gloat. The way to love disagreeable people is to act as if you do. See what happens.

The church is a place where we act as if we loved one another. Love your neighbor, says Jesus. Love your enemy. Act as if you loved them, which is a good start.

A church is a good place to practice humility. Humility before God, certainly, but humility toward one another also. It is place where our normal way of judging and trusting people is put aside.

We have a lot in common here at Faith. That is a blessing. Not all churches do. But all churches are gatherings of people called by God. That is why we are gathering today. Because of our calling, we trust others before they deserve our trust. We trust them the minute they walk in the door. We love them before we know them well enough. That they are here is sufficient.

It’s a wonder.

Thanks be to God.

Text: Nehemiah 8:1-10

Comedy is when what never could have been, happens. The quarreling neighbors fall madly in love. The powerful CEO is displaced by the poor office boy. A queen falls in love with a donkey. In the end, every impediment is removed and every error undone, and all live happily forever.

Tragedy is when what should have been, does not happen. The lovers pass by one another unknowing. The good people’s uprising is crushed. The queen mistakenly condemns her only child to death. Things go wrong, opportunities are missed, and in the end there is only sorrow and regret. In the theater, the seed is a fatal flaw. Pride, greed, jealously, and the evils we all are subject to. In life, the fates are as much to blame.

In tragedy, there is that moment when all that is good suddenly goes sour. When you do the thing you shouldn’t. Or skip the thing you should. You speak rashly, you drive carelessly, you act impulsively. You don’t bother to lock the lock, put on the safety guards, make the phone call. People are harmed. Relationships broken. The damage is done. And you think: if only I could go back in time just a moment, just a few seconds even. If only I could undo what I have done. I take it back. But there is no taking back. No undo.

Why is this story we just heard in the book of Nehemiah so wrenching? So moving? Ezra the priest reads the book of the law of Moses. All around him are all the people of Jerusalem. All the men and women and all who could hear with understanding. He reads the law—probably the Torah or portions of it—it takes most of the day. And all the people stay to hear him. And when he is done reading, the people weep. They fall to the ground, and weep. In a way that is hard to explain, we know why they weep, and we weep with them. There has been unnecessary sorrow. A tragedy has happened.

This story in Nehemiah starts about 150 years earlier. Let’s flash back to then. It is just before the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and the people taken in exile to Babylon. How could God—the same God who had brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and had brought them to Israel hundreds of years before—how could that God let the people be captive once more and removed from that land? How could that be? Some said that God had been displeased. That the people themselves had done something to cause God to abandon them. The story in the Bible—in the books of Kings, mostly—is that it was the people and their rulers who had abandoned God. They ignored the law for centuries, and eventually they just forgot about it.

Just before the end, just before the final invasion by the Babylonians, one good king—his name was Josiah—finds an old copy of the Torah, the law, in a dusty corner of the Temple. It is found by a kind of accountant. This is like not knowing the Bible exists until one of Faith’s counters comes across a dusty copy in the back of the office downstairs. Amidst all the junk. Josiah reads the book. He is shocked. He is dismayed. He tears his clothes. He weeps. He realizes what Israel has done. “The wrath of the Lord is kindled against us,” he says, “because our ancestors did not obey the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us.”

Josiah immediately begins to reform the nation. And in a gathering much like the one we are talking about in Nehemiah, he reads the book of the law of Moses to all the people. Much as Ezra later did. To all the people, small and great, it says. If only the wickedness and inattention could be reversed. But this is a tragedy, it is too late. Too little, too late. The errors of the kings cannot be undone. So the land is conquered and the people carried off and the Temple, God’s house, is destroyed.

End of flashback. We are now with Nehemiah, 150 years later. Babylon itself has been conquered. The people of Israel have been returned to their land. The Temple has been rebuilt. And Nehemiah has repaired the walls of the city. The bones of the city have been restored. But the soul of the city is still missing. The life, the purpose of the city comes from God. It is God’s city, the Temple is God’s house. So the reading of book of the law of Moses is like the breath of life. As with the dry bones in Ezekiel that are brought to life by God’s breath, the city is brought back to life by the presence of God embodied in God’s word.

Why do the people weep? They have emerged from a tragedy. They have come home. Not that the tragedy has been undone. You can’t do that. But the future, thought to be lost, has been restored. They weep like a parent or spouse weeps when the soldier comes home from war. When the runaway child comes back (as with the father of the prodigal son). When the estranged lover returns for another try. These are complicated tears. They are part continuing sorrow at what has gone before; part anger at the suffering people have endured; part resentment of God who left them, they think, in the first place.

And part relief that the ordeal is mostly over; that anxiety has been lifted; that the unexpected but silently hoped-for thing has happened. Part that God is back with them and they with God. What was broken is being restored. So they first weep. And then they celebrate.

For the people gathered at the gate in Jerusalem, the law is life. It is not a legalistic code of shall-nots. The law is a glimpse into the mind of God. It is God’s idea, what God is thinking about. It is information about God, a clue. The word for the law we are talking about here is also translated “teaching” or “instruction.” Knowing what God is thinking is a privilege and a joy. It is guidance. As it says famously in Psalm 119: You word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path. Or in today’s psalm, “the statutes of the Lord are just and rejoice the heart. [They are] clear and give light to the eyes.” They teach people how to live.

That is always the question. How should we live? And the second question is: how shall we know how we should live?

It seems sometimes as if we are in the midst of a tragedy ourselves. A lot of things are not working out so great in this world. And maybe in our lives. And maybe we wonder, as the Israelites did, whether it is something we have done wrong or not done right. What will happen? Will there be a day when, like Josiah, we weep and wear sackcloth because it is too late? Or will we rejoice because God is with us? Jesus, in another parallel to the stories of Josiah and Ezra, stands at the Temple and reads the Bible. He quotes the prophets. There is good news, he said, for the poor, and the sick, and the prisoners, and the oppressed. Can things that are broken be restored? It is not too late, Jesus says.

Tragedy cannot be turned into comedy. What is done is done. But tragedies often end in hope. The sorrow is not wiped away, but the story, the path, does not end. In the theater there is resolution, acceptance. In life, we go forward. Not forgetting the past, but forgiving it.

The Israelites stand at the new, restored wall of Jerusalem. At first they weep for all that could have been but never was, and for all that was that never should have been. And then. Then they celebrate with a great party, eating and drinking and giving food and drink away and, as it says, making great rejoicing.

The joy of the Lord was in them. The phase is ambiguous. Is it God’s joy in creation and humanity that led God to show us how to live? Or is it the people’s joy in God that God did not abandon us to our own often-faulty advice? Or is that God is always with us. And that the direction of creation is not separation and destruction but reconciliation and healing. Evidently God takes no pleasure in our sorrow but rejoices in our healing.

God does not abolish all that has happened. God does not prevent tragedy. God does not turn back the clock. The people turn to God looking for strength to continue. But contrary to what we might suspect, they do not look to God’s power, or to God’s wisdom, or even to God’s goodness. Rather, they have learned that God is joyful and that God takes joy in us. And therefore we can take heart and be hopeful.

God is with us. God guides us in our lives. And against brokenness and tragedy, it is the joy of God that is our strength.