"Transitional Zones (Lent!) are Where Life Happens"

The intertidal zone is the area where land and sea meet. This habitat is covered with water at high tide, and exposed to air at low tide. The land in this zone can be rocky, sandy or covered in mudflats. It is a perilous place for organisms to make a go of it – at times underwater, and times drying out, continually buffeted by wave and wind, ever-changing salinity, exposed to predators from above and below. And yet it is a place of amazing biological diversity and adaptation, where life if abundant and varied.

Transitional zones are where life happens. The continental shelf has far more species, a much more vibrant habitat, than the deep ocean. The boundaries where different types of habitat meet are the places where life abounds, and where change happens.

In the same way, it is in life’s transitional times that, for all the pain and struggle, life, real life, abounds. What we all want, we say, is life to just settle down, to be stable, predictable, routine. But then something happens, and everything changes --- the job is lost, the cancer diagnosis arrives, the relationship falls through.  And there is struggle, there is pain, at times it even seems like life itself is at stake.  And who would ever want to be in those shoes? And yet…

And yet, the one facing cancer can actually say – yes, it does happen! – that they are thankful for what they are facing, because it is woken them up to appreciate the gift and joy of this day, this one special day, this gorgeous hydrangea which they really appreciated before, this sunrise that they actually stopped to watch, this love which they never fully appreciated before.

And yet, the one grieving over the lost job at times wakes up and sees the blessing in it, the opportunity to start over and do what they had always wanted to do, or the chance to re-evaluate their priorities and what all that “stuff” really means to them.

Fully one-half of the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Mark is concerned with only one week – the last week -- of the life of a man who we suspect lived maybe some thirty years.  It is a week of suffering, trial, and death – but it is also a week of life lived to the hilt, and beyond. Maybe this is part of what we should be about in the season of Lent, a season that started yesterday, Ash Wednesday -- living life to the hilt, growing into our full humanity, using the love we have been blessed with to love ourselves, our neighbors near and far, our God....

 Transitional times are hard. But they can also be times of life, and life abundant.

"Thin Places Should Point to Full Lives"

In the Celtic spiritual tradition, a “thin place” describes the line that divides the holy from the ordinary, a place where the veil between the physical world and the eternal lifts or is so very thin that it seems that one might even step right on through. I visited the island of Iona some years ago, just off the western coast of the Scottish mainland, and immediately realized why so many people over the centuries have thought of Iona as a “thin place.” Maybe it had something to do with the location only a mile off the mainland; maybe it had something to do with the rugged, tree-less landscape; maybe it had something to do with the old abbey, now restored, or the ancient Celtic crosses; maybe it had something to do with its history, with Martyr’s Bay, the strand where the monks had been slaughtered by ravening Vikings. But it just felt that you were nearer the divine there….

            “Were you scared in Vietnam?” Jenny asked Forrest. “Yes. Well, I-I don’t know. Sometimes it would stop raining long enough for the stars to come out…and then it was nice. It was like just before the sun goes to bed down on the bayou. There was always a million sparkles on the water . . . like that mountain lake. It was so clear, Jenny, it looked like there were two skies one on top of the other. And then in the desert, when the sun comes up, I couldn’t tell where heaven stopped and the earth began. It’s so beautiful.” From Forrest Gump, the movie.

These thin place moments can be brief, but they can stay with us for a life-time. In her poem titled “That Day”, the 20th century American author Denise Levertov describes a transcendent moment in a young girl’s life that stayed with her until the day she died.

Across a lake in Switzerland, fifty years ago,

light was jousting with long lances, fencing with

broadswords

back and forth among cloudy peaks and foothills.

We watched from a small pavilion, my mother and I,

enthralled.

And then, behold, a shaft, a column,

a defined body, not of light but of silver rain,

formed and set out from the distant shore, leaving behind

the silent feints and thrusts, and advanced

unswervingly, at a steady pace,

toward us.

I knew this! I’d seen it! Not the sensation

of déjà vu: it was Blake’s inkwash vision,

‘The Spirit of God Moving Upon the Face of the Waters’!

The column steadily came on

across the lake toward us; on each side of it,

there was no rain. We rose to our feet, breathless–

and then it reached us, took us

into its veil of silver, wrapped us in finest weave of wet,

and we laughed for joy, astonished.

Those “thin place” moments can stay with you. Some of you have shared such moments with me.

There was the woman, brought up here in West Barnstable in a family who were members of the strict Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Church. No drinking, no dancing, on Sundays, no work and no play. God, she was told, was always watching, always judging. And then one day, out alone on a field, a voice came to her, and with it a warmth she had never felt before, calling out her name, and saying, “I love you and always will.” That moment changed her life, she told me, and stayed with her all her days.

There was the member here who had served in the army during the Second World War. He was an aide to a general, and one of his duties involved hand-delivering messages at times when radio communications were out. During the Battle of the Bulge he was given a dispatch to deliver, and so jumped into a jeep and headed off through the forest towards his destination. He came to a cross-roads, and the direct route entailed taking the left fork. But a voice came, he said, a voice he had never heard before, saying no, take the other way, the roundabout way. He did, and later discovered that a German Panzer unit had been laying in wait along his intended route. He believed that he had been spared by divine intervention, and said it changed his life, causing him to change his career path after the war, and so becoming one of New Jersey’s leading experts on helping mainstream into society children once warehoused under the label “retarded.”

There are those of you, particularly men, who have told me about the miracle of child-birth, about how after those months and all that struggle on the mother’s part suddenly a new life was in your arms, and more than that, how you felt surrounded by a heavenly presence in a way you had not experienced before.

And then there are those of you who have spoken at being at the bedside of a dying relative, a parent, a spouse, and how you were surprised that instead of it being the horrific, terrifying experience you had anticipated, it was instead a holy time, days and hours you will ever be grateful for having had, its own kind of thin space.

Mindie Burgoyne writes,

“Thin places are ports in the storm of life, where pilgrims can move closer to the God they seek, where one leaves that which is familiar and journeys into the Divine Presence. They are stopping places where men and women are given pause to wonder about what lies beyond the mundane rituals, the grief, trials and boredom of our day-to-day life.”

The three disciples with Jesus on the mountaintop find themselves in a “thin place” experience. Jesus is seemingly transformed, becoming dazzling white, and two of the giants of their faith, Moses and Elijah, appear next to him, and then to top it all off a voice comes from a cloud saying “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him.”

Peter does what just about anyone of us would want to do as well – he wants to capture the moment, to hold onto it, to not let it go. It is like not wanting to wake up from a wonderful dream. So he proposes that they build three tents, one for each of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, so that they might remain there – and the few disciples with them. But Jesus will have none of that – he has work to do, and it lies ahead of him down in Jerusalem; and those who would follow him, they had work to do as well, down in the nitty-gritty of a suffering world groaning for salvation. The message is clear – there is no short-cut to glory for Jesus or for those who would follow him, and thin place visions are not ends in and of themselves, but doorways to renewed mission. More even than milestones on the journey of faith, they are instead guideposts, pointing the way ahead to a greater fullness and meaning of life.

Our challenge here is two-fold.

The first is to be present to those thin place moments that are given us. They can be anywhere, you don’t have to go to Iona or to a mountaintop – although it may help if, like those disciples long ago, we can be intentional about seeking out a sacred apart from the hustle and bustle of the everyday,  to open ourselves to the possibility of meeting God there. For example, come to worship together, hoping and maybe even expecting to encounter God in the words, music, community, silence and spirit here. But those thin place moments can be anywhere – out in nature, in the hospital room, in the embrace of a loved one, in your face reflected in a mirror. (But probably not on the golf course, at least not on Sunday morning!)

Our second challenge is to take those “aha” moments and let them change us. To understand that while these moments are to be cherished, even treasured for a lifetime, they are not given as an end in themselves, but to call us forward in new directions; to call us forward in paths that will take us not away from the world and its complexity and its needs and its suffering, but towards and through the world and our brothers and sisters which fill it.  

Thin places, my friends, should lead to full lives. Amen.  

"Is a Women's Place Really (Just) In the Kitchen?"

Today marks the start of UCC Women’s Week, the week dedicated each year by the United Church of Christ, to women and their ministries and their role in the church and the world.  It seems clear to me that the denominational officials who chose this week for such a celebration have it in for male preachers like me; in fact, it would not surprise me if they owned stock in the local tar-and-feathers emporium!

            I mean, look at what happens in today's text, Mark 1:29-31. Jesus and his four fishing buddies arrive in Simon Peter’s hometown on the Sabbath, on Saturday, and after a day of prayers at the synagogue come home hungry and ready for a good sit-down. Only to find that Peter’s mother-in-law, who apparently lives there as part of the extended family, is in bed with a debilitating fever, the kind that could lead to her demise. But no worries, Jesus walks into her bedroom, takes her hand, lifts her up, and viola! She is healed – and immediately gets to work serving them, preparing a fine meal for these big, strapping, and apparently useless around the home, men.

            Sound familiar to any of the gentler sex here with us today? Remind you of an occasion where you had to drag yourself off your sickbed and get to work taking care of others who should have been able to take care of themselves?  Already getting ready to get mad at a preacher who you are waiting to tell you that this is exactly what God expects out of you, so quit your moaning and feel good about it? Asking yourself, he did mention something about tar and feathers, didn’t he? And if not that, asking yourself, where is the good news today  for me and women like me?

            I do think there is hope for us all here, thanks in part to the insights of Rev. Kathyrn Matthews Huey. She encourages us to take another look at the account of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, to see if we cannot find instead a conspiracy between Jesus and this unnamed woman to show the disciples, the community, and us, what hospitality, healing and service are all about, what it really means to be a disciple.

            Later on in the gospel, we will see that Jesus is still trying to teach the disciples that he is not about “power over”, he is about “service to.” They will go on to bicker among themselves who is the greatest and who will be granted the privilege of sitting at Jesus’ right hand, missing the point of this lesson at Peter’s house, but the lesson is there for those with ears to hear. A lesson that comes in three parts.

            Part the first: healing that truly heals can often come through something as simple and yet as profound as touch.  After all the thunderous and awe-inspiring events marking the beginning of Jesus’ ministry – the sky ripping open at his baptism, the wild beasts in the wilderness, the capture of John the Baptizer, the shrieks of the possessed man – the healing comes through something as simple and intimate as a human touch. Jesus comes to her, takes her by the hand, and raises her up. The divine love is extended through something we often take for granted, until it is missed – a human touch.

            Touching is so important. Think of the kiss on the skinned knee of a child; think of the hug that greets you at the door when you come home from college or a business trip; think of the importance of a welcoming handshake at the door of the church. Think of a man held at the Suffolk County Jail up in Boston, pending trial. It is a maximum security facility, and during visits we are seated on opposing sides of a thick pane of glass. At the end of each visit, we each hold a hand up to the cold glass, and that is the closest we can come to touching. We both know that it is something, and we both know that it is not enough….

            God knows that nearness is important. That is why God came to us in Jesus, the incarnation of God’s love, to put off all that distance and come near. A sobering thought for us who bear Christ’s name, who might be the closest many people ever get to being touched by Jesus.

            Part the second: the healing by Jesus of Peter’s mother-in-law does more than cure her of a physical ailment – it restores her to her place of honor in the family and wider society. It seems that she not only lived with Peter and his family, but had a particular role within the family unit – that of being in charge of hospitality. In this honor/shame culture, there were very strict rules governing hospitality, about the obligations the host had to welcome guests into the home. Failure to live up to those rules would bring dishonor and shame on the entire extended family. When this woman is healed, she is restored to her rightful role in the family and the community – which was extending hospitality to the guests, to serving them. Her healing is more than a matter of being freed from a disease – to be fully healed, she must be restored to her rightful place in the community. So for her, going from the sick-bed to the kitchen was not something to be bemoaned – it was liberating and healing.

            Part the third: healing, salvation, new life, come to us not so that, like the winner of the lottery, we can move forward into a life of self-indulgence and personal pleasure insulated from others. No healing comes so that we might live into our full humanity, understanding that no man or woman is an island, but that instead we all dwell within a web of mutuality and inter-relationship. Jesus would later tell his disciples that he came not to be served but to serve; here, lifted up to new life by Jesus, this woman by example shows everyone what discipleship is really all about – serving others.  Mark tells us that when Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted after his baptism, “angels waited on  (served)  him”. Mark uses the same word to describe what this woman did for Jesus and his followers – she waited on, or served, them. She is doing the work of angels.

            So what Mark and Jesus are telling us in this episode is not that a woman’s place is in the kitchen, and not that women today must be limited to the identical role that women may have had in society back in the first century A.D.  The lesson taught to us by Jesus and by Peter’s mother-in-law is that the good news is that we are healed, saved, redeemed, raised up – just as she was raised up – to be partners with Jesus in service to the world. What particular form that service takes will be different for each of us, but it is not limited by shifting cultural norms about gender roles. Just as the angels ministered to Jesus in the wilderness and Peter’s mother-in-law ministered to Jesus and his followers in the home, we are called to minister to the Jesus we meet in our everyday lives – in our fellow men and women, in the sick, in the lost, in the poor, in the lonely, in the kitchen, in the boardroom, in the office, in the school.

You and I, we have been raised up to serve.

"Even Cars Can't Stay in the Garage!"

The January 3 issue of USA Today had an article titled “God, Religion, Atheism ‘So What?’ That’s what many say”.The article takes note of a trend in society away from all types of searches for meaning and truth and purpose. It is not just that people are turning from being “religious” to “spiritual”, or from “spiritual” to “atheist” – it is that more and more people just don’t care about any of it.

“God? Purpose? You don’t need an opinion on those things to function,” the article quotes one engineer as saying. Another, discounting the possibility of a spiritual component to our existence,  says, “we might as well be cars. That, to me, makes more sense than believing what you can’t see.”

I’m not so sure it was much different in the time of Jesus, either. I mean, if everyone was on the same page, why was Jesus going around saying to people “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news”? No, Jesus, fresh from his baptism, has what he believes is good news for people who had yet to hear it, and he wants to share that with them.

There is an old model of what we call “church” – a model that is still very much in existence in our world – which says that what we need to be about as church is to get people in the doors and into the pews – it is about membership. And there is something to this, because, after all, Jesus’ great commandment is to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them as I have commanded you.”  And so baptism is the rite by which you join the church.

The danger, of course, is that we leave it at that. With the idea that church is about what happens in here, that the purpose of the church is to support its members.

But look at Jesus and what happens after his baptism. Far from retreating to some sort of spiritual haven where he can be surrounded by like-minded and adoring folk, he goes off into the hustle and bustle of the world, in and among all the people who are spiritually adrift, apathetic, and just uninterested, who are all tied up in the minutia of doing things like they had always done them without remembering why.

And Jesus comes to them, and with his words, and with his teaching, and with his healing, he tells them and shows them that there is more to their world than appears on the surface, that the people are not just “cars”, but instead are beloved children of their Creator; that another kingdom, a kingdom greater than that of Rome or the petty governor ruling their corner of the world, has come near, breaking the power of injustice and tyranny; that there is something which you can’t see – to quote the USA Today article – something called “love”, which is stronger even than death.

Jesus says to them “repent”, which means, literally, “to turn around.” Turn yourself around, he say, turn your face to the warm rays of the rising Son and believe the good news and change your life, so that you might have abundant and eternal life starting today.

This is our mission, this is our task. We, who are in the church, we, who have like Jesus been baptized, we need to repent, to literally turn around, and march back out those doors that so warmly let us in. Our mission is not in here, it is out there, to be the church in the world. Even cars are supposed to be out on the road, not stuck in the garage!

St. Francis told his Friars, as he sent them out into the towns and villages among the poorest of the poor, “Preach the gospel always – if necessary, use words.” That is our mission, as well. We preach the good news as much by what we do as by what we say – as we practice love of neighbor not just by exhibiting a kind attitude to those we see on the street, but by reaching out to the world in acts of generosity and caring and seeking justice for those who are oppressed.

We do that as individuals: as one volunteers down at A Baby Center in Hyannis, an organization which helps lower income parents of newborns and infants with cribs, diapers, strollers, and clothes; as otherstake a few hours each week to be a Big Brother and a Big Sister to kids who lack an adult presence in their life. We each can do that in the individual things we do to share the love of God with others by caring for them.

But we also are called to do this as a church, as together we serve the world in a variety of ways: working together on a Habitat build, or serving a meal at the NOAH Shelter, or going on a mission trip to New Orleans, and so on.

Friends, let us remember our baptism, and how we are called into the church to be sent out into the world, blessed so that we, in our turn, can be a blessing.

"When the Floods Threaten to Overwhelm Us"

The water is not under our control. Something I came to realize once again as I struggled with the shut-off valve hidden back behind the washing machine, while getting drenched from the spray of the burst inflow hose. Something that hit home even deeper when the lever of the valve sheared off in my hand, and I frantically ran towards the basement in search of the master valve which cuts off water to the entire house.

            Something we learned here on Thursday morning, when the crew removing the old underground oil tank next to Jenkins Hall accidently severed the water pipe leading from the well into the building, forcing us to close the school and send the students home.

            Global warming is here, and it is coming on stronger all the time; the ice caps are melting, and since that ice melt has to go somewhere, sea levels are rising. Meteorologists tells us we can expect more and more violent storms, hurricanes, typhoons, and twisters, and that the risks of flood and coastal inundation are creeping ever upward.

Bottom line, you don’t need to have a doctorate or be a post-Katrina resident of New Orleans or post-tsunami coastal Japan to understand that the waters are not under our control. And it was precisely that same understanding which was held by the ancient Hebrews – that water can betray us, can threaten us, can wreak havoc upon us.

            Way back when in the pre-modern Middle East, Israel’s neighbors told stories about a great primeval flood. In their stories, divine beings would battle it out with each other, only noticing humanity when our noise became too annoying to them.  So they decided to use water to wipe the planet clean. In the ancient epic Gilgamesh, the gods sent a flood which wiped everything out, except one family and the animals that they saved.

            The Hebrews knew that story, but then they retold it, retold it in a way that comported with their understanding of how their God worked. And so it does not start with a battle in the heavens between rival gods, but with a divine response to human violence; rain pours down, yes, but also a blessing, in that humanity, through righteous Noah and his family, is rescued; and it ends with a promise by God not just to humanity, but to “all flesh”, a promise that never again will the waters of chaos prevail. God will not dis-member the good creation – God will remember it,. God would remember his creation, and as a sign of that covenant, just as a warrior returning to hearth and home would hang his bow over the fireplace, God would hang his mighty bow over the clouds.

            Friends, for me the point of the account in Genesis of Noah and the flood is not whether or not “it really happened”, and I don’t believe the point of the account for the ancient Hebrews was limited so narrowly, either. They knew that chaos exists, and that chaos was a constant threat to their civilization – the chaos of famine and flood, of disease and invasion. But they also trusted that God had remembered them in the past, and would remember them in the future.

            But we know that as well. We know how it feels like we are being swamped, that the floodgates of chaos have been opened and threaten to sweep it all away.

            When you struggle to keep the grades up and there is all that pressure to get into college and the coach seems to hate you and the guy you secretly pine for doesn’t even look at you and all of a sudden everyone is picking on you on Facebook and somehow you got grounded right before the big dance. High School can be like that.

            When the officers slap the cuffs on your wrist, and the magistrate says “No bail”, and the barred door to the cell slams closed behind you.

            When the sheriff walks up to your door and serves you with a lawsuit accusing you of stealing funds from the charitable organization you had faithfully served for years.

            When a routine chest x-ray comes back and your doctor says, “There seems to be a mass.”

            When after thirty years in the same company your manager comes in and says “We’re sorry, but we are going to have to let you go”, and you have no idea of where that next job might ever be.

            When your spouse says, “I’ve found my soul mate” -- and they are not talking about you.

            When you realize that you can no longer make it in your beloved home, and need to transition to “assisted living” or even a nursing facility.

            I suspect we all know what it can be like to feel as if we are being swamped, as if the waters of chaos will have their way with us.

            Which is why the eternal truth standing behind the account of Noah and the Flood is such good news for us. The good news that God’s grace will prevail, that just as God conquers the unconquerable waters, God can control the chaos that threatens to overwhelm us. That God remembers us; remembers us in the sense that God calls us to mind when we are in danger of being swamped, when we fear that we are alone and forgotten and that God just does not care; but more than that, that God re-members us – God will join us together as one once again, will put us back together, not just as ourselves, but also in solidarity with all creation and with our Creator.

            The Noah story anticipates the Jesus story; God’s promise to remember us is fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Far from abandoning us, God comes to us, takes on our own fragile and failing humanity, and remembers us, put us back together, heals and saves us. And once again it is water that is at the heart of the story, but this time, instead of a rampaging flood, it is waters which cleanse, which heal, which remember us into a new community: the waters of our baptism.

            God remembers; and so let us, in our turn, remember as well.

A Fishing Tale

I recall fishing with my father and grandfather when I was a kid, maybe 10 years old or so.

My grandfather, my mother’s father, was always trying to show us kids that my Dad did not really get it, and so when we were fishing said he was going to teach me to cast, that the way my Dad had taught me was all wrong. So he took my rod, leaned way back, and made a huge overhand cast.

The line did not go very far, because he had left the drag on, and to my grandfather’s chagrin (and probably my Dad’s delight)  the rod followed the line right over the side and down to the bottom of the bay.

Well, we kept on fishing, me using my Dad’s rod, until finally I got a huge tug on the line. We were fishing for flounder, and as I am tugging on the line I am thinking that this had to be the biggest one ever, and when I pulled the line in, I saw I had a flounder on one of the two hooks of the flounder rig.

But the other hook had snagged on a line – and when we pulled that line in, there was my rod! And when we pulled its line in, I had 2 flounder on that one!

I take this is a metaphor of the life of giving. We share what we have, we cast our bread on the waters, and miraculously we find that the rewards are far greater than the cost, that what we get back far exceeds what we had put in.

“Faith is Not A “Get Out of Jail Free” Card”

            You might think that right now we are experiencing or should be experiencing a mountain-top experience. We made it through those long weeks of Advent and growing winter darkness and shortening days, and then, at last, Christ is born, and angels sing, and shepherds glory, and magi come from afar to worship and bring gifts.

            And for Mark, the evangelist whose gospel has no birth narrative, we have that awesome moment when Jesus learns his identity and mission, his baptism by John in the river Jordan. (Mark 1:9-15)

            And so, now what?

            Will Willimon tells of the pastor whose little daughter was playing alone in her room. When he checked in on her, he heard the toilet flushing repeatedly in her bathroom. Drawing closer he heard her repeating the words, each times she flushed, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and down the hole you go.” Seems she was a bit confused about baptism “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

            Or maybe not.

            Because here is Jesus at what should have been, what must have been, a pinnacle experience, rising from the water, the Spirit descending upon him as if a dove, the voice of his heavenly Father ringing in his ears, proclaiming his love and pleasure. And then, down the hole he goes.

            Immediately that same Spirit, the one descending moments ago like a dove, now like a screaming eagle drives Jesus out into the wilderness, where he will be tempted for forty days. Just as the Israelites, having escaped from Pharaoh’s Egypt, endured forty years of temptation in the wilderness, so too Jesus endures a period when he must wrestle with what he will do with his life, how he will exercise the powers attendant to the special relationship he has been gifted with.

            And it gets no better after that wilderness testing, for Jesus emerges to be greeted by the news that John has been arrested, and in a few short chapters will have his head served up on a platter to Herod. And not too long after that, Jesus will once again find himself tested, this time in a garden after the Passover meal, and then writhing in agony on a cross while onlookers mock him.

            Down the hole he goes.

            The Christian faith is often presented to folk as the solution to all their problems. A “Get out of Jail Free” card to life’s troubles. Having trouble finding a purpose for your life? We can help you with that, got a book and a few lesson plans that should do the trick. Kids acting up? We can help you with that, just bring them to Sunday School and youth group. Got an addiction you want to beat? Take a few steps up into the Meetinghouse. Financially insecure? Some churches will say we got you covered there as well. A National Football League quarterback with few conventional quarterbacking skills, but a devoted follower of Jesus Christ his personal Lord and Savior? Yeah, according to many of his fans, he’s covered there.

            But to be fair to Tim Tebow, the Bronco who wears eye-black patches under his eyes reading “John 3:16”, who kneels for a moment of prayer after victories and big plays, he has yet to say, as do some of his fans, that God is on his side when it comes to the outcome of football games.  I think he knows that his faith does not exempt him from the challenges of professional football, will not prevent his being sacked, will not mean that he will never fumble or throw an interception, will not stave off the bone-jarring hits that are part and parcel of life for a professional athlete.

            It is, sadly, the same for us. Baptized into the faith and family of Jesus Christ, far from being handed that “Get out of Jail Free” card, down the hole we go. We rise from the waters of baptism, dead to the old life, ready for a new life in Jesus Christ, and find that if we really do what we profess, if we really try to follow in the footsteps on the one in whose name we are baptized, that new life might look a whole lot different than we had expected.

            Because we remember that Jesus told us that he came not to be served, but to serve. And so if we are to walk with him, we will be serving as well. And we remember that Jesus told his followers it was about a new community, which means that we have to deal with everyone else who somehow got into this place called “church.” And we remember how he told his follows, after he set his face towards Jerusalem, as he readied himself for the last leg of his journey, a journey that would take him to arrest, and torture, and death, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up the cross and follow me.”

            Because we remember that Jesus, far from exalting himself and aiming for the skies, humbled himself, even to the extent of taking on lowly human form and vulnerability and suffering. And so if we are to imitate him, those mountaintop experiences will be few and far between, and mostly we will find ourselves down in some valley ladling soup in a homeless shelter, or hammering nails on a Habitat for Humanity build or a New Orleans Katrina restoration project, or standing in the cold outside of the halls of power holding a sign urging justice for all and care for the poor, or wiping the nose of a crying baby in the crib/toddler room on a  Sunday morning, or out on a balcony in Memphis in the crosshairs of a rifle, or yes, even doing the unglamorous task of writing out a check each week to help enable ministries here and in the world beyond.

            I guess the good news of all this is that Christianity is a faith not just for the mountaintop experiences -- the Christmas and Easter celebrations, the joy of baptism and the excitement of Confirmation, the occasional “aha” moment or even, for some of us, that special moment of intimacy with the divine. Christianity is also a faith for the valleys. Because most of us don’t live on the mountaintop in a world of continual spiritual highs and visions and glowing satisfaction – we live down in the valley where we basically trudge along, try to make it all work, try to do what we can when we can, dealing with blitzing linebackers and red dogging safeties and a life than can seem like a two-minute hurry-up offense.

            And yet it is there, right there in the muck and mire of daily living, that God comes to us. God does not wait for us to come to him, to climb the spiritual mountain, to master the life of prayer, to outdo Sister Theresa in good works.  Jesus comes to us there, in the mess of a manger, in the muddy waters of solidarity, in the dust of the long road, even on the smelly garbage heap at the end of our days. Maybe not offering a “Get out of Jail Free” card, no – but always offering his hand, a smile, and a promise to be with us always – both down in the hole, yes, but also along the banks of the river of the water of life which flows  through the heavenly city.