Advertise on podcast: Taylor Mertins

For as much as we love the notion of God’s amazing grace, we don’t actually like it. Because it’s all so backward. It lets rotten sons and crooked tax farmers and red light district harlots and all sorts of other disreputable types, into the kingdom and thumbs its nose at all the so-called good people. Why? Because grace only works for those in need, and we don’t ever want to seem like we’re in need of anything. Except, as Martin Luther put it: “God receives none but those who are forsaken, restores health to none but the sick, gives sight to none but the blind, and life to none but the dead. God does not give saintliness to any but sinners, nor wisdom to any but fools. In short, God has mercy on none but the wretched and gives grace to none but those who are in disgrace.”

The great writer Annie Dillard died this week. Her 1975 nonfiction book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the Pulitzer and it is about the titular creek that’s just outside of Roanoke. In the very beginning of her memoir about a year of living near the creek, she writes about a curious habit she had as a child. She would sneak pennies from her parents and hide them in the cracks of the sidewalk. Then, she would take chalk and draw long arrows to the hidden currency with a label that said “Surprise Ahead!” I am convinced that those are some of God’s very favorite words. Pay attention, turn to wonder, slow down, otherwise you might miss the surprise. Maybe that’s what all the parables are all about. We all thirst, not simply for answers, but for our imaginations to be ignited and for God to show up. Surprise Ahead! Case in point: The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard...

How much we make of ‘wellness’, ‘health’ and ‘wholeness’; The ideal body, the unblemished form, How deeply we despise and hide our weakness And worship all the world thinks strong and firm. And how each facile photoshopped appearance Haunts and accuses children as they grow Until they pine for their own disappearance And waste away and never tell their woe. But you have never fallen for this idol, You ‘had no form or beauty’, hurt and shamed, A stumbling block, a mockery, a scandal, You live with the rejected and the maimed. Don’t count me with the strong and tanned and thin, Count me with the maimed, but count me in. - Malcolm Guite

There’s a word I’ve heard a lot recently, and maybe you have too. That word is “for.” I don’t know what to do for my mother. She’s in a home that provides everything for her but she sleep for hours a day and she clearly needs more. My children need all sorts of new things for school. You would think the backpack we bought last year would work for them, but they are convinced they need a different one for all their new supplies. We’re really blessed and we’d like to do something nice for those who are less fortunate. Can we give money for the love offering? Maybe we could buy new clothes for some kids from the neighborhood? That word seemingly summarizes what we think it means to be in the world. And isn’t that was the church is for? (See what I did there?) We prepare worship for, we pray for, we offer charity for. And yet, there’s got to be more to life than for. There’s no facility that can fix our relationships. There’s no item for the beginning of the school year that it can fill the feeling of emptiness we may experience despite how full our backpacks may be. And there’s no act of generosity so generous that it can undo the fabric of our culture. Oddly enough, despite all outward appearances, “for” isn’t the word we focus on in the church. In fact, God gives us a very different word, a word that makes all the difference in the world, and that word is “with.” Even at the very beginning of all things, John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God… All things came into being through the Word, and without the Word, not one thing came into being.” Before there was a for there was a “with.” And at the end of the Gospel, when Jesus commissions the disciples to go and make disciples Jesus says, “Behold, I am with you, always.” And even further in scripture, the book of Revelation proclaims God’s everlasting glory with a voice from heaven saying, “Behold the home of God is with mortals; God will ever dwell with them.” And yet, “for” is often so much easier than “with.” I’ll confess that there are times I would rather hide in the kitchen and cook for certain people than have to sit down with them for hours on end. There’s a certain sense that we can do all sorts of things for others without ever having to really deal with them. With is hard. With requires vulnerability and presence. With strips us of self-righteousness and presence. With, above all, puts us in a position of connectivity, whether we want it or not. And God is God WITH us.

I wonder if your life feels like a mess. If it doesn’t, well good for you. But, sooner or later it will because the world has a knack for piling it on. And even if you feel like you’ve got it all worked out, that you can handle whatever the world throws your way, God weirdly delights in turning things upside down too. But here’s the Good News of the Gospel: God in Christ Jesus is more powerful than any mess you can ever make. You are free from whatever you’ve done or left undone, just as the Israelites were delivered from captivity in Egypt, and just as Jesus was delivered from death. You are more than what you have become...

God’s house of prayer isn’t restrictive. It’s not some super exclusive club where only the best and the brightest and the most faithful get to enjoy the party. No, God’s house of prayer is inclusive. To use a line from Robert Farrar Capon, it’s like a backyard wedding reception where a whole bunch of uninvited people show up and they refuse to move indoors even when it starts to rain.

The truth, of course, is that we all wish God was a little more obvious. We, like Elijah, are looking for big signs and clear signals. But God’s love is not like the over-bearing parent who wants to do every little thing for their child to the degree that the child never does anything on their own. No, instead God shows up and speaks up and gets super quiet in ways that we can scarcely imagine but make all the difference. God’s silence and God's speech both speak volumes into our lives because, as Elijah learned, God is always with us. Elijah’s talking got in the way of his listening. Trust me, if you talk long enough and loud enough you can convince yourself that your words are more important than the Word made flesh. He had to get quiet and hear the silence before he could truly respond to God’s question, a question that set him firmly on the foundation of God’s grace. And God’s grace is fundamentally strange. It is everything for nothing. It is life to the lifeless, hope to the hopeless, and joy to the joyless. It is quiet in a world that has grown too loud. It is stillness when the world moves too quickly. It is amazing precisely because it comes to us as a gift...

Listen, says the Lord, listen so that you may live. I am making a promise, an everlasting covenant; behold the one who comes from the line of David. Because of the one who makes a way where there is no way, people will come to you who you would otherwise never know, they will flock to you because I am doing a new thing, I am filling you with life and delight. Here, in the strange and wonderful place of grace called church, you can find what you’re looking for because I, says the Lord, I am looking for you. The mysterious and strange truth of the Gospel is this: There’s something deeper, longer-lasting, and more insatiable than our hunger, and it’s God’s hunger for us...

Paul says that Abraham is righteous not because of his goodness or virtue or morality, but because God reckons him righteous. God makes Abraham righteous by grace. This is why, to quote Paul again, the Law brings wrath but the Gospel sets free. Doing all of the right things and knowing all the right people and making all the right choices can’t make us right. We all fall short of the glory of God, we all waver, we all mess up, we all neglect to do the things we should and we tend to do a bunch of things we know we shouldn’t. We’re not a bunch of good people getting gooder all the time. We’re actually a bunch of humans (who by definition make mistakes) who just happen to have the good fortune of a community that says we are welcome simply because we are who we are. It never ceases to amaze me how weird and wonderful the church is. There is nowhere else you can find a more truthful community of people who are willing to see more than the world sees, who are willing to put our trust in the only One who can actually do anything about anything...

Now what? That’s what the disciples must be asking themselves when they gather with Jesus on the mountain in Galilee. Perhaps that’s the question you’re asking now that you’ve made it to the end of your confirmation adventure. Here’s the answer: no matter where life takes you, no matter what mountaintops or valleys you experience, no matter what you do or leave undone, whether you have blessed assurance or devastating doubts, so long as there is a church, there is a community of grace for you. And for all of us.

The theologian Willie Jennings says, “This is the beginning of a community broken open by the sheer act of God, and we are still yet to comprehend the extent to which God acts and is acting to break us open.” This is important. It’s important because, despite all of our best efforts, we tend to consider Pentecost only in the past tense, something that happened way back when never to happen again. It’s all just a little too perfect isn't it? I mean, a whole group of individuals living together in harmony, and no one has any need? Have you ever met people before? This doesn’t work. Or what about thousands getting added from just one sermon. It’s impossible. And that’s not even mentioning the miracle of speaking new languages! This is such a beguiling image: twelve disciples, with no exceptional credentials, no advanced degrees, no capital resources to draw upon, all standing in front of the crowds, standing in front of the world, with nothing more than a message, nothing more than a story. Who would believe such a remarkable word coming from such unremarkable witnesses? Well, if it were up to them alone it would be impossible. But that’s the power of the Pentecost story because it’s not all up to them, and it’s not all up to us. The Spirit makes the impossible possible, giving life to the dead and bringing into existence the things that do not exist. The truth, the staggering out of the upper room truth of Pentecost, is that the fire that landed in Jerusalem is still blazing through the church today.

Have you listened to the birds recently? Or considered the lilies? Jesus asks us to do so not just because it’s nice, and it is nice, but it also helps to give us perspective. It opens our eyes to something more than whatever is currently weighing us down. The Gospel is a promise. Jesus cares about you, desires your welfare and your gladness. You can give him your worries, by prayer, by exhaustion, by friendship, by worship, by any and all means necessary because he cares for you. Jesus is for you and with you no matter what. If you’ve ever been made to think you’re somehow not worthy of Jesus’ attention or affection, if the world has ever worked to diminish you or belittle you, just remember that the accusation lobbed against Jesus the most is that he spent too much time with the wrong people. People just like you and me. Jesus is the friend of sinners and the Savior of the world. There is no one outside the power of his grace, because Jesus is never done with anyone...

Forming the church, a community that is sustained by the wily Lord named Jesus, is as challenging as any endeavor we will encounter. It looks like a group of people who willfully gather with nearly nothing in common save for the fact that Jesus calls us his friends. It looks like people who are willing to pray for things they wouldn’t pray for on their own, like our enemies. It looks like people who believe that water is thicker than blood, that we are bound to one another in baptism in a way that is somehow more concrete than with the people who are part of our family trees. It looks like people who believe their allegiance is first and foremost to Jesus, not a country, not a flag, and not a holiday...

For God’s sake, what do you suppose we are going to be, you and I? When we grow up? That may fall a bit flat, of course. Some of us here are no longer children, though we may act like it online. Surely many of us have all of our growing up behind us. We’re responsible, committed, and decisive. We’ve already seen enough to know we’ve seen enough. Perhaps the question isn’t “What are we going to do?”, but “What are we now and how well are we doing it?” Maybe the time has come for a performance review? Whether we’re doctors, drivers, or designers; electricians, pediatricians, or morticians; teachers, preachers, or in-betweeners; recently hired, fired, or retired; we all like to think that, one way or another, we’ve already figured it all out and we just have to keep doing what we’re doing they way we’re doing it. And yet, this ancient apostle, the right hand man of the Son of Man, the paradoxical Peter pens an epistle to the likes of those who follow Jesus then, now, and forever. And he has the nerve to call us babies. Like little infants, long for the spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation; for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. In other words, no one’s story is finished. It does not matter how old or young you are, what you’ve done or left undone, God isn’t done with you because God is never done with anyone, and we all have some growing up to do...

The apostle Peter pens an epistle to the early church in large part because they are trying to navigate what it means to be faithful and political in the world. They are contending against the Powers and Principalities and Politics of their day and they want to know which way to go. In chapter 2 Peter is in the middle of exhorting the faithful community to resist the empire by imitating the Lord who became Servant of all. He writes of how servants and slaves are free, right now, to imitate the cruciform way of Jesus. He describes the call to remember that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not. Peter is preaching politics. A politics that was preached to him by Jesus. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” What could be more political than that? And so, having received a particular political witness, Peter punctuates his epistle with the claim that the church will have to live as strangers in a strange land. In order to follow Jesus they/we will necessarily look very different from the world...