Day1 Weekly Radio Broadcast - Day1 Feeds

  There's no better place to start a study of the Book of Acts than the account of Pentecost. Now, this is a moment we often identity as the birth of the church, that moment when God's blessings poured down upon us and the church tasted God's goodness. But what happened that momentous day, and what does it all mean for us today? The story of Pentecost makes us wonder about a different world. Wouldn't life be easier if we were all the same? If we all spoke the same language, wouldn't we avoid so many of the conflicts and rifts that destroy our relationships? If we all shared a common culture, wouldn't we all be much better off? I want to propose today that there are a number of problems with this line of questions. Initially, the question isn't as honest as it should be. The real question we ought to pose is: "Wouldn't life be easier if we were all just like me?" After all, that is so often what we really hope for. Too often, Christians have hoped for a time when our differences would cease, when in Christ we would all be indistinguishable. Such impulses are earnest but fundamentally misguided. Many such interpretations emerge from a fervent hope that the specters of racism, sexism, and myriad other destructive "isms" would no longer bind us to cycles of violence and hate. Such interpretations imagine that becoming Christians means becoming all the same in all ways. But, nothing could be further from the truth.

  "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" Of course they would ask this! Jesus' friends, of course they would ask this question, after all that they had seen and heard and experienced, the good, the bad, yes, the very bad, the darkest of times. Of course, they would ask, "Is this the time?" But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let's rewind the tape a bit. After all, though this mountaintop scene appears to be the opening scene of a story - one that we know as the Acts of the Apostles - the fact is that we are entering a saga already in progress.  Acts is, a sequel, a really good sequel. Like The Godfather, Part II or The Empire Strikes Back, not like Jaws 2 or (worse) Jaws 3-D! In the earlier installment, the Gospel of Luke, we encountered one plot twist after another, as the protagonist subverts and overturns the expectations of everyone around him - including his friends. He was, those friends believed, Israel's promised Messiah.  People were going to love him. People were going to love them. It was going to be smooth sailing ahead for all of them. Yet, when Jesus preaches in the synagogue to a hometown audience, his message is provocatively about how God had in times past shown favor to outsiders. The audience is ready to turn on him. when a centurion, an officer in the despised army of occupation, asks for help, Jesus offers it without hesitation, and his opponents notice and begin to plot. when a woman with a notorious reputation reaches out to him, he welcomes her, blesses her, absolves her, and his friends shake their heads. and, when it finally looks like everything is going right and his friends enter Jerusalem with him in great triumph, Jesus proceeds to say and do things that, quite simply, provide his enemies with even more ammunition to use against him. Suddenly, it all spirals out of control. These friends panic as the one in whom they had placed their hopes suffers under Pontius Pilate, is crucified, dies, and is buried. And they, in turn, descend into the hell of despair.

  When my daughter was about five years old, we went browsing in a bookstore in D.C. when we realized that a writer named Daniel Handler was signing books. It took us a while to figure out that Daniel Handler was actually Lemony Snickets, a children's author known for his morbid humor. Lemony Snickets wrote A Series of Unfortunate Events, books about three siblings whose parents die. So, my daughter picked out a book and we stood in line. When I read the signature, Handler had inscribed in the book, "To a future orphan." I looked down at my beautiful, tiny daughter with the words in her hand and became horrified. It was such a terrible thought and such a true statement. Finally, I had to laugh. Of course, in the best of circumstances, my daughter will be a future orphan. Hopefully, it will be when she is at least 50 years old, because I could not imagine leaving her before then. I want to share in the joy of her accomplishments and the heartache of her losses. I want to be there when she finds love in the vast array of places we find it - in her creativity, in her career, in beauty, or with another person. It hurts too much to imagine that I would not be there for her to care for her. It was a thought I could not bear when she had those skinny arms of a five-year old and I held her in my lap. And it's a thought I cannot bear now, even though when we hug, she towers over me. My arms still ache for her, and I want to cry, "I will not leave you orphaned."

  Grace and peace to you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  It's such a joy and a privilege to be here with you on Day1 Radio because I'm a big fan of radio broadcasts myself.  And one show that has particularly been enriching my life lately is National Public Radio's Indivisible.  Indivisible a national call-in show that's trying to take stock of people's hopes and fears for this country in the first hundred days of the new presidential administration.  One of the show's goals is to try to find ways for people with different political views to just talk to each other again after an ugly election.  The conversations often demonstrate how difficult that goal is. In one episode, the host invited people to call in with a question that they wanted to ask someone on the other side of the aisle -- republicans with a question for democrats, democrats with a question for republicans.  But this wasn't supposed to be the kind of accusing question that we normally hurl at each other when we get to talking politics.  The host framed this as an opportunity to ask a genuine question, an open-minded question.  Something you could ask another person in good faith, and which they could actually answer.  A good question was about giving yourself a chance to listen, not about giving yourself a chance to speak. Sounds simple enough, right?  But as soon as they opened up the phone lines, it quickly became obvious that this was hard for people.  Most of the callers did a pretty bad job of presenting their questions.  People across the political spectrum did exactly what the host had asked them not to do.  They generalized.  They assumed.  They accused.  They got up on their soapboxes and they started shouting.  Everyone wanted their anger to be heard, but few people really wanted to listen to the other side.

  My wife, Melissa, and I met at the First Baptist Church of Doraville, Georgia -- a northern suburb of Atlanta. She had lived in the same house all of her life and had attended the same Baptist church. My family became involved there when I was a teenager. First Baptist is the church that taught me about Christian community. It was where I preached my first sermon and years later went forward to tell the church that I felt called to full-time Christian service. First Baptist was where I was ordained and where Melissa and I were married. I thought our church was exceptional and unique and that no other place would have what they have, no other place would love me and accept me like the people of Doraville. I simply did not trust how big the church was. I did not understand the family tree that connected First Baptist back to a little band of Middle Eastern Christ followers who called themselves, "The Way". Imagine that, a blue-collar church in suburban Atlanta can trace its roots to a first century tribe that gathered for mostly the same purpose -- preaching and teaching and telling. One day, things changed for that little Palestinian church -- one day, Peter got up to preach and there were people there from every region, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia -- and Peter preached the resurrection story and 3,000 people were added to the rolls of the church. In one day, the church went from the size of a Sunday School class to a 3,000 member mega-church. My home church in Doraville traces her lineage back to that day.

  This Gospel lesson from St. Luke can feel like a failed trial run for Christian witness. The disciples encounter Undercover Jesus on the road to Emmaus. And when he asks them what they are discussing, they tell Jesus about himself. Only, it's not exactly the testimony our Risen Lord was hoping for. They tell him that Jesus was a mighty prophet who they expected to deliver Israel. But instead, he died. And now they are sad and disappointed. Essentially, these disciples are ignoring what they know about Jesus. It is pretty remarkable to me that this tendency is so intrinsic to our relationship with God, that even the disciples, with the words of Jesus fresh on their ears, are only willing to tell their version of the story. They are only willing to recall their disappointment that Jesus was not who they expected him to be. It comes as no surprise, then, that this false testifying is something that we all do. Our Christian witness can often look much like these two bumbling guys on the road to Emmaus. When people ask us about Jesus, we offer up whatever answer serves our needs, or makes us look good. All too often, the version of God's story we choose to tell is the one that most serves us. And we want God to be everything he is not. We want him to be our moral legislator. An ethical superhero. We want God to be a protester on our behalf. Or a table flipper in the temple of our own choosing. We all want a glory story over a Gospel witness.

  Would you join me in a prayer? Dear Lord, in life, all of us are dropped and damaged by others. Sometimes, we simply disappoint ourselves and others, make bad decisions, and are not the people that we hope we could be. We would be lost if you were not a loving, merciful, and forgiving God. You forgive and you help us forgive. We cannot do it alone. Be with us as we think about your Word, that we will not just hear it, but that it will change us. Amen. Our Scripture is 2 Samuel 4:4 and then Chapter 9 verses 1, 4b, 6 and 7, and 11b. Jonathan, son of Saul, had a son who was lame in both feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel. His nurse picked him up and fled, but as she hurried to leave, he fell and became crippled. His name was Mephibosheth.   Now, 2 Samuel 9. David asked, "Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan's sake?" Ziba [Saul's servant] answered, "He is in Lo Debar." (referring to Mephibosheth) When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor. David said, "Mephibosheth!" "Your servant," he replied. "Don't be afraid," David said to him, "for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table." So Mephibosheth ate at David's table like one of the king's sons.

  Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!   Have any of you ever been in a tunnel? Last year, I was trekking through several tunnels. I was with a group of fifteen hearty souls on a spiritual pilgrimage to Israel and Jerusalem. A special feature of that pilgrimage was tunnels. We walked in a lot of tunnels, tunnels that had served as water supplies, escape routes, and attack routes -- but also tunnels that were modern archeological digs. We walked through walls of sheer rock, and along long stretches of limestone, deep in the underground of Jerusalem, below bedrock in some places. We walked through some tunnels that had been hewn out by hand tools of the Canaanites. Other tunnels were constructed by Hezekiah and various Hebrew kings. Still others were the result of modern archaeology, present explorations into our past. Our footing was precarious and uncertain. We stumbled along rocky ridges and unexpected slopes. Often the rock beneath our feet was wet, always slippery, and sometimes full of water puddles. Underground, we rarely knew exactly where we were. We could not hear the world above us, and our tunnels made unexpected turns and dives. I am telling you all this, I am describing those rocky tunnels to you on Easter morning, because being in those tunnels felt like being in a rocky tomb. Walking deep in those Jerusalem tunnels felt like I was walking in a tomb. The walls were tight and dark, and I had no idea where I was.

  When I was a little kid, Cowboy Bob was my hero. He had a children's show on local TV. He wore a stereotypical Western shirt and white Stetson and sat behind a table where he taught us how to do easy card tricks and simple science projects in between episodes of old 1930s westerns starring people like Lash Larue and Hop-along Cassidy. One day at school, I heard great news. "Glad tidings of exceeding great joy," Cowboy Bob was coming to town! He was going to be in our town's annual Christmas parade. Finally, the day arrived. I persuaded my 6'3" father to put me on his shoulders so I could get a really good look when Cowboy Bob rode through town on his valiant steed.  After way too many clowns and Cub Scout troops and church floats and high school bands, there he was riding on the back of a flatbed truck, little kids sitting on bales of hay and a short little man spinning a rope and waving at the crowd. The wind almost blew his Stetson off and for a moment I could see that he was bald.  I have never been so disappointed in my life. "Who is that?" I cried to my father, "That can't be Cowboy Bob!" But it was; alas and alack, it really was. I wonder how soon those who turned out to greet the Messiah began to feel disappointment. Was it when they looked up from spreading palm leaves on the ground to see a slight, dust-covered man riding a donkey into town? Did "alleluia" die in their throats, as they turned to a neighbor to ask, "This?  This is the Messiah?"

  I received the gospel in a nutshell once, or what someone felt was the gospel. It was literally in a nutshell, though the shell was now emptied of its nut, was stuffed with a slip of paper with a verse from scripture on it. It had been a youth group activity with an aim for evangelism. The members of the group had been told to choose their favorite Bible verse, to write it on a slip of paper, and then to stuff it into an emptied nutshell. I imagine it was a painstaking process. But (I have to be honest) it was lost on me. I just don't think you can fit the gospel in a nutshell, even figuratively; I just don't think you can adequately sum it all up. Holding the open shell in my one hand and the slip of paper in my other, I thought of Jesus telling people, "Come and see." Not a summation but an invitation, not an abstract but an expanse: come and see. These are among the first words Jesus is remembered to have said according to the gospel of John. Having been called out by John the baptizer, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" having attracted then the attention and the following of two of John's disciples, Jesus turned to them and asked, "What are you looking for?" Their response was also a question, and an odd one, "Rabbi, where are you staying?" Jesus answered, "Come and see," which they did, the story telling us, "They came and saw where Jesus was staying, and they remained with him that day." Following this, they not only became Jesus' disciples but called a third as well, Simon Peter.

  Last year at my daughter's band concert a flute player got up to play a solo. This was a middle school band, you know, 7th and 8th graders. Now, my middle schooler, I mean, she's amazing. But the rest? Well, it's a middle school band, you know? So I didn't hope for too much. I mean, mostly, if I'm being honest, I just hoped to stay awake. Truth be told, I don't know much about classical music. Some of you might think that's weird for a Lutheran pastor, but it's true. The teacher said the name of the piece, and I had no clue what it was. You might. It was Paganini's Caprice 24. I talked to my Dad about this later, he loves classical, and he said "That's a violin piece." I said, "Well, this kid did it on flute." "Huh," my Dad says. That's how you know my Dad is impressed, when he says "Huh." And it was impressive. No, it was more than that. It was amazing. I mean, this kid started playing, and that flute, man, he made it sing. The notes bounced and flew and the music soared and the flute sang and, I gotta tell you, it was unlike anything I had ever heard before. It really was. And the funny thing is, I can't remember the tune. Not at all. Not a lick. I just remember how it made me feel, the swooping and soaring and how intense and emotional it was. It was amazing. And I never, EVER, would have expected THAT from a middle school flute player. I mean, think about it. If you were looking for someone to play this piece of music, is that who you would have chosen? A kid who doesn't even shave? Who only picked up a flute up three years ago? Is that who you would have picked? No, you would have picked someone with experience. Someone who had played it before. Who had played in symphonies and orchestras and operas and all that classical stuff that I don't know about. You would have picked someone who knew what they were doing. You would not have picked a middle school flute player. I'm sorry, you just wouldn't. I wouldn't either.

  Our story today starts with the word "so."  S-O, "so" -- two little letters, too significant to skip. "So" is a conjunction here and the function of this conjunction is to inform you that you are entering a story already underway. "So" in this case implies a causal relationship. It would be as if I said: "So, I went to the house on the hill" or "So, she finally made that trip to Bangladesh." It shows that something has already happened in the narrative which is now (at least in part) causing what is about to happen. A conjunction with a causal relationship. So, when we begin with the word "so," we must realize we begin with a backstory.  "So [it says] Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar."[i] Jesus had been down in Judea out in the countryside with his cousin John: John the baptizer, John the testifier, John the voice of the one crying out. Jesus and John had been down in a little town called Aenon near Salim.   Aenon literally means fresh spring or natural fountain. So for those of you with a more-gooder-vocabulary than myself, you might already know this is an aquatic sanctuary of sorts. But for those of us who are a bit slower, the text in the previous chapter goes ahead and spells this out for us, it reads: "Jesus was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was abundant there."[ii] Water was abundant there. Now, I don't know what your definition of abundant water is. Sounds kind of subjective, doesn't it?  

  Indulge me, if you will, before I read from the Good Book as I read from another book.  Our church sponsors an annual children's camp each summer.  Two years ago our theme was "The Gospel According to Dr. Seuss."  As the camp pastor, I had the privilege of reading up on some of those classic stories from the pen of the great Theodore Seuss Geisel. It was to prepare for our nightly worship services at camp. So before I read from the Bible's story I want to read a bit -- just a small bit -- from this piece Dr. Seuss first penned more than 60 years ago called On Beyond Zebra!   Said Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell, My very young friend who is learning to spell: "The A is for Ape.  The B is for Bear. The C is for Camel.  The H is for Hare. The M is for Mouse.  And the R is for Rat. I know all the twenty-six letters like that... ...through to Z is for Zebra I know them all well." Said Conrad Cornelius O'Donald o'Dell. "So now I know everything anyone knows From beginning to end.  From the start to the close Because Z is as far as the alphabet goes."   Then he almost fell flat on his face on the floor When I picked up the chalk and drew one letter more!

  Once when I was pastor of a church between youth ministers, I stepped in to lead the young people in that interim season. We were getting close to Easter, and I announced one Sunday night that I had a surprise for them. We were going on a field trip. We loaded the church van and took off. You get the picture, right? A lot of excitement because we were doing something different, unexpected, out of the ordinary. It felt spontaneous which, if you hear that word, you certainly don't associate it with my name. You can ask my wife about our first date, and she'll give you the scoop. I had a van full of teenagers, and they were happy to be doing something special. Imagine their reactions when I pulled up at our destination: an old cemetery not far from our church. Some of the youth thought it was kind of cool. Some of them thought I wasn't serious, and some of them thought it was downright creepy. It was almost Easter, and I had been telling them about how important the resurrection is for our lives. In the midst of that, I read a great line from that great preacher we all wish we could craft words like, Barbara Brown Taylor. Somewhere she wrote that you can't get to Easter without going through a graveyard. And, of course, she's right. She's absolutely right.  So I took the youth to a cemetery. I drove them over there to remind them that Easter's resurrection celebration is only meaningful if you remember that someone had to actually die first. A lot of us would just as soon have Easter without Good Friday. But as Brian Erickson has noted, "following Christ cannot be a part-time hobby."[1] If we are going to be serious about following Jesus, then we had best be ready to go some places we might not otherwise choose on our own.

  Today is the concluding Sunday for the season of Epiphany, a season in which we marvel at God's magnificence being revealed through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Christian year begins with a poignant waiting for the Christ child; and when the child is born, our first response is to stand in awe of God's amazing and abundant love for us and for all of creation. Soon we will do the difficult work of looking at our own soul, discovering what we need to give up or maybe what we need to take on in order to prepare ourselves for Christ's sacrifice and resurrection during the season of Lent and Easter. But today on Transfiguration Sunday, we simply stand in awe of God being God. It can be difficult to figure out what to do with Transfiguration Sunday. Our text today details when Jesus climbed the mountain with Peter, James, and John, transfiguring before them. His appearance becomes a dazzling white, and he stands with Moses and Elijah revealing that in Christ the law and the prophets come together as the genesis of a new creation through the cross and the empty tomb. Like Peter we often find ourselves befuddled and confused relying on what we know rather than allowing ourselves to be stretched and transformed in the mystery of God. Peter said, "It is good for us to be here," maybe to convince himself. He offered to build three dwelling places--one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah--or maybe he was building a dwelling place for James and John and himself in order to offer a tangible expression of the unexplained.