And each one of them said, “We like to think there are addicts and there are the rest of us.  But the first thing you need to know is we are all addicts; every single one of us.  There is a large spectrum of addiction and severity of addiction and some people function at greater levels than others, but we are all addicts.”

“Okay, then describe addiction for me.”

“Addiction is a coping method that helps us avoid pain or anything that is too vulnerable, too shameful, too scary, or simply too much for us to handle.  Addiction offers a withdrawal, a distraction, a way to avoid hard issues.  It’s highly personal too, meaning your addiction is as unique as your pain.  The greater your pain, the greater your shame about yourself.  And the greater your shame, the greater your addiction.  As the addiction grows the more the feeling of powerlessness grows until a switch takes place and you feel as if you no longer have the addiction, but the addiction has you.  Even if you know it will do you great harm, and even if you know it will cause great harm to those you love, and even if you know it will destroy whatever is good in your life, you still choose it.”

“So let me get this right.  You’re saying that addiction tends to usurp our identity, possess power over our wills, lie to us and promise us things it can’t deliver on, and wants to harm us and those we love.”

“Yep.  That sounds right.”

“You know, listening to this as a Christian pastor, this sounds demonic.  Would that be crazy to call this demonic?”  (Now here’s where I thought that professionally, these therapists could not go there with me, but each one, Christian or not, responded, “No.  It’s not over the top.  Most people who are confronting their addiction will readily call it their personal demon.”

I want to offer this paradigm as a way for us to enter into this Gospel story from St. Mark, chapter five.  Of course it’s not the only way into this story, but perhaps it is an urgent way for us to listen to the story in our day and in our place. So in the safety of this sanctuary,

I want to invite you to become open to epiphanies about your own demons, your own addictions on a broad continuum, and the pain lies beneath it, in order that the Risen Christ who is present with us now might continue to be truth and grace for you.

MARK 5: When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him.  Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

We don’t know much about this man.  We don’t know as a little boy what he wanted to be when he grew up.  We don’t know what evil and traumatic thing may have happened to him that continued to follow him as he got older.  We don’t know how it was that he came to be in this place where the only home he had left to go was a graveyard on the furthest margins of his community.  But what we do know is that there was a lot that led up to this moment and now he is utterly alone in his misery.  People have tried to help him.  People have tried to isolate him.  People have tried to forget about him, but when the town is asleep in their beds they still hear him howling and wailing in the cliffs.  The children shuttered at the sound.  The mothers remember when they helped midwife his birth.  The father’s remember coaching him in little league.  And now his persistent screaming in the night terrorized the whole community because they knew that it was not only his demon, it was their demon.

The therapists I talked to said, “Our culture treats addiction like a medical problem, like a disease.  Certainly there are chemical and biological issues at play, but emotional and spiritual healing cannot take place simply through will power.  It must be addressed in relationship because under every addiction there is a yearning for relationship and when the trauma of a broken or abusive relationship leaves you fragmented, the craving for and repulsion for relationship is intensified and that’s where the addiction grows.”

The odd thing about our story is that as horribly conflicted and ambivalent as this man might be, he comes out of isolation and hiding to be in some kind of relationship to Jesus:

When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him.

He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name don’t torture me!”  For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you impure spirit!”

Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

Perhaps this is the crux of the story.  Perhaps no one had ever asked this question of him before.  No matter who you talk to, naming addiction is fundamental to healing.  Every AA meeting starts the same way – “Hello.  My name is Ryan and I’m an addict.” This mantra holds two very tenuous truths together at the same time, that I am both “Ryan” and I am an “addict”.  Most of us wont allow both to be true.  Martin Luther called this the paradox of always being at the same time both “saint and sinner.”  For those suffering from severe addiction, the lie is with them every day of their life, “You are your addiction.  That’s it.  Your addiction makes your choices for you, defines you, and directs you.”  But naming our addictions puts us back into the paradox and returns our truest name back to ourselves.  When we name our demons we can now tell the who truth about who we are, “Yes, we are addicts.  But we are more than addicts and we are more than our addiction.  There is something true about me long before my addiction – I am God’s Beloved.  And not even my addiction can take that from me.  Not even I have the power to screw that up.”

A friend of mine who is both a pastor and a recovering alcoholic told me, “My AA group was more honest than any church group I’ve ever pastored, and in our brokenness we found freedom.”  What if our church was a place safe enough to tell the truth about ourselves – the whole truth?  This man who came out from his isolation to meet Jesus had become so enmeshed with his demons that his very identity was usurped.  Not even the man could tell where the demons stopped and he began.  Jesus simple question, “What is your name” brings distinction between the person and the addiction.

The story continues:  The demon said, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”  And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.

A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside.  The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.”   He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

Here’s the thing that we might not be ready for:  Loving each other in the midst of addiction costs.  It costs a lot. Being on a path to healing costs.  It costs a lot.  Not just the individual, but it costs the whole community.  For this town in the region of Garesene, it cost this man’s community two thousand pigs.  Last summer we bought a pig for the pig roast and it fed a whole community of people – 200 lbs of pig cost us about $500.  That means at that rate 2,000 pigs would cost exactly a million dollars!  What an extreme cost.  This was likely the entire livelihood of an entire village.  No wonder Jesus wasn’t asked to stay for dinner.  But there’s a way in which Jesus was inviting the entire community into the healing of this man and to bear the cost of his healing.

We can no longer pretend that addiction is the problem of an individual.  Addiction is a systemic problem.  Addiction is a communal problem because the man didn’t get to where he was on his own and he wont return to wholeness on his own either.  He needs the community and the community needs him for their own wholeness.  But it costs a lot.  Who’s healing is bound up with your healing?  And what price will you put on that healing?

The story ends by saying:

Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened.  When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.  Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well.   Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him.   Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”   So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

What a miraculous thing:  the man goes from screaming at the furthest margin of community to sharing his story in the Decapolis – the very center of community.  The twelfth step in every AA program is this:  “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”  Sounds like echoes of a baptismal covenant to me.

The man wanted to go with Jesus.  Sounds like the “Christian thing to do”, but Jesus said, “Look.  I can understand why you would want to leave here and have a redo.  But your redo is right here, because here is your community.  Here is the place where your addiction took root.  Here are the people who have both helped and harmed you.  Here are the people who don’t know what to do with you nor their anxiety about what to do with you now that you are not howling in the caves.  And here are a people who need naming and need freeing relationships and need you to tell your story.”

On the one hand, this was only the beginning of healing for this man and his community.  What happened next would be hard and slow.  It may even result in some more pain and wondering if he should just go back up to the tombs again.  But he would be brought back to community knowing that his experience with Jesus had fundamentally changed everything.  And it was that hope that possessed him now.

We tend to say there are addicts and the rest of us, but if we are honest with our selves we know we are all addictive people.  We all have places that we go to to escape ourselves.

Man, that’s scary to name.  I imagine some, if not all of you might be in a place where just talking about this brings up some major fear and anxiety and that is sure understandable.  But I promise you, Jesus is speaking to you the same word of grace as you come out of hiding: “You are more than your disease.  You are more than the labels you are given.  You are first and foremost made in the image of God, claimed by God and you are free.  Free to be human, free to be in relationship. You are free to be whole.  And I’m here with you, as you much as you push and pull on me.  As much as you yell and scream.  I’m not here to torture you.  I’m here to restore your true name and restore you to community.”

1,095,000.  That’s how many advertisements you will encounter this year.  This equals 3,000 advertisements each day.  You will encounter more commercials in a single year than your counter part 50 years ago saw in their entire lifetime.  In 2009 Microsoft spent 518 million dollars on advertising in order to combat the iPhone (…and their ads were still lousy!)  BP spent more than a million dollars per week on advertising to try and salvage their reputation with you, while crude oil flowed into the gulf of mexico.  That’s 93 million dollars in 93 weeks.  A few New York universities did a study back in 2004 that showed that the U.S. Pharmaceutical industry spent twice as much money on advertising their products than they did on researching and developing their products.  Guess how much… 57.4 billion dollars.  There are no comprehensive stats about how much money is actually spent on advertising each year, but you can imagine now that it reaches into the trillions of dollars.

This massive amount of money is spent so that 3,000 times a day you can hear that your hair is too grey, your skin is too blotchy, your teeth are too yellow, your clothes are too 2010, your is car stupid, your bed is too soft, your porridge is too cold, BUT it will all be made right IF you buy this product.  All those millions of advertisements on TV commercials, blog banners, radio spots, movie product placement, magazine inserts, even the commercials we wear on our chests all essential say one thing:  YOU ARE IN WANT!  YOU ARE INSUFFICIENT!  YOU NEED WHAT I HAVE TO SELL YOU!  Anthropologists and psychologists, surveys and focus groups, teams of number crunchers and expert analysts are all working around the clock to create the most convincing way to tap into your most vulnerable place in order to say one thing:  “You are in want.”  This is the most well financed, strategic, powerful, ubiquitous voice that our world has ever known, and we have believed it with all our heart.  As a nation we purchase more things than any other nation has in the history of the world!  Yet our national happiness has been steadily declining, because it’s not working!  And that is the basic definition of a Heresy – a thing that does not lead to where it promises.  We are stuck in a system that does not lead where it promises to lead.  It says, “You want.  But if you buy this product you will no longer want”, while knowing full well that they’ll have you coming back to buy that same exact product next month.  Have you ever bought something only to then get home and see an ad for basically the same thing, but more advanced, sleeker, faster, more improved,  and you think, “How did this become out dated somewhere between the store and my house?”

There is another voice.  It’s voice number one million, ninety five thousand and one.  It’s a little voice. It’s not very well financed, and it’s not very slick.  This little voice says, “I am your good shepherd.  You shall not want.”  It is such a little voice.  It’s sometimes barely audible, sometimes it seems completely drowned out, and sometimes it seems like the voice of God has been completely extinguished.  But then, underneath the din, you hear a whisper of it that says, “Trust me.  You wont be in want.  I’m gonna take care of you.  These other voices do not care about you.  They want to steal from you – it’s not a fair trade.  They don’t simply want your money, they want your loyalty, they want your security, they want your identity, they want to brand you and then throw you away when you are no longer useful to them.  These voices will not lead you to the life that they promise.”

When Bonnie and I were first married five years ago we got so much loot.  People were really nice to us and they filled our apartment with awesome gifts.  Not more than six months later I came home and there was a solitary wet glove in the driveway, and some muddy tracks that led to the front door, which was ajar.  A flood of adrenalin filled my body.  A garden rake was leaning up against the garage and I quickly grabbed it to arm myself.  I entered, yelling loudly, “Get out of here!”  I went from room to room to find drawers emptied out and whatever left over belongings they did not want strewn across the floor.  They had entered through a window, pried it open, took everything that they wanted and were gone.  I called Bonnie and told her what happened.  She cried as she told me that, she had known that she would be working with her hands a lot that day, and, for the first time, she had taken her wedding ring off that morning, wishing to keep it safe by leaving it at her bedside.  It was gone.

The impact of the break-in on us was devastating, and not because of the things themselves that were stolen, but because of the fear, and suspicion, and the want that overtook us following the event.  Someone uninvited had been in our home.  Someone had gone through our private stuff.  We had been violated.  And now we suspected our neighbors.  We were afraid to leave the house.  We were afraid to be in the house.  I looked differently at people who were simply taking a walk along our street.

And into death’s shadow Jesus says, “I am your good shepherd.  Don’t be afraid.  Fear is the source of all hoarding and fighting.  Fear is the very fuel for death.  And these other voices feed on that fear, manipulate that fear.  They want to take and steal all that they can, leaving destruction behind them.  They don’t even come through the front door.  They find any other way they can to come in.  But you’ll know the good shepherd because you’ll recognize my little voice.  And you’ll know the good shepherd because I’ll never force myself into anywhere.  I’ll stick with you and wait till I’m invited in.”

One of the few things that the robbers didn’t take from us was our old TV.  So what did we do the very next day but go out and buy a new flat screen.  And I felt better and I felt like I was in control for a little while.  And the little voice was still there saying, “These other voices will not lead you to the life that they promise.  But I will.  I will lead you into real life that you can’t be robbed of.  I’m not selling anything.  I’m giving it to you.  I’m gracing it to you.”

Advertising is just one voice.  There are lot’s of influential voices.  Some are life giving and some death giving.  Others are ambiguous or a mixed bag.  I’m curious about the influential voices of your childhood.  Who were they?  What was their main message?  Where was the voice of Jesus in any of it?

Sturgis – South Dakota – population 6,000.

By all accounts this is a sleepy little town near the foothills of nowhere.

Except for one week of each summer, at the beginning of August,

this sleepy little hamlet is converged upon by half a million people on motorcycles

for the mother of all motorcycle rallies.

The most amazing bikes, the fastest bikes, the newest, shiniest, loudest,

most tricked-out bikes in the world will all be gathered together

in one place for one crazy week.

I have wanted to own a motorcycle for a while now.

Something really mean looking.

Something that when you rev it up car alarms go off all down the block.

Because it’s true what they say,

“Four wheels move the body, but two wheels moves the soul.”

There is just nothing like the feeling of riding a motorcycle,

the road whizzing past you only inches below you,

your bike cutting through the warm air,

it feels like pure freedom.

I would love to own a motorcycle,

and maybe even one day ride it into Sturgis on that first week of August.

But I’ve now taken the motorcycle licensing test twice

and both times I’ve failed.

So, in the meantime, I own a scooter.

It’s called: Twist ‘N Go.  (With a capitol “n” rather than the word “and”.)

People say it’s cute.

I wasn’t really going for cute.

I can get it up to 50 miles per hour on a steep downhill.

Let’s just say, I’m not going to take it to Sturgis any time soon.

Because, if you didn’t already know, there is a sharp divide

between those who ride hogs and those who ride… piglets.

If you ride a motorcycle you know there’s a little secret hand signal been riders.

Maybe you’ve witnessed this before:

Two motorcycles drive past one another on a street

and the one rider takes their left hand from their handle-bars

and points down with a couple finger,

then the other biker non-challantly does the same thing.

I imagine it means something like,

“Hey, nice bike man.”

“Thanks.  Live free or die.”

“Ok.  I will.”

But I have YET to get a wave-back while on my Scooter,

…And I’ve tried.

(I hear that there are other clubs that have a similar secret handshake,

VW Beetles, Jeeps… come to find out, they also do not wave at me.)

Some bikers will smile and give me a token little wave…

but they’re totally like… “uh, right.”

I’ve even got less polite hand signals before,

But it is evident that my Twist N Go Scooter

is not impressing anyone with a Motorcycle any time soon.

It was the week before Passover in Jerusalem

and the city was crammed with people from all over.

Jerusalem is where all the action takes place.

And this was the week that celebrated what the Romans feared worst, revolt.

Passover fueled the hope that God was going to do to the Romans

exactly what God did to the Egyptians that enslaved their ancestors.

With huge signs and wonders and with a mighty arm God would some day

send them back to Italy with their tale between their legs…

But who would be God’s new king to do this???

Enter Jesus’ gang.

They are so excited about entering the city, they are telling everyone -

“This guy is it!  This guy is the one you have been waiting for!

He’s coming!  Come on!  He’s coming!”

And the crowd is whipped into a frenzy!

I mean, people are cutting of branch from trees

and throwing them down on the road like he’s royalty…

It basically meant – “We are laying out a red carpet for you to walk down”.

People are literally taking off their clothes

and throwing them down where Jesus will be riding in.

It’s Jesus mania and the crowd is amped up.

Then, he makes his GRAND ENTRANCE!

Here comes the King,

riding into Sturgis …on a scooter.

50cc’s… it get’s great gas mileage…  and it’s kinda cute.

Probably not gonna win any races at Sturgis.

Probably gonna get beat up and laughed out of town… or worse.

Tell Zion’s daughter,

“Look, your king’s on his way,

poised and ready, mounted

(On a stallion, on a war horse, on a chariot…  nope.)

On a donkey, on a colt,

foal of a pack animal.”

And the whole crowd is saying,

“Hooray! Hooray!  …Wait, who is this?

I thought he was that powerful miracle man?  Who is this guy?”

And Eugene Peterson’s version of the Gospel of Matthew says,

“All of Jerusalem was UNNERVED.“

We don’t like being unnerved.

We like our nerves exactly where they are.

And the fact that Jesus,

the one the people have been hearing some pretty promising things about,

makes his grand entrance on a pack animal, on a scooter,

continues to unnerve us who want Jesus to be a certain way,

to get certain things done,

to address certain situations that need addressing,

to make the changes we want to see made in the universe,

because he’s not gonna do that on the back of a donkey.

This unnerving process goes on to hit some other pretty big nerves:

The first chapter of the Gospel of John says this:

“No one has ever seen God,

but the one and only Son,

who is himself God

and is in closest relationship with the Father,

has made God known.”

The only way to know what God is like,

is to know what Jesus is like.

Later on in John’s Gospel Jesus says,

“Yeah, the Father and I – we are one.”

So here’s the amazing, annoying, unsettling thing about Jesus:

At every turn Jesus defies my assumptions about God

and makes me throw out what I think I know about

who God is

and how God thinks,

and how God acts,

and how God feels.

Jesus makes me re-evaluate everything that I ever thought about God.

Like: How would God enter into the world?

As a poor helpless baby of a single teen mom in an occupied country

was not really what I was imagining.

Like: How would God make a ‘triumphal entry’ into Jerusalem?

On an old borrowed (or stolen!) donkey…  not really what I was imagining.

Like: How would God destroy sin and death and everything

that hurts and harms and enslaves the creation that God made?

By not returning violence for violence,

forgiving the ones who brutally murder him,

giving his very life for the reconciliation of his enemies,

and trusting only and entirely in the Father for his resurrection…

again, not really what I was imagining.

Jesus, his very existence, requires that

we either utterly change what we assume about God,

or that we utterly reject Jesus.

(This friday’s service will tell us how that went.)

But even after reading the Gospels for 30 years

I continue to be unnerved by Jesus

and what he tells me is actually true about God.

Jesus continues to disrupt my assumptions about God,

who God delights in and how God works.

Does that happen for you?

That’s the question for conversation tonight…

“How has Jesus made you change your thoughts about God?”

In the past, or even right now?

I’m handing out pain killers tonight.  You can take it if you want.  You always have that option.  But Advent asks you to wait just a minute, before you do, and consider this:

Painkillers don’t do what they say they are going to do. They might immediately mask the pain, but they don’t kill the pain.  They numb our sense of the pain, but they don’t address the source of the pain.  Now I’m not saying that there aren’t good reasons to numb your pain.  And it seems like Advent brings a lot of these reasons to light.

Earlier we read in Isaiah about a time when everyone comes running to God to teach them how to live, about a time when the world forgets how to fight, a time when every tool to make war is repurposed into a tool to make food.  And yet the present reality is that most of our children cannot remember a time when our country was not in two wars.  The drastic disparity between what God promise for the future and what we experience now is hard to bear.  And Advent seems to bring these differences out.  So it makes sense that during the season of Advent we encounter so much pain-killing, like… excessive eating… excessive drinking… excessive shopping… excessive entertainment…  the list goes on because your pain-killing is as unique as your pain.  Making the connection is scary – but it could change everything.

Karl Marx said, “religion is the opiate of the masses”, “Religion is the people’s pain killer.”  And that is definitely one of the many shadow-sides of religion, but tonight Jesus is calling us out of our opiate stupor.  Advent is the smelling salts of the masses; wakes you up to all that is around you, wake you up to all that is within you even if it hurts, because there is some pain that is linked directly to your hope and if you kill that pain, you kill your hope.  Making the connection is scary – but it could change everything.

There are times when we feel so drugged, so groggy, so numb that we need something to surprise us into hope.  The salvation of God always comes as a shock.

This year, you’ll know it’s Advent if there is desire awakened in you tonight.  You’ll know it’s Advent if you face the possibility of becoming horribly disappointed, but you risk to hope anyways.  You’ll know it’s Advent if you are beginning to feel the discomfort of reality and you know that you were meant for more.  You always have the option of taking a pain-killer, but this year Advent is asking you to wait, confront your pain, and be shocked by the closeness of your God.

John 6:24-35

After the feeding of the five-thousand, the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, so they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.  When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”  Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.  Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”  Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?”  Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”  So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?  Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”  Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.  For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”  Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

The musical “Fiddler On the Roof” was on TV three nights ago and I just had to watch.  I love the scene where Motel, the poor, shy Tailor goes to Tseitel’s father, Tevye, to ask for her hand in marriage.  And Motel finally works up the courage to say, “Reb Tevye, I hear you are arranging a match for Tzeitel. Well, I have a match for Tzeitel.”

And Tevye says, “Huh?  What kind of a match?”

“A perfect fit.  This match was made exactly to measure.

“Perfect fit? Made to measure?

“Yes, Reb Tevye.  Like a glove.

“Motel, stop talking like a tailor and tell me, who is it?

“Who is it?”

“Who is it?”

“Who is it?”

“Who is it?!”

“It’s me.  Reb Tevye. Myself.”

“Either you’re out of your mind or you are crazy!

Arranging a match for yourself?  What are you?

Everything?  The bridegroom, matchmaker, and guests

in one?  I suppose you’ll perform the ceremony, too?”

Have you ever experienced a conversation like this?  Where by the end of it you realize the two of you were actually talking about two entirely different things? This is exactly what happens in today’s gospel story. The people miss what, or who Jesus is talking about.

Previously Jesus gave the crowds “dinner and a show”.  He multiplied loaves and fishes, everyone was fed, and now they’re eager to follow Jesus… that is, “only if you show us that trick with the bread again.”  The dialogue in this gospel story sounds a little like slapstick:

“Jesus, when did you get here?”

“You’re only here for the free food, not to see me.”

“No, really we’re here to see you….do….that….work of God with the bread.”

“But, I am that work of God.”

“No, we mean like the Manna, Bread-from-Heaven thing… (You know?  It’s in the Bible!”)

“But, I am the bread from heaven!”

“Yes!  Finally.  That’s it.  That’s what we want.”

But they don’t want Jesus.  They want, what my friend Father John calls “Jesus: the perpetual pasta machine”.  They want what Jesus can do for them, but they don’t want Jesus, himself.  Imagine that your lover lives on the other side of the United States.  Its your birthday, and for your birthday, your Beloved flies in to surprise you and says,

“I’m here, happy birthday!”

“Oh, well what’d you get me?”

“I’m here, I flew across the U.S. to surprise you!”

“Okay, so where’s my present?”

“It’s me.”

“Huh.  That’s disappointing.  You could have at least brought me a sandwich or a magic trick or something.”

This is a penetrating question that Jesus asks of us:  “What do we want out of God?”

Are we simply consumers of religion?  Do we want Jesus to simply strengthen our side?  Or are we being wooed into a relationship

with this invisible God whose love for us is made known in Jesus Christ?  Here’s one of the things that I love about Jesus, he refuses to take sides, meaning he wont let us make this into a liberal proclamation that says, “The primary message of this story is that God wants you to feed the world and end hunger, because the goal of Christianity is to alleviate suffering.”  Nor will he let us make this into a Charismatic proclamation that says, “The primary message of this story is that God wants you to believe enough to perform and receive miracles, because the goal of Christianity is signs and wonders.”  Instead, Jesus is relentlessly Christo-centric in his proclamation, and says, “God is at work in you to see me at the core of all things and want me alone.  The result of this is worship – a life of worship that might flowers into feeding the hungry and miraculous provision.  But works and wonders are not at the heart of this message.  I am.”

A couple verses later in this Gospel Jesus tries to really lay it out for the crowd by saying, ”You’re looking for signs, you’re looking for bread -

but I am giving myself to you.  I am what you need to eat to give you life!”  This was just way too weird for them and like Tevye, the crowd says to Jesus, ”Either you’re out of your mind or you’re crazy!”  Most all of them leave except the disciples.

It’s hard to blame them.  When you compare today’s story to the feeding of the five-thousand, where everyone is amazed and everyone gets fed and there’s still bread left over, well, today’s story is rather anti-climactic, because in this story Jesus says:  ”You want a miraculous sign that God is working, but the sign that God is at work is me – myself.  You can see that I’m at work in your life, because you trust me.  And that trust that you trust me with is actually God at work in you.  And you want God to provide for you, but the provision that God makes is me – myself.

And we want to say, “What are you?  Everything Jesus?”  And he says to us, “Yes!  Yes.  I am everything.  And it’s a perfect fit, made to measure, like a glove. Now, is it enough for you that I offer my entire self for you on the cross? Is it enough for you that I offer my self to you here in bread and wine? Because it’s here on the cross, here in bread and wine that you see that I am for you, that I love you, and that I am with you always.”

If only we could respond, “Lord, give us this bread always.”

In the face of meaningless suffering, will you serve God?  Or will you curse God and die?

The hidden motivations behind our religiosity can no longer hide when our sense of justice is removed, when our sense that in this life goodness is rewarded and badness is punished can no longer serve to explain our reality.

William Blake's illustration of Job's Complaint

This could be your reality tomorrow: Imagine that tomorrow your work tells you that in order to weather the economic storm your going to have to cut back on your hours, only for a little while and in the process you have to dip into your savings a little bit just to pay some bills.  But when a couple weeks turns into 9 months your savings account is now empty.  You’ve submitted your resume to fifteen other companies, but no one’s called.  Your employer calls you in.  “Finally” you think, “Here’s my break, I’m going to get my hours and benefits back.” But no.  This is not your break.  You are let go. You come home, feeling like “too little butter spread over way too much bread”, and that’s when it happens, the phone call that no one ever wants to get:  “There’s been a horrible accident.” And through the incoherent sobs you learn that the one that you love most in life was hit head on.  No one survived the crash.  This is now the bottom.  How could things possibly get worse? And in the morning as you try to piece your fragmented life together just enough to get out of bed and take a shower you notice in the mirror an oddly shaped mole on your chest…  who comes to visit you in the hospital? The ones who love to philosophize and speculate about your screwed up life.

Now, now we’ve come to Job’s real question.  It’s the deepest question of Job’s heart and your heart:  In the face of meaningless suffering – will you serve God?

When karma is crushed.  When your sense of what is just and right is outraged and when all that rage can only lead back to one Source… will you serve God, or will you curse God and die?  Job says what any of us would and do say, “God, life is not fair.  How does that work if you are fair and you’re in charge of life?  All the evidence points to just one thing:  God, you are not fair.” I want so badly to edit this out, but this was God’s answer in chapter 38: (gird yourself)  “Who the hell are you to call me unfair?  Look at everything I’ve made.” (*Okay, note to self:  This is not good pastoral care.  When someone has just lost their business and family and has life threatening disease… do not counsel them this way.)  But here it is.  God says, “Who the hell are you to call me unfair?”

But here’s another way to hear this chapter of Job.  God says:

“Job, let me put your situation into a larger perspective.

You know Atlantic Ocean.”  “Yeah.”

“It’s about 41 million square miles.”  “Uh huh.”

“And it’s about 28,000 feet deep.”  “Okay.”

“I made that.”  “Well, alright.”

“You know the Sombrero Galaxy?”  “No.”

“That’s because it’s 28 million light years from Earth.”  “Oh.”

“It has 800 billion suns.”  “Wow.”

“Yeah, and it’s 50,000 light years across.” “Oh. That’s big.”

I made that too.  And it’s mine to take care of.”

“See where I’m going with this?”  “Yeah.”

“So what makes you think that I can’t handle the problem of your suffering?

I’m your God and I made you.  Now, you’re not going to get an answer that you like here.  Will you trust me anyways?  Will you serve me anyways?  Or will you curse me and die?”

Job didn’t get the answer that he wanted, instead he got an encounter with the God who made him.  And you might not get the answer that you want to the problem of innocent suffering, of meaningless suffering, but the God who made you is present right now to encounter you and here is the answer that God gives:

There is only who is innocent – Jesus, who is the image of that same invisible God who spoke to Job from out of the whirlwind.  And the only Innocent One steps out of the mighty whirlwind and joins you in the soup of this meaningless suffering.  And to the outrage of the powers of this world, this Innocent One stands alongside the weaker thans, the left out, the hopeless, the family-less, the houseless, the jobless… stands with Job, stands with you and says,

“You are blessed.  God is your God.  God made you.  And I love you.  I see that you are suffering.  I hear your questions.  It doesn’t seem like much of an answer, but look at the cross.” Because in the face of meaningless suffering this Innocent One doesn’t curse God and die.  No, this Innocent One is cursed and dies, at the hands of the ones he made, the ones he made 28 million light years away from the Sombrero Galaxy, the ones he made surrounded by 41 million square miles of Ocean, And he says: “It’s for you.  I am for you.”

In the cross Jesus takes all the meaningless suffering of the world, takes all of your suffering and binds it to the very heart heart of God… and says “This is not the end of the story because the only innocent one is alive again!” And it’s not the end of the story for you for your story is now inseparably linked to Christ’s and united with Christ, because you are raised with Christ.

When my friend Ahmed, asked me “So what is there? If you remove the fear of hell and the hope of heaven, what is left?” I said, “I don’t know, Ahmed.  The only thing I know is past the promise of reward for my goodness, past the fear of punishment for my badness, and in the face of all the unexplainable suffering – there is only the undeserved gift of Jesus.”

ryan marsh – beloved architect

I know that this story is supposed to be moving and beautiful, and I can imagine it in a 1980’s epic movie kind of way – The waves lapping against the shore, the brothers busy mending their nets with their long feathered hair blown by the salty Mediterranean wind.  They look up and see Jesus, back lit by the morning sun they squint their eyes to see who it is; Jesus looks deep into their souls with his pale blue eyes, holds out his hand and says “Follow me” and then zombie like they drop their nets and follow.

I know that I’m supposed to be moved by this story, but honestly, I’m a little creeped out by it.

We would think it totally cultish if, say, Jon Glenn pulled out of his studies at Mars Hill Graduate School,
quit his job at the Purple Cafe and started following some unknown theologian and supposed miracle worker…  creepy.

The only other modern thing I have to compare it to would be following the Grateful Dead…
for whom groupies live on very little and trade in everything for the love of the music, the sense of community and the old message: “Tune in, tune out, and drop out.”

Even today there is a theology, popular among Americans, that wishes to take us out of the world, that draws a line in the sand and tells the world “You must cross over to our side in order to know the grace of God”, but this theology knows nothing of the Incarnation and the humble God who left behind everything to become the servant of the world.

There is a theology, popular among Americans, that wishes to take us out of the world, to segregate us from culture and keep us in tidy little kingdom enclaves, but this theology knows nothing of the Cross and the Christ who dies for the sake of the ungodly, for the sake of a beloved-enemy, for the sake of us.

There is a theology, popular among Americans… and no time soon will Church of the Beloved win any popularity contests, because we are finding out that when Christ calls us, life usually doesn’t get better by American standards.

When Christ calls us it’s seemingly not very glorious.  And maybe life would be a little bit simpler if we didn’t follow Christ. I know there’s a lot of us here who, quite honestly, would rather not be following the Christ, …but he called you.  And to your surprise, despite your best judgment, and your internal ambivalence, something within you said, “okay.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a German Lutheran pastor who spoke and acted against Nazi Germany and was hung by Adolf Hitler, famously said:  “When Christ calls us he calls us to come and die.”
When Jesus said, “take up your cross and follow me” what do we expect to do with a cross?  I mean, there’s not a lot of versatility in a cross… it pretty much has only one purpose.

And when Jesus asks us to “love our enemies as he has loved us” there is a high likelihood that your enemy will take advantage of your vulnerability.

I don’t know why Peter and Andrew, James and John followed Jesus.
I don’t know if they hated smelling like fish every day.
I don’t know if their retirement plan had completely tanked and they just spontaneously decided, “Yeah, screw it.  Let’s follow this guy around and see what happens.”  The Gospel  doesn’t tell us why, but apparently they weren’t very hard to convince.  Jesus just said, “follow me.”  And they did.

I love this story in the Gospel of John where Jesus is saying crazy stuff and most of his disciples are totally weirded out and deserting him and Jesus turns to the twelve and says, “Well, don’t you want leave me too?”  Like, “Come on here’s your chance to slip out the back door unnoticed.”  And their response is so great, they say, “Well, if we had something better going on, we’d be doing it, but the truth is, when you speak it is life giving to us.”

I can recall, while working at Church of the Apostles, having a beer with Karen Ward, the Pastor of COTA and a young man who was on pilgrimage.  He asked Karen, “What about all the other world religions…
What if they are true? What if they hold more meaning and more beauty?  What if they bring greater satisfaction than Christianity?  Don’t you want to explore them and find out?”
Karen asked the young man, “How long have you been married to your wife?”  “Four years.”  He said.
“Do you think there are other women in the world who are smarter, more beautiful, and will give your life more satisfaction?”
“Well.  I don’t know.  I married her because I love her, and she loves me, and she captured my heart.”  He said.
“That’s how it is for me and Christ.  I’m not interested in going around trying to disprove or prove the legitimacy of other religions, because what I know is that Jesus Christ has captured my heart.  And I want to be faithful to him.”

What I suspect is that Jesus has captured our hearts, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.  Life is too short and too busy to waste time on worshiping a God who has not captured our hearts.  I suspect that Jesus has captured our hearts, and so we follow, and Jesus leads us.

In a time of scary changes and transitions, this is what Jesus promises us -
Not to lead us around… but to lead us through….
Not to lead us around the heartbreak of separation,
Not to lead us around the impotence of joblessness,
Not to lead us around the confusion of our futures,
Jesus promises not to lead us around the cross, but to lead us through…

And we, with the disciples, have no way of knowing what lies in between the lines of these two little words that Jesus calls us with: “Follow me.”