The Invested and The Committed

Mark 6:1-29

One of my favorite old fables- I’m not exactly sure where it comes from - is a fable regarding investment and commitment in relationship to the stakeholder. 

It goes something like this, but there are many variations. 

A Pig and a Chicken were walking across the field at the farm one day. 

The Chicken turned to the Pig and said; 

“Hey Pig, why don’t we do something nice for the farmer?”

The Pig turned to the Chicken and said; 

“Sure Chicken, Whatcha got in mind?”

To which the Chicken advised; 

“Lets make the farmer some ham-n-eggs!”

The Pig stopped dead in his tracks and thought for a moment; 

“I don’t think so, Chicken! You’d be invested but ME; I would be committed!”

~

In the past few years I have found myself citing that old fable time and time again. 

This fable speaks to our Gospel for today, and certainly, it offers us an interesting perspective on the death of John, the Baptizing one. 

We have two contrasting stories that are being read together in the narrative lectionary, today. 

John and Jesus

Jesus’ ministry in his hometown and instructions for ministry to his disciples,

combined with the death of John by the hands of Herod’s executioner. 

Interestingly, John is portrayed throughout scripture as the one who is to precede the Christ. 

Preceding Christ in not only his preaching and ministry but a sinister and barbarous death as well. 

It is also interesting to find that the disciples are being prepared to share in a ministry not unlike the ministry of John. 

Carrying with them the bare essentials, the clothes on their backs, old worn out sandals, and a staff. 

If this were a modern context I, myself would be hoping that the new I-staff was about to be unveiled at the next Apple event. 

Something with GPS, uploaded with all my favorite tunes, bible app, electronic books, and with all that walking, why not a fitness tracker? 

But Jesus isn’t giving them much wiggle room on what to carry. 

These instructions follow Jesus’ teaching at the synagogue, 

An occasion that ushers in a bit of hostility from the hometown crowd. 

Jesus’ own community looking on whispering and complaining about the “better than thou preacher that’s gotten a bit too big for his britches”. 

Everybody knew him way back when, they know where he came from, and they certainly know he isn’t all he’s cracked up to be. 

Having dirt on someone in this day and age was not as much about what someone had done, but where they came from, 

what they were born into, and Jesus really isn’t born into a state of prestige in any way. 

So what does one do if they have no inherited credentials? Inherited prestige? 

Their resume isn’t quite up to par cause they just don’t know the right people or weren’t born into the right class?

Well, today, we like to think we can achieve it on our own. 

Pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, so-to-speak. 

But in this day and age, it doesn’t work that way. 

You either have it or you don’t. 

And John, much like Jesus, certainly don’t got it. 

John is an itinerant preacher, living off the land, making no apologies for his place in the social order or attempting to climb out of it. 

For the crowd in the Synagogue, listening to Jesus teach, this is why they are so offended by him. 

To them, they cannot see the truth of his teaching, they can only see that carpenter kid down the street trying to preach his way out of his social class. 

It doesn’t matter what truth that he may teach, he will never escape this social order in which he has been assigned. 

Jesus sees this and knows that there is only one way but that way is not an investment, it is a commitment. 

~

Both the story of Jesus and John provide, not just an example of living, but a dangerous example that can, and has been misinterpreted since the first century church. 

What both John and Jesus provide in their ministry is the way, the word, the Truth. 

Their efforts are so entirely misconstrued that many Christians found the example of John and Jesus deaths to be the primary function of the Church following the persecution of the Emperor; Nero in the year 64. 

The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer
Jean-Léon Gérôme

At one point a Roman official even proclaimed to the countless Christians standing before his tribunal seeking their own execution; 

“Here is a rope, there is a cliff, if you want to die, do it yourselves. I am tired of killing Christians”

During these dark days of the early Church Rome learned one thing about Christians; 

they appeared to be nothing more than lunatics that were marching off to their deaths, senselessly for no reason what-so-ever. 

Without even attempting to share their own beliefs many Christians in the early church were condemned to death, seeking a glorious afterlife.

What is by far the most ludicrous issue with this understanding of Christian mission, is in the very term; martyr. 

Martyr has come to be defined in the English language as “a person who is killed because of their religious or other beliefs”. 

Our very interpretation of the word betrays the Gospel, because martyr literally means witness. 

Martyrdom has nothing to do with our mortality, our death, or the method in which death comes to us, but the message that we bear witness to, and the courage with which we bear that message. 

Joseph Campbell, who studied mythology and comparative religion once said “a hero is someone who gives his or her life for something bigger than oneself”. 

I think that is a pretty good definition of how I see a hero, but not a martyr. 

Because a martyr is someone who shares that something in the lives of each person they touch, especially those who are so inclined to be resistant to it. 

It is not an investment but a commitment to that truth, a devotion to the Truth that is so powerful it can change the lives of not only those who listen but those who hear, even if that hearer is the executioner of our own sentence. 

In the 2009 film, Invictus, Nelson Mandela was portrayed as having a dialogue with one of the chiefs of security, shortly after his election to the Presidency of South Africa in 1994. 

I’m not sure if it actually happened this way or not but during one scene, Mandela’s chief of security comes to him to complain about the four special police officers who have been assigned to President Mandela’s protection detail. 

Nelson Mandela

The primary job of the special police during apartheid was the suppression of the movement Mandela led and the persecution of his supporters. 

In protest, Mandela’s chief of security proclaims; 

“Not long ago these guys tried to kill us, maybe even these four guys in my office tried and often succeeded”

To which President Mandela responds; 

“Yes, I know. Forgiveness starts here too, forgiveness liberates the soul; it removes fear. That is why it is such a powerful weapon”

Again, I am not sure if it happened this way but Mandela did absorb those who opposed his election and the end of apartheid into his government. 

The martyrdom of Mandela was exemplified in his living rather than a violent end to his life. 

So then, we must ask ourselves:

How -if death is not the prerequisite for a Christian martyr- how does the death of so many martyrs serve as such a powerful symbol?

Nearly every one of the Apostles, Stephen, Timothy, Polycarp, Felicity and Perpetua, Justin, John Hus, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and on and on it goes. 

What is the significance of such a death?

Where is the witness to the Gospel that we find in a death at the hands of an executioner?

John’s story helps to illustrate this in a way that we far too often overlook. 

St John the Baptist before Herod
Mattia Preti

Because John bears witness to Herod, not only in his condemnation of Herod’s choice in violating what is right and ethical, 

but in witnessing to Herod in ways that perplex Herod and bring him joy. 

John is not just an enemy of Herod, John is his teacher. 

John shares the Truth with Herod. 

The Truth that has driven John’s entire life, given him hope, and it is a truth that he refuses to hide from Herod. 

Hopeful that such a truth will change Herod from a lustful self serving tyrant. 

And we have to believe that the Truth of John’s witness did bear fruit, because not only did Herod grieve, but John’s death haunts Herod. 

Later on, John’s witness will also be the undoing of Herod because John’s very death is seen as so unjust that it sparks uprisings to overthrow him. 

But even from the cell of a prison, John refuses to relinquish the chance to be a witness to the Truth of God. 

And if John had not born witness to such a truth, not only would his death not have haunted Herod, but that same death would not have ushered in the defeat of Herod, in its own way. 

Knowing full well the dangers, John’s disciples do something that even Jesus’ own disciples would not do at the cross, 

They collect the remains of their teacher, John, and bury him. 

The truth we find in the death of one who bears witness, is that death cannot defeat the Truth of such a witness. 

It is in such a commitment, 

-even a commitment that drives one beyond a mere “investment” all the way to the executioners sword-

that we discover how the executioner’s blade is shattered against the neck of that hope, that truth. 

That truth that cannot be defeated but only condemns the oppressor by their own action, deflecting their own violent action back onto the executioner. 

Condemning them to live a life haunted by the suppression of that witness they sought to break and defeat. 

~

During my initial reading of the Gospel for today we were observing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday. 

Dr. King has become required reading in many seminaries. 

I have read several writings and books by Dr. King but none as influential as his Letter from Birmingham Jail. 

I posted one of my favorite quotes on Our Saviour’s Facebook page last week to commemorate the day. 

Dr. King arrested in Montgomery

He said; 

“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...

This is the inter-related structure of reality.” 

This is the truth of the martyrdom from our Gospel today. 

It is in compassion and hope for not only our advocate but our executioner. 

The hope that the story of John, the story of the Christ, can change not only the lives of those who look on as the cross is raised, 

-that sisters and brothers is merely an investment-

But the hope that the story can change those driving the nails deep into the flesh of the very Truth that we have cried out for. 

Now that is a difficult and painful reality. 

Perhaps even too impossible to ask. 

But that... is a commitment. 

Amen

The Beheading of St. John the Baptist
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

Sources

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 3rd ed. United States: New World Library, 2012.

King, Jr. Martin Luther, James Melvin M. Washington, and Martin Luther King. A Testament of Hope the Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. 6th ed. San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.

Moss, Candida R, C Moss, and ida R. Ancient Christian Martyrdom: Diverse Practices, Theologies, and Traditions. United States: Yale University Press, 2012.

Peckham, Anthony. Invictus. Directed by Clint Eastwood. USA: Warner Bros., 2009. DVD.

I've got a question for you!

Mark 4: 1-34

Growing up, school was certainly not my favorite thing. 

It could have been due to test anxiety, a lack of effort on my part, a poor educational system, who knows?

But I did not like school. 

My weakest areas of study were always areas that dealt with precise answers. 

I didn’t mind doing arithmetic on scratch paper, but boy, did I hate coming up with the exact answer. 

What I always enjoyed was questions, not answers. 

I always tried to stretch the bounds of acceptable questioning. 

One day one teacher asked me quite directly; “Mr Huffman, you know how they say there is no such thing as a dumb question?”

“Yes sir,” I replied.

“Well son,” he informed me, “that there is a prime example of a dumb question and you have just disproven that statement. Don’t ask anymore questions”

It wasn’t until my own promotion to Sergeant in the Marine Corps that I realized the frustration of those who ask questions. 

There is even a mantra in the military meant to address those who ask questions, “Ours is not to question why, ours is to do or die!”

Today we pass judgment on answers, almost exclusively. 

In fact there is no longer any time to mull over a question. 

Today we just “Google it” so to speak. 

Our endless quest for answers has become so convenient, readily available at a moments notice, right at our fingertips, in our pockets wherever we go, 

that the noun Google has now become a verb. 

What is most disturbing about this trend is that we are so dead set on having the answers that we don’t even seem to care about the validity of the answer we receive anymore. 

It doesn’t necessarily matter if the answer is valid, as long as an answer is given. 

This is the dilemma that Jesus is facing in our reading from Mark today. 

Jesus presents a parable, a parable with a little farming advice which prompts the less than ideal response,

"What is that supposed to mean?"

At this point in Jesus’ ministry he has shown his authority, and his reputation as a great teacher and leader is preceding him. 

It is why he is preaching to a full house -a packed hillside.

This hill in Galilee looks like a natural amphitheater to this day. 

A great location to carry out a sermon or a lecture.

And Jesus finds himself preaching from a fishing boat due to the tremendous size of the crowd that has gathered. 

Everyone knows that he has all these teachings to share and the people want answers; 

answers to questions about faith, life, the future, death, hope. 

But instead they get a teacher that reads more like a fortune cookie. 

Jesus turns out less like the “how to be successful” lecturer everyone is anticipating from this new teacher, and more like one of those Matthew McConaughey Lincoln commercials that constantly leave us scratching our heads wondering out loud, “What was THAT!”

And that is the exact reaction I imagine the disciples have when they finally get him alone in verse 10. 

Just imagine, you have dropped EVERYTHING to follow and assist a teacher who is supposed to change everything, and all he can do is speak to those who seek him out through stories that lead to nothing but more questions?

Let us be honest, speaking in riddles is a great parlor trick, but outside a few stand up comedy bits, academia, and “that guy” hanging out in the corner at a party, who wants a teacher that only causes us to ask more questions?

To make it even more frustrating, Jesus is pretty candid about what he has done, and he is very intentional about it.

“To you has been given the secret -the mystery- of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables”

Imagine the looks on the faces of the disciples when he basically asks them “What, you guys get it, don’t you?”

AWKWARD!

The disciples are the insiders, they are supposed to be the ones who get it, they are supposed to understand exactly what it is.

It is a mystery, it is abstract, it is subjective, it is complete uncertainty. 

~

In one of Matt Damon’s earliest performances, he plays Will Hunting, a brilliant savant who is working as a janitor at Harvard. 

In one of my favorite scenes he takes his friend Chuckie, played by Ben Affleck, to a “Hahvahd Bah.”

Chuckie decides to talk to a girl at the bar, and a student named Clark attempts to humiliate him by proving he is definitely not a student at Harvard and that he is stupid. 

Chuckie, after being confronted by Clark asks,

“All right, are we gonna have a problem?” hoping that it will digress into a physical altercation.

Clark responds, “There’s no problem. I was just hoping you could give me some insight into the evolution of the market economy in the early colonies. My contention is that prior to the Revolutionary War the economic modalities, especially of the southern colonies could most aptly be characterized as agrarian pre-capitalist and…"

Then Will steps in interrupting Clark claiming,  

“Of course that's your contention. You're a first year grad student. You just got finished with some Marxian historian, Pete Garrison prob’ly, you’re gonna be convinced of that until next month when you get to James Lemon, then you’re gonna be talkin’ about how the economies of Virginia and Pennsylvania were entrepreneurial and capitalist back in 1740. That's gonna last until next year, then you’re gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood, talkin’ about you know, the Pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization."

Clark shocked by Will but unwilling to back down responds,

“Well, as a matter of fact, I won't, because Wood drastically underestimates the impact of-"

but Will cuts Clark off again finishing his sentence for him,

..."Wood drastically underestimates the impact of social distinctions predicated upon wealth, especially inherited wealth..." You got that from Vickers. "Work in Essex County," page 98, right? Yeah I read that too. Were you gonna plagiarize the whole thing for us or you have any thoughts of your own on this matter? Or is that your thing? You come into a bar, you read some obscure passage and then you pretend- you pawn it off as your own idea just to impress some girls? Embarrass my friend?”

“See, the sad thing about a guy like you, is in about 50 years you’re gonna start doin' some thinkin' on your own, and you’re gonna come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One, don't do that. And two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an education you coulda' gotten for a dollar fifty in late charges at the Public Library.”

To which Clark retorts, 

“Yeah, but I will have a degree, and you'll be serving my kids fries at a drive-thru on our way to a skiing trip.”

And the final rebuttal from Will sums it all up for us, 

“Yeah, maybe. But at least I won't be unoriginal.”

~

Right there, sisters and brothers is the Word we are grounded in. 

Jesus the Christ, the Word made flesh is not just some textbook of answers to be regurgitated. 

These parables, these stories, they are not the solutions, the answers to some arithmetic, or riddle of life. 

They are the seeds that the Christ scatters far and wide in the world, in the lives of all people. 

Interestingly, this parable should strike us as wasteful. 

I’m not sure how many of you garden, but you certainly don’t need to make sure that the Home and Gardening network is in your cable package to know that throwing seeds randomly across the ground is not a modern farming technique. 

But in Jesus’ time, and in the Palestinian culture of his day, it was.  

One would scatter the seed, while another would follow behind the sower tilling the seed into the soil. 

Herein lies the beauty of the word. 

We are called to mull the word over and over in our heads, in our hearts, tilling the Word deeper and deeper into the soil of our lives. 

Not only will this process cause more questions to arise but it will still leave others unanswered or perhaps even multiply those questions of our own lives. 

Jesus assures the crowd that if they till that seed deeply into good soil it will yield, thirty, sixty, and even a hundredfold yield. 

Sisters and brothers, the yield we harvest is not a harvest of answers but deeper questions that draw us closer to God and closer to one another in faith and love.

Jesus’ intention is to spark debate, thoughtful consideration, a deeper understanding of something that no human being can fully know - God. 

The goal of a question is reflection, and the reflections we find in the parables make us less certain about the certainty we place in ourselves and more certain about the certainty that is God. 

In a sermon, Paul Tillich once described this uncertainty claiming that in it, “We realize that in our uncertainty there is one fixed point of certainty.”

The parables unlock the doors in our own lives that would otherwise remain locked, they hold the certainty of the key that unlocks the uncertainty that we otherwise would never have the courage to explore. 

~

Last Sunday, I was invited by a good friend of mine -Imad Damaj- to take part in a gathering called “Standing Together” in Richmond, organized by the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities.

Over six hundred people attended the event to discuss varying faith traditions and religions, seeking a way to better understand how we can relate to one another, accept each other, and live peaceably as a community here in Virginia. 

This is an issue that I have inadvertently stumbled on over the past four years, because of my time in the Middle-East and my experiences. 

It is an issue that has only become more heated over the past few months. 

And while I have my own opinions on these political hot button topics, the issue at hand in our Gospel reading today is not who is right and who is wrong. 

Any faith that claims to have clearly defined answers to all our questions digresses towards a dangerous sense of fanaticism.

Because faith is not a matter of answers; faith is a matter of questions. 

It is the seeds of those questions that Jesus seeks to plant, the seeds that the Christ invites us to till into our hearts and minds. 

Any faith, at its best, is not a matter of answers. 

Faith, at its best, guides us to ask ourselves the right questions, the ones that lead us down an endless maze that will eventually lead us back to who we are truly called to be. 

The question of faith is not a comfortable place to be. It wasn’t for the crowd listening to Jesus in the Gospel for today. It wasn’t for the disciples, and it certainly wasn’t for those on the outside, as Jesus called them. 

Because those on the outside, 

those whose seed is eaten up by the birds, 

those whose seed fell on shallow and rocky soil, 

and those whose seed fell among the thorns,

they were meant to hear these parables and they too had a role to play. 

Because they would be the first to lead the charge against Christ. 

They would be the first to seek his crucifixion, and he knew this very well. 

They would seek his death because he dared to tell the parables, ask the questions, and send them on the journey that none of us wants to take.

But that is why Jesus the Christ, the Word among us, came, and dared to lead us to the questions that no one else would ever dare ask.

That sisters and brothers, is why he dared, and that is how our curiosity killed the Christ. 

Praise be to God for the Christ who dared to make us ask. 

Amen

Sources

Amazon. "Watch Good Will Hunting () Online - Amazon Video." March 30, 2000. Accessed January 17, 2016. http://www.amazon.com/Good-Will-Hunting-Ben-Affleck/dp/B006RXQA5I/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1453039011&sr=1-1&keywords=good+will+hunting.

Tillich, Paul and Mary Ann Stenger. The New Being. United States: University of nebraska press, 2005.

Waiting for a miracle......

Mark 1:21-45

Martin Luther once claimed that if he had to do without either the works or the teaching of Jesus, he would rather do without the works. 

He claimed, “For the works do not help me, but his words give me life, as he himself says.” referencing John 6:63.

It seems safe to say that most preachers, to include Luther, are not fans of miracle stories. 

There are many reasons for this, but I will speak to the two prominent issues I find in preaching on such texts. 

The first issue is that in an era of reason and science we feel a need to approach these texts constantly reconciling faith with our own scientific reason. 

It’s really a flawed approach, considering that scientific reason is as grounded in faith as religion is. 

Science is theoretical and any science worth studying - for those who make their living as scientists- is an exploration of the uncharted, undefined, and unknown aspects of the natural world. 

Trust in an untested theory is, therefore…. an act of faith. 

So, when people try to explain scripture on the history channel through tides, angles of the sun, and yes… alien life; 

Do me a favor?

Change the channel!

In addition to the contradicting nature of this method, keep in mind that science seeks answers to the unsolved mysteries in nature, faith seeks answers to the unsolved mysteries of our being. 

Miracles are not riddles to be solved, they are stories to be told. 

They are stories that remain relevant, because they are stories that continue to perform miracles in our own lives today. 

The second issue is an approach to miracles in which we lift them up as a superstition or a supernatural occurrence. 

A story that is so magnificent that we become enamored by it, mesmerized by what we deem to be magical. 

This approach grasps our attention so tightly that we find ourselves unable to see around the miracle, beyond the miracle. 

Like a moth to a flame, we become distracted from the word, reliant on nothing but the fantastic mesmerizing sight of a supernatural occurrence and if we can’t have it,  well, then we seem to find it’s just not worth it anymore. 

Our faith becomes nothing more than a one legged straw man, leaning on the crutch of miracles. 

And that, sisters and brothers, is exactly the same problem Jesus has with miracles in today’s gospel from Mark. 

He heals three individuals in today’s gospel along with two less specific accounts involving crowds of people. 

He heals a demoniac who enters into the synagogue while he is teaching.

He heals Simon’s mother-in-law. 

And he heals a leper. 

In each instance Jesus is a little short tempered with one exception; Simon’s mother-in-law. 

There are two significant differences. 

One, Simon’s mother-in-law is a passive participant in the healing.

She neither asks nor resists Jesus’ attempt to heal her. 

Second of all, she serves Jesus following her miraculous healing. 

Jesus healing Simon's Mother-in-law

The other two stories seem to take a harsher tone. 

Jesus not only scolds both individuals, but there is debate in some circles as to whether Jesus was moved by compassion or anger, when he healed the leper. 

He’s a bit secretive about all this miracle work on top of it. 

Little different from the televised miracle ministries that have become less prevalent today than in decades past.

Regardless, Jesus is pretty touchy about these miracles. 

One could even say stingy  when he is told in verse 38 that there is a crowd waiting for him back in Capernaum. 

His response could certainly be seen as not only stingy, but cold, when he responds to the report of the waiting crowds by laying out an agenda to go to the neighboring towns, leaving the crowds awaiting more miracles and healing.

But are they awaiting Jesus the Christ? The Word made flesh? The teaching he has come to share?

Or are they awaiting what they can get, what they will receive, the show they are hoping to see,

rather than what he has come to do THROUGH them, in THIS world. 

~

Monday night my wife found a babysitter and we went to go see the latest Star Wars movie;  Star Wars: The Force Awakens. 

It was a treat. 

Not only because we don’t go to the movies all that often anymore but because, I must admit, I like Star Wars. 

It was an interesting approach to the story, however. 

I won't give too much away, for those of you still waiting to see it,  but the plot revolves around that same galaxy, still a long time ago, yet about 30 years after the defeat of the Empire in "The Return of the Jedi." 

There are new bad guys and some new good guys, but a lot of the old characters from the original films return for another round. 

In this film, new threats to the galaxy have come to light, and the rebels -now known as the Resistance- are seeking out Luke Skywalker -who has disappeared. 

From beginning to end, this is the central plot line; 

Where is Luke Skywalker?

The Resistance is searching for him, and so are the new baddies “The First Order”. 

What is so interesting is that, only 30 years after the defeat of the Empire, Luke has become a messiah-like hero. 

The entire mission of the Resistance revolves around locating Luke as the most important figure, perhaps the only hope, to defeat all galactic evil.

What makes the plot line even more interesting is that Luke has gone missing because he went off into the far reaches of the galaxy to train more Jedi. 

Apparently, Luke fails to train the pupils he acquires. 

Disheartened,  he isolates himself to some place where he cannot be found. 

Kind of like Jesus does in our gospel, seeking isolation in a deserted place. 

Maybe himself a little frustrated and disheartened by the pupils that aren't quite getting the lessons being taught. 

Much like Luke, Jesus wasn’t seeking to BE the Savior, Jesus was seeking to make saviors out of all people. 

And much like Luke, Jesus knows that people are becoming distracted by the tales of his miracles and deeds. 

Luke in Star Wars: The Force Awakens

So why is he so pleased with Simon’s mother-in-law?

Because she RESPONDS to the miracle IN service, in service to Jesus’ new disciples, in service to Jesus. 

And she doesn’t stop serving, she is only beginning her service in Mark’s gospel. 

She isn’t distracted by the miracle, she responds to the miracle, she lives out the miracle, she works her own miracles by bringing Christ into the world by her own participation in that miracle. 

Perhaps my favorite scene in the entire Star Wars movie was when one of the new characters; Finn, goes on a mission with Hans Solo, who now believes but doesn’t fully understand the force. 

Han, discovering that Finn doesn’t have a foolproof plan to accomplish their mission asks him how he expects to perform the task at hand to which Finn enthusiastically replies; 

“We’ll use the force!”

Prompting Han to advise Finn “The force doesn't work that way!”

Herein lies the problem with our fascination with miracles, with Jesus, with God. 

We aren’t supposed to just sit around waiting for the miracle, we are called to hear the Word of God, Jesus the Christ and BE the miracle!

On this 10th day of Christmas we celebrate the birth of Christ. 

A wondrous event that happened 2,000 years ago. 

Celebrating a Savior who a long time ago, went off into a galaxy far far away. 

We sit around resigning ourselves to the fact that he is gone, desperate for him to return, awaiting his return. 

But that is not the point of the story. 

The point -while we are so distracted by the miracle- is that we are called to be the miracle that brings Him into this world. 

On Friday, I read an article in USA Today about a new statue of Jesus. 

The statue was unveiled on New Year's Day outside of a church in a Nigerian Village in Africa. 

The statue is 28 feet tall, a rather modest statue when compared to the famous “Christ the Redeemer” statue of Rio De Janeiro which itself stands at 98 feet high, towering over the city in Brazil. 

The largest statue depicting Jesus can be found in Poland, however, standing at 118 feet tall. 

While this new statue being built in Nigeria may not be the biggest depiction of Jesus in the world, it made news for two reasons

The businessman who paid for the white marble interpreted likeness of Jesus boasts it is the largest in Africa. 

He also claims that it will bring peace to the war torn region, encouraging coexistence in an area of religious sectarianism. 

"Jesus de Greatest" in Abajah (Nigeria)

I’m not sure a statue of Jesus can do such a thing. 

I do believe that the model of the Christ can, however. 

This is what Jesus most fears in the response from the crowds that follow him. 

Jesus is not meant to be an idol, towering above cities. 

An idol which leaves us resigned and hopeless. 

Jesus is meant to be THE Christ, a model made of not clay but a model molded by the lives of those who claim to live lives under his authority by claiming his name as their own. 

We aren’t called to bring the sick, the possessed, the demoniacs, the lepers, the hated, the lonely, the poor, and the marginalized to Jesus. 

We are called to birth the Christ into this world, 

A world that hungers for that miracle now as much as ever,

Reflecting the miracle that is the Christ into this world, through us, 

by the miracle of our baptisms, 

by the miracle of that meal we will receive this day, 

by the miracle that is the Word made flesh in our own lives, 

by that cross that we are called to carry out into the darkest sides of this world. 

We share in this mission as one Body, trusting in hope of the Christ that we are the Church and in being the Church; WE are the miracle. 

May the Christ be with you. 

Amen.

Sources

Abrams, J.J. Star Wars: The Force Awakens. USA, 2015.

Gerrish, B A. Saving and Secular Faith: An Invitation to Systematic Theology. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, Publishers, 1999.

Lehmann, Helmut T and Martin Luther. Luther’s Works Word and Sacrament I (Luther's Works 35:362). Edited by Theodore E. Bachmann. Philadelphia: Augsburg Fortress, Publishers, 1960.

The World Is about to Get a New Giant Jesus Statue. (USA TODAY), December 31, 2015. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/12/31/new-giant-jesus-statue/78122392/.