Easter
March 31, 2013
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

Here’s a little a story about a turning point in my life that many of you have heard before. When I was 24 years old, one day I was hitchhiking in Vermont. A rumpled old man - probably my age now - pulled over in a rumpled old VW bug. Turns out he was a Baptist minister. We got to talking about religious figures of the past, and I mumbled something about all of them teaching basically the same thing. He looked at me and said “Well, that may be partly so, but Jesus is the one who rose from the dead.”

I said “Well, that’s true...” and the conversation drifted off to other subjects. But when I got out of the car and walked down the street, about halfway down the block I stopped dead in my tracks and asked myself “What do you mean, ‘Well, that’s true?’ How do you know this, Brian? And what difference does it make to you?”

Those questions led me eventually to claim as my own the Christian faith I had grown up with, and more than that, to dedicate myself to living in God. Within 2 years, I was enrolled in seminary.

The resurrection has always been at the very center of the Christian faith. And it should be - unless you dismiss it as a fable - because what happened is phenomenal. Consider this: a human being, a spiritual teacher, was executed and sealed in a tomb, and laid there dead for 2 days. He then somehow, on his own, vacated that tomb.

Over the next 50 days, he appeared to hundreds of eyewitnesses who later spoke and wrote about it. He walked through closed doors and yet ate fish with his friends, showing up here and there without time to get from one place to another.

So this spiritual teacher had transcended the limitations of time, space, and so-called physical laws. He was victorious over death, having become an eternal spiritual being, alive and universally present in a way that is beyond human comprehension. He was one with God.

If we believe that this might have actually happened, what do we do with it?

For many Christians, the resurrection is simply proof that Jesus was God’s man, a kind of demonstration of divine power given in order to convince. It’s a pretty spectacular feat, and so it gives credence to theological claims about Jesus: that he was God in the flesh, the second person of the Trinity, that he was sent by God to be a sacrifice that would cancel the debt of human sin, and that if we believe all these ideas, he will take us to heaven instead of hell in the afterlife.

The problem is, all these ideas came long after the resurrection. They were doctrines staked out afterwards, over a period of 300 years. So I’m not interested in the resurrection as a theological proof. I want to know what impact it has had on real people’s lives, and what difference it might make to me, to you. I’m still considering the question that Baptist minister raised in me 37 years ago. Let’s begin with the impact the resurrection had on the first disciples. But to do that, we have to go back further, to set their experience in context.

During Jesus’ lifetime, that motley gang of fishermen, independent women, the disgraced and the outcast that we call the disciples heard Jesus teach some pretty specific things:

Don’t just love those who love you; love everybody without regard for merit, the good and the bad alike. Live simply and spiritually, for the pursuit of material pleasure and security in itself is a dead end. Open your heart to those who are poor, in prison, sick, rejected by society - they are the salt of the earth and will lead you into the kingdom of God. Don’t be a slave to tradition and religious rules; be a seeker, looking for your own answers. Die to your ego, your need to prove that you are good and right; look instead to God’s goodness and be humble. Be honest about your shortcomings, but then forgive yourself; you’re only human. Wake up; God is fully present everywhere, here and now, in everything and everyone.

So his followers joined the movement, wandered around the Galilee together, doing their best to follow these teachings. And when we read the gospels, we see that they failed pretty spectacularly. All the way through, and especially at the end when things got hairy, they were just as messed-up as any other random group of humans. But as my rumpled Baptist friend pointed out to me years ago, everything changed with the resurrection.

When I was in the first year of seminary, my New Testament professor shook up the class in the first few weeks of the semester by telling us “Look - We know that Jesus of Nazareth had a following, caused trouble, and was executed in the usual horrific manner of his day. Sensibly, his friends and followers fled for their lives. They were scattered, frightened, and confused.”

“We also know that after a short period of time, these same people were transformed, finding courage, passion, and unity as a community of faith, and even the ability to sacrifice their lives when persecuted.”

“We have no idea, however, what happened in between. Here’s the important thing: they attributed their transformation to Christ’s resurrection. They said that Jesus was with them again, not just in memory, but in reality, helping them live into his message with an even greater power than he did as a teacher.”

Here’s the difference: before the resurrection, Jesus was a leader to follow, a man who presented a coherent body of teachings that could be critiqued, ignored, or appreciated from a distance. After the resurrection, Christ entered into the hearts of any who opened themselves to him. He remade them from within. He fulfilled the ancient prophecy of Jeremiah:

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me.

What does this mean for you and me? It means that like Jesus’ disciples during his lifetime, we can listen to the wisdom of this venerable spiritual teacher and try our best to follow it. And like them, we will fail. There’s no shame in this. But as St. Paul pointed out so clearly, it can become a vicious circle - trying harder, failing again, feeling guilty, never measuring up.

The way out of this trap is what the early Christians discovered with the resurrected Christ: We cannot become like Christ by imitating him. We become like him by embodying him. We do this by listening deeply to his teachings, yes, but also opening our hearts to his presence within; receiving his very Body and Blood into our body and blood in communion; praying with an icon of his image or using his holy Name, like a mantra; hanging around with others who also look to him as their center, their guide; and otherwise letting his companionship seep into us as a transformative influence.

As his influence increases, we become sensitive to the ways that we block his movement within us, and we do what we can to remove those barriers. Over time, we find that we naturally live his teachings, because it is he who is living them through us. Everything about us that is not Christly eventually sloughs off, and what is left is a Brian-flavored, or Elizabeth-flavored, or Don- or Maria-flavored version of Jesus.

It is then that we know what St. Paul meant when he said It is no longer I who live, but Christ in me. And elsewhere, We have the mind of Christ. And as he wrote in a letter to the church in Ephesus, I pray that...Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith...I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Alleluia. Christ has risen from the dead. Christ has risen in all those through the centuries who have welcomed his presence. And Christ is risen through us, in our day. Alleluia, Christ is alive, and always will be. 

Good Friday 
March 29, 2013
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

After all these years, there are still things in our rich tradition that jump out and surprise me: passages of scripture or prayers we recite regularly that I’ve never really heard before, at least in the same way.

This year when I was standing at Kathryn’s desk, preparing the bulletins for Holy Week liturgies, I read quickly through the ones for Good Friday. For some reason, I imagined myself as someone walking in off the street who had never been to a Good Friday service before. What would they experience? Betrayal, beating, distress, scorn, blood, abandonment, packs of encircling dogs, bones out of joint, death, and the grave.

I looked up and said to Kathryn “This is really dark.”

It is dark, the darkest day of the year. And yet millions are drawn to it, all over the world. We always have been. There’s something so compelling about it - an innocent man of love and truth, beaten and hung on a cross, earthquakes and darkness, weeping and despair - described in great detail and laid bare for all the world to see. And yet we come, drawn to it as if it were a magnet.

It’s like the attraction to Ash Wednesday - “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Or Dia de los Muertos, with all those grinning skeletons dancing, drinking, getting married. Or the thousands this day on pilgrimage to Chimayo, carrying crosses, re-enacting the Passion. Or Gothic vampire movies, now so popular with young teenage girls.

Are we morbid? What is all this about?

None of us wants to experience suffering or death, and yet we know it comes to all of us. And when it comes, we will not be in control, for it has a life of its own. So perhaps with these ghoulish stories and depictions, we are cautiously trying to make friends with it, so it won’t seem so chaotic, so powerful. After all, isn’t what is known and acknowledged less frightening than what is unknown and repressed?

Maybe by playing with skeletons and vampires, and by praying our way through someone else’s suffering and death, we bring it in closer, but not too close, so that we can make it more familiar, less terrifying, and gain some sense of control. It’s like the old saying “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”

But there are times when we can’t embrace the darkness. A devastating loss, a debilitating disease, violence, and even the facing of our own real death when it comes - these things can be impossible to make friends with. They come along like tornadoes, and we are overwhelmed, out of control. No matter how many Good Fridays we’ve been through, we’re not prepared. What do we do then?

In the years I have walked with others through times like these, I have only seen two things that seem to help. And they both are ways in which Jesus himself endured his own Passion.

The first is a return to the present moment in God. By an act of the will, we can choose to focus our attention not on what is churning around in our brain - Why did this happen, how badly this might turn out, what it will be like if it does - but rather, on what is actually happening right now. We look at what we know, not at what we do not know. And what do we know, right now, at any time?

We know the physical sensations of our body, whether we are well or sick, comfortable or in pain. We know what comes through the other senses - what we see, hear, and touch. We know the people who surround us, the love we give and receive. We know the sky above, the earth below our feet. And we know God’s Spirit, always here.

In times of suffering, it is a very simple yet powerful shift to move from what is churning around in our brain to the moment at hand. It takes us away from what might be possible and grounds us in what is actual. This, I believe, is part of what Jesus was talking about when he spoke of the kingdom of God. It is here; it is now; it is among you; it is within you, he said.

Even when things are not going well, even when there seems to be chaos, there is our breath. There is the comfort of love, the sunlight through the window, the stillness that opens up and reveals the divine dimension. Returning to the kingdom of God in this present moment, we can move from panic to peace, regardless of our external circumstances.

I think that Jesus carried this sense of the divine dimension, the kingdom of God, through all his trials. I think that when betrayal, arrest, humiliation, and suffering came to him, he was at the same time open to something else, something that could not be harmed or taken away from him. This doesn’t mean that he was tranquil, unperturbed - he was human, like all of us. But I imagine that he was also in touch with the divine dimension, even at the end. How else could he have said, at the end, when things were at their worst, “Into your hands I commend my spirit”?

The second thing that seems to help when we are overwhelmed with difficulties is the big picture. When our friend Ellen Novak died last fall at the much-too-young age of 61, leaving behind two teenage children and a life she loved, she had managed to get to the big picture.

After months of fear and resistance, after feeling that her life was closing down and ending badly, it began to open up. In that opening she could see her whole life, her children’s lives ahead of them, the sweep of humanity, life and eternity, earth and heaven. And it gave her peace.

Every religious tradition, including ours, offers some kind of continuation of life beyond the 8 or 9 decades (if we are fortunate) that we enjoy here on earth. Whether it is heaven or karma or a return to the Source from which we came, there is a conviction that this is not all there is. Spirit is unhindered by time and space, by what we call the physical laws of nature, unhindered by death. We are a part of a reality not only beyond the material plane, but beyond our imagination.

Jesus knew this, of course. At his trial, he said to Pilate, who threatened him with death, “My kingdom is not of this world.” And he comforted the thief hanging on the cross next to him by saying “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

Today, in our solemn remembrance of those gruesome last hours in Jesus’ life, we are doing something that is pretty dark. We draw near to the darkness in the hope of reducing its power over us. We face it in the hope of learning something from it.

As we peer into this darkness, we see that this it is filled with God’s loving presence, that the kingdom of God is even there. And as we stay there, looking yet more deeply, we also see that it opens up to a reality beyond our imagination, to eternity. This is why we call this Friday “Good.”

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Sermon Luke 19:28-40
Palm Sunday
St. Michael and All Angels
March 24, 2013

In recent years, Palm Sunday has become the source of some debate. Online clergy forums discuss the integrity of focusing on Palms (“it is Palm Sunday after all!”). Others argue that we need to do the whole passion story (“what about people who won’t come to church between now and Easter? How will they prepare for the resurrection without the passion?”) Most commentaries cover all the bases by providing resources for both palms and passion. In addition to the theological debate, there is also the inward tension we experience. It is hard to focus on the parade when we know “the rest of the story”.

Adults tend to treat Palm Sunday as a kind of naïve kid holiday. We sit back and watch the kids wave their palms. We may half-heartedly wave our palms, then slink into our pews with relief that we can be done with that embarrassing display of emotion. If we choose to think of this as a Sunday about an historic parade that we nostalgically re-enact each year, it allows us keep our distance from the story and lets us off the hook somehow.

Garrison Keillor tells the story of his uncle who, at annual family gatherings during Holy Week, would read the story of the passion and death of Jesus. And each year, when he came to the verses describing Jesus’ betrayal he would burst into tears. The family would sit awkwardly until the man was able to continue reading. Keillor commented that his uncle took the death of Jesus “so personally.” He’d pause in his story, then add: “The rest of the church had gotten over that years ago.”

This is our story. But it is a story so powerful that it can’t be trusted to humans alone. If we don’t tell it, the entire natural world will. Luke says if we are silent “The stones will shout” reminding us that this story isn’t just about us…it’s about all of creation.

All of life is from God – the whole universe shares bane and blessing, life and death. We are knit together in such a way that if we were silent, the stones would cry out. Romans 8:22 describes the whole creation groaning in labor pains.

We have almost absentmindedly included creation into our understanding of Jesus’ life and death. When we tell the story of his birth, we talk about the camels and the sheep that gather. Matthew describes an earthquake at Jesus’ death while Mark and Luke tell of darkness that came over the whole land. But creation isn’t an afterthought – it is woven into the very fabric of God’s relationship with humanity.

The story of God’s love of the world through Jesus’ life can be scary. God’s awesome power overwhelms us and we find ourselves holding back. When God speaks, amazing things happen. At Jesus’ baptism, the heavens open and God says “This is my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased” and his ministry begins. Everywhere he goes, lives are changed, people are healed, those who are hungry are fed, and those who have been captive are set free. People are in awe of this man. From the earliest days, God spoke to the people, but God’s voice was not always welcome. In the Exodus story, the people are terrified by God’s voice and they beg Moses to ask God not to speak to them again.

I wonder if this is when God began to speak through creation. When those same people were thirsty, Moses struck a rock and water poured out. Could this be the voice of God speaking through the rock?

In the story, A River Runs Through It, Norman MacLean’s father, a Presbyterian minister, explains the mysteries of the beautiful creation in early 20th century Montana where his sons fish, run and play. He tells them at times to stoop down and listen to the river. He says that beneath the river is the rocks, and beneath the rocks are the words. These words, he says to them, are the words of all creation.

God’s voice is everywhere, telling of an amazing love that cannot be stopped. It just doesn’t always come in the form we expect. In the first century, an entrance procession was customary. These parades would be accompanied by hymns and symbols that depicted the person of honor. In the case of Jesus, it was a colt and the tattered clothing that people threw on the road as he went by.

Mason Cooley said the rule of religion is that “purpose breathes even in dirt and stones.”

We stand at the cusp of a difficult and confusing week. All of Christianity comes together here: death/humiliation and life/exaltation.

For those early followers who witnessed Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, everything rested on it – either God’s kingdom would be established on earth or their hope would be shattered. Jesus was the king of all who were oppressed and suffering. He shared their hardship, relieved their suffering, accepted them when everyone deemed them unacceptable, gave them hope and embodied God’s love for them. His entry into Jerusalem was a moment filled with fragile possibility.

It is hard to go on believing in God when life doesn’t give us what matters so dearly to us, but there is always danger when we attempt to chart a course for God. God was about to do something powerful and wonderful, but that day the disciples were looking for a different kind of king.

There is an old story about a man hiking in the mountains enjoying the beauty of the fall scenery. He stepped too close to the edge of the mountain and started to fall. In desperation, he reached out and grabbed the exposed root of a gnarled old tree on the side of the cliff. Terrified, he saw that he was about 50 feet down a sheer cliff and about 1000 feet from the floor of the canyon below, and just barely hanging on. If he lost his grip, he'd plummet to his death. He cried out repeatedly, "Help!" But there was no answer. Finally he yelled, "Is there anybody up there?" A voice replied, "Yes, I'm up here." "Who is it?" "It's the Lord." "Can you help me?" "Yes, I can help." "Then please help me!" "Let go. If you let go, then I will catch you." The man looked up, then back down at the canyon floor. "Is there anybody else up there?"

Jesus was not the kind of king they wanted, but he was what they had. He would save them beyond their capacity to imagine, He would bring them life and wholeness…he already had in profound ways. The people gathered and shouted praises. This man had healed them and cared for them. He had shown them a powerful love.

The Pharisees were threatened. They tell Jesus to quiet the crowd, but shushing an excited group of people welcoming the Messiah would not stop the eternally significant moment taking place. We cannot stop God’s love. Following Christ goes beyond words and spills out of our lives. We are living, breathing instruments of God’s grace.

Leonard Bernstein’s Mass says that “you cannot imprison the word of the Lord”. It is simply written into the fabric of creation bringing life and love to all. God’s purpose will be accomplished. One of the most beautiful illustrations of this is found in Isaiah 55:10-13: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the LORD for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

So often in the church, we act as if the story is over. We dust the cover of our Bible and open it to tell what happened long ago and far away. We miss God’s voice in our midst here and now. The United Church of Christ really captured this with their campaign called “God is still speaking”. Much of this campaign is based on a quote by Gracie Allen – “Never put a period where God has placed a comma”.

We stand on the edge peering into Holy Week. The story is not over…it is just beginning. The song of God’s great love for the world continues this day and into the week. But the song is not finished. It is powerful. It is ours. It belongs to all of creation. Do you hear it? All of creation cries out to sing of God’s great love. Let us join in the song and step into this devastating, yet hope-filled week.

Holy Indifference
March 17, 2013
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

The story begins so strangely, yet it sounds so offhand: Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Wait. Can we back it up a bit? Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead? Just a little dinner party with a resuscitated corpse. “So, Lazarus, what was death like?”

The 3 siblings - Martha, Mary, and Lazarus - were some of Jesus’ best friends. They lived in the outskirts of Jerusalem, in Bethany. Along with thousands of other pilgrims, Jesus and his disciples were making their way to the holy city in preparation for Passover. So they stayed at their friends’ house for a few days.

Martha was serving the guests, as she does in another story, and Mary was sitting in devotion at the feet of Jesus, as she does in that story, much to Martha’s irritation. And then, as if it weren’t strange enough that Lazarus was sitting around with them, it gets even weirder.

Mary takes out a jar of very costly perfumed oil. Judas, the disciples’ treasurer, quickly calculated the value at 300 denarii. According to most of the first 10 internet entries I googled on the subject - and that makes it a fact - this would be about $6,000. That’s some pricey oil. I assume this means Jesus’ friends were wealthy, and a large house would explain how they could take in the whole group of pilgrims that night.

And then Mary, this dignified woman of means, does something that shocks them all. She takes Jesus’ bare feet in her hands, pours some of the precious oil over them, rubs them, and then wipes them with her hair.

We’ve become so accustomed to this story - and a parallel one in the other gospels that takes place at a dinner with some Pharisees - that it’s lost the element of surprise. But can you imagine it happening at your next dinner party?

Jesus’ disciples are outraged. Supposedly the issue is that the $6,000 could have gone a long way towards helping the poor. But I wonder if the real bone of contention wasn’t about the sheer inappropriateness of her gesture, and Jesus’ lack of reaction to it.

Jesus’ friends probably wished that he would have quietly said to her “Woman, I appreciate the sentiment, but really. This is not the time or place for this sort of thing. Make an appointment through my assistant, and later on, we’ll meet in my office and have a rational conversation about whatever is troubling you.”

Instead, Jesus received what Mary was doing. In that moment everything stopped; time stood still. While others were fidgeting with embarrassment, Jesus opened his heart, looked into her eyes, and received what was offered. It was a holy moment for Mary, a pure moment of love, despair, surrender, God knows what. And Jesus honored it.

Jesus didn’t really know what had brought Mary to this desperate act. Her history was probably a mystery to him, and to everyone else in the room. But unlike the others, he didn’t push her aside and demand an explanation. He didn’t complain about the waste of money.

He created a space for her, trusting that what she was doing would help her move forward in her walk of faith. Perhaps that’s the really shocking thing. Jesus gave her room to do what she needed to do.

Last weekend, the Vestry and clergy were on retreat together and one evening, we were telling bizarre church stories. There were some doozies. Mine was about a time in my first year of ordained ministry. It was at Grace Cathedral, a very formal and massive Gothic church in San Francisco, where I first worked as a priest.

During one of the Eucharists, the service began with some liturgical dancers perched around the altar, where I sat in my stall, next to the director of the dance group. As the procession wound down, a woman walked in front of the high altar and began to take her clothes off. All of them. I turned to the director next to me and asked “Is she one of yours?” She replied “No. Is she one of yours?”

Right about then the poor woman was frozen at the altar, not knowing what to do next. I nodded to the Verger, and he glided over as if this had all been planned, slipped his robe over her shoulders, and gently led her out. Later, we learned she had offered herself to God, and when nothing happened, she became confused.

Now on one level this became for me one of many strange tales of San Francisco’s endearing eccentrics. But over time, I have wondered about that woman. I have thought about her desperate and completely committed act of religious devotion. What led up to it? What was she hoping for? Did God respond to her self-offering?

Because Episcopalians value good order in liturgy above all else, we acted in a way that we would never have in a meeting or coffee hour. We didn’t cry out; we didn’t call the cops. The show went on, and we accepted her, as Jesus had accepted Mary that day in Bethany. And I hope our lack of reactivity served her well.

Those of you who are parents know that sometimes this is the best thing we can do for a child who is throwing a fit. He yells and thrashes about on the floor of the grocery store, demanding that we buy that bag of candy. We’re embarrassed, but if we’ve got our wits about us, we don’t jerk him up by the arm and threaten him with bloody murder. We stroll on, calmly suggesting that if he doesn’t come with us now, he might end up walking home.

Sometimes children need to freak out. But more importantly, they need to know that we aren’t frightened or harmed by it. They need our constancy. It’s like going out into the desert when we’re going through a very hard time. The open land, the sky has a kind of holy indifference to our troubles. It just remains there for us, calm and accepting. This is a a kind of love, for it provides something bigger than our problems, something real and true and spacious. In this expanse of love, God’s grace has room to move, and a little healing happens.

People ask why God seems so indifferent to our need. We go into prayer pleading, questioning, looking for an answer, a sign. Nothing seems to happen. We interpret this as absence. But it’s not. It’s a gift, a gift of loving presence, an infinite Yes. And often, that holy, spacious place is all that is needed for God’s hidden grace to work, so that we can move past where we’re stuck.

This is what God does for us in prayer. God accepts whatever we need to do, to say, whatever we need to ask for, just as Jesus accepted Mary’s act of desperate devotion. In that container of love, what began as a fit can calm down and become something else. Sometimes as the larger view opens up to us, the very questions we originally brought to prayer cease to be important.

And it is what we can do for others. The parish is a good place to practice this. Sometimes people act inappropriately. They get mad, they cry, they voice unreasonable expectations. They’re not always rational. That’s okay. As long as they’re not hurting anyone, let them do what they need to do. God knows - yes, God knows, even if we or they don’t know - what brought them to this moment. When nobody kicks them out, when they’re invited up to the altar like everyone else to receive God’s grace, when next time we see them, we don’t avoid them but greet them with a smile, a little healing happens.

We use the word “community” a lot here. This is an example of what real community is, and what it can do. It can provide an open place, a container, a holy indifference that receives us all as we are, not reacting, sometimes not even needing to talk about it. We abide, and we go on, together. As we learn to do this in this school of faith we call a church, we can then take it into our homes, our places of work. We can be that same container for anyone, whenever it is needed.

This is what Jesus did for Mary that day. It is what God does for us in prayer. It is what we can do for others. And in that open space of love, beneath the surface, hidden to our eyes, God’s grace is given room to move, and to heal. 

We're sorry, the full text of this sermon is not available at this time.

March 3, 2013
The 3rd Sunday of Lent
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

We want life to be predictable, orderly, fair; we want it to make sense. There’s nothing wrong with that. Much of life actually turns out that way. We get up in the morning and do our routine. We go to work, where there are procedures, plans, progress. When we go to the doctor, we usually get a diagnosis and treatment, and we get better. If we obey the law, the police leave most of us alone. If we’re good to others, generally they are good to us.

Without this predictability and fairness, we’d live in constant anxiety. And so it is a good thing, and it is natural to try to create and maintain it.

But this isn’t all there is. There is also disorder, unpredictability, meanness, and injustice. Some people don’t get a clear diagnosis and effective treatment. Some are stopped and harassed for the crime of Driving While Black. Some are innocent victims of war, mental illness, or domestic violence.

And so here is the conundrum: on the one hand, we seem to have some measure of control. Most of the time, we can create a healthy, safe, and sensible life for ourselves. But on the other hand, there are no guarantees, and we can’t completely prevent disorder and unfairness. How do we live with this?

This was the problem that faced those in our gospel story today. They went to Jesus, who had a reputation as a wise rabbi, and brought up a horrible current event everybody knew about: Pilate’s soldiers attacked some people who were in the very act of worship at the Temple in Jerusalem. Their own blood was mixed with the blood of the sacrifices they were making. It’s like those in our own day who are gunned down or bombed in churches, synagogues, mosques. What kind of God would allow this?

Jesus’ answer to them is basically this: You’ve assumed this happened to them because they were worse sinners than you, and therefore you’re safe. That’s not true; you’re sinners too. So don’t assume that nothing bad will happen to you. Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.

Now I don’t particularly like this answer, because it sounds to me like Jesus thinks that everyone, being sinners, deserve God’s punishment. I wonder if it is an example of Jesus’ humanity - that he shared some of the beliefs of his day, a few of which we don’t hold any more: like the one about demons causing seizures and mental illness.

But there is something in his answer that I think is true, and it strikes at the root of a very common but mistaken assumption: that if we do the right things, life will always go well for us. He says that it doesn’t work this way. Bad things happen can happen randomly to anyone, and it isn’t always related to whether we deserve it or not.

Which brings us back to our dilemma. How do we live with the normal fairness of life that is occasionally interrupted by random unfairness? How do we try to be good, knowing that usually this results in good, and then deal with things that don’t fit this formula?

There are many who answer this by saying that this proves that there is no God. For God is either fair - in which case bad things wouldn’t happen to good people - or unfair, in which case your so-called “God” is not worth worshiping. Others say that everything happens “for a reason,” that God has a plan for everyone that includes even random and unjust suffering.

But neither answer satisfies me. I just don’t believe that God has to fit into our ideas of being fair or making sense. That would make God as small as our comprehension, and that is pretty scary. God is not a big human who thinks and acts and plans as we do. God is Spirit, the Source of all that is, seen and unseen.

While Jesus may not give us a way to deal with our dilemma, the first lesson from Exodus does. It is one of the most powerful and mysterious passages of all scripture, and it is at the heart of the Judeo-Christian faith.

Moses encounters God in the desert in the form of a burning bush that is flaming, but never consumed. Impossible. Can you imagine? A voice then tells Moses - who is a former slave, now a lowly sheepherder on the lam after having killed an Egyptian guard - that he will be the liberator of his people. He is to go to the great Pharaoh himself and tell him that God wants him to free the Israelites.

Right. And just whom shall I say has sent me? The answer is stunning. I AM that I AM. Being itself sends Moses. I AM, the God who IS, who is all existence, is God.

This moment in the desert is a revelation of who God is. And in that very moment, Israel begins to worship one universal God, not many gods. Israel enters a relationship with the divine that is imbedded in all existence, not a mythological super-person in the sky. And the Israelites now are asked to accept that this divine existence is mystery, beyond all comprehension, even beyond our understanding of right and wrong, fair and unfair. I Am that I AM, and that shall be enough for you.

Like the rest of us, the people of Israel sort of got this and sort of didn’t. From time to time they made idols, little deities that were easier to understand and manipulate. Here and there they believed - and wrote scriptures saying - that if you don’t sin, God will protect you from harm, that if you make the right sacrifices God will reward you.

But then, at other times, they would return to the mystery of I AM, the God who refused to answer Yes or No, who sometimes refused to answer at all, and worshiped this God anyway. The place where we see this most definitively is in the book of Job. After all Job’s pious and rational friends have tried to explain Job’s tremendous suffering in ways that might make sense out of tragedy, the final answer from God is this: Where were you when I created the heavens and the earth?

And so it is with our own attempts to make sense out of difficulty. Today many of you will receive anointing for healing. Every week we pray for God to act, to intervene, to do something about the suffering of those we love, and the suffering of the world.

And yet we know that what we ask for may or may not happen. This disturbs us, and some eventually give up on God. But if we are to be faithful to our Judeo-Christian tradition, this 3,000 year-old wisdom, we will take a different approach. We will ask for what we need, and we will let go of the outcome. God - the unfathomable I AM - has ways that we should not presume to understand. God’s love and healing and grace are not limited to how we think they should operate.

And so our faith is not faith that something in particular will take place. It is faith alone. It is trust alone. We place our trust not in outcomes but in the unfathomable goodness of God. When we step back from the present difficulty, we see that good often comes out of bad things. And even if we can’t see this, we step back further, and see that in human history, goodness tends to prevail. And even if we can’t see this, we step back even further, and trust that while God’s love may not win the day in this world, it does in eternity. Ultimately, there is nothing to fear.

Faith therefore is the discipline, the choice, really, to place our trust in something other than the immediate moment. It is to see ourselves in the big picture, with all people, with all creation, in the hands of a good and loving God. When we can do this, we know that all shall be well.

So today, if you seek healing for yourself through anointing, or if you stay in the pews and pray for others, make your needs known to God, and then release your grip on the outcome. But in doing so, you needn’t drift in a chaotic and meaningless void. You are in the hands of the God who IS, who always will be, the I AM of all goodness and love.