On the day of my mom’s funeral, a doctor called to tell my sisters and I that we needed to come in to the hospital so he could talk to us about taking our father off life support.
A few weeks later, our father’s funeral took place.
There were a lot of people at both funerals. An amazing number, really. And I will always remember, and always be grateful for, the countless expressions of love and support that we received. So many people, who didn’t have to be there, who didn’t have to send us a card, who didn’t have to figure out what to say or what to write, did, and in doing so, walked with us on that difficult path in that difficult time.
It made a huge difference.
I think about that today because that’s what I see happening in today’s scripture. Jesus, being tempted in the desert. Jesus, facing the same struggles and challenges we face. It’s God, walking with us.
When Jesus was born, he was called “Emmanuel.” God with us.
Through Jesus, God is with us. God is present. God is walking with us….
Walking with us on whatever difficult path we may find ourselves on. Slogging through the mud, climbing over the mountain, staying by our side through the rainstorm, never leaving us through the dry, dusty desert….
This is a very different way of thinking about God.
In the ancient world, people thought of God (or the gods) as far-off beings, who dwelt on some faraway place, like Olympus. The gods were far above the cares and concerns and struggles of humans on earth.
But the way our scripture describes it, the God we worship decided to walk with us, to dwell among us. I believe that a more literal translation would be that God “tabernacled” among us, which means God made God’s home among us.
In Jesus, God moved in to the neighborhood. And now God takes the same bus we take, riding with us, fumbling for exact change like us, or pulling out a TAP card like us.
God walks the same streets we walk. Just like us, God now has to deal with rent or mortgage payments, God has to get paperwork in order and file taxes, God has to deal with all the same stuff that we have to deal with.
And just like us, God faces temptation. God faces the temptation to just give up, to escape, to find an easy way out, to numb the pain.
Jesus was tempted. Jesus was tempted by hunger, tempted to satisfy his hunger. After all, wouldn’t a fresh piece of bread taste good to one who had been fasting in the desert? But Jesus came to satisfy the world’s hunger, not just his own.
Jesus was tempted by power. Don’t we dream of power? What would you do if you had all the power in the world? What would you give to have all the power in the world?
Tempting, isn’t it?
Jesus was tempted by the devil’s misuse of scripture, to use scripture to test God. And aren’t we tempted to do the same? To use scripture, manipulate scripture for our own gain, rather than allowing scripture to reveal God’s love for all of humanity?
Jesus was tempted. Those hunger pangs were real. That longing for power was real.
Jesus experienced what we experience.
Jesus experienced what we experience in so many other ways. He got tired. He got frustrated. He keep trying to get some “alone time.”
And Jesus was God, in human form. He was God, come to dwell among us. Come to walk with us. Come to be present.
And not as a tourist. God doesn’t come as a tourist. God doesn’t come to look at us, to visit, for a day or a week, to look at where we live, then run off to some fancy hotel.
God is truly with us. Through Jesus, God has moved into the neighborhood.
And as I found out when my parents passed away, just knowing that someone is there, walking with you, being present with you, sharing your struggles with you… is a tremendously wonderful thing.
In January I had the opportunity to go to Puerto Rico with our regional Global Ministries committee. To be honest, at times I wondered if the work we were doing there was really all that important. It wasn’t anything that someone in Puerto Rico couldn’t have done. Maybe they could have even done it better than we did.
But we met a lot of people who were so happy, so grateful, for our presence. And we met with the head of the Disciples of Christ in Puerto Rico, and he said the same thing, that our presence there reminds the people of Puerto Rico that they are not forgotten.
They had been feeling that way. They had been feeling forgotten after Hurricane Maria hit and left 3,000 Puerto Ricans dead. They had been feeling forgotten when our government didn’t provide them the emergency relief they needed. They had been feeling forgotten when the media stopped talking about them.
But now that groups like ours are going there, they know that they are not forgotten. A few weeks after we were there, a group from the Disciples churches in Florida arrived. A few weeks from now, a group from the Disciples in northern California will go.
These are just the ones I know about. I’m sure there are others. And the people of Puerto Rico are realizing that there are churches in North America who have not forgotten them, and who are willing to be present with them, to live and work in their neighborhood, and to walk the difficult path with them.
And that’s more important than any actual work that we were able to perform.
Last week, the United Methodist Church General Conference met in St. Louis, and on the agenda was the selection of a plan that either would or would not affirm the presence and gifts for ministry and leadership of Christians who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
By a very narrow margin, the General Conference voted to adopt what was called the “Traditional Plan,” which states that a homosexual lifestyle is incompatible with Christian teaching, and that clergy could be reprimanded for officiating at same-sex weddings.
Needless to say, countless LGBT members of the United Methodist Church felt betrayed and abandoned. In local Methodist congregations, ministers are struggling to let their LGBT members know that they aren’t abandoned, at least not by God, and that there are, in fact, many within the United Methodist Church who stand with their LGBT brothers and sisters, and who are committed to walking the difficult path that they continue to walk. This includes many of our local Methodist congregations, which are safe places of love for everyone, including those who are LGBT.
And I and many other Disciples and members of other affirming denominations have tried to let our local Methodists know that we are present with them, and we are praying for them. Because we know how important it is that, when you feel forgotten, someone reaches out and says,
“I’m with you.”
“I’m here for you.”
And maybe we don’t always get the words right. But we’re there. We’re present. All we have to do is let them know that. And for many, it will be enough - it will be enough to help them through the struggle.
That’s how we represent God to the world. That’s how we reflect God to the world, to carry over our theme from last week. We reflect God into the world by walking with those who are hurting. We reflect God into the world by spending time in the neighborhood of those who are struggling.
When the dignity & worth of LGBT individuals is threatened, we stand with them - even those of us who are not LGBT - because that's what love does, & that's what God does thru Jesus.
When the lives of black citizens are threatened…; when their freedom is threatened by unjust sentencing, or when their voting rights are taken away…
When immigrants and refugees are denied a welcome…
Jesus calls on us to be there with them, to walk with them, to be present among them.
First time I went to a gathering of people protesting for LGBT rights...I wondered, would people think I was gay because I was there? I confess: the thought made me anxious.
When we at Bixby Knolls Christian Church officially declared ourselves to be Open & Affirming, some were worried that people would think we were a gay church. And we even got phone calls asking: are you a gay church? And that made some of us uncomfortable.
Well, sometimes being present means being uncomfortable. Not living as a tourist, but moving into the neighborhood, means you are subject to all the discomforts and inconveniences that everyone else in the neighborhood experiences.
We do not ask for special treatment. We do not insist that “I'm for them, ...but I'm not one of them.”
God was willing to risk being mistaken for a human. People were confused by just who Jesus was. Is he human? Is he God? It’s hard to know.
I must admit, I’m still confused by this. And theologians continue to wrestle over this question. To what extent is Jesus human? To what extent is Jesus God?
We’re bothered by the question. But I don’t think it bothers God.
God says: “oh, you think i'm one of them? Good. That's as it should be.”
It was a dangerous thing for God to do, living as a human...and it ended in crucifixion.
Being present with someone is not without risk.
Are we willing to take things to that level? To be with people, present among them, to such a degree, that people get confused as to whether or not we are one of them?
I think that’s what God is calling us to do.
I think God is calling us to say: yes, we're gay. We're all gay. We're all lesbian. We’re all bisexual and transgender.
And we're all Black. And we're all Muslim. And we're all immigrants. And we're all Jewish.
We are every person who had been oppressed or mistreated.
Because we're all one humanity. We are all one in Christ. We are present with and for one another. We're so present with one another and so full of love for one another that you might not even be able to tell us apart. You might get confused, thinking that we are them, and that they are us.
And in that confusion, God is glorified.
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