Human Nature, Divine Nature (2 Corinthians 5:16-21)

 When I was little, sometimes I’d walk into the living room where Dad was watching a movie on TV. He liked westerns, like his parents before him.

These shows and movies were only mildly interesting to me. I would have much rather been watching Bugs Bunny cartoons. 

But wanting to feel grownup, I’d watch. And sometimes, trying to figure things out, I’d ask Dad who the good guys were, and who the bad guys were.

And Dad would tell me: those guys with the white hats, they’re the good guys. And those guys with the black hats, they’re the bad guys.

Well, that made sense. It kept things simple. I liked that…It was all as plain as day; black and white. Literally.

These days, that “white hat/black hat” terminology has shifted over to the world of computer hackers. "White hats" are ethical hackers who use their skills to identify vulnerabilities in systems and networks, while "black hats" are malicious hackers who exploit those vulnerabilities for personal gain or harm.

Anyway, I brought that “white hate/black hat” way of understanding the world with me to my reading of the Bible. It was a way of understanding the Bible that was taught to me in Sunday School.

⚫In the Bible, there are good guys and bad guys. Abraham. Moses. David. These are the good guys, the guys who, if they were in a western, would be wearing the white hats.

But Pharaoh, Goliath, Haman…people like that… these are the bad guys. 

I think I even pictured Abraham, Moses, and David wearing white robes, and Pharaoh, Goliath, and Haman wearing robes of darker colors. In this way, they matched the heroes and villains of those westerns Dad liked to watch.

But as I grew older, I began to study these stories a little more deeply, a little more intently. I began paying attention to details that I had ignored before, or which were skipped over in Sunday School.

Abraham, for example: could he really be considered all good if he was willing to sacrifice his own son? And what was it about that episode where Abraham pretended his wife was his sister, just to save his own butt? What in the name of White Lotus is that all about?

And David… the greatest hero of the Hebrew Bible… he committed sexual assault on Bathsheba, then tried to cover it up by having Bathsheba’s husband killed. How do you reconcile that with his status as the Bible’s greatest hero?

These Biblical heroes weren’t as innocent as I thought…

My realization that these Biblical heroes weren’t 100% pure and innocent came at a time when I was also learning that the United States, the land of my birth, the country I loved, was also not as innocent as I had been led to believe, that this country was built, in part, on slave labor, genocide, and colonialism.

I had to unlearn some of the things I had been taught, which is never easy. I had to accept the fact that things weren’t all black and white, good and bad; that every hero has a flaw or defect.

Well, at least Jesus was (and is) all good. Except: I couldn’t quite understand why Jesus washed Judas’ feet at the last supper. Jesus knew Judas was going to betray him. He knew Judas was the bad guy, the villain in this story… Yet Jesus knelt before Judas and honored Judas by washing his feet.

That made no sense.

All of a sudden, things weren’t as clear to me as they once were. Abraham, David, Judas—all of them—their hats were neither pure black nor pure white. None of them was either all good and innocent, or all bad and evil. They all had a mixture of good and evil in them; good, and sin, mixed together.

It took awhile, but gradually I realized the point the Bible was trying to make. And even though it took awhile, I learned to cast aside those categories of “all good” and “all bad,” and learned to place people in a new category: human.

Which, by the way, is another reason I like the movie Brother Bear. That was the first Disney  movie I remember that didn’t have a clearly defined hero fighting against a clearly defined villain…no heroes. No villains. Just humans learning how to be better than they are; good but flawed humans, learning about love and grace and confession and repentance and forgiveness and reconciliation.

As I continued growing and learning, I realized that what I was learning applied to almost everything…that everything was more complex than I had thought.

⚫In school I learned about matter, and I learned about waves of energy, and that these were two different things.

But then I learned that photons of light sometimes behave like particles of matter, and sometimes behave like energy. They defy easy categorization.

And I learned about electrons. Sometimes they are here. Sometimes they are there. Sometimes they are both here and there, which doesn’t make any sense, and yet, it’s true.

And I learned about e=mc², and the theory of relativity, and dark matter; and I learned that no one really understands dark matter, not even the world’s best scientists who study it…

These are things that defy simple categorization or explanation. Things that can be two things at once. Things that don’t make rational sense, but that's how they are, at least to the extent that we are able to understand things.

And if we allow ourselves some time to really ponder such things (not make sense of them, ...but just ponder them) we dip our toe into the amazing mystery of the reality of God.

When I think about God… many questions arise. We study the Bible and find answers there, but, for me, every answer leads to even more questions and mysteries.

This is also something that used to drive me crazy. I wanted easy, simple answers for God. It made me understand the attraction many people have to religious leaders and churches who are all too willing to provide those simple, easy answers.

But I suppose if I could reduce God to something simple and easy, then God would no longer be God. If God is easy and simple to explain, then that god is but merely an idea of my own making. 

So I’ve learned to just be in awe of the wonder and mystery of God…, in the same way that I can marvel at how light can be both energy and matter, and how electrons can be both here and there, and how energy can equal mass times the speed of light, squared, without needing an explanation of how that is possible.

In the first chapter of John’s gospel, Christ is described as the Word… John describes Christ as the Word, the Word that was life, the life that is light for all people; a light that shines in the darkness.

And it’s interesting that light is used as a description for Christ. Light, which is a particle, and a wave of energy, just as Christ is both God, and human. How can one being be both? How can one being be two things at once? I don’t know. This is a lot more complicated than telling who’s good and who’s bad by the color of their hat.

How do you think of Jesus? Do you think of him as more human, or more God? … In many Bible stories, Jesus seems very human, and that’s how I usually think of him… But of course, he is also God. In the beginning, he was with God, and he was God…

I’ve been reading some material lately that emphasizes this. And I am left in awe at how Christ is so much more mysterious and wonderful than I am capable of comprehending.

It stretches the imagination.

And then, to add even more wonder and mystery to it all, we heard in today’s scripture that anyone in Christ is a new creation. In Christ, we are made into something new… something more-than-human. 

Or, maybe that “new creation” was there all along, but had been forgotten. In Genesis, it says that we are all made in the image of God; the image of God dwells in us. There is a spark of divinity in each of us. 

⚫That spark of divinity was made visible in Christ—It was literally made visible at the transfiguration, which we heard about a few weeks ago—and when we unite ourselves with Christ, and become one with Christ, we become, or become aware of, that more-than-human nature within us.

And yet, at the same time, we are human.

And humans, to repeat what I said earlier, are neither perfectly good, nor perfectly evil. We’re not perfect; but we are good.

There is goodness within us. There is goodness within you. And that goodness goes back to the moment you were created.

Modern Christianity likes to talk about original sin, but what about original goodness? The goodness that was present when humans were first created, and pronounced “very good” by God?

Ignoring sin is bad, but it’s also bad to focus solely on sin, and forget our inherent goodness.

I read last week that a lot of people carry with them heavy burdens of shame. Some of it is from things they did when they were children, when they didn’t know better. Some of it is because of things done to them, yet the blame was placed upon them, by themselves, or by those who wanted to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions.

And this shame that people carry around… it weighs people down. For many, it is a cause of depression. For others, it prevents them from living their lives as fully as they can.

And I think one reason we carry this shame is that we still think of the world in terms of white hats and black hats. And we feel that if we’re not perfect in every way, then we don’t deserve the white hat. And if we don’t deserve the white hat, then the only other option is the black hat.

Look. No one deserves the white hat. And no one deserves the black hat. We need to look at ourselves, and those around us, in a new way.

Jesus helps us do that. 

He welcomed and embraced those who carried heavy burdens of guilt and shame. He comforted them. If they needed healing, he healed them. In whatever way they needed it, he made them well. He restored them to wholeness. And sent them on their way, which means he made it possible for them to move forward with their lives.

That’s the ministry of reconciliation Christ offers. 

Though we may have been broken, in Christ we are made whole. Though we may carry guilt and shame, none of that is counted against us, and in Christ we are reckoned as righteous. 

We are not perfect; none of us. But neither are we all evil. None of us is beyond the grace of God. 

We are made right with God, because of our inherent goodness; because of the image of God that is within us; and because Christ has reconciled us to God, uniting us forever with the one who made us.

Christ in Us (2 Corinthians 5)

The other day I was at Disneyland with my 5 year-old nephew Josh. Josh thinks that Pirates of the Caribbean is too scary, and he won’t ride it; but he likes going on the Haunted Mansion.
As we rode through the seance room, Josh asked about the figure inside the crystal ball. First he asked, “What’s her name?”
“Madame Leota,” I said.
Then he asked: “Is she good, or bad?”
And it reminded me of when I was five. I also was afraid of Pirates of the Caribbean, but enjoyed the Haunted Mansion. And I also wanted someone to tell me if someone was good or bad.
I remember when my Dad would watch western movies. I liked it when he told me that the good guys wear white hats, and the bad guys wear black hats. That sure made things easy.
But then I got older, and I learned that things weren’t always so simple. The world was a lot more complex than I realized, and certainly a lot more complex than a western in which the good guys always wore white and the bad guys always wore black.
In school I learned about matter, and I learned about waves of energy. These were two different things.
Then I learned that photons of light sometimes behave like particles of matter, and sometimes behave like energy. They defied easy categorization.
And I learned about electrons. Sometimes they are here. Sometimes they are there. Sometimes they are both here and there.
And I learned about e=mc², and the theory of relativity, and dark matter; and that no one really understands dark matter, not even the world’s best scientists who study it...
It’s all a Dr. Who wibbly wobbly timey wimey thing.
It’s all a Good Place Jeremy Beremy thing.
It’s all a lot more complicated than categorizing things by the color of a hat.

But sometimes, that’s just the way things are. There are things that defy categorization or explanation. Things that can be two things at once. Things that don’t make rational sense, but that's how they are, at least to the extent that we are able to understand things.
And if we allow ourselves some time to really ponder such things (not make sense of them, ...but just ponder them) we dip our toe into the amazing mystery of the reality of God.
Mere words are never enough to describe the mysteries. Poets try. Mystics try. And poets and mystics have always been thought of as a little weird, because they try to wrap their minds around things that can’t be fully understood. They try to put into words things that can’t be put into words. They try to define things that are beyond our ability to define.
Teresa of Avila was a Spanish mystic in the 16th century. She talked about castles inside of castles, realms inside of realms, things she saw in visions. I try to understand her writings as a description of reality, and it all makes no sense. And I want to dismiss her and so many other mystics as so many throughout the centuries have.
And yet, at the same time, their mystical explanations that make no sense draw me in. And I can’t help but ponder them. And I feel myself lost in wonder at being surrounded by a divine mystery that I cannot fully understand.
When I think about God… many questions arise. We study the Bible and find answers there, but every answer leads to even more questions and mysteries.
At some point we need to just dwell with the mysteries. We need to spend time with the questions and marvel at them, without seeking logical explanations. We need to stand in awe of how light can be both energy and matter, and how electrons can be both here and there, and how energy can equal mass times the speed of light, squared, without waiting for an explanation of how that is possible.
In the first chapter of John’s gospel, Christ is described as the Word… John describes Christ as the Word, the Word that was life, the life that is light for all people; a light that shines in the darkness.
And it’s interesting that light is used as a description for Christ. Light, which is a particle, and a wave of energy, just as Christ is both God, and human. How can one being be both? How can one being be two things at once? I don’t know. This is a lot more complicated than telling who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy just by the color of their hat.
How do you tend to think of Jesus? Do you think of him as more human, or more God? … My tendency has been to focus more on his human side, that he was a great human who fully understood God; I’ve been a little more reluctant to embrace Jesus’ divine status.
But of course, he is both. And I’ve been reading some material lately that emphasizes this. And I am left in awe at how Christ is so much more mysterious and wonderful than I am capable of comprehending.
It stretches the imagination.
And the way Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God also stretches the imagination.
He who was both human and God - talked about the kingdom of God as a realm that is both now and not yet. That is also hard to understand. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
And Jesus said that the kingdom is like a mustard seed. And he said the kingdom is like a banquet. And he said the kingdom is like someone searching for and finding a lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost child. And he said the kingdom is like yeast.
How can the kingdom of God be all these things?
Clearly, Jesus is trying to stretch our minds. He’s trying to stretch our minds into thinking of things in ways we've never thought before… seeing things in a way we've never seen things before.
No wonder there are not one but multiple stories in the gospels of the blind being made to see! We need to allow ourselves to see and understand everything in a whole new way! We need to learn how to speak in a whole new way, learn how to hear in a whole new way, learn how to think in a whole new way, learn how to learn in a whole new way.
Analyzing will only get you so far. At some point you also need to just let go. You need to breathe. You need to be still…& in that breathing, & in that stillness, come to know God in a whole new way.
It’s all so mind-opening, isn’t it? Or, maybe, mind-blowing. It takes all those neural connections in our brain, unplugs them, and plugs them in in new places. And everything looks different as a result.
Everything looks different.
I think that’s why the apostle Paul said in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians that, from this point on, we won’t recognize people by human standards. We won’t recognize people by human standards because we won’t recognize Christ by human standards.
We’ve learned to see Christ in a whole new way.
And since Christ is in every person - since he is the light of the world that shines even in the darkness - we learn to see not only Christ in a whole new way, but every person.
Every human, we see in a whole new way.
In every person, we see that image of God.
In every person, we see Christ.
In every person, we see the one who was light and life, yet who became human.
Verse 21 of our scripture says that the word, the life, the light of God - Christ himself - the one who knew no sin - became sin.
It’s easy to get caught up on that word, sin. Let me suggest to you some synonyms. When Paul says that Christ became sin, Paul means that Christ became that which is earthy. Profane. Flesh. Human. Fleeting. Self-centered. Mundane. Finite. Separate.
Christ became these things so that we, and all people, might become the righteousness of God.
In other words, Christ became earthy, profane, flesh, human, fleeting, self-centered, mundane, finite, and separate, so that we who are all those things might become holy; of heaven; sacred; spiritual; timeless; God-centered; God-filled; infinite; boundless; connected.
Our minds are used to thinking of these things as separate. We separate movie characters into good guys and bad guys just as we separate sin from righteousness. Just as we separate heaven from earth. Just as we separate what is holy from what is profane.
But in Christ, what is holy became profane so that we who are profane might see that we are also holy. Christ became an earthly being so that we would understand that we earthly beings are also citizens of heaven. Christ dwelt in a finite human life so that all humans would understand that there is something within them that is infinite.
In Christ, all the barriers are torn down.
In Christ, the curtain in the temple that separates what is holy from what is unholy is torn apart. Holy and unholy are united. Brought together. Reconciled.
Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, writes about these things in his book the Universal Christ. And in that book he mentions people who come forward to receive communion, and as they make their way back to their seats, they keep glancing back at the altar, because they know that Christ is present in the bread and cup, and their eyes are drawn to where Christ is.
Except… they have partaken of the bread and the cup. Which means instead of looking back to the altar, they should be looking within. They have partaken of the break and cup - ordinary elements that come from the earth, but made holy by the presence of Christ - they have taken these things into their own body, so that they who are ordinary humans can also be made holy - holy because of the presence of Christ now within them.
That is the powerful symbolism of communion. Christ is in us. We have partaken of Christ’s body and blood. The Word is within us. The light and life is within us.
It’s so hard sometimes to think of ourselves as holy. Beloved. God-filled. This world beats us down. Too often, this world tells you that you are nothing.
That is a lie.
You have the spirit of God within you.
All the mystery and wonder of God is within you.
God, who is holy, became human in Jesus for that very reason: to show that all humans are holy, beloved, God-filled.
And Jesus told us to break bread in remembrance of him, so that we would remember all this, to remember that he is within us and among us.
One of the greatest things we can do is to learn to recognize the presence of Christ in us. That’s how we can love ourselves, as scripture says.
And, likewise, one of the greatest things we can do is learn to recognize the presence of Christ in our neighbor. That’s how we can love our neighbor as we love ourselves, as scripture says.
This is why the Hindus say “namaste.” “The sacred in me bows to the sacred in you.”
Which leads us to the point of all this. If you recognize the sacred in you, then you will stop beating yourself up over so many things, and you will learn to better appreciate what a marvelous and good human you are.
And if you recognize the sacred in others, it will make a big difference in how you treat them. Imagine if everyone recognized in each other that divine energy that is the presence of Christ. Think of how much more kindness there would be in the world, how much more love there would be, how much more peace...
This world is holy. All of creation is filled with the presence and the splendor of God. God is in you. God is in your neighbor. Everything is holy. Everything is sacred.

"Something Different, Something New" (Isaiah 43:16-21; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21)

Good morning, and welcome to the season of Advent. This year, Advent and Christmas worship services have required (shall we say) an extra amount of planning, accompanied by a fair amount of hand-wringing, due to the fact that Christmas Day, December 25, falls on a Sunday. There have been conversations about whether or not we should plan something big and special for Christmas Day, or whether anyone will show up; perhaps everyone will be too busy opening presents on Christmas Day to come to church?

One idea I had to make Christmas Day worship special was to have our baptism service on that day. Needless to say, that plan didn’t work out. The baptisms got moved up to today.

However, it didn’t take me long to realize that today is actually an appropriate and very significant day for a baptism; because today is not only the first Sunday of Advent… it’s not only the day we turn our attention to the Advent of Christ and the day of Christ’s birth. Today is also the first day of the liturgical year.

The church calendar is a little different than the civic – or secular – calendar. According to the church calendar, the new year begins on the first Sunday of Advent, and that day is today. This is our New Year’s Day.

And what is New Year’s Day? Well, like the day of one’s baptism, New Year’s Day is a day of hope; a day of new beginnings; a day of starting over.

It is that hope, that opportunity to start over and have a fresh beginning, that inspires people to celebrate the New Year in a variety of ways. Some celebrate past midnight; others get up early to watch the sun rise on a new year5. Some people even celebrate the New Year by plunging themselves into a frigid body of water in a polar bear swim, washing off the old year, greeting the new year fresh, clean, and covered with goose bumps.

The similarities to baptism are striking.

So I guess it should not be surprising that some Christian communities have developed their own New Years’ traditions.

One that I find particularly interesting is called Watch Night. Watch Night began, as far as historians can tell, in 1733, with a group of Moravians in Germany, who spent their New Year’s Eve in prayer, waiting for midnight and the start of the New Year.

Soon, the Watch Night idea spread to the United States. It gained in popularity, especially among the Methodists, who saw it as an opportunity to renew one’s covenant with God.

On New Year’s Even in 1862, Watch Night gained a whole new significance. At the stroke of midnight, when 1862 became 1863, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation would become law. In prayer services throughout the U.S., African Americans prayed and waited for the dawn of a new age, an age of freedom. It was a night filled with hope and anticipation, because at midnight, everything would change. Life itself would be different and new. Slavery would be abolished, and all those who had been held in captivity would be free.

A number of faith communities still celebrate Watch Night on New Year’s Eve, filled with singing and prayer, remembering the freedom and new life that came with the dawn of 1863, celebrating the freedom we have in Christ, and the God who rescues his people, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters; the God who makes a way in the wilderness for his people, leading them to the promised land.

Just as God’s people passed through the waters of the Red Sea on their way to becoming a new nation, so do God’s people today pass through the waters of baptism on their way to becoming new, receiving new life, and being the people God has called them to be. In the waters of baptism, the world becomes new. Creation becomes new. Life becomes new.

In the waters of baptism, we know that our sins are washed away. Forgiveness comes to us.

Yet, despite this forgiveness, I sometimes think that we beat ourselves up too much over our sins. Sin leads to brokenness. Sin leaves us wounded. Sin keeps us from being whole, from being who God intends for us to be.

We know that we sin. We know that we are imperfect. We know that our lives are broken. So what do we do? We beat ourselves up because of it. We fight with ourselves. We complain about how stupid we were.

Many Christians go to church where they learn that they need to fight against the sin within. It becomes a fierce internal battle. Fight, fight, fight. We wage a war against sin. And since scripture says that it is our nature to be sinful, that all of us have fallen short of the glory of God, the battle against sin becomes a battle against ourselves.

And I can’t help but wonder: Is a state of constant battle really the life to which God is calling us?

Now, if it was your young child who came to you, crying, wounded, would you beat your child up over it? Of course not. Say your child was climbing on a low wall – something that the child should not have been doing – and fell off, scraping a knee or even breaking a bone.

Would you run over to your child, laying there on the ground, injured and crying, and say, “You stupid, crying child, you have done what you weren’t supposed to be doing, and now you’ve fallen and hurt yourself. Therefore I’m going to punish you.”

No. You wouldn’t do that. If your child is laying there hurt, injured, and crying, you wouldn’t try to make your child feel even worse. At some point there may be a time to talk about the lesson learned, but for now you will hold your child, soothe your child, dry your child’s tears, and make sure that your child is safe and gets the care that is needed. You want to heal your child, physically and emotionally.

When we recognize our sin before God, God treats us and our sin the same way: with gentleness, with caring; and God seeks to put us back together again, make us whole again, make us new once again. God takes the wounds that sin creates, cleans our wounds, dabs them with ointment.

In the waters of baptism, God gently bathes your skin with gentleness, cleaning your wounds, providing healing. The forgiveness that comes to us gives us a new opportunity, a new hope. God is not going to punish us for our brokenness, and we don’t need to punish ourselves, either. We’re already wounded. What we need is healing. What we need is wholeness.

There is a personal commitment that comes with baptism. For us, it occurs almost simultaneously with God’s healing forgiveness. It comes when the person who is old enough confesses their sins and recognizes Jesus as the messiah, the one who saves us from a life of brokenness. In other churches, and in our church for those who have been baptized elsewhere as infants, that commitment comes at a time of confirmation.

And in that commitment, we say YES to the new life that God offers. We say, “Yes, God! Come and heal me. Yes, God! Come and wash these wounds. Yes, God! Make me whole again. Make me into something new.”

In that commitment, we look to God to show us the way: the way to healing and wholeness and salvation.

Some time ago I shared with you my experience at El Dorado Nature Center, and that one point at the end of the trail where my sense of direction always fails me. The path to the left just seems to me the quickest way back to the parking lot, and yet past experience has shown me that it’s actually the path to the right.

Two weeks ago, I took these three who have been baptized to that exact spot, and I asked them which way they thought led back to the parking lot. Two of the three said they were sure it was the path to the left. I said that it seems to me that it’s the path to the left, and yet I knew from experience that it was in fact the path to the right.

And I said how God often tells me to take a path that initially seems wrong to me. Love your enemies: that just doesn’t make sense. Don’t fight back and don’t seek revenge: really? Don’t pursue happiness through wealth and material possessions. It’s hard to follow that path, because it sure does seem to me that wealth and material possessions will make me happy.

But experience has shown me that when I do follow that path, I discover that God was right. I discover that what I thought would make me happy leaves me disappointed, while the path God leads me on does, in fact, bring happiness. It’s a whole new world that I discover, one that is very different from the world I thought existed, a world that is so much more than I could have imagined.

That’s what it’s all about on this New Year’s Day: a new hope, a new life, a new creation. In this season of Advent, remember your baptism, and the commitment you have made to following the way of God. In the midst of holiday sales and Christmas gift-giving, remember what it is that actually brings happiness and makes you whole. Remember the kindness, the love, the healing and wholeness that comes to you from God, through Jesus Christ.