The kingdom of heaven is like a preacher who gets into a boat, and pulls away from the shore…

The kingdom of heaven is like seeds thrown around, wildly, extravagantly, indiscriminately…!

The kingdom of heaven is like a beautiful flower, hidden in a seedling…

The kingdom of heaven is like small-town kids weeping for children they’ve never met…

The kingdom of heaven is like a story that leaves us with more questions than answers…

The kingdom of God is like a story that teases the imagination, challenges accepted values, or points beyond itself, into the depths of the soul and the heights of heaven…

Image: JESUS MAFA. The parable of the sower, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48309 [retrieved July 10, 2020]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).

And then it’s as if Jesus looks at the crowd again, and it’s as if his prayer has transformed him, has remade him, set re-start on this particular moment.

And he says, Come. Come to me. Come on in. This is the Down and Out Bar and Grille, after all, and you are welcome.

Are you frustrated? Come on in.

Are you downhearted? Pull up a stool. Are you at the end of the very last thread in your very last little piece of rope? Here, sit next to me.

Are you weary to the bone? Just plain tired? Yeah, of course. You can lean. Lean on me.

Jesus talks about a yoke—the kind that binds two animals together for work, for plowing. The kind that’s a heavy burden. The kind that attaches you to the hardest things in your life, and you are not in charge of when you get to take it off.

Here, he says, take on my yoke—here, I’ll help you put yours down. There is no need to carry that load all by yourself. When I share it with you—when you’re yoked to me—it will feel light as a feather.

Image courtesy of Pexels: Alphabet Bar Blue Light

Here’s the thing. Both Sarah and Hagar are caught in interpersonal triangle with the kinds of stresses that make you want to completely cast the object of your wrath out into the deepest darkness. I get that. But more critically, they are also caught in a system, a structure, that controls everything.

Who has status, and who doesn’t.

Who is a full member of the family and who isn’t.

Who can make decisions about her body and safety, and who can’t.

Who can protect her child, and who can’t.

Sarah and Hagar are both stuck in a system that determines all these things. But only one of them benefits from the system. Only Sarah….

Image: Marc Chagall, Hagar in the Desert. Fair Use, courtesy of Wikiart. https://www.wikiart.org/en/marc-chagall/hagar-in-the-desert-1960.

… Then, the Lord appears.

Or maybe, three men appear.

Maybe those are one and the same… maybe the three men are the Lord. Or, maybe it’s the Lord and two friends.

Or angels. Maybe they are angels.

Into a holy place, into a place that is a threshold to another state of being, come strangers whom the text can’t even decide how to describe…

Image: Jan Victors, 1619-1676 (Studio of Rembrandt); Abraham Entertaining the Three Angels. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

An amazing set of promises: Abraham (and Sarah… God eventually clarifies this) will be the ancestors of a great people. And blessing will be poured out upon them so abundantly, it will flow through them to the whole world. No wonder they didn’t hesitate!

But wait. God says, Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

But God does not say which land that land will be. Not yet.

Image: James Jacques Joseph Tissot, “Abraham’s Counsel to Sarai.” Public Domain, Courtesy of https://www.wikiart.org/en/james-tissot/abraham-s-counsel-to-sarai.

God saw everything that God had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. ~Genesis 1:31

Image: Union Presbyterian Community Bicentennial Art Project, 2019-2020. Copyright Union Presbyterian Church. All Rights Reserved.

‘In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
    and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
    and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
    in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
        and they shall prophesy.” ~Acts 2:17-18

Image: Spirit Cloud. P. Raube. Copyright Union Presbyterian Church, 2020. All rights reserved.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. ~Acts 1:8-9

Image: Norton, Jay. Ascension, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54144 [retrieved May 10, 2020]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37996904@N00/351895142/.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Jesus, in John 14:15

Image: Schmalz, Timothy P.. Begging Jesus, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56182 [retrieved May 10, 2020]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ojbyrne/3386644334.

Thomas is the one who is always ready to go.

Each time we meet Thomas in the gospel according to John, he is either expressing a readiness to go, or a willingness to go, or he has already gone…

…So, it come as no surprise to us that, on the evening of that that long resurrection day—that day full of reports of Jesus and appearances of Jesus—on that night, Thomas is not holed up in the locked room with Jesus’ disciples. He was never one to sit around. He was always ready to go. He’s gone.

That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!”
~Luke 24:33-34

Image: Jesus, Judas, and the Others, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54139 [retrieved April 11, 2020]. Original source: Flickr Junkie, Flickr Creative Commons.

Sometimes, you just need to be at home.

It is still Easter. For us, it’s still Easter season, for six more weeks. For the disciples in our story, it is still Easter day. But they don’t yet know what that means.

And so two of them set out from Jerusalem for a long walk home, seven miles. And Jesus comes alongside them, to walk with them.

But they don’t know it’s Jesus…

This is such a weird story.

Which, I suppose, makes it perfect for a pretty weird Easter.

Image: “Resurrection,” by Jacopo da Pontormo (ca. 1525), Certosa del Galluzo, Florence, Italy. Public Domain.

Having loved his own who were in the world, Jesus loved them to the end…

Jesus was always gathering around the table with friends…

This day brings us right into the heart of our faith. Right into its deepest mystery.

We begin with a procession. Not a very big or impressive procession. It’s the week leading up to Passover, so pilgrims from all over the known world are streaming into the holy city, Jerusalem.

Jesus is among them.

Jesus shared meals with his friends, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. He stayed with them. He loved them. But now, one of them was ill. And—the logical thing was to go, right away, wouldn’t you think? But Jesus, especially Jesus as we meet him in John’s gospel, has other purposes that are even higher than being with the people he loved. Jesus was intent on showing the glory and the power of God.

As he walked along, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” ~John 9:1-3

In a way, the history of our faith is told in stories about water, from creation, to liberation, to the life of Jesus and beyond. Each time the church pours the water of baptism over a child of God, we hear those stories.

I probably should have given up Twitter for Lent.

It’s an interesting website, and I find that it’s a good spot for breaking news—often reported, which is to say, tweeted, by the individuals who are making the news. But it’s not a great place in times of turmoil and anxiety. It tends to take anxiety and multiplies it exponentially.

But every so often you find real beauty there.

Image: JESUS MAFA. The Sermon on the Mount, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48284 [retrieved March 11, 2020]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).

I am convinced. Nicodemus is us. The story of his relationship with Jesus is the story of those of us who see Jesus, who are drawn to him, and who want to know more. This is a lifelong path. And, like every path, it begins with birth. And birth, while a natural process, isn’t always an easy one.