Easter 2: What we need for faith

John 20:19-31

A few weeks ago a newly uncovered version
of the so-called “Gospel of Judas” hit the news media,
and caused a minor frenzy of reporting.
Seminaries, Bible scholars, pastors, archeologists, the Vatican—
all kinds of authorities happily gave sound bites to TV cameras,
declaring why this discovery was or was not significant.
Obviously, trying to restore the reputation of Judas Iscariot
presents a few major challenges,
and lots of interesting questions...
and it’s not a sermon
you’re going to hear from me anytime soon.
But in today’s sermon I am going to try
to rehabilitate another apostle—Thomas.
In fact, I’m going to try to convince us
to not only give Thomas some slack,
and stop accusing him of small faith,
but to actually lift him up as a worthy example.
We should strive to be just like him.

And to accomplish this rehab,
I won’t have to uncover any secret manuscripts.
I won’t do any wild speculation.
It’s all right here in the Gospels.

This is really a beautiful story.
You might want to turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 20,
beginning in v. 19.

This is a continuation of the Easter story we heard last Sunday,
that ended with verse 18.
It comes right after Peter and John, as you recall,
saw the empty tomb, and then turned around and went home,
while Mary lingered at the tomb,
and had a personal encounter with the risen Jesus.
Mary went back and told the rest of the disciples
what she had seen, and what Jesus had said.

Now, we see in vv. 19-20,
that the disciples all stayed huddled together,
behind locked doors,
out of fear for their lives.
But Jesus suddenly showed up among them.
And said, “Peace be with you.”
Appropriate greeting for huddled, shaking, fearful people.
And then he showed them—
all these disciples who had a hard time
believing what they were seeing—
he showed them his hands and his side.
And they all rejoiced, because they saw and believed.
They had already heard Mary’s report, mind you.
But now...now, they saw and believed.

All except Thomas,
who had to run to the store for milk and eggs.
Okay, maybe that’s some wild speculation.
We just know he was gone at the time.
And when he got back,
the others ran up to him all excited,
You should’ve been here, Tom!
They said, “We have seen the Lord.”
Exact same words everyone heard earlier from Mary,
in v. 18: “I have seen the Lord.”
And Thomas’ response was the same,
as I suspect all the disciples were when Mary said it,
they took in the information,
but could not really wrap their minds and hearts around it.
Thomas said something to the effect,
I understand you saw something
that convinced you he is alive,
but, “I need to see it for myself.” V. 25.
Unless it’s my eyes that see his hands,
and my hands that touch his side,
it’s just too much to believe.

A week later, Thomas got what he needed. Vv. 26-28.
Jesus appeared among them again, despite the locked doors,
and said, for the third time, “Peace be with you.”
Then he turned to Thomas, and said to him,
“Look. Touch. Believe.”
And Thomas, without touching, cried out, v.
“My Lord and my God!”
And Jesus said, “You all have seen me, and believed.”
Blessed are those who don’t see me, and still believe.

Now, look carefully at that whole passage of scripture,
and see if you can find any evidence in the text itself,
that indicates Thomas was weak in faith.
See if you can find any evidence whatsoever
that Jesus was displeased with Thomas’ desire to see and touch.
It’s not there. It’s simply not there.

Years of tradition have read more things into this story
than what are written.
And we have made Thomas into a world-class cynic and doubter.
But I admire Thomas. I admire him greatly.
And let me tell you why.
Thomas was a persistent pursuer of the truth.
He didn’t just take the easy answer, and let it go at that.
He doggedly pursued truth, until he could seize it,
or until it seized him.

־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־
Thomas is mostly a behind-the-scenes kind of disciple.
In fact, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
the only place his name appears is in the official list of the 12,
when Jesus first calls them.
There’s no mention anywhere else of Thomas.
Except in John,
who records several incidents involving Thomas.
The first is in John 11:16.
The pressure was building on Jesus.
At one point there was an attempted stoning.
And then Jesus’ friend Lazarus died,
and Jesus announced they were heading to Bethany
to be with the family.
The other disciples objected.
Bethany was just two miles from Jerusalem,
the center of resistance against Jesus. It wasn’t safe.
But when Jesus was clearly determined to go,
it was Thomas who said,
“Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
Thomas’ courage and loyalty and determination
was an example for the rest of the disciples.

The second time we hear from Thomas is John 14:5.
That’s where Jesus was telling the disciples, in a cryptic way,
about heaven.
He said he was going to go and prepare a place for them
to be with his Father,
and that he would come again, and take them with him.
And he also said, “You know the way to place I’m going.”
And Thomas, who always wanted to get to the bottom of things,
was the only one who dared to counter Jesus, saying.
“No, Jesus, we don’t have a clue.”
How can we know the way,
if we don’t know where you’re going?
That was certainly not a sign of ignorance or lack of faith
on Thomas’ part.
It was a sign that he would not be satisfied with easy answers.
He knew there was truth to be grasped,
and he wouldn’t let go until he found it.

That’s the backdrop for John 20,
and this wonderful exchange between Jesus and Thomas.
And you know, this passage is more about Jesus than Thomas, anyway.
This passage proclaims good news for all of us
about who Jesus is,
about his character,
about his love and mercy.

Think about the bigger picture here.
Jesus had every right to absolutely lay into his disciples.
He could have been a football coach
in the locker room at halftime confronting his players
for the most miserable, pathetic, lackluster, cowardly,
and downright despicable performance
he had ever seen on a football field.
Jesus spent two years preparing them for this very time.
Preaching about the demands of the kingdom,
about taking up their cross and following,
about denying themself,
about laying down their lives.
He had predicted everything that had just happened,
and urged them to watch and pray and stay strong.
But they all ran away.
Every last one of them deserted.
And now, even after his resurrection,
they were hiding their faces behind locked doors.
But when Jesus showed up...
instead of yelling and screaming
and throwing things around the locker room,
he holds out his arms and says, “Peace be with you.”
He breathed on them, and gifted them with the Holy Spirit,
and said again, “Peace be with you.”
And when he returned a second time to meet Thomas,
he said the third time, “Peace be with you.”

This is a story of the amazing generosity of Jesus,
in the face of human frailty.

Jesus gave to each one of his disciples
exactly what they needed to come to faith.
When he appeared to Mary in the Garden,
he called her by name, “Mary.”
When he first appeared to his disciples,
he showed them his hands and side,
and pronounced peace.
And when Thomas missed out on what the other disciples got,
Jesus came back a second time just for Thomas.
Jesus wanted nothing of his followers except deep and genuine trust.
Faith. Trust. Belief.
In v. 27 of John 20, Jesus says to Thomas,
“Do not doubt but believe.”
But there’s a better way to translate that.
Jesus wasn’t talking only about what goes on up here
(in the old noggin).
No, in the original Greek, it says, literally,
“Do not be faithless, but faithful.”
Faith in Jesus is about active trust in Jesus,
trust in his person, his teaching, his mission, his character.
The deepest desire of Jesus for Thomas and the other disciples,
was that they would trust him, completely.
Because the future would be even more uncertain,
more demanding, and more dangerous,
than what they had been through already.

Jesus wanted them to trust him.
Trust that he knew what God wanted of them,
that he knew the way to the Father,
that he would be with them in a different way from here on out,
but they shouldn’t be afraid.
They should be at peace.

And it was then, out of the mouth of Thomas,
that came the most personal and heart-felt expression
of this very trust that Jesus was wanting to see.
It was the fullest confession of faith
uttered by any disciple up to that point.
Peter earlier made the confession,
“You are the Messiah, son of the Living God.”
But Thomas took it a step further,
“My Lord and my God!”

To bring the disciples to this place of deep trust and faith,
Jesus gladly, generously, provided what they needed.
And for Thomas, it was the same thing the others needed—
a personal encounter.
Mary got it at the tomb.
The other disciples got it in the upper room.
Why shouldn’t Thomas also receive the grace and gift
of a personal encounter with the risen Jesus?
So Jesus gladly provided it.

Contrary to what we might like to think sometimes,
God isn’t trying to make it difficult for us to have faith.
If some of us have a hard time finding faith,
maybe we’re looking in the wrong places.
God is generous and gracious.
God is ready to provide whatever we need for faith.
God wants us to relate to him in trust and faith,
so why would God play hard to get?

Some of us are like Thomas, and God bless us.
We are persistent seekers.
We are dogged pursuers of the truth.
We’re not easily satisfied with pat answers.
The message of today’s Gospel story is that God honors that.
And in due time, God will provide what we need for faith.
Some of may be more like Peter,
a passionate disciple, who lives more by the heart than the head.
God honors that.
God will provide what we need for faith.

No matter how we go about seeking Christ,
God honors our seeking.
And gives us what we need for faith.
Faith is still, ultimately, a leap.
I’m not suggesting that all our questions will be given answers
in our lifetime.
We are human. Our line of sight cannot go beyond the horizon.
We still have to make a decision without seeing everything.
But God gives us enough.
God gives us a faith framework,
in which we can continue our journey toward deeper faith.

So this morning, thank God for Thomas.
He’s a great example for how to seek God persistently,
and to confess faith fully.
And let us worship the Lord,
who gladly gives us what we need...all we need...
for a life of faith.
Let us trust in this Lord.
Let us put our lives in his hands.

And let us sing our confession, #29 in Sing the Journey.
You are all we have.
You give us what we need.
Our lives are in your hands, O Lord,
Our lives are in your hands.

—Phil Kniss, April 23, 2006

Easter 2006: Threatened by Resurrection

John 20:1-18

Wow!
What a joyful, exuberant, and long-awaited
celebration of resurrection life!
Friends, the Lenten season of fasting is over.
It’s time for feasting!
And our spirits have been feasting this morning.
We’ve been singing our hearts out with joy.
“Let us sing praise to him with endless joy.
Christ has arisen! Alleluia!”

I would be hard to be in this sanctuary right now,
and not have your spirits lifted in some way.
We don’t all start from the same place, of course.
Some of us came, already bursting with the joy of life.
Some came with heavy burdens, with grief, with fears.
But even if only by a small measure,
I think we’ve all had our spirits lifted
by this joyous celebration of resurrection life.

But are we really ready for Easter?
I mean, do we really want to know what’s coming next,
now that the tomb has been burst open?
Do we really want to be a part of it?
We’d better think twice.
You know, if Easter is only about celebration, the lifting of spirits,
feelings of joy and exuberance,
then of course we’re ready...we’re always ready for joy,
especially in this wounded world.

But if Easter means what I think it means—
we’d better think again.
If Easter means opening up of a whole new horizon in life,
If Easter means throwing open the gates to a world
where God is turning everything on its head,
If Easter means letting go of a world
where we know the contours
and are familiar with the terrain—
Then maybe we better think more carefully,
before we claim to be ready for Easter.
_____________________

Parker Palmer, in his book “The Active Life,”
ends with a chapter entitled “Threatened with Resurrection.”
He got his inspiration from a poem of the same title,
by Julia Esquivel, a Guatemalan poet and theologian.

Palmer recognized something in himself, that we can identify with.
That is, sometimes he fears life itself,
and the movement toward new life,
more than he fears death in its various forms.

He told two brief stories to illustrate what he meant,
one humorous, and the other tragic.
The first was from a Woody Allen movie,
where a man went to see a psychiatrist,
and complained that his brother-in-law,
who lived with them,
thought he was a chicken.
He explained that his brother-in-law cackles a lot,
he pecks at the rug,
and builds nests in the corners.
Psychiatrist says, “Bring him in,
I think I can cure him completely.”
The man says, “Oh, no, Doc. We don’t want that.
We need the eggs.”

Palmer commented that sometimes we cling to our pathologies,
because in some way they are useful to us.
We prefer these “little deaths” to a new and transformed life,
because we benefit from our illusions...
we “need the eggs.”

A second, more disturbing story, was about the apostle Peter,
a legend, not in the Bible,
in which he walked up to a blind beggar,
crouched in the dust by the city gate.
Peter put his hands over the blind man’s eyes, and said,
“In the name of the resurrected Christ, may your sight be restored!”
Immediately the healed blind man jumped up, eyes wide open,
his face full of anger, and screamed at Peter,
“You fool! You have destroyed my way of making a living!”
Whereupon he gouged out his own eyes, and collapsed into the dust.

There’s a metaphor there.
Isn’t it true sometimes, that we realize we suffer from blindness,
but at least we know how to “make a living” from it.
And the idea of doing away with that blindness,
and seeing more fully and completely,
can be threatening to life as we know it.

Resurrection puts us to the test.
It tests our willingness to move into new territory,
to live a larger life than the one we are so familiar with.
Death and defeat are no fun, of course,
but at least they’re understandable.
We know what to expect.
Resurrection forces us out of our comfort zone,
into a whole new lay of the land.

That probably explains the reaction of Peter and John,
when they confronted the empty tomb.
In the resurrection story we heard from the Gospel of John,
it makes a point of the fact that Peter and John,
once they saw the empty tomb, believed.
They believed, but it also says, in v. 9,
that they didn’t understand the scriptures,
that he must rise from the dead.
So what did they do,
when faced with these confusing signs of resurrection?
Their response is in v. 10.
“Then the disciples returned to their homes.”

They went back to the familiar. The safe environment of their homes.
Standing in the presence of resurrection threatened them, I think.
They couldn’t stay there in that place,
where their world was threatened to be turned upside down.

By contrast, Mary Magdalene,
found it within herself to stay at the tomb.
To linger with this strange, threatening, and unknown reality.
It says in v. 11,
“But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.
As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb.”
And she was rewarded with an encounter.
By staying there at the empty tomb, despite the fear and confusion,
she met first the angels,
and then she met Jesus himself.
Because she persisted, she was given the gift
of encountering the risen Jesus,
who called her by name.
And she was able to go back to the disciples,
and report with confidence, “I have seen the Lord.”
_____________________

The word of challenge to us this morning,
is to be like Mary.
Linger. Stay.
When we are confronted with signs of resurrection,
even when they frighten and confuse us...
Stay. Linger at the empty tomb, and look in.
Even when there is an unseen world out there,
that feels unsettling, but promises new life,
Stay. Wait for the encounter with the risen Christ.
Wait until Jesus calls you by name.

To stay at the empty tomb,
is to dare to ask ourselves some challenging questions.

Parker Palmer asked himself these questions:
“If I lived as if resurrection were real,
and allowed myself to die for the sake of new life,
what might I be called upon to do?
What strange and difficult tasks might be laid upon me?
What comforts taken away?
How might my life be changed?

Believing the resurrection is only the beginning.
Peter and John were able to do that,
simply by seeing the empty tomb, and returning home.
We can also believe the resurrection,
and go back home to life as usual.
It doesn’t require much risk or sacrifice.

May God give us the courage,
not only to look into the empty tomb, and believe,
but to say “Yes” to God’s invitation to live the resurrection life.
The Risen Lord Jesus Christ,
not only asks us to lay down our own agenda,
and take the risk of walking toward an unknown horizon.
The risen Christ makes a promise to us.
I will walk with you.
I will never leave or forsake you.
You can trust me.
Furthermore, Christ calls us not only personally,
as individual Easter disciples.
We are also called to be an Easter community.
We are called to be a contrast community,
that refuses to define life in the same way the world does.
The world tries to sell us a multitude of little “deaths,”
claiming they are what life is all about.
Easter turns the world’s idea of life upside down.
Which makes resurrection threatening,
to us and to others.

So let us rejoice that Christ has risen!
Let us rejoice loud and long!
Let us laugh and be glad.
But may we never take this news lightly.

Julia Esquivel, the Guatemalan poet I referred to earlier,
in her poem “Threatened by Resurrection,”
described resurrection this way:
“There is something here within us
Which doesn’t let us sleep, which doesn’t let us rest,
Which doesn’t stop pounding deep inside.”

If the fact that we are called to be resurrection people,
can keep us awake at night, heart pounding,
we are probably on the right track.
May God give us courage.
May God give us grace.

—Phil Kniss, April 16, 2006

Lent 5: Standing before a forgetful God

Jeremiah 31:31-34; John 12:20-26

Each Sunday during Lent, and this is the fifth one,
we have looked at a different Old Testament covenant.
First, the one with Noah: a one-sided promise God made to all creation,
never to destroy the earth again.
Second, there was a covenant with Abraham.
I will bless all nations through you and your descendants.
Third, we looked at the covenant with the Israelites at Mt. Sinai,
written on stone that Moses brought down from the mountain.
Last Sunday, we had what you might call a “covenant for healing,”
when God told Moses to lift a bronze serpent up on a pole.

Now, today, it’s the covenant written on the heart,
our Lenten theme this year.
We’ve been reading this Jeremiah text over and over every Sunday.
Some of you have now memorized it.
...Do you know what it means?

“God writing on our hearts.”
Everything about that phrase is hard to get hold of.
We can’t picture it easily.
That’s why the banner and bulletin art is so abstract.
How do you represent God taking a pen to our hearts,
and writing something on it.
And what in the world does that mean, anyway?

Well, let’s explore it.
You might want to turn to Jeremiah 31 as we do this.
The text is there in the bulletin, too.

Speaking through the prophet Jeremiah,
God announces to the people that a new covenant is coming—
“is surely coming, says the Lord,” v. 31.
And this new covenant is held up
over against the covenant at Mt. Sinai.
Not to undo the Sinai covenant,
but to enhance it.
At Sinai, the covenant was written on stones,
and it was apt to be broken—the stones and the covenant—
because it was external.
It was handed down to them.
It had to be taught, by rote.
Learn this, people.
“Know the Lord.” (v. 34)

By contrast, the covenant to come will be written internally,
on the heart.
For people of the new covenant,
knowledge of God, and of God’s covenant,
will be part of their nature.
They won’t have to be taught the same way, Jeremiah says.
Because they will already have it in them.
From the youngest to oldest, the least to greatest.
They will know the Lord, naturally...by nature.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”

Now what are we to make of that?
Certainly, we Christians read it from a different vantage point.
We see Jesus in that text.
And rightly so.
Jesus did come proclaiming a new covenant.
He called people to a new standard of life in God.
He preached a higher level of life in the kingdom of God:
“You have heard that it was said...but I say to you.”
And that new covenant was sealed
by the blood of his suffering, his death, his resurrection,
which we’ll be celebrating over the next couple weeks.
And the new covenant remains with us through the Spirit,
which Jesus promised would dwell in us,
as he called us into communities of the Spirit.

So we could look at this reading from Jeremiah, and say,
“Hey! It’s been done.”
Jesus fulfilled this covenant. We are living in it now.
And on one level, that’s true.
We do experience some of the internal dynamic
of this covenant,
because of the Spirit of Jesus in us,
enlivening the covenant,
giving it a quality of being inherent in us.
But who of us can claim we have it down pat?
Who is willing to say we no longer need to teach this covenant?
The strongest evidence, looking around us,
is that we do not all, from the least to the greatest,
“know the Lord.”
We are not beyond the need for being taught.

No, there’s something deeper here in Jeremiah 31.
And I think it goes all the way back to Genesis 3.
Ever since humankind fell away from God,
into a sinful, self-oriented, existence,
God has been reaching out to us to repair the breach.
That’s what we’ve been looking at the last four Sundays,
covenant after covenant, God is reaching out to us.
But these covenants have not reached their full potential
because of our failure to keep them.
Sin keeps dragging us back,
away from the destination God has in mind for us.

Jeremiah, I think, is prophesying about the day that will surely come,
when our restoration will be full and complete.
Back to how it was in Genesis 1 and 2.
When all of creation was in harmony with itself,
and with its Creator.
Jeremiah is prophesying a complete renewal—
we will have a renewed consciousness...
renewed will...
renewed passions.
And this will be nothing other than a gift of God.
It’s not something we make happen.

Look carefully at v. 34:
“They shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,
says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity,
and remember their sin no more.”
It is God’s forgiveness that results in the knowing.
“They shall know me...for I will forgive them.”
That’s an important little 3-letter conjunction:
“for”...meaning “because.”
It is because God forgives us, that we are able to know God.
God’s forgiveness comes first.
It’s God’s initiative, not ours.
We usually get it backwards.
We think we have to learn enough about God,
and muster enough belief and faith in God,
so that we can say the right words to God,
and present ourselves before God in the right manner,
so that because of our approach of faith toward God,
God will then forgive us.
That’s not how Jeremiah 31 says it.
God says, “I will forgive their iniquity, and forget their sins...
and then they shall know me.”

The forgiveness of our sins by God is a done deal.
What is left, is for us to open ourselves to God.
To allow ourselves to experience the knowledge of God,
made possible by God’s forgiveness.
We human beings are the clog in the system, here.
Always have been.
It’s not that God is holding back his love and forgiveness,
for some future age when we all get our act together.
No...it’s a done deal.

But, obviously, we cannot live in that love and forgiveness,
unless we open ourselves to it.
All that’s left, is for us to stand before God with an open posture.
The same posture that Adam and Eve had in the Garden of Eden,
before the fall.
Connecting Jeremiah 31 to the first chapters of Genesis,
gave me a new insight.
Before they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
it says that Adam and Eve were naked, and not ashamed.
Don’t know if I thought of it like this before,
but I’m not so sure their nakedness was really an issue
between them as human beings.
After they ate the fruit,
I don’t think they were suddenly embarrassed
to be seen naked by each other.
The reason they sewed fig leaves together for clothes,
was so God wouldn’t see them naked.
At least, that’s how the text reads.

When God called to Adam in the garden, “Where are you?”
Adam answered, “I heard you in the garden,
and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
Sin caused Adam to be afraid
to stand exposed and naked before God.
That’s what sin does.
Sin creates a need for cover.
Sin makes us move toward self-protection.
Sin causes us to settle for something less
than a full openness and vulnerability toward God.
Sin makes us conscious of our nakedness before God,
and we run for cover.

But the wonderful word of grace and hope found in Jeremiah 31,
is that when humanity finally finds the courage
to stand naked before God, with their sins exposed,
God will say, “What sins?”
And full fellowship will be restored,
just like the first day in the Garden.
When we stand exposed before God,
we will discover that God is a forgetful God.
We will discover that God has already forgiven us,
and is ready to move on.
The question is whether we are ready to move on.

That’s kind of disconcerting to those of us,
who’ve conditioned ourselves to think we have to earn God’s favor.
When we finally get up the nerve to approach God
and beg for mercy and forgiveness,
we expect to at least get a stern scolding from God,
and a long list of things to do to get back in God’s good graces.
But instead of standing before a faultfinding, finger-wagging God,
we are standing before a forgetful God.
A God who literally doesn’t remember our sin.

So maybe, just maybe, the reason this new covenant on the heart
is taking so long to come about,
is not because God is moving too slow.
Perhaps God’s part has already been done,
and the covenant is not yet fulfilled
because humanity is too stubborn, too proud,
too afraid, too self-oriented, too protective.
We’re back where Adam was, hiding in the bushes.
We’re not ready to stand naked and vulnerable before God.
If only we knew the kind of God we would meet,
if we came out of the bushes.

That puts a different angle on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
We still have a lot of work to do.
When we are reconciled with this forgiving and forgetful God,
it means we walk with God in a life of holiness and obedience.
It means we pattern our lives after a higher ethical standard,
than much of the world around us.
We are servants of God, not of ourselves,
and we are obligated to the agenda of God’s kingdom.
Being a disciple is costly.
But...being forgiven is not.

The forgiveness has already been accomplished.
It’s not of our doing. It’s a gift of a gracious God.
BUT...it’s only available to those willing to stand
open and vulnerable and exposed before this gracious God.

־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־
It is our willingness to lay down our lives,
to assume a position of self-sacrifice,
that allows God’s salvation to take root in us.

In today’s Gospel reading,
Jesus shows us the way.
He models for us,
how to live out the agenda God has for our lives,
and lay down our own agenda, and let it die.
Jesus was willing to lay down his life,
because he was confident that by so doing,
God would bring about something far greater.
In John 12:24, he spoke about his own impending death.
“I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Those who love their life lose it,
and those who hate their life in this world
will keep it for eternal life.”

That is also our calling.
To lay down the fig leaves, so to speak.
To come out of the bushes and stand exposed before God.

If we want to meet the forgetful, forgiving God,
we have to lay down those things—
those artificial things we have built up around ourselves,
to shield ourselves,
to protect our self-interest.
We have to say to God, here we are...we belong to you.
That is the day God will be able to say,
“I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Verse 33 of Jeremiah 31.
That is the day Jeremiah’s prophesy will be fulfilled,
“I will put my law within them,” says the Lord,
“and I will write it on their hearts.”
That is the day we will be gladly received by our forgetful God.

I would like to lead us in a collective time of confession,
that will take us, perhaps, a little closer to that day.

Will you bow your heads with me?
First, take a moment to reflect,
and identify just one of those artificial shields
that we have constructed around us,
to protect us from exposure to God and to others.
That shield could be anything.
I don’t know what God’s Spirit may bring to mind.
It might be our selfish pride,
our desire to succeed as a career professional,
or to raise successful children,
It might be our house,
our retirement portfolio.
It might be our shining reputation in the community.
And it’s not necessarily anything bad in itself.
But something that we are holding onto for dear life,
so as not to stand exposed and vulnerable before God.
To hide our sin and brokenness from God,
and from each other.
Name just one of those things that comes to mind.

[silence]
Now, if you are willing to lay down this shield,
and stand before God,
hold out your open hands in front of you,
as a gesture of that willingness to lay down yourself,
and your agenda.
Imagine yourself standing before God, fully exposed and vulnerable,
and naming your sin.
And saying to God, “Lord, have mercy.”
Now, with heads still bowed, and without using our hymnals,
let’s sing together, “Kyrie, eleison.” Lord have mercy.

—Phil Kniss, April 2, 2006