The Many Forms of Water
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I am in Seattle, Washington this week, staying on Phinney Ridge just north of downtown.  I am here with party from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.  We are guests of Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church.  We have come to study a method of faith formation they call simply, The Way.  It is not so much a class, as a time and place to ask the hard questions that life forces us to ask.  Questions like: "What is my purpose?"  "How does one live an abundant life?"  "Does God exist, and if so, what does that mean?"  "What does love look like and why do I need it?"  The Way is a time and place to build relationships with people, face-to-face in a world of screens, droids and talking customer service machines.  The purpose of the Way is not to teach dogma, but to explore the infinite possibilities of grace.  It is not so much a program in which one learns Christian beliefs, as it is a process of formation.  The Way is a good process for helping one figure out what one believes, what one is passionate about, ultimately helping people become followers of Jesus Christ.
     At the center of the Way is baptism.  The Way is not a concrete road, not the solid yellow line that tells us what lane we must travel.  Just water--water that obscures the path, free-flowing water that carves its own routes.
     Before coming to Seattle, I was told to prepare for water.  I was told that there wouldn't be much snow or ice, but that the winter is rainy and wet...and not as cold as the Mid-Western winters to which I am accustomed.  I didn't bring a heavy winter coat, I brought a rain slicker.
     I have been here for five days and haven't seen much rain.
     But it has snowed just about every day...just about all day long for some four days.
     It has been beautiful and dangerous.
     Steep hills are treacherous with just a little snow or ice.  I heard from someone that Seattle only has two dozen snow ploughs.  She was not sure whether those two dozen ploughs belonged to the city or to the whole of King County.  Either way, that's not enough equipment to handle the amount of snow that has fallen on the streets and sidewalks of Phinney Ridge.  For the last two days, my gracious hosts and dear friends, Jeremy and Gina, have allowed me to drive their car.  I learned to drive in the snow.  I love driving in the snow.  I am good at it.  We have, thankfully, travelled safely.
     Tonight, after being cooped up indoors for longer-than-usual stretches of day, we decided to take a walk, the three of us.  We set out at 9:30pm after a long day of work and class.  On an hour hike, we saw one or two of the 24 ploughs.  The streets are anything but clear, and I think the population has simply given up on the sidewalks.
     Ours was a walk through the city, but it didn't feel that way.
     For a time, I hung behind my hosts and walked in silence.
     I heard the sound that I long to hear every winter: the crunch of snow beneath my feet.
     I came to Seattle to explore the deep waters of baptism.
     I was warned to prepare for water.
     And here I was, walking on it...crystallized water.
     In the city's brief moments of silence, my ears lapped up the sound of the thousands of tiny crystals crushed under my soaked shoes.  In the sound, I was transported into memories of distant times and places: trudging home from grade school in fluffy snow; the pensive strolls I would take in winter when I was in high school and college; silent walks with a beloved on crisp nights over freshly fallen snow as water continued to come down slowly and gently from on high.  There is a quiet to winter when snow is present.  It is as if the tiny crystals absorb the noise of life.  It is as if water, in that form, can somehow absorb even time so that it doesn't rush past quite so quick.
     How beautiful water is in all its forms.
   
     Even as I recollected myself in snow long since melted, I was grounded in the present.  The sidewalks were far from clear and yet a little traveled.  The paved ground I walked was uneven, rough.  The ground was slick with slush and ice.  I needed to be aware of my current footing, and wary of my next footfall.
     We came to an intersection, stopping at the light.  In Chicago, or even Rockford, we would have continued on, but people don't break jay-walking laws so flagrantly here.
     Standing on the corner, I was intent on the slush.  Between the barely discernible curb and the double tracks of vehicles that were doing their own ploughing, there was a wide expanse of gray matter.  It wasn't liquid and yet it wasn't really solid either.  The slush was certainly dirty...and messy--the kind of water that soaked your feet by caking over your shoes.  Moving on, we stepped through the slush and it was, indeed, like stepping in a puddle that clung to you and that you couldn't ever really shake off.
     I thought about how the changes and chances of life are expressed in the different forms of water.
     Life is beautiful.  Life is messy and dirty and ugly.  Life is uneven.  Life is delightfully noisy, like rushing water.  Life is sometimes profoundly silent, absorbing every distraction.  Life can be treacherous--dangerous like an un-shoveled walk.  We trudge through, stroll along, sometimes slide across, sometimes fall.  Sometimes our wheels just get stuck, or we find ourselves up to our thigh in a snow bank.  And as we walk, our shoes get wet.  It is unavoidable.  Life clings to your feet as you walk through it.  And today I wouldn't have had it any other way.  For how beautiful water is in all its forms.

     When snow is on the ground, whether in the Mid-West or in the Pacific Northwest, the way is covered--the path is hidden.  On our walk tonight, we couldn't really tell where the sidewalk was stretched out underneath the water.  It was there.  We could follow faint traces...the foot prints of those who had gone this or that particular way before.  A stretch that didn't appear to have been a sidewalk offered a clear path of hard packed snow.  Cars in the street couldn't see the two-dimensional lines that are supposed to guide drivers and keep every rider safe.  Travelers were making their own lanes.  In the treacherous snow, four lanes became two and two became one.   It was a little chaotic.  Yet it worked.
     And I thought to myself: "This is what water teaches us.  There are many paths, but only one way: forward, inexorably forward."
     The roads of faith are many, but they all go one way: toward God.
     Life and the journey of faith take us on various and sundry paths.
     But there is only one Way: through the Water.
How beautiful faith is in all its forms.
How beautiful life is...
...especially when we are together along the way.

rha        

THE OPEN DOOR
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Welcome! This blog opens with a sermon, which is the height of irony since sermons are certainly not without authority. But I will only offer a sermon from time to time. Most often, what you will find will be my (much shorter, less polished) contemplations on life, faith and what have you. Such ruminations (the usual stuff of all blogs) are, without doubt, Without Authority.


Christmas Day Sermon 2011

at Our Savior's Lutheran Church, Rockford, IL
Luke 2:1-20 and John 1:1-14

Blessed may be the Father, Son and Holy Ghost for all eternity.  Amen.

Christmas always reminds me of family.

I recall Grandma and Grandpa--my first Christmas celebrations were at their house.

Some of you may remember them: Burnell and Vivian Carlson.

Well, this past week, one memory in particular stood out:  Gramps and I exploring the halls of this very building.

During the week or after Sunday services, Gramps would take my brother and me on little excursions through Our Savior’s Church.

We would travel down the dark, less travelled back corridors.

We would look inside all of the rooms...not looking for anything in particular, just looking.

Every door was open.

This building seemed like a maze of secret passageways, because there were so many ways to get from one part of the church to the other...so many routes...

So many...possibilities...

The building itself helped the imagination grow, was a field of possibility.

Still reflecting on this memory, I read the story we share this morning.

It is a familiar story, isn’t it?

The story about how from glory, God came down on Christmastide.

But when I read it this time, something new jumped out at me.

I read verse 7, and had to go back and read it again:

“And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

And all I could see in my mind was a closed door, the door of the inn--no vacancy, no room.  So different from the memory of exploring the church with its open doors.  

Before he was even born, Jesus was “despised and rejected of men.”

Today we celebrate the Incarnation.  You might be asking, "What is 'incarnation'?"
The short version is: God was born into the world as a human being.
To that you might ask: “What is the big deal?”

God, the infinite, the creator and ruler of the universe--all that is, seen and unseen;

God whom nothing can contain, to whom every possibility is open.

This same God took on flesh, poured himself into a human body, like water in a vessel.

God took on everything finite and limited.

For God, becoming any human--even a king--would have been degradation and humiliation.  God could have just as easily been laid in a gilded bassinet, and it would have been just as far from God’s glory as a wooden manger. 

God could have been born in a palace instead of a barn--both are belittling to God.

Yet, God was even turned away from an inn.  Why?

Because God’s mission and purpose were deeper.  

Jesus came to minister to those shut out of society, the homeless of the world, the unwelcome, the despised, the rejected.  

God came in the form of a lowly human being so that every possibility might be open for humanity...so that every door might be flung wide open. 

When Jesus was in his thirties, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”  And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds have nests; but the Son of Son has nowhere to lay his head.”

It is no wonder, then, that Jesus spent his whole life searching for open doors...

Because Jesus and his family were turned out from the inn.

The word translated as “inn” has an interesting career in Luke’s gospel.

The word is καταλυμα (katalyma), and refers to a place where a traveler can throw down his or her bags or luggage.

Jesus’ whole ministry was traveling to find a place to throw down his bags.

Jesus was searching for a place to lodge, a katalyma.

The word occurs in Luke 19 (v.7).

Jesus enters Jerusalem and sees a man sitting in a tree, trying to get a glimpse of him.

The man took to the tree because he was really short.

He was also, as it turns out, a tax collector.  The short man was despised and rejected by the citizens of Judah, because the taxes he exacted were exorbitant and the tax man was an agent of the Roman oppressors.

Jesus sees the guy in the tree and calls out: “Hurry and come down, Zacchaeus, for I must stay at your house today.”  

(See, sometimes Jesus invites himself, even if the door is closed.)

People nearby grumbled and said: “He has gone to lodge with one who is a sinner.”

Jesus had a habit of lodging with unsavory characters, not because it opened doors for him in society, but because unsavory characters were closed doors.  And Jesus wanted to open the doors of every heart, wanted to make every human heart a katalyma for God, a place where the Word might come to rest.

The word, lodge--katalyma--occurs also in Luke 22 (v.11).

It is the story of Jesus’ last meal with the disciples.

The Last Supper took place in an inn...in a katalyma.  

The inn was closed on Christmas.

But on Maundy Thursday Jesus and the disciples found an inn that was open.

The door finally stood open on the night in which he was betrayed.

But Jesus was not just looking for a place that would welcome him, no...

Jesus wanted to open doors for others.

Jesus’ purpose was to open up his Father’s house, which had so many rooms that no one would be turned away--an inn whose sign never said “No vacancies.”

Jesus opened doors to sinners and tax collectors.

...opened doors for those who were sick, hungry or possessed.

...opened the door to God on the cross.

Each of us runs up against closed doors in this life.

Sometimes these doors will never be opened again...at least not in this world.

But it is when we cannot get our old job back; 

when we face an illness that may never be cured; 

when the door to our own home is closed to us in foreclosure;

when the door of marriage is shut in divorce; 

when our family or friends deny us and become enemies; 

when love is shut off by hate; 

when the doctor’s office is closed to the one without insurance; 

when the door of the public aid office is closed to the poor...

It is at these times that Christ Jesus is born into the hearts of human beings.

Despair tries to close us off from any hope, but Jesus Christ gives us the strength to find some other way, some other possibility.

Peace beyond our understanding is born in us, we learn that there is more... 

This is the true meaning of Christmas, of the Incarnation: possibility; more; the finite meeting the infinite.  For, “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.”

Before I get carried away, we must look at one more occurrence of the word katalyma, in Luke 9 (v.12).

Jesus is out in the country, teaching and giving long speeches.

The day wears on; the people are tired and hungry.

The disciples say to Jesus, “Let the crowds go into town so that they can find food and a place to lodge.”

Perhaps at this point Jesus remembered the story Mary and Joseph told him about the day of his birth...how they searched for a place...how there was no room in the inn.  How they were sent away empty.

And Jesus said, “No.  We will not turn them away.  We will feed them.  This shall be their lodging place--here with us.”

You know the headline of the story: ‘Two Fish and Five Loaves Feed Thousands.’

No one was turned away empty.

Here we are, on Christmas morning.  We have become the story.

Some of us are shepherds, working people.

Some of us are wise people, with expensive gifts to offer...some of us are wise guys.

Some of us are even rather more like barnyard animals.  (No pointing fingers.)

We sit here surrounded by a multitude of the heavenly host: all of the saints who have gone before us.

We are the motley crew invited to witness God take on flesh and blood.

We gather around this table...this manger.

(For mangers and tables are just feeding troughs for different animals.)

Here we eat and drink God’s body and blood; the table becomes an open door.

The ruler of the universe finds a lodging place, a katalyma, in our belly.  

And we are given every possibility, every hope.

Wholeness in the midst of disease.

Grace to forgive.

Joy despite misery.

Love for the enemy.

Peace for the world.  In each of us.

“No vacancy” does not appear, and can never appear on the Church’s marquee.

A better sign is the one I see flashing in front of Don Carter’s bowling alley: 

“Lanes Open Now.”

Pews are open now at Our Savior’s.

Because there are always vacancies at this table.

There is always room for one more.

One more family member...  

One more friend...

One more stranger...  

One more enemy...

One more sinner...

One more child...

One more human being...

Yes, at Christmas, I always remember family.  

But then I read the familiar story and I learn anew what “family” means.

As I take my place at this table, and as I see you my sisters and brothers take your places, God’s flesh and blood reminds me that we, too, are family.

And whoever else stands before a closed door...they are our family, too.  

Here sits a katalyma for the whole world.

Listen:

Do you hear what I hear?

Jesus declaring the Good News in chapter 10 of John’s Gospel:  

“I am the door.  I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  

Thanks be to God.  Amen.