Sermons

We have entered the season of Lent - the part of the Church calendar which leads us to Easter. It has traditionally been a season marked by thoughtful prayer and reflection, often underscored by personal sacrifice. There are valuable reasons why the Church has developed the cycle of seasons which now take us through the year, from Advent and Epiphany, through Lent, Easter and Pentecost, into a long period of "Ordinary Time," and back again to Advent. Each season has its own themes, its own character, its own gifts to share. They offer us opportunities to spend time exploring a wide variety of ways in which life and faith intersect - from times of joy to times of grief, from experiences of deep spiritual connection to "dark nights of the soul," from mountain top ecstacy to the "valley of the shadow of death," from extraordinary moments to ordinary days. The genius of paying attention to the seasons of the church is that even if we aren't experiencing a particular theme in our lives at that moment, the chances are good that we will at some point. The seasons provide us with a way of practicing faithful responses - trying them on, so to speak - so that we might be better prepared to face the experience when it does come our way.
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One of the most profound and far-reaching messages which our faith has to offer is that God is accessible. It is possible to experience the presence of the sacred in our lives in a real and personal way. That is good news of the first magnitude. In a variety of sources, ranging from ancient scripture right up through my own personal experience, there is strong evidence that it is possible to be touched by the Spirit of God in an intimate way. It happens. It has happened to me. I know that it has happened to many of you. And when we open ourselves to such encounters our lives are transformed as a result. We cannot remain unchanged. Moses goes up on a mountain and "talks" to God. When he comes back down people can see evidence of his experience literally written all over his face. The way they talk about it within the extreme limitations of language is to say that his face was shining. We get much the same picture in the Gospels when they try to describe the experience we have come to refer to as the transfiguration. The disciples who were with him thought that Jesus was glowing. God's presence in our world and in our lives is real. And sometimes we are able to get in touch with it in particularly powerful ways. When that happens we are changed.
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Driving through the arid landscape of eastern Washington, it is usually easy to tell where the water is located. Just look for the trees. They thrive because they are tapped into the source of that life-sustaining liquid. Without it they simply would not survive.

And we are not so very different. We thrive when we remember to keep our spirits connected to the sacred source of life. We call it God. We call it Spirit. We call it the Holy. And by whatever name we use, it nourishes and sustains our living. It is always present. It is always available. And yet, surprisingly, we frequently close ourselves off from this empowering reality. Sometimes we do so out of fear, when we get overwhelmed. More often, I suspect, we do so by simply not paying attention. We get distracted. We allow the inconsequential to overshadow that which has real substance. And we suffer as a result. Our lives are less full and rich. Sometimes there is actual damage. When we humans beings get locked into a narrow perspective of what matters and a narrow perspective of where we draw our strength, we often find ourselves wandering down some really dark and dangerous paths.
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In the bulletin each week there is a place where we list the names of those who are serving in various capacities. At the bottom of that list there is a small but important notation which reads, "Ministers: Every Member." This brief statement speaks volumes about how we in this congregation understand our relationship with God, with each other and with the world at large. Ministry is the task of reaching out to touch the world with God's healing grace. And it is a task to which each of us is called. I may be the pastor, but all of us are ministers. And as such, today's texts offer profound insights in terms of our self-perceptions and God's relationship with us.
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