The television show is called, “Moment of Truth.”  I’ll admit I have not seen the show, but I know that the premise. Contestants earn a certain amount of money for each question they answer truthfully.  A person can possibly win $500,000.  They will, however, be open to sharing behavior and thoughts that could shock and even hurt those they love.  

Would you want everyone, or maybe even anyone, to know everything about you? 

Sylvan Tompkins was a psychology professor at Princeton University.  Through study and observation, he learned to read facial expressions, body language and other clues that people give.  He could tell when people were lying.  He could read their emotions.  He could even understand things about their past just from looking at them.  People marveled at his abilities.  Some were even a little bit afraid to be around him.  No one that I’ve heard of, however, thought he was the Messiah, the Savior of the world.  

Today’s Gospel lesson takes place in Samaria.  It’s an odd location to find Jesus.  Jesus and his followers were Jews.  Jews would do anything to avoid traveling through Samaria.  (It was even worse than the way people feel about driving through Chicago.)   

The story takes place around Jacob’s well.  It was the place where, more than one thousand years earlier, Jacob had dug a well in the middle of nowhere and then given it to his son Joseph.  It was the only water source around.  It meant life to the people living in the area.  

There are Old Testament stories about meetings at wells. Abraham sent a servant to find a wife for his son, Isaac.  The servant met a young woman named a Rebekah at a well.  She became Isaac’s wife.  Jacob met his wife (or at least one of them) Rachel at a well. Moses and Zipporah first met at a well.  

But this would be a different kind of love connection at Jacob’s well that day.  The connection should never have even begun.  Jesus was a Jewish man.  The woman who came to the well was a Samaritan woman.  Jewish men were not supposed to have anything to do with women in public and Samaritans at any time.  A Samaritan woman would have been expected to ignore any attempt at interaction from a Jewish man.  

But when Jesus asked for a drink of water, the Samaritan woman responded.  She wondered why he would break all the barriers and talk to her.  He doesn’t answer the question.   

Instead Jesus said that he could give her living water, water that will take away her thirst forever.  The woman thought that sounded wonderful.  She wouldn’t have to keep going to the well. It would save her so much time and energy. (Think about having to go to a well for water the next time you go and turn on a faucet and have water gush out.) 

Then Jesus turned the conversation dramatically.  It was noon.  Jesus was a traveler and it made sense that he might stop for water in the heat of the day.  But the woman should have drawn her water in the morning, when it was cool.  It’s likely she was there in the middle of the day because she didn’t want to meet anyone else.  She didn’t want to have to face the other women who would meet at the well in the morning.  

So Jesus asks her about her husband and she says she doesn’t have one. He knew.  Somehow he knew that she had had five husbands and now she has a relationship with a man who is not her husband. What do you do when someone brings up something you’d rather not talk about?  You change the subject! 

Jews and Samaritans had different places of highest worship, Jerusalem for the Jews and Mount Gerizim for the Samaritans.  They had different ways to worship. The woman wanted to talk about these things. Jesus told her that days of those differences were over.  Now was the time to worship in spirit and truth.  And then she said it.  She said she believed in the coming of the Messiah.  And then he said it, for the first time to anyone.  “I am he, the one you are speaking about.” 

Put yourself in the woman’s place.  You’re an outcast from even your own people.  Your people are looked on as animals by your closest neighbors.  You have probably wonder if you have any worth at all. And then the Messiah shows up.  And you can tell.  He cares about you! 

What do you do?  Would you go and tell everyone you know?  She did.  And they came and met Jesus and listened to him.  They came and they believed.  

Jesus knew everything about the woman and he still cared about her.  Jesus knows everything we’ve ever done, are doing and will do and he still lived, died and rose again to give us forgiveness and eternal life.  He knows everything about us and he still loves us.   

So how does that make you feel?   

What does that make us want to do? 

AMEN

Second Sunday in Lent

February 17, 2008
Genesis 12:1-4a, Romans 4:1-5,13-17, John 3:1-17

I don’t think I could be a trial lawyer or a prosecuting attorney.  I’m sure those can be fulfilling professions, but the suspense would kill me.  That time when a jury has made a decision and the decision is about to be announced, that is one intense time.   

I remember when they were about to announce the verdict during the O.J. Simpson trial. I remember how anxious I was.  I wasn’t the defendant and I wasn’t part of the family of those who had been killed, but just the drama of a verdict being announced was intense.  The same thing happened at the end of the Steven Avery trial.  I feel that tension even when I watch fictional TV legal dramas.  

Guilty or innocent?  Condemned or set free?  One word can affect life in a powerful way.  

In a sense we all are on trial every day.  Don’t you feel like you are constantly being judged?  Are we wearing the right clothes?  Is our hairstyle acceptable?  Are we too old or too young?  Are we speaking properly?  Do we smell right?  Are our teeth ok?  Do we have an acceptable job, an acceptable house, an acceptable car?   

When people judge us, are we acceptable or are we condemned?  And then there’s another question.  How does God judge us? 

Nicodemus was a Pharisee.  Pharisee means “separated” in Hebrew.  The Pharisees were a group of men who followed every commandment and law of God to the letter.  Their strictness in following the law supposedly separated them for other people.  

That’s probably why Nicodemus came to Jesus at night.  Jesus was one of the people from whom Nicodemus should have been separated. Jesus was well-known for his preaching and teaching, his signs and wonders.  But he wasn’t accepted by the religious leaders.  

But Nicodemus knew Jesus had some kind of special connection with God.  Nicodemus came to Jesus with questions.  He never really had a chance to ask the questions.  Jesus gave him answers without his asking.  

“How do you know you are or will be part of the kingdom of God?” That seems to have been what was on Nicodemus’ mind.  He most likely wanted to and expected to hear Jesus say, “Follow the law.” Instead he told Nicodemus that he must be born from above.  

It was all very confusing.  A person must be born from above.  It involved water and the Holy Spirit.  The work of the Holy Spirit is like the wind.  You can’t control it.  When it came down to it, everything Jesus said seemed to come down the idea that it’s all up to God.  If we’re going to have a place in his kingdom, if we are going to have forgiveness and eternal life, it was ALL up to God.

And Jesus went on to give an idea how it would all happen.  The Son of Man would be lifted up.  Like the bronze serpent which, by being lifted up, saved hopeless people in the wilderness, Jesus would save all people.   

You’ve heard it before, “God so loved the world that he gave us only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  There’s the story of Jesus in a nutshell.  There’s the story of God’s love in the briefest form possible.  God gave his Son to suffer, die and be raised so that we can have life.  

That magnificent verse is John 3:16.  You’ve heard it a lot.  But what about John 3:17?  “Indeed, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” 

We are not condemned!  Because of Jesus, we are forgiven, we are promised God’s loving care forever.  We are saved.  

Later in the Gospel of John, Jesus saves a woman.  She had been caught in adultery.  The sentence was well known.  She was condemned. She deserved to die. 

A group of people had taken her and were going to carry out the sentence.  But somehow they first asked Jesus if it was the right thing to do. 

Jesus said that it was, and that only someone without sin should throw the first stone.  At least the crowd was honest.  They all dropped their stones and walked away.  “Who’s left to condemn you?” Jesus asked.  She said, “No one.”  But she was wrong.  Jesus was still there.  He was without sin.  He could have carried out the sentence.  But he said that he didn’t condemn her either.  He sent her on her way.  He set her free.  He did, however, remind her not to sin again.  

Now that’s impossible, right?  But what Jesus really wanted her to do was to never lose the relationship, never forget the gift of forgiveness and new life.  She wasn’t sent on her way to live in fear of doing the wrong thing.  She was sent on her way knowing she lived in God’s love and that she would share it with others.  

Something got to Nicodemus that night.  When Jesus was crucified, he was there to help bury the body.  I’m guessing he was also there to celebrate Jesus rising from the dead.  I would like to think that he learned about finding freedom from condemnation.  I would like to think he found the freedom of forgiveness and the promise of eternal life and spent the rest of his life sharing that good news.  

The sentence has been handed down.  The verdict has been read.  Because of Jesus, we are not condemned, we are set free.  We are set free because of love.  We are set free, not to condemn, but to love. 

 AMEN

First Sunday in Lent

February 10, 2008
Genesis 2:15-17;3:1-7, 2 Romans 5:12-19, Matthew 4:1-11

An Irishman began frequenting a British tavern.  He always sat by himself and always ordered three beers when he came in.  Each night, after drinking the three beers, he would leave the tavern.  One day, one of the regular patrons asked the man why he always ordered three beers.  The Irishman explained that he had two brothers.  They had all moved away from home; him to England, one brother to Australia and one to the United States.  Each of them vowed that each night they would find a place to drink, order three beers and remember each other. It would be their bond. 

One night the Irishman came in and only ordered two beers.  He did that for several nights.  The regular patron came up to him and said, “I’m almost afraid to ask. Did something happen to one of your brothers?”  The Irishman replied, “Oh, no.  They are both fine.  It’s just that I have given up drinking for Lent.” 

There’s an example of a man with self-discipline! 

Lent is a time when people often “give up” something.  Lent is a time when some people vow to change their lives and find better ways to live.  Lent is a time for self-discipline . . . or is it? 

Today we seem to have an example of extreme self-discipline.  Jesus has traveled into the wilderness and refrained from eating for 40 days.  That’s way beyond the guidelines of even the strictest diet system.  The most difficult part of his fast came at the end.  

Satan tempts Jesus.  He tempts Jesus to use his powers as the Son of God to turn stones to bread, to jump from the pinnacle of the temple and escape harm, and to accept control of the kingdoms of the world.  Satan wants to see if possessions, popularity or power would cause Jesus to choose a path other than the one set out for him by God the Father.  

We can relate to those temptations, can’t we?  How often do we think that some thing or things will make our lives what we want it to be?  How often do we believe that a person or people will give us what we really need? How often do we want to have total control of our lives and maybe even the lives of others around us?   

Jesus was able to resist temptation, for a while.  But Satan came back.  At the end of Lent we remember that Jesus went to the cross.  He suffered and died to pay the price for our sins. But first he was tempted to run away.  First was tempted to escape the whip and the thorns and the nails.  

But he did resist again.  It wasn’t because of self-discipline.  It was because of God-discipline.  He called on his relationship with God the Father to help him make his decisions.  It was his loving relationship with God the Father that gave him strength to win forgiveness and life for us.

Self-discipline can be a good thing.  But it’s not what helps us resist the strongest temptation.  It’s not what makes us the best people we can be.  It’s not what helps us do what God wants us to do . . . to love him and love others as we do ourselves.   

It’s in becoming disciples of Jesus, in following his example, that we can truly resist temptation.  It’s in having a strong relationship with the one who loved us enough to send his Son to die for us that we can be strong enough to live the way God calls us to live.  

Tom was the custodian in one of the congregations I served.  Tom was my friend.  Tom had a heart problem. He had a heart attack when he was in his early thirties.  But, as much as he knew better, he did all the things he wasn’t supposed to do. He overate and ate the wrong things.  He couldn’t control his tempter and his blood pressure that went with it.  He couldn’t stop smoking.  

One day Tom came to me and asked me to help him quit smoking.  He said he wanted to make a bet.  He wanted to bet me $50 that he couldn’t quit smoking for a month.  Now I didn’t really have $50 to bet him, but I wanted Tom to stop smoking pretty badly.  I took him up on the bet.  

A few days later, Tom gave me $10.  He admitted he’s had a couple of cigarettes the night before.  But he was still going to quit, he said.  So now the bet was for $40.  It was only a few days after that when he gave me $40.  He gave up. He said he couldn’t quit.  I took the $40 and told him I’d give it to the Hunger Appeal.  And I did.  

Now when I think about the bet, I wish I hadn’t done it.  I was hoping the bet would help Tom with his self-discipline.  Now I wish I had asked Tom to use God-discipline, to ask God help him quit.  You see Tom died a few years after our bet from a massive heart attack.  Maybe the God-discipline technique would have changed his smoking behavior and prevented his heart attack, and maybe it would not have.  It certainly would have reminded him of the relationship with the God who loved him and wanted him to have a full life forever, and now.  

Jesus was able to resist temptation because of his relationship with God the Father.  We have the same relationship and it’s even stronger because we know the love of God he shows us through Jesus and the whip and the thorns and the nails.  

I’m not sure that God cares what we give up for Lent. I know he cares about us and wants what’s best for us. What he wants is for us to know he loves us.  What he wants is to take that love and live our lives in ways that will make the best use of the life he gives us. He wants us to help others to know that love so that they can have the best possible life, too. 

AMEN

Transfiguration of our Lord

February 3, 2008
Exodus 24:12-18, 2 Peter 1:16-21, Matthew 17:1-9

His name is Clark Kent.  He’s a mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Planet.  He’s a nice guy, but something of a dork.   

He’s also Superman.  He’s the man of steel.  He’s faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive.  He’s a superhero.  

Why can people tell he’s the same person?  How can he be the same person? 

His name is Brett Favre.  He’s this year’s Sports Illustrated’s “Athlete of the Year.”  He’s considered by some to be one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time . . . until the overtime of the NFC Championship game two weeks ago.  Now there are people who say that he can’t win the big one.  He’s washed up and overrated.  

Which one is he . . . hero or goat . . . or both? 

People are always difficult to figure out, aren’t we?  Just when you think you know someone, you’ll wonder if you know them at all.  Just when you think nothing could surprise you . . .  

We’re ending the Epiphany season today.  Epiphany is the time we ask the question about Jesus, “Who is he?”  His birth gave us some ideas.  We began Epiphany with the story of the visit of the wise men.  They had been led to Jesus by a star and the prophecy of the Old Testament. That pointed out that Jesus was someone special.  

Our second Epiphany story was about Jesus’ baptism.  After he came out of the water, the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove and the voice of God the Father proclaimed him his beloved Son.  That was a pretty good indication of who he was.  

Our Epiphany stories have continued with the testimony of John the Baptist, the designation of Jesus as the light of the world, and the calling of his disciples.  Today we have the last story in the Epiphany saga, the Transfiguration.  

Jesus took three of his followers, Peter, James and John, up on a mountain.  Mountains were considered holy places because it was believed that they brought people closer to God.  On the mountain Jesus was changed.  His face shone like the sun.  His clothes became dazzling white.  And then Moses and Elijah, two of the greatest figures in the history of Israel appeared with him.  Then the voice of God the Father was heard again,  

“This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 

Peter, James and John were terrified. They feel to the ground.  Then Jesus touched them.  Then Jesus said, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 

That’s the last Epiphany story, but it’s not the end of the Jesus story.  On Wednesday be begin Lent.  We begin a journey with Jesus.  The shining hero will turn into a rejected and tortured loser.  He’ll suffer and he’ll die.  He does it for us.  Because there is part of us that is sinful and unclean.  There is part of us that does not love God with our whole heart and does not love others . . . or sometimes even ourselves.  He dies and pays the price for our sins.  

But the story doesn’t end there.  Jesus dies and is laid in a tomb, but he’s raised.  He gets up.  He gets up so that we can get up, too.  He rises so that we can rise and not be afraid. Nothing, not even death can keep us from his care.  We are sinners who are forgiven, sinners who, by the grace of God, are his beloved children.  We are his children who can bring the Good News of forgiveness and new life to other children of God.  

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a man to be admired.  He was a Lutheran pastor and professor in Germany during World War II.  While many Christians caved in to the pressure of Hitler and the Nazis, Bonhoeffer resisted and ended up in prison.  He was eventually put to death.   

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, while showing so much strength, struggled with his weaknesses.  He expressed them in a writing entitled, “Who Am I?” 

Who am I? They often tell me I stepped from my cell’s confinement

Calmly, cheerfully, firmly, Like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me I used to speak to my warders

Freely and friendly and clearly, As though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me I bore the days of misfortune

Equally, smilingly, proudly, Like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?

Or am I only what I myself know of myself?

Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,

Struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,

Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,

Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,

 Tossing in expectation of great events,

Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,

Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,

Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?

Am I one person today and tomorrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,

And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army,

Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine! 

Who are we?

We are his.  Because of Jesus, the Transfigured, Crucified and Risen One, we are his. 

And, because we are his, we can get up when life knocks us down.  We do not need to be afraid.  And we can help others to get up and face their fears.

Who are we?  We are his. We are all his. 

AMEN 

Third Sunday after Epiphany

January 27, 2008
Isaiah 9:1-4, I Corinthians 1:10-18, Matthew 4:12-23

Her name was Elsie.  She was a shut-in.  She lived in the dark.  Well, her house wasn’t totally dark inside.  Some light came from around the window shades and sometimes she had a lamp with a 60 watt bulb burning.  But it was always difficult to see her clearly as she sat in the same chair every time I came.  

She was somewhat disabled.  She didn’t have family members or friends who did too much for her.  She’d been widowed for years and she didn’t seem to have any interests in life.  Some of her darkness was self-inflicted and some was not.  But she always let me come to see her.  She always let me give her communion.  I was happy that I could bring some light into her life.  It was the most important light.  It was the light of Christ.  

It doesn’t take much to make us feel like we are trapped in darkness.  Even though the days are getting longer, the nights still seem to last forever in winter, especially after Christmas.  Even though, by most of the world’s standards, we are rich, mortgage problems and a falling stock market can rock our world.  Sickness hits and saps our strength.  Relationships are shaken and destroyed by conflict and relocation and even death. Wars seem to have no end. The local football team . . .  

Just when we think we find a light to brighten our world, it goes out . . . except one. 

Isaiah promises light in the first lesson today.  The people of