sermon - Lent

Jeremiah 31:31

John 12

“Incarnation – Being in the Body”

           

I can still remember, sitting in the field house back in High School, getting ready for track practice when one of my friends said to me:  Carie, you do know that Jesus was a real person, don’t you?  Hmmm, well, no – I guess I didn’t.  I heard the Bible as stories, just like many other stories I read.  I didn’t read or hear it as a history book.  It was a story about God, a story for us to live by, but a story.   My friend then said:  Jesus lived, just like other people in history.  These stories are about a real person.  Her statements to me caused an awakening in my faith journey.  What did it mean to me to know that Jesus truly walked this earth, that he was in a body just like mine, that he had real parents and real friends?

Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book:  An Alter in the World calls this:  The Practice of Wearing Skin.  She reminds her readers that our bodies are the address for where our soul lives.  As we walk around this earth in which we live, we are very connected to our bodies, but our souls are present with us as well.  As we build community, we should be building community not as bodies, not as people who look the same, or dress the same, or enjoy the same activities, but as souls.  As people that acknowledge the sacred in each other.  Jesus crosses all boundaries, Jew, Samaritan, Greek, Gentile, male, female, young and old.  He does not cringe away from those with leprosy or other diseases.  He sees the soul as he heals the body.

Incarnational ministry is understanding our faith that as something we just read about, but about real life connections.  About knowing God desires a direct connection to us as God’s people.  That God knows us so well, our fears, our pains, our joys and celebrations.  God gets it, God gets us.  And just as God was present directly with God’s people, we too are called to be in sacred and holy relationships with each other.   Not just friends, but holy and sacred relationships with each other. 

            As we journey further into the season of Lent, we draw closer to Holy Week, to the time of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion.  Today’s reading, is a simple way in which Jesus teaches his followers about what is to happen.  Jesus walks the earth in a day and age where people are interconnected to the earth.   They are farmers, they are herders, they are fishermen, they know about times of scarcity and times of abundance.  And so he uses very simple language and a metaphor that the people around him would have no problem understanding. 

            In order to grow the next crop of wheat, seeds must be kept aside to plant.  For those of us that have oak trees in our yards, we know that one oak tree yields thousands of acorns.  Although the squirrels in our neighborhood do a good job gathering them up, each year we have dozens of little seedlings that begin to sprout in the yard around the trees. 

            One seed can give yield to an abundant crop, if it does what it was created to do, fall into the ground and be transformed into something completely new and different from itself.  This is usually a basic science lesson in elementary school.  Kids are given a seed, usually a bean, and place it in a zip lock bag with a wet paper towel.  Over the week they watch the seed change, sprouting roots, then a stem and leaves, bursting what once was a bean into a new plant.  I love doing this with the acorns in my yard too, pulling them up and showing the children how this seed is changing and somehow within itself knows how to create roots, a stem and leaves.  I find it yet another expression of God’s creative powers in this world.  Something as small as an acorn becoming a mighty oak tree.  Something as small as a grain of wheat becoming a stalk yielding an abundance in the stalk that it grows. 

            The obvious lesson in this is that Jesus is sharing that he is the grain of wheat.  In order for his work, here on earth to be fruitful, to lead to abundance, he must first give of himself completely and die.  He is sharing that death does not have the last word, but in death new life is born.  Life that is greater than the seed, more abundant then the small part that is lost. 

            For those of us here on the other side of the story, we can see the abundance.  We can see how in the death of Jesus, in his letting go of his life, he was reborn into a movement of people living God’s teachings in a meaningful and transformational way.  People embraced each other, shared their property, took care of those that could not care for themselves.  They honored people in a sacred and holy way and more and more people became a part of this faith movement that eventually became Christianity.  We see the abundance in churches scattered all around our towns and throughout the world.  We see the abundance in various ministries that have formed throughout the world brining fresh drinking water, education, medical care, to those that live without. 

            Every once in awhile, I play this mental game with myself and I ask: what would this neighborhood, or this town, or this state look like if the church did not exist?  Would there be soup kitchens?  Would there be Habitat for Humanity?  Would there be homeless shelters?  In the life of one person, new life has continued to be born for hundreds of generations. 

The spiritual practice of being in the body, the Incarnation involves transformation.  It involves letting go of one’s self in order for a future of abundance.  This does not mean neglect of self, but letting go of our selfishness.  It might mean asking the question:  There is abundance within each and everyone of us.  There is abundance within this congregation.  What do we have to die of in order for new life to be born?  Questions that you all already asked through New Beginnings:  Who is God calling us to?  What is God’s purpose for us here in this place?  How do we get from here to there?  We embrace the spiritual practice of the Incarnation, of being in the body and we practice authentic community. 

            I was at an installation service this past Sunday, and the elder giving the sermon shared this:  God’s story has been shared generation after generation and it is now in our hands.  It is our turn to share the story to pass it along to the next generation.  What does this mean for us? 

            Lent is the perfect time to ask ourselves about the Spiritual Practice of being in the body.  We name Jesus as the incarnation of God, that is: God being in our human body, God in the flesh, Emmanuel – God with us.  Jesus was in the body. 

            In closing: Taylor shares this:  “The daily practice of incarnation – of being in the body with full confidence that God speaks the language of flesh – is to discover a pedagogy that is as old as the gospels.  Why else did Jesus spend his last night on earth teaching his disciples to wash fee and share supper?  With all the conceptual truths in the universe at his disposal, he did not give them something to think about together when he was gone.  Instead, he gave them concrete things to do – specific ways of being together in their bodies – that would go on teaching them what they needed to know when he was no longer around to teach them himself.  We are now God’s flesh on this earth.