Jesus – Page 39 – Where the Wind…

Being Found

Published on September 16, 2013October 15, 2013 by Adam Thomas2 Comments

Sermon for Sunday, September 15, 2013 || Proper 19C || Luke 15:1-10 )

Have you ever been found before? I know this is an unusual question. A more normal one might be: “Have you ever been lost before?” but I’m pretty sure I know the answer to that one. I want to know if you’ve ever been found. I have. Let me share with you a quick story from the “Stupid Things Adam Did as a Child” file.

Moundville, Alabama is so named for the Native American burial mounds that dot the landscape. The mounds are both eerie and fascinating, which makes Moundville a great place for Boy Scouts to go camping. Well, the camping trip ended, and I was waiting for my father to pick me up. I was twelve or thirteen at the time. We had agreed he would meet me at the parking lot closest to our campsite, so that’s where I waited. And then I waited some more. He was running late, so I decided we could save a few minutes if I met him at the entrance to the park instead. (This was in the days before cell phones by the way. Ancient history, I know.)

I walked for a few minutes to the front of the park and perched myself on a stone sign with a good view of the road so I could flag down my dad’s car. But unbeknownst to me, he had already entered the park from a different direction. An hour later, I still had my eyes on the road when my father’s car came screeching to a halt behind me. He jumped from the car and ran to me, yelling my name all the while. Suffice it to say, he was not happy.

Where were you…Didn’t we agree to meet…You scared me half to…I’ve been looking everywhere…

All of this spilled from him as he approached me. His eyes blazed with anger – I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so upset, before or since. But then his hand touched my arm, and everything changed.

Now, parents out there, you might be able to identify with what happened next. When he touched me, it was as if he confirmed that I was really, truly there, that I wasn’t merely a figment he had been chasing through the mounds for the last heart-pounding hour. All the scenarios of kidnapping or being mauled by a wild animal or getting lost in the forest – all these scenarios that had been shuddering though his mind vanished when he touched me. And with the touch came relief. And with relief came joy. And with joy came an embrace brimming with all the spoken and unspoken love of father for son.

I was still in trouble. I was chastened for my foolhardiness. But above and beyond that, I was found. Have you ever been found before?

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus responds to his opponents’ critique of his unsavory dinner companions. “He told them this parable: ‘Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.’ ”

Now, for Jesus’ opponents it was quite easy to separate the sinner from the righteous. The system of sacrifice and purification allowed people to proclaim themselves blameless before God – indeed, even Paul does this in his letter to the Philippians. This system created an in-group and everyone else. But by eating with “tax collectors and sinners,” Jesus proclaims that God doesn’t just move in the lives of the so-called “in-group.” In fact, God is present in the lives of all people. God seeks out and finds all people. Let me assure you, this was a radical claim in Jesus’ day.

And I think it remains a radical claim. How many of us have heard one religious group or another claim that God is on their side and no other? How many of us have been jealous of other people, who we assume God has favored because, darn it, everything seems to go their way? In our fallen state, we have a kneejerk reaction to exclude, to isolate, to create cliques and in-groups just to make ourselves feel better. But when Jesus sits down with all the wrong people, he punctures the false assumptions that God belongs to any one group and that God seeks to find only one type of person, the kind with white teeth and perfect cheekbones.

In truth, each and every person on this earth is the sheep who has gone astray. We have all wandered off alone and gotten lost. The path is there – perhaps a bit overgrown, but there. And yet, something shiny catches our eye and we strike out for it. But it’s just a trick of the light, and now it’s growing dark and the path is away to the left somewhere but good luck finding it. We stagger around in the gathering gloom, hoping against hope we are going in the right direction.

Into this gathering gloom, the light of Christ shines. Into the underbrush, Jesus tramps. Onto his shoulders, he lifts us up and carries us back to the path. And guess what? Tomorrow he’ll do the same thing again. Last week, Margot invited us each to go deeper in our commitment to God’s work in our lives. This week, Jesus invites us to celebrate God’s commitment to do whatever it takes to remain in relationship with us, no matter how often God has to find us and return our meandering feet to the path.

This commitment is no idle tale. God’s presence in the lives of all of us lost sheep gives us the hope that we are being found each day. And in being found, being nourished. And in being nourished, being molded into the people God calls us to be.

Now being found takes on all shapes and sizes, so I invite you to be aware of the unique ways God is actively finding you. Perhaps you are sitting in your pew and the choir’s anthem pierces your heart with the truth of God’s majesty. And God finds you in a moment of pure delight.

Perhaps you are holding your mother’s hand as she lies dying. She holds your hand back…until she doesn’t. You don’t think you have any more tears, but you are wrong. Your deep grief reveals not how deeply you loved her, but how deeply you love her, and you realize your love will never become a past tense thing. And God finds you in the continued connection between the living and the dead.

Perhaps you are waiting for your father to pick you up and you wander off and when he finally reaches you, you feel his desperation and anger melt into relief and joy. And God finds you in the fervent embrace of father and son.

God finds us every single day of our lives, no matter how far we have strayed from the path. We participate in this reality when we notice God finding us, when we realize just how God is weaving the strands of our lives together, and when we act as the vehicles of God’s finding in the lives of others.

After the service, I invite you to go to the Bartow Room and look at Ann Musto’s beautiful painting hanging over the fireplace. In the foreground, sheep gambol on a sun-drenched field bisected by a dusty path. In the background, there is a small, red figure walking up the path, walking towards the viewer. He’s small enough to miss unless you’re really looking at the painting, unless you’re paying attention, unless you really take the time to notice. Jesus is walking towards us from the back of the painting. He’s walking toward us, his lost sheep. He will seek until he finds us. He will find us wherever we are. And wherever we are, he is there already, inviting us to open our eyes and find him, even as we are being found.

Yesterday, Today, and Forever

Published on September 3, 2013October 1, 2013 by Adam Thomas1 Comment

(Sermon for Sunday, September 1, 2013 || Proper 17C || Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16)

Stories are powerful things. Sharing stories helps us make meaning, pass on tradition, teach lessons, deepen relationships, learn from one another’s experience, and grow closer to God. You may have read in the Carillon that this year at St. Stephen’s we are going to practice sharing our stories, so I thought I’d get a jump start – a sneak preview, if you will – during this sermon. I’d like to share with you three stories, all sparked by a single verse from today’s reading from the Letter to the Hebrews. I’d like to share with you a story about Jesus Christ yesterday, a story about Jesus Christ today, and a story about Jesus Christ forever. Each of these stories is about Jesus and about me, and if I do my job right, each will also be about you.

Detail from "The Calling of Saint Matthew" by Carvaggio) — Detail from “The Calling of Saint Matthew” by Carvaggio)

We’ll start with Jesus Christ “yesterday,” and we’ll start as many Godly Play stories do. Once there was someone who said such amazing things and did such wonderful things that people followed him. This someone was called Jesus of Nazareth, and he came from seemingly humble beginnings, though his mother knew better. At his birth a disreputable cadre of outcasts claimed him as their savior, and that’s what he was. His very name means “God saves.” When he grew up he left his mother’s house as sons often do, but that was perhaps the last normal thing he ever did.

“Change your hearts and your lives,” he preached to any who would listen. “Because the kingdom of God is so close you can taste it.” This was his good news, his Gospel. But that was not all. Every day he revealed what it was like to live in God’s kingdom, God’s dream for all creation. He healed those who were sick and those who couldn’t walk or see. He renewed the broken to wholeness, he gave hope to the despairing, and he welcomed everyone, especially those no one else would bother with, to his table. His words provoked peace, joy, and courage in some, but, sadly, malice in others.

Jesus told his friends to love and serve others, come what may. He stood against the machinery of the world that enslaves people with false promises and misplaced priorities. He desired with every fiber of his being to replace the machine with a life lived fully in God, a life of blessing and abundance derived from God’s promises, God’s priorities. In the end, the machinery of the world felt threatened by this man, who was also so much more than a man. And for good reason. He was a threat. By putting Jesus to death – and a shameful death at that – the machine thought it had won. But on the cross, Jesus gathered to himself all the brokenness the world wrought, all that separates us from God – sin, shame, guilt, death – and their power died with him.

This is the story of Jesus Christ yesterday. When I read this story in the Gospel, I feel his words penetrate my skin. They delve into my heart and take up residence, and they urge me to live the life Jesus invited his followers to live. As I read Jesus’ story, I long to make it my story. And this is where the story of Jesus Christ “today” begins.

Three days after Jesus died, he rose again. Before dawn that Sunday morning, God the Father returned God the Son to us, resurrected as Jesus himself, yet more than himself. He couldn’t bear to break the promise to be with us always to the end of the ages, so he conquered death itself in order to stay in relationship with us into eternity. He breathed the peace of his Holy Spirit onto his friends, and we are still breathing those breaths even today.

We are still breathing those breaths not just because the two thousand year old air still remains, but because Jesus’ resurrection has no use for the concept of time. While we mark that Sunday morning as the hinge of history, the resurrection did not happen just on that one morning in that one garden. The power of the resurrection emanates out from that moment into every moment, filling all moments with the possibility of entering fully into God’s eternal presence. Jesus’ resurrection ushered in the deeper reality of God’s dream, a dream that each of us can participate in, a dream of bringing God’s reign into the hearts of all people and all people into the heart of God’s love. Jesus’ resurrection is happening now, today, in this place, in our hearts, at our table, in our service, in our love. When I remember the startling truth of this wonderful story, I take the time to look for signs of Jesus’ resurrection in my life. And I try to be a sign of that resurrection in the lives of others.

But there is still one more story, the story that undergirds all the others, the story of Jesus Christ forever. Our first story began with God the Son emptying himself, taking on the form of a human being, and becoming like us so we could become more like him. The Gospel writer John resorts to poetry to enter even the edge of the mystery of this emptying. The Word, says John, was in the beginning with God and was indeed God. This Word became flesh and dwelled among us and we have seen his glory, the glory of God spilling from the person known as Jesus of Nazareth.

But as the Word, he is forever. This Word is the order, the logic behind all of creation. “All things came into being through him,” John’s poem continues, “and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life.” Whenever we look up and try to count the stars, whenever we appreciate the beauty and richness of evolving plants and animals, whenever we smell the coming rain, we encounter the artistry of the Word, the foundation of all things, visible and invisible. This eternal Word was in the beginning with God and abides with God and is God forever. This is the story upon which all others hang, and this is the story that Jesus invites us into. This is the story of God’s presence in and through creation.

This is my story. And this is your story. We read Jesus’ words. We feel them come alive in us through the power of the resurrection. We join God in the great story of bringing all God’s creation back to God. These stories are grand, and sometimes they seem so big and daunting that entering them feels impossible. But its in those moments when Jesus Christ – the same yesterday, today, and forever – takes us by the hand and reminds us that each normal day of our lives is part of the story whether we realize it or not. He takes us by the hand and invites us to follow one step behind him as he opens our eyes to all the ways we are already part of the story. And he takes us by the hand to guide us to all the new ways the story is still unfolding.

Books and Bible Studies

Published on August 20, 2013September 2, 2016 by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

Since November 2009, I have been blessed to work with the good people at Abingdon Press to publish a variety of books and Bible studies. My first book, Digital Disciple, arrived in May 2011, and my most recent publication, Unusual Gospel for Unusual People, came out in April 2014. In between, I wrote the novel Letters from Ruby (August 2013) and contributed to the Converge series of Bible studies with Who is Jesus?

If you enjoy the content on this website and receive words of edification or encouragement from it, then I invite you to check out my published works. Here’s a quick overview of them, beginning with the most recent.

Unusual Gospel for Unusual People

It’s probably time for those of us who follow Jesus to realize we are once again the unusual ones in society. Sure, a majority of Americans profess a belief in God and identify as some sort of Christian, but there’s a big difference between checking “Christianity” on the census form and living your life as a follower of Jesus. People who strive to follow Jesus every day of their lives are fewer and farther between than at any point in history since the early church was still illegal. How many of us feel a bit weird talking about our faith in public? How many of us know the dialogue to old Friends episodes better than we know the stories that feed our faith? How many of us want to dedicate ourselves to Christ, but have trouble finding the time? If you’re like me, and you put yourselves in one or more of these categories, then the story you should read is this unusual Gospel of John.

The peculiar way John proclaims the good news of Jesus Christ speaks beautifully to our modern moment, especially to us unusual people. It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that it’s pretty different from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It paints the same general picture, yes, but John uses different brushes, different techniques, and different colors than the others. There are no parables in John. Neither are there traditional healing stories nor demonic encounters nor transfiguration. The big moment in the upper room is washing the disciples’ feet, not offering them communion. Flipping over the moneychangers’ tables happens at the beginning, not the end. And Jesus never once keeps his divine identity a secret, as he does in the other three accounts. Let’s face it: John’s account of the Gospel is just plain unusual. Just like us.

Letters from Ruby

When the newly ordained Episcopal priest Rev. Calvin Harper arrives in Victory, West Virginia, to be the pastor at an ailing parish, he has no idea how much he still has to learn about being a priest. Thankfully, Ruby Redding takes the young man under her wing and teaches him everything she has learned throughout her long, storied life. Seminary never taught Calvin that the only true way to be a witness to God’s presence in this world is to remain in relationships with people no matter what life throws at them. His studies never taught him that detachment is the bane of ministry. He never learned that deep grief comes only from deep love. But in his first year in Victory, Calvin learns all this and more from Ruby, a woman so full of God’s light that it can’t help but spill onto the people around her.

Converge: Who is Jesus?

Have you ever stopped to think just how much better Jesus Christ knows you than you know him? It’s a pretty staggering thought really. Not only that, Jesus knows you better than you know yourself. And although you’ll never know Jesus as well as he knows you, part of following the Son of God is getting to know him better. But you don’t want to fall into the trap of learning stuff “about” Jesus. Rather, you want to know Jesus himself. This study invites you to get to know four elements of what makes Jesus who he is: his name, his voice, his life, and his peace. In Who Is Jesus? you’ll discover that the more you know Jesus, the more Jesus will teach you who you are.

Digital Disciple

This time in our society is unlike any other. People communicate daily without ever having to speak face to face, news breaks around the world in a matter of seconds, and favorite TV shows can be viewed at our convenience. We are, simultaneously, a people of connection and isolation. As Christians, how do we view our faith and personal ministry in this culture? Adam Thomas invites you to explore this question using his unique, personal, and often humorous insight. Thomas notes, “[The Internet] has added a new dimension to our lives; we are physical, emotional, spiritual, and now virtual people. But I believe that God continues to move through every facet of our existence, and that makes us new kinds of followers. We are digital disciples.”

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Titles also available at your local bookstore or online at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. (But go to your local independent bookstore if you have one, because they are awesome.)

The Peace We Promise

Published on August 19, 2013September 16, 2013 by Adam Thomas1 Comment

(Sermon for Sunday, August 18, 2013 || Proper 15C || Luke 12:49-56)

These are the promises we will reaffirm before our baptism in a few minutes:

“Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers? Will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord? Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”

We will answer each of these with, “I will, with God’s help.” This acknowledges that we can’t fulfill the promises without God. We will also answer them as a group, which acknowledges that we can’t fulfill them without each other. I wonder, however, if you are experiencing a bit of cognitive dissonance trying to reconcile that last promise with Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel reading. I know I am. We promise to “strive for justice and peace among all people,” while Jesus says, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”

It probably didn’t escape your notice that Jesus is in a less friendly mood than he was in last week’s passage. When Jesus speaks from a place of stress or exhaustion, as he does in today’s reading, he often slides to the strident, confrontational end of the spectrum. Sounds particularly human, doesn’t it? Sounds like me if I’m having a low blood sugar day or if I’m about to board an airplane. We can use Jesus’ stress to explain away his difficult words (“He didn’t really mean that stuff about peace and division; he was just really stressed out”). Or we can acknowledge that in his stressed state, Jesus speaks some unvarnished truth, perhaps not as nuanced as he would have liked to speak it, but truth nonetheless.

To get to this unvarnished truth, we first have to understand how people in Jesus’ time would have heard the word “peace.” One version of the word was a simple greeting: “Shalom.” Another use was for the cessation of upheaval: “Peace, be still.” But a third use was more sinister – peace as propaganda. You’ve heard of the “Pax Romana,” the “Peace of Rome.” This was the glorious gift of Rome to the peoples fortunate enough to come under the Roman banner and Roman “protection.” Well, that’s how the Romans would have sold it. The Pax Romana really spread by the edge of the sword, and conquered peoples lived in fear and distrust of their occupiers.

I think it is to this third kind of “peace” that Jesus is referring: “peace” as the absence of conflict, yes, but also the absence of justice, of freedom. The kind of peace the Pax Romana brought was really just a thin veneer spread over a roiling mass of suppressed cultures and traditions and hopes and dreams. The thin veneer of “peace” hid the brokenness, the divisions that lay beneath.

With his words in today’s lesson, Jesus seeks to rip the cover off this false kind of peace and to expose the brokenness of society beneath, and in exposing that brokenness begin to heal it. Jesus knows human nature all too well – without exposing the brokenness, the divisions in society, we are content just to go along with the status quo, willingly ignorant to the steep costs of so-called “peace.” Indeed, Jesus’ words today could have spilled from the lips of any leader of the Civil Rights movement. How many decades did this country live in so-called “peace” before Rosa Parks took her seat on the bus in 1955?

Jesus’ words also speak unvarnished truth when we move from the societal to the personal. Each of us has a individual Pax Romana within us — a set of assumptions about our security and wellbeing that promises peace at long last. Despite the lack of evidence, we believe these promises until we realize they come from the marketing department, whose goal is for us to consume, not to find peace. When Jesus rips the cover off this false kind of peace, we find our broken selves, which have fragmented because we let ourselves be seduced by so many things. With the false peace gone, we confront the broken, divided people we really are.

But we aren’t alone. Jesus may have come to expose the divisions hidden under the myriad Pax Romanas of society and of our souls. But this is only half the mission. He also came to put the pieces back together again. He came to show us what real peace is: peace accompanied by justice, mercy, and love; peace that nurtures the dignity of all peoples rather than suppressing it; peace that passes all understanding.

This is the kind of peace we strive for when we affirm our baptismal promises. We strive for the peace of the broken bone that grows back stronger than before. We strive for the peace of the generous heart that no longer fears scarcity as it once did. We strive for the peace of Christ that shatters the veneer of tranquility, exposes the divisions beneath, and weaves the disparate threads of division into peace that is true, deep, and abiding.

The peace we promise to strive for in our baptismal promises is this true, deep, and abiding peace of Christ. We participate in the hard work of accomplishing this peace when, with God’s help, we see past the thin veneer of so-called peace in society and in ourselves. When, with God’s help, we follow Jesus Christ to the brokenness beneath, the brokenness of the cross and the world. And when, with God’s help, we don’t stop there, but press on to the new wholeness of the empty tomb and the power of the resurrection.

Aim at Heaven

Published on August 12, 2013September 3, 2013 by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

(Sermon for Sunday August 11, 2013 || Proper 14C || Luke 12:32-40)

C. S. Lewis once said, “Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’; aim at earth and you will get neither.” He said this in a radio talk on the BBC during World War II, and it was later collected in a little book known as Mere Christianity. Lewis’s words aren’t meant as a threat or a platitude, but simply as the truth behind how we orient our lives. “Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’; aim at earth and you will get neither.”

I suspect Lewis had today’s Gospel reading in mind when he spoke these words; well, more precisely, today’s reading plus the ten verses before it, which the framers of our reading schedule oddly decided to skip. The ones we jumped over are fairly well known: Jesus speaks of the lilies of the field, how they grow; and about the birds of the air, how God provides for them. All of this distills down to one simple request by Jesus to his disciples: “Don’t worry!” He goes on to say that God knows what we need, so we shouldn’t spend all our time and energy chasing after such things. “Instead,” says Jesus, “desire God’s kingdom and these things will be given to you as well.”

Or as C. S. Lewis paraphrases: “Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in.’” Of course, we’re talking about priorities again, as we did last week. Aiming at heaven, desiring God’s kingdom – this is the most important priority of our lives. All other priorities build from the sure foundation of desiring God’s kingdom, of being part of God’s dream of bringing all creation back to God. This is the foundation of our priorities because we would find it quite impossible to desire something greater or more eternal than this dream.

Think of it this way. When I was a child I dreamt of being a professional baseball player. (Well, a paleontologist baseball player who also got to drive the garbage truck, but let’s stick with baseball.) My big dream was catching the final out of the World Series while playing centerfield for the Boston Red Sox. My friends and I imagined that ninth inning of Game 7 every time we put on our gloves. Now, wouldn’t it have been a little odd if I dreamt of playing centerfield for Double-A Portland? Maybe more practical, but practicality holds no sway in dreaming. Much like our childhood aspirations, God invites us to dream big – to desire God’s kingdom above all else, to be part of the coming of that kingdom here on earth, and by doing so, to aim always for heaven.

Of course, the world about us entices and cajoles us to set our aims lower. “Heaven is too far away, too much hard work,” say the grumbling, demonic voices of this world. “It’s all pie in the sky, better to focus on the here and now,” they continue, louder and more confident. “You’re not good enough for God’s kingdom, anyway,” they finish with a flourish. These grumbling voices chorus with a multitude of reasons why we should set our aims lower than heaven, but we have limited time, so we’ll focus on these three common ones: laziness, worldliness, and unworthiness.

First: laziness. Ah, my old foe. Out of the three we’re looking at today, laziness has most often enticed me to aim at anything but heaven. I’ve tried to combat my lazy streak myriad ways. One is that a few years ago, I stopped describing myself as a Christian because the label didn’t cause me to act any different than I normally did. Instead, I started calling myself a “follower of Christ.” I chose to do this to remind myself that a follower does something: he follows. This has helped a little, but the old kneejerk laziness is still there. It’s just so easy, so seductively easy to drift through life without purpose or goal. It’s just so easy simply to shoot at the target rather than aim for the middle of the target.

But in today’s lesson, we followers of Jesus hear him tell us to “be dressed for action and have our lamps lit.” Be on the lookout for ways to shine the light of God’s kingdom in the darkness of this world. Be prepared to find God where you least expect it, but where God most needs to be proclaimed. This is the way to aim for heaven, and I assure you, despite the seductive ease of laziness, this is the way to live.

Second, worldliness – the secularist’s call to us spiritual types to get our heads out of the clouds, plant our feet on solid ground, and start using common sense. But what the secularist doesn’t understand is that engaging our uncommon senses fills our lives with joy and purpose. Still, worldly distractions make our aim wild. We worry too much about our security; not that security is bad, but we do tend to overcompensate. We stray too far to the “rich fool” end of the spectrum: he who in last week’s parable wanted to build even bigger barns to store all his stuff. The weight of this overcompensation pulls our aim lower.

But in today’s lesson, Jesus encourages his friends not to worry, but to sell their possessions and give to the poor. He reorients their aim and ours to heaven, where the treasure is unfailing. Your heart will be where your treasure is, he says, so desire to enshrine your heart in God’s eternal presence. The more our hearts soak up the radiance of God’s kingdom, the more generous we will be in the here and now, and the more we will spread that radiance ourselves.

Third, and most menacing: unworthiness. Aim at heaven, instructs C. S. Lewis. Desire God’s kingdom, says Jesus. And yet in a cold, dank corner of our minds, each of us has a small raspy voice endlessly intoning: “Not you…Jesus doesn’t mean you…you’re not good enough for heaven…you’re not worthy enough to spread God’s kingdom.” This feeling of unworthiness is so common and yet so far from God’s reality. It is a feeling that shackles us, that keeps us not just from aiming at heaven, but from aiming at all.

But in today’s lesson, Jesus intimates that worthiness has nothing to do with the equation. He says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Another translation says, “Your father delights in giving you the kingdom.” If God delights in this act of giving then God surely isn’t putting up barriers of worth that would keep God from showering the radiance of God’s kingdom on all people. The more we accept that God’s delight in us is what makes us worthy, the more we can participate in spreading the kingdom.

These three – laziness, worldliness, and unworthiness – can keep us from aiming at heaven. But Jesus Christ proclaims to us today that none of these has the power we think they do. The power lies with God, who delights in giving us God’s kingdom and hopes with all the radiance of heaven that we desire to receive the kingdom. When we do, we enter into the great, eternal dream that God has for all of God’s creation, and we join with God in making that dream a reality. So aim at heaven and you’ll get the earth thrown in.

Sermon Reconstruction: Abundance and Generosity

Published on August 6, 2013August 8, 2013 by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

For this past Sunday, I chose to deviate from my normal sermon preparation (sit in my chair writing and polishing until the full text is presentable) in favor of an extemporaneous style which I do once or twice a year. This less common style is the one I grew up listening to, as my father* (who was on the radio before becoming a priest) is very good at holding an entire sermon in his head and stringing his thoughts together with nary an “um” to be heard. While my father and I share a lot in common, preaching style is not one of them. I’m a writer through and through.

So it came time to preach on Sunday. I had a few notes written down. I preached. I recorded it through the church’s sound system. I was about to post the recording, and then noticed my digital recorder’s battery had run down. Long story less long — what follows is a short reconstruction of the thoughts in the sermon. It’s not exactly what I said, but here goes. (Check out Luke 12:13-21 before reading on.)

Jesus often talks about priorities, specifically about reorienting our priorities so they line up better with the order God yearns for us to adopt. For us today, the two priorities that need lining up are possessions and relationships. So, show of hands: who think Jesus would put our possessions above our relationships.

(No one raised his or her hand here. I went to sit down, saying that I guess I didn’t need to finish the sermon. A bit of laughter. Then I continued.)

Right. For Jesus, relationships always trump possessions. In today’s Gospel reading he says: “For your life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” But have you ever stopped to wonder why relationships are more important than possessions?

That's my guitar at a concert back in 2008. — That’s my guitar at a concert back in 2008.

The answer starts with how relationships and possessions differ. We possess our material goods. We own them. We paid for them or they were given to us. My most prized possession is my 2006 Taylor 410e Fall Limited Edition acoustic guitar, which was a present for my ordination to the priesthood from my home parish. It is a beautiful instrument and it makes a beautiful sound. It also makes me want to write songs as often as possible, which was not the case with my previous guitar.

So if for some reason I had to give up my guitar, would I be able to do it? If the answer is “no,” then I cease possessing my guitar and the instrument begins possessing me. The moment I can’t let it go is the moment I cede my sovereignty to the object. I become its vassal. It becomes my idol.

Our possessions have an uncanny ability to lead us down this life-denying path. Just think: when you were three years old, were you able to let the other kid play with your firetruck? I didn’t think so.

But possessions differ from relationships because other people cannot be possessed. The history of the United States is tarnished by the evil of trying to possess other people, and the legacy of slavery still reaches its cancerous tendrils into modern society. While one set of people thought of another as property, I can’t imagine that those subjected to the dehumanizing nature of slavery ever thought of themselves as possessions. People can’t be possessed, and when we try, evil is the result.

Since we cannot possess others in the same way we can possess objects, our relationships teach us how best to prioritize our material possessions. A relationship flourishes precisely when we aren’t trying to possess it; therefore, sustaining life-giving relationships helps us practice the kind of emotional letting go that we aren’t good at where our material goods are concerned.

Each of us is blessed with an abundance of possessions, but abundance becomes a blessing when we pair it with generosity. Generosity turns our possessions into the resources which fuel new relationships. As we give away the things that we might otherwise bow down to, we come into contact with the recipient of those things and discover the opportunity to form a new relationship.

Thus generosity catalyzes a virtuous cycle: generosity spurs new relationships. Generosity in relationship helps it flourish. This flourishing teaches us to be generous with our possessions and turn them into new relationships.

When we prioritize possessions over relationships, we become lonely misers like the foolish man in the parable. His foolishness is not that he’s wealthy. It’s that he desires to share his wealth with no one else. God blesses us with abundance, but God also blesses us with the ability to turn abundance into blessing when we pair it with generosity. So what does a life full of God consist of? Not the abundance of possessions, but the generosity of relationship.

—

* You can hear my father, The Rev. Dr. William Carl Thomas preach at balconyperspective.com.

The True Self

Published on June 24, 2013July 8, 2013 by Adam Thomas1 Comment

(Sermon for Sunday, June 23, 2013 || Proper 7C || Luke 8:26-39)

This sermon is about demons. I want you to know that before I get going because for a while it might not seem like I’m talking about demons at all. But I will be. If our real demons looked like the caricatured little red devils with horns, they’d be really easy to avoid. But real demons are much more subtle. So remember: this sermon is about demons.

Around this time three years ago, I was sitting at Panera Bread working on some project or other. It was the most ordinary day imaginable – a little bit of rain pattering on the bushes outside, the normal bustle of Panera happening in the periphery of my headphoned consciousness. You’d think what happened next would have long since vanished from my memory because of its seeming insignificance. But as I was contemplating this sermon, the memory of that day at Panera started playing like a film in my head.

I was just sitting there drinking green tea, working on my computer, and listening to Beethoven’s piano sonatas. Then something pulled my attention. A young woman, whom I had idly noticed when I sat down and then promptly forgotten, was talking on her cell phone. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the young woman’s brow crease. Her free hand went to her mouth. My internal pastoral alarm bells started blaring. The woman began to collapse inward. Here it comes, I thought.

“How long will it take me to get to the hospital from the airport?” Her voiced trembled as she asked the question, panic mixing with at least a veneer of bravery. She clung to her cell phone as if it were a flotation device.

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the woman. She’s not one of mine, I thought. I’m not on duty right now. I’m not wearing the uniform today.

But even as these thoughts entered my mind, I felt the muscles in my arms and legs tense. My chest constricted. For a horrible moment, I felt myself unraveling. I was unmade. I was a traitor in my own body.

I know this seems like an overreaction or hyperbole employed for dramatic effect. But it is entirely accurate. So why would such a small event as me overhearing an anonymous woman in distress cause me to plummet into a moment of existential crisis?

Because I had a choice. I could ignore the woman in need or I could do something – anything – to help her. One of those choices would affirm the true self, the authentic person who God created me to be. And one wouldn’t. I chose the latter. When I chose to embrace the false self, the inauthentic person, I felt myself start to fray around the edges.

Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever felt yourself start to unravel, so to speak, because of a decision you made that runs counter to the person you know you are?

Perhaps you were in the cafeteria at school. You weren’t the bully or the bully’s target, but in the moment of decision you chose to laugh along with the rest of the onlookers as the victim was teased. And as you chuckled along, you noticed there was a hollowness in each of your laughs. But the hollowness wasn’t just in your laughs. You looked within and noticed a void, an emptiness, a lack of the self you knew to be true.

Perhaps you and your spouse got into an argument. It started over a perceived disparity in the household workload but pretty soon you were fighting just to fight. Then you chose to punch below the belt. A word escaped your lips – an expletive, a derogatory name that took all the light out of your spouse’s eyes. You grinned for a moment in triumph, but then as your spouse backed away and fled the room, you felt the light going out in your own eyes. You looked within and everything was darkness.

This is what it means to unravel, to fray at the edges, to be unmade, to be a traitor in your own body. When you make a decision that embraces the false self, the inauthentic person, you might be able to recognize your body in the mirror, but it won’t be you staring back.

Remember, I warned you this sermon is about demons. Have you seen them yet? No, probably not. You haven’t seen them because there’s nothing to see. But that’s precisely the point. The hollowness, the darkness – these tell us that demons have been by. We only ever notice them because of the absence they leave. We can choose the fullness of our true selves and the light of our authentic persons, but when we don’t, we unravel just a little bit more because that demonic absence is eating away at us and pulling us away from God.

The good news is that God doesn’t just sit idly by while we unravel. God is in the business of helping each and every one of us discover the true people God created us to be. When we live as our true selves, we are honoring the image and likeness of God within us. Just think how wonderful you feel when you make choices that affirm your authentic self. So full of light. So full of joy. You are at home in your body. You look in the mirror and see yourself smiling back. Far from an imposter, you are exactly the person you are supposed to be. You aren’t unraveling. You are whole.

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus engages in the ministry of helping us embrace our true and authentic selves. The Gerasene man hasn’t been himself in a long time. The demons have hollowed him out, and they fill this hollowness with their presence – or should I say, they fill it, paradoxically, with their absence. But Jesus yearns for the man – and for each of us – to live as our true selves. So Jesus heals the man. Jesus fills the hollowness with his own presence. And when he does so, the demons have nowhere to go.

This healing of the demonic within is a piece of each of our stories, too. With each of our choices, we embrace either our false selves or our true ones, we embrace either absence or presence, hollowness or fullness. When I chose to ignore the woman at Panera, I felt unmade. But God gave me a second chance. Rather than ignore her, I prayed for her from across the room. I asked God to connect my soul to hers for those few moments when our proximity made us kin and to make me a beacon emanating God’s peace. I don’t know if that prayer had an effect on her, but it did on me. The second chance gave me the opportunity to embrace the authentic person God created me to be.

I invite you this week to take stock of the choices you make. How do those choices make you feel? Which lead to wholeness and which to unraveling? When you are faced with a choice, pray to God to help you choose the decision that promotes your true self, the authentic person God created you to be.

I said this sermon was about demons. But it’s really about God’s triumph over the forces that seek to unravel us. While we may succumb to demons from time to time, God will never stop speaking healing and wholeness into our souls. And that means the demons will never win.

5 Years: Humor in the Bible

Published on June 17, 2013 by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

This June is the 5th anniversary of Wherethewind.com, and we are celebrating by looking back at some of the best of the last five years of this website. Today we have the the second of the four video Bible studies I shot in my house in West Virginia before I moved to Massachusetts. (Originally posted October 22, 2009)

If I were a superhero, this video Bible study would serve as part of my origin story. About six weeks after filming it, I received a phone call from Ron, an editor at the United Methodist Publishing House. The video had ended up on Ron’s computer by way of a complicated series of connections borne equally by the Internet and the Holy Spirit. This is the video that started my relationship with my publisher, and I am so thankful it made its way to them. (And now, a plug: remember my new book, Letters from Ruby, arrives in stores August 20th!)

5 Years: The County Fair

Published on June 10, 2013 by Adam Thomas1 Comment

This June is the 5th anniversary of Wherethewind.com, and we are celebrating by looking back at some of the best of the last five years of this website. Today we have a post from the first couple months of the blog. I was at a county fair in West Virginia with a couple of friends and the following encounter happened. (Originally posted August 12, 2008)

The smells of sweat and fried dough hung in the air, mixing with the burned oil of the tractor pull. He was sitting with hands clasped, wearing a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a challenge on his deeply lined, leathery face. She was standing, looking all the world like a Grant Wood painting, and thrusting matchbook-sized pamphlets into the hands of passersby. I walked by out of reach, but I couldn’t help looking at the booth, one of many at the county fair. “How sure are you of going to heaven? Are you 50% 75% 100% sure?” read the banner. My friend wondered aloud about how one arrives at a 75% surety of heaven. I chuckled, but I was unable to keep walking by the booth. On the table, a wooden contraption with three small doors read: “Do you know the three things God CANNOT do?”

I stopped. The Grant Wood painting saw my furrowed brow and handed me a pamphlet. It looked like a doll’s magazine. A smiley face decorated the cover along with the words: “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?” I closed my hand around the pamphlet and pointed to the three doors. I tried to keep the incredulity out of my voice, but I failed miserably: “So, what are the three things God can’t do?” I said.

She opened the first door: “God CANNOT lie.” She opened the second door: “God CANNOT change.” She opened the third door: “God CANNOT let people into heaven who have not been born again.”

We talked for fifteen minutes. I told them I did not disagree with the first door, but that I preferred to state the sentiment in positive terms: “God always tell the truth” or “God is trustworthy and faithful.” I said that a “lie” is the absence of the “truth,” and that I’d rather talk about God’s goodness shown in God’s truthfulness than to try to hook people with the trappings of sensationalism. After five minutes, the man commented that I was very intelligent. I took that as a compliment, but I have a sneaking suspicion it was not meant as such.

As our conversation continued, I realized we weren’t conversing. We were sparring. I’ve never had a taste for theological pugilism, but I was already three rounds deep, so I kept jabbing and blocking. I’ve had this same conversation with county fair proselytizers, but never as an ordained person. After the man commented on my intelligence, he asked me what I did. I said, “I’m a priest.” Without another word, he thrust another pamphlet in my hand. It was about how Roman Catholics aren’t real Christians and are going to hell.The same thought kept jumping to the front of my mind: “People like these, no matter how pure and ardent their intentions, make my job harder.”

It didn’t matter that I wasn’t a Roman Catholic. It didn’t matter that I agreed with the man and woman several times during our bout. The only thing that mattered was that I didn’t buy into the way they framed the Christian faith–as a bottom-line venture whose only goal is to “save souls” by following the instructions in the smiley-face doll-sized magazine. Surely, there’s more than that. Surely, the abundance of what God has done and is doing is more important than a “what’s behind door number 3″ marketing scheme concerned with what God CANNOT do.

As I walked away, I wondered what had been accomplished during our boxing match. In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus says that when two or three are gathered in his name, he will be in the midst of them. Were we gathered “in his name” or in our own names, intent on KOing the other’s theological stance? Was Jesus there? Was I 50% 75% 100% sure of his presence? Looking back, Jesus was there, but he was not in my corner and he was not in their corner. He was there trying to get us to leave the ring.

Five Years Ago

Published on June 7, 2013August 19, 2013 by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

Five years ago today, I navigated to WordPress.com and sat for an hour just staring at the computer screen. I had recently received some advice from an editor at a publishing company that I might consider starting a “weblog,” whatever that was. My seminary thesis reader, Brian McLaren, had put me in touch with this editor (for the life of me, I can’t remember his name), and I’m so glad he did. The editor gave me the best practical advice imaginable for a young writer.

“You need to write,” he said. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it?

“You need to write every day,” he continued. “And that means you need someone or something to be accountable to.” Then he turned me on to the idea of blogging, which was still not quite mainstream in 2008. Thank you, Mr. Editor! (Was it Kevin? Ah well. I really can’t remember.)

So there I was, five years ago today, staring at my computer screen. I was stuck trying to make a decision– namely, what to call my blog. I tried many names, also things I can’t remember now. I was listening to music, and in the moment of greatest despair that I would never come up with a name I was satisfied with, U2’s song “Kite” came on.

“Who’s to say where the wind will take you?
Who’s to say what it is will break you?
I don’t know which way the wind will blow.”

The words Bono was singing bore into me. It was like I was hearing them for the first time ever. The chorus hung in the air. I could have grabbed the word “wind” and held it in my hand. As I looked at the words in my mind’s eye, they reformed into a verse from the Gospel According to John: “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” So says Jesus to the Pharisee Nicodemus. This encounter is one of my favorite in the Gospel. In it, Jesus shatters Nicodemus’s preconceptions — his entire worldview, in fact — and rebuilds it with himself (Jesus) at the center. Over the course of the Gospel, we see Nicodemus first tentatively and then boldly step into his own re-creation.

For Nicodemus, and for me, it starts with the wind of the Spirit (which, handily, is the same word in ancient Greek). The words from U2’s song shimmered with meaning from the Gospel, and I knew I had found the name of my blog.

Ever since, these words have guided me. I do not know where the wind will take me. But I believe that wherever it is, God will be waiting when I get there. The last five years have confirmed this belief over and over again. Through the blog, I made connections with The Christian Century and EpiscopalCafe. Then, about a year and half in, I came to the attention of the United Methodist Publishing House, and my second book with them comes out this summer! The blog is also partially responsible for the way I met my wife (as well as giving her mother something to find when she googled me). Above all, this website has kept me writing and reflecting on how God is moving in my life and how I am moving in God’s.

Over the month of June, I plan to have a five year anniversary celebration for wherethewind.com. I will re-post some of my favorite entries, along with ones that marked significant moments and connections. (If you have a favorite post you’d like me to re-issue this month, let me know!) I look forward to the next five years of wherethewind.com, and I’m so profoundly grateful to all of my readers for taking this journey with me.

I leave you today with some of the first ever words I posted on this website, five years ago today.

Adam, a follower of Christ,

to all those who find this blog through the Series of Tubes.

Grace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

The Apostle Paul really nailed the beginnings of his letters, so I thought I’d borrow his intro formula to begin my blog. Paul journeyed all over the Mediterranean following the little dotted purple and blue and red lines you see on the maps in the back of your study Bible. I’m afraid I can’t afford the airfares to Thessalonica or Ephesus, so I will have to rely on the Interwebs to make a new set of dotted lines from my MacBook to your computer. Since you’re probably in modern day Scranton or Lubbock rather than ancient Greece, I think the Internet is the way to go.

[…] Who’s to say where the wind will take me? Who’s to say where the Spirit is leading me? In this blog, I will reflect on the movement of God in my life, the movement that dances on the wind of the Spirit. I invite you to follow my reflections and discern how God is moving in your own life.