Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?

Scripture Lessons: 1 Kings 19: 15-21 and 2 Kings 2: 1-14 Sermon Title: Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah? Preached on June 30, 2019 About two years ago, we moved here from Columbia, Tennessee, which is a considerable town. It has its own mall and its own newspaper, but Marietta often makes Columbia look tiny in comparison. For example, in the Columbia paper, The Daily Herald, I remember that coverage of a hay-bail fire once made the front page. When I read our paper, go to a Braves game, or when we’re out driving around and sitting in traffic, I feel like now we’re living in a big city. That’s until something like a power outage happens. Last Monday evening in our neighborhood, all kinds of people went out in the rain to watch the crew clear the power lines. You better believe we were there. We weren’t missing something like that. Not only was there nothing else to do, but it was good, small town entertainment. Plus, while we were standing there, our coonhound, Junebug made friends with a Labrador retriever. I started talking to this guy standing with his girlfriend. Something about him made him look like he knew what was going on, so Sara asked him if he knew how long it would be before we got power back. By day, this guy was probably an accountant, but in that moment, he rose to the occasion. He looked up and down the power line at the guys working in bucket trucks to see their progress and said, “probably not too much longer.” Some people like to look like they know what they’re talking about. Some people like to appear to be in charge, and a little later this guy stopped one of the linemen and asked him some question about the transformer. The look on the real expert’s face was the same as how I imagine Jimmy Carter looked watching last weeks’ democratic presidential debates. Sometimes, compared to real experts, the amateur looks a little ridiculous. We worry then, about the future, based on who we’re leaving it to. That’s a common enough theme in the worlds of literature, movies, as well as Scripture. It’s there, even in Toy Story 4. Have you seen it? I went to see Toy Story 4 week before last. I didn’t go by myself. Our daughter went with me, but I got a lot out of the movie. It starts off with Woody, a toy ragdoll who is also a Sheriff, dusty and dejected in a closet. He’s a toy come to life, and part of all four of these Toy Story movies is telling how toys live out their purpose by comforting children through life transitions like their first day of school. That’s a simple and wholesome theme in the movies, though it’s not so entertaining, so the drama in all these Toy Story movies comes from Woody the rag doll who has to deal with being replaced by new toys that his owner enjoys playing with more than him. In the first one it’s a spaceman named Buzz Lightyear, and by Toy Story 4, Woody and Buzz the Spaceman have been passed on to a new kid because their first kid grew up and went to college. Their new owner is a little girl who takes off Woody’s Sheriff badge, throws him the closet, and puts the badge on a ragdoll cowgirl named Jessie whom she plays with on her bedroom floor. Well, as soon as the little girl leaves the room what does Woody do? He comes alive, bursts out of the closet, and takes his badge back because Jessie the cowgirl can’t handle the responsibility that comes with such a title as Sheriff. To experts like Woody, amateurs are a nuisance. You can imagine these kinds of feelings coming from Elijah, who’s been a prophet in Israel for years. He’s been dealing with kings and famines, doing miracles, and speaking the truth. What does he need with some young guy following him around? It’s clear from what Elijah said to him in verse 20 of our First Scripture Lesson, “Go back again; for what have I done to you?” that signing on as Elijah’s understudy didn’t come with a hearty handshake and a corner office. Elijah doesn’t want him around and only anoints Elisha as “prophet” because God told him he had to. Now, why is he like that? Maybe you can imagine. It’s hard to pass some things on, especially if you feel like the new guy is replacing you. So, Woody took back his sheriff badge from Jessie and even while Elijah is marching off to be taken up into heaven, he’s still reluctant to entrust anything important to Elisha. He kept saying, “Stay here; for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel.” Then, “Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” Elijah just keeps going and Elisha keeps tagging along. Meanwhile, the fate of Israel’s prophetic voice hangs in the balance. This is a precarious place for a society to be. The expert is fading away and doesn’t want to. The amateur might not be ready. Ego and fear get in the way and the reader must wonder, “where is the God of Elijah?” That’s a place many find themselves. Maybe that’s a place we all find ourselves. Sometimes we debate whether or not we are still living in a Christian Country. Many things are changing. A generation steps back as a new generation steps forward, only this new generation isn’t always watching where they’re going for staring at their cell phones. Where are we going and what’s going to happen next? “Where is the God of Elijah?” Well, however you’re feeling about the state of things here in our nation, our Judeo-Christian roots are still very clear when you consider this Second Scripture Lesson. Maybe you’ve heard the phrase, “passing the mantel” of leadership. That comes from this Second Scripture Lesson as Elijah passes his “mantel” or robe to Elisha. This passage is also where we got that great Spiritual, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” for Elijah is swept up into heaven on a Chariot of Fire, leaving him with no other option other than passing his mantel on to the next generation amateur Elisha. That he leaves so dramatically, and that he’s completely gone is helpful in a way, for until the expert leaves, the amateur hardly knows what to do. Maybe you remember that moment in Homer’s Odyssey, when Odysseus, returns from his travels to a home used to getting a long without him. His son, Telemachus, has sort of become the man of the house. He’s not used to running things by his father. When he goes out at night, he doesn’t want anyone asking him to be home by 11:00. But when Odysseus returns the son goes to string his father’s bow, and he can’t do it. Or he says he can’t any way. I remember my English professor telling us that there had been books written on this one brief moment. At that time in my life I couldn’t imagine why. That was because we studied the Odyssey before I ever tried to buy my dad dinner or had to help my grandfather find his way through the hallways of a hospital where he kept getting lost. Whenever the mantel is passed the one who receives it must be mindful of the dignity of the one who is giving it. That’s important to consider, because many of our heroes fade away slowly from positions of influence and power, expertise and authority, taken up into heaven piece by piece rather than all at once in a Chariot of Fire. I remember so well a story folks used to tell about a man who had stayed too long as a member of the board at the local bank. Preparing for one meeting no one wanted him at, he was all upset about the way another member of the board had handled some investment and was prepared to question this man (I’ll call him Bill)’s integrity in front of everyone. Bill’s daughter was the one so worried about it, not wanting her father’s reputation to be questioned in such a public way, but she told me that by the time discussion of her father’s handling of this investment came up on the agenda, the past-his-prime board member had fallen asleep. We are all moving in and out of our positions on this earth. Some are ridding off into the sunset, others are just now stepping on to the stage. There’s plenty to fear in either case, for if Woody, the Sheriff is to give up his badge he has to discover who he is without it and Jessie the cowgirl must summon the courage to live up to the high office of toy-sheriff. If Telemachus can string his father’s bow, then Odysseus must start to wonder about his place in his own home, and his son must learn to live in a world where he stands on his own rather than in his father’s shadow. If Elijah is to accept this ride into heaven on a chariot of fire, he puts his faith completely in the God who does impossible things, and if Elisha is to take up his master’s mantle he must do the same, trusting that the God of Elijah will not leave the earth as his master rides off into heaven. That’s a terrifying thing. What guarantee is there that blessing will be passed down from one generation to the next? What assurance do we have that God’s provision will continue? How can we have hope for the future when all we know of God’s presence is that He has been our help in ages past? Elisha saw Elijah take his mantle, roll it up, and strike the water. When he did the water parted so that they two of them crossed on dry ground. “Where is the God of Elijah,” the prophet Elisha asked as he struck the water of the Jordan with his master’s mantle, but the waters parted again. As the 4th of July approaches, I want to share with you a quote from Ronald Reagan: Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. It’s not so different with God’s blessings, which are handed down from one generation to the next, not confined to the past but here and now. Where is the God of Elijah? He is with you and with me, and he isn’t going anywhere. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Help Along the Way

Scripture Lessons: Galatians 3: 23-29 and 1 Kings 19: 1-15a Sermon title: Help Along the Way Preached on June 23, 2019 Being around kids during the summer reminds me of how obsessed with fairness they can be. Whether here at the church or out on the playground, it seems like, “it’s not fair!” is all I ever hear. Again, and again, it’s “but she got a bigger piece,” and “I had to sit in the back seat last time.” Kids can be obsessed with justice, and so often their paying more attention to what everyone else is doing than what’s really going on around them. I heard a radio show this week all about a preschool classroom where the teacher, so tiered of her class tattling on each other, placed an old red, rotary phone in the back of the room, and without plugging it in to anything, told her students that if they needed to tell on one of their friends they could go and tell it to “the tattle phone”. It was a revolutionary success, in that the kids used it instead of constantly streaming to her. Someone had the bright idea to plug this phone in to a recorder so that the radio audience could hear what kids were saying, and this is some of what they said: Romana wasn’t listening to the teacher and Eli hit Kevin. That when Vera was playing family with Tommy, he kept trying to wake her up when she was pretending to be asleep. Also, Sally pushed Billy, and Thomas passed gas right in Eugene’s face (and he didn’t even say excuse me). The funny thing about all this, is that as far as these kids knew, when they got upset, went and told on their friends into the tattle phone, there was no one on the other end listening who could do anything about it, but this segment of the radio show ended with one child who went home and told his father that the tattle phone was broken. I’m sure his dad was thinking, “What do you mean it’s broken. It never worked.” His son said, “Dad, the tattle phone is broken. I told the phone that my friend Nicky was pinching me but after I told the tattle phone he still didn’t stop.” Now some of us have learned this lesson already. We that’s a problem. The world isn’t fair and sometimes you go tell the tattle phone and no one is listening, or you go and tell your teacher, but she says something like, “Well, life’s not fair.” That being the case, parents have to teach their children that sometimes they must stand up for themselves. Grandfathers lecture their grandchildren about personal responsibility, for sometimes we go looking for someone to help and find out that we’re that someone. So, the Prophet Elijah stood up to do something about it. He’s a great hero in the Bible. The backstory to today’s Second Scripture Lesson is that there was an evil queen named Jezebel. She was married to the King of Israel, but he was kind of a joke, so there was no one else to stand up to her idolatry and oppression, therefore Elijah stood up to her. It was a great success too. There was a legendary contest between her god, Baal, and Elijah’s God. Two altars set up. The God who rained down fire and lit his respective altar won, and Elijah did it. He triumphed, only then Queen Jezebel decided not to give up and to just have Elijah killed instead. That’s where the unfairness of the situation gets to him. The prophet Elijah runs for his life. He went a day’s journey into the wilderness, because after standing up against Queen Jezebel and all her priests, still unrighteousness and idolatry ruled Israel. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and asked that he might die saying, “It is enough now, O Lord, take away my life for I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he fell asleep. An angel of the Lord woke him and fed him that he might go 40 more days, making it all the way to Horeb, the mount of God. Then the word of the Lord came to him saying, “What are you doing here Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” None of this is very fair, and Elijah was right to tell God all about it. He was right to tattle on Jezebel and to defend his own righteousness, for among all the great villains of Scripture, she’s one of the worst. And among all heroes of our faith, Elijah is among the most faithful. However, seeing his words in print, the part of his speeches that seems funny to me, is how often he uses the pronoun “I.” “I am no better than my ancestors,” he said. “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts.” Then, while they “have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left.” Even though there comes a time when we must stand up for ourselves and can no longer spend all our time tattling to our teacher, this kind of self-centeredness will cloud our vision of reality. Once we’ve learned to stand up for ourselves, we’re not yet out of danger, for if we live into a lie that it’s all up to us, we’re exactly where the Evil One wants us, because this way of thinking and being blinds us to God and holds us far from the truth of how things actually are. Thinking again of the radio show from the preschool, the journalist who set up and listened to the tattle phone asked the preschool teacher, “about how much of their time is spent concerned with tattling.” She said, “This isn’t scientific, but I’d say most of it.” The journalist responded to this statement by saying, “It’s amazing that in a world where they can’t feed themselves, dress themselves, or take themselves anywhere, literally able to do nothing on their own, they become so obsessed with fairness.” Maybe we laugh about that irony when thinking of little kids, but I can’t help but assume that God feels the same way about us. I can’t help but imagine God feeling the same way about Elijah “I, I, I,” Elijah said to God, but it doesn’t matter whether we’re down on ourselves, defending ourselves, or trying to show the world that someone else is really the problem, so long as we are the focus, we can’t see God at work, feeding us, dressing us, and watching over us by night. So, to get Elijah’s focus away from himself, a voice calls him out to the edge of a cliff on top of a mountain. You can imagine what this was like, for maybe you know already that sometimes clarity comes when we stand on the peak to see the great wide world around us. That was the case with a friend of mine named Jim Hodges. Jim was a member of the first church I served, and he was diagnosed with lung cancer. For a while, things were OK. He just had to walk around with an oxygen pump, but then he was hospitalized and I remember well the day he called to tell me that the doctor said it wouldn’t be long. That he didn’t have much time left. We were close, so it was hard for me to see him like that. When I got to his hospital room his wife Carol excused herself and I sat down by his bed. The first thing I asked was if he was afraid. Jim paused. Then he said, “I’m afraid Carol doesn’t really understand the maintenance schedule for the HVAC contract.” After another pause, he said, “Joe, I don’t know what I’m going to do when I see him.” I wasn’t sure who him was at first, so I just listened as he continued talking. “When I see him, what will I do? Will I laugh? Will I cry? Will I sing? When I see Jesus, I’m not sure I’ll know what to do.” Now Jim was from Texas and this happened in a hospital over in Lilburn, but as far as I’m concerned, he could have been meditating on top of a mountain in Tibet for how enlightened he was. His mind wasn’t on cancer, because he could see so far beyond it. There’s no question in my mind that there is no more miserable person than the one who thinks only of himself. I believe that those who love their neighbors as themselves have unlocked the secret to happiness, and those who trust the Lord have a joy within them that no hardship can touch, for they see beyond temporary hardship to love and joy. That matters, because we’re the kind of people who will spend all our time tattling on our friends, instead of rejoicing in our blessings. I’ve caught myself complaining about writing a stack of thank-you notes rather than celebrating the gifts I’ve received. We rage at the dying of the night, forgetting the glory of our days or the promise of our future, but when we stand at the cliff, we see beyond the temporary to glimpse the eternal. Then, we are like David who defeated Goliath. Like Paul who changed the world. Like Jim, who defeated cancer, even though it took his life. Because when we focus away from ourselves, we see our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, our ever-present help in times of need. Amen.

In Defiance of Babel

Scripture Lessons: Genesis 11: 1-9 and Acts 2: 1-21 Sermon Title: In Defiance of Babel Preached on June 9, 2019 It’s amazing how relevant Scripture is. The great theologian of the 20th Century, Karl Barth, would advise his students to prepare their sermons with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other, as ancient Scripture comes alive day after day. This seemed eerily relevant advice last Monday morning as I read the Marietta Daily Journal. You may know that our current Habitat for Humanity house is a joint effort. Just yesterday, members of our church, coordinated by Tim Hammond and the Mission Council, were scheduled to join together with Methodists, Episcopalians, Catholics, and Unitarians, as well as members from Temple Kol Emeth Synagogue and two mosques to build a single mother named Belinda and her two children a new home. We’re working together with all of them, but this is the funny part. Considering all the different religious groups involved in the build, last Monday morning our paper quoted the project’s co-chair who said, “We call it our Tower of Babel.” Now that we’ve read what God did at the Tower of Babel, I’m not sure I’m glad that’s how he referred to the house. However, I get his point. We live in this world where most of the time, different people can’t do anything like this. It’s as though we’re all speaking different languages. Oftentimes, even those who speak the same language can’t understand each other. If you need proof of the massive level of misunderstanding prevalent in our culture, of course the obvious example is always Washington, DC where “the aisle” is like some deep, unbridgeable chasm. Only, there’s no need to look all the way to Washington for a failure to communicate. Spouses often can’t understand each other. Neighbors don’t always know each other’s names. Then there’s always someone at the family reunion who seems to have come from a completely different planet rather than the same gene pool. The two Scripture Lessons we’ve just read tell two of the accounts where all that changes: first in Genesis, when “The whole earth had one language and the same words,” and then in Acts, when the gathered believers began “to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” Recorded then, are at least two brief instances when we all understood each other. Because such understanding is rare, it’s good to pay attention to both these passages of Scripture, but we must also pay attention to how they are also different. These two Scripture Lessons are very different in the sense that in one instance humankind uses their common tongue to work together to build a tower so that they might “make a name for [them]selves”, while in the other, it was not humankind, but God who was glorified. That’s a significant difference in motivation. The difference reminds me of a great quote: “It’s amazing how much can be accomplished if no one cares who gets the credit.” So often we care about that, trying to “make a name for ourselves,” which is a bad idea, for be it Ancient Egypt, Mussolini’s Rome, or wherever else masses of soldiers goose step in identical uniforms, when self-interest, vain glory, and pride guide the project, not only a tower, but tyranny is being created. “Let us make a name for ourselves,” they said in our First Scripture Lesson. These are dangerous words. [So] The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” I used to think that God confused the languages of those who were building the Tower of Babel because God was threatened by what humanity was able to do. However, on heels of the 75th Anniversary of D-Day, I know that what God was worried about was how whenever humans are able to build a tower, we nearly always also build a gas chamber. Every time one nation sets her mind on making a name for herself, she does so with violence and inhumanity towards other nations and ethnicities. That should someone say, “Let’s prove, once and for all, that Marietta is better than everyone else,” the football team will face recruitment violations, the mayor will be tempted to accept bribes, and the chamber of commerce will turn into a den of graft and favors, because when making a name for ourselves is the goal, winning becomes more important than righteousness, control more important than justice, order more important than grace, silence more important than hope, and survival more important than love. Last Thursday night our girls had a swim meet. I had the honor of being a line judge. My duty was to report which kid won each race. Did you know that one each side of the pool there have to be two line judges? One parent from each team, because even in a kid’s swim-team competition, if one subdivision has the chance to “make a name for [her]self” honesty and integrity are bulldozed in the pursuit of vain glory. On the other hand, something different happened at Pentecost. They weren’t speaking the same language, but they could all understand each other. Did you notice that? All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability… And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Scripture doesn’t say that each person in Jerusalem could suddenly understand one language. What Scripture says when describing Pentecost is that each could understand the voice of God speaking to them in their own language. One Bible Scholar named Diamonthi Niles translates this passage saying, “each one heard them speaking in her mother tongue.” I like that. You know why? Because Siri can’t understand my accent. Neither can Alexa. I once heard about an airport in Wisconsin, posting a “help wanted” add for telephone operators who could speak Spanish, German, Mandarin, and Southern. I hate that we live in a world where everyone is supposed to speak like a news anchor and where “ain’t’s” not a word, but on Pentecost it was different, because God’s love is different. Those who seek to make a name for themselves push us towards uniformity. Commerce wants to give every kid a mass-produced Happy Meal and will judge every woman by the same standards of beauty, but God speaks to us in the voice that we don’t have to think to understand. Industrial progress makes us cogs in a wheel to build their towers. Stations on an assembly line to build their fleets. Our jobs can demand that we do things the same way, again and again, all according to the manual rather than our creativity, but God sees us as individuals who are uniquely suited to serve His greater purpose. Scripture tells us that those who are determined to make a name for themselves, will violate and objectify us every time. Though Scripture also proclaims over and over again that God speaks to us in words of love because all our God wants is that we would be saved. As Peter explained to the crowds: In the last days it will be, God declares, That I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, And your sons and daughters shall prophesy, And your young men shall see visions, And your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, In those days I will pour out my Spirit; Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. The crucial word there is at the end: “everyone.” That word “everyone” is so different from, “us.” “Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” is so different from, “Let us make a name for ourselves.” For there to be an “us” there must be a “them,” but are we not all children of Abraham? Of course, “everyone” is a problematic word as well. The idea that everyone would get a trophy or that everyone is a winner feels like a culture of pampering rather than reality. On the other hand, how wonderful the world would be if everyone was happy for whoever who won the trophy. If everyone celebrated whoever was given the honor of having his name on a mighty sea vessel, tall tower, or scenic park. If everyone sought good and no one cared who got the credit, and everyone did what they believed was right without worrying so much about who benefited. When life is one long competition between “us” and them, sooner or later everyone loses. But if the Spirit moves again and we all realize once more that life is one long blessing from God to all His children, then truly, everyone will be saved. Early this morning Jim MacDonald, a great leader in our church, sent me the message Tim Hammond emailed to all of yesterday’s Habitat for Humanity volunteers. I didn’t ask Tim if I could quote him up here, because he would have said no, and this is just too important to miss: Hello friends, sisters, and brothers, I have been thinking about this day. We had to get up too early, we had to get on a bus and ride to Mableton, we had to endure incredible rain, slosh through mud, and bump into each other trying to accomplish jobs under the confines of one roof. But I want to be clear about this day. We arose early to come together as missionaries in service to our Lord Jesus Christ. We sloshed through rain and mud with smiles. Under that roof we saw each other, not as people in our way, but as those we might serve. We did our best to give Belinda a safe place to live and take care of her family, as well as worship Christ. Friends, today we cemented our family ties. To God be the glory. Amen.

Why Do You Stand Looking?

Scripture Lessons: Ephesians 1: 15-23 and Acts 1: 1-11 Sermon Title: Why Do You Stand Looking? Preached on June 2, 2019 My family and I spent the last week in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We traveled there with Sara’s family. All of us were in one big house, which was an adventure in and of itself. There was also the challenge that fell mostly to Sara, of managing all the wants and needs of this group of people who all wanted to do different things while also wanting to stick together. One day during the trip we drove out to a pilgrimage cite. That trip made its way to the agenda because, while both their daughters married protestant ministers, Sara’s mother and father are Roman Catholic. Since we were staying so close to El Santuario De Chimayo, a shrine and pilgrimage cite that attracts about 300,000 people each year, they both wanted to go and check it out, having heard that it is like the Lourdes of the Southwest. I was excited to go too, as Presbyterians don’t often get to go to these kinds of places. All over the site were pictures of people who had been healed. Crutches left by those who didn’t need them any longer. It’s a place with a supposed miraculous soil that comes from a holy well, where a man named Don Bernardo Abeyta found a crucifix in 1810, while doing penance. According to this legend, Christ met him out there in the New Mexico desert. This is a story that many people believe, but Presbyterians tend to be skeptical of this kind of thing. However, thinking of Acts, it should come as no surprise that the Lord would be present in New Mexico, for just as Don Bernardo found a crucifix there in 1810 while doing penance, last week we celebrated the Apostle Paul who went all the way to Macedonia and joined God who was already at work there. Likewise, in Acts, Peter went to visit a Roman Centurion named Cornelius, only to find that God had prepared even the heart of one who served the Empire to hear him preach the Gospel. It’s miraculous, and I’ve had the same experience in my life of being surprised by the presence of God in faraway places. As a High School student, I thought that we were sent by this church to bring the light of Christ to Mexico. We went there to build houses just as a group from our church is doing now, only, every time we went, we discovered that God had beat us there. We have to remember that, because the disciples saw Jesus ascend into heaven, and they were stuck for a moment, still staring up at the sky. Of course, they were, for too often we become obsessed with where we saw God at work last, rather than focus our attention on where God is at work now. I believe the life of faith is something like learning to ride a bike. It must be, because in one moment, just as the disciples had Jesus there, so we knew that our father was holding the seat, but as we and the bike moved forward, even though he promised not to, a good father always let’s go. For moments everything was fine, we were riding a bike and it was as miraculous as Peter walking on the water. Then, we looked back to where our father was, and not seeing him where he was, we lost balance and fell, because life, like riding a bike, requires that we pay more attention to where we are going than where we’ve been. Christ ascended into heaven, and the disciples were transfixed, staring up at the clouds. Suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” It’s as though they were saying: He’s not up there in the clouds anymore. You have to stop looking for him there or you’ll fall. While we were out west, we visited the Cliff Dwellings at Bandoleer National Park. This was an exciting place to go and be because there we saw human residences, thousands of years old. They were ancient apartment buildings made of wood and mud. It was incredible. So incredible that Lily and Cece’s cousin Sam wasn’t paying attention to where he was going. He was looking up, and so he slipped and fell and scraped his knee and elbow. It happened on my watch, so I picked him up and brushed him off. He needed a Band-Aid, which of course, I did not have. Luckily, a woman in a blue hat stopped and pulled one out of her little purse. That made him feel better. Icing on the cake was the piece of gum that she pulled out of her purse next. When Sara caught up, this lady said to her, “He did just fine.” I said, “Thank you,” because I thought she was talking about me. She wasn’t. She was talking about Sam, and now I see this experience as one of those little miracles. So far, this woman in the blue hat has worked more wonders than the dirt I got out of the well at El Santuario De Chimayo. That’s not immediately obvious however, because so often we just brush off such acts of the Spirit off as though they were happenstance. Years ago, I was visiting a lonely woman in her home. She was going on and on about how no one from the church ever speaks to her. I was empathetic because it’s always tragic when the church fails at being the church, but it happens, so I apologized. However, then the phone rang. It was a member of the church calling to check on her. I could hear the conversation, “I’ve missed seeing you and just wanted to see how you were,” says the church member on the line. Once she hung up, thanking this woman from the church, ironically, she just launched right back into it, “no one from the church even knows me!” She failed to see Jesus right before her, focused somewhere else. Too often we are the way. Chaining our focus on where he was, we fail to see where he is. In this way, the past becomes a prison to too many, despite the fact that God is even now opening the door to freedom and new life. So rarely do we open our eyes enough to recognize, that Christ is still at work, just not always where we expect him to be. This is an important lesson for our church today, because we have not yet reached the Promised Land, though we are tempted to mistake the bygone days for it. Nor have we missed out on it, for we have yet to see the peak of what God will do among us. However, how God is moving in the present may look different from the past, and where God will lead us demands that we leave so much of our past behind. We don’t really know how God will move among us next, but we must choose looking for Him at work in new and mysterious ways over nostalgia or regret. There’s danger in both. Nostalgia doesn’t seem dangerous. Neither does looking up at the clouds, but there are Christians who are so heavenly minded that they’re no earthly good. There are living people so consumed with ancient history that they risk becoming dusty relics themselves. We sometimes honor the memory of the departed, over paying attention to the newborn. So regretful that we abdicate the promise of the future. So, used to hurt, that we fail to see the miracle worker even when he stands before us. We just look up at the clouds, blind to God all around us. That’s why we must hear them asking, “Men and women of Marietta, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” This God of ours incarnate in Christ Jesus is alive and well, leading us into a new future. I know it’s coming too. Because as I was working on this sermon, we were way up in the clouds, flying back home from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I didn’t see him there, but I remembered where he promised he would be: For I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. [for truly the king of heaven said,] just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. Let us look into the future knowing that he’s leading us onward. And let us go out into the world today expecting for him to meet us there. Amen.