We are All Geeps: A Sermon on Matthew 25:31-46

So I have something I want to show you this morning. This is Butterfly. You may have noticed we’re a little bit ahead in the lectionary the past couple weeks, and Butterfly is the reason. We’re doing the special service next Sunday but I so wanted to show you this picture that I moved the lessons around so I would still get a chance to preach on this text. That’s because Butterfly here is a Geep. She was born in a petting zoo in Arizona. The zookeepers were surprised when the female sheep, aptly named Momma, became pregnant, as they didn’t have any male sheep. They soon determined the father was a particularly amorous pygmy goat named Michael. Butterfly has the face and hooves of a goat, but the wool and tail of a sheep, and is all cute. And what better way to talk about the parable of the sheep and the goats than an adorable baby sheep-goat.

Our reading for this morning comes at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, a section known as the “Sermon at the End of the World” or the “Judgment Discourse.” And this really is the end of Jesus’ ministry on earth. This sermon happens on a Tuesday and Jesus is crucified that Friday. In three days time, Jesus will be on a cross and the disciples’ world as they knew it will be over.

And so, at the end of his ministry, at the end of a teaching about the end of the world, Jesus closes with this parable about how when the Son of Man comes in his glory, he will come to separate humanity as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. To the sheep he will say, enter into the kingdom, “for I was hungry and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me water, naked and you clothed me, sick or in prison and you visited me.” And the sheep are like, “what?” When did we do all that? And the Son of Man replied, “what you did to the least of these, you did to me.” And to the goats, “Enter into punishment, “for I was hungry and you gave me no food, thirsty and you gave me no water, sick or in prison and you did not visit me.” And the goats, similarly, are like, “what?” When Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or sick or in prison and not respond? When did we ever see you at all?

The result of this seems pretty cut and dry. What we do matters. Our actions matter. The sheep got in for caring for the poor, the goats did not, so they did not. And I think there is truth in this. What we do, how we treat one another does matter to God. Faith is not about stringing together some correct list of beliefs. There is not a confirmation test in order to get into heaven. Faith is about how those beliefs change how we interact in the world, and those changes are most evident through our actions.

But remember what we’ve talked about before, how humanity loves to make rules for ourselves and for each other about who is and is not included in the kingdom of God. So I think if we make this passage one more list of things we have to do in order to be made acceptable to God, I think we sell this passage short. So here’s two things I find absolutely amazing about this story from Jesus, two things that I think blow wide open any simple read on the text. First, neither the sheep nor the goats had any idea that they were sheep or goats. The sheep didn’t know that they were caring for the Lord; they were just being sheep. They were just doing what needed doing. And the goats, similarly, were not turning up their noses at the sight of God. In fact, it sounds like they were actively looking for the Lord, and just never saw him anywhere. Neither the sheep nor the goats were intentionally doing, or not doing, anything for the sake of the Lord. Second, this parable comes at the very end of Jesus ministry on earth. The very next thing Jesus said was “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” Glory, in Matthew’s Gospel, is the crucifixion. Christ’s death on a cross is the moment where his status as the King of Kings and the Son of Man is most clearly displayed.

So for us, brothers and sisters, post-resurrection people who dwell in the days between Christ has died and Christ will come again, what that means is the Son of Man has already come in his glory. The judgment foretold in this parable is already taking place, the Son of Man is already separating the sheep from the goats. And we, like Butterfly, are geep. We are part sheep, part goat. Part people who live well, who care for each other, who feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, cloth the naked, visit the sick or in prison, not for any thought of repayment, but just because it’s the right thing to do. But we’re also goats sometimes. We have selfish motives, we fail to care for the least of these around us, we don’t measure up to the standards the Son of Man set before us. And so the Son of Man is at work in each of us, carefully separating the sheep from the goat, cutting away the selfless from the selfish, and drawing us each closer into the coming kingdom of God. This parable is not just a foretelling of future events, it is also an allegory of the way in which God is at work in each of our lives, changing us, molding us, making us more and more sheep-like every day.

As I was working on this sermon, I came across a story about what living into this kingdom of God can look like, and how God’s gentle shaping hand can change a community. I want to close by sharing this story. This is from a book by M. Scott Peck. And it’s a story about a little monastery. Once a great order, over time the monastery had dwindled down to the point were there were only five monks left: the abbot and four others, all over seventy.

Outside the monastery there was a hermitage. As the abbot agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to him to visit the hermitage and ask if by some possible chance the hermit could offer any advice that might save the monastery.

The hermit welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the hermit could only commiserate with him: “I know how it is,” he exclaimed. “The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in all the nearby towns. So the old abbot and the hermit commiserated together. The time came when the abbot had to leave. They embraced each other. “It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years,” the abbot said, “but I have still failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my dying order?” “No, I am sorry,” the hermit responded. “I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.”

When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, “Well what did the hermit say?” “He couldn’t help,” the abbot answered. “We just commiserated and read the scriptures together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving — it was something cryptic — was that the Messiah is one of us. I don’t know what he meant.”

In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered these words and wondered whether there was any possible significance. The Messiah is one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us monks here at the monastery? If that’s the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant the Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation.

On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light.

Certainly he could not have meant Brother Elred! Elred gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people’s sides, when you look back on it, Elred is virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the hermit did mean Brother Elred.

But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah.

Of course the hermit didn’t mean me. He couldn’t possibly have meant me. I’m just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me. I couldn’t be that much for You, could I?

As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. And on the off, off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.

Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends.

Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the hermit’s gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in the realm.

In these last days of the church year we remember that Christ the King has come in judgment. But a king who’s throne is a cross speaks judgment in ways we do not expect. The Son of Man looks down from his throne at all the nations gathered before him, nations of geeps with wooly coats and goaty faces and says come, enter into the joy of my kingdom. Amen.

Image from Today.com "Oh. My. Geep. Meet the Half Goat, Half Sheep who is All Cuteness." http://www.today.com/pets/baby-geep-cross-between-goat-sheep-stealing-hearts-everywhere-1D80007977

All Saints, the Beatitudes, and Stewardship (They Relate!): A Sermon on Matthew 5:1-12

As the posters around the church have been advertising, next Sunday is Consecration Sunday. Which means this morning is the morning I am supposed to say something insightful about stewardship. In addition, of course, to saints and the beatitudes. At first, I was not terribly excited about this combination of events. In fact, I will admit to Gloria that this sermon I am about to give is actually the second sermon I wrote for this weekend. In the first I ignored stewardship completely. And it was a pretty decent sermon. But then I went for a run, and as so often happens to me, I think it has something to do with not getting enough oxygen, the Holy Spirit proved to have a different plan for this morning’s sermon. In fact, the Holy Spirit seemed convinced that All Saints and the beatitudes have pretty important wisdom to share with us as we think about stewardship. So, against my initial desire but at the Holy Spirit’s urging, here is my sermon on All Saints, the beatitudes, and stewardship, and why all three are good news for us.

This sermon took the Holy Spirit’s urging because I don’t really like to preach about stewardship. And that really has more to do with my own struggles with the concept than it does about God. I am at a place in my life now where I can tithe, that has not always been the case. But I still wonder if I’m being generous enough, or too generous, am I managing the gifts God has given me the best I can? And while I frequently preach on things I don’t fully understand, that’s sort of the story of faith, money feels like a more complicated issue. I feel like how can I tell you about what is and is not faithful giving when I’m really not sure what that looks like in my own life. So I have to sort of get over myself in sermons about stewardship, and trust that somehow God finds my trying to be enough. I think this is where the saints really help us out.

I’d guess on any other day, if I asked you what a saint was, you would probably say a holy person, a Godly person, maybe a really good person. You might give Mother Teresa as an example, or Martin Luther King Jr. Maybe you’d think of one of the classics, like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Paul. But today invites us to remember ordinary saints, people who, when you think back on their lives of faith, you remember the ways they taught you, guided you, mentored you, challenged you, but you can also think back and, with that wry smile you only have toward someone you truly love, you can think, yes, he or she was truly a saint, but maybe not all the time…

One such saint who I remember this All Saints day is my grandmother Charlotte who passed away this past March. My grandmother is really the person who taught me how to worship. Every Sunday I would sit next to her in worship because she would rest the hymnal on the back of the pew in front of her, low enough so I could follow along. And when the offering plate came down the row, she would open her purse and hand me a dollar to put in the plate. I don’t know what my grandparents giving habits were, but I know they were faithful. After I put my dollar in the plate was passed to my grandfather, who put in their offering envelope. Theirs was a very traditional marriage, until he died my grandfather wrote the checks and my grandfather placed them in the plate. That was his job as head of the family. But my grandmother opened her wallet every week also, quietly teaching me about stewardship even though we never talked about it. I wish we’d talked about it. I wish I’d asked her why she so faithfully gave to the church, why she passed me a dollar to do the same. But she wasn’t much of a talker. It was one of the things that used to drive me crazy about her. She wasn’t perfect, my grandmother, but for me she was, she is, a saint. One of the people who led me to God.

One of the defining features of saints is not that they were these great, perfect, worker of miracles, but that they were people. They were good, honest, hard-working people who didn’t get it right every time, but who taught the value of trying again, of keeping on, people who remind us that God loves us no matter what.

The beatitudes is a great text for us this All Saints day because I think we sometimes hear the beatitudes with similar struggles that we hear the word saints. On this All Saint Sunday, we hear the story of how Jesus went up a mountain, followed by his disciples to teach them. A very important image in Matthew’s Gospel is Jesus as the new Moses, so we are very intentionally supposed to relate Jesus going up the mountain to give the Sermon on the Mount to Moses going up Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. But remember what we talked about last week, how human beings love laws. And how the Ten Commandments have so often become not guidelines for how to deepen inclusion, but checklists for creating exclusion.

And so, on a mountain, looking and sounding for all the world like Moses, Jesus gives what on this All Saints Sunday sounds deceptively like a checklist for sainthood. “Blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the peacemakers.” A nice little list, the pure in heart, the merciful, these all sounds like good saintlike qualities. We might be tempted to add “blessed are the stewards…” But it’s also kind of an intimidating list. What does it mean to be pure in heart, merciful, or thirst for justice? Am I doing enough? Does Jesus call me blessed?

But just as the Ten Commandments are not rules for exclusion, the Beatitudes are not a checklist for holiness. They are not practical advice; they are prophetic declaration. Jesus doesn’t say, if you are meek, you are blessed, if you mourn, you are blessed, if you seek justice, you are blessed. No Jesus says “Blessed are” each of these groups. What Jesus is doing here at the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount is to say no matter who you are, and no matter how you find yourself, this one fact about you is true, you are blessed.

The beatitudes offer the range of the human experience, from mourning and meek to hunger for righteousness, from peacemaking to persecution, and in the face of each of these experiences Jesus says you are blessed. The beatitudes are not goals to check off a list, they are options of ways we might find ourselves. We are never all of them at any time, but through our lifetimes we experience all of them. And in any gathered community all of them are experienced by someone.

And what’s more, Jesus assures us that these experiences are not the end of the story. Each of these blessings is followed by a promise. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth, blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy, and so on. Jesus knows that following the Christian life is not a magic shield that will protect you from harm. In the walk of faith you will still be meek, you will still mourn, you will still hunger and thirst for righteousness. But Jesus promises that in those times, in those places, in those moments of fear and doubt and pain, you are blessed and Jesus will lead you through them, will always be with you, will never leave you. See Jesus is not in the life insurance business; he is in the life assurance business. Instead of establishing criteria that must be met, Jesus outlines the attributes where blessings are found. Instead of promising freedom from suffering, Jesus promises to be with us in suffering and to lead us through that suffering to a future reality. Jesus promises that no matter what happens, we are blessed and our future will be different than our present.

The beatitudes promise that wherever we find ourselves in our journey through sainthood, we are blessed, we are loved, we are claimed by God. Which brings me back to my grandmother and stewardship. See what my grandmother taught me by putting that dollar in the plate every week was that every gift mattered to God. That even I, six years old and clutching someone else’s dollar, had something to contribute to the gathered community. And that’s a really powerful thing for us to remember. When we look at the budget next month, the top item on it is benevolence. This church gives ten percent right off the top back to the church. We don’t have a lot, but we give of what we’re able. And we’re only able to do that, because of what this community does together. This benevolence is not one person’s gift, it’s a portion of all of our contributions. Maybe you’re not in a place right now where you can tithe. Maybe your job situation is tight, or your health has changed, or whatever, but you give what you can. Or maybe you can give more than ten percent. Maybe you’ve been tithing and this is a year you really feel in a place to challenge yourself. We as a church give ten percent away because each of us together gives what we can, and the sum of us is better than our parts. And that ten percent we give? It goes to help others in their mission. Some congregations are in even tighter financial straits than we are and they cannot afford to give ten percent. Others are doing really well and they can support more. And all of us congregations together support the synod, and all the synods support the wider church, and the wider church supports mission and ministry across the nation and across the world. We don’t as a church, as a synod, as individuals get it right all the time. But we try, and we learn, and we go at it again. All of us. All the saints. Together. Whoever, wherever, blessed by God and blessing others. Amen.

Reforming: A Sermon on Matthew 22:34-46

You’ll notice I’m wearing a different stole this morning. This is the first Sunday I’ve been with you that hasn’t had the color green, so it’s the first time I’ve gotten to venture out a bit in my stole wearing. This stole is particularly special to me because it is my ordination stole. It was a gift from my parents and it was the stole the bishop laid over my shoulders at my ordination.

This stole is also special because it was hand made for me. A friend my parents know from their church is a weaver, and he wove it for me. While it was in progress John taught my parents to use the loom so they could add a couple of rows. He also invited anyone from their church, the church I grew up in, to come to his home to add a few rows. The gold threads that weave through it are from thread he bought to make a stole for a dear friend and mentor of mine. So in addition to being beautiful, this stole makes me feel tied to the many hands that worked on it, the church that raised me, and my friend who wears the same thread when she leads worship.

The sort of funny story about this stole was, since it was an ordination present, it was supposed to be a surprise. Trusting that John wouldn’t lead my parents wrong, I told them I didn’t want to see it until my ordination. Well John thought that was a nice plan, but his partner Neil couldn’t handle the wait. So the summer after I graduated seminary, Neil discovered I was in town visiting my parents and invited the three of us to their house. John gave me a tour of his studio and showed me how the stole was made. Then we sat in their living room while Neil, excited as a kid at Christmas, handed me a wrapped box. Inside was the stole. I tried it on, Neil opened a bottle of champagne, we toasted my graduation, and many pictures were taken. And in the long two years that I waited for ordination, the memory of that evening in John and Neil’s living room was such a gift. Because in Neil’s enthusiasm and John’s bringing together of so many people, I remembered that people believed in me, in my sense of call, and in the work the Holy Spirit was doing through me. And that support was priceless.

We wear red at ordinations, Pentecost, and Reformation Sunday because red is the color of the Holy Spirit. There are many images of the Spirit, the color red comes from the Holy Spirit as tongues of fire that descended on the disciples at Pentecost, sending them out into the world. Fire is a good image for the Spirit I think because fire, like the Spirit is unpredictable. Fire can be a destructive and terrifying force. Growing up in wildfire country, I know the terror of an uncontrollable burn. But it is also life-giving. In the forests, fire clears out the dense underbrush that prevents new life from taking root. Some trees, like the Giant Sequoias, require the heat of the fire to germinate their seeds. Fire’s reason for existing is not as a destructive force but as a creative one, clearing out the clutter and allowing space for new life to emerge.

We celebrate Reformation Sunday with the color red because that same movement is what the Reformation did. It cut through the laws and restrictions that were holding the people of God captive and brought them back to the heart of God’s message of grace, truth, life, and forgiveness, while shaping that message to be understood in a new way for a new time. The Holy Spirit doesn’t change God, since the Holy Spirit is God, but the Holy Spirit’s continual movement provides the lens for us to see the timelessness of God in the midst of our time-limited existence. In systems designed for a different time, the message of God can be obstructed by restrictions, so through Luther and the Reformers, the Holy Spirit blew through the church so that God’s love was again clear.

The one problem I have with Reformation Sunday is we say we are celebrating The Reformation, as if reformation was a single moment in history. But the truth is, the Holy Spirit is continually reforming, continually moving, continually blowing through our human structures and bringing new life. In fact, I think Jesus himself is about Reformation in our Gospel reading for this morning. You may have noticed a pattern over the past few weeks of the religious leaders testing Jesus. This week, it’s the Pharisees. They ask Jesus, what is the greatest commandment. They ask him this to try and trick him, to catch him in false teaching, or to somehow prove that his priorities are off. No matter which of the ten he chooses, a case could certainly be made that one of the others is truly more important, so there is plenty of space to make him look the fool.

But Jesus doesn’t play their game. Instead he responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Instead of picking one commandment over another, as the Pharisees had asked, Jesus boiled all the commandments down into their core purpose, love. Love God, love neighbor. Love. It’s as simple as that.

The Pharisees saw the commandments as rules for who got to be in the church. Their intentions were good; to protect the holiness of the people of God, but the problem is they missed the purpose. The Pharisees used the commandments as a fence for keeping people out, but the commandments were intended as a guide for keeping people in. God knew that in order for relationships to flourish, people would need guidance. So God gave them the commandments, do not lie, to not steal, do not murder, do not covet, not to keep some people out, but in order that everyone would be able to stay in. God knew that lying, stealing, etc., would break apart the community, and God did not want that. The Pharisees minds worked to be exclusive, do this or you are out, but the reign of God is always about being inclusive, here are rules to help your community thrive. The reign of God is always about trying to bring more people, offer more forgiveness, create more healing. So when the Pharisees tried to get Jesus to draw the lines a little closer, Jesus instead went to the heart of the commandment and looked out. Love God, love neighbor. If you do that, everything else will fall into place.

I wish this missing the heart of God problem was unique to the Pharisees, or to the medieval church, but it’s not. The painful truth is the church is made up of people and people get it wrong sometimes. People get fixed on laws or rules, people seek to figure out who is in and who is out, and what we remember on this Reformation Sunday is that the work of the Holy Spirit is to be always blowing through the church, cutting away the things that hold us captive and drawing us closer into the very heart of God.

The church is not perfect. It can break your heart. Maybe it has already, maybe you know some of the painful ways that the people of God can get the message wrong. But the promise of our Gospel text and the reminder of the reformation is that while the church might get it wrong, Jesus never does. God is in the church, but God is not contained by the church. God is always bigger than the church and because God is bigger than the church, God is continually about drawing the church closer into the heart of God’s love. Being church in the reign of God is about being a place where forgiveness is practiced, where grace is experienced, and where love is made known. And if the law doesn’t do that, it doesn’t mean the law is wrong, but it does mean we are interpreting it wrong.

The church, this church, our national church, the universal church, like each of us, is a work in progress. And because it is made of people, it can let you down. I will not show up when I’m supposed to, or I’ll say something stupid. Someone else will be focused on something and will hurt your feelings or make you feel unwelcome or let you down. But here’s something else to add to that. Because God is in the church, as much as we have an incredible capacity for pain, we also have an incredible capacity for grace. And if we can hold on to that promise, that the Holy Spirit is always at work among us, like the Spirit did through the words of Jesus to the Pharisees, through the writings of Paul, through the teachings of the fathers, the words of the reformers, and through our work and prayer and praise today, we will discover that in the midst of our communities, the reign of God is indeed at hand. Thanks be to our always reforming, ever-loving, judgment breaking God. Amen.

Unexpected: A Sermon on Isaiah 45:1-7

A question I get asked a lot is if I had planned to move to Michigan. With you all I’d like to settle the question once and for all. No. No, I never intended to move to Michigan. In fact, prior to coming here to interview and subsequently moving here, I had been in the state of Michigan four times. Once when my brother started law school, once for his graduation. One trip to the UP last summer. And once, on a road trip across the Ohio turnpike in 2007, my roommate and I took a 20-minute detour for lunch at a Subway, so I could check Michigan off the “list of states I’d visited.” I liked Michigan; don’t get me wrong. The UP especially was lovely, and Ann Arbor is a great city. But until Bishop Satterlee called to ask me to consider interviewing with a little congregation in a city I’d never heard of, Michigan, lovely as it was, was just not really on my radar.

I shouldn’t I suppose, have been surprised to end up in a place I hadn’t expected. The story of my faith has always sort of felt like this, with my merrily making plans as to how my life would unfold, and God merrily coming along behind and messing those plans all up. The result of this messing always turning out to be more than I imagined, more than I maybe would have dreamed for myself. I have jokingly referred to this as God’s cosmic sense of humor, but I think it’s something more than that; more like God’s vast ability and desire to dream more for me than I think I deserve or am capable of.

God’s cosmic messing in our lives are always life-giving. But there are other times, when our stories are knocked aside in ways and by forces that do not seem life-giving. Ways in which the bad does not seem to be giving way to something better. Times in which we wonder where God is in the midst of such tragic calamity. The Israelites in Isaiah find themselves in the middle of just such a shift.

In our Isaiah reading for this morning, the Israelites are reeling from a cosmic messing up of their story that doesn’t feel life-giving or very much like God. I talked a little bit last week about how the book of Isaiah tells of the experience of exile. Last week we heard one of those in-breaking stories, promising hope in the midst of judgment. This morning our reading is from the middle of the book of Isaiah, smack in the middle of persecution under Babylon. The story had been going along fine for Israel, or so it felt. They were a wealthy and prosperous nation. Trade was booming, commerce was flourishing; God truly blessed them. On the surface, the story was great, but hovering just below another story was taking root. Corruption, greed, persecution, inequality, those were the true forces at work. Sin and brokenness had slipped into the system. And sin, as it has a way of doing, does not confine itself to those whom welcomed it in. The headlines of wealth and prosperity were just that, headlines. Below them the foundation of justice was weak. And so, when the Babylonians came calling, the system crumbled, taking with it the guilty and the innocent alike.

That’s the thing about sin. It is not bound to those who created it. When sin comes to collect, it has no sense of equity, no restriction to those from whom it is owed. Sin takes its piece from the middle, demanding more and bigger interest on its debt. And the Isarelites, those who benefitted from the inequality and those who suffered, all found their stories washed away in the wake of the exile in Babylon. Guilty or not, all were held by the bronze doors and iron bars of captivity.

And then, unexpectedly, the story changed. Out of the midst of a future that seemed to hold nothing but exile and destruction, a savior broke through. “Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped…I will go before you and level the mountains, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron, I will give you the treasures of darkness and riches hidden in secret places, so that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name.”

God is always messing up our stories in order to bring us to life. No matter how clearly the path we think we have drawn, or how stuck in sin we seem to be, God is always moving and driving and bringing life in darkness, hope when all seems hopeless.

And here’s the really crazy part of this story. Those promises, that hope, can come from the most unexpected of sources. God promised the people of Israel “treasures of darkness and riches hidden in secret places.” And that salvation would come to Israel from such an unlikely source as Cyrus was certainly such a treasure. Because here’s the thing about Cyrus. He wasn’t an Israelite. He wasn’t seeking to bring justice or promote harmony. Cyrus was the king of Persia. He was the pagan leader of a heathen nation. And yet, it was through him the God would deliver God’s people from exile. God said to Cyrus, “for the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I surname you, though you do not know me. [Because] I am the LORD, and there is no other; besides me there is no god.”

It seems wildly unlikely that salvation would come through Cyrus. But if we look back, the whole of our salvation history is the story of a God who always breaks through in the most wildly unlikely ways. The son of a Hebrew slave, left in a basket and raised as a foster child in the court of Pharaoh, raised his rod and the Red Sea broke in two so the Israelites could march to freedom. The heathen king of Persia conquered the Babylonians in his own quest for power, and freed the Israelites from their exile. And of course, that most unexpected of indwellings, that began when the birthing wail of an infant in a stable cut through a cold winter night, reached it’s height on a Friday afternoon when the dying gasp of a political prisoner caused the curtain of the temple to be torn in two, and finally came to completion when an earthquake revealed an empty tomb, breaking open the barrier of sin and death that kept us apart from God. A breaking we remember when we gather at the font or around the table and experience for ourselves a God who breaks through each and every day in the most common elements of bread and wine and water.

God breaks into our lives in unexpected places, God breaks into our lives in unexpected ways, God breaks into our lives in unexpected people. Sometimes those unexpected people are even us…

That is the possibly the most unexpected twist in this text. This text is addressed not to the oppressed Israelites, but to the King of Persia. God chose Cyrus, of all people, to bring hope to the Israelites. Cyrus, who never even knew it, never even knew God, was God’s instrument in bringing salvation. And if God chose Cyrus, then God can and does choose us. Not only does God break into the captive places in our lives, but God also uses us to break into the captive places in others' lives. God told Cyrus, “I call you by your name. I surname you, though you do not know me.” And God calls us by our names too. Surnames us, in ways we do not even know. We are the ones God uses to break into this world. God uses us, though we do not know what we are doing, or where we are going, though we may not even know it is God who is acting, but uses us to be God’s hands and feet creating light and life in this world.

Our unexpected God breaks in. This is the history of our salvation; this is the promise of our future. God, who loved us so much that slavery under Pharaoh, that exile in a foreign land, that even death itself could not keep God apart from us, is still working in our lives and communities to break down everything that holds us captive. This unexpected God is even working through us. Thanks be to God. Amen.