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Grace, Mercy, and Peace to you from the Holy Trinity. Amen.
This week, on my last week as your vicar, Jesus talks about causing division and how he didn't come to bring peace to the earth. Which, I hope isn't a prophetic message about me leaving...I pray you all stay House For All Sinners and Saints and that there aren't a whole group of you who break off and follow me to Chicago in protest of me leaving. Because, you'd miss out on a fabulous community and I couldn't give you communion. Plus, it would just be weird.
I was even tempted to not preach on this passage today, because I find it pretty uncomfortable...instead of a shiny happy Jesus like we see in pictures, with a perfectly manicured beard and white robes, and the sun placed just perfectly behind his freshly Aveda conditioned locks of hair...instead of that, we have an image of Jesus this week that looks a quite a bit more like the street preacher who came to my college once a year who likely had a theological education that amounted to this small selection of verses that talk about Jesus being kind of rude.
But no matter what your view of Jesus, a God figure that preaches division instead of harmony flies in the face of our bourgeois protestant desire for unity and peace and love. None of which are bad, but they just don't really mesh up with a Jesus who doesn't want everyone to play nice. (Except that bit about drama between Mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws...that part is pretty easy to understand). And more than that, they certainly don't mesh with a Jesus who is actively destructive, wishing fires to come down and kindle the earth.
So, this week as I was trying desperately not to preach on this gospel story, I spent some time thinking about why I didn't want to preach about it. And it came down to me thinking that this story was about Jesus creating division between people who are more-or-less good, people like you and me. And I just couldn't reconcile a God who randomly picks some people and ignores other people with the God that I know who invites everyone to her table.
This week the Old Testament story from Jeremiah talks about us having a God that is nearby and not far off. To me, those words seemed comforting, God is intimately connected to our lives and our stories, but then I was reading an article by someone who knows more about the Old Testament than I do, and she mentioned that to the people that was written to, God being nearby struck far more terror in them than the notion of a distant and removed God. And the more I thought about it, really thought about a God that is right there, with me all the time, the more I kind of had that same experience. I'm not sure that I want a God that is standing next to me all the time...and I don't imagine I'm alone in this.
I'm sure you don't want God to be right next to you as you gossip to your friend about how much you hate your best friend's new boyfriend and scheme about how to break them up. Or when you have given up on relationships with people and have turned to a relationship with the "private browsing" function of your web browser. Or when you lie to people at community meal about how you are fine, when your mental health or your finances are falling apart, just to keep up appearances.
I know I don't want a God who is right next to me when I shoot off a text to the person sitting next to me in class that makes fun of the guy next to her...and especially not when I'm full of guilt when that guy drives into a lake. I don't want God to be nearby when I don't correct the cashier who charged me for small avocados when they were actually large ones. I don't want God to be up in my business knowing that I snuck a picture in an art museum gallery that I wasn't supposed to take pictures in.
I, for one, would be pretty ashamed, if I believed that God was nearby, and not far off. And so, while I can wax poetic about God being present in my life, and in nature, and the Holy Spirit's breath being in every person on earth...I still like to trick myself into believing that God is far off, somewhere on a cloud, playing games of bowling to make it thunder. Like it was much more comfortable for Jeremiah's people to think God was off in the distance, I suspect that all of us are in the same boat as them. It's much more comfortable with a God we think we can hide parts of ourselves from. It's certainly more comfortable believing that God is in the cosmos not really paying attention to the day to day business we find ourselves in.
What would it mean if God was nearby? I think a Nearby God means we would have to tell the truth about ourselves. A Nearby God would mean that trying to hide parts of us that we don't like doesn't work...what we try to hide with will get burned away, leaving us pretty vulnerable...and exposing who we really are.
This year you all have taught me about God being nearby. I've seen each of you, in different ways, live your life believing...really trusting that God is nearby. This lets you tell the truth about yourselves, it frees you to live life in a way that isn't trying to hide part of yourself from God, but rejoices that God is present in your lives, and that you don't need to be afraid of him. You've taught me that when parts of us get consumed in the flames Jesus talks about, that those parts of ourselves are really meant to be burnt away in the first place, so that we can be our true selves in the presence of God and of one another. So, I rejoice that Christ burns away the shame I might feel with a nearby God, and lets me live as a saint *and* a sinner in the arms of God.
You've taught me that instead of running from one happy thing to another, like a frog jumping on lily pads and never getting in the water, that I can take the jump into myself, to let myself experience all that life has to offer, not just the good parts. And that I can do that because I have a God that is nearby, present in my life...to love and cherish me as I am, not who I pretend to be.
And I don't believe that it is an accident that you truly believe in and experience a nearby God who burns just enough of you to leave you telling the truth. Because every single week you come here and hear the promises of God in words proclaimed. You come and eat and drink the body and blood of Christ, becoming what you receive. You believe in a God nearby because God is present in the meal at the table, and through eating and drinking, Christ works in you, transforming you, giving you the freedom to live in the presence of a nearby God.
I'm grateful for this God of ours. Because when it sucks this much to leave a place that I am incredibly fond of, I know that God is with me, in grief and sadness and tears, and I can leave knowing that God is with all of you as well and that we are all, and will always be, connected to one another in the body of Christ, surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses, wrapped in the arms of the Holy Spirit. And my prayer for all of you is this; that God continue to work in your life, burning away all the parts of you that keep you from being who you really are, a created and beautiful child of God. Amen.
