God is on the Loose Sermon

GOD IS ON THE LOOSE!
Genesis begins with the world in chaos. How often have we felt our lives were chaotic? Despite all our best efforts, despite our control, circumstances of LIFE SEEK CHAOS.
A shapeless-lifeless-shadowed-void-in dark. And God created out of chaos BALANCE. Dark & Light, Night & Day, Heaven & Earth, Water & Land, Plants& Animals, Fish in the Seas & Birds in Skies, then God created Man. Humanity [according to Genesis] was formed in the image of God. Not to look like God, but to compliment and contrast and partner with God, to share in Creation.
The point of Genesis, is not Whether there is a God?, or Who is God?, or whether the world came into being by accident or intelligent design? But rather, WHO ARE WE?, what does it mean to be human? What is our purpose, what is our identity, what are we supposed to be when we grow up?
Humanity was created in the image of God, and all of life, all the universe was balanced, Dark and Light, Night and Day, Heaven and Earth, Water and Land, Plants and Animals, Fish in the Seas and Birds in Skies, God and Human Life.

HOWEVER, Human history, is that CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD…, Humanity sought NOT to balance, NOT to compliment God sharing in Creation, NOT to fulfill God’s Creation, but RATHER to TAKE GOD OUT
to CREATE ourselves as BEING GOD in our lives.
No one ever sought to be EVIL, we may not even admit a desire to be God,…
but a desire to control our circumstance, to protect and provide for our children, to live eternal, to be all knowing, to make miracles happen when life seems unfair...these are what it means to be God. GOD is: Illusive, SPIRIT, Eternal, All Knowing, All Powerful, Unpredictable, Dangerous.
We each created separate lives for ourselves, where God was safely tucked away, kept in a place of Sanctuary, a HOLY Place of Safety, where we could on occasion visit God to make Sacrifices, to pray and to wonder. All the while, convincing ourselves this is MY LIFE, MY TIME, MY WORLD, MY NATION, MY COMMUNITY, MY JOB, MY SCHOOL, MY HOME, MY FAMILY, MY CHURCH.

Mark begins with A DIFFERENT REALITY, a different place and time. The focus is not upon us, not our world, not our control. Mark begins: The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus, the Messiah, Lord and Savior.
In this reality, the whole world is again in chaos, and JOHN came, an Historic truth. We may question if Jesus is or is not the Son of God, but that John came, people remember. JOHN came calling people to repent for the forgiveness of sins.
A demonstration of just how chaotic life had become, how far away from BALANCE, how far away from God…Throughout the Old Testament, particularly Isaiah, people were continually being told to go to Jerusalem, they sought the Promised Land, the City of God, the City of David, they were taken in bondage and sought only Jerusalem, to seek the safety of Sanctuary with God. Mark begins in a world so chaotic, so confused, that ALL the people, not the chosen few, but ALL the People were coming OUT OF JERUSALEM to go to the wilderness, to repent and be Baptized.

Caught up in our identity as Americans, is a heritage of accomplishment. Americans landed on the Moon. Americans designed and built steel structures that reach into the sky. But the truth of history, is that Americans did not so much seek ACCOMPLISHMENT as to SURPASS REALITY AS WE KNEW IT to create a new reality.
In Paris, the architect Eiffel unveiled a tower greater than anything the world had seen, challenging American Architects to build the skyscrapers of New York.
Russia was the first to put a dog in space, and we sought to put a man on the moon.

So much of human life is about ACCOMPLISHMENT, PROVIDING CLOSURE.
Did I SUCCEED? Did I lock the door? Did I kiss the baby goodnight? Did I do everything possible before my loved one died? FAITH is acceptance we are not alone, and God is a God of WHOLE NEW BEGINNINGS, the Creator always creating. HUMANITY is by nature finite & PESSIMISTIC, whereas FAITH IS OPTIMISTIC.

According to the Evangelist, the Good News, was not simply our being Baptized by John, making a sacrifice to atone for our sins and repent and move on… But JOHN PROPHESIED Another would come and JESUS came and JESUS was baptized by John. AND DOING SO, our Reality was ripped open/ OUR BALANCE WAS BROKEN. GOD IS ON THE LOOSE!

Perhaps another way of describing this, is that when we want so much for life to return to NORMAL, instead of GOING BACK, trying to make everything nice and to fit; instead in relation to God we need to seek to co-create a NEW NORMAL.

By TRANSLATION we have taken the power out of the Word making words only words rather than hearing the full force of the Good News, the power of Statements of Faith.
We have created for ourselves this pastoral image of Jesus standing by himself and bowing down, as clouds part and in the beams of sunlight A DOVE, the symbol of soap and cleanliness and purity floats down like a fragile bubble to land upon Jesus.

BUT that is not the GOOD NEWS.
Jesus was Baptized by John, and IMMEDIATELY [with a sense of urgency and power], Heaven was ripped open, as the SPIRIT of God flew like a Dove or Pigeon into him.
How does a dove or pigeon fly?
Hawks and Eagles soar slowly and gracefully, grasping tree limbs in powerful talons. Hummingbirds and Chickadees work at flapping their wings to stay afloat.
But Pigeons and Doves fly straight and fast like an arrow, with the Commitment of follow through that does not stop because they touch ground, instead there is such power that flight continues to carry them. This is what the Holy Spirit of God was like…
Heaven was ripped open, IMMEDIATELY the Spirit came shooting toward humanity AIMED directly at Jesus and like a pigeon or dove God’s Spirit did not stop but followed through going right INTO him.

And IMMEDIATELY a Voice came from Heaven…I AM WELL PLEASED!
Have you ever done something, that you absolutely knew was RIGHT…
Volunteering to do something, making a choice, accepting a responsibility and feeling as though there is a voice of AFFIRMATION of BLESSING. The point is NOT PRIDE in our accomplishments, our mastery of our world, but rather A RIGHTEOUS MOMENT, affirmation and assurance that this is as God would want. COGNIZANT that GOD told ABRAHAM take YOUR SON, and Isaiah, that the Servant must suffer, to PLEASE GOD is not necessarily a great success in human understanding.
Mark does not provide all the detail the other writers do. Whether Jesus was from Bethlehem, or Judea, or Nazareth or Egypt, how he was born… Shepherds, Angels, … All that is excess to the reality that Jesus was Baptized and in his Baptism REALITY CHANGED. GOD IS ON THE LOOSE.

According to Mark, God appoints a season for Jesus to come to grips with this spirit. But just as the Spirit seems to have taken him up out of the water and thrown him into the wilderness, when John was Handed Over,
and in John that is the verb regarding what happened to John and to Jesus and to
the Disciples, they were not arrested, they were not charged, but they were
BETRAYED & HANDED OVER to AUTHORITIES who put them to death.
When John was Handed Over, Jesus was brought out of the wilderness, because he came not to be served, but to serve, and according to Mark the TEMPTATION that we imagine as being 40 days of LENT, for Jesus continued all his life. Baptism continues all of life, not as a permanent resolution, a final completion, but rather as a new orientation for life, that we are thrown by the spirit into circumstance and tempted with DO I ACT AS GOD, or Live in relation to God who is free to act?

Mark does not report on the TEMPTATIONS in the Wilderness, instead, for this evangelist, the reporting of real temptations comes when Jesus stands up to Simon Peter saying “Get Behind Me Satan” and in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus is praying about the Crucifixion, and says “Let this cup pass from me, yet not my will, but thine.”

Jesus, according to Mark, preached REPENTANCE. Now Repentance, according to the Evangelist is NOT what you want your brother to do. REPENTANCE is a RADICAL RE-ORIENTATION OF LIFE.
As if these organ pipes were suddenly all turned upside down,
as if life was not a series of wins and measurable accomplishments but of SERVICE,
if PEACE was neither the ABSENCE of WAR nor a CONTEST OF DOMINANCE but a realization of OUR NEED FOR BALANCE, the SYSTEMIC NEED for ALL of life,
or if we tried to look at life not from our own perspective, or from another’s but CROSS-EYED. OOOH, that is what we are called to do, not just to see through blurred vision, or prophetically, or historically, but to see life through the perspective of the cross.

According to the Evangelist, LIFE IS DIFFERENT, we have a NEW NORMAL, because Jesus, of all people Jesus who died for us, humbled himself to kneel down and seek repentance, and was Baptized. AND by his BAPTISM, GOD IS ON THE LOOSE.

More and more in life, I’ve come to realize that faith is not about having everything worked out. Few people ever witnessed God in the Perfect Sermon, or the ideal Session Meeting, HOWEVER, there are those “RIPPED OPEN TIMES in life”, when we are not in control and we have to look elsewhere for guidance, and by our not trying to be God, we are able to know the presence of the Holy and know that GOD IS ON THE LOOSE.