Acts 2:14a,22-32, 1 Peter 1:3-9, John 20:19-31

by Genevieve Zetlan, Licensed Lay Preacher

So, here we are. Easter. Christ has risen, we sang our Alleluias, we celebrated the empty tomb and then we all went home. This is typically what we call a “low” Sunday—even fewer people attend church than normal, because although the Church wants us to celebrate Easter for another 6 weeks, we’ve kind of already moved on.

Contrast that with the disciples, one week after the first Easter, still locked in a room in fear—despite Mary Magdalene’s message, they haven’t moved on at all. Because while our Easters are bright and beautiful, filled with colored eggs and spiffy clothes—that first Easter was messy. It wasn’t something you moved on from all that easily.

So it’s one week later, and Jesus appears to the disciples, and he shows them all the very real, very messy holes in his hands and his side. All of them but Thomas.

Remember Thomas? He’s the disciple who, a few weeks ago, when Jesus said “Let’s all go to Galilee to wake up my dead friend Lazarus” and all the disciples said “Uh, Jesus, the Galileans just tried to stone you two days ago. If Lazarus is dead anyway maybe we’d better not go back just yet”. Thomas is the one who says with some degree of sarcastic resignation, “Fine –We might as well all go and die too”.

This is a man who is a realist if there ever was one. He has a particular kind of faith – the kind that is willing to do whatever is necessary, even though he’s pretty sure it’s not going to be in the least bit useful or successful. He has his doubts that any of this is really going to matter at all. But he’s willing to go wherever Jesus goes anyway.

And so it is that same Thomas, the resigned realist, who is out of the room when Jesus shows up. And he’s missing because he is the only disciple who is not afraid. For two millennia now his skepticism has earned him a bad rap and the nickname “Doubting Thomas”, but doubt isn’t a bad thing – Philip Yancey once said the opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear. And the disciples are surely huddled in fear in that upper room, whereas Thomas – well, maybe he went to fetch some food, or get news of what was going on in the city – but he certainly wasn’t cowering in fear.

And you can, if you squint across the millennia and remember that this was a close-knit group of men who had traveled together for more than a year—and human beings haven’t really changed that much—you can just imagine this group of grown men deciding to play a little joke on Thomas the realist. “Let’s tell him we saw Jesus!” And Thomas, well he isn’t going to be played.

Which is why we need him. The truth is, we are all really Thomas— a little skeptical of being played. A little skeptical of what that homeless person will do with our dollar thrown in the cup. A little skeptical sometimes that anything we do is going to make any difference at all.

Why? Because we want to matter. We want to make a difference. It’s a noble impulse at first glance. We live in a culture that is defined by accomplishment, so that we want even our charity to accomplish something, to be successful, to do good (however we define “good”). We are goal oriented, even in our agape – our love offerings.

But love has no goals. Love is simply at-one-ment.

At-one-ment. Atonement. It is the meaning of Easter.

I’ll be honest, it’s a miracle they let me stand up here because I’ve always had a problem with Easter. The idea that God demanded a blood sacrifice as proper atonement for the sins of humanity, and that only his son could be perfect enough to supply the necessary blood, doesn’t seem like the kind of God I can fall into the arms of. But there is an alternative view of Easter offered by the Franciscans – you might remember St. Francis as a lover of all of God’s creation.

According to the Franciscans, Jesus is not some “Plan B” God had to come up with because of the whole Garden of Eden thing. Jesus was God’s first thought and first Word. He is not an afterthought—He is the whole point. He is the embodiment of the divine and the human, inseparable – the at-one-ment of God and created matter.

Every single moment of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, from healing the blind to washing the disciples’ feet to cooking a fish dinner on the beach, shows us how to be “at-one” with God and with the world God created.

And though we often think of the word “sacrifice” as meaning “punishment”, the meaning of the word is simply this: a freely given offering to God. Jesus offered his entire life to “God’s dream of union with all things and all people in every moment of his life, no matter how great the cost to him.”[1] He freely gave over the living of his entire life as the ultimate example of the at-one-ness of divinity and creation.

His entire life, every moment of it, not just the cross, is agape — a love offering.

And agape, Love, is extravagant. It doesn’t care about being taken advantage of and it doesn’t care about the end result. Love leaves us open and vulnerable, and it’s what we are asked to do—because to be hard of heart is to wall ourselves off from the messy creation that so desperately needs at-one-ment with God. We need it, too.

It’s all too easy to keep our distance, to become hard hearted. When we hear the news that we have bombed someone and our first thought “Good! They deserved it!” When we hear of another incident of violence and our first impulse is to take sides and decide who was “right”. When we use argument and indignation and self-justification to wall off our hearts from the hurt around us and inside us because it’s just too messy, too painful, and too difficult to love this world, and each other—that is when we need Thomas.

Thomas gets to put his hands into the wounds in Jesus’s side, his hands, and his feet. Because keeping a “safe” distance from the messy, painful stuff is not what Jesus’ disciples are charged to do.

And if we are to get close enough, like Thomas, to be at-one with God’s creation and with our Creator, as we are meant to be – at some point we will hurt. And at some point we will doubt it is all worthwhile or that there’s any point.

I struggle, having been part of our Haiti Mission for 6 years now, with how overwhelming it is to accomplish anything that feels substantial, even in a single village. I struggle with the fact that year after year we barely keep the school open, keep our children and the other 250 students there outfitted, with access to teachers and books. I struggle with the fact that it’s been 3 years of effort for us to just be able to say we have finally started a building project to bring basic sanitation to the school. It’s hard to feel, sometimes, like we’re getting anywhere at all. There are times in November before each trip that I, like Thomas, want to throw up my hands and say “Fine—for all the good it will do we may as well go there and die with them!”

But. Love has no goals. Love is simply at-one-ment.

People here who will never get to visit Haiti will never touch the hands of the children we support, will never see their feet kicking the soccer balls we bring, will never return their smiles in person. People here believe without seeing that our small act of witness in this world, our agape in the face of this world’s terror and brutality and corruption, matters. That somehow in all the waiting and uncertainty, Jesus will walk in out of seemingly nowhere and show us in every breath, a love-offering—a life at-one with creation.

Love has no agenda, no list of accomplishments, no purpose that can be quantified and demonstrated. Love just walks in, and breathes peace where there was fear.

And although our Gospel writer turns Thomas into a morality story about how we should all believe without seeing, it’s important to notice that Jesus does give Thomas exactly what he needs. He meets Thomas where he is, in his skepticism, his realism, his doubt that this is all going to be worthwhile. And He comes very, very close to him. He touches him in the messiest possible way.

And then love sends us out to do the work He has given us to do – we are sent to be God’s own messy hands and feet in the world, to live at-one-ment with God’s creation as best we can. We could do a lot worse than to be like Thomas, to have the faith to do what is necessary even we when doubt that any of this is going to matter at all.

Because we don’t know which of the children being educated today in Chapoteau is the next Wisnel, the next who will work selflessly, tirelessly for a people in desperate need of some Good News. Who will bring them close to at-one-ment with their and your and my Creator.

Thomas is the disciple who shows us that what it means to be faithful is to keep on following Jesus, even when all indications are that it’s pointless to do so. To keep on opening ourselves to the messiness of at-one-ment with creation. Thomas is an example of the faith of love that needs no purpose, other than closeness with the creator and the world God created.

Love that has no goals. Agape.

Amen.

[1] Jakeowensby.com

by Genevieve Zetlan, Licensed Lay Preacher

Exodus 24:12-18, 2 Peter 1:16-21, Matthew 17:1-9

I’ve always thought the most puzzling thing about our Gospel lesson this morning is what is not said. God speaks. That’s pretty significant. That only happens twice in the New Testament – once when Jesus is baptized, when God says “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased” and here, which starts in much the same way “This is my son, the beloved”. But then God goes on to give the only direct, from-the-mouth-of-God command in the New Testament: “listen to” Jesus.

And then, Jesus appears to not really say anything! You’d think when God says “listen up!” The next words out of Jesus’ mouth would be something pretty profound.

To recap, Jesus has taken a couple disciples up the mountain with him, and they have seen him “transfigured” – hence what we call Transfiguration Sunday in the church. And Peter’s first thought upon witnessing this incredible thing is to memorialize it, so the spot where it happened will be always known. So that it can be celebrated, and not forgotten.

And what’s wrong with that? We humans seem to have a need to capture and preserve the moment. Nationally, we commemorate Presidents and leaders, we remember wars and tragedies. In the Episcopal Church we still have vergers that originated in the 12^th century who carry sticks to swat at any animals disrupting the procession. I’m rather certain that today Peter would have suggested taking a picture and posting it on Facebook. Preserving and sharing personal and institutional memories is important. They celebrate and define who we are, and where we come from. The things we choose to remember and commemorate become our narrative and our identity.

Personally, I am an incurable photo album keeper and video documenter of my children’s lives. Every year I create a birthday video for each of my children. I try to capture everyday moments as well as pivotal ones from the past year. I hope one day, maybe when they’re teenagers, I’ll be able to use it as documentary evidence that they did not have awful childhoods! And rewatching those videos together cements in them a narrative, a story of who they are. But on occasion, I miss the shot. When Sara got her ears pierced for her 9^th birthday a month ago, I was using the iPad instead of my phone, which worked a little differently, and the video didn’t start recording until after the big moment was over. And I was so upset! Ridiculously upset. That moment was gone forever, would never happen again, and now I didn’t have documentation of this important life event!

In a sense, we feel that we ARE our memories. Our bodies change, but our memories, we believe, create the continuity that allows us to have an identity – I am Genevieve, because of all the things I remember experiencing. It’s the reason why Alzheimers and Dementia are so very scary. For those of us watching a loved one lose their memory, we seem to lose the person.

And that, perhaps, is the problem this morning. Because it is not Truth.

The Truth is that what makes us who we are is not our memories. Our identity as individuals is not in anything we have seen or done. Our identity as a church is not in our work in Pine Ridge or Dungannon or Haiti, or in our preschool or our Spanish service, or any of the things we do. Doing good work in the world is wonderful and necessary and even important. But it is not our purpose. We are not just a group of generous people supporting another charitable non profit.

Our Identity, our Truth, is that we belong to God. And that is something no loss of memory or institutional turmoil can ever change. We are not created to work, but to live, as beloved by God.

So why did Jesus take those disciples up to the mountain in the first place – If not to memorialize and remember the experience, and pass it on to us? Notice Jesus doesn’t take just one disciple, he takes a few – and he will tell them later that where a few are gathered, he is there. It is together, in community, that Jesus calls them to witness who he truly is – not in the sense of standing by and watching and remembering, but in the sense of bearing witness. Jesus’ disciples are to be living examples of God’s revelation to the world.

They are to re-live, not enshrine, their experience.

Likewise, we do not come here each week and have Eucharist to memorialize or re-enact something that happened a long time ago in a particular time and place. We come here each week to re-live the experience of Jesus’ love for us. To know that we belong to God, we are God’s beloved, and to bear witness, as part of a community that is a living example of Jesus’ Truth, here and now.

So, to those first witnesses, those few disciples, God says “listen to” Jesus, my beloved.

And then all Jesus says is “Get up and do not be afraid.” And because Peter has apparently just fallen to the ground in awe or terror, and because we hear that “do not be afraid” phrase virtually every single time someone encounters God, or a messenger of God, we are inclined to hear this phrase as a simple reassurance to Peter. But it is much more than that.

Get up. And do not be afraid.

It is the answer to the question of how we live in witness to Jesus, instead of merely memorializing or remembering him. It is the answer to the question of what we do once we define our identity as “those who belong to God”, those who have experienced the transfigurative love of God.

Because when we know, with certainty, that we belong to God, are beloved by God, then we can be not afraid. Not afraid of losing a moment or a memory or an identity that we cling to. Not afraid of change in our family or our church or our country.

Get up. And do not be afraid.

When we know, with certainty, that we belong to God, are beloved by God, then we can get up, and stand up, and do what we know Jesus would do. We can act with radical love towards the world, because we do more than just remember Jesus, we are living witnesses to how Jesus acts towards the world.

When I was growing up in Virginia Beach our church sponsored 4 young men to immigrate to the United States, just four among the thousands of the Lost Boys of Sudan. As 6 or 7 year old children they had fled their homes when parents, friends, and neighbors were slaughtered or kidnapped. They walked hundreds of miles, masses of children, dying along the way from lack of food and water, from crocodiles and lions, to reach a refugee camp across the border in another country – Kenya. And there they lived for years, sharing food and space and lives with children from the enemy tribe, also refugees from the violence. And after 10 years or more waiting in a refugee camp, four of them came to this country and were given 3 months in which to learn their way around, get a job and become self-supporting. One of them got a job waiting tables and rode a bike to and from work every day. And one day, as he was riding home, a local youth with a gun stepped in front of him and demanded his bike. And this young refugee replied, “If your need is greater than mine, you may have it.”

Get up. And do not be afraid.

Our letter from Peter, recounting the experience of witnessing to the transfiguration, reminds us that we are living witnesses to extraordinary transformation. When all around us is dark, the knowledge that we are beloved by God, that we belong to God, is what we are to be attentive to. And then we witness, through our lives, what being beloved looks like.

Two weeks ago a man who works with immigrants in Savannah, Georgia, led an adult forum at Christ Church. He talked about a immigrant from Iran who was taking public transportation to his job at a car wash. It was a two hour commute, each way. Back in Iran this man was a gifted tailor and an embroiderer of exquisite wedding gowns. One of the adult forum members at the church knew a woman who ran a tailoring shop in town, and called her right there from church. The woman said that although business was slow, she would offer this immigrant a job on the spot, on faith.

Get up. And do not be afraid.

Our identity, our Truth, is that we are beloved by God. We all belong to God: robber and a refugee, immigrant and an entrepreneur, Christian and not. And what do we do with that Truth?

Get up. And do not be afraid.

Amen.

by Genevieve Zetlan, Licensed Lay Preacher

2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12, Luke 19:1-10

Being 5 foot two and having spent quite a lot of time in trees as a little girl, I have to say I feel a certain affinity with Zacchaeus. We had this enormous, wonderful old magnolia tree in our yard when I was about 10, and I would climb up there with a book and disappear for hours. My mother would come looking for me, calling for me, and I would stay up there watching the world (and yes, totally ignoring her)—escaping from everything.

And it seems Zaccheaus probably needed an escape from time to time, too. He’s not, shall we say, well liked. He’s rich, and he’s a tax collector—an occupation universally despised, because tax collectors were often corrupt and they worked for the occupying Roman government (and who in this history of time doesn’t love to complain about taxes and low-level government employees?)

But like many other outsiders throughout our Gospels, Zaccheaus wants a glimpse of Jesus. So, he climbs a tree.

There’s a whole new way of seeing the world, being in a tree. Nobody ever looks up. Nobody sees you. You’re isolated. From up there everything looks tiny and insignificant, and you can see much farther. You get a shift in perspective, as well as an escape.

And shift in perspective is exactly what this Gospel story requires. Because there is, actually, no evidence in our story that Zacchaeus was dishonest or corrupt. The Hebrew translation of his name, in fact, means “pure” or “innocent”. And Zaccheus himself has a telling word in the story: “IF I have defrauded anyone of anything”—the implication being that he hasn’t.

So the people muttering about Zacchaeus appear to be judging him unworthy of hosting Jesus, without really knowing him. It’s a very human thing to do – we’re all guilty of using a kind of mental shorthand just to get through the day. We tend to categorize people into boxes that enable us to make sense of the world, of other people’s behavior, and move on. That jerk that cut us off in traffic. That sullen looking teenager at the package store. That rude customer service representative on the phone.

That’s not a great thing to do, admittedly, but most of the time, we think these things briefly to ourselves and move on. But the people in this story “grumble” instead. They talk amongst themselves—about Jesus and his poor choice of companion, about Zaccheaus and how undeserving he is.

But throughout Scripture, God has never picked the people who are worthy, by our standards, of his fellowship. God has never been about rewarding only the deserving with His presence. In this instance, Jesus is quite literally “standing up for the little guy”.

And so Jesus says to Zaccheaus “Hurry and come down! I MUST stay at your house!” Jesus is urgent, and insistent, in his call. It is a call that (unlike my mother’s) Zaccheaus can’t ignore from up in that tree. Jesus invites himself to Zaccheaus’s table (which I can tell you is definitely not How Things are Done in the South)—because Jesus invites himself into our lives even when he’s not really invited. Even when we’re jealous or hurt or resentful or busy or impatient or some other not-so-great version of ourselves.

Jesus bursts into our lives while we’re watching from afar, and insists that we become active participants in the unfolding drama of God’s incredible story.

We know that when 2 or 3 are gathered, Jesus is there. And we certainly seek out God in times of need. But there are lots of times we’re don’t invite God to be with us. And yet, God shows up anyway, and calls us to come to table.

When I was a recent college graduate and had just moved to Northern Virginia, I knew pretty much nobody in the area. I didn’t have a church yet, and I was commuting from Centreville to Alexandria every day, which meant getting up at 5 am to beat the traffic. I was tired all the time, and lonely, and not sure of myself. And then a couple girls I knew from college who had also moved to this area sent out an email asking if anyone wanted to get together for dinner. We met at Maggiano’s in Tysons Corner in October of 1999. And we’ve been getting together for dinner every month since then. We’ve seen each other through 3 weddings, 5 houses, 6 kids, 2 divorces, 2 advanced degrees, more job changes than I can remember—and in 17 years I can count the number of months we’ve missed on one hand with fingers left over.

One thing I credit my Southern family with, is understanding that table fellowship breaks down those boxes we put each other in. What happens around a table is spiritual. We mostly don’t know one another’s story, and we almost never can. But breaking bread together is supposed to change us. It’s supposed to take us out of our boxes and make us more generous towards each other—make us see each other as the flawed, vulnerable, fellow sons and daughters of God that we all are. It builds relationships, and community. It changes lives.

And welcoming Jesus gladly, sharing hospitality with Jesus, does change Zaccheaus. Not necessarily from a dishonest tax collector into an honest man, but certainly from a rich man into a generous one. Zaccheus vows to give away half his wealth—enough to make a difference not just in his own life, but in the lives of those in his community.

In doing so, he reminds us that we are stewards not just of our financial resources, though our Stewardship Ministry would certainly like to remind you that’s pretty important, and your pledge cards should be turned in by next week! But we are also stewards of each other. Zaccheaus’ vow to give away his wealth after sitting down to break bread with Jesus brings him into connection with all those other people, those who would grumble about him. It changes not just him, but everyone in the story, as Jesus reminds them that Zacchaeus, too, is a brother of theirs, a son of Abraham.

Because that’s what Jesus does. Jesus calls us each out of our isolation, out of our own perspective, and insists that we come to table, and then join the community and become active participants in God’s story.

So, how can you join God’s story here, in this place?

This is where I think Paul’s letter is also, in its own way, a beautiful invitation. Paul talks about growing in faith and increasing in love for one another—something we strive to do during this Interim Time. He talks about steadfastness in difficult times—something we strive to be in this Interim Time. And he reminds us that it is not any of us who are responsible for whatever comes—it is not your Vestry or the RSC or even whoever is our Rector, past, present or future—it is God who will fulfill “every good resolve and work of faith”.

We are about to open a new chapter, yet another change in what feels like a sea of change over the past 18 months. And when there’s chaos and crowds all jostling with one another, we may want to step back, climb a tree, watch from afar. But next Sunday we will celebrate St. Timothy’s 148^th birthday. We will rejoice in All Saints Day, remembering the long line of saints we come from and singing about how we, too, are God’s saints. We will comission a mission team to go out to Haiti to spread God’s love. And we will welcome a new priest, the Reverend Anne Turner, to join the journey with us on the road towards the calling of a permanent Rector. The amazing and wonderful story of God at work in this place continues, and it’s our story.

Jesus is already and always coming down our road. And we are all called, like Zaccheaus, to come down. Jesus MUST stay with us! He has invited himself to this table, to this community, and invited us all to a central place in God’s incredible story.

Amen.

by Genevieve Zetlan, Licensed Lay Preacher

Exodus 3:1-15
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
Psalm 63:1-8

There is a purportedly ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” It speaks, I think, to the truth that most of us spend a great deal of our time on earth trying to keep things humming along as usual – in our job, in our marriage, in our church. We human beings get pretty comfortable with what we know, or think we know, and we often dislike change.

And this is tough, because our readings this morning remind us that Change is where God is acting. We worship a God who is not about the status quo; a God who is sometimes even impatient with our reluctance to participate in the dream God has for our lives.

Take Moses. Moses has by all appearances a pretty nice life – he’s married, he’s a partner in his father in law’s successful sheep herding business, he has two fine sons. He’s been settled happily after his escape from Egypt for a “long period”. He appears to be doing well – doing everything he’s supposed to be doing. So it must have seemed preposterous – out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by ordinary sheep—to see this completely unfathomable burning bush. An rather dramatic interruption of his daily life.

And in the ensuing conversation Moses manages to come up with reason after reason why he can’t possibly leave that nice, ordinary life to do what God is asking: Moses starts with self doubt: “What if I’m really not adequate?” And God says “Don’t worry, I will be with you.” “What if they ask me which God sent me, what is his name?” And God says, “Then tell them my name.” And after our passage this morning ends, Moses goes on to raise more objections: “What if they don’t believe me?” And God says “Your staff will turn into a serpent so they will believe”. “I can’t speak well.” And God says, “I’ll help you”. Finally Moses simply resorts to “Please send someone else”, and God, like many a worn-down, fed-up parent who just wants their kid to PLEASE get on with it, finally says “Fine. Your brother can help you.”

And Moses is just one in a long line of people called by God who aren’t exactly thrilled at the prospect. Because to be called by God is to be asked to leave behind what is comfortable and comforting, familiar and safe. And even if our call isn’t quite as dramatic as Moses’s, our first reaction is often to push back – to come up with all the reasons why we can’t change our lives and what we have now is perfectly fine, and we’ll just keep on doing that, thankyouverymuch.

But Change is where God is acting. And Jesus tells us that in fact, we have already lost the lives we think we have. Everyone will perish, one way or another. And just because it happens suddenly, or dramatically, is no commentary on the person’s life any more than your being still alive is any commentary on your own righteousness, he says.

And then Jesus tells this parable which sounds like its all about God striking down the fig tree for failing to bear fruit. This is the kind of passage we’d certainly rather ignore, rather relegate to the backburner under the idea we Christians sometimes have that the God of the Old Testament is the one who gets impatient and angry and punishes people to make an example out of them – as Paul says in his letter – but the God of the new testament, in the person of Jesus, is all gentleness and forgiveness and love.

But this parable, like Jesus overturning the money changers tables and the parable of the sheep and goats, shows us the love of God isn’t gentle and it isn’t at all complacent – the love of God is a love that is sometimes even impatient with our resistance to change, our resistance to growing into the people we are meant to be.

So we can’t ignore these readings, as much as we’d like to. These difficult passages—Jesus’s parable and the letter from Paul— are what I call rather “Lent-ey” in what appears to be their emphasis on punishment – excellent fodder for a “God will strike down sinners” sort of sermon. But before Lent was a period of time to flog ourselves for our unworthiness before going back to eating chocolate or ice cream on a regular basis, Lent was a period of preparation – preparation for becoming a Christian. And I think it’s worth noting in these readings that Moses and the fig tree both need preparation in order to bear fruit. After all, it’s hard to embrace God’s plan for us when we are stressed, overwhelmed with fears and doubts, and not getting what we need. It’s hard to be faithful, as Paul exhorts, when we feel like we are being “tested” and there’s no end in sight.

Last year my business was falling apart – I had to let my employee go. Then my marriage of 17 years ended. On top of that, my church seemed to be falling apart too, with the departure of Brad, Leslie, and Filippa. In every area of my life the status quo wasn’t any more, and everything that kept me comfortable was suddenly changing—all at once.

And to walk through change is to walk like Moses through a wilderness where we don’t know the way, to walk through Lent to the cross. But to walk through change is also to walk, like Moses, on Holy ground—because change is where God is acting. It is the place where we come to rely on God the most, when we are no longer sure of our reliance on ourselves or the world around us.

And it is hard when we are in the midst of walking through the wilderness, walking through the darkness of Lent, walking through times of great change, to see how, as Paul assures us, God will provide what we need. But the amazing thing is that even as we resist change, God is still willing to meet us where we are and give us what we need. Both our Old and New Testament readings show people arguing with God – and despite God’s impatience, God gives Moses exactly the preparation he needs to grow into God’s dreams for him. The fig tree also, is given fertilizer, oxygen around the roots, an environment in which it can blossom into its full potential. God gives us what we need to bear fruit and asks only that we do what we are created to do.

After all, who Moses is, at his core, is a shepherd – and God doesn’t ask him to change that – God asks him to become a shepherd of a people he will lead through the wilderness so that they, too, can become what they have the potential to be – a light to the nations. And the fig tree, too, isn’t asked by God to be an apple tree — it’s asked to bear fruit, to grow into the best fig tree it can be.

Both our old and new testament stories this morning show God calling us to live fully into who God made us to be. The impatient love of God pushes us to stop holding on to the status quo, and get on with it! Get on with becoming who we really are.

And God’s impatience with our love of our nice, stable lives at the expense of God’s dream for us is not like human impatience—when we are impatient we see others as a hindrance to our plans, we get angry with each other. And so we are inclined to view God’s impatience in human terms – inclined to read our readings today with an eye towards how we might be punished if God is having a bad day.

Of course, a certain amount of self-examination to see where we have fallen short and where we can strive to do better is worthwhile. But the crux of what Jesus says is that none of us are worthy. There is nothing we can do, nothing we can say, no amount of trying harder that will ever make us worthy of the love and grace and joy we experience when we become who God means us to be. The idea of being worthy, or unworthy, is missing the point entirely. God doesn’t love us because we are good. God loves us because God is good.

So what if we aren’t the fig tree about to be chopped down for our failure. What if we are all the gardener? What if we are asked during Lent to look at our souls and spend some time watering and fertilizing them, figuring out how to prepare ourselves and nurture each other, so that in the midst of the wilderness of change, we can all bear fruit.

Last Fall I was having one of “those” days. I unplugged the freezer to defrost the 2 inch layer of ice inside and found green goo leaking from the electrical outlet. So I replaced the outlet myself, and I felt accomplished! Then I went to take the kids to birthday party. The garage door wouldn’t open because the spring had snapped. So I opened it manually, moved everything to the other side of the garage so I could park on the side with the working door, and called a repairman. No problem. That evening I discovered the toilet upstairs wouldn’t stop running. And I poured some wine, turned off the water and gave up.

Then I posted this story to Facebook. Within 30 minutes someone from St. Timothy’s sent me a text volunteering to come over and fix my toilet.

This is the kind of tending we do for each other, the small acts of nurturing that create at St. Timothy’s fertile ground for us to bear fruit. It is an undeserved gift, pure and simple.

And when God pushes us through change, prods us to become who are are meant to be, that too is a gift. Not because we deserve or don’t deserve it, or because we have done the right kind or the right amount of pennance, but because we are loved with a fiery, burning-but-not-consuming, impatient kind of love. Our faith is that what God has in store for us beyond the scary times of change and wilderness and walking to the cross is more great and bountiful than we could ever ask for or imagine for ourselves.

Last weekend the Rector Search Committee kicked off the Search process. They will start by creating a parish profile – a snapshot of St. Timothy’s – the good, the bad, the ugly—and a picture of who we want to be – who we are in the process of growing into. We as a congregation have been through a wilderness of change, and we are still walking on that holy ground.

Our call, as individuals and as a church, is to listen very carefully, to discern how to nurture ourselves and each other to be what we are already made to be. And we can raise objections if necessary, absolutely! God is clearly not above a good argument! Ultimately, we are to live as fully as possible into who we are and where we are called to go, knowing that like Moses and the fig tree, God will indeed meet us where we are and give us what we need. Because Change is where God is acting.

Amen.