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I had a professor in Seminary who had a pet peeve about which she was pretty adamant. If you ever referred to John the Baptist, she would cut you off – “That’s John the Baptizer! John the Baptizer, John was not a Baptist.” Now she didn’t have anything against Baptists – she just didn’t want him to be associated with a denomination. John was not a Baptist. But it is fitting that he be remembered for his profession. He called people to the water. The water of forgiveness – your value as a person preceded your sins, and it will outlast them. The waters of repentance - your mistakes do not define you, they do not own you. You can do better. These are waters of new beginnings. Henry David Thoreau wrote that a person should be like a river, the form is constant, the channel ongoing. But every second the interior is renewed. New water every instant. New beginnings. John baptized. When I say baptism was John’s profession, it wasn’t his job, he didn’t get paid, but it was full-time. He preached all up and down the Jordan river from Judea to Galilee, from the sea of Tiberias to the Salt Sea, about sixty miles, and always on foot, and according to the Gospels thousands of people throughout that area came to John. That’s a lot of people getting baptized. One day, Jesus came to the river, and he joined the crowd. He mixed in, you see. He was one among many. Baptized with the same water, the same words, at the same river bank as everybody else, he set his things down in a little pile, and prepared for his turn. Luke tells the story in an unspectacular way: “When all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized…” That’s all he says. He could have put more impressive imagery in there, more dramatic emphasis, but he didn’t: “When all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized.” One among many. John had talked about Jesus before he came, but that was for the purpose of explaining that John himself was not actually the Messiah – people had been asking about that, it seems. The day Jesus actually showed up there wasn’t any fanfare, to speak of. No band playing, no paparazzi, no red carpet going down to the water. If you look closely at the text, there is nothing that suggests anyone at the river that day knew that Jesus was the Messiah, or that anyone besides Jesus saw the holy spirit come down like a dove, or heard the voice of God saying to Jesus, you are my beloved, and in you I am well pleased. It doesn’t appear that anyone was aware of these things, not even John the baptizer. John knew the anointed one was coming, and whoever it was, John said he was unworthy to untie the thong of this one’s sandal. But did he know that the long awaited Messiah was Jesus? I think he did not, because later on in the story, he actually asks Jesus – “Are you the one, or should we be waiting for somebody else?” John did not know what God knew about Jesus. Helpful to keep in mind- when you look at some other person, you don’t know what God knows about that other person. Just sayin’ . That day at the river, Jesus was one among many. “When all the people had been baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized…” I picture John knee-deep calling out – Next! And Jesus, like the 17ththperson in line, patiently waiting, inching forward everytime somebody else goes in. In the church world, we don’t have a lot of imagery of Jesus in line, do we? In pictures, Jesus is always at the front, at the center. Jesus is always the VIP in religious artwork. That’s not surprising, people hate being in line, hate waiting for their turn. I went to Walmart yesterday and spent about 17 hours in line behind a person who couldn’t get the computer checkout to work so she could buy some ranch dressing, and as the minutes passed I started re-evaluating all my life choices. What is happening, how did I get here? Standing in line can make an otherwise sane person feel like their life is unraveling. I don’t want to picture Jesus standing in line, lord no. Many experiences in the world these days are set up to allow you to bypass the line, if you have money. You can pay to be a platimum plus member, so that you don’t have to wait in line, at Disney world, or the airport or what-have-you. You can be a preferred customer, and it’s pricey, but if you pay the big bucks they will let you cut in line. Special treatment for special people. One day Jesus went down to the river, waited his turn, got in the water, no special treatment, not even for the lord. That’s quite something to think about. When the all the people had been baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptize… Rich and poor, young and old, the honored and the despised, those who are putting their lives together, those whose lives are falling apart. Same river, same water, same grace for everybody. Everybody gets to repent, everybody gets to be forgiven, everybody gets washed clean, everybody gets brought through chaos, from death to life. All are welcome, no special treatment, get in line. When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we share holy communion on Sundays, we come down the aisle in a line, and we get the same thing: same bread, same cup, and each of us is told the same truth: The body, the blood, broken and shed for you. The fullness of God’s grace is poured out for you – for you. Grace is offered to you individually, personally, specially. And that grace is poured out for everybody else, the same as you. The exact same. Sometimes this is hard to believe, especially when we feel self-righteous, or when we feel shame, self-loathing. It’s bewildering to really ponder that God loves us the same as the worst criminals and the most benevolent saints. But that’s how it is. Garrison Keiller has written about growing Lutheran in rural Minnesota, and how every adult in his life wanted to make sure he knew that he was not special. He hates the way that kids are taught that they are special these days. As a kid, Keiller’s grandparents had no indoor plumbing; they had an outhouse with a bench that had three holes. So he’d be in there, handling business, and his cousin would just walk in and sit down next to him. Very humbling, right? In this family, everybody knows that everybody’s human. His Lutheran upbringing instilled in him something he calls the democracy of the gospel, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, so don’t think you’re special, because you’re not. Pain comes to everyone, shame comes to everyone, grief comes to everyone failure comes to everyone. Grace, amazing grace comes to everyone, no first class seating. Fred Craddock was a very famous preacher and professor – he told a story about time he spent in rehab after a serious injury. Lots of physical therapy and time spent with others, who were also trying to get their bodies to work the way they used to. There were young people and retirees. A victim of a hit-and-run, a contractor who’d fallen off a roof, an athlete whose sport had been taken away for good, a first-time drunk driver, a stroke survivor. And throughout rehab they had these milestones where everybody had to attempt certain benchmark, milestone activities. They would attempt these things together, as a group. One of the early milestones was simply for each person to stand up from the wheelchair and step over to a shiny steel railing attached to the wall, and using that railing for support, they had to take three steps. Not a big deal to any of these people, before they were injured. But on this day, as they were wheeled into the room, everybody was looking at that bar, thinking, am I gonna be able to pull this off? Nobody was special in that room. Fred Craddock was a tenured professor. But he wasn’t special. I’m just a guy trying to stand up and take three steps. Everybody was broken. Everybody was trying to heal. Everybody was unsteady, everybody needed help. On that day, some people made their steps, and some people’s legs gave out. And the next day, they all tried again. And the next day, and the day after that. They knew they were the same, they were in this thing together. The waters that John called people into, the waters of forgiveness, of cleansing, of healing, the threshold waters across which the rescued are delivered, the waters of spiritual birth, from which new beginnings are authored, this water is for everyone. God’s grace is for everyone. It’s in this ever-present and all-consuming grace that Jesus himself was baptized, at the inauguration of his ministry of justice and mercy and liberation and healing and reconciliation. It takes courage to lead this kind of life. Jesus needed courage, you and I need courage. It is not easy to do the things that are put before us to do. And so it is good to remember, that the grace which compels us, the grace that sends us, the grace that commands us and demands things of us, this is the grace that first welcomes and receives us, cleans us, forgives us, nourishes us, blesses us, and calls us beloved. Come to the water. It is here for you, and for me. Everyone. Amen.

The violinist Joshua Bell is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished musicians in the world. He’s held positions in the most prestigious symphony orchestras, he’s performed around the globe, released dozens of albums, been featured in major films. He’s one of the great musical artists alive today. Bell also happens to own one of the most valuable musical instruments in the world. It is known as the Gibson Stradivarius, a violin created in the year 1713, a one-of-a-kind musical treasure, valued at about 14 million dollars. Well, one day in 2007, Joshua Bell went down into the subway in Washington D.C., and began to play music on the platform, as people were coming and going during rush hour. This was an experiment done with some journalists, who positioned themselves nearby and recorded the performance, documenting the reaction of people in the space. It’s very common to have people play music at a subway stop, hoping to earn tips, but it’s also common that commuters walk by without taking much notice. Would it be any different if the musician giving a free concert was one of the most renowned violinists in the world, playing the most extraordinary violin? Bell played for 45 minutes, and the journalists who reviewed the footage later, confirmed that over a thousand people walked by him during that time. Exactly 20 tossed money into his hat - he walked away with $32.00. It’s not a bad hourly rate, if you’re trying to pay rent, but Joshua Bell had just played a sold out concert in Boston a couple days previously, for which tickets cost a hundred dollars apiece. This show was free, but only seven people out of a thousand stopped to listen to the music, and all but one of those stopped for less than a minute. The person who stopped the longest was a three-year-old boy, who wanted to keep listening, but his parent pulled him away. It doesn’t surprise me that people walked past the performance without stopping. It was the subway, after all, everyone was on their way somewhere. We all have someplace to get to, and most of us are running late, most of the time. Nobody has five extra minutes on a subway platform. Also, most people don’t know classical music well-enough to recognize a world-class performance. The average person doesn’t know who Joshua Bell is, or why his playing is so special. There’s a lot of reasons why people wouldn’t take much notice of a great violin performance at train station. There’s always a list of good reasons why we don’t see or recognize or appreciate extraordinary things in our midst. We don’t register the sunset, though it’s majestic beauty is there to behold, every day. We don’t appreciate the privilege of being able to watch our children grow, or marvel at the technology that brings our loved ones to visit. We overlook a lot. We can walk right past a miracle, and not realize we are in the presence of Glory. Christmas in the USA often feels this way to me. There’s so much going on, there’s so much noise and activity. There’s so much consumerism, so much pressure people feel to meet expectations, so much rushing, coming and going, that we may not even notice the child born in Bethlehem. He is the advent of God’s peace, the divine light, word made flesh. John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. The gospel of John says, “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” I don’t think words have ever been written more beautifully than that. But do we see him, on Christmas? There are so many other things to concern ourselves with. And truth be told, the Christ child does not make us take notice. He doesn’t scream for our attention. He’s meek and mild, as on old children’s prayer used to say. I’ve always groaned at the line from Away in a Manger that says, “Little lord Jesus, no crying he makes.” Like, really? He’s a baby who didn’t cry? That’s ridiculous. But in a symbolic sense, I guess it’s true. Baby Jesus doesn’t cry to us. He doesn’t shout above all the other commotion filling up our lives at Christmastime. The Christ child doesn’t insist that we even see him. He’s just a baby, longing for warmth and milk and rest. The nativity is just a weary father and an exhausted mother cherishing and caring for their precious newborn, surrounded by a bunch of animals. It is a miracle, it is God incarnate, it is life itself, it is the light of the world, but it’s up to us to take notice. Which does raise the question, why? Why would God enter the world, in a way most people wouldn’t even see or notice? Why come as a baby, born in the middle of nowhere, who can’t even walk or talk or do anything for himself? Many will say a great violinist is a fool to play music on a subway platform. He belongs on a stage, with lights, with a marquee outside advertising his eminence. He should play for an audience who reveres him, because they understand the value of his craft. What a waste to appear under any other circumstances. Why would God appear as a baby, penniless and vulnerable, born unseen and unknown, to parents who don’t even have a room to sleep in, and have only swaddling cloths and a manger to give him? Why not appear in power and might, on the Temple mount, with a burst of heavenly radiance, announced by thunder and trumpets, before priests and kings? Wouldn’t that be more fitting to the Almighty? That is not how God enters the world. God comes small and humble and vulnerable, and overlooked. Some take notice – the shepherds, who are humble and overlooked, themselves. And those cows and donkeys we see in nativity sets – they are not distracted by a thousand concerns or rushing through a subway station trying to get someplace else. They see him. For those with eyes to see, and time to see, and curiosity, the light of the world is there, small. Slight, meager. a revelation of God’s everlasting mystery: dialectic, the great reversal, the holy contradiction, the sanctified counter-intuitive. The humble are exalted, the lowly are lifted up; the last are made first. Strength is perfected in weakness, and the true light, which enlightens everything, is tiny. It’s a flicker. It’s small, and needs to be protected from the wind. The gospel teaches us to look for the power in small things, and there is power, indeed. I don’t know how they do it, exactly, but I have seen babies bring forth joy from bitter souls and tenderness from hardened hearts. It happens, and it’s power. Sometimes, when all the lights have gone dark, and every bulb and screen and alert has been switched off, the flame of a single candle can allow two people to see each other in a way that was impossible with fixtures and devices gleaming. There is power in small things. I promise it’s true. In Bethlehem long ago, God arrived small, without spectacle or acclaim. The baby grew up, and over some years gained stature and wisdom, until he was a man, who learned and taught the fierceness of humility, the strength of gentleness and the fire of compassion. The mystery he embodied to the end, was there from the very beginning, in the manger, in the swaddling cloths. It’s the mystery that grace and peace enter softly, and they grow delicately as they recreate the world. In the beginning, this mystery was just a word, but the word was with God, and the word was God. And through this word, all things came to be. Life and light for all people. Light in the darkness, light that cannot be overcome. The light of a baby, the light of a new day. Merry Christmas, friends. Pastor Rob Leveridge The Table is a Christian church in Davenport, Iowa, where people are moving: from greed toward generosity from violence toward peacemaking from isolation toward neighborliness from fear toward faith

WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS MESSAGE HERE. Mark 13:1-2, 14-20 As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ Then Jesus asked him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’ ‘But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains; someone on the housetop must not go down or enter the house to take anything away; someone in the field must not turn back to get a coat. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that it may not be in winter. For in those days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, no, and never will be. And if the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would be saved; If you’re a student of the bible, you may have heard that the gospel of Mark is the earliest of the four gospels in the New Testament, thought to have been written around the year 70 AD, or 70 CE, about 40 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. One of the main reasons scholars date it there is the passage that I just read, in which the disciples marvel at the grandeur of the temple in Jerusalem, and Jesus tells them that a time is coming when it will be defiled and destroyed. People will flee for their lives and they will scarcely find any safety, as darkness and suffering descend on the nation. Bible scholars note that there was a Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire, begun in the year 66 AD, and in the year 70, Roman legions surrounded Jerusalem, starved the city, then invaded, burned most of it to the ground, destroyed the temple, and slaughtered thousands. The passage we just read is thought to be a reference to this national trauma, and the gospel of Mark is thus believed to have been written against the backdrop of this historical experience. I wish that a passage this dark and foreboding would only ever be about a specific event, that happened a long time ago. But that’s not the way the Bible works. The Bible is the living word of God, and its insights keep speaking to new experiences, whether they be joyful, or horrifying. The words of Mark 13 were echoing in my mind this week, as I watched video clips and heard stories of desperation from people in Afghanistan, as US military forces tried to complete their withdrawal, and the Taliban took over the country, once again. As we’ve been learning, The Taliban has been patiently and meticulously planning for this transition, for a long time. It appears that the United States and the Afghan government did not. Or at least, they carried out whatever planning they did with an unwarranted level of confidence as to how well it would all go. Now there is terror and chaos, as millions panic amidst the return of a regime that is known for stunning, grotesque and brutal violence and repression. People are attacking President Biden for leadership failures, and that’s justified. People are spotlighting the failures of previous presidents and leaders, and that’s justified, too. Some are saying, ‘It’s right for the United States to leave, but it’s wrong to leave in such a disorganized and dysfunctional way.’ That critique is justified, also. But even if the exit had gone as planned, if every Afghan translator who helped the US military got a visa and a plane ticket, and not a single American Humvee was lost to the enemy, would this be a time for celebration? Pat one another on the back for a job well done? No. Because so many people are living out days like those described in Mark chapter 13. “Some must flee to the mountains; someone on the housetop must not go down or enter the house to take anything away; someone in the field must not turn back to get a coat. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in these days! Pray that it may not be in winter. For in these days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation.” Quick confession: I am sometimes a reluctant preacher. Weeks like this week, I feel, as you may feel, ill-equipped to speak to the stark truth of the moment, it is so disheartening. Sometimes, I offer a sermon mostly because I promised I would. I said yes when God called me to this ministry, and so I’m going to try to speak something true, even though I don’t think I’m good enough or wise enough to get it right. I have faith that Jesus will help me if I’m willing to try. So right now I’m going to offer three short reflections and gentle recommendations for Christians to hold tenderly in such a grave time as this. I hope there’s something in here that you can take away, and it will be helpful. Alright, here goes. Things we should do, now: Grieve and Confess We have to sit honestly and openly in the horror of what is happening. We have to face it, not turn away. Like the women who stayed on Golgotha. They hated being there, they were devastated to see the Lord crucified, they didn’t want the anguish, but they stayed. They couldn’t stop what was happening, but they didn’t look away. This is essential. People of faith and goodwill must not look away, must not choose distraction, or kid ourselves about what’s really happening. We have to look at it, and feel the pain that comes with really seeing. Not only that, we have to reckon with our own complicity in the catastrophe that is unfolding in Afghanistan. This is very difficult – it adds discomfort and pain to the sorrow we already feel. If we are culpable, the whole thing hurts even worse. But we have examine the part we have played to this point. I’m wary of the blame people are throwing around, right now. Criticize President Biden, or Trump or Bush or anybody who has made mistakes, that's fine. But beware the temptation to use the sins or failures of another to shield ourselves from accountability. Americans, this war has been waged for twenty years in our name, with our money, by our beloved brothers and sisters. I have a 17-year-old son, and my nation has been dropping bombs in Afghanistan for longer than he has been alive. What have I done about it, over all that time? I’ve voiced my disapproval, here and there, but I voted for people who kept it all going. I’ve given some money, year to year, to organizations that help people affected by war, but I can’t really claim that I have lived as if the war in Afghanistan mattered that much to me. Most days I have carried on without thinking about it at all. This is true of most Americans, even as our fellow citizens in the military have risked their lives in service to our nation. And the fact that we haven’t cared that much, and we haven’t made that much of a fuss about it, this has, in part, enabled things to progress to the point where they are today. We’ve seen in the past year, with the Black Lives Matter movement, how much of an impact it makes on our leaders, when the citizenry as a whole is truly engages with a cause. But we have not been engaged with this ongoing war to an extent that could have shaped outcomes into something we’d want. Whatever difference we could have made along the way, we didn’t, and we need to own that. We need to grieve and confess. 2. Remember and Act At the moment, the war and the suffering of those we leave behind is big news. But Afghanistan will not dominate the headlines for long. Americans are upset today, but we have a way of forgetting to care about something tomorrow. We cannot change what has happened, but if Afghan people truly matter to us, we can act like it, going forward. In the fiscal year 2019-2020, the United States allowed 29,000 refugees to settle here, and that’s down from 84,000 in 2016. In the 1970s, we welcomed 300,000 refugees a year. (I got those numbers here.) Our nation can take the numbers back up. If you want Afghans to have a safe place to live, you can tell our elected officials, over and over and over again, that you want our refugee resettlement numbers to return to what they once were. That’s a political action, this isn’t all politics. This week I kept seeing Jenny Yang from World Relief, quoted in articles about Afghanistan. World Relief supports displaced people all over the world, including refugees who come to the United States. Their staff in Afghanistan are dismayed and disappointed, because they’d been trying to communicate about the realities on the ground, since early spring, warning of likely problems with the transition. They didn’t get the message across then (nobody would take their call?) but they’re still in the struggle, now, and they will be, tomorrow, and next year, and after that. You may know where I’m going with this, because there is a chapter of World Relief in the Quad Cities. You can go to their website right now, and they will tell you all about Afghan refugee resettlement, until you know more than you ever thought you could know about the topic, and they will provide you a long list of ways to join their work of supporting and befriending refugees. From donating clothes or dishes or tools or money, to mentoring a child or helping an adult learn English. We have Tapestry Farms in Davenport, where Iowa natives befriend refugee neighbors in the work and play of growing and sharing food, together. Come to Tapestry Farms, weed the garden, pick some tomatoes, deliver some groceries - you can contribute, everybody is invited. The point is, that despite the scandal of our apathy in the past, and despite the horror of what we are seeing in the present, we can make choices going forward that honor and support the people who are surviving the trauma of this war. We can, if we remember, and act. 3. Stop Trusting Violence This last recommendation may be hard for people to take seriously, but I’m going to say it anyway. We need to reconsider the fundamental presuppositions that human beings hold about violence, generally. People have a widespread, abiding belief that violence solves problems. This belief is conventional, normal, natural and so enticing. If there is a problem, we trust that killing the right person, or hurting an individual, or a community or a family or a nation sufficiently, will make things right. This is what we believe. And if violence is visited upon us, we operate under the assumption that we have to repay in kind, we have to inflict suffering and death on an evildoer. Christians believe this as much as anyone, despite the fact that we worship a Savior who literally did the exact opposite. He did not try to kill the people who were killing him. It is difficult to even question the belief that violence is necessary, and it solves problems, because people accept that that is just how life works. Meanwhile our assumptions about the necessity of violence shape what we believe is possible in the world. Friends, at a time such as this, you and I will benefit greatly from examining the outcomes, the fruit of our belief, our trust in violence. I submit that the travesty in Afghanistan is what it is, because we as a nation have believed that war is the answer to our problems. And we have been wrong in this belief. A person might respond to me bringing these principles up, by saying, “Thanks for the philosophical pontificating about violence, professor, but seriously. 3,000 Americans were murdered on September 11, 2001. Should we not have hunted the terrorists and killed them for such evil? Were we supposed to give Osama Bin Laden a hug after that? What would you have us do, if not go to war, to destroy Al Qaeda and overthrow the Taliban?” These are the kinds of things people say, and it’s an obvious and fair question. I would simply say in response that, after 9/11, as a nation, we didn’t even consider the question of what other options there might be, not even for a moment. Do you know what day Congress voted to start this war that lasted 20 years? September 14th, 2001, a mere three days after the attack. The US Senate voted 98-0, and House of Representatives voted 418-1 to authorize the invasion of Afghanistan. This war was a foregone conclusion in people's minds. Everyone assumed that this is what you do, when you are attacked. (Except Barbara Lee, the singular ‘no’ vote.) What would we have done to make things right after 9/11, if we didn’t start this war? Frankly, I don’t know. None of us knows what our options might have been, if we had taken the time to think it through, because we didn’t take the time. I don’t know exactly what the President of the United States should have done in the fall of 2001 – all I know is that war was the only path he really considered. And because we took the only path we really considered taking, we have now lost as many Americans in Afghanistan as we lost on September 11th, and American bombs and bullets have killed many more civilians there than died here. Add in Afghan military deaths and this war has killed 170,000 directly, maybe half a million indirectly. So, as bad as September 11 was, we have seen the trauma multiplied. Therefore, I have come to believe that the trust we place in violence as a solution to our problems is misplaced. War is not worthy of our trust. It is not the solution we think it is. Our failure to understand the deceit of war is at the heart of the present travesty, but a national epiphany in this respect would serve us well, as we confront the next grave crisis, and the one after that. Would our nation dare to believe that there is a nonviolent (or less violent) way to respond to terrible events, and actually achieve the things we hope for? Because despite the enormous commitment and sacrifice our brave countrymen and women have made, after all the death and destruction, we have not achieved what we hoped for, in Afghanistan. I always remember that, in Mark 13, when Jesus told his people to prepare for the coming persecution, he didn’t tell them to stockpile weapons. He said to them, “Things are going to get bad. So bad, you may doubt that you can survive.” He told them not to give up, but he didn’t say, “Gird yourselves for battle, boys. People are coming to kill you, unless you kill them first.” He didn’t say that, because salvation is not found in those words. No, he simply said, “Don’t give up – the worst days will not last forever.” That was true in 70 AD and it is true today. And there will be compassion, and courage and help to be found, even as fearsome things come to pass. Our hearts are broken by events that we have witnessed, as they should be. In the face of cataclysm and woe, we can grieve, confess and repent, honestly, openly. We can remember and act, with clarity and courage. And we can learn, finally, that war is a scam, not a solution. It’s a gamble that won’t pay out, and we don’t have to believe in it, anymore. Friends, I’m thankful to be with you, and I am going to stay in the work of grace and goodwill with you, because I believe Jesus is staying, too. He's not going to abandon us in this struggle, no matter how fearsome the foes that align, or how dark the days become. He is the author of our hope, the guide and protector on this path. It is the path of peace. God bless you, Amen. Pastor Rob Leveridge

Holy Thursday, Holy Thursday, I have a collection of favorite photos from when my kids were little. Brothers piloting a cardboard box. Toddler asleep in the tree swing. Preschoolers frolicking in a fountain. They’re treasures, each one. Records of some of my best moments, reminders of how precious life really is. Was I mindful of how quickly their childhood would pass, as I took these photos? People certainly told me to be, and I know I got the message on some level. Years back, my oldest fell asleep in the car, and as I carried him to bed, I realized just how gigantic he had become. I’d thought this was my baby, not an 80lb. bag of rice, and as I lugged him up the porch steps I actually asked myself, “Is this it? Is this the last time I will pick this person up?” I think it was. He’s bigger than me, now. Lately, memories of my kids’ youngest years bring a mixture of not only joy and enormous pride that I am their father, but also some measure of remorse. I wish I had appreciated the glorious moments perfectly, as they happened. I wish I hadn’t been stressed and preoccupied so much. I cherish the memory of the snowman we all built that time, but I know that I probably filled the rest of that day with irritation and stress about things I can’t even remember now. Seems like a waste, seems like my kids deserved better from me. You may recognize these emotions in yourself, looking back on days gone by. The pandemic has certainly spurred this kind of reflection, right? How many things about ‘ordinary life’ did we utterly take for granted (for years!), when we should’ve treated them like small miracles? The glorious banality of school, or the precious joy of live music and travel and hugs. How many family gatherings did you treat like a chore, and not a gift, before they started getting canceled? Have you thought this past year about bygone things that you wish you had appreciated more? I am certain that people who knew and loved Jesus felt these feelings after he died. He had been right there with them, in the flesh, and later when they were missing him, some cursed themselves for not perceiving the importance of moments that were now gone forever. “It’s so obvious now, but at the time I didn’t get it… just how important the time we had really was…” Most people who’d met Jesus never saw him resurrected, but even those who did, got barely a glimpse or a meal or a talk on the side of the road with him before he left for heaven. I imagine longing and regret among many of the faithful, who began to cherish their time with Jesus too late when they’d never see him on earth again. It’s a hard truth, but there’s no getting around it: what’s done is done. There is no turning back the clock. We can’t have former days back again. And of course, we’re not supposed to. Life isn’t meant to have a rewind button. But there is something we are supposed to do, across the long span of life that unfolds after critical moments with beloved people. The thing we’re supposed to do is: remember. On the last night Jesus spent with his disciples, they gathered in an upstairs room and shared a meal. 12 of the 13 present would deny that it was their final supper together. They’d have scarcely been able to imagine that, but Jesus knew. And even though they’d never have that evening back, he wanted to show them there was a way to keep the spirit of the hour, forever. Jesus took bread and wine, shared it with his friends, and told them, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Memories live in our thoughts and in our dreams, it’s true, but we’re wrong to think of them as matters of the mind, alone. Remembering is a sacred activity; it is an enterprise; it takes your whole self – hands, head, heart. When we elect to remember, we commit to living out our inheritance of wisdom and values, across days, generations, centuries. It is a choice, to hold on to the trials and the beauty that formed us. This is why Jesus didn’t tell his disciples simply to think about him in the days to come; he gave them something to do. Gather to eat. Give and receive. Experience the nourishment of bread and community. Live the remembrance, and what you remember will remain alive Pastor Rob Leveridge

Normal The constant refrain of 2020 has been the question, “When will things get back to normal?” This is the obvious question when you think about all that has been rearranged and upended during a strange and difficult time. Sports canceled, school turned upside down. You have to wear a mask everywhere. When will this be over, so we can get back to normal? Of course, there are normal things that never faltered, and nothing draws our attention to the things that haven’t changed. The normal that perseveres does not scream for attention - especially the good stuff we take for granted. For example, safe drinking water. Throughout human history, and in many places to this day, the water available for drinking might be a source of pestilence for families and communities. Americans rightly expect their faucets offer safe hydration. This is the way it should be, but it really is a big deal. It’s an aspect of normal life, that doesn’t happen automatically – it’s the result of impressive, collective effort for the common good – and it has not changed during this disruptive time. In certain things, we don’t need to ‘get back to normal,’ because we never lost the normal. On Monday, eastern Iowa and northern Illinois were hit by an extraordinary storm – the Derecho! – which unleashed hurricane-strength winds and caused enormous damage in our region. As the winds subsided, the streets of our neighborhoods were filled by neighbors helping one another arise from the debris. Yards and front doors covered by fallen branches were cleared. A block’s worth of able-bodied men came out to move a tree blocking the street. As 12, 24, 48, 72 hours without electricity unfolded, neighbors, invited one another to share the light and the charge stations and the deep freezers that were still working. People came out to help as you’d expect. It was quite ordinary in that way. Kindness and neighborliness are normal. Compassion and generosity are normal. Good people being good – there is nothing in the world more normal than that. It is true that the pandemic has messed a lot of stuff up. And there are some things that Covid-19 has changed forever. But there are some things the coronavirus hasn’t changed, even temporarily. People care, people help. It’s normal.

If you don’t know how to pray, Jesus wants to make it easy for you. Halfway through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus lays it out real simple. Short and sweet, Jesus says to pray like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For the Kingdom, power and glory are yours, forever and ever. Amen. You can pray other prayers if you want, or add stuff to Jesus’ prayer. Throw on a little flourish, gussy it up real nice. But you don’t need to. You can spend your whole life praying these words and nothing else, and I predict you’d be just fine. And if you did that, starting today, and the only thing you ever prayed for the rest of your life were the words Jesus told you to pray, there would be an interesting fact to your prayer life. You’d spend your life in prayer, and never say the words, ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘my’ or ‘mine’. You’d never say anything that was specific to you. Because the prayer Jesus taught us to pray isn’t about me, or you, or any individual person. The Lord’s prayer is about us. Our Father… Give us this day our daily bread… Forgive us our sins… Lead us not into temptation… Deliver us from evil… When Jesus told us what to pray, he instructed us to speak the language of mutual concern, shared need, and the common good. God does not belong to any one of us. God is God for all of us. The good things that any one of us might pray for – bread, forgiveness, protection, rescue - these are things that God wills for all people. And so all of us should ask ourselves, “When I pray, when I root myself in faith, do I make it all about me? If so, would I be willing to change? Am I willing take Christ’s instruction, and reorient my spirit, knowing that grace is about all of us, together?”

There are many ways to find your place, to know you belong. Different tribes have different criteria. Sometimes you gotta be born in. You get your first family, for better or worse, just by coming into the world among these people. These are blood ties, that never let you go. Sometimes you realize you belong, or you don’t belong, in one group or another, because of a personal feature you didn’t ask to have – your race, gender, age, orientation. You’re at ease in some circles and you’re watching your back in others, just because of that particular thing. You can belong to some communities because of a passion. You love model trains or the Broncos or Slayer, and you find your people because they share this love with you. You may wish to join an elite group, to which admission is earned, through aptitude and perseverance. After great striving, you are at last a Marine, an Olympian, a scholar, and for the rest of your days, this is your clan, your kindred. And of course, some circles you just buy your way into. If you have the money, you can be a member of a social club, or you can have a house that allows your kid to go to a certain school. And then you’re in. Throughout the narrative of the Gospel, Jesus invites and challenges his listeners to envision a future reality called The Kingdom of God. It’s a place where people will belong, but it’s a different kind of belonging. Depending on which bible verse you’re reading, the kingdom may seem like a distant future thing that comes about after the end of life as we know it, or it may seem like something that’s taking shape in the here and now, as people adopt Jesus’ teachings and example. But whether it’s a long way off or it’s happening before our very eyes, the Kingdom of God is a place of peace, safety, provision and welcome. The kingdom is a community of grace, a community that everyone will want to be a part of. And that begs a certain question: What does it take to get in? How can you secure membership with this club? Who gets to know that they belong, in this kingdom community? Because it’s clear from the outset that you don’t get to be part of the Kingdom based on any of the criteria that we’re accustomed to using to establish eligibility. Who your parents are, what your resume says, what’s in your checking account – these details mean nothing in the Kingdom of God. And, lest the devout assume any particular status, the scriptures cast doubt on whether religious affiliation matters in God’s Kingdom (for more on that, see Matthew 25:31-46). To begin understanding Jesus’ teaching about what it means to belong in a beloved community, and in the kingdom of God, read Matthew 5:1-12 This passage will not put the topic to rest – you’ll still have some questions to puzzle over. But it will help you imagine a divine fellowship and a holy belonging, based on human experience that is entirely different from what usually qualifies someone for a place at the table. Jesus says that God blesses: The materially and spiritually poor The people in mourning The weak and the humble Those who hunger and thirst for justice The merciful The pure in heart The peacemakers Anyone who is persecuted for seeking justice Anyone who is hated and persecuted for trying to live as Christ calls them to live. Reading this list, you may have noticed that these are all things that disqualify you from membership with various clubs and cohorts, in the world as we know it. If you’re poor or weak or pure or persecuted, you’ve probably discovered all sorts of places where you’re not welcome. Now imagine that Almighty God sees you, and sees your abuse and your rejection, and treats these facts as proof. “You belong here,” God says. “You belong with me.” The Table is a Christian church in Davenport, Iowa, seeking transformation: from greed toward generosity from violence toward peacemaking from isolation toward neighborliness from fear toward faith Worship Sundays at 5pm 102 E. 2nd St. Davenport

Being Right vs Being Honest If you want someone to trust you, the most important thing is not being right all the time. The most important thing is to be honest. You know this intuitively. The people you’ve admired the most over the course of your life are not simply talented and brilliant. They don’t succeed at every venture or understand every challenge perfectly. This is not to say they aren’t incredibly sharp and wise – sure they are. But what makes you admire and trust them is that they will acknowledge their own failures and the ways they had misunderstood things in the past. They tell the truth, whether it makes them look good, or it shows how much of a work in progress they really are. And this commitment to honesty is incredibly helpful to everyone they know. We look to people like this for guidance and insight when we are going through our own struggles, because we believe that what they tell us comes out of imperfect effort and hard-won lessons, and we know that they care more about helping us solve problems than making themselves look like geniuses. Conversely, if a person is afraid to admit when they’ve made mistakes or feels compelled to project an image that they are always right, it’s very difficult to trust what they say, because we can’t trust their motives. The great irony here is that a person might actually have a record of being mostly correct on important questions. But if their intelligence is encased in bravado, hubris, and/or a need to claim that they’re the best, it’s really hard when you listen to them, to separate acumen from ego. And here’s the real issue, if a person like this tells you something that later turns out to be mistaken, you can’t expect them to adapt to new understanding – because their priority is not gaining and spreading understanding. Their priority is their own preeminence. And we should expect them to continue promoting their folly as fact. We all want leaders who are smart, and who make good decisions when critical needs arise. With that in mind, we should also look for leaders who will acknowledge when they’ve been wrong, as we discern who are the right ones to trust. The Table is a Christian church in Davenport, Iowa, pursuing transformation: from greed toward generosity from violence toward peacemaking from isolation toward neighborliness from fear toward faith

The Table began with the idea that Christian faith is about movement along with four missional values: From greed toward generosity From violence toward peacemaking From isolation toward neighborliness From fear toward faith. All four of these paths of transformation are being complicated during the time of COVID 19, but the most ‘on the nose’ challenge has to be the idea that as people of faith, we’re trying to be less isolated and more neighborly. Nothing challenges neighborliness like the need to avoid people, right? The ethos of our church has always been that, in the internet age, when we’re all bombarded with information, toxic politics, and sleep-stealing digital media, we ought to invest more in experiences like the ones Jesus had with his disciples – hanging out together and having long conversations. Helping people who are hungry and sick. And of course, breaking bread together. We still believe that these are indispensable features of a good life, but the current crisis has required that we give them up, or at less exchange them for less-satisfying online facsimiles. This has been disappointing, and at times profoundly sad, because we’ve really come to grips with just how much is lost when we can’t hug, or pass around the new baby, and hand one another a piece of Jesus bread. And, because this is so hard, it’s very important for us to remember why we’ve made the choice to forgo gathering in person, especially now, as some parts of our society are opening up to greater traffic. The first and main reason we’re not meeting in person is not a matter of government requirements, although we are committed to following government issued directives, and we’re very thankful for the dedication of experts and researchers who are helping us understand the crisis we’re living through. The first and main reason we’re not meeting in person is actually our core commitment to neighborliness, the very thing that’s brought us together all along, up to this point. We see now that neighborliness requires something different from us than in the past. Looking out for your neighbor used to be offering them a ride to church – now it is staying home. We know cases and deaths are still rising in our area, and that meeting for worship services will increase the risk that people contract this virus. Our services are small, but everyone contributes to or undermines the health of our community by making practical choices. It’s just not neighborly to knowingly contribute to the spread of COVID 19, when meeting online will allow us to avoid this risk. Holding tight to this core commitment, the Leadership Council has decided to have its decisions about when to reconvene in person at The Table be shaped by four factors: · The recommendations of the Iowa Conference of the United Church of Christ, our denomination. · The expectations of CoWorkQC, the business in whose space we meet for our Sunday services. · The governmental directives of Iowa and Illinois. Since our community is on the border of these two states, and our members reside in both, we have decided to follow whichever state’s requirements for mitigating health risks are more cautious and conservative. · The federal government’s specific benchmark that 14 consecutive days of declining cases and deaths should increase confidence in a community’s effectiveness in managing the virus. We’re not creating a rubric with checkboxes, but we are considering these sources of guidance. And when we get encouraging input from all four, our leadership team will make the decision on exactly when our next in-person gathering will be. In the meantime, we’re trying to grow in generosity, peacemaking, neighborliness, and faith by adopting a lifestyle of gracious creativity. How can we care, help, embrace, learn from and lovingly challenge one another, without sharing physical space? This is the collaborative enterprise we’re engaged with, day after day. Thank you for being part of this extended network and fellowship, and God bless you! Please remember to email gather@thetableqc.com if you have prayer requests, if you need someone to talk to, or if you have material needs you’re struggling to meet in this scary. Peace to all, Pastor Rob Leveridge The Table is a Christian church in Davenport, Iowa, seeking transformation: from greed toward generosity from violence toward peacemaking from isolation toward neighborliness from fear toward faith Worship Sundays at 5pm 102 E. 2nd St. Davenport

Silver Learnings part 3 Joseph Califano’s boss couldn’t get a hold of him. This was in the days before cell phones, and Califano wasn’t in the office, wasn’t at home. Nobody he usually interacted with had seen him that day. Turns out, he was at the hospital with his toddler, who had ingested an entire bottle of aspirin and had to have his stomach pumped. The child recovered, but it was definitely the nightmare so many parents imagine. This scenario didn’t just end as a terrifying close call, however, because the boss in the story was President Lyndon Johnson. When Johnson’s people even figured out where Califano was, the President called immediately. On the phone, Johnson was outraged, not about his staffer’s absence from work, but about the accident itself. Why, he asked, didn’t they make pill bottles that were harder to open, so that kids couldn’t get into them? This single event led directly to the 1966 Child Safety Act, which required safety caps on medicine bottles. That law was later expanded upon with the Poison Prevention Packaging Act of 1970, which required childproof caps for all sorts of household products. On the one hand, it’s truly appalling that dangerous products were sold for so long without basic safety precautions. How many families were devastated in circumstances just like the Califanos’, before very basic, life-saving changes were made to simple plastic containers? It shouldn’t take the President of the United States to have personal experience with someone who is harmed before a serious problem gets addressed. But on the other hand, this is still a story of people looking at a problem, saying to each other, “Something needs to be done about this,” and taking action. It should have happened sooner, and we wish people didn’t always have to learn things the hard way. But it’s important for us to remember that dedicated people to learn from, and are driven by disasters. They don’t shrink from tragedy; instead, they take up a cause. These stories are not rare – they are a pillar of our character as a society. Good people go through bad experiences and work to make things better. Passionate determination and courageous problem-solving have always been part of our life together, and they are shaping our shared story, right now. It’s unfortunately true that our nation was underprepared for a pandemic, even though we had all the information to know it was going to happen, sometimes. And our leaders didn’t take important steps they were capable of taking months ago when the crisis could have been restrained more than it has been. We need leaders to take responsibility when things go wrong on their watch, and it’s discouraging when that doesn’t happen. But even though things are worse now than they should have been allowed to get, it is still an opportunity to learn, and to problem-solve. It is true that many, many people in our communities, our schools, and our government, are dedicating themselves to making our country and our communities better, stronger, and safe, and they are using this terrible experience to do so. Many lives are being lost needlessly right now, and we should let the pain of those losses guide us in making better choices going forward. This is how a travesty can till the soil is which new life is able to grow. We are not defeated by mistakes and by loss – instead, we use them, to give a loving gift of protection and provision to the future.

Good Friday Pastors always complain about how Good Friday gets short shrift in our culture. You start seeing Easter decorations and candy for sale in February, and invitations to parties and egg hunts are sent out weeks before the big day. But there’s no sign that the celebration is going to happen in the wake of an unimaginable tragedy. Resurrection only comes after death, and it’s hard to deal with that. Even when the promise of new life is known from the start, it’s still terrifying to face the facts of suffering and loss. And of course, while death in the best circumstances is painful and difficult to cope with, on Good Friday Christians don’t confront a peaceful or natural death. Jesus didn’t simply die, he was targeted. His death was an unjust, brutal horror. So it’s no surprise that people want Easter without Good Friday. Good Friday is terrifying, it’s an abomination, it hurts just to think about it. We’d all rather find the empty tomb without having to go to the funeral. But this year at Easter, things are going to be different. The gravity of the cross will linger. Golgotha will have a different kind of hold on us, because of a death-dealing illness whose spread has still not peaked. In quarantine, amid the news of rising fatalities and a collapsing economy, it’s much harder to rush past Good Friday. In a time like this, we do well remember that God is not only there for and with us, at the empty tomb on Sunday. God is there, for and with us, Friday too, on the cross. God suffers. God grieves. God’s heartbreaks. God dies. In this, we have an everlasting promise, that God knows and cares for all who suffer, who grieve, who are broken-hearted, and who dies. It’s the only good thing about Good Friday, that God is with us, closer than our own breath, not just for the exuberant, but for the unspeakable. It’s no time for celebration, but it is a time for communion. Or think of this way – remember those women who visited Jesus’ tomb on Sunday, and discovered it was empty? Those women were the disciples who stayed with him at the cross when everyone else ran away to hide. They faced the terror and the viciousness. They wept with Jesus. They beat their breasts and cried out to heaven with him. They suffered, with Jesus, together. And they didn’t know it at the time, but in sharing the pain, they were making themselves ready – to experience and, not long after, to proclaim the resurrection. So… If you are suffering today, If you are broken today, If you are grieving today, If you are fearful today, There’s no need to jump ahead to bunnies and lilies and a sunny day when everything is going to work out just fine. All you need to do today is look to Jesus. The God who suffers, The God who grieves, The God who dies. The God who is with us, always. No matter what By Pastor Rob

By Pastor Rob Guest, Host, Friend Jesus was always a guest. He was a guest at Peter’s house when he helped his mother-in-law. He was Levi the tax collector’s guest, which really irritated people. He was the guest of Simon the Pharisee, when a woman bathed his feet with tears of gratitude. He was a guest at Mary and Martha’s, who listened to him and served him. Even the donkey Jesus rode into Jerusalem was a loaner. After he turned over temple tables, he stayed at a friend’s house in Bethany. And the night he took his final meal before death, his small group of friends was welcomed into an upper room, in the home of someone they probably didn’t know. Jesus was always a guest. But on that night of the last supper, he reminded everyone that he was also the host. He was one who invited. He was one who welcomed. He made sure everyone who came was fed and cared for. Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us he gave them all bread and wine, as his body, his life. John tells us he washed their feet. Tenderness, generosity, service. This is the kind of meal with friends we need right now. Before the world was shut down by the coronavirus, many of us had a terribly dysfunctional relationship to hospitality. On the one hand, it’s become easy to neglect it altogether – to stay in, microwave dinner and binge-watch bad t.v. We’ve been insulated from the vulnerability that community requires, and for a while now, we’ve experienced more and more isolation. But on the other hand, those who wish gather, to invite friends over, to activate fellowship, have felt a great pressure to impress, to be flawless and extraordinary hosts, to execute community with extravagance. Because we all want to be judged favorably, and you need to show the world on Instagram how amazing your home and your people are. It was beginning to feel like hospitality had become an, ‘everything or nothing’ kind of thing. But now our options have all changed, and we don’t get/have to play by the rules we’d grown accustomed to. This is disorienting and unpleasant, but if we let it, the shock to our system can yield a profound new clarity. Since we can’t get together in person, and our social distance is required - non-negotiable - we realize not only how much we need each other’s presence, but also how simple true presence really is. It doesn’t take much, just a few people together. Maybe a little bread, a splash of wine. Some words, maybe a song, maybe a few tears. Real listening. And touch, when it’s safe, if there’s trust. When restrictions are lifted, and we first go out to socialize, who among us will care if our neighbor’s house is impeccably clean, or which delicacies are served, or if anyone on the internet knows and likes that we went to a party? Nobody, we just want friends. And so, on this Holy Thursday, as we commemorate Jesus friendship, simplicity and service, remember the beloved community he is still, even now, calling us toward. It’s as simple as life, itself, shared. And it’s the thing we really need.