No one likes change. Actually, we don’t mind change. It’s loss we dislike. People change things about their lives everyday. They look forward to it. They celebrate it. They get married. They have children. They get a new job or a new house. What we fear is loss. We look forward to getting married, but not the change in old friendships. We look forward to a new home, but we miss all the familiar things about our old one. We look forward to the birth of a child, but not the loss of sleep.

         Lately we are troubled by the changes we see around us. We say that we don’t like change but perhaps we are really suffering loss. The way to get through loss is not to deny it or to pretend that it can be avoided. We bear our losses when we see the benefits of change. The new home is in a better location, or it is more affordable. The new marriage is work, but it is a more rewarding relationship than older friendships. The work of parenting is very difficult, but children are a joy and a blessing.

         Change is often not something we choose. All that we can control is how we respond to the changes that happen around and to us. The economy goes bad, or we get a diagnosis of an illness. There is no choice to go back to a time when things were not so bad. We only have a choice to live the best way we know how or to give up to whatever happens. At the most basic level we are faced with the choice to live or to die.

         This Sunday we remember the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountaintop. We remember who Jesus is. We also remember the journey of Jesus from the beginning of his story to its end. There is a glorious vision and there are limits placed upon the glorious vision. Peter wants to set up tents. There will be no pause on the mountaintop. As soon as the vision vanishes, Jesus takes the disciples down the mountain, and reminds them of his path to Jerusalem where he will die before he will be raised.

         Our faith is not static. Our God is sure and dependable. The belief statements of our creed are absolutely firm and unchanging. The promises of God will certainly be fulfilled. However, we will not remain the same. We may prefer to have a self-understanding that is unchanged, but God seeks more for us. We may prefer to have a spiritual community that stays the same as we have always remembered it, but God knows we need people around us who are growing as we are growing in our faith. It would be nice if this church could be a haven from all the confusing changes we see in the world. Instead, God wants our community to equip us to face the changes that trouble us. God would have us guide and support each other through the troubles of life.

         Elijah is about to depart and Elisha, his disciple and spiritual son is following him. The story is a little hard to follow, but they travel in stages from Gilgal to Bethel to Jericho and finally to the Jordan River. They are following the path the people of Israel took as they entered into the Promised Land. The company of prophets, the official religious leaders, supply the facts about what will happen. “You master is going to leave you.” They know the facts but they have no hope. Elisha knows that things will change, but he hopes for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit – that double portion means the blessing of the first-born son. When Elisha sees the vision, it is proof that he will continue the work given to Elijah. His master is gone, but God’s work continues.

         Jesus is transfigured before the disciples. They are terrified. Moses and Elijah are talking with Jesus. Is this everything they hoped for? Peter suggests they preserve the moment. They hear a voice. “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”

         No more visions. No more clouds of glory. No conversations with the great prophets. Now they only have the flesh and blood Jesus with his difficult words and troubling suggestion that he might have to die. Why can’t we stay in that great place on the mountaintop? Why can’t our faith give easy answers that are easy to live up to? Why does it have to be so difficult?

         Our faith is not based on ease and comfort. Jesus makes a literal life or death decision. He knows he has to sacrifice himself so that we can live. Every follower of Jesus has to make the same choice. We have to make the hard choices that lead to life. If we don’t we will only die.

         We will soon begin our journey with Jesus through lent. Part of that journey is to examine our hearts and to discern the things in us that must die. We may take on a discipline of giving something up so that we can practice letting go of things. We may take on a discipline to learn to add good things to our lives. As we journey together as a congregation we will be learning how to live with the changes all around us. We will be well aware of the things that are dead or passing away. We will also need to look for signs of life.

         We have not been brought to this place to perish on the edge of a vision. We have traveled here to see what new thing God can do. We may no longer be a great cultural or civic center for the community of New Milford – but we can be a faithful congregation. People no longer come here because of our prestige, but now it may be easier to be a community without boundaries and expectations. We really can invite anyone. It no longer matters how we are dressed or whom we know – we’re all on the journey together.

         We may be counting our pennies, but maybe we can also discover gifts in our community that have not been valued. Every member has wisdom and every soul has gifts to offer. We can’t do things the same way anymore, but now we have the freedom to create a way that works for us.

         The most difficult part of this is that we don’t yet see the end. We are in good company. The disciples had no idea where Jesus was leading them. The path to new life is not clear, but we know we will get there. That’s all we know for now. Until then, we live in hope that the God who has stood with us in all things will guide us to the end.

          When I was first ordained, I didn’t know how to dress for gatherings of clergy. I remember that I was always wearing a suit or jacket when everyone else seemed to be in jeans and sweaters. When I thought I’d dress comfortably, everyone else was dressed in suits. It’s easier now. Our own bishops rarely dress formally, except for visitations or funerals. My past confusion about dress code reminds me how we often negotiate in our head and in our actions what we think is most appropriate for an occasion.

         I thought about this when I reflected on Naaman, and his visit to Elisha. He brings along with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of garments. What do you wear to a healing? What is the appropriate hostess gift?

         Naaman is suffering from leprosy. In his day this could have been any skin disorder, but the terrible thing about leprosy in that day was that it made people outcasts. They could no longer participate in community, but had to live outside and depend upon the charity of others. Naaman was a general of Aram. The king of Aram needed his general, so he sought a cure. A slave girl from Israel suggested he go to Elisha the prophet in Israel. Naaman goes to the king of Israel seeking a cure, and carrying a large retinue of gift bearers. The king of Israel is terrified. What can he do for this man, no matter how much gold he brings?

         Everyone thought that they were doing the appropriate thing. They all thought that they knew how everything works. Naaman thinks that all he has to do is bring enough money and the king of Israel will produce a cure. The king of Israel thinks that Naaman and the king of Aram must be looking for a fight because he knows this is an impossible request. No one knows how God works.

         Elisha sends word to the king – not to worry, I know what to do. He tells Naaman to wash in the Jordan River seven times and he’ll be cured. Naaman is appalled. That muddy river! Aren’t there better rivers in Damascus? Why did I come all this way? You’d think for the price I’m offering the holy man would at least jump up and down or wave his hands and say some magic words! A levelheaded servant suggests to Naaman that if the prophet had suggested something more difficult, he would have done it – so why not give it a try. Naaman bathes and his skin is made clean. God does not work the way we suppose. There is no need to impress God or pay God. God heals because God is merciful, and God’s mercy cannot be bought or sold.

         A leper walks right up to Jesus and declares, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” The man shows faith not only in his words but also in his actions. He crosses a lot of barriers that everyone else takes for granted. Everyone knows that lepers keep to the outskirts of town. Everyone knows that lepers aren’t supposed to approach anyone, for fear of contagion. Everyone knows that leprosy is a sign of God’s disfavor – they must have done something to deserve their illness. Everyone knows that he should not dare to approach a holy man.

         Jesus also crosses an unspoken barrier. He acknowledges the man and even touches him. I do choose. Be made clean! The man is cured instantly. No need to even bathe once in the Jordan! In touching him, Jesus himself becomes ritually unclean. Perhaps this is why he tells the man to go quietly to the priests and get declared legally clean. Perhaps Jesus wants the man to be restored to community. Maybe Jesus just doesn’t want the attention. Maybe he doesn’t want people to get the wrong idea about who he is.

         The result of the healing of the leper is that Jesus becomes famous and he has difficulty traveling because everyone wants to see him. Isn’t that a good problem to have? Doesn’t Jesus want people to come and hear his message? That’s the way it works, right? Jesus is merciful, and Jesus is proclaiming a message of freedom and new life, but not a message of miracles. Jesus hasn’t come to do miracles. He has come to offer the complete miracle we all need. Jesus has come to transform hearts and to give us all new life.

         The healing of the leper shows how far Jesus is willing to go. He crosses over all of our barriers and he rejects all of the accepted ways of doing things. It is not that Jesus is some sort of iconoclast who wants to destroy society. Jesus wants to do more than to replace the institutions and patterns that have outlived their usefulness. Jesus is offering an entirely new way of living. He is offering new life, eternal life. He is doing more than healing our bodies. He is giving us new hearts.

         The question for us is what do we have to give up that we know to be true? We assume that we know how everything works. We develop ways of working together that we know will work. We relate to the surrounding community in the way we always have. It’s time we re-examined whether or not we are following God’s way.

         I’m not saying that the old ways of doing things are wrong simply because they are old. We are blessed with many traditions that give us wisdom and sense that we are connected with generations of faithful people. Our faith is not some monolithic objective thing that we have to carry or work around. Our faith is a living relationship with God. We have to constantly work to deepen and enlarge our faith. We have to look to see the new things God is doing – in us and around us.

         Paul uses the image of a track meet. To win the race we have to work. The work is not to copy the challenges of the past. Our work is to follow God faithfully in this moment. We don’t really “win” as if we have defeated someone else. We are training to seek the path God has given us and we are training to follow to the best of our abilities.

         It’s easier to have customs and traditions that are comfortable. God doesn’t call us to be comfortable. God calls us to live. As we are ready to give up those things that no longer give us life, we are closer to following more faithfully the path that leads to real life.

          When we think about the prophet Jonah, what do we remember? We remember the whale (or the big fish.) We reduce the story into what we think is a simple children’s story. Why we think that a story about someone being swallowed by a fish is comforting to children is another issue. What we often forget is why the whale swallows Jonah in the first place. He was going the wrong way.

         The story of Jonah is the story of a racist, who does God’s will despite himself. When God first commanded Jonah to prophecy to the Ninevites, he got on a ship going the opposite direction. He didn’t want to proclaim God’s word to the Ninevites. Jonah knew that if he warned the Ninevites that God would destroy them, there was a chance that they would repent and God would forgive them. Jonah was holding out for destruction. So Jonah is swallowed by a whale and spit up on the shore, and he travels into the city and proclaims a message five words long in Hebrew. “Forty days Nineveh is destroyed!” I’m sure he proclaimed that hopeful message with great zeal. Then Jonah waited on a hillside under the shade of a tree, for the destruction of the people he hated.

         God has bigger plans than we imagine. The people of Nineveh took the message to heart. King and peasant all fasted and wore sackcloth and ashes. God saw that they had a change of heart and spared them all. Jonah was upset and the tree that gave him shade had withered in the night. He was so upset about the tree that he asked God to kill him. Life was not worth living. God points out to Jonah in the closing words of the book, “You care for a tree that grew up in a night and died overnight. Should not I be concerned about this great city full of people who do not know their right hand from their left?”

         There is a great message here about how God has a larger heart than we imagine. Many of the barriers and limits that constrain us are of our own making. There is also a reminder that it is God who has the power to transform hearts. We often think in absolutes and deny the possibility of new life. We think nothing will ever change. We despair that we can be any different. We blame others for the problems of our lives – politicians, bankers, foreigners, Ninevites! – and fail to see that God can overcome anything – even us.

         We think of miracles as stories that are preserved in old books. They are things that happened long ago, in a different age and time. We remember little snippets and give them to children like old broken things that we can’t use anymore – but they might amuse the children. The thing about miracles is that they are rarely what people think that they want. Whenever we are reminded of a miracle, the miracle is always about how God has created something new that is unexpected.

         God is always drawing people into new life and deep love. We are so stressed out and worried that we are tempted to reduce the world around us into simple practical rules of thumb. “You get what you pay for.” “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” We have begun to believe certain truths about the church. We think we have to be a mega church in order to gather members. We think we have to have fabulous programs in order to be a good church. We fear that we can’t afford to be the church. Yet the church is not about money or market forces. We are gathered here to enter into the work of God of drawing the whole world to God.

         We hear the story of the call of the disciples and we may think that it has little to do with us. It is very impressive that these fishermen left everything to follow Jesus. But they are apostles after all. Jesus himself invited them. How could they say no?

         The call of the disciples is not a story of extraordinary people with heroic willpower. The call of the disciples is a story about ordinary people who accept an invitation into something new. The fishermen left their familiar world and entered into God’s work or restoring the world. Along the way, they had to face their old preconceptions about how the world was supposed to work. They questioned Jesus’ teaching. They were troubled by some of the people who wanted to follow Jesus too. They were confused and afraid and fled when things got tough. After the resurrection, it took some time for them to appreciate what God had done and how they would live new life. The rest of the New Testament is the continuing story about how the people of God continued to enter into the work of God.

         Today we are invited to participate in the work of reconciling the world. It doesn’t matter what we have or who we are. God has called us and God loves us. God wants us to share this love with everyone. The question we have to ask is how will we do this today? I think all our attempts to repair or restore the church we knew can be empty distractions. We are worried about preserving something that had once been life giving to us. Today we must discover what is life giving today. We have to be ready to drop our familiar fishing gear and pick up the new tools God is giving us. We need to look beyond our familiar boundaries and look to the horizon of God’s love.

         We are worried that we cannot hold together the church of the past. This is a good place to be. Now we have nothing to lose as we enter into God’s work.

           My son was so proud to get his first job, and he was proud to get his first paycheck. When he looked at the final amount he was upset. “What’s with all these taxes?” Welcome to the life of responsible adulthood! It’s great to be a grown up. We have power to do things and we have responsibilities. As Christians we are called into this community to do be God’s people. We find blessing and joy. We also have a lot of work to do. Some of it we’d rather not do but we must anyway.

         We quickly hear the apostle Paul remind the Corinthians of this very thing. They were wise and blessed with resources. They knew they had found true freedom in their faith. Paul reminds them that their freedom was not permission to do anything at all. They had made a choice to leave one sort of life but they had also bound themselves to one another and to God in a new way. Although they were free, they were also responsible for each other. They were also committed to living a new life, even if they were free to return to old ways.

         Samuel was bound to the service of God by his mother Hannah, as an act of thanksgiving when she was finally blessed with a child. He lived in dark times. The temple was still a tent. The people lacked deep faith. The leaders were weak and ineffective. No one had heard the voice of God for some time. In the literal darkness, God calls to Samuel. At first, he thinks the old blind priest Eli is calling him. Eli has the wisdom to have Samuel respond and to listen to what God is saying. Samuel did not ask for the voice of God or even understand it. All he did was to allow himself to be open to what God might offer.

         Philip follows Jesus and begins to be inspired by what he hears. He tells Nathanael about a teacher who might be the fulfillment of all their hope. Nathanael wonders, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip brings him to Jesus and Jesus tells him he saw him under a fig tree. Nathanael is amazed at this miracle of foresight and heaps praise on Jesus. Jesus tells Nathanael he will see greater things than these. There’s a little play on names here. Nathanael is an Israelite in whom there is no guile. The person Israel, who was Jacob, got through life always trying to trick the people around him. It is because of his deceit that Jacob had to flee his brother. In the wilderness, he slept with his head on a stone and had a vision of angels ascending and descending a ladder into heaven. Nathanael, the deceit-less son of Jacob will have greater visions than his ancestor. He will see the new life offered by Jesus.

         We have the same blessing. We have seen new life. We have tasted the love of God. It has made a great difference to each of us here today. If it is such good news, then why are we broke? Why is our sanctuary empty?

         We are not the first people to live through dark times. We are surrounded by a culture that has lost faith, or pays far less attention to using faith to determine behavior. We may wonder at our future. What will be our place in the New Milford of tomorrow? What do we have to offer? Our message does not seem to be very popular. We are not very entertaining. If we have anything to offer, it is only the difference our faith makes in our life.

         We are being called to give up some of our illusions about what mature faith is like. When my son got his first paycheck, he realized that the power of maturity (of earning pay and having money) is balanced by the responsibilities of maturity. The church does not exist to please us or to make us feel good. We have been given good news in order to be transformed into new people and to go out into the world and offer God’s love to everyone who needs it. Our calling is a wonderful blessing. We rediscover our place with God. We are bound to other people of faith in God’s work of restoring the world.

         It is not easy work. The freedom and blessing we get also compels us to responsibility. We are called to receive God’s blessing by faith and we are called to follow Jesus by faith. We have to have courage to look beyond our present circumstances and not let our troubles define us. We are not the church that used to have an endowment. We are heirs of the kingdom of God. We are not the church that used to have many members. We are people called to proclaim good news, no matter how many people listen. We are not old and tired. We are born again. We have new life.

         We are called by God for God’s purpose. If we really believe that God has called us here, then we must be ready to let go of our own demands of God. You may think that you came here this morning to hear wonderful music, or to listen to a well-crafted sermon, or to bring your children to Sunday school. The real reason you are here is because God reaches out in love to you, to draw you closer and to send you out with a job to reconcile the world.

         The worship we do together, the singing and praying, the teaching and the encouragement all work together to make us a community of reconcilers. Much of our most difficult work is to simply learn how to be reconciled with each other. We have to learn what it means to love the people who are closest to us. We have to learn how to love people with whom we disagree. We are stretched to love people who are strangers to us and who are sick or in need. The work of reconciliation takes us out of ourselves and our own worries and our own needs. Maybe this is what will save us. If we can stop worrying about the budget or our kids or our fears – and if we can invest our lives in the transformation of the world then we will see the vision that Jesus promises us.

          What’s the difference between right and wrong? There are times when we don’t even think about it. We know what’s right and we know what’s wrong. It is always easier to think in terms of absolutes when a choice is at arms length – when it doesn’t directly affect us. It is much more complicated when we look close at hand. This is especially difficult when we raise children and we want to teach them right from wrong. We can write up a list pretty easily, but almost as soon as they can talk our children ask us, “Why?”

         It’s not always the rules that are the problem. It is the living and the doing that is difficult. We would have no trouble here listing all Ten Commandments. I’ll bet many of you could recite the greatest commandment as given by Jesus. We probably know the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The trick is to live by that rule.

         When we first hear that rule we are apt to think of it in a negative way. Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want done to you. Don’t step on my foot because you wouldn’t want me to step on yours. Jesus urges us to think a little more positively. We should actively seek to live in such a way that we would want others to act towards us. We want to help our neighbors because we would want them to help us in time of need. This is just how Jesus describes the obedient and disobedient son in the parable. It is the one who worked that obeyed.

         Even here I think we limit the scope of what God wants for us. God wants us to do more than to be nice and kind. Jesus wants us to die. I know that this is not the most popular way to express what we believe. We come to church for comfort and strength. We hope to meet our friends and we want to be uplifted and inspired by our time together. We also come here to die.

         We are really longing for something different than what we know. As much as we seek help and support, we are really looking for a new world. We want a new heart and a new spirit. We want to live new life – eternal life – resurrected life. To get this we have to die first. The people of Israel had to put to death all the old definitions of themselves so that they could stop being slaves and become the children of God. The tax collectors and prostitutes had to repent and turn their hearts to enter into a new relationship with God (a new relationship to which the chief priests and elders were also being welcomed into.) When we baptize a child, we are declaring sacramental death so that we can also proclaim resurrection. The child dies in the waters of baptism so that they can be born again.

         We don’t use the language of death, but we are forever trading old expectations for new ones. If we look on an infant just before they are baptized we don’t see a dying soul, begging for new life. We don’t see loss or sin or failure. We see the future and our hearts are filled with hope.

         The child may look perfect in our eyes today. Tomorrow is different. We know the child will grow. We know the child will learn right from wrong and that he or she will often choose the wrong. The first time the child willingly chooses to do the wrong thing, it is a little death for the parents. They know that their perfect child is not perfect. This death of perfection is a blessing because it opens the deeper path of learning about why we choose the right thing and not the wrong. It is the first step in that child learning what it means to say that they are sorry and receive real forgiveness and be restored in a new way to their family.

         The day when that child tries to play baseball and can’t throw or catch, it may also be a little death for the parents. They discover that their child will not grow up to pitch for the Red Sox. That little death opens the way to discover the gifts that God is already growing in that young person. Some day the baby will grow up and go to his or her first prom. Maybe they have a great date and we hope the relationship blossoms, but the young couple breaks up. It is painful and there are many tears. The death of that relationship is the beginning of a new understanding of what it takes to be in relationship with another person. They learn for the first time that it is what they give that brings them closer to another, not what they can get out of another.

         In the letter to the Philippians, Paul is encouraging the church to continue in their sacrificial support of others. He reminds them that it is this emptying that leads to life. We often think it is the other way around. We think that if we surround ourselves with more and better stuff, our lives will be enriched. Jesus shows us that the true direction is completely opposite.

         Even though Jesus “was in the form of God, (he) did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

         As we raise our children and as we find our way we discover that we are not in an unending race to get more for ourselves. Our race is to give away as much as ourselves as we can while we can. The result is not the stress and anxiety over scarcity that mark our age. The result of giving ourselves to others is that we find life – and if we are lucky, we help others find life as well.

         Our call today is to teach the rules to those given into our care – and then to go beyond the rules. God wants more for us than to be merely good. God wants us to live. In the waters of baptism we have already died. The freedom to live our resurrection is at hand. Let us follow the tax collectors and prostitutes who have gone before us walking the way of the cross that leads to life.