Holy Week is over, spring break is over, our visiting relatives have left and gone home. We are still in Easter season in the liturgical year, that time of year in which we continue to celebrate the resurrection. We are still in Easter season, and normally this sermon would be about a post-Easter event, based on a post-Easter Biblical passage.

Normally, you see, when I start my sermon-writing process, I look at the lectionary texts for the week. The lectionary, you may recall, divides the Bible into portions that it suggests for use in worship. There are four suggested passages each week, usually two from the Old Testament and two from the New. Normally, I look at these passages and let them spend some time sitting on my spiritual back burner. Sometimes I will then do some research, read what someone else has said about the passage, or follow some string of thought that has come to my mind. I will then start walking around in circles until an idea is born, until a sermon structure begins to take shape in my mind. Only after I have the sermon mapped out in my mind will I begin to write. This sermon-writing process begins with a lectionary text and seeks to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying through it to us.

That is my normal sermon-writing process. It is, for the most part, how they teach you to write sermons in seminary. But it doesn't always work that way. No, for me at least, there is another kind of sermon that I sometimes write, a sermon that doesn't start with a Biblical text that has been suggested by the lectionary, it doesn't even start with a book I have read, it doesn't start with something external at all. These sermons start instead from something that is already inside me. I think of these other sermons as sermons of the heart, which is not to say that my normal sermons have nothing to do with the heart, but that these sermons of the heart start from the heart. If anything, they are more personal to me. They start from someplace deeper, they are with me for long before they ever find expression in a sermon.

This week's lectionary passages, not surprisingly, focus on the aftermath of the resurrection, they focus on its meaning and on encounters with the risen Christ. But I am not preaching on those passages today. No, today's sermon is a sermon of the heart and it has been with me for some time.

As of about two weeks ago, I have been the pastor here for a year. A lot has happened in that time. I think there is a new sense of stability that is to be expected after an interim period. At the same time, unless I miss my guess, there is still a sense of excitement and adventure, the sense that we are on an evolving journey. We have received new members and friends. We have started new programs and new committees -- we have a communications and evangelism committee, for example, and groups of young adults that meet regularly. We have continued our tradition of being active in the community through our participation in Habitat for Humanity projects, mission trips, and the Garden Project which we celebrated yesterday. We continue to explore new ideas and try to discern the working of the Holy Spirit in our midst as we learn and fellowship with each other and worship together. Indeed, as someone who works here day and day out, I feel like I would have to be spiritually blind not to witness the Holy Spirit at work in our midst.

As for myself, I am increasingly confident that maybe, by the miracle of God's sustaining grace, I can indeed successfully be the pastor of this church. I often forget that this last year here was my first year as a pastor in the United States, my first year as a solo pastor, my first year as a pastor of a Presbyterian church. I was just reminded of that as I wrote this sermon. It was a year of firsts for me. It was my first year of preaching a sermon every week. I wasn't sure I could do it, and it is still the hardest thing that I do. The fact that something comes out of my mouth every Sunday is amazing to me, given that I start every week virtually with nothing, and the fact that sometimes God uses what I say to touch others is nothing less than miraculous.

There are still more firsts ahead, for me, for us. God is still doing new things in you, in me, in us. But as I look back to the past and look ahead to the future, I can't help but be aware of what lies beneath, I can't help but be aware of something old and deep that lies within me. It is a holy un-ease, a spiritual hunger, a longing for something that I can't fully name. Part of me feels like I am not supposed to talk about this, it is too raw, too messy, too intensely personal and private. Perhaps pastors are supposed to be spirit-filled, they are not supposed to confess their spiritual hunger. Maybe it causes people to squirm in their seats. I suspect many of my colleagues would not preach this sermon -- my father probably wouldn't.

But I am not my father, and I cannot help but preach about this.

This subject came up a bit over a month ago in a conversation with my best friend Derek. We talk regularly on the phone, but last month he came here for a short visit, spending time with me as part of a multi-purpose trip. One morning, we went to IHOP for breakfast. It was a break from my usual routine, though back in my college days, I had been such a regular at IHOP that some of the waitresses knew my name. It was a dreary day outside, cold and rainy, and we pulled our jackets close as we squeezed in the front door. We sat down, ordered our food, and settled into a long conversation, the kind of conversation that you have with old friends when you aren't pressed for time. Derek is a Presbyterian pastor as well, and we spoke about our lives and our churches. As he hugged the warm coffee mug in his hands, he shared some of the joys and frustrations that he encounters in his ministry. He wonders if he will be in parish ministry five years from now. I often wonder the same thing about myself.

It was during our conversation, as we talked about the church and about ourselves, about how the church needs to change, and about what we need to be sustained in our ministry, it was during our conversation that I brought up the subject of my deep spiritual hunger. It is this hunger, I suppose, that often fuels my ministry. Paradoxically, however, it is this same hunger that makes me sometimes feel out of place, it is this same hunger that sometimes makes me feel like a fraud, that makes me think about leaving ministry. As we continued to talk, I came closest to naming what is at the root of this hunger, namely a desire for deeper intimacy with each other in our church community, and even more than that, a desire for deeper intimacy with God. I suppose you could say that this sermon started then, in that moment of naming, or coming close to naming, this thing within me, this hunger, this presence on my heart.

Intimacy. The word has been echoing within me in the weeks since then, as Lent has come and gone, as spring is on its way here. There is even something intimate about expressing the desire for intimacy, and perhaps it is no accident that the act of naming occurred in an intimate moment with my best friend, on a cozy morning eating pancakes while the rain fell outside.

I share this with you now because I dare to believe that I am not alone in this desire for intimacy. Oh, we may not always be aware of it, we may be frightened of our own desire, we may actively or passively numb ourselves to it, but I think it is still there, down deep within us. The tragedy is that it seems our society is facing a crisis of intimacy. It seems our lives are marked not so much by intimacy with each other and with God, but by alienation.

Our Christian theology tells us that alienation is part of our broken human condition, but it often seems like it has reached greater proportions in the modern world. Loneliness, meaninglessness, despair, fear -- these are the marks of a world that often doesn't feel like home. These are the marks of a society that is cut off from the ultimate ground of its being, as theologian Paul Tillich spoke about God. We see the marks of this alienation here and there, now and then, more clearly at some times than at others. I see it in terms of our relationship with space. Look at our parking lot. Our automobiles are a sign of our alienation from each other as we each drive around, each in our own controlled space, separate from each other. They are also a sign of our alienation from nature, as our energy consumption contributes to global warming and the mass death of plant and animal species. As the average home size grows, we each stake our plot of earth, living in neighborhoods where many don't know their neighbors. Neighborhoods aren't what they were like when I grew up, let alone when my parents grew up -- fear and separation have had their effects. There are virtually no common spaces anymore, areas where anyone and everyone gathers just to meet and greet each other. Not like in Spain or in Palestine or elsewhere, where people go out on the streets and into the plazas to socialize with each other. No, the most populated spaces we have are not for making and deepening relationships, they are the malls and stores that reflect the value we place on consumption.

I see our alienation in our relationship with time as well. Time has become a commodity, we never have enough, we are constantly driven to make the best of it, to be more efficient, to do more at work, to juggle our parental and spousal and vocational responsibilities. Time is money, it is something to be used and discarded, it has no value in and of itself, no abundance, no blessing. All too often, we fail to encounter in time an invitation to intimacy. We think time is for doing, not for being, not for being with.

Our relationships with each other also reflect this crisis of intimacy. I see it in marriages that lack tenderness. The spouses settle down into a routine. The husband mows the lawn and picks up the children on certain days of the week, the wife drops them off and takes care of the bills. They talk with each other, but not really, they have forgotten how to talk with and listen to each other, they have forgotten or they never knew. What a contrast such a relationship makes with the relationship described by the psalmist, who declares, "You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore."

The lack of intimacy in a marriage, for whatever reason, I wonder what impact that makes on the children. It can't be good. The breakdown of the family both reflects and contributes to this crisis of intimacy. Too many people grow up without any sense of being rooted, without a deep sense of being loved. Their families are broken, they don't know what healthy relationships look and feel like.

And as grateful as I am for my relationship with Derek and other close friends, I am painfully conscious that all too many people lack such holy, intimate friendships. It bothers me. It bothers me deeply. I can't tell you how many people I talk with who don't have a friend, who go through life alone. They have acquaintances, they have people they do things with, but not a real friend. Some of them have people they could call, but they don't.

Part of the task of the church in a society beset by alienation is to create a space for intimacy -- intimacy with each other, and with God. Thank God, I believe sometimes that happens. I believe I have witnessed that happening here at Trinity. But I can't help but fear that it doesn't happen enough. I spoke recently with a pastor who for years had become so engrossed in the routines and details and programs and struggles of church ministry, that he confessed to me that he had forgotten who he was, he had lost a sense of why he had entered ministry in the first place. If that happens to pastors, it also happens to us. We have church dinners and Christian education classes and mission projects and special worship services, the list goes on, and don't get me wrong, they are all valuable, but those aren't the end in and of themselves, they are a means to an end, a means towards greater intimacy with each other, with our neighbor, and with God.

Our Scripture passages this morning are a reminder that we are created from and for this intimacy. The creation account in Genesis 2 reflects the close relationship between God and humanity as it speaks of the Lord God forming a man from the dust, and then breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. The image is almost one of God at play in the sandbox, delighting in God's new creation, tenderly shaping all the fingers and toes. God's care then extends beyond the new human, God also pays close attention to his new environment. Like parents carefully decorating a room for their newborn baby, God plants a garden in Eden as a home for the new man. God's intimate relationship with creation extends to God's desire to create a companion for the new man. The cry of the man at discovering a woman is the cry of intimate joy --"This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." God, you see, delights in our intimacy with each other, through our relationships with others, we can gave glory and pleasure to God.

This tone of intimacy is carried throughout the Bible. It is present in the psalms of the psalmist, in the prophets and histories, and in Revelation, which ends with an intimate vision of restored communion with God. During Holy Week, there is something profoundly intimate about Christ washing the disciples feet. Indeed, the entire Christian story is a story of the lengths to which God goes to be intimate with us, to be in close relationship with us, to overcome our alienation from each other and from God.

Given the importance of intimacy in the life of our faith, I have decided to do something different, something I haven't done for a while. I have decided to trust that this is on my heart for a reason. Therefore I will be preaching on the topic of intimacy for the next several weeks. I don't know how long my sermon series will last, nor do I have the definitive thing to say about intimacy with God and with each other. Rather, I will only sketch out a few lines here are there, hoping that from the shape of the outline, we together can discern the action of the Holy Spirit in our midst. I invite you over the course of these weeks to think and pray about intimacy, in your relationship with God, with others, and here at church. Consider the questions, what are we doing as a church to foster deeper relationships with each other and with God? Do we need to do something different?

This is not something to do alone, so I invite you to join me as we do something new. Starting next week, for the length of this sermon series, I will begin a series of sermon talk-backs. Approximately 10 minutes after the conclusion of the worship service, I will invite those who so desire to spend approximately 20 minutes in conversation with me and each other. How did the sermon strike you? What questions or thoughts or ideas did it raise? What implications are there for our life together as a faith community? Is intimacy with God something that you have experienced, something that you long for? What might that look like?

Perhaps I am a bit crazy for beginning a process that I don't control. But I suppose intimacy always involves risk, and having a conversation about intimacy with God means being open to God doing new and unexpected things in our midst. I trust that the God who created us from and for intimacy, the God who washes our feet and is closer to us than the air we breathe, I trust that God will be with us in our conversation.