tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31698595650033381932024-02-08T08:22:21.928-08:00A Drafty Placeearthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-19463162009703254242012-04-05T13:03:00.002-07:002012-04-05T18:38:48.759-07:00Memory of a Meal<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Memory of a Meal<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1 Corinthians 11:23-26<o:p></o:p></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Maundy Thursday<o:p></o:p></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Northside Community Church<o:p></o:p></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">5 April 2012</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"> <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">If you were to look back over your life, and pick out some of your most cherished memories, how much would food feature in them? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Was there a special snack your mom would give you when you got home from school? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Was there a particular menu your family would enjoy for Thanksgiving or for Christmas?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Was your Easter picnic incomplete if your aunt didn’t bring her potato salad?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Do you remember how it felt to scoop pureed vegetables off your baby’s chin with an impossibly tiny spoon? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Do you remember how it felt for friends to bring casseroles when a loved one died? There wasn’t anything they could do to change the sad fact of death, but they did what they could do – they showed you their love with their food.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Food is such a primal fact of life that memories of it can connect us in the deepest possible ways to joy, and to grief.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">I can’t think of my grandmother without being flooded with memories and more memories of food. I miss her fried cornbread. I miss her homemade biscuits and chicken gravy on Christmas Eve. I miss her homemade vanilla milkshakes. Mostly, I just miss her.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">The year after she died, I spent some time experimenting with recipes for banana pudding, until I finally created one that tasted as close to hers as any I had ever tasted, and it made me want to cry. It was like she was with me, almost. Almost.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">From our earliest days, the days before we can even remember, we experience a link between food and love, between food and family. Some of our best memories have food in them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Some of our worst memories, too. A family fight. A ruined dessert. Food poisoning. Food is meant to be a source of nourishment and nurture, but it’s true that sometimes it is also a source of pain, even shame. Our feelings about food are complicated.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">It’s one of the ways I suppose we are different from other animals. Our hunger is more than just physical. Our associations with food are also emotional, relational, spiritual. “To eat is to see, smell, touch, and taste God’s provisioning care.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3169859565003338193&postID=1946316200970325424#_edn1" name="_ednref" style="mso-endnote-id: edn;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Stories about food run all through the Bible. Food featured in the very first sin, of course, but there are happier memories, too. Abraham and Sarah welcomed three strangers into their tent, and served them a meal – turned out they were angels. God provided manna in the wilderness. Jesus dined with all sorts of people, and took heat for it. He also hosted a simple meal for thousands, out of just some bread and fish. In story after story, there is food.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">But you can’t talk about food in the Bible without talking about the central feast of the Passover meal, the celebration of God’s deliverance of God’s people from slavery into freedom. Jesus would have participated in this feast every year, from the time before he could remember. Can you imagine him, a little boy at his mother’s knee, eating the bread, praying the prayers, singing the songs, hearing the story of God’s liberating work in the Exodus? “Why is this night different from all other nights?” the children are asked at the Passover meal. Every year the question is asked. Every year the story is told. The story becomes a part of the memories of those who celebrate. Even now, when faithful Jews gather at the Passover table, they hear and tell the Exodus story again, as if they were there when it happened. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">We see this sense of remembering in Scripture itself. In Deuteronomy, we read, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien…” and then suddenly the story shifts. What was about an ancestor now becomes about the teller, instead of saying “he” the teller says “we.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“When the Egyptians treated <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">us</i> harshly and afflicted <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">us</i> … <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we</i> cried to the Lord…. The Lord brought <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">us</i> out of Egypt.” (26:5-8). This is how the biblical story works – the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">old</i> story becomes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">our</i> story, as we tell it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">The young grandson of a friend of mine once prayed, “God, thank you for helping us cross the Red Sea.” And he was saying something true. This is how memory of the biblical story works – we weren’t there, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we were</i>. This isn’t just someone else’s story, it is ours. God didn’t just deliver <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">them</i>. God delivered <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">us</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Every year for 33 years, Jesus participated in the Passover meal and heard and told the stories of deliverance. What were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">his</i> memories of this feast? Maybe he had memories of his mama setting the table, of his father pouring the wine, of his grandmother making the bread. Maybe he also had memories as old as time. As he heard and recited the Exodus story, these became his memories too – memories of a people set free, memories of a people on their way to the Promised Land.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">And then, finally, on the last night of his life, he comes to the meal again. “Why is this night different from all other nights?” This night would be different indeed. He would be betrayed, arrested, denied, tried, scourged, mocked, and crucified. But first, he would share this meal with his friends. And he would make the stunning claim that the bread and the wine were his own body, his own blood,<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3169859565003338193&postID=1946316200970325424#_edn2" name="_ednref" style="mso-endnote-id: edn;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> given for us. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">All four gospels tell us the story of that night. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he tells it again. And for 2000 years, churches everywhere have told it not just on this night, but every single time we gather to share in this meal. We call the retelling of it “the words of institution” – on the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took the bread, blessed it, broke it, gave it to his disciples and said, “Take, eat. This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And in the same way after the meal, he took the cup, blessed it, gave it to his disciples, and said, “Drink from this, all of you. This cup is the new covenant in my blood, poured out for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sins. Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">We tell it every time we eat the bread and drink the cup. This story is our story. We were not there that night, but in the telling of it, we were, in a way.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Do this <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in remembrance</i> he said. He knew the power of memory. He knew how our remembering could put him at the table with us, every time we eat. It’s funny, how divided Christians have become over the centuries, about this meal. People argue over exactly what happens in this meal, and big theological words get thrown around – transubstantiation, consubstantiation, sacramental union. Baptists typically view this meal as “memorial” or symbolic. And we sometimes put the word “just” in front of that – it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">just</i> a symbol, it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">just</i> a memorial. But there’s no reason to put the word “just” in front of something as powerful as a memory and a meal. Something holy happens when we remember. Something hopeful happens when we tell this story again, and eat this bread and drink this cup, and do it together. He is at this table with us, because we are remembering him. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Paul wrote his letters to the Corinthians while they were in deep conflict with one another, and one of their big problems was that they had privatized their faith and worship. They had lost the sense that the life of faith is a life of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">community</i>. <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3169859565003338193&postID=1946316200970325424#_edn3" name="_ednref" style="mso-endnote-id: edn;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> He writes to remind them of the importance of this meal, how by it we have become one body. In receiving the bread and the cup, we are partaking of the body of Christ, together we are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">becoming</i> the body of Christ. Elsewhere Paul writes, “The bread which we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we the many are one body.” (10:16-17)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">How is this night different from all other nights? Well, for one thing, Christians all over this globe – separated by language and custom, separated by theology and practice, separated by bias, suspicion, resentment – Christians <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everywhere </i>are gathering at this table, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">his</i> table, tonight. His bread and his cup unite us. His body and his blood are what make us one with each other. Tonight, we all remember the same thing – his life, poured out for us. His love, poured out for us. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">He becomes powerfully present to us in this meal. He becomes powerfully present <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">through</i> us, by this meal. And it’s worth remembering not only that he gave himself to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">us</i>, but that he gave himself for the whole hungry world. As members of his body, we are meant to keep giving ourselves for the sake of this world.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">What are you hungry for? Connection? Acceptance? Forgiveness? Friendship? Meaning? Comfort? Purpose? What are you hungry for? You will find it at this table. What are you thirsting for? You will find it in this cup. We will find what we are looking for when we come to his table, because he is here, too.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Who do you miss? They are at this table, too. We receive this bread and this cup, three churches, together, an important symbol that<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> all </i>God’s people are meant to gather as one around this gift. That includes that great communion of saints who share in the heavenly feast on another shore. They gather at this table, too. We may look like only a few people here tonight. But imagine multitudes. Because that’s what we are. Multitudes of God’s own people, coming to this table, all of us one body in Christ. You, me, Simon Peter, Doubting Thomas, Mary Magdalene, the Apostle Paul, my grandmother, all our grandmothers and grandfathers in the faith. Imagine Christians in China, Botswana, the Ukraine, Malawi, Mexico, Morocco, India Israel, Palestine. They are with us, too. Some of them under threat of persecution, yet still they come to this table. And there are some who need this table, who need what Christ brings, but they don’t yet know where to find it. And how will they, unless we share the great nourishment we’ve been given? There is room and more room for all at this table. We are meant to share.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">How is this night different from all other nights? It is different because of what he did for us, what he does for us, what he gives to us. It is different because in his self-giving love, he invites and empowers our own self-giving love. He makes us one with him. He makes us one with each other. He makes us one in ministry to the whole world. This is not only what we remember. It’s what we keep coming to this table for. To be made whole, and to be made one, and to be made ready to give our own selves in love for a hungry world.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="mso-element: endnote-list;"><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" /> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <!--[endif]--> <div id="edn" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3169859565003338193&postID=1946316200970325424#_ednref" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Norman Witzba. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating</i>. 180.</div></div><div id="edn" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3169859565003338193&postID=1946316200970325424#_ednref" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> In her article “Was the Last Supper a Passover Seder?” Wil Gafney, Ph.D., who answers that question with the word “maybe,” writes that “there is one aspect of Jesus’ last meal that does not have a parallel in a regular or Sabbath meal, Jesus’ re-identification of the bread and wine with himself, his body and his blood. Jesus’ words would have also been stunning at a seder. They remain extraordinary.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-wil-gafney-phd/was-the-last-supper-a-passover-seder_b_1392094.html </div></div><div id="edn" style="mso-element: endnote;"> <div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3169859565003338193&postID=1946316200970325424#_ednref" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> J. Paul Sampley. “1 Corinthians.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New Interpreter’s Bible.</i> 934.</div></div></div><!--EndFragment--></div>earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-8635943090653906692012-03-27T07:51:00.002-07:002012-03-27T07:51:31.695-07:00Unless a Grain Falls<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><strong style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><em style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unless a Grain Falls</em></strong></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><strong style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">John 12:20-36</strong></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><strong style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">5th Sunday in Lent</strong></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><strong style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">25 March 2012</strong></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of my favorite church events of the year is the darkest thing we do. We gather every year on Good Friday, at nighttime, to walk through the story of Jesus’ last hours, to meditate on his crucifixion, and to sit in silence, in the dark, together. The service stands in stark contrast to my other favorite service, which happens on Christmas Eve, and is filled not with silence but with song, not with darkness but with light. On Christmas Eve we rejoice that God has come among us. On Good Friday night, we mourn God’s absence, the death of Jesus at our own hands.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">One Good Friday, about nine or ten years ago, Paul and I were hustling around getting ready for the service, which involves a lot of attention to logistical detail. The lights have to go off at just the right time, the candles have to be snuffed out at various intervals throughout the service, readers have to do their readings, in the dark. For a service that is about crucial existential issues such as darkness, anguish, abandonment, death, and emptiness, there are an awful lot of pedestrian details to tend to.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">On this particular evening, everything was finally in place, and we were ready to go. But just as I was about to enter the sanctuary to begin the service, a 6 year-old girl stopped me. “Pastor Stacey,” she said. “I understand that Jesus had to die on the cross. But what I don’t understand is <em style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">why</em>. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Why did Jesus have to die?”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh, mercy.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why, indeed?</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">What the little girl didn’t know is that she was asking one of the core questions of our faith, one that theologians have wrestled with for centuries. It is the deepest mystery, the darkest center of our faith. What does it mean when we say that Christ died for us? What exactly happened when he did? What happened for God in that moment, and what happened for us? How was anything made different, how was anything made right?</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">These are questions for which I could have offered elaborate theories worked out by long-dead theologians. I could have used words like “ransom,” or “substitute,” or “sacrifice,” or “moral influence,” or, my favorite, “Christus Victor.” I could have said things that made it sound like the whole thing was some sort of neat equation, that, once understood, was easily assimilated into right living. I didn’t say any of that.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Truth is, I don’t remember what I did say. I just remember her question, and how it hollowed me out. How it drew me up short. How it resonated with my own sense of wonder and longing. I remember finally going on into the service, and listening to the old story again. I remember sitting in the dark.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">--</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes lately, as I’ve been reading current news, I have felt a sense of pressing darkness. Reading the story of innocent civilians in Afghanistan – many of them women and children – asleep in their beds, in their homes – gunned down by an American soldier. I can’t bear it. And I think about that soldier, and what darkness must have taken hold of his mind, his soul, in the moments when he perpetrated such horror. And I think about his family. And I think about all the soldiers on all sides, and all the families, and all the civilians with war all around them. It’s too much.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then this week, reading and hearing the story of Trayvon Martin, innocent, unarmed, 17 year-old kid, on his way to a friend’s house with some Skittles and an iced tea. Gunned down by a self-appointed neighborhood watchman because the guy thought Trayvon, a black kid in a hoodie, looked “suspicious.” And the gunman hasn’t been arrested because he claimed self-defense, against an unarmed kid. And I listened to the 911 calls, with Trayvon begging for help in the background. And I think about his mama. And I can’t bear it. The darkness, the hate, the fear – I want to look away. I want all of it to go away.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And I know these two stories are just two out of thousands, out of hundreds of thousands, of horrors and hatreds that happen every day.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where is Jesus, in all this darkness? What did his death do, after all?</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">---</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some foreigners came one day to Phillip, one of Jesus’ disciples. They were Greeks, in Jerusalem for Passover. They came to Phillip and said, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” And Phillip told Andrew, and together they went and told Jesus. And here is how Jesus responded to this request – he told them he was going to die. “We would see Jesus,” they had said. “You want to see? See this: my suffering, my death.”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">He tells a little parable. “Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">What does a seed do, but go down into the dark? It falls down, into the deep, into the dank earth. And it dies. It cracks open and gives itself up. And it does this not for the sake of dying but for the sake of living, for life to spring out of it. And this is how Jesus responds when the Greeks say they wish to see him. Look at this, he says. Look at the seed, how it falls, how it dies.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">“We want to see Jesus,” the Greeks say. “We want to see Jesus,” we say. And Jesus says, “Look at the dark. Look at this death.”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">We would rather not, truth be told. We would rather make neat theories about what his death <em style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">does</em>, than to actually look at him there, hanging on the cross. It’s safer to theorize than to ponder the agony of his suffering, the horror of his death. It’s safer to make the cross a puzzle to be solved than to let our own hearts be pierced by his pain and by the pain of the world God loves.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jesus saw his death coming, and John makes it very clear that he gave himself to it, he was no victim. It was what we came for – to give himself completely, in love. The grain falls to the ground and dies so that the wheat can grow. His death, like that of the seed, is necessary, and it is life-giving.[i] What’s more, in John, “fruit” is a way Jesus has of talking about the life of the community of faith.[ii] The saving power of his death will result in the blossoming of a community of believers who will redefine the meaning of life on the basis of Jesus’ death, on the basis of his self-giving love.[iii] If he hadn’t died, we wouldn’t be here. The seed of his life would fall to the earth, be buried, sit there in the dark, hidden, until it swelled, cracked, and broke open with new life,[iv] blooming into fields of wheat, blooming into a community of the beloved, who would offer their own lives in love, too. </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">He speaks of his death in this way – like the necessary self-offering of the seed – but then he moves from talking about what is hidden in the earth to what will be up high and visible, his cross. He says, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John points out that he said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. And those words are meant literally – he will be lifted up, on a cross, strung up there for all to see, nailed to two pieces of wood, to suffer, to bleed, to thirst, to die.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">He was speaking of the manner of his death, but he was speaking also of its meaning, and of its power: he would be lifted up – raised, exalted, elevated over all other powers. He would be lifted up –to show us the very heart of God, impaled upon a cross. This is what we need to see when we look at his death – God, broken like us, broken for us, broken with love, bearing all our sickness and sadness, and drawing it all into himself, and then drawing us all to himself.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In his suffering and death, Jesus absorbed the worst the world could do and he didn’t do any of it back. It was put to death with him. Which is not at all to say that bad things don’t still happen, but that in his death he broke their power over us.[v] He conquered their ability to define us - or our response. In his death, the power of God’s transforming, self-giving love was lifted up over every other power.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">We hear the news in our world, of suffering and death, and we want to look away. This is not what we want to see. We say with the Greeks, “We want to see <em style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jesus</em>.” And he tells us where to find him – look at the darkness, look at the cross.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look at those innocent lives cut down in their beds in Afghanistan. Look at the soldiers, their families, so much pain on all sides of every war. Look at Trayvon Martin, look at boys like him everywhere, under suspicion, under threat of violence, for the color of their skin. Look at so much darkness and you will see God, cruciform. Christ, suffering, dying, but still lifted up, still drawing it all into himself and drawing us all to him, to love. Do not look away from the pain of our world – Christ is in it all, crucified. And Christ must in our response to it all.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The truth of the cross is that ours it not the only heart that breaks over this mad world. God’s own son laid down his life in solidarity with all the pain that ever was and that ever would be. The cross is the form of God’s love over our lives. The cross is meant to become the shape of our love in response.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">All the suffering in our world is lifted up into God’s breaking heart. The cross reaches into every hidden place of pain or guilt, its arms span all suffering, all loss, all sin, and all death. The cross reaches all of it, and somehow, <em style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">somehow</em> will transform it all. Look at such love as this. Be drawn by such love as this. And then let our hearts, like his, crack like seeds that fall to the ground, so that what comes forth is more love, more life, his life, in us.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">[i] Gail O’Day. <em style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">New Interpreter’s Bible</em>. “John.” 714. R. Alan Culpepper. <em style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Gospel and Letters of John</em>. 194.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">[ii] O’Day. 711.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">[iii] O’Day. 714.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">[iv] Barbara Brown Taylor. “Unless a Grain Falls.” <em style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">God in Pain: Teaching Sermons on Suffering</em>. 64.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">[v] Taylor. 64.</div>earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-51250208527464459552010-03-06T17:55:00.001-08:002010-03-06T17:55:55.272-08:00Do or Die<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>Do or Die</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Luke 13:1-9</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>3rd Sunday in Lent</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>7 March 2010 </b><i><b> </b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">We all know the story and the images well by now. On the afternoon of January 12, a catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Port au Prince, Haiti, the capital, was absolutely leveled. Nearly a quarter of a million people were killed. 300,000 more were injured. Roughly a million were rendered homeless. It is a devastation we can scarcely imagine.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">The next day, a well-known televangelist went on the air and gave an explanation as to why this terrible thing had happened. He said, “Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French … and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’ True story,” the televangelist said, “And the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal. Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[i]</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">And so one of history’s only successful slave rebellions got twisted by this man into a pact with the devil, resulting in a curse, resulting in a natural disaster, resulting in unimaginable pain and suffering, including the pain and suffering of thousands and thousands of children. They must have deserved it, right? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">It is human nature to look for explanations for why bad things happen. The easiest explanation has always been to blame the victim. There is some psychological comfort that comes from telling oneself that terrible things only happen to terrible people, people who deserve them. The implication is that if we live the right kind of life, we can protect ourselves from calamity. And, conversely, if certain awful things haven’t happened to us, we must be living right.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">This impulse seems to be as old as time. It certainly was the case in Jesus’ day. The popular assumption was that misfortune was punishment for sin. This was the way they, like our famous televangelist, made sense of otherwise senseless tragedy. This was the way they preserved God’s character, too – if God is a good God, and a just God, and an all-powerful God, then disaster must be the result of human sin.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">One day, some people approached Jesus with some shocking bad news. Pontius Pilate had massacred some Galileans who were in the temple praying. The Galileans had brought their animal sacrifices for their offering, and now their own blood mingled on the temple floor with the blood of the sacrificed animals. They must have done something to deserve it, right?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">Jesus responds in no uncertain terms. “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No!” And he goes one further. He moves from news of deliberate evil to news of accidental disaster. “What about those eighteen people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them?” he asks. “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">He says it elsewhere, too. The disciples once asked him about a man born blind – who sinned, this man or his parents? Jesus said <i>neither one, it was nobody’s fault.</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"> And elsewhere he says this: <i>the sun shines on the evil and the good; rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous. </i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">Whatever meaning you might make from evil, or accident, or natural disaster, Jesus is clear. It is not about what’s fair. It is not about what’s deserved. It is not about God’s judgment.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">Jesus never goes along with simplistic answers to difficult questions. Horrible things happen, and there are no easy or satisfactory explanations. He erases our neat, old equations between catastrophe and condemnation, between tragedy and punishment, between ruin and retribution. He is unequivocal – this is not how God works.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">What this means, of course, is that all of us are vulnerable. We are fragile. Life is precarious. At any moment, everything we know could be shattered. It happens every day, to people just like you and me. And all the right living in the world won’t change that. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">In light of that, Jesus’ next words are a warning. The Galileans who were murdered and the people who were crushed by the tower – they were no worse than anybody else, and their deaths were not a judgment on their lives. Still, Jesus reminds us, their sudden deaths should cause us to look at our own lives. The clock is ticking on all of us, and we never know when our time will run out. “Unless you repent,” Jesus warns, “you will all likewise perish.” He does not mean we will be killed for our sins. All of us are going to die regardless. The question is how we are spending our lives in the meantime. Jesus is using death as a metaphor for judgment. When the last second ticks for us, how will our lives be judged? The time to repent is <i>now</i></span><span style="font-size: small;">. The time to turn, to take hold of a new way of living is <i>now</i></span><span style="font-size: small;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">Then Jesus tells this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to his gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">Told in the context of talk of repentance, this is the picture Jesus paints of our sin. This is what our failure looks like. Sin is about something so much more than morality. The tree isn’t doing anything bad, per se. But it is standing there taking up precious space, soaking up sunshine, drinking from the soil, and never yielding any fruit. It gets everything good it needs and does not bear anything good or beautiful in return. It does not give back.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">This is too often our story, too. We hear the word<i> sin</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"> and we think of a series of moral laws about private virtues. But Jesus consistently shows us that sin is more fundamentally about a failure to do what good we can. We soak up the sun of God’s goodness, we’ve been given so much sweetness and nourishment and light. Do our lives bear generous fruit that reflects the richness of what we’ve been given? Are we giving back joy, are we giving back kindness, are we giving back love? Are we growing into the fullness of our good purposes?</span><span style="font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Light"; font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">In Jesus’ story, what happens to a fruitless tree is that the owner decides to cut it down. John the Baptist had warned of this, saying “Even now the ax is lying at the roots, poised to strike.” Jesus’ listeners wouldn’t have been surprised. They would have known the popular folktale about a palm tree which did not bear fruit. The owner came to chop it down. The tree itself spoke: “Don’t cut me down! Transplant me to a better place, and I’ll be fruitful.” And the owner said, “Nope. If you haven’t done it by now, you never will.” And he toppled it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">There were other versions of this story of the talking palm tree – in some of them, the tree doesn’t bear any dates; in other versions, the tree does bear fruit but drops it all into a river. But the endings are all the same. The owner gets his ax. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">But not in Jesus’ story. The gardener intervenes. He protests: “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">After three years of fruitlessness, there is no reason to think that the tree will begin producing now. But the advocate-gardener takes a risk; he makes an extravagant pledge to pour his care on it anyway. In a region where fig trees produced lavish harvests with little care, this gardener vows to go to great lengths for one failed tree. Will his risk pay off? The answer to that is up to you and me.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">In so many ways we have not tended the good lives we’ve been given; we have not produced fruit. We stand under the sun of God’s love, rooted in the soil of God’s provision, and yet our lives are too often barren of the sweetness, the goodness, the fullness that they should yield. Even so, the gardener advocates for us. He pleads for us, he lays down his life for us, he feeds us with himself, he drenches us in the outpouring of his love and of his life. What response can we make, but to take hold of what he gives and give back our own lives?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;">The conversation with Jesus started with the question: is tragedy God’s punishment for sin? Jesus’ answer is a definitive <i>No</i></span><span style="font-size: small;">. He reminds us instead that tragedy can happen to anyone at any time, and with a life as fragile as that why would we waste what little time we’ve got? He invites us to see what life we’ve got as gift, all of it an act of God’s mercy. In light of such grace, he gives us a choice: Repent or perish. Do or die. We can wither where we are, let our lives dry up no matter how much goodness we’ve been given to share. Or we can repent, turn, let the life Christ laid down nourish our roots. We can take hold of our promise. We can let our lives bloom.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="edn1"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[i]</span></a></span> </div></div></div>earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-4005144422104031342010-02-06T16:24:00.000-08:002010-02-07T05:57:59.169-08:00Lord of the Broken Nets<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Lord of the Broken Nets</span>
<br /><span>Luke 5:1-11</span>
<br />5th Sunday after the Epiphany
<br />7 February 2010
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<br />It was an interruption that changed everything.
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<br />Interruptions have the power to do that, you know. Most interruptions are mere annoyances – the telemarketer who rings you as you sit down for dinner, the co-worker who stops by your desk just as you are making progress on your inbox, the child who talks over the punchline on your favorite show. But some interruptions change our lives. The phone that rings at 2:00 in the morning. The water that breaks four weeks early. The breaking news that interrupts regularly scheduled broadcasts. One moment changes everything.
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<br />For Simon, it had been a night like any other night. He and his fishing partners had spent the whole night fishing. But for all their work, they had come back to shore with nothing. They stood there next to their boats, washing their nets, ready for a hot breakfast and a long nap. And up walks this man who just steps into Simon’s boat, sits down, and starts teaching. A crowd is pressing in on him, anxious to hear the word of God, and so he delivers it, sitting in Simon’s fishing boat.
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<br />Luke doesn’t tell us whether Jesus asked permission or offered explanation. He doesn’t say how Simon responded to the interruption. He just says that Jesus got in and started teaching. And Simon and his friends didn’t leave. They had worked all night for nothing, and surely felt bone-tired and ready to go. But they didn’t. And when Jesus was done speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
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<br />Simon explained, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.” In other words, “We’ve already tried that, it didn’t work.” Some people might’ve stopped at that, turned around, and headed home. But Simon’s head was filled with what Jesus had been teaching. It is clear from the crowds who press in that this man offers a compelling word. Simon is compelled too; he doesn’t turn away. He goes on, “Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”
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<br />So they push off from shore and do what Jesus says. They throw their empty nets into the deep water, and pull up a staggering haul. Their nets begin to break. They have to call their partners over from the other boat to help them bring it all up. They struggle to bring up the catch; it fills both boats. And the boats begin to sink.
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<br />Can you see it? Can you smell it? Fish flopping everywhere. Nets creaking, straining. Boats tilting, tipping. Tired men groaning, tugging, struggling with their catch. Where there had been nothing, now there is more than they can handle.
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<br />It’s the first miracle in Luke that does not involve a healing or an exorcism. Jesus hasn’t commanded the sea or the fish. He has not told the fisherman to do anything unusual. He simply comes to them in the midst of their ordinary work, and tells them to try again, and to go deeper, and they do.(1) What they pull up defies all expectation and brings Simon to his knees.
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<br />He knows that what has happened is more than just the best fish tale ever. What he has caught hold of with his nets is a miracle, and he responds to the divine power of it, falling before Jesus and saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” But Jesus won’t have it. “Do not be afraid,” he tells Simon, “from now on you will be catching people.” And they bring their boats to the shore, and leave them there – stinky fish, breaking nets, and all – and follow him.
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<br />What a story! Even so, some of us shy away from it. We have heard this story used towards a kind of triumphal evangelism. We have heard it used as part of church growth campaigns. We prefer to relegate it to children’s Vacation Bible School lessons, so that we don’t have to deal with it so much ourselves. It makes us feel guilty, or uncomfortable, or anxious. We do not want to be, in the more familiar words, “fishers of men.” It is unseemly.
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<br />But what if we could set that aside? What if we could let Jesus interrupt our preconceived notions and our well-defended habits? What if we just let him come in, enter our ordinary lives, right where we are? Maybe he comes to us after a long day’s work, when we feel like nothing we have done has made a difference. We are ready to be finished for the day. Try again, he urges. Go deeper, he says, calling us into depths we haven’t explored, spiritually, or emotionally, or in some other way we’re unprepared for. Do we resist, and insist that we’ve already tried and failed?
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<br />Maybe he comes in the same way, right here into our church. Some here have worked so long, and so hard, for the sake of this church, and for what? Some days it’s hard to see that any of it makes any difference. We worry. We despair. We wonder what we have to show for all our years and all our work and all our faithfulness. And there he comes. Try again. Go deeper. Do we resist? Do we insist that we’ve already tried and failed? Do we give up? His call to put out our nets into the deep water – that’s an invitation to go farther than we have, to move out of safe water and known places, and see what happens when we let him lead.
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<br />If we’re willing to respond to such an invitation, we could find ourselves faced with unexpected abundance and blessing. Instead of coming up empty, the fishers’ nets were filled with a stunning wild bounty. Can we believe that God will lavish abundance on us too, if we risk going further and going deeper than we thought we could? Scripture tells us that God can do abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). Do we believe that? Are we willing to risk asking and imagining and seeing where God leads us?
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<br />If we really believed in the God we say we trust, then we would know that no net we have is enough. No resource, no ritual, no habit, no tradition, no understanding, is big enough to contain what God means to bring. We can never be prepared for the abundance God means to provide. A boatload of blessing – and more – is available, but it will strain and even break our previous structures.
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<br />Maybe that’s what we are afraid of. Maybe we are not afraid of failure, but of success – success in the form of unpredictable abundance and blessing. When Simon confesses his sin, isn’t it interesting that Jesus’ response is, “Do not be afraid”? Jesus knows that this is the way we are. When faced with the possibility of abundance, when challenged by the breakage of our old ways, we are afraid. We want to keep doing things the way we’ve always done, whether they’ve worked or not. Whether they’ve helped us or others, or not.
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<br />This past week was the Feast of St. Brigid, one of the patron saints of Ireland. Brigid helped shape Irish Christianity in the middle of the fifth century, when it was still new to Ireland. She was known for her hospitality and generosity. In stories about Brigid’s life, she is remembered as a person who worked miracles of abundance among the poor – abundance of food, or drink, or healing, or justice. She taught that “every guest is Christ,” and though she was not generally known for turning anyone away, she was wise and discerning with how she ministered to those in need.
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<br />One day, a man with leprosy approached her saying, “For God’s sake, Brigit, give me a cow.” Brigid told him to leave her alone. Possibly this was not her first time dealing with the man. He persisted. “Give me a cow!” Brigid asks him if she can pray to God to remove the man’s leprosy. “No,” he replies. “I get more this way than if I were clean.” Brigid insists that he “take a blessing and be cleansed.” And he acknowledges that he is, in fact, in a lot of pain. And so she prays for blessing for him, and he is cured. (2)
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<br />It’s easier – less risky, less costly, less work – to stick with whatever we’ve got, to do what we’ve always done, than to open ourselves to blessing and abundance that may require something more of us than we expected. Jesus calls us to cast our net into deep waters – to risk moving towards possibilities we cannot yet see, or predict, or understand. If we follow, who knows what wild bounty we may haul in? In the process, there are habits and practices, attitudes and understandings, in our lives and in our church life that will stretch and maybe break, and maybe even sink. Are we up for that? Are we willing to follow the Lord of the broken nets? Are we willing to trade what we’ve got for what he wants to give?
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<br />In the end, it was not just fish that were caught that day at Galilee – Simon and his friends were hooked, too. They could not resist the draw of this man Jesus. He would call them into dangerous places. They could not foresee the outcome. But they had experienced a moment of untamed, unmitigated, abundant, amazing grace, and they could do nothing but respond. They left behind the nets, the boat, and the catch. Because in the end, the real grace wasn’t about the gift, but the giver.
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<br />God is ready to do abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine. What is it that you would ask, for yourself, and for this church? What do you imagine? What can you dream? God’s dream is bigger. God’s bounty is wilder. God’s provision is more outrageous.
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<br />Everything we’ve got is just a net, or a boat. We have to be willing to let what we’ve got be stretched, be broken. In some cases, we may need to be broken, ourselves. But God will provide more than we can ask or imagine, as long as we’re willing to keep following Jesus, and to go deeper than we’ve gone before, maybe to places we cannot yet see or expect.
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<br />And if we really fix our lives on following him, if we really stake our church on him, then we will find ourselves drawing a net of love out into the world and hauling more people towards unexpected blessing and grace. The haul may not look like what “experts” call “success.” It may look like dozens of children from Hikone Housing, coming to know the love and dependability of God because of people here who showed that love. It may look like scores of children and families in Nandasmo, Nicaragua, who are strengthened and empowered by the bonds of Christian friendship with sisters and brothers here. It may look like a new kind of movement to confront the problems of homelessness in this city with courage and conviction, while caring for those who are homeless with compassion and greater resourcefulness. [Maybe it will look like a holy zeal to share the love of Jesus in every way we know how.] Or it may look like something we have not yet dreamed.
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<br />Jesus said, “From now on you will be catching people!” Who knows what that catch will look like – all we know to do is throw out our nets, let ourselves be stretched, let our boat be rocked. And keep on following him.
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<br /><meta name="Title" content=""> <meta name="Keywords" content=""> <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <link rel="File-List" href="file://localhost/Users/stacey/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:template>Normal</o:Template> <o:revision>0</o:Revision> <o:totaltime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:pages>1</o:Pages> <o:words>64</o:Words> <o:characters>369</o:Characters> <o:lines>3</o:Lines> <o:paragraphs>1</o:Paragraphs> <o:characterswithspaces>453</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:version>11.1282</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotshowrevisions/> <w:donotprintrevisions/> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:usemarginsfordrawinggridorigin/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} span.MsoEndnoteReference {vertical-align:super;} p.MsoEndnoteText, li.MsoEndnoteText, div.MsoEndnoteText {margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapedefaults ext="edit" spidmax="1026"> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapelayout ext="edit"> <o:idmap ext="edit" data="1"> </o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></span> <i>New Interpreter’s Bible</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. “Luke.” Gail R. O’Day. 118.</span></p> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></span> The Reverend Jan Richardson, <a href="http://paintedprayerbook.com/2010/01/31/epiphany-5-the-wildest-bounty/">http://paintedprayerbook.com/2010/01/31/epiphany-5-the-wildest-bounty/</a>. Also thanks to her for the phrase “wildest bounty,” which she found in Alice Curtayne’s biography of St. Brigid. Curtayne wrote that Brigid ministered to the poor with “a habit of the wildest bounty.”</p> <!--EndFragment-->
<br />earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-78592602866484417102010-01-23T15:43:00.000-08:002010-01-23T20:18:01.515-08:00The Core Reality<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Core Reality</span><br />Psalm 19<br />Third Sunday after Epiphany<br />24 January 2010<br /></span><br />One of the things our boys are learning in kindergarten is that everybody can be a scientist. They are learning to be curious, to be open-minded, and to investigate the world around them. Their teacher tells them that when they encounter something that looks or smells disgusting, instead of responding with, “Eww, yuck!” a scientist says, “How interesting!” It is their new favorite phrase. For them, every day has become an opportunity for scientific investigation, and there is no realm of life that cannot be approached with a scientist’s quest for knowledge.<o:p></o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Our contemporary culture, which excels at compartmentalization, prefers to divorce science from other facets of life. The most famous such split is the supposed divide between science and religion, which are seen to be not just distinct from each other, but in conflict. Science and poetry are also seen as completely separate fields, but this can’t really be the case, can it? There is an inherent poetry in equations, for instance – rhythm, symmetry, something like rhyme, and certainly beauty. When science shows us something new about the human body, or about the earth, or about the skies, we are brought into new awareness of how vast is the mystery of life. It is hard not to be struck by wonder and by awe, at such new discoveries. These are the same responses that poets are going for. And of course mystery, wonder, awe – these also lie at the heart of faith.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">A few nights ago, one of our little scientists approached us and asked if, for his birthday, we would let him take a special trip. When we asked him where, he answered matter-of-factly, “To the center of the earth.” When I asked him how he would get there, he had an answer for that too, “A rocket drill.” His brother chimed in, “That sounds exciting. I want to go. I’m dying of curiosity to see what’s at the center of the earth.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We know what science teaches us about what is at the center of the earth. And of course we know that it would be not only impossible but also unpleasant to attempt to take a little day trip there. But the impulse behind this birthday request is possibly universal and certainly profound – the desire to know what is at the core of reality. What is the center of life? What lies beneath that part of reality we can see? What holds everything together?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Our psalmist has some thoughts about that. He has a poet’s sensibility, a scientist’s quest for truth, and the attentive delight of a child. He starts not by pondering the center of the earth, but by pointing our gaze towards the edges of the universe. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The heavens are telling the glory of God;<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Day to day pours forth speech, <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>and night to night declares knowledge.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There is no speech, nor are there words;<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>their voice is not heard;<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>yet their voice goes out through all the earth,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>and their words to the end of the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In the heavens God has set a tent for the sun,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;">which comes out like a bridegroom<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>from his wedding canopy<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;">and like a strong man runs it course with joy.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Its rising is from the end of the heavens,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>and its circuit to the end of them;<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>and nothing is his from its heat.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">On a January weekend in Michigan, we might not agree with that bit about nothing being hid from the sun’s heat. But even grey skies and barren trees and icy wind tell of God’s glory, though for some of us it may sound more like tiny whispers than like a voice that goes out through all the earth.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The psalmist here is reflecting an ancient belief that the sun, and the moon, and the stars produce a harmony of tones by their movements, and that this harmony is sounded day and night from one end of the earth to the other.<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.do#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> The voices of the universe are not in human language – as the psalmist says, “there is no speech, not are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth.” And what they are telling is the glory of God.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>The psalmist<span style="font-size:100%;"> knew that creation is gorgeous enough in its own right, but there is a gift beyond that gift – what creation teaches us about God. Beauty, power, persistence, whimsy, usefulness, harmony, fierceness, interdependence, wildness – all of these will teach us about who God is, all of these will teach us how to praise God, if we pay attention.<o:p></o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And yet we know we cannot look at creation and see only good; there is tragedy and terror in it too. The horrific damage of the earthquake in Haiti is too fresh on our minds to be glib about how pretty nature is. Creation deals cruel blows. Theologian Paul Tillich once wrote, “Praising the glory of nature does not mean speaking of the beauty of nature alone and forgetting its overwhelming greatness and terrible power. Nature never manifests shallow beauty or merely obvious harmony.”<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.do#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">How do we reckon with the wild and terrifying freedom of creation? Natural disasters leave us horrified, bewildered, and enraged. They lead some of us to question God, and some of us to question if God even exists. It is the central perennial question of faith: how can God be both all-good and all-powerful and still allow such terrible things to happen? It’s a problem that cannot be settled, not entirely, and not entirely satisfactorily, not on this side of eternity. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">But we can learn something from the psalmists about engagement with cruel realities. The psalms speak of God as refuge in times of destruction and distress. The psalms tell us that in response to fire and earthquake, in God’s temple all say, “Glory!” The faithful did not deny evil or tragedy, but even those things led them towards humility and reverence. It caused them to bow before the great mystery of a God who has set such a complex and uncontrollable universe in motion. It led them to respond with praise to the fierce, untamable nature of a God who is beyond our understanding or control. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">But God wants more than our reverence; God wants a relationship. The psalmist, who had us looking up to the skies, now directs our eyes toward the Torah, God’s instruction. Like the sun in the sky, the Law of God revives the soul, rejoices the heart, gives light to the eyes. God’s instruction, which has been built into the very structure of the universe,<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.do#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> has been made more explicit in Scripture. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">What the psalmist is trying to help us see is that the same God whose power is proclaimed by the cosmic witness of the universe has also directed a personal word to humanity. The implications of this are staggering. The God who set the stars in the farthest galaxy also address us intimately, warmly, directly. The God who created the whole vast universe also came seeking a relationship with each of us.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">God’s instruction, in creation and more overtly in Scripture, is meant to draw us into that relationship. The psalmist declares that what God’s Word accomplishes in our lives is all the good things God wants for us: vitality, wisdom, joy, enlightenment. Creation’s voice goes out over all the earth, and yet we do not hear it. But we have been given this book, and if we listen deeply, we do hear God speaking words of life. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The problem is, we’ve treated Scripture more like rules that we can’t live up to than like a relationship we’re willing to embrace. We find ourselves unable to do the things we know would keep us in harmony with God, or with each other, or with the world, or even with ourselves. We fail, and we hurt each other, and we do great damage to other people and to ourselves. And so the psalmist acknowledges our faults, and makes a petition for forgiveness. A psalm that started at the outer edges of the cosmos bends down now to the one place that matters most to God – the human heart.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Whereas creation is for us music without words, the Scriptures have been for many of us words cut off from music. Not because the music isn’t there, but because in our human limitation we have not been able to hear it, and accept it, and dance with it. So finally, God brought the music and words together for us, in the life of Jesus. His life, and death, and resurrection said the Word we needed to hear, the Word that is already written in the skies, and in our Scriptures, but that we couldn’t seem to see, couldn’t hear – that Word was Love, and only Love. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This is the core reality. This is what holds at the center – God’s love for us, and for our world, from the expanding edges of the universe to the shifting floors of the sea. When we turned away, and our love failed, God’s love remained steadfast. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We look at our creation and divorce it from any sense of reverence and connection with our creator. We look at our Scriptures and we read judgment. We read constraint. We read irrelevance. But the only thing God has ever been trying to say was, <i>I love you</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. The only thing God has ever wanted is for us to live in the freedom and the refuge of that love, that we might honor and care for each other and our world. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>I love you!</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> he tried to tell us through the stars and the moon and the sun and the trees. But we couldn’t hear it. <i>I love you!</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> he tried to tell us again through the Scriptures. But we couldn’t accept it; we thought it was only a law we couldn’t keep. <i>I love you!</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> God told us one more time in Jesus, and tells us still.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In the 14<sup>th</sup> century, a 30 year-old English woman named Julian of Norwich received the first of several revelations from God. The most famous one, and the one you’ve probably heard quoted, was about a hazelnut. Her visions went on from there, for 15 years, and she continued to ask God what it all meant, when finally she received this answer:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;">What, do you wish to know your Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For love. Remain in this, and you will know more of the same. But you will never know different, without end.<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.do#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iv]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Love. If we yield to it and embrace it, we will know more of the same. But we will never know different, without end.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">That Sacred Word, the Word that spans the universe and stretches across the pages of Scripture and finally took on flesh to reach down to the depths of our sad dark hearts – that Word is saying just one thing, and always only one thing, and never anything different, only more and more of that one word. <i>I love you! I love you! I love you!</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It only says that one thing, and it only wants one thing in return – to shine like the sun over your whole life.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <div style=""><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span> <hr style="height: 3px;font-size:78%;" align="left" width="33%" > <!--[endif]--> <div style="" id="edn1"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.do#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Paul Tillich. “Nature Mourns for a Lost Good.” <i>The Shaking of the Foundations</i></span><span style="font-style: normal;font-size:100%;" >. 80.</span></p> </div> <div style="" id="edn2"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.do#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <div style="" id="edn3"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.do#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> NIB. 750.</span></p> </div> <div style="" id="edn4"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.do#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iv]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> As quoted in <i>An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith</i></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">. Barbara Brown Taylor. 34.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment-->earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-15058478461483438082010-01-09T19:21:00.000-08:002010-01-09T19:22:31.603-08:00Beloved<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} p.MsoHeader, li.MsoHeader, div.MsoHeader {margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; tab-stops:center 3.0in right 6.0in; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} span.MsoEndnoteReference {vertical-align:super;} p.MsoEndnoteText, li.MsoEndnoteText, div.MsoEndnoteText {margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Beloved</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Luke 3:15-17, 21-22</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Baptism of the Lord</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">10 January 2010</span><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">If you had gotten to be the one to pick the name on your birth certificate, what name would you have picked? Would it be something more original that what your parents chose? Or maybe less original? Is there some name you have thought would fit you better than the one they picked?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">[I went through a period in my childhood when I insisted that my friends and family call me “Lisa.” I’m rather glad it didn’t stick, since about 10 years later a juggernaut of a television show debuted, with a main character named Lisa Simpson.]<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I knew a woman who went through a divorce in her early 40s and changed her name. Not her last name – her first. She had been called “Susan” all her life, but suddenly she felt like her real name was “Sophia,” which means “wisdom.” Her children had given her the name when they were playing make-believe, and she embraced it as her true identity, letting herself be named by her children instead of her parents. She felt like it gave her a fresh start on a new life following the breakdown of her marriage. I only met her after she was already going by Sophia, and I thought it suited her perfectly – she was wise, and her wisdom was hard-won. But I understand that the change in her name was rather difficult for her friends and family to adjust to. Claiming who we really are can be hard on those who thought they already knew who we were.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Most of us don’t get to choose the names that other people call us. Our parents name us something, and that’s what we go by, or some variation of it. Along the way, we pick up other names, too. <i>Smelly Elli. Fatty Patty. Spacey Stacey. </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Schoolmates think they are so clever in their cruelty.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Most of the names we live under are a little more subtle than that. To name something or someone is an act of creation – it creates a reality. People in our lives say things to us or about us, and those things help create our sense of our identity. <i>Stupid</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. <i>Ugly</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. <i>Lazy. Failure</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. We don’t choose these names either, but if we’re shackled with them long enough, we begin to consent to the truth in them. We begin to see ourselves through those lenses. We will never be smart enough, or good-looking enough. We don’t deserve to be happy or successful. We can never work hard enough or accomplish enough to get the approval or love we seek. We can never throw off our old names. Or at least it seems that way – in part because those names have sunk down into our hearts. We have let them claim us.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Others of us have worked hard to build our identities into something rock solid and unassailable. We mean to make a name for ourselves. <i>Hard worker. Successful. Attractive. Brilliant</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. We have put an awful lot of stock into our self-made identities, and we can do just fine with them for a long time – until something like illness, or aging, or disaster, does something to shake those identities or even shatter them.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Jesus had a mighty big name to live up to. His name meant “God saves.” In this morning’s gospel story, he gets a new name, too. It doesn’t replace his old name, it simply clarifies it. He comes to the River Jordan, where John is baptizing people. The people there are getting washed in the river, repenting of their old ways, rising from the waters to embrace a new life. Luke tells us that these people were filled with expectation. They were there at that river’s edge looking for something, hoping for something. The gospels never explain why Jesus sought baptism, too, but they agree that he did. Luke’s focus is not on the baptism itself but on what happens next.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">He tells us that after all the people had been baptized, and after Jesus also had been baptized, Jesus was praying. Luke is the only one to note this detail. In this Gospel, it is the first thing Jesus does after coming up out of those waters, and throughout his Gospel, Luke will show us Jesus praying. In Luke, at the most significant moments of Jesus’ life, he stops to pray. It is the pattern of his life and of his ministry.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In this instance, while he is praying, the heavens are opened, and the Holy Spirit descends upon him like a dove. And a voice comes from heaven, saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” His name has now been augmented, deepened. He is called<i> Son</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. He is called <i>Pleasing</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. He is called <i>Beloved</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Before his temptation in the wilderness, before the work of his ministry, before his long road to the cross, before a mocking sign calling him “King of the Jews” is hung over him on that cross - these are the words that are hung over his life: Beloved, Pleasing, Son. Living under the reality of this claim, he moves out in freedom and with courage to love, to serve, to teach, to die. The names that God pronounced over him would ultimately undo the mocking claims that others would make about him. He was freed from having to prove himself, or defend himself. He didn’t have to exercise any power or control but love. He could live like this because he knew who he was.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In his baptism, Jesus identified with us. Some would say there was no need for the sinless one to submit to a baptism of repentance. His descent into those waters, though, was a sign of his solidarity with us. God speaks in this morning’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you…” and in Jesus this was visibly, physically so.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Just as in his baptism he identified with us, so in <i>our</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> baptism we take on his identity. We are baptized into Christ. No words came down audibly from heaven when we were raised from those waters, but the truth is still the same. God speaks over our lives, too: “You are my child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” The words are offered not because we are good, but because we are loved. They are not an approval of our success but the ground of our being. We are named by God’s grace, and the power in that cannot be undone by any other name or claim. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This is already so, whether we are living into it or not. God has already said it: You are mine. You are Beloved. With you I am well pleased. <i>Beloved</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> is already our name. The hard part is not earning that name, but accepting it.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Some of us spend our whole lives looking for evidence that we are okay, we are accepted, we are loved. We seek, we grasp, we clutch at things, or experiences, or people that will make us feel like we matter. It is from this gnawing neediness that we make some of our worst decisions. We use people. We act out of selfishness. We try to prop ourselves up by pushing others down. We react out of fear and out of meanness, instead of out of love and assurance. Would we do this if we knew who we really were?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">What would our lives look like if we, like Jesus, were free from having to prove ourselves, or defend ourselves? What if we, too, didn’t have to exercise any power or control but love? What if we already knew we had what we needed, so that we didn’t have to work so hard to try to get it from other people or from things? What kind of life would you live, if you had that kind of freedom? And power? And assurance?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The reality has already been written over our lives, the name has already been spoken as truth: <i>You are mine</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">, God says. <i>You are the Beloved. With you, I am well pleased. </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">The naming has already been done; how do we go about claiming it?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Maybe it would help if we understood these words from God not just as a claim but also as a call – a call to intimacy. <i>Beloved</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> – it is such a powerful and intimate word. In it is an invitation. If you are someone’s beloved, you belong to them in a way that you belong to no one else. And if you are someone’s beloved, you also spend time with that person, intimate time, opening yourself up to know and to be known, to give love and to receive love. You can be sure of that love, because you spend time getting in touch with it. Jesus showed us the way. The first thing he did when he came up from those waters was to pray. If prayer were to become the pattern of our lives, maybe we too would live more fully out of the power and the freedom of knowing who we really are.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In our struggle to claim the identity we’ve been given, we might also find some strength in recognizing our place in a whole family of beloved children. Janet Wolf, former pastor of Hobson United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, tells the story of a woman named Fayette, a homeless, mentally ill woman who joined the new member class at Hobson. Fayette was captivated by what Reverend Wolf had to say about baptism. Wolf spoke of baptism as “this holy moment when we are named by God’s grace with such power it won’t come undone.” During the class, Fayette would repeatedly ask, “And when I’m baptized, I am …?” And the class learned to respond, “Beloved, precious child of God, and beautiful to behold.” Fayette would respond, “Oh, yes!” and then the class would get back to their discussion.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">On the day of Fayette’s baptism, Fayette went under, came up sputtering, and cried, “And now I am …?” And the congregation all together responded, “Beloved, precious child of God, and beautiful to behold.” “Oh, yes!” she shouted back. And she danced around the fellowship hall that day.<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.do#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Fayette claimed the power of those words, and she did it, in part, by relying on other people to remind her of it. We don’t claim the words alone, but together. This is part of what the church exists for – to remind each other who we are: beloved, pleasing children of God. We struggle to believe it on our own. But we come here, together, to be reminded that we are more than our shortcomings, our pettiness, our anxieties, our mistakes. We are more than what we have done, and we are more than what has been done to us. We are the beloved.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There is power in that. There is freedom. Can you sense that? To understand ourselves as entirely loved, entirely claimed, and so<i> so </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">precious, in an ultimate and irrevocable way. If we can receive that reality, if we can give ourselves to its truth, we can be set free for a whole new kind of living. A life of giving, joy, service, embrace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, fearlessness. If we can live into our real names, we can go out from this place, apart and together, to help others know themselves as beloved too. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">All of us have a lot of names. Most of them are ones we did not choose for ourselves. Some of them are names that need to be thrown off like a worn-out coat. But there is a name that still holds. A long time ago, God spoke it over Jesus, and then God spoke it over your life and mine. Every day is an opportunity to immerse ourselves again in the reality of it, like baptismal waters washing over us. <i>You are mine</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">, God says. <i>You are my child. You are the beloved.</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Let’s live like it.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <div style=""><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span> <hr style="height: 3px;font-size:78%;" align="left" width="33%" > <!--[endif]--> <div style="" id="edn1"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.do#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Janet Wolf’s story comes from The Upper Room Disciplines, 1999. I found it quoted in The Painted Prayerbook at http://paintedprayerbook.com/2010/01/03/epiphany-1-baptized-and-beloved/</span><o:p></o:p></p> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment-->earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-8452215275003314462009-12-05T16:25:00.000-08:002009-12-05T16:28:25.952-08:00Be Prepared!<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Be Prepared!</span><br />Luke 3:1-6<br />Second Sunday of Advent<br />6 December 2009<br /></span><br />If I were to do a survey of which songs have been stuck in your heads lately, I bet we would notice a lot of commonalities among us. A handful of you would say, “Jingle Bell Rock.” Several of you more nostalgic types would probably offer, “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,” while Elvis fans would chime in with “Blue Christmas.” Those of you who don’t mind the cold have probably been happily humming, “Let it snow! Let is snow! Let it snow!” And I’m guessing a large segment of you, against your will, have been looping, “Feliz Navidad!”<o:p></o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">‘Tis the season for inescapable piped-in popular holiday music.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">You may notice that in the church we resist singing Christmas songs for as long as possible. Whereas out there, this is called the <i>Christmas</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> season, in here it is called Advent. In here, Christmas doesn’t get started until December 25, and then it lasts for 12 days, long past when the stores have taken down their Christmas decorations (which, of course, they put up sometime around Halloween). For Christians, Advent is a season of its own, and its music is not so much festive as it is plaintive. It is laced with longing. It sings of darkness, bleakness, yearning: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. To sing towards the One we hope will come, is to acknowledge we do not yet have what we need. Advent hymns remind us that before we can sing Joy to the World, we have to be honest about what the world currently looks like. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I have had an unusual song stuck in my own head for the past several days. It is not a Christmas carol, it’s not in our hymnal and it’s not played at the mall. It comes from my favorite Disney movie, “The Lion King.” You may remember the sinister character of Scar, bitter brother of King Mufasa. Scar envies his brother’s position, and believes that he himself would be a superior ruler. He will never have that chance, though, now that Mufasa has a son, Simba.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It is Scar’s menacing song that has been blaring in my brain these last few days. “So prepare for a chance of a lifetime, Be prepared for sensational news. A shining new era is tiptoeing nearer.” Throughout the song he warns the listening hyenas, “Be prepared!”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Of course, what he is singing about, as the villain, is his coming reign of destruction, when he will have his brother murdered and his nephew discredited, and he himself will take the throne. He is warning his minions to be prepared – everything as they know it will be overturned. He is telling them to prepare for a death, so that then they can prepare for a new kind of world. Even though Scar’s intentions are malevolent, I can’t help but feel something familiar in the urgent warning tone of his words when he sings, “Be prepared!” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This morning, a lone figure stands in the desert, shouting the same thing. He is no villain, and his motives are not mean – but his words <i>are</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> a warning. We cannot avoid him. There is no way to the manger without first passing John the Baptist.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Every Advent, he shows up. We eat party food and Christmas candy; he eats locusts and honey. We dress in red and green; he wraps himself in camel hair. We want to glimpse the baby in the manger; he forces us to fix our eyes first on our own barren hearts and twisted lives. He is the voice crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” His is not the voice of a villain, but his message is still scary.<span style=""> </span>Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for every one who has a conscience.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">When John the Baptizer says “prepare,” what he means is “repent.” Is there any word we resist as much as that one? This man comes into your life and demands that you repent - how do you respond to that? Do you, in fact, repent? Does it make you want to change your life? Or defend yourself? We associate the word with street corner preachers who announce that everyone is going to hell. Turn or burn! Repent, or die! And all that makes us want to do is shake our heads and walk away.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">People did not walk away from John. They were drawn towards him. Crowds flocked to him. What he was announcing was not street corner judgment, but world-changing, life-altering news. What <i>is</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> will be no more. What <i>shall be</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> is on its way. “Every valley shall be filled, every mountain shall be brought down, the crooked shall be made straight, the rough places will be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”<span style=""> </span>The world is about to turn! It will turn towards beauty, redemption, transformation. John is calling the people to turn, too. Turn from their old ways, leave behind their old lives, and prepare for the Promised One.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">If we are going to walk away from the call to repent, then we are also willing to walk away from the promise. If we are honest, we know this is true: there are things in our lives that we need to turn from. You don’t have to call it “sin” if that word is what’s holding you back. Truth be told, not everything we need to let go of is a sin. But now is the time to be honest, to take stock, to get real, and to turn. Turn away from toxic attitudes and behaviors. Quit trying to make your old ways work. Consider how habit is ruling you, instead of intention. Think about how you speak to the people you love. Think about the messages you let play in your own head. Look at all of it – how you think, how you speak, how you act, how you treat people, what you cling to, what you think you have to have. Examine it all. And then make a choice. Turn away from the things you know you need to leave behind. Now is the time! This is the way. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This is what it means to prepare the way of the Lord. This is what it means to repent – to turn from what was to the promise of what shall be. We don’t know what it will look like – the salvation that God brings. We cannot predict or control what lives transformed will become. All we can do is our part, to make a way, to clear a path, to prepare. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It is difficult – maybe more difficult in this season than in others – to make room for the kind of self-reflection that repentance requires. We are so busy preparing our lists and our menus and our homes that there is no time or energy left for preparing our hearts. We cannot let this be. We have to resist the tyranny of busyness in whatever small ways we can. We cannot let <i>busyness</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> have the final word over what happens in our hearts.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Etty Hillesum was a young Dutch Jewish woman who composed a series of journals before being sent to Auschwitz, where she was put to death. In one of those journals, Etty wrote, “…sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.”<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.do#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Can you open the door of your heart this much? A little bit each day, a little bit of self-examination, and repentance, and prayer, might be enough to prepare. A little bit of turning away from what no longer works in your life, and turning towards the God who brings new life. Those few moments could be the most important thing you do in a day. Those few moments could change the rest of your actions and attitudes that day. In other words, those few moments each day could change your life. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It is not just your life and mine that need to be changed. The promise John’s call represents is the transformation of the whole world. All the ugliness and evil, all the hatred and pain, the violence and lies – all of it will one day be redeemed. God will break into the world with deliverance and healing, with salvation. And all flesh will see it together. No more division or exclusion. No more blindness to what is real, which is Love.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">John’s call is so fierce, and his promise is so true.<span style=""> </span>The world will turn. It will turn on a cradle, it will turn on a cross. The question for us, for Advent is, will it turn in our hearts too? <o:p></o:p></span></p> <div style=""><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span> <hr style="height: 3px;font-size:78%;" align="left" width="33%" > <!--[endif]--> <div style="" id="edn1"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.do#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <i>The Advent Door</i></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">. Jan Richardson. http://theadventdoor.com/</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment-->earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-52818266261533517422009-11-21T17:09:00.000-08:002009-11-21T17:13:30.118-08:00The Reign of Truth<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Reign of Truth<br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">John 18:33-37<br />Christ the King Sunday<br />22 November 2009</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></span><br />Happy Christ the King Sunday!That doesn’t have a great ring to it, does it?<o:p></o:p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Okay. How about this:</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> <span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Happy Reign of Christ Sunday!</span><br /><o:p></o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> No? What about: Happy last Sunday of the Christian year?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->None of these sounds quite right. We are not all that accustomed to celebrating this Sunday as any kind of special day. We are getting ourselves ready for Thanksgiving, and then Advent, and then, finally, Christmas. It is just much easier to simply say, “Happy Holidays.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">But this morning is, in the context of the Christian calendar, a pretty big deal. Our Christian year ends now, and next week we circle back around to the beginning, with the first Sunday of Advent. This last Sunday is a sort of zenith – the whole Christian year moves towards this day, a reminder that Christ’s lordship over the whole world draws us forward; his reign is the goal of human history, the fulfillment of our hopes and of our purpose.<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It’s possible that all of that sounds largely irrelevant to your life. Lordship? Kingship? Christ’s reign? We have more immediate, more pressing, and more mundane things to worry about these days, don’t we? Not to the mention that, as Americans, we rejected the whole notion of a king a couple of centuries ago. The word “king” sounds archaic. It is all out of keeping with how we see our reality. We prefer our autonomy. We prefer our democracy. We do not intend to submit to some authority other than our own selves.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We are like the woman in <i>Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. When King Arthur introduces himself to her as her king, she responds, “I didn’t know we had a king… I thought we were an autonomous collective.” Then a man explains to King Arthur how the people in their collective take turns being the executive officer, and how that officer’s decisions have to be ratified by a majority in special bi-weekly meetings. It sounds quite like a Baptist church! <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">But King Arthur pronounces again, “I am your king!” To which the woman responds, “Well I didn’t vote for you!”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We didn’t vote for one either, did we? We do not want a king. We do not think we need a king. We don’t want <i>anyone</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> telling us what to do. We want to build our own lives, and we want to protect whatever power we’ve got.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Jesus is a threat to all that. He has always been a threat. The religious leaders of his day were well aware of the threat he posed, and they intended to do something about it. In their desperation, they colluded with their oppressors, the Romans. Pontius Pilate was, by historical accounts, a harsh, mean-spirited ruler who scorned his subjects. But when power is threatened, unlikely alliances are born. So the Jewish leaders, and the Roman who ruled them, cooperated in the squashing what they both thought was a subversion of their authority. And though he never intended to become the king they thought he was trying to be, they were right about this – he was a threat. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In today’s Gospel story, we are brought into the headquarters of political power. The religious leaders themselves did not enter those headquarters, so as not to be ritually defiled. They were the ones who made sure he was arrested and tried, but they did not want their own hands to get dirty in the process. And isn’t this often the way we use power against others? – cleanly, invisibly, at a distance. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Pilate now stands alone with Jesus, in the inner sanctuary of political power. “Are you the King of the Jews?” he asks. Here is where religion and politics come together in the trial of Jesus. The Romans knew that the Jewish messianic hopes posed a threat to their governance of Judea. If Jesus is claiming a throne among Jews, then he could be planning a rebellion against Roman rule. Pilate’s question is about sedition, it’s about insurrection. There is fear of revolution when he asks his question: “Are you the King of the Jews?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Jesus answers the question with a question: “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Can Pilate act out of his own inner authority, or only as a politician, responding to the whims of public opinion? Jesus’ question shows who is really on trial here, and who is really the judge.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“I am not a Jew, am I?” Pilate responds, dripping with contempt for the people he governs. And yet this trial will show that he is just like the people he disdains, rejecting and resisting the real revolution that Jesus means to bring. Pilate pushes further, asking Jesus, “What have you done?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“My kingdom is not from this world,” Jesus replies. But Pilate does not grasp that Jesus does not operate from the same framework that he does. Pilate does not understand that Jesus isn’t trying to seize a throne or claim political power. Pilate cannot think beyond traditional power structures or conventional understanding. “So you are a king?” he demands. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“<i>You </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">say that I am a king,” Jesus replies. And this is the way it has always been, isn’t it? No matter who a person really is, we try to put them into our own categories of understanding. No matter who Jesus really was, or really is, we try to fit him into our own little understandings. He is so much more than out little categories and conventions, but we insist. Insist on making him smaller. Insist on fitting him to what we can understand, and manage. Insist on shackling him to our own perceptions of power, of religion, of ourselves, and of the world. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This is not what he came for. He did not come to fit into what we think we know. He did not come to prop up our power or our perceptions or our religion or even our understanding of God. “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world,” he says, “<i>to testify to the truth</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">He came to show us the truth of God’s heart and God’s being. In him, God was present, unveiled, undistorted.<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> God’s love for us, God’s longing for us, God’s unfailing mercy towards us – these things have always been true. There is more, too. There are depths of mystery that we cannot begin to comprehend. Words are not high enough, not deep enough, not big enough to contain God’s truth. That truth had to be poured into a life. “I am the truth,” Jesus once said. It is not our doctrines about him that are the truth, <i>He</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> is the truth. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The truth in that life smashed traditional concepts of religion and power. It subverted understandings and institutions. It compelled individuals to lay aside their own plans and follow. And it finally bore its highest witness by laying itself down for others. That truth was lifted up on a cross, snuffed out and sealed in a tomb. But even death could not swallow up the truth. It burst forth. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We still struggle to make sense of that. We mostly fail. Our minds and our words, our doctrines and our understandings, are simply not big enough to hold all that truth, in all its mystery and complexity and vastness and beauty.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The only thing that can hold ultimate truth is another life – yours, mine. God’s truth came to us not as a proposition, but as a person. We respond to it, then, personally. We reach for it not with intellectual understanding, but by living it, by trying to put our trust in it, in <i>him</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. By abiding in him. We let His being become our being, too. We let him in.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">To proclaim Christ as King is to acknowledge that the Truth reigns, in our world and in our own lives. It is to say that whatever the political machinations, whatever the cultural whims and societal trends and economic fluctuations, whatever power seems to prevail at the moment, Christ, who is the Truth, will ultimately subvert anything that does not move towards peace, mercy, liberation, embrace, compassion. To say that Christ is King, to say that Jesus is the Truth, is to say that, in the end, God’s ways of love and mercy and goodness will prevail. To say that Christ is King is to say that we want the Truth of God’s love to have final say over everything in our own lives too. Where there is hatred in our world or in our hearts, love will win. Where there is chaos or fear or conflict – in our world or in our hearts - peace will prevail. Where there is despair, or cynicism, or grief – hope will have the last word. Where there is bondage, there will be liberation. Where there is greed, generosity will emerge. Where there is pain, compassion will blossom. Jesus came to testify to a reality beyond what we see. When we say that Christ is King, what we mean is that in the end, that reality will take hold. And in the meantime, we will participate in that reality, even when it does not look so real.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">He stands now as he did then, in the inner sanctuary of <i>our</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> power, <i>our</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> lives, saying still: “Here is what I came for: to testify to the truth.” Every day we have a choice. Will we live as if that truth is what is real? <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">He came to testify to the truth, and now we must decide. The radical truth he came to show us was only love and grace. It shames all our powers – political, economic, military, intellectual, religious, moral. It subverts our conventions, questions our claims, threatens our status quo, challenges our autonomy and our self-centeredness. It awakens hope. It inaugurates a new reality. It makes possible what seemed impossible. All it asks is that we give ourselves to it, give ourselves to the truth of God’s self-giving love. Can we listen to such a voice as his? Belong to his truth? Live our lives by its absurd calculations of love?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">He is the one asking the questions now. Our living is our answer.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <div style=""><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span> <hr style="height: 3px;font-size:78%;" align="left" width="33%" > <!--[endif]--> <div style="" id="edn1"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <i>Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World</i></span><span style="font-style: normal;font-size:100%;" > from Vatican II, cited in A. Adam, </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>The Liturgical Year</i></span><span style="font-style: normal;font-size:100%;" > [New York: Pueblo Publishing, 1981], 179, noted in </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>Preaching Through the Christian Year: Year B </i></span><span style="font-style: normal;font-size:100%;" >[Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press, 1993], 474.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <div style="" id="edn2"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Paul Tillich. <i>The New Being</i></span><span style="font-style: normal;font-size:100%;" >. http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=375&C=21</span></p> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment-->earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-75609084274895020322009-11-07T15:11:00.000-08:002009-11-07T15:12:51.357-08:00The Harvest of Kindness<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><i>The Harvest of Kindness<o:p></o:p></i></b></span> </div><p style="text-align: left;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>The Book of Ruth<o:p></o:p></b></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p style="text-align: left;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>23<sup>rd</sup> Sunday After Pentecost<o:p></o:p></b></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p style="text-align: left;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>8 November 2009<o:p></o:p></b></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p style="text-align: left;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In the late 1940s, a group of missionaries working with the Tuareg people of the Sahara Desert began to translate the Bible into the tribal language of the nomads there. The first book they chose to translate was the Book of Ruth – partly because their best contacts were with women and this is a story about women and about the things that women care about. But they also did it because the story is direct, and beautiful, and engaging. It is little, but it is luminous. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In this story, there are no wars. There are no miracles. No plagues, no healings, no prophets and no kings. There is hardly even any mention of God. It is a story of three ordinary people, trying to survive what life deals them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The story begins with a series of cruel ironies. Bethlehem, whose name means “House of Bread,” has been struck by famine. A family from the tribe of Ephrathite, which means “Fruitfulness,” escapes the famine by moving to Moab. Moab was a nation birthed out of the incestuous liason between Lot and one of his daughters; it was a symbol of evil to the Israelites, but the family is desperate, so they go to a reviled place to try to survive. But one by one the men in the family die, leaving no children. The family from the tribe called “Fruitfulness” has left no “fruit” behind. [In place of bread, famine. In place of fruitfulness, no fruit. In place of life, death after death after death. ]<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">What is left is three grieving widows, one old, two young, no men to care for them now, no children to provide hope for the future. This is how our story begins – in bleakness.<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">All that is left for Naomi, the mother-in-law, to do, is to return to her homecountry of Bethlehem, where the famine has ended. There is no reason for the two young widows, her daughters-in-law, to return with her. In fact, there is good reason for them <i>not</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> to go with her. The Israelites despise the Moabites; how would these hated foreigners find husbands in Bethlehem?<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">So Naomi urges the young women back to their own mothers. In the first spoken words in the story, Naomi says, “Go back each of you to your mother’s house, and may the Lord deal as kindly with you, as you have dealt with me….”<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The word here, “kindly,” is a pale rendering of the actual Hebrew word, which is <i>hesed</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. <i>Hesed</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> is “considered an essential part of the nature of God, and is frequently used to describe God’s acts of unmerited grace and mercy.”<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Elsewhere in the Bible, <i>hesed</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> is translated as “lovingkindness” or as “steadfast love.” It is kindness, yes, but it is a stubborn kindness. It is dogged. It persists. It is loyal. It always goes beyond – beyond what is expected, and beyond what is deserved, and beyond what is required. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Possibly the most well-known usage of the word <i>hesed</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> is in Psalm 136, which could be called the Jewish equivalent of Christianity’s “Amazing Grace.”<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style=""> </span>For 26 verses one line is repeated over and over: “God’s steadfast love endures forever.” “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; God’s steadfast love endures forever!” “Give thanks to the God of gods; God’s steadfast love endures forever!” On and on it goes, like an ocean of amazing grace, each line a new wave washing over us, “God’s steadfast love endures forever!” “God’s <i>hesed</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> endures forever.” It is the love that will not let go.<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This is the love which Naomi extols. But when she uses the word <i>hesed</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">, she is referring not to God, but to her daughters-in-law. In fact, what she is saying is that she hopes God will show as much lovingkindness as the two young widows have. “Go back each of you to your mother’s house, and may the Lord show you the same <i>hesed</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> as you have shown me.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The young women resist, but Naomi insists. Orpah obeys, kissing her mother-in-law good-bye and heading home. Orpah does what is expected; Ruth goes beyond. That is what <i>hesed </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">always does. Naomi admonishes her to return to her own gods, but Ruth refuses, and she explains why in one of the most beautiful passages in all of Scripture:<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Do not press me to leave you<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>Or to turn back from following you!<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Where you go, I will go;<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>Where you lodge, I will lodge;<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Your people shall be my people;<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>And your God my God.<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Where you die, I will die –<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>There will I be buried.<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">May the LORD do thus and so to me,<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>And more as well,<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">If even death parts me from you!<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In Hebrew, the central part of this pledge is simply, “Your people, my people; your God, my God.” With the nouns put together like that without verbs, the claim that Ruth is making is actually present tense and not future – in the face of Naomi’s insistence that Ruth return to her own people and her own gods, Ruth protests, “Your people <i>are</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> my people, your God <i>is</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> my God, so where you go, I go.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We sometimes use this powerful passage in wedding ceremonies, and rightfully so. This is marriage language, just as it is a marriage image when the writer tells us that Ruth <i>clung</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> to Naomi. The word “cling” is used elsewhere in Scripture about the marriage relationship (Jer. 2:24, 1 Kings 11:2), and also about Israel’s ideal relationship with God (Joshua 22:5).<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Ruth is not just joining herself to her mother-in-law, she has married herself to God. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Three times Naomi says, “turn back.” Each time Ruth has said, “no.” There will be a turning in this story, but it won’t be a turning away from – it will be a turning towards love, and kindness, and redemption, and ultimately towards hope. Ruth is stubborn in her kindness – <i>hesed</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> always is. It is the original “tough love.” It hangs on.<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Naomi has no more words for Ruth. Maybe she is mad that she is now traveling back home with the added burden of a foreign daughter-in-law. Maybe she is quietly grateful. Maybe she is simply made mute by grief. Indeed, the next time she speaks it is to tell the hometown women that she is bitter because God has brought her back empty. Nevermind that God has brought her back with a woman who loves her with the same sort of <i>hesed</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> of God. But sometimes the bitterness of grief makes it hard for us to see reality for what it is. Ruth’s kindness lets Naomi’s grief be what it must be. Their story reminds us to be patient with the grieving.<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It’s easy to forget that Ruth is also mourning. Yet in her grief, she somehow finds the strength to take initiative. It is harvest time in Bethlehem, and Ruth is ready to work, knowing that it is up to her to scratch out a living for herself and for Naomi. The biblical law stated that whatever barley fell to the ground in harvest was to stay there for the poor to come and gather. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">So Ruth goes to glean among the ears of grain. The story goes on, “As it happened…” which in Hebrew literally means, “Her happening happened,” another way of saying, “as luck would have it.” As luck would have it, Ruth comes to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, a relative of Naomi. Is it really luck? Or is it the beginning of the harvest of God’s lovingkindness? [The Jewish writer Elie Wiesel has said that the story of Ruth is told to remind us that there are no coincidences.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">At any rate, Boaz “happens” to notice Ruth. He asks others about her and is told of her relentless kindness towards Naomi. Boaz tells his workers to leave plenty behind for her, and then he goes to Ruth and tells her to help herself to his fields. Ruth falls on the ground in front of him and asks, “Why are you being so good to me, a foreigner?” And he tells her it is because of her kindness to Naomi. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This is the harvest of <i>hesed</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. This is what persistent, radical kindness can yield. Though life has dealt as harshly with Ruth as it has with Naomi, Ruth keeps responding with kindness, and more kindness. That kind of kindness can be contagious. It hasn’t yet softened Naomi’s bitterness, but it has caught hold of Boaz, and he responds with kindness of his own. [Ruth has sown only kindness; now she begins to reap kindness as well.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Ruth comes home to tell Naomi the news of her day, and shows her the harvested grain; suddenly, Naomi is transformed. She pronounces a blessing, “Blessed be Boaz by the Lord, whose <i>hesed</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi’s grief has started to break. Ruth’s kindness to Naomi brings kindness from Boaz. Boaz’s kindness to Ruth brings Naomi out of bitterness and into blessing. This is the harvest of <i>hesed</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And now Naomi gets to work planting seeds of kindness herself. Naomi reveals to Ruth that Boaz is actually a relative. There is an old Israelite marriage law that said a widowed woman without children could be married to a kinsman of her deceased husband to give her children in her first husband’s name. Such a man was called a “kinsman-redeemer.” Like a wiley old matchmaker, Naomi hatches a plan, hoping to encourage a romance between the young widow and the older man. She tells Ruth, “Boaz will be at the threshing floor tonight. Wash yourself, put on your best perfume, and get on down there. When he lies down after eating and drinking, uncover him and lie down with him. He’ll tell you what to do next!”<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This time, Ruth does what Naomi tells her to. She creeps in and crawls under the covers. At midnight, he rolls over, and there lies a woman. Surprise! Did you know that there were such racy stories in the Bible? It’s true. Lots of interpreters have tried to make this story sound virtuous and above reproach. But regardless of whatever else did or did not happen that night on the threshing floor, an unmarried woman creeping into the room of a sleeping man and lying down with him? That’s pretty scandalous. Let’s don’t sanitize it – this is sometimes how kindness has to act – it has to be audacious. It has to do things that might make some people uncomfortable. It doesn’t worry as much about reputation as about doing lovingkindness. Ruth is willing to do what is needed to secure a future and a hope for her mother-in-law and for herself. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And so: a proposal. Ruth asks Boaz to marry her. This girl has more than <i>hesed</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. She has <i>chutzpah!</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> Boaz accepts her proposal, telling her that her kindness in wanting to marry him is even better than the kindness she showed Naomi. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And so they marry. And they have a son. And the women of Bethlehem say, “A son is born to <i>Naomi</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">.” She has been redeemed from her emptiness and her bitterness. New life has been created, and it started first with kindness that would not let go. The boy born to Ruth is named Obed. He will later become the father of Jesse, who will become the father of David, who will become the king of Israel. And so bitter broken Naomi becomes the great-great-grandmother of King David. And his great-grandmother is Ruth, the foreigner. And both women are great-great-grandmothers many times over of another child born in Bethlehem, Jesus the Christ, who will also be called Redeemer, and will embody the <i>hesed</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> of God for all the world. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Again and again in this story, the kindness of God is made flesh by the kindness of humans, and it changes everything. It’s a story like I promised – no wars, no miracles, no prophets, no kings, just the stubborn, courageous kindness of a (foreign) woman. Her bold kindness was a seed that God planted to bear the fruit that would change the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Henry James once said, “There are three things that are important in human life. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And Jack Kerouac said it like this: “Life is life, and kind is kind.”<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iv]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Which is to say, life will do what it will to us. Sometimes it will nearly crush us with what it lays on us. Sometimes we will feel powerless to change our circumstances. But no matter what, we will always have a choice. We can always choose to be kind. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And kindness is no little thing. To be simply, fiercely, courageously kind, no matter what happens – there is power in that. Your kindness – your <i>choice</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> to be kind - can change how a day goes. It can change how a life goes. And when God is unleashed by it, it can change the whole world. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p style="text-align: left;" class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style=""><div style="text-align: left;"><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br /></div><hr style="height: 3px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: auto;" width="33%" size="1"><div style="text-align: left;"> <!--[endif]--> </div><div style="text-align: left;" id="edn1"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Kathleen A. Robertson Farmer. “The Book of Ruth: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections.” <i>The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume II</i></span><span style="font-style: normal;font-size:100%;" >. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988). 904.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;" id="edn2"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[ii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> I first read this about Psalm 118, which also includes the line “God’s steadfast love endures forever”, but only a handful of times (compared to in all 26 verses as in Psalm 136), in a paper by John Ballenger entitled <i>Harvesting the Extraordinary</i></span><span style="font-style: normal;font-size:100%;" >. July 2000. He gave credit to the comparison to H. Stephen Shoemake, </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>Godstories: New Narratives from Sacred Texts</i></span><span style="font-style: normal;font-size:100%;" >. (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1998). 104.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;" id="edn3"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iii]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Farmer. 905.</span></p> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="" id="edn4"><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p style="text-align: left;" class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[iv]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Jack Kerouac. <i>On the Road</i></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">. Part 2, Chapter 5.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment-->earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-14404820396140460162009-10-24T16:36:00.000-07:002009-10-24T16:38:05.763-07:00The Question<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Question<br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mark 10:46-52<br />21st Sunday after Pentecost<br />25 October 2009</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></span><br />Stories about healings inevitably raise difficult questions for modern Christians. What really happened? Are these stories true, or are they just told to make us believe in Jesus’ divinity? Why don’t the types of miraculous healings from the Bible happen anymore? Or do they? And if they do, then what is the relationship between faith and healing? If someone doesn’t get healed, does it mean they didn’t have enough faith? The questions are daunting.<br /><br />Mark doesn’t try to answer them. He just tells us these stories, and leaves it to us to figure out what to do with them. In many cases in Mark’s Gospel, after Jesus has healed he tells the people not to tell anyone. Is it because these miracles will draw too much attention to Jesus, or will raise too many questions? Who knows? All we know is that Jesus repeatedly heals, and then says, “Don’t tell.” But not this time. Today’s story is the last healing story in this Gospel, and Jesus doesn’t try to keep it quiet this time. He is on his way to Jerusalem now, on his way to the cross, and in a way, this final healing is the inauguration of that journey. There will be no more secrets about who this man is and what he has come for. Eyes will be opened, and the truth will be seen.<o:p></o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Mark shows us with this story. Jericho was a lush city of palm trees and springs, near the Jordan River, and it was surrounded by a wall. Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, sat by the road just outside the gate, so he could beg the pity of those on their way into or out of the city. The people inside those walls knew him, saw him every day. They were used to his sad story and his tragic condition. It no longer horrified them. And isn’t this the way it always is? We grow so tired of the need around us. We get so accustomed to seeing people begging that we are no longer horrified at their poverty or their need. We grow numb, or worse, we get annoyed. So Bartimaeus set himself up by the road outside the city walls, where he could appeal to travelers who might still be moved to compassion for an impoverished blind person begging for change.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There he sits, when a large group of people begin to leave the city, walking by him as they go. Bartimaeus hears that one of them is the great healer, Jesus of Nazareth, and he begins to shout. He starts making a racket. No more rattling a little tin cup or hoping someone might hear him calling out, “Please help.” No, this is his big chance, and he lays it all on the line. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” People try to shush him. Even beggars have a protocol. Stay on your knees, look pitiful, say please. Not this guy. Not this time. He will not be shushed. He screams even louder. “Son of David, have mercy on me!!”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And Jesus stops. He stands still. Silence. And then: “Call him here.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">No more shushing for the blind beggar. An invitation now. The people who had been trying to silence him now call to him, saying, “Take heart! Get up! He is calling you!” Watch him now, as he throws off his cloak, rises up from his place of pity, crosses ground he has never seen, among people he has never seen, outside a city he has never seen,<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> to meet the healer he cannot see. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And it is like this for many of us, is it not? We fumble forward in life without a clear picture of who Jesus really is. Many times – maybe even most of the time? – we cannot even see how he is present in our circumstances. Every Sunday we come to church and hear the stories and say the words and sing the songs and go through the motions. But do we <i>see</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> him? Do we sense that he is a real presence in our lives? <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The blind man could not see him, but moved towards him anyway. He threw off his old life like a left-behind cloak, and leapt forward into the unknown. And now a question for him: “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Does it seem an odd question? Do you think that Jesus does not know what this man wants? “Have mercy on me!” the man has shouted as Jesus passed by. The man has begged only coins from all the other travelers through the years. Now he has a choice. He can ask this Jesus for spare change, or he can ask for what he really needs. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks him. The question is not for Jesus’ sake – he surely knows what the man needs. The question is for the blind man, and for us.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It is not the first time he has asked this question. Just a few verses earlier, James and John announce, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And Jesus responds, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And what they ask for is a ludicrous pretension towards greatness. “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” They ask him this right after he has told them – for the third time – that he is going to be condemned and killed. And here they are, still hoping that following him will mean greatness for them. They ask their selfish and delusional question, and he responds, “You do not know what you are asking.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">They are as blind as Bartimaeus. They clearly do not understand their calling or their destiny. Jesus is headed towards the most brutal kind of suffering and death. There will be two people on his right and on his left - criminals, executed in shame. James and John have no idea what it means to be on Jesus’ right and left hands. Jesus is resolute about his own calling, and destiny, and purpose. James and John fantasize about power, and privilege, and glory. They do not know what they are asking. Like the blind man, they cannot really see Jesus. The difference between them and the blind man is that they do not realize they are blind.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Jesus’ question confronts our most basic desires. “What is it that you want from me?” Do we know what we would answer? His question is not that of a genie, who is going to magically grant wishes. His question is that of a healer, a teacher, a man on his way to the cross. His question calls into question our own sense of purpose and of need. The blind man knew what he needed – “My teacher, let me see again.” Do you know what you need? Is there a healing that you seek? Are you aware of your own blindnesses? Do you want to see clearly? Are you willing to admit your need, and to beg for him to fill it? What is it that you want from Jesus? What are you looking for?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Forgiveness? Healing? New sight? New life? He stands there ready to give any of it, all of it. What is it that you want with him? <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">As soon as the blind man says, “let me see,” Jesus gives it. “Go; your faith has made you well.” And what is his faith? It is not some certain knowledge, born of seeing. It is not a set of beliefs; it has nothing to do with doctrine. His faith is a seeking. His faith is an asking. His faith is based on knowing that he cannot see and knowing that he cannot give himself that sight. His faith is the yearning that pushes him forward and makes him desperate enough to beg mercy from the One he has heard will heal. Put simply, his faith is hope. [Blind hope. Hope that freely seeks and begs for what he knows he cannot give himself.]<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">If we knew how poor, and how ill, and how powerless, and how blind we really are – if we knew it, maybe we would come begging and unashamed to Jesus. Maybe we would cry out with everything in us. Maybe we would seek him, even when we cannot see him. [Maybe we would ask something from him even when we cannot quite believe he will answer.]<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">He stands so ready to give what we need. The blind man only had to ask it, and it was done. His eyes were opened, and the first thing he saw was the face of love. And even though Jesus had told him, “Go, your faith has made you well,” what he did was to follow. Once he could see that face, what else could he do, but to go wherever that man went?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In the end, his story is a miracle story, modified. It is not just a healing, it is a calling. This is what true vision is ultimately for – to see our true purpose and the One who heals and calls us, and to follow him. His way is not the road to glory or success. It will be the road towards sacrifice and sometimes suffering. But it is also the road of truth, grace, giving, and real freedom. We never walk the road alone; he leads the way. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">He knows we struggle. He knows we have a hard time following, and a hard time trusting or even hoping. He knows how broken we are, and how blind we can be – to our real selves, to each other, and especially to him and his great giving grace. He is so ready to give so much. He knows we have our questions about him and his way. He stands before us with just one: “What do you want from me?” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <div style=""><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span> <hr style="height: 3px;font-size:78%;" align="left" width="33%" > <!--[endif]--> <div style="" id="edn1"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3169859565003338193#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> John R. Fry. “Blindness.” <i>A Chorus of Witnesses</i></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;">. 142.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment-->earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-76017174748607417972009-10-10T09:10:00.000-07:002009-10-10T09:12:20.356-07:00The Possible Impossible<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Possible Impossible<br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mark 10:17-27<br />19th Sunday after Pentecost<br />11 October 2009</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></span><br />I was seven years old the first time I encountered the rich young man from this story in the Gospel of Mark. My uncle had dared me to read the whole Bible through, and I had taken the bait. I started with the gospels, and had gotten this far without reading anything that sounded particularly foreign to me. Most of the stories about Jesus were somewhat familiar from Sunday School lessons and Vacation Bible School. <o:p></o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">But then one night I got to Matthew 19:24, which is repeated here in Mark 10:25: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” I had never heard this preached, taught, or quoted before. It was alarmed. I slammed the Bible shut, jumped out of bed, and ran down the hall to my parents’ room. I shook my mother awake. “Mom,” I whispered. “Jesus says that rich people don’t go to heaven!”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“We’re not rich. Go back to bed,” she replied.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I knew better. I knew that I had everything I needed, and a lot of the stuff I wanted. I had seen children on TV who had flies in their eyes and bellies swollen from hunger. I was pretty sure we were rich. In retrospect, I understand that we were a pretty standard middle class American family. But I think my seven year-old instincts were also right. I knew those words of Jesus were clear and hard and scary. And I knew they were meant for me.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Lots of people have tried to soften the meaning of his words. Many people have taught that there is actually a narrow gate in Jerusalem called “the eye of the needle,” through which a camel could not pass unless all of its baggage was first removed. After dark, when the main gates were shut, if a traveler wanted to enter the city, he would have to use this smaller gate, which he could only do if he removed all his belongings from the camel’s sides and then had the camel enter the gate crawling on its knees.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">[Having ridden a camel myself, I find the idea of riding one that is crawling on its knees to be a bit laughable.] But it makes a sweet little story, the point of which, presumably, is that if we can just get rid of the belongings which weigh us down, we can approach God. In other words, there is something we can do, ourselves, to be saved. Just get rid of your stuff. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">But Jesus’s claim is more outrageous than that. And his story about the camel through the eye of the needle is meant to be ludicrous hyperbole. He is not telling us about something that is merely hard. He is talking about something which is <i>impossible</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The question at the heart of this story is not about wealth or poverty, about possessions or lack thereof. The question is about eternal life. The rich man wants to know how to get it. The disciples want to know who can have it. And the good news that Jesus offers is this: “For mortals, it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">---<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This story is essentially one of the healing stories. The rich man runs us to Jesus and kneels, just as countless other in need of healing have done through the Gospel of Mark. His running and kneeling show that his request is both urgent and sincere. But he is the one person in the entire book who rejects the healing offered him. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Within the context of the disciples’ wrangling over greatness, we have a glimpse of someone who does have greatness according to the world’s definitions. He is not a disciple, but not an opponent either. He does not resemble the scribes, Pharisees, or Sadducees, who test Jesus, or the soldiers, who mock him, or the passersby at the crucifixion, who taunt him. He looks like all the other earnest seekers who have come looking for a healing. He looks something like you and me.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Those around him believed that wealth and prosperity were signs of God’s blessing. But even with his wealth and status, the man realizes he lacks something important in his life. He has come to the One who has offered sight to the blind and freedom for the demon-possessed. Yet he cannot take the risk of the impossible life to which Jesus calls him. He cannot accept Jesus’s healing, because he does not yet fully see himself as needing to be healed.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And because he seems to reject Jesus, this has often been seen as a story of condemnation, a condemnation of all of us who may love our things too much – which is almost everyone. Ye Mark says this: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” Matthew and Luke leave this out. But Mark, always spare with words, takes the space to note that Jesus loves this man. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In Mark, whenever Jesus tells someone to “go,” it almost always has to do with healing, and it’s always tailored exactly to what that person needs. To the hemorrhaging woman, he said, “Your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed.” To the Gerasene demoniac, he said, “Go home to your friends and tell them what I’ve done.” To the rich man, he also tells how to be healed, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">What is the healing this man needs? What he lacks is that he does not lack. This man is possessed – by his possessions. Jesus is offering to free him of his possession, to cure him of his excess. But the rich man turns his back, grieved. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">What about you? Do you love your stuff? Do you have more than you will ever need? Do you sometimes feel burdened by all of it, and yet still find yourself striving for more? If we get rid of it all, will we be closer to God?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">What can we do to inherit eternal life?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Jesus’s answer is this: Nothing. For mortals, it’s impossible. But not for God. To say we must give up all our possessions in order to be saved puts the burden on us to save ourselves, and we’re not capable of that. There is nothing <i>we</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> can do. Ever. Neither possessions nor lack of possessions saves us. God does.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Even Jesus realized he could not save himself. He reminded us that those who think they can save themselves will surely lose their lives. But those who recognize the utter futility of self-reliance, who realize that by their own doings salvation really is not possible – those who recognize their need will be saved by the God who makes all things possible.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The problem with having so much stuff is that it keeps us from realizing our need for God. We use our stuff as a buffer against vulnerability. We use to fill the emptiness in our souls. We use it to feel less susceptible to the vagaries of life. It makes us feel safe and happy, and it keeps us from seeing how needy we really are.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The rich man’s secure status kept him asking the wrong question: what can I <i>do</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> to inherit eternal life? This was a man accustomed to being able to make things happen. Whatever he wanted, money could buy. Jesus’ response was the opposite of what he wanted to hear. Jesus told him that there was nothing he – or anyone – could do. Jesus advised him to release his wealth and give it to the poor – to get closer to the fragility of life, to take his own place among those who know they are needy.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There is a parade of people in Mark’s Gospel whom Jesus treats with special care: the poor, the sick, the demon-possessed, the women, the children. What they had in common was that they all knew they were needy; they all knew they did not have the power to take control of their own lives. They all lived close to the fragility of life. Maybe that made them more likely and more able to respond to Christ; it certainly made them more open to his healing power.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In many ways we may need to be more like them – like vulnerable children or like who know they are really sick or like those who know they are in bondage to something beyond their own power. Maybe we need to be like them. We need to recognize our vulnerability and our deep need in order to seek and respond to the One who wants to heal us.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">--<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">None of this is to say that we have justification to accumulate however much we please and use it however we wish. The witness of Scripture is clear regarding our responsibility to take care of the least among us, to be good stewards of what we have, and to be honest and fair in our business dealings. The rampant consumerism in our culture is at odds with the life to which Jesus calls us. We have to ask ourselves tough questions about how much we need and how much we have, and we have to find a way to live according to the witness of Jesus, allowing his way to govern how much we spend, how much we keep, and how much we give away.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Our wealth and how we use it absolutely matters. But our salvation doesn’t hinge on it. Our salvation hinges on God alone.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Nothing else is the essential thing – not our doctrine, not our denomination, not our determination to live the right kind of life, not our wealth, not our lack of wealth. None of that saves us, none of it fixes us, none of it heals us, none of it puts us right with God. Only God can do that.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">A Jewish midrash records: “The Holy One said, open for me a door as big as a needle’s eye and I will open for you a door through which may enter tents and [camels?]” In other words, God only need us to open the door of our hearts just the tiniest crack – the size of the eye of a needle is enough – and God will come pouring in to set up room for an oasis.<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.do#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">What must we <i>do</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> to inherit eternal life? Nothing. Not one thing. There is nothing you can do, nothing I can do, to save ourselves or fix our lives or heal our heats. The only thing we need is to realize our need. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The hardest news Jesus has is the best news we could get – our salvation is impossible. “But not for God; for God all things are possible.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <div style=""><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span> <hr style="height: 3px;font-size:78%;" align="left" width="33%" > <!--[endif]--> <div style="" id="edn1"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.do#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <a href="http://www.biblicalhebrew.com/nt/camelneedle.htm">http://www.biblicalhebrew.com/nt/camelneedle.htm</a> - <i>Biblical Hebrew and its New Testament Application: Hebrew idioms buried in overly literal Greek.</i></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> “The camel and the eye of the needle.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment-->earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-33735630055222758072009-09-26T18:39:00.000-07:002009-09-26T18:43:16.364-07:00The Most Practical Word<span style="font-size:100%;"><b><i>The Most Practical Word<o:p></o:p></i></b></span><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p style="text-align: left;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>James 5:13-20<o:p></o:p></b></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p style="text-align: left;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>17<sup>th</sup> Sunday After Pentecost<o:p></o:p></b></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p style="text-align: left;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>27 September 2009<o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We have spent the last four weeks preaching from the Letter of James, an epistle that speaks in the strongest and most basic terms about how to live the Christian life, about how faith must express itself through how we live. You are familiar with some of the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament – the Book of Job, the book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the book of Psalms, the Song of Songs. Wisdom Literature concerns itself with morality, ethics, the practical wisdom of right behavior. These writings attempt to offer insight into human nature, and into the nature of reality, so that hearers and readers might live more responsibly, more ethically, and more faithfully. The book of James is a kind of Wisdom Literature.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I have always loved the letter of James; it is so practical and so radical, laying out in undeniable and concrete terms what it means to live a faithful Christian life. Out of 108 verses in the whole book, 59 of them are moral imperatives. Martin Luther famously disliked this book, believing that it contradicted the Apostle Paul’s central teaching that a person is justified not through works but by grace through faith. But James does not contradict Paul; he is simply aiming to hold up what it means for the grace that saves us to find actual expression in our daily lives. James writes in very direct, very bare terms. There is no wriggling out of what he means. And what he means is for us to live what we say we believe.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">James writes exclusively towards an intentional community gathered by a shared faith in Jesus Christ. His is not a book to be read alone, in the privacy of one’s home, as if he meant to teach us about a private faith and a personal morality. Like the rest of the New Testament writers, he does not believe that the Christian life is to be lived in isolation. James is meant to be read here, together, as a church, as a community that intends to work out our faith together and to live in radical contrast to the values of competition, acquisition, and envy. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We started a month ago, with his injunction to listen first and then to act. From there we moved into his teaching about how we treat each other, including how we do not judge or show favoritism, but instead show love consistently. After listening, and action, and love, we then considered speech, how our words are also actions and the importance of using them wisely and well. And then last week, we looked at the destructive nature of envy, and the power of recognizing we have enough.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And so we come today to the end of his short letter. He has written so far against so many behaviors. Don’t be like this. Don’t speak like that. Don’t treat people like this. Now his words turn in a more positive direction. How might we become a community that lives in the reality of friendship with God and with each other? How will that friendship shape how we speak and how we act toward one another? Fundamentally, how will we learn to trust each other, and be trustworthy? It is this sense of purposeful trust that has the power to transform us from just a loose collection of individuals trying to make our own way, into a solid community of believers working out our faith in action together.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Again, James focuses on speech, and the relationship between speech and action. Let your “yes” be “yes,” and let your “no,” be “no,” he writes. Truthful, simple speech lays the foundation for truthful right action. Both truthful speech and truthful action lay the foundation for trust within the community. Say what you mean. Do what you say.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This does not seem like particularly radical instruction, or even particularly Christian instruction. Who wouldn’t agree with the wisdom of consistency and truth in speech and action?<span style=""> </span>But what he writes next, in the passage I read a few moments ago, is what distinguishes him from other moral philosophers. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them…. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.” (5:13-16)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We often think of prayer as the opposite of action. You can sit around praying and fretting about something, or you can get out and do something about it. At most, we tend to see prayer as a <i>precursor</i> to action, not as action itself. It certainly doesn’t strike us as the most practical response to any given situation.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">But here is James, the most pragmatic of Christian thinkers, offering prayer as the first response. Are any of you suffering? Pray! Are any cheerful? Pray! Are any sick? Pray! I believe he would answer the same to any given situation. Are any depressed? Pray! Are any angry? Pray! Are any out of work? Pray! Are any confused? Trying to make a decision? Dealing with disappointment? Celebrating good news? Pray! Pray! Pray!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In a way, this is his most practical word. He writes consistently of the importance of true and trustworthy speech. He writes of the need to be slow to speak, and when you do speak, to be careful with how you use your words, and to mean what you say. He writes of the need for your actions to match your words. Here, he strips language back to its most fundamental – the words we speak not to one another, but to God. And <i>with</i> one another, to God. And <i>on behalf of one another</i>, to God. Prayer is primal speech. It is primal <i>action</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Prayer is an expression of the truth. Speaking the truth first to God helps keep us honest. If we are suffering, we say that. We do not pretend otherwise. If we are cheerful, we take note, we pay attention, we celebrate by singing our praise to God. Whatever you are dealing with, James says, be honest. Pray.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There is nothing we go through that we cannot speak directly with God about. There is nothing we deal with that God does not care about. There is nothing we face that God will not face with us. No human emotion is foreign to God. We can be brutally honest. We can whisper our most desperate hopes. We can cry our pain. We can sing our joy. We can beg for what we want. We can shout our anger, ugly as it feels. We can bring it. And we can bring it all.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In the movie The Apostle, Robert DuVall plays a Pentecostal preacher named Sonny, who has just discovered his wife is having an affair. Sonny is a temperamental man who flies into a terrifying and violent rage that has life-changing consequences. But in the midst of that, he does not hide anything from God. In one of the movie’s greatest scenes, he paces the floor in his mother’s attic, muttering his prayers. He gets louder and louder until he throws his hands up in the air and he is shouting at the top of his voice, “If you won’t give me back my wife, give me peace. Give me peace! I’ve always called you Jesus and you’ve always called me Sonny.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This is a man, who, even in the midst of anguish, knows he can trust his truth to the God who knows him so well, and calls him by name. A neighbor calls to complain and Sonny’s mother answers. She explains, “Sometimes he talks to the Lord. Sometimes he yells at the Lord.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Do we believe in such a relationship? Do we know that we have, or can have, that kind of real relationship with God? Do we know how to tell our truth?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Is any among you suffering? They should pray. Is any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And of course none of this is meant solely for the individual, but for the community. Ultimately, we don’t only pray alone in our attics – whether it’s shouting, crying, or celebrating. We pray together. We pray for each other. We pray with each other. We pray in solidarity with one another.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And that is part of what makes this teaching from James so practical and so radical. This is fundamentally what makes us something other than a social club or an activist organization or a charity. We are people who pray. We are people who pray together. Those prayers put us in solidarity with one another, and remind us that we are one people, belonging to one God, a God who has a relationship with us. Those prayers also keep us honest. And they should keep us attentive. They should keep us faithful to God and to each other. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Week after week, we come together on Sunday mornings and we pray for Elizabeth Lee, and Bill Kerr, and Bonnie Jensen, and Marge Shannon, and a host of others who suffer. And we pray for our Vespers ministry. And we pray for our sister church in Nicaragua. And these prayers are not just words, they are actions – they act to pull us together in solidarity with those in our midst who suffer, and in solidarity with those beyond our walls who need our care. Our prayers act to bind our hearts with each other’s, and with God’s. And these prayers should bleed out into our daily lives, acting to prompt even more attention and action. Prayer is not just saying words, it is uniting our intentions with God’s intention. That’s what shapes a life. That’s what shapes our life together.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Are you a person of prayer? Are we people of prayer? Maybe you don’t feel like you’re very “good” at prayer. Maybe you struggle to find the time. Maybe you don’t feel it’s worth the time. Maybe you struggle to believe that it means anything, or does anything, or changes anything. Say that to God. It’s as good a starting place as any. If you want to be more faithful, if you want this church to be more faithful, more vital, more vibrant, then the most practical thing to do is to say our prayers, and to say them together, and to keep on saying them.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In about ninety seconds, I’m going to sit down, and we’re going to have a moment of silent reflection, as we do every Sunday. This isn’t just a pause in the action. It isn’t a moment for finding our offering money or checking the time. This is a moment of quiet solidarity as we sit together before a God who listens. This is time for prayer, together. Just because it’s done in silence, doesn’t mean it isn’t real, or that it isn’t done as a part of community. Silent prayer can still be shared prayer. You don’t have to know any fancy words. You don’t have to say the right things. Just say what is true. Like: “Thank you.” Or, “I hope.” Or, “I need.” Or, “Hallelujah.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We just keep doing this, apart and together, speaking our truth, holding up our hearts, holding up each other, uniting our voices, uniting our intentions to God’s, and allowing our prayers to take hold of our lives and our church and every action that flows out of them. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Now. Let us pray.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-69038306077367430502009-09-12T18:30:00.000-07:002009-09-12T18:47:14.502-07:00The Littlest Power<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Littlest Power<br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >James 3:1-12<br />15th Sunday After Pentecost<br />Christian Education Sunday<br />13 September 2009</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />I dropped our boys off at kindergarten this week. It was about as hard as I had imagined. They did fine. Me, not so much. It’s a mixed bag, watching your kids grow up. It is a constant process of letting go, and of giving your child away to other people, more and more, and then more still. This first giving-away feels momentous. It is hard on the heart.<br /><br />But mostly, I am excited for them. I think it is safe to say that there is no year in the educational process that is quite as joyful and tender as kindergarten. You high school students don’t get story time any more, do you? You college students, do your professors give you a hug at the beginning of each class? You graduate students are not getting to play Red Rover after lunch, are you? Most of us have tender memories of kindergarten as a safe and happy time, and nothing that comes after can quite match it.<o:p></o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">But it is not without its own series of rude awakenings about life in this world. It was on the kindergarten playground that many of us learned to defend ourselves with these words: <i>Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> And why did we learn to say that? Because at some point, someone we thought of us as a friend, or at least a trusted classmate, used words against us. And it did hurt. In fact, as we become older, we realize that the real truth is mostly the opposite of that playground retort – most physical wounds are temporary; they heal. The hurts that get done with words – those can sometimes last a lifetime. The words we live under shape who we become. <i>Loser</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. <i>Princess</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. <i>Klutz</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">. <i>Nerd. Know-it-all. </i></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Just words?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Compared to sticks, stones, bombs, and bullets, words can give the illusion that they are of no consequence. But James knows that words have a power disproportionate to their size. He makes much of the littleness of the greatest weapon we have – our tongue. He compares it to a bit in a horse’s mouth – if the tongue is bridled, the whole self can be kept under control. He compares it to a ship’s rudder – a person can steer the ship of her life if she just controls the very small rudder, which is her tongue. And he compares it to a small fire. It starts small – just a spark. But what comes out of the mouth can make a life go down in blazes. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">But what is at issue for James is more than a simple matter of self-control. At issue is our double-mindedness – or our double-heartedness - our split in allegiance. On Sunday mornings we sing our praises to God, and then we turn around and use these same tongues to tear down, to distort, to destroy.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">An ancient story tells of Rabbi Gamaliel, who said to his servant: “Go and buy me good food in the market.” His servant went and bought him tongue. Gamaliel said to his servant: “Go and buy me bad food in the market.” His servant went and bought him tongue. Gamaliel said to his servant: “What is this?” His servant replied: “Good comes from it and bad comes from it. When the tongue is good there is nothing better, and when it is bad there is nothing worse.”<a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3169859565003338193&postID=6903830607736743050#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It is this duality that James finds most reprehensible. “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing,” he writes. “My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.” (v.10). If we praise God and then shred someone with our words, we betray our allegiance. God created the world with a word. God saved the world with the Word made flesh. We claim to live under that life-giving Word, the Word of God. That is our allegiance. That is our home.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">When we use our words to curse, tear down, distort, shame, criticize, manipulate, bicker, judge, gossip, or deceive, we betray that allegiance. We are placing our own words above God’s. We are taking ourselves out of the shelter of God’s Word and placing ourselves instead in a different framework, that of envy and competition and violence and greed. Language has the capacity to create reality. When we use our words against each other, we are building a reality that is contrary to the one God has called forth. We are responding to God’s creation by making our own. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This is not what we set out to do. We do not mean to tear down what God creates. We just can’t seem to help ourselves. We speak carelessly. We speak without thinking – and without listening. We are indiscreet. We think negative thoughts – and then we verbalize them. We are anxious for approval – so we try to connect with people through gossip and judgment and complaint. </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:100%;" >We are anxious that things won’t go the way we want – and so we use our words to control and maneuver and manage situations and people to our advantage. </span><!--EndFragment--> <span style="font-size:100%;">We don’t mean to be tearing down God’s creation and erecting our own unlovely reality in its place, but that is what we are doing.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">How do we stop?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><br /><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><!--[endif]--> In the end, the problem with our tongues is really a problem with our hearts. Who do they belong to? If they belong to us, then we can just keep speaking however we want. But if they belong to God, then what comes out of our mouths will reflect that. In place of negativity, there would be wonder. In place of judgment, there would be compassion. In place of blame, there would be humility. In place of manipulation, there would be respect and mutuality. In place of gossip, maybe there would be silence. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In every worship service, the most important moment for me personally comes when I pray the words from this morning’s Psalm: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to You, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” In those moments of prayer, I am most aware of the power of my own words, and my responsibility to God, who is also listening. I am most aware of the connection between the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart. And I am aware of my own inability to make my words or my heart right.<span style=""> I become dependent on God's sufficiency.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">What if we prayed that prayer ourselves, each morning? What if we bathed our lives in it? A prayer of yielding our words and our hearts to God. A prayer seeking to submit ourselves again to life under the Word of God, a Word meant only for life, truth, goodness, loveliness, kindness, and grace. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We cannot take back the faithless and damning words we’ve spoken. We cannot hope to keep our tongues as fully bridled as they ought to be. What we can do is place our hearts in God’s hands. We can confess our sins. We can seek to pay attention to God, and to the importance of our words. We can ask God’s help. Most of all, we can keep giving our hearts back to God.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Let the words of our mouths and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to You, O Lord, our rock and my redeemer.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size:16pt;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <div style=""><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br /><hr align="left" width="33%" size="1"> <!--[endif]--> <div style="" id="edn1"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a style="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3169859565003338193&postID=6903830607736743050#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[i]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Dibelius, <i>James, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">pp. 201-202. Found in “The Power of Words and the Tests of Two Wisdoms: James 3,” by Alan Culpepper, in </span><i>Review and Expositor, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">p.413, Summer 1986.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment-->earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-2722166011675009202009-05-02T20:32:00.000-07:002009-05-02T20:33:37.738-07:00The Laid Down Life<span style="font-weight: bold;">The Laid Down Life</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">John 10:11-18</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Fourth Sunday of Easter</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">3 May 2009</span><br /><br />Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, which means that in churches across the country and around the world, congregants are reciting Psalm 23, just as we did, and hearing Jesus say again, as we did, “I am the Good Shepherd.” In some of the places where these passages are being read, on the hills of Palestine, or Scotland, or Australia, or in the rural pockets of our own country, listeners will not have to be told very much about what sheep are like, and what it means for sheep to have a good shepherd. They will know, because the pastoral life is their life.<br /><br />But in pulpits across America, many pastors are having to explain a little more, because most of us don’t have regular contact with sheep. And I can bet that many pastors this morning are saying something like this. Sheep are dumb. Sheep are smelly. Sheep are stubborn. Sheep are helpless and weak. And of course the analogy is that this is who we are: dumb, stubborn, helpless, weak. “All we like sheep have gone astray.”<br /><br />But I’ll be honest. It’s hard for me to say anything bad about sheep. I’m a knitter. I love sheep. They provide for me the most basic thing I need for my craft. I work with wool every day. I go to fiber fairs and sheep festivals. Sheep are like some sort of icon for knitters. I have very romantic notions about sheep.<br /><br />The people of Jesus’ day, with more livestock experience than I have, probably did not share my romanticism about sheep, but they were wistful for a certain kind of shepherd. They remembered good King David, who had tended sheep as a boy and then became God’s shepherd of the people as king. They remembered Ezekiel’s prophecy, a promise that came during the long stretch of devastation following the collapse of the Temple. According to Ezekiel, a Shepherd would come to care for them, and it would be no mere human, capable of corruption and susceptible to self-interest. This time the Shepherd would be God: “I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out…. I will rescue them… I will feed them… I will make them lie down… I will seek them, and bring then back, and strengthen them.” (34:11-16) This was undeniably good news for people in distress and despair. The people who clung to this promise knew Psalm 23 as intimately as we do, and loved it as deeply: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. They knew their weakness and their need, and they sought One who would tend them.<br /><br />And then Jesus comes along and says to them, “I am the good shepherd.” And what he offers is what they’ve been looking for, what we are looking for, too. With great tenderness, he speaks of how intimately he cares for his sheep. Just as Ezekiel promised, this shepherd will care for a scattered people, nurturing them, soothing them, and strengthening them.<br /><br />But Jesus takes the image further than Ezekiel’s prophecy, declaring, “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” I know people who tend sheep. They love them, they care for them, but die for them? We move now beyond metaphor, and into new reality. One has come who will lay down his life for us. And not just for us – “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold,” he says. “I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” The shepherd who comes for us, comes for all, and will tend any who listen for his voice.<br /><br />And then Jesus sets aside talk of sheep and shepherds and speaks directly of what he has come to do. “I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” Jesus is no victim. Not a victim of an angry God, nor a victim of an angry mob. What he did on the cross did not look like power. It looked like defeat. But in John, Jesus is so clear about who has the power. “No one takes my life from me, I lay it down.”<br /><br />In the early 1300s, a Florentine artist by the name of Pacino di Bonaguida painted an image of the crucifixion that is unlike any other I have seen. It is intended as theological interpretation, not as historical depiction. In it, Jesus climbs a ladder to the cross. The mood of the scene is calm, in contrast to more typical paintings of the Passion. Mary, John, the soldiers, all stand back, passive, watching, letting Jesus do what he has come to do. One onlooker holds a hammer up to Jesus, while another holds a basket of nails. As Jesus makes his vigorous ascent, it is clear that he is making a willing and active sacrifice. He comes to the cross as One with all power, willingly laid down, to be picked up again later in a new way. He is the agent, not the soldiers, or the politicians, or the religious leaders, or us. He gives himself, pours himself out, lays himself down, for our sakes. He throws his life over us like a canopy.<br /><br />This is not what a shepherd does for sheep. When a pack of wolves threatens a flock of sheep, real shepherds do not throw themselves to the wolves. But the Good Shepherd, facing the wolves of our sin, and our despair, our death, and the darkness of powers and principalities, the Good Shepherd in all power lays down his own life for us and then picks it up again, and picks us up with it.<br /><br />By his power, and not our own, we belong to him now. We are his sheep, his flock. To be his sheep is to be led to life. To be safe, sheltered. It is to be known by him, and to follow. It is to trust the sound of his voice, and to trust the voice of God that speaks through him. To belong to him does not mean we have all the right answers, or feel all the right ways, or do all the right things. To belong to him means we listen for him, we trust him, we are in relationship with him.<br /><br />So many voices clamor for our attention. So many voices beckon, and shock, and tempt, and question, and assault. We live in a world that has gone nearly hysterical with anxiety over the economy and swine flu and whatever the disaster of the day is. Some people react with violence, others react with fear, others do whatever they can to close themselves off, to cocoon away from the chaos. We come together to seek another way, and to seek it together, not as a collection of individuals, but as a flock – his flock. We come together to help each other listen, and trust, and follow.<br /><br />What are you here for, if not that? What are you here for, if not to listen for that voice – the voice of love? [What are you here for, if not to seek that face?] What are you here for, if not to follow him? to have a relationship with him? What are you here for? What are you listening for? What are you looking for?<br /><br />He is looking for us. Like a shepherd searching for scattered sheep, he seeks us, and calls us. He set this table for us, a reminder that we still need the sustenance and care he offers, the fellowship he makes possible. Most of all we need him, even when we don’t realize it. He laid down his life for us. He prepares a table for us. He makes a way for us. He pours himself out for us, and for all.earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-2998895824352334152009-01-24T18:29:00.000-08:002009-01-24T18:30:30.500-08:00On Following<span style="font-weight: bold;">On Following<br />Mark 1:14-20<br />3rd Sunday After Pentecost<br />25 January 2008<br /></span><br />From a very young age, most of us are taught that being a leader is a most desirable thing. It starts in preschool, with the game “Follow the Leader.” It is mildly enjoyable to follow the leader, but the real fun comes when it’s your turn to lead. You walk around with a string of children behind you, ready to do anything you say. You flap your arms – they flap their arms. You hop on one foot – they hop on one foot. You quack like a duck – they quack like ducks. You realize right away that you can make them do anything. Anything! The possibilities are endless. The power can be intoxicating!<br /><br />The very young are content to be told when it’s their turn to lead. But if you watch a group of, say, 4 year-olds, you will notice that some of them no longer want to wait patiently for their turn. They will demand to be the leader. It goes from a collaborative game to a competitive sport. In my house, I have even heard the words, “I won at Follow the Leader.” I have asked, “How do you win at Follow the Leader?” I have so far not gotten a satisfactory answer, though I have imagined that if I were to play, winning might look like all the children in my home doing exactly what I said the first time I said it.<br /><br />Power struggles begin at tender age. And many of us spend the rest of our lives jockeying for position. We are taught that leadership is valued and having power is good. Parents and teachers try to groom children to become good leaders. Teenagers and young adults may even participate in leadership training. College admissions officers look for evidence that applicants have leadership skills and experience.<br /><br />To my knowledge, there are no equivalent workshops on “followship” training. And while teachers and parents do hope that children learn to at least follow directions, not many speak to their young about being a good follower. In fact, being a follower has a negative connotation in our culture. We fear that in following we may be lemmings, going along unquestioningly with the crowd to our detriment. While not everyone aspires to be a leader, I know of now one who sets out to be a good follower.<br /><br />I once knew a woman who was a member of a very progressive new church full of people with passion and vision and commitment. She told the story of the first Christmas this congregation celebrated together. They were decorating a large tree in the sanctuary, and they each had been given one Christmon ornament to hang. They all set about putting their ornament on, and when they stepped back from the tree they noticed something startling: every single ornament was near the top of the tree – the bottom of the tree was completely bare. The woman declared that was the perfect metaphor for the congregation – they were all chiefs, no followers.<br /><br />Choosing to do what someone else tells us to is just not as much fun as doing exactly what we want. More fun still is having other people do what we want, too. And into this tangle of desire and self-will, come these two words from Jesus: Follow me.<br /><br />The fishermen were casting a net into the sea. They were minding their own business, doing their job, making their living. And Jesus walks by and says, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they leave their nets and follow. He goes a little further, and there are James and John, mending their nets in a boat. And Jesus says, “Follow me,” and they do, leaving their father and their employees in the boat, as they go.<br /><br />Can you imagine? A stranger walks up, no introduction, no spiel, no business plan to show them how following him will get them what they want. None of that. Just those words: Follow me. And they do.<br /><br />A reasonable response would be, “Where are you going?” Or “Who are you?” Or, “Go away.” Reasonable people do not just lay aside their old lives and take up with a street preacher just because he says, “Come on.” But this is not a reasonable story. And his is no reasonable request. He is asking them to drop everything, to leave their families, their work, and everything they know, and to join him on a road that will ultimately lead to suffering and death - and later, to resurrection. This is a mind-bending, life-altering invitation, and they don’t even stop to ask a single question. They just go.<br /><br />Did they have any idea what they were signing up for? Difficulty. Disappointment. Persecutions. Executions. Later in life they would all four be led where they would rather not have gone. And still, they followed. As if all they knew was that wherever this man was, they wanted to be. So they dropped their nets, their lives, and their plans, and followed.<br /><br />This story stands at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, immediately after the baptism of Jesus. It is as if to say, no matter what comes next, this is where it begins, keep coming back to this – Follow me. This is everything distilled into two words. Follow me.<br /><br />And every day, they got up, and followed all over again. None of them stepped forward and said, “Wait a minute. The life I left was better than this one. I liked things better when I was in charge.” Sure, they struggled with selfishness and pettiness. They made mistakes, and sometimes they failed in spectacularly awful ways. But they still just kept on following. One step at a time.<br /><br />And this is how it works. This is the only way to follow. Just one step at a time. Just each day choosing to drop our own plans and follow the leader we’ve said we’ll follow. Things will happen that we never anticipated or prepared for. We will make mistakes. We will get discouraged and disappointed. We will have long stretches where it feels like we are running down a dark alley or stumbling through a mysterious landscape. We will wish we had a map, or a plan, or anything to tell us how things would work out.<br /><br />We don’t get any of that. We get what they got, this man with fire in his eyes and thunder in his throat, saying, “Follow me.” And if we can let go of wondering where we’re headed and worrying about how we’ll make it, and instead focus on the One who is calling us, we will be all right. What is true for the disciples is true for us – we don’t have to see all the way down that narrow road in order to make the choice each day to take one more step towards the One who leads. As E.L. Doctorow once said, “The headlights only reach so far – but it’s enough to lead us all the way home.” When Jesus says, “Follow!” there is enough light in him for us to see by.<br /><br />There’s not denying that it’s hard. It’s hard to be a follower. It’s hard to lay aside self-will. It’s hard to trust. We do not have the power on our own to make it work. What we have the power to do is decide each day, “Yes, today I will follow Jesus.” And then to say, “Jesus, help me with that. Help me let go of my nets. Help me let go of my plans. Help me to die to myself. You’re the one I want to follow, but I can’t do it without your help.”<br /><br />God knows it’s a big enough calling. It asks for all our strength and all our faith and all our love. It requests radical openness, because we don’t know a fraction yet of who he really is and where he wants to take us. It requires discipline to keep thinking of Christ, to keep looking to Christ, to keep praying, and to keep choosing. And it means the willingness to change and to keep changing.<br /><br />And we do not follow alone. We follow in a long line of people who have already followed him to another shore. And we follow with each other. His call is not just for you and me, as individuals, but us together, as the church. There is a lot of angst and confusion these days about what it takes to be the church in the new millennium. There are experts who can draw up marketing models and growth plans. But what was true 2000 years ago is still true today. All we really need to know is what we’ve already known: Follow Jesus. Belong to Jesus. Keep our eyes on Jesus. Keep letting go of anything that keeps us from following Jesus. Keep putting one foot in front of the other, and choosing him one step at a time.<br /><br />“Follow me,” he said. And they did.<br /><br />What about us?earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-27593541301872879402008-11-01T16:01:00.000-07:002008-11-01T16:02:16.640-07:00Not Yet Revealed<span style="font-weight: bold;">Not Yet Revealed</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1 John 1:1-3</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">All Saints’ Sunday</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2 November 2008</span><br /><br />As most of you know, I have been taking a break from the pulpit and other pastoral duties to spend more time at home this last year before the boys start kindergarten. It has been a real gift to them, and to me, and to our family, to get to do this, and I so appreciate your support and your encouragement in this decision, as well as the work Paul is doing to make it possible.<br /><br />I have had pretty vivid ideas of what this time was going to look like. Our days would be filled with crafts and Candy Land, with books and baking, with parks and puppet shows. The time that had been moving so swiftly would suddenly expand, and slow down. I would find myself able to give my time and my attention completely to my sons. It was going to be perfect. Perhaps it is more accurate to say my ideas were less about what this time was going to be than about the kind of mother I was suddenly going to become. I would be so loving, so patient and so kind. I wouldn’t feel anxious or pressed for time. I would never treat my children as interruptions. I would never hear myself saying things like, “Hurry up,” or “Leave me alone.” The boys would never ask why I was using my grumpy voice. Oh, and my home? It would be a tidy and inviting place of peace and order. In other words, I was not only going to become a better mother. I was going to become a completely different person.<br /><br />I’m sure it won’t surprise you – and it shouldn’t have surprised me - that things have not been as blissful as I’d imagined. I am impatient. I can be quite irritable. I do sound grumpy. I don’t like playing Candy Land. And my house? Well, let’s not talk about what kind of house I keep. And what I am reminded of, yet again, is that I never ever end up being as good as I set out to be. I never do end up becoming the person I had hoped. I never get things just right, let alone perfect. This is our story. We are not what we meant to be. We are not what we were intended to be.<br /><br />Sometimes we miss the mark in spectacular and horrific ways. But most of the time, we miss it in smaller, painfully persistent ways. We try, try, try to become better people. We have the sense that we are supposed to be getting better. We have the sense that life is supposed to be about forward motion, about progress. But we never seem to get there. We never really measure up.<br /><br />Kakfa said, “The meaning of life is that it ends.” In other words, our living is shaped by our anxiety, angst, and dread over our finitude. The limitation on life gives it meaning. Today is All Saints’ Sunday, a day for stopping to listen to the clock ticking on all our lives, and what it means. What meaning do our days have, given that they will end?<br /><br />Our preoccupation with our end starts early. “Mommy, you are sure getting old. When are you going to die?” one of my sons asked the other day. I don’t know. None of us knows, I said. “I don’t want to die. Ever!” Charlie insisted. “Well, sorry Charlie,” Rob responded. “Sometimes it happens.” <br /><br />Yes it does. Not just sometimes. It’s coming for us all. And we know so little in the face of it. “What we will be has not yet been revealed,” John says in his letter this morning. His words confirm our ignorance. We don’t know. We don’t know when it will come, or how. We don’t know, not really, what the life after this one looks like. We don’t know, not really, what we will become. Not in this lifetime, and certainly not in the next. We don’t know.<br /><br />But there is such power and such promise in those two words – Not Yet. Those words point forward. They suggest that what we do not know now, what we cannot know now, we one day will. They suggest that what we cannot be now, we one day will. They suggest that the essence of who we are and will become lies in the future – the Not Yet – rather than in the past, where all our failures have stacked up behind us, or in the present, where we still struggle to be who we’re meant to be.<br /><br />John writes, “What we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when [Christ] is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” John acknowledges that there is so much we don’t know, so much we can’t know. But he insists that we do know that in the end, we will see Christ, and, seeing him, we shall be like him. Becoming like him will come not from all our trying, not from all our determination, but simply from seeing him, as he is. Just by laying eyes on him, we will be transformed.<br /><br />These words are meant for our hope. All the ways life has left us unsettled and unsatisfied, all the ways we have let ourselves and others down, all the ways we have missed the mark – they are not the final word. The word now is “Not yet.” The final word is we will see Christ, and we will be like him. We will be fully, finally, beautifully what we were meant to be. All else will be stripped away.<br /><br />Is this word enough to keep us going amidst our failures and frustrations and flaws? Is it enough for us to know that someday – not yet, but someday – our lives will shine with the light of his love, and completely? Is it enough to know that all our wounds and all our griefs will be healed and all our failures will be erased and all our lives will be only love?<br /><br />It might be enough, but it’s not all. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called the children of God; and so we are…. Beloved, we are God’s children now.” We look forward towards the Not Yet, towards a future that has not yet been revealed. But we have everything we need for now. “Beloved, we are God’s children now,” John says. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called the children of God, and so we are. Now.”<br /><br />What this means is not that we take hold of our longings to have a better life or to be a better person, and then somehow make those desires come true. What it means is that we know who we are – God’s own children, now, and we know what we will become – like Christ, whom we shall see fully. And in the meantime, we give ourselves to the seeking of him. We set our gaze on him now. We seek to see him, to know him, little by little, and so to be made like him, little by little, by God’s grace, and not our own doing. We seek him with our praying, and our serving, our thinking and our giving, our loving and our living. <br /><br />So much has not yet been revealed. So much of what we long for, what we lean towards, has not yet been revealed. So much of who we will become has not yet been revealed. But in the meantime, don’t we have enough to keep us going on the way of Christ?<br /><br />Not long ago, I visited a church that had a baptismal pool at the entrance. In order to come into the sanctuary, you had to pass by those waters. And at this church, the water was constantly flowing into that pool, from a source above it. Anyone sitting in that sanctuary would hear the rush of water into that pool. I sat in that sanctuary alone, and the water seemed so loud as I prayed. I was seeking direction, and guidance, and I kept hearing that water. And suddenly I had the strongest sense of something else in that room besides that water. I saw my cloud of witnesses, there, above me. There was my cousin Blake, made whole. There was my grandmother, Edith, and my grandmother, Thelma. There was my brother-in-law David. My father-in-law Nelson, my Uncle Don. There stood my grandfathers, whom I never knew. There was a whole circle of people around that sanctuary and another circle behind them and another behind them. Zella Willis and Laura Barbour and Dorothy Lamerson and Helen Brewer and people whom they had loved and lost, all stand in that circle. And behind them, the circle goes on, and it goes on. The Bible calls it our cloud of witnesses. <br /><br />Above the sound of those baptismal waters, I perceived that cloud, and those beautiful, beautiful people, who have been made well and whole. And I had the strongest feeling myself that I am headed for that wholeness, too, that all shall be well. I had the strongest, clearest remembrance that they, too, had been laid down in those baptismal waters, and they now stand by the river that flows by the throne of God. We were raised up from those baptismal waters to walk in newness of life. They do so perfectly now. I still struggle. But some day I won’t. And you won’t either. Those faithful ones who have gone on – they struggled too. They made their mistakes. Sometimes they failed us, and themselves. They were not everything they wanted to be. But they are now. <br /><br />And what are we now? We are God’s own children. We are beloved. We have a cloud of witnesses that has surrounded us with their love and encouragement and example. And we have this table, where Christ meets us and gives us again what we need to keep moving forward in our seeking and our following. We do not come to this table alone, but with each other. And not only with each other, but with all God’s children throughout this world. And not only with all God’s children throughout this world, but with all those beyond this world. They sit now at the great table, at the heavenly feast, completely filled by his goodness and love, and transformed into that goodness and love themselves. Now we take our taste, too. And it will be enough, for now. Until we finally join them, and gaze on the beautiful face of love, and become, with them, like him ourselves.earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-40814807891268895502008-09-06T19:55:00.000-07:002008-09-06T19:56:48.804-07:00What We OwePhew! A bit late getting this one done and posted. I'll come back when I'm less bleary-eyed and add the footnotes.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />What We Owe</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Romans 13:8-11</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">17th Sunday After Pentecost</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">7 September 2008</span><br /><br />Who do you owe? And what do you owe them? We think of owing someone in terms of financial debt, but there are kinds of owing that have nothing to do with money. We owe someone an explanation. We owe someone an apology. We owe somebody a phone call or a visit. We owe somebody a thank you note or an invitation. Some of us keep us with all these obligations as if we were keeping a tally – constantly totting up to make sure we are in no one’s debt (or to see who owes us what). Others of us are certain we can never catch up with all our obligations, and so we resign ourselves to live with the constant sense that we are never doing enough.<br /><br />Paul begins his counsel this morning from his letter to the Romans with words about our obligation. “Owe no one anything,” he begins. I kind of wish he had tweaked it just a bit. How about something like: “You don’t owe anyone a thing.” There now, that’s better, right? He could go from there. “You don’t owe anyone a thing. Just be true to yourself. Be true to what you want. Be true to what you need, what you believe. In Christ you have been set free, you no longer owe a thing.” Oh, I would love to read that in my Bible this morning. <br /><br />And why doesn’t it say that? In Christ we have been set free! Christ has paid our debts – how is that we owe anything? Why should I feel obligated to do anything, when Christ has done it all?<br /><br />And it is true – Christ did come for freedom, Christ pay our debts and set us free. We do not live under compulsion, we are no longer under obligation to the law. What this means is that Christ has set us free from ever having to do anything to be made right. Christ has set us free from having to do anything to justify ourselves or our worth. We do not need to do more or do better in order to be loved, or in order to be saved, or in order to be good. We have been set free from all that. We are loved already. We are loved entirely. We have been set right.<br /><br />This does not mean we no longer have any obligations. It means that how we handle our obligations does not determine our worth. It means that neither our successes nor our failures have the last word on who we ultimately are. It means that we do not need to live under the hissing judgment of should and ought as if such words could save us or damn us. It means we rise to obligations out of our freedom, and with a sense of purpose and grace.<br /><br />Paul says, “Owe no one anything, but love.” It is love that saved us, it is love that has been given to us, so freely. And so it is love that we now have, in abundance, to share. We owe it not because we are trying to get something, or trying to make up for something. We owe it because we have been given it. <br /><br />Knowing all of this does not make it all that much easier to do, however. Love is never easy. There are some people in our lives who are certainly easier for us to love. But in the end, love – real love – always demands something of us. <br /><br />Catholic ethicist Paul Wadell writes, “Love doesn’t sound dangerous until you’ve tried it.” What makes love dangerous? It is dangerous because it is costly. Love, the kind of love Paul writes of, is not about mere affection, or attraction, or compatibility, or mutual enjoyment. It is, ultimately, about self-giving, which means the sacrifice of self-interest. The New Testament defines love in relation to the cross. What is involved when we give ourselves to the obligations of love, then, is something like a death. A death to self.<br /><br />That’s why it can be so hard. How many times a day can we stand to let ourselves die, and die again, to what we want? Some of the little deaths may be easier to accept – the daily sacrifices a parent makes for a young child are set in the context of the parents’ deep love and commitment. Still, they are sacrifices, and still they can be difficult to accept. Parents are meant to love their children, children are meant to love their parents, spouses are meant to love each other – and yet all of know how fraught with complexity and conflict all of these relationships can be. In her book What We Were Made For: Christian Reflections on Love, Christian ethicist Sondra Wheeler acknowledges, “… loving those near to us well is hard enough, … no wonder a human love that extends to strangers and enemies is hard even to imagine.” And yet that is what we are called to – a love that extends. Such a love pulls us beyond where we’re comfortable. Sometimes it feels like it will break us – to try to love people who aren’t like us, to try to love people who make us anxious or angry, to try to love people we don’t like. It is hard enough to be faithful in loving the people we actually like.<br /><br />Human beings were created with a powerful need for companionship and community. We were meant for love, we were meant for relationship. And yet it is exactly this deep need that can make love so difficult. Out of our sense of own neediness and vulnerability, distorted patterns of relating arise, patterns that focus not at all on self-giving, but on finding ways to somehow get what we need. So we become manipulative and controlling. Or jealous. Or dependent. We become fearful, self-protective, distrustful. We cling to illusions about ourselves, and about others – illusions that cannot survive the honesty and growth required by real relationship. In so many ways, we are so broken. Love has been poured out for us, over our lives and into our hearts. But it sometimes seems that all the cracks in us make it impossible to hold all that love, let alone start giving it away. <br /><br />Love is the only commandment, but sometimes it seems impossible to keep. How on earth can we get any better? <br /><br />For starters, we come here. St. Benedict called Christian community a “school for souls.” Here is where we learn. In community with other people who are both broken and blessed – people who were neither our family nor our friends, but who can now become both, if we allow it. We are here to know and to be known, to learn to love and to learn to be loved. This is our school for souls. It is here that we encounter hope and healing for all the distortions that make loving relationship so hard. <br /><br />If we have any hope of putting self-interest to death, this is where we start – in community, and in a community that chooses together to point ourselves toward God. To worship at all is to acknowledge and to celebrate that the world is governed by someone other than us. To worship is to say Self is not on the throne, and to say that self-interest will not be in charge. To worship together is to acknowledge how hard it is to do all this alone. Outside these walls, we encounter people at work, people on the street, people in our families that we find difficult to love. Outside these walls, we come up again and again against the supreme difficulty of self-sacrifice. Gathered in this room together, we are reminded that we do not actually have to do any of that alone. We come here to find our shared identity in God, an identity and a security that can begin to release us from fear and distrust. We come here to get honest about ourselves, and our failures, and our need. We come here to pray and to learn to pray, so that we find our first and best relationship with the Source of all other relationship. <br /><br />And we come here to be fed. We gather at this table, to open ourselves to a God who nourishes and nurtures, a God who wants to fill us up, to satisfy us with good things. We come as we are to this table. Needy, broken, selfish, troubled, bowed-down, puffed-up, disbelieving, or hopeful. We come as we are, to find what we need, together. And what we find is this: we have been given so much. The love of God, the life of Jesus, has been poured out for us. And God wants it to be poured out through us. We find freedom at this table, too. Not just freedom <span style="font-style: italic;">from</span> the things that would push us down, but freedom <span style="font-style: italic;">for</span> – freedom for dying to our old selves, freedom for rising to our new purpose, freedom for getting up and going out, together, to love, and to love, and to love again, and to owe no on anything but love.earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-56645883046084335672008-08-23T07:32:00.000-07:002008-08-23T07:35:15.419-07:00Learning to Praise<span style="font-weight: bold;">Learning to Praise</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Psalm 148</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Myers Park Baptist Church</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">24 August 2008</span><br /><br />The psalm this morning may seem benign and ordinary. “Praise the Lord!” it begins. “Praise the Lord!” it ends. And we’ve grown accustomed to such an exhortation. It’s what we’re here at church for, after all – to praise. But this is no ordinary act. And this psalm offers no ordinary word.<br /><br />What is praise, but the staking of one’s whole life on goodness, on the goodness of God? What is praise, but the pouring out of one’s daily living in joy and gratitude for what has been given? In the face of so many forces of darkness, of despair, of violence and evil, there could be no more radical act than that. <br /><br />But this psalm takes the revolutionary act of praise a step beyond. The psalmist issues an invitation to the entire universe. Everything that is, praises God. Not just “everything that breathes” as Psalm 150 would have it. But everything that is. Not just the angels in heaven. Not just the humans on earth. Every created thing. Animate, inanimate. Sun, moon, stars, rain, earth, fire, hail, snow, frost, wind. Mountains, hills, trees, mammals, sea creatures, creeping things, flying birds. Every cell of the universe, every atom of space, every single bit of creation does one thing in unison – it all praises God.<br /><br />It is a sweeping and impressive picture – not only of unity of purpose, but of the radical inclusivity of praise. This is what everything was made for. This is what it all does. Every created thing praises the God who created it, simply by being what God made it to be.<br /><br />Well, maybe all but one.<br /><br />The psalmist here seems to have great faith that humans will respond to the innate urge to praise God. “Kings of the earth and all peoples,” he declares, “Young men and women alike, old and young together!” His confidence is inspiring. It is endearing. Is it not also a bit unwarranted?<br /><br />The truth is, while cedar trees and dolphins and goldfinches and stardust all praise God by being beautifully exactly as God created it all to be, we have somewhat deviated. We struggle to give ourselves to God. We have a hard time seeking and seeing the goodness of God all around us, and responding to it. <br /><br /><br />There are so many reasons we find ourselves blocked from such a life. We are busy, and so don’t notice the pulse of God beating beneath the surface of everything. We are disappointed or disillusioned or grief-stricken, and therefore unable to see how we might give praise without being false. We are tired and drained and sucked-dry by the demands we face, and, finding no way to receive what we most need, we also have nothing more to give back, including our praise. <br /><br />--<br />You may have seen the Washington Post story last year. That January, world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell engaged in a little experiment at the behest of a Washington Post reporter. Bell, dressed in street clothes, took his 300 year-old Stradivarius to the L’Enfant Plaza Subway Station. For 43 minutes during the morning rush hour, he performed, playing some of the most beautiful, most powerful, most difficult pieces of music ever written. The concert was videotaped with a hidden camera. Guesses were made ahead of time, about how people would respond, how many people would stop and listen, how much money might be tossed into his violin case. Plans were made to deal with crowd control.<br /><br />Those plans were not needed. What happened was this. In the 43 minutes that the internationally acclaimed virtuoso played his violin, 1097 people passed him by. Most did not even look at him. Only one person, at the very end, recognized him. A few tossed in quarters or even pennies. And only seven people stopped what they were doing, to stand and listen, at least for a minute.<br /><br />Gene Weingarten, the Washington Post staff writer who put Joshua Bell up to this experiment, and then reported on it, poses the question in his article: “If we can’t take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that – then what else are we missing?”<br /><br />It is a haunting question. What are we missing? What great gorgeous joy and wonder are present in the life God has given us, that we cannot see, cannot open ourselves to? What praise can we not give because we cannot see the millions of reasons to give it?<br /><br />During Bell’s second piece, Schubert’s Ave Maria, “something revealing happened.” Weingarten writes of a woman and her preschooler coming off the escalator. The mother is walking quickly, needing to get her son dropped off at school so she can go on to work. Her son, however, is intent on hearing the music and watching the musician. On the video, you can see him twisting around to see Bell, even as he is being hurried towards the door. Finally, his mother maneuvers her body to block the child’s view. As mother and child leave the station, the boy can still be seen straining to get a look.<br /><br />Weingarten writes:<br />"The poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother’s heart is in iambic meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us. It may be true with music, too.<br /><br />(Weingarten goes on) "There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away."*<br /><br />Can you imagine if you had been one of those people who walked past Joshua Bell without stopping? Or if you had been one of those parents, can you imagine how you’d feel when you were told who that was standing there in the subway station fiddling as you dragged your listening child away?<br /><br />I think I’m that person on a regular basis. I think I’m that parent on a regular basis. <br /><br />Every morning, the great God of the universe plays the best music ever made for us, and we march forward in our grim determination to get everything done. We scrabble on, trying to get what we think we need, trying to get ahead, ignoring the music of life. Instead of feeling joy, or hope, or gratitude we often feel resentment, or apathy, or resignation. Some of us even drag little ones along behind us, ignoring their innate sense of wonder instead of letting it teach us.<br /><br />Those people in the subway station that morning thought Joshua Bell was just another street performer. How often do we look at a person and see something less than what is there? How often do we look at a tree, a rock, the sky, the ground, and see something less than what is really there? It is, all of it, glistening with God. How much of that are we missing?<br /><br />In the midst of the press and crush of life, sometimes one of my children will interrupt me with something that seems very urgent to them – and so irrelevant to me. “Look! An ant!” “Look! The sky is grey!” “Look! Mimi is outside walking her cat! That man just ran by without a shirt on! That fat squirrel is sleeping on the picnic table! LOOK!” Or I will be trying to concentrate so hard on something so important and one of them will just burst out singing for no apparent reason, in words he insists are the right ones: “I hope! I hope! It’s off to work I go!” And it is so loud! And it is so joyful. And it is like they are responding to the music underneath everything, and picking up with a tune of their own in response. And I have a choice with how I respond. I can sigh with impatience, answer with gruff tones, ignore the ant, the squirrel, the tree, and the child, respond in a distracted, “Yes I see,” when I definitely do not. And I certainly have done all of those things. Or I can slow down. Wake up. Pay attention. Listen for God’s music. And be drawn back to wonder, and to praise.<br /><br />When life has choked out your own poetry and music and praise, find a child. That child might teach you how to see again. And how to sing. Maybe the child you need to find is the one inside you. Jesus once said, “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” (Mark 10:15). I think by “receiving the kingdom of God as a little child,” this is part of what he meant – the opening of ourselves to the wonder and joy of the moment. Finding our way back to simplicity and a sense of the adventure and magic that lurks in each new day. Getting outside and letting ourselves be schooled in the ways of praise by the dragonfly and the maple leaf, the raindrop and the bullfrog. There is a revolutionary fellowship of praise, right outside our door – can we look up from our computers for a few minutes to really see it, and to participate with it in responding to the God behind it all?<br /><br />Every day, we have the chance to choose: will I treat this day and its obligations as something to be gotten through? Will I treat people as interruptions, or burdens? Will I ignore anything that has no utilitarian purpose for me? Or, will I give myself to this day and its obligations? Will I treat people as holy, as God-given opportunities to love and to give? Will I treat creation as holy, as kindred spirit and kind tutor in the art of praise? Will I be on the look-out for the tiny shimmering clues to God’s goodness? Will I be listening for the gorgeous notes of God’s great music? <br /><br />Can you see it? Can you hear it? Can you lift your voice in chorus with brother sun and sister moon? Can your life burn and glow like they do, in praise of the God who created and still creates? The animals, the trees, the skies, the earth, the children, they all give their witness to God’s goodness and truth, and in bearing their witness, they also give their praise. They are playing their music. God is playing, too. Now, what about you?<br /><br /><br />*Gene Weingarten. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Pearls Before Breakfast</span>. </a>earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-47206121739606639762008-08-16T13:05:00.000-07:002008-08-16T13:08:17.080-07:00The Doors of the HeartThe Doors of the Heart<br />Matthew 15:10-28<br />15th Sunday After Pentecost<br />17 August 2008<br /><br />“It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person,” Jesus tells the crowd in this morning’s Gospel story. I have to say I like the sound of that, given the sorts of foods I indulged in on our recent vacation. Good southern cooking in Alabama, decadent desserts in Georgia, fried shrimp in Florida – I feasted plenty, and the scale agrees: it’s time to get back on the wagon. I would love to think that what goes into the mouth does not defile, but all evidence points to the contrary.<br /><br />We have made a high art of food rules in our culture, and we know more about the connection between food and physical health than ever before. We would very much argue that what goes in to the mouth definitely can defile. None of that has stopped us from glutting ourselves and suffering the consequences. There is a deep and complex connection between our emotions and our appetites, our hearts and our stomachs. We come up with all kinds of diets and rules to try to do battle with our appetites; some people even make a kind of religion out of dieting.<br /><br />That leap isn’t far. In truth, food and religion have always had something to do with each other. They both have something to do with sustenance, and with strength. They both have dimensions that are highly personal and internal as well as dimensions that are highly external and communal. Both food and religion can be a source of great connection and community or a source of great division and even hostility. Food is highly pleasurable; religion can have that element as well, though many don’t associate pleasure with faith. <br /><br />Throughout history, most religious traditions have had celebrations around food as well as rules about food. For the Jews of Jesus’ days, the rules were clear. According to Old Testament law, priests were required to wash their hands before eating (Ex. 30:17-21; Lew. 22:4-7), as a matter not of hygiene but of ritual purification. The Pharisees expanded the requirement to cover everyone, not just priests. We tend to think of Pharisees as purists and zealots, but their beliefs were actually radically egalitarian and democratizing. They believed in the equality of all people before God, and that everyone had equal obligation to devote themselves to the godly life, everyone ought to have the chance to live the holiest life possible. So the Pharisees kept the purity standards for themselves, including ritual handwashing, and they taught that everyone should do the same.<br /><br />And then Jesus comes along with his disciples, and they do not keep the purity code. Most obviously, they don’t wash their hands before eating. The Pharisees, of course, notice. What kind of Jews are these that do not try to live the holiest kind of life?, they wonder And so they press Jesus, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? Why don’t they wash their hands?” Jesus responds with brevity and force: “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”<br /><br />It is a strikingly freeing word. Ritual is not the way to God. We are set free from the old laws and observances about food and another daily details. Freedom is at the core of what Jesus was about – and that freedom goes far deeper and far wider than we typically dare imagine. But these words about what goes into the mouth and what comes out aren’t only about our freedom. They are also about our need.<br /><br />What is our need? Scripture says that our most essential need is to be put back in right relationship with God, and therefore with each other and with ourselves. The whole story of Scripture boils down to this one thing – this terrible fracture in relationship and how it can be overcome. This is what the laws in Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy were about – they were about healing the breach. The Law was a gift from God, given so that we might find our way back to God. What was at stake when a law was broken was no minor thing, even if the law itself might seem unnecessary in our eyes. What was at stake was further separation from God and from the people of God. This is what it meant to be defiled, this is what impurity was ultimately about – a rupture in the relationship between a person and God.<br /><br />It is hard to take the Pharisees’ question seriously because the issue of defilement is so foreign to us. We chafe at the idea that our relationship with God could be dependent upon external ceremony. But Jesus does not mock or argue with their concern about defilement – he shares it.[1] Separation from God, from holiness, from each other, from ourselves – this is what Jesus came to mend. We don’t call it “defilement” but that is what it is. Life as God intended it has been spoiled, and our best intentions have been corrupted. Even when we try to do our best, we hurt each other and even ourselves. We find ourselves feeling cut off from God. This is what it means to be defiled.<br /><br />Jesus shares the Pharisees’ concern about defilement. He also radically clarifies it. “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles,” he says, “it is what comes out…. Because what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.”<br /><br />Jesus takes seriously the power in our words. According to him, our words matter very much. They seem so insignificant to us – just a little bit of air through the vocal cords, molded by the tongue and the lips, cut off with the teeth. Just a puff – and then the word is gone. That’s part of its power – we can’t take it back. Words are a kind of action: they can build up or tear down; they can encourage or manipulate; they can illuminate or deceive. Words can be the most vicious kind of weapons we have. They can create realities that shouldn’t be and destroy realities that should be. Words matter a great deal.<br /><br />Most of all, words matter because they reveal the heart. They are like doors that open to show the world what’s inside of us, and who we are. The opening of those doors unleashes our actions for good and for ill. The heart is the place where our motives and intentions are born and take hold. All the good a person musters in life starts as the smallest intention in the heart. And the seeds of all the evil ever sown in the world started in the tiniest darkest places in human hearts. “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart,” Jesus says, “and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person….”<br /><br />What this means is that the problem is much worse than we like to think. The problem is inside of us. The problem is with our hearts. It would be easier, actually, if the real problem was somehow somewhere out there, outside of us. We could close the doors to our heart to whatever would invade us from out there. We could keep certain laws, do very specific things, to make ourselves pure, to set ourselves right. It would be easier still to believe that because we’d been set free from those laws there was no problem at all anymore. But too often we find, in our freedom, that we feel just as separated from God as ever – sometimes so separated that we aren’t even sure God is out there anymore. And we find we are just as cut off from each other and ourselves as ever. Freedom doesn’t mean anything if it’s not for finding our purpose, our wholeness, our relatedness with God and with each another. <br /><br />In this passage, Jesus just stops the teaching here (or so it seems). He points out where the problem is – the heart – and then he leaves. Where he heads is Gentile territory, where the people would not be asking the same kinds of questions as the Pharisees – they did not live by Jewish purity codes there. A Canaanite woman approaches him and begs his mercy and his healing for her daughter. He says nothing. The disciples urge him to send her away; they can’t stand her shouting. Jesus responds that his mission is to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but she persists: “Lord, help me.” He insults her, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she replies, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Here we are again, talking about food and religion. She doesn’t care a thing about ritual purity, what she wants is the real food this man was meant to bring. “Woman, great is your faith!” Jesus marvels, “Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter is healed. It is a disturbing story – to see Jesus respond to a woman’s distress first with silence, and then with insults. For some people, it is even more disturbing that Jesus is bested in an argument, and by a Gentile woman.<br /><br />But it’s a marvelous story, too. This woman knows her need. She doesn’t argue that she’s good enough, or that she deserves what Jesus has come to bring. She throws herself on her knees, and she begs for his help. “This is (faith) down to basics: When we are thrown to our knees.” [2] “Lord, help me,” she asks. And she just keeps asking. And he gives her what she needs, and praises her faith.<br /><br />This story may reframe how we see Jesus. Maybe it could also reframe how we see ourselves. We are supplicants. We are desperate. We are broken and needy. And if we want a fix for our unpure, broken, alienated hearts, then this is what we do. We throw ourselves down before him, and we pray the simplest prayer with her, “Lord, help me.” Help me. <br /><br /> “Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart,” we sang a bit ago. It’s a prayer worth praying every day. “Lord, I want to be a Christian, I want to be move loving, more holy, more like Jesus, in my heart. Lord, here’s my heart, I can’t fix it. I’m giving it to you. Lord, help me.” It’s what he came for – to take our broken hearts and make them whole, to bridge the gap between us and God, to heal the rifts between us and each other, to take up all our faulty, dishonorable words and gather them into his perfect self, the Word made flesh, and then to give us new words to sing and to pray and to live.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">[1] This idea from The Sword of His Mouth by Robert C. Tannehill.<br />[2] Steven Shoemaker. "When Jesus Changed His Mind," preached at Myers Park Baptist Church, 11 May 2008.<br /></span>earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-3066533512251985492008-07-05T16:23:00.000-07:002008-07-05T17:09:55.844-07:00The Lightest BurdenThe Lightest Burden<br />Matthew 11:25-30<br />8th Sunday After Pentecost<br />6 July 2008<br /><br />Scott Peck’s bestseller <span style="font-style: italic;">The Road Less Traveled</span> begins with the famous first sentence, “Life is difficult.” On the surface, it seems such an obvious statement. But we wrestle with the truth of it, we struggle to accept it. Most of the time most of us function as if difficulty in life is actually an aberration. We seem to believe that life is actually supposed to be comfortable, convenient, easy, and fun. “Life is difficult,” the first sentence said. Yes it is. But we don’t really think it’s supposed to be.<br /><br />We chafe at the difficulties. Some of us rebel at whatever burdens life harnesses us with. We do what we can to throw off the things that make life hard. We live in an era when convenience seems to be a sort of ultimate value – and so we have come almost to believe we have a right to a dinner that only takes 15 minutes to prepare, a shirt that doesn’t require ironing, and a computer that zips to the next page as quickly as we can click. As a society, we seem to be trying to turn convenience and comfort into an art form.<br /><br />Yet for all our trying, life doesn’t get any less difficult, does it? Not really. The microwave, the dishwasher, the remote control, the car – have they made us happier? Have they made us freer? Or have they just freed up our time to get more done, and to expect to get more done?<br /><br />We are not more well-rested than our ancestors. We are not more well-rounded. We are not more well-read or more well-fed, not in terms of true nurture and nutrition at least. We are simply busier. And maybe more tired.<br /><br />And so Jesus’ words this morning come with a particular jolt: <span style="font-style: italic;">Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.</span><br /><br />The invitation could not be more plain and compelling. Sweet as honey, strong as steel, his words come at us with a force and attraction that meet us at a very deep level. They come with the power to speak into any situation, into any heart. Come to me, you weary, you who carry heavy burdens. Come to me, and I will give you rest. It sounds so good.<br /><br />But the invitation and the promise are not the same as what all our many consumer goods offer. This is not an offer of convenience. Not an offer of a particular kind of ease. Not even an offer of the kind of comfort so many of us think we are looking for. Jesus is not promising more pleasure and less pain. He is not promising a better life. If you are looking for the secret to the best life now (1) – the one where things go the way you want, and good things come to you, then you’ll need to look elsewhere. This is not what he is offering. If we answer his invitation, it does not change certain facts of life – illness, death, disaster, these remain. Life in some of the most basic respects, will still be difficult. These are not the burdens he seeks to take from us.<br /><br />His words go to a deeper place, and to bigger burdens. The burden he seeks to overthrow is the burden of how we manage our existence. Our management of our own lives is, in large part, about managing and dealing with our fears and anxieties. Kierkegaard argued that in all of us is an element of despair, whether we are consciously aware of it or not. Augustine believed that restlessness drives us all, our whole lives. Tillich argued that “The law of religion is the great attempt of man to overcome his anxiety and restlessness and despair, [to close the gap within himself, and to reach immortality, spirituality, and perfection].” (2) To be human is to live with a basic anxiety and restlessness; religion is how we try to manage that.<br /><br />Some would argue that this is not the case for everyone, because there are so many irreligious people in the world. I would argue that their religion simply goes by some other name. Perhaps their religion is Science. Maybe their religion is Self-Improvement. Or it could be that their religion is Football. We all want something to believe in, something to give our lives meaning and order, something to keep the deeper anxieties at bay. And so we look for a system for managing our lives. Whatever that system is, that is our religion.<br /><br />When Matthew recorded these words of Jesus, he particularly had in mind the burden of religious obligation imposed by the scribes and Pharisees, which he understood to be a barrier to relationship with God. Jesus’ invitation was an invitation to be delivered of the burdens of religion. And not just the religion of the scribes and Pharisees. Throughout the history of the church, this invitation has been heard as a more general one, to all who labor under the obligations of religion, any religion. (3)<br /><br />This may come as bit of a shock, seeing as how we have an entire religion built around Jesus. Most of us here consider ourselves religious people, and we see this as a good thing. But Jesus didn’t come to start a religion, he came to free us from religion. He came to overcome religious law, and to overcome any system we humans put in place to manage our anxieties and fix ourselves.<br /><br />“Take my yoke,” he said. “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” In the Old Testament and Jewish tradition, “yoke” was a common way to speak of servitude and obedience. Rabbis spoke of the “yoke of the Torah.” A person submitted oneself in obedience to the laws of God. A yoke is something that weighs down. It is something a person lives under and strains under.<br /><br />By speaking of his yoke, Jesus was placing himself on par with God’s will and God’s word. But Jesus said his yoke is easy. This is paradox, of course. How on earth could a yoke be easy? How on earth could a burden be light? This seems to be a contradiction, an oxymoron. Paul Tillich wrote, “The yoke of Jesus is easy in itself, because it is above law, and replaces the toiling and laboring with rest in our souls…. (The yoke of Jesus) is not a new demand, a new doctrine or new morals, but rather a new reality, a new being and a new power of transforming life." (4)<br /><br />Have you had this experience? You are struggling in some deep inner way, maybe in bondage to some compulsion or fear or sin, and you cannot manage it yourself. And suddenly, somehow beyond your struggle comes this … grace. Something like a victory. Something like release. Something you didn’t do yourself.<br /><br />Or maybe you are restless, striving for something you don’t know how to name, spinning with unexplained anxiety, and then somehow, from somewhere beyond yourself, you are grasped by a peace beyond your understanding. This is grace. He called it is his yoke, which means it comes from above and grasps us with saving force. He called it easy, which means that it is not a matter of our acting and striving, it is something he gives, before anything we can do or give. (5) And so he called it light. And it is.<br /><br />His yoke is not another way for us to manage. It is not another way for us to fix ourselves or our problems. It is an invitation to lay all that down, or to throw it off, or, when we realize we can’t even do that on our own, to let him take it all for us. He will take it off our shoulders – all those old oppressive demands. All those old persistent teachings that tell us that in order for our lives to be right, we must first be good, or religious, or wise, or moral, or believing the right things. Jesus lifts all of that off our backs, and demands nothing like it. What he asks is that we simply accept such a gift as he gives. We come to him and let him take it all. We come to him and let him lay his own being across our shoulders, and around our lives, and within our hearts. It is no longer we who carry the burden of our existence, it is he who will carry us. It is not we who must get our lives in order, it is he who will hold us up and hold us together in the midst of whatever difficulties that come.<br /><br />Of course this is a bit disconcerting. What morality will there be, if we are not under some obligation to be moral? What will become of our religious beliefs and institutions, if we are not under some moral obligation to maintain them? Those are not the questions to start with. They are the issues that follow, that flow from a heart that has been set right and set free. When our souls have found their rest in him, we will find the strength and the wisdom to follow where his yoke would lead us. Grasped by the truth of his being in and over our lives, how could we not respond with lives of grateful love and obedience?<br /><br />So now we face his table. It, too, comes with an invitation. That is what he was best at, really, issuing invitations, not demands. What is weighing on you now? he would ask. How are you trying to manage your life, and what is not working? In what ways do you feel pulled apart, pushed down, or stretched thin? How are you still trying to measure up, and how long are you going to keep trying? What are you restless for? What are you in despair over? He would ask these questions of you, of me, and then he would pull up a chair for us at this table and listen to our answers. And then he would speak the same words now that he spoke then, <span style="font-style: italic;">Come to me, you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Come to me. Come to me.</span><br /><br />.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />1 - <span style="font-size:78%;">The allusion to Joel Osteen’s book Your Best Life Now is intentional.</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"> 2 - Paul Tillich. “The Yoke of Religion. The Shaking of the Foundations.<br /> 3 - NIB.<br /> 4 - Paul Tillich. “The Yoke of Religion.” The Shaking of the Foundations.<br /> 5 - Ibid.</span>earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-61832911212938155582008-05-24T14:57:00.000-07:002008-05-26T07:46:44.662-07:00The Hard Command<span style="font-weight: bold;">The Hard Command</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Matthew 6:24-34</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2nd Sunday After Pentecost</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">25 May 2008</span><br /><br /><br />What do you worry about?<br /><br />If you made a list of your worries, what would be on it? Money? Your house? Your job? Your kids? Your parents? What else? Retirement? Your health? The cost of health care? The cost of gas? The cost of food?<br /><br />How much of your worries can’t even be specifically named, because they are just such a deep and ingrained part of your way of being, your sense of your self and the world? George Buttrick once said that it is easier to face a fear than to face an anxiety. Because, he said, “fear is specific – as with a fire in the house when we can at least scream – whereas anxiety is inchoate like a clinging fog.”*<br /><br />Now tell me, what does it do to that clinging fog for someone to wag a finger at you and say simply, “Don’t worry.” Is there anything so useless in the face of real and persistent anxiety as the advice to not worry? Sure, we can smile and sing along when someone starts in with “Don’t worry, be happy.” But soon enough those brief moments of singing and levity are gone, and our real anxiety tends to hang on.<br /><br />Of course we know that there are many practical reasons not to be anxious. For one, what good does it do? It doesn’t change whatever it is we’re afraid of. Worrying about the future does not make the future more secure. Charles Spurgeon said it this way, “Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow – only today of its strength.” William Ralph Inge put it like this, “Anxiety is the interest paid on trouble before its due.” Jesus said it too, “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”<br /><br />We know. We know. Worry doesn’t add a thing. It only subtracts. But for most of us, knowing that doesn’t change the fact of it. We are still going to worry, about little things and big ones. Jesus’ question, though, zeroes in on the biggest worry of all, possibly the one that is the source of all other concern. He asks if we can add a single hour to the span of our life? The answer is, of course, no. We can’t add a thing, we can’t change the hard fact. We are all going to die. And that, surely, is the primal source of all our other anxieties.<br /><br />It is the thing that separates us from the rest of the created order. Everything, every being is going to die. We just happen to know it. The squirrel running across the street doesn’t wonder if he’s going to make it. The cow being led to slaughter doesn’t realize what’s about to happen. The dog with the tumor doesn’t speculate about life after death. Even chimpanzees do not seem to be aware of their own mortality. Humans alone live with the gift and the burden of self-awareness. We are the ones who know we’re going to die.<br /><br />Could this be at the root of all our other worries? Could worry about clothes and food, about money and jobs, about family and health – could all of these simply be the day-to-day manifestations of our ultimate worry? Anxiety always has at least one foot in the future. Which is to say that anxiety always takes us one step closer to death.<br /><br />When Jesus gives us his counsel – when he says those hard, sometimes unacceptable words: do not worry – the examples he holds up for us are of beings who <span style="font-style: italic;">cannot</span> worry, because they do not know what is to come. For them, everything is a given. “Look at the birds of the air,” he says, “they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?.... Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith?”<br /><br />In urging us not to worry, Jesus holds up creatures and creations that have no idea that worry – or death – is a possibility. What do flowers and birds have to teach us? They have no choice. We have every choice – about how to think, and how to respond, and how, finally, to live in the face of death. How can beings with no idea about their fate have anything to teach us about what matters? And yet his words are not absurd. They are beautiful. These are some of the best-loved words of comfort in Scripture. They speak to something deep and needy in us. So we sing, “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.”<br /><br />Jesus is not saying we are like the sparrow or the flowers, as if we could somehow find a way for our lives to be as simple as theirs, and uncomplicated by consciousness. In fact, it is consciousness he is inviting us to take hold of. His words here are: Look! and Consider! These are words of great spiritual counsel. They are reminders that in the midst of all the things we think we need to do to secure our future, what matters first is that we stop, step back, take moments for reflection, for connection to God and to what matters. Look! Consider! Pay attention! These are invitations to any who are feeling the grinding pressure of everyday life and the mounting anxieties that go with living. Invitations to step back from what’s right in front of our eyes and see what else is true. And transcendent.<br /><br />Look at the birds. Tiny little creatures made of just a bit of feather and bone, of beak and claw. And God more than the most delighted birdwatcher on a park bench, thrills at feeding these little beings. How much more will this God take us, and feed us, and keep us?<br /><br />Consider the lilies! These gorgeous, completely unnecessary, heavily scented, heavenly-scented creations. They bloom, then they die. Consider them! – and then consider what they have to show you about a God who would create such profligate splendor. God has clothed this green earth with beautiful bloom. How much more will this God take us, and clothe us, and keep us?<br /><br />When Jesus says, “Do not worry,” he is doing far more than offering simple advice. He is expanding our vision, and he is offering to expand our trust. He starts by redirecting our gaze, pulling our eyes away from our own little lives and the many complexities and legitimate concerns. He asks a question: Isn’t your life more than this? Isn’t it more than the things you concern yourself with? Lift your eyes off your life, and look around. He draws our gaze up – to the birds soaring overhead – and then down – to the blooms bursting underfoot. The hummingbird and the stargazer, the rainbow and the geode – they are signs pointing beyond themselves, to a God who in infinite wisdom and love is creating still, and tending to creation still, and holding us in most precious care. The God who is bigger than the sparrow and the lily is bigger than our little lives, too, and all our deaths, and all our countless worries.<br /><br />Is it possible to be anxious and in awe at the same time? Is it possible to worry about tomorrow when we are intentionally focused today on stopping to look, and to consider the precious and extraordinary gifts of God and to locate ourselves in the deep care of God? Self-awareness is the burden that separates us from the chickadee and the daffodil. Self-awareness is also the gift that allows us to find again our rightful connection to them, our rightful place alongside them as recipients of God’s nurture and faithfulness. Maybe the opposite of anxiety, with its future focus, is memory. Memory of our place, memory of God’s goodness, memory of whose we are and the joy and love for which we’ve been created.<br /><br />In the face of worry and small faith, Jesus invites us outside, to consider and contemplate the million miracles of creation, and the God behind it all. Wendell Berry speaks of this kind of contemplation in a poem:<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">When despair for the world grows in me</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">and I wake in the night at the least sound</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I go and lie down where the wood drake</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I come into the peace of wild things</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">who do not tax their lives with forethought</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">of grief. I come into the presence of still water.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">And I feel above me the day-blind stars</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">waiting with their light. For a time</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.**</span><br /><br />The grace of the world has much to teach us about the reliable care of God, who loves us with a reckless, extravagant abandon. The birds and flowers are small signs of that. Jesus, of course, is a sign of it too. And when he stood on the mountain, with the wildflowers swaying in the breeze, and the birdsong echoing on the hills, what he gave was more than advice. It was a kind of command – and a gift. Do not worry, he said. Do not worry about your life. Do not grasp after the things you think will make your life secure. Look at what God has made. Look at what God has given. Look at how God cares for all of it, and for you. Seek this God. Strive for the kingdom of this God, and for God’s righteousness.<br /><br />How, then, could we spend one more minute on our worries, when there is so much of God’s goodness to see and to seek and to serve, and, finally, to show in the living our own little lives. What a command Jesus gave when he said, “Do not worry.” What a command he gave when he said, “look at the birds and consider the lilies and seek God.” What a command. What an invitation. And what a gift!<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">*"Anxiety and Faith." <span style="font-style: italic;">Sermons Preached in a University Church</span>. George A. Buttrick. 38.<br />**"The Peace of Wild Things." <span style="font-style: italic;">The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. </span>Wendell Berry. 1998.<br /></span>earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-39746073611905919572008-04-12T18:32:00.000-07:002008-04-12T18:36:22.197-07:00FriendsFriends<br />Acts 2:42-47<br />4th Sunday of Easter<br />13 April 2008<br /><br />My sons have been busy this year learning very important things in preschool. They are learning how to follow instructions, how to sit still and listen, how to clean up after themselves – all of which I think more than justifies their tuition! They are learning that eating good food helps you grow and get strong. They are learning about growing things, and they love to remind me that every plant needs three things to grow: dirt, water, and sunshine. They don’t know it yet, but they are learning some of the most foundational things they need for their future and ongoing education.<br /><br />Of all the things they are learning, there is one in particular that seems most important to them and their classmates. They are learning how to be friends. Do you remember your earliest experiences of friendship, and how very important it was to you? What we learn as preschoolers about friendship holds throughout the rest of life: how to take turns, how to share, how to listen, how to cooperate, how to trust and how to be trustworthy.<br /><br />For my boys, “friend” is the most important thing you can call somebody, and they use it almost like a title. So sometimes I am called “Friend Mommy.” And at Christmastime, Charlie liked to talk about his Friend Santa. When he looks in the mirror, the person he says he sees is Friend Charlie.<br /><br />Part of what is so delightful about watching three and four year-olds build friendships is the joy and innocence with which they approach it. They are not yet interested in scheming or excluding, gossiping or betraying. Their goal is simple – they simply want to be together, and to have a good time. Recently, when a new girl joined Rob and Charlie’s preschool class, she approached another girl with a very straightforward request: “Will you be my friend?” The other little girl responded very matter-of-factly: “I’m everybody’s friend. We are all friends here.”<br /><br />If only that attitude could hold. Somewhere along the way, we lose that happy inclusive embrace of any who come seeking friendship. As we grow older, friendship becomes no less important, but it does become more complex. Very firm lines are drawn, so that we know who is in our circle, and who is out – or whose circle we are in. In adolescence, friendship can be the source of some of the most intensely wonderful moments in our young lives – and the source of the most painful, most devastating ones as well. As teenagers, the nature of our friendships colors every aspect of our lives.<br /><br />Eventually, though, for many of us, at some point friendship begins to take a back seat to other primary relationships in our lives, like the relationship we have with a spouse, or a child, or a job. We become more casual about our friends, we have less time for them, which makes us think we have less need of them.<br /><br />This sad fact doesn’t make us long for connection any less – we still have that deep and primal need. If you keep up with popular culture at all, you know that so many of its messages are directed at our need for acceptance, relationship, belonging. The 80s sitcom “Cheers” hit the nail on the head with its theme song: “Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name. And they’re always glad you came.” The 90s sitcoms “Seinfeld” and “Friends” showed us adults with strong and unwavering commitments to each other. Many morning talk shows are designed to make the viewer feel like he or she is sitting at the table, too, chatting it up with the hosts and the guests. Reality shows give us the illusion that we really know the people we are watching, that they are somehow part of our circle of friends.<br /><br />Interestingly, some sociologists would argue that the demise of friendships and community in our society is directly proportionate to our increased television viewership [viewing?]. It seems that many of us substitute watching pretend people have relationships for actually building and nurturing real relationships ourselves. Over the last 40 years, there has been a well-documented decline in participation in public life. More and more it seems that people are hunkering down, cocooning within their homes, with their families or their TVs or their computers. Our world seems to be fragmented, disconnected, disintegrating. Do we even know what genuine, committed adult friendship is supposed to look like anymore? Do we even know where to find it? <br /><br />The value of adult friendship has been bedrock throughout human history. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Chrysostom, Plutarch – they all regarded friendship as supremely important. They wrote of friends as having one soul, being another self, being partners, holding all things in common, being in relationships of equality and reciprocity. Cicero’s classic definition is: “Friendship is nothing else than an accord in all things, human and divine, conjoined with mutual goodwill and affection.” (1) This is the adult and ideal manifestation of what we begin learning as youngest children.<br /><br />For the ancients, friendship was not a casual matter. The hope of all society rested on the ideal of friendship. It involved a serious commitment, mutuality, unity, equality, reciprocity. They stressed inclusivity – meaning that true friendship should extend beyond merely sharing the same interests or vision; it meant full sharing, in spiritual matters, in material matters. It meant actively sharing one’s goods, and helping and giving oneself to the other. Friendship meant genuine obligation. It implied a claim. (2)<br /><br />New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson points out that, though the New Testament does not use the words “friend” or “friendship” all that often, friendship is still a pervasive theme, and ancient readers would have understood the many allusions to it. In writing this morning’s passage from Acts, Luke draws on the language not of other Scripture, but of the Greco-Roman philosophers. Johnson writes, “By saying that the believers were ‘one soul,’ held ‘all things in common’ and called nothing ‘their own,’ Luke described them as friends…. The first believers were not simply ‘friendly’; they realized the ideal sharing that philosophers considered the essence of true friendship.” (3) Johnson says their practices of sharing with each other identified those first Christians “as the most successful of all ancient experiments in friendship.” (4)<br /><br />Can you imagine the church as [containing] the best expression of real friendship? Do you realize it is our calling? We tend to use the more spiritualized word “fellowship” as if fellowship were somehow a more noble concept than friendship, rather than just another name for it. Friendship is not some superficial secular value; it is a deeply theological concept. In his last conversation before his death, Jesus says, “You are my friends.” And then he tells us how to be a friend: This is my commandment, that you love each other as I have loved you. What more profound relationship could we be called to, than one that implies absolute equality, radical sharing, and mutual devotion to the great call of Christ?<br /><br />Is this what you find, when you come here? Is it what you are looking for? You might think you already have enough friends. Or you might think you don’t have time for such a thing as friendship, and the real obligations it implies. Maybe you’ve had too many disappointments in your past relationships to trust that you could have good friends, or that you could be a good friend. Maybe you think you are too different from others, that your opinions are not orthodox enough for Christian community.<br /><br />We tend to be well-defended people. Which means we have defended ourselves not only against obligation and disappointment, but also against the great gift of being claimed, of belonging to each other, of being community with each other. And to close ourselves to the gift means we also close ourselves to one of the ways God wants to work in our midst and through our community. Luke’s story of the early church reminds us that Christian friendship and community isn’t only for the people inside – it is always for those people out there, too. Luke tells us that when those early Christians gave themselves to such friendship, God worked many wonders through them, bringing many people into the life of faith. Sociologist Parker Palmer writes, “When people look upon the church, it is not of first importance that they be instructed by our theology or altered by our ethics but that they be moved by the quality of our life together: ‘See how they love one another.’” (5) That was what people saw when they looked at the early church.<br /><br />Was it ever perfect? Of course not. Those people were as fallible as any of us. They had made terrible mistakes in their past, and they would make more in their very near future. There is no such thing as utopia – there wasn’t then, and there isn’t now. What there is is an invitation. An invitation to honest friendship, to genuine community, to know and to be known, to give concrete care and to be cared for in concrete ways. Those first believers were not drawn together by a mere shared interest. They were not together because they shared the same opinions. They were brought together because they had been given the same Spirit – God’s own.<br /><br />And this is how it happens. Christian friendship, Christian community, doesn’t happen because we have worked hard at it. It doesn’t happen because we have the same opinions or the same interests. It doesn’t happen because we don’t have conflict. And it doesn’t happen because we just really want it to. It happens because we open ourselves to it, or, more to the point – it happens because we open ourselves to the Spirit which makes it happen. That Spirit is a gift, and the friendship it creates is a gift, and the first thing that has to happen with a gift is you have to accept it.<br /><br />The text from Acts shows us some of the ways those first Christians opened themselves and accepted the gift. They devoted themselves to learning Christ, and to prayer, and to worship, and to hospitality, and to sharing everything they had. They accepted the gift Christ bestowed on them, which included both his Spirit and each other, and then they set to nurturing that gift, together. They kept returning to all those places they had experienced his presence before – in Scripture, and prayer, and worship, and fellowship, and in tending to actual needs within and outside of the community.<br /><br />In the end this all sounds rather simple. Maybe even a bit bland? It hasn’t got all the exciting, intense connotations that all those friendships on TV have. It’s just got what Eugene Peterson calls a “long obedience in the same direction.” It’s just a bunch of ordinary people who keep showing up, and who keep opening themselves up to God and to each other, and responding to what they receive. It’s just a bunch of ordinary people who let God go to work in their midst.<br /><br />It isn’t utopia. It is friendship. It is community. It is the church. It can be this church – you and me. Friends. Friends. It’s not just a preschool word. It’s Christ’s own word for what we’re meant to be. It’s a word with the healing of the whole world in it. Friends.<br /><br /><br />1 - Luke Timothy Johnson. “Making Connections: The Material Expression of Friendship in the New Testament.” <span style="font-style: italic;">Interpretation</span>. 160.<br />2- Ibid.<br />3 - Ibid. 161.<br />4 - Ibid. 171.<br />5 - Parker Palmer. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Company-Strangers-Christians-Renewal-Americas/dp/0824506014/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208050554&sr=1-4"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Company of Strangers: Christians and the Renewal of America’s Public Life</span></a>. 118.<br />6 - Eugene Peterson. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Long-Obedience-Same-Direction-Discipleship/dp/0830822577"><span style="font-style: italic;">A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society</span></a>.earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-78041243308783286052008-03-22T12:55:00.001-07:002008-03-22T12:55:43.738-07:00New World<span style="font-weight: bold;">New World</span><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Matthew 28:1-10</span><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Easter Sunday</span><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">23 March 2008</span><br /><br />I almost decided not to preach this morning. This wasn’t because I wanted to stay home and eat Easter candy, though there were at least two people in my family who would happily have done just that. It’s just that I wasn’t sure I would be up for preaching today.<br /><br />You see, on Thursday night, not long after we got home from our Maundy Thursday service, I learned that my 24 year-old cousin had been killed in an explosion on my uncle’s farm. It has been a devastating loss, and I have been wrecked over it. So I wondered how I could possibly stand up here, three days later, and proclaim good news, when the news and the images swirling in my head have been anything but good. My heart is a graveyard.<br /><br />But here is also the truth: the best news I ever heard came from a graveyard. If the good news of Christ’s rising can’t be proclaimed in the face of death, then where on earth can it be proclaimed with any truth at all? If we cannot stand in our grief and announce through tears and gritted teeth, “Our Lord is risen! He is risen indeed!” then how can we say it any other time, with any relevance at all?<br /><br />Some of us come this morning with fresh and terrible grief. There have been losses sustained in this congregation, through death, and illness, and injury quite recently, and there is good reason to grieve. Whether or not your grief is fresh, all of us have behind us a string of tombstones – losses stretched out over the years of our lives as testimony of the sure sadness that comes with loving. And when we look ahead, we can count on seeing more tombstones in that direction as well. To live is to lose. To love is to lose.<br /><br />Death is natural to life. And yet the fact of it feels cruel and unnatural. I have heard people who have lived very long, very good lives say at the end in the face of the grave, “Why? Why is this happening to me?” Few of us go gently. And yet death – our own and that of everyone we love – is a fact, a certainty. It’s the one thing we can count on.<br /><br />And so it was that when the stone was placed at the mouth of Jesus’ tomb that Friday evening, what was sealed was a certainty. Death. Jesus was dead. Just one of a million billion deaths in the span of human history. Life goes on. Death goes on.<br /><br />What happened next, though, was the least natural thing of all. When we try to get our minds around resurrection, we use familiar natural imagery. It’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly! we say. It’s like a flower shooting forth from a dead-looking bulb! we say. It’s like winter turning into spring! we say. <br /><br />Only it’s not like any of that, is it? I mean, have you ever seen someone get up out of their grave and start living again? If you had, you surely would not compare it to a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, would you? It is not what is supposed to happen. That caterpillar wasn’t dead. That bulb wasn’t dead. We know that spring always follows winter. But real life after real death is simply not in the natural order of things. And what Jesus went through was a real death. What his friends went through was a real grief. With no expectation of its undoing.<br /><br />With puffy eyes and broken hearts, the women go to see his tomb. Only what they find there defies all the facts. An earthquake, an angel, the look of lightning, the stone rolled back, emptiness. And then a new word, which will mean a new world: “He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly, and tell. He is going ahead of you, and you will see him.”<br /><br />From a graveyard, from a tomb, a new world is spoken into being. He is not here. He has been raised. But do you hear what the angel’s invitation is? Come, see the place where he lay. In other words, look at death, it is real, no denying it. See where he lay. But then, go, and tell – he is not here – then you will see him. Out there, in the new world he has made by his rising.<br /><br />His resurrection is not the denial of death – it is its undoing. It is not the denial of grief – it is its answer. Grief? Yes, you will face it. A lot of it. Come to the graveyard, see where he lay. He knows grief and death, too. But then? See this too: he is not here. He is not in our graveyards. He has sprung the lock of all our certainties. He has rolled back the stone that sealed all our facts. Those facts include not only death, but sin, betrayal, denial, deceit, despair. All our old realities are now part of the old world. But he has gone ahead of us, off the old map, into a new world.<br /><br />What does this mean? We can scarcely imagine or understand. We have often spoken of it as having to do with heaven, an afterlife. But surely his rising means more than that. Even pagans believe in an afterlife; they see it as a natural next step in the cycle of life. Jesus means more. He always means more. His rising does not mean only an afterworld. It means a new world. For you, for me, for anyone willing to look for him beyond the graveyard.<br /><br />It is hard to see his new world, or even the signs of it, because the old one fills our vision so much. We are accustomed to its ways – the ways of force, and manipulation, and self-reliance, and death. The way of Jesus takes us off that map. A new world charted by his way, and lit by his light. We recognize it sometimes, when startling reversals happen, when things that aren’t supposed to happen do, and they are good. We recognize it when hope lights on us when we least expect it and most need it. We recognize it when comfort comes, when peace descends, when love flows, and all of it from beyond ourselves. We recognize it in each other.<br /><br />And when we cannot recognize it, or see any sign of it, we try to trust, and we help each other trust. He has gone ahead of us, he is up ahead still, and sometimes the best we can do is see not where he is, but where he has already been. See where he lay? He is not here; for he has been raised. So we stumble forward, in fear and great joy, and in hope.<br /><br />---<br />It used to be that this continent we live on was considered a new world. The New World. At first, people in the Eastern Hemisphere didn’t know it existed. Then some people said they discovered it, which is to say that they found something that was already true and real. But some people still didn’t believe it existed. It was not the kind of thing easily proven, except for those who encountered it themselves.<br /><br />In the late 1500s, Sir Walter Raleigh, an explorer and adventurer, went on multiple expeditions to the Americas. In the movie, Elizabeth: The Golden Ages, a fictionalized account of that era, he gives a compelling speech to Queen Elizabeth, who has never ventured beyond England’s shores:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Can you imagine what it is to cross an ocean? For weeks, you see nothing but the horizon, perfect and empty. You live in the grip of fear, fear of storms, fear of sickness onboard, fear of the immensity. So you … study your charts, watch your compass, pray for a fair wind, and hope. Pure, naked, fragile hope. </span><br /> <br /> <span style="font-style: italic;">At first, it’s no more than a haze on the horizon. So you watch. You watch. Then it’s a smudge. A shadow on the front water. For a day. For another day. The stain slowly spreads along the horizon taking form until on the third day, you let yourself believe. You dare to whisper the word: Land. Land. Life. Resurrection. The true adventure. Coming out of the vast unknown, out of the immensity, into new life. That, your majesty, is the New World.</span><br /><br />----<br /><br />Did you know that one of the ancient symbols for the church is a ship? It’s true. We are in this boat together, holding onto our fragile hope, scanning the horizon for the new world Christ has already brought into being by his rising. It is there. It is already true. Many before us have already set foot on it, have already embraced the great adventure of faith.<br /><br />That adventure is ours, too. We huddle together in the hull of this old ship, trying to follow the course he charted by his living, and his dying, and his rising. There are times we cannot believe it is true, that his New World exists. We find it hard to see it, to trust it, to take hold of it. But listen. You may not be able to see, but can you hear? Can you hear it? The witness of the angel, and the women, and of all the other explorers before us? Sometimes it’s just a whisper. Sometimes it’s a shout. Sometimes it is said in defiance, or through pain, or with faltering voice. Sometimes it is sung. Always it is said with countless others, including those on another shore. In the darkest night, its truth still holds. It is the one true thing. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3169859565003338193.post-85472502619301001492008-03-01T20:55:00.000-08:002008-03-01T20:57:45.642-08:00What We KnowWhat We Know<br />John 9:1-41<br />4th Sunday in Lent<br />2 March 2008<br /><br />He can see now.<br /><br />He was born blind. Been blind his whole life. Now he can see.<br /><br />What is their response? Joy? Celebration? Do they throw him a party, tell all their friends and neighbors, show him all the things he’s never seen before, give glory to God for the healing?<br /><br />No. They interrogate him. They talk about him but don’t listen to him. They discount him and dismiss him. They vilify and revile him. They drive him out. This is how they – the religious ones – respond to the best news this guy has ever gotten. He can see now.<br /><br />They cannot.<br /><br />John begins his gospel by announcing that “the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world…. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, he gave power to become children of God.” (1:9, 11-12). It is the central and startling irony of John’s Gospel – that his own people rejected the light he came to bring. This morning’s rich and dramatic story of the man born blind brings this sad truth into sharp focus.<br /><br />The blind man sits on the side of the road, begging. As Jesus and the disciples walk along, the disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” They treat him as a problem not a person. They want to know who sinned, whose fault it is that the man is blind, deficient. They see the world as a neat system of cause and consequence, so if something has gone terribly wrong – like a baby being born blind – then someone has to be to blame. Teacher, who sinned?<br /><br />But the Teacher’s light burns through their small and controlled understandings of how the world works. “No one sinned,” he replies. “He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” [In other words,] Quit theorizing about why the suffering is there, and start responding with God’s good for God’s glory. Stop seeking blame or cause, and start seeking to serve.<br /><br />And Jesus heals the man. Mixes mud with saliva and spreads it on his eyes. A kind of earthy baptism. He tells the man to go wash in the pool of Siloam, and the man must hear some power and authority in that voice, because that is what he does. And when he pulls his head out of the water, he can see. First light comes streaming into eyes that have only ever known darkness. He can see.<br /><br />The neighbors want to know how it happened, so he tells them. They want to know where the man who did it went. “I do not know,” the man says. So they take the man to the religious authorities. They want to know how this happened, so he tells them. They say it couldn’t be true, because the man who healed him did it on the Sabbath, and how could a sinner perform such a miracle? So they decide the guy is lying. He wasn’t really born blind.<br /><br />They haul in his parents. Under questioning this parents admit, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him.”<br /><br />So for the second time they bring in the man who had been blind. They say about Jesus, “We know this man is a sinner.” He answers, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” <br /><br />On the surface, this story seems to be about the recovery of physical sight. But John always has at least two stories going at once, and the deeper story here has to do with another kind of sight, a deeper kind of knowing. John uses the verb “to know” 11 times in these 41 verses. In Greek, there are two words for knowing – ginosko and oida. John uses both words throughout his gospel with startling frequency, using them both more than any other book in the New Testament. But in this story, he only uses one of the two verbs: oida, which has, at its root, the verb “to see” (id-). (1) Every time in this story that someone claims to know something, they are simultaneously claiming to see it. And when the man says he can now see, he is also claiming a new knowledge.<br /><br />There are a whole lot of people claiming knowledge in this story – the disciples, the neighbors, the Pharisees. But the man who was born blind mostly claims not to know things. Throughout the story, it’s like his refrain under interrogation: I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know – but one thing I do know; I was blind, now I see. How could that not be enough?<br /><br />But it is not enough for them; they push. “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” They cannot accept the bare fact of this good news. They cannot rejoice over something wonderful because it wasn’t supposed to happen, and it wasn’t supposed to happen this way, and it wasn’t supposed to happen at the hands of an unsanctioned prophet. This man stands in their midst, looking at them with new eyes, eyes that can see for the first time ever, and all they can do is argue and interrogate.<br /><br />And isn’t this the way it goes? It’s so hard, terribly hard for some of us, to allow new experience to overturn old understandings. But this is what Jesus does from the start, proclaiming reversals, challenging old assumptions, undoing the bad news of people’s old lives. It’s how the church was born – his resurrection radically upending all the old realities, like sin and death, and setting into motion a whole new way of being. What a tragic irony, then, that the church – born out of freeing experiences of God in Christ – has become an institution that is so frequently cautionary and moralizing, resistant to new revelation, new experience, new forms of the Spirit’s power in our midst. (2) We presume to know how things are supposed to work, why things are the way they are, how they are supposed to be, what can and cannot rightly be done, and who’s a sinner.<br /><br />The Pharisees, thinking they were serving God, rejected Jesus and the work he did. In how many ways does the church, thinking we are serving Jesus, in fact reject him and the work he means to do in our midst?<br /><br />If we want to be people of his light, then we open ourselves to the shining of that light in whatever ways it comes. It’s all right if that light comes into another person’s life in a way that contradicts our own experience or understanding. It’s all right, if we can’t explain it, or find it hard to believe or embrace. The blind man’s story teaches us that maybe it’s even better if we are ignorant of such things. His ignorance was his humility. What made him able to receive the knowledge that mattered was the fact that he wasn’t too concerned about knowing so many things that didn’t.<br /><br />And what knowledge did matter? What knowledge does matter? The Pharisees knew so much. They knew the laws about what could and couldn’t be done on the Sabbath. They knew that a blind person was born entirely in sins. They knew that God had spoken to Moses, and they knew the laws of Moses. When it came to Jesus, they said, “As for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” Case closed. Healer and healed dismissed.<br /><br />The blind man’s witness falls on deaf ears, but he answers one last time anyway. “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.” The man born blind will not judge Jesus according to the Pharisees’ categories. He will judge Jesus according to the gift Jesus has given. (3)<br /><br />Have you ever received a gift that changed your life? Have you ever had your eyes opened in some unexpected way? We call it grace, and we call it amazing, and if we really have new eyes, then we start letting what we see through Christ reshape what we know. We let it challenge our certitudes, even about things we thought really, really mattered. We keep telling anyone who will listen the one thing we know – our experience with Christ. We keep embracing it, and whatever fresh experience may come. We live into it. We let it shed its light onto how we live.<br /><br />And if you haven’t had any of that kind of experience, you open yourself to it. The blind man didn’t make it happen. He didn’t create his own reality; he didn’t pull himself up by the bootstraps and think himself positively into a new direction. Jesus sought him out, and he accepted what Jesus brought, he accepted how Jesus changed him.<br /><br />In the end, the ones who thought they knew the truth drove out the man who only knew one thing – that once he was blind, and now he could see. And Jesus came and found him then, too. And for the first time, the man lays eyes on the face of the One who gave him new sight, and new life. And he worships him. [This is how it is for us, too. Whatever seeing we have now, whatever knowing we have now, is only ever partial, until we meet him face-to-face.] <br /><br />Jesus has a final word to say about the ones who thought they knew. He completely inverts their definition of sin. It is not defined by the presence of illness. It is not even defined by violation of the law. Sin is a resistance that closes us to the presence and works of God in the world. (4)<br /><br />Many of us have well-defended certainties. They bring us comfort, security, maybe even a sense of righteousness. But it is not likely that they bring us into the life-transforming light of new sight. In the end, if we are honest, there is a whole lot about faith that we do not know, cannot explain. If we are honest, we are blind, ignorant, or presumptive about so much.<br /><br />The man who was blind shows us the way. His stance is the opposite of resistance. He sits by the roadside, and he begs. And one day, when a man he cannot even see walks up with light in his eyes and healing in his hands and touches him, the blind man lifts his chin and lets the light come in.<br /><br />He can see now. What about you? What about us?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> (1) Gail O’Day. The Word Disclosed. 78.<br /> (2) Paul Simpson Duke. The Right Expertise.<br /> (3) Gail O’Day. The Word Disclosed. 79.<br /> (4) Ibid. 86.earthchickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12447310443886956100noreply@blogger.com0