Sermons and Reflections

9/3/2024

Time to redefine "religion"

How then shall we live? Isn’t that the question? Hasn’t this always been the question before humankind? How then shall we live? For what purpose? With what sense of meaning?
Today, Jesus’ answer seems to be: Religion.
Wait, what? Really?
That doesn’t sound like Jesus. That doesn’t seem like a very Jesus-y answer.
The meaning of life, the purpose of life is: religion? This is how we shall live?

Well, it depends on what is meant by the word: Religion.
If we use the dictionary definition that reads: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices …..well, then, maybe not. But, I don’t think that was Jesus’ definition of religion….not if we listen carefully. James tells us Jesus’ view: Religion that is pure and undefiled before the Source of all Being is this: to care for the orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself pure while living in this world.

Let’s unpack that word, pure, first of all. In the Hebrew context, in Jesus’ context, pure means to be undivided, unadulterated. It isn’t about sexual behavior or physical cleanliness—in fact, it’s about the state of your heart. To be pure, or unstained, was all about having an undivided heart. To live a life focused on one thing—-to have loyalty to one purpose. Of course, for Jesus this is to live a life focused on God and a heart loyal to Love because God is Love and love is God. Love is our entire purpose: 24/7, 365 days a year.

That takes me back to the definition of “religion”; this word that has come to mean: to strictly adhere to doctrine, dogma and church practices, and if you don’t, then you are not “very religious.” The word “religion” now has such a negative connotation that folx, even Christians, who are focused on a way of life that is centered on Love often say: Well, I am spiritual, but I am not very religious. But, Beloved, I believe that our understanding, and our usage, of this word “religion” is the problem.

The word “religion” comes from Latin, but there are three possible root words: relego, religare, and re-eligare. Clear as mud, right?

Relego means “to re-read.”
Religare means “to fast or to bind, to tie fast to”
Re-eligare means “to choose again”

I love that we have all three of these options for they all hold truth and beauty.
What if religion, for us, becomes the understanding that our purpose and meaning is to re-read. Re-read everything. To re-read every person we meet with Love. To re-read every situation we encounter with love. To re-read our beliefs, our processes, our systems with Love as our critic. To look in the mirror and re-read what we see with Love’s eyes, Love’s measure. Relego, re-read.

Or what if we understand, as Jesus reminds us to do over and over, that religion is really all about re-eligare—-choosing again. Religion is about turning around, repentance, choosing a do-over, a second chance. It’s about turning away from beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors that hurt others and choosing love again. Choosing life again. Choosing the Common Good over personal profit, again and again and again. That religion is the understanding and belief that we have the ability to learn to choose differently, or choose again, when we have failed Love’s commands, Love’s way of being. Re-eligare, to choose again.

And, of course, there’s religare—to fasten or to bind to, to tie fast to. What if being religious is really about being so fastened to Love that we can choose no other? That we naturally care for those in need, those whom life has left destitute, those whose security has been stripped by death, by warfare, by poverty? What if we tie Love so fastly around our hearts, our vision, our purpose that Love flows from our mouths and justice streams from our hearts and kindness is our every action?

Because here’s the thing that Jesus’s life—this life and death that is the perfect law in human form, Love incarnate—here’s the thing Jesus’ life shows us: Love is the transformative filter that changes everything. Love is the transformative filter that moves us from beings of reactions to beings of response. It is Love’s filter within us that transforms hate into forgiveness and hurt into redemption. And, Beloved, we know—-we are witnesses to the truth— that when our Love filter is deactivated or when it is missing: devastation is the result. Warfare and injustice are the outcome. Instead of purity—undivided hearts whose purpose is Love—our hearts become stained by the world and we end up with division and name-calling; we diminish ourselves into becoming “us versus them” instead of becoming E pluribus Unum: "from the Many, One" that God, that Love, calls us to be. That Love created us to be.

As Hebrew scholar and theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote: “It is customary to blame secularism for the eclipse of religion in modern society. But it would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive and insipid. When faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain, when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than the voice of compassion—----its message becomes meaningless.”

Beloved, it is time that we—by how we live and by who we are becoming as the Beloved Community—it is time for us to redefine religion.

8/27/2024

Love is Marching On........ 8/25/2024

I believe that the whole point of Jesus is that his life and death is meant to become humanity’s filter and lens through which we see everything:

The world
Nature
Other humans
Whatever life hands us
Ourselves

Jesus is the lens and the filter through which we are to see and understand all these things, everything……including God themself.

With this in mind, let’s reframe 2 things that we hear in today’s readings—-reframe these passages through the filter of Jesus.

First of all, there’s the line in the Gospel reading when Jesus says: “.....no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” This line has, for too long and too often, been interpreted with exclusion in mind. It has been heard to mean that if one is not Christian, God is off-limits to them. Or if someone doesn’t practice Christianity the way I do, God don’t want them. And, of course, we make ourselves the arbiters of whether someone is Christian enough, good enough, or just enough in general.

But let’s remember to use Jesus as the lens through which we understand this statement. Jesus who said, in John chapter 10, verse 10: I came that they may have life and have it abundantly….. Of course we must ask “who is the they?” Again: is it just Israelites or people from that time period or what? Now, Beloved, this is Jesus. Jesus who knows, believes, and trusts his origin story. He knows whereof he came and to where he is going. Jesus knows that our story goes like this: God saw everything that God had made, and indeed, it was very good.

God—the Creator, the Source of all being, the One whom Jesus calls “Father”: God saw and declared that all of Creation is VERY GOOD. All of Creation. So when Jesus says “....no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father….” We must remember that the Father grants access to all Creation—that all Creation may have life and have it abundantly….All of Creation is very Good; all of Creation is the They. We are the They. All of humanity is the They that Jesus came to make sure has abundant life. We are all invited to come within Love’s embrace, Love’s refuge, Love’s safekeeping. That’s the lens and filter through which Jesus looked and listened. Beloved, Love calls it to be our lens and filter as well.

In the 1980s and 90s there was a brouhaha revving up in the Church music world. Who would have known that church music can be cause for a brouhaha? Well, pretty much any of us in the church. Anyhooo…..Different denominations were working on new hymnals. Now, I know the Lutherans among us publish hymnals on a regular basis. The Episcopalians are a bit slower to that work. But both of our denominations, as well as the Methodists and Presbyterians and others, were all involved in the same brouhaha back in the 80s and 90s: What do we do with militaristic Christian music?
You know the ones:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on

And then there’s this one:
Onward, Christian soldiers,
marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
going on before!

And of course let’s not forget that classic one written by a priest:
Stand up, Stand up for Jesus ye soldiers of the cross…..

Some of us here in this room can sing parts of these hymns by heart; I know that I can. Why are they part of a brouhaha? One remains in the ELW hymnal, 2 of them remain in the Episcopal hymnal…..but I haven’t sung them in a church for years. What’s the issue?

Perhaps the “theme” or “subject” under which these hymns are found within some hymnals can give us a clue: Christian warfare. Yep, that’s right where these songs take us. They are battle songs to rev us up so that we can be impassioned to go out there and defeat our enemies…..defeat God’s enemies. Right? And we CAN hear these same echoes when we read this passage from Ephesians today. It can sound to us like Paul is calling us to “gear up” to defeat our enemies, our human enemies who prevent us from being who God wants us to be, who prevent this world from being what God designed it to be.

So what’s wrong with that? Well, we have seen what CAN be wrong with that in these past several years. When we think God’s enemies, our enemies, are other people….then we feel just fine dehumanizing other humans whom God has deemed very good. We feel justified and righteous using weapons of all kinds of destruction to take the enemy out. We create borders and boundaries and stop being concerned if those on the other side of the barbed wire have enough to live, much less live abundantly. We create Kings and oligarchs and declare that God sent them to us…….all so we can better defeat our enemies. Oh, yes, Beloved. We have seen this all in a much too close-up view. This way of thinking, this way of weaponizing God and faith, this interpretation of Scripture lives and breathes right in our midst.

One of the reasons these songs have been taken out of hymnals and/or folx have stopped singing them is that they are vistages of the Crusades—-history of which we are now ashamed. Where the “they” were simply siblings who understood God differently, but we saw them as the enemy and in the name of God, for the sake of Love, we did our best to obliterate them.
But, Beloved, we have our own crusades in our own times. Growing up, I witnessed (and probably unwittingly) participated in crusades against: the LGBTQ community, black people, First Nations people, people of color, Muslims, Abortion rights supporters, overweight people, people with addictions, people with mental health concerns, the unhoused and the poor.
Whomever we deem immoral
Without value
Less than…..

These songs, these militaristic songs that seem to make God on our side and those “other” people the enemy…..they can con us into thinking we are Just when we take action to put them down, eliminate them, “put them in their place.”

But, of course, Beloved Jesus….Jesus, too, wants to “put them in their place…..” At God’s right hand. Within the embrace of Love. At home with the Trinity. For that is where they belong, where we belong, where all belong. Because here’s the truth when you read this passage from Ephesians with the lens and filter of Jesus: our enemies are not “out there”.....in other people. Our enemies are within.

Beloved,
The only enemies God saves us from are the enemies within us.
The only enemies God saves us from, Love saves us from, are the enemies within us.

Predominantly fear, for fear is Love’s archenemy. But all the other demons that come from fear: Greed, self-centeredness, apathy, division, injustice, hatred, an unwillingness to forgive, self-doubt, self-hatred, disdain for others…….evil. In all its forms and shapes.

Beloved, here’s why it’s hard to completely get rid of at least one of these marching, militaristic songs…..here’s the final verse of one:

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me
As He died to make men holy, let us die [to ourselves] to make [humans] free
While God [who is Love] is marching on
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
While [Love] is marching on

8/20/2024

Walking around in God.......Preacher: Dona Warren

Did any of you, when you were a kid, wonder where the sky started? I was curious about that, and it bothered me. The sky, after all, is usually blue, so the sky must start where the blue begins. Looking up from the ground, that’s more or less at the top of the trees, so the sky must start where the trees stop. Except it doesn’t. When I looked out the window of a tall building, I was at the same height as the top of a tree, but it wasn’t any bluer there - not even with the windows open to let blue come in. No matter how high up I got, the blue continually retreated. If the sky needed to be blue, it seemed, then the sky was always where I wasn’t. The sky was a place it was impossible to be. And that’s the thing that bothered me - until I decided that maybe the sky wasn’t the blueness. And if the sky wasn’t the blueness, then it didn’t start at the tree tops. It didn’t really start anywhere. The sky went all the way down to the ground. “I’m walking around in the sky,” I thought, and it was fun. I still think that sometimes. And it’s still fun. We’re all walking around in the sky.

“Where does the sky start?” is a good question because its answer is illuminating. “Where does God start?” is another good question, and I suspect it’s inescapable, at least for those of us who believe that God exists at all, because everything else that exists starts in one place and stops in another. That’s what make things locatable. The altar, for example, starts over here and stops over there. That’s where the altar is located. So, if God exists, where does God start and where does God stop? Where, in other words, is God situated? Is that a question a child might ask? Of course it is. Is it a good question? Absolutely. And I think people tend to answer it one way or another, even if the answer they believe and act upon isn’t the answer they’d give.

There are four main contenders for where God is. The first identifies God with a particular object, person, party, or tradition, and so places God wherever that thing happens to be. I suppose that’s idolatry, though, and however tempting idolatry is, it isn’t especially relevant to our question because we know it’s wrong. The best we can do when talking about idolatry is repent of all the times we accidentally fall into it. It can be useful to identify when, and where, and how we end up thinking about something other than God as God-for-all-practical-purposes, because only then can we reject proxy Gods in favor of the real thing. But our question here is “Where is God?” and the insight that idols aren’t really God, when we know full well they aren’t, doesn’t get us any closer to an answer. So, let’s look at the three remaining options.

One way to talk about God that avoids idolatry is called “theism.” Theism says that God transcends the universe and everything in it. There is the creator on the one hand, and creation on the other, and they are essentially different things. Theism has the benefit of escaping idolatry, and (at least for many people) it enjoys the comfort of familiarity. Unfortunately, by so clearly distinguishing God from creation, it makes it difficult to understand how the two could interact. How can a God who transcends both energy and matter accomplish anything in the world? Even more worrisomely, by exalting God above creation we underestimate both God and creation. Nature is forever cut off from the divine. And God, rather weirdly, is found to have physical boundaries. God stops where the tree starts, where the person starts, where the atom starts. God is riddled through with holes. People who find that hard to swallow sometimes look to pantheism.

Pantheism (which means “all (pan) God (theism)”) says that God is the same as the cosmos itself, identical to the universe and everything in it. There is no distinction between the creator and the creation. Pantheism, like theism, avoids idolatry by refusing to identify God with any particular thing. And pantheism, unlike the theism, doesn’t force us to separate God from the world in troubling ways. Unfortunately, pantheism doesn’t present us with a personal God, a being with whom we can enter into relationship. Prayer, for instance, makes little sense on this model, so some people turn to panentheism.

Panentheism (which means “all (pan) in (en) God (theism)”) maintains that God transcends the universe while also manifesting as the universe. There is nothing that is not God, but God is also more than everything. God and creation are related to each other in somewhat the same way that the ocean is related to the waves. The ocean is certainly more than the waves, even as the waves are nothing but the ocean. Similarly, according to panentheism, God is more than the things around us, even as the things around us are nothing other than God.

I suspect that panentheism is less familiar than traditional theism in most Chrisitan circles, but it’s not unheard of. The Christian Congregational minister and mentor to Lewis Carrol, George MacDonald, wrote, “I repent me of the ignorance wherein I ever said that God made man out of nothing: there is no nothing out of which to make anything; God is all in all.” The Catholic priest and author of The Universal Christ, Richard Rohr, explicitly identifies as a panentheist and writes, “Everything visible, without exception, is the outpouring of God. What else could it really be?” Rohr calls panentheism the "incarnational worldview,” and traces it to scriptural sources, the Eastern Fathers, Celtic spirituality, and many mystics, so if you find panentheism attractive, you’ll be in good company.

Now, I’m not here to say that panentheism solves all theological puzzles, but I think it solves some without introducing many new ones. And one of the puzzles that I think it solves, or at least clarifies, is what we do each Sunday when we identify the bread as the body of Christ and the wine or juice as his blood. Because, if panentheism is right, of course it is. To quote Richard Rohr, “What else could it really be?” I don’t deny that something supernatural occurs at the altar. That’s beyond my pay grade. But it seems to me that when Jesus says, “I’m right here, in this bread,” he’s got to be right. Where else could he be? And when Jesus says that we abide in him, and he in us, he’s got to be right. How else could it be?

When Jesus says that believing all this will give us eternal life, I suspect he’s right about that as well. We will, after all, be identifying ourselves and everything else with the eternal and undying substance of God. What that eternal life amounts to after the death of our physical bodies is certainly the topic of a whole other discussion. I suspect it’s pretty good. But what that eternal life amounts to right now is pretty good as well because the implications of panentheism are really quite astounding. It’s not just good news. It’s the best of all possible news. Everything is God. Right now.

Of course, the idea that everything is God right now can be hard to grasp and even harder to practice. It means acknowledging that there's an essential unity among all things, taking Paul seriously when he writes to the Ephesians that “There is one body and one Spirit… one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” It means treating nature as sacred. It means seeing yourself as nothing less than an expression of God. It means refusing to demonize anyone. Not anyone. Ever. It means doing all things as God to God, listening to God when a friend needs to talk, enjoying God in a loving animal, stretching ourselves to love God more unconditionally when we engage God in someone who disagrees with us, or confuses us, or frightens us.

That’s a tall order, and I like to think God knows that. I like to think that God says to us, “If you can’t, right now, see me in the people who support what you oppose - if you can’t, just yet, see me in yourselves – start by seeing me in the bread.”
God’s a good teacher, and that’s easier, isn’t it?

We can taste God in the bread and the wine or juice that we’re offered each Sunday, and we can know that it is really God after all. Because, like the sky, God doesn’t start at the tree tops. God, like the sky, goes all the way down to the ground, but God, unlike the sky, becomes the ground, too, becomes wheat, becomes bread, becomes flesh.

“I am walking around in God,” I sometimes think. It’s fun. And it’s helpful. You can think that too, if you want. We’re all walking around in God.

8/12/2024

August 11: Another Dimension....

The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston wrote: “Worship is our acknowledgment of the transcendent. It is how we seek to express our awe, our curiosity, our wonder. We believe there is something — a presence, a mind, a consciousness — far beyond the reach of our control, but still accessible to us, aware of us, engaged with us. Worship is standing at night on a high hill beneath the sky, feeling like you could cry from happiness.”

Growing up. I thought worship was about me. Going to church on a Sunday morning—maybe you called it “church” or “communion” or “mass” or “worship”---whatever you called it, I thought Sunday morning was about MY report card with God.

And so was attending Sunday School, being Confirmed, joining committees and ministries, knowing my catechism and the Bible. I understood it all as being about me. What I had to do to be good enough to make it into heaven. What I had to do to be good enough for God to love me.

Beloved, I stand here before you today and call: B.S. I had it all wrong. It isn’t first and foremost about me, or about you, or about our neighbor and their goodness/worthiness/value. Well, it is and it isn’t. But what both Jesus and Paul are trying to convince us today is that it is, and always has been, all about Love. That we are all already loved. And worthy. And enough. Our purpose isn’t heaven. Our purpose is Love. And when Love is what we live, when Love is what we know–about ourselves AND our neighbors—then heaven is laid bare for all to see and taste and touch. Because heaven is simply where God dwells, where Love lives and has her being.

Let us remember, Jesus never asked us to build church buildings and create institutions. Nor did Jesus tell us to craft creeds, catechisms and dogma. Those are all things humanity has created—--I would even say with good and faithful intention—to help us do what Jesus actually calls us to do:
LIVE LOVE. BE LOVE.

I mean, that’s it. Jesus says follow me; I am the Way, the Truth, the life. Jesus’ only catechism is to live as Jesus lived: the Way of Love, with the Truth of Love which then begets a Life of Love.

In essence, today’s reading from the letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes this letter to tell us that if we know and believe the gospel story (the story of Jesus’ life and death) then our lives should mirror the Gospel. That’s it. Its all that easy and all that hard.

But, you and I, we have been sidetracked by good intentions. Humans, when asked to do challenging things, often get mucked up in the instructions or the doing of something rather than the being. And with good intentions, so has the church. Some of the Christian church even believes that our work is to “save others.” But Jesus has already saved all of Creation. Yep. We are all already saved. Because we have all already been shown how to live out Love in the flesh. That’s our salvation–living into the truth of Love. Because it’s the living Love out loud that restores creation, that heals Creation, that causes Creation to flourish and thrive–and every creature in it.

And Beloved, death is a part of that. Death is not failure nor a sign of things gone wrong or a punishment. Death is a part of Creation’s ongoing life-cycle. God’s promise, Love’s promise, has never been: If you believe in me and live righteously you will not suffer and die. Jesus suffered and died. Love’s promise is: This life has suffering and death, but Love will accompany you through it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly—and Love will sustain you in it, pull you through it, and walk with you on the other side. BECAUSE there is another side. There is more beyond death.

Beloved, I believe there are two dimensions in which we live, or at least two in which we can live. We all live in the historical dimension—this dimension of our daily lives that is bordered by time and space. This dimension between our birth and our death—this dimension of here and now. But concurrently, there is another dimension—an eternal dimension. It is the stream of Love, sometimes called “Kairos”--God’s time, Love’s time. It is this dimension that always has been and always will be that even death cannot diminish.

And, when we are rooted and grounded in love, we have the capacity to have our feet in both dimensions. And the eternal dimension–this stream and current of Love—it intensifies the good and joyful and gives us eyes and ears to see Love all around us, even in our most challenging moments and our darkest places. And this current of Love also is what carries us through those challenging and dark times and places.

Love is what sits with us in the pain and suffering, the loneliness and discomfort. Love sits with us so we can take a breath and then the next one until we have the strength to rise up and move forward—beyond the pain and discomfort, beyond the suffering and despair. But it doesn’t always release us from the pain or the discomfort. Sometimes what Love does is give us the capacity to still know joy and peace and strength—even while the pain still exists.

But, if we stop trusting that the Love stream is there or we do not know how to access it, then at times, it may seem as if this Love dimension is a fairy tale. I mean, this is the purpose of church (which is simply a gathering of folx who believe in and claim this Love dimension to be in their lives). Here, as Church, we practice reaching into the eternal dimension of Love; here we tell stories so we can keep believing; here we live out examples of it happening in our daily lives; here we encourage one another, build up one another so that we can shine the truth of this Love dimension out into the world as a beacon for others to follow, to reach for, to join in.

This is who we are, Beloved, this is our purpose. Bridgers of dimensions. Believers of eternity. Beings of Love. It’s all that simple. And all that hard.
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So, today, I am wondering: what have you believed or have been taught that would have to be reconsidered for this view of being Church to be true in our life? What are the obstacles? Or —what clicked for you today? What makes sense? What questions arise?

Daily Practice:
Start of the Day: What can I do/am I doing today to prepare myself to be Love in the Flesh?

End of Day? Where did I miss the mark of Love? What can I do to turn that around?

7/14/2024

Return to Center.....July 14, 2024

“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it…..”
Beloved, let me give you some context for this reading from Amos today; this rather “famous” passage when God declares They shall place a plumbline in the midst of God’s people.
Another name for God’s people was Israel. We often think of Israel as a country, but that’s because we demand to live within geographical borders and boundaries. First and foremost, Israel was a people, God’s People, who God then placed within a land. If you remember, they started out with elders and judges as leaders after Moses died. But then, seeing all the other powerful nations who had Kings, the Hebrew people asked God to give them a king. This kinda bummed God out because God thought they understood that God was their king, but God, being God, didn’t force Their way onto the people. God allowed Israel to have a king. But, Beloved, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There hasn’t been a time in history when Kings and monarchs haven’t abused their power in order to gain wealth. And the Hebrew people are no exception to this. From this corruption comes injustice, and injustice leads to division, and so the people known as Israel, who lived in a land also known as Israel, became divided. The Northern Kingdom was called Israel and the Southern Kingdom was called Judah.
And then, yep, it went just the way God knew it would. You see, having a King that wasn’t God made the people citizens of another Kingdom. And in any Kingdom there’s gotta be someone at the top—political leaders. And since this was the Hebrew people, the religious leaders also had power. So at the point of today’s prophecy from Amos, we are about 150 years into this divided Kingdom. And the political leaders (in our story it’s King Jeroboam the Second– who was often written about as the “worst king ever”) and the religious leaders (in our story Amaziah, the priest of Bethel) liked their power. And their wealth. In fact, Jeroboam used his power to make him (and his cronies) wealthier and wealthier, striving to gain more and more power, leaving most of the people of Israel in the dust of poverty. Jeroboam allowed the poor to become sold into debt slavery and he then denied them legal representation. And Amaziah and the other priests did nothing to prevent or stop this from happening. Collusion between state and religion. In this corrupt system, the rich became richer and the poor became poorer. The number of elite at the top was small while the number at the bottom in poverty was large. And the disparity between the two was great and always growing. Because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Amos comes into this situation to warn Israel; to urge them to turn back to God’s ways, but the leaders have been swayed by power, wealth, and corruption. They have moved from” we and us” to “me and mine.” No longer is Israel a collective; it is a divided and broken kingdom with rulers and leaders who believe that some people deserve everything while other people are only worth whatever they can be exploited for in order to gain more wealth and power for the few.
Beloved, let those who have ears to hear, LISTEN: Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
That brings me to our Gospel reading today. In the Jesus story, we hear again this deadly mixture of religious leaders walking in step with political leaders—all for the sake of power. In fact, Episcopal priest and preacher Barbara Brown Taylor describes it this way: “Jesus was not killed by atheism and anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion, which is always a deadly mix. Beware those who claim to know the mind of God and who are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Beware those who cannot tell God's will from their own.”
In today’s reading, we have a Hebrew leader, Herod Antipas, who has power and authority because he has bowed to the Roman Empire. Herod Antipas is the son of Herod the Great—who was ruler at the time of Jesus’ birth, the one who killed innocent children out of fear of losing his power. It seems humans can become egregiously inhumane when it comes to maintaining power. And the fruit did not fall far from the tree. For Herod Antipas has made a silly public promise, all because of an entertaining dance, that leads him to kill someone he admires all for the sake of saving face. Anything to keep his power. His elite life. His wealth. His authority—even if it is a puppet authority at the whim of the Empire.
Jeroboam, Amaziah, Herod the Great, Herod Antipas: they all had something in common. They were all concerned first and foremost with self. Even though they held positions that were designed to provide for the common good. Leadership positions had been entrusted to them—either because of their familial lineage or because of their Roman connections—leadership positions that were meant to serve the community, the collective, and instead, they used it to serve themselves. They used their position to grow in power, influence and wealth—-no matter what it cost their people, their community, the nation.
Jeroboam, Amaziah, Herod the Great, Herod Antipas: they all had something else in common. Their plumbline was fear. Now, fear is a necessity. Fear is what prevents us from making disastrous mistakes. But fear cannot be our plumbline. Fear contorts our hearts, skews our vision, misleads our spirits. Greed comes from fear, as do lust for power and control. Fear creates smaller and smaller circles of concern and inclusion. Beloved: Fear cannot be our plumbline. Love must be our plumbline. Sacrificial Love. Agape Love, which is communal love, collective love. As we are told over and over again in Scripture, Christ is our exemplar of how to be a human made in God’s image because Christ encompasses all. Not just some; Not just the elite or the top of the pyramid—but all. All of humanity and all of Creation are encompassed in the Christ. Colossians 3:11: “There is only Christ. He is everything and he is in everything.” Christ is our exemplar because his steadfast and immovable plumbline is Agape Love.
Like the Christ, our plumbline must be love. Radical Love. Inclusive Love. Collective Love. Anything else is not Christianity. Anything else is not the Way of Love.
And Beloved, no matter your fiscal beliefs, your political leanings, your governmental or economic concepts, as a Christian—literally as one who follows Christ—-as a Christian, let us elect leaders and demand leaders who have Agape Love as their plumbline. Who understand the worldview we see lived out in the Christ: where the outcast are brought into community, the sick are healed, the poor—-even the last ones who only spend an hour in the fields—are deserving of a living wage. Because anyone’s worthiness comes not from their productivity but from the fact that they too are God’s Beloved, made in God’s image.
And when the world around us forgets who they are, who WE ARE, then let us be a shining beacon. A light on the hill—-refusing to be dimmed. Refusing to be covered or silenced or forgotten. Let us still believe and trust that sacrificial Love is the power that will win out. Let us act on this trust, this belief, let us invest our gifts and wealth into this belief. This us vote from this belief. Let us trust that Love will outlive hate; Love will reconcile division; Love will overcome fear. And let us band together—in the words of the Christ—become One as God is One. A trinity of holiness and the holiness of unity. Let us become Beloved Community, pulsating with the radiance of Love—the power that transforms and reconciles all. Because Beloved:
Those who fail to learn from history are those who are doomed to repeat it.

6/16/2024

Celebrating Diversity: Pride Sunday and Juneteenth

While on vacation in Kentucky this past week, I saw a church sign that read: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Beloved, I think that is NOT how God works at all. Unfortunately, Christianity has often spread a version of God as Judge and Jury that opposes humans who do not live up to God’s standards.

But, I don’t think this is how Love, who is God, works.

Why not? Today’s readings first of all. Let’s start with the reading from Ezekiel; let me give you some background. Before today’s reading, at the start of Chapter 17, Ezekiel poses a riddle and a parable about Israel. In the parable, a multi-colored eagle takes off the top of a great cedar and plants it elsewhere. This is meant to symbolize when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (in the parable, the multi-colored eagle) overtook the King of Israel and exiled many of Israel’s people—supposedly the most powerful, wealthy, and brightest—to Babylon–including the King!. And then Nebuchadnezzar put a puppet king in Israel so those left, the remnant Israelites, would serve Babylon.

The parable goes on to describe a second eagle, abundant in plumage,that came. This second eagle depicts Egypt, whom the puppet king of Israel then sought out —turning his loyalty from Babylon to Egypt, in hopes that allegiance to Egypt would serve him (and presumably Israel) better.

Of course, none of it was good for Israel—during this time period the temple of Jerusalem was sacked and Israel, as a nation, was plundered and devastated. By both Egypt and Babylon.

And now, in our passage today, God speaks to Israel via Ezekiel saying: But, I will take the lofty crown of a great cedar — in essence, reversing the work of the Babylonian exile—and I will replant this people. And this new kingdom will have space and place, shade and rest, for every winged bird to dwell. This tree will bloom–and even bear fruit. Which is quite miraculous since cedars do not bear “fruit” so to speak. We can only surmise what that fruit might mean. (and trust me, many have done so).

In the prior parables telling Israel’s history of exile–the winged birds were other nations, Egypt and Babylon. And now in this hope-filled vision of Israel’s future—God says not only these birds, these nations, but all winged birds—all nations, all tribes, all peoples—will have a home in the kingdom God provides: space and place, shade and rest for all. Every one. Each one. No more divided, warring nations, but one. One Kingdom. For all. This is God’s vision, God’s intention. (the same intention God has had since Creation came to be)

In today’s Gospel, Jesus echoes this same Kingdom vision when he compares God’s Kingdom to something grown from a mustard seed—a tiny little thing. But what grows from the very small seed becomes so large and so hospitable that it can nest all birds, all living things. This bush (the Greek here in Mark is actually not even a bush or a tree, but the word means: garden herbs, vegetables) so this garden, then, grows so large that it can nest all birds. Again, be a home for all peoples. Of every kind. Every ilk. Of every skin color, every language. Of every gender expression and sexuality. Of every worldview and way of being. Because this isn’t a kingdom set up with human boundaries and borders, but this is the Creator’s kingdom; this garden is designed to suffice for every living thing, all living things. At least, suffice it will when we live according to God’s justice, God’s sense of good and evil, the Way of Love, the Way of unity, diversity, equity and inclusion.

This brings me back to that small seed. Everyone has the capacity to bear this small seed that yields such tremendous results. Beloved, we already know the seeds that bring about this vision of Love where all have shelter and refuge; we know what grows this Kingdom. Seeds of kindness, of generosity, of assistance and accompaniment; seeds of friendship, of hospitality, of inclusion, of providing a seat at the table where decisions are made, laws are written, societies are built. These seeds which we all have many parts to play in planting, tending, growing and harvesting. All so God’s Kingdom comes. On earth. As it is wherever Love dwells (because that, my friends, is heaven—wherever and whenever Love dwells)

Now, you might ask: Jane—after thousands of years of varying interpretations and understandings of scripture, of how God behaves, of what we, as church, should believe: How can you be so confident that God is inclusive, loves diversity, and works for equity and intends for this type of community? I mean, after all, there are plenty of Scripture passages when God seems to be more the kind of entity that would oppose the proud, a God who smites the Canaanites so the good guys can win, a God who punishes people when they go astray….

True, that. There are such things. But if those passages are our “rulebook” and “way of being,” if this Christianity thing is really about living in such a way so God doesn’t punish us, then: Why Jesus? What’s the point of Love sending forth Love’s self, wrapped in flesh and blood and bone, into this Creation if humanity already fully understood just who Love is and how Love moves and how we, as God’s people, are meant to live?

I believe, Beloved, Jesus came, not to change God’s minds about us, but to change our minds about God. Jesus is God in the flesh—so that we might know how God lives and moves and has their being. And Jesus doesn’t punish. Not once. Not even Peter. Jesus doesn’t cast anyone out. Not even Judas. Jesus doesn’t divide. Not even from the Pharisees or the Romans or those who handed him over. So, if Jesus is God, and Jesus does none of these things, why do we hold so strongly that God will do these things to us?

Frankly, if we are honest with ourselves and put ourselves in the Gospel story (which, of course, is the entire purpose) we are probably not the people Jesus would be seeking out. Because we have enough. At least most of us do. Most of the time. We never truly know anyone else’s full story. But, what we do know is that Jesus intentionally went to the very ones that the religious and social structures had cast out. Not the people in the synagogues or the ones who had enough. Jesus went to the lepers who were banned from community. Jesus touched the dead and blessed them. Jesus talked with the bleeding woman and the rejected woman at the well. Jesus called the tax collector to come and follow, live with him. Jesus found himself hung on a cross, like a common criminal, among common criminals.

So today, we find Jesus with these same ones. These ones whom the church has shunned, calling them sinners, not good enough, shameful–the lepers of our generation. Jesus is with our siblings who are experiencing depression, addiction, trauma, poverty, mental unwellness–too often these ones are left as dead by society. We brush them aside and tell them to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Not knowing what to do (or knowing but are unwilling) we look away, overwhelmed.

Jesus is with those whose bodies have left them bleeding:
Our trans-siblings whose bodies do not match their identity,
Our siblings in the LGBTQ community whose sexualities challenge our constructed “norms,”
Our BIPOC siblings whose skin color does not match those with privilege so they are always moving from disadvantaged realities,
Women, our sisters, who have been told that they do not have the right to have autonomy over their own bleeding bodies.

And then there all those who have found themselves in our “correctional systems”---of which there is nothing corrective about them. These institutions are simply buildings for punishment, banishment, not rehabilitation. We do not truly intend to rehabilitate and restore these siblings to our societies. Instead we end up crucifying them in so many ways. And that’s another spot we have to wrestle with: the cross. In some versions of Christianity (including some found in both of our denominations), the understanding of the cross is that God was so mad at humans, so mad, that Jesus had to die to “save us.” Jesus was the ransom we couldn’t pay. And maybe that’s right. But I don’t buy it. Never once does Jesus live this kind of atonement out, never once does Jesus demand punishment to set things right.

I believe, Beloved, the cross is more about how we are to deal with violence, rejection, and betrayal when it shows up in our lives, our cultures, our systems, our nations. There is no retributive justice here in the Jesus story. No violence in response to violence. There is only mercy, compassion, forgiveness. And then, once mercy, compassion and forgiveness have been given—-there’s new life. Resurrection. This, Beloved, is the power of the cross.

Jesus came to show us how to be human. How to live into the kingdom that is a current reality, whenever and wherever Love reigns. I might be wrong about this whole Jesus thing. I hope not. For your sake as well as mine. But each of us must decide, at least if we are going to call ourselves Christian, whether God is a God who forgives and shows mercy or God is a God of retributive justice. A God who demands punishment for a wrong done—even if an innocent one has to pay it.

Beloved: I don’t think God opposes the proud. I think our pride—when it turns into self-centeredness and denies another their needs—I think our self-centeredness opposes Love. In fact, I no longer believe Love, who is God, ever opposes me—or anyone else. Like Jesus on the cross, when battered, beaten, rejected and left to die on the crosses of our hearts and spirits, I think God forgives. Waits. Offers us a place in paradise. Because this God who is Love—if we believe our Jesus story at all—this God who is Love absolutely refuses to dwell in eternity without us. Without me. Without you. And God—the Source of all being—is always on our side. And there’s nothing you can do, say or believe, to change that. Love is on our side. The only choice left to us is: whose side will we be on?

6/9/2024

Alternate Realities...June 9, 2024

We often think, and have been taught to think, of Christianity in this way:

If we live a certain way and follow the rules, God will make sure our life is better.
If we live a certain way and follow the rules, God will let us go to heaven when we die, rather than being condemned to hell.

And this understanding of Christianity may seem to be affirmed in today’s readings:

God kicks Adam and Eve out of Eden and makes their lives much rougher “because they are naughty.”
“...whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin…” Duh, Duh, Duh….

But, let me reframe this for us and offer another possible understanding….

Beloved, God does decide who gets into Heaven—which is simply wherever God dwells. Another name for Heaven is the “kingdom of God” or “God’s Kingdom.” In fact, Beloved, God has already decided who gets into this Kingdom, this Heaven: Everyone. Every stinking one. Everybody is in.

In our Genesis story, what we often glide over is that the word for “human” is A–dam. What this Creation myth of ours tells us is that when God created, God placed humankind in the Kingdom. Love, and then, the Source of all Being, (aka God) says to humanity: this is yours to guard and keep. And it will all be sustainable and balanced if you choose to live by Love’s definition of justice, with Love’s understanding of good and evil.

But humankind chooses otherwise. We choose to define good and evil for ourselves; we choose to redefine justice to suit our needs. And as soon as we do that, we find ourselves outside the Kingdom.
Beloved: the Kingdom, what we might also call heaven, isn’t for later or after death or any other time/space qualifications. Heaven, which is the Kingdom of God, is now. It is always. It is a constant reality and always present. And it has been such ever since Love created all things and brought all things into being. And as creatures of this kingdom, we choose whether we live within the kingdom or outside of it. And it’s not a once and for all decision. Within an hour’s time we can choose to live within the kingdom’s reach and outside of the kingdom’s reach 10 times over. Because the Kingdom isn’t a destination—-it’s a reality, a Way of living, that is always right here in front of us.

That’s what Jesus is trying to get across to the folx in today’s Gospel. Many folx think Jesus is crazy because he is always living in the kingdom—right there in the midst of the Empire (a.k.a. The “world” in Scripture). So his choices and his actions make no sense in the world’s “dog eat dog,” every-man-for-himself reality. Jesus’ actions make no sense in this economy. Jesus is always living and moving and being in an alternate reality.

This sense of two realities existing concurrently is described in our Gospel today.

At the start of our reading, the first half of the verse says: Jesus went home. The word “home” or “house” is ekonoimia. Which in Greek means:Household or House. Jesus’s household is God’s household, God’s kingdom. I don’t think this is a reference to a building or a structure, but a reality. So when people tell Jesus his family is outside the house, outside the kingdom, asking for him, Jesus says: Whoever is doing the work of Love is in the house, in the kingdom, and are my family.

Now, Beloved, whom do you know who is ALWAYS living Love 24/7? No one, I wager. I know I don’t. Does that mean I am not in? Yes, sometimes. When I don’t choose Love. When I choose self-profit over communal profit. When I choose my convenience over my neighbor’s need. I choose to leave God’s kingdom and I take up residence in the Empire, the World. But as soon as I wake up and come to my right mind (the mind of Christ) and choose communal profit and collective good, as soon as I respond to my neighbor's need: I am in the Kingdom, living in the boundaries of heaven, residing in God’s family. I come home.

The point of having faith, belonging to a Church isn’t fire insurance to make sure you go to heaven after you die. It’s a community of folx whose lives together shape our hearts, minds, eyes, and ears to know the Kingdom, to see the Kingdom so that we can choose Kingdom reality over Empire reality. As often as possible. In this Beloved Community, we offer opportunities to taste the Kingdom so we can trust that it’s real. We create chances to live into the Kingdom together; to practice Kingdom living.

One such opportunity we have here is called the Compassion Response Team, and so today I asked Judi Cumley, a member of the Team, to come and share about this opportunity of Kingdom Living.
Judi:

How did our Compassion Response Team get its start?
What does Compassion Response Team do?
Who is in the Compassion Response Team?
How can the wider Beloved Community support the work of the Compassion Response TEam?
Anything else you want the folx to know?

What questions/wonderings do you have—either about the Compassion Response Team or this morning’s Word and Reflection?

2/21/2024

Wild Beasts and Whatnot

This year in Lent, we are considering our Wandering Hearts. How we start off in one direction, and yet…….end up somewhere we never intended.
Like the speaker in today’s reading from Psalm 25. Verse 3 of the Contemporary English version which we heard today reads: Don't disappoint any of your worshipers, but disappoint all deceitful liars. Hebrew Scholar Robert Alter translates this verse as: “Yes, let all who hope in you be not shamed. Let the treacherous be shamed, empty-handed.”
The speaker begins this song with offering their heart to God, trusting themself to God, asking not to be shamed or defeated. In this worldview of Jesus’s culture, as I understand it, there was a spectrum when it came to social status, and the two ends of the spectrum were honor—or to have high social status —and shame–to be at the lowest end of the social status. So to be shamed would be to be defeated within the community and one’s society.
The speaker in today’s Psalm begins this poetical journey with placing their trust, and therefore their lives, and their hearts into God’s control. The speaker seems to deeply desire to follow Love’s Ways, and the speaker knows the source of wisdom: Love itself. And yet……..Let the treacherous be shamed, empty handed.
The speaker also seems to have a fairly strong hold on God, whom I will name as Love, and Love’s traits throughout the psalm; they seem to know who and what Love is, naming Love as wisdom, Truth, trustworthy, compassionate, patient, kind, honest, faithful, merciful, a Teacher. And yet……..Let the treacherous be shamed, empty-handed.”
This poet and speaker of the Psalm is asking God—is asking Love—to make certain folx “the other.” Even as deeply embedded as they are in Love, having proclaimed Love as merciful and compassionate, this speaker still wants Love to be unmerciful and unloving to certain folx. You know……. “Just the ones who deserve it.”
How human is this Psalm, right? The Psalms, after all, are not songs written by God for us humans, but they are songs written by humans—prayers, if you will, to God. And within them we find nuggets of wisdom about God and absolute disasters of descriptions of God. Let the treacherous, be shamed, empty-handed.
That word: treacherous—just who is the Psalmist talking about? Is it the enemies they have already written about: don’t….let enemies defeat me?
The Hebrew word for treacherous here is about faithlessness, the unfaithful, those who betray or abandon. So I am hearing the Psalmist tell God how to respond to people who are not as faithful as he. And the speaker is declaring there should be a difference in Love’s behavior: Let those who follow you be on the honor end of the spectrum while those who do not follow fall into shame. Let them be empty-handed. Without.
And here’s the danger of the Bible. If we hold this Psalm as “God’s word,” meaning God is speaking to us, we can land with the understanding that this is actually what God does. That God does leave the treacherous shamed and empty-handed. And that’s good and right and true. And Biblical.
I saw a meme this week that read:
Two people read the same Bible. One sees reasons to love. The other reasons to hate.
One sees unity. The other division.
One finds prejudice. The other equality.
One discovers compassion. The other, indifference.
One goodwill. The other malice.
Two people. One Book.
One book. Two views.
The Bible is a mirror.
The reflection is you.
Ouch! But, it can be so true, right? We can pick up the Bible and read it, and if we are the reflection, the Bible is going to end up agreeing with us. Our prejudices, our likes. This is how we can end up asking God—who is mercy and compassion—to go ahead and be merciless to certain folx. And not only do we think it is okay if God is merciless to those folx, we can then go on and convince ourselves that we can be merciless as well.
I hear today’s Gospel story in Mark as a corrective for those followers who want a merciful God to be unmerciful to certain people, and a corrective for thinking and wanting God to be a relentless judge and punisher. After all, as Richard Rohr says, Jesus did not come to change God’s mind about us, but to change our minds about God.
In today’s Gospel story, we have Mark’s version of Jesus’ baptism, and then his 40 days of wandering in the wilderness and the start of his ministry, just in seven verses, no less. Mark is succinct; he doesn’t spell out the “temptations” of Ha Satan in specifics like Matthew and Luke do. Ha Satan, (a.k.a Satan) in Greek means “adversary, opponent, enemy” Satan, as I understand this concept, is not an entity—a red dude with a pitchfork or a malevolent being that swoops in on a black cape. Satan is anything that opposes Love, anything that is an adversary or enemy to Love’s ways.
So here’s Jesus, newly activated to ministry by his baptism, but the first thing the Holy Spirit does is push him out into the wilderness where this human Christ has only God, only Love, to rely on. We can almost hear Jesus mutter the Psalmist’s words: “I offer you, my heart, God, and I trust in you.” Because in the wilderness, that’s all we got.
And then Mark offers an interesting detail that no other Gospel has: Jesus was with the wild beasts. Both Matthew and Mark tell us angels ministered to Jesus or served Jesus at the end of the 40 days, but only Mark has this detail about the “wild beasts.” So, of course, that made me wonder: Just what are these “wild beasts.” Wild animals of some sort? In the Greek, wild animals is a good translation. But, there is another possibility, another translation for this Greek word for “wild beast.” “A brute; a brutish man,” but the word is plural, so brutish humans.
Hmmmm, there’s another story in Scripture when humans were wandering, having only God to rely on, and lived among the animals. You find it in the first chapters of Genesis; we call it the Garden of Eden. And what changed those animals, those humans, from right living to brutish ways of being is when humanity chose to go their own way instead of walking in God’s ways.
Beloved, I am hearing in this 40 day wilderness adventure of Jesus’, what could be an apt description of what it was like for the Christ to come into this world: A human, who is filled with Love and Love’s power, walking among brutish humans, getting tempted to turn from Love, to join up with vengeance, anger, self-centeredness, greed and power, tempted to make sure those beasts in his way become shamed and empty-handed, but this Love-filled human chooses to stay on Love’s path. At personal expense. With real cost.
Here’s the thing: Mark tells us Jesus was with the wild beasts. What is not in this story is that Jesus defeated the wild beasts or proved the wild beasts to be wrong or beat the wild beasts or killed the wild beasts or sent them away empty-handed. Jesus simply went on—letting angels serve him. Probably binding up the wounds the wild beasts left.
That’s it. We are all on this wilderness journey; tempted along the way to jump off Love’s path—to give into our self-interests at the cost of the Common Good, to seek honor and power at the expense of our neighbor, to fill our pockets to overflowing even if it causes drought and death. Like Jesus we find ourselves among brutish humans. At times, we find ourselves to be those brutish humans.
But, Beloved, let us not forget: angels are everywhere. Love’s messengers are a plenty, Look around—-right here in this room, in our neighborhoods, in our city—and they come to our aid, to bind our wounds, to make the cost of living Love out loud with our lives endurable, bearable, more than worth it.
I can’t help but think of another story; so following in Jesus’ footsteps, I will tell it and leave it there for us to ponder. You probably already know it; It’s a story of our country’s Indigenous people, specifically, the Cherokee Nation. A different tradition than our own, and yet, we share this Gospel Truth:
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
The grandfather continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

12/18/2023

Mary's Story---the Protopriest

Beloved: what if we have missed the point, or at least missed A point, for thousands of years? What if this story, this Christmas story, isn’t really about a baby? What if this isn’t just the story about the baby—this new life that comes to live out love in the flesh, this one who is as God made all humanity to be —fully human and completely enmeshed with divinity—but what if this story is really meant to be first known as the story of the mother. Mary’s story.

This woman, this Mary, who knew and accepted that the Spirit of the Lord was upon her. I mean, just stop there. Imagine what this means—she knew the Spirit of the Lord was upon her. Think about what her heart and mind was like—what kind of relationship she had with the Holy One—to hear and trust that, yes, the Spirit of the Lord has anointed her, appointed her, to be the One to birth Love in the flesh into the world. She would be the one whose labor would initiate the start of a new world, not just a life—but new life for all of Creation.

Mary’s story tells us of a woman who is told that if she says yes, there will be both glory and agony, joy and great sorrow, that she will have to risk her entire being—literally risk life and limb, not to mention reputation and security—-and this young woman says yes anyway. Knowing all this, she opens her heart, her mind, her body and spirit to the wholeness, the entirety of this Yes. Yes, God. Yes Love As You would have it. Talk about living love in the flesh.

And the beauty of this woman’s yes to the Spirit—the glory of her yes—causes her to sing the Truth that she can now see, the truth she now knows and believes. The God-honest Truth that when human flesh is infused with love it has the power and capacity to topple fear, hatred and self-centeredness. Humanity which surrenders to love has the power and might to overthrow any empire, every tyranny and all evil that sways and seduces us away from love.

Beloved, this Jesus story that we have come to adore, and much to God’s disappointment—worship, this Jesus story can only happen because this woman—this unmarried, young woman—because she says yes. The Magnificat reversal of our world, from self-centered individualism, which catapults us into warfare and bloodshed, to communal working for the common good, which brings us on earth peace and goodwill for all humanity, this reversal is dependent upon a woman. In a patriarchal society. A woman. Which begs the question: How can we continue to ground and center ourselves in a male-centric world when God, when Love itself, refused to do so?

Beloved, what if we took this origin story of ours, this genesis story of a new beginning, the arrival of a new life all because a woman said yes—what if we took it seriously? If we begin to recognize that this yes has the power to change everything. What if we believed that? If we trusted it, expected it, bet our life on it? What if the Magnificat becomes our anthem?

And let’s not forget that Joseph plays an important role too. Joseph, this man in a patriarchal culture, he wakes up to the reality that he must live counter-culturally as a man in his society in order to support Love, to give Love free reign in his household. Knowing that the world will probably call him weak and snicker and gossip when he leaves the room. After all, he is a man who has placed the needs and the story of a woman before his own, submitting himself, and his life, to his wife’s God-given call. He willingly paves a path for Love with his very life.
Back in the 1960s and 70s the Lutheran Church and the Episcopal Church were both debating whether or not to ordain women. The Lutheran Church began ordaining women in 1970. But it took us Episcopalians a bit longer. In fact, we didn’t ordain women until 1976. But in 1974, 11 women were unofficially ordained as priests in Philadelphia by three retired bishops. The women became known as the Philadelphia 11; one of them was named Alla Renee Bozarth. Alla wrote a beautiful poem entitled: “Before Jesus–Mary, the Protopriest of the New Covenant.” It goes like this:

Before Jesus, was his mother.
Before supper in the upper room,
breakfast in the barn.
Before the Passover Feast, a feeding trough.
And here, the altar of Earth, fair linens of hay and seed.
Before his cry, her cry.
Before his sweat of blood, her bleeding and tears.
Before his offering, hers.
Before the breaking of bread and death,
the breaking of her body in birth.
Before the offering cup,
the offering of her breast.
Before his blood, her blood.
And by her body and blood alone,
his body and blood and whole human being.
The wise ones knelt to hear
the woman’s word in wonder.
Holding up her sacred child,
her spark of God in the form of a babe,
she said: “Receive and let your hearts be healed
and your lives be filled with love, for
This is my body, This is my blood.”

Beloved: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes

11/13/2023

Who gets in?

As I have said before, Beloved, it all depends on who you understand God to be. If God is the supreme Judge who decides who gets into heaven after we die, deciding who is unworthy and therefore condemned to that other place (you know, h-e-double hockey sticks), then what you will hear in today’s reading from Matthew is that very thing: Jesus telling folx that if they don’t get their act together, when their time comes to meet their Maker, the door will be closed to them and God will not even know who they are.

I get it. This was my understanding of who God is for most of my life. In the past, this was all I could hear when I read this parable.

Beloved, a parable is a story that is held up to our lives so that we can learn a truth. It’s Truth, after all, that Jesus tells us will set us free. So where’s the truth—where’s the Good News—in this parable that can set us free rather than trap us between the crosshairs?
First of all, let’s talk about the kingdom of heaven since this is what the parable is supposed to illuminate. Just what is the kingdom of heaven? It goes by a lot of names: God’s Kingdom, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, and sometimes, just heaven. I have referred to it as Kingdom Living.

Again, for most of my life, this wondrous place was where all would be right and good, and it was a place to arrive at after one’s death if one had lived a life worthy of such a place, if one has pleased God enough in one’s lifetime.
This is certainly a possible interpretation. One I no longer hold, but perhaps, you do and, perhaps, it is right. But what we should remember is that Heaven, according to Hebrew scripture, is where God dwells. Where God, aka Love, reigns. Heaven is not a place, a “where”. Heaven is a “when.” When Love controls the actions, when Love is the font from which words flow, when Love is the driver—then heaven is present. The Kingdom is come. God is with us. Heaven isn’t a future destination or a reward. Heaven is a present reality; it is all around us, within us, right here and now.

And if we begin with this understanding of the kingdom of heaven as we attune our ears to the parable, and if we begin with God as Love instead of God as Judge, maybe we can hear new truths in this parable, rather than the ones we have carried around for so long.

And there is more than one possible Truth. For example, Lutheran pastor and writer Nadia Bolz-Weber has heard Truth in the parable this way: what makes the five young women foolish is that they listen to a voice that is not God’s. They listen to the other women who tell them to go and get their own oil. But, do they really need to? After all, 5 of them already have lamps, isn’t that light enough? And the Bridegroom typically arrived with a torch; isn’t there sufficient light for all to see? I mean, who are these wise young women and why do they get to go in to the banquet when they are not even nice enough to share a little oil? Bolz-Weber reminds us, in chapter 5 of Matthew, Jesus told folks to “Give to everyone who begs from you,” and in Chapter 19 Jesus tells us to “give to the poor,” and in Chapter 23, just 2 chapters ago, Jesus proclaimed “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven…”

Nadia Bolz-Weber makes the point that the foolish young women fail to trust their own relationship with the Bridegroom, and they question their own actions, and much like Adam and Eve who listened to the snake, they listen to the other young women (who are not acting according to what Jesus has already said) and so they run off to try and make themselves worthy and, in doing so, miss the bridegroom all together.

How many times, Beloved, have we, have you, decided we weren’t enough or that you didn’t have what was needed, so you missed the chance to witness love, to accept love, to give love, to midwife love intp a situation, a relationship, a conflict, a chance opportunity? How many times have we listened to our voices of shame inside our heads and have turned away instead of walking through the door being held open before us? This Truth Nadia Bolz-Weber asks us to consider invites us to recognize that God provides the light and the door is open if we don’t forget to remember who we are and whose we are, if we don’t make ourselves strangers to Love and love’s great desire to welcome us in.

What I love about Nadia Bolz-Weber is she almost always helps me to see and hear the Good news in the Gospel in ways I hadn’t considered before. But this past week, when I contemplated the Good News, and when I talked with the ladies at Dwelling in the Word on Tuesday, another possible Truth arose for me. It came about for some of the same reasons and questions:
Why are those wise young women so not nice and refuse to share?
What is the oil, anyway? Why is it so important that each young woman has to have her own?

Let’s start with: What is the oil anyway? Of course, in this story, the oil is what keeps the lamp burning. And the lamp is the light needed to see, presumably, the light that is needed to see the bridegroom (aka Jesus) and the open door to the banquet. For us, and throughout the New Testament, Jesus is the light, the light of the world. And what makes this light shine is the life and love Jesus lived. Our gig is to carry that light out into the world. As Matthew wrote in chapter 5: In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to God in heaven.

When we understand the lamp in this way, then the oil is our lives— lives that are modeled after, and that follow in the footsteps of, Jesus. Our lives—our actions, our trust in Love, our words, our choices—fuel the light. And that is not something we can give to another person. I can’t give you my life of faith; you have to have your own. Go…and buy some for yourselves Maybe this understanding is what made the young women wise. It’s what brought them into the presence of the bridegroom and allowed them to see and know the open door. When we live love out loud, as Jesus does, we are already present at the banquet—it is all around us. Living love wakes us up to more love. Living love is what empowers us to see Jesus right in front us. As a Facebook meme that is going around states “We don’t come to church to find God. We come to church to learn to find God everywhere.”

And if we listen to God through Amos, living love means that justice is enacted and righteousness is lived out. Righteousness, of course, is living in right relationship with all others—-or in Jesus’ words: Loving God and loving our neighbors as Jesus loves us. You know: the Kingdom come, heaven on earth, right here, right now. If only we can wake up and stay awake to this truth instead of listening to the snakes. Instead of, as Amos warns us, thinking our worship is what heaven looks like, thinking our worship is what God wants from us instead of lives of justice and right relationship. Beloved, when I listen to Amos, sometimes I think worship is the costume we put on, hoping God will recognize us when we knock on the door, but instead, Jesus says: Truly, I don’t know you. I think when we put our trust in worship as God’s desire instead of justice and lives of right relationship with all others, we can become pseudo-disciples rather than actual followers of the Way of Love.

So there you have it Beloved. For me, God isn’t the supreme judge but, instead, the supreme lover, so I hear different truths in this parable than I used to hear. Truths that echo Amos’ prophecy thousands of years ago. God wants our love—which is what justice looks like in public—God wants us to recognize our one-ness with all of humanity, all of Creation, with the one, holy and living God. And that, Beloved, that truth, that light—changes everything.

Beloved: what phrase or question from today’s Word or Reflection will linger with you this week?

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Are you there God? It's me, Jane Margaret.