Are you there God? It's me, Jane Margaret.
Thoughts and reflections of a pastor......
7/11/2023 Circle of Concern.....![]() Just over a week ago, I found myself in a state of being that I do not remember ever experiencing before. I wasn’t physically feeling quite right—I was off. Light-headed, out of sorts…now some of this could have been the smoke in the air, but it was also accompanied with a lethargy. Not my usual way of being. I didn’t want to do anything really. I felt hopeless…..like I was at in a gray fog and I really didn’t want to find my way out…..Now, it did not last too long….just over 24 hours…..but it is not something I would like to experience often and would prefer never to experience again. I have been fortunate enough to be someone who has been mentally well my entire life. During some difficult junctures in my life, I have sought counseling or spiritual coaching, but I have never really experienced ongoing anxiety. Grief, yes, but not depression. A blessing, I know. But, I think that last week’s experience of gray was a taste of depression. Today we hear Jesus say: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (The Message) Beloved, I arrived in that gray fog because I was overwhelmed by all the negative situations that are realities in our world. The state of this creation as it is dying and seeing/feeling that first hand in the smoke from the Canadian fires; the decisions on a federal justice level that I consider to be taking steps back into racism and bigotry; local decisions on a county level to, again as I see it, do the same—act as if racism and bigotry is not an issue here. The injustices done to those on the economic margins. And a plethora of other big concerns. Another aspect of these realities is that I have to come face to face with the truth that many of my fellow citizens have a completely different understanding and vision of who they wish America to be, how they want this world to be—and, of course, there are always smaller, personal storms brewing within that get mixed up in the maelstrom. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. The first step from the bottom of the pit was telling my husband that I thought I may be experiencing depression. I named it. A little scary because it isn’t necessarily who I think myself to be. I didn’t feel ashamed but uncertain. I think the naming of it opened a window—a window still a bit out of my reach—but a window that shed some light into the gray and blew in some fresh air—and something to reach for. Because, Beloved, talking with people you love—particularly when it is about things that matter—that’s a form of prayer. The second step is really a step that was put into place long before this period of gray began—the practice of intentional, set-aside-time-for prayer. Now, this part of my prayer life hasn’t always been rich; even since I became a priest. Like anyone I have dry spells and valleys. But especially since I have been involved with the Center for Clergy Renewal and my immersion last summer, my prayer life has been consistent. That consistency (some days rich and some days shallow) has built a strong grounding, a centering. And it provided me a path out of the fog. And the trick is: letting go. Really. Letting go. As I sat with the Holy, I came to realize that what was beating me down was my holding onto things that are outside of my control—-I was worrying about how other people were acting, climate change, the state of our nation, the state of our community, homelessness, poverty, injustice, my children’s and grandchildren’s lives….. Now, these are all things we are to be concerned with—but I was dealing with them at the wrong level. Let me explain Let’s think of it like this: in our lives, there are two circles: the Circle of Control and the Circle of Concern. What sent me over the edge is that I was overwhelmed by all the things in the Circle of Concern–all those things in pink—again, legitimate concerns and things we should be willing to do something about and adjust our behaviors due to them—but I lost my focus on the Circle of Control: those items in green. What I can actually do. After naming my depression to Murray, instead of allowing the call to “just do nothing and retreat from humanity” have its way with me, I turned to the other whisper: Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. You know, Beloved, times weren’t better when Jesus lived. His people were oppressed by the Romans. Many were poor and unhoused. Enslaved. Undiagnosed. Cast aside. Now, there may not have been the climate change we experience, but there were droughts and floods and other disasters to deal with. And yet, Jesus—who must have felt a lot of weight on his shoulders knowing his job description—Jesus stays grounded. Centered. In the midst of it all. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. Let me point something out: even though God showed up in the flesh—in the life and ministry of Jesus—there was still poverty, thirst, and the Roman Empire. All those things were still around when Jesus left. Jesus didn’t end the crappy situations that were realities for his people. Having Jesus in their lives did not erase these situations. Let that sink in. What Jesus gives us is a way to live abundantly in the midst of these things. That’s it. I think that sometimes people want Jesus, want Christianity, to be a magic pill that we take and then the crap of life will no longer be true for us. Or it’s a magic train ticket so that when we die we will leave it all behind and end up in a wonderland of clouds, angels, where only the good people go. I think both of those ways of thinking about this Way of Love that we call Christianity are bogus. False. Hot air. The Way of Love is about how we live, not what happens to us when we die. The Creator knows that to live in this Creation—where humans have free will and humans are self-centered until they learn and choose otherwise—the Creator knows that this life is a tumultuous ride. And because we are—every single one of us, even the dopes that cause the tumult—because we are Beloved—Love provides us a path, a grounding, a centering, and a truth that can provide us, if we choose, an abundant life—no matter the current situations. A life of joy, love, resilience and resurrection. Even in the midst of whatever the reality of the world is around us. This path, this rope to grasp, is our connection to Love itself. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. The intertwined strands of this rope are prayer, breaking bread with others, gathering in community, work, serving and loving neighbors, silence, time away, time alone. And, of course, the Truth of Love is our grounding. And that Truth is that what we know as life is one narrative that is unfolding in time as we know it. Our day-to-day existence that is very much situated on this planet at this time. But, Beloved, to believe in God is to believe that there is another narrative that is beyond this human one; a narrative that has always been. The author of that narrative is not a person—but a force, a presence, an existence that permeates everything that is. We know this force and presence as God, as Creator; we know this force and presence as Love. And Love holds everything. Every thing. In life and beyond this life. As I re-centered myself—through time in Love’s company, (both in prayer and in community) by choosing to grasp that rope—I remembered this Truth. And so those concerns that are outside of my control—I handed those over to Love. I reminded myself that those are Love’s to hold, to manage. My bit is to figure out what I can do to strengthen the Love that tends to those concerns. I reminded myself of what I am already doing–items in the green and blue on this slide–that inner circle of control that does affect and shift the outer circle of concern. I let go of all the big, overwhelming things I cannot address and filled my pockets with what I am already doing. This gave me a renewal of energy—the capacity to leave the fog. I found myself feeling desire and excitement to re-engage. Hope blew the fog of gray out of my head and heart……..After all, this is what Jesus does: Jesus tended to the neighbor in front of him, the folx around the dinner table, those who were within his listening circle. And because he kept moving, those circles of influence shifted as needed.
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me…. Beloved, I am a do-er. So sometimes, when I care deeply, I do too much. I see too much. I carry too much. And the result isn’t always that more gets done. Sometimes what happens—at least this time what happened—is that I was slayed. Cast down. But, because I have been blessed to be pickled in the Jesus juice my entire life—and because the Spirit has reminded me to keep jumping in the brine—I heard Love’s whisper and saw Love’s light and it gave me the way out. It resurrected me. And I know, I trust, Love will be there to do it every time I need it. Sometimes, Beloved, and for some folx—it’s a longer time in the depths, it’s a harder road out. Let’s not romanticize this and make it seem like if you only pray right or believe right or do it right, you’ve got it made. I have loved folx who couldn’t make it out. Even though they had exceptional faith. Gifts and capacities. The fog, for them, was unrelenting. But, I believe, Love has them, Love is holding them. And somehow their being continues where they are no longer weighed down by those things they could not let go or be released from. And I do not know why it’s that way. I can’t reason myself to an answer. All I can do is trust the Love that I know and believe to be the strongest, deepest, most elastic and resilient force in Creation. We have heard two versions of this passage from Matthew today, let me add part of a third. This is from the First Nations Version of the Bible: Come close to my side, you whose hearts are on the ground, you who are pushed down and worn out, and I will refresh you. Follow my teachings and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest from your troubled thoughts. Walk side by side with me and I will share in your heavy load and make it light. Beloved, may it be so. For me, for you, for our neighbors. May it always be so. 7/4/2023 Become Who You are....Do you remember that song on Sesame Street: One of these things is not like the other…..? That’s what I hear in my head when I read the Gospel for this morning. Jesus gives examples and first it’s prophet to prophet….righteous person to righteous person…..but then it changes to when you give something to someone—one of these little ones—who can not repay you in kind….and it’s no longer about getting what the other one has, but it’s about not losing what is already yours.
In the Message Translation, Biblical scholar and pastor Eugene Peterson puts it like this: Jesus says: “We are intimately linked in this harvest work. Anyone who accepts what you do, accepts me, the One who sent you. Anyone who accepts what I do accepts my Father, who sent me. Accepting a messenger of God is as good as being God’s messenger. Accepting someone’s help is as good as giving someone help. This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won’t lose out on a thing.” Take out and hold up the Monstrance Beloved—this beautiful, strange thing is called a monstrance, comes from the Latin word, monstrare, which means ‘to show.’ It is a work of art that has been made to hold a blessed host—those wafers of bread that have been used in communion services for centuries. Monstrances were created for a practice called adoration. Sometimes it can have ritual and liturgy wrapped around it; last weekend the Episcopal Diocese of Fond du Lac held its Eucharistic Festival, and Adoration was a part of that gathering. Or it can be done more simply; for example, when we strip the altar on Maundy Thursday, we move some bread and wine that has been blessed down to our prayer room and people keep vigil there throughout the night until noon on Good Friday when we eat the bread and drink the wine because it is Good Friday and Jesus has left the building. The blessed bread and wine are present during the vigil so those who wish can practice adoration during that vigil. I am a big fan of keeping the vigil; it has been a part of my Holy Week life since I was a teen-ager. And there have been a few times, as a priest, that I have used the monstrance for Maundy Thursday. But I find it more meaningful to simply have the broken bread and a vessel with wine when I practice adoration. For me, on that night—that Maundy Thursday vigil—being present with the blessed bread and wine helps me to connect with the beauty of that night, that last supper when we are called to love one another; when we are called to do what Jesus does: allow our lives to be broken open so that our lives can be given to sustain one another, feed one another, give cold water to those who thirst. Now for some people, this practice may hold no meaning; it may seem like empty ritual. That’s valid too. One is not more right than another. And friends, our rituals can become idols like anything else. This monstrance can become an idol. We can get so caught up in doing it right, or doing it best that we forget the point: rituals are never the ends; they are a means to becoming…… So I didn’t go this year, but I have been in the past, and what happened last weekend at the Eucharistic Festival is that a blessed wafer of bread was put in a Monstrance like this and then a priest carried it—and didn’t even touch the monstrance with his hands; he had a cloth that went around his hands to carry it—and then the Monstrance was carried outside; there were four people who carried a canopy over it as it was processed to an outside altar. The Monstrance was treated with reverence and honor; carried as precious cargo to be adored, loved, respected. Now, this particular practice is not my thing. While there are shared theological bits with the blessed bread and wine in the prayer room during the Maundy Thursday vigil, that particular practice of liturgical adoration actually removes me from Christ rather than drawing me closer. I get distracted by the ceremony and lose the purpose. But I know folx who find it very moving and meaningful. Sadly, in church history, rather than making room for one another’s practices, we often completely dismiss those that are different than our own, usually by starting a new denomination or another church. But here’s the crazy beautiful thing, the mysterious truth, that this Monstrance does remind me about: Here’s this work of art that holds the blessed bread and body of Christ within it; it is to be revered, adored, respected, loved. Beloved: what if we understood, what if we lived our lives, with the understanding, the knowledge that each of us is a monstrance. Each of us is a beautiful work of art who is meant to be loved and respected, and we carry the Christ within us. To show–to shine–the Christ within us. Each week we come and receive; we are welcomed here and reminded that within us we carry the life and love of Christ. We hold out our hands and take Love’s body into our bodies; and in this we are reminded of who we are and whose we are. And then, like this Monstrance that was carried outside with ceremony and ritual—we go out into the world, carrying the love of Christ with us so that others may see and know and be reminded of who they are: the Beloved. Beloved, what if we understood, what if we recognize, that everyone we meet is a monstrance? Every one. Some may be bright and shiny and hard to miss; some may be a bit dull or dented….frankly, sometimes I feel like that blessed wafer has fallen out and the little door that was supposed to hold it is off its hinges…..and yet, still….. How would this image, this truth—that we all have space within us to have the body of Christ, the presence of Love, at our center—that we are all God-bearers in this life—how would this change our welcome? Our assumptions? Our expectations, our reactions and responses? How could this help us to love ourselves? To love others…..which, Beloved, is how we love God. You know, it is tradition that we consume the bread and wine that has been blessed at our communions. Again, Episocpals and Lutherans hold this tradition differently–and both for valid reasons. But within the Beloved Community, we Episcopal-Lutheran people, we either eat it or we drink it or we put it back into the earth from which it came. We don’t dump it down the sink or throw it in the garbage. We have special cloths and vessels we use at communion; we take care with these things. Not because magic happens or because God will strike us down if we don’t. We take care, we act with reverence, as a way of honoring God’s love for us. To point out the magnificent brilliance of this moment when we re-member. You know those words: do this in remembrance of me. This isn’t simply about calling to mind the last supper; in this moment we gather to re-member–to literally put back together, member by member, this Body of Christ…..so that we can then go out into the world and be the Body of Christ. If you watch, no crumb goes astray. We have a cloth to catch it on the table. If a crumb falls to the ground, I pick it up and eat it. We take care of this bread and wine that somehow becomes, is connected, holds and contains Jesus who is love; Jesus who is the One who saves. How exactly? I don’t know. It’s a mystery. But, Beloved, what if we then treated the living Body of Christ in this same way? What if we held the same reverence for every person we meet? If we took the same kind of care…..Prophet, righteous, little one…..What if what we do on Sunday informed every minute of every day of our lives? I mean, this is why we have rituals—like drops of water on a rock, these rituals they shape and reshape us; they realign our hearts; they refocus our vision; they attune our hearing to God’s frequency. Priest and scholar Barbara Brown Taylor wrote: “With all the conceptual truths in the universe at his disposal, Jesus did not give [them] something to think about together when he was gone. Instead, he gave them concrete things to do—-specific ways of being together in their bodies….. ‘Do this’ he said--not believe this but do this— ‘in remembrance of me.’ So come, Beloved, receive what you are; become what you receive. Love in the flesh for the sake of the world. 6/26/2023 Alive to GodFor me it happens at my morning prayer time. Right now my practice is to get a cup of coffee and sit in our 4 seasons room—I can see the trees and flowers and sky. I can hear birdsong. I take some deep breaths and keep a time of silence. I have certain resources I use to listen to wisdom and the word. I journal. I let my brain wrestle with wonderings.
It also happens when I am in beautiful church buildings—particularly if they are silent. In our old building on Church Street, I would walk in the sanctuary in the “gloaming” hour—that last bit of day as the sun is setting and the stained glass windows would come alive. It happened then. It happens when I hold my children or when I hold my grandchildren. When I am in community, and there is joy and the breaking of bread and conversation. Or when I am singing in community. It happened at Point Pride when, after the rain, the human rainbow was shining. When I am walking and my brain is free to wonder and wander. When people come up and hold out their hands, and I look in their faces and give them the bread—that piece of Love’s body. When my husband and I hold hands……at the side of the ocean…..when my family is gathered and laughter rings…..when I am sitting with a neighbor and listening to their story and I feel empathy/connection…..at my father’s grave when voices were lifted in song. All of these are times when I find or have found myself alive to God. Alive to God—this is a phrase St Paul uses in his letter to the Romans; a fundraising letter persuading folx to invest in this Jesus movement, trying to convince folx that Jesus is the real deal. And Paul says that because of Jesus’ life, death and ministry, we now have an opportunity to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. For me, I know I am alive to God when I am feeling the deep contentment and warm strength of love, of being loved, of being able to extend love. When I feel Joy—whether it be light and uplifting or a deeper, weightier feeling that anchors me—Joy is present when I am alive to God. This is what Jeremiah is talking about in today’s reading when the prophet describes God as a strong defender, another translation uses the term: dread warrior. Jeremiah means God is always with him; Jeremiah cannot escape God. It is God’s persistence in his life that determines Jeremiah’s words, actions, and role in society. Jeremiah is living in a time of great social upheaval---when known ways of life were being torn down and becoming unrecognizable. I would bet that most of us can identify with Jeremiah; we live in a time of great social upheaval---when so much of how things were in the past are no longer true today or for the future. And frankly, the message God is telling Jeremiah to speak to his community will not make Jeremiah very popular. God’s message is countercultural and speaks against the powers that exist. And this is true for us as well, as today’s prophets. God’s message of mercy, forgiveness, of unconditional love, of sharing rather than hoarding, of self-sacrifice, of the common good over and above the individual good certainly goes against the grain of our societal norms and expectations. God’s message flies in the face of the nationalistic, individualistic, consumeristic messages that shout in our ears and continually flash before our eyes. As Christians, we find ourselves with the reality that to speak the Word of Jesus that God is asking us to speak is to find ourselves as prophets with an unpopular message. Today we hear Jeremiah responding with anger to God’s Word. Jeremiah realizes that God’s truth won’t make him the most well-liked chap in town, and Jeremiah lets God know that, frankly, he is not-too happy. He would rather just get about his own business. Take care of his own matters. He is not really keen on having to deal with the world around him and would prefer to simply ignore God and God’s requests. First of all, Beloved, let us recognize that this anger, this disappointment in God and how things are unfolding is not faithlessness on Jeremiah’s part. In fact, it is faithfulness. Jeremiah is able to be angry and disappointed with God because Jeremiah has a real relationship with God. And in real, authentic relationships, we get angry and disappointed. We know this is a real and strong relationship Jeremiah has with God because, even though he is angry and upset, Jeremiah doesn’t just walk away. Walking away is the easy thing to do, but Jeremiah hangs in there because that’s what a committed and covenantal relationship requires. Theologian Rachel Baard says: “The life of faith is not always serene. It is not simply quiet submission to God’s will. It is, rather, a life of struggle with God and God’s will.” Proclaiming God’s countercultural voice amid the monumental injustices of culture is a difficult job. It is the work of a prophet. And Beloved, it is our work. Some of us do this work by speaking. Some by teaching. Some by doing. Some by being. But it is the work of us all. It is not some other Christian’s work or some other church’s work or some other person’s work. It is not the work of someone more holy or more powerful or more capable or more wealthy or of someone who has more time. It is our work, your work, my work---this Beloved Community’s work. As authentic and committed disciples, it is not work from which we can walk away or simply ignore. This reading from Jeremiah holds personal connections for me. When I was discerning how God was calling me to serve, perhaps in the priesthood, I felt this relentless longing, this palpable ache. Kept me up at night. At one point I attended a discernment weekend in the Diocese and was asked to share a Scripture verse that spoke to me and I chose Jeremiah: “there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in.” I think this burning within our bones comes from a life of discipleship---or at least a taste of discipleship. It comes from all the ways we get pickled in the Jesus juice. The word “disciple” means learner/ student. Jesus tells us: “it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher.” This is why we have church: so we can know Jesus. Not just know about Jesus but become like Jesus. The point isn’t to be able to memorize Bible verses or doctrine or catechism so that we can proclaim the right answers. The point is that the ways of the One we call master, teacher, Lord….these ways become our ways; we become who and what we study. We gather together as a community of faith, not just to know about Jesus—a groovy dude who lived thousands of years ago—but to know about what it means to be humans who live love out loud in their lives. As disciples, we are called to continuously ask: What is Jesus seeking to teach us and what are we to learn from it? Sometimes I think we avoid wondering or asking what Jesus is teaching us because we are perfectly aware of what Jesus wants, and we just don’t want to do it. Like Jeremiah we would rather God doesn’t ask us to speak this countercultural way of living into the world around us. Because to do this has a cost. As Jesus warns us—sometimes it can cost us our closest relationships. Because to be like Jesus means that our primary relationship is our relationship with God–the One who is Love. When Jesus is talking in today’s Gospel and says: Those who love father or mother more than me aren’t worthy of me. Those who love son or daughter more than me aren’t worthy of me. Those who don’t pick up their crosses and follow me aren’t worthy of me. Jesus isn’t saying we don’t deserve God, that we, or others if they don’t “get it right” are not worthy of God. In fact, Jesus is saying that we fail to recognize our worth; we sell ourselves short. And until we can love ourselves, as God loves us, we will not be able to love as Jesus loves. Because we haven’t been appropriately conditioned for the work. Love begets Love. For the disciple to live as the Master, one must be grounded and centered in Love. Jesus isn’t telling us to hate our father or mother or children. Jesus is saying that the connection, the relationship, which empowers and gives life to all other relationships is our relationship with God….God who is Love. If we are not deeply grounded and rooted in Love–a sacrificial, other-centered, life-giving and liberating Love– then our relationships will flounder rather than flourish. At each door entering this church building, there is a quotation of Carl Jung’s. Jung put this quote in his home in Zurich and had it put on his tombstone; it reads: “Bidden or unbidden, God is present.” Like a dread warrior, God is unfailingly present. Waiting. Longing for us. Calling to us to speak, to live, to be the Word. The Word this Creation so desperately needs—now and always. The Word that, for us Christians, we hear and know in Jesus. Disciples know their master. Disciples become as their Master. Let us not respond to God’s call simply because we think there is something in it for us. Let us learn Jesus, soak up Jesus, be consumed by Jesus to such an extent that we respond to God’s call because we cannot NOT respond. Like Jeremiah, let us be God-haunted, God-disturbed, God-burdened, God-emboldened, and God-blessed. As Brother James Martin has said: “There’s no need to tell everyone how Christian you are. Just act like one: love, forgive, be merciful, help the poor. They’ll get it.” 4/24/2023 Change your hearts and your livesBeloved: I want to give a warning that some of the content in today’s reflection talks about domestic violence and sexual assault. Please do what you must do for your own self-care if this is a trigger for you.
*********************** I thought that this morning I was going to talk with you about the line in the Gospel reading: But their eyes were kept from recognizing him…. It was the line that jumped out and stuck with me, and when I talked about the Word with my colleague Susan on Wednesday, it was the line that was resonating in her brain, so I thought: well, that’s that then. And it stuck with me because I wondered what was going on in that moment. I think their eyes were kept from recognizing Jesus because of their expectations. Their expectations of who God is and how God moves in the world. Their expectation of who they thought the Messiah was going to be and who Jesus was, who Jesus is…. Their expectations kept them from seeing God, Love in the flesh, revealed to them as they walked and talked, as they shared their story with a stranger. I thought I was going to preach on this because I think this is our truth. How our expectations of God and of church prevent us from seeing God and love right next to us in the face of the stranger who joins us on the journey. Expectations—they can fuel us forward or freeze us in our place. Expectations can be sourced by fear or love, by anger or hope. Expectations are shaped by what we consume and who and what we trust. But, on Friday, I was struck by another line from our readings; this time from the reading in the Acts of the apostles. When Peter says: Be saved from this perverse generation. Another translation of the same line is: Get out while you can; get out of this sick and stupid culture. And one other is: Save yourselves from this corrupt generation. All of these translations seem so apropos for our world, our nation right now…..perverse, corrupt….get out while you can. This past week we heard the horrifying and sickening stories of people—all young people—being killed because of simple mistakes: Knocking on the wrong door; trying to get into the wrong car; mistaking a long driveway for a road. I have done all of these things—more than once, in fact. Probably all, or most of us, has. So–what’s different now? Why these three senseless, sick deaths in the past week? Guns. An overabundance of guns. And the mentality that violence saves us. There are roughly 100 million more guns in the United States than there are Americans. We win the gun bonanza by twice as much as any other country. I know, I know that some people want to argue that guns are not the problem. People are the problem. But we keep giving people—the supposed problem—guns. Even at the cost of the well-being of our community. At the cost of now having gun violence as the number 1 cause of death to our nation’s children. Gun violence kills children in America more than any other cause. Something we can stop; something we can decrease; something we can prevent. If we have the will. But when profit is God in a nation, as it is in the United States, then the profit of the gunmakers and ammunition producers, and the power they carry over our elected servants, is apparently more important than the lives of our children. Through his parables, his conversations, his questions, Jesus continually challenges us to consider: Is your expectation that the individual is more important or is the community more important? In America it seems to be the individual. In the Gospel—In God’s dream, it is the community. Is it any wonder we don’t recognize Jesus who is in our midst, who calls us to a new way, who tells us to overturn the tables of the unjust systems we have built? Get out while you can; get out of this sick and stupid culture. About a month ago, Murray and I watched the movie: Women Talking. It tells the story of a Mennonite colony, based on a true story—where females—from little girls of four to elderly women—were knocked out with cow tranquilizer while they were sleeping in their beds. And then they would be sexually assaulted and find themselves bruised, bleeding and battered in the morning. Sometimes they would end up pregnant or infected. The religious elders told them it was the Devil or ghosts—and even chalked up the women’s story to fantastical imaginations. Much like what we hear in the Gospel when the women who first witness the resurrection are not believed and they are told that their experience is just an idle tale. As one character in Women Talking says: They made us disbelieve ourselves. Because women’s realities have been shaped by others’ expectations of them and for them since time began. Mostly because women were not the ones who told their own story, who wrote down their experience to be shared throughout time. Men have been the official historians and storytellers of truth. At least in the published, authorized version of things. Women have always been told their purpose by others: by the Church, by the job market, by their husbands, their fathers, by advertisements, by the culture. And while we now allow women to work outside the home, what that has meant is that women are generally expected to do both: home and work. And the structures, systems and institutions that women have been allowed to become a part of—for lesser pay, mind you; can’t have them make equal pay—those structures, systems and institutions haven’t changed to make room for women. Instead, women are expected to make themselves smaller, misshapen, in order to fit into these male-dominated, male-oriented structures. While doors have opened for women in my lifetime, the rooms are still decorated and fashioned for men. Think of it: the word that we were all supposed to accept as a “stand-in” for humanity is “Man.” It was all over our prayer books, songs, and liturgies…..For example, from the Book of Common Prayer’s Rite One Prayers of the People: Let us pray for the whole state of Christ's Church and the world. Almighty and everliving God, who in thy holy Word hast taught us to make prayers, and supplications, and to give thanks for all men This language is still in the Episcopal prayer book. It is still prayed by some. And when God was written about and described, by those male historians and storytellers, they made God male. So much so that many people still think God is male—or they can only imagine God as a male—and they are annoyed and uncomfortable if you use Mother or She or They….. This past Thursday we hosted a gathering for Women Only in order to show the film Women Talking. We put it in our weekly email; I announced it in church, and we put it out on Facebook. But, I didn’t know what to expect. I was thinking that if 20 women showed up to watch and talk about the movie, that would be fantastic. There were 50 of us. 50 women! Younger and older and middle-aged. And what a conversation we had. Because we are tired and angry and wounded by being seen only through other’s limited expectations. We are tired of our experiences not mattering enough. Enough to not change the systems. Not just to access the systems, but to recognize that this world was built by and for men, and it’s time to re-dream and re-build it for all of us. Just as many folx are tired and angry and wounded because their loved ones who have been shot by assault rifles in first-grade classrooms don’t matter enough to change our gun laws. That we don’t really believe that the community’s welfare is more important than an individual’s wealth or a corporation’s wealth. In today’s reading from Acts, when Peter is preaching at Pentecost and the folx who have experienced Holiness in their midst ask the disciples: What should we do? Peter tells them: Change your hearts and lives. Get baptized. Baptism wasn’t a ritual, as we know it, in the church yet. Peter wasn’t talking about a ritual; Peter was talking about the true meaning of baptism: ending one way of life in order to live a new way. Or as Julia Gatta put it in her book entitled The Life of Christ: “The goal of baptism is to restore us to the human we were dreamed to be.” To replace our expectations with God’s expectations: Community eclipses individualism. Love defeats hate. Hope beats fear. Equity triumphs over privilege. The women in Women Talking had to make a decision when the men violating them were finally caught and were brought into the town to be tried. They were given 24 hours to decide if they would forgive the men. The women saw it as three choices: Stay and do nothing. Or Stay and Fight to change the colony. Or Leave. I think this is the same fight that is taking place within the Church. Stay and do nothing: keep everything as it has always been. Or Stay in the Church and fight to change it. Or Leave. I struggle with these choices pretty much on a daily basis. Well, let me be clear. I am not interested in Stay and do nothing, change nothing. But I would never leave my relationship with Jesus, or abandon my hope in God’s dream. I cannot give up my absolute trust that this is the Way I, that we, are called to live……but when we try to live this faith out in a culture where there are more guns than people and women and their experiences are still doubted and diminished….it can be a long and weary road. Recently I heard the priest Barbara Brown Taylor say this: “The church gives me a community to figure out what is happening to me in the world.” And, that, perhaps, is the biggest reason I stay and fight…..That and this loveliness from the 2nd chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah: There’s a day coming when the mountain of God’s House Will be The Mountain-- solid, towering over all mountains. All nations will river toward it, people from all over set out for it. They’ll say, “Come, let’s climb God’s Mountain, go to the House of the God of Jacob and Rachel and Leah. God will show us the way she works so we can live the way we’re made.” Zion’s the source of the revelation. God’s Message comes from Jerusalem. God will settle things fairly between nations. She’ll make things right between many peoples. They’ll turn their swords into shovels, their spears into hoes. No more will nation fight nation; they won’t play war anymore. Come, family of Jacob and Leah and Rachel, let’s live in the light of God. 4/17/2023 Practice ResurrectionHere we are at the 2nd Sunday of Easter and we dive deeper into what resurrection means: this “wait a minute….Jesus is what?” reality that happens after the cross.
In today’s readings we have two different attempts of making sense of Resurrection. Our reading from Acts takes place at Pentecost; in our church year calendar that is 50 days after Easter, ending the Easter season. For the Jewish people, it was the festival of the weeks, also known as Shavuot or Pentecost—50 days after Passover–and many pilgrims were gathered as Peter and the eleven stand to speak with those who had gathered in Jerusalem—many of whom had witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion. And after the great wind blew among them, and the tongues of fire landed on their heads–a fairly amazing event I would imagine—Peter begins to speak. And Peter does what humans often do after something unimaginable has happened: Peter tries to explain it—wrap it up in logic—connect it to prior knowledge. It’s what we do; we want to make sense of everything. Peter does his darndest to earn the people’s intellectual assent—probably thinking if he says just the right thing….. He refers to the prophet Joel, to David the psalmist—-connecting what the people have heard and learned to what they have now experienced. Words, words, words to convince them Jesus is Messiah. The story tells us that it works; well, something works. Maybe it was the wind and the tongues of fire dancing on their heads, or maybe it was the words, but the story goes on to say that 3000 people became convinced that day….. Jesus takes a bit of a different approach. Jesus doesn’t primarily use words to convince; he goes with the sensory experience. Jesus invites the disciples to touch: Put your finger here….see my hands….reach out your hand and put it in my side. Jesus breathes on them, breathes the holy life-breath on them and says: Peace be with you. Three times in today’s reading. Peace be with you. Peace be with you. Peace be with you. When it comes to something like life after death—living beyond dying—we probably need both: experience and words. Sensual and logical. And even then……we still don’t really know, really understand. Our heads, and maybe our hearts?, are too small to capture the whole of this Mystery. Beloved: I don’t know what to tell you about resurrection. Oh, I am convinced of what Resurrection means to us right now—in this bit where we haven’t physically died but we experience the many, smaller deaths as we live and move and have our being. Like we talked about last week, I am certain that Resurrection happens: Jesus lives when we live Jesus. But what does Resurrection mean for us when our bodies finally stop breathing? What does Resurrection mean for our physical deaths? I am not sure. Not completely. But I cannot deny that if we believe Gospel, then Resurrection means Love is stronger than Death. Love is stronger than Hate. Resurrection means that the worst thing that happens to us is not the last thing that happens to us. That somehow we shed these human bodies and we join the force field of Love that we know as God—the presence of Love which also contains those who have gone before us—and as we join God’s forever everafter—we still get to participate in the creative force of love that lives and moves and has its being in this Creation, this Universe. Somehow. That’s about all I can say about that. We have to find our Peace with the unknowing. Now, if you believe in a bodily resurrection—that after he died, Jesus came back in a body and somehow, so will we—that’s faithful. But, if you hear the Gospel resurrection stories, and you really wonder or doubt or, even dare I say, find it impossible to swallow the bodily part—for Jesus or for anyone else—that’s faithful too. Because the important bit is that you are wrestling with what resurrection means, for you, for us, for Creation, —and you are scooping up and applying the Wisdom that is there. The Wisdom you can grasp. After all, the Bible isn’t so much a book of facts as it is a collective of Wisdom. Actually, there is one more thing…something I was thinking in the shower this morning about Jesus’ post-death body….Maybe the Gospel insists, here in today’s story and in John’s stories after the Resurrection, like Jesus eating breakfast on the beach with the boys—maybe the Gospel insists that Jesus had a post-death body so that we would understand that we’re it. That these resurrection stories are just Jesus tagging out–like in wrestling….Jesus is tagging out and Tag! We’re it. Jesus’ living body in the world today. Today Jesus says to us : Put your finger here….see my hands. Beloved: Which wounds of Christ are you being called to touch and see? Which wounds of Christ have you already tended? Because you have. In the 25th chapter of Matthew, Jesus says: I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me.’ And the disciples ask Jesus: When? When did we see you? And Jesus answers: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’ ………Put your finger here….see my hands. And then there’s this juicy, wonderful bit of wisdom: The Resurrection of Jesus undoes the injustice of Jesus’ scandalous death. Resurrection undoes injustice…..Imagine all the ways we can practice resurrection and undo injustice. The violence against Trans lives, the diminishment of immigrant lives, prisoners’ lives, impoverished lives, lonely lives, the willingness to accept the thousands of lives taken due to gun violence. Beloved: RESURRECTION undoes injustice! We are the living body of Christ in the world today. Okay: one last bit of Wisdom that was written by Serene Jones and Paul Lakeland in their book Constructive Theology. It goes something like this: If the mission of God’s church is to be effective, then it is the message of Jesus that ought to be stressed rather than Jesus as the message. We will know God’s reign has come when folx look at the church and instead of saying: see how those Christians love each other….folx will look at the church and say: See how those Christians love us! 4/3/2023 10,332 Voices....Today we hear our reality spoken in the Word.
People gather in hope; people gather in joy and cry out: Hosanna! which means Save us! We turn our eyes on Jesus and see the One who can save us. And maybe, like the crowds waving their palms over 2000+ years ago, we expect Jesus to save us from the Empire, to save us from other people, from bad leaders and nasty situations. But Jesus’ life and Jesus’ death reveal that what Jesus, what God’s salvation, saves us from is our selves. We are our own oppressors. To follow Jesus, to live and love as Jesus does, saves us from fear, greed, self-centeredness, apathy, prejudice, hatred, and division. The cross clearly reveals that if we follow Jesus, we can be freed from our need for vengeance, retribution, and violence. Instead of getting caught up as a mob of fear and distrust, the cross calls us to refuse to participate in the constant and continuous human cycle of blood-letting. March 27, 2023 Nashville, TN Their names are: Katherine Koonce aged 60 Mike Hill aged 61 Cynthia Peak aged 61 Evelyn Dieckhaus aged 9 Hallie Scruggs aged 9 William Kinney aged 9 We do not have the time this morning to list all the names of the 10,332 people who have died due to gun violence, murder, accidental death, and suicide, in our nation in the first three months of 2023. 10, 332 in three months. Those 10, 332 voices are crying out: Hosanna, Hosanna: save us! But, like these crowds of yesteryear, too quickly and too easily we can turn from gathering in hope and joy and be swayed by fear and turn into a mob of individuals who seek and serve only themselves—who live and move from distrust and fear. Fear of change, fear of loss, fear that someone is going to get what we want only for ourselves. Today’s story, this week’s story, is our story. And this Holy week story asks of us: Who will you be? Who will you follow? What life, what world, are you willing to live for? What life, what world, are you willing to die for? What world are you willing to co-create with the One who hung the stars in the sky? 3/27/2023 Promise and Call. 3/26/2023For me, as an Enneagram 8 with a strong 7 wing, it’s betrayal. Betrayal is something that is really hard for me to forgive. Or to let go of. It gnaws on me. Betrayal makes my blood boil and my heart break. It sends me to the pit of despair. Sends me to the valley of the dry bones.
Betrayal is really just unmet expectations. We expect someone to act a certain way, to have your back and be on your side, and they fail to do so. Betrayal can leave a relationship desiccated, like the scattered dry bones on the valley floor of today’s story from the prophet Ezekiel. Unmet expectations are often at the heart of our sorrows, our struggles. Like when we expect relationships and marriages to last, but they don’t. For so very many reasons: we change, they change, it all changes. Heartbreak. Or when our body, due to illness or genetics, accidents or disease, fails us. Or as we age, and our bodies can no longer do what they once did. Frustrating, challenging, hard to accept. The same is true for our mental and emotional capacities; we expect our minds and our psyches to perform in certain ways, and when they fall short: struggle. Grief. Hardship. What about our family relationships? Parents whose expectations for their childrens’ lives are unmet, due to so many reasons; it could be addiction, an unhealed emotional wound, disease, illness, a personal choice, accident and happenstance. When the hope-filled and loving expectations for our children's lives are not realized, we hurt deeply for them. And the reverse is true: children whose parents do not live up to the child’s expectations for security, unconditional love, a home as safe haven. All too often these unmet expectations create life-long struggle and sorrow. And then there are collective expectations for institutions, for governments, for policies and programs. It can be crippling to be let down by these institutions that we are led to believe are in place for our safety, our well-being. When institutions and governments do not live up to expectations, societies fail. And then there’s the church……which is too often synonymous with God for many people. When church fails to meet our expectations, we can experience it as if God fails to meet our expectations….and where does that leave us? Is it any wonder that for many who once were followers of Christ the church feels like this valley of dry bones? Or like the death tomb in which Lazarus lies? In fact, in today’s reading from Ezekiel, when the Hebrews were lamenting and saying: Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely, the Hebrew can be translated as : we are severed from our expectations. And most likely, Beloved, what is being referred to here is their expectations of God: how they had translated and understood what God would do for them; what believing in God would do for them. Like when we think believing in God somehow might mean bad things won’t happen to us; I mean, I know we know that bad things happen to good people—but deep down—don’t we still kinda believe that it won’t….if we are good enough or pray hard enough or go to church enough…..After all, What’s it all for anyway? Believe? Believe what? What good is that belief? What does it prevent? What does it provide? Today we hear both a promise and a call. The promise isn’t about what happens when our bodies die. It’s not about the great beyond and what happens then. It’s about here and now……this life, your life, my life. It’s about what can happen when we have to face unmet expectations. I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you and you shall live…..I will put my spirit in you….. I am resurrection and I am life…… In the beginning, God–who is Love, or at least that’s what verse 8 of the fourth chapter of the first letter of John tells us: God is Love. So, let’s use that name for God, for the source of all being today: Love. In the beginning, Love took up a handful of dust, of soil—adamah in the Hebrew–which is so close to the Hebrew word for human, adam–or ADAM as we pronounce human’s name—Love took up the soil and blew the breath into it and humanity lived. Humanity lives. Love blew the breath, which in Hebrew is ruach and in Greek is pneuma and in both languages it means: breath, wind, Spirit. Love blew Love’s spirit into the dust of the earth and human came to be. Do you hear the Holy Trinity here: Love, Earth, Human. These three are interdependent and inextricably intertwined. And today, Love promises that when we find ourselves in those valleys, those dry and desiccated places, when our bones are scattered across the land, Love will come. And step by step—sinew, bone, flesh, skin–Love can rebuild us. And then Love will blow Love’s spirit—which is life itself–back into us. And we shall live. Again. Think about it. I bet it has happened to you. Maybe it was a small valley–when you felt such sorrow or fear that you were stopped in place. Afraid to move forward or too tired to take the next step. What happened then? Something happened. You are here. Maybe a friend called or a partner took your hand or a child gave you a dandelion or a song played on the radio or the sunset took your breath away or your heart told you to take a deep sleep and rest or go on a walk and clear your mind…….Love shows up in so many forms. That—Beloved—that is God. That is how God, that is how Love, works. I know, we want the supernatural; we want the miracle. We want the Lazarus story. But the miracle isn’t the takeaway from this story. It’s the wisdom conveyed in this story that Love wants us to capture. The wisdom of what it is that brings life to where there once was death. After all, this is the essence of God—who is Creator, Source of all Being, God who is love:One who brings forth life where there was once death. The breath of Love. And these deaths we experience, Beloved. They are not a one-time thing. These deaths happen again and again to us. So many unmet expectations in a lifetime. So many things to let go, to bury, to leave behind. Many tombs, many graves, many valleys. The Promise is that there can be life after each of them. A changed life—hopefully a life that has grown or strengthened in some way—but new life can be resuscitated. That’s the Promise. And then there’s the Call. In both of today’s Wisdom stories we hear Love’s call: Prophesy Mortal, Prophesy to the breath……Love’s words to humanity Unbind him and let him go! Jesus’ words to the crowd gathered to see Lazarus come forth from the tomb…..still bound by the deathshroud. Unbind him and let him go. And that Beloved is the call; that is our work. God blew breath into humanity so that humanity might breathe Love into each other….and into all of Creation. Love begets love begets more love. We, as Church, have entangled this Promise and Call into a bit of a hot mess. It has too often been turned into memorizing doctrine and creed and dogma….asking us to perform our faith rather than to live our faith, but, perhaps, we will be a generation who will breathe the life back into these desiccated bones. Not so much with the supernatural, but with the primal act of breathing love……. That time your heart was breaking and somehow you were whispered back to joy….that was Love…..that was God. That time you failed and you were embarrassed and ashamed and you didn’t know how to go on, but somehow—through time and friends who still called and family who still loved and new chances and opportunities to try something new at which you excelled….you were able to let go of the shame and embarrassment and feel strong enough to come out of their shadows….that was Love….that was God. Or when a riverbed is swollen with garbage and trash and folx come and clean it up so it can flow freely and the wildlife and ecosystem around it is restored…….Unbind him and let him go…. Or when immigrants and refugees come to our town and we work to make them a home and companion them until they can manage for themselves in this new foreign land….Or when we restore our yards and our gardens to native plants for butterflies and bees and all winged and crawly things…. Or when we recognize we have hurt someone with our words and we own our bad behavior and apologize…. Or when we shut down gossip and story of a fellow student or camper–even though it means some others will think we are not very much fun…. Or when we gather in small groups to learn about the racism and prejudice that still storms our nation Or we acknowledge that patriarchy and white supremacy is still polluting our systems, our institutions, our churches and communities….. Prophesy Mortal…..prophesy to the breath…… Promise and Call. For me the truth has been that the more I trust the promise, the more I have died and been brought back to life through the life-breath of Love, the more I am empowered and equipped to embrace the call. In fact, the more I want to….. Love pulls us up from our graves and tombs so that we might be the Ones who pull up whoever next needs resurrection. What if, Beloved, God is not so much supernatural? What if God is deliberate….intentional? Deliberate, intentional love. 3/21/2023 Becoming Sanctuary. 3/19/2023In her book, Searching for Sunday, Rachel Held Evans wrote: “Imagine if every church became a place where everyone is safe, but no one is comfortable. Imagine if every church became a place where we told one another the truth. We might just create sanctuary.”
I think sanctuary—which is defined as a place set apart, a holy place, for protection, for refuge– sanctuary is wherever you are safe to be yourself and to become your self. Your best self: God’s creation, the Beloved These past three Sundays we have heard stories of individuals who encounter Holy Love, the One we call Jesus. Each one of these folx hears Jesus, sees Jesus, experiences Jesus. And each story ends with the individual waking up to a changed understanding of how to be in the world, a changed understanding of what it means to be in relationship with God. Two weeks ago it was Nicodemus: a Pharisee–a member of the religious establishment and authority—who comes to Jesus in the night because the establishment is threatened by Jesus. After all, this wandering prophet, who some think to be the Messiah, is presenting a different God than the One they sell; he’s offering a different way to understand the Torah, the law, that leads to the status quo not having all the power and knowledge, and so the authorities, the status quo, are having none of it. So Nicodemus comes in secret at night and Jesus tells him God can’t really be put into a box, clean and tidy with a bow on top. This God loves the world. All of it. Even the messy, unholy bits, and Nicodemus’ establishment-empowered little mind is blown wide open. God’s love is life-changing. Last week we heard the encounter between the unnamed Samaritan woman at the well and Jesus. This woman on the edges of society hears the hope Jesus says can be found in living life as God would have us live it; she sees new possibilities. And her experience of Love-in-the-flesh compels her to share this story, to share this possible way of living, of loving, with her community. And her witness is so inspiring and irresistible that her neighbors come to check out Jesus for themselves. And they hear Jesus, see Jesus, experience Jesus—and they are captivated—they decide to turn to this new way of living. God’s love is liberating. And now, today, we have the encounter between Jesus and this blind man by the side of the road. Left to beg because society deemed difference and disability as a moral judgment by God, so folks who fell short of the norms were literally left by the side of the road and thrown the scraps of life on which to survive. Unfortunately, Beloved, I am not so sure that we have traveled very far from this pitiful, sinful way of being as a society. Today, this blind man hears Jesus first. He hears Jesus upending this sinful way of understanding how God works that the disciples are spouting. They ask Jesus if the man is blind because he himself sinned, or perhaps his parents? So, obviously, they think, God punished the man for his or his parents' sins by making him blind. And Jesus says: NO. That is not how God works. You can almost hear Jesus’ deep sigh of disappointment as he pauses to realign his followers, yet again. And then Jesus goes to this blind man sitting on the ground; Jesus spits onto the dirt–using everyday elements of creation to make some mud–and smears that mud on the blind eyes. Jesus tells the man to go to the healing pool at Siloam. And the man obeys. This man who has heard Jesus, and now at his healing touch, experienced Jesus; this man obeys. And then he sees. God’s love is life-changing; God’s love is liberating. And if these three stories are any indication; God’s love is mysterious. It cannot be fully explained.We can not part and parcel it out to our complete satisfaction. But, oh Beloved, this love can be heard. It can be seen. It can be experienced. And that, my friends, is the work of the church. We are to host gatherings, opportunities, places and spaces for God’s love to be seen, heard, and experienced. But God is not limited to church buildings, church gatherings, or even, church people. God’s love is a fire that burns wherever there is oxygen to feed it. These three stories reveal that the Jesus movement of the first century was a wildfire that spread far and wide—even in the ancient world with no social media or printing press—but it spread not because of an authorized, official religious institution. It spread in spite of it. It spread due to individual encounters and personal stories; it spread neighborly act by neighborly act. Like Laundry Love this past week, where several individuals were met by loving neighbors from the Beloved Community who provided them the means and the opportunity to wash their clothes. Where human hearts had a chance to encounter one another. Where love was seen, heard, experienced. Or last week when our littles went off for their learning circles and our youth went to their As One Youth gathering during our Sunday gathering. Building community–and sanctuary—one gathering at a time. And like this gathering—each week we come together for an experiential encounter: with smells, and sounds, and sights, and tastes; we touch Love as we share the Peace, as we hug hello or good-bye, as we take the bread into our hands—making Love a sensory rendezvous right here in this space. This past week I visited one of our older, wiser parishioners, and she shared some stories of when life had been really tough for, when she had been brought to scary edges and she said to me: Jesus was there. With me. Every time. She didn’t always recognize it in the moment, but as she looked back, she knew she had seen or heard or experienced this One who is Love. Jesus was there. Every time. Church as sanctuary—a refuge of Love for every wandering and wondering soul who encounters it. Continually each week, sporadically or randomly–our own healing pool of Siloam. Jesus says: Go and wash. Beloved, in two weeks we begin Holy Week. A week full of these encounters when we have several opportunities to see, hear and experience Jesus; to see, hear, and experience Love. This Holy week when we immerse ourselves in our story, the love story we are to know by heart, know in our hearts—this story that liberates us, changes our lives, this Love story that models how to lay down our lives for others. Because each life that saturates itself in this love is a life that re-stitches the unraveling that has been cast upon this world by hate, violence, blindness, ignorance, apathy and despair. Redeeming and repairing Creation by loving the world as God loves. In her book, How to Live, Judith Valente tells this story: “There is a beautiful scene in a film from the 1980s called The Year of Living Dangerously. Actor Mel Gibson plays an Australian journalist named Guy Hamiliton sent to cover the political turmoil in 1960s Indonesia. He is befriended by a sensitive, almost mystical photographer named Billy Kwan, played brilliantly by the actress Linda Hunt. Billy offers to serve as the young journalist’s guide. He takes him one evening on a tour of Jakarta’s slums. Guy has never seen such intense poverty. ‘Walking through the slums of Moscow, Tolstoy had a similar reaction,’ Billy tells Guy. ‘Tolstoy went home, collected the money he could find, and returned to give it to the poor.’ “Yes, but that would be a drop in the ocean,” Guy says. “That’s what Tolstoy concluded,” Billy says. “Do you want to know what I think? I say you do what you can about the misery right in front of you. And by doing so, add your light to the sum of light.” Beloved: may we be ones who add our light to the sum of light, and thereby, bit by bit, change the world in which we live. And all God’s people say: Amen 3/15/2023 What Makes You Believe?What makes us believe? Why does anyone believe?
Last week we heard about Nicodemus; he believed. Believed in Jesus. Even though the Institution that granted him power and status didn’t believe. Even though the education he had received didn’t believe. So he came at night; maybe so there would be less distractions, but also probably so no one need know he believed. In the midst of dark and night, Nicodemus came to see Jesus….because he believed. Nicodemus believed because of what he had seen—lives that had been changed by this One known as Jesus. Nicodemus had seen and heard of life-changing events that can only come from the Source of all life. These stories of lives changing for the better, they brought Nicodemus hope and belief and made him brave enough to go and see and ask. What made the woman from Samaria in our Gospel today believe? She has no power, no status, no education—-she isn’t even given a name in our story. She is the opposite of last week’s visitor to Jesus. Instead of in darkness, she meets Jesus in the heat of the day. Now, she may have secrecy in common with Nicodemus, well, not so much secrecy as the avoidance of others. After all, most women come to the well for household water in the morning, before it gets too hot. But she is here when the other women are not—in the heat of the day. Alone. This woman has nothing that should make her feel brave enough, nothing to make her feel worthy enough, to question this Hebrew, this Jew. But she does anyway. She is audacious. Maybe her thirst is even greater than Jesus’ thirst; after all, he never does get his cup of water. And in their common thirst—Jesus sees her. He sees her. He listens; And he answers her. Always drawn to the outsider, the outlier, the one kept to the edges is this Jesus. He answers her and offers a long drink of hope. Even though she is one who society has deemed practically without value. This society where a woman without a husband has no home, no security; she has no children, so no future. It isn’t her poor character that is revealed by her succession of husbands. It is the society’s injustice toward women Jesus exposes. 5 husbands? If divorce is in her past it is because men could get a writ of divorce for a variety of reasons, and there wasn’t anything a woman could do to prevent it. If a husband’s death is in her past, the woman would have to remarry. Marriage is what provided her a home. Homes belonged to men, so women had to live with a husband or her father or another male family member. There are very few women who had any capacity to be able to live as an independent woman outside of marriage. Society would cast a long sideways glance at this unlucky woman for whom 5 husbands have failed to provide her security or a future. Like all women, her life is not in her own hands. And in the heat of the day she comes for water. And meets the Christ. Who looks her straight on and sees her; He sees her; he knows her. And he gives this audacious woman answers. Answers that quench her thirst. Is that why she believes? Because she is seen; she is known. She is accepted as who she is; the injustice that shackles her is named. She is accepted. Acknowledged. Seen. The conversation Jesus has with her is longer than any other conversation Jesus has in Scripture. She engages him more than any other leader, ruler, stakeholder, follower in the histories we have of Jesus’s life.That alone speaks to the mission of Jesus. And then something happens. In my experience and in the stories from Scripture, something always happens when we find ourselves in the presence of Jesus. Jesus—who is Messiah, who is the Christ, the Anointed One. Love in the flesh. This unnamed woman walks away from her Love Encounter Changed. Changed in such a way that she must go and give witness, give witness to Love: the Love offered, the Love taken, the Love that is possible. And here’s the amazing thing—this unnamed woman with no status, power, or education; this one who comes alone because her society has failed to see her value: she is believed. By the society that has not known what to do with her. She is believed. Think of how compelling this woman must have been. She must have been lit up from the inside out. Metaphorically Glowing somehow. Her witness to love is so compelling that others go. She has used Jesus’ very own words: Come and see. And they do. The folx go and see and hear for themselves. They stand close to Love and the presence of Love changes them. And They believe! Authentic Love is that powerful. Raw love is hard to ignore, hard to look away from once you see it. Can you imagine this scene? Can you imagine yourself in this story? Have you known this thirst? Or maybe you identify more with our Hebrew siblings in today’s story from Exodus? These ones who have been liberated, have been freed, and yet are still shackled. Their request is a simple one: We are thirsty; give us water. A basic human need. First level on Maslow’s hierarchy of human need. A need that cannot be ignored if we expect these people to continue. But Moses is annoyed. Please notice that it’s not God who is annoyed with the request for water. Moses is the one who feels he has been quarreled with and who claims they are testing God. Moses wants them to completely trust and get with the program already. After all, God opened a sea so you could walk through to your safety, people, just trust and believe already! But, Beloved, let’s remember: Moses doesn’t completely share his fellow Hebrews’ history. He is a Hebrew son of a Pharaoh. He hasn’t known what his siblings know. He didn’t live what they lived. Enslaved. Oppressed. Shackled. For generations. Oppression leeches into our hearts, our minds, our spirits. Often leaving physical scars, but oppression leaves psychological scars as well. Our Hebrew siblings in today’s story want to believe; they have believed, but when they are experiencing hardship— life-threatening thirst—they are brought right back to the generations of oppression. Wiping out hope. Drying up belief. And let’s remember Beloved, many of our neighbors have experienced oppression. Maybe even some of us in this room. Poverty oppresses; prejudice oppresses; abuse oppresses; misogyny and the patriarchy oppresses. Human beings cannot move or change or grow if their basic human needs are not met. We cannot expect people to alter their expectations of life, their expectations for their own lives, when their basic needs are not a certainty they can count on; thirst comes in many forms. But God is patient. 40 years of wandering in the wilderness patient. God doesn’t chastise them or shame them for the inability to believe in this time of life-threatening thirst. God meets them in their thirst and provides water from unexpected places and sources. Through human intervention, the disgruntled Moses. Hmmm….maybe that’s a key to belief. Human intervention. A human intercessor. Moses, Jesus, this audacious unnamed woman who has been seen. The power of the presence of Love in the flesh. This is what can change everything. Or, at least, create enough change to stir up hope, to foment belief. Beloved: what makes you believe……? Here’s the problem with God. We all want God to be OUR God. We want God to think like us, act like us, look like us. We are continuously making God in our own image.
Even in our reading from Exodus today, we try to have God behave as we would: Those who bless you, I will bless. And those who curse you, I will curse.” Wait a minute, Jane…..are you saying God didn’t say that? It’s in the Bible. THE BIble. B-I-B-L-E….that’s the book for me. What I am saying is that those who first told this story and then, eventually wrote it down, were telling their story of how they knew, understood, and experienced God. This is a story probably first told 5 or 6 centuries before Jesus. Theologian Richard Rohr once tweeted (and as a theologian he is not alone in this belief ): Jesus didn’t come to change God’s mind about us, but to change our minds about God. We have made Jesus into a transaction. This is how the transaction goes: God’s mad at humanity because we are naughty and full of original sin, so Jesus came to pay a price we couldn’t pay, and Jesus died so we don’t have to, so now we are good (well, if we confess Jesus is our Lord and we do x,y, and z and believe the right things, then we are good). Excellent! Thank you Jesus. But Beloved, what if: Jesus didn’t come to change God’s mind about us, but to change our minds about God. God’s mind doesn’t need to change about us. From the beginning, from Creation’s Genesis, God loves us. All of us. Just as we are: incomplete and imperfect. And nothing, NOTHING, can change that. For God so loves the world. Jesus came to show us this truth; Jesus came to show us what God in the flesh looks like. What it looks like to love a world that is bleeding and broken. What it looks like to love a world that betrays, that is violent, that is unrepentant. A world that doesn’t actually believe it is loved. Now, you don’t have to agree with me, I might be completely wrong, but let’s ponder something together. I don’t think God curses anyone or anything. I don’t buy it. And here’s why: First, Jesus. Jesus had every reason under the sun to curse those who said they believed in him and then betrayed him and ditched him, but he didn’t. Instead he forgave them. Jesus could have cursed the Romans who captured him, jailed him, beat him and killed him. But he didn’t. So, if we really want to believe in this Jesus story, then maybe the takeaway isn’t that God curses us because of our bad behavior or when we fall short, but that God does allow curses to exist in our world. That’s just undeniable. And just what is a curse? Well, the dictionary says it is a great harm, injury or evil. So then to curse someone, as a verb, is to bring about great harm, injury or evil on another person. It is clear that before Jesus (and frankly, even after Jesus), people believed that this is how God behaved. We have several stories with that as an explanation. Many stories that explain God is unhappy with people so God curses them or people don’t live up to God’s expectation so God curses them. If those stories accurately portray God as God works in the world, then what do we do with Jesus? Jesus didn’t come to change God’s mind about us but to change our minds about God. In the life and ministry of Jesus, no one is cursed, no one is condemned, no one is excluded, no one is declared exempt. No one. Not the Romans who were unjust or the tax collectors who were cheats or the thieves who failed to earn their keep. Not the woman at the well or the woman who was to be stoned or the woman who was bleeding and deemed unclean by society. Not Peter who betrayed. Or Judas who gave the killing kiss or the soldiers who taunted or the ones who just ignored the whole entire thing. For every one of them, for each one of them, for every one of us, for each one of us, Jesus lived. And loved. And Jesus emptied his life—-not so that we won’t have to. But so that we will. So that we will do the very same thing. That we might so love the world. What if all the blessings and curses were already here? Just a part of this thing we call life. And yes, as Creator, God has something to do with that. Maybe because we only grow if there are both: blessings and curses. We only change and adapt if there are both. The World only changes and adapts if there are both. But what if God’s job isn’t to bless or curse us as a response to our behavior—as a reaction to our goodness or badness. What if the blessings and curses are all just here—built into the system. What if God’s job is just one thing: to love us. When we are blessed. To love us. When we are cursed. To love us through it all. For God so loves the world. Beloved, there are many people—for good reason, and all too often that reason is the church—who do not believe God loves the world. Women who have been silenced and told to make themselves smaller by the church; folx in the LGBTQ community who have been dehumanized; the addicted and mentally ill who have been made to believe that their disease or condition is a moral failure. The young women who find themselves pregnant and labeled slut; those who have been imprisoned in a correctional system that has no intent of rehabilitation and who casts them out into a society who affords no second chances. People of color who have been denied authority, privilege, power, and basic human rights. The impoverished who have been deemed lazy so they probably don’t deserve shelter, healthcare, anything more if it means they don’t earn it themselves. For many of our siblings, it is mighty hard to believe that God so loves the world. It is mighty hard to even hope it could be true. And that’s where we come in. This is the truth we gotta live. The truth we gotta tell. With our lives. With our choices. With our inclusion. With our equity. With our justice. With our sacrifices. When we share stories, as we build relationships and knit together community. God loves the world. The whole entire world. Every thing and every one in it. Not as an abstract or a religious thesis. But as a living, breathing reality. God so loves the world. One curse at a time. One blessing at a time. One person at a time. God so loves the world. With our hands, our feet, our voices, our bodies. God so loves the world. Jesus didn’t come to change God’s mind about us but to change our minds about God. |
AuthorJane Johnson is the pastor and priest of the Beloved Community of Intercession Episcopal and Redeemer Lutheran. Archives
July 2024
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