Are you there God? It's me, Jane Margaret.
Thoughts and reflections of a pastor......
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Thoughts and reflections of a pastor......
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8/9/2023 A Four Word Revolution....Today we have 2 Gospel readings as part of our gathering because we have an exceptional Sunday. Both the Episcopal Church and the ELCA church use what is called the Revised Common Lectionary—an agreed upon selection of readings for each Sunday. This way Christians across denominations and in different places are hearing the same readings throughout the Church year. And every last Sunday of the Epiphany season, the Sunday before Lent begins, we hear the Transfiguration story. But in the Episcopal church calendar, there is also a set date to celebrate the Transfiguration as a holy day; that date is today, August 6th. And according to the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, if August 6th falls on a Sunday, then the Transfiguration trumps the regular Sunday readings. But not so in the ELCA world. So today, we honor both. We have the Transfiguration Gospel from Luke for the Episcopal calendar and the 10th Sunday after Pentecost Gospel reading from Matthew for the ELCA calendar. And, Beloved, they are beautifully linked.
In fact, these two readings from Matthew and Luke happen at about the same time in the trajectory of Jesus’s story. In the background of both of these stories is the beheading of John the Baptist and just before the Transfiguration story in Luke is the feeding of the 5,000 that we heard in the reading from Matthew. But these two Gospels are linked in even more beautiful and powerful ways. In Luke’s story of the Transfiguration, Jesus is about to turn his face toward Jerusalem; he is about to give his life for all of humanity. And before Jesus can make that turn, before Jesus will have his life taken, blessed, broken open in order for it be shared and given and received—Jesus experiences transfiguration. He draws near to God’s presence, and in that experience, he is changed, made new. Even Jesus, this One who is completely human while also being completely divine, even Jesus needs to deliberately and intentionally bring himself into the presence of God, even Jesus needs to be changed, broken open and blessed, before taking the path of surrendering his life to the sacrificial love that is his calling. That is our calling. Today’s Gospel story from Matthew tells us that when Jesus learns of the murder of his cousin John the Baptist, Jesus withdraws and leaves the area. Jesus removes himself from the realm of Empire, this way of living where power, money and self-centered purposes sit on the throne of human hearts. Jesus withdraws and enters a new landscape. And here’s the detail that just may be the true miracle: the crowd followed. They followed. Because the Gospel truth here is that Jesus offers us a different landscape than the Empire. Jesus offers us an alternate way to live, an alternate world to inhabit. A life removed from the Empire. A life where power, greed, and self-centeredness can be dethroned from our hearts and, instead, compassion, mercy, love and serving others takes up residence. Sacrificial love wears the crown in this country. God’s Kingdom come. And here’s the thing Beloved—Matthew’s Gospel story is a Transfiguration story too. Here are all these people—5000 men, besides women and children— who have come in hopes of being healed. They have followed Jesus’ footsteps away from the Empire and into this wilderness to find a different way. It’s late. The disciples think it’s time to wrap it up. It was a nice gig, but time for folks to head back to their homes and get themselves some food. Imagine the disciples’ faces when Jesus says to them: They don’t need to go away; you give them something to eat. What? We don’t have anything! 5 loaves. 2 fish. And there’s 12 of us! I suspect it’s grudgingly that they hand over those loaves and fishes. Jesus has the people sit down. Interesting detail. Is it so everyone can see what Jesus does? He takes what has been offered—--asks God to bless it—--breaks it open—-and shares. When I was younger, I thought the next bit was magic. I thought what must have happened was like the never-ending bowl at Olive Garden. As one piece of bread was given to someone, another one magically appeared in the basket going around. Kind of like feasts at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies. But, Beloved, I don’t think that’s what happened. Why? Why not? Because it is not how it happens now. And sure, with God nothing is impossible, but if that’s how God works, then why doesn’t bread just magically appear in all the houses where people are starving? How God works, how Love works, is that we give what we have, blessed by God’s Creation….we give, allowing our lives to be broken open instead of remaining self-centered enclosures, and then we share. Those thousands of people, besides women and children—they weren’t stupid. Just like the disciples, many of them probably brought some snacks. And I think, instead of a never-ending bowl from Olive Garden, what happened was they watched Jesus take what has been given, ask for God’s blessing, and then break what he has so that it can be shared widely. And then (again, here’s the miracle) the crowd followed! They followed Jesus—asking God to bless what they have, breaking it open, and sharing it—and there was enough for everyone….and then some. 12 baskets of some more. Why 12? Well, there were 12 tribes of Israel. God’s people. And as we see in the entirety of Matthew’s Gospel, part of Jesus’ transfiguration—part of how he is changed—is that he comes to realize God wants salvation for more than just the Israelites, God wants this for all people. Because all people are God’s people. 12 baskets of food means there is enough for all God’s people. But only when we leave the ways of empire behind and follow Jesus into this alternative way of living. YOU GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO EAT. Talk about Transfiguration. And Beloved, this transfiguration is ours for the having. For as we linger and converse with the Law and the Prophets, as we enter the cloud of witness and mystery, as we intentionally climb mountains to draw nearer to God, we are altered. Transfigured. Through experience, through failing and learning, by reflection and contemplation, as we listen and are embraced. We are changed. A small, but important detail of this story is the truth that we must BE before we can DO. As Contemplative writer James Finley puts it: we become a community of awakened hearts. Take. Bless. Break. Share. It’s who we are. It’s how we are to be. It’s the Way of Love. In those four words is a revolution. In those four words is Creation’s Transfiguration. Creation’s Salvation. Take. Bless. Break. Share. Take. Bless. Break. Share. Lay down the life of Empire. Take up the Life of Love. 7/31/2023 Will God get what God wants?Buckle up buttercup. We are going to talk about big ideas today. Let’s go.
We need to start with who God is and what God is about. For each of us, this foundational understanding of God controls how we hear Scripture and how we live out our faith. For me God is LOVE and LOVE is the force that has created all things and all people. And LOVE’s mission, God’s vision and purpose—what God wants—is for all that has been created to live in right relationship with one another and with God because everyone and everything living in right relationship with each other and with God is the key to a flourishing and ongoing Creation. Are you with me so far? Beloved, I also believe that God is going to get what God wants because I believe there is no greater power than God. There is no greater force than Love. If somehow my understanding of God includes that some of Creation is not going to be part of salvation, then I am saying there is some force that is greater than God’s love. That something can actually “win” over God’s love. Still with me? So that brings me to the parable of the net in today’s Gospel reading. Growing up I was taught that when we die, if we are good we go to heaven, and if we are bad, we will go to hell. Therefore, this parable of the net in today’s Gospel would mean that bad people—people who do not follow God—will go to hell. They’re out. While us who do believe in God get to go to heaven (at least if we do a good enough job, right?). And yes, sure, it’s not our role to do the separating—that’s clearly God’s work—but there’s still going to be some who are in and some who are out. AND somehow—all this work of getting it right and being my best version who follows God perfectly—that all has to happen between my birth and my death. I have to get it right before I die. Still with me? Beloved, today I am inviting us to ditch this understanding of the parable, and to throw out this understanding of God and God’s kindom Kingdom and allow a different understanding to take hold of our hearts. And here’s why: If faith–if loving God and following Jesus–is about being good enough before we die in order to get into heaven, and if you aren’t then you are banned to hell—-then God is not going to get what God wants. Some of Creation will not be restored to right relationship. If this understanding is true then some of Creation is expendable. And I guess Jesus is just kidding when he says ALL. When, in chapter 10 of the Gospel of John Jesus says: "You need to know that I have other sheep in addition to those in this pen. I need to gather and bring them, too. They’ll also recognize my voice. Then it will be one flock, one Shepherd. “ And then in the 17th chapter of John Jesus says: “...that they all may be one…I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one….”. And let’s not forget in Genesis, chapter 1 when God declares that all of Creation is good, very good. If parts of Creation are expendable—if some people are not going to be part of salvation—restored to right relationship with God and each other—then God does not get what God wants and there must be a stronger force than the Love of God in this world. Deep breaths, now, and let’s do some more unpacking. Beloved, first of all, Heaven is not a destination; Heaven is not a reward. Heaven is wherever God is; heaven is dwelling with God. It isn’t a future promise. It is a present reality. More than once Jesus says: The Kingdom of heaven is near. Sometimes it is the Kingdom of God in Scripture, but Matthew really liked to call it the Kingdom of heaven. Now, Jesus doesn’t say: The kingdom is coming; Jesus says "The kingdom has drawn near." Because God’s kindom kingdom is always within our reach. Heaven, Beloved, is always at our fingertips. And when we follow Jesus, when we follow the way of Love, we are the seed that grows large enough to nest all the birds. All those who need shelter and homes and food to eat. God does the planting, our work is to grow and become. And remember, a seed dies to what it was and becomes something else. The husk falls off the seed, and the new life of the plant breaks through and works its way out of the soil and becomes a new thing. Becoming requires change, and change requires loss and struggle, and it’s hard and it usually hurts. Talk about weeping and gnashing of teeth. No wonder. Next, Jesus tells us, in the Kindom Kingdom, God is the woman who leavens the dough—mixing leaven into the the flour, to make a lot of bread. In fact, in this parable, there’s enough flour to make enough bread for a wedding feast. God is the cook; we are the leaven, the love that activates the dough to become nourishment for all the guests. And then we move to those other stories Jesus tells us about the kingdom. What if, Beloved, what if we are the treasure and God is the one who sells everything to keep us? Imagine if this is how the Kindom Kingdom works. We are the treasure….. And what if, Beloved, we are the Pearl and God is the merchant who gives up everything to have us. Let that sink in a moment. You are the pearl of great price; you are the treasure and Love seeks to find you, be with you, give everything for you. And me. And every person, part and parcel of Creation. That’s the Kindom Kingdom. That’s how God works; that’s the story of Jesus. Love one another as I have loved you……Marinate in that for a moment. Now, let’s get back to that net parable. Following this way to look at the parables, God, then, is the one who gathers us all up, the net: “I need to gather and bring them, too. They’ll also recognize my voice. Then it will be one flock, one Shepherd.” And the messengers of God (that’s what the word angel means) God’s workers, God’s servants will be the agents who remove the evil from the gathered—or in other words: release us from whatever keeps us from living love, being love, sharing love. (and yes, beloved—that’s change, that’s loss, that’s death, and all that hard business certainly leads to weeping and gnashing of teeth). Still with me? This being freed from evil, being freed from sin does not happen by magic. God doesn’t simply cast a spell and make it so. Nor does God use fear to demand compliance. This is not God’s character. Even though there are Scriptures that would have us believe that. Right? There are plenty of passages written by faithful people who were trying to describe how they experience God, how they understood God to act in the world. They describe God as angry, as almost spiteful—only on the side of the righteous and working to put an end to the unrighteous. That version of God, that understanding of God, is in the Bible. But if that version is completely accurate: Why Jesus? Why do we have Jesus—this One who comes and asks us to realign how we understand God and the Law and what God asks of us. If Jesus is God-in-the-flesh, as we profess, if Jesus is a human who shows us how to be a God-centered human, then we may need to reject those past understandings of God as vengeful and spiteful and angry and war-mongering. Because Jesus is not that. Ever. When faced with the possibility to right the wrong through violence, Jesus always refuses. Even on the cross. And when the merchant found one very precious pearl, he went and sold all that he owned and bought it. Instead, in Jesus, this God-in-the-flesh, we see that God frees us from evil, from sin, by living in a new way. God doesn’t free us through fearful compliance, but by love. By loving us enough to give us the choice. God shows us, in Jesus, what love looks like, what it costs, and the resurrection it provides, the new life it gives. We are freed from the grasp of evil when we choose to live and follow love. After all, that’s the command: Follow me. Live this way. Love one another. Forgive one another. The kindom kingdom has come near. Beloved, this life of faith isn’t fire insurance. It’s life insurance, love insurance. God isn’t watching to see who needs to be tossed out; Paul tells us nothing can separate us from the love of God. Not even death. And here’s the other unpacking that needs to happen: we don’t have to get it all right before we die. It isn’t game over when we take our last breath. If it were, why does Jesus descend into hell after he dies? Why is that part of our Good News if it is not to offer to those who are still distant from God a pathway back to right relationship with God and all of Creation? And not to mention that we claim to be an Easter people—ones who believe in life after death, the resurrection. Why would we think that God cannot act after we die, that we cannot change after death? And then, again, there’s this: For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God…” Perhaps Lutheran pastor, Nadia Bolz-Weber, said it best: "If you have been told that God is some kind of punishing, angry bastard with a killer surveillance system who is basically always disappointed with you for being a human being then you have been lied to. The church has failed you and I am so sorry." 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 |
AuthorJane Johnson is the pastor and priest of the Beloved Community of Intercession Episcopal and Redeemer Lutheran. Archives
January 2025
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