Ring in the New

                When I was a child of 12 or so years, I earned the esteemed and highly coveted position of bell-ringer at First Congregational Church in Moline (IL). The position was usually filled by boys, because it was heavy and messy work (it involved climbing crude wooden steps to a dirty, dusty, cobwebby bell tower, not something to be done in “girly clothes”), but my brother held the position before me and I learned the ropes from him. One rope, actually. You had to pull hard but once you got going you could ride the rope up off the ground, and that was exhilarating!

                That was just one of several church-related jobs I have held over the years. Another was baby-sitter to the children of our Associate Pastor and his wife, Bob & Julie Ullman, a job I sometimes shared with my sister. One New Years’ Eve when we were babysitting, Bob and Julie returned home before midnight and Bob offered to drive us down to church, to climb the bell tower and ring in the New Year! All along that river city, bells were ringing, from First Congregational and First Presbyterian, and First Lutheran, St. Mary’s… all the churches that still had bells in towers.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

                These lines, penned by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, are part of a much longer work, “In Memoriam,” published in 1850. The previous years had not been kind to Tennyson. For more than a decade, he had been mourning the loss of his close friend from college days. The one good thing, the love of his life to whom he had been engaged to be married, was lost to him: her family broke off the engagement when Tennyson lost the fortune he had inherited. Grief, heartbreak, diminished circumstances—no wonder he wrote “Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.”

                Of course we know nothing is really dying. We are turning a page, hanging a new calendar on the wall. January 1, 2012 will look very similar to December 31, 2011. But we pause to acknowledge the passing of time, perhaps to shed a tear for missed opportunities, perhaps to raise a parting glass in memory of those whom we have lost. And perhaps we will raise another, to life, to hope, to promise.

                What I sense most of all in Tennyson’s verses is release. “In Memoriam” seems to mark the end of grieving, a final relinquishment of mourning. Is it the poet’s declaration of independence from despair? Perhaps it is. Perhaps it is an invitation for hope to enter in.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be. 

So be it. Amen.

                You can read more of “Ring Out, Wild Bells” here.

God and Material Engagement Theory

Here’s how my brain works:

One day last week, while driving from one place to another, I caught a snippet of an opinion piece on the radio. It was about resisting the ludicrous material excesses of the end-of-year holidays—all the time spent shopping and the money spent procuring just the right things to give to our friends and family, things which would be forgotten and possibly discarded before the thawing of the frozen ground. The voice on the radio suggested we cut the number of gifts we give in half. Use some of the money we would have spent on gifts to make a donation to a charitable organization that does some good in the world, like Heifer International. How very Puritan, I thought. Who is this guy, preaching the gospel like he invented it?

I found the answer on the National Public Radio website. This guy is Adam Frank, who authored a book called About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang. A couple of clicks later I was previewing the book on Amazon.com, and I noticed frequent use the phrase “material engagement.” So I “searched inside the book” as Amazon allows and discovered seventy-one results. That seemed significant. That led me to Google “material engagement,” and after I filtered out “fabric” and “weddings” I discovered Lambros Malafouris and Colin Refrew at Keble College, Oxford Univeristy, and soon I was in too deep.

So, paddling back to the shallower pools of Adam Frank (no offense intended), I pondered the phrase “material engagement.” It struck me because even though it is still Advent, my brain has long been contemplating Christmas and Epiphany, and God’s incarnation. Which is, it seems to me, God’s material engagement with the cosmos. The theological leap from the God who could not be seen face-to-face, whose voice could not be heard but through the prophets, who could only be addressed through the rituals the temple, to a God who is present in the person of Jesus—that leap requires a new theory of God. If God who spoke to no one face-to-face could suddenly be present in human form, that means God changed the rules of engagement with God’s creation, from immaterial engagement through dreams and visions, to material engagement in human flesh. What the church calls “incarnation,” God getting fleshy, could also be called God’s praxis of material engagement.

So what? Well let me tell you what. Many people live as if the material world doesn’t matter. Many of these people even consider their point of view to be Christian. What really matters, they say, is what is in your heart, what you believe. As long as you accept Jesus into your heart and believe, really believe, then you are saved. Saved from what? From this dirty world, which will be destroyed. And they proceed to excel the rate of destruction, because their engagement with the world is based on the assumption that mater doesn’t matter, or worse, that mater is evil.

That’s just messed up.

If God created the world, and loved the world enough to become materially engaged in the world, then everything—every last thing—has holy potential. Our own praxis of material engagement should be informed by God’s praxis of material engagement. If God was present in the person of Jesus, then God is potentially present in every person. If God slept in a manger in Bethlehem, then God is potentially present in every barn, every favela, every shanty town and shelter. If God walked the back roads of Galilee and the streets of Jerusalem, then every country lane from Mississippi to Mozambique to Myanmar and all around the world is highway in the Holy Land; and every city street is potentially a street in the City of God. If God bathed in the Jordan River, then every river… you get the drift, right?

How can we despise anyone who is potentially God? How can we abandon the streets of God’s city? How can we remove the mountain of God’s presence?

If we believe, really believe, or reluctantly believe or even entertain the possibility for a moment, that God is present in the world, then how should we live? Think about it.

Christ of the Carols: Child of God, Love's Pure Light

December 4, 2011

Text: Silent Night, Holy Night

When I was in elementary school, I remember seeing an educational film about the story of the song, Silent Night. The dramatic recreation of events was set in a small village in Austria and filmed in black and white. You probably know the story as well as I do, how the organ in the village church broke down, and no one could be found to repair it. So the Choir Master, Franz Gruber, and the Pastor, Joseph Mohr, collaborated on a simple hymn which could be accompanied by guitar.

It is a tale of adversity was transformed into advantage. Which is probably why it has become an American favorite. We like our legends of adversity overcome. We like to imagine that if it weren’t for the apparently unfortunate circumstance of the organ that went kaput, the song might never have been written. God works in a mysterious way, wonders to perform.

The thing is, no one can find an account of this story that predates 1965.

The hymn was written in 1818.

So this dramatic account is probably a complete fiction.

And yet, we know this is true: God does work in a mysterious way. God does turn disappointment into blessing, time and time again. And that is why the broken organ story will last. Because whether or not it actually happened that way, it is a true story. The story is not truth, but the story is a container ship of truth. It is the vessel that carries a truth into the future.

And that is why the stories of Christ’s nativity are so precious. They need not be factual to be true. We don’t need to pretend to suspend our disbelief in a virgin birth.  We don’t have to pretend to suspend our disbelief  that a star could guide travelers to one particular house among many, or that we could call men “wise” who thought that it did. We don’t have to pretend not to notice that Matthew and Luke’s gospel tell completely different stories of Jesus’ birth, and that two of the gospels don’t mention it at all. Because the truth of the story is not in the details. The story holds the truth. And it is a beautiful vessel for the truth. It is a story richly embroidered, lovingly crafted, polished to shine like gold.

The hymns and carols of Christmas similarly vessels of a truth, a faith, a devotion passed from generation to generation.  Still nacht, heilege nacht, Alles schlaft, eimsam wacht nur das traute hochheilege Paar, holder Knabe mit lockigen Haar, Schlafen in himmlishe ruh. Silent night, holy night, everyone sleeps, no one is awake except the faithful, holy few. The beautiful boy with the curly hair sleeps in heavenly rest.

Anyone who has spent a night with a newborn knows that the heavenly rest could not have lasted long! But don’t sweat the details, because that is not where the truth is found. The truth is that Jesus, like every baby, is born into a world that, for all its faults, becomes holy to those gathered around for the event. Time seems to stop, and for a moment there is no one in the world except mother and child, looking into one another’s eyes for the first time. The rest of the world might as well be asleep.

The truth is that generations of Christians have found in the person of Jesus a God-presence so powerful, so complete, that their devotion found expression in stories and songs that identify that presence as extending retroactively through childhood and into infancy. And so Jesus, the Man of God, became Jesus the infant Child of God. And our hymn for today is a song of praise to the Child of God, love’s pure light. Let us join with our brothers and sisters in Christ in all ages in this song of praise. 

Christ of the Carols: Hail, the Heaven Born Prince of Peace!

Text: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

                To rise up and sing—this is one of the most ancient and most natural forms of worship. According to our scriptures, when the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea from slavery into freedom, once they had made it to the safer shore, Moses’ sister Miriam picked up her drum and began to sing and dance, and all the people joined her. Across cultures, around the world, people express their highest joy and their deepest sorrow in music.

                In the New Testament too, possibly the oldest verses are found in the Philippian hymn. Paul’s letters predate the gospels—you know that, right? And within Paul’s letter to the Philippians he quotes a hymn that might represent one of the first hymns of the first Christians, and the first attempt at Christology (which is one big word that stands in for many. Christology is about making sense of who Christ is in relation to God).

                In this letter, Paul was trying to correct some bad behavior that resulted from dissention among the church of the Philippians. He said, stop your quarreling. Stop acting all superior. That part is a paraphrase, here is the actual quote:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God,

   did not regard equality with God

   as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

   taking the form of a slave,

   being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

   he humbled himself

   and became obedient to the point of death—

   even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him

   and gave him the name

   that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus

   every knee should bend,

   in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue should confess

   that Jesus Christ is Lord,

   to the glory of God the Father.

And that is possibly the first hymn of the Christian church. Many thousands, or millions more were to follow. Charles Wesley, to whom Hark the Herald Angels Sing is attributed, wrote 6,000 hymns in his lifetime.

Actually, the hymn as it is presented in our hymnal bears only a slight resemblance to the original, by which I do not mean the Pilgrim Hymnal version, because that one too is several contributors and editors removed from Wesley’s original version, “Hark How the Welkin Sings,” published in 1739, almost 300 years ago.  But, that was a common problem pre-copyright law. Once published, an author’s work went viral (as we say now); people picked it up and reworked it and published their own versions. Wesley’s hymn was tweaked a bit more a century later to fit with Mendelssohn’s melody. So what we have today is more than just a Wesleyan hymn, it is a hymn of the church. With apologies to ASCAP, and a nod to Wikipedia, sometimes a collaborative effort produces a better product.

                So, let’s look not so much at Wesley’s original but at the “canonical version” of the hymn, the version we have before us. The first verse is easy to parse; it is of course a retelling of that bit in the second chapter of Luke’s gospel about the shepherds seeing angels who praise God and say “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will to all people!” And then the hymn invites us all to join in with the angel’s song.

                The second and third verses are stuffed with Christological references. These verses identify Jesus as the “offspring of the Virgin’s womb,” and “Emmanuel,” and “Prince of Peace,” all references to Isaiah’s prophecy.  “Son of Righteousness” like “Son of Man” is another title given by the Hebrew prophets to identify the one who would come to restore the balance of justice, bring down the mighty and lift up the lowly and vindicate all who are oppressed. When we sing these titles we are celebrating the God of the oppressed. This is an invocation calling on the one who comes to destroy the rule of greed and violence, to replace it with a reign of peace. These titles, Prince of Peace, King of Kings, are political titles, and as such, would be as appropriately sung in an Occupy Wall Street rally, as in church. Maybe more so. When we use these titles and sing these verses we are making a political statement. Not a partisan political statement, mind you. God is not a Republican or a Democrat; God transcends all that. But by identifying Christ as the Prince of Peace we are identifying an ideal to which all leaders should be held accountable. All leaders will fail to live up to that ideal, but it is better to aim high and fail then to be aimless.

The concluding lines of the third verse are a reference to the same theme we found in Paul’s Philippian hymn—a confirmation that Jesus, though he was in the form of God, chose to be born in human form and was obedient unto death, and furthermore that somehow that obedience gives us eternal life. Mild, he lays his glory by, born that we no more must die. Born to raise “the sons of earth,” born to give us second birth. The Christ of the carol is one who does not grasp at crowns, but lives to serve, and serves to give life to others.

So let us be of the same mind, as we sing Glory to the newborn king, or as our newest version reads, “Glory to the Christ-child bring.”

The Table as Parable

Matt. 25:31-46

As we come to the end of the gospel of Matthew, we read parables which contrast the faithful and the wicked, the wise and the foolish, trustworthy and lazy, sheep and goats. These are parables of the Day of Judgment, when the human one will come and bring justice. What justice looks like in the 24^th and 25^th chapters of the gospel of Matthew is informed by what happens to Jesus in the 26^th and 27^th chapters. What justice looks like in the gospel of Matthew is also shaped by what was happening to the first century Christians for whom the gospel was written, and by the memory of Israel in exile, as recorded by the prophets.

A thread of violence is woven into these parables, and it is troubling to our liberal sensibilities. Usually, we gloss over it, ignore it, as one would politely ignore a flaw in someone else’s dress—a run in the stocking or a stain on the tie. It’s unsightly, you can hardly keep your eyes off it, but it would be rude to point it out. You have to be really good friends with someone to tell her that her bra strap is showing or his fly is open. It’s far too embarrassing to share that observation with a mere acquaintance.

Sometimes it’s like that with the bible too. Some parts of scripture are so embarrassing or so offensive, that we would just rather pretend we didn’t notice. But we are good friends with the scriptures so let’s be honest. Matthew says there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, fire, devils, and an eternal lockout. Hey, Matthew, what’s up with that?

We can only imagine the gospel’s answer, but as I said, the context gives us a clue, and the context is a violent world. If you have ever been in exile, if you have ever been in prison, if you have ever been falsely accused, betrayed by friends, beaten and mocked, then you know where the gospel writer is coming from. If you are a veteran of war, if you have been a prisoner of war, or if you have ever been a sole survivor of a battle, maybe you understand. For victims of violence, maybe rescue and relief are just not enough. For victims of violence, maybe justice is incomplete without retribution. It takes a great deal of psychological maturity and spiritual strength not to wish for retribution.

Scripture is a human creation. It is inspired and informed by thousands of years of life experience and a passion for God. Scripture does not speak with a single voice; it is a chorus of voices, sometimes in harmony and sometimes a cacophony. We believe that God is still speaking through the scripture and experience; and we have been given the discretion to sift through the scriptures to find the kernel of wheat among the chaff.

The parables of judgment tell of retributive justice. But other stories tell of another vision of justice. The story of the manna in the wilderness describes a distributive justice. Those who are lazy and those who are industrious, those who are obedient and those who are naughty all have enough to eat. Those who gathered much did not have too much, those who gathered little did not have too little.

The stories of Jesus on the hillside, breaking bread and sharing fish, are stories of distributive justice. Whether they came to hear Jesus or came just to eat, everyone had enough and more was leftover.

Holy Communion is also a parable. The parable of the table that we repeat on the first Sunday of every month is a reenactment of God’s distributive justice. When we come to this table we step into a numinous place: we step into God’s realm, where everyone is welcome, and everyone is fed, and we look forward to the day “when sharing by all will mean scarcity for none.” We rehearse our roles in God’s realm. Here we practice sharing, so that sharing will come naturally. Here we practice joy, so that joy will come naturally. Here we receive the presence of Christ so that we will recognize the presence of Christ when we step away from the table and out into the world.

At this table we embrace a vision of justice that means everyone eats. Everyone gets in, everyone has a place at the table. No one is cast out, no one suffers violence. Everyone has a table prepared in the presence of former enemies who are now friends, everyone’s head is anointed with oil and every cup overflows, and there is one flock, one shepherd and God of all.

Next step: Go and do likewise.

Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me: An Oddly Informative Sermon Quiz

23 October 2011

                I am not Peter Segel or Carl Kassel. I am not even Paula Poundstone. For three consecutive Sundays we have poked fun at ourselves through a spoof of the NPR news quiz, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. The skits were written by Erik Steen and enacted by our talented troupe of Stewardship Committee members. But today it’s just me, offering you one more opportunity to play the quiz. Whether win or lose, and I assure you, you can’t lose, you will be rewarded.

                So, here is your first multiple choice question in a game called “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Budget Meeting.” You will play as a group; shout out the answer when you think you know it.

                Other churches take their giving very seriously, but for the past three years at First Congregational, we have been celebrating the Stewardship season with comedy. The scriptural basis for this change in philosophy is

                A. From the book of Exodus, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s ass.” Because what could be funnier than that?

                B. From the Book of Genesis, “God has brought laughter to me, now everyone who hears will laugh at me,” which is what Sarah said when she found out she was pregnant at age 90.

                C. From Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, “The Lord loves a cheerful giver,” because the word translated cheerful is literally hilarious.

                That’s right, it is C. The context of the quote is that apparently the people of the church in Corinth had pledged to make a donation to the church in Jerusalem, which was suffering severe persecution, but they had not yet come through with the gift. Paul reminded them that the people from the much poorer community of Philippi had already made good on their pledge, so don’t let them make you look bad. But no pressure, don’t let me guilt trip you, for the Lord loves a cheerful, or in the Greek language of the day, “hilarious” giver.  At First Congregational we have been testing the limits of hilarious by poking fun at our relationship with wealth.

                Actually, there is another scriptural basis for this change from somber to silly. It is the first commandment, “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other Gods before me.” We rarely think about the commandment against idolatry as relating to money. But what else threatens to take the place of God in our lives? The pursuit of wealth is a national pastime, if not a national obsession. As the folktale, The Emperor’s New Clothes, reminds us, the best way to upset a pompous ruler is to laugh at him. By laughing about our relationship with wealth, we make profane what wants to be sacred.

                Next question: At First Congregational United Church of Christ we encourage members to pledge to the General Fund, which is for all the operating expenses of our local church. We also encourage you to give a “tip” to OCWM; like figuring the tip for your server at Applebees, move the decimal one place to the left and add that on to the bill. Ten percent to OCWM which stands for:

                A. Owls, Crows, Wrens and Mallards: a consortium of bird charities.

                B. Old Codgers of Wrestle Mania: a retirement fund for Jesse Ventura types.

                C. Our Church’s Wider Mission, the basic support for the United Church of Christ.

                Too easy, I suppose. The gifts that you give to Our Churches Wider Mission are forwarded to the Minnesota Conference of the United Church of Christ. The Conference keeps a portion for their ministries, and forwards the rest to the national office of the United Church of Christ in Cleveland Ohio. In Minnesota, our Conference provides training and support for clergy and for churches in transition, hosts an annual meeting so we can have fellowship with other United Church of Christ congregations in our state, and brings church members together for cooperative ministries of justice and witness, outdoor ministries, and other ministries that we can do better together.

                The Cleveland office coordinates the ministries of Conferences, and provides resources to congregations. We have offices of Communication and Publication, Stewardship, Education, and Global Ministries, to name a few. Our gifts to Our Church’s Wider Mission help share the good news of God’s stillspeaking voice, all around the world.

                Final Question: How much should I, personally, pledge to the church?

                A. You are our pastor, you give your whole life, we don’t expect you to pledge!

                B. Ten percent of your gross income.

                C. The national average: 1.5% of your net income.

Or           D. Work it out for yourself, prayerfully.

                The answer for me and for everyone is D. Being a pastor does not exclude me from the joy of giving. Generosity is a Christian virtue, it is one of the virtues we all must practice, like prayer, and service, and patience and gentleness.

                Some churches do expect their members to give ten percent of their income (gross or net, I’m not sure which). But we are not biblical literalists in any other matter, so we certainly aren’t going to be legalistic on this point. Some people may be able to give more than 10%. Others may struggle to reach the nation’s average rate of generosity, 1.5% of their annual income.

                Each year, I hope to be able to grow in generosity as well as in other spiritual gifts. We each have to work it out for ourselves, considering our responsibility to care for ourselves, our families, and others.

                Well, that’s all for today’s quiz. You are 3 for 3, so you have won a fabulous prize: a pancake breakfast, served by members of the Stewardship committee to thank you for your faithfulness!

Out of the Depths I Cry: The Birth of the Blues

I got one of those forwards today, that I usually don't read, but I guessed where it was going, and I knew I would have to reply. The email attributed the hymn "Precious Lord" to the big band leader Tommy Dorsey. WRONG! Thomas Dorsey and Tommy Dorsey were both musicians but the similarity ends there. So it must be time to reprint this sermon, from the Wednesday Lenten series on Songs of our Faith. First preached in 2004.

            This Lenten Season our Wednesday night services will focus on the music of our faith, the beloved hymns of the church. Tonight, the featured hymn is “Precious Lord Take My Hand,” by Thomas Dorsey, a blues musician who became “the father of Gospel music."

I have included in this service the recitation of a psalm, because the psalms contain the oldest hymns of the faith. The Book of Psalms is the hymnbook of the bible. Psalm 130 is one of many psalms of lament. Psalms of lament are honest, unguarded expressions of grief, and yearning. The psalms of lament, like The Blues, were born of suffering, captivity, enslavement. The people of the psalms were enslaved in Egypt, and held captive in Babylon; the people of the Blues were slaves in these United States, and captives to the laws of segregation. The dehumanizing effects of slavery and deprivation gave birth to the blues. It wasn’t the breeze in the trees singing sweet melodies after all. The Blues was born of suffering.

             At the beginning of the 20^th century, music was as segregated as everything else in American society. There were separate washrooms and separate drinking fountains and separate neighborhoods and separate hospitals and separate churches. And folks had their own separate music, and separate places to get together and enjoy music.

            In our separate churches, we had our separate music, the churches of black America singing the spirituals in call and response style, songs which came from the merger of the faith of the new land with the rhythm of the homeland. The churches of white America were singing songs of praise to the tunes of classical European composers. Like today, churches then were slow to change, and though folks might sing the blues or listen to country music on Saturday night, they wouldn’t think of singing that same kind of music on Sunday morning. It would be unseemly.

            So when “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” was first published (in 1932) by the well-known blues musician, Georgia Tom, folks though it was “too secular” for church, too sensual. Thomas Dorsey, who had been a minister’s son but had strayed from the flock, and sought after the things of the flesh, could not possibly be up to any good. Folks thought this must be his way of trying to lure people into the speak-easies by introducing them to his music in church.

            But Thomas Dorsey’s faith was sincere, and the song, which was born of the grief of losing his wife and child, endured, and it has touched the hearts of generations of the faithful. “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” expresses the need we all feel for the Savior’s touch, in times of darkness and doubt and pain. It is a song for the world-weary, sick woman reaching out to touch the hem of his garment. It is a song for and by the prodigal son, wishing to return home, but uncertain of the welcome.

Thomas Dorsey’s return to the faith of his childhood was complete, and it transformed the church. The Blues Musician became the Father of Gospel Music, which is a style bright and hopeful. Gospel is Blues music infused with hope, and lifted by the faith that God will work all things together for good, in time.

“Precious Lord, Take My Hand” became a source of strength when the civil rights movement began. When protesters were jailed and beaten, this song was sung by supporters outside the prison. The song was sung by Mahalia Jackson at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr., and by Aretha Franklin at Ms Jackson’s funeral a few years later.

This is the song that I find myself singing, when tired, weak and worn, and it always lifts me up. Thanks be to God for this gift of music. Let us sing.

Love is the Maple Syrup; Gratitude is the Pitcher

16 October 2011

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Away We Go is a movie about Burt and Verona, two thirty-something professionals who go on a road trip to find home, that is, to find just the right place to raise the daughter they are expecting (Verona is hugely pregnant), staying with friends and family as they go. I stole a line from this movie for my sermon title. In Montreal, Burt and Verona stay with college friends Tom and Munch, and their four children. Late at night, after putting the kids to bed the four are at a diner together talking about life and love and marriage and children, and Tom, to illustrate a point, makes a house of leftover pancakes for sugar cube Burt and Verona and their baby, and he says:

“Look at that, is that a home? Is that a family?”

“Yeah,” Burt replies.

“NO!” Tom counters. “That’s just the raw materials. The people, the walls the furniture, that’s just stuff. That’s not a home. That’s not a family. What binds it all together is this.” And he holds aloft a pitcher of maple syrup.

“This is Love. Your patience, your consideration, your better selves. Man, you just have no idea how good you can be. But you have to use all of it. All of it…. The love, the wisdom, the generosity. The selflessness. The patience. Patience.”

And Tom continues to pour maple syrup all over the pancake house until it fills the platter and overflows onto the table.

Love is the maple syrup, the mortar, the glue, the stuff that transforms people into family, and a house or apartment into a home. Love is the stuff that sticks us together.

But what holds the love? What keeps it from dissipating into thin air or spilling all over the floor? Love is like a liquid; it takes the shape of its container—a pitcher, a bottle, a thimble—a person. A person who cannot communicate love is like a pitcher without a spout or a corked bottle that can’t be opened. There may be goodness inside, but, it has to come out somehow to do any good.

Don’t be like Olie, who loved Lena so much, he almost told her. (Ba-da-bump, cha!)

A man named Gary Chapman wrote a book several years ago expounding on five languages of love, and they aren’t English, French, Spanish, German and Italian. No, they are the languages of physical touch, acts of service, giving and receiving gifts, the language of presence, and words of affirmation. Some of us are more conversant in one of these languages; of course it is best to be multi-lingual in love.

The apostle Paul was particularly good at speaking the love language of affirmation, by expressing his gratitude for the people to whom he wrote his letters. “We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, remembering your faithfulness.” (I Thes)

“I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you….” (Philippians)

“I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.” (Ephesians)

The bonds of love between the apostle and the congregation were strengthened by these words of gratitude. Each was reminded of the other’s faithfulness. Gratitude is the pitcher or the spout through which the love flows. Love builds up the church, strengthens the body of Christ, and cements the relationships of brotherly and sisterly affection between members. Paul was writing about the church, but of course, the same is true for families.

I know that I often take my family for granted. I was reminded of this by my Korean foreign exchange student, fifteen-year-old Min Young, whom we hosted several years ago. After dinner, every evening, as he stood to clear his plate, he offered a courtly little bow and thanked me for the delicious supper. Even when Richard did the cooking, he thanked me. It is probably something his mother and father insisted he do, and it was very sweet. It made me realize, however, how many times I had risen from the table without thanking anyone.

How simple it is to say “thank you.” Each word of gratitude is like a dollop of love, sweet goodness, sticking us together. A word of gratitude says: I see you; I know you; my life is better because of you. It’s not simply good manners: expressing gratitude is a spiritual discipline, which opens our eyes to the goodness and Godliness all around us.

Love is the maple syrup, gratitude is the pitcher with the spout that lets the love pour out over us, to stick us together. Love sticks us together and makes us family. Love sticks us together and builds us into the body of Christ, the church.

Because God has poured love over us, we have love to share, a pitcher that is never empty. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Blessings Overflow

Sunday, October 9
Psalm 23; Luke 6:27-38

                About 10 years ago, when looking for ways to economize, I convinced my husband to let me cancel the cable. I knew this would be harder for him than it would be for me. I wasn’t sure what he would do on Sunday afternoons without the Golf Channel. I was looking forward to weekday afternoons without the struggle to unplug my 10 year old from Digimon and plug her into her math homework. I was expecting tears, I was prepared for arguments, I was looking forward to saving $50/month.

                What I wasn’t expecting was immeasurable blessing, from one so-called sacrifice. After the adjustment, after the tears and the arguments, came an unanticipated peace that was more than the absence of noise. It was contentment. Without television, we were no longer reminded of what we lacked; we were no longer driven by images of what we should want. It’s not just the advertising, it’s the programming itself, the glittering images that cannot compare with unpolished, unproduced reality. In the absence of screen entertainment we discovered blessings all around.

                “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” We are so familiar with the Psalm that we fail to recognize the radical message, the counter-cultural world it proposes. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. I shall not need. I have it all, already. Green pastures, still waters, restoration for the soul. A banquet table, a luxuriant anointing, an overflowing cup. Goodness and mercy. This is abundant blessing.

                The beatitudes of Jesus, “Blessed are the poor, the hungry, those who mourn,” might be a sermon on Psalm 23, a meditation on God’s faithfulness. In the gospel of Luke, the beatitudes are followed by this promise of abundance: the measure you give will be the measure you get, pressed down, shaken together, running over… running over, like that cup in the psalm. Cups running over, grain spilling into your lap.

                Sometimes, our preoccupation with our wants robs us of our sight. We become blind to the blessings that overflow. So now, I want to lead you in an exercise (adapted from David Lose, “Dear Working Preacher” Oct. 2, 2011) which I hope will help the scales fall from our eyes.

1. Take your pink bulletin insert. Turn it over. On the blank side, divide the sheet into two columns.

2. Write down in one column five to ten blessings for which you are most grateful.

3. In the other column, write down five to ten things you want or lack.

4. I don’t think God is insensitive to our wants. But we like children, sometimes want things inappropriately-- like the 14 year old who wants a car, or like the five year old who wants a horse. Sometimes we want impatiently, and sometimes we want magically. What we want may be exactly what we need; and if that is the case I am confident that in time, all will be supplied.

Bearing all that in mind, consider the question: If you could have everything on one list and nothing on the other, which would you choose?  Have you any doubt now, that the Lord is your shepherd, you shall not want?

 “A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap….” Thanks be to God.

Count Yourself Blessed

Sunday, October 2, 2011

I was a very quiet child. I liked the luxury of solitude. For the youngest of three children, solitude was a luxury. I enjoyed those wonderful days when I got to go to grandma’s house by myself, without my brother or sister and without my cousins, when I was left on my own to discover the wonders of Aunt Gerry’s room or grandma’s pantry. Sometimes grandma’s friends or neighbors would stop by and because I was such a quiet child, they sometimes forgot I was there. And they got to talking as if there wasn’t a child in the house.

I overheard a lot of things I wasn’t meant to hear, much of it unintelligible and mostly boring. One thing I learned about grown-ups is that they were not very happy most of the time. Or maybe, it just seemed that way because in Grandma’s parlor, or at her kitchen table, people felt free to tell her how they really felt. Sometimes, when someone finished their litany of complaints against the world, a long pause was followed by a sigh and someone would say, “Well, count your blessings.” Oftentimes, that was followed by a chuckle, and sometimes a confusing—to a five-year-old anyway—blend of laughter and tears together. And a little more hot water for your tea.

When I was a teenager, I was old enough to sit at the table in grandma’s kitchen and recite my own litany—my list of disappointments, my case against my parents, my sister, Ronald Reagan, the universe, and everything. When I was finished, grandma would say. “Debbie (she’s the only person in the world allowed to call me Debbie so don’t even try it), you have to count your blessings. Now would you like some more hot water for that tea bag?”

But I was too young and far too earnest to laugh. The injustice of the world was too great to be eased by a little gospel, that’s what I thought at the time anyway.

            But the truth is, Jesus and grandma were right. All things must pass away… and all things have, including my parents, my sister, Ronald Reagan and grandma, and I miss (almost) all of them dearly.

            The apostle Paul wrote to the church: I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.  (Philippians 4:12)

            And the secret is in counting ourselves blessed, in any and all circumstances.

            Blessed are you who who are poor, for all God’s creation is yours. ‘Blessed are you who are hungry, for you will eat and be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep and mourn, for the time will come again when you will laugh. (Luke 6:20-21, paraphrased).

            Blessed are you when you are confused, for all things will become clear. Blessed are you when you are lost, for you will be found. Blessed are you broken hearted, for your heart will be mended. Blessed are you who have sorrow now, for you will rejoice.

            And I say to all who live and breathe: Count yourself blessed. Amen.

We Have Known Rivers; Rivers Have Known Us Too.

25 September 2011

Ezekiel 1:1-3 (by the Chebar the heavens were opened); Psalm 137:1-6 (by the rivers of Babylon)

Rev. 22: 1-5 (the river of the water of life); Matthew 3:13-17 (in the Jordan the heavens were opened) and

"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes

                When God began to create, the story goes, there was water, “the deep,” and the Spirit of God moved over the waters. Water is the basic element from which all else emerges. According to another story, the second thing God created was a garden, which was watered by a river, which flowed out from Eden in four directions and gave life to all the nations.

                Anthropologists have taught us, through our school books, that rivers created civilization: In the fertile crescent between the Tigris and the Euphrates people farmed. They no longer had to spend every waking moment hunting and gathering food, wandering ceaselessly. They could stay in one place, grow their food, domesticate their prey, build cities, make art, tell stories, sing songs. Rivers made us who we are today.

                We have known rivers. Our people have known rivers. By the Nile the Hebrew slaves built the storehouses of Pharaoh and called out to God in their agony. Moses turned that river to blood to demonstrate the power of God. The Jordan River stopped to let the children of those slaves cross through it, to enter into their promised land, and soon after that same river carried the blood of Jericho’s dead. By the rivers of Babylon our people sat down and wept when their tormentors demanded entertainment; and the rivers of Babylon heard their call for vengeance. Rivers have seen us at our worst. And still rivers brought us life, the water of life, fed us and washed us and watered our fields and our cattle.

                Rivers have also witnessed our communion with God. It was by the river Chebar in Babylon that Ezekiel saw the heavens opened; and in the Jordan River Jesus saw the heavens opened, and the hand of God was upon each in his own time and place.

                In our call to worship I mentioned two other rivers that witnessed our faith history. It was on the Humber River, near Hull, that the Pilgrim congregation waited for the opportunity to cross the North Sea to Holland; and it was in Leiden, on the Rheine they found refuge.

Consider the river which runs through our town. We are here in this place because of that river, because the men of the northern railroad decided here was a good place to build a crossing. We’ll need a town there. It will need churches. And because they were New Englanders, they said amongst themselves, let’s establish both kinds of churches—Congregational and Episcopalian. And here we are to this day, worshipping on the same lot given to our people one hundred and almost forty years ago, by the men who decided that here was a good place for the railroad to cross the river.

                If that river could talk, what would it say about how we have treated it, and each other, over the years? We owe that river our life, but we hardly notice it, as we cross over it in our cars day in day out. Like God, in a way. The mater and matrix-- mother and medium-- of life, God provides the gift of life and witnesses the best and worst of our aspirations and misdeeds, and we live and move in God hardly noticing how precious and precarious is life, until we do.

                The river gives us a clue once or twice in a lifetime or so, that we shouldn’t take its power for granted. When it floods its banks, or runs dry, then we notice, then we realize, that what we do to the river we do to ourselves.  Then we realize that our actions have ultimate consequences, for us and for generations after us. Then we realize that we owe the river our life.

                And the river is a metaphor for God, a flowing, living, life-giving metaphor for the one who gives us life, who carries us along in our little bulrush baskets, who receives our tears and absorbs our blood and cleanses our wounds and quenches our thirst and waters our fields and receives our dead and gives us life and repeats the cycle endlessly, from creation to new creation, eternally flowing, never spent. Blessed be the river, the water of life, and the source, now and evermore, Amen.

Bread in the Desert

18 September 2011

Exodus 16:2-15; Matthew 15:29-38

Last week I mentioned briefly how the gospel of Matthew is a value-added gospel. I mean that the author or authors of the gospel elaborated on the source material that they had received, as they set it down in writing for a particular community of Christians in a particular time and place. For the other gospel writers, one miraculous feeding was sufficient, but not for Matthew’s gospel. The story I just read is the second feeding miracle in the gospel: a reprise of the feeding of the 5,000, this one set not on a hillside beside the sea but in the desert wilderness.

All of the additions to this gospel had a purpose. It wasn’t just to pad the gospel, to make it longer than all the other gospels; there was a theological purpose to the additional material. Like Matthew’s stories about Jesus’ birth, the feeding miracle was retold “to fulfill the scripture”—to connect Jesus to the prophets of the Hebrew scripture. The change in venue is significant-- bread in the desert—when was the last time the children of Israel received bread in the desert? This retelling casts Jesus as a prophet like Moses, the greatest prophet of all.

                As Moses himself had promised: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people….” (Deut. 18:15) Moses provided bread in the desert, Jesus provides bread in the desert, therefore, Jesus is a prophet like Moses. “Never since has there arisen a prophet like Moses,” (Deut. 34:10) until now.

                The manna story itself has an underlying purpose. The reason the story of the manna was told and retold and set in writing is because it said something true about God, something that was not simply true at the time, but something eternally true about the nature of God. In the desert wilderness, God provides.

                The wilderness is a scary place, if you are lost and alone with no provisions. The wilderness is even scarier when you are lost, and not alone, but you are there with people who are dependent on you. Some of you saw a new profile picture on my Facebook page, which Richard of me took when I was out in the Badlands with the youth group. In the picture I appear to be in a posture of meditation, and in fact I was, and some of my friends commented that I looked very peaceful. But I was not. Actually I was praying that I would not faint dead away out there, and spoil the trip for the children in my care. We were taken for a hike in the Badlands in the middle of the afternoon, in August, when no people in their right minds would go out there. But we went because it was on the program, and we trusted our guides, the staff at Re-member. When we arrived at this great cavernous bowl of dust, and I had already drank all my water, I thought, O my God they have brought us out here to kill us. Who are these people, really? What do we know about them? I am going to die here and my youth group is going to have to carry my body out. And that will just ruin their week.

                Though at the time I questioned the value of that trip into the wilderness, I really should be grateful for the insight into the states of mind of the Hebrew people in the wilderness. Who is this Moses? What do we know about him, really? Maybe he is a glassy-eyed megalomaniac, who brought us and our children out here in this wilderness to die. Pharaoh wasn’t so bad. Yes, we have the scars of the overseer’s whip on our backs, but we also had bread, and fruit, and water, and our children were safe. Pharaoh’s bread was better than no bread at all.

                Pharaoh’s bread was better, until there was bread from heaven. Moses sent the people out to gather up bread from heaven, every day, just enough for that day and no more. Every day except for the Sabbath, God’s day of rest, the people gathered bread from heaven.

                Eventually, forty years later so the story goes, the people entered the promised land, and they ate the bread of the land of Canaan that year, they ate the bread of the land that God had promised to their ancestors. All the manna ceased on that day, because manna is only for the wilderness.

                Many generations later, the descendants of the Hebrew slaves once again found themselves eating Pharaoh’s bread. Not Pharaoh’s, literally, actually it was Caesar’s bread. The wheat may have grown in their promised land, Caesar claimed it as his own. Caesar requisitioned it and redistributed it under his own brand name, so to speak, in the imperial bread dole. As long as conquered people remained loyal to Caesar, they could eat his bread. Rebel, and the bread dole ceases. Thus the empire was held under Caesar’s power, through bread, and the legions, bread and the sword.

                Jesus came like Moses to lead the people to freedom: to demonstrate that God still had the power and the will to provide bread in the desert, to make a way in the wilderness.

                This is true, and can be trusted. This is a story for our time. When people at the bread of their own land, when everyone had, so to speak, their own vineyards and their own fig trees, when we were self-sufficient, perhaps then we didn’t need this story so much. But now, we live in a land of foreclosures. We live in a land of broken homes and broken dreams. We are afraid that we might watch our children suffer. We are afraid that our children might see us suffer. We are shadows of our former selves, we are exiled from the land of plenty in which we used to live and we pine for the days of plenty. But the way forward is not backward. We step tentatively into an unknown future.

                And we bless bread, and break it, and share it with one another to remind ourselves and each other, that we don’t need pharaoh’s bread, or Caesar’s bread. We bless bread and we break it to tell each other something true about God: God provides bread in the desert, fountains in the wilderness. God provides. This is true, and can be trusted. Amen.

And Mercy, More Than Life

September 11, 2011
Matthew 18:21-35

How many times must I forgive a brother or sister? Peter asked Jesus. As many as seven times? That’s a lot. No, Jesus said, not seven times, and you can almost hear Peter begin to say “Whew.” Not seven times but seventy seven times, or seven times 70 times, or a bazillion times. Why? Because God’s forgiveness knows no limit. We forgive, because God has forgiven us.

Because, Jesus said, God is like this—and then he told a story. He told a story because people remember stories. We carry stories around inside ourselves. Sometimes we might forget a story until some clue calls it to mind, and we think to ourselves, gee, I haven’t thought of that story for years. But there it is. Like a lot of rabbis and prophets before him Jesus taught in stories. And here’s the story.

A king, or maybe we could say a banker, decided to call in his loans. One of his debtors owed him 10,000 talents, which in modern currency would be like you or I owing the bank a bazillion dollars. 10,000 talents is like 30 lifetimes of income-- an impossible amount. The debtor begged his creditor, have patience with me and I’ll pay you back every cent. This was a desperate lie. There was no way that he could pay the debt, unless he lived for about 2000 years.

In the prophetic tradition of parable-preaching, the king is and isn’t God—that’s the way it is with parables, it’s not a strict allegory. So the king is—and isn’t-- God, the servant is—and isn’t-- Israel, or we could say the church or the nation or all of us together. Everything we are, we owe to God. We could not possibly begin to repay God for the gift of life, for the earth our home, for the land and sky and sea and all the riches that we put to use as if they were our own. If God were to require payment, we would be in deep trouble. We could whine, plead, and try to make some desperate kind of deal, but really, we could never, ever pay for all that God has given us.

Fortunately, God doesn’t demand payment. Life is a gift. We are all benefactors of a generous God, a benevolent ruler, a merciful judge.

In the parable, after having been forgiven of this enormous, impossible, unpayable debt, after being saved from slavery along with his wife and children, the debtor, we’ll call him debtor #1, runs into a guy, we’ll call him debtor #2,  who owes him some money-- a lot of money, but not a ridiculous amount. 100 denari=100 days pay, so whatever 100 days pay is for you, we’ll say he owed that much. Debtor #2 begs for mercy, promises to pay the debt, which he could do. But the one who was shown mercy does not emulate his former creditor. Debtor #1 seems to forget immediately the mercy that he received, his brain is like a sieve, the memory of desperation and mercy and relief was there and then gone. Rather than forgive as he was forgiven, the unforgiving servant has debtor #2 thrown into prison.

I believe this is where Jesus ended the parable. But the author of the Gospel of Matthew seems to have been uneasy with open endings, and was always adding material, expanding and explaining parables. What’s the point of telling a parable if you’re going to explain it? But the author is a literary artist. Matthew’s conclusion to this passage puts a beautiful literary parentheses around the parable, frames the parable with these two phrases about forgiveness: Peter’s question “If a brother or sister sins against me” opens the parentheses and “if you do not forgive a brother or sister” closes it. Thus the parable is framed by our relationship to each other, as brothers and sisters, and by sin and forgiveness.

Every Sunday we pray “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” As if God’s forgiveness was conditioned upon our forgiving others. But according to the parable, it’s actually the other way around. God forgives us first. God has forgiven us our debt. We couldn’t begin to pay it anyway, but the least we can do in response to God’s mercy is to show mercy to others.

The quality of God’s mercy is not strained, as Portia testified in The Merchant of Venice. It pours down from heaven as the gentle rain. It is twice blessed, it blesses the one who gives as well as the one who receives. On earth as it is in heaven, earthly power is most like God’s “when mercy seasons justice.” When mercy seasons justice. I love that phrase.

As I remember 9/11/2001, the worst terrorist attack in the United States immediately inspired grace and mercy. I remember how strangers—even in New York, of all places (I like a lot of Midwesterners, had the idea that New York City is the last place on earth to look for kindness)-- helped each other find their way to safety. I remember that as some people ran from the cloud of dust as the towers fell, others ran toward it. I remember the generous expressions of sympathy from people all over the world.

But, I also remember how, in the days after 9/11, the cry for justice became a call to vengeance, and I remember how, as a nation, we disagreed over the measures of mercy and justice. We still disagree to this day, I know. Ten years later we still argue how things might have been different if only, if only…. Until we learn to forgive as we have been forgiven, to give as we have received from God, to show mercy as we have seen mercy, until then we live in a kind of hell of our own making. We torture ourselves.

On this tenth anniversary, I remember, and I hope that we can move into the future as better people, as people who have learned from the past and are ready to repent, as people who are ready to excel in showing mercy.

It is from the third verse of the hymn “America the Beautiful” that I take the title for this sermon, and it is my sincere hope that we may prove heroic in loving, and generous with mercy.

“O Beautiful, for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their county loved, and mercy, more than life. America, America, may God thy gold refine, ‘til all success be nobleness and every gain, divine.” May it be so. Amen.

Pulling Up Stakes

28 August 2011

Matthew 16:21-28

"If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

                Anyone who has attempted to make themselves understood in a second, acquired language knows the difficulty, and the importance of culture and context in making oneself understood. How many American exchange students in Germany have blundered, in an effort to communicate to their host family that their room is too warm, said: “I am hot—Ich bin heiss,” only to later realize that what they actually said was “I am enflamed with passion.” That would explain the Teutonic laughter.

                When we read scripture what we are actually reading is a translation of a transcript, which was itself translated and transmitted orally, so it is always possible that we have lost something in translation.

                “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” The idea of “taking up the cross,” and the phrase “my cross to bear,” have become commonplace in our language. So much so that we hardly give the phrase a thought. We think we know what it means: to endure something unpleasant, because God apparently requires suffering.

                As in, yes, my husband beats me, but that’s just my cross to bear.”

                Yes, I have an addiction, but that’s just my cross to bear.”

                As if there is something singularly redemptive in enduring suffering, and something selfish and sinful in standing up and casting it off.

                Well, I think that’s just messed up.

                The actual Greek phrase could mean take up your cross, and considering the death that Jesus died, in hindsight that translation seemed to make sense. But literally, it says “take up your stick,” or “pull up your stake” as in, “strike camp.” Pull up stakes, get ready to go, don’t get comfortable here. Get moving!

                Considering Israel’s history as a migrant people, following flocks and herds across the land, and considering that Jesus frequently used pastoral images, this interpretation seems just as likely as the traditional. And, even more so, considering how the Hebrew Scriptures emphasize the preservation of life. God moves to preserve life. When Joseph was reunited with his brothers in Egypt, he reflected how God was at work in his story, to preserve not only his life, but his brother’s lives, to save their lives and preserve their future. Throughout the arc of scripture, God intervenes to save life. But often saving life requires letting go of everything else, even, in Joseph’s case, freedom.

                I think “taking up your cross,” or pulling up stakes, is more about preserving life than losing it. Or rather, more about preserving life that is real life, casting off a half-life or a living death. It’s about being ready to give up certitude for truth, and comfortable slavery for untested freedom.

                What it looks like, in practice, is cutting the ties that bind us to abusive relationships, and stepping up and out into a new life. Abuse is no one’s cross to bear.

                What it might look like, in practice, for the one who suffers from addiction is confronting that addiction, which is not an essential part of who you are, but a demon to be vanquished or a parasite to be purged from your system. Addiction is no one’s cross to bear.

                What “pulling up stakes” looks like for each of us, we have to work out for ourselves, by asking, “What is it that holds me down? What is it that holds me back from life that is really life?” Ask not “What am I willing to die for,” but ask “What am I willing to live for until I die?”

                So let us contemplate what the Spirit is telling the church, about how to live. Amen.

Jesus Has a Problem with Authority

Text: Matthew 15:1-28

14 August 2011

I am not an angry girl
but it seems like I've got everyone fooled
every time I say something they find hard to hear
they chalk it up to my anger
and never to their own fear
                    --Ani Difranco, from “Not a Pretty Girl”

                When I first heard Ani Difranco sing these lyrics, about ten years ago I guess, I thought she had summed up my entire academic and professional career. Because, the men who taught feminist theology honored women with their speeches and lectures, but, rarely did the radical reassessment of culture actually cause a change in the institutions of the seminary or the church.

                For example, when I went to Eden Seminary, the ladies’ room still had urinals. Because there didn’t used to be a ladies’ room, it was a seminary, a school for men; and though there had been a steady stream of women students since at least the 1950’s, it apparently never occurred to anyone to adjust the restroom fixtures accordingly. Someone did, however, put some plastic ferns in the ladies’ room urinals to disguise them, but it was not a very good disguise. When we complained, the administration responded with, “What’s the big deal? Why are you so angry?”

                We weren’t angry. We were just doing what they taught us to do. We were applying a feminist hermeneutic of suspicion to the institution. We were pointing out the disconnect between what the institution said, “We welcome all students,” and what they did, or failed to do, which gave a distinctly different message, that message being “but in case this doesn’t work out we’ll still be able to use this as a men’s room.” Every day, every time we walked into the ladies’ toilet, we were reminded, “You really don’t belong here.”

                And since that time whenever I’ve pointed out the dissonance between mission and action, the response is always something sounding of irritation masked as concern: “Do you have a problem with authority?” I remember when the Iowa Conference, after declaring a conference-wide priority to encourage young families to be more involved at the conference level, then announced that they would no longer provide childcare at the annual meeting because it was not profitable. More recently, we read that our Conference Board of Directors imagines that in the future we will “grow younger” as a conference. This is the same Board that announced the plan to close our church camp, a significant place for ministry to children, youth and families. Remember how hard we had to work to make our voices heard? And remember how the board of directors responded with a patronizing attitude, saying something to the effect of, “If you only understood what we understand about our Conference finances you would make the same decision.” This is another way of saying, “Do you have a problem with authority? Don’t you trust the process?”

                No. I don’t trust the process. And yes, I have a problem with authority, like my Lord Jesus.         

                When Jesus criticized the Pharisees, they probably thought something like this: “Well he would say that being as he’s from Galilee. It’s a reflection on his class and his race (he’s practically a Samaritan!); it’s not a reflection on us. He’s got a problem with authority. Probably relates to some childhood or adolescent trauma.”

                “Every time I say something they find hard to hear, they chalk it up to my anger, and never to their own fear.”

                Interesting thing about this gospel lesson, even though Jesus could recognize hypocrisy in others, he couldn’t see it in himself, not right away, anyway. He criticized the Pharisees with one breath and in the next he cursed a woman who came to him for help, calling her a dog, and calling her child a dog. But she stood up for herself and she challenged him, and taught Jesus a lesson.

Thank God Jesus didn’t turn on her and say, “Girl, you have a problem with authority. Get back where you belong!”

                Jesus realized truth when he heard it. Jesus was not too full of himself to learn something from that woman, something about the righteous use of his own authority. Not to Lord it over her, but to serve and to heal. And that is what he taught his disciples, that the greatest of all must be the servant of all. Wonder where he learned that.

                So here is the challenge: Not just to apply the hermeneutic of suspicion to those we perceive as being above us, but to listen to those we think below us, and to apply the hermeneutic of suspicion to ourselves. When somebody says something we find hard to hear, why do we chalk it up to their anger, and never our own fear?

                I just returned from the Pine Ridge reservation, with the faith formation class. All week, we heard things that were hard to hear; things they never told us in high school history class. Not only about the massacre at Wounded Knee, not only about the small pox blankets and the decimation of the buffalo herds and the forced relocation and short rations. We also learned a lot about the consequences of doing what we think is right, without asking the people for whom we are ostensibly doing it-- the missions, the boarding schools, the housing clusters, the FEMA trailers. It seems like every time we try to intervene for good, we do bad, because we don’t know what we’re doing and we don’t bother to ask the people.

                 I hope we are beginning to learn from our mistakes. I hope we are beginning to have a problem with our own authority. I hope we are learning to listen to those who we thought had nothing to teach us.

We just returned from Pine Ridge. I believe we caught a glimpse of a new world, while we were there, working side by side with Lakota people. I hope we can share some idea of what the next world might look like, if we learn to listen to each other. Watch this.

Building a Straw-Bale House Youtube Video

God’s Place

24 July 2011

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

The kingdom of heaven as if someone should blow on a dandelion flower. A single seed floats on the breeze and takes root in the corner of the garden, and before you know it the whole lawn is covered in a Roundup resistant variety.

The kingdom of heaven is like Eurasian milfoil. By the time you notice it, the plant has taken over the lake. And the more you cut it, the more it grows.

The kingdom of heaven is like a zebra mussel….

When Jesus told these parables, the listeners knew that Jesus was comparing God’s kingdom to things which were noxious weeds, invasive species, and ritually unclean. We don’t really have a “ritually unclean” equivalent in modern society, but I think the hated zebra mussel comes the closest. Poor zebra mussel. It never meant to take over our lakes. It’s not as if some terrorist zebra mussel organization—the ZMLO-- planned an invasion…. A mussel’s got to do what a mussel’s got to do… whatever that is.

Same with milfoil and dandelions. It is in their nature to grow, to resist attack, to persist in growing and spreading abroad. Floating on the air, drifting through the water, as innocent as it is unstoppable.

Jesus was speaking to a people who were as weeds to the empire. Families, whole villages, were plucked up from their land forced to move elsewhere, or be crushed. Their ancestral lands were given to those who were deemed more appropriate: Roman settlers, soldiers and officers, the Vichy government or whatever its equivalent was—those who collaborated in their own country’s colonization.

So when they heard Jesus evoking the kingdom of God, not in the Holy temple or the ritually consecrated furnishings associated with it, but in the common, the base, the untouchable, the ritually unclean…. They knew he was talking about them.

The kingdom of God is not like the priests; the kingdom of God is not like the legions, the kingdom of God is like you. The presence of God is among you, the despised, the forgotten, the plucked up and the crushed. But like the yeast you rise. Like the weeds, you grow tall and strong. God is at work in you.

It was a scandalous joy! The way Jesus talked, it was a scandalous joy! Here is a rabbi talking about God among us. Scandalous! Joy!

Do you understand? Jesus asked. “Ye-es” the disciples said, but did they really? And do we? The church began as an underground movement. Small, poor, despised, afflicted, but growing, in spite of persecutions, it continued to grow. Because Christians saw the presence of God in the despised of the earth, and they reached out and cared for those who had no one else to care for them.

But as the church grew, and received the patronage of the empire that crucified Jesus, it began to emulate the empire, rather than God’s kingdom.

So we must tell each other these stories again and again, to remind ourselves of God’s place in the world. God is found in the last place we would look.

 As a church, we do a lot of good things. We go to the soup kitchen and feed people, we go out to the ends of the earth to bring health care and build shelter and serve. But never forget, that wherever we go, we do not “bring God;” God is already there. God has always been there. Among the weeds. Among the displaced. Among the uprooted, downtrodden and crushed, there is God. If we pay attention, we might see the kingdom of God in our midst.

Oh Yes, God Is In This Place

17 July 2011

Genesis 28:10-19a

Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24

When I was a child, I was under the impression that the characters mentioned in Bible stories were all good. Except for the ones who were obviously all bad, of course. Goliath was bad, David was good. Delilah was bad, Samson was good. There were heroes who were all good, and villains who were all bad. And the lesson was, be good. Obey your parents, stand up to bullies, be good as all God’s heroes are good.

So when I started to read the actual bible, not the children’s story bible, I was surprised to see what scoundrels my former heroes could be. Take the story of Isaac’s family. This family is worthy of its own reality show on MTV. Isaac seems to be in his own world, completely unaware or unconcerned with the relationship of people around him. Isaac and his oldest son Esau are tightly bound, share a love of blood sport and red meat. Manly  men. Isaac’s wife Rebecca and their younger son Jacob have a bond that seems to be built on their mutual jealousy of the relationship that Isaac and Esau have with each other. Rebecca devises a plan and Jacob carries it out, to rob Esau of his father’s blessing.

When our story begins, it is the end of the day that Jacob ran for his life. His mother invented an excuse for his departure, to give him time to get as far away from his justifiably angry brother as possible. After deceiving his father and disinheriting his brother and running away from his home, Jacob lies down for a fitful night of sleep.

And that is when he meets his God.

Which goes against everything I learned in Sunday school, which was that if you are very, very good, you will get to see God one day in heaven. And this is how to be good: Honor your father and mother, don’t lie cheat or steal.

Jacob made a fool out of his father, impersonated his brother, stole his father’s blessing and swindled his brother out of his inheritance. And then he saw God. It just doesn’t make sense. And more than that, it’s not fair.

The lesson is not “Be a jerk and see God.”

But perhaps the lesson is, “If you think you know God, watch out.”

Perhaps the lesson is, “No matter how far you run, God will find you.”

“You hem me in, behind and before…. If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea…” there you are, God.

“Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away,” begins a story by Margaret Wise Brown. I read it many times to my children.

“So he said to his mother, ‘I am running away.’

 "'If you run away,’ said his mother, ‘I will run after you. For you are my little bunny.’”

And the story goes on. The little bunny shares his plans to become a boat and sail far far away, and the mother bunny responds, If you become a boat, I will become the wind and blow you where I want you to go. The little bunny says, Then I will become a crocus in a hidden garden; and the mother says she will become the gardener, and so on. Finally the little bunny says, in that case, I’ll just stay here and be your little bunny.

“Have a carrot,” says the mother.

I can’t help but think of Psalm 139 as “The Runaway Bunny Psalm.”

No matter how ornery, contrary, and mean we become, God is our mother and our father. God will seek us out.

No matter how far we run from our home, God will be there.

Maybe we don’t notice God’s presence so much when we are at home with God, when we are “being good.” When we are living in Christ, loving our neighbor, God’s presence so permeates our lives that God is as the air we breathe. Essentially present, mostly, unnoticed.

It is when we become lost to ourselves that we find God’s presence so surprising. When we find ourselves as strangers in a strange land, a land of grief, a land of need and uncertainty, that we find God’s presence so surprising.

Remember when Joey and Sue came back from Haiti, after the earthquake, and we were so surprised to see all the smiling faces, all the happiness and joy in the midst of such devastation? Surely God is in this place, and I did not know it.

Remember the last time you lost someone you loved, and you wandered in the land of grief and misery, and then, one day, you woke up and realized you were going to live? Surely God is in this place, and I did not know it.

Remember the last time you were truly lost on unmapped roads, roads your GPS didn’t recognize and Rand McNally never heard of, and then you found a landmark, and suddenly knew where you were? Surely God is in this place, and I did not know it.

No matter how far we run, no matter how lost we become, no matter how low or high we go… Surely God is in this place, whether we know it or not. Thanks be to God. Amen.