Creating Art and Worship Together

Art is a gateway to worship. As we worship during the next several weeks, we will be creating a work of art together. Each Sunday everyone will be encouraged to fold a paper crane in one of the rainbow colors. The cranes will be strung together to create a rainbow banner, which, when complete, will be a visual testimony of our Open and Affirming welcome, and a reminder of God’s covenant with all creation.

I learned how to fold paper canes when I was in high school. In Sunday school or confirmation class, we folded cranes while our teacher told us the story of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. We learned that because of Sadako’s story, the paper crane became an internationally recognized symbol for peace.

When I was in seminary, I re-learned how to fold paper cranes from a Japanese Buddhist student. She folded tiny paper cranes from 1” square pieces of paper and strung them together in garlands. The crane garlands became part of her shrine to the Buddha which she created in her apartment, and she also hung crane garlands over her door knob and gave them away as gifts. Watching Miyako fold cranes, I began to realize that the crane was more than a symbol of peace—that the act of folding a crane was in itself a prayer for peace. Those garlands of cranes were garlands of prayers for the world.

As rational adults, we know that objects are inanimate. Things have no soul, no mind, no thought processes. (I may be tempted to believe otherwise when the lawn mower works for my husband but never for me, because it hates me. But really, I know better.) The knowledge that objects are inanimate often leads us to the false assumption that material things have no effect on us. We think, therefore we mow. Or type. Or garden. Or paint. We work with wood and chisels or fabric and thread.

But what if our interaction with inanimate objects is not as one-way as we imagine? What if our engagement with material actually works a change in us?

An illustration: Having been given a guitar when I was eight years old, I learned to play it. It left marks on my fingertips. It created a pattern in my brain whereby I see notes on a page and my fingers play a melody. The guitar I got when I was eight years old played a role in creating me.

I’m inviting you to fold cranes with me because the paper and the act of folding will work a change in you. While you are folding paper into a crane, the paper will play a role in creating you.

We will fold cranes of many colors, and put them in a basket. And when we have all the colors of the rainbow, we will string them into garlands. And when we hang the garlands together we will have a rainbow banner for the entryway. And whenever we walk into the sanctuary we will see the banner that we made, that played a role in making us.

That is how art becomes a gateway to worship.

God’s Provision for the Redemption of the Earth

22 April 2012

Leviticus 25:1-7, 18-24

            When I was in high school, I decided to read the whole Bible, beginning to end. Genesis and Exodus were tough going, but then I got to Leviticus. A few chapters into Leviticus I decided to skip to the New Testament. Not because it was difficult, but because it was so somnolent, which was one of my tenth grade vocabulary words, somnolent—adjective, tending to cause sleep.

            Leviticus is the book of details. It is the book that teases out the minutiae of the law; it is the book where we find the laws about what not to eat (shellfish, pork) what not to wear (blended fabrics, linen and wool together). Sometimes, it makes us think, gee, God is kind of picky. But Rabbi Harold Kushner enlightened me, when speaking at my church in Waterloo, Iowa several years ago. He said, “Do you think when I go out to lunch and look at the menu, I say to myself, ‘Oy Wey, I’d like to have a ham sandwich, but that mean old God won’t let me.’ No. I say to myself, ‘Isn’t it wonderful. Six billion people in the world and God cares what I have for lunch!’”

            So Leviticus is, to some, a sign of God’s embrace. It is a book of love. Loving parents care about what their children eat, what they wear, how they wear their hair. For example, Leviticus teaches me that God and I agree on at least one parental rule: our children should not have tattoos. It’s OK for other people but not for our children. I mean specifically my children. I’m totally OK with any of you having tattoos. There’s nothing inherently wrong with decorating yourself, as long as you’re not my daughter.

            So, I think Leviticus is like that. It doesn’t mean that God has anything against people who eat shellfish or pork, who mix the milche und fleishe—the milk and the meat, or people who wear cotton and wool blended together. To the people of Israel, the descendants of Jacob, the people of Moses, Leviticus is a set of great expectations from loving parents to children. It’s a book that says, We expect you to think about things, to be mindful of the details of your life, to think about how your behavior is a reflection on your parents and your God.

            So, that’s our introduction to Leviticus. This particular chapter of Leviticus belongs a section that is teasing out the details of the commandment, “Honor the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.”

Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. For six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day. (Deut 5)

In the book of Genesis, the Sabbath day is identified as a day of rest because, according to the first story of Creation, God made the world in six days, and rested on the seventh. God’s rest makes the seventh day holy, be holy as God is holy. That is the priestly tradition.

          But in Deuteronomy, the Sabbath day is linked to God’s justice. It is attached to the memory of slavery. When you were slaves in Egypt you had no rest. You are no longer slaves, you are free people. Take at least one day a week to remember that you are free. But also, do not do unto others as the Egyptians did unto you. The Sabbath is my gift to you, it must also be your gift to others—to your servants, your slaves, your employees, to the resident aliens and foreigners in the land, and even to your animals. Your day of rest should not be an extra burden for others. Your rest is to extend to all people.

            And here in Leviticus, the command to rest extends even to the Land itself. Because the land is a gift from God. It remains God’s possession for all eternity. Do not enslave God’s land. The earth itself is to be granted a Sabbath rest.

            This should make us think, right?

            Whose land is it anyway?

            Do the mountains of West Virginia belong to Massey Energy? Or to the people of West Virginia? Or to God? If we really believe that the earth is the Lord’s and all that dwell therein, then what does God require of us in regard to mountaintop removal?

            Do our lakes and the land surrounding them belong to the people who built their homes and businesses in the watershed, or do they belong to the state of Minnesota, or do they belong to God? If we believe that the water is a sacred gift from God, than what does God require of us in regard to our lakes?

            Does the earth belong to the entities that hold the title deed? Does any piece of paper, however correctly filed, grant the holder the right to enslave the earth and extract from it whatever wealth he can?

            What is our role in giving voice to the voiceless?

            Let this be our meditation, and may our meditation lead to action, as we consider…. What does the spirit say to the church?

Kingdom v. Empire

Palm Sunday, April 1, 2012

Mark 11:1-11

This is the week we call Holy, the week preceding Easter. The events of Holy Week commemorate the last week of Jesus' life. Today is Palm Sunday, which many consider a "little Easter," or as I used to think of it, "dress rehearsal" (because my sister and I would put on our Easter dresses and break-in our new shoes on Palm Sunday). Palm Sunday is the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey colt, while crowds waved palm branches and shouted "Hosanna!"

If we ignore the events of the rest of the week, we might think that Jesus moved from a "little Easter," to a "big Easter," from dress rehearsal to the big production number, from glory to glory. But it wasn't like that at all. The events of Holy Week were the original "Arab Spring." The Palm Sunday procession itself mocked the triumphal procession of the Roman governor and his guard, through the opposite gate of Jerusalem. It was a dangerous political demonstration.

Crowds were pouring in to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, which commemorates the foundational event for the nation of Israel. It declares that God heard the cries of the people when they were slaves in Egypt, that God led them out by a mighty hand, and gave them the land of Israel, a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Now remember the context of this particular Passover: Occupied Jerusalem. Jerusalem under the rule of the Caesar, a self-proclaimed Son of a god. A Jerusalem with a puppet king, selected, appointed, and protected by the powers that be in Rome.

Imagine celebrating Bastille Day in occupied Paris. Imagine celebrating the 4^th of July in occupied Washington, DC. This is the context of Jesus entry into Jerusalem.

It was a demonstration of the Kingdom of God v. the Empire of Rome. It was a proclamation that the Lord God is King of Israel, and that the only one worthy of the throne is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. “Hosanna” is the shout of praise from the coronation psalms of King David. The crowds were proclaiming a Jesus king.

But Jesus was modeling a very different kind of kingship. While the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, was riding in on a war horse, with his armed guard marching with him (O the sound of the trampling warriors!) making a show of force, Jesus was making a show of peace. Here comes your king. Humble and riding on a donkey. Not with force of armaments, not with sword and shield, but with a force of palm-branch waving peasants.

The next day, Jesus led a demonstration at the temple, a symbolic protest of the unholy alliance of market economics, the empire and religion. It is commonly known as the clearing of the temple.  It might have been called Occupy Jerusalem.

On Thursday, Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples. After supper, while he and his disciples prayed, Jesus was betrayed by one of his own; he was arrested, tortured, and summarily executed the next day, which is a day ironically called "Good Friday."

Jesus didn't move from the little glory of Palm Sunday to the greater glory of Easter. No, the week we call Holy was, for Jesus and his disciples, hellish. It was "that lonesome valley" of the old spiritual. But in that very experience of suffering, people of faith through the ages have found hope for salvation.

How can this be? I suppose it is because real life doesn’t move from glory to glory. When I was a child, there was a popular evangelist whose trademark truism was “Every day, in every way, it’s going to get better and better.” That may have sounded true in the suburbs. But, that must have rang hollow for people who were marching for the right to vote in Mississippi, or for people who were striking for decent working conditions in the farm fields of Texas and California, or for people who were watching children die in Viet Nam. No, for a lot of people Every day in every way life’s going to get better and better was just a bald-faced lie. These were people of the lonesome valley.

It may seem as if our nation has never been more divided, never more lost, never less hopeful. When I learned of the murder of Trayvon Martin, I couldn't help but think of the lynching of Emmett Till (1955) and wonder, "Have we learned nothing?" Emmett Till's murderers were tried and acquitted. Trayvon Martin’s killer has not been arrested. The powers that were in Mississippi in 1955 and the powers that be in Florida in 2012 both seem to believe that being in the wrong place at the wrong time is reason enough to kill a black man. Where is the justice for the bereaved mothers and fathers? Where is the mercy for Emmett and Trayvon?

Where was the justice in Jerusalem for Jesus?

In our United Church of Christ statement of faith, one of the most meaningful lines for me is “In Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, God has come to us, and shared our common lot.” That means there is nothing we experience that God has not experienced. God knows what it’s like to be despised because of his race; Jesus, the Galillean half-breed, was despised. God knows what it’s like to be beaten and tortured; Jesus was beaten and tortured. God knows what it’s like to cry for mercy and find none; Jesus cried out on the cross. And God knows what it’s like to be killed; Jesus was killed.

The suffering of Jesus sanctifies all suffering. Through the Jesus story, God takes human suffering and makes it holy. Through the Jesus story, the endurance of suffering becomes a spiritual virtue, which redeems our past, and gives us hope for the future. Because suffering was not the end of the story.

Maybe we are in that lonesome valley as a nation. But I must believe that this is one lonesome valley with a promise of glory at the end. Because that is the story of Jesus. That is the story of God in this world. It is a story of a little glory, and a lot of suffering, and in the end, a greater glory than we could ever ask or imagine. But that’s a story for next week.

I pray that good will come out of evil, that justice will prevail. I believe that we shall see the goodness of the Lord, and the goodness of God’s creation, in the land of the living. So be it. Amen.