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ADVENT ONE: HOPE FOR WHOM?

11/28/2021

Jeremiah 33:14-15
“The days are surely coming, says God, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”

Today is the First Sunday in Advent for 2021. In the traditional four week assignment of subjects – Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love -- today is the Sunday of Hope.

In past years I have most often approached the subject of Hope in a fairly general way – hoping for peace in the world, for the healing of nations. Important, yes, but basically aimed primarily at the white, middleclass world of my congregation, where we are, at a minimum, comfortable and, by and large, safe.

But in the past two weeks I have come across two different statements which point me toward a different and broader application for Hope. The first came through Facebook – and, yes, I know there are many reasons not to like Facebook – but when used carefully and well – as I try to use it – it connects me to many new theological and voices that have expanded my way of seeing the world.

This is the first one I saw:

"In the disruptive reign of God, the foil to Herod is not the eagle with its armies and kings. It is a teenager, pregnant outside of marriage, a poor girl from the backwater town on the outskirts of the capital city. She's the wretched of the Earth, and within her body is the one who will end the power of the Herods of this world for good."

These words were written by Melissa Florer-Bixler,* who is the pastor of a Mennonite church in North Carolina. I’ve never heard of her before, know nothing about her beyond these words that a clergy friend passed on, which come from a book she wrote titled: "How to Have an Enemy: Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace." But her words held a question that I heard, even though it wasn’t specifically spoken aloud here – “To whom – beyond my own congregation – are the Advent words of Hope directed?” Might they not be especially directed to those who need Hope to survive this world more than those of us who are already comfortable?

Now this is not a new idea at all. We have addressed it here in the past. Jesus makes it abundantly clear in his teachings, particularly in the Beatitudes, that it is exactly the poor, the meek, the voiceless, who are most certainly blessed in God’s realm. These are the ‘Anawin,’ the poor and lowly ones of the Old Testament, who remain faithful to God even in their earthly trials.

It was the second of the surprising statements I came across, however, that truly focused my vision of Hope for this year. This one came from the booklet we have chosen as our daily devotional for Advent this year – Jesus Crisis, written by the Still Speaking writers group. These particular words were written by Phiwa Langeni, a writer and ordained UCC minister, in their introduction for this booklet.**

Their words are based in one line from Matthew’s gospel, chapter 10, verse 34. Jesus is speaking:

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

This is a line from Jesus that I think I have never preached on. I’ve avoided it because, in my mind, a sword is an instrument of violence whose only function is to harm human beings. I’ve always managed to find something else to focus on when this verse has come around.

Langeni’s take on this verse showed me a new way to see it. They write that a sword is an instrument of precision, almost surgical, removing its target with complete exactness. This is their quote:

“With a meticulous commitment to justice, Jesus cuts into our world with a tool of destruction. Unlike typical sword wielders, though, he severs the systems that oppress those most in need. He dissects the divisions that perpetuate violence. He hacks the hate that poisons our shared divinity.”

We live in a time when Hope seems an unlikely commodity to way too many people. Our systems are built to benefit the wealthy and powerful and, increasingly, to forget about the poor and the voiceless.

The profits of pharmaceutical companies have expanded by outrageous margins in recent years, while ordinary people cannot afford to fill their literally life-saving prescriptions. Billionaires have gained unconscionable money during this pandemic while the rest of the world has mostly lost income. Our prisons are filled unjustly. Our systems are filled with rot.

Good people everywhere have always worked to cleanse those systems. As long as systems have existed, decent people have tried to set them right. In the Old Testament days, prophets cried out with the voice of God for justice. Through the centuries the church has revolted against itself and rejected the rich and easy forms it occasionally falls into and brought itself back to being the teller of Good News. In present times we march and vote and protest – but still the rot flourishes.

And it is this rot, I understand now, that Jesus and his sword came to excise. This has been the Hope of the poor for centuries. And this is the Hope of Advent – not just Hope for our own small wants and needs but Hope for the world. Hope that God’s blessings will one day be allowed to flourish in this world and that all people will benefit.

Jesus and his sword and his words of love came to heal the world, where the world will listen, and to excise the rot where it will not listen and be healed. To replace it with love.

We hold to our Hope that the Child, born for us in poverty among the voiceless and the powerless will end the power of the modern-day Herods of this world for good. This is the Hope we cling to at Advent and all year, every year, that one day God’s wishes will indeed rule this world and all the people will say, “Amen, Alleluia.”

* "How to Have an Enemy: Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace." Melissa Florer-Bixler, APG Sales and Distribution (July 20, 2021)

** Jesus Crisis, Advent / Epiphany 2021 Devotional, Stillspeaking Writers Group, Pilgrim Press

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GIVE THANKS IN ALL THINGS

11/21/2021

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As I mentioned last week, that was the last of the “Things that Catch My Attention” series, for the time being, at least. Starting today, we are returning to the lectionary cycle of readings, at least through the holiday season.

So today we are doing the reading given for Thanksgiving Day. We’re reading this today because we won’t be gathering here this Thursday, and next Sunday we will be diving straight into Advent season.

The reading, which I’ll get to in a moment, comes from Paul’s letter to the people of the new Christ-community in Philippi, the capitol of ancient Macedonia. Philippi was the first of the European cities in which Paul preached the Good News. It was also the city where Paul’s experience was the happiest, with less of the heavy resistance from Jewish Orthodoxy that dogged him for the rest of his life, and more support for Paul as he spread his teachings across Europe.

Paul loved the people of Philippi and they—the Christian believers--loved him. This is a letter filled with love and joy. It is important, therefore, for us to place it in context and realize that when Paul was writing here, he was actually in a Roman prison. Furthermore, while in some of his other letters written from prison, he sounded very hopeful that he would soon be released, in this one he sounds less certain and writes as if he may well not see them in the flesh again.

So our Thanksgiving reading for today was written by a man in prison, facing the fact that this might well lead to his execution—and sending a message of joy and praise. Here is that message from Philippians, chapter 4:

Rejoice in the Holy One always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. Our God is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

We’ve used the second part of this reading fairly recently here, but it’s the first part, where we are told to rejoice, and pray with thanksgiving that I particularly want to focus on today.

In our weekly in-person service here at the Church of the Open Door, we have built a time into our worship particularly to share the things for which we are grateful right now. We call them “moments of God,” those times when we actually stop to notice that God is active in our lives and in the lives of those around us. We notice and we give thanks. We acknowledge the One who acts with grace in our lives.

Many of us have different practices to remind us to be grateful. Some people have a blessing box where they drop coins every time they encounter something for which to give thanks. Some keep a journal. I belong to an on-line group that posts every day in November something they are grateful for that day. In this past difficult year many members of this group kept the practice up all through the year, because we needed it, not just in November.

All of these are tasks by which we remind ourselves to be grateful and not take our blessings for granted. It is not that we are naïve—we are entirely aware of the troubles of our world. We know there are broken, ugly-hearted people doing horrible things just about everywhere. We know times are especially tough now for many. We know when we are privileged and we know there are way too many who are not.

This has been an especially challenging year in many ways. We all know the issues—Covid, a horrifying number of deaths, drastic climate changes, fires and floods, economic turmoil, skyrocketing prices, empty store shelves—we all know the sad litany of woes, some of which may affect us personally, but all affect many others, somewhere. I saw a meme posted this week that reads: “This is not the year to get everything you want. This is the year to appreciate everything that you have.”

Our practice of gratitude is not simply to celebrate our own blessings. It is to remind us that God’s unending generosity and grace belong to all peoples and we must have the courage to continue to work for justice and peace for all God’s children, doing what we can to make this world something to be grateful for, for everyone.

A daily practice of gratitude is not only good for us spiritually—it is good for us psychologically. When we are not paying attention to all we have and to the goodness that surrounds us, hard times can seem even harder. We can become bitter and angry and hoarding of the goodness we do have ourselves. If we cease to be grateful, it is likely that we will eventually cease to care about others and refuse to share the blessings we have.

A little further on in Philippians Paul adds:

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

Paul, who was in prison, under a future sentence of death. Who knew what it is to be in need, and what it is to have plenty. Paul knew that the secret of being content in any and every situation is to honestly give thanks.

I have a question for you. Right now, as you are reading this message—what are you grateful for today, right now? Take a moment and think about it.

When you have that answer, then extend the question out a little further—what have you been grateful for this week?

This month? This year?

Some of your answers may be big things, like a family member recovering from a serious illness, or a much needed new job. Some may be smaller, like ice cream for dessert or playing with a new pet. There are no limits, no rules. Our lives are full of blessings—big ones and little ones—gifts of God’s unbounded, unconditional love for us.

Can we not take a few moments to let God know that we notice and that we are grateful? This Thanksgiving week, and every day, can we not tell God “thank you” – and mean it? And rejoice in it?

Our gathering prayer for this week’s service is Psalm 100, and it is a lovely reminder to give thanks:

Let us praise God,
    Bringing a gift of laughter,
    singing ourselves into God’s presence.
We know this: God is God.
    We are made by God; not the other way around.
    We’re God’s people, the ones God cares for.
We enter singing, “Thank you!”
    We make ourselves at home, talking praise.
Thank God. Worship God,
    for God is sheer beauty,
    all-generous in love,
    loyal always and ever.

And we, God's people, give thanks.
Amen.

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WHO IS GOD?

11/14/2021

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This will be the last in our current “Things that Catch My Attention” series – at least for the time being. Next week will be Thanksgiving week and the following week we will begin the season of Advent for this year.

I have to admit that I was beginning to despair of finding a quote to discuss this week – I still have lots of notes around, but they were beginning to be repetitive in nature – just different ways to say the same thing. I finally gave up and walked away from my desk, made a cup of coffee, and picked up my daily reading book to see what today has to tell me. And there it was, the perfect quote with which to end this series.

The book is “Hope as Old as Fire” ** – as mentioned, a book of daily readings – written by Steven Charleston, former bishop and indigenous elder. Bishop Steven has appeared in this series once before – the first duplication, I believe, but I could reflect on his writings for months and never run out of things to say about them. He is a very wise man who always shows me ways to see things from a different angle.

This is the quote:

When I was a child, I thought of God as an old man, seated on a throne, making marks by my name. When I was in my twenties, God was a comrade in the struggle, calling us into the streets to demand an end to war. In my thirties, God began to morph into Spirit, a mystic force of truth. In my forties God matured, a householder of heaven. Through my fifties, God was Grandmother, constant source of healing.....Now, I just smile. I have changed. God has not. We see the God we are.

At one point or another in my life, God has been each of these to me. But I am a person of words – and I try to use words carefully – choosing them to fit just what I want to express, and more and more as I grew older, not any one of these words – father, list-checker, comrade, Spirit, healer, wisdom – has really conveyed what I try to express by God. Each is one piece, but each alone is limiting. I struggle with the immensity of God as well as with the intimacy of God. I don’t struggle with the fact of God’s immensity, but with what to name it. For me, God simply doesn’t fit in any one or two of the words at my command.

This may not be an issue with many of you, but it has been for me – and, I suspect, many others. For a long time my prayers became overly complicated when I got hung up on the issue of who it is I’m praying to. Maybe that’s my own oddity – maybe not. This issue has largely been resolved, for me, by accepting that God is un-namable. My prayers these days largely consist of me saying “thank you” and then shutting up and listening. It works for God and me.

The problem of naming God, as Bishop Steven makes clear, does not lie with God. God IS, and God does not change – we change. When I was a child I was entirely comfortable with a Father-God – my own father had died when I was very young and I had a daddy-sized hole in my life that God filled very nicely. I wasn’t so happy with the list-checker-God, but as a child I accepted it as totally reasonable.

As I grew into adulthood I no longer wanted or needed a Daddy-God laying down rules for me. I wanted guidance and direction but not “do it this way or displease me.” I also found myself needing a God who understood what it meant to be female – not as a mistake, not as the weaker vessel, unfit to serve in any way besides cooking and child-bearing – but as a whole, valued person.

Part of this is the fault of our language -- English is sometimes very limiting. It generally doesn’t have both/and words, just either/or words. God is male or female -- we don’t have a word for both. We are just lately starting to build that vocabulary. God is here or there -- in my heart or up in heaven. If you listen to many people today it appears they believe God lives in the United States. Also. in scripture, God is so relentlessly gendered as male that it is almost impossible to escape it, and yet I do not for a moment think God is just a big man in the sky.

In Genesis we are told that “God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” This is a truly schizophrenic sentence. It makes no sense as written, because the original writer, perhaps, and certainly the later translators simply could not find a way past their own conviction that God must be male even when the scripture is trying to tell us differently.

Scattered throughout the Old Testament are multiple references to God as a mother bird, feeding and sheltering her young and yet these disappear once we reach the New Testament. Scripture also calls God Spirit (and again, often using descriptive words in the female gender). The new Testament also uses words such as Light...and Love...and Fire. God is all these things – and more. And sometimes, less.

Because however many times scripture refers to God by any of these non-male-specific words, their use is totally over-run by the hundreds of references to God as King, as Lord, as Father—dominating male figures. ‘King’ is a political word and should not have any connection with God. ‘Lord” is a word connoting the subjugation of a slave to a master. ‘Father’ clearly locks God into one gender only. These terms are leftovers from a time when gentleness was scorned as weakness, and brutality was admired as strength.

Because of all this, I do not find scripture particularly helpful in giving us words for God. What Scripture does give us is Jesus, who is, by far, the clearest image of a loving, caring being. Not Jesus’ words always – because he was often a man of his time as much as any other. But Jesus’ actions: healing, welcoming, inviting, embracing, up-lifting. All these things are God, and God is all these things. We see God through these actions. We feel God. We experience God. We know God.

Jesus engaged in argument with the Syrophoenician Woman on the same level he might have argued with a man – and she won!
At the feeding of the 5000 there was no sorting into worthy and unworthy. Everyone there was fed, for no other reason than that they were hungry.
Jesus invited himself to dinner with Zacchaeus, then invited the despised tax collector, into his – Jesus’ – life.
Jesus healed a Roman Centurion’s boy – who is described by a word that modern scholars insist translates as a sex-partner, or lover.
Jesus physically embraced and healed beggars and lepers and outcasts of all kinds.

I believe that Jesus is the language God uses to tell us about Godself. And it is a clear and easily understood language. If you occasionally get tangled up in words -- in scripture or anywhere else – as I do, we can always turn to Jesus, where the meaning and the identity of God is always crystal clear.

God will be for us whomever we need God to be at any given point in our life. If we need a parent, loving and comforting and teaching us through rough times, that is who God is. If we need a comrade to stand with us as we stand up for justice, that’s who God is. And if we need a wise elder to help us untangle the particularly puzzling trials in our lives -- there God is.

We change. God does not. God is simply here for us as whatever, whoever we need.

And we are blessed.

Amen.

** Hope as Old as Fire, Steven Charleston, (c) 2012, Red Moon Publications

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A STORYTELLING PEOPLE WITH A STORYTELLING GOD

11/7/2021

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The quote that will be the starting point for this message is a very long one, and because of that, I’m not going to be reading it here all at once. The quote itself is from Lutheran pastor/writer Nadia Bolz-Weber, who I have spoken of here many times before as she is on the short list of my favorite writers.

The occasion for what she says here was the funeral service for fellow writer Rachel Held Evans, who was also her good friend. This is the benediction for that service, the blessing at the end, given by Bolz-Weber. Before I start, just for context, here’s a quick introduction for any of you who may not know who Rachel Held Evans was.

She was raised in a conservative evangelical faith. She was the “good Christian girl” who knew all the right answers to bible questions. As a young adult, she began to run into a disconnect between the “love” preached in her church and their willingness to shut certain people out of that love. She wrote several books about her doubts and questions and her struggle to reconcile her old faith with her new lived, more progressive reality. And she died much too young from a freakish infection.

I’m not going to say more about Evans, she’s easy to Google and I certainly recommend her books, but she is not the point of this message except as her loss provided the reason for Bolz-Weber’s benediction.

For the past several weeks I have been preaching from my “Things that Catch My Attention” series, working from random quotes from random sources. The point of this apparent randomness has always been to connect the things that concern us today with those in biblical times. Life at its most basic doesn’t really change all that much. Humans are humans and they had the same worries and joys 2000 years ago as we do today. What changes is largely found in cultural attitudes. I’ve been attempting to see where we disagree and where and when we do agree.

This piece of the quote comes at the very end of Bolz-Weber’s benediction:

Jesus invites us into a story bigger than ourselves and our imaginations, yet we all get to tell that story with the scandalous particularity of this moment and this place. We are storytelling creatures because we are fashioned in the image of a storytelling God. May we never neglect that gift. May we never lose our love for telling the story.

The various quotes I’ve used this season have each been one piece – however small – of some person telling some part of the story as they know it, and for the most part it has been fairly easy to find someone in scripture who has at some time voiced the same thought. They told the story at their time and their place – in their context -- and we now tell it in ours -- our time, our place.

We try to tell the story that God first tells us – a story of God’s love for all that God created – the fact is that we are the story God tells. But not every interpretation of that story is equally valid. Sometimes the telling of God’s story of love for us has – over the centuries -- drifted off-center – drifted into something more like human opinion rather than what God actually says. And sometimes the story as it’s being told needs to be corrected: stories that say that rulers can kill at whim – NO, we don’t tell that story any more; stories that say that slavery is acceptable – also NO; stories that say that some people are more valued by God than others – just, NO.

To go back to Bolz-Weber’s long quote – this longer bit is from the middle of her original blessing -- these are some of the corrections we are working on these days – things you won’t find on every page in scripture, except, of course, that every single one is included in Jesus’ blanket command that we “love one another”:

"Blessed are the agnostics. Blessed are they who doubt. Blessed are those who have nothing to offer. Blessed are the preschoolers who cut in line at communion. Blessed are the poor in spirit. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.

Blessed are those whom no one else notices. The kids who sit alone at middle-school lunch tables. The laundry guys at the hospital. The sex workers and the night-shift street sweepers. The closeted. The teens who have to figure out ways to hide the new cuts on their arms. Blessed are the meek. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.

Blessed are they who have loved enough to know what loss feels like. Blessed are the mothers of the miscarried. Blessed are they who can’t fall apart because they have to keep it together for everyone else. Blessed are those who “still aren’t over it yet.” Blessed are those who mourn. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.

These are the people who are so often left out of God’s story as it is told by too many people today. These are the stories that many of us are struggling to tell today instead of the stories of violence and misogyny and tribalism told in scripture – stories written at a time when weakness was scorned and the strong were admired. We, today, struggle to tell our new stories because the old hate-filled, violence-filled, exclusionary stories are still told by too many who claim to be speaking for God.

Jesus told us – and tells us still – a story of love. Love for neighbors, love for strangers, love for ourselves. Love for the outcasts and the unloved and the shunned. Love for those who live in the shadows, afraid to be noticed. And all this love is part of the story into which we are called – the story we are called to live.

We today are invited, in Bolz-Weber’s words, into a story bigger than ourselves and our imaginations. We find this story in the acts of Creation, where God’s love shines through so clearly in the beauty and creativeness found all around us, and in the stories of faith and charity scattered throughout scripture, and we find it especially in the words of Jesus – this is the story he lived here among us to tell. And sometimes we even find it in the words of those who followed him.

It’s a story bigger than we are. And we are invited to tell it -- again, in Bolz-Weber’s words -- with the scandalous particularity of this moment and this place. We are invited to tell our story.

So, who is it that is left out of the story as you’ve heard it? Who is it you believe God includes yet you rarely hear any kindness toward them expressed in scripture or in many of our churches? If we are indeed storytelling creatures because we are fashioned in the image of a storytelling God, then we should be about our work of filling in the gaps in the story we’ve been told.

We may, each of us alone, be one small voice, largely unheard on its own – but when enough of us speak up, speak out, our changes to the prevailing story will, in time, be heard.

What is the point of being blessed by God to be a storytelling people, if we never tell our stories? Do we even know what our story is?

I am grateful every day for the storytellers who have impacted my understanding – and continue to do so: Nadia Bolz-Weber, Rachel Held Evans, John Pavlovitz, Stephen Charleston, Frederick Buechner, Anne Lamott, Carrie Newcomer.....I could go on and on, because there are many more. These are among the people who are right now, today, changing the story where it needs to be changed. And when I speak out and add my voice to theirs – it’s still a small voice, but it’s in good company – and all our voices together are being heard.

So I’ll ask again – who are the people who are being left out of God’s story of love as it is being told in your church, in your community, in your family? And who will speak for them, if you do not?

We are storytelling creatures because we are fashioned in the image of a storytelling God. May we never neglect that gift.

Amen.

If you'd like to read the benediction in its entirety and in its proper order, you can go here (cut and paste): https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2019/06/08/gods-blessing-to-the-weak/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3ZznEoa-HZZydPhsToDkzdnTqtjEkTJXLdWhs6zlG9imYCJOCiqWv_6HA

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ADVENT ONE: HOPE FOR WHOM?

GIVE THANKS IN ALL THINGS

WHO IS GOD?

A STORYTELLING PEOPLE WITH A STORYTELLING GOD

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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