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READING SCRIPTURE - WORSHIPING GOD

1/17/2016

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Psalm 36:5-10 (NRSV)

Your steadfast love, O God,
   extends to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
​
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
   your judgments are like the great deep;
you save humans and animals alike, O God.

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
All people may take refuge
   in the shadow of your wings.

They feast on the abundance of your house,
and you give them drink
   from the river of your delights.

For with you is the fountain of life;
   in your light we see light.

O continue your steadfast love
   to those who know you,
and your salvation to the upright of heart!
Our reading today is a hymn of praise.  The speaker is extolling the immensity of God’s love and all God’s amazing care for us – for us – and yet, I’m been in churches when this Psalm was read and the reader managed to make it sound like reading the stock market report.

This illustrates one of my major gripes about calling the Bible “the Word of God” and deifying it as the one, true source of God’s communication with us.  Endless repetition can strip even the most impassioned words of any true meaning.   Imagine the person you love most in this world.  Now, imagine saying to them -- everyday of your life – “you are the one I love” - with no variation - ever - exactly those words in that order.  Every day, “you are the one I love.”  Even though the intention might remain entirely – even deeply – sincere, wouldn’t it eventually become just a rote recitation – without passion, without depth?  If you were never allowed to deviate from those exact words - no adding, no subtraction, no “saying it in a different way” -- wouldn’t it eventually tend to lose the very feeling you are trying to express?

I’m sure, if you cared deeply enough, you could get around this but I suspect that for most of us it would become just a boring ritual – spoken and heard so often that it long ago lost its reality for us.  That, unfortunately, is what church has become for many people around the globe.  A ritual they attend with their bodies while their minds wander everywhere but where they should be.  I read a quote this week from Sören Kierkegaard, who was a 19th century theologian, in which he said "Christ turned water into wine, but the church has succeeded in doing something even more difficult: it has turned wine into water."  Reading the Bible often suffers the same fate.  We have taken the extraordinary and locked into into an "ordinary" box.

While I don’t for a moment believe that God dictated the words of scripture to some bemused scribe, I do believe that God speaks to us in these words.  Of course, I also believe God speaks to us in the lyrics of Broadway tunes, and in scraps of overheard conversations between total strangers on the street, and in our dreams, and the way my cat pats my face softly while she looks at me adoringly, and in clouds in a sunset sky – and yet we never say, “There - that cloud formation, that particular shade of pink - God’s Word always has to look just like that one cloud formation.”

Last week we spoke here about reading scripture in different translations, just to see them from a different angle, to hear them with different ears – to recognize them as “new” instead just boring repetition.

Let’s try reading some of our Psalm again: Your steadfast love, O God, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.  Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments are like the great deep, O God; you save humans and animals alike....  That’s pretty good stuff – it sounds like good churchy stuff –  but now listen to those same verses from The Message:   God’s love is meteoric, his loyalty astronomic, his purpose titanic, his verdicts oceanic.  Yet in his largeness nothing gets lost....

If we parse it down, those two sets of words say the same thing, but they cetainly feel different.  For me it works out that I understand the first set differently after I have also heard the 2nd translation.  I somehow hear them “bigger.”  You may not "like" the second version -- I do -- that doesn't really matter.  What matters is that you cannot go back to the first one without your hearing of the words somehow being changed.

I have some different translations of this same Psalm for you.  We won’t read them right now - they’re for you to take home if you want and read them when you have some time to notice them and really see the differences among them – time to see what you find in the different versions.  How are they similar?  How do they differ?  What do you "feel" when you read them?

God quite often steps up and “nudges” me in a certain direction for these messages.  I was still musing about this idea yesterday and trying to decide if this was really what I’m supposed to offer for today when I stopped to take a minute and just change my focus and cruise through facebook. 

Carrie Newcomer, the singer-songwriter I often quote here had just posted a brief reflection there.  She began by quoting Rachel Naomi Remen, who is a medical doctor and a wonderful writer:  "Often, finding meaning is not about doing things differently. Its about seeing familiar things in a different way."  Newcomer then went on with her own thought:  It is easy to become lost in our own patterns and habits.  We are the moon circling the planet, intent upon the planet, moving in one direction.  But when we stop, and look around we can see that there are other planets, many more moons and a shining star at the center.  Our daily journey continues, but because we've changed our perspective we move through our experiences with a lovely feeling of belonging, a sense of connection, an awareness at there is always something illuminating it all.

God created a world for us with infinite variety.  Do we really think about what we are saying when we use that word “infinite”?  No edges, no limits, no ending – just more and more and more, forever and ever.  God does not need – or, I’m convinced – want limits.  I suspect that it delights God when we open our awareness and, quoting Remen again, “see familiar things in a different way.”

God is not contained in one version of one book.  The more we open ourselves to see and hear, to touch and taste, the closer we come to God – God, who speaks and sings to us in so very many ways – God, whose love and faithfulness extend to the clouds, to the heavens – and beyond.  The God whose love for us is meteoric – even astronomic.
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JOINING US HERE

1/11/2016

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Luke 3:7-17, 21-22  (The Message)

When crowds of people came out for baptism because it was the popular thing to do, John exploded: “Brood of snakes!  What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river?  Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to deflect God’s judgment?  It’s your life that must change, not your skin.  And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as ‘father.’  Being a child of Abraham is neither here nor there—children of Abraham are a dime a dozen.  God can make children from stones if he wants.  What counts is your life.  Is it green and blossoming?  Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.”

The crowd asked him, “Then what are we supposed to do?”  “If you have two coats, give one away,” he said.  “Do the same with your food.”

Tax men also came to be baptized and said, “Teacher, what should we do?”  He told them, “No more extortion—collect only what is required by law.”

Soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”  He told them, “No shakedowns, no blackmail—and be content with your rations.”

The interest of the people by now was building.  They were all beginning to wonder, “Could this John be the Messiah?”

But John intervened: “I’m baptizing you here in the river.  The main character in this drama, to whom I’m a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out.  He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives.  He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God;  everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”.....

After all the people were baptized, Jesus was baptized.  As he was praying, the sky opened up and the Holy Spirit, like a dove descending, came down on him.  And along with the Spirit, a voice: “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”

Last week we read the readings for Epiphany, which actually fell in the middle of last week, and we discussed Incarnation – the en-flesh-ment of divinity in the human person of Jesus of Nazareth.  Today’s reading telling of the baptism of that same Jesus is simply a continuation of the same story – notwithstanding that 30-odd human years passed between the two episodes.  We are still talking about the very same thing.

For thirty-one or so years from the visit of the magi Jesus lived an entirely normal life for his time and place.  For thirty-one years he rose in the morning and did whatever it was he did and then went to bed again at night – just like everyone else around him.  At least we assume he did – based on the fact that he attracted no attention, no one ever mentioned him in the writings of the time – and the only comment we get on those quiet years - except the one brief story when he was twelve –  comes in the next chapter of Luke after Jesus’ first speaking appearance when he read from Isaiah in the local synagogue and the people were suddenly astonished to hear how well he spoke:
All who were there, watching and listening, were surprised at how well he spoke. But they also said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son, the one we’ve known since he was a youngster?”
It would appear that until his baptism in the Jordan, no one had ever paid a lot of attention to him.  No one expected great things from him.  He was just a guy, like any other guy.  

Bu then, one day, he was drawn into the desert to hear the new preacher, John, who was preaching fire and brimstone and calling the people to repentance – calling them to be baptized and washed from their sin – and to hurry up about it because one was coming who was going to toss out the trash from the world and burn it.

Since this is a continuation of last week’s story – it really is – you’ll see why when we finish here – I want to read you just a little more poetry from John Shea.  This bit is from another poem titled The Man Who Was a Lamp:
Jesus came out of John
as surely as he came out of Mary.
John was the desert soil
in which the flower of Jesus grew.
John was the voice in the wilderness
who taught Jesus to hear the voice from the sky.
John would push sinners beneath the water
and Jesus would resurrect them on the waves.
John was the fast
who prepared for Jesus, the feast.

No man ever less a shepherd than John --
yet loved by one.
If you are surprised that Jesus came from John,
imagine John’s prophetic puzzle
when the predicted “wrath to come” came
and he said, “Let’s eat!”
John expected an ax to the root of the tree
and instead he found a gardener hoeing around it.
He dreamt of a man with a winnowing fan and a fire
and along came a singing seed scatterer.
He welcomed wrathful verdicts,
then found a bridegroom on the bench.
When John said, “There is one among you
Whom you do not know,”
he spoke from experience. *
John knew someone was coming, but he, no more than any of the rest of us, knew who that “someone” would turn out to be.  John expected “an ax to the root of the tree and instead he found a gardener hoeing around it.” He looked for “a man with a winnowing fan and a fire and along came a singing seed scatterer.”  John, like most of the Jews of the time, expected a king or a general – they desperately wanted a king-slash-general – and what they got was ... a guy.  John looked for wrath, and and what he found was someone inviting us all to a meal.

And Jesus?  What was Jesus expecting that day, out there in the desert?  Did he really expect that voice claiming him as Beloved Son?  Or was he as surprised as everyone else?  As Barbara Brown Taylor puts it: Jesus goes into the waters of the Jordan a carpenter, and come out a Messiah.  He went into the water a private person and came out God’s person.  The voice from the heart of God makes it clear – at least to those with ears to hear – who this Jesus guy is.  “You are my beloved Son, with you I am very pleased.”  Both these phrases come from the Hebrew Scriptures – describing the promised Messiah.  Those who heard the words would have recognized their reference.

One question that come down through the centuries, is “why was Jesus baptized?”  He clearly had no sin from which to repent – what was the point?  And here again, I’m going back to Barbara Brown Taylor, because she has the best answer I think I’ve ever heard:
It is as big a mystery as the Christmas mystery of the incarnation. Why did he become human when he could have stayed God?  Why was he baptized with us when he could have stayed on the banks of the Jordan and supervised?  Why does he come to us where we are, over and over again, when he could save himself the grief, the pain, the death, by insisting that we come to him where he is?  

Because he loves us, that is why, and because he is, unbelievably, pleased with us, and because he has come to lead us through the waters of life and death into life eternal.  It has never been his style to shout directions to us from some safe place of his own.  He has always led us from within our midst, joining us in the water, in the mud, in the skin to show us how it is done. **
And that, I believe is our answer.  That is why we remind ourselves of these precious stories at Christmas and Epiphany and Baptism Sunday.  This is why this guy Jesus works for us – because he has always loved us enough to do the hard work of showing up where we are – and joining us there.  He has always led us from within our midst, joining us in the water, in the mud, in the skin to show us how it is done. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*  John Shea, Starlight: Beholding the Christmas Miracle All Year Long, (c) 1992
** Barbara Brown Taylor, Mixed Blessings, (c) 1986
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EPIPHANY: GOING HOME BY ANOTHER ROUTE

1/3/2016

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Isaiah 60:1-4a
Arise, shine; for your light has come,
   and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For darkness shall cover the earth,
   and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
   and his glory will appear over you.
Nations shall come to your light,
   and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
Lift up your eyes and look around.

Matthew 2:1-12
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?  For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage."  When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.  They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:   
 
   'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
     are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
   for from you shall come a ruler 
       who is to shepherd my people Israel.'"

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared.  Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage."  When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was.  When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.  On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage.  Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Epiphany is such a rich feast day in the church calendar.  There are at least three separate themes (Light, Gifts, Manifestation) that can be developed by the preacher – any one of which could easily provide three individual sermons – and yet we only get one day, and so we have to choose.  There are stars and kings and fabulous gifts, but today I have chosen one small half-sentence tucked away at the very end of the gospel reading. I think this half-sentence is very important.

I want to share a poem with you - one written by one of my favorite storytellers, John Shea.  This is where I first truly noticed this half-sentence (after years of hearing the gospel reading and never really catching it).  It’s little long-ish, so settle back and enjoy.  The poem is a word of advice directed to King Herod on the occasion of the three Magi, or Wise Men’s arrival in his kingdom.

Magi only journey at night
like the guarded secrets of dreams
and, at morning, always arrive from the East,
the rising sun at their backs,
haloing them in light.
You will have to shade your eyes
to watch them,
step by step,
approach you
with their request.

They are not wise in usual ways.
They cannot make a chair,
their soups are regrettable.
It is conjunctions
symmetries
balances
that interest them.
Heaven shakes, earth quakes.
As above, so below. 
A star moves across the sky
and they are in the saddle
convinced an earth child
has yanked a string.
They come from a country of kites.

They also puzzle prophecies,
living in perpetual pregnancy,
awaiting the births of the predicted.
They unroll ancient parchments
to find new babies,
then read the wrinkles of the newborn
as testimonies of the past promises.
They are not your average observers.

That is why they have come to you--
why they come to us all.
Your replacement has been born.
They need your help
to tell them
where
they can find the child.
Lost in higher logic,
they will not see you blanch
or notice you are troubled.
They want to teach you the lost art of homage,
how freeing it is to be prostrated before promise.
They are the strangers
who have come to tell you
the truth
you have forgotten.

Do not try to trick them,
coaxing from their enthusiasm
murderous information.
It will not work.
Wise Men always go home
by another route.
You will end
by slaughtering hope
and you will not see
the fleeing child, your child,
reach for their gifts.* 

The wise men were undoubtedly naive, for all their wisdom, asking Herod to help them find his replacement – never a good idea with kings.  Luckily, they were warned by an angel in a dream and turned from their chosen path – taking another route homeward – thereby avoiding another meet-up with the murder-minded Herod.

Wise Men always go home by another route – this is the line that caught my attention – wise Men always go home by another route.  For some reason this snagged my thoughts where the more prosaic “they left for their own country by another road” of the gospel reading did not.  It is fairly obvious that this was a good choice in this circumstance, but the peotic line says “always”  – Wise men always go home by another route.  The more I thought about it, the more obvious it became to me that, of course, you go home by another route after you have sought out and found the Lord of the Universe, the King of Kings.  Of course, you do, because you are no longer the same person, so how could you possibly travel the same path?

And this is the heart of this Epiphany message.  If we travel in search of this “king” who has come to live among us – and if we find this king – if divinity manifest itself for us –  how can we be anything but changed?  For good?  How could we ever come face to face with Jesus and remain the same people we have always been?

To meet God’s love in human form – whether that form looks like the infant Jesus of 2000 years ago or the homeless woman asking for help on the street today, cannot possibly leave us untouched – unchanged.  If we allow ourselves to truly open up and meet God’s love in human disguise, we WILL be changed.  And once we are changed, even if we walk the same road, it will not truly be the same!

The Feast of the Epiphany celebrates the first manifestation to the gentiles of the Christ in human form.  An epiphany (with a lower case ‘e’) is that moment when we grasp what is right in front of us - when we recognize divinity right here with us now.


This is what we celebrate today - the moment when we stopped putting God on a massive throne way up there in the heavens, way far away from us, and recognize that Godself is right here with us - right here in the middle of our human mess.  And has always been – we just couldn’t (or wouldn’t) see it.

Of course we’re traveling another route home – that blind, oblivious being we used to be no longer exists and a new being lives and walks in its place.  Even if the path is the same, the journey is always new.  If we do not experience that new road then I suspect we must question whether or not we have truly seen God.

Our new road may not necessarily come with comets and kings and a new landscape.  It may look, at first glance, just like our old road, with the same old cast of people.  Our first reading today, from Isaiah’s prophecies, tells us to ...lift up our eyes and look around...because the light of God is now shining out into our darkness.  If we will only open our eyes...if we will only look around us...truly look...we can see a new road, a new world, a new life in Christ...radically different from the life we knew once before. 

Let us travel on together down this new route on our journey home.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*John Shea, Starlight: Beholding the Christmas Miracle All Year Long,  (c) 1992; The Truth of the Stranger, originally written for "Epiphany in Doubt", unpublished
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New Year's Note

1/1/2016

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Throughout Advent and Christmastide we have been having group discussions instead of a written Pastor Message - so there has been nothing much to post here -- except for my thanks to my congregation for being the kind of people who love to engage in a discussion and share their thoughts on what we are reading and hearing!  We are returning to "normal" this week, so the posted sermons will return soon!


May your New Year be filled with blessings galore -- and may you take them out and share them with the whole world!
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BLESSING ... AND BEING BLESSED

11/22/2015

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1 Chronicles 29:10-13

David blessed God in full view of the entire congregation:

Blessed are you, God of Israel, our father
    from of old and forever.
To you, O God, belong the greatness and the might,
    the glory, the victory, the majesty, the splendor;
Yes! Everything in heaven, everything on earth;
    the kingdom all yours! You’ve raised yourself high over all.
Riches and glory come from you,
    you’re ruler over all;
You hold strength and power in the palm of your hand
    to build up and strengthen all.
And here we are, O God, our God, giving thanks to you,
    praising your splendid Name.

Today is Thanksgiving Sunday.  Well...technically it is Christ the King Sunday by most lectionaries.  I don’t find royal imagery particularly helpful in my understanding of God but I do, definitely, find gratitude to be both helpful and necessary...so today is Thanksgiving Sunday.

Most of us find it fairly easy to come up with a list of things for which to offer our thanks to God.  We share our gratitude each week along with our offerings, as part of our worship, and, even in troubled times I would guess that most of us could come up with a sizeable list of things to be grateful for.  We live here in peace and plenty, in comfort and cleanliness.  We go to bed at night without fear of bombs falling on our homes.

We are a blessed people – and we acknowledge that our blessing is merely a matter of geography and luck – nothing that we deserve more than any other being on this planet.  And we are duly grateful and we do give thanks and we do try to share our blessings with others.

We share food, we share clothing, we support various local agencies and help enable them in their various tasks to make things better for those in need.  We do pretty well, I’d say – as individuals and as a church.  Could we so better?  Of course we could, but we do try to show our gratitude in concrete forms.

But – there is something else that is called for in today’s reading, and that is blessing. Not “blessings,” in the form of ‘things’, but “blessing” – wishes and prayers for goodness and favor and well-being for the person being blessed.  Sincere good wishes going out from our heart to their heart.  The hope and desire for good things for them. True caring and well-wishing.

In the Old Testament especially, blessing often appears to involve a transference of power – not power in terms of might and dominance but a moral power, a special sense that God is with the recipient.  It’s a slippery concept to define clearly because it appears to be used in a number of different settings.

When the aging Isaac, for instance, intends to give his special father’s blessing to his eldest son, Esau, and that blessing is “high-jacked” by the conniving Jacob, the theft of this important blessing destroys the family.  This blessing once given is irrevocable - it cannot be taken back – the theft cannot be made right.  

This is a “one-time-only” blessing, but other blessings are less restricted and can apparently be given at will.  These are the blessings we offer each other most readily – often casually, as when someone sneezes – but these blessings are still in some way a transference of power – a mark of respect – a recognition that someone is worthy of a blessing.  And this, I think, is the power we hold with a blessing.  In blessing someone, we somehow recognize the worth, the holiness in them.

When we offer a blessing, unless we are just mechanically voicing words we don’t really mean, we are forced to actually see the one being blessed – and, more than just a wish for well-being, our blessing becomes an acknowledgment that its recipient is worthy of our good-wishes and worthy, even, of our respect as a fellow human person.  
What if we were to practice blessing others?  These blessings don’t have to be spoken out loud, even – just sincerely thinking about what we are doing, and meaning it.  Not just saying words, but truly intending that the power of God’s good wishes pass through us to whomever.   This is pretty easy when we are thinking of blessing those we love - family and friends – but what about strangers?  Loud, dirty, obnoxious strangers?

What about people who steal from us?  Or do us violence?  What about politicians advocating horrifying, dehumanizing, wicked public policies?  Are these not the very people who most need a blessing?  A healing?  A turn to the right direction?  Can we manage to bless them – not the annoying or outright bad things they are doing, but themselves, the pieces of God’s creation that they are – because, try as we might want to deny it, these, too, are God’s beloved children.

And here we end up back where we started – any blessing we have to give was first given to us – freely – by God.  And I don’t believe God blesses us without hoping we will share that blessing in our turn.  We understand this more easily with “things” -- if we have plenty of food and warm clothing it is no hardship to pass some on to others -- but this also applies to any blessings of understanding and kindness and love that we may possess.  If I have an open and welcoming heart, it is because God gave me that heart.  That blesses me and so I can, in turn, offer the same blessing to others who need it.  To all who need it.

Is a blessing from me really that big a deal?  It is, in a couple of ways.  First, in that I recognize the other person as a fellow child of God – whether I “like” them or not; and second, that seeing them, whether the person I see is whole or broken, I can honestly wish them well.  I can wish them wholeness and healing and hope and God’s active, life-giving role in their lives.

And, one final note on blessing, in our reading today, David blesses God.....  I don’t even know what to say about that...does God in any way need our blessing?  I suggest the reading does tell us that God desires our blessing.   David is out there in front of the congregation -- presumably speaking for the congregation -- blessing God.  I have a feeling there is much more power in our blessings than we might be comfortable with, and if that's so, get over it.  Go out into the world and truly see and truly bless the kingdom of God and all that dwells within it.  Think of the power for goodness if we all did this together.  


Imagine our world if every person who calls themself a Christian were to pray blessings on ISIS?  Not blessing the hideous things they do or the hatred in their hearts but looking deeper and truly blessing the child God created them to be ... Do we, or do we not believe God has the power to honor those blessings? 
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PARIS:  11/13/15

11/16/2015

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Leviticus 19:33-34
“When a foreigner lives with you in your land, don’t take advantage of him. Treat the foreigner the same as a native. Love him like one of your own. Remember that you were once foreigners in Egypt. I am God, your God.
There comes a time in the life of every writer-slash-preacher when you realize that the thing you are struggling to say has already been said by someone else.  Not only already said, but said much better than you are likely to say it.

Saturday morning as I began to work on my sermon for Sunday -- a message in response to the vicious attacks in Paris the day before and the response I believe we are called to in answer to them -- I happened to take a break in my writing and scanned my facebook page where I found an essay by writer-extraordinaire, Anne Lamott.  A piece which, yes, said what I was trying to say and, indeed, said it so  much better than I would ever do.

After reading it through a couple of times I simply decided to toss my own half-finished attempt and read Lamott's in place of my pastor's message.  It is so very, very worth hearing.  And so, with appreciation and deep gratitude for the gift of Anne Lamott's writing, here is Lamott's response to terrorism -- in France -- in Beirut -- in Baghdad -- in Kenya ..... 

I wish there was a website we could turn to called, "What it means, What is True, and What to do."  Lots of very tense religious people are going to insist that their Scripture answers all these questions.

That's nice.

Lots of them will try to hustle us into joining them in Vengeance World.  As if that had just been so helpful before, right?

So where do we even begin today?  What do we do when it feels like we are all doomed, and the future will only be worse, and we can't remember anything that ever helped us come through?  From high school philosophy, I remember that Francis Bacon wrote, "'What is Truth?' asked jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer."  It seemed the ultimate truth, at sixteen years old.

But I think we can do better than that.  We have shards of truth, and we can gather them up, bits of broken mosaic tile that shine.

We know that this is a very dangerous place, that we are an extremely vulnerable species, that Cain is still killing Abel.

We know that "Why" is not a useful question; and "Figure it out" is not a good slogan. 

We know that the poor, the innocent, babies and the very old, always bear the brunt.

So where do we find grace and light? If you mean right now, the answer is Nowhere.  It's like after a child dies.  Grace always does bat last, and the light always overcomes the darkness--always, historically.  But not necessarily later the same day, or tomorrow, after lunch.  Wendell Berry told me 25 years ago, in Advent, the darkest shortest days of winter, "It gets darker and darker and darker, and then Jesus is born."  But it is only November 13!  It gets even darker.

What is the answer? Gandhi is almost always the answer.  Jesus's love for the poor and refugees is the answer.  Adding a bit of light and warmth to these cold dark days doesn't hurt.  Candles are beautiful and bring a soupçon of solace to our souls.  People living on the streets could really use your old blankets and jackets.

Grace will always show up in the helpers, as Mr. Rogers' mother used to tell him in times of tragedy.  But today, right now, if you have a nice bumper sticker that explains or makes sense of what happens in Paris, it's probably best if you keep that to yourself.  It is definitely best that you not share it with me.  It will cause me to get a tic in my eye and will guarantee that the next time I see you, I will run for my cute little life.  Everyone in his or her right mind will.  So how do we even know truth, in the midst of b.s. and lies?

What is true for me is that [in 2012]  the shootings at Sandy Hook were the actual end of the world, evil or at least the most extreme mental illness made visible. There were no answers that day, the next day, the day after that.  Well, you could go to certain web sites and Twitter posts, and I will not name names, and be told how stupid you were not to see that there was only one appropriate truth. Reload!  But again, that was not helpful.

What was helpful was that we stuck together in our horror, grief, anxiety and cluelessness.  We grieved, we feared, we despaired, and raged, prayed; we reached out for any help at all; and these were appropriate responses.  I am going to recommend that we do that today, and tomorrow.  Wounds and trauma revealed were healed; eventually.

Some of us couldn't eat at all, someone of us binged, some of us couldn't turn off the TV, some of us couldn't turn it on.  Those were all appropriate.  We felt like shit, and let some time pass, talked and stuck together.  And day by day, we came through.

Talking and sticking together was the answer.  It honest to God was.  We were gentler, more patient and kind with each other.  If people are patient and kind, that's a lot.  It means something of the spirit is at work.  For me, that is grace made visible.  It doesn't come immediately, and it doesn't come naturally.  What comes naturally is, Shoot the mo-fos.  So when we could, after Sandy Hook, we paused, breathed, sighed, gasped at the rising numbers.  Nothing changed legally, not one word, but we came through. Hearts were healed, imperfectly.  People walked, lived fully, and even danced again, after bad psychic fractures that did not heal quite right, and that still hurt some days.

We will again, but it takes time.  I so hate this!  Hate this, hate this, hate this, and do not agree to this, but have no alternative, because it is Truth: it will take time.  Today, we try to keep the patient comfortable--ourselves, our beloveds, the poor.
We're at the beginning of human and personal evolution.  Whole parts of the world don't even think women are people.

So after an appropriate time of being stunned, in despair, we show up.  Maybe we ask God for help.  We do the next right thing.  We buy or cook a bunch of food for the local homeless.  We return phone calls, library books, smiles.  We make eye contact with others, and we go to the market and flirt with old or scary unusual people who seem lonely.  This is a blessed sacrament.  Tom Weston taught me decades ago that in the face of human tragedy, we go around the neighborhood and pick up litter, even though there will be more tomorrow.  It is another blessed sacrament.  We take the action and the insight will follow: that we are basically powerless, but we are not helpless.

I have no answers but know one last thing that is true: More will be revealed.  And that what is true is that all is change.  Things are much wilder, weirder, richer, and more profound than I am comfortable with.  The paradox is that in the reality of this, we discover that in the smallest moments of amazement, at our own crabby stamina, at kindness, to lonely people who worry us, and attention, at weeping willow turning from green to gold to red, and amazement, we will be saved.


                                                                                       (c) Anne Lamott 2015
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JUST HOW WELL DO WE LOVE OURSELVES?

11/8/2015

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Mark 12:28-34a

One of the religion scholars came up.  Hearing the lively exchanges of question and answer and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question:  “Which is most important of all the commandments?”

Jesus said, “The first in importance is, ‘Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one;  so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’  And here is the second:  ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’  There is no other commandment that ranks with these.”

The religion scholar said,  “A wonderful answer, Teacher!  So lucid and accurate—that God is one and there is no other.  And loving him with all passion and intelligence and energy, and loving others as well as you love yourself.  Why, that’s better than all offerings and sacrifices put together!”

When Jesus realized how insightful he was, he said, “You’re almost there, right on the border of God’s kingdom.”
I suspect if I were to ask you, “How much do you love yourself?” I would mostly get some mumbled “I don’t much think about it,” and maybe a couple would answer something like “I don’t really like myself much.”  We are taught from childhood that it is somehow wrong to think too highly of ourselves, much less to love ourselves.  

All this does not say much about the teaching in today’s gospel reading in which Jesus is quoting a much, much older teaching.  The injunction to love our neighbors as ourselves goes as far back as the book of Leviticus and is part of the quite explicit instructions God gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai a good 900-1300 years or so before Jesus’ time.
Leviticus 19:18: You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself:  I am the Lord.
How on earth are we supposed to manage loving our neighbor if we can’t get over the culturally-ingrained hurdle of being humble and saying weird things like, “Oh, shucks - it was nothing,” when others try to say good things about us?

Just what does it mean to love ourselves?  I think we should be able to agree it does not mean standing in front of a mirror half the day lost in admiration of our beautiful selves, not does it mean that we love ourselves and our own wants to the point of thinking that no one else matters.

On the very first page of Genesis we are told: God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.  And then, after a few more verses about humankind it continues with the word that God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.  God loves us, therefore we are good enough for God’s love. Not through our own earning but through God's free gift.  That's what God does -- God loves.

In both the Old and the New Testaments we are commanded to love others in the same manner in which we love ourselves.  So the question is, do we truly love ourselves – in a healthy, honest way?  Do we truly believe that God really does love us?

Some of us were lucky in our families.  We’ve been loved and cherished in our lives. But others have had different lessons thrust on us: You’re ugly; you’re stupid; you’ll never amount to anything; no one will ever love you.  Some people find it almost impossible to love themselves ... and, it appears that if we cannot love ourselves, we cannot love our neighbors.

So again, the question:  Just what does it mean to love ourselves?


NOTE:
An extensive discussion followed the message, the upshot of which was that most of us felt uncomfortable claiming to love ourselves but could be comfortable with "being satisfied" with ourselves or "being comfortable in our own skin."  There was still a feeling somehow that we had to "be better" to "earn" God's love.  A later reflection on the reading was that God looks at us, with all our flaws, and loves us anyway -- and that this is the love we are to offer our neighbors -- seeing their flaws (if we must) and loving them anyway.


What are your thoughts on the question of loving others as we love ourselves?

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GOD IS GOD ... And We Are Not

10/25/2015

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Job 38:1-11
And now, finally, God answered Job from the eye of a violent storm. He said:
“Why do you confuse the issue?
   Why do you talk without knowing what you’re talking about?
Pull yourself together, Job!
   Up on your feet! Stand tall!
I have some questions for you,
   and I want some straight answers.
Where were you when I created the earth?
   Tell me, since you know so much!
Who decided on its size? Certainly you’ll know that!
   Who came up with the blueprints and measurements?
How was its foundation poured,
   and who set the cornerstone,
While the morning stars sang in chorus
   and all the angels shouted praise?
And who took charge of the ocean
   when it gushed forth like a baby from the womb?
That was me! I wrapped it in soft clouds,
   and tucked it in safely at night.
Then I made a playpen for it,
   strong boundaries so it couldn’t run loose,
And said, ‘Stay here, this is your place.
   Your wild tantrums are confined to this place.’
One of the first things I was told on entering seminary was to always remember that “God is God ... and you are not.”  This is very much the message of today’s reading.  I don’t like the book of Job.  I may as well state that right up front.  There are bits of it, like today’s reading, that I can read and accept, and even enjoy – but the book begins with a picture of God that I simply find repugnant.  I understand that the form of this story is a literary device to allow the characters to say certain things and it is written from the point of view of a tribal culture – but, still.....

At a casual read the book of Job asks a question: Why do bad things happen to good people?  It’s the age old problem of theodicy.  But on a more careful reading it turns out that is the wrong question.  The real question asked here is: Why are good people good?

At the beginning of our story God recognizes that Job is good, but wants to know why he is good.  It is to make himself feel good about himself?  Is it to look good in God’s eyes?  Is it because, seeing God’s goodness, he wanted to look good too?  Or maybe Job believes that we are good for goodness’s sake – that this is, in truth, our natural state?

The story begins with a discussion between God and Satan (who is described here as the “Designated Accuser” - I love that title) as to just why Job is such a good man. Satan declares it is only because God has spoiled him rotten by showering him with riches and good things and never letting anything harm him.  By this time, God is somewhat wondering God’s self and this is the point where the story loses me, because God tells Satan he can do whatever he wants to Job.  The image of a being who would so casually toss aside all that Job loves just to settle a philosophical argument is not one I can reconcile with the God I love and serve.  As I said, it is a literary device ... still...

Because, taking God at God’s word, Satan does every rotten thing he can think of. Within the course of one day 
   • marauders slaughtered all Job’s farm stock as well as his field hands
   • lightning struck and fried all his sheep – as well as all the shepherds
   • Chadean raider stole every one of his camels and massacred his camel drovers
   • as lastly, word came that every one of Job’s children, who were gathered at the eldest son’s house for a party, were wiped out when a tornado hit the home,
but even with all this Job refused to sin by blaming God – he remained true and faithful.  So ... on another day, God told Satan to take it even further, and Satan inflicted Job with boils – running, open sores all over his body – but Job remained true.

At this point three of Job’s so-called frends come to him and begin grilling him, claiming to comfort him but actually trying to convince him that somehow he must have done something wrong to bring this all on himself.  The story goes on for many, many chapters but that is the drift of his friends’ counsel - somewhere you brought this on yourself.  And Job holds firm that he did no such thing – he has done nothing wrong and he does NOT deserve this.  He even calls God to listen to his testimony of innocence and then demands that God justify God’s self to him – Job.

Which God does by asking a series of questions: Where were you when everything that is was created?  Did you set the stars in the skies?  Do you control the tides?  And so on ...  And after a few more chapters, Job agrees, yes, you can do what you want because all that exists is yours – it was never mine.  And, finally, having made his point, God restores all that was taken from Job – and that appears to strike many as a happy ending.

I have never understood or found any satisfaction in this resolution to the story of Job.  It may have made sense in a tribal culture in which the idea of  individuals mattering didn’t really exist, but somehow, the idea that you can wipe out a man’s family and then simply plug in a new one later on and every thing is peachy keen just doesn’t work for us today.

This is one of the primary differences between the Old and New Testaments – the role of the individual.  Sometimes in the Old Testament God seems invested in individuals, such as David the shepherd boy who became king, but then God will turn around and slaughter hundreds of innocent people with no apparent thought for the human persons involved.  The Old Testament God is often very puzzling to us today.

Historically, the role of the individual person didn’t really begin to flower fully until the late Middle ages and the Renaissance - but the idea that God sees and cares for each of us individually is a goodly part of Jesus’ message.  We are no longer interchangeable cogs in a machine.  We matter.

When we speak of Jesus as the bridge, the great high priest, the one who stands between us and God, perhaps this is what we mean.  When Jesus says he is bringing us a “new thing” maybe this is it.  What he brings is the Good News that the same God who created all that is – the One who created the dolphins and the field mice, the One who moves the tides, the One who set rings around Saturn and placed the stars Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka in Orion’s belt – this same One, Jesus tells us, sees every sparrow and cares about me ... and you ... and values even the least among us -- especially the least among us.

God is God ... and we are not – this is absolutely true, but this God that Jesus showed us  knows and names us and loves us.

Thank God.  Amen.                        
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HOLY GROUND

10/11/2015

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Exodus 3:1-5 .....
Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the west end of the wilderness and came to the mountain of God, Horeb. The angel of God appeared to him in flames of fire blazing out of the middle of a bush. He looked. The bush was blazing away but it didn’t burn up.

Moses said, “What’s going on here? I can’t believe this!  Amazing!  Why doesn’t the bush burn up?”

God saw that he had stopped to look. God called to him from out of the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

He said, “Yes? I’m right here!”

God said, “Don’t come any closer.  Remove your sandals from your feet.  You’re standing on holy ground.”
This is not one of the lectionary readings for this Sunday.  I was led to it by a conversation I became part of on-line this week.  I’ll get into all that a little later, but I want to begin by setting the stage for this reading with a little background material.

We all know the story of Moses.  Born in Egypt as a next-best-thing-to-a-slave at a time when male Hebrew babies were being killed to keep their population down, Moses survived when his desperate mother placed him in God’s hands and tossed him into the Nile in a floating basket.  He was rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised in the royal court, as part of the family.  We then skip a number of years until he is a grown man who, witnessing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew to death, intervened and then beat the Egyptian to death himself.

Later, when he was threatened with “outing” by a fellow Hebrew who had witnessed his act of violence, Moses fled from the royal court into the wilderness, somewhere on the far side of the Red Sea, met Jethro, the “priest of Midian,” married one of his daughters, and became part of the family there, as well.

It’s easy to skip over this part of the story in order to get to the “good stuff,” but this part has some interesting points to it.  First, it doesn’t appear to have been any secret in Egypt, at least among the Hebrews, just who Moses really was.  Second, when Moses ran into trouble it wasn’t the Egyptians who threatened him - that was his own people. When he tried to break up a fight among Hebrews, the combatants basically told him to bug off because they didn’t need to listen to him, they had watched him murder a man. That was why he fled Egypt.  

This was a first of the many times the Hebrews would reject Moses’ right to lead them. It would be the Midians – strangers – who would take him in and make him one of their own.  Most likely these people didn’t even worship the same god as Moses, but they made him part of the family.  Rejected by his own people – the people he would be sent to save – Moses was welcomed and accepted by non-Jews – a story line that would be repeated about 1500 years later by another Hebrew leader named Jesus.

The third point of interest here is that Moses’ encounter with God took place on “holy ground” and that patch of holy ground was not in a temple precinct or within royal walls.  There was no gold, no cedarwood, no pews, no organ.  It was just a random someplace out in the middle of pretty much nowhere, where the sheep and goats grazed.  And that leads us around to the point I originally chose to talk about...

Holy ground – what makes a space holy and how do we recognize it?

As I said, I got into an on-line conversation occasioned when a fellow pastor commented that she often hears people talk about how the "church is dying" but that she doesn't believe it is the church itself that is dying, but instead, the way we view and use church - specifically addressing old single-use church buildings.  She then went on to articulate her vision for a multi-purpose setting for church -- one where the hungry would be fed and the homeless cared for.  What she described didn't sound much like our traditional image of the church of the past, but it was an appealing (to me) image of what the church could be.

Another pastor then chimed in with a question concerning "sacred space" and many people's need for a "set-aside" ambiance for worship, and asked where we find a balance between service and sacred worship.  [I did not ever get around to asking any other these pastors if I could quote them here and so am not including their names -- if you recognize yourself in here, thank you so much for your thoughtful contributions...]

Others then came in with descriptions of the churches they serve...and they were the most wonderful mixed lot of descriptions!  One church meets each week in a parking lot and shares a full service with all the usual parts, followed by a potluck lunch -- all with no building at all!  Another described a traditional large church building, but one that serves as a community center -- being used all week by many different groups.  I offered a description of our church setting, where we look like an ordinary strip-mall office, but where we gather to feed the hungry and clothe the naked -- and come together to share our lives and worship God.

Each and every "church" described in this conversation was "sacred ground" because in every one the people come together in love and service to the One who gives us life and hope.  Our churches are many -- and they are varied -- and it doesn't seem to matter so much what they look like --  it's the hearts of the people of God that make any place and every place holy ground.


The "church" is alive and well -- we just need to open our vision to what we are really seeing when we look at them.  Thanks be to God.
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WORLD COMMUNION SUNDAY 2015

10/4/2015

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Mark 10:13-16
The people brought children to Jesus, hoping he might touch them.  The disciples shooed them off.  But Jesus was irate and let them know it:  “Don’t push these children away.  Don’t ever get between them and me.  These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom.  Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.”  Then, gathering the children up in his arms, he laid his hands of blessing on them.
Today is World Communion Sunday and I do not have a sermon, per se.  Instead I have a poem and a couple of questions...and one observation.  Observation first, because I want you to hold this thought while you listen to the poem.


In today's reading, Jesus appears, at least, to clearly be speaking about actual children -- but in other places in the gospels Jesus when Jesus speaks about children, the little ones, he is speaking more of the powerless, those with no status in society, those without political or cultural clout of any kind -- the poor, the voiceless, invisible people.  Listen to the words of our scripture in that light ... and then listen to this poem by Jan Richardson:
“And the Table Will Be Wide”
A Blessing for World Communion Sunday

And the table
will be wide.
And the welcome
will be wide.
And the arms
will open wide
to gather us in.
And our hearts
will open wide
to receive.

And we will come
as children who trust
there is enough.
And we will come
unhindered and free.
And our aching
will be met
with bread.
And our sorrow
will be met
with wine.

And we will open our hands
to the feast
without shame.
And we will turn
toward each other
without fear.
And we will give up
our appetite
for despair.
And we will taste
and know
of delight.

And we will become bread
for a hungering world.
And we will become drink
for those who thirst.
And the blessed
will become the blessing.
And everywhere
will be the feast.

                © Jan Richardson, The Painted Prayerbook

I'm not sure that I could say anything about World Communion Sunday that says it better than that ... so I will ask my two questions for Reflection:  1) With all the best will in the world, with whom would you still find it difficult to share God's table?   2) Are you willing to do so, when Jesus invites them anyway?

And I will leave it at that.  May there be blessing and plenty for all of us.
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