Sep 16, 2012

The Words of Our Mouths

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(A sermon for Pentecost 16B–September 16, 2012–James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38)

Last Monday, I started a new job as an adjunct professor at Bangor Theological Seminary, teaching Introduction to Christian Worship. When I prepared my first lecture, I wavered between a manuscript and an outline. Some things I wanted to filter into exactly the right words, while others I trusted myself to simply tell in “close enough” to the right words. By the end of the three hour class I was exhausted from making sure to say everything the right way, from filtering things as perfectly as possible.

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For all of us make many mistakes. (James 3:1-2a, NRSV)

No kidding.

We live in a mostly unfiltered world. The conversation in public forums this past week, whether written or spoken, has been disturbing. The unfolding story about a YouTube video as the precipitating factor in violence toward Americans across the Middle East has reached no comprehensible conclusion, but that hasn’t stopped people from giving their opinions and condemning one another for doing so.

The sign on the right approximately translates as, “We disapprove/condemn the humiliation of the prophet but NOT with Terrorism.”

We saw scenes all week of people in other countries threatening the safety of our embassies.

We also saw scenes of people in other countries holding signs saying, “We are not all like this.”

Some of the people speaking cruelly – on all sides – do it with the supposedly authoritative voice of their religion. And the sad thing is I could say something like this almost every week and find a news story to go with it. As much as we might want to think people used to be more kind in their speech, that there were gentler times, the truth is it’s probably always been like this. We just hear more news from more places more often and it comes too fast to be filtered.

The gospel lesson brings us a story in which all the filters are off.

Mark’s Jesus inhabits his full humanity … fully. He works through who he is, and comes to the understanding that he is both the same as his friends and not one of them at all. We saw that understanding coming in last week’s story. Now he wants to know what other people think, the general opinion. He asks the people who know him well, the ones who have walked the dusty roads with him, the ones who have gone looking for him when he took retreats to pray.

Who do YOU say that I am?

Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” (Mark 8:29b, NRSV)

Those retreats are over. Peter isn’t the only one who knows he is the Messiah. Jesus is sure now, too.

For Jewish people living in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas in the first century of the Common Era, Messiah meant a savior who would ride in and defeat the enemy. When Peter says he believes Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus warns them all to be silent. Telling people he is the Messiah will give them the wrong idea about who he is! He needs them to understand he is a different kind of Savior. He tries to tell them what is coming: arrest and trial and death and more.

Now the filters come off.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” (Mark 8:32b-33, NRSV)

Poor Peter: all he wanted to do was see Jesus alive and victorious! But Jesus could see what must happen; it was time to tell them all how wrong they had it.

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. (Mark 8:34-35)

His friends, his disciples, thought they understood who he was, but they were wrong. Jesus didn’t come to save them from the Romans. Worse, he employed the language of Roman execution. Everyone knew what the cross meant: shame and disgrace inflicted as a deterrent for the pettiest crimes. There was no honor or glory or dignity in crucifixion. There was no fame or greatness in it. Worst of all, you had to carry our own instrument of torture and death to the place where the Romans would kill you.

It didn’t sound heroic. It didn’t sound like being a Messiah. How could that save anyone?

Peter felt the sting of Jesus’ rebuke as sharply as a slap across the face. And the more Jesus talked, the worse things sounded.
They disagreed on the most basic understanding of Jesus’ purpose.

It’s part of the human condition, seeing things differently and finding it hard to come to agreement. We hold stubbornly to our own hopes and plans. We don’t play well together, even though we secretly believe Christians should be nice. But even here there are people who have been shocked or disappointed by words exchanged under this roof. Even here there have been rebukes, delivered and received.

It has always been that way.

By the time the letter from James was written, people had been living in Christian community for decades, maybe even a century or two. We don’t really know. What we do know is that people in the first and second and third century were not that different from people in the twentieth or the twenty-first. Even those committed to following in the way of Christ got into disputes with each other, or forget to put the good of others or the community ahead of their own needs. Out of the same mouths speaking words of love also came words of pride, condemnation, provocation and cruelty. This letter is a wisdom text; it gives a guideline for communicating and a warning against the way our tongues get us into trouble when we take off the filters that matter most.

Sometimes the filter is just off before we know it.

Here’s what might have been going through Jesus’ head:

Peter, you have got to listen. You are tempting me to be the person you think I am, the one who will ride to victory, a Messiah who will not die! This is hard enough without being pulled off course by your dreams!

Here’s what came out of his mouth:

Get behind me, Satan!

What’s compelling to me about this story is how Peter and Jesus lost it not because they hated each other, but because they loved each other and cared so much about the same thing. They both wanted the Messiah to play the part God sent him to play. Peter just didn’t know what that meant. And the truth shocked him.

We are called, each of us, to carry a cross. It’s a mark that makes us different in the world’s eyes. That is not what Peter wanted, and most of the time, it’s not what we want either. We’re seeking something more stable and comprehensible, more socially acceptable: a list of rules we can check off, a syllabus we can use for learning, or a business plan we can follow.

Instead we get the cross, ancient instrument of torture and mark of shame. The cross has never been a sign of human accomplishment, of conquest in battle or success in the boardroom. The cross is a symbol of divine victory, of triumph over death and restoration of relationship.

Our battles and our victories will be more ordinary, but they can still serve the divine purpose. Our tongues can be instruments of torture, for ourselves and for others. Taming them and filtering our words can be our cross to carry. This is not the last story in which Peter said something wrong. He denied knowing Jesus three times on the morning of the Crucifixion. But he pulled himself together and went on to use that same tongue to spread the Good News of the Resurrection.

Jesus’ cross restored humanity’s relationship with God. There is more restoration to come. These tongues of ours have the power to spread discord, and it comes naturally to us. But maybe the work of the cross today is to restore our relationships with each other. So as we speak about the news of the world, or the activities of the town, or the future of the church, or the daily lives of our families, let’s try and find our filters. Let us speak no more curses, but speak words of blessing as sweet as honey. And may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in God’s sight. Amen.

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Sep 8, 2012

Be Opened

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(A sermon for Pentecost 15B–September 9, 2012–Mark 7:24-37)

After two weeks of political conventions on TV, most of which I will admit I did not watch and only read about online, we can probably all agree that there is a lot about which to disagree. And I will not tell you my politics, and I will not ask you yours. For the purposes of this sermon, I will only say that people with all good intentions can disagree on what is right and what is best or even what is true. Sadly, they can also get very angry with one another and it all goes to heck from there. It’s particularly sad when religion and politics mix and people assume that the people who don’t agree with them are not really faithful to God. A point comes where we are so invested in our own opinions that we cannot hear anything being said by the other side. Our feelings have been so hurt we stop listening.

We close our minds.

There’s been another battle brewing this week, and it has been equally intense for its participants. They do not agree, and their disagreement is so passionate that they accuse each other of having a wrong view, but not of the budget or the war in Afghanistan or the Affordable Care Act. They disagree about their views of Jesus. And the verses we read this morning about Jesus and his interaction with the Syro-Phoenecian woman are the source of the dispute.

It’s not a new argument. But let’s set the scene. If you were here last week, you know Jesus just had an argument with the religious authorities about hand-washing and other rules for cleanliness set down by those authorities. The gospel writer gives us a thumbnail sketch of the problem and then lets us hear what Jesus has to say. He makes a provocative case that the rules used to measure the value and worth of members of the community are not useful in God’s eyes. The cleaning of pots and the washing of hands and the following of the Law cannot make a person right with God, and neglecting to follow them cannot make a person wrong with God. He makes his case to the leaders of the spiritual community: they are the ones out of relationship with God, because of their greed and the way they oppress others.

Still in the same chapter, Jesus travels away from the Jewish areas. Mark’s geography is a bit fanciful. It’s more representative than literal. The important thing to know is that Jesus and his followers move on to Gentile territory.

That’s where we find ourselves in verse 24. We walk through the door with Jesus into a house; he is retreating from the world and seeking privacy. But a woman hears about him, a Syro-Phoenecian woman with a purpose. She approaches him boldly, coming right into the house, but she is respectful, bowing down before him. She is bold because she seeks healing for her daughter, possessed by an evil spirit. She is respectful because she has hope he can make a difference.

He answers her strangely.

“Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

Huh. Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food –what is he talking about?—and throw it to the dogs.

If you’re in seminary, as I was the first time I really paid attention to this story, you go and look it up and find out that while scholars agree the children he’s talking about are the children of Israel, God’s chosen people, there is some pretty vigorous disagreement about that dog reference.

After one of the conventions, I read an article that attributed an agenda to a website called factcheck.org. I figured fact checkers were just that: fact checkers. I also trust that when I go to look up a word I’ll find out what it means. But it’s not always so straightforward. It turns out the whole dog thing is … complicated.

First, there’s the idea of dogs in general. There is pretty general, but not universal, agreement, that dogs were not pets in Jewish families. By the rules Jesus grew up with, dogs were not “clean” and they were not “nice” and they were not the rough equivalent of a child you raise the way mine have been. So it’s not fair to take the food intended for the children of Israel – the Jews – and throw it to the unclean dogs. It’s not fair to take what has been sent for the Jews and give it to the Gentiles.

Most scholars I’ve read agree that the word Jesus used was a common slur used by Jews to insult Gentiles. We have such a word ourselves, a perfectly fine word if you’re a dog breeder, but not so nice if directed at another person.

And I don’t know about your view of Jesus, but my heart is committed to a Savior who loved little children and treated women better than the culture required, and it hurts my feelings to hear what he says to her.

But she is bold, and still respectful, and she pushes him:

“Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

Then he gives her what she asks. She goes home and finds her daughter well and whole.

Do you ever have a moment when you realize the lesson you’re trying to teach someone else is the one you need to learn yourself? I’ll own up to it. It happens to me all the time. And here I think it happens to Jesus. He’s left the place where he knows the rules and has declared them invalid and gone to a place where everything is less familiar and then tried to impose the same rules himself.

The blessings and grace of God are for the children of Israel, not for Gentile – b –dogs like you!

Is he tired? Yes. Seeking peace and respite? Yes. Does he sound human? Yes. Do we like the sound of it?

Yes. Yes, I do.

I like it because it reminds me that our Savior was not only fully God but also fully man, fully divine and fully human. His encounter with a determined mother opened him to a new understanding. He did not come just to change the understanding of one group of people. He came to show God’s love for all people.

That’s my conclusion. It gives me a sense that in Jesus, God had a real experience of being human, of learning some things the hard way and of reaching conclusions much as we do, in the middle of messy human encounters.

Just as disagreeing with one party or the other would make some people call me a bad American, some scholars and pastors and faithful believers would deem me a bad Christian for my interpretation of this story. My view of Jesus is too low, too human. He is God and cannot make a mistake. He is God and does not need to learn a lesson. He is God.

How does that sit with you?

The good news is we can disagree on this and still go to coffee hour and have a cookie together: a whole cookie, not a crumb. I’m not going to tell you you’re a bad Christian if you think I’m wrong. I’m going to be glad you spent time thinking about it and want to talk about it some more, because it interests me. (Just ask Lucy.)

I think what the woman taught Jesus is that even though he was exhausted at that moment, and she had intruded into his space to make one more request when he really wanted a break from all that, there was always enough to go around. Love is not a vanishing resource. Sharing it makes more of it. And because he was not only human, but also divine, he gave her what she asked him to give. He didn’t even need to see her child.

No one saw this happen, but the next healing Mark reports became the subject of much talk. Mind and heart opened, Jesus moves on to the Decapolis, and there he heals a deaf man, putting his fingers in the man’s ears and spitting and touching his tongue. Jesus groans and sighs and tells the man, “Be opened.”

Be opened as she opened me. Be blessed as a strange, demanding woman blessed me.

She blessed him by pushing on him, and she blessed all of us. Because face it. We’re a bunch of Gentiles. Some of us have dogs under the table at home. Some of us have fed dogs right *from* the table. And I would do it again. And it’s all fine because whether we make the dog stay away from the table or let him come right up and have a piece of sandwich, God’s embrace is large enough to include us.

It’s important to remember in this season of argument. Don’t let’s close down on each other. Be opened and hear the Good News! There’s enough of God’s grace and love to go around. Amen.

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Sep 6, 2012

Compelled By Love

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(A sermon for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost B–September 2, 2012–Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23)

He’s seven years old, and his hands are not always clean. I could say it about almost any seven-year-old I know. But this one is special to me, and when he climbed up beside me on the sofa with his mama’s iPod Touch, inviting me to play Tic-Tac-Toe, I had to be careful not to show my delight. And I had to be careful not to show my dismay at the smudgy surface of the electronic device we were about to share.

My grown-up sons were once that age, and I remember wondering how they managed to acquire a layer with the texture of fine silt. Our standards for cleanliness clearly differed, despite my motherly efforts to indoctrinate them in the ways of civilization. We all have expectations and traditions we hand down from one generation to another, and the expression “Cleanliness is next to Godliness,” is a trope for a reason. Keeping things clean turns out to be a smart, evolutionary protection against disease.

And in this era of hand sanitizer, or what another little boy I know calls “Hanitizer,” we’ve all got our guard up against infection. We hold tense discussions about how and whether to serve Communion during flu season. We keep the Holy Hanitizer near the Table and watch as the pastors appear to consecrate their hands before they bless the bread and cup.

I’m not making fun of this. As the person who looks at the glass before she puts water in it, whether it came out of the home dishwasher or the church dishwasher, and who will send a dirty glass back in a restaurant, I hope you will accept my credentials as a person who cares about hygiene.

Fortunately, that’s not what Jesus was talking about anyway.

We can tell from the parenthetical nature of verses 3 and 4 that the gospel writer didn’t much care about the details of the dispute. He knew his audience would be unfamiliar with Jewish practices and gave them just enough to go on, to perhaps make the conclusion of the story comprehensible.

It may sound like Jesus is saying that human rules about cleanliness don’t matter, because nothing can contaminate us on the way in…but those of us who have eaten something that made us ill or caught a virus of any kind will know that’s not a literal truth. Jesus is not running down a practice because the practice is in itself wrong, but because it represents a way of life that misses the message about our relationship with God.

Imagine a community where the rules matter more than the people, where the rules favor people with the leisure time or the domestic help to perform every detail laid down by the authorities.

Imagine a community where the law is the law because it’s always been done a certain way, and that was good enough for our grandparents, so we don’t need to know why!

Imagine almost every human community, anywhere and anytime.

We are creatures of habit and hierarchy, we human beings, and although every generation has its revolutionaries, on the whole we like to see things stay comfortably familiar, even when we are not the ones who enforce the code of conduct.

This is especially true in churches.

We don’t know what led to this encounter in Mark’s gospel. Perhaps Jesus and his friends had gotten a reputation for not keeping to the hand-washing codes. Perhaps the scribes and Pharisees set out to trap them in their non-compliance. Somebody, somewhere, noticed and told on them. The religious leaders have come to challenge him for being different, for not being a slave to their rules, for compelling by love rather than controlling by laws.

And while we may want to identify with the disciples, the very location where we sit on a Sunday morning—in the pew we’ve always used, maybe even for generations in one family, right?—suggests we are more like the Pharisees, the religious establishment. It can feel comforting to control our surroundings, to know where everyone belongs and that everything is in its place.

In the first church I served, there was an argument over serving Communion by intinction. A Deacon insisted we must serve juice in little cups because that was the way Jesus did it. We don’t have to do things one way for long before it becomes the only way. And when someone asks why, we often do not want to answer, because we often do not know.

Bruce H tells me that in his childhood church, no one walked directly in front of the altar. When he was a little boy, he was taught to walk all the way around to avoid the possibility. No one explained why. He concluded that walking in front of the altar would land you in Hell! I imagine the real reason was less drastic, but he drew his own conclusion. And we may miss something about those more formal times, even if the reason for the formality was never explained to us. Bruce still walks around the long way.

Are we compelled by love? Or are we controlled by laws?

We tend to like things the way they are. We don’t like it when someone asks why or tells us why not.

Jesus did both those things, and it made the authorities angry. They defined faithfulness by performance of actions. The established rules kept order. Each person knew his or her place. Almost every imaginable human situation and condition had a rule or a punishment attached to it. They had been doing things their way for such a long time that they couldn’t see how far they had drifted from the intent of God’s Law. The Law was meant to preserve the community, both the relationship of people with God and the relationships of people with each other. Instead it had come to divide the people by rank and to lose its focus on relationship with God and others. Obeying the Law meant pleasing the human authorities in order to maintain a position in the community.

If you were ever a seven-year-old on a playground, you’ll know what I mean.

In every human system, there is a pecking order. There are people with power and rules for behavior and codes of relationship. Challenging the established order requires risk-taking. The unwashed hands of the disciples were not a sign of laziness or disrespect for God. Their unwashed hands were a political and theological statement, an act of righteous indignation against the people who by name were the spiritual leaders of the community, but who in fact were the social oppressors.

You see, being unclean or contaminated or defiled meant being closed out from the community. It meant being shut out of worship and commerce and family life. Sometimes a person could make it right. But sometimes a person could not. And the religious authorities had the power to keep them on the outside.

Jesus objected. He came to show us a different way to live in community.

No unclean hands or unwashed dishes or unconsecrated meat for dinner could make a person dirty in the eyes of God, Jesus said. Your system is broken, he said. It’s broken. God cares about how we regard God, not how we respect human authority. God cares about what is in our hearts, not on our plates. God cares about how we love, not how we look.

We can’t be contaminated by anything from the outside. It’s our intentions that cause trouble: our ways of thinking, our treatment of others and our lack of care for ourselves.

Are we compelled by love? Or are we controlled by laws?

I’m pretty fussy about keeping my hands clean. I looked hard at that iPod before I took it in my hand. Its condition was actually a little revolting. But the smile on the face shyly offering the Touch shone brighter than the smudged screen. Nothing from outside can make us dirty, not where it counts. Compelled by love, I played Tic-Tac-Toe…and after he beat me a dozen times, I washed my hands.

In the name of the One who loves us, even when our hands are not clean. Amen.

Filed Under: Mark, Sermons ·
Aug 25, 2012

As If

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(A sermon for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost B–August 26, 2012–Ephesians 6:10-20)

“It’s what I do every morning,” the tall, quiet woman told me. Brought in to manage a department full of people who resented her, people who expected a friend from within to become the boss, she felt the resentment every day.

And so, in the morning, she put on her armor.

Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Ephesians 6:14-17, NRSV)

In the NICU

Every morning she recited this passage to herself while getting dressed for work. Nothing she could do in the workplace seemed to help the situation, and because it involved the safety and health of some very fragile infants, she moved from crisis to crisis and could not resolve the management dilemma. She believed she was doing God’s work, and these words from Ephesians gave her strength and courage to do her best even when others seemed determined to undermine her.

I felt sorry that this nice person, working so hard in a position that helped others, felt threatened and maligned and even endangered.

If you’ve ever worked in a place where people did not want you there, you’ll know how she felt.

But armor? I must admit the image made me uncomfortable.

Roman-style Armor of God

The apostle Paul spent two years under a special sort of arrest in Rome. Under guard, he could leave his house in the company of the assigned Roman soldiers, as if he were wearing an electronic ankle bracelet. Perhaps the people in charge thought Paul’s credibility would be damaged enough simply by being under arrest that they would not need to worry about him. It seems the Roman authorities thought he would be hampered enough by the guards to be pretty safe walking around the city, even talking to the citizens. Paul also received guests, passing his spiritual wisdom to them. He wrote letters, reaching out to those who wanted to learn from his experience and his example.

The Romans didn’t understand what sort of person they had among them, or how powerfully he would call on the images of the very soldiers who limited his comings and goings. For it is their armor he describes and turns to his own purposes in this letter.

“Put on the whole armor of God.”

Paul did not expect his readers to imagine literal Christian armies, destroying infidels. He did not imagine a Christian state or government or empire. He expected Jesus to return, SOON and to bring to an end life as he knew it. He lived in a faithful present that was also a difficult meantime, chased out of town and stoned and arrested simply for sharing his faith in the radical notion of Jesus Christ, a forgiving God who lived and died and rose again. And like any good preacher and teacher, he used what happened to him every day to transmit his message.

Jesus did, too. Many of his stories began, “The Kingdom of heaven is like…” or “the Kingdom of God is as if…”

• like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened
• like a treasure hidden in a field
• as if a man going on a journey summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them
• as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how

“as if”

Like. As if. They’ve lost their meaning to us, one a word used the way “y’know” once was, the other a challenge phrase. But really, these are words indicating the use of a simile.

In language, a metaphor (from the Greek: metapherin) is a rhetorical trope defined as a direct comparison between two or more seemingly unrelated subjects. This device is known for usage in literature, especially in poetry, where with few words, emotions and associations from one context are associated with objects and entities in a different context…A simile is a figure of speech in which the subject is compared to another subject. (From Wikipedia)

Metaphor and simile suggest a connection between one thing and another. In scripture, the connection expresses a truth that is deeper than a simple fact. Jesus used the commonplace, images of everyday life, to paint a picture of God’s hope for the world. And in his efforts to equip the faithful after the Resurrection, when Jesus was a memory and his followers a persecuted group, Paul did the same. He stood in marketplaces telling everyone who would listen about the one whose love overcame evil, Jesus Christ.

Paul knew that evil well. He knew about the use of strength to harm the opposition. He had used it to persecute Jesus’ followers before he became one himself. In his new life of faith, he found his real power, the gift of encouraging others with words that can still help us today.

For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12)

the pjs…

I picture Paul, befriending his guards, and tweaking them just a little with these words. They are wearing the kind of armor that protects against physical wounds, but it has no spiritual power. For facing inner enemies in the difficult meantime, Paul gave a young church an image of its own strength, a power derived not from physical armor but from a protective suit of spiritual virtues and assurances. The cosmic powers of our present darkness sometimes express themselves in the material world through the voices and actions of others. This is nothing new. We know how to arm ourselves—with truth and righteousness, to bring peace and the knowledge of salvation, our weapon a sword of the Spirit, the word of God.

The Whole Armor of God is a potent image. If you search for it on the Internet, you’ll find Whole Armor of God pajamas and a Whole Armor of God game for children. “Be the first one to put on The Whole Armor of God!” For people who feel being faithful has them in a battle against the whole world, all the time, it calls up not the Roman guards hanging around Paul’s door, screening visitors, but the soldiers of history who have gone out under banners decorated with the cross, winning the world for Jesus one sword-thrust at a time.

Actually, it calls that up for me, too. And that’s why I felt so uncomfortable listening to the nice, nice woman at the hospital telling me about how much praying this passage meant to her.

Here’s my guilty passion.

Theologically incorrect?

I love singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” I love that tune. I love the elements of the bass line. It stirs me.

It’s also considered to be theologically incorrect. We’ve seen so much damage done in the name of God, we shy away from militaristic hymns. Oh, you can sing this marvelous tune with different words. There’s a very nice hymn called “Forward Through the Ages” that makes good use of its marching sound, but for me it’s always the other version in my head, the one I learned when I was a student in an Episcopal girls’ school. If I close my eyes, I can see us in our white blouses and navy blue skirts. I can almost hear our entirely treble voices piping it in chapel, the teacher at the piano making up for it by leaning hard on the bass notes.

It stirs me just the way the whole armor of God, with its belt of truth and breastplate of righteousness, gave needed strength to the manager in the difficult job.

These potent images have a place. The trouble is when we forget they are images, metaphors and similes.

Paul didn’t intend for the churches who received his letter to start manufacturing fine leather armor with the word “righteousness” burned into the breastplate.

Those Christian soldiers in the hymn? They are marching AS to war. They are marching AS IF to war.

As if.

The strength gained from scripture carried the manager through many difficult days and nights. She understood how to wear the armor. She did not need to come to the workplace with an actual weapon, using it to prove she was right, by God!

Don’t let us be confused, in the wars of words swirling around us this summer, don’t let us be confused and think that strength equates with volume or violence.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. (Ephesians 6:10)

No need for actual armor. Amen.

Filed Under: Sermons ·
Aug 19, 2012

“Please don’t be an idiot. Thank you.”

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(A sermon for the 12th Sunday after Pentecost B–August 19, 2012–Proverbs 9:1-6–click here for audio)

They’re partners. They spend a lot of time together. Tim is idealistic and emotional. Frank is cerebral and cynical. Their temperaments clash, and in the day to day of life, they’ve been known to bicker.

Tim feels frustrated because he thinks Frank fails to observe the humane niceties that mark polite interaction, and at the end of what is, well, a bit of a rant, he says, “You never say please! You never say thank you!”

And Frank responds, “Please don’t be an idiot. Thank you.”

Frank and Tim

Maybe some of you will now recognize Frank and Tim, fictional Baltimore Detectives Pembleton and Bayliss, from the TV show Homicide: Life on the Street. It’s a funny little exchange that characterizes their relationship, but it’s also a representation of Frank’s philosophy. He doesn’t suffer fools gladly. And they are out in the world trying to solve the worst sorts of crimes, so why should it matter whether or not he is polite to Tim? Isn’t the subject of the argument idiotic?

Human beings *can* excel at being idiotic.

Friday morning I was over at George and Carol Black’s house, and as I was leaving, I turned my head left to admire one of their adorable granddaughters at the same time I was turning the rest of me right toward the door and…

And I missed the step I should have known was there, and I came crashing down on the floor.

It’s a pretty basic concept: “Watch where you’re going.”

“Please don’t be an idiot. Thank you.”

Turning into the church driveway Friday morning, I thought of the text. “You that are simple, turn in here.”

I felt pretty simple, which is to say, unwise. It’s not that hard to watch where you’re going. But a propensity for accident is part of the human condition. We’re distracted and out-of-balance and overwhelmed by the demands of life, and the shiny things that loom in front of us, and the “need” to hurry, and even the coo of a baby in a Pack-and-Play.

Maybe we can take some comfort in knowing that people have been this way forever: idiotic, misdirected, out-of-sync, uncoordinated and in need of guidance.

“Please don’t be an idiot. Thank you.”

It’s been suggested to me this week that I’m too hard on myself, but I certainly felt idiotic and embarrassed as I assessed the situation and picked myself up as quickly as possible, getting away before anyone else could see the damage.

I came back to church and looked for the First Aid Kit in the kitchen, only to discover that we really need a new one. Then Lyn sent an email to the Trustees asking if they would replace it, and since George is a Trustee, the Blacks quickly figured that I was the patient in need.

Knee-worthy

And since I know they know, well, here we all are no longer wondering why I’m wearing a specially purchased Band-Aid that fits on a knee.

“You that are simple, turn in here.”

Turn into Wisdom’s House. The book of Proverbs personifies Wisdom as a feminine figure of power who partnered with God in Creation.* The Hebrew and Greek words for Wisdom and the Spirit of God were feminine; this is an ancient understanding lost when the Greek became Latin and the Spirit of God became masculine instead.

Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars.

She has built the place herself, carving the entrance from wood or stone. She is wise and accomplished in matters both discerning and practical.

She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table.

Wisdom prepares the table for those who need what she will serve; she oversees every detail of the meal and its presentation.

She has sent out her servant girls, she calls from the highest places in the town, “You that are simple, turn in here!” To those without sense she says, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”

Wisdom invites the simple, those without sense, to come and gain maturity and insight. And it fascinates me that it’s not a lecture hall in which the answers will be given, or the Temple or some other place of worship. It’s a house where a banquet will be served, where bread and wine will be shared.

Wisdom comes through the senses, for those without the sense to watch where they are going.

“Please don’t be an idiot. Thank you.”

“You that are simple, turn in here.”

Frank is tough on Tim. He’s tough on everybody. He’s an educated Catholic, the product of Jesuit schools. He is well-read and widely knowledgeable. He is scarred by the world and defends his heart with his intellect. His retorts are smart, and he knows a lot, but he could use a dose of insight about the value of the living people around him, the people, like Tim, who care about him.

We all know people who are smart but have no sense, don’t we?

Yes, I recognize me. I haven’t always been wise. I’ve looked away from where I was headed toward the person I thought others wanted me to be, without enough thought for what God really had in mind or who God made me to be.

Or which step I was about to miss.

“Please don’t be an idiot. Thank you.”

Frank is a homicide detective, and it is his job to look at terrible things and to solve horrible crimes. He is not just disappointed in people. Having seen the depraved way people harm each other, he is disappointed in the God who created them. We can blame God for letting us be free-wheeling … idiots. That seems to be part of the set-up, doesn’t it? We are here walking off steps while looking the other way, as if we didn’t have the sense God gave a goose.

We do worse things, too. Frank wants God to do a better job keeping order, and I sometimes agree with him. We see the terrible things people do to each other, the rough handling and rude dismissals and thoughtless neglect and outright violence.

But here’s what Frank, with all his learning, misses.

“You that are simple, turn in here.”

He misses the invitation. And it’s for all of us. Because believe me, no matter how good our grades were once upon a time, no matter how we excel in our work, no matter how well we have developed our gifts and talents, we are all simple. And knowing how we are, God has not left us alone in the world. God came to us in Jesus. God remains with us in the Holy Spirit, at the table of Wisdom.

God calls to us, all the time:
“You that are simple, turn in here.”

We probably wouldn’t want to paint that on the church sign, nor would we buy an ad in the paper saying, “Those without sense, come eat our bread!” And churches are not always the ultimate in wise institutions. We don’t know everything, and we don’t get everything right, with each other or with the world. But the good news is that when we are misdirected, out-of-sync, uncoordinated and in need of guidance – even when we’re downright idiotic – and even when we’ve done wrong – we are welcome to turn in here. The doors are open. The coffee is hot. We’re all in the same situation, and some of us are even willing to admit it.

Maybe we’ll even help each other get up again after a fall.

So, please, don’t be an idiot. Thank you. Turn in here. Amen.

*Many thanks to the Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney for her insight and scholarship on this passage at Working Preacher.

Filed Under: Audio Sermons, Proverbs, Sermon, Sermons ·
Aug 11, 2012

Before You Speak

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(A sermon for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost B–August 12, 2012–Ephesians 4:25-5:2)

It’s a Sufi saying: Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates. At the first gate, ask yourself ‘Is is true.’ At the second gate ask, ‘Is it necessary.’ At the third gate ask, ‘Is it kind.’

Evangelist Alan Redpath formulated a similar rubric, using the word “think.”
T—Is it true?
H—Is it helpful?
I—Is it inspiring?
N—Is it necessary?
K—Is it kind?

Redpath added, “If what I am about to say does not pass those tests, I will keep my mouth shut!”

“…don’t say nothing at all.”

Here’s another rendering of this principle, one you may remember from the movies.
Mrs. Rabbit cautions her son: “Thumper!”
Thumper: Yes, mama?
Mrs. Rabbit: What did your father tell you this morning?
Thumper: [clears throat] If you can’t say something nice… don’t say nothing at all.

Any principle so broadly accepted that it is espoused by Islamic mystics, evangelical Christian ministers and Walt Disney must have something to it.

So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear…Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:25-27, 29, 31-32, NRSV)

This is part of a letter addressed to the members of a very young church, intended to help them live together in their new relationship as a community of God’s people. Changed by their devotion to Jesus Christ, they struggled, as did all the early churches, to live out their new commitment in the ways they interacted with each other and with the community around them. If we’re looking for guidance, we find the same advice across time and faiths and even in popular culture, don’t we?

“If you can’t say something nice…don’t say nothing at all.”

Lucy is up at Pilgrim Lodge this week, having a second turn this summer serving as a CIT, a sort of Junior Counselor. As we turned down the dirt road at the entrance, she breathed a happy sigh and said, “This is the best.camp.ever.” She says that now knowing what goes into making it such a special place. And she would tell you that it came as a slightly disappointing surprise to take the CIT training last year and learn that so much of what she thought just HAPPENS at Pilgrim Lodge is in fact intentional.

The rules, the boundaries, sure, she knew those must be thought through and planned for good reason. The schedule, the option times and special activities—yes, those require planning. But what surprised Lucy is that the counselors, junior and otherwise, learn how to create the atmosphere of trust and acceptance and gentle discipline that IS Pilgrim Lodge.

The labyrinth at PL–read more here.

It’s true that the spirit of the trees and the lake make it easier. Campers—and counselors, too—are unplugged from the world and have a chance to be more present. They swim and sing and walk the labyrinth and pray in the chapel and wake up the echo and listen for the loons. But the intentional work of the staff and the volunteers maintains what they call being “Pilgrim Lodge-ical.” And that means treating each other the way the epistle teaches, with kindness and an understanding that we are all part of the body of Christ.

It sounds so beautiful.

But I have a confession to make. When Lucy told me she needed to bring a watch and couldn’t find the one I got for her before camp last summer, my response was *not* Pilgrim Lodge-ical. I did not take the time to think before I spoke. I walked through my thoughts through no three gates. I most assuredly didn’t say “nothing at all.”

Not my daughter’s dresser.

And while it might be true that the top of someone’s dresser is a mess, the way I named it was not helpful, or inspirational, or necessary, and it wasn’t even close to kind.

Before you speak – maybe you do better at this kind of thing than I do. Maybe in a moment of frustration you can walk through those three gates and hold yourself back. Oh, there are times I get it right, but I absolutely get it wrong, too.

We didn’t stay mad long enough – yes, we were both mad, but mostly me—to have to worry about the sun going down on our anger. But I’ve been known to hold onto things. You? If you haven’t, God bless you. Speaking the truth while being kind, being angry but not sinning—these are not easy things to do. They never have been, and I’m afraid living in the modern world in which we have so many more ways to fly off the handle at each other makes it even more difficult. There are too many ways to respond instantly. Just read the comments on almost any newspaper website.

Actually, don’t. They might make you despair about humanity.

Christians are just as apt to live by the 21st century rules as anybody else. We carry out our arguments about God and what we think the Bible means and who we think Jesus was and who he would have approved and disapproved in every kind of public forum we can find. We leave nasty comments and accuse each other of not being Christian at all. In America, we mix up our national identity with our faith identity and that just makes us meaner to each other.

We let the sun go down on our anger as regularly as the sun goes down.

That’s the big “we,” the overarching “we,” and you and I can’t do much to change the way the big “we” does things. We might wish the world were more like how we do things at our house (well, except for yesterday morning at mine). But we can only change the way we, little “we,” this us right here and the you and me who form it. We can only change ourselves.

Now, we know the things we read this morning are good ideas. Agreed? Speak kindly, treat each other well. Think it through. Evaluate. T.H.I.N.K.

Walk through the gates, before you speak: is it true, is it necessary, is it kind?

And if you can’t say something nice…Well, maybe not that one, not all the time. It’s not bad advice for a young cartoon bunny. But the reality of grown-up life, in families and in churches, is that sometimes we need to tell somebody something that isn’t all that nice, but needs to be said anyway, because it’s true and because it’s necessary.

Then the key is to be kind.

Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:31-32, NRSV)

There are people who come to this naturally. I have the greatest respect for them. They are wired for respectful kindness and tenderhearted patience. They are saints, really. But most of us need to work at it. Kind communication is a tough spiritual discipline. It takes intention and practice.

~before you speak~

• We remind ourselves what is “Pilgrim Lodge-ical”…or not.
• We put a list on the Sunday bulletin, or the classroom wall.
• We write ourselves a note, or draw a picture of the three gates.
• Or maybe we start with Thumper, picturing a bunny and quietly, kindly biting our tongues until we find the right words.

It’s hard. I’m afraid I say that a lot. Being a Christian is not easy. But listen to this:

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:1-2, NRSV)

Christians, it’s hard, but it’s not impossible. We aren’t out here doing it alone. We are loved by God, loved so much that God became one of us in Christ Jesus. I believe God is working for us and in us and through us, calling us to be beloved children and to live in love.

Live in love.

Maybe that’s the intention we need, before we speak. Amen.

Filed Under: Ephesians, Ephesians 4:25-5:2, Proper 14B, Sermons ·
Aug 4, 2012

Bread and Whine

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(A sermon for the 10th Sunday after Pentecost B–August 5, 2012–Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15; John 6:24-35–click here for audio)
Are we there yet?
Has it been five minutes?
How much longer until we get to the beach?
When can we stop and go to the bathroom?
These questions are the not-so-musical refrain of vacation travel. We want to get away. We’ve got to get away. But when you’re traveling with children, these are the questions asked and heard. And asked and heard. And asked and heard.
And whined.  And heard. Sometimes the people asking are not the children.
The Israelites did not have the modern conveniences even of a 2001 Honda Odyssey: the doors that open with a remote control if you’re racing for the car in the rain; the air-conditioning vents aimed at “the way back;” the proliferation of cup holders for the omnipresent water bottles we require for travel. Even still, there were times, with a teenager and a 2nd-grader in the back seat, when the grown-ups in front wished for the kind of panel a limousine driver can close for the privacy of the passengers.
  • When the ear buds slip or the volume is loud and the music of two iPods can be heard.
  • When the boy starts petting the girl’s hair and you hope she doesn’t push back, literally, the way her older brothers would likely have pushed her.
  • When he asks her the same question so many times she finally says, “It’s the same answer as the last time you asked me.”
And then the mamas asked, “Are we there yet?”
The Israelites complained:
The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Exodus 16:2-3, NRSV)

The Super-Dooper Looper–our kids are on their somewhere.

I’m sure Moses and Aaron felt worse than two dads in the front seat of a minivan.

We’ve brought you out of slavery! We’ve saved you from oppression! We’ve taken you to the beach and Hershey Park! 
Yeah, but when are we going to Disney?
Whine, whine, whine.
It would have been better for God’s own hand to kill us in the land of Egypt, because at least there we had enough to eat.
“Did we bring any snacks? When can we stop for a snack? I’m hungry!”
Honey, we just got started. Hold on. We’ve got 40 years of wilderness to go.
40 years – really, that was a lifetime under those circumstances, a lifetime of wandering and marrying and giving birth and burying the dead and getting into arguments and wondering what God meant by sending the people, so many people, out into the wilderness without the proper provisions.
***Some people say the Israelites needed to wander that long
so no one would be alive to remember Egypt
when the younger generation finally got to the Promised Land. ***
No one would remember the fleshpots – the hot meals in a pot – the meat and the bread that kept them going while they worked for their Egyptian masters.

Really, he got them out of there.

What a relief it must have been to Moses when God promised to rain down bread from heaven!

Maybe the people would believe and be more cooperative!
But if he had already gotten them out of Egypt, with God’s apparent and miraculous help, why didn’t they believe already?
Maybe it’s our nature to question.
Are we there yet?
Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom (God) has sent.” (John 6:28-29, NRSV)
Maybe it’s our nature to question. Which is exactly what makes it, whatever *it* is, hard to believe. We always seem to want more than we have, no matter how much we have. We’re hungry and afraid of starving even when we’re overfed.
I’m not just talking about bread here.
The crowd following Jesus had been fed – as Holly told you last week, the command to sit down and eat meant it was a real, filling meal – but they wanted more. They followed him and asked for a sign. I find this baffling. Turning five loaves and two fishes into a banquet for 5000 people wasn’t enough of a sign for them?
But they wanted to know for certain.
So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.  For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (John 6:30-33, NRSV)
“Who are you? Are you the one we’ve been hoping for? Can you show us one more sign, prove it to us one more time?”
Are we there yet?
They wanted to get there in a less confusing way. They had trouble following the route of Jesus’ thoughts. He left them wandering in a wilderness of words.  They knew the stories of their ancestors well. Being fed out of nowhere had a precedent. Jesus had done it, too. But who was he? That’s what they wanted to know. Who was he?
“For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
The bread was not enough.
The people wanted more. They wanted to understand. But when he answered, they grew more confused.
They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” (John 6:34)
It’s a theme in John’s gospel. Jesus is the living bread, the living water.
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35)
We live in the time of fast food. We can buy just about anything between two pieces of bread or two halves of a roll. Few of us have ever ground wheat by hand. Maybe some of us have baked our own bread. Most of us go right to the store. Hunger was real to the people Jesus met. They knew the complex and time-consuming process of making bread, or drawing water. This man claimed to be the one who would eliminate not only hunger and thirst but the effort required to relieve them.
I am so sure this is a metaphor that I cannot understand not understanding him—except when I can.
“Lucy, have you found your college yet?”
Her seatmate in the back of the van asked this question all through vacation. He is seven and interested in her, and he wants to understand. We tried to explain that you can like some colleges, but then you have to be sure they like you before you can decide which one you like the best. That answer was too complicated, so he asked the question again.
“Lucy, have you found your college yet?”
Finally she said, “It’s the same answer as the last time you asked me.”
Are we there yet?
We are. We’re two thousand years past the people following Jesus, pushing closer to ask him what they need to do, and who in the world, who in heaven, he is. We understand the metaphor.
Well, we understand that there is such a *thing* as a metaphor, that Jesus isn’t actually bread or water.
But are we there yet?

“I am the bread of life.”

We aren’t. Because really being there means taking in what he said, not just in our heads, but in our hearts and bodies. It means really trusting that God will feed us, in the ways that matter, always. It means letting go into believing.

That’s hard.
So we whine, all the way to the Bread.
Are we there yet?
It’s the same answer as the last time we asked. Come to him and never be hungry. Amen.
Filed Under: Audio Sermons, Exodus, Sermons ·
Jul 7, 2012

…shake the dust off your chucks…

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(A sermon for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost B–July 8, 2012–Ezekiel 2:1-5; Mark 6:1-13)

“Shake it off.”

Those were the mild words of my father, whether I suffered a skinned knee or a disappointed heart or an outraged mind. “Shake it off” was his advice no matter what injury or offense life brought my way.

I did *not* like it. I was an emotional, reactive little girl, a foot-stamper and a door-slammer. I wanted attention and comfort and justice, depending on the wound. How could I shake it off? How could I shake it off if my little brother hit me, or I didn’t get the part I wanted in the play, or the girls in my class picked on me?

Yes, I could do righteous indignation with the best of them even when I was a little girl. When those things happened, I was:

Offended!

Repulsed!

Scandalized!*

These are a few of the interpretations of the way people in Jesus’ hometown felt when he came around to tell them a thing or two about … well, the gospel doesn’t exactly say.

On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands!” (Mark 6:2, NRSV)

They were about to take care of that. They knew him, and all his family. He was nothing special. He had a mother, and four brothers and some sisters not even worth naming.

They watched him grow up, right there in town, and they knew him better than he knew himself. Hmmph.

Outrageous. Repulsive. Scandalous. He’s no prophet. He’s no healer. He thinks he’s a teacher? He’s a carpenter!

And while he was with them:

He could do no deeds of power.

This bad day comes right on the heels of a stretch of triumphant encounters: Jesus bests the religious authority figures in debates, and he casts demons out of many different people, and he heals the sick, and at the end of Chapter 5, he raises a little girl from the dead.

I can’t imagine this story didn’t get home to Nazareth ahead of him.

Still, the people are offended. Where does Mary’s boy get off, making himself so important? We heard he was crazy. Why not too long ago his own family tried to bring him home and make him stop acting this way.

The story at home was very different from the one everywhere else.

Around the world, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was respected for his courage and witness during Apartheid in South Africa. But at home, in South Africa, he had a different experience. Matthew Willman, interviewing Archbishop Tutu, asked:

You were often protested against, wrongly quoted and many times lied about during the long years of apartheid. Many believed what the newspapers wrote, did this influence your character and goals in life?

Tutu responded:

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

In fact no, I would have hoped I mean that to some extent the main aspect of who I was, was already in place. What many people would not easily believe is that actually I am in fact I am quite reserved. They will say what? that exuberant outgoing Bishop? that very abrasive guy? (laughing out loud) but it’s true…..

It was painful but I learnt to try to develop a skin or a Rhinoceros. I will tell you this, the reason why it was painful was because maybe one of my weaknesses, one of my several weaknesses, is that I love to be loved and nothing could have been more excruciating than to be vilified as a matter of cause.’

I knew from Theology College that when you looked at Biblical paradigms you realized that if you were asked to be Gods spokesperson only infrequently would you be bothered. I mean Our Lord Himself said ‘A prophet is not without honour except in his own country, his own City.’ So it wasn’t surprising and to some extent it attested to the authenticity of what you were doing.

Develop a thick skin. Shake it off.

Now, when I read this story, I’m scandalized on Jesus’ behalf. How could they not see who he really was? Remember it was only in Chapter 4 that he gave commands to the wind and the rain, and the wind and the rain OBEYED HIM!!! Seriously! You know that story made it to Nazareth, too.

But there he was, the c.a.r.p.e.n.t.e.r., showing up at synagogue, bold as brass, talking like he knew something. Did he get special training? Did he have a divinity degree? A Masters in Sacred Texts? When he was growing up, was he the rabbi’s favorite? He’s just a boy from a big family who didn’t stick around to help support his mother. Pah! Outrageous. Scandalous. Even someone without any special qualifications should know better than that.

I sympathize with Jesus. I can feel my gorge rising just thinking about it. He’s come home to share the Good News with his own people, and they are, elbowing each other, talking behind their hands, “whispering” loudly enough to be heard quite clearly.

They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” (Mark 6:2b-3, NRSV)

No wonder he could do no deeds of power…well, except for healing a few sick people.

Shake it off. He must have told himself that. Shake it off. Look at these other people who need help. Shake it off.

All through the gospel of Mark, Jesus tells people, “your faith has made you well.” Sometimes it’s even the faith of another person causing the healing. But where people actively disbelieve, he can’t muster his power to do wonders. He has to muster his power to control himself.

Because don’t lets kid ourselves. He had the power to heal the sick and cast out evil spirits and he had the power to calm a storm and he had the power to raise a little girl from the dead. If he wanted to bring the powers of storm and even death on those – annoying – people in his hometown, he could have. He could have.

Instead he shook it off. And he told his friends to do the same.

Shake the dust off your feet as a witness when people cannot hear what you are telling them. Shake it off and move along.

And we might like to think, “That’s all very well for his itinerant disciples, going to talk to strangers. What did they have to lose? All they had to do was go to the next town.”

It’s harder when you’re trying to tell the truth to people who know you, especially when they’ve known you all your life. It’s hard to talk about something that means everything to you when the people who should understand think you’re crazy or foolish or pretending to be something you’re not.

But I wonder if that isn’t exactly what the disciples faced, and if it isn’t the reason Jesus gave them the advice he did. After all, he didn’t send them to Kenya or France or Maine to spread the word. He sent them to places that were walking distance, places where people would recognize them, places where their third cousins, or their wives’ uncles or their more successful older brothers lived. And those were the people, those relatives, or their neighbors, who would close the doors in their faces.

They weren’t that different from us. We just have more ways to have our feelings hurt by the people who know us best and for goodness’ sake ought to be able to understand where we’re coming from! We can slight each other at home and at church, just like they did, and in the marketplace, but we’ve added the mall and the schoolyard. We can whisper insults behind our hands, a little too loudly, but we can also sling arrows via email or on Facebook, in voicemail and text message.

It’s possible we think a lot of ourselves. Ahem.

And in today’s world, there’s nothing people like to fight over more than differences of belief, whether it’s religion or science or politics. We 21st century people have it down to a fine art of sideways remarks and outright threats and an absolute lack of grace extended to the people on the other side of whatever the issue or question may be. We cling to our outrage.

But Jesus doesn’t tell his disciples to fight. He doesn’t tell us to come down like the hammer.

Shake it off, he says mildly. Shake it off. If they won’t listen to you, if they can’t offer you the decency of basic hospitality and a fair hearing, shake the dust off your feet and move along.

He’s telling us the same thing. Shake the dust off your shoes: your Chuck Taylors or your Vans, your Crocs or your Birkenstocks. Shake the dust off and keep moving. Shake it off.

But first you have to try and tell them something about Jesus. He spent his time explaining that God cares more about us than about rules written down in a book. He told them over and over that we ought to care for one another, not to win God’s love and forgiveness but because we are grateful to have it already. He showed them, in his actions, that people who are on the margins of society matter to God, and they ought to matter to us, too. And he promised us that when we are the ones on the margins, on the wrong side of happiness, or success, or acceptability, or strength, or the law, or health, God will absolutely embrace us.

He had phenomenal power, but he did not use it to save himself. Instead he suffered in body to show us that even in death there is hope of new life.

…shake the dust off your Chucks…

It’s the best Good News there is.

But it won’t sound good to everyone. Whether we tell the story of God’s amazing and steadfast love, or simply show it in our actions, some people will respond, and others will close the door on us. They may even slam it.

Then, shake the dust off your Chucks. Remember you are in good company. Take the message to the next person who needs to hear it. In the name of the One who got no honor in his hometown. Amen.

 

*Many thanks to the Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney, who pointed out that the people were beyond offended; they were scandalized.

Filed Under: Ezekiel 2:1-5, Mark 6:1-13, Sermons ·
Jun 30, 2012

Reach Out and Touch Faith

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(A sermon for the 5th Sunday after Pentecost B–July 1, 2012-Mark 5:21-43)

It started for me with two words on Channel 6 that caught my attention. With Lucy away at camp, the house was too quiet. And when the house is too quiet, I turn on the TV. That doesn’t mean I watch it, or even listen to it very carefully. I just want the background noise.

And in the background noise, I heard two words: “North Yarmouth.” And then two more: “plane crash.”

Then I paid attention, and as I watched more news and caught up with members of our church family on Facebook and via email, I learned that more than one accident last weekend meant something to many of us. Not that we don’t all feel something when we hear the story of a young person killed in a car crash, or an older person, but these stories were all, in one way or another, close to home, close to North Yarmouth and Cumberland and Greely High School and all the intersections where our lives come together and sadly sometimes collide terribly.

Friday afternoon at 2, in Cumberland and North Yarmouth, three different services were held, in a church and in a high school and at the graveside. We want to think that gathering with friends will allow some sort of closure for grieving families, but when the loss comes in the shock of an accident, a memorial service or a celebration of life or a burial merely mark one more day of being stunned, one more morning of waking up and realizing again what has happened, one more moment of “I can’t wrap my head around this.”

One more day, one more morning, one more moment: in the midst of grief, how do we reach out and touch faith?

Every day she got up and realized again what she had gone to sleep praying would no longer be true: she was bleeding. Every woman does, she knew that, but there is a right schedule for it, a pattern that is acceptable, and a way of making yourself clean again so you can go back to the synagogue and worship. There is a right way for everything, even bleeding, and her way was not right. Twelve years of being wrong, of being ritually unclean, of being out of community: twelve years is a long time.

Somehow, though, she didn’t give up. She spent her money on healers and offerings, hoping, until the money was all gone.

Still, she didn’t give up. And on this day, when Jesus and his disciples returned from the other side of the Sea of Galilee, she went out into the crowd, believing. The stories had been passed from one neighbor to another, all around the town. This man could heal people. This man could cast out demons. This man could make the wind and sea obey him!

This man was more than a man. Although the beginning of Mark Chapter 5 finds Jesus and his disciples on the other side of the sea, among the Gentiles in Gerasene, we remember from last week that there were other boats with him in the storm. Surely, they came home and told the story. They must have.

She went out into the town, hoping to see him, inspired by the stories of his power. This man was more than a man. She had faith in him, faith in his power to heal, faith that something could still change. She would reach out and touch faith.

Jairus left his house that morning on a similar errand. He went to sleep knowing his little girl, twelve years old, was very ill. On this day, he discovered she was worse, “at the point of death.” It didn’t matter that he was a synagogue leader, one of the people who disliked Jesus and what he was doing. On this day, Jairus was a father first, a father who loved his little daughter, a father who believed Jesus could help her. He didn’t care what anyone else thought about Jesus, or about him.

He was a man, with a secure position in the community, a leader in the faith community because he had the money to help maintain the building where they gathered to worship. He went straight to the teacher, the healer, and “fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly.” Come and lay your hands on my daughter. Come and make her well. Reach out and touch faith!

And as they moved off together a crowd pressed in around them. It was quite a demonstration of grief and desperation, you see, a respected member of the community prostrate before the man who was already stirring up trouble, begging for his help. The people pressed in and followed to see what would happen next, and in the midst of this came the woman, not daring to ask for anything, but believing, somehow, that this healer, this wise man would be the one to cure her.

“If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”

“Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”

These are hard stories in this week, a week when we wonder why some things turn out well, why some people get their apparent miracles, and some do not. We’re living, some of us, with more than the accidents that happened. We’re waiting for test results, or wishing we had heard something different. We’re enduring the ups and downs of chronic illness and wondering why we, of all people, have them. We’re worrying about people we love and grieving people we’ve lost.

We’re asking questions with no answers.

How do we reach out and touch faith?

There’s something about the interweaving of these stories—we find it a lot in Mark’s gospel; one story starts and then another interrupts it, and then the first story is resolved, and we’re left to calculate the connections between them. There’s something about the interweaving of these stories: a man at the center of the community and a woman on the margins of the same community both go down on their knees, seeking healing. We, all of us, have pondered death and life and what matters to us and who matters to us as we’ve run into people we know and talked about our connections to the Gaddis and Stewart family, or to Dr. Hanson, or to Casey Green or Glenice Hutchins.

We’ve thought about what our faith has to say in the crisis, and in the grinding work of learning to live without a person you love, in both the acute and the chronic.

“Christ Raises the Daughter of Jairus”~Yelena Cherkasova

It’s on my heart that some people who are grieving right now do not have a sense of God’s presence, and I am sorriest for them. We don’t always get the miraculous outcome, the literal physical healing, the end of the bleeding, the raising from the dead. But our faith promises us that God cares about our broken, ailing, injured physical selves. Our embodied lives matter. We are not just souls on a scorecard. We are beloved children of the Heavenly Parent. We are sisters and brothers of Jesus Christ. Our lives matter to the One who made us. Our embodied lives matter.

Jesus entered the house where the little girl lay. The word had come to them on the way that she was already dead. Why bother the teacher?

In a moment of deep intimacy, away from the crowd, with only her father and her mother and his three closest friends as witnesses, Jesus reached out and took the little girl by the hand. And she lived.

How do we reach out and touch faith?

We do it when we break the bread and pour the cup. We remember that God lived an embodied life in Jesus, and suffered an embodied and terrible death. We experience his love for us in the sharing of a meal together, bringing to the table the mess of our lives and the love we have for each other and the tangled interweaving of our lives in community. We bring it all, and we lay it down and take the bread and feel the love.

Reach out and touch faith, in the name of the Risen and Healing Christ. Amen.

Filed Under: Mark 5:21-43, Sermons ·
Jun 23, 2012

That Moment When…

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(A sermon for the 4th Sunday after Pentecost B–June 24, 2012–Mark 4:35-41–complete with sound effects.)

That moment when you realize you can’t stay ahead of the storm.

(Thunder sheet.)

The first time I took a car trip alone with a very small child, I planned the timing carefully. We would drive after dinner, the long summer evening providing plenty of light. At the other end my parents would be waiting to receive us, eagerly watching at the window. I knew there might be rain, but after I watched the local news, I decided to stick with the plan.

When I stopped about halfway to pay a toll, I looked behind me and confirmed the fast-increasing darkness was not just because of the time of day. The thunder sounded close; as I started again there was lightning in the sky. For the rest of the trip I drove in a downpour so heavy I could not see where I was. I remember the tense feeling in my chest as I tried to decide whether to pull over or keep going. I was 25, and I’d never driven in a serious storm. I worried that the baby would cry.

I tried to figure out the best strategy for traveling in such poor visibility: the rain falling in torrents, the lightning offering brief flashes of the world and the thunder rolling over and around me. Some cars were going slowly, some had their flashers on, some stopped on the side of the road. I pulled off at a rest area, but seeing the baby grow restless, I quickly decided to keep going, rather than wait out the storm.

The trip took at least twice as long as usual. I breathed a little more easily once off the highway, but the night was dark by then, darker than I liked, with no moon, no stars. I drove the long, winding roads toward my parents’ house, toward home.

When I turned the corner, it looked dark and unwelcoming, a fallen branch having knocked out the power.

But when you live in a neighborhood where that happens a lot, you always have candles. In the midst of the storm, my mother was waiting, listening beyond the storm for the sound of my tires on the pebble driveway. The garage door opened, and there was light, and inside the storm didn’t seem so bad after all.

The baby, by the way, slept through the whole thing.

That moment the boat is swamped.

(Thunder sheet.)

I took canoeing for six years at summer camp, and the only time I was in a boat that got swamped was on purpose. They teach you how to unswamp a canoe, and to learn how you have to swamp it on purpose, first. Canoe full of water, you jump out and get under the boat and raise it up to let the water drain out.

The much-desired patch.

Honestly, I find it hard to believe I had the strength for it, but I did. I earned that Basic Canoeing patch. And there’s an adrenaline rush, even when you swamp the boat on purpose, an adrenaline rush that can do one of two things: make you freak out or give you the power to lift the canoe and turn it over. I love it that I went to a camp where 4’10” girls were taught to flip the boat instead of flipping out.

But there’s nothing funny about being swamped for real, and I don’t just mean in a canoe or a rowboat. Sometimes life is the boat, and we can feel it filling up to overflowing, and it’s not clear where we’ll find the power we need. Maybe you’re underwater in your mortgage, or underemployed and drowning in bills or desperately hanging on to the upside down canoe to keep a relationship together.

How will you un-swamp the boat yourself?

That moment when lightning strikes.

(Thunder sheet.)

Lightning at dusk.

These days I get weather emergency emails from MEMA; I subscribed last winter to track a snowstorm, and they just keep coming. Flood warnings, and marine warnings and thunderstorm warnings filled my email Inbox yesterday while I sat in the gym at UMaine in Farmington listening to discussions and speeches at the Maine Conference Annual Meeting. By the time I left, around 4, I didn’t need an email to tell me about the thunder. I could hear it far away and feel the air crackling.

And on the way home I saw the jagged brilliance of a lightning strike.

It’s happened to me. Well, not actual meteorological lightning. Sometimes it comes in words we read, or a song we hear, or in prayer, or in conversation, or in the touch of a hand. Suddenly the world is changed, illuminated, as full of electricity as a bolt of lightning.

Not all storms are bad. Sometimes they show us something we need to know.

That moment when you’ve had all you can take.

(Thunder Sheet.)

Jesus napped.

It was a dark and stormy night at the end of a long, tiring day. In these first chapters of Mark’s gospel, Jesus draws more and more attention to himself. First he creates a stir in the synagogue in Capernaum. Then he heals people: Peter’s mother-in-law, a man with a withered hand, a leper, a paralytic. He casts out demons. He argues with the Pharisees and even the disciples of John the Baptist about fasting. He flouts the Sabbath laws.

At the end of Chapter 3, his family comes to take him home, fearing he is possessed by demons. He rejects them and claims a new family, those who do the will of God.

At the beginning of chapter 4 of Mark’s gospel finds Jesus teaching a crowd so large that he gets into a boat and teaches from the Sea of Galilee. People are following him. In today’s lesson we read that other boats were with him, so we can picture a scene with crowds on the shore and boats gathered around, everyone listening to the man who has done such amazing things.

They must wonder what will happen next?

After a long day of trying to teach the people through parables, Jesus withdraws with his disciples. And the other boats follow. Exhausted, he goes to the back of the boat and falls asleep.

And that’s when the storm comes. Maybe the disciples see they can’t get ahead of it. Certainly the waves break up and into the boat, because they are swamped. The wind and the waves may have been enough, but I have to think the next moment that came was electrifying.

That moment when you realize who was sleeping in the back of the boat all along.

(Thunder sheet.)

“Peace! Be still!”

That moment when…

Once he’s awake, Jesus solves the problem of the storm, but the disciples are still afraid. And who wouldn’t be? After all, what do they really know about Jesus? They’re still fairly new to each other. They know he’s smart. He can out-argue the scribes and Pharisees. They know he’s gifted. He can heal the sick of all sorts of ailments. They know he’s committed to his purpose. Even the arrival of his family does not deter him.

“He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.”

He scared them more than the storm did. “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Who then?

No wonder they were frightened. It’s a lot to take in. Their teacher wasn’t just a religious revolutionary. He wasn’t simply a shaman with a good sense of timing. The disciples begged Jesus to wake up and save them, so they must have believed he could do something. Sail the boat better than they could? Drive steadily through the storm? Unswamp the canoe? Keep them safe from the lightning?

Instead he showed them his real power.

Who then was this? This Jesus was God.

That moment when you realize God is in the boat with you.

(Dead calm.)

Amen.

Filed Under: Sermons ·
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