“Gratitude in the midst of strife…”

Deut 8:1-3, 6-10; Ps 71; James 1:17-18, 21-27; Matt 6:25-33

 

 

In the early seventeenth century, a young Native American by the name of Tisquantum lived in a small village named Patuxet in what is now Massachusetts. He was returning from trapping beaver one day when an English sailor named Hunt approached him and two dozen of his fellows and offered to make them a good trade. He invited them aboard his ship to show them his hospitality and arrange the terms. Once aboard, however, Hunt clapped them in irons, locked them below deck, and set sail for Spain to sell them into slavery.

 

When he reached the Spanish city of Malaga, Hunt sold many of those that he kidnapped, but was thwarted in his plans to sell all of them by the local Franciscans, who seized his human cargo, tended their wounds, treated them kindly, and taught them about Jesus.

 

Tisquantum managed—though no one really knows how—to book himself passage from Malaga to England, where he took a job with a shipping company treasurer named John Slaney in London. Tisquantum was dispatched to Newfoundland as an interpreter for the English colony there. He performed well, and after returning to England, he was sent out again, this time to New England, where he was instructed to make peace with the local tribes there, who were—not surprisingly—suddenly very hostile to the English due to the kidnapping of several of their people! Imagine.

 

Tisquantum gladly went, secretly overjoyed to be going home, since he had not seen his people in over five years. But his joy was short-lived. No sooner did he go ashore that he encountered not the bustling village that he knew, but a ghost town. Smallpox and other English diseases had swept through his village just months before, killing every last man, woman, and child.

 

Tisquantum was inconsolable, and was only shaken out of his grief by the fact that his boss, Captain Dermer, had been captured by a neighboring tribe—no less hostile than Tisquantum’s own people had become. Still overcome by his loss, Tisquantum nevertheless roused himself and met with the neighboring tribe, successfully negotiating his captain’s release. Dermer sailed south toward Jamestown, but Tisquantum had had enough, and settled by himself in the ruins of his people’s village.

 

But alas, he could not escape the English. A boat pulled into the harbor a couple of months later, laden with frightened people who were fleeing persecution in their own country, and more recently, fleeing the attacks of the very same Native American tribe with whom Tisquantum had just been negotiating, when the English tried to settle near their village.

 

But Patuxet was, of course abandoned, because the entire tribe had perished, and the English were able to go ashore without dodging any arrows, for which they were outrageously grateful. Tisquantum, no idiot, watched them from a distance for a while, trying to take the measure of these settlers.

 

I can just see him shaking his head in disbelief, because, apparently, they were hopeless. They had absolutely no idea how to survive in this wilderness, and indeed, many of them were dying before the Indian’s very eyes.

 

Still, he kept his distance, until a man of another tribe approached him and solicited his help on behalf of the English, since he knew Tisquantum spoke their language. So it was that Tisquantum met with the English, negotiated a peace between them and the neighboring tribes, and began to teach them how to survive the harsh winters of New England.

 

The settlers, are, of course, the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and apparently Tisquantum was too awkward on their tongues, so they simply called our hero Squanto. Without his help, they would not have survived their first year at Plymouth, for any number of reasons—starvation, cold, massacre at the hands of the native tribes, disease—pick one, because any one of them would have done them in. It was only through the ministrations of one heartbroken Native American that they survived at all.

 

That first harvest feast—what we celebrate as Thanksgiving—was no picnic for the settlers, or for Tisquantum. It bore little resemblance to the Thomas Kincaid-lit, soft focus romantic time of plenty you saw in your grade school filmstrips or on the Hallmark Channel. They were grateful, yes, but they were also as shell shocked and traumatized as people come and still function.

 

This is important to remember, I think. I can remember years where I thought, “well, it’s been a pretty crummy year—why should I even bother with Thanksgiving? I’m not feeling particularly thankful.” I now see how childish and petulant that attitude was.

 

We don’t give thanks because God somehow magically makes everything go our way. We give thanks because real life is a mixture of conflict and grace, of joy and pain, of struggle and triumph. At the very least, you know, it could have been worse! And at best, we see that God has not abandoned us to our struggle, but has upheld us in it, strengthening us, encouraging us, even ennobling us.

 

Just look at what God is saying to the Israelites in our reading from Deuteronomy. Their wandering in the wilderness was no piece of cake. Our reading says they were sorely tested, they were humbled, they starved, and yet, they were not abandoned. In spite of their hardships, God did not leave them, did not forget them, but continued to lead them, fed them daily through manna on the ground, and brought them eventually to a promised land of plenty. But in this reading, they’re not there yet—they’re still walking by faith, they’re still wandering, still hoping, still struggling.

 

The Jews look back on this time by celebrating Sukkot, the Festival of Booths, what we might call Jewish Thanksgiving, because that’s really the kind of holiday that it is—a harvest celebration, in which they remind themselves of God’s faithfulness even in their time of struggle and uncertainty. The way may seem hard now, their celebration reminds them, but let us stay faithful, let us stay grateful, let us praise God even in the midst of grief and danger in the faith and hope of better days ahead.

 

It’s a fine spiritual practice, friends. As James exhorts us, “let us be doers of the word, not hearers only.” Lip service to God is easy, lip service gratitude is expected at holiday time, lip service religion helps us to “pass” when we’re not really feeling it.

 

But lip service isn’t what God desires from us. It doesn’t grow our souls, it doesn’t make us better people, and it sure doesn’t help anyone else. But to face our struggles with courage, to be conscious and mindful in the midst of them that God is present with us, even when all seems dark and uncertain, to praise God in the midst of uncertainty—this is the source of true gratitude, not a superficial rainy-day thankfulness, but a gratitude that starts in the depths of our bones and radiates out to every part of our lives.

 

This has been a hard year for a lot of us—hardly as traumatic as what Tisquantum had to face, but difficult nevertheless. But there’s nothing Pollyanna about the Christian faith. We don’t follow a god who is sweetness and light all the time, or who promises unsullied joy and prosperity. Not at all. We walk in the way of the crucified. With Jesus, we stand up to injustice. With Jesus, we befriend the outcast. Like Jesus, we march toward Jerusalem when only danger is in store for us. With Jesus we pick up our cross. With Jesus, we cry out, “God why have you abandoned me?” With Jesus, we surrender our illusions of control over our lives and learn to simply trust.

 

And hopefully, with God’s grace, and a little self-awareness, we learn to say, “thank you” for the gift of life, for the people who love us, for the food and shelter that we take for granted, for soulful work and cool breezes and the tangy bite of a crisp apple.

 

Let us sit down at table this week, in the company of family or friends, and practice the kind of mindfulness that Jesus calls us to in the Beatitudes. Let us be grateful for the million myriad ways—both tiny and great—that God has showered us with grace this year. Let us hold our grief and our gratitude in two hands, forsaking neither. Let us give thanks to God for the gift of life with all its hardships and joy, all at the same time.

 

Because that’s the only kind of life there is. Let’s celebrate what’s REAL. Let us pray…

 

Our prayer comes from the 71^st Psalm:

In You, O GOD, I put my trust;

Incline Your ear to me, and save me.

Be my strong refuge,

For You are my rock and my fortress.

You are my hope, O GOD;

You are my trust from my youth.

My praise shall be continually of You.

Do not cast me off in the time of old age;

Do not forsake me when my strength fails.

O God, do not be far from me;

O my God, make haste to help me!

 

I will hope continually,

And will praise You yet more and more.

My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness

And Your salvation all the day. Amen.

leadership

Joshua 3:7-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13; Matthew 23:1-12

The common thread connecting all of our readings for today is Leadership. In our reading from Joshua, we’re at a crucial moment in the life of the Israelites. Moses has just died, and has appointed Joshua to succeed him. But will the people follow young Joshua? God intends to make sure that they do. The people are marching towards Canaan, their promised homeland, with the ark of the covenant going before them. And just as they come to the river Jordan, what happens? God does the same for Joshua that he did for Moses—he parted the waters, and the people walked across on dry land.

In doing this, God put his seal of approval on Joshua. Before the whole of the people of Israel, God ratifies Moses’ selection, so that there can be so question about his election or his authority.

What we see here is a miracle story, and triumphant story of vindication, of leadership—but it’s kind of an old-paradigm model of leadership. It’s a leadership model with absolute power given into the hands of one man—and just as importantly, one MALE. The subtext of this story is that this man Joshua now speaks for God. Don’t you dare cross him, question him, or gainsay him. This is an archetypal example of external authority—the ultimate authority, God, deputizing an absolute authority amongst human beings whom none dare cross.

This may be a fairly recent cultural change, but I think the old model of leadership is going the way of the dinosaur. People no longer trust hierarchical authority. There may be places for it, such as on the battlefield, maybe even in business, but there certainly is no place for it anymore in spiritual communities. I watch with chagrin the pain of our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters as their leaders cling so desperately to this model, wrecking so much violence and pain in the process—and, quite frankly, coming off more often than not as buffoons in the media. It’s painful to watch.

But this is the way that leadership has been done in the church—until the late Reformation, at least, and the founding of our own Congregational tradition. But even back then, although authority was shared amongst members, you can bet it was only male members.

But “this is the way it’s always been done” is not an effective argument in religious matters, especially when it flies directly in the face of the words of Jesus. Look at what Jesus is doing, here. He’s refuting the so-called religious authorities of his own day, in pretty nasty terms, actually. He’s saying the scribes and the Pharisees claim Moses’ authority—just as Joshua does in our Old Testament reading—but unlike Joshua, Jesus doesn’t think that they deserve it. Because they use their power to keep other people down and make themselves look good.

Jesus isn’t exactly arguing for internal authority, here, but he IS instructing his listeners to question those in authority, to use their own discretion in spiritual matters, to reject those who set themselves up as leaders—which is pretty close to the same thing.

And his critique is harsh—he’s accusing them of using their religion to puff up their own egos at the expense of the spiritual health of ordinary people. He’s saying that they are abusing their authority, and that, in fact, they have no authority. That God himself is the authority. That, in fact, you should call no mere human “teacher” or “rabbi” or “father.”

Our readings challenge me to look at my own life. When I was first ordained, I would get a thrill whenever I would pass a mirror and see myself in a collar. I would feel proud, special, and I enjoyed the “special treatment” I would receive when I wore it about town. It was my own version of “wide phylacteries and broad fringes,” and yes, I loved it when other people saw it. I also loved being called “father.” I loved, in fact, everything that Jesus is railing against in this reading, and I was guilty of it 100%.

I like to think I’ve grown up a little bit. These days, I don’t wear a collar very often. I do it, usually, when I have to. It isn’t so much about being seen anymore, but mostly about what is expected. First of all, I want to be comfortable. And I’m not comfortable when I’m dressed formally. If I can’t wear jeans and a t-shirt someplace, I don’t really want to go. But for another thing, it is quite literally putting on airs, and that’s not something I’m comfortable with any more. But it’s expected of me, here, on Sundays. And it’s helpful in navigating through a hospital or nursing home without being challenged.

On the other hand, just yesterday, as I was driving up to Sacramento to do a baptism, I thought for a moment I was going to be pulled over for speeding—because, actually, I WAS speeding—and I reflexively reached for my collar. Privilege dies hard.

Even without my collar, I’m still not the Invisible Man. None of us are. People still see us while we do the work of the Gospel—they still judge us, for good or ill, they still notice what we do and say. How do we minister in a way that honors Jesus’ warnings and yet is realistic about our somatic visibility? Our reading from Paul is clearly in tension with Jesus’ tirade, and his instructions are sober and wise.

He’s reminding the Thessalonians of when they first met, about how Paul and his companions comported themselves among them. Paul is saying, basically, “remember how we behaved ourselves? We taught you, we comforted you, and we challenged you so that you would walk in a way that is worthy of the God who called you.”

Paul is talking about setting a good example. He knows that people were watching him and his companions. They were evaluating him, judging him, reckoning whether this was a man who could be trusted or not. Paul is reminding them that people are likewise watching THEM and evaluating whether THEY are trustworthy.

 

Note the tension between the two readings: Jesus is saying, “Don’t do these things so that people will think well of you,” and Paul is saying, “Be careful, because people are watching, and you want them to think well of you.”

Is it possible to reconcile the two? I think it is. There isn’t a question of whether we’re going to do religious stuff—we are, because we’re religious people. There isn’t a question of whether we’re going to be visible—we’re not Claude Rains, or Kevin Bacon, thank the gods. People are going to see us. The key question, I think is, “Who are we doing this for?”

If we’re doing it for ourselves, to puff ourselves up, to make people admire us, or to lord our alleged “authority” over them—then Jesus’ rebuke is well deserved. If, on the other hand, we’re doing it out of love and concern for others, we want to be careful not to undermine our own credibility, because then no one will trust us. The difference here is not between external authority and internal authority, but between something far less frequently discussed. The tension is between authority and responsibility.

As ministers of the Gospel—and if you are a Christian, you ARE a minister of the Gospel, the collar is entirely optional—as ministers of the Gospel, WE HAVE NO AUTHORITY. The old paradigm has passed away, and good riddance, I say. But what we do have—and plenty of it—is responsibility.

We are not the authority on people’s lives, or on what is true or not true, or what is virtuous or sinful, or who is holy or wicked. None. No authority whatsoever. Such judgments are best left to God.

But we do have RESPONSIBILITY. We have a responsibility to ourselves, to live lives of integrity. We have a responsibility to others in our spiritual community, to live in a way that reflects well on our brothers and sisters. We have a responsibility to this broken and hurting world to be the hands and feet of Jesus to them, feeding, healing, consoling, advocating, befriending, bringing the hope and salvation that we ourselves have received. And we have a responsibility to God to be worthy of the Kingdom and the glory to which we have been called.

That’s leadership. But it’s not leadership from the top-down. It’s leadership from the inside out. It’s leadership based not on some farcical authority bestowed on us from above, but on the responsibility that is common to all of us, responsibility for each other and to each other. Let us pray…

Lord, you called us not to set ourselves up

as kings and rulers and teacher and authorities,

but as friends and companions and servants to one another.

Help us to heed your warning, not to act for our own benefit

But for the benefit of those who are hurting.

Hold us accountable, and let us be accountable to one another

As we lovingly encourage and correct and exhort one another

Evolving into the Body of Christ that is truly in thine image.

For we ask this in the name of the one who loved us,

sought us out, called us, and sent us out

for the healing and salvation of the world, even Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

 

 

relationship changes us

Ex 33:12-23; 1 Thess 1:1-10; Mat 22:15-22

 

As many of you know, Lawson (our minister of music) and I have known each other for a very long time—since our days at California Baptist College, in fact. You might be surprised to know that we weren’t actually friends back in college, although we had several friends in common. I’m not exactly sure why that is, but it wasn’t until we’d graduated that we started hanging out and discovered we had more than a few friends in common.

 

Which is not to say, by any means, that we are alike. If I had attempted to choose a best friend more different than I, I could hardly have chosen better. Lawson is naturally introverted, I am naturally extroverted. Lawson is almost anarchic in his ecclesial sensibilities, while I enjoy the structure of the liturgy. But the thing that has always driven me nuts about Lawson was his relaxed attitude about…well, almost anything. I have often joked about him that he is the most un-ambitious man I have ever known, in contrast to myself, who must always have a project of some kind going, always pushing myself to “succeed”—whatever that means, and for whatever good it has ever done me.

 

And yet, as I look back over our relationship of the last twenty-five years, I can see that it is precisely this maddening quality in Lawson that I most appreciate today. When I compare our lives, it is clear to me that Lawson has always been happier than I. He has certainly been more unflappable. He lets trouble roll off his back, doesn’t seem to take anything personally, and nor does he worry or obsess about anything—in contrast to myself, who must obsess about at least three things before breakfast.

 

I used to disparage this trait. I then came to admire it. Later, I gained enough wisdom to learn from it. It is not uncommon for me, when faced with a situation that spikes my blood pressure, to stop and ask myself, “What would Lawson do?” and then try, to the best of my imperfect ability, to do precisely that. I cannot speak to any way in which knowing me has enriched HIS life, if indeed it has, but I can certainly say that I am a happier and wiser man today because I have learned from Lawson HOW to be a happier man.

 

I reflected on our relationship this week while pondering our readings, because they all seem to be pointing to the same profound truth: relationship changes us. It transforms us. We see this clearly in our passage from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians. Here, he’s just saying “hi,” he’s opening the letter, not actually saying anything substantial. But on the other hand, he’s saying a great deal. He’s noting with pleasure—and not a little bit of pride—that the Christians at Thessalonica have comported themselves well, they have made a good showing of it, they have very quickly gone from being non-believers to exemplary representatives of the Gospel.

 

And how did they get that way? Paul says, “you became followers of us and of Christ.” Because of the time they spent with Paul and those who worked closely with Paul, they became like Paul in some very important ways, becoming “examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe.” The RELATIONSHIP between the people in this tiny Christian community and Paul transformed these people, it made them better people, and effective ministers of the Good News. Like Lawson and I in our friendship, this is an example of how the relationship between people created something greater than what was there before.

 

We see this in a larger scale in our Gospel reading. This is a familiar story—perhaps too familiar, because knowing it well, I think we overlook its profundity. Jesus’ fellow Pharisees are jealous of his following and incensed at his criticisms, and so they set a rhetorical trap for him. They flatter him in an oily and obsequious way, and then ask him, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

 

It’s a trick question, of course, because if he says “yes,” they can condemn him for collaboration with the Roman occupiers. If he says “no,” they can sick the centurians on him for inciting defiance of the empire. But our hero is clever and sees right through their trap. He tells them to show him a coin, and asks them, “whose image is on this coin?”

 

“Caesar’s,” they say.

 

“So give what is Caesar’s to Caesar, and give what is God’s to God.” It’s a very smart answer, partly because of what Jesus says, and partly because of what he does NOT say. In asking whose image is on the coin, he implies that imperial money does indeed belong to the empire. But the unspoken question is just as important, and would not have been lost upon his hearers. If Caesar’s image is on the coin, upon whom is God’s image? Human beings, says the book of Genesis, are made in the image of God. Our money may belong to Caesar, but our LIVES belong to God.

 

This verse has long been used in our country to justify the separation of church and state, but I’m afraid it’s not that neat. Because human beings cannot live in a society such as ours WITHOUT money—not for very long. And we cannot live together in any kind of numbers for very long without government of some kind before an outbreak of The Lord of the Flies occurs. Humans beings need government, and of course, government is meaningless without human beings. The two are not really separable. We are subject to both God and the state, at the same time, and as such we are a people of divided loyalties, and it cannot be otherwise.

 

We can do our best to separate church and state, and it is a noble ideal, but since you cannot separate God from those made in his image, and you cannot separate the state from the human beings that comprise it, you cannot, ultimately, divorce religion from government. Nor should you. Let me explain:

 

It is important that no religious institution should have any government influence, but faith influences government all the time. It is largely for reasons of faith that Catholics oppose both abortion and the death penalty—and is that wrong? Hardly. Faith, at its best, calls us to be the best people we can be—compassionate, kind, and moral people. The state is a reflection of us—IT bears OUR image, so to speak, and if we are compassionate, kind, and moral people, we want those values to be reflected in our government as well.

 

It is people of faith who led the civil rights marches in the 1960s, people of faith who have tried to shut down the School of the Americas, where the US military has been training Central and South American terrorists for nearly thirty years, it is people of faith who stand outside San Quentin every time there is an execution. I have an ongoing argument with a friend who insists that “there’s no place for politics in the church,” but there are very clearly political implications to Jesus’ teachings. You can separate church and state, but you can’t separate the state from people of faith, unless you want to make a rule that only atheists can vote. The fact that I follow Jesus INFLUENCES how I vote, and it should. Faith and politics should never be the same thing in a democracy like ours, but they are surely married.

 

And this is the point—there is a RELATIONSHIP between government and religion, and that RELATIONSHIP, ideally, makes both parties better. Relationship TRANSFORMS. Faith calls government to be moral, to be just, to be GOOD. Ironically, through its laws, government calls religion to precisely the same things. Is the relationship stormy? Sure—many of the best relationships are. But does it make both parties better in the end? I would argue that it does.

 

Finally, take a look at our reading from Exodus. Israel has just had its big “golden calf” fiasco—Moses has broken the tablets of the covenant, and God is ready to give up on them completely. God, in fact, is ready to abandon them in the desert and go in search of another people to bless. He’s fed up, he’s done, he’s grabbed his hat and is headed for the door.

 

But Moses stops him and argues with him, and he succeeds in talking him out of it. Moses says, “If your Presence does not go with us, then don’t bring us any further. We can’t do anything without you—we’ll die. Look at us! We’re not only vulnerable, we’re stupid. We admit that. We need your blessing to survive. We need your help. We need you to be with us.”

 

Maybe it’s flattery, maybe it was the force of a well-reasoned argument, or maybe God just felt sorry for the poor, stubborn, starving Hebrews. For whatever reason, God relents. He changes his mind. He tells Moses, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

 

Scripture implies that God learned something in this encounter—that God came away from this experience a little more understanding of human nature, a little more forbearing, a little more compassionate. The encounter with the wayward Jews brought out his true colors, but his argument with Moses invited God to growth, to become more than he was. The RELATIONSHIP between God and Moses transformed God, it made him a better God, just as the covenant made the Jews a better people.

 

Our readings show us that this is a truth that happens at every level—relationship between people makes us better people. Relationships between people and government make better people AND better government. And Relationships between people and God make for better people AND a better God.

 

Our theologies point at this, but I think they point at the side effects, not at the cause. The Catholic Church has always said that it was grace that transforms people. The Reformers said it’s faith that transforms people. But I say to you that it is relationships that transform people. Like St. Paul pointed out, it is relationship that produces faith. As with Moses, it was relationship that PRODUCED grace. It isn’t grace or faith that saves us, it’s community—the power of relationship to support, to correct, to heal, to grow.

 

That’s what we’re here, for. The church is a laboratory for relationship. We’re not here for any other reason. We come here to learn how to love one another, because we know that’s hard work, and there are few places in our life where that is the main focus and not just a side-effect. We come here to learn how to be in relationship with one another, to be in relationship with God, to be in relationship with the wider culture in responsible and effective and transformative ways.

 

It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. We have to give up our notions that we’re right about everything. We have to be teachable. We have to learn to say, “I was wrong and I’m sorry.” We have to learn how to forgive and forbear. And not just us, that goes for God, too. We teach each other. We grow together. We transform in community.

 

Let us pray…

 

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

You are yourself a community.

Through Jesus Christ, you called us into community

With one another and with you.

Through St. Paul you taught us how to live in community

With grace and humility.

Thank you for the gifts you have given us

Thank you for those we love gathered here

Thank you for the gift of yourself,

Your faithfulness, your kindness and care.

Continue to teach us, and to learn from us

As we journey together towards the Community you intend us to be,

For we ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

francis and the mouse king

FRANCIS AND THE MOUSE KING

 

It was just a shack in the woods. The roof was falling in, half of it already open to the winds of heaven. The mortar around the door frame was cracked and falling away in chips the size of fingers. The floor was made of dirt, and, due to the rain of the past several days, was mostly just mud.

 

“It’s a generous gift,” said Brother Mark with intentional dispassion. The other brothers shivered in the autumnal morning chill and looked at Francis, their eyes betraying almost desperate hope.

 

Francis scowled at Brother Mark. He scowled at the shack. Then he scowled at the brothers. “It is too generous for poor brothers,” he said at last, almost spitting the words to the ground.

 

“But Francis,” one of the newer brothers protested. “Winter is coming! It is a small place….”

 

Francis shot the brother a glare that made him bite his tongue. “Brother Bartholomew, I understand your fear of the cold. This is why we must trust God.”

 

“But Francis,” Brother Mark interjected, “is it not possible that this is a gift from God? Provided precisely to help us weather through the winter?”

 

Francis smiled briefly, but the furrow did not leave his brow. Instead, he circumambulated the shack, noting almost with approval it’s miserable state of disrepair. “The question that I keep asking, Brother,” Francis said slowly as he walked, “is this: Who does it serve? If we stay out here, we will be too far from the city to minister to the people there.” He stopped and faced the brothers, who were following him around the ruin. “How can you possibly expect me to agree to  a bunch of friars living in luxury out here in the woods, pleasing no one but themselves?”

 

At his use of the word, “luxury,” the brothers, each to a man, looked at the shack, and then back at Francis. “But—“ one of them began, but Francis held up his hand to stop him. “We will sleep here tonight, Brothers, but tomorrow we will return to San Damiano.”

 

“Ah, but Brother Francis,” Mark objected, “Brother Bernardo said he would meet us here in three days time.”

 

Francis grunted. “Then we shall live in luxury for three days. May God forgive us.” The brothers looked at each other in disbelief, but did not contradict him.

 

::     ::     ::

 

That night, Francis slept fitfully, as he often did. He was awakened by a sharp pain in his left eyelid. The moon, shining through the hole in the roof, was full and strong, and as he opened his eyes, he saw clearly a most amazing sight: a tiny mouse, the color of wet bark, stood upright on his cheek in a pose of brave defiance. On his head was a rough crown fashioned from a silver ring, and in his front paw was a sword that looked all the world like a darning needle.

 

“Strange beast!” the mouse exclaimed. It seemed to be addressing him, so Francis made an effort to remain still so as not to topple the tiny monarch. “State your business in my realm!”

 

“Um…I beg your pardon, Your Majesty,” Francis began, unsure what to say. “We were not aware that we were trespassing…but I beseech His Majesty to forgive our trespasses.”

 

The Mouse King cocked a tiny eyebrow at the friar, but did not lower the point of the sword from its dangerous position very near to Francis’ left eye. Francis struggled not to blink.

 

“Trespassers must be punished, nave!” the Mouse King pronounced. “And the punishment is death!”

 

“Ah, then I am comforted,” Francis tried to smile slowly so as not to upset the balance of the rodent sovereign when his cheeks moved. “I am always prepared to die. My concern tonight is whether I shall be nibbled.”

 

“Do you mock me, nave?” demanded the Mouse King. Francis looked about and noted that the Mouse King was not alone. He stretched his eyes to see as much as he could without moving his head. He saw that there was not one armed mouse confronting him, but scores of them, each with a fierce scowl of defiance upon his furry face.

 

Before Francis could answer, Brother Bartholomew tiptoed in from a visit to the bushes, and stepped on one of the armed mice, it’s sword piercing the bottom of his foot. “Mary’s teats!” he swore, grabbing his foot and hopping about on the other. The mice scattered from the hopping doom with squeaking shrieks of terror. In a moment, all the mice were safely hidden and Francis sat up, both relieved and concerned.

 

As Brother Bartholomew sat and rubbed at his foot, Francis crept on all fours to the door. His heart sank within him as he saw the lifeless body of the soldier mouse, crushed beneath the novice friar’s heavy foot. The darning needle near the little beast was smeared with blood that shone black in the moonlight. Francis made the sign of the cross over the mouse, and picked him up, carrying him to the rough table. Francis laid him out in state, his tiny blade arrayed upon his breast as befits a noble who has fallen in battle.

 

::     ::     ::

 

In the morning, Francis called the brothers together, and with due solemnity, led them through the rites of burial for the fallen mouse. The brothers did not object, but watched their leader with mounting concern as the ritual proceeded.

 

Brother Bartholomew, still limping from his injury, leaned over and whispered to Brother Mark, “He’s mad.”

 

Brother Mark smirked, and whispered back, “What? You didn’t know that before? We wouldn’t be here if he were right in his head.”

 

Brother Bartholomew’s brows furrowed as he pondered this. After the service, when Francis had buried the creature, and had read over him the service of committal, Brother Bartholomew sought him out.

 

“Brother Francis, I hope you are not angry with me—“

 

Francis looked at him with a gravity that made the new friar stop midsentence. “Brother Bartholomew, ‘angry’ is too weak a word for what I am feeling toward you right now. I am not angry at you, Brother. I am wroth with you.” And at that, Francis rose and stomped off into the woods to be alone.

 

“Oh, dear…” Bartholomew said, fingering the front of his habit nervously. “He hates me.”

 

“No, brother, “ said Brother Mark, who had been observing the exchange. “I told you, Francis is mad. His moods change like the weather. Be comforted, brother. The next time you see him, he will be kind to you, as if nothing had ever happened. You wait and see.” He patted the novice on the shoulder and called the brothers to prayer.

 

::     ::     ::

 

That evening, Francis only pretended to sleep. As he expected, visitors came again by moonlight. They came great in number, each of them small and fierce and bent on vengeance. This time, Francis opened his eye to behold a mouse herald perched on his cheek. The herald unrolled a scroll and read from it in a voice both bold and solemn, “His majesty King Cornflower, sovereign of the wooded grove, and monarch of…that stream, over there…we don’t have a name for it, really, other than ‘the stream’…anyway, His Majesty calls upon the Lord of the Trespassers and Murderers to parlay with him before we commence to battle.”

 

Francis spoke slowly, careful not to move too much for fear of toppling the mouse herald and making the situation even worse. “Tell His majesty that I have no intention of fighting him, nor do any of my brothers. But I will talk with him, and that right gladly.” The mouse herald rolled up his scroll and hopped down from the friar’s cheek, waddling on his hind legs back to where the Mouse King and his entourage watched from the relative safety of the ruined fireplace.

 

By this time, many of the brothers had also awakened and were watching the proceedings with looks both surprised and amused. One of them started to rise, but Francis sat up and motioned for them to keep still. Moving slowly and deliberately, Francis poured a cup of wine from a flagon, and, fishing for a moment in a travel bag, took from it a copper thimble.

 

The friar moved cautiously to the middle of the room and sat cross-legged, waiting and, it seemed, praying. Warily, the Mouse King and his entourage processed towards him. As they came near, the tiny sovereign signaled for his ministers to stand back. There were squeaks of protest, but the King was resolute, and they came no further. Alone, King Cornflower met the friar. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

 

“I am so sorry about your noble mouse, my Lord,” Francis began. “My brother did not see him. He meant no malice. He is large and bumblesome and incautious.”

 

“I am not bumblesome!” Brother Bartholomew objected, but Brother Mark shushed him. “I’m not bumblesome!” Brother Mark shushed him again.

 

“We gave him a burial as befits a noble beast, my Lord,” Francis continued. “We commended his soul to God, and we performed the appointed service with the sorrow that I truly feel and the dignity that he deserved.”

 

“I know nothing of that,” the Mouse King waved away Francis’ apology. “I only know that his family demands blood, his clan demands blood, and our race demands blood. You must know that I intend to avenge him.”

 

Francis nodded, but said nothing. Instead he dipped the thimble into the cup of wine, filling it and handing it to the rodent sovereign. Cornflower received the thimble and sniffed at it suspiciously. Francis drank from the cup, then, and seeing this, the Mouse King dipped his tiny snout into the thimble and slurped at the wine cautiously. After a moment, he lifted his head, his snout stained purple and dripping, and, not to be deterred, said, “I will have blood.” He indicated his host of warriors, about two score strong, each of them armed and angry. “They demand it.”

 

Francis sipped at his wine and regarded the Mouse King with sorrow. Finally, he spoke so softly that both the friars and the mice had to hold their breaths and lean in to hear. “Brother Mouse—your Majesty—as long as we both insist on being strong, we shall most certainly be enemies. But if we can be weak together, perhaps we might be friends.”

 

The Mouse King regarded him with a new wariness. “You speak like one who is mad.”

 

Francis smiled. “You are not the first to tell me so, your Highness.”

 

“Weakness is not a thing to be sought, Murderer. It is favored by none in the forest. It is a thing to be scorned and a thing to be fought.”

 

“I beg to differ, your Majesty. Weakness is a gift, given by God, and infinitely useful to man and beast alike.”

 

“You talk in riddles, Trespasser.”

 

“Then let me speak plain. We could spend all night threatening one another, insisting on our rights, and boasting of our might, until finally we must do our best to destroy one another. Or, we could share this wine, and as we do, I could tell you about what frightens me, what worries me, the cares that fill my days, and you could tell me about your cares, your worries, your fears. Instead of boasting of our strengths, we could share our weaknesses.”

 

“And what would that accomplish?”

 

“I am not sure, your Majesty, but my hope is that it will not end in the deaths of many noble mice, nor in the punctured ankles of my bumblesome brothers.”

 

The Mouse King looked skeptical, so Francis simply began. He told the Mouse King about the friar’s fear for winter, their lack of faith in God’s providence, his own frustration about this. He told him about the gift of the shack, the burden it had become on his conscience, the alienation it was causing between himself and his brothers. He talked about his sorrow and his fear and his deepest concern.

 

Moved by the friar’s frank speech, the Mouse King thanked him, and began to enumerate his own worries—the hardness of winter, and a shortage of food set aside for it. He spoke of the cats that roamed the forest hungry for rodents of tender years, and the madness of mice in large numbers who are afraid. He spoke of the heaviness of the crown, and Francis nodded, understanding the thankless burden of leadership all too well.

 

When they had finished speaking, Francis filled the Mouse King’s thimble again. “Brother Mouse—your Majesty—it seems that we are more alike than we knew.” To his relief the Mouse King nodded his agreement, and reached for the thimble without hesitation.

 

When morning broke, the tiny sovereign drew himself up and announced, “We shall treat again tomorrow,” and withdrew with his entourage into the depths of the shack.

 

 

::     ::     ::

 

After the friars had prayed and eaten, they spent the day in labor. Under Francis’ guidance, some repaired the roof, some mixed mortar for the door and the brickwork. A couple gathered acorns and nuts and seeds until they had a mountain of them. They then spread them out in the afternoon sun to dry.

 

Francis himself went into the forest, calling to his sisters the cats, engaging in long and detailed conversations about boundaries and behaviors, extracting from them contracts and covenants quite contrary to their natures, but such were Francis’ powers of persuasion that he procured assurances from each and every one to stay clear of the wooded grove and its stream.

 

When the Mouse King and his entourage arrived that evening, he approached Francis alone and without hesitation, his fellows watching from the walls. The brothers, too, huddled together in silence, waiting to hear what would be said. His Majesty accepted the thimble graciously, and immediately dipped his snout into the musty wine. After slurping deeply, the Mouse King raised his face to Francis and showed his teeth. It might have been a smile.

 

“I have spoken to my people,” he announced. “They are still angry, but they admit the loss of our warrior was probably an accident.”

 

Francis nodded and grinned—a bit thinly—his relief. “Your majesty,” Francis began, “This makes me glad. I have thought all day about your troubles and have prayed for you. I have also secured promises from the forest cats to stay clear of this grove, and with your permission I am ready to assign brothers to stay here in order to enforce it.”

 

The friars looked at one another in astonishment, feeling hopeful and relieved. “Furthermore, we come tonight with gifts.” He opened a bag of dried nuts and seeds, and held the opening near the tiny monarch so that he could sniff at it. The Mouse King’s voice was thick with emotion as he said, “This will be more than enough to feed us until spring.”

 

Distress and sadness washed over the Mouse King’s face, and Francis asked him, “What’s wrong, my Lord?”

 

“I fear we have misjudged you, and I beg your pardon.”

 

“You have it, Brother Mouse.”

 

“I am also distressed, because we have no gift for you.”

 

“Ah, your Majesty, but that is not quite true,” Francis said. “For when we arrived at this place, I upset my brothers by saying we could not stay here. And we could not stay here because we could not be of service to anyone we know so far out in the woods. But now, we have found friends here, and here we now have someone to serve. So, if you will welcome us as friends and guests in this stately cottage—which we understand to be your property and your home—we will be content to stay.”

 

And that is what they did.

forgiving god

Pentecost 12 | Exodus 12:1-14; Psalm 149; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20

The name of this poem is “UNYUMMY”:

God dropped in on Ungar Belfast just around lunchtime.
“AAARRR!!” God roared, and Pastor Henri Todd
was suddenly there to translate.
“He says ‘The cold are yummy…
“AAARRR…” Ungar shrunk in terror.
“…and the hot are extremely tasty with a bit of red wine.”
“AAAARRRR!” God was enraged.
“…but the lukewarm, those he would spew out of his mouth!”
At this, God completely flattened Pastor Henri Todd with the flat of his hand
and ate him.
Then He spewed forth the Pastor, who was whole again, if not a little shaken.
“Well,” Stammered the Pastor Henri Todd, “In my case he would vomit perpetually.”
God patted him on the head and smiled,
showing Ungar Belfast all his huge 
pointed teeth.

I wrote that poem in 1986, and it terrified me. Literally, my hand was shaking as I wrote it. But I knew that something important was coming out, so I bit my teeth, swallowed back on my fear of Hellfire, and kept going.

I’ll always be grateful to Margaret for her encouragement in our creative writing class, because she, too, saw that something important was happening. Not literarily important, mind you, but personally important. I was confronting God with his monstrousness.

It was important for me to do so—indeed it was vital that I do so. I dare say I would not be a Christian today, nor standing before you now had I not done so. Terrifying? Yes, but essential.

There are people who disagree, of course. These are the “God can do no wrong,” folks, or the slightly softer, “if it looks like God has done wrong, we’re just not understanding it right” folks. I do understand where they are coming from. It’s much easier to trust a God if we can convince ourselves that he is all powerful and all good.

Unfortunately, scripture just doesn’t seem to bear witness to that kind of God. Look at our first reading, for example. Israel is being told to celebrate the first Passover—kill a lamb, smear its blood on the door of your house—try getting that one past your condo’s homeowner’s association today. So what’s wit this macabre ornamentation? What’s it for?

Because God is about to send an angel of death to murder the children of the Egyptians, and we want to make sure he doesn’t get your kids by mistake.

Is that the kind of God you want to get cozy with? A God who murders children? Even more ironic, let’s look at the context. The Bible’s first historical figure, Abraham, is told to sacrifice his own child, and then at the last minute is stopped by yet another angel. This was a big turning point, and something that separated Israel from its neighbors. Child sacrifice was rampant in the ancient world. Even in the Iliad, Agamemnon kicks the whole campaign against Troy off with the sacrifice of his own daughter, Iphigenia. But God says, “No more! You will not sacrifice your children!” But the Egyptian children are somehow okay to kill? That’s a hard one to swallow, I’m afraid. I’ve seen Egyptian children—they’re just as cute as other kids.

And our Psalm is not much better. Oh, it starts out good enough, but then it takes an ominous turn: “Let the saints be joyful…let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance on the nations.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t really trust self-appointed saints executing armed vengeance on ANYBODY. First of all, who gets to determine who the good guys and the bad guys are, anyway? This is the way al-Qaeda works, isn’t it? I’m especially distrustful of scripture-supported vengeance. It’s the most slippery and insidious kind. Because we humans feel free to act like our gods. Indeed, we feel compelled to act FOR them. And if the gods we serve are vengeful, hateful, violent, we seem to have no qualms at all about emulating that behavior.

Even Paul, in the midst of an otherwise lovely section of his letter to the Romans, suddenly says, “let us put on the armor of light” as if there were such a thing. I think Lao Tzu is close to the truth: “All weapons are bad news, and all creatures should detest them” (31).

I look at all this militant imagery, I consider the implications of the Passover event and the murder of hundreds of thousands of children, I think of the reprehensible things that people do to each other, sincerely and in the name of God, I consider how people treat each other, even within churches I’ve been a part of, and you know, I don’t think it’s any wonder why people give up on God. His “huge, pointy teeth” are clearly in evidence for anyone who opens their eyes to see them.

So where does that leave us? Well, we could follow the instructions in our Gospel. I’ve confronted God privately about this stuff. I’ve confronted him in the company of witnesses. Why not confront him before the assembly of the church? Why not say, “Hey! What the hell? What were you thinking? How do you justify this? How are we supposed to accept you or love you or recommend you when you act like this? When you encourage this kind of behavior in your followers?

Hm…no lightning. Guess we’ll have to try for a less dramatic close to this sermon. Very well: Our Gospel reading, ironically, is a section pulled out of a chapter that is all about children. In the beginning of chapter 18 of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus calls a little child to him, and says, “you must be converted and become like one of these.” He then says that “anyone who causes a little child to go astray” is accursed. He warns against despising these little ones, and says that he will seek out those who become lost, just as a shepherd will leave behind the flock to find a single lamb.

Then we get to our section on how to reconcile with one another—maybe not the best method according to today’s experts, but the intention behind these instructions is certainly honorable. And in the next section, Peter asks “how many times should I forgive someone? Seven times?” and Jesus answers, “No, seventy times seven.” In other words, you must always forgive them.

And that’s what we need to hear, I think. We hear a lot of talk in church circles about forgiving one another, but we NEVER hear about forgiving God, as if God were somehow above judgment. He’s not. The Bible is very clear, if we read the plain meaning of the text, that God changes his mind, that he makes mistakes, that he screws up, that he sins, and repents, and seeks reconciliation with us mere mortals.

God doesn’t need us to defend his actions—in many cases, they are simply indefensible. But God does need us to forgive him, just as we need to be forgiven. When we pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” we don’t often think of God among those who trespass against us, but we should.

One of the chief reasons that people leave the church and the faith of their youth is because they have been hurt by God, or hurt by people in the church supposedly acting in his name. And, just as often among my students, they do not engage with our tradition because they have read the Bible and they are offended by God’s behavior as recorded in scripture.

But surely, if we can be forgiven by God, we can forgive God. As a spiritual director, I often find that the primary obstacle that people have to intimacy with God is the fact that the image they hold of him is, quite frankly, monstrous. Who can cozy up to a demon? How can you let down your guard and open your heart to someone who has hurt you if no reconciliation has been made, or even attempted?

As we begin our new mission at Grace North Church, focused on Contemplative Practice and mysticism, let’s be clear that what this is a call to is intimacy—intimacy with God. For intimacy to be possible, we have to be on good terms. Do you have things you need to get off your chest? Are there things you need to say to God to clear the air and make a new start? Are you nursing old wounds or resentments? Are there past behaviors or actions that you need to confront God with so that reconciliation can be possible?

If so, allow me to encourage you: God will not be angry with you for getting honest with him. Whether the fault is actually God’s, or whether the fault is in your understanding of God—and both of these are possible—either way, nly good can come of YOU getting honest with HIM. If you are nursing old, hurt feelings towards God, then go to a place where you have privacy, and tell God how you feel in no uncertain terms. And I mean let him have it.

And if that’s too scary, do it with a friend. Make an appointment with me, and we’ll confront God together.

Because God can take it. God WANTS to take it. God WANTS to clear the air so that peace between you is possible, so that reconciliation is possible, so that real love and intimacy can take root and grow.

Let us pray…

God, you are as complicated and messy as the rest of us,
Which is to say, you are a real person,
And you call us into real relationship,
Which, again, is always messy and complicated.
Help us to forgive even as we have been forgiven,
Help us to have the courage to be honest with you,
Even when it scares us.
Help us to let go of hurt and fear and resentment and anger
And to be as naked before you
as you have shown yourself to be, in Jesus, toward us.
Let there be peace between us.
Let forgiveness and reconciliation flourish.
Let our love grow unfettered by the bitterness of the past.
For we ask this in the name of the one who showed us your deepest desire
Even Jesus Christ. Amen.

responding to god

Easter 3 2010 | Acts 2:14a, 36-41 | Ps 16:1-4, 12-19 | 1 Pet 1:17-23 | Lk 24:13-35

To hear a recording of this sermon, click on: www.apocryphile.org/downloads/nanak.mp3

So, the last time God appeared to you in power, the last time you had a major epiphany that shook you to your core, what did you do? Isaiah, you might recall, fell on his face and started mumbling about his unworthiness until God force-fed him a flaming coal. Peter likewise fell on his face during the Transfiguration, and started mumbling about tents. The first time I had a major vision, I cried for three days straight. But what did YOU do? And more importantly, what did you do after that?

Nanak was a ne’er do-well shepherd in India, put out to pasture with the sheep by his family—a boy’s job—because he was considered inept at everything else and not to be trusted with important things. Nanak was a dreamy, mystical guy who really struggled over which religion was the right one. Was it the Hinduism of his family, or the Islam of the rulers? He’s dabbled in both, and they had each left him a little cold.

One day he left the sheep intending to take a bath in the river, but while he was there, standing in the water, God appeared to him, and Nanak just stood there in the river, awestruck and trembling. For a couple of days. During his vision, God told him to adore the Name—the Divine Name that could never be spoken or explained or comprehended.

When Nanak finally emerged from the water, he spoke cryptically, “There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim,” and he walked away from the sheep forever. He began to practice Name Adoration, and taught it to anyone who would listen to him. Then he decided to take it on the road. He asked his best friend, a Muslim musician, to accompany him, and together, they travelled far and wide, throughout India and beyond, singing love songs to God.

And these songs were so sublime, so interfaith, that they were welcomed by villages that were Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, and even Jewish. Everyone listened, and everyone sang along.

Nanak didn’t just REACT to his encounter with the Holy—he RESPONDED. He didn’t just fall on his face and convulse, then go back to business as usual. His encounter changed everything. He left his family and his job behind, he began a serious spiritual practice in a public way, and he told everyone he met about what had happened to him.

This is exactly the template for response given in our readings today as well. In the book of Acts, the people who heard Peter preach were deeply moved, scripture says they were “pricked in the heart,” and their immediate REACTION was anxiety. “What do we DO?” they ask Peter pleadingly, in essence, asking him, “How should we RESPOND to this news that has moved us?”

Peter tells them to do three things. First, he tells them to “Repent.” Here, Peter isn’t saying, “Feel bad about yourselves,” which is the shallow way that we often view repentance in our culture. The Greek word Luke uses for “repent” is “metanoia,” which means to change your heart, or to change your mind, to orient yourself differently. The clear implication is that this results in a change of life.

Second, Peter tells them to “be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ,” in other words, ritualize this change in a public way. If you just keep this change secret, you may begin to doubt it, the impact may slip away, you might go back to your old way of living. Instead, Peter says, do something CRAZY: go public. Ritualize it, ground your memory of the experience in the body, make yourself accountable to a community of people who can guide you and support you in your new way of life.

Third, Peter says, “receive the gift of the Holy Ghost,” which seems a little obscure until you look at the next sentence, “for the promise is unto you and to your children and to all who are afar off.” The gift of the Holy Spirit isn’t just something nice for me—it’s not like a locket or a stuffed animal, you know, sweet but useless. What does the Holy Spirit DO? She EMPOWERS us to go forth and proclaim the good news we have received to the world.  1) Change direction; 2) Ritualize it; 3) Tell it.

We see this same pattern in our Psalm. The Psalmist was in some major kind of dire trouble, and God delivered him. He says, “the sorrows of death encompassed me, and the pains of hell got hold of me; I found trouble and sorrow.” He calls upon God in his despair and distress, and—although the action takes place offstage, God delivers him.

But now what? Again, three things: first, he becomes God’s servant—a change of life. Second, he makes sacrifice at the temple—a public and ritual acknowledgement of this change. And third, “I will pay my vows unto the HOLY ONE in the presence of all God’s people”—he tells others what happened to him.

Strangely, these passages were paired with our Gospel reading, and here, the pattern is not so obvious. Or is it?

The story is both beloved and familiar: It’s later in the day of Jesus’ resurrection. Two disciples, perhaps a man named Cleopas and his wife, are walking to a village called Emmaus. They’re distressed by all that’s been happening in and to Jesus’ community: Jesus was publicly executed and buried, and what’s more, now his body is missing, and some of the women in the community say that Jesus is alive again. Is it crazy talk, or just another tragic event? They’re so numb they can’t process it. No wonder they’re getting away from it all.

But then a profound encounter with the Holy begins. Jesus himself draws near to them and walks with them, but they just think he’s a fellow traveler—they don’t KNOW it’s Jesus. And he asks them, “What are you talking about? Why are you so sad?”

And they say, “Have you been living in a cave? Don’t you know what’s been happening in Jerusalem?”

Jesus says, “Assume that I don’t and tell me about it.” And so they pour out their hearts to him, all their confusion, their fear, and their frustration.

And Jesus, still disguised, replies, “O you fools!” because apparently, it wasn’t INSULTING in the first century to say something like that. But then he begins to explain all of the events in the light of the prophesies in the Jewish scriptures.

When the couple stops for the night, they implore their mysterious fellow traveler to remain with them, to which he agrees. As they’re eating dinner, he broke the bread, and in that moment, their eyes were opened and they realized who it was. And just then, he vanished.

The couple is so shocked that before the hour is up, they’re back on the road to Jerusalem to tell everyone what had happened to them.

So that’s the story. It’s a GREAT story. It’s a multivalent story. It occurs only in the Gospel of Luke, so we must assume it has great significance to the gentile Christian community. But what could that significance be?

This passage gives us the pattern for public worship in Christian churches. The Jewish Christians don’t need this, because they continue to worship in the synagogues, but the gentile Christians have no pattern for common prayer, and as you can imagine, this is a very great need and an important question: What does worship that is specifically CHRISTIAN worship look like?

The story lays out the pattern for worship in clear but symbolic terms:

First, the church is like these two believers: they are companions on a spiritual journey that must stop every now and then to be refreshed through public worship.

Second, whenever two or more are gathered in the name of Jesus, Jesus is among them, even if he isn’t seen or recognized.

Third, when Christians meet, they should use the events of the life of Jesus to interpret the Jewish scriptures. They should read the scriptures critically and imaginatively.

Fourth, they should gather at the table of the Lord, where Jesus will be made visible to them in the breaking of the bread.

But wait, there’s more! They should be so energized by their encounter with the living Jesus that they go forth to tell others about their experience. The religious experience doesn’t stop when church is over, it just changes form from a passive to an active mode. As my friend pastor Tony at Arlington UCC says in his Benediction, “worship has ended, let the service begin.”

So why did the Lectionary compilers pair this story—a post-resurrection account that is also a template for Christian worship—with the other readings for the day? Because this complex reading also speaks to the pattern of response given by Peter, although, again, in a highly symbolic form.

After their encounter with the Holy, the two disciples change DIRECTION—a metanoia. Their experience with Jesus provides the pattern for ritualizing Christian experience for all time—the interpretation of scripture and the breaking of bread, the Liturgies of the Word and Table, respectively. And they are moved to go and tell others about their experience immediately, with some urgency, in fact. All three responses—Change direction, ritualize it, tell it—are present in this story.

Which brings us back to my original question: The last time you had a major epiphany that shook you to your core, the last time—in the words of the Holy Qu’ran—“your breast expanded” and “your burden was lifted from you,” the last time God saved you or revealed himself in power to you—what did you DO? AFTER you picked yourself off the floor, stopped crying, and got ahold of yourself, I mean.

Did it change you? Did it change your life direction? Nanak cried out, “There is no Muslim, there is no Hindu!” St. Paul cried out, “In Christ Jesus there is no Jew, no Greek, no male, no female, no upper class, no lower class,” and he MEANT it. It turned their lives around. How did YOUR experience change YOU?

And did you ritualize it somehow? Did you tell others? It isn’t too late. The great thing about God is that we’re not just given one chance, one experience, one epiphany, and then, “sorry, that’s all for you!” Instead, God comes to us again and again, like the wronged woman in Jesus’ parable, seeking justice until she gets it. God is persistent. God doesn’t give up on us. God keeps giving us glimpses of glory, epiphanies and insights, experiences of grace and salvation.

Half the time we don’t recognize them as such. Jesus might be walking with us, but we don’t see him. But the fact is God is ALWAYS walking with us, ALWAYS whispering to us, ALWAYS revealing salvation to us, if only we had the eyes to see it. And largely, this is a matter of being open to it, to looking for it, to not explaining away every mystical experience as “an undigested bit of potato” as Scrooge does. But these experiences are not rare. Most of us have them, often again and again. And we’ll keep having them until we respond.

God is a relational being, who wants nothing quite so much as intimacy and relationship—not just with humanity in general, but with YOU in particular. And healthy relationship means reciprocity. There are things I want out of my relationship with Lisa, and things she wants out of her relationship with me. The same is true for God. God gives us light, hope, salvation, ecstatic experiences of mystical unity, all in the hope that it will lead us to make a response: to turn toward him, to walk toward him, to seek a deeper, more intimate relationship with him.

Ritualizing this grounds us in commitment, in community, and gives us a support system for this journey. And finally, when we grow and deepen our relationship with God, we want others to experience the satisfaction and reward that we have, and we’re moved to talk about it, to testify to our experience, to invite others into this new way of living as well.

Yes, the resurrection was great, but our RESPONSE to it is important. Yes, our mystical experiences are neato and profound, but they’re given for a reason, to provoke a RESPONSE, a movement towards God, a commitment to the life of faith, and concern for others. This is the normative pattern for Christian life. It’s a good one. We have been led here by some experience of God, and here we ritualize our faith in community, now let us go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit to sing love songs to God, to testify to what God has done in our lives—to help others make sense of THEIR mystical experiences, to invite them—not just to church—but to a deeper and more intimate relationship with the Holy. Let us pray…

God, you are a bit of a stalker, you follow us around, declaring your love for us, revealing yourself in shocking and upsetting ways until we get it: you love us, and you’re not giving up on us. Now if WE did that, we’d get arrested. You get away with a lot. But your heart is in the right place. We see that. Help us to respond in the way that is meaningful to you. Help us to respond in ways that are life-giving to us. Help us to respond in ways that search out others who are lost in despair, and give them hope as well. For we ask this in the name of the one who sought us out and declared your love to us, even Jesus Christ. Amen.

easter: the end of empire

EASTER 2011

Acts 10:34-43 | Ps 118:1-2, 14-24 | Col 3:1-4 | Jn 20:1-18

There was, in the ancient world, a man who was proclaimed Divine. He was called God, and the Son of God. It was said of him that he was “God from God.” People called him the Savior, the Redeemer of the world. They called him Lord.

If you had been travelling at this time, you could go from one end of the empire to the other, and if ever you spoke these words, people would know precisely who you were talking about. If you hear someone speaking about “salvation” or “grace” or “peace” or “justice” or “gospel” or “atonement” you, too, would know exactly who they were talking about.

He was born in 31 BCE, and he ruled the whole of the known world. He was, in fact, the Lord of the World, and his name was Caesar Augustus. Horace, in his Odes, wrote, “Our children, made fewer by their parents’ sins…to whom shall Jupiter assign the task of atoning for our guilt?” Augustus, who was the incarnation of the god Mercury, who walked among us “in the guise of a man.”

In some ways, we know Jesus too well. We know him so well that we think that everything that happened to him was, well, kind of normal—even the miraculous stuff. It’s old hat to us. We’ve heard it all our lives. The fact is that we have to do some pretty heavy peddling to understand exactly why Jesus was such a big deal. We’re so fixated on him, that we know almost nothing about the world—the context—into which he was born. And it is this context that reveals why Jesus was such a sensation.

More than a sensation, Jesus was a scandal. He was, in fact, a scandal from beginning to end. He had a scandalous beginning—born nearly out of wedlock. Again, that’s no big deal to us today, but in the context of his time, that could get you stoned pretty quickly.

He had a scandalous ministry, being, for one thing, an unmarried rabbi—and one that hung out with sex workers, to boot. He didn’t collect the brightest of the bright from the Yishivas—the Talmudic schools—he encouraged illiterates and criminals and terrorists and traitors to follow him. Regardless of his image today, in his own context, Jesus hung out with the wrong crowd.

But putting aside his scandalous origin for a moment, putting aside his scandalous behavior for a moment, the single most scandalous thing about Jesus was what people were saying about him. They called him “the Lord,” “the Savior,” “the Son of God,” and that, as far as anyone in the Roman Empire was concerned, was treason. Because in that context, the only person to whom one could safely direct such titles was the living god man on the throne of the world—Caesar.

The Jews were in a tricky place. First off, they hated the Romans and their Caesar, partly because they weren’t too fond of gentiles in general, but they were especially resentful of goyim who presumed to rule them by the sword, and Rome’s sword was like nothing the world had ever seen before. They itched for the glory days of Judas Maccabbee, who, with his army of freedom fighters, took back the land of Israel from their gentile overlords by force, making it once again the Kingdom of God, if only for a short time.

So, yes, they hated Rome, and they hated the emperor, but they feared his power even more. They feared the force of his wrath, the power of his sword, the violence of his vengeance against any who dared oppose him. Their teeth ground when they called him “Lord,” but they called him “Lord” just the same. The Jerusalem hillsides were dotted with crucified evidence of this Lord’s justice, but they called him “just” all the same.

So when this nobody rabbi from the sticks ambles up with his band of merry idiots and sex workers, and—inexplicably—the common rabble hail him “King,” and “Lord,” and “Savior,” and pine aloud for the “Kingdom of God,” the Jewish leaders who are knocking themselves out trying to keep a lid on this powder keg of a country are understandably a little freaked out by it. Because if the Romans catch wind of it, it could mean curtains for EVERYBODY.

People love peace. We hate conflict. I hate conflict, you hate conflict, the ancient Jews hated conflict, especially when it was likely to bring certain death. Rome knew that. And that was why the Roman propaganda machine was selling the one thing that everyone, from the Atlantic to the Baltic wanted: peace.

It was the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome, a shining dream that understandably had great appeal. It is human nature, after all, to squabble. If we could just find one man, with a strong enough sword to beat all his rivals into submission, we could have that peace. And Caesar was that man.

It was, in fact, for the Romans, a religious enterprise. In an ancient document known as The Achievements of the Divine Augustus, a pattern emerges for how to achieve this peace: First, (1) Augustus rebuilds and restores the temples throughout the empire, restoring the piety of the people and ensuring the favor of the gods. Second, (2) in the name of the gods and with their aid he rides out and makes war on all those who will not bow before him. This results in (3) Victory, and the result of this victory is (4) peace.

This is the Roman Imperial theology, and it can be summed up by a single phrase made very popular here in the US during the cold war: peace through strength.

It was fear of Roman power that moved the Jewish religious authorities to have Jesus stopped before he could bring destruction upon their people. It was Roman strength that tore him from the protective hands of his friends and followers and tortured him and crucified him. It was Roman strength that nailed him to that cross and made him an object lesson to the world: this is what will happen to YOU if you oppose the Lord of the World.

And like all of those who challenge the Empire, like all those who threaten the Pax Romana, Jesus died, brutally and publically. He died and was buried. (Sit down. Silence.)

Did you think that was the end of the story? The Romans thought that was the end of the story. The Jewish religious authorities thought that was the end of the story. The disciples thought that was the end of the story.

But God had, it seemed, not scandalized the world enough. Jesus wasn’t done. Because God had a message that God had been trying for hundreds of years to drive home, and it still hadn’t made it in. We’ve been reading about it in our Old Testament readings this year: God’s favor is with the poor and the powerless. Mary seemed to get it—she proclaimed it in her Magnificat: “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.” Jesus himself proclaimed it throughout his ministry, telling the meek and the poor in spirit that they were favored by God, and choosing those whom the world looked down upon as his friends and confidants.

And if the Romans wanted an object lesson on power, this one was a doozy. Because in crucifying this little rabbi, the full weight of Roman might came down upon Jesus, and perhaps for the first time in the history of the empire, MIGHT DID NOT WIN.

Fear motivated the Jewish authorities to betray one of their own in order to keep the fragile peace, and FEAR DID NOT WIN.

Violence, to which the entire world had turned in order to assert its will on its neighbors, did its worst to Jesus, rending his body into shreds and battering him into oblivion, and VIOLENCE DID NOT WIN.

This is the message of the crucifixion and resurrection, folks: everything that the powers of Empire, everything that the world at large values—power, strength, ruthlessness, money, privilege, influence—is nothing in the eyes of God. And in the end, these things will not win.

The resurrection is God’s stamp of approval on the one man who said “no” to the way of Empire. He had none of those things that make a person powerful or important. Jesus had no power, he was not strong, he was not ruthless, he had no money, he was not attractive, he had no political pull. He had nothing but the truth: “God will pull the powerful from their thrones and will lift up the lowly.”

It’s hard to get more lowly than Jesus, beaten, tortured, and very dead indeed. But true to his promise, as the very kind of object lesson that Rome could appreciate, God lifted him up. And in lifting him up, he lifts us up as well.

In the resurrection, we are set free from the way of life cherished by Empire. No longer does our success hinge on the being the strongest, the fiercest, the smartest, or the most highly regarded person in the room. LIFE IS NOT ABOUT POWER. We have been set free from that trap. That lie has now been exposed. That way is a dead-end, and we don’t have to fall for it.

LIFE IS NOT ABOUT POWER. Instead, life is about kindness, beauty, tenderness, caring, compassion, and courage. The powerful don’t win in the end—the meek do. Force does not win in the end—the peaceful do. The ruthless don’t win in the end, the merciful do.

St. Paul is making this exact point in his epistle. This is the “Christ crucified” that Paul knows and proclaims. The “wisdom of this age” is doomed to perish, because in the end, force does not win. Paul says that “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing”—to those blinded by the power of Empire, of force, of domination—“but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of those who call themselves wise’…God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

This is the hope that we proclaim as Christians. To those who place their hope in the power of the sword, in power, in influence, in wealth, it seems like idiocy. But God’s idiocy is greater than any human wisdom, Paul says. The cross is a scandal, but the resurrection is a liberation. It is a vindication of the scandalous, it is freedom from the way of empire. It is a refutation of the powerful and the doctrine of power revered by the world.

Love trumps power. Love trumps violence. Love trumps privilege. Love trumps cruelty. Crazy as it seems, it’s true. And this is why we follow Jesus. Because he told us the truth that scandalizes the world, turns all its structures upside down, and refutes all its alleged wisdom: In the end, love wins. No matter what you set against it. No matter how powerful, how rich, how influential you are. Love wins. The grave  claimed even Augustus Caesar. Only Jesus got up and walked away from it.

For the insights in this sermon, I am indebted to Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan’s THE FIRST PAUL (NY: HarperOne, 2009), especially chapter 4. 

stepping out on faith

Gen 12:1-4a | Ps 121 | Rom 4:1-5, 13-17 | Jn 3:1-17

 

Last Sunday after church, Lisa and I went to see the new Matt Damon film, the Adjustment Bureau. It’s based on a Philip K. Dick story, so you know it’s going to be both satisfyingly weird and deep at the same time.

 

The story—if you don’t mind me spoiling it a bit for you—takes place in an uber-deterministic, hyper-Calvinist universe in which the major decisions in everyone’s lives are mapped out ahead of time, and free will is just an illusion.

 

According to “The Plan,” a Senatorial candidate named David and a ballet dancer named Elise, are only supposed to meet once. Sparks fly, but no contact info is exchanged, and the opportunity passes. But the experience haunts them both, and three years later an accident happens, and they meet again.

 

They weren’t supposed to. Not according to The Plan. To get things back on track the Adjustment Bureau steps in—a divinely-appointed bureaucracy whose job it is to make sure everything goes the way it’s supposed to. David is told that both he and Elise are destined for greatness—he in the political arena, and she in the arts—but not if he ever sees her again.

 

Not wanting his own selfishness to eclipse her dream, he assents, but his decision and the secret gnaw away at him. Finally, he realizes that he doesn’t care if he becomes something great. A quiet life with the one person who has ever made him feel “at home” is enough, and on the morning of her wedding, he corrals her in the women’s restroom of the county courthouse.

 

The Adjustment Bureau is chasing him, of course, and he appears to her as a disheveled madman. And indeed, how could he possibly explain to her what is really going on? Who would believe it? So he does something irrational. He offers his hand and asks her to trust him. And she does something equally irrational—she takes it. And they run together.

 

In very short order, their journey takes them through several miraculous doors that challenge her grip on reality, and she realizes that something profound and inexplicable is happening to her. But it never would have if she had been logical, if she had led with her head, if she had insisted that he PROVE anything to her. She trusted him, and went on the journey with him, a journey that would eventually mean salvation for them both.

 

Elise’s decision is not unlike the one faced by Abram in our reading from Genesis. This strange god appears to him and says, “I want you and your family to leave everything and everyone you hold dear behind, and set out on a journey with me. If you do, I’ll give you so many children, you’ll make up an entire nation.”

 

Sounds a little too good to be true. Abram is 75 years old, remember. Any thinking, reasonable person would say, “Really? I’m gonna need some proof.” Or, if he were a decent businessman, a little collateral.

 

You know, the only way I can make sense of it is, Abram must have hit bottom. He must have been so down and out, so sunk in despair, that a crazy scheme posited by a disembodied voice actually sounded pretty good. He must have been so far down that when the voices in his head started directing his actions it seemed like things were looking up.

 

I never want to be that far down. But I do admire what Abram did. He had no knowledge that the voice was real or that it was telling him any kind of truth. He had no evidence, it was not logical, he may not have even believed the voice. But he chose to TRUST the voice and started packing up his camel just the same.

 

It’s the same kind of trust our Psalmist displayed in our Call to Worship. Traditionally, this is known as one of the Psalms of Ascent, and was probably sung by the Jewish pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem for one of the great feasts, such as Passover or Sukkot. Our Psalmist is looking to God for help, for he trusts that the one who had the power to make all things likewise has the power to preserve him and his people. He trusts that God will not fail him, that God will not fall asleep on the job, that God will protect him from the elements, and from every evil, physical, moral, and spiritual. God will make every journey safe.

 

Does the Psalmist have any proof of this? He doesn’t offer any. But the pilgrim picks up his rod anyway, and hits the road, singing this song as a declaration of his trust in a good and unseen Power that will not permit him to stumble.

 

It is an act of faith. But faith is an abused word, and is too often confused with “belief.” I consider this a vital distinction. Here’s why: In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he is riffing on this very Abraham story we’ve been talking about. He is asking his readers, “What made Abraham right with God? What made him righteous? What made him worthy to be embraced by God?”

 

The typical Jewish answer to this is, “Obedience to God’s command.” Abraham did not have the Law, but he had heard God’s Word, and he obeyed it. But Paul is a fine theologian, and he’s countering some pretty deep-set knee-jerk theological positions, here. He’s saying, “Look at this verse again. It’s not Abraham’s OBEDIANCE to God’s command that makes him worthy to walk with God. It is his faith.” The Greek word for “faith” that Paul uses here is “pistis” and it doesn’t mean belief.

 

Paul is arguing against the ability of the Law to make us acceptable to God. In fact “acceptability” is kind of missing the point. No one can ever be “acceptable” to God, if we equate “acceptability” with “perfection” because none of us can achieve that. As Paul points out—and as Luther will trumpet fifteen hundred years later—the best thing the Law ever did for us was to make painfully clear how imperfect we are.

 

Paul is saying that God does not embrace us because of anything we DO. Salvation isn’t something we can EARN by being “good people,” no matter how hard we try. Instead, salvation is a gift. It’s free. God embraces us not because of anything we DO, but because we, very simply, trust that he HAS, that he WILL, that he IS embracing us.

 

Christianity, including Luther, I believe, has by and large misread Paul, and has simply set up another kind of Law. This is the Law of Belief. The Jewish system says, “If you DO these things, God will protect you.” The Christians came along later and said, “If you BELIEVE these things, God will save you.” The Jewish Law focused on physical actions, the new Christian Law focused on intellectual assent. In both cases, you have to DO SOMETHING, and do it THE RIGHT WAY to be embraced by God.

 

But I don’t think that’s the Good News. I think that’s Bad News. I think that’s a formula for a tyrannical doctrinal conformity that Jesus never insisted on and even Paul never intended. It’s another kind of “works righteousness,” only the work, here is intellectual. It’s also the opposite of the freedom in Christ that Paul promises elsewhere. It’s certainly not the abundant life that Jesus proclaims. An abundant life must include intellectual freedom, or it’s not all that abundant, is it?

 

Jesus seems to be making this very same point when Nicodemus comes to him under cover of night. Nicodemus is a respected member of the religious establishment, and, in this story, he represents the Law, as it has been traditionally understood.

 

Jesus, however, is the maverick Pharisee. Nicodemus represents the prevailing attitude that if you just make the proper sacrifices, God will be pleased with you, and will protect you.

 

But the Pharisees said, “No. God wants more. God doesn’t just want your obedience. God wants your heart. He wants to love you and be loved by you. God doesn’t just want an outward observance of the Law, he wants the Law to live in the heart of every man and woman.” This is why Jesus got so upset at his fellow Pharisees, not because their hypocrisy was typical of the Pharisaical school, but because it was not—but because their legalism betrayed the Pharisaical spirit.

 

Jesus represents the very best of the Pharisaical school, and his teaching is firmly grounded in the tradition of Rabbi Hillel. John sets this meeting up as a confrontation between the legalistic Pharisees, represented by Nicodemus—and the authentic Pharisaical spirit, represented by Jesus.

 

Nicodemus is stuck in the same old rut that the literalists always are—he’s asking Jesus “what do I DO?”

 

And Jesus says, “Verily, verily…

 

And Nicodemus says, “Stop saying ‘verily,’ it’s creeping me out, nobody talks like that.”

 

But Jesus has his ticks, and he is not deterred. And he tells Nicodemus that his focus on outward actions is misplaced. God is not impressed by good deeds. Instead, Jesus says, what God wants is something different.

 

It’s hard for us to hear “born again” language because of what it has come to mean in our culture. It has come to represent precisely the kind of intellectual assent that is, in fact, just another kind of Law. “DO this and God will embrace you. BELIEVE this and God will embrace you. Pray this magic prayer, and you will be born again and God will embrace you.”

 

But I invite you to look at this with new eyes. Jesus said, “you must be born again. You must START OVER. You must abandon the journey you are on, and begin ANOTHER journey.” It’s not a safe journey. The Spirit blows like the wind, and you don’t know where it’s going to take you.

 

Just like poor Abram, there’s no guarantee, no certainty, no proof. Just an invitation to set out on a new path, to an unknown place, with only one benefit that we know of. That we won’t be travelling alone. That we will go on this new journey with a God who will protect us from every evil—physical, moral, and spiritual.

 

And we set out on this path by simply trusting God. The Good News is that God is already embracing us. We have only to trust that, and return the embrace, and walk in the company of this God.

 

Jesus tells Nicodemus, “God loved the world so much that he sent his Son to tell you.” The translators have rendered the next bit, “whosoever believeth in Him,” but the Greek word is the same one Paul uses, “pistis,” TRUST. Whoever TRUSTS in this good news will not perish. God will protect them, God will walk beside them, God will lead them, God will save them.

 

We are not embrace by God because of anything we do or because of anything we believe. We are embrace already, and if we can trust that, and set out on a new journey based on that trust, God will lead us to places we never could have dreamed of.

 

I think that’s something we need to hear in this parish right now. We’re facing some scary choices about our future, and there’s a lot of pressure to do the right thing, if only we knew what that was. But I think the invitation isn’t about doing the right thing or about thinking the right things or even working the right plan, but having a simple, child-like trust that if we will walk with God, everything will eventually turn out okay. That God will walk with us, that God will lead us to a place of safety where we, like Abraham and Sarah’s children, will prosper and multiply.

desire little and trust much

Is 49:8-16 | Ps 131 | 1 Cor 4:1-5 | Mat 6:24-34

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St. Francis, despite his poor health, was always pushing himself to go out from his retreat near Assissi and preach the Gospel. Sometimes he was gone for years, sometimes only for months. One time, he came home after such a preaching trip, and found that the good and merciful people of the city had, out of love of the friars, built them a small house for a shelter against the cold.

When Francis saw it, he trembled with rage, took a shovel, and swinging it like a madman, used it to utterly demolish the house. His brothers thought he was, indeed, mad, and after he had succeeded in knocking the house down, and seemed to calm down a bit, they approached him and said, “Uh, Francis. It was a lovely little house. And it is very cold. Why did you destroy it?”

His answer? He didn’t want them to become complacent. He didn’t want them to own buildings, or property, or, in fact, anything at all. He wanted them to depend on God. Every day. For everything.

But, you say, “Francis was mad.” Yes, of course Francis was mad. It’s part of what makes him interesting, and I wager it’s much easier to love him from a distance than it was close up, especially when you are shivering in the Umbrian snow.

But even if St. Francis went a little too far, he seemed to really GET something about Jesus that few people ever have. He GOT that wealth doesn’t make you happy, and that God cares for us, and WILL care for us.

Francis displayed exactly the same kind of radical trust that we see in today’s portion from the Sermon on the Mount. And in this reading, Francis’ two-pronged message—wealth can’t make you happy, and God will take care of you—is prominently on display.

Jesus says it plainly, “You can’t serve both God and money.” The two are mutually exclusive. Perhaps Jesus was anticipating his listeners objections, or perhaps the scribe wasn’t writing down the questions being thrown at him, but one can imagine someone saying, “But without money, how will we survive?” Jesus’ answer, of course, is idealistic in the extreme: “Don’t worry about it. God will take care of you.”

Spiritually, this is a very satisfying answer, but how practical is it? Jesus goes on to say, “Look at the animals. Do they have money? Do they have to toil night and day for their living? God cares for them. Aren’t you more important to God than they are? Don’t you think God will take care of you?”

Now, here’s the interesting part. Jesus isn’t saying this to the crowds. The scribe doesn’t tell us exactly when Jesus turns his attention, but it’s a mistake to think that the Sermon on the Mount is actually one sermon. Scholars agree that it is a compilation of a number of Jesus’ teachings, arranged more or less thematically. As a literary device, however, these teachings have been woven together into a reasonably, but not perfectly, logical flow.

But given that, even within the literary device of the sermon, it’s not clear when Jesus turns his attention, but turn it he does. Last week’s portion was spoken to the crowds, but today’s speech is not given to the public, but to the disciples. Jesus never once said, “O ye of little faith” to the public. Jesus was very savvy. He didn’t condescend to or scold those he was preaching to. Not counting his fellow Pharisees, he usually reserved his invective for his friends. What a guy.

So, when he says, “O ye of little faith,” he’s not talking to our visitors today—you guys are off the hook. When he says, “O ye of little faith,” he’s talking to us church members. Disciples. Those who are already on board with this Jesus project, and can take a little tough love now and then.

And what Jesus is asking us to do, here, is simply get our priorities straight. It’s typical Jesus-esque hyperbole. It’s not meant to be taken literally. It’s intended to be so extreme that it makes a point. Francis is mad precisely because he DID take it literally. It’s all very inspiring, and although you can’t prove it from scripture, I have it on good authority that God is no fan of frostbite.

What Jesus is saying is that if you are so worried about money, it’s going to consume you. It’s going to be first in your life, and the Gospel is going to suffer. If you are my disciple, though, you’ve got to put the Gospel first. Proclaiming the Good News should be our top priority. And if we will do that, if we can be faithful to God in this, God will be faithful to us and will sustain us for this work.

But there’s another piece to this. Part of having the right priorities is reevaluating success. How much is too much? How much is enough? Jesus, after all, isn’t saying, “Seek the Kingdom and God will keep you in cake and Chryslers for all your days.” He isn’t promising us mansions or wealth. Not at all. He promises us a living. And really, we need very little to live.

The author of our Hindu reading laments the persistence with which he grasps after wealth, and sees the foolishness of his own soul. “I have been thy plaything! I have been your toy!” he cries, and identifies Desire as the root of his suffering, just as the Buddha did.

It isn’t just ancient Eastern sages who struggle with desire. This is our struggle, too. Desire is the cause of most of our dissatisfaction. Because it’s not that we don’t already have all that we need, the problem is that we want MORE. We want MORE money, BIGGER houses, MORE fame—our ambition threatens to consume us. And if we don’t have these things, we’re often miserable, not because we NEED them, but because we WANT them. The fact is, though, that most of the world gets by with far less than we do. We could, too. And if the scriptures of just about every tradition on earth are right, we probably should.

The Psalmist who penned our Call to Worship expressed this eloquently. He says, “HOLY ONE, my heart is not haughty, my eyes are not lofty, neither do I exercise myself with great matters, or in things too high for me.” He’s saying, “I’m not proud, I have reigned in my ambition.” I have reigned in my ambition. And because of this, he is able to snuggle up to God as a child does his mother. In God is his hope, his sustenance, his salvation, not wealth or property or fame.

Note that this snuggly parent imagery runs through all our biblical readings. Jesus refers to God as “father” twice in our Gospel portion today, but it is Isaiah that really drives it home. His reading is particularly rich, and fittingly sums up all the rest.

He’s writing to the Jews in exile. They have been battered, abused, stolen from their land, from their wealth, from every shred of security. And now, through the prophet, God is speaking to them. And what does he say?

He says, first, “I have heard you crying for help.” Second, “I have helped you.” Third, “I will preserve you” although this is an iffy translation. The Hebrew word, here, is “natsar” (not-SAIR), which means “I will keep guard over you.”

But what is God preserving them FOR? Why has God heard them? Why has God helped them? Why does God watch over them?

Because God expects them to proclaim the Covenant. “I will give thee for a covenant…to reestablish the land, to restore what has been lost. I preserved you so that you will go to those who are in slavery and prison, and lead them forth into freedom. I preserved you so that you will go to those who are in darkness, and say to them, ‘Show yourselves,’ ‘exist!,’ ‘live again!’”

Isaiah says, “Israel has been crying, ‘The HOLY ONE has forsaken me, God has forgotten me.’” But look at the imagery Isaiah invokes next, because it is one of the most heartbreaking passages in the whole of scripture. God hears this cry of pain and abandonment, and responds with aching tenderness, “Can a mother forget her baby? Can she possibly not care about him? No way. Listen, Israel, YOU might forget about me, but I will never, NEVER forget about YOU. I have cut your name into the palms of my hands.”

Wow. THAT’S love.

It’s also covenant. Real love brings with it real responsibility. My marriage to Lisa is a covenant. It means that I promise to love her and I expect to be loved by her. But it also means that I have commitments to her, and she to me. If I don’t uphold my commitments, that love is likely to be severely endangered. We like to think that love is free, but it isn’t. Real love costs. Back in the Depression era, they used to say, “there ain’t no free lunch.” Well, there ain’t no free love, either. The sixties are over, babe, and if there’s one thing that the sixties taught us, it’s this: love without responsibility isn’t love, it’s selfishness.

God loves everyone. No exceptions. No conditions. But if we accept that love, if we knowingly and willingly enter into relationship with God, it’s like getting married. It’s a covenant. God will care for us, and love us, and God accepts a measure of responsibility towards us. If we agree to that, we love God, we commit ourselves to God, and we accept a measure of responsibility in return.

And what is this responsibility? To be God’s agent in this world. To comfort those who mourn. To bind up the broken-hearted. To feed the hungry. To nurse the sick. To bless those who curse us, and do good to those who hate us. To behave in a godly way, allowing our tongues and hands and feet to be guided by God to do God’s work. We have been called by Love to do the work of Love.

THAT’s love.

Paul says, “Let us be known as ministers of Christ, as stewards of God’s mysteries, making them available to all! Let us not judge ourselves by normal human standards—by how much we have, or how ‘successful’ we are—but by God’s standards—by how faithful we are, how committed we are to God’s project of bringing hope and love and healing to this world.”

Let us reign in our ambitions, let us desire little, let us be content with enough, so that we will get off the hamster wheel society so pressures us to run in, and turn our attention to our real priority, our real task: bringing light and hope and good news to those who are trapped in the prisons of despair or poverty or desire.

Because if we will be faithful in this, God will be faithful to us: God will not abandon us. God will care for us as a mother does her own baby. God will hear us, God will save us, God will preserve us. God will provide the things we NEED—not all that we want, God will not sate the bottomless well of our desire. But God WILL provide all that we NEED.

Because God has entered into covenant with us, into relationship with us. Let us both uphold our responsibilities so that our love can flourish, flower, and bear fruit—and increase of love and life and freedom in this world.

get with the program

Lev 19:1-2, 9-18 | Ps 119:33-40 | 1Cor 3:10-11, 16-23 | Mat 5:38-48

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About fifteen years ago, I took a job at a little publishing company in Point Richmond. At first, I was grateful to get it, but soon afterwards, I began to feel like a victim. The spirit of the place was oppressive, the owner was remote and dictatorial, and the manager was, I thought at the time, a simpering tyrant. I hated it so much I would literally just sit at my desk and cry, feeling sorry for myself.

Consequently, I watched the clock like a hawk, and the moment it struck five I was OUTTA THERE. This did not go unnoticed, and perhaps there were other people who felt as I did, because the owner called an employee meeting and literally yelled at us for forty minutes about “loyalty,” “going the extra mile,” and “putting in extra”—presumably unpaid—“hours.”

This, I did not do. I found the little “pep talk” abusive and counter-productive. Needless to say, I did not “get with the program” and continued to do the minimum required of me, not volunteering to stay one minute longer than I absolutely had to.

So it was not surprising to come home one evening and find a message on my answering machine informing me that my services were no longer required. And would I please come in the next day to clean out my desk? It is the only time I can remember actually being fired, but I had a hard time feeling much shame about that. Mostly, I just felt overwhelming relief.

Looking back on this experience, I find it difficult to discern whether the work environment really was as bad as I experienced it to be at the time—other people weren’t crying at THEIR desks, after all—or whether I was just being immature and myopic. Maybe there’s a little truth in both of these theories. But the real problem—as I see it, and certainly as I imagine my employer saw it—was that I was just not on board with their program. I had no investment in the MISSION of our work, and so I did not sacrifice for it, I did not OWN the work I was doing.

I believe this “failure of ownership” is precisely what Jesus is getting at in our Gospel reading today. Here he is, continuing the Sermon on the Mount, and his thought here flows out of what comes directly before in the text. Two weeks ago, we read that he said, “I have not come to abolish the law but to complete it,” and in last week’s Gospel and this week’s, he’s doing just that: he’s quoting the Jewish scriptures—the Law—and saying, “now take this further—COMPLETE it.”

For instance, in our portion today, Jesus says, “You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,’ but I tell you not to resist an evil person.” The quotation “An eye for an eye” occurs three times in the Torah, but even in Jesus’ time its meaning had been twisted. It is clear in the context of the Torah texts that this rule had been intended to LIMIT violence, not to justify it. In other words, if someone accidentally or even maliciously takes out your eye, you are not permitted to chop off his arms or to kill him. You may take HIS eye as just punishment, BUT NO MORE. Yet Jesus asks his listeners to take this restraint even further, to do no violence to the offender whatsoever.

Then Jesus says, “You have heard it said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies….” Interestingly, the “and hate your enemy” does not appear in the Torah. Our reading from Leviticus is filled with commands about how one should love one’s neighbor, but it says nothing about hating one’s enemy. Yet it seems clear that here Jesus is talking about how people normally understand the Law: you must work at loving your neighbor, but enemies, well, of course it’s okay to hate them. And certainly the Hebrew Scriptures are filled with examples of Israel going all Paleolithic on their enemies’ backsides. But Jesus is asking his listeners to take this love of neighbor even further, to show love towards—not just your friends—but your enemies, too.

What Jesus is asking his listeners to do resides at a meta-level in the text—he doesn’t come right out and say it, which causes his meaning to be obscure. He is clear about one thing, he isn’t contradicting the Law. As he says, he is fulfilling it. But how? Jesus is telling his listeners, “Look, you COULD just follow the letter of the Law and squeak by with the bare minimum that God requires. But why would you do that? It’s missing the point! Why not figure out what God is trying to DO here, and work towards that yourself?”

In other words, Jesus is inviting his listeners to GET WITH THE PROJECT, not to keep a bunch of rules, but to get on board with what God is trying to accomplish with all this rule-making in the first place, and spend their efforts trying to do THAT. Because if they could do THAT, they’d keep the rules as a matter of course, and they wouldn’t even have to think about them. He’s not abolishing the Law, he’s fulfilling it—because he’s owning for himself the very change of heart that the Law is pointing to in the first place—a genuine concern for and love of others—and he’s inviting US to own it, too.

I was fired from the publishing company because I was just doing the bare minimum required of me—I wasn’t investing myself in the vision of the company, I wasn’t putting myself out there or sacrificing to help the company succeed. I wasn’t ON BOARD with the project. No WONDER I was fired.

Jesus’ approach wasn’t novel, either. The section of the Torah we read today from Leviticus is doing very much the same thing: it’s taking the bare minimums stated by the Ten Commandments, and taking them further, explaining what these rules are for—to change the heart, to move people from simple observance of rules to real love of one’s neighbor, even though it may involve personal sacrifice. Jesus is just taking this another step—to extend that love even further, to reveal that God’s project is even bigger, more comprehensive, more radical than we thought it was.

Our Psalmist stated it clearly in our Call to Worship this morning: He says “Teach me, O God, the WAY of your statutes”—he’s not just saying “teach me your statutes”—that’s easy, anyone can memorize a bunch of rules. No, he says, “Teach me the WAY of your statutes.” The Hebrew word rendered “way” here is “der-rek” which can also be translated “the course of life.” The Psalmist says I will keep it “to the end” and “with my whole heart.” The Psalmist isn’t just promising to keep the rules, he’s expressing his fervent desire to be ON BOARD with the whole project, because his WHOLE HEART is in it.

If you are savvy to sermon structure, you are probably anticipating my next move: asking you if your whole heart is in this crazy project of God’s. But I’m not going to go there, at least not in the way that you think. Because to do so would be to fall into the trap of Protestant individualism and to distort the meaning of the writers of both Testaments.

Moses isn’t speaking his expansion of the Commandments to an individual, because Jews don’t believe in individual salvation. Jews are saved AS A PEOPLE. God is going to save ISRAEL, not select individuals who happen to be Jews. Salvation for the Jews had nothing to do with the afterlife. The covenant between God and the Jews was clear: You keep my Law and I will keep your enemies from wiping you out. It was a benevolent protection racket, was what it was.

Christians, however, DO understand salvation partly in terms of the afterlife, but in our Epistle reading today, Paul is still not talking to us as individuals. He says, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” What is plain in every other language on earth is utterly obscure in English, because the word “you” in this passage in both places where it appears is PLURAL.

Paul is saying not that we are each individually the temple of God’s Spirit, but something much more profound. That it is in the midst of the community that we create that God lives. And that community is not just our family, it is not just our church family, it is not just our neighbor, it includes our enemy, too.

So now, yes, you probably know what’s coming: Is OUR heart, our WHOLE heart on board with this crazy project of God’s? Are we as a community just doing the bare minimum to get by, to be called “a church” or are we really sold on this Christianity thing? Does the Law live in our hearts? Does the Spirit of God dwell in our midst? Do we really get what God is trying to do, here, and are we on board with that?

I think that this is something for us to really discern carefully together. Because the Torah and the Gospel are clear that we are not here for ourselves. The Community of God—whether Israel or the Church—is not here simply to nourish US, the people within these. The Community of God is something we are called to proclaim, something we are called to enact, it is the Good News we take to our neighbors. Not because we have to do everything on our checklist, but because we understand, we GET what God is trying to do, here, and we want to be a part of THAT.

We WANT to make justice, we WANT to reach out to those in need, we WANT to bless those who curse us. In the words of Lao Tzu, we WANT to repay hatred with kindness. We want to embody the unconditional love of God in THIS place, we want to extend free grace to the people that WE meet, we want to restore dignity and purpose to the people that God has put in OUR path. We want to be the Community of God in THIS place, to do the work of God in THIS place, to be the presence of the Holy One in OUR neighborhood. We GET the project, we are ON BOARD, and we are willing to sacrifice to make it happen.

Is that us? Is that who we are? This isn’t an individual choice, this is a group discernment. What are we here for? If it’s to pat each other on the back and help us feel better about ourselves, I gotta tell you, I’m really not that interested. And I know that we are limited people with a limited amount of time, and money, and energy. I get that. God, do I get that. If someone wants to have lunch with me, we have to schedule three weeks out. Finitude sucks. But we’re not being asked to wring blood from a stone—we’re just being asked whether we get what God’s trying to do, and if we’re willing to commit what time and energy and resources we have towards that project. That’s all. Are we?

At the end of this reading, Jesus says something else that is often misunderstood. He says, “You shall be perfect, just as God is perfect.” This is a terrible translation, and has often been misused in abusive ways. Jesus is NOT saying we are supposed to be without flaw—that’s an impossible standard that no one can live up to. The key to understanding this first of all is context—Jesus has been asking us to come to God’s project with a whole heart, to fulfill not just the letter of the Law, but it’s spirit as well.

The second key to this is the word translated “perfect.” The word is actually “teleios” (te-LAY-os) which is related to “telos,” which you may remember from your Intro to Philosophy class means a thing’s end, the purpose for which it was intended. Jesus is saying, “Be the people you were put here to be. Fulfill your purpose. Do the work you have been given by God to do.” He’s not asking us to be perfect, he’s asking us to fulfill our potential, to be the community that God intended us to be.

So this is an important discernment for us as we contemplate our future. Who ARE we called to be? What ARE we called to do? Who ARE we here for? These are the questions I’d like us to be talking about in the next few weeks. Because God is DOING something, here. I want to be on board with that project. I want to do what I have been put here to do. I’m hoping you do, too.