Sermon: Grow a Spine

In the Evangelical church of my childhood, I remember singing, “Lord, I Want to be More Like Jesus,” by which, I was pretty sure most of us did not mean that we wanted God to impart to us first-century carpentry skills or stereotypically robust Semitic schnozes. Instead, even as a young boy, I understood that we were asking God to help us to embody Jesus’ character, his virtues, and his values. 

This memory came back to me this week as I pondered the Palm Sunday reading for today, and it came in the context of a very stressful week. As many of you know, I have been struggling for the past several years with a maddening medical condition that evidences itself as an increasing sensitivity to all medications. Simple Aspirin will leave me with a 5-day hangover nowadays, and even medicinal herbs from my acupuncturist has the same effect. This has become very troublesome indeed, since I suffer from acid reflux and can no longer take the medication that controls it. My GP has done every test under the sun and insists he can find no cause for the condition. I have tried several Chinese practitioners, and they have been no more successful.

In desperation, I went this week to a naturopath, who sat with me for an hour and a half, listening to every twist and turn of my medical odyssey, and also grilling me about my family of origin, work, and relationships. At the end of the interview, she informed me that my liver was severely compromised, and that it was partly due to the fact that, for most of my life, I have allowed myself to be bullied by a good number of people, but instead of standing up for myself, or fighting back, I have simply taken it, and instead of expressing the anger and rage that they have provoked, I have turned it inside. “Anger is stored in the liver,” she said, “and it is toxic.” 

Now I’m as skeptical of such new-age approaches to things as the next guy, but honestly, I’m getting pretty desperate with my health situation, and although I can’t speak to the liver-anger connection, everything she said rang true. I DO let people walk all over me. I am afraid of my own shadow. I am one of those people whom nature seems to have hung a permanent “kick me” sign on my back. And yes, I’m fairly sick of it—a statement which may, in fact, sum up my entire health crisis in a major body-metaphor kind of way. 

I know I cannot continue to live in this way. But old training dies hard. Fear is a tough monkey to shake. My mother was a bully, and bullies seem to have this built-in radar that can identify potential victims within a several-mile radius. But just being aware of this, I know is a sign of hope. One of my closest friends has advised me to “grow a spine,” and as painful as that sounds, I am resolved to do so. 

And that’s why I want to be a lot more like Jesus—which might seem counter-intuitive. After all, he’s the ultimate victim, isn’t he? But when I look at the Gospel readings leading up to Easter, that isn’t what I see at all. What I see is a man who was true to his convictions, regardless of what his betters said, regardless of what his family said, regardless of what the priests and authority figures said. I see a man with the courage to go against the grain, to speak for those who had no voice, to help those who had no hope—no matter who it might upset to do so.  

And when it was clear those he had angered would stop at nothing to shut him down, when he and his friends feared for his very life, he did not flee. It was suicide to go to Jerusalem for that final Passover. But Jesus would not be bullied. Instead, he set his face towards the Holy City, and remaining true to his call, he walked unflinchingly, step by step, into the mouth of danger. 

And not only did he do it bravely, he did it with his humor and humanity intact. His choice of a donkey for his Triumphal entry into Jerusalem has been variously interpreted throughout the centuries as symbolic, as ironic, as subversive. And I think all of these are fruitful perspectives. But what spoke to me this year was what a great joke it was. You want a warrior? How’s this for a warrior? You want a king? How’s this for a king? You want a savior? What savior worth his salt would arrive this way? It was more than whistling in the dark. Jesus was mocking it. 

Like so much about Jesus, I find this deeply inspiring. I know I am not alone in my health crisis. Many of us have such crises—many so much worse than mine, frustrating though it may be. Many of us have family tragedies that threaten to overwhelm us. Many of us have suffered abuse that we fear we will never heal from and that haunts us every hour of every day. Our lives are full of stress, striving, and suffering. 

But God has not abandoned us. Even though we may be tempted to cry, like Jesus on the cross, “my God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” we are not, ultimately, abandoned or alone. The cross is always eclipsed by the empty tomb. The resurrection is the promise that no crucifixion is permanent, that no matter how dark the tunnel, faith can lead us to the light at its end. 

That sounds easy, but it isn’t. Having faith is an act of courage, of irrationality, of wanton hope that is foolishness in the eyes of the dog-eat-dog world out there. Following Jesus means not only having the courage to face the things that scare us, but also having the courage to believe that all will be well, in the end. Barack Obama talks about the “audacity of hope” and I think he’s on to something, there. Faith and hope are not things that come easily or cheaply. The are hard-won, and fly in the face of conventional wisdom. But it is only by exercising our atrophied faith and hope muscles that we can gain the strength to “be more like Jesus,” to confront the evils and suffering in the world, and the bullies that cause them. 

I am not there yet. Standing up and staring down evil the way Jesus did scares the willies out of me. And yet, I surprised myself last week as I was taking my dog Judy for her evening walk. We were a couple of blocks from home, when I heard a snarl from behind us. I turned to discover an enormous black dog racing towards us, growling, snarling, and snapping his teeth. In an instant I took in that this dog was not just full of bluster. He was much bigger than Judy, and would make mincemeat out of her in a matter of mere seconds. Without thinking, I jumped over Judy, placing myself between her and our viscous attacker. I assumed a linebacker stance, and staring the dog straight in the eye, I ROARED. Every bit of adrenaline I had went into it. Honestly, I could not believe the sound that was coming out of my throat. And apparently, neither could the attacking dog. He stopped in his tracks, cocked his head at me uncertainly, uttered a mild whimper, turned tail and fled. 

Afterwards, I was relieved, shaken, and amazed at myself. Apparently, I DO have it in me somewhere. Maybe I just think about it too much, and I get paralyzed by my own fear. Anyway, it’s good to know that when the heat is on, and when I need to be, I can be scarier than the average dog. Bullies, you are on notice. Let us pray…

Jesus, you are not some faraway God, 

removed from human suffering or concerns.

What we love about you is that you know just how hard it is, 

How scary it can be, how much it hurts, to be human. 

Thank you for showing us, time and again, 

How you met your trials and fears

With dignity, with courage, with humor, and with humanity.

Give us the faith, the courage, and the hope, 

To meet our own suffering and trials 

In the same way. 

Help us, Jesus, to be more like you. Amen.

 

PALM SUNDAY 2008 

Sermon: Believing the Wrong Thing

I was raised a Southern Baptist, and as those of you who have heard me preach before know, there’s still a lot about this tradition that I love and embody—like an appreciation for scripture, and my tendency to pound the pulpit! But another cherished part of my tradition of origin is the giving of testimonies, and I intend to give my testimony today. 

I was raised in a world where almost anything could be forgiven. You could be a child-beater, a thief, even an ax-murderer, and God would welcome you with open arms so long as you were repentant. There was only one unforgivable sin: BELIEVING THE WRONG THING. 

And, of course, we Baptists—specifically SOUTHERN Baptists—knew we had it locked down. We were suspicious of other kinds of Christians. We weren’t too sure about American Baptists—they seemed like traitors to us. And Methodists? Highly dubious whether they were going to heaven—they sprinkle their babies, after all, and how wimpy was that? And Catholics? As one evangelical humorist put it, we thought that when Catholics died they just put them in a chute in the basement and sent them straight off to Hell—do not pass go, do not collect $200 (thank you, Mike Warnke). So when it comes to Jews or Buddhists or Hindus? Forget about it. We didn’t think for a minute that God actually heard the prayers of the Jews, and those other guys worshipped idols. 

And I BELIEVED that. Heck, I preached it—at the ripe old age of 16, up on top of the table at the roller rink with my big red bible in my hand telling everyone they were going to Hell. Ah, those were the days. 

Then something unexpected happened. I broke out of the insulated Southern Baptist world, and made friends with people who had different ideas about God, and was really freaked out when it hit me, “They weren’t EVIL.” (Because, you know, I always thought they WERE.) But the big shift happened one day when I asked my friend Bob what God was. 

Now Bob had been raised by Hippies, which to me at the time, was not very far removed from having been raised in the outback by wild dingoes. Nevertheless, what he said changed me forever. He spun a vision of the universe as a vast, seemingly chaotic, but ultimately intricate and ordered Dance. All the creatures knew the steps—the animals, the planets, the stars, the angels, the demons—they all knew the words and had all the moves to this cosmic hokey pokey—and its complexity and beauty was a glorious thing. 

The only beings who did not know the dance steps were—you guessed it—human beings. And our religious traditions were heartfelt and yearning attempts to get back into step with the Cosmic Dance. 

Of all the theologies I had ever heard from the pulpit, none spoke to me as powerfully as this one. I cried for three days after hearing it. Because the moment I heard this vision, my world came to an end. I was, quite literally, born again. In that moment, I became an interfaith person. 

I would guess that many of our ordinands have conversion stories of their own. We all started out somewhere, and none of us would have guessed that we would end up HERE. What, are you crazy? Yet, despite our best efforts otherwise, THIS is where we have been led. 

A lot of people we meet are confused by this interfaith path. For some, it simply means holding out the possibility that other kinds of Christians might still be saved—a major stretch for those of us who grew up in conservative Christian homes. But “interfaith” is bigger than that. Some people are afraid it is a cult, a new belief system that just kind of puts all religions in a meat grinder with a vaguely New Age Hindu-ish kind of religion coming out the other side. But that’s not right, either. The interfaith movement professes no beliefs of its own. Although some of us have eclectic approaches to spirituality, those approaches often look nothing alike, and many of us continue to be committed Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, or Taoists.

So just what does it mean to be interfaith? It means that we have discovered that the world is bigger than we once thought it was. It means that we hold our faith in a larger context than we used to—a context large enough to acknowledge the validity and efficacy other people’s metaphors and images and mythologies, without for a moment forsaking our own. 

In order to embrace such a perspective, however, we have to give up a lot: We have to relinquish the spiritual arrogance that says, “I’m right, and everyone else is wrong.” It means we have to give up the notion that the Divine plays favorites, accepting some people and rejecting others. It means we have to set aside the notion that we have all the answers, that we have it all figured out, and be humble enough to kneel in silence before a Mystery larger than any answer we could ever know, or any belief we could ever hold. 

For only when we are ready to admit that we don’t know it all are we teachable. And ChI students are nothing if not teachable. They have come to this school because they are so very aware that they do not know it all, and are eager to learn. And a full year of study later—they STILL don’t know it all. And they are STILL eager to learn. And I hope that they always will be. Because the Divine mystery is so great, so vast, that human beings will never—in our current configuration—comprehend it. There will always be more to learn, more to discover, more to unpack, more weirdness to glory in. It isn’t about having the answers, it’s about being in love with the questions that will never be answered. 

Likewise, when these students go out into the world to begin their work, their ministry will not be one of answers or certainty. There is no answer to the cancer patient who says, “why me?” There are no answers for the young parents who have lost their child. There is no explanation for the magic that occurs at a wedding or the birth of a baby. These are mysteries that cannot be explained, circumscribed, or quantified. ChI students don’t go into these situations armed with an armload of dogma, but with the same humble openness of spirit that led them to study in the first place. 

We talk about leadership in our program, but it isn’t the kind of spiritual leadership that tells people what to think or how to act. For those of us walking the interfaith path, it is enough to simply invite people to dance in the Cosmic Dance. Amen.  

 

CHI ORDINATION SERMON, SPRING 2008 

Sermon: Love One Another, Dammit!

In ancient Babylon, there was a garden in which the original Tree of Life was planted. The people loved and cherished this tree. Other folks came from hundres, even thousands off miles away to see it, and it was a wonder to behold.

 

It shone with a golden glow that was even more pronounced at night. The people of Babylon believed that God had given them the world’s most precious possession, and they felt they must do whatever than could to protect it. So they build high walls around the garden to ward against vandals and the city’s rivals. And since it was the center of the city’s identity, other buildings went up on the garden’s periphery: an ampitheater here, a columbarium there, a museum over yonder, even a new palace.

 

In fact, the people built up the walls so well and so high, and cultivated the businesses surrounding it so efficiently, that no one even noticed when, for lack of sunlight, the Tree of Life withered and died.

 

This parable came to me several months ago, and of course, like most parables, this story is not about ancient Babylon. It’s about us. We have, in our midst, the Tree of Life, and we have become so busy, and so focused on other things, that I fear that if we are not careful, the treasure entrusted to us might wither and die. 

 

I’m afraid that we’ve lost sight of what we are here for: to love each other. That’s it. It’s a simple thing, but it has far-reaching implications. The promise of the Gospel, the mission of the church is to experience in this place the kind of love God has for us.  If we can do that, if we can love each other even half that much, then that love will transform us, will transform our lives, will transform our community, within, and outside these walls.

 

But it seems to me we’ve gotten so busy tending to the business of this place

That we’ve lost sight of the very thing that was most precious. It’s been way too long since we’ve had fun together, since I’ve laughed or played with any of you, except just one-on-one. I miss it.

 

This situation reminds me of when I was a very young adult, when I first moved out of my parents’ house, when I was finally on my own. The reality of life hit me, and suddenly there was no time for the creative plans and the ideals I had looked forward to. At first, I didn’thandle that freedom too well. It took a lot of work to find the balance.

 

It was easier when the old guard was here: Harvey and Skippy, Laura White and the Ferry’s, Royal and the Asers and the McCulloms. We thirtysomethings didn’t have the freedom we have now–in that we diddn’t make the decisions–but we actually had a lot more freedom, in that the administration of the parish was taken care of and we were free to play, to create, to vision, and to build .

 

Now, however, the reality has hit is. We’re the grownups now, and there is precious little time for all the things we used to love. The hard work of maintaining the building has sapped all the life out of us. In erecting our walls we have, I fear, blocked out the sunlight. We’re making it, we’re struggling by, but we’re surviving, not living, and certainly not thriving. We’ve become irritable, and we’ve let petty grievances and bickering sneak into our relationships. 

 

It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just the way it is. It is going to take some attention and effort to strike the right balance between taking care of business and taking care of each other.

 

And taking care of each other, in my opinion, is our top priority. So if you’re too busy, or overburdened to be creative, to show up for each other, then I say quit the administrative stuff. I don’t know how we’ll run things, but we’ll figure it out. And the fact is there won’t be anything TO run if we lose sight of the love we’re called to have for one another, if we forget what we’re supposed to be here to do.

 

In our Gospel reading for today, the Pharisees are all up in arms because Jesus cared more about the blind man than he did the rules, the structure, the edifice of Jewish law that his forbears had labored for centuries to erect. Another wall that blocked out the light, and caused people to lose sight of what was REALLY important. Jesus pushed all of that stuff aside and just LOVED people. If we really want to follow him, that’s the way to do it.

 

It sounds easy, but actually, it’s the hardest thing in the world to do. When we feel angry, or resentful, or betrayed, or slighted, or discounted, our animal instincts take over. But this is not the African savannah, or the business world. Here we are called to be something different. Something hard. The church is a laboratory for the hard work of spiritual transformation. We come here, not because it’s easy, but because the ideals we aspire to are HARD, and we cannot achieve them by ourselves. We’re here to support each other, to encourage each other, to DO the hard work.

 

Work like forgiveness, like tolerance and patience, and yes, love, in spite of the indignities we’ve suffered. This is what it means to follow Jesus, it is what we are called to do, and if we don’t want to do it, then we should change the sign out front and call ourselves a management company or whatever else it is we are. But if we want to be a church, we’ve got to remember how to love each other. We’ve got to be serious about this transformation thing. We’ve got to remember WHAT WE ARE HERE FOR. 

 

Lent is typically a time for personal reflection and reformation. But I think, in the face of all we’ve been experiencing of late, that it is appropriate for us to also look critically and prophetically at our corporate life as well. Where have we gone astray? Where have we missed the mark? What needs attention? What kind of a people is God calling us to be, and how can we become THAT?

 

We’ve built some fine things, here, but let’s be careful not to obscure the Tree of Life. That’s what this garden is about in the first place. As St. Paul said, “Even if I speak in the language of the Angels, if I don’t have love, then I am no more than a banging gong or a clattering cymbal.” If we can’t love each other, it won’t matter whether we keep this ship afloat or not. Let us pray….

 

Lord have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

Lord, have mercy. Amen.