Category Archives: Grace

Sacrifice (Sermon 9/15/13)

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Genesis 21:1-3; 22:1-14
            Sacrifice.
            The life of faith is one of sacrifice. That’s the truth of it. Sacrifice on the part of God and sacrifice on the part of those who trust God, who want to trust God, who work to trust God.
            Sacrifice.
            Frankly, in a religious system that requires those who believe to tell others- sacrifice is among the LEAST appealing words. No one sings, “I love to tell the story. It is fierce and gory/ To tell the old, old story/ of Abr’m and his son.” We are squeamish at the songs that are about blood, about sacrifice, about giving up all our things, about the less- than- stellar human rights record of the church and its equally dull historical response to evil.
            Sacrifice.
            It is also difficult to realize that even reading Scripture requires sacrifice. There are things that cannot all be true when we read Scripture as a whole. We all generally have a habit of considering certain stories more relevant than others. In so doing, we sacrifice what we don’t want to think about or what seems unimportant to what we prefer or seems more significant to us.
            Which brings us to the story of the testing of Abraham and the binding of Isaac. This is a terrible story, a horrific story, and, in general, the number one story cited by atheists as a proof for the rejection of God. What kind of God would do this?
            And I’m confronted with a dilemma- do I defend God (is God’s reputation mine to defend)? Do I laud Abraham? Do I give Isaac or Sarah a voice that’s otherwise not recorded in the scripture? And I have a very small amount of time, so I will be sacrificing many things I’d like to say.
            This story requires sacrifice from us. We can choose to sacrifice from among many things, but there are three main choices that we will lay upon the altar and prepare to offer up and away from us. We must either sacrifice the idea that this story is a historical fact or we must sacrifice the idea of a God who does not test through trauma or we sacrifice the idea of God’s perfect foreknowledge, that God knows what we will do before we do it.            
            The first sacrifice that we may make is the idea that all Scripture is a historical fact. The stories of Genesis and early Exodus, in particular, were first written down when the people of Israel were in exile. Some had been told for generations and generations, but others were organized during exile to give strength to the people. A particular story may not have actually occurred, but still contained an important truth that supported the life of the people who are doing the telling.
            Israel was likely alone among its neighboring nations in not practicing child sacrifice. Other groups of people may also specifically have had a practice of sacrificing the first fruits of all things- plants, animals, and children. Israel needed story, an explanation, for the way they did things- sparing the firstborn children, refusing to kill their infants. The story of the binding of Isaac reveals a way that could have happened- God set up a situation to make it clear to Abraham that child sacrifice was NOT the things were to be done.
            Maybe.
If this story is told during the exile- in Babylon or elsewhere- the people of Israel need to make sense of what’s happening to them and where God is in it. They perceive themselves to be the beloved of God, the firstborn of God’s plan, the vessels of God’s promises. They may be on the sacrificial altar of exile, but God will not let them be destroyed. Provisions will be made. Israel will not perish and the consolation story, the reminder tale, the encouraging word is a story going as far back as Abraham. God tested, but did not allow the beloved and longed- for son of Father-of-Many (which is what Abraham means) to die in the test.
If either of these constructions makes more sense to us than the idea that God would test Abraham in this way. Or that the man who argued on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah wouldn’t speak up for his son. If either of these reasons for the story is more acceptable, we have sacrificed the idea of historical fact (for this specific scripture reading) for a transmission of cultural truth.
Several years ago, I was meeting with some of the parents of children who attend our preschool (the kids do, not the parents). We met because a preschool family- two parents and two little girls- had died in a small plane crash. I met with people to talk about their own grief and to help them know how to discuss this with their children. We had a long talk about where God might be in such a tragedy and what we could know and what we didn’t know. At the end of a good conversation, just before we prayed, one woman said, “I don’t know. I believe God does these things sometimes to test our faith.”
I just looked at her, thinking, “If God feels the need to kill a whole family just to test our faith, then I’m out. I’m done. No more.” What I said was, “Hmm… well, let’s pray.” Maybe we look at this story and we think, “This is not the word of the Lord for me. I can’t believe in a God who tests through trauma. I have come to trust that God may stretch me and push me and even hit me upside the head sometimes. However, a God that kills children, a God that would even suggest it, a God that creates and uses horrible and traumatic situations to bolster faith, which is supposed to be a gift- I can’t believe in that God. I won’t.”
Perhaps we read this story and we have to either sacrifice the idea of a God who wouldn’t test through trauma (meaning God did and God does). Or we trust that God tempers our faith, but the wretched things that happen in life are not a result of God’s desire to see us be more faithful. They are the result of our choice (sometimes), the choices of others (sometimes), and the forces that oppose God. If God tests through trauma, then God wants Syrian civilians to die. God expects great faith to come from 8 and 9 year-old girls who are given in marriage to 40-year-old men in Yemen. God is building enormous trust through the inequality and inhumanity that is our criminal justice system.
If we want to accept that this story is factual and significant to Scripture as a real event, we must accept that God made Abraham righteous, but also tested the limits of that righteousness. That if God will test through trauma one time, God would, could, and does do it again. Is that a sacrifice you’re willing to make, a belief you’re willing to accept? Because holding that to be true will prove to sacrifice a certain peace of mind about God’s will in which we’ve usually found peace.
The last, and hardest, sacrifice we might make with this story is the notion that divine foreknowledge is perfect. Maybe God knows the arc of how things will work out, but does not always know how we will respond. God made a series of very serious covenants with Abraham- promises that involved generations, land, and blessings. God didn’t make these promises to just anyone and maybe it was time be sure the choice was a good one. Before Isaac gets to the age of reproducing, before the generations really get rolling, before Abraham tries to pass Sarah off as his sister again (as he did twice before), God needs to be sure that Abraham is truly faithful, is trusting, and is worthy of the work God intends to do through him. And God tests because God does not know for sure.
How does that sit with you- the idea that God does not know what we will do before we do it? This is the ultimate definition of free will- that we are faced with a myriad of choices and responses to God’s actions (God always moves first). When human actions occur, God responds- using the Spirit to bring about good. If God already knows what we will do, then why would God be involved in the world at all now? God can retreat, sit on God’s lounge chair, and relax until whatever time it is that Jesus will return. If we sacrifice the idea that God has perfect foreknowledge, we are received, instead, into a relationship with an active and responsive God.
I haven’t explained the story of the binding of Isaac. I haven’t said a firm statement about why it’s there or what it means. I can’t. We come to this story and it does require sacrifice of us. We must either embrace it as a story with truth, but not facts. Or we must believe in a God who tests through trauma, among other things. Or we have to let go of the idea that God has predestined and knows every action. 
This story requires a sacrifice, but so does all faithful living. We must sacrifice the idea that we can save ourselves, that we are in control, that our goodness brings redemption, that sanctification (becoming more holy) happens through our willpower. We must sacrifice the idea that we can fully know and, in the ashes of that surrender, the peace that passes our understand can and does bloom.
We have welcomed Jax into a life that is mysterious, frustrating, and powerfully hopeful. And it’s full of sacrifices, starting with God’s own willingness to create, to be involved, to walk among us, and to pour out the Spirit in blessing and guidance.
Sacrifice.
            The life of faithfulness is one of sacrifice. That’s the truth of it. Sacrifice on the part of God and sacrifice on the part of those who trust God, who want to trust God, who work to trust God.
            Amen. 

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

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Pentecost 8 (Year C)
14 July 2013
Deuteronomy 30:9-14; Luke 10:25-37
Last night, as I was trying to get the baby to go to sleep, I heard the verdict in George Zimmerman’s trial. He was found not guilty of murder in the second degree. Last March, Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin in an altercation. Zimmerman suspected Martin of trespassing or other wrongdoing and pursued him (against police advice and warning). They got into a fight and Zimmerman had a gun and used it.
Who was the neighbor?
             In 1973, a psychological experiment was conducted at Princeton Theological Seminary. Students were told they were in a study on religious education. They completed surveys about their own religious thoughts. Then they were given a task- to either talk about seminary jobs or to talk about the parable of the Good Samaritan. They were told to give the talk in another building. Some were told they had plenty of time, but others were told they were already late.
On the way to the other building, they passed a man moaning and calling for help. Regardless of their speech topic, students who thought they were late stopped 10% of the time. Only 10%. Those who thought they had plenty of time stopped 63 % of the time. Overall, 40% of the students offered some help to the victim.
Who was the neighbor?
The parable of the merciful Samaritan isn’t just a story with the upshot of being nice. It is not something we get to do when we have time (Princeton study) or when people are not frightening to us (Zimmerman/Martin story). It is the way we are supposed to live our lives. It is the essence of the commandment: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself
When I say the word commandment, we all get a little indigestion. A commandment sounds like something we know we should keep and at which we expect ourselves to fail. Well, what if we came to understand it in a different way? What if we came to hear those words as a blessing: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.
These words are a blessing, a gift from God, when we understand them to be one of the ways God is revealed to us through the Holy Spirit. It is not drudgery, not a task that we can ignore because we have received grace, not something we can wait on until we have time or money or both. To love God and to love our neighbor is God’s gift for this moment and every moment.
            We have lost the sense that the author of Deuteronomy is trying to impart: Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?” Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?” No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.
            In ancient Israel, the sea represents chaos and fear. In the passage, God’s commandments toward a just society, neighbor love, and worship life are neither stored in heaven nor far away in hell. You don’t have to extra pious to hear them or receive them. You don’t have to have an arduous journey or send an adventurer to retrieve them. The commandments are part of God’s blessing. Do we work for the blessing or does it come to us through Jesus Christ? Just as we aren’t striving for grace, we aren’t working for God’s laws. They are written all over us with the grace of God… and, just like the grace that we only begin to understand as we rely on it, the commandments begin to reveal our freedom as we follow them.
            My great-uncle, my paternal grandfather’s brother, died last month. My dad saw Uncle Max a week before he died and Max told him this story:
Sometime in the ’50s, Uncle Max and Cousin JE Dunlap went to Fayetteville to help JE’s sister on some project, maybe a move or building a porch. On the way home by way of Raeford, they came upon a couple of teenage Indian (Native American) boys selling watermelons. They stopped and discussed the virtue and price for a few moments before JE remarked what a nice farm it was and if they owned it, angling toward an invitation to come bird hunt. One of the boys said, “Mister, these watermelons are the only thing we have in this world.” Max and JE bought them out without further negotiation.
Who was the neighbor?
            In a movie, an interaction between two white men in their 30s and two teenage Native American boys would not look like this. Yet, this is the story. And who is the neighbor? The neighbor is the person we stop to help and the neighbor is the person from whom we are willing to accept help.
            The commandments of God and the story of the neighbor who showed mercy aren’t merely about “being nice” or even “doing the right thing”. They are about the nearness of God, the nearness of grace in our hands and our mouths. Every. Single. Day.
            You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.  It is both a commandment and a blessing. It opens us to the closeness of grace and the ways God uses us. When we trust in the blessing (not burden) of this commandment, God helps us to see how we can help those around us. We learn to trust our neighbors and we are more clearly involved in how God’s kingdom comes.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.  Fewer young black men will end up dead or in prison. Fewer trials will end with verdicts that frustrate and disappoint and seem far from justice.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.  Sometimes you end up with a bill at a hotel on the road to Jericho. Sometimes you end up with a bunch of watermelons. Sometimes someone pays your bill or buys all your watermelons. But “the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe”. And it is a blessing.
Amen. 

Resisting Cargo Culture (Bold Cafe)

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This is an article I wrote for this month’s edition of Bold Café- an online magazine for young adult women (or anyone who reads it). The magazine is a ministry of the Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The article has a companion faith reflection (see previous post).

I saw the pair of shoes on the shelf near the window, when I was almost out the door. Their eye-catching color and unusual heel shape pulled me like a magnet. “Please don’t be my size, please don’t be my size,” I chanted, as I lifted the right one. Phew! The number suggests they’ll be too large. “You never know until you try them on,” whispers a little voice in my ear.  

I shake my head to clear it and firmly say out loud, “Cargo cult.” I put the shoe back and walk out of the store, completely empty-handed.   

The little bag of yarn reels me in like the catch of the day. With eight balls of coordinating yarn, I think of the fun little projects I could make. Sure I have yarn at home I haven’t used yet, but not like this. I could make a… “Cargo cult.” 

And I push the cart on to complete my grocery list. I have talked with my husband again and again about making a weekly meal plan, but something always comes up and so we never do. I buy groceries for the week, attempting to guess what we might eat. I usually forget something I bought, only to find it later—rotting in a corner or drawer of the fridge or dust-covered in the back of the pantry. Embarrassed, I throw it away or compost it, muttering: “Cargo cult.” 

In reality, a cargo cult is a complex spiritual and religious system—most frequently found in islands of the South Pacific. The belief system is oriented around specific worship practices and living habits that organize the social relationships of the community. There is also an expectation that the correct religious practice will result in material blessings from gods or ancestors... See more after the jump to the Café website. 


– See more at: http://www.boldcafe.org/blog/resisting-cargo-culture#sthash.6iYJEZXJ.dpuf

Consumerism and Faith (Bold Cafe)

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This is a faith reflection I wrote that was published in this month’s issue of Bold Cafe- an online magazine for young adult women (or anyone who reads it). It is a ministry of the Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

 A recent advertisement from a cosmetics company went viral on television and on the Internet. In the commercial, women described themselves to a forensic artist who could not see them. He made a second sketch based on a description from a stranger who encountered the woman in the waiting room. The drawings from the women’s own characterizations of themselves were often more grim and less attractive. Many did not actually resemble the person depicted.

This was not the fault of the artist, though, because the second drawings, made from a stranger’s description, were easily matched with their real-life counterparts. Each woman’s face, as described by a stranger, was more open and far more realistic to her appearance and demeanor. Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign garnered lots of positive attention for encouraging women (and men) to see themselves as others do–with kindness and openness.
Regardless of the overt emotional impact of the campaign, this cosmetics company and its parent company, Unilever, want to sell products. Unilever also makes Axe body spray. Axe commercials frequently objectify women in the way the Dove commercials attempt to alleviate. Unilever also manufactures a skin lightener called “Fair and Lovely” specifically to Middle Eastern and Indian consumers. Suggesting that lighter skin is more beautiful skin is not exactly a “real beauty” message, even though it comes from the same company… (continued after the jump to the Cafe website)


 http://www.boldcafe.org/blog/faith-reflections-2

Renunciation

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Galatians 5:1,13-25; Luke 9:51-62
There is a moment in each baptism service when the voices become a little weaker and uncertain. Is it when the parents of the person to be baptized (or the person themselves) are asked the long list of promises? Is it when the congregation promises to offer support and guidance and is expected to follow through on that promise? Is it when we have to affirm our trust and hope in the truth of the words of the Apostles’ Creed? Is it when I pray for an infant to have a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord? 
It is not. 
It is when we come to the space where I say: I ask you to profess your faith in Christ Jesus, reject sin, and confess the faith of the church. 
And then we proceed: 
Do you renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God? 
Response: I renounce them. 

Do you renounce the powers of this world that rebel against God? 
Response: I renounce them. 

Do you renounce the ways of sin that draw you from God? 
Response: I renounce them. 
When we come to that part of the service, our responses are hesitant. It’s not that we are secretly in favor of forces that defy God or rebel against God or that we’re pro-sin. It’s more that we’re not sure what renouncing it looks like. What does it mean for a five-month old baby? What does it mean for a 65-year-old man? What are we really saying? 
If I said to you: I ask you to in the goodness of Jesus Christ, to resist wrongdoing, and to believe that the church exists to bear God’s light and truth into the world with the help of the Spirit… would anyone have trouble with that? It seems clear and it has a little more wiggle room. Resisting wrong-doing sounds easier than “rejecting sin”- though we want to do the latter. Trusting in the goodness of Jesus Christ feels more expansive than “professing faith in Jesus Christ”. And do I need to unpack the difference between hearing “confess the faith of the Church” and “believe that the church exists to bear God’s light and truth into the world with the help of the Spirit”. 
I think we falter in this part of the baptism service because we are unclear on what we are promising. We are not certain what we are renouncing. Some of that hesitation is because of the language we are using and some of it is because we are still worried about what baptism really means. 
In today’s reading, James and John are incensed at how Jesus is rebuffed in a Samaritan village. The behavior of the villagers is not a surprise, since Jews and Samaritans had tense relations going back to when Israelites were conquered by the Babylonians in 587 B.C.E. and Assyrians in 722 B.C.E.  So it had been a while since everyone was one big happy family under their ancestor Jacob. 
However, the Samaritans’ rejection of Jesus made the “Sons of Thunder”- John and James- vengeful. What is it they ask Jesus? “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” Lord, can we kill them? Please, Jesus, please? While we may resonate with the thought, I hope we’re all relieved that Jesus didn’t say, “Right here. Right now. Let’s go!” Or even “You may and I ask God to help and guide you.” 
He rebuked them. He rejected not only their words, but the spirit behind them. He didn’t say, “Now, boys, ya’ll know they’ll get what’s coming to them.” He didn’t say, “We don’t talk that way.” He didn’t even say, “Strike one.” In my mind, he says, “Have you learned nothing? Nothing? Do you think that sermon on the plain was because I like the sound of my own voice? Did I heal all those Gentiles just because I can’t resist a sad story? Do I feed anyone who comes because I want to fatten them up before the Father smites them? Do I rejoice in peace and in the breaking down of boundaries because I’m too simple-minded to see that people will never get along?” 
James and John missed the essential meaning of what it meant to walk with Jesus. Being pulled, by the Spirit, into the work God was doing in the world did not mean knowing everything. It did not mean being mistake-free. It did not mean special privileges over other people. This is a reminder for us with regard to baptism. We are not suddenly endowed with special knowledge. We will not be without faults. We do not get to hold our baptisms over other people’s heads.  
What we are renouncing in the service of baptism are all the things that try to distract us from what baptism really means and who is really doing the work and the promising. When I say “distract”, we think of a minor distraction, “Oooh, shiny.” What I mean is serious spiritual, physical, emotional, and political powers that do try to stop the on-going work of God’s creative and healing Spirit in the world. 
The devil and all the forces that defy God? Spiritual forces- things beyond our understanding
The powers of this world that rebel against God? Political and governmental groups and individuals that reject the good of others and creation.
The ways of sin that draw you from God? Physical, mental, and emotional powers within ourselves that tell us that we know the mind of God… to lean on our own understanding… that exacerbate our doubts and undermine our trust. 
When we renounce (reject) these things in a baptismal service, we are reminding ourselves and assuring the baptized that these things are real, but they are trumped by God’s power. These things will try to tempt us, but they will never be better than the consolation of grace or more peaceful than the hope of rest in Christ. When we renounce these forces and powers, it is not just saying that we are blowing off some minor distractions. With the promise that is our inheritance as children of God, we are dismissing precisely the things that would cause us to look back as our hand is put to the plow. 
Understanding what we are saying matters because of what it says about God and what it reveals about what God says about us. At Heavenly Sunshine (our service for children), we say: 
Do you say no to things that do not like God?
Response: I say no to them. 

Do you say no to lies that may be told about God?
Response: I say no to them.

Do you say no to sin, that is, actions that make you feel far away from God and God’s love?
Response: I say no to them.
Baptism is not magic. It’s work. It’s God work of washing us clean, of giving us a fresh start, of re-framing our self-understanding so that it is not oriented in what we can do, but is instead rooted in… anchored in… growing out of what the One who made us knows and says about us. We are refocused, not on original sin, but on original blessing. Baptism reveals God’s own truth is an everlasting welcome- a open washing and an equally open table. Accepting this about ourselves and about others is what it means to follow Jesus. With the acceptance also comes a rejection of what is not true of God… the lesson of saying no to those distractions that derailed James and John and so easily do the same to us. 
What we have all agreed to this morning is to teach these things to Alice: 
Alice, you are a beloved child of God. 
Alice, the church exists- across time and space- to help you understand that truth.
Alice, there are forces that want to distract you from that truth. We firmly renounce them. 
Alice, we will always walk with in discovering and living into God’s grace for all people. 
Alice, you are a beloved child of God. Welcome to the family. 
What is true for Alice is true for all of us. 
Amen.

Whose Blueprint

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I strongly recommend the sound file of this sermon (at the bottom) to you , as it has the transitions missing in the text. 

Easter 7 (Narrative Lectionary, Year C)
12 May 2013
Galatians 3:1-9, 23-29
What bewitches us?
            We are (all) easily distracted (or seduced) by things that are not important. How many times have you lost an hour or three to television or to the Internet and ended up feeling guilty about that time? Very few of us have had that same experience in prayer or devotional time. Yet, false piety can be equally bewitching. We are not called to live lives of sequestered prayer and study, but prayer and devotion in word and deed. Our prayers are in how we live, how we use our time and talents, how we reveal our trust in God’s grace.
            The Galatians were “bewitched” by false teachers who continued to emphasize the necessity of fulfilling all of the laws of Judaism in order to be assured of God’s blessing through Christ. Paul rejects this notion. The law was and is important for those who were born into it, he says. However, God is bringing others into the good news of freedom in Jesus Christ. Their right-ness with God comes through Jesus’ faithfulness alone- not through anything that they are able to do to merit that grace or favor.
What do commercials/ads tell us is important?
            We are all subjected to advertizing- both subtle and overt- that says we are not yet what we could be. We can be stronger, faster, more beautiful, smarter, more useful, more clever, a better parent/neighbor/child/spouse… with just one more product, one more item, one more thing. That final thing will give us what we’ve been missing to have a perfect life. Until we get it and we find that we are still lacking. In addition to exacerbating and exploiting our fears, commercials reveal a poor system of creation- where the only way a person can succeed is if someone else fails. In the commercialized and commodified system, people become the means to our achievements- not through support and mutual aid, but because we can climb over them in our race to the top. 
How can we live into God’s grace in our lives?
            Faithful living seems daunting when we understand it to be a system of perfect and perfected belief. The Spirit tries to draw us away from that idea- into an understanding that the life of faith is one of trust in God’s promises and actions. Neither our belief system nor our actions save us or even get God “right”, but we trust in God’s work of justifying us through Christ. Furthermore, our trust is not in the on-going act of justification (being made right), but in the completed action of justification. It’s not something God is doing that God could decide to stop. Bringing the world into right relationship through Jesus Christ is something that God has already done. It is finished. (Heard that phrase before?)
            Thus, we are being helped by the Spirit to understand that justification, to accept that right-ness, to live into the trust that God’s on-going work of creation and healing serves to help understand what God has already done. Not to earn it. Not to complete it. But to come to see ourselves and everyone around us through the light of Jesus.
Blueprint
            This is a blueprint of a proposed remodel/addition to this church dated May 1969. There is a note on it from 1977 saying that this proposal was never used. Yet we’ve saved it. We have saved proposed changes to a building that no long exists as it did forty-four (44) years ago.
            Why do we still have it? Some of you would say it is because we never throw anything away. I suspect that for years, people said, “We might use it. It might be useful. Don’t throw it away just yet.”
            Even as the building changed and changed again, we still held on to an old idea, an old picture, a possibility- even though it wouldn’t work.
            This is what so many of us do when it comes to grace. We keep our old blueprint. We say: Yes, we are clothed in Christ. Yes, we are new creations. Yes, we have been made right with God through God’s own actions. But we want to keep this blueprint… We want to hold on to our notions of how the world works… We are afraid… and we might need a fallback plan- in case God doesn’t come through.
            Don’t raise your hand. Has anyone thought that before? It sounds so terrible when I say it out loud, but it is what so many of us do. We trust that grace is true, but we want to hold on to our blueprint- our way of seeing the world, just in case.
Bewitched by our illusion of control
            We are bewitched by our illusions of control. When my grandmother died, the rabbi for the funeral home (who didn’t really know her), spoke very briefly at her funeral service. I am sure he meant to be comforting and inclusive when he talked about remembering her and her legacy and then said, “Whatever God there is or isn’t…” I thought, “What?!? Whatever God there is or isn’t…” It is one thing to be cautious about the actions one attributes to God, but it’s another thing entirely to straddle the fence at a time of proclamation.
            I called another pastor after the service and complained, “Who says that? I could do better than that.” The pastor laughed and said, “Sure you could, but more importantly, God does better than that.”
            We have been called, through the Spirit, into lives of proclamation- lives that say “God is”, lives that are lived without fear, lives that are carried forward because of what God has already done.
            When we hold onto our blueprints- our maps and attempts to say that we might need our own power later- we are living lives that say, “Whatever God there is or isn’t…” When we refuse to listen to the siren song of the commercial world or the whisper of the forces that oppose God, when we swallow our fears and live by trusting in God’s grace… we are living like Abraham and Sarah.
            When we trust that we are not defined by our work, our race, our abilities, our body types, our mental state, our family’s achievements, our church’s size, our ability to pray… when we trust that we are defined by Christ and Christ alone… then we have the courage to welcome all people, to care for our neighbors, to work for change in our community, to appreciate creation.
Trust is not about fully comprehending and explaining a formula or creed. It is about prayerful and devotional living- without fear- through confidence in what God has finished in Jesus Christ.
            The promise we have inherited is not that there may or may not be a God who may or may not be working on something for the future. The promise we have inherited is that God who knows all things, who made all things, who has saved all things has included us in that salvation through Jesus the Christ. It is on the authority of this promise that we throw out our plans and live into God’s blueprint- an outline that has remodeled us all into the image of Christ. 


The Boundaries of Grace

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5 Easter
Narrative Lectionary, Year C

Acts 15:1-17
            The disciples are determining the purpose of their congregation. Is it to make Gentiles (Greek, Roman, any non-Jewish believer) into Jews? Or is it to take people of all stripes who are prepared to act in the name of Jesus and to move forward and out in faith? The purpose might seem clear to us, but it was as fraught a discussion as we occasionally find in congregations and in denominations today. This is the first synod assembly (so to speak) recorded in the early church and they have real issues on their hands.
            They have to determine the boundaries of God’s grace and the marks of the recipients of that grace. They are trying to respect the traditions and history of those gathered, history that is part of how God’s work and presence in the world has been revealed.  The disciples are also trying to understand the exponential pace at which the Spirit is bringing people into faith.            
            In this critical time, they are trying to determine how to tell who is included and what is required of those who say they believe? Should they be brought into the community of faith via circumcision, the sign of one of God’s earlier covenants with Israel? Are there dietary restrictions or certain worship rites? How will the new believers show their dedication to the Way of Jesus?
            How do we know who has received God’s grace? If there are no visible physical markers, perhaps there are markers in one’s life. Surely a person who is especially blessed has received God’s grace. After all, we hear that phrase, “There, but for the grace of God, go I” applied to people for whom we have sympathy, who are struggling in some way. When the nuance of that phrase is unpacked, it reveals that if God’s grace has kept us from a certain circumstance, then any unfortunate suffering soul is clearly without God’s grace. There, but for the grace of God… implies that there are places and people that are without God’s grace. And we can tell because of how they are suffering.
            The family that can’t receive food stamps (SNAP) because they are a few dollars over the income limit… The woman or man who makes the choice to sell sex because it seems easier than other options… The person who gets hurt or killed on a trail you’ve hiked many times… The person who gets caught in a bad spot that you went through only minutes before… The person who took the flight that crashed, but you just missed… The person who dies from suicide, a desperation you’ve felt before… The person who dies from complications of a surgery that you sailed through…
            There, but for the grace of God… except were any of these people without God’s grace? Would we dare, would we presume to say that God did not care about these people? That God’s Spirit was withdrawn from them? That they were forsaken? Either the grace of God is open and expansive and all-encompassing… or God is capricious and malevolent and extends mercy to a select few (who can live into very exacting standards).
            We want to believe the former- in a gracious God. And yet we live in a world that acts on the latter premise- that God’s favor is spotty. If it was expansive, why would there be suffering in the world? And then the worst of both beliefs- that God’s grace is for all, but you have to reach a state by pulling yourself to it.
This is precisely the problem that Peter points out in Acts, “My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers.  And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”
            We are specifically warned against testing God’s grace through judging our neighbors circumstances. Specifically warned against believing that a person’s struggling, suffering, pain, or despair is reflective of God’s opinion of them. There is only one way to show that we are not testing the grace of God. We trust in grace and so we act upon it. God’s work in our hands… God’s grace in our actions… God’s mercy in our words and deeds.
            By trusting in God’s faithfulness, as revealed in Jesus, we are brought into the same river of faithful action that swept up the first disciples. The grace of God extends to all, Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. In the community of the Way of Jesus, here and elsewhere, we preach the love of God for all and we practice it with one another. Then we carry it out to the world that wants to believe that physical health, financial well-being, and mental stability are the obvious markers of God’s grace, when any of these things may fail. There, but for the grace of God… goes no one. Surely a God who would go to the lengths of coming into the world as person to teach and to heal and then to be resurrected… surely that God desires that all people should experience the light of grace.
            The purpose of this assembly is steep ourselves in the faithfulness of God, to absorb trust and hope and then to stride out- refreshed by Word and water, community and communion. Strengthened, we set to the work of revealing that no one is outside of God’s grace. We feed, we clothe, we advocate, we listen, we invite, we pray.
            If we are not doing these things, then we are testing God. We are testing whether God’s grace is sufficient for all people. We are hoarding the gifts we have received and waiting to see what the Lord will do. God does not fail tests. God will not fail our neighbor, but we can shortchange ourselves in responding to God’s invitation and being frontline witnesses to the way that God’s grace makes all things new.
            The purpose of the church is to bring people together into the Way of Jesus and then to live that Way in the world. The inclusion of Gentiles, as they were, into the community of the faithful was a revolution we cannot comprehend. The Spirit does not stop its work of reformation and renewal, of provocation and invitation. The grace of God is on the move and disciples, then and now, are called to be at the frontlines of the work of boundary expansion.
Amen.

Miracles, Not Magic

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Easter 1: Luke 24:1-12
            Who is missing in the gospel reading?
            Jesus…
            Where is he?
            How do you know?
            Where are the disciples? Not at the tomb.
 (Despite Jesus having told them.)
            The women go to the tomb and there are two men there, messengers, who tell them that Jesus is risen. That he is living- no longer entombed, but alive and out and about…
            They go back to tell the disciples what happened and the disciples shout, “Hallelujah” and build a church.  The disciples immediately fall to their knees and thank God. The disciples immediately get out a scroll and begin to put together the Apostles’ Creed.
            Or… instead… the disciples… the people who knew Jesus best, who knew best what he’d said, who’d loved him and had been praying for the events of the last three days to NOT be true. They said the women were full of … baloney. The English translators protect us from the weight of the Greek. It’s not that the disciples thought it was an idle tale… It is that they thought the women were crazy, delirious, insane and were feeding them a line of sugar.
            How is it that the disciples did not believe them? And, lest you hurry to defend Peter, some of the early translations of Luke don’t have verse 12. Many just end with “to them, it was b… an idle tale.”
            If the disciples were not able to believe right away, why do we expect that of ourselves?  Faith in the resurrection… of Jesus and of ourselves in Christ… faith in the resurrection is not magic. It’s a miracle.
            We who still feel the sting of death… who see pain the world… who wrestle with injustice… that we would believe in the resurrection is truly a miracle. That the church would last is a miracle. That people who sometimes are so aggravated with each other can embrace and say, “Peace be with you.” It’s a miracle.
That someone who watched their spouse struggle and die after a long illness can find love again… Miracle.
That someone can get out of bed again after the death of a child… Miracle.
That a child can be born one month, two months, three months, four months early and live and be well… Miracle.
That people in this room right now have survived cancer, divorce, miscarriages, broken hearts, heart attacks, major surgeries, deployments, discrimination, betrayal, unemployment, loss… and yet you are here… believing that forgiveness is possible, that hope is strong, that resurrection is true… Miracle.
            We are here now because eventually what seemed like an idle tale… became clearer, more obvious, more trustworthy, more inspiring, more believable. What is true is true… whether or not we believe it- however, sometimes we have to grow into that belief. We have to experience the miracle for ourselves. And it is a slow process.
            Easter is a season- not a day. We have to wrestle with the idle tale… test it… and keep our eyes open for where God is encountering us. Jesus was not in the tomb that first Easter. We do not know where he was until later that evening. But he was somewhere. He was then as he is now… encountering people in acts of kindness, acts of grace, acts of mercy… things are small miracles in themselves.
            You see, for God… a God that is all-powerful, all-loving, a God that is forgiving and merciful… raising Jesus from the dead was nothing. That is not hard. Helping us to believe in it… that’s work. That is the work that only God can do. Faith is a gift that only God can give. And that we would act on that faith… that we would show kindness… mercy… forgiveness… that work in us could only happen through the Holy Spirit.
            It is because of God’s work in helping us to believe in resurrection… of the body, of relationships, of creation… that we are able to work for justice, for healing, for equality, for release of captives, and for peace among people. It is because of God’s work in helping us believe that we are here today… doing things that look crazy… but are meaningful because of what we have been helped to understand is true. True today and forever. Miraculous today and forever.
            What if you don’t believe or you struggle with believing or even you sometimes wonder just a little? Does it mean God isn’t at work in you- that God hasn’t given you faith? Do you think God is done with you? The disciples… pillars in the faith… had to wrestle with what seemed like an idle tale. And Jesus met them, each in different ways, with forgiveness and healing. And, Jesus does no less with each of us as we live out our life’s Easter season in learning the truth of God’s work in the world.
            Faith in the work of God isn’t magic and it isn’t easy. It is a miracle and it is work. To make a body disappear- any magician can do that. To bring a body to life again- we know some ways that happens. To bring a body to life as a sign of hope and forgiveness, of renewal and future expectation, and to help people trust in that resurrection… that’s a miracle. The miracle of grace. The miracle of Easter.
Christ is risen.
He is risen, indeed. 
            

Blessed is the One (Sermon)

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Palm Sunday/ Feast Day of Oscar Romero
Luke 19:29-44
            So what does an assassinated Roman Catholic Archbishop have to do with Palm Sunday? It’s a good question. At the start of Holy Week, we are in a position for deep and serious reflection. On the one hand, we can enter this week with a misplaced sense of re-enactment- the idea that we are re-living the events of a certain week almost two thousand years ago.
            Sometimes the re-enactment is what we need. To re-imagine the sights, sounds, and smells. To place ourselves in Jerusalem and feel the strain of oppressed people. Sometimes that memory is what we need.
            However, there is another way to consider this week. It functions like a compass for our faith. The events of this week are our true North- they give us a sense of direction, a re-orientation to the landmarks of our faith. They put us on the right path.
            That is where our focus should be, even in the midst of re-imagining and re-enacting. Palms in our hands, we are poised to be re-acquainted with the direction of our faith and its purpose. The events that are coming are not meant to overwhelm us with sadness or even a sense of unworthiness. The events of this week are meant to overwhelm us with the way that light overcomes darkness, that life overcomes death, that the forces that oppose God do not win the battle or the war.
            When Oscar Romero became archbishop, he was appointed to that position, in part, because it was believed that his conservatism would keep him from siding with the poor who were rising up against the government. Both sides of this fight believed that he would not be involved. However, he watched a close friend get killed (shot) for trying to help the poor farmers and laborers, to end their oppression. Romero then realized that he could not remain silent. His understanding of Jesus meant that he had to speak out. He even worked to get his sermons on the radio for all to hear, sermons which frequently sided with the oppressed and called for the soldiers to end the killing of their brothers and sisters.
            Archbishop Romero spoke frequently that he knew he would eventually be killed, but he could not abandon the work to which God had called him, work of siding with the poor of El Salvador, work of giving voice to the voiceless. This is the work for which he was killed.
            That may not be the call for all of us, but each of do have a call- a call to carry the message of Jesus into the world And it is likely not something that makes us comfortable. It may not be as easy as we would hope. Nevertheless, our call into gospel living is clear… loving our neighbor, forgiving seventy times and then some, showing mercy to our enemies, working to end injustice against the poor and the disadvantaged, championing the cause of peace, and sharing what we have with all those around us.
            It’s tough work and it can be awkward, but that is why we are here- in Holy Week- pointed toward the events of feasting, betrayal, crucifixion, and resurrection.. We do not journey through this week to come out on the other side, relieved. We are on this trek of re-orientation so that we can be re-energized, knowing that we have been made right with God… and daring to go into the world proclaiming that death does not win.
            The call of today is not only the cry of “Hosanna”. It is also, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” That one is the one who carries the God’s light into the world. On that first journey, it was a colt carried Jesus, the light of the world. The disciples were told to find the colt and to say, “The Lord has need of it.” As we look now for a way to carry light into the world, I say, “The Lord has need of you.”
            The Lord has need of you… to proclaim the significance of this week… to get ready for Easter joy… to live into a faith in resurrection… to trust in God’s presence as you live courageously into your calling. In our Wednesday night soup suppers, we have been talking about what it means to be church and what the future of this church is.
            The church is a place where we learn, together, how to live and how to die in Christ. That is the reason we exist. We learn and we live out what it means to be alive in Christ… now and forever. And this week, starting today… this week is our study week, our brush-up week, our re-focusing… because the other 51 weeks of the year are our exam.
            We are poised now, palms in hand, to revisit the journey to the cross and then to the empty tomb. We are resetting our faith compass and we are preparing for the work to which we are called. In the words of Oscar Romero, ““If we are worth anything, it is not because we have more money or more talent, or more human qualities. Insofar as we are worth anything, it is because we are grafted on to Christ’s life, his cross and resurrection. That is a person’s measure.”
            This is the grace we have received. And it’s not for nothing. It is so that we can carry Christ into the world. The Lord has need of you.
            Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna.
Amen. 

Mind the Gap

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This post originally appeared here as “Second-Class Baptism” on 22 November 2012. 

         In the fall of 2005, I was an exchange student from Yale Divinity School to Westcott House, a member of the Cambridge Theological Federation in Cambridge, England. It was quite an awakening for this Lutheran. Despite knowledge of some of the rifts in the Episcopal Church (USA), I had very little awareness or comprehension of the major theological divides in the Church of England. In the wake of the recent decision (11/20/12) by the General Synod of the Church of England not to ordain women as bishops, I have recalled learning about those divides, specifically through a speech I heard that semester. 

            During my time in Cambridge, I went to an event sponsored by Women and the Church (WATCH) to hear speakers arguing for the ordination of women as bishops. One speaker, whose name is lost to my memory, gave a carefully constructed and passionate speech about baptism and vocation within the church. She noted that if we do not believe women are qualified and gifted by God for leadership at any and all levels, why do we bother to baptize them? I have never forgotten that sentence, which was so stunning that the room was silent for several seconds afterwards.

            Even with disparate understandings and beliefs about baptism, most Christians agree that the washing rite reveals God’s claim on an individual and, simultaneously, a welcome of that individual into the corporate work of the church on earth. What happens to that second part when we baptize someone, but tell her that because of her sex organs- the Church will interpret how God is using her? What does it mean to pour the water, make the sign of the cross, and say, “But because of your sex, you’re only fit to carry the cross of Christ this far, in this way, and with these provisions?”

            Furthermore, when the Church places provisos for leadership based on sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, or other biological circumstance, we presume a kind of certainty and zeal in speaking for God that should make us pause. Throughout history, people have been quick to use the name of God as the seal of approval on whatever preferred course of action was believed to need pursuing. This often occurred through the same kind of biblical gymnastics that still occur today- a little limbo under the inconvenient verses, a vault over the stories that are contradictory, a lovely ribbon-dancing floorshow with the few verses that, out of context, support exactly the argument one is trying to make.

            If the Church of England was honest about its history, its theology, and its current struggle to remain relevant in today’s society, perhaps the voting would have gone differently. Perhaps if the space were made for lament over the rifts in the modern church and, in the next breath, prayers for the future were offered, maybe the voting would have gone differently. Maybe if we could point out that shortly after Peter and Andrew left their nets, they were joined by Mary of Magdala, Joanna, and Susanna in following Jesus- we might be able to have the conversation that nothing about the image of ministry or mission in the Bible at all resembles the way most churches and denominations are structured today. Maybe then things would go differently. 

            The main conversation that must happen, though, is the one around God’s ability to equip, regardless of biology. Either we believe that the Holy Spirit blows where She wills or we don’t. Either we believe that God is more powerful that human weakness (present in all) or we don’t. Either we believe that Jesus broke down social and gender barriers in community and communion or we don’t. Either we wrestle with our human limitations in comprehending the expansive nature of God’s mercy, call, and creative purposes or we get used to our efforts failing as God says, “Oh, no, you don’t.”

          The failure of the General Synod to pass, by just six votes, a measure allowing for the ordination of women as bishops is not a sign of failure on the part of either side. It is a sign that there is a gap between the understanding of the gift of baptism and the Church’s willingness to allow all people to live into that gift. That space creates an unholy chasm into which many gifts will fall and go unused because of the pain in this construction: “You are a child of God, but here’s exactly what that looks like.” When a significant church body, like the Church of England, says to women, “Your skills are useful this far and no further,”- what most women and girls hear is this: “God loves you as you are, but would love you more if you were a man.” If that is the case, why, and into what, are we baptizing women? As they say on the London tube (subway), “Mind the gap, please.”