A post-Easter Reminder about supporting the Adolescents in our lives

The Struggle is Real: 

A Post-Easter Reminder about how to best support the Adolescents in our lives

Rev. Jenny Shultz 

March 28, 2016

“The flashing was a hazy, brazen orange. As if it had been caramelized, and then hung under a tree, the light struggled to illumine its surroundings. The cars stopping, yet unsure of whose turn it was to drive on through…this intersection was an accident waiting to happen. Half awake I managed to roll on to the the next light, remembering that driving was meant for one foot only, and as tired as I was it would do me well to play by the rules. Finally turning into my neighborhood my tiresome eyes were ready to give it up- it was half past 1 (am), all the lights had retired hours ago and only the single street light on the corner reminded me of the day’s events. 

This is ministry, I reminded myself as I climbed the stairs to my front door. This is what I signed up for. And, rather than be resentful, I was painfully aware of the sorrow and trauma that I had left behind, in that upper room…in the world of an adolescent whose darkness was all too real, whose life- to him- was less than enough to fight for. This is ministry. Some days you walk away never knowing what the outcomes will be, sometimes the darkness wins, and HOPE seems too out of reach for some. In this darkness, I can only pray that when Jesus dined that last time in a similar room, tucked away -dim and darkened- that the meal he shared could nourish beyond what my eyes could see or touch.”

         The above is reflection from an experience I had several years ago on a post-Easter evening after having visited with a youth that I was counseling. He had been struggling for weeks with self-worth, with depression and ultimately substance abuse. I think, so often, we as Pastors, as mostly optimistic hopefuls, live in the world of positive-thinking, of churchy phrases and over worn smiles that we often miss the HOPEless when prescribing ways for our congregations to live into the resurrection, to claim the truth that Jesus is ALIVE!  Jesus is Alive, and that is good news for everyone, but there is a loneliness that ensues for some who believe themselves to be outside of the living, or among the walking dead, thus rendering these promises to be out of reach.

I was reminded of this experience, with this particular student, after reading a Facebook post this morning about depression and anxiety and after reflecting on how often I encounter various forms of mental illness, whether it be situational depression, or a diagnosis like bipolar disorder, I thought I might share some of the insights I have gained over the past decade in working with adolescents and their families for whom the struggle is real.  

         Teenagers, probably more than other demographic, due to the complexities of their development, brain chemistry changes, etc. tend to believe the deceptive thoughts that accompany the acute changes in their lives, including: romantic relationship status, friend drama, individual performance- in education, sports, etc., family dynamics, social popularity. They are also deeply affected by more long-term issues such as: body image, changes in family structure, bullying, inclusivity with peers. Some of the things that parents, teachers, friends and mentors hear on a daily basis might include, 

“Nobody understands me”, “Nobody loves me”, “I am fat and ugly; my body is disgusting”, “I will never be as good as…” and for some even, “My life sucks, I have nothing left to live for”.

The question for us is, how can we, the healthy adults in their lives, help them to re-write their personal narratives encouraging a healthy sense of self-worth? Here are some things to consider as we continue to nurture the teens in our lives:

1. Understand that it’s not wait you SAY that matters right now. That’s right. Teens are not looking for another lecture or even an awesome, positive, happy Ted Talk that can change their worlds one word at a time! Though our words are very important and, over the life of one’s relationship, they can have a profound impact on what our teens hear, believe and begin to share in their own places of influence - in the middle of their acute anxiety and places of deep loneliness- we should keep our words to a minimum. Choose familiar phrases and stick with them. I am hear, you are loved, I want to listen.
2. What matters most is our PRESENCE. Too often, parents and adults believe what their teens tell them, like ‘I hate you, I don’t want to be around you, I never want to see you again, You are horrible, Leave me alone”! Of course, it is important to really Listen to what our teens are saying, but more often than not this means listening not only with our ears, but with our memories. These are still our babies! They look, sound and act like hateful, mean, nasty, strangers to us, but deep down they are still as small and fearful and needy of our unwavering love as ever. They are hurting and don’t know what they need, and sure enough don’t want it from parents- However - Don’t underestimate the power of a small gesture. A simple knock on a closed bedroom door and the words “Let me know if you need anything”, a note slid under the door, a text, FB message or email that says “I’m here if you need to talk”, a special homemade treat that embodies your endless love— can go a long way. 
3. Keep it simple. When we see our children hurting, when we know there’s not much we can do to fix it we tend to over-function. That’s right. We might rent an entire restaurant and invite everyone from the middle school in hopes of cheering them up. Wrong. They are not looking to be singled out or for you to orchestrate their social lives for them. Keeping it simple might mean going out to dinner with one friend’s family, of their choice, or providing the space and funds for a 2-3 person sleepover with all their favorites included: ice cream, a movie, and some homemade midnight snacks. 
4. Remind yourself that they don’t need you to be their friend, they need you to be their parent. What does that even mean? Well, some of us need to actually get back to the basics there because we are on the wrong side of that question. Provide safety, security, and basic needs, set appropriate limits and expectations, create room for possibility and nurture an ecosystem of acceptance and challenge. What else? Well, the rest is all extra. Buy them a car when they turn 16? Maybe…depends on your child and your families needs and capabilities. Provide room and space for underage teens to drink and smoke in your basement? No. Really? No. Not ever. If you find yourself unsure of what it means to be a parent or a friend? Ask. Ask lots of people that you know and trust. Together, you’ll figure it out. 
5. Finally, when things are pretty bad, and the basics aren’t working, when depression or something else has all but stolen your child from you- get help. That’s right, not only do our children need to see the best therapist in town, in the state, in the country, parents and adults need help too. Sometimes our over-functioning leads to a depletion of self- of what we have emotionally, spiritually, physically available to support our kids. When that happens, our help becomes less helpful. There is no shame in talking it out, taking time to breathe and think, crying, sharing your worst fears and failures. Nobody is perfect, and the closer we get to accepting our limitations the closer we can get to supporting those in our lives who depend on us. We all need help sometimes. 

Easter Blessings to you and yours! 

Rev. Jenny Shultz

Ash Wednesday, Year B, Feb. 10, 2016

Rev. Jennifer Shultz

February 10, 2016

Ash Wednesday, Year C

Joel 2: 12-17

There it was the high-pitched, monotonous screaming, ringing, growing louder with every stoplight it rolled through, lights flashing and doors flung open, the gurney outfitted  by two EMTs. Their steps were quick and efficient and managed not to validate the urgency of the situation.  One, a tall female with burley features pulled out her clipboard, but took one look at me and decided the questions could wait. The urgent care doctors and nurses scrambling around the crowded room, all 8x8 square feet of it, anxiously trying to console not one, but two mothers assuring us of his health, promising that once we arrived at Duke Sage would be in good hands, that the worst trauma had passed. 

My son, Sage, celebrated his third birthday on January 14, and just two days later on January 16 what started as a normal Saturday for our family with breakfast at Elmo’s & blueberry pancakes, a full day of puzzles, and trains ended with our greatest fear: the mortality of our first-born child in question. When he was first diagnosed with a peanut allergy, the diagnosis had a paralyzing effect, first the threat of alienation ensued as the walls we had so faithfully and carefully built seemed to be collapsing one by one, all around us. First, it was eggs, and then peanuts and then soy, sesame, and finally tree nuts. How could he continue as a normal 2 year-old with playdates and Sunday school, nursery and preschool? Overnights at Grandma’s house to look forward to? How could we ensure our child’s safety when not in our care? 

That Saturday afternoon, taking Sage and Quinn with me, I made a quick stop at Target while Shannon was getting her haircut. Like every toddler I know my son was ravenous and letting me know it. Kicking the cart, doing everything he could to cajole me to get him what he wanted; whatever brightly colored packaged food that caught his eye at the time. I relented and grabbed a box of Lara bars. If you are familiar with these bars they are as healthy as a packaged granola bar can be, including only fruit, nuts, coconut and a few other natural ingredients. In our household we READ labels, and I mean read like a poorly written book that forces you to read between the lines. On this particular Saturday, I grabbed the box, read the label and was assured of my child’s safety. blueberries, vanilla extract, lemon and dates. 

That’s what I read, blueberries, vanilla extract, lemon and dates. 

What my hyper peanut focussed eyes did not read or see on the list of ingredients was cashews. I realized that I had been reading for what was “not” there rather than what was, as I assumed peanuts were the only thing my son would respond with anaphylaxis to if ever exposed.

I was at the customer service check-out line returning a bicycle helmet when his whining and squirming quickly had me reaching for a blueberry larabar. I held it in my hands, quickly unwrapped the blue shiny paper, and handed it to my child who thankfully took a bite, and then another… within seconds I heard it, “The quivering fear in your child’s voice that alarms you that something is not right. “Mommy??” and he began to cough. From that point on the details are blurry and I could honestly live forever without ever replaying them over in my mind… the story unfolded with me stabbing my child with an epi pen in the middle of Target where my son started to go into anaphylactic shock… 

Mortality. Yours, mine, our children’s and grandchildren’s, nieces and nephews, husbands’, wives’ , friends’. This Ash Wednesday the prophet Joel invites us to “return to God with all of our hearts, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning: to rend our hearts and not our clothing, to return to God whose abounding steadfast love awaits us, gracious, merciful, slow to anger… 

Just as the prophet Joel signals the alarm, calling the people of Judah to repent and return to God, in the very next breath he calls them to HOPE depicting a God who is jealous for our affections, hungry for our return, like a mother whose only consolation is the breath upon her son’s lips, the light in his eyes, the love in his sweet soul, the touch of his tiny hands- holding gently to hers. This Mother God is both raging with lust for her children's affections and gracious and plentiful in her abundance from which she will hold our pain. 

One question for us to consider this Ash Wednesday evening is What in our lives is keeping us from returning to God? Surely, we think, one reason is this mortal flesh, this body in which our souls dance from one place to the next, weaving in and out of one another’s lives, never fully capable of living faithfully, but always teetering on the verge of mortality until finally this body is laid to rest in the final hours of our earthly existence. Another reason we keep God at bay is for fear. No, not fear of death as we often think, but rather it is life that we fear, the fear of living. Fear that our mortal lives are actually capable of more than what we are able, willing or brave enough to consider?

Fear. He will threaten and confiscate much of what our subconscious harbors behind closed doors, and between the lines. He, like a masked man lurking in the shadows, will invite us at every turn to abandon our beliefs, moving farther and farther from the truth as we yield ourselves to the perceived trauma that we are somehow convinced is awaiting us around every corner. Fear has a way of dismantling our foundations those things most grounding and stabilizing in our lives, bleeding our egos one quick glance in the mirror at a time. With bullet-proof vests and a quick getaway always on the ready, fear clothes us with the illusion that safe keeping comes at a high cost, that anymore than superficial engagements or half-honest relationships spell ruin and almost certain calamity, so fear with the promise of life-long partnership quarantines our spirits- leaving us free from defecting yet unwinding, ungrounded, unmistakably hollow, wanton, and laden with the burden of guilt-stained abandonment. The abandonment of our own kindredness, of the likeness peering back at us through the mirrors of our lives. Fear seeks to convince us that life is as we know it and nothing more; That what we see in this flesh and bone is all there is, brittle and used up, broken, slow and out of sink, out of step, out of style, that the visage most known to us is either tinted too much or too little in the wrong direction.

Friends, as we consider our own moralitly this evening, our life, our breath, our death, let us look upon one another with grace that we might see our own faces, our own souls, our own selves reflected there and as we do may we understand more fully what it is to rend our hearts before God. Beginning on this Ashen evening, let us move one step closer to Jesus allowing the fullness of Jesus’ love to spill into us, the only love that can truly wreck us, dissolve our brokenness and piece it back together, ashen cross by ashen cross, one long look in the mirror after another. I know I will seek to move more closely to my Mother God this season, the gracious Mother who is ready to receive me with abounding steadfast love, ready to look into my eyes, saying, “it is not your fault, you are forgiven, I am here to hold your pain.” This God will will cradle our insecurities and breathe courage and comfort into our darkest places where fear has taken residence. May we move one step closer to Jesus who, like none other, understands what it is to be housed in these our bodies of flesh and bone.

As we move into our time of prayer, I invite you to hear these words from fellow UCC Minister Michael Coffey: Ash Thursday:

He did the yearly black solemn ritual

and got smeared  and humbled though he

didn’t like it much with the flecks falling down

in his eyelashes and the soul’s grief exposed so

He got home and stared at his conundrummed face

for five minutes give or take in the bathroom mirror

it wrecked him to be so humiliated, so mortified

he washed away the ashen cross and dreamed of dying

He woke up Thursday and after peeing and scratching

looked in the mirror and there it was like a Mardi Gras drunken tattoo

his forehead graffitied, black, sooty,

haunting him he wore it all day like an unbandaged wound

At bedtime that night he washed and slept like a storm-tossed boat

woke up to his sunrise reflection, his sleet eyes squinted

again it was back, his skin tagged with midnight streaks

and he walked the day mortal through to his marrow

After that first Ash Thursday and Ash Friday

and Ash Tomorrow, Ash Next Week

Ash March, Ash Autum, Ash Solstices

never a day went by when he didn’t see it, let it have its way

Never a day went by thereafter that he didn’t

rise to bless himself with Wednesdays words:

remember you are dust and to dust you shall return

and every day then on he was his free earthy self until he died

Let us pray:

Leaving Jesus Behind, Dec. 27, 2015

Luke 2: 41-52
Rev. Jenny Shultz
United Church of Chapel Hill

I am sure that many of you here have seen the movie “Home Alone?” Where McCaully Culkin plays a pre-teen boy whose family decides to travel to Paris for the Christmas holiday, and accidentally leaves him at home alone. In the movie, it’s not just the boy and his parents, but they are traveling to Paris with lots of extended family: aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, and parents… We can probably all recollect, at one time or another, having been part of a large family gathering; maybe not our own families, but a spouse's, or a friends’ family. Basically, the more people involved, the more moving parts, the more noise, the more needs, the more wants, the more confusion, clutter and chaos.  It’s great to spend time with family over the holidays, but let’s face it it’s not entirely unrealistic that a parent might leave the house without one of her rugrats in tow. This has yet to happen to me, and I pray it never does, but I have empathy for those parents for which this is close to home! I will never forget two different times when I was left behind by my parents’ well, my dad.  My father took my older brother and I on a fishing trip when we were 6 & 8 years old.. I fished for about 30 minutes and then got bored of staring at the orange ball floating atop the water, so I wanted to play. He told us to stay close to a large particular rock while he fished alongside the river bank...but then I lost sight of him, and it grew began to grow dark, and it got darker and darker…he says that he forgot about us- clearly, and while the sun was setting he realized he’d need to get back to the truck and suddenly remembered he wasn’t alone! The second time I was left at church after an evening meal, again, by my father and it was only when he made it home to my house that my mother asked of my whereabouts that he realized, once again, that he hadn’t gone to church alone?!!

So, when reading Luke’s story today, I felt like Jesus and I had something in common! I believe we find Jesus, a pre-pubescent teenage boy, in the temple not just because it was the time to assert his independence and reveal his exceptional relationship to God, but because he got lost in the shuffle between Mary, Joseph and the extended family caravan on the way back home from Jerusalem. Perhaps he had an almost 3 year-old cousin, who goes by the name Sage, who was driving him absolutely mad, so he lingered behind a while hoping to escape a day’s journey of 1000 questions (Jesus, where are you going? What are you doing? Are you gonna play with me?  What’s that? Are you gonna play with me? What’s in my diaper? Are we there yet? Are you gonna play with me?”  or it’s entirely possible that over the years (having been at the Passover festival each year since his birth) he had met a young man or woman that caught his eye with whom he longed to spend more time with, and so wanted to hang out a little longer. Or maybe it’s as simple as Jesus being the precocious child that he was went quickly to the place he knew he would be we received and could show off a little. When he got lost, wandered off, got left behind, however we interpret it, when he realized that the family mob had left without him he went to a familiar place.  Luke tells us two times in verses 41 & 42 that this was a faithful family, who attended the festival every year, that this was their usual practice. Jesus probably didn’t feel lost or abandoned, but felt at home in the temple, so regardless of the reason for skipping out on the family reunion it makes sense that he would end up there.

So, why include this periscope at all, then? Between the time of his circumcision and his baptism this is basically the only story that exists in the gospels about Jesus. Number one, I think it knits the story together well as it brings flesh and bone to the divine, a human agenda alongside a Messianic call, and reveals the everyday messy life of this holy family. Secondly, Luke’s brilliant literary technique brings credibility to this holy story drawing us into two worlds, of classic themes from ancient literature as well as ordinary familial motifs that establish both Jesus and his family as having similarities to other ancient heroes such as Cyrus, the King of Persia; Pythagoras, the famed Greek philosopher; and even young Moses of the Hebrew scriptures. Luke further aligns this new testament story with an historically rich Jewish one with the story of Hannah and Samuel, a barren mother calling out to God, and a devoted child living in the temple as an act of redemptive grace and allegiance to God. So in true Lukan fashion, he’s painted a broad stroke picture for us, establishing Jesus’s credibility, as well as guiding our understanding of this particular text in the entirety of the narrative. 

There are numerous interpretations of this text and many of them focus on the “coming of age” theme, where Jesus is beginning to separate himself from his earthly parents to begin to testify to the divine wisdom that he has been given as God’s son. This interpretation quickly lends itself to a focus on the parent/child relationship and the anxiety that typically accompanies this developmental transition period for all involved.

I think there is great merit in highlighting such implications as we are never fully developed, we never reach a maturation level that frees us from the complexities of renegotiation: in relationships, in physical and mental capacity, in the emotional journey that begins as we travel the birth canal entering, into new life where all is celebrated and made complete, one year after another, until that completeness becomes feeble- and feared… and the wisdom and integrity that accompanies age is slowly siphoned off, and replaced, again, with what is new, young and celebrated.

When I first read Luke’s words in preparation for today I heard an audible plea, a groaning…from parents far and wide, and maybe even a distant cry from the divine mother herself. But This text is not merely about Jesus, about the significance of his notoriety as a well-advanced Jewish student among his peers and temple leaders, about his very typical relationship to his parents, or even more simply about a foreshadowing of the pascal events to come. This text, though I think we can still find meaning in each of these interpretations, is not really about Jesus at all. It has more to do with the societal structures in place that either feed or inhibit our ability to recognize the divine in our midst. The awe and wonder which accompanies the mystery of this small boy’s understanding, the divine renegotiation that takes place within each of us as we learn to cradle the babe born in the manger both within ourselves and within that which is beyond our understanding; stretching our capacities for compassion, forgiveness, and completeness. 

This pre-teen boy, left “home alone” per se is the story of our lifetimes, and ironically the story of our beloved hand-crafted, pew-painted, freedom born white Church… we will not only be caught leaving the house without our Jesus’s with us, we will leave him time and time again, in the manger, in the bedroom, in the closet, in our lockers, at the border, in picture books and red-lined lettered stories, in nicely decorated sanctuaries and cemeteries, We will even leave Jesus in the mirror . We will leave our white Jesus hanging upon our white walls, we will even leave our Jesus in the mail, on paper, in plastic, on a mug, at the altar, cast in our own likeness. Perhaps up to this point we have managed not to leave our children on large rocks near a river while casting our nets wide, but without a doubt we could be here all night narrating one another’s failed attempts at keeping Jesus in sight, of speaking his language of love and grace, of expecting the power of the incarnational experience to transform our lives.  About Luke’s story of the young and confident Jesus, Theologian Wes Avram says “[At 12 years old] Jesus is not only listening and learning; he is engaging and responding in rabbinic fashion. He is Teacher. Then when he is recognized again by John and by the Spirit, he is Son of God. He is first recognized as the one who fulfills the promise as Messiah. He is then seen as the one who interprets the promise as Rabbi. He is then anointed as the one who enacts the promise as God’s son.

So while acknowledging the power of the incarnation to transform and transfigure, having just celebrated this holy infestation of the soul on Christmas Day Luke positions this story as a follow-up to the completeness found in the birth of Christ as a reminder that we, in relationships, to Jesus, to God, to one another, are in constant need of renegotiation. 

Whether you carry Jesus with you wherever you go and understand him to be teacher, Son of God and Rabbi - or whether the white walled white faced Jesus has left you wondering whether you want anything to do with this young hero of old, do not leave the baby in the manger this Christmas season. Crowd around, and stay awhile… take the ornaments off the tree, put the lights back in their boxes, and the wrapping paper back in the attic, carry the tree to the curb and then sit awhile at the manger. The shepherds have sheep to tend to, Mary and Joseph obviously have other plans… so stay and sit a while...just you and Jesus. I think you’ll find that even though we as Americans fear failure and disappointment almost as much as anything that the risk associated with picking the baby up is incomparable to that of walking away from the manger- remaining in the pew, a passive onlooker, a bystander, afraid of renegotiating the terms of relationship, of life’s biggest and hardest questions, of faith.

There has never been a time where the call to renegotiate the terms of our covenant has been more clear. We, the church, must recognize the drunkenness of the past, the sins of the white-walled Jesus days and look more closely at our likeness, pick-up the Jesus whose Jewish heritage incorporated most of us sitting here today into the story of an Abrahamic God, whose Mosaic law led to the deliverance of a people who found themselves “home alone”, wandering a desert in search of their “home”. This Jesus, my friends, this Jesus is never home alone when we allow the Christ child to be birthed within us, to be home for the spirit of the other, to live as a lifeline for those seeking refuge and solace, to provide space for those who have no home to share in the mystery of the manger not only during this holy season of Christmas, but each night as the light of Christ continues to guide us on our way. 

May we continue to make room for Jesus in our lives, and live more fully into our call as co-creators and avenues of peace and hope for an orphaned world. Amen.

Audio: Trinity Sunday, May 31, 2015: Is the Church Dying?

http://unitedchurch.org/sermon/reverend-jenny-shultz-05312015/

Trinity Sunday Sermon: Is the Church dying? May 31, 2015

Rev. Jenny Shultz 

Trinity Sunday, Year B

May 31, 2015

In the movie Still Alice, actress Julianne Moore plays a world-renowned Linguistics Professor at Columbia University who suddenly finds herself forgetting things, getting lost, feeling less and less like herself when she receives the diagnosis: She has a rare genetic form of Alzheimer’s disease, early onset with little to no treatment options before her. 

Several months into her diagnosis Alice is asked to give a speech at the Alzheimer’s Awareness gathering where she quotes poet Elizabeth Bishop saying, “The art of losing isn’t hard to master, so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster”.  She goes on to say, I am not a poet, I am a person living with early onset Alzheimer’s disease, and as that person I find myself learning the art of losing every day.

Losing my bearings, objects, losing sleep, but mostly losing memories. All of my life I have accumulated memories, they have become life’s most treasured possessions….

Everything I accumulated in life, everything I worked so hard for, now all of that is being ripped away. As you can imagine, or as you know, all of this is hell, but it gets worse.

Who can take us seriously, when we are so far from who we once were?

Our strange behavior and fumbled sentences change others perceptions of us and our perceptions of ourselves.

We become ridiculous, incapable, comic, but this is not who we are… this is our disease.” 

Last week, millions of people across the globe celebrated together, one of the church’s most memorable days, our Birth, scriptures were read in thousands of different languages, bright red flags, banners and burning flames were used as the pronouncement for such an occasion. This is a day within our community when the church is invited to become re-enchanted by her birth rite, to reclaim the significance of her existence, and literally to become a blaze of fire-burning HOPE in the world re-energized for the work that lies ahead. And with flames rising to the sky, tongues of all nations speaking the truth, engrossed in the cloud of witnesses that has sent her to this destiny, the church forgets for a moment the encroaching shadow, forgets for a moment the present by which she has become entangled, forgets for a moment the disease that would have her forget who she is, what she knows, from where she has come, and most importantly the memories that have brought her this far.

Some contemporary theologians, bloggers, pastors, media personalities like to claim that the church is in decline, that the church is facing her ultimate demise, that the church is indefinitely dying- often quoting statistics such as these: “Of the 250,000 Protestant churches in America, 200,000 are either stagnant (with no growth) or declining. That is 80% of the churches in America.

4,000 churches close their doors every single year.

There is less than half of the number of churches today than there were only 100 years ago.

3,500 people leave the church every single day.

Since 1950, there are 1/3rd fewer churches in the U.S.

And I can add to these from our very own UCC Statistical Profile: 

From 2000 to 2010 alone, the UCC encountered a net loss of 696 congregations and 318,897 members… and counting.

In preparation for this post-pentacostal Sunday, often observed as Trinity Sunday I was reading through the texts as I often do waiting to find some kind of thread to be revealed, one that would weave the greater story together one puzzle piece at a time, that would at least circumvent the need to address Trinitarian theology whatsoever-  some kind of metaphor that was inclusive of both the prophetic witness found in Isaiah’s revelation and the nucleus of the entire faith narrative that is revealed in John chapter 3 between Jesus and the pharisee. First, we have Isaiah whom Patricia Tull tells us is the only figure to cry out, voluntarily in response to God’s call, in the scriptures: “Here am I, Send me!” “Isaiah, Unlike Moses with his myriad excuses, is hardly able to contain his excitement, waving his hand like a student raring to speak up in class. In a very few strokes the story paints a prophet who, despite discouragement, remains eager to mediate between God and his community, and then turning a few pages I continued to John’s gospels where Nicodemus, the Pharisee, though completely ignorant of the spiritual insights of the gospel, seeks Jesus out in the middle of the night only to ask about about being born  again?!” You can’t make this stuff up…! These are Billy Graham, run down the aisles of the football stadium kinds of moments!  Needless to say, the metaphor that flashed scenes upon my memory filled mind was not one of jam-packed football stadiums or Jesus rock concerts where baby boomers met Jesus for the first time, were saved by grace and then dunked in the river out back. No, what filled the space in my brain was that of disease, decay, of a church inhibited by the tangled mess we have become, caught in the web of forgetfulness, void of the exuberance of our youth, somehow unreflective of a people born of the spirit.

In light of our current context, where the headlines typically read of death and disaster, violence, hatred, and exclusion, environmental catastrophes; where Storms and tornadoes claiming lives, and threatening water shortages in the NorthWest are plastered across pages alongside politicians calling for the term “climate change” to be banned,  When education is becoming less a right and more a privilege or as former BB&T President John Allison would have it, “a commodity that will be bought and sold by students and donors alike,” 

I asked myself one question: 

Is the church, in fact, dying?  

I remember as a child visiting my great-grandfather after he had been diagnosed with alzheimer’s disease. Prior to the dementia he was as kind and gentle a soul as you’d ever meet, always greeting you with a smile and a hug, sometimes lifting you off the ground he was so happy to see you. Ready with pockets full of that old dime store penny candy, breathing so close to your face with that big teeth-filled grin you could always smell his fresh minty spearmint gum breath, and rearing, he was, to go no matter the time of day. He used to sweep us up in his lap and read us stories the kind bound with the golden seal-, then we’d have lunch- usually nothing too tasty, and then all three of us would pile onto his riding lawn mower…which moved at just a half a second quicker pace than his old bones… he’d ride us up to the lake where we’d feed the ducks, whistle with the cat tails and listen to the frogs croaking by the bank. Afterwards we’d head back down to the house where grand daddy would then tell us to be quiet, and then he’d take a nap… surely we weren’t quiet, but it never seemed to bother him.

One visit after the dementia set it I remember him accusing my older brother of stealing his pocket candy, and then he got all freaked out when seeing me because he thought I came out of the television, that I had been the little girl on the commercial he was watching. He no longer looked at us with those kind and knowing eyes, but with fear and skepticism, as if he had completely lost those memories that fueled our giant hugs, filled our stories with laughter and sticky bitter candy with the sweet fragrance of his love. It was hard to watch him die, to become a shadow of the man he once was....

I know that the church is a far cry from a person, such as Alice or my great-grandfather, living with alzheimer’s disease, a horrible fate to befall anyone, and that to even make the comparison may seem less than sympathetic, but I think there are some important insights that we can learn in seeing ourselves both as the church that “we know we are”, and the one that the world is perceiving – as possibly losing everything...caught in the slow decline of this disease brought about by our culture, one with perpetual lies that entrap, and then suffocate with its polluted identity brought about by living from flesh to flesh.  

Alice said in her speech, “Everything I accumulated in life, everything I worked so hard for, now all of that is being ripped away. As you can imagine, or as you know, all of this is hell, but it gets worse.”

Church, Who can take us seriously, when we are so far from who we once were?  Our strange behavior and fumbled sentences change others perceptions of us and our perceptions of ourselves. Looking back at our birth, recalling the labor pangs that brought us into existence, and encountering the many call stories, like that of Isaiah, David, Hannah, Ruth, Moses, Mary, Paul, of those champions who fought to bring truth and light to the next generation should inspire us to look for the substance that Jesus says to Nicodemus is of water and spirit. To be willing to crawl back into the womb to seek that which is clothed in darkness yet has the potential to erupt with light, to understand what it is to be flesh of flesh and spirit of spirit.  Church, when will we stop reading the headlines and start making them, stop succeeding the answers to those most willing to give them, when will the last door slam in our face?

Another form of Alzheimer’s to which I encounter with each and every visit to the country- back to Kentucky where my grandparents farm has been for all of my life - is very different than how I remember it affecting my great-grandfather. Now my grandmother, his daughter, is struggling with this disease, but this time it is a silent engulfing, an eroding poison that not only took her speech, and all ability to communicate, but it has taken her physical body as well, withered down to just 75 pounds from the plump, round-faced farming grandmother that I remember she lies in a bed 24 hours a day, in her home where my aunt, and grandfather care for her with the assistance of home health providers. This time, though, the memory-milking disease rendering her body entirely helpless, lacking all that might tell the world that she exists has left something for all of us.. her kind eyes, her knowing looks, her gentle tilting of the head that tells you she is “in there”, and “she is alive”- though not physically present, her spirit is deeper than deep, and fuller than full. She has a knowing glance that lingers, haltingly so, that calls you into her presence, that summons your spirit to kindle with hers, that is spirit of spirit.   

Alice said in her speech “for the time being I am still alive, I know I’m alive. I have people I love dearly. I have things I want to do with my life. I rail against myself for not being able to remember things. But I still have moments in the day of pure happiness and joy, please do not think that I am suffering. I am not suffering I am struggling to be part of things”.

Church, we are more than Alive! And though we may be struggling to be a necessary part of the fabric of our society, we are Alive. And how do we know we are alive??

Because 

Just this week After a Cleveland police officer was cleared of all charges in the shooting death of an unarmed couple, a coalition of clergy, including UCC national leaders, rallied with a call for reform of the city’s criminal justice system.

We know we are alive

Because when the same political forces that recently cut 48 majors, most dealing with education, from the UNC system forced the closure of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity and threatened Gene Nichol over 100 professors signed on in support of him as did most of the Chapel Hill- Carborro clergy ministerium. 

We know we are alive bc: Last week Ireland became the first nation in the world to approve same sex marriage by popular vote. And- As the United States Supreme Court is under way hearing arguments about the legality of same-sex marriage, UCC advocates and executives pray for the inevitable—with 37 of the 50 states now recognizing marriage equality, it’s time for a national decision declaring equal rights for all people.

Church, How do we know that we, the church, are alive today, and more importantly that we will be alive tomorrow?

Just as Nicodemus asked Jesus in that late night encounter,

How can someone be born again after growing old?, 

it’s time that we, the church, ask ourselves this same question… It is never too late to be born again, to live anew in response to the call of God… to listen to Jesus’ response and take seriously the call to be born of the spirit. Are we ready to respond to this call as the prophet did? To proclaim truth to a world that if left to disaster and disease would be only a fading memory unable to recall her birth, to live vitaly in the present and look to a hopeful future? 

Are we ready to be born of the spirit? 

Jesus said, "The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  

Thomas Berry so gently reminds us that “The real skill is to raise the sails and to catch the power of the wind as it passes by.”

My prayer is that we, too, will raise our hands, and respond to the call, saying “Here am I! Send me!” 

May it be so, amen.  

Living the "In Between Life" - Sermon, Ascension of the Lord, May 17, 2015

Rev. Jenny Shultz

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Ascension of the Lord

Acts 1:1-11

Living the “In Between Life”

“How we spend our days”, according to Annie Dillard, “is how we spend our lives.”1  So the question is, if not Life itself, what is the meaning of the “in between time” that captures most of our moments, most of our existence? 

If how we spend our days is, in fact, how we spend our lives2 then I spend my life in the checkout line at the grocery store, speeding up and down the aisles looking for the the last ingredient of my grandmother’s homemade apple pie which is probably, unfortunately, already in my basket. Before the steering wheel of my car driving my son to the nanny’s house where he will spend most of his in between time: he’ll fall and learn that he can get back up, he’ll bite a friend and learn that sometimes they bite back, he’ll build a castle out of dirt and understand that his hands were meant to engage the Earth, he’ll paint a butterfly and call it Mommy because he is learning to share his love with other living things…

       Meanwhile I will sit, again, at 10 and 2, along 1-40 driving to the coffee shop where I will see Andrew who knows that I want a decaf iced americano with 3 shots, and then if it’s Wednesday morning I’ll see Bill Wright with his former colleagues and, first, learn that this weekend is he and Anne’s 60th wedding anniversary which they are celebrating today with their kids in VA, and second, i’ll allow my subconscious the luxury of imagining that I have any idea what he and his science buddies are talking about, quantum physics something..., then i’ll drive to the church, and on certain days after a while my car will take me, again, to the coffee shop- and this time I’ll see the woman that brings her laptop every day, drinks an espresso and then a cappuccino, and we’ll smile and exchange pleasantries, and then go back to work.

Then upon leaving church, I”ll drive back to the grocery store, speed up and down the narrow aisles of whole foods building a meal in my head as I pedal past my subconscious who’s busy staring down the dark chocolate bars found on every end cap, and then I’ll wait, again, in the checkout line, in the long line leaving the parking lot, at the stoplight… trying to discern if I should pull out the $10 from my purse to give to the army vet who is standing on the corner… waiting himself… then the light will turn green, so I’ll drive on by leaving my subconscious on the corner to have a meaningful conversation with the tattered man in my rearview mirror.  

I don’t know about you, but I spend a lot of my life waiting, watching, passing by, speeding past, considering an option, but watching as it slowly fades away in the rearview mirror, walking fast, running even, leaving my subconscious to do the work of the present that my mind has already negotiated away, yielding it to the past.

What is life, if not the in between time? 

Shauna Niequist, author of Cold Tangerines, writes this in the foreword of Jeff Goins book, The In Between: 

“What we have is time.  And what we do is waste it. Waiting for those big spectacular moments. We think that something’s about to happen- something enormous and newsworthy, but for most of us it isn’t. This is what I know: The big moments are the tiny moments. The breakthroughs are often silent, and they happen in the most unassuming of spaces.”3

Today is Ascension Sunday, often an overlooked holy moment in the life of the church, in the planning of the preacher as it is bookended by the holier days of our liturgical calendar…Easter on one side which it fulfills and Pentecost on the other which it anticipates. It may actually be intentionally overlooked by some of us theological types as we progressives tend to have difficulty with the notion that Jesus, or any of the other four individuals mentioned in the scriptures who were said to have been lifted into the sky, actually ascended into the “Heavens” - were taken up into the clouds. Or we could just say that many progressives have a hard time believing anything that we can’t see, touch, or prove… But that is for another sermon! 

          The best and most meaningful way that most of us have come to experience this idea as having spiritual meaning and authority for us is through its deeply metaphorical invitation to delve into the depths of the incarnation. Marcus Borg reminds us that, “because the risen and ascended Jesus is 'one with God,' he (like God) can be experienced anywhere. Jesus is no longer restricted or confined to time and space, as he was during his historical lifetime. Rather, like the God whom he knew in his own experience, he continues to be known in the experience of his followers4…. in your life and mine, in our daily tiny moments that often do lift our feet from the ground. 

Another example, using language from Matthew's Gospel, is for Christians to think of the risen and ascended Christ as Immanuel--'God with us'.5

We know that the book of Acts is a written testament of the Acts of the Holy Spirit in the church, and really begins with the holy fire magic of Pentecost the true birth of the Church and her presence in all the Earth. However, Pentecost doesn’t happen until the 2nd chapter of Acts. What we find “in between” chapter 1, verse 1 and Chapter 2, verse 1 - proceeding this holy fire activity is actually the holy manna of the church’s birth, the tiny moments along the way that prove as kindling for the prophetic flames that will burst into the sky, that will reach across oceans and ethnicities, that will speak of the holy reign of Christ that is to come, for one and for all. But not yet… Jesus said, not yet. 

These tiny moments, we read in Acts chapter 1 are about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the time that he was taken from this Earth at last. These tiny moments, in between, to which you have been my witnesses.. He said, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  But not yet… While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”6  But not yet. So if not yet, then what now? 

What is life, if not the in between time? 

Let’s listen now as Shauna Niequist testifies to this holy in between time once again, 

"I sat with an old friend today. She and her husband have endured unimaginable loss throughout the course of their lives, and another very fresh loss in these last months.  We sat in the golden fading light of a Chicago spring. Our kids ran around and around the screen porch, and the grass was impossibly green, almost glowing. And in the midst of all that wild and lush beauty, we sat facing one another and she told me all the particulars of that most recent loss. What I heard in her voice stunned me, moved me, instructed me. She was present to it, unafraid. She told me about it unflinchingly, and what I realized was that she decided a long time ago that she wasn't’ going to wait for perfect and she wasn’t numbing herself against the worst case scenario. She had seen the worst case scenario more times over than any of us should have to. 

What I saw in her was a vision for how I want to live: In the midst of one of her darkest seasons, twisted with uncertainty, bruised by the words of former friends, she sat with me present and unarmed by busyness. She looked in my eyes and told me they’d be fine. She told me sweet and funny things about her kids, asked me about myself. She wasn’t waiting for the good part. She knows that these are all the good parts even while they’re the bad parts. She wasn’t shut down, going through the motions. Sh wasn’t holding tight until this season passed.She was right there with me, right there with her kids, right in all the glory and pain and mess and beauty of a spring night in between everything.”7 

Theologian Jeffrey Peterson-Davis reminds us that hearing this commission while peering up into the sky, reaching for the feet of Jesus that he might lift them too, was quite staggering for Jesus’ friends. Bearing witness to Christ in a world that suffers is overwhelming. We have trouble even imagining our own communities being free from hunger and poverty, racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, violence, from undue suffering and illness. But the final words of Jesus to his followers were that they will bear witness to him throughout the world.8  

With mouths still gaping open, eyes squinted under the bright sun’s bedazzling glow, the men in white asked them’ Why are you still standing here looking up at Heaven?” As if to say, “what are you waiting for? Waiting on?  Don't give up, don’t shut down, or just go through the motions, don’t just hold on tight until the season passes, but get in there, into the world, where your hands can engage the dirt, where you’ll learn that when you fall you can get back up again, that even in your darkest season of life, you can look at the world - eyes wide open and proclaim that you will be fine… that Christ is coming, again, in the same way that he was raised up from us.

          I believe that as Jesus' feet lifted from the ground, as he ascended into the liminal spaces of our lives where time and distance have no rule, where his presence would permeate the very air we breathe, he took a little bit of each of us with him, like seeds that when looking out over the broken and embattled horizon of humanity he would scatter across the Earth, watering it with one tiny moment at a time...with each smile exchanged between strangers standing Side by side in the grocery store checkout line, and every time we are moved to be present with those standing on the corners of our lives who would otherwise fade into the distance of our rear view mirrors, each and every time the burden of shame is lifted from a young woman’s soul as she looks fully into the mirror at a wholesome self worthy of all that is love around her, with every promise fulfilled and every wounded heart forgiven, the ascended Jesus is present with us. 

Jesus said the Holy Spirit power will come upon you, and the world will be transformed with one giant flame after another… not yet, but in the days to come.  And As you wait, and watch, listen and learn...do so with the eyes of Jesus wide open to the possibilities of grace and justice, peace and proclamation, with the heart of Jesus, beating consistently with the prophetic hope that each moment seized in love is a moment of holy transformation for a broken and bewildered people, with the hands and feet of Jesus, never tiring of waiting in line, never giving up to the despair, or pride or envy or greed...working continuously as a shepherd caring for the sheep in his care.  Friends, as we wait upon the Lord, let us wait boldly, not spending our moments wishing we had been there, had done that, had looked closer, listened longer, been moved to action. 

If we listen, right now, there are dazzling white robed voices all around us, calling us to the front lines of our lives, pleading for us to open our eyes to stop yielding our present to the past: some are perched on our shoulders, some peering up at us with childlike wonder, some looking back at us through the rearview mirror as we continue to drive right on by.

Friends, Pentecost is coming! It will be here before we know it, the trumpets will sound, tongues will confess, red flowing robes will mark the church's birth. But on the dawn of this great day is an opportunity to live the "in between life", to put waiting to action, to allow your subconscious to lift into the sky, to seed the Earth one tiny moment at a time as witnesses to all that was and is and is to come. 

This is what I know: The big moments are the tiny moments. The breakthroughs are often silent, and they happen in the most unassuming of spaces.”9

Go now into life’s tiny moments, giving yourself one seed at a time. 

May it be so this day and all of our days. Amen. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Bibliography:

 1. Annie Dillard, The Writing Life (New York, Harper Collins, 1989).

 2. Ibid.

 3. Goins, Jeff. The In Between: Embracing the Tension between Now and the Next Big Thing. (Moody Publishers; New Edition, 

     July 23, 2013), forward by Shauna Niequist. 

 4. Marcus Borg, "The Ascension of Jesus," Beliefnet, at: http://www.beliefnet.com/.

 5. Matthew 1:23, NRSV

 6. Acts 1:1-8, NRSV

 7. Goins, The In Between, Forward by Shauna Niequist.

 8. Peterson-Davis, Jeffrey, Ascension of the Lord, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide: Preaching the      

     Revised Common Lectionary (Westminster John Knox Press, 2013).

 9. Goins, The In Between, Forward by Shauna Niequist.

Raygan Baker's Ordination: A Charge to the Candidate

Raygan Baker Ordination Charge

April 26, 2015 

Dorothy Day reminds us that, “A custom once existed among the first generations of Christians, when faith was a bright fire that warmed more than those who kept it burning. In every house then a room was kept ready for any stranger who might ask for shelter; it was even called “the stranger’s room.” Not because these people thought they could trace something of someone they loved in the stranger who used it, not because the man or woman to whom they gave shelter reminded them of Christ, but because—plain and simple and stupendous fact—he or she was Christ.” 

Raygan, today is one of those days that will mark for you, for the rest of your life in ministry, the call to the fire warming hospitality that Dorothy Day described, but rather than reflecting upon an empty room that remains ready by firelight it will be marked by the open spaces in your heart that have been made ready, that have been set apart for the work to which you have been called, that have gracefully been there all along, widening your capacity to love, to embrace, to receive, and welcome the stranger-as he or she is Christ.

Christine Pohl writes in Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition that Jesus’ words in Matthew 25:35, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me,” do not refer to any particular physical location for hospitality. Instead, the verse challenges us to examine our practices of welcome to strangers in every setting. Jesus’ words are more closely associated with relationship than with location. A first step in making a place for hospitality may be to make room in our hearts. Whether or not we can always find room in our houses, welcome begins with dispositions characterized by love and generosity.

Raygan, you are not a foreigner on this shelter-seeking road, fighting yourself for a place at the table, for refuge, and welcome, for acceptance and equality. And as a stranger in a world that has all but abandoned her call “to let her hospitality and good works abound,” as Augustine proclaimed, you have chosen to remain faithful to Gods’ call upon your life, to enter into the most fragile of places where human life is at it’s most vulnerable and transformative states. The church has always and will continue to struggle to embody this call of welcoming the stranger, of embracing the other, of opening wide the doors of grace that have been opened for each of us. 

Raygan, yours is a heart like the strangers’ fire lit room, yours is a spirit made ready to guide the church into places where her fire can burn bright, where her doors can fling open with the truth of God’s love, and where her invitation can be made easily accessible to those outside who find themselves on the other side of faith’s legacy. 

And, yes, even with a spirit made ready, prepared for the journey, set apart for this Holy work there will be times when you feel like your own light is not bright enough, not bold enough, simply not enough to perform the tasks before you. In those moments, I urge you to look to your left, look to your right, look at your feet beneath you, and look up and all around you. This sacred call is not one of isolation, and is not to be placed upon your shoulders alone. Today, Raygan, my Brother, you are called as a teacher, a co-laborer, a sojourner, a fellow-traveler, a companion on the Way, a covenant partner… and with you on the journey, always, are the saints who have gone before you, those who surround you even now, on this day, in this very room, and those who await your arrival in Evansville, Indiana to walk alongside you as fellow travelers in the next chapter of your life. 

Never let fear or intimidation crowd your spirit, never relent in your unfailing love and generosity for others, but instead embrace the kindness and compassion that is within you, and go forth as Christ with the power and authority to bind-up the brokenhearted, to set free the captives, to prepare the way of the Lord. 

This is the day that God has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!  Amen.