"That We May All Be One", Lent 2B Sermon

Rev. Jenny Shultz

March 1, 2015 Lent 2B

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-17

Mark 8: 31-38

“That We May All Be One”

On February 10, 2015 this world was robbed of the blessings of three beautiful lives and the love and community that they represented for so many family, friends and those of us who were impacted by their  amazing spirits of hope and generosity. 

Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, her husband, Deah Barakat, 23, and her sister, Razan Abu-Salha, 19 were brutally taken from their loved ones, murdered in cold blood, in an act of extreme violence and defilement… a man who acted against himself, against all of humanity and against God chose not only to play God, himself, by ending three innocent human lives, but in so doing broke the most sacred and ancient of covenants between the Creator and the created. A covenant which began in the garden with the breath of life that would sustain our very flesh and bones, a covenant that was later “cut” with Abraham, with the blood of animals, with the promise that his faithfulness would lead to numerous descendants and that God would always BE that—Israel’s God, then later with Noah the covenant of the colors in the sky that God would never extinguish the earth with water again, and then God extended the Abrahamic covenant to Israel once again, through Moses, in the Mosaic covenant promising that in their obedience, God would lead them into the promised land and that God would always be with them and keep them wherever they went. Finally, we experience this covenant, you and I, each and every day through the spirit of Jesus whose very essence was the covenant itself, come to replace that which was formerly “inscribed” by that which is incarnate, the holy presence of God that dwells within us. 

In this season of Lent when we are encouraged to examine our own lives, and as a community to look to the promise of God held in the light for us as we walk this journey from Lent into Eastertide, from temptation to freedom, I cannot escape the thought that the three lives of those beautiful young people, taken from us much too early, are to be reminders to us of the covenantal relationship of which we are all part, a relationship that must be nurtured and actively acknowledged if we are to move forward in society as “one"-void of the violence that extinguishes our hope and corrupts the innocent, void of the oppressive forces that seek to take life rather than to sustain it, void of the very hatred, greed, lust and insatiable desire for power and wealth that has long exploited our differences rather than uniting us under a common covenant; one of love of God and neighbor. 

”Growing up in America has been such a blessing," said Yusor Abu-Salha in a conversation with a former teacher that was recorded by the StoryCorps project last year. She said, “Although in some ways I do stand out, such as the hijab I wear on my head, the head covering, there are still so many ways that I feel so embedded in the fabric that is, you know, our culture. And that's the beautiful thing here, is that it doesn't matter where you come from. There's so many different people from so many different places, of different backgrounds and religions — but here we're all one, one culture. And it's beautiful to see people of different areas interacting, and being family. Being, you know, one community.”

Yusor was in touch with something that ran deep in her veins. She said she felt, “embedded” in the fabric of this culture and community. Perhaps what her spirit was really connected to was the covenant that bound us, Jews, Christians and Muslims, together long ago when God made a great promise to Abraham and then blessed him with many children. Included in Abraham’s offspring were Ishmael, his firstborn son, born of Haggar, Sara’s maidservant, and Ancestor to the prophet Muhammad, and then Isaac his second born son, born of Sarah, his wife, and father to Jacob, and ancestor to King David and then to Jesus himself.  

So Abraham was not only the father of Judaism, but it was his line that eventually gave birth to two other great religions of our time, both Islam and then Christianity…from the same covenant we share the same promises of God…and as Yusor stated, “We are all one”…children of the same God born of the same promise. 

If you’re a twitter user you can follow the #muslims4lent thread to see what thousands of Muslim young adults are tweeting about standing in solidarity with Christians during the season of Lent, this year, by abstaining from things for 40 days.  

College-aged girl, Saadia stands holding a sign that reads, “I’m Saadia A Muslim American in solidarity, next 40 days NO McDonalds," and another writes, “I’m Reem, a Muslim Syrian American In solidarity, Next 40 days… No COOKIeS! #muslims4lent.” 

Faisal a Muslim lebanese students says, “No Bread” next 40 days, in solidarity. #Muslims4lent. 

Muslim American entrepreneur Bassel Riche who started the campaign says, “The goal is to thank the many Christians that have always shown love and respect towards Islam by showing them we in turn have the utmost respect for their beliefs”…and he hopes the “campaign will show the true face of Islam and take the spotlight away from extremists.”  

For decades, the three monotheistic religions have been conversing in interfaith dialogue, working across the boundaries, in hopes that their efforts would help to create a shared understanding towards the call to justice for the poor, the disenfranchised, the widow and the orphan, a common sense of the sacred, of mutual respect and agency towards the common good. Rather than remaining in isolation from one another, outside of communion, they have and continue to work hard to find a common narrative that will thread our spirits together. 

From the gospel of Mark, we hear Jesus claiming something similar in his call to discipleship. He said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

This same universal call to a common identity rooted in shared belief of God, and love of neighbor proclaimed by Jesus, and made manifest in the lives of young people such as Yusor, should inspire us this Lenten season, to look at ourselves, examining the very core of our beings, our allegiances, asking ourselves the question… What does it mean to deny myself, to lose my life for the sake of the gospel, that I might save it?

Associate Professor of Preaching at Luther Seminary, Karoline Lewis, like me, was baffled at the first reading of the Genesis and Mark lectionary pairings for today, but decided to sit with it awhile before abandoning her efforts to make sense of what the biblical narrative was trying to tell her. 

She said, “But I stuck with it for a while, and here’s what I started seeing. Abraham and Sarah? To what extent they ‘deny themselves’ just as Jesus asks. But it’s not a denial of the self. It’s a denial of remaining by themselves. That is, they deny a life that is autonomous, secured, enclosed, safe, and just the two of them, for a life that propels them into relationship -- with God and with a future realized by abounding relationship.”

I wonder if this is exactly what Jesus means.

If we ask ourselves the question, “What does it mean to deny myself, to lose my life for Jesus’ sake, and for the sake of the gospel” with the backdrop of covenantal relationship propping us up we might just find that the way forward includes a denial of selfhood “when it rescinds relationship, a denial of autonomy when it refuses community, a denial of individualism when it rejects intimacy.” 

About the Muslims4Lent campaign Riche said, “Despite what our extremists have done to hijack our religion, we believe in peace, love, tolerance & harmony with other faiths. We don’t want to be seen as some distant, mysterious faith, we want to be accessible for people to open up to us…” 

Would it not have been easier for Abraham and Sarah to remain as Lewis says, by themselves, free to live without the pressure of an abounding legacy, without the impending thought of childbirth… I know that I am nearly 60 years their younger and i’m telling you having a baby is no easy task… chasing a toddler around is not for the weary, physically or emotionally. Theirs was a denial of the life they’d always known, the security of home, the assurance of what lie ahead, aging together until the they were no more, just the two of them side by side sitting in their rocking chairs, staring up at the night sky. Theirs was a denial of self which unveiled the expanse of community, opened up their world to family, to laughter and crying, to brokenness and burdens, to celebrations and thanksgivings, to relationships…bound-up in the promises of God. 

Like Yusor, who opened her life up to the other, made her life accessible, which in turn has shown the world the true identity of a faithful Muslim, and her goal…that we may all be one… we may need to ask ourselves some hard questions. 

What is it in your life threatens the birth of new relationships, of “whole” and satisfying relationships with those you encounter every day… your family, your parents, your siblings, your children? What serves as a barrier for you in reaching out to the other, in finding unity among differences, and harmony rather than fear or judgement? 

What is it that holds you back from living in community, of opening yourself up to a life of intimacy? 

As children of God, and adoptees into a shared covenant we will all find ourselves in the place of Abraham and Sara at different times in our lives. Will we decide to look gracefully and faithfully towards the Easter promise of life and abundance, holding the promise of oneness to our chests, or will our fears of the unknown, and worship of our individualism keep us from denying that which could set us free, make us whole?  

Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me”.  

May it be so…Amen. 

   

Ash Wednesday Sermon: Feb. 18, 2015

Rev. Jenny Shultz
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
1 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Ash Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015
             

                                                 

                                               “Dreaming Smaller”

Founding Pastor of Grace Commons in Chicago, Nanette Sawyer wrote a wonderful article in this month’s Christian Century magazine, an Ash Wednesday reflection, asking herself the question, “Could I treasure washing the dishes?” Reflecting on the Corinthians text she says “This would mean treasuring the fact that I am alive - as Paul puts it, that I am “treated… as having nothing and yet possessing everything”  If I could do it, she said, I would remember and experience what a miracle life is.  Throughout the remainder of the article she contemplates how her life might look, feel and be experienced differently if only she could remember that she was “alive” each and every day.

And this is where I think she connects truly with what the gospel is inherently about: She says,

“If I could treasure washing the dishes, I would not be storing up treasures on earth “where moth and rust consume” and “thieves break in and steal.”  But I would be storing up treasures in heaven, treasures of the heart, treasures of love and honor and simply joy.

I would be fasting in secret, too.  Secretly I would be giving up my fear that I am not enough, that my life is not enough, that there is not enough time or money or reward, that there is not enough suffering to atone for all that has been done wrongly in the world.  I would be giving up resentment that life includes more work than play.  I would let that resentment go, and I would find the play in work.  I would do my work for the doing and not for the outcome. I would realize that I am alive for this— to serve, to try to make the world a better place, to love through the efforts I make. And sometimes I would serve the world by doing less, by having smaller dreams, by letting enough be good enough and trusting that our value comes from the fact that we exist.”

I know that I struggle on a daily basis with feeling like my good is good enough. And I know that I am not alone. More often than not my obsessive thinking these days is around being a good enough Mommy… with a two year-old running around I think this is only natural, but it doesn’t keep me from doing what we parents do best- compare ourselves to all of the other parents in the world. That’s right, in order for us mommies to feel better about our mommy skills & selves we typically seek the most important and influential resource of our time, the most reliable wisdom-filled parenting source out there… FACEBOOK.  That’s right…we read dozens of Facebook articles most-often posted by other mommies about what they are doing or not doing with their babies and toddlers. Did they breastfeed, did they co-sleep with their child, did they let their baby “cry it out?”, did they make all of their own mashed-up sticky baby food from organic fruits and veggies, did they record every single day in a 1000 photos or more of which they shared on 6 social media sites, did they join a mommy group and a playgroup so that their infants could all lie on their blankets and practice rolling over together, did they stay home from work after delivering the baby to devote all of out time and energy to being the best mommy possible???????? And the list goes on and on, doesn’t it?

This weekend while procrastinating writing this sermon I was browsing Facebook when I stumbled across something my sister-in-law posted called “Mommy Guilt Bingo”.  And the comparing began…

The first line of squares had me feeling pretty good, I was still an average mommy having served pizza for dinner, and with an incomplete baby book, but I could still at least take pride in the fact that I have not yet picked my child up from daycare in yoga pants with bedhead, or used the tv as a babysitter…and have not yet heard Sage repeating a 4 letter word. Phew!

Then, on to the second line…Failed to cherish every moment today, Birthday party wasn’t pinterest worthy (because we didn’t have a birthday party)…I work outside the home, i have on the rare occasion purchased non-organic produce when I just refused to drive across town to Whole Foods, and last, but not least I have bribed my toddler with a completely sugar-infested high fructose corn syrup laden lollipop- even just this week!  And then, as I made my way through the bingo board - there it was - the real reason that mommy hood seems like an epic failure at times… I had an epidural!

Am I a good enough Mommy? Am I parenting to the best of my ability? Feeding him the right foods, playing the right games, making the right friends, choosing the right schools, the right playgrounds, the right playgroups? Am I spending enough time with my sweet boy? Am I letting the nanny do the mommy’s job? Is my best Mommy-self good enough?

Rev. Sawyer said, “treasuring washing the dishes was a way, for her, of storing up treasures in heaven, treasures of the heart, treasures of love and honor and simply joy, and a means of fasting in secret.  Secretly, she said, she would be giving up her fear that she is not enough, that her life is not enough.

What if we could do our work for the doing and not for the outcome, work for progress because we believe that our efforts can change the world for the better rather than progress for progress’ sake, what if we would parent our children moment by moment without obsessing over the future, about the unknown, celebrating each diaper change because it reminds us that we are alive, sweeping the
floor with a whistle on our lips because we know that life is as brief as the moments between our
births until the time we will lie down for the last time, that with every nap time battle, each teenage infraction, and marital conflict- we can look in the mirror and be reminded that our best is good enough, that we are good enough simply because we exist. Sawyer reminds us that in so doing,  “we are alive to serve, to try to make the world a better place, to love through our efforts, however small they may be. What if we could treasure washing the dishes?

As we prepare ourselves for this Lenten season, dipped in the ashen reminder of our fragility, a time to reflect upon our own lives, and to explore what it means to be “reconciled to God”,  perhaps leaning deeply into these questions: am I enough simply because I exist, and could my life be such that the smallest of moments, those often overlooked, could be life-giving for me? …perhaps living with an orientation towards this smallness could be God’s kingdom come, God’s will be done in your life as it is in Heaven.

Sometimes, said Rev. Swayer,
“I would serve the world by doing less, by having smaller dreams, by letting enough be good enough and trusting that our value comes from the fact that we exist.”

When is the last time, if ever, you heard someone suggest that serving the world might mean “doing less”, having smaller dreams? I don’t quite think she meant what we might assume with the initial hearing of these words, that we should dream smaller, aspire to less, but with “small-er” dreams… not larger than life, but precisely life-sized, not overreaching, but reaching just far enough, not above the table where our eyes scan the room falling upon each and every color and size that this world would have us seek, but at table, and below the table where we can see what is directly in front of us, where our feet, sitting side by side, can reach the floor and where what’s sitting just below us is not out of our reach.

Brother Lawrence, a 17th century monastic brother, whose name was Nicolas Herman of Lorraine, worked for 15 years in the monastery kitchen and then the rest of his years as a sandal maker for the Carmelites of Paris. He is best known for his writings and correspondence collected in the historical text The Practice of the Presence of God, later edited by Harold Chadwick.  

For Brother Lawrence doing less, and dreaming smaller was the largest, most expansive thing in his life.
He said, “It matters not to me what I do or what I suffer, so long as I abide lovingly united to God’s will—that is my whole business.  I am in the hands of God, and He has his own good purposes regarding me.  I do not concern myself, therefore, about anything that people can do to me.  If I cannot serve God here, I will find some place else in which to serve him.
Since I first entered the religious life, I have looked on God as the goal and end of all the thoughts and affections of the soul.  Possessed thus entirely with the greatness and the majesty of God’s infinite being, i went straightway to the place that duty had marked out for me- the kitchen.
There, when I had carried out all that called for me, I gave to prayer whatever time remained, and also prayed before my work and after.
Before beginning any task I would say to God, with childlike trust:
O Lord, be with me in this my work, accept the labor of my hands, and dwell within my heart with all Thy fullness.”

I believe that as we remember the life of Jesus and listen to his teachings from Matthew’s gospel about personal piety and prayer, and his encouragement towards the secret life, that when we do in secret we will be rewarded in secret,

and then we turn the pages to hear a disciple of Jesus, a committed follower to the way,
calling the church to be reconciled to God, we see a window opening up for us, to see ourselves as “more than enough”, an invitation to live into this divine “smallness”…

When I was in seminary I lived in an apartment complex that had a lake at it’s center, and most days before school I would run around the lake 5 or 6 times as part of preparing myself for the day. And, without fail, each time I would round the Southwest corner of the lake I would come upon an older man named George. George was always standing in the same place near the southwest bank just in front of an old wooden bench with a bag full of bread crumbs where he would patiently wait for the ducks. Most days I just smiled or waved and continued on my run, but on occasion I would stop and sit on the bench near George and just enjoy being in the company of his humble routine, watching and observing his interactions with the wild around him. George was hard of hearing, and was a disabled war veteran, so for the last 17 years had lived in this complex and found it his sacred business to attend to the ducks of this very lake. Before I moved that final spring semester I went on one final run hoping to run into George, but what I found was even more compelling… as I rounded the corner this time, I saw a small boy in the same place with one hand full of bread crumbs, and the other extended upwards held in the gentle grip of an older man… it was George. He was sharing the joy and grace of his practice with his grandson.

In response to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians,

What if we, like George, understood reconciliation with God as a “life-sized” task, and rather than just sizing up the unjustness around us and calculating what piece of the greater puzzle we might play in the great healing of our world we could see the call as personal and as small as one life at a time… as small as the boxes we inhabit, the cars in which we ride, the tables at which we sit, the sacred spaces of our lives that are captured in moments as in a frame… in the mowing of the lawn, the putting our children to bed at night, tucking them in on all sides, the diligent reading that our students must complete on this very night, the emails and papers, and presentations and tasks that hold us captive in time, with deadlines and action points awaiting, with difficult conversations looming over us, disappointment trending in our midst.  What if being reconciled to God meant simply abiding with God, as Brother Lawrence expressed saying, “It matters not to me what I do or what I suffer, so long as I abide lovingly united to God’s will—that is my whole business.”

You may be thinking, “Yes, but I am not a monk or a priest, nor one to even aspire to personal piety”, but what can be true for each of us in this time and space as we occupy the flesh and bones that house our souls, that share a common beginning and ending—is that a great treasure, a gift that can only be recognized, unpacked and experienced in “reconciliation” awaits us even now. The gift of the present, of being alive to ourselves and alive to what and who are in our midst, the gift of working as with a whistle on our lips, of feeding the ducks faithfully for 17 years, of loving today as if our hearts would be gone tomorrow, the gift of looking in the mirror and discovering that “enough” is not found in What we complete, but in who we are made complete.

Covering ourselves in Ash this evening is a way to mark this joinery in faith, to receive the call to journey with Jesus these next 40 days… to take a deep breath and rather than looking up, scanning the horizon searching for what’s next,  what else, what am I missing?? we are invited to meet one another at eye level, to see as Jesus did, those at table and beneath the table cherishing the very seconds and minutes that form our communal life… And we are invited to contemplate the question, “What if I treasured washing the dishes?”

I pray that as we leave this place tonight we will dare to dream in life-sized pictures, in real time, and that these next several weeks we will take the time to look into the mirror of our lives, and looking with our hearts, believe that what and who we see is enough, and though we may be someone who is “treated… as having nothing we may be found to possess everything”.


Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sermon Audio Recording, Escaping the Dissonance

This sermon was originally preached on Sunday, August 24, 2014.

Escaping the Dissonance, by Jenny Shultz
Proper 16: Year A
Matthew 16:13-20

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

World Prayers for Peace, February 1, 2015

Prayers of the People: February 1, 2015

Surrounded by the presence of the Holy One of God, let us pray together.

Holy One, we gather in worship this morning seeking your presence, your grace and your wisdom. Humbly we gather to hear your words of hope and encouragement so that we may faithfully live out your message of justice and peace.

Confident that you have come to us, we offer our prayers for people and places close to our hearts and for the people and places that are unknown to us.

• We offer prayers of healing for the 280 child soldiers who were freed in South Sudan. We pray that all children will be free to be children, to play, to laugh and sleep peacefully at night. We pray for all who work endlessly for the rights of children the world over.
• We pray for the 43 students who went missing in September in the southern state of Guerrero, Mexico.  We pray for their families and friends as they hear reports that the students may be dead.
• We pray for all who are displaced. We pray for those who live in refugee camps and for all who live in captivity. We remember before you Kenji Goto of Japan.
• We pray for the EU foreign ministers as they meet in Brussels. May they work together to find  ways to bring peace and justice and stability to the EU.
• We pray for your creation. As we hear reports of E. Coli in the water in Winnipeg, Canada; an earthquake in East Midlands, England; snow storms in North England and the North Eastern United States; the drought in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Mina’s Gerais, Brazil. We pray for all who are affected by these events.

And now in the silence of our hearts we offer you the prayers that we carry with us this day.
(http://www.worldinprayer.org)

Sermon: Feb. 1, 2015: "A Holy #Occupation"

Mark 1: 21-28

Rev. Jenny Shultz 

"A Holy #Occupation"

I am an historical fiction junkie!  And one of my favorite authors of late is Kate Morton an eldest sister of three who grew-up in the Australian countryside.  Kate has written several books of which I have read every single one including The Distant Hours, The House at Riverton, the Secret Keeper, and my personal favorite The Forgotten Garden. I am currently eagerly awaiting the announcement of her next work which I will download and read by sundown on the very day its released.  Anybody have a favorite author like that? Who are they? John Green? Tolkein? J.K. Rawlings? Others?  Or maybe for you it’s music and an artist?  

What I love most about her writing is the incredible way in which she can re-create a scene and rather than just inviting the reader to come on the journey with her she expects that the reader is already part of the story, and writes with the assumption that with each new page that is turned the reader’s life, my emotions, my expectations, my fears, and my journey, are the light that illumines the way forward… my presence is assumed yet never taken for granted.   

One of the amazing things about Mark, the gospel writer that we encounter in today’s book, and why I really also love to read Mark’s gospel, is that Mark is an up front kind a guy… meaning he never leaves the reader hanging.  He too, with a vivid and clear style, imaginative, but with an unswerving altitude that manages to bring to climax that which you’ve just begun to piece together, Mark assumes that the reader is already part of the story and that this business about Jesus, whom Isaiah lifted up, whom God has sent and who would rock the world was powerful enough to stand on his own, no need for lace and pearls, for the building of suspense or character development… Mark assumes, authoritatively, that the messenger himself and the message are glam and glitz enough!  Let’s take a look: 

In just 45 verses, that’s less than 1000 words (for all of you students out there that have had to cram in your best and brightest into 1000 word essays), in the very 1st chapter of the book, Mark records the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry like this, first with the Heavens being torn open at Jesus’ baptism, his temptation in the desert with the devil and what we’ll call the “wild animals”, his first Sermon, the calling of the first 4 disciples, an exorcism of an unclean man in the temple, a healing of a friend’s mother-in-law, in her home followed by a mass exorcism and healing session for people with all kinds of ailments—also in her HOME—Mark says the Whole Town gathered at her door, then Jesus spends the morning on a personal prayer retreat, and finally heals a leper…And all of this, writes Mark, eventually leaves Jesus in a lonely place. Mark states in the last verse of ch. 1, “As a result [of all of this miraculous work and power], Jesus could no longer enter a town openly, but stayed outside in lonely places.” And yet… the people still came to him from everywhere. 

You see Mark wants to be sure that we know who we are dealing with right off the bat. I mean, I don’t know about your experiences, but I can say that I’ve never witnessed the Heavens being ripped open with a beautiful bird descending upon anyone in my presence… I mean maybe I’m not looking close enough… and you may have had a similar encounter?  

The question of authority such that we read in today’s text is dealt with before the questions are even asked. Anytime you or I pick up a new novel, or a biography to read, we begin by asking the same question, “Who is this person, this protagonist, really, and can I get on board with his or her story, do I buy this?”  And when reading Mark, the answer is pretty clear: 

Jesus is a rebel, a radical, a boundary breaker, who speaks with Authority…and in today’s story, of “the exorcism” this fact is exponentially confirmed. Jesus claims with power an in-breaking, Heaven ripped open truth, that would be for all a new kind of possession, a radical indwelling, a holy occupation, that would send even the vilest of demons, crippling illnesses and impurities of this world shrieking with fear.  

I want to share a story with you, more like a modern day parable, that I recently read about Pastor Jim and his family. 

Jim writes: 

A number of years ago, we moved to Seattle, Washington, and we bought a house. This house was a catastrophic mess. The foundation of the house had sunk; the floors had sunk four to five inches; the big picture windows in the living room were cracked; the plaster board on the walls was cracked. This house was one glorious, ugly, nasty disaster.  (Anyone seen the 80’s movie: Money Pit?)

Well, it was not only the inside of the house that was a catastrophic disaster; so was the outside.  On all sides of our house, to the East, South, West and North, black berry bushes were sprawling in every direction. These were lovely, voluptuous, full growing, large stemmed blackberry bushes. And these bushes had been growing for years, perhaps decades. If you are a person who loves blackberry pie or blackberry wine or blackberry cider, our house was the house to buy. We had blackberries to feed our entire neighborhood.  

So, after moving into our house, I made a decision. I declared war on the blackberry bushes. I said to myself out loud, “I have come to destroy you.”

To begin my war with the blackberry bushes, I needed a little help on how to get rid of these lushly growing vines. I went to the resident gardener in the congregation who was an old Norwegian by the name of Al Lunde. He was one smart old coot, Old Man Lunde was… he had his personal remedies for fixing everything. Old Man Lunde knew about gardening, Mother Nature, and blackberry bushes. Old Man Lunde said, “So you wanna get rid of all dos old blackberry bushes? What you do is to go out there in the middle of winter, in the very middle of the annual big freeze, and cut those suckers off as low as you can to the ground.” That made sense. So I waited until February and the big freeze came on. It was cold, freezing, really cold for Seattle, Washington and I went out that morning with my scythe which I had borrowed from Old Man Lunde, and I cut them all down. I then did a pastoral thing. That is, I prayed for the Lord to continue the big freeze for a few days. Then that cold, freezing air would get down into those roots and kill the blackberry bushes. I turned my back on them, and a few months later, I looked, and again the blackberry bushes were crawling all over the yard.  North, South, East and West. What was I going to do? 

The war was still on, and the blackberry bushes had won the first battle.

So I approached my elderly neighbor by the name of Al, Al Powell, who was a retired Boeing engineer, and a great gardener. I said to Al, “I got this problem with my blackberry bushes. What do I do to actually get rid of them?” He said, “Amitrol! Amitrol will do in the blackberry bushes every time. Lots of it.” I bought gallons of Amitrol and began to spray them the next spring when they were just leafing out. I spayed them from top to bottom, backwards and forwards, inside and out, again and again. I sprayed them relentlessly. Those blackberry bushes shriveled up and got nice and brown. I cut the brown brambles off and burned them. I felt so momentarily proud. I turned my back for a few months and lo and behold, those blackberry bushes were all back again, laughing and smiling at me. All those black berry bushes wanting to grow berries to be pies and wines and cobblers. What should I do? The blackberry bushes won the second battle.

So I telephoned people at the University of Washington. I asked for the blackberry warfare department. A professor of horticulture said to me, “You have to go after their roots. Those roots, after all these years of growth, are down deep. You have to dig them up, one at a time.”

For one week I dug. Then Another week. Week after week. Month after month. I dug at those banks of blackberry bushes. With a big pick and an iron bar, with sweat and tears and grumbling, I dug down until I found a knotty root ball way down deep in the ground. It was the worst job of my life. I found an enormous root system, big roots, big knotty root balls, miles of them, so it seemed. I dug and dug. I turned my back on them for a period of time, and when I looked back, they there were again, but smaller, considerably smaller. I pulled out these little sprigs one at a time.

I planted my lawn. I planted my garden. I planted my tam junipers, rhododendrons, azaleas and my ivy so that these plants would take over the yard and the bank. These plants started to grow and grow, and After about ten years, the battle was won. I had destroyed the blackberry bushes, I had won the battle. 

What I found out at that time is that my yard was either going to be occupied with a good lawn and good rhododendrons and azaleas and tam junipers and ivy or it was going to be occupied by the blackberry bushes. It was either or. You see, the land never remained neutral. Either the land was ruled by weeds or it was ruled by beautiful plantings. It never remained neutral. It is never neutral. Never. The land is always ruled by that which is good or that which is not so good… it is never neutral.  (Pastor Edward ("Jim") F. Markquart)

You see, God didn’t rip the Heavens wide open at the start of Mark’s gospel to sell newspapers or as a publicity stunt… God sent a reminder to God’s people of their part in the story, and of God’s already indwelling presence in the world, that the battle was never about winning “lost” or “neutral” souls, because a soul is never lost or neutral…never on neutral ground…it is always either or, possessed by the power of God or that which opposes God’s power and authority.  Jesus knew this, and the way in which Mark tells this story shows us that he knew it too.

Mark, again, is writing with the assumption that we, the readers, are part of the story, and therefore, let’s envision ourselves in the temple gathered around Jesus and as invested observers as folks are crowding in, we observe two contrasting responses to the same “message”; a. Mark writes, “The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority b. there was a man who, Mark says, at the same time, shouted out at Jesus responding with aversion to Jesus’ presence.  This man, in contrast to those who responded to Jesus’ message, responded to the messenger, Jesus himself when he was accosted by the power of the Spirit, the man possessed with an impure spirit said, ‘What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

It’s so important that we the hear the differences here in what is actually taking place, and what Mark brings to light in such a subtle way.  

It is obvious enough that Jesus walks into a room and folks either respond to his presence and teaching with amazement or judgement, with praise and sympathy for his message or with rejection and opposition to it.  What is not clear in this temple gallery, as Jesus enters the preach-in per se, is that neutrality, in fact, does not exist, was never possible, that possession is inherently the default position of these souls gathered here. The real question then was not “Was this man possessed?” or as in the Pastor Jim’s experience, “Was the lawn taken over by something?” But “by what?” or “by whose power“ was this man possessed?  

This past Wednesday I stood beside the Reverend William Barber in the NC Legislative building as he rose behind a microphone surrounded by clergy of all different faiths including many UCC pastors, and claimed the power and authority given us in the name of Jesus, by God’s own hand, justice for all. He reminded the legislators, voters, hearers and those gathered around that Justice is neither neutral or partisan, it is not a luxury for which clergy have chosen to rally behind.  Advocating and establishing justice for all is rather both a direct commandment from God that as moral and civilized people should be inherent in our care for one another, and that advocating for and establishing justice for all, as Barber proclaimed is also a direct obligation and should be of first priority for public officers representing the people of our state and nation. Either our laws stand on the side of justice or they don’t, either you cast a vote for justice or you cast a vote that directly opposes the power to transform, to feed and nourish to instill hope and pride, to care for, and create a system that judicially represents the inalienable rights of all people.  Possession my friends is a given… we are either given to the life-giving power and authority of God or we are slave to the opposing voices, forces, competing gods and lords that will drive us to immoral acts in order to gain all this world has to offer.  

If nothing else, hear this, Proclaiming, and living the gospel is not about winning people over to God, through persuasive theological debates, or apologetic demonstrations… it’s about understanding that the little g-gods of this world; greed, the hunger for power and possessions, self-indulgence, pride, can all lead to the abuse of power over others, these gods (as Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians) only have as much power over us as we give them authority. The most miraculous experience, that we as temple observers gathered around Jesus today can walk away with as newly transformed and newly inspired to do this justice work together is, in fact, a miracle, the miracle of encountering the living God… whose power is so pure and whose authority is so present than it cannot be denied. Remember the temple man possessed by that which was in direct opposition to the love and power of God when encountered the spirit of Jesus he had no choice but to confront Jesus and, as we saw was set free by his encounter, was newly, radically occupied by a holy, powerful possession… 

When we look around the world, at any given time, turn on any news station, or hop onto any social networking sight we see that our global “streets are being occupied”, possessed by a carnal inertia to thrive, an innate response to the threat of annihilation, a hunger and thirst for justice, righteousness.    

It may be helpful to ask yourself this evening, what is possessing you?  Remember, the soul is never neutral, it is either given over to the love and power of God or that which is in direct opposition to the love and power of God.  

It is my hope that we all leave this place tonight as possessed, radical, boundary-breaking, justice hungry rebels in the name of Jesus Christ.  May it be so.  Amen. 

Sermon: Advent 2b, Dec. 7, 2014

Advent 2B, Dec. 7, 2014

Prepare the Way of the Lord

Like may of you, my Facebook feed these days is full,  with NOT a lot of “Good News”, not of celebrations and Christmas trees strung with lights and glittery ornaments which is typical for the season, but rather with stories one after the other of brokenness, of hatred, of death, of brutality, angst, fear, and more death. 

On Friday morning I was flipping through my feed on my phone and came across the post of one of my friends… he is a graduate of Duke Divinity School, a younger white male, a new father to two twin baby boys, a husband and a non-profit employee who lives in New York City.  He wrote the following, 

“Last night I marched in Chicago.  After an hour of marching, we became boxed in by the police at an intersection.  At this point, the police force threatened to arrest us.  “I have to go to work tomorrow, i’m not from Chicago,” and other excuses entered my head about why I should take that as my cue to head out.  But then a voice from the crowd shouted, “They (the police) think we care if we get arrested?  They are killing us.”  And so I stayed.  We did not get arrested.  We continued to march.  In that moment of that voice crying out, I realized that the discomfort I felt at the prospect of getting arrested was my own admission of my white privilege.  My discomfort was caused by my own choice to enter the march and disrupt the status quo, one which benefits me greatly.  Why wouldn’t I feel discomfort about trying to help usher in a reality that is different than the one that benefits me?  But the reality for those without privilege is that they do not have the choice to exit the oppression they experience for the sake of the status quo.  There is no discomfort at the prospect of getting arrested for those oppressed, because that is their daily reality.  And so I marched.”  

I know this is not the exact narrative running through each of our heads, that there is a different version that plays from beginning to end in each of our minds as we read the headlines, as we think about entering the march ourselves (whether literally, or in some other version of ourselves), as we hear and watch and listen and read and sit quietly, or scream and yell, or cry or find ourselves bewildered and paralyzed by what we do not yet fully understand- or know what to do with.  I know that the word “privilege” for many of us means something much too similar and for others of us it means quite the opposite.  I also know that what divides cannot unite and that what unites most surely cannot divide.  

I can’t imagine a more timely pair of scripture passages to encounter this season of Advent, more prophetic voices to hear than these two dessert prophets who cried out in the streets, who have been crying out and cry out even still…  I hope we can truly hear and feel and experience the words/emotions/power and righteous anger - from this famous prophet, Isaiah.  As you listen allow a word or a phrase or an image to really penetrate your thoughts, open your minds to what this ancient message has to say to those of us here - still trying to prepare the way.

As we read, I will include various commentary from Kristin Wendland of Princeton Theoligical for greater understanding into this this pre and post exilic community:

  “Prior to Isaiah chapter 40 the “good” news spoken in God’s name is a difficult word of judgment. The people have rebelled against God. The people have lived at the expense of their neighbors, putting their own desires above the needs of others, and In 587 BCE Jerusalem fell to Babylon, and a portion of Jerusalem’s population went into exile.”

From chapter 40 of Isaiah and moving forward, this word of judgment is in the past. Now, circa 540 BCE, on the other side of this experience, a new word comes to the people of Judah -- a word of comfort and hope for a new future.  Hear now these words of holy scripture:

Isaiah 40:1-11 Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. ²Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

³A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. ⁴Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. ⁵Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” 

     While not everyone living in Jerusalem went into exile, a good number of people did. This passage heralds their return. The most direct route between Babylon and Judea, through the Syrian Desert, is poetically described in verse 3 as a way in the wilderness and a highway in the desert. It is unlikely, however, that any exiles returning from Babylon would have actually made the dangerous trek through the waterless wilderness. 

Rather, the poetic description functions to recall another journey through an inhospitable wilderness. This news of a metaphoric highway in the desert heralds a second Exodus, 

⁶A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. ⁷The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. ⁸The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.

The punctuation here suggests a conversation between a Holy messenger of sorts, and “I”.  This divine messenger issues a command to Cry Out, but “I” is uncertain of what she should be crying aloud?!  She is exasperated at the notion that she might call anything to these people who are like flowers that fade and grass that withers… but this divine attendant, makes the claim that God is wholly other, and that the constancy of the people whether like grass or not is less important than that of God.  

⁹Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” ¹⁰See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. ¹¹He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

The place in the Old Testament in which Zion is personified most consistently is in the first two chapters of the book of Lamentations. In Lamentations 1-2 Daughter Zion cries out against the destruction wrought her. She speaks words of accusation against her human enemies and even God. The refrain that comes again and again is, “There is no one to comfort her” (Lamentations 1:2, 9, 16, 17, 21). At the end of her speeches -- and even the end of the book of Lamentations -- Daughter Zion receives no response to her cry.

The response to Zion’s laments comes, rather, in other biblical books. The response comes in verses such as Isaiah 40:1 “Comfort, O comfort my people.” The response comes in verses such as Isaiah 40:9 in which the words for Jerusalem to speak are not those of lament but of good news. She is no longer told to wail but to raise her voice without fear. The message given is confident and hopeful, “Here is your God!” Here is a God who comes to feed the flock, to gather the lambs, to lead the mother sheep -- to bring comfort. Here is God in whom one may have hope.

I know I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the lack of response to what seems like a vicious and endless cycle of hatred, of oppression of racism, and I like many of you am angry.  I, like the daughter Zion have spoken many a word of accusation against the human enemies that line our streets with guns, that bullet the bodies of our babies and fathers that fall too easily to the ground, that turn a deaf ear to the injustices towards the less than privileged faces of beloved people, people whom God called “hers”, not “ours” to do with what we may, but her children, God said, Comfort, O Comfort My People… it has been too long, too much life has been lost, too many bullets have passed this way, too much judgement, too much hatred and too much ignorance, pride and self righteousness.  Oh, that our privilege might fall to the ground, that captivity might encroach upon the unfettered territories of complacent hearts, unexamined egos and ill-defined self worth… that this highway be lifted up not only in the dessert, not only in lieu of the waterless dry land that does not nourish, but where life comes to wither and fade, but that justice comes to the places most beautiful, where the illusion of abundance is rich and where growth is steady and the patriarchy lush and where fields of fortune are ripe for the taking… that a highway might violate all that grows here in vain, that justice might trample upon privilege and crush those who perpetuate this god forsaken system we call “white, policy, law…privilege”.  

I know when we hear these words, sit uncomfortably with these metaphors of hope for justice for all, read these words from the author of Mark’s gospel, “The Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of Man,” and hear the prophet crying out in the dessert “prepare the way of the Lord”, and find a connection much to easily to this metaphorical dessert highway that we can only scarcely imagine as much in our reality that has become a desolate wasteland, a broken order with discriminate value placed upon lives as in a board game with pawns and players that move at our disposal… we find ourselves wanting to just start over, I know I do, to turn the page and see a new beginning or better yet an alternate ending to what has unfolded in these last days.  

But I tell you, If anyone was tired of being the messenger, if anyone was ready to give up and let the people be- who they were going to be… it was this prophet called Isaiah whom God called to basically preach to a wall, to a people committed to killing each other, burning and slaying, lying and beating, eating and devouring everything in sight.  

Sometimes I think the only thing we know is “war”… our history tells us that in order for big changes to occur, for there to be a real “new beginning” people have to die, and lots of people… new leadership has to take over, new faces and voices have to lead… blood has to be shed.  And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but how long O Lord, will this war continue?  I hope and pray we’re not waiting until we finally see that the missiles of racism and the guns of hypocrisy are merely stones lining the battle field…and that what we are really saying is that Selma, and Birmingham, Atlanta, Ferguson, Orlando, New York, Chicago, Durham… are just part of history, and we are going to just sit by and let things unfold as they are meant to?  

God said, “cry out!”  Do you have the courage to march, to prepare the way, my friends?  Or are you still stuck in the conversation, asking “of what shall I cry?”  Are you busy making excuses about why you cannot and will not raise your voice that others might hear, that justice might roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream?  Those people- they’re grass, you say… they won’t listen…I can’t make them change…so why bother?    

Well, you’re right, you can’t… but thank God we serve a Holy incarnate God, a baby soon to be born in a manger… who is ready to be the Good News, again, and again…in and through us.

But God said, the grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord stands forever.  Thanks be to God.  Amen and Amen. 

Sermon: Advent 1B "Gate A-4"

Dr. Gail O’Day, writes that “[Advent is a season in which time is measured not linearly as in the rest of the world, but cyclically as the church both re-imagines] God’s already accomplished in-breaking into the world in the incarnation (Jesus), and the not yet complete triumph of God’s eschatalogical age (return of Christ).  From the beginning of its practice in 5th century Europe, Advent had a dual focus and purpose - to prepare joyfully for the first coming of the incarnate Lord and to prepare penitently for the second coming and God’s impending judgement.  To “prepare the way of the Lord” simultaneously, then, attends to these two dimensions of God’s entry into the world.”  

“The connection between time and story”, writes O’Day, “is definitional for the liturgical year.  The movement of time enacts the story of salvation history.  Liturgical time and story move cyclically, rather than linearly allowing the church to annually reimagine its life in relationship to the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  The church does not calculate its liturgical life in terms of the accumulated passing of days, nor as a series of anniversaries of key events in our past…”

but with the anticipated birth, God incarnate in the baby Jesus, the life and work of Christ, the prophetic witness to the anticipated death of Christ, and the promise of the age to come in the return & eternal reign of Christ… each year, the narrative is re-introduced, and we are invited to live into both the present power of each season’s testimony, as well as the reality of the future outcomes that the present is leading us towards, the ultimate reign of Christ, the eschatalogical vision of Advent.  

Scottish Theologian William Barclay once said that “There are two great days in a person's life - the day we are born and the day we discover why.”  

This Advent Season we are invited to “discover” or “re-discover” why!  The Mark 24 text has traditionally been interpreted as a “preparation” text, getting ready for Jesus, anticipating what’s next, preparing the house, the meal, the tree, the yard, the lights, the presents, even the Advent Calendar encourages us to move from one day to the next…looking to the future as an ultimate reality for redemption and salvation.  

I think, however, rather than being fixated on the anticipation of what is to come, on time’s passing we are invited to discover a new way of orienting time, and ourselves to the passing of such time. Perhaps preparing joyfully for the first coming of the incarnate Lord and penitently for the second coming  means taking a step outside of our linear, finite experiences and finding the places in our lives where time stands still: when laughter and play, and the joyous making of moments are as palpable as our hearts beating, one beat after the other… tic toc, tic toc… O’Day says, “Advent resets the church’s clock, and invites us to participate in this understanding of time which is completely contrary to the contemporary notion that measures time and achievement by what is accomplished and completed” rathern than by what simply unfolds.  

BBC News did a story on Caesium back in October that was all about the passage of time, and the evolution of timekeeping in civilized society and the progressive moves towards the need to synchronize and measure time.  The findings indicate that In 1967, the measurement of “time” as we know it dramatically shifted.  In that year, the official international standard second was redefined based on replacing the element used in the measurement of time- or atomic clocks, from quartz to caesium. Thus, caesium is the chemical element that has redefined time itself...in the modern world… “The truth is that, until about 175 years ago, it was the sun that defined time. Wherever you were, high noon was high noon, and on a clear day a quick glance up into the sky or down at a sundial told you everything you needed to know.”  Time was measured cyclically as in the natural progression from darkness to light, to darkness again.  

But, as the railway was becoming a regular part of an advancing society, keeping railway and international time, was becoming more and more a necessity- to keeping trains on schedule and literally avoiding train wrecks… so as is the case with most technological advancements we took “time” into our own hands , and re-oriented ourselves to time that could be measured, all the way down to a millionth of a second.  

Before the use of Caesium in clocks satellite navigation was impossible. GPS satellites carry synchronised caesium clocks that enable them collectively to triangulate your position and work out where on earth you are at any given time. What would we do without GPS satellite?  Hmmm, perhaps be anonymous for 30 minutes out of our days?  Take a walk without google, twitter, your mother knowing where you are at all times?  Find that our moments are oriented by experiences rather than the minute hand on a clock?  

Palestinian American poet, Naomi Shihab Nye shares a poem she calls Gate A-4 which beautifully illustrates this kind of time re-orientation that I hope we will each consider.    

“Gate A-4 By Naomi Shihab Nye:

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement: “If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.” Well— one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,” said the flight agent. “Talk to her . What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly. “Shu-dow-a, shu-bid-uck, habibti? Stani schway, min fadlick, shu-bit-se-wee?” The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late, who is picking you up? Let’s call him.”

We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies— little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts— from her bag and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single traveler declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo— we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.

Then the airline broke out free apple juice and two little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they were covered with powdered sugar too. And I noticed my new best friend— by now we were holding hands— had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate— once the crying of confusion stopped— seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.

This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.”

Friends, we are all too ready to take time into our own hands, to look through the people around us, over and under the opportunities before us to be still, to sit beside someone, to buy someone’s lunch- someone who wouldn’t eat otherwise, to put our phones and ipads down, to share a cookie, to simply chat or pass the time with a friend, instead we work incessantly towards perfection and precision, towards limitless discoveries and solutions that always lead to finite results.  Even with our most advanced scientists working in the field of time measurement, we find that caesium too, is finite, and unable to fully capture the passage of time without error.  Maybe the Advent message is not about counting down the days to Christmas or Epiphany, or even managing to come to church every Sunday this season?  Perhaps the heart of what we need to hear is exactly what is written on the page:  

But the exact day and hour?  No one knows that, writes Mark, not even heaven’s angels, not even the son.  Only God knows.

This Advent season we are invited to re-imagine ourselves as part of this  life-giving narrative, to see our stories within the broader story of HOPE and lift it up for others to see… to look up at the sun and remember who we are and upon whose ground we stand…

Understanding that this story is, in fact, laden with labor pangs, and unexpected interruptions, with well charted plans gone ary, with showing up late, and staying too long, with missed opportunities and squabbled moments, and yes with train wrecks here and there, with hurry and haste, with luls and isolation, with joys too many to count and sorrows that are immeasurable.  But This story is our story, the story our God is not afraid to enter into- time and time again, to make a home within, to create room for love to grow and forgiveness to be born anew.  This story is never complete, but always beginning again, never finite, yet fully imagined for us.  This story is the most mysterious and yet familiar to those of us who have journeyed this path together, to those of us whom have taken different routes, but time and time again find ourselves coming back together, for those of us who have fallen down along the way, and for those of us who have dared to stand up again.  Today, I urge you to claim your place in the story, to walk with sun in your periphery, to gaze up at the moon, to take notice of the stars falling from the sky, to see your own existence in each new leaf that is birthed upon the fig tree.  

When “‘the sun will be darkened,

   and the moon will not give its light;

25 the stars will fall from the sky,

   and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’[a

“At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.”   May it be so, this day and every day! Amen.