Who are you calling a hypocrite? 8/21/2016

Year C, Pentecost 14                                                          
Luke 13:10-17                                                            

            If you were here last week and recall the Gospel reading, you will know that this is our 2^nd week in a row of Jesus calling the religious leaders hypocrites.  It is easy to villainize the Jewish religious leaders---the Pharisees.  That has been done for millennia and unfortunately has led to considerable anti-Jewish sentiment.  I am not sure that it is fair to beat up on the Pharisees.  I will admit that as a religious leader, I take it a tad personally.  I cringe a little every time I hear Jesus call someone out for being a hypocrite.  That is what he is doing…he is calling them out—in front of everyone. 

            This was the Jewish Sabbath at the local synagogue.  Everyone in the town was present.  While Jesus had no official standing in the community that we know of, he must have been fairly well respected as he was allowed to teach in the synagogue on the Sabbath.  While he had a certain amount of authority, he was still expected to follow the laws of the Jewish faith. These laws were essential to the faith. No matter how great a teacher, preacher or healer he was…he still had to follow the laws.  One of the really important laws was that you did not work on the Sabbath.  That wasn’t just any rule or law--that was a commandment.

            When we hear the word Sabbath, we think of going to church, relaxing a little, maybe having a lazy day at home. That does not mean that we do any of those things, but we assume that is the goal.  When God told us to rest on the 7^th day, surely that is what he had in mind…binge watching Netflix all day.  Not quite.

One of the reasons that the fourth commandment mandated that people keep the Sabbath was to recognize that the Hebrew people were no longer slaves and thus no longer forced to work every day.  Moses delivered the 10 Commandments after the exodus.  The Hebrew people were released from bondage and free to rest.  God was demanding not only that the people who were listening rest from their labor, but that they make sure that their servants don’t work.  It’s a justice issue.  The nice thing about the Blue laws (where businesses were closed on Sundays) was not just that church attendance was higher but that these forced closures allowed everyone to have a day off…everyone.  

That might explain why the Pharisee was a little upset.  He was not against someone being healed.  There were 6 other days that Jesus could have healed this woman.  Why did Jesus have to do it on the one day he was not supposed to?  Now you might think there should be some wiggle room in the commandments, especially given this particular situation. 

There was. That was why Jesus called the leader a hypocrite.  He was reminding the Pharisee that they already did work on the Sabbath when they untied their oxen and led them to the manger for water.  You would not deny your animal water just because that would cause some work.  Why then would you withhold healing from someone who so desperately needed it? The Pharisee was a hypocrite because he was making an exception for a purpose that made his life easier, but refusing to make an exception for another person whose life was exceptionally hard.

The Pharisee seems unreasonable, but I bet we all have little rules in our life that we don’t break.  Some of them are really important rules that have important reasons.  Some of them were important once, but are no longer relevant.  Yet we follow them because it is habit.  Think about your rules.  It might be that you always make your bed, or you always wear a jacket and a tie to church, or you always wash your face at night.  You could skip a day and it would not kill you.  But what I always worry about is the slippery slope.  Once you break the rule once, there is a good chance you will break it again.  Then it is no longer a rule, it’s a recommendation and recommendations are very easy to ignore.

I believe this is what the Pharisee was worried about.  He was worried that we would start making so many exceptions that the commandment would no longer be relevant.  People would forget what the purpose of it was---that it was not just about rest, it was about justice.  That is exactly what happened. The Sabbath is now a quaint memory. 

That’s why I feel for the Pharisee.  I can see that slippery slope all over the place and it scares me.  I see Jesus’ point as well.  We have tons of rules in the church.  Most of them have really good reasons behind them. Some of them were originally based on practical needs but those needs changed and we kept the rules because they became tradition.  Do you know why some churches have rails around the altar?  Hundreds of years ago, there would be dogs that would wander through the church.  The rail kept out the dogs.  Now the rail gives us a place to kneel so that we can be in community around the altar. Having this rail has become a rule for us.  People would be in an uproar if we took it out.  The rail is one of our unwritten rules.

But we also have lots of written rules in the church.  We call them canon law.  We have rules in the Book of Common Prayer.  They are called rubrics.  Do you know why we finish the wine at the end of the service instead of pouring the dregs in the bushes? Page 409 of the prayer book tells us that the sacrament must be reverently consumed by the clergy and communicants.  That makes sense to me because it’s a sacrament.  It’s the body and blood of Christ. Yet there are some rules that do not make sense to me and sometimes I wonder why we keep doing them…why it all matters.  On the one hand I see that slippery slope that the Pharisee was worried about.  On the other I hear Jesus calling me a hypocrite.

Why does all this matter? Often times, rules (whether they are written or not) cause us to exclude people and things.  They give us excuses not to change, not to take risks.  They keep us isolated.  There was once a church rule that African Americans could not sit in the same pews as a white person.  That’s not in the Bible.  It was a rule created by people.  You might think, ok, well that seems like a good way to judge, we’ll follow the rules in the Bible.  There was a long standing church law that women could not be ordained.  That rule came from a Bible passage.  It’s tricky isn’t it?

However, I do believe that there are guides to help us interpret the laws of our church.  Holy Scripture provides an awesome guide.  If we read it literally, we will find a lot of rules.  If we read it in community with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we will find the same rules but we will discover ways to determine what is and what is not truly critical to our faith. 

The most important guide is Jesus.  Some people like to portray Jesus as this big rule breaker who thumbed his nose at authority.  He didn’t break the rules; he reinterpreted them.  Thankfully he provided some divine guidance while he was still on earth.  When someone asked him what the most important commandment was, he responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” He interpreted everything through a lens of love.  He healed the woman because he had compassion for her.  He could not let her go one more day in agony…not one more day.  That was what the Pharisee failed to see.  For him, the laws became more important than the people they were created for.

It is vital that we as a church look at our written and unwritten rules and traditions.  We look at them through a lens of love for God and our neighbor.  If we open ourselves up to that exercise of seeing things through a lens of love,  our church will become more open, loving, and authentic.  Because when Jesus calls out the hypocrites.  I don’t want to be the one he is looking at.      

August 14, 2016: Divisive Jesus?

Year C, Pentecost 13                                     
Luke 12:49-56                                                

            When I read this Gospel passage, the following questions struck me, “Why didn’t I take my vacation this week? How come Mark got to preach on treasure and heart and I got stuck with angry Jesus? What’s so wrong with preaching on a Psalm once in a while?” The truth is, I actually love the idea of preaching these kinds of texts.  I love reading commentaries for hours on possible explanations.  But when my research is over and my fingers hover over the key board and the cursor blinks mockingly at me—I go back to those earlier questions. Why am I not on vacation? Part of my current problem is that I have been preaching a lot about the Body of Christ and the need to look past the things that divide us.  You know what is really hard for a preacher---when Jesus actually contradicts you.  It does not look good.  I would say my number one rule in preaching is: “Don’t contradict Jesus.”  Thus, after months of preaching about breaking through the walls that divide us, we have this passage.

            Jesus said, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”  It gets worse from there.  After that he goes into unnecessary detail about how families will be divided…because of him. 

Jesus is our Lord and Savior.  He came to free us from our sins.  He came to show us how to love.  He came to forgive us.  He never said he would be nice about it.  We have this gauzy water color version of Jesus in our heads.  It’s the same one we saw in our children’s Bibles.  Yes, Jesus is a compassionate and forgiving.  He also said some really difficult things.  He was trying to change the world and he did not have much time to do it. At times, he was very harsh with people.

            Just a few chapters before this one, we heard that Jesus, “set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  This was a point of transition.  It tells us that he was preparing for his death. While he was all powerful and divine, he had taken on  human form.  As a human, he knew that he would suffer great physical and emotional pain.  When he said, “I came to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism (which in this context meant death) and what stress I am under until it is completed!”  A lot of people hear this and think that Jesus is excited about the judgment that will befall humanity.  It does say that he brought fire…but the fire that he brings is the same fires that burns him.  It is his own death and he is closer to it every day.  Of course he wishes it was already kindled.  Of course he’s a little stressed about it. Imagine living for years knowing that you were going to have a gruesome death.  Imagine what it would feel like every day as that moment got closer and closer. 

            That makes pretty good sense, but what about this whole bringing division instead of peace?  We call him the Prince of Peace.  The Prince of Peace should not be talking like this.  While there is no easy answer for this, I believe there is an explanation.  Notice that Jesus does not say, I am bringing division and I could not be more pleased about.  He does not say that he wants the world divided.  He just knows it will be.  When Jesus was born into this world, it was already horribly broken.  People thought the Messiah would be a quick fix.  He would come and say some nice things, do a couple of miracles and all of sudden all would be well. Jesus knew that it would be much harder than that.  God tried the easy way ---he have us paradise in the Garden of Eden.  It did not last long. 

While Jesus accomplished a great deal in the three years he was in public ministry, it didn’t make much of a difference.  People were still insistent on overthrowing the Romans.  For many people in Israel, peace was a world where Israel was the most powerful nation.  In their eyes, peace was not about justice, it was about who had the power.  That is similar to how we operate today.  There would be peace if the United States was in charge. I find myself longing for the days when we were the only superpower. That is the kind of peace that I believe Jesus wasn’t bringing.  He wanted peace that was built on justice and mercy, not power. 

There is a blessing we use at the end of the service.  “The peace of God which passes all understanding will guard you hearts and minds in Christ.” That is the peace that Jesus wanted—that he still wants, but it was beyond their understanding then and it continues to be misunderstood by us today.  That is why we still say that blessing at the end of the service.  In our best moments, we yearn to understand that peace.  Jesus also knew the only way to teach people about this peace that passes all understanding was to humble himself in front of those who had the supposed power, humble himself to the point of death.  In order for that lesson of real peace to sink in, his body was broken.  Jesus had to break so people would finally understand what it was to be whole, to be holy.  We had to witness him break himself for us.

            Yet even after that ultimate sacrifice, Jesus knew that we would be even more divided than before.  When the Gospel of Luke was written (about 40 years after his death) the Jews who chose to follow Jesus were ostracized.  They could no longer worship in their synagogues.  Much like Jesus predicted, families were torn apart.  This is not a pretty picture, and it is not meant to be. 

            I started by saying that by speaking about the importance of unity and the Body of Christ, I had contradicted these words of Jesus.  I was being a little overly dramatic. Jesus did not like division any more than any of us.  But he knew that when you follow him with authenticity and passion, you are going to tick some people off.  Being a Christian is not about pleasing people.  It’s not about going with the current.  It’s going against it.  Being a Christian isn’t easy.  It’s not just about showing up to church once awhile (although that is a really good start).  It’s about making Jesus your number one priority.  Every decision is made in the context of what it is to be a follower of Christ.  I can guarantee you that if you take that road, it is not easy. I fail in some way almost every day and that is when I have the courage to try.  The worst for me is when I do not even have the courage to try.  Failing is so much better than capitulation.  At least we try.      

            In the very beginning of the Gospel of Luke, Mary and Joseph brought their infant son to the temple to be presented.  A holy man named Simeon was there and he immediately blessed them and said, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed… —and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” Talk about a mixed blessing! From the very beginning, Jesus’ own parents knew that their son would bring conflict to the world and even pain to his mother.  But they also knew that the pain would be temporary and that in the end there would be salvation for all. 

After we adopted Joshua, every parent told us how wonderful and hard it is to be a parent.  No one said, “It’s really not worth all the pain and agony.” We should treat our God with the same love we have for our children, our parents, our partners, our best friends...   We should make him just as much as a priority. God already gave us everything.  He asks the same of us, everything.

Understanding God: July 23, 2016

Year C, Pentecost 10                                     

Hosea 1:2-10                                                  

 

            Our nation and our world is divided in ways I never imagined it could be.  I know it is not the worst it has ever been, but it is definitely the worst that I have ever seen.  This may sound naïve, but I believe that we would be a lot gentler with one another if we understood the pain that each one of us struggles with.  We all walk around carrying burdens and sometimes/often those burdens are magnified because we are convinced that no one could possibly understand what we are going through.  Instead of trying to explain ourselves or listening to someone else, we cluster with people who are like us, or we bear those burdens alone and that makes it that much harder.

            As much as we misunderstand one another, it is nothing compared to how we misunderstand God.  That’s not necessarily our fault.  God keeps things a little mysterious, especially in the Old Testament when people were not able to say his name or look in his the face.  There is something sacred and holy about mystery, but it also makes it harder to love at times.  Jesus told parables like we heard in the Gospel reading today to help us understand God and his love for us.  Jesus used his own life to allow us to know God. 

In the Old Testament, before Jesus was born, God used the prophets to help us understand God.  The difference between these prophets and Jesus is that Jesus was God in the flesh.  Jesus understood God thoroughly as he was one with God the father.  The prophets were human, flawed humans, sinful humans….not that different from us.  Yes they were holy and wise. They had special relationships with God as they were especially chosen by God to deliver his message, but they were still human--which meant that they struggled to understand God’s ways and help us, God’s people, understand and know God.

            Because God knew how hard it was for the prophets to understand God and share his message, he got creative at times. This reading from Hosea is a perfect example of that creativity.  It’s a troublesome reading.  The term whoredom is not something we are used to hearing in church or polite company.  In fact, the entire premise of God’s request is profoundly disturbing.  He requires his brand new prophet recruit to: “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” There are more problems with that statement that I have time to address.  It’s not fair to Hosea.  It’s not fair to this “wife of whoredom” who is now being forced to marry Hosea.  And it is certainly not fair to the children who will be forever marked as displays of God’s anger. 

            God not only told Hosea who to marry, he told him and his new wife what to name the children.  The first was Jezreel….which seems like a perfectly fine name.  It means God plants and refers to a lovely city.  However anyone in that time who knew their history would know that horrible atrocities were committed in Jezreel.  It would be like naming a child Hiroshima.  Every time his name was said aloud people would be reminded of the horrible violence that God’s people had committed.  The 2^nd child was named Lo-ruhamah.  Now, if God had just gone with ruhamah, that would have been a lovely name as it means compassion and mercy.  But God added the prefix Lo which meant that the compassion and mercy was negated.  It would be like naming your child Faithless instead of Faith.  Wait…it gets worse. The third child was names Lo-ammi. Once again you will note the prefix Lo which means this is a negative.  This child will remind the people that they are no longer God’s people. God has officially given up on them.

            This all sounds cruel…and a little crazy, does it not?  What person in their right mind would want to be a prophet if this is what it entailed?  Was God’s sole intention to punish Hosea?  First of all, Hosea did not have a choice.  He was called by God to be a prophet and so he would follow God’s advice wherever it led him. And no, God was not trying to punish Hosea.  He was using him as a tool.  God needed Hosea to understand the depth of his pain.  We don’t think about that.  We don’t think that we could hurt God.  We do.  Again and again, we betray God.  We break his heart.  That is hard to imagine…that we could hurt God—the all powerful God’s feelings. 

            Yet we, God’s people have hurt him time and time again.  The people of Israel just could not make up their mind.  One minute they were following the one true God, Yahweh.  Then when their crops needed rain and their prayers to Yahweh were not being answered, they turned to Baal, the god of rain.  One of the things that really ticks off God in the Old Testament is worshipping other gods.  It hurt God on a deep and profound level, and he wanted people to understand that hurt…not just to understand it, but to feel it.  What better way to do that than to force his prophet to marry a woman who would repeatedly cheat on him.  Worse yet, Hosea would know that she was going to cheat on him before going into the marriage and still not be able to help but love her.   He would take her back again and again just like God has taken his people back again and again.

            It would seem from these 8 verses, that God was finished.  This was his good bye.  But that is the crazy thing about God…he just can’t say good bye.  Even when he says he’s done, he’s not really done.  Right after he tells Hosea to name his 3^rd child, “not my people,” he says, “Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it shall be said to them, ‘Children of the living God.’”

            This is only the end of chapter 1. There are 13 more chapters of Hosea.  Hosea and his wife went back and forth between love and betrayal just as God went back and forth on what to do with this group of people who had repeatedly betrayed him and taken advantage of him.  The part of God who was a just and righteous God knew that these people had to be punished, possibly even cut off from his love.  But his love for them overcame his need for justice.  As Christians, we refer to that idea as grace.  Grace is when God’s mercy and love overcomes the need for justice and righteousness. 

            God will not ask the same thing of us that he did of Hosea.  With Jesus, God brought us a new model of what it is to love and be loved.  However, even with Jesus’ life and death, we will continue to misunderstand God and misunderstand one another.  It’s inevitable to some degree, but that does not mean we have the luxury of not trying—of staying in our own little silos. We cannot continually bemoan the ignorance and cruelty of others before we try to get to know one another. If we are all truly children of the living God, then we all carry pieces of God. When we try to understand and know one another, we get a little closer to knowing God.

We are the body of Christ. It is a strange and eclectic body---but there is beauty in that diversity and the strange parts will seem less strange the more we get to know one another.  We are the body of Christ.  We cannot give up on people because they vote for a different candidate or because we cannot agree whether it is blue lives, black lives, or all lives.  We have to continue to listen to one another.  Much like God refuses to give up on us, we cannot give up on one another.  We are the body of Christ.  Let’s start acting like we actually believe that.    

Jesus' triumph over fear: July 10, 2016

Year C, 8 Pentecost                                                               
Luke 10:25-37                                                                        

            Imagine that you are driving through a dangerous area of town.  You make sure your doors are locked.  You might even drive a little faster than normal.  You have your cell phone right next to you so you can call for help.  It’s a dangerous area and you cannot be too careful.  Now imagine that you are in that same part of town and you are walking alone.  You are walking fast.  Your head is down and you are not making eye contact.  Your hand is clutching something that can be used as a weapon. As you turn a corner you happen to look up and you see something on the side of the street.  At first you cannot even tell if it is a person because it’s just lying there.   As you get closer, you see it is a person and that person is possibly hurt, but you are really not sure.  You could go check, but you decide it’s probably just someone sleeping.  If it is someone injured, what could you do? You are not a doctor. You keep walking, even faster now.  As you pass by you justify your decision.  What if this person was injured in a crime and that criminal was close by? What if it was a ruse and the person was pretending. Once you got close, he would knock you down and steal your wallet.  The more you think about it, the more you realize that you did the smart thing. Besides, once you get out of this dangerous section of town you will call the police and let them know.  That thought makes you feel better and you keep walking.

            The road to Jericho was a notoriously dangerous road. (It still is.) Most people would have avoided walking it alone. It was windy, which made it difficult to see what was coming ahead.  One never knew what was around the next corner.  It was a place where criminals frequented and often preyed on the weak or the foolish.  Occasionally people would even pretend to be injured so someone would slow down.  Meanwhile their friends would hide nearby and attack the person who stopped to help. This was the kind of road where people walked fast and kept their heads down.  This was the road that Jesus was talking about in the Gospel reading. 

In the story, he mentioned several people who passed by the injured man.  It is easy to pass judgment on these men, assume that they were heartless people. The priest, the Levite…these were not necessarily bad men.  There are all kinds of theories about why they did not stop.  If this was a dead body, the body would be considered unclean and by getting near it, they would have been unclean and would not have been able to perform their priestly duties.  Or perhaps they were in a hurry to get to a meeting about how to improve the road to Jericho and make it safer for travelers.  We don’t know.  But my guess is that it all came down to fear.  They were afraid for their own safety.   They were afraid that they would stop and the person would not want their help or even reject them.  They were afraid of the time it would take out of their day. They were afraid.

            When I first moved to Norfolk, I did not know the area at all.  I moved to an area that was not a super safe section of town.  It was a large apartment complex.  It was loud. There were always car alarms going off.  People were often yelling at one another.  I kept my head down and was not especially friendly.  One night Conor and I were in our apartment and we heard a woman yelling.  I was prepared to ignore her. I assumed she was crazy or just being dramatic.  Then she started yelling for help.  Conor immediately put his shoes on and went to the door.  I did not want him to go for all the reasons I mentioned.  She was probably out of her mind. It might have been a trick.  It was not safe.  He was out there for about 10 minutes and I was terrified. When he came back he said that this woman was beaten by her boyfriend.  She was not seriously injured, but she was scared to walk back to her apartment, so of course Conor accompanied her. I reprimanded him.  What happened if the boyfriend came back?  Did she know where we lived now?  I was terrified.  She was quite literally our neighbor.  Even as I was going through all my fear scenarios I thought about this story of the Good Samaritan and I knew I was being a hypocrite.  I am ashamed of my feelings and my actions on that night.  I let fear keep me from helping someone.

            This past week has been a bloody week in our country.  It has not just been a week, it has been years.  Children shot in their schools, men and women (many of whom are African American men)  killed on the street or in their cars, police officers gunned down, gay and lesbian people shot in a night club.  This violence and hatred is almost incomprehensible.  I believe that the source of this violence, hatred, division and mistrust is fear.  It is fear of the unknown.  It is fear for our own safety.  It is fear of things that we cannot understand.  It is fear.  To some degree fear keeps us safe.  It keeps us from taking unnecessary risks and harming ourselves and others.  This fear we are now experiencing is having the opposite effect. Our need to keep ourselves safe and comfortable is hurting our neighbors-- our brothers and sisters in Christ. 

            This story that Jesus told, the story of the Good Samaritan is a story about a man who risked his own safety and well-being to care for someone he had never met and would probably never meet again.  Jesus told this story to answer a question by an inquisitive lawyer.  The question was, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  The lawyer knew the answer and Jesus knew he knew the answer, so he turned the question back to the lawyer.  The lawyer correctly answered:  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”  Jesus responded, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

Here is the irony.  When the lawyer asked how to identify the neighbor (so as to achieve eternal life) Jesus told a story about a man who cared for his neighbor by risking his life. In order to live, to truly live, we have to be willing to take risks for other people. The Good Samaritan risked everything to care for this man on the side of the street, this man who could have easily been an enemy.

            Taking risks to care for our neighbor might not always look like it does in this story.  It probably won’t require risking our life.  It could be about risking our comfort, our feelings, our pride…. It could be allowing ourselves to experience other people’s disdain and even hatred or simply opening ourselves up to experience their pain and their sorrow. 

The story of Jesus Christ is a story of a man who allowed himself to be hated….allowed himself to be scapegoated…allowed himself to experience the depth of people’s anger and fear and pain.  And he returned all of that with love, a love that would seem weak to most of us now.  That was the only way to break the cycle of violence. 

Two thousand years ago God sent his only son to this earth because he realized that punishing human sin with violence was not working.  God could no longer merely punish people for their sins.  Instead he put a mirror up to all of humanity to show them what their sin was doing.  Jesus was that mirror.  In that mirror (if they were willing to look), people saw what sin was doing to the Prince of Peace, the God of Love.  It tortured and killed him.  But not for long.  Jesus transformed the violence and the darkness and the hatred.  He transformed it to love.  

Death could not defeat the Prince of Peace and the God of Love.  Human hatred and agony could not defeat him.  So why are we acting now as though we have been defeated by hate and anger?  Jesus already won this war.  He taught us this lesson--that the only way to live, the only way to experience victory over death is to refuse to let fear motivate us and control us. 

            Perhaps you are thinking, but that was 2000 years ago.  It was a different time….different people. NO. That time is now.  We are those people.  Jesus is still that mirror for us, if only we are willing to look, really look.  That is why we come to church every Sunday and why we celebrate Holy Communion.  We look into the mirror that is Jesus Christ.  We look upon the cross. We talk about how Jesus was broken for us, so that we can be whole.  Jesus defeated hate and death.  It is up to us now to live in to that victory and to proclaim that victory from the mountain tops. 

Disciples who are Desperate: June 26, 2016

Year C, Pentecost 6                                                               
Luke 9:51-62                                                                          

            People often struggle with this passage from the Gospel of Luke.  Jesus seems a little insensitive.  He’s not quite as insensitive as the disciples who want to command fire to come down from heaven and consume an entire city because they were inhospitable, but still insensitive.   In this story, he had three people who wanted to follow him.  The first person said that he would follow him wherever he went. Jesus did not say no, but his response was less than affirming.  He said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  The second person wanted to follow Jesus but wanted to bury his father first.  Jesus replied, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.”  The third agreed to follow Jesus but wanted to say goodbye to his loved ones first.  To that Jesus essentially replied, “You can’t follow me when you are constantly looking back.  When proclaiming the Kingdom of God, you have to look forward.”

            The response that troubles most people is to the man who wants to bury his father. Anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one knows how important the grieving process is.  And even if we set aside the emotional needs, what about the very practical needs?  Someone has to make the necessary arrangements for a funeral.   It makes perfect sense that it would be the son who would do that.  Why would Jesus be so unreasonable as to not let someone bury his father?

            In order to answer that question, we need to take a couple steps back to the beginning of the reading.  “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  It seems like a benign enough sentence; but it was anything but that.  Remember what happened in Jerusalem: that is where Jesus was crucified.  For the author of Luke, this sentence marked a turning point for Jesus. If it was a movie, the music would have changed and the screen would have darkened.  There would be a close up of Jesus’ face and things might switch to slow motion, because slow motion always adds drama. This was Jesus’ walk to his death.  It is when things got very serious.  When the first man said that he would follow Jesus wherever he was going, Jesus knew that he had no idea what he was talking about.  Even the disciples who had been following him all along did not understand where this journey would lead them. 

            For Jesus, it wasn’t just that things got more serious at this point-- there was an urgency to his actions.  He could not wait for people to say good bye.  He could not wait for people to make funeral arrangements.   His task was to follow the will of his father.  Nothing else mattered in comparison.  Jesus understood the importance of his mission, the urgency of his journey, but it must have been difficult for him to convince others of that.  Even when he started talking to his disciples about his death, they did not really understand it.  They did not understand it until he was arrested.

            About five years ago, I was able to take a month long sabbatical.  I had been studying something called the Emerging Church for several years at that point.  It is essentially a movement in modern Christianity to revitalize the church and find new ways of being the church.  What I learned was that the roots of this emerging church were in England.  The Church of England had begun working on initiatives like this decades before and had even started funding the process long before the Episcopal Church even acknowledged that there was a need.  I was able to visit places in England that had been engaged in this kind of work. They had an entire facility devoted to all kinds of church revitalization. 

I sat down with one of the leaders of the organization as he described all of the things they were doing.  At one point I said, “I don’t understand why you are so far ahead of the American Church in this conversation.” He said, “We hit rock bottom before you did. The church over here has been in decline far longer than the church in America.  You just aren’t desperate enough yet.  However, it looks like you are getting there.”  This past year at General Convention, the church dedicated millions of dollars to exploring new ways for the church to grow and thrive in this day and age (essentially engaging in the very same things the Church of England has been doing for the last 10-20 years). It would appear that we finally got desperate enough. 

            Sometimes that is what it takes for there to be change in the life of a person or an institution.  There needs to be a sense of urgency and desperation.  We have to be prepared to make our faith and even our church a priority in our lives.  You can see it in the history of St. John’s as well. It was not until the church was in ruins after the Civil War when people discovered a renewed energy for the church.  The church had been in decline since the American Revolution, but it was only after the Civil War when people got serious.  The need was obvious as the building was complete rubble.  Our building is not in ruins, but our church is facing hard times in more ways than one.  There needs to be an infusion of energy and hope for it to have chance to make it to year 500, or even 420.  We can’t assume that someone else will do it, someone with more time and more money.  It is dependent on each one of us to make following Jesus our priority. 

Unlike Jesus, we are not marching to our death, but we should still be marching somewhere, with that same determination that Jesus had.  There comes a point in our lives when we have to decide what our priorities are---what really matters in our lives.  What we will see time and time again is that how we spend our time, points to our priorities.

            We don’t need to look very hard to know that the need in our lives and in our world for disciples of Jesus is urgent and desperate.  In our baptism we have been saved, but it is up to us become disciples, to live into that call.  There is no better time than now to commit to follow Jesus. 

Gratitude that gushes: June 12, 2016

Year C, Pentecost 4                                                               
Luke 7:36-8:3                                                                         

            Most of you are aware that my husband and I have a new addition to our family.  We have been in the adoption process for over 2 years.  However, a few months ago we got a call that there was an emergency placement and we had 1 day to get to the hospital where this baby was born (which was about day’s journey).  There was not a lot of time to prepare of even to think through things. The birth mother had chosen us that day.  We knew very little about her or the baby who awaited us.  In truth, the birth mother was just a name on a sheet of paper.  While we certainly felt a level of gratitude to her, it was nothing particularly overwhelming.  Then we met Joshua.  We saw this tiny and perfect baby and we were both overwhelmed with gratitude, not just to God, but to this woman who carried him in her body for 9 months.

            One of the small pieces of information we had about her was why she decided to choose adoption.  She wrote that she could not raise him and she wanted to “bless another family.”  Those were the words that she wrote on the form we read.  That was why she chose adoption.  At first she did not want to meet us.  Then at the very last minute she changed her mind.  It was probably good that it was the last minute or I imagine I would have gone crazy worrying about what to say and what to do.  Instead, we had about two minutes to consider our words.  We walked in and she smiled this huge smile and hugged us.  We thanked her profusely, but we were very aware of how inadequate those thank yous were.  She said that it was a blessed day because we were the people who were meant to raise this baby and she felt joy because of it.  We promised her he would be beloved by many and that we would spend the rest of our lives loving him.  Then with tears in our eyes we said good bye. 

            I thought of that moment when I read the Gospel for today.  The story is about a woman who was overcome with emotion.  We know that she was a sinner because Jesus refers to her many sins.  Some people believe that Jesus forgave her because she showered him with her tears and anointed him with oil.  She honored him in ways that displayed her love.  However, many people (myself included) believe that her outpouring of love was a result of the forgiveness she had already received.  In other words, she had already met Jesus.  She had already been forgiven and this was her way of showing gratitude for this forgiveness. 

            If she went in weighed down by sins, begging for forgiveness, I think things would have happened differently.  She would have been tentative and unsure of herself.  She might have washed his feet, but not with her tears. She had oil with her and that was not an uncommon way to honor people, but it was usually placed on the head, not the feet.  But her actions, washing his feet with her tears, drying them with her hair—these seem unplanned, unchoreographed.  I am sure there are some people who can cry on demand, but I doubt that’s what happened.  She was simply overwhelmed with gratitude.  For years she had been weighed down with sin. 

Given the critical reaction of the Pharisee, people knew that she was a sinner. However, because of Jesus, she was free.  Obviously most people did not realize she had been forgiven.  They did not accept that Jesus could free her of these sins.  But for her, it was not about what other people thought. She knew that she had been forgiven and she knew the person who had changed her life forever.  Perhaps she had a little speech prepared. She was going to go in this house full of respectable people and carry her head high.  With respect and decorum, she would thank Jesus, anoint his head and then quietly slip out.  Then she saw him and she was so overcome, she dropped to her knees and wept. There were no words that were adequate for the grace and love that she experienced.  Her tears were so numerous that they washed his feet. When she realized that she was soaking the feet of the man who had saved her, she dried them with her hair because she didn’t have a towel.   Every part of her mind, body and soul was dedicated to this display of love and gratitude.  Jesus was so moved that he pronounced forgiveness again so that everyone would hear.  Then he commended her on her faith in front of the pillars of the faith.

            For a long time, I thought I deserved to have a baby. I thought this is the natural order of things. You get married, you have kids.  This is what you do.  Everyone around me was getting pregnant.  I was praying--my whole family was praying.  Despite the fact that I had competent doctors and a supportive husband, my prayers were not answered in the way that I thought they should have been answered.  While my priest mind knew that nothing is really fair in life—that we should be grateful for what we have—that I already had more than I deserved, I could not get past this feeling that life was unfair, that I was being deprived of something that I deserved.  Yet in that hospital, looking at the mother who placed her child in my arms because she wanted to bless me, I realized that this was more than I deserved.  This was love and there was nothing I could say, nothing I could do to properly express the gratitude that she deserved and that God deserved. 

For the first time in my life, I understand what this woman felt.  I even understand what Simon the Pharisee felt to some degree.  He went through life expecting things. He didn’t think he needed forgiveness. He had been good his whole like. He was the one who showed other people how to pray and how to worship. Because of that he could not appreciate this woman’s dramatic display of love. 

I have been the Pharisee in that I have not fully appreciated the grace and love that I have been given. I thought I had earned things fair and square.  I am sure that I will continue experiencing elements of the Pharisee’s entitlement and the woman’s gratitude. I wish that I could have learned this lesson without receiving this amazing miracle.  But I guess that’s not the point.  The point is that when we do find ourselves receiving these expected and unexpected miracles, we remember who deserves our thanks and praise, and we remember that every day. 

Most of us see our lives through a lens of scarcity.  We see what we do not have and what we deserve to have.  Instead, perhaps we could consider those little miracles and gifts that we receive every day---those things we barely notice.  Then when we identify those things or those people, we allow ourselves to gush a little. I pray that we can all find that raw place in our lives that gushes with gratitude---the kind of gratitude that leaves polite people uncomfortable.  

 

Being Good Enough: May 29th, 2016

Year C, Pentecost 2                                                                   
Luke 7:1-10                                                                         

            Before I begin, I am going to provide a little explanation, because I am about to unload some Episcopal jargon on you.  You will note in our Prayer Book that we have two rites.  We essentially have two different versions of the words that we use in the service (our liturgy).  Rite 1 is similar to the 1928 prayer book. Some of you will remember the 1928 prayer book with great fondness, some of you do not know that our prayer book has a date.  The Rite 1 language sounds a little more old fashioned.  It is more penitential, meaning it talks about sin and our need to be forgiven.  We use that rite during Lent and Advent.  Rite 2 is what we use the rest of the time.  I did not grow up with the 1928 prayer book. I became an Episcopalian long after the 1979 prayer book became standard.  Nor did I grow up using the Rite 1 liturgy.  I grew up with the Roman Catholic liturgy, which is pretty similar to our liturgy. 

While I did not grow up with the Rite 1 language, I find myself longing for it at times, especially one prayer in particular that was left out of Rite 2.  It is called the Prayer of Humble Access.  We say it right before we receive the Eucharist.  It starts like this, “We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies.  We are not worthy so much as to gather the crumbs under thy table.”  I think one of the things that appeals to me about this prayer is that it reminds me of one of my favorite prayers in the Catholic Church.  “Lord we are not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and we shall be healed.” [1]

            Both of these prayers reference parts of today’s Gospel story.  In today’s Gospel, we hear a story of a centurion who asks for Jesus’ help with his sick servant.  A centurion is a Roman soldier.  This meant that he was not Jewish.  He was a Gentile.  The Jews and the Gentiles did not get along most of the time.  A Jew could not enter the home of a Gentile nor could a Jew welcome a Gentile into his home. Not only was this man a Gentile, he was a Roman soldier.  He was a member of the army that was oppressing the Jewish people.  It was odd that he was even requesting the assistance of a Jew.  What is even stranger is that he was appealing to his Jewish acquaintances to petition this other Jew.  He was a high ranking official.  He could have just sent some soldiers and had Jesus brought to him.   That is not what he did.

            Already we know that the centurion was unique.  The Jews proclaimed that he was “worthy of having you do this for him.”  According to the Jewish elders, he was worthy not only of Jesus’ presence, but his assistance.   He had been a friend to the Jewish people.  He had even built them a synagogue.  For those reasons, the Jewish elders proclaimed him worthy.  We do not know whether it was the recommendation of the Jewish elders or simply the request of the centurion, but Jesus did not hesitate.  He immediately went to this man’s home.  However,  before Jesus arrived at his home, the centurion sent a message saying, “Lord do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word and my servant will be healed.”  This statement left Jesus amazed.  Jesus was amazed. 

Often times we hear about people being amazed in the Bible.  However, it is usually people being amazed by Jesus…not the other way around. The centurion’s words by themselves don’t seem that amazing.  They were respectful.  They were humble.  But come on- that seems appropriate given that he was speaking to the Son of God and asking for a miracle. 

            I have often heard people express that they are uncomfortable with some of the language of our Rite 1 liturgy, particularly the Prayer of Humble Access.  The statement, “We are not worthy….” brings up all kinds of negative feelings.  It might remind us of our own insecurities.  It might remind us of a Christian somewhere sometime who made us feel bad about ourselves.  Surely, God loves us all unconditionally.  If so why are we using this kind of language?  Why do we have to feel bad about ourselves in order to receive the Eucharist? 

            Here’s the thing.  We aren’t worthy.  By ourselves, without the grace of God, we aren’t worthy.   No one likes to hear that. You are all probably regretting telling me that you missed me the last couple of months if this is what I am going to tell you.  But it’s not about feeling bad about ourselves.  Much like the centurion- it’s about approaching God with humility.  It’s about asking for things instead of expecting them. 

            One of the others words for worthy is sufficient, or enough.  The centurion was admitting to Jesus that he wasn’t quite sufficient to receive Jesus into his home.  This is something that really resonates with me, the idea of not being enough.  I struggle with that often and I don’t think I am the only person who does.   That notion of feeling as though we are not good enough can have a devastating effect on our soul. We are constantly trying to please others and please ourselves.  We have to be better than others.  We have to be better than we were the day before. As a result we are constantly disappointed that we aren’t good enough.  We could be so much more content and at peace if we stopped trying to be enough.       

            Now you might be thinking, hey you just told us we are not worthy, what’s the deal?  Here it is. What if we could accept the fact that we are not quite good enough, but that recognizing our unworthiness amazes God?  Let me say that again. What if we could accept the fact that we are not quite good enough, but that recognizing our unworthiness not only pleases God, but amazes God?  We can amaze God not by being good enough, not by being worthy, but simply by displaying humility and admitting that we need God.  Like the centurion we can admit that God has the power to make up for whatever we lack. We are not sufficient without Jesus.  But with Jesus, we are more than enough. 

            Here’s the other amazing thing.  We pray the Prayer of Humble Access right before we receive the body and blood of Christ.  Immediately after we admit that we are not worthy, we kneel at the rail and receive the body and blood of Jesus.  We never say that prayer and skip communion.  Because when we approach Christ with humility, when we ask for his presence in our lives…he always says yes.  Saying that we are not worthy is not about beating ourselves up.  It’s about freeing ourselves so that we can truly appreciate the gift that God has for us.  It creates space in our heart and our souls to receive Jesus.   

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[1] The Roman Catholic Church has changed this portion to better reflect the text.  I use this text as that was what I grew up with.