Professional Hazards: language.

        While it is not intentional, I spend most of my time with other faith-based people.  I'm with my congregation most of my working life (which is a lot of time and includes evening meetings as well as regular day-time hours, and weekends).  Beyond that, I'm part of a couple of clergy groups of other Presbyterian pastors, as well as a local clergy group that is Ecumenical and I serve on a couple of interfaith boards (one to create low-income housing and support services, and one for advocacy for the poor in our community).  Many of my friends and family are also faith people, some of different traditions, some of the same.  But even those that aren't are probably just used to me, my language, the way I present in the world.  It takes a situation in which I'm thrown into "normal" society for me to realize how much of my person has been influenced and affected not only by my role, but by my associations.  

         I was at a party of a family member a couple weeks ago and found myself in a conversation with a person whom I had never met before.  After a few minutes I realized she was giving me a weird look after something I had said.  I think we were talking about how horrible people are behaving in their cars and I responded by saying, "Yes, but I'm working to try to respond more with grace and compassion, to try and spread kindness through a stance of love, even in the face of their rage.  Not easy, but I try." She gave me this weird look and I realized I was using words, phrases and even ideas that were "churchy" or "religious" without even knowing it.  A little while later, she was talking about her struggles with raising her son on her own.  I mentioned that I had parented my children on my own for many years, too.  And then I said, "But as hard as it was at times, I also see the gifts that have come from that particular challenge..." That too received a weird look.  I've done it again, I thought.

          I've found myself reflecting on this ever since, with two very different thoughts.  The first is that, yes, many vocations have language affectations that develop within and around them.  When David reads me some of the posts of people on his Marine's Facebook page, there is definitely a speech pattern and use of specific words that I don't understand, that aren't part of my world, that are unique to that situation of being a Marine.  When he is talking about work (he's an IT guy), he also uses a code that I don't understand.  We all know airline people have definite inflections and speech patterns that are unique to their trade.  Doctors and nurses use a specific vocabulary in normal speech, not just in the office, that usually informs those of us around them that they are medical people.  Musicians have a specific way of talking, and these are different depending on what kind of musician you are.  Clergy aren't immune to this, though I often hate when I hear that kind of speech in other clergy.  I hate it because it often feels phony to me, put-on, a kind of "holier than thou" way of talking that seems judgmental, superior and manipulative.  I feel like when I use it, I'm trying to talk to myself, more than the other, about how I need to be in the world.  But I wonder if it, too, doesn't somehow come across as all the things that I don't like when I hear it in other clergy.  Which brings me to the second point:

        If we don't want to isolate and alienate people, learning to speak in their language is important.  "Churchy" language can be off-putting.  So I've found myself trying to think through ways that maintain my integrity, my truth, and yet are not in the coded, isolating, and sometimes self-righteous language of the church.  "Grace" is a loaded term for people.  Wouldn't it be just as clear to say, "I want to try to pass kindness forward, even when it isn't deserved" rather than saying, "we need to offer them grace" or "we need to reflect love"?  Wouldn't it be better to say, "I know I've learned some things through these hard times" rather than "I see the gifts in the challenges"?  

       I've been uncomfortable with the idea of having different patterns of speech: one for the "insiders" and one for everyone else.  At the same time, words like "grace" which have deep meaning for me, can be uncomfortable for the larger community.  But is the idea of speaking differently in different situations really that strange or novel?  I remember a time I was in seminary when the man I was dating at the time came up from New Mexico for a visit.  After sitting in on a conversation that I had with one of my other seminarians, my then-boy-friend said, "I've never seen this side of you.  I didn't understand what you were saying at all.  You spoke and interacted in a completely different way."  I was surprised by this.  I hadn't realized that I had adjusted or changed my way of talking when I was with other pastoral students than when I was with him.  We do adjust our topics of conversation and even our speech patters relative to whom we are with.

          Ultimately, I find myself reflecting back on Paul's words in 1st Corinthians 9: 19-23 when he says, in essence, "when in Rome, do as the Romans do".   If we want to be able to connect with all kinds of people, if we want to try to build bridges of understanding and community, if we want to work for reconciliation and healing between people, no matter their beliefs, world views, opinions or life-orientations, then being able to communicate in a language that others understand is important.  I also think this means I need to be intentional about being out in the world more, to understand and remember how other people are talking (and not talking).  It's easy to become isolated and comfortable in our own little corners of the world and to fail to build bridges of understanding and reconciliation simply because we have not taken the time to interact with the "other," let alone understand them.  

          I want to be clear that I'm not suggesting that we fail to act with integrity, or that we adjust our beliefs or values based on who we are with.  It also doesn't mean that we fail to speak up against injustice or to fail to engage people whose opinions differ from our own with honesty.  What it does mean is that if we want to bring healing and connection, it is important to start from a common ground.  That common ground begins with how we communicate with one another.  Can we work a little harder to make sure others understand the words and phrases and ideas that we are trying to communicate?  Can we take the time to be intentional about speaking in ways that others understand? Can we seek to use language to connect rather than to isolate, pigeon-hole, separate and alienate those around us?

         I'm working on this.  It's not easy for me.  But I'm working on it.  Part of having integrity for me is trying harder to connect rather than to separate.  And that has to start with the way I present myself and talk to others.  Wish me luck.  

Reformation Sunday - 10/27/19

Job 42:1-17

Mark 10:46-52

Today is Reformation Sunday, the day we celebrate that because the Catholic Church at the time was going through a period of being stuck, many people chose to leave that church and begin their own to continue to find life, indeed to continue to find God in their sanctuaries.  Reformation Sunday is the day we celebrate change, the day we honor movement, the day we raise up a banner and say, “yes, we truly are the church reformed and always reforming (our reformation motto) despite how challenging that is for each and every one of us at different times and in different ways.”

Change.  As both the reformation and today’s scriptures show us, God calls us into change.  God doesn’t and won’t just leave us comfortable. God doesn’t call us to be “comfortable”.  In order to understand this more fully, I want to take a moment to look more deeply into the book of Job.  Does anyone remember how the book begins?  It begins with a deal made between God and Satan to “test” Job.  That test involved taking everything away from Job, little by little, to see how he’d react.  

Putting that beginning aside for a moment, let’s look at it from Job’s perspective.  Job believed that if he was good, if he had integrity, if he was righteous that his life would be rewarded.  His friends thought the same.  They all thought that living right equaled riches and prosperity in this life., and visa versa – that having riches and prosperity was a sign that you were blessed by God.  And so, even when things were not going well, Job believed that if he continued to not argue with God, not confront God, that he would again be rewarded.  But as we know, and as we see in this story, this is wong.  Yes, many people whom we call “prosperity Christians” continue to believe that God is Santa Claus, rewarding the good and punishing the bad.  But this is not an accurate reflection, at all, of what scripture tells us, starting here with the story of Job and continuing throughout scripture.  God did not leave Job comfortable.  Instead, Job faced hardships beyond his imagining.  He lost almost everything, he suffered, despite his “righteousness”.  Eventually, God called him to change, to move, to see things in a different way.  God challenged him to act differently.  And as we know from the story of Job, he did act differently.  Rather than being quiet and just accepting, he yelled out, he hollered out at God, and was rewarded by God’s showing up and showing Job a new vision of who God was. 

The Catholic Church also thought that if they just continued on the same path, that they would continue to be powerful and “pleasing” to God.  But as we know, everything changes.  And if we aren’t actively changing, transforming, striving to become more godly, more loving and more compassionate to the needs of others, of all of God’s people, then we are changing for the worse.  Martin Luther challenged what was happening in the church.  He had no intention of starting his own church in doing so.  He simply called the Catholic Church to change the ways in which it was hurting people and failing to take into account the current needs of God’s people.  He called them to task.  But they could not change at that time.  And because of that, they lost a huge number of their people to the Protestant Reformation as people discovered that if they were not going to be able to change their church into a place where they could again find God, they would have to start something new instead.

While all of our churches have changed much since that period of time, we also know that at some level all of our churches also continue to struggle with being stuck.  Seven years ago a columnist I follow named Regina Brett, a very faithful Catholic, wrote an article calling the Catholic Church to reformation again.  Some of what she wrote includes, “most Catholics have already voted with their feet.  They have left or become “C and E Catholics.”  I confess I’ve been tempted to quit for good.  I’m not alone.”  She continues, “The pope has called for a year of faith”…”how about opening our minds to what else God might want to do with us and with this church?...God is still speaking.  Is anyone … listening?”

It is because of this refusal to listen to God, to God’s people, and to be open to change that we had the Protestant reformation.  Diana Butler Bass says, “Luther and his associates were protesters rather than reformers—they stood up against the religious conventions of the day, arguing on behalf of those suffering under religious, social, and economic oppression. …In the United States, Protestantism has often been torn between the impulse to protest (the abolition movement, women’s rights movements, the Civil Rights movement) and the complacency of content by virtue of being the majority religion. After all, if you are the largest religious group in society—if you shape the culture—what do you protest?  Yourself?”

Bruce Epperly put it this way, “Reformation faith is forward, rather than backward-looking, evolving rather than static, at home in this world, rather than in a previous age or a heavenly realm.”

But the unfortunate truth is that Protestant Churches, those who claim to be reformative, are “stuck” as well.  Change is hard.  And we are not keeping “at home in this world rather than a previous age” with a great deal of success.  As a result, there is a new movement “out” of the Protestant Church just as in the Protestant reformation there was a large movement out of the Catholic Church.  While Protestants used to be 2/3^rd of this country, as of 2012, they were at 48%.  That number continues to decrease and one article I read said with all the growing “nones” and “dones” the percentage is now closer to 35%.  Many people are simply leaving the Christian church altogether, but others are just leaving denominationalism, especially Protestant churches.  They are fed up with many of what they call “archaic” practices, and in some cases the archaic theology, in our worship.  They are seeking something new.  And while we could point out the problems with “feel good” worship and with “entertainment” worship, the churches that are not stepping forward into the future are simply not stepping into a future at all.  As I’ve mentioned before, the number of churches that are closing in our country is astounding.  To put it in perspective, 9 Presbyterian churches a week are closing.  That is just the Presbyterian Church.  Other protestant denominations are all experiencing the same thing as our younger members especially leave for more “progressive” worship styles or leave the faith entirely.

God calls all of us to continue to move forward.  Therefore God’s answer to Job, and Jesus’ answer to Bartimaeus did not just leave them where they were or call them to a life of ease and comfort.  Even as God restored Job’s fortunes, God still did not leave Job comfortable.  Job was a righteous man, beyond what we are, beyond what we do.  His integrity was beyond question (even to himself), but Walter Brueggemann points beyond "integrity" and "goodness" to a life of praise centered on God's own goodness. "Yes, hang on to your integrity, Job, for it is never questioned," Brueggemann writes: "But learn a second language. Learn to speak praise and yielding which let you cherish your virtue less tightly" (("A Bilingual Life" in The Threat of Life)).  Job had thought that his happiness, his well-being was dependent on his actions, and on his commitment to living with integrity.  But our identity, worth, and well-being is not determined by our successes and failures, by our actions, by our virtuous living, even, but by God's gift alone.  And so eventually Job was given the sight to see that his “virtue” and “righteousness” was not actually what mattered.  Instead, it was his relationship with God that mattered.  It was not following the rules to a tee.  That is not how he would find meaning and purpose or be “rewarded” with riches or goods.  He had to think beyond the riches and goods of this life to the real gifts of God.  Those real gifts of God begin with relationship with God.  That is the gift.  A gift deeply worth celebrating, and more, worth cultivating.

Bartimaeus, too, was not allowed to just celebrate his new sight.  He was called to radical change as well.  He answered that call by following Jesus after he gained his sight.

I have to say, I realize there is grief involved in change.  Always.  And I need to acknowledge that reality.  Carl Denis wrote a poem called Editing Job that I think describes that loss well.  He wrote:

I'd cut the prologue, where God agrees

To let his opponent, Satan,

Torment our hero merely to prove

What omniscience must know already:

That Job's devotion isn't dependent

On his prosperity. And how foolish of God

If he supposes that Satan, once proven wrong,

Will agree to forego his spite against creation

For even a minute.

I'd keep the part where Job disdains

His friends' assumption that somehow

He must be to blame for his suffering,

And the part where he makes a moving appeal

To God for an explanation.

I'd drop God's irrelevant, angry tirade

About might and majesty versus weakness.

The issue is justice. Is our hero

Impertinent for expecting his god

To practice justice as well as preach it,

For assuming the definition of justice

That holds on earth holds as well above?

Abraham isn't reproved in Genesis

For asking, when God decides to burn Sodom,

If it's fair to lump the good with the wicked.

Let Job be allowed to complain

About his treatment as long as he wants to,

For months, for decades,

And in this way secure his place forever

In the hearts of all who believe

That suffering shouldn't be silent,

That grievances ought to be aired completely,

Whether heard or not.

As for the end, if it's meant to suggest

That patience will be rewarded, I'd cut it too.

Or else I suggest at least adding a passage

Where God, after replenishing Job's possessions,

Comes to the tent where the man sits grieving

To ask his pardon. How foolish of majesty

To have assumed that Job's new family,

New wife and children and servants,

Would be an ample substitute for the old.

           

Change involves loss.  It leads to grief.  But still, the question is, always, when we come to see who Jesus is, are we willing to go through some grief in order to change our lives into those God calls us to live?  Are we willing to change what feels “comfortable and easy”?  Are we willing to let go of what we think we want, what we think will make us happy, and instead to be open to the path Jesus wants us to go, to follow in the way, in the path of a man who ends up dead before he ends up resurrected?  Does our faith, does our encounter with the living Christ make a difference for us?  The question on Reformation Sunday is, again: are we willing to give up what is comfortable and easy as a church to follow Jesus?  Are we willing to step out to hear what the people of God, God’s children, all of God’s people really need to experience God’s love, God’s grace and God’s presence in this place at this time?

            That is the question that we are constantly called to ask as we continue to seek to be a church that is reformed and always reforming.  Amen.

The Work of Praying Hard - 10/20/19

                                                               Jeremiah 31:27-34

Luke 18:1-8

In a small Texas town, Drummond's Bar began construction on a new building to increase their business. The local Baptist church started a campaign to block the bar from opening with petitions and prayers. Work progressed right up till the week before opening when lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground. The church folks were rather smug in their outlook after that, until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, either through direct or indirect actions or means.  The church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building's demise in its reply to the court.  As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork. At the hearing he commented, 'I don't know how I'm going to decide this, but as it appears from the paperwork, we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that does not.' 

               But prayer is a complicated thing.  There is a very powerful story in the book, Leaving Northaven (Michael Lindvall. New York: Crossroads Publishing Company, 2002) that I would like to share with you.  The backdrop of the story is a woman struggling with Parkinson’s who is being told by everyone to pray for God and trust that God will heal her.  She is speaking with her pastor, named David, at this point. 

“On the 12^th of March, 1918, a prairie wolf followed me home from school.  I was walking the righthand rut of a two-rut road, alongside our cornfield, just stubble in March, of course.  I remember the snow was lying only in the furrows, blown in there by the wind.  It was like black and white stripes.  I saw him in the woods on the other side of the field.  Every once and again, he would move out of the woods, and I would see him moving along with me; he was watching me.  He kept up with me for maybe half an hour.  He was all bone, he was.  Sometimes he would stop and lower his head and just look at me.  I was scared, but I was afraid to run, like running would let him know I was alive.  So, I just walked real steady and watched him without turning to look.  And David, I prayed.  I prayed like I never prayed in my life….  It was 1918.  The Spanish Influenza.  I ran the last hundred yards and burst through the door glad to be alive.  My parents and brother looked up at me from the kitchen table.  Their eyes were red, I remember how their eyes were red.  I’ll never forget it, the three of them sitting there, looking at me.  My father got up and came to me.  I can still see him.  He took me by both shoulders and looked down at me and told me that Gert had just died, not ten minutes ago.  They had just come downstairs from our room.  Then he held me tight, so tight it almost hurt.  I remember that especially, how tight he held me.  And then he sobbed.  Not for the whole of your life do you forget it when you see your parents weep.  That was the only time I ever saw him cry.  I don’t know that my mother ever did.  Gertrude was my older sister.  She was fourteen.  I never even told them about the wolf.  Never told anybody till now….It was like God had answered my prayers when the wolf was following me home.  So the wolf let me go, but he came for Gertrude.  That’s what I thought.  For years, I thought it must have been my fault.  It was like my prayers had caused it.  I know other families had it worse in the influenza, but I adored her, David.  Why didn’t God answer all those prayers for Gert?…  I stopped praying that Parkinson’s would leave me alone because I remembered the wolf, the wolf and Gertrude and the Spanish Influenza.  I was afraid of what my prayers might do.  I didn’t pray for two, three years.  I ached to, but the old words wouldn’t come.  And then finally, after all these years, I finally decided that it wasn’t my fault.  I decided it was never Gertrude instead of me.  I prayed again, but I said bigger prayers.  I just tell [God] what I think and how I feel.  I don’t much tell [God] what to do.  I just tell Him I’m afraid, afraid for me and afraid for the boys and afraid for that old fool of a husband.  I suppose He knows it all already, but words make it solid.  I always whispered them at night when I was awake.”…

(The pastor continued,), I had no quick words in the face of her transparency, but knew only candor would do.  “I do think God answers prayer,” I answered.  “But I’m not sure anymore just what it means.  I’ve watched too many people pray their hearts out and get nothing that looked like an answer.  And then I’ve watched folks pray for miracles and get them.  I don’t know.”

“Well Pastor, don’t worry.  This old lady’s prayers have been answered.”  Minnie MacDowell suddenly switched to the formalities of Protestant address to preach her sermon, “Not the answers I wanted, though.  God didn’t take away the Parkinson’s but he did take away the fear.” (p 116) 

               I believe that prayer “works” but I don’t believe it works by manipulating God, in the way that so many people believe that it does.  About 20 years ago one of the big storms that so often hit the East coast blew through the Eastern Seaboard.  A prominent televangelist took a group of about 12 people down to the coast and they formed a tight prayer circle as the storm approached.  They prayed that the storm would not hit the coast where they were.  Sure enough, the storm went around them.  Instead, it hit the coast a few miles north of where they stood and killed many, many people.  This particular televangelist went on TV spouting his proof that prayer worked, and it surely seemed to for those 12 people.  But what about for those who were also surely praying, further north?  I recently saw a story about a man who insisted that all the climate problems were a result of God responding to the prayers of anti- LGBTQ people by punishing the country.  Then his house was destroyed in one of the hurricanes.  But somehow he did not see THAT as an answer to prayer or as punishment from God or as a message from God.  I feel that prayer used in this way, comments about God’s will as determined by what happens around us – that these are dangerous, and shows a very poor theology.

               Every time someone tells me that someone received healing after being prayed for, I find myself cringing a bit because every single time I remember all of those who were also prayed for who did not survive, did not heal.  Did those other people just not pray hard enough?  Was their faith not strong enough?  I don’t believe that.  Was God just saying “yes” to some and “no” to others?  I struggle with that, especially when it is a child who has suffered.  Does God “need” certain people to be in heaven?  No, I can’t see that either.  God gave us life and wants us to have it in fullness.  I struggle with the idea that there is a God who answers prayers for some but allows the Holocaust to take place, slavery to go on in different places and in different ways, throughout history and even now,  and who is not preventing the damaging of the earth or the extinction of whole species of animals due to Climate Change.  I think we have to understand prayer differently if we are to believe in a good and loving God. 

In the book, Tattoos on the Heart (New York: Free Press, 2010), Father Gregory Boyle tells this story:

              

               Willy crept up on me from the driver’s side.  I had just locked the office and was ready to head home at 8:00pm. 

                              “Shit, Willy,” I say, “Don’t be doin’ that.”

               “Spensa, G”, he says, “My bad.  It’s just.. well my stomach’s on echale.  Kick me down with twenty bones, yeah?”

               “God, my wallet’s on echale,” I tell him.  A “dog” is the one upon whom you can rely – the role-dog, the person who has your back.  “But get in.  Let’s see if I can trick any funds outta the ATM.”

               Willy hops on board.  He is a life force of braggadocio and posturing – a thoroughly good soul – but his confidence is out-size, that of a lion wanting you to know he just swallowed a man whole.  A gang member, but a peripheral one at best – he wants more to regale you with his exploits than to actually be in the midst of any.  In his mid-twenties, Willy is a charmer, a quintessential homie con man who’s apt to coax money out of your ATM if you let him.  This night, I’m tired and I want to go home.

               It’s easier not to resist.  The Food 4 Less on Fourth and Soto has the closest ATM.  I tell Willy to stay in the car, in case we run into one of Willy’s rivals inside.

               “Stay here, dog,” I tell him, “I’ll be right back.”

               I’m not ten feet away when I hear a muffled, “hey.”

               It’s Willy and he’s miming, “the keys,” from the passenger seat of my car.  He’s making over-the-top, key-in-the-ignition senales. 

               “The radio,” he mouths, as he holds a hand, cupping his ear.

               I wag a finger, “No, chale.”  Then it’s my turn to mime.  I hold both my hands together and enunciate exaggeratedly, “Pray.”

               Willy sighs and levitates his eyeballs.  But he’s putty.  He assumes the praying hands pose and looks heavenward – cara santucha.  I proceed on my quest to the ATM but feel the need to check in on Willy only ten yards later.

               I turn and find him still in the prayer position, seeming to be only half-aware that I’m looking in on him.

               I return to the car, twenty dollars in hand, and get in.  Something has happened here.  Willy is quiet, reflective, and there is a palpable sense of peace in the vehicle.  I look at Willy and say, “you prayed, didn’t you?”

               He doesn’t look at me.  He’s still and quiet.  “Yeah, I did.”

               I start the car.

               “Well, what did God say to you?”  I ask him.

               “Well, first He said, ‘Shut up and listen.’”

               “So, what d’ya do?”

               “Come on, G,” he says, “What am I s’posed ta do?  I shut up and listened.”

               I begin to drive him home to the barrio.  I’ve never seen Willy like this.  He’s quiet and humble – no need to convince me of anything or talk me out of something else.

               “So, son, tell me something, “ I ask.  “How do you see God?”

               “God?” he says, “That’s my dog right there.”

               “And God?” I ask, “How does God see you?”

               Willy doesn’t answer at first.  So I turn and watch as he rests his head on the recliner, staring at the ceiling of my car.  A tear falls down his cheek.  Heart full, eyes overflowing.  “God… thinks… I’m… firme.”

               To the homies, firme means, “could not be one bit better.”

               Not only does God think we’re firme, it is God’s joy to have us marinate in that. (p23)

And in that is the truth of prayer.  And yet, there is something deeper here.  I heard someone say once that God doesn’t answer our prayers, God answers US.  Someone else told me, we keep asking for answers, but God keeps sending us people.  Under all of this is what C.S. Lewis says about prayer, “I do not pray to change God.  I pray so that God might change me.”   We open ourselves up to God through praying, through speaking our truth and then listening.  We learn about ourselves through our honest communication with God, and we allow for growth and change to become possibilities as we listen for God’s voice and look for God in our experiences, in other people, in the world and life around us.  I believe that God is more present in our prayers than we can even imagine.  God begins the conversation and we respond to it by praying.  God begins the conversation by creating us, by calling us, by choosing us and by inviting us into relationship with God.  We join that conversation through our prayers, and then, hopefully, by our actions of love and care as well. 

That doesn’t let us off the hook for praying.  I was given a wonderful article by Edward Hayes, written last year I believe called “Thanksgiving Thoughts.”  He wrote ‘friendship takes time, education takes time, meals that are truly holy and wholesome take time – and so does prayer.  We Americans are a people who suffer from a great poverty of time.  We are always short of time: to write letters to visit old friends, to enjoy life.  And the near future, especially for middle-class Americans, will find our clocks running faster and faster.  With husbands and wives both working, numerous commitments to the parish, school and community and with children involved in numerous extracurricular activities, we are left with less and less quality time within the family.  Consequently, we can expect to see, in the coming years, more instant foods and quick worship services.  But just as a 19 ½ pound turkey baked only for a minute will be a disaster dinner, so will prayers dashed off “on the run.”  The soul, like the body, knows hunger, and it will not easily be able to digest even a half-baked prayer, let alone some kind of ‘minute meditation.”   Hayes goes on to describe the different steps of basting, preheating, stuffing and finally cooking for a long time our prayers just as we would cook a turkey.  His point is that relationships with God take the same time that any relationships take. 

Prayer is important, but not because we control God with it.  It’s important because it helps us build a relationship with God, and if that seems meaningless to you, prayer is important because it helps you to hear your own thoughts, wishes, fears, what you are grateful for, who you are becoming, who you have been.  Prayer opens us up to hearing God, to being moved by God, to changing and growing.  Prayer takes time, but it is very well spent and should be a priority for all of us.  The good news in this?  Well, prayer is where we meet God.  And more, where God meets us.  Amen.

The Dishonest Steward - 10/13/19

Jer. 8:18-9:1

Luke 16:1-13

Does anyone find this passage in Luke confusing?  What happens here?  We’ve got a manager or steward whom others are saying has been squandering the master’s property.  The master, in anger, says he’s going to fire the guy.  So, the steward deals with the fear of losing his job by practicing dishonesty.  He robs the master to gain favor with those who owe the master money by cutting the debt of those who owe the master.  Then in a strange turn of events, the master praises his steward for cheating him!

 This is followed by the words, “the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”  Aren’t we supposed to follow and emulate the children of light?  And then THIS is followed by Jesus seeming to encourage us to be dishonest.  He says, “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” Um…

But then this is followed by the words, “whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.  If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?  And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?”  And then he goes on to say that we can’t serve both God and money.  So what do you think?  Was he being sarcastic when he said earlier that we should make friends by means of dishonest wealth?

In researching this parable and different interpretations and understandings, I’ve found that most commentators are also simply confused by it.  Some say Luke just pretty randomly put together Jesus’ sayings about wealth and so his summary words just happen to fall together with this parable making any who try to put them together meaningfully just confused.  But I tend to think Luke is a little more discerning than that.  This story isn’t found in any other gospel, for whatever reason.  But Luke’s placement of it and the placement of the comments Jesus makes which follow it seem important to me.  They do go together and it is our job to try to understand how.

Other commentators say that yes, Jesus was being sarcastic by saying we should make friends by means of dishonest wealth.  Some commentators say the steward was not really

cheating the master, but was just cancelling his own commission in order to lower the debtors’ debt.  But most commentators discount that based on the fact that the steward’s commission was probably not contained in the debt amount anyway, but was a separate fee.

In the end, I don’t think this story can be understood without some history and cultural explanation attached to it.  If you are interested in reading more about this on your own, I highly recommend Herzog as a good source for understanding this parable.  As he explains it:

First, the steward here probably is not being dishonest.  Instead, because he is in a position where he must collect money for the master, and take money from those in debt to the master, he is therefore mistrusted and feared by everyone.  Those in debt have little power or recourse in the face of unfair contracts and monetary practices written by the steward for the master except to use verbal attack.  So, these debtors start an anonymous rumor, not that the steward is dishonest, but that he is wasting the master’s money. The master is not actually concerned here about dishonesty but about the steward mis-using his resources.  At any rate, the steward becomes concerned about losing his job and realizes that for him, this is a death sentence.  He cannot do hard labor or beg for any length of time and survive it.  So, he thinks up a different plan.  He goes out and erases some of the debt of the master’s tenants.  This, in contrast to earlier behavior, may have been considered dishonest.  The amount by which he cuts the debt is important because it tells us what exactly the steward is cutting or disposing of. 

By Jewish law, as recorded in the Old Testament, the charging of interest, any interest, on a debt is illegal, ungodly, and wrong.  The masters knew this.  They would not therefore, because of the importance of the Jewish law at that time, be put in the position of appearing to charge interest on the land and money they lent.  But their stewards or managers were in a position to write contracts in such a way that this interest, 20-50% of the original debt, was written into lease agreements in unclear, hidden, covert ways.  This 20-50% is exactly the amount of money which the steward in today’s story cuts from the debtors’ debts.  If this hidden interest had been discovered, the steward who wrote the contracts, not the master who gained the interest, would take the blame for it.  In this story the steward has basically erased the illegal interest from the contracts of those who owe his master money.  In doing so, he has lowered a hard debt on those who owe the master.  He also credited the master for this reduction of debt and in so doing has gained praise for the master from those in debt to him. Finally, he has also reminded the master who it is who brings him the extra “interest” money, for without the steward the master cannot do so well financially.  While the master is out money because of what the steward has done here, the steward has gained for the master praise from his debtors, and an unspoken, inexplicit debt for “the master’s” generosity from his debtors.  While the master might have been angry at the loss of this interest, in this story, he appears instead to appreciate what has been gained by his steward’s actions: the praise, the implied debt of gratitude from his debtors, the reminder of all the steward has previously done to raise the riches of the master.  In all these ways, the steward has broken down a system of mistrust and even hatred for a while.  Those in debt are now feeling better about the master (whom they believe lowered the debt).  The master is feeling better about the steward for winning him some praise and favor, and reminding him that the steward has brought in extra money for the master in the past.  The debtors of the master are not as oppressed by the large debt the interest previously forced onto them.  In the short run, by this action, the steward has done an amazing thing.  He has broken down the walls and rules which usually structure their world.  For a moment, the reign of God is glimpsed, a reign of trust, honesty, reconciliation, forgiveness, and caring.

We might ask, “has the steward changed an oppressive system?”  No, of course not.  Has the steward really won for himself a place in people’s homes so that if he still is fired, he will have places to go?  Very unlikely.  Those owing the master money would not have the resources or interest in taking care of this steward once he is let go.  Is it really good to make friends through dishonesty?  Well, the rest of the passage for today is pretty clear that you can’t serve both God and money and that dishonesty at any one level in your life can only lead to more dishonesty at other levels.  In other words, no.  The point the parable is making is that God’s presence slips through the systems of oppression now and then and that we should do all we can to encourage, honor, create those glimpses of reconciliation, healing, forgiveness and love, even through creative and unexpected ways.

Rosa Parks, by her simple refusal to give up her seat on a bus, because she believed that equality for all was worth taking a personal stand at great risk, was the catalyst that sparked the civil rights movement.  Her action was illegal at the time, yes, but also the means for God’s dominion to peek through.  Many years after the incident on the bus, the Ku Klux Klan approached the town council in a community in Alabama, volunteering to keep a certain stretch of highway clean.  The town council was in a sticky situation.  If they said no to the offer, it might make them look bad.  If they said yes, it might make them look like they agreed with racism.  So they made a clever decision.  They said yes to the Ku Klux Klan.  Then they renamed that particular stretch of road The Rosa Parks Highway.  A shrewd action and for a moment, they ushered in a glimpse of God’s realm which can forgive and extend love to even the worst of us, but also fights constantly for justice and peace.

Henry Ford, the inventor of the automobile, once visited his family’s ancestral village in Ireland.  Two trustees of the local hospital found out he was there and managed to get in to see him.  They talked Ford into giving the hospital $5000 (which in the 1930's was a great deal of money).  The next morning at breakfast, he opened his daily newspaper to read the headline: “American Millionaire Gives $50,000 to Local Hospital.”  Ford wasted no time summoning the two hospital trustees who were very apologetic.  “Terrible mistake” they said, and they promised to get the editor to print a retraction the very next day declaring that the great Henry Ford had not given $50,000, but only $5000.  Hearing this, Ford offered them another $45,000, under one condition: that the trustees would erect a marble arch at the new hospital entrance and place on it a plaque that read, “I walked among you and you took me in.”  Another little glimpse of God’s presence (and humor!) that breaks through, sometimes through shrewd ways, but always breaks through.

The passage in Jeremiah for today shows a God who is grieving for God’s people.  God seems in this passage almost trapped by their dreadful situation.  God is sorrowful at their pain, angered by their stubbornness, perhaps wanting to simply walk away.  But God stays.  God stays so that the people might still catch a glimpse of God in their lives.  Where have glimpses of God’s love, God’s reign, broken through into your life?  Where have you helped that reign poke through in unexpected ways?God’s love is amazing.  And God does always make appearances, often when we least expect it.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Moments of Shame, Moments of Grace

           It really wasn't anybody's fault.  The adult in me knows this.  We hadn't really practiced together at all, I'm therefore not used to the way she directs and I mis-read her cue.  What I thought was a "prep-beat" was her downbeat. The result?  It was not good.  The concluding, triumphant exit music for this beautiful service began as a disaster.  The choir began to sing as I played the last beat of the introduction, which meant that I and a couple of the other musicians were a beat behind.   And in the end, I stopped playing altogether, unsure whether to keep playing with the musicians who were with me, or to play with the choir and director.  By the middle of the first verse we were together.  None the less, this happened in front of a huge number of people who'd come for a very important memorial service.  I left feeling humiliated, but more, ashamed - I had failed a group of people I cared about at a memorial service that was important to me as well.  I had practiced, worked to play well, and the performance was not up to my expectations.  I was so upset that, rather than stay for the reception (which I had planned to do and which I had wanted to do), I just came home and ate pie after the service.  Yes, I know that eating pie is not the healthiest way to deal with problems, but it made me temporarily feel a little better, so there you have it.  We all have our coping strategies: pie eating is one of mine, so try not to judge it.  Perhaps another "coping" strategy is thinking up stupid, unhelpful ways of dealing with the shame, "Okay fine!  If this is how you are going to play for important services, it is obviously time for you to quit playing altogether.  You aren't good at this anymore.  This was a message to you.  And the message is 'DONE!'  You are done.  Finished.  Letters of resignation to be sent out in the morning."
           Fortunately, I'm slightly more grown-up in my behaviors than I am in my head.  I know this situation wasn't really anyone's fault.  It just happened that our lack of knowledge of each other and our limited time to practice together caused a misunderstanding, a misreading of cues.  There are other ways to prevent this problem in the future than just quitting.  This may be the first time I've played under this director, and my guess is it won't happen often, if ever, again.  If and when it does, we'll deal with it then, and we'll both come to it with a deeper understanding of the potential problems we might have.
          But, now that I'm moving out of that shame-place, I'm also able to take a step back and reflect a little on the power of shame in our lives.  We all make mistakes.  Some of them are met with feelings of guilt, sometimes we deal by blaming those around us, and sometimes we move more deeply into places of shame.  The difference?  Guilt is an "I've done something wrong that I feel bad about"  response.  Blame can be a number of things: inability to self-reflect, or guilt and shame transferred onto the other.  Shame on the other hand is "I am innately wrong.  Something about me is wrong.  I am bad, I am not right."  That is a deep place.  What causes a person to go there?  Probably years of conditioning that has told us that mistakes are not okay and that they somehow mark us as bad people.  Maybe our faith communities historically have had a hand in this: some faith communities tell their folk that we are innately "sinful," wrong, not deserving of God's love, and that can be embodied in us as shame.
          But our faith should instead, I deeply believe, help us to focus on our creation as good beings.  We are created good.  We are loved into being.  Yes, we make mistakes, but nothing, nothing is so big that it stops God's love for us.  God sees deeper, and I believe, with everything in me, that what God sees is the good, is the beautiful, is the "holy" even.  We are not mistakes.  We are not "wrong" as people.  We are loved.  Even something as big as a crazy music mess up in a memorial service should be treated with grace, with laughter, with a recognition that maybe these mistakes are calls to not take ourselves so very seriously.  Life happens.  And it is messy.  But in that mess is beauty.
       More importantly, it is often in the messy that we find God.  God comes to us in the least expected places: among the poor, among the disadvantaged, among the outcast.  Might that not also mean that God comes to us in the mess?  In the mistakes?  In the chaos and confusion and clashes of life?  It's easier to see it when that mess is taking place in others... we can see God, for example, in children who've been playing outside so hard that they are covered in dirt.  It's easy to laugh and delight and see God in their joyful, soiled, messy faces.  We can see God in funny or humorous situations that involve other people or animals: again we feel God in our own joy and delight.  When people misspeak and say funny things, our laughter is often God-filled happiness.  But when we ourselves make a mistake... it's hard to laugh at it, hard to delight in it, and even harder to find God in it.  
         So today I am looking for God in the mess.  And what I see is that we celebrated a man today who was described again and again as joyful, enthusiastic, fun, playful.  He was said to be filled with laughter, to include humor in every service.  So, we tried to make a service for him that was more perfect.  The laughter came in some of the stories told, but perhaps that was not enough.  No, perhaps it was not going to run perfectly because that would not have been a true service reflecting the joy and humor of Father Mat.  His service needed some chaos, some mess, some unexpected and unanticipated moments - moments where God could break in in a new and different way.  So having the choir sing a beat ahead of the accompaniest?  Well, maybe there's the humor for you.  Maybe Father Mat was laughing at us despite all our efforts to be perfect and great.  And maybe he was delighting in our humanity, in our flawed attempts to be just right.  It is inevitable in my life that the times that I try hardest to be perfect are the times I fail to be so.  I struggle and strive to stop seeing those times as moments of condemnation.  Instead, they are invitations to see as God sees, and to delight in our goofy, imperfect selves; to relax my own rigid rules of what is okay for myself, and instead to enjoy our crazy world for what it is.  Those moments of imperfection are also invitations for grace to come in.  There is no room in perfection for grace.  It is only in the chaos that there is space for grace to come swirling in with healing and light and compassion.  The invitation for grace is an invitation for God to be even more present with us.
       So, while I still wish the mistake hadn't happened, that we hadn't gotten off a beat, that the service was picture perfect in every way, I recognize that it was what it was: another opportunity to ask for, seek, find, and accept God's grace.  And today that grace comes in the ability to laugh at myself for ever thinking I could be perfect, even just for a service, and to rejoice that I was able to be there in the celebration at all, doing my best, no matter how it came out, and honoring an important man for the gifts he gave to this community.

The Fragility and Unpredictability of Life

          On Thursday afternoon I drove to pick up my kids from their two different high schools.  I picked up Aislynn first and then drove to get my son.  I pick him up on a side street several blocks away from the school since, without busing as a possibility here in CA, every other kid is also being picked up at the school and it is a complete zoo.  I had driven our electric car to the place where I pick him up.  In this car, the front door has to be open in order to open the back door to let someone into the back seat (it's a dumb design, but there it is).  Aislynn opened the front door and before we could open the back door a dog ran over to the car and put his big head in Aislynn's lap.  I said "hello, friend!" to the dog and reached over to scratch his head.  After I scratched his head, though, he then decided that he was going home with us and he tried to jump into the car, into my lap, crossing over Aislynn.  At that moment two women who'd been walking nearby ran over, asked us if the dog was ours, and said they were on a mission to find the dog's owners since they'd found the dog wandering around by himself in the next block over.  "No, it's not our dog."  I said, to which one of the women responded, "Well, he clearly WANTS to be your dog!" before she helped pull the dog out of our car so my son could get into the back seat and we could head home.  The dog was very resistant to being pulled out of the car, and it seemed to me that he kept looking at me with a pleading in his eyes that was not unmoving to me.  If we did not have three cats, I would have offered to bring the dog home until the owners could be located, and might even have adopted him if the owners couldn't be found .
           The next morning I learned that the head priest of our local large Catholic parish was killed in a car accident that same afternoon (about a half hour before I was picking up my son).  I knew this man.  Not well, but we both were part of a local clergy group and I am the pianist for the choir at the Catholic parish that sings for memorial services.  Since it is a very large parish, they have memorial services on a weekly basis (the choir doesn't sing for all of them, but many of them) so I am at the church, often playing for services over which he has presided, on a very regular basis.
           Both of these incidents: the death of the priest, and the encounter with the dog, are very present in my mind.  I realize these two incidents cannot be compared in terms of gravity, importance or seriousness.  The loss of Father Mat is a huge, incomprehensible, deep loss for several large communities of people.  It is tragic and devastating in so many ways.  I spent much of the weekend talking with people who have been personally and deeply affected by this tragedy, and I imagine that these conversations will continue over the next few weeks and even months.  In contrast, the incident with the dog is only present in my own mind.  It is small.  I am hopeful that the dog's owner was found, and that the dog is happily back with his people.  I met this dog for all of five minutes and will probably never encounter the dog again.
           And yet, still, both of these incidents are strongly with me.
           To me they are both moments that emphasize how fragile and unpredictable life is.  Everything can change in a moment.  Life can be lost, devastation can occur, tragedy can hit in a second and the worlds of many people can be changed, instantly.
           At the same time, and what we notice with less intensity, less interest even, is that there are new friends to be made, new encounters and new opportunities, new "openings" of our minds, our thoughts, our experiences - all of these also can occur in a moment.
           Losses are often instant.
           Unexpected gifts of encounter or opportunity or new connection are also often instant.
           There is a difference.  Usually, we have no choice about the losses.  Often there is nothing we can do to control what losses come and how they change our lives. We can choose how to walk through them, but we cannot control whether they come.  People die.  People leave us.  Life happens and others make choices that affect us in ways we cannot predict, cannot control and cannot prevent. In contrast, gifts must first be seen, and second, accepted, if we are to allow them to change us, move us, and help us to become better, fuller, and richer.  Both the losses and the gifts call us to make decisions.  Will we accept with grace what life has to offer us this day, and what will that look like in this particular moment?  We don't control if they come, when they come, or how they come. We can only take what this life hands us and decide what we will do with what we are given in each moment, each day, each life-time.
            Today I find myself grieving.  But I am balancing that with the memory of the gifts that also come suddenly and unexpectedly.  I am easing my own sense of loss by remembering the encounter with a friendly dog who instantly loved us and wanted to be with us.  Does it make the grief go away?  Of course not.  But it does remind me that life is more than just the losses.  It is deeper than just the grief.  Life gives and life takes.  God is in both, walking with us, grieving with us, and celebrating with us, too.  In that realization I find peace, even when the healing has not yet come; and I find promise, even though the path through grief is often steep and long.  I am grateful for the journey, even when the road is rough, even as I remember how fragile and unpredictable life really is.

My Super Power is that I Zap Electronics.

         Yes, that's a cumbersome title for a post.  But it's what I want to say here.  I have this amazing super power.  I zap electronics with a touch of my hand.  Or rather, when I use my electronic equipment, it goes bizonko, consistently, continually, until it dies.  Ask anyone who's worked with me or lived with me and they will confirm it.  I touch it, and it stops functioning correctly.  Let me give you some examples.  I've killed every computer that I've ever had, usually within a year.  When I go to have them fixed, they are always declared dead, unfixable, beyond help.  Then I buy a new one, and inevitably within a month, I have zapped it.  I take it back, get a new-new one, and this often repeats several times until we find one that can last a little longer than a month, and we hope will take us through a year or so.  This is the case with other electronics as well.  We got a new portable DVD player - nope.  Had to go back because I made the mistake of being the one to open it and touch it first.  We bought a keyboard for a tablet that we'd received as a gift.  Again, I made the mistake of being the one to open it, so it didn't work and we had to send it back.  The list goes on; printers, phones, dish washers... anything electronic.  If I forget and in my excitement rush to be the one to open and turn whatever the new electronic item is, on, it gives up the ghost before we even get it started and it will have to be replaced.  If someone else initiates its opening, it will often work for a short while until I...well, as I said, I kill electronics.  It's just a matter of time.   It's irritating, annoying, sad, problematic, and at some level a bit humorous how consistent and inevitable it really is.
       But as with every other challenge in my life, I choose to come at them, to see them, as gifts.  So what is the gift in this challenge for me?  What is the lesson here to be learned, to be faced?
       I've realized there are a few things that this particular "gift" is teaching me.  The first is patience.  In this instant gratification society, when things, even brand new things that didn't exist a year ago, don't work, we get very upset and want them fixed immediately.  We EXPECT things to work constantly and we see the times when they don't as great inconveniences and wastes of our time.  But I've been given the gift of having things that tend not to work immediately for me with some consistency.  It takes time to send back the products we've bought that aren't working and to wait for replacements.  When this happens several times in a row, it can take a LONG time (well, relatively - weeks.  In the larger scheme this is still really a very short time) to obtain what I am hoping for. I am trying to accept these delays as exercises in waiting, in remembering that it is a luxury to have things as quickly and easily as we do now, as a chance to step back and breathe.  I am striving to see these times as invitations to move a little more slowly and to take the time to take time, to re-learn patience and to find meaning in the waiting, in being still.  These are also opportunities to practice "doing without", which brings me to the next lesson.
       I am learning to take these times when my electronics aren't working as a break from said electronics, an invitation to not depend on these as much, a chance to return to the basics of talking to people in person, writing by hand, and reading actual paper books.  It is good for me, it is good for my family, to have spaces and periods where we can't do all the computer, phone, media stuff that we normally do.  And I see these periods of electronic failure as opportunities to let those things go for a short interval.
      I am certain there are other gifts in this, too.  But for today, I am striving to remember that even difficult situations and challenges are opportunities, invitations, and gifts for growth, learning, and being in a different way.  So for today, I am choosing not to see it as a "flaw" that I zap electronics, but as a super-power that is helping my family and myself to grow and learn in a new way.

World Communion

2 Tim. 1:1-14

Luke 22:4-23

               Once again there is so much in this passage that we can glean.  What do you learn about communion from this passage? 

               Jesus starts off by saying that he is eager to have this Passover meal with his apostles.  He wants to share his ending with those he loves.  He wants to eat and commune and be with those people who have been with him, with his family, his community.

               He gives of the meal even to his betrayer.  He does not withhold his meal, his food, his love, his communion, even from those who would destroy him.  Jesus is announcing that this is his body and blood.  This has layers and layers of meaning, but one of the things it says to me is that it is God’s sacrifice, God’s giving of God-self, provides for us everything that we need.  When we eat, when we drink, it is because God has provided that to us out of the sweat and tears of God’s own being.

In light of that, why does Jesus then give this meal, this food, this sustenance, this sacrifice even to the one who would betray him?  This is such a strong statement about God’s love and forgiveness of us.  Even those of us who have made mistakes, or done bad things, ALL of us are offered the life that God gives because ALL of us are loved, all of us are forgiven.  It doesn’t mean there are not consequences for our actions, but it was not Jesus who rejected Judas, but Judas who eventually was so devastated himself by his own actions that he hung himself, according to the gospel of Luke.  God was still offering love, still offering bread, still offering life even to the one who would hurt him.  He still offered forgiveness, and what’s more - a new chance, in every moment, with every bite of bread and drink from the cup he offered Judas, and he offers us a new choice, a new option for choosing life.  Judas, in the end, did not choose life, but still it was offered.

               I think about this in light of World Communion Sunday in which we take communion with Christians of all denominations all over the world today.  It doesn’t matter today if you are Presbyterian or Catholic or Greek Orthodox or Baptist or Pentecostal or whatever.  This, too, is incredibly significant because we all come to communion with different understandings of exactly what communion is.  Catholics believe in transubstantiation, which means that the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ.  Lutherans believe in consubstantiation which means that while the bread and wine stay bread and wine, the literal body and blood of Christ become “attached” to that bread and wine and are taken in with the bread and wine.  For Presbyterians we believe in something sometimes called “receptionism” which basically means that we do not believe that there is a literal blood or body in communion: it is symbolic and God is spiritually present with us in the meal that we take. 

               But what is amazing about this day is that on World Communion Sunday, we put aside these differences, we put aside a belief in the importance in our dogma or understanding and we choose instead to focus on what we have in common.  We share a faith, we share a deep belief that our relationships with God matter, are important, are significant.  We share a belief that we are all God’s children, united through this meal, for one thing, and united by the fact that God loves each of us deeply, fully, completely.

               Jesus’ ministry included so many meals, so much feeding.  There was the story of the feeding of the 5000.  And in Matthew as well as Mark there is also the feeding of the 4000 which is a very similar story but simply with different numbers of fish, loaves, people and left-overs.  But other stories in the Bible also talk about food and eating.  The disciples, we are told, picked grain and ate on the Sabbath.  Jesus was eating with the Pharisees when the woman came and washed his feet with her tears (Luke 7:36- 50).  Jesus was attacked for eating with sinners and tax collectors. (Mark 2:0-6)  Jesus tells us we are the salt of the earth.  He compares the kingdom of God to yeast.  He chooses to eat and drink, changing the water into wine.  He tells the parable of the great banquet.  He describes himself as the bread of life, and says those who take of him will never hunger.  He deals with his own hunger as a temptation which he defeats.  After the resurrection, we are told, the disciples recognized the risen Christ when he broke the bread, THROUGH the breaking of the bread.  Jesus was recognized through his sharing food with his disciples.  Food is an important theme throughout Jesus’ ministry and in this, too, he never discriminates, never differentiates.  He feeds everyone who comes to him, he eats with any who will eat with him.  And it is through that feeding, that sharing of food, that sharing of a meal in which Christ is known.

               It is another thing as well.  There is a wonderful song called Big Joe by David Bailey.  The words are:

It was just another Sunday at the big church down on main.

He was just another homeless man, Big Joe was his name.

She was just a kitchen helper, Miss Betty mild and meek,

who prepared the sacred elements, every single week. 

Well the prayers had all been said, the hymns had all been sung. 

The pastor set the table, invited everyone.

Big Joe heard the music, he took a step inside. 

He saw a bunch of well-dressed folks who looked like they were trying to hide. 

He saw a man in fancy robes hold up a loaf of bread,

tear it into pieces.  And Big Joe thought he said,

“All ye who are hungry…”  Joe thought, “That’s me!” 

So, he walked on down the aisle, hoping it was free.

Well the pastor looked uneasy, not sure what to do.

But the usher held the plate out and said “broken just for you.”

Big Joe felt pretty lucky, then they handed him some wine.

The cups were pretty small but it tasted pretty fine

Then he said to the usher, “That bread was good.

Could I have a little more? Do you think I could?”  

Now the usher looked uneasy, looked a bit confused. 

Then he said “I'm sorry sir.  That's not how this bread is used.”

Joe said “I'd like to talk to the master of this meal. 

I'd really like to know just exactly how he feels.

'Cause up there on the table I can see it plain as day:

You got a half a loaf left over  - you’re gonna throw it away.

Cause I got a bunch of friends – they’re sleeping in the street –

right outside your door and they could use a bite to eat.” 

Well the ushers got to talking, then they began to shout.

Then before you know it, a fight had broken out. 

Meanwhile miss Betty slipped away, to the kitchen she did go,

filled a basket up with bread.  She brought it back to Joe.  

She said “Take this to your friends and you come on back next week”. 

Joe said “As you've done to them - you've done to me!”

That's how it all got started at the big church down on Main,

where people come from miles away to break bread in His name! Hallelujah!

As this song points out, communion was a meal, was a feast, was a celebration, was a feeding.  But it is also an opportunity for us to expand our vision of who is to be included, who is to be invited, who it is we are called to feed and with whom we are called to eat.

               It is in all of these things – Jesus’ ministry of feeding, Jesus feeding of even Judas at the last meal, the opportunities we have to feed each other, and this day in which, every year, we celebrate our collective faith through World Communion Sunday – in all of these ways and in all of these things the overabundant theme is once again a grace that overcomes every barrier, a grace that breaks down walls, a grace that forgives and offers new life to any who would like to partake.  World Communion Sunday is a day in which we are all invited to eat together a meal and to remember that God is in this meal with us.  God is in community with us.  God is in the basic stuff of life with us.  It is through this meal that we remember what God has done through history and what God continues and will continue to do through our lives. 

               Communion is remembering.  We remember Jesus’ death and resurrection.  But it is also a time to remember what God has done throughout history.  When Jesus ate the Passover meal, he was remembering the Israelites freed from slavery.  We also remember the return from exile.  We also remember that Jesus was recognized by his disciples after the resurrection through the breaking of the bread – through eating with them in communion and community.  Communion is the New covenant of forgiveness and grace and life.  Through it, we thank God, we bless God, we anticipate God’s fulfilling of the kingdom on earth.  We trust in and receive Christ’s love, we manifest the reality of the covenant of grace in reconciling and being reconciled.  We proclaim the power of Christ’s reign for renewal, justice and peace in the world.  The church is also bound with Christ and with one another, united with all Christians, nourished by Christ’s presence, and we ask to be kept faithful.  We renew our baptism vows by taking communion.  We celebrate the joyful feast of the people of God and anticipate the great banquet where all people will be united and made whole.  We are given a gift in this meal.  And that gift is a grace, a grace that we accept by eating together.  It is a grace we are also invited to pass forward by inviting all, as Jesus invited all, to join us in this meal. 

Come to the table and let us truly celebrate together.