Unexpected Callings

 

Reformation Sunday

1 Samuel 16:1-13

Psalm 51:10-14

John 7:24

 

Today we hear the story of David’s call to be king.  And the thing that always impresses me the most in this story is how unlikely a candidate for king he was.  He was small, we are told, and the youngest, we are told.  His own father, when told that a king was to be chosen from his sons, discounted David as even a possibility.  Scripture tells us that God said to Samuel, “Have no regard for his appearance or stature… God doesn’t look at things like humans do. Humans see only what is visible to the eyes, but the Lord sees into the heart.”   God called David, Samuel interpreted that call, offered David kingship of Israel, and David said “yes”.

When a person is given a call, to whatever it is, it is rare that we understand it or truly expect it.  Calls come, despite ourselves.  And we rarely know why, or when, or how.  The only question that we have to answer in those moments is will we accept that call or not?  Will we say “yes” when that call comes? 

I think about the movie, “A Dolphin’s Tale” which was based on the true story of Winter, the Dolphin, who was caught in a lobster trap and eventually lost her tail because of it.  In the movie, Sawyer, who is a boy who is basically lost and withdrawn from life, has to take summer school because he did not do well in school during the school year.  On his way home one day, he sees the dolphin caught in a lobster trap and he saves her, frees her from the trap, gets help from a local aquarium and in so doing, saves her life.  He then sneaks into the aquarium to check on her and is able to really help her overcome her own sadness and depression, especially after her infected tail must be removed to save her life yet again.  It is because of him that Winter starts eating again.  It is because of their connection that Winter finds her life again.  In saving Winter the dolphin, Sawyer finds himself coming out of his own shell and his own depression.  They save each other.  And this lost boy finds his direction: finds what he cares about, what his “calling” really is.  Before this encounter he had had no interest at all in marine biology or helping animals, but through this encounter, through a situation that was placed in front of him and which he responded to with a “yes, I will help” he found his life’s work.   

I think about Carl Sagan who wrote the book, “Contact”.  At least at one point in his career, Carl Sagan was a declared atheist.  And yet he wrote a book that not only supports faith, but makes it very clear that there are things we just know, things we believe because they happen to us, because we experience them, live them, that cannot be explained to others, that cannot be “proven.”  Carl Sagan was an amazing scientist.  He also, in the end, became an amazing advocate for faith, despite himself, despite his intentions, or his plans, or even his own beliefs.  He was given a story to tell, he wrote the story, and the story with all of its wisdom continues to be a beacon for faith, for trust.  He was given an unexpected call, and he said “yes.”

When the kids and I lived in Ohio, one day as we were walking the half mile to church, they started picking up garbage that was littering the tree lawns next to the sidewalk.  They couldn’t stand to see the beauty of the landscape dirtied, marred, interrupted by garbage, and so they began a crusade to make the walk more beautiful.  After that first day when I saw them doing this, we walked armed: carrying with us plastic bags in which to put the garbage, wearing plastic gloves to pick up the garbage.  It was a call that was written on their hearts: not one their appearance or their training or their experiences, even, would have told anyone else would lead to being “garbage picker-uppers” or land beautifiers (as I thought of them).  It was a call that happened, and one that they answered very simply with a “yes”.

               Mitch Album and his wife took over operations of an orphanage in Haiti in 2010 after the huge Haitian earthquake that killed so many.  They first went after hearing of the suffering there, and little by little he built up the place until one day, in his own words, “in a rush of something I cannot to this day explain, I ….blurted out, “If you want, I could take over running the orphanage.  I can find the money.  And the people.  I think.”  He and his wife traveled back and forth between the United States and Haiti where they ran the orphanage for three years when they learned that one of the kids there, Chika, had a brain tumor.  They found that the medical system in Haiti is not sufficient to provide care for little Chika, so they took her back to the United States with them in order to get her the best medical care they can.  Chika ended up living with them for the rest of her short life.  They took her in, took her to doctors, fought for her life for months before the tumor overcame her and she died.  That was a call to parent this little 5-7 year old girl that they had not expected, never expected.  It was put in front of them, and they said, “yes”.   

               On this day when we are remembering and celebrating the reformation of the church, 500 years ago, we honor Martin Luther.  Martin Luther by posting his 95 theses did not expect to start a new denomination.  He had no plans for splitting the church.  He was enraged at the injustices he saw being committed by the heads of the church.  He was enraged, impassioned, moved to act.  He felt the call to DO something, and he, too, said “yes” without even the smallest inkling of where that path would take him or the consequences of stepping into action.  He had no idea that his stance would lead to his excommunication from the Catholic church.  He had no idea that his confrontation of unjust practices would lead to the rupture of the Catholic church.  He had no idea that his translating the bible into German so that ordinary people could read it would be the first step in translating the Bible into all sorts of different languages so that anyone who could read could eventually read scripture in their own language.  He had no idea that his “yes” to the urgent callings he felt in his heart would do so much.  But he said “yes” and history was made.  

               (Bureau story: Calvin, Zwingly, John Knox).

               The thing is, those who make history, the heroes of our past and present, rarely if ever set out to BE heroes.  A hero is someone who, when life threw terrible things their way, said “yes” to the calling to do something about it, to stand up against it, to take on whatever was in front of them that had to be done.  A hero is someone who, when things got too hard, did not turn away, but continued the battle for good.  A hero is not BORN a hero.  A hero becomes a hero by saying “yes” to whatever is in front of them to do at the very hardest of moments.

               In the Presbyterian Church, we acknowledge every week, by a simple little phrase in the back of the bulletin, that the “ministers” of the church are “all the people”.   Pastors are “teaching elders” because the only difference between a pastor and other members of a church congregation is that we have a specific job as teachers of theology, history, interpretation of the Word and sacraments.  This is not to say that a sense of “call” or God’s presence in discerning who was to be a pastor for a church was absent or missing.  Call is a very important part of deciding who is to pastor a congregation.  But it is to say that our call, our vocation, our job as determined by God, self and the community, are not more important and above all not more holy than the call, the vocation, the jobs of other people in the family of faith.

               Still, this recognition that we are all equal children of God, one not more important, more called or more holy than another, has been and continues to be a challenge for many.  I had someone approach me a few weeks ago asking for prayers because they said, “you are closer to heaven than we are.”  But I am not.  I think it is hard, in our modesty, for most people to feel, accept and rejoice in the fact that God calls YOU to a specific job or task, that God has chosen you, each of you, for particular callings.  This can be hard to see, hard to accept.  But all you have to do is say “yes”.

The good news in this is that God has called all of us.  Each of us has a call from God.  We are not alone in receiving a call, we are not unique in it.  It does not need to be scary for us because each of us has received this gift, this call, this purpose from God.  We walk together.  We learn together.  We strive together to be God’s people and to fulfill God’s call for our lives.  And like with Jeremiah, none of us can say, “but I am only a child.”  None of us can say, like Moses, “but I have a physical, or mental, or emotional disorder that will not allow me to serve you.”  None of us can say, “but I am not worthy,” because it isn’t about being worthy or being whole, or even being mature.  God calls all of us.  And all we have to do in response is to say “yes, I will go”, “yes, I will answer this call”, “yes, I will listen and I will respond.”  It’s all that easy and all that hard.  Amen.

Discerning God's Messages

 

1 Samuel 3:1-21

John 20:21-23

Mark 10:35-45

               We have a hard time understanding the messages we receive from God.  We really do.  We have a hard time understanding scripture, for example.  Here in today’s passages we hear something in each one that is hard to understand.  In the Samuel passage we hear God promising to harm an entire family of people “forever” for something that the sons of Eli said.  In the John passage it sounds like Jesus is saying that if his disciples don’t forgive someone, neither will God forgive them.  And the passage from Mark might be read as saying that God chose from the beginning who would be included or put next to Jesus and that there is no influence from the choices people make in this lifetime: how people act or what they believe or anything that has to do with what a person is or does themself.  These are all hard to understand, at least for me.  And you will get many different responses or understandings when you read about them. 

               Starting with the Samuel passage, some commentators talk about God’s judgment and wrath, seeming to accept this declaration of Eli’s family’s destruction at face value.  Other commentators talk about how easy it is for Samuel to misunderstand God and what God might be trying to communicate here.  And still others say that the point of this story is just that the prophetic torch has passed from Eli to Samuel.  And from this perspective, Eli is amazing in that he doesn’t fight this, doesn’t deny it, but just accepts that this is God’s will and God’s will is what is paramount in every situation.  

               Even the biblical scholars, then, disagree about what is being communicated here.  And the same is true of the other passages.   For example, this passage from John that declares that if a disciple doesn’t forgive someone they won’t be forgiven.  Some say this means that God has given them the ability to decide who is ultimately forgivable.  Some have pointed out that this passage has been abused by pastors and priests to claim that they have the right of absolution from sins (and equally the right of withholding that absolution).  But others say that this was spoken not just to the disciples but to all those following Jesus.  And that John’s understanding of sin was not moral or behavioral transgression but “being blind to the revelation of God in Jesus”.  According to this understanding then, it is the community that has failed if people are still blind to this understanding.  In other words, this story is simply meant to communicate that they still have work to do.

The point here is that even those who study scripture for a living, spend all of their time doing nothing but reading, praying, discerning – they still disagree with one another, which means they are still struggling to really understand the message that God is sending.  Similarly with the disciples to Jesus’ words.  Some want to sit next to him, others think this is an unfair request.  They all misunderstand him by even having this debate.  They also misunderstand him when he talks about his upcoming death: they try to reason him out of that prediction and try to dissuade him from acting.  We know that Judas in particular disagreed with the way Jesus was doing things and what Jesus was saying.  He betrayed Jesus as a way to spur Jesus into action: into rising up against the tyranny of the Roman empire and when Jesus instead was killed, this was so devastating to him that his response was to commit suicide.  They didn’t understand.  Not one of them understood.  This is a consistent theme throughout the gospels: the lack of understanding of those closest to Jesus.  If those closest to Jesus did not understand, how are we supposed to understand?  How are we supposed to read the messages from God with accuracy?  How are we to understand scripture?  But even beyond that, how are we to understand God, human relationships to God, human relationships to each other and even our very selves?

               I think about the story we read about a month ago about Abraham believing he was called by God to sacrifice Isaac.  While God stopped him, there is an Islamic midrash on that story that says that Abraham was just crazy: was hearing voices that he decided were God’s.  According to this midrash Sarah saw what was happening and she is the one who brought the ram out for Abraham to find, saving HER only son from being sacrificed.  According to this midrash then, God was working through Sarah to stop crazy behavior.  We read these stories in different ways.  We understand them in different ways, and as a result we also hear God’s voice in different ways and we interpret what is God’s voice is VERY different ways. 

               I saw something recently that said in effect, “Fundamentalists understand Love through the laws of scripture.  Other Christians understand scripture through the eyes of Love.”  Or, as Arun Gandhi said it, “People of the book risk putting the book above people.”  But this too, mirrors my understanding.  As Jesus said it, “Sabbath was made for humans, not humans for the Sabbath.”  When we put the law above real people, their needs, their souls, we miss the whole point of all of this.

               For me, in the end, I believe everything must be measured against the great commandments.  The great commandments are two: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind.  And, Love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus told us that it is on these two laws that all the prophets and all the writings stand.  That this is a summary of all that is in scripture.  So for me, personally, if I don’t understand it, I go back to these two rules.  How, in light of these two laws, does this passage make sense?  What does it mean in light of these two great commandments?  Love.  It is the guidepost by which I weigh and understand everything else. 

               But what about when it comes to understanding God?  Well, if those are the laws of God, they reflect God.  So for me, they, too, describe God: wholeness, fullness, holiness.  Love.  That’s the bottom line of who God is, just as it was the bottom line of what we are called to do and be. 

               But am I right?  All these Christians understanding God differently.  The disciples all understanding Jesus differently.  And none of the disciples had it right.  But they were all on the journey.  They all sought to be with Jesus, they all wanted to be his disciples, they all chose to follow in the way.  And they did this, despite the fact that Jesus kept telling them “you don’t understand!” And kept correcting them and kept challenging them. 

               As I sat with this, I found myself thinking about the Kansas song, song “Carry On My Wayward Son” line: “And if I claim to be a wise man, well it surely means that I don't know.”  In the end, we are called to have humility in our understandings.  Those I fear the most are those who claim with absolute conviction that God told them to do something, or that God put them in charge of something, or that they know without a doubt – anything, really. 

               We are all on this journey.  All of us.  I come here and I tell you what I learned, and what I think and what I believe.  But that is my journey.  And I recognize that yours is different.  Your needs and your experiences, your lessons and your mentors, your relationships: both with others and with God.  They are your own. 

               There is a reason that one of the key phrases for me in the Presbyterian Book of Order is “God alone is Lord of the Conscience.”  We recognize that discernment is a challenge and NOT ONE PERSON in this whole world and in this whole life will always be right about anything, and that includes about faith issues.  Discernment is hard.

               So why is that? Why would God create a world in which discernment is not easy?  Why would God create a world with so many, many different ways of understanding the exact same book, the exact same words, the exact same scenario?  I love what God in Joan of Arcadia said to Joan in one episode when she asks God why there are so many religions, “It's because various people need various ways of relating to the divine.” I think that there are deep reasons why Jesus spoke mostly in parables.  Parables all have multiple interpretations, multiple points, multiple understandings.  And in that, they are gifts to different people in different ways.   No two of us will ever agree on everything.  It isn’t realistic.  It isn’t honest.  And that’s a beautiful part of our world and our life.  That diversity of thought is a gift to us if we can choose to be open to it, listen through our differences, learn from them.

               How, then, do we relate this back to our faith?  A final quote from Joan of Arcadia that I want to share with you: “People manage to believe in me, even though they have no idea what I am; they trust me even in the silence.”

               God’s presence is there as a gift to us.  God’s love is there to hold us, sustain us, carry us through.  We don’t have to understand everything.  We don’t have to agree with one another.  We are invited to learn from one another, but we don’t in the end have to come to the same understanding.  Still, we are invited to trust, to rest in the love of the God who creates us, carries us, holds us, and graces us into being. 

               Some of these biblical passages, such as the one we read today, are hard for us to understand.  And sometimes the world and nature and people’s behaviors are a challenge for us to understand.  But there is more to this world than understanding.  And there is much that is beautiful that goes far beyond our ability to understand.  Resting in God’s presence is more important, more needed, more reviving and restoring that knowing.  So, as Isaiah said it so profoundly, “Be still and know that God is God.”  That is all the knowing, ultimately that we need.  The rest is relationship: the rest is listening, caring, talking, and being with God.  More important than anything else we can do.

               And so, I want to end this shorter sermon with a moment of silence.  But rather than reflection, I invite you to rest in the loving, caring arms of God.  Rest, be, accept the love and grace that is offered you in this moment.  Amen.

Earning our Due

 

Exodus 16:1-18

Jonah 3:10-4:11

Matthew 20:1-16

 

            As a people we have a really hard time with grace.  Or rather, we have a really hard time accepting that God is gracious to those we feel do not deserve it.  At the same time, we do want that grace for ourselves. 

            I think about when I was a 19-year-old working as a volunteer in mission in rural Alabama for a summer.  One night I was driving home very late to the house where I was staying. I was driving on abandoned, empty, quiet, dark, rural roads.  Apparently though I ran a stop sign.  Suddenly out of no-where there were sirens and I was pulled over by a Sherriff.  He explained to me that I’d run a stop sign.  I told him, honestly, that I didn’t see the stop sign and wasn’t aware that I’d run it.  He still would have been absolutely within his rights to give me a ticket, but instead he offered me grace.  He let me off with a warning and sent me on my way.  That was the first time I had ever been pulled over, and I was deeply grateful that he had not given me a ticket.  It was grace, pure and simple.  I had not deserved that response, but he chose to give it anyway. 

            Still, despite the grace that was offered me that day, there are times when I see a car speeding down the highway, weaving in and out of traffic, often blaring music without regard for others, that I find myself wanting them to be pulled over and given a ticket.  I did not get a ticket I deserved, but it is still hard for me sometimes to want that same grace for those around me.  I find I can make assumptions about who they are, what their motives are.  I fail to see with God’s eyes, eyes of compassion and understanding and insight in those moments.  I want justice, and I forget about grace.

            The grace of God is so evident in all three of the scripture readings for today, as well as the human response to that grace.  In the passage from Exodus, we continue the story of the Israelites flight from Egypt.  They’ve been rescued by God from slavery, but now they are struggling against the difficulties of the wilderness.  They don’t think it’s fair.  They’ve been in the pain of slavery and now they are in the pain of being in the wilderness.  We might see it differently.  They’ve been led out of slavery and they are STILL complaining.  But God doesn’t have the same sense of justice as we might.  God listens to their complaints, listens to their whining and gives them what they ask for, providing for them again and again.  It is grace, pure and simple.  They haven’t earned that kind of care.  They haven’t deserved to have their every prayer and complaint answered.  But God provides it none the less.  Out of grace and out of love, God provides.

            Then we come to the story of Jonah, and I think Jonah’s reaction is so very, very human.  Jonah has been sent to warn his arch-enemies of God’s coming wrath.  Jonah doesn’t want to do it and we can understand why.  Nineveh was the capital of Israel's greatest enemy, Assyria. Nineveh's deliverance in Jonah's lifetime meant that Assyria would go on and destroy the northern kingdom and put all of Israel firmly under the thumb of Assyria as its vassal. God sending Jonah to Nineveh would almost be like sending a Jewish person into a Nazi camp with the message that God was going to punish them unless they changed.  It would have been terrifying, it would have put his life at risk, and for what purpose?  But he went.  God offered Jonah grace by seeking after him even when Jonah had said “no”.  God offered Jonah grace by rescuing Jonah from the storm in the belly of a fish.  God offered Jonah grace by providing a plant to give him shade.  God offered Jonah grace again and again and again.  But when, out of gratitude for that grace, Jonah does eventually do what God has asked and goes and confronts the people of Nineveh, they actually do listen and then God offers THEM grace.  And Jonah’s response?  To become angry, hurt, surly, defiant.  Jonah willingly accepted the grace that came to himself.  After all, God is a good God, a loving God, a God of the Israelites and Jonah is working FOR this God.  So of course God would not punish Jonah for his rejection of God’s call, of course God would not exact justice on Jonah for running away.  God would offer grace.  Of course.  But to the Ninevites?  That’s a whole other animal.  And Jonah becomes enraged.

            Finally, we come to the gospel lesson.  And we have workers on both sides who may have felt the situation was unfair.  We have those who have worked hard in the sun all day long.  And we have those who have waited and waited to be hired but weren’t hired until the end of the day.  Both sets of workers need to feed their families.  And in the end, God’s grace, the grace of the master in the parable, is extended to all of them.  All of them are given the wage that will feed them and their families for that day.  But inevitably someone was unhappy.  And declared in loud and strong voices that life just isn’t fair. 

            The truth is, from a personal perspective nothing is EVER fair.  When we fail to understand or have compassion or care for others, when we can only see from our own needs, our own experiences, then nothing is ever fair.  We don’t get what we think we deserve.  Others seem to get more than we think they deserve. 

As some of you know, when Jasmyn was very young they attended a very elite private school in Oakland.  Head-Royce.   This was an amazing school academically that had a strong vision for social service and for caring for those in the community, and made it part of their curriculum for the kids to be involved in service to the less fortunate.  I loved that about the school. They valued giving opportunities to kids of all kinds, so Jasmyn was on full scholarship to attend this school, and I felt incredibly grateful that they had that opportunity.  At the same time, personally, I struggled on a daily basis with the decision to send Jasmyn to this school, because Jasmyn was surrounded at this school by others who had so much more than we had.  And instead of Jasmyn realizing that we are incredibly wealthy when we look at the big picture, the world, and that we therefore have a huge responsibility to care for the world and to share our resources with those who have less, instead, Jasmyn would come home with things like, “Sophia has her own little house in the back yard.  Why don’t I have my own house in our backyard?  Amanda has a hot tub and a swimming pool and a play room in her house.  Why don’t we have those things?  Julia lives in a five story castle.  Why don’t we live in a five story castle?”   She was walking away from her friends and playmates not with a sense of gratitude for the abundance that she had in her life, but with a sense of life not being fair, not treating Jasmyn fairly, of somehow being deprived in a world in which Jasmyn felt, as a peer to these other children, entitled to have “more,” and what was of more concern, Jasmyn began to devalue Jasmyn’s self as somehow being a child that must not be as worthy as these other kids with all of their wealth.

How many of you have seen the movie, “the Gods Must be Crazy”?  In it there is a native group of bush people who are filmed and who act in the film.  After the film was made, an article was written by an anthropologist who had lived and worked with the bush people about the devastation that the filming had created for this bush tribe.  There are rules, good rules, mostly that require that when anyone does work, they are paid for it.  If a person isn’t paid, it is a kind of exploitation.  But what happened in this particular case was that not everyone in the tribe was in the film.  So before the film was made, everyone in the tribe had the exact same amount; everything was shared, everything was in common.  It was very little, people had almost no material possessions before this film was made.  But still, all the people in the tribe felt grateful, felt rich, felt they had more than enough.  But then the filming crew paid some of the tribe members for their participation in the film.  In so doing, they introduced inequity into the tribe.  And that inequity led to a sense of unfairness on the part of those who weren’t paid.  Now some had things that were just theirs, and others were lacking in those things.  People began to feel poor, and eventually the tribe began to fight within itself and the tribal culture for this one group at least, was utterly destroyed.  Ironically, the film that destroyed them included a story line that told it’s own story about this very inequity and about the dangers of “things” being introduced into these cultures.

One of the churches I served was near a mega-church that had several pastors and one of the pastors was bitterly complaining to the other pastor with whom I worked, about the amount of pay she received.  She was complaining because she received less than one of the other pastors at her church.  But the pastor who was complaining was making twice what the pastor I was working with made, four times what I was making, simply because her church had more money - though she worked no more than either of us.  It again was a matter of relative position, though I have to say it was very ironic that she chose to complain to a person who was making about half of her income.  And that my senior pastor then chose to complain to me who was making half of HER income.  It is easy to get on board the entitlement train.  It is easy to see in what ways we are not being cared for as others, rather than seeing how even more people have even less than we do.

            Again, it is a matter of perspective.  But the bottom line is that our sense of entitlement robs us of gratitude, and of being aware of the amazing grace that God gives us every week, every day, every moment.  I want to say that again.  Our sense of entitlement robs us of gratitude and an awareness of grace.  When we start feeling that life is unfair, that we don’t have what we deserve and that others are getting more than is “just” it becomes harder to see the riches and blessings in our lives, it becomes harder to connect with grace, it becomes harder to connect with God. 

            I remember hearing a wonderful skit done by comedian Louis CK on a tonight show episode.  He said this, “Everything is amazing right now and nobody is happy.  In my lifetime the changes in the world have been incredible.”  He goes on to talk about the telephone and how much it has changed over time.  About banks and how to obtain money then versus ATM’s now and the ability to charge things so easily now.  “And now we live in an amazing, amazing world and it is wasted on the (worst) generation of just spoiled idiots that don’t care.  Because now people with their phones are like… ugh… Give it a second!  It’s going to space!  Can you give it a second to get back from space?!...  I was on an airplane and there was high speed internet on the airplane.  This is the newest thing that I know of that exists.  You can open up your laptop on an airplane and get on the internet.  It’s fast, I’m watching YouTube clips and I’m on an airplane!!  And then it breaks down and they apologize, “The internet is not working.”  And the guy next to me is like, “pshaw!  This is B.S.!”  Like how quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only 10 seconds ago!  Flying is the worst one because people come back from flights and they tell you their story and it’s like a horror story.  They act like their flight was like a cattle car in the 40s in Germany.  That’s how bad they make it sound.  It was the worst day of my life!  First of all, we didn’t board for 20 minutes.  And then we get on the plane and they made us sit there on the runway for 40 minutes!”  “Oh really?  And then what happened?  Did you fly in the air, incredibly, like a bird?  Did you partake in the miracle of human flight while contributing zero?  You’re flying!  That’s amazing!  Everybody on every plane should just be going “OMG!  Wow!”  You’re sitting in a chair in the sky!  But no, “The seat doesn’t go back a lot!”  People complain about delays.  New York to California in 5 years.  That used to take 30 years and a bunch of people would die on the way, and have a baby.  You’d be with a whole different group of people by the time you got there!  Now you watch a movie and you’re home!”  But yes, we have this sense of entitlement, and we don’t seem to be able to let that go.

            So in the face of this, my challenge to all of us is to recognize that we have a choice about how we deal with life.  Will we choose to focus on what feels unfair?  Will we focus on the hardships we face unfairly while others seem to have lives touched by undeserved rewards and grace?  Or will we choose to see the grace that is given to us, to celebrate it and to pass it forward to others?  To celebrate the times when others also receive that grace, even when it is undeserved? 

            I’ll admit, celebrating the grace, the second chances, the opportunities, the gifts that others receive when they don’t deserve it is not easy, at all, for any of us.  On a daily basis, I hear people stating what so and so deserves because of things they’ve done that were evil or bad or wrong.  We want to see people punished.  We want JUSTICE, again, at least for other people.  When we make mistakes, I think we want forgiveness and grace.  But it is rare, RARE to hear people celebrating the grace that others are given undeservedly, especially when that grace comes in the form of forgiveness or lack of punishment for misbehaviors.    

            We are not living in a gracious world.  But we are called to follow in God’s ways, in Jesus’ ways and be graceful.  We are called to celebrate God’s grace extended to all of us.  We are called to extend that grace ourselves.  So that is my challenge for all of us, each of us today.  To be more graceful and less judging.  To be more grateful and less complaining.  To let go of feelings of entitlement and instead to celebrate each and every gift that we have been given.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Gratitude Does Not "Jinx" Us

    Yesterday I was driving home from the store with Aislynn and David in the car.  We were listening to music and the song "Good Life" came on.  Here are some of the words:

"Sometimes there's airplanes I can't jump out

Sometimes there's b*** that don't work now

We now got stories so please, tell me

What there's to complain about

Oh, this has gotta be a good life

This has gotta be a good life

This could really be a good life, good life

I say oh, got this feeling that you can't fight

Like this city is on fire tonight

This could really be a good life

A good, good life"

Or something like that...that's what I hear anyway.  I like the way I hear it, even if the words aren't quite right.  At any rate, it caused me to stop and pause for a moment, and think.  

    In that moment I was truly happy.  I had two of my very favorite people in the car with me, we were driving home at dusk, a beautiful time of day, we had music, we were safe, the drive was very pretty.  More, as I reflected in the moment, we have more than enough to eat, we have a lovely home, our family is whole and healthy.  We have friends, we have extended family.  We have work we enjoy.  Aislynn is learning, and has amazing opportunities, really.  She is in the drama program at school, she takes Aikido after school, and these are things we can afford.  We are putting two kids through college, one of whom will graduate in the spring, both of whom are launching into life successfully and well.  The weather is starting to turn into lovely fall temperatures, we have opportunities to walk and to sing.... I could go on and on.  The reality is we have SO MUCH that is so easy to take for granted.  Health, limbs that work, brains that work, air to breathe, good foods to eat, clean water to drink, community.   

    I talk regularly about the importance of gratitude. Being grateful, remembering all the ways in which we are blessed, and taking time to be thankful actually improves quality of life, helps with depression, helps with anxiety, helps us to really see where God is, where good is, where love is.  

    But I realized as I was driving home that there is a part of me that has held that off: that is afraid to sit in the joy, in the gratitude.  In those times of well being I'm afraid I might "jinx" my current life.  What I mean is that there is a part of me that worries that if things are going well, it is a sure sign that something terrible is about to happen.  This life, after all, seems to be about growing and learning.  We grow most from the challenges, the hardships that we must face.  So if I'm happy, maybe I'm not doing the work of this life, facing the rough patches that will help me to learn and grow.  Maybe I'm only supposed to focus on gratitude when things are hard: looking for what is good in the midst of the struggles, rather than seeing what is wonderful in the good times.   Because maybe if I name a time in my life as "good" I will lose it to another growth opportunity. 

    Rick Warren talked about how he used to see life as ups and downs but now sees it as a railroad track: one rail of the track is everything that is good and beautiful and the other rail are the challenges and hardships that we face.  He said he had come to realize both tracks are constant.  There is always something to be grateful for and always something difficult to face.  And while I experience the reality of this (even now there is a handful of things I am deeply worried about), there are still moments of pure joy that seem to release me from the hardship track, at least for a moment.  Am I to ignore those moments, to avoid being thrown head first back onto the rail of pain and/or fear?  

    I believe the only way to change our thinking is to look honestly and deeply at our feelings and thoughts.  It was a breakthrough moment for me to realize my fear that happiness would jinx my life.  I do not want to be held back by that fear.  I don't want to miss the beauty, the good, the awesomeness of my life now because I am worried that it will make whatever is to come harder to bear.  I think remembering and sitting in the good can empower us to walk with strength through the challenges.  And yes, those challenges will come.  But they will come whether I enjoy today or not.  They will not be harder because I have rested in the gifts of now.  I believe they will be easier to bear as I remember that good things are also always around me to be enjoyed, to be celebrated, to experience in awe and with gratitude.  

    So, for today, I am choosing to delight in the good.  Thanks be to God for this wonderful, beautiful, challenging, and amazing life!

"I Am"

Exodus 2:23-25; 3:1-15; 4:10-17

John 8:58

Psalm 46

World Communion Sunday

 

What are some of the ways that you come to know God?  Scripture, nature, worship, prayer, meditation, fasting, spiritual disciplines such as lectio divina and clearness committee and ....  Do you have one or two ways that speak to you more than others?  That you tend to gravitate towards?  Are there other ways of knowing God that are less comfortable for you?  Or ways that you avoid?

               You know the familiar story about the blind men and the elephant.  I read it to you in January.  But I think it’s a story we should all be remembering on a regular basis, especially as we seek to cross our differences, to be in relationship despite our disagreements, to work to love those who don’t see things the same ways that we do.  So here it is again:

It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined,

Who went to see the elephant (though all of them were blind),

That each by observation might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the elephant, and, happening to fall

Against his broad and burly side, at once began to call:

"I see," said he, "the elephant is very like a wall!"

The second, feeling of the tusk, cried, "Ho! What have we here?

So very round and smooth and sharp? To me 'tis mighty clear

This wonder of an elephant is very like a spear!"

The third approached the animal, and, happening to take

The squirming trunk within his hands, thus boldly up and spake,

"I see," said he, "the elephant is very like a snake!"

The fourth reached out his eager hand and felt about the knee:

"What most this wondrous beast is like is mighty plain," said he,

"'Tis clear enough the elephant is very like a tree!"

The fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, said, "E'en the blindest man

Can tell what this resembles most. Deny the fact who can,

This marvel of an elephant is very like a fan!"

The sixth no sooner had begun about the beast to grope,

Than, seizing on the swinging tail that fell within his scope,

"I see," said he, "the elephant is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan disputed loud and long,

Each in his own opinion exceeding stiff and strong,

though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!

So oft in group endeavors, the members of the team

Rail on in utter ignorance of what each other mean,

As if it were an elephant not one of them has seen.

               So, too, I think we are all limited in our knowledge of God by many things.  For example, our circumstances in life limit what we see of God.  The limits of our experiences, the limits of the time that we can give over to our spiritual lives, these limit our understanding of God.  We are limited by our beliefs in seeing the whole picture of God.  The really wise person is the one who recognizes they lack knowledge because that is the person who is open to learning and experiencing more.  Our "knowledge" of God can often limit what we see of God, what we hear of God.  Let me give you a specific example - those who "know" that God is only male miss seeing the feminine or even binary or fluid aspects of God.  Those who "know" that people are made in the image of God may miss seeing aspects of God reflected and alive in nature or in other ways that are beyond human. 

               We see this with scripture too: if we only take scripture as literal and historic, we frankly miss the deeper messages within it.  When we miss those layers and layers of wisdom and meaning, we also miss out on deeper and different ways to see and understand God. 

               We also limit God by what we leave God out of in our lives, or what parts of our lives we keep separate from our faith.  Can you think of areas people hide away from God?  Can you think of areas that YOU keep separate from God?  Or areas of our lives in which it might be a challenge to include God in?   

               Besides all of these things that limit our relationships with God, I would also say that spending time with God only in the ways that are familiar and make us comfortable also limits our understanding of God.  We only see the part of God that we are touching, that we are exploring in those moments.  For example, when we only know God through prayer, we may come to see a God who listens, a God who loves, but we may miss that God also instructs, also guides, also has words to speak to us.  We have heard some people say they don't come to church because they find God better on their own.  Well, I suggest that only finding God in church, and conversely, only finding God outside of church - both of these limit our vision and understanding of God.

               The scriptures we heard today present two ways that people might meet God.  Moses met God in a burning bush.  The Psalmist tells us to meet God in silence.  Both are important.  Both give us information about God.  God appearing in the burning bush tells us that God is amazing, can do anything, can appear in any form, and that God does speak to us, does come to us, does have instruction for us.  It shows us the drama and wonder of God, the ways in which God can be so obvious, so hard to ignore, so beyond our expectations.  God telling us to be still to know God tells us that God is also gentle, and at times is not dramatic, but calls us into a stillness and into a place of listening and being present in the quiet and stillness.  That God is as close to us as our own breathing and heartbeats, if we but quiet down for a moment to experience God.

               In the book Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert takes a year "sabbatical" or pilgrimage to explore her spirituality.  This was not always a comfortable experience for her.  She found herself confronting difficult parts of herself within her spiritual journey.  And some of the things she tried - extended periods of meditation for example, were downright frustrating and uncomfortable at first.  But she continued to try them, to work with them, to give them a chance.  It took time, it took commitment, it took a real desire to see God, to know God in a different way, in a fuller way, in a more complete way.  When we strive to know God in a different way, she discovered, we cannot just try something new for a minute or an hour, a day, or even a week.  It took months, but she was blessed with a deeper, broader, new look at God.  And she found that not only did she encounter God in new ways, but through her encounter with the Divine, she came to understand herself better, to heal some deep brokenness within and to find the courage to heal some brokenness outside of herself, in relationships, as well. 

               This is not surprising.  When we come to know God in a new way, we also come to understand ourselves more deeply, because we are made in God's image.  Similarly, we can come to understand those around us more deeply as well.  We can grow in our capacity to love and to care as we encounter Love itself, as we strive to know God better and in different ways.

               On this, World Communion Sunday, we remember that other Christians around the world, Christians who experience and celebrate God in different ways than we do, are also part of our faith family, part of the family of God.  In their different ways of worshiping and celebrating their faith, they have things to teach us about who God is and where God can be found.  In hearing and learning and experiencing the ways others do worship differently, and understand God differently, we come to see more aspects of God, more nuances to the face of God, more parts of who God is.  I would say this also expands beyond Christianity.  When we encounter and talk and interact with people from different faith traditions, even atheism and agnosticism, we can also learn from them.  Even those who say there is no God or that they don’t know if there is or they don’t care if there is, there are still things we can learn about God even from them!  As I worked on my doctoral dissertation, I interviewed a number of atheists and learned that those I interviewed had a very specific vision of God as a white bearded man sitting in the clouds, literally making the world in 7 of our human days, that they couldn’t accept.  Well, I can understand that.   I tend to agree with them on that.   

These beautiful passages in which God says God’s name is “I am” or “I will be who I will be” or “I am becoming who I am becoming” tell us that God is so very much bigger than we can imagine.  God IS, and in that BEING we find God.  It is not just God’s name.  It is who and what God is.  God IS being.  God IS.  We find that God in the burning bush and in the stillness and in so many ways.  Jesus, too identifies as “I am” repeatedly, “I AM the bread of life,” “I AM the way, the truth and the life,” etc.  Jesus also says this BEING existed from the beginning.  But we humans, we have a hard time with just “being”.  We want to define things more tightly.  We want to assign qualities and attributes.  And those qualities and attributes limit who God really is for us.  If you are happy, you are not sad.  If you are a democrat, you are not a republican.  If you are an athlete, you are not a coach potato.  Whatever it is: our attributes, even of God, limit in our minds not just who we are, and who other people are, but who God really is.  But God IS.  God IS.  And so, we expand our understanding by taking the time to intentionally see other sides of God that may not be as comfortable or easy. We expand beyond the boxes and the attributes and into the BEING of God.

               And so, my challenge for all of us is that we take the risk, and take the time, to try to know God in a way we haven't encountered God before.  I encourage us to try something that we may not have tried before.  We can try a classic spiritual discipline such as daily meditation for a month, or we can try a 24 hour fast.  You can invite someone to be your prayer partner, especially someone you don’t know very well, or someone you’ve had issues with.  This doesn’t necessarily have to be someone you pray with, but someone you can check in with about your prayer life and that can help hold you accountable to daily personal prayer.  You might try a Taize service, or attending one Sunday a service that is completely different.  You could help serve a meal with Winter Nights, or volunteer to help with our laundry program.  You can commit to reading a part of the Bible with which you are unfamiliar, to study it, to discuss it with a small group.  I would be happy to help you form that group.  You might take a journey or pilgrimage to Israel/Palestine.  You might talk to someone that you don't think you like.  Or simply make a commitment to take the time to be still, even amidst the crazy business of our lives.  But the challenge is not to just try this new thing one time, but to really give time to whatever you are trying that is new.  Give it time, give it space, give God time to talk to you through your new experience and to reveal God-self to you in a new way.  Whatever it is, I invite you to seek to feel more of the elephant...or rather, to seek to see more of God and who God is in your life, and in the world.   God is waiting to be known more fully by you, and God promises that in return you will know more of yourself as well.  Amen.