Was Blind But Now I See

Psalm 27

John 9:1-41

2/27/22

           How many of you would consider yourselves skeptical people?   I freely admit, I am a skeptical person, or rather, I’m a person who looks at things seriously before just blindly accepting them.  That doesn’t mean I’m not open to learning about some new or even old belief system that those around me think is important.  Growing up here in the Bay Area, I have known and still do know people who are into many different spiritual practices and as I’ve gotten to know these folk, I’ve taken the opportunity to learn about their beliefs and to try to understand why they believe what they do.  So, I’ve learned about Christian Scientist beliefs, I’ve learned about many of the new age beliefs such as Tarot cards, crystals, past lives, astrology and all sorts of stuff that those around me and perhaps some of you hold as dear, true and important.  I’ve listened to my friends’ experiences, but then I’ve also done reading, and studying, trying to understand.  I had a minor in religious studies in my undergraduate schooling because I wanted to know how these beliefs came to be, how they held up, how they measured up.  But more than that, I think some of the major questions that carried me through my learning about other faiths were: In the face of adversity what do these beliefs offer? In the face of suffering how deep do the beliefs go?  And most importantly, do these beliefs promote God’s love and life or do they, in the end, no matter how interesting or “true” a belief may seem on the surface, actually contribute to human suffering, to death, or to a pulling away from the God of life and love? 

          For example, I have an acquaintance who was very into Tarot cards and used them as a guide for daily life.  Generally, this didn’t seem to do too much harm.  But one day her dog became very ill.  Consulting the Tarot cards, the death card emerged.  Because she absolutely depended on the tarot cards to tell her “truth” she did nothing for the dog, assuming that it was set by fate that the dog would die.  Fortunately, her husband did not feel the same, took the dog to the vet and after a few weeks on antibiotics, the dog was fine - and continued to be fine for many years.  Her absolute unfailing belief in the tarot cards blinded her to her options, to choosing life, not only for herself, but also for her dog and for those around her who loved her dog. 

            Another example: I have a friend who believes absolutely in Karma and by “Karma” he means that people who are suffering are suffering because of something they have done: if not in this life, then in a past life.  Because he believes this, absolutely, he will not help those who are suffering, those who are poor, because he believes they must reap the consequences of their karma and if he helps them now, they will have to live through more pain in their next life.

            Personality charts - whether they are determined by the stars or even by tests, can have the same unfortunate effects.   It is possible that they may help us gain understanding about ourselves or others.  Personally, I’m a big fan of the Enneagram which is a spiritually developed understanding of our personalities that can allow us to know ourselves more fully.  But I find that often the people who refer to these personality charts end up using them as a weapon, to box people in, to judge people, to decide who they are and what is best for them as well as themselves.  Another example, I met an acquaintance some years back who would not consider being my friend until she had my astrology chart done.  According to my astrology chart, I am a “popular” person who is shallow, into clothing and jewelry, and because of these shallow values, I can’t stay in a relationship of any kind long term.  My chart said some other interesting things as well, but these were the points which struck my new acquaintance.  It didn’t matter that I pointed out to her that I’d had the same best friend since child-hood as well as other long term close relationships or that all of my clothing was either hand-me-downs or gifts because I don’t have an eye for or even care very much about what things look like as long as they fit.  She had read my “chart” and decided that the stars had determined who I was – a person not fit to be her friend. 

         Another friend of mine chose when to get pregnant based on astrological charts, wanting certain specific personality traits for her children.  One of her children is a Taurus and though she is the least stubborn person in their family, my friend insists that she is the most stubborn because of when she was born.  She can’t see her daughter for who she really is, but instead allows these charts to tell her who her daughter is.  When we do this, we can fail to really see who is in front of us, and even the possibilities for ourselves about who we can be, and who we are called to be. 

         The truth is, there is danger in any belief system if it is adopted without constant question, without growth, without study, without vigilance against “magic” thinking and superstition.  Fundamentalist or legalistic thinking from any religion is dangerous.

          None of the major religions are exempt from the possibility of this kind of superstition either.  Christianity too, risks the danger of falling into that kind of magic thinking.  Prosperity theologians tells us, for example, that if we only do x,y,or z then God will bless us and our families.  This is a magic formula which will supposedly produce magic results.  In the Old Testament, especially perhaps, we are presented with many of these magic ways of thinking.  One of the early magic beliefs is reflected in today’s passage from John which shows an old but faithfully held belief at the time that any kind of disability in a person was proof that either that person or their parents were sinners.  This kind of magic thinking offered much - it offered stability, even offered comfort because it explained things and gave an impression of control in one’s life that otherwise would have been hard to claim.  All you had to do to ensure that you would not get sick, struggle with a terrible disability, produce children born blind or with another disability was to follow the laws to a tee, to be without sin yourself.  And since none of us is capable of perfection in our lives, when something did go wrong, it was easy to find the cause in our own behavior. This gave the illusion of absolute control in an uncontrollable world. Everything was “fair” in this world because anything bad that happened was a result of your own sin.

            But we now understand that sin is usually not the cause of disease, natural disasters, or disabilities.  Of course, there are exceptions: if a mother does not take care of herself nutritionally or in other ways when pregnant and this leads to a disability in the child, we could say our sin caused the disability.  But Jesus here quickly points out that disability is not always caused by sin, and it is not our place to make those judgment calls as regards other people.  Again, this kind of magic thinking, and this holding of unscrutinized beliefs, even in Christianity, can lead away from life, and instead to condemnation, to judgment, and to hurtful, life-harming actions.

          Generally speaking, then, I think that skepticism can be healthy - it can lead to truth, or steer a person away from magic thinking, from unfair judgments on others, from superstitions.

          However, as science also teaches us, things that are observed, are scrutinized, are watched, are also changed in the very act of being observed.  There is danger at times in being too skeptical, too questioning.  For the study itself changes the thing being studied.  When we question another’s experience, we can cheapen their experience.  We can reduce God-infused, meaningful life events down to facts, to cold hard “truth” that is empty of beauty, empty of purpose, empty of life.

          In today’s scripture lesson, this is what has happened.  A miracle had taken place - a blind man had found sight.  But instead of finding themselves touched by the joy, the beauty, the amazing gift of this new life, the truth present in the miracle that comes to each of us every morning we wake, every day we allow something new to change us at all, instead of this, the Pharisees needed facts.  Interestingly, it wasn’t the miracle happening that caused their skepticism.  It was the fact that Jesus performed the miracle that caused their discomfort and discontent.  Jesus was not legalistic, he did not adhere to the Old Testament rules surrounding what could and could not be done on the Sabbath, he did not fit into their image of what constituted a holy man, and because of their rules, and their ways of ordering and understanding the world, some of the Pharisees could not accept that Jesus was a man of God who could help another person to see.  So, they questioned, they grilled, they took some of the joy and life from the man who was given the gift of sight by insisting on questioning him again and again, finally criticizing him, discounting him, and rejecting him.  Ironically, in their search for “truth,” they lost the meaning of the event completely, they lost the joy of the new life, they lost the gift of wonder and awe, and instead found themselves mired not only in fighting with each other, but in blindness to the wondrous and beautiful presence of God around them.

          In the movie "Chocolat" those people who represent truth in the form of rules, those who stay in a way of life that is tranquil or correct, those who embrace cold hard fact, none the less are the very people who act without love.  They gossip, they pass on “truths” with a judgment that leads to the shunning of others.  They tell the “truth” through eyes that see anything that doesn’t fit into their rules as wrong and in need of correction.  They don’t welcome the stranger.  One of the men who represents this way of life beats his wife.  But then he dares still to call the wanderers who come into his town “animals” and he refuses to allow them into his place of business.  He eventually sets fire to their boats, destroying property and threatening lives.  In contrast, those in the movie who didn’t follow in the path that is expected, who didn’t follow the rules, welcomed in the woman who had been beaten, visited the strangers and gave them work.  They invited laughter, friendship, care.  They invited life.  That’s not to say that they were perfect or without sin.  But in the bigger scheme of things, it was the outcasts who invited life and love into the town, and it was the people who were following the rules who failed to act with love.  In the end, the outcast and rejected even welcome those who have persecuted them; they even offer to the one who would throw them out care and comfort.

          I have shared with you before the story of how the hymn “Amazing Grace” came to be written, but it is worthy of repeating, especially in light of today’s scripture.  John Newton was the captain of a slave ship when slavery was profitable and “popular” among the elite.  But after several years he went through a conversion experience.   After his experience he went to seminary to become a pastor and developed a more Christian understanding of slavery.  He came to see it for the evil it is and to condemn it and fight against it. 

   He became a pastor to other sailors, teaching them about God’s love for all and God’s hatred of slavery or anything that oppresses and hurts God’s people.  His song “Amazing Grace” is autobiographical as he talks about the blindness that kept his focus on money and fame rather than on the love that God would have us share.  “I was blind, but now I see” is probably the most famous line in the song, in part because most of us have experiences of enlightenment at one point or another, in which the values we held, the lifestyles we’ve adopted, or the beliefs we have held onto so tightly break in the face of hard but deep truths.  These truths are sometimes beautiful, sometimes they are ugly.  But at some level, the very reaching of those truths can set us free to live differently, can set us free to see, really see God’s presence and life all around us.  In the case of John Newton, it forced a complete change in his life and he became an advocate for God’s justice for all people. 

So what is this truth we are called to face?  This truth we are called to see?  The truth is love; the truth is that we are called to be part of that love, the truth is that it changes us, all of us for the better.  The truth is God’s love was and is incarnate around us if we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind open to receiving it. 

For one Faith and Film night we showed the movie "Spit Fire Grill."  For those of you who haven’t seen it, it is a wonderful and thought-provoking movie about redemption, and forgiveness, among other things.  In it the main character, Percy, comes to a small town looking for work after having just been released from prison.  While we don’t know the details of her experience until pretty close to the end of the movie, we do know that the conviction which landed her in prison was for manslaughter.  But while she is, by every standard, someone to be feared, someone to avoid, someone about whom we should have the greatest suspicion, she has an uncanny way of bringing new life, hope, and strength into the lives of those around her.  Her nemesis in the movie, though, Nahum, cannot see beyond his preconceived ideas of what this foreigner, this ex-con, this stranger must be like.  He cannot get past his skepticism, his cynicism, his fear for what she will bring to his family and his town.  As a result of his actions trying to prove her the villain he believes her to be, his life is lessened and eventually other life is lost as well.  He believed himself to be standing in truth while all around him were blind.  But his skepticism blinded him to beauty, it blinded him to love, it blinded him to opportunity, and in the end, it just plain blinded him to real truth.  His facts were correct - she was an ex-con, convicted of manslaughter and a foreigner to their town.  But the truth went deeper than those facts.  In the end he faced that truth, but not before a huge cost had been paid.

I think the pastor in "Chocolat" in his Easter homily sums it up very well.  He says this:

“I’m not sure what my homily should be.  Do I want to speak of the miracle of our Lord’s divine transformation?  Not really, no.  I don’t want to talk about his divinity.  I’d rather talk about his humanity.  I mean, how he lived his life here on earth: his kindness, his tolerance.  Listen, here’s what I think: I think we can’t go around measuring our goodness by what we don’t do, by what we deny ourselves, by what we resist and who we exclude.  I think we’ve got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create and who we include.”

            It’s not an easy journey to put aside our preconceived ideas of what people, what God, what you and I are like.  But when we can, when we can put aside magic formulas, boxes and judgments, when we can put aside our fear of the things that don’t fit neatly into our categories, we are free to be God’s people, a people of light, a people of sight, a people of hope, and a people of love.  Amen.

Discrediting What We Fear

 

Psalm 147:1-11

John 7:37-52

 

               Last week we talked about Jesus as the Bread of Life.  And this week we come to another metaphor for Jesus: Jesus as living water.  But this time, rather than seeing a ritual created out of it by the followers of Jesus, we see how those who don’t understand, don’t agree, don’t want the changes and vision that he brings, we see how they react.  And it’s the same as any people react to things that are new and that they don’t understand: they react with fear.  They wanted him seized, they wanted him cast out, they wanted him arrested.  And this was especially true when people around Jesus began to see him as prophet, as messiah.  This was an incredible threat to those in charge.  Remember that the vision and hope for a Messiah was one who would, in a military way, overthrow the oppressors, lift up the poor, bring down the rich and mighty.  So those in charge, who would have recognized themselves as the rich, powerful and mighty had every reason to feel threatened by someone others were calling Messiah.  They were afraid for the wrong reasons, since Jesus was not a military leader, was not going to create change through violence, but through love.  Jesus was about freeing both sides of the coin: and that meant healing and redemption for the rich as well as the poor.  But they did not understand.  And so they were afraid.

               Their response?  Well, their response was to discount what they heard.  They grabbed onto something that they could use to discredit the thing they feared and they wielded it with all the strength they could muster. “A prophet does not come from Galilee” they declared.  “The messiah does not come from Galilee”.  They declared this and held fast to it.  They held on to it because it helped them to feel safe: they could discount what they were hearing, what they were even experiencing, by hanging on to a thin, flimsy and inaccurate statement and making it the center of their belief system.  “a prophet does not come from Galilee” they declared as if this was the most important statement in scripture.  They stood on it as the proof they needed to hang onto their beliefs that Jesus was not a threat and could not change their world. 

               Those in charge, those in politics, have used fear and the discrediting that which they don’t want to accept, that which scares them, forever.  Bryan Stevenson who wrote, “Just Mercy” gave a wonderful speech in which he said that our NARRATIVES have to change.  As he said, the people in power preach “fear and anger” and use those to justify policies.  He went on to say that almost every policy decision at this point in time is based on fear and anger.  None are based on hope, or love, or joy.  It is all fear and anger.  And the thing is, fear and anger are the essential components of injustice.  I want to say that again, fear and anger are the essential components of injustice.  We use it, and always have used it, to justify extreme cruelty, to “forget” that all those people whom we label and discredit, those are our brothers, sisters and siblings.  All of them belong to us.  And rather than fear them, harm them, hurt them, we need to work with them, love them, and care for them.  But until we change the fear and anger narratives, we will never succeed in becoming the world united, the world as one, the world God calls us to create.  Bryan Stevenson talked about the ways we discredit that which we fear.  We discredit people struggling with addictions who need our help: we relabel drug addicts as “criminals”.  We relabel people who are struggling to find work and call them “lazy”.  We relabel people of color as “stupid” or “inferior”.  And we do this because we are afraid.  We are afraid of that which we don’t know so we discredit it.  We are afraid of losing our wealth, so we discredit and label the other.  We are afraid of losing our power, so we discredit and label. 

               When the news started coming out about the sexual abuse that had taken place at Cameron house in San Francisco, our Presbytery reacted with fear.  They tried to muzzle the information, they tried to discredit what people were saying.  They were afraid that the truth and that information would destroy the church in this area, would discredit the church.  So out of our great fear, we tried hard to discredit the voices sharing their vulnerable and horrible experiences.  As we know this doesn’t work.  It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now.  In the process, they revictimized the victims by proclaiming their words as “lies”.  They revictimized the victims by shutting them down and shutting them out.  The church did not behave as a church, it did not act with love.  And as a result of THAT choice, we lost so many of our members.   

               I want to say this, fear is a feeling.  And as a feeling, it is a natural part of the human experience.  It can help us to see where there is danger, and it can help us to make good choices.  But it can also cause us to move into anger, hatred, violence towards others.  And while the feeling of fear is just that, a feeling, the reactions to fear are things we choose and have to choose with great care.  Do we run away, try to discount and discredit what scares us?  Or do we look at it full-on, try to understand and move through the fear into something better?  I remember a quote from the movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: “We came here and we tried, all of us, in our different ways. Can we be blamed for feeling we are too old to change? Too scared of disappointment to start it all again? We get up in the morning, we do our best. Nothing else matters…But it’s also true that the person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing. All we know about the future is that it will be different. But perhaps what we fear is that it will be the same. So we must celebrate the changes. Because, as someone once said, everything will be all right in the end. And if it’s not all right, then trust me, it’s not yet the end."

               While it is deeply true that fear is a normal feeling, a part of being human, we have to choose what we will do with it.  Will we remain stuck in it?  Will we live it out by separating ourselves into “us” and “them?” Because when we do, we do great damage.  That’s when it can cause injustice, when we are reactionary to the fear and act it out.  And the deep truth is that Fear doesn’t leave room for anything else like purpose or beauty.  Or LIVING. 

I look at our playgrounds that no longer have the merry-go-rounds because they were too dangerous and are now beginning to remove even the swing sets as “too dangerous.”  And I feel sad for our children who cannot experience these things.  I remember reading an article when I was living in Ohio about an experiment some reporters had done.  They had gotten together and to see if someone could use the ice cream trucks to poison children.  So they got a truck, they never got a business license and they just went around seeing how long it would take for someone to report them as suspicious after they started selling ice cream to kids.  No one did.  No one even checked to make sure they were legitimate.  No one asked to see their business license, but if they had, the reporters had printed up a false one to show folk.  And they published this article, “Ice cream trucks could be poisoning your kids!”  The thing is, it hadn’t happened.  It had never happened.  They just made this up as a story they thought would sell.  Fear sells.  But it also prevents us from living.

               So, what is the opposite of fear?  The opposite of fear is, of course, love.  And love invites us to understand, to listen, to hear, to stay with the other in relationship, in connection.  It is what Nicodemus said today in this passage: “Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”  It invites us to look, to have curiosity, to explore.  It does not cut off or make fear-based assessments formed off of one side of the truth, one side of any story.  And it never makes decisions based on fear that limit, condemn, judge or harm others. 

               In today’s gospel story, fear was still ruling the day.  And so, the pharisees not only tried to discredit Jesus, but when Nicodemus was being rational about the situation, they responded by then accusing him, too, of being from Galilee and therefore to be discredited, discounted, ignored, unheard. 

               Fear invites us, in our wiser moments, not to run, but to listen more deeply.  Fear invites us to explore what it is we value that is feeling threatened.  And then fear invites us to look deeper, to open to other possibilities, and to act in love instead.  James Baldwin, “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”

               What do you most fear?  And who does your fear have the potential to harm?  What are you discrediting and discounting out of that fear?  And what limitations does that, then, put on YOU? 

               More importantly, what would it look like for you to let go of those fears and instead put yourself in the position of considering the possibility of ideas that you have discredited and rejected out of that fear?  What would it look like for you to put aside that which you fear most to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, with someone else’s view points and beliefs?  What would it look like to stop discrediting those we don’t understand?  Maybe that fast driver on the freeway is not a maniac but is someone with a loved one in the hospital.  Maybe that person who was mean and angry with you in the grocery story was just fired from their job or had a loved one die.  What would it mean to reframe our fears and choose to listen instead, without judgment or condemnation?  What would it mean to recognize that there is always more to be learned, always others to understand, always new ways of living and being in the world?

               I want to end by sharing with you a story.  Once there were two brothers who shared a farm. The older brother had several children and the younger brother had none, but each year they would gather the grain and divide it evenly, each taking half to his own granary.

After a while, though, the younger brother got to thinking that it wasn’t exactly fair that they divided the grain evenly. After all, his brother had all of those children to feed while he had no one but himself. So each night he took to going to his own granary with a sack, filling it full of grain, and carrying it to the granary of his brother.

At about the same time, the older brother also got to thinking that it wasn’t exactly fair that they divided the grain evenly. After all, he had all of those children – to look after him in his old age – while his brother had no one but himself. So each night he took to going to his own granary with a sack, filling it full of grain, and carrying it to the granary of his brother.

Eventually, of course, what had to happen happened. The two of them met there in the middle of the night – and what could they do but fall upon each other, and embrace, and count their blessings for the love in the family?

 

This story shows the opposite of fear: this is a choosing not to live in the fear of not having enough for one self, but the love of seeing the other’s point of view, embracing it, and seeking to care for the other, despite cost to oneself, despite fear. 

It is not easy to let go of fear, especially when the powers that be are constantly using it to their own advantage.  But I invite you to move deeper, to embrace love.  I invite you to remember that fear caused the pharisees to try to discredit even Jesus, even God.  And that fear as a weapon is powerful, but dishonest.  I invite you to remember that LOVE is the opposite of fear, and it is love we are called to embrace and to live out.  I invite you to remember that Jesus overcame fear not with more fear, but with love.  For that we have been created.  And for that we are called.  Amen.

Healings and Signs

 

John 4:46-5:18

               I want to start today by asking you a question.  What things did Jesus do in his ministry?  Teaching, preaching and healing.  Anything else?

               Why healing?  Do you think it was to get people’s attention so that they would pay attention to him?  Do you think it was so people would like him, come to listen to him?  Was he trying to be liked?  Was he trying to show signs to prove he was who he said he was?  Was it about proof?  Was it about forcing people to believe?  Or was it for another reason? 

               Jesus spent a lot of time touching, caring for, listening to, and engaging people that other people rejected.  Those with leprosy were outcasts.  They couldn’t live with their families and it was assumed that someone in their family or the person themself, must have done something wrong and that is why this person was sick.  Disease was believed to be punishment.  Some people still have this thinking but they call it Karma.  While there are different understandings of what Karma is (so I’m not knocking the idea itself), some believe that while it may not be clear why there are people who suffer and others who don’t, those who suffer must have done something to deserve it, either in this life or in a past life.  But Jesus first confronted this idea with words like “the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous,” and “He replied, “Do you think the suffering of these … proves that they were more sinful than all the others?  No, I tell you!”  But he went much further than just declaring that it wasn’t their fault that they were afflicted.

               He touched, he talked to and with, and he healed any who were in need – the rejected, the outcast, the condemned, the judged, the dismissed.  He touched them, included them, treated them as the incredible and beautiful people that they were, regardless of how others treated them.

               I have a ten dollar bill here.  If I mangle it and squish it and stomp on it, if I make it dirty or even filthy, what is it then worth?  It is still worth ten dollars.  The appearance, the condition, the outward attributes of this money don’t change it’s worth.  Well, Jesus was able to see that this is the same with people.  He saw beyond the outside of the bill.  He saw beyond the dirt, the scrounge, the disease.  He saw beyond the vocations, the successes, the judgments, the rejections.  He saw beyond their achievements, their choices, their mistakes, their sins.  He saw beyond all of that to who they WERE.  And who they were is the same as who you are – you are a child of God.  Worthy of infinite value. 

               I came across an article in Sojourner’s Magazine that was talking about Henri Nouwen.  Henri Nouwen was an amazingly gifted priest, professor and writer.  I love his books, I love the way he thinks.  He has a brilliant as well as deeply faithful and spiritual mind.  But after teaching for many years, he was invited to become pastor to a community of people with intellectual disabilities.  He soon discovered that they didn’t care how brilliant he was, and all the wonderful things he had written and taught just didn’t mean that much to them.  He told the story in one of his books, Life of the Beloved, of one particular woman, Janet, who one day asked Henri for a blessing.  When he tried to bless her with the sign of the cross on her forehead she became very upset and said, “No, I want a real blessing!”  He didn’t know what to do with that, but that evening at worship, he mentioned that Janet had asked for a real blessing, and as he was speaking she marched up to the front and gave him a huge hug.  In that moment, he found the words that were needed.  “Janet, I want you to know that you are God’s beloved daughter.  You are precious in God’s eyes.  Your beautiful smile, your kindness to the people in your house, and all the good things you do show us what a beautiful human being you are.  I know you feel a little low these days and that there is some sadness in your heart, but I want you to remember who you are: a very special person, deeply loved by God and all the people who are here with you.”  She gave him a satisfied smile, but as Nouwen then turned away, he found himself surrounded by the others in the community also asking for blessings.  Henri gave each one a hug and a personal affirmation that they were loved as they were.  And Henri walked away a changed man.

               There is a video called “Who You Are: A Message to All Women.” The man who created it also did one for all men.  I wish I could show you, but instead I’m just going to read to you the words.  The person who created this did this video for all of you: for all people.  In the video, he walks onto a stage and he says this:

“You are beautiful.  You are smart.  You are funny.  You are kind.  You are unique.  You are worthy of Love and affection.  You are never too much. And you are always enough.  You are precious.  You are a diamond, a rose, a pearl, the most stunning of all God’s creation.  You are worth more than you could ever imagine.  Worth more than the numbers on the scale, or the hair product you use or the shoes you wear. More than how many (people) wish they were you, or how many people wish they had you.  More than the price tag on your clothes or the percentage on the top of your math test or even the number of followers you have on twitter.  Your worth surpasses all earthly things because in the eyes of God you are loved and you are worth dying for.  Regardless of who you think you are.  Whether you model in a magazine or you model pottery with grandma. Whether you are on the hot list or the not list.  Whether you’re head cheer leader or a high school drop out.  Whether you are miss popular or whether you’ve never had anyone you could call a friend.  Whether you love yourself and love your life or you can’t stand to look in the mirror and you feel everything is falling apart.  Whether you are such a winner or you feel like the world’s biggest failure.  Regardless of who you think you are.  The reality is that you deserve someone who would give up their life for you because you are powerful and strong and capable.  Read about the women in the bible: Esther, Ruth, Mary, Martha.  These women changed the world forever and inside of you each and every one of you is a person with that same power and strength and that same world changing capability. And your responsibility is to find that woman and set that woman free.  This is who you are.  And any voices in your mind that try to tell you differently are not from God.  And when you hear that voice you say to it, no: not me.  I am a daughter of the living God: cherished, loved above all things.  I am awesome!  Please, don’t forget it.”           

               This is a beautiful sentiment.  But the reality is that it is a different thing when that kind of blessing comes from someone who really knows you and really loves you, when the blessing is genuine because it is from a place of real knowing.  One of the lines in a praise song that I like is. “This is what I’m sure of, I can only show love When I really know how loved I am. When it overtakes me, Then it animates me, Flowing from my heart into my hands.”  I think there is deep truth in this. 

               Unlike some of our faith brothers and sisters who say our relationship with God begins with our conversion, with our submission, with our choosing to change, I believe with every fiber in my being that instead, our relationship with God begins with God loving us, with God choosing us.  That love allows us to change, that love gives us the courage and strength to change, that love is what allows us to love others and to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. 

               Jesus not only healed the bodies of the outcast, the oppressed, the disadvantaged, and the physically broken.  He healed their souls by showing them, reminding them, acting in a way that said beyond a doubt that they were loved and valued, that they were worthy, that God still saw them as more important and beautiful than anything they could imagine. 

In writing this sermon, I found myself reflecting on the movie The Help.  The Help is a movie about the caste system in the Southern states, especially in the late 50s and early 60s.  Poor and oppressed African American women worked as “help” to the powerful, wealthy white women.  The help raised the white women’s kids, the help cleaned their clothes, made their food, took care of their families and homes but were treated like dirt, were less than, were always the servants and never treated as equals.  Despite this, despite this, the black women often loved the white babies they cared for.  They genuinely cared for and about them, knowing all the while that those white babies would probably still grow up to be their own oppressors.  In the movie, the main character, Abilene, had care over a specific toddler, Mae Mobley, who was not loved by her own mother.  Mae Mobley’s own mother saw her as a hassle, as a problem, as a burden.  She did not want her or love her, and did not want to care for her.  And so, as Mae Mobley herself said to Abilene, “You are my real mother” and in so very many ways she was.  Abilene had a routine, then, that she did every day with Mae Mobley.  She would take this little girl of two or so years of age and say to her, “You is smart. You is kind. You is important!”  And she would ask Mae Mobley to repeat it and remember it.  Towards the end of the movie Abilene was fired.  And Mae Mobley was left with this mother who didn’t like her.  Abilene, in tears, turned to the little girl and said, “Baby, I have to retire now.  You are my last little girl.  But I need you to remember everything that I told you.  Do you remember what I told you?”  To which Mae Mobley repeated, “You is strong.  You is kind.  You is important!”  “Yes,” Abilene cries, “Please remember.”  And then she turned to the mother and told her to give her sweet girl a chance. 

We are invited to do the same.  As we are called to follow, we heal others by showing them how loved they are.  That starts by remembering how loved YOU are, by trusting in that love, by resting in that love.  God’s love for you is so deep that Jesus healed.  God’s love for you is so deep that God continues to offer all the different kinds of healing: healing of soul, healing of emotions, healing of spirit especially.  That may not look like physical healing.  But healing is offered in many, many ways.  It is often not the physical healing we would hope for: our bodies age and all of our lives are mortal.  But that does not mean that healing is not there for us.  It is there, but in many different ways.  We are called to look for it, to accept it, to embrace it.  And then to go into the world, affirming, uplifting, and healing one another.  Amen.

Jesus, the Unexpected

John 4:1-42

Psalm 42:1-3

Today we hear the story of the woman at the well.  It is a very familiar story, but I want to dig into the context just a little bit more for us today.  In this time of Jesus, the division between peoples, in particular between the Jews and Samaritans was very much like the growing divisions that we are seeing in our own country.  It was a time of great anxiety, just like it is now, and it was a time, just like now, when it was clear who “the enemy” was for any group of people.  Everyone knew which “side” of things they were on.  And they “KNEW” that the others were wrong.  This was so much the case that in today’s passage we read, in verse 9: “The Samaritan woman asked, ‘Why do you, a Jewish man, ask for something to drink from me, a Samaritan woman?’ (Jews and Samaritans didn’t associate with each other.)”  There was so much animosity that people simply did not cross the lines.  They did not associate with each other, they did not talk to each other.  And yet, here was Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman.  And the woman, to her credit, talked back.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: we forget that we belong to one another.  We forget that we BELONG to one another.  You know that question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  For people of faith the answer is, always, “YES.”  

I found myself remembering when we had our first “crossing the differences” conversation here.  And it was about low-income housing and rent control.  One of our visitors who attended that meeting made the comment, “I find no reason at all why we should take care of people who can’t take care of themselves.  We subsidize them whenever there is low-income housing.  The rest of us are subsidizing them.”  And I found myself thinking, once again, that this is the core difference between our culture and what our faith calls us to do and be.  We are absolutely called to care for those who “can’t take care of themselves.”  God never asks the question of whether or not their care is deserved.  NEVER.  Jesus, when he offers healing, and help, and food, NEVER asks about whether or not it is deserved.  Instead, God’s question is always about what the other needs.  As people with families we understand this.  If our child were hungry, it would never be a question on our mind to ask if they deserved to eat that day or if they deserved to have a warm bed to sleep in.  We provide because they are our family and we love them.  We provide because they belong to us and we belong to them.  That call to remember that everyone else is our brother, is our sister, belongs to us, that is our call as people of faith.  

Outside of faith, that man with his comment was correct: there is no reason, outside of our love for God that calls us to love all of God’s children, all of God’s people, there is no reason.  But inside the bounds of our faith, there is, in fact, no option to fail to offer care, no option to fail to serve, to care, or to love.

As you all know, a group of us have been part of a belong circle now for about eight months.  This is a group of women from our church and a group of women from an African American congregation who meet together twice a month for the purpose of remembering that we belong to one another.  We share with one another where we are, what we are doing, our joys, our hopes, our dreams, our struggles, our pains.  We have come to love each other deeply.  Personally, I also feel that I have learned and grown so much from their example.  One of the women in our group, for example, is struggling with great unkindness coming her direction.  But her commitment to being kind to those who are treating her so unfairly and even, at times, cruelly, moves me every single time that I listen to her.  She understands at a deep place that people are unkind because they are hurting.  So she prays for them, she responds to their attacks with listening, with apology, with words of humility.  She touches and amazes me every day.  She lives out the understanding that despite differences, we belong to one another.  

I was reminded recently of a story called the “Law of the Garbage Truck”.  The person who wrote it said, “One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly.  So I asked, 'Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!' This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck.' He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment.  As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, So ... Love the people who treat you right. Pray for those who don’t.”

The thing here is, Jesus did not change his mind in talking with the Samaritan woman.  He still said in this passage from John, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.”  He still has his same understanding.  But he does not then choose to hold her differences of belief and understanding against her.  He does not avoid her because her worldview is different.  He does not shun her or reject her.  He does not choose hate, despite what other Jews are doing, in the face of their differences.  Instead, he invites her close, he offers her life, he talks to her.  And in so doing, he breaks down walls rather than building them up.  And he crosses differences instead of upholding animosity.  He chooses connection over division.  

I’m reminded of a poem by Yehuda Amichai called, The Place Where We Are Right 

From the place where we are right 

Flowers will never grow 

In the spring. 

The place where we are right 

Is hard and trampled 

Like a yard. 

But doubts and loves 

Dig up the world 

Like a mole, a plow. 

And a whisper will be heard in the place 

Where the ruined

House once stood.

Or as Wayne Dyer said it, “When given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind.” 

The Priest and spiritual leader, Richard Rohr, said it this way: “Henceforth, it is not "those who do it right go to heaven later," but "those who receive and reflect me are in heaven now." This is God's unimaginable restorative justice. God does not love you if and when you change. God loves you so that you can change. That is the true story line of the Gospel.”

Or, as the author of the book, When Breath become Air, Paul Kalanithi says, “The main message of Jesus, I believed, is that mercy trumps justice every time.”

As I listen to those words I find myself wondering, once again, if we can’t work harder to do the same.  Can we learn to love one another, across our differences, despite our differences, with the hope of creating a society where we understand and remember that we belong to one another?  Can we be the people that we are called to be?  People of grace, of light, of compassion, of LOVE?  

When my son was coming home for Christmas from UAF, I was worried about how he was going to get to the airport.  The school has a shuttle service around campus and downtown so I emailed them and asked if they would be running kids the airport for Christmas break.  The person in charge said he did not believe so (most of the kids live in AK and don’t need that transportation), but if I let him know what time Jonah needed to travel, they would come get him and take him.  I sent them back a note saying that was very kind and could I pay them for it.  His response, “no need.  This is the right thing to do.”  I was truly blown away.  But the fact that this kindness caught me so by surprise is a warning sign to me of the state of our nation.  We should always be that kind to one another, all the time.  The fact that it is rare?  We need to work harder to make it less so!

Someone said recently to me, “I don’t worry about putting the Christ back into Christmas.  I worry about putting the Christ back into Christians.”  We are to be known by our love.  Do we live that out?  Do we take that seriously?  We don’t need to pound on each other about our different beliefs, our different viewpoints, our different approaches to the world.  We need to treat one another with the same compassion, love and care that Jesus showed to the woman at the well.  Even his disciples couldn’t grasp it, so I know how hard this is.  Even his disciples struggled to understand why he would talk to a Samaritan, why he would talk to a WOMAN.  But he did it none the less.  Can we do the same with those with whom we disagree?  

Connie Schultz said it this way, “I learned that those who are most secure in their faith feel no need to hammer others with their certainty.  The walk of faith begins and ends with the journey within, and that’s a path fraught with mystery and best guesses.  My own faith makes me neither right nor righteous because it demands so much of me that I am still trying to find.  Empathy, forgiveness, compassion – I never have enough.  Mom would say that’s okay.  She taught me that being a Christian meant fixing ourselves and helping others, not the other way around.” – Life Happens p214

On this the week we begin Black History month in the U.S., I want to end with one more quote.  This one is from Erna Kim Hackett.  She wrote, “White Christianity suffers from a bad case of Disney Princess theology.  As each individual reads Scripture, they see themselves as the Princess in every story.  They are Esther, never Xerxes or Haman.  They are Peter, never Judas.  They are the woman anointing Jesus, never the Pharisee.  They are the Jews escaping slavery, never Egypt.  For citizens of the most powerful country in the world, who enslaved both Native and Black people, to see itself as Israel not Egypt when studying Scripture, is a perfect example of Disney Princess Theology.  And it means that as people in power, they have no lens for locating themselves rightly in Scripture or society – and it has made them blind and utterly ill-equipped to engage issues of power and injustice.  It is some very weak Bible work.”  

No doubt.  My invitation to us, then, is to accurately locate ourselves, not so that we are weighed down with shame: shame is immobilizing and unhelpful.  But so, instead, that we can take the history that is ours, learn from it, and make different choices together.  Will we walk forward hand in hand, or will we isolate and estrange one another.  Will we confront the issues of racism and other isms by separating ourselves into camps of us vs. them?  Or will we work hard to talk together, get to know one another and build relationships together?

The Belong Circle program is a program of crossing differences and building relationships.  Outsiders to the group have asked me on many occasions, “What’s the point?  What are you accomplishing together?  What difference are you making?”  But I can tell you the difference that I’m seeing.  We are no longer strangers to one another.  We are sisters in our group.  And for my sister, I would be willing to stand up, to protect, to speak out against injustice, against racism and prejudice.  When my siblings of color were just an anonymous group of people struggling, I still wanted wholeness and healing for them.  But it is not the same as when I know them, love them, have faces and names put to those I am defending.  That is a whole other matter.  The Belong Circle invites us to truly get to know each other.  We are starting a new circle this month and I hope that you will truly consider joining.  Let me know if you would like to be a part.  It may feel like a small step forward, but in my experience it is not.    

The same is true about forming real relationships with people who disagree with you on political issues. Form those relationships with people who disagree, talk to them.  Remember that despite our differences, they are your brothers, sisters and siblings.  They belong to you, and you belong to them.  Am I my siblings keeper?  Just as Jesus answered “yes” in his conversation with the woman at the well, we are called to follow and do the same.  All that easy and all that hard.

Listening

 Listening

Last week I sent an email attempting to schedule a meeting with a group that meets fairly regularly that I’m a part of (not one at church).  I said very clearly in the email, “The only day that consistently does NOT work for me is Thursday.”  The first person to respond wrote back immediately with, “Great!  Thursday is perfect for me!”  Grrr.  They clearly had not actually read my email.  Later in the same day I had a similar situation happen with a second email.  I said something that I felt was very clear and the response made it equally clear that the person who responded had not actually read the email but instead had just answered quickly and automatically to what they assumed I had written.  Equally frustrating.  A little while later it happened again, this time with a text message.  

I believe that we are listening less and less clearly to one another.  Part of this is the frantic pace at which we now move.  Part of this is the need to “get things done!” that means we zoom through emails and texts as things that need to be checked off, finished, addressed quickly so we can move on to the next thing.  Perhaps another part of it is that we are all so stressed with the anxiety of COVID and the problems in our lives and in our world that we simply don’t feel we have the energy to attend very clearly to that which is in front of us.  

At the same time, I think each of us has a deep need, in the face of this frantic disconnection from one another, to BE heard at more depth, with more intention, and with more genuine care.  We are isolated and alienated from one another, what with COVID and with our most common means of communication being through texting, emails, and even the phone, but less and less in person.  We have been created to connect.  We have been created to be in relationship with each other.  We need each other, we need relationships, and we need, deeply and desperately, to be heard.  So when we only communicate in these quick, disconnecting emails and texts, our isolation can be intensified, and along with it the desperate need to be truly heard.  The solution to this has to start with each of us, individually.

I would like to challenge all of us, then, to be willing to take a little more time, to be willing to “get less done” for the sake of deeply and truly listen to one another. Even if it is just a scheduling email or text, the need to be heard remains. I invite all of us to “put on the ears of God” or to strive to  be the ears of God in our listening.  How would God listen?  With all presence and with all fullness.  How are we called to listen?  Similarly with all presence and all fullness.  That will take more from us.  We will actually have to read the emails, texts and listen to the phone conversations or in person conversations with more attention, with more commitment of time and with a deeper intentionality.  But my guess is that we will be blessed by the choice to listen more fully and more deeply.  My guess is that we will find ourselves gifted in the listening through seeing deeper into one another, and maybe even seeing God more fully in one another.  The promise is that when we respond to the call of God, we will be enriched.  Listening deeply to one another is another way to love one another.  And we will find ourselves more deeply heard and understood as well.

Thanks be to God for the lives that touch ours, interact with ours and share with us their thoughts, feelings and ideas as well.  In connecting truly with others and in listening deeply to others, we will in turn find ourselves more deeply heard.