Waters Shall Break Forth in the Wilderness

 

Isaiah 35:4-7a

Mark 7:24-37

 

Over and over, people were told not to bother Jesus.  The children were told to go away, Jairus was told not to bother the teacher, women were scorned for talking to him and despised for trying, others who were “less desirable” were told to go away. 

At some level I think we understand this.  Jesus was seen as very important.  And his time was understood to be, therefore, very valuable.  The disciples understood that he had a mission and they didn’t’ want Jesus to be bothered with those who were “beneath” him.  They didn’t want him distracted or his precious time used up by people whom they didn’t see as valuable or important to Jesus’ work or mission.  It’s like people keeping homeless folk from talking to the President.  The same idea: he is important, they are seen as “less so”.

In this case, the woman we only know as a “Greek” woman, “Syrophoenician by birth” approaches Jesus and even Jesus seems to want to send her away.  And he doesn’t just tell her that he only came to serve the Jews, which is what he was intending to communicate, he also insults her in one of the worse possible ways.  Today being called a dog or being called a female dog is highly insulting.  It was not any less so in Jesus’ time.  To tell her that he is there to feed the children, the Jews, and it isn’t right to throw the food to the dogs, is highly insulting.  Even Jesus, it would seem from this comment, had moments where he couldn’t seem to escape the pervasive humanness of ranking people. 

               We all rank people.  All of us do.  Years ago now, I remember going to visit a parishioner who was in an extended care facility and when I walked into the room, I saw an older person in a wheel chair sitting next to the parishioner.  I had no problem joining them in conversation, interrupting their time together because I made assumptions – she was either a family member, or maybe another patient who had wandered in to talk.  I felt okay entering their group for a few minutes as long as I could “rank” them in this way.  But when it turned out that she was actually the physical therapist, then I felt that I had imposed on her time.  And I excused myself.  She “ranked higher” as one of the staff at the hospital, and my time with the patient took a back seat.  But as I left, it caused me to think for a few minutes about how I rank people. 

I experienced this from the other side when my last congregation housed families for a couple weeks at a time in a program very similar to our “Winter’s Nights” program.  I learned to avoid telling our guests that I was the pastor because my experience had been that once they knew that, they would often treat me differently.  And while that different treatment tended to be greater respect, I still didn’t want it.  Life sometimes separates us into the haves and have-nots, but I’m all too aware that that line can be all too easily crossed.  My being the pastor there, and someone with a home and income did not and does not make me “better” or more worthy of respect, attention, or care than any of the guests or helpers who were here.  And that singling out, that difference in treatment made me uneasy.  We are all children of God.  I am not more deserving of respect because of my status here. 

Another pastor friend of mine told me of a time when he was mopping the floor in the church kitchen when several of the church deacons came in.  “Oh no, pastor!  That is not for YOU to do!” they exclaimed, again with the same “You are too good for this work!” attitude, one he worked actively to eradicate, but one that was extremely hard to stamp out. 

When I lived in Ohio, I was part of a small ecumenical pastors’ group that met once a month (this is a different group from my weekly lectionary group).  Our churches were all within the same small town in the Cleveland suburbs and we worked on mission projects in the community together: feeding, summer children’s camps, etc..  One time when we met I remembered talking about what an amazing group of pastors we had in this area, who worked so very well together and were really and truly colleagues and friends to one another.  One of the other pastors commented that yes, in other ministerial groups of which he had been a part, there had often been a lot of “posturing” between the pastors, with some trying to claim an upper hand, or more prominence based on things like the size of their congregations, the work their churches did, or how long they had been in ministry.  I frankly do not understand that choice.  We should all have the humility to see that we are all children of God.  That posturing is an arrogance that is unbefitting to those who would serve God. 

Our own Anti-Racism group recently finished reading the book, Caste, in which the author, Isabel Wilkerson talks about the cultural ranking of people that we have in this society.  We know these ranks because we are taught them in extremely covert ways throughout our lives by our communities: These are not innate rankings, but socially prescribed and socially created rankings that have become entrenched in our society.  Women are ranked under men, children are ranked under adults, people with money are ranked higher than those without, people who have white collar jobs tend to be ranked above blue collar jobs, the homeless are ranked extremely low.  And people of color are often on the very bottom of our ranking systems.

But Jesus shows us a different way.  Jesus stepped in time and time again when the disciples would push someone away, send someone away, and tell them to leave Jesus alone.  Again and again Jesus had to stop that action on the part of his disciples, “let the little children come to me” he said, and “leave her alone.  She is doing a good thing for me.”  Those who were outcast, considered unclean because of illness and infirmity were given his special attention.  Those who were ranked on the bottom of the culture at the time, those assumed to be damaged because they deserved to be damaged were not beneath his notice but were the targets of his notice.  The second story in the gospel today, about the deaf man is one such story.  He, too would have been seen as “less than” and would have been pushed away: it would have been assumed that his infirmity was a sign that he was less worthy.  But Jesus took the time to heal him, not only restoring his physical disability, but also restoring him to right relationship within his community.  He specifically and intentionally chose to give attention and care to those everyone else in the culture ranked lower.  Also notice that he confronted a basic idea of what it meant to be “deserving”.  Jairus and his daughter and the women with the hemorrhage may not have been “deserving” of Jesus’ healing according to the codes of the time, or by any other ranking.  But we are told very little about them.  We don’t know if they were “deserving” or not.  What we do know is that Jesus didn’t ask.  He offered the gifts he had, of healing, of time, of attention and care, to all of them despite knowing or not knowing whether or not they deserved it. 

I love this story of the Syrophoenician woman, even though it was a hard conversation, a painful conversation that he had with this woman.  I love it because it is through that conversation that we hear clearly that Jesus’ mission was now to everyone,  not just the Jews, and that the last “rank” -in this case the differences in religion, geography and even ethnicity, were destroyed.  They no longer applied.  “Rank” or “Caste” were thrown out.

In today’s passage from Isaiah we hear another passage of reversals.  “The eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf will be cleared.  The lame will leap like the deer, and the tongue of the speechless will sing.  Waters will spring up in the desert and streams in the wilderness.  The burning sand will become a pool, and the thirsty ground, fountains of water.”  Those things that are harmed or damaged will be healed.  And that expands beyond the physical.  Those who have been held down will be raised up, and those who have been ranked lower will be found to be equally respected and valued children of God. 

We are called to be part of this new ordering of our world.  We, too, are called to bring healing, reconciliation, and to do away with the rankings that separate us and which leave some better off than others.  So what does that look like for us? 

Well, what are your gifts?  What are your resources?  And to whom do you offer them?  If you have the gift of music, do you play for those who can’t afford the cost of a ticket to come see you perform?  If you have the gift of resources, do you share them, with those who are ranked as less, on the bottom according to society?  If you have the gift of healing, do you offer to heal even those who can’t pay the usual doctor’s fee?  The list goes on.  The confrontation to our own choices and behaviors goes on as well.

I have shared with you before that at another church where I served, our congregation had become very close to an unhoused man who at one point fell and was put in the hospital with serious damage.  We found that because he could not pay, most of the hospital staff ignored him unless church members were there to push for his care. 

In one of the congregations where I served I also remember a person who was very socially awkward being treated very subtly but consistently as a second class citizen.  He was ranked as “less than” and he was treated as “less than” by the other members of the congregation.

We are called to confront that kind of treatment and to remind the world that we are all loved children of God, none valued more than another despite the way we would treat and value people differently.

I am so grateful for this community of people who treat each other, despite our differences, as people deserving of respect and care.  I am so deeply appreciative of your kindness to one another, the respect you show one another.  We are called to continue that in every place that we go with everyone that we encounter.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

              

June 6th sermon: Being Made in God's Image

 

Jeremiah 18:1-11

Genesis 1:26-31

Luke 14:25-33Top of Form

We have three scriptures today that look at who we are in relationship to God.  The Jeremiah passage appears condemning – saying that God will tear down and destroy the evil nation.  And then we have the passage from Luke which seems to say that we cannot be accepted as disciples unless we give up all we have, including our families.  And finally we end with the passage from Genesis that reminds us that we are made in God’s image and made good.

So how do we reconcile these three passages together?  How do we understand who we are to this God who loved and created us good, in God’s own image, who knows us inside and out - with passages that appear to condemn who we are, our limits and our failings, as completely unacceptable?

Our self-esteem in the Western World is very fragile.  And I think there are a lot of reasons for this.  For one thing, we are slow to forgive.  We like revenge.  We like vengeance.  We are not just slow to forgive others, we are slow to forgive ourselves.  Despite the Lord’s Prayer that we say every single week, and for some of us a whole lot more often than that, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”, none the less, we don’t actually do this….with others or with ourselves. And this changes everything about how we see the world.

I want to give you an example.  There is a story of an old sheep farmer whose neighbor’s dogs were always killing his sheep.  It became so horrible that he knew he had to do something about it.  What are the options that come to mind when you think about how he should have dealt with this?  Chances are that if you grew up here your first thought would be to call the police, to ask for their intervention.  Maybe the second thought would be to sue the neighbor for the loss of the sheep.  We go to these revenge, punishment, payment scenarios here because that is what our culture has taught us to do.  We go there so quickly that we have a very hard time thinking outside of these particular boxes.  But these are not the only solutions.  Can you think of something else?  Perhaps your second thought is he could build a stronger and higher fence so that his neighbor’s dogs could not get in.  And that’s a solution, for sure.  But still there are others.  In this particular instance, the farmer took a third option.  He chose to give two lambs to his neighbor’s children.  In due time the lambs grew into sheep and had other sheep and then the neighbor and his children got to see the sheep not as just something their neighbor had, but as something they valued as well.  They soon penned their dogs.

I also, though, think there is a second reason why we struggle here with self-esteem.  Passages like today’s passage from Jeremiah and today’s passage from Luke are part of a larger group of writing that simply makes us feel that there is nothing we can do that is “enough”.  Looking specifically at the Luke passage, from Feasting on the Word, “Three times in this passage, Jesus says that without definite decision, a person cannot be his disciple. First, he requires a person to hate parents, spouse, children, siblings, and even one's own life. Second, he commands carrying the cross and following him. Third, he demands the giving up of all possessions. Even if we soften his word "hate," Jesus still leaves us with his requirement that we make family ties and normal self-preservation subordinate to following him. The pastoral work of the Christian community involves a clear and frank acknowledgment of the great challenge, the fearsome requirements of becoming and doing what Jesus expects of us.”  Jesus also declares that we shouldn’t even begin becoming his disciples unless we are prepared to go all the way.  Discipleship costs. In fact, it will cost us everything .  So much for family values.  And so much for loving others as yourself.  It feels when we read passages like this that there is nothing we can do to be accepted and acceptable.  How many of us are able to “hate mother and father”?  For those of us who take passages such as this seriously, these words hit, hard.  Are we ever going to be enough for God?  Will we ever be accepted or acceptable? 

And then we read passages like the one from Jeremiah.  And it would seem that maybe the pain we undergo is a punishment because we aren’t enough, because we haven’t given up enough, because we still love our families.  So we ask, are the things that are happening punishments for what we have done?  When we are going through difficult times is it because we have done evil?  And what makes it even harder is when we don’t know what it is that could have led to such pain and punishment.  When we search and search our souls but cannot find what it is that we have done that would deserve the hardships we endure.  “What did I do to deserve this?” we ask.  “Why me?”  And it is not just we who do this.  We want life to be fair, so we can impose on others reasons for their suffering as well.  For example, when my family was going through our terrible time, I had a person inform me that the reason we were struggling so much must be because I did something horrible in a past life.  The person is familiar with the life I had lived up to that point, couldn’t find a reason why all of this would have happened to me based on anything I’ve done in this life, and so has made it “fair” in her mind by declaring that I did wrong in my last life.  I get it.  And passages like the one from Jeremiah make it all the harder to accept that sometimes things just happen because life is not fair.

Brian Konkol, Chaplain of Gustavus Adolphus College confronts these ideas.  He said it this way, “One of the intellectual foundations of Western thought is "Cogito ergo sum," or "I think therefore I am." This statement from René Descartes has greatly influenced modern life, especially in the west.  It assumes that human existence can be self-reliant, and gives birth to various terms in the English-language with "self" as a prefix. For example, we often hear of self-confidence, self-conscious, self-expression, self-criticism, self-deception, self-defeating, self-denial, self-discipline, self-esteem, self-expression, self-importance, self-improvement, self-interest, self-respect, self-restraint, self-sacrifice—and the list goes on! Amazingly, the equivalent of these "self" words cannot be found in many non-Western languages, which reveals a great deal about our continued fascination with (and celebration of) the so-called "self-made woman" and/or "self-made man."  In wonderful contrast to "I think therefore I am," the African philosophy of "ubuntu" states, "I am because we are."  Among other things, ubuntu recognizes that individual autonomy is impossible; a person is only a person through being in relationship with other persons.  In other words, all people are products of their environment, and thus all people have to rely upon others each and every day. While ubuntu recognizes personal initiative, drive, and the ability to shape our surroundings, it also acknowledges that relationships shape existence, and thus connectedness is essential to a full understanding of life.  

The “clay” that Jeremiah describes in today’s passage, the clay that is remolded and remodeled in this is communal.  It is not individuals who are being molded, remolded, plucked down and built up, but God’s will for God’s people in community.  God’s will is being remolded for a community as the community responds or fails to respond to God’s call.  God is the same, but God’s actions and plans change, or as today’s scripture said, “If that nation turns from its evil, I will change my mind.”  God interacts with us according to how we interact with God.  Additionally, the image we are given today from Jeremiah is of a potter who took the clay and did not throw it out when it became marred, but rather shaped and created it into something new and beautiful, something God thought it was best to be.  God does not throw out the community, but recreates it, using the clay that already exists – the people who already exist – and making God’s will for it into something better.  I’m reminded of the Japanese Kintsugi: pottery that is broken is reworked with gold into beautiful new objects.  The belief behind it is that things that have been broken have the potential to be much more beautiful and that this can be shown through this amazing art work. 

Still, this may still sound harsh.  But the God of punishment isn’t the God I experience, which isn’t to say that there aren’t consequences for our actions.  I do think life hold us accountable.  There are consequences for our actions, and sometimes those are devastating and hurtful.  We make mistakes with people and those mistakes can deeply affect our relationships, no matter how much we apologize or strive to make amends, for example.  We live in a world that sometimes we cannot fix the mistakes we make.  But it is also true that many of the bad things that come to us as individuals are undoubtedly the results of the world we live in, the communal world, the world of our communities and our nations and our earth.  Bad things happen all the time, not always because of the things we have done, though we can remain affected. 

Where is God in this?  Well, that’s the other part of this.  I do think that God calls us, every time, to learn from the painful experiences, to grow closer to God and closer to what God calls us to be, what God intends for us to be, through our experiences, all of them.   I can’t put that in a context of punishment, because for me God’s call to make us better, God’s desire for us to grow, is out of love and out of grace.

 Malachi 3 reminds us:  “ But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. ³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.”  Because God loves us, God will call us to change, God will remold us, God will refine us.  Not comfortable.  But if we can see our trials as opportunities for growth, they can be gifts and blessings.

Looking once again at the Luke passage, we need to remember that discipleship is a process.  We are all “becoming” disciples, which means that there will be times when we put the needs or demands of other people or ourselves above God.  Eventually, we hope not to do this because, as we will discover, when we put God first, the needs of those around us get met.  But this really is a process of becoming a disciple.  It takes time, it takes commitment to love both God and God’s people.  But also, as Bonhoeffer says, "The call to discipleship is a gift of grace and that call is inseparable from grace."  Therefore, even as we struggle to be disciples, it is God who gives us the ability to do that, to grow in discipleship and faith.

So, returning to the self-esteem question, are we enough?  Are you enough?  Well, we are enough that God created us in God’s own image.  God loved us into being.   There is a wonderful praise song called “fingerprints of God”.  Here are the words:

I can see the tears filling your eyes, And I know where they're coming from.

They're coming from a heart that's broken in two, By what you don't see

The person in the mirror, Doesn't look like the magazine

Oh but when I look at you it's clear to me that:

I can see the fingerprints of God When I look at you

I can see the fingerprints of God And I know it's true

You're a masterpiece That all creation quietly applauds

And you're covered with the fingerprints of God.

 

Never has there been and never again Will there be another you

Fashioned by God's hand And perfectly planned

To be just who you are And what he's been creating

Since the first beat of your heart Is a living breathing priceless work of art and

Just look at you. You're a wonder in the making

Oh and God's not through no, In fact he's just getting started and

I can see the fingerprints of God When I look at you

I can see the fingerprints of God And I know it's true

You're a masterpiece That all creation quietly applauds

And you're covered with the fingerprints of God.

Who are we to judge ourselves as unforgiveable?  Who are we to judge ourselves as not good enough?  Who are we to fail to love ourselves as our neighbors when God loves us more than anything?  So hear the Good News.  You are loved.  By none other than GOD!  That makes you valuable, and worthy and wonderful.  God loves YOU.  God has created you in the Divine image.  You are covered with the fingerprints of God.  And that is an amazing and wondrous blessing indeed.

Who is Included?

 Acts 8:26-39 

               Today we continue our journey through the book of Acts.  And we start by hearing a little about Philip.  Last week I shared with you that we learn in the early chapters of Acts that there was a Diaconate of 7 Greek leaders or disciples appointed to balance out the disciples from Jerusalem.  Like Steven, who we discussed last week, Philip is another one of these seven.  And at the beginning of chapter 8 we learn that while the early Christians were being persecuted, the unexpected result of this was that they were ending up spreading the word in much more expansive and effective ways.  They were being “scattered” as they escaped their persecution, which meant they were going out into other areas and telling the stories of Jesus and spreading the word. 

               So, then we come to today’s passage.  And we hear about this Eunuch.  The passage begins by telling us much about him.  He is Ethiopian, which was often a way of stating, at that time, that he was darker skinned.  He was probably a slave and we are told he was in charge of the entire treasury for the Queen of Ethiopia.  He is on his way “home to Jerusalem.”  And since many of the elite Jews during the Babylonian exile were exiled to Ethiopia, this tells us he is probably Jewish, but just like the Greek Jews who by many were not seen as the “real” chosen ones, because he is working in Ethiopia, he probably was not included, not “let in” to that inner circle by the Jerusalem Jews.  We are told all of this in a few brief sentences.  But after all of these ways of him being introduced, the story then identifies him only by his sexuality.  He is called “the Eunuch” for the rest of the story.  What is this about? 

               We will come back to that in a moment.  We are told, then, that he is reading this passage from the book of Isaiah.  And the passage says, “

Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter

    and like a lamb before its shearer is silent

    so he didn’t open his mouth.

In his humiliation justice was taken away from him.

    Who can tell the story of his descendants

        because his life was taken from the earth?

               This passage is from Isaiah 53: 7-8.  And it is probable that this Eunuch can relate to this passage all too well.  Eunuchs at this point in time were often young men, or older boys who were castrated against their will in the service of royalty.  They had no choice in it, and yet, after it happened, it was then usually held against them.  “in his humiliation, justice was taken away from him” must have resonated strongly with this Eunuch.  And according to Deuteronomy 23:1, then, “No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord.”  So this is a man who has been banned from the fellowship because of something related to his sexuality over which he had no actual choice.  Hm.  Sound familiar?

               This Eunuch, who is clearly still a very faithful person, is reading this passage in Isaiah and undoubtedly deeply resonating with the pain of it when Philip approaches.  But the Eunuch also has the wisdom, the insight, the foresight to have humility around it.  Or perhaps he is afraid that it is too good to be true that a Lord, a leader, could understand the kind of pain that he himself has lived.  He asks Philip to whom the passage refers.   And Philip talks about how this passage relates to Jesus.  He goes on to tell the eunuch all about Jesus.  And the Eunuch is so touched, so moved, so impressed with this Jesus who, like himself, was humiliated, rejected and whose life was taken away just as the Eunuch’s was, that he asks to be baptized right then and there.  But he does it in a way we would expect anyone who has received rejection after rejection after rejection to ask.  Instead of just saying, “Please baptize me now!”  he instead says, “What would prevent me from being baptized?”  and my guess is that he is asking it as a genuine question.  Will his sexuality prevent him from being baptized?  Will his being from Ethiopia and of darker skin keep him from being baptized?  Will his being a Jew who is not from Jerusalem prevent it?  Will his working for the royalty of Ethiopia keep him from being baptized?  He dares to ask.

               Just like with today’s people of faith, the questions around who was included and who was excluded were not clear cut.  There was argument.  There was debate.  I read to you the passage from Deuteronomy.  It was part of the purity code, which, by the way, included other things such as “It is an abomination to wear clothing of mixed material.”  And “It is not lawful to plant two types of crops in the same field.”  Men cutting their side burns, the eating of shellfish and pork – all of these were prohibited in this purity code.  But still, even in the Old Testament there were other voices arguing against this exclusion.  If the Eunuch had read just a little further in Isaiah, for example, he would have found one.  Isaiah 56: 3-4 reads, “Don’t let the immigrant who has joined with the Lord say, “The Lord will exclude me from the people.”  And don’t let the eunuch say, “I’m just a dry tree.”  The Lord says:  To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, choose what I desire, and remain loyal to my covenant.  In my temple and courts, I will give them a monument and a name better than sons and daughters.  I will give to them an enduring name that will not be removed.”

               And, of course, the answer that Philip gave, the answer that is always, always given by God, to the Eunuch, to all those who have been excluded and rejected, humiliated and shamed is “No!  Nothing will prevent you from being baptized this day in this water.”  That is the Christian answer.  That is the response of Jesus’ followers.  What has excluded you before will no longer exclude you now.  You are included in this place and in this time.  You are invited to be part of this community.  This is the Good News that Philip continues to spread and preach “in all the cities until he reached Caesarea.”

               But just in case this wasn’t clear, Jesus himself had something to say about this as well.  This is from Matthew 19:11-12: “Jesus replied, ‘Not everybody can accept this teaching, but only those who have received the ability to accept it.  For there are eunuchs who have been eunuchs from birth. And there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by other people. And there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs because of the kingdom of heaven. Those who can accept it should accept it.’”  I want you to read that again, because it is very interesting.  What does it mean that there were eunuchs who had been so from birth?  It means that this has a fuller meaning than simply what we now understand to be “eunuch”.  “Eunuch” for Jesus and for those of his time included anyone who did not neatly fit into the two categories we have said are “male and female”.  So I want you to hear this once more.  Matthew 9:11-12: : “Jesus replied, ‘Not everybody can accept this teaching, but only those who have received the ability to accept it.  For there are eunuchs who have been eunuchs from birth. And there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by other people. And there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs because of the kingdom of heaven. Those who can accept it should accept it.’”  You notice he never tells them “go and sin no more” and he never tries to “heal” this.  He accepts it as sometimes being for the kingdom of heaven.  

               Of course, there are other passages that also figure in here, such as Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

               And yet, despite the fact that even Jesus preached acceptance, inclusion and even a recognition that for the kingdom’s sake, some would choose a different sexual identity, we still struggle with this.  This remains the case for today.  We, too, know there are Christians who reject others for their sexuality: their orientation, their gender identity, whatever it is.  But that is not what this passage shows us.  Those who choose to come in, those who choose to be included in the faith ARE included. 

               Dale posted on FB this week a quote that I think is so apt, so appropriate, “Worry about your own sin.  God is not planning to ask you about mine.”  Or, as Connie Schultz said it, “My mom taught me that being a Christian meant fixing ourselves and helping others, not the other way around.”  But we get really confused by all of this, don’t we? 

               Martin Buber wrote that there are really only two possible ways we can relate to the world.  I-it, or I-Thou.  When you treat others as “its” it is very easy to judge them, to condemn them.  But “thou” recognizes the other as a person who you can understand through relationship, through connection.  You can’t stereotype “thou”s because you know each as an individual.  You can’t ignore them, you can’t own them, you can’t throw them away.  The God who gave us life IS love and we are called to love with God’s love.  As I recently heard someone say, “Everybody is God’s somebody.”  EVERYBODY is God’s somebody.  Bishop Michael Curry said, “The Lord didn’t create anybody to be under anybody else’s boot” (Love is the Way, p 177) and that is what Philip understood in this story.

               As I was thinking about the question, “who is out” and “who is in” I found myself remembering the very first time I had visited a particular boyfriend's parents for Christmas.  We were both well into adult-hood and we had been seeing each other for about a year at this point.  As we were setting the table to eat, my boyfriend's mother asked, “how many are here?”  One of the my boyfriend's siblings sister replied, “Well, there are seven.  There are five of us and two of them.”  But my boy-friend's step-dad quickly came back with “No!  There are six of us!  And one of them.”  Now I’m certain he doesn’t remember this.  But I was struck at the time by the ferocity by which he defended my boyfriend’s place as part of their family rather than part of mine.  I found myself also thinking, “At what point do we count ourselves as ‘us’ instead of ‘them’?  At what point does the ‘I-Thou” move even deeper into the “We”.

               In Tattoos of the Heart written by Father Gregory Boyle, he talks about his work with gangs in LA, giving them jobs, a sense of belonging to something and to people who do not require violence or aggression as part of their membership rituals.  He writes about his experiences with these boys, these men, these families.  But his book begins with these words, “If there is a fundamental challenge within these stories, it is simply to change our lurking suspicion that some lives matter less than other lives.  William Blake wrote, ‘We are put on earth for a little space that we might learn to bear the beams of love.’ Turns out this is what we all have in common, gang member and nongang member alike: we’re just trying to learn how to bear the beams of love.” (pxiii).

The idea of Ubuntu is that “a person becomes a person through other people” – we are deeply and completely connected to one another.  When I am injuring you, it is me, myself who is damaged in the process.  And when I am kind to you, I am offering that kindness to myself as well.  There is a community in South Africa where an anthropologist told this story after studying the habits and customs of a specific tribe there.  When he finished his work, he had to wait for transportation that would take him to the airport to return home. He’d always been surrounded by the children of the tribe, so to help pass the time before he left, he proposed a game for the children to play. He’d bought lots of candy and sweets in the city, so he put everything in a basket with a beautiful ribbon attached. He placed it under a solitary tree, and then he called the kids together. He drew a line on the ground and explained that they should wait behind the line for his signal. And that when he said “Go!” they should rush over to the basket, and the first to arrive there would win all the candies. When he said “Go!” they all unexpectedly held each other’s hands and ran off towards the tree as a group. Once there, they simply shared the candy with each other and happily ate it. The anthropologist was very surprised. He asked them why they had all gone together, especially if the first one to arrive at the tree could have won everything in the basket – all the sweets. A young girl simply replied: “How can one of us be happy if all the others are sad?”

               Returning to the situation experienced by the Eunuch, this situation continues, as we know, today.  A 2014 study showed that 70% of all millennials and 58% of Americans overall now believe that religious groups are alienating people by being too judgmental about LGBTQ+ issues.  One quarter of the people how were raised in faith and left those traditions say that negative treatment of LGBTQ+ folk was the primary reason for their leaving.  We, as a church, claim to be something more, we say we are inclusive.  But are we?  Do we talk to those who are different from ourselves?  Do we include and invite into conversation those we don’t understand?  In light of the shrinking church, many ask how we can possibly feel we can afford to be judgmental.   But I will own that I don’t feel that we should stay alive as a church just to stay alive. 

No.  I don’t call us to be inclusive out of fear of dying.  I call on us to be welcoming and inclusive because that is what we are called to do.  The church has to exist with meaning and purpose or it shouldn’t exist at all.  And our purpose is to love.  That’s the bottom line, every time.  Our purpose is to love.  It is not to judge.  It is not to exclude.  We are invited into learning, we are invited into our own growing.  And we are invited into loving.  It’s all that easy, and it’s all that hard.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Gender Pronouns And The Challenges of These Days

      My congregation worshiped this last Sunday with three other congregations.  During this pandemic time my congregation has done our worship through YouTube, while many others have been worshipping through Zoom.  So this Sunday, in what was a great change for my congregation, we joined the others through a Zoom worship time.  Several of my parishioners noticed that many of the members and pastors of the other churches had their pronouns listed after their names, "Joe Smith, (he/him)"  "Jane Doe (they/them)" for example.  So at our regular Zoom coffee hour the question came up.  "Why were they doing this?"  "What does it mean?"  "How can an individual be 'they/them' which I've always understood to be plural?"

    Oh, boy.  Good, light, fun coffee hour conversation for the day.

    So I did my best to explain. After all, one of my own children now chooses "they/them" pronouns to self-identify.  If the church cannot get behind them and support them in their self-understanding and self-identification, the church will lose a really good, committed, wise human being.  And probably their siblings as well.  It was past time to have the conversation.  

    So we talked.  I shared about what it meant to be transgender, non-conforming, non-binary, fluid, etc.: that some people simply don't fit into the categories of male and female as we understand them.  Some of this is genetic: folk with XXY or XYY genders aren't going to be "female" or "male" as we understand them.  But as I'm learning from my child, this goes far beyond that.  For my child, there is a problem with being identified primarily by gender before any other identification occurs.  They are not first seen as "person", they are first seen as "female" and they no longer want that.  They want to be freed from gender ideas and gender categories to just simply be who they want to be, who they are, as a unique individual, a person, a human.

    I will be honest and name that this one has been a challenge for me.  At first, I worried that we were taking a step backwards.  The first wave of feminists fought hard for women to get the vote.  The second wave fought hard to allow women to work and to be in roles that previously had been restricted to men alone.  My generation wanted women to be accepted as being whoever and whatever we wanted to be, still as women.  And I was afraid that when my child said they no longer wanted to be identified as female because it felt restrictive, that we were reverting and going back to a time when "female" was so specific and so regulated that women could no longer be whatever and whoever they wanted except to declare themselves NOT female.  My child and I went around and around on this.  Was all our work in trying to say we could be women and still be and do anything we wanted  - was all of that for nothing?  

    I also struggled because this, my eldest child, is so very feminine in so many ways.  They usually wear long, flowy dresses. Their hair is very long and they like to put it in new and artistic styles.  They wear necklaces always, and love pretty things.  They are so much more classically female than I ever was, and yet they no longer want to be identified primarily as female.  I struggled to understand this.

    But I have done the work.  I have had the conversations.  My child is articulate, and smart.  They are wise and clear.  And I have finally heard them and come to understand that this is the next step.  This is the next frontier in allowing people to be who they are, in seeing them in their individuality and uniqueness.  

    Still, it was because of my own struggle that I understood the struggles my congregants were having with this.  I found myself remembering that as a young person, when Lesbian/Gay rights first came into focus, that some of my own grandparents said, "This is too much.  I cannot make this change.  I am being pushed too far this time."  They'd struggled to accept racial equalities, the movement towards more gender equality.  They'd struggled but had understood.  But this next one, pushing to accept that people had different sexual orientations, and that this was okay - this felt too hard.  For me and my peers, acceptance of same-gender relationships had not been an issue.  It was a no-brainer to see that who a person loved didn't matter, as long as the relationship was mutual and consensual.  Why should a person be limited on who they love by gender?  I frankly didn't begin to understand why people were having issues with this at all.  In what way does it negatively impact anyone for someone to love someone else?  In what ways am I affected at all by the choices people make in their partners except that I am blessed by seeing another happy, in-love couple?  Of course we need to push for acceptance of their rights to love whomever they are called and invited to love!

    But I also had enough wisdom to wonder what the next frontier, then, would be.  Where will I be challenged?  Where would be the edges that would confront me?  At what point will I say, "I am too old to change on this one."  And "I can't take this next step."  

    I've written before that I believe life is about challenge, is about growing, is about becoming the most whole we can be, and that includes being able to see others as the unique individuals they are.  It means learning to support and love one another across our differences, across the "walls" that we have put up.  We put things in categories to make sense of the world.  But the work of being an adult, a person on-the-way, a person called to love all of our neighbors as ourselves, is the work of then breaking down the very categories we have created so that we can see each other as the unique children of God that each of us is.  

    And so, while I heard my grandparents say "I am too old to change on this," that is a phrase I never, ever want to utter for myself.  I know challenges will continue to come.  That is the nature of being a human being in the 21st century.  But those challenges are what life is about: they give us the chance to grow, to deepen, to become more fully and wholly the people we are called to be.

    I also heard my grandparents say, "This may divide us even further."  "This may break us apart as a country."  Well, we are already broken apart as a country.  We are.  And it will only divide us further as we choose to let it do so.  To deny people rights because we are afraid it will upset some people is not a good justification to me.  It never has been.  It never will be.  In this case, to not listen, to not move on this, to refuse to allow people to choose their own identities is to deny people the right to self-identify, to figure out who they are and to claim it for themselves.  

    My child, along with all of those who do not choose to self-identify in terms of gender (or anything else for that matter) as we would first have them do, is still a beautiful, deeply loved child of God.  And we are called to love them as we love ourselves.  That's the bottom line.  Always.  That's our call from God at every step of the way.  To love them as I love myself means to allow them their own journey, to support them in their own walk, and to take on myself the burden of seeing them for who they are claiming they are, not as I would want to see them for my own comfort.  

    I found myself reminded of the Kahlil Gibran writing "On Children" (The Prophet. New York: Alfred A Knopf. 1995, p 17)

    "Your children are not your children.

    They are the sons and daughter’s of Life’s longing for itself.

    They come through you but not from you,

    And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

    You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

    For they have their own thoughts.

    You may house their bodies but not their souls,

    For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

    You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

    For life goes not backward nor tarries from yesterday.

    You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

    The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

    Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

    For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable."

    This is not about me.  This is about them and their ability to walk their own path towards wholeness.  The only question I have to ask myself is will I support this person in their journey or will I choose judgment and rejection instead?  And once again, this is a no-brainer.  I love my child more than my own life.  And I will do whatever is necessary to support them in being whole, being full, being themself.  I know that I will benefit from that choice as well, as I learn to let go of judgment, pre-conceptions, and the needs to categorize, box and label others.  As I let go of judgment of others, I also release more self-judgment and that can only be a good thing.  

    I know this isn't an easy step for folk.  And people will find ways to justify their resistance.  Some will claim it is against God's will (which is not at all biblical, by the way.  That's for another conversation, however).  Some will claim it is against nature.  People usually do try to find justifications for their own inability to be open, to change.  But again, I cannot choose that for myself.  I have to choose love.  It is what God calls us to do.  And in this case, that starts very much at home.

Reversals

Psalm 103:6-14

Mark 2:1-22

               In today’s gospel lesson we see a Jesus whom, I think, we might find very confusing if we had not heard these stories before.  He forgives sins and then heals, confronting those who think he’s arrogant, or worse, then he tells these three little parables, all of which would be odd to us if they weren’t so familiar and if we didn’t add to them an understanding and interpretation in light of where Jesus’ life is heading.  The parables about the clothing and the wine skins may still seem very odd, very strange to us.

               But I’d like to invite us into a deeper reflection on those parables in particular and on Jesus’ behavior here specifically.  And I’d like to start by asking you a question.  I imagine that almost all of us have experienced the ending of a relationship at some point or another.  Perhaps it was a divorce.  Perhaps it was just a breakup.  Perhaps it was permanent, perhaps it was just for a time.  But my question for you, as you think about this schism, this ending, this rift is this: did you find that after the divorce or separation or fight or disagreement that at least some of your friends or family, some of the people around you, felt like they had to choose sides?  And that some of those who did not choose you or choose your side surprised you?  How did that feel?  I’ve listened to many people share with me the pain of losing friends or family, at least for a time, to a divorce or a split.  And the deep pain that this has caused.

In contrast, have you ever been in a situation where the friends DIDN’T choose sides?  But instead spent time with each of you?  And did you find that in some cases, in some situations, that hurt, too?  That it hurt to find that your friends or family would choose to still be friends with someone who had hurt you?  I think about a woman I counseled for some time sharing with me the pain she felt at the connection her children had with her ex-husband.  And while she was adult enough to know that it was important for her kids to have that relationship with their father, she still found it hurt: that they still shared a deep love that her ex-husband (who had been the one to leave the relationship) no longer offered to her.  Do these feelings resonate with any of you?

               I understand this. When one of my close friends chooses to be close to someone who has deeply hurt me, I can feel hurt by the friend as well.  On the other side of the coin, I can also be loyal to a fault. For example, my best friend dated someone for a while who was a fellow student at the seminary I attended.  When my friend’s boyfriend ended the relationship, perhaps it shouldn’t have affected my connection to the fellow seminarian, but honestly, I found it harder to forgive him than if he had broken up with me.  This went on for years, long after my friend had gotten over it.

               Jesus tells parables about how hard it is to combine the new and the old: new wine needs to be put in new wineskins, old clothing should be repaired with old material.  The mixing of things: the mixing of the old and new, the mixing of objects and materials and ideas that are old and new is difficult, if not impossible.   And then he shows us that this struggle is a challenge with people as well.  Jesus didn’t choose some people over others.  He hung out with the poor, the oppressed, with sinners.  But he also talked with and ate with the pharisees and others in authority.  And no one was happy with it.  I would say that this includes us.  We love Jesus because he stood by the poor and oppressed, because he loved all people – even those who made mistakes, were judged by the larger community, were rejected, had made mistakes like we know we do.  When we can identify ourselves in any way with the underdog with whom Jesus stood, we understand Jesus, choose Jesus, want to be like Jesus, inviting in everyone. 

               But Jesus ate with everyone.  And while much of the time we read these stories and might feel some self-righteousness towards those judgmental people who were upset that Jesus ate with the people they rejected, I wonder if we then fail to see that Jesus also ate with those judgmental people.  He talked with them, he confronted them, but he also ate with them, inviting them into relationship as well.  When we think about those we would rather not eat with, who do we think of?  I think we usually think about those people society rejects – homeless folk, mentally ill people, dirty folk, etc.  And we feel good that we are able to cross those lines and accept the people that society might reject, housing them through winter’s nights, feeding them meals and providing laundry help in various places, offering tutoring and care.  But, when we think about those Jesus ate with, do we think about those of differing political or theological opinions?  Do we think about those who we think are too snobby or rich or greedy or powerful as well?  Do we think of those who look down on us, who would reject us, not give us the time of day, would see us as inferiors?  How would you feel seeing Jesus eat with a person who had been unkind to you, cruel to you, rejected you, make you feel bad about yourself and treated you like you were an inferior?  Well, Jesus ate with them, too!  Jesus was the friend who refused to pick sides and loved even those who have hurt us, even those who look down on us.  And that is harder to take.

               When I was reading the commentaries on today’s scriptures, one of them pointed out that some preachers have used this passage to say that the old should be thrown out so that room can be made for the new.  And that it must be completely new: new wine in new wineskins.  But this fails to recognize that Jesus didn’t say anything about throwing out the old wineskins.  And he said nothing about throwing out the old clothing.  He talks about repairing the old with material that had already been shrunk: repairing the old with old material.  He is saying that mixing old and new is painful, is difficult, and sometimes is not healthy for either the old or the new.  But he does not reject either the old or the new. 

               Jesus acknowledged that there were things that would not, could not, go well together.  We know this at some level.  We know that some people would never make a good couple, for example.  You may have heard the joke, “intelligence is knowing that tomatoes are fruits.  Wisdom is choosing not to put said tomato in your fruit salad.” 

               There is a wonderful children’s story, Grasshopper on the Road by Arnold Lobel. In it there is a story about a group of beetles that grasshopper meets who love morning.  And Grasshopper is completely onboard with this until it becomes obvious that it isn’t just that the beetles love morning.  They also hate any other time of day.  Well we know that morning people and night people can have a hard time getting along.  And that it can cause problems for both when they try to share living space: one cranky in the morning, the other cranky at night…  Maybe they can’t always go together.  But that doesn’t mean one is bad.

               In Mitch Albom’s book, Have a Little Faith, Mitch talks about the Rabbi’s thinking about different faiths.  The Rabbi said, “It’s the blending of the different notes that makes the music.”  The music of what?

 “Of believing in something greater than yourself.”  But what if someone from another faith won’t recognize yours?  Or wants you dead for it?  “That is not faith.  That is hate.”  He sighed.  “And if you ask me, God sits up there and cries when that happens.”   

But this is hard for us.  We are a people who pick sides.  We are a people divided.  We are a people who struggle when we feel unchosen, or less chosen; unvalued or less valued.  And yet here it is.  Jesus loved us all, as hard as that is for us to take.    

I am reminded of the movie, The Whale Rider.  The girl, Paikea, is part of a Maori tribe in search of it’s new chief, a new whale rider who will lead the people.  Her grandfather has very set ideas about who this person must be.  He cannot see.  And despite all the signs that say that his granddaughter, Pai is the new whale rider, he rejects this again and again until finally, from that stubborn place, his actions lead to the breaching of all the whales on the land, and there being no one to help him find the male tribal chief whom he wants.  It is only after Pai rides the whale, leading all of them back into the sea, that her Koro is able to see the truth that it is HE who has been blind and unbending and in being so, has missed the chief intended – his granddaughter.  We may not like what Jesus points out to us, we may not like what we see.  But we are called to see anyway, to risk growing and changing, to strive to be better.

These Biblical passages challenge us.  Yet, they also bring us comfort.  When we are the people who mess up, Jesus still loves us.  When we are the people in need of healing, Jesus is still there.  But we are also the people Jesus confronts, and usually not in the way that is most comfortable for us, but in the way that shows us who we really are – who we don’t always choose to see.  Jesus shows us our immaturity, our “cliquishness”, our growing edges, and Jesus calls us to be better.  We can’t be better unless we really see the areas that need our work and care.  And so, while it is really hard sometimes to see, we are still called to allow God to point out our growing edges, to tell us we are loved despite them, and that it is because of that love that we are encouraged to grow and change.

I’m reminded of the following poem:

I asked God for strength that I might achieve.

I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.

I asked for health that I might do greater things.

I was given infirmity that I might do better things.

I asked for riches that I might be happy.

I was given poverty that I might be wise.

I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.

I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.

I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.

Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.

I am, among all men, most richly blessed.

– Prayer by an unknown confederate soldier

                It is simply uncomfortable to be confronted with truths we would rather not see about ourselves.  But God loves us.  And because of that love, God will not leave us where we are.  God will show us who we are if we keep our eyes open.  And will encourage us to grow and change.  Jesus loved all of them – the overly self-righteous Pharisees as well as the sinners and tax collectors.  He loved them all.  He also left none of them where they were.  God will do the same for us as well.  Amen.