Another very personal self-reflection: on hope

     I was watching MASH yesterday with my son.  He loves MASH and is leaving to return to school on Saturday, so we spent some time last evening watching a few reruns of this wonderful, wise program.  One of the episodes we watched was Dear Sis in which Father Mulcahy is basically narrating some of his time in Korea through the writing of a reflection letter to his sister.  The episode starts with an altercation between a patient who is flailing and being horrible to Margaret, refusing to accept the help of the nurses or anyone else.  Margaret calls for Father Mulcahy's help.  When he tries to help, the patient acts out towards the Father, saying he is not qualified to help or even deal with the patient and he punches the Father, hard.  In an unexpected moment of both self-defense and anger, Father Mulcahy punches the man back!  He then spends much of the episode dealing with that instinctual response.  He apologizes to the man, he tries to explain, but the man is basically a jerk in this episode.  He continues to attack, verbally, the Father, saying he is in no way a holy man and must have gone to seminary at the YMCA.  The patient cannot see his own actions as having been part of the problem, and he has no ability to offer grace or forgiveness.  Father Mulcahy just accepts into himself all the attacks that come from this man.  He leaves the hospital room, goes outside where Hawkeye finds him and the interaction between the two is as follows:

Father: You know, I used to coach boxing at the CYO. I told my boys it built character.

Hawkeye: Father, why don’t you stop punching yourself on the chin.  Pick on someone your own size!

Father: I’m Christ’s representative. “Suffer the little children to come unto me.  Do unto others… I’m not just supposed to say that stuff.  I’m supposed to do it.

Hawkeye: All you’re supposed to do is the best you can.

Father: Some "best!"

Hawkeye: Best is best!  Look.  Suppose you were sitting here right now with somebody who had done his best and was feeling lousy about it.  You’d let ‘em off the hook, wouldn’t you?

Father (still reeling in feelings of guilt and shame): Sure I would.  And if the hook didn’t work, I’d probably try an uppercut.

Hawkeye: Father, get off your back.

Father: It isn’t just that.  I don’t seem to make a difference here.  I hang around on the edge of effectiveness.  And when I do step in, I really step in.

Hawkeye: Look.  This place has made us all nuts.  Why should you be any different?   We don’t sleep. We don’t eat.  And every day a truck dumps a load of bloody bodies at our feet.  Okay so you hit someone.  We have to stand here and watch so much misery we’re lucky we don’t all join hands and walk into a chopper blade.

        I found myself struck deeply by this conversation both from a personal place, but also from a communal place. While we are not living through a literal war, in many ways we ARE living through a metaphoric one.  Our war is against this tiny little virus who has many tricks up its sleeve, and who appears to be using them all.  We are in a constant state of stress, of fear.  Will we be the ones to get it next?  How will it affect our families?  Our loved ones?  Our communities?  We think we see the end of the pandemic, and then something else happens and it goes on with more violence and damage than before.  At this point I think few of us have avoided losing a loved one to this disease.  Even fewer have remained unaffected by the illness.  As Hawkeye said, "We don't sleep.  We don't eat.  And every day a truck dumps a load of bodies at our feet." Holding on to hope right now is difficult.  Everyone remains tense, many are grieving, people are fearful and anxious, and everyone has moments when they are less able to act their best, to be their best.  We are all making mistakes and the results, because during this stress it is difficult to step back or to take things with the ease we otherwise might, are broken relationships, torn communities, and a fractured world.  

    We see this in so many places in our world: deepening anger, acting out, rage, violence.  We also see it, more personally, in the church.  There have been numerous articles written, including one in the Wall Street Journal (article) saying that church communities in general are experiencing a return of only about 50% - 70% of their people because of COVID.  Many of our churches are simply having to close as a result of this loss of membership.  Churches are learning to adapt, but pastors' burn-out level is extraordinary right now.  That, too, seems to be the subject of many articles crossing my desk recently: the mass exodus of pastors from church leadership.

    Why are they leaving?  There are many reasons.  One is that things are simply very stressful.  Pastors are having to learn and even create new ways of doing church during fluctuating, changing situations when we can meet, then can't meet, then can meet again but with differences, with limitations, with restrictions.  We are having to discover or create new ways to connect people and to stay connected to our people.  These new learnings take time and energy and most of us were already working more than full time at our jobs.  We are navigating a new world, one that changes monthly if not weekly and sometimes even by the day.  This is hard and we don't know where the next change will come, where we will need to adapt next.  Our congregants struggle with these changes too, so not only are we carrying our own stress, our own need to roll with the punches, but we are also called on, constantly, to be the face and voice of calm assurance, of hope, and of promise for our members.  We are called on to navigate the conflicts that are arising as we try to sort through these changes: some want masks, others don't.  Some are pro-vaccine, others aren't.  Some say we open to all, regardless; others say we need to limit who and how people can attend.  Not only do we need to be making these decisions, but we need to be reassuring and comforting those who would have wished we'd made different choices.  That in itself is exhausting.  Add to this that members are acting out their own fear, stress and anger by attacking those in leadership positions.  Pastors are easy targets and are receiving more than their fair-share of blame and anger.  

    But I think the story above about Father Mulcahy points to another reason why pastors are leaving.  We are not immune to the stress of this situation.  And we are not perfect.  I've written before about the unrealistic expectations that people have for their pastors, so I won't go into the details of this here again.  But the bottom line is we aren't more than human.  We are human.  In the Presbyterian church we recognize that pastors are not even more "holy" than other people.  All of us, every single person on this planet, has a call, and for all of us that call includes learning to be more loving, forgiving and gracious.  As Jesus said, "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."  We are all on a learning curve, on a path of growth.  And that means all of us will fall, will stumble, will make mistakes.  But the expectations for pastors remain very high.  When you combine huge levels of stress with the expectations that we will somehow be better, navigate the struggles better, walk through this terrible time with more grace, more patience, more wisdom and insight than everyone else, the reality is that we will disappoint people.  We will make mistakes.  We will, at times, fail.  And when we fail, it is not just our parishioners who struggle to forgive us.  We struggle, deeply, to forgive ourselves.  As Father Mulcahy said, "Do unto others… I’m not just supposed to say that stuff.  I’m supposed to do it."  But sometimes in stress when someone hits us, we won't be able to step back and respond with grace.  Sometimes we will, instinctively and without thought, punch back.  And when our apologies are not "enough"?  When they are not accepted?  When, like Father Mulcahy, we are sneered at, accused of being "fakes" and told that we are simply horrible at what we do?  Well, we have a hard time not taking those comments in.  

       And then it goes even deeper.  Again, as Father Mulcahy said, "It isn’t just that.  I don’t seem to make a difference here.  I hang around on the edge of effectiveness.  And when I do step in, I really step in."  There are times when it is hard to see that what we do makes a positive difference, especially in a time when affirmation is little and far between, and when the world around us continues to crumble, to tear, to struggle, no matter how hard we work.  We remember every time we have made a mistake.  We remember, with a voice that yells in our heads pretty constantly, every time we should have responded differently, should have seen things we didn't, should have acted when we failed to do so, should have, would have, could have...  It is hard, at times, to avoid focusing solely on the things we should have done and the things we shouldn't have done and to instead see any good we might have done.  It is hard, in these times, to hold on to a sense of purpose, of meaning, and most especially, of hope.

    I am grateful that when I have hit those lows, I feel that God has, every single time, stepped up and stepped in with reassurance and grace for me.  This weekend I hit one of those bottoms where my very career was in question for me once again.  It doesn't help that a member in my household is going  through the usual pastor's-kid, teenage rebellion thing and is telling me, with some regularity, that religion causes nothing but damage and that my job not only does no good, but is actually harmful to the world.  While I have my own arguments against this, it still hits hard and I do sit with their words, wondering how much is true.  Additionally, I'm coming off a very challenging month where we were struggling with family health crises and the demands on my time between family needs and my job during Advent and Christmas were frankly too much.  I was, like Father Mulcahy, very much in the "I don't seem to make a difference here... And when I do step in, I just seem to make mistakes" mentality.

      But three things happened for me, right in a row, all converging at the same time.  The first was seeing the MASH episode where Father Mulcahy's words resonated so deeply with my own feelings.  Seeing his struggle when the character does so much good in the series was a gift and reminder that we can't always see the good we do, we are simply called to do the best we can and trust that God will take our best and infuse it with grace.  Not everyone will be able to forgive our errors: the soldier in the MASH episode never did forgive Father Mulcahy.  But, as we know, that lack of forgiveness hurts the one hanging onto the grudge most of all.  That is a choice another can make.  One we cannot change.  All we can do is be aware of our own errors, apologize, and do our best not to repeat them. 

    The second thing that happened for me was that an individual took the time to tell me that something I had said to her had been life-changing and had put her on a different path forward, one with hope, joy and amazing possibility.  Without betraying this individual's confidence or situation, I see the change.  And I am grateful to have been allowed to be part of that.  

    The third thing that happened needs a little more explanation.  I've been feeling strongly that the most important part of my job right now has been and continues to be giving hope.  Even when I have not felt it myself, I have felt deeply called, impelled even, to be the bearer of hope during this time of extreme stress, confusion and pain.  In every bible study, every meeting of our anti-racism group, and in many of our committees and small group meetings, then, my voice has been the voice trumpeting hope in the face of anger, pain and despair.  That has been my job and my call for this last year and a half.  As times have darkened, I have felt this even more strongly.  Recently, then, I added into our worship services a "moment of hope" where I share a positive story, a story of someone doing good, being kind, making a beautiful difference, even in the face of these difficult and painful times.  Again, I feel the deep importance of being that voice of hope, even when I cannot summon it for myself.  With that back-drop in mind, every epiphany we do an exercise at my church where we pass out paper stars that have spiritual disciplines and gifts written on them.  No two stars are the same each year, and each person picks one out of a basket.  Out of all of the stars that I could have chosen, the one that I picked, the one that came to me, was "hope."  While I usually am a bit of a cynic when it comes to the chance that a word would come to each person that was exactly the right word at exactly the right time, I felt an electric shock run through me when I saw that word on my star.  Yes, my focus and my call has been centered on hope.  And that star was a reminder that that hope is there for me as well: offered to me, even when I am struggling, and even when I cannot see if what I do makes any difference at all.  The star was a both a reminder of my call right now, and a promise that hope is there for me, too.

    I would wish the same for all of you: that you would find and hold hope during this very difficult, very challenging time.  Practice kindness. And look for where God is: where there is light, joy, love, grace, forgiveness, mercy, and, above all, hope.

Dangerous, angry times

     Youngest and I went up to Old Sacramento on Saturday afternoon to have some mother-daughter time.  We went to the Crocker Art Museum and then walked down to the train museum and wharf to get some ice cream (because in my mind Old Sacramento means trains and ice cream).  As we walked into the ice cream store, we saw a sign in the middle of the entrance that read "Masks must be worn, as per state mandate.  Anyone failing to comply with this mandate will not be served."  We were wearing our masks, so not a big deal.  We walked up to the counter, ordered our ice cream and stepped aside for the next person to order.  Apparently the people who walked in behind us were not, however, wearing masks.  One of the workers (my guess is the manager) said to the woman behind me, "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but masks are required by state mandate within this facility.  Please put on a mask.  I believe I have one I can give you."  After a minute, though, he said, "Oh, I'm sorry.  It appears we have just run out.  If you do not have your own mask, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave."  

    I don't know about you, but if I were asked to leave a facility, I would.  I would do it out of embarrassment if nothing else.  But also, I am lacking that sense of entitlement that some people apparently have.  This woman was one of those people.  "Well @#$% that!"  She said, "I'm not going anywhere!"

    She stepped up closer to the counter to order.  The worker said, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but if you do not leave, I'm going to have to call the police."

    "You do that!" she said, and then proceeded to call him a list of nasty discriminatory slurs that I will not print here.  She then turned to two of the other workers insisting that they take her order.  The other workers both shook their heads and backed up, frankly looking a little scared.

    The first worker responded by saying that yep, the slur she had used absolutely applied to him, and that as a result he was better at certain graphicly described behaviors than she was.  He then repeated that if the woman did not leave, he was going to call the police.

    The woman responded by approaching the counter and knocking everything on it to the floor, spilling the tip jar, scattering coins, making a huge and violent ruckus.  The worker then bounded over the counter, the same counter that Youngest and I were standing in front of (which we both quickly stepped back from), to move towards her, threatening to kill her at the same time and saying, "Don't think for a second that I won't do it!"  She laughed and ran out.

    Whew.  Situation over.  But frankly, Youngest and I were so shaken by the incident that we did not have the ability to taste our ice creams at all.  

    While it is a challenge for me to NOT express some of my thoughts on all of this, today I am working hard to face that challenge because I don't see that as productive in this moment.  What I want to focus on instead is this: I think the divisions in our country and in our society, the divisions that I saw escalate in that store, reveal a much larger issue.  

    We have forgotten that we belong to one another.  We have forgotten that the person in front of you with whom you disagree is still your sister, is still your brother, is still your sibling.  We have forgotten that we are to be kind and loving to others, even when they disagree with us, even when we don't like what they believe or what they do, even when we are embarrassed or uneasy, or hurt.

    To put this a bit more forcefully: while it takes effort on our part to respond to anger with compassion, this is the job of being an adult.  Having no self-control or ability to respond to anger with a calm and listening presence can only increase the divisions and the struggles in our world.  To be kind, to be caring: these are not easy, but no one ever said that life would be easy.  Just as you can spread violence by reacting with more violence, you can spread kindness by reacting with a calm and caring presence.  YOU have the power to diffuse violent and scary situations with your very demeanor, with your caring, with listening deeply and responding with compassion.

    So once again we have a choice to make: do we add to the pain, anger, and panic of the world by responding in kind when others lose it?  Or can we be part of the solution and movement to make the world better by staying calm, by hearing one another, and by acting with love?  

    We won't always be able to do the right thing.  I know this.  As always, I'm preaching to myself here and I know that it is not easy to respond to nastiness, to hurtful comments or actions with kindness.  It takes practice.  But, for better or worse, we are getting a whole lot of practice of late!  So take it for the gift it is: to practice taking the high road in the face of anger.  People are stressed.  People are scared.  And ultimately, people are just people: flawed and trying to do the best they can in difficult circumstances.  Try to picture each person as your mother, or your sister, or your best friend: someone having a hard day.  You may disagree with them, but you can still love them.  

    If we can do anything to help the current situation in our culture, it's worth the effort.

    That interaction that Youngest and I witnessed did not just upset the manager and the customer.  An ice cream store full of customers and employees were affected by what we experienced.  And while, fortunately, no one was hurt, things could have gotten worse, they could have escalated even more.  I am thankful that they didn't.  But also saddened that it happened at all.  It would have been so easy for either of the two main characters in this incident to take a different path.  The woman could have just left when asked to do so.  The manager could have stayed calm and just said, "I hear you are upset, but we are required to follow the law."  So much could have been done differently.  But it wasn't.  So I'm just taking the lesson for what it was: a chance to think through my own reaction for the next time someone acts out.  How will I respond?  How will you respond?  How will we make this world better together?  

The Church as Fertilizer

         This is the second Sunday in lent and I would like to invite you to think for a few minutes about what that means for you.  What is lent about as you understand it?  What are we to do during lent?  We talk about it every lent - lent is a time of repentance - or, to put it in less “churchy” words, to look at our lives, to reflect, to try to make some changes, to turn from one direction and go in a new direction, to grow, to try to be more worthy and more whole and just plain more Godly.    

 And so, how do most people do this?  What is the most common Lenten practice that we know of?  Giving something up, of course.  And what kinds of things do people give up?  There can be something good and healthy about giving something up: if we are really looking at our lives and we find something that is getting in the way of our wholeness, of our serving God and others.  Then we can decide to make a practice of limiting, for a set period of time, but perhaps with the idea that if we can do it for a short time, we might be able to do it for longer, whatever it is that is interfering in our growth, wholeness and service to God. 

But I found myself thinking, as I do every year, about the falseness, so many times, of these deprivations or sacrifices.  These sacrifices on many occasions are almost like a game we play - “let’s see if I can give this up,” or they are a way of feeling “righteous” or religious.  We feel like we’re really doing something in the name of our faith.  But they represent a choice that a privileged or wealthy person (and we are all wealthy here by the world’s standards) makes for a short and specific period of time: a choice that can be “cheated” and even changed at any moment. 

What do these deprivations actually mean in the bigger scheme of our faith?  What does it mean in terms of our dual call to love God with all our heart, soul and mind and to love our neighbor as ourselves?  What does it mean to the people God really calls us to care for - the oppressed and the poor?

To put it in more concrete terms, what does it mean to those who can’t afford and therefore don’t own a television that you give up watching TV for a month?  What can it possibly mean to the poor person who eats what they can find, often very unhealthy foods such as junk food, that you give up chocolate or coffee for a month?  What does it mean to God that you “give up” something but aren’t giving to someone who might need it?  The intent of these sacrifices is to focus on God.  But often the Lenten practice of sacrifice gets warped and trivialized.  And do we then use those deprivations to focus more on God, or do we end up focusing on something else - like on our own “religiousness” or even more, on that thing that we have given up?  Are we taking the time that we would otherwise use watching TV or whatever else it is we have given up to volunteer with the poor, to meditate on the direction God wants for our lives or even very simply to pray? 

Thinking about how this particular ritual sometimes ends up being false brought up for me the even bigger issue behind it.  I went from wondering what the purpose of this particular ritual has become to the larger question of what is the purpose of our weekly church rituals?  What is the purpose of our religion?  What is our church about for us?  What SHOULD it be about?  How does our participation in church serve us? But more, how does it serve God and serve the world?  Are our rituals, like the practice of giving up something for lent, and indeed involvement in church itself, instead a way to escape the realities of this world, and the call of God to action?

Most of you are probably familiar with the musical, the Sound of Music and in particular, the Julie Andrews’ movie version.  At one point in the story, the Julie Andrews character, Maria, became confused about her feelings for the father of the house where she served as a governess.  And so what did she do?  She ran away back to the convent.  She went to the convent to escape her feelings.  She felt that she was turning to God: she felt that she was making the choice for God over the choice of being a wife or being a mother.  But in reality, she was turning to God, turning to the church, for escape.

We find a similar image of the church as a place of escape in the movie, “Sister Act.”  In Sister Act, the main character, Delores, literally hid in the convent as a “nun” while she waited to be a witness against her murdering boyfriend.  In that convent she found that all the nuns there were really “hiding” out.  The Mother Superior described the convent using the words, “These walls are the only protection they (the nuns) have.  The streets are no longer safe for them.  These robes no longer protect our sisters.  The walls do.”  The purpose of the convent in the Mother Superior’s eyes was to protect them: it was an escape for them, a place to stay safely away from the realities of the dangerous and scary world outside.

I would like to suggest that perhaps the same is true, many times, in our local churches.  People enter the church with the idea of “leaving their burdens behind them” or “laying their burdens at the feet of Jesus”.  And while it is right and good to ask God for the strength to carry our burdens, for the courage to face the trials, for the wisdom to navigate the torrential waters of our lives, many times the church becomes itself almost like a drug - a way to escape this life: a place to hide, a place to run away, an addiction even.  We know churches like this.  The music literally creates a “high” in people, the walls become a safe place, people hide in their theology of a future heaven where everything will be okay.  And in the midst of this, the people of the church don’t do the work they are called to do.  They forget the call to serve each other, feed the hungry, visit the imprisoned, comfort the sick, and do the work of being in this world.

I would like to offer another image of the church for us today.  “The church as fertilizer.”  This brings us back to today’s scripture reading.  The verses for today are not “nice” passages: in the first half of today’s lesson, Jesus first says that bad things don’t happen to people because they sin, but then he goes on to say “I tell you unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”  And then we get the story of the fig tree. The fig tree doesn’t produce fruit and so the owner wants to tear it out.  The gardener persuades the owner to give the fig tree another year to produce, but even then, the owner still says that if it doesn’t produce good fruit in another year, it will be ripped out.  Not a really reassuring story, is it?

But the good news in this story is that the fig tree is not left to its own devices.  The gardener promises to dig around it and put manure on it: to amend the soil in which the tree is planted.  It is a recognition, for example, that when things are bad with people in a place, that it often has much more to do with the place than with those individuals.  We know that when an entire school of children are not doing well in school, we don’t throw the kids out.  We work on changing the systems surrounding the children; adjusting the school system, the teaching methods and platforms in order to help the children learn more effectively; making sure the kids have proper nutrition and safer home lives, adjusting the availability of resources, supplies for the kids.  When a society is not doing well, I would encourage you to look at the bigger systems for what needs to change.  Why is our society rife with racism?  Why is there a hugely growing discrepancy between the rich and the poor?  Why is gun violence on the rise?  Why do we have the highest percentage of any developed country of people in prison?  Do we just “have bad people” here?  Is it just that we have a huge number of racists, and violent people, and people with mental illness?  No.  This has to do with the soil we have planted, the systems we have in place, the institutionalized greed, prejudice, rage, revenge thinking, violent thinking.  Our history, a history of slavery, of greed, of some having while others don’t, of sanctioned thievery, sanctioned destruction of families at the border, and an acceptance of political lies has determined who we currently are.  And the only way we can address these huge issues is through different fertilizer, different manure that we use to enrich all of our lives and to help all of us grow more fully.  This has to start with our places of gathering.  From a faith perspective, this has to start with a fertilizer of our churches that encourages seeing deeply, being willing to change, being willing to learn and grow, looking for God, learning to love, remembering that we are all God’s children, brothers and sisters to one another.

As New Testament professor Mitzi Smith said it, “Jesus’ framing, use, and interpretation of the parable of the barren fig tree is harsh. He is calling Jerusalem to repent, but a people or a nation must admit and be conscious of its wrongdoing in order to change its commitments, policies, and practices. Just because Jerusalem (its leaders) has not experienced the state sanctioned violence to which Pilate subjected the Galileans does not mean the Galileans or those killed when the tower of Siloam fell are sinners. Revolutionaries are murdered. Innocent persons have been and continue to be crucified, murdered, or die because the state fails to maintain its infrastructure or slum lords make money. Many persons and leaders commit evil with impunity under unjust judicial systems and corrupt authorities; the avoidance of justice is not a sign of innocence, goodness, or divine approval.”

So, my image for the church then is of a place where you are dug around, where the hard places are pointed out, sometimes rooted out, but more often softened with some digging, some aeration, and a place where you are “manured” or fertilized.  A place where you are nourished and fed, replenished, and given the best nutrition possible in order to grow so that you, too may produce fruit.

In both of the movies that I mentioned, the churches stopped being places of escape.  In Sister Act, the nuns in the convent broke out of their imprisoning walls, with a little encouragement and nurturing, and began reaching out to the community, serving the people, serving the children, making a difference in the community rather than hiding from it.  So, too in the Sound of Music.  My favorite speech in the musical happens after Maria says to the Mother Superior upon her “escape” back to the Abbey, “I knew I had to come back here.  That here I would be safe,” and Mother Superior sharply replies to Maria, “Maria, our Abbey is not meant to be used as an escape...you must find out how God wants you to use your love...You must go back....These walls were not meant to shut out problems.  You have to face them and live the life you were born to live” And then she sings “Climb Every Mountain,” the poetry of which I really love -

Climb every mountain

Search high and low

Follow every by‑way

Every path you know

 

Climb every mountain

Ford every stream

Follow every rainbow

'Till you find your dream

 

A dream that will need

All the love you can give

Everyday of your life

For as long as you live

God does indeed call us to be the people of love, finding, searching, seeking and serving with that love...not escaping.

Repentance means “turning around”.  Often it is used to mean that we are called to turn around to go a different direction.  But this week I heard it differently.  Perhaps we are called to turn our vision around and look within ourselves and within our systems at the areas in our own hearts and our own lives, our own church and our own country that need to be changed, that need to be fertilized, that need to be aerated, dug around.  We are called to look at those areas that need pruning, that need the loving hand of a caring gardener.  This won’t be painless.  And that means we do not come to this place for comfort, for ease, for a pat on the back.  We come to learn, to see, to dig deeper.  Every single person can benefit from growth.  Not one of us has “made it”, not one of us is there yet.  We need different things: the hurting need comfort and reassurance of God’s love for them.  The comfortable need to look at the ways in which they contribute to the suffering of others and the ways in which they can overcome that.  But we all have needs.  I’m reminded of the story in Numbers 21:9; “So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.”  All of us get bitten by temptations: greed, or anger, or hatred, or judgment; prejudice or pride, ego, or fear.  We all have these parts of ourselves.  And we have to face them: to look at the snakes within ourselves and within our society, naming them for what they are, in order to be healed.

God’s intention for us is to be fruitful, to bear the good fruits of love, compassion, grace, kindness, peace, hope and joy.  But that takes work: tending, working, talking with one another, facing truth with one another.  And like corn, we should be planted together.  Apart we also cannot produce fruit.  Also, we have to remember that even when soil is amended, it takes three years after planting a fruit tree for good fruit to grow.  It’s not comfortable. And it takes time. But the whole point of a fruit tree is to produce fruit, so we are called to make that happen, to work the soil, to do the planting, the pruning, the fertilizing until it can produce fruit.  God in the parable is the gardener, always asking for more time to work the soil, to tend to the plants.

I think back on my own life.  There have been voices that have confronted me with truths about my own behaviors or own personality that I did not like.  I don’t enjoy those times, and I sometimes react defensively.  But even when I become defensive at first, I always have taken them away to ponder, to learn, to try to grow.  Those have been opportunities to learn, to deepen both in my faith and in becoming the person I want to be.

 I have hope.  I actually take it as a good sign that we sometimes speak truth to each other in ways that can be a bit cranky - that is a sign that this is a real place, a place where people are not “escaping” into the high of non-reality.  This is a place where people still are in the world, and still are seeking to do God’s work.  It would be better still if we could talk about the things that bother us before they pop out in crankiness, but God is not finished with any of us yet.  We still need some more aeration and a little more manure to become the whole, fruit-bearing people God calls us to be.  Maybe this lent we can focus on how to be more present in this place, more real in our relationships, more open to bearing fruit, and more focused on God and God’s love for us all in the midst of whatever lenten disciplines we employ.  Amen.

Good Samaritan

 

Luke 10: 25-42

Psalm 15

 

            Today’s passage from Luke is longer than we normally hear together.  Usually, we either hear what we call “the story of the good Samaritan” or we hear “the story of Mary and Martha”.  We don’t often hear these together.  But I think there is real value in hearing them together that all connects to that first question asked by the legal expert.  To re-read you just that part:

“A legal expert stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to gain eternal life?”  Jesus replied, “What is written in the Law? How do you interpret it?” He responded, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”

            What I want to suggest is that the two stories that follow, then: the Story of the Good Samaritan and the story of Martha and Mary: that these two stories go together as illustrations of that law, of that interpretation of the law.  That these two stories show us what it is to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength and with all your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. 

            So, with that as the “topic sentence” of my sermon, let’s spend some time looking at these two stories.

            We are so familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan.  It is probably the most well-known story that Jesus tells.  A man is traveling down what is often considered a dangerous road between Jerusalem and Jericho.  He is set upon by thieves who left him near death.  A priest sees him and passes on the other side.  A Levite sees him and passes by the other side.  Then the person that the legal expert would normally dismiss shows up.  And he, in contrast to those who should have helped, stops, takes care of him, takes him to an inn, pays for him to stay there and be taken care of.  At the end Jesus asks the legal expert who acted as a neighbor and then he tells the man to go and do the same.  

            When we hear this story what do we think?  How do we feel? 

            I know you’ve all heard about the study that was done with seminary students in the 70s.  Some seminary students who were in a class were told they had to go to another building.  On the way they encountered a moaning man slumped in an alleyway.  They varied the amount of urgency they gave to the students as well as the task they would have when they arrived.  Some were told they would talk about seminary jobs, others were told they would have to tell the story of the Good Samaritan.  Some were told they were already late, others that they were early but should head over anyway.  The results were that about 40% offered some kind of help and the only thing that seemed to impact their actions one way or another was how big a hurry they were in, or their anxiety level about what they were already supposed to be doing.  40% offered some kind of help, meaning that 60% offered no help at all.  Again, these were seminary students and many of them had just been told to focus on the Good Samaritan story.

            To me these are convicting numbers.  Convicting information.

            But when we stop and think about this, we know this to be true.  When we pass homeless people on the street, how often do we stop and at least acknowledge them?  Ask them if they are okay or if they need anything?  If they are sleeping or slumped over, do we stop and offer care?

            I’ve shared with you before my own experience at my first congregation where a young girl was in need of help to get home and an entire session of people refused to help her in any way.  They didn’t give her a ride, didn’t pay for a cab, didn’t offer to let her use the phone… all out of fear.  They, too, had just heard the Good Samaritan story that Sunday.  But putting it into realistic actions was another thing altogether for them. 

            I invite you to think about it in your own lives.  Imagine a friend fell off a ladder while you were there.  You wouldn’t hesitate to call for help, to get help, to offer help.  But imagine you are walking, by yourself, without your cell phone, and you see a stranger who looks beaten up and is lying injured.  What would you do then?  Let’s say the person is of a different race?  Would you be more and less likely to help?  Let’s say they are wearing obvious gang clothes and there aren’t a lot of other people around.  What would you do?  Now let’s throw in that maybe you are in a hurry to get home because you are needing to take your sick child, grandchild or spouse to the doctor?  Now what would you do? 

            I think for most of us, this story is a story of conviction.  It calls us to think about how seriously we take the call to actually love our neighbors, those strangers, those people we don’t know, those we fear, even as we love ourselves. 

            But one of the things that I would like to point out to you is that Jesus is not condemning of those who didn’t help.  I think he understands that we are all on this journey, all struggling to be better, to be more the neighbor that we are called to be.  All of us.  Instead, the emphasis for this story seems to me to be more on the unlikelihood of the Samaritan.  He was not someone who people expected to do good, to do anything to help.  He was the unexpected helper, the “angel” if you will because he was a messenger of love from God. 

            Who are the Good Samaritans of today?

            There is a wonderful group of folk called BACA – Bikers against Child Abuse.  This is a group of self-identified “scary”, rough bikers whose goal is to protect, support and care for children who have suffered abuse.  A story on Yahoo told about one specific girl who was sexually abused by her step-father.  She was so terrified by this man and by her experiences that she could not sleep at night, was scared all the time and was falling apart.  BACA began to escort her to school, they went to court with her and stood by her as she testified against her step-dad, and they stayed outside her house all night in a circle, on their bikes, so she could sleep at night.  These are the Good Samaritans of today.

            We generally think that poor people, especially those who ask for help on the street or other places, are not generous.  But this in fact is far from the truth.  When we look at pure percentages, the poor give so much more generously from their poverty than any of us who are comfortable ever consider giving.   Recently there have been a number of social experiments that have shown exactly how true this is.  In one study, the experimenter had left a $100 bill where either a “comfortable” person or a homeless person would find it.  Later they set up a situation where they are in need.  In one video I saw that documented this, the experimenter found, at different times, the comfortable person and the homeless person sitting in a park a short time after having “found” the $100 bill.  The experimenter pretended he was on the phone talking in desperation and in tears to a “pharmacist” who was telling him something very upsetting.  He got off the phone and was crying on the bench near them about how he didn’t have the money he needed to get his sick daughter some medicine.  The rich person simply got up and walked away, uneasy with the man’s distress.  The homeless man, in contrast, who had just taken the $100 bill he had founded gone to target where he bought himself some food and a new blanket, expressed concern and asked the crying experimenter if he was okay.  The man explained again that he needed money because his daughter was in need of medicine that he couldn’t afford.  The homeless man told the experimenter to wait.  He ran back into the target with the things he had just bought, asked for a refund for everything he had just bought for himself, came back and gave the $100 to the experimenter.   

            In another experiment, a person approached several people who were eating outside and asked if they would give him a slice of their pizza, or a piece of their chicken basket.  All of those who were comfortable said no.  All of them.  In contrast, then, that same person approached a homeless person who had been given a couple left over pieces of pizza.  Similarly, he said he was very hungry and would the homeless man be willing to share.  Even though he only had a couple pieces, he did not hesitate to share it with this stranger.  In the end, the experimenter who had asked for the food gave the homeless man $70 and you could see the homeless man break down in wracking sobs.  $70 is not that much for most of us.  But it was a world of money for this man who had nothing.  

            One of my lectionary group shared with me this week about a group called Food not Bombs who apparently can be a little scary at times in the strength of their convictions.  But this same group, all dressed in black with tattoos, all smoking – can be found every Saturday in the park handing out food to any and all who need it.

            This story of the Good Samaritan is radical.  It is a radical story that calls us not only to risk treating everyone as we would treat ourselves, to risk loving even our neighbors whom we don’t like as ourselves.  It was also a story that invited the legal expert to consider the possibility that a person whom he did not value, could not value, would not see as an equal human being, this Samaritan, might in fact be the very one who was doing the will of God.  That this reject might be the one who had something to teach the legal expert.  That this anathema might be the face of God, reflecting love, acting with care and kindness.

            And then we come to the Mary and Martha story.  In Jesus’ time women had their very clear place.  It was a place of serving the men, doing the work of the household.  It was not, ever, to be out with the men, learning, listening, partaking in the worship and conversations and community of the men.  But Mary crossed that line.  She wasn’t helping Martha.  She was sitting at Jesus’ feet.  She was honoring the Lord she loved and the God she loved by letting go of all her ideas of what it was to be a female at that time, what it was to be “proper” and “right”.  Instead she did what her heart told her to do: to be with Jesus, to be learning and listening and loving.  Those around her did not like it.  Martha, in particular, who was working hard to do what she had always been told she was supposed to do, to be what she was always told she was supposed to be, did not like that Mary was stepping out of her place to be something else.  But Jesus told her that Mary had chosen better.  She had chosen LOVE of God over social acceptability.

            Lent is a time when we are invited into self-reflection.  We are invited to look at the areas in which we are called to grow, to risk, to try anew.  On this the first Sunday in lent we are invited to look at our own actions and see where we are challenged to love God and neighbor with much more fullness.  We aren’t always going to get these things right.  And I want to point out that in neither of these stories is Jesus condemning the ones who didn’t get it right.  He doesn’t yell at Martha.  He doesn’t spend time expounding on the sins of the priest and the Levite.  He doesn’t even scold or correct.  What he does instead is to celebrate the wins, celebrate the times when loving God and loving neighbor over everything else is chosen.  He celebrates the wins, the times when that call was answered.  And then he invites.  Mary, you’ve chosen the better part and it will not be taken from you.  Legal Expert, see the astonishing, surprising man acting in the way God calls us to act and go and do likewise. 

            To return to where we started then Jesus tells the legal expert that all the commandments and laws can be summed up into two: to love the Lord your God with everything you are, AND to love your neighbor as yourself.  In the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus shows us what it is to love your neighbor as yourself.  In the story of Mary and Martha we see what it is to love God with all you are: putting aside the business and expectations of one’s life to sit, learn, worship.  And then we have Jesus’ final words for today’s reading, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. One thing is necessary.”  First, he took all the commandments and summed them up into two things.  And now he has taken the two things and summed them up into one.  One thing is necessary.  One thing.  And that is love.  When we love fully, when we are fully present in love with the God who IS love, then all the rest will follow.  The Samaritan chose to love his neighbor as himself.  And Mary chose love of Jesus and through that, love of God.  We end then with Jesus words to Mary.  “Mary has chosen the better part.  It will not be taken from her.”

Changing Sense of Call

 

Luke 5:1-11

Mark 1:14-20

               Today we have two stories about the call of the fishermen disciples.  

               In the story from Luke, we see that Jesus initiates the call by asking for a favor: “Jesus boarded one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon and then asked him to row out a little distance from the shore.”  After preaching to the crowds, he makes another request, “Row out farther, into the deep water, and drop your nets for a catch.”  Jesus initiates, and it is possible at any point that Simon Peter could have said no.  He does resist in response to that second request, “Well, we’ve already worked hard all night and caught nothing!”  There’s no guarantee that he will answer the request, the call, the initiation from Jesus with a “yes”.  That is the risk that God takes when approaching us, as God always does.  The risk on God’s part is that we will say “no”.  But Simon Peter, though grumbling, does not say “no”.  He answers with “well, I don’t think will work, but because you are asking me, I’ll do it.” 

               The result of his saying “yes” to Jesus then is a catch that far exceeds expectations, that is far beyond even any hopes that he might have had.  The catch is so big that it is, literally, overwhelming their boats and threatening to sink them.

               And then Jesus calls them to follow.  And again, despite what they have just seen, the abundance they have just witnessed, the overflowing-beyond-expectation catch they have just made, they still have the option to say “no” once more.  And Simon Peter again has his doubts, his fears.  “Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinner” he declares.  But in the end, remembering all that has come to pass, he again says “yes” expecting that their catch, this time of people, will continue to be huge.

               There is so much in this story.  Their fears, their hesitations, their responses are reminiscent of the prophets, almost all of whom have similar beginning stories.  The stories of Isaiah, Jonah, Jeremiah, etc. all begin with God’s call: a relationship and an invitation into a calling that is initiated by God.  All of these prophets, too, respond with doubt, with hesitation.  But in spite of their doubt, in spite of their hesitation, in spite of everything they, too, ultimately say “yes” to this call from God.  As a result, with all of them, the catch is huge, the expectations that they had are far exceeded.  The unexplored areas of potential beyond their ideas of what is possible, of the limits of resources, knowledge and energy are far beyond their vision. 

And so, the question is brought back to us: in what ways do we limit ourselves, see walls that maybe aren’t really there, see limitations or declare, as Simon Peter did, “We already tried that and it didn’t work!”?  In what ways, when new ideas or possibilities are presented to us, do we roll our eyes and squash those visions, those opportunities and invitations before they have been given space?  How do we fail to remember that past times are not this time, and situations that maybe made things fail before may be different now?  That specific calls are for a time, for a season, and while a new vision may sound like the old one, if God calls us to try again, it’s just possible that God’s ideas are in fact for now, and that they might be new, stemming from new visions, and new hopes for what might be done now, in this time and in this place, even when they sound similar.  In what ways, then, have we limited where and how we will find God?

               In my lectionary group, one of our pastors shared that at his church they have a food pantry.  And one week when one of the men came to pick up his food, he asked if he could use the kitchen to cook a specific meal.  The man was without house, and he did not have the ability to make himself the food he wanted.  Using the kitchen at the church, though, was off limits.  It had “never been done before” and at another church where the pastor had served it “had been tried once and had failed” so the invitation to open that door again was unappealing and, frankly, against that church’s rules.  But my friend decided to make an exception this one time.  The man invited my friend to stay with him while he used the kitchen, while he cooked his meal, and they began to talk.  The man was cooking a wondrous meal with his hands, but his words, my friend discovered, were also a rich feast in which he was  creating real visions based on understanding and insight.  They ended up discussing scripture, talking through that week’s sermon and this homeless man gave my friend new insights and new examples to use.  And as my friend listened to this man, he heard God’s words in new and different and empowering ways.  This simple decision on the part of my friend to allow this seemingly uneducated, dirty, lost man access to the kitchen led into new understandings from a man who was extremely intelligent, but more, very wise and who had gifts to give in terms of vision, ideas and insights.  My friend was given a glimpse of God, simply because he said “yes” to an unusual request. 

Just as the catch that the would-be disciples drew was big enough not just for the fisherfolk, but big enough to feed the community in its abundance, the gifts given to my friend were for his whole church community as well. 

I want to point out something else here: fishing for people, calling the disciples, offering call to us, is never coercive or domineering.  Jesus did not insist that they do what he asked.  He did not insist that they follow.  He initiated, engaged, but in the end, the choice was theirs.  Call from God as we see in this story is personal, relational work. The result of following is healing and abundance.  So when one starts to say yes, the results are impossible to ignore: the catch is so big and so clear that, while we still always have choice, the reality of the call is made abundant.  I think about the times when I have heard God urging me to do something.  Even with something as simple as donating money, I have often found that when I have answered a call to give, when I have felt that tugging at my heart to be generous, that whatever I have given has been returned to me in abundance.  Just like with the disciples, that doesn’t make the next time I am asked to do something necessarily easy.  It is hard, even with proofs offered again and again of the abundant response of God, it is still hard to trust that when we are asked again to do something, to give something, to follow something, that God’s abundance will still carry us.  That’s what faith is: trusting that when we answer yes, that God will be with us and will be there to carry us even when there is risk, danger and potential injury.  God will be with us.  And the promise is that no matter what struggles we face, that following with God is better than saying no and going the journey alone.

At the same time, I also want to be clear here that there is a cost to saying “yes”.  While the abundance of God abounds, there is also a cost.  In this story, the men had worked all night.  They were tired, probably exhausted, frankly, and they were being asked to set out in their boats once more, to a deeper area, to go out again.  Then after they have worked hard again to bring in the fish, Jesus calls them to follow him in all that he does: not to rest, not to go back to their families, but to leave everything and follow him.  They did leave everything, staring with and including the huge fish catch that they had just had, to go with Jesus.  Eventually many of them follow Jesus to the cross and end by losing their very lives.  While the catch is huge, the abundance of God is beyond compare, there is also a price to be paid in this world for following on the way of Jesus, and that cost is sometimes everything that we are and have.  And still, God’s promise remains that this choice is better than to say “no”.  But that is something we can only learn for certain through the doing, through the experiencing of it.

I want to note here that the son’s of Zebedee who fished with their family boat and supported their family left that family to follow.  As we heard at the end of the story in Mark, “At that very moment he called them. They followed him, leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired workers.”  What is interesting here is that the name “Zebedee” means “gift giver” and when we discussed this this week at my lectionary group, one of my colleagues pointed out that all names in the Bible have meaning. “What gift did Zebedee give in this situation?” he asked, to which I quickly responded, “what he gave was his sons!  He released them to go with Jesus, to follow their calls, despite the great loss to himself.”  Sometimes, perhaps often, our children have calls, have a sense of a passionate calling from God that takes them away from us, that takes them into areas that frighten us or that we don’t understand.  But part of our call, and our gift to God and to the world in which they live, is in letting them go: letting them take the paths that God has for them.  Our gift, as was Zebedee’s gift, is our children to the world, and to God’s kingdom, even when we don’t recognize or understand it.  That too, comes with a great price: the call to launch our children and allow them to follow their own call.  I think about the movie Billy Elliot in which the father did not understand the call of his son to be a dancer.  I think about Bend it like Beckham, in which the girls’ parents similarly did not understand their daughter’s call to play soccer.  It is the hardest part of a parent’s call, to allow our children to follow their own paths, their own calling.  But that is a call that we as parents are often given: we are called to send them with love, to support them in their dreams even when we don’t understand, to look for God’s presence and God’s actions within their choices and to let them go.  Not easy, but it too is part of following God, trusting God to lead them in their own path, their own calls.

I also want to point out that while the translations of both say “I will make you fish for people” the actual words in the Greek should be translated more accurately, “I will make you become fishers of people”.  This is not just about actions, this is about one’s very identity.  In following Christ, in following our call, it is not just simply that what we do, how we work, our jobs, actions or behaviors might change.  Our very identity changes.  We become something else, something new.    

The journey of call and response is a journey of relationship.  As I said, Jesus initiated with the disciples as God initiates with us.  And while it was a one-time event of saying “yes” to Jesus, it was also a life-time process.  Just as Jesus’ coming was both the kingdom is here and the kingdom is coming;  just as our relationship with Christ is both now and a journey forward, our call is a choice we make now but also a continued choice.  Also, call changes as we change and grow and as times change and grow.  The needs of the world change, we change, and our call changes with it.  That means we don’t and won’t always get it right.  It also means that it is very important that we continue to deepen in our study, in our commitment to learning and growing in our faith.  Too many churches emphasize the one time joining and forget the process then of deepening, studying, growing in our faith.  But both are important, for all Christians.   

Remember that the Simon Peter who said yes to Jesus’ call was also the Peter who was deeply and mistakenly confused at the transfiguration and who denied Jesus at the end.  Jesus ministry was affected by those he was with; those who needed him in specific ways, who thwarted him in specific ways, who were human with him in their own individual, unique ways.  The path of call is two way: our decisions to say “yes or no” end up affecting the path that Jesus walks too.  And for that reason, our choices to say yes or no are extremely important and should not be taken lightly.

Finally, I want to point out once more that Jesus final words of invitation to the disciples in the Luke story begin with the words, once more, “be not afraid”. We are always called to step forward in faith, to leave fear behind and risk saying “yes” when a call presents itself to us.  Listen for God’s call for you today.  It will be filled with abundance, but it will also require risk, and possible sacrifice.  Be not afraid and step into your call with faith, with hope, and with love.  Amen.

Epiphany: Gifts and Giving

Luke 2:41-52

Matthew 2:1-12

       Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh were gifts we are told were given by the Magi because they were some of the most valuable things that people could have at that time.  It was a statement that Jesus was valuable beyond anything.  And, as you also know, it was more than that:

       Frankincense – was (and is) often made into incense and used in worship.  So it represents who Jesus was as “God with us” - It represents life.

      Myrrh was used to embalm mummies, especially those of rich, important people.  So it symbolized the suffering and death that Jesus would experience when he was grown up and the honoring of what was to come.

      There is more in this story than even that.  The magi or wise men also travelled a very long way with their gifts.  They gave to Jesus a huge gift, then, of their time and their energy as well as their material gifts.

            We understand their value, we understand that they had deep meaning, that these gifts were the most important and valuable things they could give, materially but also in terms of their energy and time. 

            If Jesus were born among us today, and you knew about it, knew who he was and why he was coming.  If you were invited to go to the birth of Jesus, what would you give, what would you bring?  I invite you to think about that for a minute.

            In the Advent Devotionals that went out, Lisa and Lynn Justice mentioned the story in the blog, Hyperbole and a Half called, “The Year Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas.”  We have enjoyed Hyperbole and a Half for a long time, but I did not remember this story, so we looked it up and I read it out loud to the whole family.  It is hilarious and I laughed so hard I was crying by the end.  In the story, the author describes a childhood event in which she was trying to get her family to act out the Christmas story and she assigned parts to her family members to play in the story.  Her aunt and grandmother were to be the Magi and the writer insisted that they bring gifts for the baby Jesus.  Apparently her aunt and grandma were a bit tipsy at this point in the story and so they grabbed whatever they could find to give as gifts.  This included a pack of cigarettes, the remote control and a Kenny Loggins tape.  My kids were not nearly as impressed with the story as I was.  They didn’t find it nearly as hilarious, in part because they sympathized with the author as a little girl whose needs were not being attended to in the story.  But it did kick off a conversation for us about what presents would be appropriate and what presents we might bring to Jesus today.  The first suggestion was diapers.  After all, that’s a really useful, needed thing for babies, and we all know that if a person is poor, diapers, even if you use cloth and just need to be constantly cleaning them, they amount to a cost that is not insignificant.  “But,” I challenged, “diapers is really a gift more for the parents than for the baby.” 

            “Also,” I reminded them, “the gifts brought to Jesus signified the best that people had, the most valuable things and gifts and resources that the Magi, or anyone at that time, had.”

            That led into a discussion of two of my favorite Christmas stories – the Littlest Angel, and the Little Drummer Boy.  If you recall the story of the Littlest Angel, the one thing that made this little boy angel happy was a box of his favorite collected stuff – depending on the version of the story it’s a small box of things that would make a young boy happy, like string and a stick, the box itself, the collar of his pet dog, a stuffed bear.  Before getting this box he was very unhappy in heaven and it was the one thing that brought him consolation and joy.  But when he hears about Jesus’ birth, he wants to give him the best that he has, the thing he values most, so he adds this box of everything that gave him joy into the pile of gifts.  He is running away in shame, feeling that the gifts he has are not worth anything when God chooses that gift to be the Star over Bethlehem.  Now while I realize there could be a lot of critique about the story (if it becomes the Star, for example, it’s still not a gift that the baby can actually play with…), none the less, the gift he gave was one a small boy would appreciate and would love, and it was also the thing that was most valued by the Littlest Angel in the story.

            I like the Little Drummer Boy even better because what he gave was his talent, was his ability.  He gave the gift of his music to the baby: the best he had, all he had.  I like it because it was a gift that babies really do value – music, especially drumming, perhaps.  And I like it because it also was the best that the Drummer Boy had.

            So for me, giving our best involves two things: giving what is needed, will be appreciated, will be valued by the recipient; and giving what we value, what is the best we have to give.

            And as I thought about this, I realized that this is the same answer to the question, “what is call” – it is when your greatest gifts, your greatest joy, and the world’s greatest needs meet.  That is our call: that which brings us joy, that which we are gifted in, and that which is most needed by the world. 

            Those are the gifts that we should be bringing to the Christ child, those are the gifts that we bring to God.

            But I was thinking that perhaps we should take this a step further.  When we give gifts to anyone, they should also be given with these same intentions.  We want to give our best to those around us because they are God’s children and we are called to love them as we would love ourselves.  We would want the best – so we should give the best.  Not only to God, but to our neighbors, to those around us.  We give our best time – perhaps that is Sunday mornings when you could be out golfing or sleeping in, but we give our best time every day as well: maybe at dinner with a prayer and with attention to those with whom we are eating. We also give our best energy to serving those around us, to loving those around us, to caring for those around us.  And we are called to give our best material gifts as well: things that we value, things the other will value.

            I’m reminded of a praise song, “My Own Little World” by Matthew West.  These are the lyrics:

In my own little world it hardly ever rains

I've never gone hungry, I’ve always felt safe

I got some money in my pocket and shoes on my feet

In my own little world, population -- me

I try to stay awake through Sunday morning church

I throw a twenty in the plate but I never give 'til it hurts

And I turn off the news when I don't like what I see

It's easy to do when it's population - me

What if there's a bigger picture, What if I'm missing out

What if there's a greater purpose, I could be living right now

Outside my own little world

Stopped at a red light, looked out my window

I saw a carboard sign, said 'Help this homeless widow'

Just above this sign was the face of a human

I thought to myself, 'God, what have I been doing?'

So I rolled down my window and I looked her in the eye

Oh how many times have I just passed her by?

I gave her some money then I drove on through

And my own little world reached population two

(Creator,) break my heart for what breaks Yours, Give me open hands and open doors

Put Your light in my eyes and let me see, That my own little world is not about me

What if there's a bigger picture, What if I'm missing out

What if there's a greater purpose, That I could be living right now

I don't wanna miss what matters, I wanna be reaching out

Show me the greater purpose, So I can start living right now

Outside my own little world,

             We started today’s scripture lessons with another scripture, and in that passage from Luke we are given the sole glimpse into Jesus’ childhood years.  He was sitting in the temple listening to the teachers, learning, growing.  But it caused his parents, who didn’t know where he was, to worry at his absence and to be very upset when they couldn’t find him.  His response was that he needed to be in his Father’s house.  And perhaps we might find this response to be snippy and less than giving.  But this is another time when perhaps our ideas of what is loving, what is giving need to be challenged.  Being loving and giving does not always look like “being nice”.  Sometimes the most loving thing to do is to speak truth to the other, sometimes the most valuable thing we can give is a different way of looking at or understanding something.

            I found myself reflecting on this during this week after looking at our church’s YouTube channel.  As you may know, we have several interviews with Roger Woolsey from his time here, posted on our YouTube channel.  He is well known, and because of his non-fundamentalist ideas about Christianity, he also has quite a few people who really hate what he has to say.  Those who believe in a very judgmental, very angry, very hierarchical God are not going to like what Roger has to say.  As a result, because he is so well known, most of the comments we receive on our YouTube channel are comments left in response to Roger’s interviews and most are proclaiming that Roger is going to hell because of his beliefs in a loving, accepting, compassionate God.  Roger knows his scriptures very well and quotes them often in his arguments for that God.  But those who respond are mostly just angry, attacking, and even threatening.  But as I thought about what giving from our hearts, giving what is most valuable to us looks like, I found myself thinking of Roger.  Despite the commenter’s anger, despite the fact that he is challenging their thinking, their very world view, their rigidity and judgments, he is giving to them a different world view, from his heart, from his sense of call and purpose.  He is giving to God by speaking words of adoration and praise for a God of love, grace, and compassion. 

            We are to follow Jesus and Jesus gave everything – even his life for us.  We, too, are called to be givers, like Jesus, but also like the Magi, of that which is most valuable to us, that which uses the best of who we are, that which is most needed and wanted by those in our world, and that which is a giving back of what has been given to us – our talents, our resources and our time.