Charity Vs. Empowerment OR Privilege and the Things We Take for Granted.

         I was in a situation a number of years ago where I was setting up for a church function.  I was busy running around getting things ready with a couple other people.  I had a friend with me who was visiting the church for the first time, a friend who grew up in a different socio-economic group, a friend who had been extremely poor most of their life.  This friend was sitting on the side-lines while I flitted about taking care of things, trying to get ready.
        As I worked hard to get ready for the upcoming event, I found myself really irritated by my friend's inactivity. Why were they just sitting on the sidelines rather than helping? I thought.  Is my friend just that kind of person who expects to be waited on and served by others but won't lift a finger to help? What kind of entitlement thinking and lack of caring are being demonstrated here?  This went on for some time before, in exasperagation, I finally snapped at my friend, "You know, I could really use your help here."
       My friend looked surprised.  No, it was more than surprise.  I think it might even have been a bit of shock.  They got up and did help, though the whole time my friend sort of floundered around, looking uneasy, and more, unsure of how to help or what to do.
       Later, we had an opportunity to talk about what had happened.  My friend shared with me that, until I had snapped at them, they had not felt it was their right to help.  My friend was surprised at my snapping because they had thought they were being respectful by allowing me to do what needed to be done without my friend's interference or clumsy attempts at aid.  They had felt they needed to be invited to help in this way and that until they were invited, they had better just stay out of the way.
       Then, I was in a situation in which our congregation (at my last church) was serving a meal for those staying at our church through our Family Promise program (this is a program where 3-4 families are temporarily housed in churches for a week at a time per church until they can get back on their feet).  After the meal was served, the children are organized into an activity and while the parents are present in the space, the children are really engaged in the activity with the helpers from the congregation where the families are staying.  These families are all suffering from chronic homelessness, deep poverty and lack of resources.  One of the people serving with us told me that they were baffled and concerned by the fact that the parents of these children never offered to help - either with serving their kids or helping with the kid's activities.  The parents hung back, looking uneasy, and just watched as their kids were fed and cared for in this place.  It bothered the person to whom I was speaking, who is a person used to jumping in and offering their services and help in any situation, especially when their kids are being given something for free.  But I recognized the looks on these parents' faces.  It was the same look I had seen on my friend's face when they didn't feel invited to help.
       I believe these are both examples of something we rarely acknowledge.  It is a privilege to be able to serve others.  It is a privilege to be able to help in a situation and to be seen and acknowledged as a person who gives their time and energy to help others.  
      I think at some level we know this.  When I am over at someone's house for a meal, I always offer to help clean up.  Most of the time, that help is refused.  But when it is accepted, I feel that I have been "let in" to a closer place in that person's heart, that person's home, that person's life.  We don't let guests help us.  But we do let family help us.  So at the point at which someone allows us to help them clean up, we have moved from a place of distant guest to friend, at the very least.  Our older or infirm friends also recognize this at some level.  When one of my parishioners is hurt or in the hospital, the thing they always have the most trouble accepting is help from others, especially if there is no chance of returning that help.  Those who are on the serving side of the equation feel a sense of honor, privilege and purpose in their efforts to care for the one down.  But it is hard to accept that help.  We forget that we give people a gift by allowing them to serve us: we give them the gift of feeling useful, of having activities that are meaningful, of giving something really needed to us.
       We see the truth in these things, but still, it can be hard to remember that service is a privilege.  It can be even harder to understand that those who have very little, the underprivileged, the marginalized, the ostracized, the disempowered - that many of these people do not know they have the right to help, to serve others, to give back.  They have been told by our society in so many ways that they have nothing to contribute, that their very existence is suspect.  They are treated as an "under-class" - as lesser than.  And one of the surest signs that they have internalized that is that they do not know they have the right to give, to serve, or to help, even when those receiving aid are their own children.
      We believe that when we are giving something to another person, whether it be goods or services, that their response should be one of gratitude.  But the reality is that it can be really disempowering to serve people without letting them give something back in return.  When I was volunteering with a homeless chaplaincy in Berkeley during my college years, one of the local soup kitchens understood this so fully that they charged those coming to the soup kitchen a quarter per meal.  A quarter was not hard to come by (and the reality was that if someone really couldn't come up with a quarter, they would still be fed!), but the difference in how it made people feel was extraordinary.  The guests went from feeling that they were "charity cases" (that very term and the way we use it says a great deal about how people experience both sides of our one-sided acts of charity!!!) to feeling that they were people contributing to their own well-being.  They were purchasing their meals.  They KNEW that they were purchasing their own meals.  They were not helpless, hopeless charity cases.  They were empowered people who were buying their own food.  And as a result of that, they also felt empowered to act on their own behalves in other ways.  Many began to volunteer themselves serving food at the soup kitchen.  It became a community of people working and serving one another.
       I believe we would do well to offer more invitations to people to be able to work with us in serving one another.  We should invite those being served to be on the boards of the programs that serve them.  We should invite those being served to stand with us and help us to serve.  We should invite their thoughts, their opinions, but also their hands and their abilities in our joint missions of service to one another.
      But perhaps more to the point in this blog, I hope that we can strive, all of us, to remember when someone is NOT helping or not serving alongside us that this may say more about their lack of a sense of being worthy to serve.  They may not be helping because they don't realize they are worth enough to be able to help.  Sometimes charity, and especially the charity that leaves no room for those receiving it to give back, leaves those receiving feeling worse about themselves than they already did. This may be a different approach, a different understanding for us to try to remember.  But it is one more time when we are summoned to put ourselves in another person's shoes.  We who have been born into privileged places in society, where we have enough, where we can be what and who we want to be - we sometimes forget that we are privileged in more ways than we often know, recognize, or remember.  Being able to serve and give to others is a gift of privilege.  We would do well to remember that.  So I say it once more:
      It is a privilege to serve.  It is a gift to be able to give.  We honor the other by inviting their service and their giving as well.  

Taking Offense and Turning it to Good

Genesis 45:1-28

Matthew 15:10-28

Luke 4:21-30

               What offends you?  What do you get upset about and defensive about and irate about?

               Now, a more important question: Does it help to take offense?  Do problems get solved?  Injustices corrected by our becoming offended? 

               In the face of injustices, sometimes it feels like there are only two responses.  The first is to get angry.  And the second is to turn that anger inwards and to just accept the pain and injustices that come our way, often accompanied by a sense of helplessness or even hopelessness.  Anger often involves lashing out.  And one or both of these responses may include walking away, leaving the situation that has offended us.  Sometimes anger can make a difference.  Sometimes speaking out the truth in anger, like Jesus did as he flipped over the tables of the money changers in the temple, will make a difference, affect change, challenge and overcome injustices.  We don’t know the results of Jesus’ actions on that day, but we do know that the story of his turning those tables continues to inform us, educate us, make a difference in how Christians understand their church buildings and what they can and should be used for.  But other times anger does not actually make things better.  When anger is not accompanied by something productive, like ideas about how to change things, a direction for ways in which something might be done differently, or an offer of help for ways in which something could be done differently, then it tends to also be simply destructive. 

For those of you who read my blog, you know that this week started in a very unpleasant way for Youngest and I.  I was driving Youngest to school Monday morning when a ridiculously large truck started riding my bumper.  When I finally pulled over because he was scaring me, he drove as close as he could to my car, nicking the mirror even, to express his outrage, and then slowed to a crawl when I got behind him.  When he came to a stop sign, he refused for several minutes to drive through.  Clearly he was expressing his anger at me about something, but I’ll be honest and tell you that, first, I don’t know what he was angry about!  I was driving behind someone else and it was impossible for me to go any faster, if that was the problem.  I know I didn’t cut him off since I was in the same lane the entire time.  Secondly,  this behavior did nothing of good.  It only succeeded in scaring myself and my young daughter, upsetting me for most of the day actually, and causing worry (since once I was behind him, I saw that he was dropping off a kid at the same school I was) that I would run into him again the next day (which, in fact, I did… so now I’m anxious about driving Youngest to school at all).

               We see this same rage behavior in the Luke story today.  They didn’t like what Jesus said about it being challenging to bring healing and help to those in one’s own town.  They didn’t like it and they responded by driving Jesus out of town, which meant that there really was absolutely no way, now, that he could help them. 

               Our responses of rage, of yelling, of doing damage: these hurt people, hurt relationships, cause a lack of trust and a lack of honesty from those we are engaging who then become afraid of speaking their minds or being present in any kind of real way in the world.    

And that other option of just accepting perceived injustices?  Of walking away?  That’s frankly not very effective either.  Walking away doesn’t make things better.  And as Christians we are called to do something about real injustices and to change the pain or cruelty that we experience or witness.  When the injustices aren’t real, when the slights that offend us aren’t genuine, it does even less good to rage or walk away because we never have the opportunity to learn when our assumptions are wrong.

This morning Upworthy posted a story about a man who was offended by another man.  The offended man was taking a class and every time he approached his seat, this other man’s stuff was on the seat.  As soon as the other man saw him, he would say, “oh, you are here” and move his stuff, but, as the offended man said it, “He knew I would be there every day, so why didn’t he just keep his stuff off of my seat?!”  Then one day he was late for class.  And as he walked in, he saw that someone else was trying to sit in his seat and that the man who offended him by putting his stuff there said to this other person, “I’m sorry, this seat is saved for my good friend!” and then moved his things when he saw the author of the article walk up.  His offense had kept him from understanding that the man’s stuff was there as a way to save him his seat.

               What I would like to propose today is that there is at least one other way to deal with injustices, both personal and communal.  Today’s first scripture reading was the end of the story of Joseph.  To recap the larger story: Joseph was not very popular with his brothers.  He was favored by his father, which led to his brothers not liking him very much at all.  But he also chose to share with his brothers that he had had dreams of them bowing down to him.  This, too, failed to make him a very popular member of the family.  So the brothers threw him in a pit and then sold him as a slave to Ishmaelite traders, telling their father he had been killed.  This was an amazing injustice that lead Joseph into slavery, and then into prison.  Eventually he ended up as Pharaoh’s helper – in charge of Egypt’s land.  But not before a great deal of suffering had taken place.  How did he feel towards his brothers?  How did he handle all that had been done to him?  How did he treat those who had almost killed him and sent him to a life they knew would be horrible?  When they came to him begging for food, not recognizing him, what did he do?  Here was the perfect opportunity to get his revenge, to act out in anger and revenge.  He could have turned them away.  He could have announced, “as you did to me, so I do to you” and refuse to give them food.  He could have locked them up, or sold them as slaves.  And truthfully, he didn’t let them off easy.  He wanted to be sure they had changed.  But once he had seen that their hearts had changed, that they were no longer the young men who had done this terrible thing to him, he forgave them and acted towards them with grace and love, providing food during the famine, rescuing those who had wanted him dead, providing for these his torturers for years – caring even for those who had hurt him so badly, recognizing and remembering that in the end the path they forced him down, while not an easy one, ended in new opportunities and life for all of them.

               In the Matthew passage for today we are given two examples of ways to respond to things we don’t like.  We first have the Pharisees.  They were offended by what Jesus said and they reacted with offense.  They reacted by being angry, by pulling away, by plotting his destruction, and in the end by having him put to death.  In contrast we have the Canaanite woman who asks for help for her daughter.  Even though Jesus first ignores her and then insults her, she, in great contrast to the Pharisees, does NOT choose to act out of offense or anger.  Instead she acts with gentle, non-attacking, straight-forward persuasion.  She does not get angry.  But neither does she crumple, give up, or walk away.  Instead she offers a different perspective.  The Pharisees became offended but nothing came of that reaction of offense except, in the end, the crucifixion of an innocent man.  They did not get Jesus’ attention by acting offended.  And they certainly didn’t persuade him to change his tactics or change his mission or his approach or anything.  Jesus’ response when his disciples mentioned the Pharisees offense was to tell the disciples to leave them alone.  “The blind are leading the blind,” he said. Their offense came to nothing except anger and pain for themselves, and dismissal by Jesus.  But in contrast, the woman who chose to not act with offense, the woman who instead gently but persistently chose not to leave, not to act in anger, not to get mad nor to just accept what came her way and in helplessness to walk away, the woman who instead showed up and asked for what she wanted with determination but again without becoming angry – this woman, this woman got what she wanted, challenged Jesus and changed his approach to her and to all the other gentiles who followed in the gospels. 

               How do we respond when people offend us?  Do we pick up our toys and go home?  Do we feel helpless and hopeless?  Do we act out in anger?  Or can we choose this other way, speaking our truth in peace, with determination but also without attacking, without rancor, perhaps with humor and with the simple but powerful act of being present?

               I read in the news that a high school student in Tennessee was suspended for saying “bless you” to another kid when he sneezed.  Apparently the teacher was offended by this and considered it an infringement on the separation of church and state.  While I personally believe very strongly in a separation of church and state, the purpose of that separation is to allow each person to practice and live out their own faith, whatever they may be.  To suspend a person for an act of kindness that originated from their faith (and that’s assuming that it wasn’t just a flippant automatic response, which is also a possibility), is to fail to understand the purpose and reasoning behind a separation of church and state.  It is, instead to impose on an individual rules about where and how they can express their faith, the exact opposite of what the separation was intended to do.  Putting my strong opinions about this aside, a teacher’s offense at an act of kindness will no doubt have lasting negative effects on those around her.  Already, the community has become more divided around this issue.  Instead of people talking to each other, listening to each other and growing in that listening, people are entrenching in their own opinions and acting out with anger, with aggression, with attacking, accusing, hurtful words.  An act of kindness has become the center of a controversy that has turned people bitter, angry, has made enemies out of friends and created a stubbornness and unwillingness to hear each other that will be hard to overcome.  I wonder what would have happened if, instead of suspending the girl, the teacher had used the moment to open a conversation about separation of church and state, what that means, how that should be lived, the history of that policy, and where it has taken us now.  People might still have disagreed, but if the conversation were set in an atmosphere of exploration, people might have learned and grown from it.

              When I was in college I lived in a Christian co-op with 19 other students in what was the campus ministry center.  Living in this center involved a commitment to participate each week in one of the regular programs of the campus ministry center.  It also involved committing to attending a weekly potluck and each week one of us put on a program for the others to consider some aspect of faith or living out that faith.  The community I lived in was very diverse, ethnically and in every other way.  And while we were supposed to be committed to growing together as a community and as a body of faith, there were divisions.  There were smaller groupings of friends within the community.  One week, the woman leading the conversation was a white woman who had felt excluded by the rest of the community.  She led a program in which we were all invited to pick someone we didn’t know well and try to get to know them better.  I don’t remember all the ins and outs of this conversation.  But I do remember that about a year later, one of my friends, a Latino man, shared with me that the people of color within our community had felt the presentation was racist and excluded them.  I was shocked because they had said nothing at the time.  They had left the community at the end of the year, found housing elsewhere without ever explaining why they left, without ever telling the woman that they were angry or hurt or upset.  I asked Mike why this group had never voiced their feelings.  And he told me “we, people of color, know that it is not our job to have to educate white people on their racism.”  Well, they are right.  As people of color, it is not their job to educate the rest of us on our bad behavior.  Women don’t have the job of educating men on their sexism.  Poor people don’t have the job of educating wealthy people about their privilege. People with disabilities don’t have the job of educating those who don’t.  It is not the job of people who might have experienced any kind of injustice to educate those who perpetrated it.  Education should be done by other people who have those privileges.    

However, as Christians, as people of faith, it is our job to act with love towards all people.  It is not an act of love to walk away from a situation without talking to people who may be unknowingly doing harm.  It is not an act of love to refuse to engage one another, even our enemies in open and honest conversation.  Scott Peck defines love as “working towards the highest spiritual growth for the other”.  It does not work towards the others’ highest spiritual growth to walk away.  It does not work toward the others’ highest spiritual growth to hide behind feeling “offended”.  We are called to move beyond that.  To instead find peaceful, humorous, loving but truthful ways to be present and honest and real with one another. 

               I will admit I do not always find this easy.  Not at all.  I remember several years ago when Eldest received a 75% on her assignment the first day of class which was to have her parent sign her syllabus, a syllabus I did in fact sign, I found myself quickly moved towards feeling offended.  This was my assignment.  Had I spelled my name wrong?  Why did I get a 75% on signing her syllabus?  But my decision to be offended started me off on the wrong foot with Eldest's teacher.  Instead of being present, again using humor, or simply asking if there had been a mistake, I approached it with my bristles out.  This served no one.  Least of all Eldest.

               There are so many things we could be offended by on a daily basis.  So many.  That person wasted our time by refusing to use their turn signal.  That person snarled rather than smiling.  That person failed to invite everyone to their party.  That person wrote something that could have applied to us.  That person failed to remember that someone was gifted in a particular way and to include them in a project.   That person gave an excuse that we know was an untruth.  Well, again, we can find things to cause us offense daily.  And when we fail to speak up, sometimes those little things start to add up until we are so offended we explode or leave.  Hanging on to our grievances isn’t the solution.  But reacting with anger or walking away are not usually productive options either. 

               We see this more and more in our culture, in our community.  The divisions between world-views and thinking is expanding in this country and becoming more volatile, more violent, and more permanently damaging.  We have stopped being able to hear each other or communicate in ways that bring learning, growth and understanding.  Instead we attack what we don’t agree with and end up increasing the divisions, entrenching in our own worldviews without possibility of growth or change, and tearing families and other relationships apart in the process.

               So what do we do when we are feeling offended?  Well, first I think taking a deep breath is  always a good start.  Remembering the Canaanite woman, remembering Joseph, remembering how others responded without a sense of righteous outrage when they could easily have done otherwise, remembering our call to forgive, remembering our call to love even our enemies, remembering that we can do a lot more good and spread a lot more love by choosing something other than offense.  All of this can help.  But the bottom line is that it takes practice.  And looking at the good models we have in some people helps.

               Ben Weir is one of my truest heroes.  He was one of the Lebanon hostages in 1985.  He was held for 16 months and suffered cruelly.  He was also a friend.  And truly one of the kindest, gentlest spirits I have ever met.  I remember one time when I was with him he was confronted by an angry attacking young man – “what kind of God do you believe in anyway?  You went over there as a MISSIONARY to try to convert people to a hurtful religion and you were punished because of it.  You got what you deserved.”  And Ben’s gentle, quiet, but listening response… “I’m sorry that you are feeling angry.  For me, my faith got me through that time.  But I understand that can be hard for folk going through hard times.  I would be happy to listen any time to what you have experienced.”  I never once heard him snap or respond in anger.  And even after his cruel treatment, he remained one of the world’s most respected advocates and workers for peace in the Middle East.  His gentleness permeates everything about him.  And through his actions he modelled for me, as for many, a person I would like to be: one who chooses a different way - who listens - who loves - who sees.  He also shows up, no matter what injustice or offense is aimed his way. 

               My prayer for all of us is to find that kind of peace, that kind of wisdom, that kind of LOVE.  Amen.

Matthew 25: Clothing the Naked

Genesis 9:18-27

John 4:5-42

Matthew 25:31-46

Today we continue our study of Matthew 25 by focusing on clothing the naked.  But while making sure that everyone has enough to wear is an important call for all of us, today I actually want to focus on this at a metaphoric level. While I believe that Jesus meant these passages to be very literal, the gift in Jesus’ words and I think in all of scripture, is that there are always multiple levels of meaning and of value to us.  Since clothing people is generally not as big an issue in the United States (as we know our thrift stores tend to be overrun with donations of clothing and if you are like me, you clean out your closets of unused clothing or clothing that kids and ourselves outgrow on a regular basis), I want to focus on the other levels of clothing the naked.

Looking on someone’s nakedness is generally considered wrong.  This was even more true in biblical times.  As we read in the passage from Genesis, even when it involved an adult man seeing his father naked, this was a wrong that could lead to a complete change in one’s rank within the community and even within one’s family, apparently for generations. 

But we do this – this looking on the naked, in more than just physical ways.  For example, when someone is “exposed” – when a piece of a person’s private life, is thrown onto the TV screen through news stories, we tend not only to want to see, but to STARE.  We are curious.  We rubberneck on freeways when there has been an accident, we watch the news avidly when someone’s tragedy is aired, we talk and chitchat with others about the scandals we’ve heard about.  We look on the nakedness of those who are suffering and exposed in our communities on a regular basis, and usually we have very little shame in doing so. 

The result of this?  Well, we are given a small glimpse of the results of that in today’s first gospel lesson:  We have a woman who is “naked” in her community.  She has had five husbands and now is living with a man who is not her husband.  We don’t know the why’s of this.  We don’t know the reasons behind this.  We don’t know what has led her to this place or what has happened to her husbands, or why she is with the person she is with now.  But we know it is easy to condemn her even today.  And we know that she was severely condemned then by her community.  We know that in the middle of the desert she is choosing the hottest, most horrible and inappropriate time of day to come to the well.  And we know that the only reason why she would have done this was to avoid other people in her community.  The reason to avoid other people in her community is because she has been condemned, alienated, estranged by those others and left to come to the well at this, the only time she can.  She is naked in her community – stripped of her dignity, her respect, her place among her people.  Despite this, despite the shame she experiences probably daily, when she speaks with Jesus, she still chooses to be transparent, to be open and honest when Jesus asks her to bring her husband.  And that, I think, is a great part of why he chooses to stay in conversation with her at that time and to offer her water and life.  She stands naked in her community, and what he is really offering her is the clothing of a new life.

For us, offering the exposed, the naked, the vulnerable in our communities “clothing” is not always easy and the way in which we can do that is not always clear.  I encourage you to think about what that might look like in this place and time. 

There is an organization 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 news story a few years back 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 literally stood around her as she testified against her step dad. They stayed outside her house all night in a circle, on their bikes, so she could sleep at night.  That is a profound example of clothing the naked – helping them to find and wear strength once again, to wear a sense of pride and acceptance for who they are.  This is an example of protecting those who have been stripped, completely, of dignity, pride, and a sense of self, and helping them to find those again.

Another group of bikers, the Patriot Guard Riders forms an honor guard at military burials, helps protect mourners from harassment and fills out the ranks at burials of indigent and homeless veterans.  In addition to attending funerals, the group also greets troops returning from overseas at homecoming celebrations and performs volunteer work for veteran's organizations such as Veterans Homes.  They, too, stand with those who have been stripped by mourning and grief, who stand naked in their feelings, trying to honor them while others would expose them and take away their pride, their experiences and their opportunities for transitions such as memorials and returning into the community. 

Recently a new movement has also started in the United States to help heal the raw naked feelings of those soldiers who are returning after serving from war.  Our soldiers often return hurting, injured in feeling if not in body.  A program called Warrior’s Journey Home uses the principles of Native Americans welcoming back their fighters.  In Native American cultures, the fighters are sent to the perimeters to protect the tribe and when they come back, they are put in the center of the circle and promised the protection of the tribe from their naked, raw feelings in exchange.  We are beginning to do a similar thing here in the U.S., intentionally inviting our returning soldiers into circles of love and care where they are reassured that it is now our time to heal them, care for them, and offer them protection from their memories, from their “nakedness”, from the experiences which now haunt them.  The movement has an amazing success rate in beginning and encouraging the healing from PTSD.  I was able to be part of such a group, as a support person, at my last congregation, and found it to be an amazing tool of healing and empowerment for those suffering from their own experiences in war. It is a way of clothing the vulnerable and naked who have had raw experiences which leave them in a feeling of fear and exposure.

These are three ways that people clothe those who are “naked” in their feelings, and in their experiences, who are raw to what the world has thrown them and exposed as a result. 

But you will notice that none of these groups are church groups.  None of the programs I’ve mentioned stem from religious communities. The commentary, “Feasting on the Word” has this to say about Matthew 25:  “(Matthew 25 makes several very radical statements.  One) is about the practice of religion. You cannot read the paper and not be concerned about the role religion plays in the world. Terrible atrocities are committed by people shouting, ‘God is great.’ Religious officials hide clergy abuse, deny sacraments to those with whom they disagree. Religious leaders condemn each other, excommunicate each other, invest inordinate amounts of energy and resources fighting one another over who gets in and who is kept out, over whose doctrinal formulas are true and whose are false—over a whole laundry list of issues about which Jesus had absolutely nothing to say.  He did, however, say this: ‘When you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.’  Students of the New Testament know that the only description of the last judgment is in Matthew 25. There is nothing in it about ecclesiastical connections or religious practices. There is not a word in this passage about theology, creeds, orthodoxies. There is only one criterion here, and that it is whether or not you saw Jesus Christ in the face of the needy and whether or not you gave yourself away in love in his name.”  (Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word – Year A, Volume 4: Season After Pentecost 2 (Propers 17 - Reign of Christ).)

What that says to me is that in some places at least, church is a place where we have one of the hardest times accepting the naked or vulnerable.  We hide behind our theologies and our creeds, arguing with each other, excluding each other, and being least authentic with each other.  We are so uneasy with the vulnerable that we not only fail to protect those who are, but we also fail to be vulnerable ourselves. 

James Angell in his book, Yes is a world wrote, “Church ought to be a set of moments when we become most expansively, openly and honestly ourselves.  Yet it is in the church where we often find it hardest to be ourselves: where we are often the most guarded, the most paranoid, the most unsure of being accepted and understood.”  It is in part for this reason, too, that clergy children have one of the highest rates of suicide and other emotional issues.  As Religion News Service says, “Beneath the stereotypes of preacher’s kids as either goody two-shoes or devilish hellions lies a tense and sometimes taxing reality, the children of clergy say. Studies show that many PK’s, as the lingo goes, struggle with issues of identity, privacy and morality.”  Rick Warren is the author of “purpose driven Life” and “purpose driven Church”, pastor of the Mega church Saddleback in Southern CA.  His 27 year old son committed suicide a few years ago.   Jay Bakker, the son of televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, said he identifies with Matthew Warren as a fellow PK and as someone who has also suffered from depression.  “It’s especially hard because his dad wrote the book `The Purpose Driven Life,’ which has this incredibly optimistic tone,” Bakker said. “My parents wrote the same kind of books, and it was like, `Things are good for everyone else. What’s wrong with me?’ I can’t imagine the pressure he must have felt.” 

My own son’s counselor when I was in Ohio said to me numerous times that the best thing I might do for my son would be to leave serving the church as a career, where everything he did and every response I made in caring for him was evaluated by 80-100 eyes.  While I don’t find that same kind of critical looking here, I am aware that he has chosen to stay quiet and unobserved in the back most of the time he is at church.  He protects himself by being invisible inside these walls.

We all know each other’s business and mine has been completely transparent for the last 6 years or so.  We are all, in a sense, naked in front of each other.  How do we clothe each other, then, with care, with grace, with faith, and most especially with love?  How do we walk that path? 

First of all, we intentionally do not choose to stare at someone’s humiliation and shame.  That means we stay away from gossiping about what other people go through, we avoid focusing on other’s tragedies from a place of curiosity.  It also means standing WITH those who are exposed.  Being human clothing for others as we protect them from other staring eyes.  We walk all of this with intention.  We intentionally invite and welcome in those who are struggling.  We intentionally invite and welcome in those who are in pain.  And we do do this.  Through housing our recovery groups, through opportunities like the grief group that we offered for awhile, through other small group opportunities like the women’s Tuesday afternoon group, the quilting group, the men’s group, we do get to know each other, support each other and love each other.  But again, we are also called to do it for the “least of these”, which begins with keeping our eyes open to see God’s face in each and every person we meet. 

The Good News is that we can trust that, just as with the woman at the well, when we find ourselves “naked” and exposed, Jesus will come to us and clothe us as well.  Jesus sought out those most “exposed”, most naked in their communities because of their shame (like the woman today as well as the woman caught in adultery and the tax collectors and prostitutes), or because of their condition (the blind man, the deaf man, those with leprosy, the bleeding woman).  Whatever it is that leaves us exposed, Jesus seeks us out to clothe us with righteousness.  That is what God does – God finds us when we are in our most vulnerable, rejected states and God clothes us with love, with faith, with hope when we are most hurting, most exposed.  We can count on that Good News.  Today and every day.

Sermon - Fishing for People

Isaiah 9:1-4
1st Cor. 1:10-18
Matt. 4:12-23

Two people were talking about fishing. One said to the other, "I am NEVER going to take my son fishing with me, ever again!"

"That bad, huh?"

"He did everything wrong! He did everything wrong! He talked too much, made the boat rock constantly, tried to stand up in the boat, baited the hook wrong, used the wrong lures and WORST of all he caught more fish than me!"

What do we imagine when we think of the disciples fishing before Jesus called them?  What do you think of when you think of fishing?  When we go fishing, it is to be a relaxing time of sitting, thinking, maybe talking with a couple close friends.  It is usually not too strenuous and it is enjoyable, a “get away”.  But the reality of fishing as a livelihood is very, very different.  Fishing was extremely unpredictable work, and hard, work.  It was also very dangerous as storms could arise, especially in those days before we had satellite weather systems, with very little warning.  If any of you have read Ernest Hemingway’s book, The Old Man and the Sea, you’ve had a glimpse of just how deadly and dangerous fishing really can be.  While this portrays fishing in a different part of the world than in our biblical story, we none the less gain from this story a picture of what a fisherman’s life can really be like.  The story opens with the old man, Santiago, who is a professional fisherman, having gone 84 days without catching a fish.  He lives on the fish that he catches and so to go 84 days, or nearly three months, without having caught anything is very serious and very scary.  It is so scary that the parents of the boy who has been apprenticed to Santiago refuse to let their son work with him any longer, believing him to be bad luck.  The rest of the story involves Santiago’s struggle with a single fish, a marlin.  He struggles day and night with the Marlin for over three days.  Much of his fishing equipment is destroyed in the struggle.  When the fish finally dies, sharks come and eat every useful piece of the marlin, leaving Santiago with nothing but the skeleton, head and tail.  While this is a story, it is also an accurate portrayal of some of the challenges that fishermen face.  And while the struggles of those in the Biblical stories would be different, for one thing, it was a different type of fishing, the fact remains that the lives of fisher-folk are extremely difficult, and extremely dangerous.
It is to people who lived this dangerous, day-to-day subsistence living that Jesus came.  It is to these hardworking, courageous folk that Jesus said, “come with me and I will make you fishers of people.”  They are being asked to leave a very difficult existence.  But what are they being asked to do instead?  Is it easier, do we suppose, to fish for people than to fish for fish?
Matthew begins today’s passage by referring to the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali.  These were cities that had suffered a great deal.  Jesus begins his preaching ministry in a place where the need is greatest, where there is deep pain.  Matthew then continues by quoting the passage we read today from Isaiah.  While he only quotes the beginning of the passage, the part that proclaims the light that comes into the great darkness, the rest of the passage from Isaiah offers an even more clear example of how that light might shine.  It continues, as we read in today’s passage from Isaiah, by reminding the people that Gideon defeated the hordes of Midian and broke their domination over Israel with a very small army.  God had told Gideon to send back most of his troops so that God might show that with a very small group, with a very few faithful people, God was yet powerful enough to defeat great armies and to overcome oppression.   Matthew begins to quote this passage from Isaiah that his readers would have known well, “the people walking in darkness have seen a great light”.  The readers of the time would have known how this passage in Isaiah continues by talking about the day that Midian was defeated by this small group of God’s people.  Oppression had been halted by these few for the Israelities.  By quoting this passage, Matthew is laying out right away that Jesus will succeed, that God’s people will see the light in this time of great darkness, even against all odds, and even with just a very few faithful people.  But he is also assuring them in no uncertain terms that the work will be hard, will be a challenge against all odds, will lead to crucifixion before it leads to resurrection and life.
This is the work of fishing for people into which Jesus invited those who became his disciples.  This is the difficult road to which they have been called.
We, too, are invited to be part of this journey.  To lay aside our focus on the hard work of surviving, and instead enter into the hard work of doing God’s will, defeating oppression, bringing people to a deeper sense of God’s presence and God’s light, fishing for people, or rather, being a light in the darkness of the lives around us, bringing light and hope to all we encounter.
But as we know it can be very difficult to continue to shine that light when the darkness is strong, and when it feels like we are not getting anywhere by shining the light.  I mentioned a couple weeks ago the 12 step wisdom of the saying “act as if”.  This means that even when it is hard to see the good that is coming out of the work we do for God, we have to keep acting as if it is doing good.  We have to keep acting as if we believe even when we don’t have the faith.  Being a light in the darkness takes practice, and it often takes hindsight to see that we have successfully been that light in the darkness. The call to “act as if” encourages us to keep on keeping on, to keep on reaching out to people in love, to keep on embodying the good news, even when we don’t feel like it, even when we don’t see that it is doing any good, even when it feels really hard.
        How this actually manifests in terms of AA is that people who sponsor other people, who act as support folk for other people, have a much higher success rate in any of the 12 step programs than people who feel that they “have to get themselves together first” before they can help others.
        A while back our family went to visit the National Underground Railroad Museum in Cincinnati.   While I was there I was struck with the amazing faithfulness of those people who participated, despite the incredible dangers, in the underground railroad, in the rescuing of people who had been enslaved, despite the fact that they had many around them disagreeing with them, despite the fact that their own lives were threatened by these actions as well.  They took their faith, a faith that calls us to care for the oppressed and to lift up the down trodden, to love those others use and abuse and reject – they took all of that very, very seriously, as we, too are called to do.  At times I’m sure they struggled, wondering what they were risking everything for. There were always more slaves coming to the United States.  It must have felt like there would always be more to help than they could possibly handle, and that the danger was increasingly large for those who chose to be part of helping.  But they chose to be a light in the darkness, even when the darkness was so very intense that it must have seemed light would never again shine.  And they became a part of changing the situation in the United States permanently with regards to slavery.  It took time, but the light did shine; through their work, they were able to fish for people and change the way we look at slavery.
        But we can make a difference on a much smaller scale as well.
        When we lived in Ohio, my kids and I lived about a half mile from church, as we do now, and we walked to church as much as we could. At one point during our time there, my kids began the practice of picking up any garbage they found on their way, so after a while we would walk equipped with bags in which they could put the garbage. While I was very proud of them for taking on this particular endeavor, I have to admit that the cynical part of me did not participate in this event with much enthusiasm. The garbage was dirty, the kids would end up dirty, much of the garbage really reflected the seedier or less appealing parts of human behavior (cigarette butts, beer cans, and sometimes even nastier objects), and I really found myself wondering WHAT was the point of picking up all of that when the next day there would undoubtedly be still more garbage that others expected someone else to clean up for them. But the kids chose to take on this particular activity without any suggestion on my part, and I found myself eventually reflecting on the story of the starfish:
      Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work. One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up. As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean. He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"
      The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."
      "I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.
      To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."
      Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"
        At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean.   As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that starfish."
        My kids may not have been saving the world, and yes, there would always be more garbage the next day. But they were making that one place on the walk to church a little more beautiful, a little more pleasant. They were letting the sun shine on a few more blades of grass that were no longer covered by the litter, they were feeling that they could do something to contribute in this world, and they were enjoying doing it! What more could I ask?
       I know in this point of time in our history there is a great deal of darkness.  There is so much anger and hatred and violence especially being aimed at the “least of these” – at the people that society rejects, at the kind of people Jesus especially worked hard to embrace.  Interestingly many are not that different.  Jesus embraced the Samaritans – who were people of a similar religious ancestry but came out in a different place theologically.  Others rejected them as evil, as wrong.  But Jesus embraced them and included them.  Jesus embraced women, who were also rejected, seen as property, objects – belonging to their men.  Jesus embraced the poor and the disabled, healing them and not blaming them for their own problems.  He embraced the Syrophoenicians: again, people from different races, ethnicities, backgrounds. And he calls us to do the same.  To stand with them and to stand for them.
When Eldest was about 2 years old, my little messenger from God one day proclaimed to me, “We are God’s car.”  While that may sound funny, I think it is actually very insightful.  We are God’s car.  We carry around the Spirit of God, we do the work of God, we transport God’s love and light to those around us.
         The work of fishing for people, or bringing light to the people, light into the darkest places of life and of humanity, is not easy.  But when we reach out, when we shine our light, even when it is hard, we are assured that light will come back to us and shine for us as well.

Sunday's Sermon - Perfect Love Casts out Fear/ Post election

1 John 4:16-18

Mark 4:35-41

Matthew 14:22-33

               Today we heard the passage from 1^st John that tells us that perfect love casts out fear.  As people of faith we believe this. That the God of love will be the one who tames our fears, casts away all doubt, all insecurity and surrounds us with the blanket of love and comfort. We believe that love will win, that good triumphs over evil and that in the end, all will be well.

               But this week, no matter how you voted or what you believe, we cannot get away from the fact that people are scared by the results of the election.  Again, no matter how you voted or what you believe, we cannot get away from the fact that violence is being acted out both towards people who feel they have been given free rein to put down and injure people who are different from “us” in this way, and from people who are terrified and feel they are fighting for their lives.  My news box has been filled with stories in the last few days.  According to USA Today, hate crimes including harassment, threats, vandalism, assault and even killing have been numerous. From my own friends I have seen posts such as this:  “My 12 year old daughter is African American.  A boy approached her and said, “now that Trump is president, I’m going to shoot you and all the blacks I can find.”  “Kids at my kids school have been told to “get out” because of their skin color.  They’ve been told they will be sent out or be killed or even imprisoned because of their heritage.”  One post of a friend said that a man had walked up to her grabbed her crotch and told her it was now legal to “grab p___” whenever he wanted. A lesbian acquaintance in New York city was told on the subway, “I hope you enjoy the concentration camp!” and far too many people are expressing deep concern about their health care coverage.  According to several studies, the worst of it has been happening in our elementary schools.  On one school wall the words “make America white again” were written along with a swastika.  A friend’s sister, who is Muslim girl, had a knife pulled on her on the bus.  And one person reported students yelling “Hiel Trump-Hitler” on the campus during recess.  Another post came from a woman who was born in Minnesota but who was wearing a scarf and was told at the gas station that she had better “go home” or face the consequences as he actually showed her his gun.  Again, I understand that people voted for different folk and for different reasons.  But you cannot get away from the hateful reactions that have been going on this week. And you cannot get away from the protests (most peaceful, though those aren’t being reported as much because they aren’t as big news) as well as riots from people who are scared.  No matter what you think or feel, we cannot escape the reality that this has given people permission at some level to be open with their hatred towards others.  And we cannot get away from the fact that people are demonstrating their fear and anger through many ways, including a returned violence. 

               In the face of all of this, what are we called to do?  Where is Jesus when all of this is going on?  Does he tell those who are suffering or who are hurting to ‘calm down’?  Does he tell them “Don’t worry, God’s got this!”?  Does he promise them everything will be okay?  That God is in charge so it will all be alright?  Does he say, “just relax and sit back.  Everything happens for a reason.”  Or “your faith will protect you.” Does he encourage violence as a solution?  Does he say, “hate for hate” or even “an eye for an eye”.  No.  Jesus said none of that.  Instead, Jesus did four things.  First, he goes out there and heals people.  He heals the people who others have called “unclean”.  He heals the people others have dismissed and don’t want to have around.  He heals, talks to, acknowledges and eats with the people others call “sinners” and those the elite, the powerful, rejects.  He heals those others don’t want to see or touch or be around. 

Second, he empowers people.  Again, he does this in a variety of ways.  First, he talks to people he is not supposed to talk to: women, tax collectors, Samaritans, Syrophoenicians, children, prostitutes.  He talks to people others want gone, want out.  He listens to them, is present with them.  He stops the stoning of the woman caught in adultery.  He talks to the woman living with a man who is not her husband and offers her his life-giving water.  He argues against violence, encouraging us to instead take a non-violent stand.  But I want to be clear with you about this.  When he says “turn the other cheek” this is not an argument for passivity.  It is also not an argument for acceptance.  He does not say “run away when someone hits you”, he says “turn the other cheek”.  This is an act of civil protest which can only be understood by understanding something of the culture at the time.  People were not allowed to use their left hands for contact with others, including hitting others.  If you hit with your left hand, you were shamed.  We have a hard time understanding this in our culture, but shame was a huge deal in this society.  So if someone struck you they would have used their right hand.  Additionally, if it was someone trying to shame you or say that you were an inferior, he would have to have used the back of his hand.  That was considered a statement that the other was an inferior.  But when you turn the other cheek, if the other were to try to hit you again, he would have no choice but to use his unclean hand, which would be a deeply shameful act for the one doing the action, or he would have to use a fist or the open palm, both of which were statements that the other was an equal rather than an inferior.  Standing there and turning the other cheek therefore was a way of saying, “I am not your inferior and I will no longer be treated as such.”  But Jesus continued.  “If anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give him your cloak as well. And if any one forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.”  These too were acts of civil disobedience.  Roman law allowed that soldiers could demand others to carry their stuff for them for one mile.  They were not allowed to demand more than a mile.  So if a person insisted on carrying the stuff for a second mile, the soldier would have been doing something that had the consequence of severe punishment for the soldier.  Likewise, the only two garments usually worn by peasants were a coat and an inner garment called a cloak.  You were allowed to gain in exchange for a debt someone’s coat.  By saying, “if they take your coat, give them your cloak as well," Jesus was basically encouraging his followers to strip naked.  In that system, nakedness shamed the person who observed it, not the one naked.  He gives those who were being oppressed non-violent but active tools for standing up and reclaiming his power. *

Third, he teaches.  He teaches about loving God, loving ourselves, and loving each other.  And again and again he says this is it: this is what it’s about. No matter how you feel about someone else, no matter if you disagree with them or if they scare you or if they are threatening, we are called to love them.  And there is an especially here – especially if they are “the least of these”, especially if they are suffering.  Jesus is clear: when you feed people, when you visit people, when you care for people, especially “the least of these” you are caring for Jesus.    

And the last thing Jesus did was to tell us to follow him, to do as he did, even to the cross in order to teach love and to bring healing and empowerment to those others have harmed, to love those who are feeling scared and threatened and have been cast out.  We usually in our gospel lessons are seeing Jesus talking to people or interacting again with those we would consider “the least of these” – the unclean, rejected, outcast.  But in today’s gospel lessons we see Jesus talking to the insiders, to the disciples, to US.  In the passage from Mark we hear him being reassuring, but also castigating.  Have faith. But by faith he is not talking about belief.  He is talking about a faith that is active.  He quiets the storm because his faith is active, not simply expecting God to do things for him, but taking action himself to quiet the storm.  He calls them to do the same.  The second passage, the passage from Matthew, it is an even stronger statement.  Peter is not just instructed to have faith, to believe.  He is instructed to act on that belief.  To have the courage and faith to step out of the boat, out of his comfort zone, to do what others claim is impossible and to walk on the water towards Jesus; walking on the water towards Jesus, towards faith, towards LOVE because that is what Jesus is and who Jesus is and what Jesus calls us to do. 

               These are the things Jesus does.  And these are the things we are called to do as well, even in our fear.  The thing is, fear doesn’t leave room for anything else: like beauty or truth or love. From a physiological place we know this.  Fear literally leaves no room in our psyches for anything else, including rational thinking.  In this way, the only thing about fear that is helpful is that it informs us that there is danger, and that something needs to be done.  The message of perfect love casting out fear is not, therefore, a message of “it’s okay, everything will be fine.” It’s a message that calls us to strive to live out perfect love, to be kind and gracious and loving so that fear will no longer have a place, a need, a reason.  Our job in this is not one of telling others to not be afraid.  Our job is not to tell others it’s not a big deal.  No, our job is to be part of creating a world in which people do not have to BE afraid because they know they are loved, actively, by us, and that we will stand with them, and keep them safe, and hold them up no matter what happens. 

               I think for all of us, for all of us who are afraid in one way or another by what is happening, again, no matter what side of the political coin you are on, our actions have to start with the reminder that we are all connected.  We are clearly not unified.  And we may not even be united, but we are still connected. We are all God’s children.  And therefore we are brothers and sisters to one another.  Therefore what hurts any of us, hurts all of us.  When one person feels threatened, we are all threatened. 

I am reminded once again of Niemoller’s poem:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

               All of our actions for love over fear have to start with our faith.  So I found myself reminded of this prayer by Thomas Merton:

         "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."

*This is one of the many articles that talks about this.  See Walter Wink and Marcus Borg for more info on this.  http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/2004/04/what-would-jesus-think-of-kings-protests.aspx

Life is not fair. Do we really get that?

      It is from a place of privilege that we hold on to the belief that life is fair.  People who are not in a place of privilege cannot tell themselves that lie with any hope of convincing themselves it is true. But from a place of privilege we continue to trumpet the mistaken belief that life is somehow fair. We lie to ourselves in many ways about this.  Some of the most common include:

1.  Well, everyone goes through good times and everyone goes through bad times.  It all evens out.  
No.  No, it doesn't all even out.  There are people I know who lead truly charmed lives. I can think of one man in particular - white, heterosexual, extremely good looking, gifted musically, athletically, intellectually.  He married another charmed life and together they have children who are all also gifted in terms of being athletic, musical, smart.  I asked him straight out once - "have you ever gone through a difficult time?  Have you ever really struggled with anything?"  Well, no, not really.  He was given their house which is huge and sits on five acres of land.  Not that he needed that gift since he is successful in his career as well.  He has been given amazing opportunities for no other reasons than that he is likeable, good looking (yes, that does make a difference in how people treat you!), and just has always been at the right place at the right time.  Things just fall into his lap.  They always have.
In contrast I met someone yesterday who grew up in the projects.  There wasn't money for shoes, let alone for the equipment needed to succeed in school.  School wasn't the priority anyway.  Surviving was the priority.  He works now for minimum wage, which is not a living wage in CA.  At $10 an hour, he cannot possible afford any kind of housing out here.  So, he works two full time jobs meaning that he works 4 times as hard as the CEOs of the company he is serving but is paid 1/350th what the "boss" makes.  He cannot possibly raise himself out of this hole because he spends every waking minute working.  There is no way to get further education, there is no way to get out of his own situation.  He has survived family members being shot by random shootings and gangs.  He has survived imprisonment for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  He still can't afford to live here, even with two jobs, so he slips from bridge to bridge, from street to street, occasionally being able to stay in a shelter or with a friend.  From this place, though, of recognizing that life is not fair, he was able to tell me how much better off he is than those in war torn countries, than the refugees fleeing their homes, than those experiencing torture or rape.  Life isn't fair.  He knows this.  And all he can do is tell his story and work towards change that will make it "more" fair.

2.  Karma tells us you reap what you sow. So those who are struggling deserve it and will have better things come to them as they live better lives.
Again, I don't see this playing out in real life.  Those who were born into poverty, war torn countries, into violent households or violent political situations haven't somehow 'deserved' it, unless you believe they messed up in a previous life and are therefore reaping the punishment from a past life. This sounds to me, again, like a very fancy way for privileged folk to feel okay about the many good things they celebrate while not worrying too much about the fact that so many others are struggling. If it's their own fault then there is nothing I need to do about it.  If it's just 'karma' then I would be irresponsible to interfere with what the universe has handed out to them.
No.  I can't buy this.  We've been given a world to make "right" and to make "fair".  We are simply doing a horrible job of bringing that about.

Life isn't fair.  But we are given all the tools to make it work for everyone.  Making it work for everyone has to start with the acknowledgement that life ISN'T fair.  We have to start by seeing that reality for what it is.  Only by first seeing that the inequalities all around us, the struggles, the suffering of others are not because they deserve it, not because of karma, not because of Divine providence; only with that vision, that insight can we start to own our part.  Our part is that those with privilege, those whose suffering is "less" are called to ease the suffering of others - not just through charity, but through systemic change.  We've set up a world where some are winners and some are losers.  This isn't what God wants or envisions.  Divine imagination is abundant, and the world we've been given is full of abundance as well - enough for all, if we only work to make that reality.  God has given it to us to make right and God won't just "fix" it for us.  We have responsibility in this.  We've been given a call, a job, to help.  That has to start with seeing, but seeing is not enough.  Life isn't fair. But we have the tools to make it more so.  If only we would step into that call.

Sunday's Sermon - The Rain Falls on the Just and Unjust

Luke 13:1-9

I wanted to begin today by discussing Lent. Lent is a time to repent - 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, as we anticipate what Jesus sacrificed, as we remember the things that we are a part of that lead and led, inevitably towards the cross.           

As part of that, what is the most common Lenten practice that we know of? Giving something up. 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 about the falseness, so many times, of these deprivations or sacrifices. A good friend of mine told me that for years she gave up chips every lent. Chips were her favorite food and a staple in her diet. Every lent though she went through the tortuous ritual of throwing out all of her unfinished bags of chips. Of course there weren’t many by lent; fat Tuesday, otherwise known as Mardi-gras, allowed her to gorge and cram down as many as she could ahead of time. And she told me that every year she felt sick for the first three days of lent; whether it was withdrawal symptoms or whether it was a chip hang-over from Fat Tuesday she was never sure. But after six long weeks of agonizing deprivation and anticipation, lent finally came to an end. The day before Easter her kids would go out and buy every kind of chip they could imagine, open the bags, and line them up in front of my friend. They would have a count-down and at the exact moment lent was officially over she would eat and eat until she was too full and sick to eat anymore, leaving her, once again, sick for the first few days of Easter.

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 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 person who struggles to find enough of any kind of food to eat that you give up chocolate or ice cream for a month? What does it mean to God that you “give up” something but aren’t giving to someone else who might really 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 a sense of deprivation? 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? 

As I said before, this Lenten practice started with good intentions. Get rid of the things that separate you from God and develop a closer relationship with God through doing so. But I think that many of our spiritual practices, this being one of them, have instead become bargaining chips in an “If I do x, God, will you please give me y” kind of way. You may not be familiar with the term “prosperity gospel” but it is what is espoused by many of our rich and powerful preachers and their followers in the United States, people like Joel Osteen. It was reflected in the theology of the movie, Leap of Faith that we showed here on our first movie night as well. It is an incredibly popular theology because it promises that if you just do “a” right or “b” right, if you give enough money to these prosperity gospel preachers, if you pray enough, if you give up something for lent, that God will reward you with riches, with prosperity, with “stuff” beyond your wildest dreams.

Just to be clear, I find no justification for this in our scriptures. Today we hear in two different gospels Jesus telling us that the rain falls on the just and unjust alike, that bad things and good things happen to all people. We know the story of Job. Despite his faith and goodness, he lost everything. And while at the end, he is doing fine again, every time I hear the story now I am now reminded of a wonderful poem by Carl Denis about Job that ends with these words, “How foolish … To … assume that Job's new family, New wife and children and servants, Would be an ample substitute for the old.” A loss like the death of one’s children is a loss never to be recovered from. And no faith can protect against that.

Bad things happen to good, God-fearing people. If you are faithful to God because you envision God as a kind of Santa Claus that rewards good action or even faith, and punishes the bad, or those who lack faith, you might want to find a new religion, one that emphasizes karma more. Because that just isn’t how the God shown to us by Jesus works. 

As Cathleen Fasani wrote in a recent article to the Washington Post, “Few theological ideas ring more dissonant with the harmony of … Christianity than a focus on storing up treasures on Earth as a primary goal of faithful living. The gospel of prosperity turns Christianity into a vapid bless-me club, with a doctrine that amounts to little more than spiritual magical thinking: If you pray the right way, God will make you rich.  But if you're not rich, then what? Are the poor cursed by God because of their unfaithfulness? And if God were so concerned about 401(k)s and Mercedes, why would God's son have been born into poverty?... Jesus was born poor, and he died poor. During his earthly tenure, he spoke time and again about the importance of spiritual wealth and health. When he talked about material wealth, it was usually part of a cautionary tale.”

The bigger problem with prosperity gospel theology is that it completely wipes out grace. In the prosperity gospel model our faith becomes an economic system of rewards and punishments. You get what you earn, you get what you deserve. But God isn’t like that. God causes the sun to shine on all of us. The rain, too, falls on all of us. And God loves ALL of us, no matter what.

I think historically, people have done many things in an attempt to earn God’s favor. A large part of the protestant reformation was in response to the Catholic church charging people “indulgences” as a way to pay off their sins and to earn God’s forgiveness and grace. And if you are a person who struggles with guilt, it is likely that that guilt is a remembrance, especially when things go wrong, of the ways we have failed. We start thinking that somehow the bad things that have happened to us are because we haven’t been enough, haven’t done enough, haven’t been faithful enough. But the good news is that this is not true. God love you just the way you are. And out of that love, God offers grace, free undeserved gifts and forgiveness and love and care. God offers that grace to all of us, not as a response to anything we have or have not done. You cannot earn grace by its very definition. It is a gift freely given. 

I believe with all my being that Grace is always there for us. But receiving that becomes possible when we see it, if we are able to connect the dots and trust that grace is from a God who loves us, if we can see the many beautiful good gifts that surround us as the sign and promise of God’s love, as they are. But whether we are able to see it or not, that grace is offered to everyone, NOT because any of us deserve it, or have failed to deserve it. It is there because that is the nature of God: God is the One who offers grace, every single day, to each of God’s children.

So, then, if we do not do our Lenten practices and other spiritual disciplines in order to earn God’s grace, why do them? Again, the original idea behind any spiritual discipline is to increase our closeness to God. We don’t do this to “earn” grace because grace can’t be earned.  We do this out of gratitude and love for a God who has already given us grace. We do it to build a relationship with the amazing God who does love creation so much that She/He offers that grace to everyone. We do it because in growing closer to God we find that, no matter what else we are going through, we come to learn, experience and trust that we are truly held and supported and loved by a God who walks with us graces us even through the hardest times. 

Today’s story from Luke is not an easy story. 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.” The second half of the lesson isn’t much more comforting. 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?

Except that the fig tree is not left to its own devices. The gardener promises to dig around it, to put fertilizer on it, to care for it. That gardener working hard to make us into the beautiful fruitful trees we are called to be is Grace, straight from God. That care for us, that pruning, that nurturing takes many forms: our life lessons, the church, the things that happen to us which confront us to change and to grow and to truly be servants of God, the many places we experience God’s love. When we remain open to God’s grace, we find ourselves in that place where we are dug around, where the hard places are pointed out and softened with some digging, some aeration, and in a place where we are nourished and fed, replenished, and given the best nutrition possible in order to grow so that we, too may produce fruit.

God does indeed call us to be the people of love, finding, searching, seeking and serving with that love. And when we follow God, we see grace all around us. But I remain convinced that it is not because we have “earned” it that God gives us grace. Still, through our faith and through our actions of faithful living we learn to see the grace that is offered. So, do we do our Lenten disciplines? Doing anything that brings you closer to God is always a good plan. And Lent is a good time to begin to do it (though truly, any time is). But we are called to these tasks out of love for God, out of gratitude for the grace already given. Amen.